When’s the last time you turned in a paper for a class? Me: Just before lunch today! My wife and I, along with a couple other guys at church, are taking a course called Gateway that focuses on the Evangelical Free Church’s core doctrines. Today’s paper was about the Bible.
It got us thinking about how Muslims and Christians think differently about the Quran and the Bible.
Of course we both think our scriptures came from God. But how they got from God to us is different. Muslims believe the content of the Quran was given to Muhammad in a series of revelations from Allah through the angel Gabriel.
The Bible on the other hand was God-breathed or inspired, meaning the Holy Spirit guided the Biblical writers to ensure what they wrote was the word of God while allowing for their individual personalities and writing styles.
The Quranic revelations reportedly came over the course of 23 years. While the Bible took, depending on how you look at it, between 250 and 1500 years! Along with the lengthy time line, we have a variety of authors, from many cultures, writing in a variety of genres and languages.
Unlike the linguistic variety of the Bible authors, Muslims believe that God spoke the Quran only in Arabic. As a result, the Quran carries the most authority when it’s in Arabic. In contrast, thanks to God’s work through a vast cadre of dedicated and skilled workers, the whole Bible has been reliably translated into around 700 languages and the New Testament into 1500!
Both Christians and Muslims believe God speaks to them through their holy books, guiding them to right living. Many Muslims further believe that the actual physical Quran has spiritual power and most give a great deal of respect to the actual book.
Jesus shows up in both books: As a talking baby and a revered prophet in the Quran and as The Way, the Truth, and the Life in the Bible.