Joel's Islam questions answered

[RedRed]

Pit

The site is up now.


Joel

I thaught that many of the books in the old testament bible were based on Babylonian religous beliefs (the flood, being an example).

The gnostic books are a good example of the adulteration of written text. These books were in the bible before editing. I dont have the full details, but even the texts on Matthew, Mark and Luke (I think) were subject to sever 'rewrites'. The gospel of Matthew is definately believed to have been written by a comittee of disciples about 100 years after the events discribed (I am trawling way back to 'A' level religeous studies here!).

Pit
I am in Belfast - is that a Protestant Koran or a Catholic Koran ye be needin????? I couldnt find one!

Regards
RedRed

[RedRed]

Besides, those of the Companions (pbut) who were literate used to keep a written record of several portions of the Holy Qur'an. In this manner, the text of the Holy Qur'an had been preserved in four different ways during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
a) The Holy Prophet (PBUH) had the whole text of the Divine Messages from the beginning to the end committed to writing by the scribes of revelations.
b) Many of the Companions learned the whole text of the Qur'an, every syllable of it, by heart.
c) All the illustrious Companions, without an exception, had memorized at least some portions of the Holy Qur'an, for the simple reason that it was obligatory for them to recite it during worship. An estimate of the number of the illustrious Companions may be obtained from the fact that one hundred and forty thousands Companions had participated in the Last Pilgrimage performed by the Holy Prophet (PBUH).
d) A considerable number of the literate Companions kept a private record of the text of the Qur'an and satisfied themselves as to the purity of their record by reading it out to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

and

Method of preservations of the Quran after the demise of the Prophet:
It is an incontrovertible historical truth that the text of the Holy Qur'an extant today is, syllable for syllable, exactly the same as the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had offered to the world as the Word of God. After the demise of the Holy Prophet, the first Caliph Hadhrat Abu Bakr (PBUH) assembled all the Huffaz and the written records of the Holy Qur'an and with their help had the whole text written in Book form. In the time of Hadhrat 'Uthman (PBUH) copies of this original version were made and officially dispatched to the Capitals of the Islamic World. Two Of these copies exist in the world today, one in Istanbul and the other in Tashkent. Whosoever is so inclined may compare any printed text of the Holy Qur'an with those two copies, he shall find no variation.

This was found at www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/index.htm



Kindest Regards
RedRed

[Wombat]

As for Mohammed meeting Christians, of course it happened. Mohammed was requested by Medina to come and preside as a magistrate and leader, because of the many problems Medina was having with its varied cultural and religious differences.

[Joel]

Here are a few links that can probably do a better job that I can personally of explaining things concerning the Bible. Like I said I'm not the most knowledgeable in this area but I am learning more every day.

The history of the Gospels

http://www.answering-islam.org/Bible/gospelhist.html

Bible Corruption? http://nafeza.com/corup.htm

A "Muslim style" argument for the authenticity of the Gospel http://www.answering-islam.org/Bible/musl.html

Early Muslims did not believe in Bible Corruption http://www.answering-islam.org/Bible/jrwhy.html

Is the Bible REALLY from God? http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp005.htm

Joel

[RedRed]

I thaught I would look into the 'bible corruption' bit and came up with this - from the Vatican...

Old and New Testament Greek.
("Codex Vaticanus", B).

Sec. IV; membr.; mm 270 x 270; pp. [4], 1542.
Vatican City, Vatican Apostolic Library, Vat. gr. 1209.

This celebrated code of the Bible, contains the entire text of the Old and New Testaments, and has been preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library since the beginning of the XV century. The manuscript is not complete; some sections (Gn 1,1-46,28; Sal 106,27-138,6 [= 105,27-137,6]; part of the Letter to the Hebrews and Revelations: the code is in fact interrupted at p. 1518 with Hebrews 9, 14) were reconstructed in the XV century.

The exhibit opens with the testimonies of the Gospels which, alone or within biblical codices, are for us the most ancient stage obtainable of the original, the Greek text in which the writings making up the New Testament were written, or perhaps in some cases immediately translated from Aramaic - as some believe, for example, in the case of Matthew. In this first section, called "Codices antiquissimi...", some of the most venerable Greek manuscripts of the Gospels - the closest to the Word inspiring the evangelists - such as the Chester Beatty Papyrus I of the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin [1], dating back to the end of the 3rd century, and the Codex Vaticanus or B [2], attributed to the 4th century, will be seen.

The bible was edited extensively in the 4th Century. The earliest text in 'Christendom' are transcribed Greek - One thing I wonder, and I am sure some of you guys will know the answer- Do Muslims follow the earlier Bible (including Gnostic books) and do they include the 'epistles', which are not Gospels at all, in the technical sense? I just wondered.

btw, one of the slickest sites I have ever seen - though not optomised for VERY high resolutions

The Vatican:-http://www.vatican.va

[RedRed]

ok their bloody search engine is down..... DOH!!!!

[Joel]

Evidence of Change Before 'Uthman
Why did 'Uthman feel the need to destroy other copies of the Qur'an, unless they contained variants? Why did Ibn Ma'sud refuse to hand over his copy for destruction? How do we know that Uhtman's copy was better than any of the others?

<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap1.html" target=_new>Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 1 - The Initial Collection of the Qur'an Text</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap2.html" target=_new>Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 2 - The Uthmanic Recension of the Qur'an</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap3.html" target=_new>Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 3 - The Codices of ibn Mas`ud and Ubayyibn Ka`b</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Collection/chap2.html" target=_new>from the Hadiths part 2 - the first collection of the Qur'an</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Collection/chap3.html" target=_new>from the Hadiths part 3 - Differences before the 'Uthmanic collection</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Collection/chap4.html" target=_new>from the Hadiths part 4 - the 'Uthmanic collection'</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/distortion.html" target=_new>Distortion in the Qur'an</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/uthman.htm" target=_new>A Contribution of Uthman to the Qur'an</A>
<A HREF="http://www.answering-islam.org/Green/uthman.htm" target=_new>Uthman's standardising of the Qur'an</A>

Joel

[KvHagedorn]

As for Mohammed meeting Christians, of course it happened.

What difference does it make if Mohammed met Christians or not? He is supposedly just quoting the word of God Himself as spoken through Gabriel. And supposedly God calls the idea of God having a son "monstrous." And you are going to explain this away by saying Mohammed never met Christians so he just had the wrong idea? Either (A)Mohammed just quoted the Koran himself with no input from the Almighty, or (B)God himself had the wrong idea, or (C)Christianity is all a bunch of bunk. You pick.

I still choose (A).

[Wombat]

Chill out KvH. I was just responding to Joel, who said

Plus it is a known fact that Mohammud never did meet a true Christian evident by his misconceptions of the Christian belief.

As for your own beliefs. Wonderful. You're obviously not a Muslim. Do you want a cookie?

Personally, I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, but somehow I still manage to let other people have their own faiths without trying to rip them to shreds. You should try it.

[KvHagedorn]

I'm perfectly chilled. Why do you assume I am not? I just made an argument based upon logic. Please don't respond with a personal attack, if you don't mind. Is my quotation in error? Is my logic flawed? I thought this was going to be a reasonable discussion. If so, and you care to, please answer me. I would be glad to elucidate further if you wish.

[KvHagedorn]

I still manage to let other people have their own faiths without trying to rip them to shreds.

I would be glad to allow any faith so long as part of its mandate was not ripping me to shreds..

[Jammrock]

Just thought I'd spell out a few of my viewpoints:

Muslim beliefs - Like pretty much all relegions, Muslims do not agree on everything. This is why there are different groups and sects within Muslims, and Christians, and Jews, and Buddists, and Hindu's, etc... Ask a question between two people of the same relelgion and you're likely to get two different answers (trust me, I do it all the time). It depends on the person's knowledge and devotion as to what type of answer you get. I don't know enough about Islam to answer the questions with a high degree of accuracy, but I have asked Muslim a bit about their faith and I can repeat what they told me.

Jesus Christ in the Muslim faith - The most common belief by Muslims I have heard is that of all the prophets of Allah, Mohammed and Jesus were the two greatest. Jesus is concidered a prophet of great power and worth, but nothing more. Allah loved Jesus more than all (save Mohammed...) and granted his wish to never die, so Allah placed a Jesus look-a-like named Judas on the cross, etc. Jesus' divine claim is obviously not believed, as that would make him much greater than Mohammed.

Translating the Koran - Once again, this is what was explained to me by some old Muslim aquintances. Many ancient languages of the middle east are not flowery or descriptive, like many modern languages. A single word, phrase or sentence can have dozens of different meanings and translations in modern languages that have hundreds of thousands of words. This makes the Koran very difficult to translate in a language, like English, that has 150 common ways to describe how 'good' they feel.

Bible Accuracy - Two words: Human error. No matter how good your intentions are and how careful you are, when you are trascribing 1200 pages of text by hand there is going to be error. The Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls come to mind on this topic. Certain section of the great Isaiah dead sea scroll are so different from the current text that schoars are in heated debate as to which version is more accurate.

What it all boils down to is some people are crazy bastards that feel the need to drag 'God' into their power hungry, crazed life. Whether they truely believe God has told them to do whatever, I can't say. All I know is that whoever is doing these terror attacks on the US is going to receive a holy @$$ kicking.

Jammrock

[Wombat]

KvH,
What faith mandates your destruction? None of those that we have discussed here.

[KvHagedorn]

[2.191] And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter

At least this is the excuse they use...

[Wombat]

Notice the "from whencee you were driven out." Reclaiming lost lands is advocated by many groups, spiritual and secular.

If you want guidelines on how to handle those that don't believe in a certain religion, Moses sets one hell of a standard.


Exodus 32:26-29

[26] then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Who is on the LORD's side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him.
[27] And he said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, `Put every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'"
[28] And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
[29] And Moses said, "Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, that he may bestow a blessing upon you this day."

And for good measure, God follows up with a plague.