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Home -- English -- 08. Good News -- 2 Has the Bible been falsified?
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BIBLE 1 to 5 : Answering the Muslim accusation that the Bible has been corrupted
2 - HAS THE BIBLE BEEN CORRUPTED?CHALLENGE: The Koran teaches that Moses received the Torah (Taurat) from Allah, that David was given the Psalms (Zabur), and that Christ was accorded the Gospel (Injil). Nevertheless, Muslims do not accept these books, which today are put together in the Bible. They claim that Jews corrupted the Torah and the Psalms, and Christians the Gospel. Therefore, in the Bible we are said to no longer have the original proclamation of the will of God. Muslims base these assertions on statements of the Koran, which they accept as the true and unchanged word of Allah. There one finds accusations against the “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians), claiming they had manipulated the word of God. In studying these statements in the Koran, one can distinguish three types of accusations. We will exemplify each of these accusations with a corresponding verse from the Koran:
Are these accusations in the Koran sufficient to draw into doubt the truth of the Torah, of the Psalms, and of the Gospel, and with them the truth of the entire Bible we have in our hands today? Coming from the Koran, do Muslims have to believe that the entire Bible has been corrupted? ANSWER: Nowhere in the Koran are Christians accused of having corrupted the Gospel. Therefore, based on the Koran, every Muslim can trust the Gospel of Christ as we have it today. The context of the Koran's accusations against the People of the Book always shows that Jews, or children of Israel, were intended, and never Christians. In studying the accusations the following statements can be made:
SAD NEWS: The Koran does not force Muslims to believe that the Bible we have today is corrupted. The Islamic claim that the divine Books of the children of Israel and of the Christians were falsified cannot be justified using the accusations of the Koran against only a small group of Jews. GOOD NEWS: Every Muslim can trust the Bible. According to the statements of the Koran, every Muslim can believe that the Scriptures that God revealed to the Jews and Christians are trustworthy. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: By reading the Koran, one can find out that not a few of its verses confirm the truth of the Torah and the Gospel, and thus also of the entire Bible. We list here evidence from the book of Muslims, showing that the Bible, at the time of Mohammed, had not been corrupted:
These verses from the Koran make it clear that a Muslim can and must accept the Bible as being true. TESTIMONY: My name is Ahmad and I live in Morocco. I am a simple worker and can neither read nor write. Yet I was still interested in the Gospel of Christ. Fawzi, a Moroccan Christian, visited me to tell me about Jesus. But I had a problem. My wife Amina was against it. She feared I would become indecent if I became a Christian, because she saw how indecent tourists from Europe behave when they visit our country. Therefore, she always prayed loudly when Fawzi was with us. Together with our daughter, she would loudly recite verses from the Koran to drive out the Christian spirit from our house. One day our daughter had gallstone colic and had to be taken to the hospital for an operation. But that was a long way from our house. Fawzi, my Christian friend, offered me to live with him, together with eight relatives that came with us to comfort our daughter. Since he lived much closer to the hospital, we could more easily visit our daughter in the hospital. Living in Fawzi's Christian home, my wife came to experience that Christians were better than she thought: they are hospitable, don't get drunk, do not do unlawful things, and dress decently. That impressed her so much that she too, after our daughter was well again, began to take interest in Christ. Following many more conversations with Fawzi and his wife Fatiha, my wife and I became Christians. Today our children no longer memorize Koran verses, but verses from the Bible, so that the true word of God can dwell in their hearts. PRAYER: Truthful God, I thank you that you sent your messengers into the world, so that we can come to know you and do what pleases you. Thank you for your messengers Moses, David, and Christ. Open my heart to your message, which you sent to us through them in the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel. I want to obey you alone. QUESTIONS: What accusations does the Koran make against the People of the Book in view of the word of God which they possess? What does the Koran say about the Torah and the Gospel? Can one trust the Bible as we have it today? TO MEMORIZE: “Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1-2 -- Words of God through the prophet Isaiah) |