Codex and Corruption: Tracing the Human Hand in Divine Scripture

The book of Joshua reveals yet another fracture in the supposed unity of the Hebrew Bible. In the Septuagint tradition alone, two major versions exist Joshua A (Codex Alexandrinus) and Joshua B (Codex Vaticanus) and they diverge dramatically. In Joshua 15, verses 21–62 differ; in Joshua 18, verses 21–28; and in Joshua 19, verses 1–45. These are not spelling slips or minor scribal variants, they are entire lists of tribal territories, borders, and city names that no longer match. This means that the very record of Israel’s inheritance of the Promised Land, supposedly dictated and preserved by divine authority, exists in competing textual forms. Each reflects a different Hebrew Vorlage, proving that the text of Joshua, like Exodus was rewritten long before the Masoretic Text became standard.

From an Islamic and critical perspective, this is not merely a historical curiosity but a theological crisis. If the sacred geography of God’s promise can shift from one manuscript to another, then the claim of an incorruptible Torah collapses once more. The Qur’an’s charge that previous revelations were altered by human hands (Qur’an 5:13) is not polemic, it is observable fact. The shifting borders in Joshua mirror the shifting commands in Exodus: divine revelation recast through human editing. Together they form a pattern of textual instability that exposes a deeper truth, the scriptures of old were not preserved in their original form, and the need for a final, protected revelation was never greater.