Home > Surah 3 - The Family of Imran
This verse captures the social and theological tension between the early Muslim community and the People of the Book, revealing a significant claim about the Muslim's requirement to accept the entirety of previous revelations.
Surah 3:119:
Here you are loving them but they do not love you, and you believe in the Scripture - all of it. And when they meet you, they say, 'We believe.' But when they are alone, they bite their fingertips at you in rage. Say, 'Die in your rage. Indeed, Allah is Knowing of that within the breasts.'
The Quran characterizes true Muslims as those who believe in the entirety of the Scripture (the Bible).
If a Muslim says the Bible is corrupted, they are failing the definition of a believer given in this verse. If they accept the Bible "all of it," they must accept the deity of Christ and the substitutionary atonement.
The Quran essentially commands Muslims to believe in a book that makes Islam’s specific theological claims IMPOSSIBLE.
The verse describes a social interaction: "when they [i.e. Jews/Christians] meet you."
This interaction is happening with people who physically possess and read the Bible. If the "Scripture" the Muslims were to believe in was different from the one the Jews and Christians were holding, the "all of it" claim would be nonsensical to the audience.
The Quran acknowledges the Bible held by the 7th-century People of the Book as the "Scripture" in which Muslims must believe. Since we have the manuscripts from that era, we know that "all of it" includes the very doctrines (like the Crucifixion) that the Quran later denies.
Why would they be in a rage if Muhammad was actually correcting a corrupted book they already knew was fake? The rage stems from the fact that Muhammad was claiming their own, uncorrupted, and beloved scriptures supported him.
By claiming to believe in "all" of their book, Muhammad was trying to co-opt their authority. However, this backfires because "all" of the Bible includes the warnings against any "new" gospel that contradicts the one already delivered.
Surah 3:119 places the Muslim in an impossible position: to be a true believer according to this verse, one must believe in "all" of the Bible. Yet, if one believes in "all" of the Bible, one must reject the Quran’s denials of Christ’s work and nature.
This is the ultimate "checkmate" regarding the textual integrity of the Bible: the Quran cannot demand belief in "all" of a book that it simultaneously claims is a corrupted forgery.
Since the Quran mandates belief in "all of the Scripture" in this verse, how does this complicate the common apologist's argument that only "parts" of the Bible are inspired?