because the Apostles, they add, were infallible. Yet the entire argument rests on the claim of their infallibility—an allegation whose falsehood is already well-established.

If the Christians say, “We received the Scriptures from the infallible Apostles,” the Jews reply, “We received them from Moses, whose infallibility is acknowledged by all religious communities, or from an infallible sage whose status is affirmed by Jews, Christians, and many Muslims alike. By unanimous agreement, the Torah was taken from Moses son of Amram, and he is infallible. The only reason anyone questions the transmission of part of it is that the chain of mass transmission was interrupted when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and lay desolate for more than seventy years.

“Some, therefore, argue that certain phrases were altered at that time; others contend that not every copy was changed—only some were—and that those altered copies then circulated so widely that many people came to know no other version.”

Furthermore, among the Children of Israel a prophet succeeded a prophet without interruption until the Messiah appeared. Even after the Messiah, their numbers remained so great—scattered across East and West—that it is impossible to imagine them conspiring to alter every copy of the Torah. The case of the Gospel is different, for it was transmitted by only four men. And when the followers of the Messiah later wrote out the Torah, the Psalms, and the prophetic books, they could only copy them from the manuscripts already in Jewish hands.