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All the ancient Christian writers and a great number of modern writers are unanimous on the point that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in the Hebrew language and has been completely obscured due to distortions and alterations made by the Christians. The present Gospel is merely a translation and is not supported by any argument or authority. Even the name of its translator is not definitely known. There are only conjectures that possibly this of that person might have translated it. This kind of argument cannot be acceptable to a non-Christian reader. The book cannot be attributed to its author only on the basis of uncertain calculations.
The Christian author of Meezn-ul-Haq could not produce any authority regarding the author of this book. He only conjectured and said that Matthew might possibly have written it in the Greek language. In view of this fact this translation is not acceptable and is liable to be rejected.
The Penny Encyclopedia says regarding the Gospel of Matthew:
“This Gospel was written in the Hebrew language and in the language which was in vogue between Syria and Chaldea in 41 AD Only the Greek translation is available. And the present Hebrew version is only a translation of the same Greek version”
Thomas Ward, a Catholic writer, says in his book:
“Jerome explicitly stated in his letter that some ancient scholars were suspicious about the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and some o them had doubt about some verses of chapter 23 of the Gospel of Luke; and some other scholars were doubtful about the fist two chapters of this Gospel. These two chapters have not been included by the Marchionites in their book.”
Norton writes in his book printed in 1837 in Boston:
“This Gospel contains a passage running from verse none to the end of the last chapter which calls for research. It is surprising that Griesbach has not put any sign of doubt about its text, since he has presented numerous arguments to prove that this part was an addition by some later people.”
Later in his book, giving some more arguments, he said:
“This proves that the passage in question is doubtful, especially if we keep in mind the habit of writers in that they usually prefer to add to the text rather than to omit from it.”
Griesbach is one of the most reliable scholars of the Protestant faith.
THE IN AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
There is no authority for the claim that the Gospel of John in the book of the Apostle John to whom it has been attributed. On the contrary, there are several arguments that strongly refute this claim.
THE FIRST ARGUMENT:
Before and after the period of the Prophet Jesus, the style of writing and the method of compiling books was similar to the style of the present Muslim writers. It does not appear from this Gospel that John was making his own statements.
It is not possible to refute the obvious evidence which the text itself offers unless strong arguments are presented to negate it.
THE SECOND ARGUMENT:
This Gospel contains this statement in 21:24:
“This is the disciple which testifieth of these things: and we know that his testimony is true,“ describing the Apostle John. This denotes that the writer of this text is not John himself. It leads us to guess that the writer has found some script written by John and has described the contents in his own language making some omissions and additions to the contents.
THE THIRD ARGUMENT:
In the second century AD when the authorities refused to accept this Gospel as the book of John, Irenaeus , a disciple of Polycarp the disciple of John, was living. He did not make any statement to negate those who refused to accept the book and did not testify that he had heard Polycarp saying that this Gospel was the book of John, the Apostle. Had it been the book of John, Polycarp must have known it. It cannot be the truth that he heard Polycarp saying many secret and profound things which he related but did not hear a single word about a matter of such importance. And it is even more unbelievable that he had heard it and forgot, since we know about him that he had great trust in verbal statements and used to memorize them. This is evident from the following statement of Eusebius regarding the opinion of Irenaeus about verbal statements:
“I Listened to these words with great care by the grace of God. And wrote them not only on paper, but also on my heart. For a long time, I have made it my habit to keep reading them.”
It is also unimaginable that the remembered it and did not state it for the fear of his enemies. This argument also rescues us from the blame of refusing the genuineness of this Gospel from religious prejudice. We have seen that it was refused in the second century AD and could not be defended by the ancient Christian.
Celsus, who was a pagan scholar of the second century AD, fearlessly declared that the Christians had distorted their Gospels three or four times or more. This change of or distortion changed the contents of the text.
Festus, the chief of the Manichaeans and a scholar publicly announced in 4th century AD:
“It has been established that the book of the New Testament are neither the books of the Christ, nor are they the books of his apostles but unknown people have written them and attributed them to the apostles and their friends.”
THE FOURTH ARGUMENT:
The Catholic Herald, printed in 1844,includes the statement in vol.3on page 205 that Stapelin said in his book that the Gospel of John was undoubtedly written by student of scholar in Alexandria. See how blatantly he claims it to be a book of a student.
THE FIFTH ARGUMENT:
Bertshiender, a great scholar said:
“The whole of this Gospel and all the Epistles of John were definitely not written by him but by some other person in the second century A.D.”
THE SIXTH ARGUMENT:
Grotius, a famous scholar, admitted: “Three used to be twenty chapters in this Gospel. The twenty-first chapter was added after the death of John, by the church of Ephesus.”
THE SEVENTH ARGUMENT:
The Allogin, a sect of the Christians in the second century AD, disowned this Gospel and all the writing of John.
THE EIGHT ARGUMENT:
The fist eleven verses of chapter 8 are not accepted by any of the Christian writers and it will soon be shown that these verses do not exist in the Syriac version.
If there were any authentic proof to support it most of the Christian writer would have not made such statements. Therefore the opinion of Bertshiender and Stapelin is undoubtedly true.
THE NINTH ARGUMENT:
Horne in chapter two of vol.4 of his commentary says:
“The information that has been covered to us by the historians of the church regarding the period of the four Gospels is defective and indefinite. It dose not help us reach any meaningful conclusion. The ancient theologians have confirmed absurd statements and written them down. Subsequent people accepted them just out of respect to them. These false statements thus were communicated from one writer to another. A ling period of time has passed, and it has become very difficult to find out the truth.”
Further in the same volume he says: The first Gospel was written either in 73 A.D. or 38 A.D. or in 43 A.D. or in 48 A.D. or in 61, 62, 63 and 64 A.D. The second Gospel was written in 56 A.D. or at any time after it up until 65 A.D. and most possible in 60 or 63 A.D. The third Gospel was written in 53 or 63 or 64 A.D. The fourth Gospel was written in 68, 69, 70 or in 89 or 98 A.D.”
