[b]This thread has been created to examine certain matters on Christianity and Islam. Observation is open to all but Contribution is by invitation only until the thread is declared open to all! INVITATION FOR ANSWERS WILL BE THROWN OPEN TO MUSLIMS OR CHRISTIANS OR ALL depending which side the question arises from. If you are itching to have a question asked or to support (elaborate further) on a particular answer given, please email the address under my username. Only questions for the purposes of clarification/edification/comparison will be entertained. Please respect this thread! Thank you all!

Invitees: LagosShia, Sweetnecta, Aletheia, The Clown, vedaxcool, dexmond, tbaba1234   . . . . more will be added.

* Questions will be open for 48 Hours only or until a new question is posted by OP or the NAMED INVITEES.
*Always check the 'QUESTIONS BANK' before you email or me or post questions.*
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On Post # 1 : Additional answers (that are different, if any) to LagosShia and Sweetnecta as quoted are invited from Muslims and Christians. Answers should be straightforward. ONLY POST WHERE YOUR ANSWER IS DIFFERENT TO WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN POSTED. NO DEROGATORY REMARKS PLEASE!


PLEASE REMEMBER: NO PERSONAL ATTACKS ; PRESENT ARGUMENTS/EXPLANATIONS IN A CLEAR AND CIVIL MANNER![/b]

QUESTIONS BANK

ON ISLAM/ FOR ISLAM
REV 20
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TORAH
INJIL 
Allah is one!

ON CHRISTIANITY/ FOR CHRISTIANS
Waiting for deposits via EMAIL 

bookmarked

seyibrown:

This thread has been created to examine certain matters on Christianity and Islam. Observation is open to all but Contribution is by invitation only

smh @ a public online forum operating as a cabal like all things nigeria. why not encourage people to go read up on these issues instead of relying on the ramblings of a bunch of annonymous nerds who spend all day aimlessly bickering back and forth on the internet

seyibrown:

Muslim Brethren,
Thanks.

Was Mohammed literate?
he was not literate.

Did he read the Torah, Psalms and Injil?

No he did not read any of the above books.

Did he approve of them during his life-time?
No, he did not approve of the copies that were in circulation during his life time.

Did he command/encourage Muslims to consult these books?

He commanded Muslim to seek knowledge, but did not did not make a duty to read the bible or any of the books you mentioned.

Did he command/encourage Muslims to abide by these books?

No.

Thanks for coming on board, vedaxcool! I'll allow sweetnecta and others some time to respond  - Just in case they have a different opinion!



How did I ever think your username was vexdacool? 

I agree with my dear brother Vedaxcool.

The Bible

Old Testament

There exists today a number of different versions in the ancient Hebrew language of the Jewish Book called the Torah [Law] and this is usually referred to in Christianity as The Old Testament. Naturally, there have been many different translations to a great number of languages over the centuries and one could not expect them to be identical in text or meaning. What we have in English today still remains somewhat similar to large amounts of these older documents.

New Testament

There are also different versions of the Gospel or what is commonly called The New Testament in the Koine Greek language and Latin and these also have many translations to even other languages. Even amongst the English translations there are great differences. To mention two very clear differences for example; the Catholic Bible [c. 325 A.D] contains 73 books in total, while the Protestant Bible contains only 66 books, and although the newer (Protestant version) was taken from the Catholic Bible even then these books do not match completely with each other. There is no common denominator for any of the many different versions of the Bible.

Dead Sea Scrolls

There have been a number of scrolls and parchments found in places surrounding what we call the "Holy Land" over the centuries, not the least of which are those often referred to as the "Dead Sea Scrolls" or as they are known to the scholars "Wadi Qumran Scrolls." These were discovered in the last century around 1930 and have been proven to be very ancient and could well be older than any other extant manuscripts. Much of what has been translated from these scrolls is similar to some of the oldest manuscripts, but there are still very important differences worthy of note. We would like to recommend some important reading on this topic at the end of this paper.



The Quran

Quran Means "Recitation"

The word "Quran" means "that which is recited; or that which is dictated in memory form." As such, it is not a book, nor is it something that reaches us only in written form. The documentation in writing about the Quran has been preserved in museums throughout the world, including the Topekopi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and also in England. Keep in mind also, the Quran is only considered "Quran" while it is in the recitation form, not in the written or the book form. The word for what is written and held in the hand to be read by the eye is called "mus-haf" (meaning script or that which is written down).

Only One Version - Arabic

There are no different versions of the Quran in the Arabic language, only different translations and of course, none of these would be considered to hold the value and authenticity of the original Arabic Recitation. The Quran is divided up into 30 equal parts, called "Juz'" (parts) in the Arabic language. These are learned by Muslims from their very early beginnings as children.

Memorized by Millions - Entirely

The important thing to keep in mind about the Quran is the memorization and transmission of the actual "Recitation" just as it came to Muhammad (peace be upon him) from the Angel Gabriel and was learned and memorized by his companions and they in turn, passed it down to their followers and continued in this way until we see today, over 10,000,000 (ten million) Muslims who have committed the entire Quran to memory. This is not a small feat. After all, how many other works of literary value have been memorized and passed down through so many generations, in the original language, without a single change in even one sentence?

Each Muslim Has "Quran" Memorized

All Muslims have memorized a portion of the Quran in the Arabic language, as this is an important part of their daily prayers. Many Muslims have memorized large portions of the Quran from one tenth to one half to all of the entire Quran, and all in the original Arabic language. It should be noted, there are over one and a half billion (1,500,000,000) Muslims worldwide and only about 10% are Arab, all the rest are learning the Quran in Arabic as a second language.

God Speaks in First Person to Mankind in Quran

The Quran contains clear statements from Almighty God (Allah) and it is Him speaking to all of us in the first person. He tells of us our own creation, the creation of all that is the universe and what has happened to those before us and what is to become of us if we do not take heed of the warnings clearly spelled out in His Revelation. He speaks also to Muhammad (peace be upon him) to show that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is not making this up himself and even chastises Muhammad (peace be upon him) for making human assumptions rather than waiting for revelation in matters (i.e.; surah At-Tahrim and surah Abasa).

Quran Mentions Itself

The Quran refers to itself as "The Quran" (The Recitation) and mentions that it is to all mankind and jinn (another creation of Allah, similar to humans in that they could make choices as to whether or not they would obey God's Commandments, and they existed before humans).

Quran Describes God's Nature Exactly

The Quran is clear on who God is and who He is not. There is no room left for doubt after reading the Quran in the Arabic language: God is One. He is the only Creator, Sustainer and Owner of the Universe. He has no partners. He has no relatives; wives, children or offspring. He is not like His creation and He does not need it for His existence, while all the time the creation is totally dependent on Him. His attributes are clearly spelled out as the epitome of each and every one. He is for instance, the All-Knowing; the All-Hearing; the All-Seeing; the All-Forgiving; the All- Loving; the All-Merciful; the Only One God. There is never a contradiction to this found anywhere in the Quran.

Quran Challenges Readers

The Quran makes the clear challenge, that if you are in doubt about it - then bring a book like it. Also, to bring ten chapters like it and then finally, to bring one single chapter like it. 1,400 years - and no one has been able to duplicate its beauty, recitation, miracles and ease of memorization. Another challenge for the unbelievers to consider;

"If this (Quran) were from other than Allah, you would find within it many contradictions."

And yet, another challenge offered by Allah in the Quran is for the unbelievers to look around for evidences. Allah says He will show them His signs within themselves and on the farthest horizons.

Scientific Miracles in Quran

The scientific miracles of the Quran could not have been understood at that time, yet today we take for granted the many things included in the revelation of the Quran. Some include mentioning: The formation of embryo in the womb of the mother (surah 98); deep seas partitions; waters that do not mix; clouds and how they make rain and how lightning is caused by ice crystals; formation of the earth's mountains deep underground; orbits of planets and stars and moons - and even the mention of space travel (surah 55:33).

[Watch videos of world's top scientists commenting on the "Miracle of Science in Quran"]

ScienceIslam.com/scientists_quran.php




Comparison of Bible And Quran

[Dr. Gary Miller- with Commentary by Yusuf Estes]

Bible is Collection of Writings
Quran is Recitation From God to Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Whereas, The Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors, the Quran is a dictation (or recitation). The speaker in the Quran - in the first person - is God Almighty (Allah) talking directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing about history or personal exchanges of information to one another (ex: Epistle of John 3). The Bible in the English King James Version consists of 66 small books. About 18 of them begin by saying: This is the revelation God gave to so and so… The rest make no claim as to their origin. You have for example the beginning of the book of Jonah which begins by saying: The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Elmitaeh saying… quote and then it continues for two or three pages.

Compare this to the beginning of the Book of "Luke" begins by saying: “In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, (2) Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, (3) It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, (4) That you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.
We see the author of the Book of "Luke" saying essentially, "Many people have written about things, it seems fitting for me to do so too.” "Luke" says it seems to him that as long as others are taking in hand to write something about it, even though they were eye witnesses to the whole thing, he feels that even though he was not, he still has "perfect understanding of all things from the very first."
Therefore this is only a letter from one person to another, neither of whom knew Jesus (peace be upon him) nor were eyewitnesses to any of what had taken place.
[Y. Estes]

If you compare that to one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus, Luke begins by saying: “many people have written about this man, it seems fitting for me to do so too”. That is all… no claim of saying “ these words were given to me by God here they are for you it is a revelation”, there is no mention of this.

"Bible" is NOT in the Bible

The Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word 'Bible' is not in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible talk about itself. Some scriptures are sometimes pointed to in the Bible, say: Here where it talks about itself, but we have to look closely. 2nd Timothy 3:16 is the favorite which reads: “All scripture is inspired of God” and there are those who would say, here is where the Bible it talks about itself, it says it is inspired of God, all of it. But if you read the whole sentence, you read that this was a letter wrote by Paul to Timothy and the entire sentence says to Timothy: “Since you were a young man you have studied the holy scriptures, all scriptures inspired by God” and so on… When Timothy was a young man the New Testament did not exist, the only thing that stems he was talking about are scriptures – which are only a portion of the Bible - from before that time. It could not have meant the whole Bible.

Bible Curses Church Fathers Who REMOVED Book of Revelations

There is at the end of the Bible a verse which says:

"For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book (Revelations): if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, god shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
[Y. Estes]

“Let anyone who takes away from this book or adds to this book be cursed”. This too is sometimes pointed to me saying: Here is where it sums itself as a whole. But look again and you will see that when it says: Let no one change this book, it is talking about that last book, #66 (or is it #73 in the Catholic Bible?), the Book of Revelation. It has too, because any reference will tell you that the Book of Revelation was written before certain other parts of the Bible were written. It happens today to be stacked at the end, but there are other parts that came after, so it can not be referring to the entire book.

(Incidentally, according to different manuscripts much older than the King James Version, there are different words at the end of the Book of Revelation, so how would we resolve that matter? - Y.E.)

Note: The Book of Revelation was taken out of the Bible several times and then replaced and then taken out and replaced according to various Church Councils throughout Church history. Guess the Church Fathers didn't read the curse at the end of the book?

Whose Word Is It?

It is an extreme position held only by some Christian groups that the Bible – in its entirety - cover to cover is the revealed word of God in every word, but they do a clever thing when they mention this, or make this claim. They will say that the Bible in its entirety is the word of God; inerrant (no mistakes) in the original writings.

So if you go to the Bible and point out some mistakes that are in it you are going to be told: Those mistakes were not there in the original manuscript, they have crept in so that we see them there today.

They are going on problem in that position. There is a verse in the Bible Isaiah 40:8 which in fact is so well known that some Bibles printed it on the inside front cover as an introduction and it says : “ The grass weathers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever”. Here is a claim in the Bible that the word of God will stand forever, it will not be corrupted, it won't be lost. So if today you find a mistake in the Bible you have two choices. Either that promise was false that when God said my word wont fade away, he was mistaken, or the portion which has the mistake in it was not a part of the word of God in the first place, because the promise was that it would be safeguarded, it would not be corrupted.

Are There Mistakes?

I have suggested many times that there are mistakes in the Bible and the accusation comes back very quickly: Show me one. Well there are hundreds. If you want to be specific I can mention few. You have for example at 2nd Samuel 10:18 a description of a war fought by David saying that he killed 7000 men and that he also killed 40000 men on horsebacks. In 1st Chronicles 19 it mentions the same episode saying that he killed 70000 men and the 40000 men were not on horsebacks, they were on foot. The point is what is the difference between the pedestrian and not is very fundamental.

How Did Judas Die?

Matthew 27:5 says that Judas Iscariot when he died he hung himself. Acts 1 says that, no he jumped off a cliff head first. If you study Logic very soon you will come in your course to what they call an “undecidable propositions” or “meaningless sentences” or statements that can not be decided because there is no contextual false. One of the classic examples sited is something called the Effeminates paradox. This man was Cretan and he said “Cretans always lie”, now was that statement true or false? If he was a Cretan and he says that they always lie is he lying? If he is not lying then he is telling the truth then the Cretans don’t always lie ! You see it can not be true and it can not be false, the statement turns back on itself. It is like saying “What I am telling you right now is a lie” would you believe that or not? You see the statement has no true content. It can not be true and it can not be false. If it is true it is always false. If it is false it is also true.

Well in the Bible at Titus 1:12 the writer is Paul and he is talking about the Cretans. He says that one of their own men – a prophet - said “Cretans always lie” and he says that what this man says is true. It is a small mistake, but the point is that it is a human mistake, you don’t find that if you carefully examine the true content of that statement. It can not be a true statement.

Who is the Author?

Now I come back to the Quran, and as I mentioned the speaker in the Quran is - in the first person - is God. The book claims throughout that it is the word of God. It names itself 70 times as the Quran. It talks about its own contents. It has self-reference. The Quran states in the first Surah after Fatiha that “This is the book, there is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for those who are conscious of God” and so on and so on… It begins that way and continues that way stressing that. And there is one very amazing statement in the Quran when you come to the fourth Surah 82nd Ayah which says to those who say Quran is something else than the word of God. It challenges them saying: “Have they not considered the Quran, if it came from someone other than God they will find in it many mistakes”. Some of you are students, would you dare to hand in a paper after you completed a research work or something at the bottom you put down there “You won't find mistakes in this”. Would you dare to challenge your professor that way? Well the Quran does that. It is telling: If you really think you know where this came from then starts looking for mistakes because you won't find any. Another interesting thing the Quran does is that it quotes all its critics. There has never - in hundreds of years - ever been some suggestion as to where that book came from but that the Quran does not already mention that objection and reply to it. Many times you will find the Ayah saying something like: Do they say such and such and so, say to them such and such and so. In every case there is a reply. More than that the Quran claims that the evidence of its origin is in itself, and that if you look at this book you will be convinced.

Difference of Authority

So the difference in Christianity and Islam comes down to a difference of authority and appeal to authority. The Christian wants to appeal to the Bible and the Muslim wants to appeal to the Quran. You can not stop by saying: This is true because me book say it is, and somebody else would say something else is true because my book says differently, you can not stop at that point, and the Quran does not. The Christians may point to some words that it is recorded Jesus said and say this proves my point. But the Muslim does not simply open his book and say: No, no the Quran says this, because the Quran does not simply deny something the Bible says and say something else instead. The Quran takes the form of a rebuttal, it is a guidance as the opening says (Huda lil mutakeen). So that for every suggestion that the Christian may say: My Bible say such and such, the Quran will not simply say: No that is not true, it will say: Do they say such and such then ask them such and such. You have for example the Ayah that compares Jesus and Adam. There are those who may say that Jesus must have been God (Son of God) because he had no father. He had a woman who was his mother, but there was no human father. It was God that gave him life, so he must have been God’s son. The Quran reminds the Christian in one short sentence to remember Adam - who was his father ? - and in fact, who was his mother ? He did not have a father either and in fact he did not have a mother, but what does that make him? So that the likeness of Adam is the likeness of Jesus, they were nothing and then they became something; that they worship God.

Quran Invites - Not Demands

So that the Quran does not demand belief - the Quran invites belief, and here is the fundamental difference. It is not simply delivered as: Here is what you are to believe, but throughout the Quran the statements are always: Have you O man thought of such and such, have you considered so and so. It is always an invitation for you to look at the evidence; now what do you believe?

Special Pleading of the Bible

The citation of the Bible very often takes the form of what is called in Argumentation: Special Pleading. Special Pleading is when implications are not consistent. When you take something and you say: Well that must mean this, but you don’t use the same argument to apply it to something else. To give an example, I have seen it in publications many times, stating that Jesus must have been God because he worked miracles. In other hand we know very well that there is no miracle ever worked by Jesus that is not also recorded in the Old Testament as worked by one of the prophets. You had amongst others, Elijah, who is reported to have cured the leper, raise the dead boy to life and to have multiplied bread for the people to eat - three of the most favorite miracles cited by Jesus. If the miracles worked by Jesus proved he was God, why don’t they prove Elijah was God ? This is Special Pleading, if you see what I mean. The implications are not consistent. If this implies that then in that case it must also imply the same thing. We have those who would say Jesus was God because he was taken up in the heaven. But the Bible also says a certain Einah did not die he was taken up into the heaven by God. Whether it is true or not, who knows, but the point is if Jesus being taken up proves he is God, why does not it prove Einah was God? The same thing happened to him.

Clear Parts & Difficult Parts of Bible

I wrote to a man one time, who wrote a book about Christianity and I had some of the objections I mentioned to you now. And his reply to me was that I am making matters difficult to myself, that there are portions in the Bible that are crystal clear and that there are portions that are difficult, and that my problem was that I am looking at the difficult part instead of the clear parts. The problem is that this is an exercise in self deception - why are some parts clear and some parts difficult? It is because somebody decided what this clearly means, now that makes this very difficult. To give you an example, John Chapter 14 a certain man said to Jesus: Show us God, and Jesus said: If you have seen me you have seen God. Now without reading on the Christian will say: See Jesus claimed to be God, he said if you have seen me you have seen God. If that is crystal clear then you have a difficult portion when you go back just a few pages to Chapter 5 when another man came to Jesus and said show us God and he said you have never seen God you have never heard his voice. Now what did he mean there if on the other occasion he meant that he was God? Obviously you have made matters difficult by deciding what the first one meant. If you read on in Chapter 14 you will see what he went on to say. He was saying the closest you are going to seeing God are the works you see me doing.

Bible Does Not Claim Jesus Claimed to Be Son of God

It is a fact that the words “son of God” are not found on the lips of Jesus anywhere in the first three Gospel accounts, he was always calling himself the Son of Man. And it is a curious form of reasoning that I have seen so often that it is established from Bible that he claimed to be God because - look how the Jews reacted. They will say for example he said such and such and the Jews said he is blaspheming, he claimed to be God and they tried to stone him. So they argue that he must have been claiming to be God because look ! - the Jews tried to kill him. They said that’s what he was claiming. But the interesting thing is that all the evidence is then built on the fact that a person is saying: I believed that Jesus was the son of God because the Jews who killed him said that’s what he used to say ! His enemies used to say that, so he must have said it, this is what it amounts to. In other hand we have the words of Jesus saying he would keep the law, the law of Moses and we have the statement in the Bible, why did the Jews kill him ? Because he broke the law of Moses. Obviously the Jews misunderstood him, if he promised he would keep the law, but they killed him because he broke the law, they must have misunderstood him, or lied about him.

Writers of Bible - Out of Context

When I talk about the Bible and quote various verses here and there I am often accused of putting things out of context, to say you have lifted something out of what it was talking about and given it a meaning. I don’t want to respond to the accusation as such, but it doesn’t seem to occur to many people that perhaps those who wrote portions of the Bible in the first place were guilty of the same thing. Maybe they – some of those writers - believed a certain thing and in order to prove it quoted from their scriptures – the Old Testament, the Hebrew writings - quoted out of context to prove their point. There are examples of that kind of thing. In Matthew 2 it said that a king wanted to kill the young child Jesus so he with his family went to Egypt, and they stayed there until that king died, and then they came back.

When the writer of Matthew, whoever he was, because the name Matthew won't be found in the book of Matthew; when he described this event saying that he came back out of Egypt, he said: “ This was to fulfill a prophecy which is written” and then he quotes Hosea Chapter 11 “Out of Egypt I called my Son”. So he said because Jesus went to Egypt and then came back out of Egypt and we have this passage in the Hebrew scriptures “out of Egypt I called my son” Jesus must have been the son of God. If you look and see what he was quoting, Hosea 11:1 he quotes the second half of a complete sentence, the complete sentence reads: “When Israel was young I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son”. Israel the nation was considered as the son of God. Moses was told to go to Pharaoh and say to him: If you touch that nation of people, you touch my son; warning him, warning Pharaoh: don’t touch that nation, calling the nation “the son of God”. So that this is the only thing talked about in Hosea 11:1. “Out of Egypt I called my son” can only refer to the nation of Israel. I mentioned this point some months ago here in another talk, to which a young lady with us objected that Israel is a symbolic name for Jesus. You will have a hard time finding that anywhere in the Bible because it isn’t there. You can take an index of the Bible and lookup the word “Israel” everywhere the word occurs and you will find no where in any place that you can connect the word Israel with Jesus. But never mind - suppose it is true, read on, the second verse says “and after that he kept on worshipping Bal”, because this is what the Israelites were guilty of, very often they kept falling back into Idol worshipping. So if that “Israel” really meant Jesus and it means that Jesus is the son of God that came out of Egypt they must also mean that Jesus from time to time used to bow down to that idol Bal. You have to be consistent, and follow through on what it says. So the point is whoever wrote Matthew and Chapter 2 was trying to prove a point by quoting something out of context, and he undid himself, because if you follow through on it, it can not be so.

Quran Has Internal Evidences

Now I can come back to the claim the Quran makes that it has internal evidence of its origin. There are many ways that you can look at this. As one example, if I single out somebody here and say: You know, I know your father - he is going to doubt that, he has never seen me with his father. He would say, how does he look like, is he tall short does he wear glasses? And so on, and if I give him the right answers pretty soon he will get convinced, “Oh yes, you did meet him”. If you apply the same kind of thinking when you look at the Quran, here is a book that says it came from the one who was there when the universe began. So you should be asking that one: So tell me something that proves it. Tell me something that shows me you must have been there when the universe was beginning. You will find in two different Ayahs the statement that all the creation began from a single point, and from this point it is expanding. In 1978 they gave the Noble prize to two people who proved that that's the case. It is the big bang origin of the universe. It was determined by the large radio receivers that they have for the telephone companies which were sensitive enough to pick up the transmissions from satellites and it kept finding background noise that they could not account for. Until the only explanation came to be, it is the left over energy from that original explosion which fits in exactly as would be predicted by the mathematical calculation of what would be this thing if the universe began from a single point and exploded outwards. So they confirmed that, but in 1978. Centuries before that here is the Quran saying the heavens and the earth in the beginning they were one piece and split and says in another Ayah : “of the heavens we are expanding it”.

Quran Has Exact Accuracy

Let me tell you about a personal investigation, it occurred to me that there are a number of things you can find in the Quran that give evidence to its origin – internal evidence. If the Quran is dictated from a perfect individual; it originates with God, then there should not be any wasted space, it should be very meaningful. There should be nothing that we don’t need that you can cut off, and it should not be missing anything. And so that everything in there should really be there for a specific purpose. And I got to thinking about the Ayah which I mentioned before, it says, the likeness of Jesus is the likeness of Adam. It is an equation, it uses the Arabic word (mithel), it says Jesus, Adam, equal. You go to the index of the Quran, you look up the name ISA it is in the Quran 25 times, you lookup the name Adam it is there 25 times. They are equal, through scattered references but 25 of each. Follow that through and you will find that in the Quran there are 8 places were an Ayah says something is like something else, using this (Mithel), you will find in every case and take both sides of it whatever that word is look it up in the index and it will be lets say 110 times and lookup the other word and it will be said to be equal to the same 110. That is quite a project of co-ordination if you try to write a book that way yourself. So that everywhere you happened to mention that such and such is like such and such that then you check your index, filing system, or your IBM punch cards or whatever, to make sure that in this whole book you mentioned them both the same number of times. But that’s what you will find in the Quran.

Quran Provides Reason

What I am talking about is built on a thing that is called in Logic: Use and Mention of a Word. When you use a word, you are using its meaning. When you mention a word, you are talking about the symbol without the meaning. For example, if I say Toronto is a big city - I used the word Toronto as I meant this place Toronto is a big city. But if I say to you Toronto has 7 letters, I am not talking about this place Toronto, I am talking about this word - Toronto. So, the revelation is above reasoning, but it is not above reason. That is to say we are more apt not to find in the Quran something that is unreasonable, but we may find something that we would have never figured out for ourselves.

Unique Word Refers to Itself in Quran

The author of this sentence said if this book came from someone besides God then you will find in it many Ikhtalafan (inconsistencies). The word Ikhtilaf is found many times in the Quran. But the word Ikhtalafan is only found once in the Quran. So there are not many Ikhtilafan in the Quran, there is only one - where the sentence is mentioned. So you see how things are put together perfectly. It has been suggested to mankind: Find a mistake. Man could not get hold of a mistake, and he is very clever, because this sentence could also mean: Find many Iktilafan and so he quickly goes to the index to see if he can find many of them and there is only one, Sorry clever person.

Conclusion: Both the Bible and the Quran have come to us by way of Almighty God, then through His angel Gabriel and then to the prophets (peace be upon them). However, when the next step comes into play (that of the human beings faithfully transmitting it on to others and future generations) we find out that Allah has only preserved His Last and Final Revelation for all times. And He certainly did not need the humans to do that.

@ tbaba1234,

I appreciate your contribution as above but IT IS NOT REALLY AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTIONS POSED and neither is it a question you want answered.

Please stick to the thread. Thanks!

vedaxcool:

No, he did not approve of the copies that were in circulation during his life time.

I found the below in the Quran, and it ONLY tells me that the TORAH and GOSPEL are valid as God will judge the Jews and the Christians respectively by them.

QURAN 5: 46 -48 ( Version: Sahih International)
46 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.

47 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.

48 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.


. . . . and that the 'Books' were already with the Jews and the Christians (as at the time of Mohammed and the writing of the Quran)

QURAN 4: 47 (Version: Muhsin Khan)
O you who have been given the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Believe in what We have revealed (to Muhammad SAW) confirming what is (already) with you , before We efface faces (by making them like the back of necks; without nose, mouth, eyes, etc.) and turn them hindwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers. And the Commandment of Allah is always executed.



[b]I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.

1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL!

2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.

3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

4.  Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.



PLEASE REMEMBER TO AVOID as much as possible ANY DODGY HADITHS THAT CONTRADICT THE QURAN in answering the above. Proof outside the Quran should preferably be REFERENCED so as to allow participants and spectators to be able to examine the contents and the credibility of the originators.

Thanks in advance. [/b]

Fantastic as it is and an achievement I must admit. They recite it but they do not understand what they are reciting, they pray in it but they do not understand what they are praying about, I shake my head

Peace

Thank you seyibrown,

I am glad you are interested in my religion. I hope this helps you with your questions.

Muslims believe in the books revealed by Allah (SWT).  We do believe that there were revelations before the Quran including the torah and the gospel, However we do know that these books do not exist in their original forms today. How do we know??


Allah says in the Quran:Surat An-Nisā' 4:82

"Then do they not reflect upon the Qur'an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction"

This means God does not contradict himself, The Torah and the gospel as it exists today is full of contradiction. I will list some of them insha Allah.

Also, the Quran reveals that the people (including people of the book) have tampered with the revelations of God to suit their various desires over the years.

So woe to (the ones) who write the Book with their hands; thereafter they say, "This is from (the Providence of) Allah, that they may trade it for a little price; So, woe to them for what their hands have written, , (Surah 2:79)

Surely the ones who keep back whatever (part) of the Book (which) Allah has sent down and trade it for a little price, those in no way will eat (anything) in their bellies except the Fire. And Allah will not , (Surah 2:174)

And as Allah took Compact with the ones to whom the Book was brought: "Indeed you shall definitely make it evident to mankind and , keep it back." Yet, they flung it off beyond their backs and traded it for a little price. Miserable then is that which they , (Surah 3:187)

Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Scripture, purchasing error [in exchange for it] and wishing you would lose the way? Surah 4:44

There are many other surahs in which Allah (SWT) tells us that the revelations have been traded for a small price, for whatever gain, From the above, It is obvious that the books have been corrupted before the Quran was revealed,

A whole book can be written of biblical contradictions, Lets start with 14. ( You can do your individual research) Check http://www.islam4all.com/alteration.htm

It should be noted in the beginning that there are three acknowledged versions of the Old Testament:

           1. The Hebrew version which is acknowledged equally by the Jews and the Protestants.

         2.The Greek version which was recognized as authentic by the Christians up until the seventh century. Until that time the Hebrew version was considered by the Christians to be inauthentic and distorted, the Greek version is still held to be authentic by the Greek and Eastern Churches. The above two versions include all the books of the Old Testament.

          3.The Samaritan version which is recognized by the Samaritans. This is in fact the Hebrew version with the difference that it consists of only seven books that is, the five books of the Pentateuch which are ascribed to Moses, the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges. This is because the Samaritans do not believe in, or acknowledge, any of the other books of the Old Testament. Another difference is that it includes many additional phrases and sentences that are not present in the Hebrew version. Many Protestant scholars and theologians like Kennicott, Hales and Houbigant recognize it as authentic and do not accept the Hebrew version which they believe to have been distorted by the Jews. In fact the majority of Protestant scholars prefer it to the Hebrew version, as you will see from the following pages.

Alteration No. 1:

The Period from Adam to the Flood

The period from Adam to the flood of Noah, as described by the Hebrew version, is one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years, while according to the Greek version, it is two thousand three hundred and sixty-two years[1] and the Samaritan version gives it as one thousand three hundred and seven years. A table is given in the commentary of Henry and Scott where the age of every descendant has been given at the time when he gave birth to his son except Noah, whose age is given a s at the time of the flood.
All three versions agree that the age of the Prophet Noah at the time of the flood was six hundred and the total age of Adam was nine hundred and thirty. However according to the Samaritan version the Prophet Noah was two hundred and thirteen years of age when Adam died which is obviously wrong and goes against the unanimous agreement of the historians and is also erroneous according to the Hebrew and Greek versions. For according to the former, Noah was born one hundred and twenty-six years after the death of Adam and, according to the latter, he was born seven hundred and thirty-two years after the death of Adam. In view of this serious discrepancy,  the renowned historian of the Jews,  Josephus,  who is also recognized by the Christians, did not accept the statement of any of the three versions and decided that the correct period was two thousand two hundred and fifty-six years.



Alteration No. 2:

The period from the Flood to Abraham

The period from the Flood of Noah to the birth of the Prophet Abraham is given as two hundred and ninety-two years in the Hebrew version, one thousand and seventy-two years in the Greek, and nine hundred and forty-two years in the Samaritan version. There is another table covering this period in the Henry and Scott commentary where against every descendant of Noah, the year of the birth of their sons is given except in the case of Shem, against whose name the year of birth is given for his child who was born after the Flood.
This discrepancy among the three versions is so serious that it can not be explained. Since the Hebrew version informs us that Abraham was born two hundred and ninety-two years after the Flood and that Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years after the Flood as is understood from Genesis:

And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. [4]

This means that Abraham was fifty-eight years old at the death of Noah which is wrong according to the Greek and Samaritan versions and according to the unanimous decision of the historians. The Greek version places the birth of Abraham seven hundred and twenty-two years after the death of Noah while the Samaritan makes it five hundred and ninety-two years after his death. Secondly, in the Greek version an additional generation is given that is not to be found in the other two versions. The Evangelist Luke trusted the Greek version and therefore included in the genealogy of Christ the name of Canaan.

This great discrepancy in the statements of the above three versions has caused great difference of opinion among Christians. The historians rejected all three versions and decided that actual period in this case was three hundred and fifty-two years. Josephus, the renowned Jewish historian, also rejected the above three versions and said that the correct figure was nine hundred and ninety-three years, as is evident from the Henry and Scott commentary. The great theologian of the fourth century, Augustan, and other ancient writers favoured the statement of the Greek version. Horsley, the commentator, expressed the same opinion in his comments on Genesis, while Hales thinks that the Samaritan version was correct. The scholar Home also seems to support the Samaritan version. Henry and Scott’s commentary includes this statement:

Augustine held the opinion that the Jews had distorted the description in the Hebrew version with regard to the elders who lived either prior to the Flood or after it up to the time of Moses, so that the Greek version would be discredited, and because of the enmity which they had against Christianity. It seems that the ancient Christians also favoured this opinion. They thought that this alteration was made by them in 130.

Horne says in the first volume of his commentary:

The scholar Hales presented strong argument in favour of the Samaritan version. It is not possible to give a summary of his arguments here. The curious reader may see his book from page 80 onward.

Kennicott said:

If we keep in mind the general behaviour of the Samaritans towards the Torah, and also the reticence of Christ at the time of his discourse with the Samaritan woman, and many other points, we are led to to believe that the Jews made deliberate alterations in the Torah, and that the claim of the scholars of the Old and the New Testament, that the Samaritans made deliberate changes, is baseless.

Christ’s discourse with a Samaritan woman referred to in the above passage is found in the Gospel of John where we find:

The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our father worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship[5]

The Samaritan woman, convinced that Christ was a Prophet, asked about the most disputed matter between the Jews and the Samaritans in respect of which each of them accused the other of making alterations to the original text. Had the Samaritans distorted it, Christ, being a Prophet, must have disclosed the truth. Instead, he kept silent on the matter, implying that the Samaritans were right and showing that there must be human manipulations in the text of the Holy Scriptures.



Alteration No.  3:

Mount Gerizim or Mount Ebal

We find the following statement in Deuteronomy:

It shall be when ye be gone over Jordan that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shall plaster them with plaster[6]

On the other hand the Samaritan version contains:

…the stones which I command set them up in Gerizim.

Ebal and Gerizim are two mountains adjacent to each other as is known from verses 12 and 13 of the same chapter and from 11:29 of the same book. According to the Hebrew version it is clear that the Prophet Moses had commanded them to build a temple on Mount Ebal, while from the Samaritan version we know that he commanded this temple to be built on Gerizim. This was a matter of great dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans, and each of them accused the other of altering the original text of the Pentateuch. The same dispute is found among Protestant scholars on this point. Adam Clarke, the famous Protestant scholar, says on page 817 of the first volume of his commentary:

The scholar Kennicott maintained that the Samaritan version was correct, while the scholars Parry and Verschuur claimed that the Hebrew version was authentic, but it is generally know that Kennicott's arguments are irrefutable, and people positively believe that the Jews, out of their enmity against the Samaritans, changed the text. It is unanimously acknowledged that Mount Gerizim is full of vegetation, springs and gardens while Mount Ebal is barren without any water and vegetation in it. In this case Mount Gerizim fits the description of ’the place of blessing' [7] and Ebal as the place of curse.

The above makes us understand that Kennicott and other scholar have favoured the Samaritan version and that Kennicott forwarded irrefutable arguments.



Alteration No. 4:

Seven Years or Three Years

We find the phrase ’seven years’ in ll Sam. 24:13, while I Chronicles 21:12 has ’three year`. This has been already discussed earlier.

Obviously one of the two statements must be wrong. Adam Clarke commenting on the statement of Samuel said:

Chronicles contains ’three years’ and not ’seven years’. The Greek version similarly has ’three years’ and this is undoubtedly the correct statement.



Alteration No. 5: Sister or Wife  

I Chronicles of the Hebrew version contains:

And whose sister’s name was Micah[8]

It should be ’wife’ and not ’sister’. Adam Clarke said:

The Hebrew version contains the word ’sister’ while the Syrian, Latin and Greek versions have the word ’wife’. The translators have followed these versions.

Protestant scholars have rejected the Hebrew version and followed the above translations indicating that they too consider the Hebrew version to be erroneous.

 

Alteration No. 6

II Chronicles 22:2 of the Hebrew version informs us:

Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign.

This statement is undoubtedly wrong because his father Jehoram was forty years [9] old when he died, and Ahaziah was enthroned immediately after the death of his father. If the above statement be true, he must have been two years older than his father. II Kings reads as follows:

Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. [10]  

Adam Clarke making comments on the statement of Chronicles said in the second volume of his commentaries:

The Syrian and the Arabic translations contain twenty- two years, and some Greek translations have twenty years. Most probably the Hebrew version was the same, but the people used to write the numbers in the form of letters. It is most likely that the writer has substituted the letter  ’mim’ (m=40) for the letter  ’kaf” (k=20).

He further said:

The statement of II Kings is correct. There is no way of comparing the one with the other. Obviously any statement allowing a son to be older than his father cannot be true. Home and Henry and Scott have also admitted it to the mistake of the writers.



Alteration No. 7

II Chronicles 28:19 of the Hebrew version contains:

The lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel. The word Israel in this statement is certainly wrong because Ahaz was the king of Judah and not of Israel. The Greek and the Latin versions have the word ’Judah’. The Hebrew version therefore has been changed.



Alteration No. 8

Psalm 40 contains this:

Mine ears hast thou opened.

Paul quotes this in his letter to the Hebrews in these words

But a body hast thou prepared me. [11]

One of these two statements must be wrong and manipulated. The Christian scholars are surprised at it. Henry and Scott’s compilers said:

This is a mistake of the scribes. Only one of the two statement is true.

They have admitted the presence of alteration in this place but they are not definite which of the two statements has been changed. Adam Clarke ascribes the change to the Psalms. D’Oyly and Richard Mant observe in their comments:

It is surprising that in the Greek translation and in the Epistle to the Hebrews 10:5 this sentence appears as: ’but a body hast thou prepared me.’

The two commentators agree that it is the statement of the Evangel that has been altered, that is, the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews.



Alteration No. 9

Verse 28 of Psalm 105 in the Hebrew version includes the statement; “They rebelled not against his words.” The Greek version on the contrary bears these words: “They rebelled against these words.” It can be seen that the former version negates the latter. One of the two statements, therefore, must be wrong. Christian scholars are greatly embarrassed here. The commentary of Henry and Scott concludes:

This difference has induced much discussion and it is obvious that the addition or omission of a certain word has been the cause of all this.

The presence of manipulation in the text has been admitted, though they are not able to decide which version is wrong.



Alteration No. 10:

The Number of the Israelites

II Samuel contains this statement:

And there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.[12]

This statement is contradicted by I Kings:

And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword.

Certainly one of the two statements has been altered. Adam Clarke making his comments on the first statement observed:

The validity of both the statements is not possible. Most probably the first statement is correct. The historical books of the Old Testament contain more distortions than the other books. Any effort to find conformity among them is just useless. It is better to admit, in the beginning, what cannot be refuted later. The authors of the Old Testament were men of inspiration but the copiers were not.

This is a plain admission of the fact that alterations are abundant in the books of the Old Testament and that one should objectively admit their presence because these changes and contradictions are unexplainable.



Alteration No. 11: Horsley's Admission

The famous commentator, Horsley, under his comments on Judges 12:4 observed on page 291 of the first volume of his commentary:

There is no doubt that this verse has been distorted.

The verse referred to is:

Then Jephtah gathered together all the man of Gilead and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites.



Alteration No. 12: Four or Forty

 II Samuel l 5:7 contains:

And it came to pass after forty years that Absalom said unto the King”,

Here the word ’forty’ is undoubtedly wrong: the correct number is four. Adam Clarke said in volume two of his book:

There is no doubt that this text has been altered.



Alteration No. 13: Kennicott's Admission

Adam Clarke observed in volume 2 of his commentary under the comments on II Sam 23: 8:

According to Kennicott three alternations have been made in this verse.

This is a plain admission that a single verse contains three distortions.



Alteration No. 14  

I Chronicles 7:6 informs us as follows:

The sons of Benjamin; Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three.

While in chapter 8 it says:

Now Benjamin begat Bela, his first born, Ashbel the second and Aharah the third Noahah the fourth and Repha the fifth.

These two different statements are again contradicted by Genesis 46:21:

And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard.

It is quite easy to see that there are two kinds of differences in the above three statements. The first passage informs us that Benjamin had three sons, the second claims he had five while the third counts them as ten. Since the first and the second statements are from the same book, it shows a contradiction in the statements of a single author, the Prophet Ezra. Obviously only one of the two statements can be accepted as correct making the other two statements false and erroneous. The Judaeo-Christian scholars are extremely embarrassed and, seeing no way out, they put the blame on the Prophet Ezra. Adam Clarke said with regard to the first statement;

It is because the author (Ezra) could not separate the sons from the grandsons. In fact any effort to reconcile such contradictions is of no use. Jewish scholars think that the author Ezra did not know that some of them were sons and the others grandsons. They also maintain that the genealogical tables from which Ezra had copied were defective. We can do nothing but leave such matters alone.

This is an obvious example of how the Christian as well as the Jewish scholars find themselves helpless and have to admit the errors in Ezra’s writings.

The above admission of Adam Clarke helps us to conclude many points of great significance. But before going into those points we must remind ourselves that it is the unanimous claim of both Jewish and Christian scholars that the Book of Chronicles was written by Ezra with the help of the Prophet Haggai and Zechariah, This implies that these two books have the unanimous witness of the three Prophets. On the other hand we have historical evidence that all the books of the Old Testament were in a very bad condition before the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar and after his invasion there was no trace of them left but their names. Had Ezra not recompiled them, they would have ceased to exist then and there. The above fact is admitted in the book which is ascribed to the Prophet Ezra.[13] Although the Protestants do not believe it to be inspired, they nevertheless acknowledge it as a document of historical value. In it we find:

The Torah was burnt. No one knew anything of it. It is said that Ezra rewrote it guided by the Holy Spirit.

Clement of Alexandria said;

All the divine books were destroyed. Then Ezra was inspired to rewrite them.

Tertullian observed:

It is general1y believed that Ezra recomposed these books after the invasion of the Babylonians.

Theophylactus said:

The Holy Books completely disappeared. Ezra gave new birth to them through inspiration.

The Catholic, John Mill observed on page 115 of his book printed at Derby in 1843:

All the scholars unanimously agree that the original Torah (Pentateuch) and other original books of the Old Testament were destroyed by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar. When the books were recompi1ed through Ezra, these too were later on destroyed during the invasion of Antiochus.

Keeping the above information in mind will help us understand the significance of the following six conclusions based on the observations of the commentator. Adam Clarke.

[1]This number is given as 2362 in all the versions, but according to this table it comes to 2363.  The mistake may be either in the book that the author has used or somewhere in the table

[2]It should be 2362 according to thc above table, but our author has given 2262 in all vcrsianc. We havc, usnilated it as it is withoui correction.

  [3] Terah was the name of Abraham’s father, and other was. his appellation. Some historians think that Azar was Abraham’s uncle and the Qur’an has used the word father for uncle.

[4]Gen.  9: 28.

[5]John  4:19,20.  

[6]Deut. 27:4.

[7] ”That thou shall put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.” (Deut. 11:29). Obviously a p1ace of worship should be built on a place of blessing, not on a place of curse.

[8] Chron. 19:30.

[9] l. ’Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned h Jerusalem.”

Chr. 21:20.

[10]II Kings 8:26.

[11] Heb. 10:5.

 [12]II Samuel 24: 9.  

[13]Perhaps the author is referring  to the book of Esdras because it is the book containing these events. It may be noted that this book is not included in the Protestant Bible. However. it is part of the Catholic Bible. In the Knox version of the Catholic Bible there  are ten chapters in the first book of Esdras and thirteen in the second book. I was unable to find this passage in the books of Esdras. Thc statement has been translated from Urdu. (Raazi).

I hope this helps you, I will be willing to clarify any questions Insha Allah. Pray for Allah's Guidance.

Salam,

Proo 212,

I recite the Quran, and i do know what i recite, 

It is a beautiful book, a miracle and its words bring tears to the eyes of believers.

[b]@ tbaba1234

Please take a leaf from vedaxcool's post # 7 and post your answers to any questions in like manner so that we can follow. While your answers attempt to answer a couple of my Qs, It does not provide links or checkable references to what you assert.

I quote you below:

Alteration No. 12: Four or Forty

  II Samuel l 5:7 contains:

And it came to pass after forty years that Absalom said unto the King”,

Here the word ’forty’ is undoubtedly wrong: the correct number is four. Adam Clarke said in volume two of his book:

There is no doubt that this text has been altered.

The problems with this kind of answer is that it is that the proof you present is not verifiable : 1. WHO IS ADAM CLARKE? Volume 2 of WHICH OF HIS BOOKS? . . . and you also do not provide THE ORIGINAL TEXT with which we can compare THE CORRUPTED TEXT!

Please address the Qs one by one, providing links and checkable references to what you quote. For example where you assert that the original greek copy says something different to the samaritan copy, please provide links or screenshots, or references so the materials you refer to can be checked. I am happy to accept the '14 alterations' you refer to in post # 15 as part of your answers but you need to address Qs 1 and 2 before you proceed, and then provide extracts to prove your 'alterations' in order. e.g if the original Judah 2: 15 says  'go go go go' but the 'corrupted' Judah 2:15 says 'go come come come', state as:

original Judah 2: 15 says  'go go go go'  (provide an internet link or references for a material we can find e.g author name, publisher, publication date, Title of Materia etc)
corrupted Judah 2:15 says 'go come come come'  (provide an internet link or references for a material we can find etc as above)

Please provide an answer for ALL Qs, following the order in which they were asked! Try again, tbaba1234. I re- post the original set of Qs below so we can do this properly.

ANSWERS ARE INVITED FOR QUESTIONS IN POST #12 (repeated in # 18) FROM ALL MUSLIMS IN THE HOUSE! MUSLIMS' TURN TO ASK QUESTIONS WHEN THIS POSTS ARE FULLY ADDRESSED!

Thanks.[/b]

vedaxcool:

No, he did not approve of the copies that were in circulation during his life time.

I found the below in the Quran, and it ONLY tells me that the TORAH and GOSPEL are valid as God will judge the Jews and the Christians respectively by them.

QURAN 5: 46 -48 ( Version: Sahih International)
46 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.

47 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.

48 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.


. . . . and that the 'Books' were already with the Jews and the Christians (as at the time of Mohammed and the writing of the Quran)

QURAN 4: 47 (Version: Muhsin Khan)
O you who have been given the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Believe in what We have revealed (to Muhammad SAW) confirming what is (already) with you , before We efface faces (by making them like the back of necks; without nose, mouth, eyes, etc.) and turn them hindwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers. And the Commandment of Allah is always executed.



[b]I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.

1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL!

2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.

3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

4. Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.



PLEASE REMEMBER TO AVOID as much as possible ANY DODGY HADITHS THAT CONTRADICT THE QURAN in answering the above. Proof outside the Quran should preferably be REFERENCED so as to allow participants and spectators to be able to examine the contents and the credibility of the originators.

Thanks in advance. [/b]

@Seyibrown: « #18 on: Today at 01:39:40 PM »
[Quote]vedaxcool:
Quote
No, he did not approve of the copies that were in circulation during his life time.[/Quote]And that is not to say that there is nothing correct in them. Corruption means lacking 100% truth or authenticity. For example, Allah inspired Muhammad (AS) to know that the Jews of Madina still had the aw to stone people of illegal sexual act when they brought their case to him (AS).



[Quote]I found the below in the Quran, and it ONLY tells me that the TORAH and GOSPEL are valid as God will judge the Jews and the Christians respectively by them.[/Quote]The Jews and Christians who continued to hold on to the corrupted document even as Quran with a live prophet was with them, who (AS) they ignored because of arrogance. It could also refer to when it was pure; Torah of Moses when it was pure because among the children of Israel, there were deviants even as Moses was present among them, after all, they constructed a Yahweh out of Gold taken from Egypt. The Christians with a fake name and fake religion came about after Jesus, same people before with Jesus without paul. They were pure and had a pure Injil of Jesus before paul. When he entered their mist, watch out; all truth at that time was chattered and corruption entered it. When Islam of Muhammad (AS) came on stage it was to correct both the un directed arabs with their 360 idols and to get the Jews and Christians who had reveations now corrupted; called the Bible to follow True Guidance and the only path under the final Messenger, Prophet (AS)



[Quote]QURAN 5: 46 -48 ( Version: Sahih International)
46 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.[/Quote]Their (Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc, Moses, Aaron, etc (Prophets AS)) footsteps, which jesus was sent, by his Lord Allah. Jesus didnt send himself so dont forget that. THe righteous that Jesus was in guidance of were those who followed his authentic Gospel, before corruption entered it, and made into what became the Bible today with other materials. A person who sincerely follows Jesus today will examine Islam as he comes to recognize it, knowing full well that Jesus mentioned a "another Comforter" and it would have been unreasonable to imagine that such a person to correct will come so soon in the lives of the disciples unless they have fouled up the teaching of jesus so soon. is that possible and what was it that they fouled up?



[Quote]47 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.[/Quote]One time I asked a seasoned person, is Jesus God? The response was No. I asked a follow up; is Jesus son of God? The answer was No. So I asked why are you a christian? Later the person converted to Islam.When a person looked at the Gospel and see Jesus saying he was powerless and that he was a servant sent by God, then a sound mind shall turn to why shall a person who is claimed to be God say he is a servant and powerless? This is enough for one to judge oneself and walk into Islam. If you do not walk away then at least you are a defiantly in disobedience.



[Quote]48 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.[/Quote]Criterion over it is to say it is rule of right and wrong over it. What Quran agrees with even in a generic sense is correct like God is One. What Quran disagrees with even in a generic sense is incorrect like three are 3 entities in 1 God. A person will look at this and say Islam does not force its order on anyone, but direct to the truth. Let me go to the Truth, instead of dealing with One God in one instance and then 2 entities in One God in another instance.



[Quote]. . . . and that the 'Books' were already with the Jews and the Christians (as at the time of Mohammed and the writing of the Quran)[/Quote]And the Quran continually said it was corrupt and should be left alone, except those who are wanting to remain astray.



[Quote]QURAN 4: 47 (Version: Muhsin Khan)
O you who have been given the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Believe in what We have revealed (to Muhammad SAW) confirming what is (already) with you , before We efface faces (by making them like the back of necks; without nose, mouth, eyes, etc.) and turn them hindwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers. And the Commandment of Allah is always executed.[/Quote]Let me now ask you, if a person believes whats with Muhammad (AS), from the above, shall he or she remain a christian or a jew, since Allah says about "EFFACE" or "CURSE" those who had been wrong doers before? Remember the sabbath breakers are mentioned here? Read it again and reflect upon it.



[Quote]I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.[/Quote]Even your Bible says tat Jesus said the Taurah had been corrupted by the pen of the scribes. Is that not corruption enough? Who knows what was correct anymore of the Torah according to Jesus who said they only dealt with the text and not the essence? Allah says in Surah Al Maidah about the Christians; Do not say that Allah is 1 of the 3. Further He states that Jesus was not more than an apostle of God and He provides reflections about him and his mother of their humanness. Finally, Allah says that Jesus will be put forward to declare to man before Allah on the day of Judgment that he never claimed to be God and never asked anyone to worship him. If these are not signs of corruption then I dont know what they are in your eyes? Allah sad that woe to those who use their hands to write falsehood and or changing the Words of Allah from their places, etc and say these are from Allah. Allah says that He will Protect the Quran from any corruption.



[Quote]1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL![/Quote]First the Quran is not Muhammad's words, but Allah's on Muhammad (AS). If you want anything said by Muhammad himself, you will have to go to HAdith, but must always agree with the Quran. Just because some Hadith are unreliable, it is because they do disagree with the Quran and of course against the personality of Muhammad (AS) and the chain is always weak. Torah had to be valid during the time of Moses, thats for sure. jesus said it was tampered with by the scribes. Injil must have to be valid in the time of Jesus son of Mary, without any question. We see that Paul and others made him God when he said he was a servant of God. Do the math. You can even argue this out in your own Bible. Using the Quran more than we have already, is an overkill, really.



[Quote]2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.[/Quote]Allah has stated what he has stated. If in Yoruba land we say God Will judge, two things should come to mind; either one is the wrong doer or it is the other person. In this case Allah is saying to His Messenger that He will judge between the Messenger along with his party, followers and the others; Jews and Christians who had previous revelations. Is it not clear that Allah will not send a Messenger on ground and gives him misguidance, against a previous revelation that he must correct, inviting the adherents to come to him? The weapon of each Messenger (AS) was always the Truth. They cant be on the wrong path while they were delivering the message.



[QUote]3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.[/Quote]Tell me between these two verses of the Bible, which one is correct and the other must be a distortion: The answer or your choice tells you what you seek.

1). Jesus said "I am a servant sent by God"
2). Jesus said "I am God".



[Quote]4. Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.[/Quote]If God is 1 why shall He be 1 of the 3; let me list them for you; Jesus is #1, Ghost is #2 and Father is #3? Is 1 not different from 3?



[Quote]5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.[/Quote]Listen if Muhammad's time is followed, we realize that there were different sects and Bibles and even false claims in the Bible of that time; Trinity was already established and your people already condemned Ishmael then. You never corrected any of these, rather you exaggerated in deviance, and of course the KJV was born. Either way the Truth is in the Quran.



[Quote]PLEASE REMEMBER TO AVOID as much as possible ANY DODGY HADITHS THAT CONTRADICT THE QURAN in answering the above. Proof outside the Quran should preferably be REFERENCED so as to allow participants and spectators to be able to examine the contents and the credibility of the originators.

Thanks in advance.[/Quote]Your Bible is enough to be used against the Bible itself.

Jazakalla khiran sweetnecta

Mashallah

seyibrown:

1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL!

Allah(SWT) is the author of the Quran,  not Mohammed first of all.

The Quran reveals that the people (including people of the book) have tampered with the revelations of God to suit their various desires over the years.

So woe to (the ones) who write the Book with their hands; thereafter they say, "This is from (the Providence of) Allah, that they may trade it for a little price; So, woe to them for what their hands have written, ,  (Surah 2:79)

Surely the ones who keep back whatever (part) of the Book (which) Allah has sent down and trade it for a little price, those in no way will eat (anything) in their bellies except the Fire. And Allah will not ,  (Surah 2:174)

And as Allah took Compact with the ones to whom the Book was brought: "Indeed you shall definitely make it evident to mankind and ,  keep it back." Yet, they flung it off beyond their backs and traded it for a little price. Miserable then is that which they ,  (Surah 3:187)

Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Scripture, purchasing error [in exchange for it] and wishing you would lose the way? Surah 4:44

There are many other surahs in which Allah (SWT) tells us that the revelations have been traded for a small price, for whatever gain,  From the above, It is obvious that the books have been corrupted before the Quran was revealed, 

Evidence? From Allah,

2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.

I think the verses in 1 answer this Question,  God states that his message has been distorted over time,

3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

First of all, For the Old Testament only late manuscripts survive, all (with the exception of the Dead Sea Texts of Isaiah and Habakkuk and some fragments of other books) based on a standardized form of the text established many centuries after the books were written. MEANING WE CAN'T EVEN GET THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BOOKS.

Allah says in the Quran:Surat An-Nisā' 4:82

"Then do they not reflect upon the Qur'an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction"

This means God does not contradict himself, The Torah and the gospel as it exists today is full of contradiction. I will list some of them insha Allah.

VERSES THAT CONTRADICT THEMSELVES
Genesis 6:3 and Genesis 11:11 - Life limited to 120 years?
Genesis 32:30 and Exodus 33:20 - Jacob's life was preserved?
Exodus 4:22 and Jeremiah 31:9 - Who was God's firstborn?
Numbers 23:19 and Genesis 6:6-7 - Does God repent or not?
2 Samuel 6:23 and 2 Samuel 21:8 - Did Michael have children?
2 Samuel 8:4 and 1 Chronicles 18:4 - 700 or 7000 horsemen?
2 Samuel 8:9-10 and 1 Chronicles 18:9-10 - Toi or Tou? Hadadezer or Hadarezer? Joram or Hadoram?
2 Samuel 10:18 and 1 Chronicles 19:18 - 700 or 7000 charioteers? 40,000 horsemen or footmen? Captain's
name?
2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1 - Who provoked David?
2 Samuel 24:9 and 1 Chronicles 21:5 - 800,000 or 100,000?
2 Samuel 24:13 and 1 Chronicles 21:11-12 - 7 or 3 years?
1 Kings 4:26 and 2 Chronicles 9:25 - 40,000 or 4,000 stalls?
1 Kings 5:15-16 and 2 Chronicles 2:2 - 3300 or 3600?
1 Kings 7:26 and 2 Chronicles 4:5 - 2000 or 3000 baths?
2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 - 22 or 42 years old?
2 Kings 24:8 and 2 Chronicles 36:9 - 18 or 8 years old? 3 months or 3 months and 10 days?
Ezra 2:65 and Nehemiah 7:67 - 200 or 245 singers?
Matthew 1:12 and Luke 3:27 - Who was Salathiel's father?
Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23 - Who was Joseph's father?
Matthew 9:18 and Mark 5:22-23 - Dead or not?
Matthew 10:5-10 and Mark 6:7-8 - Bring a staff or not?
Matthew 15:21-22 and Mark 7:24-26 - The woman was of Canaan or Greece?
Matthew 20:29-30 and Mark 10:46-47 - One or two beggars?
Matthew 21:1-2 and Mark 11:1-2 - What happened to the backside?
Matthew 26:74-75 and Mark 14:72 - Before the cock crow once or twice?
Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18 - How did Judas die?
John 3:16 and Psalms 2:7 - Only begotten son?
John 5:31 and John 8:14 - Was Jesus' record true or not?

[b]You will agree with me that a major belief among muslims is that God is Unique, He is One,  Nothing compares to him.
Most christians today believes in the trinity?? This goes against teachings in the bible,  THAT IS A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN THE BELIEF OF CHRISTIANS TODAY.

Allah states in the Quran
" Say, "He is Allah , [who is] One, Allah , the Eternal Refuge., He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent.' (112 1-4)


VERSES THAT CONTRADICT THE TRINITARIAN DOCTRINE AND/OR THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, 1 Timothy 6:16 - No one saw God.
Isaiah 42:8 - Do not praise and worship images.
Isaiah 45:1 - "Anointed" does not mean "God".
Matthew 14:23, 19:13, 26:39, 27:46, 26:42-44 - Jesus prayed.
Matthew 24:36 - Jesus was not all-knowing.
Matthew 26:39 - Jesus and God had different wills.
Matthew 28:18 - All power was given to Jesus.
Mark 1:35, 6:46, 14:35-36 - Jesus prayed.
Mark 10:17-18 and Luke 18:18-19 - Jesus denied divinity.
Mark 12:28-29 - God is one.
Mark 13:32 - Jesus was not all-knowing.
Mark 16:19 and Luke 22:69 - Jesus at the right hand of God.
Luke 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28, 11:1-4, 22:41 - Jesus prayed.
Luke 4:18, 9:48, 10:16 - Jesus was from God.
Luke 7:16, 13:33, 24:18-19 - Jesus was a prophet.
Luke 10:21 - Jesus gave thanks.
Luke 23:46 - The spirit of Jesus was commended to God.
John 4:19 - Jesus was a prophet.
John 4:23-24 - Worship in spirit and truth.
John 14:28 - One was greater than the other.
John 5:19, 5:30, 7:28, 8:28 - Jesus was helpless.
John 5:20 - The Father showed the son.
John 5:30 and 6:38 - Jesus and God had different wills.
John 5:31-32 - Jesus' witness was not true.
John 6:11 and 11:41-42 - Jesus gave thanks.
John 6:32 - The Father was the provider, not the son.
John 7:29, 16:5, 16:28 - Jesus was from God.
John 7:16, 12:49, 14:24, 17:14 - Jesus' words were not his.
John 8:42 - Jesus did not come of himself.
John 10:29 - "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all."
John 14:1 - Jesus said, ", believe also in me."
John 14:16, 17:1, 17:9, 17:11, 17:15 - Jesus prayed.
John 14:31 and 15:10 - Jesus followed commands.
John 17:6-8 - "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me."
John 20:17 - Jesus had a god.
Acts 2:22 - Jesus was "a man approved of God."
Romans 8:34 - Jesus was an intercessor.
1 Timothy 2:5 - Jesus was the mediator between God and humans.

Incidentally, these are really only some selections of contradictions and inaccuracies found in the modern
versions of the Bible. There are many more but for the sake of time and space we have limited ourselves to
those listed above.

I would like to however state, the Muslim must believe in all original texts coming from Almighty God. The only
subject being discussed here is whether or not the Bible being offered today in the English language is in
fact, the real "Bible".[/b]

4.  Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

Like I stated before and i will repeat,   

For the Old Testament only late manuscripts survive, all (with the exception of the Dead Sea Texts of Isaiah and Habakkuk and some fragments of other books) based on a standardized form of the text established many centuries after the books were written. Very few original manuscripts from the Bible are left.

And from time, the belief from all the prophets (May God be pleased with them) is the oneness of God and this is evidenced by the books. So a major problem here with the Christians is the concept of God,  Is HE a trinity?? I have stated verses above which you can easily check.

Also in the bible, it is stated that you shall not take interest, A warning repeated in the Quran, yet christians and jews engage in interest taking

25 " If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest.
26 "If you ever take your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down.
27 "For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious. (Exodus 22:25-27)

'You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. (Leviticus 25:37)

This practise is a contradiction of the word of God.

In the Quran Allah states:

O you who have believed, do not consume usury, doubled and multiplied, but fear Allah that you may be successful. (Surah 3:130)

Now can be examine the history of the english bible,

The word "Bible" comes from the Koine Greek word "biblios" and it simply means the same as the word "book" in English. Nowhere in the Bible do we find the word "Bible." However, it is interesting to note the word "kitab" (Bible in Arabic) appears many times in the Quran, referring to the Bible and the People of
the Book (Jews and Christians).

Let me begin by saying that the King James "version" of the Bible is in English. There was no English language until the year 1066 AD when the Normans invaded the Saxxons. Therefore the English Bible cannot be anything like what any of the prophets spoke or understood, as it did not exist in their times.


By the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based, made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for a revisionof the English translation. The task was undertaken, by authority of the Church of England, in 1870. The English Revised Version of the Bibles was published in 1881-1885; and the American Standard Version, its variant embodying the preferences of the American scholars associated in the work, was published in 1901."

Because of the unhappy experience with unauthorized publications in the two decades between 1881 and 1901, which tampered with the text of the English Revised Version in the supposed interest of the American public, the American Standard Version was copyrighted, to protect the text from unauthorized changes. In 1928 this copyright was acquired by the International Council of Religious Education, and thus passed into the ownership of the churches of the United States and Canada which were associated in this Council through their boards of education and publication.

A decision was reached that there is need for a thorough revision of the version of 1901, ""In 1937 the revision was authorized by vote of the Council."


Thirty-two scholars have served as members of the Committee charged with making the revision, and they have secured the review and counsel of an Advisory Board of fifty representatives of the co-operating denominations."
"Each section has submitted its work to the scrutiny of the members of the charter of the Committee requires that all changes be agreed upon by a two-thirds vote of the total membership of the Committee."

"The problem of establishing the correct Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Old testament is very different from the corresponding problem in the New Testament."

For the New Testament we have a large number of Greek manuscripts, preserving many variant forms of the text. Some of them were made only two or three centuries later than the original composition of the books."

The first Quran as a book still exists today and remains the same, AN UNREVISED WORD OF GOD!! Besides there are millions of people that have the whole Quran memorised, word for word.


5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.

See 1. God tells us that the people have traded his revelations.



PLEASE REMEMBER TO AVOID as much as possible ANY DODGY HADITHS THAT CONTRADICT THE QURAN in answering the above. Proof outside the Quran should preferably be REFERENCED so as to allow participants and spectators to be able to examine the contents and the credibility of the originators.

Please find attached a book that could clear all doubts and maybe answer your questions.

Thanks in advance. [/b]

I hope this helps,

Salam.

seyibrown:

vedaxcool:
I found the below in the Quran, and it ONLY tells me that the TORAH and GOSPEL are valid as God will judge the Jews and the Christians respectively by them.

QURAN 5: 46 -48 ( Version: Sahih International)
46 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.

47 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.

48 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.


. . . . and that the 'Books' were already with the Jews and the Christians (as at the time of Mohammed and the writing of the Quran)

QURAN 4: 47 (Version: Muhsin Khan)
O you who have been given the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Believe in what We have revealed (to Muhammad SAW) confirming what is (already) with you , before We efface faces (by making them like the back of necks; without nose, mouth, eyes, etc.) and turn them hindwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers. And the Commandment of Allah is always executed.



[b]I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.

1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL!

2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.

3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

4. Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.



PLEASE REMEMBER TO AVOID as much as possible ANY DODGY HADITHS THAT CONTRADICT THE QURAN in answering the above. Proof outside the Quran should preferably be REFERENCED so as to allow participants and spectators to be able to examine the contents and the credibility of the originators.

Thanks in advance. [/b]

Does the Quran Require Christians to engage in Redaction Criticism?

James finds it incredible that the Quran would tell Christians to judge by the Gospel if indeed the Gospel is corrupted. The verse he refers to is as follows in the Yusuf Ali translation:
Let the people of the Gospel Judge by what Allah hath revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed they are (no better than) those who rebel. (Quran 5:47)

From this verse James argues as follows:
1. This verse approves of the Gospels as they are;
2. Muhammad who authored the Quran did not know the contents of the Gospels to realize that his own teachings contradict the Gospels; and
3. Muslims now seeing the contradiction between the Quran and the Gospels defend their faith by inventing the doctrine of biblical corruption.

In the first place, however, this verse does not approve of the Gospels as they are. It calls on Christians to judge not ‘by the Gospels’ but ‘by what God has revealed in the Gospel’. There is a difference between Gospel and Gospels. One is singular; the other plural. God taught the Gospel to Jesus, and we may presume that this is the Gospel that Jesus preached. Now in the Bible there are four Gospels which contradict each other on essential points. Obviously God did not reveal such contradictory statements in the Gospels.

Second, it is no secret now, nor was it a secret in the time of the Prophet, that the Gospels teach that Jesus is the Son of God. Yet the Quran says that this is an invented claim matching that of those who disbelieved of old:

The Jews call Uzair a son of Allah and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouths; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the truth! (Quran 9:30)

Hence it is incorrect to say that Muhammad did not realize that the Quran contradicts the Gospels on this point.

Third, Muslims did not need to invent a doctrine of biblical corruption, because the errors in the Bible were already plain for everyone to see. Some early Church Fathers did acknowledge that the Bible contained errors. But later, the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible became generally accepted after the Quranic revelation was already established. Therefore at the time of the Quranic revelation it was not necessary to go to great lengths to debunk the doctrine. The Quran mostly took a passive stance of merely correcting the narratives that are known from the Bible. On occasion, however, the Quran does make statements about the invention of scripture such as in the verse already cited, and in 2:79:
Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and then say: "This is from Allah" to traffic with it for a miserable price! Woe to them for what their hands do write and for the gain they make thereby. (Quran 2:79)

Redaction criticism is of course a highly developed aspect of modern Biblical studies. It would seem ridiculous to assert that the Quran was asking Christians in the seventh century to engage in an activity which will not become known until the twentieth century. But this does not mean that people at the time were naïve. Even at the time people could differentiate between what God revealed in the Scripture and what people invented without sanction from God.

At the time people could see that what Jesus preached was in many respects different from the later claims made about him. It was already obvious that the Gospel of John presented a highly developed Christology, for example, that could not be credited to the historical Jesus. People at the time could ask themselves, even if they did not do so before: Is not everything in the Scripture inspired by God? Why would anyone say, “Judge by what God has revealed therein”?

We should recall that at the time the Canon of the Eastern Syriac Christians was still being worked out. For a long time they had accepted only twenty-two of the now twenty-seven books that now make up the New Testament. Hence it would still be fresh in the minds of Christians that the inspiration of Bible is not self-evident, and needs some human judgment to accept or reject certain books.

At the time the Quran did charge believers with the responsibility of verifying news that came to them. Based on this principle Muslims soon developed elaborate measures to sift conflicting claims about what our prophet said, and did. This was their version of Redaction Criticism, even though they did not use this term. There is no reason to suppose that Christians were not capable of doing something similar which would eventually develop into full-blown redaction criticism.

But the fact that the Quran did not require seventh-century Christians to engage in Redaction Criticism with all its modern apparatuses does not mean that the Quran would excuse present-day folks from exercising their mental faculties. The Quran requires us to use our faculty of reason, and God will hold us responsible for that which we are capable. If the tools and thinking were not developed at the time people would not be responsible for applying it, but now that they are available we would be held responsible if we reject their use.

James’ Mention of Bart Ehrman

It is already evident to me from the Biola debate that mention of Bart Ehrman will not help to advance my point with James. In the Seattle Debate, therefore, I did not appeal to Bart Ehrman, proving my case instead either by (a) presenting the actual proof that leads to my conclusions, by (b) citing scholars other than Bart Ehrman, or by doing both (a) and (b).

But the fact of Bart Ehrman’s importance in modern discourse on the Bible is also evident from the fact that James himself cannot seem to avoid mentioning him.

Aside from the recognition that this scholar must receive, however, James’ mention of him creates the very distraction I wished to avoid. If I had cited him James would have attacked him. I did not mention him and James is still attacking him while attempting to refute me. Why?

James needs to deal with the scholars whom I did cite in specific reference to Redaction Criticism, such as Scott McKnight, James Dunn, and Raymond Brown. But it seems that he is unable to attack these scholars, and he picks on Ehrman instead. Even if we do not like the man, is it fair to keep criticizing him like this? Moreover, even if this scholar is the worst devil around, how does James’ attack on him disprove my points which I supported with reference to McKnight, Dunn, and Brown whom James evidently does not dare attack in a similar fashion?

James’ Understanding of Redaction Criticism

James expresses the view that Bart Ehrman starts with the assumption that the synoptic Gospels are giving different views of Jesus. He asks why it should be necessary to assume that, whereas a more reasonable hypothesis would be that the various writers were addressing different audiences.

I am sorry to say that this manner of putting the matter does not demonstrate adequate knowledge of Redaction Criticism. The ‘assumption’ that the Gospels give different views of Jesus is not an assumption with which scholars such as Ehrman, McKnight and Dunn begin. Rather, it is the conclusion that comes from a careful examination of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Of course this is now an inherited conclusion from previous generations of scholars who, having conducted such investigations found this conclusion unavoidable.

But even if one starts with the assumption that the writers were addressing different readers, a fair mind will be compelled, on examining the evidence, to conclude, all over again, that Matthew and Luke in using Mark have each in their own way modified the information about Jesus to make him conform to the writer’s own view of Jesus. In our debates I have shown clear evidence of an author modifying the facts of the story about Jesus, such as in the story of Jairus’ daughter. In this particular case James admitted that Matthew has telescoped the story; and I as I have pointed out, this gave Matthew the license to take what one man said and put in into the mouth of another man at a different point in the story.


courtesy:

http://shabirally.com/line_of_oct23.php

seyibrown:

I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.

THE QURAN SPEAKS OF CORRUPTION/DISTORTION (IN TEXT AND INTERPRETATION) OF PREVIOUS REVELATIONS OF MOSES AND JESUS BY THEIR FOLLOWERS:

"Some of those who are Jews change words from their context and say: "We hear and disobey; hear thou as one cannot be made hear not" and "Listen to us!" distorting with their tongues and slandering religion. If they had said: "We hear and we obey: hear thou, and look at us" it had been better for them, and more upright. But Allah hath cursed them for their disbelief, so they believe not, save a few".(HOLY QURAN 4:46)

"Can ye (O ye men of Faith) entertain the hope that they will believe in you? Seeing that a party of them heard the word of Allah, and perverted it knowingly after they understood it".(holy quran 2:75)

"There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues; (as they read) so that you would think it is a part of the Book but it is no part of the Book; and they say "That is from Allah" but it is not from Allah: it is they who tell a lie against Allah, and (well) they know it"! (HOLY QURAN 3:78)

"And remember Allah took a Covenant from the People of the Book, to make it known and clear to mankind, and not to hide it; but they threw it away behind their backs, and purchased with it some miserable gain! and vile was the bargain they made"!(HOLY QURAN 3:187)

"The people of the Book know this as they know their own sons; but some of them conceal the truth which they themselves know".(HOLY QURAN 2:146)

"Ye People of the Book! Why do ye clothe truth with falsehood, and conceal the Truth while ye have knowledge?" (holy quran 3:71)

from the holy quran chapter 5:

"From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a Covenant, but they forgot a good part of the Message that was sent them: so We estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the Day of Judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done. (14) O People of the Book! there hath come to you Our Messenger, revealing to you much that ye used to hide in the Book, and passing over much (that is now unnecessary): there hath come to you from Allah a (new) Light and a perspicuous Book.― (15) Wherewith Allah guideth all who seek His good pleasure to ways of peace and safety, and leadeth them out of darkness, by His Will, unto the light,― guideth them to a Path that is Straight. (16) In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His Will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all― everyone that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things." (17) (Both) the Jews and the Christians say: "We are sons of Allah, and His beloved." Say: "Why then doth He punish you for your sins? Nay ye are but men,― of the men He hath created: He forgiveth whom He pleaseth, and He punisheth whom He pleaseth: and to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between: and unto Him is the final goal (of all)." (18) O people of the Book! now hath come unto you, making (things) clear unto you, Our Messenger after the break in (the series of) Our Messengers, lest ye should say: there came unto us no bringer of glad tidings and no warner (from evil): but now hath come unto you a bringer of glad tidings and a warner (from evil): and Allah hath power over all things."


"They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord, and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah―Allah will forbid him the Garden and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help" (holy quran 5:72)

1.) THE NEW TESTAMENT IS NOT THE INJEEL
2.) THE OLD TESTAMENT IS NOT THE TORAH
3.) THE INJEEL AND TORAH MENTIONED IN THE QURAN ARE REVELATIONS GIVEN TO JESUS AND MOSES RESPECTIVELY.THE OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT CONTAIN INJEEL AND TORAH,BUT NOT ALL IN THEM IS INJEEL AND TORAH.THE REVELATIONS GIVEN TO JESUS IS INJEEL (GOSPEL) MENTIONED IN THE QURAN.THE INJEEL OF JESUS IS NOT THE SAME AS "GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK" ETC.WE ACCEPT THE GOSPEL OF JESUS AND NOT "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MR. X".

THE THREE GRADES OF TEXTS IN THE BIBLE: THE WORD OF GOD,PROPHETS AND MEN ALL PILED UP TOGETHER AS ONE AND "THE INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD"!

THE WORD OF GOD AS EVIDENT IN THE BIBLE:

Deuteronomy 18:18 (King James Version):

18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.


Isaiah 43:11 (King James Version):

11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

Isaiah 45:22 (King James Version):


22Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

THE WORD OF A PROPHET AS EVIDENT IN THE BIBLE:

Matthew 27:46 (King James Version):

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mark 12:29 (King James Version):

29And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:



Mark 10:18 (King James Version):

18And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.


(NOTE THAT EVEN THE ABOVE SAYINGS OF JESUS ARE REPORTED BY A SECOND PERSON.HERE WE ARE BLINDLY BELIEVING FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING THE POINT CLEAR THAT THE WORDS QUOTED ARE SPOKEN BY THE PROPHET OF GOD,JESUS.ELSE WE HAVE NO PROOF THAT THOSE WORDS WERE UTTERED BY JESUS HIMSELF).


THE WORD OF FALLIBLE MEN AS EVIDENT IN THE BIBLE:

Mark 11:13 (King James Version):

13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.

(NOTE THAT THE LARGE BULK OF THE BIBLE CONTAINS EVIDENCE OF THE LAST TYPE)


all these (verses)are present and evident (in the Quran,posted in the previous post and from the bible posted here)but the christian and the bible-thumpers want to spoon-feed the muslim to accept blindly that his bible,a mixture of different writtings/reports by different writers/reporters in different places and at different times is at all cost the injeel and the torah the quran attributes to only moses and only jesus respectively.what are we to do with all the verses in the quran and the bible that point to the contrary?throw them off the window?!!!! at least you should tell us whether we are to throw the bible with 73 books out of the window or the one with 66 books?!!! the catholic bible is made up of 73 books while the protestant bible is made up of 66 books.what happened?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

In the two thousand years since the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the world of Christendom has seen incredible changes, including a split with the Eastern Orthodox Church and a Protestant Reformation, accompanied by a rejection of much core ideology. Yet throughout it all, the collection of scripture called the New Testament has remained largely unquestioned, even though it was assembled by the same church leaders whose beliefs many now refute. (3)

To challenge the veracity of the canonical New Testament is, at best, an uncomfortable position; such questions strike at the very heart of most Christians' faith. Nevertheless, these sacred writings have come to us only after decades of oral traditions and centuries of scribal rewrites, much according to the beliefs of select groups in the early days of Christianity. It is only by attempting to study the origins and evolution of the New Testament scriptures that one can hope to discover the true historical Jesus, a worthy goal of any Christian believer. (3)



Most of us take it for granted to have a copy of a Bible and do not bother to know how we got it. The question why the New Testament has twenty-seven books, not more and not less, hardly comes to our mind. While all of us are unlikely to think that they just simply dropped from the sky, we may not realize the long process (EXHIBIT A), which took place before those twenty-seven books were finally selected. In the first place, Jesus wrote no book and did not give any commandment to write down his teaching as testified by the four Gospels. Neither He nor His apostles gave us the list and approved any of the twenty-seven New Testament books. They neither used nor introduced the terms Old and New Testaments (4). All of the books of the New Testament were written after the apostles.

The source texts:

Sifting through the scores of different English versions of the New Testament, one is poignantly reminded of how translation, particularly of archaic language, is subject to personal interpretation. It is therefore vitally important that we get as close to the original source as possible. The oldest surviving near-complete texts of the New Testament are the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (EXHIBIT A), dating back to around 350 A.D.(3). The Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus also contains books which are no longer part of the New Testament, such as The Shephard of the Hermes and the Epistle of Barnabas (EXHIBIT A). The oldest fragments: P32, P46, P52, P64, P66, P77, P90, P98, P103, P104 (EXHIBIT E), date back to the second century; all of these texts are Greek. This presents a disturbing problem. First, Jesus' native tongue was Aramaic, and even if he knew Greek, he certainly did not speak it to his apostles, many of whom were uneducated fishermen. Without any surviving Aramaic texts, the actual words of Christ are lost forever, mired in a sea of subjective translation by ancient scribes (3).





THE 27 BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

30 AD Jesus leaves earth

30-50 AD Period of oral tradition before first written documents by Paul of Tarsus.

(Tarsus is present day Eastern Turkey. Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

1) 51 AD

Galatians

Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

2) 50 AD

1 Thessalonians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

3) 50 AD

2 Thessalonians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

4) 56 AD

Romans

Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

5) 55 AD

1 Corinthians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

6) 55 AD

2 Corinthians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

7) 59-81 AD
Ephesians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

59-61 AD
Philippians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

9) 59-61 AD
Colossians
Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

10) 59-61 AD
Philemon

Author Paul (Paul never knew nor ever met Jesus)

11) 65-70 AD
Mark

Author Anonymous

12) 80-85 AD
Matthew

Author Anonymous

13) 75-90 AD
Luke

Author Anonymous

14) 90-100 AD
John

Author Anonymous

15) 75-95 AD
Acts

Author Anonymous

16) 95 AD
Hebrews

Author Anonymous

17) 95 AD
James

Author Anonymous

18) 95 AD
1 Peter

Author Anonymous

19) 95 AD
Jude

Author Anonymous

20) 81-96 AD
Revelation
Author Anonymous

21) 100 AD
1 Timothy
Author Anonymous

22) 100 AD
2 Timothy
Author Anonymous

23) 100 AD
Titus

Author Anonymous

24) 100-150 AD
2 Peter

Author Anonymous

25) 100-125 AD
1 John

Author Anonymous

26) 100-125 AD
2 John

Author Anonymous

27) 100-125 AD
3 John

Author Anonymous



The majority of Christians believe that the Gospels were written by direct witnesses of the life of Jesus, and, therefore, constitute unquestionable evidence concerning the events detailing his life and preaching. On the contrary, the time that elapsed between the end of Jesus? ministry and the appearance of texts is great. Not a single written source has come down to us from the first two decades after Jesus left earth in the year 30 A.D. The first written sources appear around 50 AD, the letters of Paul contained in the New Testament (5). Unfortunately, we know very little about Paul. He was believed to be born in Tarsus, a Greek city in what today is eastern Turkey. He was Jewish and received a good education in Greek and Jewish traditions. Moreover, Paul originally vehemently opposed the followers of Jesus who were proclaiming him to be a new way to God, However, in the process of his opposition Paul became transformed called, he believed to carry the news of Jesus to the Gentiles (Acts 9). He began to travel and proclaim Jesus. (1) It must be remembered that Paul never knew Jesus nor ever met him since he came from a Greek city. These are the earliest written records we have concerning Christianity. Moreover, Paul originally hated Christians (Galatians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 15:9) and even had Stephen martyred in 36 A.D. (Acts 7:58).





The four anonymous gospels that we possess (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) all date from the last third of the first century. Like Paul, the authors of these documents also did not know Jesus and could have been foreigners like Paul. For example, The Gospel of Luke raises an interesting question: Which route did Jesus follow to Jerusalem? The shorter route through Samaria 9:53 or another route through Jericho 18:35, both roads could not be traveled on the same trip. The author of the Gospel of Luke was criticized for not knowing the geography of Israel (2) The author of the Gospel of Mark also seems to lack first-hand knowledge of the geography of Palestine. Randel Helms writes concerning Mark 11:1 (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p. 6): "Anyone approaching Jerusalem from Jericho would come first to Bethany and then Bethphage, not the reverse. This is one of several passages showing that Mark knew little about Palestine; we must assume, Dennis Nineham argues, that 'Mark did not know the relative positions of these two villages on the Jericho road' (1963, 294-295). Indeed, Mark knew so little about the area that he described Jesus going from Tyrian territory 'by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the Ten Towns' (Mark 7:31); this is similar to saying that one goes from London to Paris by way of Edinburgh and Rome. The simplist solution, says Nineham, is that 'the evangelist was not directly acquainted with Palestine' (40)."



Origins of the canon:

The four canonical gospels did not begin their lives as the gospels of "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke" and "John." For example, most Christians believe that the names of the four gospels are taken from the original eyewitness disciples who followed Jesus. However, this is not true, the names Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," and "John" are simply titles that were given by the early church to these anonymous documents that were written at a much later date. The original Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," and "John" that were present at Jesus' time never wrote any of the gospels contained in today's New Testament. Different groups of early Christians maintained their own oral traditions of Jesus' wisdom, since writing was a specialized skill and not every fellowship enjoyed the services of a scribe. When written accounts of Jesus' teachings began to circulate, the independent groups would supplement them with their own traditions about the savior, each believing their own versions to be "the Gospel." Eventually, as these expanded writings spread through other communities, some versions were viewed as having more authority than others. It was not until the pronouncement of Bishop Irenaeus (185 C.E.) (EXHIBIT A) that Christians began to accept only the four familiar gospels as authoritative, and to refer to them by their modern titles (3). Consequently, there were earlier gospels, many being quite different from the four we know today.
The rest of the canon was much slower to develop. For the next two centuries, the four gospels would be coupled with a myriad of different letters, epistles, stories and apocalypses, according to what a particular congregation judged as relevant to their understanding of Jesus Christ and his message. Catholicism was only one of the dozens of "denominations" within the early church, Gnosticism was prevalent throughout Egypt, Montanism in Asia Minor (Turkey), Marcionism in Syria (see glossary for explanations). Eventually, the Catholic church was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire thanks to Constantine, and all other systems of belief were branded as heresies (3).

Constantine had one last problem to solve. This was the ongoing debate concerning the divinity of Jesus. This debate reached its climax at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.; Athanasius argued that Jesus was God while Arius argued that he was not. Athanasius eventually won the argument. As a result of Athanasius' teachings (Athansian Creed) that became the law of the land after he defeated Arius at the first Ecumenical Council in 325 A.D. (Nicene Creed), the Church finally took a step closer in forming what we know today as the New Testament Canon. For example, according to Athanasius' Canon 367 A.D. (EXHIBIT A) we can see that The Shephard of The Hermas and Didache were present although they are not considered scripture today. Although factions of the Church continued to debate the merits of various books for centuries, and many even used other writings in their liturgy, most uncanonical writings were ordered to be destroyed. In many cases, possession of heretical literature was punishable by death. Much of this literature can still be viewed in the glossary of early Christian literature (3).



Athanasius (297-373 A.D.)

Athanasius (Exhibit A) was the bishop of Alexandria and the champion of orthodoxy at the Nicene Council. Athanasius was ordained deacon in 319 by the Bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius was the rival of Arius at the Nicene Council in 325. He asserts that the Members of the Trinity are three and yet at the same time one. Father, Son and Holy Ghost are co-equals in eternity, neither one preceded the other; One God, Christ sharing in the being of God. St. Athanasius summed up the purpose of the incarnation by saying "God became man that we might be made God" i.e. (Athansian Creed.) The idea of the Trinity was current at the time among many of the bishops, and Athanasius had much support, more support in fact than Arius did, though Arius did have substantial support among the orthodox bishops of that time. Arius, had been writing songs to spread his point of view that Jesus was just the Christ, the promised prophet of God, but not God. Arius? point of view was current among many of the bishops while other bishops held to the Trinitarian view. That some would not be trinitarian is understandable - the Jewish religion holds strongly to the One God idea and does not see the Messiah as a part of the Godhead. The Council of Nicea found in favor of the Trinitarians. The council voted by a large majority against Arius and for Athanasius but did not put an end to Arianism. From 325 to 381, many church councils debated the rejected doctrine. (EXHIBIT D).

After the council (328) Alexander died and Athanasius succeeded him as Bishop, although not yet thirty. After becoming Bishop he became the great leader of the orthodox cause, the most formidable adversary of the enemies of the Nicaen decision. In 337 Constantine died, and his empire was divided by his three sons, Constantine II, Constantius and Constans. Eusebius, an enemy of Athanasius, had won over the new emperor of the eastern part of the empire, Constantius. This led to Athanasius' exile and a reversion to Arianism in the eastern part of the empire. With the death of Constans in 350, his anti-Nicaea brother Constantius became sole ruler of the Empire and Arianism dominated again (Exhibit D). Athanasius suffered exile 5 times but held to his conviction that communion was not given to any heretic who did not hold the divinity of Christ.

Athansian Creed (320 A.D.?)
1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;
2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Spirit uncreate.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three untreated nor three incomprehensible, but one untreated and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. 28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.
36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;
40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. and shall give account of their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.


The Nicene Creed (or Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed)
The Nicene Creed was written by the early Church and adopted (in a slightly different version) by the Church Council at Nicea in AD 325 and appears in its present form by the Council at Chalcedon in AD 451. It has remained in use since that time. The Nicene Creed appears to be a smaller version of Athanasius's Creed. After Athanasius won the Council at Nicae in 325 A.D. he was apparently able to promote his doctrine.


The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.


THE BIG PROBLEM



The Old Testament never mentions the Trinity. God all through the Old Testament is one. How did he suddenly become three in one? The Trinity, in fact, was established by councils which convened in the fourth century more than three hundred years after Jesus. Emperor Constantine wanted a religion that appealed to him personally, in 312 AD Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian bridge outside Rome. The legend is, on the way to this battle, he saw a cross in the sky one afternoon with the words Hoc vince (by this conquer), and he adopted the cross as his standard. A year later in 313 AD Constantine issued the Edict of Milan: Christianity was given a legal status equal to paganism. Later, Christianity became the state religion. In 325 AD at the council of Nicea, Constantine the Great helped promote Jesus from the rank of a prophet to the rank of a god; the Son is of the "same substance," homo-ousion, as the Father. Constantine's council engineered the Trinity by promoting the Holy Spirit from an angel's rank to a god's rank. Thus Jesus became God by a decree and the Holy Spirit became God by another decree. The Trinity was a negotiated settlement. It was the outcome of the dictated voting of councils under dictatorial threats of rulers (EXHIBIT D). They made a compromise: God is one to please monotheists and God is three to please polytheists (EXHIBIT D). The final output was three in one to please no one and displease no one. A religion by voting, A vague god: ONE if you want him one, and Three if you want him three, and ONE IN THREE if you wish or THREE IN ONE if you prefer it this way. The trinity is a later innovation of church councils and it has nothing to do with the actual teachings of Jesus (



CONCLUSION



FOR MORE THAN THREE CENTURIES THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH HAD NO NEW TESTATMENT. Not until the Muratoriun Canon (350 A.D.) did the Christian church begin to compile a New Testament that resembles the one we have today. This canon did not include the letter to the Hebrews or those we know as James, 3 John, and 1 and 2 Peter (EXHIBIT A). It did include the Wisdom of Solomon (now part of the Catholic Old Testament) and the Apocalypse of Peter (no longer used).

All earlier canons such as that of Irenaeus (180 AD) and Marcion (140 AD) at best only have the four gospels (EXHIBIT A), many of the other 23 books are missing. In fact some of the earliest canons (Tatian 165 AD) (EXHIBIT A) reject the 10 Pauline letters; I guess his logic was how could a man from East Turkey who never knew or met Jesus be qualified to write about him? Moreover, the Canon of Papias (130 AD) (EXHIBIT A) only has the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of the Hebrews. The Gospel of the Hebrews is no longer part of the New Testament. In fact, the very earliest canons such as the Nazarenes and Ebionites only have the Gospel of the Hebrews; moreover, the Nazarenes and Ebionites flat-out reject Paul (EXHIBIT A).

What was or could have been the beliefs of those early Christians who were in possession of Canons that predated 350 AD regarding the dogmas of the Eucharist, Baptism, and the Trinity remains a mystery. The resurrection story accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John are completely different! (EXHIBIT C) In fact, the last twelve verses of the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Mark (EXHIBIT A) are not found in older manuscripts (the so-called Lord's Prayer); hence, in one translation of the Bible we read a footnote which states: The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20,NIV) (Exhibit A footnote 1). The so-called Essential or Institutional words now in Luke 22:17-20 (Exhibit A footnote 2) are another example of an addition that simply never existed. Moreover, Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2 is unkown to the authors of the second and fourth gospel; these verses appear to be insertions based on the Nicene Creed. The ultimate of all insertions based on the Nicene Creed and its trinity is witnessed in 1 John CH5:7-8 (EXHIBIT A footnote**). Furthermore, only Mark 16:19 and Luke 24:51 speak of Jesus' ascension. In fact, many important teachings contained in one gospel were unkown to the churches that did not possess it. Consequently, there could not possibly be uniformity of worship, disciples, authority, belief, commandments and law in the Early Church, just as there is none today!

The fact to the matter is that the New Testament is an evolutionary text that evolved over hundreds of years as a result of numerous canons (EXHIBIT A). Moreover, the bible, as it appears today in English, has been, since 1600 AD changed and re-examined repeatedly. The King James version of the Bible, published in 1611 (EXHIBIT A), was eventually corrected again in 1952 (EXHIBIT A), and a new bible was prepared. The RSV means: Corrected and Re-examined version. Still, after all corrections made up to 1952 (EXHIBIT A), this version of the bible was not altogether accepted. Thus, in 1971, an even newer, double-corrected Bible was introduced (EXHIBIT A). It appears from (EXHIBIT A footnote *) that there was a problem with an addition to ACTS in the original King James Bible of 1611; whatever the problem was, it was apparently removed in the subsequent versions. Since I do not have a copy of the King James Bible from 1611, I cannot see what the original problem was; it must have been pretty bad I guess.

It is obvious that both sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac were both part of the Abrahamic covenant. The word of God cannot have errors. The word of God would not have unknown authors. The word of God could not be established throughout history by what members of certain councils decreed.

Finally, the Quran has no errors, miraculously agrees with science, and was recorded by one man during his lifetime. The Quran is the only holy book that remained fully intact from the time of its revelation until today. No additions deletions or subtractions found its way into the book; the Quran is the only authentic revelation still around. The Quran is the direct words of God. God should speak directly to his creatures rather than have hundreds of unknown authors and hundreds of councils to decide what his word should be. Moreover, God would protect his final revelation to mankind from the butchering that we have seen the Bible undergo (Exhibit A). GOD HAD TO SEND ANOTHER PROPHET FROM ABRAHAM'S OTHER SON TO CLEAR UP THE HUGE MESS WE HAVE JUST WITNESSED (main article). Therefore, Islam superseded Christianity.



Reference:

(1) Page 21 New Testament Story by David L. Barr Wadsworth Publishing Company 1987

(2) Page 212 New Testament Story by David L. Barr Wadsworth Publishing Company 1987

(3) Geoff Trowbridge

(4) W. Hartono

(5) Page 20 What Can We Know About Jesus? by Howard Clark Kee Cambridge University Press 1990

(6) The Gospels their origin and growth-by Frederick C. Grant -Harper & Brothers 1957

(7) The Formation Of The New Testament-by Robert M. Grant Harper & Row 1965

( The Truth About Jesus Christ-by Dr. Muhammad Ali Alkhuli Swaileh, Jordan


courtesy:

http://www.why-christians-convert-to-islam.com/

To you, oh Muslims, for standing firm on the side of Allah and His Messenger (AS), defending Islam against the words of the slanderers, may Allah forgive you all your sins, regardless of how big they are. May He accept your last Taubah and make you as a shehid counting you among those who are from the highest level of Paradise. AMIN.

This religion, our Affair is of one body and every one is a part of the same body.

We stand together, all alone as a group and the attackers will not relent. But to Allah is All Victory.

Seyi brown,

If you took some time to read the responses, you would find your answers,

Please read before making your comments, May Allah guide you,

Peace

I found the below in the Quran, and it ONLY tells me that the TORAH and GOSPEL are valid as God will judge the Jews and the Christians respectively by them.
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I dey Laugh![/size]

QURAN 5: 46 -48 ( Version: Sahih International)
46 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.

Pls Point to the Gospel, which of them is according to Jesus, as the Qur'an says we gave Jesus son of Mary the gospel, all I read in the Gospel according to mathew accd to luke, I have no business with this anonymous authors, Only with Jesus whom ALLAH dealt with. As for the torah When You and the Jews made it possible for a prophet to sleep with his own daughter and faced no consequence, any with common sense will reject such a bull for a book of ALLAH, and again we read in the Torah, Moses died in the land of Moab, he WAS SO and so years old, the question is can a dead man write his own obituary? absolutely no, then common sense dictate that some one wrote part of those books. when we say he did not approve of those spurious books,we mean the ones in circulation during his time.
Can you point where the Qur'an spoke about Paul? So we do need to swindle by unsuspecting people who accept just about anything that falls from the mouth of a liar.






47 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.

So which laws where reveal in the Gospel?


48 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.



This simply assert what we Muslims have been saying that is there are some truths to be found in this books, but frudulent individual have placed their words in them, and more so there was a time when Christians read from gospels such gospel of thomas, gospel of Nazarenes, etc but what happened? the church authorities simply decided this and that are the aord of God and hence we shall follow them. The Qur'an again wwas asserting that injuction such as common social ethos found in the Gospel/torah are to be followed since there are consistent in some way to the Qur'an injuctions

. . . . and that the 'Books' were already with the Jews and the Christians (as at the time of Mohammed and the writing of the Quran)

Just answered above

QURAN 4: 47 (Version: Muhsin Khan)
O you who have been given the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Believe in what We have revealed (to Muhammad SAW) confirming what is (already) with you , before We efface faces (by making them like the back of necks; without nose, mouth, eyes, etc.) and turn them hindwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers. And the Commandment of Allah is always executed.



I did not find anything in the Quran that says that that the 'Torah and Gospel' that the Quran refers to as what 'God will judge the people of the Book by' and that which 'was already with them' have been corrupted.

Because certain rules and injuction are consistent with the Qur'an, like we read about the ten commandments in the torah hence this are what are consistent with Qur'an, as always asserted by Muslims devine reelation follow a similar stream of do's and don'ts. but the koko is that you guys have been slash them because they do not follow your preconceived blasphemy such as Jesus is Lord notions. and didn't the Qur;an say:
[b]
Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.

1. Have you got any scriptural proof that the 'Torah and Gospel' as referred to above as being valid before God WERE DISAPPROVED BY MOHAMMED? Please provide them. I will prefer proof from the Quran over proof from an Hadith given the number of times Muslims have told us of the unreliabilty of certain Hadiths on NL!

Your preference of one evidence over another is as meaningless as a goat's bleating,as the Qur'an has authorized the hadiths Hadith scolars took time to to authenticate true hadiths,it is Just like saying do not quote any of the Gospel unless the one Jesus authored shekena. and Like the Qur'an says
[b]

And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book, but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture.
Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.[/b]

2. Please provide Quranic proof that the Torah and Gospel (that God will judge Jews and Christians by) as referred to in the scripture above was the 'corrupted' ones, or provide Quranic proof to show that the scripture refers to the 'uncorrupted' ones.

When you show me proof of the gospel Jesus authored then I will answer you but as long as you quote some anonylous authors Ba ruwana!


3. Please provide proof, Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the contents of the 'corrupted' books SIGNIFICANTLY distort the message of the original books, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.

You will have to delete ridiculous passages from the bible for us to take it serious, really like the verse that makes a son older than his father and other contradictory verses like the genealogy of Jesus where Joseph is Given two fathers, an biblical impossibility.

4. Please, also provide Quranic (and Historical outside the Quran, if available) that the 'corruption of the originals' ONLY as you have found and provided in answer to Q3 above are to the extent that adherents of the books abide by rules that cause them to live contrary God's commandments, and cite instances from the ORIGINALS in comparison with the CORRUPTED.


You like repeating yourself in the hope that falsehood becomes truth.


5. Please provide proof (Quranic) as to whether the 'Books' had been corrupted AS AT THE TIME the 'revelation of the Quran' was given to Mohammed or the 'writing of the Quran' OR that they were corrupted AFTER the 'revelation' and 'writing' of the Quran.

I have shown you how certain books where thrown away by the church in a bid to streamline their views with the Bible. I donot really have time now but know that I will be back with answers and questions, Know that if you start your mouth Gymnastics in this thread then I will follow suit.