Islam / Muslim : Misconceptions in Reason and History

At the Islamic Center, we quietly waited in the place of worship for the chanting prayers to conclude. We were then ushered into a small office, as soon as we sat to converse with two men, a third man opened the door for a moment and handed over a thermos filled with a most delicious tea for us to share.1

The Muslims said that they respect all the prophets. They answered in the affirmative when asked if that included Jesus. We asked where we could find the teachings of Jesus. They said that they are found in the Qur'an because the New Testament has been corrupted and therefore, not reliable. In other words, the books that make up the New Testament, which were mostly written before 70 AD (Jesus died circa 30 AD) are not reliable, but the Qur'an, which was written after 500 AD, is a reliable source for the truth of Jesus' life. With the exception of Luke and Paul, the men who wrote the New Testament knew Jesus, lived with Him, traveled with Him and heard Him teach. On the other hand the Qur'an was compiled about half a millennia after Christ.

The Qur'an was pieced together "from pieces of papyrus, flat stones, palm leaves, shoulder blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather, wooden boards, and the hearts of men."2 Hearts of men refers to memorization, of course, some of those men died in battle before recording the Surahs they had memorized. It is also admitted that sometimes animals would eat the leaves and other materials on which the Surahs had been recorded. Apparently neither Muhammad nor his followers had the New Testament in their own language and so they learned about Jesus from the tales of travelers and apocryphal books, we find allusions to such works in the Qur'an.

For example in Surah 5:110 the Qur'an makes reference to the apocryphal, Gnostic book entitled The Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:3-5. The writer of this gospel does not even claim to be the Apostle Thomas but identifies himself as a philosopher. This gospel is a shameful work that contradicts the New Testament and has the child Jesus using His divine powers, His miracles, in a capricious and malicious manner. This results in some very odd and contradictory teachings in the Qur'an, such as stating that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin and yet teaches that it is blasphemy to believe that Allah could have a son. And so apparently someone born of a virgin and conceived by the Holy Spirit can be one of many prophets, just a man. Note that a qualification must be made, according to Islam the Holy Spirit is not God, this title refers to angels, usually to Gabriel.

Thus the Qur'an affirms the Virgin Birth in 19:19-22;

"He said: 'Nay, I am only a messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a holy son.' She said: 'How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and because I am not unchaste?' He said: 'So it will be: your Lord says, 'That is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign to men and a Mercy from Us': it is a matter (so) decreed.' So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place."

Also in 3:45-47;

"Behold! The angel said: 'O Mary! Allah gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary_She said: 'How shall I have a son, when no man has touched me?' He said: 'Even so: Allah creates what He wills: when He has decreed a Plan, He but says to it, 'Be,' and it is!"

The Qur'an denies that God would have a son in 19:88-92;

"They say: '(Allah) Most Gracious has begotten a son!' Indeed you have put forth a thing most monstrous."

Also in 4:171;

"_Allah is One God: glory be to Him: (far Exalted is He) above having a son_"

The Qur'an claims that Jesus is a mere man in 4:171 & 5:75;

"_Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a Messenger of Allah..."

Also note 5:72-73;

"They do blaspheme who say: 'God is Christ the son of Mary.'_Whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him the Garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no more help. They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except Allah. If they do not desist from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them."

The Muslims said that they base their beliefs on rationale and common sense. One of them said that once he went to a class and whispered "the sun rose in the east this morning" into a person's ear. That person then whispered it to the next and so on, until it went through fourteen people. By the time it got back to him, "the east" was not even mentioned, this is the game called telephone.
Therefore, he reasoned we could not know what Jesus taught from the New Testament because Jesus said something and someone heard it and repeated it and so did the next person etc., etc., and so by today how are we to know what he really said? In other words, if the transition of the words of Christ were passed on in a linear manner to one single person, then it is evident that according to degeneration, somewhere along the way mistakes and errors would creep in and distort the teaching to the point of complete unreliability. The Bible we have today would be nothing but revisions and errors. This theory is illustrated below.

We pointed out that we had touched upon a very common misconception. This is not a rational argument, nor is it common sense. Jesus did not just speak to one person who repeated it to one person, etc. Sometimes He spoke to one person, sometimes to a small group and sometimes thousands. Neither did one person write the New Testament. The New Testament is twenty-seven books written by some eight people (seven Jews, one Greek Doctor) and it draws from the accounts of many eyewitnesses.
The way that the teachings of Jesus were handed down is that one or more first hand eyewitnesses, who heard and saw Jesus, wrote down what happened and what was said. In the case of Dr. Luke, he traveled around and interviewed eyewitnesses. These writers sent the eyewitness accounts to many churches in many cities. Each church made copies and sent them to other believers who would in turn make copies (as illustrated below). The Bible tells as much, "After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea" (Colossians 4:16).

Dr. Craig Blomberg, Ph.D., being interviewed by Lee Strobel, explains why the game of telephone is not a good analogy for how oral traditions are passed on:

"'When you're carefully memorizing something and taking care not to pass it along until you're sure you've got it right, you're doing something very different from playing the game of telephone. In telephone half the fun is that the person may not have got it right or even heard it right the first time, and they cannot ask the person to repeat it. Then you immediately pass it along, also in whispered tones that make it more likely the next person will goof something up even more. So yes, by the time it has circulated through a room of thirty people, the results can be hilarious.' 'Then why,' I asked, 'Isn't that a good analogy for passing along ancient oral traditions?'_

'If you really want to develop that analogy in light of the checks and balances of the first-century community, you'd have to say that every third person, out loud in a very clear voice, would have to ask the first person; 'Do I still have it right?' and change it if he didn't. The community would constantly be monitoring what was said and intervening to make corrections along the way. That would preserve the integrity of the message,' he said. 'And the result would be very different from that of the childish game of telephone.'"3

There were in fact errors that crept into the manuscripts. However, when we take the 5,664 Greek manuscripts that we have today and compare what is known as the families of manuscripts (the manuscripts from different cities) we can draw out the errors and by corroboration come up with an accurate record. Moreover, the errors or differences in translation are differences in style and never distort important doctrine. In addition to the Greek manuscripts, there are 8,000-10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, 8,000 Ethiopic, Slavic, Armenian manuscripts. For a total of about 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament which is the most well documented ancient writing and far more reliable than any ancient work of fiction or history, certainly more reliable than any ancient work which is used in attempts to discredit it. "The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book. A form that is 99.5% pure."4

Realizing that they had been proved wrong by rationale, common sense, and historical evidence they said that the New Testament had indeed been passed on without error but only up until church councils started meeting, corrupting the text and making up various doctrines that Jesus never taught. Since the first church council met in Nicea on 325 AD, we pointed out that we have manuscripts for the New Testament that date back to centuries before any church council met, and so we can see what, if anything, was changed. Oddly enough, in order to account for the Hadith, the traditions, which are second in authority next to the Qur'an, a line of witnesses is relied upon. Oral tradition, word of mouth, from one person to the next is employed both to discredit the New Testament and in order to give authority to the Hadith. This is not reasonable rather; it is to believe in two contradictory things. How can the same argument be appealed to in order to discredit one document and in order to accredit another?

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (a.k.a. Maimonides or Rambam) was born in 1135 AD. He is a well-known and respected physician and interpreter of the Bible and Jewish Law. Regarding the Muslim claim that the Bible was corrupted, he explains:

"Inasmuch as the Muslims could not find a single proof in the entire Bible nor a reference or possible allusion to their prophet which they could utilize, they were compelled to accuse us saying, 'You have altered the text of the Torah, and expunged every trace of the name of Mohammed therefrom.' They could find nothing stronger than this ignominious argument the falsity of which is easily demonstrated to one and all by the following facts. First, Scripture was translated into Syriac, Greek, Persian, and Latin hundreds of years before the appearance of Mohammed. Second, there is a uniform tradition as to the text of the Bible both in the East and the West, with the result that no difference in the text exist at all, not even in the vocalization, for they are all correct. Nor do any differences affecting the meaning exist. The motive for their accusation lies, therefore, in the absence of any allusion to Mohammed in the Torah_"5

The beauty of our meeting with the Muslims is that our conversation was not our beliefs against theirs (my faith can beat up your faith). Nor did we have to water everything down and say that both sides equally valid, both sides just as true, as far as subjectivity is concerned. We were presented with faulty reasoning and history and our faith was strengthened by this realization. The fact is that reason and history are on the side of the Judeo-Christian faith and Scriptures, according to the manuscript evidence, archeological evidence, prophetic evidence, scientific evidence and statistical probability.

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
-Colossians 2:8

1. 1. This meeting took place at the Islamic Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, early in 2001
   
2. 2. Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 230
   
3. 3. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), p. 56
   
4. 4. Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A general introduction to the Bible (Chicago, IL.: Moody Press, 1980), p. 361
   
5. 5. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (a.k.a. Maimonides or Rambam), Isadore Twersky, ed., A Maimonides Reader (New York: Behrman House, Inc., 1972), p. 450. From Epistle to Yemen.