How to reply?

[jmcrae]

What evidence for consistency are there?

That the copies we find today in every country in the world are substantially the same as each other - meaning that the original(s) from which they were copied were not changed in any way. If there were changes made at some point, then we would have Bibles in some countries that say something completely different than Bibles in other countries, because they would have come from different sources - but we don’t find that at all - quite the opposite, they are all pretty much the same as each other.

 

[SavedByTheCross]

Try to point out a couple of things. One, Jesus’ primary audience (what we would now consider orthodox Jews) was not composed of idol worshipers. They had no problem with the idea that only God should be worshiped and that other gods were false. So the warnings found in the Old Testament (that are parroted in the Quran) reiterating the importance of worshiping God were not necessary for that immediate audience. In my opinion that is the reason why we don’t see Jesus making the type of explicit verbal demands for worship that Muslims ask to see. Secondly, ask your friend to give examples of what God meant in the Old Testament when he said to only worship him. Beyond words, what does genuine worship entail? Jesus wanted genuine worship, that can only come when the boundaries between God and man are stricken down. He wanted actual devotion, not words. That is what was accomplished by coming to us as a human, and by living an example for us.

Part of the problem is that the Quran states that Jesus never claimed divinity or asked for worship. So whatever evidence you present, as others have mentioned, will be written off as either not a real claim of divinity or a fabrication that Christians put into the Bible. They can’t really accept a claim of divinity by Jesus without it being an acknowledgement of error in the Quran, so they will keep arguing against whatever evidence you bring.
As hard as it may be, try to remember that your goal isn’t to win a debate, it is to plant a seed in their hearts that may open them to the gospel. I am a recent revert back to Catholicism after being Muslim for many years, so I have some perspective from their “side” of things. If I’ve made any doctrinal errors, I welcome corrections-I am still re-learning.

 

[FireFromHeaven]

A copy of the Uthmanic Qur’an, the official Hadith, or the Yemeni Qur’an?

(You quoted the whole post so I was confused.)

And are there even copies of the Yemeni text available in the West, let alone scans posted online? What’s happening with the book now?

Sorry meant the Hadith.

 

[FireFromHeaven]

Try to point out a couple of things. One, Jesus’ primary audience (what we would now consider orthodox Jews) was not composed of idol worshipers. They had no problem with the idea that only God should be worshiped and that other gods were false. So the warnings found in the Old Testament (that are parroted in the Quran) reiterating the importance of worshiping God were not necessary for that immediate audience. In my opinion that is the reason why we don’t see Jesus making the type of explicit verbal demands for worship that Muslims ask to see. Secondly, ask your friend to give examples of what God meant in the Old Testament when he said to only worship him. Beyond words, what does genuine worship entail? Jesus wanted genuine worship, that can only come when the boundaries between God and man are stricken down. He wanted actual devotion, not words. That is what was accomplished by coming to us as a human, and by living an example for us.

Part of the problem is that the Quran states that Jesus never claimed divinity or asked for worship. So whatever evidence you present, as others have mentioned, will be written off as either not a real claim of divinity or a fabrication that Christians put into the Bible. They can’t really accept a claim of divinity by Jesus without it being an acknowledgement of error in the Quran, so they will keep arguing against whatever evidence you bring.
As hard as it may be, try to remember that your goal isn’t to win a debate, it is to plant a seed in their hearts that may open them to the gospel. I am a recent revert back to Catholicism after being Muslim for many years, so I have some perspective from their “side” of things. If I’ve made any doctrinal errors, I welcome corrections-I am still re-learning.

What led you to revert?

 

[sirach2v4]

I briefly glanced at one of the linked articles about the debate with Islam. This may or may not be helpful.

Using the Quran to verify the Bible is a really strange thing to do, as far as I’m concerned.

Does that mean nobody was sure of anything in the Bible until Mohammed came along? If anything, he was overturning the Bible (in general). I don’t subscribe to that line of argument, as interesting as it may be to plunge into that topic.

The guarantor of truth in the early church was Tradition, the handing down of the faith from reliable people to other reliable people. LIke it or not, that’s what happened.

Part of that truth would reside in the NT itself.

Part of the truth resides in the Tradition of handing it down. I think it was Augustine who said that he wouldn’t be sure of the Catholic faith had he not had the Church to give assurance of the truth.

Another evidence of the truth of the Catholic faith, based on scripture, tradition, and magisterium, is the witness of the early Church fathers. Sure, some teachers back then got it wrong and were heretics, but at least that is a reflection of what they were rebelling against. So, we have what they taught and what the heretics took exception to.

We also have the witness of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for what they believed in – it wasn’t Judaism, it was Christianity.

The problem with some modern person doubting the scriptures is that there is a lot of precedent for doubting the scriptures. So, this is just a rehash.

It’s great that some people stand up to debate with adherents of Islam. O Holy Spirit, guide us all into your truth. Amen

 

[Trebor135]

I briefly glanced at one of the linked articles about the debate with Islam. This may or may not be helpful.

Using the Quran to verify the Bible is a really strange thing to do, as far as I’m concerned.

Does that mean nobody was sure of anything in the Bible until Mohammed came along? If anything, he was overturning the Bible (in general). I don’t subscribe to that line of argument, as interesting as it may be to plunge into that topic.

Those articles don’t cite the Qur’an and Hadith because Christians lack certainty about the reliability of the Old and New Testaments. The Islamic scriptures are rather being used as a hostile witness. When Muslims claim that the Bible has been corrupted, and Christians note that the Qur’an and Hadith disagree, they can no longer continue making the allegation, because Muslims are clearly bound by their own sources.

The guarantor of truth in the early church was Tradition, the handing down of the faith from reliable people to other reliable people. LIke it or not, that’s what happened.

Part of that truth would reside in the NT itself.

Part of the truth resides in the Tradition of handing it down. I think it was Augustine who said that he wouldn’t be sure of the Catholic faith had he not had the Church to give assurance of the truth.

Another evidence of the truth of the Catholic faith, based on scripture, tradition, and magisterium, is the witness of the early Church fathers. Sure, some teachers back then got it wrong and were heretics, but at least that is a reflection of what they were rebelling against. So, we have what they taught and what the heretics took exception to.

We also have the witness of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for what they believed in – it wasn’t Judaism, it was Christianity.

The problem with some modern person doubting the scriptures is that there is a lot of precedent for doubting the scriptures. So, this is just a rehash.

It’s great that some people stand up to debate with adherents of Islam. O Holy Spirit, guide us all into your truth. Amen

This is a good analysis. Ancient Christianity isn’t sola scriptura, and Muslims have to be informed of that important point.

 

[SavedByTheCross]

What led you to revert?

I had been having doubts about inconsistencies and problems with Islam and the Quran and at some point, I just couldn’t believe it anymore. The Answering Islam site linked up above actually did a great deal to sway me. I had known about it for years but it made me so uncomfortable to read that I just avoided it because I didn’t know how to deal with all the issues raised. Finally, I just sat and read through a lot of the info, and found they had points that IMO prove the Quran is not of divine origin. Since (like many converts to Islam) I still believed what I had been told by Islamic apologists regarding Christianity being basically disproven, I became something of an agnostic for several months. I kept looking at Christianity, in terms of just being a good way to live, but still thinking it was all made up. Finally, I began really reading and finding out how the Church’s beliefs went back to the early days right after Jesus, and I became more and more convinced that there had to be truth in it or these Jewish men wouldn’t have been going around teaching this stuff and willing to put their lives in danger for it. The fact that they had nothing to gain from it is what makes it believable to me–people can pretty much buy into any concocted religious belief but there’s always some guy at the top gaining money and/or power from it–that wasn’t the case with the apostles and the early Church.

My mother converted to Islam late in my childhood. Prior to that she had raised us very Catholic (attending daily mass before school/work, private lessons to supplement our religious ed at school, etc.), we lived in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and I continued on and off in Catholic schools over the years after her conversion (since she hated most public schools), but I am surprised at how little I knew about Catholicism. When I was Muslim, I considered myself an expert on Catholicism

 

[Trebor135]

I had been having doubts about inconsistencies and problems with Islam and the Quran and at some point, I just couldn’t believe it anymore. The Answering Islam site linked up above actually did a great deal to sway me. I had known about it for years but it made me so uncomfortable to read that I just avoided it because I didn’t know how to deal with all the issues raised. Finally, I just sat and read through a lot of the info, and found they had points that IMO prove the Quran is not of divine origin.

What issues led you to conclude that Islam was untenable?

And welcome back to the Christian fold!

 

[SavedByTheCross]

What issues led you to conclude that Islam was untenable?

And welcome back to the Christian fold!

Basically, once I became convinced that the Quran was not the word of God, I had no reason to keep convincing myself that it was a good religion. The first step was acknowledging that the Quran was not of divine origin. Muslims claim that it must be from God because no human could have written it. I’m not fluent in Arabic, so I can’t say anything about the claims regarding the quality of Arabic it uses (although it is very obviously disjointed and rambling in English, and other ancient books including the Bible don’t seem to suffer like that in translation). The so-called scientific miracles are no such thing. They reflect both the accurate and inaccurate understandings of nature that people had at that time and that Muhammad would have been aware of, even without being highly educated. Mecca had tons of people coming and going from all over the “known” world-it’s not like he lived in some small town with no contact with the outside world or educated people. The references to Bible stories (also touted as a miracle since Muhammad had not studied the Bible) sound like the author doesn’t really know the stories well or understand the significance of them. They are told in a way that is confusing and doesn’t really give any useful information. I had always felt like they were lacking but never acknowledged why. In honestly thinking about it, they sound like someone who has heard these stories but can’t remember them well enough to retell them effectively. There are also various non-Biblical Jewish traditions that made their way into the Quran, as if the author didn’t know the difference between what was considered scripture and what wasn’t.

There were a lot of things that had always bothered me over the years because they didn’t make sense, and I just reached the point where I wasn’t going to keep making excuses about it.

 

[Buddyroe]

Besides asking for evidence, what do I say to this? *See italics below and then be done with this enemy of the gospel.
*

1. Jesus never claimed divinity as the Bible claims. See where Jesus says in John 14:10, Believe me that I [am] in the Father, and the Father in me: actually read the entire chapter
2. In fact many scholars at Bob Jones University believe key parts of the gospels were changes to support the claim to divinity. *I really doubt any Bob Jones scholars hold views that would preclude divine inspiration of the gospels the alumni would be up in arms and they are formidable.

1. Also the bible does not mention the trinity *(of course the word “trinity” is not in the Bible). See Col 2:8-9 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. This should also be a warning to you in dealing with someone who would “spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit”.

1. The trinity was also not accepted by Peter or the Apostles. See 1 Peter 1:1,2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

 

[Shiranui117]

If I may, I’d like to toss in a question that I saw someone else bring up on another website, and I’d like to know how to respond.

How do we make sense of the following verses in terms of the Trinity?

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’”

Revelations 3:12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.

^Wouldn’t each of these prove detrimental, or at least damaging, to the Trinitarian position, and be more suggestive of Arianism? How would we make sense of Jesus calling the Father “My God” when Jesus is Himself also God, one of the Trinity?

 

[Trebor135]

Shiranui–I’m not able to address your concerns, but would recommend going through the works of St. Athenasius against Arianism. For all we know, the same objections may have been raised and answered seventeen centuries ago!

(I really need to get a hold of an icon of that ancient defender of the trinity…)

 

[FireFromHeaven]

I continued the conversation and another Muslim said this. How do I answer? It is long.

This is how the discussion went:

I said that Christians don’t have an Isnad (chain of transmission).

LUX IN TENEBRIS:

“Now Christians do have a detailed isnad, but not of what you would expect. We have a detailed isnad for Apostolic succession, i.e. the Bishops that succeeded the Apostles. This isnad was used to combat early gnostic heresies, which claimed a secret knowledge from the apostles. The importance is that it does show a connnection to the past. Christ promised He would be with His church till the end of time, and that He would send the Holy Spirit to guide and protect her, so we know the Church that is built on the Apostles is free from error, and this is by Divine protection.”

My response:

"There exists confusion regarding the chronological order of the Popes and their actual indentities.

All the ancient records of the Roman bishops which have been handed down to us by St. Irenaeus, Julius Africanus, St. Hippolytus, Eusebius, also the Liberian catalogue of 354, place the name of Linus directly after that of the Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter. These records are traced back to a list of the Roman bishops which existed in the time of Pope Eleutherus (about 174-189), when Irenaeus wrote his book “Adversus haereses”. As opposed to this testimony, we cannot accept as more reliable Tertullian’s assertion, which unquestionably places St. Clement (De praescriptione, xxii) after the Apostle Peter, as was also done later by other Latin scholars (Jerome, Illustrious Men 15). The Roman list in Irenaeus has undoubtedly greater claims to historical authority.

**The second successor of St. Peter. Whether he was the same as Cletus, who is also called Anencletus as well as Anacletus, has been the subject of endless discussion. Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, Optatus, use both names indifferently as of one person. Tertullian omits him altogether. To add to the confusion, the order is different. Thus Irenaeus has Linus, Anacletus, Clement; whereas Augustine and Optatus put Clement before Anacletus. On the other hand, the “Catalogus Liberianus”, the “Carmen contra Marcionem” and the “Liber Pontificalis”, all most respectable for their antiquity, make Cletus and Anacletus distinct from each other; while the “Catalogus Felicianus” even sets the latter down as a Greek, the former as a Roman.

According to Tertullian, writing c. 199, the Roman Church claimed that Clement was ordained by St. Peter (De Praescript., xxxii), and St. Jerome tells us that in his time “most of the Latins” held that Clement was the immediate successor of the Apostle (Illustrious Men 15). St. Jerome himself in several other places follows this opinion, but here he correctly states that Clement was the fourth pope. The early evidence shows great variety. **

This information is from the Catholic Encyclopedia. If there is one word that can summarize this Apostolic succession, it is - confusion. For any Muslim or anybody who really isn’t familiar with this information, this talk is regarding the first Popes that came after Peter the Apostle who is said to have been the disciple of Jesus (peace be upon him). It is indeed a sad state of affairs when the chronological order and even identities are put into question.

I’ll give an analogy from the Islamic succession of the Khilafah. It indeed would be a sad state of affairs if Muslims were not certain who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon). What would it sound like to you if people were saying that Abu Bakr was the first, others were saying Umar was actually the first and then others that Uthman was the first. And to make matters even more laughable people wouldn’t even be sure regarding the identity of Uthman, some would be saying that he was actually Ali and some saying that he was Arab and others that he was actually Persian. And to top it off, people would have varying lists with some having Umar first followed by Abu Bakr and others with Uthman followed by Umar. Obviously this analogy is not really all that great because everybody unanimously agrees that Abu Bakr was the Caliph after the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him), followed by Umar, followed by Uthman, followed by Ali and their biographies are well known(may God be pleased with them all), but it does show how obviously ridiculous it is when the order of Popes and their identities are disputed . And Lux, don’t try to pull out the Shia card and say that there is confusion since their error deals with theology and who ought to have been Caliph, not with actual history.

So you see, this is why I really don’t give Apostolic Succession much credit because obviously there exists a great amount of confusion."

The same can repeated for all the Gospels. They cannot be traced back to their authors.

We consider the mainstream Gospels in the same way that modern Christians consider Apocrypha, i.e. they are not valid works, they were not written by the people whom they are claimed to be written by, they cannot be traced back to the original authors.

 

[Ismael]

I was debating with a muslim when she told me this (paraphrasing):

Jesus never claimed divinity as the Bible claims. In fact many scholars at Bob Jones University believe key parts of the gospels were changes to support the claim to divinity. Also the bible does not mention the trinity. The trinity was also not accepted by Peter or the Apostles.

Besides asking for evidence, what do I say to this?

He did not say so directly, unless we look at John’s Gospel, but often does things that is like saying "I am God’ in the synoptics

When he forgives the sins of the paralized man for example. For a I certury Jew it’s like saying ‘I am God’ since God alone can forgive sins.

So even without John, who is more explicit regarding Jesus’ divinity, it is clear that Jesus is God, albeit implicitly.

 

[jmcrae]

I continued the conversation and another Muslim said this. How do I answer? It is long.

This is how the discussion went:

I said that Christians don’t have an Isnad (chain of transmission).
… snipped for brevity … ]

So you see, this is why I really don’t give Apostolic Succession much credit because obviously there exists a great amount of confusion."

My answer to this is, when writing fiction, it is essential to be clear.

When writing history, if something was not recorded, or the record was lost, then you note that the record was lost - you don’t just make something up. We know that there were Popes from 33 AD. We know that they were persecuted by both the Romans and the Jews, and that, understandably given the circumstances, they weren’t all that meticulous about record-keeping.

It’s true that there is disagreement about in which order those early Bishops acted as Bishop of Rome and Pope, and that people living 100 years later who were working from purely oral transmission may have gotten their names confused.

This tells us that there was a Papal succession in place, that it was important to those who were living in the immediate period of time afterwards, and that there is no one in that time period who is saying that there was no Pope at all, or that his role was purely honorary. Nor do we see the people of the second century trying to invent the role of Pope from scratch.

They were trying to figure out who occupied it during the first century, and in what order, and at what times, and they disagreed on these details, while agreeing unanimously that there were Popes throughout that period of time, and that he was the acknowledged leader of the Church throughout that whole time.

So we have no reason to doubt the succession, even while we can disagree on whether it was Linus, Cletus, or Anacletus who directly succeeded Peter - or whether these three names all refer to the same individual.

 

[SavedByTheCross]

In discussing this with Muslims, keep in mind that they tend to throw up their strong points as a “necessary criteria” for determining the validity of religion and their weak points as irrelevant to the discussion. Call them on it. So, bravo-they know the exact succession of the khulafah. But why is the “shia card” irrelevant? The khilafa is a requirement of Islam. Why didn’t Muhammad give clear instructions within this “perfect” religion for determining who would be khalifa? Lack of instruction led to war among Muslims and still causes sectarianism to this day. Why didn’t he (or Abu Bakr or Umar) stop Muslims from using different “readings” of the Quran, leaving the mess for Uthman to clean up later. If Islam hinges so strongly on hadith being required to interpret the Quran, why did it take several generations before anyone bothered to collect and create a system to validate them (keeping in mind that part of this process was discarding fabricated ahadith which people believed in and were following for years!)? Beyond the classification of makkan and madinan surahs, why is there disagreement about when verses/chapters of the Quran were written, in what order or in light of which circumstances (again, some Muslims will argue this is irrelevant!)? If confusion about the names of Popes during a time period when Christians were unable to keep clear records is proof against Christian doctrine, why aren’t these examples of confusion proof against Islam? The fact of the matter is that real history is chaotic. Things don’t always get recorded in a way that is most beneficial to the following generations. Pretending that Islam was delivered by Muhammad all neatly wrapped in a perfect package for all Muslims to follow is self-delusion. The problem is they are comparing the real history of Christianity, warts and all, to a pie-in-the-sky history of Islam, and then pretending that this results in them winning the debate.

I continued the conversation and another Muslim said this. How do I answer? It is long.

This information is from the Catholic Encyclopedia. If there is one word that can summarize this Apostolic succession, it is - confusion. For any Muslim or anybody who really isn’t familiar with this information, this talk is regarding the first Popes that came after Peter the Apostle who is said to have been the disciple of Jesus (peace be upon him). It is indeed a sad state of affairs when the chronological order and even identities are put into question.

I’ll give an analogy from the Islamic succession of the Khilafah. It indeed would be a sad state of affairs if Muslims were not certain who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon). What would it sound like to you if people were saying that Abu Bakr was the first, others were saying Umar was actually the first and then others that Uthman was the first. And to make matters even more laughable people wouldn’t even be sure regarding the identity of Uthman, some would be saying that he was actually Ali and some saying that he was Arab and others that he was actually Persian. And to top it off, people would have varying lists with some having Umar first followed by Abu Bakr and others with Uthman followed by Umar. Obviously this analogy is not really all that great because everybody unanimously agrees that Abu Bakr was the Caliph after the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him), followed by Umar, followed by Uthman, followed by Ali and their biographies are well known(may God be pleased with them all), but it does show how obviously ridiculous it is when the order of Popes and their identities are disputed . And Lux, don’t try to pull out the Shia card and say that there is confusion since their error deals with theology and who ought to have been Caliph, not with actual history.

So you see, this is why I really don’t give Apostolic Succession much credit because obviously there exists a great amount of confusion."

The same can repeated for all the Gospels. They cannot be traced back to their authors.

We consider the mainstream Gospels in the same way that modern Christians consider Apocrypha, i.e. they are not valid works, they were not written by the people whom they are claimed to be written by, they cannot be traced back to the original authors.

 

[Buddyroe]

It is not profitable to debate those (using a false gospel) who oppose Christ on their terms.

The essential nature of God (Father, Jesus, Holy Ghost) is well established in scripture and by experience. First establish who is God as truth such that you understand Him by your own confession, proclaim that truth by sacred scripture, confession of faith, and then by history. There is no shortage of truth in scripture or history; may I ask if there is a shortcoming in your confession of faith? If so you are easy game for any religionist be they Moony, Mormon, or Muslim.

If I may, I’d like to toss in a question that I saw someone else bring up on another website, and I’d like to know how to respond.

How do we make sense of the following verses in terms of the Trinity?

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’”

Revelations 3:12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.

^Wouldn’t each of these prove detrimental, or at least damaging, to the Trinitarian position, and be more suggestive of Arianism? How would we make sense of Jesus calling the Father “My God” when Jesus is Himself also God, one of the Trinity?

 

[Trebor135]

It is not profitable to debate those (using a false gospel) who oppose Christ on their terms.

The essential nature of God (Father, Jesus, Holy Ghost) is well established in scripture and by experience. First establish who is God as truth such that you understand Him by your own confession, proclaim that truth by sacred scripture, confession of faith, and then by history. There is no shortage of truth in scripture or history; may I ask if there is a shortcoming in your confession of faith? If so you are easy game for any religionist be they Moony, Mormon, or Muslim.

Christians mustn’t allow themselves to be put on the defensive when discussing faith with Muslims all the time. Our side must kindly pose tough questions to theirs and politely insist on real answers.

But, if we hope to show our interlocutors that the New Testament nowhere contradicts and frequently supports the trinity and incarnation, the passages that Shiranui brought up call for explanation.