Answering Objections to Islam · Qur'anic Transmission
Qur'anic and Biblical Transmission Compared
Handle with care. Avoid the slogan "not a single letter has ever changed". The qira'at and companion codices are recorded in our own sources, and an informed interlocutor will produce them.
In short
- 1.More manuscripts means more variants: roughly 400,000 among New Testament witnesses.
- 2.Qur'anic transmission is dual — written rasm plus a continuous licensed oral chain.
- 3.No Qur'anic passage's authenticity is disputed the way Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are.
The claim being examined
Christian apologists argue the New Testament's 5,800 Greek manuscripts give it superior attestation to the Qur'an.
The Islamic position
Manuscript count measures copying volume, not fidelity. The relevant question is whether the tradition preserves a single archetype and whether variation is authorised — and on both measures the two traditions differ in kind.
Analysis
Bart Ehrman's count of variants among New Testament manuscripts exceeds the number of words in the New Testament, the overwhelming majority being trivial. The structural difference is the oral chain: the Qur'an was transmitted by mass memorisation with licensed certification alongside the written text, a redundancy the New Testament tradition never had. Set alongside this, the two most familiar disputed New Testament passages — the longer ending of Mark and the pericope adulterae — are both absent from the earliest manuscripts and are printed with brackets in modern Bibles, which is a category of problem the Qur'anic tradition does not contain.
From the Qur'an
Qur'an 15:9
إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا ٱلذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُۥ لَحَـٰفِظُونَ
Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian.
From the Bible
Mark 16:9-20
Greek
Absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus; bracketed in modern critical editions.
Read it in their BibleJohn 7:53-8:11
Greek
The pericope adulterae, absent from the earliest witnesses.
Read it in their BibleSources
Bart D. Ehrman · Bruce Metzger · Marijn van Putten
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