Chapter 1: According To Historical Sources, The Gospel Has Been Corrupted Over Time

Christians Will Not Have Abandoned Their Faith by Admitting the Possibility That the Gospel Has Changed

Many of our Christian brothers overreact on the subject of the Gospel having changed over time and never accept any such idea.

They regard this as a sort of "renunciation of their faith": It is of course understandable for Christians to react against claims that their faith has become corrupted. However, in order to establish whether this is something that should never be mentioned and whether it might represent a renunciation of faith they need to reflect a little, look at the history of Christianity and reexamine all these in the light of the Gospel.

It is important to reiterate that the Gospel is also sacred to us as Muslims. We therefore have no desire for it to have been changed and misinterpreted. Yet this has happened, as we are told of it in the Koran. We therefore need to look at the evidence for this distortion and at historic events. Of course, this does not mean discounting the Gospel entirely. The original of the Gospel has been preserved down to the present day. It is currently concealed, and will be absolutely discovered by God’s will. The important thing, therefore, is to evaluate the Gospel in the light of the Koran in order to identify its true pronouncements and to think in a manner compatible with reason and good conscience.

However, there is one other matter needing to be known and reflected upon regarding the four Gospels currently used by our Christian brothers:

What you will be reading in this book is not deductions or claims made by Muslims. On the contrary, what the book says is all based on Christians’ own sources.

Material concerning the history of Christianity that has previously been set out in detail in our book Jesus (pbuh) Is Not the Son of God, But a Prophet of God is merely set out here under brief headings as a reminder:

The Spread of Christianity and the Origin of the Belief in the Trinity according to Christian sources

- When we look at the earliest Christian documents and communities we see that Jesus (pbuh) taught nothing different to the Prophet Moses (pbuh) or the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) on the subject of the existence and oneness of God.

- After Jesus, Christianity was spread by the disciples. They preached in places where monotheistic beliefs prevailed, particularly the Middle East, Jerusalem, Antioch and Urfa [Edessa]. Since these regions are those where prophets appeared, they turned to Christianity very quickly since the inhabitants were already familiar with monotheistic belief.

- The belief in the Trinity, which did not exist before, finally appeared long after Jesus as Christianity spread to regions where Greco-Roman paganism predominated.

This is the true account: there is no other god besides God. God – He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Koran, 3:62)

- The reason is that the Christians who had converted from paganism in regions such as Alexandria in Egypt, Greece, Italy and Anatolia began to build a Christianity under the influence of their former beliefs that they called the Trinity.

How Did Paganism Prepare The Ground For Belief in the Trinity?

Throughout the course of history, pagans have always regarded three idols as superior to all the others. They regarded the greatest of these as the Father, the second as the Mother and the third as the Son. Some examples are as follows:

• The concept of a trinity appears in Indian paganism in the form of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
• The Koran also refers to the idea of a trinity in Arab paganism: "Have you really considered al-Lat and al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other one?" (Koran, 53:19-20)
• Belief in a tripartite god was widespread in pre-Christian Syria and the surrounding area.
• Osiris (Father), Isis (Mother) and Horus (Son) also represented a tripartite deity in ancient Egyptian paganism.
• Mithraism was also a superstition involving three deities in Persian paganism. This was widespread in ancient Anatolia and Europe, including the Roman Empire.
• Trinitarian belief was also present in Roman and Greek paganism. Zeus, Hera and Apollo were the three predominant gods of ancient Greece. The idea of the trinity is known to have entered Christianity from Greek and Roman paganism.
• There are many father and son gods in Greek mythology. Plato even formulated this trinity and suggested that the gods have a son called "logos" (the word) and a daughter called "sophos" (knowledge). One of the words used to refer to Jesus in Christianity is "logos."

The House of Mary, a church in Bülbüldağı in Selçuk, Izmir, where Mary, mother of Jesus (pbuh), is believed to have spent her final years. This is a place of pilgrimage for Christians. Her tomb is also thought to be in Bülbüldağı. This is regarded as sacred by Muslims as well as Christians.

The American professor of theology Dr. Paul R. Eddy noted this and made the following comments on the subject in a paper "Was Early Christianity Corrupted by Hellenism?":

The general belief in paganism, especially in Greek and Roman paganism, was that the greatest of the three gods married a mortal woman and that she gave birth to a male child, who was also a god or quite often, a demigod.

• Belief in a child god born to a mortal woman bears a very close similarity to the present day Christian belief in the Trinity.

Ancient Greek philosophers fabricated the idea of god through logical deductions from the physical world. However, they were unable to fathom how a god they regarded as unchanging and eternal could create finite and changing entities. For that reason, they attempted to explain the formation of the universe through a material entity.

Accordingly they maintained that, as a child is born to a mother and a father, so there must have been intermediaries between the gods and the entities for the universe to come into being; in other words, hierarchical divine entities. The senior god in this hierarchy was responsible for authority and creation, while the others were responsible for matters involving the world of space and time, and secondary deities covered sundry matters such as punishment and reward.

These supposed gods and godlike entities were generally defined as a "three-in-one entity," beginning with the most important. Therefore, belief in a trinity or a tripartite deity is a widespread idea that emerged in pagan times.

William Varner says that the perspective of the Gentiles [a term used in the Gospel to refer to non-Jews; it is also used for the Romans in the time of Jesus] who heard the preaching of Jesus was shaped in the light of these ideas. He goes on to say:

God is my Lord and your Lord so worship Him. That is a straight path. (Koran, 3:51)) Those who remember God, standing, sitting and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the Earth: 'Our Lord, You have not created this for nothing. Glory be to You! So safeguard us from the punishment of the Fire. (Koran, 3:191)

Similarities Between Belief in the Trinity and the Character of Dionysus in Greek Mythology

Statements about Jesus (pbuh) by believers in the Trinity bear uncanny similarities to the character of the pagan deity Dionysus in Greek mythology (Bacchus in Latin), the worship of whom is estimated to have persisted until around the Fourth Century AD:

• Dionysus is a mortal god, the son of an immortal deity father Zeus.
• Dionysus was born to a mortal mother by the name of Semele.
• He was killed by mortals.
• He was sent to the world as a savior.
• Dionysus was resurrected in physical form after his death.
• Although Dionysus was semi-divine, he lived among people in human form and shared people’s weaknesses.
• Dionysus permitted himself to be caught and put to death as a sacrifice of his own free will.
• Followers of Dionysus in ancient Greece ate meat and drank wine in remembrance of and to give thanks to him. They regarded this as eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Dionysus and imagined that this drew them closer to him. This pagan ritual, a precursor to the doctrine of transubstantiation, is applied to Jesus (pbuh) in a most interesting way in The Gospel According to St. John:

• In another passage, Jesus gives the disciples wine to drink by his own hand and tells them to regard this as his blood:

How Was the Belief in the Trinity That Developed Parallel to Pagan Belief Disseminated?

One of the many statues in front of the Basilica of St. Peter is that of Paul.

• Christian historians and theologians are agreed that the idea of the Trinity was first disseminated by St. Paul. The accuracy of this is confirmed by historical documents and by Paul’s letters in the Gospels.
• Paul was not a disciple of Jesus. Not only was he not a disciple, he was originally fiercely opposed to him in life. Four years after the ascension of Jesus he claimed to have seen a sudden vision and declared himself to be a follower, thus entering the first Christian community.
• Paul’s aim was to be able to spread Christianity to the West. In order to do that he sent numerous letters to various regions in the West, 14 of which appear in the Gospel as "immutable" sacred texts known as the Pauline Letters.
• Paul was a Roman citizen who, in addition to the Aramaic and Hebrew spoken by the Jews, also spoke very good Greek. He was well acquainted with the Romans and was well aware of the policies needing to be adopted against them.
• In order to be able to spread his ideas to the West, Paul therefore established a Christian dogma ideally suited to the pagan beliefs in the region (there is of course a possibility that his expositions were misinterpreted by the pagan society in question). He adopted the concepts of the Father and the Son to Roman pagan beliefs, establishing a concept similar to that of the belief in a tripartite deity consisting of a father and son in that pagan system. It is highly likely that he did thus in the hope that it would be easier for Christianity to spread in that form.
• The terms "father" and "son" appear frequently in his letters that appear in the Gospel.
• This pagan belief added onto Christianity spread easily through the region – since it was eminently compatible with the West’s pagan views. As Western Rome and Byzantium gradually grew materially and politically stronger, a policy of repression of the monotheistic conception in eastern Christianity appeared. Attempts were made to eliminate eastern Christian monotheism, attempts which were to a large extent successful.

Gospel Texts Established Through "Majority Vote" in the Councils

• The Trinity was first officially made part of Christianity by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This council took place with the participation of the Roman Emperor Constantine.

The council was held for the following reasons:

• The Roman Empire’s expansion into lands where Christianity had spread.

• Tensions had arisen between pagans and Christians because of that expansion and the Empire faced the threat of being divided into two.

• The idea that a new belief, a synthesis between the old pagan faith and the new Christianity, was needed if the Empire was not to be divided in two, and for preparatory work to be done on this.

• As we have seen, it was assumed that conflict in pagan lands could only be avoided if Christianity were changed. This council that met in Nicaea decided that the solution to internal conflict was for the idea of the Trinity to be added to the Gospel. That decision was duly implemented.
• The four Gospels espousing the idea of the Trinity were declared to be completely reliable at the council.
• Apart from a few preserved handwritten manuscripts, other gospels espousing strictly monotheistic belief were denounced as "heretical" and burned.
• Those people who espoused monotheism were condemned for holding heretical beliefs. The punishment for heresy was burning at the stake.
• Excommunication is a sanction first applied against the opponents of the Trinity. The Papacy and Roman and Byzantine politicians inflicted various punishments, including burning at the stake, on opponents of the Trinity and supporters of monotheism. The courts known as the Inquisition were also set up for that purpose.
• The monotheistic Arian movement, started by the Alexandrian priest Arius on the basis of early and trustworthy writings, was highly influential in that period. However, this development alarmed the Romans, who burned the Library of Alexandria and the documents and books it contained in 411.

A drawing by Pedro Berruguete showing books considered heretical and being burned by order of the Inquisition and its courts.

The "Religious Dogma" Established by the Church and how Christians Were Compelled to Adhere to it

• It was Trinitarian Christians who imposed a new meaning on the word "dogma."
• In brief, religious dogma means that the "Christian religion can only be formulated by the Papacy or Church authorities, and it is obligatory to believe in it in just that form."
• To put it another way, it is impossible for a Christian to decide what or what not to believe on the basis of the Holy Book. The Church decides what he may or may not believe.
• For example, if someone says, "I reject the Trinity and believe that God is the One and Only Creator, and that Jesus is the servant of God, not His son," then he is no longer a Christian, strictly speaking. No matter how much he has reached this conclusion from the holy books he has read and his own investigations and in the light of his own reason, conscience, conceptual abilities and mental capacities, the Church will still not regard him as a Christian.

That is God, your Lord. There is no god but Him, the Creator of everything. So worship Him. He is responsible for everything. (Koran, 6:102) They believe in God and the Last Day, and enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and compete in doing good. They are among the righteous. (Koran, 3:114)

Christians Must Heed Jesus St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York

• In order to be regarded as a "Christian," a person has to close his eyes to the truth shown him by his conscience, mind and experience and adopt the idea of the three-in-one deity, defined as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as imposed by the Church.
• The shape of the belief was formulated in this form by the Church and a Christian is obliged to believe in it in that form.
• That is what is meant by religious dogma, or religious imposition, to put it another way.
• That is the sole reason why a great many Christians are so devoted to the idea of the Trinity. Since the Church and the Papacy were shaped according to the structure of the Roman Empire, the Church was also the source of the idea of the Trinity. That is why regarding the Gospel has having been altered or rejecting the Trinity is regarded as "abandoning the faith."
• Yet all these pretexts for "excommunication" emerged hundreds of years after Jesus and were invented by the Church. Many of our Christian brothers are totally unaware of all this.

As is clear from above, the Papacy and the Church obviously possessed greater authority than a holy book. And that is the case still, despite the Reformation, meaning a return to the holy book, and the Protestant movement.

The Belief in the Trinity That Was Subsequently Added to Christianity in a Number of Stages

• "The Trinity" appears in no sacred text. It appears nowhere, either as a name or a teaching, in the sacred teachings of Christianity – or any other true religion. Christians themselves admit this.
• Belief in the Trinity was fabricated and made part of Christianity in gradual stages. These can be summarized as follows:
  • The idea of the divinity of Jesus was agreed at the Council of Nicaea in 325,
  • Claims regarding the divinity of the Holy Ghost were accepted at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, and
  • The idea that Jesus had two natures, one human and one divine, was agreed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
• Although the belief in the Trinity assumed a specific form at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, there was still no agreement regarding the elements of the Trinity and the relationship between them.
• Apart from a reference in the Gospel According to Matthew to baptism "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," no sacred text contains a single reference in which the Holy Spirit is mentioned together with the Father and Son, the first two elements of the Trinity.
• Indeed, the Gospel contains no references or indications regarding the divinity of the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, various Christian sources state that the term refers to the angel Gabriel, as also stated in the Koran.
• The term "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" was added to Matthew 28:18-20 at the end of the Fourth Century in order to establish compatibility with the idea of the Trinity.
• The doctrine of the Trinity, which was made official in the Fourth Century, was added to the text written in the First Century. In this way, this text was made compatible with the order of the council. With these subsequent additions, a text which originally espoused monotheism, was turned into one pointing to the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Just about everyone held a different opinion on the subject. That is why everyone accused everyone else of error, heresy and apostasy. Even people who shared the same belief in the Trinity held different opinions regarding it.

The Church of St. Peter The First Vatican Council, or Vatican I: 800 church leaders were called together by Pope Pius IX on June 29, 1868. This council issued the final decision regarding the belief on the Trinity, which was made part of Christian dogma by church councils and for which there is no logical basis: "The Trinity is not a matter of reason and logic. There is no need for you to sit and think about it." In this way, the Trinity was made an article of faith without being understood, and those who refused to believe were excommunicated.

The Church’s Final Decree Regarding the Trinity: "The Trinity is not a Matter For Reason and Logic; There is no Need For You to Reflect on and Understand İt"

• The subject of the Trinity was constantly reshaped by a succession of councils, ongoing study and new decrees. Various passages in the Gospel were re-interpreted; passages that had one been rejected were suddenly declared to be trustworthy and added to the Gospel, while others were removed.
• In this extraordinarily contradictory environment, the Church tried to shape itself in the light of new suggestions and objections in order not to have to give way on the doctrine of the Trinity.
• The arguments and discrepancies regarding the Trinity remain unresolved to this day. The final decree on the subject was issued by the Council of Florence in 1443. The council did not manage to eliminate the contradictions and inconsistencies on the subject, however, and the arguments persisted for a long time thereafter.
• The First Vatican Council, summoned by the Papacy in 1868-1870 with the aim of putting an end to these endless disputes, [fully 1,870 years after Jesus] decreed that the Trinity is not a matter for reason and logic, but a mystery and an article of faith. (Const. "De fide, cath", IV)
• To put it another way, the insoluble dilemma of the Trinity was simply declared by the Church to be a "mystery," in order to eliminate opponents and their justified objections as required by logic, reason and the genuine verses of the Gospel. The message being sent out, in other words, was "There is no need for you to think about this anymore!"

This subject will be considered in greater detail in the pages that follow.

The "Additions and Removals" Officially Carried Uut by the Church, to the Four Gospels While Asserting Their Unchanging Nature

On the one hand, the Church stresses the unchanging nature of the Gospels. On the other hand, however, it has had no qualms about making various additions and subtractions so that the four Gospels would become compatible with one another.

• The oldest handwritten copies of the holy texts regarded as canonical date back to the Third Century. In other words, these were written three hundred years after Jesus. In fact, there are differences in the texts and expressions in all the sacred texts.
• Indeed, the texts refer to events and people from long after the earliest dates these are considered to have been written.
• The oldest copy of the Gospel According to John dates back to approximately 200 AD, and there are more than 10,000 different texts of that particular gospel alone. The number of major differences among these 10,000 different copies is around 200,000.
• In order to avoid confusion, footnotes are often provided for the various gospels. These contain the following expression "According to other ancient authorities, this word or sentence should not appear" or "other ancient authorities have read this as…" or "other ancient authorities omitted the following words…"
• The Revised Standard version of the Holy Bible (New York, Glasgow 1971) refers to Jesus as "the son of God" in the first sentence of the Gospel According to Mark. There then follows a footnote, saying "other ancient authorities did not include the term (the son of God)."
• The four canonical Gospels contain major discrepancies and differences. But this variation is not limited to the Gospels in question alone. There are also major differences between the oldest handwritten and printed copies of each of these Gospels.
• During the preparation of the standard version of the Gospel, say According to Matthew, selections were made based on the differences, and extra and missing passages in the previously printed manuscripts. It is therefore impossible to be sure which terms should be regarded as true and valid.
• Various sentences in the final part of the Gospel According to Mark had to be removed in order for the Gospel to be agreed at the Council of Nicaea because those expressions were diametrically opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Various passages were taken from the works of the other authors of the Gospels and a concluding paragraph to the Gospel According to Mark was prepared on that basis.
• All passages describing Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews were removed from the Gospel According to John. This was replaced with a superhuman figure of Jesus.

(Prof. Dr. Mehmet Bayrakdar, The Trinity, a Christian Dogma, Ankara School Publications, September 2007, p. 163)

The text of the Gospel According to John is accepted to have been written in 110 AD; it is generally considered to be the oldest of the canonical Gospel. This means that the disciple John must have lived for at least 140-150 years, which is highly unlikely. In addition, the fact that the text of John contains information from much later times also casts doubt on whether the disciple John was really the author of the Gospel.

The other Gospels emphasized that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews, is descended from the line of the Prophet David (pbuh) and will liberate Israel. However, all Judaic concepts that would displease Hellenic Christians were removed from the Gospel According to John. The influence of Greek philosophy in the Gospel According to John is very obvious.

• Various other Gospels and passages from these Gospels that would later be dismissed by the Church as fabrications were for a long time thought of as valid. These were accepted for a long time, and anyone claiming they were false was promptly excommunicated.
• For example, in the Fourth Century one Christian sect recognized 23 books in the Gospel, while a few centuries later that same sect recognized 27.

New Sects That Emerged Due to Contradictions, Illogicalities and Discrepancies Regarding the Trinity

• Following the decision to include the Holy Spirit as one member of the three-in-one, the debates and disagreements over the Trinity increased still further.
• As a result of these debates, the idea emerged that the Holy Spirit should appear both from the Father and from the Son. The concept of filioque, meaning "from the son," was thus added to the doctrine of the Trinity.
• For that reason, and because of other problems that arose later, the Church of Rome divided into two parts, Catholic and Orthodox, in 1054.
• The Catholic Church, which accepted filioque (as well as the Protestant Church that would later break away from it) believed that the Holy Spirit emerged from both the Father and the Son, making the already confusing belief in the Trinity even more complex.
• The Orthodox Church, which rejected filioque, maintains that the Holy Spirit comes from the Father alone. The greatest disagreement between the two churches, and which has come down to the present day, regarding the Trinity involves filioque.
• Therefore, the Holy Spirit was recognized as divine by the advocates of the Trinity 56 years after the recognition of the divinity of the Son.

To summarize the actions taken to resolve the confusion over the Trinity: (surely God is beyond this) The explicit and official recognition of the divine status of Jesus stems from the decision of the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the divine status of the Holy Spirit from the Council of Constantinople in 381. The dual nature of Jesus, one part divine and one part human, was raised at the councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451, and the question of filioque, the Holy Spirit coming from Jesus was discussed at the councils held in Toledo in 447 and 589 and was resolved at the Council of Constantinople. This brief summary here reveals that further confusion was loaded onto Christianity at every council.

To reiterate, all the information provided above is based on documentation and other evidence from Christian, not Muslim, historians and theologians. This provides essential information on how Christianity developed and how the Gospel assumed its present form. These are fundamental historical details proving that the belief in the Trinity has no place in the true Gospel.

What someone needs to do after seeing all this evidence is to seek to understand the truth by reflecting and using logic, analyzing the Gospel in view of all these historical data. In order to pursue this logical inquiry, the following questions should be considered in the light of reason and good conscience:

• Each Divine scripture sent down to each faith is unique. How is it possible for there to be four separate Gospels in Christianity and for each one to be considered valid by itself?
• If each of the four books is true, then how did the inconsistencies between them, the serious gaps of meaning and major discrepancies of the historical data all come about?
• How could a true book sent down to a true faith have been identified "by majority vote" from among books espousing different beliefs?
• Why were those Gospels and early manuscripts espousing monotheism that did not receive a majority vote burned and destroyed?
• Why were people who espoused monotheism sentenced to death? And what was the reason for that opposition and savagery?
• The four Gospels and the idea of the Trinity that entered Christianity were recognized in the Fourth Century. What is the position of those Christians who were unaware of the Gospels and the Trinity before then?
• The idea of the Holy Spirit as divine emerged much later. Were the Church and all other Christians who did not regard the Holy Spirit as divine before that all in a state of sin?
• The Church regards the authors of the canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as people who received revelation. Were these people prophets? How can anyone – even the disciples – who is not a prophet receive Divine revelation? So could the disciples in question not have attained the status of prophets?
• How can a majority vote by the Church decide whether someone received revelation or not?
• How is it possible for it to be agreed in a vote that someone received Divine revelation and to rule that what he wrote is "unalterable and unchanging" after a great many amendments have been made to it?
• If the four Gospels are unalterable, how can the Church have made additions to them over many years, rearranging some parts and removing others?
• No earlier Christian could have adhered to those parts of the Gospels that were added on later. So what is the position of the Christians in question up to that time?
• How can a Christian arrange his life and faith, not on the basis of trustworthy verses from the Gospel and his own conscience and reason, but on the basis of a form of belief set out by the Church and that altered over the course of time?
• Why is it only in Christianity that there are such differences of opinion on the subject of the existence and oneness of God, the basis of all the true faiths and that is also explicitly set out in all other religions?
• Which one of the different Christian sects that all recognize different books is on the true path? Which sect’s books are unchanging and indisputably true?
• How is it that the number of books can gradually rise from 23 to 27 in a single sect? Which should be regarded as true?

No Christian who supports the Trinity can give a truly logical, rational, comprehensible, convincing, clear and concrete answer to the above questions. This extraordinary confusion under the name of the Trinity is completely inexplicable.

The above questions refer to just some of the discrepancies on the subject of the four canonical Gospels on the basis of historical facts. The real issue is the profound logical collapse that belief in the Trinity brings with it. It is this profound and deep-rooted logical collapse that must cause sincere Christians to doubt their belief in the Trinity. This will be discussed in the pages that follow.

The Gospel Sent Down to Confirm the Torah Should Also Confirm Monotheistic Faith

A Christian who espouses the Trinity may at first reject the above statements based on historical documentation and interpretations of these. This does not alter the fact, however, that the present four canonical Gospels were chosen from a total of 27.

A council decree declared that these four Gospels represent the true scripture of Christianity. The discrepancies and inconsistencies among these Gospels are too great to be ignored or denied. Therefore, a sincere Christian should set aside the dogmatic decisions of the Church and think with reason and good conscience and reflect a little on whether these can be regarded as books "not one single letter of which has ever changed." The books in question, not one letter of which has ever supposedly been changed, were in fact changed time and time again by the Church itself. This is established by Christian historical documents. The footnotes regarding statements in old copies of the Gospel in present-day editions by themselves make this perfectly clear.

Another important matter which must be mentioned here is the situation of Christians who lived during the three centuries after Jesus and the disciples up until the recognition of the four canonical Gospels containing belief in the Trinity. Even if these people believed in Jesus and the Gospel with all their hearts, they were still in a position, in the eyes of the dogma imposed by the Church, of having abandoned the faith. How can that be possible? Who could possibly maintain that people lived in ignorance of the truth for so long when there was a true faith and its holy book present as a warning? God would never permit such a thing.

What therefore calls for skepticism is not the period before the Fourth Century, when the original of the Gospel was around in handwritten manuscripts, when Aramaic, the original language of the Gospel was still in use, and when at the very least there were no errors of reproduction and translation, but the period that followed. The period immediately after the disciples was in all probability a time when genuine copies of the Gospel that Jesus caused to be written down [Jesus in all likelihood had the revelation that came to him written down in his own day] were present and applied. The monotheistic belief that was a continuation of Judaism survived in that period. Indeed, as also stated in the Koran, the Gospel was sent down to confirm the Torah. Therefore, the monotheistic belief that represents the basis of Judaism would also be confirmed in the genuine Gospel. As our Lord reveals in the Koran:

Some Christians maintain that the disciples spread the idea of the Trinity after Jesus, and that they even died for its sake. Yet this is false. The disciples who were at Jesus’ side never espoused belief in Trinity, and never could have. (The only person known to have propagated belief in the Trinity is Paul, and as many Christian theologians and sources confirm, Paul never met Jesus and even opposed him in his time.) Like all the other first Christians, Jesus and the disciples were devout Jews and members of the People of Israel. There was no belief in the Trinity among these first Christians. The books they were sent to confirm the Torah confirmed the monotheistic faith set out in the Torah. It is very odd that in our day Christians do not consider them as Christians, referring to them as "Jewish Christians," as if Jesus were not a Jew before revelation came to him and also one of the Children of Israel.

Therefore, the period up to the Fourth Century was a continuation of Judaic monotheism, and in all probability one when a monotheistic faith predominated with the original of the Gospel. The period following the Fourth Century should be regarded as a time when the Roman Empire ruled, when paganism and the pagan belief in the Trinity spread across the world with that empire, when Aramaic, the original language of the Gospel was forgotten and Koine Greek began being used, and when political disorder, civil conflicts and religious wars prevailed. The historical information provided above therefore needs to be well considered in that light.

God Is Certainly Powerful Enough to Preserve the True Book He Revealed

It is of course understandable why some Christians are unwilling to admit the possibility of the Gospel, sent down by God as a source of light, changing over the course of time and being misinterpreted. They may be uneasy at the idea of obeying a true book that has been corrupted. But sincere Christians need to bear this in mind: The present-day Gospel is to a large extent true. The original Gospel sent down to Jesus (pbuh) is revelation from God consisting of very profound and wise words and is praised in the Koran. Just like Christians, Muslims also have a duty to abide by those words.

In addition, all the original, uncorrupted Gospel has been preserved. It is waiting where it has been concealed for the time of its discovery. By God’s leave, the original of the Gospel will be discovered in the time when we see the coming of Jesus and Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). There is therefore a Gospel that has not been altered in any way, as Christians maintain. Our criticisms here are directed toward those parts of the four Gospels, which are currently regarded as true but that harbor numerous discrepancies, that have been distorted and misinterpreted. The existence of such sections is so evident as to be easily apparent to any honest Christian. The contents of this book call on our Christian brothers to reflect with reason, logic and good conscience.

Almighty God is of course powerful enough to preserve the true books He sends down as guides for people. Some Christians point to this sublime attribute of our Lord in order to repudiate statements about the Gospel having been corrupted. However, there is secret wisdom here that needs to be properly understood:

To reiterate, of course God is powerful enough to preserve His book. Almighty God is also powerful enough to create everything in the universe quite flawlessly. It is God Who also creates flaws and defects in the universe. There is particular wisdom behind God’s creating flaws. Through these, we always remember that this world is a place of temporary testing, that we are weak before God and that our true abode is in the hereafter, not this world. One cannot grow proud in the face of deficiencies and one will always be aware of one’s weakness before and need of God.

And We sent 'Jesus son of Mary following in their footsteps, confirming the Torah that came before him. We gave him the Gospel containing guidance and light, confirming the Torah that came before it, and as guidance and admonition for those who have fear of God. (Koran, 5:46)

The corruption of the Holy Gospel, the evidence for which is perfectly clear, is something that happened by God’s leave and will. It was created with wisdom as part of a very special test by God. If God creates it in this way and shows the evidence on the subject so clearly, then we must see and grasp the wisdom behind it, rather than being stubborn about it.

The Christian world is obviously being tested by this. They are being invited to heed their consciences.

This state of affairs is clearly required in order for people to seek the coming of Jesus and the true Gospel.

With this test, false beliefs may perhaps enfold the world, people may be encouraged toward conflict, disorder and bloodshed in the name of religion and the signs of the coming of Jesus and Hazrat Mahdi revealed in the Torah, Gospel, Koran and hadiths will come about. Therefore, the real task befalling sincere Christians is to seek and apply the true provisions of the Gospel.

At the same time, Christians must be aware of the reality that all the genuine provisions of the true Gospel are present and reported in the Koran. The true provisions of the Gospel are also contained in the Koran, for which reason Muslims also have an obligation to live by the true Gospel.

The Koran is a true book that confirms the Gospel. Therefore, in the same way that Muslims are followers of the Prophet Muhammad, they are also followers of Jesus who apply the true Gospel and followers of Moses who apply the true Torah. Therefore, if a sincere Christian wishes to abide by the truth of the Gospel and to arrange his life in the light of the true Gospel, he will find all the relevant provisions in the Koran. The true Gospel is one of our holy books that Almighty God praises in the Koran. God reveals in the Koran that the Gospel was a guide for the people at the time it was sent down:

In conclusion, our Christian brothers must read the Koran from that perspective before rejecting it out of prejudice. It must not be forgotten that everyone who seeks the understanding with which to differentiate truth from falsehood can attain this great blessing from God.