Home > Surah 19 - Maryam (Mary)
Surah 19:12 is a verse that anchors the reliability of the Old Testament (the Torah) through the life of John the Baptist (Yahya).
It provides a direct command from God that assumes the presence, purity, and absolute authority of the scripture during the transitional period between the two testaments.
Surah 19:12:
O John! Hold the Scripture with might! And We gave him wisdom when a child.
God commands John the Baptist to hold the Scripture "with might."
God would never command a holy prophet to "hold with might" a book that had been corrupted, altered, or filled with "man-made lies." A command to hold a book with strength is a divine endorsement of that book's current integrity.
If the Torah was pure in the time of John (as the Quran suggests here), and the Quran elsewhere claims to confirm what is currently with the Jews and Christians in the 7th century (Surah 2:41, 5:43), then the line of preservation is unbroken. If that preserved line contains the Trinity and the Atonement, Islam is refuted.
When God tells John to take "The Scripture," He is referring to the Jewish Tanakh (Old Testamant).
There is no "lost Islamic Torah" in the time of John. John lived in the late Second Temple period. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls from this exact era, which prove that the "Scripture" John was holding is the exact same Old Testament we have in our Bibles today.
Since the Quran commands John to hold that specific book with might, the Quran is validating the Old Testament as we have it. If the Old Testament is valid, it prophesies a Messiah who is the Son of God—a point the Quran denies.
The verse states that John was given "wisdom" (Al-Hukm) as a child to understand this Scripture.
The "wisdom" was given specifically to help him handle "The Scripture." If the Scripture was already corrupted or unreliable, the "wisdom" would be used to point out the errors. Instead, the wisdom is given to help him uphold the book.
The Quran frames the Bible not as a problem to be fixed, but as a standard to be grasped. This undermines the modern Islamic claim that the Bible was "lost" or "changed" long ago.
This verse is particularly interesting because it forces Islam to deal with a specific historical figure (John) and a specific historical text (the Torah of the 1st century) that we can archaeologically verify.
Was the Scripture John held corrupted or pure? If it was corrupted, why would God command a prophet to hold a lie with 'might'?
We have the manuscripts from John’s time (the Dead Sea Scrolls). They match the Old Testament in my Bible today.
If God commanded John to hold my Old Testament with might, then God is also calling the Christian Bible the Truth.
If the Bible is the Truth, it says that the Messiah is the Son of God. If the Quran says He is not, the Quran has contradicted the very book it told John to hold with might and he validates Jesus!
In Surah 19:30 (Jesus speaking in the cradle) further complicates this with Jesus also claiming to have been "given the Scripture".