Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 6. Preservation
Variants with theological consequences
In short
- 1.1 John 5:7-8 — the Comma Johanneum, the sole explicit text, is a late Latin insertion.
- 2.Mark 16:9-20 — the longer ending, source of snake-handling and the great commission's signs, is absent from the oldest manuscripts.
- 3.John 7:53-8:11 — the woman caught in adultery, absent from the earliest witnesses.
- 4.1 Timothy 3:16 — 'God was manifest in the flesh' rests on a variant reading (ΘΣ for ΟΣ, 'God' for 'who').
- 5.Luke 22:43-44 — the sweating of blood, absent from important early manuscripts.
The claim being examined
Christians grant that exist but insist none affects doctrine.
The Islamic position
Islam points to specific variants that touch doctrine directly — including the only explicit Trinitarian verse in the Bible.
Analysis
These are not trivial spelling slips. Three of them are printed in modern Bibles inside brackets with a footnote admitting the evidence, and one has been taken out of the main text altogether. The 1 Timothy 3:16 case is the clearest: a two-letter difference inside an abbreviated sacred name turns "who" into a statement that God appeared in the flesh. Ehrman's argument that some changes were made for doctrinal reasons — by orthodox copyists, to strengthen orthodox readings — bears directly on the beliefs under discussion.
From the Qur'an
فَوَيْلٌۭ لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَـٰذَا مِنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ
fawaylun lilladhīna yaktubūna l-kitāba bi-aydīhim thumma yaqūlūna hādhā min ʿindi l-lahi
Woe to those who write the scripture with their own hands then say: This is from God.
From the Bible
ΟΣ ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί / ΘΣ ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί
'Who was manifest in the flesh' vs 'God was manifest in the flesh' — a two-letter manuscript difference.
Read it in their Bibleκαὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἱδρὼς αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος
His sweat became like drops of blood — absent from several early manuscripts.
Read it in their BibleSources
The spoken script for this entry is inside the app.
Members get the word-for-word delivery guide — how to open, what to say, the likely replies and how to close warmly — plus notes, a dawah journal and the study assistant.
Open the app