Responses to Bismikaallahuma : The Diatesseron And Its Witness to the authority of the The New Testament Gospels

One Muslim writer, named Jundullah, has written a

brief criticism

to my response to the Islamic Awareness'

assertion that the Bible we have today is not the same as that which Muhammad would

have known during his time. The Muslim writer deals mainly with Tatian's Diatessaron,

presumably because of my response to IA's use of him against the authenticity of

the NT documents.

The Muslim author begins with a quote from my rebuttal:

RESPONSE:

It seems that Muslims never tire of beating the same dead horse. The claim

that the Arabic word muhaymin somehow implies that the Quran filters out the

falsehood from the truth, specifically in connection to alleged Bible corruption, has

already been thoroughly addressed in these articles:

We have documented from the earliest Muslim sources available that the

first Muslims, such as Muhammad, believed that the Holy Bible is God's preserved Word.

They did not believe that the Bible was corrupted and no longer reflected the original

teachings of the prophets and messengers that wrote by inspiration. Therefore, since the

Quran does affirm the purity of the Holy Bible, Muslims such as Jundullah must join both

conservative Jews and Christians in defending the authenticity of the biblical text

against those who seek to undermine it. Otherwise, to either attack the Bible or support

those that do attack it, Muslims are denying what their own respective scriptures have to

say about the purity and inspiration of the biblical books. Seeing that Jundullah's aim

here is to undermine the purity of the Holy Bible, he has now falsified the Quran and

Muhammad, indirectly labeling them as liars or mistaken about the Bible remaining pure,

thereby becoming a disbeliever or kafir.

Yet to agree that the Bible is not corrupted doesn't solve the issue, but

actually leaves Muslims such as Jundullah in a quandary. To agree with the Quran that the

Bible has remained intact means that the Quran must be false, since it contradicts the

core essential truths of the Holy Bible. But to attack the Bible is to falsify the Quran

which says that the Bible is true. In either situation, the Quran loses.

The author continues:

RESPONSE:

It bears repeating what I said in my original paper regarding Tatian's Christology

being thoroughly orthodox as far as his views of the Deity of Christ was concerned.

Here, again, are the relevant quotes to show this, adding some more quotes this

time around:

We even had quoted noted Church Historian, J.N.D Kelly:

Now some sources suggest that where Tatian went wrong was in relation to his view

of Christ's real humanity. Certain sources claim that later in his life, and due

primarily to Gnostic influences, Tatian started to deny the dual natures of Christ.

The following online Catholic encyclopedia notes:

Translator J. E. Ryland comments:

Yet, other sources deny that Tatian had embraced the Gnostic heresy:

Whatever the case, it is certain that Tatian's views of Jesus' Deity

remained orthodox. For instance, regarding the Christology of the Encratites, Bercott

quotes Hippolytus as writing:

The online Catholic Encyclopedia adds:

It is, therefore, purely wishful thinking on the part of the writer to assume

that Tatian's work somehow affects orthodox belief in the Deity of Christ, or that

a major part of Christianity is missing as a result of Tatian's work. In fact, the

author's claim will backfire against him as we shall show a little later.

The author even misunderstands the very sources which he wrenches out of

context. Note for example the following citation provided by the writer:

The Muslim writer presumably thinks that Ishodad's statement that Tatian not writing

on the Divinity of Christ means that Tatian denied Christ's Divinity. The most

this proves is that Tatian remained silent regarding his view of Christ in the

Diaterroson, since this work wasn't intended to be a treatise on the Divinity of Christ.

As the sources above show, Tatian, when he did speak of Christ' Deity, was completely and

thoroughly orthodox. In what way, then, does Tatian's work pose problems for Christianity

is simply beyond us. The Muslim writer's comments are more a reflection of his wishful

thinking than anything else.

In point of fact, it is obvious that the author hasn't bothered to read

from the Diatessaron since if he did this is what he would have found:

Tatian, by citing the explicit Gospel references to the Deity of the Lord

Jesus, showed that he did in fact confirm his belief in Christ's Divinity.

Jundullah continues:

RESPONSE:

Since the author believes in Jesus' virgin birth, we really do not see

what his quotes are intended to prove, i.e. is he trying to show that the Gospel of Luke

denied the virgin birth? If so, then he has failed his task since all early evidence, from

the extant MSS and the early Church testimony, affirms that this Gospel (along with

Matthew) explicitly taught the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. Even Tatian's work supports

this since he quoted the following:

Furthermore, the author committs a chronological fallacy since he assumes

that the above changes reflect Tatian's views of marriage. What the author forgot to

remember is that Tatian's views regarding marriage fell within the latter years of his

life as an Encratite (circa. 172 A.D.), not during the time the Diatessaron had been

compiled (150 A.D.). During that time, Tatian was thoroughly orthodox.

The reason for Tatian "obscuring" the relationship between

Joseph and Mary maybe the result of his trying to prevent anyone from erroneously

concluding that Joseph fathered Jesus. It is to be noted that during the time that Tatian

wrote this, there were heretical groups that denied the virginal conception and birth of

the Lord Jesus, i.e. groups such as the Carpocrates, Ebionites, Cerinthus etc.

Also, do remember that Tatian's work was an attempt of harmonizing the

Gospels, which means his aim wasn't to transcribe word for word what all four Gospels

wrote. Rather, his purpose of trying to harmonize the Gospels would entail making some

changes and/or paraphrases in order to make the texts read more smoothly with each other,

to make explicit what was only implicit, and/or to insure that specific passages wouldn't

be misunderstood or perverted by the heretics.

The author continues to say:

RESPONSE:

As we mentioned earlier, here is where the author's argument backfires

against him. The author tried to show that Tatian's harmony of the Gospels will provide

evidence which will somehow undermine the orthodox Christian position regarding Christ's

Divinity. Yet, the above examples actually affirm the historic Christian view of the Lord

Jesus being perfect Deity. The Muslim author's examples show that the Gospels have always

affirmed that Christ is God, debunking Muslim claims that Christians corrupted the

original message of the Gospels in order to make them agree with official Church doctrine.

Note carefully that in the paragraph before this one, the author claimed

that Tatian made changes to the original readings of the Gospels, specifically Luke:

The author also says here that Tatian even substituted Luke's use of Lord

for Jesus, with the conclusion being that what we find in Tatian is not the original

readings of the Gospels but Tatian's changes and paraphrases. What this esentially means

is that, per the argument of the author, Tatian didn't change the readings of the Gospels

to reflect a higher view of Jesus, but actually watered down the explicit witness of the

Gospels to Jesus' Divinity! In other words, Tatian took the original readings of the

Gospels, the very explicit references to Christ's Deity, and made them less explicit. From

this we can now argue that the tendency amongst scribes like Tatian wasn't to elevate

Jesus to Divine status, but rather to demote him! Hence, if the so-called corruptions to

the biblical text prove anything, they prove that heretics, not the orthodox, were trying

to change the original meaning of the NT documents to reflect their heretical views of

Christ.

Now it is obviously certain that, in light of his belief in the Deity of

the Lord Jesus, Tatian wasn't seeking to undermine the Deity of Christ. His orthodox

position leads us to safely assume that the reason why he substituted Jesus for

Luke's Lord was to make explicit what should be obvious from the context, i.e.

that the Lord referred to in all these passages is none other than Jesus Christ.

The author concludes:

RESPONSE:

To begin with, not only has the writer misunderstood the scholarly sources

which he cited, he hasn't even bothered to accurately read what I said about the

Diatessaron. There is nothing in my rebuttal to suggest that I believe that the

Diatessaron was the only Gospel available during Muhammad's time. This is a blatant

distortion of what I wrote.

The author didn't even understand IA's statements regarding the use of the

Diatessaron during Muhammad's time. Here is what IA writes about the use of

Tatian's Diatessaron during that period:

IA clearly says that the Diatessaron had been replaced by the Syriac

translation of the Holy Bible (called the Peshitta), which included the four Gospels, long

before Muhammad's time. Elsewhere, IA places the date for the Peshitta's composition at

400 A.D., roughly one hundred and seventy years (170) before the birth of Muhammad!

(Source)

The online Catholic Encyclopedia, which we already cited in regards to

Tatian, went on to say:

Another source writes:

It is rather obvious that, during Muhammad's time, the Syriac speaking

Christian Churches were no longer using the Diatessaron since they had switched to reading

the four Gospels instead.

Furthermore, whether one accepts the Diatessaron or the 22 NT books of the

Eastern Syriac Christians, one is still left with the orthodox Christian faith. For

instance, the very fact that conservative, orthodox Christians read and embraced the

Diatessaron shows that it was orthodox in nature, especially since it was based on the

Canonical Gospels as the above quotes from it show, otherwise it would have never been

accepted. The reason why it was later abandoned wasn't because it contained heretical

elements, but because Tatian was accused of being a heretic later in life. The Christians

may have therefore felt that his writings needed to be expunged from the Church,

regardless of their orthodoxy.

Or, the reason may simply have been that the Syriac speaking Churches wanted

the four Canonical Gospels in one volume, since this is what the Evangelists

gave the Church, as opposed to an harmonization of the four.

And, as we had already mentioned in our rebuttal to IA, choosing only the

22 books of the NT held by the Eastern Churches still leaves us with the following

doctrines:

Finally, we also like to reiterate the point made in our original response

regarding the Diatessaron serving as early evidence for the authority and canonicity of

the four Gospels. The fact that Tatian used only these written Gospel accounts in his

harmonization shows the early and universal acceptance by the Churches of the New

Testament Gospels, and these alone. As the translator to Tatian's address to the Greeks,

Ryland, noted:

The Arabic version ends with the following note:

The preceding data shows that if anyone fits the accusation of being "pathological

liars or ignorant about the subject matter," it is the author for grossly distorting

and misreading even his own sources.

Recommended Reading:

A newsgroup discussion began as a result of the author's paper,

which can be found here.

Responses to Bismikaallahuma
Articles by Sam Shamoun
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