One of many Islamic dilemmas is that the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) must contain a prophecy about Muhammad. This is based on the Quran:
“˹They are˺ the ones who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whose description they find in their Torah and the Gospel.1 (Quran 7:157)
1 Footnote: Some Muslim scholars cite Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and 33:2, Isaiah 42, and John 14:16 as examples of the description of Prophet Muḥammad in the Bible.”
Let’s get off on the right foot. By the very nature of this text, it implies that the Torah is of God, it is credible, and can be trusted. Otherwise, why would he say to go check on something in a corrupted book?
The reason this has to mentioned is as soon as it becomes obvious that Muhammad is absolutely not prophesied about in the Bible, many will claim, “The Bible is corrupt!” But according to this text, at the very least, the Torah and the Gospel cannot be corrupt because where else would the Jews and Christians Muhammad is talking to go to find him supposedly prophesied? Additionally, we have the Torah from before the time of Christ, thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we have the Gospels prior to the time of Muhammad, hundreds of years before his time.
Now, let’s look at the text and see if by any means possible Muhammad is the one who is prophesied here.
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”
21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
Let’s look at what will happen to see if it can said of Muhammad:
- Yahweh (the Lord your God), who is the God of the Jews, will raise up a prophet like Moses
- The prophet will be from “among your brothers”
- Yahweh will put his words into the prophet’s mouth
- Yahweh will tell him everything I command him
- The prophet will speak everything that Yahweh commands
- Any prophecy that does not come true is not from Yahweh
1) Jesus himself said this was about Him.
Remember when the Quran says that the Torah and Gospels were true, of God? That we should look there for the prophecy of the prophet? Let’s then limit our search to the Torah and the Gospels. What do the Gospels say? More importantly, what does Jesus say?
“Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).
“If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:46 – Jesus).
“He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).
If we just take the Torah and the Gospels as being divinely inspired, then we can see clearly that Jesus said that this was about him. Could Jesus have been referring to a different verse? Let’s ask those who spent time with him day and night for three years.
Peter, one of the men who was in Jesus’ closest inner circle, said that this verse in particular is about Jesus. In speaking of Jesus, he says,
For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people’ (Acts 3:22-23).
Then Stephen, moments before he died testifying to Jesus as the whom Moses prophesied, also quoted this verse about Jesus:
“This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’ (Acts 7:37).
Clearly, Jesus and his disciples believed that Deuteronomy 18:18 was about Jesus. Since the Quran affirms the Torah and Gospels, then this is clear evidence that this is about Jesus and none other.
2) The verse says the prophet would be like Moses. Zakr Naik, who popularized that as being about Muhammad, said this most certainly is about Muhammad because Muhammad had a wife, children, instituted a new law (Sharia vs. Ten Commandments), and was more like Moses than supposedly Jesus.
This is nonsense. This is not qualified in the text. This could be said of about anyone. Why wouldn’t it be about Joseph Smith who also claims to be the final prophet? He had a wife, children, and instituted a new religion. So did many others in history.
How Moses was different was much richer and deeper
- Moses spoke in the name of Yahweh (Deut 18:18), so did Jesus
- Moses performed great and extraordinary miracles, so did Jesus
- Moses was a mediator of a covenant, so was Jesus
Anything less is just crazy. But let’s continue to get the big picture.
3) The prophet would be “from among their brothers.”
Some translations say this is “fellow Israelites” and while that is clear from context, some muslims will rightly point out that the literal wording is “from among your brothers.”
Our ever faithful Zakr Naik says “brothers” means the brothers of Isaac and Ishmael and therefore this means the descendants of Ishmael.
There are so many problems with this that it will likely warrant a future post. But let’s suffice it to say that the Islamic texts cannot trace all the way back to Ishmael, the Quran says prophethood and Scripture come through Isaac’s line (Quran 29:27), and the word and context are clearly about “blood relatives.”
In fact, the word for brother is אֲחֵיהֶ֖ם which is only used for blood brothers and relatives. There are no exceptions.
Furthermore, we see in almost this very same context where the phrase “among your brothers” is explicitly, directly clarified. Read the following instructions in Deut 17:14-15:
14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” 15 be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.
It is explicit. Don’t put a. non-Israelites over you. And the prophet to come would be an Israelite.
So is Muhammad a Jew? Not according to his own self-identification. So we know that cannot be him.
4) The prophet would speak and act in the name of Yahweh.
Yahweh, the God of Israel, was the one who would send the prophet in his name. The prophet would speak and do everything in the name of Yahweh.
Could we say that of Muhammad? That he was sent, spoke, and acted from the basis of the God of Israel? I think Muhammad himself would say no.
There is not a single good reason for anyone to believe that this Scripture is anything but about Jesus. It is not about Muhammad, Joseph Smith, or anyone else. It is written to point people to Jesus.
He himself said that this Scripture was about him (John 5:46(
Jesus was an Israelite (Mt 1)
He spoke in the name of Yahweh (John 12:49-50)
He was like Moses in that he was influential in a new covenant (Luke 22:20)
Having disqualified Muhammad on every reason, now comes the important part. This is clearly about Jesus? What will you do with Jesus, the one who fulfilled over 300 prophecies?
He did everything in his power to introduce himself to you. Will you follow him?