Islam claims to stand in continuity with the earlier prophets. The Qur’an presents itself as a confirmation of previous revelation, especially the Torah and the Gospel. For example, the Qur’an says that God “revealed the Torah and the Gospel” and that the Qur’an came “confirming what was before it” (Qur’an 3:3). It also says the Gospel contained “guidance and light” (Qur’an 5:46), and it tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what God revealed therein (Qur’an 5:47).
That creates the central issue.
The Bible’s core apostolic message is not vague. The apostles preached that Jesus is the divine Son of God, the Word made flesh, crucified for sins, buried, bodily raised, and proclaimed as Lord and Savior. John says, “the Word was God” and later, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). Paul summarizes the gospel “of first importance” as Christ dying for our sins, being buried, rising on the third day, and appearing to eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3–8).
The Qur’an, however, denies or reinterprets major pillars of that message. It denies that Jesus was crucified in the biblical sense (Qur’an 4:157), rejects divine Sonship and the Trinity (Qur’an 4:171; 5:72–73), and presents Jesus as a messenger of Allah rather than God incarnate.
That is the Islamic dilemma: the Qur’an affirms earlier revelation, yet contradicts the central claims of that revelation.
1. The Qur’an Positively Affirms the Torah and Gospel
The first side of the dilemma is that the Qur’an does not merely mention the Torah and Gospel as irrelevant or lost relics. It speaks of them with reverence.
Qur’an 3:3 says:
“He has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.”
Qur’an 5:46 says:
“We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah.”
Qur’an 5:47 then commands:
“Let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein.”
And Qur’an 5:68 says:
“O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.”
That language is important. The Qur’an does not say, “The People of the Gospel have no access to revelation.” It does not say, “The Torah and Gospel are completely lost and useless.” Rather, it appeals to them as meaningful, recognizable, and authoritative enough to be upheld.
Qur’an 10:94 is especially striking:
“If you are in doubt… ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you.”
Whatever interpretive nuance one gives this verse, the basic point remains: the Qur’an appeals to those who had prior Scripture. That appeal is hard to square with the claim that the earlier Scriptures were already hopelessly corrupted, inaccessible, or religiously useless by Muhammad’s day.
2. The Hadith Also Show Muhammad Interacting Positively with Earlier Scripture
This issue is not limited to the Qur’an. Several hadith reports also show Muhammad and the earliest Islamic community treating earlier biblical material as meaningful.
In Sahih al-Bukhari 3, after Muhammad’s first revelation experience, Khadijah brings him to Waraqa ibn Nawfal, described as a Christian who “used to write from the Gospel in Hebrew.” Waraqa identifies Muhammad’s experience with the angelic messenger associated with Moses.
The point is not that Christians must accept Waraqa’s conclusion. The point is that early Islamic tradition itself places Muhammad’s prophetic claim in conversation with a Christian reader of the Gospel. This assumes that the earlier religious tradition still had recognizable theological weight.
Even more directly, Sunan Abi Dawud 4449 records a report where the Torah is brought before Muhammad. The narration says he placed the Torah on a cushion and said:
“I believed in thee and in Him Who revealed thee.”
A related report, Sunan Abi Dawud 4446, says Jewish leaders brought the Torah, and a verse was hidden by someone’s hand. When the hand was lifted, the verse was seen.
Again, the point is not to build Christian doctrine from Islamic hadith. The point is internal to Islam: these reports do not sound like Muhammad believed the Torah was a worthless, totally corrupted book with no remaining divine authority. They sound like he treated the Torah as a real witness, even if Muslims later developed more complex theories of textual corruption.
3. The Bible’s Core Message Is Clear: Christ Crucified and Risen
The second side of the dilemma is that the Bible’s central message is not obscure.
The New Testament proclaims Jesus as divine. John opens with one of the strongest Christological statements in all ancient literature:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Paul identifies the gospel as the death and resurrection of Christ:
“Christ died for our sins… he was buried… he was raised on the third day… he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
Romans teaches that sinners are “justified by his grace as a gift” through the redemption in Christ, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood (Romans 3:21–26).
And Galatians warns that a contrary gospel is not merely another legitimate interpretation:
“Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”
This matters because Christianity is not merely “belief in one God plus respect for Jesus.” Apostolic Christianity is centered on who Jesus is and what Jesus accomplished. Remove the incarnation, crucifixion, atoning death, resurrection, and divine Sonship of Christ, and one is no longer preserving the apostolic gospel.
4. The Qur’an Contradicts the Apostolic Message at the Central Points
The Qur’an does not simply correct minor misunderstandings about Christianity. It denies the very things the apostles called essential.
The New Testament says Jesus was crucified. The Qur’an says:
“They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them.” (Qur’an 4:157)
The New Testament says Jesus is the divine Son and Word made flesh. The Qur’an says:
“Do not say, ‘Three’… Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son.” (Qur’an 4:171)
The New Testament says salvation is grounded in Christ’s atoning death and resurrection. Islam presents Jesus as a prophet and messiah, but not as the crucified and risen God-man who saves through His blood.
That is not a small theological difference. It is a different account of God, Christ, salvation, revelation, and authority.
From a Christian standpoint, Islam does not continue the apostolic faith. It revises it.
5. The Dilemma Stated Clearly
The Islamic dilemma can be stated in two basic options.
Option A: The Torah and Gospel were still substantially trustworthy in Muhammad’s day.
If so, then the Qur’an’s appeal to them makes sense, but Islam faces a major problem: the earlier Scriptures contradict Islam on central doctrines. The New Testament teaches Christ’s divine identity, crucifixion, resurrection, and saving work. The Qur’an denies or redefines these.
Option B: The Torah and Gospel were already textually corrupted beyond trust by Muhammad’s day.
If so, then Islam avoids direct contradiction with the Bible only by creating another problem: why does the Qur’an repeatedly tell the People of the Book to uphold, judge by, and consult Scriptures that were supposedly unreliable?
Either way, there is a serious tension.
If the earlier Scriptures are reliable, Islam contradicts them.
If the earlier Scriptures are unreliable, the Qur’an’s appeals to them become difficult to explain.
6. The Common Muslim Response: “The Original Gospel Was True, but the Bible Was Corrupted”
A common Muslim answer is that the Qur’an affirms the original Torah and original Injil, not the Bible as Christians possess it today. According to this response, God gave true revelation to Moses and Jesus, but Jews and Christians later altered, misinterpreted, or corrupted those revelations.
There is some Qur’anic basis for accusations of distortion. Scholars commonly discuss this under the term taḥrīf, referring to alteration, falsification, or distortion of earlier revelation. Some Qur’anic passages accuse certain People of the Book of distorting words or concealing truth, and later Muslim writers developed different theories of whether this meant textual corruption, misinterpretation, or both.
But this response has problems.
First, the Qur’an’s own language often sounds like the Torah and Gospel were still available and meaningful to the People of the Book in Muhammad’s time. Qur’an 5:47 tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what God revealed in it. Qur’an 5:68 tells them to uphold the Torah and Gospel. Qur’an 10:94 points Muhammad, rhetorically or directly, to those reading Scripture before him.
Second, the hadith reports above show Muhammad interacting with the Torah as something that still had religious weight, not as a destroyed book with no remaining divine content. In Sunan Abi Dawud 4449, the Torah is treated with reverence: “I believed in thee and in Him Who revealed thee.”
Third, the textual corruption claim does not solve the historical problem unless it can explain when, where, and how the original apostolic gospel disappeared and was replaced. By the seventh century, Christian communities across the Roman, Persian, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Greek, Latin, and Ethiopian worlds already confessed Jesus as crucified and risen. These communities were divided on some theological issues, but they were not divided over whether Jesus had been crucified or whether the apostles proclaimed His resurrection.
So the Muslim response has to do more than say, “The Bible was corrupted.” It must explain how the entire Christian textual and liturgical memory of Jesus was fundamentally rewritten across hostile, geographically dispersed communities, leaving Islam — appearing six centuries later in Arabia — as the true preserver of what the apostles supposedly taught.
That is a very large historical claim.
7. The Crucifixion Is Especially Difficult for Islam
The crucifixion is one of the hardest points for Islam’s continuity claim.
Historically, Jesus’ crucifixion is one of the best-attested facts about Jesus of Nazareth. It appears throughout the New Testament, is central to the earliest Christian preaching, and is acknowledged even by hostile or non-Christian sources in antiquity. From the Christian perspective, it is not an optional detail. Paul says plainly:
“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”
Yet Qur’an 4:157 denies that the Jews killed or crucified Jesus in the biblical sense.
That creates a direct conflict. Christianity says the cross is central to the gospel. Islam says the crucifixion did not happen as Christians claim. Christianity says Christ’s death is saving. Islam denies the event in the form the apostles proclaimed it.
This is why Christians argue that Islam is not a continuation of apostolic Christianity. It is not merely a later Abrahamic tradition with a different emphasis. It rejects the very event the apostles placed at the center of the gospel.
8. The Gospel Is Not Merely a Book; It Is the Apostolic Proclamation
Another important point is that Christians do not understand “the Gospel” merely as one lost book handed to Jesus. In the New Testament, “gospel” refers to the good news about what God has done in Christ: His incarnation, death, resurrection, enthronement, and coming judgment.
Paul says he “received” and “delivered” the gospel: Christ died, was buried, rose, and appeared to witnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3–8).
That matters because when the Qur’an refers to the Injil, Muslims often assume this must mean a single revealed book given to Jesus, later lost or corrupted. But the apostolic Christian understanding is different. The Gospel is the proclaimed saving message of Christ, later written in authoritative apostolic testimony.
So when Islam denies the crucifixion and divine Sonship of Christ, Christians do not see Islam as recovering the original gospel. They see it as contradicting the apostolic gospel that existed from the beginning.
9. Why This Is an “Academic” Problem, Not Just a Sectarian One
This argument is sometimes dismissed as mere Christian polemic. But the issue is historical and textual, not merely emotional.
Islam appears in the seventh century. Christianity’s core claims about Jesus are already found in first-century texts. The apostolic proclamation predates Islam by centuries. John’s Gospel identifies the Word as divine and incarnate. Paul’s letters present the crucified and risen Christ as the center of salvation. The early Christian communities worshiped Jesus, baptized in His name, celebrated the Eucharist as participation in His body and blood, and confessed Him as Lord.
Therefore, from the standpoint of historical theology, Islam is not treated as an organic continuation of apostolic Christianity. It is treated as a later religious movement that reinterprets biblical figures through a different theological framework.
That does not mean Muslims are unintelligent. It does not mean Muslims are insincere. It does not mean Christians should mock them. It means the continuity claim itself faces a serious evidential burden.
To claim continuity with the apostolic faith, Islam would need to preserve the apostolic message. But it does not. It preserves names — Abraham, Moses, Mary, Jesus — while changing the theological meaning attached to them.
Conclusion;
The Islamic dilemma is powerful because it presses Islam on its own claims.
The Qur’an affirms the Torah and Gospel as revelations from God. It speaks of them as guidance and light. It tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what God revealed therein. It tells the People of Scripture to uphold the Torah and Gospel. Islamic hadith even preserve scenes where Muhammad interacts reverently with earlier Scripture.
Yet Islam contradicts the central message of the apostolic Christian faith: Jesus as the divine Son, the Word made flesh, crucified for sins, buried, bodily risen, and proclaimed as Lord and Savior.
So the dilemma remains:
If the earlier Scriptures were reliable, Islam contradicts them.
If they were corrupted, the Qur’an’s appeals to them become difficult to explain.
For that reason, Christians argue that Islam is not a true continuation of the apostolic faith. It is a later competing claim that borrows biblical language while denying the apostolic gospel at its core.
As Paul warned:
“If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”
That is why, from a Christian and historical-theological standpoint, the Islamic claim to restore or continue the apostolic faith does not hold.
Bible
John 1:1–14, ESV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A1-14&version=ESV
1 Corinthians 15:3–8, ESV
https://www.esv.org/verses/1%2BCorinthians%2B15%3A3%E2%80%938/
Romans 3:21–26, ESV
https://www.bible.com/bible/59/ROM.3.21-26.ESV
Galatians 1:8–9, ESV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+1%3A8-9&version=ESV
Qur’an
Qur’an 3:3–4, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/3
Qur’an 5:46, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/5/46
Qur’an 5:47, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/5/47
Qur’an 5:68, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/5/68
Qur’an 10:94, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/10/94
Qur’an 4:157, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/4/157
Qur’an 4:171, Sahih International
https://legacy.quran.com/4/171
Hadith
Sahih al-Bukhari 3
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:3
Sunan Abi Dawud 4449
https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4449
Sunan Abi Dawud 4446
https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4446
Scholarly / Background
Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qur’anic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (Taḥrīf),” Journal of the American Oriental Society
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23044514
Sandra Toenies Keating, “Revisiting the Charge of Taḥrīf”
https://almuslih.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Keating-S-Revisiting-the-charge-of-tahrif.pdf
Sandra Toenies Keating, “Refuting the Charge of Taḥrīf: Abū Rā’iṭa”
https://almuslih.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Keating-S-Refuting-the-Charge-of-Tahrif.pdf