I just thought it was an interesting contrast between how the two religions view Divine Revelation.
In Islam, you have in the first instance of Revelation, the Angel Gabriel instructing Muhammad, an illiterate man, to read, and to which Muhammad replied that he did not know how. This illiterate man then began preaching something apparently intended to be written, but his main audience and opponents were also illiterate.
Ubadah ibn As-Samit reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say, “Verily, the first to be created by Allah was the pen. Allah told it to write, so it wrote what will exist until forever.”
Source: Sunan At-Tirmidhi 3319
Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to At-Tirmidhi
This is perhaps why Jews and Christians are referred to as “people of the book”, and why Muslims today expect Jews and Christians to possess scriptures to be free of any textual deficiency, otherwise they must be rejected altogether, regardless of whether the content of Modern Bibles for the most part agree with Ancient Manuscripts or not.
In Christianity, you have the Word of God made flesh, a literate man named Jesus, preaching, not to an audience entirely literate, but his main opponents were definitely literate. Not only that, but he instituted a
Living Magisterium, whom he commanded to
teach all nations, he did not command them to write.
So where does written scripture fit into the Christian view of Revelation? St. John Chrysostom explains:
"*We really shouldn’t need the help of the written texts; we should be able to display such a clean lifestyle, that the grace of the Holy Spirit would act directly onto our hearts. Just as books are inscribed by ink, that is how our hearts should be inscribed by the Spirit. But, since we have distanced ourselves from this grace, let us accept this second alternative with appreciation.
That the previous conditions were much better, is evident in both the Old as well as the New Testaments. In the Old Testament, God didn’t address the patriarchs and the prophets with written texts, but spoke to them directly, because He found their hearts to be pure. But, because the Hebrews sunk into depths of malice, written texts and stone tablets became necessary.
The same applied in the age of the New Testament. The Lord gave the Apostles nothing in writing, but He promised to give them -in place of a text- the grace of the Holy Spirit: “He (the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete) will teach you everything and will remind you of everything that I told you” (John 14:26). Paul had also said that he had received the law, “not on stone tablets, but on the tablets of our fleshy hearts” (Corinthians II, 3:3). But because people were again drawn towards evil, it was necessary to provide reminders in written form.
You must therefore perceive how great an evil it is – even now – that this second medication is not being utilized: by whom? By us, who are supposed to live such pure lives, that we shouldn’t need any written texts.*"
Source:
oodegr.co/english//biblia/parad1/kef1.htm
