Week 4: Chapters 16–20 — Investigating the Bible

1.Nabeel had been taught that the Bible was hopelessly corrupted and unreliable. When he actually examined the manuscript evidence, what did he find — and how did that finding begin to destabilize his Islamic apologetics?

2.The textual transmission of the New Testament is actually better attested than almost any other ancient document. Did you know this before reading? How does this kind of historical evidence interact with faith for you — does it strengthen it, feel beside the point, or something else?

3.Nabeel distinguishes between investigating Islam from the inside (as a believer) versus investigating it from the outside (as a historian). Why does this distinction matter, and how does applying historical-critical methods to Islam produce surprising results?