MDI Australia member, Abdullah Kunde debates Dr James White, of Alpha & Omega Ministries.
A friend just emailed me this:
WOAH! Have you guys seen this debate?
Abdullah Kunde thrashed James White big time. His rational dialectics were rigorously applied and White slipped up several times (but muddied the waters in his typical manner), however Kunde was insistent (as one should be against debaters like White) and chased him down, repeatedly underscoring the incoherence of his theology. Abdullah’s public speaking is also up to a very high level, and his laconic delivery inspires confidence and suits his style extremely well.
Frankly this is one of the best debates of the past year, and is one of the best handlings of the slippery James White (who is in the main frankly dishonest as he uses semantics and misdirection to mask his logical fallacies and justify his ‘squared circles’) by a Muslim or anyone else. This is evidenced by the mutual interrogation sessions in which the far more experienced White usually excels, however, Kunde managed him and even made him uncomfortable, while all the time maintaining decorum and a respectful manner. In fact, I think this was an even better success than Abdullah Al Andalusi’s famously successful debate with White on the Trinity, which was also famous for it’s rational critique of the Trinity.
Kunde was also expert at sidestepping Whites’ red herrings and attempts to draw the debate to Islam’s version of events (whether stories from the Gnostics, the Night Journey or the meanings of ‘time’ in the two religions).
Comments on: "Can God Become A Man? James White vs Abdullah Kunde" (137)
Abdullah Kunde thrashed James White big time.
Really? How? You never really give any specifics.
His rational dialectics were rigorously applied and White slipped up several times
What were his specific “slip-ups” ?
(but muddied the waters in his typical manner), however Kunde was insistent (as one should be against debaters like White) and chased him down, repeatedly underscoring the incoherence of his theology.
How is it incoherent? Be specific.
Abdullah’s public speaking is also up to a very high level, and his laconic delivery inspires confidence and suits his style extremely well.
Frankly this is one of the best debates of the past year, and is one of the best handlings of the slippery James White (who is in the main frankly dishonest
How is he dishonest? Be specific.
as he uses semantics and misdirection to mask his logical fallacies and justify his ‘squared circles’) by a Muslim or anyone else.
Abdullah was very good to say toward the beginning – something like, “I am under obligation to define Christianity as Christianity defines itself” – so if Christianity says that 1. God is able to become flesh (John 1:1, 1:14, Philippians 2:5-8), and 2. the incarnation is the second person of the Trinity becoming flesh/human; and 3. God is One in substance/nature/essence and 4. God has a three-ness to Himself within His oneness – three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and 5. Jesus has 2 natures within Himself as one person; then it is not incoherent.
It seems to me that all Muslims demand that the incarnation has to mean that the human nature of Jesus has to be perfect in the sense of category # 1, that is “unlimited, eternal, independent, self-existent; omnipotent, omniscient”; but that is not what Christians believe, – except that Jesus in His perfect human was without sin. (John 8:46; Hebrews 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22) Even the Qur’an speaks of Jesus Al Massih as a “sinless or faultless son” – Surah Maryam 19:19-21. زکیا
Since we don’t apply “unlimited, eternal, independent, etc.” to the human nature of Jesus, then for Muslims to demand that, is inconsistent and mixing categories, since those attributes only belong to God; to the Divine Nature of Jesus.
Surah 19:19
“He said, No; I am only a messenger from Your Lord, that I may bestow on you a faultless son.” Surah Maryam 19:19. You can see the last word in Arabic, زکیا , (zakiyyan) which is translated “fault-less”, “pure”, “most holy”, “righteous”.
The human nature of Jesus is now glorified after the resurrection; but it came into being at the conception in the womb of Mary – Luke 1:34-35, and so the human nature of Jesus is not eternal into the past.
Jesus is clearly sinless; yet Muhammad asked for forgiveness 3 times in the Qur’an. 47:19; 40:55; 48:2
Since Jesus did have a perfect human nature with respect to other humans and also never sinned, it seems that you have made a category error, because we don’t demand nor teach that Jesus’ human nature is in category # 1. (eternal, self-existent, unlimited, etc.)
Abdullah wrote (in his com box on the debate at his own blog
http://ideologiaeislam.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/category-of-mistakes/
Abdullah wrote: ” 2) Perfect with respect to a genus. I said that ‘perfect’ could be applied to created things, but only within their own context. I said that a car may be called perfect if it is considered to be superior to all other cars. I agreed that a human could be called perfect with respect to other humans, however I affirmed that perfect with respect to a genus is not the same as absolutely perfect, because it can only ever be applied within the category it is referring to (not in an absolute or even comparative sense).”
My response: This is the sense that Jesus’ human nature was; and also without sin. That is why He as one person in the incarnation was limited temporarily to time and space while on earth for 33 years and did not know the day of the second coming ( Matthew 24:36) But now in His glorified resurrected body, He surely knows the day of His second coming. The divine nature did not change, rather, as Dr. White was basically seeking to explain, and as all Christians have believed and taught, Jesus the eternal Son, the eternal Word of God (John 1:1-5), voluntarily “emptied Himself” or “did not use His divine privileges”, by becoming a man. Philippians 2:5-8. (also John 1:14; Hebrews 10:5; Luke 1:34-35)
This is evidenced by the mutual interrogation sessions in which the far more experienced White usually excels, however, Kunde managed him and even made him uncomfortable, while all the time maintaining decorum and a respectful manner. In fact, I think this was an even better success than Abdullah Al Andalusi’s famously successful debate with White on the Trinity, which was also famous for it’s rational critique of the Trinity.
Kunde was also expert at sidestepping Whites’ red herrings and attempts to draw the debate to Islam’s version of events (whether stories from the Gnostics, the Night Journey or the meanings of ‘time’ in the two religions).
It is obvious to rational historical inquiry that Muhammad (or however compiled the Qur’an in the first 200 years AH along with the Hadith collections) got some of his stories from the Gnostic gospels, and legends like the Seven Sleepers.
Wonderful, wonderful, debate. May Almighty God Bless brother Kunde and all MDI folks for all your service to the deen. Amin yaa Rabb
Wow! If you are going to adopt the (sadly) very common internet style of reproducing my review in your reply, at least confine your response to the points contained therein. Don’t go off on epic tangents.
My review presupposed that the reader had seen the debate, so when you keep saying ‘How is it dishonest, how is it incoherent’ etc. I am referring to the debate itself, not that I have demonstrated that the views of White are incoherent within MY review. The review exists only in relation to the debate, not as an independent critique of Christian theology. I would have thought that was glaringly obvious.
Apparently this IS obvious to you:
”It is obvious to rational historical inquiry that Muhammad (or however compiled the Qur’an in the first 200 years AH along with the Hadith collections) got some of his stories from the Gnostic gospels, and legends like the Seven Sleepers.”
To quote you…BE SPECIFIC.
It is ridiculous to assume that if an event occurred, like Jesus giving life to the dead, then it should be reported by one source only. It is funny that Christians like to use multiple sources, even if they are somewhat dissimilar like the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion and Resurrection for example, as proof of the historicity of these events but if something that they don’t believe in is reported from varying sources then it is proof of it’s inauthenticity. If Jesus really made clay birds come to life in front of many witnesses, I would EXPECT it to be reported from multiple sources, Gnostic, Quraanic or otherwise. Hell, I would be surprised if no contemporaries of Jesus or people before the revelation of the Quraan had reported it. I think you have failed to understand that the ‘witness’ in the Quraan is alleged to be God, unlike the Gospels where the witnesses were…uuuhhmmm…help me out here…
Also, since Christianity is often accused, by it’s non – Muslim critics of ‘borrowing’ stuff from everything from Sumerian myths to Greek philosophy, does that prove that it is false? If I can find legends of Virgin births in pre – Christian civilizations does that mean Christians (or whoever wrote the Bible) ‘borrowed’ these from them?
But the important thing is that you repeatedly scatter unqualified statements throughout your response, whose original purpose was to take me to task for making unqualified statements. You are being ironic perhaps?
Just because Abdullah said he is under obligation to DEFINE Christianity how it defines itself does not mean he is under obligation to UNDERSTAND Christianity how it understands itself. Otherwise he would merely be obliged to say that most Christians DO believe that God can become a man according to their understanding, end of story. What would be the purpose of the debate then? Perhaps you are of the school of argumentation that people who disagree with you…simply shouldn’t. Just asserting something does not make it true. But then, I suppose that some misguided Christians have not been averse to even blunter tools to assert ideological hygiene through much of history…
The bottom line is that as Muslims and other rationalists see it, an infinite being distinct from man who then becomes or joins with man ceases to be an infinite and unlimited being, weather he does this out of choice or not. Weather he does this out of mercy or not. No amount of Biblical quote mining is going to change that (quite apart from the fact that the Jewish tradition has understood the Old Testament ‘evidences’ for the incarnation in a contrary manner to yourself). God being infinite and finite AT THE SAME TIME, man and God AT THE SAME TIME and in fact having any two mutually incompatible natures at the same time IS a squared circle. In fact it’s even more ridiculous than that. It is like having a circle which has an infinite area but a finite circumference.
Kunde presented a number of other rational contradictions in the idea although he politely masked them by saying things like ‘we feel’ or ‘from the Muslim perspective’. The fact is White could not square the circle and was dishonest: he asked Kunde why God could not become a man if he so willed, but when Kunde asked him the equivalent questions, i.e. can God stop being God and can he make a rock he can’t lift, White and the audience were incredulous. Why? As far as I can see the question is equivalent: ‘Can God do unGodly things?’ to which Whites’ essential reply was that he does not consider God doing unGodly things as unGodly’. I hope you now understand some of the incredulity that Jews and Muslims feel at your concept of the incarnation.
As for your laughable exposition of Surah 19:19, here it is in the English language again:
He said: ‘I am just a message bearer of your Lord, I have come to grant to you a most pure boy’
(Ansari’s translation)
…a pure son (M.A.S. Abdul Haleem)
…a son endowed with purity (Muhammad Asad)
…a holy son (N.J Dawood)
The translation you are referring to is probably Pickthall. Interesting that you picked THAT one eh? Simply because it unintentionally has a word (‘faultless’) which appeals to your Christological bias. After all, it’s not as if we should read the Quraan how Muslims understand it right?!
And in any case, who gave you the ecumenical licence to interpret ‘faultless’ as ‘sinless’? Why could it have not been referring to his physical body or intellect? You only allow the most Christological interpretation of the Quraan and anything else. Heck, I bet you even have a Christological interpretation of the Highway Code. You have failed to understand that a perfect human nature includes the freedom and capacity to sin. Your assertion that Muhammad asked for forgiveness three times means nothing until you PROVE that Jesus is regarded as any different from him. In any case, the ayah about Jesus could be applied to any child born anywhere to anyone at any-time, Because in Islam we do not have the concept of Original Sin, so as far as your argument goes, Jesus being born sinless in Islam is of no consequence.
In summary, there is no point answering a RATIONAL critique of the Trinity with literalism or doctrinal evidences, you have to prove it rationally, to everyone’s satisfaction, not just your own.
In short, you have to square the circle.
Wow! If you are going to adopt the (sadly) very common internet style of reproducing my review in your reply, at least confine your response to the points contained therein. Don’t go off on epic tangents.
My review presupposed that the reader had seen the debate, so when you keep saying ‘How is it dishonest, how is it incoherent’ etc. I am referring to the debate itself, not that I have demonstrated that the views of White are incoherent within MY review. The review exists only in relation to the debate, not as an independent critique of Christian theology. I would have thought that was glaringly obvious.
Apparently this IS obvious to you:
”It is obvious to rational historical inquiry that Muhammad (or however compiled the Qur’an in the first 200 years AH along with the Hadith collections) got some of his stories from the Gnostic gospels, and legends like the Seven Sleepers.”
To quote you…BE SPECIFIC.
It is ridiculous to assume that if an event occurred, like Jesus giving life to the dead, then it should be reported by one source only. It is funny that Christians like to use multiple sources, even if they are somewhat dissimilar like the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion and Resurrection for example, as proof of the historicity of these events but if something that they don’t believe in is reported from varying sources then it is proof of it’s inauthenticity. If Jesus really made clay birds come to life in front of many witnesses, I would EXPECT it to be reported from multiple sources, Gnostic, Quraanic or otherwise. Hell, I would be surprised if no contemporaries of Jesus or people before the revelation of the Quraan had reported it. I think you have failed to understand that the ‘witness’ in the Quraan is alleged to be God, unlike the Gospels where the witnesses were…uuuhhmmm…help me out here…
Also, since Christianity is often accused, by it’s non – Muslim critics of ‘borrowing’ stuff from everything from Sumerian myths to Greek philosophy, does that prove that it is false? If I can find legends of Virgin births in pre – Christian civilizations does that mean Christians (or whoever wrote the Bible) ‘borrowed’ these from them?
But the important thing is that you repeatedly scatter unqualified statements throughout your response, whose original purpose was to take me to task for making unqualified statements. You are being ironic perhaps?
Just because Abdullah said he is under obligation to DEFINE Christianity how it defines itself does not mean he is under obligation to UNDERSTAND Christianity how it understands itself. Otherwise he would merely be obliged to say that most Christians DO believe that God can become a man according to their understanding, end of story. What would be the purpose of the debate then? Perhaps you are of the school of argumentation that people who disagree with you…simply shouldn’t. Just asserting something does not make it true. But then, I suppose that some misguided Christians have not been averse to even blunter tools to assert ideological hygiene through much of history…
The bottom line is that as Muslims and other rationalists see it, an infinite being distinct from man who then becomes or joins with man ceases to be an infinite and unlimited being, weather he does this out of choice or not. Weather he does this out of mercy or not. No amount of Biblical quote mining is going to change that (quite apart from the fact that the Jewish tradition has understood the Old Testament ‘evidences’ for the incarnation in a contrary manner to yourself). God being infinite and finite AT THE SAME TIME, man and God AT THE SAME TIME and in fact having any two mutually incompatible natures at the same time IS a squared circle. In fact it’s even more ridiculous than that. It is like having a circle which has an infinite area but a finite circumference.
Kunde presented a number of other rational contradictions in the idea although he politely masked them by saying things like ‘we feel’ or ‘from the Muslim perspective’. The fact is White could not square the circle and was dishonest: he asked Kunde why God could not become a man if he so willed, but when Kunde asked him the equivalent questions, i.e. can God stop being God and can he make a rock he can’t lift, White and the audience were incredulous. Why? As far as I can see the question is equivalent: ‘Can God do unGodly things?’ to which Whites’ essential reply was that he does not consider God doing unGodly things as unGodly’. I hope you now understand some of the incredulity that Jews and Muslims feel at your concept of the incarnation.
As for your laughable exposition of Surah 19:19, here it is in the English language again:
He said: ‘I am just a message bearer of your Lord, I have come to grant to you a most pure boy’
(Ansari’s translation)
…a pure son (M.A.S. Abdul Haleem)
…a son endowed with purity (Muhammad Asad)
…a holy son (N.J Dawood)
The translation you are referring to is probably Pickthall. Interesting that you picked THAT one eh? Simply because it unintentionally has a word (‘faultless’) which appeals to your Christological bias. After all, it’s not as if we should read the Quraan how Muslims understand it right?!
And in any case, who gave you the ecumenical licence to interpret ‘faultless’ as ‘sinless’? Why could it have not been referring to his physical body or intellect? You only allow the most Christological interpretation of the Quraan and anything else. Heck, I bet you even have a Christological interpretation of the Highway Code. You have failed to understand that a perfect human nature includes the freedom and capacity to sin. Your assertion that Muhammad asked for forgiveness three times means nothing until you PROVE that Jesus is regarded as any different from him. In any case, the ayah about Jesus could be applied to any child born anywhere to anyone at any-time, Because in Islam we do not have the concept of Original Sin, so as far as your argument goes, Jesus being born sinless in Islam is of no consequence.
In summary, there is no point answering a RATIONAL critique of the Trinity with literalism or doctrinal evidences, you have to prove it rationally, to everyone’s satisfaction, not just your own.
In short, you have to square the circle.
I also watched most of the debate. I also don’t know how the reviewer came to his conclusions.
It seemed to me that Kunde made no meaningful distinction between the hypostasis and the substance. Every act of Jesus was either the act of all three persons because Jesus possessed the divine substance: so the hypostases are a meaningless distinction. Or the hypostasis acted indendently of God if the substance, and therefore all three persons, did not perform the act and thus the one who performed the act could not be said to be divine or was acting independently of the other two persons of the Godhead, or of the Father at least and therefore not capable or worthy of being worshipped. The outcome of Kund’s argument would then be, as I understood it, that there is no act which is the outcome of the human and divine nature working together in one person.
Kunde’s distinction between perfection and absolute perfection is false in my view. Perfection is not relative as he claims it to be. Absolute perfection as Kunde uses the term is just a meaningless abstraction which he tries to pass off as an attribute of God which he then claims would be compromised by any act of incarnation. Perfection as an abstract entity is not perfection. As I see it you would have to impart some kind of quality or attribute to it to make it meaningful. Kunde could not give any reason beyond this as to why the incarnation would not be possible for God.
I came to those conclusions because I tried to watch it without any presuppositions.
Note how the young English gentleman at the start prays to God and asks him to allow us to come to the truth on the topic of weather God can become a man. He then ruins all pretensions to genuine intellectual inquiry by doing this in the name of his Lord Jesus Christ. i.e., he has already decided that God can become a man, and he is asking this God, who has in his view become a man already, to help him decide HONESTLY if he CAN become a man. But he already said he could. It’s like an intellectual Möbius strip.
Your summary of Kundes’ arguments in your second paragraph is perhaps slightly unnecessarily convoluted.
There clearly is a distinction between perfection for God and perfection for created entities. That is what should be meant by absolute perfection and relative perfection. Therefore a perfect man would not be God. That is because they are different categories. Just as being a perfect monkey would not make you a human, they are different things and have different criteria for perfection. Just because you cannot envision the perfection of God, it does not mean that it should be framed in human terms. Also, as a created entity, the perfection of a man would be dependant or conditional on God, whereas the perfection of God is different in that it is not imposed on him from anyone else.
You mentioned:
”Perfection as an abstract entity is not perfection. As I see it you would have to impart some kind of quality or attribute to it to make it meaningful”
That sentence is not very helpful in my opinion, perfection IS the attribute under discussion so what quality or attribute would we have to add to it to make it meaningful?
You see, I feel you are making an error: God is difficult to get ‘close’ to due to his sublime and transcendent attributes, so we make the mistake of making Him closer to us. Just because one can’t fathom his perfection or it is too abstract for one does not mean the one now have the licence to frame it as the attribute of a human.
I was educated in Catholic School for many years and I did not have a problem with their formulation of the Trinity, because they admitted that it was not rationally apprehensible and did not make ‘sense’ and was indeed an unsolvable mystery. The problem comes when people like White and indeed William L. Craig try to make it an INTELLECTUAL necessity, which it cannot be for the reasons of the rational contradictions that Kunde highlighted and White skilfully masked.
I have no problem with you guys believing in things which don’t make rational sense, maybe they make other kinds of sense, like emotional sense etc. But there is one problem with believing things that do not make sense, weather you are Muslim, Christian or whatever: you do not have a monopoly on this. Everyone can then say that they believe stuff that does not make sense. If a Hindu is asked how can God be fragmented or in ‘Avatars’ he can say that it does not need to make sense and on that basis he or she could not be refuted.
Kunde made it very clear: a God who joins with a man under any conditions or acquires a human nature by any will or means is no longer a God or the even the same ‘being’ that he or they was/were before. Unless people say that the human mortal and ignorant part of Jesus was pre – eternal, in which case it was not human after all since humans are not not like that, even if they are perfect and sinless etc. He is just highlighting the difficulties from a rational perspective, it does not mean you are not free to believe it and many Christians acknowledge this (like my teachers) and continue to have faith. The problem comes when people like White say that it makes perfect rational sense and then don”t really prove it.
You said:
‘Absolute perfection as Kunde uses the term is just a meaningless abstraction which he tries to pass off as an attribute of God’
All Kunde is saying is that what if the idea of ‘Triunitheism’ is also an abstraction which is hard to prove on rational grounds (notice I said RATIONAL, not TEXTUAL or PERSONAL grounds)?
Greetings madmanna,
You said:
It seemed to me that Kunde made no meaningful distinction between the hypostasis and the substance. Every act of Jesus was either the act of all three persons because Jesus possessed the divine substance: so the hypostases are a meaningless distinction. Or the hypostasis acted indendently of God if the substance, and therefore all three persons, did not perform the act and thus the one who performed the act could not be said to be divine or was acting independently of the other two persons of the Godhead, or of the Father at least and therefore not capable or worthy of being worshipped. The outcome of Kund’s argument would then be, as I understood it, that there is no act which is the outcome of the human and divine nature working together in one person.
—
Could you clarify this, because it seems that you have understood my point but are confused by it?
My point, basically, was that there is not way of making a distinction between the hypostases and the substance such that the concept of the triune god could be supported. For example, if the hypostasis of the Son can die, then he is not essential to the substance and is therefore irrelevant. Also, the Son was entirely dependent on the Father and/or the Spirit for his resurrection (unless the dead have power of their own) and therefore contains an attribute in his ‘divine personage’ which is ungodly (I.e., dependence).
As for the human and divine nature never working together in one person, I gave several examples as to how this is the case (and therefore, that the hypostatic union is meaningless). Did the divine personage get hungy and eat when the human did? If so, then there is no divinity (because there is dependence), if not then there is no genuine unification. In either case, we would not worship what is not deity.
Kind regards,
AKunde
Hmmmm….this IS an important point for clarification.
I am interested to know the answer and also happy to be corrected. What does the hypostatic union ‘constitute’? Is it a case that there is a union of the divine and human natures so that a new ‘entity’ is produced (but as I understood it White and other evangelicals of his persuasion deny this)? Or is the human and divine aspect separate as Jesus seems to act human in which case what is the reality/purpose of the union and can it fulfil it’s stated function? If only the man part dies on the cross then how has God entered into creation and experienced death? If God dies then life is not an essential attribute of the persons of the Triune god since at least one of them can get by without it, But then hasn’t his nature changed? It’s all pretty confusing to me.
Also, it is a bit sad that some of the people posting here are from the ‘take no prisoners’ school of Christian Evangelism. Even if we don’t agree with someone like Kunde, we could at least be fair and compliment his eloquence and candour, especially for such a young man against a hugely more knowledgeable, taciturn and experienced opponent. You have to admit that he did remarkably well against a professional, regardless of weather you agree with his reasoning or not.
Jealous much guys?
I agree that Abdullah Kunde is one of the best Islamic debaters, because of his good demeanor and attitude, and knowledge also. He does not have the “angry edge” that many other Muslims, to be quite frank, seem to have.
I appreciate all of his debates with Dr. White and Samuel Green – they are some of the best.
Pickthall is a Muslim, and it is one of the standard English translations of the Qur’an. Don’t blame me if he translated زکیا
in a way that you don’t like. that one and Yusef Ali are the most common and popularly used English translations of the Qur’an. I know there are others and 10 others at the quranbrowser.com site.
Rehan Ullah/Nazam44 wrote:
“Your assertion that Muhammad asked for forgiveness three times means nothing until you PROVE that Jesus is regarded as any different from him.”
Jesus Al Masih عیسی المسیح is a lot different. Even the Quran affirms this and so your argument is defeated. Just by the fact that Al Masih is virgin born and Muhammad was not born of a virgin, devastates your argument there. Al Masih is massively more holy and different and pure and a 1000 times better example on how to love and respect others and live life. He is the Kalimat’allah (کلمه الله) (word of God) and a spirit from Allah (روح من الله ). Jesus was virgin born as the Qur’an says in Surah 3 and 19:19-21. Those are massive differences. Jesus never entered politics, never fought any battles or used the sword, never made war on people – but Muhammad did all of those things. Jesus never raided a caravan, never killed anyone, but Muhammad did. Jesus never got angry over someone insulting Him. He got angry for hypocrisy in the Pharisee Jewish leaders, and abusing the temple (John 2, Mark 11) and hard heartedness and unbelief in people(Mark 3), but never took revenge or complained over being personally insulted. Big differences.
There is a Hadith that goes with that and tells us that every human being is touched by Satan in the womb except for Jesus and Mary.
Narrated Said bin Al-Musaiyab:
Abu Huraira said, “I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, ‘There is none born among the off-spring of Adam, but Satan touches it. A child therefore, cries loudly at the time of birth because of the touch of Satan, EXCEPT MARY AND HER CHILD.” Then Abu Huraira recited: “And I seek refuge with You for her and for her offspring from the outcast Satan” (3.36) (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 641; see also Volume 4, Book 54, Number 506)
Since the NT, which came over 500 years before Muhammad and the Qur’an, if the Qur’an was actually written down by 632 AD, and compiled by Uthman by 656 AD, then it follows that the NT, which was written between 48-96 AD, most of it before 70 AD, then it came almost 600 years before Muhammad. Since the NT says Jesus is sinless – (John 8:46; Hebrews 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22) (four different witnesses – John, writer of Hebrews, maybe Barnabas, Paul, and Peter) and all inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16); and the Qur’an affirms the gospel, then the NT is right about Jesus being sinless.
Jesus is clearly sinless; yet Muhammad asked for forgiveness 3 times in the Qur’an. 47:19; 40:55; 48:2
Since the Qur’an affirms the Bible, (Surah 5:47, 10:94; 2:136; 29:46), then we are on much more evidential ground, because we have both the Bible and the Qur’an in affirming this truth, that Jesus is greater in character than Muhammad and sinless.
I watched and listened to the entire debate twice, and I see no where that Dr. White was dishonest.
If the category of the human nature of Jesus is not limitless, but His divine nature is limitless; then you make a category error in logic and rationality by mixing the 2 categories. God has the power to do what the Bible says He can do; He didn’t cease to be God, because He didn’t loose His divine nature, He just took on an additional nature. If we said the Trinity was three persons and three natures, then it would follow that it is trying to make squares into circles. If we said that Jesus is two persons and two nature, then it would also follow that that is like trying to make squares into circles. But since we don’t teach that and never have, we are not “making squares into circles” or “calling white something that is black”.
Yes, it is obvious that Jesus speaking from the cradle and making a clay bird was from Gnostic sources such as the Gospel of the Infancy and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. (Surah 3:49; 5:110) The Gnostics thought the body was evil, that is why they could not handle Jesus being crucified. Irenaeus around 200 AD reports of a Gnostic teacher, Basilides, who taught that Jesus was not really crucified, but that Simon of Cyrene took Jesus’ place.
See here for the texts in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies about Basilides:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/basilides.html
Islam does not teach that the body is evil; therefore it is inconsistent for Islam to deny the crucifixion and also to use Gnostic sources. It is also inconsistent for Muslims to deny real history – the crucifixion, non-miraculous; yet believe in the miraculous – the virgin birth – and that info came from matthew and Luke, and yet deny the explanations of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God in those same books.
Abdullah Kunde wrote:
My point, basically, was that there is not way of making a distinction between the hypostases and the substance such that the concept of the triune god could be supported. For example, if the hypostasis of the Son can die,
Greetings Abdullah !
The hypostasis of the Son did not die – He had a spiritual hypostasis (person; personhood from all eternity) – the Word was also the Son from all eternity. the human nature and body died, not the Divine nature of the Son; the divine nature and divine personhood of the Son always existed; and did not die.
then he is not essential to the substance and is therefore irrelevant. Also, the Son was entirely dependent on the Father and/or the Spirit for his resurrection (unless the dead have power of their own)
Many times the NT says God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, and at least twice the NT says that Jesus raised Himself from the dead – John 2:19-22 and John 10:18. I Peter 3:18 says “He was made alive by the Holy Spirit” – so all three persons of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection of Jesus.
and therefore contains an attribute in his ‘divine personage’ which is ungodly (I.e., dependence).
As a man, Jesus was dependent; while on earth for those 33 years. But since He also raised Himself from the dead, He shows Himself to be the “God-Man”.
So if he raised himself from the dead, the dead have power and will of their own. Isn’t this contrary to your claims (about the dead)?
Ultimately, however, the issue is simple. God-Man and Square-Circle make just as much sense as one another. That is the message of the Qur’an.
However, the message of Trinitarian Christianity is rarely followed through. I hear lots of ‘Jesus is Lord’. Not so much ‘Jesus is a man’.
“and in any case, who gave you the ecumenical licence to interpret ‘faultless’ as ‘sinless’? Why could it have not been referring to his physical body or intellect? You only allow the most Christological interpretation of the Quraan and anything else. Heck, I bet you even have a Christological interpretation of the Highway Code. You have failed to understand that a perfect human nature includes the freedom and capacity to sin. Your assertion that Muhammad asked for forgiveness three times means nothing until you PROVE that Jesus is regarded as any different from him. In any case, the ayah about Jesus could be applied to any child born anywhere to anyone at any-time, Because in Islam we do not have the concept of Original Sin, so as far as your argument goes, Jesus being born sinless in Islam is of no consequence.”
rambo:
HERE IS something INTERESTING I found on the suffering servant
quote:
You did respond to my next question, which was – where does Isaiah 53:12 say that the servant did not sin? – you responded by pointing to the fact that the servant suffered for the guilt of others, and the prophet describes the guilt of others – in a way that gives us to understand that the servant did not share in their guilt. I agree to this point – I believe that the servant did not share in the guilt of those who persecuted him – but this does not make him “without sin”. It certainly doesn’t preclude corporate Israel – both Isaiah and Micah describe Israel as righteous in contrast with the Gentile nations who persecute her – the prophet makes it clear that Israel does not share in the guilt of the nations, – although she is certainly guilty of her own sins towards God (Isaiah 26:2,13; 40:31; 49:23; 51:7; 54:17; 60:21; 62:2; Micah 7:8,9).
To respond to the new questions you brought up – How does Israel bring healing to her persecutors with her wounds? – and how do they make intercession for their killers?
Jeremiah commands the Jewish people to pray for the Babylonians (who killed them), and throughout history the Jewish people took this injunction seriously – to pray for their host nations – nations including Czarist Russia and medieval Spain. There is no question that God was more favorably inclined to these Jewish prayers on account of the suffering that the Jewish people endured – Psalm 34:19.
end quote
do you see THAT it DOES NOT prove that the suffering servant WAS SINLESS
So if he raised himself from the dead, the dead have power and will of their own. Isn’t this contrary to your claims (about the dead)?
What do you mean?
What is death? Death is the separation of the soul from the body and when the body stops functioning – no more brain waves; heart stops – the soul has left the body – human souls exist after death and they will be re-united with their bodies on the general resurrection of all people and judgment day. (John 5:28-29) But souls are both in heaven (believers) and in Hades/hell (unbelievers) – after judgment day Hades is thrown into the lake of fire – Revelation 20:10-15
“Jesus Al Masih عیسی المسیح is a lot different.”
he is a lot different when pagan european writers start to mix him with thier fantasies .jesus al masih is evolving in christian minds and christian minds narrated about their DIFFERENT understandings of jesus . to me and to all of his CONTEMPORAY jews he would have BEEN viewed as A SINNER who was PART of an EVIL AND adulterous generation.
“Even the Quran affirms this and so your argument is defeated.”
i thought you said that the qur’aan is very late? but forget the qur’aan and lets see the following
“18 And of Jesus Christ, the birth was thus: For his mother Mary having been betrothed to Joseph, before their coming together she was found to have conceived from the Holy Spirit, 19 and Joseph her husband being righteous, and not willing to make her an example, did wish privately to send her away. 20 And on his thinking of these things, lo, a messenger of the Lord in a dream appeared to him, saying, `Joseph, son of David, thou mayest not fear to receive Mary thy wife, for that which in her was begotten [is] of the Holy Spirit….22 And all this hath come to pass, that it may be fulfilled that was spoken by the Lord through the prophet… And Joseph, having risen from the sleep, did as the messenger of the Lord directed him, and received his wife, 25 and did not know her till she brought forth her son — the first-born, and he called his name Jesus.”
okay, how dOES A vision in a DREAM prove to the SKEPTICS that jesus was YHWH in flesh and born of a virgin? how does joseph prove to the DOUBTERS THAT dreams prove that mary was carrying 100 percent human + hundred percent god in her womb? was all of israel having dreams about galilean PEASANT being born of a virgin? joseph IS NO WHERE TO be seen IN LATER stages of jesus’ life. is it because he found out that the DREAM was from the devil and mary really did do the bad thing ? JOSif is not EVEN at the crucifixion of the the god in flesh, he goes missing from the story.
“Just by the fact that Al Masih is virgin born and Muhammad was not born of a virgin,”
jesus’ human nature consist of flesh/meat , mind and soul ALL WHICH WAS created but got a filling by 3rd god in trinity, ADAM’s nature also CONSIST of flesh /meat, mind and soul WHICH WAS also CREATED. so according to your logic, all god needed to do was LOCATE himself in adam and adam would be 100 percent SINLESS person without a mother /father.
” Al Masih is massively more holy and different and pure and a 1000 times better example on how to love and respect others and live life.”
1
josephus book of wars
Book VI of Wars
But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, (23) began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!” This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also!” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost. (Whiston translation)
HERES YOUR SUFFERING servant and IT AINT jeezuz the krist:
Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come
2
[Lycurgus of Sparta] had been blinded in one eye by one of his fellow-
citizens and had received the young man at the hands of the people to
punish as he saw fit, he did not choose to do this, but trained him
instead and made a good man of him, and afterward escorted him to the public theatre. And when the [Spartans] regarded him with amazement, he said: “This man I received from you an insolent and violent creature; I return him to you a reasonable man and a good
citizen.” (Fragment 39)
jesus al masih , the SINNER, had no ALTERNATIVE but to USE VIOLENCE in the temple, he had no alternative (a god has no alternative?) but to USE HARSH words in PUBLIC which would cause the PHARISEES to say , ” WHEN you say these things YOU insult us” YET philosopheRs BEFORE jesus USED ALTERNATIVES.
….
even paul ADMITS thAT pagan RELIGIONS taught brotherhood and love
proof
Acts 17:26-28
v. 28, “…even some of your poets have said…”
“remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies”.
Cicero, who said “men are grouped with Gods on the basis of blood relationship and descent…there is a blood relationship between ourselves and the celestial beings; or we may call it a common ancestry or origin.”
WITh your jesus al masih , he is GOING TO PLAY tag team with the other trinity members and enjoy watching judas and pharisees SUFFER in the depths of hell and IN his revengefull mind and in the authour of book of revealation and JUDE , jc thinks he is gonna comeback with revenge lol, pharisee judaism KILLED jesus and pharisee judaism IS GROWING RAPIDLY.OFcourse these authours would be jeolous and utter empty threats.
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)
Buddhist holy teaching: “Shame on him who strikes, greater shame on him who strikes back. Let us live happily, not hating those who hate us. Let us therefore overcome anger by kindness, evil by good, falsehood by truth.” (written centuries before Jesus was born)
Buddhist holy teaching: “In this world hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.” (The Dhammapada) Taoist holy teaching: “Return love for hatred. Otherwise, when a great hatred is reconciled, some of it will surely remain. How can this end in goodness? Therefore the sage holds to the left hand of an agreement but does not expect what the other holder ought to do. Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. Whoever is self-centered cannot have the love of others.” (written centuries before Jesus was born)
The Greek poet Homer: “I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need.” (Calypso, to Odysseus, in Homer, The Odyssey, bk. 5, vv. 184-91. Roughly late 8th century BCE.).
just because pagan europeans like yourself REDUPLICATE and make mutawatir STUFF WHICH WAS ALREADY KNOWN BEFORE jesus EXISTED doesn’t mean your jessus is a 1000 TIMES BETTER .
” He is the Kalimat’allah (کلمه الله) (word of God)”
a word of god PLACED in marys womb at a SPECIFIC time, i guess the WOMB of mARY must be ETERNAL with the word of god. so WHEN god said to adam “be” wasn’t ADAM A WORD FROM god? lol
“and a spirit from Allah (روح من الله ).”
same explanation as above.
“Jesus never entered politics, never fought any battles or used the sword, never made war on people – ”
because if he did he WOULD HAVE been DESTROYED THE day he entered.
you don’t mess about with roman millitary power and jesus is clearly SCARED of the romans, thats why he doesn’t mingle with them. also his deciples were COWARDS AND you can’t get amo through chicken and weak DECIPLES .jesus, your messie, was ALSO AFRAID , because post ressurected jesus was DISGUISED as A GARDNER lol, this means that if he had showed his face he would have been completely finnished off lol
but he does fight battle in his COSMIC form
Exodus 14:13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance Yahweh will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 Yahweh will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Joshua 10:14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when Yahweh listened to a man. Surely Yahweh was fighting for Israel!
Joshua 10:42 All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because Yahweh, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.
Joshua 23:3 You yourselves have seen everything Yahweh your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was Yahweh your God who fought for you.
LOL does that mean god in meat/flesh was BETTER than his COSMIC form lol olololoolo lol llol
“but Muhammad did all of those things.”
well jesus PISSED of the jews in 3 years and got on the BAD SIDE of the pharisees because he was SPREADING HATRED about them and then HATE OVERSHADOWED jesus at the trial .HATE BEGETS HATE SON and jesus gave hate and RECEIVED HATE LOL
but if jesus can GET IN TROUBLE IN 3 years combined with TAG TEAM partnership with yhwh in helping israel ACHIEVE VICTORY and also ROASTING MEAT AND SOUL in hell, then you CAN’T REALLY COMPARE TO muhammad, can you? lol
SNIPPING BS
the idea that the the CHILDREN WERE PURE IS VERY ANCIENT according to the qur’aan
18:74:10
QUR’AAN uses FOR MUHAMMAD YUZAKIY
MUHAMMAD IS ,according to the Qur’aan “a PURIFIER”
and he PURIFIES PEOPLE
YUZAKIY KUM
now by the “apologeticlandscape” logic MUhAMMAD must be 100 PERCENT SINLESS
WHAT IS MORE IS THAT IT IS IN mudari3 FORM MEANING ACTION NOT COMPLETE
THIS form tells us that the ACT IS INTENSIVE OR EXTENSIVE
hahahaahaha apologeticlandscape , using your logic Muhammad must also be a god.
btw ZAKIYA + yuZAKI (imperfect verb) BOTH derived FROM THE ZA KA WA ROOT
apologeticsandagape,
I can see that you just don’t ‘get it’. Perhaps because I was long winded in my initial reply to you, it made it difficult for you to grasp:
I did not say I had a problem with Pickthall’s translation, I merely wanted to show that you, like White, are intellectually dishonest in that where there is a choice of translations you would like to use one which seems to help you. In any case it does not. Also, I don’t even know the Quraan site you mention, it is probably mainly used by missionary types like yourself who perhaps have forgotten how to pick up a book.
Jesus’ sinlessness is of no consequence in Islam, we are all born sinless, weather we are touched by the devil or not. There is no concept of Original Sin in Islam. Get over it.
You keep using the oldest Christian missionary trick in the book (and it’s a BIG book) of saying that the Quraan points to the authenticity of the Bible but at the same time asserting that the Quraan is false. So then your basis for pointing to the Biblical text is invalid, you can’t have it both ways. Intellectual dishonesty again. In any case, the Quraan does not point to the Bible in fact it does not even mention the word Bible or New Testament.
You know full well that the ‘New Testament’ was not collected 500 years before Muhammad and that there was no such book in any such form at that time. Nor do you have complete manuscripts of all of the books that were originated at that time that agree with each other. There was also a large amount of variant and apocryphal literature masquerading as scripture at that time which was subsequently removed. Intellectually dishonest again,
You keep casting unqualified aspersions on the Quraan against the body of scholarship on this subject. However, you include few details because you don’t actually know anything about Quraanic text and transmission, you just hope that what you were taught by your Evangelical friends on this subject is true. You need to open your mind and broaden your reading. In any case, it is clear that you assume Biblical inerrency against the great body of evidence. Dishonest yet again.
You know that Christians are accused of borrowing everything from the incarnation to the Trinity and the Virgin Birth from earlier non-Christian (in fact Pagan) sources but you merely repeat your accusation against Islam without addressing the point. All that stuff about the body being sinless or whatever was just aimless. Waffle much?
Finally, you are a typical sad case of when asked to defend a Christian doctrine you start disrespecting Islam and it’s Prophet (SAW), as if that makes you right. You are just a religious xenophobe who appeals to the prevailing prejudice of the age against Muhammad, just as the enemies of the Christians appealed to the prejudices against Jesus (PBUH) at his time and accused him of consorting with ‘prostitutes’ etc. as if false accusations invalidated his message or Muhammad’s. You have graduated from dishonesty to hypocrisy, Well done!
Oh, and I forgot, for all your windbagging and accusations against Islam, you still did not rationally justify the Trinity.
the idea that the the CHILDREN WERE PURE IS VERY ANCIENT according to the qur’aan
18:74:10
I looked up Surah 18:74 – is that right? can you help me understand your reference? 18:74:10 doesn’t make sense. Sincerely.
Rehan Ullah wrote:
Also, I don’t even know the Quraan site you mention, it is probably mainly used by missionary types like yourself who perhaps have forgotten how to pick up a book.
No; I can certainly pick up a book and read, and I have studied the Qur’an mostly in book forms. I have 8 Qur’ans in book form. 3 of them are with Arabic and English (Yusef Ali, Muhammad Asad, and one other from Uganda) and one is Arabic and Farsi that an Iranian friend brought to me from Iran ( I can read the Farsi fluently, and I can recognize Arabic words that come into Farsi from Arabic.) The rest are English only – 2 of Pickthall, one of Yusef Ali without the Arabic, and the young readers simplified version (approved by Al Azhar University) – The Glorious Qur’an: a Simplified Translation for the Young People. Translated by Syed Vickar Ahamed, New Jersey, approved of by Al Azhar, Cairo, Egypt. and other places in Muslim world.
http://www.quranbrowser.com
appears to be run by Muslims. I don’t know though for sure. It is just convenient, for discussion in com boxes on the internet; (hello ?) – nothing wrong with that in itself. Why the need for that kind of talk ?
…akatal TA NAFsaN ZAkiyATUN…
THE IDEA THAT THE BOY WAS PURE WAS ANCIENT ACCORDING TO THE QUR’AAN.
THE QUR’AAN IS NARRATING AN ANCIENT STORY
AND THE PEOPLE THOUGHT THAT THE BOY WAS PURE
THIS MEANS THAT PEOPLE , ACCORDING TO THE QUR’AAN , THOUGHT THAT CHILDREN WERE INNOCENT/PURE.
“doesn’t make sense. Sincerely.”
Deuteronomy 1:34 When Yahweh heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: 35 “Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, 36 except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed Yahweh wholeheartedly.” 37 Because of you Yahweh became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either. 38 But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it. 39 And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad–they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.”
YET KNOW GOOD FROM BAD
OH no christian, you got SHOT in the face by your own BOOK .
Rehan Ullah –
I do “get it” –
Yes, I know that there is no doctrine of original sin in Islam, but the fact that Muhammad did sin and asked forgiveness for his sins, and yet Jesus is clearly sinless, virgin born, is a devastating point for Islam. We are not born sinless. Even child is self-centered and selfish naturally (Fitra) – that is why his parents have to teach him right and wrong and every child has to learn respect and obedience. Without that training and teaching and discipline, children grow up to be selfish and prideful, rebellious, and sometimes criminals.
Yes I can actually “have it both ways”, with intellectual honesty, because the Qur’an came later – almost 600 years later and the author thought it was affirming previous monotheistic religions, books and prophets, but, ooops, it was not. It affirmed the Torah and Injeel and Zobur, but didn’t know much about the content of those books.
Yes the Qur’an does mention “the Bible”, by saying “Al Kitab”, which means “book” and in the Qur’an’s context of “Torah”, Zabur of Davood, and Injeel of Isa, it means, “revelation”, it is the same basic word as “Bible” which meant “book” – Biblos. The Qur’an does not mention the words, “New Testament”, that is true, because it had not been translated yet into Arabic ( a sad reality) and Muhammad was illiterate and could not even read, so he didn’t know much about any of the previous books. He only knew what he heard from the Christian Monk like Bihira and other Christians mentioned in the Islamic sourses such as Jahl and Waraqa bin Naufal.
I did not say that all the 27 books were all collected and put under one book cover. The book form that we use today was not even envented yet in the first century. It came in the 2nd and 3rd Century, and is thought my many scholars to be most firstly used by the Christians in the Roman Empire, after some Romans first used invented the form. They were individual scrolls at first. Didn’t you know that? All 27 of the NT books/letters existed by 96 AD as individual books/scrolls, written to different churches and communities and places, – Italy (Romans), Greece (Corinth, Athens, Thessolonika, Philippi), Asia Minor (Ephesus, Galatia, Cappadokia, Colossea – Today Turkey), Palestine/Israel, Egypt; then collected together under one book cover later. Tertullian and Irenaeus named most of them and quoted from most of them by 180-200 AD and Origen mentioned all of them around 255 AD. All the four gospels are mentioned by Justin Martyr in 150 AD; and some are quoted from by and alluded to by Clement in 96 AD and Ignatius in 110 AD. So your argument fails big time.
I am not disrespecting Muhammad deliberately in a mean-spirited way. I am only saying that if Christianity is true as it is in the 27 books of the NT, (Jesus was crucified, died for sin, rose from the dead, Jesus is the eternal Son of God, the word of God from all eternity, Lord; salvation is by repentance and faith in Him as Lord and in His work on the cross (Romans 3:25-26), etc. ) then it automatically logically follows that Muhammad was not a prophet or apostle of God. That is not meant to be disrespectful, so I sincerely hope you would not take offense but have a good and respectful conversation more like the way Abdullah Kunde and Paul Williams do.
I think Muhammad at first, sincerely, wanted a book of revelation for the Arabs, as he saw the ignorance and backwardness of polytheism, and he saw the Jewish communities in Medina and Christian communities in Palestine and Syria, and they were unified and had a book in their own languages (Hebrew for the Jews; Greek for the Byzantines); and Muhammad was sincerely attracted to monotheism and the religion of Abraham and knew idolatry was backwards, wrong, and ignorance. That is why the Qur’an says several times, basically, “we have revealed to you a clear Arabic lecture, so you can understand”.
Unfortunately, the Christian churches did not reach out in proper evangelism and apologetics and agape love to talk to the Arabs in their culture nor translate the Scriptures into Arabic until it was too late.
When he got political and military power in Medina and started getting new revelations to attack caravans and make war and marry more women, that is when he lost his sincerity, in my opinion. He was just a man; who did try to turn the Arabs away from fighting and disunity and polytheism and killing their daughters – he did some good.
Rambo John – what is the Qur’an reference?
qur’aan 18:74:10
?????
I did not say that all the 27 books were all collected and put under one book cover by 100 AD; but they did exist as individual books/ scrolls in different areas in the Roman Empire.
apologetic land scape has some kind of obession with qur’aan and non cananical gospels, can he tell me how non cananical ideas OUTSIDE of the torah ENTERED into the new testament?
http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/the-transfiguration-and-the-inclusion-of-moses/
‘I did not say that all the 27 books were all collected and put under one book cover by 100 AD; but they did exist as individual books/ scrolls in different areas in the Roman Empire.’
But you do realise, don’t you, that the early church possessed many different canons of the NT, and that Christians still disagree about which books make up the NT (and the OT)? Remind me, why do you reject the authoritative canons of the Bible in the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex_Vaticanus, the 2 earliest extant NT canons? Why do you reject the commonly accepted canon of the Bible as listed by Augustine in his work ‘On Christian Doctrine’?
By what authority do you personally decide what is Scripture and what is not?
how worship of human being blinds humans ,
“Even child is self-centered and selfish naturally (Fitra) – that is why his parents have to teach him right and wrong and every child has to learn respect and obedience.”
AND THE childs BRAIN is wired to know this? did the child tell god that he WANTED TO be human or did god tell the child that he wants to make him a human? when the kid is drawing on the WALLS with a pen, God is SADDENED by this “sin” lol ?
But you do realise, don’t you, that the early church possessed many different canons of the NT,
that is not really true, as we will see. there was some questioning of 5-7 books in the early days, and some accepted Pseudo-barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas as Scripture, but there were not “many different canons of the NT”; no. Marcion was a heretic and created his “canon” by “cutting out” books and sections of Luke with a “pen-knive” (Tertullian)
and that Christians still disagree about which books make up the NT
No. there is no disagreement over the NT – Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants all agree on the 27 books of the NT. The western Assyrian church (Nestorian church) had a 22 book NT for a while, but eventually accepted the 27 NT books.
(and the OT)
The Roman Catholics added the 11 Jewish apocryphal books written during the years between 400 and 100 BC. Between Malachi and Chronicles (the last 2 books written in OT) and John the Baptist. But Jesus (Luke 24:44; 11:51- “from the blood of Abel” = Genesis, “to the blood of Zechariah the priest” = Chronicles – 2 Chronicles 24:17-22); the Jews (Romans 3:2), Josephus (Against Apion 1:8) and Jerome (400 AD) all agree on the OT books with the Protestant canon. Together, they have higher proof and authority than Augustine on that issue, who admitted he didn’t know Hebrew at all and admitted he didn’t even like Greek and didn’t know either very well. Jerome around 400 was the scholar of that day who traveled to Israel and lived there for several years and studied Hebrew and translated the OT into Latin. Your argument fails.
? Remind me, why do you reject the authoritative canons of the Bible in the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex_Vaticanus, the 2 earliest extant NT canons?
They are not “canons”.
Why do you reject the commonly accepted canon of the Bible as listed by Augustine in his work ‘On Christian Doctrine’?
Answered above.
By what authority do you personally decide what is Scripture and what is not?
Answered above. Jesus, the Jews of the OT and NT days, Josephus, and Jerome are powerful historical evidences against the Apocrypha OT books. Also, John the Baptist quoting from Malachi at the the beginning of the gospels; and no Apocrypha book is quoted as Scripture in the NT and even one of the Apocrypha books (I think it is Maccabees) says that prophesy had ceased with Malachi/Chronicles. (about 430 BC).
Oh dear, apologeticsandagape AGAIN?!?!
You see, that’s the problem, you say that Jesus is ‘clearly’ sinless. PROVE IT before you say it’s devastating for Islam. And in any case, if he did not have the capacity for sin he was not a man, for free will and the ability to err is definitional to the human condition. That is why we believe that the Prophets are only spared the major sins as that would compromise their role as messengers. They can commit errors and minor sins (maybe like when that Samaritan woman approached Jesus and he called he a dog, although Muslims believe that Jesus(PBUH) is far above committing such and error. Or when his Human Nature accused God of abandoning him on the Cross).
Again, your selective dishonesty is manifest, just because the Quraan mentions the word ‘Book’ then of course this means the Bible! I’m sure when the word book is mentioned in the Vedas and in ‘War and Peace’ it always means the Bible. Shame God did not go on to mention which version this was, King James or whatever…you are just repeating Orientalist assertions by Christian chauvinists that have been rebutted by non – Muslim scholars ages ago but you keep insisting on mining to cover up the actual point, which is the incoherence of your own theology. Muhammad got everything from Christians…yawn. People can read and decide for themselves. If he did copy it from you guys he certainly deserves credit for removing all the irrationalities and contradictions of your theology, so in any case it would be a job well done!
And stop being dumb and saying that since the Quraan comes 600 years after the Bible then it is wrong. This is manifest dumbness, for it amounts to saying that the chronology of the account is what determines it’s reliability and not it’s veracity. I assume by your logic you accept that the Jews do not include the Gospels in their scripture because they came hundreds of years after the Old Testament writings. Why are you then not a Hindu or Buddhist or a Confucian? Their ‘inspired’ writings pre-date yours and interestingly contain lot of Christian concepts, including the whole pacifism thing that you are proud of. And we don’t reliably know their authors either…Your argument is beyond ridiculous, like the earlier source, irrespective of reliability cries ‘shotgun’! And forever has primacy. This goes without bringing up how heavily redacted and corrupted the texts are. Bottom lines are it is not made clear in the Quraan what the texts of the books correspond to. You would like it to be the Bible, but if wishes were horses…
You are yet again dishonest by saying that the books of the New Testament are mentioned by Tertullian and Iraneus. They did not mention all of them, so it’s your argument that fails big time, and you have to wait till 255 AC for all of them to be mentioned, I am sure along with some other books that are NOT included in today’s NT. Anyway ‘mention’ does not equal ‘uncorrupted and congruent manuscripts’ as you well know. You did teach me something interesting though, I did not know that even the Gospels were not mentioned as all four till 150AC, I will ignore the fact that you allow the ‘allusions’ to them earlier. You see, this is why you and White are intellectually dishonest, you have a completely different criteria for the NT and other books. If the Quraan was not collected or did not have a manuscript until that late, would you allow ‘allusions’ to the Surahs of the Quraan (by Muslim scholars)? No, you would be tripping over yourself with indignation. Anyway, James White was battered on this very topic in his debate with the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman. No two manuscripts agree etc. the only people who believe in your kind of stuff is fundamentalist evangelical scholars (like Dr White), that’s fine, but don’t demand that everyone else shut off their brain and fall into line.
You don’t see me quote the Quraan endlessly or attack the person of Jesus, cos that’s not what the debate was about. You keep posting and posting and wasting everyone’s time by taking the discussion off topic, whereas the discussion was on the rationality of the Trinity. If you were sensible, you should have confined yourself to this, but you tried to muddy the waters by attacking everything you could in Islam, your little ‘psychoanalysis’ of Muhammad is a hilarious example. When you get taken to task on it you cry foul. You are so off topic that anyone can see, EVEN if everything you say about Islam is true and it is a false religion and has a false book and a false Prophet it does not help explain the Rationality of the incarnation one bit. You simply want to throw in red herrings, in typical Evangelical Christian fashion.
Don’t patronise me with the whole ‘no need for that kind of talk’. Rein in your hypocrisy. Need I remind you that you attempted to mount a defence of the Trinity by attacking the person of Muhammad. Don’t try to take the moral high ground now. I could return the favour, but I have too much respect for Jesus. Besides, it’s pretty dumb to compare his three year ministry with his ‘God nature’ as a backup to the twenty three year solely human ministry of Muhammad.
Stop waffling and talk about the topic, the incarnation. And stop applying your literalistic interpretation of religion onto the non – Christians. We don’t disbelieve in the Trinity because of the Quraan or Muhammad or Buddha or Bhagwan or the Multiverse saying so, attacking them will avail you none. We don’t believe in it, as Kunde tried to explain in very secular terms, because it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.
I would note that many apologists change methods and DO implement the method the story is invented at the time of the writing. Take the infancy Gospel of Thomas and Jesus killing a boy who bumped into him. Many apologists would claim the author made up the tale—i.e. the writing came before the story. Or take the Gospel of Peter. Why is it claimed the author made up the tale of the two people carrying Jesus out of the tomb?
Why does the method change? Why is it “story before writing” when it comes to the Gospel of Mark; but “writing before story” when it comes to the Gospel of Peter.
Christians cherry-pick what they want out of the early Church fathers, cite is as historically correct within the cloak of “tradition,” and then ignore those writings counter to their position.
They embrace Papias when it comes to authorship of Mark and Matthew; ignore and abandon him when it comes to Judas’ death, Jesus statements, or the Gospel of Hebrews because he becomes inconvenient. Embrace Acts of Peter regarding how Peter died; ignore Acts of Peter why Peter died. Same with Acts of Paul. Discard Gospel of Peter as “too fanciful;” embrace Gospel of Matthew as historical fact. Point out Ignatius’ use of the star phenomenon at Jesus’ birth; ignore it is nothing like the account of Matthew.
Write off the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, hold as historical the petulant Jesus child of Luke 2. Point out 1 Clement’s use of Jesus’ saying; ignore that pesky phoenix. The list goes on and on and on.
Perhaps more relevant to our present topic, utilize Clement of Alexandria for the gospel order; disregard Clement’s claim Cephas and Peter were two separate people.
As these discussions go, the Christians’ method becomes apparent—if it was written within the 1st or 2nd Century AND it helps the Christian’s immediate argument—then consider it “historical.” If it does not, either ignore it, or discard it for being “too late” or “legendary.”
Why the first 100 years? (“100 years” from what?) Why such an arbitrary number? Why not 80? Or 120? Frankly, your article relies heavily on Eusebius, who is outside the 100 years, so clearly 100 is not a bright-line cut-off.
taken from here
http://sandwichesforsale.blogspot.com/2010/06/1st-corinthians-15-is-not-fact.html
Hmmm, interesting Rambo John.
I for one simply get annoyed that Christians of a CERTAIN persuasion (not all) seem to feel that they can resolve theological difficulties or indeed rational problems) in their ideas by dragging the Prophet Muhammad and the Quraan through the mud.
The scholar whose performance was being defended by the above writers is a sad example of this: he shamed himself in his debate with Bart Ehrman on the authenticity of the New Testament by replying to Ehrman by saying (I paraphrase) ‘Well, if you say that the New Testament is inauthentic then what about the Quraan?’
What the hell has that got to do with it?
In fact, what has the New Testament historicity got to do with a RATIONAL critique of the idea of the incarnation at all? It’s like me asking someone that I don’t understand how God can be a man and him saying ‘well my book says so’. That’s fine, but it is not a rational argument, whichever religion makes it.
Also, I don’t think you should attribute all the stuff written about Jesus in the New Testament to him. We as Muslims do not believe he was a coward or ‘pissed off’ the Jews etc and we believe that Jesus and Muhammad were like brothers and hold Jesus inn the highest possible esteem. It is a shame that Christians have never reciprocated.
What is your opinion of the debate and if I may ask, what is your interest in the topic?
Greetings Mr. Kunde,
I would attempt to clarify by making a few brief comments.
The body and soul are interdependent upon each other for life and well being. Together the created body and soul of Jesus, speaking of him during his life upon earth, were dependant upon the divine Spirit of the Logos ( I think you refer to this as substance) for their existence. So the Logos is not made dependant by this arrangement in my view. For example when Jesus said “I thirst” there would be no personal self-conscious human being to be the subject of the thirsting if the Spirit of the Logos was not united with the human soul and body of Jesus. The divine Spirit of the Logos is the life of the soul of Jesus which in turn sustains the body and is itself sustained by the body. So there is no transference of dependance from the human to the divine, i.e. from the human to the divine nature of Jesus, as a result of the incarnation.
I don’t see that human nature is inherently flawed or imperfect as you seem to suggest. This would suggest to me that God is incapable of creating a being which is perfectly suited to the purpose for which it is created. This is dishonouring to God in my view. If we assume that the purpose of the creation of man was to create a being capable of retaining, understanding and obeying the law of God and exercising dominion over his creation then I would have to ask you where is the imperfection to be found in man as he was originally created? Does God create imperfect or flawed things? I don’t see that finiteness necessarily implies imperfection. If we are made in God’s image and the design is flawed then the designer must also be flawed. So this to me is no argument against the incarnation.
There is also the incarnation as viewed from the aspect of whether or not this would violate the unity of God, which is so important in Islam and obviously an attribute of God as revealed in the Bible. In my view the incarnation is not a violation of the unity of the divine Spirit of God as revealed in the Holy Bible but we could perhaps discuss this at a later opportunity if anyone wishes to do so.
My thanks to Paul Bilal Williams for his time and effort to maintain this platform for debate.
As we are only four days in to the New Year I would like to wish Paul and all the readers and participants here a Happy New Year!
Very respectfully,
Madmanna.
“What is your opinion of the debate and if I may ask, what is your interest in the topic?”
jesus has a 100 % human nature. what is human? human has mind, body , and soul. the question is, where was god located in jesus? and was jesus the human worshipping the god who dwelt in him? what is my opinion of the debate? i understood mr kunde very well, i didn’t know what the heck james white was on about and also his gymnastics with his hands in describing his trinity
Still waiting for Rambo John to give the correct Qur’anic reference. Usually in English, it is Qur’an Surah 18:74 or Qur’an 74:10 or Surah Maryam 19:19-21.
18:74:10 makes no sense.
Rambo John – what is the Qur’an reference?
qur’aan 18:74:10
?????
Greetings madmanna,
It seems to be a common misunderstanding from the debate that I said human beings are flawed. I did not say that we are flawed as a creation, I said that we cannot be absolutely perfect (because that is a Divine attribute). We can be perfect relative to what we are (human, created) but not relative to the Divine.
I said Divine = independent, unique, unlike anything else, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc
Created (human) = dependent, similar (to other humans), ignorant, powerless
These attributes are mutually exclusive. One cannot have a ‘square-circle’. Likewise, one cannot be independent-dependent or all-knowing-ignorant. These statements are meaningless.
Good points again Rambo John.
Happy New Year to Madmanna as well, but see my previous post: according to your logic you are trying to imply that Jesus was a perfect man and a perfect man equals God. Apart from the fact that this is non – sequitor, all men are created perfect, for they are the creation of God who realises what he wills exactly as he wills.
i.e. they are AS HE INTENDED: with a free will and the capacity to exercise it, including to sin and any flaws they possess, physical, intellectual or spiritual. Even Satan is exactly how God intended him to be. You are merely assuming that God created Jesus as a sacrifice and then saying that him failing to do so would be dishonouring his abilities. It is not self evident that he was a sacrifice, this needs to be established (rationally, not textually)
You also assume we are created in his (Gods’) image. A Christian assumption. Even if we were, it does not mean you are a copy of him, for we do many things and have attributes that God does not, like going to the toilet and dying. Being created in someone’s image does not equal identicality.
I told you guys this before and I don’t think it is a particularly contentious assertion: being a perfect man does not make you God any more than being a perfect monkey makes you into a human: they are different categories and have different definitional parameters.
And as far as finiteness not implying imperfection, again, it depends on FOR WHOM: for humans, being finite is not a flaw, that’s how they are MEANT TO BE, for God, big problem. We would not worship a finite God (and finite in what? His power, his knowledge, his life? Is God really dead then?), limited in his attributes of perfection or anything else. How would we know then that he did not ‘get it wrong’, mess up or make a mistake?
Rehan Ullah wrote:
You see, that’s the problem, you say that Jesus is ‘clearly’ sinless.
Even Islam teaches that Jesus was sinless. The virgin birth proves that Jesus was sinless. That is why He was born of the virgin Mary, so that He would have no sin passed on to Him by having a human father. Since Islam also believes in the Virgin Birth of Jesus and that He was sinless; and we have all those verses that I already gave you that says He is sinless; and the Qur’an does affirm the previous Scriptures, then I have proven that Jesus was sinless.
PROVE IT before you say it’s devastating for Islam.
The proof is that just by those three texts in the Qur’an about Muhammad’s sins and him asking for forgiveness of his own sins, then the case is proven. I am not insulting to Muhammad; I am just using the Qur’an. You cannot refute that those three verses say in the Qur’an about Muhammad’s sins.
Again, your selective dishonesty is manifest, just because the Quraan mentions the word ‘Book’ then of course this means the Bible!
It certainly does when it says “the Torah” and “the Zobur of Davood” and the Injeel of Jesus. Duh !
I’m sure when the word book is mentioned in the Vedas and in ‘War and Peace’ it always means the Bible.
This is not a reasonable nor logical example, because within the Qur’an itself, it mentions “the Torah”, the Zabor” ( Psalms of David), and the Injeel of Jesus. When it says the Ahl Al Kitab, it is talking about the Christians and Jews, the people who have previous Scriptures before the Qur’an. It is you who are making “dumb” arguments.
And stop being dumb and saying that since the Quraan comes 600 years after the Bible then it is wrong. This is manifest dumbness, for it amounts to saying that the chronology of the account is what determines it’s reliability and not it’s veracity.
That is not all I said in making that point – it is not only that the Qur’an comes 600 years later; it is
1. that it comes 600 years later
2. AND claims to affirm all the previous Scriptures;
3. and we have manuscripts of these dating to before Muhammad– both OT and NT that are the same as today (with textual variants, but none affects essential doctrine);
4. AND the Qur’an actually contradicts the content of the previous Scriptures, for example Surah 4:157 denies the crucifixion and death of Jesus, yet all four gospels and all the letters of Paul mention Jesus’ death in great detail, the trials, etc. covering entire chapters, and written 600 years earlier. You have to include all 4 points, and since there is no parallel with other books that come earlier or later, your argument fails. So, it is you who are making a dumb and illogical argument here.
Getting back to the subject of the incarnation –
Abdullah Kunde wrote:
I said Divine = independent, unique, unlike anything else, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc
Yes, we also believe that of the Divine Nature of Jesus.
Created (human) = dependent, similar (to other humans), ignorant, powerless
The human nature of Jesus came into existence in the womb of Mary, and has those qualities, yes.
These attributes are mutually exclusive.
But since Jesus has both a fully Divine Nature and a fully Human Nature (He got tired, He ate, He drank; He slept; He cried; -since He has both in one person, it is not a mutually exclusive concept.
One cannot have a ‘square-circle’.
True; but if the Word of God ceased to be the Word/eternal Son/divine, and changed into only a human, then that would be true, and your argument would have merit; but that is not what the Bible says, nor what Christians believe. So it is not a “square -circle”.
Likewise, one cannot be independent-dependent or all-knowing-ignorant. These statements are meaningless.
but if the independent chooses to temporarily lay aside His independence and live as a dependent for 33 years, there is nothing contradictory or meaningless about that; and if the All knowing chooses voluntarily to temporarily be not all-knowing – He knew a lot of things, He was not totally ignorant. Anyway, by choosing voluntary for 33 years to not use His divine attributes (Philippians 2:5-8), but doing miracles and knowing the secret hearts of people (John 2:23-25), then raising Himself from the dead (John 2:19-22; John 10:18), and being restored to that glory He had with the Father in all eternity past, (John 17:5), then it is not a contradictory thing or meaningless statement, as you say.
OMG! The wafflefest continues!
This will suffice to re-establish your dishonesty:
”Even Islam teaches that Jesus was sinless. The virgin birth proves that Jesus was sinless. That is why He was born of the virgin Mary, so that He would have no sin passed on to Him by having a human father.”
Where Islam say that sin is passed on from the father? Or passed on at all? You just imposed your theology onto us even though we deny it. Your proof of the sinlessness was rubbish and it hasn’t gotten any better with repetition.
Also, you just made the point about the Quraan being later and the scriptures being referred to being the Bible AGAIN. Just cos you would like it to be does not make it so. It also accuses you guys of writing the scripture with your own hands and passing it off as God’s. He also says that your scripture will not be miraculously preserved he only promises this for the ‘later’ Quraan. It never says it will affirm every content of the previous scriptures, which in any case you do not have. The Quraan also says it will correct what has gone before it, but you ignore all of this because you have elevated evasiveness and dishonesty to an art form (which you are nonetheless bad at), Also, you messed up when you said ‘book’ is used to refer to the components and to the collection (Bible). You are selectively responding to my arguments to keep reiterating the fallacies in your original post.
You can’t help being dumb, but at least stop being dishonest.
Oh, and stop spamming posts.
Rehan Ullah wrote:
Where Islam say that sin is passed on from the father?
I never said that. But Islam agrees that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and that Jesus had no human father.
The Christian teaching is that sin is passed down genetically. (Psalm 51, Romans 5:12, Hebrews 7) That is why He was born of the virgin Mary.
In Islam, why was Jesus born of the virgin Mary?
What was the purpose of His virgin birth?
If all other human beings are sinless at birth, as Islam claims, then what was the purpose of Jesus’ virgin birth?
Just make rational arguments, Rehan Ullah. There is no need to say things like “you are dishonest” and “intellectual dishonesty” and “you are dumb”, etc.
But you ARE dishonest, as evidenced by your incessant imposition of Christian theology onto Islam. Your chauvinism is unbelievably brazen.
But I guess there’s no need for Muslims to take offence, since you even impose Christian chauvinism onto genetics. Where, pray tell is genetic encoding of sin mentioned in the Bible? The Bible does not mention genes at all, you just read that in with your presupposition that sin is passed from father to child. Genetics does not even work like that, since genes are passed from both parents. Why can’t sin be passed in some non – material non – genetic way? See, you are dishonest again, you just made that up. It may be a ‘Christian teaching’ like any other arbitrary teaching in any religion but don’t pretend that those quotes talk about genetics.
Also, if you believe in genetic determinism (as you must if sin or the capacity for it’s inevitability is ‘genetic’), then why are you even having this discussion, since if behavioural and intellectual traits like sinning and belief are subject to genetic determinism or even influence, then you can’t help being predisposed to believing in this stuff and I can’t help not believing it. Hey maybe you have a point! THAT’S why you can’t help being dumb! Point conceded!
In Islam, the Virgin birth is a miracle, like any other miracle, a sign from God, a sign to Mary and to Jesus and those who believed their account backed up by Jesus speaking in infancy, to prove that it actually happened since it was deniable for anyone other than Mary in that community.
The sum total of your all your windbagging and arguments amounts to this ‘Islam does not agree with Christian theology, therefore it must be false, because Christian theology is obviously right, except where Islam does agree with Christian theology, in which case it is not right of it’s own accord but because of it’s utility in pointing to a Christian doctrine’. Rinse and repeat.
It’s very fresh the way you, of all people are demanding rational arguments, instead of insults, since you first besmirched Islam while talking about an unrelated topic, namely the incarnation. Your false indignation is amusing.
Now for the sake of God, Jesus or the Selfish Gene or whatever you believe in stop spamming this post with your wastage!
“Still waiting for Rambo John to give the correct Qur’anic reference. Usually in English, it is Qur’an Surah 18:74 or Qur’an 74:10 or Surah Maryam 19:19-21.
18:74:10 makes no sense.
Rambo John – what is the Qur’an reference?
qur’aan 18:74:10
?????”
what is this STUPID game you are playing? i TYPED the ARABIC WORDS AND I ALSO TOLD YOU where to FIND THEM, yet you are unable to FIND them?
“In Islam, the Virgin birth is a miracle, like any other miracle, a sign from God, a sign to Mary and to Jesus and those who believed their account backed up by Jesus speaking in infancy, to prove that it actually happened since it was deniable for anyone other than Mary in that community.”
it seems to me that the MAIN reason Qur’aan USES jesus’ BIRTH is to actually tell the polythiestic arabs contemporary to muhammad that it is easy for God to bring the dead back to life , it has absolutely nothing to do with “sinless jesus”
think about it people OFCOURSE the ancients thought that CHILDREN were FAULTLESS/PURE/INNOCENT/FREE OF SIN, they used to THROW THEM IN THE fire to APPEASE their gods, REMEMBER?
I agree Rambo John, whatever the reason is, it is not stated to be the sinlessness of Jesus, but some Christian and other chauvinists insist on forcing that reason onto the Quraan.
Sacrificing a pure person weather a child or a virgin to appease an angry god is an ancient motif, but I would not be intellectually dishonest like some Christians are towards Islam and say that thus the Christians must have borrowed this pre – Christian idea from all the Pagans that they were living amongst. Evangelicals always like to say that since there were Jews and Christians around Arabia, the Prophet (SAW) MUST have borrowed his ideas from them. Well, there were lots of pagans around Jesus and Paul, but I would not say that any similarity, like child or ‘pure’ sacrifice MUST be ‘borrowed’ from the earlier source.
I think that the idea of a dying and rising saviour deity was a very common motif in the 1st century Mediterranean pagan world and perhaps unconsciously Paul was influenced by this. It is certainly a very unJewish idea.
Ancient Tomb Found in Mexico Reveals Mass Child Sacrifice
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070612-tomb-child.html
this is shocking stuff. the use of sick violence on innocent body to appease/cool down a god.
and the qur’an is talking about it here
SHAKIR: And thus their associates have made fair seeming to most of the polytheists the killing of their children, that they may cause them to perish and obscure for them their religion; and if Allah had pleased, they would not have done it, therefore leave them and that which they forge.
6.137
Rambo John – what is the Qur’an reference?
qur’aan 18:74:10
?????”
Rambo John wrote:
what is this STUPID game you are playing? i TYPED the ARABIC WORDS AND I ALSO TOLD YOU where to FIND THEM, yet you are unable to FIND them?
You typed transliterated Arabic in English letters. Not helpful at all. You did not tell where to find it. Come on. Please give the reference as in normal and non-rude behavior.
Qur’an Surah 37:107
وَفَدَيْنَاهُ بِذِبْحٍ عَظِيمٍ
“And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice.”
Even the Qur’an shows evidence of an innocent victim (the ram) being slaughtered/ slain/ sacrificed ذ بح in the place of the human (Abraham’s son) as a ransom فد یه . I realize Islamic interpretation is that it was Ishmael, but the text in the Qur’an does not actually say that. It was Isaac, established in the Torah – Genesis 22 many centuries before Islam.
the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his only unique son (mono-genes), Isaac, which originally is from Genesis 22.
Yahya said about Jesus: “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29
Al Masih is the fulfillment of the lamb / sheep / ram sacrifices in Exodus 12, Leviticus chapters 1-5, 16-17, Isaiah 53.
The root word for “ransom” is the same root in the Arabic and Farsi translations of Mark 10:45 and Matthew 20:28.
“The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45
“God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
see Romans 5:6-11
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—
15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.
17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
The Injeel, letter to the Hebrews 2:14-18
Genesis 22 –
1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
. . .
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together,
7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time
16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,
18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
Romans 8:31-35
“31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for us all —how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
f-king blood obsessed christian
what has isaak’s SAVED body, MIND and soul GOT anything to do with murdered body of jesus?
http://www.youtube.com/user/brettppalmer
Right, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I told you you were dishonest and a moron apologeticsandagape, there you go again taking the authority to call passages from your book ‘the Injeel’ nothing but another Islamophobic Evalangelico – chauvinist pig.
And you dare you tell us that the Arabic translation of the Greek in Mark is ‘ransom’, so since Christians translated the Greek Gospel into Arabic AFTER the Quraan and used that word we should now accept human sacrifice in the Quraan. But of course! We should just shut up and do what the Christian supremacists tell us to!
You have already been rebuffed on your points but you insist on spamming us with Bible quotes all the while not addressing previous points, which is your actual game as opposed to defending your theology. Sadly you have evidenced the same stereotypical behaviour as many Evangelicals and embarrassed the majority of sensible and honest Christians.
If I was you Rambo John, I wouldn’t bother engaging with this idiot any more: He’s graduated from a moron to a swine
Wow. When you both, “Rambo John” and Rehan Ullah – When you cannot deal with rational and Scriptural arguments, so you resort to anger and name calling and dirty talk.
The power of Islam gives you some great holiness and sincerity, right?
Sad.
At least Paul Williams and Abdullah Kunde don’t do that.
The conversation has degraded a bit, but I’ll respond to the question I was asked prior.
…but if the independent chooses to temporarily lay aside His independence and live as a dependent for 33 years, there is nothing contradictory or meaningless about that; and if the All knowing chooses voluntarily to temporarily be not all-knowing – He knew a lot of things, He was not totally ignorant. Anyway, by choosing voluntary for 33 years to not use His divine attributes (Philippians 2:5-8), but doing miracles and knowing the secret hearts of people (John 2:23-25), then raising Himself from the dead (John 2:19-22; John 10:18), and being restored to that glory He had with the Father in all eternity past, (John 17:5), then it is not a contradictory thing or meaningless statement, as you say…
Well, it is meaningless, you’re still maintaining that two contradictory things can exist at the same time.
Your get out clause is to attempt to suggest that the Divine could ‘not use His attributes’ and the re-use them later (at a whim).
When He isn’t using them, where do they go? How does he reacquire them?
Precisely what attributes can He choose to not use? Existence? You’ve already said He can give up life, knowledge, power, uniqueness. Why not existence?
The bottom line is there is no genuine basis for these ideas, beyond trying to reconcile contradictory Biblical statements.
Very well put Abdullah Kunde
Thank you Abdullah for good conversation and good demeanor –
Abdullah Kunde wrote:
Well, it is meaningless, you’re still maintaining that two contradictory things can exist at the same time.
Christians throughout history have read and meditated on all of those verses I cited above and have found profound meaning and awe in them; that God (the Word of God from eternity; the eternal Son of God) humbled Himself and came down and was willing to become flesh (human) and live for 33 years among us, be subjected to hunger, thirst, temptation (Matthew 4:1-11, but not sin, Hebrews 4:15); mockery, rejection, suffering, pain, and torture and death. It is amazing love. It is not contradictory to me at all, and many others. I understand that you think it is contradictory. The redemption/ransom at the cross is both amazing love for sinners – that Jesus would allow Himself to be killed by sinners; and the redemption/ransom at the cross is also amazing justice against sin. God showed His full justice and His full wrath. If you study and meditate on all the verses above, including Genesis 22, Hebrews 2:14-18 – why He had to become human, in order to save us; and that Yahya called Jesus the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – John 1:29 and see His love for all the nations, tribes, languages, and peoples – Revelation 5:9 – how His holy blood bought redemption and was a ransom for all nations – and that it was fulfillment of the foreshadowing and prophesy of Genesis 22, which the Qur’an 37:107 alludes to and retains an aspect of the substitutional atonement of the innocent (the ram/lamb/sheep) for the guilty humans (symbolized in Abraham’s son); hopefully you could see that this is not meaningless nor contradictory, but an amazing wonder of God’s justice and love accomplished at the same time.
Your get out clause is to attempt to suggest that the Divine could ‘not use His attributes’ and the re-use them later (at a whim).
When He isn’t using them, where do they go?
They are not some kind of substance or thing like glue or water or air. Philippians 2:5-8 explains it well enough; that we can grasp this idea by faith as God’s nature cannot be destroyed or cease to exist.
How does he reacquire them?
In the resurrection and the glorification of Jesus – explained by all the verses put together – also John 17:5 is clear. Jesus was made alive by the Spirit – I Peter 3:18. He also raised Himself up from the dead, as we have given the verses before. (John 2:19-22; 10:18) Many other verses say that God the Father raised Him up from the dead. All three persons of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection.
Precisely what attributes can He choose to not use? Existence?
No; we accept John 10:18 and John 2:19-22 (and every other Bible passage that relates to this issue) as inspired words and truth, so we don’t struggle with God’s ability to do this whole thing that we are talking about. (Both incarnation and redemption at the cross and resurrection)
Also, even all other human beings cannot give up existence. Our souls continue on after death. Don’t you believe that? Doesn’t Islam teach that souls continue and will be re-constituted with their bodies for the day of resurrection and face the judgment Day and that the wicked suffer for eternity in hell; and the righteous go in paradise / heaven?
You’ve already said He can give up life, knowledge, power, uniqueness. Why not existence?
already answered above.
The bottom line is there is no genuine basis for these ideas, beyond trying to reconcile contradictory Biblical statements.
Faith and the power of Jesus to open minds/hearts ( see Luke 24:45; John 6:44; Acts 16:14) is the victory that reconciles this amazing mystery. Keep on meditating on large portions of the Injeel (the NT) and ask Jesus Al Masih to reveal Himself to you. Ask the one whom you read about as you read the gospels and epistles of the NT and see His character and sinlessness and love and high teachings to reveal Himself.
thanks again for proper attitude in discussion, both you, Abdullah and Paul – I pray for you both.
“Your get out clause is to attempt to suggest that the Divine could ‘not use His attributes’ and the re-use them later (at a whim).
When He isn’t using them, where do they go? How does he reacquire them?
Precisely what attributes can He choose to not use? Existence? You’ve already said He can give up life, knowledge, power, uniqueness. Why not existence?”
Well said. I agree completely.
Having said that I believe the contradiction of the incarnation will always remain exactly that to the human mind. God has resolved it in his own mind.
“…but if the independent chooses to temporarily lay aside His independence and live as a dependent for 33 years, there is nothing contradictory or meaningless about that; and if the All knowing chooses voluntarily to temporarily be not all-knowing”
so this god is incapacitated for 33 years you would be worshiiping an incapacitated god .while there would be 2 others pesons `who were fully functional . so trinity is able to work with 2 fully functional beings and one dependent being who cannot contribute much to the trinity. is there any kind of incapacity benefit in trinity? in u.k there is incapcity benefit for people who are unable to work.
Yawn.
Sadly apologeticsandagagape stays close to form for an Evangelical and cries foul when called out for his ramblings: anyone reading this thread could see that he has been very selective about what points to respond to and instead of responding to others has resorted to personal attacks on Islamic personalities (irrelevant to the discussion) and repeatedly presented a highly Christophillic ‘interpretation’ of Islam despite repeated protestations and rebuttals to this.
Then he complains about my demeanour in calling him a swine. The only ones complaining should be the swine.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
While I really enjoy the conversation may I remind Muslims brothers here the following story from sahih Bukhari:
One man asked the Prophet (Blessings and Peace be upon him) to give him advice (waasi’ah) three times.
He (pbuh) answered each time:
“Don’t get angry.”
————————-
No matter how deceptive the method the Christians participating in this forum, we must show restrain and avoid anger and emotion like br. Paul Williams has shown.
I know it seems like an impossible task in dealing Islamophobes and Islam hater missionaries, but God has commanded us to argue in a good manner:
“Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance.” [An-Nahl:125].
May Allah give us all patience.
Wassalam
Well said Erik.
However, no one is getting angry, it’s just a case of some people being very catty and trying to get the last word, as opposed to trying to address the arguments. Childish playground tactics if you will.
Erik,
I appreciate the admonishment you give to your fellow Muslims regarding anger and speech, but using “Islamophobe” and “Islam hater missionary” is not a good way to communicate either.
Why can’t you say “we disagree”; and why and give reasons without any name calling and accusations?
“If we believe this or that, then that makes that wrong, by logic and reason, and here are the reasons we think this, etc.” ?? Like Surah 109 tells you to say?
“Islamophobe” is a term that some of you are using in the same way that liberals and homosexuals use “homophobe” – in order to shut down conversation. Why do you use it? It is sad. My experience in genuine friendship and respect with many Muslims from many different countries, (and learning one language fluently and hospitality and cooking and spending lots of time with them and listening to their own pains and history and explanations of Islam, etc.) and treating them with respect as people and created in the spiritual image of God (Genesis 1:26-28) since 1983 proves I am not what you think I am.
As far as logic, reason, and making arguments are concerned in intellectual debate,
A = A
and
A cannot equal non-A”. There is no hatred or anger or deception on my part for defending Christian doctrine and the Bible.
If Christianity came first, 600 years earlier, which you admit, and even the Qur’an affirms this
(Surah 5:46-48; 10:94; 2:136; 29:46) and your book even affirms that the Torah and Zabur and Injeel are revelations of God;
and we believe what we have today in the 27 books of the NT and the 39 books of the OT is preserved for us from the time of their writings (although we admit some textual variants because of evidence, (copyist errors) no textual variant affects any main doctrines, since the main doctrines are taught in other passages that do not have textual variants) (For example Mark 16:9-20 is not in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, but the true content that is there is repeated in Matthew 28 and Luke 24, so that textual variant does not affect any main doctrine. Besides Mark 16:1-8 still has the resurrection, so it is true, and there is nothing damaging about that fact; and we are open and honest about textual variants. )
and since Christianity teaches things like the Deity of Christ, the Crucifixion and death and atonement of Al Masih (the Christ), Christ as the eternal Son of God, the Trinity, etc. then, it is logical and reasonable for me to say “Christianity is right and truth, and Islam is false”.
That is not “Islamophobia” or “missionary hatred of Islam” etc.
My last response was on the subject and focused and I answered Abdullah Kunde’s points; and I appreciate his spirit.
@Rehan. Understandable. been in this situation many2 times *wink*.
March forward ya Akhi..
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“I am not what you think I am.”
@apologeticsandagape I dont mean to accuse you when I am using those terms.
I reminded my brother in Islam and especially to myself to keep the manner the way God ordered us in the world where Islam bashing is big bussiness.
I am too under obligation to defend my religion the best I possibly could ( certainly not a even close to the quality of the holy prophet), but believe me for the past 20 years, being in the devensive side, Iv seen all sort of dirty tactics, deceptive method, and lies resorted to demonize Islam and prophet Muhammad masquearading in eloquent words.
Yes, I have many disagreements with your points on this subject as well others but since I have other battlegrounds usually I leave it to bro Paul and others who have made a good job in engaging you at the present time. I learnt alot from this forum. Alhamdulillah
I aso apreciate your polite tones. Lets continue the dialoge this way.
I sincerely pray that Godwilling you can find hidaayah someday.
Wassalam
Typical crying after the fact from a typical Evangelical wasteman. ‘Oh woe is me! Why do they hate me! I meant no offence! By the way, allow me to repeat my Islamophobic drivel again, like how Christianity came first so it must be right’. I like how he pretends that he is getting a hard time for saying Islam is false, even though no one took him to task for that and no on has a problem with him saying that. He was called an Islamophobe (rightly) for assuming a chauvinistic stance and forcing a Christian reading and interpretation on all Islamic texts and evidence, regardless of the internal or external proof. At least so chastised he has now come round to speaking of the Injeel and Zaboor etc. instead of insisting the Quraan is talking about the ‘Bible’. And it’s also heartening the way he is now insisting on logic and reason where as before he was on a text – fest.
But of course, the earlier religion MUST be right! By that token Judaism must be more correct than Christianity and they seem to agree with us about Jesus and his ‘Sonship’. Or we could go even further back to paganism…oh wait, you already did. My bad.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
apologeticsandagape : “even the Qur’an affirms this (Surah 5:46-48; 10:94; 2:136; 29:46) and your book even affirms that the Torah and Zabur and Injeel are revelations of God”
You are being dishonest, no Muslims believe that the books in what you call New Testament / scripture now as the same as the Gospel/Kitabul Injil frequently mentioned in the Qur’an.
You think the Quran refer the genuine Injeel as the same as what in Protestant Church , Roman Catholic Church , Anglican Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Coptic Church, Ethiopic Church, Syriac Church books?
You even can not be consistent to which BOOKS should be called a Gospel to begin with. is it 66, 73, 100…?
However we still believe that “the source” from which the Gospels derived much of their material may still contains *some* of the authentic teachings of prophet Jesus (p) in much less same way as hadiths which record the life of prophet Muhammad (p), kind of mixture of truth and falsehood in it.
We use the Quran, the last testament to filter the falsehood
وَالَّذِي أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ مِنَ الْكِتَابِ هُوَ الْحَقُّ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِعِبَادِهِ لَخَبِيرٌ بَصِيرٌ
And that which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], of the Book is the truth, *confirming* (Ar: Musaddiqan مُصَدِّقًا ) what was before it. Indeed, Allah , of His servants, is Acquainted and Seeing.(Q35:31)
Confirming Ar: Musaddiqan مُصَدِّقًا comes from the stem word Saddaqa ص د ق means:
“To say (tell, speak) the truth; to be true, truthful, sincere.”
By confirming that which was revealed then Quran by default exposes the falsehood.
The scripture you have with you now was corrupted and the Quran is speaking the truth regarding those scriptures.
In almost all the verses using the word “Musaddiqan ”
Surah 35 Verse 31
Surah 10 Verse 37
Surah 12 Verse 111
Surah 3 Verse 3
Surah 5 Verse 46 – 48
Surah 2 Verse 41
Surah 2 Verse 89
Surah 2 Verse 91
Surah 2 Verse 97
Surah 2 Verse 101
Surah 3 Verse 39
Surah 3 Verse 50
Surah 3 Verse 81
Surah 4 Verse 47
Surah 6 Verse 92
Surah 37 Verse 52
Surah 46 Verse 12
Surah 46 Verse 30
Surah 61 Verse 6
it is stated that the Quran is ‘confirming the previous revelations’. So it confirms what which is preserved in the Bible ‘to be true’.
Confirming what is still truthful’ and ‘sincere’ to the previous revelations by God and not to the corruptions made by man.
It is impossible for the still preserved passages in the Bible which is contradicted a key teaching of Genuines God’s revelation, the Qur’an.
Such as : God become mortal.
As it is impossible for one who insist that ONE is equal THREE
Wassalam
Erik, ‘polite tones’? I suggest you read the previous posts bro. Just cos apologeticsandagape likes to waffle on and on means you may miss some stuff. Read for example his ‘analysis’ of the Prophets’ (PBUH) motives/psychology. You call that respectful? What would Christians say if I talked trash about Jesus (PBUH) that way? What if I started ‘reading things into’ his social life (as his enemies unfairly did at the time). How do you think Christians will react? What if we kept ignoring the Christians and kept saying the Bible refers to Muhammad and to the Quraan despite the way they explain it, would they not see that as disrespectful? What if we kept calling the ‘Holy Spirit’ in the Bible Gabriel and ‘the Comforter’ in the NT Muhammad (PBUH) and insisted that we know their scripture better than them? What if we insisted that the Bible HAD to agree with the Quraan and if it doesn’t it must be wrong cos it’s ‘older’ and therefore MUST be more corrupted. Do you think that would be polite or respectful? So why is it o.k. for Christians to act like that? Do you see me saying stuff like that in my arguments against the incarnation? Or do I go off and start bringing unrelated stuff into it, like Jesus’ social life?
Christians know we are not going to say anything bad about Jesus, whom we love and admire, so if they are chauvinists and Islamophobes like the above moron, they sadly take this as a Carte Blanche to cast aspersions on the Prophet (PBUH).
Erik,
Thanks for good interaction.
You wrote:
You are being dishonest, no Muslims believe that the books in what you call New Testament / scripture now as the same as the Gospel/Kitabul Injil frequently mentioned in the Qur’an.
It is not dishonesty, because I know and agree that Muslims don’t interpret those verses in the way I am presenting them. the bottom line is, the Muslim interpretation is wrong, because Muhammad thought he was affirming the Torah, Zobur, and Injeel – but he didn’t even know what most of it say. Everything he got was hearsay and just orally. He couldn’t read, remember? The Bible was not translated yet into Arabic. It seems clear to me that he sincerely thought he was affirming the previous Scriptures, especially at first, and just didn’t know. then later Arabs and commentators came up with the Tahreef doctrine (that the original was corrupted). The problem is that none of those texts that confirm the previous Scriptures say that the original is Tahreef (Corrupted). تحریف
Since all of the current copies of the OT (Torah, Writings – Poetic, Psalms, and wisdom = essentially what the Qur’an calls the Zobur of David, Prophets – Tanakh) goes back to before 100 BC (Dead Sea Scrolls); and the NT 27 books all go back to between 48-100 AD, then you just have no evidence that what the Qur’an is talking about is something else, some unknown original that does not exist. There is no evidence for this “proto-Muslim” Scripture. none. “full stop”, as Paul Williams likes to say. Liberal scholars opinions as to development and redaction criticism is not evidence; it is only their fertile imagination and theories based on their anti-suppernatural bias.
You think the Quran refer the genuine Injeel as the same as what in Protestant Church , Roman Catholic Church , Anglican Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Coptic Church, Ethiopic Church, Syriac Church books?
The problem with your statement here is that most all of those groups agree with each other on the 27 NT books, except the Ethiopian Church, and the eastern part of the Syriac Church in India ( if you mean the Assyrian church in India). The Western Assyrian (or Nestorian church- only survives in small numbers in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and those have fled Islamic persecution in the USA and Europe) agrees with the Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox on the NT and so does the Coptic Church of Egypt. (one of the great heroes of the Coptic Church is Athanasius, who in 367 AD, in his Festal Letter 39, gives the list of the canonical NT books. And Origen in 250 AD, listed all of the NT books as the same as we have today. Protestants and Roman Catholics also agree with Athanasius as a great hero of the faith and defender of Nicean orthodoxy (The Deity of Christ, the Incarnation and the Trinity) All of these groups also agree that the 39 books of the Protestant canon are the word of God from Moses, the Prophets, and David in the Psalms and Solomon’s wisdom literature. the only difference is that the Roman Catholic Church has added some other books, called the Apocrypha, which were books written by Jews during the period between Malachi/Chronicles and 100 years before the appearing of John the Baptist. (about 400-100 BC) They all agree with the Deity of Christ, the Sonship of Christ, the crucifixion and death of Christ, the resurrection, the Trinity, etc. based on what they do have. So, your argument does nothing to prove that what the Qur’an is talking about is something un known with no evidence that was originally there in say, 40 AD, but was lost and everything else written from 48-96 AD is just bogus, because it disagrees with another book that came 600 years later in a different language, with no quotes from the previous Scriptures, except maybe one about “an eye for an eye” and yet says, “we confirm the previous Scriptures, the Torah, the Zobur, and the Injeel”.
Just because some of these groups added a few more books, does not mean they didn’t have all the other books, that Christians agree on and teach the Sonship of Christ, the Deity of christ, the Incarnation, the Trinity, the crucifixion and death of Christ for sin.
The kind of argument you make is not logical or reasonable.
You even can not be consistent to which BOOKS should be called a Gospel to begin with. is it 66, 73, 100…?
Again, all of those Christian groups agree with all the books that are enough to contradict the Qur’an on issues like the Deity of Christ, the crucifixion, the Trinity. The addition of a few apocrypha books makes no dent in the argument from a reasonable or logical form of argumentation.
http://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church also agrees that all of the 27 books of the NT and 39 books of the OT are Scripture, at least. They just add more. Adding more is not contradiction to have at least those .
So the Eastern Assyrian church in India is the only branch that does not affirm a few of the NT books as inspired Scripture. (as far as I know for sure). But even they agree with the crucifixion of Christ and resurrection and Deity of Christ and Sonship of Christ and the Nicean Creed of 325 and the Council of Constantinople of 381 AD. Those doctrines are part of the content of the Injeel that the Qur’an seems to affirm as Scripture, but denies in content.
So, it is not really a valid argument that you try to make.
How does the Quranic revelation see itself in relation to previous books like the Bible?
God speaks to his prophet, Muhammad (pbuh), in the Quran saying:
(Surah 5:48)
If you visit this reliable site about the Biblical canon you will see that Christians have never in their history and still today are not in agreement about the contents of the Bible. The problem is especially acute with the OT canon with massive disagreements between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians.
The Bible cannot be the inerrant Word of God when Christians cannot even agree about its contents!
Contrast this unhappy state of affairs with the inerrant text of the Quran.
see this piece The Earliest Qur’anic Manuscripts
and then this: The Islamic View of the Qur’an: What do Western Scholars Say?
Adding more books is not a problem! Priceless!
I wonder what the Christians would make of a Muslim sect who wanted to ‘add a few more’ chapters to the Quraan? I bet they wouldn’t make it into an argument for inerrrancy.
Also, is apologeticsandagape going to go on record and say he could construct the WHOLE NT from texts from before 100 A.C? That would be interesting. I like the way he has moderated his moronic claims of posts past. Apart from the massive waffle on (selective) Church history his argument now comes down to ‘Christians don’t believe in the Quraan’. No! Seriously?!?! I had no idea!
I don’t know how people like Williams put up with such evasiveness and dishonesty. He must have the patience of seven Buddha’s.
Rehan you make me laugh!
At the end of the day it is just one man’s word. Copy it as well as you want that is all Muslims have to base their faith on. Contrast that with the Bible which is God’s Word through many prophets and many witnesses. We have the core 66 books and the books added on don’t contradict the 66.
madmanna, I took you for a more honest exponent of Christianity and respected you. Well, you showed me. One man’s word eh? Well how about no – ones’ word? The earliest examples you even have of the NT are fragments of the Gospel of John (the famous p52) which dates from 125 -150 A.C.onwards. The vast majority of the rest of the NT manuscripts are from 300-400 A.C, going as late as the 9th century. Matthew though is from the 3rd century (or around 200 A.C), Mark I believe is from the 3rd and 1 and 2 Timothy are from the 4th century. We won’t get into who actually wrote all of these and that nearly all are fragmentary.
Dr. Klaus Junack, researcher at the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung, Universität Münster, Germany:
”Today more than 5,000 manuscripts are known: the overwhelming majority of these are from the medieval and late medieval periods, but on occasion they also preserve readings from the early period.”
And your calling US out on witnesses? You don’t even have any! Where is the earliest complete or nearly complete Greek manuscripts of the Gospels (I’ll let you off the other 23 books)? What about he earliest Codices with all of the agreed upon books of the NT, when does that date from?
Predicted response: ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. Please, let’s not go there again brother.
Also, you will find that there are a lot people, I think they’re called ‘Jews’ who think that the ‘added on’ books of the ‘New Testament’ contradict stuff. Like the whole Old testament. In fact, I think they neglected to ‘add them on’ entirely. A glaring omission on their part perhaps?
Adding more books is not a problem! Priceless!
I never wrote that adding more books is not a problem. I, as an Evangelical Protestant disagree with what the RC, and Ethiopian church did in adding to the original revelatory deposit of Scripture, “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). But none of that affects any issue that Islam has with Christianity and the 66 books of the Bible. Nothing.
However, since all the other groups also include at least all of the Protestant Canon(66 Books), and it all teaches the essentials that are the main things that Islam actually disagrees with – especially the NT, the crucifixion and death of Christ, the resurrection, the Sonship of Christ, the Deity of Christ, the Incarnation, the Trinity; and at the same time in the years 610-632 AD or 656 AD when Uthman standardized the text, the text of the Qur’an affirms the Torah, the Zobur, and the Injeel (Evangel, gospel) (all of the Injeel of the 66 Book canon, includes all of those teachings, and all of the Christian groups you named agree with all of those doctrines), then to argue against the canon for Islam makes no sense, and is not a reasonable nor logical argument.
The problem is that there never was an ‘original revelatory deposit of Scripture’, that is a Protestant fantasy. The reality is that the canon of the OT & the NT has never been agreed upon by Christians no matter how far back you go back in time. This is not a ‘liberal’ view – it is historical fact. Only fundies have a problem.
Before the Roman state enforced its Trinitarian will on a reluctant Empire most Christians did not accept the ‘Deity of Christ, the Incarnation, the Trinity’. You read later credal formulations back in to the first centuries.
I recommend you read the excellent recently published work:
A New History of Early Christianity by Charles Freeman, published by Yale University Press 2009
A great read!
‘the text of the Qur’an affirms the Torah, the Zobur, and the Injeel (Evangel, gospel) (all of the Injeel of the 66 Book canon, includes all of those teachings, and all of the Christian groups you named agree with all of those doctrines), then to argue against the canon for Islam makes no sense, and is not a reasonable nor logical argument.’
Oh dear how many times do I have to quote the Quran to disprove what you claim?
How does the Quranic revelation see itself in relation to previous books like the Bible?
God speaks to his prophet, Muhammad (pbuh), in the Quran saying:
(Surah 5:48)
Read. Inwardly digest. Learn.
Could you repeat that? I didn’t get it (note: sarcasm)
Before the Roman state enforced its Trinitarian will on a reluctant Empire most Christians did not accept the ‘Deity of Christ, the Incarnation, the Trinity’. You read later credal formulations back in to the first centuries.
Not true.
Read Ignatius ( 107-110 AD) – clearly called Jesus “God”.
Justin Martyr (around 155 AD)
Polycarp (around 150 AD)
Irenaeus (Against Heresies – 180-200 AD)
Tertullian (200 AD)
Cyprian (about 250 AD)
Origen (about 250 AD)
Clement of Alexandria (150- 215 AD)
Athanasius (died in 373 AD) – defender of the Nicean creed against the Arians.
the creedal statements were the result of the earlier Scriptures and “rule of faith” Trinitarian doctrinal traditions – outlined by Matthew 28:19 – “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”; also confirmed by the Didache ( 70-100 AD)
I believe in the Father . . . and the Son . . . and the Holy Spirit. (oral teachings in the church; early doctrinal statements.)
I don’t know what the age of the extant manuscripts is supposed to prove. They disintegrated through natural wear and tear. So what. The point is whether the originals were accurately copied or not.
Quote: “Also, you will find that there are a lot people, I think they’re called ‘Jews’ who think that the ‘added on’ books of the ‘New Testament’ contradict stuff. Like the whole Old testament. In fact, I think they neglected to ‘add them on’ entirely. A glaring omission on their part perhaps?”
I think you’ll find that most, if not all, of the New Testament was written by Jews. They obviously didn’t have any problem with adding on to their Old Testament.
Quote: “God speaks to his prophet, Muhammad (pbuh), in the Quran saying:”
Like I said, we only have Mohammed’s word for this. Unlike the Bible there is absoluty nothing to corroborate this statement. Mohammed went in to the cave alone. No one else witnessed anything of a supernatural nature. Allah never confirmed by any public sign that he had spoken to Mohammed. The Jews asked for a sign. Instead they got the sword.
Classic! Naming 9 (mostly) church fathers over 300 years makes it a majority! But of course! If 9 guys who agreed with you believed it it MUST be true. No need to mention lay Christians of course, who cares about them!
Williams never said that NO – ONE believed in the Trinity, he just said there was a heterogenous group of ideas and it was not the majority view. But Williams does not realise that nine guys IS a majority. That’ll show him.
We had a similar situation in early Islam, where the Mutazzilites tried to take over with the power of the state at their disposal. Fortunately, they were rebuffed, but had they won, people would now be saying that of course, that is the TRUE Islam, even though they were a heretical sect usurping the majority view. People would use the early presence of their ideas to back up their claim. There were people right after the Prophets time who had all sorts of heretical ideas, we don’t try to argue their validity based on their early existence.
If one does proper and balanced historical research, one would see that there are many more than just 9 writers and that not everyone wrote things down, but there is a lot of evidence for what the early church believed about the Deity of Christ, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the Trinity, etc.
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and martyred around 256-258, headed a council of 86 bishops from all over N. Africa and Asia minor – not everyone wrote books or letters.
There are many others,
The Didache (70-100 AD – we don’t know who exactly wrote it, and it quotes Matthew 28:19 and the baptismal formula of “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”.
Clement of Rome (96 AD)
Athenagoras
Theophilus of Antioch
Melito of Sardis (around 180 AD)
Papias (80s-100 AD)
Eusebius (wrote a complete history of Christianity around 325 AD, a little after the council of Nicea )
Basil (around 381)
Gregory of Nyssa (370-390s )
Gregory Naziansuz (390s)
John Chrysostom (died around 407 AD ?)
Hillary (late 300s into the 400s)
Ambrose (337-397 AD; baptized Augustine in 380s )
Augustine (died in 429 AD) – Augustine was the first to argue for a police force from the state of the Roman Empire to force the Donatists to come back to unity with the Catholic Church in his day. The Donatists were Christians, they just disagreed with accepting the ordination or baptism of some minister or pastor who had previously been in prison and gave into pressure and offered a salt offering to “Casear as Lord” under torture, but later repented and were restored. The whole Roman Catholic doctrines of “ex opere operato” came out of this controversy later; “ex opere operato” is Latin for “from the work, it works” – that is a baptism or ordination is valid for the recipient, even if the character of the minister is found later to be not holy or “above reproach”.
It was only after that, in the 500s and beyond, the that the bishop of Rome, especially Gregory the Great in 601 AD, started consolidating jurisdictional “papal” power, but even disagreed with John of Constantinople in his claim of “Universal bishop”. Even then the eastern Orthodox have always disagreed with the claim of the bishop of Rome as the “bishop over all bishops”. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox are united in their objection to the bishop of Rome claiming that he has jurisdictional powers of authority and that he is infallible, etc. Even then, it was not until the middle ages that the idea of the office of the pope was taught on, and the east disagreed, with a break with each other in 1054 AD. In 1302 Boniface VIII, the bishop of Rome, made that infamous arrogant statement, “It is necessary for every living creature to be in submission to the Pope, in order to be saved.” (!!!! #$@#@ !!! ) Totally unscriptural.
And it was not until 1870 that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope was declared dogma.
There were small groups of heretics – Ebionites, Sabellians, Apollinarius, etc. in the early centuries, the Gnostics (Marcion, Valentinus, Basiledes, Encratites) in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries, the Arians in 300s and 400s, but if you know church history better and read the writings of these men (both lists, and there are many more), and how they mention other churches and other leaders (not everyone wrote things down, and there was a lot of persecution the first 3 centuries and the Romans burned a lot of Scriptures and writings, etc.) – the conclusion is that the doctrines of the apostolic tradition were all Scriptural formulations of essential doctrine clustered around the main points of the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Fatherhood of God, the eternal Son, the Virgin Birth, the incarnation, the crucifixion and death of Jesus under Pontius Pilate, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ into heaven, the belief in the Holy Spirit, baptism as the sign of entering into the body of Christ, and the local and universal church and the day of judgement/resurrection of the flesh.
Even the Nestorians and the Monophysites agreed with the Deity of Christ and the Trinity – they all agreed with the Nicean Council (325 AD) and Constantinople Council ( 381 AD), all based on Scripture that was older, and apostolic tradition that reflected Scripture. The disagreed with how to understand the 2 natures of Christ, but they all agreed that there was an incarnation of the eternal Son/Word of God – John 1:1-5; 1:14; Philippians 2:5-8, etc.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, 1, 1-2. Irenaeus was the bishop of Lyons, France, and wrote his very important 5 volume work, Against Heresies around 180-202 AD. He also quoted directly from most of the 27 NT books.
1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. . . . [ cut for the sake of space]
2. These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ the Son of God. If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics.
Book 3, 2, 1-2
1. When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce: wherefore also Paul declared, “But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world. (1 Cor. 2:6.)
And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.
2. But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition.
3. Such are the adversaries with whom we have to deal, my very dear friend, endeavouring like slippery serpents to escape at all points. Where-fore they must be opposed at all points, if per-chance, by cutting off their retreat, we may succeed in turning them back to the truth. For, though it is not an easy thing for a soul under the influence of error to repent, yet, on the other hand, it is not altogether impossible to escape from error when the truth is brought alongside it.”
Regarding the Mutazzilites –
What was their heresy or heresies?
That they believed the Kalameh Allah کلمه الله was not eternal and not part of Allah Himself ?
That they believed in the free will of man?
These are the two issues that usually are associated with the Mutazzilites in the books and articles about them.
Sincerely wanting to know.
Most Christians in the early centuries did not believe Jesus was God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the earth (that was the role of God the Father). Christology was a terribly vexed issue and saw many Christians persecuting and murdering each other in horrible ways. One of the worst offenders was your hero Athanasius of Alexandria – the thug who gave us the first list of NT books (in the 4th century).
No, Athanasius was unjustly exiled 5 times and it was the Arians who unjustly controlled the political establishment and force and emperors and churches for about 60 years. (approximately in the years between after the Council of Nicea in 325 – to around 381 AD) . He was a man, and a sinner, yes; but his writings today are honored by all Christian orthodox bodies – the four main bodies – Protestants, RC, EO, and Coptic (both Egyptian and Ethiopian).
Cyril of Alexandria in his opposition to Nestorius around 431 AD was much much worse, granted. I do believe that he was unjust against Nestorius and then later, Nestorius’ book, The Bazaar of Hericlides, was found in the 1800s, where he actually agreed with Leo I ‘s theological work the Tome, in close adherence to Augustine (Leo’s Tome, around 451AD and the Council of Chalcedon) on the hypostatic union of the 2 natures of Christ in one person.
The Arians, (not to be confused with the Aryan racial thing) based on the teachings of Arius, who are nowadays closest to the modern Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine about Jesus. That God the Father almighty created the Son sometime in the past before creation of the world, and that then Jesus created all other things. Are you prepared to accept that as historical theological truth? It seems you think the Arians were good and right?
They still believed firmly in the crucifixion and death of Jesus for sin, and the Sonship of Jesus; so you still don’t have any evidence for any “proto-Muslims” 600 years before there is such a thing. Your whole religion is massively anachronistic.
The Scriptures are much older than the Arians, and they justly lost that battle. God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were involved in creation -
“all things came into being through Him and nothing has come into being that has come into being apart from Him.” See John 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-20, etc.
‘No, Athanasius was unjustly exiled 5 times’
Lol so you are defending the bully boys now? He was also implicated in the torture and assassination of his Christian (Arian) opponents (see the book below). I have noticed an ugly tendency for you to whitewash the nastiest of characters, I recall the excuses you made about the notorious Jew-hater and anti-semite Martin Luther. His works were lionised by the Nazi’s and played a role in justifying the holocaust.
btw the Arians were much closer to the overall import of the NT than you and Athanasius ever were. Most Christians were Arians in the early centuries, of course.
I recommend this rather good survey of the period:
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome
From Library Journal
Both the Arabic, the context, and the various English translations of the Qur’an, Surah 5:48, all demonstrate that the word for “guardian” or “protecting” or “preserving” – muhaymin.
مهیمناَ
It means that the Qur’an not only testifies to the authority and preservation of the Holy Bible but also guards and protects it from corruption. It does not indicate the way that the reference you gave has translated Surah 5:48 – it seems to be a very free and Tafsir (commentary interpretation) of the word, based on later Islamic theology after they discovered, – “oops! “Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Damascus, we have a problem, there are many contradictions with the Qur’an and what we are now finding when we talk with the more orthodox Christians in Mesopotamia and Syria and Jerusalem and Egypt and other places.”
Some English Versions of the Qur’an on Surah 5:48 –
“… confirmatory of previous Scriptures, and their safeguard…” A.J. Arberry
“… It confirms the Scriptures which came before it and stands as a guardian over it… “ N.J. Dawood
“… confirming the earlier revelations, and preserving them (from change and corruption)…” Ahmed Ali
“… confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety…” Yousef Ali
“… confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watcher over it… “ Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall
“… confirming the Scripture that came before it and Mohayminan (trustworthy in highness and a witness) over it (old Scriptures)… “ Hilali-Khan
“… confirming the Book before it, and a protector for it…” Mufti Taqi Usmani
“… verifying what is before it of the Book and a guardian over it…” Shakir
“… and fulfilling that which was revealed before it in the Book, and as a guardian over it…” Sher Ali
Paul W. wrote: “Read. Inwardly digest. Learn.” (on Qur’an 5:48)
In order to read and digest and study and learn properly, I look at much more evidence than your one lone English translation (and very recent) that is not a word for word translation, but a very theologically biased agenda type of translation.
It is who you seems to need to learn more about many things.
‘The Arians, (not to be confused with the Aryan racial thing) based on the teachings of Arius, who are nowadays closest to the modern Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine about Jesus. That God the Father almighty created the Son sometime in the past before creation of the world, and that then Jesus created all other things. Are you prepared to accept that as historical theological truth? It seems you think the Arians were good and right?’
I’ve studied historical theology and church history and the Arians were far closer to NT Christology. Jesus preached the Kingdom of God – the later church preached Jesus. That, in a nut shell, is the problem for which Islam is the cure!
I agree that Justinian and beyond was not just to the Jews, and created a bad culture in Europe against the Jews. That is why Jewish people today appreciate the USA and don’t like Europe, because the USA has been just to the Jews.
I don’t white-wash anything.
It is you and most Muslim who white wash the unjust violence of Muhammad and Omar and the Khalifs, etc.
I disagree with what Luther wrote, but he never meant it to be taken the way some Nazis promoted that kind of attitude. But I agree that Luther’s writing, “On the Jews and their Lies” was wrong and sinful and ugly and gross and I repudiate it. He wrote it right before he died; he was old and seemed angry, etc. It was not Scripture. You have a bigger problem, Muhammad’s Sunna and Qur’an are considered Scripture and exemplary. We don’t believe in the Sunna of Luther. We don’t believe Luther was infallible or sinless, as you do your prophet Muhammad. Luther was right on justification by faith alone, Sola Scriptura, and right to protest the evils of the Pope and indulgences and other unbiblical things. (kissing and venerating relics, Purgatory, Apocrypha books, Transubstantiation, etc.)
You cannot bring a charge against the pure and holy and just Jesus Al Masih of the 27 books of the NT ( the Injeel), and the church of the first 3 + centuries, that did not do violence nor war, as Muhammad did from 622 onward, and much of it was Un-just – Surah 9:29 and 8:39 prove that.
“the 27 books of the NT ( the Injeel)” with respect you are being ignorant and silly again! You are determined to hold on to your ignorance despite all evidence to the contrary.
The church of the first three centuries was ofen a violent and intolerant place. I recommend this good survey of the early church up to the fourth century:
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome
As regards you peaceful Bible just watch Shabir Ally’s excellent video top of the front page
“In order to read and digest and study and learn properly, I look at much more evidence than your one lone English translation (and very recent) that is not a word for word translation, but a very theologically biased agenda type of translation.”
I find it somewhat curious that you feel yourself competent to judge a scholarly translation from the quranic Arabic but do not read Arabic yourself as you have confessed! At least when I write about the NT I can read the original!
Your simplistic and erroneous translation idea that ‘a good translation is a word for word translation’ betrays how little you know about the subject. Translators know that a word for word translation is the very worst sort of exercise producing unintelligible English. Just look at parts of the King James Old Testament – it is often unreadable because it sticks too closely to the original.
I have heard this verse discussed by a scholar at London Central Mosque and my notes at the class remind me that Asad’s rendition is certainly a possible translation of the verse.
You are way over your pay grade here my friend, and your agenda is full of animosity towards Islam.
Asad’s notes on 5:48
(note 64)
(note 65)
64 The participle muhaymin is derived from the quadriliteral verb haymana, “he watched
[over a thing]” or “controlled [it]“, and is used here to describe the Qur’an as the
determinant factor in deciding what is genuine and what is false in the earlier scriptures
(see Manar VI, 410 ff.).
65 Lit., “judge, then, between them…”, etc. This apparently applies not merely to judicial
cases but also to opinions as to what is right or wrong in the ethical sense (see note 55
above). As is evident from the mention of the “followers of the Gospel” in the preceding
verse, and of the Torah in the earlier passages, the people spoken of here are both the Jews
and the Christians.
Paul Williams wrote:
Just look at parts of the King James Old Testament – it is often unreadable because it sticks too closely to the original.
No. It is difficult today because we don’t speak that way in English anymore. But there are more “word for word” translations in modern English, like the New American Standard version, the English Standard Version, and the New King James, and the NIV is a good translation also (the old one, not the “gender neural ones”; the NIV is a more dynamic equivalent translation, although it leaves out the connector “gar” (for) γαρ too many times. But all of those translations are fine and good translations of the Bible in English.
If you can read Greek, then do you really understand John 1:1; and since you claim to read Greek and understand it, can you explain the significance of the word order, the Predicate nominative issue, and why the Jehovah’s Witnesses translation of John 1:1 is wrong?
apologeticsandagape, why don’t YOU please ‘white wash’ your dumbness?
After complaining about the Muslims’ decorum and manners you, for the umpteenth time, resort to ad hominem attacks on Muslim personalities like the disrespectful little runt you are, hiding behind our respect for Jesus (PBUH). Well, I could lay into Paul and his paganisation of Christianity if that will teach a dishonest little swine like you some respect.
Your hilarious accusations against Muslims make me laugh though. Perhaps because it’s so fresh coming from a Christian, even a dumb one like you, who should think about the massacres in the OT. The Philistines/Canaanites for example (you know, the same OT the Paul tells us in his writings is ‘good for wisdom and preaching’). Tell me, was Jesus present in the Godhead when it decided to murder and kill all those women and children, and told the Jews to rape some of the survivors? Did Jesus approve? Or was the ‘Father’ out of sorts that day? Far exalted above this is the Christ Jesus (PBUH).
You see, you are not in the intellectual class of someone like Williams, and instead of taking him on in a battle of wits (for you are unarmed) you have to attack the Prophet (PBUH) and Caliphs etc. with lies, Even though that has no relevance. You see, you are STILL trying to make that argument about the Quraan pointing to the Bible, you really are a one trick pony! Even the quotations from the translations of the Quraan you gave don’t support you, as in what sense would the Quraan guard an uncorrupted or unchanging scripture? If it is preserved and in it’s original form, Why does it then need protection? You poor fool.
But to be honest, none of the translations help your case. Hey, I have an idea, why not just write your own! That might work. It’s worth a shot!
Your dumbness is so epic that EVEN if you were right, it would not help your case. If the Quraan pointed to a scripture (as uncorrupted) which contradicted it (which it doesn’t) it would falsify the Quraan, but then your basis for us referring to the Bible would be wrong in any case. All you could establish with your dumb ass theory is that the Quraan is wrong (which includes in pointing to the Bible). How does that help you mollify the corrupted text of the NT? Your argument is ‘you Muslims should look to the Bible because the Quraan tells you to, but the Quraan is wrong in any case’. You could simplify this by saying ‘I would like you to look at the Bible because I think it is more authentic than the Quraan’ or simply ‘Please ignore me, I am a moronic psuedo -Christian who does not represent the majority of nice Christian brothers out there’. Or you could make monkey noises perhaps.
It’s so funny how you move from topic to topic, you claim scriptural integrity, but when it is shown you don’t have most manuscripts till the Third century you switch to boring us with epic quotations from Church fathers and when all else fails you just attack Muhammad (PBUH).
And EVEN AFTER ALL THIS WASTAGE, you STILL did not manage to make a convincing RATIONAL case for the Incarnation, which is what the thread was ACTUALLY about, even though you had the chance to speak with Abdullah Kunde himself! EPIC FAIL! But we shouldn’t be surprised, if the far more intelligent and respectful White couldn’t do it, it’s a bit unfair to expect it of you.
Paul should be made a saint by the Church for putting up with low – life’s like you. He could be the Patron Saint of Dumb Evangelical Mentalists.
Although I don’t speak Arabic fluently, I recognize Arabic words that we have in Farsi, and I also know other Arabic words from my Hebrew studies, and can recognize some cognate words and roots and meanings. We have the Sadeqa / Sadeq صادق – صدق – word group in Farsi for “confirming”/affirming/proving/trustworthy/honest/truthfulness/
Genuineness.
Here is another English translation of Surah 5:48 that disagrees with what you have given us:
And We descended to you The Book with the truth, confirming to WHAT (IS) BETWEEN HIS HANDS from The Book (musaddiqan lima bayna yadayhi), and guarding/protecting on it, so judge/rule between them with what God descended and do not follow their self attractions for desires about what came to you from the truth, to each from you We made/put God’s decreed way of life/method/law and order, and a clear/easy/plain way, and if God wanted/willed, He would have made you one nation/generation, and but to test you in what He gave you, so race/surpass (to) the goodnesses/generosity (good deeds), to God (is) your return altogether, so He informs you with what you were in it differing/disagreeing (P). Ahmed Ali (http://www.islamawakened.com/Quran/5/st5.htm)
Here is another English translation of the Qur’an Surah 5:48 by another Muslim:
“To you We revealed the Book with the Truth, confirming previous Scripture and witnessing to their veracity…” (The Qur’an – A New Translation, by Tarif Khalidi [Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., First American Edition 2008], p. 89.
Muhammad Asad (your favorite translation) writes in respect to Qur’an Surah 3:3:
Footnote 3 at bottom of page 79)
3 Most of the commentators are of the opinion that ma bayna yadayhi – lit., “that which is between its hands” – denotes here “the revelations which came before it”, i.e., before the Qur’an. This interpretation is not, however, entirely convincing. Although there is not the least doubt that in this context the pronominal ma refers to earlier revelations, AND PARTICULARLY THE BIBLE (as is evident from the parallel use of the above expression in other Qur’anic passages), the idiomatic phrase ma bayna yadayhi does not, in itself, mean “that which came before it” – i.e., in time – but, rather (as pointed out by me in surah 2, note 247), “THAT WHICH LIES OPEN BEFORE IT”. Since, however, the pronoun “it” relates here to the Qur’an, the metaphorical expression “between its hands” or “before it” cannot possibly refer to “knowledge” (as it does in 2:255), but must obviously refer to an objective reality with which the Qur’an is “confronted”: that is, something that was COEXISTENT IN TIME with the revelation of the Qur’an. Now this, taken together (a) with the fact – frequently stressed in the Qur’an and since established by objective scholarship – that in the course of the millennia the Bible has been subjected to considerable and often arbitrary alteration, and (b) with the fact that many of the laws enunciated in the Qur’an differ from the laws of the Bible, brings us forcibly to the conclusion that the “confirmation” of the latter by the Qur’an can refer only to the basic truths still discernible in the Bible, and not to its time-bound legislation or to its present text – in other words, a confirmation of whatever was extant of its basic teachings at the time of the revelation of the Qur’an: and it is this that the phrase ma bayna yadayhi expresses in this context as well as in 5:46 and 48 or in 61:6 (where it refers to Jesus’ confirming the truth of “whatever there still remained [i.e., in his lifetime] of the Torah”).
(p. 79, The Message of the Qur’an. Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad) (Bold and capital emphasis mine)
He pretty much admits the meaning here in Surah 3:3, but adds “whatever there still remained” for 5:48 – the words are just not there.
I recognize the words “between” بین and hands ید = yad, the singular of it. Also من = min = “from”, “of” is cognate with the Hebrew for “from”, “of” also pronounced “min” מנ
So, your argument fails.
Ibn Ishaq in the Sirat (Life of Muhammad), one of the earliest sources for Muhammad and the Sunnah, even goes so far as to identify John’s Gospel as the written record of the very Gospel (Injeel) which Allah gave to Jesus to pass on to his followers!
“Among the things which have reached me about what Jesus the Son of Mary stated in the Gospel which he received from God for the followers of the Gospel, in applying a term to describe the apostle of God, is the following. It is extracted FROM WHAT JOHN THE APOSTLE SET DOWN FOR THEM WHEN HE WROTE THE GOSPEL FOR THEM FROM THE TESTAMENT OF JESUS SON OF MARY: ‘He that hateth me hateth the Lord. And if I had not done in their presence works which none other before me did, they had not sin: but from now they are puffed up with pride and think that they will overcome me and also the Lord. But the word that is in the law must be fulfilled, “They hated me without a cause” (i.e. without reason). But when the Comforter has come whom God will send to you from the Lord’s presence, and the spirit of truth which will have gone forth from the Lord’s presence he (shall bear) witness of me and ye also, because ye have been with me from the beginning. I have spoken unto you about this that ye should not be in doubt.’ “The Munahhemana (God bless and preserve him!) in Syriac is Muhammad; in Greek he is the paraclete.”
(The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, with introduction and notes by Alfred Guillaume [Oxford University Press, Karachi, Tenth impression 1995], pp. 103-104; bold and capital emphasis ours)
Ibn Ishaq quotes John 15:23-16:1 and says that it is taken from the Gospel of Al Masih which John wrote down for Jesus’ followers! Muslims need to notice that Ibn Ishaq never once states that this particular Gospel is corrupt or unreliable.
It is very ironic and funny that this is the very same Gospel of John, which Paul Bilal Williams is constantly attacking, in order to tempt people to doubt its historical reliability and inspiration!
Rehan Ullah,
Because your words and behavior are so rude; it is not worth my time interacting with you.
You violate many times the exhortation above on Paul’s post, “The high way code” of behavior. (don’t call people names and don’t get angry, etc.)
Paul is better and Abdullah Kunde is much much better and proper. I answered Abdullah Kunde on topic on the Incarnation, etc. It is Paul who keeps bringing up the canon and church history, Arians, etc. and there is absolutely nothing wrong with me defending those issues from a Christian view point.
It is not a personal attack on Muhammad to call his violence and wars as unjust – it is a sincere belief – the Persians (even most Muslim Iranians believe that Omar was unjust in his Jihads against Persia) and Byzantines and the Copts (but they are silenced and afraid to speak up, except for a few) and Armenians to this day still believe that all of it, and Omar and Uthman and Muawiyya and Yazeed, etc. was all unjust.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
apologeticsandagape,
I notice you are always showing off your arabic in every post, Im not impressed. Although my arabic (I use it everyday in reading the Quran and study exegesis, and able to casual speaking) is not as sopthistiated as my english but enough to see your blithering argument trying to dupe muslims to your Trinitarian belief.
So much for cherry-picking your theory here and there
Simply, your speculation of “Limaa لِّمَاَ (what) bayna بَيْن (was before) yadayhi يَدَيْه (his hands)” in holy Quran surah Al-Ma’idah verse 48 refer to Gospel of John is as absurd as saying Jesus was hiding in Kashmir before he start preaching to the Jews.
The following words mina (of) مِن l-kitaabi الْكِتَابِ (the book)
it does not say إنجيل يوحنا مِن or of the gospel of John or يوحنا مِنَ الْكِتَابِ as it is known in Arabic speaking christian
All ahli tasfeer I know explain the ‘Book’ means the previous revelation Scriptures. It does not mention anything about Book of John.
It is your wishful thinking isn’t?
Oh no, I know what is going on..
You are using deceptive missionary polemical argument wholeshale in Answering-Islam site notably from long time Islam-hater Sam Shamoun
Wassalam
“I think you’ll find that most, if not all, of the New Testament was written by Jews. They obviously didn’t have any problem with adding on to their Old Testament.”
the new testament was written by jews? who gives a crap? weren’t their JEWISH idol worshippers in the torah? didn’t jews leave yhwh for other gods? so what if you have glued some greek nonsense to torah for 2000 years? in all those BIG sectarian DIVISIONS going on in jesus’ time WHO Would have noticed what some tiny /maget sect /unorthodox was DOING to the torah?
YOU SEE , what you don’t KNOW is that paul was johhny who came late
quote:
Levenson has already shown the tendency of Jewish interpreters to change the original meanings of the story by introducing an active role for Isaac equal to that of Abraham, and for his willing offer of sacrifice to bring about the deliverance of Israel.
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/isaac-bound-template-for-jesus-in-the-gospel-of-matthew/
don’t believe the BS in your nt that paul was an ATTRACTIVE magnet , he was apostate among other jews who were PLAYING with thier torahs.
can i see what the aramaic nt conjoined to the hebrew torah looked like? it doesn’t EXIST, i guess when the jews saw pauls nonsense in ARAMAIC they RIPPED it to pieces and thats why paul legs it to ANOTHER country
quote:
it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge
yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
lo we turn to the gentiles…
Why? Because no orthodox Jew is going to fall for such nonsense, just
as they still have not fallen for such nonsense for over two thousand
years!
When that didn’t work and none of the more mainstream Jewish
factions bought his nonsense about a resurrected Messiah (since they
all knew the scriptures and no such prophesy had been fulfilled by
anything they saw in their time) he FOCUSED instead on the Gentiles.
They didn’t know what the “prophets of old” prophesied, so Paul could
get away with a hell of a lot more bull****, as is evidenced today by
your fumbling apologetics.
The mainstream Jews wouldn’t follow his cult; the radical, reformist
Jews wouldn’t follow his cult; so, he travels FAR from any of it and
focuses on the Gentiles, aka, pagans, who are so desperate to believe
anything that they believe just about everything.
end quote
“Like I said, we only have Mohammed’s word for this.”
and how did mary prove to the jews that she was carrying a god in meat? how did joseph prove to the jews that he had a dream that mary was carrying yhwh in flesh? was all of israel having dreams? when jesus was alone with satan who was there VIDEO taping the flying lessons? who saw the cosmic god in spirit MORPH in to meat?
“Unlike the Bible there is absoluty nothing to corroborate this statement. Mohammed went in to the cave alone. No one else witnessed anything of a supernatural nature. Allah never confirmed by any public sign that he had spoken to Mohammed. The Jews asked for a sign. Instead they got the sword.”
you know you christians are pathetic. lets see the following
> who checked pauls claims??
> People could haved checked the details of the appearances that Paul
> mentioned.
> What you did NOT spell out is the rest of the argument :
> (2. people DID check the details)
> (3. and they found them correct)
> Let’s have a look at the various writings which COULD have CHECKED
> Paul’s claims and found them correct :
> G.Luke.
> Luke was allegedly Paul’s companion, so he clearly could have
> checked.
> Does he mention the appearance of the 500?
> NO.
> Luke did NOT confirm Paul’s claim about appearing to the 500.
> Luke’s list of appearances is different to Paul’s.
> James.
> Paul met James who was allegedly Jesus brother, and who supposedly
> Jesus appeared to.
> Does he support the appearance to 500?
> No.
> Does he say anything about appearances?
> No.
> Peter.
> 1 Forged writing from 2nd century mentions seeing Jesus’ “majesty”.
> Does he support the appearance to 500?
> No.
> Does he say anything about other appearances?
> No.
> Jude.
> Jude was allegedly Jesus brother.
> Does he support the appearance to 500?
> No.
> Does he say anything about appearances?
> No.
> John.
> Does he support the appearance to 500?
> No.
> Does he say anything about appearances?
> Yes, he has his own vision – but says nothing about others.
> What about the Gospel writers?
> Do ANY of them mention the appearance to the 500?
> G.Mark – No.
> G.Matthew – No.
> G.John – No.
think about this lads, joh n says that jesus is OUTSIDE of the tomb , dressed up as an UNRECOGNISED gardner , the gospel writer of mark writing 40 years LATER IN AN unknwon location to UNKNOWN christians tell his listners that the women LEGGED it from the tomb and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. then the fraudster called matthew picks up on marks LAST line (because he had NO other SOURCE) AND flips it.
but here is the problem, if mark knew that jesus was OUTSIDE of the tomb DRESSED up as a gardner , why didn’t he use it in his narrative? the woman DOES SPEAK to the gardner OUTSIDE OF THE TOMB, but mark the christian LIAR omits this and SAYS THEY SAID NOTHING? no , he didn’t omit it because he knew about it, he omitted it because he didn’t KNOW ABOUT IT. that bull s hit DETAIL was created for christian apologetic purposes ,bringing the unrecognised meat god NEARER to the tomb SELLS better to DUMB uneducated christians who COULDN’T read/ write. add MORE COLOUR to the dead FLOWER. also drop in MORE visions . morph the story, your READERS are dumb illiterate PAGANS so you have an advantage.
digression , lets just assume that muhammad was the only WITNESS to his revealation , the question is SO WHAT? did islamic THEOLOGY go against JUDAISM ? the islamic theology GOES HAND in hand WITH judaism, that is why jews do not see ISLAM as idolatery
“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).”
so there you go , muhammad THEOLOGY would not have gone AGAINST jewish theology. and judaism is OLDER than christianity.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Chapter 5 Verses 46 – 48 Sahih International
وَقَفَّيْنَا عَلَىٰ آثَارِهِم بِعِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ ۖ وَآتَيْنَاهُ الْإِنجِيلَ فِيهِ هُدًى وَنُورٌ وَمُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ وَهُدًى وَمَوْعِظَةً لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ
And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.
وَلْيَحْكُمْ أَهْلُ الْإِنجِيلِ بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ ۚ وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
وَأَنزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ الْكِتَابِ وَمُهَيْمِنًا عَلَيْهِ ۖ فَاحْكُم بَيْنَهُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ ۖ وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَاءَهُمْ عَمَّا جَاءَكَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ ۚ لِكُلٍّ جَعَلْنَا مِنكُمْ شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا ۚ وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَٰكِن لِّيَبْلُوَكُمْ فِي مَا آتَاكُمْ ۖ فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ ۚ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ جَمِيعًا فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ
And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it. So judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations away from what has come to you of the truth. To each of you We prescribed a law and a method. Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation [united in religion], but [He intended] to test you in what He has given you; so race to [all that is] good. To Allah is your return all together, and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ.
Taking verse into context in 46 we see that Allah (swt) only talks about Jesus (pbuh) being sent as a prophet. This verse itself does not prove that the Bible is uncorrupted. However the Christian missionaries say that they have same Torah today as it was during the time of Jesus and the evidence they give is the existence of the ‘Septuagint’. According to theCatholic Encyclopedia:
“The three most celebrated manuscripts of the Septuagint known are the Vatican, “Codex Vaticanus” (fourth century); the Alexandrian, “Codex Alexandrinus” (fifth century), now in the British Museum, London; and that of Sinai, “Codex Sinaiticus” (fourth century), found by Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, in 1844 and 1849, now part at Leipzig and in part in St. Petersburg; they are all written in uncials.”
Hence we see that the Septuagint today is not from during the time of Jesus. The earliest manuscript dates to the fourth century some 300 years after Jesus. Thus no Christian can claim that the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers) which they have today in the Bible is the same as to what was present in the Septuagint during the time of Jesus.
Now in verse 47 we find that the verse says “let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein”. Any person having the slightest comprehension skills would be able to tell that the verse is talking about what Allah (swt) has revealed in the Gospel – not the entire Bible. However if we take into consideration that the verse is referring to the Bible, even so the verse talks of letting them judge according to what Allah (swt) has revealed and not according to the corruption made by man.
Now if the Quran meant to preach that the Bible which the Christians hold in their hands is pure from corruption then it would have said “let the Christians judge by the Gospel” (or “Bible” – whichever of the two words; it does not matter in the present context). However notice that the verse does not state that but says “judge by what Allah hath revealed therein”. In other words do not judge by what the human hands have written but only by what Allah (swt) has revealed.
The key to these two verses rests in the next verse i.e. verse 48. In this verse we can see that Allah (swt) states that the Quran is sent in truth, confirming that what came before it and guarding it in safety. The Arabic word used here is “Muhaymin” which means ‘Guardian’, ‘Protector’ and ‘Trustworthy’. According to Al-Mawrid Arabic to English dictionary the word means ‘dominant, dominating, predominant, preponderant, prevailing, controlling, commanding, governing, reigning, ruling; (absolute) master, ruler, overlord’ – [Al Mawrid Arabic to English Dictionary pg. 1135].
Allah (swt) thus says that the Quran is a guardian over the previous scriptures. It is guarding them. What is it guarding it against? It is guarding it from the corruptions that the human hands have done in the Bible. It is correcting the corruptions made in the Bible and thus protecting it. The role of a guardian is to guide and correct the errors.
Many Christian missionaries spreading lies that that “muhaymin” was understood by Muslims of the past and present to mean that the Bible in the form it was in those days was uncorrupted. We will check some of the sources of the past and present to see whether they really believed the Bible in those days to be uncorrupted.
Tafsir Ibn Kathir:
“(and Muhayminan over it) means entrusted over it, according to Sufyan Ath-Thawri who narrated it from Abu Ishaq from At-Tamimi from Ibn `Abbas. `Ali bin Abi Talhah reported that Ibn `Abbas said, “Muhaymin is, ‘the Trustworthy’. Allah says that the Quran is trustworthy over every Divine Book that preceded it.” This was reported from `Ikrimah, Sa`id bin Jubayr, Mujahid, Muhammad bin Ka`b, `Atiyyah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, `Ata’ Al-Khurasani, As-Suddi and Ibn Zayd. Ibn Jarir said, “The Quran is trustworthy over the Books that preceded it. Therefore, whatever in these previous Books conforms to the Quran is true, and whatever disagrees with the Qur’an is false.” Al-Walibi said that Ibn `Abbas said that Muhayminan means, ‘Witness’. Mujahid, Qatadah and As-Suddi said the same. Al-`Awfi said that Ibn `Abbas said that Muhayminan means, ‘dominant over the previous Scriptures’. These meanings are similar, as the word Muhaymin includes them all. Consequently, the Quran is trustworthy, a witness, and dominant over every Scripture that preceded it. This Glorious Book, which Allah revealed as the Last and Final Book, is the most encompassing, glorious and perfect Book of all times. The Quran includes all the good aspects of previous Scriptures and even more, which no previous Scripture ever contained. This is why Allah made it trustworthy, a witness and dominant over all Scriptures.”
Tanwir al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas:
“(And unto the have We revealed the Scripture) We have sent you Gabriel with the Qur’an (with the Truth) to make plain the Truth and falsehood, (confirming) the statement of Allah’s divine Oneness and some laws (whatever Scripture was before it) whatever Scriptures were before it, (and a watcher over it) a witness upon all the Scriptures before it; it is also said: a witness upon the ruling of stoning; and it is also said: a watcher over all previous Scriptures.”
It is thus seen that Allah (swt) has kept the Quran as a guardian over the previous scriptures so as to guard what was revealed originally thus showing to us that which is corruption in the Bible.
I will now quote some of the Muslims of the present times to see whether they understand that this verse states that the Bible was uncorrupted or that is got corrupted overtime.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali:
“After the corruption of the older revelation, the Quran comes with a twofold purpose: (1) to confirm the true and original Message and (2) to guard it or act as a check to its interpretation. The Arabic word ‘Muhaymin’ is very comprehensive in meaning. It means one who safeguards, watches over, stands witness, preserves and upholds. The Quran safeguards “the Book”, for it has preserved within it the teachings of all the former Books. It watches over these Books in the sense that it corroborates the Word of Allah which has remained intact in them. It stands as a witness because it bears testimony to the Word of Allah contained in these Books and helps to sort it out from the interpretations and commentaries of the people which were mixed with it; what is confirmed by the Quran is the Word of Allah and what is against it is that of the people.”
Muhammad Asad(His translation is often quoted by Christian missionaries):
“The participle ‘muhaymin’ is derived from the quadrilateral verb ‘haymana’, ‘he watched [over a thing]’ or ‘controlled [it]’, and is used here to describe the Quran as the determinant factor in deciding what is genuine and what is false in the earlier Scriptures.”
Maariful Quran:
“The address is to the Holy Prophet (saw) saying that to him Allah has revealed the Quran which confirms the Torah and Injeel, Books previous to it, and is their custodian as well. This is because, after the people of the Torah altered the Torah and the people of the Injeel made changes in the Injeel,it was the Quran alone which turned out to be the kind overseer and protector which exposed the alterations made by them, lit up truth and reality in their proper perspective. Even today the true teachings of the Torah and Injeel still survive through the Quran.”
So we see the whether we look at the Muslims of the past or the present, they understood the term ‘muhaymin’ to mean the same and the interpretation of the verse has always been the same without any changes.
Some Christian missionaries bring to notice that one of the names of Allah (swt) is “AL-MUHAYMIN”. So let us see whether the meaning and explanation of the word “muhaymin” fits with harmony in both the verse and as one of the attributes of Allah (swt).
Muhaymin, according to early Muslims as taken from Ibn Kathir, means the following: Witness and Trustworthy. This word also means ‘Guardian’, ‘Supervisor’ or ‘Protector’. Now do these fit Allah (swt) and the verse in harmony? Yes!
Allah (swt) is our Guardian and hence has given us guidelines to correct ourselves just the way the Quran is the guardian over the Bible, correcting it. Allah (swt) is the Protector and has given us a way to protect ourselves by correcting our mistakes just as the way the Quran corrects the Bible in order to protect what was revealed in the previous scriptures. Allah (swt) is Witness to all that is being done just like the Quran is a witness to the changes made in the Bible thus correcting them.
Hence we see that the definition fits perfectly to Allah (swt) as well as the Quran thus refuting any claims that would suggest otherwise. The Quran is now a guardian over what was revealed before and thus people can learn the truth in the previous scriptures by looking at those parts which the Quran confirms and those which the Quran rejects.
As br. Paul Bilal Williams said: Read. Inwardly digest. Learn. Thats scholarship attitude.
Parroting missionary literature out of hatred to Islam masquerading in eloquent words is not.
Wassalam
THE persians?
“arabic displaced languages when there was a sufficient number of native speakers settling. it didn’t dsiplace persian or central asian iranian (which was displaced for the most part with persian, as persians were numerous in the muslim armies, later persian receded in favor turkic in central asia.). it didn’t compete with turkic as turkic lands were not conquered but adopted islam through diplomatic and missionary efforts and the military of muslim turks. transoxania was not turkified at the time of the arab conquest, it was mostly sogdian speaking, with only perhaps pockets of turks. persian, i.e. the dialect ancestral to tajik replaced sogdian. arabic did expand at the expense of the IE languages of North
African Romance (/ Latin) and levantine greek”
the persians?
“I think you’ll find that most, if not all, of the New Testament was written by Jews. They obviously didn’t have any problem with adding on to their Old Testament.”
how many of these jews knew the torah like they knew the back of thier hand?
how many of these were writing Talmudic precedent or running Rabbinical schools?
apologeticsnadagape, cry all you want, you deserve everything you get and worse. You are truly a swine, as anyone reading these posts can see. YOU started the ad hominem attacks but did not like it when you got PUNKED and I returned the favour.
No doubt that Kunde and Williams are better individuals than myself. What’s your point, to incite jealousy? Nay, I am proud of them, much as Christians are ashamed of you.
Ibn Ishaq is NOT one of the ‘earliest sources for the Sunnah’ or the seera. Perhaps you would date it for us. And in any case, who cares what he says, I already shot down the incoherence of your argument in using Muslim sources to point to the Bible, a text whose inerrency those same Muslim sources have no respect for.
It’s funny how you argue translations with Williams, even though it helps you nought. Why does the Quraan not say, in ANY place that the Bible texts are preserved UNCORRUPTED or that they should be followed verbatim without critical analysis. Produce one ayat that says the Bible is the UNCORRUPTED word of God as you have it today, or even in the Prophets (PBUH) time. Stop wasting our time with your aimless arguments, which Erik rightly identified the source of.
Oh, and it wasn’t Williams who brought up scripture and the Church, it was you, ages ago when you started to spam Bible quotes and their ‘inerrency’, but when you got challenged on the manuscripts you were silent and…attacked Muhammad (PBUH) like the dirty Islamophobe you are.
And so funny bringing up the poor Copts and Armenian’s and Islam’s human rights record. And so hypocritical for a Christian! Shall we talk about how Christianity was spread? You want to talk about Constantine, King Cnut, The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, how Christianity was railroaded onto a violent colonial enterprise by England, France, Spain, Portugal? Talk about the ‘Tolerence Acts’ right here in England. Or how you ‘conquered’ the New World, using the Bible to justify your insatiable land (and sexual) lust. Compared to the sociopathic genocidal violence of the Christians up to the present day (Christian majority armies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc. etc.) Muslims are a bunch of shy, retiring virginal girls. See a hilarious academic discourse about who is the most violent group in human history at the below link:
http://rissc.jo/docs/bodycount_final.pdf
Just like you say you are not going to engage with me (if only I was so blessed) and then use the opportunity to repeat your Islamophobic drivel, all the while not answering the point about ‘The Sons’ homicidal tendencies in the OT. And then you accuse Muhammad of being ‘violent’ in his 23 year mission which you compare with the 3 year mission of Jesus (PBUH). Well, in his first three years (in fact much longer) Muhammad never even took up arms, And when he did, it was against people who thoroughly deserved it. In any case, he killed a lot fewer people than you accuse Jesus of killing, and he never ordered any rapes, like you accuse Jesus of in the OT (which Paul affirms). Or was he NOT part of the Godhead then? Is your argument that Jesus did not kill anyone because he had satiated his bloodlust on the Philistines already? Or was he not ‘co – equal’ then?
Although as Muslims we deny that Jesus (PBUH) would ever do such a thing. You see, it’s easy to talk trash about someone else’s loved ones. See how you play cry baby when I talk trash about you, who actually deserves it, since you are a scum – sucking moron.
I would advise the others to not engage with you as it is a waste of their kind natures and valuable time, which could be better spent on building relations with our genuine, good Christian brothers and not this Evangelical heretic.
Hmmm,.. excellent Erik, seeing the verses in context makes things abundantly clear. Although it was clear anyway.
‘Hatred of Islam’, spot on bro. See how we have so many good things to say about Jesus (PBUH), have you ever hears an Evangelical nut – job say a good thing about Muhammad (PBUH). If they were sincere, they would say: ‘Even though we do not believe in him, we still respect Muhammad since he is the only major non – Christian religious figure to give so much respect to Jesus and his mother Mary. For this we admire him’.
But they will never say that, because they are full of hate, as you can see from the moronic idiots on this post and from their literature and websites.
YOU know its funny that apologeticlandskip didn’t take a basic course in textual criticism.
do you really think the evangelits were doing textual criticism in arabia when according to ehrman VAST MAJORITY of the ancients were illiterate? apologeticlandskip go and ask for a bible owned by the scholars and look at thier footnotes and see that in their footnotes they havemore than 4 different VARIANT readings for particular verses , now WHICH ANCIENT bibles have footnotes LIKE these pagan for krist? which arab evangelical meat worhipping pagan had TODays RECONSTRUCTED bible? apologeticlandskip , everyone , except you christians, can see that the 4 gospels retell the same stories by CHANGING them and your reconciling efforts have been SHOT to pieces
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/c73555e87e13b678?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/585b5a05afc89379?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/09ae102aa85dd33c?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/43fda33dfcea05ac?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/e24c3cc5b5bedb6e?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/dbd6345d4a4e4eeb?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/a0438f8d2766cd77?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/39b6ad6c1afa4271?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/105a2f332aa8ffe1?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/a98bcb89971be614?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/c71e7e90e2e0d95d?dmode=print
no one is buying the BS of different audiences, but changes to IMPRESS the audience is what is being bought. changes because the authour did not like the unDEVELOPED god in meat.
apologeticlandskip, all you got to do is read the gospels IN ISOLATION and see foryourself that they have VARIANT readings WHICH badly CONTRADICT.
YOU know its funny that apologeticlandskip didn’t take a basic course in textual criticism.
do you really think the evangelits were doing textual criticism in arabia when according to ehrman VAST MAJORITY of the ancients were illiterate? apologeticlandskip go and ask for a bible owned by the scholars and look at thier footnotes and see that in their footnotes they havemore than 4 different VARIANT readings for particular verses , now WHICH ANCIENT bibles have footnotes LIKE these pagan for krist? which arab evangelical meat worhipping pagan had TODays RECONSTRUCTED bible? apologeticlandskip , everyone , except you christians, can see that the 4 gospels retell the same stories by CHANGING them and your reconciling efforts have been SHOT to pieces
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/c73555e87e13b678?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/585b5a05afc89379?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/09ae102aa85dd33c?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/43fda33dfcea05ac?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/e24c3cc5b5bedb6e?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/dbd6345d4a4e4eeb?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/a0438f8d2766cd77?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/39b6ad6c1afa4271?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/105a2f332aa8ffe1?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/a98bcb89971be614?dmode=print
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/msg/c71e7e90e2e0d95d?dmode=print
no one is buying the BS of different audiences, but changes to IMPRESS the audience is what is being bought. changes because the authour did not like the unDEVELOPED god in meat.
apologeticlandskip, all you got to do is read the gospels IN ISOLATION and see foryourself that they have VARIANT readings WHICH badly CONTRADICT.
Regarding respect for Muhammad – there is some respect for him, in that he was sincerely wanting to get the Arabs back to monotheism, the religion of Abraham, and admired the previous revelations in Scriptures.
and
Actually, I can agree with some respect for Muhammad with the general statement that Muhammad did respect Jesus and Mary, and that is good, and since he recognized that Al Masih was the “kalimat’allah’ کلمه الله and “a spirit from Allah” روح من الله
- those are indications that his information came from the Christians through John 1:1-5 and 1:14, but he couldn’t handle the terminology of “Son of God”, because he misunderstood it and didn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic and didn’t have a good Christian to explain it to him – like the metaphorical Arabic phrases “son of the road” – Ibn Sabeel” and “son of the Nile” – ibn nile” and “the mother of the books” – Um al kitab. It was a metaphor.
His political giftedness and warrior leadership are human giftedness. Some of it is respectable, but some of it is not. Sorry. I don’t intend to offend, but if revelation stopped with the 27 books of the NT, (Jude 3 – “the faith that was delivered once for all to the saints”) – then that indicates his leadership was a purely human thing, not inspired by God.
LOL! What a pathetic swineherd!
Your moronic intellectual dance is actually amusing!
“if you can read Greek, then do you really understand John 1:1; and since you claim to read Greek and understand it, can you explain the significance of the word order, the Predicate nominative issue, and why the Jehovah’s Witnesses translation of John 1:1 is wrong?”
Claim? Lol. I know the prologue of John 1 in Greek by heart and Yes, I do understand 1:1 and Yes, the JW translation is wrong and Yes, I accept the traditional translation of the verse:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So what?
A friend emailed me this today concerning surah 5:48. He is an Arab living in the Middle East and well versed in Islamic Studies. He wrote:
I will read Asad’s introduction and report back on his methodology, inshallah.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
What is the Islamic understanding of the Logos in John 1 v 1,?
Hi Paul, there isn’t an ‘Islamic understanding’ of John 1:1. It just says what it says…
“Muhammad did respect Jesus and Mary, and that is good, and since he recognized that Al Masih was the “kalimat’allah’ کلمه الله and “a spirit from Allah” روح من الله
- those are indications that his information came from the Christians through John 1:1-5 and 1:14, but he couldn’t handle the terminology of “Son of God”, because he misunderstood it and didn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic and didn’t have a good Christian to explain it to him ”
thats because your pagan brains are not letting the qur’aan speak. what you are doing is seeing white in red background and assuming it is belonging to coca cola.
you have no shame . Qur’aan says that ALLAH CREATED everything
He have no spiritual wife / spiritual son/ spiritual daughter
He is the creator of everything
He , according to suraltul iqlas HAS NO CO-EQUAL there is nothing LIKE UNTO Him
GOd have no need of INTERMEDIARIES
God is UNIQUE being
God doesn’t have reproductive names which only exist in human world.
Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could He have a son when He has no consort, and He (Himself) created everything, and He is the Knower of all things.
And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea [was ink], replenished thereafter by seven [more] seas, the words of Allah would not be exhausted. Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise.
kalimaaatul LLAH
THe words of ALLAH…
Man, why do you have to see christian ideas in the qur’aan?
what kind of a SAD git would understand “words of Allah” as members of trinity?
jezuz
KALIMA tin MIN hu
a word FROM HIM
HIM created it like He created the OTHER it (adam) and the other it is ALSO “KUN” KALIMATIN
WHY is this so DIFFICULT to understand? for 2000 years jews have rebutted the christian crap which they READ into the torah. jews remember SPOKE syria, aramaic hebrew and greek and christianity has not been able to rattle thier cage except rape and murder them. One can argue that Muhammad like the jews was DIE HARD monetheist who would not let explanations fool him .
“didn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic and didn’t have a good Christian to explain it to him – like t”
are you feeling alright? DO YOU WANT ME TO REMIND your brains what the koran SAYS ABOUT JEWISH and christian DISAGREEMENTS AND you’re telling us muhammad needed a christian apologist to come out with solid, liquid and gas analogies? lol the jews were THRASHING and debunking christians in hebrew, aramaic, syriac ,arabic and you’re telling us that muhamad needed good christian explanation?
“Hmmm,.. excellent Erik, seeing the verses in context makes things abundantly clear. Although it was clear anyway.”
I wish I could have more time engaging this apologeticsnadagape “persona” without having to quit my day job *grin*, but I cant leave this one out when he was rambling as if he was an expert in Arabic or Islamic exegesis. While in fact he was just parroting his hero infamous Islamophobes polemicist propaganda.
“.. ‘Hatred of Islam’, spot on bro. See how we have so many good things to say about Jesus (PBUH), have you ever hears an Evangelical nut – job say a good thing about Muhammad (PBUH). If they were sincere, they would say: ‘Even though we do not believe in him, we still respect Muhammad since he is the only major non – Christian religious figure to give so much respect to Jesus and his mother Mary. For this we admire him’.
But they will never say that, because they are full of hate, as you can see from the moronic idiots on this post and from their literature and websites.
..”
Thats what I saw it too. Some of this missionary targeting Muslims may appear eloquent and well-mannered but they they can hide their true intention: making Islam and the holy Prophet look bad.
The Mizan Al Haqq (The Balance of Truth) (میزان الحق ) was written in 1835 by Carl Pfander, originally in Persian, then translated and published into English in 1910, and it demonstrates the idea that the Qur’an does not teach the text of the Bible was corrupted or changed, but that the Qur’an actually confirms the Scriptures at the time of Muhammad. ( Surah 10:94; 5:46-48) Many Christians have read this book in years past in seeking to how to talk to Muslims about the Qur’an.
So, the idea that the Quran confirms the Bible in Surah 5:47-48 and 10:94 is not a new thing, but rather a very old truth. I think even John of Damascus and Nestorian Patriarch Timothy and Al Kindy and other Christians made the same points in the 700s and 800s and 900s AD.
http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Pfander/Balance/p002.htm
فَإِن كُنتَ فِي شَكٍّ مِّمَّا أَنزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ فَاسْأَلِ الَّذِينَ يَقْرَءُونَ الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلِكَ ۚ لَقَدْ جَاءَكَ الْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكَ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْمُمْتَرِينَ (94)
“If thou wert in doubt as to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before thee: the Truth hath indeed come to thee from thy Lord: so be in no wise of those in doubt.”
Surah Yunis Nabi 10:94
Also, Carl Pfander points out that the Qur’an says several times, “there is no changing the words of Allah” and “no one can change the word of Allah”.
How can puny powerless man change the word of the Almighty?”
Read, Inwardly Digest. Meditate. Pray for guidance. Learn. Be enlightened.
“O Lord, send out Your light and truth and let them lead me!” Psalm 43:3
Since the Bahais or Ahmadiyehs (Qadianis), who came after Islam, and claim a new revelation that completes Islam, the old one. (and they have claimed that) Since they do that, when you try to show them that they are wrong and you are not trying to be insulting to their founders by saying they are wrong, and they many even call you “Bab haters” or “Bahai’ullah haters” or “Mirza haters”, so you accept that, that you are being “hateful”? or you are being truthful and logical to your own religion as you sincerely believe that Muhammad was the seal of the prophets and the last ?
That is the same thing with Christianity, we just believe that revelation stopped with Jesus and his apostles, some of whom wrote the 27 books of the NT. Jude 3, “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints”
it is a matter of logic; not hatred.
وَلَا مُبَدِّلَ لِكَلِمَاتِ اللَّهِ ۚ
“there is none that can alter the words of Allah. ”
Surah 6:34
I forgot, I read Mizan Al Haqq (The Balance of Truth) in 1986; a long time ago.
Before the internet was around.
Paul Williams wrote:
Claim? Lol. I know the prologue of John 1 in Greek by heart and Yes, I do understand 1:1 and Yes, the JW translation is wrong and Yes, I accept the traditional translation of the verse: . . .
Very good Paul; I commend you for that – Mash’allah!
I am glad you recognize that the JW translation and interpretation is wrong of John 1:1.
You know all of John 1:1-18 by heart in Greek? حافظه ؟ – by memory?
If so; very good. Double Mash’allah !
I wrote this little article a while back:
If one only has a beginning knowledge of Greek, it is very dangerous. The grammar and Greek syntax of John 1:1 determines the right theology. The doctrine of the Deity of Christ and the eternality of the Son is based on Scripture, not the Council of Nicaea. The Council of Nicaea is based on Scripture, and derives secondary authority from the only infallible authority – the Scriptures.
Another Roman Catholic, “Nick the Catholic” also has an article with a title that claims that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were right about John 1:1. “JWs are correct about John 1:1; Jesus is not God” ( !!!)
Then he clarifies later from his controversial, heretical, and inflammatory title. He says they were right if they mean “the Father is not Jesus”; ie the same person; but they are not right in that the JWs deny that Jesus is God or Deity.
The predicate nominative issue is the key interpretive issue, more important than the definite article issue.
The Word was God.
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
And God was the Word.
Daniel Wallace has a good word on this issue:
“We know that “the Word” is the subject because it has the definite article, and we translate it accordingly: “and the Word was God.” Two questions, both of them of theological import, should come to mind: 1) Why was θεὸς (Theos) thrown forward? And 2) why does it lack the article? In brief, its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: “What God was, the Word was” is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the person of the Word ( Jesus Christ) with the person of “God” (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John’s wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism [Modalism]; the word order is against Arianism.
To state it another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν ὁ θεὸς = “and the Word was the God” ( ie, the Father, Sabellianism, [or Modalism])
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεὸς = “and the Word was a god” (Arianism) [also Jehovah’s Witness theology]
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος “and the Word was God” (orthodoxy) [sound, Biblical doctrine)
Jesus Christ is God and has all the attributes that the Father has. But He is not the first person of the Trinity. [the Son is not the Father] All this is concisely affirmed in καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. “
Basics of Biblical Greek, William D. Mounce, Zondervan, 1993, p. 28-29. (Quoting Daniel Wallace)
So, here we have the principle of Sola Scriptura as the basis for all sound doctrine and theology. The first four Ecumenical councils were right, only because they got the Bible right. We don’t need Popes or any idea of an “infallible church council”. The Scriptures themselves teach us sound doctrine, and the good and right decisions in the Ecumenical councils derive their rightness from Scripture itself. Only Scripture is infallible. Here we see the Greek grammar and syntax teaching us the distinction between nature and person. God revealed the doctrine of the Trinity based on the Scriptures alone; Sola Scriptura stands.
وَلَا مُبَدِّلَ لِكَلِمَاتِ اللَّهِ ۚ
“there is none that can alter the words of Allah. ”
Surah 6:34″
Sahih International: We know that you, [O Muhammad], are saddened by what they say. And indeed, they do not call you untruthful, but it is the verses of Allah that the wrongdoers reject.
Sahih International: And certainly were messengers denied before you, but they were patient over [the effects of] denial, and they were harmed until Our victory came to them. And none can alter the words of Allah. And there has certainly come to you some information about the [previous] messengers.
HOW DO THE KORAN, BIBLE, INJEEL IN ANY WAY FIT INTO THESE VERSES? WHAT MAKES BETTER SENSE “WORDS” MEANS PROMISE OF ALLAH WHICH DOES NOT ALTER OR REVEALATIONS OF ALLAH WHICH DO NOT ALTER? IT IS THE PROMISE OF ALLAH WHICH REPEATS ITSELF .PROMISE OF VICTORY .
Who the hell is Carl Pfander or Bender or whatever his name is, or the ‘Mizan Ul – Haq’? Who cares if it’s written in Persian, are we supposed to be impressed or something? It’s not accepted by Muslim or academic scholarship anyway. No Muslim has even been arsed to read it. There are only a few ayats of Quraan to argue about so why do you need to promote the book, win your point with YOUR arguments. But you can’t, cos you are dumb as soggy chips.
You ask how can man change the word of God? Where does it say that the Torah is the unalterable speech of God? And if God can do anything, like according to you, even become a man, why can’t he allow people to change the record of his speech? Since he can allow ‘puny’ man to torture and crucify him? Puny man is powerful enough to kill ‘god’ but not alter his speech. You hilarious idiot!
Are you so dumb that you don’t understand the distinction between ‘speech’ and ‘record of speech’? So according to you, no copy of the Quraan can ever have a typo? You truly are a baboon.
When it said that there is no changing the words of Allah this is a) talking about his WORDS, not just records thereof b) the Quraan, in the preserved tablet and that the Quraan specifically won’t be lost, a guarantee from God to the people of the world for the Quraans’ preservation but conspicuously absent for the earlier scriptures.
So what if the Quraan tells you to go to the previous books if you have doubt, that does not automatically imply their infallibility. It also tells you to ask men of science or knowledge if you have questions or concerns, as well as to observe natural phenomena. Does that make them faultless or preserved or infallible? You are a momentously stupid fool! It also tells you to look for signs WITHIN yourself. Does that now make you miraculously preserved or infallible?
When it mentions those that have been reading the ‘Book’ before thee, why does it not mention the Jews and Christians (or the Book) by name? Extrapolate much dumb-ass? (predicted response: ‘But ‘Book’ always means Bible and People always means Christians blah blah monkey noises, slips on banana).
Also, why are you spamming Williams with your shite Bible scholarship skills, it’s not like you had an answer for the Greek manuscript ‘problem’ of the NT – John not available till earliest 125AC and for all of the four gospels we have to wait for the 3rd Century. Who cares what kind of exegesis you pull out of your hat?
Also, that John 1:1 stuff does not even make sense, that’s the ‘Islamic’ understanding of it.
You have been punked by literally EVERYONE on this blog. The amount of points you failed to answer is GALACTIC. You could not even defend your concept of God, your scripture, or his alleged proclivity for genocide and yet you go on spamming and spamming.
Man, you’re not even good at rhetoric. I actually feel sorry for you. I am guessing you are of somewhat advanced years and have been living with a deficient intellect for a long time. It’s gotta be tough. I feel for you bro. Seriously, I feel ‘agape’ love for you.
You see guys, he gets off on the fact that you lot are interacting with him, it gives him validation. It makes him feel clever. But why do you bother, when he fails to address the points? He’s just selectively annoying you so the impetus is always on you guys. Meanwhile, he never managed to establish the point at INCEPTION – can you please make the Incarnation rationally coherent?
Just stop interacting with him, he will then have to phone up Samaritans or ‘Muslim Helpline’ like other lonely and emotionally vulnerable people.
QUOTE:
How can puny powerless man change the word of the Almighty?”
Read, Inwardly Digest. Meditate. Pray for guidance. Learn. Be enlightened.
“O Lord, send out Your light and truth and let them lead me!” Psalm 43:3
rambo: hahahahahaahaha, farrell till wrote that yhwh used to pay the jews a visit , gave them all sorts of goodies , fought for them in stealing israel. yhwh fought against pagan idolaterors and replaced them with HEATHEN jewish idolaterors who would PRACTICE exactly the same PAGAN things which yhwh condemned. solomon , THE WISESTS OF MEN, TURNED to idolatery. now if all this was TRUE , then VISITATIONS of god did not rattle the israeli cage.lol
now lets seee, are the jews who read the GREEK LXX impressed with it, NOT
quote:
When Mark refers to Jesus quoting the OT, of course he’s just going to grab a copy of the Septuagint and give us the standard Greek reading.
At Mark 7 Mark puts in the mouth of Jesus an argument that is based on an erroneous translation of the Hebrew scriptures from the Septuagint. Jesus criticizes the Pharisees by quoting Isaiah saying that they are “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” That’s what the erroneous Septuagint says, but in fact the Hebrew reads something like “Your worship of me is merely an act of going through the motions.” It seems unlikely that the Pharisees would be stumped by a mistaken translation of Isaiah in Greek when they work with the Hebrew.
Isaiah 29:13 – And the Lord said: “Because this people has come near [Me], and with its mouth and with its lips has honored Me, but has drawn its heart far away from Me, and its fear of Me has become a commandment of men that was learned by rote.
In context, the prophet castigates the preople for the lack of sincerity in their performance of the commandments saying that their fear of God has become a command of people to which they have become accustomed, i.e., they perform the commandments that they have been taught by their parents and teachers out of force of habit, without thinking to do God’s will. The main organ involved in prayer/worship is the heart. Yet, the people bring prayerbooks, the body goes to the house of worship, the lips move, but the heart does not concentrate on worship. Rather, they go through the motions by rote, while their thoughts and heart are somewhere else, focusing on other mundane matters such as their business transactions, etc.
5 The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”
6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
7 BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’
8 “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
Here is what Is 29:13 says in the Septuagint:
They worship me in vain; / their teachings are but rules taught by men
And here is the Hebrew:
Because this people draw near with their mouthand honor me with their lips,while their hearts are far from me,and their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote;
…
NONE can change the word of god? lol, there you go THE LXX did change the word of god LOL
And you people have been STUCK with the changes. today you can FIX UP your corrupt translations , but what about a time like 3000 years ago? you don’t know what language noan spoke and there is no writing dated to his time and what is even worse the hebrew bible, earliest parts of it ,WERE WRITTEN IN A LANGUAGE UNKNOWN to us. LOOK , THINK man, why are jews not happy with your LXX ? why don’t they EMBRACE it? why are you not happy with JW translations? now you really think 3000 YEARS AGO jews did not have SECTARIAN DIVISIONS lol?
none can change the word of god?
CHALLENGE TO apologeticlandskip
SHOW ME IN LUKES infancy NARRATIVE, JUST ONE DAMN VERSE WHERE IT SAYS DANGER AWAITED THE baby god in meat jezuz krist, SHOW JUST ONE VERSE
lUKE HAS jesus GOING TO JERUSALEM EVERY YEAR SINCE hIS bIRTH.
SO where CAN I, A READER, WHO NEVER SEEN MATTHEWS GOSPEL find that herod wanted jesus’ MEAt , according to LUKES GOSPEL?
now think about this, hillary lying bit ch clinton, said that DANGER AWAITED HER when she landed at a certian destination IN BOSNIA “I WAS UNDER SNIPER FIRE” ” I WAS RUSHEDTO …” but upon WATCHING THE video there was no problem at all , everything was peaceful
clinton EMBELLISHES PAST
NOW YOU apologists or liars for krist would try to create your “how it could have been scenarios ” to fix up hillaries mess, right?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
apologeticsandagape,
I know Pfander. He was 19th century missionary to muslims whose energy was devoted to spreading hatred for prophet Muhammad (p).
Most of Pfander’s energy was devoted to portray prophet Muhammad (p) as a deluded epileptic, a diagnosis that subsequently appeared in many 19th-century missioanry literature about Islam.
Pfander depicted prophet Muhammad(p) as unstable mind, war monger and sex hungry
Generally, said Pfander, Islam was a religion of the sword, Christianity, one of peace.
No wonder this hero of yours make you are so much hatred to Islam and the last prophet.
Wassalam
“You ask how can man change the word of God? Where does it say that the Torah is the unalterable speech of God? And if God can do anything, like according to you, even become a man, why can’t he allow people to change the record of his speech? Since he can allow ‘puny’ man to torture and crucify him? Puny man is powerful enough to kill ‘god’ but not alter his speech. You hilarious idiot!”
friend , this guy is not feeling very well. the jews governed jesus
theY SPREAD rumours about him which became , according to matthew “WIDELY KNOWN TILL THIS DAY” friend, the jews TURNED crowds against jesus in 2 days,
friend , the culture jesus LIVEd in WAS alright for making up BS and people believe BS in this culture. as you know, the jews were in hot sectarian DIVSIONS and jews HAD A HABIT of CHANGING stories by REINTERPRETING them. read LEVENSON.
1 Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two
days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were
looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2 “But not
during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.”
2 DAYS later jesus’ LIFE is on the line and the jews did the MIRACLES of miracles by turning crowds against the darling of galilee who was so popular on his entry.
the point is jesus had no POWER or authourity to KILL of any lies about him in israel. do you know not everything in ORALly trasmitted stories MAKE itt on WRITTEN paper? do you know we the gospel writers do not even show us WHICH story they think is authentic and which story they think is BS, all miracles attributed to jesus are swallowed like gospel, yet there is no verification methodology to inform readers WHERE they got their info from and HOW true it was.
Here is a good article entitled, “Is Christianity Rational?” and touches on the subject of this post.
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-christianity-rational-re-post-from.html
He shows how the virgin birth of Al Masih and the Trinity are rational and Biblical, if one believes in God Almighty and Genesis 1:1 and God’s power to create from nothing and His Sovereignty.
I sincerely wish peace to all of you.
Isa Al Masih said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you; Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.” John 14:27
True peace with God is found through Isa Al Masih – Romans 5:1-11
“True peace with God is found through Isa Al Masih – Romans 5:1-11″
Here is an excerpt from that passage by Paul (who never met the historical Jesus):
‘Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!’
Compare this gospel of Paul with the Gospel of Jesus, for example here (Mark 10):
Muslims follow Jesus, todays Christians follow Paul.
HAHAHAHA! I love this guy! ‘Rational and Biblical’ as if they are the same thing!
Hey Erik, a number of people are having a debate on the same subject on the MDI website, ‘thedebateinitiative.com’. Check it out, some of your countrymen are on it…