Posted on 08/31/2002 5:30:20 AM PDT by vance
The Bible vs. The Quran
By Abdullah Al Araby
The Quran is the Muslims' Holy Book, the same as is the Bible to Christians, Muslims regard the Quran as the infallible utterance of the Almighty. The word "Quran" means recitation. The name was applied by Mohammed to each individual portion of the Book, but was later used for the whole Book.
Mohammed proclaimed the Quran as the miracle that proved his prophethood. There has been, however, much debate among intellectual Muslims on the issue of the miracle of the Quran. Some Arabic scholars like az-Zamakhshari noted more than one hundred grammatical errors in the Quran.
The Quran is written in Arabic poetic prose. It is divided into 114 Surahs or chapters, and contains the religious, social, civil, commercial, military, and legal code of Islam. It also contains stories which occur in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and Apocrypha.
The Quran, however, contradicts the Bible in many of the details of these stories, including some of the names of the people involved. When faced by these contradictions, Muslims justify them by claiming that the Bible must have been altered. Yet in no place in the Quran do we find the Omniscient (knowing everything) Allah pointing out these altered passages of the Bible, or revealing the correct ones. Such a claim can also be disputed by historical evidence, as well as by the Quran itself, which approved of the Bible, and said so repeatedly:
There is enough evidence to support the claim that the Quran may have been tampered with. Nobody knows where the original Quran is. The Quran that we have in our hands now is called the Uthman's Quran, which was collected long after Mohammed's death. Parts of the original Quran must have been lost, after many of the reciters of the Quran died or were killed in battle. Uthman, the third Caliph (successor of Mohammed) gathered what was left of the Quran, arranged it by length of Surahs rather than chronologically, then burned all other existing copies.
The Bible, on the other hand, has stood the test of time. To suggest that the Bible has been altered is against both reason and historic findings.
Neither Christians nor Jews can reasonably be accused of altering their Scriptures. One reason is that they didn't have anything to gain from doing so, and if they did, they wouldn't willingly spill their blood defending it. In the book of Revelation God puts a severe punishment on those who add to or take away, any part of God's Word. (See Revelation 22:18 & 19)
The Jews were also commanded not to commit such a terrible act. (See Deuteronomy 4:2)
Furthermore, Christians and Jews did not alter their Scriptures based on historic evidence. Many manuscripts of early copies of the Bible were discovered through the years, and were found to match the text we have now. Here are some of these famous manuscript:
The Sinaitic - It was written in the middle of the fourth century, about 270 years before Islam. It contains the whole of the New Testament and a large part of the Old Testament. It is now kept in the British Museum
The Alexandrian - It was written in the early fifth century, more than 200 years before Islam. It contains the whole Bible, except a few pages that have been lost. It is also kept in the British Museum.
The Vatican - It was written in the early fourth century, about 300 years before Islam. It contains the whole Bible. It is now kept in the Vatican Library at Rome.
These and other manuscripts such as Codex Ephraemi and the Dead Sea Scrolls and the thousands of other copies or part of copies of the early Bibles prove beyond doubt that the Bible could not possibly be altered or corrupted.
CAN GOD CONTRADICT HIMSELF?
Many stories of the Bible that have been recorded in the Quran were misquoted and are contradictory to the Bible. Here are a few: examples:
The story of Cain and Abel
After Cain killed his brother Abel, The Quran says that "Allah sent a raven who scratched the ground to show him how to hide the shame of his brother." Surah 5:31. This is not mentioned in the Bible.
The story of Noah and the flood
The Quran in Surah 11:42 & 43 says that one of the sons of Noah refused to go into the Ark and was drowned in the flood, while the Bible says that all three sons of Noah went into the Ark with him and were saved from the flood (Genesis 7:7).
In Surah 11:44 the Quran says that the Ark came to rest on top of mount Judi, While the Bible says that it was Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4).
The Story of Abraham
Abraham's father, according to the Quran, is Azar (Surah 6:74), while the Bible says that his name was Terah (Genesis 11:26).
The Quran says Abraham had two sons, the Bible says they were eight.
The Quran says some of Abraham's descendants lived in the valley of Mecca (Surah 14:37),while the Bible says they lived in Hebron (Genesis 13:18).
The Quran says that Abraham had two wives, in the Bible he had three.
The Quran says that he built the Kaaba (Surah 2:125-127). The Bible has no record of that.
The story of Moses
The Quran states that the one who adopted Moses was Pharaoh's wife (Surah 28:9), While the Bible says it was Pharaoh's daughter (Exodus 2:5)
The Quran states that Haman lived in Egypt during Moses' time (Surah 28:6), while the Bible says that Haman lived in Persia during King Ahasuerus time (Esther 3:1).
The story of Mary (the mother of Jesus)
The Quran states that her brother was Aaron (Surah 19:28), while the Bible says that Aaron lived 1300 years before Mary (Numbers 26:59).
That she gave birth to Jesus under a palm tree (Surah 19:23),while the Bible says it was in a stable (Luke 2:7).
That Jesus spoke and made miracles at the time he was a baby (Surah 19:24-26). The Bible has no record of that. That Zacharias could not speak for three nights (Surah 19:10), while the Bible says he could not speak until the child was born (or for about 9 months) Luke 1:20.
CAN GOD MAKE THESE ERRORS?
Muslims believe that the Quran is a direct utterance of Allah (God). Because God is infallible, one would expect the Quran to be infallible also. However, by examining the Quran, we are faced by many statements that go against the undisputed facts of science. It would be unacceptable if such errors were attributed to a learned human being, worse yet to attribute them to the Omniscient God. The list of the errors in the Quran is very long, and are discussed in full detail in other books. Here, we have a limited space to list only a few samples. Our goal is to question whether God can make such errors, whether God was in fact the author of the Quran.
Geographical Errors
The Earth is stationary
"He created the heavens without any pillars that ye can see; He set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with you; and He scattered through it beasts of all kinds. We send down rain from the sky, and produce on the earth every kind of noble creature, in pairs." Surah 31:10
The Sun sets in a spring
"Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness." Surah 18:86
Historical Errors
Pharaoh built the tower of Babel in Egypt
"Pharaoh said: "O Chiefs! no god do I know for you but myself: therefore, O Haman! light me a (kiln to bake bricks) out of clay, and build me a lofty palace, that I may mount up to the god of Moses: but as far as I am concerned, I think (Moses) is a liar!" Surah 28:38
Alexander the Great was a prophet
"They ask thee concerning Zul-qarnain (Alexander the Great) Say, "I will rehearse to you something of his story." Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends. One (such) way he followed, Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness." Surah 18:83-88
Ethical Errors
Legalizing perjury
"God will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts; and He is Oft-forgiving, Most Forbearing." Surah 2:225
Legalizing murder
"O Apostle! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers: for these are a people without understanding." Surah 8:65
Legalizing deceit
"God will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, fast for three days. That is the expiation for the oaths ye have sworn. But keep to your oaths. Thus doth God make clear to you His signs, that ye may be grateful." Surah 5:89
Scientific Errors
A corps leaning on a staff for a year
"Then, when We decreed (Solomon's) death, nothing showed them his death except a little worm of the earth, which kept (slowly) gnawing away at his staff: so when he fell down, the Jinns saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating Penalty (of their Task)." Surah 34:14
A nap lasting three hundred and nine years
"So they stayed in their Cave three hundred years, and (some) add nine (more)" Surah 18:9-26
Legal Errors
Scourging the witness
"And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations),- flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors;-" Surah 24:4
God ordains taking spoils
"And know that out of all the booty that ye may acquire (in war), a fifth share is assigned to God,- and to the Apostle, and to near relatives, orphans, the needy, and the wayfarer,- if ye do believe in God and in the revelation We sent down to Our servant on the Day of Testing,- the Day of the meeting of the two forces. For God hath power over all things." Surah 8:41
Since the Bible came first, and since there is every reason to believe that the Bible was kept uncorrupted, Muslim theologians have lots of explaining to do with regard to such contradictions and errors in their Book.
Or, we could take one aspect of the Bible, prophecies for example, and consider the truthfulness of what God has said.
God tells us that there is a way we can discern His actual Work from false "translations" by human beings like those in the "Jesus Society":
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them everything I command them...if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.
Deuteronomy 18:18, 22
Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me; I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.
Lets examine just one of God's prohecies and see if it came to pass. If "man's translation" is what the Bible is, and not the Word of God, then we will know this based on the failure of the prophecy to come true.
From Why I Believe by Dr. D. James Kennedy:
The prophecies of the Scripture, on the other hand, are incredibly specific and detailed. They must be exactly fulfilled. The prophecies cannot possibly be just good guesses because they concerned themselves with things that had no likelihood of ever coming to pass. They predicted the very opposite of the natural expectations of human beings. They cannot have been written after the events and pawned off as prophecies because in hundreds of instances the fulfillment of the prophecy did not take place until hundreds of years after the death of the prophet. In many cases, the fulfillment came after the completion of the Old Testament and even it's translation into Greek in 150 B.C.
Consider the prophecies concerning Tyre and Sidon, two great cities of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Tyre was to the sea what Babylon was to the land. The great city of Carthage was simply one of the daughters of Tyre, and yet at it's height, the prophet in the Old Testament declared that the city of Tyre would be destroyed, never to be rebuild, and never again to be inhabited (Ezekiel 26:19-21). He warned the city of Sidon that the inhabitants would be decimated, but the city would continue (28:21-23). The facts are that the city of Sidon was attacked, it was betrayed by its own king, forty thousand of the inhabitants were killed; but the city of Sidon continues until this time.
Dr. Kennedy explains what happened to the city of Tyre: some of the specific prophecies that Ezekiel spoke about it- "And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God... And they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water... And I will make thee like the top of a rock... thou shalt be built no more, for I the Lord have spoken it" (Ezekiel 26:4-5, 12-14).
Some might say that Ezekiel wrote this prophecy after the events happened, but that is impossible. Centuries went by. Two hundred fifty years later, when Ezekiel had long been moldering in his grave, most of the walls of Tyre still stood jutting into the sky-mute testimony to the fact that the prophecy had not been fulfilled. Millions of tons of stone, rubble, and timbers were left, and yet God had said the city would be scraped clean like the top of a rock- that the stones and the timbers an the very dust of the city would be cast into the sea. What madman could possibly come along two hundred fifty years later and complete this unfulfilled prophecy? It seemed as if God was wrong; yet the Bible had declared, "I the Lord have spoken it."
Then, like a bugle call, there came a thrill of terror out of the north, as a mighty conqueror appeard on the horizon. Alexander the Great was poised at the Strait of the Dardanelles readying his attack on the dominant Persian Empire. He crossed that strait and gave to the king of Persia his first crushing defeat. The mighty Persian army turned and fled to the south, then inland to the east, with Alexander in hot pursuit. However, before turning inland to follow the fleeing army, Alexander, as a great strategist, decided to nullify the effects of the mighty Persian navy. ....Finally Alexander came to new Tyre, built with impregnable walls a half mile out in the Mediterranean. He commanded the city to surrender. When its inhabitants laughed at his command, Alexander, with his chief engineeer, Diades, concieved the boldest and most daring plan in the history of warfare: They would build a causeway across the half mile of the Mediterranean Sea to the island of new Tyre. Where would they find the materials for such a causeway? The order was issued by the great king: "Tear down the walls of Tyre, take the timbers and the stones, the rubble and the logs, and cast them into the sea." So the great army of Alexander obediently began to fulfill the word of God.
This is just one of the two thousand predictive prophecies in the Old Testament alone and none of them are lucky guesses. How many proclamations from finite human beings like Jean Dixon have ever come to pass?
There are people who will convince themselves that the Bible is either written by man or is only "man's translation" and use that as an excuse to reject God and His message of salvation. There are very obvious cases of "man's translation" Bibles like the God hating feminists going through the Bible and changing things like "God the Father" into "Goddess the Mother" and so on. God has told us to test the prophets- the glaring example of fulfilled prophecies is one of the most definitive arguments for the authenticity of the Word of God. If that part is factual and true, then there is no logical reason to doubt the rest.
You shouldn't need any official explaination; there's only one possible way the things COULD have been built and that does not involve carving that many stones, of that size.
Those blocks were POURED, and not cut. What you do is have elephants and oxen pull wagons loaded with stone chopped into 5 - 50 lb chunks in wagons to the pyramid site from the quary, dump the stuff into a form, pour something resembling cement into the mold, allow time for it to harden, and then move on to the next block. You use the sides of existing blocks as sides of the mold, meaning you never need more than three sheets of plywood or whatever their equivalent of plywood was, and you usually just need two.
If I had to bet it, I'd bet that neither (koran or BOM) would.
The Sumerians predated the OT by 1000 years so I think it unlikely that they corrupted the Noah story. Perhaps it was the other way around.
My friend, if you have a mind that accepts the Flood story as literal truth we have little to talk about.
JOS 10:11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.etc. In other words, the kinds of things Velikovsky wrote about.
It is a dogma of establishment science that the tale of the biblical flood is a fairytale or, at most, an aggrandized tale of some local or regional flood. That, however, does not jibe with the facts of the historical record. The flood turns out to have been part and parcel of some larger, solar-system-wide calamity.
In particular, the seven days just prior to the flood are mentioned twice within a short space:
Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...These were seven days of intense light, generated by some major cosmic event within our system. The Old Testament contains one other reference to these seven days, i.e. Isaiah 30:26:Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."
"...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days..."
Most interpret this as meaning cramming seven days worth of light into one day. That is wrong; the reference is to the seven days prior to the flood. The reference apparently got translated out of a language which doesn't use articles. It should read "as the light of THE seven days".
It turns out, that the bible claims that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. It may not say so directly, but the ages given in Genesis 5 along with the note that the flood began in the 600'th year of Noah's life (Genesis 7:11) add up that way:
Gen. 5:25 ->"And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years.
<i.e. he lived 969 - 187 = 782 years after Lamech's birth>
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah...
<182 + 600 = 782 also...>
Thus we have Methusaleh dying in the year of the flood; seven days prior to the flood...
Louis Ginzburg's seven-volume "Legends of the Jews", the largest body of Midrashim ever translated into German and English to my knowledge, expands upon the laconic tales of the OT.
From Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews, Vol V, page 175:
...however, Lekah, Gen. 7.4) BR 3.6 (in the week of mourning for Methuselah, God caused the primordial light to shine).... God did not wish Methuselah to die at the same time as the sinners...
The reference is, again, to Gen. 7.4, which reads:
"For yet seven days, and I shall cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."
The note that "God did not wish Methusaleh to die at the same time as the sinners" indicates that Methusaleh died at pretty nearly precisely the beginning of the week prior to the flood. The week of "God causing the primordial lights to shine" was the week of intense light before the flood.
What the old books are actually telling us is that there was a stellar blowout of some sort either close to or within our own system at the time of the flood. The blowout was followed by seven days of intense light and radiation, and then the flood itself. Moreover, the signs of the impending disaster were obvious enough for at least one guy, Noah, to take extraordinary precautions.
The ancient (but historical) world knew a number of seven-day light festivals, Hanukkah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. Velikovsky claimed that all were ultimately derived from the memory of the seven days prior to the flood.
If this entire deal is a made-up story, then here is a case of the storyteller (isaiah) making extra work for himself with no possible benefit, the detail of the seven days of light being supposedly known amongst the population, and never included in the OT story directly.
Greek and Roman authors, particularly Hesiod and ovid, Chinese authors and others, note that small groups of men and animals survived the flood on high places and on anything which could float for a year. I do not see an essential contradiction between this and the biblical account. Noah's descendants were probably unaware of anybody else surviving and wrote the story that way.
Perhaps you would like to name one where that occurred. Arguing religion with evangelicals is like slapping at fleas.
You have to be kidding with this one.
Not that it wouldn't have been possible to do, just that it would have been OBVIOUS all along.
I've read as much about Mormonism as I care to but I'd advise against opening that can of worms.
I'm not sure where I professed to know about everything else. Nothing I have said is on my own authority (of which I have none in this field). It's not secret knowledge; it's available to everyone.
Here is one small excerpt from this website:
"The use of moulds was discussed in the earlier MAES article on concrete pyramids, and all I will add here is that, amongst the numerous objections to their use, perhaps the most telling is the great variety in the shape of core blocks used to construct pyramids, including the Great Pyramid. If these blocks were moulded, an equally large number of irregularly shaped moulds would have been needed."
Look, the book I suggested earlier, evidence that Demands a VerDict by McDowell is chock full of evidence. It gives example after example of where 19th century critisms of the Bible's accounts were later refuted by archeology. It has happened so many times that it is not unreasonable to assume it won't happen again. Not finding the cities does not mean they did not exist- it just means they have not been found yet. Read that chapter in the book and get some good examples of how many confirmations there have been.
The Elba tablets, writen 600 years before the oldest Sumerian writings of creation accounts, have a creation story that is much closer to that of Genesis than that of the Sumerians. If the Creation account of Genesis is closest to the oldest account we have, why should the situation be reversed in the flood account?
Except for sub-saharan Africa, flood stories are found around the world, many of them with striking similarities to the account of Noah. We don't know what would happen if a few well placed asteriods displaced the oceans water's onto dry land, or if a supernova's rays caused the megatons of methane crystals on the ocean floor to phase change into gas.
I have no doubt Noah was a historical figure and a great cataclyism actually occurred. I don't know if it was "global" in the modern sense or global in the sense of the perspective of the authors. The "world at that time", as Peter put it in the NT, was a smaller place. Maybe God called "other Noahs" or other righteous people to survive in other places, and the bible is only the record of the Noah that gave rise to the Hebrews. I don't know that. I think the Ark carried eight persons and they were the ancestors of all the peoples listed in Genesis 11 and perhaps the rest too.
I have been walking on this path for a long time, and I have seen many seemingly irreconciliable contradictions melt away. THis has happened so many times that I do not have to have the answer to every contradiction in order to believe the parts I do understand. That is not faith. Faith is not believing despite the facts, but trusting in the facts you know in spite of the facts you don't understand. THere is nothing irrational about that.
You: Have you Ever Really Read this Book ??
Most of it and why I can make that statement. Why haven't you read it?
You: Have you Ever Really Read this Book ??
Most of it and why I can make that statement. Why haven't you read it?
[18] Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Indeed, faith and reason go hand in hand. Try reaidng the Bible and you will have wisdom too..
Another quote from the link posted above:
Lambert Dolphin, the leader of the SRI work at Giza (see below) has a particularly valuable contribution to make to the debate over whether the pyramid masonry is quarried stone or has been placed in situ by means of the geopolymer technique. The SRI team were given permission to explore the interior of the Giza pyramids through various robbers' entrances and access tunnels. Dolphin describes how the "…interior of the pyramids have lots of mortar and the stones are very rough cut, smoothed only on top and bottom. Much mortar was slopped in around the edges of the interior blocks, and a thick layer was added on top to assure the next course started out level." He further added "The pyramid stones are covered with chisel marks, and the chisel[s] have been found in tailings debris." (personal e-mail from Lambert Dolphin, 14 March 2002). Neither the use of large amounts of plaster to level each course of masonry, or the need for extensive chiselling work are consistent with the stated method of geopolymer construction, described by Davidovits and Morris, which involved 'packing' adobe-like material to form masonry blocks of the required size and shape.(Emphasis added)
Memphis, Tennessee. Moscow, Tennessee. London, Kentucky. Troy, New York. Liverpool, New York. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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