Extracts From Correspondence Between a Muslim and a Christian
Supplement 6
CHRISTIAN: You have asked us to admit frankly that Gospels were wrong. Why?
The path trodden by Christ has not been trodden by anyone. It is quite enough for you to know that Christ is alive and has eternal exist ence. He is the only man having a wonderful life. When you do not believe in the Gospel, how can we prove to you that Christ is Truth?
In any case, we may pray for you; nothing is done by our own hands.
Concerning the contradiction mentioned by you, we must advise you that from our point of view both versions are correct.
In the beginning both of them reviled Christ; afterwards, one of them repented. For this reason, Luke ignored the one and mentioned the other only.
MUSLIM: I am sorry to have to point out to you that there is no evidence to support your claim, either in Matthew or in Luke. Both of the writers purport to write the whole incident, not only a part.
Otherwise, they might have said that it was only a part of the story. We may give an example about the two stories written by them.
Suppose there are two widely-circulated dailies in Tehran. One of them writes, `Yesterday two persons from the country `X' abused the president of U.S.A.
' The other writes: `Yesterday one person from the country `X' abused the president of U.S.A., but his companion admon- ished him, and said why was he reviling the president of U.S.A.'
The people, after reading these two versions, will surely say that the two dailies have con- tradicted each other.
CHRISTIAN: It appears from your letters that you think that the present Gospel has been altered, and its meanings are contradictory to each other. Now, I would like to ask you the following questions:
When were these Gospels altered? Before Islam or after the advent of Islam?
What was the aim behind those altera- tions?
MUSLIM: Your questions are not relevant to the subject of our discussion. Because, alteration is not the. only cause of contradictions in a writing.
Contradictory or wrong statements may be written by the original author himself, because he did not properly understand his subject, or because of faulty memory.
Therefore, even if we suppose that nothing was ever altered in the Gospels, we cannot close our eyes from its contradictions. And in this case it will be a proof that the writers of these books had misunderstood the facts and were not guided by the Holy Ghost.
But I would not like to leave your questions unanswered; and, therefore, I am writing a few sentences about alteration.
What is alteration? Alteration means that the original writing of a book is changed by others and loses its authenticity.
Alteration of the Gospels:
I do not think that anyone who has studied the early history of Christianity, can have any doubt about the Gospels having been altered.
The condition at that time clearly shows that the institution of Christianity was over-run and captured by new-comers and the Byzantine emperors.
Miller, a Christian scholar, writes that a group of innovators took their place in the churches as elites; and as a result different teachings were invented.
The Byzantine emperors were trying hard to remove the traces of the original Christianity. Religious leaders were killed, burnt or banished. One may clearly see the effect of that environ- ment (which lasted for three hundred years) on Christian scriptures and books.
A fresh proof of this claim of mine are the fragments of the manuscripts of the old copies of the Gospels which were discovered not long ago; they are different from present Gospels.
John Alder, a well-known American mis- sionary in Iran, writes that in one place two papyrus writings have been found which contain sentences attributed to Christ, but most of which differ from those which we read in the New Testament." (Bastan-Shanasi Kitab-i Mugad- das, p.109).
In view of the above, we may easily find out the period and motive of the alterations. And after the advent of Islam, more altera- tions have been done; and changes are constantly made on the pretext of `correction.'
(END OF CORRESPONDENCE)