Bible Changed?

“The Qur’ān teaches that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures were changed”

In several places, the Qur’ān criticizes the Jews (not Christians) for how they misuse their scriptures, accusing them of perverting ( حُيَرِّفُونَهُ – 2:75), concealing (6:61, 2:140) twisting their tongues when they read ( يَلْؤنَ السِنَتَهُم – 3:78) and even changing the words from their right places ( حُيَرِّفُونَ الكَلِمَ عَنْ مَوَاضِعِهِ – 5:12-14) when they quote scripture. For example:

However, the Qur’ān never once says that the written text has been modified, nor that the original scriptures are different than those today. Instead, the Qur’ān says a lot of very positive things about the Jewish and Christian scriptures:

The only legitimate way to reconcile these two diverging Qur’ānic attitudes is actually found in the Qur’ān —the repeated assertion that there are two distinct factions (فَرِيق fariq) or sections (طَاءِفَه Ta’ifa) of Ahle-Kitab, the good and bad. The pious faction maintains their sacred scripture and follows it faithfully, while an evil faction teaches unscriptural doctrine and twists the meanings for their own benefit:

Using this Qur’ānic framework, we can differentiate the characteristics of these two groups:

It is clear from the above list that the “pious” Christian faction lines up with the teaching found in the Injīl, while the “evil” faction described above represents a small heretical, unscriptural viewpoint. The Qur’ān must be describing a Christian heresy which taught that God had sexual relations with Mary (God forbid!) and Jesus was the semi-God result. Historical records show that the “bad faction” described in the Qur’ān represents a very small faction of Christianity which would have been rejected by the majority of Christians as well.

Now let us investigate the accusations of corruption. There are three general accusations: 1) selling verses for a miserable price, 2) twisting, hiding or contorting verses when translating them, and 3) changing (التَّحْرِيف tahrif) verses.

The first accusation, of selling verses for a small profit, is largely directed at the polytheists who took Muhammad’s Qur’ānic suras and sold them as their own compositions.

The second accusation, of concealing or twisting verses, is consistent with how the heretical faction of ‘Christians’ concealed what the Injīl actually says while teaching false doctrines. For example, they taught people that Jesus said “worship me instead of God” and “serve the angels as Gods” while deliberately concealing that the Injīl actually says the exact opposite.

The third accusation, of changing scripture, is limited to four verses in the Qur’ān. It is used primarily to describe what the Jews do with Muhammad’s Qur’ān , not with their own scriptures. The term for “changing the actual words” (التَّحْرِيف اللَفْظي al-tahrif al-lafzi) is never used for the Jewish or Christian scriptures.

So in conclusion, we see that while the Qur’ān condemns a heretical faction of false Christians who taught three Gods and twisted the meaning of the Gospel, the Qur’ān also speaks positively about the true Christians who follow the Gospel, recite it correctly, and believe in God and the Last Day, telling them to judge by their scriptures.