A Christian, A Muslim, & A Mormon Walk on to a Subway

I was on the subway on a Monday morning last month, flipping through some pictures of biblical manuscripts on my ipad. The man next to me, who had been looking over my shoulder for the last few minutes, looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, are those biblical manuscripts?” “Yes!” I replied, a little surprised. “They’re pictures of second and third century manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke; some of our earliest surviving testimonies of the Christmas story. Would you like to see?” As I handed the ipad over to him he explained that his name was Mohammad, but he went by Mo. He was studying engineering at the University of Toronto with aspirations to one day potentially becoming an Imam. He told me he had done some informal study in the Bible online but hadn’t actually seen any pictures of the manuscripts themselves.

I explained who I was, and why I was flipping through such manuscripts. While I was telling him about what I did he happened to scroll one image past the last biblical manuscript. The next image was a picture of an ancient Qur’anic manuscript I used for a presentation. “This is Arabic!” He said surprisingly, “Is this a Qur’an?”

I explained that only the previous week I had done a talk at a church comparing the transmission of the New Testament to that of the Qur’an. Mo seemed surprised at this. “Why would you do that?” he asked. I clarified that the two books had very different histories; pulling up a few slides from the presentation I’d done to show him. While all of this was going on a man sitting across from Mo and I seemed to be staring. When he realized I noticed he apologized, “Sorry, I was eavesdropping. You two are having a very interesting conversation.” “Are you a religious man?” Mo asked, “Oh no,” he replied. He said his name was Pryce, and that if we didn’t mind he’d much rather just be a third party observer and listen.

The conversation progressed and Mo and I started to talk about the differences between the Qur’an and the Bible. The things both books claim about themselves, and how that impacts both of us as believers in our own worldviews. At one point however, Pryce looked at me, “You know a lot about the Bible!” he said. “Thank you, it’s kind of my job,” I jokingly replied, “As both a Christian and in regard to the work I do.” “What do you think of the Book of Mormon?” he asked.

I explained to him that some of the friendliest, most sincere people I’d ever met were Mormons. That I’d met with quite a few Mormon missionaries in my time and that I’d even Skyped with Sandra Tanner, the great, great granddaughter of Brigham Young, the second in command to Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the Mormon Church (I didn’t mention that she is no longer a Mormon but an evangelical Christian). Despite all this, I explained that while I believe people can be sincere, they can likewise be sincerely wrong. I briefly tried to describe some of the historical issues that plague the Book of Mormon, along with the glaring issues that beset the Mormon Book of Abraham. I ended by saying most Mormons are great people. But if their intent was to investigate, discover, and follow the truth, they should probably look elsewhere, because at the end of the day Joseph Smith was a false prophet.

I realized at that point that Pryce had a very uncomfortable look on his face. “Why do you ask?” I said. He replied, “Well… I’m a Mormon.” Surprised I replied, “I thought you said you weren’t religious.” “Oh. I thought you meant by occupation,” he answered. Pointing to Mo he said, “He said he wants to be an Imam, and you. You’re an… evangelist?” “I’ll take that,” I said.

The conversation drastically changed after that, I not only had the opportunity to tell a Muslim about the Bible, and likewise, encourage him to read it for himself. But I got a Mormon thrown into the mix as well. I was able to encourage both individuals to seek the truth, and that ultimately Jesus claimed to be The Truth. I made it clear that neither the Jesus’ of Islam or Mormonism could save them.

Although I don’t usually have such in-depth conversations on public transit, both Mo and Pryce represent a much smaller picture of a bigger issue – young people searching for the truth.

“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” 

-       Jesus, John 17:17

For further reading on this subject:

The Qur'an Goes for a Job Interview
The Birmingham Qur'an Discovery and How it Impacts Islam 
Addressing Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" on the Apologetics Academy
The "Lost Gospels"
The Books that Didn't Make it
The Reliability of the Gospels: Part 1 & Part 2
The Qur'anic Quandary
One Bible, Many Versions
Is there Any Evidence of Jesus Outside of the Bible?
Corrupt Manuscripts
Attacking the Integrity of the Bible
The New Testament Doctrine of Canon