 Islam has a complicated and often ambiguous relationship with Judaism. One area has been their view of our scriptures of the Torah. Islam has sometimes found the teachings of the Torah to be problematic. For example, in the Quran, Surah 12, it states that Joseph brought his parents down to live in Egypt. However, in the book of Genesis, we know that Joseph's mother Rachel died long before the people of Israel came down to Egypt. Another example is that in the book of Exodus chapter 2, we're told that Yitro, Jethro, the High Priest of Midian, had seven daughters that Moses rescued at a well from shepherds who were driving them away. But in the Quran, Surah 28, we're told that it was two daughters that Jethro had that were rescued by Moses. Probably the most famous example is the question of who was it that Abraham was supposed to sacrifice at Mount Moriah. In Genesis chapter 22, we're told very clearly that Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Yitzchak, Isaac. In the Quran, Surah 37, the child that Abraham takes up to Mount Moriah is not named. Many Islamic writers, not all, but many Islamic writers assert that the child that Abraham was to take up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice was his other son Yishmael and not Isaac. So because of these inconsistencies and many other problems that Islam sees in the Jewish scriptures, the Quran seems to have contradictory assessments of the authenticity and reliability of the Hebrew scriptures. We find passages in the Quran that seem to affirm the importance of the Hebrew Bible, and we find passages in the Quran which seem to question the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible. Later Islamic writers also reflect this ambiguity, although the predominant view today seems to be that the Jewish people have not accurately preserved our scriptures and that the text of the Torah has been corrupted. Now to support this contention, some Islamic apologists cite a verse from the 8th chapter in the book of Jeremiah verse 8, which says the following. How can you say we are wise and that God's Torah is with us? Indeed, they made the quill for falsehood, the scribes are false. I'll read that one more time. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 8, how can you say we are wise and God's Torah is with us? Indeed, they made the quill for falsehood, the scribes are false. And so based upon this verse, there are many Islamic apologists that insist that Jeremiah himself is telling us that the Hebrew scriptures have been corrupted. Now we'll see in a few moments that this translation I just read for you is far from clear. But let's first digest the attack of these Islamic apologists. Number one, let's think about this question. Why would Jeremiah here in this chapter, who is a prophet of God, why would he be declaring that the Torah was corrupt and unreliable? What would be the purpose of declaring that here? Is he saying that there was a conspiracy among all the scribes to distort the Torah? And if he is, what is the purpose of telling us this? Is it to warn us that we shouldn't read the Torah, that it's unreliable? Well, we'll see that Jeremiah says nothing of the sort. Jeremiah doesn't tell us that we shouldn't use the Torah and it's unreliable. Of course, by this time in history, by the time Jeremiah is writing, there were many Torah scrolls that were spread around far and wide. And it would seem to be almost an impossible feat for corrupt scribes to alter and corrupt all of them. It had to track down every single text and alter the text in order to ensure that we didn't have an accurate reading of the Torah. And finally, and this is worth thinking about, if Jeremiah really is a prophet of God, why would he announce that the Torah scrolls have been corrupted rather than simply launch a program to correct these allegedly corrupted texts? If he was a prophet, he would know what the actual text should say. But we don't find Jeremiah launching a massive program to find all of these corrupted Torah scrolls and to restore the original text. We're going to see that this idea that Jeremiah was telling us that the Torah has been corrupted is actually an impossibility. Because we'll see later on in the book of Jeremiah chapter 26 that he himself admonishes the people of Israel to follow the Torah of God. So if in chapter 8 he was coming to tell us that the Torah is unreliable and it's been corrupted, why would he later tell us in chapter 26 that you should follow the Torah of God? Similarly, we see that many other prophets that came after Jeremiah commanded the Jewish people emphasized that they are required to follow the Torah of God, the prophet Malachi, the last of the 12 minor prophets in the last verses of his book reminds the people to remember the Torah of Israel. And he doesn't warn them that the Torah of Israel has been corrupted and is unreliable. So to the prophet Nechemia in the eighth chapter of his book, who's writing long after Jeremiah, he read the Torah, the Torah of Moses to the people day after day, many decades after Jeremiah lived. And Nechemia didn't warn the people that the Torah he was reading to them was corrupted and unreliable. Rather, he writes that he actually read the Torah to the Jewish people and this is a Torah that God revealed through Moses. So what is Jeremiah actually saying in chapter 8? There's an old saying which says that a text without a context is pretext and that certainly applies to this example of taking one verse in the eighth chapter of Jeremiah out of context. So what is actually going on in the eighth chapter of Jeremiah? Really much the same, it takes place in other chapters of Jeremiah. The prophets of Israel came to rebuke the people of Israel. And so in Jeremiah chapter 8, he is reprimanding the people of Israel for their rebelliousness, for they're not obeying the Torah and not repenting of the evil that they had been doing. In this verse, the word Shekher, the Hebrew word Shekher, which can mean false or falsehood, can also mean vain or for nothing or for naught. We see this for example in 1 Samuel chapter 25 verse 21 where it says, Now David had said it was for naught, for Shekher, that I guarded all of this man's possessions in the desert, meaning it was useless that I did it. And that's what the word Shekher means here in Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 8. He's saying that although the people argue that they are wise and that the Torah is with them, that knowledge is useless. Jeremiah says, Why? Because they are rebellious and they don't fulfill what the Torah actually instructs. They were making the writing of the Torah vain by not observing it. So a proper translation or I would say a more accurate translation of Jeremiah 8.8 would be, How can you say we are wise and that God's teaching is with us? Indeed, the pen has labored in vain and scribes labor in vain. Their writings in a sense are in vain because the people are not following the teachings that the scribes recorded, the scrolls of the Torah they recorded. Now living in a time when cherished, long cherished, Jewish practices are being abandoned or challenged. For example, circumcision was almost universally practiced as a rite of passage by families, even families who observe very little else in Judaism. But in recent decades, circumcision itself is being challenged. Similarly, traditional Jewish burial has seen a dramatic decline in favor of cremation.