Muslim scholars teach the doctrine of tahrif, which is Arabic for “corruption.” Christians and Jews, they claim, have corrupted the Torah and the gospel (Arabic, injil).
However, Mohammed did not teach this. As we will see from the Quran itself, Mohammed commanded his followers to follow the Torah and the gospel and to seek out those among the Jews and Christians who were in possession of these gifts from God before Islam came to be. Mohammed claimed the Jews and Christians did not understand the great tomes they possessed, but he never denied that they possessed those great tomes; he never denied that Jews and Christians possess true revelations from God.
Mohammed claimed that the Torah and the gospel actually point to him (Mohammed) as the true and final prophet of God but that Christians and Jews do not understand this. But again, according to Mohammed, there are no real contradictions between the Torah, the Psalms—the injil—and the Quran.
In fact, as we will see, in one place the Quran seems to say the entirety of the Bible actually points to Mohammed. Thus Muslims should believe the entire Bible!
So where did the doctrine of tahrif come from? This concept represents a later development in Muslim theology that Muslim scholars developed in order to explain the obvious contradictions between the Quran and the Bible. The problem with this is, not only did Mohammed never teach tahrif, we can know as a matter of historical fact that the idea itself is false.
For example, when Mohammed commands his followers to listen to and obey the injil, or “gospel,” that the Christians possessed, we know precisely what constituted that “gospel” about which Mohammed spoke. Today, we have the Chester Beatty Papyri, dated from circa A.D. 250 (some scholars today maintain it was written even earlier), more than 300 years before Mohammed was born, which contains the substance of the four Gospels as we have them today. Plus, we have the Codex Vaticanus (A.D. 325-350), which contains the entire New Testament; and 5,300 more manuscripts, written in many different languages (Latin, Greek, Aramaic, etc.) that all demonstrate the “gospel” of Mohammed’s day is essentially the same gospel we have today.
The Quran and the Bible
With the above in mind, I recommend the “Detective Columbo” approach when conversing with Muslims. In other words, I ask questions:
“Maybe I’m mistaken, so perhaps you can help me. Why on the one hand does the Quran state we should follow the Torah, the Psalms, the gospel, the Bible, and the witness of Jesus, while elsewhere it denies some of the most basic teachings Jews and Christians hold dear from these sacred books? Why does the Quran state these are ‘revelations from God’ and yet deny essential teachings from these same revelations? Let me give you some examples of what I mean.”
Then I list these texts from the Quran for starters:
The apostles we sent before you were but men whom we inspired with revelations and with scriptures. Ask the people of the book, if you doubt this (Sura 16:43). (The “people of the book” are the Jews and Christians.)
Say: people of the book, you will attain nothing until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which is revealed to you from your Lord. That which is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase the wickedness and unbelief of many among them. But do not grieve for the unbelievers (Sura 5:68).
After them, we sent forth Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the Torah already revealed, and gave him the Gospel, in which there is guidance and light, corroborating what was revealed before it in the Torah, a guide and an admonition to the righteous. Therefore let those who follow the Gospel judge according to what God has revealed therein. Evil-doers are those that do not base their judgments on God’s revelations (Sura 5:46-47).
According to Mohammed, Jesus was a prophet and his words—the gospel—should be believed and obeyed.
Here’s where the problems really start. The point I make to my Muslim friends is this:
“The Quran teaches we should believe and follow the revelations of both the Torah and the gospel. With all due respect—maybe I’m wrong here—but it seems to me Mohammed did not know or understand the clear teachings of these sources that he acknowledged to be ‘revelations’ from God.”
At this point I give these examples that are not intended to be exhaustive. These are just a few among the many we could cite:
1. Sura 2:75 says the Torah is “the Word of God.”
2. Sura 10:62-64: “The servants of God have nothing to fear or to regret. Those that have faith and keep from evil shall rejoice both in this world and in the hereafter; the Word of God shall never change. That is the supreme triumph.”
3. Sura 6:34 says “none can alter the words of Allah,” yet the doctrine of tahrif says, in essence, that Jews and Christians corrupted “the word of God.” This simply does not work here. Moreover, Muslims teach a doctrine of naskh as well. Naskh is Arabic for “abrogation.” It states later “revelations” in the Quran can “abrogate” earlier ones. But if the “word of God” cannot change, how can there be “abrogation”?
4. The original “gospel” of Jesus Christ, or injil, is a revelation from God according to Sura 5:46, 66, 68, and 70.
5. Jesus was a prophet, and Muslims should believe his words (Sura 4:171; 5:77). Thus, Christians and Muslims were obligated to accept the “gospel” of Mohammed’s day, according to the Quran. In fact, Sura 10:94 says, “If thou [Mohammed] wert in doubt as to what we have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the book [the Bible] from before thee; the truth hath indeed come to thee from thy Lord; so be in no wise of those who doubt.”
That was allegedly God speaking to Mohammed and telling him to go to the Bible in order to confirm the revelations he was receiving! The problem for Muslims is this: If you obey what God said, according to the Quran, to Mohammed, you will end up Christian. And this is why:
Jesus is not the Son of God
The Quran says Jesus is not the Son of God (Sura 19:35, 10:68).
The Bible says Jesus is the Son of God (John 1:18, 3:16, 17:1-5, etc.). In fact, in Mark 14:62, the high priest placed Jesus Christ under oath exercising his “power of adjuration” from Leviticus 5:1 (see Matt. 26:63) and demanded to know specifically if Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God. Jesus’ response was unequivocal:
“I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his clothes, and said, “Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy.”
Not only did Jesus declare himself to be the Son of God and refer to Daniel 7:13, a messianic text, applying it to himself, he also used the divine name, I AM, from Exodus 3:14 for himself as well. In one fell swoop, he refers to himself as God, the Son of God, and the Messiah. Yet the Quran denies he is the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh.
Jesus did not die
Next, the Quran says Jesus did not die, nor was he crucified (Sura 4:157-159). Someone else was crucified in his place. God actually took Jesus up alive.
The Bible (and history) says the Old Testament predicted Jesus would die in Isaiah 53:5-10, Psalm 22:16, Daniel 9:26, Zechariah 12:10, and Wisdom 2:20.
Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection in John 2:19-21, 10:10-11; Matthew 12:40; Mark 8:31; etc. In Matthew 17:22-23, Jesus said, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him, and the third day He will be raised.”
Moreover, we have multiple secular histories that record the same. Ancient historian Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews says: “Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross” (18:3).
Tacitus, the Roman historian. Wrote in Annals: “A wise man who was called Jesus . . . Pilate condemned him to be condemned and to die” (15:44).
Julius Africanus, circa A.D. 220, records the words of Thallus, the first-century historian, who, “when discussing the darkness which fell upon the land during the crucifixion of Christ,” said it was an eclipse.
The Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion (circa A.D. 70), housed in the British Museum, speaks of Christ’s death, asking: “What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?”
Even the often anti-Christian Jewish Talmud acknowledges that “on the eve of the Passover they hanged Yeshu [of Nazareth]” (Babylonian Talmud, Sandhedrin 43a).
We cannot even begin to quote the thousands of references from the early Christians referring to our crucified and resurrected Lord.
Jesus is not God
The Quran says Jesus is not God (Sura 5:72-73).
The Bible could hardly be clearer that Jesus is God. Here are just a few references:
In John 1:1-3, and Colossians 1:15-16, Jesus is not only called God (in John 1:1), he is also referred to as the Creator of all things. God alone is the Creator of all things (see Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 44:24). In John 5:17-18, St. John tells us plainly that Jesus is “equal with the Father.” John 8:24, 28, 58 and 18:1-6 record Jesus Christ using the divine name “I AM” for himself. See also Titus 2:13; John 20:28, and Hebrews 1:6-11.
In Mark 2:28, Jesus refers to himself as “Lord of the Sabbath.” Only YHWH is Lord of the Sabbath (see Exodus 20:10, for example).
In Revelation 1:8, we have these words from almighty God: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” There can be no doubt that these words hearken back to Isaiah 44:6: “Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of Hosts: I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God” (see also Isaiah 48:16).
This has to refer to almighty God. And yet, Jesus says in Revelation 22:13: “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
And there is so much more.
A simple question
In view of just these three examples, I have to ask my Muslim friends a question: “Why would I accept the Quran, which tells me to listen to the Torah, the gospel, and even the entire Bible, when the Quran so blatantly contradicts the Bible?”
If I consider this especially in view of the fact that Jesus had already warned us “there shall arise false Christ’s and false prophets. . . . Behold I have told you beforehand” (Matt. 24:24-25), and I could also add I John 4:1, which similarly warns, “Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God because many false prophets are gone out into the world”; and then we have texts like I Timothy 4:1-3; Galatians 1:8-9; and II Corinthians 11:3-4, 13-14 that give similar warnings—why would I ignore all of these warnings and accept the Quran, which is inundated with false prophecies?
I could go on to show how Jewish belief is misunderstood in the Quran. I could show the logical inconsistencies in the Quran itself. But the bottom line here is this: Anyone who would honestly examine the facts concerning the Quran and the Bible must conclude that Jesus Christ is the Lord, God of heaven and Earth, who calls us all to himself, and the Quran is in grave error.