The Four Gospels: a Pleading and Balance: Volume Two: What Is In Them, by Balance — Their Origins, Dates, Discrepancies

A critical reference study of the origins of the four Gospels: the dates at which they appeared, the criteria by which they were accepted, their discrepancies, and the text of them current today. This is a work to be consulted rather than read once and set aside. It is built upon tables, upon the primary texts themselves, and upon indexes rather than upon disputation; and it argues throughout ex concessis - from what the tradition concedes of itself. Every claim is marked with its degree of attestation: consensus, preponderant majority, a weighty but contested opinion, a minority opinion, or a claim without warrant. Part Three - What, Then, Is In Them? The four collated one against another: forty-eight instances of discrepancy set out in comparative tables, then weighed upon an eightfold scale under a stated condition of contradiction and five conditions of admissible harmonization - of which seven aspects in six places are found established, while eleven instances in common circulation are expressly discarded or lowered in degree. Then the Old Testament: its canon, its text and its sources, and the bearing of all this upon the citation of it in the gospels. Part Four - And by What Balance? The Islamic assessment of biblical criticism, from al-Tabari and Ibn Hazm to al-Balaghi and al-Tabataba'i, with the Imami heritage that is commonly passed over in this field; then the contemporary Christian replies, set out in their strongest form and assessed; then the final assessment, framed upon two balances kept apart - the opponent's own, and ours, stated expressly to be ours. And with it the five weakest arguments in circulation, struck out by name, the Gospel of Barnabas and the periklytos claim foremost among them. With the nine Appendices that close the book: a glossary of the technical terms, a comprehensive chronological table, a table of the degrees of attestation, a checklist of errors to be avoided, a classified bibliography, indexes of biblical places and of persons, a table of the manuscripts mentioned, and a plain statement of the state of the documentation itself. Quotations are given in the wording of named editions and are not re-translated: the Qur'an in Abdel Haleem (Oxford), the Bible in the NRSVue, the Greek in NA28, the Fathers in ANF and NPNF - and where an edition's rendering runs against the argument, the edition is kept and the difference is set down in a note. Translated from the Arabic. Volume Two of two; Volume One - Parts One and Two - is published separately. Part Three - What, Then, Is In Them?Part Four - And by What Balance?seven aspects in six placeseleven instances in common circulationtwo balances kept apartthe five weakest arguments in circulation, struck out by namenine Appendices