Ancient Islamic Texts Resurface (Impugning The Legitimacy of the Koran,Islam)

The Third Eye Concept ^ | January 14, 2008 | Staff

[america4vr]

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

The Da Vinci Code offered a silly fantasy in which Opus Dei, homicidal monks and twisted billionaires chased after proof that Christianity is a hoax. But the story of the photographic archive of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, now ensconced in a Berlin vault, is a case of life imitating truly dreadful art. It even has Nazis. "I hate those guys!" as Indiana Jones said.

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, "The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources?

[kalee]

bump

[RobbyS]

Yes, and of course we see what a precedent Marcion and other heretics provide. There were still Marcionite churches extant in the 4th century and perhaps later. When the Muslims first appeared on the scene, it was first thought that they were Christian heretics. But whatever Christian elements they adopted were soon swallowed up in the Arab triumphalism that Islam presents. We can, of course, recognize docetist view of Christ. Not crucified but snatched up into heaven to return in the end times, more or less what the Jews expected of Elijah. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament are problematic in Muslim eyes because it is impossible to find any prediction of the coming of Mohammad by reading them. Thus they must contend that they are corrupt and so not fit for any Muslim to read.

[uglybiker]

Luxenburg's thesis became notorious for explaining that the "virgins" provided to Islamic jihadis in paradise were only raisins.

I blew myself up over %@#$&% raisins?!!

I KEEL YOU!!!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wry smile.

[Smokin' Joe]

the simple act of all the years that copies were made by hand, would include a few changes.

You would think so, but I was told by a muslim that to be found to have changed so much as one word of the Koran was to be sentenced to death.

[nw_arizona_granny]

to have changed so much as one word of the Koran was to be sentenced to death.<<<

True.

But how many mere leaders of clans could read?

Few, I would guess.

[uglybiker]

72 raisins

Well, ya gotta admit, she's all shrivelled up like a raisin.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament are problematic in Muslim eyes because it is impossible to find any prediction of the coming of Mohammad by reading them. Thus they must contend that they are corrupt and so not fit for any Muslim to read.

One wonders what comparative religion classes are like in Muslim Universities? (My guess: they don't have classes in comparative religion).

[dayglored]

> Well, ya gotta admit, she's all shrivelled up like a raisin.

That was exactly my thought. Glad -somebody- got it. Congratulations! ;-)

[RightWhale]

This is probably the most potentially explosive situation on the planet.

[Cvengr]

The Bible wasn't written as an instructional tool for converting people.

A good percentage of the New Testament was written communicating exactly the opposite. The above statement is true if the conversion implied is a work of man, or if the Bible is considered as a textbook for rationalism rather than a divinely developed mechanism in communicating the WORD of God.

I'd recommend a good word study on "The Word", MEMRA (Aramaic for WORD), and the role of of faith, hearing, and the WORD in Romans 10:17.

Rom 10:17 (17) So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

We might want to begin in Job Chapter 42.

Calvinists are correct in their belief that all faith comes from God, but where some people are confused by this is when they then reason independently of God to assume God is then responsible if they lack faith.

Galatians 3:2

(2) This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Continuing in Gal 3:5-9

(5) He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

(6) Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

(7) Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

(8) And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

(9) So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Scripture (which many people associate with the anthology of some 66 books called the Bible) provides a record of the WORD of God. When the word is communicated and heard by a human, it is processed in their mind and also for the believer may be communicated to their human spirit by God the Holy Spirit. While remaining in fellowship with Him, God the Holy Spirit also makes that understanding in the mind, available for recall and retention in the heart, which then becomes an outward type of knowledge available for daily application.

The WORD, therefore, as communicated through Scripture in the Bible, may be used by God the Holy Spirit in the soul of the believer to further convert the scarred soul into the cleansed heart He loves to provide us by His grace.

God does all the work, but we are commanded to remain in fellowship with Him, through faith alone in Christ alone. Volition is also involved in that process of sanctification, which is a work of God in us.

In this respect, the Bible was written as an instructional tool to convert us.

[PapaBear3625]

If this is shown to be incorrect, man, it's Götterdämmerung. All hell could break loose. I am serious.

You underestimate the paranoia of the Muslim mind. The Muslim faithful will be told by their imams that the evidence is all just a Zionist plot, that it's all faked, and they will ignore it

Consider the Creationists and Intelligent Designers here on FR, and their response to any evidence in favor of Evolution, or that the Universe is billions of years old

[RightWhale]

it's Götterdämmerung. All hell could break loose. I am serious.

I am worried. Maybe I worry too much. Heard some of this on Coast last night and they are hitting the wasps' nest with a stick. Maybe it's time, but don't expect this to just blow over like Dead Sea Scrolls.

[highlander_UW]

Excellent analogy.

[america4vr]

Perhaps it failed to convey the proper pristine, lofty state of wholesome, raisin-wrinkledgoodness as so eloquently described in MuhhamMAD's
War Manual.

[PapaBear3625]

Lucky for Hamas that the scriptures have been taken to be translated as "virgins" instead of the more precise meaning of "raisins".

As amusing as it might seem to think it was a mis-translation, every translation of the Qu'ran that I've seen talks about the reward in paradise similarly, For example: Quran 52:20, three translations by three authorative sources

052.020 YUSUFALI: They will recline (with ease) on Thrones (of dignity) arranged in ranks; and We shall join them to Companions, with beautiful big and lustrous eyes.

PICKTHAL: Reclining on ranged couches. And we wed them unto fair ones with wide, lovely eyes.

SHAKIR: Reclining on thrones set in lines, and We will unite them to large-eyed beautiful ones.

[Mrs. Don-o]

What you say is true: certainly written Scripture is "a" tool. But the Holy Spirit has many tools, and among the chief ones are preaching (based on the role of "hearing") and example (based on the way our lives should reflect that of Christ, who lives in us, "the Word made flesh.")

And as I say, the Church grew and flourished for years built on the preaching and example of the Apostles and their successors, before there was any written New Testament, and for centuries before there was a complete, collected, and canonized New Testament.

Hence all conversion comes from the Holy Spirit, through the Church, which read and venerates the Scirptures as one of Her precious and God-given resources --- but not her only one.

[Cvengr]

No conversion comes through the Church, rather through the WORD who was in the beginning with God and Was God, through faith in Him. Neither did the apostles save or convert, rather only God saves and does all the work in conversion.

[Cvengr]

BTW, one of the easiest ways to identify a cult or counterfeit is when anybody attempts to divert the work of God away from Him and attribute His works to man or an institution.

[wildbill]

Sounds a lot like the action of Justinian in calling the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. to synthesize all the variations of gospels and ‘canons of belief’ into a standard set of approved orthodoxy beliefs about various versions of Christianity.