Music in worship

[Ramadhan]

But your latest comment clearly indicates that Jesus is not divine, but just a man. That is why I sidetracked to answer your wrong comment to show you that Jesus is both divine and human, namely, both God and man.

You can bring your "jesus is half man half god" argument to the comparative religion.

 

[truth finder]

now, let us take a look at what you Christians have posted:
where do you get your "best evidence" that Jesus is god? from "John!" this is a document that the MAJORITY of Biblical Scholars date to the min 90's AD. when did the ministry of Jesus end? ovver 60 years earlier! have you ever seen a movie about Jesus? [and YES, that IS a rhetorical question. i assume you have.] in these movies, Jesus is portrayed as a young upstart with maybe the Apostle John being of similar age. According to "Matthew" Jesus had be born before 4BC, that would make him and John around 35 when Jesus' ministry ended. 65 years later John would be 100! and we can safely presume the other Apostles long dead and John at least a little dead. so now that the Apostles are dead, what begins to be taught? that ?Jesus is god! why did they wait so long? eh?

Thanks for your reply. I am very sorry for late reply because I was quite busy with my project

The evidence for the divine nature of Jesus was indirect, yet quite convincing. Of course Jesus did not say in the Bible, “I am God” or “Worship me”. But when we ponder deeply the implication of what he said and more importantly what he did, we are faced with only two choices, namely, he was either a crazy man with a narcissistic mental disorder or someone divine. Due to this indirect evidence it might have taken time to realize his true identity among early believers. Actually this can prove that the Bible was not intentionally altered by early Christians. If they had wanted to change it to justify their new theology, they could have inserted in various places Jesus statements such as “I am God” or “Worship me” in order to make their case. But they did not and could not do it, in spite of the potential danger that in the future time some people like you would accuse the divinity of Jesus for the fabrication by early Christians. We do not worship three gods. We worship only one God that was revealed to us in different ways (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Do you not agree that the almighty God could reveal himself or his presence to human beings in a hundred different ways if he wants? Do you limit God’s ability and power?

 

[Dagless]

The evidence for the divine nature of Jesus was indirect, yet quite convincing. Of course Jesus did not say in the Bible, “I am God” or “Worship me”. But when we ponder deeply the implication of what he said and more importantly what he did

Implications are usually for those things which are not too important either way. Why would God only imply such a fundamental thing as worship?

we are faced with only two choices, namely, he was either a crazy man with a narcissistic mental disorder or someone divine.

There is a third option - he was a prophet.

We do not worship three gods. We worship only one God that was revealed to us in different ways (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit).

If this is the case then why would one worship another? If they are the same then technically it would be self worship? They also seem to be independent, ie. capable of differing opinions. This would indicate they are not one perfect entity.

Do you limit God’s ability and power?

You're the one limiting it

 

[YusufNoor]

I know this off topic but its just a short note to correct false notions about the Bible, for simplicity I will just speak about the New Testament. There are about 5,400 primary sources for the Gospels themselves as mostly parchments or papyri and many of these these goes back to about 150CE.

whether intentional or not, this is VERY misleading. there are NO complete NT books that have an undisputed date of 150AD. NONE, ZERO. refutation below

In addition to this there are about 15,000 other secondary source such as commentaries, letters, hymns etc and using these alone it would be possible to reconstruct the NT. Using the huge volume of evidence it is possible to reconstruct the NT and scholars agree that the Greek text is accurate and perfectly reliable and only about 1/1000 is still in doubt and this involves just three passages: Mark 16:9-20 (an added ending to the Gospel), Luke 22:41-45 (Jesus prayer in the Garden) and John 7:53-8:11 (woman caught in the act of adultery). These three sections represent the only major textual problems in the Gospels and no important teaching hangs on any one of them unless you have some weird beliefs. So we have 20,000 sources and it is probably correct there are 300,000 variant readings but what is often forgotten by those with bias that is we might have say have 500 different copies of a verse from Matthew's Gospel with the same single spelling error and that would count as 500 variants readings.

What some scholars argue about is not the text as such for as I said little of that is in doubt but they do argue about what it all means and who Jesus is. If you want to see this work then look for the authors Bart Ehrman, James Robinson or the so called Jesus Seminar and then make your own mind up but let it be an honest assessment and not one based on excerpts from websites of dubious quality.

we can use Ehrman's suggested dates, but i prefer my own conclusions. OH THAT'S RIGHT, I AM USING EHRMAN'S dates!

There are many thousands of translations in thousands of languages from Arabic to Klingon and someone who becomes a Christian today can almost certainly read the NT in his or her own modern language today also. In addition if I look at my English Bible and a German one I can see the same message in both for the same verses. So any one who says the Bible is corrupted to such an extent that is message is lost is not telling the truth.

IF you date the NT to the 4th Century, then THAT is a document that we can STILL see changes and errors. NONE of that is PROOF to what late 1st Century documents contained.

One reads here about the apocryphal Gospels such as The Gospel to The Egyptians, the Secret Gospel of Mark or The Shepard of Hermas and so on but one only has to read them and then read the canonical Gospels to know with absolute certainty which is to be trusted. For example, in one. called the Acts of Paul we have the obviously false and fanciful story of Paul baptising a lion who later spared him when he was sent to the Arena by the Roman Emperor.

just because one lie is more obvious than another is NOT proof that the smaller lie isn't a lie!

There is no shortage of books though I think the best coverage is given by Professor Graig Evans in his book (though a little technical) called "Fabricating Jesus", ISBN 9781844 741724.

i wouldn't use Evans. evangelists and fundies don't agree with mainline Scholarship

uncovering the truth:

For such an ancient period as that between A.D. 100 and 300 it is of course much more difficult to be confident about the date of a manuscript. There is infinitely less comparative material. Nevertheless we are now in a fairly comfortable position to date papyrus manuscripts according to their handwriting. We do not have to rely on manuscripts of the New Testament only. We have hundreds of papyrus manuscripts of Greek pagan literary texts from this period and again hundreds of carefully written papyrus documents that show the same types of handwriting. These documents are very important for paleographers because they are often exactly dated. As a rule New Testament manuscripts on papyrus are not. A careful comparison of the papyrus documents and manuscripts of the second and third centuries has established beyond doubt that about forty Greek papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament date from this very period. Unfortunately only six of them are extensively preserved.

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/manuscripts.html

so how many out of 4,500 "date" from "THE 2nd & 3rd Centuries?" eh? FORTY, which of course is practically ALL of...oh wait, let me do the math...0.00888888889! so less than 1% from that time fame and how many from 150AD? TWO! see the chart further down the page. there may be fragments, but reliable sources? ONLY in the mind of fundies and evangelicals!

this is actually discussed here, in a debate between Ehrman and Evans:

[video]http://www.bartdehrman.com/flv_biblemisquotejesus/doesbiblemisquote.htm[/video]

Ehrman has other work as well:

History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6299

and yes, have the dvd version

New Testament

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=656

have the dvd as well

From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6577

After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6537

Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6593

have it on mp3

Historical Jesus

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=643

mp3 as well

not to mention some books:

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) [Paperback]

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interru...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287761900&sr=1-1

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Christia...=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287761900&sr=1-4

Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Scriptur...=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287761900&sr=1-5

Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend

http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Paul-Ma...r_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287761900&sr=1-10

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Fiction...r_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287761900&sr=1-14

the 1 the sister posted plus a few other text books although i use the text books mostly for reference ;D

music was acceptable for the followers of other Prophets because THOSE followers were NOT directed to preserve their Message. we were.

chow

 

[truth finder]

Hi YusufNoor

Your original questions are in red and my answers follow in black.

actually, the "evidence" for the "authenticity" is pretty sad. you have hearsay upon hearsay. if i were an arbitrator deciding the matter, i might let 7 letters of Paul into evidence. however Paul claims to bring a new religion, so it doesn't help you. there are NO CONTEMPORANEOUS EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS of ANY PART OF Jesus' human life! NOT A ONE!

At least Matthew and John were direct eye witnesses of Jesus’ human life on earth. In contrast to your accusation Paul was a great man of God. Before he met Jesus personally, he was leading persecution of Christians, imprisoning and killing them with the wrong perception that his cruel act purified the society from evil and thus honored God. When he met Jesus personally on the way to Damascus to bring more harm to believers, his religious zeal was turned into his love for God and other human beings. Because first he hated and persecuted Christians, and later was transformed to live for them, he has been regarded highly among Christians. He was not a blind believer. Paul contributed greatly to turning the ritualistic religion at that time into the faith based relationship with God. Before Adam and Eve committed sin against God and thus were forced to leave the Garden of Eden, there was no religion or ritual, but only a loving relationship with God. While people were bogged down and burdened with religious rituals and laws, Paul recognized the importance of returning to the original relationship with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus for our sins. Because of the contribution of Paul and other early believers, we now enjoy the original loving relationship with God through Jesus, instead of struggling hard to perform religious duties and rituals to take away God’s anger and punishment against us. I admire Paul greatly.


that is just not true! why try to mislead? you mean FRAGMENTS of manuscripts, NOT manuscripts! the oldest FRAGMENT of the NT is a piece of "John" that is sometimes thought to be from as early as 125AD. this fragment is no bigger than a credit card. while Paul's letters can be approximated, at least those that "Scholars" assume Paul wrote, to the 50's, this fragment is 75 years older than that! it is my understanding, that there NO COMPLETE Manuscripts until the 3rd Century! Jesus lived in the 1st Century, you do the math!

Great prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel had only fragments of the Old Testament, when they prophesized the words of God to the people of Israel. Although they did not have the complete manuscript of the Bible, the Holy Spirit dwelling in their heart helped and guided them. The same was true with early believers in Christ. When the Holy Spirit living in their heart guided them, having only fragments of the Bible was not a big issue in their relationship with God. In the Old Testament time the Holy Spirit was given to a few special people such as Moses, Elijah and Isaiah. In the new era of grace initiated by Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit can come to anybody whose sinful heart is washed away by the blood of Jesus.


ABSOLUTELY NOT! EVERY SINGLE S0LITARY "VERSE" IN THE Qur'an WAS WRITTEN DOWN "IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PROPHET ON THE DAY IT WAS REVEALED!" The earliest that the majority of scholars can agree that the "Gospels" were written was 65 to 75AD for "Mark"; 80 to 85AD for "Matthew" and "Luke" and around 95AD for "John." i put the names in quotes because ALL of the Gospels were written anonymously and NO ONE KNOWS who really wrote them! the 2 don't compare in the least bit!

You do not want to accept the authorship of the Gospels, although there is strong evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were indeed the authors of them. Even if the authorship is not clear, we are more interested in the truths or facts of the stories of the Gospels than the authorship. The truths of the contents in them were shown by history and other literatures. The authorship of Torah is also not completely settled. But I have no problem accepting Torah as the words of God whether it was written by Moses or by someone for whom we do not know the name.


Jesus claims, in YOUR Bible to "sit at the right hand of the father," does he not? 2 butts equals 2 gods any way you slice it!

You seem to have said, “1 God (the Father)+1 God (the Son)+1 God (the Holy Spirit) = 3 Gods. Therefore Christians worship three Gods.” But it comes from your confusion about deity and non-deity. You are applying non-deity mathematics to deity. We cannot compare deity with non-deity. Deity is eternal, while non-deity is mortal. Deity is perfect, while non-deity is imperfect. Deity is pure, while non-deity is impure. The difference between deity and non-deity is like sky and land, and in fact even more. Non-deity is like finite, while deity is like infinity. For non-deity mathematics, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. But deity mathematics, infinity + infinity + infinity = infinity, not 3 infinities. There is no such thing as 3 infinities. I hope you had a math class before.

 

[جوري]

When he met Jesus personally on the way to Damascus to bring more harm to believers, his religious zeal was turned into his love for God

Did he meet Jesus personally, or just found the most clever way to do the most damage? That is certainly something for discerning minds!

all the best

 

[YusufNoor]

At least Matthew and John were direct eye witnesses of Jesus’ human life on earth. In contrast to your accusation Paul was a great man of God. Before he met Jesus personally, he was leading persecution of Christians, imprisoning and killing them with the wrong perception that his cruel act purified the society from evil and thus honored God. When he met Jesus personally on the way to Damascus to bring more harm to believers, his religious zeal was turned into his love for God and other human beings. Because first he hated and persecuted Christians, and later was transformed to live for them, he has been regarded highly among Christians. He was not a blind believer. Paul contributed greatly to turning the ritualistic religion at that time into the faith based relationship with God. Before Adam and Eve committed sin against God and thus were forced to leave the Garden of Eden, there was no religion or ritual, but only a loving relationship with God. While people were bogged down and burdened with religious rituals and laws, Paul recognized the importance of returning to the original relationship with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus for our sins. Because of the contribution of Paul and other early believers, we now enjoy the original loving relationship with God through Jesus, instead of struggling hard to perform religious duties and rituals to take away God’s anger and punishment against us. I admire Paul greatly.

the gospels were written ANONYMOUSLY! who Matthew and John were is Irrelevant! you have no proof that they wrote the gospels that were later attributed to them! NONE!

and in Paul's writings, he CLEARLY claims to be teaching a different Gospels that that of the Apostles!

Great prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel had only fragments of the Old Testament, when they prophesized the words of God to the people of Israel.

the Jewish Tanakh is irrelevant when discussing the NT!

You do not want to accept the authorship of the Gospels, although there is strong evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were indeed the authors of them.

actually, there is little to no evidence! you are blinded to the matter because you are a Christian

Even if the authorship is not clear, we are more interested in the truths or facts of the stories of the Gospels than the authorship

actually, the truth of the matter is that you have a belief system and you work backwords to try to "prove" that belief.

The truths of the contents in them were shown by history and other literatures.

millions of Americans believe George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. you are confusing your mythology with truth because you WANT to believe it

The authorship of Torah is also not completely settled. But I have no problem accepting Torah as the words of God whether it was written by Moses or by someone for whom we do not know the name.

you are entitled to believe whatever you would like to believe, that doesn't make one single iota of it the truth! it is just what you believe.


you wrote:

You seem to have said, “1 God (the Father)+1 God (the Son)+1 God (the Holy Spirit) = 3 Gods

and then:

I hope you had a math class before.

:giggling:

you also claim:

deity is like infinity

and THEN say:

There is no such thing as 3 infinities.

to which i would respond:

EXACTLY!:alright:

 

[جوري]

This seems so effortless for you akhi, I am loving every moment..
Jazaka Allah khyran..

 

[aadil77]

this is what happens when you mix music (made using instruments) with worship...

... you get possessed by Satan

 

[جوري]

out of the videos I have posted here (with regards to music and worship) I have to say that one cracks me up the most.. the fellow could use the workout though albeit once a week..
:haha:

 

[aadil77]

^ another one

this time 'Holy Ghost' vs MC!

 

[truth finder]

To The yale’s lilly

With your statement you are claiming that Moses, Aaron and King David were Satanists. That is too a bold statement for God’s people who God regarded highly.

When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. (Exodus 15:19-20)


David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brothers as singers to sing joyful songs, accompanied by musical instruments: lyres, harps and cymbals (1 Chronicle 15:16)

 

[جوري]

To The yale’s lilly

With your statement you are claiming that Moses, Aaron and King David were Satanists. That is too a bold statement for God’s people who God regarded highly.

When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. (Exodus 15:19-20)


David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brothers as singers to sing joyful songs, accompanied by musical instruments: lyres, harps and cymbals (1 Chronicle 15:16)

I say what your bible ascribes to them certainly makes them satanic indeed.. there is a difference between chanting Psalms and what has been presented above.. furthermore, your bible has already made them into far worse than mere satanists those who sleep with their daughters, those who take concubines on their death bed, how can anything you quote me be trusted or be of relevance? You only have yourself to blame for you are the ones who blaspheme.

all the best

 

[truth finder]

I say what your bible ascribes to them certainly makes them satanic indeed.. there is a difference between chanting Psalms and what has been presented above.. furthermore, your bible has already made them into far worse than mere satanists those who sleep with their daughters, those who take concubines on their death bed, how can anything you quote me be trusted or be of relevance? You only have yourself to blame for you are the ones who blaspheme.

all the best

All human beings are sinful and everybody commits sin. There is no exception. Otherwise they would be God. Those great prophets such as Moses, Aaron and King David also made mistakes as human beings. Is it “halal” in Islam to insult those great prophets of God?

 

[YusufNoor]

To The yale’s lilly

With your statement you are claiming that Moses, Aaron and King David were Satanists. That is too a bold statement for God’s people who God regarded highly.

When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. (Exodus 15:19-20)


David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brothers as singers to sing joyful songs, accompanied by musical instruments: lyres, harps and cymbals (1 Chronicle 15:16)

you want to build upon the past?

according to the Torah, Abraham married his sister. are Christians allowed to marry their sister today?

according to the Torah, Jacob married 2 sisters are Christians allowed to marry 2 sisters today? can they have more than 1 wife?

According to I Kings, King Solomon came to have seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines! are Christians allowed to have 700 wives today? along with 300 concubines?

IF you answer no, then you MUST agree that what is or is not allowable can change!

capiche?

 

[truth finder]

You seem to suggest that those ugly stories about great prophets in the Bible were intentionally inserted by Jews and Christians. I do not agree with that. Although Jews and Christians have very different perspectives, we Christians appreciate greatly the great effort of Jewish people to preserve God’s words. We Christians do not claim that the Old Testament was corrupted, in order to justify our belief against Judaism. We do not accuse Jews of the corruption of the Old Testament in order to start a new religion. Jewish people did their best to preserve the Bible, which is greatly appreciated by all human beings including Christians.

 

[Zafran]

You seem to suggest that those ugly stories about great prophets in the Bible were intentionally inserted by Jews and Christians. I do not agree with that. Although Jews and Christians have very different perspectives, we Christians appreciate greatly the great effort of Jewish people to preserve God’s words. We Christians do not claim that the Old Testament was corrupted, in order to justify our belief against Judaism. We do not accuse Jews of the corruption of the Old Testament in order to start a new religion. Jewish people did their best to preserve the Bible, which is greatly appreciated by all human beings including Christians.

Thats the problem they didnt do a great Job - the so called 5 books of moses pbuh in the OT talking about Moses grave are just a few examples where lets face it somebody tried to remake them and didnt do a good job of it. You can tell by a mile. We dont just say the OT and the NT havent been preserved well - we can give examples of them.

 

[Hugo]

the gospels were written ANONYMOUSLY! who Matthew and John were is Irrelevant! you have no proof that they wrote the gospels that were later attributed to them! NONE!

What difference does it make - the only question of value is if they are the truth about God? One supposed that even you if you found a cure for cancer would hardly throw it away because you did not know who the author was. In any case can you show that God is the author of the Qu'ran, can you get a look so to speak at his copy in heaven to check it out?

and in Paul's writings, he CLEARLY claims to be teaching a different Gospels that that of the Apostles!

Where exactly is this clarity to be found and anyone who reads the New Testament will find quotations from the Hebrew Bible everywhere so it is very very hard to see how it is 'irrelevant' and even you must realise that the Bible Jesus and Paul had was the Hebrew Bible. As posted elsewhere there are some 20,000 manuscripts so what evidence do you want? What manuscript evidence is there for the Qu'ran from the time of the prophet given that the earliest known papyrus of any Arabic writing is 632CE? When it comes to working backwards it is Muslims who do that and if you look you will find endless websites with Islamic 'proofs' of one sort or another but Christians rely on a heart conviction not spurious proofs - so can it be possible that "you are confusing your mythology with truth because you WANT to believe it" or are you some how inoculated against errors?

 

[Hugo]

out of the videos I have posted here (with regards to music and worship) I have to say that one cracks me up the most.. the fellow could use the workout though albeit once a week..

Can you post a video of say whirling dervishes or sufi's in worship please? You can cherry pick as is your usual mode of working

 

[Hugo]

Quran sunnah, Ijma, Qiyas are authorities used in Islam - as nobody on this forum is a qualiifed Jurist I wouldnt expect people to actaully make rulings on it. They are stating there beliefs just like non muslims are.

Well technically Ijma and Qiyas are not authorities as such but ways or methods of deriving a ruling when there is nothing in the Qu'ran or Sunnah. I appreciate you point that we are more often than not talking about opinions here but are you saying that one can believe that Music is fine even when there is a ruling?

There are perhaps 4 refs that are relevant in the Qu'ran the most well-known being Q31:6 - "There are those amongst men who purchase vain speech without knowledge, to mislead from the Path of Allah and throw ridicule on (the Path). For them there is a humiliating chastisement.

The context here is about reciting the Qu'ran, however, the words "vain speech" or in other translations we read "frivolous talk" and that clearly links with reciting the Qu'ran. However, many authorities opine it is also a reference to singing (but not music) but if the words sung are of a religiously beneficial nature, the censure is lifted, since it cannot then be classified as "vain speech". (extracted from an answer given by Maulana Taha Karaan al-Shafi, Dar al-‘Ulum Al-Arabiyya al Islamiyyah, South Africa)

So at least singing if its in worship is not to be condemned. The other issue here is that import of the verses is that when anything is vain it is to be discouraged - so one could recite the Qu'ran in a way that is not respectful for example, so even if the most holy can be defiled it is clear that the verse is talking about an attitude of heart not the mode of expression per se. Finally, if God is the author of these words it seems inconceivable to me that he would say "vain speech" when he meant singing.