Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Qureshi, Nabeel

  But for now, David and I were focused on the first point, the textual integrity of the Bible, specifically the New Testament. Like most Muslims, I was not concerned with the Old Testament nearly as much as I was with the New Testament. The way I saw it, the Old Testament mostly agreed with the Quran: it named many of the same prophets, it showed prophets going to war against polytheists, and it did not say anything about the Trinity. The New Testament is what really offends Muslim beliefs, so this is what we discussed.

  It was after chemistry class one day that David and I continued our discussion about the New Testament. “Alright, David, I’ve been looking into textual criticism some more, and I’ve found problems.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Looks like I was right about whole sections of the Bible being interpolations. Bible scholars are saying that the end of Mark is not original, and neither is the story in John about the woman caught in adultery.35 You know, the story where Jesus says, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?’ ”

  “Yeah, I know that story. You’re right, they’re not original to the text. What’s your point?”

  I was surprised he so readily conceded this point. “You don’t see this as a problem? I mean, whole portions of the Bible are not actually God’s word.”

  “I know what you’re getting at, but no, this isn’t a problem. Don’t you see? The very fact that we can identify these additions means that we can detect alterations.”

  “True, but regardless of whether you can detect it, it means the Bible was altered.”

  “Later manuscripts, yes. But so what if a later manuscript had alterations? It’s not like anyone would consider a later copy more accurate over an earlier copy. The early manuscripts are the ones that matter, and we have many early copies of the New Testament without those interpolations.”

  I considered his suggestion carefully. “How many, and how early?”

  “Well, we have many manuscripts from the second century in the original Greek and dozens more in the third century. In our possession today, we still have two full New Testaments from the early fourth century.36 If you want to see how much the Bible has changed from the fourth to the twenty-first century, all you have to do is pull out manuscripts and compare.”

  This was an interesting proposition. It took all of the conjecture out of the debate. I had to make sure I heard him clearly. “So you’re telling me that we actually have whole Bibles from the early 300s?”

  “Yup.”

  “And how different are they from today’s Bibles?”

  David looked me square in the eyes. “Nabeel, modern translations of the Bible are based on those manuscripts.”37

  I considered his words, but the very fact that there were multiple versions continued to bother me. It meant that the words of the Bible were not agreed upon. “Aren’t the exact words important, David? As a Muslim, I believe that the Quran is exactly the same as it was dictated to Muhammad. Not a single word has ever been changed.38 From what you are telling me, it seems like you think the exact words of the Bible do not matter.”

  “The words do matter, but they matter because they constitute a message. The message is paramount. That’s why the Bible can be translated. If the inspiration were tied to words themselves as opposed to their message, then we could never translate the Bible, and if we could never translate it, how could it be a book for all people?”

  I didn’t know if David was challenging my view of Quranic inspiration, but what he said made sense.

  As I silently contemplated his perspective, he continued. “Nabeel, I think we should take a step back for a moment and look at this a little more broadly. You are trying to argue that the Bible has been irretrievably changed. But first, you need to be more specific. There are sixty-six books in the Bible; what part are you talking about? When was it changed, and how? Was it changed in any significant way?”

  I continued to sit in silence. My teachers had never taught me any specifics. They just repeatedly proclaimed that the Bible had been changed. I said nothing.

  “If you think there has been a significant change, you should provide evidence of that. Conjecture is not enough. You need proof.”

  Even though David was making plain sense, I didn’t like being in a corner. “I already told you, the end of Mark, a story in John, and the interpolation in first John five about the Trinity are all examples of how the Bible has been changed.”

  “And I told you, virtually no scholar considers those segments as parts of the Bible anymore. You need to show me a major change in something we actually consider a part of the Bible.”

  I continued to fight. “What if there are other parts like those three that we just haven’t found yet?”

  “That’s conjecture again, Nabeel. ‘What if’ does not constitute much of an argument. What’s the claim? Where’s the evidence? If there are no specifics, there’s no argument.”

  It was clear I was flailing. David leaned back and made his concluding point. “When the books of the New Testament were written, they proliferated quickly. They were copied many times, with copies being sent far off to other Christians so they could read them as well. After reading them, those Christians often copied the books before sending them on. How exactly can this kind of proliferation of texts, without any central control, be uniformly and undetectably altered? How can someone corrupt the words? No one had control over Christendom until hundreds of years after Christ. We have dozens of manuscripts from before that time, and they are the same as today’s Bibles. There is just no conceivable model for the New Testament to have been changed in any significant sense, no model that’s consistent with the facts of history, anyway.”

  I relented for the moment. “Alright. Let me sit on this for a while.” David hadn’t changed my mind because I knew in my very core that the Bible had been altered. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t figure out how. I began researching the matter in earnest.

  In the meantime, I decided to try a different approach: denying that the Bible was ever trustworthy in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  REVISITING RELIABILITY

  IT WASN’T LONG before David was over at our house, taking Ammi up on her offer. When I opened the front door for him, he made a beeline for the refrigerator, which amused Ammi tremendously. She found it endearing.

  But had he used his nose first, he would not have bothered with the fridge. Ammi loved cooking for guests, and as was her custom, she had a feast waiting for us on the table. She had prepared lamb korma, goat biryani, chicken makhani, beef nihari, and much more. I’m sure there must have been vegetables on the table, but I always ignored those.

  When we sat down to eat, David looked happily confused. We were starting with the nihari, a rich beef curry, but there was no silverware on the table. I showed David how to eat with roti, using my fingers to tear the flatbread and scoop up chunks of food. David gingerly followed suit. He made it through the meal without any mishaps, which made me wonder if God was with him after all.

  Soon we were in the living room, lazing on sofas and basking in the afterglow of our feast. David was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Though he had come over to study chemistry, I realized his guard was down and this was the perfect time to push him on the reliability of the New Testament.

  “For the sake of argument,” I postulated from my chaise, “let’s just say I agree that the New Testament hasn’t been changed.”

  “Hallelujah,” he mumbled, not moving a muscle.

  “Even if it hasn’t been changed, that doesn’t automatically make it trustworthy. In other words, how do I know that what it says is accurate?”

  David turned to me in mock surprise. “But, Nabeel! How can you ask such a thing? Doesn’t the Quran say the Injil is the word of Allah?” It was clear that David had been studying Islam so he could understand me better. And he was right. My position was not common among Muslims, who often believe that the gospels of the New Testament are the Inji
l.

  Injil: The book that Muslims believe Allah sent to Jesus, often considered to be the gospels of the New Testament

  “I’m not convinced the Quran was talking about the gospels in the New Testament. Maybe it was referring to another book given to Jesus, one that we don’t have anymore.” I was proposing a view that I had heard espoused by Muslim debaters.

  David considered this. “Well, I’ll address your question, but I wonder if you’re searching for ways to doubt the New Testament. The only gospels that even come close to being from Jesus’ time are the gospels of the New Testament.”

  “Wait,” I interjected. David was making a bold claim, and I wanted to make sure we were clear. “Are you saying that the gospels of the New Testament are earlier than all other accounts of Jesus’ life?”

  “Yes. All the other accounts of Jesus’ life came much later.”

  “But I heard that there were many other gospels, and these were just the ones Christians chose to put into the Bible.”

  “There were other gospels, to be sure, but they all came much later, in the mid-second century or afterward. The four gospels in the New Testament are all first century, right after Jesus. That’s one reason why the early Christians chose them.”

  I tried advancing my case. “But what if the Injil was another gospel, one revealed to Jesus, and it was lost after his death?”

  “There are at least two critical problems with that, Nabeel. First, it’s pure conjecture. ‘What if’ is not much of an argument if there is no evidence. Second, you know the Quran tells Christians to ‘judge by the Injil.’39 That means they still had it in Muhammad’s day. The Injil is not a lost scripture.”

  I tried to respond, but I could not immediately see how to vindicate my position. The more I thought about his argument, the more it left a sour taste in my mouth. Gone was my afterglow.

  David continued. “As objective investigators, if we are going to learn about Jesus’ life, we must turn to the gospels because they are the most likely to be accurate. Where else would we go?”

  I sat up to consider this point. “Well, even if they’re the best, that doesn’t mean they’re any good.”

  “True, but these books were written shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion, in the lifetime of the disciples. That’s far better than most other biographies. For example, the main biographies about Alexander the Great were written around four hundred years after his death.40 If we are confident we know anything about Alexander, we should be exponentially more confident in what we know about Jesus.”

  “Yeah, but being better than other biographies doesn’t mean that the gospels are trustworthy.”

  “You’re not getting me. It’s not just that the gospels are temporally closer to Jesus than other biographies are to their subjects, but they are so close that eyewitnesses were still alive at the time. Given that the gospels were circulating within Christian communities, the eyewitnesses must have heard them and contributed to them.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like conjecture to me, David. Where’s the evidence?”

  “Well, early church fathers record that this is exactly what happened. According to Papias, an author writing around AD 100, the gospel of Mark is based on Peter’s eyewitness testimony.41 Papias also refers to John and Matthew as disciples.42 So it’s more than conjecture that eyewitnesses contributed to the gospels; it’s recorded history that they actually produced them.”

  “What about Luke?”

  “Luke was Paul’s traveling companion, so he wasn’t a disciple. But he says at the beginning of his gospel that he interviewed eyewitnesses, and given that most of what he says agrees with Mark and Matthew, that makes sense.”

  That sounded weak. “I don’t know. You’re admitting Luke wasn’t an eyewitness, which is problematic. Plus, I’ve heard there are many historical inaccuracies in his gospel.”

  David was ready with a response. “Luke has given us the most historical data, which means he gives people more opportunities to question him. But the more we find archaeologically, the more he is proven accurate. For example, some scholars used to conclude that Luke 3:1 inaccurately named Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene. They argued that Lysanias existed fifty years prior and that Luke mistakenly said he lived during Jesus’ time. Christian scholars argued that there very well might have been a second Lysanias, but the skeptical scholars deemed that to be apologetic speculation.

  “It turns out that during an excavation, archaeologists found an inscription dating from the time of Jesus that mentioned a second Lysanias, one who was the tetrarch of Abila. This proved that skeptics are sometimes too quick to criticize Luke and that Luke was a reliable source of ancient information.”

  This was all news to me, and it was fascinating. But I did not want to admit, even to myself, that the gospels were trustworthy. My whole life, I had been told I could not trust them, and it would be shameful for me to admit my teachers were wrong. So I continued to push. “Can we be sure about all this, David? I mean, I haven’t seen these inscriptions, and even if I had, I would not be able to test them for authenticity. Plus, I’m not sure how much I can trust church records. They’re biased, after all. There’s just too much room for doubt.”

  This seemed to annoy David. “Look, Nabeel, you’ve studied epistemology. You know that, if you wanted to, you could doubt that we’re having this conversation, or even that we exist! It’s like the Matrix. We could all just be brains in jars, being fed stimuli by mad scientists. You can’t disprove that.

  “So it all depends on how skeptical you’re willing to be. Feel free to be as skeptical as you want, but just don’t be inconsistent. If you’re going to be this skeptical about the Bible, I want you to be equally skeptical when we take a look at the Quran.”

  Rallied by the mere hint of a challenge to my faith, I perked up. “The Quran can take the highest levels of skepticism, David. It’s easy to prove that the Quran has never been changed and comes from Allah through Muhammad himself.”

  Insistent, David responded, “Nabeel, with the level of skepticism you’re proposing today, I’m not sure you could hold to any beliefs. We’ll see when we get there, but for now, do you realize we’re just working with levels of probability? There’s no such thing as absolute certainty, not in the real world.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “Good. So, the best explanation by far is that the gospels are a reliable source for Jesus’ life, unquestionably more reliable than anything else we have. Can you at least agree to that?”

  A rift was beginning to form between my heart and my head. What I wanted to believe was fighting a battle with the evidence for the New Testament. I was torn.

  Stalling, I glanced over at our chemistry assignment, which was on electronegativity and bond strength. “It’s too bad religion isn’t like science. Then we could just demonstrate which claims are true in a lab.”

  “I don’t know, Nabeel. Even science is inductive, relying on observations and best explanations, not always deductive conclusions. I don’t think what we’re discussing is too conceptually different.”

  I stared at him incredulously. “Now you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing! You just want to disagree with me on everything, don’t you?”

  David laughed. “I hate to say it, but I disagree with that too! Let’s just agree to disagree for now.” I nodded in affirmation, and with that, we turned our attention to chemistry for the rest of the evening.

  But in the recesses of my mind, I did not disagree with David . . . not really. If his facts were accurate, then his arguments made sense. I could not get myself to concede it, though, because there would be a cost to pay. I’d have to admit that my parents and teachers were wrong about the Bible. But they were so adamant, so devoted to God, so genuine. Could they really be wrong?

  So I did not admit to David that his arguments made sense. In fact, I did not even admit it to myself.

  To read an expert contribution on the New Testament by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace
, a professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and a senior editor or consultant on five Bible translations, visit contributions.NabeelQureshi.com.

  Part 4

  COMING TO THE CRUX

  To have to eat, to grow fatigued, and to sweat and spill blood, and to be finally nailed to a cross. I cannot believe this. God deserves infinitely more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  LITMUS TESTS

  OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS, I grew deep roots at ODU. I joined many organizations and honor societies, hoping to get a vibrant college experience and beef up my resume. Apart from membership in a handful of clubs, I became president of the forensics team, overseeing practices and functioning as a liaison with the office of student activities. I also worked in the admissions department, where I made PowerPoint presentations and filled in for tour guides when there were not enough around. Because of my flurry of extracurricular involvement, I made many good friends and was never lacking in companionship.

  But there was no question about it, David was my best friend throughout college, and I was his. When I was between classes and had nothing to do, or if it was time to grab a meal and no one was around, David was the one I called first. Though I could goof around with most of my other friends, there was no one I connected with as deeply as David. My faith mattered to me, and David’s faith mattered to him. That was the level we connected on, a level deeper and more personal than most friendships.

  Plus, it helped that David and I both spent most of our time in either the science buildings or the Arts and Letters Building. We regularly saw each other and often planned to walk together from our science classes, which tended to be earlier in the day, to our humanities courses.

  One such route was after chemistry lab. David and I had lab in different rooms, so whenever we met afterward, we would share stories about our exploits. We started off with mere exaggerations, but soon we were weaving impossible tall tales with the goal of outdoing each other’s story. The one-upmanship was meant to be grandiose.