Quran VS Bible , a thoroughly comparative study,arranged by items

format_quote Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

i'm glad that the reliability of this prophecy amazes al-manar--it's only to be expected given that these are the words of god. i gave you the date when these events occurred. the fact that they happened during those dates does not change the fact that their effects carried on until the time of christ and even to our present time. the northern kingdom was no more during his time and neither was the davidic monarchy.

The fact that it is you who refuted yourself by yourself ..... the fact that there wasn't northern kingdom during the time of Jesus neither was the davidic monarchy ...

If the kingdoms were already waste before Jesus, then nothing the birth of Jesus would fulfill ... according to Isaiah,the destruction of the land comes AFTER not before the birth of the child , and no sense to apply the passage to Jesus .....

what amazes Almanar is not that up till the time of christ there weren't those 2 kingdoms ,but the claim of Matthew that the birth of Jesus
fullfilled a passage talking about a birth of child in the middle of a huge crisis with the threat of 2 contemporary standing kingdoms , the birth of the child is a sign of good news that before he reaches the age of knowin the good and evil those contemporary kingdoms will be laid waste .....

that is what really amazes Al-manar ...

format_quote Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

Careful. There may be opportunity to point out that there is a goose and gander thing going on here.

Thank you for that expression (a goose and gander thing) ,It is new to me ........ may be it means ( hot argument)? if so I don't know how that could be related to the words you quoted?

I meant by the line you quoted ..that not only christians but also Jews ,few Muslims etc .. who would approach the text with dishonest ,exaggerated way....

[QUOTE=Al-manar;1414639]Deuteronomy 28:15-46 is a passage of rebuke & warning, in Hebrew (tocheiHAH), the consequences of not obeying God's Torah, and it follows Deuteronomy 28:1-14 that contains the blessings that will be the reward for following God's Torah. There's another such pair, though less detailed, found in Leviticus 26:14:39 & 3:13, respectively.

To be sure, these promises and the warnings have been borne out by Jewish history. Yet, does this necessarily qualify as "multiple fulfillments" of prophecies? Clearly it does not in the ordinary prophetic sense. Otherwise, parents who lay down rules for the behavior of their children, along with the rewards and punishments for abiding and disobeying the rules, would be prophets; and when they repeatedly deliver on these rewards and punishments, their prophecies will have "multiple fulfillments".


again, even if Deut 28:15 a multiple prophecy ,won't make Isaiah 7:14 the same case .....

format_quote Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

please read the text

.

It is me who ask you ,plz,read the text....

honest reader of the text won't ever say :

format_quote Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

the child is not in the middle of this conflict..

The child IS in the middle of the conflict


here is the text :


Isaiah 7

The Sign of Immanuel


1 (Time? )When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it. 2 Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with[a] Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. 3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub,[b] to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—(The crisis?) because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “‘It will not take place, it will not happen,8 for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’” 10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” 13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[c] a sign: The virgin[d] will conceive and give birth to(The child in the middle of the conflict as a sign to the approach of the end of the trouble) a son, and[e] will call him Immanuel.[f] 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.



The two kingdoms were standing still before the birth of Immanuel, and only lost power and laid waste between the time after his birth and the time he knew the right from wrong .....

your position continues to deteriorate apace. you try hopelessly to muddle the text of Isaiah !

you assumed that I got not your point and provided me with an analogy .....

format_quote Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

it is akin to saying that before the child who was born on may 7th, 1945 would know right from wrong, the nazis will have surrendered and before the child who would be born on june 19, 1991 .

ok let us check such analogy , IF you seek a meaningful analogy,then the birth of the child in 1945 was a sign that before he would know right from wrong ,the nazis will have surrendered then the birth of the child was in the middle of the time between The Besiege of the nazis and their surrender ....

now If some future fan of prophecies fullfilment insisted that the same prophecy that been fulfilled once would be fulfilled another time ....

claimed that the birth of a child in 1991 ,is a fulfilment of the old prophecy been fulfilled once in 1945 ......I think the first thing to be checked is what the old prophecy says?

it is crystal clear that without the siege there would not has been a logic behind the birth of the child to be a sign of the approach of the surrender...

so such zealous ,whether he likes it or not ,he has to put into his consideration the context ,that the child in 1945 came after a nazi besiege that remained till before he knew to choose right from wrong ......

what was that nazi besiege in 1991,that necessitated the sign, to begin with ? the sign was not something automatic !! it was required by the situation .....


If there was not a nazi besiege (crisis) then (a sign )then a (surrender) ,we can fairly assume the man who applied the 1991 fulfillment to be talking pure nonsense.....

if the applicator ignores the context and fails to provide a similarirty of the old situation (a crisis preceded the birth then a surrender) ,then he played the whole game with (the birth) ,and that is true of the case of Matthew , the context where he quoted the passage (out of context) was the talk about Mary giving birth as a virgin without a man.....

If that is the whole issue ,then there is nothing in Isaiah not only suggests the virgin woman (assuming her to be certainly virgin the time of the prophecy) would give birth in a supernatural way , but also the linguestic argument as a whole proved to be completely irrelevant ..... as the context would dash in pieces any hope for a future application...


unless you confess such problem, you are entangled in a hopeless quest for a phantasy.
as your last 2 posts nothing but reseting your argument .... hence ,the Virgin birth so called prophecy discussion is over (at least on my part) ....

still one point to be addressed in next post...

format_quote Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

you ought to read until the section where moses finishes his oration of the blessings and the curses. what does the text say then?.

15 Then the LORD appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the tent. 16 And the LORD said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. 17 And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and calamities will come on them, and in that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come on us because our God is not with us?’ 18 And I will certainly hide my face in that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods. --- Deuteronomy 31:15-18

and there,unlike what you quoted before, we truly go to a prophecy

God predicted that the Jews will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. , violating the rules, and hence they had later the Assyrian exile, which took place 721 B.C

now they are at it again violating the convenant ,and hence receiving another prophecy of exile and return ..

Jeremiah 25:11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever.


then again a new exile and the prophecy of Jesus “And Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But he answered and said unto them, ‘You see all of these things, do you not? Truly I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down’” (Matthew 24:1-2).

we don't have a multiple filfillment of the specific prophecy of Moses,but multiple specific prophecies in each exile , each time they violate the rules ....
.
and no sense at all to say that when God said in Deuteronomy 31:15 ( these people with Moses will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land) was refering for eg; to the first century Jews (who were monotheists,according to what the bible means by monotheism,yet sinful) before the destruction of the temple etc....

though they had something in common (violating the rules) ,each had their own specific prophecy ....

Dear visitors to the thread , I'm travelling to my country of origin soon .. and don't think during my time of stay there I will be online ... May God bless you all .... and looking forward to get back to our discussion InshaAllah....

peace for all

format_quote Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

Perhaps the best way to respect the hard work you have done in this thread is to not post in it till you get back and can pick it up again.

Thanks Gene, it was kind of you ...... and that would be my words too in any of your threads ,if you ever be busy and away for something urgent.....

May God keep the spirit of tolerance and Justice between all the peaceful muslims and christians....

Though the pause I had was not long as I thought to be , I missed all the dear members

the wise men, Woodrow ,Gene ,Eric ......

the wonderful descent members :glo ,Danah ,Insaanah ,aadil77,PouringRain,Airforce,Zafran,Rabi Mansur...

the wonderful open-minded bro : naidamar

the wonderful advanced readers :Yahya Sulaiman ,MustafaMc ,YusufNoor

the new member .sol invictus


sorry if I missed other members whom I consider dear...


I won't immediately resume the discussion for two reasons:

1- the change of weather gets me into the mood of relaxation ,and laziness ....so I prefer if I have any activity online to be the least intelectual effort .... I have the idea of PM'ing some dear members to get to know them better to strengthen the spirit of brotherhood ....

2- once a dear member ,gave me a wise note of how far the visitors of the thread would be benefited from the posts?
lots of times I get to academic arenas (at least the biblical) that surely seems difficult to the beginners to get.....

I know that few members would get all what I post but what about the rest?!
now the Question becomes harder the fact that I intended the last Item (The messiah) to be thoroughly beyond imagination !

that is the problem , I would like to find a solution for ,soon ,otherwise I would feel discouraged to continue the thread....
I would love to get any comments or suggestions regarding the note I just explained, by the dear readers ..

till then , I would greet some dear members by PM...


peace

peace


wish I have time to paticipate om the forum you refered to, just busy and from tomorrow and on wil be very busy changing the flat I live in ...

anyway that link will be a helpful introduction to the nonarab readers to the issue of textual preservation of the Quran (which is not intended to be part of this thread)......

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/

and promise you of a PM with more helpful information and brotherly advices .....


peace

Peace for all

hope by now ,giving constant time to the board .............

I hope my next input would benefit the advanced readers and the beginners as well... my purpose of the thread is giving a humble effort ,revising ,updating the current muslim approach towards the bible and christianity ,understanding what others believe in and then giving the Islamic view on such believes .....
A suggestion for the new readers to the thread, plz read the previous posts in order to get the context , to get clear meaning of the next posts. ....

brief reminder

I tried to get the reader to know how significant understanding the item messiah to understand christianity with all of its problems...
we visited the term in the Quran in details supporting,elaborating every Quranic line with the scholary works ,also visiting the Jewish religious,historical context before and during the ministry of Jesus and how the terrible conflicting situation therin enhanced the hope for the paradise on Earth and the super hero who would turn the world into one religion ,bringing the ultimate neverending Joy and peace to the Jews and the rest of the world ,putting an end to illness,hunger suffering etc......we then passed by The Jewish reaction to the message of Jesus which was varied ,there were three attitudes ,those Jews who rejected his message, ascribed falsely to him illegitimate birth,Magic,Shameful death ,those who believed in his message as a prophet and reformer ,those who imposed on him a role he wasn't supposed to do , ..... then we passed by the term true and false christians according to the Quran ,then we visted the term (true Injeel).......
passing by the term (origin of christianity) which is strongly related with the term (Messiah) ,showing that the messianic hopes are the cornerstone of the work of the writers of the new testament...we first defined the term messiah as understood by the Jews before and during the 1st century.. and how the writers of the new testament redefined the term leading to the problem of (FROM MESSIANOLOGY TO CHRISTOLOGY).....


The way the writers of the New Testament redefined the concept of the messiah is the biggest sin they commited ,they distorted a huge number of Old testament passages claiming them as prophecies of Jesus while they weren't,proving themselves propagators of falsehoods .
we began putting such passages under scrutiny ,beginning with the passage of Isaiah 7 which been quoted by the writer(s) of Matthew , we provided enough clues that the linguestic issue of the passage (whether the word means virgin or young women not neccesarily virgin) is not the right way to understand the problem of the passage .....
then I showed the contextual problem of the passage and how it is concerned with a past historical situation , the christian reaction to my argument was to argue for a so called (double fulfillment) theory .......while I said and will always say, multiple fulfillment is nothing but arbitary theory .


Fulfillment or Typology ?

If a writer said nothing in the context of his original prophecy denotes it to be fulfilled more than once ,we are not going to multiple fulfilment but to the work of typology ....... there's a big difference between an event fulfilling a specific historical prediction and an event occurring in accordance with or with similarities to a figure or type.

as C. Briggs rightly said:
a "typical correspondence" is not a direct prediction, for if it can have a "multiple fulfillment" then it was never really a prediction as Matthew obviously regarded it. Messianic Prophecy (New York: Sons, 1892), p. 197.

let's get clearly the difference by reading the following fulfilled Quranic prophecy:

the holy Quran 30:1-4 The Roman Empire has been defeated In the nearer land (or lowest land), and they, after their defeat will be victorious.

we have a specific historical prediction that been fulfilled in exactly the manner stated,The Romans soon Within a few years be victorious .
what if after the time of the fulfilment stated ,the Roman again been defeated and then in few years victorious?
IS that a double fulfilment ,or just a history repeated itself? it is certainly the second unless one provides a textual support from the orignial prophecy that its producer intended it to be a double sense.

If an event occurred in accordance with or with similarities to a past figure or type ,doesn't mean , that it is a fulfilment of a prediction but a simple cheap work of typology ,one can play with whatever text he may like ......

one can provide hundreds of cases of present events that similar in some manners to old ones .... but does that prove them to be predicted?! absolutely not.... only those with species of mental and religious delusion would think so.


some christian scholars criticised such random theory:

"If one read only the New Testament it would be safe to say that he would never suspect the possibility of dual-fulfillment because the New Testament indicates that the predictions refer directly to Christ.
"one of the most persistent hermeneuticalsins" is attempting to place two interpretations on one passage of Scripture, thereby breaking the force of the literal meaning and obscuring the picture intended.
if prophecies have many meanings, then "hermeneutics would be indeterinate."
Barton Payne of Wheaton College and Bernard Ramm of California Baptist Theological Seminary.


"For these and such-like reasons, the scheme of attaching a double sense to the Scriptures is inadmissible. It sets afloat all the fundamental principles of interpretation by which we arrive at established conviction and certainty and casts us on the boundless ocean of imagination and conjecture without rudder or compass." (Moses Stuart on the Hebrews, Excurs. xx.)


now back to the so called virgin birth prophecy:


Either the writer of Mathew upheld the direct messianic applecation of Isaiah as the Christian church used to :

the Christian church had, from the time of the Church Fathers, upheld the direct messianic explanation of Isaiah 7:14. it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that writers began to turn from this view.Hengstenberg, A Christology of the Old Testament and a Commentary on Messianic Predictions, Vol. III (Grand Rapids: Kregal, 1956; reprint of 1829 ed.), p. 48.


or he practiced Typology,he believed that the birth of Jesus has similarity with the other child Emmanule of the past ,



if so it was typology at its worst we first ask what similarity the events of Isaiah 7 and the events in Matthew 1


1- is it the act of a virgin birth?


if so then no similarity there at all ,just who was the virgin of that generation who gave birth to a son? That is a legitimate question, because if Isaiah meant virgin in the strictest sense with reference to a woman who would give birth 700 years later, then he had to mean virgin in the strictest sense for the woman of his time who would bear a son. ? typology (similarity )here needs a type, pattern (a virgin of the old times) and antitype (Mary) if so the type is missed right here.


2- Is it the physical situation surrounding Israel or Jesus?


there is hardly any similarity between the physical situation in the past and the present as, unlike the child Immanuel there was no besiege or any kind of military danger to the house of David immediately before the birth of Jesus etc....


3- Is it a so called spiritual prophecy?


or in other words according to the christian argument in the thread, is to show that God is still with israel even though he would soon punish her ,and this very prophecy was one of disaster for israel and not of peace ......


I have a better description to such prophecy than a spiritual one :

It was just one example of biblical failed prophecies

PROPHECIES: IMAGINARY AND UNFULFILLED by Farrel till
CONTEMPORARY FAILURE
On the subject of strange things, what could be stranger than this? Isaiah made the prophecy to assure King Ahaz that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would not prevail against him, yet the Bible record shows that the alliance not only succeeded but did so overwhelmingly. Second Chronicles 28 reports that Ahaz's idolatrous practices caused "Yahweh his God" to deliver him "into the hand of the king of Syria" (v:5). (This king was the Rezin of Isaiah 7:1.) The Syrians "carried away of his a great multitude of captives" and took them to Damascus (v:5). Simultaneously, the Israelites attacked Judah under the leadership of Pekah (the same Pekah of Isaiah 7:1), and in one day 120,000 "valiant men" in Judah were killed and 200,000 "women, sons, and daughters" were "carried away captive" (vv:6-8). The battle casualties included Maaseiah, Ahaz's son; Azrikam, the governor of the house; and Elkanah, who was "next to the king" (v:7). If these results were Isaiah's idea of Syrian and Samarian failure, one wonders what kind of drubbing the alliance would have inflicted had Isaiah prophesied its success.

Furthermore, Isaiah's assurance that Assyria would be Yahweh's instrument in defeating the alliance (Isaiah 8:4-8) failed to materialize too. When the Edomites (Samarians) struck Judah a second time and "carried away captives," Ahaz sent "to the kings of Assyria to help him" (2 Chron. 28:16-17). In response, Tilgath-Pilneser, king of Assyria, "came to him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not" (v:20). As a prophet, then, Isaiah seems to have struck out all the way around. In fairness to him, however, it should be noted that Assyria's role in the conflict was reported with different results in 2 Kings 16, where Ahaz also fared a little better than reported in 2 Chronicles 28. Nevertheless, these discrepancies in the two accounts are more of an embarrassment to bibliolaters than a benefit, because such variations in the Bible record place on inerrancy believers the added burden of trying to explain why "inspired writers" would give contradictory reports of the same events.

There is yet a final absurdity to notice in this wonderful Messianic prophecy. With the Syrian-Israelite alliance posing a threat to Judah, Isaiah was sent to Ahaz to prophesy that the alliance would fail. After doing so, he said in his very next breath that Yahweh would bring the king of Assyria against Judah and that he would desolate the land (7:17-25). Imagine, if you can, the absolute absurdity of this. The prophet came, in effect, to say, "Don't worry; Syria and Samaria will not defeat you. Assyria will." What kind of consolation was that supposed to be? It was as if in our day the people of our country, fearing an attack from Russia, should be told by a prophet, "Fear not; Russia will not defeat you. China will." Yet, despite this flaw and the many others noted, millions of people consider this "prophecy" a remarkable example of divine foresight. In reality, the only remarkable thing about it is that so many intelligent people could have been duped into believing that it was remarkable.

.............................................

let's for the sake of argument consider it to be spiritual prophecy, and believe in it as a prophecy of disaster for israel and not of peace ......If that is true then ,that is certainly not a messianic prophecy ,the promised king messiah is not the one coming to show Israeli that God with them spiritually and then say goodbye without putting the words (God is with us) into actions, neither the one that after his coming would be a disaster for israel but exactly the opposite...


to be continued