A Challenge to Christians
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,
The latest mantra of our Missionary Christians friends, of which they have taken much pride in stating, is the following:
The Qur’an is the most violent book in history!
That’s a very distasteful statement, not only does it generalize the Qur’an, it’s also quite hypocritical and dishonest. You see, the Bible has much more violent passages (as it is a generally larger book as well) than the Qur’an and it’s indeed, much more graphic. However, in response to our missionary friends, I offer one passage. It is with this passage, that I challenge any Christian to find an equitable passage or greater (in severity) in the Qur’an:
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. – Deuteronomy 20:16.
The challenge is therefore, quite simple. If the Qur’an contains a passage on equal footing with Deuteronomy 20:16, or worse, let me know! Otherwise, our Christian friends would have no choice but to concede that their book is the most violent.
wa Allaahu Alam,
and God knows best.
Calling Christians 
I assume you are looking for a theological debate. Why would you frame a passage from the Torah as “more violent” than any in the Qur’an? The Qur’an doesn’t mention the Canaanites and there is no parallel passage to Deut. 10:16 to present a contradiction to the Qur’an—as the default response on Islam would then be that the Biblical version of this text is corrupt. Should we assume that the Canaanites didn’t exist?
And why would the Genesis flood not be a more violent judgment than the killing of the Canaanites? That certainly included more people, and drowning seems a horrible way to go. Maybe the question should be which account of the flood is more violent. We could actually draw a comparison there.
If your missionary friend intended the level of violence to be a true challenge, I’m not sure what it would mean even if we could determine which book contained more violence (a level that would be hard to determine anyway given the arguable subjectivity in degrees of violence: Is it determined by pain endurance? Number of lives lost? Amount of blood spilled?). What theological implications are there to violence, particularly if it’s enacted by God in righteous judgment? Just curious. 🙂
Very true, mA
A theological discourse of sorts really. We’re comparing violence as it is, we’re not comparing the identities of those involved or the location. Violence is an act of agression and we are comparing the verses in either scripture to discern which has the most violent acts. Unless you’re trying to say that we can’t compare verses against each other because they differ in scripture.
What would be the reasoning in that? We’re comparing an act of violence. Similarly, when we compare acts of violence do we say that since Colombia or Mexico has violent drug killings, as opposed to acts of violence in the USA? According to your logic, we can’t compare them because they’re two different countries, comparing two different peoples, in two different places. That logic is non-sequitur. We are comparing violence in either scripture and that’s it. If you don’t know what violence is, thn thats just appeal to ad ignorantium, friend.
I’m sure after some work we could come to some sort of consensus on which (the Bible or Qu’ran) is more violent, but I’m still not sure what the point would be or what it would show about either.
You say that violence (at least by conscious beings) is an act of aggression. If we measure which portrays more aggression, what does that mean? Would the historical account of the aggression of evil-doers count the same as the aggression of a just God unleashing His wrath against sinful people? Is the fact that the Bible or the Qu’ran reports of the violence of others good or bad? Or is the point to determine which scripture portrays a more aggressive God? Or more aggressive followers?
godandneighbour, the point is that Christian missionaries often accuse the Qur’an of being a manual of terrorism and evil containing horrendous descriptions and decrees to exact bloodshed. The fact that no such parallel passage to the one cited in the article is to be found anywhere in the pages of the Qur’an shows that the Christan missionaries in question need to reevaluate their methodology and argumentation. In the said Deuteronomy text it has God who is supposed to be Jesus as well according to standard Trinitarian thought commanded the death of civilian population which is in direct contravention to the human conscience. It is against the Geneva convention which is agreed upon by one and all. The decree is so atrocious that Christian scholars who consider themselves true followers of Jesus reject such passages as untrue insofar that God is concerned (refer to Father Lukefahr in his ‘A Catholic Guide to the Bible’ in which he rejects such passages containing those ruthless decrees as unbefitting of a loving God).
Ibn, thanks for your reply. 🙂
The original post didn’t expound on the details of the claims heard from the Christian missionary friend, so I was only commenting on the direct challenge from the author to “find an equitable passage or greater (in severity) in the Qur’an [than Deuteronomy 20:16, which describes God’s command for the Israelites to destroy Canaan]”. He asserts that the Bible is “the most violent.” If all the Christian missionary said was that the Qur’an is generally more violent, then I would agree he needs to reevaluate his methodology and argumentation, because I don’t see any clarification from either the missionary or the author of the post on what is meant by “most violent.”
Now, if, as your comment suggests, the concern is over which book contains more INSTRUCTION for violence (vs. mere historical description), then that is something we can reasonably discuss. 🙂
I can’t speak on behalf of those who may call Deut. 20:16 a modern decree (it isn’t) or those who reject it as scriptural, because it is in scripture. What I can say about it is that the command God gave to Israel to destroy Canaan was for Israel, not for us. The context makes this clear. Yes, it was bloody and awful and an eye-opening look at the severity of Canaan’s sin and it’s consequences, but it is by no means prescriptive for the contemporary reader.
By contrast, it seems that numerous verses in the Quran prescribe and extoll violence as a virtue. For example, 2:191-193 says “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]… but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.” and 2:216, “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.” Unlike Deut. 20:16, these passages and others don’t seem to be completely restrained to a historical context. They seem to be speaking to the reader. Are they not?
Hey there Mike!
See, I get that you’re Christian, so it may be difficult for you to face the realities of your scripture. For example, currently, you’re generalizing what ‘violence’ is and labeling it as something that is ‘relative’. Yet you fall prey to your own inconsistencies by attempting to equate Devarim 20:16 with 2:216 in the Qur’an. Therefore by your own actions, you have conceded to knowing what my methodology and arguments are. To claim otherwise would be clear cut dishonesty.
We are not claiming, nor did my article claim (and you can quote where I did, if I did), that Devarim 20:16 is an applicable law to obey to this day. Rather my argument was and continues to be that your scripture contains the single most violent instruction by God as compared to any other scripture, especially to that of Islam: the Qur’an.
Can you indicate what’s wrong with those passages from the Qur’an? Those same laws are applied today, if an enemy invades your lands, you have the right to defend and drive them out and if they seek peace then you seek peace. How is that equitable with: Hey go that land and kill everything that breathes?
Can you go into the Qur’an and find me an equitable violent verse, wherein an All Merciful and All Loving God commands his followers to ‘kill everything that breathes’? Try it.
” it was bloody and awful and an eye-opening look at the severity of Canaan’s sin and it’s consequences,”
1. can you explain to me why didn’t your god send messengers to these people?
in Gen 15:16 it doesn’t say anything about the SEVERITY of canaan’s sins. this would be an EXCELLENT time for the hebrew god to send a messenger to these people.
jewish PUNISHMENT laws were IN the covenant and for israel. this is what christians say again and again, but yhwh IMPOSED covenant laws on a people who did not shake hands with him
canaanites had no covenant with yhwh. why was yhwh holding canaanites to a code he hadn’t given them?
don’t you think a little message like , ” if you don’t stop having intercourse with bulls , i will dash your infants head against the rocks”
may have done the job?
canaanites, according to the ot, sacrificed thier children to thier idols
yhwh tells the jews to completely destroy the canaanite children.
“but it is by no means prescriptive for the contemporary reader.”
who said that the idf in israel believe that the new testament has ANYTHING to do with the torah? who said that orthodox jews give a damn about what the nt says?
Deuteronomy 20:15:
“This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance
from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.”
“but it is by no means prescriptive for the contemporary reader.”
Deuteronomy 13:6-9 “If your very own brother, or your son or daughter,
or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you,
saying: Let us go and worship other gods (gods that neither you nor
your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near
or far, from one end of the land to the other, or gods of other
religions), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do
not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your
hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of
all the people.”
ask any orthodox rabbi in israel today what they think of the christian presence in thier land. they want them out because they are disgusting idolaterors.
i asked a orthodox jew about christian presence in israel
his thoughts
quote:
Ideally, Eretz Yisraél should be free from all idolatry—which includes chrstianity (but not Islam)—and, God willing, in the time of the King-Mashiyaḥ it will be so. However, until that time, we have to tolerate idol-worshippers in our “midst”.
Moreover, God commands us in His Torah to loathe and despise all idol-worshippers (and, again, that includes chrstians)….
Burn the carved statues of their gods in a fire; don’t desire the silver or gold that decorates them and take it for yourself in case it entraps you: it is disgusting to Adonai your God. Don’t bring anything disgusting like that [i.e. like the precious metals that decorate the gentiles’ idols] into your house or you will become ḥérem like them [i.e. like the idol-worshippers] — you are to feel total revulsion and utter disgust for each of them because they are ḥérem.” (D’varim 7:25-26)
and I repeat that this includes chrstianity, which IS idolatry (whether chrstians like to admit it or not).
Thank you Ijaz, I appreciate your response.
I don’t want to generalize or relativize what violence means, I just wanted to know what you meant by “most violent” in your original post, because it wasn’t very clear. Also, I only compared Deut. 20:16 to Quran 2:216 in response to Ibn Anwar’s comment above, where HE seems to think that Deut. 20:16 is a decree for Christians today, in which case I was contrasting the prescriptiveness of the two passages (whether or not they are instructing readers to violence), not the degree of violence that is described. Thank you for clarifying your position though, that is helpful. You are saying that the instruction God gave Israel in Deuteronomy 20:16 is more violent than any passage of God instructing violence in the Qur’an, correct?
What I still don’t understand are the theological implications of God bringing violent judgment. How does that reflect negatively on the God of the Bible? The existence of hell, which is taught in both the Bible and Qur’an as a place of eternal torment for unbelievers, is much more violent than the destruction of Canaan. Wouldn’t you agree? And is a merciful and all-loving God not completely justified in judging sin this way? God is also justified in providing a way out of violent judgment through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus was violently executed, yet that violence brought victory over sin and death and redemption for all who trust Him.
The problem I see with the passages in the Qur’an such as Qur. 9:5 and 9:29 is that they are largely unrestrained to any particular historical time period. That seems to leave “kill them wherever you find them” and “fight those who do not believe in Allah” open to a much wider, contemporary interpretation and application. Both Christianity and Islam have violent histories, but in Christianity, violence is just history. There are no Biblical passages that call Christians or anyone else to violence. Rather, God assures us that He can defend His own honor (Rom. 12:19).
As an addendum to my previous comment and as an answer to your challenge, I would have to say that the Qur’an does include “more violent” passages than the Bible. Violence in the Bible is historical, whereas numerous Qur’an passages seem to prescribe violence, or leave that open to the reader. In that case, the potential of interpreting the Qur’an as a decree of violence is much greater that the Bible.
muslim apologist sami zaatri wrote in response:
YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
PICKTHAL: Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.
SHAKIR: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
To begin with, let us expose the Christian double standard, why do they firstly assume that fight has to completely mean physical only? Fighting those who do not believe in Islam can done in many other forms other than a physical fight or conflict, fighting someone can be done with the tongue, you refute and crush the persons lies, and you preach the truth to them until they repent of their ways and come to the truth. There is not a single objection any Christian or other can bring against this point, because they have deceptively interpreted this verse to mean physical altercation only, in fact what will Christians say to this verse from their Bible:
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword
Christians will interpret this verse saying that sword doesn’t actually mean a physical sword, rather it is metaphorical language referring to the tongue, that by the tongue Christians shall spread the truth and crush the lies that have been propagated by satan. Therefore I must ask why don’t Christians leave this interpretation open to the Quran as well? Why do they immediately assume that Surah 9:29 must ONLY refer to physical altercation? If a Christian objects to my claim that Surah 9:29 can also mean fighting unbelievers by the tongue, then it also throws out their own interpretation of Matthew 10:34 which means they no longer have any argument! So it is up to the Christian, if they want to argue honestly, or if they want to argue deceptively using double standards in interpretation
“God is also justified in providing a way out of violent judgment through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus was violently executed, yet that violence brought victory over sin and death and redemption for all who trust Him”
now this is strange stuff. god created death, god watches death, god gives death and god has the POWER/control over death. god , in the past, has VIOLENTLY DEMOLISHED and destroyed people. God destroyed not only FLESH but spirit aswell. now does it make sense that he who is the boss and in charge of everything, created 100 % flesh and then violent THROUGH roman hands APPEASED himself/cooled down? he watched himself do violence to himself through roman hands? if he didn’t give his CREATED flesh a beating, SALVATION wouldn’t be unavailable and hell would await our flesh? god gaveup his flesh THROUGH VIOLENCE to appease himself? he HURT himself/his CREATED flesh , WATCHED himself do this to himself to save us from his himself? and now you must believe that ONE WHO IS IN CONTROL OF DEATH AND CREATED DEATH overcame sin by defeating DEATH ? what?
godandneighbor,
No matter how you want to see it in terms of its bloodthirsty and intolerant passages, the Bible raises considerably more violence than does the Qur’an.
Bible passages justify genocide and multigenerational race war; the Qur’an has nothing comparable.
Yes, Qur’anic texts undoubtedly call for warfare but these are hedged around with more restrictions, with more opportunities for the defeated to make peace and survive. None of these in their biblical equivalents.
Any of the defenses that you offer for biblical violence –for instance, that these passages are unrepresentative of the overall message of the text–apply equally to the Qur-an.
Regarding your uneducated claims that the passages in the Qur’an (such as Qur. 9:5 and 9:29) are largely unrestrained to any particular historical time period is simply wrong and baseless.
Taken in isolation, those the verses seems an unusually violent pronouncement for a prophet who had for twenty years preached tolerance, peace and reconciliation.
But when you read in the context of the verses above and below Surah 9:5, and when the circumstances of its pronouncement by prophet Muhammad (pbuh) it is not difficult to understand it more fully.
Here is the verse again in 9:5(1)
فَإِذَا انسَلَخَ الْأَشْهُرُ الْحُرُمُ فَاقْتُلُوا الْمُشْرِكِينَ حَيْثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمْ وَخُذُوهُمْ وَاحْصُرُوهُمْ وَاقْعُدُوا لَهُمْ كُلَّ مَرْصَدٍ ۚ
“But when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush.”
Fa-itha insalakha al-ashhuru alhurumufaqtuloo almushrikeena haythu wajadtumoohum wakhuthoohumwahsuroohum waqAAudoo lahum kulla marsadin.
The fact that the verse actually starts with the Arabic conjunction “fa,” translated above as “but,” indicates that its line of logic flows from the verse or verses above it. Indeed, the preceding four verses explain the context.
Classical Quranic exegesis Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr gives verse 1 gives the historical context as a violation of the Treaty of Hudaybîyah, signed in 628 by the State of Medina and the Quraysh tribe of Mecca.
In short, this was a peace treaty between prophet Muhammad pbuh and his followers and those polytheistic Meccans who had spent a decade trying to destroy them. Two years after it was signed the polytheistic meccan tribe attacked the the Muslims. Prophet Muhammad pbuh considered the attack a treaty violation.
Ayat 2 and 3 were revealed through prophet Muhammad pbuh to give polytheists or idolaters living in Mecca a period of amnesty that would last until the end of the current pilgrimage season. Thus, Arab polytheists and idolaters would gain a four-month period of grace.
Ayah 4 makes clear that during that period of amnesty, polytheists or idolaters were to be left untouched so that Muslims would not themselves become promise-breakers.
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ عَاهَدتُّم مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَنقُصُوكُمْ شَيْئًا وَلَمْ يُظَاهِرُوا عَلَيْكُمْ أَحَدًا فَأَتِمُّوا إِلَيْهِمْ عَهْدَهُمْ إِلَىٰ مُدَّتِهِمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْمُتَّقِينَ
“So fulfil your engagements with them to the end of the term; for Allâh loves the righteous.”
After clarifying that the threatened violence would apply only to those who had ignored the warnings and continued to practice polytheism or idolatry in and around the holy city and its sanctuary, and were still foolish enough not to have left after four months the Ayah 5 clearly warned them that there would be a violent military purging or purification in which they seriously risked being killed.
So the verse actually has a secondary clause which, after the direction to root out and kill anyone who had ignored the clear and solemn warnings and continued their polytheism or idolatry, enjoined Muslims to remember that they must be merciful (“to open the way”) to those who repented and accepted their penitent obligations in terms of Islam Q 9:5(1)
فَإِن تَابُوا وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَوُا الزَّكَاةَ فَخَلُّوا سَبِيلَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
“But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”
Moreover, the verse of the sword is immediately followed by an unusually charitable one — again ordinarily left out of Islam-critical treatments — in which any of the enemy who asked for asylum during any coming violence were not only to be excluded from that violence, but were to be escorted to a place of safety. Q 9:6
وَإِنْ أَحَدٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ اسْتَجَارَكَ فَأَجِرْهُ حَتَّىٰ يَسْمَعَ كَلَامَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ أَبْلِغْهُ مَأْمَنَهُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَوْمٌ لَّا يَعْلَمُونَ
“If one amongst the Pagans ask thee for asylum, grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of Allah; and then escort him to where he can be secure. That is because they are men without knowledge.”
The rest of Surah 9 contains more explanation for the Muslims as to why they would now need to fight, and fiercely, anyone who broke their oaths or violated the sanctity of holy places, despite earlier hopes for peace according to the terms of the Treaty of Hudaybîyah.
The controversial verse 29, which talks of killing polytheists and idolaters, actually comes right after verse 28, which speaks specifically about preventing them from performing religious rituals or pilgrimages in or around the newly purified sanctuary in Mecca. verse 29 thus also refers to the cleansing of Mecca and its environs as well as to the need to secure the borders of the Arabian Peninsula from greater external powers which might smother the Islamic ummah (community) in its infancy.
The rest of verse 9 also apparently contains scriptures relating to the later campaign against Tabûk, when some groups which had treaty obligations with prophet Muhammad pbuh broke their promises and refused to join or sponsor the campaign. It is worth noting that, in this context also, prophet Muhammad pbuh chose to forgive and impose a financial, rather than physical, penalty upon those who genuinely apologised.
So tt is clear, therefore, that those seemingly violent verses in the Quran was a historical context-specific verses relating to the historical cleansing and purification of Mecca and its environs of all Arab polytheism and idolatry so that the sanctuary in particular, with the Ka’aba at its centre, would never again be rendered unclean by the paganism of those locals and pilgrims who had long been worshipping idols (reportedly hundreds of them) there.
It was proclaimed publicly as a warning, followed by a period of grace which allowed the wrong-doers to desist or leave the region, and qualified by humane caveats that allowed for forgiveness, mercy and protection.
It is a *just* war acceptable by modern standard and thus not as bloodthirsty as what happened int the Bible.
Because it is so histrorical context-specific it is no contradictions with numerous Quranic verses encouraging peace, tolerance and reconciliation.
If someone looking for a text to justify suicide terrorism while the Qur’an offers nothing, some passages of the Bible, in contrast, expressly designed for this purpose:
Think of the hero Samson, blinded and enslaved in Gaza, but still prepared to pull down the temple upon thousands of his persecutors:
“And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house feel upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life”. (Judges 16:30)
Other awkward example is when God becomes enraged by the race-mixing is when Phinehas, who saves the Hebrews – who have begun to intermarry with Moabite women so that the two peoples begin to share in religious worship. God furiously commands that the chiefs of Israel be impaled in the sun as means of quenching his anger. Moses commands his subordinates to kill anyone who has married a pagan, or “yolked themselves to Baal”, while a plague kills twenty-four thousand Hebrews. Fortunately, Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron, preempts the worst of the catastrophe by slaughtering a mixed-race couple in Numbers 25.
The Quran does not contain the sort of full scale sadistic warfare, the slaughter of everything that breathed. If you argue in historical terms, even for the time period when the scriptures of the Old Testament are believed to have been written, it is an unusual practice. There is no archaeological support whatsoever that supports the biblical account of a large-scale genocide in the land of Canaan.
Mansubzero,
I don’t see why anyone would take the “sword” in Matt. 10:34 to be “metaphorical language referring to the tongue, that by the tongue Christians shall spread the truth and crush the lies that have been propagated by satan.” It simply doesn’t say that, although it is metaphorical as the context shows. This verse leads into the next five (35-39) that talk about division within families that is sometimes inevitable: “Man against his father, a daughter against her mother.” The Gospel can be divisive and cause a “split”, as a sword does. Any ideology clash can do that. Reaction to the Gospel may come in the form of violent opposition, but that isn’t what is taught here.
Of course, Jesus’ teaching on swordplay is not all metaphorical. He does have something to say about the literal sword that Peter drew in His defense in the face of armed Roman soldiers in Matt. 26:52-53: “Put your sword back in its place…for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”
I wouldn’t deny that fighting can be done with words, but that doesn’t seem to be the meaning of “fight” in the Qur’an, at least when “fight” comes from the Arabic qātilū (i.e. 9:29), which is based on the root q-t-l, meaning “kill”, and in the form III the verb means to fight with the intent of killing. “Fight” is a simplistic and deficient translation, because we don’t have a word with that connotation in English; translated more completely “fight with the intent to kill.” Any way you slice it, that’s a long way from “fighting unbelievers by the tongue.”
You cited Pickthall’s rendering of 9:29. Pickthall was also one to note, regarding the historical context of the coercion by Muslims to pay the jizyah, that it “signified the end of idolatry in Arabia. The Christian Byzantine Empire had begun to move against the growing Muslim power, and this Surah contains mention of a greater war to come, and instructions with regard to it” (The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, p. 145). Evidently Pickthall doesn’t have a war of words in view, but actual warfare.
More interesting scholarship by Pickthall on Surah 8:39-69 (“The Spoils”): “vv. 67-69 were revealed when the Prophet had decided to spare the lives of the prisoners taken at Badr and hold them to ransom, against the wish of Omar, who would have executed them for their past crimes. The Prophet took the verses as a reproof, and they are generally understood to mean that no quarter ought to have been given in that first battle.” (p. 144)
If no captives should have been taken at the Battle of Badr, doesn’t that mean that the enemy should have, by divine decree, been completely slaughtered?
The Qur’an says, even when fighting (arguing?) during the holy month, that “persecution is worse than killing” (Surah 2:217); Jesus says to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matt. 5:44)
Re: “now this is strange stuff. god created death…”, your first assumption is wrong. God’s original creation did not include death. (Gen. 1-2) Human death is the result of sin (Gen. 3). God didn’t cause sin and death, but is in control of it and gave us victory over it (1 Cor. 15:55-57). He is the cause of the cure, a perfect blood sacrifice that was necessary to pay the penalty for sin on our behalf. He didn’t have to save us from sin, but chooses to (1 Tim. 2:4), and a just God can’t forgive sin without a payment. Instead of us, He sent His own Son. Sorry, you can’t turn that into bad news. 🙂
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law–a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
“I did not come to bring peace.” That means what it says: he is not preaching peace. Hence in the parallel passage in Luke (12:49-53) he says: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Thus, the passage pertains to something he wishes to happen, not anything that saddens him or that he wants to stop
we can understand that jesus and satan agree that to make ones house fall one MUST DIVIDE and conquer and jesus says in the FIRST PERSON that he WANTS TO divide and plunder peoples house.
“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two > against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-
law.
“(diamerizo), which means divide, distribute, create disunity, and in
context, where the word is explicitly contrasted with peace (eirene),
and the word epi + accusative (“against”) follows, the meaning is
obviously intrafamily war. ”
“Jesus’ teaching on swordplay is not all metaphorical. He does have something to say about the literal sword that Peter drew in His defense in the face of armed Roman soldiers in Matt. 26:52-53: “Put your sword back in its place…for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?””
first he tells them thAT 2 SWORDS WERE ENOUGH , but when he realised that he and his collegues would get FLOORED by the opposition he changed his mind.
“Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels”
no you cannot because if you could you wouldn’t have said “2 swords were enough”
“Jesus says to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matt. 5:44)”
Unlike the cowardly christian love cult response of praying for those who persecute you while one’s community is being persecuted and oppressed, muslims are obligated to fight to stop it, not to submit to it.
jesus’ mission was 3 years, and in this 3 years amount in time, not only did the Rabbis and Pharisees try and stone him, they tried to have him executed. Why would they do this if all he was doing was
saying “turn the other cheek”? If all he was doing was pleading with them not to revolt from Roman authority? if all he was doing was “pray for those who persecute you”
“Jesus says to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matt. 5:44)”
don’t call the COPS next time a christian girl gets raped. pray for your rapist
don’t even try to run away from the rapist
let the rapist get away and target another christian girl
jesus was NOT the first to talk about loving ENEMIES
in jeremiah jews were told to pray for those who persecute them and through thier suffering(persecuted) the people(persecutors) would realise that only god is to be worshipped
Ancient Babylonian sacred teaching from two thousand years before Jesus was born: “Do not return evil to your adversary; Requite with kindness the one who does evil to you, Maintain justice for your enemy, Be friendly to your enemy.” (Akkadian Councils of Wisdom, as cited in Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts)
more here
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/golden-rule-and-christian-apologetics.html
don’t try to say “jesus said…” when you know jesus was not the first to come up with the idea of loving adversary
I wouldn’t deny that fighting can be done with words, but that doesn’t seem to be the meaning of “fight” in the Qur’an, at least when “fight” comes from the Arabic qātilū (i.e. 9:29), which is based on the root q-t-l, meaning “kill”, and in the form III the verb means to fight with the intent of killing. “Fight” is a simplistic and deficient translation, because we don’t have a word with that connotation in English; translated more completely “fight with the intent to kill.” Any way you slice it, that’s a long way from “fighting unbelievers by the tongue.”
it is INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT QUR’AAN HAS USED MUDAAARI3 ACTIVE ON THE FORM 3
IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT
form 3 can also have MUTUAL ACTION from the one who is FOUGHT
it could give the IDEA that the ones who are BEING FOUGHT ALSO WANT TO FIGHT.
I WILL GET back to you on this.
i don’t think that the qur’aan is talking about “turn thy cheek” and “pray for your persecutors” TYPE of christians in 9:29
there IS A REASON why it has used form 3 active mudaari3
the same form is USED in 9:13 + 14 for a reason
and this is BECAUSE the muslims are made to fight / caused to fight because of the people who wish to terminate them.
the christians weren’t “turn thy cheek” christians they were christians who CAUSED trouble and they got a response from the muslims .
READ verse 12 in surah 9 and see yourself that THERE IS A REASON WHY form 3 was used.
yhwh is afraid that jewish faith will be stolen
Deuteronomy 20:16 However, in the cities of the nations Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them–the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites–as Yahweh your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against Yahweh your God.
compare to
“And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?” Quran 10:99
2:190- “AND FIGHT in God’s cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression-for, verily, God does not love aggressors.”
again mudaari3 3 and again SEEMS they are CAUSED to fight because…
CAUSATIVE/MUTUAL ACTION
they’re NOT innocent lambs in the ayah u havea problem with
more problems for you :
“It may be that God will CREATE LOVE (“mawaddatan”) BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR ENEMIES. God is all powerful, and God is forgiving, ever-merciful. God does not forbid you from BEING KIND AND ACTING JUSTLY towards those who did not fight over faith with you, nor expelled you from your homes. God indeed LOVES those who are just. He only forbids you from making friends with those who fought over faith with you and banished you from your homes, and aided in your exile. Whoever makes friends with them is a transgressor.”
“…”, your first assumption is wrong. God’s original creation did not include death. (Gen. 1-2) Human death is the result of sin (Gen. 3).”
God created death for animals and unborn in women wombs. children who know no sin die everyday. God is the authour of death .it is God who can place disease in the flesh of a child and take his life. like i said before, God OWNS death and is control of it, why would he want to experience it in the flesh when He is OMNIPRESENT and not restricted IN ANY ones flesh? what does FLESH and blood mean TO THE CREATOR of them? did he see MAGICAL powers IN FLESH AND BLOOD before HE CREATED IT? HE wears his OWN created flesh and then has the romans kill/takeoff his flesh by force?
Ric, thanks for well-thought out response! I appreciate the historical background you offered for Surah 9.
I re-read the entire Surah again, and honestly, it doesn’t easily read that way. If the killing was intended only for the non-muslims that wouldn’t embrace Islam or clear out after the 4 month grace period in 630/631 AD, it isn’t clear from a straightforward reading of the text. There are clues in 9:13 and 17 of intended subjects of the aggression (“fight against those who have broken their oaths” and “these polytheists”), but there are many more verses that seem to draw a wider picture of warfare, i.e. 25-26 recalls Allah’s helping them in many battlefields previously, as “He punished the Unbelievers; thus doth He reward those without Faith.” From this point it seems forward-looking, in terms of Allah’s mercy (“Again will Allah, after this, turn (in mercy) to whom He will”, v27) and the need to keep the mosque clear of pagans (“Truly the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque.”, v28). So when we get to “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day” it sounds like a general decree going forward. References to the specific group that abused the treaty are rather obscured amidst what seems to be rather prescriptive text for striving against unbelievers and for service and sacrifice, rewards for faith, study and teaching of Islam through the rest of the Surah.
I’m not dogmatically saying that this Surah was written as a directive for Muslim violence. I do think that it sounds that way upon at least an initial reading, and it isn’t surprising that many Muslims, Christians and others see it that way. There are extremists in any faith group, but those who are already bent on violence would have an easier time using the Quran to justify it than the Bible, and it seems to be the case that there are more extreme Muslims using it that way than Christians using The OT. Again, I don’t suggest you or any modern reader should take Surah 9 as instruction to fight; I just don’t think it’s as clear as you say that we aren’t to take it that way. If it is merely descriptive history, it is far less obvious.
Historically, God brought judgment on people who did evil, and sometimes that included Israel too. That this happens to be violent is not a theological problem, because, as I pointed out in an earlier response to Ijaz on Oct. 3, “the existence of hell, which is taught in both the Bible and Qur’an as a place of eternal torment for unbelievers, is much more violent than the destruction of Canaan. A merciful and all-loving God is completely justified in judging sin this way. God is also justified in providing a way out of violent judgment through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus was violently executed, yet that violence brought victory over sin and death and redemption for all who trust Him.”
Mansubzero, my reply to your first comment on Oct 4 still isn’t appearing as it is apparently still “awaiting moderation.” Moderator, would you mind approving that one? 🙂 Thank you.
“I did not come to bring peace.” That means what it says: he is not preaching peace.”
Jesus communicated a message of peace many too times in scripture for this statement to be His defining position on the subject (Matt. 5:9, 34, Mark 9:50, Luke 1:79, 2:24, 7:50, 8:48, 10:6, 14:32, 19:42, John 14:27, 16:33, 20:19,21,26, Acts 10:36, and more). His statement was obviously about the oft necessary turmoil that comes from one accepting the message of peace while another refuses it. Truth will inevitably divide, as any debate reveals.
“first he tells them thAT 2 SWORDS WERE ENOUGH , but when he realised that he and his collegues would get FLOORED by the opposition he changed his mind.”
I think that the reason for Jesus’ instruction for His disciples to carry 2 swords in but no more in Luke 22:36-38 is right there in the same passage: “For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” Criminals carried swords, and two was the minimum needed to fulfill this prophesy. The disciples were not criminals, but the sword symbolized their status in the eyes of Jewish authorities. Jesus often used physical objects to teach universal truths, but He never taught the use of swords in violence. Clearly, His intent in the Garden of Gethsemane was NOT to resist arrest in any way, as Jesus knew the reason He came was to die for sinners. That’s why Jesus told Peter to put his sword away when things got ugly. There is in fact no record at all of any disciple enacting violence.
“jesus’ mission was 3 years, and in this 3 years amount in time, not only did the Rabbis and Pharisees try and stone him, they tried to have him executed. Why would they do this if all he was doing was saying “turn the other cheek”? If all he was doing was pleading with them not to revolt from Roman authority? if all he was doing was “pray for those who persecute you””
That isn’t all He was doing. 🙂 Jesus was preaching something much more upsetting than a message of peace. He taught that the Law the Jewish authorities held to was not enough to earn a presence with a holy God. He showed them that they were sinners. He was the Son of God, and they also considered this blasphemy. As I said, the truth can cause division.
“don’t call the COPS next time a christian girl gets raped.” The Bible doesn’t teach this. Civil law has it’s place, and criminals should answer to the law, including rapists. (Deut. 22:25-27, Ecc. 8:11, Rom. 13)
“pray for your rapist” Indeed. (Matt. 5:44)
“don’t even try to run away from the rapist” The Bible doesn’t teach this either. (Prov. 31:9, Psalm 82:3)
There is a difference between self-defense and revenge in the Bible. God values physical human life and we are to take care of our bodies: “… your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit… You are not your own… Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20) Self-harm is wrong: “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” (Prov. 24:11) and physical defense is justified when our own lives or that of others are in danger: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.” (Ezek. 33:6)
On personal offenses, Christians should practice love and restraint in general, and when lives are threatened, Christians should defend ourselves and others. Civil punishment has its place in case of criminal offenses (eye for eye/tooth for tooth). If we are offended personally, we are to turn the other cheek.
God calls us to forgiveness, not to revenge. “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19). God doesn’t call us to defend His honor either; He can take care of Himself. That is a particular distinction between Islam and Christianity.
“jesus was NOT the first to talk about loving ENEMIES”
Of course He wasn’t. Jesus taught from the OT all the time (i.e. Ten Commandments), and this would have included the foundational moral principal to love your neighbor, friendly or not. People are made in the image of a moral Creator, so knowledge of basic moral principals are innate in all people (Rom. 2:15), including Adam, Abraham, the ancient Babylonians, Muhammad, Confucius, Herodotus, Mahabharata, whomever.
“the christians weren’t “turn thy cheek” christians they were christians who CAUSED trouble and they got a response from the muslims .”
I wouldn’t defend anyone who has incited violence in the name of God or Christianity. The fact is if “Christians” are trying to spread the Gospel by violent means, they aren’t acting as Christians should; they are acting contrary to the Word of God. I would hesitate to call them Christians.
““It may be that God will CREATE LOVE (“mawaddatan”) BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR ENEMIES.” Agreed!
“God created death for animals and unborn in women wombs. children who know no sin die everyday.”
Death is a result of sin. That animals and children die innocently does not mean they are not subject to the consequences of sin on creation. If a father leaves a family, the mother and children suffer. If your boss goes to jail for fraud, your entire company may suffer and jobs may be lost. If a king fails to lead, the entire country may fall. We’ve all experienced something like this and nobody argues that sin has far-reaching effects (Rom. 8:22).
If I may, I’d like to know what you think about the contradictions found in the Qur’an regarding the nature of God. Specifically, the Qur’an teaches that God is perfectly just (“Allah is never unjust in the least degree” 4:40). It also teaches that Allah is merciful, forgiving those whom he chooses to forgive (4:110; 73:20). How can Allah be both just and merciful if he decides what sin to punish and what sin not to punish (rather than punishing ALL sin, as the God of the Bible is bound to do)?
//I re-read the entire Surah again, and honestly, it doesn’t easily read that way.//
The Quran is not a history book. It is a book of reminder.
If one sought to find a historical context of certain verse in the Quran, he must consult to the science of the Asbāb al-nuzūl (أسباب النزول), “occasions/circumstances of revelation” which is based from the hadith, an eye-witness account of what the prophet did and said.
You can not just re-read and construct your own conlusion.
From earliest scholar of Asbāb al-nuzūl classical exegesis ‘Alī ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi, (d. 468/1075) It is clear, that verse 9:5 was a historical context-specific verse relating to the cleansing and purification of Mecca and its environs of all Arab polytheism and idolatry so that the sanctuary in particular, with the Ka’aba at its centre, would never again be rendered unclean by the paganism of those locals and pilgrims who had long been worshipping idols (reportedly hundreds of them).
The steps are clear: It was proclaimed publicly as a warning, then followed by a period of grace which allowed the wrong-doers to desist or leave the region, and qualified by humane caveats that allowed for forgiveness, mercy and protection.
It is thus not as bloodthirsty and weird as you find in the Bible. It is so context-specific that, even if it WERE still in force , as a virtue provided it has not abrogated many numerous other verses encouraging peace, tolerance and reconciliation, — it would ONLY nowadays have any relevance if polytheists and idolaters ever tried to re-establish pagan practices in the holy city of Mecca and Medina devoted only to one and true God: Mecca and Medina.
If you think you are more worthy than classical muslim scholars like Isma’il bin ‘Amr bin Kathir and ‘Alī ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi to understand the context than it is yours.
There is another verse in the Qur’an which (using words virtually identical to the 9:5 verse). this verse too, verse 4:89, is surrounded by so many other explanatory and qualifying verses that its superficially violent meaning is immediately moderated by its context of tolerance and understanding. First, it threatened violence in self-defence only against those people or groups who violated pacts of peace with the Muslims and attacked them, or those former Muslims (“renegades”) who had rejoined the forces of oppression and now fought aggressively against the Muslims. Secondly, it stated that, if those aggressors left the Muslims alone and free to practice their faith, and if they did not attack them, but offered them peaceful co-existence, then Allāh would not allow Muslims to harm them in any way:
“Allāh hath opened no way for you to war against them” Q 4:90
The verse went even further. It not only offered peaceful co-existence to those who formally made peace with the Muslims, but also to anyone, even backslidden Muslims, who merely chose to stay neutral; that is, who did not take either side in the tense relations between the Muslims on the one hand and the Quraysh and their allies on the other in its historical context.
You have nothing of this sort in the Bible apart from obscure ““turn thy cheek” stuff which is not practical these days. Name me any judicial system which use reward the aggressor to hit more to the victims ??
If one look for virtue for violent in the scriptures it is the Bible that hit the jackpot. It command people weird and barbaric stuff.
I have cited you some examples on:
– Suicide kamikaze like terrorism –> Judges 16:30
– Apartheid policy — > Numbers 25
You havent deal with that. We have nothing like that in the Quran
I have plenty of that but here I give you just a little extra doze of problem:
How can you justify that a loving god killed 42,000 men just because someone mispronounce “sibboleth”??
Thats a straightforward reading, nothing hidden in the context in Judges 12:5-6. What a loving god he is. Surely I would prefer to stay my kid out of reading the Bible.
//There are extremists in any faith group, but those who are already bent on violence would have an easier time using the Quran to justify it than the Bible, and it seems to be the case that there are more extreme Muslims using it that way than Christians using The OT.//
Now you divert the issue and talk politics.
Dont just refer to recent event. Muslims are the latecomer when it comes to war and terrorism. Learn the history those Middle East and Arab terrorist who drove a recent wave of global terrorism came from secular persuasion. Most arab anti-Israeli activists were secular socialist nationalists, and Christians arab played a prominent role in the movement’s leadership. You can not just dismissed the root cause of what happened in the mideast where many people are driven out of their homes like in the Palestinian- Israeli (backed by evangelist christian) conflict.
We must not forget nuclear terrorism on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it isnt ordered by a Christian chief of Army?.
Statistically most people killed by terrorism are killed by “Christian” state terrorists. Christian state terrorism delivered ‘shock and awe’ to Iraq, Vietnam, Pakistan, Afghanistan and MANY others.
Here the list the countries bombed by the United States (a majority christian nation) since the end of the Second World War
http://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html
Have you ever numbered, the number of bombs have been dropped on innocent men, women and children. Christian soldier raping and torturing women?
I can too argue based on what I have been reading from the Bible that those mostly christian people commiting horreondous acts are simly inspired from the Bible.
What about Hitler? He killed million of innocent people and he is regularly proclaimed his faith in Christianity. Nazi ideology was committed to supporting Christianity, and I can too argue that Nazi anti-Semitism was firmly grounded in Christian anti-Semitism especially in NT.
godandneighbor,
It is amazing to me the way you deal with Jesus in the Bible.
It is a very CLEAR declaration of Jesus ” “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ” ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Mt.10:34-36.”
But you dont seems to believe his words and resort to apologetics mumbo jumbo about Jesus who never was
if you look into this matter closely it is not hard to see why Jesus in the Bible didn’t brought peace and he came to bring a sword. He sees himself as a jewish prophet preparing war against the wicked and sinner.
In the Bible, Yahweh the God of Israel said to the Jews through Moses
“I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant; and ye shall be gathered together within your cities; and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy ”. Levi.26: 25
By proclaiming the day of vengeance of God, Jesus said that execution of the vengeance of the covenant is going to take place.The sword Jesus mentioned is “the Sword” foretold by Moses and other prophets.
Yahweh said to Jews
“I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the Sabbaths you lived in it.” Lev.26: 31 -35
‘The sword is appointed to be polished, to be grasped with the hand; it is sharpened and polished, made ready for the hand of the slayer. Cry out and wail, son of man, for it is against my people; it is against all the princes of Israel. They are thrown to the sword along with my people .Ezek 21;10,12.
“I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them” Jer. 24:9
“I will send on them the sword, the famine, and with pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. I will deliver them to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth- to be a curse, astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them. Jer.29:17-18
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion” declares the LORD Almighty. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land,” declares the LORD, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it. This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God. Jesus came not to bring peace but the sword prophesied by all other prophets. Zech.13:7- 9
The Jews believed that the Day of the Lord or day of the lord’s vengeance brought disaster only to the enemies of Israel; to His people it brought victory. But all the prophets told that God will punish Israel for his sins. Hear Yahweh says to Israel through
.
At the time the Jews devoutly believed that, as Moses had delivered their fathers from Egyptian bondage by miraculous wonders, a Messiah would deliver the Jewish people from Roman domination by even greater miracles of power and marvels of racial triumph.
They almost completely believed that it is the right time for their messiah to come and deliver them from the Roman domination.
Thats why Jesus came to proclaim the sword that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. Jesus failed to lead the mutiny and ended up in the Cross but God helped him and taken him miracolously. Q4:157
God then send the final Messenger for all the nations
(1) to proclaim good tidings.
(2) to proclaim the day of vengeance of God against the sinner and idolatrous.
He is Muhammad ibn Abdullah May peace and blessing of God be upon him.
“Death is a result of sin. That animals and children die innocently does not mean they are not subject to the consequences of sin on creation. If a father leaves a family, the mother and children suffer. If your boss goes to jail for fraud, your entire company may suffer and jobs may be lost. If a king fails to lead, the entire country may fall. We’ve all experienced something like this and nobody argues that sin has far-reaching effects (Rom. 8:22).”
so god allowed death to infect innocent animals and children and then decided to infect himself with death? god who is in control of death, gives death, CREATED DEATH, decided to take on death ? so in your opinion god forsakes the unborn fetus because he himself allowed sin/death to infect people? a mother does not need to suffer, she can get married again. the company can find replacement and MERGE with other companies. kings can get removed and replaced by people.do people have more BRAINS than your god considering the fact that they can USE different OPTIONs. god CHOSE for a human to be human. a human did not ask god “please can you make me human”
so god INFECTS an UNBORN with death because he CHOSE to, right?
GOD WATCHES DEATH everyday
WHY WOULD he watch himself die? what kind of god is this? what has the DEATH OF flesh god anything to do with gods SPIRIT which has POWER over everything?
“I think that the reason for Jesus’ instruction for His disciples to carry 2 swords in but no more in Luke 22:36-38 is right there in the same passage:”
i think he said 2 were enough because he thought only a few were going to arrest him
“For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.”
jesus used a whip in the temple and before he was murdered on the cross he was whipped. those who live by the whip shall get whipped before they die. jesus was numbered among the lawless because he commanded physical violence against the people who came to arrest him. you don’t request swords and carry them with you for no reason.they carried swords just to SELF FULLFILL a claim in the ot?
“That’s why Jesus told Peter to put his sword away when things got ugly. There is in fact no record at all of any disciple enacting violence.”
we don’t find jesus SAYING anything about putting SWORDS away in marks version and neither do we see a healing of the ear in marks version. what is worse is that matthew doesn’t even include the healing of the ear. the gospel writers are simply covering jesus’ VIOLENT acts . no one requests the purchase of swords if they were not going to be used. just for SELF FULFILing “prophecy” you ask to buy swords?
“His statement was obviously about the oft necessary turmoil that comes from one accepting the message of peace while another refuses it. Truth will inevitably divide, as any debate reveals”
i told you, jesus and SATAN agree that to DIVIDE and make a house FALL , you first cause problems between family members. this is exactly what jesus’ message of division and fire intented to do. he didn’t say his message was a message of peace he said he will bring fire and division by doing x,y and z. so if jesus is rejected he will turn people against each other. and his christian brothers will carry out his wish for diviison because they will try to be christlike. division can be also brought about by TELLING people to abandon family responsibility .there is a reason why paul said that the jews prevents the gospel from being preached, because what is being preaches is not healthy for a people who were under oppression.
why do christians love to twist the message of thier “saviour” ?
if a christian lady is being PERSECUTED by her neighbour she should
1. pray for her persecutor
2. turn her other cheek
the text does not say to run away from persecution or call for assistance but pray for the one who is persecuting.
if she DID SELF defense WHERE is persecution ? where is turn the other cheek?
the woman would NOT BE IN A STATE OF being persecuted.
it is understandable why christians have to twist jesus’ message, jesus was also unable to practice turning the other cheek MANY times in the gospel accounts.he was EITHER saved by human saviours or he legged it from jews who were about to stone him
his deciples win gold medal for doing what jesus did and that is they were cowards who ran away when jesus was arrested.
“I’d like to know what you think about the contradictions found in the Qur’an regarding the nature of God. Specifically, the Qur’an teaches that God is perfectly just (“Allah is never unjust in the least degree” 4:40). It also teaches that Allah is merciful, forgiving those whom he chooses to forgive (4:110; 73:20). How can Allah be both just and merciful if he decides what sin to punish and what sin not to punish (rather than punishing ALL sin, as the God of the Bible is bound to do)?”
before i answer let me help you understand your gods phony “sacrifice”
there are 3 persons in trinity. 2 persons did not CREATE flesh for themselves only 1 human flesh was created for the 2nd person. so it is like giving only 1/3 of charity and keeping the rest for yourself.
so 1 person who is part of the trinity god, had his flesh punished to prevent himself from punishing sinners flesh.
god punished himself to save us from himself
justice demands that sinners flesh is to be punished but god decides to punish his created flesh and gives up his created flesh . god so loved the world that he gave up his created flesh and his spirit was UNTOUCHABLE.
all you have to do is believe in this phony “sacrifice” and you will be rewarded with heaven for believing in a “sacrifice” which affected god because it appeased him/cooled him down
christians sin EVERYDAY. now it is not ” punishing all sins” now sins are vetoed because god the spirit watched god the flesh murder himself and has cooled down .
what did god give up to save you from himself? punishment means SUFFERING
how does suffering of jesus’ created flesh FIX anything for a believing christians who KILLED an innocent child and went and repented on sunday? how has justice been done? a life is LOST and the wrong cannot be UNDONE by jesus’ “sacrifice”
christians SIN everyday in THOUGHT and action
how does believing in a diety giving up his created flesh, FIX anything?
justice demands that the christian who KILLED an innocent child should be PUNISHED AND feel guilt for his murderous action
THE childs parents are without child.
they have LOST a life
christians can REPENT 1000* and imagine their gods “sacrifice” millions of times , but the LIFE is still lost
IT IS GOD WHO HAS NOT LOST ANYTHING
AND NEITHER IS HE harmed by the sin of the one who murdered
God could recreate the murdered soul and ask him
“SHOULD i forgive the individual who murdered you”
“yes” says the murdered child
god says ” the MAN who murdered you has done enough good deeds in his life to warrant forgiveness fom me”
“if i want i can COOL the fires of hell and punish him”
PUNISHMENT ONLY DOES GOD for the one who did wrong, how does THE ONE WHO CREATED punishment /hell fix anything by applying it to himself?
what does it mean for the creator that the only way he can forgive/release is by SUFFERING himself?
“But what shall we say adequate to confront the base representation that it is not punishment, not the suffering of the sinner that is required, but suffering! nay, as if this were not depth enough of baseness to crown all heathenish representation of the ways of God, that the suffering of the innocent is unspeakably preferable in his eyes to that of the wicked, as a make-up for wrong done! nay, again, ‘in the lowest deep a lower deep,’ that the suffering of the holy, the suffering of the loving, the suffering of the eternally and perfectly good, is supremely satisfactory to the pure justice of the Father of spirits! Not all the suffering that could be heaped upon the wicked could buy them a moment’s respite, so little is their suffering a counterpoise to their wrong; in the working of this law of equivalents, this lex talionis, the suffering of millions of years could not equal the sin of a moment, could not pay off one farthing of the deep debt. But so much more valuable, precious, and dear, is the suffering of the innocent, so much more of a satisfaction—observe—to the justice of God, that in return for that suffering another wrong is done: the sinners who deserve and ought to be punished are set free.”
“He taught that the Law the Jewish authorities held to was not enough to earn a presence with a holy God. He showed them that they were sinners. ”
he like the pharisees believed that innocent should get punished. both jesus and pharisees agreed that innocent should get punished. jesus and pharisees were in agreement.
any honest NON -christian can see that the teachings of the law TALK about having sincere heart and AVOIDING sin as much as you can and not to cheat people .no christian should be trusted when they talk about the laws the pharisees were using. one should STUDY the laws instructions themselves by going to JUDAISM 1O1 .
mark does not include the rebuke because it is common sense. anybody would know why swords are aquired before one enters the opponents territory. 2 swords were enough because jesus thought only few people were going to take him on. jesus like any thinking human knew what the deciples were going to do with the sword and that is why no rebuke is recorded in marks gospel. jesus wanted self defense /violence to protect himself.
the gospel writers are hiding jesus’ violent intent and doings because they must CHANGE A failed saviour who did not RESCUE israel from roman destruction INTO spiritual saviour.
you have to understand that gospels are a cover up
jesus saw himself as the physical joshua type saviour of israel according to the gospels
here is proof
Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:62) “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
forget the christian spin and look at the words carefully.
7:13 I was watching in the night visions,
“And with the clouds of the sky
one like a son of man was approaching.
He went up to the Ancient of Days
and was escorted before him.
7:14 To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty.
All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving36 him.
His authority is eternal and will not pass away.
His kingdom will not be destroyed.
Quote:
“And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’ “(Daniel 7:27)
what i think is that the jewish high priest interpreted jesus to mean that he , jesus, was not only going to make an iminent return , but he would also fullfill what daniel 7:13 said. jesus thought he was a king , according to marks gospel. this was not talking about a future event centuries later, but a CONTEMPORARY EVENT which would happen in the high priests life time. i think jesus , according to mark, also assumed that he was going to return in the high priests life time.
i have heard many people even scholars say that the deciples thought that the END WAS near
look how desperately matthew tries to apply ancient ideas in the ot in jesus’ life time. do you really think mark was thinking “prophecy fullfilled” after 21st century?
Quote:
Mark 13:24 “But in those days, after that suffering,32 the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; 13:25 the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.33 13:26 Then everyone34 will see the Son of Man arriving in the clouds35 with great power and glory. 13:27 Then he will send angels and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.36
this is making use of the language in daniel again.
just look at jesus’ INITIAL entry INTO jerusalem. this is LIKE a kings entry. cleaning out the temple and gettting rid of the TRADERS all seem to portray a jesus who thought that he was fullfilling , in his LIFE TIME, the ideas in ot.
but their is a sudden twist in the story, jesus is not only governed by the jews, but destroyed by them.
not only were marks jesus hopes CRUSHED , he finally utters the words ,
“MY God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Then he died.
yeah, why have you forsaken me? you were on my side all the other times, but why have you forsaken me now?
marks gospel proves that 1) jesus was not the messiah
2) he was not the king in daniel
the scholar bart d ehrman says in his book forged that every single century christians have been awaiting thier returned jesus and the earliest fiddled with the texts to answer those who did not see returned jesus
for example
the authour of 2 thessalonians ,claiming to be paul, argues that the end is not in fact coming right away. certain things have to happen. certain things like
political /religious uprising
anti christ like figure will appear
he will claim to be god and seat himself in temple of jerusalem
jesus will then make his return
Ehrman says 2 thessalonians was created by an unknown who claimed to be paul.the reason why it was created because it tried to explain why jesus did not return. 1 thessalonians assumed that the return of jesus was going to happen in pauls time, butit didn’t so thats why the 2nd thessalonians was created.
BTW IT WAS AMR FORM NOT MUDAAARI3
“What I can say about it is that the command God gave to Israel to destroy Canaan was for Israel, not for us”
IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO PUT OT ON TRIAL
CHALLENGE . FIND one place in the entire old testament where THE AMALEKITES DESIRED TO DESTROY ISRAEL COMPLETELY AND LEAVE NOTHING ALIVE TO BREATH
FIND ONE PLACE.
yhwh told the jews to KILL AMALEKITES FOR THE CRIMES OF PEOPLE LIVING 400 YEARS EARLIER.
ANY NON-AMALEKITE RACE WHICH HELPED ISRAEL 400 YEARS EARLIER WERE SPARED AND TOLD TO DEPART FROM ISRAEL.
“Judges 3:13 says that the Amalekites joined Moab in attacking Israel, and they took
possession of the city of palms. But there, the chief aggressor is
Moab, not Amalek And far from seeking to annihilate Israel, they
merely took possession of one city. Standard fare. Israel did this
to other nations all the time, with Yahweh’s support”
“Judges 6:3-5 says that Midian and Amalek would destroy Isra-
el’s crops and livestock, in a few regions of Israel’s territories. But
here, as before, the primary aggressor in this text is Midian, not
Amalek. Moreover, this text does not describe any human car-
nage. The Midianites were trying to push Israel back, by destroy-
ing their crops. And the important thing to note here is that what
the Midianites and Amalekites were doing is portrayed by the au-
thor of Judges as a punishment against Israel directly from Yah-
weh. “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and
Yahweh gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years” (Judg
6:1). So, if we take the text seriously, these attacks against Israel’s
crops and livestock were Yahweh-sanctioned punishments for
Israel’s sins. 6:33 and 7:12 say that the Midianites and the Ama-
lekites came out to fight Israel in battle, but Israel won. Judges
10:12 lists the Amalekites among a number of other nations who
oppressed Israel. And that’s it.”
so there IS NO CLAIM THAT AMALEKITE WANTED TO COMPLETELY FINNISH OFF ISRAEL
“Israel’s more notable enemies were the Moabites and the
Midianites. Amalek was just an ally of these greater enemies, and
the battles were sporadic, and often portrayed as Yahweh-
sanctioned punishments for Israel’s sins”
WHERE DOES THE TEXT SAY THAT AMALEKITES WANTED TO WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP?
HERE IS THE REASON WHY ISRAEL ATTACKED AMALEKITES
Remember what Amalek did to you on your jour-
ney out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way,
when you were faint and weary, and struck down
all who lagged behind you; he did not fear God.
Therefore when Yahweh your God has given you
rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the
land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an in-
heritance to possess, you shall blot out the remem-
brance of Amalek from under heaven; do not for-
get. (Deut 25:17-19)
REMEMBER WHAT AMALEK DID….
WHAT DID THEY DO?
AND WHAT HAS WHAT THEY DID GOT ANYTHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE WHO LIVED 400 YEARS LATER IN ISRAEL?
REVENGE ATTACK FOR SOMETHING DONE 400 YEARS EARLIER
AMALEKITES RAIDED
ISRAEL RAIDED
DAVIDED RAIDED
1 Sam 27:8-11
NOTICE DAVID KILLS WITNESSES IN THIS VERSE?
Saul isn’t just attacking one city, but moving through
the region attacking multiple Amalekite settlements
for WHAT?
let me quote something SICK
“Meanwhile, the allied Israelite tribes
turned back and attacked the Benjamite villages, totally annihilat-
ing the entire civilian population of Benjamin—all of the women
and all of the children. Think about that. If there were 26,000
men, imagine how many women and children Israel slaughtered!
Is this hyperbole? No it isn’t. How do we know? Chapter 21.
In chapter 21, after the Israelites killed all of the Benjamite
men, except for the six hundred who escaped, and ruthlessly
slaughtered all of the women and children, they realized what
that meant: Uh-oh! “There must be heirs for the survivors of Ben-
jamin, in order that a tribe may not be blotted out from Israel”
(Judg 21:17). The tribe of Benjamin is going to be blotted out! It’s
not going to live on, because the few hundred remaining Benja-
mite men no longer have any wives or children to carry the tribe
forward. Big problem!
So the Israelites hatch a plan. Since they had vowed not to give
any of their own women to the Benjamites, they decided instead
to attack another Israelite town (one that, for some strange rea-
son, refused to participate in the massacre of their Benjamite
kinsmen that day), kill everybody in it, except for some virgins to
capture and give as wives to the surviving Benjamite soldiers.
And that’s what they did:
So the congregation sent twelve thousand soldiers
there and commanded them, “Go, put the inhabit-
ants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the
women and the little ones. This is what you shall
do; every male and every woman that has lain with
a male you shall devote to destruction [herem].”
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-
gilead four hundred young virgins who had never
slept with a man and brought them to the camp at
Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the
whole congregation sent word to the Benjamites
who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed
peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time; and
they gave them the women whom they had saved
alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead. (Judg 21:10-
14) ”
i know you guys love to teach this stuff in your churches because paul told you to teach it. he said all scripture is good to teach. no wonder you guy support all of israels terrorist attacks on palestine the ot inspires you guys .
Ric Kisam,
“The Quran is not a history book. It is a book of reminder. If one sought to find a historical context of certain verse in the Quran, he must consult to the science of the Asbāb al-nuzūl (أسباب النزول), “occasions/circumstances of revelation” which is based from the hadith, an eye-witness account of what the prophet did and said. You can not just re-read and construct your own conlusion. From earliest scholar of Asbāb al-nuzūl classical exegesis ‘Alī ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi, (d. 468/1075) It is clear, that verse 9:5 was a historical context-specific verse relating to the cleansing and purification of Mecca and its environs …”
“If you think you are more worthy than classical muslim scholars like Isma’il bin ‘Amr bin Kathir and ‘Alī ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi to understand the context than it is yours.”
Is there any way for any contemporary reader to pick up the Qur’an and have certainty of its meaning and context without relying on the conclusions of a particular scholar came to a thousand years ago? It seems to me that if God intended to reveal Himself in written form He would allow understanding through ordinary reading.
“…“turn thy cheek” stuff … is not practical these days. Name me any judicial system which use reward the aggressor to hit more to the victims ??”
Turning the other cheek was not a judicial guideline, it was the proper response in personal matters, which IS practical.
“Suicide kamikaze like terrorism –> Judges 16:30”
In Judges 16, Samson received no directive from God to die with his Philistine captors. That was Samson’s decision.
“Apartheid policy — > Numbers 25”
The Midianites were going to seduce Israel into apostasy, and “invited them to the sacrifices to their gods… Baal of Peor” (Numbers 25:1-3). There was no “apartheid policy”, there was only God’s judgment of evil deeds (not race or class).
How can you justify that a loving god killed 42,000 men just because someone mispronounce “sibboleth”??'”
After the Ammonites refused to cease their offensive against Israel, Judges 11:29 says “the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.” God was with Jephthah in the defeat of the Ammonites (v12). After that, we don’t read anywhere that Jephthah’s actions were commanded or condoned by God, including the rash promise he makes that cost him his daughter, and likely the later offensive against the Ephraimites in ch. 12. The pronunciation of “Shibboleth” was how the Gileadites identified the Ephraimites in disguise who tried to cross the captured ford.
“You havent deal with that. We have nothing like that in the Quran”
You still haven’t made a case that Biblical violence means anything significant. The Bible reports mankind’s violent history, and God has historically enacted righteous judgment on evil. The reality is that sin has consequences, and the Bible is a real account of sin’s effect on creation, its consequences, and its solution: Man’s redemption through Christ. As you say, “the Quran is not a history book”, so it’s no surprise that it contains less history, violent or otherwise.
“Now you divert the issue and talk politics.”
Politics that are motivated entirely by what we’re discussing, so it’s no diversion. It’s unreasonable to blame Christianity or the Bible for the actions of people who commit heinous crimes while claiming devotion to the Christian God. If Hitler claimed he was a Christian, his actions and ideology declared a hundred times clearer that he was a liar as well. So fails the rest of that line of reasoning from “Christian soldier raping and torturing women”, “Christian state terrorists” and “the United States (a majority christian nation).” You would no more condone the murders of al-Qaeda because they claim to act in Allah’s will, nor would you be ready to blame Islam for any of the violence in any Muslim-majority country. People can claim whatever affiliation they want if they feel it empowers them or legitimizes their cause.
“if you look into this matter closely it is not hard to see why Jesus in the Bible didn’t brought peace and he came to bring a sword. He sees himself as a jewish prophet preparing war against the wicked and sinner.”
If I look at the Bible closely, I see what it says. Jesus definitely brings peace, as numerous passages declare and the life and experience of true Christians affirm. You seem to be trying to connect one sword reference in the Gospels with any and every sword reference in the Old Testament to prop up some conclusion that just isn’t supported by what’s there. It’s true that Jesus declared war on sin and Satan, and has already won—but His message for repentant sinners who will accept Him alone on faith for salvation is and always was everlasting peace. In truth, Jesus brought both. Peace cannot come into a sinful world without also bringing turmoil, just as the sun cannot shine on a dark world without casting shadows. Conflict in the wake of peace is a logical necessity.
I have a few questions I am hoping you can answer relating to having peace before God.
The Qur’an requires, in addition to righteous deeds, “sincere repentance” for the forgiveness of your sins (25:72, 66:8). Ibn Hajar maintains that the most important definitions of sincere repentance (al-tawba al-nasuh) according to al-Qurtubi in his tafsir, include “to sin and then never return to it (Umar)”, to hate sin and seek forgiveness for it every time it occurs to one (Hasan al-Basri), “to be genuine and true in one’s repentance (Qatada)” and to have sincerity in one’s repentance, all of which seem to affirm what the Qur’an says.
How do you know your repentance is sincere enough? What standard or degree of repentence will earn forgiveness? What if we sin and return to it? What if we repent but don’t truly hate the sin? Or we miss a sin? And when we rely on our own sincerity in repentence, how do we repent of the sin of pride that comes from relying on our own sincerity to merit forgiveness, especially when the sincerity of the repentance is what is supposed to grant Allah’s forgiveness. We are then stuck in a never-ending circle of needing to repent the sin we committed during repentance.
What’s more, Sura 66:8 says “O you who have believed, repent to Allah with sincere repentance. Perhaps your Lord will remove from you your misdeeds…”. Allah doesn’t actually promise to forgive, but “perhaps” he will. 2:105 says, “But Allah selects for His mercy whom He wills…”, so he doesn’t promise he will apply his grace fully to all who repent, even if they meet the unkown marker of “enough” in their level of sincerity.
On the “righteous deeds” that the Qur’an requires in addition to sincere repentance (2:277, 5:9, 8:29, 25:70,71, 28:67, 42:26, etc.), how do you know your deeds are righteous enough in Allah’s sight? Sura 23:102-103 seems clear: “Then those whose balance (of good deeds) is heavy, they will be successful. But those whose balance is light, will be those who have lost their souls; in hell will they abide…” How “heavy” must our balance of good deeds be? Half? Greater than half? If “Allah will choose for his special mercy whom he will,” how can any Muslim know if his deeds, his adherence to the six pillars, etc. have warranted God’s mercy, even if they meet the target “weight” required by Allah?
Before a holy and righteous God, we are all in trouble. When God sent His Son Jesus to die a violent death, it was the only perfect sacrifice that could be made for the sin of ALL mankind. “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7) comes from the hope and promise of God that “by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8,9) Sinful man will always come up short before a holy and perfect God, but Christ’s payment is enough.
Peace. 🙂
Mansubzero… Wow, well this is a lot to wade through. I’ll try to address all your points, and I’m sure you’ll let me know if I miss something. 🙂
“god who is in control of death, gives death, CREATED DEATH, decided to take on death ?”
Right, except that God didn’t create death; He created life. Death is the absence of life.
“god CHOSE for a human to be human. a human did not ask god “please can you make me human”
Um… What alternative to that would you have preferred? God’s original good creation included human free will, freedom to make choices. Man chose to sin, which consequently incurs God’s wrath. What other ideal scenario did you have in mind? One where humans are given no freedom?
“GOD WATCHES DEATH everyday…WHY WOULD he watch himself die? what kind of god is this? what has the DEATH OF flesh god anything to do with gods SPIRIT which has POWER over everything?”
God became man because He took our place on that cross. God met us where we are, because we all know (or should know) that we can’t approach a holy and righteous God where He is. It was through the flesh of a human (Adam) that sin entered the world and it was through the flesh of Christ that He chose to relate to us, humans of flesh and blood, His payment for our sins in our place. (Rom. 5:12) Jesus was fully God and fully man.
“i think [Jesus] said 2 [swords] were enough because he thought only a few were going to arrest him”
A Jesus who knew He would be arrested in the garden that night but didn’t know how many would show up? An omniscient God who didn’t know the future is not the Jesus the Bible describes.
“they carried swords just to SELF FULLFILL a claim in the ot?”
Yes. Jesus fulfilled around 300 Old Testament prophesies.
“we don’t find jesus SAYING anything about putting SWORDS away in marks version and neither do we see a healing of the ear in marks version.”
Absence of details in one account doesn’t qualify as a contradiction or a false claim. If one account said that it was Mark who drew the sword, or that Peter wasn’t present in the garden, or the arrest took place in Capernaum, you might have something.
“i told you, jesus and SATAN agree that to DIVIDE and make a house FALL , you first cause problems between family members.”
Jesus and Satan agreed on a lot of things: that God is real, the Bible is true, that Jesus was Lord, that the cross would be Satan’s defeat, that Satan is destined for hell, that bread fills the stomach, that gravity works, that the sky is blue… When a person follows Christ and his family refuses to, inevitably there is division. You can’t shine a light without creating shadows; it’s a logically necessary state of affairs.
“he didn’t say his message was a message of peace”
Actually, the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) came “to guide our feet into the way of Peace.” (Luke 1:79) In fact, “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.” (Eph. 2:17)
“if a christian lady is being PERSECUTED by her neighbour she should 1. pray for her persecutor 2. turn her other cheek. the text does not say to run away from persecution or call for assistance but pray for the one who is persecuting. if she DID SELF defense WHERE is persecution ? where is turn the other cheek? the woman would NOT BE IN A STATE OF being persecuted.”
We are responsible for keeping all the commandments whenever humanly possible. This includes preserving the sanctity of human life. The idea of self-defense only comes into play when our life or health is in danger. Turning the other cheek in either a verbal offense or physical offense that does not truly threaten life or health preserves the sanctity of human life and the spirit of Christ’s teaching here, which is enduring personal offenses rather than taking revenge. Jesus indeed turned the other cheek when he was arrested and crucified. He is the ultimate example of this.
“legged it”
Ha, I like that. 🙂
“what did god give up to save you from himself? punishment means SUFFERING”
I don’t know why you would think that God did not truly suffer on trial and execution on earth. Jesus was fully God and fully man, able to feel every ounce of physical suffering the cross had to offer, but that was only a small part of it.
On top of human emotions, God has emotions, and Christ would have felt the pain of spiritual separation from His Father, which was necessary because Christ bore our sin on the cross, and God cannot fellowship with sin. The Father and Son were in fellowship since eternity past. Even a brief time of rejection would have been agonizing.
You may know the pain of having to forgive someone who hurt you. You basically relive the offense before you let it go. Christ’s omniscience would have allowed Him to relive every sin man had committed, past, present and future, against God. Since moral law is rooted in the nature of God, EVERY sin is a personal offense against God. I bet it hurt.
We have no idea what it was like to endure the physical rejection by man and the slow death by crucifixion, but we are nowhere close to fathoming the torment of separation from His Father and forgiveness of all sin that Christ endured for you.
Preoccupation with weighing the potential suffering of Christ against your estimation of human suffering is interesting to think about, but misses the point of the suffering. We are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27) so we yearn for justice just as He does, but there’s no way to expect our finite minds to come to a consensus on degree of suffering God should have to endure. Intense suffering on His part is undeniable; beyond that we are conjecturing. Realize that we have no other way to fundamentally define justice apart from God because all our moral thought is principally rooted in who God is.
I hope to get to your other comments soon. You’ve given me quite a load to look through. 🙂 Meanwhile, my final questions to Ric Kisam in my last response to him above is open for you as well (starting at “I have a few questions I am hoping you can answer relating to having peace before God.”).
Enjoy the rest of your Friday 🙂
Mansubzero, sorry I realized I still owed you a response on your comments.
“[Jesus] like the pharisees believed that innocent should get punished.”
The Bible doesn’t teach that the innocent are punished. Rather, it challenges those who think they are innocent with the truth that “No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19)
“any honest NON -christian can see that the teachings of the law TALK about having sincere heart and AVOIDING sin as much as you can and not to cheat people .”
The law has an important purpose: It shows us all that no one can actually keep it. Sincerity of heart in avoiding sin “as much as you can” is not keeping the law that God requires. Regardless of how well one knows the law, they still can’t keep it; that’s why we need Christ.
“the gospel writers are hiding jesus’ violent intent and doings because they must CHANGE A failed saviour who did not RESCUE israel from roman destruction INTO spiritual saviour.”
How small-minded the view of God is that expects that His greater mission and the mission of His followers would be rescue of the Jews from Roman rule they lived with in that time. What benefit would that be for anyone today if Christ’s salvation wasn’t spiritual? That was God’s plan all along; salvation for not only Jews, but the Gentiles, and all who believe, on to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6, prophesied 720 years before Christ).
“the scholar bart d ehrman says in his book forged that every single century christians have been awaiting thier returned jesus and the earliest fiddled with the texts to answer those who did not see returned jesus…Ehrman says 2 thessalonians was created by an unknown who claimed to be paul.the reason why it was created because it tried to explain why jesus did not return. 1 thessalonians assumed that the return of jesus was going to happen in pauls time, butit didn’t so thats why the 2nd thessalonians was created.”
Ehrman isn’t a very good “scholar” and his works have been well refuted…
http://www.apologetics315.com/2011/05/bart-ehrmans-new-testament-forgery.html
http://risenjesus.com/articles/52-review-of-forged
http://www.christianpost.com/news/is-the-new-testament-forged-49605/
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/07/book-review-of-bart-d-ehrman’s-forged-writing-in-the-name-of-god-why-the-bible’s-authors-are-not-who-we-think-they-are/
God’s judgment on the Amalekites, who were actually destroyed in stages (1 Sam. 15, 30, 1 Chr. 4:43) was justified. They were an unrepentant nation—God gave them over 300 years to repent of their past aggression, which included unprovoked attack on Israel you mentioned in Ex. 17/Deut 25, and later in Judges 3, often (numerous times) raiding Israel’s land and ravaged their new crops and livestock, leaving nothing left (Judges 6:2-5), and the Amalekites also raided and plundered other cities (1 Sam. 30:1-3). You try to give the Amalekites a secondary role in much of the aggression but I don’t think the text justifies that.
“what the Midianites and Amalekites were doing is portrayed by the author of Judges as a punishment against Israel directly from Yahweh…. these attacks against Israel’s crops and livestock were Yahweh-sanctioned punishments for Israel’s sins.”
God can bring good out of bad. The Midianites and Amalekites are responsible for their own aggression, and God used their sin to punish Israel for Israel’s sin. He didn’t produce the sin of Israel’s enemies in order to punish Israel.
Judges 21 reports what Israel did to preserve the tribe of Benjamin without breaking their rash promise to keep their daughters from the Benjaminites. No wonder, because “in those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges 21:25) The nation’s lack of leadership was reflected in their poor judgment. Also, you’ll notice God doesn’t give the instruction, so you can’t claim that God ordered this violence, or that it serves as an example for us today to follow.
“you have to understand that gospels are a cover up”
The Qur’an doesn’t speak of the Gospel of Jesus (Injil) as a cover up, but a true revelation from God sent for “guidance and light” (Sura 5:46). Likewise the Torah (Tawret) was sent for guidance and light, and God expects that the Scriptures would be protected and preserved (5:48). The scriptures were “granted inspiration”, and the people who possess them can attest to it (21:7). It’s actually under divine judgment that anyone who will “reject the Book” as the Qur’an warns in 40:70-72. Sura 10:94 bids us to ask those who read the Torah to confirm God’s revelation, and Sura 3:93 names the Torah as the book that “men of truth” study.
I understand that Islam teaches that the Torah, Psalms of David, and the Gospel were true in their original form but have been corrupted, at least where they contradict the Qur’an. My question for you is, when and how were these scriptures corrupted? The Qur’an was “revealed” between 610 and 632 AD. Since the Qur’an regards these scriptures as true, and “guarded in safety” (5:48), they obviously weren’t corrupted BEFORE the Qur’an was written. The Scriptures could not have been corrupted AFTER the Qur’an either, since by 600 AD, hundreds of thousands of copies were in circulation in Europe, Asia, Africa in many languages—Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and others. The Bible we use now is translated from these early manuscripts, of which we have whole and portions of scripture numbering over 24,000, all of which agree more than 99.5%. How could ALL these manuscripts circulating by 600 B.C. have been CONSISTENTLY altered so they reflect the same corruption that Muslims claim must have occurred?
There simply is no opportunity for the Biblical scriptures to have been corrupted. The Qur’an is correct in its claim that the Bible is the true revelation of God, the same Bible we have today.
is your god in flesh found in the ot?
here is a lengthy article in response to an athiest called richard carrier
http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/06/it-is-finished-for-richard-carriers-dying-messiah-part-2/
christians have to DESPERATELY fit jesus into ot passages which do not welcome jesus, but the suffering servant which was israel fits those passages perfectly.
“They were an unrepentant nation—God gave them over 300 years to repent of their past aggression,”
if your god had given them attention like he gave israel then maybe he could have helped them in getting to the point of repentance?
how were they to repent when your god didn’t even send them a guide /messenger/booklet?
where in the entire ot is there even one messenger who preaches to them that god wants to give thier land to the hebrews? god gave them over 300 years to repent? look @ what book of kings said about the hebrews,
” But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations Yahweh had destroyed before the Israelites. 10 Yahweh said through his servants the prophets: 11 “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.”
israel gets how many years to repent? 1000? 2000? look, your god compared the people to the pagan amorites.
solomon prostituted himself to idols and according to the ot this man was the wisest man ever to live (1 Kings 3:12) yhwh bent his own laws and didn’t apply his LAWS unto solomons flesh and let the “wise” man go UNPUNISHED. but the 3 persons were counciling each other to prevent thier wrath falling unto solomons flesh, surely the amalekite children, ignorant and learners could have been spared. yhwh just had to remind himself he split himself into 3 and the other 2 could keep his 1st person in company.
your god is hurt when we sin against him and i believe he could have had counciling from external source to help him control his wrath against the amalekites
counciling or thearpy could have been good.
” which included unprovoked attack on Israel you mentioned in Ex. 17/Deut 25, and later in Judges 3, often (numerous times) raiding Israel’s land and ravaged their new crops and livestock, leaving nothing left (Judges 6:2-5), ”
so? what is wrong with that? how does that unprovoked attack mean that they DID MORE evil THAN israel? post the verses man, not your christian claims.
1 Samuel 30:1 Then it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag, and had overthrown Ziklag and burned it with fire; 2 and they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great, without killing anyone, and carried them off and went their way. 3 When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive.
don’t you think that the pagans were more humane than the hebrews?
look , they DIDN’T kill anyone.
but we know what david did in the ot, don’t we?
hebrews steal land even though they were stiffed kneck ppl
“Deuteronomy 9:4 After Yahweh your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “Yahweh has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is going to drive them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations,
*****************
Yahweh your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
how did your god help the jews take possession of the land?
how did they go about with thier attacks?
Deuteronomy 20:16 However, in the cities of the nations Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them–the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites–as Yahweh your God has commanded you.
did these raiders /thieves compare to the amalekites?
did they?
“and the Amalekites also raided and plundered other cities (1 Sam. 30:1-3). You try to give the Amalekites a secondary role in much of the aggression but I don’t think the text justifies that.”
why don’t you just post the verse here 4 everyone to c and compare it to what israel did.
Deuteronomy 7:20 Moreover, Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.
so if a amalekite hid behind a tree a hornet would sound to alert the israelies.
Deuteronomy 7:16 You must destroy all the peoples Yahweh your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which Yahweh your God brought you out. Yahweh your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.
the amalekites criminal activities were what in compared to what the unrighteous and stiff knecked hebrews did?
yhwh scared that israels faith would be stolen
Deuteronomy 20:16 However, in the cities of the nations Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them–the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites–as Yahweh your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against Yahweh your God.
what is amalekites sins in comparison to the hebrews sins who were given more than 300 years of repentance?
2 Kings 17:18 So Yahweh was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, 19 and even Judah did not keep the ‘ commands of Yahweh their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced.
>2 Thus says YAHWEH of hosts, ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. >3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'” >4 So Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, and ten thousand soldiers of Judah. >5 Saul came to the city of the Amalekites and lay in wait in the valley. >6 Saul said to the Kenites,
“Go! Leave! Withdraw from among the Amalekites, or I will destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from the Amalekites.
1 What reason did verse 2 give for the command to
destroy the Amalekites?
2 What reason did verse 6 give for the safe
passage out of the city that Saul gave to the Kenites?
3 What language in the text gives any other reason for the massacre except the Amalekite attack on Israel 400 years earlier?
4 did yhwh realise that raiding and killing and pagan activities were secondary to the main reason?
Sorry, I of course meant “How could ALL these manuscripts circulating by 600 A.D. have been CONSISTENTLY altered…” near the end of last comment. Typed B.C. by mistake. 🙂
//Is there any way for any contemporary reader to pick up the Qur’an and have certainty of its meaning and context without relying on the conclusions of a particular scholar came to a thousand years ago?//
The Quran is the direct speech of God through prophet muhammad. Unlike to collection of books known as the Bible by various fallible human writings.
Then we have the hadith , by means of a statement of prophet Muhammad who received the revelation, as stated by the Qur’an itself which is is used as the basis for Quranic exegesis and Asbabun-Nuzul, the best manner of explaining that speech of God.
No one better understand the Quran than early scholars who has access and has studied, classified the authentic hadith the unbroken chain narration from the prophet himself . In Islamic tradition early scholars inherited the science Tafsir al-Qur’an (Qur’an Exegesis) which explains and discusses the 6000+ verses of the Qur’an its history, how it was revealed, the reasons that prompted revelations, how it was compiled, by whom and when, its preservation through the ages, the variations in its readings, the classification of verses and so forth.
This is an ironclad tradition which go back to classic texts in their original languages from the prophet himself.
I understand you dont have this tradition in the Bible, thats why we muslims consider the
Bible unreliable works due to the lack of preservation of chains of transmissions back to the time of Jesus (p) or the other previous prophets).
//“…“turn thy cheek” stuff … is not practical these days. Name me any judicial system which use reward the aggressor to hit more to the victims ??”
Turning the other cheek was not a judicial guideline, it was the proper response in personal matters, which IS practical.//
This is *your* interpretation, where is in the text says so? The fact is the Christian pacifist tend to support this as their guideline, This is *never* a practical thing.
//Suicide terrorism” –> Judges 16:30
Apartheid policy — > Numbers 25
God killed 42,000 men just because someone mispronounce “sibboleth”
You still haven’t made a case that Biblical violence means anything significant.//
Nothing significant??
The verses clearly contains absurd violence. Samson, Israel, Jephthah are all depicted as Gods people who like the early Muslims were blessed and protected by God from their enemy those who are sinner, blasphemous and idolatrous.
But unlike the Quran which offers nothing explicit to the believers other than general exhortations to defensive warfare in the name of God. Those passages in contrast expressly designed for incitements to violence and also to genocide!
Make your sense rather than ignore them as good vs evil.
Those passages not only a mere history but set an explicit example calling for genocide and absurd atrocities while the Qur’an calls for primarily defensive war
The books of Joshua and Judges set examples of brutal of militarism, enslavement, and race war. The Israelites, attacked Canaanite cities by God commands. they exterminates the inhabitants—men, women, children, and animals alike, until nothing is left alive.
Likewise in the Book of Samuel so absurd is god that he dislike King Saul as he failed to annihilate his enemies.
The prophet Samuel denounces him for sparing some of the Amalekites, takes up a sword, and personally hacks the captive King Agag to pieces.
More absurd is god , he hasn’t historically just enacted righteous judgment on evil but deliberately “hardens the hearts” of other peoples, using them to chastise the sinful Hebrews. Then He raises up Judges, righteous Israelites, to smite and destroy them in turn. It’s like a game death count…
I dont believe you seems to accept the fact that God Himself in this Bible history is committing genocide, killing everyone in the world except for the members of a single chosen family and dismissed other as a mere wicked without giving them a chance to heard the message of truth
What kind of god is that?
More to your response..
this is what i had said,
so god allowed death to infect innocent animals and children and then decided to infect himself with death? god who is in control of death, gives death, CREATED DEATH, decided to take on death ? so in your opinion god forsakes the unborn fetus because he himself allowed sin/death to infect people? a mother does not need to suffer, she can get married again. the company can find replacement and MERGE with other companies. kings can get removed and replaced by people.do people have more BRAINS than your god considering the fact that they can USE different OPTIONs. god CHOSE for a human to be human. a human did not ask god “please can you make me human”
so god INFECTS an UNBORN with death because he CHOSE to, right?
look at his response
“god CHOSE for a human to be human. a human did not ask god “please can you make me human”
“Um… What alternative to that would you have preferred? God’s original good creation included human free will, freedom to make choices. Man chose to sin, which consequently incurs God’s wrath. What other ideal scenario did you have in mind? One where humans are given no freedom?”
“God became man because He took our place on that cross. God met us where we are, because we all know (or should know) that we can’t approach a holy and righteous God where He is. ”
god became 100% god + 100% man because he took our place because the LAWS (his laws) said that we must be punished , so he uses his LAWS on his own FLESH lol?
was god MADE for the laws or did god make his flesh for the laws?
if 3 persons = god and not 1 person then HOW much of god met us?
what %? god had to meet us in flesh because his spirit didn’t have meeting capability?
he desperately needs his flesh like EARTHLY kings who need earthly flesh to answer the poor? is god dependant on flesh like the catholic god?
trust me mate ,a holy and righteous god don’t need flesh to connect with us. his mercy holds the heavens and earth together .
i don’t know what you know, i know i can APPROACH a holy and righteous god through REPENTANCE, SINCERITY , GUILT, SUFFERING AND PAIN. i know that one off sunday prayers don’t do the job but A CONTINUOUS PLEE to the almighty to GUIDE TO THE STRAING path and to ask Him to help me WALK the path.
don’t tell me that when solomon repented he burnt an animal and thought to himself that he was sacrificing yhwh in his mind or he thought that he was crucifying yhwhs flesh to yhwh. i didn’t ask your god to take anyones place with his created flesh. i don’t sit down and say to myself , ” good thing i didn’t get a beating, and now because i believe i didn’t get a beating and somebody else did, i will enjoy myself in heaven”
so you approach your god via his flesh and your god had no other way but to do DEEDS in the flesh? i would have saved your god just like his parents did when they took him to egypt. there is nothing HEROIC about your god creating his flesh and then pegging it to a cross.
“It was through the flesh of a human (Adam) that sin entered the world and it was through the flesh of Christ that He chose to relate to us, humans of flesh and blood, His payment for our sins in our place. (Rom. 5:12) Jesus was fully God and fully man.”
no it was god who knew that the flesh he created couldn’t handle TEMPTATION.god had to set everything up for fail, otherwise how would he kill himself?
so when the man bit gets the beating what did the god bit do? was it also EXPERIENCING torcher? man, if i had the POWER TO SWITCH roles in a matter of SECONDS i would go to my death everyday knowing that treasures in heaven await me.
WHERE DId THE LAW/PUNISHMENT LAW IN THE TORH SAY THAT IT IS APPLICABLE TO A HUMAN WHO CAN SWITCH ROLES? punishment is DESIGNED FOR weak and strong.
how does punishment apply to a superhuman being who can come out of punishment in a matter of seconds?
this would BREAK THE LAWS
what is pathetic is that 2 persons REMAIN fully functional
“On top of human emotions, God has emotions, and Christ would have felt the pain of spiritual separation from His Father,”
spiritual seperation? if each member in trinity has omnipotence and omniscience then where is the feeling of seperation? does your poor god feel like an abadoned child in the saharah desert? did the father watch the son abandon himself? but it was PART of the plan and all 3 members knew what abandonment felt like coz god/father created abandonment and knows it like the back of his hand, he obviosuly would APPLY it to people who will DWELL in hell. so what is big deal with your god? he has emotions and then would receive COUNCILING from the father to EASE him off. surely he didn’t lose a nail in his abandonement. the spirit, what was he doing? comforting jesus in location of abadonement or was he also turning against jesus? does god cry ? does he need therapy? jesus was disconnected but the father + spirit were conected and watching jesus . if i lose an arm atleaset i have 2 legs and another arm, why would god losing an arm matter in the trinity? it doesn’t cause malfunction or anything so what is the big deal
“You may know the pain of having to forgive someone who hurt you. You basically relive the offense before you let it go.”
some people like your god get a knife and cut themselves before they can forgive. the cutting is important for them so that they can cause themselves to say “your’re forgiven”
“Christ’s omniscience would have allowed Him to relive every sin man had committed, past, present and future, against God. Since moral law is rooted in the nature of God, EVERY sin is a personal offense against God. I bet it hurt. ”
lets see. those in the past and future couldn’t have seen god in meat/flesh. god in spirit saw past and future sins, sent his CREATED flesh , AND TOOK back intime past + future sins and sellotaped/platered them unto his CREATED body /flesh. god did to his flesh WHAT WAS in gods mind. all ppl in the future were unconcious of thier sins . so every cut on your gods flesh , cooled him off/his father off because it was forseeing NOT AN actual sin in ACTION, but what was played in gods mind. god then, later in the future, creates hitler, and SEES hitler carry out the sins god died for. what is this nonsense “christs oniscines…” where did the omnipotence disappear? did it go off for a walk ? why do you strip your god from his powers? you are making him incapacitated in other attributes.
“We have no idea what it was like to endure the physical rejection by man and the slow death by crucifixion, but we are nowhere close to fathoming the torment of separation from His Father and forgiveness of all sin that Christ endured for you.”
so how was the fully god part involved in experiencing torment/suffering and pain?
you have 2 members who were fully functional and watching the son tormetting himself or in human terms god the 2 persons watched god the 1 person pour boiling water over himself . god the flesh person was locked in seperation chamber while god the spirit was omnipresent and in every location along with the 2 other persons.YOU must divide your god to get results.
jesus = 100 % human
human = mind , body spirit
god , according to you = 3 spirits/persons+ 100% HUMAN jesus
1 spirit is not 100 % god
so jesus has 1 spirit filling him . how much god was that 1 spirit?
jesus the human is STUCK in his flesh, while the 3 can work in and out of jesus’ flesh.
jesus the human has his flesh mauled, but god the fater who can destroy both soul and flesh DID NOT DESTROY the spirit of the son, because the son HAS what the father has lol
jesus “SUFFERING” is nothing in comarison to those whould would have both thier flesh and soul destroyed in hell. jesus’ punishment COULD not be equivalent to even 1 person who woud suffer an eterniy in hell
what is the big deal in god wearin flesh?
//People can claim whatever affiliation they want if they feel it empowers them or legitimizes their cause.//
Exactly, it was you who suggest that Muslims who did violent action inspired by the Quran is more significant than Christians did likewise. It is not.
It is equally not true that the Bible teaches peace and the Quran war. Only if one approach the books selectively, taking the gentlest of Christian teachings and setting them against the harshest of the Quran. The fact is the Bible contains far more significant incitements not just to violence but also to genocide as a central element of the text than the Quran.
//“if you look into this matter closely it is not hard to see why Jesus in the Bible didn’t brought peace and he came to bring a sword. He sees himself as a jewish prophet preparing war against the wicked and sinner.”
If I look at the Bible closely, I see what it says. Jesus definitely brings peace, as numerous passages declare and the life and experience of true Christians affirm. You seem to be trying to connect one sword reference in the Gospels with any and every sword reference in the Old Testament to prop up some conclusion that just isn’t supported by what’s there//
Sorry, the NT text clearly mean what it says that Jesus didn’t brought peace. Jesus had also prepared for the armed rebellion against Roma, he wanted to restore God kingdom on earth. Jesus equipped his followers with swords in anticipation of trouble. (Lk 22:36-38) and at least one of Jesus’ supporters scuffled with the Temple police to aid in resisting Jesus’ arrest. (Mk 14:47). The manner in which Jesus entered Jerusalem was that of a Jewish king who claimed the throne. He thought he was King of the Jews and in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. The people greet Jesus with strewn palms and cries of “Hosanna!” the cry of Jewish people independence.
Jesus knew his actions and so did Pontius Pilate. He questions Jesus , “Are you the King of the Jews?” to which Jesus answer is yes because of leading this armed rebellion which brought him crucified ( thus were saved to heaven by God Q 4:157-158), God plan was then final messenger the Prophet Muhammad who is successfully started Kingdom of God on earth through Caliphate.
//“…“turn thy cheek” stuff … is not practical these days. Name me any judicial system which use reward the aggressor to hit more to the victims ??”
peace brother
ofcourse it is practical today brother. you know how? christians go to muslim coutries and tell them to turn thy cheek, then christian presidents drop BOMBS on them. see how it works bro? how do these people divide a people? they tell them to OBSORB persecution while at the same time they wear seat belts, carry guns, learn self denfense, learn how to bomb a muslim country etc.
earthly DESPOTS LOVE to tell people to turn thier cheeks
it helps thier business and sales.
jesus = human. so lets break down jesus the human . we all agree that jesus’ brain and body and all internal organs were CREATED, right? all flesh = CREATED by god, right?
jesus ALSO has a human spirit, right? i have a human spirit and if my flesh dies, my spirit is NOT OMNIPRESENT. do we all agree?
i think our christian apologist friend is in a bit of confusion. i told him that jesus and the pharisees agree that INNOCENT should BE punished/made to suffer. ot is packed with INNOCENT humans flesh being punished for the crimes of others. one easy example is the hundreds and thousands of innocent offspring from the CANAANITE nations. just an ATTACK on a small village would be enough to make my argument. jesus and pharisees agree with each other that innocent should take punishment in place of the sinful and guilty.
sam shamoun believes that each memeber in trinity is making love between them and that there is loving communion. what i find interesting is that thier is self abuse /domestic violence within the trinity. the romans could destroy jesus’ flesh, but his person was untouchable. the one who could have touched his person was the father. the romans were a trigger and the father was the giver. what i mean is that the father INFLATES his own created punishment . in trinitarian terms that would be 1 person asking to be self abused. so if jesus became rapist and raped on the cross past , present and future, the father was involved in heaping the punishment on him. you can’t do past present future unless you direct your powers unto yourself.
who killed jesus? not the romans , but the father. here is definition of self abuse
“abuse of one’s health.”
god in trinity used his powers to abuse himself .
2 members were WATCHING while the 2nd one was recieving
and the second one agreed to do his + fathers will and that is use the powers unto his soul/flesh.
the cross is not the symbol of love but the symbol of self abuse.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//How do you know your repentance is sincere enough? What standard or degree of repentence will earn forgiveness? What if we sin and return to it? What if we repent but don’t truly hate the sin? Or we miss a sin? And when we rely on our own sincerity in repentence, how do we repent of the sin of pride that comes from relying on our own sincerity to merit forgiveness, especially when the sincerity of the repentance is what is supposed to grant Allah’s forgiveness. We are then stuck in a never-ending circle of needing to repent the sin we committed during repentance.//
This is one of the argument Christian used against muslims that yours can receive grace, or salvation, and go to heaven just through faith, not by works or deeds rite??
Well this is the fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. While (innovated pauline) Christianity in fact preaches grace through unjust shedding of blood, Islam’s grace is given just as it was in Jesus teaching and in the Old Testament, through tawbah, or repentance. God simply, powerfully, ‘removes our sin as far as the east is from the west’, and ‘casts our iniquity into the depths of the sea and remembers it no more’, if we simply and sincerely repent. He does not require the bloody slaughter of an innocent victim, and that is one of the most beautiful things about Islam.
The true teaching of Jesus for instance in Mark 10 it is obvious that this lesson is about the free forgiveness of God towards repentant sinners. That there is no need for a human sacrifice to forgive our sins (nor the blasphemous version of God need to killl himself).
Here’s another conversation from Mark 10
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother’
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
So the man could achieve salvation without Jesus dying for his sins.
Thats Jesus own words, again you dont seems to follow him either, weird!
Jesus teaches what Islam teaches that human nature are born sinless and as basically good and yet with an evil inclination that has continually to be resisted. It is not for us to measure whether our repentance has been forgiven or does it miss a sin, it is God’s domain and in Islam, thanks God, Alhamdulillah, we know He is Arrahman Arrahiim-the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful and He is aware of our finitude and weakness, and is always ready to forgive the truly penitent in full. It is not just like a simple tallying of good deeds and bad deeds because God know people hearts, God know what is our depest intention, He is the best Judge. Im pity if someone doubt the ability that God can measure our built-in holiness (as opposed to sinner tendency) and thus required sacrifice for an atoning death to enable God to forgive sin in a exact manner (like a sin-accounting system).
This is a revengeful God.
“//How do you know your repentance is sincere enough? What standard or degree of repentence will earn forgiveness? What if we sin and return to it? What if we repent but don’t truly hate the sin? Or we miss a sin? And when we rely on our own sincerity in repentence, how do we repent of the sin of pride that comes from relying on our own sincerity to merit forgiveness, especially when the sincerity of the repentance is what is supposed to grant Allah’s forgiveness. We are then stuck in a never-ending circle of needing to repent the sin we committed during repentance.//”
this typical christian claim u have parroted needs no answer , because if you GAVE ISLAM a chance ,an answer would automatically come in your head
in islam man is to CONTINUALLY ask the almighty to help him WALK the straight path. in a hadeeth it says something like
“worship God as if u c Him, and if u do not see Him then KNOW that he SEES you”
islam says that it is God who makes the spiritual change and causes tauwfeeq to settle in the heart and in other words something like Gods “holy spirit” which is CONTROLED and created by the almighty.
man is coverted to do ONLY right and with Gods help to walk the path he continues to do right.
you really think that he who gave the brain, emotions and desires said that he wanted 100 percent perfection? he knows that children are born in enviroments where sin is rampant. he knows that ILLNESS/DESEASES would create that same brain to WEAKEN. justice would demand that he takes ALL this into account. justice would demand that he, the authour of the brain, would know that the brain/person would slip again and again.
this whole bs of yours of “how do we know ” should be for a muslim “it is better YOU DO not know” YOU WILL KNOW know DOJ.
no WHERE DID ISLAM SAY GOD WANTS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION AND THAT HEAVEN IS FOR PERFECT BEINGS ONLY
christians have the “holy ghost ” god filling them, yet they SIN IN thought and action and boast that they are guaranteed heaven. the qur’aan says that if you think your’re guaranteed heaven, why is it then you want to CONTINUE in this world of SIN, why don’t you ask for death? no, you wish you could stay here for a thousand years.
this is how i see the verse.
but christians have the filling from the “holy ghosT” god and theY STILL check out the sexy christian girl with all her stuff spilling out i.e clevage and all
christian girls think they have the holy ghost, no wonder they like to expose themselves .
a muslim wrote
“yup, we will know only on the Day of Judgement. That is the whole point of creating moral tension in man so that he/she dwells between hope and fear (as opposed to jude’s certitude of salvation..). This moral tension has a positive bearing on life in that it propels us to always be proactive in doing good (for we never know if enough is enough) while at the same time it allows us to indulge a bit in the world (since God loves us)… ”
you can imagine your god wearing flesh and then getting it beaten the hell out of 1 millions times in your brain. you can picturize your gods sacrifice to himself and you can depend on 4*4 planks of would and make your quick SUNDAY prayers and deceive yourself in thinking that your relationship is FIXED with god.
while u have your sunday fixes muslims have relationship with god in EVERY activity they do. remember the narration
…if u do not c him then know he sees you.
bible
“if you do not do good, sin crouches at the entrance. Its desire is for you, but you can rule over it.”
this is from your ot god. DID your god think about % and “how much” when he made that statement in gen 4:7? did he? did he say if you only rule over it 99% and 1 percent remains then you cannot rule over it? did he say that ?
//How do you know your repentance is sincere enough? What standard or degree of repentence will earn forgiveness? What if we sin and return to it? What if we repent but don’t truly hate the sin? Or we miss a sin? And when we rely on our own sincerity in repentence, how do we repent of the sin of pride that comes from relying on our own sincerity to merit forgiveness, especially when the sincerity of the repentance is what is supposed to grant Allah’s forgiveness. We are then stuck in a never-ending circle of needing to repent the sin we committed during repentance.//
man u have such a pathetic image of the human that you portray it as shit with legs and arms.you make urself redundant and seek the works of a god who had his flesh handed to him. i bet if the christian diety judged every one by an a-level /g.c.s.e exam and everyone FAILED , he would come down and take it himself to make himself happy and then u guys can go out and say ” alvel/gcse fullfiled , no need to take them” “we’re gonna shine gods results in his face”
KEEP your gods deeds, i’ll WORK my way to the destination.
//ofcourse it is practical today brother. you know how? christians go to muslim coutries and tell them to turn thy cheek, then christian presidents drop BOMBS on them. see how it works bro? how do these people divide a people? they tell them to OBSORB persecution while at the same time they wear seat belts, carry guns, learn self denfense, learn how to bomb a muslim country etc.
earthly DESPOTS LOVE to tell people to turn thier cheeks
it helps thier business and sales.//
Br. mansubzero,
Lol, i know u r being ironic but thats sadly true.
I am from a country who had been long enough (350 yrs) being colonialized by a Christian European country. Yeah the turn to other cheeks slogan is just a marketing tools to lure people to embrace paganism. Wolf in sheep clothing.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//My question for you is, when and how were these scriptures corrupted? The Qur’an was “revealed” between 610 and 632 AD. Since the Qur’an regards these scriptures as true, and “guarded in safety” (5:48), they obviously weren’t corrupted BEFORE the Qur’an was written. The Scriptures could not have been corrupted AFTER the Qur’an either, since by 600 AD, hundreds of thousands of copies were in circulation in Europe, Asia, Africa in many languages—Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and others. The Bible we use now is translated from these early manuscripts, of which we have whole and portions of scripture numbering over 24,000, all of which agree more than 99.5%. How could ALL these manuscripts circulating by 600 B.C. have been CONSISTENTLY altered so they reflect the same corruption that Muslims claim must have occurred?
There simply is no opportunity for the Biblical scriptures to have been corrupted. The Qur’an is correct in its claim that the Bible is the true revelation of God, the same Bible we have today.//
I’ll dealt with the 99.5% consistency claim later.
But the Quran CLEARLY said that the Bible has been corrupted.
أَوَلَا يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا يُسِرُّونَ وَمَا يُعْلِنُونَ
وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا أَمَانِيَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ
فَوَيْلٌ لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَٰذَا مِنْ عِندِ اللَّهِ لِيَشْتَرُوا بِهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا ۖ فَوَيْلٌ لَّهُم مِّمَّا كَتَبَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَوَيْلٌ لَّهُم مِّمَّا يَكْسِبُونَ
“Know they not Allah Knoweth what they conceal and what they reveal? And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture. Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say: ‘This is from Allah,’ to traffic with it for a miserable price! Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.”
(The Noble Qur’an, 2:77-79)
Can anything any clearer than that??
I challenge you to find anything clear that Jesus is God and that people should worship him in your book for example, i bet you will come up with some twisting and interpolating to come to term with the theology. But the Quran is very clear in claiming the Book (Christian call the Bible) was corrupted by men!
Btw the “Book” the Quran refers to is original previous revelation God sent to Jesus. The Quran talks about the Gospel of Jesus (p).
Are the 4 Gospels told or narrated or written by Jesus(p) him self? No they are not. They are the product of some unknowns writers, the credbility is even less than the hadith in Islamic tradition.
Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) said:
Narrated Ubaidullah: “Ibn ‘Abbas said, ‘Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Quran) which has been revealed to Allah’s Apostle (Prophet Muhammad) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, undistorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”( Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 92, Number 461)
The Qur’an clearly says there are of those: who write the Book with their own hands: لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ lilladhīna yaktubūna l-kitāba bi-aydīhim
and then say: ‘This is from Allah,” ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَٰذَا مِنْ عِندِ اللَّهِ thumma yaqūlūna hādhā min ʿindi l-lahi
Yes, Gods word never changed and the Qur’an talks about the true scriptures that God has sent to the prophets before Muhammad (pbuh), not the corrupted Bible.
God sent the Quran as the “The Divine Quality Control” over previous scriptures ( as in Surah 5:46-48). This in order to filter the falsehood in the what remain in current Gospels which are supposed to be “inspired” by Jesus(pbuh) and God.
Refer to the following link for more detail http://bit.ly/PLD2YX
Ric,
“The Quran is the direct speech of God through prophet muhammad…No one better understand the Quran than early scholars who has access and has studied, classified the authentic hadith the unbroken chain narration from the prophet himself… we muslims consider the Bible unreliable works due to the lack of preservation of chains of transmissions back to the time of Jesus (p) or the other previous prophets).”
There are major problems that come with putting confidence in the reliability of the Quran. One is that you are relying very heavily on early scholars to render meaning. You aren’t in a position to simply read it and understand it. The bigger problem is, that even if you did claim to read and understand it, we don’t have any way of knowing the Qur’an in print now is true to the original writings of Muhammad.
Even during and shortly after the life of Muhammed there is record of Quranic corruption, as some verses were reportedly eaten by a goat, and strong testimony that significant original portions were lost. Uthman later revised and burned earlier copies of the Qur’an. Muhammad’s chosen teachers of the Qur’an disagreed with Uthman’s version, which was then revised somewhat by Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf Al-Thakafi. Throughout it’s early history, the official Qur’an was under the control of the khalifa, so the lack of earlier or proliferated copies of the Qur’an makes it impossible to verify that there were no alterations or errors that entered into the text, or that it’s even complete.
Contrast that to the New Testament manuscripts, which were NOT under the control of one person but were scattered over 3 continents by Muhammad’s time. All of the copies we have (tens of thousands) uniformly agree, which negates the possibility of uniform corruption.
Since the Qur’an regards the Torah and the Gospels as true (3:93), divinely inspired (21:7) given to us for guidance and light (5:46,48), revelatory (10:94), and to be rejected under penalty of eternal punishment (40:70-72), the Bible, at least the Tawret and Injil, obviously were corrupted by Muhammad’s time, according to Allah. The fact that there were certainly tens of thousands, most likely hundreds of thousands, of congruent NT copies in circulation at the time makes it impossible that any corruption occurred later than Muhammad.
We can’t prove that the Qur’an was corrupt, but considering the number of revisions and reports of lost content with no way to make textual comparisons with other copies, it’s extremely likely that the Qur’an has changed quite a bit since Muhammad. The early church’s chain of transmitting Scripture was sound, and what’s more, we can verify that by comparing tens of thousands of very early (dating as old as the 1st century) manuscripts that overwhelmingly agree. And on a smaller scale we see the same type of verification of the the Old Testament with the discovery of the Qumram scrolls, which date as early as 400 B.C.. Since the basis of your claims depends on the reliability of the Qur’an, and the Qur’an bids you to trust the Torah and the Gospels, it may be best for you to address this fundamental problem before critiquing the Torah and the Gospels.
Turning the other cheek was not a judicial guideline, it was the proper response in personal matters, which IS practical.//
This is *your* interpretation [of Matt. 5:39, turning the other cheek], where is in the text says so? The fact is the Christian pacifist tend to support this as their guideline, This is *never* a practical thing.”
It’s always practical in personal ethics to show restraint and withhold vengeance. We know from the greater context of this passage that Jesus was not suggesting we don’t prosecute criminals. The entire Sermon on the Mount where this verse is found was dealing with personal ethics. It was a correction of errors in teaching of the scribes and Pharisees who loved to say “do and do not” (Matt. 23:3) It was in fact the Pharisees that thought “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” which God intended for civil government ( Ex. 21:24; Deut. 19:21; Lev. 24:20) should apply to personal matters, which was wrong. Personal vengeance isn’t our duty (Deut. 32:35; Romans 12:19) and civil offenses is to be dealt with through civil law (Rom. 13:4). In the wider context of what Christ taught, it should be obvious that complete passivity didn’t apply to matters of self-defense, and protecting others from physical harm and wrong-doing (John 2:15, 18:36, Luke 3:14). The even wider context of Scripture as a whole affirms this as well (Ex. 22:2-3, Acts 25:11). This comes from reading the Bible rather thanr eading into it.
“The [Bible] clearly contains absurd violence. Samson, Israel, Jephthah are all depicted as Gods people who like the early Muslims were blessed and protected by God from their enemy those who are sinner, blasphemous and idolatrous.”
After Genesis 3, there were no truly good people for God to use for His good work.
“More absurd is god , he hasn’t historically just enacted righteous judgment on evil but deliberately “hardens the hearts” of other peoples, using them to chastise the sinful Hebrews.”
God did harden Pharaoh’s heart, and as Creator He has that right. God is in control of all things, but also gives man free will. God said He will harden Pharaoh’s heart in Ex. 7:3, 9:12 and 10:1, but then we read that Pharaoh and others hardened their own hearts in Ex. 8:17, 32, 9:34, 1 Sam. 6:6, and Prov. 28:14.
“I dont believe you seems to accept the fact that God Himself in this Bible history is committing genocide, killing everyone in the world except for the members of a single chosen family and dismissed other as a mere wicked without giving them a chance to heard the message of truth”
You are presupposing the God of the Qur’an, which we really can’t know is trustworthy. The God of the Torah (which the Qur’an regards as truth, guidance and light) is Creator and Author of life and as such has the right to give and take life. He is just in His reasoning and righteous in His judgment of sin (1 Thess. 1:6) because we have no way to define good apart from God. God not only judges actions but judges the hidden actions of the heart (1 Sam. 16:7, Jer. 17:10), and we have no way of knowing the entirety of rebellious hearts and actions of people in past history, however God does and judges accordingly. What you do not know, God does. The people of Noah’s time had 120 years to heed the warnings (Gen. 6:3), and the doors of the ark were wide open until the rain fell (Gen. 7:16). The ark was the opportunity of salvation in Noah’s day.
“It is equally not true that the Bible teaches peace and the Quran war. Only if one approach the books selectively, taking the gentlest of Christian teachings and setting them against the harshest of the Quran. The fact is the Bible contains far more significant incitements not just to violence but also to genocide as a central element of the text than the Quran.”
I’ve admitted that the Bible is violent and probably contains more violence than the Qur’an—for one, it has more PAGES than the Qur’an, and it records far more history than the Qur’an. As you’ve said, the Qur’an is not a book of history, and we can’t really determine context without the help of the earlier Muslim scholars anyway—which may be why many who read the Qur’an are unable to determine context and take certain verses to mean prescriptive violence. I still maintain that “there are no Biblical passages that call Christians or anyone else to violence,” and you haven’t shown otherwise. On the other hand, I think I’ve demonstrated that we can’t even know if the Qur’an we have now resembles the original, so what is the point in comparing violent content?
“God simply, powerfully, ‘removes our sin as far as the east is from the west’, and ‘casts our iniquity into the depths of the sea and remembers it no more’, if we simply and sincerely repent.”
But repentance is not as simple as you suggest. What about the pride inherent in the expectation that your repentance warrants God’s favor? Pride is sin, and on Islam you can’t repent it without the sin of pride. That’s why Christ’s sacrifice must cover ALL sin. Salvation is by faith alone, not of works.
“ “…One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
So the man could achieve salvation without Jesus dying for his sins.”
You stopped short here.The verses that follow (vs 22-27): “At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
The rich man went away dissappointed because he knew his sin wouldn’t allow him to give up his riches. If man could be perfect and righteous, then yes, we COULD achieve salvation. The truth is that we can’t. Jesus then says, “With man this is IMPOSSIBLE, but not with GOD.” Only God can provide the means for salvation, and they were talked to the Means, Jesus Christ.
“It is not for us to measure whether our repentance has been forgiven or does it miss a sin, it is God’s domain and in Islam…”
When a judge punishes certain sins and doesn’t punish other sins, that is what is known as a crooked judge. How can we hold God to such a low standard?
“God know what is our deepest intention, He is the best Judge.”
True! And you and I know what lies in our hearts. “No one is good—except God alone.”
I want to thank you for the discussion thus far, I have learned quite a bit. I’ll get to your further responses soon.
Ric,
“But the Quran CLEARLY said that the Bible has been corrupted.
…
“Know they not Allah Knoweth what they conceal and what they reveal? And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture. Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say: ‘This is from Allah,’ to traffic with it for a miserable price! Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.” (The Noble Qur’an, 2:77-79)”
That’s clear? Your answer actually creates more questions and problems with your conclusion. Does it make sense to let this one unclear verse guide the interpretation of the other verses that clearly regard the Torah and Gospels (i.e. 2:121, 5:46-48, 10:94), rather than allowing the many to guide the interpretation of 2:77-79? That’s a backwards approach. If the Torah and Gospels were corrupt, what sort of value would they have for guidance and light, truthfulness, and verification? Wouldn’t the previous revelations had to have been known in order to determine that they had been altered? And, clearly, if “they” are “illiterate” and “know not the Book”, how on earth would they able to alter it anyway?
Muslim commentators on Q 2:75-79 say that it was the Jews who corrupted their own Torah (http://www.islamworld.net/docs/torah.html) and not Christians and the Gospels, nor would they have been able to alter the Hebrew scriptures that would have been in possession of the Christians. (http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=355&Itemid=36). In addition to New Testament copies, there would have been many copies of the Hebrew Bible in circulation by this time also, and uniform alterations would not even be remotely possible.
At any rate, 2:77-79 does not say anything about altering text, it says “woe to those who write the Book with their own hands.” It’s apparently speaking of a new book someone tried to pass off as inspired revelation (which Rev. 18:22 warns against).
“I challenge you to find anything clear that Jesus is God and that people should worship him…”
“For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18)
” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)
“‘I and the Father are one.’ Again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?’ ‘We are not stoning You for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because You, a mere man, claim to be God’” (John 10:30-33)
“‘Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:61–62)
“Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:28)
“Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
this is all confusing . what do you mean christ DIED for your sins? lets say that i saw a nice looking girl and i couldnt get her out of my mind because of my MEMORY. I am sure i didn’t give myself a memory. so because of my MEMORY, i had a sexual thought about this girl. so how did your god or his 2nd person die for this? did christ have SEXUAL thought on the cross?i guess if he had to learn and get tempted , then god in 2nd person DID experience sexual thought. did my thought in 2012 jump all the way back to 0000? was i CONCIOUS of my thought in 0000? i forgot ,i didn’t exist then. so did god EXPERIENCE on the cross what i experienced in 2012? did god ,with his powers, PUSH my sin back and plaster it on to christs flesh? did i tell god to do this? did i say , “make him bleed for my sin in 2012”
did i say “make his flesh take the drubbing, i will like a coward hide under the skirt of krist , and praise god and say , i am happy i didn’t get the beating and now will await the pleasures of heaven ”
did god like the pagan way of throwing flesh in fire for others sins? the pagan way existed in different parts of the world before jesus existed. is your request to your god , every sundays, “i have too much pride in my repentance, you know i cannot rise above pride, please do not hold this sin against me, you killed yourself because u know all my deeds are like womans menstrual blood on a cloth”
depending on 4×4 planks of wood only INCREASES ur sins . all u got to do to avoid gods wrath is to shine his fleshly deeds to himself .
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired enemy.
“Who is this that comes from Edom,
from Bozrah in garments stained crimson?
Who is this so splendidly robed,
marching in his great might?”
“It is I, announcing vindication,
mighty to save.”
“Why are your robes red,
your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?”
“I have trodden the wine press alone,
and from the peoples no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger
and trampled them in my wrath;
their juice spattered on my garments,
and stained all my robes.
For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and the year for my redeeming work had come.
I looked, but there was no helper;
I stared, but there was no one to sustain me;
so my own arm brought me victory,
and my wrath sustained me.
I trampled down peoples in my anger,
I crushed them in my wrath,
and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations,
and furious against all their hordes;
he has doomed them,
has given them over for slaughter.
Their slain shall be cast out,
and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
the mountains shall flow with their blood.
All the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall wither
like a leaf withering on a vine,
or fruit withering on a fig tree.
When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
lo, it will descend upon Edom,
upon the people I have doomed to judgment.
Yahweh has a sword; it is sated with blood,
it is gorged with fat . . .
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
and their soil made rich with fat.
Accursed is the one who is slack in doing the work
of Yahweh; and accursed is the one who keeps
back the sword from bloodshed.
The righteous will rejoice
when they see vengeance done;
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
I will dash them one against another, even the fa-
thers and the sons together, says Yahweh: I will not
pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them . .
. I shall make them eat the flesh of their sons and
the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one
another’s flesh in the siege.
You are my war-club, my weapon of battle: . . .
with you I smash man and woman;
with you I smash the old man and the boy;
with you I smash the young man and the girl.
LOOK at these words from the ot and ask yourself the following question
how is it possible that god created his flesh and then gotten it beaten up ?
“and the Amalekites also raided and plundered other cities (1 Sam. 30:1-3). You try to give the Amalekites a secondary role in much of the aggression but I don’t think the text justifies that”
do you actually read the bible?
David’s Victory over the Amalekites
1Then it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag, and had overthrown Ziklag and burned it with fire; 2and they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great, without killing anyone, and carried them off and went their way. 3When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. 4Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep. 5Now David’s two wives had been taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite. 6Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
7Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Please bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 8David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this band? Shall I overtake them?” And He said to him, “Pursue, for you will surely overtake them, and you will surely rescue all.” 9So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the brook Besor, where those left behind remained. 10But David pursued, he and four hundred men, for two hundred who were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor remained behind.
11Now they found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David, and gave him bread and he ate, and they provided him water to drink. 12They gave him a piece of fig cake and two clusters of raisins, and he ate; then his spirit revived. For he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights. 13David said to him, “To whom do you belong? And where are you from?” And he said, “I am a young man of Egypt, a servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me behind when I fell sick three days ago. 14“We made a raid on the Negev of the Cherethites, and on that which belongs to Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag with fire.” 15Then David said to him, “Will you bring me down to this band?” And he said, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring you down to this band.”
16When he had brought him down, behold, they were spread over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing because of all the great spoil that they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. 17David slaughtered them from the twilight until the evening of the next day; and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled. 18So David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and rescued his two wives. 19But nothing of theirs was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that they had taken for themselves; David brought it all back. 20So David had captured all the sheep and the cattle which the people drove ahead of the other livestock, and they said, “This is David’s spoil.”
The Spoils Are Divided
21When David came to the two hundred men who were too exhausted to follow David, who had also been left at the brook Besor, and they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him, then David approached the people and greeted them. 22Then all the wicked and worthless men among those who went with David said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except to every man his wife and his children, that they may lead them away and depart.” 23Then David said, “You must not do so, my brothers, with what the LORD has given us, who has kept us and delivered into our hand the band that came against us. 24“And who will listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike.” 25So it has been from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day.
26Now when David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the spoil to the elders of Judah, to his friends, saying, “Behold, a gift for you from the spoil of the enemies of the LORD: 27to those who were in Bethel, and to those who were in Ramoth of the Negev, and to those who were in Jattir, 28and to those who were in Aroer, and to those who were in Siphmoth, and to those who were in Eshtemoa, 29and to those who were in Racal, and to those who were in the cities of the Jerahmeelites, and to those who were in the cities of the Kenites, 30and to those who were in Hormah, and to those who were in Bor-ashan, and to those who were in Athach, 31and to those who were in Hebron, and to all the places where David himself and his men were accustomed to go.”
seriously, do you actually read the bible?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//At any rate, 2:77-79 does not say anything about altering text, it says “woe to those who write the Book with their own hands.” It’s apparently speaking of a new book someone tried to pass off as inspired revelation (which Rev. 18:22 warns against//
Let me make this one clear for you, as it seems you parroting anti-islam missionary claims: Do not think that Islam teaches that there once was an original Bible and then the Bible got corrupted. This is not what Islam teaches.
Muslims don’t believe that there was an original book of Philippians or Corinthians etc, which then later on got corrupted. We don’t even believe that these books are divine in the first place.
What muslims believe is that parts of the original revelations sent down to Moses (Torah) and Jesus (Gospel) peace be upon them both still exist in the Bible today. We believe that people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them thats what the Quran speaks about.
This claim of textual corruption is understood by the prophet himself as well as his companions so muslims dont just make up this claim later on as we have some evidences not only from the Qur’an but also from the Statements of the Prophet Muhammad himself, from the statements of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad and from The Statements of The Muslim Scholars.
You can read more in detail here:
http://bitly.com/T4y8Uc
The Quran is correct, no credible Biblical scholar today will claim that the collection of wrtings known as the Bible was written or authorized by Jesus himself. They all agree that the Bible was written centuries after the departure of Jesus by unknown writers and they made many mistakes and changed the text.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//“For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18)//
On the contrary, this verse records that Jesus was saying that God was his father, not that he was himself God , it emphasis Jesus’ authority came from the fact that he was the Son of God (in Islam we read this as his messenger), not God Himself.
The concept of people being “equal” is found in several places in the Bible. For example, when Joseph was ruling Egypt under Pharaoh, Judah said to him, “You are equal to Pharaoh himself” (Gen. 44:18). Jesus was using God’s power and authority on earth, and was thus “equal” to God in the same way Joseph, who was using Pharaoh’s authority and power, was equal to Pharaoh.
//“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)//
Saying “I am” does not make a person God. The man born blind that Jesus healed was not claiming to be God, and he said “I am the man,” and the Greek reads exactly like Jesus’ statement, i.e., “I am.” Ego eimi. It does not identify Jesus with God, but it does draw attention to him in the strongest possible terms. “I am the one—the one you must look at, and listen to, if you would know God.
Even Paul also used the same phrase of himself when he said that he wished all men were as “I am” (Acts 26:29). Still this did not make Paul, the man born blind or the Messiah into God.
//“‘I and the Father are one.’ Again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?’ ‘We are not stoning You for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because You, a mere man, claim to be God’” (John 10:30-33)//
The phrase was a common one, and even today if someone used it, people would know exactly what he meant—he and his father are very much alike. What prophet Jesus meant was he and God have “one purpose.” Hw uses the concept of “being one” in other places, and from them one can see that “one purpose” is what is meant. eg John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all God’s children “one.”
//“‘Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:61–62)//
Inded, He is the son of man, He is NOT God, and muslims believe too he was taken up to God rescued from crucifixion when he was leading the armed rebellion
//“Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:28)//
It is an exclamation by Thomas, muslims do this often, Wallahi, Yaa Allah when shocked or astonished. The context of the verse shows that its subject is the fact that Jesus was alive. Only three verses earlier, Thomas had ignored the eyewitness testimony of the other apostles when they told him they had seen the Lord. The resurrection of Christ was such a disputed doctrine that Thomas did not believe it (the other apostles had not either), and thus Jesus’ death would have caused Thomas to doubt that Jesus was who he said he was—the Messiah. Thomas believed Jesus was dead. Thus, he was shocked and astonished when he saw—and was confronted by— Jesus Himself.
//“Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)//
This refers to a close communion, a tight fellowship. It was part of the covenant language of the day Christ and his followers. It needs to be understood the same way as in We are “in” Christ, and Christ is “in” us used in John 14:11, John 14:4-7; 17:21,23 and 26).
You see your foundation to prove that Jesus is God is weak. You are resorting on twisting vague and obscure verses in order to substantiate that Jesus is God. on the contrary I can list overwhelming number of VERY CLEAR VERSES about Jesus Christ’s identity and his distinction from God . This is in line with previous monotheism taught by earlier prophets.
Nowhere propjet Jesus said HE IS GOD and ask his follower to worship him. You failed this challenge
the christian apologist “god and neighbour” seems to be ignorant about textual criticism and biblical manuscripts. currently there is a discussion taking place between hector avalos and christian apologist howard. if you want to see massacre of christian claims then take a look at the discussion
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/mazzaferro-loses-bible-bet.html
Ric,
“Do not think that Islam teaches that there once was an original Bible and then the Bible got corrupted.”
Well, that’s what YOU said actually: “But the Quran CLEARLY said that the Bible has been corrupted.” I did assume, however, that by “Bible” you meant Torah, the Gospels and David’s Psalms, since that is what the Quran speaks of for the most part and regards as truth, guidance and light.
“What muslims believe is that parts of the original revelations sent down to Moses (Torah) and Jesus (Gospel) peace be upon them both still exist in the Bible today. We believe that people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them thats what the Quran speaks about.”
Q 2:77 speaks of “illiterates, who know not the Book” that write this supposedly corrupted book. How do people who can’t read or write, who are ignorant of what they are writing about, write a book? Right off the bat, the passage seems nonsensical.
Secondly, how can “the Book” refer to more than one book, as you say?
Even if we grant that these unidentified illiterates could read and write corrupted versions of the Torah and the Gospels, and that “the Book” can somehow mean multiple books, who do you think “they” were? The source that you copied and pasted much of your argument from, then referred me to, says they were the Jews AND Christians: “Jews and Christians textually corrupted their scriptures.” Obviously the Jews wouldn’t have had either the access or even the interest in the New testament scriptures, so it would have had to be an effort of both a select group from among the Jews to corrupt the Torah and a select group from among the Christians to corrupt the Gospels. And no doubt that the puritan majority of each group would have fought the effort with everything they had and probably won. Is this really feasible? (And who corrupted the Psalms?)
The incredibly oversimplified statement, “they then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them,” glosses over what kind of undertaking this would be in reality. Whenever this corruption took place, the Jews would have had to replace the “original revelations” of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and somehow destroy all subsequent copies, or enough subsequent copies, so that the corrupt versions would have been the ones that proliferated. And there is no single point in history where you could access an original of one revelation and not have to destroy numerous circulated copies of another, since these revelations came at different times. Meanwhile, the Christians, not likely in a collaborative effort with the Jews, would have also sought out the “original revelations” of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which were also penned at different times, and follow the same process, circulating the corrupt Gospels in place of the original versions. Realize that if this was done anywhere close to Muhammad’s time, the entire canonized Bible, including the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels, were circulating in 3 continents in at least 6 languages. That would be impossible. If it happened earlier, there is no feasible date to replace “original revelations” since they were all revealed at different times in history. Again, mind you, undertaken by “illiterates.” The whole idea is completely absurd.
Meanwhile, we still have numerous passages in the Qur’an that clearly regard the Torah and the Gospels and the Psalms as inspired, true, guidance and light for you, and so forth. Surah 2:75-77 does not adequately negate these passages.
According to the source you quoted, “The greatest source of religious authority in Islam is the glorious Qur’an, the verbatim Word of God.” And regarding the hadith/reported sayings of Muhammad, it says “the Qur’an gives authority to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him to teach (3:164) and make clear (16:44) the Qur’an to us.” The Qur’an is your utmost authority with credence given to the hadith for supplementing the Qur’an by clarifying and explaining it further. Is that accurate? Given that, how do you reconcile the fact that the hadith teaching that the Torah, Psalms and Gospels were corrupt (Al Baji commentary on Muwatta’ Maalik) stands in direct contradiction with numerous Qur’anic passages that say the opposite? This teaching does not supplement or clarify the Qur’an; it opposes it. Could the revelation from Allah to the Prophet Muhammad really say in the Qur’an to accept the scriptures, but then reports from Muhammad’s contemporaries say that the Prophet understood Allah’s revelation to mean these same scriptures are to be rejected? If the Qur’an is your ultimate authority, sound exegesis would require you to at minimum regard the Torah, Psalms and Gospels as true. Although the Qur’an contradicts its own content by imploring acceptance of the Gospels but then rejecting integral parts of the Gospels, such as the death and resurrection of Jesus. I’m not used to such internal inconsistency.
“no credible Biblical scholar today will claim that the collection of wrtings known as the Bible was written or authorized by Jesus himself. They all agree that the Bible was written centuries after the departure of Jesus by unknown writers and they made many mistakes and changed the text.”
Sorry, this is clearly false. There are many “credible Biblical scholars” today that would reject everything you stated, except that Jesus didn’t write the Gospels. It is the same reputable body of scholars that affirm that the New Testament is by far the best attested document in ancient history.
“[John 5:18] records that Jesus was saying that God was his father, not that he was himself God.”
Actually, it SAYS that this declaration accomplished the task of “making Himself equal with God.” The aim of Judah in Gen. 18:44 was flattery of Joseph. That was not in the picture in John 5. If Jesus claimed God’s authority, it would certainly mean equality in deity. Can any human be “equal with God”?
“Saying “I am” does not make a person God. [John 8:58]”
Jesus wasn’t using “I am” in the traditional sense, or He would have said “Before Abraham was, I was.” At minimum, that would have made Jesus older than Abraham (which is what the ignorant Pharisees understood when Jesus spoke of knowing Abraham (vs. 56,57). The I AM Jesus spoke is the I AM of Exodus 3:14. This enraged the Pharisees so that “they picked up stones to stone Him,” not the typical Jewish response to someone merely claiming to be older than Abraham.
A claim to be God WOULD warrant such a response, as it in fact DOES in John 10:30. Jews would not pick up stones to kill Jesus if all He was claiming was that “he and God have one purpose.” Why would the Jews have a problem with Jesus aligning Himself with the purposes of God? Weren’t the Jews aligning themselves with what they thought was God’s purpose?
“Inded, He is the son of man, He is NOT God [re: Mark 14:61–62]”
The “Son of Man” is a Messianic term for God in the flesh, and Jesus would have no business “sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” if He were not equal with God.
“[“My Lord and my God!”] is an exclamation by Thomas, muslims do this often, Wallahi, Yaa Allah when shocked or astonished. … Jesus was dead. Thus, he was shocked and astonished when he saw—and was confronted by— Jesus Himself.”
Don’t Muslims exclaim “Wallahi, Yaa Allah” as a response of worship? That was Thomas’ response in John 20:28 also. “My God” means just what it says: Thomas recognized His risen Savior as God and responded appropriately. Only God could have defeated death. Thomas clearly understood that Jesus was God, and notice Jesus does not correct Him, but instead calls Thomas blessed for seeing the truth.
“Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)… refers to a close communion, a tight fellowship. It was part of the covenant language of the day Christ and his followers. It needs to be understood the same way as in We are “in” Christ…”
It needs to be understood that way on Islam, but that is not what it says. If you said the same thing Jesus says here and in the verses that immediately follow (10,11) with respect to Allah, what type of response would you get? “Anyone who has seen me has seen [Allah]… How can you say, ‘Show us [Allah]’? Do you not believe that I am in [Allah] and [Allah] is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but [Allah] who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in [Allah] and [Allah] is in me…” You would be asserting something much more than a close communion or tight fellowship.
In these verses Jesus claims deity as clearly as He needed to, a point that should have been obvious WITHOUT such declaration, since He also made this claim by performing miracles on God’s authority and raising from the dead. He did not plainly say “worship Me”, but after declaring Himself to be God, what would be the point in saying that? It was obvious to everyone that when you encounter God, you should worship Him (Ex. 23:25, Surah 3:64).
Respectfully, some advice in exegesis/homiletics: Allow context and the more obvious, consistent and prevalent teaching in a volume inform you on how to interpret the isolated passages that are harder to understand—certainly not the reverse. Also, pay attention to the blade of Occam’s Razor (the Law of Parsimony). You tend to multiply assumptions where common sense should point to the simpler and more obvious answer. 🙂
Mansubzero, I haven’t responded to your later comments as you seem to hold to the tactic of merely burying your opponent with sheer volume of words without much in the way of a clear argument. That really doesn’t allow for healthy discussion. But thanks 🙂
I was amiss for not mentioning John 8:33 again, where we have eye-witness testimony of the Jews bent on stoning Jesus because they witnessed His “claim to be God”. Should there be any doubt remaining that Jesus claimed to be God?
“‘I and the Father are one.’ Again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?’ ‘We are not stoning You for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because You, a mere man, claim to be God’” (vs 31-33)
i am beginning to this that the jesus of the nt was a disgusting christian hypocrite
“those who live by the sword shall die by the sword”
this statement would be complete and utter bs to the jews who were looking for a hero WITH the sword because thier previous hero’s did bring the sword and kicked as s using the sword. yhwh himself said he fought 4 israel and through hebrew hands
lets be honest, how far would christianity have reached if the sword was not used by its adherents?
what is great about its central message which says that god watches himself die , eat and crap and watches himself kill himself to make himself happy
what is great about this message? even the pagans who belived in thier pagan men gods ,MOCKED the christian message. even the nt aknowledged that the idea of UNIVERSAL brotherhood is be found in the words of pagan poets who had WRITTEN before christianity was born
back to, what is great about this message? jews took the pis s out of it and so did the pagans and historians note that christianity WASN’T making big sales in its EARLY days.
paul himself seems to be saying in the nt that all foods are alright and one christian had to fabricate a dream because he loved bacon so much
can you believe it, pete’s been hanging with the post ressurected jesus and when his fellow brethren are pissed with him for eating with the pagans, pete does not make ONE REF to the conversations about post ressurected jesus telling him what is kosher and not. no, pete has a revealation that all foods are kosher.
pete was either a jewish hypocrite and changed his mind like jesus of the nt does, or he had someone making bs on his behalf.
the funny part is after all the killing, murder ,wrecking , europeans go and drop this religion and go to religions which say doing good is from GOD . works /laws are good and should be practiced.
look at how islam beat christianity in the 80’s by gaining huge success in conversions and even today islam is more attrative for the european.
strip the sword from christianity and i think judaism would have overtaken it easily.
after all, it is using jewish ideas to make its case
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Thanks God Im just back home safely from the Hajj pilgrimage.
What Muslims believe is that parts of the original revelations sent down to Moses (Torah) and Jesus (Gospel) peace be upon them both still exist in the Bible today. We believe that people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them thats what the Quran speaks about.”
//Q 2:77 speaks of “illiterates, who know not the Book” that write this supposedly corrupted book. How do people who can’t read or write, who are ignorant of what they are writing about, write a book? Right off the bat, the passage seems nonsensical.//
Where in the passage which say that the illiterates “umiyyun” who actually write the corrupted book? Do you read and understand Arabic of the Quran like I do, or you just copy and paste information from anti Islam hate sites?
Those who deliberately corrupted the scriptures dont necessarily those who write it. In ancient world in the middle east many were illiterates and count in memorization of the scriptures to transmit the knowledge. Far from nonsensical the Quran is correct. Researchers estimate the literacy rate of Roman-era Palestine at only 3 percent and in rural areas, where most residents “would scarcely ever even see a written text,” it might have been as low as 1 percent.
Refering to 2:77 in broader context the book refer to the Torah.
If you can read arabic please refer to the following Exegesis:
– At-tabari vol2, 2001:144-151),
– Al-misbah al-munir fi tahzib tafsir ibn Katsir, 1999:58
– Hadith muslim, 3165
Despite your ramblings the New Testament and the Old Testament was not the original revelation given to Jesus and Moses. It is full of discrepancies, a typical human tampering. it contains untruths or accidental mistakes and lies in today scholarly word would call corruption.
Again the Quran is correct. that people lies and fabricates their own words and says this come from God. There are the composition of entire books by obscure authors who claimed to be the Apostles Peter and Paul and other spiritual celebrities, individuals falsely claiming to be Paul wrote Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. The premise that the Apostle Peter wrote the Epistles of Peter or anything else in the Bible. Many more.
You may want to read:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/orthodox-corruption-of-scripture-bart-d-ehrman/1100157699
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament
The victors not only write the history, they also reproduce the texts. In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman examines how early struggles between Christian “heresy” and “orthodoxy” affected the transmission of the documents over which, in part, the debates were waged. His thesis is that proto-orthodox scribes of the second and third centuries occasionally altered their sacred texts for polemical reasons–for example, to oppose adoptionists like the Ebionites, who claimed that Christ was a man but not God, or docetists like Marcion, who claimed that he was God but not a man, or Gnostics like the Ptolemaeans, who claimed that he was two beings, one divine and one human. Ehrman’s analysis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the social and intellectual history of early Christianity and raises intriguing questions about the relationship of readers to their texts, especially in an age when scribes could transform the documents they reproduced to make them say what they were already thought to mean, effecting thereby the orthodox corruption of Scripture.
Reviews
“This detailed, carefully argued, and thoroughly documented study should be purchased for collections serving faculty and graduate students in New Testament studies and church history.”–Choice
“Ehrman’s arguments throughout deserve our attention; they are frequently compelling….Clearly set out and persuasively presented….Variants that treat of Christ’s person and function must from now on always be considered with reference to Ehrman’s thesis.”–Novum Testamentum
“This book is highly recommended as an excellent work of scholarship that is of great importance in the development of New Testament studies. Here is a new voice that addresses some of the central theological and historical issues.”-Journal of Theological Studies
“Bart D. Ehrman has written a book which will stimulate the casual reader and intrigue the academic or professional reader of the New Testament….An excellent work and definitely invaluable for lay or scholars.”–Anglican Theological Review
Bart Erhman is the best bible scholar and academic today, He is poring over each part of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek since he was young and got the educattion from reputable institution. Clearly he know what he is taking about.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//According to the source you quoted, “The greatest source of religious authority in Islam is the glorious Qur’an, the verbatim Word of God.” And regarding the hadith/reported sayings of Muhammad, it says “the Qur’an gives authority to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him to teach (3:164) and make clear (16:44) the Qur’an to us.” The Qur’an is your utmost authority with credence given to the hadith for supplementing the Qur’an by clarifying and explaining it further. Is that accurate? //
Thats correct.
No muslims see this as a contradiction. The Quran said people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. (the elders who distorted it, the scribes then wrote it down) They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them.
You know as I muslims I still treat the Bible (OT and NT) with Islamic manner of treating a holy book which partly contains original God word ie isnpired (not to place it in dirty place etc.) but the Quran specify in Q 3:3-4: “He sent down to you the Book with truth, confirming what was ‘bayna yadayhi’… [the verse next specifies the ‘previous texts’] …And He sent the Torah and the Injeel before as guidance for the people [the verse next clarifies the role of the Qur’an] And He revealed the Furqan. Indeed, those who disbelieve in the verses of Allah will have a severe punishment…”
‘Furqan’ is derived of the root f-r-q, meaning to separate, divide, differentiate; make a distinction between things; the derivative ‘furqan’ means to be a criterion or a proof. This verse is saying that the Qur’an is the criterion. The Qur’an is designated as al-Furqan not once, but several times (see also 2:185, 25:1). If there is any difficulty in understanding the wonderful expression of the role of the Qur’an in relation to the previous scriptures in like in Q5:48, then Q3:3-4 will assist.
So the Quran acts as a Divine quality control and it only confirms what remains of it in its original form.
Absurd theaching unheard from previous revealation like Jesus are made sacrifice in order to erase people sins…..or to believe that Jesus is God (Did Abraham or any of the prophets before Jesus or even Jesus himself ever mentioned to his followers to worship Jesus?? or Jesus himself claims to be God?? never) are rejected.
The Quran confirms and set the criterion anything what has been taught by all the prophets including Jesus :
– To worship only one God the eternal and everlasting.
– To worship only one God, not God which can die, not 3 Gods in One but only ONE God.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“[John 5:18] records that Jesus was saying that God was his father, not that he was himself God.”
//Actually, it SAYS that this declaration accomplished the task of “making Himself equal with God.” The aim of Judah in Gen. 18:44 was flattery of Joseph. That was not in the picture in John 5. If Jesus claimed God’s authority, it would certainly mean equality in deity. Can any human be “equal with God”?//
You just make an interpolation. God is not being identified as Jesus but as the Father. If Jesus was claiming to be equal with God, the passage says that claiming to be God’s son afforded Jesus equality with God. The Jews quite clearly are understanding that a son has equality with his Father in some sense.
“Saying “I am” does not make a person God. [John 8:58]”
//Jesus wasn’t using “I am” in the traditional sense, or He would have said “Before Abraham was, I was.” At minimum, that would have made Jesus older than Abraham (which is what the ignorant Pharisees understood when Jesus spoke of knowing Abraham (vs. 56,57). The I AM Jesus spoke is the I AM of Exodus 3:14. This enraged the Pharisees so that “they picked up stones to stone Him,” not the typical Jewish response to someone merely claiming to be older than Abraham.//
Again you make an interpolation to associate this term a unique term with the God of the old testament.
In John 9:9 the phrase “I am” is again used by a blind man healed by Jesus. He use the exact same type of language in the third person. So it is quite plain that Jesus was most definitely not implementing a unique language convention to identify himself as Yahweh. This is just John’s vocabulary.
“Inded, He is the son of man, He is NOT God [re: Mark 14:61–62]”
//The “Son of Man” is a Messianic term for God in the flesh, and Jesus would have no business “sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” if He were not equal with God.//
All prophets of God (all of them are son of Man except Adam wich is the first man) are up in the heaven sitting in God throne. Muslims tradition record prophet Muhammad miraculous night journey when he met with previous prophets.
“[“My Lord and my God!”] is an exclamation by Thomas, muslims do this often, Wallahi, Yaa Allah when shocked or astonished. … Jesus was dead. Thus, he was shocked and astonished when he saw—and was confronted by— Jesus Himself.”
//Don’t Muslims exclaim “Wallahi, Yaa Allah” as a response of worship? That was Thomas’ response in John 20:28 also. “My God” means just what it says: Thomas recognized His risen Savior as God and responded appropriately. Only God could have defeated death. Thomas clearly understood that Jesus was God, and notice Jesus does not correct Him, but instead calls Thomas blessed for seeing the truth.//
Not a good argument.
Both the preceding and following context reveal that Thomas was shocked and Jesus let him to seeing and believing. It is not a sign of worship at all!
Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me you have believed. Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.”
“Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)… refers to a close communion, a tight fellowship. It was part of the covenant language of the day Christ and his followers. It needs to be understood the same way as in We are “in” Christ…”
//It needs to be understood that way on Islam, but that is not what it says. If you said the same thing Jesus says here and in the verses that immediately follow (10,11) with respect to Allah, what type of response would you get? “Anyone who has seen me has seen [Allah]… How can you say, ‘Show us [Allah]’? Do you not believe that I am in [Allah] and [Allah] is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but [Allah] who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in [Allah] and [Allah] is in me…” You would be asserting something much more than a close communion or tight fellowship
Im thankful to God that I have faith in Islam, the guardian of the monotheism. Im amazed you just resort to some twisting and obscure passages to support your position.
Why is it the single most important element of (present-day) Christianity the fact that Jesus is God descended to earth in the human form to save humanity from sin never stated, clearly and unequivocally?
To me (20 years+ Bible study, Im 40+ now) and to anyone who reads the New Testament Jesus never stated, clearly and unequivocally that he was God and preach me to worship him like the Quran state how Allah made it clear that He is the One and only God and people must worship him.
May God guide you to the truth
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//I was amiss for not mentioning John 8:33 again, where we have eye-witness testimony of the Jews bent on stoning Jesus because they witnessed His “claim to be God”. Should there be any doubt remaining that Jesus claimed to be God?//
It is John 10:33
First when the Jews make a charge of blasphemy and Jesus responds to that charge by quoting from Psalm 82
The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy because you, being a man, make yourself a god.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, “I [YAHWEH] said, ‘you are gods’?” If he [YAHWEH] called them gods with whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken, do you say to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,’ because I said, “I am a son of God’?
Notice how the Jews charge him with blasphemy and Jesus then responds by asking why they charge him with blasphemy for claiming to be the son of God when God calls others “gods.” also.
Jesus objected with the Jewish charge he himself a devout Jew. and taught them that Scriptures show us that God himself called other men “gods.” a title commonly used in the OT as not the same authority as God the Father.
Besides the Jews never ever understood Jesus to be claiming to be God, and therefore their God, is made abundantly clear in the following passage:
In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God; Let God save him if he delights in him, for he said, ‘I am a Son of God.'” (Matthew 27:41-43).
Here the Jews clearly have no notion whatsoever that Jesus had claimed to be God.
They do not mock him and say, ‘Save yourself if you are God.’ They rather perceive that for Jesus, God is someone else who would need to save Jesus if indeed Jesus is truly a son of God. ie the man of God , the messenger of God in Islamic terminology.
All you did was trying to in inject your dogma into the passages.
Hi
I find it funny that like to appeal to,Bart Erhman he is an apostate and I believe you kill people like that in Islam don’t you?
Hi,
Being sent to death for apostasy can only be done in an Islamic state where their is a Khilafa. That does not exist today. As a side note, YHWH also imposed the punishment of death for apostasy, so either YHWH’s laws for the Jews were wrong, or you’re being hypocritical.
//Hi
I find it funny that like to appeal to,Bart Erhman he is an apostate and I believe you kill people like that in Islam don’t you?//
Ooh, let me check with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman
Quote.
Bart D. Ehrman (born 1955) is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While Ehrman is a leading New Testament scholar
Ehrman grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, and attended Lawrence High School, where he was on the state champion debate team in 1973. He began studying the Bible and its original languages at the Moody Bible Institute and is a 1978 graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. He received his PhD and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied under Bruce Metzger. He received MAGNA CUM LAUDE for both his BA in 1978 and PhD in 1985.
End quote.
Well who else more authoritative to say the Bible is corrupted than him?
Saddam Hussein?? Mickey Mouse??
very funny!
Hi Ric
The issue here is can Christians use a muslim that is considered an apostate to prove our point that the Koran is not from God, or should we use proven sources that Islam can’t and won’t argue with to prove our points?
The only reason he won’t pull apart the koran is because and these are his words “when I stop valuing my life” in other words he believes he would be killed if he put the koran under the same scriptural scrutiny he uses with the bible.
I have heard Bart Erhman many times in his debates and he likes to make great claims but never produces the information in the debate, it sounds like the Muslims claiming that God sent messengers / prophets to all the nations / people’s but the only prophets I see the koran talk about is the prophets to Israel.
Can you please name at least some from the Koran or Hadith.
A question for you when was the bible corrupted before Muhammad or after your prophet?
And who was it that was able to corrupt all the manuscripts in all the different languages so that they all say the same things in all of the languages?
Jews and Christians don’t believe the same things and don’t agree on a lot of things so why would they change the gospel and Torah to say something different than what it does say?
One minute you say the bible is corrupted then you Muslims claim your prophet is written in there, and they even try to use Song of Solomon when the Koran says he’s in the gospel and Torah. That looks like a spot of desperation
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//I think I’ve demonstrated that we can’t even know if the Qur’an we have now resembles the original, so what is the point in comparing violent content?//
I guess I miss this one.
We know that we have the original Quran, why?
-The Quran was memorized during the lifetime of Muhammad (PBUH) and passed down to unbroken chain of memorizers to this generation.
The Quranic memorization is in itself a miracolous fact. People from all age and ethincity and language and every corner of the earth are able to memorize the Quran wholly or partially. I can bring you a kids memorizer who just turn ten and know the Quran by heart in its entirity.
The Holy Qur’an is the only book on earth, which was adopted to be preserved through humans chests and minds and hearts, not just preservation on papers and manuscripts, as God Almighty says:
إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ
Behold, it is We Ourselves who have bestowed from on high, step by step, this reminder (Quran)? and, behold, it is We who shall truly guard it [from all corruption]. (Q 15:9)
A western scholar on Islam, John Burton writes:
“The method of transmitting the Qur’an from one generation to the next by having the young memorise the oral recitation of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solelyon written records . . . ” [John Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith, p.27. Edinburgh University Press: 1994]
The Christian Bible on the other hand did not have any such phenomenon and tradition.
You can watch a teaser of HBO Documentary Films covering this miracolous tradition
or the complete film in ViME
-The Quran was written during the lifetime of Muhammad (PBUH).
-The Quran was collected into a complete book during the reign of Abu Bakr, the first caliph of Islam, and the right hand man of Muhammad (PBUH).
-The Quran was collected by the companions of the prophet Muhammad, those who knew, and lived with him during its revelation.
-The Quran was duplicated into official standardized copies for the new Muslim population; this task was ordered by the third caliph of Islam, Uthman, who was also a close companion of the Prophet Muhammad. The very manuscript that Uthman used to copy, was the one which Abu Bakr had collected into an official Quranic book.
All of the above was how the Quran was preserved, and this is all recorded in the Hadith literature.
My challenge fpr you get me a copy of Quran which is different to one another.In any bookstore in this world!
Now as for the Bible:
-The Gospels were written decades after Jesus.
-The Gospels were written by authors who did not know Jesus.
-The Gospels were written by authors who did not meet Jesus.
-The Gospels were written by anonymous authors, we don’t actually know they are, we are left but to guess.
-The actual Gospel manuscripts we do have are not even the originals, rather they are the copy’s of the copy’s of the copy’s of the books that were written decades after Jesus, by unknown authors, who did not know, or meet Jesus!
-It wasn’t until CENTURIES after Jesus that Christians finally established an orthodox cannon of scripture, yet even after this, there were still disputes, and some books were still rejected and accepted.
-Since there was no official Church orthodox cannon for centuries, you had several different Bible cannons for 400 years, different books claiming to be inspired, each Christian sect having their own Bible which they believed in.
-Up to this day we still see this problem or the Bible being revised, verses being expunged or modifed different VERSIONS not TRANSLATIONS, · The King James Version which are popular in the west, is probably the least accurate translation, being based on manuscripts that were inferior copies, The last twelve verses in Mark were not found in the most ancient examples, nor was the last chapter of John and many more…
I have been fortunate enough to travel around Europe, Mid-east and the far east , Im yet find other “version” of the quran which are different to one another.
It is a proof that we dont have corruption in the Quran as God himself has promised to guard it from corruption.
On the another handI have in my bookshelf at least 4 “versions” of the Bibles which are different to one another.
No other book in the history of mankind has many vesions and has been revised so many times as the Bible.
KJV 1611- KJV 1769-RV- ASV-RSV-NASB-ESV-NKJV- HCSB-NIV-NET-NLT etc. etc..
And there are many controversy surrounding to each editions and revisions.
You Christians are basically “at war” with each other to which edition and revisions are the authentic Gods words some goes by saying they have The ‘older and better’ manuscripts. KJV vs NIV. etc.
//One minute you say the bible is corrupted then you Muslims claim your prophet is written in there, and they even try to use Song of Solomon when the Koran says he’s in the gospel and Torah. That looks like a spot of desperation//
defendchrist, you misunderstand my (muslim) position:
I wrote earlier regard to the Bible (OT, NT): The Quran said people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God (the illiterate elders who distorted it, the scribes then wrote it down). Therefore I believe the current states of the Bible is a mixed of tampered writings (removed and added to them) with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel).
But as I Muslims I still treat the Bible (OT and NT) with Islamic manner of treating a holy book because I believe it partly contains original God word ie inspired (not to place it in dirty place . reading it in the toilet etc. )
How do we filter the truthful content in the Bible from the falsehood ? I use the Quran as a Divine quality control.
Absurd teaching unheard from previous revelation like Jesus are made sacrifice in order to erase people sins…..or to believe that Jesus is God (Did Abraham or any of the prophets before Jesus or even Jesus himself ever mentioned to his followers to worship Jesus?? or Jesus himself claims to be God?? never) are rejected.
The Quran confirms and set the criterion anything what has been taught by all the prophets including Jesus :
– To worship only one God the eternal and everlasting.
– To worship God which can not die, not 3 Gods in One but only ONE God.
defendchrist, I live in the most populous muslim country in the world almost all my life and I have never seen any apostate (from Islam) being killed ( we do have many instances of people leaving Islam as well as other faith convert to Islam here)
The point *is* anyone appeal to Bart D.Ehrman because he is a truly New Testament scholar.
– He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
– He was a committed born again young evangelical who went studying the Bible at the fundie Moody Bible Institute
– He was a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois.
– He received his PhD and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary magna cum laude for both his BA in 1978 and PhD in 1985.
– He is one of the guy who are called in whenever new ancient manuscript are duly found
– and many other achievements
So when someone like him said BIBLE IS CORRUPTED he speaks authority and Muslims as well as others on the sideline can see him as unbiased.
//The only reason he won’t pull apart the koran is because and these are his words “when I stop valuing my life”//
I think Ehrman is wise enough no to comment about the Quran. Ehrman knows has no business with the Quran. He is no scholar of the Quran and Islam whatsoever. The fact that James White tried to provoked Ehrman to comment about the Quran is a dirty tactic and a desperation. Wisely Ehrman is mature enough not realize that JW’s obession is Islam bashing and he didnt play his game.
“Jews and Christians don’t believe the same things and don’t agree on a lot of things so why would they change the gospel and Torah to say something different than what it does say?”
if they were good @ making up bs stories about jesus in the 2nd century, then why not christians in the 1st century? you accept EVERY story in the nt, but reject stories in the christian 2nd century? stories could be made up to lift the status of a failed and crucified “saviour” . the nt itself says false teachers MADE UP stories . jews make up stories and christians MAKE UP stories in RESPONSE to them. stories made up BEHIND the doors. when your unknown WRITERS WERE WRITING IN AN UNKNOWN location, they weren’t standing OUTSIDE a mosque and asking EACH person who entered the mosque, WHAT went back to jesus/deciples, they were writing to PULL christians to thier version of jesus. who told matthew that jews PAID PAGAN guards to spread a lie? if i told you that bush paid osama bin ladin for 9/11 u would request evidence and top secret information, but you swallow everything matthew says, even the bit about the guards coming out of thier tomb and appearing to many. you love to quote papius when it SUITS your christian NT claims, but when papius narrates some odd bs, you drop papius like hot patatoe.
since u guys believe your early church was being persecuted, what better time to HIDE behind doors and MAKE up load of LIES?
Ric, glad to see a response, and that you returned safely.
“Where in the passage which say that the illiterates “umiyyun” who actually write the corrupted book?”
The passage that you quoted Oct. 19 says this…
““Know they not Allah Knoweth what they conceal and what they reveal? And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture. Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say: ‘This is from Allah,’ to traffic with it for a miserable price! Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.” (The Noble Qur’an, 2:77-79)”
There’s little reason to think that the “illiterates, who know not the book” are not the same ones referred to as “those who write the Book” from a straightforward reading. But are you suggesting that the illiterates who didn’t know the scriptures, hired scribes to write corrupted versions? Who were the masterminds who made sure that the corrupted versions were close enough to the original revelations to be accepted as a substitute? The illiterates who didn’t even know what they said, or the scribes who had no vested interest in the content?
Besides, you still have a basic and unaddressed spacetime problem: There’s no opportune time in which the books of Moses and the Gospels (and presuming the Psalms) could have possibly been collected and replaced with fakes (See my comment dated Oct. 22.)
“So the Quran acts as a Divine quality control and it only confirms what remains of [the Torah/Gospel revelation] in its original form.”
Why was God unable or unwilling to protect and preserve the integrity of His original revelation through Moses and the Apostles, and how do we know that the Quranic revelation has not been corrupted? There is no vast body of ancient copies of the Quran to use for comparison. The opposite is true for the Bible, especially the New Testament.
“Despite your ramblings the New Testament and the Old Testament was not the original revelation given to Jesus and Moses. It is full of discrepancies, a typical human tampering. it contains untruths or accidental mistakes and lies in today scholarly word would call corruption.”
This is a baseless claim. As I’ve said, which can be confirmed, there are tens of thousands of extant manuscripts that stand as evidence for the integrity of the Bible, and the relatively few discrepancies that do exist in the manuscripts are easily reconciled without any change in doctrine or meaning of text. Calling that “ramblings” doesn’t make the evidence go away.
Re: John 5:18… “The Jews quite clearly are understanding that a son has equality with his Father in some sense.”
“For this reason they tried all the more to kill him…” The jews tried to kill Jesus because He was claiming “equality with his Father in some sense”? That’s a non-sequiter. They wanted Him dead because He obviously called God His Father in a divine sense.
Re: John 8:58… ”Again you make an interpolation to associate this term a unique term with the God of the old testament. In John 9:9 the phrase “I am” is again used by a blind man healed by Jesus. He use the exact same type of language in the third person. So it is quite plain that Jesus was most definitely not implementing a unique language convention to identify himself as Yahweh. This is just John’s vocabulary.”
And again, “at this, they picked up stones to stone Him” over an issue of vocabulary? Of course not. 🙂
Re: Mark 14:61-62… “All prophets of God (all of them are son of Man except Adam wich is the first man) are up in the heaven sitting in God throne. Muslims tradition record prophet Muhammad miraculous night journey when he met with previous prophets.”
The right hand of the Mighty One is one seat, not many. And besides, before this, “the high priest asked Him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”, to which Jesus responds, “I am.”
Re: John 20:28… “Both the preceding and following context reveal that Thomas was shocked and Jesus let him to seeing and believing. It is not a sign of worship at all!”
So you’re saying Thomas was merely exclaiming something equivalent to “OMG!”, using God’s name in vain (and then being commended for it)? He says “My Lord and my God”… acknowledging Jesus’ authority by “Lord” and His deity by “God”, Thomas’ God (“my”), One worthy of worship. To see Thomas’ statement as merely a reaction of surprise is to assume something the text in no way calls for.
Re: John 10:33… “All you did was trying to in inject your dogma into the passages.”
Rather, you have altered the meaning of John 10:33, 36, and Matt 27:43 by adding the indefinite article “a” to “to be God” and “Son of God”. There’s no article in the Greek and no reason to interpret these clauses as “to be a god” or “a Son of God.” That’s what the JW’s tried to do with John 1:1, the unwarranted “the word was a god” instead the correct translation, “the word was God.”
Besides, the idea of polytheism would have been pretty foreign to the Jews. In 10:34-36, Jesus was likely arguing from the lesser to the greater. In other words, if it is permissible to call men “gods” because those OT judges were the carriers of the word of God, how much more permissible is it to use the word “God” of him who is the Word of God?
Re: John 14:9… “Why is it the single most important element of (present-day) Christianity the fact that Jesus is God descended to earth in the human form to save humanity from sin never stated, clearly and unequivocally?”
Billions of Christians agree that Christ’s deity has been stated clearly and unequivocally. Without it, you don’t have Christianity. It isn’t clear to you because the teaching of Islam denies Christ’s deity. No doubt you and I have marveled at how hundreds of millions of Atheists can deny the existence of God, despite His obvious revelation in nature (Romans 1). Atheism is a worldview that requires that denial. In Luke 16, there is the rich man in hell who calls out to Abraham, begging him to warn he rich man’s brothers so they could avoid hell. His response was that “if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'” (v.31) Some people won’t believe no matter what is presented. How much more clarity in Jesus’ claim to deity would you require before you would subvert your ultimate convictions? What we see and how we interpret the evidence is all influenced by our most basic convictions, Christians included. But as I’ve shown, Christianity stands to reason in the analysis of the presuppositions.
Godandneighbor
You said
“How do we know that the Quranic revelation has not been corrupted? There is no vast body of ancient copies of the Quran to use for comparison. The opposite is true for the Bible, especially the New Testament.”
Answer
This comment of your shows how much ignorant you are about the textual history of Quran and the Bible . You are a Christian who lives a imaginary bubble which is far out of reality .Iam sorry i have to burst your bubble.
Coming on to your first question ” how do we know the Quran has not been corrupted?”
Preservation of Quran is a view held unanimously by Muslim Scholars after in depth analysis.
It is also upheld by many Orientalist and Non Muslim historians dealing with the subject .
The following are the Non Muslim historians and academicians who say that Quran is preserved.
1) William Montgomery watt
2) Chris T Hewer
3) Andrew Rippin
4) Adrian Brockect
5) William Muir
6) Richard Bell
7) Fred Donner
8) John Burton
9) Bruce Lawrence
I can just go on …
Coming on to your assumption that there are ancient manuscripts of Quran , iam again sorry to say that you are just ignorant on this subject but i kind of admire your courage to come to this site and assert your ignorance boldly.
The fact is that there are innumerable manuscripts of Quran scattered through out libraries and museums of world.
The manuscripts of Quran dating from within 1st century hijra itself contribute to over 90% of the Quran
What is even more surprising is that they are exactly the same as that of the present day Quran a fact well attested by again Non Muslim scholars .
The following are the scholars who have examined those very early manuscripts and say that the the Quran is unchanged .
1) Michael Marx
2) Angelika Neuwirths
3) Schorer
Again i can go on…
Just go to the site Islamic Awareness for further details .
Coming on to your Bible there are no manuscripts from the 1st century and the earliest dated is p52 which is of late 2nd century and it is the size of a credit card .The first complete Bible in manuscripts is from 8th century.Compare and contrast with the Quran !!!!!
Coming on to forgeries in the Bible it is again a view held by virtually all scholars both conservative and liberal that Bible have been tampered with and this is even proven by the manuscripts of the Bible .Just read any standard introduction to the New testament and see it for your self.
Next time please read some books and then comment just don’t waste your time and the time of others by posting your fantasies and hypothetical assertions.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
//There’s little reason to think that the “illiterates, who know not the book” are not the same ones referred to as “those who write the Book” from a straightforward reading. But are you suggesting that the illiterates who didn’t know the scriptures, hired scribes to write corrupted versions? Who were the masterminds who made sure that the corrupted versions were close enough to the original revelations to be accepted as a substitute? The illiterates who didn’t even know what they said, or the scribes who had no vested interest in the content?//
On what ground you said the illiterates didnt knew what they they said? in fact oral transmission was the basis of knowledge dissemination in the ancient world and that that scribes were later used in a variety of ways, ranging from dictation to full composition.
Although the Quran did not elaborate but most modern scholar point to Paul as the mastermind who broke away from the Jewish context that prophet Jesus had begun, he then preached to early Jewish-follower of Jesus that Jesus had been a god, and that the way to win eternal salvation in heaven is to worship him as such. Paul here explicitly introduced, for the first time anywhere, the duality of the previously unitary God as in earlier revealation.
Fortunately Paul didnt go unchallenged, as history records the tortuous conflict Paul had had with this early follower of Jesus, Jesus’s brother James, a conflict which caused Paul, in about the year 50, to perpetrate his coup d’état against James, and to start his own brand of religion: Christianity. This isn’t a Muslim claim but the scholarly observation.
There are evidence that some of the writings from what is known as the NT has been tampered with, interpolated, redacted, and so forth.
I cited one example in the modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke. It contains a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible (the codex sinaiticus). Six of those words say of Jesus “and was carried up into heaven”, but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today (“Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels”, F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113).
Ancient versions do not verify modern-day accounts of an ascension of Jesus Christ, and this falsification clearly indicates an intention to deceive.
Today, the Gospel of Luke is the longest of the canonical Gospels because it now includes “The Great Insertion”, an extraordinary 15th-century addition totaling around 8,500 words (Luke 9:51-18:14). The insertion of these forgeries into that Gospel bewilders modern Christian analysts, and of them the Church said: “The character of these passages makes it dangerous to draw inferences” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. ii, p. 407).
Just as remarkable, the oldest Gospels of Luke omit all verses from 6:45 to 8:26, known in priesthood circles as “The Great Omission”, a total of 1,547 words. In today’s versions, that hole has been “plugged up” with passages plagiarized from other Gospels. Dr Tischendorf found that three paragraphs in newer versions of the Gospel of Luke’s version of the Last Supper appeared in the 15th century, but the Church still passes its Gospels off as the unadulterated “word of God” (“Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?”, op. cit.)
//Besides, you still have a basic and unaddressed spacetime problem: There’s no opportune time in which the books of Moses and the Gospels (and presuming the Psalms) could have possibly been collected and replaced with fakes (See my comment dated Oct. 22.)//
Where is in the Quran said that the process of corrupting the original Injil, Tawrah and Zabur was done in a snap at the time of the prophet?? This is an odd argument really.
We know for sure what the text of the New Testament we have now is not the what the Quran refer to as the “affirmed” text prophet Jesus received. The fact is prophet Muhammad (P) did not have access to the New Testament writings, that he (P) could not read them, and that they were not even available in Arabic during his (P) lifetime.
“Despite your ramblings the New Testament and the Old Testament was not the original revelation given to Jesus and Moses. It is full of discrepancies, a typical human tampering. it contains untruths or accidental mistakes and lies in today scholarly word would call corruption.”
//This is a baseless claim. As I’ve said, which can be confirmed, there are tens of thousands of extant manuscripts that stand as evidence for the integrity of the Bible, and the relatively few discrepancies that do exist in the manuscripts are easily reconciled without any change in doctrine or meaning of text. Calling that “ramblings” doesn’t make the evidence go away.//
This is somewhat misleading as most of these supposedly”few discrepancies that do exist in the manuscripts are easily reconciled without any change in doctrine or meaning of text” come only centuries later modern study says it is AFTER the 9th century!
Scholars agree we do not have a reliable text of the NT. It is a book which is reconstructed by scholars and is conjecture based.The parts of the originals have been lost partly due to scribal errors/forgeries within the flawed copying system and due to the absence of complete originals in the early manuscript tradition (never mind the autographs!) Scholars do not know whether the originals are within all the manuscripts currently found at all (around 5,700 manuscripts and 1100-1400 variations)
The differences in variations do matter for example the clear teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity is dependent upon which manuscripts you read – Bart Ehrman mentioned the scribal omission of Jesus not knowing the hour – obviously the scribe did this to push the idea of Jesus being God.
the christian “god+neighbour” is a failed lawyer for jesus. scholars who read his gospels know that christians were guilty of inventing events and placing eyewitnesses in them. one example is the infancy narratives. the idea is to LOOK @ how luke has WORDED/WRITTEN his account and then see that it is an account which is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to matthews inventions. there is NO WAY any christian can derive from lukes infancy account that ANY sort of danger awaited the christian god in flesh. if people were ILLITERATE that does not mean christians did not have ideas/storytelling of thier own. if one were to look at an article on wiki about “multiple attestation” one sees that 1st century christians could be the SOURCE for sayings put into jesus’ mouth. you see, this is the problem when you don’t know who the heck is writing what, when and where and from where he got his/her information.
read lukes account, does it seem like he got it from jesus/deciples or christians story tellers ? look @ the way he WORDS his account, can any sensible person assume that “after they had finnished everything according to the law” the family darted to egypt because of herod? no, because luke says that the family did YEARLY trips to jerusalem and there is not one hint of danger in lukes version.
Hi Ali Hussain
You said that complete bible manuscripts are 8th century that’s not true…we have complete manuscripts from before Muhammad.
Also your facts about the koran think about this… only one-third of the original Samarkand MSS in Tashkent survives. There are about 250 pages written in a bold Arabic script on deerskin. It is written in “Hejaz” in Saudi Arabia, so the script is Hejazi, (Kufic script). This is possibly the your oldest koran.
Hi Ric
Poor old Bart Erhman the Christian apostate trying his best to destroy what he once believed has been dealt with a few times in debates he is good but not the best.its quite listening to Muslims appealing to the flavour of the month to prove Christians wrong. Islam is a cut and paste religion filled with the pagan way of prayer idolatry and false gospel stories Muslims even appeal to the book of Barnabas to prove their case but it says Muhammad is the Messiah what a joke!
Hi guys
I think I have had a bellyful of all this stuff about the differences in the bible but what about the Koran? I have always been told that it was revealed from heaven in pure Arabic but what words does the Koran really reveal?
Acadian:
Adam = man or mankind. The correct Arab word: Basharan or insane.
Eden = garden. The correct Arab word: Janna.
Aramaic:
Qiyama = resurrection.
Assyrian:
Abraham/Ibrahim – a name. The correct Arab equivalent: Abu Raheem.
Egyptian:
Pharaoh = king or potentate (also a title). Used 84 times in the Quran.
Ethiopic:
Malak = angel (2/33)
Greek:
Iblis – corruption of the Greek word diabolos = devil.
Injil – corruption of the Greek word eua(n)ggelion = Gospel. Correct.
Hebrew:
Ahbar = teacher.
Darasa = to find the deepest meanings of the scriptures by exact and thorough studies.
Furquan (also used in Syriac, pwrqn) = to make free, salvation.
Issa or Isa = Esau (brother of the patriarch Jacob). The Quran says it means Jesus. Correct Arab for Jesus: Yeshuwa.
Jahannam (Gehinnom or Gehenna) = originally the valley of Hennom or Hinnom near Jerusalem, intensely used for Pagan (Baal) sacrifices to fire, and it therefore later gave the name to Hell.
Jannatu Adn = paradise, Garden of Eden (today reckoned by science to have been in south Iraq – if it ever existed).
Malakut = reign, the country of Allah/God. NB: No original Arab word ends with -ut.
Masani = repetition.
Maun = to find sanctuary.
Rabbani = teacher.
Sabt = day of rest (Sabbath).
Sakinat = the presence of Allah/God.
Tabut = ark.
Taghut = mistake.
orah (Taurat) = Jewish holy scriptures, the Torah.
Tufan = deluge
There also are Hebrew words like; heber, sakinah, maoon, turat, jehannim.
Persian:
Firdaus = the highest or 7. Heaven. Correct Arab: Jannah.
Haroot or Harut = Persian name for angel. Also see “Maroot”.
Hoor = disciple. Correct Arab: Tilmeeth.
Jinn = good or bad demon. Correct Arab: Ruh.
Maroot or Marut = Persian name for angel. May in reality be the Hindu god of the wind.
Sirat = path. Correct Arab: Altareeq.
Syriac (liturgical language used in Eastern Christian churches – derived from Aramaic).
2/50 furqaan (original Hebrew?) – from pwrqn, Syriac = Salvation.
52/29 kaahin – from khn, Syriac = “priest” – meaning a pagan soothsayer or diviner (69/47).
3/45 mashiih = “the Christ”.
57/12 muhaymin – from mhymn’, Syriac = “the faithful”.
21/87 nuun – (title used for Jonah (Yunus)), from nwn, Syriac =“fish”.
2/85 qiaama – from qymt, Syriac = “resurrection“. (also 2/113, numerous times).
5/85 qissiis – from qshysh, Syriac = “Christian priest”.
4/85 Qur’an – from qyrn, Syriac = “scriptural lesson” or “reading”. (also MANY other places).
3/73 rabbinic – from rbn, Syriac = “perceptor, doctor.” (also 5/48, 5/68).
16/102 ruuh al-qudus, from rwh.qwdsh’, Syriac = “Holy Spirit”.
20/80 tuur – from t.wr’, Syriac = “mountain”.
Correct me if i am wrong but the Koran is not written in pure Arabic
Hi Mansubzero
What on earth are you talking about? I have a question was the bible being corrupted before Muhammad came or after he came?
As I understand it the Koran has a lot of things to say about the NT and the OT so just help me with that.
Hi Mansubzero
The problem with you is can’t admit that you don’t believe that have been Christians that will not lie while under persecution unless Islam lets look at what the Koran and Hadith says about Lying…and please correct me if I am wrong.
The Qur’an:
Qur’an (16:106) – Establishes that there are circumstances that can “compel” a Muslim to tell a lie.
Qur’an (3:28) – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves.”
Qur’an (9:3) – “…Allah and His Messenger are free from liability to the idolaters…” The dissolution of oaths with the pagans who remained at Mecca following its capture. They did nothing wrong, but were evicted anyway.
Qur’an (40:28) – A man is introduced as a believer, but one who must “hide his faith” among those who are not believers.
Qur’an (2:225) – “Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts” The context of this remark is marriage, which explains why Sharia allows spouses to lie to each other for the greater good.
Qur’an (66:2) – “Allah has already ordained for you, (O men), the dissolution of your oaths”
Qur’an (3:54) – “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” The Arabic word used here for scheme (or plot) is makara, which literally means deceit. If Allah is deceitful toward unbelievers, then there is little basis for denying that Muslims are allowed to do the same. (See also 8:30 and 10:21)
Taken collectively these verses are interpreted to mean that there are circumstances when a Muslim may be “compelled” to deceive others for a greater purpose.
From the Hadith:
Bukhari (52:269) – “The Prophet said, ‘War is deceit.'” The context of this is thought to be the murder of Usayr ibn Zarim and his thirty unarmed men by Muhammad’s men after he “guaranteed” them safe passage (see Additional Notes below).
Bukhari (49:857) – “He who makes peace between the people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a liar.” Lying is permitted when the end justifies the means.
Bukhari (84:64-65) – Speaking from a position of power at the time, Ali confirms that lying is permissible in order to deceive an “enemy.”
Muslim (32:6303) – “…he did not hear that exemption was granted in anything what the people speak as lie but in three cases: in battle, for bringing reconciliation amongst persons and the narration of the words of the husband to his wife, and the narration of the words of a wife to her husband (in a twisted form in order to bring reconciliation between them).”
Bukhari (50:369) – Recounts the murder of a poet, Ka’b bin al-Ashraf, at Muhammad’s insistence. The men who volunteered for the assassination used dishonesty to gain Ka’b’s trust, pretending that they had turned against Muhammad. This drew the victim out of his fortress, whereupon he was brutally slaughtered despite putting up a ferocious struggle for his life.
From Islamic Law:
Reliance of the Traveler (p. 746 – 8.2) – “Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praiseworthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it. When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible (N:i.e. when the purpose of lying is to circumvent someone who is preventing one from doing something permissible), and obligatory to lie if the goal is obligatory… it is religiously precautionary in all cases to employ words that give a misleading impression…
“One should compare the bad consequences entailed by lying to those entailed by telling the truth, and if the consequences of telling the truth are more damaging, one is entitled to lie.
Ric, getting back to your previous 3 comments:
“On what ground you said the illiterates didnt knew what they they said? in fact oral transmission was the basis of knowledge dissemination in the ancient world…”
That is plausible, I’ll grant you that; I had not considered the possible role of oral tradition. In the larger context of the Qur’an, however, there is still a far greater number of passages exhorting readers to regard the writings of Moses and the Gospels without any hint of a warning about corrupted versions.
“Although the Quran did not elaborate but most modern scholar point to Paul as the mastermind who broke away from the Jewish context that prophet Jesus had begun, he then preached to early Jewish-follower of Jesus that Jesus had been a god, and that the way to win eternal salvation in heaven is to worship him as such. Paul here explicitly introduced, for the first time anywhere, the duality of the previously unitary God as in earlier revealation… the doctrine of the Trinity is dependent upon which manuscripts you read”
The Qur’an doesn’t say that and neither do most modern scholars. Paul didn’t introduce the deity of Jesus Christ, Jesus covered that, as well as salvation by faith in Christ alone (John 3:16, 14:6). The doctrine of a truine God didn’t come from Paul either, but it was revealed in Genesis (1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image”; 3:22 “the man has become like on of Us in knowing good and evil”; 11:7 “let Us go down and there confuse their language”), in Isaiah (6:8 “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’”; 48:16 “the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit”; 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted”) and in the Psalms (2:7 “The Lord said to Me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’”) Also, in the original Hebrew, Genesis 1:1 uses “Elohim” for “God”, which is the plural form of El or Eloah.
“history records the tortuous conflict Paul had had with this early follower of Jesus, Jesus’s brother James, a conflict which caused Paul, in about the year 50, to perpetrate his coup d’état against James, and to start his own brand of religion: Christianity.”
Eric Zuesse records that actually, as that is straight off of the description for his book Christ’s Ventriloquists. Haven’t read it or about Zuesse’s methodology, but it’s not a common or established view.
“…the modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke. It contains a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible (the codex sinaiticus). Six of those words say of Jesus “and was carried up into heaven”, but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today (“Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels”, F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113).
Even if the longer portions of Luke’s gospel were to prove unauthentic, we still aren’t missing any critical doctrine. Luke’s later volume states that Jesus “was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” in Acts 1:9-11, and describes “the day when He was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22). John’s gospel talks about the ascension in 3:13, 6:62, 20:17, as do the other apostles: Eph. 4:10, Col. 3:1, 1 Tim. 3:16, Heb. 4:14, 1 Peter 3:22. As far as the resurrection, that isn’t isolated to Luke’s gospel either (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33, 16:6, ! Cor. 15, lots of others). The differences if discounted don’t leave us without anything—certainly not the deity, death or resurrection of Christ—nor do they add any contradictory material. In other words, no corruption.
“Where is in the Quran said that the process of corrupting the original Injil, Tawrah and Zabur was done in a snap at the time of the prophet?? This is an odd argument really.”
I haven’t said that. My argument is that Qur’an says really nothing clear about corruption of the original Injil, Tawrah and Zabur at all, and that there simply is no possibility of the originals to be corrupted all at once or even peicemeal. What other options are there? As you say, the only possibility for corruption would have been later than Muhammad’s time; that isn’t at all tenable, since the uncorrupted documents were already in wide circulation across numerous countries and languages.
“Scholars agree we do not have a reliable text of the NT…”
Sorry, those are liberal scholars (i.e. Ehrman) who probably have already decided what they will find.
(Moderator: My reply to Ali Hussain a couple days ago still isn’t showing up in the post for some reason. Would you kindly approve? Thank you 🙂
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“On what ground you said the illiterates didnt knew what they they said? in fact oral transmission was the basis of knowledge dissemination in the ancient world…”
//That is plausible, I’ll grant you that; I had not considered the possible role of oral tradition. In the larger context of the Qur’an, however, there is still a far greater number of passages exhorting readers to regard the writings of Moses and the Gospels without any hint of a warning about corrupted versions.//
Yes, the Quran nowhere states that the original Taurat, Injeel, Zabur or Suhuf is in fact the modern day Bible on printing today.
On what basis in the Qur’an do Muslims have the right to examine, investigate and question the Bible? we can do this based upon the verses in the Qur’an that tell us to be on our guard.
‘There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues: (as they read) you would think it is a part of the Book, but it is no part of the Book; and they say, ‘That is from Allah,’ but it is not from Allah: It is they who tell a lie against Allah…’
(Holy Qur’an 3:78)
This of course is because most people during that time are illiterate any how (be they Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian, Pagan or Muslim). They obviously could not read a book for themselves, but were told to be on their guard because the fact that they were illiterate and couldn’t verify it.
‘But because of their breach of their Covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard:They change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the Message that was sent…(Holy Qur’an 5:13)
Any truthful reader can see obviously that the Qur’an says that they forget a good portion of what was sent and they changed the words from their places. This can only happen if there is an oral tradition being passed along and some people willfully pervert this oral tradition.
Now you are very mischievous to say that the Qur’an confirms the current what you consider as the writing of Moses and the gospels
Here a passsage we found in Deutoronomy which clearly prove that the “five books of Moses” is not authentically the writing of Moses.
So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. (Deuteronomy 34:5-7)
How can Moses write the day he died in 3rd person??
Also the Injeel does not mean the current Gospels. Let us look at the instances and mention of the Injeel in the Qur’an.
Then, in their wake, We followed them up with (others of) Our apostles: We sent after them Jesus the son of Mary, and bestowed on him the Injeel; and We ordained in the hearts of those who followed him Compassion and Mercy. But the Monasticism which they invented for themselves, We did not prescribe for them: only the seeking for the Good Pleasure of Allah. but that they did not foster as they should have done. Yet We bestowed, on those among them who believed, their (due) reward, but many of them are rebellious transgressors. (Holy Qur’an 57:27)
We believe that Allah had given Jesus the Injeel (Gospel in singular) but we would repudiate the following attribution to Jesus based upon what the Qur’an says above that ‘the Monasticism which they invented for themselves, We did not prescribe for them’.
His disciples said unto Him, “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.”But He said unto them, “All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” (Matthew 19:10-12)
Now it seems Jesus recommending the practice, but Muslims would argue that this is an interpolation put in the mouth of Jesus based upon our belief that the Qur’an states this was not ordered upon people. So the Qur’an disregard the gospel of Matthew statement.
‘Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:”This is from Allah,” to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.’ (Holy Qur’an 2:79)
This is the muslim belief that that there are people who are in the habit of writing books and than saying this is from God . It is on this basis that Muslims have the right to be skeptical of what people today call the Old and New testament writings .
brother ric, that the bible has been gang raped by different minds has been aknowledged by evangelical christians aswell
here are thom starks views. stark is christian.
“I Was Being Rhetorical.” — Yahweh
Copan is one of a number of apologists who have seized upon the
exaggerated rhetoric of some ancient Near Eastern warfare litera-
ture in order to argue that the picture of total annihilation painted
in the book of Joshua should not be read literally, but hyperboli-
cally. Copan argues that in light of the reality of exaggerated war-
fare rhetoric, we should be comforted that the Canaanite con-
quest wasn’t as extensive and not near as bloody as people com-
monly think (or rather, as the Bible claims) (170).
Here we see implicit Copan’s assumption that in order for it to
count as genocide, it must be total. But the issue isn’t really
whether the conquest was total, whether every last man, woman
and child was killed. The issue is whether the text depicts the kill-
ing of women and children, and other noncombatants, or not. Are
some killed for being Canaanite, or not? It makes no difference
whether it’s one million noncombatants, or one hundred, or one
dozen. Does the text say that Yahweh ordered the slaughter of
women and children; does the text say that the Israelites did in
fact carry out such slaughters?
The first thing I’ll point out is Copan’s naïve assumptions
about the authorship of the book of Joshua. He says that, as with
his contemporaries, “Joshua” used a particular idiom from a
standard warfare rhetoric. He says that “Joshua” utilized the
macho rhetoric of his period, prone to exaggeration, claiming that
all the land was conquered, that every king was defeated, and that
every last Canaanite was destroyed. Copan then says that even
“Joshua,” however, recognized that this wasn’t literally the case
(170).
Throughout, Copan continues to write as if Joshua himself
wrote the book of Joshua (in the third person apparently). This
already indicates how far removed from biblical scholarship Paul
Copan is. Talk about a “Sunday-school” reading of Joshua! No se-
rious biblical scholar would identify Joshua as the author of the
book of Joshua, not even Evangelical scholar Lawson Younger,
whom the apologists frequently use in their favor. Younger, unlike
Copan (it seems), is aware that the book of Joshua had multiple
authors and was composed over a matter of centuries. Moreover,
Israelites didn’t even have writing in Joshua’s day! Writing didn’t
develop in Israel until the eleventh century BCE at the earliest,
about two hundred years after the period of the purported con-
quest of Canaan.
A second aspect of Copan’s argument displays equally well his
naïve assumptions about the composition of the book of Joshua.
Note that he says that “Joshua” asserted that all the Canaanites
were destroyed. Here Copan is referring to the claims made in
chapters 10 and 11 of Joshua. But he goes on to say that “Joshua
himself” admitted that these descriptions weren’t literal. What
he’s referring to in this instance is the fact that, beginning from
chapter 13, many of the cities and peoples in Canaan said to be
utterly destroyed in chapters 10 and 11 are still very much alive
and kicking after Joshua died. This is where Copan’s identification
of Joshua as the author becomes especially problematic, because
as biblical scholars are all well aware, Joshua 1-12 were com-
posed primarily by one author (the Deuteronomistic Historian),
and Joshua 13-22 were composed primarily by another author
(the Priestly Writer). Chapter 23 was again composed primarily
by the Deuteronomistic Historian, and chapter 24, the final chap-
ter in the book, represents a more generic summary (i.e., the spe-
cific author here is difficult to identify). Evangelical scholars, like
Douglas Earl,58 readily acknowledge this reality. Copan seems ei-
ther to be unaware of this, or doesn’t want to trouble his readers
with such complexities.
58 An Evangelical Hebrew Bible scholar whose book I review in detail here:
http://religionatthemargins.com/2010/11/the-joshua-delusion/
Now Copan notes that, like Joshua 13ff, the initial chapters of
Judges also contradict the portrait of a total conquest painted in
Joshua 10-11. And Copan notes that biblical scholars concur that
Judges and Joshua are within the same literary corpus (170). This
is over-simplistic, as I’ll discuss in a moment. But first here’s the
point Copan wishes to make from this fact: If Joshua himself
wrote all of Joshua, both the parts that depict a total conquest be-
fore Joshua’s death, and the parts that depict an incremental, un-
finished conquest even after Joshua’s death, and if Judges is with-
in the same literary corpus as the book of Joshua, then it’s clear
that the portrait of total conquest in chapters 10-11 can’t be taken
literally, otherwise Joshua would be contradicting himself. We
can’t have that! Thus, because they are contradictory, the portrait
of total conquest must be interpreted hyperbolically, while the
portrait of incomplete conquest may be taken literally.
Here’s the problem. As noted, the book of Joshua is composite.
It contains different sources, composed by different authors and
shaped by different editors, over a matter of centuries. And the
same goes for the book of Judges. Source and redaction critics
would not take Copan’s argument seriously, not for a second, be-
cause they understand that ancient redactors did not abide by
modern standards of narrative consistency. Apologists will often
make the uninformed claim that if a redactor put two contradicto-
ry sources together, either the redactor was really stupid, or the
redactor wasn’t affirming both sources in a literal sense. But this
is an utterly false dichotomy.
This calls for an extended digression on source and redaction
criticism:
What source critics understand is that (1) ancient redactors
weren’t as bothered by these sorts of contradictions as we
moderns are, and (2) for the most part their M.O. was to faithfully
preserve their source material, allowing contradictions to stand.
(They hadn’t heard about the doctrine of inerrancy yet.) So a few
tiqqune sopherim (pious scribal alterations of the text) notwith-
standing, scribes were interested in preserving their source mate-
rial intact.
Redactors compiled source materials not as a modern would,
in order to weave a seamless, consistent narrative, but rather to
bring together various traditions into one body. Their reasons for
doing this were often political. As one people with one set of tra-
ditions came together with another people with another set of
traditions, redactors would combine the traditions so that the
new unity of the two peoples is reflected in the new unity of their
various traditions. This political motivation is seen especially in
the combination of traditions from the Yahwist and the Elohist,
reflecting the period after the fall of the Northern Kingdom when
many Israelites migrated south to live among their Judean kins-
men.
This is abundantly clear all over the Hebrew Bible, perhaps
nowhere more so than in the flood narrative. The flood narrative
preserves two separate accounts of the flood, spliced together in a
loose chronological order, each of which reflects a very different
account of the flood. They are contradictory, but they stand to-
gether in one composite narrative, contradictions intact.
Now look at the two flood traditions from the Yahwist and the
Priestly Writer. Take a few minutes to read the composite, final
form of the flood narrative first (download here), and then take a
few additional minutes to read the two sources as source critics
have teased them out, side-by-side (download here). Come back
when you’re done.
Now, as is clear from the reading, both sources present virtu-
ally complete flood accounts in their own right, but with numer-
ous contradictions from one to the other. If the redactor of these
two traditions thought the texts weren’t contradictory, then he
really must have been stupid! But source critics don’t think the
redactor was stupid. The redactor’s purpose was not to combine
the sources into a coherent, internally consistent narrative, but
rather to combine the narratives in a way that allows them to
maintain their distinctiveness while at the same time uniting
them. Redactors cared about their source material, not because
they thought it was “inerrant,” but because the source material
reflected the traditions of the peoples. When the post-exilic redac-
tor compiled these two flood narratives, he was doing so on be-
half of two traditions both of which continued to be represented
by the inhabitants of a post-exilic Judea.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“Although the Quran did not elaborate but most modern scholar point to Paul as the mastermind who broke away from the Jewish context that prophet Jesus had begun, he then preached to early Jewish-follower of Jesus that Jesus had been a god, and that the way to win eternal salvation in heaven is to worship him as such. Paul here explicitly introduced, for the first time anywhere, the duality of the previously unitary God as in earlier revealation… the doctrine of the Trinity is dependent upon which manuscripts you read”
The Qur’an doesn’t say that and neither do most modern scholars. Paul didn’t introduce the deity of Jesus Christ, Jesus covered that, as well as salvation by faith in Christ alone (John 3:16, 14:6). The doctrine of a truine God didn’t come from Paul either, but it was revealed in Genesis (1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image”; 3:22 “the man has become like on of Us in knowing good and evil”; 11:7 “let Us go down and there confuse their language”), in Isaiah (6:8 “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’”; 48:16 “the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit”; 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted”) and in the Psalms (2:7 “The Lord said to Me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’”) Also, in the original Hebrew, Genesis 1:1 uses “Elohim” for “God”, which is the plural form of El or Eloah.
Thats not how I see it, Jewish and modern scholars (except a few evangelicals) do think (as Islam does) that Jesus is a mere prophet for the Jewish people:
Professor Graham Stanton’s critically acclaimed book The Gospels and Jesus, Oxford University Press, 2002. writes:
“Jesus certainly did not intend to found a new religion. He did not repudiate Scripture, though on occasion he emphasized some Scriptural principles at the expense of others. With a few rare exceptions he did not call in question the law of Moses. But he did challenge established conventions and priorities. Jesus believed that he had been sent by God as a prophet to declare authoritatively the will of God for his people: acceptance or rejection of him and his message was equivalent to acceptance or rejection of God.’”
Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus pp.269-270, Oxford University Press, 2002
(Graham Stanton (1940 – 2009) was Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University. Stanton’s special interests were in the Gospels, Paul’s letters, and second century Christian writings.
For the year 1996-97, Stanton was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (Society for New Testament Studies – SNTS), a society of New Testament scholars. For nine years he was Editor of the journal New Testament Studies and of the associated monograph series, and was a General Editor of the International Critical Commentaries.)
Other respected scholars include: E.P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, James D.G.Dunn, John Hick, Maurice Casey and many more.
Of course for me as a Muslim I take the Qur’an as the last revelation given by God to Muslims. So anything that would stand contrary to the teachings in the Qur’an would be something that I would either not comment on or not trust as being authoratative.
“He [Jesus] said: ‘I am indeed a servant of God. He has given me revelation and made me a prophet; (19:30)
‘He [God] will send him as a messenger to the Children of Israel’ (3:49)
So for example as you say if the New Testament says that Jesus is the son of God and the Qur’an says that God does not have a son than I would go with the Qur’an.
I dont deny that some passages in the Gospel somewhat substantiate (although not unequivocally) Jesus “divinity” but since there are also an overwhelming number of very clear verses about Jesus Christ’s identity and his distinction from God.
For Instance Elohim and Adonim, Hebrew words for God, occur in the plural. If this literally meant a plurality of persons, it would be translated “Gods.”
But the Jews, being truly monotheistic and thoroughly familiar with the idioms of their own language, have never understood the use of the plural to indicate a plurality of persons within the one God. This use of the plural is for amplification, and is called a “plural of majesty” or a “plural of emphasis,” and is used for intensification
In Arabic we identify this use of plural of majesty or plural of emphasis, for example when two persons meet each other we greet:
السلام عليكم as-salāmu `alayk*um* (plural)
Instead of السلام عليك as-salāmu `alayk (singular)
“history records the tortuous conflict Paul had had with this early follower of Jesus, Jesus’s brother James, a conflict which caused Paul, in about the year 50, to perpetrate his coup d’état against James, and to start his own brand of religion: Christianity.”
Eric Zuesse records that actually, as that is straight off of the description for his book Christ’s Ventriloquists. Haven’t read it or about Zuesse’s methodology, but it’s not a common or established view.
Spot on. Like Hyam Maccoby and , Dr. Robert Eisenman etc. Zuesse view is not uncommon to the understanding of Paul a pure orthodox corruptor of scripture — the original HEBREW changed when translated to the Greek Matthew by orthodox scribes. Paul made Jesus an eternal savior by preaching him as Lord AFTER HIS DEATH (Romans 10:9-10). There are numerous other alterations hiding other, living, Masters in the New Testament (James for one, hidden in the gospels/Acts as “Judas”), such as John 9:4, with the received “sent me” instead of “sent US” (Codex Sinaiticus) indicating the limited ministry of Jesus.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“…the modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke. It contains a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible (the codex sinaiticus). Six of those words say of Jesus “and was carried up into heaven”, but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today (“Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels”, F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113).
Even if the longer portions of Luke’s gospel were to prove unauthentic, we still aren’t missing any critical doctrine. Luke’s later volume states that Jesus “was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” in Acts 1:9-11, and describes “the day when He was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22). John’s gospel talks about the ascension in 3:13, 6:62, 20:17, as do the other apostles: Eph. 4:10, Col. 3:1, 1 Tim. 3:16, Heb. 4:14, 1 Peter 3:22. As far as the resurrection, that isn’t isolated to Luke’s gospel either (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33, 16:6, ! Cor. 15, lots of others). The differences if discounted don’t leave us without anything—certainly not the deity, death or resurrection of Christ—nor do they add any contradictory material. In other words, no corruption.
Im amazed how cant you admit it is a corruption in such a glaring evidences.
What about the most important doctrine trinity? John5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. This verse is undeniable an evidence of doctrinal corruption!
By the way you are deceiving people to say that Jesus ascension is mentioned John’s gospel and others. Where, when, and how did this happen is contradictory in the gospels. While the questioanable Luke 24:50-51 states Jesus ascends outisde, after dinner, and at Bethany and on the same day as the resurrection , Mark 16:14-19 – Jesus ascends while he and his disciples are seated at a table in or near Jerusalem , Matthew 28:16-20 – Jesus’ ascension isn’t mentioned at all, but Matthew ends at a mountain in Galilee and NOTHING about Jesus’ ascension is mentioned in John while in Acts 1:9-12 – Jesus ascends at least 40 days after his resurrection, at Mt. Olivet
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“Where is in the Quran said that the process of corrupting the original Injil, Tawrah and Zabur was done in a snap at the time of the prophet?? This is an odd argument really.”
I haven’t said that. My argument is that Qur’an says really nothing clear about corruption of the original Injil, Tawrah and Zabur at all, and that there simply is no possibility of the originals to be corrupted all at once or even peicemeal. What other options are there? As you say, the only possibility for corruption would have been later than Muhammad’s time; that isn’t at all tenable, since the uncorrupted documents were already in wide circulation across numerous countries and languages.
Muslims believe that the Qur’an, the Torah and the Gospel were all wahy. That means revelation that was sent down orally, and than latter was to become text. When the Qur’an is talking about Christians and the Injeel it does not meant: Christians = a calvinist. Injeel= New Testament canon inclusive of 27 books.
These Christians like Bahira and Waraqa had oral traditions go back to prophet Jesus, and/or some writings that differed with more established modern day Christians like Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic
What is this “uncorrupted documents were already in wide circulation”? do you believe all of Jesus sayings, and teachings and actions recorded in the present day New Testament?
If you are honest to urself Christian would say of course not!
Prophet Jesus is reported to have lived for 33 years. Only 3 years of his life is supposedly recorded in the New Testament. Obviously this left allot of very sincere and pious Christians wondering. What he was doing and saying for 30 years?
Keep in mind that the Gospel of John says,
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)
So according to the Quran, the Torah and the Gospel were all revelation that was sent down orally, and than latter was to become text. The Qur’an does not tell us the contents of those revelations. That is not the objective of the Qur’an.
However, the position of the Muslims is that the wrtieen Torah, the Zabur or the Injeel is what the various Christian and Jewish sects have in their possession today but mixed with other thoughts and writings
The position of the Muslims is also not to say that the the Torah, the Zabur or the Injeel is absolutely corrupted.
The Christians themselves only have a presupposition, a belief in ‘original autographs’. Only by faith they can know with 100% confidence what the Injeel of Jesus was.
The Codex Sinaiticus contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Heremes which is not found in today’s New Testament. There are Christian groups that survive until this present day that does not accept Revelation, Jude, James 1st and 2nd Peter as canon.
Christians themselves have always disputed up until this present day what should be Biblical canon.
“Scholars agree we do not have a reliable text of the NT…”
//Sorry, those are liberal scholars (i.e. Ehrman) who probably have already decided what they will find.//
Sorry you are being emotional. Bart D. Ehrman’s is undeniably an academic with impeccable credentials. His presentation and arguments are firmly rooted in mainstream scholarship.
Bart powerfully defends Jesus Christ historicity against Canadian author and historian, Earl J. Doherty, on the view that Jesus did not exist as an historical figure. Are you going to dismiss Bart Erhman as merely “already decided what they will find”?
//brother ric, that the bible has been gang raped by different minds has been aknowledged by evangelical christians aswell
here are thom starks views. stark is christian.//
Thanks for the info. br Mansubzero.
Indeed, the Bible as a religious text were always such in a volatile atmosphere we could see the evidence of corruption of the text available now for contradictory events, violences, absurdities, and theological chaos.
As Salaamu ‘Alaykum,
godandneighbour has a few comments waiting approval, although I am considering not approving them and using his comments in a post to demonstrate his ignorance of Islam and Christianity. Do brothers Ric and Mansubzero accept my doing of this, or would you like to continue the dialogue?
g-dandneighbour, do you accept this? You’ve handed me some words which I am ashamed to approve on your behalf, but I am willing to correct you via a post. Let me know what your decision is, because either I will correct you or the brothers will.
The call is yours bro. Ijaz.
I personally do not think this discussion do any good further as it seems “godandneighbour” has little interest in dialogue but (out of ego) to spam this space with his (rather boring) apologetics away from its original topic. He clearly has no knowledge in genuine Islamic teaching and depend entirely on anti-islam hates sites material found in the internet.
However, God willing, I am happy to address whatever issue he throw at us for the benefit for any other muslims to learn how to deal with an apologist like him.
Ijaz, Ric doesn’t seem interested in further debate, and if he is serious about his summary of the discussion, it’s clear he hasn’t been paying attention. Many of his points can be found verbatim elsewhere on the Internet. I’ve learned much from the discussion though and have garnered plenty of information for my own blog, so the experience has been helpful. If you don’t mind approving my latest comments, I’d be satisfied with that. Thanks, and the best to you. 🙂
godndneighbor, you sounds like a nice gentleman, but please you are one the one who clearly didnt pay attention , nowhere I said Im not interested to keep on debating. . God Willing, Im ok to answer whatever argument you bring forward. (I had done a +300 comment thread against a calvinist apologist in the past in another forum)
Yes’ I gather some info from the Internet and thats a normal practise eveywhre (it is not an academic paper) and unlike you, a few times, I cited the source and I plan to do that more often. It is the arguments which we need to debate not the source.
I will also gather this exchanges into a post for my-own blog.
Ric… I do appreciate that, but Ijaz is holding onto my last several responses, so whether the debate continues at all is under his control.