2/79 — Writing with one's own hand and ascribing it to God
"Woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and then say 'This is from God', in order to sell it for a small price!"
The plainest form of distortion. And the verse enumerates three stages separately: writing (production), ascribing (fabricating a source), selling (advantage).
بِأَيْدِيهِمْ — "with their hands". A detail that looks superfluous; everyone knows that writing is done by hand. It is placed there for emphasis: the source is known, the agent is known. The sentence sets a human hand directly opposite the claim "from God".
The first addressees of this verse were a particular community; but the act it describes is peculiar to no community. Anyone who presents a religious ruling, his own opinion, his own preference as "God's ruling" falls under this description — those who fabricate hadith, those who bend a verse to their own advantage, those who make their personal judgement speak as though it were revelation. In the classical tradition this verse is among the warnings most often recalled in the matter of fabricated hadith.