The Bible, the Koran, and Jesus

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a21fbb649fc2b2179ec1ac4/t/5e5546dc47111e4107664e68/1582647019419/Islam+Apocrypha+Sources.pdf

The Qur’an’s Turn to Violence

https://markdurie.com/the-qurans-turn-to-violence/

The Muslim Conundrum

Wesley Huff
Ramadan is in full swing this month and with it continue my conversations with Muslims. Over the last month I have been communicating with a number of Muslims about various subjects relating to the interaction of Christianity and Islam. In the course of these correspondences we have gotten on the topic of the authenticity of the Bible often. The following is what I routinely present to Muslims as an argument commonly referred to as the Qur'anic Conundrum:
1. The Qur'an routinely refers to the "previous Scriptures," identified as the "Torah" (توراة‎ - Tawrat, mentioned 18 times) and the "Gospel" (إنجيل - Injil, mentioned 12 times). These books are prefaced with the descriptors of being "sent down by God," as seen in places like Surah Ali 'Imran 3:3 and urah Al Ma'iadh 5:68: :

"He has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel;"

"Say, "O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord." And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. So do not grieve over the disbelieving people."

2. Muhammad is told by Allah in Surah Yunas 10:94, that if he has doubt he should look to the Jews and the Christians because they have the previous Scriptures:

"So if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters."

3. In context to mentioning the previous Scriptures the Qur'an declares that Allah's words cannot be changed in Surah Al-An'am 6:114-115:

"[Say], "Then is it other than Allah I should seek as judge while it is He who has revealed to you the Book explained in detail?" And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture know that it is sent down from your Lord in truth, so never be among the doubters. And the word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can alter His words, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing."

4. Christians in Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:46-47 are told to judge by the Gospel and if they do not do so they are "defiantly disobedient":

“And we sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.

And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.”

Conclusion: If the previous Scriptures sit in a chain of succession (as is alluded to by verses like 4:46) then it makes logical sense that you cannot remove one of the links of the chain without compromising the others. If indeed the Torah and the Gospel are corrupt, as modern day Muslims would have us believe, then the author of the Qur'an seems to have no knowledge of it. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary that the author of the Qur'an actually articulates their trustworthiness and authenticity as God's word.

Similarly, if the Gospel and Torah are God's word and no one can change God's word then how have these previous Scriptures become corrupted? Did Allah not know they would be corrupted - in which case he is not all-knowing? Could he not stop individuals from doing so - in which case he is not all powerful? Or is what we have in Surah 6:115 incorrect, in which case the Qur'an itself has been compromised?

In conjunction with accusations of change, why would Muhammad be encouraged to talk to a people who had corrupt Scriptures in 10:94? Would this not only confuse Muhammad as there are clear teachings being revealed to him for the Qur'an that inherently contradict what is in the Torah and Gospel?

We know exactly what "the Torah" and "the Gospel(s)" looked like during the late 5th and early 6th centuries of Muhammad's lifetime. We even have manuscripts from the areas near Syria and the Arabian peninsula from this specific time period. They are virtually identical to the modern Gospels and Torahs we have in translation today. Thus, if these commands had any application for their original audience then what was "the Gospel" and "the Torah" being discussed in Surah 10:94? If we know what these documents looked like in the time period that these verses have application then the evidence shows no serious difference from what we have today.

Finally, why would Allah tell Christians to judge by the Gospel if it had been corrupted? If the Torah and Gospel the Qur'an is continually talking about are not the Torah and Gospel(s) we have today then how is the eternal revelation of the Qur'an to speak to modern day Christians? Why bother making the statement that Christians are to "judge by what Allah has revealed therein" lest they be "the defiantly disobedient?" Why not simply tell the Christians outright that these former revelations were corrupt and to get rid of them in place of the more perfect Qur'an?

If I take the Qur'an at its word as a "person of the Gospel" and I judge the Qur'an by the Gospel that has been revealed to me, in accordance with the command in Surah 5:47, I find it wanting. I see no interaction with any of the discussions taking pace in the Gospel nor any indication regarding knowledge of what Jesus is recorded saying there. In fact, what I do see are continual contradictions and misunderstandings regarding what the Gospel says and teaches and therefore, if the Qur'an is true and I obey its command to me then I have to conclude that it is false.

Annotated Pentateuch

Recently I got into an impromptu debate with a Muslim apologist. I've reformatted the exchange to improve the flow of argument:

Yusuf

Would you be keen on discussing the reliability and authenticity of the OT? 

Hays

Kenneth Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans 2003) is a standard monograph. Good place to start. In addition, conservative commentaries on the Pentateuch discuss particulars. Another good resource is Richard Hess, The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (Baker 2016).

Yusuf

Do you still subscribe to Moses being the author of the Pentateuch?

Hays

Aside from occasional scribal updating, yes, it's Mosaic.

Splitting the moon

The Koran never explicitly attributes a miracle to Muhammad. One possible candidate is surah 54. The Koranic reference is elliptical, but when supplemented by the Hadith, it attributes a miracle to Muhammad, to verify his prophetic credentials. Here's one discussion from a standard reference work:

The first two verses of al-Qamar ["The Moon"] are understood by the vast majority of commentators as a reference to a miracle performed by the Prophet. One evening, he was addressing a group of disbelievers and Muslims on the plain of Mina, just outside of Makkah. The disbelievers had been disputing with the Prophet for several days, demanding a miracle as proof of his prophethood, and they began to do so again. The Prophet then raised his hand and pointed to the moon, whereupon it appeared to separate into two halves, one on either side of the nearby Mt. Hira. He then said, "Bear witness!" (IK, T) and the line of separation disappeared. All were left speechless, but his opponents soon discredited it as an illusion produced by sorcery. According to one account, one of the disbelievers said, "Muhammad has merely bewitched us, but he cannot bewitch the entire world. Let us wait for travelers to come from faraway places and hear what reports they bring". Then, when some travelers arrived in Makkah a few days later, they confirmed that they too had witnessed the splitting of the moon (IK). "The Moon," Seyyed Hossein Nasir, ed., The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (HarperOne, 2015), 1299. 

1. One obvious problem with this report is that it relies entirely on Muslim sources. 

2. But a deeper problem is the scale of the reported miracle. For the phenomenon would be visible to everyone on earth who happened to be facing the moon (assuming clear skies in their neck of the woods). And many of these involve literate civilizations. Add to that the fact that ancient people took a keen interest in celestial portents and prodigies, and you'd expect to have multiple surviving records of this event from geographically diverse localities. So a reported miracle that's cited to verify Muhammad's prophethood actually undercuts his prophethood, given how unlikely it is that a natural wonder of this magnitude would leave no trace in historical records outside the Muslim world. 

3. Perhaps a Muslim apologist would counter that if this is a problem for Islam, then there's a parallel problem regarding Joshua's Long Day (Josh 10:12-14), the sundial of Ahaz (Isa 38:8; 2 Kgs 20:9-11; 2 Chron 32:31), and darkness during the crucifixion (Mt 27:45; Mk 15:33). 

i) But even if (ex hypothesi) these were problematic for the historicity of Scripture, that doesn't let a Muslim off the hook. That doesn't resolve his own problem.

ii) The miracle attributed to Muhammad (7C AD) is far more recent than the NT example (1C), much less the two OT examples (8C BC & 2nd millennium BC). It's unsurprising that records wouldn't survive for much earlier events.

iii) The crucifixion darkness may simply be darkness over "the land" (i.e. Erez Israel). Indeed, that's practically an idiomatic synonym for Palestine. In that event, it's not on the same scale as the miracle attributed to Muhammad. 

It might be caused by swarms of locusts covering the sun. That would be a suitable omen of divine judgment. 

iv) Commentators often compare the crucifixion darkness to the Ninth Plague (Exod 10:21-23). That, however, was a local rather than global spectacle. Moreover, Goshen was exempted–which, again, stresses the local nature of the miracle. So it's not on the same scale as the miracle attributed to Muhammad. And if that's truly analogous to the crucifixion darkness, then that's another argument for the local nature of the phenomenon. 

v) The sundial of Azaz was evidently a local miracle, confined to the land of Judah (2 Chron 32:31). Had it been a global phenomenon, Babylonian emissaries wouldn't travel to Judah to enquire about the sign. Rather, they were following up on a report–given Babylonian interest in astronomical portents and prodigies. 

The accounts don't describe anything happening directly to the sun. Rather, they describe the counterclockwise effect of the shadow. Perhaps a preternatural or supernatural optical illusion. 

vi) Regarding Joshua's Long Day, it's hard to pinpoint the nature of the phenomenon because we lack a direct description of the event. The passage is poetic, and filtered through a secondary source, which makes it hard to identify the "mechanics" behind the miracle. But in context, the miracle involves prolonging daylight to give the Israelites extra time to defeat the enemy, so, at a minimum, a preternatural or supernatural optical effect is in view.

Is the Quran one or many?

A friend asked me to comment on this post:

https://bloggingtheology.net/2017/01/22/jesus-was-a-unitarian-surprise-surprise/

1. A few preliminary comments. If you turn to Deut 6:4, it says: "Here, O Israel, the Trinity is false!"

Only it doesn't say that. It doesn't say anything directly about the Trinity. In context, it sets Yahweh in contrast to paganism. 

2. As for Mk 12:28-29, Jesus reaffirms the Shema. What a surprise. Was anyone expecting Jesus to repudiate the Shema? 

Here's some recently scholarship on Markan Christology:

Put succinctly then, Mark’s Jesus is the kyriotic Son inasmuch as he embodies the royal hopes surrounding a Davidic ruler and healer, who performs these same activities (and more) as a god-in-disguise. Functionally, Mark’s Jesus is characterized as though he were the embodiment of both Yahweh and his Davidic Messiah. This union of the divine and Davidic creates a characterization for audience members in which the Markan Jesus far surpasses anything known in Jewish cultural memory aside from Yahweh himself. The result is that, for sympathetic audience members, the Markan narrative creates its own scripts and forms its own cultural memory, in which Jesus is assimilated to both David and God as a divine and suffering messiah. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2017/01/michael-whitenton-hearing-kyriotic-sonship/

Looks far more promising for Trinitarians than unitarians. And that's just Mark's Gospel, which has the least developed Christology. 

3. A final preliminary point: why are Muslims in the combox giving Bart Ehrman high fives for his claim that Markan Christology is unitarian? 

Do Muslims think the Gospels are unitarian? If so, why do they reject the Gospels? Aren't the Incarnation and Trinity the primary stumbling blocks for Muslims? If they think the unitarian interpretation is correct, why don't they accept the Gospels? They can't have it both ways. 

4. Now I'd like to quote and comment on some remarks a Muslim made:

Abdullah
If you saw an orange and you kept saying it’s an apple, the whole world would not change their language and their norm understanding for things because of what you invented by your tongue. 

In fact, by this kind of playing and tampering, we can make everything is acceptable even if you worshipped idols. Just invented an odd understanding, and new language to describe that absurdity, and you would be fine. 

I know some Christians out there wish to insist that the three Persons are not individual beings, but even with them, the question which was just asked can be posed. Could you share how you define the word “being”? 

For now, I’ll propose a very simple definition (which others, including Christians, are free to reject): a being is a thing which exists (i.e. here the word “being” is treated almost like an active participle of the verb to be). On such a definition, a cat could be a being, and various parts of that cat (e.g. its bones, its organs) could also be considered beings (though beings of a sort different from the being which comprises them). But even if one did hold to this definition, and concluded that a cat is a single being comprising multiple beings of another sort, that would not mean one cat is actually multiple cats. 

Analogously, do you consider yourself a being? Do you consider me a distinct being from you? If so, would that mean you are a polytheist? Or does the existence of multiple beings not automatically equate with the existence of multiple gods? 

But the whole matter is about your trinity. Muslims are asking why? If each person is a being who is full God by himself, then by definition why can’t we say that you worship three gods? 

Although your analogy is not right since I was arguing from christians’ perspective that they worship one being consists of three persons, yet are you saying that (each person) in the trinity is not god or it’s god?
As I know that you say each person is full God, so I’m asking what the real difference between you and polytheists except the terms that you use?!

He's responding to someone other than me. I might have phrased things differently than the person he's responding to. Still, this may be representative of how a reasonably intelligent Muslim attacks the coherence of the Trinity. So let's consider his objection.

Let's begin by formalizing his objection. It might go something like this: if B is identical to A, and C is identical to A, then B is identical to C (via A). That seems logically irrefutable. But what if that's deceptively simplistic? Identity is vexed issue in metaphysics. 

Let's take a comparison. I'm going to use some Muslim examples to illustrate a point. So let's assume for discussion purposes that Islam is true. I will be arguing from Muslim assumptions. 

Is the Quran one or many? Surely it can't be both. It must either be one or many. That's the same logic Muslims deploy against the Trinity.

Well, what is the Quran? Suppose I have a pile of objects on a table. I'm speaking to a Muslim. I show him a hardcopy of the Quran and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

I then show him a CD-ROM of the Quran and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

I then show him an audiobook of the Quran and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

I then show him an electronic Quran (on my e-reader) and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

I then show him a Braille Quran and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

I then quote the Quran in sign language and ask him what it is. I presume he'll say, "That's the Quran!"

So, is this one Quran or six Qurans? 

What about a lector who recites the Quran from a minaret. Isn't that the Quran? 

There's a sense in which these are all one and the same Quran. Yet there's another sense in which the spoken word is not the written word, an ebook is not a CD-Rom, which is not an audiobook, which is not a hardcopy. So here's a case where two or more things can be both identical and distinct. They can all be identical with the Quran even though they are not identical with each other. 

How is that possible? Well, we can say, in one respect, that the Quran is the message. The content. 

Yet the same information can be encoded in different media. So in that respect, it's possible for B to be identical with A, and C to be identical with A, even though B and C are not identical with each other.  

And we can carry the same principle back a few more steps. If Muhammad dictates a surah to a scribe, and the transcription is accurate, isn't that the Quran?

If Muhammad dictates the Quran from memory, and his memory is accurate, isn't his recollection of the Quran the Quran?

If Gabriel utters a surah to Muhammad, isn't Gabriel's utterance the Quran?

According to Sunni theology, there's an eternal Quran. An uncreated, heavenly exemplar. 

Yet that's distinct from, say, Muhammad's memory of the Quran. Muhammad's memory of what Gabriel said isn't eternal. Rather, that's a mental copy. A mental representation of what he heard. 

But let's take this back one step further: isn't there a distinction between the uncreated Quran and Allah's mind? 

Does Allah think in Classical Arabic? Is Allah's cognition inseparable from human words? Was Allah unable to think before the development of Classical Arabic? 

Or is the eternal Quran an Arabic translation that exists in Allah's mind? A translation, from thought into words, of Allah's nonverbal Quranic concepts? So how many Qurans are there? 

• Hard copy. Print media

• Braille 

• Ebook

• Audiobook

• CD-ROM

• Live recitation

• Sign language

• Transcription of Muhammad's dictation

• Muhammad's memory of Gabriel's revelations

• Gabriel's revelations

• The eternal Quran

• Allah's nonverbal concept of the Quran

Now, I'm not Muslim. I don't think Gabriel appeared to Muhammad. I was temporarily adopting a Muslim viewpoint for the sake of argument. 

In addition, my point is not that this presents a direct analogy from the Trinity. That's not how I'd model the Trinity.

It does, however, illustrate that there's nothing inherently contradictory or nonsensical about saying individuals can be both distinct in some respect, yet identical in some respect. And there's nothing terribly esoteric about that distinction. I just drew that distinction in relation to the Quran. 

To Appreciate Christmas, Read The Quran

I want to expand on Steve's recent post about competing miracle claims. One way to falsify the ridiculous skeptical suggestion that Christianity's miracles aren't significantly different than the competing miracles of other belief systems is to set Christianity next to each of its primary competitors, one-by-one, and see how they contrast. Islam, the second largest religion in the world and, in that sense, Christianity's biggest competitor, provides a good illustration. Contrast Jesus' credentials to the lack of credentials for Muhammad. Contrast Biblical prophecy to the Quran's lack of anything comparable and the pathetic nature of Islam's attempts to come up with something comparable. Contrast Muhammad's credibility problems to the credibility of early Christian leaders like Paul and James (former opponents who converted upon eyewitnessing the resurrected Christ and died as martyrs) and Luke (a demonstrably reliable historian who goes into a lot of historical detail in his writings). Contrast the vagueness and lack of historical context, names of individuals, place names, etc. in the Quran to the large amount of such details in the gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, and other Biblical documents. And so on. The idea that the credibility of Christianity and that of Islam are comparable is absurd. The claim that the two are comparable undermines the credibility of the person making the claim.

I referred to how large Christianity and Islam are. Their size doesn't, by itself, prove that either is true. But it is a significant factor that should be taken into account. The fact that Christianity is the largest religious movement in the history of the world gives it a lot of plausibility as a candidate for a Divinely-revealed religion, more than any of its competitors. The vast majority of Christianity's competitors down through the centuries either don't exist any longer or are far smaller. The largeness of Christianity takes on even more significance when you consider how the religion's growth was so unlikely and fulfills some unusual prophecies. I wrote about this subject several years ago in a couple of posts at Christmastime (here and here). The opening of Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophecy (52:13-5) is especially striking. You wouldn't expect a Jewish Messiah to initially be rejected by most of the Jewish people, then become widely accepted among Gentiles, including Gentile rulers. (For more about the Suffering Servant prophecy in general, see here. Not only is Jesus' rejection by the Jewish people and influence on the Gentile world beyond reasonable dispute and something that continues to unfold in modern times, but other aspects of Jesus' life that fulfill the prophecy are also highly evidenced: his crucifixion, the earliness of the belief that his death was intended to make atonement for the sins of others, etc. Isaiah's prophecy is detailed enough to single out Jesus among the billions of people who have lived throughout history.)

You'll have a greater appreciation of Jesus and his prophecy fulfillments at the time of his birth and his other miracles if you contrast them to what we see in Islam and other competitors. The large majority of those competitors are on the ash heap of history while Jesus grows increasingly "great to the ends of the earth" (Micah 5:4).

Nabeel Qureshi // Why I stopped believing Islam is a religion of peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htOWOF4gqs

A model Christian-Muslim discussion

Prof. James Anderson recommends a debate or discussion (or two) between Dr. James White and Imam Muhammad Musri: "A Model Christian-Muslim Discussion".

A funny thing happened on the way to the Koran

According to Islam, Muhammad received revelations from the Angel Gabriel. Let's grant that for the sake of argument.

According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad was illiterate. So he dictated his revelations to scribes. 

This wouldn't be the same as transcribing a revelation direct from the lips of Gabriel. For Gabriel didn't appear to Muhammad's scribes; rather, he appeared to Muhammad.

At best, therefore, this would be a case of Muhammad dictating to a scribe what he remembered Gabriel telling him. Unless he had verbatim recall of what Gabriel told him, this will be a paraphrase of what he heard. We typically remember the gist of what people say, not the exact wording. 

In addition, did Muhammad have scribes at his beck and call from the time Gabriel first appeared to him? Or did he only have scribes after he acquired a significant following? 

If the latter, then he didn't dictate his revelations when they were fresh in his mind. Rather, years might have elapsed, with a backlog of revelations, before he had scribes to whom he could dictate what, to the best of his recollection, Gabriel told him.

In that event, the earliest revelations would be in the poorest state of preservation, since they'd depend on Muhammad's memory years later.

And this is apart from the state of the unfinished Koran upon his death. 

Since it's literally a dictation theory of inspiration, it's only as good as Muhammad's natural fallible memory. 

That's even assuming we grant the claim that the Gabriel periodically appeared to him and spoke to him. 

The origins of the Koran

According to Sunni Muslims, copies of the Koran mirror an eternal heavenly exemplar. However, early accounts of how the Koran was compiled tell a very different story. For instance:

Zaid later said, "I then searched out for the various parts of the Qur'an, finding them preserved on palm branches, on the surfaces of flat stones, in the hearts of men, on pieces of leather, and on (the) shoulder-bones (of camels and/or sheep). The Biography of Abu Bakr As-Siddeeq, 519. 

https://ia902505.us.archive.org/23/items/TheBiographyOfAbuBakrAsSiddeeq/TheBiographyOfAbuBakrAs-siddeeq.pdf

You can read similar accounts. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the angel Gabriel spoke to Muhammad. Problem is, the text of the extant Koran is a compilation of oral traditions. Recollections of what Muhammad said. So that creates a gap between what Gabriel allegedly said to Muhammad, and the actual record. 

i) There's no way to sift apocryphal sayings of Muhammad from authentic sayings.

ii) At best, people generally remember the gist of what someone said, not the verbatim statement. 

Although the Koran contains autobiographical material, it's an oral history, passed down by word-of-mouth. Sayings attributed to Muhammad. But there's no way to authenticate the sayings. And even if apocryphal sayings could be eliminated, the remainder paraphrase what people remember that he said. They don't preserve the exact wording. 

Religion of peace?

The Quran, the Bible, and the Islamic Dilemma

Are All Religions Basically The Same?

One way to increase your appreciation for the Bible is to read the Quran. Consider Antony Flew's experience, for example.

Flew was a prominent atheist philosopher who came to believe in the existence of God shortly before his death. He never became a Christian, but that makes his comments about the contrast between Christianity and Islam even more significant. Unlike many critics of Christianity who irrationally claim that there aren't any significant differences among the religions of the world, Flew acknowledged some important contrasts between Christianity and Islam:

"Between the New Testament and the Qur'an there is (as it is customary to say when making such comparisons) no comparison. Whereas markets can be found for books on reading the Bible as literature, to read the Qur'an is a penance rather than a pleasure....Whereas St. Paul, who was the chief contributor to the New Testament, knew all the three relevant languages and obviously possessed a first class philosophical mind, the Prophet [Muhammad], though gifted in the arts of persuasion and clearly a considerable military leader, was both doubtfully literate and certainly ill-informed about the contents of the Old Testament and about several matters of which God, if not even the least informed of the Prophet's contemporaries, must have been cognizant. This raises the possibility of what my philosophical contemporaries in the heyday of Gilbert Ryle would have described as a knock-down falsification of Islam: something which is most certainly not possible in the case of Christianity....The evidence for the resurrection [of Jesus] is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion….Well, one thing I'll say in this comparison is that, for goodness sake, Jesus is an enormously attractive charismatic figure, which the Prophet of Islam most emphatically is not." (208-9, 211 here)

Muhammad's Lesser Credentials

There's a lot to criticize in the Quran, but the issue I'd suggest Christians focus on most is authority. We don't have sufficient reason to conclude that Muhammad was a messenger of God. And we have far more reason to trust Jesus than to trust Muhammad.

What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Qur'an – A Review

 Get the book here!

 http://store.aomin.org/what-every-christian-needs-to-know-about-the-quran-book.html

Here is TurretinFan's review:

http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-every-christian-needs-to-know.html