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Christian Traps for Muslims |
Another misunderstanding Muslims often fall into concerns the Bible. Christian missionaries in almost every discussion of the Quran assert that the Quran asks Muslims to believe in the Bible as a revelation of God. Many Muslims tend to fall into this trap by saying that "we believe in the Bible as revealed book." Once the Muslim accepts this fact, the evangelist can point out that the Bible contradicts the Quran and that since the Bible has precedence over the Quran and since Muslims are required to believe in it, it therefore logically follows that the Bible is right and the Quran is wrong. But the Quran says no such thing.
There is no reference to the Bible in the Quran whatsoever. The Quran mentions the Taurat and the Injil. The Taurat is the book given to prophet Moses. This is not the equivalent of the Torah/Pentateuch of the Jews and Christians, since much of it was not written by prophet Moses. And the Taurat is definitely not the Old Testament since the OT includes dozens of books attributed to other prophets before Jesus. The Injil is translated as the Gospel revealed to prophet Jesus. This is not the New Testament. The New Testament is a collection of 4 biographies of Christ, 27 epistles of St. Paul, and other books on the lives and adventures on the followers of Christ. There is no record of a book revealed to Jesus. Perhaps the closest to it are the words of Jesus himself, which constitues less than 10% of the NT. Therefore to say that Christians changed the Bible is an inaccurate statement, and can cause trouble in a discussion, because the Christian can then ask questions such as: Who changed the Bible? When exactly was it changed? How do you know it was changed if you don't have a copy of the original?
The Bible, or at least the New Testament, cannot be an altered copy of the Injil because it is a completely different book. In fact, the original Bible or New Testament (the very first one) did not correspond to the Injil, Taurat, or Zabur in the first place. It doesn't matter how unreliably it was transmitted; the Bible does not correspond to the Quranic Injil.
It is not that the Christians have changed the original, but rather they have the wrong book, altogether. The words of Christ are possibly the closest thing to the Injil. The recently discovered Gospel of Thomas, which is nothing but a list of sayings of Jesus, is even closer to the Islamic concept of Injil. Therefore, it should be kept in mind in discussion with Christians that the Bible has not been changed, but rather the original documents chosen as the word of God were incorrect.