Refutation: Islamic claim of Jeremiah 8:8

Muslims assert that Jeremiah 8:8 says that the scribes used a "false pen" in their feeble attempt to justify their outrageous claim that our great sages corrupted the Torah and Tanakh. They make these claims by misquoting the Tanakh, and relying on defective Christian translations.

The translation and general lack of understanding lead Muslims to such a dim-witted conclusion. The proper translation of the verse is:


How can you say, We are wise, and the Torah of the L-rd is with us? Surely,
the pen wrought in vain, in vain the scribes. The wise men are ashamed, they are
dismayed and taken: Lo, they have rejected the word of the L-RD; and what wisdom
is in them?
(Jeremiah 8:8)

The verse is telling us that they rejected the Torah, so they have no wisdom. They essentially did not follow the Torah, so their writings and study were in vain. Jeremiah then writes a bit later:

And you shall say to them: So said the L-rd, If you do not heed Me to walk in My
law that I have placed before you
, To heed the words of My servants, the
prophets, whom I send to you betimes, and you did not heed. I will make this
house like Shiloh and this city I will make into a curse to all the nations of
the earth.
(Jeremiah 26:4-6)

How could we follow the law that G-d places before us (bold text), if the law was corrupted? This presupposes that the Torah was uncorrupt and available during the time of Jeremiah. Since Jeremiah wrote Jeremiah 8:8, who better than he to tell us the precise meaning of the passage in question? The mistranslation of the Islamic claim is quite evident.

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