Transcription
David, I want to ask you a question. I almost think is like the number one question most of us get and are gonna face. Number one, an objection we start any conversation for the Muslim, and that is, as soon as we start to want to introduce our holy scriptures into the conversation, the Muslim immediately puts up a wall and says, "Your Bible is corrupt." In other words, I can't, I can't even trust it, nor anything that you say about it. How do you answer that objection?
Well, I would agree with you that that is probably the most important issue. Because any other disagreement you have with a Muslim about Christian theology or anything else, as long as you can show him from the Bible, he has to fall back on that objection, "Well, your Bible has been corrupt." In other words, all these other issues that Muslims might disagree with us on, so the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, Jesus' death by crucifixion, his death for our sins, things like that. Any time you can show a Muslim that you're right from the Bible, if it contradicts Islam, he has to say, "Well, your Bible has been corrupted."
But there's a problem here, and it's two main problems. One is, just if you look at the actual history of the Bible, the kind of corruption that Muslims would need, you find no evidence of anywhere. Right? So Muslims will turn to people like Bart Ehrman and say, "Oh, Bart Ehrman says there are all these textual variants in the history of the manuscripts of the Bible." That's absolutely true. But nowhere do you have the kind of corruption that they would need. In other words, if you look at the kinds of variants, textual variants, lots of the vast majority of them are things like spelling variants, right? They're completely insignificant. In other words, you can have, you can have the Greek word for John spelled with one N or two Ns. And so you'll find that counts as a variant if one manuscript spells it with one N and another manuscript spells it with two Ns, that counts as a difference, right? So you have tons of these. But what do you need for the Islamic view of our scriptures to be correct? You need massive corruption of basic doctrines, right? You need, you need copies of the Bible where Jesus isn't the Son of God, unique copies of the Bible where Jesus doesn't die by crucifixion. And you don't find that anywhere in the nearly 6,000 Greek manuscripts that we have. And so the kind of corruption that Muslims need is, is, is just not there. They're using a kind of a kind of equivocation. They're saying, "Ah, your Bible has been corrupt." "What do you mean by corrupt?" "Oh, well, you know, manuscript scholars say there are textual variants." "Yeah, but you know, the textual variants do not help you. That is not what you need to mean by corruption. You need corruption of basic doctrine." And even Bart Ehrman would admit you don't have that with, with our scripture.
Explain to our viewers who Bart Ehrman is.
Oh, Bart, Bart Ehrman is, is an agnostic New Testament textual critic. And Muslims like to go to him because he'll, he'll talk about all of these variants in our manuscripts, meaning you can line these manuscripts up and find and spot differences in them. But what, what, they don't seem to realize is that what he is talking about are things that they have nothing to do with what Islam needs needs to be the case. Islam needs basic corruption of doctrine, and you just, you don't have that in the manuscript tradition.
So, so the manuscript tradition doesn't help Islam. But an additional problem for Muslims is that when they claim that our Bible has been corrupted, they've got problems with their own texts. And I don't just mean because the Quran also has similar issues, namely, you can line up manuscripts of the Quran and manuscripts of the Quran also have textual variants. You can look at one and see a different word, something else side by side, lining them up. Muslims don't know this because their leaders lied to them. But you have the same kinds of issues. And that's just basically, anytime you have humans involved in something, you're going to run into errors because humans make mistakes. If a human sits down and tries to write out a hand copy of the New Testament or of the Quran, he's going to make a mistake somewhere. And that would count as a, count as a textual variant. So any time you have humans in the process, you're gonna run into errors. So, so that's one issue for the Quran. If they're saying because of textual variants, therefore your book has been corrupted, well, guess what? There are variants in the manuscripts of the Quran. So are you saying that your book has been corrupted? They're not going to say that.
But, uh, the separate issue is that according to the Quran, our scriptures of the Torah and the Gospel were revealed by Allah. Surah 3, verses 3 or 4 of the Quran talk about the Torah and the Gospel being revealed by Allah. You have chapter 7, verse 157 of the Quran. Allah says that Christians and Jews were still reading the Gospel and the Torah during the time of Muhammad. So from the first century down to the seventh century, Christians and Jews were still reading the Torah and the Gospel. And you have passages, multiple passages in the Quran which say that no one can change or alter Allah's words. And in context, it's talking about Allah's books. And people can read this in Surah 18, verse 27, Surah 6, verse 115. Both of those passages say that no one can change Allah's words. So Allah has revealed something and no one can change his words.
If you go to chapter 5, verse 43 of the Quran, you have an interesting scenario where some Jews came to Muhammad to have Muhammad judge a dispute because he's a political leader by this time. Allah responds to the Jews coming to Muhammad and says, "Why do they come to you for judgment when they have the Torah?" Notice this makes no sense if the Torah has been corrupted. That would only make sense they, the Jews should only be going to the Torah for judgment instead of Muhammad, if they have reliable scriptures. If they have something corrupted, then they should be going to Muhammad to judge the dispute because their scriptures have been corrupted. So the text assumes that the Jews still have a reliable Torah.
Just a few verses later, chapter 5, verse 47, Allah commands Christians, the people of the Gospel, to judge by what Allah has revealed in the Gospel. If our Gospel has been corrupted, then Allah should be saying, "Hey, whatever you do, don't judge by the Gospel, it's been corrupted. You that's why you need the Quran." That's not what he says. He says Christians are supposed to judge by the Gospel.
What do Muslims do when you share some of this with them? Surah 6, 114. "The words of Allah cannot be corrupted." And, and Muhammad is like, like you just, you know, explained, he's given direct direction to use the Torah. And you share these with Muslims who often make this claim. And I'm sure your experience is the same as mine. They just make the claim, and they have no basis. Come on, I mean, that's, that's usually where their knowledge ends when they make the claim. And you and I respond to them, what kind of responses do you then get when you start sharing some of these things with them?
Well, they, they're then forced to reinterpret all of these claims. Right? So I've had Muslims tell me when I bring up, "Look, Allah says right here, 5:43, why are the Jews coming to you, Muhammad, when they have the Torah?" And just a few verses later, Allah commands Christians to judge by the Gospel. I've actually had Muslims tell me, "Allah's being sarcastic there. He's just being sarcastic when he commands them to judge by their own scriptures." You would have to do the same thing with chapter 5, verse 68, which says that the people of the book, Jews and Christians, have no ground to stand upon if they do not stand upon the Torah and the Gospel. You'd have to say, "Well, Allah is just being sarcastic here." As far as no one being able to change Allah's words, they'll say, "Ah, that only refers to Allah, His words in the Quran." It's not what it says. It says, "No one can change His words," right? It doesn't say, "No one can change the Quran," or "No one can change His words in the Quran." And so they're basically just forced to reinterpret all of these passages. And, you know, you can do that. You can reinterpret any verse to mean anything you want. But the more you do that, the more it becomes clear that you're not, you're not looking at what the Quran says and then forming your opinion.
The bottom line is, if you just, if you simply read the Quran from beginning to end and said, "What is this telling me about the scriptures of the Jews and Christians?" You would walk away saying this is concluding the position of the Quran is that Jews and Christians have reliable, incorruptible scripture from God, but they are not following it appropriately. And therefore, they need to be called back and compelled to follow it. And that's why the Quran orders us, "Guys, obey your scriptures." That's right. Because in the Quran itself, there is absolutely nothing that a Muslim can go to to prove this corruption argument that we get often, right? Absolutely nothing.
And just, just to piggyback on your, shall we close this out? It was even Kathir that I looked in the Tafsir commentary who says that supports everything, everything you were just saying. It's one that I use because he's one of the commentators that says, "Yes, it's the words of Allah that can't be corrupted," and that includes the Bible. And so our Muslim friends are telling us the exact opposite of what their God says. And bottom line is, if your God can say one thing and you can say what he really means is the exact opposite, then you're telling us that he's a horrible communicator, and you're that you are much clearer communicators. Why are we listening to him and not you?
Well, I want to thank you for giving us an answer on that very, very common objection that we all continue to face. We all face. Should we start witnessing to Muslims? Thank you.