Victor Reppert and John Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith: The Debate Continues

A few weeks ago I was dialogging with Victor Reppert, author of the dangerous idea blog, and he sent me a link to a website that he and John Loftus had been debating. Mr. Reppert claimed that this website contained an example of a christian successfully taking the OTF because they examined both the bible and qur'an and they concluded that the bible was more trustworthy. Loftus disagreed and so I decided to defend Loftus' argument and I was sent a link that didn't lead anywhere. Confused, I clicked the navigation buttons and found a page I thought was the same one Loftus and Reppert were discussing since it also compared the bible and qur'an. I was under the impression that Mr. Reppert had just made a mistake and sent me the wrong link, however, during our discussion Mr. Reppert commented that he didn't believe we were talking about the same website and finally he told me the original website was currently down and that's why I found a broken page when I went to view the site for the first time.

So, the first half of this discussion can pretty much be tossed out the window, though after reading the original website ironically my comments are much the same and, while a bit better than the other website, this author also failed to properly take the OTF. In the following post I will explain my reasons why.

The paper linked to above is called The Bible and the Qur'an: An Historical Comparison and the author's Introduction stated the following:

Often, when we find ourselves in conversation with Muslims the authority for that which we are discussing comes up and we are forced to answer the question: "Which is the true Word of God, the Bible or the Qur'an?" As a Christian, I immediately affirm my own scriptures, maintaining that the Bible is the intrinsic Word of God. Obviously, for any Muslims, or others who may not have a religious position, this answer is not credible, as it involves a subjective statement of faith, one which cannot be proved or disproved, as there is no possibility of enquiry or verification. I am certain that when the same question is posed to a Muslim he likewise answers that the Qur'an qualifies as the final Word of God, and any further discussion ends. Both Christianity and Islam derive their set of beliefs from their revelations, the Bible and the Qur'an, yet we find that they disagree on a number of areas. One need only compare how each scripture deals with Jesus, sin, atonement, and salvation to understand that there are contradictory assertions held by both. Thus it is important to delineate which scripture can best make the claim to be the final and perfect Word of God.

When two documents which claim to be true are in contradiction, one must ascertain whether the contradictions can be explained adequately using criteria which a non-believer, or a third party, can accept; in other words, using criteria which go beyond the adherents' personal faith commitment to their revelation. Essentially one must ask whether the Qur'an or the Bible can stand up to verification, or whether they can withstand an external critical analysis for their authenticity. This is an immensely complex and difficult subject. Since both Islam and Christianity claim to receive their beliefs from the revealed truth which they find in their respective scriptures, to suspect the source for revealed truth, the scriptures for each faith, is to put the integrity of both Christianity and Islam on trial.

Obviously this is not a task that one should undertake lightly, and I don't intend to do so here. For that reason, and because of the lack of time and space, I have decided not to make a comparison between the claims the two revelations make for themselves, but simply ask the question whether the two scriptures can be corroborated by history; in other words whether there is any historical data or evidence which we can find that can help us verify that which they claim is true.

start with the presupposition that God has intersected time and space and has revealed His truth to His creation. We should expect to see, therefore, evidence of those revelations in history, and be able to corroborate the historical claims the revelations make by an historical analysis. Both the Bible and the Qur'an claim to have been revealed at a certain place, and over a period of time. They speak of people, places, and events. If they are true, then we should be able to find evidence for their claims, and especially corroboration for what they say in the period in which they themselves profess they were revealed; the Bible between 1,447 B.C. and 70 A.D., and the Qur'an between 610 A.D. and 632 A.D. My intent in this study is to look at the historical data which exists in these periods, and ascertain whether it supports or denies the claims for the historicity of both the Bible and the Qur'an. This I will attempt to do by looking at three areas of evidence; that provided by manuscripts, documents and archaeological data from the periods mentioned above. If the manuscript, documentary and archaeological evidence supports the claims for the Bible or the Qur'an, then we can assume their reliability. However, if the evidence denies their historicity, then we have to question their authenticity.

Here, the author begins much better than the last article I had examined, though he commits a few of the same errors. Next, I will discuss the first examination the author puts the bible and qur'an through: a comparison on the manuscript evidence.

A manuscript analysis of the Qur'an does present us with unique problems not encountered with the Bible. While we can find multiple manuscripts for the Bible written 700-900 years earlier, at a time when durable paper was not even used, the manuscripts for the Qur'an within the century in which it was purported to have been compiled, the seventh century, simply do not exist. Prior to 750 A.D. (thus for 100 years after Muhammad's death) we have no verifiable Muslim documents which can give us a window into this formative period of Islam (Wansbrough 1978:58-59). In fact the primary sources which we possess are from 150-300 years after the events which they describe, and therefore are quite distant from those events (Nevo 1994:108; Wansbrough 1978:119; Crone 1987:204). For that reason they are, for all practical purposes, secondary sources, as they rely on other material, much of which no longer exists.

Right here with the author's first analysis you can see that he holds a double standard regarding the bible and accuses the qur'an of being untrustworthy because the events were committed to paper so long after the events were reported to have happened. Of course, the bible suffers the same fate, though the author makes various illogical excuses why this isn't a problem for his bible, but is a problem for the qur'an. The author says,

Muslims assert that we have similar problems concerning the large number of years which separate the manuscripts from the events which they speak about. Yet, unlike the Qur'an which was compiled much more recently, we do not find with the Bible such an enormous gap of time between that which the Bible speaks about and when it was written down. In fact, outside of the book of Revelation and the three letters of John considered to have been written later, when we look at the rest of the New Testament books, there is no longer any solid basis for dating them later than 80 AD, or 50 years after the death of Jesus Christ (Robinson 1976:79). Most of the New Testament was likely written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and perhaps before the fire of Rome (64 AD), and the subsequent persecution of Christians, since none of these events, which would have had an enormous impact on the nascent Christian community are mentioned in any of the New Testament writings. Had the documents been compiled in the second century as Muslims claim, then certainly they would have mentioned these very important events.

True, not all biblical manuscripts are as late as the qur'an's, however, for several of the gospels their dates have been estimated to be much later than the events they describe. For example, 80-130 for Luke; 80-100 for Mathew; and 65-80 for Mark. (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/) This span of time is more than enough time for errors and legends to creep into any story that might be spread. It's known that as little time as mere days or weeks can a story be embellished or distorted that it barely resembles the original anymore. (Jesus is Dead, Price; 36-37) Because of this fact it doesn't really matter how much time has passed. Both the bible and qur'an's manuscripts could very well have changed substantially within the estimated time between the event and when it was written down.

Next, the author argues that because there are so many more copies of the bible we can more easily recreate the original documents, and because the qur'an lacks as many copies the bible is more accurate to what was originally written. The author writes,

Because the Bible is a book, it was initially made up of manuscripts. Consequently a primary means for ascertaining its credibility today are the number of copies from those manuscripts which are currently in one's possession. The more copies we have the better we can compare between them and thus know if the document we now read corresponds with the original. It is much like a witness to an event. If we have only one witness to the event, there is the possibility that the witness's agenda or even an exaggeration of the event has crept in and we would never know the full truth. But if we have many witnesses, the probability that they all got it wrong becomes minute.

Because of time and wear many of the historical documents from the ancient world have few manuscripts to which we can refer. This is specially true when we consider the secular historians and philosophers. For instance, we only have eight copies of Herodotus's historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle's writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today (McDowell 1972:42). These are indeed very few.

When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell's Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pgs.40-48; and Time, January 23, 1995, pg.57). Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained.

What's more, a substantial number were written well before the compilation of the Qur'an. In fact, according to research done by Kurt and Barbara Aland, a total of 230 manuscript portions are currently in existence which pre-date 600 AD! These can be broken down into 192 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 5 Greek lectionaries containing scripture, and 33 translations of the Greek New Testament (Aland 1987:82-83).

Muslims assert that we have similar problems concerning the large number of years which separate the manuscripts from the events which they speak about. Yet, unlike the Qur'an which was compiled much more recently, we do not find with the Bible such an enormous gap of time between that which the Bible speaks about and when it was written down. In fact, outside of the book of Revelation and the three letters of John considered to have been written later, when we look at the rest of the New Testament books, there is no longer any solid basis for dating them later than 80 AD, or 50 years after the death of Jesus Christ (Robinson 1976:79). Most of the New Testament was likely written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and perhaps before the fire of Rome (64 AD), and the subsequent persecution of Christians, since none of these events, which would have had an enormous impact on the nascent Christian community are mentioned in any of the New Testament writings. Had the documents been compiled in the second century as Muslims claim, then certainly they would have mentioned these very important events.

This argument is nonsense and is a typical apologetic argument that is easily seen to be untruthful. Just because you have many copies of something doesn't mean you're able to figure out what was originally written. Take this counter-example in Robert Price's newest book The Case Against The Case for Christ:

[…] Since the autographa have not survived and nobody has laid eyes on them for 2,000 years, how could anybody possibly know what was in them – much less, which copies approximate most closely to them? Since there is nothing to which existing manuscripts can be compared, the very ideas of the original manuscripts and which manuscripts approximate most closely to them are useless ideas and should be abandoned. I can judge that a photo is a good likeness of you if and only if I have seen you and know what you look like. If I have not, then I am the last person on earth to ask. The situation is not improved by assuring me that there are thousands of photos of you. The fact is that I have never seen you, so tell million photos would not help. (98-99)

Because the author is using some well known apologetic tactics it's clear he is not looking at his bible with the view of an outsider. While not as glaringly obvious as the original paper I read, this author is still not taking the OTF since he is allowing his biases to distort the evidence in favor of his bible.

The author continues to discuss the various manuscripts in the last paragraph and ignores the fact that even a gap of 50 years is more than enough time for errors in the story, or embellishments, to occur.

In the next section on archeology the author also makes some mistakes and did not properly investigate these claims about the bible, something a true outsider should do. Several examples of his bible being confirmed by archeology are flawed.

The following are a few examples given and why they are wrong.

1) Abraham's name appears in Babylonia as a personal name at the very period of the patriarchs, though the critics believed he was a fictitious character who was redacted back by the later Israelites.

I couldn't find any information about this alleged inscription, though Finkelstein and Silberman in their book The Bible Unearthed argue that there is not a shred of evidence that any of the patriarchs are historical, including Abraham. (35)

The Beni Hasan Tomb from the Abrahamic period, depicts Asiatics coming to Egypt during a famine, corresponding with the Biblical account of the plight of the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'.

Actually, the painting only depicts a group moving to Egypt, something that occurred throughout history and so to argue this depicts some specific event in the bible is highly speculative, if not downright question-begging. As Finkelstein and Silberman said,

These demographic patterns along the eastern delta – of Asiatic people immigrating to Egypt to be conscripted to forced work in the delta – are not restricted to the Bronze Age. Rather, they reflect the age-old rhythms in the region, including later centuries in the Iron Age, closer to the time when the Exodus narrative was put in writing. (The Bible Unearthed; 54)

The author continues to make a variety of claims about the bible and the findings of archeology:

The doors of Sodom (Tell Beit Mirsim) dated to between 2200-1600 B.C. are heavy doors needed for security; the same doors which we find in Genesis 19:9. Yet, if this account had been written between 900-600 B.C., as the critics previously claimed, we would have read about arches and curtains, because security was no longer such a concern then.

The use of the various structures that supposedly represent the conquest of Joshua as told in the bible is faulty because the story of the many conquests does not match the archaeological evidence. For example, at Jerico, where Joshua was said to have destroyed a fortification, there was no sign of any fortifications, or any sign of destruction. The same at several other locations that were said to have been conquered by Joshua. (The Bible Unearthed; 81-83)

Jericho's excavation showed that the walls fell outwards, echoing Joshua 6:20, enabling the attackers to climb over and into the town. Yet according to the laws of physics, walls of towns always fall inwards! A later redactor would certainly have not made such an obvious mistake, unless he was an eyewitness, as Joshua was.

The author fails to list his source for this claim, but according to Finkelstein and Silberman excavations turned up nothing in the way of a settlement at Jerico in the 13th Century. The earlier Late Bronze settlement, dating to the 14th Century, was small and poor, and unfortified. (The Bible Unearthed; 81-82)

David's capture of Jerusalem recounted in II Samuel 5:6-8 and I Chronicles 11:6 speak of Joab using water shafts built by the Jebusites to surprise them and defeat them. Historians had assumed these were simply legendary, until archaeological excavations by R.A.S. Macalister, J.G.Duncan, and Kathleen Kenyon on Ophel now have found these very water shafts.

These shafts were “cut and extended over hundreds of years. It was first hewn in the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BCE) and then expanded in late monarchic times, in the 8th century BCE. With such a long history, this find cannot prove that the biblical story of David’s conquest of Jerusalem reflects a historical reality, but rather could be a folktale that developed in later periods [...]” (David and Solomon, Finkelstein; Silberman; 271)

While not as bad as the other article comparing the bible and qur'an, the author of this article still made many glaring mistakes and failed to look at the evidence against his bible. In some cases he also failed to realize the same shortcomings in his bible that also plagues the qur'an. Because of this fact I continue to argue that no christian has successfully taken the Outsider Test for Faith. In each case I've examined they've failed to truly put their biases aside and look at the evidence at hand and the problems with their own bible.