Muhammad not foretold in the Bible

”There is not even a hint about that”

by A. Abraham

1. INTRODUCTION 2. VERSES MISINTERPRETED BY MUSLIMS -Genesis 12:1-3; -Deuteronomy 18:14-20, 33:1-2, 34:10 -Song of Songs 5:16 -Isaiah 21:13-17, 28:9-11, 42:1-2,11 -Habakkuk 3:3 -John 1:20-21, 6:7 3. CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION According to Surah 7, Al A'raf, verse 157, Muhammad the prophet of Islam is foretold in the Torah and the Gospel.

“Those who follow the apostle, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (scriptures), - in the law and the Gospel; - for he commands them what is just and forbids them what is evil;

However, a closer look at the context of the Biblical passages commonly referred to by Muslims, will show that they cannot be interpreted that way. The quotes are all taken from the N.I.V. translation of the Bible.

2. VERSES MISINTERPRETED BY MUSLIMS

Genesis 12:1-3: The Lord had said to Abram, '...I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.'

Dr. Jamal Badawi and some other Muslims claim that God would bless the whole earth through Muhammad the descendant of Ishmael. (see 'What the Bible says about Muhammad', IPCI, pages 26-27) After all, he was the firstborn to Abraham through Hagar, an Egyptian maidservant, and the traditional rights the first son had as heir is, according to the law, not depending on the social status of his mother. However, the Bible is very clear in saying that God, by his sovereign choice, would fulfil his covenant through the seed of Isaac, the son given to Sarah, Abraham's first wife:

And Abraham said to God, 'If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!' Then God said, 'Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.' (Genesis 17: 18-21)

Deuteronomy 21:15-17 assures the rights of inheritance to the firstborn son, to the one who literally was the first to be born. Since Abraham lived about 600 years before God gave the Israelites this law through Moses, it is not applicable to him. This rule was also set aside with divine approval in Jacob's and Solomon's cases. Even in the Qur’an certain laws, such as to how many wives one is allowed to marry, did not apply to Muhammad. The New Testament says:

'For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. (Galatians 3:18, see also 3:6-23)

Ishmael's situation also has to be understood in the light of an ancient custom, illustrated in Old Assyrian marriage contracts, the Code of Hammurapi and the Nuzi tablets (mid-2nd millennium B.C.). There we find that if a wife could not bear children to her husband, she was allowed to give him her maidservant to provide an heir. Every legal right of a child that was born in that way was passed on to the real wife. These laws allowed her to turn a mother of such a child again into her former state of a servant. In case the wife would suddenly be able to bear children she could disinherit the child of the maidservant. This is exactly what happened to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, born by the maidservant Hagar:

'The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, 'Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.' The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, 'Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.' (Genesis 21:8-13, see also 25: 1-6)

God in his sovereignty chose to bless the whole world through Isaac's line. Surah 29, Al 'Ankabut, verse 27 (see also Surah 45, Al Jathiyah, verse 16) confirms this by stating that the prophethood and the scripture are to be found in Isaac's and Jacob's line, with the children of Israel. Nowhere in the Qur’an is it written that from Ishmael's seed too there would one day rise up a prophet. As seen above, this is confirmed in Genesis 17:20-21 where we read that God will fulfil his covenant through Isaac only.God remains faithful to his promise even though the Israelites have disobeyed him many times during their history. They were and are being severely punished for their stubbornness, yet God has still not chosen to reveal himself through prophets coming from outside the line of Isaac and Jacob. The following verse verifies this:

But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.' 'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I (God) will not forget you! See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.' (Isaiah 49:14-16, see also 2 Tim 2:13, Rom 3:3-4)

Deuteronomy 18:14-20 'The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me (Moses) from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, 'Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.' The Lord said to me: 'What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.'

Because Ishmael was Isaac's half-brother, Muslims interpret the words 'from among your own brothers' to mean 'from among the descendants of Ishmael.' They conclude that since Muhammad was a descendant of the Ishmaelites this prophecy must speak about him. The preceding chapter shows clearly that this is not the case. By defining the very words on which the Muslim argument is built we will see that they refer to a brother Israelite not to a brother Ishmaelite:

'Be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. (Deuteronomy 17:15)

Even though this verse refers to a different incident, nevertheless the words under question are used again. It is a normal exegetic procedure to define a phrase according to how it is used in the close context, especially so if it is explained there. When it comes to a choice between accepting the interpretation of men or the Bible the latter must naturally be given preference. This explanation is the only one that can be accepted in the light of Deuteronomy 18:14. There Moses tells his brothers, the Israelites, not to follow the detestable practices of the nations in regard to having contact with the supernatural world. At that time everybody else, including the Ishmaelites, belonged to those nations! Therefore, if verse 15 would refer to a prophet coming from the Ishmaelites, this surely would have been clearly stated! The verses 20-22 (they mention the criteria for "a" not "the" true prophet) which follow after Deuteronomy 18:15 disclose that it is first and foremost a collective reference to all true prophets who will follow. They all, like Moses, were to act as mediators between God and the people. The Israelites had a frightening experience with the Creator on Mount Sinai and since then they did not want Him to speak to them personally. (Exodus 20:18-21) At their request God would send prophets who will speak in His name to them. In this way they will hear the words God put into the mouths of His prophets. In Acts 3:21-26 we read that Jesus was the unique, messianic fulfilment of that prophecy:

'...Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you'...When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you...'

John 6:14 confirms that fact:

After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, 'Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.'

If the words in Deuteronomy 18 '...a prophet like me...' are not examined in relation to their neighbouring verses, as explained above, they give raise to all kinds of speculations. Some Muslims say Muhammad was like Moses because, unlike Jesus, they both had a father and a mother, both where born in a natural way, both married and had children, etc. What they fail to conclude is that many prophets can be paralleled to Moses in some things but not in others. One could just as well say Jesus was the promised prophet because, like Moses but unlike Muhammad he was saved from death as a baby (Exodus 1:17, 2:2-10, Matthew 2:16), transfigured (Exodus 34:29, Matthew 17:1-7), preached about sacrifice being the way to get forgiveness of sins (Leviticus 4, Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 9:22), and called himself a Jewish prophet (Luke 4:16-24); Jesus too spoke in God's name(John 17:8) and performed many miraculous signs (See also Luke 8:48-55) In contrast to him, there is no sign recorded of Muhammad in the Holy Qur’an that would be accepted as such by his enemies:

The Unbelievers say, 'Why is not a Sign sent down to him from his Lord?" Say, "Truly Allah leaveth, to stray, whom He will; But He guideth to Himself those who turn to Him in penitence.." (Surah 13, Al Ra'd, verse 27, see also verse 31)

To say that the Qur’an was a miracle given to Muhammad is unreasonable because many could write a piece of literature and then claim it miraculously came from God. Neither its poetic beauty nor the fact that it has been faithfully recorded down the ages would support such a claim. Otherwise, Shakespeare who wrote the best English prose and whose work has not suffered any change could be called a prophet of God as well in a few hundred years.

The phrase, '...I will put my words in his mouth...' (verse 18), is used when other prophets are mentioned, such as Jeremiah (1:9) or Balaam (Numbers 22:38). It describes in a figurative way the form of divine inspiration that is common to the prophets in general, including Jesus (John 8:25-28). They are to pass on the words given by God only.

The prophets were to speak in God's name only. (Verse 19) God has many different names, the most common among whom are:

-His general name 'Elohim' (Hebrew) occurs 2550 times in the Bible. It is translated 'God' in English and 'Allah' in Arabic.
-His descriptive name 'Adonai' (Hebrew) is used 340 times and is translated 'Lord' in English and 'Rabb' in Arabic.
-His specific, personal name is 'Yahweh' or 'Jehovah', depending on which transliteration is used for 'YHWH' (Hebrew). Its occurrence is with 6823 times by far the most. The literal English rendering is 'I am'. When Jesus told the Jews that he was the great 'I am' the Jews wanted to stone him for blasphemy (John 8:58-59).

In Deuteronomy 18:21-22 'Yahweh' is used to identify the name of God in whom a prophet was to speak! Since this name was never used in the Qur’an and has no equivalent in Arabic one has to come to the conclusion that Muhammad did not fulfil this requirement of a true prophet!

Deuteronomy 34:10 'Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face...' This verse can not be taken to mean that the promised prophet was to come from outside Israel. It refers only up to the time when Deuteronomy was written, about 1400 B.C.

Song of Songs 5:16 'His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this is my friend...'

Some Muslims claim that Muhammad is mentioned in this passage. The Hebrew word for 'altogether lovely' is 'Mahammaddim'. The plural ending 'im', also known as the royal plural, is allegedly given to pay the respect that is due to the prophet of Islam. Dr. Alex Luc, an eminent Hebrew scholar at the well-known Columbia Biblical Seminary in U.S.A has this to say about the argument: 'The word under consideration is plural. So is the word 'sweetness' in that verse. It is not to be labelled as royal plural like 'elohim (God); rather, it is common for abstract nouns or adjectives to be in a Hebrew plural form, e.g., 'adulterous' in Hosea 1:2 is plural, so is a 'faithful' man in Proverbs 28:20 and 'understanding' in Isaiah 27:11.Even allowing the way the Muslims are turning a non-prophetic text into a prophetic one, they will face the great challenge to see the Hebrew word 'Mahammaddim' as Muhammad, a term usually used in a negative context, representing something destroyed and punished because of God's wrath on his people.' (Isaiah 64:11; Hosea 9:16; Lamentations 2:4)

It can also not be said that the same word used in two different languages has the same meaning. The word 'bank' for example has different signification in English. However none of them can be compared to one of the meanings given in the German language. There the word 'bank' can also be used to describe a bench to sit upon. Usually only what comes before or after a word will determine what it is intended to communicate. Song of Songs 5:10-16 describe the man's beauty in poetic terms. The words 'altogether lovely' in verse 16 are used to summarize verses 10-15. He who still thinks verse 16 applies to Muhammad will have to explain verse one of the same chapter. It refers to the one who is called 'altogether lovely' in verse 16 and describes him as someone who has drunk wine!This, according to Islam, is considered to be a great sin!

Isaiah 21:13-17 'An oracle concerning Arabia: You caravans of Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia, bring water for the thirsty; you who live in Tema, bring food for the fugitives. They flee from the sword, from the drawn sword from the bent bow and from the heat of battle. This is what the Lord says to me: 'Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the pomp of Kedar will come to an end. The survivors of the bowmen, the warriors of Kedar will be few. The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.'

This passage describes, according to Badawi, the incident of the migration of the prophet and the battle of Badr. (Ibid. page 29) But the departure of Muhammad took place on 20st June A.D. 622 and the battle was fought in March A.D. 624, one year and eight month later. (see 'Dictionary of Islam', 'Badr' and 'Hijrah', by T.P. Hughes, Asia Publishing House, 1988)This time stands in contradiction to the 'within one year' of the text! The Muslim interpretation does not fit their own historical dates! This prophecy speaks in reality about the attack on the Arabs by the Assyrians in 732 B.C, and the Babylonians did the same under Nebuchadnezzar. (See 'NIV Study Bible', Footnotes to text, Zondervan Corporation, 1985.)

John 16:7 'But I (Jesus) tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.'

The Gospel was first written down in the Greek language. The argument is put forward that the Greek word for 'Counsellor', 'paracletos', is very similar to the word 'periclytos' that can be translated 'the praised one.' Because this is the meaning of the name 'Muhammad' it is concluded that three letters were altered and Jesus was really speaking about the prophet of Islam. However, there is not even one Greek manuscript with the word 'periclytos' in existence. This truth is further confirmed by looking at the circumstances in which the word 'Counsellor' is used. About him we read in the verse quoted above, that Jesus sends him, in His name. Certainly, every Muslim believes that his prophet was sent by Allah rather than by Jesus or in His name!

'And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.' (John 14:16,17,26)

Muhammad has not remained with us forever; he is nowhere called the Spirit of truth; the world has seen him; he has not lived with the disciples and he will not live in them! It is impossible to spiritualize all these marks of recognition of the Counsellor, especially in the light of the above definition of the Counsellor, being the Holy Spirit!

On one occasion, while he (Jesus) was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Hoy Spirit. (Acts 1:4-5)

There is no prediction about Muhammad found in the Bible. Therefore Muslims are left with no Biblical evidence that would validate the authority of their prophet. This problem leads to another difficulty that is just as serious. It is described in Surah 4, Al-Nisa, verse 82:

Do they not ponder over the Quran? Had it been from any other than Allah, surely there would have been many contradictions in it.

Since the Quran says Muhammad is foretold in the Bible but as this study clearly shows, he is not, we are faced with the fact that this is a contradiction!

Source: Abdullah Ibrahim (AAbraham@biblicalchristianity.freeserve.co.uk) athttp://www.arabicbible.com/

Similar post: http://www.arabicbible.com/islam/prophet.htm

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