I was walking to Sainsbury’s with a Muslim friend and we stumbled upon the
conversation of religion, through a discussion of Israel and recent
events, My friend has aroused some very good questions and I have realized
that I know little about Islam and other religions. She said that the
Bible was changed to suit the people’s beliefs. I would be grateful if you
could explain to me or give me references to what is Islam and the Koran?
How accurate is it? What are the prophecies? How do we know that Muhammed
is not the ‘prophet of God’? are there any flaws in the Koran? How does
the Bible outdo the Koran? What does a Muslim have to do to get saved?

I would suggest that you read my book Reasons For Belief, (available at
this site) as it pretty clearly answers all the questions you raise. In
addition, I do not know if you went to the Power Point presentation
section of the web site to find the presentation on Islam and the
accompanying notes of explanation (click here). Perhaps this could be
helpful.

Your Muslim fried claims that the Bible has been changed. This is simply
not true. She may make such a claim but she will not be able to provide
any evidence to back it up, I would wager. We have a mountain of textual
evidence to support the claim that our Greek text of the New Testament is
virtually identical to the original writings. By the way, Mike Taliaferro
has written a very inexpensive little pamphlet on How We Got the Bible,
which covers these issues (although my book does the same thing) His
pamphlets are available at www.joburgpress.com There is also an article on
this subject at the web site .

The Koran was written by Muhammad. To be honest, it is a pretty amazing
book in many ways, especially given that Muhammad himself was raised in an
extremely pagan and polytheistic culture. Nevertheless, there are many
scientific blunders in the Koran and in any case, there is nothing like
the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible to support the Koran. You should be
aware that the Koran specifically claims that Jesus was not killed on the
cross. There is no way that Christians can agree with this claim. Who are
we to believe, the original eye-witnesses in the New Testament, or the
claims of Muhammad, who lived about six hundred years later? As far as
Muhammad himself, you should realize that he was married to at least 11
wives, and that he was responsible for a number of brutal mass executions.
By today?s standards he would be a war criminal. This certainly does not
agree with the standard set by Jesus for our behavior. Having said that, I
do not believe you will be able to help your Muslim friends convert to
Christianity through attacking Muhammad. I believe you need to show them
respect for their religion to the extent you can but calmly and lovingly
lead them to the true savior, Jesus Christ.

Muslims are “saved” by their own righteous deeds. It is works salvation,
plain and simple. Of course, this is diametrically opposed to basic
biblical teaching, which says we are saved by the grace of God, through
the sacrifice of his Son on the cross (with our faith as part of the
formula as well, of course)

John Oakes, PhD