Question:

A Muslim friend made an outrageous claim to me that in Deuteronomy 18:
15-19 it is speaking of Muhammed and not Jesus. One hole in this claim is
that Muhammad was an Arab, not a Jew. (Genesis 22:18). He would be of the
house of David (Jeremiah 21:5). What do you think of this? They also
claimed to me that the prophecy is not perfect. I believe it is perfect if
it is used to describe Christ. An example is Isaiah 17: 14, which
prophecies the Messiah would be born of Virgin.

Answer:

It is a standard apologetic claim of Muslims that Muhammad is the
fulfillment of the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. Muslims are given
this information uncritically in a way which takes it out of its context.
I agree with you that this is a completely unjustified misuse of the
scripture. As you imply, the phrase “I will raise up for them a prophet
like you from among their brothers” surely implies that the future prophet
will be a Jew. It is a huge stretch to have an Arab be one of the
“brothers” of Moses, to say the least.

Perhaps a more appropriate use of this passage is to apply Deuteronomy
18:20. “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 names of other gods,
must be put to death.” Muhammad has falsely claimed to speak for God. I
know this to be true, because Muhammad denied the death of Jesus on the
cross and his resurrection. 1 John 2:22 labels any such person the
antichrist. Unquestionably, Muhammad is a false prophet. It is extremely
presumptuous for Muslims to try to apply this passage to the false prophet
Muhammad.

You are also right that the Bible says the Messiah would be from the house
of David (Isaiah 11:1,10, Isaiah 16:6 and many others), but to be fair,
the passage in Deuteronomy 18 does not mention this. If Muslims claimed
Muhammad fulfilled these passages, it would be even more blatantly false,
but I have never heard that claimed.

As you point out, Muslims often will claim that the Bible is full of
errors. They try to point out inconsistencies as well as contradictions
with teachings in the Qur’an. I have looked at several Islamic web sites
which purport to show all the “mistakes” in the Bible. I have found that
the great majority of these use very simplistic arguments which are very
easily explained by anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of the Bible.
One gets the feeling that most Islamic critics of the Bible have never
read the Bible, but only quote from other Islamic critics. To be fair,
not all Islamic apologists fit this description, but most do. I have put
a fairly thorough article on the Muslim apoligists at my web site. The
title of the article is The Qur’an: Inspiration or Human Creation. I
suggest you find this article, which is a response to many of the common
criticisms of the Bible from Islamic apologists.

John Oakes