Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - Answering the Muslim Claim that the Gospel Is Gone

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Alan answers the Muslim challenge that the Quran’s reference to the Gospel is not a reference to the four New Testament Gospels.

Muslims claim the true gospel document, the Quran calls it the engeal, was lost in the first century. But is there a good reason to believe that's true? That's what I want to discuss in this episode of my podcast, thinking out loud with Alan Shleiman. The most common Muslim objection that you're likely to run across if you're talking to a Muslim and trying to share your faith or share the gospel is they're going to tell you the Bible is corrupted, right? Or the gospel is corrupted. We can't trust it. Now, this is a problem, right? Because after all, where is the true identity of Jesus? Where is the story of Jesus' life? Where are all those details and its claim? And where is the message of

reconciliation found? Well, it's found in the Gospels, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But that's the very source of authority. The Muslims are going to say, uh-uh, we can't accept it. You've got to take that off the table as we continue to have this discussion. Now, this is a problem, right? Because if you don't address this claim of corruption, you're going to have a hard time convincing a Muslim to consider what Jesus says if you're just appealing to the four New Testament Gospels, right? Now, one of the tactics that I've talked about over the years in my writing or some other videos is to actually use the Quran to your advantage. You see, although Muslims will claim the gospel is corrupted, it turns out that their highest authority, the Quran, teaches

the opposite, that the gospel is the word of a law and that it is authoritative. It should be believed and obeyed, which of course leads to the conclusion that therefore, or at least leads to the implication that therefore the gospel should be trusted and is uncorrupted. And so the reason why this works is because whatever the Quran affirms, Muslims must affirm, right? The Quran is a highest authority in Islam. So if the Quran affirms, something, Muslims must affirm it as well. Well, if you can show that the Quran affirms that the gospel is uncorrupted, well, then of course the Muslim will also have to affirm the gospel is uncorrupted. They'll have no choice but to accept that, right? And again, just for clarification,

the Quran refers to this word in Geel, which is what is a reference to the gospel. Now, the way the Muslim then responds to this particular argument that the Quran affirmed the gospel, the engeal, is they'll say, well, yes, although the Quran refers to the gospel, the engeal, that's not a reference to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that you guys have in your Bibles today. Rather, this is a reference to a document that was given to Jesus. And around the first century, for some reason, for whatever reason, it's since been lost, right? Or, and of course, what you have in your gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, just can tell you. retain remnants of that original gospel document that was given to Jesus or that Jesus produced, right?

Now, if the Muslim is correct that the Ingeal has indeed been lost, that this gospel has indeed been lost, then of course, our tactic of showing that the Quran affirms the reliability of the Ingeal becomes irrelevant. But let me offer three reasons why I think the Muslim claim fails. The Muslim claim that the Ingeal is some document that was given to Jesus, right? Here's the first thing to consider. We actually have no historical evidence that Jesus ever received or produced any book or any document. In other words, this is simply a claim that is only made by Muslims, right? And just to be clear, her, just a little basic logic, a claim is not an argument. A claim is simply an opinion. And if you want to turn that claim into a bona fide

argument, you have to provide evidence and reasons as to why that claim is true. We often at standard reason use the concept or the analogy of a house. A house is kind of like an argument, right? The roof is the claim, your opinion or your belief or what you think is true. But notice a roof on the ground is not a house, right? Never buy such a property, right? You have to have walls that hold up that roof that support it. And the walls in this analogy are the evidence and the reasons. So merely claiming that Jesus had a document that has since been lost

is just a roof on the ground. It's not a house. It's not an argument. In order for the Muslim to substantiate that claim and turn it into an argument, they'd have to provide evidence. Typically, when I'm talking to, it's not a house, it's not an argument. to the Muslims, they don't provide any evidence that that ever happened, that Jesus was given this document or that he lost it, right, other than for them to claim that that's what the Quran says. But again, that's just a mere claim. There's no evidence that that claim is actually true.

In fact, what's ironic is that the Quran itself suggests that the Ingeal, this gospel document that it refers to, did exist even in the 7th century, that it wasn't law. lost in the first century, but that it even existed in the second century. And this leads me to my second point. The Quran affirms that the Ingeal, the gospel, existed in the 7th century. And indeed, there's multiple passages in the Quran that teach that the Ingeal, this gospel document, was available in Muhammad's day and was not lost. Let me give you just a few of them as an example.

Surah 447, so the word surah just means chapter. So chapter 4, verse 47, tells Christians this, oh, you who were given the scripture, believe in what we have sent down to Prophet Muhammad, confirming that which is with you. So in other words, the Christians are told that this, that the, that the Ingeal is still with you. and you can look into it to see what it says. Well, the only reason the Quran would say such a thing in the 7th century is if the Christians who were around to hear this command could actually go to their own scriptures and look and see what it says.

Let me give another example. Surah 7 verse 157 says this, those who follow the messenger, the prophet who can neither read nor write, this is a reference to Muhammad, whom they will find described in the Torah and the gospel which are with them. So again, the Torah and the gospel are described as documents or texts that were with them,

with the Christians and, of course, with the Jews as well. So again, the Quran is, again, affirming that the Ingeal was something that was available in the 7th century that was with them and not something that was lost. Let me one third example. Surah 1094 says this. So if you are in doubt, O Muhammad, about, which we have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the scripture before you. Now, in this startling passage in the Quran, Muslims are told or Muhammad's told, look, if you don't

believe what I, why Allah, I'm sorry, what I Allah are telling you, go and ask the Christians who have been reading, like, true, true revelation from before you. Now, the only way that that could be, that command could be fulfilled, if Muhammad or the Muslim, could go to Christians and ask them, hey, what do you have been reading? And the Christians would say, well, we're reading this or that. So again, notice that the Quran routinely presumes or in fact, you know, explicitly teaches that the Ingeal was something that was available to Christians in the 7th century. And again, there are other passages that teach this from the Quran.

And again, just all demonstrate that the Ingeal was available to Christians during the time the Quran was produced, which is the 7th century. And the third point I'll make about this claim that the Ingeal is not the four New Testament Gospels, but some lost document. So the third claim to respond to that is that we know from historical evidence what Christians were reading in the 7th century. And it turns out that they were reading the 4 New Testament Gospels. Right.

So now keep in mind, around the second or third century, it became a thing where the four New Testament Gospels were considered a single unit. They were called the gospel. And in addition, we have numerous manuscripts of the entire Bible, or close to all the entire Bible, that contained the four New Testament Gospels. And these Bibles were available in the 7th century. And again, predate even the 7th century, predate Muhammad. and the Quran. So for example, you got Codex Sinaticus, which is a fourth century codex of the Bible,

contains virtually all the Bible, but definitely contains the four New Testament Gospels. And by the way, this is available for public viewing in the British Library. So I'm not talking about some document that's hidden in some, you know, basement of a university or something. Codex Vaticanus, also a fourth century codex of virtually the entire Bible. And this is also available in the Vatican, but it contains the four New Testament Gospels. You get Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th century copy of the Bible also contains the four gospels. I think that one's also in the British Library. The Bishita, 5th century Syriac translation of the Bible, which

by the way, the Assyrians, my people, woohoo, that's the version that we used. And this is also available and contains the four New Testament Gospels. So all of these Bibles that predate the Quran, predate Islam, were around for hundreds of years, and so therefore were also available during the 7th century. And so if you were to ask a 7th century Christian, hey, could you tell me about that?

the gospel, can you read the gospel? Well, they would turn to the four New Testament Gospels. That's what they knew to be the gospel, right? Christians in the 7th century would not say, oh, we don't have the gospel, we don't know where it is, it's been lost for 600 years. That's not what they would say. So therefore, for these three reasons, we know that when the Quran refers to the engeal, which refers to the word gospel there, it's referring to the four New Testament Gospels, right? That's the only gospel text that existed for Christians in the 7th century. So again, all the evidence seems to me to point towards the conclusion that the gospel or the Ingeal in the Quran refers to the 7th century for New Testament Gospels that existed then.

I think I provided some evidence to support that conclusion. And again, the only people who deny this are Muslims who merely assert it or simply appeal to the Quran's claim. that this was a document that existed in the 7th century. But again, the historical evidence doesn't point towards this. So therefore, since the Quran affirms that the Ingeal, the four Gospels, was a document that existed even in the 7th century, I think Muslims should also affirm that as well. All right, well, that's all I have for you today.

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