Q 5:46-47 — *judge by what Allah has revealed in the Gospel*
Q 5:46: And we sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus the son of Mary, confirming what was before him in the Torah, and we gave him the Gospel, in which is guidance and light, and confirming what was before it of the Torah, and as guidance and admonition for the righteous. Q 5:47: And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed in it. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed — then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient. The verse calls the Gospel guidance and light and commands the People of the Gospel to judge by it. The command makes no sense if the Gospel of the People of the Gospel was already corrupt. The Christian engager should be able to cite Q 5:46-47 from memory; it is the single most important Qurʼānic text in the taḥrīf conversation.
Q 10:94 — *ask those who have been reading the Book before you*
Q 10:94: So if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which we have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters. This verse is decisive in two ways. First, it is addressed to Muhammad himself (the most famous reading; some classical commentators read it as addressed to one who is in doubt generically, though even on that reading the implication is the same). Second, it commands consultation of those who have been reading the Scripture before you — the People of the Book of Muhammad's day. The Qurʼān could not commend such consultation if it considered their Scripture corrupt. The verse presupposes the textual reliability of the Bible the People of the Book had at the time. There is no plausible reading of Q 10:94 that supports a wholesale taḥrīf al-naṣṣ claim against the contemporary Bible.
Q 5:68 and Q 7:157 — confirmation, not contradiction
Q 5:68: Say, O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord. The People of the Scripture are commanded to uphold the Torah and the Gospel — again, the contemporary Torah and Gospel of Muhammad's day. Q 7:157 describes the unlettered prophet as written in the Torah and Gospel they have — note the present tense, they have. The Qurʼān treats the Bible Muhammad's contemporaries had as living, accessible, authoritative revelation. Muslim scholars across the tradition have wrestled with this consistently, with most classical commentators (al-Ṭabarī on Q 10:94, Ibn Kathīr on Q 5:68) settling on taḥrīf al-maʿnā (interpretive distortion) precisely because taḥrīf al-naṣṣ contradicts the Qurʼān's own statements. The popular dawah claim and the Qurʼānic data are in unresolved tension.
Worked example
The moment
A confident dawah speaker says, Yes, the Qurʼān confirms the original Gospel of Jesus, but that Gospel was lost. The current Bible is not what Muhammad confirmed.
What you might say
"That is the standard response, and it is worth testing carefully. Q 5:47 commands the People of the Gospel to judge by what Allah has revealed in the Gospel. The People of the Gospel of Muhammad's day are the historical Christians whose Bibles we physically have — Codex Sinaiticus from c. 350 AD, Codex Vaticanus from c. 325 AD, both predating Muhammad by 200+ years and containing the same Gospels we read today. So the question becomes: what Gospel was lost between c. 350 AD and Muhammad's time, and where is the manuscript evidence for it? The hidden-original-Gospel argument requires evidence; without it, the Qurʼān's command makes the most sense if the Gospel the People of the Gospel had was the Gospel."
Why this works
The answer treats the dawah claim seriously, names the empirical question (which manuscripts attest a different Gospel?), and lets the absence of contrary evidence do the work.
Watch out for
- Citing Q 5:47 in isolation without the manuscript backbone. Without Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, the verse is a hint; with them, it is a verifiable fact.
- Conceding the original Gospel was lost claim without asking where the manuscript evidence is. The claim is unfalsifiable only if the Christian fails to ask for evidence.
- Treating taḥrīf uniformly. Al-naṣṣ (textual) and al-maʿnā (interpretive) require different responses; ask which one your friend means.