Home > Arguments for the Bible's corruption
"The Bible is full of contradictions, showing it's not the pure word of Allah as Jesus (peace be upon him) received it. For example, one Gospel says Jesus was crucified with two thieves who mocked him (Mark 15:32), while another says one thief repented (Luke 23:40-43)—which is it? Or take Judas' death: did he hang himself (Matthew 27:5) or fall and burst open (Acts 1:18)? These clashes prove human hands tampered with it. The Qur'an warns, ‘They distort words from their places' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:13).
In Islam, the Qur'an is free of such flaws: ‘Do they not reflect upon the Qur'an? If it had been from any other than Allah, they would have found within it much contradiction' (Surah An-Nisa, 4:82). Jesus was a prophet—‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:75)—and his true message to worship Allah alone got muddled. The Bible's errors reflect corruption; the Qur'an restores clarity."
This argument is based on a pseudo-contradiction fallacy:
Definition: The fallacy of presenting two or more statements as mutually contradictory when they can coexist within a broader or more precise context. It often stems from ignoring relevant distinctions, missing variables, or treating partial truths as exhaustive ones.
Example:
"The witness said the man had a snake tattoo; but police found a skull tattoo on the suspect, so he must be lying."
→ The argument falsely assumes exclusivity between details that could both be true; in this case, the man can have a different tattoo on each arm.
The Gospel accounts attempt to reconstruct actual events from different perspectives and sources. Doing so always yields slightly different descriptions — however, this occurs not because of deception, but because different observers focus on different details.
For example, there is nothing problematic with the idea that the two thieves mocked Jesus at first, but then one repented. Or in the idea that Judas hanged himself, but after some time his dead body fell and burst open.
In other words, multiple accounts can serve to paint a more complete picture by combining and harmonizing them.
In fact, this aids the credibility of the Gospel accounts: if the authors were deceptive, they would have simply changed everything that appears like a contradiction, and made all accounts the same — which is what criminals intuitively would think of. However, the fact that there are many differences between the four accounts suggests that they had no intention of doing so. Now, islamic apologists like to point to the differences and exclaim that this is evidence of corruption. However, a fair and objective judge would not only look at the differences, but also at the parallels. And indeed, it's remarkable in how the four accounts complement and complete each other, thus strongly suggesting that they are indeed referencing the same real events, but from slightly differing points of view.