Nevertheless, the ruthless and prolific bloodshed of the so-called "prophet" of Islam (though interesting in its own right) does not form the substance of this particular post. It should have everyone's attention where Muslims live, however, since they believe themselves duty-bound to follow his (aggressively murderous) "ethical" example.
If this does not scare you, it is because either you cannot read [so you are not now reading this, though someone might be reading it to you], or else you are very naive and do not watch the news (or both). Incredibly, as the wikipedia article on Islam reports: "In Muslim tradition, Muhammad is viewed as the last and the greatest in a series of prophets—as the man closest to perfection, the possessor of all virtues." This borders on delusional, and requires a kind of historical and intellectual dishonesty guaranteed to fail the canons -- any canon -- common to western historiographic traditions.
But this post has a more limited scope. Here, the theological system promoted by his followers, that of the Qu'ran -- the Mein Kampf of Islam -- and the Hadith (or Ahadith), together considered their "holy books", make for the proper object of the investigation at hand.
If you wish to read up on the horrors, and typical abuses of modern Islam, you can find a representative sample of them here: http://www.amprpress.theology_of_islam.htm/. Please note the other options at the bottom of that page if you wish to read more.
This (http://www.abcog.org/cislam2.htm) is an excellent discussion of the form and substance of the Koranic theology by exegesis and exposition.
The Qu'ran's Doctine of the Bible
An Islamic website expresses the traditional view of the Koran thus:
"The Quran is the only divine Book extant in its original text, and is, therefore, the only source of Guidance from God for all mankind."
Muslims insult the Christian God by beginnin their religion with the assumption (dogma) that the Bible (having lost its autographs to history) very quickly became corrupted, and that (by implication) Christians simply stood by and did nothing about it, never comparing one copy against others to see which readings most closely matched to reproduce the original reading of the autographs. This is absurd in the extreme, and the evidence countermands the claim, denying the basis for the very existence of Islam.
A. The Quranic Doctrine of the Word of god Begins with a Simple Non-Sequitur.
There is no reason to think that a faithfully translated book -- without the originals in existence -- could not serve as "The source of divine Guidance for all mankind." If each concept in the originals is accurately expressed in an extant translation (or set of translations), then no substantial, conceptual difference between the autographs and copies presently exists. In this case, the meaning of God's Word (as originally given) is preserved intact. We have early copies in several languages for such comparisons, including many copies in the the original [Koine] Greek tongue, as well as Coptic, Syriac, Latin, Ethiopian and the like.
Thus, even if one could show this or that flaw in any one translation (at present), this does nothing to impugn the real and essential, protected purity of God's Word in history, via the tens of thousands of manuscripts we have available from which to reconstruct the New Testament.
B. Confessional Integrity Favors the Biblical View of the Bible.
The system of theology found in the good translations tells against the corruption view in favor of the current teachings of the Bible about the Bible itself (biblical bibliology). Historically, when exegeting the texts of the 16th and 17th centuries, Christian scholars have found it both possible and enlightening, to produce from them systematic theologies, found in standards like the Westminster Confession of Faith, which demonstrably display the mutual consent of all the parts. This underscores in practical and confessional ways the biblical verity uttered by the Lord Jesus, "The Scripture cannot be broken."
C. The Impossibility of the Contrary Tells In Favor of A Biblical Bibliology.
The systematic character of the original sayings of the autographs can be demonstrated from the impossibility of the contrary to the Christian outlook, as this post presently will, in the case of Islam, and has done in the past regarding other theological and philosophical systems. This system of theology includes the absolute preservation of God's Word in all history, past, present and future, together with our improving understanding of it as God sanctifies his people. This shows up as confessional progress in the churches of Christ.
D. The Teachings of The Bible Unanimously and Self-Consistently Testify Against the Qu'ran's Corruption View.
Psalm 12:6 -- "The words of the LORD are pure words [not were pure, but now corrupted]: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times [i.e. perfectly pure].
Psalm 19:7-8 -- "The law of the LORD is perfect [not "was" or "will be" perfect], converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
Isaiah 55:11 -- "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
The efficacy of the Word of God is tied to its purity; the corruption of it, by adding to it the word's of mere men, or subtracting from it its other essential and mutually confirming parts, ruins its ability to do as God had intended it. God converts and restores men by His pure and holy Word. The Lord Jesus calls this, "Making the word of God void" [of no effect], just what he accused the pharisees of doing, who, by their many traditions of men, added to the word of God. Thus, the Lord rebuked them, and proved them liars (Prov. 30).
E. The Pslamic texts above repeatedly declare the purity of all God's Word in the PRESENT tense, meaning they must be true at all times, or else they never were true in the first place. They cannot be false at some point and time -- as Islam's doctrine of biblical restoration implies -- without being false at all times. Thus, the Qu'ran stupidly and most foolishly declares the God of the Bible a liar.
Conversely, if these biblical doctrines are true -- and they are, so that the contrary is impossible - then Islam's restoration doctrine MUST be false. For "the Scripture CANNOT be broken." God will not permit it, and has sworn by His holiness that this will never happen. This forms the basis for His special and providential care, with which He shields His written Word from the corruption of men, and the malice of Satan; for the welfare of His Church depends upon it.
F. God is able to guarantee this because He - unlike Allah -- is sovereign, and need not correct His own failure to preserve the work He completed (the canon of Scripture) by A.D. 70. This renders the Qu'ran both false, and unnecessary, in the first place. The only way to attack this position is by impugning the sovereignty and integrity of the Almighty, either explicitly or implicitly. I urgently recommend making better choices.
G. The early church fathers copied almost the entire New Testment, by quoting it profusely throughout their own writings (minus 17 verses). This fact, and the closeness of the quoted readings (in most cases) simply defies the corruption theory.
H. Moreover, we can say against the textal corruption view of the Bible that ancient historians -- probably to a man or woman -- in the vast majority of universities simply reject it outright. Most who reject the Christian message do so on an entirely different basis than this. They hold instead that the Christian message evolved over time, between the time of the events alleged in it, and the time authors put them in writing - NOT afterward. Form, redaction and other naturalistic forms of Gospels criticism, proceed upon a basis which excludes the "textual corruption" claims of the Qu'ran.
Muslim apologists often thereby (accidentally) concede the debate with Christians in citing this or that example of a historian employing such "western" methods to denounce as unhistorical or inauthentic some passage in the Newer Testament. This is the gnat-camel problem in the extreme. Once a Muslim apologist grants "expertise" or "authority to falsify" any text of the New Testament, he has forfeited the match, undermining the putative reason for the existence of the Qu'ran at the outset.
I. For the original Bible to have appeared in A.D. 70 as the Qu'ran now does, within 6 centuries, this would have required an extraordinarly accelerated pace of textual corruption not seen even in copies of secular texts of the ancient world (Herodotus, Thucydides, etc.), where demonstrably far less care was taken to match the translation details necessary to convey accurately in copied form just what the earlier authors said.
But even less time is allowed for this process of corruption since the Bible was finished originally in or just before A.D. 70 and its earliest copies appear from A.D. 120-125 (the John Rylands Manuscript, designated "P52" - for papyrus number 52), and A.D. 155 (the Chester Beatty Papyri). By the third century's end (A.D. 300), full copies of all the New Testment books had circulated for some time. So the Qu'ran needs nearly complete corruption of the New Testament (they might be able to show some 20% overlap -- at most -- in places where Quranic authors actually borrowed ideas from Christian sources), as well the Old, within about two to two and a half centuries.
This is extremely improbable for even the least attended, and worst attested, works of antiquity, let alone their chosen of target of the very best attended -- scribal copyists took greater care because they believed they were copying the very Word of God -- and attested (the NT alone boasts more than 35,000 manuscripts used for reconstruction). Nothing like this exists for any other work of the ancient world, from Plato and Euripides, to Tacitus or Polybius. And historians are quite sure we know what they wrote and believed. How much more the Bible?
This leaves the Qu'ran in the extremely precarious position of teaching a process of corruption, which [allegedly] utterly ruined not only the Bible's teachings and texts, but also the citations of all the early church fathers as well -- and then it left no historical record behind by which we might trace its invisible progress through the Church, or find any of its sources. This is not just textual corruption, it is magical and unbelievable. So much so, that no scholar of which I have ever heard actually believes it. And it does bring to mind the phrase "historical lunacy." Perhaps the original documents were never actually copied, and just got blown up by a suicide bomber.
J. The Koranic view of the Bible also has important implications for their view of God. On the "textual corruption" view of things, God is unable (or inconsistently unwilling) to protect His originally-given Word; instead, evil men prove able to corrupt what He goes to great lengths to establish, giving Himself the extra task of having to fix it later. The alleged deity should simply have used his "great power" to protect what he had written at the outset, to avoid looking like the god of "white out," and all pencil erasers.
K. On the Qu'ranic view, God let His Church -- Cristians -- falter and wander into corrupt doctrines for many centuries, until the advent of the Qu'ran. Yet, Protestants of the reformation even affirm that the Church always had the pure Word of God available to it. The reason for the need of reformation was not a corrupted Bible, but people who began to ignore, and then opposed, the clearer and more basic teachings of the Bible -- just as the Pharisees and Sadducees had opposed the Lord Jesus and the apostles.
If corrupt men, who managed to kill the Son of God (because the Scripture cannot be broken which foretold His death by their hands, and then His resurrection) could not corrupt the text in the days of the Lord Jesus -- though they opposed the word of God strenuously -- what makes Muslims think that God would permit less pernicious and able men to do it later?
L. How Sovereign is Allah?
If the cosmos really had a god that incompetent, who has to rewrite everything each time evil men gain the upper hand (even though the historical record says this did not happen), what guarantee does any Muslim have that Allah can accomplish any of his Quranic promises, or is willing to, because (in case Muslims haven't noticed), we still have no shortage of evil men on this planet -- people willing to blow up important things, spread the good cheer of I.E.D's, and wreak all manner of literary and logical havoc with people's minds in the name of religion. Is the Qu'ran presently at risk of corruption by evil men? And if not, then how was the Bible so [allegedly] vulnerable?
Our brief study then finds that the Qu'ran's doctrines regarding the Bible and its alleged "corruption" (not development) prove both outlandish, and counterfactual, in the extreme. One could scarcely overstate how badly erroneously the Qu'ran pontificates at this point. As noted only very briefly, it implies its own internal contradictions regarding ecclesiology and the doctrine of God's sovereignty, between bibliology and history, and between many other several categories of theological dogma.
God surely deserves much better, than to be slandered this way from the pen of a false (semi-literate) prophet, who could not have passed a basic university course in history or logic.
Our study will continue -- if God is willing -- to examine a few other areas of Islamic dogma, critically examining the logical and evidentiary features of its popularly professed system of theology, if one can call it a system.
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