look upon me; why have You forsaken me and stood far from my salvation?”

The second point:
Their statement that the Torah, the Gospel, and the other prophetic writings now in their possession were handed down from the apostles—each nation receiving them in its own tongue—and that the texts have remained unchanged, is a claim for which they have produced no supporting evidence; it is no more than a bare assertion.

Such a transmission, if not established by tawātur (uninterrupted mass report), cannot be cited as proof in matters of creed, all the more so when, as will be shown under the third point, the claim is manifestly false. Many languages lack any ancient Gospel whatsoever; among them is Arabic. There were many Arab Christians before Islam, yet they knew of no Arabic Torah, Gospel, or prophetic books except what had been translated from Hebrew, Greek (Roman), or Syriac manuscripts. We therefore challenge them to bring forth these supposed Arabic books from the era of the apostles—where are they, and who has ever seen them? And even if it were assumed that such books had once existed in Arabic,