In answer to the video "Yusuf 12:111 - The Quran Affirms the Bible"
The corruption of the HB and NT is a historical fact. This corruption is not dictated upon what the Quran says, i.e. it is an objective reality. The Quran simply confirms this objective reality. It is nothing but the natural outcome of the moral degeneration of the Bani Israel, their heedlessness and carelessness in matters of religion, confirming Moses' predictions Deut31:25-29, Jeremiah's and other prophets' accusations, their lamentations Isa48:8.
The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in 1950 in Jordan are dated between 150 BCE and 70 CE meaning there is still over 1000 years of history between this time period and the time of Moses, let alone Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. But this is besides the point since no Torah was found among the scrolls of Qumran nor any book of the NT. The oldest known Torah fragment is from the silver scrolls dating back to 700BCE and contains Numbers 6:24-26. The written Torah was completely destroyed, along with the first Temple. It was rewritten by Ezra through "divine miracle" according to Jewish traditions, obviously as it was majoritarily forgotten despite their claims of unbroken chain of transmission up to Moses. In fact there are even indications of that "chain" having broken even in the first or second generation following Moses
Judges2:10"After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel".This is unsurprising, why would one expect a people to remain faithful to Moses' teachings and preserve them accurately years following his death when during his own lifetime, his 40 days absence was enough to make them revert to idol worship, despite having just witnessed all kinds of supernatural occurrences testifying to the truth of what he was bringing. In light of all that they were made to witness from miracles and guidance, one would expect them to be sincerely obedient to God and deeply united yet the opposite happenned. From the onset, there was not a single fundamental thing of religion to which they adhered. They had serious differences in every aspect of religion; so much so, they lost many of them just because of this attitude. And if it was so that early on in their history when they had been freshly established and tied to God with a covenant then what is to say of the later times filled with troubles, wars, exiles and enslavement? Or as is said in the Talmud of tradition given to Moses at Sinai and then forgotten,
“they were forgotten and re-established” (Sukkah 44a, Megillah 3a).To succesfully achieve this re-establishment the rabbis openly state it is acceptable to resort to sophistry (Ketubot 103b). A similar example to Ezra is that of Otniel son of Kenaz who is credited with "restoring" some 3000 laws that were forgotten during the mourning over Moses’ death and other "1700 analogies from minor to major, analogies by equivalent words, and obligations derived from a meticulous scrutiny of the Scriptural text were forgotten during the mourning over Moses’ death" (Temurah 16a).
There are other examples attesting not only to forgetfulness as to the contents of the books, let alone complete despise towards them Hos8:12, but also to their whereabouts.
For example during the reign of Joshiah and while the Temple was being repaired, the high priest came across a manuscript not knowing what it was until it was presented to the King who rent his clothes appart upon recognizing it 2kings22. Interestingly, that period of 7th century BCE coincides with the time critical Biblical scholarship places the composition of the current HB. It is important to emphasize, the text says what was found was "the" Torah not "a" Torah. Talmudic rabbis explain this difficulty by stating that the uniqueness of this find, and the fact nobody knew a priori what it was, doesnt mean no other Torah was in circulation, rather that it was written in a forgotten script very few could read. Consequently the king whose subjects had sunk into idolatry sent emmissiaries to
“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us”.This specific Torah, according to the Damascus Document, was none other than the original Torah fully revealed to Moses and sealed in the Ark of the Covenant 5 centuries ago in the times of Joshua. The detailed, written law was unknown to the masses all that time. The Ark itself was lost to the Phillistines and in the times of Solomon, its sole contents were the 2 tablets 1Kings8:9.
There are also mention of entire pieces having been purposely burned by the corrupt elite, such as the scroll of Jeremiah Jer36:23, and even though it was re-writen later Jer36:27-32, it reveals the complete careless attitude of the comunity's most prominent figures towards sacred texts. Jeremiah, Hosea and others often lamented at their behavior and manipulations Jer8:8,Hosea4:6etc
Too many factors have accumulated leading to the physical loss of the entire Torah, since the breaking of the oral transmission chain right after Moses, followed by blatant neglectfulness if not purposeful destruction of scriptures and their misinterpretations resulting in a faulty and corrupt oral tradition, combined with their successive massacres, destruction of their holiest sites and writings, forced exiles and assimilation into foreign cultures and all elements are there for the loss of the original. Hence the claims of divine intervention through Ezra to restore it, even having to transliterate the hebrew into Aramaic so the people would be able to read.
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