Is The Bible reliable? - Part 1 : Religious Reliability

Religious Reliability

For my first argument, I will make an assumption that one of the three Abrahamic religions are true (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Firstly I will dismantle the claim of the Jews, their claim is that the Messiah has not yet come, and that Jesus was a false prophet, and a criminal. Lets analyse this claim.

Judaism Refutation

First its important to know that Christian scripture is comprised of two parts, the Old Testament (the books that the Jews and Christians adhere to) and the New Testament (the books that only Christians adhere to). The Old Testament makes the claim all throughout that a Messiah will come, and he will be The Son of God. The Christian faith is built on top of this premise, as we believe all Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Historically known as Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ is an English form adapted from the greek translation of the New Testament). Jesus Christ fulfilled over 351 Old Testament, with precision, these fulfillments birthed what we now call Christianity.

Lets look at a few of these fulfillments:

Genesis 3:15

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;

Now I hope we all know how babies are made, as I don't feel like going into detail about that process. The long and short of it is that we all come from our Fathers seed, and our Mothers egg. It was prophesied in the first book of The Torah that our Saviour would be born of female seed? How can this be? Well Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, with no male seed involved, hence he was born of "her seed".

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Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.

This particular book was written 800 before the birth of our Lord, and as we now know, He was "pierced for our transgressions" (transgression means sin), when he was nailed to the cross, which by the way is not a religious question, it is a historical fact that Jesus died on the cross.

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Isaiah 9:6

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Another great prophecy of God, a son was given to us by God, and indeed, he is called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

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Isaiah 42:6

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
    I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people
    and a light for the Gentiles,

Before the life, death, and resurrection of The Lord Jesus, Judaism was generally not practiced by anyone apart from the ethnic group that is the Jewish people. God always promised to grant salvation to all through the nation of Israel. A "gentile" is anyone who is not Jewish. So the Jews were waiting for their messiah to come and bring the truth of God to the gentiles, which is what the Lord Jesus did with his ministry, as we see in 

Luke 2:29-32

²⁹ “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation,
³¹     which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and the glory of your people Israel.”

Romans 10:12-13

¹² For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Jesus was seen as ^"a light for revelation to the Gentiles", directly fulfilling this prophecy.

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Psalm 22:16

¹⁶ Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce my hands and my feet.

For my last example, one of my favourites, as I said Jesus being crucified is a historical fact, confirmed by historical sources outside of the bible (see Tacitus, Annals c. 116 A.D.; see also Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus c.93-94 A.D.). In this prophecy in the book of Psalms (one of my all-time favourite books by the way) we see that the Messiah would have his hands and feet pierced, which we see fulfilled by his death on the cross. What makes this prophecy so powerful, is that it was written in the 10th century BCE, crucifixion wasn't even invented until the 6th century BCE, amazing!

As I've said there are over 351 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, these are just a few, so with that being said, I will now make some arguments against the reliability of Islam

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Islam Refutation

Many Muslims today use false arguments against Christianity, such as that Jesus had a different Gospel has to what we Christians have today, and that the Trinity is not biblical and Jesus never claimed divinity (see my article on Jesus divinity as shown in the bible here https://shorturl.at/bCPld)

Regardless of my article showing that Jesus is God, this isn't enough for those who practice Islam, as the leaders in their faith constantly lie to their fellow Muslims about our faith. While it is true that textual variations, and minor details may change between authors do exist, none of these differences effect our theology in any major way.

Muslims can often overlook the fact that our miracle isn't a book like theirs (The Quran), but a rather a man. The perfect, sinless, Son of God, Jesus Christ, for this reason we don't need a perfect book, with no textual variance. Remember, our Bible is made up of many historical documents, meaning textual variance actually strengthens our case. The reason being, if the religion and the Bible were fabricated, the authors would take extra care to not contradict themselves. Minor textual variance indicates that the authors were being honest regarding their claims.

So lets explore why it is irrational for Muslims to make this claim.

For this refutation I will be making quotations from The Quran to make my point.  

Now there's a few things to keep in mind here:

1. We have complete New Testaments from the 4th century (see Codex Sinaiticus, 350 A.D., see also Codex Vaticanus, 325 A.D.) and they match what we Christians still have today.

2. Papyri P90 and P104 are dated to the 2nd century, and match exactly what we have today also

3. The Great Isaiah scroll is dated to 356 BCE, and has no theological variances to the text we now have in our Holy Bible

4. The Quran says in Surah Al-Ikhlas verse 3, that "لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ" (He has never had offspring, nor was He born.) This clearly contradicts the Bibles teachings that God was born in the flesh, or that YHWH has children (us Christians believe that Jesus is Gods son)

5. The miracle of the Christians is Gods Word manifest in flesh (Jesus Christ), while the miracle of Islam is Gods Word manifest in a book (The Quran)

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Now lets look at some claims made by The Quran:

Surah Al-An'am verse 34

وَلَقَدْ كُذِّبَتْ رُسُلٌۭ مِّن قَبْلِكَ فَصَبَرُوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا كُذِّبُوا۟ وَأُوذُوا۟ حَتَّىٰٓ أَتَىٰهُمْ نَصْرُنَا ۚ وَلَا مُبَدِّلَ لِكَلِمَـٰتِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ وَلَقَدْ جَآءَكَ مِن نَّبَإِى۟ ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ 

And messengers were denied before you, but they were patient over being denied and harmed until Our victory came to them. And none can change the words of Allah. And there has certainly come to you from the news of the messengers.

Surah Al-An'am:34 tells the reader that the words of Allah (Arabic for God) cannot be changed. My first question here would be, if Allah's words cannot be changed? Then how is it possible that possible that the Christians book has been corrupted.

The entire focus on Islam is that they have a perfectly preserved book ( a false claim, but that's a conversation for another article), and they rely on the fact that the Gospels and Torah has been corrupted, this is because the Bible and the Torah so clearly contradict the teachings of The Quran.

So lets take a second to think, if the Word of Allah cant be changed, then that makes the Gospel we have true, and if the Gospel we have is true, then Islam is false. This is because our Gospel says that God is a Father, That Jesus Christ is The Son of God, and that he died on the cross, all of which the Quran rejects.

But if the Gospel isn't true and it has been corrupt, The Quran is still false, because Allah said his words cant be corrupt, which would make Allah a liar, or at best a failure, which would disqualify him from being God.

Now to response I generally get from Muslims is this, "well The Gospel hasn't been corrupt, it has just been lost, which would mean that neither has it been corrupt, nor do you Christians have a true Gospel", there's a major problem here to as i am about to explain.

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Surah Al-Ikhlas verse 68

قُلْ يَـٰٓأَهْلَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ لَسْتُمْ عَلَىٰ شَىْءٍ حَتَّىٰ تُقِيمُوا۟ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةَ وَٱلْإِنجِيلَ وَمَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكُم مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ ۗ وَلَيَزِيدَنَّ كَثِيرًۭا مِّنْهُم مَّآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ طُغْيَـٰنًۭا وَكُفْرًۭا ۖ فَلَا تَأْسَ عَلَى ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ

Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “O People of the Book! You have nothing to stand on unless you observe the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.” And your Lord’s revelation to you ˹O Prophet˺ will only cause many of them to increase in wickedness and disbelief. So do not grieve for the people who disbelieve.

Surah Al-Ikhlas:68 tells the reader that the Jews and Christians must observe the Torah and the Gospel. Harping on from my last point, if Muslims claim that The Gospel was lost, then what was Allah telling the people of the book (Jews and Christians) to observe in this verse? 

The Muslim response will be, "well they had the Gospel in 7th century Arabia and it has since been lost." Well they again run into a major issue. As I stated at the beginning of this Islam refutation, we  have completed Gospels from way before 7th century Arabia, that match exactly what we have today.

This is what's known as in the world of apologetics as "The Islamic Dilemma", if the Quran is true, the Bible is true, and because the Bible is true, Islam is false.

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I have many other refutations against Judaism and Islam, but ill save those for another article, as I've still got a lot to tackle here

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That concludes my argument for religious reliability. This only scratches the surface of the arguments that can be made between the 3 Abrahamic faiths, and further analysis and discussion must take place to make an informed decision (I will provide deeper analysis in future articles). To be fair to my Jewish and Muslim friends, all of our theology runs much deeper than this. These are just my strongest arguments, that I will always begin with, when discussing religion with fellow Abrahamic Brothers and Sisters.

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Thanks for reading, Glory be to The Father, and to The Son, and to The Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

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