The Fourth Answer

If we assume for a moment that the testimony of Christ and his Apostles was enough to prove the authenticity of each and every part of these books, it does not make any difference for, as we have already proved, these books were changed and distorted after the time of the Christ and his Apostles.

Among the ancient Christians, Justin, Augustine and Chrysostom held the same opinion and all the Catholic and the Protestant scholars like Sylbergius, Grabe, Whitaker, Leclerc and Watson clearly admitted that these books were changed by the Jews after the time of the Apostles.

All this has been sufficiently proved in earlier pages of this book. The question is whether the distorted versions of these texts, to which they admitted, were present at the time of Christ and his Apostles or not?

 The fact is that their authenticity in both cases remains unproved and doubtful and this is what we claim to have demonstrated.

As for their argument that Christ would have accused the Jews for inserting distortions in the texts had they been involved in it, we must remind them that the ancient Christians, themselves, used to change the texts of the sacred books, and we may add that many of the present distortions were made in their own period and the Apostles used to blame them in vain for it.

Apart from this historical evidence, it was not, at all, necessary for Christ to accuse them, as we have seen earlier that Christ and his Apostles blamed neither Samaritans nor the Jews for making distortions in their versions. What we mean to say is, that the Hebrew and Samaritan versions are so seriously different from each other that one of them must be distorted.

Had it been necessary for Christ to distribute blame, he must have blamed one or the other of the two groups. This difference between the two versions has been a point of controversy among the groups of scholars. Dr. Kennicott and his followers favour the Samaritans while most Protestants support the Jews.

We do not find any evidence that Christ or his Apostles have ever cast blame on either group. Christ did not say anything in this regard even when a Samaritan woman asked a question specifically about this matter.

He remained silent on this occasion. His silence provides support, if not proof, for the the Samaritan version. Dr. Kennicott based his argument on Christ’s silence and favoured the Samaritan version.