Islamic Claims About the Corruption of the Bible

Conversations with Muslims can be intense experiences and Christians grapple with ways to counter allegations the Islamic people typically bring to the table.  In this essay, I would like to address the often-repeated Islamic claim that the original Bible has been corrupted and can no longer be trusted.  There are common ways we can try to address this question but one of the things we want to explore is whether or not there is any basis to it.  Were there traditions that the Jews or Christians tampered with the Bible before seventh century Arabian times?  Or was this idea fomented after Mohammad?  Is the claim without basis or is there a grain of truth in it?  The trend in Christian apologetical circles is towards what I believe is a falsehood and misinformation which amounts to gaslighting as if nothing happened and that there is no basis to these questions and concerns when there are.  I believe it does not hurt Christians or Muslims to address these allegations forthrightly and also invite the Islamic community to be just as open about Uthman’s destruction of thousands of variant copies of the Qur’an from A.D.650—656.¹

The Second Jewish Commonwealth and the LXX

One of the greatest treasures that continues to exist from the defunct civilization of the Second Jewish Commonwealth is the translation of the Bible now known as the Septuagint (pronounced sep-TOO-uh-jint) or LXX.  Translated from Hebrew in Alexandria, Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt around the year 250 B.C., the LXX was used as the basic Bible version by both our Lord and the Apostles and Christians during the remaining days of the Jewish age all the way up to the end of Israel in A.D. 136.

However, there are written anecdotes that suggest that Christians understood that there was virulent Jewish unhappiness with the apologetical use of the LXX in winning Gentiles to Christianity in contradistinction to their favoring Judaism.  Jewish authorities did not stand idly by while these developments became clear to them for we have direct statements from second century Christians that an alternate translation by Aquila of Sinope was produced to displace the LXX as a common authority shared by Jews and Christians.²  This alone suggests that rumors of corruption that preceded Islam have a basis in fact and are not made out of whole cloth.³

“O community of Muslims, how is it that you seek wisdom from the People of the Book?  Your book brought down upon His Prophet—blessings and peace of God upon him—is the latest report about God.  You read a Book that has not been distorted, but the People of the Book, as God related to you, exchanged that which God wrote [for something else], changing the book with their hands.”⁴  

سورة 3:78: وبالفعل هناك جماعة تلوي ألسنتهم بالكتاب فتفترض أنها من الكتاب. لكنها ليست من الكتاب. ويقولون: "إنها من عند الله" وإن لم تكن من عند الله. وهم يعلمون كذبا على الله عن علم.  (Sura 3:78):-

“And there is indeed a group among them who twist their tongues with the book, that you may suppose it to be from the book. But it is not from the book. And they say, “It is from God,” though it is not from God. And they knowingly speak a lie against God.

سورة 4:46: من بين اليهود الذين يحرفون معنى الكلمة ، ويقولون: "نحن نسمع ونعصي" و "اسمع كمن لا يسمع!" و "احضر إلينا!" تلوي ألسنتهم واستخفاف بالدين. ولو قالوا ، "نحن نسمع ونطيع" و "اسمعنا" و "تحترمنا" ، لكان ذلك أفضل لهم وأكثر ملاءمة. بل لعنهم الله بكفرهم فلا يؤمنون إلا قليلين. (Sura 4:46):-

“Among those who are Jews are those who distort the meaning of the word, and say, “We hear and disobey,” and “Hear, as one who hears not!” and “Attend to us!” twisting their tongues and disparaging religion. And had they said, “We hear and obey” and “Listen” and “Regard us,” it would have been better for them and more proper.  But God cursed them for their disbelief, so they believe not, save a few.”

The above disputations are Mohammad’s own claims against the trustworthiness of the Bible, Jews, and Christians but the goal of civil discussion with Muslims is both to communicate and to convey respect to them as people, but also to remind them that textual transmission difficulties are not unique to Judaism and Christianity only, but also Islam.  Muslims proudly claim—  

“No other book in the world can match the Qur’an ... The astonishing fact about this book of ALLAH is that it has remained unchanged, even to a dot, over the last fourteen hundred years. ... No variation of text can be found in it. You can check this for yourself by listening to the recitation of Muslims from different parts of the world.”⁵

Fairness demands that we, first of all, be aware of Christian complaints about the Jews apparently ditching the first century families of the LXX in favor of a brand new altered authorized version of their Scriptures.  And so we know a  second century claim that such a thing happened does exist.  This new version was penned by Rabbi Akiba’s protégé, Aquila, who was kicked out of the church because he was dabbling in astrology.  He went on to make a translation that sought to suppress the Messianic aspects of the Septuagint that pointed to Jesus Christ.  This was tampering! 

There were also longer projects that aimed at the corruption of the Tanakh: the Masoretes and their corrupted Masoretic Texts are part of broader Jewish authoritarian attempts at corrupting the Bible to defy the claims of Christianity.  And the tragedy of having the Latin vulgate translated from Hebrew texts instead of Septuagint texts was followed by yet another debacle many years later by Martin Luther’s feckless attempt to appease the Jews by preferring a Palestinian Old Testament canon over the larger traditional Alexandrian canon.  All these decisions led to our present situation where the King James Old Testament is mismatched with a New Testament which is derivative of the LXX, not the MT!   

The question of corruption and to what degree the Jews were able to cast doubt on Christian apologetic efforts is a complicated matter for further discussion.  And as to what extent any changes damage basic Christian claims about Jesus, the Gospel, the Church, and salvation a comparison of textual supports shows no appreciable advantages where Jewish attempts to muddle the meaning appear.  Indeed, from my own exploration of this issue I do not see collateral damage to a single Bible concept in spite of the variety of versions, nor is there serious doubt in the face of multiple thousands of manuscripts and lectionaries that are preserved worldwide.  On the other hand, accepting the conflictive and contradictory claims of the Qur’an would introduce many new fundamental problems we believe are completely unfeasible from the vantage point of such changes claiming authority from the distance of 600 years after the fact.  Are we to believe Jesus’s mother Mariam is Moses’ sister Mariam?  Sam Shamoun writes,

“In several Suras the Qur’an confuses Mary the mother of Jesus [Miriam in Hebrew] with Miriam the sister of Aaron and Moses, and daughter of Amram which is about 1400 years off.

“At length she brought (the babe) to her people, carrying him (in her arms), They said: “O Mary! Truly a strange thing has thou brought! O sister of Aaron, thy father was not a man of evil, nor your mother a woman unchaste!”— Sura 19:27-28
“And Mary, the daughter of `Imran, ...”— Sura 66:12.

I am aware what Muslims claim to be a solution to this problem. Yusuf Ali, for example, writes in his footnote 2481 commenting on the above verse:

“Aaron the brother of Moses was the first in the line of Israelite priesthood. Mary and her cousin Elisabeth (mother of Yahya) came from a priestly family, and were therefore, ‘sisters of Aaron’ or daughter of ‘Imran (who was Aaron's father).”

This, however, is faulty reasoning.  Only Aaron became a priest of the Lord and in fact the first High Priest.  And only Aaron’s descendants became priests.  Neither Moses nor their sister Miriam is ever understood to be in a “priestly lineage.” And Amram was definitely not a priest.  If Mary’s lineage of being part of a priestly family should be stressed then necessarily she would have to be called a daughter of Aaron, since all of Israel’s priests are descendants of Aaron, while his brother and sister are not counted among the priestly line.”⁶ 

Are we to believe that Moses’ father Amram was Jesus’s grandfather?⁷  There are even more problems to consider: Are we also to believe that Alexander the Great was a Muslim?

“Dhu al-Qarnayn, (Arabic: ذُو ٱلْقَرْنَيْن, romanized: Ḏū l-Qarnayn, IPA: [ðuː‿l.qarnajn]; lit. “He of the Two Horns”) appears in the Quran, Surah Al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101 as one who travels to east and west and erects a wall between a certain people and Gog and Magog (called Ya’juj and Ma’juj).[1] Elsewhere the Quran tells how the end of the world would be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the wall, and other apocalyptic writings report their destruction by God in a single night would usher in the Day of Resurrection (Yawm al-Qiyāmah)”⁸ 

Are we to deny that Jesus died on the cross?⁹  The promise of the kingdom of God, too, was given to the Apostles and the supersession foretold by Jeremiah and reiterated by the Hebrew Writer has been accomplished, but what prophecy foretold of an Arabic prophet or another Arabic covenant to come?¹⁰  And along with these crucial questions must be asked about what new difficulties the Islamic Scriptures would introduce if accepted by Christians, while the earliest Muslim authorities dreaded the idea that textual variations might plague Islam.  To divert away from these distinct possibilities Uthman tried to avert the danger (but the Qur’anic variants had already spread far and wide anyway).  Now, Muslims must resolve for themselves the quandary and dilemma of not a handful, but at least 37 different Qur’ans!¹¹

Conclusion

Islamic claims against the integrity of the Bible are a double-edged sword in that those problems of textual transmission are not unique to Judaism and Christianity but to all religions that rely on manuscripts and scribal work.  Islam, as we have noted, is no exception to this rule.  We have also pointed at the difficulty of assuming that the Qur’an will somehow lessen any supposed damage by admitting it as a correction to so-called problems and, after looking at serious factual conflicts, question the wisdom of that.

In the final analysis, each individual has to make it his or her duty to examine and compare or contrast a variety of claims and counterclaims, weigh perceived values and benefits, and decide, based on all available evidence, which way seems best to travel; to lead somewhere safe, and somewhere sure. (1 Jno 5:13-15)  This is a personal decision and not a choice that can properly be made by a state, religious authorities, legislation, or under the duress of coercion or the threat of death.  

Endnotes

¹ On Qur’an desecration we read in Volume 6, Book 61, Number 510, narrated Anas bin Malik:

“Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before.” So ‘Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to ‘Uthman. ‘Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, ‘Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and ‘AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. ‘Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.”

They did so, and when they had written many copies, ‘Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. ‘Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Said bin Thabit added, “A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an and I used to hear Allah’s Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.’” (33.23)

² More on Aquila here.

³ The Masoretic Text and its predecessors are examples of long-running Jewish efforts to corrupt the Holy Scriptures.  See Masoretic Text vs. the Original Hebrew.

⁴ (Sahih Muslim)

⁵ Basic Principles of Islam, Abu Dhabi, UAE: The Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan Charitable & Humanitarian Foundation, 1996, p 4.

⁶ Answering Islam.com.  The Virgin Mary’s father’s name was Joachim, not Amram.  Amram, Moses, and Mariam’s father lived about 1,400 years before the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

⁷ The Bible is very clear that Jesus was a Judæan, not a Levite - Hebrews 7:11-19 and Revelation 5:5.  This means that the Qur’an has a factual error and conflict in it.

⁸ Alexander the Great died in June of 323 B.C. and there is no historical evidence that he was a Muslim or that Islam existed anywhere in the world at that time.

⁹ The idea of the death of Jesus by a Roman cross is essential to the four Gospels and the sense of Acts, the epistles, and the Book of Revelation.  In fact, the entire New Testament would be pointless and catastrophically collapse if this one basic fact were to be omitted from it.  Furthermore, the prophecies about the death of the Messiah—in Isaiah 53, Daniel 9:26 and Psalms 40:6, and Zachariah 12:10 would completely fall to the ground!  Heaven and earth celebrate the fact that Jesus overcame the death inflicted upon him by his enemies by rising from the dead, 

“And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.  ² And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?  ³ And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.  ⁴ And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

⁵ And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.  ⁶ And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

⁷ And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.  ⁸ And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints.

⁹ And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

¹⁰ And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.  ¹¹ And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

¹² Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.

¹³ And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. ¹⁴ And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth forever and ever” (Revelation 5).

The earliest Christians like, for example, Justin Martyr disputed with the Jews about prophecies and the crucifixion (see Dialogue with Trypho).  In manifold ways, the Old and New Testaments are very unlike the Qur’an and are based on an idea of history, ethics, redemption, eternal salvation, and heaven that is completely foreign to the latter.

¹⁰ Jeremiah’s prophecy of the replacement of the Old Testament with the New Testament is contained in Jeremiah 38:31-24, LXX.  This is an essential feature of the New Testament and is behind such verses as Luke 21:33; 2 Corinthians 3:7-18, and Hebrews 7:19 and 8:7-13.  The New Testament is not merely a set of tenets and claims, nor a litany of books but also a spiritual reality that succeeded a previous reality: the Law and the world of the Law, both of which passed away in a series of war debacles spanning from A.D.66 to A.D.136.  But there are no provable prophecies predating Islam that foretold the coming of Mohammad and this is problematic to prove if, at the same time, Muslims want to maintain that the Bible is corrupted but want to find in it a reliable authority to certify and authenticate the twenty-three year ministry of Mohammad.  You cannot have it both ways!

¹¹ The two most widely used versions in existence today are the Hafs (حفص) and Warsh (ورش) versions, plus 35 other variant Qur’ans.  These facts contradict the traditional Islamic claim that there is only one Arabic Qur’an, but would also explain why Uthman sought to destroy so many variants a mere 18 years after Mohammad died.  Apparently, Uthman’s local efforts to accomplish this purge were unsuccessful but it speaks to variants as being a universal problem and not one in which Islam is the lone exception.

Difficulties in the Qur’an

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Caption: The Codex Sinaiticus.  Source: birmingham.ac.uk