According to Islamic teaching, the Torah and the Gospels confirm the Quran. When were the Gospels written?
The story of Jesus didn’t become the “gospel,” the good news, until after the resurrection. If he had only died and been buried, his experience couldn’t transform the lives of his followers. But because his tomb is empty, Christians have confidence in their own victory over death—the living death of sin, the physical death of the body, and the second death of hell. And so the disciples didn’t write the Gospels until after the resurrection and ascension.
In the early days of the church (which was born seven weeks after the cross in AD 30), the disciples had eyewitness testimony of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But as the years went by, the Spirit of Christ impressed on the apostles the need for a written record. The eyewitnesses wouldn’t be around forever. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written in the AD 50s and 60s. The Gospel of John was written in the 80s.
If the Quran seeks confirmation in the Torah or the Gospels, its search is empty. Muhammad contradicts the Torah. One of the most striking differences concerns Abraham’s sons. The book of Genesis, written by Moses, plainly says that the covenant promises were made to Isaac, son of Abraham and his beloved wife Sarah. Ishmael was Abraham’s son by a concubine named Hagar. As a teenager Ishmael was forced out of the household along with his slave mother. But Islam claims that Ishmael is the favored and chosen son.
And the Gospels proclaim a message that the Quran condemns as a heinous crime against heaven. The faithful disciples of Jesus confess him as God’s unique Son (Matt. 16:16; John 11:27). Jesus himself testifies under oath that he is God’s Son (Mark 14:61-62; John 19:7). But the Quran says that anyone who claims that God has a Son is guilty of blasphemy.
Anyone who really listens to Jesus, as the Quran advises, finds it impossible to reconcile Muhammad’s writings with the Gospels. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). If this claim is true, then Jesus is the supreme prophet. His very life is the ultimate revelation of God (John 1:1-18; Heb. 1:1-3). But Jesus is more than a prophet. He is the only way to God. There is salvation in no other name (Acts 4:12). He is life and light. Following anyone but Jesus is death and darkness (John 1:4, 8:12).