The Injil

To be honest I am having difficulty with finding any indisputable Aramaic that dates back to the time of Jesus(as). The oldest verifiable NT in Aramaic is in the Pe****ta dialect and was translated from the Greek into Pe****ta in about the year 400.

I had hoped to find something in the Sabians (More properly Sabean Mandeans) but that is futile as they essentialy end with John the Baptist and revere him above Jesus(as). Their scriptures do not contain any of what Christianity views as the NT. Their beliefs and books were considered Gnostic by the compilers of the Christian Bible. Only a small number of them remain only about 10,000-50,000 world wide and they are found in Iran and Iraq. Even if I do find any of their Aramaic writings it will not contain any of the words of Jesus(as) as they stop with John the Baptist.

But going off topic for a minute you may find these News articles about them interesting.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=5307

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...X-QPD8DL34mQIQ

format_quote Originally Posted by Woodrow

.

http://www.barefootsworld.net/lordpray.html



http://www.barefootsworld.net/godsnames.html

Interesting..... a lot of similaritites between Arabic and Aramatic, I could guess some meaning before reading the translation line beneath it. Was the OT in Aramatic as well? or only the NT?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


What can’t be material from the Injil, been inspired to Jesus, according to what we understand from the Quran:


1-A supposed Genealogy of Jesus.

2- Any content in the NT could be taken with absolute certainty to be a reference to a claimed Deity of Jesus or the Holy Spirit can’t be Injil.

3-Though the injil could have included short stories regarding prophets others etc used as lessons in morality for the readers, , but it couldn’t have been a biography dedicated for Jesus….
Jesus was not meant to preach his story, or what he did

“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” Matthew 9:35

Look at preaching
And healing

He was not preaching his actions …..
The New Testament focus is on his actions, that is why we can’t accept it as fully Injil…

4-Supposed Second coming during the lifetime of the disciples, messianic prophecies…. Though no wonder if a divine book contains prophecies, but such prophecies in the New Testament can’t be Injil material as we Muslims (also Jews ,Bible critics etc..) consider them to be false and been fabricated for Agenda of the Gospel writers .

5- The reference to John the Baptist Matt 11:14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come as fulfilling the
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD" -Malachi 4:1-5.

6-Any content that may refer to the message of Jesus as the last one from heaven or him being the last messeneger.

7- As The Quran negates any tool to attain heaven but keeping the law, then any content related to the concept of blood atonement (statements,actions or prophecies) can’t be Injil ….

format_quote Originally Posted by Euthyphro

There is no available manuscript (TJ only exists in modern translations); the only "witness" to the "discovery" of the manuscript is a crazed UFOlogist; and TJ contains "prophecies" like "This Earth can nourish and support five hundred million people of all human populations. But if these laws are not followed, in two times a thousand years there will exist ten times five hundred million people, and the Earth will no longer be able to support them." Sorry, it's a hoax.



Do you think there is enough evidence to show that he died by crucifixion?

We have no doubt that somebody died by crucifixion and the witnesses did believe that person to be Jesus(as). However, we believe that by the words of Allaah(swt) we know that "they killed him not" and that the one who died by Crucifixion was not Jesus(as) but was somebody made to appear to be him. There is sufficient evidence to show that a crucifixion happened and many people did believe it to be Jesus(as)

format_quote Originally Posted by Euthyphro

I have a number of questions about this, but I'll raise two for now:

The first is about your historical methodology: do you think it is justifiable to assume the historical accuracy of the Qur'an? Would it be justifiable for me to assume the historical accuracy of the Bible and apply it to the historical claims in the Qur'an? Why/why not?

Justifiable yes, Possible, I doubt it. I see an immediate impasse we are going to run into. That being how you and I view the 3 writings we will end up discussing. The OT, NT and the Qur'an.

I believe both you and I would come up with many mutually acceptable agreements over the OT. Our problems are going to arise over the Nature of the NT and the Qur'an. The fact is You accept the NT to be the word of God(swt) either direct or through the inspired words of the writers.

I accept the Qur'an to be the actual word of God(swt) dictated directly to Muhammad(PBUH)

Our belief over which Book is the word of God(swt) will be a major factor over how each of us interprets the historical evidence/facts.

format_quote Originally Posted by Euthyphro

The second is: was it Allah who deceived the witnesses to the crucifixion into thinking the man on the cross was Jesus? If so, what was His rationale for doing this? If not, why did the witnesses get confused?

to be honest I have no idea as to how it was done. I only know it was because we are told so in the Qur'an and I believe the Qur'an to be the actual, direct words from God(swt) I have no concern over if the NT is true or false. I have full faith in the truth of the Qur'an and since it is true there is no point to pay much heed to other writings except to follow in them that which I know to be true and in agreement with Allaah(swt)'s words.

format_quote Originally Posted by Al-manar

Excuse me Bro Woodrow

where is it in the Quran is it mentioned someone was placed in the place of Jesus, where is his name or even a pronoun refers to him?

and if not there in the Quran where is it such Authentic Hadith to establish such believe?

Ahki,

That is true no where in the Qur'an or Ahadeeth does it say anyone was substituted for Jesus.

We do know Jesus(swt) was not crucified. This is stated in the Qur'an in several Surahs. I will quote the exact ones if needed. Based upon that and knowing that there were witnesses to the Crucifixion, can we come to any other conclusion besides whoever was crucified was not Jesus(as)


If you have a better explanation as to how come the people believed Jesus(as) was crucified and we know he wasn't please explain what you believe did happen.

format_quote Originally Posted by Euthyphro

You're quite right that, in the end, it all comes down to our original assumptions. What I find hard to understand, though, is how you can accept the Qur'an as Allah's Word without first validating its historical claims. In order for the Qur'an to be Allah's Word, all of its historical claims must be true. But how can this be demonstrated independent of a historical method?

Peace Euthyphro

I sort fell into Islam through the back door. Although I did not have any contacts with any Muslims until 1959, through school teachings and my seminarian training I saw Islam as being very misguided and backward. However, after living in North Africa and the mid-East I came to appreciate Muslims as being very sincere, pious people. That was my main impetus to learn Arabic.

Anyhow as the years went by I bounced through various, assorted sundry Christian Denominations and finaly settled on being an Agnostic, but called my self Buddhist, cause it didn't scare my relatives as much as agnostic.

After a long time studying languages I came to the conclusion that the Qur'an could not have been written by human hands and could only be the word of God(swt)

I accepted Islam when I was 65 years old and up until the day I reverted, I never believed I would ever accept Islam.

format_quote Originally Posted by Al-manar

thanx Akhi for telling me the reason why you lean to the substitution claim now I understand you better...




We shouldn't accept the substitution claim and we could come to other conclusion for some reasons:

1- No doubt The substitution narration which neither be found in the quran nor the Sunna in the book of Tafsir comes from Gnosticism

"He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me." the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter


Applying such Gnostic concept to the Quran seems problematic, the verse tells:

And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so to them; and those who disagree concerning it are in doubt of it; they have no knowledge of it save pursuit of conjecture; they slew him not for certain. [Qur'an: 4-157]

When important figure, who been hated by many, disappears suddenly from the scene, conjecture comes to the scene.....

The verse affirms they have no knowledge but conjecture

If Judas was crucified in front of them, then we have here knowledge (even if false knowledge) and not conjecture...

we can understand their doubt whether he was crucified or not ,as long as they never witnessed that, and the man disappeared and they listened to conjecture......

The absence of Jesus would make them in doubt and be victims to conjecture, just as the absence of famous figures, who have lots of enemies,
I remember once there was conjecture that Ben laden has died, and his friend been killed and some people believed such conjecture and continued believing that till they found new message from him!!!
Had he stayed silent forever, you would find claims as, it was someone else similar to him, who been killed etc......

People followed conjecture after the departure of Jesus :

Some thought he was killed....

Others thought he been substituted on the cross...

Others thought he married Maria Magdalena...
Etc…..


Had the man been killed and been witnessed by his enemies and his friends alike, there wouldn’t had been such disagreement on how his mission terminated !!

The matter, according to the Quran, is conjecture and doubts which been experienced by those who witnessed nothing.




And we have so called witnesses to resurrection too, would we as Muslims accept such accounts? No, because.


Will they not, then, try to understand this Qur'an? Had it issued from any but God, they would surely have found in it many an inner contradiction! (Holy Quran 4:82)

True Ahki.

You bring up some interesting points and all we can be certain of is what is said in the Qur'an. The rest is conjecture being just possible explanations but not proven fact.

format_quote Originally Posted by Euthyphro

Salaam, Woodrow, you have a very interesting story. I also admire the piety and devotion of Muslims like yourself - especially dedication to prayer. If I may ask, how did you come to that conclusion in the end?

Peace Euthyphro,

First came an intellectual understanding. Way back when I was first learning Arabic I managed get hold of a copy of the Qur'an in Arabic. I did not read it as a religious text, but rather as some insight into the Arabic language.

At that time I had never heard of the Qur'anic challange, so in my early years of studying Arabic I had no understanding of the uniqueness of the Qur'anic Arabic. I did know that the colloqual Arabic I was speaking in daily conversations was Darija and not pure Arabic so I found it understandable that Qur'anic Arabic did not fit in with the colloqual. Darija sounds much like the speaker has something stuck in his throat and is trying to cough it up. While the Qur'anic has a melodious almost musical quality to it.

Throughout the years I tried to find other examples of the Qur'anic Arabic and to this day the only place I can find it is in the Qur'an. Quite unique as no matter what dialect of Arabic a person speaks, they can read and comprehend it while at the same type speakers of different dialects have trouble understanding each other.

Anyhow to make a story short. On the day I reverted I had found my old Qur'an and picked it up out of curiosity to see if I could still read Arabic. As I was reading a strange thing happened, I was overcome with a feeling of warmth as if Allaah(swt) was speaking directly to me. I could not stop reading and can only say is I was not reading I was experiencing and feeling. It was a much deeper feeling then any time as a Christian I experienced what I used to call being "filled with the Holy Spirit"

The whole story of my reversion is posted in at least two threads. I will see if I can find it later, and post a link to it.

format_quote Originally Posted by Al-manar

Interesting story Bro woodrow

so you came to the Quran through the langauge door (there are other doors eg scientific statements etc..) and that is what makes it interesting,not so much those who comes through such door ....

I wonder if you read Al-Kashshaaf Tafsir ?

Before reading such amazing work(from cover to cover), I hadn't realized yet what it means by the Quranic linguistic miracles !!!

sadly that work not yet available in English !!!

Ahki,

I have yet to read Al-Kashshaaf Tafsir, I had been wanting to buy a hard copy of it. The Islamic Book store at the Islamic Center of Austin was going to order it for me, but I moved from Austin before they did. Since it is in Arabic I prefer a hard copy as I can then circle any words I might not fully understand and use my dictionaries to get a better understanding.

I did find this edition of it in 4 volumns available from a bookstore in Beirut. A bit pricey but looks well worth it. I guess I will save my pennies until I can get it.

Just for those who may be interested to have the work on pc


this is a pdf copy of the work

http://www.archive.org/details/alqur...fsir01zamauoft

and that is a famous CD contains most tafsirs with search engine

download the whole cd in one link

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PDQ8DQ6M

القرآن الكريم بالصوت والصورة للقارئ الشيخ محمود خليل الحصرى
تفسير الطبرى
تفسير ابن كثير
تفسير الطبى
فتح القدير
تفسير البغوى
تفسير البيضاوى
تفسير الجلالين
الوجيز للواحدى
تفسير ابى السعود
الدر المنثور
تفسير النسفى
روح المعانى
زاد المسير
تفسير الثعالبى
تفسير الكشاف
مختصر بن كثير
التحرير والتنوير
تفسير الثورى
تفسير الصنعانى
تفسير مجاهد
التبيان تفسير غريب القرآن
تذكرة الاريب تفسير الغريب
معانى القرآن
مفردات القرآن
جزء فى الباقيات الصالحات
شرح ايات الوصية

http://jyab.jeeran.com/archive/2009/7/914967.html

and Bro woodrow ..regarding the hard copy ,It costs about 40 Dollars the beirut deluxe edition and about 10 dollars the normal edition....