Historicity of the Bible

History has recorded a vast quantity of indisputable evidence to show that none of the original revelations except the Holy Qur'an have not been able to save themselves from the cruel hands of political turmoil. We would like to produce some historical evidence to prove this claim:

First Evidence:

The Prophet Moses handed over the Torah (the Pentateuch) to the scholars and chiefs of the Israelites during his lifetime and commanded them to keep it safe in the Ark of the Covenant 1[1] It used to be taken out of the ark every seven year at the time of the Passover. The Torah was kept safe in the ark for some time and the people acted upon it in the first century after Moses, but subsequently they changed its injunctions. Committing apostasy and subsequently returning to Judaism was their usual practice.2[2] This state of affairs remained unchanged up to the reign of the Prophet David. In his time there was some improvement in their attitude which lasted up to the beginning of Solomon’s period.3[3] During the subsequent historical calamities and great turmoil the Pentateuch was lost The time of its disappearance is not known with certainty. When the Prophet Solomon opened the ark, he found only two stone tablets in it. These two tablets of stone contained only the Ten Commandments. This is described in I Kings 8:2:

There was nothing in the ark save the two tablets of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Then towards the end of the reign of Solomon there started a sequence of great changes which are confirmed by the sacred books and after his death even greater turmoil took place. The Children of Israel were separated and divided.

1[1] This was a sacred box of the Israelites which was made under the commandment of God as described in Torah. The Holy Qur’an also mentions it as Tabut. It has a long history. Curious readers may refer to Joshua chapters 3,6.11,14 and 15; I Samuel 4:11 and chapter 6; and ll. 2 Samuel chapters 6,15 and 24 to 29


2[2] See the book of Judges which is full of accounts of their disobedience


3[3] See II Samuel and I Kings.

Now there existed two separate kingdoms. Jeroboam became the king of ten tribes and his domain was named the Kingdom of Israel, while Rehoboam the son of Solomon became the king of two tribes, his land was named the Kingdom of Judah. Jeroboam, just after his ascension to the throne, became an apostate and turned to idol worship, with the result that all his people took to idol worship.

Those who still followed the law of the Pentateuch had to migrate to the kingdom of Judah. In this way all these tribes continued to be infidels and idol worshippers for two hundred and fifty years. Then there came punishment from God through the invasion of the king of Assyria,4[4] who imprisoned them and then deported them to various countries. Only a small group of people were left who later on established social relations with the Assyrians and started marrying them.5[5] The new generation born as a result of these mixed relations came to be known as Samaritans. In short, right from the time of Jerobom up to the end of the Kingdom of Israel, these people had no contract with the Pentateuch and its injunctions. For all those years the existence of the Torah was not known to them.

Nor was the condition of the Kingdom of Judah very different from that of the Kingdom of Israel. They had twenty kings in three hundred and seventy two years. The number of apostate kings was more than those who were believers. Idol worship had become a common practice in the period of Rehoboam. Idols were placed under every tree in order to be worshipped. Then, in the reign of Ahaz, idol worship became the practice of the ruler himself and he, “shut up the doors of the House of the Lord and he made altars in every comer of Jerusalem.”6[6]

Prior to this the House of the Lord had been destroyed and ruined twice. First the king of Egypt captured it and plundered the women of the house of the Lord as well as the royal ladies. The second time was when the apostate king of Israel raided it and did the same with the women of the House of the Lord and the ladies of the royal palaces. Infidelity and idolatry reached its climax in the reign of Manasseh when the majority of the people converted to idolatry. He built altars for the idols right in the courtyard of the temple and the king even shifted the particular deity that he worshipped to the temple precincts.7[7] Circumstances remained unchanged in the reign of Amon the son of Manasseh,8[8] However, when Josiah the son of Amon ascended to the throne, he sincerely repented and turned to God with the result that his officials started reviving the law of Moses and tried to obliterate all traces of idolatry and infidelity. There was no trace of existence of the Pentateuch for as long as seventeen years after his ascension to the throne.9[9]

4[4] II Kings 17:3-23


5[5] II Kings 17:41.


6[6] II Chronicles 28:24


7[7] U Kings 21:2-7.


8[8] II Kings 21:20


9[9] II Kings 22:2

Discovery of the Pentateuch in the Reign of Josiah

It was in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s accession10[10] that the high priest Hilkiah suddenly claimed that he had found a copy of the Pentateuch in the temple. He handed it down to the scribe Shaphan. This copy was read to King Josiah. Josiah having discovered the contents of the book, was very shocked and aggrieved concerning the opposite practice of the Israelites for all those years and rent his clothes. We find this mentioned in II Kings chapter 22, and Chronicles chapter 34. The statement of Hilkiah is not acceptable, nor is the copy discovered by him in any way reliable for reasons that we will discuss below.

We know from history that the temple of the Lord had been totally destroyed twice prior to the reign of Ahaz. Subsequently it was turned into a place of idol worship. The keepers and worshippers used to enter the temple frequently. It seems inconceivable that a copy of the Pentateuch, which was present in the temple all that time, could have remained unnoticed by the people for as long a period as seventeen years. Especially when all the officials of Josiah’s Kingdom were striving hard to bring about the revival of the law of Moses, and the priests were continually in the House of the Lord, going through every inch of it.

The truth is that this copy was invented by Hilkiah himself. When he saw that king Josiah and all the people were inclined to the law of Moses and were trying to revive it, he started writing down the verbal tradition that he came to hear and remembered or was conveyed to him by others, with little regard for its reality and authenticity. It took him seventeen years to complete it. Then after its completion he found an opportunity to attribute it to Moses. And it is not surprising that this was done for the sake of truth because, as we know, this kind of falsehood was allowed, indeed encour-aged, by their faith as we have discussed earlier.

10[10] IIKings 22:3.

From Josiah to Nebuchadnezzar

Even if we ignore what we have just said and accept that the copy of the Pentateuch found by Hilkiah in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s ascension was original, it takes us nowhere. This copy of the Pentateuch was followed and acted upon for only thirteen years. After the death of Josiah, his son Jehoahaz ascended to throne and he also deviated from the law of the Pentateuch and became an apostate. Infidelity came back to rule again. The king of Egypt then conquered the land of Judah and imprisoned Jehoahaz. The throne was given to his brother. He too was an apostate. His son look over as king after his death. He also, like his father and uncle, was an apostale. Nebuchadnezar invaded Jerusalem and captured him and his people. The temple and royal treasury were plundered by him. The nephew of the king was cntrusted with the kingdom and he also was an apostate.

In the light of the above, one is naturally drawn to conclude that the original Pentateuch was lost before the period of Josiah. The copy that was discovered by Hilkiah in his reign was not reliable and authenticated and, in any case, remained in vogue for only thirteen years. We do not find any sign of its continued existence. Apparently apostasy and infidelity found its way into their lives after the death of Jehnahaz and the Pentateuch had ceased to exist prior to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar. Taking it granted that some rare copies of the Pentateuch still existed, the calamitous invasion of Nebuchadnezzar eliminated all possibilities of its existence.

The Second Evidence

The king,11[11] who was entrusted with the rule of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, rebelled against him. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem a second time, imprisoned the king, slaughtered his children before his eyes which were gouged out.12[12] And in the words of Chronicles he:

...had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of Ihe Lord, and the treaures of the king and of his prinees; all these he brought to Babylon.13[13]

During this calamity the Pentateuch and all the books written before it were absolutely destroyed. This is also admitted by the scholars of the Christian world as has been shown earlier in this book.

1 [11] King Zcdekiah. II Chr.36.


12[12] This description is found in II Chron. 36:17-2l, but there is no mention of the gouging out of his eyes in the King James version.

13[13] II Chron. 36:18,19

The Third Evidence

When the prophet ‘Ezra’ recompiled the books of the Old Testament, as is claimed by the Christians, they were subjected to another disaster at the hands of Antiochus, a king from Europe who, after conquering Jerusalem, burnt and tore up all the avai-lable copies of the books of the Old Testament. The following is from I Maccabees chapter 1:

Never a copy of the Divine law but was torn up and burned; if any were found that kept the sacred record or obeyed the Lord’s will, his life was forfeit to the king’s edict. Month by month such deeds of violence were done.14[14]

This calamity befell them one hundred and sixty-one years before the birth of Christ and lasted for a period of three and a half years. These events were described by Josephus and historians of the Christian world. All the copies of the Old Testament written by Ezra were absolutely destroyed as we discussed at the beginning of this book. The following remarks are quoted from the Catholic, John Mill:

When the correct copies of these books appeared through Ezra, these too were lost during the invasion of Antiochus.

John Mill further remarked:

In this case the these books cannot be considered authentic without the witness of Christ and his apostles to them.

We may remind the readers that we have sufficiently explained the situation regarding the witness of Christ and of his apostles.

14[14] 1. Maccabees 1;59-61.

The Fourth Evidence

After this persecution by Antiochus, the Jews were subjected to many more historical calamities at the hands of other kings who destroyed whatever was left of the writings of Ezra. One famous event is the invasion of the Roman emperor, Titus. This was a painful event of Jewish history and happened thirty-seven years after the ascension of Christ. In this incident hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by sword, fire or hunger. Josephus described this event in great detail, Ninety-seven thousand Jews were enslaved and sold in other countries.

The Fifth Evidence

The ancient Christians, from the very beginning, were not very much inclined towards the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. The majority of them believed it to have been distorted by the Jews. They trusted and acknowledged the Greek version, especially up to the end of the second century. The same version was also followed by the Jews up to the end of the first century. Since the Christians had a natural indifference towards the Hebrew version, there were few copies, and those were mostly with the Jews. We have already discussed this in detail under the heading of the first contention.

The Sixth Evidence

All the versions of the sacred books that were written in the seventh or eighth centuries were destroyed and obliterated by the Jews simply because they were not in accordance with the copies that they possessed. This is why the scholars entrusted with the work of the revision of the Old Testament could not obtain even a single copy written in these two centuries. The result was that the Jews possessed only the copies that they thought were correct. They could easily have changed the texts of these copies without any fear of being found out or criticised.

The Seventh Evidence

The early history of the Christians was one of distress and trials, especially in the first three hundred years when they were subjected to great afflictions and faced massacre at many hands.

First Calamity

The first calamity they faced was in the year 64 in the reign of the emperor, Nero.15[15] Peter, the apostle, his wife and Paul 16[16] were murdered in this event in Rome. To express faith in Christianity was a great offence at that time. This state of affairs remained unchanged until the emperor‘s death.

5[15] He was the emperor of Rome from 54 to 64. He was the fifth Roman emperor and is famous for his barbarous killing of the Christians.


16[16] We are not sure that St. Paul was murdered in this event. May be that author has referred to some other Paul.

Second Calamity

This event took place in the reign of the emperor Domitian, who, like the emperor Nero, was known for being hostile to the Christian faith. He issued an order to kill the Christians which was followed by such a great massacre of the Christians that the existence of Christianity was endangered. John, the apostle, was exiled and Philip Clement was murdered.

Third Calamity

Another great trial of the Christians started in the year 101 at the hands of the emperor Trajan 17[17] and continued for eighteen years. Ignatius, the bishop of Corinth, Clement, the bishop of Rome. and Simon, the bishop of Jerusalem, were all murdered.

17[17] Trajan (53 117) reigned from 101-117. He is also known for his cruelty to the Christians.

Fourth Calamity

A great massacre of the Christians was recorded by history starting in 161 at the hands the emperor Marcus Antonius. This homicidal period lasted for ten years. A great number of the Christians were killed in the East and the West.

Fifth Calamity

This event took place in the period of the emperor Septimius. Thousands of Christians were killed in the land of Egypt alone. Similarly in France and Carthage the Christians were massacred barbarously, to the extent that the Christians thought that the time of the Antichrist had arrived.

Sixth Calamity

In 237 the Emperor Maximus started killing the Christians. The majority of the Christian scholars were killed at his orders, as he estimated that it would be easier for him to rule them after the elimination of their scholars. The Popes Pontian and Fabian were killed.

Seventh Calamity

This terrible calamity of the Christians started in 253, in the period of the emperor Decius who had firmly resolved to root out the Christian faith and obliterate all signs of its existence. He issued orders to his governors to fulfil his intention. A great number of Christians had to abandon their faith. Egypt, Africa, Italy and cities of the East were, the main centres of this calamity.

Eighth Calamity

This trial of the Christians started in 274. The emperor Aurelian also issued orders for killing the Christians but was killed before much damage to the lives of the Christians had taken place.

Ninth Calamity

Another general massacre of the Christians started in 302. The whole land was red with blood. The city of Phrygia was burnt to ashes, leaving no single Christian alive.

Tenth Calamity

Diocletian, the famous Roman emperor who reigned from 284-305. persecuted the Christians because he felt that the increasing power of the Church endangered his kingdom.

If the above historical events are true, they leave little possibility of the sacred books having been preserved, It was also an ideal situation for people who wanted to change or alter the text We have already shown that there were many heretical sects present in the first century who were busy making alterations in the texts.

The Eighth Evidence

The emperor Diocletian intended to obliterate every trace of the existence of the sacred books. He tried hard to achieve this goal and issued orders to demolish churches, burn all the books, stop the Christians from worshipping in the form of a congregation. These orders were carried out. The churches were levelled and all the books that he could find after an extensive search were burnt. Any Christian who was suspected of possessing a book was punished and tortured. This deprived the Christians of congregational worship. The details of these events can be found in the books of history. Lardner said on page 22 of the seventh volume of his book:

Diocletian passed orders that churches be abolished and books be burnt.

He further said:

Eusebius has given an eye-witness accounts of the event in a painful tone, saying, “I have seen with my own eyes the demolition of the churches and the burning of the sacred books in public places.”

We do not claim that in these event all the sacred books were completely lost. What these events confirm is the fact that the existence of the copies of the sacred books remained very limited in number and, of course, many correct versions were completely lost.

The possibility cannot be denied that a certain book could have been totally lost and that some other book have been published in its name, since such occurrences were quite possible before the existence of the modem printing press. We have just shown that the copies written in the seventh and eighth centuries ceased to exist. Adam Clarke said in the introduction of his commentary:

The original of the exegesis that is attributed to Tatian has been completely lost, and the book which is ascribed to him now is doubtful to the scholars, and they are absolutely right in their doubts.

Watson said in the third volume of his book:

The exegesis attributed to Tatian was present in the time of Theodoret and was recited in every church. Theodoret abolished all its copies so that it could be replaced with the Evangel.

This shows how it was easy for Theodoret to abolish all the copies of a certain book and how another could be substituted in its name. There can be no doubt that Diocletian was more powerful than the Jews and stronger than Theodoret. It would not, therefore, be surprising if some books of the New Testament were completely destroyed at the hands of Diocletian or ceased to exist during other calamities before, him, and if other books were substituted in their names, as we have seen in the case of the exegesis of Tatian.

This assumption, when seen in the light of the statement giving them religious licence to change the holy texts for the sake of the truth, is quite feasible and logical.

The historical events described above arc the main cause for the non-existence of any authority supporting the books of the Old and New Testaments. Neither the Jews nor the Christians possess anything to prove the truth of their scriptures.

 As we said earlier, when we asked some contemporary Christian scholars to produce authenticated proofs for the truth of their books in our famous public debate, they had to admit that, due to the calamities of the Christians in the first three hundred and thirteen years of their history, all such proofs had been destroyed. We also tried to find authorities to support the truth of the Biblical books but all our efforts ended in despair as what we found was no more than conjecture, which does not help prove the truth of these books.