Home > Arguments for the Bible's corruption
"The Injeel was given to Jesus (peace be upon him) by Allah as an oral revelation—a message he was inspired to preach, not a written biography about his life. The Qur'an says, ‘And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming what came before him of the Torah; and We gave him the Injeel, in which was guidance and light' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:46). It was Allah's word for him to deliver, like the Torah to Moses, not a story of his deeds written later by others.
In Islam, we know prophets received revelation to guide their people—Jesus spoke it, not penned it. The Qur'an warns of what came after: ‘So woe to those who write the scripture with their own hands, then say, "This is from Allah"' (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:79). The Gospels today are biographies, not the Injeel—‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:75). The Qur'an, revealed directly, restores that pure guidance Jesus preached orally to worship Allah alone."
Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:46
The claim that Jesus only received an oral "Injeel" and that the canonical Gospels are therefore invalid is historically and theologically flawed. Let's unpack it.
Yes, Moses received the Torah orally, but Jewish prophets also recorded God's words. By Jesus' time, it was common for teaching to be written down or carefully memorised in writing. The idea that an oral-only revelation is more "authentic" ignores this long-established Jewish practice.
The Gospels aren't just later biographies. They preserve eyewitness accounts, verified by multiple independent sources (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Paul). They document Jesus' teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection — all of which were public events, not private oral anecdotes.
Jesus' words and deeds were circulated and tested orally before being written down. This is how His teachings were preserved accurately. Canonical writing was simply the next step in safeguarding the truth, not inventing it.
We have early fragments of the Gospels (2nd century) within living memory of eyewitnesses. The Gospels are consistent across multiple manuscripts, unlike the speculative, late Islamic claim that the "Injeel" was purely oral and that the New Testament is a corruption.
The Gospels are faithful records of Jesus' life and teachings, rooted in eyewitness testimony.
Suggesting that Jesus' revelation must have been oral-only, while dismissing these accounts, is like claiming Shakespeare's plays are unreliable because they were performed aloud before being written down — and we somehow "only trust the original spoken word."