Description
The Quran claims to be the last scripture given by Allah, preceded by the Torah and the Injil (the Gospel). In the tenth century, a critic of Islam pointed out that the Bible contradicts the Quran’s teachings on Jesus. Today, Muslims maintain that the early Jews and Christians “corrupted” the Bible, making the Quran the only trustworthy holy text.
I will demonstrate that:
(1) The Quran pits itself against the settled historical facts that Jesus was crucified, and that His early followers unanimously agreed He was God.
(2) Even if the early Christians had somehow corrupted the Bible, the Quran refers to the Bible of the seventh century as true, and that is indisputably the same Bible we have today.
(3) Muslim scholars never claimed the Bible was corrupted until this critique became popular.
Biblical History – Preface
This section has to begin with a little New Testament history.
There are thousands of manuscripts of the Bible. Atheist and Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, plainly says in the book (and here on his blog) that the bases for the Biblical divinity of Christ and the real-life crucifixion are so consistent across every manuscript that their authenticity cannot be doubted.
Bart Ehrman also says the scholarly consensus is that the gospels were all written within living memory of Jesus. The earliest was Mark, (70 AD), in which the first sentence calls Jesus “the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Here are (many) subtler examples of Mark saying Jesus is God using references to the Torah. But each of the four Gospels makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is actually God. The Gospel of John is the most explicit – for example, there is a scene where Thomas says to Jesus, “my Lord and my God,” and Jesus responds, “because you have seen Me, you have believed” (John 20:28-29). In another portion of the text, Jesus says, “before Abraham was, I AM,” pointing to His eternal existence, and referring to Himself using “I AM,” the name of God (John 8:58).
Paul’s epistles, at the latest, were written in 66 AD – 36 years after Christ’s death. They refer to Christ as the Son of God or as God often (Romans 1:4, Philippians 2:5-7, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 1:3). The epistle of Peter similarly calls Christ God (2 Peter 1:1). The epistle of James calls Him the glorious Lord. (James 2:1). Further, in 1 Corinthians, St. Paul challenges anyone who doubts Christ’s divinity to simply come to Jerusalem and ask everybody what happened, as hundreds were alive to see Him risen.
Beyond the Biblical canon are the letters of Ignatius. Ignatius was a disciple of John the Apostle (Jesus’ closest friend) and wrote them around 117 AD. Each refers to Christ directly as God, Lord, Son of God, divine redemptive sacrifice – or all of the above. There are dozens of letters from other second century Church leaders who also referred to Christ as God, Son of God, savior – some within living memory, some just beyond it, but all considered authentic by scholars.
There are non-Christian sources written only a decade after the death of the last Apostle claiming that Christians worshiped Jesus. Here is Cornelius Tacitus, writing around 110 AD that there are “Christians” with a “superstition” about Christ who was crucified. Furthermore, he speaks of how these Christians – who lived well within living memory of Christ – were willing to undergo unspeakable torture for their belief. Here Pliny the Younger, again around 110 AD, writes that Christians are worshiping Jesus “as a god.” The satirical play The Passing of Peregrinus mocks Christians for “worshiping a man as a god” around 160 AD. Historians consider each of these sources unquestionably authentic.
So, to summarize: we have hundreds of Biblical manuscripts which scholars agree (1) come from incredibly early writings, (2) from multiple sources, and (3) have no meaningful variation. They all claim Christ is God or, even in the most conservative reading, the Son of God. There are dozens of non-Biblical letters from the same era with the same sort of scholarly consensus of authenticity. Some letters come from within the Christian Church, some from without, and all agree that the Christians worship Christ.
On to the arguments.
The “First Followers” Contradiction
The Quran makes four major claims about Jesus:
(1) Jesus was not crucified; it was an illusion (Quran 4:157).
(2) Jesus never taught that He was God. He taught that He was a prophet, and that another prophet, Mohammad, was coming (Quran 3:50, Quran 19:30, Quran 61:6).
(3) Jesus was successful at preaching this message to His closest followers (Quran 3:52), although some others rejected it.
(4) Allah promised Jesus’ believers they would be “superior” to the disbelievers until the day of judgment (Quran 3:55).
Any of these points being wrong would disprove the Quran.
Regarding the first – Jesus’ crucifixion is one of the most well-attested events in human history. The only source claiming it didn’t happen is the Quran, which came 600 years later with no corroboration.
The Gospels and the epistles were written by Jesus’ closest followers and their closest followers, and every single one says that Jesus was God, that He taught He was God, or both. If Jesus did actually say it, that would disprove (2). But if His closest followers unanimously believed it due to misapprehension, that would disprove (3) and (4), which say Jesus was a successful Islamic prophet. According to the mountains of evidence, one of these must be true. Who are these Islamic followers of Jesus? Where are their writings? How exactly were they “blessed by Allah” if they were lost to history so swiftly that no one even has a shred of evidence they existed?
The Quran contradicts mountains of Biblical evidence, and has no evidence for the counterclaim except appealing to its own authority. That is, your starting assumption needs to be that the authors who were eyewitnesses to Jesus were all lying, and the author who was not there and wrote about it 600 years later is the one telling the truth. Would this be the basic assumption under any other circumstance? If the Bible was the book which required such an assumption, wouldn’t Muslims consider that indisputable evidence of corruption?
The Internal Contradiction
Even more certain than the fact that the early Christians worshiped Jesus is the fact that the Bible of the seventh century featured a divine Jesus who was crucified and resurrected. The bishops who compiled the canon of the Bible were in unanimous agreement about this. It was very explicit in the ecumenical Christian creed which predates the Biblical canon, and again, the manuscript evidence is incontrovertible. However, throughout the Quran there are instructions for the Jews and Christians to use their scriptures to confirm the Quran. The argument from here is as follows:
(1) For the Quran to be true, the Bible has to confirm it.
(2) The Bible does not confirm it.
(C) The Quran is false.
The only premise in any doubt is (1). Muslims claim that the Quran does not claim that the Bible of the seventh century confirms it. Unfortunately for them, there are dozens of quotes from the Quran which only make sense when interpreted that way. There are so many quotes from the Quran about this, I’ve organized them into general categories instead of quoting them. I invite you to read every hyperlink if you want the verbatim:
(1) In the following six verses, the Quran claims the Torah and the Gospel are proof of its own authenticity: Quran 2:97, Quran 3:3, Quran 4:136, Quran 6:92, Quran 6:114, Quran 35:31. None of the verses say, “the Bible once proved the Quran but is now corrupt.” The Quran claims to make all things clear in Quran 16:89 – surely this disclaimer would be of the utmost importance?
(2) These seven verses instruct the Jews and Christians (sometimes called “people of the book”) to verify the Quran using their scripture: Quran 2:101, Quran 5:68, Quran 2:40-41, Quran 5:48, Quran 7:157, Quran 10:94. This command is irrational if the scripture they had was corrupt beyond recognition.
(3) These three verses instruct the Jews and Christians to verify the Quran using scripture they “already have” or “is in their hands” (Quran 5:43, Quran 5:47, Quran 2:89. This command is irrational if the scripture they had “in their hands” was corrupt beyond recognition.
(4) In Quran 5:68, Quran 2:85, and Quran 3:69, Allah disparages the Jews and Christians for only selectively obeying scripture. But if the scripture is corrupt, they should only be obeying it selectively.
(5) Conversely, Quran 3:199 says the good Christians and Jews “believed what was revealed to them” and the Quran. But again, if the scripture is corrupt, this praise is senseless.
(6) Quran 3:71 says the Jews and Christians reject their books knowingly. That is, what is in the books is correct enough that they know what they’re rejecting. Similarly, Quran 10:36-38 decries the false assumptions made by Christians and Jews, but verifies that their scripture was from Allah.
(7) There are two passages which speak about willful “corruption” through the tongues of the Jews and Christians. Quran 3:78 decries Jews and Christians “among” them – that is, alive 600 years after the Bible was written – who twist the teachings of scripture “with their tongues.” Quran 5:13-15 speaks again of distortion, but the last verse clarifies that, again, it is speaking about interpretation. Like the previous examples, this implies the text of the scripture is true, else the false interpretation would be a given.
(8) There is one passage in the entire Quran which explicitly mentions textual corruption. Quran 2:75-2:79 speaks of conniving Jews and Christians among them who “knowingly corrupt [the Bible] after understanding it” with their hands and deceive the illiterate for “fleeting gain.” But again, the passage doesn’t make sense unless the Bible it describes is real:
First, these people are held in contrast to those who do not “trade Allah’s revelation for fleeting gain” in 3:199. Why call the Bible Allah’s revelation in both passages if it wasn’t? And if it was already corrupt beyond recognition, why punish those who corrupt it and bless those who accept it? Second, it says they “knowingly corrupt [the Bible] after understanding it.” But to claim that the corruption was committed with this level of awareness means the Bible “among them” must have been (1) real and (2) clear. Third, pointing out that they deceive “the illiterate” suggests that if the illiterates could read, they wouldn’t have been fooled. But that doesn’t make any sense unless the scripture was real and clear enough that it would dispel such confusion upon reading it.
“Corruption” is a Later Argument
Aside from these last three passages I mentioned, the concept of Biblical corruption does not exist in the Quran. In fact, it’s the opposite: Surahs 6:115 and 18:27 claim the word of Allah is unalterable, and over and over the Quran calls the Bible the word of Allah. These verses do not suggest that the Torah and Gospel were themselves corrupted; rather, they suggest that human misinterpretation and people willfully adding untruth to scripture corrupted the otherwise uncorrupted message. This clear inference was the scholarly consensus during the early years of Islam.
This argument that the Quran contradicts itself by claiming the veracity of the Bible was first made in the Apology of Al-Kindi sometime in the tenth century. This was shortly after the Bible was first translated into Arabic. No Muslim scholars claimed Biblical textual corruption prior to this time. Further, the corruption theory did not become popular until the 11th century – the same time the Al-Kindi became popular.
The following Sahih (highest grade of authenticity) Hadiths all confirm the veracity of the Bible:
(1,2) Mishkat al-Masabih 154 and 155 confirm the prophet warned of bad oral alterations to tradition coming in the future. He commands the Muslims to believe in the Torah, but not always believe in the Jews who expound upon it. No mention of textual corruption.
(3) In Sunan Abi Dawud 4310, Abd Allah – a Jewish convert to Islam because he supposedly found Mohammad prefigured in the Torah – uses knowledge from those scriptures to corroborate a claim from Mohammad. No mention of textual corruption.
(4,5) In Sunan Ibn Majah 2558 and Sunan Abi Dawud 3626, Mohammad uses the Torah of his time. He then reminds the listeners it came from Allah. No mention of textual corruption.
(6) In Sunan Abi Dawud 4736 Mohammad rebukes a man for laughing at a Gospel verse because it is the word of Allah. No mention of textual corruption.
(7) In Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2875, the prophet states that the Torah, Gospel, and Quran are all parts of one whole. No mention of textual corruption.
(8) In Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2653, Mohammad bemoans that the Bible is with the Jews and Christians, but they ignore it. No mention of textual corruption. And again, shouldn’t it be good news they’re ignoring the Bible if it’s corrupt?
I found one sahih hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari 7363, which speaks of textual distortion of scripture. However, it uses the same language as Quran 2:75-2:79, describing people who “changed their scripture with their own hands” for “a little gain.” Again, this seems to be referring to contemporaries adding things to the scriptures to sell them, not corrupting the originals. The hadith right before it, 7632, is in lockstep with this idea, teaching Muslims to disregard the words of Jews, but tell them “we believe in Allah and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever is revealed to you.”
Neither the Quran, nor the Hadiths, nor early scholars teach Biblical corruption. In fact, an unbiased reading of all three leads to the opposite conclusion. But of course, the opposite conclusion means Islam is false.
Summary
The Bible is one of the most well-documented works of ancient history. There is a scholarly consensus that the manuscript changes over time were minimal and unimportant to the general ideas. There is a scholarly consensus that Jesus was crucified, and that His early followers considered Him to be divine. Historians have never found a single piece of credible evidence which suggests the opposite.
The Quran claims that Jesus did not die, that He taught Islam, that He preached that the prophet Mohammad was coming after Him, and that His early followers believed this. But there is no evidence for any of this except the Quran, and there is immense historical evidence proving the opposite.
Further, the Quran contains no less than 25 verses explicitly commanding Jews and Christians to validate the truth of the Quran using the Bible. Only one Surah mentions textual distortion, and it speaks of connivers in the 7th century “knowingly” creating false Gospel – so even this exception is a definitive statement that the true scripture existed at the time.
The early Islamic scholarly consensus was that the only Biblical corruption in the Quran is interpretive, not textual. At least eight Sahih Hadiths support this idea, and no Sahih Hadiths dissent. Only one makes even an abstract reference to scriptural corruption, and it uses it in the same context as the Quran – contemporary, and limited. The idea of Biblical corruption only started to exist when the Al-Kindi refutation became popular.