two languages are truly derived from the disciples and are still in circulation today, could step forward and attest that they all match one another word for word? Such testimony is impossible except from someone who masters all seventy-two tongues, possesses exemplars that he knows with certainty go back to the disciples, and is equally sure that every copy in the world written in each language is identical to the exemplar in his hand. Otherwise, if he were to gather seventy-two manuscripts in seventy-two languages, he would still have no proof that each one of them is actually taken from the disciples—assuming, for argument’s sake, that the disciples ever produced versions in seventy-two tongues—nor that every copy elsewhere on earth agrees with the ones he has.
It is well known that, in our time and long before it, these scriptures have continually been carried over from one language to another: translated from Hebrew into Arabic, and from Syriac, Latin, and Greek into Arabic and other languages besides.
Hence, whenever an Arabic copy is found, no one can tell whether it is a post-apostolic translation or, on the remote assumption that the disciples themselves produced an Arabic version, whether it is directly taken from them. No individual could possibly gather all the Arabic translations and compare them one with another. Indeed, we have encountered Arabic versions that differ so sharply in their renderings that confidence in some of them is impossible. I myself have examined several Arabic copies of the Psalms whose discrepancies are almost beyond calculation—proof that they have been altered and tampered with and are therefore unreliable. I have likewise seen Arabic versions of the Torah whose renderings are rejected by many among the People of the Book themselves.
So how could anyone ever assemble all the manuscripts that exist in seventy-two languages, and then collate within each language every single copy, to ensure that among them there is one exemplar