IS THE BIBLE THE ACTUAL WORDS OF GOD? IS THE KORAN?

There are many ways to approach this question. One way is to compare the biblical evidences against the Koranic evidences or claims. The first apologetic for Islam I encountered, entitled, “Can we Prove Quran [Koran] is From God?” reads (I copied it in its entirety.):

• Muslims have something that offers the clearest proof of all - The Holy Quran. There is no other book like it anywhere on earth. It is absolutely perfect in the Arabic language. It has no mistakes in grammar, meanings or context. The scientific evidences are well known around the entire world, even amongst non-Muslim scholars. Predictions in the Quran have come true; and its teachings are clearly for all people, all places and all times.

• Surprisingly enough, the Quran itself provides us with the test of authenticity and offers challenges against itself to prove its veracity. Allah tells us in the Quran:

• “Haven't the unbelievers considered if this was from other than Allah, they would find within it many contradictions?” [Noble Quran 4:82]
• Another amazing challenge from Allah's Book:  “If you are in doubt about it, bring a chapter like it.” [Noble Quran 2:23]
• And Allah challenges us with: “ Bring ten chapters like it.” [Noble Quran 11:13]
• And finally: “Bring one chapter like it.” [Noble Quran 10:38]

• No one has been able to produce a book like it, nor ten chapters like it, nor even one chapter like it. It was memorized by thousands of people during the lifetime of Muhammad (peace be upon him) and then this memorization was passed down from teacher to student for generation after generation, from mouth to ear and from one nation to another. Today every single Muslim has memorized some part of the Quran in the original Arabic language that it was revealed in over 1,400 years ago, even though most of them are not Arabs. There are over nine million (9,000,000) Muslims living on the earth today who have totally memorized the entire Quran, word for word, and can recite the entire Quran, in Arabic. (godallah.com)

First of all, this Islamic apologetic (TIA) claims that the grammar of the Koran is perfect. Therefore, it must come from above. However, after citing numerous grammatical errors, answering-islam.org concludes:

• No doubt many learned people have gone over this Arabic Qur'an to check it for mistakes, like any good publisher would do. If even with the advanced technology they have, there are still errors in it, how can we have any confidence that the first edition of the Qur'an in a time when very few people can read and write Arabic, was written down error free? Mohammad himself said "we are a nation that does not know how to write or do accounting." And the Muslim in early Islam used to set free some Jews among their war captives if they would in turn teach a few Arabs how to read and write Arabic.

While the Bible makes no such claims about its grammar, it does make many claims about its authenticating divine miracles. For example, when Moses complained that the Israelites would never believe that God had sent him, God gave him miracles to prove otherwise (Exodus 3-4).

Jesus performed so many miracles that even the adversarial writings of the Jews acknowledge them.

In contrast to this, Mohammad often indirectly confessed that he didn’t perform any miracles:

• [ Koran Surah 3:183-84) (The same are) those [Jews] who say: Lo! Allah hath charged us that we believe not in any messenger until he bring us an offering which fire (from heaven) shall devour. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Messengers came unto you before me with miracles, and with that (very miracle) which ye describe. Why then did ye slay them? (Answer that) if ye are truthful! And if they deny thee, even so did they deny messengers who were before thee, who came with miracles and with the Psalms and with the Scripture giving light.

• [2:118] And those who have no knowledge say: Why doth not Allah speak unto us, or some sign come unto us? Even thus, as they now speak, spake those (who were) before them. Their hearts are all alike. We have made clear the revelations for people who are sure.

• [29.50-51] And they say: Why are not signs sent down upon him from his Lord? Say: The signs are only with Allah, and I am only a plain warner. Is it not enough for them that We have revealed to you the Book which is recited to them? Most surely there is mercy in this and a reminder for a people who believe.

TIA also claims that scientific findings support the Koran. However, Wikipedia claims otherwise:

• This effort has been criticized by some scientists and philosophers as containing logical fallacies, being unscientific, likely to be disproven by evolving scientific theories.

Meanwhile, the Bible has many teachings that prefigure scientific findings:

1. TIME IS NOT ETERNAL: 2 Tim. 1:9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

2. THE UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING: Genesis 1:1  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Contra the steady-state theory that had ruled science).

3. THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE PHYSICAL WORD AREN’T VISIBLE: Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

4. WATER CYCLE: Job 36:27 "He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams.” (Also Amos 9:6)

5. DINOSAURS?? Psalm 74:14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.

6. STARS AS GUIDES TO SEASONS AND GEOGRAPHIC POSITIONS: Genesis 1:14 lights in the expanse of the sky… [would] serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years.”

7. GOD WORKS THROUGH FIXED LAWS: Jeremiah 33:25 states that God accomplishes His purposes through “fixed laws of heaven and earth.”  (Although science demonstrated that phenomena operated according to laws, the Bible long before posited the operation of the God’s laws.) (Also Job 38:33)

8. COUNTLESS STARS:  Jeremiah 33:22 states, “I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore. " (Also Job 11:7-8; 22:12)

9. ROUND EARTH, EXPANDING UNIVERSE: “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in” (Isaiah 40:22; 42:5).

10. THE EARTH DOES NOT SIT ON A PEDESTAL AS ANE COSMOLOGY HAS IT: Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

11. UNHEALTHY QUALITY OF EXCREMENT: Deut. 23:12-13 Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. 13As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

12. FOSSIL FINDS IN THE MOUNTAINS: Psalm 104:6 …the waters stood above the mountains. (Even Everest)

13. SNAKES ONCE HAD USABLE LEGS (now covered by their epidermis): (Gen. 3:14)

TIA also claims that the predictions of the Koran “have come true.” However, answering-islam.org denies this:

• In all fairness, there are no true prophecies in the Quran and the ones that Muslims point to fail to be truly prophetic. The claim that the Quran contains dozens of prophecies is based purely on wishful thinking since none of the so called proof texts presented are convincing when taken within the context of the passage in question.

For example, Surah 7:157 reads: “Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write [Mohammed], whom they find written in the Torah [Deut.18:15] and the Gospel” [John14:16].

However, an examination of these passages does not bear out the claims of the Koran. Moses did not prophesy of Muhammad:

• The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, "Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die." The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. (Deut. 18:15-18)

Muhammad was not like Moses. According to his own admission, he wasn’t a miracle worker. Even more damning to the Koran is the fact that this prophet would come from “among their brothers.” Admittedly, Muhammad was not an Israelite.

The Gospels also fail to endorse Muhammad as the Koran alleges:

• “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor (“paraclete” in the Greek and not “periclytos,” meaning “the praised one,” referring to Muhammad, as Muslim scholars claim) to be with you forever.” (John 14:16)

• "When the Counselor (“paraclete”) comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. (John 15:26; Also 16:12-14)

However, out of the thousands of ancient Greek NT manuscripts, there is not one instance where “periclytos” is used.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of OT prophecies that Jesus had fulfilled. There are also an equal number that Israel had fulfilled – about their successes, devastations, and even their restoration to the land of Israel. Oddly, there is even a prophecy that the children of Ishmael have fulfilled:

• The angel of the LORD also said to her (Hagar): "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." (Genesis 16:11-12)

TIA claims that another proof of the Koran is found in its lack of contradictions. However, answering-islam.org has documented hundreds, perhaps even thousands of contradictions. Meanwhile, the Koran consistently acknowledges that the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels are perfectly true:

• Ultimately, the strongest, most serious problem of the Qur'an is that it affirms the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians as authentic and true revelation from God (cf. what the Qur'an says about the Bible), while radically denying central aspects of their message, e.g. the core themes of sacrifice and atonement in the Torah, the crucifixion of Jesus, the deity of Jesus and even the mere messianic title "Son of God" for Jesus, the very nature of God, the fall and the sinfulness of man (*, *), necessity and means of salvation, etc. For this reason Muslims had to invent the unwarranted theory of corruption of the earlier scriptures, even against the clear testimony of the Qur'an itself. 

Here are some assertions of the Koran about the accuracy of the Bible:

• [Surah 18:27] “Proclaim what is revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None can change His words..”

• [3.3] He has revealed to you the Book with truth, verifying that which is before it, and He revealed the Tavrat [Torah] and the Injeel [Gospels] aforetime, a guidance for the people, and He sent the Furqan.

• [5.44] Surely We revealed the Taurat [Torah] in which was guidance and light; with it the prophets who submitted themselves (to Allah) judged (matters) for those who were Jews, and the masters of Divine knowledge and the doctors, because they were required to guard (part) of the Book of Allah, and they were witnesses thereof; therefore fear not the people and fear Me, and do not take a small price for My communications; and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the unbelievers…[5.46] And We sent after them in their footsteps Isa, son of Marium, verifying what was before him of the Taurat and We gave him the Injeel in which was guidance and light, and verifying what was before it of Taurat and a guidance and an admonition for those who guard (against evil).

Lastly, TIA quotes the Koran claiming that no one can produce a verse like those contained in the Koran. However, the same assertion can also be made about the Bible, Talmud, or even Shakespeare. However, these assertions do nothing to prove that they come from God.

What I have presented here is far from an exhaustive presentation. This would require volumes. However, I hope that I have whet your appetite enough to pursue this question further.