Dividing Genesis

Genesis is one book, but if you needed to split Hebrew Genesis into two scrolls, you could do so at Genesis 25:11. Here’s why. https://t.co/xUUAFb2WyK

— Peter J. Williams (@DrPJWilliams) May 30, 2020

What methods are used to date ancient manuscripts?

“He will see light” in Isaiah 53:11

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/04/he-will-see-light-in-isaiah-5311.html

Ending of Mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVurW_jhp68

An interview with Peter Williams

"Interview: Peter J Williams (Textual Biblical Scholar)"

Is baptism necessary for salvation?

From a Facebook exchange:

Michael

What's the symbolism in Mark 16:15-16, Acts 2:38, John 3:5, and Acts 8:36-39?

Hays 

i) The long ending of Mark is probably a scribal interpolation, so it doesn't even figure in the discussion. 

ii) It's unlikely that Jn 3:5 even refers to the Christian rite of baptism. For one thing, that's anachronistic. It would be incomprehensible to Nicodemus, since Christian baptism hadn't be instituted at that point. The imagery evokes OT passages about water as a spiritual metaphor, and it's an emblem for the renewal by the Spirit. Jn 4 & 7 provide other examples where water is a spiritual metaphor. 

iii) Regarding the passages in Acts, I think you failed to grasp my point. If A is a symbol of B, then what is said of B can be said of A, even though it's not literally the case.

A classic example is how the NT talks about salvation through the cross of Christ. But literally speaking, the cross is just a piece of wood. It doesn't actually save anyone. Rather, to say people are saved by the cross is shorthand for people are saved by the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. The cross is being used as a verbal substitute.

Michael 

Oh yeah, let's just discredit entire parts of the scriptures because we don't like them.

John 3 being anachronistic does not change that it is very explicitly about baptism. Very explicitly.

No one is claiming that baptism saves. Grace saves, through faith. True Faith always leads to baptism. The apostles believed and practiced this, Paul believed and practiced this, and the early church believed and practiced this. You think you understand the commands of Jesus better than they did?

Hays 

i) Your first statement is nonsense. Have you studied textual criticism in reference to the long ending of Mark? 

ii) The fact that the baptismal interpretation is anachronistic is quite germane to the correct interpretation. Jesus upbraids Nicodemus for failing to understand what he's referring to, but if he's referring to the Christian rite of baptism, then it's impossible for Nicodemus to catch the reference since that would depend on knowledge of the future, which Nicodemus isn't privy to.

I gave reasons why it's not about baptism. You did nothing to refute my reason. You just reasserted your indefensible claim.

iii) Your third statement ignores the OP. The question raised by the OP is whether or not baptism is necessary for salvation. 

You then change the issue by talking about the command/practice of baptism. But that wasn't the question.

iv) Christians can't just shrug off textual criticism. The Bible you use, the translation you use, is based on a critical edition of the Hebrew text and the Greek text. Scholars make text-critical decisions for you. The Bible you hold in your had is the product of decisions they made regarding the best MSS and variant readings. So you're trusting in their scholarly judgment calls. The edition/translation you use didn't just come straight from Bible writers, but from scribes. And there are different critical editions, based on different MSS and different textual variants. Absolutizing the edition that comes down to you, one which, say, contains the long ending of Mark, is an arbitrary sample.

That doesn't require sheer trust in scholarship. A Christian can learn the rudiments of textual criticism, so that he knows the general lay of the land, and how these decisions are arrived at.

DSS forgeries

Wesley Huff

Because I have had a number of people contact me and have been seeing others ask similar questions: yes the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Museum of the Bible are fake. However, this has NO BEARING ON THE RELEVANT ISSUES CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE.

The manuscripts the Museum of the Bible possessed were very fragmentary in nature with little to no text on them to begin with. As far as I can figure out they contained no relevant textual variation from the Masoretic Text or comparative sections in other Dead Sea Scrolls. They were a minor contribution to the picture of the overall text compared to the nearly 100,000 authentic manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls that reside at the Israel Museum.

The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture

I've quoted and/or interacted with Iain Provan's The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, which was published, not coincidentally, during the 500th anniversary or the Reformation. 

i) It's an uneven book. On the plus side, it makes some important contributions to the case for the Protestant canon, literal interpretation (as Provan defines it), and typology. And it's very well documented.

ii) On the minus side, he rejects inerrancy. In addition, he fails to directly rebut or solve the alleged problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism" spawned by sola scriptura. He doesn't seem to have a full-blown answer to that. He stakes out a compromise position similar to Keith Mathison, as well as Allen and Swain in Reformed Catholicity. For reasons I've detailed on other occasions, I think that's a conceptually confused and unstable mediating position. 

iii) However, he doesn't seem to think it's that big a deal. For one thing, he doesn't seem to think the Bible is that ambiguous or obscure. He remarks on how Jesus and Paul directly appeal to the OT to prooftext their positions. And they do this in public speeches to rank-and-file Jews, not just the experts. Likewise, Paul takes for granted that a Gentile audience should be able to follow his OT-based arguments.

iv) In addition, since Provan doesn't think the Church of Rome has a living oracle, the invidious contrast between fallible Protestant interpretation and infallible Catholic interpretation is illusory. Catholics are in the same boat as Protestants: they just pretend that they occupy a different boat. If interpretive pluralism is a problem, that's a problem for both sides. It's just that Rome tries to camouflage the problem. 

v) Provan also notes that the Catholic church has come around to Protestant positions on hermeneutics and textual criticism, so that diminishes the contrast. 

vi) There's the further fact that Provan is an academic whose Catholic dialogue partners are fellow academics. There's a difference between the quaint Catholicism of lay Catholic pop apologists and mainstream Catholic Bible scholarship representing spokesmen with Catholic training and institutional positions. The reactionary antimodernist scholarship of Brandt Pitre (and his sidekick John Bergsma, a convert to Catholicism) is virtually a lone exception.

So to some extent I think Provan's book is a failure. It doesn't provide a fully-satisfactory alternative to Catholicism (although that wasn't it's only aim). It can, however, be cannibalized from some very useful spare parts. 

Ecclesiastical arbitration

The question of "arbitration," then, lies at the heart of the matter–its necessity, and also its nature–and the theologians of the magisterial Reformation found themselves having to defend their position on two fronts. On the one side, notable Roman Catholic scholars questioned "both the reliability of the received biblical text when compared to the Vulgate and also its perspicuity, arguing that without the church hierarchy's guidance the unbridled interpretation of these texts would only lead to heresy." The Church could provide this guidance not least because it possessed alongside Scripture (according  to the Council of Trent) oral traditions "concerning both faith and conduct, as either directly spoken by Christ or dictated by the Holy Spirit, which have been preserved in unbroken sequence in the Catholic church" I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 285.

What's striking about this historical description is how subsequent reversals in Catholic theology have rendered obsolete these planks of the Counter-Reformation polemic:

i) It's been a long time since Rome made the Vulgate the gold standard of comparison for the biblical text. Catholicism came around to our side on that issue. 

ii) While debates over perspicuity still rage in popular Catholic/Protestant apologetics, the Tridentine solution has been mothballed. The historical fiction of "oral traditions either directly spoken by Christ or dictated by the Holy Spirit, which have been preserved in unbroken sequence in the Catholic church" was abruptly replaced by Newman's theory of development. 

iii) It's true that in the wrong hands, sola scriptura can lead to heresy. However, it begs the question to make Catholicism the standard of orthodoxy. And sola scriptura can also correct the errors and heresies of Rome. So it cuts in several directions. 

On the other side, supporters of the Radical Reformation…argued strongly for a different arbiter, namely the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believing Christian…The Spirit-filled reader is the proper judge in the exegesis of Scripture. Ibid. 286. 

It's my impression that this has tricked down into the folk theology of many lay fundamentalists. It is used as an intellectual shortcut to sidestep scholarly exegesis. But a basic problem is that it fails to explain the diversity of interpretations. 

"Ehrman's Equivocation and the Inerrancy of the Original Text"

By Peter J. Williams

The idea of an inerrant or even an infallible original text of Scripture has been a matter of wide controversy. In part such controversy has merely reflected fundamental divisions over the nature of Scripture, its historical reliability, and the extent and essence of its authority. However, it is the contention here that the controversy has partly been complicated by the multivalence of key terms being used by advocates of inerrancy. This means that, while advocates of inerrancy are carefully presenting nuanced arguments that are exegetically well grounded and logically compelling, there are stumbling blocks to their message other than the sheer offensiveness of a doctrine of inerrancy. Advocates of inerrancy need to adopt clearer terminology to ensure that the doctrine is correctly understood at the popular level. In addition, this essay argues that the burden of proof should be on those who distrust the basic integrity of the New Testament text. The work of Bart D. Ehrman is used to illustrate the problems that can arise through terminological confusion and when the burden of proof is wrongly shifted onto those who maintain the basic integrity of the New Testament text.

Bart Ehrman's heirs

(Posted on behalf of Steve Hays.)

In response to my post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-canonical-text.html

DeSoto replied:

https://youngtextlessreformed.com/2019/11/06/a-bit-of-friendly-dialogue-with-triablogue/

The "Canonical" text

There's a reactionary movement afoot in some Reformed circles to reject the mainstream NT textual criticism and modern translations like the ESV in favor of the Textus Receptus (hereafter TR) and the KJV. Recently there was a Text and Canon Conference which promoted that position. I generally avoid live presentations. That's an inefficient way to process and reference information. I have read a few articles by Jeff Riddle, but I'm going to use two posts by Taylor DeSoto as representative samples of the rationale for this position:

https://youngtextlessreformed.com/2019/10/28/memoirs-of-an-esv-onlyist-reflecting-on-the-text-and-canon-conference/

https://youngtextlessreformed.com/2019/10/29/revisiting-the-fatal-flaw-argument-against-the-traditional-text/

1. At one level, the significance of this issue is easily overblown. The text of the NT has enormous multiple-attestation. Even if you opt for the Byzantine text, there's not much that can go wrong. 

2. At another level, it is a big issue. What's at stake is convincing Christians to believe their faith hinges on a particular text tradition like the Byzantine or the TR. That's the "canonical" text. This leaves them poised for a gratuitous crisis of faith if they develop doubts about the TR. In this case, their faith in the Bible becomes inseparable from faith in the TR and the KJV. That's apostasy waiting to happen. DeSoto is going down exactly the same road as Bart Ehrman. The same all-or-nothing mentality. The same false dichotomies. 

3. Because we have so many copies of the Greek NT, copies with many, mostly trivial variants, it's important although not strictly necessary to produce a critical edition of the NT. That's not unique to proponents of the eclectic text. Astute proponents of the Byzantine text also appreciate the need to produce a critical edition of the NT, using internal and external textual criteria. For instance: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v06/Robinson2001.html

4. I myself subscribe to mainstream textual criticism and the eclectic text approach. I don't have a firm opinion about CBGM. Certainly we should take advantage of computers to digitize our MSS, then compare them. Stanley Porter is a critic of CBGM. 

I'd add that it isn't necessary to choose between CBGM and traditional textual criticism. You can compare the results of both, and the reasoning behind their choices. Metzger's textual commentary explains how traditional text critics made their choices. And there will be a textual commentary for the CBGM edition when that project is completed. 

5. Opting for the Byzantine tradition would be more defensible than opting for the T.R. That's not my own position,  but there's a respectable argument for that alternative. 

6. From what I can tell, all the Reformed proponents of the TR and the KJV are dabblers and dilettantes. They have no formal expertise in textual criticism. In fairness, they might say the same thing about me. But that proves my point. I admit that I'm an amateur when it comes to OT/NT criticism. And I don't object to amateurs having opinions about range of specialized issues. I don't think we should abode unconditional confidence in the judgment of experts. 

But it's because I'm an amateur that I don't need to get my information from another amateur. If I want an amateur opinion about textual criticism, I can just consult my own opinion! 

By the same token, I don't get my information about biology and physics from amateurs. Rather, I study what the professionals have to say. I might still dissent on philosophical or theological grounds. Or I might dissent if I think their discipline has become politicized, which skews their assessment.   

This also goes beyond formal training. Some scholars like Bruce Metzger, Peter Williams, and Emanuel Tov have an exceptional skill set and natural aptitude that many scholars lack. 

Reformed proponents of the TR might also say that since mainstream NT criticism is so compromised, it's a good thing that they lack formal training in that discipline. But that begs the question. 

7. A basic problem with canonizing the KJV is that most Christians aren't English-speakers, most Christians were never English-speakers, and within the foreseeable future, most Christians won't be English-speakers. So it's absurdly ethnocentric. 

8. Another problem is that we have a better understanding of Greek and Hebrew than the KJV translators. We have a wider sampling of ancient Hebrew than they had. And we have a wider sampling of ancient Greek than they had. For instance, Greek papyri give us access to non-literary Greek. That gives us access to Greek slang or Greek words with slang meanings. In addition, computers enable us to make exhaustive comparisons in vocabulary and grammatical constructions.  

9. It's true that earlier MSS aren't necessarily better than later MSS. Obviously an 8C MS isn't automatically better than a 9C MS. But when we're talking about the NT papyri, I do think there's a presumption that earlier is better because they are so chronologically close to the Urtext.  

10. Reformed TR proponents operate with an arbitrary notion of divine providence regarding the preservation of the text. They act like special providence singles out the TR rather than the Byzantine text or the NT papyri or the DDS or Codex Vaticanus. But why would providence only extend to the preservation of the text in the TR? 

Likewise, the reason OT textual critics sometimes prefer the LXX to the MT is because the LXX translators had an earlier text than the Massoretes. So they had a text that might well preserve the original reading in some cases where the MT lost it.  

11. I'm no expert (something I share in common with Reformed TR proponents), but it seems to be that appeal to the Majority text is a statistical fallacy. If more MSS were produced by a particular locality, and more of those survive, that just means our extant MSS oversample a local textual tradition. Their numerical preponderance in itself creates no presumption that it's more representative. Rather, that may simply be a geographical and historical accident. So the larger sample is an arbitrary sample. The fact that we have a larger sample of that textual tradition is random in the sense that it's a coincidence of geography and the ravages of time. The Majority text may well be unrepresentative because a local textual tradition is overrepresented. 

12. It's often said that despite all the textual variants, the true reading is contained somewhere in our "5000" extant Greek MSS. But that bare statement can be misleading. This isn't like finding a needle in a haystack. It's not like our MSS are riddled with indetectable mistakes. 

i) Words are parts of sentences. If a scribe uses the wrong word, that usually makes the sentence nonsense. And it's easy to spot which word is messing up the sentence. Moreover, it's usually easy to figure out what the right word was, even if you only have that MS to go by.

We do this all the time. Email and text messages frequently contained recognizable typos, but we can usually figure out the intended word. 

ii) But suppose we can't figure out what the original word was. So we consult other MS. The right word isn't indetectable. If another MSS has the same sentence, but with a different word, and the sentence makes sense, then that's probably the authentic reading. 

ii) Suppose I have two independent editions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both editions contain typos. But they contain different typos. Suppose one edition contains a sentence with a typo, and I can't figure out the original word. So I consult the other edition, where the parallel sentence makes sense. So that probably preserves the original word. 

13. Opponents of the eclectic text allege that editors are "creating" the text. But that's deceptive. It doesn't mean they are inventing sentences. It just means they use more than one witness to the text. Since we know for a fact that scribes introduces changes into the text (usually inadvertently), we can't rely on a single MS as it stands. It's necessary to make corrections. And we do that by reference to other MSS. 

14. In general, biblical teaching is redundant. It doesn't hinge on one particular passage. Major doctrines are multiply-attested. The life of Christ is multiple-attested (four Gospels). 

15. The way Reformed TR advocates cling to the Long Ending of Mark is hypocritical. If they truly believe that's the original ending, then they ought to belong to charismatic, snake-handling churches. 

16. What does God require of us? To be faithful to the best text we have at our disposal. Surely he doesn't require us to be faithful to an unattainable word-perfect text. Even in the 1C, Christians copied originals. The originals were inerrant but the copies were not. 

New frontiers in textual criticism

There's a new strategy in NT textual criticism that's been gaining ground: the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM). I doubt it's possible to fully grasp CBGM unless you practice it. Having read some expositions/explanations, here are my amateur impressions:

i) On the one hand it takes greater advantage of computer technology. Digitizing all our Greek NT MSS. And thanks to Dan Wallace going around the world photographing Gk MSS, we have more than ever.

Computers make it possible to do exhaustive comparison and contrast. 

ii) CBGM makes the claim that it can recover the readings of lost MSS. Tantalizing if true. 

iii) And that computer analysis has a way of getting behind MSS to expose genealogical relationships. Useful if true.

iv) On the other hand, computers can't think. You only have to use autocorrect to see that computers have no understanding!

So computers can't replace human judgment, human intelligence. As such, I still put a lot of stock in the intuitive judgment of very talented textual critics like the late Bruce Metzger. 

It's like gifted, experienced physicians who can just tell what's wrong with a patient, without doing any tests. 

Or it's like the difference between computer chess and human  chess players. These employ fundamentally different strategies,. I once read the comparison that humans have an analogue approach. 

I had some lingering questions about CBGM, so I wrote a leading exponent, who was kind enough to respond. Here's the exchange: 

Text & Canon Conference

https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2019/11/03/text-and-canon-conference-initial-thoughts/

You Christians changed the Bible!

https://glanier.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/a-clash-of-monotheisms-you-christians-changed-the-bible/

Do all our extant NT MSS go back to a single mid-2C exemplar?

I recently ran across this claim on Facebook:

It's pretty much accepted among mainstream scholarship that everything we have is derived from a single edition compiled around 150AD. Possibly by a single editor. I doubt that Ehrman contradicts that. Btw this scholarship is by David Trobisch. 

I own two of his monographs on the topic. But I decided to run the claim by Larry Hurtado. Here's how our exchange went:

I recall you saying that David Trobisch's theory about the formation of the NT canon hadn't caught on in mainstream scholarship because ancient NT MSS don't exhibit the uniformity in the order of books that he attributes to them. Is that correct?

Not entirely.  There are several reasons.  NT writings initially circulated physically as individual works. Even after the four gospels were considered by many a closed circle, they still were copied as individual codices.  No one thought of a NT in the second century except perhaps Marcion.

But, yes, we see different orders to NT writings once they began to be put together.  E.g., P45 has the gospels Matt, John, Luke, Mark.

Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism

https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Mistakes-Testament-Textual-Criticism/dp/0830852573

Did Matthew miscount?

Here's one explanation for an alleged numerical discrepancy in Matthew's genealogy:

https://defendinginerrancy.com/bible-solutions/Matthew_1.17.php

However, I'd like to discuss the issue from a different angle. Suppose someone says the obvious explanation is that Matthew made a computational error, and inerrantists are guilty of special pleading when they flail about for face-saving explanations. Let's play along with that alternative for argument's sake and consider how plausible it is.

i) Even from a naturalistic perspective, it's unlikely that Matthew miscounted. This isn't some off-the-cuff computation. Matthew's numerology is carefully worked out. So it would be surprising if Matthew miscounted. This isn't something he dashed off in haste.

ii) But suppose, for argument's sake, he did commit a computational blunder. Let's take it to the next level. What should we expect in that event?

Even if Matthew didn't catch his oversight, some of the initial readers of the first run of Matthew's Gospel would notice the error. We'd expect word to get back to Matthew regarding his embarrassing blunder. And it would make sense for Matthew to issue a corrected edition–if for no other reason than to spare himself the public embarrassment. It's not like the first run of his Gospel had a wide circulation. It had to be informally copied. It's not like modern publishing where there are, say, 5,000-10,000 initial printings, and if that runs out, the publisher issues another batch of printings.

No, I believe the process would be more like Matthew dictates his Gospel to a scribe, then Christians make private copies. The initial distribution is tiny. 

At most, this would result in two different manuscript traditions, where there were copies of the erroneous ur-text along with copies of the corrected edition. But on that scenario, I think it more likely that only a few copies of the erroneous ur-text would be made, so those are less likely to survive. What would survive is the manuscript tradition preserving the corrected edition, which wouldn't contain the apparent numerical blunder.

But that's not what we have. So I think it's implausible to impute a computational error to Matthew. If that happened, I'd expect there to be a different manuscript record. 

iii) Notice that I'm not proposing a solution to the crux. I'm doing something different. I'm pointing out that on closer scrutiny, the naturalistic explanation is implausible. We don't need to know what the right explanation is to eliminate the naturalistic explanation. 

The Muslim Conundrum

Wesley Huff
Ramadan is in full swing this month and with it continue my conversations with Muslims. Over the last month I have been communicating with a number of Muslims about various subjects relating to the interaction of Christianity and Islam. In the course of these correspondences we have gotten on the topic of the authenticity of the Bible often. The following is what I routinely present to Muslims as an argument commonly referred to as the Qur'anic Conundrum:
1. The Qur'an routinely refers to the "previous Scriptures," identified as the "Torah" (توراة‎ - Tawrat, mentioned 18 times) and the "Gospel" (إنجيل - Injil, mentioned 12 times). These books are prefaced with the descriptors of being "sent down by God," as seen in places like Surah Ali 'Imran 3:3 and urah Al Ma'iadh 5:68: :

"He has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel;"

"Say, "O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord." And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. So do not grieve over the disbelieving people."

2. Muhammad is told by Allah in Surah Yunas 10:94, that if he has doubt he should look to the Jews and the Christians because they have the previous Scriptures:

"So if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters."

3. In context to mentioning the previous Scriptures the Qur'an declares that Allah's words cannot be changed in Surah Al-An'am 6:114-115:

"[Say], "Then is it other than Allah I should seek as judge while it is He who has revealed to you the Book explained in detail?" And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture know that it is sent down from your Lord in truth, so never be among the doubters. And the word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can alter His words, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing."

4. Christians in Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:46-47 are told to judge by the Gospel and if they do not do so they are "defiantly disobedient":

“And we sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.

And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.”

Conclusion: If the previous Scriptures sit in a chain of succession (as is alluded to by verses like 4:46) then it makes logical sense that you cannot remove one of the links of the chain without compromising the others. If indeed the Torah and the Gospel are corrupt, as modern day Muslims would have us believe, then the author of the Qur'an seems to have no knowledge of it. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary that the author of the Qur'an actually articulates their trustworthiness and authenticity as God's word.

Similarly, if the Gospel and Torah are God's word and no one can change God's word then how have these previous Scriptures become corrupted? Did Allah not know they would be corrupted - in which case he is not all-knowing? Could he not stop individuals from doing so - in which case he is not all powerful? Or is what we have in Surah 6:115 incorrect, in which case the Qur'an itself has been compromised?

In conjunction with accusations of change, why would Muhammad be encouraged to talk to a people who had corrupt Scriptures in 10:94? Would this not only confuse Muhammad as there are clear teachings being revealed to him for the Qur'an that inherently contradict what is in the Torah and Gospel?

We know exactly what "the Torah" and "the Gospel(s)" looked like during the late 5th and early 6th centuries of Muhammad's lifetime. We even have manuscripts from the areas near Syria and the Arabian peninsula from this specific time period. They are virtually identical to the modern Gospels and Torahs we have in translation today. Thus, if these commands had any application for their original audience then what was "the Gospel" and "the Torah" being discussed in Surah 10:94? If we know what these documents looked like in the time period that these verses have application then the evidence shows no serious difference from what we have today.

Finally, why would Allah tell Christians to judge by the Gospel if it had been corrupted? If the Torah and Gospel the Qur'an is continually talking about are not the Torah and Gospel(s) we have today then how is the eternal revelation of the Qur'an to speak to modern day Christians? Why bother making the statement that Christians are to "judge by what Allah has revealed therein" lest they be "the defiantly disobedient?" Why not simply tell the Christians outright that these former revelations were corrupt and to get rid of them in place of the more perfect Qur'an?

If I take the Qur'an at its word as a "person of the Gospel" and I judge the Qur'an by the Gospel that has been revealed to me, in accordance with the command in Surah 5:47, I find it wanting. I see no interaction with any of the discussions taking pace in the Gospel nor any indication regarding knowledge of what Jesus is recorded saying there. In fact, what I do see are continual contradictions and misunderstandings regarding what the Gospel says and teaches and therefore, if the Qur'an is true and I obey its command to me then I have to conclude that it is false.

The snakebite test

For mainstream evangelicals, the canonical status of the long ending of Mark is a matter to be settled by textual criticism, and the long ending is generally regarded as a scribal interpolation. There are a few reputable holdouts like Maurice Robinson. 

But according to another perspective, the canonical status of the long ending is a matter to be settled by ecclesiastical reception. It's my understanding that Trent implicitly commits Roman Catholics to the canonicity of the long ending. Mind you, I don't think modern Catholic Bible scholars take that seriously. But that's the official position. (You also have a few evangelicals like Peter Gurry who accept the ecclesiastical criterion.)

At a practical level, this generates a dilemma. Although Catholic apologists pay lip-service to the long ending of Mark, I don't see them putting that to the test. While snake-handling churches tragically illustrate the dangers of ignorance, at least they have the commitment to act on their stated principles. By contrast, Catholic apologists defend the long ending of Mark without paying the price.