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Common arguments
These are the claims that come up over and over, in the words the other person actually uses, and the objections Christians raise in return. Each one names the texts to open and the article that walks through them. Where that article is not written yet, the claim stays on the list.
Islam
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What you will hear
The Bible Christians read was corrupted, so it is no longer the Torah and the Gospel God revealed.
The Qur’an’s tahrif verses speak of concealing, misreading, and twisting words, and the biblical text is substantially the same before and after Muhammad.
Qur’an 2:75 Qur’an 2:79 Qur’an 4:46 Qur’an 5:13 Sahih al-Bukhari 7363
Was the Bible Corrupted? The Qur'an and Early Muslims on Tahrif
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What you will hear
God cannot have a son, because he does not beget and has no consort.
Christians deny a physical begetting too. The Son is the eternal Son, not a child God produced with a partner.
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What you will hear
The Qur’an forbids saying “three,” and Christians worship God, Jesus, and Mary.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. A triad of God, Jesus, and Mary is not the Trinity, and Christians reject it.
Qur’an 4:171 Qur’an 5:73 Qur’an 5:116 Deuteronomy 6:4 Matthew 28:19
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What you will hear
Jesus is the Messiah, a word from God, and a spirit from him, and he is still a created prophet.
Those titles are the Qur’an’s own honours. The Gospel says the Word who was God became flesh.
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What you will hear
If Jesus prayed, called the Father greater, and did not know the hour, he cannot be God.
The Son truly became man. Texts about his human life do not cancel the texts that call him God.
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What you will hear
When the Qur’an says it confirms the earlier scriptures, it means the original Torah and Gospel, not the Bible Christians read today.
The Qur’an speaks of those books as present with the people of Muhammad’s day, and it tells them to judge by the Gospel they have.
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A Christian objection
Qur’an 5:47 tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what God revealed in it, and Qur’an 10:94 tells Muhammad to ask those who have been reading the Book before him.
Those verses put the Torah and the Gospel in people’s hands in the seventh century. A corruption story that removes that Bible also removes the book the Qur’an tells them to use.
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A Christian objection
By the Qur’an’s own descriptions of what God alone does, Jesus does those same things in the Gospel.
The Qur’an says God gives life, is the First and the Last, and comes with the angels. The Gospel says Jesus does the same.
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What you will hear
The Injil was a book given to Jesus himself, and it is not the four Gospels.
The Qur’an speaks of a Gospel Christians already had and could judge by. In the New Testament the gospel is the message about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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What you will hear
Paul invented Christianity by turning the prophet Jesus into a divine saviour.
The death, resurrection, and deity of Jesus are in the Gospels and in a creed Paul says he received. The Jerusalem apostles accepted his gospel.
1 Corinthians 15:3 Galatians 2:9 Qur’an 3:52
Article coming: Did Paul invent Christianity?
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What you will hear
The Qur’an was carefully collected under Abu Bakr and Uthman, and God has guarded its text.
Sahih al-Bukhari records that collection, the burning of other copies, and a companion’s objection. That history is the fair comparison when the Bible’s manuscripts are challenged.
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What you will hear
Jesus was not crucified. It was made to appear so, and God raised him.
The crucifixion is in the four Gospels, in the creed Paul received, and in Tacitus. Jesus said it would happen.
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What you will hear
Muslims and Christians worship the same God, the God of Abraham.
Both confess one God and reject many gods. Christians also confess that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that Jesus is God.
Qur’an 112:1 Deuteronomy 6:4 John 1:1
Article coming: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?
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What you will hear
Jesus foretold a messenger named Ahmad, and the Helper in John 14–16 is Muhammad.
John’s Helper is the Holy Spirit, who stays with the disciples, teaches them, and glorifies Jesus. No Gospel manuscript says Ahmad.
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What you will hear
Muhammad is the prophet like Moses in Deuteronomy 18, the one the Qur’an says is written in the Torah and the Gospel.
Deuteronomy 18 promises a prophet from among Israel, and the New Testament applies that promise to Jesus. The Torah and the Gospel do not name Muhammad.
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What you will hear
There is only one Qur’an. The readings are ways of reciting it, not different books.
The canonical readings are not the same thing as the seven ahruf, and the collection reports record companions reciting differently enough to dispute.
Jehovah’s Witnesses
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What you will hear
Jehovah created Jesus first, and then created everything else through him.
Hebrews 1 applies the psalm about the LORD, the unchanging Creator, to the Son. John 1:3 leaves nothing that exists apart from the Word.
Hebrews 1:10 John 1:3 Isaiah 44:24 New World Translation of Hebrews 1:10
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What you will hear
Before his life on earth, Jesus was Michael the archangel.
Hebrews 1 sets the Son apart from every angel. No text calls Jesus Michael.
Hebrews 1:5 Hebrews 1:6 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Jude 9 New World Translation of Hebrews 1:6
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What you will hear
Jesus is not worshipped. People only do obeisance to him, and worship belongs to Jehovah alone.
Hebrews 1:6 applies a worship text to the Son, and Revelation 5 gives the Lamb the same praise as the One on the throne.
Hebrews 1:6 Revelation 5:13 Revelation 22:8 New World Translation of Hebrews 1:6
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What you will hear
The Father is greater than Jesus, so Jesus is not God.
The Son’s human life and his place in the work of the Father do not make him a creature. John 5 says the Son is honoured as the Father is.
John 14:28 John 17:3 John 5:23 New World Translation of John 14:28
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What you will hear
The faithful and discreet slave is the Governing Body, which gives Jehovah’s people their spiritual food.
Matthew 24:45 is a parable about servants staying faithful until the master returns, not a charter for one modern organization.
Matthew 24:45 Luke 12:42 Acts 17:11 New World Translation of Matthew 24:45
Article coming: Who is the faithful and discreet slave?
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A Christian objection
Jesus said all should honour the Son just as they honour the Father.
John 5 says the Son gives life and judges, and that refusing the Son is refusing the Father.
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What you will hear
The New World Translation is a faithful Bible, and where it differs it is only clearer English.
Read the Society’s study notes beside the Greek text they publish, then read the same paragraph in the King James Version.
John 1:1 Colossians 1:16 Acts 7:59 New World Translation of John 1:1
Article coming: How reliable is the New World Translation?
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What you will hear
The Trinity depends on 1 John 5:7, and that verse was added later.
The sentence is not in the early Greek manuscripts, and the Trinity does not rest on it. The confession is older than that addition.
1 John 5:7 Matthew 28:19 New World Translation of 1 John 5:7
Article coming: Does the Trinity depend on 1 John 5:7?
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What you will hear
Prayer is offered to Jehovah alone, through Jesus, not to Jesus himself.
Stephen called on the Lord Jesus, and Paul describes Christians as those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 7:59 1 Corinthians 1:2 New World Translation of Acts 7:59
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What you will hear
John 1:1 says the Word was a god, not that the Word was God.
The Word was with God and was God. A second god beside Jehovah contradicts Isaiah 43:10, and Thomas calls Jesus his Lord and his God.
John 1:1 John 20:28 Isaiah 43:10 New World Translation of John 1:1
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What you will hear
Jesus was raised as a spirit and only appeared in a body.
The risen Jesus says a spirit does not have flesh and bones as he has, and he tells Thomas to touch his wounds.
Luke 24:39 John 20:27 John 2:19 New World Translation of Luke 24:39
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What you will hear
The holy spirit is not a person.
Scripture speaks of the Spirit as one who can be grieved, who teaches, who speaks, and who can be lied to.
Ephesians 4:30 John 14:26 Acts 5:3 New World Translation of Ephesians 4:30
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A Christian objection
The New World Translation adds the word “other” in Colossians 1:16, so the verse reads as “all other things.”
The Greek says “all things.” The added word is what lets a created Son stand inside a verse about the Creator.
Colossians 1:16 John 1:3 New World Translation of Colossians 1:16
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What you will hear
“Firstborn of all creation” means Jesus was the first creature God made.
Firstborn often means the pre-eminent heir. The next verse says all things were created by him.
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What you will hear
The divine name Jehovah belongs in the New Testament wherever the writers meant the Father.
No Greek New Testament manuscript contains that name. The apostles used “Lord” for the Father and for Jesus, including Old Testament lines about the LORD.
Acts 7:59 Romans 10:13 Joel 2:32 New World Translation of Acts 7:60
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What you will hear
“The Alpha and the Omega” is Jehovah, not Jesus.
In Revelation 22 the one who says “I am Alpha and Omega” is the one who is coming, and John answers, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” The one who died and lives in Revelation 1 calls himself the first and the last.
Revelation 22:13 Revelation 1:17 Isaiah 44:6 New World Translation of Revelation 22:13