We may be repeating ourselves here if we point out that the
Gospels, or the Bible, of which we are speaking, that is extant among the
people nowadays, is something other than that which was revealed from
Allaah to His slave and Messenger ‘Eesa ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary –
peace be upon him). With regard to what was revealed from Allaah, no one's
faith is valid if he disbelieves in it or in any part of it. We have
warned against that in question no.
47516.
But for reasons of divine wisdom, that book continued to be
distorted and misinterpreted from ancient times until its divine origin was
lost and disappeared. All that the people have in their hands now is no more
than a mixture of the darkness of shirk and trinity with the glimmer of the
light of Tawheed, an accumulation of lies and distortions mixed with the
remnants of the truth and knowledge of the Prophets.
Now, after so many centuries of tampering, it is impossible
for anyone to be certain whether any part of the Bible is true or false,
unless it is checked in the light of the truth that confirms that which went
before, the divine light of which has not been extinguished by the darkness
of ignorance and whims and desires, and whose pure truthfulness has not been
contaminated with even a single lie or mistake. That can be nothing other
than the Holy Qur’aan which Allaah has guaranteed to preserve, as He says
(interpretation of the meaning):
“Verily, We, it is We Who
have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur’aan) and surely, We will guard it
(from corruption)”
[al-Hijr 15:9]
Even though one of the greatest Christian scholars and
defenders of the Bible, namely Norton, tried to defend the Bible against the
criticism of Ackharn the German, he was forced to admit that distinguishing
truth from lies nowadays is very difficult.
From this we reach the matter asked about in the question. We
say that whoever does not believe in the Qur’aan will never have any valid
book in which to believe, and whoever casts aspersions upon the truthfulness
of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and the
validity of the Islamic religion, will not be able to offer any proof that
the religion which he follows is valid.
The point is that whoever casts aspersions upon the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and the things that he said
about his Prophethood and the Revelation that he received from heaven, even
though miracles happened at his hands that confirmed the veracity of what he
said, and all his life he continued to challenge his enemies to produce the
like of the Book which he attributed to the revelation of his Lord, and even
challenged mankind and the jinn together to cooperate and produce something
like this Qur’aan, as Allaah said:
“Say: “If the mankind and the jinn were together to
produce the like of this Qur’aan, they could not produce the like thereof,
even if they helped one another”
[al-Isra’ 17:88]
But they were not able
to do that and produce anything like it, throughout history and until now,
in spite of the numerous enemies who opposed him and wished that they could
prove that he was lying. But there is no way they can do that!
Moreover, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) continued to prevail over his enemies and they were unable to
prove him wrong. They were never able to prove that he was lying in anything
he said, even in the regular kind of talk that people engage in amongst
themselves, let alone telling lies about his Lord Who had sent him.
I wonder, if they reject all that evidence, how they could
have any evidence of the soundness of the idea of “divine inspiration” which
forms the foundation of their belief in their books, in spite of the fact
that they do not claim that the Gospel was revealed to Jesus, or that he
wrote it or dictated it, or even that the Gospels were written during his
lifetime!
Moreover, there is no sound evidence concerning the
personalities of the four men who wrote the Gospels: who they were, how they
lived their lives, and whether what they wrote came from divine revelation
or divine inspiration, as they claim, or it was only their own ideas or what
was inspired to them by their devils. Horn, one of the greatest exegetes of
the Bible, says: “If it is said that the Bible was revealed from God, that
does not mean that every single word or phrase of it is inspired by God.
Rather we know from the statements of those who wrote the Bible, from the
differences in their styles, that they were permitted to write according to
their own natures, customs and understanding. It is unimaginable that they
could have been inspired in everything they described or in every ruling
they stated.”
The Encyclopaedia Britannica refers to the different
opinions among Christian scholars and researchers concerning the matter of
divine inspiration and whether every phrase of the Bible is divinely
inspired or not. Then it comments on that in one article (19/20) where it
says: “Those who say that every phrase is divinely inspired cannot prove
their claims with any ease.”
We say: and they cannot do so even with difficulty!
There are dozens of places where the Gospels contradict one
another, and dozens of historical errors and false prophecies that never
materialized. Frederick Grant stated that “The New Testament is not
homogeneous because it is a compilation of scattered elements. It does not
represent a single point of view or style from beginning to end, rather it
represents different points of view.
The American Encyclopaedia states that there is a
serious problem that results from the contradictions that appear in
different places throughout the fourth Gospel and the three synoptic
Gospels. The differences between them are so great that if you accept the
synoptic Gospels as sound and correct, this will lead to the conclusion that
the Gospel of John is not sound.
It is worth noting that the Gospel of John is the one which
focuses the most on their doctrine of trinity; indeed they admit that it was
written to establish this doctrine, which the other three Gospels failed to
do, and to put an end to the dispute concerning this matter.
The Catholic Church, which strongly adheres to the idea of
divine inspiration as the origin of the Bible, confirmed that in a meeting
of the Vatican in 1869-1870. But a century later it revised its opinion and
admitted, in Vatican II (1962-1965) that these books contain a great deal of
defects and some falsehoods, according to what was reported by the French
Catholic researcher Dr Maurice Bucaille, who later became a Muslim.
Moreover, if a person disbelieves in any of the miracles of
the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) or any aspects
of his life story that point to his truthfulness, how can he prove the
miracles of these so-called apostles who wrote the Gospels, or prove that
their claim to divine inspiration is correct?
For them, the idea of divine inspiration is correct on the
basis of what is written in the Bible, and the miracles mentioned therein,
and the Bible is sound and correct because it is divinely inspired!
Thus their evidence ends in a vicious circle, as was
mentioned in the Encyclopaedia by some researchers: “So the Bible is
sound because it is divinely inspired and their inspiration is proven
because the Bible testifies to that!”
If a person disbelieves in the Qur’aan, which was transmitted
by means of tawaatur (a process in which something is narrated from so many
by so many that it is inconceivable that they could all agree upon a lie),
throughout the Muslim world, east and west, generation after generation, by
memory and in writing, with no variant copies and no contradictions, how can
he prove the Gospels to be sound or rely on them, when there is no shred of
evidence, not even a hint, that they existed any earlier than two hundred
years after the death of Christ, according to what Norton quoted from
Ackharn the German? Then there were the calamities that befell the
Christians in the fourth century CE, when their churches were destroyed and
their books were burned, which makes one lose confidence in any of their
books that appeared after that. When did they appear and in whose possession
were they during that period of persecution and hiding? How did they reach
us?… There are many questions about this problem as was expressed in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica where it says:
“We have no certain knowledge of the way in which the
canonical soundness of these four Gospels was established, nor where or when
this decision was made.”
With regard to not knowing who translated it from the
language in which it was originally written, how reliable his knowledge was
and how qualified he was for this task, and how we can be certain that he
translated it in the proper manner, that is a whole other issue!
For more details on what we have mentioned in summary in this
answer, please see: Izhaar al-Haq by Shaykh Rahmat-Allaah al-Hindi.
And Munaazarah bayna al-Islam wa’l-Nasraaniyyah by Shaykh Muhammad
Jameel Ghaazi et al.
May Allaah guide us and you to the Straight Path.
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