DO MUSLIM'S BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE?

             

DO MUSLIM'S BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE?

Muslim's claim to believe in the torah (torat) and the writings of David, the Psalms (zabur) and the Gospel (Injil). However when it comes to the Bible in our hands today they consider it corrupted, not being accurate as it was written. Because of this God gave the restored truth to Mohammed which is written down in the Qur'an. They claim the Qur'an is the full and final revelation of God, and thatMohammed is the seal of all the prophets. Their claim is that Mohammed’s writings are verbally inspired having in their possession an absolute perfect copy, so it supersedes the Bible. Because of this view the Bible is always interpreted by what the Qur'an says first. When becoming engaged in a conversation with a Muslim one quickly finds themselves confronted with circular reasoning. What the Qur'an does is abolish the authority of the Bible. Their Injil says Jesus never died or resurrected. When asked, how do you know the Qur'an is true? They answer because Mohammed said so. How do you know he is the prophet, the Qur'an says so. So they go in a circle to prove either one.

When you ask the Muslim to consider Christianity they can’t because of the misrepresentation of it from the Qur'an. They don’t really know what we believe. They think we believe in three gods, the father the mother and the son. They think Jesus is the Son of God literally begotten, that he was conceived by sex. Son of God means sex and an offspring with God. I have a problem with someone who disbelieves what they don’t understand and doesn't take the time to look at what we mean.

The Qur'an is comprised of 114 revelations of Mohammed that are reported to be mostly spoken in pain from him twisting on the ground in convulsions. There is no prophet in scripture that received the word of God in this manner.

The Muslim claims the Qur'an was written in Arabic, which they claim is the language of heaven on a stone tablet in heaven having no human author. However we find the Qur'an is not written in 100% Arabic but has some Hebrew, Persian and even Greek words. If Arabic is the language of heaven and the Qur'an was dictated perfectly why does the Qur'an contains foreign words that are Hebrew, Greek and Persian. This contradiction should be evident to all.

If one were to ask where the original manuscript is there are no solid answers. The average Muslim will insist they know it is in their possession, but scholars know better. To not have the original and to not know where it is, not a tenable position to take. Especially when one states the Qur'an is a perfect book of revelation, correcting the Bible. How can Mohammed have had this done in all there languages? Are all three spoken in heaven?

Mohammed is considered a universal prophet yet he has communicated to us in Arabic. The only miracle he has done is writing the Qur'an which can be understood only by those who speak Arabic. But if you don’t speak it you must believe the miracle that he is the prophet to the whole world anyway. They want to convert the whole world to speak Arabic because that is the Holy language. The miracle is related to language. Every time you take a verse in English and challenge them they will say that is not a correct translation; you don’t understand the language. How can God, who is to speak to all people through his prophet, restrict himself to one particular language? They claim God spoke to Mohammed in the language of his people only and that no one else can understand because they claim Arabic the language of heaven! In contrast Jesus' commission commands that God's message be communicated to every persons culture and in their own languages. In other words we are to bring God's message to them not them to God's message.

This is why when someone becomes a Muslim it is necessary to take an Arab name, A new convert’s name is to be changed to the Islamic equivalent of his name. Speak Arabic, dress like an Arab, eat only what Arabs eat, pray facing toward Mecca. This is a religion exclusively to the Arab culture of the Middle East.

If we are to accept the Qur'an as an inspired message than it must pass the test that the previous books did. First it must be in agreement with the former revelation of holy writings because they supposedly came from the same source that is the one God. Just as in the Old Testament. they tested a prophet by the standard of the scripture if they spoke in harmony with the word of God and the former prophets. Since the Qur'an comes 500 years after, it too must comply with the tested words of scripture. If we are to accept the Muslims argument of the Bible being corrupted this means God could not preserve His Word. If He failed to do this for the Bible what makes one think he would not fail to do this for the Qur'an? There are no guarantees. If a Muslim rejects the Bible he must also reject the Qur'an because Mohammed appeals to the Bible as an authority. If he accepts the Bible he must then reject the Qur'an, because of the contradictory stories that challenge essential eternal truths.

How can a Muslim really know the Bible is corrupted, what do they have to compare it to? How did Mohammad know this if he could not read or write and did not possess a Bible in Arabic? The answer of the Qur’an being accepted as absolutely true because Mohammad said so is unacceptable. As the God of the Bible consistently asks the seeker to test and to prove what he says to see if it is true. So He invites our inquiry, He does not discourage it.

While the Muslim is more than willing to debate whether the Bible and Christianity is true, a non Muslim does not have the same freedom to criticize their Quranic literature. This is considered an affront to the Muslim to question their holy book. As Christians we are not afraid of someone questioning the validity of scripture since we feel they will stand the scrutiny of any skeptic many of whom have become believers in the process. Others outside Islam are not afforded this opportunity. Especially in a nation that may be Muslim.

Mohammed lived in 600 A-D. Today we have whole manuscripts going back to 300 A.D. which is 300 years before he was born. We also have separate letters that predate all of these by a few hundred years all of which give an accurate representation of the original writings (autographs.)

Mohammed used to say to the Christian of his day “Go and look at your Bible, your Bible will tell you what I’m saying is true. “ He appeals to the Bible at least twenty five times, the lesser will always appeal to the greater or that which is equal. Today we have the same Bible that Mohammed was pointing to in his day. It has not changed, so why is there such a conflict not only in these areas but also in so many other crucial teachings?

What the Muslim will say -Mohammed was not referring to the New Testament, but to the Torah.Because it is said of Christians, “ they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them

They believe the Quran was verbally dictated by the angel Gabriel which are based on eternal tablets that are in heaven. If the Qur’an is eternal and God is eternal then we have two eternals, Islam does not believe there are two but only one eternal, that is God.  

Naturally if there is a conflict it must be in the Bible and not their own book. When one looks at history we find a majority of religion's that have been started from angel's, Islam is no exception to this. Angels have always been involved in bringing revelation to mankind. They have also been involved in bringing false information. Can the same angel say two different things on the same subject and they both be true? Obviously not, yet this is exactly what has transpired in the Qur'an. There is something else operating here that proves it is not the angel Gabriel as they claim.

In their own Suras (chapter's) it states that God's word cannot change so if an angel several hundreds of years later comes with a different story, which one are we suppose to believe? Take for example the angel Gabriel's announcement of the Christ to Mary, he told her he would be called the Son of God (which means having the same nature as God) Luke 1:35 also in Matthew 1:23 he would be called Emmanuel, “ God with us.” This is the same angel that told Mohammed that God has no son, and that God is unable to incarnate.

Obviously these are two contradictory accounts of a major teaching, the incarnation. How can God be the author of both and how can the angel Gabriel give differing revelations several hundred years apart if this is a quote from Isaiah 7:14 in the Old Testament and literally fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus and Mary.

What we need to understand is that Mohammed had no Bible available in his native tongue, there was no Arabic translation until at least 200 years after he lived. So how did he know about the Bible? How could he say it was corrupted if he could not read it? (remember he is illiterate)  There seems to be a lot of evidence of Mohammed picking up these stories from his meeting different people along the trade route. The Nestorians established monasteries on the caravan routes and entertained travelers like Muhammad. Mohammad also learned from Arab nomads that sat around campfires at night telling their corrupted stories of the Bible. Many of the stories predate Islamic literature and were already circulating in Mohammed’s time (such as the Arabian fables of Genies and jinn). It is for this very reason the Qur'an has contradictions such as the story of Abraham going to sacrifice Ishmael and not Isaac.

The Qur'an goes as far as to say Abraham is considered the first Muslim because he submitted to Allah Sura 3:67. Abraham was not a Jew not yet a Christian but was an upright man who surrendered and he was not of the idolaters. (Also Sura 21:40) “Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian, but he was a Muslim.” The Bible calls him a Jew, the Jews consider him a Jew and so did Jesus. Everyone does except the Muslims. In the Qur'an it states Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are Muslim, they live and die for Islam. These are all foreign words for their time so they are clearly put in after the fact.

Is the Qur'an in concert with the Bible? Islam does claim that their teachings are in harmony with our scriptures but it is their book that is the accurate one. Muslims hold a high view for all Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, but they give a supreme position to the Qur'an. According to them, initially, it was never written down by men and so was never tainted with men's thoughts or styles. For these reasons it is often alluded to as the “Mother of Books” (From Sura 43:3-4).

The Qur'an states, “We have sent down to thee the book (Qur'an) with the truth, confirming the book (Bible) that was before it and assuring it. I agree that it should confirm the book preceding it, so let's compare the Qur'an with the Bible.

In the Genesis account referred to in the Qur'an we have contradictions to the Biblical record. Sura 41:9-10,12 says in 2 days God created the earth: 41:9 “Who created the earth in two Days? 41:12 “So He completed them as seven firmaments in two Days, and He assigned to each heaven its duty and command.” It took God 4 days to sculpt and form the mountains and the rivers, and then in 2 days he turned and finished the heavens. The Qur'an is self contradictory on this. What they do is add it up, so it states God took 8 days to create the world, this is a calculation of 4 days + 2 days + 2 days=8 days. Gen.1:31 says it took 6 days and God rested from his work on the seventh day (the God of the Bible that is). The Muslims answer is there is corruption on the part of the Bible. However there is no evidence of this in the Hebrew text or history, we still have the order of 7 days a week. This creation event is referred to in numerous other passages in the Bible Ex.20:11 God repeats that the world was created in 6 days and rested the 7th, He gives the nation of Israel the Sabbath as a covenant to commemorate this event. It states on the 7th day they too are to rest. The Quran has very little to say about the Sabbath except to bring guilt upon the Jews. 2:65 And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them: “Be ye apes, despised and rejected” (also 4:154; 7:163; 16:124). To sum this teaching up when we look at all the information it becomes quite confusing. The Qur'an also states Allah created everything “in the twinkling of an eye” Sura 54:49,50, “Who created the earth in two Days”41:9,12, “in four Days” 41:10, “who created the heavens and the earth in six days” 7:54; 10:4,32:4. 57:4 “He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in Six Days.” Sura 50:38 “We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in Six Days” (whose the “we”? I thought God is one)

What makes the Qur'an an enigma is that it is called a perfect revelation. The Qur'an also contradicts itself; “a Day,” is equal to “a thousand years” 32:5 and it is also “fifty thousand years” 70:4. Yet if one looks at Sura 7:51 and 10:3 it agrees with the biblical account of 6 days the world was created. So there is not only a contradiction with the Qur'an and the Bible, but three passages in their own book as well. Muslims instead of facing the inconsistency will usually do mathematical gymnastics. Adding 4+2+2 and come up with 6 instead of 8, the reason is 4 is divisible by 2 and so 4 is really 2, but the Arabic says 4 days +2 +2.

There is the account of Mt. Sinai being lifted up and held over the heads of the Jews as a threat for rejecting the law Sura 7:171. But the Jews did not reject the law there is no such thing in the Bible, but there is from the 2nd century Jewish apocryphal book, the Abodah Sarah.

Haman lived in Egypt, worked under Pharaoh and built a high tower to ascend up to the God of Moses built the tower of Babel during which time Noah's flood took place, (Sura 28:38; 29:38; 40:25,38). The name Haman is found in the story of Esther in Babylon, 1,000 years after Pharaoh. Some Muslims believe that the reference here is simply to another Haman, yet the name Haman is not Egyptian, but uniquely a Babylonian name. (Pfander 1835:283-284).

In Sura 7:124 Pharaoh advises his sorcerers by threatening them with death on a cross. In Sura 12:41, the baker in the story of Joseph is told he would be crucified. History shows there were no crosses in those days so this is in accurate history.

In Sura 11 one of Noah's son was drowned in the waters “So the Ark floated with them on the waves (towering) like mountains, and Noah called out to his son, who had separated himself (from the rest): "O my son! embark with us, and be not with the unbelievers!" (11:42). Not only does this contradict the Bibles account but the Qur'an contradicts itself.   The son replied: “I will betake myself to some mountain: it will save me from the water.And the waves came between them, and the son was among those overwhelmed in the Flood.,… . The Ark rested on Mount Judi, and the word went forth:“Away with those who do wrong!” And Noah called upon his Lord, and said: “O my Lord! surely my son is of my family! and Thy promise is true, and Thou art the justest of Judges!” He said: “O Noah! He is not of thy family: For his conduct is unrighteous. So ask not of Me that of which thou hast no knowledge! I give thee counsel, lest thou act like the ignorant!

Did the ark land on mount Judi? did any of Noah's family drown in the flood? Genesis 7:13 “On the very same day Noah and Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark. Genesis 9:18-19 “Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.”

The Bible record is clear those who went into the ark all came out alive, (they were locked in) none were lost. If his whole family was saved then one of his sons could not have drowned. 

There is also another discrepancy, in Sura 11:40 “At length, behold! there came Our command, and the fountains of the earth gushed forth! We said: “Embark therein, of each kind two, male and female, and your family ...”

The Bible does not say two of each kind only. Gen. 7:2 “You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female” it then says “two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female.” V. 9 “two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.”

You may think this is splitting hairs, but the Lord is very specific and so is the record handed down to us. The Bible is not wrong.

The Qur'an states in Sura 20:85-87, 95-97 that it was a Samaritan who molded the calf at mount Horeb, though the term Samaritan was not coined until several hundred years later, in 722 B.C. (Pfander 1835:284) Samaritans came from the Jews intermarrying in the Babylonian captivity.

In Sura 19:10 it states Zacharias is speechless for only three days, while the Bible states it lasted the entire nine months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, until John was born.  

In Sura 19:22 we are told Mary gave birth under a palm tree. The Bible says in a stable, with animals (Lk.2:1-20) which were actually in the caves in the cliffs back then. The Koran (chap. 3) confuses the virgin Mary; the family is there called the family of Amram, or Imram. How can this be God inspired when such obvious mistakes are made? The two Mary's lived over1,500 years apart (Suras 18:28; 66:12; and 20:25-30).  Because it was Mohammed who confused the Mary who is the mother of Jesus with the Mary who is the sister of Moses and Aaron and the daughter of Imran, attributing Jesus birth to her. (Sura 19:28). This and other passages show that Mohammed lacked understanding of basic Bible history.

They claim Abraham was the first to believe, Sura 6:14 but in Sura 7:143 they say it was Moses.

The Qur'an states the Abraham and Nimrod were enemies, Nimrod cast Abraham into a fire but he came safely out. These two people are separated by a thousand years according to the Bible.

Much like the book of Mormon, on almost every story like the fall of man, Moses, Noah, Joseph and numerous others, the Biblical accounts are contradicted. Name, dates, events, phrases are used that are not from the periods the Qur'an gives them. There are accounts of the apocryphal stories within the Quranic literature which implies that they were using whatever stories were available at the time. Scholars who have examined the dialect of the type of Arabic spoken of in the Qur'an have focused its source to someone in the Quarish tribe written in the 7th Century.

Hadith's are oral traditions handed down and were transcribed after Mohammed's death. They are accounts of what the prophet said and did and explain his approval of certain things said and done. It is a 2nd body of literature in authority to the Qur'an and some considered them essential to understanding the Qur'an.

The Hadith states in Vol. 6 Hadith 509 the revelations after Mohammed's death were scattered on palm leaves, rocks, bones, tree bark and animal skin. Hadith 63 vol.1 and Vol.4 709 “ the Caliph Uthmann got the Qur'an compiled and sent a few of its copies to far off places Uthmann wrote the manuscripts of the holy Qur'an in the form of a book. In Bukhari 6:525, 526 Qatada. and Anas relate that in the time, of the prophet before Uthman's rule , four people “collected” the Qur'an: Ubai, Mu'adh, Zaid bin Thabit, and Abu Zaid. In Bukhari1:63 Anas relates', “Uthman got the Qur'an compiled and sent a few of its copies to far off places.” Bukhari 4:709, says, “Uthman... wrote the manuscripts of the Holy Qur'an in the form of a book'. Even after the manuscript was put together, they found that they had missed some verses (Bukhari vol. 4, no. 62; vol.6, no. 510).

Uthman wrote his translations 644-656 AD and was given official approval. All other conflicting materials were destroyed (Miller response p.52, approach p.27 found in the facts on Islam Ankerberg and Weldon (also Hadith vol.1 #63 vol.4 #709 vol.6 #510 )

History shows there are missing verses and conflicting stories and so he made his own copy and he forced it on every one else telling them to burn all the other versions that conflict with his copy. The Shiites claim he removed 25% of the text. Whatever is the true story, we can be sure that the Bible does not have this type of background nor was it written in this manner.

“There was no definitive written text of the Qur’an while Muhammad was still alive, but the structure of the suras (chapters) and their titles may have been influenced by the Prophet. Muslims generally believe that the authorized version of the Qur’an derives its text and the number and order of the chapters from the work of a commission appointed by the third caliph (Islamic political leader), Uthman ibn Affan, during the second half of his reign, roughly 20 years after Muhammad’s death.

The most widely accepted history of this Uthmanic text is that the commission relied upon a written copy of the entire text that was collected from written and oral versions within two years of the Prophet’s death during the reign of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. Written versions had been created by those who acted as Muhammad’s secretaries and wrote down the revelations as the Prophet received them. Oral versions existed because some of Muhammad’s companions had memorized several chapters. The commission thus succeeded in establishing a complete text.

Different readings of certain words and verses, however, continued for a long time. This was due to differences among dialects of Arabic and deficiencies in the script used for writing at that time. Although Arabic script shows the characteristics of a consonantal script, there are several cases where the same form of writing was used to represent more than one consonant without any distinguishing mark. Even if there were agreement on the consonants, some words could be read in different ways because the earliest copies of the Qur’an were transcribed without symbols to represent certain vowels. Diacritical marks were added to the text a few generations after its creation, but the Uthmanic text was probably not accepted as a definitive text until the beginning of the 4th century of the Islamic calendar (10th century ad). In the 20th century an Egyptian edition printed in 1924 became the official text throughout the Islamic world.

The Uthmanic or canonical text represents a different sequence than the order in which Muhammad reportedly received the revelations. The chapters, after the short opening chapter called al-Fatihah, are arranged roughly in descending order of length. Because the first revelations are the shorter chapters, they are assigned to the end. It is not known why the chapters were arranged in this way, but this order has been preserved since the Uthmanic text was established. (Encarta Encyclopedia 2003)

“And in their prophets footsteps we Who's the we that is found throughout the Qur'an)? {Elohim, perhaps} sent Jesus the Son of Mary confirming the Torah that had come before him: we sent him with the Gospel; therein was the guidance and the light. And the confirmation of the Torah that had come before him; a guidance and a admonition to those who fear Alla

Now this verse of the Qur'an is the turn around. If God sent Jesus to confirm the Torah (The first five books of the Bible's Old Testament), then the Torah of Jesus' time are what the people read and Jesus quoted from. Jesus confirms that it was the same Torah God gave to Moses. In fact, it is proven that it is the same one we have today. The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that what we have today is what they were reading in their time. The arguments made are not factual but are founded on prejudice against Christianity and preference for Islam. One needs to be open and do their homework to see the conflicts.