The first five Books of the Old Testament:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
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Are generally referred to as the Pentateuch. However, these five books ( Pentateuch) are thought to be the Torah . This is incorrect . Many people also think that the Old Testament is what was given to Moosa AS ( hence is the Torah) and the New Testament is what was given to Isa AS ( hence is the Injeel). This again is completely incorrect.
We must come to understand that the Bible, both Old and New Testament is a mixture of various writings of various people over a long period of time and in no way is synonymous to the Torah and Injeel that was given to Moosa AS and Isa AS as mentioned in the Quran. A brief history of compilation of the Bible will be given to explain this point as taken from the New International Version of the Bible Published by Zondervan Grand Rapids USA in 2002.
Old Testament
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Moosa As was born some 1500 years before Isa AS and the Torah that was given to him by Allah was not in a written form during his lifetime. In fact the first attempt to reduce parts of the Torah into writing was undertaken some 200 ( two hundred ) years after Moosa AS. This included the Ten Commandments, some sayings of Moosa AS and Yacoob AS ( Jacob) and some religious legislative texts.
300 years after Moosa AS the Yahvistic version of the Bible was written. 50 years later, the Elohistic version of the Bible emerged. 700 years after Moosa AS, the Books of Amos , Hosea, Micah and Deuteronomy was added to the Yahvistic version of the Bible.
This addition continues for the next 700 years till Isa AS arrives. Thus from the above, it can be clearly seen that the Pentateuch cannot be equated, nor is it evenly closely related to the Torah. The original Torah of Moosa AS must have been in Hebrew or Aramaic but was not reduced to writing till 200 years after Moosa AS.
New Testament
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The same applies to the New Testament. It is not the Injeel that was given to Isa AS. The first attempt to write the Injeel was some 50 to 70 years after Isa AS. In fact the first traces of writing was that of the Book of Thessalonians in the New Testament written in the year 50 ?52 AD. The Book of Romans was written 57 years after Isa AS. The Book of Revelations was written 95 years after Isa AS.
So the original Injeel given to Isa AS was not written in the life time of Isa AS and hence the present New Testament cannot be said to be the Injeel. In addition Isa AS spoke Aramaic a Hebrew dialect, this original Aramaic Injeel is non-existent.
Was Salaam
Rafeek Hassen
Director – IPCI
CHECKED AND APPROVED: Mufti Ebrahim Desai