Hasn't the Bible been corrupted?
God revealed the Tawrat to Moses and the Injil to Jesus, but Jews and Christians altered their scriptures over time (tahrif). That is why the Bible today contradicts the Qur'an on matters like the crucifixion and the deity of Christ. The Qur'an was sent to correct these corruptions.
The Qur'an itself speaks of the Torah and Gospel as guidance and light, tells Christians in Muhammad's day to judge by what God revealed in the Gospel, and invites anyone in doubt to ask those who read the earlier scripture. That assumes the Bible available in the seventh century was trustworthy. We possess thousands of biblical manuscripts from before Muhammad, and they teach the same message we read today: Jesus' death, resurrection and divine sonship.
What Scripture says
8The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
The grass withers, but the word of our God stands forever.
35Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
Jesus promises that his words will not pass away.
24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was proclaimed to you.
Peter applies Isaiah's promise to the gospel preached to the church.
1Many have undertaken to compose an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3Therefore, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Luke writes from eyewitness testimony so readers may have certainty.
35If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—
Jesus teaches that Scripture cannot be broken.
The case
What the Qur'an says about the earlier scriptures
Muslims believe God sent books to several prophets: the Tawrat (Torah) to Moses, the Zabur (Psalms) to David and the Injil (Gospel) to Jesus. The Qur'an speaks of these books with great respect. It says it was sent down confirming what came before it (Qur'an 3:3). It calls the Torah and the Gospel guidance and light (Qur'an 5:44, 46). Most striking are three instructions given to people in Muhammad's own day:
- The People of the Gospel are to judge by what God revealed in it (Qur'an 5:47). Christians are told to follow the Gospel they actually possess.
- Jews and Christians have no ground to stand on unless they uphold the Torah and the Gospel (Qur'an 5:68).
- If you are in doubt about what has been revealed to you, ask those who have been reading the scripture before you (Qur'an 10:94).
The Qur'an also insists that no one can change God's words (Qur'an 6:115; 18:27). Taken together, these verses assume that the Torah and Gospel in Christian and Jewish hands in the early seventh century were reliable enough to judge by and to consult.
A dilemma
This creates a dilemma for the corruption claim:
- If the Bible was corrupted before Muhammad, why would the Qur'an tell Christians to judge by it and send doubters to consult it?
- If the Bible was corrupted after Muhammad, we should find the change in the manuscript record. We don't.
Historically, many early Muslim commentators did not claim the biblical text had been rewritten. They understood the Qur'an's accusations as misinterpretation or concealment of meaning. Ibn Kathir, for example, reports Ibn Abbas as saying that people distort the meanings of God's words but cannot remove them from his books (Ibn Kathir on Qur'an 3:78). The systematic argument that the biblical text itself had been corrupted was developed most influentially by the Andalusian scholar Ibn Hazm in the eleventh century.
The manuscript evidence
| Witness | Approximate date | Before Muhammad (570-632)? |
|---|---|---|
| Great Isaiah Scroll (Dead Sea Scrolls) | 2nd century BC | Yes |
| Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint) | 3rd-1st centuries BC | Yes |
| Early New Testament papyri (e.g. P66, P75) | c. AD 200-300 (dates debated) | Yes |
| Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (complete Bibles) | 4th century | Yes |
| Syriac, Latin and Coptic translations | 2nd-5th centuries | Yes |
| Quotations in early Christian writers | 2nd century onward | Yes |
There are more than five thousand Greek New Testament manuscripts, plus thousands in early translations. Because copies spread across the Roman world in many languages, no single person or council could have changed them all. When scholars compare them, they can reconstruct the original wording with a high degree of confidence. The Bibles of the fourth century teach exactly what Christians believe today: that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross for sins, and that he rose bodily from the dead.
Who could have changed it, and why?
A corruption theory has to explain when, by whom and how. Jews and Christians were often rivals, yet they share the same Hebrew Scriptures with no sign of collusion. Christians were divided into rival churches across many empires, yet their Bibles agree. Nobody could have recalled every copy across three continents and replaced them without leaving a trace.
Why it matters
Both Christians and Muslims believe God is able to protect his word. Christians take that conviction seriously: if God could preserve the Qur'an, he could also preserve the Torah and the Gospel the Qur'an calls guidance and light. The best response to the corruption charge is an invitation: read the Gospels as they have been handed down and meet the Jesus they describe.
“But what about…?”
Doesn't the Qur'an accuse the People of the Book of changing their scripture?
Several verses accuse some Jews of twisting words from their places, concealing truth, or writing things with their own hands and claiming they came from God (Qur'an 2:79; 4:46; 5:13). Early Muslim commentators often understood these as misinterpretation, concealment or misquotation in speech, not wholesale rewriting of every copy of the Torah and Gospel (see Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering, 2011).
Isn't the Injil a single book given to Jesus, not four Gospels written by others?
Christians have never known a book dictated to Jesus. 'Gospel' (euangelion) means the good news about Jesus, which the apostles recorded. By the late second century Irenaeus already defended exactly four Gospels (Against Heresies 3.11.8). The Gospel the Qur'an tells Christians to judge by can only be the one Christians were actually reading.
What about the Gospel of Barnabas, which agrees with Islam?
Its oldest manuscripts are Italian and Spanish texts from the late medieval period, over a thousand years after Jesus. Scholars date its composition to the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries based on anachronisms, such as a jubilee every hundred years, a practice introduced by the papacy in AD 1300. It is not an early witness to Jesus.
Don't the manuscripts have thousands of variants?
Yes, mostly differences in spelling, word order and copyist slips. The few significant variants, such as the longer ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) or the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), are known and flagged in modern Bibles. No central Christian belief, including the crucifixion and the deity of Christ, rests on a disputed reading.
Where Christians differ
Go deeper
- book · 2011Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur'anGordon Nickel
- book · 2005The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.)Bruce M. Metzger & Bart D. Ehrman
- book · 2018Can We Trust the Gospels?Peter J. Williams
- book · 2018The Qur'an and the Bible: Text and CommentaryGabriel Said Reynolds
- book · 2016No God but One: Allah or Jesus?Nabeel Qureshi
Sources (8)
- Qur'an 3:3, 5:43-48, 5:68 and 10:94: the Torah and Gospel as guidance and light; People of the Gospel to judge by it
- Qur'an 6:115 and 18:27: no one can change God's words
- Qur'an 2:75-79, 3:78, 4:46 and 5:13: verses accusing some People of the Book of distorting or concealing
- Ibn Kathir, Tafsir on Qur'an 3:78, reporting Ibn Abbas (via al-Bukhari) that people distort the meaning of God's words but cannot remove them from his books
- Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), Al-Fisal fi al-milal: first systematic Muslim argument for textual corruption of the Bible
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8: the fourfold Gospel
- Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (4th century); the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (c. 2nd century BC)
- Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur'an (Brill, 2011)
Related questions
Didn't Jesus escape crucifixion?
The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the best-attested facts of ancient history. It is reported by Christian, Roman and Jewish sources, including writers hostile to Christianity, and is accepted by virtually all historians, whatever their faith. Jesus predicted his death, the Hebrew prophets foresaw a suffering servant, and the cross was not God's defeat but his plan to deal with sin. God vindicated Jesus, not by sparing him from death, but by raising him from it.
Wasn't Jesus just a prophet, not the Son of God?
Christians agree that Jesus was a prophet and a servant of God; the question is whether he was only that. The earliest records of his life show him forgiving sins, accepting worship, claiming to share God's glory and identifying himself with the divine 'Son of Man' of Daniel 7. 'Son of God' never meant that God took a wife; it means Jesus shares the Father's very nature. A prophet points to God. Jesus pointed to himself as the way to God.
Is Muhammad predicted in the Bible?
Read in context, both passages point elsewhere. Deuteronomy uses 'your brothers' for fellow Israelites, and the prophet like Moses must speak with God face to face and do mighty signs, which the New Testament sees fulfilled in Jesus. In John, Jesus explicitly names the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit, an invisible Helper who would live inside the disciples and arrive within weeks. No manuscript of John reads anything else.
Hasn't the Bible been changed and corrupted over time?
No ancient book is better attested than the New Testament. More than 5,700 Greek manuscripts survive, some within a century or two of the originals, plus early translations and quotations by church fathers. Because the copies spread widely and independently, scholars can compare them and recover the original wording with high confidence. Most variants are spelling slips, and the few meaningful ones are openly flagged in modern Bibles. None overturns a core Christian belief.
This entry is a draft and has not yet been theologically reviewed.