Islam's Version of Christianity and Judaism
Muhammad was no scholar and he had no thirst for truth. He made grandiose claims of divine revelation while his actual teaching was not impressive. This made him a butt for ridicule in Mecca. In those days they knew good Arabic poetry. To the Jews of Medina he was a schmuck who failed to impress them with his third-rate derivative schlock. Once Islam had power and could terrorise then Muhammad's attempt to appropriate the religious histories of Judaism and Christianity could not be opposed. The nonsense that Islam was the original, true, eternal, authorised, official religion of God, and that all Christian and Jewish notables were Muslim prophets could not be contravened in the Dar al-Islam. Islam's teachings about these so-called Muslim prophets are absurd to anyone with knowledge of the Bible and in the West, Muhammad's egregious mistakes and ignorance about Christianity are obvious.
Muslims claim that the Jews and Christians rewrote their scriptures to remove mention of Muhammad's future appearance.
The great 12th century Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, was one of many who refuted this nonsense:
Inasmuch as the Muslims could not find a single proof in the entire Bible nor a reference or possible allusion to their prophet which they could utilize, they were compelled to accuse us that we altered the text of the Torah, and expunged every trace of [Mohammad's] name from it. They could find nothing stronger than this ignominious argument, the falsity of which is easily demonstrated to the masses and certainly to the scholars [by the following facts]. First, Scripture was translated into Syriac, Greek, Persian and Latin hundreds of years before Mohammad's appearance. Secondly, there is a uniform tradition regarding the text of the Bible, both in the East and the West, with the result that there are no differences in the text, not even in vocalization, for they are all correct. The motive for their accusation lies, therefore, in the absence of any allusion to Mohammad in the Torah.
Muslim scholars teach that Allah inspired Isa (Jesus) with the text of the Injil (the real New Testament) similarly to the way the Quran was revealed to Muhammad. Isa supposedly memorised the Injil and then wrote it down and then taught it to his disciples. This is obviously not the same book as the New Testament which was written by others after Jesus was crucified though in the Quran, Allah "revealed" that Jesus wasn't crucified. Muhammad "revealed" the Jews boasted they'd killed just made it look that way.
Then We made Our messengers to follow in their footsteps, and We sent Isa son of Marium afterwards, and We gave him the Injeel, and We put in the hearts of those who followed him kindness and mercy; - Quran (57:27)
That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not - Quran (4:157)
So what happened to the Injil? It's disappearance fits into the saga of Allah's incompetence before he finally created Muhammad. According to the Quran there were lots of ancient Israelites who were real Muslims and real Muslim prophets but the real precursors of the Quran, the Zabur, the Tawrat and the Injil and all the other proto-Qurans all disappeared and the real Islamic teachings were corrupted and forgotten, pretty damn quickly as well. But we have a handy scapegoat for all this loss of real scriptures, the Jews. Most of the prophets named in the Quran were prophets to the Jews. No wonder those sons of apes and pigs did their utmost to pervert and destroy Allah's true gospels.
Islamic scholars have revealed that Allah does not allow Muslims to read the Bible because of the many distortions, alterations, and omissions from the one, true religion, Islam, they contain. However it is permissible for a scholar with a deep knowledge of true Din (religion) to read the Bible to explain all it's many mistakes, omissions, corruptions, perversions, lies, etc. According to Sharia all copies of the Bible owned by non-scholarly Muslims should be destroyed.
Only a tiny minority of Christians believe the Bible is totally inerrant and word perfectly transmitted by God as Muslims do the Quran. The Old Testament is a book collated from many earlier myths and documents and edited, redacted and revised on many occasions as is well known. The New Testament also bears the imprints of its various authors. The Quran was able to be put together from various sources while Islam was a military dictatorship and any dissenting voice were quickly silenced … for good and in the way Allah insisted those who create fitnah should be punished: death, cruxifiction, or having one's hands and feet cut off on opposite sides - Quran (5:33)
- Which God? Jesus, Holy Spirit, God in Christianity and Islam - Mark Durie
- What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur'An - James R. White