Is the Injeel (Gospel) Corrupted?

Muslims believe in the Gospel (Injeel) and the Torah as revelations from God. The reason Muslims commonly say today’s Injeel has been corrupted or changed is that what exists today is not the original Gospel God revealed — so when Muslims say they believe in the Injeel, they mean the original text, not the text as it circulates now. This page lays out why.

Who wrote the Gospels?

The four Gospels we have today were written by scribes whose identities are, historically speaking, unknown. “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” and “John” are convenient labels rather than confirmed authorship. A summary from the Oxford Bible Study edition:

Gospel	What the scholarship says
Matthew	"Most scholars hold that the author/editor is someone other than the disciple Matthew (even if, as here, he is referred to as Matthew out of convenience)."
Mark	"Mark was written anonymously. The designation 'according to Mark' was added in the second century CE, as Gospels began to circulate beyond audiences for whom they were written."
Luke	"By the second century, the author... was identified as Luke, a physician and travelling companion of Paul... Yet even defenders of the traditional identification recognize difficulties with that connection."
John	"Like the other Gospels, this one never names an author... Today most scholars think that Johannine traditions stem from an unidentified follower of Jesus, not one of the twelve disciples."

The World History Encyclopedia puts it plainly: the original gospel texts circulated for roughly a hundred years with no names attached; the names were assigned by Church Fathers in the second century, and none of the writers signed their work or directly claimed to be an eyewitness (Luke is a partial exception, saying he interviewed witnesses, without further detail). The Church Fathers were themselves aware of a basic problem — the first disciples were Galilean fishermen unlikely to have written the level of Greek found in these documents.

The scope of the Injeel

The Injeel refers specifically to the book revealed to Jesus (peace be upon him) — the Gospel proper, not the later letters of Paul, which were never presented as revelation given to Jesus but as Paul’s own correspondence to various communities (Romans, Corinthians, and so on). Some Christians use “Injeel” more broadly to mean the whole New Testament; this page respects that usage while noting the distinction.

“God-breathed,” and what that should mean

Christian doctrine holds the Bible as a whole to be “God-breathed”:

πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

If a text is genuinely God-breathed, we should expect it to be internally consistent — in its grammar, its structure, and above all its teaching, since God cannot contradict Himself from one book to another. A book with real contradictions is not god-breathed; at minimum, it suggests the text has been altered from what its “inspired” authors originally wrote. Below is a small selection of examples — many more could be listed.

A few Old Testament examples

Question	The texts
Who was Shelah's father?	Genesis 11:12 (NRSV): "When Arpachshad had lived thirty-five years, he became the father of Shelah." Luke 3:35-36 (NRSV): "...son of Shelah, son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad..." — Luke's genealogy inserts an extra generation, Cainan, between Shelah and Arphaxad.
How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?	2 Kings 8:26 (NRSV): twenty-two years old. 2 Chronicles 22:2 (NRSV): forty-two years old — for the same king, with the same mother named in both verses. Some modern translations (NIV, ESV) harmonize the numbers; NRSV, KJV, and NKJV do not.
Are children punished for their parents' sins?	Exodus 20:5 (NRSV): God "punishing children for iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation." Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:20 (NRSV): "children shall not be put to death for their parents... the person who sins shall die." See Sin in Christian Thought for more on this specific tension.

A few New Testament examples

Question	The texts
How many generations between Jesus and David?	Matthew 1:1-17 counts 28 generations; Luke 3:23-38 counts 43 — two different genealogies for the same lineage.
Was Jesus's testimony about himself valid?	John 5:31 (NRSV): "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true." John 8:14 (NRSV): "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid." The underlying Greek word (ἀληθής) is identical in both verses — NRSV simply translates it differently ("true" vs. "valid") to soften the contradiction.
Did Jesus come to judge the world?	John 9:39: "I came into this world for judgment." John 12:47: "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." Again, the same underlying Greek construction in both verses.
Is Abraham an example of salvation by faith alone, or by works?	Romans 4: Abraham received the promise "through the righteousness that comes by faith." James 2:21-24 (NRSV): "Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac... You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." Compare also Galatians 2:16 ("no one will be justified by the works of the law") directly against James 2:24 ("justified by works and not by faith alone") — a genuine doctrinal fault line within the New Testament itself, not just a wording quirk.
Was the stone already rolled away when the women arrived at the tomb?	Matthew 28:1-2: an angel arrives and rolls the stone away as the women watch. Mark 16:3-4, Luke 24:1-2, and John 20:1: the stone is already rolled away when they arrive. The four resurrection accounts also disagree on how many angels or men were at the tomb (one in Matthew and Mark, two in Luke and John) and on what the women did afterward (told the disciples immediately in Matthew and Luke; "said nothing to anyone" in Mark).

None of this is offered to diminish the sincerity of Christian belief — it’s offered because the claim under examination is specifically that today’s text is unaltered and without error. Internal contradictions like these are exactly the kind of evidence that leads Muslims to conclude the Gospel as it exists today is not identical to what was originally revealed, even while affirming that an original, uncorrupted revelation was indeed given to Jesus.