or that the greater part of them—or even more than that—had reached us only as translations from one tongue into another.

It is plain that within each language there exist a number of manuscripts, and even if there were but a single language, the vast multitude of copies dispersed throughout the East and West would still prevent anyone from asserting with certainty that all the copies share exactly the same wording and identical text. How, then, can these people make such a claim about copies scattered in seventy-two different languages, when they say:

“Similar statements about the Books of God revealed through the mouths of the prophets and messengers abound. Among all the Christians—whose tongues differ and who are spread across the seven regions of the world, yet who remain committed to the Christian religion—there is but one statement and one text, precisely as they received it from the disciples who turned them away from idol-worship and handed it down to every nation in its own language; and it has remained in that form up to the present day.”

This claim involves several assertions, none of which the speaker can possibly verify. It is therefore clear that they have spoken without knowledge, indeed in ignorance and misguidance, as is their habit.

They may be asked: Who has collected every single copy in the world of the Torah, the Gospel, the Psalms, and the other twenty-four prophetic books in a single language—Arabic, for example—and examined all those copies