Hey Andy, is the Quran taken from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Gnostic texts?
Hi, in a simple answer, no it wasn’t, but let me explain.
Muhammad’s knowledge of Christianity
First off, Muhammad’s knowledge of Christianity consisted mostly on non-Biblical believers and pseudo-Christian believers, not Biblical texts:
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Muhammad was born and raised by a poly-theist culture (many idols and deities)
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His (1st) wife was an Ebionite Christian.
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The Bible didn’t even yet exist in the Arabic language, so whether he was illiterate or not, he wouldn’t have been able to read nor know the Bible (Old nor New Testaments) anyway.
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In his younger days, Muhammad made caravan journeys to Syria, where he had contact with monks involved in Nestorian Christianity.
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Later in his life, his Christian influences consisted mostly of his wives’ Christian backgrounds.
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Muslims also believe (and reject) that the Trinity consists of God, Jesus, and Mary (possibly signs of an outsider looking in at the Catholic faith, but not one who would know about the Bible).
Biblical Characters with Mistaken Identities
Second, you may also notice that the Quran mentions characters from the Bible, but their accounts and stories about them are very different, as well as the meaning of certain Biblical terms. For instance:
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Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears to be confused with Mary, Jesus’ mom.
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The Word of God to the Christian is Jesus Himself, whereas to the Muslim, it’s just ordinary speech by which God created Jesus.
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The Spirit of God to the Christian is the Holy Spirit, which is the 3rd person of the Trinity. But to the Muslim, it refers to the angel Gabriel breathing into Mary a subtle body which conceived Jesus.
Writing of the Quran
Third, it’s important to know that at the time of Muhammad’s death, there was no complete manuscript of the Quran. But over the years afterwards, it was written down from memory by some of his companions. In a book I’m reading called “Muslims and Christians at the Table”, it says that “They were written in a rare and early Hijazi Arabic script earlier, but then washed-off later (like a dry-eraser board today), which could be read with an ultraviolet light. It seemed to indicate an evolving text, rather than one that’s been unchanged since the time of Muhammad. Such a text would have less authority than has been claimed by Muslims.” But then, the Quran itself even affirms that it’s been changed in Surah 16:101.
Also, aside from these particular Quranic scripts, there are “no other primary sources for Islam prior to 750 A.D. – all the sources come from a time 150–300 years after the events that they describe.
Biblical Manuscripts In Comparison
However, we have Biblical manuscripts dating from 150 B.C., showing that what we have in the Bible today is the same as what they had in (and before) Jesus’ days on earth in the flesh. I mean, if the New Testament is going to fulfill prophecies from the Old Testament, then you would think that they’d have to be in sync and unchanged, right? Especially the Old Testament. But the Quran was written, for the first time, 100–150 years after the events happened, and changed over the years?
Summary
So no, the Quran was not taken from the Old Testament, nor the New Testament, but more so little to no real information nor understanding of Judaism and Christianity from pseudo-Christian believers and Muhammad’s later wives who had nothing more than a Sunday School-level of knowledge of the Christian faith.
As for the Gnostic gospels, it is understood that some of the stories about Jesus are similar to that of the Apocryphal scripture, and maybe some Gnostic gospels, but all these have been rejected by the Canon (unless you’re Catholic, for they include the Apocrypha) as Gnostic (which was a pseudo/non-Christian belief in the first couple of centuries A.D., and an enemy of the Gospel message). So even if the Quran was at least influenced by them, they don’t hold any authority.
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