The difference between the revelation of the Holy Qur’an and the revelation of Bible is not a debatable difference between Muslim scholars and the Christian scholars because they both agree to this. Only a common ignorant man may go into debate about these things but all the Christian scholars believe that Bible is not a spoken word of God. Bible is in fact a very large word in application which applies to the Old Testament as well as to the New Testament and at places it just becomes a recorded history by the followers of a prophet and it is closer to the tradition as we call the tradition of the Holy Prophet. Bible in that sense is much closer to tradition. Only when it refers to quote unquote words of Allah within quotes and unquote those are the real words of Allah the rest of the Bible is just a narration of what happened during the time of prophets.
Now look at for example at the first chapter of the Holy Bible that is Bedaish or Genesis. Now in the Genesis it is supposed that this book was revealed to Moses of course it was revealed to Moses but it then says in the end then Allah’s servant Moses died at that ripe age or that age. So if that had been revealed to Moses how could he say that then he died? That positively proves that this was a narration by those who had followed Moses and mentioned this after his death. So all the Christian scholars believe and they agree to it that Bible both Old and New Testament are not spoken word of God or at least let’s say it is not attributed even to Christ as exactly the word of God which was revealed to him. A version was later on preserved by St. Paul who had never met Christ. A version was preserved by Matthew and so on and so forth.
So there is no debate about this point but about the Holy Quran they have tried to prove that whatever was revealed went through a change and even the most hostile orientalists had to agree in the end that all efforts to prove that the book which was mentioned by Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa or claimed by Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa as a spoken word of Allah went through any change whatsoever after his death. It is exactly as it was claimed by Hazrat Muhammad that it was revealed to him. So these are the two distinct features of the Bible and the Holy Quran and they are not debatable at all. Somebody must have started a completely wrong debate with his Christian friend. He must have objected to differences in translations of the Holy Quran and differences in the translation of the Bible. If there is a difference in translation you cannot attack the original text because there is a difference of translation. So there are differences in the translation of the Holy Quran. Then what? Every language has its own particular diction and the diction of that language cannot be correctly translated into any other language in its entirety. This is a challenge for human race. Nobody can say I have made a perfect translation.
So the translator has a right to differ with another translator. That does not mean that book has changed. So you must have somebody, some friend of yours must have come out with a very wrong argument and so he was rebutted well and intelligently by his Christian friend because this is not the argument we present to the Christians. What we say is that in the nature of the Holy Quran, revelation of the Holy Quran and in the nature of the preservation of the Bible there is a fundamental difference. Moreover, to prove to them not through translations but through texts the original text. The Christian scholars have worked a lot on this and they are gaining more and more evidence as to the fact that many portions of the so-called Bible were attributed to Bible later on and they have been going through the process of turning those portions out and adding some more which they thought belonged to Bible originally. So St. James Version came into being because of this research and only recently in America a new version of Bible has been published after great scholarly debates and they have again deviated from the St. James Version and they say that latest revelations have proved that St. James Version was correct only according to the available sources of knowledge of that time. So the scholars were good and they should not be censured but other evidence has poured in has been undiscovered by man during the last some hundred years I think St. James Version was 1590, was it? Yes, 1690. 1590 or 1610? Something like that, yes. But anyway the first was Pete’s Version on which mostly St. James Version was based and Pete was put to stake and burnt alive for attempting to translate the Holy Bible. But the later scholars have benefited a lot from that poor man who offered his life and sacrifice for the sake of Bible.
So the same St. James Version also draws its benefits mainly from Pete’s Version. And that was I think either Pete’s Version was in the middle of 16th century or a bit later as far as I remember it was in the middle of the 15th century or near about there. Then came another version then came St. James Version in 1600 or there about. And it was supposed to be the best version of Bible. Now the scholars say that it is not a question of translation. It is a question of original text. Many things have been proved not belonging to the original text of Bible which were added and many things were perhaps left out. And this process goes on. And the scholars differ between each other. So the element of doubt is positively there. Nobody can say it is the same book which was revealed after Moses to his followers because they themselves differ what was revealed. So that is the superiority of the Holy Quran which we claim. Nothing else. I mean other fields of superiority of course. But in this context this is what the Muslims believe and which is proved beyond doubt.
