A
agnes_therese
Guest
Ask yourself why you expect a different religion to tell you the truth about your own.
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S
sirach2v4
Guest
The biblical texts are often not the work of a single author. I’m reading II Corinthians and the scholars speculate that it is composed of two or more letters of St. Paul. This is based on the unusual wording in some parts, a sudden shift of Paul’s temperament, and/or the appearance of some verses that seem to interrupt a certain train of thought.
In other words, the editor or “redactor” may have made some changes, either intentionally or otherwise.
Sometimes a series of verses has the structure
D
C
B
A
X
A’
B’
C’
D’
where the layout of the verses repeats earlier verses almost unchanged, to highlight the verse X. When this type of structure is upset in some way, it suggests that some error has occurred, such as in transcription.
So, there are ways to virtually prove that something has happened to disrupt an expected structure.
These techniques most often require knowledge of the original languages.
One Jewish commentary makes an interesting observation about the Hebrew text of Genesis 1. We all can read in English that it’s talking about 7 days of creation. But, in Hebrew, the number 7 is emphasized to a much greater extent: The verses have either seven Hebrew words or a multiple of seven Hebrew words. The pattern of “God said … and it was so…and God saw that it was good” was in one place not followed, in order to make the word count come out.
Islam’s understanding of Christianity is through the “lens” of the Arian heresy, which denied that Jesus was God. Of course the gospels say over and over that Jesus is God. But, the Muslims do not accept these beliefs and they also deny that Jesus died on the cross.
Christ must have died in order to have been resurrected, for one thing. Notice Islam has copied Jesus’s ascension into heaven by having Mohammed ascend into heaven, from the rock that is now inside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Hillaire Belloc (early 20th century apologist) describes Islam as a heresy from Christianity OUTSIDE of Christianity.
So, Islam’s perspectives should be taken into account, when considering their attacks on Judaism and Christianity. Their annual festival of the Haj – the trip to Mecca – parallels the trips to Jerusalem that were spelled out by the Jewish Torah.
Modern Jewish synagogues often are built in the direction of Jerusalem, just as Muslim gather to pray 5 times a day and face Mecca. Islam is described as the last of the great monotheistic religions, but there’s a lot of “borrowing” from the others, including their notion of purgatory, where everyone is eventually cleansed (no Hell in Islam) and gains admission to the divine presence.
A form like this can only hit the highlights of whatever topic is in view.
In other words, the editor or “redactor” may have made some changes, either intentionally or otherwise.
Sometimes a series of verses has the structure
D
C
B
A
X
A’
B’
C’
D’
where the layout of the verses repeats earlier verses almost unchanged, to highlight the verse X. When this type of structure is upset in some way, it suggests that some error has occurred, such as in transcription.
So, there are ways to virtually prove that something has happened to disrupt an expected structure.
These techniques most often require knowledge of the original languages.
One Jewish commentary makes an interesting observation about the Hebrew text of Genesis 1. We all can read in English that it’s talking about 7 days of creation. But, in Hebrew, the number 7 is emphasized to a much greater extent: The verses have either seven Hebrew words or a multiple of seven Hebrew words. The pattern of “God said … and it was so…and God saw that it was good” was in one place not followed, in order to make the word count come out.
Islam’s understanding of Christianity is through the “lens” of the Arian heresy, which denied that Jesus was God. Of course the gospels say over and over that Jesus is God. But, the Muslims do not accept these beliefs and they also deny that Jesus died on the cross.
Christ must have died in order to have been resurrected, for one thing. Notice Islam has copied Jesus’s ascension into heaven by having Mohammed ascend into heaven, from the rock that is now inside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Hillaire Belloc (early 20th century apologist) describes Islam as a heresy from Christianity OUTSIDE of Christianity.
So, Islam’s perspectives should be taken into account, when considering their attacks on Judaism and Christianity. Their annual festival of the Haj – the trip to Mecca – parallels the trips to Jerusalem that were spelled out by the Jewish Torah.
Modern Jewish synagogues often are built in the direction of Jerusalem, just as Muslim gather to pray 5 times a day and face Mecca. Islam is described as the last of the great monotheistic religions, but there’s a lot of “borrowing” from the others, including their notion of purgatory, where everyone is eventually cleansed (no Hell in Islam) and gains admission to the divine presence.
A form like this can only hit the highlights of whatever topic is in view.
S
sirach2v4
Guest
As I indicated in my previous post, translation itself changes the meaning of the text.
We have two nearly identical lists of the ten commandments, but they don’t totally agree (even though tradition says Moses was responsible for both).
And, we have two versions of the Lord’s prayer, each in a different gospel. If I’m not mistaken, one version has seven petitions and the other has five petitions.
So…the sources themselves disagree (which bothers a lot of people). Then, something gets lost in the translation, like in the Lord’s prayer: “our daily bread” – really? some say the original implies “supersubstantial” bread - whatever that means - perhaps the true, divine, bread of life.
A Jewish commentary discusses the two version of the Ten Commandments, where in the one, it says to “remember” the Sabbath, and in the other, it says to “observe” the Sabbath.
Well, the rabbis noodled around about this and came up with the idea that they’re both the same, but one is stated in a positive term, and the other in a negative term – whichever way it goes (I don’t recall how they ended that discussion). So the variants of scripture don’t detract from it, but rather they elaborate and enhance it – like the two versions of creation in Genesis and the three interwoven accounts of Noah’s flood.
Modern Jewish scholarship says that the writer(s)/redactor of Genesis incorporated all the verbal traditions of the day, rather then rejecting any one of them.
We have two nearly identical lists of the ten commandments, but they don’t totally agree (even though tradition says Moses was responsible for both).
And, we have two versions of the Lord’s prayer, each in a different gospel. If I’m not mistaken, one version has seven petitions and the other has five petitions.
So…the sources themselves disagree (which bothers a lot of people). Then, something gets lost in the translation, like in the Lord’s prayer: “our daily bread” – really? some say the original implies “supersubstantial” bread - whatever that means - perhaps the true, divine, bread of life.
A Jewish commentary discusses the two version of the Ten Commandments, where in the one, it says to “remember” the Sabbath, and in the other, it says to “observe” the Sabbath.
Well, the rabbis noodled around about this and came up with the idea that they’re both the same, but one is stated in a positive term, and the other in a negative term – whichever way it goes (I don’t recall how they ended that discussion). So the variants of scripture don’t detract from it, but rather they elaborate and enhance it – like the two versions of creation in Genesis and the three interwoven accounts of Noah’s flood.
Modern Jewish scholarship says that the writer(s)/redactor of Genesis incorporated all the verbal traditions of the day, rather then rejecting any one of them.
A
abucs
Guest
Hello Hollly.
You have to remember that Islam came centuries after Christianity.
It also came centuries after the canon of the Bible was fixed and we have complete copies of the Bible that existed before Islam.
Because the Koran has discrepancies with that Canon (and with the Jewish texts) the only explanation for the Muslim is to suggest that both Christian and Jewish sacred texts must have been corrupted from their original.
They cannot show any reasonable examples of when this happened. It is basically to protect the Islamic religion from the charge that they are following a book that clearly got quite a few things incorrect.
A problem for Islam is that even though the Koran was written centuries after the Bible it does not discuss the differences sensibly. Sometimes it mis-states what the Christian position is and sometimes it continues oblivious to the fact that it contradicts the ‘people of the book’ (Christians and Jews).
At one stage the Koran tells the Muslim believer that if there is anything they are not sure of they should consult ‘the people of the book’ and they will tell them.
This would not make sense if the Book itself had been corrupted and the Christians were following corrupted teachings.
You have to remember that Islam came centuries after Christianity.
It also came centuries after the canon of the Bible was fixed and we have complete copies of the Bible that existed before Islam.
Because the Koran has discrepancies with that Canon (and with the Jewish texts) the only explanation for the Muslim is to suggest that both Christian and Jewish sacred texts must have been corrupted from their original.
They cannot show any reasonable examples of when this happened. It is basically to protect the Islamic religion from the charge that they are following a book that clearly got quite a few things incorrect.
A problem for Islam is that even though the Koran was written centuries after the Bible it does not discuss the differences sensibly. Sometimes it mis-states what the Christian position is and sometimes it continues oblivious to the fact that it contradicts the ‘people of the book’ (Christians and Jews).
At one stage the Koran tells the Muslim believer that if there is anything they are not sure of they should consult ‘the people of the book’ and they will tell them.
This would not make sense if the Book itself had been corrupted and the Christians were following corrupted teachings.
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