The books

Honest differences

• Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism holds the Written and the Oral Torah together. Karaite Jews accept only the written Bible, and the Jewish movements differ in how they understand the authority of the Oral Torah. The Tanakh means Torah, Prophets and Writings. Maimonides taught that the Torah is from Heaven through Moses and will not be replaced (principles 8 and 9). The Mishnah counts denying that the Torah came from Heaven among the beliefs that cost a person a share in the world to come (Sanhedrin 10:1). Jews hold this seriously.
• Christianity. The Bible has two parts, the Old and the New Testament, and the Church reads the first in the light of the second. Jesus says, "I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matthew 5:17, WEBBE). For Christians, God's fullest word is a person: "The Word became flesh and lived amongst us" (John 1:14, WEBBE). The Nicene Creed says Christ rose "in accordance with the Scriptures" and that the Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets".
• Islam. The Qur'an is held to be the final revelation, "confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watcher over it" (5:48, Pickthall), and God says "We verily are its Guardian" (15:9, Pickthall). Muslims hold that God revealed the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel, and honour them as revelation (5:44, 5:46; 4:163).
• On the question of change (tahrif). Muslim scholars have understood the Qur'an's remarks about change in different ways. Some, such as Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), taught that the wording of earlier scriptures was altered. Others, among them al-Tabari (d. 923) as many read him, and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) in part, located the change mainly in interpretation, or held that sound copies existed in Muhammad's time. The Qur'an itself invites the People of the Gospel to "judge by that which Allah hath revealed therein" (5:47, Pickthall). All Muslims hold that the Qur'an is guarded by God (15:9). Jews and Christians do not accept that their scriptures were changed, and hold their texts to have been faithfully handed down.
• Each tradition holds its own scripture as the fullest word it has received. These are not the same claim, and we set them side by side without asking you to merge them. Jews and Christians do not regard the Qur'an as revelation from God, and they say so with the same sincerity with which Muslims hold it to be.