The main point of dispute regarding the originality of the
present gospels is the
lack
of an uninterrupted continuity in transmission of the reporting
authorities of any of the gospels. There is no evidence that any of the
gospels have come down to us direct from Jesus through his disciples to
the subsequent recipients so as to form a continuous chain of reliable
reporters. To say it more simply, there should be a reliable record of a
recognised disciple of Jesus bearing witness that whatever he has written
was told to him by Jesus in the presence of one or more people of such and
such names. Then the next reporter should bear witness to having received,
heard or been told the same statement by that particular disciple of Jesus
in the presence of such and such people. Then one or more of those present
should have conveyed the same text to others by the same procedure so that
the texts would have been conveyed to us with an uninterrupted
chain of reporters traceable directly back to Jesus himself (as is the
case with Qura’anic
revelation).
Now
we say, and without any fear of being wrong, that the Christians do
not possess any such succession of authorities from the authors of the
gospels to the end of the second century or the beginning of the third
century AD. We, ourselves, have dug into their books to find any trace of
such proofs, and also sought guidance from renowned Christian scholars but
could not get anywhere. The priest, French,
during our public polemic with him, tried to explain this away by
saying that we do not have any such authorities due to the historical
calamities which befell the Christians during the first three centuries.
It is, therefore, not correct to say that the priest Clement and Ignatius
had no such authority with them in their time.
We do not necessarily refute the conjectures and suppositions by
which they ascribe these writings to their authors. What we are trying to
say is that these suppositions and conjectures cannot be accepted as an
argument for the genuineness of the word of God. Neither do we deny the
fact that the present gospels gained popularity towards the end of the
second century or at the beginning of the third century, with all
their faults, errors, and contradictions.
We must be allowed to bring to light some facts regarding Clement
and Ignatius to eliminate any misapprehensions.
Our
author had a famous public polemic with a priest named Fonder in
India.
French was appointed as an assistant to Fonder. The assistant of the
author was Dr.. Vazir Khan. (Taqi)