Surah 2:113:
"The Jews say 'The Christians have nothing to stand on,' and the Christians say 'The Jews have nothing to stand on,' although they recite the Scripture. Thus the polytheists speak the same as their words. But Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they used to differ."
The Arabic verb yatloona (they recite) is in the present tense.
Muhammad’s Quran acknowledges that the Scripture being recited by the Jews and Christians of his day was "The Book."
If that Book was the corrupted version we have today, then the Quran is calling a corrupted book "The Scripture" without qualification.
If it was not corrupted then, the Islamic Dilemma is sealed, as we have the manuscripts from that era.
The verse doesn't say, "They recite a corrupted version"; it says they recite The Book and yet still disagree. This shifts the blame from the text to the people.
If the text is reliable enough for Allah to use it as a witness to their arguments, the modern Muslim claim that "the Bible was changed" contradicts the Quran’s own portrayal of the text's availability.
The verse states that Allah will judge their differences on the Day of Resurrection. If the scriptures were corrupted, the "judgment" would logically be a correction of the text in the present.
Instead, the Quran allows the two groups to continue "reciting the Book," merely noting that their sectarian claims against each other are what will be judged. This implies the source material (the Bible) remains the valid reference point for both groups until the end of time.
This serves the Islamic Dilemma by confirming that Jews and Christians were in possession of and actively reciting "the Scripture" during the time of Muhammad.
By focusing the critique on the mutual rejection between the two groups rather than the text itself, the Quran affirms the textual presence of the Bible!
This creates an inescapable problem for the Muslim apologist: