Saifullah and Azmy quote the less than conservative Interpreter’s Bible in saying, “It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.” This is simply untrue, and most especially in the context in which it is offered, it is grossly misleading. First, there is a vast difference between saying “a textual variant exists in sentence X” and saying “the original form or meaning of sentence X is not known.” Those serious about the subject well know the difference.

But beyond this, if all this source is saying is that when you spread a text out over fifteen hundred years of hand-written promulgation that you will find a copyist error in almost every sentence, that may well be true. However, a critical edition of either testament will contain numerous sentences in which there is no variation listed simply because a single copyist error in a 14th century manuscript, for example, is hardly relevant to the actual reading of the text. So if this is all the source is saying, why even bring it up? Isn’t it fairly obvious that in all hand-written documents of antiquity minor copyist errors exist? Are S&A claiming the Qur’an is exempt from containing any copyist errors in any single manuscript in history? Surely not! So what is the relevance outside of shameful misrepresentation of the actual situation?

S&A’s misuse of scholarly material and textual critical principles comes to full expression in their handling of Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph, or in Hebrew, a). To this we will turn next in our examination.

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