Qur'an or the Bible?

[arcangel]

Indeed you are, browse through our old discussions, resurrect them if you've something to add!

best,

I am having enough trouble navigating within the thread. Thisforum has slight but meaningful differences from the others I have used andtakes me a bit to navigate through. I did search this thread and saw no in-depthcomparison between Islam and Christianity. I will post a few meaningfulcomparisons and you may ignore any you feel were already resolved as you wish.

In general my claim is that the Bible is superior to the Quran in allcategories by which these issues are determined within scholarship. In onlyunverifiable doctrinal ways can the Quran even be considered "better",even theoretically?


1. The Bible is far larger and complex than the Quran. It was composed bymultiple independent authors over more than a thousand years. It has an overallconsistent narrative and message between authors and cultures. Even if one ormore of it's authors were wrong most of its doctrine would still be reliable.The Quran is the product of one man. If he was mistaken then all of Islam is.In no field of study is one author preferred to multiple authors.

2. The Bible exhibits no sign of myth or plagurization. The Quran has borrowed(in some cases almost word for word) from gnostic and heretical works known toexist in 7th century Arabia and know to be wrong. examples beingrotevangelion's James the Lesser, Testament of Abraham, Second Targum ofEsther, Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem, MidrashYalkut, etc...

3. The textual tradition of the Bible is superior to the Quran. We canestablish with 99% certainty the textual accuracy of the Bible. It is known toeven its critics (like Ehrman) to be greater than 95% accurate and the errorsare known and indicated. The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission.

4. The Bible is claimed by both sides to be used to test the Quran. The Quranis never claimed to be able to judge the Bible. The Bible condemns claims in theQuran with such regularity that the myth that everything in opposition to theQuran is a Biblical error had to be invented to solve this problem. That claimby the way is a convenient unjustifiable assumption and not proven by scholarship.

I will add far more and be much more detailed once I am sure that myunfamiliarity with the formatting will not erase what I post. This should makefor an interesting reply however.In short I know of no "scholarly" by which to declare the Quran the "right" revelation. It's superiority exists primarily only in areas of preference.

 

[Insaanah]

Re: Being both Muslim and Christian?

Welcome to the forum.

^Please don't take the thread off-topic. The forum is not at all difficult to navigate. Here's the link for the comparative religion section:

http://www.islamicboard.com/comparative-religion/

That's for the first page of threads and you can go back page by page as far as you like, browsing the thread titles.

Alternatively, towards the top right of the screen you'll see an advanced search feature, and you can search for threads that have Qur'an and/or Bible in the title. From the drop down box, choose "Search titles only" rather than "search entire posts". If you click on the "search single content type tab" at the top of the page, you can narrow down your search to those threads in the comparative religion section only from the drop down list.

This forum has been going for years and we've discussed most things many times over.

 

[glo]

Re: Being both Muslim and Christian?

This forum has been going for years and we've discussed most things many times over.

People have deabted the differences between our faiths since Muhammad's (pbuh) time. But we have our fair share archived in the deepest vaults of this forum.

Arcangel (welcome to the forum, btw), be aware that new threads in the Comparative Religion section go through a moderation process before they are posted up.

 

[Muhammad]

Greetings,

I've moved the posts into a new thread so we don't take the previous one off-topic.

As mentioned already, these issues have been covered many times, whether on this forum or on other websites. All of the claims you raised have been dealt with in the following links:

1. The Bible is far larger and complex than the Quran. It was composed bymultiple independent authors over more than a thousand years. It has an overallconsistent narrative and message between authors and cultures. Even if one ormore of it's authors were wrong most of its doctrine would still be reliable.The Quran is the product of one man. If he was mistaken then all of Islam is.In no field of study is one author preferred to multiple authors.

3. The textual tradition of the Bible is superior to the Quran. We canestablish with 99% certainty the textual accuracy of the Bible. It is known toeven its critics (like Ehrman) to be greater than 95% accurate and the errorsare known and indicated. The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission. [/FONT]

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/textcriticism.html
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Bibaccuracy.html#5

2. The Bible exhibits no sign of myth or plagurization. The Quran has borrowed(in some cases almost word for word) from gnostic and heretical works known toexist in 7th century Arabia and know to be wrong. examples beingrotevangelion's James the Lesser, Testament of Abraham, Second Targum ofEsther, Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem, MidrashYalkut, etc...

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Sources/

4. The Bible is claimed by both sides to be used to test the Quran. The Quranis never claimed to be able to judge the Bible. The Bible condemns claims in theQuran with such regularity that the myth that everything in opposition to theQuran is a Biblical error had to be invented to solve this problem. That claimby the way is a convenient unjustifiable assumption and not proven by scholarship.

http://www.islamicboard.com/comparative-religion/1798-one-night-farmers-market.html


As a suggestion, let us first deal with these claims before moving on to others (and even these may need to be narrowed down), otherwise the discussion will become too difficult to follow.

 

[YusufNoor]

the Qur'an exists as it was completed by revelation. no single Bible existence, is complete. NONE! they all have changes.

no one knows who wrote the majority of the New Testament. the 4 Gospels can't even agree on what day Jesus, pbuh, was allegedly executed. nor cam Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was from Nazareth or Galilee.

Paul even claims that he taught a different Gospel than the one taught by the disciples of Jesus, pbuh.

i'll stick to the Qur'an, thank you very much. at least we know what it is!

have a nice day!

3. The textual tradition of the Bible is superior to the Quran. We canestablish with 99% certainty the textual accuracy of the Bible. It is known toeven its critics (like Ehrman) to be greater than 95% accurate and the errorsare known and indicated. The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission.

rotflmao! i reckon you don't read much Ehrman. i'm currently reading The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. can't even go back to Uthman is funny. Uthman was hafz of Qur'an and companion of the Prophet, pbuh!

no one knows who wrote ANY of the Gospels! Ehrman clearly states that we can't know what the original words of any of the books of the Bible are because copies don't exist for generations after Jesus, pbuh, lived.

and yet, you would like to proclaim your delusion that unknown persons are better witnesses than actual eye witnesses???

let me know how that works for you!

 

[جوري]

.In no field of study is one author preferred to multiple authors.

If the author is God and that's indeed who authored the noble book then your entire scope, vision, 'field of study' is null & void..

4:82 to top

Then do they not reflect upon the Qur'an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction.

__________________

Comparative religion usually denotes a comparison is going on not your personal opinion or the opinion of your learned pastors from my understanding Quran burning isn't a form of honest compare/contrast!

best,

​

 

[Ahmad H]

In general my claim is that the Bible is superior to the Quran in allcategories by which these issues are determined within scholarship.

I challenge this by asking: Under what scholarship are you referring to that the Bible is known to be superior to the Qur'an?

My other challenge: The Bible is authored by many. But despite these chains of transmission, there needs to be proof that these come from God. Tell me where the Bible says clearly, "This revelation is from God." Otherwise, your claim is very weak with the chains of transmission of the authors.

The Bible is an inaccurate book of history now, and its true spirit has been lost. Uthman (ra) collected the Qur'an 30 years after the demise of the Holy Prophet (saw), and before him Abu Bakr (ra) and Umar (ra) also took care to collect the Qur'an. Uthman (ra) simply kept only one of the dialects of the Qur'an to avoid confusion among Muslims later on. The Bible's first four books have varying reports, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The stories are inconsistent to say the least.

So under what claim are you suggesting the Qur'an is inferior then? It says much more clearly that it is a revelation from God than the Bible does. Just what indication is there that the Bible that exists today is from God Himself? For all we know the real Bible is long gone.

By the way, multiple authors, who authored multiple versions of the same stories in a book does not merit that book as being accurate. If all of the books had the same stories with no contradictions, then they would be accurate. But there are clearly many contradictions in the Bible, and so such a book cannot be called a Book of God.

The Qur'an contains no contradictions. This is already a strong argument in favor of the Qur'an. It is the main reason why the Qur'an is far superior to the Bible. While the Bible contains contradictions, despite its multiple authors, despite its no signs of plagiarizing, despite its apparent 99% textual accuracy (I strongly doubt it, and with strong proof which I am ready to give) and despite the independent chains of transmission - this then shows that there is some false premises here. Again, i challenge the authority on which you are giving your facts. Give the source and give the proof. Believe me, you have to do a lot of convincing yourself if you want those claims to be taken seriously. Either you show us the source, or if you are the scholar who came to these conclusions, then demonstrate this proof.

I await your response.

 

[Ali Mujahidin]

Alright, I am offering a totally unscholaristic view of the matter, because I am not a Muslim scholar nor am I a bible scholar but nevertheless, I have to know why I am using the Quran instead of the bible otherwise I might as well be using the bible as my Manual of Instructions, so to say.

1. From what I have read of the bible, the highest level of authority which I can assign to it is that of the hadith and even then not up to the level of hadith sahih. The bible - here I am talking about the New Testament - is made of up various accounts of what Jesus said or did as related by various disciples. So we have the Gospel according to St. Peter, the Gospel according to St. Mark and so on and so forth. However, the sanad is not clear. There is no authentication that I know of, about the chain of people who related the events noted in the accounts before they were written down.

2. The Bible, from the various versions I have opened and read in a Christian bookshop, comes in all kinds of flavors. Just as an example, in the parable of the sower, one version said 'crow' and another version said 'bird'. Yes, all crows are birds but not all birds are crows. Plus the use of the word 'crow' conjures up a very different mental image from the word 'bird'. To different people, the word 'bird' brings to mind eagles, canaries, pigeons, etc. So with such a great confusion of versions, it's well-nigh impossible to decide on which bible to follow.

3. Jesus, as far as I now, was not an Englishman. Nor did he speak English. I read that he spoke Aramaic. Now where is the bible in Aramaic? Is there even a bible in Aramaic? Before we can talk about the authenticity of a book, any book, we must first have a copy of the original to compare with. So let's have a look at the original bible in Aramaic. Can we?

 

[bangaliteen]

All of your claims are false !!!!!

In general my claim is that the Bible is superior to the Quran in allcategories by which these issues are determined within scholarship. In onlyunverifiable doctrinal ways can the Quran even be considered "better",even theoretically?


1. The Bible is far larger and complex than the Quran. It was composed bymultiple independent authors over more than a thousand years. It has an overallconsistent narrative and message between authors and cultures. Even if one ormore of it's authors were wrong most of its doctrine would still be reliable.The Quran is the product of one man. If he was mistaken then all of Islam is.In no field of study is one author preferred to multiple authors.

The Bible has 40 authors and 66 books and many versions that have been changed so that is why its larger, the Quran is the word of God. I take God's words over thousands or millions of men's words.

2. The Bible exhibits no sign of myth or plagurization. The Quran has borrowed(in some cases almost word for word) from gnostic and heretical works known toexist in 7th century Arabia and know to be wrong. examples beingrotevangelion's James the Lesser, Testament of Abraham, Second Targum ofEsther, Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem, MidrashYalkut, etc...

The Bible do have myth stories, let me list some myths for you
1. The Bible says Adam and Eve's only children were two boys
2. Men have fewer ribs than women
3. The Bible teaches that the earth is flat

Some of the things are similar or stories are similar b/c the Quran says the things that the other revelations says and corrects them and who knows better than God
http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical Contradictions.htm

3. The textual tradition of the Bible is superior to the Quran. We canestablish with 99% certainty the textual accuracy of the Bible. It is known toeven its critics (like Ehrman) to be greater than 95% accurate and the errorsare known and indicated. The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission.

Wrong claim again, the Bible is not even 80% correct, there are so many contradictions in the Bible , even one site listed 500
The Quran is not flawed, it is perfect since it is the word of God

4. The Bible is claimed by both sides to be used to test the Quran. The Quranis never claimed to be able to judge the Bible. The Bible condemns claims in theQuran with such regularity that the myth that everything in opposition to theQuran is a Biblical error had to be invented to solve this problem. That claimby the way is a convenient unjustifiable assumption and not proven by scholarship.

Nope the Bible don't test the Quran but the Quran tests people to even produce 1 verse like that of the Quran, the Bible didn't talk about the Quran

Say, "If mankind and the jinn gathered in order to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like of it, even if they were to each other assistants."Quran 17:88
And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah , if you should be truthful.Quran 2:23

 

[glo]

From what I have read of the bible, the highest level of authority which I can assign to it is that of the hadith

I agree that the Bible and the Qu'ran are completely incompatible. There is no point whatsoever trying to compare the two.
The Bible is a book written over many centuries bu many different people. It contains prayers, and prose and stories and historical accounts - and sometimes it is not easy to know which is which.
Sometimes you need to understand where and how people lived at the time of its writing to understand how the writing was understood.

The Bible is NOT God's revelation to us. The Bible is a compilation of writings showing us how people walked with God and how their relationship with him developed and matured.

God's revelation to us comes in the life and the teachings and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. :statisfie

Comparing the Qu'ran and the Bible is like comparing apples and pears.

 

[Ahmad H]

The Bible is NOT God's revelation to us. The Bible is a compilation of writings showing us how people walked with God and how their relationship with him developed and matured.

God's revelation to us comes in the life and the teachings and the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

Comparing the Qu'ran and the Bible is like comparing apples and pears.

You are the first Christian who I have encountered that has finally said the truth about the Bible. Thank you for being honest and accepting the Bible for what it is. It is definitely what some have accepted their belief to be, and that is the only way to accept it.

That being said, I am hoping arcangel will understand this.

 

[Muhaba]

I am having enough trouble navigating within the thread. Thisforum has slight but meaningful differences from the others I have used andtakes me a bit to navigate through. I did search this thread and saw no in-depthcomparison between Islam and Christianity. I will post a few meaningfulcomparisons and you may ignore any you feel were already resolved as you wish.

In general my claim is that the Bible is superior to the Quran in allcategories by which these issues are determined within scholarship. In onlyunverifiable doctrinal ways can the Quran even be considered "better",even theoretically?


1. The Bible is far larger and complex than the Quran. It was composed bymultiple independent authors over more than a thousand years. It has an overallconsistent narrative and message between authors and cultures. Even if one ormore of it's authors were wrong most of its doctrine would still be reliable.The Quran is the product of one man. If he was mistaken then all of Islam is.In no field of study is one author preferred to multiple authors.

The bible was composed by multiple human authors. The Quran is the Direct Word of God. which is superior? word of man or word of God?

2. The Bible exhibits no sign of myth or plagurization. The Quran has borrowed(in some cases almost word for word) from gnostic and heretical works known toexist in 7th century Arabia and know to be wrong. examples beingrotevangelion's James the Lesser, Testament of Abraham, Second Targum ofEsther, Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem, MidrashYalkut, etc...

The Quran hasn't taken anything from the Bible. The Quran corrects the wrong information that is in the bible. Compare the Quran's narration of various events and the Bible's and you'll see the difference between the two and which is correct and superior.

3. The textual tradition of the Bible is superior to the Quran. We canestablish with 99% certainty the textual accuracy of the Bible. It is known toeven its critics (like Ehrman) to be greater than 95% accurate and the errorsare known and indicated. The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission.

The Quran is in its original form. The bible has been tampered with and is full of contradictions. The Quran is the same that it was centuries ago and in every part of the world the Arabic Quran are identical. On the other hand, there are many versions of bible, some smaller and others bigger; some containing fewer books and others containing more books. The fact that there is only one version of Quran all over the world makes it superior to the bible. The Quran has been preserved (copyrighted) by God and no changes can be made in it. It is ever present for mankind's guidance.

Furthermore, The original bible doesn't even exist. The original Quran is still present.

4. The Bible is claimed by both sides to be used to test the Quran. The Quranis never claimed to be able to judge the Bible. The Bible condemns claims in theQuran with such regularity that the myth that everything in opposition to theQuran is a Biblical error had to be invented to solve this problem. That claimby the way is a convenient unjustifiable assumption and not proven by scholarship.

The Quran is a judge over the previous Books and that is what the Quran claims. It corrects the wrong information contained in previous books including the Bible. Comparing the bible with the Quran (that is, reading both side by side) will show you which book is correct and which isn't and which book is superior. Without reading the Quran, you cannot come to any conclusion. ll your statements are baseless.

I will add far more and be much more detailed once I am sure that myunfamiliarity with the formatting will not erase what I post. This should makefor an interesting reply however.

In short I know of no "scholarly" by which to declare the Quran the "right" revelation. It's superiority exists primarily only in areas of preference.

 

[جوري]

Please take this quizz on christianity (bible trivia) if you will and tell us how well you score:

http://exchristian.net/3/

 

[Perseveranze]

The Quran is even more textually flawed but since wecan't even go back past Uthman it may be far worse than scholars think as manysuggest. Not to mention that unlike the Bible it's transmission was controlledby politics. The Bible was spread in massive parallel lines of independenttransmission.

I don't know much about the Bible, but in regards to the Qur'an;

1. If there was corruption in the Qur'ans transmission, not only would it have been picked out, there also would've been evidence for it;

"f any great changes by way of addition, suppression or alteration had been made, controversy would almost certainly have arisen; but of that there is little trace." - Bell's introduction to the Qurʼān By Richard Bell, William Montgomery Watt, p. 51

Yes there were accusations - None of them were about the Qur'an changing
Yes, various groups could've highly benefited if they could change the Qur'an to favour them - Yet there is absolutely no evidence of this in the Qur'an itself or in any of the hadith reports

2. You've never studied hadith sciences to know the reliability of the reports in regards to the transmission of the Qur'an up until Uthman's time.

 

[glo]

You are the first Christian who I have encountered that has finally said the truth about the Bible. Thank you for being honest and accepting the Bible for what it is.

Really?
Where do you live and what kind of Christians do you meet?

I would say that virtually all Christians I know would agree with me on this. Very few would say that the Bible is God's directly dictated word. It is written by people who were inspired and guided by God, but it was not dictated as Muslims believe the Qu'ran to have been.

Quite funny really that you seem to think I had to stop lying and 'be honest' about it. :giggling:
No need to, really. The Bible is what the Bible is, and that's good enough for me.

Perhaps 2 Timothy 3:16-17 describes well how Christians view the Bible:

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

 

[glo]

Jesus, as far as I now, was not an Englishman. Nor did he speak English. I read that he spoke Aramaic.

Jesus spoke Aramaic, but most of the Bible was not written in Aramaic in its original form. Much was written in Hebrew or Greek.

 

[Scimitar]

As glo said, it is Aramaic that Jesus pbuh spoke, a sister language of Arabic - much like how Urdu and Hindi are sister languages.

Funny thing, when bible scholars want the old Aramaic bibles interpreted, they go to Muslim scholars for the interpretations, because the Arab speaking Muslim scholars are the ones who have the best understanding of the old Aramaic - known today as "Hebrew Aramaic".

Small wonder why Moses AS was able to communicate with the Arabs of Midian, namely Jethro and his daughters - you see, Jethro lived in Midian, which is in north west Arabia, hence Jethro and his flock spoke Arabic - whereas Moses pbuh spoke Aramaic. And yet, they had no problems in communications

Scimi

 

[جوري]

for correction, for training in righteousness;

That explains the degenerative moral compass

best,

 

[Ali Mujahidin]

Jesus spoke Aramaic, but most of the Bible was not written in Aramaic in its original form. Much was written in Hebrew or Greek.

Now, you have lost me there.

So Jesus spoke Aramaic. Alright, we are agreed on that. Most of the bible was not written in Aramaic in its original form? Now if it's not written in Aramaic, how can it be original? If it's written in Hebrew or Greek, how can it be original? Even if Aramaic and Hebrew or Greek are very closely related languages, whatever Jesus said in Aramaic could not be written in Hebrew or Greek and still be considered original.

Or, perhaps, you have a different definition of original?

 

[glo]

Now if it's not written in Aramaic, how can it be original? If it's written in Hebrew or Greek, how can it be original?

Remember, the Bible is NOT dictated. Not as Muslims believe the Qu'ran to have been dictated.

So people recorded the messages and stories of the Old testament in Hebrew (the language of the Israelites) and the teachings and stories from and about Jesus in whatever was their native language or the language of the people the recordings were written for. Those first recordings are the originals.

Like I said, apples and pears.

BTW, Aramaic is a beautiful language. I have the Lord's Prayer recorded in Aramaic and listen to it quite often .