be uttered by certain tribes standing on Mount Gerizim. Had the Jews tried to change anything, they would have changed ver. 12, not ver. 4. There is therefore proof that the Jews did not corrupt this passage, though perhaps the Samaritans attempted to do so. If they tried, they failed.

Again, as has already been pointed out, the numbers which give the ages of the Patriarchs in Gen. v. and xi. differ somewhat in the Hebrew from those found in the Samaritan copy of the Torah and in the Septuagint Version. But this is almost certainly accidental. In all old books figures are very apt to be mistaken for one another. In these matters it is clear that the various readings affect neither morality nor doctrines.

Certain Muslim writers have endeavoured to prove that there are many contradictions in the Bible, and they allege this as a proof that the books have been corrupted. But among all reasonable men it is an admitted fact that, when two or more writers give separate accounts of any event, there always is found some difference between one narrative and another; otherwise collusion is considered as proved. Such differences may amount to contradiction in the opinion of one who does not know all the facts of the case, but not in that of men who have studied the matter thoroughly. The very existence of such differences and apparent contradictions, e.g. in the two genealogies of Christ (Matt. i; Luke iii) and the two accounts of Judas' death (Matt. xxvii. 5; Acts i. 18, 19), is a conclusive proof that no one has corrupted the text of the Scriptures: otherwise these differences would have been removed.

Some assert that the New Testament has been falsified by the interpolation of the following passages: Mark xvi. 9-20; John v. 3, 4; vii. 53-viii. 11; I John v. 7. This statement is not quite accurate. We Christians have discovered that these verses do not exist in the earliest MSS., and hence we have recognized that they are, as it were, marginal notes which some scribe fancied were part of the text, and

therefore copied into it. But these passages do not alter a single doctrine. The facts mentioned very concisely in Mark xvi. 9-20 are more fully detailed elsewhere in the Gospels. The story of the adulteress is related by Papias.¹ The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is clearly taught in Matt. xxviii. 19, and in very many other places. Hence the omission of the verses we have mentioned does not in the slightest degree affect a single doctrine of the Christian faith.

In this respect there is a great difference between the Bible and the Qur’an. Men of learning know that some of the Shi'ah party have affirmed that certain verses in the Qur'an have been altered by the Khalifahs 'Umar and 'Uthman, in order to conceal the fact that 'Ali should have been the first Khalifah, and that the Imamat should have continued in his family. Others say that the whole of a Surah, which they call Suratu'n Nurain, has been omitted for the same reason. It is

not our purpose to inquire whether or not there is any truth in these statements, although it is evident that to Muslims the matter is of the very greatest importance; for, if even the Suratu'n Nurain is properly part of the Qur'an, then the fate of the Sunnis is not a happy one, since in that Surah it is said of them: "Verily² for them there is a place in Hell: from it they shall not deviate." Mirza Muhsin of Kashmir, surnamed Fani, in his Dabistan-i Mazahib (printed at Bombay, A.H. 1292, pp. 220, 221), gives the whole of the Suratu'n Nurain, and says that some of the Shi'ah party "state that 'Uthman, having burnt the original documents (المَصَاحِف), struck out some of the Surahs which were in favour of 'Ali and the superiority of his family: and one of those Surahs³ is this". He also