Questions about the Quran

[webmaster]

Questions:
#1 What are the first 2 books of the Quran?

#2 Are the First 2 books in the Quran also the First 2 parts given to Muhammad for him to remember in the cave?

#3 Who are the First 2 books in the Quran written to originally and how does this even apply to them? Was not these 2 first parts what he preached to the idol worshippers?

Comments:
1st view
The first 2 books in the Quran was first received by pagans who worshipped idols as gods. In sura:2-4 it speaks about Jesus and Moses. Something that the idol worshippers surely wouldn't have cared or even know about. In sura:2-33 it talks about Adam? This sounds like it was written by a man who wanted approval from the Jews or the Christians. It surely doesn't sound like it was written to convert pagan idol worshippers!

2nd view
If all these pagan idol worshippers did know about the Jesus, Moses, and Adam. Who did they hear it from but preachers preaching the Gospel? If they all rejected the Gospel, which we have prove that Muhammad also did, then the pagan idol worshippers would view the Christians as their enemies. The more Muhammad attacked the Christians with his words the more people would have followed him. But see even in the first 2 sura's it sounds like he is trying to win who? Surely not the pagan idol worshippers but to convert weak minded Christians who don't know no better.

[Lady Fatima]

Peace Webmaster,

What first 2 books are you referring to? The Quran was revealed all the way up to the Prophet's death. Please explain yourself.

Peace and Blessings be to the Believers

[webmaster]

You know exactly what I am talking about.
What was the first 2 sura's given to Muhammad?

[kyas]

Questions:
#1 What are the first 2 books of the Quran?

#2 Are the First 2 books in the Quran also the First 2 parts given to Muhammad for him to remember in the cave?

#3 Who are the First 2 books in the Quran written to originally and how does this even apply to them? Was not these 2 first parts what he preached to the idol worshippers?

I don't think u understand about Quran and Islam... the questions shows it all...

#1 There is only one Quran

#2 There is no such thing... Quran was revealed part by part... not immediately one book...

#3 ... ermm... i don't think i get what u mean...

[fallen]

I don't think u understand about Quran and Islam... the questions shows it all...

#1 There is only one Quran

#2 There is no such thing... Quran was revealed part by part... not immediately one book...

#3 ... ermm... i don't think i get what u mean...

#3 Who are the First 2 books in the Quran written to originally and how does this even apply to them? Was not these 2 first parts what he preached to the idol worshippers?

... ermm... i don't think i get what u mean...


don't think u understand about Quran and Islam

I don't think you understand your own book{Quran}!!!
It obviously shows it by your third answer!!!

Take a look at your book carefully, and respond to this.
[url]http://www.souldevice.org/quran2.htm[/url]

[fallen]

i forgot,oh im sorry for being rude, Hi kyas!

[kyas]

it's ok... we tend to be like that when discussing about religion... hopefully we will discuss things in proper manner...

[kyas]

fallen... i have visited the page u suggested...

personally i am of the opinion that if u really want to discuss the so called 'errors in the Quran', we must raise the issue one by one...

there are tooo many sites that 'expose' the 'errors' and 'contradictions' of the quran... and there are also many sites that claim they have refuted such allegations...

i can also suggest sites that shows 'contradictions' in the bible... together with the sites that answers the accusations...
eg. 'answering islam'... 'answering christianity'... 'submission'... 'faithfreedom.com'... 'faithfreedom.org'... etc...

or just use the google search... key in 'quran contradictions'... enter... or... key in 'bible contradictions'... enter... copy the links and paste...

showing links does not show that we are really sincere in questioning other people's beliefs… hope u understand...

so it is pointless to just provide us with links...

[fallen]

fallen... i have visited the page u suggested...

personally i am of the opinion that if u really want to discuss the so called 'errors in the Quran', we must raise the issue one by one...

there are tooo many sites that 'expose' the 'errors' and 'contradictions' of the quran... and there are also many sites that claim they have refuted such allegations...

i can also suggest sites that shows 'contradictions' in the bible... together with the sites that answers the accusations...
eg. 'answering islam'... 'answering christianity'... 'submission'... 'faithfreedom.com'... 'faithfreedom.org'... etc...

or just use the google search... key in 'quran contradictions'... enter... or... key in 'bible contradictions'... enter... copy the links and paste...

showing links does not show that we are really sincere in questioning other people's beliefs… hope u understand...

so it is pointless to just provide us with links...

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Questions:
#1 What are the first 2 books of the Quran?

#2 Are the First 2 books in the Quran also the First 2 parts given to Muhammad for him to remember in the cave?

#3 Who are the First 2 books in the Quran written to originally and how does this even apply to them? Was not these 2 first parts what he preached to the idol worshippers?

Comments:
1st view
The first 2 books in the Quran was first received by pagans who worshipped idols as gods. In sura:2-4 it speaks about Jesus and Moses. Something that the idol worshippers surely wouldn't have cared or even know about. In sura:2-33 it talks about Adam? This sounds like it was written by a man who wanted approval from the Jews or the Christians. It surely doesn't sound like it was written to convert pagan idol worshippers!

2nd view
If all these pagan idol worshippers did know about the Jesus, Moses, and Adam. Who did they hear it from but preachers preaching the Gospel? If they all rejected the Gospel, which we have prove that Muhammad also did, then the pagan idol worshippers would view the Christians as their enemies. The more Muhammad attacked the Christians with his words the more people would have followed him. But see even in the first 2 sura's it sounds like he is trying to win who? Surely not the pagan idol worshippers but to convert weak minded Christians who don't know no better.

#1 Revelation: Surah 96 (first five verses) and surah 74 (first 7 verses)...there was also a big gap in time between these first two revelations.

#2 No.


About your comments: Since your whole premise is wrong, hilariously so, i am not sure where to begin. And since christians of today, nor anyone else for that matter, have no clue of what Jesus's (peace upon him) teachings in their original language were it is even more difficult to find a point to begin. However, one note of evidence comes from the time. Khadijah (may God be pleased with her) was the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him). She had a cousin named Waraqa bin Naufal who was a very learned Christian. When the Messenger of God, Muhammad, (Pbuh) received the first 5 verses in Chapter 96, the one i mentioned above, she went to tell her cousin Waraqa of this knowing his status as a learned and wise man. On hearing this Waraqa's (he was a christian at this point): "this man is the one who has been prophesied to come (by jesus [ph]) and i wish i could be hear when he and his people are turned out of this city." So then waraqa went to Muhammad (pbuh) and asked him questions and told him that he would be persecuted and Waraqa became a muslim. But the majority of the Meccans were not christian or jewish but they knew of the religions. And No, the Quran was not written to "win over" Jews and Christians...in the Quran it is stated that this is not even the point of it.

#2...you need to read more also of the Quran, you will see that equal weight is given to all those who have an incorrect or skewed belief or unbelief in the Creator of All.

[Believer]

Waraqa was NOT a learned Christian.
Jesus promised to leave us the the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father. He will be with us forever, in us.
Muhammed is very much NOT this Holy Spirit!
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the LORD.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

well how can i expect modern day christians to know or understand or even have the desire to understand Greek...tsk tsk, shame on me. Yes, you are right only in that this is a modern day view, but Christians back in the day did not believe this to be the "Holy Spirit" but rather another messenger. And it goes to show you the divergence of thought that had sprang up in christianity already by this point. The Council of Nicea was not yet barely 300 years old and many recognized it for the fraud that it was and more importantly perpetrated. Really there is no such thing as One christianity....the division in ur ranks not to mention the intellectual crisis abounding is sad enough...and just because the other branches of christianity in the earlier days were "destroyed" doesnt mean they werent correct...so just like Jews dont believe Jesus, peace upon him, was the Christ, so too do modern christians choose to ignore the evidence about Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him.

And don't bash on Waraqa just cuz you don't like Muslims.

But that's another thing i dont get, according to the New Testament, the actual son of God, maybe even God himself if you belive some forms of christianity was JUST walking on earth...and since that wasnt enough to end all the controversy, the SPIRIT had to one day come? I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved. Jesus died for my sins according to you and he put conditions on it? That doesnt seem very fair...the illogic goes on and on.

[Omega]

ismael abdul kareem byrd quote reads:

former north carolina raised pentecostal holiness christian, and now i am muslim

Are you no longer holy? You stated that you were once a holiness Christian???

[Omega]

Sorry for being unwelcome earlier ismael abdul kareem byrd

It is written:- I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 8:24

You wrote:

[/quote]I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved

Actually accrding to the Bible, that is incorrect!
It is written:Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. James 2:19

Are the demons going to be saved? No, and NO! They rejected God in His very presence and followed the way of Lucifer.

The key point is that Jesus is no Longer Lord to the demons which rebelled against God, but Satan is. Furthermore it is written: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

The demons do the bidding of the Wicked One, that is who they serve. You my friend my serve the Lord{Jesus Christ}and accept Him as LORD. But He is not your Lord, Allah is!!!

In the hereafter a false messiah will come to earth claiming that he is"Allah" and will cause all those who dwell upon the earth to worship him as God!!.

As I mentioned earlier, it is again written in prophecy:That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:2-1

Key words:Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.


Jesus Christ is opposed by Satan as God and attempts to exalt himself above God{Jesus} and that which is worshipped{Jesus}

God Bless!

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

ismael abdul kareem byrd quote reads:

former north carolina raised pentecostal holiness christian, and now i am muslim

Are you no longer holy? You stated that you were once a holiness Christian???

I sure was, my grandfather is a fire and brimstone preacher, and i have three uncles who do the same, my father is a sunday school teacher. I sang in church those old timey gospel songs and i loved Jesus just like everyone told me to

[Omega]

Hello again MR.ismael abdul kareem byrd!

May I ask you why you left your old faith and are now muslim?
Why not go in the footsteps of your grandfather and your uncles?

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

What unwelcome?

And don't worry, i was just being argumentative with believer...i know that in Christianity there are many responsibilities that come after one says they believe in the Christian doctrine. Like all religious doctrine, action is a necessity of belief. And I am quite familiar with all the verses you have mentioned below, I used to and still in some circumstance can quote from many passages of the bible. But that would beg for someone to recall the verse (not sure where) that "Satan also can quote from the bible" or something like that. I am not Satan, i promise (covering his 666 mark up on the back of his head).

-Ismael

Sorry for being unwelcome earlier ismael abdul kareem byrd

It is written:- I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 8:24

You wrote:

I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved

Actually accrding to the Bible, that is incorrect!
It is written:Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. James 2:19

Are the demons going to be saved? No, and NO! They rejected God in His very presence and followed the way of Lucifer.

The key point is that Jesus is no Longer Lord to the demons which rebelled against God, but Satan is. Furthermore it is written: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

The demons do the bidding of the Wicked One, that is who they serve. You my friend my serve the Lord{Jesus Christ}and accept Him as LORD. But He is not your Lord, Allah is!!!

In the hereafter a false messiah will come to earth claiming that he is"Allah" and will cause all those who dwell upon the earth to worship him as God!!.

As I mentioned earlier, it is again written in prophecy:That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:2-1

Key words:Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.


Jesus Christ is opposed by Satan as God and attempts to exalt himself above God{Jesus} and that which is worshipped{Jesus}

God Bless!

[/quote]

[Omega]

Hello!

You wrote:

What unwelcome?

And don't worry, i was just being argumentative with believer...i know that in Christianity there are many responsibilities that come after one says they believe in the Christian doctrine. Like all religious doctrine, action is a necessity of belief. And I am quite familiar with all the verses you have mentioned below, I used to and still in some circumstance can quote from many passages of the bible. But that would beg for someone to recall the verse (not sure where) that "Satan also can quote from the bible" or something like that. I am not Satan, i promise (covering his 666 mark up on the back of his head).

-Ismael

Unwelcome as not saying HELLO!

It is obvious that you are not Satan, and if someone accused you of that than let God deal with it.

Furthermore you also said again:I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved .

You did not answer my question How can you be saved? accrding to us you are not, read what I explained away, which you did not give a response to!

God Bless!

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Hello again MR.ismael abdul kareem byrd!

May I ask you why you left your old faith and are now muslim?
Why not go in the footsteps of your grandfather and your uncles?

That's a good one, but basically since i was a little kid I never bought into the idea that God has children. As a little kid that just sounded made up to me. In addition, the belief of my family is one of blind faith. They don't know why they do it, it makes them feel good like any other of a thousand religions of whose adherents are devotees. They claim that God or Jesus speaks to them like many other traditions. So the crux becomes that none of this is logical. What is logical though is that there is only God and that for him to communicate with His creation and guide them, he would need to send messengers and He did. So i dont' believe in original sin, or that the world is 6,000 years old, or that Isaac was the one who was to be sacrificed by Abraham or that God repented for a mistake he made (Ex 32:14) or that the Prophets throughout the bible were sinful, or that there is such a thing as the trinity, or that God has children, or that God came to earth in the form of a man, or that God was born of a woman, or that divinity can reside in the earthly form, or that Paul was actually inspired by God, or that the book of Revelations is actually a book of the Bible. Most if not all of those statements defy logic. And if we can't believe in God with our minds then you actually dont beleive in Him, he is a figment of your imagination.

to put it succicntly, Islam, unequivocally and without a doubt, answers everyone of these questions, and for the most part, without having to address them directly. It offers arguments that can't be refuted on the grounds of logic alone to not only christianity, but judaism, hinduism, atheism, buddhism, etc. It has bonafide miracles in it and many Western Scientists, converted just after reading and studying the Quran.

Go back[wards] to the religion of my grandfather indeed!! It would be a step backwards, enlightenment is so wonderful because its actually enlightened. One problem so far with christianity, i have never seen a christian philosopher prove the existence of God without using religion. That would be a step in the right direction for modern christian thought. It still wouldnt change the fundamental problem for me though..."Thou shalt have no other gods"

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Ohhh...yes according to modern Christian tradition (mostly certain strains of protestantism) I will not be "saved", "washed in the blood of the lamb" etc etc. But there are other modern strains where they believe that God is Love and Jesus is Love and since we are all God's children, God would never punish his children. So this website seems to only be dealing with one interpretation of Christianity...when I was a chrisitian, of course I didnt believe this non-sense.

Hello!

You wrote:

What unwelcome?

And don't worry, i was just being argumentative with believer...i know that in Christianity there are many responsibilities that come after one says they believe in the Christian doctrine. Like all religious doctrine, action is a necessity of belief. And I am quite familiar with all the verses you have mentioned below, I used to and still in some circumstance can quote from many passages of the bible. But that would beg for someone to recall the verse (not sure where) that "Satan also can quote from the bible" or something like that. I am not Satan, i promise (covering his 666 mark up on the back of his head).

-Ismael

Unwelcome as not saying HELLO!

It is obvious that you are not Satan, and if someone accused you of that than let God deal with it.

Furthermore you also said again:I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved .

You did not answer my question How can you be saved? accrding to us you are not, read what I explained away, which you did not give a response to!

God Bless!

[Omega]

Thank you for responding back sir ismael abdul kareem byrd!

You wrote:, but basically since i was a little kid I never bought into the idea that God has children.

It is written:And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

These sons of God are created sons of God, just as Christians are adopted sons of God. The Bible says:But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: John 1:12

You also wrote:Ohhh...yes according to modern Christian tradition (mostly certain strains of protestantism) I will not be "saved", "washed in the blood of the lamb" etc etc. But there are other modern strains where they believe that God is Love and Jesus is Love and since we are all God's children, God would never punish his children. So this website seems to only be dealing with one interpretation of Christianity...when I was a chrisitian, of course I didnt believe this non-sense.

The scripture above which I stated says:to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

God is love, and God is also righteous and just and Holy above other things.A absolute Holy being cannot be in the presence of sin. If you are not cleansed by the blood of Christ you remain with sin.

It is written:Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:12,21

Furthermore you said:God repented for a mistake he made (Ex 32:14) or that the Prophets throughout the bible were sinful, or that there is such a thing as the trinity, or that God has children, or that God came to earth in the form of a man, or that God was born of a woman, or that divinity can reside in the earthly form, or that Paul was actually inspired by God, or that the book of Revelations is actually a book of the Bible. Most if not all of those statements defy logic. And if we can't believe in God with our
minds then you actually dont beleive in Him, he is a figment of your magination.


Exodus 32:14 God repented translates to{God relented from harm} He acted according to His mercy.


It is written:Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Ephesians 3:4
Furthermore understand this as it is written:Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.Philippians 2:5-11

May I suggest to you this scripture my friend, it is written:Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe
and know the truth 1 Timothy 4:1-3

Do not hearden your heart from the truth! What I speak from the word of God is not a figment of my imagination nor is it nonsense, the word of God will one day destroy the wisdom of the wise. You never were a Christian! because a Christian is a follower of Christ and not{Allah} whom you claim is your god. The more you hearden your heart from the absolute truth it will eventually lead to a permanent hardness of the heart where there is no turning back. As the Pharaoh of Exodus, everytime he refused to let God's people go, his heart became heardened til the point of his permanent hardness of his heart and which eventually led to the demise of the first born and climaxing at his physical and spiritual demise!

As it is written:For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Hebrews 6:4-6

God Bless!

[Omega]

I forgot, If you have once believed that you have been enlightened from the truth, then may I advise you with all my heart because I cannot keep forcing this upon you.

DO NOT HEARDEN YOUR HEART!!!

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

well how can i expect modern day christians to know or understand or even have the desire to understand Greek...tsk tsk, shame on me. Yes, you are right only in that this is a modern day view, but Christians back in the day did not believe this to be the "Holy Spirit" but rather another messenger. And it goes to show you the divergence of thought that had sprang up in christianity already by this point. The Council of Nicea was not yet barely 300 years old and many recognized it for the fraud that it was and more importantly perpetrated. Really there is no such thing as One christianity....the division in ur ranks not to mention the intellectual crisis abounding is sad enough...and just because the other branches of christianity in the earlier days were "destroyed" doesnt mean they werent correct...so just like Jews dont believe Jesus, peace upon him, was the Christ, so too do modern christians choose to ignore the evidence about Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him.

And don't bash on Waraqa just cuz you don't like Muslims.

But that's another thing i dont get, according to the New Testament, the actual son of God, maybe even God himself if you belive some forms of christianity was JUST walking on earth...and since that wasnt enough to end all the controversy, the SPIRIT had to one day come? I mean, isnt it enough to believe in Jesus and be cured of all my sinfulness? Either way, according to you guys I am going to be saved. Jesus died for my sins according to you and he put conditions on it? That doesnt seem very fair...the illogic goes on and on.

No. Your just brainwashed.

The Holy Spirit that Jesus promised He would send came at Pentecost.

ACTS 2
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[1] as the Spirit enabled them.
5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
13Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine.[2] "

You see? The early Christians knew the Holy Spirit
I'm sorry that I may be so argumentative with you, but I some of what you say is SO wrong.

Also, there is NO support for Muhammed from the Bible.
Islam has no less basis in the Bible than Mormonism.

I'm not bashing Waraqua, she just wasn't Christian.
She may have been a member of the many heretical sects around in Arabia.

Also, you can't be saved if you don't accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. Okay, free tickets are avaliable for a movie, but if you don't take a ticket, you still can't see the movie even if it's free.


And I must say that you never understood our faith, even when you were young.

to put it succicntly, Islam, unequivocally and without a doubt, answers everyone of these questions, and for the most part, without having to address them directly

Sometimes not all questions can be answeredm especially about God.
This is the Mystery of God. He is not to be understood, but accepted.
This is a test that you and many others have failed.

It would be a step backwards, enlightenment is so wonderful because its actually enlightened. One problem so far with christianity, i have never seen a christian philosopher prove the existence of God without using religion.

What!?!?
Islam regresses from Christianity!
Muhammed was backwards and greatly failed to live up to Christ's teachings.
Jesus taught us to love our enemies as ourselves and to wish good to those who hate us.
Jesus stood up for the adulteress, where as Muhamemd has her stoned.
Muhammed was a killer with many wives--the EXACT OPPOSITE of Jesus.
You are not enlightened. Falsehood is good at decieving you, however.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Omega and Believer,

Both of you should realize a very important point...you are arguing points using the Bible...Muslims are not saying the entire Bible is wrong...but even christian scholars admit that some parts of the text have been changed. And these are not the people who hate Christianity and hate Christians and actually hate all religions for whatever reason. These are your own scholars.

So you can quote the Bible all you want to, what I am trying to tell you is that I can refute all of what you say with logic and reason. And this same logic and reason and indeed even science is what leads me to the FACT, a fact which you believe in, is that there is a single Creator of the Universe. This is why for you to say "my god and your god" is absolute blasphemy even by the standards of Christianity. Because if you are going to say "my god and your god" then you are explicity talking about multiple Gods and that's impossible. I realize you are simply making an argument, but a muslim is so strongly atheistic that we would never even attempt to make that argument.

And if you have noticed, I am not here to quote the Quran a great deal because you don't believe in it AT ALL. So why in the world are you banging ur head against the wall, furiously looking for Bible verses. You have yet to prove its authenticity to me. And that is what you are trying to do. On the contrary, without using a "book" I can prove to you that there is A SINGLE SOLITARY CREATOR, who in english is called God, in Hebrew Yahweh, and in Arabic "Allah". This simple point you can't even grasp?

On your statement that I was never a christian: If that makes you feel better to state that then ok, but I did beleive all the things i said i didnt. When i had trouble believing in Jesus, or the writing of this person or that person, I summoned my faith and got over it, just like most people do. However, there are some things you cannot get over. There are some things that not only do they not make sense, but they contradict, i have addressed some of them previously. But i was definitely an "islam hating, baptized in the blood of the lamb, bible studying christian." Ask anyone who knew me.

Now as with most christians, you couldnt answer my questions, just by doing what most ministers and people do, quoting bible verses about how we are all just not smart enough to understand so we simply must believe: is that not what you are saying according to the verses you quoted?

And then the verse you quote from paul ("and he thought it not robbery to be equal to God..") Maybe its being lost in the translation or something but is Paul not saying that Jesus and God are too separate entities and that Jesus is EQUAL to God? If this is so, does this not contradict Jesus's own statement (forget where) but that paraphrasing "...no one goes to Father but as a lesser..." Jesus didnt say, according to this verse, "...except for me, i am equal to the Father..."

You also do a nice job of what i like to call "translation confusion." This happens quite often when the Quran is translated into Englsih which if its ok for the Bible and not for the Quran then most people are just being biased and not honest or fair. But the spin you put on the quotation, are you fluent in Hebrew to translate the verse btw, is that "God relented from harm." Im sorry, but the American Standard Version of the Bible does not say this. Even the NRSV does some interesting hoop jumping to explain this little verse into the correct light. But i would actually like to know what it says in Hebrew. And then have a Rabbi translate it. Maybe ill do that this week, God willing.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Omega and Believer,

Both of you should realize a very important point...you are arguing points using the Bible...Muslims are not saying the entire Bible is wrong...but even christian scholars admit that some parts of the text have been changed. And these are not the people who hate Christianity and hate Christians and actually hate all religions for whatever reason. These are your own scholars.

So you can quote the Bible all you want to, what I am trying to tell you is that I can refute all of what you say with logic and reason. And this same logic and reason and indeed even science is what leads me to the FACT, a fact which you believe in, is that there is a single Creator of the Universe. This is why for you to say "my god and your god" is absolute blasphemy even by the standards of Christianity. Because if you are going to say "my god and your god" then you are explicity talking about multiple Gods and that's impossible. I realize you are simply making an argument, but a muslim is so strongly monotheistic that we would never even attempt to make that argument.

And if you have noticed, I am not here to quote the Quran a great deal because you don't believe in it AT ALL. So why in the world are you banging ur head against the wall, furiously looking for Bible verses. You have yet to prove its authenticity to me. And that is what you are trying to do. On the contrary, without using a "book" I can prove to you that there is A SINGLE SOLITARY CREATOR, who in english is called God, in Hebrew Yahweh, and in Arabic "Allah". This simple point you can't even grasp?

On your statement that I was never a christian: If that makes you feel better to state that then ok, but I did beleive all the things i said i didnt. When i had trouble believing in Jesus, or the writing of this person or that person, I summoned my faith and got over it, just like most people do. However, there are some things you cannot get over. There are some things that not only do they not make sense, but they contradict, i have addressed some of them previously. But i was definitely an "islam hating, baptized in the blood of the lamb, bible studying christian." Ask anyone who knew me.

Now as with most christians, you couldnt answer my questions, just by doing what most ministers and people do, quoting bible verses about how we are all just not smart enough to understand so we simply must believe: is that not what you are saying according to the verses you quoted?

And then the verse you quote from paul ("and he thought it not robbery to be equal to God..") Maybe its being lost in the translation or something but is Paul not saying that Jesus and God are too separate entities and that Jesus is EQUAL to God? If this is so, does this not contradict Jesus's own statement (forget where) but that paraphrasing "...no one goes to Father but as a lesser..." Jesus didnt say, according to this verse, "...except for me, i am equal to the Father..."

You also do a nice job of what i like to call "translation confusion." This happens quite often when the Quran is translated into Englsih which if its ok for the Bible and not for the Quran then most people are just being biased and not honest or fair. But the spin you put on the quotation, are you fluent in Hebrew to translate the verse btw, is that "God relented from harm." Im sorry, but the American Standard Version of the Bible does not say this. Even the NRSV does some interesting hoop jumping to explain this little verse into the correct light. But i would actually like to know what it says in Hebrew. And then have a Rabbi translate it. Maybe ill do that this week, God willing.

[Omega]

ismael abdul kareem byrd

I find it very odd how you constantly look for errors in the Bible but fail to try to answer the errors in your book!

That only looks like we Christians are perpetrators. Why don't you answer the unanswerable questions of the Quran? Instead of bible bashing us all the time!

You fail to realise the main message of the Bible, and that is where all muslims fail to realise. The Devil does not want you or any muslim to see the most important message in the Bible but guides your eyes and your hearts to look past it and to focus on passages which will only lead to condemnation.

Very clearly:He that hath not the Son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him!, do you believe this, yes or no?
Or is it a false message?

The Quran claims that it is perfect, therefore if even 1 error is found then the whole book is proven false, agreed?

[Omega]

Now as with most christians, you couldnt answer my questions, just by doing what most ministers and people do, quoting bible verses about how we are all just not smart enough to understand so we simply must believe: is that not what you are saying according to the verses you quoted?

What questions? I have answered all your questions, you just cannot comprehend them, because the lack of the Holy Spirit!

I am not going to be like you and throw seemingly innaccurate contradictions which only lead to strife! Would you like me to ask you questions about your book in which you cannot answer?

God Bless!

[Omega]

former north carolina raised pentecostal holiness christian, and now i am muslim.

That explains it all!

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

ismael abdul kareem byrd

I find it very odd how you constantly look for errors in the Bible but fail to try to answer the errors in your book!

That only looks like we Christians are perpetrators. Why don't you answer the unanswerable questions of the Quran? Instead of bible bashing us all the time!

You fail to realise the main message of the Bible, and that is where all muslims fail to realise. The Devil does not want you or any muslim to see the most important message in the Bible but guides your eyes and your hearts to look past it and to focus on passages which will only lead to condemnation.

Very clearly:He that hath not the Son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him!, do you believe this, yes or no?
Or is it a false message?

The Quran claims that it is perfect, therefore if even 1 error is found then the whole book is proven false, agreed?

Why do you find it odd? That intellectual skepticism has taken place and it didnt come out in your favor? And when i first became muslim, i was just as skeptical if not more skeptical than i am now. Yet, with studying any question that I had about a particular passage could be answered satisfactorily...as I learned more and more, I saw the hidden wisdom behind many things in the Quran that seem un-understandable. It requires understanding how people in a desert lived their life 1400 years ago. And I am not bashing the bible per se...the only books that the Quran recognizes...are the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Quran itslef of course. The bible is an amalgam of Men's writings. And all of these books would have been God's word. Not the commentaries that you have from secondhand sources (i.e. the books of Matthew - John).

And I have read all the atheistic, muslim bashing, muslim hating websites, and i actually read them open minded. Something that none of you on here seem to know how to do when it comes to the Quran. In actuality, most of you have a virulent hatred running through you. And all those times you adderessed me with "Peace" and "Sir Ismael" you were actually fulfilling the Prophecies of the Quran. Because now you show ur true colors. Which is why i didnt return the "Peace" saying. Because you don't even know who God is. And when muslims greet each other with peace its actually a prayer "The Peace be upon you." The Peace or As-Salaam is one of the names of God. And we wish for this kind of Peace and Tranquility to be with each other.

My point for coming on this website is to answer some of the hatred and shine the light of truth on all the lies being said that's all. Because if you are going to bash-Islam on this site, be prepared to stand up to the defense. Dont' be a little baby, like half the people on here cry about "waa waa, mommmy, he's saying stuff i can't answer about the bible, waaa waaa." And just so you know, I have never found an unanswerable question in the Quran.

So ok Omega, what is the main message of the bible that Muslims fail to see? I mean, you have had all this time to tell me this message, but haven't, what took you so long?

My other reason for coming on here is that if I can come out of Christianity like I did, then i want to help anyone else come out of it as well. And this can simply be done by taking the bag of "my mom and dad taught this to me and I can't go against them, so im gonna be a christian till i die, oh, and in the meantime, I'm gonna believe all this too." Like I said, that's slavery and not freedom of thought and conscience.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Now as with most christians, you couldnt answer my questions, just by doing what most ministers and people do, quoting bible verses about how we are all just not smart enough to understand so we simply must believe: is that not what you are saying according to the verses you quoted?

What questions? I have answered all your questions, you just cannot comprehend them, because the lack of the Holy Spirit!

I am not going to be like you and throw seemingly innaccurate contradictions which only lead to strife! Would you like me to ask you questions about your book in which you cannot answer?

God Bless!

You truly are a piece of work, so you can see into my soul? Please answer this question: can you see into my soul? Since the answer is NO, how do you know I dont have the Holy Spirit in me and that it led me to Islam? How do you KNOW this is not the case? You don't. This simple question should shake your faith well enough. And how arrogant of you. This is what muslims so disdain about especially modern christians. This total arrogance. You have no humility. And you claim to be a follower of Christ?

But go on, ask me your questions, and God willing I will answer them to the best of my ability.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

former north carolina raised pentecostal holiness christian, and now i am muslim.

That explains it all!

What does it explain? I would love to hear this.

[Omega]

Thank you for responding!

You wrote:

Why do you find it odd? That intellectual skepticism has taken place and it didnt come out in your favor? And when i first became muslim, i was just as skeptical if not more skeptical than i am now. Yet, with studying any question that I had about a particular passage could be answered satisfactorily...as I learned more and more, I saw the hidden wisdom behind many things in the Quran that seem un-understandable. It requires understanding how people in a desert lived their life 1400 years ago. And I am not bashing the bible per se...the only books that the Quran recognizes...are the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Quran itslef of course. The bible is an amalgam of Men's writings. And all of these books would have been God's word. Not the commentaries that you have from secondhand sources (i.e. the books of Matthew - John).

And I have read all the atheistic, muslim bashing, muslim hating websites, and i actually read them open minded. Something that none of you on here seem to know how to do when it comes to the Quran. In actuality, most of you have a virulent hatred running through you. And all those times you adderessed me with "Peace" and "Sir Ismael" you were actually fulfilling the Prophecies of the Quran. Because now you show ur true colors. Which is why i didnt return the "Peace" saying. Because you don't even know who God is. And when muslims greet each other with peace its actually a prayer "The Peace be upon you." The Peace or As-Salaam is one of the names of God. And we wish for this kind of Peace and Tranquility to be with each other.

My point for coming on this website is to answer some of the hatred and shine the light of truth on all the lies being said that's all. Because if you are going to bash-Islam on this site, be prepared to stand up to the defense. Dont' be a little baby, like half the people on here cry about "waa waa, mommmy, he's saying stuff i can't answer about the bible, waaa waaa." And just so you know, I have never found an unanswerable question in the Quran.

So ok Omega, what is the main message of the bible that Muslims fail to see? I mean, you have had all this time to tell me this message, but haven't, what took you so long?

My other reason for coming on here is that if I can come out of Christianity like I did, then i want to help anyone else come out of it as well. And this can simply be done by taking the bag of "my mom and dad taught this to me and I can't go against them, so im gonna be a christian till i die, oh, and in the meantime, I'm gonna believe all this too." Like I said, that's slavery and not freedom of thought and conscience.You truly are a piece of work, so you can see into my soul? Please answer this question: can you see into my soul? Since the answer is NO, how do you know I dont have the Holy Spirit in me and that it led me to Islam? How do you KNOW this is not the case? You don't. This simple question should shake your faith well enough. And how arrogant of you. This is what muslims so disdain about especially modern christians. This total arrogance. You have no humility. And you claim to be a follower of Christ?

But go on, ask me your questions, and God willing I will answer them to the best of my ability.What does it explain? I would love to hear this.

First of all you need to relax!

You said:Peace" and "Sir Ismael" you were actually fulfilling the Prophecies of the Quran. Because now you show ur true colors. Which is why i didnt return the "Peace" saying. Because you don't even know who God is.

How does that reveal my true colors, so everyone that says peace and sir is fulfilling the Quran, insteading of getting upset at me and letting your mind be clouded with judgment you must understand that that is the most ridiculous statement I ever heard.

Then you wrote:So ok Omega, what is the main message of the bible that Muslims fail to see? I mean, you have had all this time to tell me this message, but haven't, what took you so long?

What took me so long? I have been knowing the message which is the message of salvation which can only be obtained by Jesus Christ and his shedding of blood which you do not believe, and that is the message which you fail to realise time and time over and over again my friend!

Then again you wrote to me:This simple question should shake your faith well enough. And how arrogant of you. This is what muslims so disdain about especially modern christians. This total arrogance. You have no humility. And you claim to be a follower of Christ?

How arrogant, I am SORRY if you feel that I was being arrogant my friend but I am simply speaking what I know to be the truth just as you are so relax!

You also wrote:You truly are a piece of work, so you can see into my soul? Please answer this question: can you see into my soul? Since the answer is NO, how do you know I dont have the Holy Spirit in me and that it led me to Islam? How do you KNOW this is not the case? You don't. This simple question should shake your faith well enough. And how arrogant of you. This is what muslims so disdain about especially modern christians. This total arrogance. You have no humility

Let me explain to you, but first you need to relax my friend! No i cannot see into your soul. The word of God claims that you do not have the Holy Spirit.

It is written:John 3:8 - The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Maybe you can respond in a more polite manner next time!

God Bless!

[Omega]

It is written: John 16:13 - Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

[Omega]

MANUSCRIPT ANALYSIS:
Let's then begin by looking at the area of manuscript evidence. What manuscripts do we have in Islam which can corroborate the authenticity of the Qur'an that we have in our hands today, and likewise, what Christian manuscripts are available to validate the Bible?
[A] THE QUR'AN'S MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE:
A manuscript analysis of the Qur'an does present us with unique problems not encountered with the Bible. While we can find multiple manuscripts for the Bible written 700-900 years earlier, at a time when durable paper was not even used, the manuscripts for the Qur'an within the century in which it was purported to have been compiled, the seventh century, simply do not exist. Prior to 750 A.D. (thus for 100 years after Muhammad's death) we have no verifiable Muslim documents which can give us a window into this formative period of Islam (Wansbrough 1978:58-59). In fact the primary sources which we possess are from 150-300 years after the events which they describe, and therefore are quite distant from those events (Nevo 1994:108; Wansbrough 1978:119; Crone 1987:204). For that reason they are, for all practical purposes, secondary sources, as they rely on other material, much of which no longer exists. We simply do not have any "account from the Islamic' community during the [initial] 150 years or so, between the first Arab conquests [the early 7th century] and the appearance, with the sira-maghazi narratives, of the earliest Islamic literature" [the late 8th century] (Wansbrough 1978:119).
We should expect to find, in those intervening 150 years, at least remnants of evidence for the development of the old Arab religion towards Islam (i.e. Muslim traditions); yet we find nothing (Nevo 1994:108; Crone 1980:5-. The documentary evidence at our disposal, prior to 750 A.D. "consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations in later compilations" (Humphreys 1991:80). Consequently, we have no reliable proof that the later Muslim traditions speak truly of the life of Muhammad, or even of the Qur'an (Schacht 1949:143-154). In fact we have absolutely no evidence for the original Qur'anic text (Schimmel 1984:4). Nor do we have any of the alleged four copies which were made of this recension and sent to Mecca, Medina, Basra and Damascus (see Gilchrist's arguments in his book Jam' al-Qur'an, 1989, pp. 140-154, as well as Ling's & Safadi's The Qur'an 1976, pp. 11-17).
Even if these copies had somehow disintegrated with age (as some Muslims now allege), there would surely be some fragments of the documents which we could refer to. By the end of the seventh century Islam had expanded from Spain in the west to India in the east. The Qur'an (according to tradition) was the centrepiece of their faith. Certainly within that enormous sphere of influence there would be some Qur'anic documents or manuscripts which still exist till this day. Yet, there is nothing anywhere from that period at all.
With the enormous number of manuscripts available for the Christian scriptures, all compiled long before the time Muhammad was born, it is incredible that Islam cannot provide a single corroborated manuscript of their most holy book from even within a century of their founder's birth.
(1) Sammarkand and Topkapi MSS; Kufic and Ma'il Scripts:
In response, Muslims contend that they do have a number of these "Uthmanic recensions," these original copies from the seventh century, still in their possession. There are two documents which do hold some credibility, and to which many Muslims refer. These are the Samarkand Manuscript, which is located in the Tashkent library, Uzbekistan (in the southern part of the former Soviet Union), and the Topkapi Manuscript, which can be found in the Topkapi Museum, in Istanbul, Turkey.
These two documents are indeed old, and there has been ample etymological analysis done on them by scriptologists, as well as experts in Arabic calligraphy to warrant their discussion. What most Muslims do not realize is that these two manuscripts are written in the Kufic Script, a script which according to modern Qur'anic manuscript experts, such as Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, did not appear until late into the eighth century, and was not in use at all in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century (Lings & Safadi 1976:12-13,17; Gilchrist 1989:145-146; 152-153).
The reasons for this are quite simple. Consider: The Kufic script, properly known as al-Khatt al-Kufi, derives its name from the city of Kufa in Iraq (Lings & Safadi 1976:17). It would be rather odd for this script to have been adopted as the official script for the "mother of all books" as it is a script which had its origins in a city that had only been conquered by the Arabs a mere 10-14 years earlier.
It is important to note that the city of Kufa, which is in present day Iraq, was a city which would have been Sassanid or Persian before that time (637-8 A.D.). Thus, while Arabic would have been known there, it would not have been the predominant language, let alone the predominant script until much later.
We know in fact, that the Kufic script reached its perfection during the late eighth century (up to one hundred and fifty years after Muhammad's death) and thereafter it became widely used throughout the Muslim world (Lings & Safadi 1976:12,17; Gilchrist 1989:145-146). This makes sense, since after 750 A.D. the Abbasids controlled Islam, and due to their Persian background were headquartered in the Kufa and Baghdad areas. They would thus have wanted their script to dominate. Having been themselves dominated by the Umayyads (who were based in Damascus) for around 100 years, it would now be quite understandable that an Arabic script which originated in their area of influence, such as the Kufic script would evolve into that which we find in these two documents mentioned here.
Therefore, it stands to reason that both the Topkapi and Samarkand Manuscripts, because they are written in the Kufic script, could not have been written earlier than 150 years after the Uthmanic Recension was supposedly compiled; at the earliest the late 700s or early 800s (Gilchrist 1989:144-147).
We do know that there were two earlier Arabic scripts which most modern Muslims are not familiar with. These are the al-Ma'il Script, developed in the Hijaz, particularly in Mecca and Medina, and the Mashq Script, also developed in Medina (Lings & Safadi 1976:11; Gilchrist 1989:144-145). The al-Ma'il Script came into use in the seventh century and is easily identified, as it was written at a slight angle (see the example on page 16 of Gilchrist's Jam' al-Qur'an, 1989). In fact the word al-Ma'il means "slanting." This script survived for about two centuries before falling into disuse.
The Mashq Script also began in the seventh century, but continued to be used for many centuries. It is more horizontal in form and can be distinguished by its somewhat cursive and leisurely style (Gilchrist 1989:144). There are those who believe that the Mashq script was a forerunner to the later Kufic script, as there are similarities between the two.
If the Qur'an had been compiled at this time in the seventh century, then one would expect it to have been written in either the Ma'il or Mashq script.
Interestingly, we do have a Qur'an written in the Ma'il script, and considered to be the earliest Qur'an in our possession today. Yet it is not found in either Istanbul or Tashkent, but, ironically, it resides in the British Museum in London (Lings & Safadi 1976:17,20; Gilchrist 1989:16,144). It has been dated towards the end of the eighth century (790 A.D.) by Martin Lings, the former curator for the manuscripts of the British Museum, who is himself, a practising Muslim.
Therefore, with the help of script analysis, we are quite certain that there is no known manuscript of the Qur'an which we possess today which can be dated from the seventh century (Gilchrist 1989:147-148,153).
Furthermore, virtually all the earliest Qur'anic manuscript fragments which we do possess cannot be dated earlier than 100 years after the time of Muhammad. In her book Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, Annemarie Schimmel underlines this point when she states that apart from the recently discovered [Korans] in Sanaa, "the earliest datable fragments go back to the first quarter of the eighth century." (Schimmels 1984:4)
From the evidence we possess, therefore, it would seem improbable that any portions of the Qur'an supposedly copied out at Uthman's direction have survived. What we are left with is the intervening 150 years for which we cannot account.
(2) Talmudic Sources in the Qur'an:
Another problem with manuscript evidence for the Qur'an is that of the heretical Talmudic accounts found within its passages. Possibly the greatest puzzlement for Christians who pick up the Qur'an and read it are the numerous seemingly Biblical stories which bear little similarity to the Biblical accounts. The Qur'anic stories include many distortions, amendments, and some bizarre additions to the familiar stories we have known and learned. So, we ask, where did these stories come from, if not from the previous scriptures?
Fortunately, we do have much Jewish and Christian apocryphal literature (some of it from the Talmud), dating from the second century A.D. with which we can compare many of these stories. It is when we do so, that we find remarkable similarities between these fables or folk tales of the later Jewish and Christian communities, and the stories which are recounted in the Qur'an (note:Talmudic material taken from Feinburg 1993:1162-1163).
The Jewish Talmudic writings were compiled in the second century A.D., from oral laws (Mishnah) and traditions of those laws (Gemara). These laws and traditions were created to adapt the law of Moses (the Torah) to the changing times. They also included interpretations and discussions of the laws (the Halakhah and Haggadah etc.). Most Jews do not consider the Talmudic writings authoritative, but they read them nonetheless with interest for the light they cast on the times in which they were written.
Each generation embellished the accounts, or at times incorporated local folklore, so that it was difficult to know what the original stories contained. There were even those among the Jews who believed that these Talmudic writings had been added to the "preserved tablets" (i.e. the Ten Commandments, and the Torah which were kept in the Ark of the Covenant), and were believed to be replicas of the heavenly book (Feinburg 1993:1163).
Some orientalist scholars believe that when later Islamic compilers came onto the scene, in the eighth to ninth centuries A.D., they merely added this body of literature to the nascent Qur'anic material. It is therefore, not surprising that a number of these traditions from Judaism were inadvertently accepted by later redactors, and incorporated into the holy writings' of Islam.
There are quite a few stories which have their root in second century (A.D.) Jewish apocryphal literature; stories such as the murder of Abel by Cain in sura 5:31-32, borrowed from the Targum of Jonathan-ben-Uzziah and the Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; or the story of Abraham, the idols and the fiery furnace in sura 21:51-71, taken from the Midrash Rabbah; or the amusing story found in sura 27:17-44, of Solomon, his talking Hoopoo bird, and the queen of Sheba who lifts her skirt when mistaking a mirrored floor for water, taken from the 2nd Targum of Esther.
There are other instances where we find both apocryphal Jewish and Christian literatures within the Qur'anic text. The account of Mt. Sinai being lifted up and held over the heads of the Jews as a threat for rejecting the law (sura 7:171) comes from the second century Jewish apocryphal book, The Abodah Sarah. The odd accounts of the early childhood of Jesus in the Qur'an can be traced to a number of Christian apocryphal writings: the Palm tree which provides for the anguish of Mary after Jesus's birth (sura 19:22-26) comes from The Lost Books of the Bible; while the account of the infant Jesus creating birds from clay (sura 3:49) comes from Thomas' Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ. The story of the baby Jesus talking (sura 19:29-33) can be traced to Arabic apocryphal fable from Egypt named The first Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.
In sura 17:1 we have the report of Muhammad's journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque.' From later traditions we find this aya refers to Muhammad ascending up to the seventh heaven, after a miraculous night journey (the Mi'raj) from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a "winged-horse" called Buraq. More detail is furnished us in the Mishkat al Masabih. We can trace the story back to a fictitious book called The Testament of Abraham, written around 200 B.C., in Egypt, and then translated into Greek and Arabic. Another analogous account is that of The Secrets of Enoch ( chapter 1:4-10 and 2:1), which predates the Qur'an by four centuries. Yet a further similar account is largely modelled on the story contained in the old Persian book entitled Arta-i Viraf Namak, telling how a pious young Zoroastrian ascended to the skies, and, on his return, related what he had seen, or professed to have seen (Pfander 1835:295-296).
The Qur'anic description of Hell resembles the descriptions of hell in the Homilies of Ephraim, a Nestorian preacher of the sixth century (Glubb 1971:36).
The author of the Qur'an in suras 42:17 and 101:6-9 possibly utilized The Testament of Abraham to teach that a scale or balance will be used on the day of judgment to weigh good and bad deeds in order to determine whether one goes to heaven or to hell.
It is important to remember that the Talmudic accounts were not considered by the orthodox Jews of that period as authentic for one very good reason: they were not in existence at the council of Jamnia in 80 A.D. when the Old Testament was canonized. Neither were the Christian apocryphal material considered canonical, as they were not attested as authoritative both prior to and after the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Thus these accounts have always been considered as heretical by both the Jewish and Christian orthodox believers, and the literate ever since. It is for this reason that we find it deeply suspicious that the apocryphal accounts should have made their way into a book claiming to be the final revelation from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Let's now look at the manuscript evidence for the Bible and ascertain whether the scripture which we read today is historically accurate?
[B] THE BIBLE'S MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE:
Unlike the Qur'an, when we consider the New Testament manuscripts (MSS) we are astounded by the sheer numbers of extent copies which are in existence. Muslims contend, however, that since we do not have the original documents, the reliability of the copies we do have is thus in doubt. Yet is this assumption correct?
(1) New Testament Manuscript Copies:
Because the Bible is a book, it was initially made up of manuscripts. Consequently a primary means for ascertaining its credibility today are the number of copies from those manuscripts which are currently in one's possession. The more copies we have the better we can compare between them and thus know if the document we now read corresponds with the original. It is much like a witness to an event. If we have only one witness to the event, there is the possibility that the witness's agenda or even an exaggeration of the event has crept in and we would never know the full truth. But if we have many witnesses, the probability that they all got it wrong becomes minute.
Because of time and wear many of the historical documents from the ancient world have few manuscripts to which we can refer. This is specially true when we consider the secular historians and philosophers. For instance, we only have eight copies of Herodotus's historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle's writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today (McDowell 1972:42). These are indeed very few.
When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell's Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pgs.40-48; and Time, January 23, 1995, pg.57). Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained.
What's more, a substantial number were written well before the compilation of the Qur'an. In fact, according to research done by Kurt and Barbara Aland, a total of 230 manuscript portions are currently in existence which pre-date 600 AD! These can be broken down into 192 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 5 Greek lectionaries containing scripture, and 33 translations of the Greek New Testament (Aland 1987:82-83).
Muslims assert that we have similar problems concerning the large number of years which separate the manuscripts from the events which they speak about. Yet, unlike the Qur'an which was compiled much more recently, we do not find with the Bible such an enormous gap of time between that which the Bible speaks about and when it was written down. In fact, outside of the book of Revelation and the three letters of John considered to have been written later, when we look at the rest of the New Testament books, there is no longer any solid basis for dating them later than 80 AD, or 50 years after the death of Jesus Christ (Robinson 1976:79). Most of the New Testament was likely written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and perhaps before the fire of Rome (64 AD), and the subsequent persecution of Christians, since none of these events, which would have had an enormous impact on the nascent Christian community are mentioned in any of the New Testament writings. Had the documents been compiled in the second century as Muslims claim, then certainly they would have mentioned these very important events.
This same logic can be taken a step further. Take for instance the martyrdoms of James in 62 AD, Paul in 64 AD, and Peter in 65 AD. All were leaders in the nascent church. Thus their deaths were momentous events for the early Christian community. Yet we find none of the deaths referred to in any of the 27 canonized books of the New Testament (and significantly not in Acts, the most comprehensive historical record we have of the early church). The only explanation can be that they were all written prior to these events, and thus likely before 62 AD, or a mere 30 years after the death of Jesus, of whose life they primarily refer.
(2) Available Manuscripts:
A further criticism concerns whether the copies we possess are credible. Since we do not possess the originals, people ask, how can we be sure they are identical to them? The initial answer is that we will never be completely certain, for there is no means at our disposal to reproduce the originals. This has always been a problem with all known ancient documents. Yet this same question is rarely asked of other historical manuscripts which we refer to constantly. If they are held to be credible, let's then see how the New Testament compares with them. Let's compare below the time gaps for the New Testament documents with other credible secular documents.
There were several historians of the ancient world whose works are quite popular. Thucydides, who wrote History of the Peloponnesian War, lived from 460 BC to 400 BC. Virtually everything we know about the war comes from his history. Yet, the earliest copy of any manuscripts of Thucydides' work dates around 900 AD, a full 1,300 years later! The Roman historian Suetonius lived between AD 70 to 140 AD. Yet the earliest copy of his book The Twelve Caesars is dated around AD 950, a full 800 years later. The chart below reveals the time gaps of these and other works from the ancient world and compares them to the earliest New Testament manuscripts (taken from McDowell 1972:42, & Bruce 1943:16-17).
Author Date Written Earliest Copy Time Span Copies (extent)

Secular Manuscripts:
Herodotus (History) 480 - 425 BC 900 AD 1,300 years 8
Thucydides (History) 460 - 400 BC 900 AD 1,300 years ?
Aristotle (Philosopher) 384 - 322 BC 1,100 AD 1,400 years 5
Caesar (History) 100 - 44 BC 900 AD 1,000 years 10
Pliny (History) 61 - 113 AD 850 AD 750 years 7
Suetonius (Roman History) 70 - 140 AD 950 AD 800 years ?
Tacitus (Greek History) 100 AD 1,100 AD 1,000 years 20

Biblical Manuscripts: (note: these are individual manuscripts)
Magdalene Ms (Matthew 26) 1st century 50-60 AD co-existant (?)
John Rylands (John) 90 AD 130 AD 40 years
Bodmer Papyrus II (John) 90 AD 150-200 AD 60-110 years
Chester Beatty Papyri (N.T.) 1st century 200 AD 150 years
Diatessaron by Tatian (Gospels) 1st century 200 AD 150 years
Codex Vaticanus (Bible) 1st century 325-350 AD 275-300 years
Codex Sinaiticus (Bible) 1st century 350 AD 300 years
Codex Alexandrinus (Bible) 1st century 400 AD 350 years
(Total New Testament manuscripts = 5,300 Greek MSS, 10,000 Latin Vulgates, 9,300 others = 24,000 copies)
(Total MSS compiled prior to 600 AD = 230)
What one notices almost immediately from the table is that the New Testament manuscript copies which we possess today were compiled very early, a number of them hundreds of years before the earliest copy of a secular manuscript. This not only shows the importance the early Christians gave to preserving their scriptures, but the enormous wealth we have today for early Biblical documentation.
What is even more significant however, are the differences in time spans between the original manuscripts and the copies of both the biblical and secular manuscripts. It is well known in historical circles that the closer a document can be found to the event it describes the more credible it is. The time span for the biblical manuscript copies listed above are all within 350 years of the originals, some as early as 130-250 years and one even purporting to coexist with the original (i.e. the Magdalene Manuscript fragments of Matthew 26), while the time span for the secular manuscript copies are much greater, between 750-1,400 years! This indeed gives enormous authority to the biblical manuscript copies, as no other ancient piece of literature can make such close time comparisons.
Because of its importance to our discussion here a special note needs to be given to the Magdalene Manuscript mentioned above. Until two years ago, the oldest assumed manuscript which we possessed was the St. John papyrus (P52), housed in the John Rylands museum in Manchester, and dated at 120 AD (Time April 26, 1996, pg.. Thus, it was thought that the earliest New Testament manuscript could not be corroborated by eyewitnesses to the events. That assumption has now changed, for three even older manuscripts, one each from the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have now been dated earlier than the Johannine account. It is two of these three findings which I believe will completely change the entire focus of the critical debate on the authenticity of the Bible. Let me explain.
The Lukan papyrus, situated in a library in Paris has been dated to the late 1st century or early 2nd century, so it predates the John papyrus by 20-30 years (Time April 26, 1996, pg.. But of more importance are the manuscript findings of Mark and Matthew! New research which has now been uncovered by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and is published in his newly released book on the subject, the Jesus Papyrus mentions a fragment from the book of Mark found among the Qumran scrolls (fragment 7Q5) showing that it was written sometime before 68 AD It is important to remember that Christ died in 33 AD, so this manuscript could have been written, at the latest, within 35 years of His death; possibly earlier, and thus during the time that the eyewitnesses to that event were still alive!
The most significant find, however, is a manuscript fragment from the book of Matthew (chapt.26) called the Magdalene Manuscript which has been analysed by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and also written up in his book The Jesus Papyrus. Using a sophisticated analysis of the handwriting of the fragment by employing a special state-of-the-art microscope, he differentiated between 20 separate micrometer layers of the papyrus, measuring the height and depth of the ink as well as the angle of the stylus used by the scribe. After this analysis Thiede was able to compare it with other papyri from that period; notably manuscripts found at Qumran (dated to 58 AD), another at Herculaneum (dated prior to 79 AD), a further one from the fortress of Masada (dated to between 73/74 AD), and finally a papyrus from the Egyptian town of Oxyrynchus. The Magdalene Manuscript fragments matches all four, and in fact is almost a twin to the papyrus found in Oxyrynchus, which bears the date of 65/66 AD Thiede concludes that these papyrus fragments of St. Matthew's Gospel were written no later than this date and probably earlier. That suggests that we either have a portion of the original gospel of Matthew, or an immediate copy which was written while Matthew and the other disciples and eyewitnesses to the events were still alive. This would be the oldest manuscript portion of our Bible in existence today, one which co-exists with the original writers!
What is of even more importance is what it says. The Matthew 26 fragment uses in its text nomina sacra (holy names) such as the diminutive "IS" for Jesus and "KE" for Kurie or Lord (The Times, Saturday, December 24, 1994). This is highly significant for our discussion today, because it suggests that the godhead of Jesus was recognised centuries before it was accepted as official church doctrine at the council of Nicea in 325 AD There is still ongoing discussion concerning the exact dating of this manuscript. However, if the dates prove to be correct then this document alone completely eradicates the criticism levelled against the gospel accounts (such as the "Jesus Seminar") that the early disciples knew nothing about Christ's divinity, and that this concept was a later redaction imposed by the Christian community in the second century (AD).
We have other manuscript evidence for the New Testament as well:
(3) Versions or Translations:
Besides the 24,000 manuscripts we have more than 15,000 existing copies of the various versions written in the Latin and Syriac (Christian Aramaic), some of which were written as early as 150 A.D., such as the Syriac Peshitta (150-250 A.D.) (McDowell 1972:49; 1990:47).
Because Christianity was a missionary faith from its very inception (Matthew 28:19-20), the scriptures were immediately translated into the known languages of that period. For that reason other written translations appeared soon after, such as Coptic translations (early 3rd and 4th centuries), Armenian (400 A.D.), Gothic (4th century), Georgian (5th century), Ethiopic (6th century), and Nubian (6th century) (McDowell 1972:48-50). The fact that we have so many translations of the New Testament points to its authenticity, as it would have been almost impossible, had the disciples or later followers wanted to corrupt or forge its contents, for them to have amassed all of the translations from the outlying areas and changed each one so that there would have been the uniformity which we find witnessed in these translations today.
(4) Lectionaries:
The practice of reading passages from the New Testament books at worship services began from the 6th century, so that today we have 2,135 lectionaries which have been catalogued from this period (McDowell 1972:52). If there had been a forgery, they too would have all had to have been changed.
(5) Early Church Father's Letters:
But possibly the greatest attestation for the authority of our New Testament are the masses of quotations taken from its pages by the early church fathers. Dean Burgon in his research found in all 86,489 quotes from the early church fathers (McDowell 1990:47-48; 1991:52). In fact, there are 32,000 quotations from the New Testament found in writings from before the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. (Mcdowell Evidence, 1972:52). J. Harold Greenlee points out that the quotations of the scripture in the works of the early church writers are so extensive that the New Testament could virtually be reconstructed from them without the use of New Testament manuscripts.
Sir David Dalrymple sought to do this, and from the second and third century writings of the church fathers he found the entire New Testament quoted except for eleven verses (McDowell 1972:50-51; 1990:4! Thus, we could throw the New Testament manuscripts away and still reconstruct it with the simple help of these letters. Some examples of these are (from McDowell's Evidence..., 1972 pg. 51):
Clement (30- 95 A.D.) quotes from various sections of the New Testament.
Ignatius (70-110 A.D.) knew the apostles and quoted directly from 15 of the 27 books.
Polycarp (70-156 A.D.) was a disciple of John and quoted from the New Testament.
Thus the manuscript evidence at our disposal today gives us over 24,000 manuscripts with which to corroborate our current New Testament. The earliest of these manuscripts have now been dated earlier than 60-70 A.D., so within the lifetime of the original writers, and with an outside possibility that they are the originals themselves. On top of that we have 15,000 early translations of the New Testament, and over 2,000 lectionaries. And finally we have scriptural quotations in the letters of the early Church fathers with which we could almost reproduce the New Testament if we so wished. This indeed is substantial manuscript evidence for the New Testament.

So what comparisons are there between the manuscript evidence for the Qur'an and the Bible? We know from the historical record that by the end of the seventh century the Arabs had expanded right across North Africa and up into Spain, and east as far as India. The Qur'an (according to later Islamic tradition) was the centrepiece of their faith and practice at that time. Certainly within that enormous sphere of influence there should therefore be some Qur'anic manuscripts which still exist till this day. Yet, there is nothing from that period at all. The only manuscripts which Islam provides turn out to have been compiled in the ninth century, while the earliest corroborated manuscript is dated 790 A.D., written not 1400 years ago as Muslims claim but a mere 1,200 years ago.
While Christianity can claim more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,300 other early versions, adding up to over 24,000 corroborated New Testament manuscripts still in existence (McDowell 1990:43-55), most of which were written between 25-400 years after the death of Christ (or between the 1st and 5th centuries) (McDowell 1972:39-49), Islam cannot provide a single manuscript until well into the eighth century (Lings & Safadi 1976:17; Schimmel 1984:4-6). If the Christians could retain so many thousands of ancient manuscripts, all of which were written long before the Qur'an, at a time when paper had not yet been introduced, forcing the dependency on papyrus which disintegrated with age, then one wonders why the Muslims are not able to forward a single manuscript from this much later period, during which the Qur'an was supposedly revealed? This indeed gives the Bible a much stronger claim for reliability than the Qur'an.
Furthermore, while the earliest New Testament manuscripts as well as the earliest letters from the church fathers correspond with the New Testament which we have in our hands, providing us with some certainty that they have not been unduly added to or tampered with, the Qur'anic material which we have in our possession abounds with stories whose origins we can now trace to second century Jewish and Christian apocryphal literature. We know in some cases who wrote them, when exactly they were written and at times even why they were written; and that none of them were from a divine source, as they were written by the most human of Rabbis and storytellers over the intervening centuries after the Bible had been canonized.
We now turn our attention to the documentary evidence for both the Qur'an and the Bible.
[II] DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS
A] THE QUR'AN'S DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
Documentary evidence for the Qur'an has always been difficult, due to the paucity of primary documents at our disposal (as was mentioned in the previous section). The oldest Muslim documents available are the Muslim Traditions, which were initially compiled as late as 765 A.D. (i.e. The Sira of Ibn Ishaq). Yet the earliest documents which we can refer to today are those compiled by Ibn Hisham (the Sira of the prophet), and the large Hadith compilations of al-Bukhari, Muslim and others, all written in the ninth century, and thus 200 to 250 years after the fact. They are much too late to be useful for our study here. Therefore we must go back to the seventh century itself and ascertain what documents are available with which we can corroborate the reliability of the Qur'an.
(1) Doctrina Iacobi and 661 Chronicler:
Two seventh century documents at our disposal are helpful here: a) the Doctrina Iacobi, the earliest testimony of Muhammad and of his "movement" available to us outside Islamic tradition; a Greek anti-Jewish tract which was written in Palestine between 634 and 640 A.D. (Brock 1982:9; Crone-Cook 1977:3), and b) a chronicle supposedly written by Sebeos in 660 A.D. Both of these documents deal with the relationship between the Arabs and Jews in the seventh century.
The Qur'an implies that Muhammad severed his relationship with the Jews in 624 A.D. (or soon after the Hijra in 622 A.D.), and thus moved the direction of prayer, the Qibla at that time from Jerusalem to Mecca (Sura 2:144, 149-150). The early non-Muslim sources, however, depict a good relationship between the Muslims and Jews at the time of the first conquests (late 620s A.D.), and even later. Yet the Doctrina Iacobi warns of the Jews who mix with the Saracens,' and the danger to life and limb of falling into the hands of these Jews and Saracens' (Bonwetsch 1910:88; Cook 1983:75). In fact, this relationship seems to carry right on into the conquest as an early Armenian source mentions that the governor of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the conquest was a Jew (Patkanean 1879:111; Sebeos 1904:103).
What is significant here is the possibility that Jews and Arabs (Saracens) seem to be allied together during the time of the conquest of Palestine and even for a short time after (Crone-Cook 1977:6).
If these witnesses are correct than one must ask how it is that the Jews and Saracens (Arabs) are allies as late as 640 A.D., when, according to the Qur'an, Muhammad severed his ties with the Jews as early as 624 A.D., more than 15 years earlier?
To answer that we need to refer to the earliest connected account of the career of the prophet,' that given in an Armenian chronicle from around 660 A.D., which is ascribed by some to Bishop Sebeos (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:6). The chronicler describes how Muhammad established a community which comprised both Ishmaelites (i.e. Arabs) and Jews, and that their common platform was their common descent from Abraham; the Arabs via Ishmael, and the Jews via Isaac (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:8; Cook 1983:75). The chronicler believed Muhammad had endowed both communities with a birthright to the Holy Land, while simultaneously providing them with a monotheist genealogy (Crone-Cook 1977:. This is not without precedent as the idea of an Ishmaelite birthright to the Holy Land was discussed and rejected earlier in the Genesis Rabbah (61:7), in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Book of Jubilees (Crone-Cook 1977:159).
Here we find a number of non-Muslim documentary sources contradicting the Qur'an, maintaining that there was a good relationship between the Arabs and Jews for at least a further 15 years beyond that which the Qur'an asserts.
If Palestine was the focus for the Arabs, then the city of Mecca comes into question, and further documentary data concerning Mecca may prove to be the most damaging evidence against the reliability of the Qur'an which we have to date.
(2) Mecca:
To begin with we must ask what we know about Mecca? Muslims maintain that "Mecca is the centre of Islam, and the centre of history." According to the Qur'an, "The first sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah (or Mecca), a blessed place, a guidance for the peoples." (Sura 3:96) In Sura 6:92 and 42:5 we find that Mecca is described as the "mother of all settlements." According to Muslim tradition, Adam placed the black stone in the original Ka'ba there, while according to the Qur'an (Sura 2:125-127) it was Abraham and Ishmael who rebuilt the Meccan Ka'ba many years later. Thus, by implication, Mecca is considered by Muslims to be the first and most important city in the world! In fact much of the story of Muhammad revolves around Mecca, as his formative years were spent there, and it was to Mecca that he sought to return while in exile in Medina.
Apart from the obvious difficulty in finding any documentary or archaeological evidence that Abraham ever went to or lived in Mecca, the overriding problem rests in finding any reference to the city before the creation of Islam. From research carried out by both Crone and Cook, except for an inference to a city called "Makoraba" by the Greco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy in the mid-2nd century A.D. (though we are not even sure whether this allusion by Ptolemy referred to Mecca, as he only mentioned the name in passing), there is absolutely no other report of Mecca or its Ka'ba in any authenticated ancient document; that is until the early eighth century (Cook 1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:22). As Crone and Cook maintain the earliest substantiated reference to Mecca occurs in the Continuatio Byzantia Arabica, which is a source dating from early in the reign of the caliph Hisham, who ruled between 724-743 A.D. (Crone-Cook 1977:22,171).
Therefore, the earliest corroborative evidence we have for the existence of Mecca is fully 100 years after the date when Islamic tradition and the Qur'an place it. Why? Certainly, if it was so important a city, someone, somewhere would have mentioned it; yet we find nothing outside of the small inference by Ptolemy 500 years earlier, and these initial statements in the early eighth century.
Yet even more troubling historically is the claim by Muslims that Mecca was not only an ancient and great city, but it was also the centre of the trading routes for Arabia in the seventh century and before (Cook 1983:74; Crone 1987:3-6). It is this belief which is the easiest to examine, since we have ample documentation from that part of the world with which to check out its veracity.
According to extensive research by Bulliet on the history of trade in the ancient Middle-East, these claims by Muslims are quite wrong, as Mecca simply was not on any major trading routes. The reason for this, he contends, is that, "Mecca is tucked away at the edge of the peninsula. Only by the most tortured map reading can it be described as a natural crossroads between a north-south route and an east-west one." (Bulliet 1975:105)
This is corroborated by further research carried out by Groom and Muller, who contend that Mecca simply could not have been on the trading route, as it would have entailed a detour from the natural route along the western ridge. In fact, they maintain the trade route must have bypassed Mecca by some one-hundred miles (Groom 1981:193; Muller 1978:723).
Patricia Crone, in her work on Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam adds a practical reason which is too often overlooked by earlier historians. She points out that, "Mecca was a barren place, and barren places do not make natural halts, and least of all when they are found at a short distance from famously green environments. Why should caravans have made a steep descent to the barren valley of Mecca when they could have stopped at Ta'if. Mecca did, of course, have both a well and a sanctuary, but so did Ta'if, which had food supplies, too" (Crone 1987:6-7; Crone-Cook 1977:22).
Furthermore, Patricia Crone asks, "what commodity was available in Arabia that could be transported such a distance, through such an inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a peripheral site bereft of natural resources?" (Crone 1987:7) It wasn't incense, spices, and other exotic goods, as many notoriously unreliable earlier writers have intimated (see Crone's discussion on the problem of historical accuracy, particularly between Lammens, Watts and Kister, in Meccan Trade 1987:3). According to the latest and much more reliable research by Kister and Sprenger, the Arabs engaged in a trade of a considerably humbler kind, that of leather and clothing; hardly items which could have founded a commercial empire of international dimensions (Kister 1965:116; Sprenger 1869:94).
The real problem with Mecca, however, is that there simply was no international trade taking place in Arabia, let alone in Mecca in the centuries immediately prior to Muhammad's birth. It seems that much of our data in this area has been spurious from the outset, due to sloppy research of the original sources, carried out by Lammens, "an unreliable scholar," and repeated by the great orientalists such as Watts, Shaban, Rodinson, Hitti, Lewis and Shahid (Crone 1987:3,6). Lammens, using first century sources (such as Periplus and Pliny) should have used the later Greek historians who were closer to the events (such as Cosmas, Procopius and Theodoretus) (Crone 1987:3,19-22,44).
Had he referred to the later historians he would have found that the Greek trade between India and the Mediterranean was entirely maritime after the first century A.D. (Crone 1987:29). One need only look at a map to understand why. It made little sense to ship goods across such distances by land when a water-way was available close by. Patricia Crone points out that in Diocletian's Rome it was cheaper to ship wheat 1,250 miles by sea than to transport it fifty miles by land (Crone 1987:7). The distance from Najran, Yemen in the south, to Gaza in the north was roughly 1,250 miles. Why would the traders ship their goods from India by sea, and unload it at Aden where it would be put on the backs of much slower and more expensive camels to trudge 1,250 miles across the inhospitable Arabian desert to Gaza, when they could simply have left it on the ships and followed the Red Sea route up the west coast of Arabia?
There were other problems as well. Had Lammens researched his sources correctly he would have also found that the Greco-Roman trade with India collapsed by the third century A.D., so that by Muhammad's time there was not only no overland route, but no Roman market to which the trade was destined (Crone 1987:29). He would have similarly found that what trade remained, was controlled by the Ethiopians and not the Arabs, and that Adulis, the port city on the Ethiopian coast of the Red Sea, and not Mecca was the trading centre of that region (Crone 1987:11,41-42).
Of even more significance, had Lammens taken the time to study the early Greek sources, he would have discovered that the Greeks to whom the trade went had never even heard of a place called Mecca (Crone 1987:11,41-42). If, according to the Muslim traditions, and recent orientalists, Mecca was so important, certainly those to whom the trade was going would have noted its existence. Yet, we find nothing. Crone in her work points out that the Greek trading documents refer to the towns of Ta'if (which is south-east and close to present-day Mecca), and to Yathrib (later Medina), as well as Kaybar in the north, but no mention is made of Mecca (Crone 1987:11). That indeed is troubling for the historicity of a city whose importance lies at the centre of the nascent Islam.
Had the later orientalists bothered to check out Lammens' sources, they too would have realized that since the overland route was not used after the first century A.D., it certainly was not in use in the fifth or sixth centuries (Crone 1987:42), and much of what has been written concerning Mecca would have been corrected long before now.
Finally, the problem of locating Mecca in the early secular sources is not unique, for there is even some confusion within Islamic tradition as to where exactly Mecca was initially situated (see the discussion on the evolution of the Meccan site in Crone & Cook's Hagarism 1977:23,173). According to research carried out by J.van Ess, in both the first and second civil wars, there are accounts of people proceeding from Medina to Iraq via Mecca (van Ess 1971:16; see also Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi 1369:343). Yet Mecca is south-west of Medina, and Iraq is north-east. Thus the sanctuary for Islam, according to these traditions was at one time north of Medina, which is the opposite direction from where Mecca is today!
We are left in a quandary. If, according to documentary evidence, in this case the ancient Greek historical and trading documents, Mecca was not the great commercial centre the later Muslim traditions would have us believe, if it was not known by the people who lived and wrote from that period, and if it could not even qualify as a viable city during the time of Muhammad, it certainly could not have been the centre of the Muslim world at that time. How then can we believe that the Qur'an is reliable? The documentary evidence not only contradicts its dating on the split between the Arabs and the Jews, but the city it identifies as the birthplace and cornerstone for the nascent Islam cannot even be identified with any historical accuracy until at least a full century later? Do these same problems exist with the Bible?
[B] THE BIBLE'S DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE:
(1900=Abraham, 1700=Joseph, 1447=Moses, 1000=David)
The documentary evidence for the reliability of the Bible has been an area of research which has been increasing rapidly over the last few decades. But this hasn't always been so. The assumption by many former archaeologists was that the Old Testament was written not in the tenth to fourteenth centuries B.C. by the authors described within its text, but by later Jewish historians during the much later second to sixth century B.C., and that the stories were then redacted back onto the great prophets such as Moses and David, etc... Yet, with the enormous quantity of data which has been uncovered and is continuing to be uncovered, as well as the new forensic research methods being employed to study them, what we are now finding is that many of these preconceived notions of authorship are simply no longer valid. For instance:
(1) The skeptics contended that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses, because there was no evidence of any writing that early. Then the Black Stele was found with the detailed laws of Hammurabi which were written 300 years before Moses, and in the same region.

(2) There was much doubt as to the reliability of the Old Testament documents, since the oldest manuscript in our possession was the Massoretic Text, written in 916 A.D. How, the skeptics asked, can we depend on a set of writings whose earliest manuscripts are so recent? Then came the amazing discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls written around 125 B.C. These scrolls show us that outside of minute copying errors it is identical to the Massoretic Text and yet it predates it by over 1,000 years! We have further corroboration in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, translated around 150-200 B.C.
Yet to please the skeptics, the best documentary evidence for the reliability of the Biblical text must come from documents external to the Biblical text themselves. There has always been doubt concerning the stories of Abraham and the Patriarchs found in the books attributed to Moses, the Pentateuch. The skeptics maintained that there is no method of ascertaining their reliability since we have no corroboration from external secular accounts. This has all changed; for instance:
(3) Discoveries from excavations at Nuzu, Mari and Assyrian, Hittite, Sumerian and Eshunna Codes point out that Hebrew poetry, Mosaic legislation as well as the Hebrew social customs all fit the period and region of the patriarchs.
(4) According to the historians there were no Hittites at the time of Abraham, thus the historicity of the Biblical accounts describing them was questionable. Now we know from inscriptions of that period that there were 1,200 years of Hittite civilization, much of it corresponding with the Patriarchal period.
(5) Historians also told us that no such people as the Horites existed. It is these people whom we find mentioned in the genealogy of Esau in Genesis 36:20. Yet now they have been discovered as a group of warriors also living in Mesopotamia during the Patriarchal period.
(6) The account of Daniel, according to the sceptical historians, must have been written in the second century and not the sixth century B.C. because of all the precise historical detail found in its content. Yet now the sixth century's East India Inscription corresponds with the Daniel 4:30 account of Nebuchadnezzar's building, proving that the author of Daniel must have been an eye-witness from that period. Either way it is amazing.
The strongest case for extra-Biblical corroboration of the Patriarchal period is found in four sets of tablets which have been and are continuing to be uncovered from that area of the world. They demonstrate that the Biblical account is indeed historically reliable. Let's briefly look at all four sets of tablets.
(7) *Armana tablets: (from Egypt) mention the Habiru or Apiru in Hebrew, which was first applied to Abraham in Genesis 14:13.
( *Ebla tablets: 17,000 tablets from Tell Mardikh (Northern Syria), dating from 2300 B.C., shows us that a thousand years before Moses, laws, customs and events were recorded in writing in that part of the world, and that the judicial proceedings and case laws were very similar to the Deuteronomy law code (i.e. Deuteronomy 22:22-30 codes on punishment for sex offenses). One tablet mentions and lists the five cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar in the exact sequence which we find in Genesis 14:8! Until these tablets were uncovered the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah had always been in doubt by historians.
(9) *Mari tablets: (from the Euphrates) mentions king Arriyuk, or Arioch of Genesis 14, and lists the towns of Nahor and Harran (from Genesis 24:10), as well as the names Benjamin and Habiru.
(10) *Nuzi tablets: (from Iraq) speaks about a number of customs which we find in the Pentateuch, such as:
a) a barren wife giving a handmaiden to her husband (i.e. Hagar)
b) a bride chosen for the son by the father (i.e. Rebekah)
c) a dowry paid to the father-in-law (i.e. Jacob)
d) work done to pay a dowry (i.e. Jacob)
e) the unchanging oral will of a father (i.e. Isaac)
f) a father giving his daughter a slave-girl (i.e. Leah, Rachel)
g) the sentence of death for stealing a cult gods (i.e. Jacob).
Because of these extra-Biblical discoveries many of the historians are now changing their position. Thus Joseph Free states: "New discoveries now show us that a host of supposed [Biblical] errors and contradictions are not errors at all: such as, that Sargon existed and lived in a palatial dwelling 12 miles north of Ninevah, that the Hittites were a significant people, that the concept of a sevenfold lamp existed in the early Iron Age, that a significant city given in the record of David's empire lies far to the north, and that Belshazzar existed and ruled over Babylon."
While documentary evidence for the Bible in the form of secular inscriptions and tablets not only corroborates the existence of some of the oldest Biblical traditions, similar and more recent documentary evidence (such as the Doctrina Iacobi, and the Armenian Chronicler) eradicates some of the more cherished Islamic traditions, that Islam was a uniquely Arab creation, and that Mecca, the supposed centre for Islam, has little historicity whatsoever before or during the time of Muhammad.
We look forward to further documentary discoveries coming to light, as they continue to substantiate and underline the Biblical record, while simultaneously putting doubt to the record of the Qur'an. Let's now look at the archaeological evidence for both the Bible and the Qur'an:

[III] THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

If we are to take the Qur'anic and Biblical records seriously, we will need to inquire further as to whether there are other sources which we can turn to for a corroboration of their accounts. Since we are dealing with scriptures which often speak of history, probably the best and easiest way to confirm that history is to go to the areas where the history took place because history never takes place in a vacuum. It always leaves behind its forgotten fingerprints, waiting dormant in the ground to be discovered, dug up and deciphered. It is therefore, important that we also get our digets dirty and take a look at the treasures which our archaeologist friends are discovering, to ascertain if they have been able to reward us with any clues as to the authenticity of both the Qur'anic and Biblical accounts. Let's see what archaeology tells us concerning the Qur'an.
[A] THE QUR'AN'S ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:
As with the manuscript and documentary evidence, there is not much archaeological data to which we can turn for corroboration of the Qur'an. What we can do, however, is look at the claims the Qur'an makes and ascertain whether they can be backed up by archaeology. Let's start with the Qibla, or direction of prayer.
(1) The Qibla:
According to the Qur'an, the direction of prayer (the Qibla), was canonized (or finalized) towards Mecca for all Muslims in or around 624 A.D. (see Sura 2:144, 149-150).
Yet, the earliest evidence from outside Muslim tradition regarding the direction in which Muslims prayed, and by implication the location of their sanctuary, points to an area much further north than Mecca, in fact somewhere in north-west Arabia (Crone-Cook 1977:23). Consider the archaeological evidence which has been and is continuing to be uncovered from the first mosques built in the seventh century:
According to archaeological research carried out by Creswell and Fehervari on ancient mosques in the Middle East, two floor-plans from two Umayyad mosques in Iraq, one built at the beginning of the 8th century by the governor Hajjaj in Wasit (noted by Creswell as, "the oldest mosque in Islam of which remains have come down to us" - Creswell 1989:41), and the other attributed to roughly the same period near Baghdad, have Qiblas (the direction which these mosques are facing) which do not face Mecca, but are oriented too far north (Creswell 1969:137ff & 1989:40; Fehervari 1961:89; Crone-Cook 1977:23,173). The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, and the Baghdad mosque is off by 30 degrees (Creswell 1969:137ff; Fehervari 1961:89).
This agrees with Baladhuri's testimony (called the Futuh) that the Qibla of the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, supposedly constructed in 670 A.D. (Creswell 1989:41), also lay to the west, when it should have pointed almost directly south (al-Baladhuri's Futuh, ed. by de Goeje 1866:276; Crone 1980:12; Crone-Cook 1977:23,173).
The original ground-plan of the mosque of Amr b. al As, located in Fustat, the garrison town outside Cairo, Egypt shows that the Qibla again pointed too far north and had to be corrected later under the governorship of Qurra b. Sharik (Creswell 1969:37,150). Interestingly this agrees with the later Islamic tradition compiled by Ahmad b. al-Maqrizi that Amr prayed facing slightly south of east, and not towards the south (al-Maqrizi 1326:6; Crone-Cook 1977:24,173).
If you take a map you will find where it is that these mosques were pointing. All four of the above instances position the Qibla not towards Mecca, but much further north, in fact closer possibly to the vicinity of Jerusalem. If, as some Muslims now say, one should not take these findings too seriously as many mosques even today have misdirected Qiblas, then one must wonder why, if the Muslims back then were so incapable of ascertaining directions, they should all happen to be pointing to a singular location; to an area in northern Arabia, and possibly Jerusalem?
We find further corroboration for this direction of prayer by the Christian writer and traveller Jacob of Edessa, who, writing as late as 705 A.D. was a contemporary eye-witness in Egypt. He maintained that the Mahgraye' (Greek name for Arabs) in Egypt prayed facing east which was towards their Ka'ba (Crone-Cook 1977:24). His letter (which can be found in the British Museum) is indeed revealing. Therefore, as late as 705 A.D. the direction of prayer towards Mecca had not yet been canonized.
Note: The mention of a Ka'ba does not necessarily infer Mecca (as so many Muslims have been quick to point out), since there were other Ka'bas in existence during that time, usually in market-towns (Crone-Cook 1977:25,175). It was profitable to build a Ka'ba in these market towns so that the people coming to market could also do their pilgrimage or penitence to the idols contained within. The Ka'ba Jacob of Edessa was referring to was situated at "the patriarchal places of their races," which he also maintains was not in the south. Both the Jews and Arabs ( Mahgraye') maintained a common descent from Abraham who was known to have lived and died in Palestine, as has been corroborated by recent archaeological discoveries (see the earlier discussion on the Ebla, Mari and Nuzi tablets, as well as extra-Biblical 10th century references to Abraham in McDowell 1991:98-104). This common descent from Abraham is also corroborated by the Armenian Chronicler, Sebeos, as early as 660 A.D. (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:8; Cook 1983:75).
According to Dr. Hawting, who teaches on the sources of Islam at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, a part of the University of London), new archaeological discoveries of mosques in Egypt from the early 700s also show that up till that time the Muslims (or Haggarenes) were indeed praying, not towards Mecca, but towards the north, and possibly Jerusalem. In fact, Dr. Hawting maintains, no mosques have been found from this period (the seventh century) which face towards Mecca (noted from his class lectures in 1995). Hawting cautions, however, that not all of the Qiblas face towards Jerusalem. Some Jordanian mosques have been uncovered which face north, while there are certain North African mosques which face south, implying that there was some confusion as to where the early sanctuary was placed. Yet, the Qur'an tells us (in sura 2) that the direction of the Qibla was fixed towards Mecca by approximately two years after the Hijra, or around 624 A.D., and has remained in that direction until the present!
Thus, according to Crone and Cook and Hawting, the combination of the archaeological evidence from Iraq along with the literary evidence from Egypt points unambiguously to a sanctuary [and thus direction of prayer] not in the south, but somewhere in north-west Arabia (or even further north) at least till the end of the seventh century (Crone-Cook 1977:24).
What is happening here? Why are the Qiblas of these early mosques not facing towards Mecca? Why the discrepancy between the Qur'an and that which archaeology as well as documents reveal as late as 705 A.D.?
Some Muslims argue that perhaps the early Muslims did not know the direction of Mecca. Yet these were desert traders, caravaneers! Their livelihood was dependant on travelling the desert, which has few landmarks, and, because of the sandstorms, no roads. They, above all, knew how to follow the stars. Their lives depended on it. Certainly they knew the difference between the north and the south.
Furthermore, the mosques in Iraq and Egypt were built in civilized urban areas, amongst a sophisticated people who were well adept at finding directions. It is highly unlikely that they would miscalculate their qiblas by so many degrees. How else did they perform the obligatory Hajj, which we are told was also canonized at this time? And why are so many of the mosques facing in the direction of northern Arabia, or possibly Jerusalem? A possible answer may be found by looking at archaeology once again; this time in Jerusalem itself.
(2) The Dome of the Rock:
In the centre of Jerusalem sits an imposing structure (even today) called the Dome of the Rock, built by Abd al-Malik in 691 A.D. One will note, however, that the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque, as it has no Qibla (no direction for prayer). It is built as an octagon with eight pillars (Nevo 1994:113), suggesting it was used for circumambulation (to walk around). Thus, it seems to have been built as a sanctuary (Glasse 1991:102). Today it is considered to be the third most holy site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Muslims contend that it was built to commemorate the night when Muhammad went up to heaven to speak with Moses and Allah concerning the number of prayers required of the believers (known as the Mi'raj in Arabic) (Glasse 1991:102).
Yet, according to the research carried out on the inscriptions on the walls of the building by Van Berchem and Nevo, they say nothing of the Mi'raj, but state mere polemical quotations which are Qur'anic, though they are aimed primarily at Christians. The inscriptions attest the messianic status of Jesus, the acceptance of the prophets, Muhammad's receipt of revelation, and the use of the terms "islam" and "muslim" (Van Berchem 1927:nos.215,217; Nevo 1994:113). Why, if the Dome of the Rock were built to commemorate that momentous event, does it saying nothing about it? Perhaps this building was built for other purposes than that of commemorating the Mi'raj. The fact that such an imposing structure was built so early suggests that this and not Mecca became the sanctuary and the centre of a nascent Islam up until at least the late seventh century, (Van Bercham 1927:217)!
From what we read earlier of Muhammad's intention to fulfill his and the Hagarene's birthright, by taking back the land of Abraham, or Palestine, it makes sense that the caliph Abd al-Malik would build this structure as the centre-piece of that fulfilment. Is it no wonder then, that when Abd al-Malik built the dome in which he proclaimed the prophetic mission of Muhammad, he placed it over the temple rock itself (Van Berchem 1927:217).
According to Islamic tradition, the caliph Suleyman, who reigned as late as 715-717 A.D., went to Mecca to ask about the Hajj. He was not satisfied with the response he received there, and so chose to follow abd al-Malik (i.e. travelling to the Dome of the Rock) (note: not to be confused with the Imam, Malik b. Anas who, because he was born in 712 A.D. would have been only three years old at the time). This fact alone, according to Dr. Hawting at SOAS, points out that there was still some confusion as to where the sanctuary was to be located as late as the early eighth century. It seems that Mecca was only now (sixty years after the Muhammad's death) taking on the role as the religious centre of Islam. One can therefore understand why, according to tradition, Walid I, who reigned as Caliph between 705 and 715 A.D., wrote to all the regions ordering the demolition and enlargement of the mosques (refer to 'Kitab al-'uyun wa'l-hada'iq,' edited by M. de Goeje and P. de Jong 1869:4). Could it be that at this time the Qiblas were then aligned towards Mecca? If so it points to a glaring contradiction in the Qur'an which established Mecca as the sanctuary and thus direction for prayer during the lifetime of Muhammad some eighty to ninety years earlier (see Sura 2:144-150).
And that is not all, for we have other archaeological and inscripted evidence which point up differences with that which we read in the Qur'an. Let's look at the reliability of Muhammad's prophethood, using the data at our disposal.
(3) Nevo's Rock inscriptions:
In order to know who Muhammad was, and what he did, we must go back to the time when he lived, and look at the evidence which existed then, and still exists, to see what it can tell us about this very important figure. Dr. Wansbrough, who has done so much research on the early trad

[Omega]

I could not fit it all, here it is :and the Qur'an believes that, because the Islamic sources are all very late, from 150 years for the Sira-Maghazi documents, as well as the earliest Qur'an, it behoves us not to consider them authoritative (Wansbrough 1977:160-163; Rippin 1985:154-155). It is when we look at the non-Muslim sources that we find some rather interesting observances as to who this man Muhammad was.
The best non-Muslim sources on this period which we have are those provided by the Arabic rock inscriptions scattered all over the Syro-Jordanian deserts and the Peninsula, and especially the Negev desert (Nevo 1994:109). The man who has done the greatest research on these rock inscriptions is the late Yehuda Nevo, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is to his research, which is titled Towards a Prehistory of Islam, published in 1994, that I will refer.
Nevo has found in the Arab religious texts, dating from the first century and a half of Arab rule (seventh to eighth century A.D.), a monotheistic creed. However, he contends that this creed "is demonstrably not Islam, but [a creed] from which Islam could have developed." (Nevo 1994:109)
Nevo also found that "in all the Arab religious institutions during the Sufyani period [661-684 A.D.] there is a complete absence of any reference to Muhammad." (Nevo 1994:109) In fact neither the name Muhammad itself nor any Muhammadan formulae (that he is the prophet of God) appears in any inscription dated before the year 691 A.D.. This is true whether the main purpose of the inscription is religious, such as in supplications, or whether it was used as a commemorative inscription, though including a religious emphasis, such as the inscription at the dam near the town of Ta'if, built by the Caliph Mu'awiya in the 660s A.D. (Nevo 1994:109).
The fact that Muhammad's name is absent on all of the early inscriptions, especially the religious ones is significant. Many of the later traditions (i.e. the Sira and the Hadith, which are the earliest Muslim literature that we possess) are made up almost entirely of narratives on the prophet's life. He is the example which all Muslims are to follow. Why then do we not find this same emphasis in these much earlier Arabic inscriptions which are closer to the time he lived? Even more troubling, why is there no mention of him at all? His name is only found on the Arab inscriptions after 690 A.D. (Nevo 1994:109-110).
And what's more, the first dated occurrence of the phrase Muhammad rasul Allah (Muhammad is the prophet of God) is found on an Arab-Sassanian coin of Xalid b. Abdallah from the year 690 A.D., which was struck in Damascus (Nevo 1994:110).
Of greater significance, the first occurrence of what Nevo calls the "Triple Confession of Faith," including the Tawhid (that God is one), the phrase, Muhammad rasul Allah (that Muhammad is his prophet), and the human nature of Jesus (rasul Allah wa- abduhu), is found in Abd al-Malik's inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, dated 691 A.D. (Nevo 1994:110)! Before this inscription the Muslim confession of faith cannot be attested at all.
As a rule, after 691 A.D. and on through the Marwanid dynasty (until 750 A.D.), Muhammad's name usually occurs whenever religious formulae are used, such as on coins, milestones, and papyrus "protocols" (Nevo 1994:110). One could probably argue that perhaps these late dates are due to the fact that any religious notions took time to penetrate the Arabic inscriptions. Yet, according to Nevo, the first Arabic papyrus, an Egyptian entaqion, which was a receipt for taxes paid, dated 642 A.D. and written in both Greek and Arabic is headed by the "Basmala," yet it is neither Christian nor Muslim in character (Nevo 1994:110).
The religious content within the rock inscriptions do not become pronounced until after 661 A.D. However, though they bear religious texts, they never mention the prophet or the Muhammadan formulae (Nevo 1994:110). "This means," Nevo says, "that the official Arab religious confession did not include Muhammad or Muhammadan formulae in its repertoire of set phrases at this time," a full 30-60 years and more after the death of Muhammad (Nevo 1994:110). What they did contain was a monotheistic form of belief, belonging to a certain body of sectarian literature with developed Judaeo-Christian conceptions in a particular literary style, but one which contained no features specific to any known monotheistic religion (Nevo 1994:110,112).
Of even greater significance, these inscriptions show that when the Muhammadan formulae is introduced, during the Marwanid period (after 684 A.D.), it is carried out "almost overnight" (Nevo 1994:110). Suddenly it became the state's only form of official religious declaration, and was used exclusively in formal documents and inscriptions, such as the papyrus "protocols" (Nevo 1994:110).
Yet even after the Muhammadan texts became official, they were not accepted by the public quite so promptly. For years after their appearance in state declarations, people continued to include non-Muhammadan legends in personal inscriptions, as well as routine chancery writings (Nevo 1994:114). Thus, for instance, Nevo has found a certain scribe who does not use the Muhammadan formulae in his Arabic and Greek correspondence, though he does on papyrus "protocols" bearing his name and title (Nevo 1994:114).
In fact, according to Nevo, Muhammadan formulae only began to be used in the popular rock inscriptions of the central Negev around 30 years (or one generation) after its introduction by Abd al-Malik, sometime during the reign of Caliph Hisham (between 724-743 A.D.). And even these, according to Nevo, though they are Muhammadan, are not Muslim. The Muslim texts, he believes, only begin to appear at the beginning of the ninth century (around 822 A.D.), coinciding with the first written Qur'ans, as well as the first written traditional Muslim accounts (Nevo 1994:115).
Thus, it seems from these inscriptions that it was during the later Marwanid period (after 684 A.D.), and not during the life of Muhammad that he was elevated to the position of a universal prophet, and that even then, the Muhammadan formula which was introduced was still not equivalent with that which we have today.
(4) The Qur'an:
We now come to the Qur'an itself. It seems evident that the Qur'an underwent a transformation during the 100 years following the prophet's death. We have now uncovered coins with supposed Qur'anic writings on them which date from 685 A.D., coined during the reign of Abd al-Malik (Nevo 1994:110). Furthermore, the Dome of the Rock sanctuary built by Abd al-Malik in Jerusalem in 691 A.D. "does attest to the existence, at the end of the seventh century, of materials immediately recognizable as Koranic." (Crone-Cook 1977:18) Yet, the quotations from the Qur'an on both the coins and the Dome of the Rock differ in details from that which we find in the Qur'an today (Cook 1983:74). Van Berchem and Grohmann, two etymologists who have done extensive research on the Dome of the Rock inscriptions, maintain that the inscriptions contain "variant verbal forms, extensive deviances, as well as omissions from the text which we have today." (Cook 1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:167-168; see Van Berchem part two, vol.ii, nos.1927:215-217 and Grohmann's Arabic Papyri from Hirbet el-Mird, no.72 to delineate where these variances are).
If these inscriptions had been derived from the Qur'an, with the variants which they contain, then how could the Qur'an have been canonized prior to this time (late seventh century)? One can only conclude that there must have been an evolution in the transmission of the Qur'an through the years (if indeed they were originally taken from the Qur'an).
The sources also seem to suggest that the Qur'an was put together rather hurriedly. This is underlined by Dr. John Wansbrough who maintains that, "the book is strikingly lacking in overall structure, frequently obscure and inconsequential in both language and content, perfunctory in its linking of disparate materials, and given to the repetition of whole passages in variant versions. On this basis it can plausibly be argued that the book is the product of the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of traditions." (quoted in Hagarism, Crone-Cook 1977:18,167) Thus Crone and Cook believe that because of the imperfection of the editing, the emergence of the Qur'an must have been a sudden and late event (Crone-Cook 1977:18,167).
As to when that event took place we are not altogether sure, but we can make an educated guess. From the earlier discussion concerning the dating of the earliest manuscripts we can conclude that there was no Qur'anic documentation in existence in the mid-late seventh century. The earliest reference from outside Islamic literary traditions to the book called the "Qur'an" occurs in the mid-eighth century between an Arab and a monk of Bet Hale (Nau 1915:6f), but no-one knows whether it may have differed considerably in content from the Qur'an which we have today. Both Crone and Cook conclude that except for this small reference there is no indication of the existence of the Qur'an before the end of the seventh century (Crone-Cook 1977:18).
Crone and Cook in their research go on to maintain that it was under the governor Hajjaj of Iraq in 705 A.D. that we have a logical historical context in which the "Qur'an" (or a nascent body of literature which would later become the Qur'an) could have been compiled as Muhammad's scripture (Crone-Cook 1977:18). In an account attributed to Leo by Levond, the governor Hajjaj is shown to have collected all the old Hagarene writings and replaced them with others "according to his own taste, and disseminated them everywhere among [his] nation." (Jeffrey 1944:298) A reasonable conclusion is that it was during this period that the Qur'an began its evolution, possibly beginning to be written down, until it was finally canonized in the mid to late eighth century as the Qur'an which we now know.
From this brief survey we can conclude that the archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Qur'an proves to be the most damaging. Not only do the seventh and eighth century ruins and inscriptions from the area seem to contradict the notion that Muhammad canonized a direction of prayer during his lifetime, or that he had formulated a scripture known as the Qur'an, but the idea of his universal prophethood, that he was the final "seal" of all prophets is brought into question. This indeed is significant and troublesome.
The question we must now pose is whether there is any archaeological evidence to corroborate the authenticity for the Bible? Do the same problems exist with the Bible that we find with the Qur'an?

[B] THE BIBLE'S ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:
(1900=Abraham, 1700=Joseph, 1447=Moses, 1000=David):
What has become evident over the last few decades is that unlike the difficulties found with the Qur'anic evidence, the most fruitful area for a confirmation of the Bible's reliability has come from the field of archaeology, for it is here that the past can speak to us the clearest concerning what happened then.
Because Abraham is honoured by both Christianity and Islam it is interesting to look at the archaeological evidence concerning his time which is now coming to light in the twentieth century. What we find is that archaeology clearly places Abraham in Palestine and not in Arabia.
1) Abraham's name appears in Babylonia as a personal name at the very period of the patriarchs, though the critics believed he was a fictitious character who was redacted back by the later Israelites.
2) The field of Abram in Hebron is mentioned in 918 B.C., by the Pharaoh Shishak of Egypt (now also believed to be Ramases II). He had just finished warring in Palestine and inscribed on the walls of his temple at Karnak the name of the great patriarch, proving that even at this early date Abraham was known not in Arabia, as Muslims contend, but in Palestine, the land the Bible places him.
3) The Beni Hasan Tomb from the Abrahamic period, depicts Asiatics coming to Egypt during a famine, corresponding with the Biblical account of the plight of the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'.
There is further archaeology evidence which supports other Biblical accounts, such as:
4) The doors of Sodom (Tell Beit Mirsim) dated to between 2200-1600 B.C. are heavy doors needed for security; the same doors which we find in Genesis 19:9. Yet, if this account had been written between 900-600 B.C., as the critics previously claimed, we would have read about arches and curtains, because security was no longer such a concern then.
5) Joseph's price as a slave was 20 shekels (Genesis 37:28), which, according to trade tablets from that period is the correct price for 1,700 B.C. An earlier account would have been cheaper, while a later account would have been more expensive.
6) Joseph's Tomb (Joshua 24:32) has possibly been found in Shechem, as in the find there is a mummy, and next to the mummy sits an Egyptian officials sword! Is this mere coincidence?
7) Jericho's excavation showed that the walls fell outwards, echoing Joshua 6:20, enabling the attackers to climb over and into the town. Yet according to the laws of physics, walls of towns always fall inwards! A later redactor would certainly have not made such an obvious mistake, unless he was an eyewitness, as Joshua was.
8) David's capture of Jerusalem recounted in II Samuel 5:6-8 and I Chronicles 11:6 speak of Joab using water shafts built by the Jebusites to surprise them and defeat them. Historians had assumed these were simply legendary, until archaeological excavations by R.A.S. Macalister, J.G.Duncan, and Kathleen Kenyon on Ophel now have found these very water shafts.
Another new and exciting archaeological research is that which has been carried out by the British Egyptologist, David Rohl. Until a few years ago we only had archaeological evidence for the Patriarchal, Davidic and New Testament periods, but little to none for the Mosaic period. Yet one would expect much data on this period due to the cataclysmic events which occurred during that time. David Rohl (in A Test of Time) has given us a possible reason why, and it is rather simple. It seems that we have simply been off in our dates by almost 300 years! By redating the Pharonic lists in Egypt he has been able to now identify the abandoned city of the Israelite slaves (called Avaris), the death pits from the tenth plague, and Joseph's original tomb and home. There remain many 'tells' yet to uncover.
Moving into the New Testament material we are dependant on archaeology once again to corroborate a number of facts which the critics considered to be at best dubious and at worst in error.
9) Paul's reference to Erastus as the treasurer of Corinth (Romans 16:23) was thought to be erroneous, but now has been confirmed by a pavement found in 1929 bearing his name.
It is to Luke, however, that the skeptics have reserved their harshest criticisms, because he more than any other of the first century writers spoke about specific peoples and places. Yet, surprisingly, once the dust had settled on new inscription findings, it is Luke who has confounded these same critics time and again. For instance:
10) Luke's use of the word Meris to maintain that Philippi was a "district" of Macedonia was doubted until inscriptions were found which use this very word to describe divisions of a district.
11) Luke's mention of Quirinius as the governor of Syria during the birth of Jesus has now been proven accurate by an inscription from Antioch.
12) Luke's usage of Politarchs to denote the civil authority of Thessalonica (Acts 17:6) was questioned, until some 19 inscriptions have been found that make use of this title, 5 of which are in reference to Thessalonica.
13) Luke's usage of Praetor to describe a Philippian ruler instead of duumuir has been proven accurate, as the Romans used this term for magistrates of their colonies.
14) Luke's usage of Proconsul as the title for Gallio in Acts 18:12 has come under much criticism by secular historians, as the later traveller and writer Pliny never referred to Gallio as a Proconsul. This fact alone, they said, proved that the writer of Acts wrote his account much later as he was not aware of Gallio's true position. It was only recently that the Delphi Inscription , dated to 52 A.D. was uncovered. This inscription states, "As Lusius Junius Gallio, my friend, and the proconsul of Achaia..." Here then was secular corroboration for the Acts 18:12 account. Yet Gallio only held this position for one year. Thus the writer of Acts had to have written this verse in or around 52 A.D., and not later, otherwise he would not have known Gallio was a proconsul. Suddenly this supposed error not only gives credibility to the historicity of the Acts account, but also dates the writings in and around 52 A.D. Had the writer written the book of Acts in the 2nd century as many liberal scholars suggest he would have agreed with Pliny and both would have been contradicted by the eyewitness account of the Delphi Inscription.
It is because of discoveries such as this that F.F.Bruce states, "Where Luke has been suspected of inaccuracy, and accuracy has been vindicated by some inscriptional evidence, it may be legitimate to say that archaeology has confirmed the New Testament record."
In light of archaeological evidence, books such as Luke and Acts reflect the topography and conditions of the second half of the first century A.D. and do not reflect the conditions of any later date. Thus it is because Luke, as a historian has been held to a higher accountability then the other writers, and because it has been historical data which has validated his accounts, we can rest assured that the New Testament can be held in high regard as a reliable historical document.
We have no reason to fear archaeology. In fact it is this very science which has done more to authenticate our scriptures than any other. Thus we encourage the secular archaeologists to dig, for as they dig we know they will only come closer to that which our scriptures have long considered to be the truth, and give us reason to claim that indeed our Bible has the right to claim true authority as the only historically verified Word of God. This is why so many eminent archaeologists are standing resolutely behind the Biblical accounts. Listen to what they say (taken from McDowell's Evidences 1972:65-67):
G.E. Wright states,"We shall probably never prove that Abram really existed...but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly within any later period."
Sir Frederic Kenyon mentions, "The evidence of archaeology has been to re-establish the authority of the Old Testament, and likewise to augment its value by rendering it more intelligible through a fuller knowledge of its background and setting."
William F. Albright (a renowned archaeologist) says, "The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible by important historical schools of the 18th and 19th centuries, certain phases which still appear periodically, has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a source of history."
Millar Burrows of Yale states, "On the whole, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record."
Joseph Free confirms that while thumbing through the book of Genesis, he mentally noted that each of the 50 chapters are either illuminated or confirmed by some archaeological discovery, and that this would be true for most of the remaining chapters of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Nelson Glueck (a Jewish Reformed scholar and archaeologist) probably gives us the greatest support for the historicity of the Bible when he states, "To date no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single, properly understood biblical statement."

CONCLUSION:
Now that we have carried out a cursory study of the historicity for both the Qur'an and the Bible, it is important that we make some conclusions. What can we say concerning the veracity of these two scriptures in light of the evidence produced by the manuscript, document and archeological data at our disposal?
Starting with the Qur'an, it is reasonable to conclude that these findings indeed give us reason for pause concerning its reliability. Manuscript, as well as documentary and archaeological evidence indicates that much of what the Qur'an maintains does not coincide with the historical data at our disposal which comes from that period. From the material amassed from external sources in the7th-8th centuries, we now know:
1) that the Jews still retained a relationship with the Arabs until at least 640 A.D.;
2) that Jerusalem and not Mecca was more-than-likely the city which contained the original sanctuary for Islam, as Mecca was not only unknown as a viable city until the end of the seventh century, but it was not even on the international trade route;
3) that the Qibla (direction of prayer) was not fixed towards Mecca until the eighth century, but to an area much further north, possibly Jerusalem;
4) that the Dome of the Rock situated in Jerusalem was possibly the original sanctuary;
5) that Muhammad was not known as the seal of prophets until the late seventh century;
6) that the earliest we even hear of any Qur'an is not until the mid-eighth century;
7) and that the earliest Qur'anic writings do not coincide with the current Qur'anic text. All of this data contradicts the Qur'an which is in our possession, and adds to the suspicion that the Qur'an which we now read is NOT the same as that which was supposedly collated and canonized in 650 A.D. under Uthman, as Muslims contend (if indeed it even existed at that time). One can only assume that there must have been an evolution in the Qur'anic text. Consequently, the sole thing we can say with a certainty is that only the documents which we now possess (from 790 A.D. onwards) are the same as that which is in our hands today, written not 16 years after Muhammad's death but 160 years later, and thus not 1,400 years ago, but only 1,200 years ago.

As for the Bible, with the abundance of existing manuscripts (handwritten copies) of the New Testament (more than 24,000), we know little has been lost through the transmission of the text. In fact there is more evidence for the reliability of the text of the New Testament than there is for any ten pieces of classical literature put together. It is in better textual shape than the 37 plays of William Shakespeare which were written a mere 300 years ago, after the invention of the printing press! This is indeed surprising, considering the early period in which the manuscripts were compiled, as well as the flimsy material on which they were written. The fact that we have such an abundance of manuscripts still in our possession points to the importance the scriptures have held for the church over the centuries. As far as we can know, the names, places, and events mentioned in the Bible have been recorded accurately so that what we have is the representation of what God said and did. Besides the massive numbers of early New Testament documents, the Old Testament can also be substantiated by the Jewish community who continue to corroborate the proof for its accuracy, as well as documents such as the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls which give added weight to the claim that it has never been changed.
Even the Qur'an, possibly written during the 7th-8th centuries recognized the authority of our scriptures (see suras 2:136; 3:2-3; 4:136; 5:47-52,68; 10:95; 21:7; and 29:46). We also know that, outside of the few scribal errors, the historical events and personages are adequately correct, as they do not confuse names, dates and events, and in fact, surprisingly, continue to coincide with current archaeological findings. This is indeed significant, since with each successive year, ongoing documental and archaeological discoveries fail to divulge any historical contradictions. Instead they continue to corroborate what the Bible has been saying for 2,000-3,000 years (examples such as the Ebla tablets, or the newly discovered tomb of the priest Caiaphus give continuing credibility to the scriptures historical trustworthiness).
Therefore, the testimony of the historical evidence is that the Bible and not the Qur'an can be trusted as an accurate and reliable historical document. While we continue to unearth data which substantiates the Bible's accuracy, we likewise unearth further data which erradicates the validity for the Qur'anic account. If a scripture claims to be a revelation from God, it must prove its claim by establishing its historical credentials, to the extent that even a third party can agree upon the evidence provided. This the Bible and not the Qur'an does adequately.
We must also know that the Bible is unique? Consider: Here is a book written over a 1,500 year span (about 40 generations), by more than 40 authors, among whose number were found: kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, a herdsman, a general, a cupbearer, a doctor, a tax collector, and a rabbi. It was written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe, and in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial topics, yet from Genesis right on through to Revelation the authors all spoke with harmony and continuity on the theme of the unfolding story of "God's redemption of humanity."
If God truly created the world for His pleasure, He would have created it to work to a pattern. This pattern we would expect to find revealed in His Word; as indeed we do, not only in the life of Jesus, the incarnate Word, who came and dwelt among us, but in the truth of the Gospel which was found in His teaching and later written down by His apostles. It is therefore not surprising that many cultures and governments even today continue to follow its precepts, laws and institutions, even though they do not necessarily adhere to its authorship.
It should not surprise us then that the Bible continues to be the source of God's revelation to His creation, for families and communities around the world, and that, according to the latest statistics, the Bible and not the Qu'ran is uncontested as the most popular book ever written. The statistics prove that it is read by more people and published in more languages than any other book in the history of humanity, so that even now "one copy of the Bible is published every three seconds day and night; or 22 copies every minute day and night; or 1,369 copies every hour day and night; and 32,876 copies every day in the year, and so on...".
It is logical, then, that Christianity, because it holds the repository of Biblical principles and thinking, is the fastest conversion-growing religion in the world today. What better testimony could one ask to demonstrate the Bible's claim to be the truly revealed and inspired Word of God.
[/quote]

Errors in the Quran
If you are a Muslim: Welcome. Understand that I do not wish to peronally insult you in any way. All religious ideas are by their very nature subject to criticism. If Islam is true, then you should welcome investigation. I ask simply that you consider what is put forth here in the spirit of inquiry.

Many Muslims may feel that it is blasphemous to even offer a criticism of the Quran. Truth, however, should never object to scrutiny. The Bible has been attacked by Muslims as well as most other religions. Quite unlike the claims of Christianity to the inspiration of the original documents, and the high reliability of subsequent copies, the Quran today is considered by Muslims to be the perfect word of Allah. So we move on to a very simple exercise...What does the Quran actually say? See for yourself if this is a book handwritten by God and handed directly to man.


Problems in the Quran

It is important to note at the outset that the Quran itself claims to be perfect (Sura 85:21-22). Therefore, if even one error is found in the text, the Quran is proven false.

Further, Muhammad himself invites us to check his word against the Bible (which Muslims accept as inspired as well - only with errors) (Sura 2:136 as well as Suras 13, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25...). The Quran was written 600 years after the Bible was complete, so the Bible is the authority. Muslims will claim that the Bible was corrupted. The question they cannot answer is, "When was the Bible corrupted?" If they say before 600 A.D. then how can the Quran admonish believers to read it? If they claim it was after 600 A.D. then they have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, for we have absolutely no doubt as to the accuracy of copies from at least the 3rd century forward.

This puts Muslim critics in a bind. For if the Bible is incorrect, and the Quran says it is not then the Quran is false. If the Bible is correct, then the Quran cannot be true because the Bible flatly contradicts it in many places (which we will see below). If the Bible is true then the Quran is not. If the Bible is false, then so is the Quran for claiming it is not.



Contradictions Between the Quran and the Bible
Biblical The Quran The Bible
Number of creation days: 8 (Sura 41:9-12) or
6 (Suras 7:51; 10:3) 6 (Genesis 1:31)
Noah's Sons Only 2 saved (Sura 11:32-48) All 3 saved (Genesis 7:1-13)
Where the Ark landed Mount Judi (Sura 11:44) The Mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4)
Abraham's father Azar (Sura 6:74) Terah (Genesis 11:27)
Abraham lived and worshipped in Mecca (Sura 14:37) The Valley of Hebron (Genesis 13:18, 23:2, 35:27)
Abraham brought which son to sacrifice Ishmael (Sura 37:100-112) Isaac (Genesis ch. 22)
Was thrown into a fire by Nimrod Yes (Sura 9:69; 21:68-69) Impossible, Nimrod died centuries earlier!
Who adopted Moses? Pharaoh's Wife (Sura 28:8-9) Pharaoh's daughter (Exodus 2:5)
Crucifixion in the time of Pharaoh Yes (Sura 7:124) No, this is a Roman punishment (about 1500 years too early!).
Mary gave birth to Jesus Under a palm tree (Sura 19:22) In a stable (Luke 2:1-20)
Mary was Moses' sister (Sura 19:28) Obviously not Moses' sister (about 1500 years too late).
God does not love sinners (2:190) loves us although we sin (Romans 5:8)
Husbands may beat their wives (Sura 4:34)
(note: "lightly" is not in the Arabic) are to love their wife as themselves
(Eph 5:25-28)
A wife is a "tilth" (piece of farmland) (Sura 2:223) to be honored (1 Peter 3:7)
Christians are mere men (Sura 5:18) children of God (1 John 3:2)

Internal Problems The Quran The Quran
Muhammad received the Quran from Allah (Suras 53:2-18; 81:19-24) or
The holy spirit
(Suras 16:102; 26:192-194) or Angels (Sura 15:8) or
The Angel Gabriel (Sura 2:97)
Conflicting quotes Sura 2:58 Sura 7:161
Where to face during prayer Jerusalem (Suras 2:115, 144) Mecca (Suras 2:115, 144)
The first to believe Moses (Suras 6:14; 7:143) Abraham (Suras 6:14; 7:143)

Mistakes regarding Christianity The Quran
Jesus was not the Son of God
did not die for our sins
was not crucified
is not divine
is not the Savior (Suras 4:157; 5:19,75; 9:30)
The Trinity Is the Father, the Mother (Mary), and the Son. (Sura 5:73-75, 116) - 5:73 does not have "in a Trinity" in the original Arabic
Jesus' conception God had sex with Mary to have a son. (Suras 2:116; 6:100-101; 10:68; 16:57; 19:35; 23:91; 37:149; 43:16-19).
General Christians pray toward Jerusalem (Sura 2:144-145)
The Messiah's name is Allah (Sura 5:72)
Heaven is a place of wine and sex (Suras 2:25; 4:57; 11:23; 47:15)



Other Oddities

The Quran claims that speeches were made by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Moses, Mary and even Jesus that contain words such as: "Muslim" and "Islam" that were in a totally unknown tongue and not invented for at least another 600 years (Suras 2:60, 126-128, 132-133, 260; 3:49-52, 67; 6:74-82; 7:59-63, 120-126 etc.).

Sura 20:87-95 records that the Israelites made the golden calf as suggested by "the Samaritan" (Samaritans did not come into existence for many centuries after the time of the golden calf).

Sura 18:84-86 informs us that the sun sets in a muddy spring.

Sura 22:5 explains that humans are formed from a clot of blood.

Sura 7:163-166 claims that an entire village population was turned into apes.

Further, i t would take several pages to list all of the material clearly taken from pre-Islamic sources: myths, stories, superstitions, and legends that were incorporated into the Quran . . . a book supposedly written by Allah without any human intervention.

It is difficult to see the Quran as anything but a flawed (if imaginative) work of man.

Ismael wrote:And all those times you adderessed me with "Peace" and "Sir Ismael" you were actually fulfilling the Prophecies of the Quran

First of all I did not say peace is said "sir" to be polite to you. Then would it be wrong if I said to you that you are fulfilling the Bible by quoting scripture,"1 Timothy 4:1 - Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

And what hidden wisdom do you possess which is not in the Bible?
The church in conrinth claimed to have hidden wisdom also which were called gnosticism. As it is written:For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

God Bless!

[Omega]

Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Thank you for responding!

First of all you need to relax!

If you knew me Omega you would know i never get upset...and that's unfortunately the problem with conversing on the net because language can be construed so many different ways.

How does that reveal my true colors, so everyone that says peace and sir is fulfilling the Quran, insteading of getting upset at me and letting your mind be clouded with judgment you must understand that that is the most ridiculous statement I ever heard.

Because in the beginning you pretended to be interested in this and that, why i did this and why i did that...and the moment you are intellectually challenged you become judgmental and say i was never a christian, telling me i dont have the holy spirit, etc etc. Not that it concerns me a great deal what you think of me, but its just the duplicity. Like the native americans observed about the white christians "white man speak with forked tongue." And how that fulfills prophecy in the Quran is how the Quran speaks many times about the People of the Book (jews and christians). In one verse Allah, the Most High, states: "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion..." God also says in the Quran:

5:82. Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, "We are Christians": because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.

5:83. And when they listen to the revelation received by the Messenger, thou wilt see their eyes overflowing with tears, for they recognise the truth: they pray: "Our Lord! we believe; write us down among the witnesses.

5:84. "What cause can we have not to believe in Allah and the truth which has come to us, seeing that we long for our Lord to admit us to the company of the righteous?"

5:85. And for this their prayer hath Allah rewarded them with gardens, with rivers flowing underneath,- their eternal home. Such is the recompense of those who do good.

And you think Islam is horrible?

Then you wrote:So ok Omega, what is the main message of the bible that Muslims fail to see? I mean, you have had all this time to tell me this message, but haven't, what took you so long?

What took me so long? I have been knowing the message which is the message of salvation which can only be obtained by Jesus Christ and his shedding of blood which you do not believe, and that is the message which you fail to realise time and time over and over again my friend!

Like I have known, I know this is the "message" of the new testament, but you forgot to add in the Jewish scriptures. All muslims know this to be the message but you still can't prove this message to be true. You keep quoting the bible. I don't have to quote the Quran to prove the message of all the abrahamic and some eastern faiths: "There is no god except God."

Then again you wrote to me:This simple question should shake your faith well enough. And how arrogant of you. This is what muslims so disdain about especially modern christians. This total arrogance. You have no humility. And you claim to be a follower of Christ?

How arrogant, I am SORRY if you feel that I was being arrogant my friend but I am simply speaking what I know to be the truth just as you are so relax!

Like i said earlier, i am as cool as a little cucumber. And your arrogance is not displayed by HOW you speak, its what you say. And telling someone that they don't have the Holy Spirit inside of them is not for you to decide. The arrogance comes from not checking yourself first. Like i said, you can't be 100% sure the Holy Spirit is NOT inside me since you admit below you are not divine yourself.

Let me explain to you, but first you need to relax my friend! No i cannot see into your soul. The word of God claims that you do not have the Holy Spirit.

And again I offer to you that you don't know what the word of God says: all you have are translations of what Jesus, peace upon him, may have said which were actually compiled AFTER Paul wrote his Letters.

It is written:John 3:8 - The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

That totally sounds like me, I guess I am born of the Spirit then Btw, what is this verse supposed to be proving?

Maybe you can respond in a more polite manner next time!

God Bless!

Like i said, i think you just mistook some of my words as being harsh, I am never harsh except to people like Bushmaster and poor Believer who has absolutely no manners. So I apologize as well if you thought i was being impolite.

[Omega]

Thank you for clearing it up, no one is perfect especially me, now let us converse in a polite manner.


You wrote:Because in the beginning you pretended to be interested in this and that, why i did this and why i did that...and the moment you are intellectually challenged you become judgmental and say i was never a christian, telling me i dont have the holy spirit, etc etc. Not that it concerns me a great deal what you think of me, but its just the duplicity. Like the native americans observed about the white christians "white man speak with forked tongue." And how that fulfills prophecy in the Quran is how the Quran speaks many times about the People of the Book (jews and christians). In one verse Allah, the Most High, states: "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion..." God also says in the Quran:

I believe just as most Christians do that once you are baptised in the Holy Spirit and are a true child of God it is impossible to be cnoverted to any other belief, you may not think the same, but we are all entitled to our own belief, and if you felt that I was forcing my beliefs back upon you then I apologize my friend.

Ismael you wrote:And you think Islam is horrible?

My answer is I believe that it does not reveal the mystery of the true God, but as far as the people, I have many muslim friends and they are very peacful people, but they do not force their beliefs upon me and I have once before but now I realise that in my heart of hearts that one day the truth will be revealed and unfortunately most will be lost. And I am only concerned for you and I care for you and wish that you will be my brother in Christ and come back to your "Father" and "Jesus"

But once again I cannot force this upon you.


Also you said:Like i said, you can't be 100% sure the Holy Spirit is NOT inside me since you admit below you are not divine yourself.

No way am I divine, I am merely a servant of the Lord, and my duty is to spread the truth!
Furthermore the Bible states:John 16:13 - Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

And as all true Christians that I know, they all agree in accordance with the scriptures.

My friend may I ask you a question?
Do you still believe that Jesus died for your sins and that as He said,"That I am the way the Truth and the Life"
And do you still believe that He still Loves you and His Love for you by shedding His precious blood on the cross and suffering for you that it is the only way to salvation and eternal life?

As of now I feel the awesome power of His love reaching out to you, but constant rejection from the truth will lead to hardnes of your heart and eventually no turing back to repentance.

God Bless you my friend!

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

I believe just as most Christians do that once you are baptised in the Holy Spirit and are a true child of God it is impossible to be cnoverted to any other belief, you may not think the same, but we are all entitled to our own belief, and if you felt that I was forcing my beliefs back upon you then I apologize my friend.

What evidence do you have, either from the bible or from Christian commentary that says you can never convert to another religion if you are "truly" a child of God (What a loaded term)?

My answer is I believe that it does not reveal the mystery of the true God, but as far as the people, I have many muslim friends and they are very peacful people, but they do not force their beliefs upon me and I have once before but now I realise that in my heart of hearts that one day the truth will be revealed and unfortunately most will be lost. And I am only concerned for you and I care for you and wish that you will be my brother in Christ and come back to your "Father" and "Jesus"

#1...there is no such thing as the "true God", there is only One God
#2...I am not forcing my beliefs on you
#3...Muslims too believe that one day soon, will be the end, and truth will stand out clear from error, and many will be lost.
#4...I wish you to be my brother in Islam, submitting to God only.
#5...If i recognize an equal with God (Jesus) I would be violating the teachings of not only the Quran but of the 10 commandments.

No way am I divine, I am merely a servant of the Lord, and my duty is to spread the truth!
Furthermore the Bible states:John 16:13 - Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Omm, what is the purpose of this verse you are quoting?

And as all true Christians that I know, they all agree in accordance with the scriptures.

Thus i was a true christian, at one point, i was in total accordance with the scriptures.

My friend may I ask you a question?
Do you still believe that Jesus died for your sins and that as He said,"That I am the way the Truth and the Life"
And do you still believe that He still Loves you and His Love for you by shedding His precious blood on the cross and suffering for you that it is the only way to salvation and eternal life?

#1...I do not beleive that Jesus died on the Cross.
#2...I do believe that Jesus may have said "i am the way, the truth, and the life" only God knows, but it sounds like the statement of a Prophet of Allah. And had i been alive at that time, i would be forced to follow Jesus's teachings because they would have been the truth, but i would never have worshipped, just like none of his disciples did. Look at their writings, none of them worshipped Jesus the way people do now, because they would have known that to violate the Jewish law. But once the new Prophet came, as Jesus, peace upon him said, then it would have also been my duty to follow him.
#3...I don't feel that anyone who walked on the earth, knows that I an alive now and therefore they don't love me. I am only concerned with pleasing God actually. But I follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, as he was the last messenger of God. Now if you are talking about a metaphysical love then I dont know and neither do you for that matter. You think Jesus loves you because you read it. that's ur business.
#4...I do not believe in Original Sin and thus think it quite unnecessary for Jesus to have died for me. So in that vein, the whole concept of the New Testament is unncessary. I believe Jesus's message was exactly as he said it: to show the Jews all the wrong and sinful things they were doing, that's it. It was not to create a new religion. This is where Christianity seems, in the modern sense, quite contrived. And by definition is a Cult of Judism.
#5...i believe the way for me to achieve salvation is to follow the teachings of God. To worship God alone. To follow essentially the teachings of the 10 commandments which interestly enough, modern day Christians and Jews seem to ignore.

As of now I feel the awesome power of His love reaching out to you, but constant rejection from the truth will lead to hardnes of your heart and eventually no turing back to repentance.

God Bless you my friend!

That's interesting, cuz i was feeling the awesome power of God, turning your heart back to his religion. I would also caution you not to allow your heart to grow hard and not heed the message of the Truth which is Islam.

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

Like i said, i think you just mistook some of my words as being harsh, I am never harsh except to people like Bushmaster and poor Believer who has absolutely no manners. So I apologize as well if you thought i was being impolite.

Yeah, I apologize.
I can be rather defensive, no offense is ever indended.

And again I offer to you that you don't know what the word of God says: all you have are translations of what Jesus, peace upon him, may have said which were actually compiled AFTER Paul wrote his Letters.

Complete myths about someone's life are formed centuries afer their life, not a few decades. I'd trust the Gospels.
All early Christian communities shared the same Christian doctrine that we have today, and some never had the NT!

My other reason for coming on here is that if I can come out of Christianity like I did, then i want to help anyone else come out of it as well

Yes, do Satan's work and have others damned.
You wish to tell others of a god with less love then my God?
You wish to tell others of a faith that cannot ensure them of full salvation?
You truly do not follow my God!
Muhammed's allah is Uzza, Manat, amnd Lat's big brother, not Yahweh.

who in english is called God, in Hebrew Yahweh, and in Arabic "Allah". This simple point you can't even grasp?

Yahweh means "I am". It is God's personal name revealed to Moses.
What is allah's personal name? Are all 99 his personal names?
Oh wait, he is not even a personal god, is he?
Does he even want to be intimately involved in your life?

And then the verse you quote from paul ("and he thought it not robbery to be equal to God..") Maybe its being lost in the translation or something but is Paul not saying that Jesus and God are too separate entities and that Jesus is EQUAL to God? If this is so, does this not contradict Jesus's own statement (forget where) but that paraphrasing "...no one goes to Father but as a lesser..." Jesus didnt say, according to this verse, "...except for me, i am equal to the Father..."

Philippians 2


Imitating Christ's Humility

1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[1] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[2] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

[webmaster]

I believe just as most Christians do that once you are baptised in the Holy Spirit and are a true child of God it is impossible to be cnoverted to any other belief, you may not think the same, but we are all entitled to our own belief, and if you felt that I was forcing my beliefs back upon you then I apologize my friend.

What evidence do you have, either from the bible or from Christian commentary that says you can never convert to another religion if you are "truly" a child of God (What a loaded term)?

Hebrews 6
4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5. And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6. If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

4.
|9999| {it is}
|0102| impossible
|1063| Because
|9999| {for}
|3588| those
|0530| once
|5461| being enlightened,
|1089| having tasted
|5037| and
|3588| of the
|1431| gift
|2032| heavenly,
|2532| and
|3353| participants
|1096| becoming
|4151| Spirit
|0040| of {the} Holy,
5.
|2532| and
|9999| {the}
|2570| good
|1089| tasting
|2316| of God
|4487| word,
|1411| works of power
|5037| and
|3195| of a coming
|0165| age.
6.
|2532| and
|3895| falling away
|3825| again
|0340| to renew
|1519| to
|3341| to a change of heart,
|0388| crucifying again
|0846| for themselves
|3588| the
|5207| Son
|3588| of
|2316| God
|2532| and
|3856| putting {Him} to open shame.

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

That's interesting, cuz i was feeling the awesome power of God, turning your heart back to his religion. I would also caution you not to allow your heart to grow hard and not heed the message of the Truth which is Islam

Satan has decieved you well, God is the Lord and Saviour and He has revealed Himself to us as Jesus Christ.
Just because YOU don't agree with our beliefs does not mean they are wrong. I believe according to God, not to Ismael.

...I do not believe in Original Sin

You deny that mankind is in a state of moral and spiritual corruption?
Why do you suppose this is anyways?
We fall short of perfection and sinlessness, and this is original sin.
You deny reality.

To follow essentially the teachings of the 10 commandments which interestly enough, modern day Christians and Jews seem to ignore.

Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments in the Two Great Commandments.
Jesus summarized the Law in His teachings.
It is all about ove for God and your neighnors.
I suggest you closely reread the Gospels, you have missed something.

But I follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, as he was the last messenger of God.

he has NO support from the Bible like Joseph Smith and David Koresh don't, enough reason for me to never follow them.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Yeah, I apologize.
I can be rather defensive, no offense is ever indended.

I accept of course.

Complete myths about someone's life are formed centuries afer their life, not a few decades. I'd trust the Gospels.
All early Christian communities shared the same Christian doctrine that we have today, and some never had the NT!

There were plenty of groups considered heretical who actually never believed Jesus was literally God's son...and closer examination of Jewish cultural traditions proved that there were a few other people they called "Son of God." The fact that surrounding nations and tribes, unfamiliar with this concept, would have taken it literally as happened when Islam spread beyond the Hijaz. So there was not ONE singular christian mindset.

Yes, do Satan's work and have others damned.
You wish to tell others of a god with less love then my God?
You wish to tell others of a faith that cannot ensure them of full salvation?
You truly do not follow my God!
Muhammed's allah is Uzza, Manat, amnd Lat's big brother, not Yahweh.

Simply not true, Allah, SWT, is full of love and Mercy. And according to your accounts of God, he does not leave people unconditionally, because if i dont believe like you do then i will go to Hell, so don't come on here and be hypocritical. And muslims are assured of full salvation provided they worship God. And you do not have a god, there is no such thing as "My God." There is only God, and only One Truth. The way you and other christians talk and speak of God is truly blasphemous and I would ask you to please stop for the sake of your own souls.

Yahweh means "I am". It is God's personal name revealed to Moses.
What is allah's personal name? Are all 99 his personal names?
Oh wait, he is not even a personal god, is he?
Does he even want to be intimately involved in your life?

the proper name of God in Arabic is "Allah." The 99 are Names and Attributes. And there you go again blaspheming, have you no shame? What in the hell is a personal god? That little thing you wear around your necks hanging on a cross, hanging all over ur churches? No, Allah, the Most High, is not something i put in my pocket and claim to love him while blaspheming him all the time and giving him little children he makes hang on a cross. But to your last point Allah, the Most High, answers in the Quran: "...[He is] closer to them than their Jugular Vein." So yes, intimate involvment, quite intimate.

Philippians 2
Imitating Christ's Humility

1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[1] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[2] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Of all these things, I have yet to see a Christian imitate them, and not on this forum list.

[Bushmaster]

I am never harsh except to people like Bushmaster and poor Believer who has absolutely no manners.

Be all harsh as you can be, Jonathan. If apologies don't mean anything in islam, then we can take care of business in some other way...

[Bushmaster]

The 99 are Names and Attributes

Who gave him these names?

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Peace Ismael,

Satan has decieved you well, God is the Lord and Saviour and He has revealed Himself to us as Jesus Christ.
Just because YOU don't agree with our beliefs does not mean they are wrong. I believe according to God, not to Ismael.

You are pretty funny

You deny that mankind is in a state of moral and spiritual corruption?
Why do you suppose this is anyways?
We fall short of perfection and sinlessness, and this is original sin.
You deny reality.

No mankind IS in a state of decadence and corruption, and the reason, to answer your question is because of Satan influencing man, not because man is inherently bad. And what you have called Original Sin is not the definition of it. Original Sin is that mankind has inherited the sinfulness of Eve. (this is why christianity and judaism are very anti-women, women have a sense of self-loathing because they are women and men are taught from little children to hate women. Big psychological problems for the two religions.) Anywho, Islam says that mankind was created noble and desiring to please the Creator. We are created "kareem" or "noble" not "ignoble". At least i am not a blind follower, reality i do NOT deny.

Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments in the Two Great Commandments.
Jesus summarized the Law in His teachings.
It is all about ove for God and your neighnors.
I suggest you closely reread the Gospels, you have missed something.

So where does Jesus say you no longer have to follow the 10 commandments? and if this is the case why do all these air-headed christians insist on putting them up all over the place and forcing people to live by them if they are no longer necessary? Or is this "Beleiver" following the teachings of "Believer"? Btw, this is the fundamental problem that God, in the Quran, has with Christianity. that the followers of Jesus, took his teachings, and changed them around, and started doing whatever was the easiest for them. Namely, changing the Law (torah) or denying it.

he [Muhammad] has NO support from the Bible like Joseph Smith and David Koresh don't, enough reason for me to never follow them.

According to some early Christian scholars He is prophesied by Jesus, and most definitely in the Gospel of Barnabas (conveniently left out of the first compiled bible). But i will pray for you. I do really admire alot of christians though, they believe strongly, and thus would make great muslims.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

I am never harsh except to people like Bushmaster and poor Believer who has absolutely no manners.

Be all harsh as you can be, Jonathan. If apologies don't mean anything in islam, then we can take care of business in some other way...

And what way is that little soldier boy? And you get what you deserve, you know, "Golden rule", etc etc. How quickly the brainwashed forget their own scriptures. But you don't seem like much of a christian to me anyway, you dont seem like a "turn the other cheek" kind of guy. And if your looking for a fight, your "Born Again" President has just spilled blood in 2 countries, i am sure they will let you over there for your chance to kill muslims. Then you will be a big soldier boy.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

The 99 are Names and Attributes

Who gave him these names?

Only Allah, SWT, has the right to name Himself.

[Bushmaster]

And what way is that little soldier boy? And you get what you deserve, you know, "Golden rule", etc etc.

You like to come to your own conclusions don't you? Like the time you got duped into islam...

But you don't seem like much of a christian to me anyway, you dont seem like a "turn the other cheek" kind of guy.

Once more you proved that you didn't know hoot about the Scripture which made it easier to get duped into islam for you. "Turn the other cheek" ... What does that mean? Explain it to me with your pentecostal knowledge... Does that mean all Christians should be suicidal? Take sometime and learn why Jesus said "turn your other cheek" ...

There are people who think that Christians should not bear or use weapons. In the following passage of John's gospel, it is evident that the Apostle Peter bore weapons with the consent of Jesus Christ.

Then said Jesus unto Peter: Put up thy sword into the sheath, the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Lk 18: 11

In this verse we see that Jesus ordered Peter to put his sword back into the sheath. This means that Peter had his sword hanging from his body in a visible way. It was not a dagger that he could hide among his clothes, it was a sword in its sheath. If Jesus were against bearing weapons he surely wouldn't have permitted Peter to carry his weapon. This demonstrates to us that the Lord didn't oppose having weapons, neither did he preach against it.

We can also see that Jesus even told his disciples outright to buy swords:

And he said unto them: When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said: Nothing. Then said he unto them: But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Lk 22: 35-36

John the Baptist taught in a similar way as Jesus. He didn't tell the Romans to quit being soldiers, but to be honest and to be content with their wages. John was not going to preach a doctrine in opposition to Christ's, but according to the will of the Lord.

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying: And what shall we do? And he said unto them: Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages Lk 3: 14

The soldiers inquired of John to see if they had to meet any special requirements before they could be baptized. Unfortunately, the King James Version translates the Greek verb diaseio with the phrase "do violence to no man." This verb "literally means 'shake violently.' In those days it was a technical, legal term, meaning 'extort money by violence' much like our current slang expression 'shake down'" What a perfect time for John to tell these soldiers to leave the army; instead, he tells them to be honest and not grumble about their wages. Any connations rendered there from that it is a sin for one to be a soldier, does grievous, eggregious, injury and violence to language, and the commonly understood meanings of words! Only a perverted and twisted sophistry with an ulterior agenda can derive such meaning from Scripture.

Both, John and Jesus, never told the soldiers to quit the militia, but they did tell prostitutes to quit sinning. Jesus did overturn the money changer tables in the temple. Paul wrote almost all of his Epistles to correct doctrinal error. He said twice in Galatians that there was one True Gospel and any doctrine that deviated from it was accursed (Gal 1:6-10). Whenever Scripture repeats itself, it is of utmost importance (especially since that doesn't happen very often). Clearly it is evident that bearing weapons is not inherently sinfull, but no sin act nor false doctrine was tolerable in even the slightest sense.

Before Jesus was born, during the Hellenic period, many brethren thought it was a sin to fight in self defense on Saturdays. They arrived at this wrong conclusion by reading random sections of the Scripture. They believed it was preferable to let the enemy kill them on Saturdays, rather than fighting. If instead of believing what was taught to them by their foolish teachers, they would have read the book of Joshua, they would have seen that this great man of God fought war on Saturdays. Sure enough, during the siege of Jericho they marched around the city seven consecutive days, of which for sure, one was a Saturday. From this one could infer, it was allowed to wage war on Saturdays.

Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out, and none came in. And the LORD said unto Joshua: See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns; and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets." Josh 6:1-4

A popular misconception is that Christians should turn the other cheek. However, Scripture is not a suicide pact. Turning the other cheek is what is to be done by a Christian when they are wrongly persecuted and suffer tribulation as a result of their witnessing the Gospel to the heathen and unsaved. It does not stipulate that a Christian should idely stand by watching immoral travesties occur to their bretheren. The Christian who refuses to cease witnessing the Gospel in the face of adversity, and is beaten to a bloody pulp by somebody who has rejected Christ's saving Gospel, practices tolerance. Just as Christ practiced tolerance (and turned the other cheek) when he was belittled, scorned, spat upon, scourged, stripped naked, scourged, and nailed upon a cross to death. The rewards for Christian's trials and tribulations in this regard, will be immeasurable and beyond their wildest comprehension in the next life and for all eternity.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Mat 5:44

But know this, that it is not by choice that a Christian becomes embroiled in matters of war.

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. II Tim 2:4

First, Christians must realize that they are above all else spiritual soldiers, always engaged in an invisible but nonetheless very real war against Satan and his minions. The battle for the souls of men is a very real one and has been occuring for thousands of years. Christians are not called to cower in fear or confusion but are called to "active duty", if you will. An active duty in the spiritual realm, that is. Especially to seek God in prayer and intercession more than ever in times of crisis.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; ) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; II Cor 10:3-5

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Eph 6:11

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39

And that my brothers, is a combination that no hellish burglar can undo.

The Lord commands us to "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," but what does this involve? We know we must pay our taxes (Rom. 13 : 7), pray for our leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-4), and refrain from speaking evil of them (Tit. 3:1,2). Paul writes:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Romans 13:1-7

I am amazed that in spite of the clarity of the above Scripture, many people persist in disobeying it, not only in American society and culture but in others as well. Jesus never taught His people to storm the Bastille, revolt against the king, kill unjust rulers, march on city hall, barricade an administration building on campus, lead a sit-in at the president's office, harass leaders, or violate the law.

We must obey all civil laws whether we like them or not. And Paul is very clear that failure to do so is to go against God himself. There is only one caveat: if the government commands us to act in way which God has prohibited, we must "obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). And that means resisting under the penalty of death. But what if the government itself goes to war? Can Christians fight for their government? Do Christians have the right to drop bombs on enemy targets?

If it is sinful for a Christian to be a soldier, then it is sinful for anyone to serve in the military. If it is a sin for a Christian to be a police officer, then all police officers are doomed to hell. Yet, God commands the government to punish evildoers (1 Pet. 2:14). The civil government is "God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil" (Rom. 13:4). I have trouble understanding how some can teach the death penalty is commanded by God (and rightly so) and yet believe the man who carries out the sentence is damned by God for obeying this command!

Christians have no right to seek personal vengeance (Rom. 12:19). God has said all vengeance belongs to Him (Rom. 12:19). However, God has delegated "vengeance" to the civil government (Rom. 13:4). Albert Barnes said, "When a magistrate inflicts punishment on the guilty, it is to be regarded as the act of God taking vengeance on him; and on this principle alone is it right for a judge to condemn a man to death. It is not because one man has by nature the right over the life of another, or because society has any right collectively which it does not as individuals; but because God gave life, and because he has chosen to take it away when a crime is committed, by the appointment of magistrates, and not by coming forth himself visibly to execute the laws" (Barnes Notes, Vol. 4, pg. 294).

Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war. Proverbs 20:18

For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety. Proverbs 24:6

Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good. Ecclesiastes 9:18

Consider also that we are living in the last days and it is inevitable that all the nations will eventually go to war. However, no Christian soldier (military or otherwise) will have to experience this battle that is coming. Their disappearance is the event marking the beginning of The Time of Jacob's Troubles, or the Great Tribulation. Nevertheless, let us remember that we are all soldiers in God's Army. We soldiers in the physical army of a country WILL not shrink from our duties to God, nor our country. In the meantime, until the Lord calls His Church to join him in the clouds, we will be good Christian soldiers for God.

Then you will be a big soldier boy.

Looking forward to go and kill your brothers with your tax money!

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,3

There were plenty of groups considered heretical who actually never believed Jesus was literally God's son...and closer examination of Jewish cultural traditions proved that there were a few other people they called "Son of God." The fact that surrounding nations and tribes, unfamiliar with this concept, would have taken it literally as happened when Islam spread beyond the Hijaz. So there was not ONE singular christian mindset.

Give me some non-Islamic sites to verify this.
These sects were later occuring, like the Arians, Gnostics, and Nestorians.

Simply not true, Allah, SWT, is full of love and Mercy. And according to your accounts of God, he does not leave people unconditionally, because if i dont believe like you do then i will go to Hell, so don't come on here and be hypocritical. And muslims are assured of full salvation provided they worship God. And you do not have a god, there is no such thing as "My God." There is only God, and only One Truth. The way you and other christians talk and speak of God is truly blasphemous and I would ask you to please stop for the sake of your own souls.

Most of the World Religion's gods are full of love and mercy and wish peopel to do good works.
Is God present in all faiths?

There is only One God of Truth, He is one of undying and unending Love, and offers humanity another chance to be right with Him.
He is revealed through Jesus Christ.
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and live by His teachings, God's teachings, and you will be saved.
Do not try to understand God or find sense in Him.
He is purely heavenly, immanant with us in spirit, and visible and walked amongst us.--Father, Spirit, and Son.

Salvation is only offered through the Grace of God.
You cannot earn your way into Heaven!
The Kingdom of God isn't a country club!
You don't walk in, pay your fee, and be let in.
You must ask the King's Son for admission, because only He can let you in. All you do as a person, no matter how many good things, you are still as unclean as a filthy rag to ever be in God's prescence.
Submitt to God and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour!
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour if you ever want to be in God's Kingdom.
Do not be so rebellious against what you don't understand.

the proper name of God in Arabic is "Allah." The 99 are Names and Attributes. And there you go again blaspheming, have you no shame? What in the hell is a personal god? That little thing you wear around your necks hanging on a cross, hanging all over ur churches? No, Allah, the Most High, is not something i put in my pocket and claim to love him while blaspheming him all the time and giving him little children he makes hang on a cross. But to your last point Allah, the Most High, answers in the Quran: "...[He is] closer to them than their Jugular Vein." So yes, intimate involvment, quite intimate

God is personal, you can speak to Him as you do your best friend or your father.
You blaspheme by rejecting the God of the Bible, for another god.
Yes, you accept the Uzza, Manat, and Lat's brother, not Yahweh.
You wish to revere my prophets, yet reject their book?
Muhammed picked his favorite Kaabah god, and picked by faith to take the prophets from for his faith.
The Sabeans had no prophets, the Magians had one prophet, they weren't good enough.
I don't like to see my faith used like in Islam.
I don't like to see the false generalizations of Jews and Chrsitians as in the Quran.

Is your Allah likened to a Heavenly Father, and you his beloved children, or is He like a Master, and you his slave? Please be specific and tell me your relationship to your Allah.
Can you speak to him as you do a father or friend?

[Bushmaster]

Only Allah, SWT, has the right to name Himself.

That was my point Thanks for clearing it up...

I will occupy
I will help you die
I will run through you
Now I rule you too

Come crawling faster
Obey your Master
Your life burns faster
Obey your Master
Master

Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, `cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, `cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master

Good luck serving your new master...

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

No mankind IS in a state of decadence and corruption, and the reason, to answer your question is because of Satan influencing man

This is because of all men, we ARE mankind.
Satan acts on us collectively through original sin.

So where does Jesus say you no longer have to follow the 10 commandments? and if this is the case why do all these air-headed christians insist on putting them up all over the place and forcing people to live by them if they are no longer necessary? Or is this "Beleiver" following the teachings of "Believer"? Btw, this is the fundamental problem that God, in the Quran, has with Christianity. that the followers of Jesus, took his teachings, and changed them around, and started doing whatever was the easiest for them. Namely, changing the Law (torah) or denying it.

You are sounding very imature in you posts!

Let me ask you this, what would Jesus want in accordance with the Christian doctrine?
Would Jesus want many people to accept Him as their Lord and Saviour and be saved by Him and live by His teachings, or adopt the 613 Old Torah laws?
Too many Gentiles would never have become christian if they had to adopt all those old Laws, and that would be a waste.
God wants to save people! He wants people in His kingdom!
Jesus FULFILLED the Law!
He expects us to love one another as ourselves, and love God above all things. This is the summarization of the Law.

According to some early Christian scholars He is prophesied by Jesus, and most definitely in the Gospel of Barnabas (conveniently left out of the first compiled bible). But i will pray for you. I do really admire alot of christians though, they believe strongly, and thus would make great muslims.

Umm. No
There's no support for Him.
The Gospel of Barnabas was midieval forgery.
http://answering-islam.org/Barnabas/saleeb.html


And Allah's 99 names are not spectacular to me, many were just borrowed from another faith.

Ahura Mazda has 101 names
http://coulomb.ecn.purdue.edu/~bulsara/ ... names.html

[Bushmaster]

I do really admire alot of christians though, they believe strongly, and thus would make great muslims.

If this is how you do your reasoning, no wonder you are fooled by allah, islam, muhammad triplet...

They believe strongly in the Lord Jesus, not a hoax.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

And what way is that little soldier boy? And you get what you deserve, you know, "Golden rule", etc etc.

You like to come to your own conclusions don't you? Like the time you got duped into islam...

well, considering that i am forced to come to conclusions, and they must be my own, yes, i do come to MY OWN conclusions...what kind of ridiculous statement it this? And if i got "duped" into Islam it was because your religion failed to hold me, but tis the case with fantasy stories, and "inspired" stories.

Once more you proved that you didn't know hoot about the Scripture which made it easier to get duped into islam for you. "Turn the other cheek" ... What does that mean? Explain it to me with your pentecostal knowledge... Does that mean all Christians should be suicidal? Take sometime and learn why Jesus said "turn your other cheek" ...

....lots of stuff not your own thoughts deleted...but i saved the interesting part below.

Consider also that we are living in the last days and it is inevitable that all the nations will eventually go to war. However, no Christian soldier (military or otherwise) will have to experience this battle that is coming. Their disappearance is the event marking the beginning of The Time of Jacob's Troubles, or the Great Tribulation. Nevertheless, let us remember that we are all soldiers in God's Army. We soldiers in the physical army of a country WILL not shrink from our duties to God, nor our country. In the meantime, until the Lord calls His Church to join him in the clouds, we will be good Christian soldiers for God.

So if i am to take it correctly...while all of you claim that Jesus was perfect and divine, he actually had other people going around doing the killing?? And why would Jesus need this if he was divine is an even more interesting question. Now, to your points at hand little soldier boy, the part that you plagiarized are obviously only ONE view of the christian response to war and fighting. Because their are plenty of Christian groups who say that the "turning the other cheek" literally means seeking peaceful means always. Now i myself was always a proponent of fighting back but its precisely because of the last paragraph that i saved above.

You actually don't have a duty to a country, other than to be a law-abiding citizen. For a christian to join the army of a secular democracy that goes to war over money and oil, which is clearly illegal, causes the christian to lose himself and thus putting nation before the teachings of God. Anything before God is worship of something besides God. And also to assume that all nations will go to war is a hallmark of evolutionary materialism, an atheistic concept that Christians dont even realize they believe in.

Also what does it mean to be a Christian soldier for God? The US isnt a christian country even though it has alot of christians. It's a secular democracy, and that alone makes it outside the realm of God. Just like ur idiotic leader Jerry Falwell said: "9/11 was an attack on America that came from God because America embraces homosexuals and abortion." this is who you are a solider for, not for God.

Actually most of your love for war is racism anyway, another byproduct of secular materialism and nazism.

Looking forward to go and kill your brothers with your tax money!

Since America funded Saddam for so long, you might get killed with some of my tax money, wouldnt that be something. Why dont you just kill muslims here? I am sure no one will care.

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

And if i got "duped" into Islam it was because your religion failed to hold me, but tis the case with fantasy stories, and "inspired" stories

The Quran contains some REAL fantasy stories!

http://www.jesus-christ-forums.com/home/viewtopic.php?t=2692

I suppose these are "inspired" stories, even though they're about Jesus's childhood--written 150+ years after it!

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Peace Ismael,3

Give me some non-Islamic sites to verify this.
These sects were later occuring, like the Arians, Gnostics, and Nestorians.

I havent' searched for any sites, but i do remember a Time or Newsweek article about a year ago talking about the early history of Christianity.

Most of the World Religion's gods are full of love and mercy and wish peopel to do good works.
Is God present in all faiths?

There is only One God of Truth, He is one of undying and unending Love, and offers humanity another chance to be right with Him.
He is revealed through Jesus Christ.
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and live by His teachings, God's teachings, and you will be saved.
Do not try to understand God or find sense in Him.
He is purely heavenly, immanant with us in spirit, and visible and walked amongst us.--Father, Spirit, and Son.

this is absolutely hilarious...Dont' try to find sense in Him?? Yes, please, you christians continue to wallow in this children's fairy tale...as a good friend of mine once said: "christianity is like a surfer-dude's religion: 'Yo dude, if it feels good, just do it dude.'"

Salvation is only offered through the Grace of God.
You cannot earn your way into Heaven!
The Kingdom of God isn't a country club!
You don't walk in, pay your fee, and be let in.
You must ask the King's Son for admission, because only He can let you in. All you do as a person, no matter how many good things, you are still as unclean as a filthy rag to ever be in God's prescence.
Submitt to God and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour!
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour if you ever want to be in God's Kingdom.
Do not be so rebellious against what you don't understand.

I am reading what you guys are writing and thanking God almighty I never was as lost as this...so you think Islam makes it like a "country club"...the way you have described it seems like "Jesus is the doorman to fraternity party, and you got to know someone to be let in." You think this sounds more appealing. No thanks, Islam is the truth because it makes sense on every account. Like Paul said: "when i was i was a child i spake as a child, thought as a child,....but when i became a man, i put away childish things."

God is personal, you can speak to Him as you do your best friend or your father.
You blaspheme by rejecting the God of the Bible, for another god.
Yes, you accept the Uzza, Manat, and Lat's brother, not Yahweh.
You wish to revere my prophets, yet reject their book?
Muhammed picked his favorite Kaabah god, and picked by faith to take the prophets from for his faith.
The Sabeans had no prophets, the Magians had one prophet, they weren't good enough.
I don't like to see my faith used like in Islam.
I don't like to see the false generalizations of Jews and Chrsitians as in the Quran.

There is no God of the bible, another blashpemous statement. The bible was an invention of man. The only thing i believe in are the Torah, the Pslams, the Gospel and the Quran. Unfortunately, your brothers in faith of long ago changed things around to the way they liked it, so we will never know what the actual Gospels said.

And if i tell you that I dont accept Manaat, Uzzat and Lat, why do you keep on insisting that i do? You are truly thick headed. And why do you care about Jews? Do you know what they said about Mary, the mother of Jesus??? And again, the only problem that God has with you is that you make equals with him, truly an odious thing, and that you deny the Truth. And if you dont like the "generalizations" then maybe you don't like when the light is shown on you? Maybe christians dont like to be told they are wrong. tood bad.

Is your Allah likened to a Heavenly Father, and you his beloved children, or is He like a Master, and you his slave? Please be specific and tell me your relationship to your Allah.
Can you speak to him as you do a father or friend?

I speak to Allah, SWT, as my Creator whom i owe everything to, as my Master and I His humble servant. To think of Allah, SWT, as a father figure is truly degrading to His Majesty, Splendour, and Glory. I speak to Allah, SWT, like He is greater than a father, or a close friend, I try and live my life as He is in constant and ever watchful over me in total Love and Mercy. And if you simply see your relationship to God as a fahter and children, that explains alot. Glory be to God and far above is He from all the wretched things people ascribe to him.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Peace Ismael,

And if i got "duped" into Islam it was because your religion failed to hold me, but tis the case with fantasy stories, and "inspired" stories

The Quran contains some REAL fantasy stories!

http://www.jesus-christ-forums.com/home/viewtopic.php?t=2692

I suppose these are "inspired" stories, even though they're about Jesus's childhood--written 150+ years after it!

I see you are one of the silly goose's who have bought Patircia Crone's account of history hook-line-and-sinker...so has Omega since he thinks that hypotheses are proof. I am trying to get around to answering some of it, but all of you guys keep responding.

anywho, it seems that oneGod answered you well enough, and since you continue to put up stories about cultures and history you dont' care to understand I will not waste my time. Its funny though how the story was "discounted" as you say. We all know how the Council of Nicea discounted ALOT of things. But yet you guys continue to read and quote the King James Version (King James was a homosexual btw).

And EVEN IF IF IF, the only surving copy of the Quran is 150 years old, GUESS WHAT? Its in Arabic...there are NO, NONE, ZERO copies of the Gospels in Aramaic or Hebrew and JESUS DID NOT SPEAK Greek!!

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

You mock me and my faith?
When I get defensive, you say I am rude?
Isn't hypocrisy as sin in Islam?
You scoff at what you do not understand.
You are immature, and gravely mislead.

this is absolutely hilarious...Dont' try to find sense in Him?? Yes, please, you christians continue to wallow in this children's fairy tale...as a good friend of mine once said: "christianity is like a surfer-dude's religion: 'Yo dude, if it feels good, just do it dude.'

I anticipate scholarly and learned answers. I'm not putting on the monkey show--you are.

Again, you cannot earn your way into God's kingdom.
Salvation is a GIFT from God!

You should ONLY do good works just out of the goodness of your heart and to please God. You should expect NOTHING for them.

The bible was an invention of man

The Quran is an invention of man.
There is NOTHING in the Quran that COULDN'T of been made up!

If man just made up the bible out of nothoing, than pigs wrote the Quran.
You wish to slander against my book and mock my faith?
You are very much on the wrong path.

And if i tell you that I dont accept Manaat, Uzzat and Lat, why do you keep on insisting that i do?

No, but you accept their brother, Muhammed's "the god"

You are truly thick headed. And why do you care about Jews? Do you know what they said about Mary, the mother of Jesus??? And again, the only problem that God has with you is that you make equals with him, truly an odious thing, and that you deny the Truth. And if you dont like the "generalizations" then maybe you don't like when the light is shown on you? Maybe christians dont like to be told they are wrong. tood bad.

I care about the Jews, God loves them and values them, and so do I.
Who do I ascribe equality with God?
Jesus is one in being with the Father, but they are still God.
God Himself has no partners, there is only one God.
Maybe it's you who doesn't like to be told your wrong.
Continue to live in your ignorance, it is really pathetic.

To think of Allah, SWT, as a father figure is truly degrading to His Majesty, Splendour, and Glory

Your relationship with God is degrading and proof of your religion's emptiness!

Here's a selection from one of my posts,


Let one average father in this world be an example for this story.
This father dearly loves his children.
He wants to be with his children as they grow up and seeks to help them become successful people.
He is always there to guide help his children when they are having difficulty.
He always welcomes back his child if he runs away.
He punishes his children when they do wrong to discipline them.
[color=red]He loves his children even if they don't love him.
He love his children so much, that he would give up his life to save them from a dire danger.

Now surely God is more loving than an average father.
Parents love their children so much, it's hard to understand.
Just think how incomprehensible and spectacular God's love is for us!
He is like a this father plus much more, He is like a Heavenly Father.

To Christians:
We can talk to God like a father or a best friend.
He is not far from us, but always close by.
He always welcomes us back ungrudgingly after we run away.
He still loves us even when we were ungrateful sinners and unbelievers.
Our dire situation is our sins, and He laid down His life for us to save us through Jesus Christ.


What is your relationship with the Almighty like?
Can it be compared to ours? [/color]


What can you say to this?


And here, read some Quranic fantasy stories,

http://www.jesus-christ-forums.com/home/viewtopic.php?t=2692

[Believer]

And the Gospel of the infacy is a real historical book, look it up on google and verify the verses. I quoted them out of a book I have.


The Infancy Gospels are about Jesus's childhood, and yet they were written centuries after His childhood.
Now the Gospel of Mark was written 15-20 years after Jesus's death.
It begins with Jesus starting His ministry at 30 years of age.
I'd take this account entirely as true before taking even a sentence of the Infancies as true.
Besides, the Jesus said he was the Son of God from that cradle, not a messenger from allah.

[Bushmaster]

well, considering that i am forced to come to conclusions

Bull... no one is forcing you to come to conclusions... I don't come to my conclusions about something I don't know, even if I do, I don't speak it out here because it is my conclusions...

what kind of ridiculous statement it this?

I don't know, what kind of statement "it" that? Did you know "what way" I was talking about? No... so hush!

And if i got "duped" into Islam it was because your religion failed to hold me, but tis the case with fantasy stories, and "inspired" stories.

My religion doesn't hold anyone. It doesn't need to hold anyone. Stop spreading your "pentecostal" bull, you are giving your lies away. Christians don't believe in a religion. Obiously, since you have never been one, you don't know that. Fantasy stories, you didn't even read the koran yet... Yet talking here as a "muslim"...

....lots of stuff not your own thoughts deleted...but i saved the interesting part below. [/quote

Not my own? And how can you possibly know that? Yes it is my own... My own studies, from the summer of this very 2003. I study my Bible unlike you. I prepared this study this summer for the misinformed misleaded like you who don't have a clue what Jesus taught, what He meant with "turning the cheek". I have used many different resources. All I did was to copy from my .doc file... see no one forced you to come to your bull conclusions... you did it yourself!

So if i am to take it correctly...he actually had other people going around doing the killing??

If you had taken your stuff correctly, you wouldn't be mopping the floors 5 times a day with your head now.... Go back and read my article throughly.

And why would Jesus need this if he was divine is an even more interesting question.

Read the article, He didn't need such thing.

You actually don't have a duty to a country, other than to be a law-abiding citizen.

And that is why I might be in the military...

For a christian to join the army of a secular democracy that goes to war over money and oil, which is clearly illegal, causes the christian to lose himself and thus putting nation before the teachings of God. Anything before God is worship of something besides God

Prove me that this war was over money and oil. What you got? Only rumors and opinions... Keep your opinions for yourself and bring me my President's statement saying this war is over money and oil. Again more bull from kareem abdul jabbar...

Why are you worried about this illegal war anyways? Worry about your muhammad's legal plunders towards convoys in the desert...

I never lost myself, and I will never will... And I haven't put my country before my God. Those things are different things and Bible teaches me so. If you are not aware of it, tough, you don't even have the patience to read the article which would have filled your empty ..... You quickly adapted the way of thinking like the mullahs.

And also to assume that all nations will go to war is a hallmark of evolutionary materialism, an atheistic concept that Christians dont even realize they believe in.

Have you ever heard a Book of Revelation? Go read that.

Also what does it mean to be a Christian soldier for God?

Believer, Me, Alpha, wryders, Omega, Webmaster, all these people are soldiers for God. We fight against "something" you have never heard as stated in our Bible which you have never bothered to read... We being soldiers for a country and we being soldiers for God are completely different things...

Just like ur idiotic leader Jerry Falwell

Not my leader... Is Osama your leader? What an idiot!

Actually most of your love for war is racism anyway, another byproduct of secular materialism and nazism.

Did I hear "nazism"? Brothers in arms with islam...

Since America funded Saddam for so long, you might get killed with some of my tax money, wouldnt that be something. Why dont you just kill muslims here? I am sure no one will care.

When America funded Saddam, you were probably in your diapers poopin'. Your tax money is being used to fuel and arm the US military who is fighting against a regime not a religion as most of you think. I promise you I won't get killed. I am not trained to get killed. I also won't kill muslims here, not all of them are idiots... Oh did I say idiots? Sorry I didn't mean no offence mr. kareem abdul jabbar...

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Peace Ismael,

You mock me and my faith?
When I get defensive, you say I am rude?
Isn't hypocrisy as sin in Islam?
You scoff at what you do not understand.
You are immature, and gravely mislead.

Peace indeed...i actually haven't attacked you for mocking Islam, I expect that out of you and the other 13 year olds on this forum...but yes you are rude, you are also hypocritical, you also scoff at what you don't understand, and are immature and mislead. And I am not actually talking about Christianity per se, but rather your interpretations of it. Show me my hypocrisy, if i am wrong i will admit it.

I anticipate scholarly and learned answers. I'm not putting on the monkey show--you are.

Another good one, you have yet to either ask, pose, or come up with a scholarly question. As a matter of fact, you have done NOTHING scholarly, why should i waste my talents on you. You are intellectual chapstick. All you do is huff and puff and try to blow my house down.

Again, you cannot earn your way into God's kingdom.
Salvation is a GIFT from God!

You should ONLY do good works just out of the goodness of your heart and to please God. You should expect NOTHING for them.

Who said I expect anything from them, or any muslim for that matter. And all of what you believe is according to ONLY what you have studied and what your mommy and daddy taught you, maybe grandpa and grandma. You, and the rest of the braindead platoon on here, have never once in your life had an original thought, or challenged your beliefs. There is no way you have. You guys are too gung ho to ever have, maybe you are too scared, and i don't blame you, cuz when you shine the light under the covers, you see things you don't like.

The bible was an invention of man

The Quran is an invention of man.
There is NOTHING in the Quran that COULDN'T of been made up!

If man just made up the bible out of nothoing, than pigs wrote the Quran.
You wish to slander against my book and mock my faith?
You are very much on the wrong path.

If only you had a path. Actually, my statement is simply a fact of history. There is no verse in the Bible, that told people to compile it all up. It existed as different manuscripts. And what's even funnier, why dont Jews have the same bible you do?? Hmmm? Again Logic and Reason fails to penetrate a christian skull, won't be the last time either. So in actuality I did not slander or mock your book? Christians are the ones who decided to have a book with an old testament and a new testament correct? And there are some christians who don't even accept the old testament, well at least none of the law in it. But again this is what happens when you get right wing Christian fundamentalists who think they are always right and eveyrone else, including other christians are wrong. Now on the other hand, YOU slandered my religion.

No, but you accept their brother, Muhammed's "the god"

Then you know even less about Islam than i thought you did, not that I thought you understood anything in the first place. But we don't worship Muhammad, like you guys worship Jesus, yaAllah save us from such jahiliyya, ameen.

Who do I ascribe equality with God?
Jesus is one in being with the Father, but they are still God.
God Himself has no partners, there is only one God.
Maybe it's you who doesn't like to be told your wrong.
Continue to live in your ignorance, it is really pathetic.

You believe a man, who walked around on the earth, got hurt, went to the bathroom, came out from between his mom's legs, could have been killed if someone had so chosen, IS GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, who was in charge of the universe, taking down all the names of who did good and bad during the pregnancy???

Now here is the next statement, "but THEY are still GOD" THEY. THEY. They = more than one. Now, if this is the doctrine of Christianity, and we know its not the only one, but now christianity is no different than Hinduism!! Hindus have exactly the same belief except they have more gods to believe in so by sheer numbers that must be the cooler religion. I really wish some of you could step back and listen to what you are saying. The things you say, defy the logic of the universe, it defies natural order, just like homosexuality defies the natural order.

Here is the next problem...if Jesus and God (and the holy spirit, yaAllah where does this end) are one and the same, Then why would Jesus make the statement on the cross: "Oh father, why hast thou forsaken me?"

I mean, as a little kid, this statement alone was enough to drive me out the doors of the church if i wouldnt have gotten a whippin. Here, God's son is questioning the wisdom of the Father? Now this statement, as bad as it is only gets worse when we plug in Christian math (1+1+1=1). So now God is actually hanging on the cross, and God is asking himself why he forsook himself? Where does this illogical runaway train end. bushmaster i need your expertise on this one. I confess stupidity.

Your relationship with God is degrading and proof of your religion's emptiness!

and how is that, another statement of yours without evidence i see.

Here's a selection from one of my posts,

Let one average father in this world be an example for this story.
This father dearly loves his children.
He wants to be with his children as they grow up and seeks to help them become successful people.
He is always there to guide help his children when they are having difficulty.
He always welcomes back his child if he runs away.
He punishes his children when they do wrong to discipline them.
[color=red]He loves his children even if they don't love him.
He love his children so much, that he would give up his life to save them from a dire danger.

Now surely God is more loving than an average father.
Parents love their children so much, it's hard to understand.
Just think how incomprehensible and spectacular God's love is for us!
He is like a this father plus much more, He is like a Heavenly Father.

To Christians:
We can talk to God like a father or a best friend.
He is not far from us, but always close by.
He always welcomes us back ungrudgingly after we run away.
He still loves us even when we were ungrateful sinners and unbelievers.
Our dire situation is our sins, and He laid down His life for us to save us through Jesus Christ.


What is your relationship with the Almighty like?
Can it be compared to ours? [/color]


What can you say to this?

Yes my relationship is proper, your relationship is expedient.
[/img]

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Bull... no one is forcing you to come to conclusions... I don't come to my conclusions about something I don't know, even if I do, I don't speak it out here because it is my conclusions...

You have come to many "conclusions" about Islam i see you hypocrite. Adn the human being comes to conclusions as part of the natural thought processes, it means "its build in."

I don't know, what kind of statement "it" that? Did you know "what way" I was talking about? No... so hush!

Picking on typos? Truly a brilliant one you are. But what's better is you tell me to "hush." That is the funniest thing i have ever read.

My religion doesn't hold anyone. It doesn't need to hold anyone. Stop spreading your "pentecostal" bull, you are giving your lies away. Christians don't believe in a religion. Obiously, since you have never been one, you don't know that. Fantasy stories, you didn't even read the koran yet... Yet talking here as a "muslim"...

Of course i have read the quran, but you said it correctly in the first sentence, yes YOUR religion doesnt hold anyone, and it doesnt need to, and it actually doesnt. Most people remain in the religion they are because they are afraid to ever challenge it which is usually a function of cultural and social pressures in a community. I include most muslims nowaday in this category. However, Islam requires us to challenge it, its a command, because it will actually prove itself, unlike the rest, and yes YOUR religion is part of the rest. Because they don't prove themselves when challenged. And if you would like a lesson, ill be happy to provide it next time. But be careful, it may shake ur faith.

[quoteNot my own? And how can you possibly know that? Yes it is my own... My own studies, from the summer of this very 2003. I study my Bible unlike you. I prepared this study this summer for the misinformed misleaded like you who don't have a clue what Jesus taught, what He meant with "turning the cheek". I have used many different resources. All I did was to copy from my .doc file... see no one forced you to come to your bull conclusions... you did it yourself![/quote]

agreed, i came to the wrong conclusion. However, I was correct in that you did copy and paste it from somewhere, I could tell that, but i am not surprised they were your own words. If i may give a brief desc of your paper: "A Christian's View On the Efficacy and Duty of Serving in the Armed Forces"? Sound good?

If you had taken your stuff correctly, you wouldn't be mopping the floors 5 times a day with your head now.... Go back and read my article throughly.

mopping the floor with my head? ahh, ur humor and wit knows no bounds, but we don't move our heads side to side or back and forth, it stays in one place when we pray and is a sign of humility. And there is biblical evidence that every prophet, including Jesus prayed the same way. So you may need to be careful of what you criticize. And I don't think I am going to waste my time, rereading the writings of someone justifying going to war with a twisted take on the bible. Osama would be proud of you distorting religion and all.

Read the article, He didn't need such thing.

Then why did he tell them to do it. He obviously needed for them to do it otherwise he wouldnt have told them right. And according to the bible, if the apostles had been so chicken they could actually have saved him. Looks like they didnt heed the advice.

And that is why I might be in the military...

Might, its pretty easy tough guy, just go sign up. I am sure you will either be behind a desk or on the front lines.

Prove me that this war was over money and oil. What you got? Only rumors and opinions... Keep your opinions for yourself and bring me my President's statement saying this war is over money and oil. Again more bull from kareem abdul jabbar...

ok, well ths is an easy one. There are no WMD, Saddam couldnt have attacked us in 45 min, etc etc. However, Iraq has lots of oil, the Iraq war has been planned since 1998, Afghanistan also sits as the easiest way to get Natual Gas out of Central Asia, hence the Bush Administration was meeting with the Taliban less than 2 months before 9/11 but the Taliban would not agree to the terms of the deal. the Bush administration gave Vice President Cheney's former company $2 Billion worth of contracts that no one else could bid on as soon as the war was over. As a matter of fact, the US has already started shipping oil out of Iraq for use in the USA. Cars in california right now are driving around on iraqi petroleum.

Why are you worried about this illegal war anyways? Worry about your muhammad's legal plunders towards convoys in the desert...

If it were 1400 years ago i might have joined in, but today is today soldier boy, and i have morals, you obviously think its ok to kill 20,000 people in afghanistan and now the Red Cross is saying 20,000 in Iraq, that's 40,000 people to do what: Get Osama and Saddam and your lame brained president can't even do that. But he's real good and brave at dropping bombs and smiling like a monkey.

I never lost myself, and I will never will... And I haven't put my country before my God. Those things are different things and Bible teaches me so. If you are not aware of it, tough, you don't even have the patience to read the article which would have filled your empty ..... You quickly adapted the way of thinking like the mullahs.

I must admit, i had little patience reading the article, but the parts i did read were interesting and thought provoking. I do want to commend you on that. But you don't even know what the word Mullah means, so we'll just leave it at that.

Have you ever heard a Book of Revelation? Go read that.

Yeah, i have read it and studied it extensively. Interestingly, the book of revelations was not included in the original bible, because the compilers thought John to be crazy. Then it was added later, then taken out, then finally added again. Even after it was added, early christian scholars thought it was a foretelling of the fall of the Roman Empire which did make sense for a long time, but not an end of time book. this came with later interpretations, the one it seems you hold.

Believer, Me, Alpha, wryders, Omega, Webmaster, all these people are soldiers for God. We fight against "something" you have never heard as stated in our Bible which you have never bothered to read... We being soldiers for a country and we being soldiers for God are completely different things...

Ok, so tell me what it is

Not my leader... Is Osama your leader? What an idiot!

Not my leader, and yes Osama is an idiot, but he's braver than you will ever be and that's not saying a whole lot.

Since America funded Saddam for so long, you might get killed with some of my tax money, wouldnt that be something. Why dont you just kill muslims here? I am sure no one will care.

When America funded Saddam, you were probably in your diapers poopin'. Your tax money is being used to fuel and arm the US military who is fighting against a regime not a religion as most of you think. I promise you I won't get killed. I am not trained to get killed. I also won't kill muslims here, not all of them are idiots... Oh did I say idiots? Sorry I didn't mean no offence mr. kareem abdul jabbar...[/quote]

No i wasnt in diapers, but you still didnt answer the question. My tax money goes to alot of places and my military is being used right now to pretty much fight only muslim places. And on top of that, the big bad US military can't even fight a country until it starves it to death for 12 years, then pays off generals not to fight as it did in Iraq. This is why there was no army waiting for the US in Baghdad. Also, we'll see how big and bad the US is when it decides to attack N. Korea...ooops, they aren't muslim, and don't have any oil, something tells me we arent going to attack them. Even though they actually have nuclear weapons and WMD. They also have killed and starved their own people, which is the other reason Bush says we went to war with Iraq. When it was the US who gave and sold Saddam the technology and chemicals to make the weapons to kill his own people. But maybe the reason you don't know this is because you are out training how not to get killed.

Lastly, Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a beautiful name, but its funny that you think it offends me. Your childishness in continuing to use it though makes me wonder what kind of soldier you really are, oh that's right, you are "Little Soldier Boy." That's what kind of soldier you are. Slingshot and Pea Shooter are your weapons of choice right?

[Alpha]

Slingshot and Pea Shooter are your weapons of choice right?

Let's not forget that David killed Goliath with a slingshot.

[Bushmaster]

You have come to many "conclusions" about Islam i see you hypocrite. Adn the human being comes to conclusions as part of the natural thought processes, it means "its build in."

Yea yea give me spin around, try to explain yourself away... it won't work... No I haven't come to any conclusions (about islam whatnot, I know what it is all about being raised in it) and certainly I haven't come to conclusions about any person and what they are talking about... I tried to tell you about your built-in feature and that you don't have to parrot your natural thought process results...

Truly a brilliant one you are.

Thanks.

But what's better is you tell me to "hush." That is the funniest thing i have ever read.

Obviously you also adapted the sense of humor of islam which is backwards...

YOUR religion doesnt hold anyone, and it doesnt need to, and it actually doesnt. Most people remain in the religion they are because.... blah blah blah... But be careful, it may shake ur faith.

Jesus has the answers to everything, Bible has the answers to everything. I may not have the answers right away, but no challenge of yours will shake my faith. We told you we don't have a religion... It is pointless talking to a wall.

agreed, i came to the wrong conclusion. However, I was correct in that you did copy and paste it from somewhere, I could tell that, but i am not surprised they were your own words. If i may give a brief desc of your paper: "A Christian's View On the Efficacy and Duty of Serving in the Armed Forces"? Sound good?

I am impressed... All I could ever hope is you shutting up when you think (if you can think) it is the wrong conclusion. By this way you wouldn't be parroting "all" of your conclusions but only those you think correct... I copied from my .doc file so what? No it doesn't sound good, it has nothing to do with it... Here is another paper on the topic but it is not my own...

1. Firstly the Bible says nothing against a soldier killing during war but the Bible does say that thou shall not murder. Murder is killing someone unlawfully with the intention of killing someone. Murder is a big difference from killing someone accidently or in self defense or in a war.

2. Secondly none of the prophets nor Jesus or His followers spoke against the vocation of being a soldier. The first followers of Jesus were centurions and soldiers and even they were not instructed to leave their vocation.

3. Thirdly the only verse in the Bible that Jesus spoke against taking arms is Mat 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. However this should not be understood as one cannot be a soldier and fight in a war but against the attitude that one who trust in taking arms will themselves perish with the very same approach in which they trust their life upon. Kind of like outlaws who believe that having and handling a gun will keep them alive and prosperous but history has proven otherwise.

Therefore there is nothing wrong for a Christian to be a soldier. But as for killing, we look at the motive of why the soldier killed. If they are doing it outside their duty then they are not abding to the task that they are entrusted with. Paul states that clearly in Romans 13:3-4

Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Therefore for example when the US took arms against the Nazis or the Japs or Gadaffi or the Al-Qaeda, they are executing wrath upon those that do evil. What would happen to the women and children of Europe or Asia or the Mid-East if the US refused to intervene? Look at the Killing Fields in Cambodia when the US pulled out of Vietnam and Cambodia. Personally I find it ironic that the so called peace advocates who demanded that the US pull out of Vietnam never criticised with the same amout of tenacity when Pol Pot killed his hundred of thousands in Cambodia.

But note again, Christians in the military can do a world of good both as peacekeepers and to the people they are liberating. I personally know of a great number of testimonies of Christian soldiers that have brought out the goodness of God's people out from the insanities of war. From the dropping of handkerchiefs filled with chocolates by the USAF airmen to the starving and deprived children of EAST Berlin after WW2 to the prayers of British soldiers for the repentance of Hitlers top advisors during the Nuremberg trials (which some did repent). These are Christian soldiers, not bent on bloodshed but giving their lives so others might live and come to repentance.

Therefore it is absurd to say - show me where in the Bible where it permits killing. For there is none be it permit or otherwise. Because the act of killing must first be defined. Is it Murder then the Bible clearly says no, if it's war then Romans 13:4 states we are subject to God's agent of authority. Unless of course if that authority is of an evil source then we do not associate with it.

ahh, ur humor and wit knows no bounds, but we don't move our heads side to side or back and forth, it stays in one place when we pray and is a sign of humility.

Learn about your islamic sects and come back... And what does it matter if you move or don't move, you are cleaning the floors thinking your showing your humility to something you don't even know.

And there is biblical evidence that every prophet, including Jesus prayed the same way.

Another widely-spread islamic lie... I wonder why it is not in the Bible... Oh wait a minute, Bible was changed by men... Sure why not...

And I don't think I am going to waste my time, rereading the writings of someone justifying going to war with a twisted take on the bible.

If you don't think it is worth your time, you'd better shut your hole because without reading it, you are asking stupid questions and I won't be answering them. I don't have a religion, furthermore I am sure Osama is proud of having you sickheads ready to die for the cause of allah.

Then why did he tell them to do it. He obviously needed for them to do it otherwise he wouldnt have told them right.

he actually had other people going around doing the killing

Man this is getting ridiculous, show me the verse where Jesus ordered people around to do HIS killing. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Mat 26:52 Is that how he orders do the killing? You have confused Him with your muhammad.

Might, its pretty easy tough guy, just go sign up. I am sure you will either be behind a desk or on the front lines.

You are sure? You are sure about many things you don't even know if they are true... I say you have a defect in that built-in feature you have.

ok, well ths is an easy one. There are no WMD,... blah blah blah

Do you have all these theories in your "Top Secret" folder? Because I am not seeing any official statements or documents proving your opinions and the rumors you believe.

If it were 1400 years ago i might have joined in, but today is today soldier boy, and i have morals,... more blah blah

I can see that your kind hasn't changed a bit in 1400 years so why do try to spin around the statement... Today or 1400 years ago. Still same walnut-size brained muslims, behind the age as always...

But you don't even know what the word Mullah means, so we'll just leave it at that.

I know what mullah I know what imam and all that crap means... you are forgetting that I was raised in a muslim country and again coming to your built-in conclusions. But I must say, if the machine has a defect since it's manufactured from its factory, I am not suprised to see all these built-in results.

Yeah, i have read it and studied it extensively. Interestingly, the book of revelations was not included ... blah blah blah

So? If you had studied, you would have known the answer to the original question you asked... spin it around...

Ok, so tell me what it is

Now I will give you the spin around, you were a "so-called" Christian who supposedly studied the bible. Find your own answer. Look in Ephesians. I gave you the starting point. Also it is in my article. Waste of your time? Like I care.

Not my leader, and yes Osama is an idiot,

I was calling you an "idiot", monkey brain! How did you miss that?

My tax money goes to alot of places and my military is being used right now to pretty much fight only muslim places. And on top of that,... blah blah blah

And how do you know that Iraqis or "someone else" are fighting against the US right now? Were you there? Carry on reading your islamic scholars and their take on the US.

When it was the US who gave and sold Saddam the technology and chemicals to make the weapons to kill his own people.

And where did you get that gem of information? Throughout the years you worked for DOD or the years you grew your fat-@$$ sitting in front of a computer?

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a beautiful name, but its funny that you think it offends me.

I know it is and now I am sure that you have a defect in your brain and sorry it is the built-in feature you can not replace. How in the world do you know that I used that name to offend you? You don't, because you don't think, you talk... How do you know what I think? Answer me, how do you know what I think? That name might have been a compliment since it resembles your damn new islamic name. Did you have a hard time finding it in the dictionary? And I wonder since you had started, why didn't you add a few more names? Three is not enough, is it? I am a little soldier boy and my choice of weapons are Hellfire and Brimstone. Don't ever be targeted by them.

[Bushmaster]

Here is the next problem...if Jesus and God (and the holy spirit, yaAllah where does this end) are one and the same, Then why would Jesus make the statement on the cross: "Oh father, why hast thou forsaken me?"

I mean, as a little kid, this statement alone was enough to drive me out the doors of the church if i wouldnt have gotten a whippin. Here, God's son is questioning the wisdom of the Father? Now this statement, as bad as it is only gets worse when we plug in Christian math (1+1+1=1). So now God is actually hanging on the cross, and God is asking himself why he forsook himself? Where does this illogical runaway train end. bushmaster i need your expertise on this one. I confess stupidity.

Believer, I think we should cease arguing with this idiot, because he is trying to pull us down to his level... Let's remember 2. Tim 2:23-24 and let's not take his bait. He had never used his brain to answer the questions or find the answers he was looking for but he ran out of Church, ran away from questions... And he will never use that brain. That is why he embraced the false-religion of islam... Becoming a Christian is an easy act in and of itself. So too is becoming a Muslim, but you must also remember what it takes to be a Christian or a Muslim. Both take faith, and with that faith there should be works as a result, but in Christianity, works does not save, whereas in Islam, works are paramount for Paradise. Though works is difficult in that you never know how much is enough, it's more tangible and so easier to accept as a method of salvation, than grace. So many Christians (as seen here) lose their way because they think that they must do works to save themselves... they cannot comprehend the saving grace of God. Islam is a religion of structure and works. Though a Muslim has no definitive assurance of whether they will go to Paradise or not, performing the prescribed patterns and doing good deeds is something tangible which they can relate to. I've run into many Muslims who'd converted from Catholicism. They left Catholicism due to the decadence and percieved hypocracy, finding the simplicity of Islam pleasing, however they were able to relate and adapt because both are works based religions with prescribed duties and acts, repetitive prayers being an example. Also, coming from a background and culture where they are raised to think for themselves, most Christians and those raised in Christian societies or western thinking, are taught to think for themselves. In this way, right or wrong, a westerner, or someone raised in a Christian or western philosophy will possibly more readily change their minds due to independent thinking. This is a reason why it's easier to evangelize westerners than it is to evangelize easterners, specifically Muslims. They are raised in a dependent, subordinate culture and religion. You do not question your faith, you do not hammer out the reasons why you believe what you believe. But as we have seen here, if you mix these all, there you have a freak!

Now as for this idiot;

Did you study the Bible before being duped into Islam? You don't seem like you did. These are questions which you would have answered yourself if you had studied the Bible. Your answer:

Read Matthew 28:19 and compare with Zech 14:9 , read Matthew 27:46 onwards and compare the fulfilled prophecies in Psalm 22...

All these information are available even on the internet. You need not continue in your ignorance and believe a man made religion

Christian math of 1+1+1=1? You don't even spend time on the internet to look for answers right? Then why should we be wasting our precious time for your idiotic claims?

Make it 1x1x1=1, I hope you know that much math... There is only one illogical runaway train here and you are in it.

[ismael abdul kareem byrd]

Bushmaster,

I never asked you to argue with me, and i never asked you your opinion. Your the one who chose to. And I didnt realize you grew up in a muslim country, from looking at some other posts i see it was Turkey. Well, I can just tell you that it explains alot.

And I know all about all the Islamic sects, no different than Christianity in that regard as people who don't like something so they do what they want and form whatever religion they want.

And as far as Iraqi policy goes, or Afghani policy, it is rarely ever going to come out in official documents that the US is going to war over oil and money. You have to look at the evidence. Now i know that since you were raised in a corrupt country like Turkey, you have no clue about looking at evidence to reach a conclusion, but one need go no further back than the Vietnam War...when Lyndon Johnson lied thru his teeth to the American People and told them that one of our gunships was attacked off the Gulf of Tonkin. This has been found out to be a complete lie and thus the whole reason we went to Vietnam was a lie.

#2...In 1986 when you were a little kid, the US bombed Libya. According to an ex-Mossad officer, victor ostrovsky, the Israelis planted a device that gave fake radio transmissions making the US think that Libya was about to attack the US in the Mediterranean. The US warring over lies again.

#3...in 1967, the Israeli Airforce and Navy tried to sink a US Intelligence Ship off the coast of egypt called the USS Liberty. American soldiders on board, AMERICAN Soldiers (not muslims) were killed (34) with 172 wounded. The Israeli gov't and the American gov't both covered it up until one month ago when the Investigators came out with how they had been forced to be silent by the Pentagon.

So i have evidence? Wehre is yours? Well you will continute to fit right in in the US as long as you keep that brainwashed sheep mentality, like the rest of the Americans. Believing whatever comes on the idiotbox (TV).

Now one thing where you are wrong...it doesnt take faith to become a muslim. You are right about christianity though, it does take faith, a wholeeeeeeeeeee lot. It requires defying the natural order of things, it requires believing things that defy reason. Now its your business if you want to believe this, and its my business if i choose to believe in logic and rationality and reason.

But here is the little mental exercise for you and your cohorts:

If you were put on an island and had never been told about Christianity, you would never have become Christian.

Now don't turn it around and say you would never become muslim either, because one would actually. Just answer my question first. Any christian can answer it for that matter.

[Believer]

Peace Ismael,

Another good one, you have yet to either ask, pose, or come up with a scholarly question. As a matter of fact, you have done NOTHING scholarly, why should i waste my talents on you. You are intellectual chapstick. All you do is huff and puff and try to blow my house down.

No!
I have presented to you a series of scholarly and challenging questions and points, and you often fail to give me a logical response to them.

And all of what you believe is according to ONLY what you have studied and what your mommy and daddy taught you,

You and the Quran like to make these outrageous generalizations about Christans and Jews.
I don't buy your lies!
I was always a Christian since I was young, but I constantly reaffrim my beliefs in Christ by asking myself difficult questions--like those you muslims ask--and I find the answers by reading the Bible and holding steadfast in my faith in Christ.
I am not a coward like you, who runs away when the tough stuff comes up.

Jesus was right about you in the Parable of the Sower in Luke8:11-15

11"This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. [/color=blue]

Then you know even less about Islam than i thought you did, not that I thought you understood anything in the first place. But we don't worship Muhammad, like you guys worship Jesus, yaAllah save us from such jahiliyya, ameen.

I didn't say you worshipped Muhammed.
You worship Muhammed's "the god"(allah)
His allah was the god of the Qurayash tribe, and he was associated with Uzza, Manat, and Lat.
Those goddesses and your god originate in Kaabah, not from the Bible.
You do not follow my God, Yahweh.

You believe a man, who walked around on the earth, got hurt, went to the bathroom, came out from between his mom's legs, could have been killed if someone had so chosen, IS GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, who was in charge of the universe, taking down all the names of who did good and bad during the pregnancy???

Did you read even Phillipians 3? That explains it.

Will you say that it is impossible for God to transcend to our world as Jesus Christ?
Will you blaspheme by saying " God can't do that, that is impossible"
To God all things are possible and nothing is impossible..
He is infinite in power and capability.

Here is the next problem...if Jesus and God (and the holy spirit, yaAllah where does this end) are one and the same, Then why would Jesus make the statement on the cross: "Oh father, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Read Pslam 22, it practicaly spells out the crucifiction.

Now here is the next statement, "but THEY are still GOD" THEY. THEY. They = more than one. Now, if this is the doctrine of Christianity, and we know its not the only one, but now christianity is no different than Hinduism!!

No, unbeliever!
Hindus believe in a triad, three gods in one universal essense-Brahama, Shiva, and Vishnu.

[color=blue]Christian believe in only one God, and He is purely heavenly, immanent with is in His Spirit, and able to incarnate Himself in our image and even in flesh.
This is the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Let me ask you a question, do you ever talk to yourself in you mind--like there's two people in your head? You are still one, yet you can speak to yourself and respond.
This is not unlike Jesus's relationship to the Father.

Yes my relationship is proper, your relationship is expedient.

Your relationship is backward and empty, while mine is complete and fruitful.


Oh, and Ismael, do you enjoy reading your fantasy Quran stories from the Infancy Gospels?
Why aren't you in a rush to throw out the Quran now?

Believer, Me, Alpha, wryders, Omega, Webmaster, all these people are soldiers for God. We fight against "something" you have never heard as stated in our Bible which you have never bothered to read... We being soldiers for a country and we being soldiers for God are completely different things...

Hey Bushmaster,
It is a pleasure to fight along side with you guys.