The Book Which is Most being read:Qur'an

[GUNNER7070]

You give verses from the quran on what Jesus said, but he did not speak Arabic. As you mentioned Jesus spoke Aramaic, so that translation could of be changed as well.
Some accounts that Arabic wasn’t spoken until the 5th or 6th century. So how is this even possible?

Hello Jimmy.
I can not believe how many posts that I have missed and I need to catch up reading.
But I am afraid that might take some time.

I have a quick question if you do not mind me asking, and it is not related to the current topic.
Do you intentionally write some words without capitalizing the first letter?
And if so could you please tell me the reason?

 

[jimkhong]

What does reading a book in a particular language have to do with being correct? The Koran is printed in many lanquages. I also take exception to you saying all Muslims read the Koran in Arabic. I doubt Muslims in southeast Asia do…particularly the less educated.

Haha, a bit of Islamic education won’t go amiss here I guess.

Muslims in South east Asia do read the Quran in Arabic. Doesn’t mean they know what it means though. So, a better word is probably ‘recite’ rather than ‘read’. Muslim children expected to recite the entire Quran by heart - in a foreign language. Understanding the language is important but considered secondary to being able to repeat each of the 77,439 Arabic words. In Ramadan, there are even Quran recital competitions: I presume the judges understand Arabic, I suspect at least some of the competitors do not understand Arabic, I know almost all the audience do not understand Arabic - to them it just sounds beautiful.

Muslims believe that the word of God was revealed to Mohammad in a cave by the angel Gabriel (Muslim name: Jibril). Muslims try to prove that the Quran was not written by Mohammad by believing that he was illiterate. There are many Muslim & non-Muslim sources, however, that indicate his literacy (among the less technical: (i) he was a merchant - not easy to be an successful illiterate merchant, (ii) his uncle who brought him up loved him as his own and all his cousins are acknowledged to be literate). Also the word in the Quran used to describe his illiteracy could also be interpreted to mean ‘not having their own book’ (ie., a people not having a written revelation like the Jews have the Torah), which the Arabs at that time did not.

So, if Mohammad did not write the Quran, then it must have been written by God himself. Muslims believe that the Quran is a earthly copy of a book that exists in heaven, written by the Hand of God himself, no less. If God himself is the direct author of the Quran (note; direct, not indirect via people, like with the Bible), then no word of God can be changed. The only authentic Quran is an Arabic Quran. Not just Arabic, but 7th century Arabic and not just 7th century Arabic but 7th century Arabic of the Qureshi dialect, which is the tribe of Mohammad. So, any translation of the Quran MUST have an Arabic text next to it for it to be considered an authentic Quran.

So, apparently God was not an Englishman, but a 7th century Arab of the Qureshi tribe, and to understand him, all humanity must understand 7th century Qureshi Arabic. I guess it is a lot simpler than having a Christian God with an instant translation capability to be able to speak to all humanity, and ‘each of us hear it in his own language’.

 

[jimkhong]

The revelation which Jesus lived was translated into Greek. So can you make it sure that either the original revelation was saved or not through translation?

Even with that situation Bible do not conflict with Qur’an but misinterpretation of Bible do.

What is Gospel? Gospel is life of Jesus. God had revealed Jesus and Jesus performed that revelation through His life. His life was to preach people and to point the straight morally way. The revelation was in body of Jesus but body of Jesus was not revelation. The revelation is from God and the revelation into body of Jesus had accreted so strongly with body. That is becasue of that someone thought Jesus is the revelation or God himself. But Jesus was not God himself but God was as if inside into body of Jesus. And Jesus was supported by Holy Spirit. That is explained in Bible:

10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. John 14.

And also Jesus was taught Torah and had authority to supersede some verses of Torah.

So the problem is that could writers of Gospel successed to record revelation(life of Jesus) properly?

Perhaps, here it may be helpful to explain some Muslim beliefs that informs hasantas’ understanding of the Bible. Unfortunately because of his biased closed mind and his intentions (it is not part of an inter-religious understanding but he is just trying to prove Islam is superior to Christianity), he is unable to escape from the following misconception.

Islam belief is that the Quran is written by God himself and thus, cannot be changed. Therefore the only authentic Quran is an Arabic Quran (see my previous post in the same thread). So, for the Gospels to be translated from its source language would be (to a Muslim) a sacrilege for changing the word of God.

Also, the Muslims have two levels of scriptures. First there is the Quran, which is written by God himself and is the ultimate benchmark against which everything else is measured to determine authenticity. Secondly, there are the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Hadiths are stories to illustrate the way the Prophet implemented the Quran while the Sunnah is considered the biography of the Prophet. Hadiths number 30,000 and each need to be validated against the Quran to determine authenticity. Different scholars therefore have different classifications of authenticity, ranging from sahih (authentic) to mawdu (fabricated), depending on how much they agree with the Quran, or contradict it.

Now, the Muslims see the Gospels as either stories about Jesus or the biography of Jesus. Therefore, the Gospels are at the same level as the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Similarly, parts of the Pentateuch would be the Hadiths & the Sunnahs for Moses. The Bible is therefore not at the same level as the Quran and would need to be validated against the Quran for authenticity as the Muslims have done with the Hadiths.

I hope this explains how Muslims like hasantas view the Gospels. You see, Muslims are in a conundrum. They claim that they supplant Christianity. Which means their scriptures are more authentic than Christian scriptures. But their scriptures differ from Christian scriptures. So, if their scriptures are authentic, then Christian scriptures must have been falsified. But how does something which came earlier (the Bible) falsify something that came later (the Quran). So, the myth of an earlier authentic scriptures which the Jews & Christians falsified emerged.

Muslims believe in four messengers (rasul: these are nabi (prophets, who were sent by God) who delivered written revelations. They were Musa (Moses), with the Torah; Daud (David) with the Zabur (interpreted as the Psalms); Isa (Jesus) with the Gospel (note the singular) and Mohammad with the Quran. Other traditions also include Adam and Ibrahim (Abraham) who were both given scrolls by God. The Torah and the Gospel mentioned here are not the same as those in the Bible today because those in the Bible have been falsified. This stance allows Muslims to accept that the Torah and the Gospels have some elements which are authentic but as a whole cannot be accepted.

I have not been able to trace the nature of the falsification. Some have pointed to the translation of the Bible from the original language as the falsification involved. Some question how can there be four Gospels (after all, Mohammad had only one Sunnah). I have also often asked before we start any debate for a list of which verses in our Gospels have been falsified but has never received any. So, I endure the frustrations of the false verses changing from one debate to another to suit the debater.

As always, none of the falsifications or the existence of an earlier authentic written revelations have been backed up by facts. They seem to be true because only the Quran is authentic and so anything that contradicts the Quran has to be false.

 

[jimkhong]

Oh, and a word about why only one Gospel. It would seem that Mohammad’s understanding of the Christian scriptures is not from any supernatural coaching but from a Christian priest by the name of Waraqa bin Neufal. Waraqa was an uncle (other sources gave other similar family relationships) of Khatijah, Mohammad’s first wife. Mohammad has often declared Waraqa as an expert in Christian and Jewish scriptures. Waraqa was also the first person that Khatijah and Mohammad went to after Mohammad’s encounter with the angel Jibril in the cave at Hira - he must obviously have great influence over Mohammad. Waraqa went on to declare the encounter as divine and Mohammad as an authentic messenger.

So, who was Waraqa? Muslims held that he was an Assyrian while most non-Muslim sources state he was an Ebionite. What difference does it make? The Assyrian Church still exists today, headed by the Patriarch of Babylon. The Catholic Church has recently declared that no significant doctrinal difference exists with this ancient church. I would think that Waraqa is more likely to be an Ebionite, a heretical Chriistian group which is extinct today. Ebionites are like a halfway house between Judaism and Christianity. They believe in Jesus as messiah but not the Son of God. Therefore, they hold that Jesus did not die on the cross (to say so would have to accept Jesus’ divinity) and he was exchanged for someone else before the crucifixion. Ebionites have a strong adherence to the Torah and the need for loyalty to the Law. All these are the same view that Muslims have today: they call Jesus the messiah (but do not understand it in the same way that Christians understand the term), claim he did not die on the cross, have a strong adherence to the letter of the Shariah Law.

Now, the Ebionites only have one Gospel, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (nothing to do with the canonical Gospel of Matthew). So, if Mohammad understanding of Christian scriptures came from Waraqa, then it is no surprise why he referred to a singular Gospel and not four.

After 14 centuries none of these is backed up by hard evidence and one can call my thoughts here as speculations. But then neither do the other side have any hard evidence that will stand up in a court of law. So, if neither of us have hard evidence, at least my exposition here explains things that Muslims do not bother to explain.

While we are here, just to share with you some parallels between the Quranic account of Jesus and the heretical Infancy Gospel of the Arabs. Muslims claim that the Gospel of the Arabs came after the time of Mohammad but this is unlikely as after the Muslim conquest of Arabia, the incredible religious diversity in Arabia stopped (there were many many pagan groups, catholic-orthodox bishops, Jews, and many many heretical Christian groups seeking refuge outside the Roman empire before the Muslim conquest). Most scholars placed the Gospel of the Arabs (which incidentally was an Arabic translation/edit of the heretical 3rd century Infancy Gospel of Thomas, not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas of the Gnostic fame) in Arabia by the 5th century.

The stories about Jesus in the Quran, not found in the canonical Gospels but found in the Infancy Gospel of the Arabs include the story of the clay birds (the child Jesus made birds out of clay, breathed into them and made them fly), and the baby Jesus speaking in the cradle (that he was sent by God; in the Gospel: for salvation of the world; in the Quran: as a prophet with revelation - more consistent with Islamic doctrine, I guess). Does this provide evidence of the heretical Christian sources for Mohammad’s understanding of the Christian scriptures?

You decide.

The abject lesson I guess that if we Christians have been much more united than the state that Mohammad found us in his days, and had managed to explain the catholic-orthodox teachings of the Church, would the history of the world be different?

 

[jimkhong]

Shortly after muhammad’s death, the muslim Uthman ordered all sets of the quran manuscripts to be destroyed except the codex of Zaid. Why? Is it because Zaid’s copy was better? If so, how do we know? Did differences in the copies arise so quickly that discrepancies were evident, and Uthman recognized the need for a standardized copy lest islam suffer division?

You know, some pre-Othmanic manuscripts did survive. Some were found in Sanaa in Yemen. Actually, they were overwritten by the Othmanic Quran but by the grace of modern technology, the underlying scripts were uncovered.

Amazingly, to me, most of the differences were minor placements of words and punctuation, with some usage of different words within the same sentence structure. Nothing of the order of wholesale changes like in apocryphal Gospels. According to experts, only “a small fraction of the variants do make a difference in meaning.”

From Othman’s decree, we get the idea that the revelation personally written by the Hand of God cannot be changed. Othman’s committee agreed on the point that only the Qureshi dialect is the authentic revelation of God. And as Islam spread, it goes together with the idea that only the Quran in 7th century Qureshi Arabic is authentic. With that emerged the authority of experts with knowledge of classical Arabic to be the only acknowledged authority to interpret the Quran.

I guess everyone has to decide for himself/herself whether such view is consistent with a religion with a universal message that is equally evident to all peoples of the world.

 

[MartinJordan]

Perhaps, here it may be helpful to explain some Muslim beliefs that informs hasantas’ understanding of the Bible. Unfortunately because of his biased closed mind and his intentions (it is not part of an inter-religious understanding but he is just trying to prove Islam is superior to Christianity), he is unable to escape from the following misconception.

Islam belief is that the Quran is written by God himself and thus, cannot be changed. Therefore the only authentic Quran is an Arabic Quran (see my previous post in the same thread). So, for the Gospels to be translated from its source language would be (to a Muslim) a sacrilege for changing the word of God.

Also, the Muslims have two levels of scriptures. First there is the Quran, which is written by God himself and is the ultimate benchmark against which everything else is measured to determine authenticity. Secondly, there are the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Hadiths are stories to illustrate the way the Prophet implemented the Quran while the Sunnah is considered the biography of the Prophet. Hadiths number 30,000 and each need to be validated against the Quran to determine authenticity. Different scholars therefore have different classifications of authenticity, ranging from sahih (authentic) to mawdu (fabricated), depending on how much they agree with the Quran, or contradict it.

Now, the Muslims see the Gospels as either stories about Jesus or the biography of Jesus. Therefore, the Gospels are at the same level as the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Similarly, parts of the Pentateuch would be the Hadiths & the Sunnahs for Moses. The Bible is therefore not at the same level as the Quran and would need to be validated against the Quran for authenticity as the Muslims have done with the Hadiths.

I hope this explains how Muslims like hasantas view the Gospels. You see, Muslims are in a conundrum. They claim that they supplant Christianity. Which means their scriptures are more authentic than Christian scriptures. But their scriptures differ from Christian scriptures. So, if their scriptures are authentic, then Christian scriptures must have been falsified. But how does something which came earlier (the Bible) falsify something that came later (the Quran). So, the myth of an earlier authentic scriptures which the Jews & Christians falsified emerged.

Muslims believe in four messengers (rasul: these are nabi (prophets, who were sent by God) who delivered written revelations. They were Musa (Moses), with the Torah; Daud (David) with the Zabur (interpreted as the Psalms); Isa (Jesus) with the Gospel (note the singular) and Mohammad with the Quran. Other traditions also include Adam and Ibrahim (Abraham) who were both given scrolls by God. The Torah and the Gospel mentioned here are not the same as those in the Bible today because those in the Bible have been falsified. This stance allows Muslims to accept that the Torah and the Gospels have some elements which are authentic but as a whole cannot be accepted.

I have not been able to trace the nature of the falsification. Some have pointed to the translation of the Bible from the original language as the falsification involved. Some question how can there be four Gospels (after all, Mohammad had only one Sunnah). I have also often asked before we start any debate for a list of which verses in our Gospels have been falsified but has never received any. So, I endure the frustrations of the false verses changing from one debate to another to suit the debater.

As always, none of the falsifications or the existence of an earlier authentic written revelations have been backed up by facts. They seem to be true because only the Quran is authentic and so anything that contradicts the Quran has to be false.

What about John the Baptist? Isn’t he in the Quran? What’s the story of his importance?

MJ

 

[jimkhong]

What about John the Baptist? Isn’t he in the Quran? What’s the story of his importance?

MJ

Hi Martin

He is. John the Baptist is Yahya in the Quran. (Another in the long line of familiar Muslim name with a Biblical origin) In the Quran, he is called to be steadfast to the Book - again in line with the Islamic tenet of being true to the written revelation of God.

Muslim interpretation of John in the Bible goes of course well beyond Biblical critical scholarship. He is various seen as:

• the precursor of Mohammad, not of Jesus
• the superior of Jesus as he baptised Jesus (even though Quran clearly states that Jesus is second ranked, being one of 4 messengers while John is one of 25 prophets)
• the doubts that John had of Jesus (even though the Biblical John the Baptist was at one point doubtful of Jesus messiahship, while the Quran did call Jesus the messiah - meaning that that if John doubted Jesus’s messiahship, then he was wrong from a Quranic point of view)

It is interesting that there is much in Islamic scholarship trying to debunk the Bible but in the process, they contradict their own scriptures in their haste. Which is why I usually debate Muslims not using the Bible but with the Quran, which is enough the show up the contradictions.

Having said that, many Muslims are nice people

 

[MartinJordan]

Hi Martin

He is. John the Baptist is Yahya in the Quran. (Another in the long line of familiar Muslim name with a Biblical origin) In the Quran, he is called to be steadfast to the Book - again in line with the Islamic tenet of being true to the written revelation of God.

Muslim interpretation of John in the Bible goes of course well beyond Biblical critical scholarship. He is various seen as:

• the precursor of Mohammad, not of Jesus
• the superior of Jesus as he baptised Jesus (even though Quran clearly states that Jesus is second ranked, being one of 4 messengers while John is one of 25 prophets)
• the doubts that John had of Jesus (even though the Biblical John the Baptist was at one point doubtful of Jesus messiahship, while the Quran did call Jesus the messiah - meaning that that if John doubted Jesus’s messiahship, then he was wrong from a Quranic point of view)

It is interesting that there is much in Islamic scholarship trying to debunk the Bible but in the process, they contradict their own scriptures in their haste. Which is why I usually debate Muslims not using the Bible but with the Quran, which is enough the show up the contradictions.

Having said that, many Muslims are nice people

Tks Jim.

More and more it seems that there is an ahistorical aspect to Islam that is most interesting at best and heretical at worst. All due respect to the nice Muslims that I’ve also encountered .

MJ

 

[JimmyDFG]

Oh, and a word about why only one Gospel. It would seem that Mohammad’s understanding of the Christian scriptures is not from any supernatural coaching but from a Christian priest by the name of Waraqa bin Neufal. Waraqa was an uncle (other sources gave other similar family relationships) of Khatijah, Mohammad’s first wife. Mohammad has often declared Waraqa as an expert in Christian and Jewish scriptures. Waraqa was also the first person that Khatijah and Mohammad went to after Mohammad’s encounter with the angel Jibril in the cave at Hira - he must obviously have great influence over Mohammad. Waraqa went on to declare the encounter as divine and Mohammad as an authentic messenger.

So, who was Waraqa? Muslims held that he was an Assyrian while most non-Muslim sources state he was an Ebionite. What difference does it make? The Assyrian Church still exists today, headed by the Patriarch of Babylon. The Catholic Church has recently declared that no significant doctrinal difference exists with this ancient church. I would think that Waraqa is more likely to be an Ebionite, a heretical Chriistian group which is extinct today. Ebionites are like a halfway house between Judaism and Christianity. They believe in Jesus as messiah but not the Son of God. Therefore, they hold that Jesus did not die on the cross (to say so would have to accept Jesus’ divinity) and he was exchanged for someone else before the crucifixion. Ebionites have a strong adherence to the Torah and the need for loyalty to the Law. All these are the same view that Muslims have today: they call Jesus the messiah (but do not understand it in the same way that Christians understand the term), claim he did not die on the cross, have a strong adherence to the letter of the Shariah Law.

Now, the Ebionites only have one Gospel, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (nothing to do with the canonical Gospel of Matthew). So, if Mohammad understanding of Christian scriptures came from Waraqa, then it is no surprise why he referred to a singular Gospel and not four.

After 14 centuries none of these is backed up by hard evidence and one can call my thoughts here as speculations. But then neither do the other side have any hard evidence that will stand up in a court of law. So, if neither of us have hard evidence, at least my exposition here explains things that Muslims do not bother to explain.

While we are here, just to share with you some parallels between the Quranic account of Jesus and the heretical Infancy Gospel of the Arabs. Muslims claim that the Gospel of the Arabs came after the time of Mohammad but this is unlikely as after the Muslim conquest of Arabia, the incredible religious diversity in Arabia stopped (there were many many pagan groups, catholic-orthodox bishops, Jews, and many many heretical Christian groups seeking refuge outside the Roman empire before the Muslim conquest). Most scholars placed the Gospel of the Arabs (which incidentally was an Arabic translation/edit of the heretical 3rd century Infancy Gospel of Thomas, not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas of the Gnostic fame) in Arabia by the 5th century.

The stories about Jesus in the Quran, not found in the canonical Gospels but found in the Infancy Gospel of the Arabs include the story of the clay birds (the child Jesus made birds out of clay, breathed into them and made them fly), and the baby Jesus speaking in the cradle (that he was sent by God; in the Gospel: for salvation of the world; in the Quran: as a prophet with revelation - more consistent with Islamic doctrine, I guess). Does this provide evidence of the heretical Christian sources for Mohammad’s understanding of the Christian scriptures?

You decide.

The abject lesson I guess that if we Christians have been much more united than the state that Mohammad found us in his days, and had managed to explain the catholic-orthodox teachings of the Church, would the history of the world be different?

I find this very interesting. Since reading your comment I’ve done some reading on Waraqa bin Neufal. May I ask you what are your thoughts on muhammad being the “Advocate” Jesus mention about?

 

[jimkhong]

I find this very interesting. Since reading your comment I’ve done some reading on Waraqa bin Neufal. May I ask you what are your thoughts on muhammad being the “Advocate” Jesus mention about?

I am not the doctrinal expert but I think the Christian view is very clear: The Advocate is the Holy Spirit and that position has been held by the Christian Church from the earliest days and all Churches today, without significant objections (at least none that I am aware of).

The view by some Muslims that the Advocate is Mohammad is very much a Muslim revisionist view, which serves the purpose of fitting convenient Biblical passages into the Muslim narrative. I believe such a view is not an orthodox Muslim view and only emerged relatively recently: I guess 20th century.

The verses in Jn about the Advocate teaching us about the Father may fit in with the Muslim view of Mohammad bringing Christian’s understanding of God to completion but the other verses relating to the Advocate’s role as the comforter and as our advocate before the Father does not fit into Islamic tenets of faith. If anything, Muslim believes that Jesus is the one who judges not Mohammad.

 

[jimkhong]

I find this very interesting. Since reading your comment I’ve done some reading on Waraqa bin Neufal.

One interesting word of note: In Wikipedia, Waraqa is an Assyrian. But this is from an edit done about two years ago. Prior to the edit, he was an Ebionite. So was this from a Muslim editor?

I find also of late, that many of the more recent Muslim postings on Waraqa in most websites were written defensively with the Christian views on Waraqa in mind. Btw, Christian views on Waraqa has emerged from 19th century, maybe earlier.

Some Muslims today get rather sensitive over what they see as the influence of the Christian Waraqa over Mohammad (to Muslims, Christian is Christian: denomination or even heresy is irrelevant: hence Waraqa is Christian even if heretical). It wasn’t like this before: Muslims in centuries past used to revel in Waraqa’s influence over Mohammad as they wish to emphasise their continuity from Christian legacy as Christians revel in our Jewish legacy. Post-colonial times though, some Muslims see any Christian legacy as something to be purged, leading them to lose a lot of their heritage of Jesus traditions.

One example of a threat was some Christian speculations why Mohammad was monogamous with Khatijah. Muslims say that he was very loyal to her and many Muslim scholars also acknowledged that many of Mohammad’s 10+ marriages after Khatijah’s death (scholars disagree on the number but yes, the number exceed the normal Muslim 4 - apparently Mohammad had an exemption from God) was motivated by political alliances and/or pity for widows.

Now, here is the interesting theory: Khatijah and Waraqa lived in Mecca. Khatijah died and Mohammad married two wives (only one consummated and the other was only consummated later as the bride was only aged 6-7 at marriage). Mohammad then fled to Medina where his many many other marriages followed. (Up to this point, it is all factual agreed to by Muslims)

After Khatijah’s death, Waraqa either died (we do not know his date of death) or his influence waned. His influence definitely ended when Mohammad migrated to Medina as there was no record that Waraqa joined him or even that Waraqa became a Muslim.

There is a difference between Mohammad in Mecca and Mohammad in Medina. Other than the fact that he was monogamous in Mecca (ignoring the unconsummated child marriage), ie faithful to Christian concepts of marriage but was ultra-polygamous in Medina, ie no longer following Christian concepts of marriage.

The suras (chapters in the Quran) written/revealed in Mecca are different from the Medina suras in that the Mecca suras tend to be tolerant of Jews and Christians while those warning Muslims not to trust/deal with/befriend/etc Jews and Christians tend to be the Medina suras.

So are all these evidence of Waraqa’s moderating influence on Mohammad while he was in Mecca which was replaced by other influences while he was in Medina? We may never know but you can see why Muslims nowadays can get sensitive over the subject of Waraqa. It will also explain why you sometimes get two very different narratives on Waraqa on Muslims websites: (i) the traditional view praising Waraqa and (ii) the more polemical view written in defense against Christian speculations.

Again, if Waraqa was an orthodox Catholic, would the history of the world be different?

 

[MartinJordan]

The verses in Jn about the Advocate teaching us about the Father may fit in with the Muslim view of Mohammad bringing Christian’s understanding of God to completion but the other verses relating to the Advocate’s role as the comforter and as our advocate before the Father does not fit into Islamic tenets of faith. If anything, Muslim believes that Jesus is the one who judges not Mohammad.

If Muslims say that the Gospel of Matthew is the “Gospel” the Quran talks about , why are they bothering with John’s Gospel?

MJ

 

[jimkhong]

If Muslims say that the Gospel of Matthew is the “Gospel” the Quran talks about , why are they bothering with John’s Gospel?

MJ

There has been a massive change to Muslims’ view of Christianity in the early days and now.

Muslims didn’t know that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was non-canonical. If they accepted Waraqa as an expert in Christianity, they would have assumed that whatever he read as scriptures was the Christian scriptures. Up until the times of the Crusades, serious Muslim scholarship of Christianity was rather limited. Their view of Christianity was that this is the old religion that they are supplanting. This is backed up by the barbarism of the Western Christians. So, why would Muslims bother to study a dying religion of uncivilised people? Study of Christianity was relegated to the level of a study of a curio like some Victorian study of Papuan cannibal rituals. St Francis of Assisi’s encounter with the Sultan of Egypt was probably the first inter-religious dialogue to take place on an equal basis.

During colonial times, a confident, ‘civilizing’ and imperial Christianity meets with a inward-looking, insecure and less educated Islam of the dying Ottoman Empire. Christians now study Muslim doctrines as curios. Christians then raised serious theological and logical issues with Muslim doctrines but none of these were discussed with the Muslim ulamas as they were considered intellectually inferior to discuss such matters.

Then the internet happened and suddenly many Muslims came to realise that Christians had serious theological issues with Muslim doctrines (not all of course, some like hasantas still have the old mentality and cannot understand why we Christians do not accept the view of our intellectually-superior supplanters). So, Muslims start to become circumspect about Christianity and start to read the Bible with the view of debunking certain arguments. This is when they started reading Jn and coming up with the arguments. You can see that there is a certain raw feel to a lot of their arguments, which has not yet matured with the passage of time.

Doesn’t help that there is no central authority in Islam to talk to.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

There has been a massive change to Muslims’ view of Christianity in the early days and now.

Muslims didn’t know that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was non-canonical. If they accepted Waraqa as an expert in Christianity, they would have assumed that whatever he read as scriptures was the Christian scriptures. Up until the times of the Crusades, serious Muslim scholarship of Christianity was rather limited. Their view of Christianity was that this is the old religion that they are supplanting. This is backed up by the barbarism of the Western Christians. So, why would Muslims bother to study a dying religion of uncivilised people? Study of Christianity was relegated to the level of a study of a curio like some Victorian study of Papuan cannibal rituals. St Francis of Assisi’s encounter with the Sultan of Egypt was probably the first inter-religious dialogue to take place on an equal basis.

During colonial times, a confident, ‘civilizing’ and imperial Christianity meets with a inward-looking, insecure and less educated Islam of the dying Ottoman Empire. Christians now study Muslim doctrines as curios. Christians then raised serious theological and logical issues with Muslim doctrines but none of these were discussed with the Muslim ulamas as they were considered intellectually inferior to discuss such matters.

Then the internet happened and suddenly many Muslims came to realise that Christians had serious theological issues with Muslim doctrines (not all of course, some like hasantas still have the old mentality and cannot understand why we Christians do not accept the view of our intellectually-superior supplanters). So, Muslims start to become circumspect about Christianity and start to read the Bible with the view of debunking certain arguments. This is when they started reading Jn and coming up with the arguments. You can see that there is a certain raw feel to a lot of their arguments, which has not yet matured with the passage of time.

Doesn’t help that there is no central authority in Islam to talk to.

I did an about face when reading “Hebrew Gospel of Matthew” because I always thought it was originally in Greek, so looked up in this site pertinent to the subject:

catholic.com/quickquestions/was-matthews-gospel-first-written-in-aramaic-or-hebrew
“This peculiar argument against the long-standing belief that Aramaic (or Hebrew) was the language in which Matthew originally composed his Gospel was first raised in the 16th century by the Dutch theologian and patristics scholar Desiderius Erasmus. He reasoned that, since there is no evidence of an Aramaic or Hebrew original of Matthew’s Gospel, it is futile to argue that the work originally appeared in Aramaic and was subsequently translated into Greek (as most patristics scholars hold).
This is not really much of an argument. It is an argument from silence and can be used just as effectively against the idea that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek, since there are likewise no extant originals of the Gospel in Greek. After all, the earliest manuscripts we have of any of the books of the New Testament are in Greek, yet not a single manuscript is an original. They’re all copies. From the mere fact of Greek manuscripts we can’t conclude that the originals must have been written in Greek yes, there may be a presumption of that, but not actually a proof.”

Offhand, given the tradition of Jews throughout the centuries to read the Tanach in the original Hebrew, notwithstanding the translation into Greek by the Septuagint, I would imagine that Jesus read the Scriptures in Hebrew. It would make sense to me however, that the collected stories about Jesus would be put into the literary language of the time which is after all, what Paul wrote in, Greek.

The rest of what you wrote is very interesting. I happen to be reading William James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience” in which mentions how old gods get supplanted according to the needs of the people at the time. Not quite the same thing, but it is the revisionist spirit operating.

 

[jimkhong]

I did an about face when reading “Hebrew Gospel of Matthew” because I always thought it was originally in Greek, so looked up in this site pertinent to the subject:

catholic.com/quickquestions/was-matthews-gospel-first-written-in-aramaic-or-hebrew
“This peculiar argument against the long-standing belief that Aramaic (or Hebrew) was the language in which Matthew originally composed his Gospel was first raised in the 16th century by the Dutch theologian and patristics scholar Desiderius Erasmus. He reasoned that, since there is no evidence of an Aramaic or Hebrew original of Matthew’s Gospel, it is futile to argue that the work originally appeared in Aramaic and was subsequently translated into Greek (as most patristics scholars hold).
This is not really much of an argument. It is an argument from silence and can be used just as effectively against the idea that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek, since there are likewise no extant originals of the Gospel in Greek. After all, the earliest manuscripts we have of any of the books of the New Testament are in Greek, yet not a single manuscript is an original. They’re all copies. From the mere fact of Greek manuscripts we can’t conclude that the originals must have been written in Greek yes, there may be a presumption of that, but not actually a proof.”

Offhand, given the tradition of Jews throughout the centuries to read the Tanach in the original Hebrew, notwithstanding the translation into Greek by the Septuagint, I would imagine that Jesus read the Scriptures in Hebrew. It would make sense to me however, that the collected stories about Jesus would be put into the literary language of the time which is after all, what Paul wrote in, Greek.

Oh no, that is different. Your point refers to the canonical Gospel of Matthew, not the heretical Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

You see, ever thought why the four Gospels were in the order they were? They were supposed to be in the order when they were written. Then with 19th & 20th century archeological studies, it became obvious that Mk predates Mt. Catholic seminaries began to try to get around the problem by coming up with two versions of Mt - a Greek version that was written after Mk and an Aramaic version written before Mk. So, this preserves the consistency with archeological evidence as well as Church traditions. By now however, this theory has long been discarded and the Church has come to terms that some of its seminary textbooks were incorrect. But I still have some old textbooks in my library with reference to an Aramaic Matthew.

So, the canonical Gospel of Matthew in our Bible was originally written in Greek, and it is different from the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew used by Ebionites, which is not in the Bible. For your information, there are dozens of heretical gospels written in one form or another.

Your last paragraph refers to something else again. The Septuagint is basically the Old Testament used in the Catholic Bible. In Jesus times, Hebrew was no longer an everyday language and was only used for religious purposes. Everyday conversations in Palestine in those days were in Aramaic and Hebrew was only revived as a spoken language in late 19th century when Jews started to return to the Holy Land.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Oh no, that is different. Your point refers to the canonical Gospel of Matthew, not the heretical Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

You see, ever thought why the four Gospels were in the order they were? They were supposed to be in the order when they were written. Then with 19th & 20th century archeological studies, it became obvious that Mk predates Mt. Catholic seminaries began to try to get around the problem by coming up with two versions of Mt - a Greek version that was written after Mk and an Aramaic version written before Mk. So, this preserves the consistency with archeological evidence as well as Church traditions. By now however, this theory has long been discarded and the Church has come to terms that some of its seminary textbooks were incorrect. But I still have some old textbooks in my library with reference to an Aramaic Matthew.

So, the canonical Gospel of Matthew in our Bible was originally written in Greek, and it is different from the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew used by Ebionites, which is not in the Bible. For your information, there are dozens of heretical gospels written in one form or another.

Your last paragraph refers to something else again. The Septuagint is basically the Old Testament used in the Catholic Bible. In Jesus times, Hebrew was no longer an everyday language and was only used for religious purposes. Everyday conversations in Palestine in those days were in Aramaic and Hebrew was only revived as a spoken language in late 19th century when Jews started to return to the Holy Land.

Thanks for the clarification about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. I know about heretical Gospels, or rather those that were not accepted into the canon by various councils. Despite having been translated into Greek in the 3rd Century BC, the Tanach was most probably still being read in synagogues in Hebrew. There is quite a difference between Biblical Hebrew and modern Ivrit although knowing the first from Cheder or Bible school predisposes one to learn the latter easier than folk like me who had to start from scratch.

 

[eddie_too]

i am probably alone in this, but i pity those people who put their faith and trust in an inanimate object such as a book.

 

[jimkhong]

i am probably alone in this, but i pity those people who put their faith and trust in an inanimate object such as a book.

me too! me too!

 

[hasantas]

hasantas, Would not the “look a like jesus” still be dead and still in the tomb?
After allah brought up jesus…how did jesus come back to earth and show himself to the disciples?
Because the “look a like jesus” had died on the cross and in the tomb he would remain. For Jesus himself said in Luke 9:60 "But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
So wouldn’t the look a like still in the tomb?

There are many doubts about that tomb. It is not clear that the look like was buried in that and also there are many darknesses. There are many Christians who have such doubts about a buried Jesus.

Yourself answered that:
"But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Jesus imply let them to bury “look like” but you …

Jesus was disappeared for a time. I think He was taken by angels because He was seen besides angels.

 

[hasantas]

You give verses from the quran on what Jesus said, but he did not speak Arabic. As you mentioned Jesus spoke Aramaic, so that translation could of be changed as well.
Some accounts that Arabic wasn’t spoken until the 5th or 6th century. So how is this even possible?

God knows both Aramaic and Arabic.