Prophet not perfect, says Islamic scholar

The Australian ^ | 4th October 2006 | Richard Kerbaj

[The_Reader_David]

I am curious why you are on this thread.

What exactly is your point in deningrating Christians' beliefs? The Mohammedan hordes are the enemies of our civilization, pious Christian or post-Christian secularist, uptight moralistic theist or atheist libertine, materialist or Cartesian dualist. Your picking religious quarrels with Christians is the religious equivalent of the left's 'politics-of-personal-destruction-as-usual'.

[stubernx98]

"No, I'm an atheist so I don't believe in an inherent concept of perfection. Of course you weren't around Muhammad to know whether he was perfect or not."

The fundamental difference between Islam & Christianity is that Jesus recognized the difference between government and saving your sole. Islam sees it as one in the same. Both books were written by men, and we know we're not perfect, particularly when it comes to observing events.

[Moral Hazard]

"I am curious why you are on this thread. "

My posting was because somebody decided to proclaim the superiority of their religion over Islam, while I think they are both equally wrong.

[Moral Hazard]

"Both books were written by men, and we know we're not perfect, particularly when it comes to observing events."

Jaysun at post 26 would seem to disagree with you.

[Vasilli22]

My faith has nothing to do with risk management. I'm a Christian and I believe what I believe is true. That's not to say that I don't have questions at times, I'm not that arrogant. My whole point of saying what I said was just in response to Moral Hazard's supercilious rantings. Very typical of an atheist.

[Dan(9698)]

OK that's fine. I was hoping for Chapter:Verse etc. But that's fine, and thanks for replying. Nite.

Matthew 5:48

Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.

We also strive to become like him.

[noodler]

You feel comfortable in mocking a serious subject.This comfort within you reside was bought by many lives.Directly meeting this is evidence the Almighty LORD which made everything loved us so much HE sent a SON thru a Woman of earth type to get us straightened up. HE could have destroyed the whole world or universe and started over. What HE made is good and certainly interesting.
Prophets arrise and are murdered and tortured.Certainly I cannot tell a billion Muslims their prophet is corrupt. There is no earthly purpose to inflame or defame other than what some followers do.If I were to get into their books and neglect my own what is accomplished? In Fact, the idea is that we work together and not be opposed. To the degree we fight emboldens athiest societies which sit in our doorstep marveling how easy it is to turn a religion thing into a step thru the door. Where evidenced before a third party gains. I don't want that to happen and if you think it through you don't either.

[Jason_b]

That's the one. Thanks.

[The_Reader_David]

Equally wrong? Now that's a curious indictment.

Muslim science was still-born thanks to the Islamic insistence on the absolute freedom of Allah, while the vibrant flourishing of science that lives today arose in Christian lands, where "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God," provided a basis for regarding the world as rational.

Slavery was abolished by Christians whose moral anthropology begins with "come let Us make Man in Our image and likeness" and "In as much as you do it to the least of these, you do it to Me," while it persists among the Muslims who declare, "Allah has no image."

How does your materialistic certitude that there is no God stand against the old Cappadocian dictum "I believe in God; God does not exist"? Descartes showed materialistic empricism to be untrustworthy, and you sneer at faith?

[Moral Hazard]

"Directly meeting this is evidence the Almighty LORD which made everything loved us so much HE sent a SON thru a Woman of earth type to get us straightened up. HE could have destroyed the whole world or universe and started over. What HE made is good and certainly interesting."

Or it could be no more true than Elvis still being alive.

[Rovendem]

Hell allah isnt even stable.

Islam, the (needs) Prozac nation.

[Moral Hazard]

"Descartes showed materialistic empiricism to be untrustworthy, and you sneer at faith?"

Can I sneer at Descartes too?

[The_Reader_David]

Given what I've read on the thread, I'm sure you can sneer at anything you want. Whether it serves any purpose for you to do so is not so clear.

[noodler]

Then you may ask yourself, not me, why you have a questioning mind.I've not met one dog or cat or anything else but mankind that can type. Do we just appear? NO there is something else going on here friend. I sit actually at worse position than you for I know and still make mistakes.You are at an apex where complete decision can be made. You are worth it,i believe.That is the belief thing. Tell me where it comes from dogs,lizards or monkeys. To deny your own worth is to deny that compass which is beyond this. By your own posting you undercut the possibility of what you purport.

[armydoc]

Or so some book some guy wrote says. That's proof enough for you eh?

The Christian faith is not a blind faith; it is faith rooted in evidence. The chief way God has authenticated the Bible as His Word is by prophecy- hundreds of them. We have positively dated manuscripts containing prophecy that were subsequently fulfilled hundreds of years later. Take the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel. It predicted the exact day that Jesus would present Himself as King (his triumphal entry into Jerusalem). The earliest manuscripts for the book of Daniel have been positively dated 100-200 years before the birth of Christ.

The Bible also authenticates itself in other fascinating ways. Consider the following:

The Heptadic Structure
The recurrence of the number seven - or an exact multiple of seven - is found throughout the Bible and is widely recognized. The Sabbath on the seventh day; the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine in Egypt; the seven priests and seven trumpets marching around Jericho; the Sabbath Year of the land are well-known examples.

Also, Solomon's building the Temple for seven years, Naaman's washing in the river seven times, and the seven churches, seven lamp stands, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven stars, and so on in the Book of Revelation, all show the consistent use of the number seven.

But there turns out to be much more below the surface. Ivan Panin noted the amazing numerical properties of the Biblical texts - both the Greek of the New Testament and the Hebrew of the Old Testament. These are not only intriguing to discover, they also demonstrate an intricacy of design which testifies to a supernatural origin!

Vocabulary
One of the simplest - and most provocative - aspects of the Biblical text is the vocabulary used. The number of vocabulary words in a passage is normally different from the total number of words in a passage. Some words are repeated. It is easy, for example, to use a vocabulary of 500 words to write an essay of 4,000 words.

An Example
The first 17 verses of the Gospel of Matthew are a logical unit, or section, which deals with a single principal subject: the genealogy of Christ. It contains 72 Greek vocabulary words in these initial 17 verses. (The verse divisions are man's allocations for convenience, added in the 13th century.)

The number of words which are nouns is exactly 56, or 7 x 8.

The Greek word "the" occurs most frequently in the passage: exactly 56 times, or 7 x 8. Also, the number of different forms in which the article "the" occurs is exactly 7.

There are two main sections in the passage: verse 1-11, and 12-17. In the first main section, the number of Greek vocabulary words used is 49, or 7 x 7.

Why not 48, or 50?

Of these 49 words, the number of those beginning with a vowel is 28, or 7 x 4. The number of words beginning with a consonant is 21, or 7 x 3.

The total numbers of letters in these 49 words is 266, or 7 x 38 - exactly! The number of vowels among these 266 letters is 140, or 7 x 20. The number of consonants is 126, or 7 x 18 - exactly.

Of the 49 words, the number of words which occur more than once is 35, or 7 x 5. The number of words occurring only once is 14, or 7 x 2. The number of words which occur in only one form is exactly 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words appearing in more than one form is also 7.

The number of the 49 Greek vocabulary words which are nouns is 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words which are not nouns is 7. Of the nouns, 35 are proper names, or exactly 7 x 5. These 35 names are used 63 times, or 7 x 9. The number of male names is exactly 28, or 7 x 4. These male names occur 56 times or 7 x 8. The number which are not male names is 7.

Three women are mentioned - Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The number of Greek letters in these three names is 14, 7 x 2.

The number of compound nouns is 7. The number of Greek letters in these 7 nouns is 49, or 7 x 7.

Only one city is named in this passage, Babylon, which in Greek contains exactly 7 letters.

And on it goes. To get an indication of just how unique these properties are, try the example in the inset.

Gemetria
There are even more features in the numerical structure of the words themselves. As you may know, both Hebrew and Greek uses the letters of the alphabet for numerical values. Therefore, any specific word - in either Hebrew or Greek - has a numerical value of its own by adding up the values of the letters in that particular word. The study of the numerical values of words is called gemetria.

The 72 vocabulary words add up to a gametrical value of 42,364, or 7 x 6,052. Exactly. If one Greek letter was changed, this would not happen.

The 72 words appear in 90 forms - some appear in more than one form. The numeric value of the 90 forms is 54,075, or 7 x 7,725. Exactly.

We will defer other examples of gametrical properties of the Biblical text for subsequent articles, but it becomes immediately obvious that hidden below the surface are aspects of design that cannot be accidental or just coincidence. Remember, the rabbis say that "coincidence" is not a kosher word!

Other Implications
There are words in the passage just described that occur nowhere else in the New Testament. They occur 42 times (7 x 6) and have 126 letters (7 x 18). How was this organized?

Even if Matthew contrived this characteristic into his Gospel, how could he have known that these specific words - whose sole characteristic is that they are found nowhere else in the New Testament - were not going to be used by the other writers? Unless we assume the absurd hypothesis that he had an agreement with them, he must have had the rest of the New Testament before him when he wrote his book. The Gospel of Matthew, then, must have been written last.

It so happens, however, that the Gospel of Mark exhibits the same phenomenon. It can be demonstrated that it would have had to be written "last." The same phenomenon is found in Luke. And in John, James, Peter, Jude and Paul. Each would have had to write after the other in order to contrive the vocabulary frequencies! You can demonstrate that each of the New Testament books had to have been "written last."

There is no human explanation for this incredible and precise structure. It has all been supernaturally designed. We simply gasp, sit back, and behold the skillful handiwork of the God who keeps His promises.


Now, you can dismiss all of this and simply repeat the mantra that the Bible is a fantasy book invented by men. Or you can investigate the evidence.

[noodler]

You know there used to be folks like you. You know there still is.I must say there is deep investigation.I must also say I admire your inquest to a point. When one sits or stands at another point whereas there is a leap to Faith,one doesn't need confrontation about numbers and coinsidences and things which look more numerical and resemble another religion.The very beauty of what seems simple is very complex enough.

[pyx]

Pearls to swine, doc... pearls to swine.

For the rest of us, inspiring and thank you.

[noodler]

I need to modify for am falling into a trap.There is no Way ever I discount your investigation and evidence provided. Your post was received directly to the heart and took awhile to get to brain. There is no way I criticize you directly now your Faith or knowledge. Absolute Noway. My earlier response was more towards saving an unbeliever than getting on you. This is excactly what nonbeleivers like. They then throw the Baby out with the bathwater.My hand is open to you for future nurture.I will never disrespect you.

[Kirkwood]

"But he was never the perfect Jew."

Actually he was the perfect Jew because he fulfilled the Jewish scriptures. The Jews (for the most part) didn't accept this because Jesus was not their idea of what a Messiah should be. On the other hand, many Jews did accept and became the early Christians.