First Contention

 

          Protestant scholars sometimes try to convince people that the claim of distortion in the Bible is made only by the Muslims and that no such claim is made by anyone else. The fact is that the ancient and later writers of both the Jews and the Christians have claimed the presence of distortions in the Bible more frequently than the Muslims. Before producing witnesses to prove our claim we must mention particularly two terms which are frequently used in their books about the history of the holy books. The two words are ‘errata’, and ‘various readings’ (variations in reading). Horne said on page 325 of vol. 2:

        The best difference between ‘errata’, an error of a copier, and ‘various readings’, a variation in the text, is that described by Michaelis who said, ‘When there is difference between two or more descriptions only one of them can be true; the rest will be either deliberate distortion or an error of the copier. It is really difficult to separate right from wrong. If there remains any doubt, it is called variation of the text, and when we are certain that the copier has written it wrong we call it ’errata.’

       In short there is no great difference between the two terms. A variation in the text is nothing but distortion according to generally accepted terminology. Now any admission to the presence of such variations would obviously be an admission to the presence of distortion. According to the findings of Mill the number ol such variations in the text of the Biblc is thirty thousand, and according to Gricsbach it is one hundred and lifty thousand and according to Sholtz the number of such variations is innumerablc and unknown.

          The Encyclopaedia Britannica under the entry, “Scripture”, in vol. 19 includes the statement of Wettstein that the number of such variations in the Bible is one million. With the above in mind, we now proceed to reproduce the opinions of many varied authentic sources regarding this matter.