“Your Bible has been corrupted!” Talk with Muslim neighbors, friends, or family about your Christian faith for any amount of time, and this accusation is likely to arise. The Islamic accusation that the Bible has been corrupted is called taḥrīf. Sharing God’s words with people is an essential element in making disciples, as demonstrated by Jesus’ command to teach others all that he commanded (Matt 28:20). Given the enduring relevance of taḥrīf, it is necessary to learn how to respond to this accusation when talking with Muslims. This old, but relevant, accusation has two prongs: 1) the Bible has been misinterpreted, and 2) the textual basis of the Bible has been corrupted.[1] In this article, we will address this latter contention by giving the origins of taḥrīf, exploring some medieval Christian responses to taḥrīf, and by defending the Bible’s textual authenticity.[2]
Origins of Tahrīf
Accusations of textual corruption first appear in writing during the initial century of the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate (750–850).[3] This was a period characterized by an increasing number of Christians speaking and writing in Arabic, which gave Muslims swelling access to Judeo-Christian religious texts.[4] The Christian use of Arabic aided in revealing to Muslims contradictory claims presented in the Qur’ān and the Bible. The accusation of textual corruption attempts to explain why the Qur’ān appears to affirm the previous scriptures (i.e., Torah and Gospel) (Q 2:41, 89, 91; 3:3–4, 93; 5:43, 46–47, 68; 7:157; 10:94; 16:43; 21:7; 28:52–53; 46:10) which contain claims that directly oppose beliefs and principles espoused by the Qur’ān.[5] Scholars connect the origins of the accusation of taḥrīf with Muslim anxiety that earlier scriptures attest to Muhammad’s advent.[6] For instance, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh writes that, “The contradictions between the Kur’ānic and Biblical stories, and the denial of both Jews and Christians that Muhammad was predicted in their Holy Scriptures, gave rise to the Kur’ānic accusation of the falsification.”[7] Eighth and ninth century Muslim sources attest to an upsurge in accusations of taḥrīf.[8] So, this raises the question: How did Christians answer these charges of taḥrīf?
Medieval Christian Responses to Taḥrīf
As the accusation of taḥrīf arose during the early medieval period (c. 500–1000), it is instructive to see how Christians from this era addressed it in their conquest to explain the Christian faith and present the gospel to Muslims.[9] Medieval Christians used theological and rational arguments in response to taḥrīf. Such an approach is evident in the eighth-century dialogue between Timothy I, Catholicos of the Church of the East (779–823), and the Muslim caliph al-Mahdī (r. 775–785). Using his biblical knowledge, Timothy references the collective witness of the Torah and Prophets about Jesus’s divinity and prophesied advent.[10] In light of this Christological witness, he reasons that Christians had no cause to alter the previous Scriptures. Responding to al-Mahdī’s charge that Christians erased the “many testimonies” about Muhammad from the Bible, Timothy reasonably inquires where the textual evidence is to support the caliph’s assertion.[11] Due to the format of the dialogue, the caliph does not respond to Timothy’s answer, but simply moves on to his next question. Nevertheless, the caliph’s charge, which Muslims continue to make today, presupposes “original” biblical texts that mention Muhammad, which are now allegedly lost or altered.[12] Thus, Timothy’s response has lasting relevance as Muslims continue to perpetuate this argument, without any supporting evidence.
Medieval Christians also pointed to the dissemination of the Bible across different traditions, regions, and languages before Islam’s advent as evidence of its integrity. For instance, Church of the East theologian ‘Ammār al-Basrī (d. 850) argued that the collusion necessary to enact widespread alterations of the Gospel was impossible given the lack of ecumenism among the different ecclesiastical communities.[13] Employing a similar argument, ninth-century Arab Christian writer al-Kindī (d. 830) queries how different groups scattered in various lands could agree to corrupt the Bible in the same places and in the same ways.[14] He also notes that the Qur’ān commends the reading of the Torah and Gospel (Q 10:93; 2:122), leaving the question of why it would commend the reading of corrupted texts.[15] The theological and rational retorts to the accusation of taḥrīf employed by Medieval Christians display their conviction of the Bible’s integrity and the insufficiency of the Muslim arguments leveled against the Christian faith. Christians continue to offer a defense of the Bible’s integrity to Muslims today, and like their Medieval Christian brethren, highlight the Qur’an’s respectful view of the Bible.[16]
The Bible’s Historical Integrity
Nevertheless, these discussions of biblical textual authenticity have been brought into the mainstream in recent years through several popular-level books.[17] For the sake of space, we will briefly engage the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts.[18] A common argument lodged by critics against the New Testament’s integrity is that it was wildly unstable in its earliest stages. That is, our copies of the New Testament do not reflect the content of the original autographs (the original written documents of the biblical authors). Muslim polemicists adopt these arguments to support their accusation of taḥrīf.[19] However, the critical challenges to the New Testament are not as well supported as they might seem.
Currently, we have sixty manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third centuries, a sizeable number for ancient documents.[20] Studies of documents recovered from garbage heaps in southern Egypt have found that manuscripts were in use for 75 to 500 years before being retired, with the average of about 150 years. As an implication of this longevity, Craig Evans contends that it is possible, even probable, that New Testament autographs and first copies may have remained in circulation throughout the second and into the early third century.[21] Thus, he posits that the autograph of Matthew’s Gospel—the actual document that Matthew used to write on—may have remained in use until the production of the earliest extant Gospel fragments, some 150 years later.[22] Such longevity may support Tertullian’s claim in AD 190 that some of Paul’s “authentic” letters were still available.[23] Therefore, Evans characterizes the supposition of some scholars like Ehrman who entertain that the New Testament writings were wildly unstable in the early stages as “highly improbable.”[24] Thus, we have good reasons to trust the Bible’s integrity, and, consequently, we see that the issues that gave rise to taḥrīf—the Scriptures’ omission of Muhammad and their affirmation of Jesus’s divinity—remain.
Conclusion
The theological and rational arguments of Medieval Christians, along with the implications of recent manuscript evidence from archaeological findings, give us good reasons to trust our Bibles. While trusting our Bibles is a good end in itself, that is not our only reason to study these things. Rather, we establish the genuineness of our Bibles to point Muslims to Jesus. Therefore, become familiar with the integrity of the Bible’s redemptive narrative, which traces God’s pursuit of rebellious, unclean sinners through the centuries to the salvific cross of Christ. Stand on the Bible’s historical and narrative integrity by opening it with Muslims and reading the redemptive story therein.
Ryan Schaffner, “The Bible through a Qur’ānic Filter: Scripture Falsification (Taḥrīf) in 8th– and 9th–Century Muslim Disputational Literature,” (PhD diss., The Ohio State University, 2016), ii. ↑
See Martin Whittingham, “The value of taḥrīf ma‘nawī (corrupt interpretation) as a category for analysing Muslim views of the Bible: evidence from Al-radd al-jamīl and Ibn Khaldūn,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22, no. 2 (April 2011): 209–222 for an explanation of how medieval Muslims re-defined terms and took passages out of context to support their view that Christians misinterpret certain biblical teachings. ↑
Schaffner, “The Bible,” passim. ↑
Schaffner, “The Bible,” 295. ↑
Q 10:94 states, “So if you [Prophet] are in doubt about what We have revealed to you, ask those who have been reading the scriptures before you. . .” Yet, John 1:1–3, for example, clearly declares Jesus’ divinity, directly contradicting Q 4:171 and 5:75, which state He was only a messenger. ↑
Gordon Nickel, The Gentle Answer to the Muslim Accusation of Biblical Falsification (Calgary: Bruton Gate, 2015), 79. ↑
Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “Tawrāt,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 10, New Edition, eds. P. J. Bearman et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 394; also see Camilla Adang, “Torah,” Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, vol. 5, gen. ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 304. ↑
Schaffner, 295; see Muḥammad ibn al-Layth, A Medieval Case for Islam’s Superiority: The Letter of Ibn Al-Layth to the King of the Romans, ed. Ayman S. Ibrahim and Clint Hackenburg (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2025), 293, where al-Layth’s omission of references to God’s fatherhood, Jesus’ sending of the Paraclete, and how the Paraclete’s testimony about Jesus from John’s Gospel pertaining to the coming Paraclete imply his belief in the Bible’s textual corruption. ↑
After offering answers to a variety of topics related to Christianity and Islam, Christian theologian ʿAbd al-Masīḥ Ibn Isḥāk al-Kindī (d. 850), concludes by appealing to his Muslim interlocutor to leave Islam and believe the gospel. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ Ibn Isḥāk al-Kindī and William Muir, The Apology of Al Kindy, Written at the Court of Al Māmūn (circa A.H. 215; A.D. 830), in Defence of Christianity against Islam (London: Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 1887), 121. ↑
Clint Hackenberg, “An Arabic-English Translation of the Religious Debate between the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I and the ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Mahdī (Master’s thesis, The Ohio State University, 2009), 136. ↑
Timotheus, The Patriarch and the Caliph: An Eighth-Century Dialogue between Timothy I and Al-Mahdī: A Parallel English-Arabic Text, ed. Khalil Samir and Wafik Nasry (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2018), 30. ↑
See the following links from Yaqeen Institute (an online Islamic discipleship and research resource) for their explanations about the “original Gospel” and about Muhammad’s absence from biblical texts. ↑
Schaffner, “The Bible,” 341; Mark Beaumont, “‘Ammār al-Basrī (d. ca. 850): An Early Systematic Theologian in the Islamic Context,” in Medieval Encounters: Arabic-Speaking Christians and Islam, ed. Ayman S. Ibrahim (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 245. ↑
Al-Kindī and Muir, The Apology, 115. ↑
Al-Kindī and Muir, The Apology, 115–116. ↑
For an academic, yet accessible, resource noting the Qur’an’s respectful view of the Bible and a defense of the Bible, see Gordon Nickel, The Gentile Answer to the Muslim Accusation of Biblical Falsification (Calgary: Bruton Gate, 2015), 17–30, 123–192; When evangelizing Muslims, popular Christian apologist GodLogic regularly notes how the Qur’an affirms the “previous scriptures” (i.e., the Bible). For an example, see the following link. ↑
Perhaps the most notable author of such works is the non-Christian author Bart Ehrman. See his Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005). ↑
For Christian defenses of the Bible’s integrity, see David B. Garner, ed., Did God Really Say? Affirming the Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of Scripture (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2012); Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger, The Early Text of the New Testament, 1st ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). ↑
In his interview with Bart Ehrman, Muslim apologist and polemicist Mohammad Hijab asks specific questions related to the Bible’s integrity. Mohammad Hijab, “Who Got Jesus Right: Muslims or Christians? Mohammed Hijab Interviews Dr. Bart Ehrman,” YouTube video, 43:43, November 5, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbyhxdiMOU. ↑
Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 235–236. These range in length from codices to tiny fragments of papyrus. ↑
Evans proposes that Matthew was written and first circulated in AD 75. Craig Evans, “How Long Were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for New Testament Textual Criticism,” BBR 25.1 (2015): 30. ↑
Evans, “How Long,” 30. ↑
Tertullian, “On the Prescription against Heretics,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. A. Roberts et al trans. Peter Holmes (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1885), 260. ↑
Evans, “How Long,” 35. ↑
