IslamDraft · awaiting advisor review

Was the Gospel (Injil) a book given to Jesus?

In short

In the New Testament “gospel” means good news: the message that Jesus died for sins and rose again, which Jesus himself preached and the apostles proclaimed. No early source mentions a book revealed to Jesus. The four Gospels are accounts of his life by his followers, and they were in use for centuries before Islam.

The Objection

The Qur’an says God gave Jesus the Injil, a revealed book of guidance and light (Qur’an 5:46). The four Gospels are biographies written by others, so the real Injil must have been lost or changed.

Put as its strongest advocates would put it.

The Christian Case

Scripture
Mark begins “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ”, and Jesus came “proclaiming the gospel of God”: good news to believe, not a book to receive.
Scripture
Paul sums up the gospel as Christ’s death for sins, burial and resurrection on the third day.
Historical evidence
No early writer, Christian, Jewish or pagan, mentions a book given to Jesus, and Jesus is not known to have written anything. The four Gospels were copied and quoted widely from the second century on.
Historical evidence
The Qur’an tells the people of the Gospel in Muhammad’s day to judge by what God revealed in it (Qur’an 5:47). The Gospels Christians had then are the ones manuscripts from before Islam preserve, and the ones we read today.
Scripture
Luke says he wrote from eyewitness accounts after careful investigation, and John’s Gospel claims to rest on the testimony of a disciple.

Where the Evidence Is Weaker

How to read Qur’an 5:46–47 is a question about Islam, and Muslims hold different views on it. Christians can show what the Bible means by “gospel” and what the manuscripts contain, but not settle how Muslims interpret their own Scripture.

Arguments to Avoid

Telling Muslims what they believe without asking.
Quoting the Qur’an loosely; give the reference so it can be checked.

Read for Yourself

Mark 1:1

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

Mark 1:14–15

¹⁴Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, ¹⁵And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:1–4

¹Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; ²By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. ³For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; ⁴And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

Luke 1:1–4

¹Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, ²Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; ³It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.