In this section, I will highlight some of accusations to the Jews by Christians that the Jews made Bible interpolations to hide some of the prophecies by Jesus (Peace be upon him). I will give 3 examples here. This is a clear proof that interpolations happened in the Bible, and that it wasn’t protected by God, but God tested the Jews for their honesty, but they interpolated
The first example is Justin Martyr says in his dialogue with Trypho:
Chap. LXXII. — Passages Have Been Removed by the Jews from Esdras and Jeremiah.
And I said, “I shall do as you please. From the statements, then, which Esdras made in reference to the law of the passover, they have taken away the following: ‘And Esdras said to the people, This passover is our Saviour and our refuge. And if you have understood, and your heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him on a standard, and170 thereafter hope in Him, then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, says the God of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, and will not listen to His declaration, you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations.’171 And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut out the following: ‘I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall no more be remembered.’ (Jer_11:19) And since this passage from the sayings of Jeremiah is still written in some copies 235 [of the Scriptures] in the synagogues of the Jews (for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since from these words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and is here represented as a harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give themselves over to blasphemy. And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.’172
171 It is not known where this passage comes from.
172 This is wanting in our Scriptures: it is cited by Iren., iii. 20, under the name of Isaiah, and in iv. 22 under that of Jeremiah. — Maranus.
Another example was what said by St. Chrysostom in his Homilies on Gospel Matthew:
“6. We see here the cause why the angel also, putting them at ease for the future, restores them to their home. And not even this simply, but he adds to it a prophecy, “That it might be fulfilled,” saith he, “which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”383
And what manner of prophet said this? Be not curious, nor overbusy. For many of the prophetic writings have been lost; and this one may see from the history of the Chronicles.384384 For being negligent, and continually falling into ungodliness, some they suffered to perish, others they themselves burnt up385385 and cut to pieces. The latter fact Jeremiah relates;386the former, he who composed the fourth book of Kings, saying, that after387a long time the book of Deuteronomy was hardly found, buried somewhere and lost. But if, when there was no barbarian there, they so betrayed their books, much 56 more when the barbarians had overrun them. For as to the fact, that the prophet had foretold it, the apostles themselves in many places call Him a Nazarene.388“
A third example is what Adam Clarke said in his commentary on Isaiah 64:4
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard “For never have men heard” – St. Paul is generally supposed to have quoted this passage of Isaiah, 1Co_2:9; and Clemens Romanus in his first epistle has made the same quotation, very nearly in the same words with the apostle. But the citation is so very different both from the Hebrew text and the version of the Septuagint, that it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile them by any literal emendation, without going beyond the bounds of temperate criticism. One clause, “neither hath it entered into the heart of man,” (which, by the way, is a phrase purely Hebrew, עלה על לב alah al leb, and should seem to belong to the prophet), is wholly left out; and another is repeated without force or propriety; viz., “nor perceived by the ear,” after, “never have heard:” and the sense and expression of the apostle is far preferable to that of the Hebrew text. Under these difficulties I am at a loss what to do better, than to offer to the reader this, perhaps disagreeable, alternative: either to consider the Hebrew text and Septuagint in this place as wilfully disguised and corrupted by the Jews; of which practice in regard to other quotations in the New Testament from the Old, they lie under strong suspicions, (see Dr. Owen on the version of the Septuagint, sect. vi.–ix.); or to look upon St. Paul’s quotation as not made from Isaiah, but from one or other of the two apocryphal books, entitled, The Ascension of Esaiah, and the Apocalypse of Elias, in both of which this passage was found; and the apostle is by some supposed in other places to have quoted such apocryphal writings. As the first of these conclusions will perhaps not easily be admitted by many, so I must fairly warn my readers that the second is treated by Jerome as little better than heresy. See his comment on this place of Isaiah.
Another acknowledgements by Adam Clarke
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