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ver the years I have enjoyed many conversations with Muslim friends, and have enjoyed the privilege of sharing the Good News of God's love and grace in Isa Al-Maseeh with them. I have had the privilege of talking with friends from Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Libya and several other countries in the Muslim world, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Many years ago, I had the privilege of doing some relief work in Peshawar, Pakistan with Afghan refugees. I was amazed at their kind hospitality even if they had little. One refugee family invited me to their tent for tea. They gave me their best, even though they had very little. I had gone their to serve, but they taught me about giving. I discovered that what these Afghan friends really wanted was a western style education, so I encourged them to apply to a college I knew to be excellent academically and well funded. I prayed for the Afghan high school student for six months, and God answered my prayer. This student was awared a full scholarship, and went on to realize his dream of becoming a physician. He did so well that three of his friends were also able to come to the U.S. on scholarship. Forgive me for digressing, but I want you to know that God has given me a love for the Muslim people, and that is my motive in writing these things. I am writing as a friend, not as some religious expert.

I invite you into the conversation, and would love to hear from you through comments or through the contact form on this site. I invite you to question what I say, and investigate these things for yourself to see whether they are true. Another thing I like about Middle Easterners is they love to talk religion. Westerners like to talk about the weather, entertainment, politics or sports. These things are interesting too, but what matters more?

I have noticed in conversation with Muslim friends that certain questions keep coming up. These questions may prevent these friends from seriously considering the Good News. Since Isa said that no one may come to God except through him, these questions must be taken very seriously. The first question is about the Bible.

Hasn't the Bible been changed?

Most if not all Muslims believe the Bible has been changed. Since the Bible is foundational not only to Christianity, but also for all monotheistic faiths, this question must be seriously considered and carefully answered. If the Bible has been changed, then Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all resting on a shaky foundation. Since the Q'uran asserts that the Taurat, the Zabur and the Injils are inspired and that Muslims should therefore follow them, the reliability of the Bible therefore greatly concerns Muslims. I am not going to give a complete detailed answer here to the question of the reliability of the Bible, but I will give some references at the end for those who want to pursue the matter in greater depth.

Before I present some of the reasons we know the Bible has not been changed, may I share with you why we are so prone to doubt what God says? I may surprise you that unbelief comes more easily to us that faith. This is the result of the Fall of Man, as recorded in Genesis [the Taurat] chapter 3 and in Genesis 6:5. When our first parents fell into sin, the whole human race was spiritually and morally polluted and so became more apt to unbelief and false beliefs about God.

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5) [Taurat].

Because of the spiritually blinding effects of sin, Jesus said:

"My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him" (John 7:16-18).

For this reason, we need God's help in order to discern God's truth. Knowing God's truth is independent of our intellectual ability, but depends on our humility and our sincere willingness to obey him. Apart from his help, we will not naturally see and accept the truth; we will resist and reject it because our hearts are naturally at odds with God, no matter how religious we may be. May I invite you to pray and ask God to reveal the truth about these things? If you ask with a sincere heart, he will answer you. You have his word on it.

Now, here are just some of the reasons we can know the Bible has not been changed:

1. God's word by nature does not and cannot change.

The Bible teaches this in many passages, such as:

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever (Isaiah 40:8).

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35)[Injil].

2. The bible is a covenantal document, which is unchangeable by nature.

Unlike other religious books, the Bible is a covenantal document. In the ancient world, a covenant was a sacred agreement typically between a Great King and a lesser king and his people. It always had the same form, by which the Great King identified himself, outlined their history and set the conditions of their agreement. Every covenant ended with a covenant curse in which the dire consequences of violating the sacred agreement were specified. The point is that a covenant is, by its very nature, inviolable and unchangeable. The Bible consists of the Old and New Covenants. When you read the curses at the end of the Bible (Revelation 22), you are reading covenant curses.

3. Much of the Bible is simply the inspired record of historical fact, which by nature is not subject to change.

The Bible is the record of God's great redemptive work in history beginning with creation and ending with the return of Christ. It includes the Creation, the Fall, and call of Abraham, Israel and the Church. Historical facts by nature cannot be changed.

4. God sovereignly watches over and strictly forbids any changes to his Word.

Consider these warnings:

Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar (Proverbs 30:6).

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book (Revelation 22:18-20).

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:8-9)

The Bible is by far the most reliable book that has come down from antiquity. Hebrew scribes copied their manuscripts with great care with only kosher parchment and quills. A scroll of the Torah "may contain no errors whatsoever. While some mistakes may be corrected by scraping off the ink of a letter made in error and rewriting it, if a mistake is made in writing any of the names of God, no correction may be made because God's name may not be erased. The entire sheet of parchment must be buried or placed in a genizah, and the scribe must begin that section of the Torah again."

The reliability is illustrated in the comparison of the Dead Sea Scrolls which provided scrolls of the prophet Isaiah which were 1000 years older than the available manuscripts. The only differences were very minor differences in punctuation and spelling and there were no differences in the text, its meaning or its doctrine.

5. There is no manuscript evidence of the alleged changes.

There are vastly much more manuscripts of the Bible than of any other ancient literature. There are many thousands of Old Testament manuscripts. There are some 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, some 5,600 of which are in Greek. Numbers of these date from 40-60 A.D. A typical example of other ancient literature is Thucydides History, which has only 8 manuscripts, the earliest of which is 1300 years after it was written. If the Bible had been changed, there would be manuscript evidence of it. However there is none.

I invite anyone who can cite specific manuscripts that have been changed in any matter of doctrine to kindly post their information below for all to see and examine the evidence for themselves. You will see that what I am saying is true if you take the time to investigate the matter for yourself. This article was first published in August, 2008 and you will notice no one has posted any evidence of alleged manuscript changes below, and this is further proof that what I am saying is true. The manuscript basis for the Bible is widely available on the Internet as well as in libraries and museums throughout the world. No Islamic scholar to date has cited any specific manuscript or manuscripts.

6. It is illogical to think that the Jewish people would change their sacred scriptures, in defiance of God's clear command, to support a Gospel and a Messiah they do not accept.

The Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures, teach and proclaim the same Good News as the New Testament. They teach the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world will come and die for our sins, rise again and usher in the Kingdom of God. The Jewish prophets proclaimed these things in advance, and they proclaimed that the Jewish people would largely reject him. For example, consider the words of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote some seven centuries before the birth of the Messiah:

1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:1-5).

Herein the prophet reveals the Messiah will come as a suffering savior that Israel fails to recognize. And herein is the reason God has for a time hidden himself from his beloved Israel.

In conclusion, do not accept everyone who claims to be a prophet or everyone the world thinks is a prophet. Instead test them to see if they really are from God using the only infallible standard: the very words of God himself.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Your feedback is welcomed, whether positive or negative. Until next time, God bless you.

Other Resources

related article: Why do Muslims Believe the Bible Has Been Changed?

Has The Bible Been Changed?

The Bible

About the author: The author studied theology and world religions at Gordon-Conwell Seminary and Harvard University.

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