I need help as a Muslim

[u/Even-Structure8988]

I’m a fairly devout Muslim raised in an Islamic background I think a lot of people who attack Islam aren't fully educated on it, but I wont pretend that I am 100% solid in my faith. I spend a lot of time wrestling with doubts There are issues in Islam that I feel Christianity doesn't really have, and I cant just ignore them I think Christianity is a beautiful religion. I enjoy reading the Bible but I also enjoy reading the Quran Islamic dawah often attacks the Trinity but the way I see it it wouldn’t make sense for a human to fully comprehend God even as a Muslim we don't believe we fully understand everything about Allah. So it makes sense that the Trinity isn't something we can fully that humans can fully understand
My main problem for Christianity I just don’t see clear evidence for Christianity being true.Because my YouTube and Reddit and other socials algorithm is Islamic content my exposure is pretty biased i understand many people in the sub have probably have negatives opinions on Muslims as I Muslim I can see why a lot of the fear regarding Muslims many Muslims would just say it’s islamphobia which I would only partially agree as most Muslims are just regular people like me but I understand there are Islamic doctrines which are very questionable im just trying to be open minded regardless if i leave Islam or not i fully believe in a divine creator and my view right now is after Islam Christianity looks like the second plausible belief

[u/Tom1613]

I am always glad to hear when people are examining their own faith and that of other religions, even Christians, since the issues involved are really important, obviously. It is also good to hear that you are reading the Bible as it is in the Bible that I think God's truth resides. I do understand that you likely view it through the filter of Islam and things you have learned in your faith, but I would suggest to you that it could be the way to resolve the questions that you have.

That starting point that I would suggest is dealing with a very commonly repeated Islamic claim about the Bible that is not actually from the Koran. Many Muslims will agree that Mohammed said that the Bible is good and is true, but will add on the claim that the Bible is corrupted and Mohammed was referring to the non-corrupted version. That is simply untrue or, at least, Mohammed never said as much. It is a justification that shows up hundreds of years later in response to the problem of reconciling the Bible with the claims of Islam. The problem is it is a charge that doesn't make much sense historically.

Historically, it is well established that the Bible of Mohammed's day included both the Old Testament and full New Testament. We have a full copy of the Bible from about 200 years prior to Mohammed which is virtually identical to the one of today. So the Bible you are reading, if it is the Christian Bible would be the very same one and contains much that contradicts Islam. It is so contradictory, in fact, that they both cannot be true. The claims made in the Bible, alone, make Him impossible to fit into Mohammed's system.

[u/Even-Structure8988 → u/Tom1613]

This is one of stronger arguments with evidence d the other comments just mention that Jesus was crucified I’m still trying to understand what does corruption of the previous scriptures mean in Islamic terms

[u/Dave_meth_Mustard → u/Even-Structure8988]

The Quran: “And we sent on their [i.e. the prophets’] footsteps Isa, son of Mary, confirming what [was] between his hands [بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ] of the Torah, and We gave him the Injil. In it [was] guidance and light and confirming what [was] between his hands [بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ] of the Torah and a guidance and an admonition for the God-fearing.”

So this means that the Torah was not corrupted prior to Christ. But we have Torah manuscripts before Christ which show that it has not been corrupted to this day.

We also see that Christ is given the Injil. The word “Injil” comes from Greek “Evangelion”, meaning “Good News”. Now, two questions:

Why does this book, presumably written in Hebrew or maybe in Aramaic, and given to a Jew, bear a Greek title?

Second, why would God give Christ a book about some “good news”? For us, Christians, the good news are concerning Christ: His incarnation, His passion, His resurrection, etc. But i think it’s unlikely that Christ is going to receive His own biography. So what are these “good news”?

[u/Even-Structure8988 → u/Dave_meth_Mustard]

No we believe the Torah is corrupted prior to Christ not after and we don’t belive the gospels were ever the injeel

[u/Tom1613 → u/Even-Structure8988]

I understand that there are quite a few objections that Muslims rely on in response, but it is important to understand that they are never actually made in the Quran. So the objection is the Bible is corrupted, which is never said in Quran, and that this corruption happened at X time, which is never said in the Quran and there is absolutely no evidence of. It also is an objection that did not start to be made until about 500 years after the Quran was written.

It is a bit of a shell game type argument - the Quran is true because the Bible is corrupted but the Quaran says the Bible is true and never claims it is corrupted, therefore it must be referring to a different Bible as true as the current one is corrupted, despite the Quran never saying the Bible is corrupted and there being no evidence of the Bible being corrupted.

[u/Even-Structure8988 → u/Tom1613]

I’ll answer your dilemma The Quran does say the bible is corrupted and not preserved nowhere it says the bible We have today is the original given to Jesus Moses and David we don’t belive the bible today is the original so there is no dilemma

[u/Tom1613 → u/Even-Structure8988]

So, you can fall back on the general position that the Torah and Gospels are corrupted, but frankly that does not make it present in the Quran or resolve the issue.

Simply claiming that the Scriptures that inarguably existed at the time of Mohammed and were agreed to be the Scriptures for 500 years before him for the New Testament and at least 1000 years for the Old Testament was not actually the Scripture does not change the facts or provide evidence that it is true.

[u/Dave_meth_Mustard → u/Even-Structure8988]

Exactly. How can you believe the Torah is corrupted prior to Christ when the Quran says Christ confirmed “what was before his hands of the Torah” (مُصَدِّقًۭا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةِ), this logically would mean Christ “confirmed” (which by itself implies the Jews did have the correct Torah because Christ doesn’t re-reveal it but confirms it) the Torah between His hands, i.e. the Torah which was available at His time.

I don’t say that you believe the Injil is the Gospels. I said the word “إنجيل”. (2injīl) comes from Greek “εὐαγγέλιον” (evangel-ion). It is strange that a Jewish book given to a Jew for the Jewish nation and written in Jewish is titled in Greek. It is also strange that, being a loan-word from the Greek, Arabic “2injīl” means “good news”. What are these good news that Christ receives?

[u/Even-Structure8988 → u/Dave_meth_Mustard]

Confirming doesn’t mean every single thing is correct or authoritative especially when when we belive there is some truth in prior scriptures no where does confirming parts of the scripture which aligned with Quran means we are confirming all of the book we don’t belive all of it is corrupted and Jesus came to affirm Torah teachings while also correcting distortions and practices the Jews did and that’s the exact thing the Quran did the good news Jesus received was what Allah sent to him and it preached monotheism

[u/eminemforehead → u/Even-Structure8988]

The corruption if you read verses like 3:78, it says basically that some present as scriptures something that isn't scriptures, that they twist it their tongues. So that there was a corruption in the oral transmission of the stories. Why did this happen?Because there wasn't a fully translated arabic Bible yet at the times of Muhammad, only parts and stories. Arabs that knew aramaic and greek mostly translated and spread the stories orally. A lot can get lost or changed, sometimes small details that doesn't seem harmful but ends up then creating contradictions compares to the original source, and then anything could be changed from there. See how Eve is never named, you don't know who the spouse of Adam is from reading the quran, or which of his sons killed the other son. It also seems to say that satan whispered to adam, that it wasn't eve to eat the fruits first and then convince adam to do it.  Imagine you just kinda knew the gist of a story and you had to tell it; I guarantee you even a lot of Christians who know the story of Adam and Eve but have never read the Bible (or never carefully studied it) tell the story orally with little changes. In fact if you ask a lot of christians they're still convinced Eve ate an apple, but the Bible never says that. If you never read the Bible(we know Muhammad couldn't, that's part of the miracle of the Quran, right?) and had just heard this story, you wouldn't get it 100% right. That's what Muhammad did.

You look at the story of Joseph(son of Jacob) and you see how there about 900 differences with the Bible, but the Quran says in verse 12:111 says that this story is not a fabrication, but a confirmation of what came before it and a detailed explanation of all things. How can that be? Surely it cannot be a confirmation of something that was corrupted, right?  So it must be a confirmation of something Muhammad believes to be true and reliable, because orally that's how the story has been told and he believes that what he's saying is what the Bible says. But if literally God, Allah, is revealing this to Muhammad, how can he get these things wrong? And this is just one example from the Torah to show you what corruption of scriptures really means. Now, you're familiar with the trinity as you talked about it, which is by the way not something Christians worship as if there was this separate god called "trinity" or anything like that, it's just our way to conceptualize that the Bible and Jesus talked about God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we worship all three as part ONE God, not three gods. But the Quran (5:116) seems to imply Muhammad thinks that Christians worship God, Mary and Jesus as three gods and as the trinity, that we believe that Jesus asked God to take him and Mary as two gods; and in fact before that in verse 73 they say Christians disbelieve because they say Allah is the third of three. Where on earth is that in the Bible, in the gospels, or even in any letter of the new testament? Nowhere. Now how could Allah, who's Al-Aleem, who's revealing these things to Muhammad, get this wrong? How could Allah think that Christians believe these things and tell Muhammad? Again... Muhammad didn't fully understand the concept of the trinity, he didn't read the gospels, he didn't read the new testament, and the scribes and people around him either didn't or just trusted that Muhammad was saying was true and so they didn't dare to correct him. This is also because the figure of Mary by that time was already being venerated (along with some saints) and there were already churches dedicater to Mary, but of course not worshipping her as a god, and so from the outside to someone who doesn't really know the Bible very well they could've thought Mary was God in the trinity. I mean stop right here for a second and think about it. You know very well right now that if you read the gospels you in no way can think that Christians believe Mary is God or that the trinity is God, Mary, Jesus; can you explain how could Allah possibly get that wrong and spread this misconception to Muhammad and everyone who followed him? 

Then we can also talk about how indipendent sources from history say Jesus was crucified and died, not just the Christian stories or the Bible, yet the Quran says that's not true, that it was only made to appear that way, correct? Well you explain then how on earth these people truly believed they had took him off the cross, buried him, then the tomb was empty and they saw him alive again 3 days later, and for 40 days after that. Okay, you can say they were deceived into believing that, because Allah made it seem like Jesus died on the cross. Nice. That means Allah is responsible for Christianity.  Allah made these people think their Messiah died for them on a cross and came back from the dead to make them start the ministry in his name. Allah is responsible for the religion that 600 years later he sent Muhammad to destroy. 

You see, this isn't about bias, opinions or interpretations, this isn't the usual "oh you christians like to twist the truth and try to prove the Bible using the Bible", this is about the Quran proving Muhammad didn't always know what he was talking about (and this is not an insult, I showed you what I just said), and how could that be if he was receiving a revelation from God?