Everyone's doing Islamic Dillema debunk posts. Here is mine.
I have seen a series of posts that revolve around this thing for the past few weeks (not just debunk, but also defend this dilemma). This entire argument exposes how many people here are not actual academicians.
As a non-academician, I might as well do one (paraphrased from one of my past comments)
The Islamic dillema assumes that the Quran claims Gospels and Torrah are divine. It also assumes that God would never let someone follow a something God himself says is a false thing.
In my opinion, these arguments miss the point of those verses and what they are trying to mean. And I do think that these arguments are based on non sequitur and slippery slope fallacy.
First of all, the second one (God wouldn't tell someone to follow a wrong thing) is a strawman argument. It's not that God would promote you to follow a wrong thing. Rather, God would judge you based on what you think it to be the right thing, even if it is wrong.
One example I can think of is is Quran's criticism of monasticism.
In surah 57:27 Quran criticize 2 things:
They made that up.
EVEN if they made it up, they COULDN'T FOLLOW IT.
So Quran not only criticizes them for making rulings up, but it also criticizes those people of not being able to uphold the obligations they themselves put.
Quran affirms that it cares about your intent of doing an action. There is a hadith that even if a judge is wrong, they will receive a reward because they were sincere. (reliability not pending)
In that way, when Quran talks about these other books, it uses ad-hominem/rhetoric to *critique* those people.
For example: The context of Surah 5:43 is believed to be that Jewish leaders came to the Prophet Muhammad hoping for a lenient verdict on a legal matter (adultery). They tried to evade the ruling in their own scriptures. The Quran *exposes their hypocrisy*. They claimed to follow their scripture, yet sought to abandon its laws when it is inconvenient for them.
So, these verses that "affirm" past books can be understood in this light:
"Your books are made-up/changed/corrupted. However, even then, you don't obey the books you yourselves wrote that you claim to be divine. The person that follows those books do it because they have the genuine/pure intent to follow God's words. So if you are actually sincere in your belief, follow the books you yourselves claim to be divine."
That is, in my opinion, what the Quran is actually saying.
It doesn't claim their books are divine. It says "If YOU THINK your book is divine, then follow it. I am the filter that is supposed to expose the right from the wrong in your books. Either believe me, or believe in what you think is divine. And if you are sincere, follow it. But don't come to me to affirm your own wickedness." (I think Quran 5:53 is literally this)
Edit: Just to be clear, I am strictly talking about the verses that tell people to "judge by their own book."
I am NOT saying that EVERY VERSE is this. I am saying that just *this branch* of verses mean this.
Edit 2: another example:
About the execution of the Jewish tribe, Prophet Mohammad allows them to judge themselves according to their own holy book (Torah).