Is there any truth to the Muslim claim that the bible was corrupted?

[SteveVH]

The Qur’an doesn’t assert it.

It essentially says the religious leaders misinterpreted the text, and that is how that verse was understood for hundreds of years.

The notion that the Bible was corrupted is a recent exegesis, and a bad one, IMO.

In your own faith tradition, however, do you not believe the Bible was corrupted? The denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is just one example. And does not this belief stem from the Islamic influence on the Baha’i faith?

Peace.

Steve

 

[Matthew_Light]

In your own faith tradition, however, do you not believe the Bible was corrupted?

No.

Baha’u’llah elaborates on this here:

"Can a man who believeth in a book, and deemeth it to be inspired by God, mutilate it? Moreover, the Pentateuch had been spread over the surface of the earth, and was not confined to Mecca and Medina, so that they could privily corrupt and pervert its text. Nay, rather, by corruption of the text is meant… the interpretation of God’s holy Book in accordance with their idle imaginings and vain desires. " - Kitab-i-Iqan

The denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is just one example.

The Baha’i view of the resurrection is almost identical to Paul’s explanation in 1 Corinthians 15, including his description of the spiritual body versus physical body.

 

[SteveVH]

No.

Baha’u’llah elaborates on this here:

"Can a man who believeth in a book, and deemeth it to be inspired by God, mutilate it? Moreover, the Pentateuch had been spread over the surface of the earth, and was not confined to Mecca and Medina, so that they could privily corrupt and pervert its text. Nay, rather, by corruption of the text is meant… the interpretation of God’s holy Book in accordance with their idle imaginings and vain desires. " - Kitab-i-Iqan

The Baha’i view of the resurrection is almost identical to Paul’s explanation in 1 Corinthians 15, including his description of the spiritual body versus physical body.

Thanks, Matthew.

Would it not be more accurate to say that the Baha’i view is that of the Baha’i interpretation of Paul’s explanation in 1 Corinthians 15? And is this not based upon the Islamic view?

I am always amazed that the Bible is thought to be accurate when a verse appears that can be used in defense of your faith and thought to be inaccurate when it contradicts your faith. Take the Gospel accounts of Christ appearing after his resurrection and inviting Thomas to “touch” his wounds, as well as eating food with them. These seem to be discounted, or simply ignored when discussing this topic.

Now, I do not wish to derail this thread into another Baha’i thread. It is my opinion that the Baha’i faith is an offshoot of Islam and that the Quran is held as accurate while the Christian Scriptures are held as corrupted, whether directly or indirectly.

One fact you cannot get around is that we have believed the same thing since the Apostles, so if there was corruption, either in the texts themselves or the Christian interpretation of those texts, it happened immediately. It would have had to have been the Apostles who were led by their “idle imaginings and vain desires”. Christ would then have been a complete failure in his efforts to reveal the truth to the world.

Peace.

Steve

 

[Matthew_Light]

And is this not based upon the Islamic view?

The modern view of many Muslims is that the Bible is corrupt and unworthy of study.

The Baha’i view is that the Bible is full of truth and illumination.

This is what Abdu’l-Baha wrote about the Bible:

“THIS book is the Holy Book of God, of celestial Inspiration. It is the Bible of Salvation, the Noble Gospel. It is the mystery of the Kingdom and its light. It is the Divine Bounty, the sign of the guidance of God.”

That is a very far cry from the view of most Muslims today.

 

[SteveVH]

The modern view of many Muslims is that the Bible is corrupt and unworthy of study.

The Baha’i view is that the Bible is full of truth and illumination.

This is what Abdu’l-Baha wrote about the Bible:

“THIS book is the Holy Book of God, of celestial Inspiration. It is the Bible of Salvation, the Noble Gospel. It is the mystery of the Kingdom and its light. It is the Divine Bounty, the sign of the guidance of God.”

That is a very far cry from the view of most Muslims today.

The quote from Abdu’l-Baha brings on a myriad of questions, but we can save those for another thread. Thanks for your response.

God bless.

Steve

 

[Matthew_Light]

The quote from Abdu’l-Baha brings on a myriad of questions, but we can save those for another thread. Thanks for your response.

God bless.

Steve

Thank you Steve, and God bless you as well!

 

[hasantas]

The Muslim “proof” for the corruption of the Jewish & Christian scriptures is just the assertion of such within the Qu’ran–which results in a Qu’ranic contradiction.

The Qu’ran went through a MAJOR bottleneck of compilation and editing (like reducing the total verses from 9000 down to 6000) during the Uthman Caliphate, some 50 years after the death of Muhammed. All other versions were declared invl;aid and destroyed by the Caliphs order (there are some rumors the Kuwaiti Royal famil posses one of the few varients)

NO such bottleneck occured for either the OT or the NT–there were just two many textual copies spread across and outside the Roman Empire for that to happen

(like reducing the total verses from 9000 down to 6000)?

There is no such thing.

First Caliphet 2 years after death of Muhammed.
Second Caliphet 10 yaers.
And thirth (Uthman) 12 years. So not about 50 years but 12-24 years.

Uthman destroyed some some different dialects(Arabic) of copies but Quran has never been changed.

 

[TxGodfollower]

One popular argument used by Muslim to elevate the Quran to a divine status over the bible is to say bible was corrupted and a product of hundreds of years. While the Quran was always pure,unchanged and always perfect.

Muslims usually argue that the Bible is corrupt because we left the original language it was written in (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic). The Quran is only in Arabic. English (and other language) versions of it are commentaries and not believed to be the Quran.

My counter to that is this: “Is God strong enough to move His word from one language to another without adding, removing, or twisting the meaning?”

 

[Matthew_Light]

The Qu’ran went through a MAJOR bottleneck of compilation and editing (like reducing the total verses from 9000 down to 6000) during the Uthman Caliphate, some 50 years after the death of Muhammed.

That’s a very extraordinary claim.

What’s your proof that 1/3 of the Quranic verses were removed?

 

[arthra]

As far as the Qur’an is concerned I had a few comments…

The Qur’an has always been in Arabic…from early on… Arabic itself as a written languages went through some changes but there were a fairly large number of Companions of the Prophet that had memorized Qur’an until they began to disappear…and this prompted setting downa standard Qur’an…especially as Islam spread to non-Arab areas. Helps for pronunciation of Arabic letters was added to the need for a standardized widely used Qur’an.

and the following is also one reason at least in my view that the Qur’an was consistent from the beginning…

Ali ibn abu Talib was with the Prophet from the beginning of the revelation and was later the fourth Caliph… Should there have been any inaccuracies in Qur’an Ali would have had them corrected… His caliphate was after Uthman who had encouraged the standardized Quran.

The story of the emergence of the New Testament and the Gospels that have become accepted is much more complex and over a much wider span of time than in the case of the Qur’an.

 

[SteveVH]

The story of the emergence of the New Testament and the Gospels that have become accepted is much more complex and over a much wider span of time than in the case of the Qur’an.

What does a span of time matter if the words were both inspired and protected by God? If we take your position to its logical conclusion then we should accept the Book of Mormon as it was written just over 150 years ago.

If you will do a little research you will find that the Bible is, in fact, the most reliable ancient document that we have.

Peace.

Steve

 

[Randy_Carson]

One popular argument used by Muslim to elevate the Quran to a divine status over the bible is to say bible was corrupted and a product of hundreds of years. While the Quran was always pure,unchanged and always perfect.

Proof that the Gospels we have today are the same Gospels originally written:

1. 
   *]Because of the need for instruction and personal devotion, these writings must have been copied many times, which increases the chances of preserving the original text.
   *]In fact, no other ancient work is available in so many copies and languages, and yet all these various versions agree in content.
   *]The text has also remained unmarred by heretical additions. The abundance of manuscripts over a wide geographical distribution demonstrates that the text has been transmitted with only trifling discrepancies. The differences that do exist are quite minor and are the result of unintentional mistakes.
   *]The quotations of the New Testament books in the early Church Fathers all coincide.
   *]The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of all orthodox Christians.
   *]No one could have corrupted all the manuscripts.
   *]There is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the Church Fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate such tampering.
   *]The text of the New Testament is every bit as good as the text of the classical works of antiquity. To repudiate the textual parity of the Gospels would be to reverse all the rules of criticism and to reject all the works of antiquity, since the text of those works is less certain than that of the Gospels.
   
   Richard Purtill summarizes the textual case:
   
   Many events which are regarded as firmly established historically have (1) far less documentary evidence than many biblical events; (2) and the documents on which historians rely for much secular history are written much longer after the event than many records of biblical events; (3) furthermore, we have many more copies of biblical narratives than of secular histories; and (4) the surviving copies are much earlier than those on which our evidence for secular history is based. If the biblical narratives did not contain accounts of miraculous events, biblical history would probably be regarded as much more firmly established than most of the history of, say, classical Greece and Rome. (Thinking About Religion, p. 84-85)
   
   Taken from:
   Evidence for the Resurrection of Christ
   By Peter Kreeft, PhD
   peterkreeft.com/topics-more/resurrection-evidence.htm

 

[Dave_Noonan]

One popular argument used by Muslim to elevate the Quran to a divine status over the bible is to say bible was corrupted and a product of hundreds of years. While the Quran was always pure,unchanged and always perfect.

Certainly there are many errors that have crept in over time, primarily due to copyist mistakes. But I’m never quite sure if this is what a Muslim might equate with “corruption.”

The summary of the significant manuscript variants of the New Testament are published and discussed here:

amazon.com/Textual-Commentary-Testament-Ancient-Edition/dp/1598561642

I think there are around 700 pages of textual variants and commentary. Because the New Testament is fairly short and composed over a relatively brief period of time, it’s in considerably better shape than the Old Testament. No critical edition of the Old Testament has never been published and thus there is no equivalent volume for the Old Testament, but, especially now with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a comparable analysis would list thousands and thousands of variants in the Old Testament. Is this what you are asking?