Friday, July 31, 2009

Bassam Zawadi vs. Nabeel Qureshi:
Has the Qur'an Been Perfectly Preserved?

As I post this video, I have to say this: simply debating this topic was a victory. Never, at least to my knowledge, had the Quran's preservation been challenged in the forum of public debate. As a result, most Muslims I know make statements like "There has never been a Quranic variant!" or "There's only ever been one version of the Qur'an!" or "No verse or chapter of the Qur'an has ever been in dispute!"

Because of this debate, Muslims everywhere will now know none of these claims are true. Bassam has tried to defend the Qur'an by saying "Hey, it's okay if none of those statements are true - God planned it that way." As you will see me say in the debate, it's fine with me if you want to give a theological reason explaining the basic problems with the Qur'an - at least you're acknowledging them! This is a far cry from the average Muslim's position.

Well, I'm really looking forward to the comments on this debate! I'll be reading them carefully and researching what you have to say. Without further ado, here it is!

Opening Statements




Rebuttals and Conclusions

456 comments:

1 – 200 of 456   Newer›   Newest»
george said...

dear brother david and nabeel. i praise God for the great work you guys are doing. Iam from india and like to know whether i can get your debate DVDS for distribution in India? please let me know. georgejohn777@gmail.com

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

Nabeel:

You may want to check this out:

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

and:

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

Islam-awareness is a scholarly site, very good material. A major influnece for my site.

Also what about the New Testament? It suffers from a lot of problems:

1) The Gospels were written by Unknown Greek authors-- while Jesus spoke Aramaic

2) These thousands of manuscripts are different from one another

3) The N.T. was not canonized until the late 3rd and 4th centuries.

4) We lack the original manuscripts of the Gospels

5) The Gospels were written in the 2nd half of the 1st century, long after Jesus ascended to Allah. They are derive primarily from oral traditions about his speeches and activities-- oral narratives are adapted and reworked with each retelling.

Anyways I think both Bassam and Nabeel did good on their openings-- I would have to see the entire thing to comment fully.

Yours in Islam
Ehteshaam Gulam
http://www.answering-christian-claims.com

Anonymous said...

simply debating this topic was a victory.

I completely agree.

Nakdimon said...

If “perfect preservation” allows variants in manuscripts such as difference of chapters AND missing wording AND added wording AND synonyms then the New Testament was also perfectly preserved. But on the other hand if the Bible is corrupted because of these things, then the Quran is corrupted too! Allah has NOT preserved the Quran perfectly if the same is said about the Bible based on these criteria.

Adnan Khalil said...

Just to mention two things:

In the Hilali/Khan translation of the Quran, they do include the Ibn Masud variant which is "on the day of resurrection" but as a parenthesis after the mentioning of Riba in the beginning of Chapter 2 Verse 275.

275. Those who eat Ribâ[] (usury) will not stand (on the Day of Resurrection) except like the standing of a person beaten by Shaitân (Satan) leading him to insanity. That is because they say: "Trading is only like Ribâ (usury)," whereas Allâh has permitted trading and forbidden Ribâ (usury). So whosoever receives an admonition from his Lord and stops eating Ribâ (usury) shall not be punished for the past; his case is for Allâh (to judge); but whoever returns [to Ribâ (usury)], such are the dwellers of the Fire - they will abide therein.


Could the two translators have included the variant from Ibn Masud variant to make more sense and should what the Uthamnic text properly implies?

Also two verses preceding that particular verse is another variant in verse 273 which makes the part of the verse have drastically two different meanings.

It is presented in the translation as:

"You may know them by their mark, they DO NOT BEG OF PEOPLE AT ALL."

The literal meaning is recorded in the footnote of Hilali/Khan translation as "to bed with importunity (troublesomely urgent demand)".

So judging on whether you take the verse literally or from a scholarly consensus (Imam Tabari being the main source for the non-literal understanding of the verse), you have the poor people not begging people at all or basically demanding help from them.

Yet according to Bassam, these two ways of interpreting the specific part of the verse are both "divinely inspired"? Even though they have very different meanings and implications?

B said...

Nabeel,

The rebuttals video is not working with me.

---As you will see me say in the debate, it's fine with me if you want to give a theological reason explaining the basic problems with the Qur'an.---


What "basic problems" are you referring to? Get your New Testament Textual Criticism mindset out of the discussion for a second and realize that we are speaking in a different setting about a different book where different standards and principles are to be abided by.

In Islam these variants in our Qira'at are not "basic problems", rather they are inspired by God. This in no way contradicts the concept of perfect preservation.

As for the other kinds of variants, due to things like marginal notes, scribal errors, etc. well again we know how to detect them and they haven't entered our transmission of the Qur'anic text. So again, this doesn't affect our claim of perfect preservation.

Regards,

Bassam

Charlie said...

I have just finished listening to the first part of the debate and will listen to part 2 this afternoon or evening. It seems to me that muslims enter into another dimension when discussing the quran, the man mohammed and isalm. In this dimension the laws of logic do not work the same as they do in everyone else's dimension. Everything rational, logical, and true have been suspended to allow for the continuing illusion that the quran, mohammed, and islam are somehow without flaw or error. I had to laugh when the Bassam Zawadi gave us the definition of a perfect quran preserved and unchanged was changed to everything but the kitchen sink allowed because this was from allah by design. In other words what we know to be mistakes in our dimension are still considered perfect in the islamic dimension.

Our friends the muslims have mastered the use of double standard

Looking forward to part 2

Adnan Khalil said...

Actually I might have been wrong about Surah 2 Verse 273, I guess the "to beg with importunity" part comes after they do not, geez... I feel quiet stupid now.

Dragostea said...

i was so excited to read last night that today there will be more debates posted up here.
I hardly wait to see this debate, esspecially after david wood called nabeel's opponent the 2nd muslims debater in the world.

Fernando said...

Young Ehteshaam...

1) no one knows who was the personne who wrotte for the first time in historie the qur'an?

2) the texte thate you muslims consider the standar version off the qur'an was onlie canonized in the 1920's in egypt;

3) we totallie lack the original phisical sbstractes in which the qur'an was written;

4) iff you consider 30 to 60 years a long time, how woulde you consider 200 to 700 yesras for the hadiths? and are nott the muslimes the ones who speak soo openly aboutte the capacity off the reciters to gabe a true account off the qur'an?

Aboutte the "thousands off manuscripts" who differ one from another, I sugest you to listen to the debate between Doctor James White and bart Ehrman...

Please: do nott go through the same pathe off uninteligent arguments typucal in The Osama The Great Abdallah... examine your own wordes and the facts inherent to them before comming arounde withe vacuus presepositions...

B said...

Fernando some of the comments that you made are so ludicrous (e.g. Quran standardized in 1920) that even Nabeel and David would laugh at them.

ben malik said...

Charlie you are not the only one laughing. Everyone does when they hear people like Bassam defend the Quran's preservation. Just look how funny this comment is from Bassam:

In Islam these variants in our Qira'at are not "basic problems", rather they are inspired by God. This in no way contradicts the concept of perfect preservation.

But of course Allah inspired all these qiraats which were only standardized hundreds years after Uthman purged the Quran and got rid of six of the seven ahruf. But hey, the Quran is perfectly preserved since Muslims keep telling us it is. Yeah, these really pose no problems alright! hehehehe

Great job for getting Bassam on tape since Westerners and other people who are not Muslims will finally get to hear a Muslim acknowledge the rather sad and corrupt state the transmission Quran is actually in even though Bassam really thinks he is making a case for its preservation! Now that's even funnier and quite hilarious.

ben malik said...

Bassam,

Try to first understand Fernando's point before you attack him. He is referring to the 1924 Cairo text which has become the standard printed Arabic text for most of the Qurans which are published today. And could you be so kind as to inform us which of the Qiraats is this version based on and why?

Unknown said...

Basically i wouldstate that his Koran is like another book like vedas of hindus which were written 100s of yrs before christ. Even Vedas are preserved like nothing else.We indians have hundreds of copies of vedas which contains lots of scientific, mathematical, astronomy and stuff like tht. But tht doesnt make it theonly Book Of God. Its like some other book like romeo and juliet written in 1500s. So thee is nothing great about Koran. According to Bassam in his closing statement, Nabeel should study Koran as a Allah words. Then i would saythat if he Bassam studies Vedas or the Bible he would too bbecome a christian.
Koran is just another BOOK like Aristotles papers on physicsand so on n so forth

minoria said...

Bassam:

You criticized Fernando on his idea.And I know you believe the Koran hasn't changed.As I said before even granting that for argument it still doesn't change the fact your Koran says Mohammed is in the Gospel.He's not.It's a fact.

Examine the evidence carefully.That in itself is enough to prove Islam false.It doesn't prove Christianity true,but it proves Islam is false.It's like saying Mohammed is in Homer's Iliad or Odysee.You only continue to believe he is in John because you were taught it,not because you have analyzed John impartially.

minoria said...

Regarding what Ehteshaam said:

MARK:

He said it's by an unknown GREEK writer.Here what I add is very well-known.No invention,any NT scholar knows it.It's written in BAD GREEK.It's thought the writer was a native ARAMAIC speaker.Copy after copy is in his bad Greek.

SO?

It proves there was a general tradition of Faithfully Transmitting the ORIGINAL words.That included the bad grammar.Again,scribes who spoke Perfect Greek copied Mark's bad Greek.Why?To transmit the exact words.

WHY MOST SAY MARK IS FROM 70-75 AD

I think Ehteshaam knows this.Mark was copied by Luke and Matthew about 10 years after he wrote.They would be from 80-85 AD.SECOND generation,correct?

WHY?

Because MARK has Jesus predicting the Destruction of the TEMPLE of Jerusalem (Mark 13:1-2).

IMPOSSIBLE

The supernatural is not possible,true prophecies don't exist.So Jesus NEVER said Mark 13:1-2.It was invented and put in his mouth.So,of course Mark can't be from before 70 AD,when the Romans destroyed the Temple.

WHY DOES LUKE STOP AT 61 AD?

In Acts he stops with Paul still alive.He never mentions the death of JAMES,one of the THREE TOP leaders,in 62 AD.Yet Acts is the history of the early Church.Since he wrote 10 years after Mark,Mark would be from 50 AD.

IMPOSSIBLE

It can't be since Jesus prophesized.But what good explanation is there to explain why Luke suddenly screeches to a stop in 61 AD?None.

Unknown said...

Fernando:2) the texte thate you muslims consider the standar version off the qur'an was onlie canonized in the 1920's in egypt;

Lol!

Fernando said...

Bassam said: «Fernando some of the comments that you made are so ludicrous (e.g. Quran standardized in 1920) that even Nabeel and David would laugh at them»... hi Bassam, thankes if I was hable to make you laugh... you know whate it's saide: "life without a good laught woulde bee berie boring"... that's was precisely whate I fealt when I read the post off youg Ehteshaam... on iff Doctor Nabeel and Professor David Wood laughed when they read my coments, well: only them will know... butt then: has not the quranic version that muslims use nowadays been definately parametrized in the 1920's in egypyt? has nott this version made under the guidance off the egyptian governement? has not this readding eclipsed others readings? perhaps you can speak aboutt thate here to the benefit off us all... maybe you coulde starte bie referring the political options thate were behind the Otomans' previous decision to chose thate precise reading instead off others in existance... and please: iff you want other muslimes nott to die by laughing at mie post, please point to the errors I made... thankes...

p.s.: I reallie liked listening to you: it was refreashing to listen to someone who not onlie beliebes in whate he sayes butt as made the efford to putt some betume on the deficiences off it...

Fernando said...

Hi Ibn... glad to see you arounde here... were you aulso in the audience in these debates? can we see a glimpse off you in any off these bideos?

bie the way:

a) iff God is the greatestt being thate exist;
b) iff one can imagine far greatest beings than the muslim divinity;
c) then the muslim divinity is not God...


@ brother ben malik...

coulde you present my deapest cumplimentes to brother Sam Shamoun for his new weadding when, in the futur, you'll meat him? Thankes. Many thankes. And glad to see you arounde here ounce againe...

Yahya Hayder Seymour said...

Bassam,

Fernando is talking about the so called Standardization of the Hafs Qur'an done in Egypt in 1924, although the argument itself is weak. I believe this is what he is referring to.

Hogan Elijah Hagbard said...

I have to say that islam in this debate had to admit to variants in the early Qur'ans (and this was the only point Nabeel intended to point out), the argument used to refute the problem of this factor was claiming that these were divine variants (yeah, exactly imagine).

Bassam stated as most islamic apologists that Allah revelead his word in a variaty of forms to make it more easy for the recipients. However, consider the illogic behind such reasoning as a variaty of form would on the contrary only confuse matters, and as we see from islamic history such was the case. Reciters dragged each other to the prophet due to these variants, after the compilations of the Qur'an, the situation was completely out of control and lead to death treats to superior reciters, burning of Qur'ans and even a revised standard version, I wonder if Allah did not have all this in mind prior to this revealing of the same book in seven forms. I wonder how this helped the reciters as our muslims friends want us to believe.

Radical Moderate said...

Bassam said...
What "basic problems" are you referring to? Get your New Testament Textual Criticism mindset out of the discussion for a second and realize that we are speaking in a different setting about a different book where different standards and principles are to be abided by.

Bassam thats the problem, you have one set of standards for the quran, and a seperate set of standards for the Bible. Yes we are critical of our texst to insure that we have the words of God. You muslims just assume and take for granted that is what you have, when you dont even have the pre uthmanic texts to compare.

I must admit, it was refreshing however to finaly hear a muslim admit that there are variants in the quranic manuscripts. Oh by the way your argument that the textual varirants are also divinly inspired, is the same argument that the early church fathers like Orgien used on the textual variants of the New Testment texts.

Unknown said...

Ehtesham:

Definitely U feel that Quran shown to be so corruptedso , You are pointing finger to the bible now, Remeber this debate is not about christianity, howver let me tell you.

1: U say unknown authors:
a= u dont know them , thats your own problem, Go teach yourself first andd read about them before you say unknow.

Let me ask u , who recited the quran ?? who shared and contributed to recite tthe verses they can rmeber to be added to the quran ?? Whom was it collected from ?!!

Do u knwo any one of them ...LOL, NO, and u are saying u dont know St Mark, Mattew or St John !!!

at least in The bibl has authors by their names, so u might investigate their testimonies, but who shared in reciting verses in the Quran ?!, ppl who used to memorize it died, others may have bad memory, or recited wrong

Even Muhamad (SBUH) had forgotton parts of the quran !!!

2: Language :

You are talking about language.

Greek was the language of the roman empire which ruled the world at that time. And the Gospel is sent for All nations, so what is your question ? why not in aramic ?? well if it was written in aramic, who even writing it down ?! it is to call ppl of all nations to christianity and preach them with gospel.

Let see the quran , only in arabic, u cant recite it in any other language , how on earth anyone else would understand it , especailly when it is written in one tribal dialacte ?!!

Unknown said...

3: Manuscripts:

Biblical manuscripts showed how accurate the bible was, except for few word due to translation / spelling, of whih copies were taken from. and the two famous passages that was lost, but refound by one way or another.

Now lets see what quranic manuscripts showed us:

Oh , what a shame, major discripancies. Also,it was written undotted, or vowel marks. and many many prove corruptions.
Do u want me to write to u about Sanna manuscripts ?? or samarakand ?? which muslims scholars decided to blame that the manuscripts itslf is corrupted , and not the versions that u have i hand. !!!

4:The N.T. was not canonized until the late 3rd and 4th centuries.


Havent u asked urself why ?

let me tell u , cause with time, ppl tried to write down clear forgeries that mimic th bible to put their own teachings in christianity, using the name of Jesus Disciples

So canonized doesnt mean, that we choose, but it means that there was the NT present and being used, as statd by may witnesses, and then forgeries apeared, so the Church canonized the original NT.

Lets compare to quran:

Quran, was never collected , or canonized until many several decades. First Abu bakr, and it wasnt complete , and them Uthman, who was brillinat in canonization, he burnt what he didnt like.

But for us we dont care, the NT stand clear by itself, and u can compare it and see the diffeence. But quran u cant detect the difference , u already have 7 Ahruf !!!

do u want more about this quranic canonization ?! let me know

Unknown said...

4) We lack the original manuscripts of the Gospels :

wat do u mean by this ?!!

if u have a copy of original it is considered original. especially if u have several similar copies, then this proves the original is the same

Do u have the original manuscripts of the quran ? do u have any of the bones , breast, mud, dirt, leaves and al these weird material used in writting the quran ???

Does any of your aaialble copies refer to the original ? well u dont know uthman burn everthing, COMPLETE CRIME !! HE HAS HIDDEN ALL EVIDENCE !!!


5) The Gospels were written in the 2nd half of the 1st century, long after Jesus ascended to Allah.

How far we they written after jesus ?!! by the most radical scholars, before the end of the firt century.

Definitely it wont be written in the first quarter of the first century , as it wont make any sense !!! Message of Jesus was different from Muhammed.

Jesus himself is the Gospel, but Muhammed is copying from Allah.

So Muhammed shuld have written what he was told, bu unfortunately he was illiterate.

But Jesus, told his disciples to preach all nations after they recieve the Holy spirit. So what are u expecting ?!

Gospel: means happy message:
and that what Jesus disciples carried on since his death, and spread the message among all people.

"They are derive primarily from oral traditions about his speeches and activities-- oral narratives are adapted and reworked with each retelling. "

I can see what is the problem with that ?!! r u expecting them to have internet or computer tradition ?
Moses had oral radition form God, and spread to his follower , so what !!!
Did u go to university, how do they teach there? isnt that sort of oral tradition ?????? so what is the point ? But it is not as u claim, sort of memorization, it is not like the professor is reading the book on his students and asking them to memorize typically as hes said, they difinitely would fail as muslims did, but Jesus told them to spread his message , which makes more sense.

Next time when u defend ur quran, try to make it appear that the quran can stand criticism by iself without pointing the finger ( like a child) to other sayin; See dady, they too are doing the same mistale !! well u dont understand them and know what u are talking about, so speak about yourself !! or ask appropriate questions

Radical Moderate said...

Ehteshaam Gulam Accusations

1.The Gospels were written by Unknown Greek authors-- while Jesus spoke Aramaic

Thats not true, Luke wrote Luke, Mark wrote Mark, Mathew wrote Mathew, and John the disciple (not john the baptist) wrote John (I believe even Bart Ehrman agrees on this). yes they were written in greek, because unlike your quran God wanted the world to know his word. And the world spoke and wrote Greek.

2) These thousands of manuscripts are different from one another
Differnt how? Differnt in the spelling of names? I agree, different in word order I agree. Different in doctrine? NOOOOOOOOOO

3) The N.T. was not canonized until the late 3rd and 4th centuries.

Again another accusation. The 4 gospels were universlaly accepted by the church, as well as most of the epsistels and pastorial letters. We know this becasue we have canonical lists dating to the early 2nd century, as well as quotations from from the gosples from the early christian fathers in the late first century.

4) We lack the original manuscripts of the Gospels
Again another accusation. While it is true we do not have the orginal copy of the original Synoptic Gospels, we do how ever have very early texts, as well as fragments of these books. In the case of John possibly a first edition copy. But that aside no matter how much you want to believe you muslims do not have the orginal uthman revesion, you do not even have the source materials that Uthman used in the compolation of his revision, or the previous works. If you are going to use this accustation then you must accuse your quran of the same flaw.

5) The Gospels were written in the 2nd half of the 1st century, long after Jesus ascended to Allah. They are derive primarily from oral traditions about his speeches and activities-- oral narratives are adapted and reworked with each retelling.

Wow the double standard and inconsitency is screaming from this accusation.

First let me sugjest to you a book. I know its not wikipedia standard, or google or youtube scholarship but books are important. Its called New Testment Text and translation commentary. In it you will find a vast wealth of information on the finds and discovery of the newtestment texts.

Second your statment that these texts come from oral traditions. Ok so assume you are correct so that meens that the quran and hadeeths wich are also oral "tradtions, are adapted and reworked with each retelling." (your words sir not mine)

Can you at least pretend to be consistent?

I know you like websites so here is one for you. Codex Sinaiticus.
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/

Go through it and show me where in Mathew, it says Jesus was not crucified, show me that verse in Mark were it says he was in the tomb or that he hand not risen. Show me in luke where it says that Luke was writing his account to someone else other then Theopolis, or that John the Baptist was not born to Zachariah and Elisbeth. Show us in John were Jesus did not say "Before Abraham I AM', or that he was not crucified died, and was raised from the dead on the thir day. Or that he did not meet with his diciples and thomas did not call him MY HASHEM, MY ELOHEEM.

After you have done that take the New Testment text and comentary and look up the tranlastions from the relevent texts prior to codex Sianticus and show us were these differ.

Nakdimon said...

The Fat Man, that one is new to me, not to mention hilarious: The Quran is perfectly preserved and the variants are divinely inspired!

LOL!

Unknown said...

[Shafsa wrote: Now lets see what quranic manuscripts showed us:
Oh , what a shame, major discripancies. Also,it was written undotted, or vowel marks. and many many prove corruptions.
Do u want me to write to u about Sanna manuscripts ?? or samarakand ?? which muslims scholars decided to blame that the manuscripts itslf is corrupted , and not the versions that u have i hand. !!!]

Would you be kind enough to give some examples of 'major discrepancies' that are shown in Qur'anic manuscripts? Could you enlighten us why the Muslim scholars decided that samarqand mss is corrupt?

Ehteshaam Gulam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Radical Moderate said...

I touched on this a little bit on my response to Bassam in regards to his view that even the textual variants are inpired by allah. It is good to know that the muslims are finaly catching up to the way christians viewed textual variants 1900 years ago. It only took them 1400 years to get that far behind us. But with hope in another 1400 years maybe they will catch up to us were we are at in 2009 on other issues.

Unknown said...

ehtesham:

ARE YOU JUST REPEATING YOURSELF ??

IS THIS ALSO SORT OF MEMORIZATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDIN , LIKE THE QURAN ???

DID WE ALREADY REPLIED YOU ?? EITHER ME OR FATMAN ?!

WELL IF U HAVE A COGNITIVE PROBLEM ( WHICH I THINK U HAVE), THEN I THINK I AM NOT GOING TO REPEAT MYSELF LIKE YOU, IF U REALLY NEED AN ANSWER THEN JUST LOOK ABOVE , AND IF THERE IS A POINT THAT U CANT UNDERSATND , I WILL BE HAPPY TO TOUCH ON.

BUT IF U ARE JUST DISPLAYING IT FOR FUN, THEN PLEASE WE DONT NEED SPAMERS HERE , THANK FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

Sorry to all,

I am beginning to lose my respect, I am beginning to scare even myself. Therefore from now on I quit reading this blog.

Maybe in the future we can debate about this, Nabeel.

Be Well,
Thanks,
Ehteshaam Gulam
http://www.answering-christian-claims.com

minoria said...

To add to the situation in Acts.When you read chapters 20-21 and 27-28(and Acts ends in chapter 28) you find the author GETS INSIDE the history.

He uses continually "we" and "us" and is part of Paul's adventures.It's obvious he knew Paul.

SO?

It's one book,Luke-Acts.So the writer knew Paul personally.Paul in Galatians knew JOHN,PETER and JAMES personally.In Luke the author talks of a PHYSICAL resurrection.

There is no reason to doubt the first disciples also believed it.
Again,the reason why Luke-Acts is put at 80-85 AD is because Mark says Jesus prophesized the Temple would be destroyed.

LUKE ALSO

Luke repeats it and adds Jesus said Jerusalem would be destroyed also.Yet in spite of supposedly having written in 80-85 AD,and a history of the church,he for no reason says nothing of 20-25 years of church history.He stops at 61 AD.

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

To my Christian friends:

My greatest fear/nightmare actually came true-- I stopped becoming like Ricard Carrier and instead became like Osama Abdullah. It's like I am in a horror movie or in Spider-Man 3.

I guess I see a little bit of both Nadir and Osama in me. And That scares the living daylights out of me. Thus this blog did what nothing else could do to me-- it corrupted and twisted me into something evil.

I apologize to everyone I offended, including my friends David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi, and every other reader of this blog (including more or less Osama Abdullah. I think my problem is that I've read so much of Answering-Christianity Osama's site that I started to behave like him----- and now I am scared out of my mind that I am going to end up like him.

This deeply scares and disturbs me and I ask Allah for forgivness and repentance.

So My Christian Friends, know I apologize for my offensive statements its just sometimes people just bring it out in me. I am sure David Wood has lost his respect also when talking about Prophet Muhammad-- it happens we are all humans.

Its like my biggest nightmare came true--- I stopped being the nice and compassionate Muslim I once was, Was twisted into something disrespectful and became a younger and more twisted version of Osama Abdullah. I seek refuge from Satan by Allah Almighty.

I remember a hadith in which Prophet Muhammad (p) said that whoever controls his anger, he is the strongest. I lost my temper the last few days at Osama and said disrespectful things about Christianity--- therefore I deeply apologize to anyone I hurt.

Accept my apology, and we can move on. I don't want to leave this blog, but now I am afraid its coming to that.

Thanks,
May Allah bless you all,
Ehteshaam Gulam
http://www.answering-christian-claims.com

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

Oh BTW in case your all wondering-- yes-- Nadeem Gulam was my younger brother.

Unknown said...

Samarkand Manuscript

1st: The Samarkand Manuscript is not at all a complete document. In fact, out of the 114 suras found in today's Qur'ans, only parts of suras 2 to 43 are included. Of these suras much of the text is missing.

2: The actual inscription of the text in the Samarkand codex presents a real problem, as it is very irregular. Some pages are neatly and uniformly copied out while others are quite untidy and imbalanced

3. On some pages the text is fairly expansive, while on other pages it is severely cramped and condensed.

4.At times the Arabic letter KAF has been excluded from the text, while at others it not only is extended but is the dominant letter in the text.

5. Because so many pages of the manuscript differ so extensively from one another, the assumption today is that we have a composite text, compiled from portions of different manuscripts

6. Also within the text one can find artistic illuminations between the suras, usually made up of coloured bands of rows of squares, as well as 151 red, green, blue and orange medallions. These illuminations have compelled the scriptologists to give the codex a ninth century origin, as it is grossly unlikely that such embellishments would have accompanied a seventh century Uthmanic manuscript sent out to the various provinces


7- Muslims claim it is one of the original uthmanic Manuscripts:

What most Muslims do not realize is that these two manuscripts are written in the Kufic Script, a script which according to modern Qur'anic experts, such as Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, did not appear until late into the eighth century (790s and later), and was not in use at all in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century

The reasons for this are quite simple. Consider: The Kufic script, properly known as al-Khatt al-Kufi, derives its name from the city of Kufa in Iraq ). It would be rather odd for this to be the official script of an Arabic Qur'an as it is a script which takes its name from a city that had only been conquered by the Arabs a mere 10-14 years earlier.It is important to note that the city of Kufa, which is in present day Iraq, was a city which would have been Sassanid or Persian before that time (637-8 A.D.). Thus, while Arabic would have been known there, it would not have been the predominant language, let alone the predominant script, until much later.

Another factor which points to the late dates for these two manuscripts are the format in which they are written. One will observe that due to the elongated style of the Kufic script, they both use sheets which are wider than they are tall. This is known as the 'landscape format', a format borrowed from Syriac and Iraqi Christian documents of the eighth and ninth centuries. The earlier Arabic manuscripts were all written in the 'upright format' (Dr. Hugh Goodacre of the Oriental and India Office Collections, who pointed this fact)

7- both the Topkapi manuscript and the Samarkand manuscript contain significant textual variations from the modern Hafs text. These are present on almost every page (only three pages of the Samarkand manuscripts don't contain text at variance with the modern Hafs text).

Some examples o f Textual errors as comapred to today's Versions:

a: textual variants marked in line 2 (37:103), line 4 (37:105), line 6, line 7 (37:106) and line 8 of the Uthman Quran.

At the start of line two we see a variant – this variant occurs in Surah 37 aya 103.

the old Uthman Quran here, shows a stark contradiction to the Quran in use today in surah 37 aya 103. Similarly, in that single page of 8 lines there were 5 VARIANTS to the Quran used today.

b-



References, and for more details:
-Lings & Safadi 1976
Martin Lings is a respected academic and also a Muslim.

-Gilchrist's Jam' al-Qur'an 1989

- A. JEFFERY and I. MENDELSOHN; THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE SAMARQAND CODEX

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

Do you want me to talk about the sanna Manuscript as well, it is even worse !!!!

Sepher Shalom said...

Ehteshaam,

Points 1-4 & 7 that you presented, are simply a restating of an earlier post. They were already responded to by two people. I find it curious that you chose not to interact with the critique of your claims, but rather just repeated yourself, and added new objections. I will deal with point 6 & 8 only, until you respond to the objections already raised on your previous arguments:

"6) The documents we do have are composites of several manuscript traditions."

This is a strength of our textual transmission. I don't why you raise it as an 'issue'. The Brit Chadasha/New Testament had a rapid and wide transmission onto three continents simultaneously. It is a miracle of G-d that there is so much consistency and similarity in the manuscript families which were written frequently by average people, not professional scribes. Even Bart Ehrman states that if he could compile a text of his preferred hyperskeptical reading of every variant, it would be more similar to the King James translation than the Nestle-Aland text [I believe it was the Nestle-Aland if memory serves...this was in his debate with James White....feel free to correct me if I happen to be wrong]. Now to be consistent, why is it that your state-controlled Uthmanic recension and burning of all source manuscripts is superior to a natural uncontrolled and investigatible textual transmission?

"8) The Gospel writers were not objective but passionate: they had a theological purpose and were writing for small groups of believes mostly outside of Palestine."

The Quran was written for "theological purposes", so you have just disqualified the reliability of the Quran. The Quran was "written for a small group of believers". Do you know how small a percentage of the world population Muslims would have composed when the Quran first written down? There is another reason why no one should trust the Quran, according to Ehteshaam's standards.

Your quotes-

From the website of Robert M. Price: "These studies, together with his encounter with the writings of Don Cupitt, Jacques Derrida, and the New Testament critics of the Nineteenth Century, rapidly eroded his liberal Christian stance, and Price resigned his pastorate in 1994. A brief flirtation with Unitarian Universalism disenchanted him even with this liberal extreme of institutional religion. For six years Bob and Carol led a living room church called The Grail. Now, back in North Carolina, he attends the Episcopal Church and keeps his mouth shut." [source]

Notice 2 things about Price: 1) he was heavily influenced by 19th century NT scholarship. The majority position of 19th century NT scholars has been documented to be false in many cases by more recent manuscript finds, 2) Price is a self admitted hypocrite. He attends a church and "keeps his mouth shut" even though he no longer believes in the Bible or the theology of that church. So Ehteshaam, why are appealing to someone who is, in Islamic standards, and munafeeq? If I brought you the testimony of someone who attends a masjid even though he disbelieves in the Quran and Muhammad would you accept him as a scholar?

(cont)

Sepher Shalom said...

Part 2

"Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926":

This is outdated 19th century German scholarship; the same school of thought that so heavily influenced Price. Their assumptions and methodology have been proven false repeated in the last 80 or so years. One example would be the dating of the Gospel of John. German scholarship of the 19th century repeatedly claimed that there was no way it could have been penned earlier than 200ad. We now know this to be false based on manuscript fragments of John such as P52, which can hardly be dated past 150ad [and some say shortly before 100ad].

I'm not familiar with Beeching and Helms, but the point is, do you know how many scholars I could find quotes by that contradict what you are trying to say? That's what happens when you just quote scholars and accept them uncritically. I wonder if you would accept liberal scholarship if applied to the Quran and Islam? I doubt it.

Fernando said...

Young Ehteshaam... your last comment (yes, the one you erased) was appalling and deeply offensive to all thate were, here, tryieng to help you realise the inconsistencies in your thought... to sad you are going trough the samme pathe of The Osama The Gret Abdallah... no wonder he's not willing you to bee near him: you're trying to copycat him...

Sepher Shalom said...

Ehteshaam,

I don't know what you posted that you think was offensive [and Fernando agrees], but you seem very conflicted about certain issues. I read some of your recent posts on your blog and your website. If you would like to discuss any of these issues in private, I would consider it an honor to dialogue with you. You can reach me at nazareneway@gmail.com. It is also clear that you are a decent and sincere man. Please feel free to contact me if you like. G-d bless you.

Fernando said...

Young Ehteshaam: don't desapear... all arounde here are juste wantting to help you, illuminating the dificultiues you habe due to your muslim intelectuyal presepositions: the way is not bie going and putt your head on the sand, rather taking our advices att the spead you can afford to assimilate them...

I'm quite sure I speake for all arounde here: we do nott want you to simply go away: we wantte you to learn the truth, eben iff thate implies some pain inherent to the fact thate somethings can make crumble some off your convictions... the way to gett outt off a nightmare is nott "wake up", rather trying to understand whie it happened, and to do thate you need to confronte your fears... we all here are praying for you: do not gibe upp and, trully, juste trie to realize the incosistencies in your tought so you can overcamo them...

my prayers are with you dear young Ehteshaam...

being thsese so:

7) the qur'an you habe are the resulte off several oral and written and reading traditions;

8) the qur'an, and the hadiths, you habe are the result off the effords to embelish both the message Muhammad atributed to allah and the person off Muhammad...

so: EBERY reason you tried to present to deny the NT habe ricocheted upon your own tradition... the problem dear Young Ehteshaam is thate with the specific critical, historical and theological undesrtandings off the facts around the formation off the NT, all off your points do not constitute asingle problem, butt, with the specific critical, historical and theological undesrtandings off the facts around the formation off the qur'an and the hadiths you habe an Everest off problems...

Radical Moderate said...

Ehteshaam Gulam I'm sorry you decided to repost your accusations instead of responding to the refutation of said accusations. I'm also sorry you deleted your reposting.

Radical Moderate said...

Is it just me, or has the doctrine of Islam changed since 9-11.
I admit that like most Americans pre 9-11 I knew absolutely nothing about Islam. After 9-11 that changed. I remember specifically after 9-11 that the standard Muslim on the street or internet claimed that Mohamed’s only miracle was the quran. I even remember specifically quotations by Muslims of the haddetths saying that people would make up miracles about Mohamed. In other words the Quran only miracle group was the majority and the Mohamed performing other miracles were the minority.

Now over the past few years I have noticed a constant drum beat getting louder and louder. That Mohamed did perform miracles, the splitting of the moon, making water come from rocks etc...

Now it seems that not only the doctrine of Mohamed performing miracles has changed but also the doctrine that the Quran is the exact same quran to the letter that Mohamed had revealed.

Anyone else noticed this change?

Unknown said...

Part 1 of 2:
I asked Shafsa, based on the claims made: Would you be kind enough to give some examples of 'major discrepancies' that are shown in Qur'anic manuscripts? Could you enlighten us why the Muslim scholars decided that samarqand mss is corrupt?

We get a cut-and-paste job in reply instead, from such webpages (or similar) as: http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/qurmanu.htm http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/debate/part1.htm http://islamoscope.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/the-myth-of-perfect-preservation-examining-a-variant/

You did not answer why Muslim scholars decided that Samarqand Mss is corrupt. Arthur Jeffery provides some clues:

“Pissareff was encouraged to publish a facsimile edition, which he did by photographic process after having carefully inked in those places on some of the folios where the writing had been almost obliterated by the greasy hands of the faithful stroking the pages to secure blessing...

Muslim savants have frequently asserted that Pissareff in his reinking of the dulled folios deliberately made alterations in the text, but an examination of the facsimile shows that while some mistakes due to ignorance have been made here and there in the process of reinking, there are no adequate grounds for this charge of deliberate alteration...

Unfortunately we are now dependent entirely on the Pissareff facsimile, as the original Codex has disappeared...

From the Pissareff facsimile and the article of Shebunin in the Zapiski, however, since Shebu-nin's study, which was made from the actual text of the Codex before it had been retouched, enables us to correct in places mistaken reinkings, we can make with fair success the needed re-examination…”

(online article here, http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Samarqand/index.htm)

The bottom line is that there is no good facsimile copy of the Samarqand. We could wait for a quality copy or examine the Manuscript directly.

Unknown said...

Part 2 of 2:
[Shafsa wrote: 7- both the Topkapi manuscript and the Samarkand manuscript contain significant textual variations from the modern Hafs text. These are present on almost every page (only three pages of the Samarkand manuscripts don't contain text at variance with the modern Hafs text).]

Significant textual variations on almost every page!? Your statement has little meaning when one examines the facts. According to Jeffery, textual variations are mainly to orthography and that is primarily on way of writing the letter ‘alif’. Do you even comprehend what you are saying?

I assume that as for an example of ‘major discrepancy’ you provided just one example. You called it ‘textual errors’. I would agree with you here for 37:103 (falamma aslamaa/wama aslamaa, meaning they both submitted/NOT submitted). It HAS to be a scribal error/more likely re-touching by Pissareff. Why? Because in context, it makes NO sense. The context is about Abraham and his son being sacrificed: (variant inserted and shown in CAPS below)

[37:101-110]
So We gave him the good news of a boy ready to suffer and forbear. Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: "O my son! I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: Now see what is thy view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me, if God so wills one practising Patience and Constancy!" So when they had both NOT submitted their wills (to God), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice),We called out to him "O Abraham! "Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" - thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial- And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice: And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times: "Peace and salutation to Abraham!" Thus indeed do We reward those who do right.

[Shafsa wrote--a: textual variants marked in line 2 (37:103), line 4 (37:105), line 6, line 7 (37:106) and line 8 of the Uthman Quran. At the start of line two we see a variant – this variant occurs in Surah 37 aya 103. the old Uthman Quran here, shows a stark contradiction to the Quran in use today in surah 37 aya 103. Similarly, in that single page of 8 lines there were 5 VARIANTS to the Quran used today.]

This example page you cited, shows two missing words and 5 variants. However a close examination reveals NO variants at all! Have a look at the image yourself if you know how to examine early Qur’an Mss. There is space for the two ‘missing’ words; all other examples can be shown as a matter of minute inking/re-inking as word contexts otherwise makes zero sense. The alif in the word ‘al-Balaau’ is written consistently with same orthography in that Mss and is well known in Mss tradition.
On Orthography of Qur’an see: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Scribal/haleem.html

More info on Samarqand Mss here:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/samarqand.html

Your gross error on the origins of the Kufic script is explained here:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/kufic.html

[Shafsa wrote: Do you want me to talk about the sanna Manuscript as well, it is even worse !!!!]

Yes, tell us about the San'aa manuscript as well, since 'it is even worse'. Any good discussion can then be based on what you would have said.

Reagrds

Educating _Christians said...

HI SHEPHER..

<< I wonder if you would accept liberal scholarship if applied to the Quran and Islam? I doubt it. >>>


Did you actually listen to the debate? Because from your words I don’t think you have.

Personally I’m more than happy to accept “liberal scholarship” if its backed up by good evidence.
The majority of such scholarship on the Quran- unlike with the NT- has largely confirmed the Muslim position.

Now, Bassam quoted such ‘liberal scholars’ like Dr Puin stating that while direct observation of the Sana MSS show variants none of them “touch the Quran itself”.

Bassam also quoted other German ‘liberal scholars’ such as Marx, Neuwerth and Scholer- all from the last few years as stating the same thing.

Of course, such testimonies were all too much for Nabeel who had no response (again, click ‘play’ on your screen and listen).

Clearly up-to-date Western academic scholarship (whether liberal or not) is not an Evangelical strong point.


<< Now to be consistent, why is it that your state-controlled Uthmanic recension and burning of all source manuscripts is superior to a natural uncontrolled and investigatible textual transmission? >>

The Sana palimpsest MS known as INV 1.27.1 dates to the mid-7th century. Its washed off undertext is PRE-UTHMANIC dating to the time of Uthman himself.

This means that we now **KNOW** what kind of variants Uthman destroyed, which just so happen to agree with the minor variants the hadith say he destroyed- i.e. those of dialectical variants (ahruf).

Again, Bassam mentioned this (again, click ‘play’).

Again, Nabeel was dumbstruck, with no rebuttal.

<< This is a strength of our textual transmission. I don't why you raise it as an 'issue'. The Brit Chadasha/New Testament had a rapid and wide transmission onto three continents simultaneously. It is a miracle of G-d that there is so much consistency and similarity in the manuscript families which were written frequently by average people, not professional scribes >>>

The NT is not a divinely preserved text because there are various man-made corruptions therein that managed to evade detections for centuries.

Christians (like you) lived and died reading and believing certain passages to be the ‘Word of God’ (as breathed out by the Holy Spirit) only to later discover that they were human corruptions (e.g. Mark 16:9-20)- and they STILL do today!

Is that what you call “a strength of our textual transmission” and “a miracle of G-d”?

And where is the rest of the original ending of the Mark?

According to Bruce Metzger, one of your greatest “non-liberal” scholars that ever lived, the final leaf containing it was most probably LOST before it could be widely copied.

Again, is that what you call “a strength of our textual transmission” and “a miracle of G-d”?

Since you proudly boast that the NT has no concept of divine textual abrogation during its period of revelation, I don’t see how it can be..

Now couple all this with the fact that you have zero MSS from the 1st century, and scraps from the 2nd century like p52, you are in a hopeless position to ascertain the original NT text with any high degree of certainty today- not that it would even matter if you could since that boat sailed centuries ago.

So in conclusion Shepher, you need to listen to the debate- and do your homework- before you comment. Nabeel lost this debate big time, and that was written all over his face half way through bassam’s opening statement which he was obviously completely unprepared for.

The fact that his last (and indeed only) refuge is to now say “simply debating this topic was a victory” says it all.

Such a self-consolation reminds me of my Grade 8 teacher’s words to me when I came 3rd the end-of-year school race:

“it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that counts”.

It didn’t help..

Best wishes.

minoria said...

Too bad Ehteshaam left.Hopefully he'll return after a few months.What really scares me is not the beliefs of others regarding religion.

If somebody wants to believe Mohammed was the best,or that the Aysha story is true and that it's ok with him,Mohammed in the Bible,etc,I have no problem.

What scares me is that their leaders always try to limit our free speech.Even carrying out campaigns of difamation,and using the word "Islamophobia."

THE FUTURE

Muslims will never be a majority here in the West.But 20 years from almost no non-Muslim here will accept "Islamophobia is bad".They will see through it.

That will bring Muslim immigration to a trickle.Because in reality most Muslim immigrants are in favor of limiting our free speech.It's part of their mentality.Westerners will see it.

THE RESULT

Instead Hindus and Christians will be preferred.It's the fault of the Muslim leaders in the West.Always saying "Islamophobia."The remaining Muslims will over time become more and more secularized and most will disappeared into the majority and in effect leave Islam.

HARD CHOICE

It would be necesarry.If a country is made up of brown people and they let in millions of white people who are racist,then it causes trouble.Not because they are white but because of their mentality.

Letting in milions of people who think it is right to make us stop saying our opinion and saying "Islamophobia" is not intelligent.Freedom of speech is not negotiable.

Today the media is afraid to talk about Aysha and Mohammed,sex-slaves in the Koran,Mohammed saying 8X in the hadiths to kill apostates,etc.If that were in the NT they would.The media is afraid of getting its employees killed.

Unknown said...

shafsa:Do you want me to talk about the sanna Manuscript as well, it is even worse !!!!

You didn't even talk about the Samarqand manuscripts and now you are threatening to talk about the Sanna manuscripts?.

Earlier, all you did was copy and paste someone else's opinions. And with respect to the Sanaa manuscripts, you will simply copy and paste what Gerd Puin said.

Clearly, you don't know much about these topics yourself. And I'm sure that you don't even have an intellectual response to Learner's response to your copy and paste.
This is the problem with Christian fundamentalists. They don't think for themselves.

Fifth Monarchy Man said...

I think our Muslim friends need to understand that the truth of Christianity does not depend on the inerrancy and preservation of the text but inerrancy and preservation depend on the person of Christ.

All that we need to show is that our Bible is reliable enough to conclude that it agrees with the claims of Christianity, namely Jesus’ death resurrection and divinity.

If by resurrection Jesus proved that he is who he claimed to be and if by his willing sacrifice he demonstrated that he is willing to do anything to insure that he redeems and reconciles his people to God we can be sure that he will preserve his word to us.


On the other hand Islam depends on the inerrancy and perfect preservation of the Quran. any evidence that the Quran is not preserved or contains error no matter how small invalidates Mohammad’s claim to be the final prophet that God chose to reveal his message to mankind.

peace

Educating_Christians said...

LEARNER

<< I asked Shafsa, based on the claims made: Would you be kind enough to give some examples of 'major discrepancies' that are shown in Qur'anic manuscripts? Could you enlighten us why the Muslim scholars decided that samarqand mss is corrupt?

We get a cut-and-paste job in reply instead, from such webpages (or similar) as: http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/qurmanu.htm http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/debate/part1.htm http://islamoscope.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/the-myth-of-perfect-preservation-examining-a-variant/ >>>


Go easy on them brother!… Don’t you see that recycling out-dated and misquoted pseudo-scholarship is pretty much all they have?

It really is sad..

Where are the educated Christians on this?

Is there not a single one on earth who can show why the Quran has been corrupted but the NT hasn't?

If so PLEASE do..

Fernando said...

Hi Learner... great debette you had previous on the NET wheder Aisha was or not 9 years olde when she consumated her marriage... aboutte the mumbo jumbo you wrotte arounde here in order to deffende the indifensable, that's just that: it mighte worke with 96% off muslims arounde the worlde who are simplie to sacre to see the truthe aboutte the falsities they are libing, butt thatte won't worke with people arounde here who know much more aboutte those topics than you... you onlie also placed this or thate opinio, rather did nott present a single ebidence againts whate brother shafsha saide... more your attempt to redirect us all too islamic-awareness.org onlie shows thate you're here onlie to make propaganda to tahte site, justte like The Osama The Great Abdallah did, which, bie the way, as non credebility whate so eber: it onlie tries to creatte false psychological defenses in order to allow muslims feel confortable withe the lies thay are living in... best duck next time old chap...

ben malik said...

Just one correction to the Fatman who wrote, Thats not true, Luke wrote Luke, Mark wrote Mark, Mathew wrote Mathew, and John the disciple (not john the baptist) wrote John (I believe even Bart Ehrman agrees on this). yes they were written in greek, because unlike your quran God wanted the world to know his word. And the world spoke and wrote Greek.

No, Ehrman doesn't believe this. He believes they are anonymous since that is what he wrote in his latest book on the subject of the Bible titled Jesus Interrupted.

Unknown said...

1 @ Ehtesham:

Thanks for being Nice enough to apologize on a christian blog, I believe that this is more because You are a good natured persons. I hope my last comment was not to offensive to you :)

2: Fernando Said:

"the specific critical, historical and theological undesrtandings off the facts around the formation off the NT, all off your points do not constitute asingle problem, butt, with the specific critical, historical and theological undesrtandings off the facts around the formation off the qur'an and the hadiths you habe an Everest off problems..."

Yes I agree 200%, As we already discussed this earlier, the quran Just claims perfect preservation, and yet cant prove it, even more all evidence shows it is the most corrpted book in the world. Muslims trying to preserve it as is, they interfered blindly to corrupt their own book, under the umberella of preservation.
So imagine if Muhammed only miracle ( the quran) has been corrupted, so was this really a true prophet. The other poets of Arab , have their poetries better preseved today than the quran !!


On the other side the NT , as shown didnt have any sort of those false claims, and yet by muslims Standard it proves to be word of God!

3- @ Learner:

1: Yes Sir, I Comprehend very well what I am saying. Hope u Do , Do u ? I dont think so . WHy ? Cause have u replied to each point? no , u just pick and choose , OK.

2: U say I am copying and pasting: a: Look at what U just did!!!
I wonder how muslims are very double standard, the ver next word after he said this is a complete copy and paste, and then u are criticising me.... NO COmment, I would rather leave the audience Just this

b: I havent Used the mentioned website, I even never knew them before, but thanks for sharing, they are good sources. However, If u found any similarities in the claim, I guess in this case it is more because the main source is the same from scholars who studied the manuscript.

3: Discripancies:

" two missing words and 5 variants in just in few verses"
U say this is not a corruption, for a text that claims to be the most perfectly preserved in the world !!!
Wow !! u ignore them , and try to hamonize, well that's fine with me, but dont cliam then , that it the most well preseved text, and it is a miracle.

4: Yes I did examine the pictures my self ( of course not all of them, but what I have seen is enough) I hope everyone here, will google them and see the errors in the book that claims the well preserved book !!

5: U said u are waiting for Good quality picture, well what u r waiting for ?? just do it , DOnt be afraid !! or are you waiting for someone to do it for you ?
I think Muslims are just satisfied if they find errors, to say the copy is bad.

6: Sir , No not only the way of writing at all !!! letter and words are missing, that besides the parts not included in the manuscript.

7: Now u blame the scribe for that error.... well as I told u fine with me, but dnt claim Most perfet well preserved again !!

So Conclusion: Muslims if they foud any error or varant or missing part, they blame the whole world to defend their book !! Here as we have seen, he blamed the scribe, the copy machine !!!

So if every error I would present u will say scribal error , then why arguing or copy ?! u r pre-conivnced that quran has no error and well preserved !!

ben malik said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernando said...

Brother minoria, our good friende, saide: «Today the media is afraid...»... absoluttelie... not onlie affraide, butt well paider as well not to make waves against islam; those same waves they continuoslie do against Christianity... here, where I live, there are almost every week a documentarie on the TV showing that Christianity is retrograd and intolerant (all a bunch off lies like saying thate God decided to incarnate in a amle He was descriminating about women; tahte iff God made man on His image and there're gay and lesbian people, then God must bee also thate...), butt neber dare to speak a single worde to show thate islam is the onlie intolerant religiuon on the planette...

Unknown said...

Sannaa Manuscript; THE EMBARASSING QURANIC MANUSCRIPT:

PART 1:

DISCOVERY:

In 1972, around 40,000 papyrus and vellum codices were discovered hidden in a ceiling of the Great Mosque in Sanaa’s old city, IN YEMEN where they had been mouldering for God knows how long. Some of the manuscripts turned out to be, after carbon dating, from the 7th and 8th centuries AD–i.e. from the first years of Islam.

About 12,000 fragments belonged to 926 copies of the Qur'an, the other 2,000 were loose fragments.

RESTORATION:

Yemen government invited a team of scholars, amongst them GERD R. PUIN, from Saarland University in Germany, to preserve and arrange the texts. PUIN IS Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography specialist. As mentioned, that has to an extent been done. But since then, something has prevented full dissemination of the information gleaned from that process.

To date, apparently 15,000 of these manuscripts have been cleaned and flattened, and presented. They are housed in the Dar al-Makhtoutat in Sanaa, just beside the Great MosquE place.

YEMENIAN AFRAID FROM THE TRUTH:

Yemeni Government has frozen up scholarly access to the texts. Islamic authorities are very unwilling to allow further examination of the assembled texts !!

There has and will be significant resistance to work on Quranic manuscripts that had this sort of objective in mind. The Yemeni authorities DIDNT want to draw criticism for allowing infidels to meddle with the holy book: The argument that the Quran is created in time and has a history has been landing scholars in political hot water from the Mu’tazilites to Nasr Abu Zayd

Unknown said...

PART 2:

PUIN COMMENTS ON THE PROJECT AND ISLAMIC FEAR FROM FURTHER IVESTIGATION:

Puin suggests, "They want to keep this thing low-profile, as we do, although for different reasons."

Puin, and his colleague Graf von Bothmer, an Islamic historian, have published short essays on what they discovered. They felt that when the Yemeni authorities realize the implications of the find, they would refuse further access - a prediction that soon came through.

"So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Qur'an is Allah's unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Qur'an has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Qur'an has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us accomplish this."


In a 1999 Atlantic Monthly article, Gerd Puin is quoted saying:

My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants. The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’anic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid. Since the Qur’an claims repeatedly to be clear but is not—there is an obvious and serious contradiction. Something else must be going on


In 1999, Toby Lester, the executive editor of the website of The Atlantic Monthly reported on Puin's discoveries:

"Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries -- they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God."

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

REFERENCES:


A: Abul Taher; Querying the KoraN; The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4048586,00.html

b: What Is the Koran? The Atlantic Monthly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199901/koran

C: Sana’a manuscripts: uncovering a treasure of words; UNESCO Courier
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=37916&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Unknown said...

I think a good way to prove that quran is perfectly preserved, is to burn out all those manuscripts, like what uthman did !!

Osama Abdallah said...

"To my Christian friends:

My greatest fear/nightmare actually came true-- I stopped becoming like Ricard Carrier and instead became like Osama Abdullah. It's like I am in a horror movie or in Spider-Man 3.

I guess I see a little bit of both Nadir and Osama in me. And That scares the living daylights out of me. Thus this blog did what nothing else could do to me-- it corrupted and twisted me into something evil.

I apologize to everyone I offended, including my friends David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi, and every other reader of this blog (including more or less Osama Abdullah. I think my problem is that I've read so much of Answering-Christianity Osama's site that I started to behave like him----- and now I am scared out of my mind that I am going to end up like him.

This deeply scares and disturbs me and I ask Allah for forgivness and repentance.

So My Christian Friends, know I apologize for my offensive statements its just sometimes people just bring it out in me. I am sure David Wood has lost his respect also when talking about Prophet Muhammad-- it happens we are all humans.

Its like my biggest nightmare came true--- I stopped being the nice and compassionate Muslim I once was, Was twisted into something disrespectful and became a younger and more twisted version of Osama Abdullah. I seek refuge from Satan by Allah Almighty.

I remember a hadith in which Prophet Muhammad (p) said that whoever controls his anger, he is the strongest. I lost my temper the last few days at Osama and said disrespectful things about Christianity--- therefore I deeply apologize to anyone I hurt.

Accept my apology, and we can move on. I don't want to leave this blog, but now I am afraid its coming to that.

Thanks,
May Allah bless you all,
Ehteshaam Gulam"

LOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!! I love you too Gulam :-)

Osama Abdallah said...

Gulam,

Do you want me to send you a special picture of me so that you can start seeing me in your dreams? :-)


Osama Abdallah
www.answering-christianity.com

Unknown said...

Also this website is helpful with further info:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/16/ancient-quranic-manuscripts-of-sanaa-and-divine-downfall/

Unknown said...

I believe this is relavent to the topic of the Debate:

http://inthenameofallah.org/Samarqand%20&%20Topkapi%20Qurans.html

Unknown said...

Let me share these books with you, (these are not just articles)

http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/index.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Samarqand/index.htm

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/index.htm

I found them on here:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Index/S/samarkand.html

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating_Christians said: "So in conclusion Shepher, you need to listen to the debate- and do your homework- before you comment."

I would recommend you educate yourself on the basic context of people comments in the thread. I have absolutely no idea why you chose to direct your comment at me, because my comments were specifically limited to Ehteshaam's comments, not the debate.

I would have thought this was obvious to anyone since I directed my comment to him, quoted what he said, and used his name in my comments. Please pay more careful attention to the flow of threads when posting so you don't make this embarrassing blunder again in the future.

Sepher Shalom said...

Nabeel,

That was a really great debate! Good topic and I'm happy that your opponent was Bassam. He is one of my favorite Muslim apologists.

Hopefully more debating on this topic will be done in the future. Most Muslims know almost nothing about the realities of the textual transmission of their Quran, and having debates on this topic will force them to face the realities of the matter, and come to terms with how a lot of what they have been spoon-fed on the subject just doesn't line up with reality.

Unknown said...

FOR MORE EXAMPLES OF TEXTUAL DISCRIPANCIES IN THE SAMARKAND MANUSCRIPTS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS CHECK THESE:

1: SAMARQAND VS. 1924 EDITION - ‘THE SAME’?

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/ch9a-index.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/ch9b-index.html#ch9b

2: Appendix A: Samarqand MSS VS 1924 Egyptian Edition

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/A1.htm#AppendA

3: Appendix A2: Samarqand MSS VS 1924 Egyptian Edition

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/A2.htm#AppA2

4: Appendix A3: Samarqand MSS VS 1924 Egyptian Edition

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/A3.htm#AppA3

5: Appendix A4: Samarqand MSS VS 1924 Egyptian Edition

http://www.answering-islam.org/PQ/A4.htm#AppA4

Unknown said...

For those Muslims who claim that & Ahruf, are different meaning of the same quran ... SO translation of the quran was prohibited, and reciting quran any any other language is Impossible?!
Because Muslims used to claim that the text is typical the same, and not a single letter can be changed !!

Muslims today after 14 centureis are getting more liberal, and saying its OK, the meanig is the same !!! were your ancestor all wroong ?!!!!!

Osama Abdallah said...

May Allah Almighty Bless brother Bassam Zawadi! Nabeel, you were schooled very well by Bassam. He clearly and truly thoroughly refuted you.

David Wood, when will you post our last debate? Don't worry, I am almost done with it, and it'll be up on my site soon insha'Allah. Were my Lisan Al-Arab and other dictionaries' references and refutations a bit too much for you?

Osama Abdallah
www.answering-christianity.com

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating_Christians said: "<< I wonder if you would accept liberal scholarship if applied to the Quran and Islam? I doubt it. >>>


Did you actually listen to the debate? Because from your words I don’t think you have."


The comment of mine you quoted above is not related to the debate, to Bassam, or to you. It is related to Ehteshaam and his opinions and standards. You are clearly confused.

Educating_Christians said:"Personally I’m more than happy to accept “liberal scholarship” if its backed up by good evidence.
The majority of such scholarship on the Quran- unlike with the NT- has largely confirmed the Muslim position."


Not really...and actually, not even a viable comparison since the Muslims relationship to his/her text, the beliefs about that text, and the beliefs about how it was communicated are not at all like the beliefs of Christians or Messianics. The Muslims believe the Quran eternally existed on a tablet in heaven, so you have to reconcile this variation in a way we do not. I have to hear a good explanation of this doctrine in light of textual variants within the Quran, in light of Uthman apparently burning things that are currently in that tablet (or do you believe only Uthman's recension is written there?), and in light of the things that Sahih Sittah says were once part of the recitation and now are not found in the Quran.

Educating_Christians: "Christians (like you) lived and died reading and believing certain passages to be the ‘Word of God’ (as breathed out by the Holy Spirit) only to later discover that they were human corruptions (e.g. Mark 16:9-20)- and they STILL do today!"

First of all, I am not a Christian. I am a Nazarene Jew. Perhaps you are not intending to "educate" me, based on your name. Secondly, perhaps you noticed Bassams assertion that the Quranic variants are "inspired", and perhaps you noticed in this thread the very aptly pointed out fact that some "church fathers", such as Origen, also believed the variants of the Brit Chadasha to be divinely inspired. Point being, if I make the claim that this is the case, no Muslim who believes his Quranic variants are inspired can disagree with me.

(cont)

Sepher Shalom said...

part 2

Educating_Christians said: "Now couple all this with the fact that you have zero MSS from the 1st century, and scraps from the 2nd century like p52, you are in a hopeless position to ascertain the original NT text with any high degree of certainty today- not that it would even matter if you could since that boat sailed centuries ago."

We don't need manuscripts from the 1st century to determine what the originals said. It seems you don't have any grounded understanding of what textual criticism is even about, outside of trying to use it as an attack-dog to further your Islamic position. The majority of scholars agree that we can and have reliably reconstructed the words and message of the text. Bruce Metzger, whom you just quoted, agreed with this position, and even the hyperskeptical Bart Ehrman believes we have the text in over 99% of cases. It would seem you are somewhere further left than Ehrman on this issue, which puts you into hyper-hyperskepticism of the transmission. Not a very impressive place to be.

You see, you can't just co-opt hyperskeptical secular scholarship and say, "Aha! Islam is right", because in order for the Quran to be proven true by textual criticism you don't just need variants. What you need is a complete seperate textual platform that does not and never existed. You need much more than variants. You need an Injeel that lines up with Islam. You need a text that says Yeshua was not crucified. You need a text that shows the Disciples were all Muslims. This is what the Quran claims and/or what Muslims claim (I say "or" because the Quran never claims our Bible is 'corrupted'). You are in a rough spot, because no such textual platform ever existed. If it did there would be evidence of it, and there is not. Try getting any of the scholars you appeal to, to agree that Yeshua was not crucified, that there was an Injeel that taught Islam, or that the Disciples were Muslims. If you can't provide evidence that supports the historical claims of your Quran, then I say your Quran is false, and this is independent of what type of variants exist in our text.

Furthermore, it seems Bassam (and maybe you?...I don't know if you agree with Bassam) are not saying the Quran should be accepted because it has no variants, but rather saying the Quran should be accepted because it has less variants than the Brit Chadasha. That makes no sense to me, and is not any kind of convincing argument. Since when is the amount of textual variation the standard for proving if something is inspired?

Unknown said...

@ IBN :

"Earlier, all you did was copy and paste someone else's opinions. And with respect to the Sanaa manuscripts, you will simply copy and paste what Gerd Puin said."

If I am talking by my self, then I dont think , it is realy worth it.. If You Learn How to do research, You should be referenced.
But Just giving you own opinion is really Nonsense, And that what Muhammed and his followers Do. They Just Keep talking, without providing any single bit of evidence or reference.
For Instance (Just as an example): When Muhammed said Jesus was not crucified , what kind of evidence did he give to us to support his claims ?? Nothing !!! thats what atypical muslims do!! Just give his own opinion.

When I quoted someone else, Thats called referenceing. And I am not Just copying and pasting, I am getting the points relevant to the point which suports my claims. And I am not quoting anyone, It is those specialists who spent a lot of time working and researching these materials.

"Clearly, you don't know much about these topics yourself"

Yes I agree, I dont have much of the topic myself, And I dont think that any muslim did investigate the manuscripts by themselves, they are aiting for someone else to do the Job to Them. Have u investigated and researched the Sanna Manuscripts ?!! How did u get ur information from Sir ?!!


"I'm sure that you don't even have an intellectual response to Learner's response to your copy and paste. "

U say u are sure, wow, can u provide us some evidences why u are sure, or it just your opinion !!

"This is the problem with Christian fundamentalists. They don't think for themselves."

Any Evidence ? !
Just flaw claims ?!
Be consistent, and one can accuse you of all sort of things, the point is to provide some solid evidence Sir.

Sepher Shalom said...

Missed one thing I wanted to mention....

Educating_Christians said: "According to Bruce Metzger, one of your greatest “non-liberal” scholars that ever lived, the final leaf containing it was most probably LOST before it could be widely copied."

What makes Metzger one of MY scholars? Furthermore, how do you conclude that Metzger was always right? You went on to mention that we have no concept of abrogation, and this is somehow a problem in this instance...well... no it is not. First you would have to prove that Mark didn't originally end at verse 8 to even assert anything was lost. Next, you would have to prove that there is doctrine contained in the allegedly lost section that is not present in the other Gospels. Until you do both of the above there is nothing that even resembles an "abrogation", and your claim that this is an issue for us is completely false and empty.

Of course, you have just highlighted the exact type of Islamic escape clause that Nabeel mentioned in the debate. For a Muslim, if they find out a goat ate some of a Surah >> It was "abrogated" and that explains it all! How convenient.

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

I love you too, Osama. And yeah Bassam schooled Nabeel badly. I agree 1000000% with Osama.

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

Sorry Osama I only dream of three things:

Proving Islam to all that I meet

Glorifying and praying to Allah day and night

And memorizing the whole Quran in both English and Arabic.

ben malik said...

Hey the Learner and Educating Christians sound like the same person and reminds me of a gent named Usman Sheikh whom Shamoun pretty much embarrassed. He also went by the name Johnny Bravo, a cartoon character much like Muhammad's jinn! If it is you then can you let us know? It must be him since his arguments are just as bad as Usman Sheikh.

I think will inform Shamoun that his former cartoon villian is back writing anonymously since I am sure he will love to go at it with him again. It will be Superman versus the Joker since Sheikh's points make for great comedy. hehehehe

Radical Moderate said...

Ehteshaam is back, I thought he was leaving us?

Ehteshaam might I sugjest a medication for you its called Zoloft. it can really help with your mood swings. Perhaps you should discuss that with your Doctor, or ask Nabeel for a prescription :)

Fernando said...

@ The Osama The Great Abdalah...

I was berie sad to see you arounde here jokking withe the pain of young Ehteshaam... I guess that's a diferrence between islam and Christianity: we, Christian posters, arounde here, eben when we were offended bie his resistence to change his intelectual actitudes, tryiend to help him and gibe him an hand (eben when we did nott know iff he was being serious withe his wordes), and you simply jokked withe him... to sad indeed...

@ Young Ehteshaam...

gladde to see you arounde here ounce againne: does thate mean thate you were nott being seriouse when you sad you were not going to come back? or thate you realized thate thate option was nott the true soluttion to youre problem?

Fernando said...

Only now I read thate Young Ehteshaam saide thate "Bassam schooled Nabeel badly"... poor sould: iff thate's whate you beliebe, we'll habe more difficulties in dealling withe your your intelectual problems. Butt do not despaire. Ther's an solution to everything... or almoust. May God the Truth iluminate your mind and heart Young Ehteshaam, because iff you want to make upp a libing making debates, you'll nead to grow up...

Unknown said...

[ben malik wrote...
Hey the Learner and Educating Christians sound like the same person and reminds me of a gent named Usman Sheikh...]

Why is there a paranoia among the Christians in this forum? Let me state this for clarification:

I am not ‘the learner’ Fernando thinks that I am. I have never debated on the issue of Ayesha as the’ learner’ as Fernando accuses me of. It’s only been a week I just created this account! So all your criticisms, Fernando, you can re-direct to your friend that ‘learner’. Your logic goes like this: If I have two sons called Ishmael and Isaac, so my name must be Abraham!

I am not Usman Sheikh either. Neither am I Educating_Christians. I am just another Learner, always learning and surely am going to learn & educate you where the need arises.

Ben malik sounds to me like the same person as Sam Shamoun. Can you ben malik confirm with intellectual integrity and honesty that your are not Sam Shamoun? A direct answer please.

Regards

Unknown said...

Part 1 of 3
[Shafsa wrote:
1: Yes Sir, I Comprehend very well what I am saying. Hope u Do , Do u ? I dont think so . WHy ? Cause have u replied to each point? no , u just pick and choose , OK.]

There was not much to reply to on your other points. Your gross errors were shown in the article I linked ‘on the origins of the Kufic Script’. As you comprehend what you say on this topic, tell us the rule of writing the letter 'alif' in the samarqand mss? I will remind you again if you forget to answer :)

[2: U say I am copying and pasting: a: Look at what U just did!!!
I wonder how muslims are very double standard, the ver next word after he said this is a complete copy and paste, and then u are criticising me.... NO COmment, I would rather leave the audience Just this]

I accused you copy-pasting debunked arguments without examining them or their refutations, like you have done again later in your post. Since you did not answer why Muslim Scholars decided that samarqand mss is ‘corrupt’, I had to share with this group the real reasons from the academic Jeffery who studied that Mss.

[" two missing words and 5 variants in just in few verses"
U say this is not a corruption, for a text that claims to be the most perfectly preserved in the world !!!]

Since when Muslims told you that we do not allow unintentional scribal errors in copying manuscripts? In this particular Mss page image, I argued that none of this seven cases amounts to variants. There were spaces for the missing words indicative of a lacuna in the original (?). There other cases are very likely to be Pissareff’s re-touching the mss before producing a facsimile. The example of 37:103 I argued it to be more likely Pissareff’s amendations rather than a scribal mistake. Read my post again.

[7: Now u blame the scribe for that error.... well as I told u fine with me, but dnt claim Most perfet well preserved again !!]

You are deliberately pretending to be ignorant here. Do you not know that for many of the scribal errors in a particular manuscript like the Samarqand, we can show you from other earlier manuscripts where they are the same as our current printed texts, without those sribal mistakes?

Unknown said...

[Shafsa wrote: Yemeni Government has frozen up scholarly access to the texts. Islamic authorities are very unwilling to allow further examination of the assembled texts !!....]

You are living the dark ages Shafsa. When are you going to start learning? Here are the facts provided by Bassam et al:

1) About 300 or so folios from the Sana MSS have been published on the UNESCO CD

2) Francios Derchoe was allowed access to the Sana MSS after Puin, and he was allowed access for 5 years to one of the best and earliest collections in the world- the Turkish museum of Islamic art (TIEM):
[. Déroche, "The Qur'ān Of Amāgūr", Manuscripts Of The Middle East, 1990-1991, Volume 5, p. 59.]
3) Publication of such material often takes time. Look at the Dead Sea scroll. They were discovered in 1947-56 yet not FULLY published till 1991!
4) The Italian Arabic and Islamic scholar Prof. Sergio Noja Noseda was given full access to the Sana MSS in 2002 by decree of the President of Yemen himself. He was even allowed to cut samples from some MSS (including the palimpsest) for Carbon-14 dating. This has now been carried out on it and we are awaiting results (no idea when).
Would the pope ever allow a Muslim scholar into the Vatican library to cut away at NT MSS and take them back to Saudi Arabia for Carbon dating!

Noseda managed to secure a:
” ...partnership contract devoted to the publication of the series of Quranic manuscripts including the famous palimpsest kept in Sana Dar al Makhtuta”. It was supported by the president of The Yemieni Republic, financed by the French academy and co-organised by Prof Christian Robin. Serjio Noja was caught by the idea of the “virtual restoration” of the palimpsest and the publication of the scriptio inferior [i.e the under text].

The above quote was taken from his obituary in this journal:
Efim Rezvan “From Russia with love”: Prof. Sergio Noja Noseda (1931-2008), Manuscripta Orientalia, June 2008, Volume 14, Number 1, p. 72.]

5)Further more, Elizibeth Puin very recently studied more folios of the under text and has published them.

Unknown said...

Part 3 of 3

[Shafsa wrote 1: SAMARQAND VS. 1924 EDITION - ‘THE SAME’? ]

Let me tell you Shafsa that I had a copy of 'brother Mark's book before it even went online, bought for £3 from the man himself in person as he identified himself to me many years ago. And like many others, I have gone through the examples MYSELF in arabic of the images provided, not being arrogant here. What I would like you to do is this:

Chose a particular example from there and discuss it with academic rigour why this particular example amounts to tampering the Mss text and shows corruption of the Qur'an.

Also, have you ever wondered why both Sebunin and Jeffery missed many of those significant variants?

[Shafsa wrote: Yes I agree, I dont have much of the topic myself, And I dont think that any muslim did investigate the manuscripts by themselves, they are aiting for someone else to do the Job to Them. Have u investigated and researched the Sanna Manuscripts ?!! How did u get ur information from Sir ?!!]

You will find out when you start discussing specific examples from there..

Regards

Nakdimon said...

Wait a second. You have GOT to be kidding me. Osama Abdallah QUOTING A HADITH? Isnt this the same guy that totally and utterly repudiates any Hadith as unreliable and fabricated that his opponent quotes to him in debates? Osama, why is that Hadith about controling ones anger authentic? Because its positive about Muhammad? What criterion do you utilize here?

Educating_Christians said...

HI SEPHER,

[PART 1 OF 3 ]

<< First of all, I am not a Christian. I am a Nazarene Jew. Perhaps you are not intending to "educate" me, based on your name >>

So you’re a Jew?

Do you mean you’re one of those Jews who believes that Jesus was nothing but a 1st century David Blaine and false prophet who is currently burning in a tub of hot excrement?

Or are you one of those ‘Jews’ who believe Jesus was God, yet refuse to call yourself a ‘Christian’ due to some kind of racial hang up?

If it’s the latter then, for the record, I don’t care if you’re a ‘Jew’ or not, anymore than I care if your black or white.

Since you defend the NT and attack the Quran, you need to be educated none the less, so I don’t mind helping you out here regardless of how you choose to label yourself.

So please listen up..

You begin your misunderstand by saying:


<<<< The Muslims believe the Quran eternally existed on a tablet in heaven, so you have to reconcile this variation in a way we do not. I have to hear a good explanation of this doctrine in light of textual variants within the Quran, in light of Uthman apparently burning things that are currently in that tablet (or do you believe only Uthman's recension is written there?), and in light of the things that Sahih Sittah says were once part of the recitation and now are not found in the Quran. >>>>


Your confusion here is based upon your own straw man interpretation of what that tablet actually is.

Like Nabeel and most other Christian (sorry, I man Jews)you think that there is a tablet in heaven with one Quranic text stamped on it (im guessing the 1924 printed Hafs reading?), and that this is the eternal Quran and that any variation form that on earth is therefore contradicting the tablet.

Such a home-made interpretation will get you nowhere, especially since you cant tell me where it came from.

When you do your homework and read the hadith you’ll find that the tablet is not just a heavenly copy of the Quran, but is in fact a record of EVERTHING that will occur in the future, including the Quran itself.

Here you go..

...He said, "First of all, there was nothing but Allah, and (then He created His Throne). His throne was over the water, and He wrote everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and created the Heavens and the Earth...

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 414)


Furthermore, in proving its not just the Quran God wrote on the tablet:

Allah's Apostle said, "When Allah completed the creation, He wrote in His Book which is with Him on His Throne, "My Mercy overpowers My Anger."

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 416)


So how do we reconcile the heavenly record of the Quran with Quran variant readings?

A child could tell you. Since the record contains EVERYTHING it would obviously contain ALL revealed texts of the Quran including what Uthman burned and did not burn.

The preservation of the Quran today remains untouched either way.

Cont...

Educating_Christians said...

SHEPHER... [PART 2/3]

<< Secondly, perhaps you noticed Bassams assertion that the Quranic variants are "inspired", and perhaps you noticed in this thread the very aptly pointed out fact that some "church fathers", such as Origen, also believed the variants of the Brit Chadasha to be divinely inspired. Point being, if I make the claim that this is the case, no Muslim who believes his Quranic variants are inspired can disagree with me. >>

Well I’m a Muslims, and I can certainly disagree with you..

Firstly please can you please post Origens exact words on this so we can all see what he said? Do you even know the reference for this?

Secondly, Origen didn’t believe ALL variants were inspired at all. For example, he out right rejected the reading “Jesus” in “Jesus Barabbas” in Matthew 27:16-17 because it wasn’t present in “many copies”, but also because he didn’t believe that Jesus’ name could sit along side that of evildoers!

So far from accepting all NT variants as “inspired” he’s rejecting some on theological grounds.

Thirdly, Muslims don’t say that there are inspired variant in the Quran on the mere say so of some early Muslim writing about 200 years after Mouhammed, as you now do with Orgian.

We do so because that’s what OUR PROPHET said.

So while our reasoning if firmly routed in our faith by our Prophet, yours is nothing but a desperate Ad Hoc excuse based on the one-off, uninspired rambling of some random church father who did even always see it that way!

Can you see the difference now?


<< We don't need manuscripts from the 1st century to determine what the originals said. >>

Since you transmission of the NT depends SOLELY on written accounts, how else can you reconstruct the original- to any high degree of certainly- with only a small percentage of the text being available from 1 and 2nd centuries?

How do you reconcile that with “the strength of our transmission” and “a miracle from God”

Where EXACTLY is the “miracle” when it comes to NT textual transmission? Please explain.

<< Bruce Metzger, whom you just quoted, agreed with this position, and even the hyperskeptical Bart Ehrman believes we have the text in over 99% of cases. >>

So the accodrig to Bart the Holy Spirt did a 99% job in preserving his Divine Word. That’s good to know.

And isn’t that the same Bart Ehrman who rejected his infallible view of the New Testamnet BECAUSE of manuscript variants?

I wouldn’t mention him again if I were you. ;-)


<< Furthermore, it seems Bassam (and maybe you?...I don't know if you agree with Bassam) are not saying the Quran should be accepted because it has no variants, but rather saying the Quran should be accepted because it has less variants than the Brit Chadasha >>

Its not just about ‘variants’ in either case.

I don’t reject the NT because its got Variants, I reject it because of the fact that such intentional variants over the centuries have meant (and still do mean today) that Christians cannot accurately distinguish between what God inspired and what some scribe decided to add in because he felt like it.

THAT’S what you call an unpreserved text, and THAT’S what didn’t happen to the Quran.

CONT..

Educating_Christians said...

SHEPHER [PART 3/3]


<<< Furthermore, how do you conclude that Metzger was always right? >>>


Firstly I didn’t say that Metzger was right about the end of Mark being lost. My point was the fact that you can’t say for sure whether the original inspired ending of Mark was lost or not, and that this is his view since he is widely respected by Evangicals.

And even if it wasnt lost the fact that it was filled in by some scribe (accoding to some Christians)shortly after which some Christains took to be 'inspired' is all i need to make my point.

<< Next, you would have to prove that there is doctrine contained in the allegedly lost section that is not present in the other Gospels. >>


He were go again with the concocted “no doctrine affected” argument.

Who says that variants only matter if they affect a ‘doctrine’? Did Jesus say that? Paul? Or maybe it was Origen?

So this is another Ad Hoc escape-clause.

Secondly just stop and think about how ridiculous your logic is here..

You’re telling me that it doesn’t matter whether the last 12 verses of Mark are inspired or not since it doesn’t affect any ‘doctrine’ that isn’t also present in the other Gospels either way?

In that case, answer me this.. if the ENTIRE GOSPEL of Mark was removed from the NT, what “doctrine” would be affected that isn’t present in the other 3 gospels??

Please answer..

Thus according to your logic the ENTIRE gospel of Mark is DISPOSIBLE, which begs the question of why the Holy Spirit bothered to inspire it in the first place? What was the point?

And how may other of the ‘inspired’ 27 book of the NT can we dispose of before we rupture the main artery of ‘doctrine’?

Bottom line is that SOME variants in the NT- such as Mark 16- affect the INERRENCY of the NT.

And if the NT is not inerrant, then it is nothing but a first century history book on a par with the works of your fellow Jew Josephus.

Why therefore should I place my eternal salvation in such a error-ridden book?

Shalom.

Radical Moderate said...

ben malik
YOu are correct. For some reason I thought Brophet Bart Ehrman said on the Infidel guy and in his debate with Dr James White that the Gospel naratives were written by there respective authors. Instead he said in his Debate with Dr White that "Lets suppose that Mark wrote Mark" etc...
Thanks for the correction

Chennai Man said...

\\The Fat Man said...
Ehteshaam Gulam Accusations

1.The Gospels were written by Unknown Greek authors-- while Jesus spoke Aramaic

Thats not true, Luke wrote Luke, Mark wrote Mark, Mathew wrote Mathew, and John the disciple (not john the baptist) wrote John//

dear sir where is the Gospel of Jesus(injeel)? when you guys are going to publish it?

ben malik said...

Time to expose some of the muzzies here. Usman Sheikh, or should I say, uneducated Muslim, said:

Who says that variants only matter if they affect a ‘doctrine’? Did Jesus say that? Paul? Or maybe it was Origen?

Who said that the variant readings and the missing verses of the Quran don't matter seeing that Allah lied to Muslims by saying he would preserve his book? Just because some hadiths say that Muhammad said that the eternal speech of Allah was revealed in seven ahruf, which your scholars still have no clue what in the world that exactly means? And who gave Uthman the right to burn six of these seven mysterious ahruf known only by Allah and not even his messenger since he faield to tell his community what he meant even though you guys keep telling us it was the duty of the illiterate messenger to educate people what the revelations from satan, err I meant Allah, mean which is why you need the Sunna? That comes from one of the sites you keep linking to, Islamic Unawareness.

Sepher you are talking to a wall since this guy isn't interested in using his own crappy arguments against the Quran since he knows what would happen if he did. We normally call such people liars and hypocrites. Anothre name for it? Muslims.

ben malik said...

More lies from uneducated Muzzie. He says:

Thirdly, Muslims don’t say that there are inspired variant in the Quran on the mere say so of some early Muslim writing about 200 years after Mouhammed, as you now do with Orgian.

We do so because that’s what OUR PROPHET said.


Please prove that this is what your prophet said. Quote a very early source where he said this. Since you can't please quote one of your later unreliable books where he mentions that the very variants which we find littered throughout the hadith literature which did not find there way in the Quran are all inspired, especially when the illiterate not-for-prophet NEVER EXPLAINED what he meant by harf? And then explain from there why your uninspired third caliph destroyed six of these mysterious ahruf which only Allah knows but wasn't pleased to inform Gabriel or Mo know what they exactly were or if they did know then the latter two failed to inform the rest of the Muzzies what they meant and left them in the dark till this day? What a great job Muhammad did in his sunna to guide Muzzies to a better understanding of the not so perfectly preserved Quran!

Fernando said...

The pseudo-learner saide: «So all your criticisms, Fernando, you can re-direct to your friend that ‘learner’»... right... muslim apologists tactic number 2356: the flip-flap off the rotten tomato: since he mistaken mee for another person (and saiyng you onlie created THIS account the week previous does not mean you have nott benn debatting with thaye name previous in other NET sites...) I'll simple skip his critics...

Fernando said...

Rude-muslim saide: «Since the record contains EVERYTHING it would obviously contain ALL revealed texts of the Quran including what Uthman burned and did not burn»... loool... another muslim trying to test some NEW theories to aboide the unavoidable... previous they woulde say that Uthman did not burn anything... no, thate won't stick: the claim that muslim saide thate qur'an was preserved was reffered to the present qur'an you muslims worship as an idolatric object... butt iff they were in allah, who was Uthman to destrou the eternal word off allah? is Uthman bigger than allah? or ebery lie in the worlde can exist in allah?

Fernando said...

rude-muslim... how boring and out off touche withe the reality can someones posts bee? I thought The OSama The Great Abdalah's were #1 in the worlde, butt now your'e in an unbeatable position!!!

ben malik said...

Wow, this guy is on a roll mwith his lies:

Like Nabeel and most other Christian (sorry, I man Jews)you think that there is a tablet in heaven with one Quranic text stamped on it (im guessing the 1924 printed Hafs reading?), and that this is the eternal Quran and that any variation form that on earth is therefore contradicting the tablet.

Such a home-made interpretation will get you nowhere, especially since you cant tell me where it came from.

When you do your homework and read the hadith you’ll find that the tablet is not just a heavenly copy of the Quran, but is in fact a record of EVERTHING that will occur in the future, including the Quran itself.


He pretty much destroyed the Sunni position that the Quran is the eternal speech of Allah! Let me help uneducated by reminding him that the Sunni perversion of Islam says the Quran is UNCREATED. So in light of that could you be so kind as to explain what the mother of the book is supposed to be from whence you derive the Quran?

By the manifest Book (that makes things clear, i.e. this Qur'an). We verily, have made it a Qur'an in Arabic, that you may be able to understand (its meanings and its admonitions). And Verily, it (this Qur'an) is in the Mother of the Book (i.e. Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz), before Us, indeed Exalted, full of Wisdom. Surah 43:2-4

Is this mother created or eternal? If it is created then how can the Quran be uncreated?

And if it is uncreated then how can you liken that to what is recorded in the tablet? Let me simplify this further so you can actually get it. If you say that it is the heavenly tablet which contains all things that Allah wrote down then can you quote a verse which says that this tablet that you speak of is identical to the mother of the book that is also mentioned in Surah 13:39?

In fact this last text raises more problems since it says,

Allah blots out what He wills and confirms (what He wills). And with Him is the Mother of the Book (Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz)

Can you explain what in the world this verse means? Does it mean that Allah blots out thigns from the Quran's mother or from the mother's daughter, meaning the Quran? And then exoplain whether this blotting means that Allah will erase eternal, uncreated verses from the mother or it's duaghter or both, or whether this means that he will free the Muzzies from observing specific commands even though those commands will still remain in the mother and daughter duo?

And also explain why are all those verses which the hadiths mention not part of the Quran? If you say it is because of abrogation then help us understand why some of the abrogated verses are still left in the Quran while these missing clauses, phrases, verses were left out? And do reference your not-for-prophet saying that all of these missing parts of the not-so-perfectly-preserved-Quran-even- though-Muslims-keep-telling-us-it-is are to be removed from the codices?

From there please explain how is the Quran any different from any other person or thing if EVERYTHING is in the heavenly tablet which would make all these other things coextensive with the Quran? So then what makes the Quran so special and how does it differ from anything else in that fantasy tablet of yours?

And tell us which of the seven ahruif happens to be the uncreated Quran? If you tell us that they all are then please explain to us why did Uthamn destroy six of them when it was Allah who decided to reveall ALL OF THEM to your not-for-prophet? If Allah decreed that Uthman would do this then why bother revealing all of them in the first place? Why not simply go with the one that was going to be the official perversion of the Quran and simply enable Mo's Muzzies to understand and memorize it?

I have more for uneducated but I will wait for his uneducated replies first.

Alex Albert said...

Pakistan: Police patrol streets after Christians murdered

Security forces patrolled the streets of the eastern Pakistan city of Gojra on Sunday, one day after seven people were killed and 20 injured when Muslim demonstrators set fire to houses in a Christian enclave and fighting broke out, authorities said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/02/pakistan.sectarian.violence/

B said...

[The Fat Man said: Bassam thats the problem, you have one set of standards for the quran, and a seperate set of standards for the Bible.]

No the problem is that you insist that the same standard has to be applied to both the Bible and the Qur'an.

You can't apply the same criteria to both books. Some major differences between the
two books are...

1- Qur'an was written during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and canonized by his companions who knew him personally. The NT was written after the death of Jesus and canonized by people who never knew him.

2- The mode of revelation is different. The Qur’an was not revealed as a written text, while the Bible was.

3- The mode of transmission is different for the two books. The NT is transmitted via manuscripts only. When an error occurs in one manuscript, be it deliberate or unintentional, many times it is copied by the next scribe making a copy of this manuscript. However, the Quran is transmitted both orally and in writing. The two keep a check on each other, thus eliminating errors.

4- The Qur'an is preserved in its original language, while the Gospels cite people speaking in a different language. Thus, much could be lost through translation, while this doesn’t apply to the Qur’an.

5 - The New Testament is a collection of books authored by multiple authors in different locations over a rough estimated range of 20 to 80 years, whereas the Quran is one book with one author in no more than 2 locations within in a time span of no more than 23 years.

So please tell me how on earth you should insist that we apply the same criteria to both of these very different books?

Furthermore, in the debate I exposed Nabeel's double standards (can you please watch the debate for a change?)

Furthermore, MUSLIMS ARE DOING CHRISTIANS A FAVOR FOR NOT APPLYING THE SAME STANDARD. Our standard for accepting any verse as Qur'anic is very high, which requires multiple independent attestation and acceptance. As for you, you have no problem accepting something as the word of God even though you are not sure who wrote it!

If I applied the Qur'anic standard to the Bible, WE WOULD THROW THE BIBLE RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW BECAUSE IT FAILS TO MEET OUR BASIC CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTANCE.

SO PLEASE DON'T DRAG ME DOWN TO YOUR LEVEL. YOU SHOULD THANK MUSLIMS FOR BEING LENIENT ON YOUR BIBLE, WHICH WOULD NEVER IN YOUR DREAMS MEET THE STANDARD OF AUTHENTICITY OF THE QUR'AN.


[Sepher Shalom said: perhaps you noticed Bassams assertion that the Quranic variants are "inspired", and perhaps you noticed in this thread the very aptly pointed out fact that some "church fathers", such as Origen, also believed the variants of the Brit Chadasha to be divinely inspired. Point being, if I make the claim that this is the case, no Muslim who believes his Quranic variants are inspired can disagree with me.]

Sepher, you have committed the fallacy of appeal to false analogy. The difference is that ISLAM TEACHES THAT THESE VARIANTS ARE INSPIRED, BUT YOUR BIBLE DOES NOT. Origen does not have the same authority in Christianity just as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) does in Islam. Show us where the New Testament teaches us that these variants are inspired. You cannot, but I can show you plenty of authentic hadith that do teach that the seven ahruf are inspired by God.


Regards,

Bassam

B said...

[Sepher Shalom said: Of course, you have just highlighted the exact type of Islamic escape clause that Nabeel mentioned in the debate. For a Muslim, if they find out a goat ate some of a Surah >> It was "abrogated" and that explains it all! How convenient.]

Sepher WATCH MY DEBATE. This was my response:

---As for the goat eating it, how on earth does that prove anything? Did the goat also eat the memories of the companions who memorized those verses? Was that the only hard copy that the several scribes of the Prophet had those verses written on?

Plus, we already know what the verse of stoning is, despite its recital abrogation and despite a goat eating up a paper that contained the verse. Also, notice the inconsistency, Nabeel Qureshi argues that Umar ibn Al Khattab way after the death of the Prophet (peace be upon him), which is way after this incident of the goat occurred eating the paper that contained the verse on stoning wanted to include the verse of stoning into the Qur’an. How is that possible if the goat ate the only paper that contained it?---


[The Fat Man said: Ehteshaam might I sugjest a medication for you its called Zoloft. it can really help with your mood swings. Perhaps you should discuss that with your Doctor, or ask Nabeel for a prescription :)]

Actually if Nabeel wants to be consistent in his argumentation we must be forced to not visit Nabeel for any medical issues.

My response to his argument regarding the goat eating the manuscript was:

---Hey Nabeel, when I was in the eighth grade my dog ate my biology home work, doesn’t that mean that it became impossible for you to have studied biology properly and become a proper doctor? Sorry Nabeel I don’t think you’re a good doctor because my dog ate up precious knowledge that you don’t have anymore!---


Regards,

Bassam

MP said...

One of the biggest signs of living on a lie is the continuous manifestation of more and more inventive tries to create camouflage upon the primordial lie. allah revealed the qur’an; so said Muhammad; the proof is that Muhammad is a prophet; and the proof he’s a prophet is that he, being illiterate, communicated the most perfect book; the qur’an is the most perfect book because no one can make a single verse like those in it; oh… someone di: no problem: let’s kill them; that did not work?; no problem: let’s satar saying he is the most perfect book because it is the best preserved book in the universe because it’s the proper, and eternal, word of allah; oh… someone discovered that was not the case; no problem: let’s create a theory about the 7 eternal versions of the qur’an, even when no one knows what are those; oh… someone discovered a 8th version on a single verse...; no problem: lets create an entire science to justify the discrepancies it the different manuscripts of the qur’an: the quantum reading which will justify all the discrepancies due to the quantum mechanical that states that a single particle of paint can be simultaneously in one place or another; oh… someone refuted that theory; no problem: let’s state that the qur’an can only be read by blind people since allah has no eyes, even when he has a shin. Oops: someone invented a machine to overcome all kind of visual diseases…; no problem: let’s state that the qur’an can only be understood by those who are willing not to see the falsities they believe in; oh… no one is willing to play the role of a stupid and retarded people; no problem: let’s force it onto them or attack others religious books in the hope they can leave us alone because allah revealed the qur’an and Muhammad is his prophet and, being so, everything he did can be done by us: imposing segregation rules; threatening; killing; etc…; oh… no where in those books, because that does not matter, is stated, as it is in the qur’an, that they shall be perfectly preserved, rather than the core message off them will never perish… no problem: let’s play the role of a fool, trying to convey the image we are simply dumb people incapable of understanding the other’s position and lets continue to live in a lye.

Why should someone believe in a religion that is so full of lies and tactics not to assume the true? Rather be an atheist than believe in a false god that dictated a book that even a child could do better: in general knowledge and in logical structure.

Fifth Monarchy Man said...

Hey Educating Christians

You said

Why therefore should I place my eternal salvation in such a error-ridden book?


I said:
As I’ve all ready made clear this is a gross misunderstanding on your part.
No Christian places his hope for eternal salvation in any book. That’s the difference between us and you.

We trust our eternal salvation to Jesus Christ and he insures us that everything we need is preserved in our Bible. Our rich manuscript tradition gives us complete confidence that this was the case.

You on the other hand trust your eternal salvation to an error prone book and you have no idea how error prone it is because most all the evidence has been burned.

peace

el Lobo said...

Salaam aleikum dear brothers: Learner and Educating_Christians

I must say that i'm very impressed by your knowledge and rethorical skills.

It's one thing to engage in a debate without knowledge as unfortunatley many muslims and non-muslims do. It's an enterily different matter to engage in a debate with knowledge. This is pure Jihad from beginning to end. Why do I say that?
Because it's an effort acquiring knowledge i.e the beginning and its an effort putting it to use, i.e the end.
May Allah reward you for your great work!

With kind regards,
Zakaria

Osama Abdallah said...

"Wait a second. You have GOT to be kidding me. Osama Abdallah QUOTING A HADITH? Isnt this the same guy that totally and utterly repudiates any Hadith as unreliable and fabricated that his opponent quotes to him in debates? Osama, why is that Hadith about controling ones anger authentic? Because its positive about Muhammad? What criterion do you utilize here?"

Get your information right. I do not reject the Hadiths. I follow and respect our Scholars who use the Science of Hadiths as the criteria to determine the true from false Hadith.

Osama Abdallah
www.answering-christianity.com

Unknown said...

@: Learner:

(I accused you copy-pasting debunked arguments without examining them or their refutations,)

I dont see how any of these refutations is covincing to muslims, ( like what muslims do to try to prove jesus was not crucified, do u think any of these refutations are convincing to anyone, even for non christians - non muslim ?? not at all)
Now, lets see why:


Great that U agree that there culd be scribal errors , cool.

So what decide which one is the true version, the on in hand , or the one in the MSS ?? and the people who used this MSS were using were mislead ?!! they were people like claiming what they have is the most perfectly preserved book, and rember that was very early on!!

Now if U admitted the factor of Human error ( in writing) , then this allows human error to be a factor in transmission , Good. So does this eleminate the fact that human error could be in reciting verses when they were documented in quran ?? no .. it is the same story !!

I think tha the perfect quran that we shoul compare to it , is the Preserved Tablet Mentioned in SUrah 85:21-22, so did it inclde any of these varaitions ? which Ahruf did include ? And Dont tell me that this tablet is metaphorical, cause all Commentaries like Tabari, Kortobi, Galaein, EL Baghawy ...etc .. Said the opposite !!

Let me know which earlier manuscripts that showed the opposite , I would be happy to investigate this myself, and see the pictures as I did wih Samarqand

{Would the pope ever allow a Muslim scholar into the Vatican library to cut away at NT MSS and take them back to Saudi Arabia for Carbon dating!)

Well , the yemenian Governament didn have a problem in the begining and they invited the scholars to work on , and they even have been working on it for long years. Also they Allowed Decore like u mentioned, and organised by Prof Christian Robinso SO, what exactly was the problem in bringing up a western scholar ?!! are u trying to make your own excuses ?! that the reason they are non muslims ?????

Second , In the west, People are not biased at all about religion like Muslims. like they dont do researches to prove quran is true or wrong. But muslim, research urine , and flies trying to prove their religion is true.

(3) Publication of such material often takes time. Look at the Dead Sea scroll. They were discovered in 1947-56 yet not FULLY published till 1991)

Sir , I know,, But in this case, the Islamic authorities stopped the work on the MSS !!! So it will never be publishe even after 50 years !!

Unknown said...

Learner:

Regarding your second response:

Would u share with us where u get these information from ?? the only sources I found for this so far, are islamic sources, like muslim awareness, so is there any offical reknowend reliable sources to further investigate this issues, ??

Thanks

Unknown said...

Educating christian said:

{When you do your homework and read the hadith you’ll find that the tablet is not just a heavenly copy of the Quran, but is in fact a record of EVERTHING that will occur in the future, including the Quran itself.}


He is getting against all great mulsim commentaries, like Tabari Kortobi, El Baghawy, El Galalein ... and so many others.

If u dont wanna show respect to them , that fine to us, put them in the Garbage can, and dont use them again asa refernce in your debates.
And please dont forge to tell u muslim fellows your opinion that u want to correct the well know established meaning of SURAH 85:21-22

A Glorious Quran in a preserved Tablet !!

Tabri and severl other commentaries for said this tablet is in the forhead of Angel Called Israffeel. El Baghawy Said it is in above the Seventh heaven !!

Unknown said...

Educating himself said:

(A child could tell you. Since the record contains EVERYTHING it would obviously contain ALL revealed texts of the Quran including what Uthman burned and did not burn.

The preservation of the Quran today remains untouched either way.)

The preservation is untouched, bu the one u have has been manipulated with !!

Look sir, to make i simple:

a- If the tablet contacined all varaiations, then r book is not complete as Uthman burnt the rest of variations.

b- If the Tablet has just One of the & ahruf, then Ur book is corrupted cause it conatains variations !!

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


Now let me say what Uthman did by burning some of the variation swas against the Revelation of the Angel, why: Comapre these two Hadiths:

1: Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Abbas: Allah's Apostle said, "Gabriel recited the Qur'an to me in one way. Then I requested him (to read it in another way), and continued asking him to recite it in other ways, and he recited it in several ways till he ultimately recited it in seven different ways."

Sahih Bukhari 6:61:513, See Also Sahih Bukhari 4:54:442, Sahih Muslim 4:1785, Sahih Muslim 4:1786, Sahih Muslim 4:1787, Sahih Muslim 4:1788


2: When the lads and their teachers fought against each other during the era of ’Uthman due to the difference in reading (the Qur’anic text), he (’Uthman) standardized the reading and made people recite it accordingly because he was afraid of riots since the Iraqis and the Damascenes disagreed on the dialect. But before that, the Qur’anic copies (used to be read) on the basis of the Seven Letters in which the Qur’an was given."

The Itqan" by Suyuti Paragraph 1, Page 170 and 171

So uthman Corrupted the revelation that the angle revealed to Muhamed (SBUH)

Unknown said...

Learner:

About 300 or so folios from the Sana MSS have been published on the UNESCO CD


!st: This is to Show evolution of arabic Clligraphy,
2nd: I think I said , yes the project started , and revealed some parts .. but the projet frozen up , how is that conflicting with with what I said ??!!

Unknown said...

And For you Muslims Who speak about variation delibratly and argues the preserved tablet concept, review Ibn Kathir first

http://books.google.ca/books?id=isDgI0-0Ip4C&pg=PA505&lpg=PA505&dq=ibn+kathir+preserved+tablet&source=bl&ots=5TrzCKZmFx&sig=eU2qkPyw8jKZ2of_e596sFkbNyg&hl=en&ei=e-x1St7aGZWBtweG2NiWCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=ibn%20kathir%20preserved%20tablet&f=false


Here it say clearly:

Allah Created the Quran Eternally in the Preserved Tablet ( Al louh Al mahfouz), then send it down, and revealed over 13 years. This is refered to as the Mother of the Book. And muslims claim that They have a very accuarate quran that is copy of this Tablet !!

So where the variations came from ?????????????????????????

Fernando said...

ashraf said... "dear sir where is the Gospel of Jesus(injeel)? when you guys are going to publish it?"... no one except the muslims say Jesus wrotte anything (except in the sand...)... when will these muslims satrat to know anithing before they star talkin aboutte the others? Neber, I guess... ignorance is, seing from theire examples, by far more interesting: a worlde full off surprises...

Unknown said...

Ashraf Said:
[dear sir where is the Gospel of Jesus(injeel)? when you guys are going to publish it?]


Dear Sir, who said that Jesus came to write a gospel ?! is there any evidence or historialc quotatios that siad that Jesus wrote a gospel ?!

Well Not at all. I bet you.

So only evidence u have, is a more than half a millenium Muhammd quotation who said that. Then Dont as k us, ask him, cause he is the one who claimed so... ask him where did he bring this wrong infromation from, is there any bit of evidence that supports his claim ??

Fernando said...

List off Bassam lies:

1) qur'an was written during the lifetime of muhammad and canonized by his companions who knew him personally... no it was nott: the qur'an you habe today, withe all off it's specificities, was written after muhammad's liffe and canonized by someone more interested in his political goals than in anything else

2) the qur’an was not revealed as a written text and the Bible was... «no: the qur'an was dictated from an eternal text (the text is previous to the revelation); the Bible was written after the inspiration (the text appers after the revelation)»

3) The NT is transmitted via manuscripts only. When an error occurs in one manuscript, be it deliberate or unintentional, many times it is copied by the next scribe making a copy of this manuscript. «no my friend: habe you eber listened talkin aboutt the tradition that comentates continuously the books? and does so in different languages and in diferent places making impossible to manipulate the text and allowing to check it's authenticity?... yes, I know you habe... However, the Quran is transmitted both orally and in writing. The two keep a check on each other, thus eliminating errors... no it does not... the oral mumbo jumbo is only that: mumbo jumbo... no two different muslims woulde writte the same thing listenming to 2 top memorizers... more: the internal transmition off the NT text and those comentaries I mentioned function a thousand ways better than you'rs mumbo jambu...

4) The qur'an is preserved in its original language, while the Gospels cite people speaking in a different language. Thus, much could be lost through translation, while this doesn’t apply to the qur’an... no, my friend, the Gospels contains the message God wanted them to containe the way they containe... it does not containe ebery single word of Jesus, for instance, only those capital to His soteriological revelation... so: it's nott a problem the fact thate His wordes were translated: the final written text is whate constitutes the goal off the revelatory process... and the factte the qur'an keeps is original language does nott mean anything... except that it's linguistic capacity is very poor... an example off the reality off allah?...

5) The New Testament is a collection of books authored by multiple authors in different locations over a rough estimated range of 20 to 80 years, whereas the Quran is one book with one author in no more than 2 locations within in a time span of no more than 23 years... and? in coart off law, whate woulde be more strongue ebidence for true: teh claim made by a single person without external verification, or made by several persons in several places and several times? I guess you understand whate I mean...

Bassam: on other side you are absolutellie correct: Chrsitians shoulde not impose our hermeneutical rules upon the qur'an and muslims shoulde nott impose theirs hermeneitical rules upon the Holy Bible... butt the same neutral critical-historical methods off evaluation off credebility and historicity off ANY text can be applied to bothe off them, and there, mie friend, the sacience as allerady spoken even when some pseudo-schoolars do not want to do whate they do the same to the qur'an as they do to the Bible...

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating_Christians said: "So you’re a Jew?

Do you mean you’re one of those Jews who believes that Jesus was nothing but a 1st century David Blaine and false prophet who is currently burning in a tub of hot excrement?

Or are you one of those ‘Jews’ who believe Jesus was God, yet refuse to call yourself a ‘Christian’ due to some kind of racial hang up?

If it’s the latter then, for the record, I don’t care if you’re a ‘Jew’ or not, anymore than I care if your black or white."


You are extremely disrespectful and sorely lacking in manners. I have to wonder if you deal with people in real life in this same inappropriate manner?

My beliefs are not some "racial hang-up". Nazarene Judaism is a theological position, not a racial issue. You have just demonstrated yourself to be woefully ignorant, assumptive, and down right rude. This is the whole reason why I mentioned that my theology is not Christian in the first place. I have no problem if someone who does not know about my beliefs calls me a Christian [Christians are my brothers and sisters in Messiah], but in the context of this type of discussion you need to be corrected. You are ranting on and on about "Evangelicals", and clearly this is the group you have in mind in your comments, and clearly you assumed I fall into that group. I was attempting to do you a favor by informing you that you are speaking with someone that has certain theological distinctives. These differences actually matter, regardless of your tone and assertions to the contrary. I was attempting to further a useful dialogue by allowing you to understand what position the person you are speaking with is coming from. If you can't even bother to take the time to understand what the beliefs of the person you are speaking with are, why should I seriously spend my time trying to talk with you? It seems rather than actually have a meaningful dialogue and respect my right to self-identification, you want to dismiss these issues as somehow not important.

To have you put 'Jews' in parenthesis like that is about the most offensive thing you could do towards me in print. It's bothersome enough when a Jewish person dismisses the right of a Messianic believer to still be Jewish and practice Judaism, but I will not allow a Muslim to have the hubris and mistaken belief that he has the right to go around determining who is a Jew and who is not. You don't grant Jewishness to anyone.

You posted the above comment with the intention to offend. This is clearly part of your strategy when engaging in these types of discussions. You want to irritate and aggravate your opponent whenever possible while attempting to refute them. I find that very distasteful. That is to say, the way you convey your information is distasteful. I hope this is merely your online persona and not how you conduct yourself in real life. You new full well that your comments would be extremely offensive to me.

You can give me a sincere apology, one human to another, [which I will accept if it is sincere] and then I will consider if I want to continue any sort of dialogue with you. I look forward to your opportunity to correct what I am sure was merely a lapse in judgment and etiquette in the heat of debate.

Unknown said...

Bassam Said:

5 - The New Testament is a collection of books authored by multiple authors in different locations over a rough estimated range of 20 to 80 years, whereas the Quran is one book with one author in no more than 2 locations within in a time span of no more than 23 years.

My comment:

Yes the bible is multiple authors, but one oper each book.

Lets compare it to the quran practically.

In the case of the quran u have several links of which many parts are missing:

1: Angel
2: Muammed
3: peope who wrote it down
4: Peope who meorized / or kept parts ...

3 & 4 are the people from whom the quqn actually was formed

5: collector

6: witnesses

So , u can see how many people are missing in the chain of transmission here. For instance do u know who is the one who recited verse 40-70 in surah Al Baqara ?? Who collected this part? who witnessed that ?? if u know , please inform me

So u claim it is singles author, but practically this author did nothing in the formation of the book, except trying to dictate the reciters... but he never proof read what is written. Even More hw had forgotten parts of what h recitted earlier. And he ner authored the book, or collected it himself. So it is kind of like Honorary Author.

Unknown said...

Bassam Said:

The Qur'an is preserved in its original language, while the Gospels cite people speaking in a different language. Thus, much could be lost through translation, while this doesn’t apply to the Qur’an.

My comment:

can u prove what is that much that was lost in translation ?!

The translation of the bible is ont of the most accurate translations in the world.

Compare it to the translation of your quran, it avoided many words to be translated, like FOROG = external female genitalia. Nekah : whic means Sexual intercourse, was trabslated to marriage. Allah khayrr el Makereen: Means All the most deciever wicked, was translated best planner !!!


So no way to compare translation, of quran. The examples are just too much to mention.

Also: Bible is revelation of meaning: Like God Siad dont commit adulater, so u are free t say it in any language want, to deliver the message, it wouldnt make any sense to tell some whod doesnt speak englis, dont comit adultery !!!

But In quran, it was written in a very old tribal language, not use now, so u definitely have trouble understanding it meaning ... for insance read Surah: Al odayat in arabic to an arabic speaker , wow, it wouldnt make any sense !!! Ow those nonsense letter in the quran e.g Alef lam Meem , how would u translate that ?! it doesnt have any meaning !!! Just speculations !!

So the quran being meaningless, it wasnt not a good candidate to be translated, unlike the bible !!

Ehteshaam Gulam said...

yes I actually agree with Bassam when he speaks of both the Quran and the Bible.

The Quran is most perfectly perversed book-- while the earliest N.T. writings came at least 20 years after Jesus ascension. Even William Muir says the Quran has been perserved.

And FAT MAN leave me alone. I don't want to speak to you. From now on I only want to discuss religion with these people: Nabeel Qureshi, Osama Abudullah, Mary Jo Sharp, Sepher Shalom, Hogan Elijah Hagbard, Bassam, Royal Son and thats it. The rest of the people, I am not going to entertain any discussions with them since its becoming pointless.

Unknown said...

Bassam Said:

Qur'an was written during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and canonized by his companions who knew him personally. The NT was written after the death of Jesus and canonized by people who never knew him

I say:

The type of message is Different.

The NT message is Jesus Himself. So How would u expect they would write about jesus before he is crucified or Resurrected, What are they going to preach the people with ?!! Jesus was already teaching the people durin his life time, but his teaching is not the core of the message. He was not a philosphical teacher to teach people so he should write a mesage. No.. He was The message himself, about whom the whole Old testment spoke about, and the whole NT preach !

Compare this to the quran, which is supposed to be The word of Allah directly Revealed to people through Muhammed, what did people do with this word ?! tey wrote it down on stones leaves , weird studd... ok not a problem, did any of them preserved this as a Holy Tablet ?! No !! all lost ..muslims didnt repsect the proclaimed divine word !! Were it every collected during muahamed time as a precious thing No.. they waited untill his death... then years later Abu Bakr ... and if it was not complete which shows us that no one really knew what was supposed to be in there , they just collect what they fouund and think it is quran...Then this version didnt suit Uthman, so he did what he id, added some more ( I dont know where were these parts before) then burnt all the rest of sources what was supposed to be quran.. burnt them !! U say because it conatins word of allah... well that is not the cause why he burnt them , the Hadith siad it Clearly, to prevent fitna !! not because it carries the name of Allah !!

About Canonization: I spoke earlier about this, but ...Let me address how Muslims Canonized the quran ?! Burning the rest of the 6 ahruf revealed by the Angel ... do u call this canonization , or Deliberate Corruption by te companion ?! (See the hadith above)


But the NT canonizations mean that we already have the NT , but it was not in one book. But it was used among all churches, and when Forgeries started to appear, the Church warned the beliver not to use any book other the NT we already have .. this is canonization... it is not sort of pick and choose like in Quran !!

Unknown said...

Bassam:

The mode of transmission is different for the two books. The NT is transmitted via manuscripts only. When an error occurs in one manuscript, be it deliberate or unintentional, many times it is copied by the next scribe making a copy of this manuscript. However, the Quran is transmitted both orally and in writing. The two keep a check on each other, thus eliminating errors.


I say:

The Human Memory is defective, u cant really count on it and say that was exactly what muahmmed said !! even Muhammed forgot parts of the quran !! and the followers came telling him they forgot parts of the quran !! so his answer was, it was abrogate yesterday ( that was funny)

So if muahmmed forgot parts of the quran, and he is the main author, wha would the followers do ?!

Also Many Hadith Clearly mentioned parts that was lost from the quran, like what Aisha, Ibn Khattab, Ubay Ibn Kabb Said .. t was lost... how on earth would the best generation say they lost parts of quran, if hey had great memory ?????

About The NT , u can collect the whole NT, from the early church father saying, if that satisfies your oral transmission issue

Unknown said...

Bassam said:

Our standard for accepting any verse as Qur'anic is very high, which requires multiple independent attestation and acceptance. As for you, you have no problem accepting something as the word of God even though you
are not sure who wrote it!

Any bit of evidence that we accept anything without standards ?!! or u r just giving false claims like what muhammed used to do in the past , without giving evidence ?! ( like he said Jesu was not crucified, or Ezra son of Go, and muslim just believe without investigation)


And Please let us know this High Quranic Standard you apply ... is just people testimonies ?? we of course we wouldnt solely depend on people testimonies like u , so that is true, there is no way to compare !!


[The difference is that ISLAM TEACHES THAT THESE VARIANTS ARE INSPIRED, BUT YOUR BIBLE DOES NO]

inspired variation, that funny .. but even though, why uthman burnt the rest of the Variants , if they were isnpired

let me quote u:

"When the lads and their teachers fought against each other during the era of ’Uthman due to the difference in reading (the Qur’anic text), he (’Uthman) standardized the reading and made people recite it accordingly because he was afraid of riots since the Iraqis and the Damascenes disagreed on the dialect. But before that, the Qur’anic copies (used to be read) on the basis of the Seven Letters in which the Qur’an was given."

Se before that there were seven Ahruf , so yes variations that u claim are inspired are gone !!!

We dont have Single variant in any of the chistian Doctrines in the Bible !!


Bassam:
[---As for the goat eating it, how on earth does that prove anything? Did the goat also eat the memories of the companions who memorized those verses? Was that the only hard copy that the several scribes of the Prophet had those verses written on? ]

But not every one had a complete copy of the quran, otherwise why it was collected. So yes , people didnt have copies at home.
As for memory, that what Aisha, and Ibn Khattab said, they remember it was there, and it was lost !! so yes, memory worked here, but iw was defectife to restore the exact verse !!

[Plus, we already know what the verse of stoning is, despite its recital abrogation and despite a goat eating up a paper that contained the verse.]

How do u say u already know. Aisha never said it was abrogated. U know who Aisha is, ( muhammed said take half of your religion from this little donkey) so for instance she said about adult suckling, she siad the verse it was there, and was abrogated from ten to 5 satifactory suckles. And she added the verse was lost, DO U KNOW MORE THAN HER ?! that us say these were abrogated ??????

[Umar ibn Al Khattab way after the death of the Prophet (peace be upon him), which is way after this incident of the goat occurred eating the paper that contained the verse on stoning wanted to include the verse of stoning into the Qur’an. How is that possible if the goat ate the only paper that contained it?---]

Yes it is unlogical, I aagree. so go ask umar ibn il Khattab, if he was lying, or he didnt know, and u know better than him. Ask him why he said that, and if u want to correct him, please bring us a hadith in which he corrects himself, and not u trying to correct him. Thanks

[Hey Nabeel, when I was in the eighth grade my dog ate my biology home work]

wow u are comapring quran, to biology homewrok

- does the biology homework claims perfect preservation?

- does the priniing technology now, is by anyway comapred to 7th century. If it wa the only biology book u have, then definiteyly, u have lost a lot !!

- Also thats what Ibn Khattab said, he dont have the text, he has the information. So same stor, u dont have the biology book text, but u can treat the dog !!

what is conflicting here ????

minoria said...

Bassam says Muslims have very high standards regarding the Koran.And that if applied to the Bible it would be rejected by Muslim standards.But before,it's 837,000 hits in youtube in only 4 weeks!

So for argument let's reject the Bible and Christianity is false.I like the MINIMALIST position.The Koran says the Bible is corrupt,let's grant it.

That in spite of being corrupt Mohammed is in the Torah.Granted again.

That he's also in the GOSPEL.

APPLYING THE SAME HIGH STANDARDS

So Mohammed OBLIGATORILY has to be in the Gospel.Muslims then find him in the Gospel.But in other to do that they LOWER the standard below what is logical.

One has to use the same standards.But it isn't done.It's a fact.There is inconsistency here.

JOHN WRITTEN IN THE THIRD PERSON

One argument used in Muslim literature against Matthew literally being by Matthew and John by John is that they don't say ''I'',FIRST PERSON.

But that it is ''he'',THIRD PERSON.

OTHER CASES

Yet in history several famous people have written of their LIFE experiences using the THIRD PERSON(he):Xenophon,pupil of Socrates,Julius Ceaser,Ramon Llull(famous philosopher and poet of the Middle Ages) and Bartolome de Las Casas,Spanish priest who succeeded in having Indian slavery outlawed by the Spanish king in 1547,and who was also against black slavery.

Nakdimon said...

@ Bassam 1/3

Bassam: 1- Qur'an was written during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and canonized by his companions who knew him personally. The NT was written after the death of Jesus and canonized by people who never knew him.

Sorry my friend, but this is a bogus claim. The Quran COULD NOT have been written in the time of your prophet. If it was, can you then tell me why Umar was afraid that the Quran would become LOST because of the many casualties among the memoriser of the Quran?? See those Hadiths are mutually exclusive: EITHER it was written down and therefore it wouldn’t matter if the people who memorized the Quran were dying in batches, OR it was NOT written down during Muhammad’s life and therefore Umar was right to be afraid or it getting lost because those who memorized it were dying in batches. BOTH CANNOT BE TRUE!

The NT was written after the death of Yeshua by eyewitnesses or those who knew the eyewitnesses and compiled later. Compilation, however, has no impact on the integrity of the NT itself, since the text of, for example, an epistle doesn’t change the meaning of an epistle after it is compiled into a codex!

2- The mode of revelation is different. The Qur’an was not revealed as a written text, while the Bible was.

Which is correct. But as seen in my rebuttal of point 1, we still have to determine if it was penned down from the lips of Muhammad or if it was penned down by the Quran-verses-hunting-Zayd bin Thabit. Once you figured that out, let us know.

3- The mode of transmission is different for the two books. The NT is transmitted via manuscripts only. When an error occurs in one manuscript, be it deliberate or unintentional, many times it is copied by the next scribe making a copy of this manuscript. However, the Quran is transmitted both orally and in writing. The two keep a check on each other, thus eliminating errors.

Right again, the only problem is that the Muslim position DEMANDS DELETION from the supposed original Injeel to get to a first century form of Islam, with your unfounded claim that Yeshua and his talmidim were Muslims and not Jews practicing Judaism. There has only been additions to the text. And because of the vast number of textual evidence that we do have, we can point you to each and every addition and/or variant reading that we do have. This poses a problem for Islam. Since according to your own sources:

· Surah 33 was supposed to be 200 verses long. It is now 73 verses long. Where is the rest?
· Certain verses were only found with one person. How do you know that there were not more verses that could only be found with one person that had already died?
· That the previous point holds weight can be substantiated by the fact that Ibn Umar says “Much of the Quran that was sent down was known by those who died on the day of Yamama” and that these verses were not found with any person after that. In other words, those who died in that battle took those verses with them into their graves! I know of your claim that you accredit Zayd bin Thabit to be a memoriser of the Quran, but that is just your claim. And IF Zayd bin Thabit memorized the whole thing, why did he go around LOOKING for Quranic verses, sometimes not finding verses with others than a single person?
· It is no wonder that Ibn Umar tells you, Bassam, that you are in no position to say that you have no basis to say that you have the entire text of the Quran, but only what is left of it!

So where we have additions to the texts, which means that nothing is taken OUT of the text of the NT, you have left overs of the Quran, since much had been lost, according to your own sources.

Nakdimon said...

@ Bassam 2/3

4- The Qur'an is preserved in its original language, while the Gospels cite people speaking in a different language. Thus, much could be lost through translation, while this doesn’t apply to the Qur’an.

MUCH could be lost? Like what? A teaching that might point to something Islamic if it were in the Hebrew or Aramaic? You can make this claim for just a few instances, but what you demand here is, again, a wholesale loss of “original meaning” that simply cannot be proven by either you or any scholar you bring to the table! So this has absolutely nothing to do with the textual integrity of the NT.


5 - The New Testament is a collection of books authored by multiple authors in different locations over a rough estimated range of 20 to 80 years, whereas the Quran is one book with one author in no more than 2 locations within in a time span of no more than 23 years.

Which, again, takes nothing away from the integrity of the text of the NT, since, as I have explained in point 1, the compilation of multiple letters into one codex doesn’t change the text of those multiple letters! And even if there are variants in the text the worst that has happened are ADDITIONS and NOT DELETIONS, which is a requirement to support the Muslim position that Christianity was supposed to be Islam but got corrupted into Christianity.

So please tell me how on earth you should insist that we apply the same criteria to both of these very different books?

Wow! Are you actually saying that since they have different ways of transmission and preservation and revelation, we should apply different standards to these books? Sorry Bassam, but a book is a book and the Quran is nothing different from a book. So therefore it falls under the same criteria as any other book, regardless of how it has been revealed, transmitted or preserved. Since you claim the opposite, can you tell me based on what scholarly opinion do you demand a different approach to the Quran than to the NT?

Furthermore, in the debate I exposed Nabeel's double standards (can you please watch the debate for a change?)

Double standards like what? Can you give me some examples, because I think I’ve missed them.

Furthermore, MUSLIMS ARE DOING CHRISTIANS A FAVOR FOR NOT APPLYING THE SAME STANDARD. Our standard for accepting any verse as Qur'anic is very high, which requires multiple independent attestation and acceptance. As for you, you have no problem accepting something as the word of God even though you are not sure who wrote it!

That is the problem. We have tradition telling us who wrote our books. YOU HAVE THE SAME PROOF, NAMELY TRADITION, TELLING YOU WHO WROTE YOUR BOOK! So how on earth do you think you have any more certainty that you are in a better position than we are? And for the record, the Quran contains many errors of basic things on what Jews believe, what Christians believe, on what historically actually happened, not living up to its own standards, etc. This can be easily demonstrated. And since the Quran tells you that if you see an error in it, you can regard it as not from God, you can do just that. But I’ll wait for you to challenge me on that.

Nakdimon said...

@ Bassam 3/3

If I applied the Qur'anic standard to the Bible, WE WOULD THROW THE BIBLE RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW BECAUSE IT FAILS TO MEET OUR BASIC CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTANCE.

SO PLEASE DON'T DRAG ME DOWN TO YOUR LEVEL. YOU SHOULD THANK MUSLIMS FOR BEING LENIENT ON YOUR BIBLE, WHICH WOULD NEVER IN YOUR DREAMS MEET THE STANDARD OF AUTHENTICITY OF THE QUR'AN.


Please safe us the drama, Bassam! It is amply attested that due to the NT textual tradition, the NT is the best attested manuscript in ancient history that mankind has ever known. ALMOST ALL reputable scholars think that the NT are a reliable set of documents that accurately give us the account of the first century events that it describes. NONE say that they cant trust those documents because there has been clearly been tampering to the extend that the “Islamic flavor” of the first century events are lost because of that tampering. So maybe you should STOP being lenient and actually START providing evidence for your untenable position that the NT is a set of unreliable documents that have distorted an otherwise Islamic message of Yeshua haNotzri! OK?


Sepher, you have committed the fallacy of appeal to false analogy. The difference is that ISLAM TEACHES THAT THESE VARIANTS ARE INSPIRED, BUT YOUR BIBLE DOES NOT. Origen does not have the same authority in Christianity just as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) does in Islam. Show us where the New Testament teaches us that these variants are inspired. You cannot, but I can show you plenty of authentic hadith that do teach that the seven ahruf are inspired by God.

So let me get this straight: missing words and added words in different manuscripts are “inspired”? And I wouldn’t boast about Muhammad’s intelligence or integrity if I were you, because he made enough false claims about other people (i.e. Jews and Christians) that make him look far less reliable than Origen. Again, challenge me on this and I’ll provide the proof for what I’m saying.

Actually if Nabeel wants to be consistent in his argumentation we must be forced to not visit Nabeel for any medical issues.

Again, another very bad analogy! If a few pages of a medical book are eaten, there are other copies that contain that medical data and thus we can safely visit Nabeel for a physical check up. However, THERE WAS ONLY ONE QURAN! If a verse has been eaten, due to carelessness of the people that were entrusted with the “manuscript”, then there are no other copies left to look it up. And I have to ask again, if a goat can make sure that a verse is not in the Quran, when it should be, then how on earth do you claim that the Quran contains everything that should be in there?


Shalom aleicha,
Nakdimon

Unknown said...

part 1 of 2
[Shafsa wrote: So what decide which one is the true version, the on in hand , or the one in the MSS ?? and the people who used this MSS were using were mislead ?!! they were people like claiming what they have is the most perfectly preserved book, and rember that was very early on!! Now if U admitted the factor of Human error ( in writing) , then this allows human error to be a factor in transmission , Good. So does this eleminate the fact that human error could be in reciting verses when they were documented in quran ?? no .. it is the same story !!]

Shafsa, you have not grasped of what I argued. The current images that you see on public domain for the Samarqand manuscript is from a defective facsimile, not from the original manuscript. The original manuscript in its early years did not have lacuna in it, nor did it have worn out ink which was in many places mistakenly restored centuries later by incompetent Pissareff. So the question of early people being misled doesn't arise. Furthermore, we have a concurrent oral transmission which would pick up any mistakes in a copy of the Qur'an. This is possible because we have whole Qur'an memorisers at each era in the Islamic history. Investigate how even today the Quran is printed and circulated for public use anywhere in the Muslim world. The written/printed Qur'an is checked and verified by Independant Huffaz or memorisers of the whole Qur'an, It is IMPOSSIBLE for the Quran to be printed and circulated widely with errors in them and not get noticed shortly. This is how the Qur'an is protected from any tamperings even today! However, this is unlike the New Testament. Errors can be introduced by incompetent scribes, or even intentionally, and would be copied and recopied without knowing that an error had taken place. NT scribes, to my knowledge, did not memorise the text they were transmitting. Take the example of 1 John 5:7. For hundreds of years English speaking Christians believed that they were reading this verse from God; only centuries later to realise that this was a pious forgery.

Traditionally the Qur'an is taught (using the written text as an aid for students) by the Qur'an teacher who is a Hafiz or a memoriser of the whole Qur'an and has a certificate from his/her teacher(s) to teach. There is no question of teaching/learning from a 'corrupted' written text. I personally have been to such Quran classes. Just visit a Madrasah where Quran is taught for memorisation if you are able to. I would recommend you to read this book which will give you the Muslim educational methodology and is precisely on the subject we are discussing:

The History of The Qur'anic Text. by Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami.

Nabeel had this on the table while debating Bassam.

Unknown said...

part 2 of 2

[shafsa wrote: I think tha the perfect quran that we shoul compare to it , is the Preserved Tablet Mentioned in SUrah 85:21-22, so did it inclde any of these varaitions ? which Ahruf did include ? And Dont tell me that this tablet is metaphorical, cause all Commentaries like Tabari, Kortobi, Galaein, EL Baghawy ...etc .. Said the opposite !!]

I think the Christians in this forum have gross misunderstanding of what the Preserved Tablet is. The Preserved Tablet is not a replica of our Qur'an or vice versa. It is a record with God which includes everything, even what you and I are writing, including your spelling mistakes!

[Second , In the west, People are not biased at all about religion like Muslims. like they dont do researches to prove quran is true or wrong. But muslim, research urine , and flies trying to prove their religion is true.]

Muslims are not doing researches simply to prove their religion to be true; in fact one of the reasons I would say is individuals like yourself go about saying that there is absurdity in it which prompts scholars to pursue scientific research on these issues. And thanks to you, the research has establised these to be accurate. (Discussions for another time.)

[Sir , I know,, But in this case, the Islamic authorities stopped the work on the MSS !!! So it will never be publishe even after 50 years !! ]

Read my earlier post with attention. The work on these manuscripts are still ongoing today AND they are being published.

[Would u share with us where u get these information from ?? the only sources I found for this so far, are islamic sources, like muslim awareness, so is there any offical reknowend reliable sources to further investigate this issues, ??]

Try visiting university libraries which has academic journals and books on the subject at hand. Information from peer reviewed journals are generally reliable.

Regards

Nakdimon said...

Edu_chris:So you’re a Jew?

Do you mean you’re one of those Jews who believes that Jesus was nothing but a 1st century David Blaine and false prophet who is currently burning in a tub of hot excrement?

Or are you one of those ‘Jews’ who believe Jesus was God, yet refuse to call yourself a ‘Christian’ due to some kind of racial hang up?


WOW! When will Muslims finally get out of their Jew-bashing mode? Considering Sepher defends the NT and believes that Yeshua is the Son of God, you have no reason to think that he holds the former position.


When you do your homework and read the hadith you’ll find that the tablet is not just a heavenly copy of the Quran, but is in fact a record of EVERTHING that will occur in the future, including the Quran itself.

Here you go..

...He said, "First of all, there was nothing but Allah, and (then He created His Throne). His throne was over the water, and He wrote everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and created the Heavens and the Earth...

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 414)


Furthermore, in proving its not just the Quran God wrote on the tablet:

Allah's Apostle said, "When Allah completed the creation, He wrote in His Book which is with Him on His Throne, "My Mercy overpowers My Anger."

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 416)



So from this info we are to assume that this encompasses the Quran? And how is that substantiated by this narration?

Thirdly, Muslims don’t say that there are inspired variant in the Quran on the mere say so of some early Muslim writing about 200 years after Mouhammed, as you now do with Orgian.

We do so because that’s what OUR PROPHET said.

So while our reasoning if firmly routed in our faith by our Prophet, yours is nothing but a desperate Ad Hoc excuse based on the one-off, uninspired rambling of some random church father who did even always see it that way!

Can you see the difference now?


You mean the same prophet that made all those erroneous claims and still claimed to be inspired? Oh btw, the only difference between Origen and Muhammad is that Origen didn’t consider “abrogation”.


So the accodrig to Bart the Holy Spirt did a 99% job in preserving his Divine Word. That’s good to know.

And isn’t that the same Bart Ehrman who rejected his infallible view of the New Testamnet BECAUSE of manuscript variants?

I wouldn’t mention him again if I were you. ;-)


Dude, get your fact straight! Ehrmann rejects the Divine inspiration of the NT because we don’t have the ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS! This hyper-skepticism leads to Ehrmann rejecting ANY BOOK, yes INCLUDING THE QURAN, of which we don’t have the original. This illogical position, however, says nothing about the reliability of the NT.

In addition, we never made the claim of perfect preservation of the NT. Muslims DO! To us it is not the question if the NT is perfectly preserved, but if it is a reliable source or not. Its ironic to see you guys thinking that a document has to be perfectly preserved in order to be reliable. But it doesn’t work that way, bud. And it was also interesting to see Bassam lower the bar for the Quran being “perfectly preserved”. Certain scholars, such as Maududi, and many many Muslims claim that the Quran is preserved “to the dot” and that there are “no variants in the MSS” at all. I was shocked to hear Bassam take another stance from that position.


Why therefore should I place my eternal salvation in such a error-ridden book?

Ok I think its time to come with some examples about where we cant be sure what the text of the NT says in what place and why we cant be sure about its original meaning. Please provide some references, since you claimed our scriptures are hopelessly flawed. And based on what scholarship do you conclude that the NT is error-ridden and therefore unreliable?


Nakdimon

Nakdimon said...

Osama: Get your information right. I do not reject the Hadiths. I follow and respect our Scholars who use the Science of Hadiths as the criteria to determine the true from false Hadith.

Osama, I have seen you rejecting hadith after hadith from your authentic sources as fabrications in several debates because you did not like what they said about your prophet. So dont be smart.

Sepher Shalom said...

The Fat Man said: "Now it seems that not only the doctrine of Mohamed performing miracles has changed but also the doctrine that the Quran is the exact same quran to the letter that Mohamed had revealed.

Anyone else noticed this change?"


Yes. It's bewildering how Muslims will just move the standard to assure that whatever the standard is, it is passed by the Quran. Suddenly, the definition of "perfectly preserved" has been altered for the Muslims. When they are forced to face the facts about the Quran's textual transmission, they look at it's textual history and then make that the definition of "perfect preservation".

It's almost as if you could look in a Muslim apologist's English dictionary and find-

perfect preservation: the Quran

Some strange logic!

Dk said...

As most of you know I am an agnostic-atheist. I've only seen the introductions so far, but let me just say, so far it seems one-sided, Zawadi appears to be on top. Nabeel does not seem to have done his research on this topic which is highly disappointing since this could have been a true burial for the transmission of the Quran, as an added bonus Nabeel could have had a great chance to expose the dishonesty of Muslim Apologists on this topic aswell, and he didn't quote any Mainstream Apologist that I saw when literally dozens of books and statements exist saying the Quran hasn't been changed by "one letter, one vowel" etc.

So Bassam, well done, you knocked the ball out of the park with an ill-informed opponent. Not hard to do.

On another note, Zawadi asserts that Islam teaches textual variants are divinely inspiried while no NT text says the same for the NT. I agree with him on the latter, but Islam also is in the same boat, no text in the Quran or Hadith teach that the Qiraat are divine readings, there is some hadith that mention the Ahruf, but not the Qiraat. Zawadi should also mention that only seven of these Qiraat became standardized nearly two hundred years after Uthman, and over 30 were not preserved, thus destroying the "divine textual variants" and whatever parts of "ahruf" these "divine variants" contained.

Much more problems with Zawadis view. Will watch the rest of the debate now.

Unknown said...

1: So to summarize what u said in first point, u reject the Smarkand Manuscript , well U are free to accept it or not ... but it showed us a defective quran transmission

2: About memory, again this bogus claim: u r forcing me to repeat my self, since u dont touch on my objections:

The Human Memory is defective, u cant really count on it and say that was exactly what muahmmed said !! even Muhammed forgot parts of the quran !! and the followers came telling him they forgot parts of the quran !! so his answer was, it was abrogate yesterday ( that was funny)

So if muahmmed forgot parts of the quran, and he is the main author, wha would the followers do ?!

Also Many Hadith Clearly mentioned parts that was lost from the quran, like what Aisha, Ibn Khattab, Ubay Ibn Kabb Said .. t was lost... how on earth would the best generation say they lost parts of quran, if hey had great memory ?????

3: since u agreed on scribal error, then hman factor play a role in transmission, so memory also will have errors , like scribes had !

4: Ur interpretation of Presevd Tablet is wrong, Cjeck the Following Tafseer First: Ibn Kather, Tabary , Kortobi, El Baghawy, El Galaein, El saaeedy , etc... no one said what u said, where did u get such interpretation from?!!

you can check this book as well: it includes what ibn katheer said in english, if u dont know arabic:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=isDgI0-0Ip4C&pg=PA505&lpg=PA505&dq=ibn+kathir+preserved+tablet&source=bl&ots=5TrzCKZmFx&sig=eU2qkPyw8jKZ2of_e596sFkbNyg&hl=en&ei=e-x1St7aGZWBtweG2NiWCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=ibn%20kathir%20preserved%20tablet&f=false

5- havent provided us with any valuable links or reliable sources other than the muslim unawareness , i think this is enough to disprove ur point, thanks

6: we are not talking about how quran is being taught now, but how it was written, and perfectly tansmitted to us, u got confused when u told me visit madrash.

Unknown said...

The previous post is a reply to learner, sorry I forgot to mention

Unknown said...

So to make it simple for everyone esp (learbner / bassam/ and this who needs education)

THAT is the interpreation of 85:21


"That is, "The writ of the Qur'an is unchangeable and imperishable. It is inscribed in the Preserved Tablet of God. which cannot he corrupted in any way Whatever is written in it, has to be fulfilled: even the whole world together cannot avert its fulfilment."

THAT is the interpreation of 85:21

the Tafsir here it is:

"In a tablet, suspended above the seventh heaven, preserved (read mahfūzin), from all devils and from having any of its contents altered; it is a high as the distance between the earth and the heaven, and as wide as the distance between the east and the west, made of white pearls — as stated by Ibn Abbās, may God be pleased with both [him and his father, Abbās"

So this is what is mentioned in Tafsir al-Jalalayn

so he it is clear: that the glorious koran is in a Tablet suspended above heavens, preseved from aleration, thanks

did it mention that it is metaphorical in any way ?! no..

now the question, were the 7 ahruf included in the tablet ?!

if yes: then u Koran is corrupted by deletion

if no: then you koran is corrupted by addition,

thank u , have a good day!

Fernando said...

Ehteshaam Gulam saide (after another twist typical in muslims) "The Quran is most perfectly perversed book-- while the earliest N.T. writings came at least 20 years after Jesus ascension."... no it is not: any other book created after the invention off the print is better preserved... and whate has the fact off the earliest N.T. writings came at least 20 years after Jesus ascension with the preservation off the qur'an??? It does not eben imply thate the texts off the NT are nott preserved!!! Young Ehteshaam: wakke upp from your nightmare. Please: wake upp!!!

Nakdimon said...

Sepher,

Somehow, Muslims cant help but attack anything that is Jewish. This cannot be explained in another fashion than the anti-Jewish nature of Islam. Last weekend. on Paltalk, our ex-muslim brother Rafael quoted some hadiths to which Muslims had no reply to. Their kneejerk reaction was “you must be a Jew!”, and when he gave them the link to the website where they could look up the hadith, the website of the Muslim organization of the USC, they accused him of giving them a “jewish website” before even bothering to look at it! Over and over again several different Muslims made such accusations towards him about Jews, claiming that Jews are basically the source of all the world’s problems, that it is the Jews that spread slander and make Muslims look bad in the media.

But we can only pity Muslims because they are totally brainwashed by the lies (and that is exactly what they are, LIES!) that the Quran and the Hadith spread about Jews when the opposite is true. Not a single positive thing is said about the Jewish people, it’s all slander. So it’s no wonder that Jews are being treated like this by Muslims.

Shalom achi babasar ubaMoshiach Yeshua,
Nakdimon

Nakdimon said...

I have a question for Bassam in particular, since he debated this subject, but any other Muslim can answer nonetheless.

What I would like to know, Bassam, is did the people know what each of the 7 Ahrufs were? I mean, if they didnt know what those other 6 Ahrufs were other than the one they were reciting, then how on earth could they identify any of the Ahrufs but their own?

See if, for example, Ahmed would recite one Ahruf and Abdullah would recite something else, should Ahmed then assume that what Abdullah recited is one of those 7 Ahrufs that Muhammad was referring to (without explaining what they were btw!)? How would Ahmed possibly be able to tell that what Abdullah was reciting was either an erroneous portion of the Quran or one of the other 6 Ahrufs?

If there is no way to identify another Ahruf, since Muhammad didnt bother to explain how to identify them, then how can you say that the Quran is preserved at all? How do you identify one such "divine variant" as a divine variant if you are not familiar with all the ahrufs to begin with?

I ended up asking more questions than I intended, but I hope that its clear where I'm heading at with those questions.

Nakdimon

Nakdimon said...

Educating Christians: “Secondly just stop and think about how ridiculous your logic is here..

You’re telling me that it doesn’t matter whether the last 12 verses of Mark are inspired or not since it doesn’t affect any ‘doctrine’ that isn’t also present in the other Gospels either way?

In that case, answer me this.. if the ENTIRE GOSPEL of Mark was removed from the NT, what “doctrine” would be affected that isn’t present in the other 3 gospels??

Please answer..

Thus according to your logic the ENTIRE gospel of Mark is DISPOSIBLE, which begs the question of why the Holy Spirit bothered to inspire it in the first place? What was the point?”


HAHHAHA. You are a joke dude! In your zeal to try to refute Sepher Shalom, you have just buried everything that Bassam said in the debate to validate the Quranic variants by way of Ahrufs. YES, we take the position that the last 12 verses of Mark aren’t needed because Matthew, Luke and John give us those details. Therefore, the fact that Mark misses 12 verses to explain what the other sources already say, is of no significance!

But HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM UTHMAN BURNING THE OTHER 6 AHRUFS AND KEEPING ONE IN TACT? If destroying 6 OF ALLAH’S 7 “MIRACLES” IN THEIR ENTIRETY makes no difference because 1 SOURCE saying the same thing (according to Bassam) and is more than sufficient for Muslims to know what Allah wanted to communicate. (thereby making you upset, since that means that 6 wonders of Allah are DISPOSIBLE, just like you objected to Sepher Shalom, which you obviously have a problem with), then HOW PRAY TELL to you object to the NT, when it comes to the NT missing merely 12 verses in 1 SOURCE while 3 SOURCES say the same thing?????

You object to the very thing that Bassam mostly founded his case for the debate! So its nice to see that you secretly DON’T agree at all with Bassam on anything he said about these so-called “divinely inspired variants”. (which sounds totally incoherent to me anyway)


Nakdimon

Nakdimon said...

Esteshaam: “The Quran is most perfectly perversed book-- while the earliest N.T. writings came at least 20 years after Jesus ascension. Even William Muir says the Quran has been perserved.”

Esteshaam, I don’t think that you, or any other Muslim, for that matter, knows what the score is here. It DOES NOT matter how perfectly the Quran is preserved. Even if the Quran is 1000% preserved, as long as the NT is a reliable source that accurately gives an account of the events that happened in the first century, WHICH THEY ARE, the Quran remains a false book and it’s claims remain irrelevant! A 100% preserved FALSE BOOK is still a FALSE BOOK, no matter how you slice it.

Nakdimon

Radical Moderate said...

Bassam said...
You can't apply the same criteria to both books. Some major differences between the
two books are...

While I do agree with you the composition and canonization histories for the New Testament and the Quran are different. Just as the composition and canonization histories are different for the New Testament and The Old Testament.

A few examples, the quran was centrally controlled by a central authority from the very begging. There was never at any time in history where the New Testament texts, (even up to today) have been centrally controlled by one authority,

Contrary to what you believe some text contained in the New Testament were written with a few years of Christ’s RESERECTION.

Unlike the Quran the New Testament texts were copied under Heavy persecution. The scribes that copied them risked there lives to do so. If they were risking there lives then they believed in what they were doing. They took care to preserve the text that they were copying. They included the text they did not exclude it.

Unlike the quran, the New Testament text were written and copied by various authors, in various times separated by distance, hundreds if not thousand of miles.

And that is how we Christians believe the Text of the New Testament was preserved. In the rapid, copying and spreading of the texts.

Bassam if there are textual variants in the quran, and there are textual variants in the bible, then you need to address those variants in the same way.

If there are Scribal errors in ancient hand written textual quranic manuscripts and there are scribal errors in the ancient hand written Biblical manuscripts then you need to address those scribal error with the same lens.

If there are verses added and verses missing from the quranic manuscripts, and there are verses missing and verses added in the biblical manuscripts then you need to address those with the same lens.

Instead you view the textual history of the bible with the lens of a non believer; you look at the text as you would look at the text of any work from antiquity. But when you view the quran you view it through the lens of a believer, giving spiritual and supernatural explanations to explain away the variants.

Now you can believe what you want to believe. However the question remains, if textual variants, scribal errors and added and missing verses in the bible means the bible is corrupt. Then you must apply that same standard to the qruan.

If textual variants, scribal errors, and missing and added verses in the Quran means the Quran is still perfectly preserved then the bible is also still perfectly preserved.

In other words if you want us to accept your explanation of these variants, scribal errors, and missing and added verses. Then you must accept our explanations of the same things in bible.

By the way, Christians are not the ones who have problems with Textual variants, scribal errors and missing and added verses. We Christians believe the bible is the word of God because of what the text says. Likewise we do not believe the Quran is the word of God because of what the text says, and that text is wrong. Even if the Quran was an exact copy of what Mohamed revealed. It would have the same worth as Forged copy of the Mona Lisa.

So now that you have opened the door, to the fact that the Quran suffers from the same textual divergences as the Bible, we can finally at last focus on what the text’s actually say. Instead of the Muslim accusation “Well the bible is corrupt so no matter what it says I will not believe it”

I applaud you sir for your honesty, and your integrity, qualities that are somewhat lacking in Muslim apologetics.

Radical Moderate said...

Dk said...
Zawadi appears to be on top.

On top of what? you do realize that this is the first time a muslim admitted in public that the quran had textual variants, missing and added verses, as well as even scribal errors. Regardless of his bizar explination the fact remains that he acknowleged the fact that the Quran was like any other hand written and coppied text from antiquity.

I'm surprised that Nabeel just didnt leave his opening at "Ok thanks for agreeing with Christians". And then walk off the stage.

Osama Abdallah said...

"Osama: Get your information right. I do not reject the Hadiths. I follow and respect our Scholars who use the Science of Hadiths as the criteria to determine the true from false Hadith.

Osama, I have seen you rejecting hadith after hadith from your authentic sources as fabrications in several debates because you did not like what they said about your prophet. So dont be smart."

Show me an example.

Osama Abdallah
www.answering-christianity.com

el Lobo said...

Dear Christians and Muslims

You are debating a theological issue. There are numerous things about G-d and his will we cannot comprehend. This applies to all religions.

In regards to the 7 ahruf as you all know there are different opinions on their nature and whether they are all or partially preserved. However, whatever opinon the scholars in islam have adopted no one has reached the conclusion that Uthman tampered with the quran.

There is concensus among sunni scholars regarding the authenticity of the quran and all the fundamentals of belief, e.g. tawhid, Muhammad being the prophet of Allah etc. I will concede to you that there are dissenting opinons among our scholars regarding more peripheral issues.

The only thing we muslims can do is to inform people about our religion to the best of our ability and whether they accept our religion or not is not our responsibility.

As regards christianity not only are there in your own book questionmarks concerning your fundamental beliefs i.e the nature of Jesus and his crucifiction your own church fathers had dissenting views on these matters.
It's like if the quran in one verse implied that there are two G-ds and in another that there is only one.

Since our book is clear on these issues, we never had an 'arian controversy' in which some scholars claim that G-d is one and another group that G-d is two.

If Jesus really was cruxified why beat around the bush and have descriptions of his trial that contradicts what the talmud says about how people accused of blasphemy were tried before the sanhedrin.
The so-called tradition of freeing one prisoner once a year is unheard of. Why on earth were there two jesuses in front of the crowd one of whom with the suspicious name Barrabas.

The point is that your fundamental belief concerning the crucifiction of jesus is riddled with oddities. Not to mention the relationship between G-d and jesus. These are all fundamental beliefs and discribed in your own book.

Even to this day within basically all christian denominations you have different views on these fundamental issues among both christian scholars and lay people.

with kind regards,
zakaria

Educating_Christians said...

***TO SHEPER AND NIKDIAMON***

HI SHEPER,

<< To have you put 'Jews' in parenthesis like that is about the most offensive thing you could do towards me in print. It's bothersome enough when a Jewish person dismisses the right of a Messianic believer to still be Jewish and practice Judaism, but I will not allow a Muslim to have the hubris and mistaken belief that he has the right to go around determining who is a Jew and who is not. You don't grant Jewishness to anyone. >>

Firstly, it wasn’t my aim to insult you, so sorry if you took offence.

I was simply pointing out the fact that, as you yourself acknowledged, you are no Jew according to the orthodox Jewish position since you accept the NT and believe Jesus to be the Son of God.

Don’t blame me for simply applying the laws of Orthodox Judaism upon someone who chooses to label himself a Jew.

They’re your people, not mine, so perhaps you should try and convince your fellow Jews of your Jewishness before you try and convince Muslims?

Just a thought..

Regards.


HI NAKDIMON

<< WOW! When will Muslims finally get out of their Jew-bashing mode? Considering Sepher defends the NT and believes that Yeshua is the Son of God, you have no reason to think that he holds the former position. >>

I wasn’t bashing any Jew.

I have a lot of respect for Jews (orthodox ones) since at least they don’t ascribe multiple personalities to God.

As least get the basics right, hey?


On my quoted hadith you wrote:

<< So from this info we are to assume that this encompasses the Quran? And how is that substantiated by this narration? >>>

Lets read it again together..

...He said, "First of all, there was nothing but Allah, and (then He created His Throne). His throne was over the water, and He wrote everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and created the Heavens and the Earth...

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 414)

Now, do you know what the word “EVERYTHING” means?

Look it up if you don’t.

<< Oh btw, the only difference between Origen and Muhammad is that Origen didn’t consider “abrogation”.>>

Origen didn’t have to consider ‘abrogation’ since your Bible did that for him. I suggest you buy a copy and read it.

Funny how Christian boys aren’t circumcised anymore like (i assume) your Jewish friend Shepher is? ;-)

<< Dude, get your fact straight! Ehrmann rejects the Divine inspiration of the NT because we don’t have the ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS! >>


Dude, stop twisting things. Erhman didn’t reject it simply because you dont have the orginal, he rejected it because you don’t have the originals AND because the earliest copies you have are (in some cases) CENTURIES after it AND because they are error ridden with serious variants.

Erhman freely admits that most of the variants in the NT manuscripts *DO NOT MATTER* as they are either orthographic or basic scribal errors.

I happily admit that too.

But some of them DO matter to the point where you cant tell what is the word of God and what is not.
Quran doesn’t have that problem since:

1) Our MSS date to within just 20 years after The Prophet.

2) NONE of the variants in our MSS (not to mention oral tradition) matter as they are also orthographic or basic scribal errors, (or inspired qiraat or ahruf).

Those are the facts whether you like it or not. Sorry.

Regards

Educating_Christians said...

STUDENT BEN MAILK,

[LESSON 1 OF 2]

<< Time to expose some of the muzzies here. Usman Sheikh, or should I say, uneducated Muslim, said: >>

First of all, why the obsession with whether i am Usman Sheikh or not?

Do you see me obsessing over the rumours of whether you are Sam Shamoun or not?

Since you and Sam Shaumoun are both as ignorant as each other, i couldn’t care less whether you are same person or not.

All i care about are your ‘arguments’ and educating the likes of you both, so pay attention...

<< Who said that the variant readings and the missing verses of the Quran don't matter seeing that Allah lied to Muslims by saying he would preserve his book? >>>

Firstly, how does God allowing his people to read His book in any one of 7 different dialects for their own convenience mean that the Quran is not preserved?

Secondly, there are no ‘missing verses’ in the Quran. I think you are confusing the Quran with the Bible here, my friend.

If you want ‘missing’ verses, why dont you open-up your Bible and flip to the end of Mark and tell me where the last verses of the resurrection after verse 8 went that one of the greatest NT Scholars (Meztrger) said most probably went missing before they were copied?

Where did that last leaf of Marks original gospel go, Ben Malik?

Maybe a goat ate it?

And while you’re scratching your head over that, why don’t you find me where this verse is in the Old Testament that Jesus quotes:

“He who believes in me, AS THE SCRIPTURE HAS SAID, ”out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

(John 7:38)


Looks like that’s gone missing too!!

And since Jesus himself quotes it, and Jesus is God, and God revealed the Old testament, did he not know that this verse had gone missing?

If so then why is he still quoting it to us, rather than going to look for it?

Can you see the difference now between a verse being MISSING and a verse being ABROGATED, like in the Quran?

Or is your God not powerful enough to erase his own words, from his own book?

<< Please prove that this is what your prophet said. Quote a very early source where he said this. Since you can't please quote one of your later unreliable books where he mentions that the very variants which we find littered throughout the hadith literature which did not find there way in the Quran are all inspired, especially when the illiterate not-for-prophet NEVER EXPLAINED what he meant by harf? >>>

Please..There DOZENS of Hadith that prove the prophet allowed variation in reading the Quran. Why not ask your classmate Nabeel to show you?

I mean, I know I’m here to educate you, but at least bother to do some basic homework before you step into my classroom.

Secondly, not all the Quran variants in Muslim sources are true. Some of them, such as the ones that mention Ali, are bogus, so you’re wrong (again).

Thirdly, the same type of genuine variants mentioned in the authentic hadith that we find attributed to the qiraat and ahruf are found in MANUSCRIPTS, and even in manuscripts that are PRE-UTHMANIC such as INV 1.27.1 in Sana.

That means that they date to within **18 YEARS** of The Prophet?

Is that early enough for you?

What were ‘Mathew’, ‘Mark’, ‘Luke’, and ‘John’ doing 18 years after Jesus?

Still running around Palestine catching fish, before they finally decided to sit down and make-up stories about Jesus a further18 years after that!!

Educating_Christians said...

BEN MALIK..

[LESSON 2 OF 2]

<< He pretty much destroyed the Sunni position that the Quran is the eternal speech of Allah! Let me help uneducated by reminding him that the Sunni perversion of Islam says the Quran is UNCREATED. So in light of that could you be so kind as to explain what the mother of the book is supposed to be from whence you derive the Quran?

By the manifest Book (that makes things clear, i.e. this Qur'an). We verily, have made it a Qur'an in Arabic, that you may be able to understand (its meanings and its admonitions). And Verily, it (this Qur'an) is in the Mother of the Book (i.e. Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz), before Us, indeed Exalted, full of Wisdom. Surah 43:2-4

Is this mother created or eternal?
If it is created then how can the Quran be uncreated? >>


I think you’ll find you pretty much embarrassed yourself rather than me “destroyed the Sunni position”.

The Quran IS UNCREATED in the sense that it existed constantly within the knowledge of God, since God is All-Knowing.

Now i know that your God has trouble knowing all things like when the final Hour will come, and when the season of the fig tree is, but our God is all- knowing.

The heavenly BOOK you refer to, however, is CREATED, as the hadith states.

It is also eternal in the sense that it will never be destroyed.

Eternal can mean eternally in the passed AND future (like God), or it can just mean eternal (i.e presevred= ‘muhfuz’) for the future. The book is the latter.

Do you understand now?

<< In fact this last text raises more problems since it says,

Allah blots out what He wills and confirms (what He wills). And with Him is the Mother of the Book (Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz)

Can you explain what in the world this verse means? >>

Yes, i can.

God has a book that he created in heaven.

He writes in it whatever he wants, and then “blots” whatever he wants.

Whatever he “blots out” ceases to occur on earth, whatever he wills will happen.

God wrote the verses of the Quran (in all their revealed variation) on that tablet. If he abrogates a verse he “blots” it out, which does not necessary mean it disappears from all existence, only that it no longer constitutes Quran.

His final revelation, that we have now, is what He promises He will never abrogate further.

BTW, Do you have a theological problem with God having a heavenly book that he can both write and blot out from?

Please answer and explain yourself.

Anyway, since the rest of your post is based on your misguided views which i have correct for you (you’re welcome), ill end the lesson here..

Schools out Ben, so you can go and play with your friends now.

You made a better attempt than many of my other students here, but you still get a ‘F-‘ for lack of basic research and poorly throughout arguments.

Plus you were rude to the teacher.

Must try harder..

Regards.

Educating_Christians said...

NIKDIMON

<< HAHHAHA. You are a joke dude! In your zeal to try to refute Sepher Shalom, you have just buried everything that Bassam said in the debate to validate the Quranic variants by way of Ahrufs. YES, we take the position that the last 12 verses of Mark aren’t needed because Matthew, Luke and John give us those details. Therefore, the fact that Mark misses 12 verses to explain what the other sources already say, is of no significance!

But HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM UTHMAN BURNING THE OTHER 6 AHRUFS AND KEEPING ONE IN TACT? If destroying 6 OF ALLAH’S 7 “MIRACLES” IN THEIR ENTIRETY makes no difference because 1 SOURCE saying the same thing (according to Bassam) and is more than sufficient for Muslims to know what Allah wanted to communicate. (thereby making you upset, since that means that 6 wonders of Allah are DISPOSIBLE, just like you objected to Sepher Shalom, which you obviously have a problem with), then HOW PRAY TELL to you object to the NT, when it comes to the NT missing merely 12 verses in 1 SOURCE while 3 SOURCES say the same thing????? >>>


Mohammed said you can only read any **ONE** of the 7 dialects that is easiest for you.

Did Jesus ever say you can only read any **ONE** of the four gospels you want?

If so, and a Christian chooses to ONLY read Mark, how will they ever know that Jesus is “the WORD” of God that pre-existed with Him and how the Word became flesh” and all that other nonsense that is found only in John?

You need all FOUR gospels to make the “gospel”.

We do not need all SEVEN dialects to make the Quran.

Plus the end of Mark contains unique sayings of Jesus that are not found anywhere else, so get your facts right.

The point is you’ll never know, yet alone agree, on whether that is the inspired words of your God or not because some scribe may have screwed it up for you a few hundred years ago and you cant tell what happened..

Do we have that problem?

No.

Finally, if the last 12 verse of mark "aren’t needed", then why stop there?

What about the last 20 verses of Mark? Are they needed?

How about the first 100 verses?

How abouts the books of James, Revelations and phileimon.

Are they needed?

So much for:

"all scpriture is God breathed"

What a joke...dude.

VJ said...

nabeel/david

any news or reviews about this debate?

"Is Muhammad in the Bible?"
Sheikh Jowad Al-Ansari vs. Sam Shamoun

Unknown said...

Educating himself said:

[...He said, "First of all, there was nothing but Allah, and (then He created His Throne). His throne was over the water, and He wrote everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and created the Heavens and the Earth...

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 414)

Now, do you know what the word “EVERYTHING” means?]


Well This means that Allah is all knowing, he know the future, past and verything.

If u want to change the meaning literaly, that wrote everything, then this would include the bible, and its claimed corruption , may be he wrote harry potter there, stories ... all kind of stuff ... if that what everything would mean to u ..

but does this has anything to do wit sura 85:21-22
a glorious koran in a preserved tablet !!

no, cause it was never mentioned in the commentary of the verse, go read Ibn Kathir for instance !

So what the sura said: that the Koran is preserved in a tablet:

preserved from alteration.
So if we have alteration of variation, we should comapre it to this tablet, is it there or not ?!

muslims caim that what they have in the quran, is typical to what the angel revealed to muhammed which all came from this tablet, and on this basis they claim it is not corrupted.

Ofcourse noone seen gabriel, nor muhammed, no this tablet .. however we can ivestigate the issue , how ?

if all the 7 ahruf (reading) of the quran were included in the tablet, and the ange revealed to muhamed, Now tey dont have those reading, so thei book is not typical to eternal word of ALLah . it is different, and also, by this Uthman did a great mistake by burning the rest of the arhuf, which inspired from Allah!!

if the 7 ahrud is not in the tablet, and it just one reading in the tablet, then the quran they have in hand still doesnt match the one in the tablet, it is a variant, and not typical , and so they cant claim it it 100% preseved as it included mix from the aruf, and it as scribal errors, variation , missing word and parts, discripancies between versions.. so they cant claim this 100% accuracy any more , just bogus claims!!

and they just are having some sort of variant from the tablet

So clearly everyone can see, why muslims now are trying to change the concept of the preserved tablet (against all previous, and currently conservative scholar) who still claim it is 100% typical to this tablet.

After they were shcoked by reality, that thereare variation, and so it it not preserved, so they resorted to the 7 ahruf thing.

But still , te 7 ahruf , will judje you !!

Unknown said...

Educating himself said:

Funny how Christian boys aren’t circumcised anymore like (i assume) your Jewish friend Shepher is? ;-)


Yes thats hilarious man... it is like this very funny thing , when sons of adam married their sisters, and kept doing this generation after generation, and muslims dont do this anymore !!!

it is also funny how muhammed married more than 4 according to his law, and he is suposed to be the example to follow !!

do u want me to keep telling u funny stuff, that used to hapen in the past, and muslims stopped it ?!

let me know..

Unknown said...

which MSS returns to year 20 after prophet?! where is it ?! is alos oon islamic unawerness LOL

Unknown said...

Educating himself, is going against AIsha, Ubay ibn Kabb, Ibn mar... etc etc... and saying no verses are missing !!!!

probably he knows better than them ?! or were they bunch of liers we shouldnt listen to ?!

if u dont agree with them, through their saying away into the garbage, so we wont discuss them anymore !!

Unknown said...

and the funny thing he is quonting : Scholars (Meztrger), who is just a scholar, and ignoring Aisha, and Ubay who are a first generation muslims, and not just scholr, but one of the great founders of islam !!!

Fernando said...

Zakaria saide: «the point is that your fundamental belief concerning the crucifiction of Jesus is riddled with oddities»... Zakaria: in order to obercome whate you thinke there are odddities, can you present all off those? I woulde bee absolutely glade to explaine all to you using the Bible itself...

Zakaria also saide: «Not to mention the relationship between G-d and Jesus. These are all fundamental beliefs and discribed in your own book»... yes, I agree thate to someone who has biasis presepusitions (filosophical or intelectual ones) some aspects off the Bible are hard to overcome, butt nott imposible from its own internal coherance... can I help you overcome your difficulties? Please: let me know whate you consider difficulties in the relation between God and Jesus...

Zakaria also saide: «Even to this day within basically all christian denominations you have different views on these fundamental issues among both christian scholars and lay people»... whell... coulde you pointe out any major differences in the regard off THOSE aspects you mentioned amoung any off the major true Christian denominations? I'll bee right here to see to whate you're referring...

Glad to see some muslims willing to follow the path off the truth...

p.s.: juste mentioning in the passage, the Bible is also as clear in the aspect off the fact tahte God is one; only someone who does not know whate it says can be mistaken aboutt thate aspect...

Unknown said...

[Secondly, not all the Quran variants in Muslim sources are true. Some of them, such as the ones that mention Ali, are bogus, so you’re wrong (again).]

it looks like he chooses what he likes, and ignores what he dont like !!

is there a basis on which u claim this variant is authentic , or not ?! do u have the other 7 ahruf to compare to ?!

Unknown said...

Educating himself, for got what the early muslim generation did !!

they splitted and declared war on each others ... is that what u talking about

but for discuples, if really wanna know (which i doubt u do) what they did after jesus resurrection, go read the Book of Acts, u will know everything!

Unknown said...

UN-educating himself

[God wrote the verses of the Quran (in all their revealed variation) on that tablet. If he abrogates a verse he “blots” it out, which does not necessary mean it disappears from all existence, only that it no longer constitutes Quran.

His final revelation, that we have now, is what He promises He will never abrogate further.]


So does this mean, when uthman burnt the other ahruf, Allah blotted them out as well ?! or he cried that uthman did ?!

How did u know that he will never blot anything again ?! are you allah ? did he tell u that ?? or are u forcing ur will unto him , that he can do this ?!! Allah should be free to do whatever he wants to do, not what muslims want !!!

Fernando said...

Rude-mudlim saide: «The quran IS UNCREATED in the sense that it existed constantly within the knowledge of allah, since allah is All-Knowing»... to sad he expresses being a very ignorant, in all aspects, being in that book...

Rude-mudlim saide: «Now i know that your God has trouble knowing all things like when the final Hour will come, and when the season of the fig tree is, but our aod is all- knowing»... poor soal... nott onli does nott understand the reality off the incarnation, butt also ignores the pedagocical meanning off those wordes off Jesus... about allah being all-knowing just three wordes: lol... so: every animal as two or four legs? hummm...

then rude-muslim saide: «Mohammed said you can only read any **ONE** of the 7 dialects that is easiest for you. (...) You need all FOUR gospels to make the “gospel”»... No: there are nott 4 gospes: tehre are only ONE gospel thate was transmited by four textual traditions (the SINGLE gospel off Jesus according to one off those traditions) thate, according to God's will, complement each other to ceratte a single reality... gett your thins straighte... and the onlye reason you say you do not need the seven "dialects" (false translation... as you weel know) is because you do nott know those mumbo jumbo off seven "dialects" invented to justify the inconsistencies in the message off the qur'an that, supposedely, is clear an perfectely preserved to eternety (to the futur? another mumbo jumbo...)... we, Christians, at leastt know the four expressions off the single Gospel off Jesus...

then rude-muslim saide: «Finally, if the last 12 verse of mark "aren’t needed", then why stop there?»... they're "needed" in the sense they are admited as inspired word off Go; they're "nott neeeded" in the sense they do not transmitt any information thate were nott transmitted in other books... and taht's the case for any other text off the NT...

why do you stopp there inn the exposition off your ignorance and hability to expell lies from youre heart? You're making an amaizing job showing whate islam his: a mountain off futill claimes and ignobil lies... please: do continue...

Unknown said...

un educating himself said :

[Anyway, since the rest of your post is based on your misguided views which i have correct for you (you’re welcome), ill end the lesson here..

Schools out Ben, so you can go and play with your friends now.

You made a better attempt than many of my other students here, but you still get a ‘F-‘ for lack of basic research and poorly throughout arguments.

Plus you were rude to the teacher.

Must try harder..]

I wonder how followers of the ignorant illiterate, are claiming themselves arrogant enough to be teachers. I think if anyone should need to learn, would be muhammed, u should take him to ur school teach him some basics first, on how to read and write, then teach him what Jews believe in, and tell him they never said Ezra is son of God. If only he knew how to read , he wouldnt commited such huge mistakes, and laid them down in the quran !!

also if he was educated enough, he would have know what foreries, and myth stories are and what are true reliable!!

so I advice u , and ur prophet, to go to some christian based school like harvard or oxford (which u lack such things in Arabia) to learn better.

By the way how many muslims are noble prize winners ?! just 7 + 1 ahmadiya !!!

do u know how may jews hold the noble prize ?! u will be shocked.. but do the homeword urself, and see how many have noble !!

also remeber wha the angel did to muhamed, he orderd him to read, but muhamed was illiterate, the angel was more stupid, he hit him shcocking him as if this will force him to read !! and did this 3 times with your prophet ... see the islamic education founded by the Angel... realy best example

or about education, do u know the name of the pot which muhammed killed fo his poet ?!

also in education, the universe of the quran is geocenteric , the eveidence are just o many to mention, but one example muslim think that (Al Beit Al Maamour) is in heaven above the Kappa thats why they pilgrim there. I wonder is it still exaclty above the kappa, mean while the earth rotate around itself, and around the sun ... muhammed was ignorant about those simple facts !!

another very bad mistake, he though the earth is falt, alos the evidence are just too many, but I will give u a very obvo=ious one, the Kebla, to which muslim pray is the kappa, muhammed thought the earth is flat, so every one when he prays should look toward the kabba !! what about people on the other side of the earth, what a bout people in japan who are on a curved side , how will they look towards the kebla !!

So sincerely, I advice u to take this illiterate ignorant claiming to be a prophet to a primary school or may be u can start with KG, to edcuate him some basic principle so he wont fall for that, and let ignorants follows him, MR educating !!

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating Christians,

I suppose that is an apology, so I will take your word for it that it was not intentional. Apology accepted. Rather than opine on the reasons why you following Orthodox Rabbinic standards is illogical, I prefer to simply say, you should allow others, regardless of creed, to have the right of self-identification. Let's move on to the topic at hand now.

I will respond to your comments that are now visible, in so far as I feel they are relevant and interesting, later tonight when I have a chance.

---------------------------

To all my brothers and sisters in Messiah who are reading this blog,

I just want to remind you all to please handle your rebuttals to "Educating_Christians" in a manner that is glorifying to our Master.

I am not speaking to anyone in particular, and in fact at this moment I do not see any responses at all to his last comments.

I just want to point out, that he is intentionally trying to annoy, aggravate, and irritate us as a strategic move. Apparently he fancies himself as some sort admirer of Sun Tzu? So brothers and sisters, please rise above his vitriol and rhetorical tactics, and let your words be soaked in the love of Messiah Yeshua.

We are called to a high standard when we are in the capacity of representing our faith. Let's be "businesslike" when we are about The King's business :-)

Nakdimon said...

@ Edu_Christians 1/2

Lets read it again together..

...He said, "First of all, there was nothing but Allah, and (then He created His Throne). His throne was over the water, and He wrote everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and created the Heavens and the Earth...

(Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 414)

Now, do you know what the word “EVERYTHING” means?

Look it up if you don’t.


If everything means the Quran, then the Quran is not the “eternal uncreated word of Allah” as your brother Bassam Zawadi says, since it was at one time non-existent. Why didn’t you rebuke Bassam for trying to sell that lie? And if you want to help him out by claiming that the Quran existed in the thought of Allah, then we are all eternal and uncreated since we too existed in the thoughts of Allah. Unless you want to claim that at one point in time Allah didn’t know about us coming into being and eventually came to learn about us.


Origen didn’t have to consider ‘abrogation’ since your Bible did that for him. I suggest you buy a copy and read it.

Funny how Christian boys aren’t circumcised anymore like (i assume) your Jewish friend Shepher is? ;-)


Your ignorance of our scriptures is embarrassing. In the Torah, when the Gentiles were among the chosen people (yes, the REAL chosen people) they didn’t have to be circumcised either. Circumcision was only obligated for the Jewish boys. But hey, at least they didn’t circumcise girls, like in Islam.

Dude, stop twisting things. Erhman didn’t reject it simply because you dont have the orginal, he rejected it because you don’t have the originals AND because the earliest copies you have are (in some cases) CENTURIES after it AND because they are error ridden with serious variants.

Erhman freely admits that most of the variants in the NT manuscripts *DO NOT MATTER* as they are either orthographic or basic scribal errors.

I happily admit that too.

But some of them DO matter to the point where you cant tell what is the word of God and what is not.


LOL! Like I said, your ignorance is taking on embarrassing form. Have you EVER seen a debate of Bart Ehrman on the issue of textual preservation of the NT? If you did, the only conclusion you can draw from his position (and he has said many times in his lectures also) is he rejects the inspiration of the NT because of the missing ORIGINALS!

And SINCE YOU CLAIM OUR SCRIPTURES IS ERROR RIDDEN, bring the proof! I have challenged you before and I challenge you again: What passage is there in the NT that we don’t know what the original text should be???? PUT UR MONEY WHERE UR MOUTH IS! Give us some examples of texts that supports Christian doctrine that we don’t know what the original must be! And I told your brother Bassam already, that the errors the NT has are ADDITIONS to the text and we know about all of them! What’s more, YOU know about them because WE pointed them out to you. That’s why you have the notes in the translations that the earliest mss have “this” and other mss have “that”.

Nakdimon said...

@ Edu_Christians 2/3

In other words WE HAVE THE ORIGINALS IN OUR MSS AND DUE TO TEXTUAL CRITICISM WE CAN KNOW WHAT THE ORIGINAL READING IS. Its like having a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle, but having 110 pieces. Nothing has been lost. Its not hard to figure out what the actual puzzle looks like. What your position requires is us having 90 pieces of a 100 piece puzzle. This is not the case! You referred to Bruce Metzger earlier. Let me quote him for you. At the question of how many doctrines of the Church are in jeopardy because of the variants in the NT. Metzger answered confidently:

"I DON'T KNOW OF ANY DOCTRINE THAT IS IN JEOPARDY,"…”NONE”…and scholars work very carefully to try to resolve them by getting back to the original meaning. THE MORE SIGNIFICANT VARIATIONS DO NOT OVERTHROW ANY DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But, again, THESE ARE RARE." (from Lee Strobel's book The Case For Christ, pg 84-85)

And I can multiply quotes like these. To no end. Even Bart Ehrman conceded in his debate with Dr James White that no doctrine of the NT suffers from any textual variant! When asked by Dr White if he could name ONE SINGLE passage of which we don’t know the original, the best Ehrman could do, after somewhat admitting that there actually was nothing, is go to Hebrews 2:9 which is insignificant, and Mark 1:41 which is totally insignificant.

Nakdimon said...

@ Edu_Christians 3/3

Quran doesn’t have that problem since:

1) Our MSS date to within just 20 years after The Prophet.

2) NONE of the variants in our MSS (not to mention oral tradition) matter as they are also orthographic or basic scribal errors, (or inspired qiraat or ahruf).

Those are the facts whether you like it or not. Sorry.



As I said before to your brother Esteshaam. You can have 1000 Qurans which correspond 1000% accurately with one another, that doesn’t matter, since it contradicts the NT, the best attested ancient manuscript the world has ever known. It is therefore widely accepted that the NT gives a reliable account to what really happened in the first century AD. And since that is the case and the Quran contradicts it, that 1000% accurately preserved false book is still false!

The bottom line is that the NT is accurate and we know what it said from the beginning. Just a little demonstration to put the icing on the cake and seal the deal. The following is an overview of the testimony of the Gospels based on the NT MSS tradition (which your Quran says is authentic! See Surah 7:157 among other places):

Mark 1:11 teaches that Yeshua is the Son of God. NO Variants: “And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

Mark 9:31 teaches that Yeshua would go to Jerusalem, be put to death and rise again. One small variant. (on the third day / after three days): 31… “He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."

Mark 10:45 teaches that Yeshua would die vicariously. NO variants: 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Mark 14:61-62 teaches Yeshua being the Heavenly Son of God. One small variant in both verses (vs 61 - Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One / Are you the Son of the Blessed One; vs 62 – I am / you say that I am): 62 "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

So from Mark alone, we can assess that the first century testimony of the Messiah is that:
· Yeshua is the heavenly Son of God
· Who died for our sins
· Rose from the dead
· And will judge mankind


This assessment can also easily made with Matthew, Luke and John and the rest of the NT. This alone puts a nail in Islam’s 1400 year old coffin! Since this is true, Islam is false. No matter how well your book is preserved. I’ll be waiting for your examples on where we cannot know something about the text of the NT what undermines our doctrines in any way shape or form.

Nakdimon.

Radical Moderate said...

Educating_Christians
Funny how Christian boys aren’t circumcised anymore like (i assume) your Jewish friend Shepher is? ;-)

What I find funny about Muslims is that their males are circumcised at all. Can any Muslim tell me why they are circumcised? Oh if a Male converts to Islam and he is not circumcised does he still have to be circumcised. I honestly don’t know the answer to that one so I would like a serious response. Speaking of circumcision if you are a male born in the USA between 1950 something and up till the 1990's in most cases circumcision was performed whether you were Jewish or not. So I ask the question again show us in the Koran or in the Haddeths why Muslims are to perform Circumcision on there male children?
Also speaking of customs that Muslims copied from Jews. Can any Muslim tell me from the Koran or Hadeeths why they are not to eat pork? What makes the Pig Unclean? Can Muslims eat Monkeys and apes? (I don’t know the answer to that one either so I would like a serious response)

Educating_Christians
Dude, stop twisting things. Erhman didn’t reject it simply because you don’t have the orginal, he rejected it because you don’t have the originals AND because the earliest copies you have are (in some cases) CENTURIES after it AND because they are error ridden with serious variants.

I’m wondering if Muslims actually read books. Bart Erhman did not leave Christ because of his critical work on the New Testament; he left Christ over the issue of Suffering.

Educating_Christians
And while you’re scratching your head over that, why don’t you find me where this verse is in the Old Testament that Jesus quotes:
“He who believes in me, AS THE SCRIPTURE HAS SAID, ”out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”(John 7:38)

Well I give you some credit Educatoin Educating Christians; at least you quoted an entire sentence from the Bible. Most Muslims only quote a half sentence or a word or two. But did you quote the entire passage NO ofcorse not. So let’s see what the entire passage actually says.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" 39Now this he said about the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive,(BS) for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Notice it says he was talking about the Holy Spirit. And here are just a few references for you.

Proverbs 18:4
4The words of a man’s mouth are(A) deep waters;
the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
Proverbs 20:5
5The purpose in a man’s heart is like(A) deep water,
but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Now just to let all the Muslims in the room know. We Christians do not believe in a God how gives a verse and then takes it away. We do not believe in a God who gives a law and then says "Whoops sorry kids only joking here is another law, forget about the other law since I have abrogated it by way of the goat eating it."

Thanks for playing

Unknown said...

To Fernando
[Fernando writes, in response to Bassam: 5) The New Testament is a collection of books authored by multiple authors in different locations over a rough estimated range of 20 to 80 years, whereas the Quran is one book with one author in no more than 2 locations within in a time span of no more than 23 years... and? in coart off law, whate woulde be more strongue ebidence for true: teh claim made by a single person without external verification, or made by several persons in several places and several times? I guess you understand whate I mean...]

Quite funny and rather untrue if we take the authors of the NT gospels to court. Which court of law in which country accepts as evidence testimony of individuals who only provides their first names and don’t ‘remember’ their last names? In a Christian court I suppose! The same court which punishes an innocent individual for the crimes of the many.

Unknown said...

Part 1
[Shafsa wrote: Compare it to the translation of your quran, it avoided many words to be translated, like FOROG = external female genitalia. Nekah : whic means Sexual intercourse, was trabslated to marriage. Allah khayrr el Makereen: Means All the most deciever wicked, was translated best planner !!!]

Shafsa, trust me, when you grow up and become mature enough, you will wonder on these foolish years of yours parroting various propaganda but may not find the people to apologise for your misleading writings.

For your information, Ask your peers who knows some Arabic to check the entries in Lane’s lexicon, a lexicon based on the classical Arabic dictionaries, accepted in the academia. What do these words mean?

p2359: FOROG = external female genitalia? No, it doesn’t literally mean that. The literal meaning is to do with intervening space between two things. One says ‘faraja al-baba’ =he opened the door; ‘faraja baina asabi’ihi’=he made openings, or intervening spaces between his fingers. In Quran 77:9 also: ‘wa idha as-samau furijat’= when the sky is split. Farj is applied to mean from there to female genitalia because it is a place of opening or because between two legs. It is not a word that a muslim should feel shame in reading it!

P2848: Nikah= Sexual intercourse? No, marriage is intended. Some authoritries said the word in Arabic signifies coitus, and coitus without marriage, or marriage without coitus. But in the Time of Ignorance, before Islam, when a man demanded a woman in marriage he would say ‘iNKHinee’; and when he desired fornication he would say ‘Safiheeni’. The fact of the matter is the signification of marriage or coitus is not understood unless by a word or phrase in connection with it.

P2728: makr=deciever, wicked? . No, ‘makr’ is used as praised or dispraised according to the nature of the object.

[Shafsa wrote: But In quran, it was written in a very old tribal language, not use now, so u definitely have trouble understanding it meaning ... for insance read Surah: Al odayat in arabic to an arabic speaker , wow, it wouldnt make any sense ..]

It appears that shafsa you have never met a Muslim, never heard of their belief, Never travelled to Muslim countries, or even know whether Arabic is a living language or not. Even though it may be true otherwise. For your update in knowledge once again, the same Qur’anic Arabic is still in use today and is taught even in western universities! Unlike the Hebrew language which was dead one point in history.
Surah al-adhiyat in Arabic doesn’t make sense? Perhaps next time hold on to your not so funny jokes to yourself. How did they manage to translate this surah in hundreds of languages I wonder if its Arabic made no sense. You speak like one incompetent Puin who opines one-fifth of the Qur’an is ‘meaningless’. Yet, surprisingly many orientalists somehow managed to translate the five-fifth of the Quran with the similar meanings !

[!!! Ow those nonsense letter in the quran e.g Alef lam Meem , how would u translate that ?! it doesnt have any meaning !!! Just speculations !!]

You need to relax and ask yourself: I am spending all these hours on this blog entries and on youtube section for what benefit to myself? Especially when being exposed by Muslims as an immature, never-willing-to-learn, never-willing-to-read islamophobe who quite often forgets to comprehend what s/he writes? How on earth should one translate those disjointed ‘letters’- they are not ‘words’ but as you said, letters ?! These letters are the signs of the book, the Qur’an: did you not read: tua, sin meem. These are the SIGNS of the book…(Q26:1) ?

Unknown said...

part 2
[Shafsa wrote: About The NT , u can collect the whole NT, from the early church father saying, if that satisfies your oral transmission issue]

It breaks my heart to tell you how disappointed you will be when you discover that this is just a pious propaganda among yourselves? Why don’t you provide the academic work where we can check every single verse is referenced to a church fathers saying- one verse at a time? Does this work even exist? In the meantime, here is your nightmare website again with another article on this issue for your education: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/citations.html

It benefits no one by calling it muslim unawareness.

[1: So to summarize what u said in first point, u reject the Smarkand Manuscript , well U are free to accept it or not ... but it showed us a defective quran transmission

2: About memory, again this bogus claim: u r forcing me to repeat my self, since u dont touch on my objections:]

I never said I reject the samarqand manuscript. I thought you said you have good comprehension? I am merley pointing the fact to you all that we should be cautious about the defective facsimile COPY of the Samarqand mss.

Since you cannot appreciate the power of oral transmission, that is precisely why I proposed to you to experience this personally what happens in practice. Ask Nabeel to explain to you, he was a qadiyani Muslim before, don’t you remember?

[3: since u agreed on scribal error, then hman factor play a role in transmission, so memory also will have errors , like scribes had !]

You don’t read carefully what we write, do you? Buy that book by Azami I recommended earlier. Your confusion will disappear. Or, ask Nabeel to help you understand this.

[5- havent provided us with any valuable links or reliable sources other than the muslim unawareness , i think this is enough to disprove ur point, thanks]

Kindly remind me what points are disproven by providing source such as Islamic-awareness.org, al-Azami’s book and academic journals? You should ask the same people like Puin who write in academic journals to stop writing there and instead write on this blog or publish on your facebook entry if you have one.

[6: we are not talking about how quran is being taught now, but how it was written, and perfectly tansmitted to us, u got confused when u told me visit madrash.]

Are you willing to concede that The Qur'an can be committed to memory by thousands of people today but somehow reluctant to admit that this would have been possible back then?

Regards

Fifth Monarchy Man said...

Hey EC
You said:

how will they ever know that Jesus is “the WORD” of God that pre-existed with Him and how the Word became flesh” and all that other nonsense that is found only in John?

I respond

They could find out by reading Genesis one or Proverbs eight or Ephesians three etc etc etc

Christ’s preexistence and incarnation is proclaimed all over the Bible not just in John. You should know this it’s impossible to miss it (John 5:39,Romans 1:2, Luke 24:27)

I think your Muslim mindset is causing you to grossly misunderstand the nature of the Bible. It’s not like the Quran, supposedly a letter or poem from God to mankind that’s message could become unrecognizable by the loss or distortion of one small part. (the loss of Surah 4:158-159 for example)

Instead it’s like a complex symphony whose every note sings of Christ the Son in harmony with all the others. If a note here or there is missing for some reason the song remains.

That’s why we Christians are not afraid of textual criticism.

The Muslim’s failure to recognize this fact explains a lot. You think that by questioning this or that part of the Bible you can call into question Christianity.

To the Christian that approach is just silly.

In order to undermine Christianity you would need to destroy all of the Bible because it all speaks of Christ.

peace

Unknown said...

Uneducating himself:

I have looked all over the internet : where can we find the claimed INV 1.27.1 in Sana. ??? is it only on muslim aplologist website ?!

Second i have few questions for u, since u are willing to educate us :

Do muslims practise pedophilia like their prophet, with out having problems ?!

Do u clean your a$$ with three stones to follow sunna of rasul Allah ?!

Do u have sex with your menstruating wife as Allah messenger Did ?

Do u dring Urine of Camel , to have some islamic blessing ?!

Does satan urinate in your ear sometimes ?!

Is it really the cause why a muslim farts , that it is satan manipulating in this area as muhammed said ?!

how many types of marraiges in islam ?!

why cant a muslim marry more wives to follow the sunna ?!

Why adoption is haram ?! is it just because muhamed wanted to have sex with wife of his son by adoption ?

what is the meaning of word Far فرج mentioned in quran ? what is the meaning of word Nekah نكاح also mentioned in quran ?!

what is the meaning of word Anektaha انكتها in the hadith ?!

why did muhammed used Eye Shadow ?! why did he do hair removal ?! why he used to urinae sitting ? why he used to hug closely men , and have men hug him ?! why men used to kiss the area belo his belly ?! why many times he used to appear half naked ?

why do muslims have moon as their motto ?! are they pagans, idolators ?! why do they still pilgrim to the kabba , te House of God of the pagan ?! why do they kiss the black stone ?! why do they practise same pagan practises ?!

What do u do if you are polygamist since u are a muslim and travelled to a western country, would u divorce ur wife ?! or leave her ?!

Do u have sex with those in your right hand ?! how many can u have in your right hand ?!

Do muslim gurls and woman breast feed you guys , the adult breast feeding ordered by rasul allah ?!

what will u do in heaven Sir ?! what will muhamed be doing their ?! and what will allha be doing , just shooting what u do LOL ?!

what is the meaning of erb ارب ?? in the quran, and said by aisha as well ?!

What are the rights of the prophets on muslims ?! can he divorce any one , to marry his wife ?! any woman can just give herself to her ?! if he looked to a woman , she became his ?! arent those stuff in the Seera el Halbiya ?!

what is the meaning of Kawab atraba كواعب اترابا ??

what is the meaning of Hon هن said by the prophet ?!

why the prophet used to suck the mouth of his daughter , hassan and hussein as well as his wife aisha ?! why did he used to place his head in between her breasts ?!

I think u should teach us more about these nice stuff in isalm, these stuff is unique in islam, and if I were u , I would have used these things to preach for islam !!

plz after u answer these questions, I have anotherlist, but let do them list by list , thanks


I would be more than happy to provide you with any refernces regarding my questions

Radical Moderate said...

Educating_Christians said...
You need all FOUR gospels to make the “gospel”.

Amazing you don’t understand the truth. As God said they(O) may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand,lest they(P) should turn and be forgiven." Mark 4:13

WE DO NOT HAVE FOUR GOSPELS, WE HAVE ONE GOSPEL. THAT GOSPEL IS JESUS CHRIST, CRUCIFIED. WE HAVE FOUR WITTNESSES TO THAT ONE GOSPEL

Oh by the way just to let you all know. I personally feel that Bassam one this debate hands down. Sorry Nabeel it is true. The quran has textual variants, scribal errors, and verses ommited and added. Just like Bassam admitted it does.  And more importantly the Quran is perfectly preserved because it has these things. 

Dk said...

Radical says:

"On top of what? you do realize that this is the first time a muslim admitted in public that the quran had textual variants, missing and added verses, as well as even scribal errors."

This is old news. Informed Muslims have known this for centuries.

Just because the Muslim laymen in chatrooms and in other public forums (speakers corner etc) have no clue about the transmission of the Quran, does NOT Mean we should expect the same poor level knowledge from ALL Muslims.

Similarly I believe this as stupid as me pointing out 70% of the trinitarians i've come across have misrepresented and misdefined the Trinity and this means I should trust there opinion as an "expert opinion" on the subject. When an informed Trinitarian defines it and gives his evidence for his position i'll accept the accurate definition.

When a Muslim defines the ORTHODOX belief and opinions of Islamic scholars on the subject, i'll accept it and point out the errors in the position they actually are representing.

Dk said...

Uneducated says:

"Firstly, how does God allowing his people to read His book in any one of 7 different dialects for their own convenience mean that the Quran is not preserved?"

Ben Malik has already pointed out that the seven ahruf are not dialects and he has posted Zawadis salafi scholars refuting him on this point.

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2008/07/david-wood-and-bassam-zawadi-on-iron.html

So please stop assuming your position in every post you make.

Secondly your claim that ONE HARF is sufficent to be the Quran is not existant in the Islamic literature, that's an intepretation.

Furthermore since the original Quran is seven ahruf and only one Qiraat (even according to the the Quran itself), and no body knows the meaning of ahruf, we can see no body knows whether it was perfectly preserved.

The only real way of finding out would be to create a truthful criteria such as: Whether the Quran today is identical to the Quran recited by Muhammad (the one Qiraat and seven ahruf, without missing vowels, letters words, verses and exactly identical).

Zawadi himself came up with a false criteria in order to save the Quran from what a real criteria would show... his criteria for "perfect preservation of the Quran" is:

"What do I mean by that? What do I mean when I say the Quran is perfectly preserved? All I mean is simply this: If the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were alive today and we were to look at the Quran that we have he would say that there is no chapter or verse falsely added to or missing from the Quran"

This is because Zawadi understands a truthful criteria would have the Quran in shred in pieces kinda like what surah 15:90-92 suggest. =)

Chennai Man said...

//Fernando said...
ashraf said... "dear sir where is the Gospel of Jesus(injeel)? when you guys are going to publish it?"... no one except the muslims say Jesus wrotte anything (except in the sand...)... when will these muslims satrat to know anithing before they star talkin aboutte the others? Neber, I guess... ignorance is, seing from theire examples, by far more interesting: a worlde full off surprises...//

\\shafsha said...
Dear Sir, who said that Jesus came to write a gospel ?! is there any evidence or historialc quotatios that siad that Jesus wrote a gospel ?!

Well Not at all. I bet you.//


Dear Furnaanndo & Shafsha,you guys can explain me about gospel of jesus(Gospel of kingdom)& where is it.

King James version
Mathew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.


New american english bible.
4:23 He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.

Unknown said...

Great work Nabeel.

In my whole life i have never seen a muslim apologist (in their pursuit to defend quran & muhammad) ever adhere to sense, logic, reason, evidence or even pretend to be sensible. Bassam i am very sympathetic on you because if you ever contemplate your self & all the reasons which you give in your defense of islam is very senseless & have broken all the limits of stupidity in defending your case.

Nabeel & David why don't you debate Shabir Ally on these topics i have never seen him defending his religion & muhammad.

Unknown said...

Learner:

[Shafsa, trust me, when you grow up and become mature enough, you will wonder on these foolish years of yours parroting various propaganda but may not find the people to apologise for your misleading writings.]

how is that relavent to answer me ?! should i get scared whe I read this and not ask questions anymore or what ??????

[p2359: FOROG = external female genitalia? No, it doesn’t literally mean that. The literal meaning is to do with intervening space between two things. One says ‘faraja al-baba’ =he opened the door; ‘faraja baina asabi’ihi’=he made openings, or intervening spaces between his fingers. In Quran 77:9 also: ‘wa idha as-samau furijat’= when the sky is split. ]

I dont know what the point u trying to make here ?! do u mean the quran ment open the door ?! the meaning is crystal clear and it was changed in translation, why ?! dont try to give long intro in a trial to twist facts, tanks


[Farj is applied to mean from there to female genitalia because it is a place of opening or because between two legs. It is not a word that a muslim should feel shame in reading it! ]

if u dont feel shame, do u use it on daily basis ?! why i wasnt translated if muslim dont feel shame using this word ?! if that doest make u feel shame, can I ask u about if any onw blowed into Farj omak ?! is that reall ok with u , like what the quran said about maryam , he blow his spirit into her farj ?!

[P2848: Nikah= Sexual intercourse? No, marriage is intended. Some authoritries said the word in Arabic signifies coitus, and coitus without marriage, or marriage without coitus. But in the Time of Ignorance, before Islam, when a man demanded a woman in marriage he would say ‘iNKHinee’; and when he desired fornication he would say ‘Safiheeni’. The fact of the matter is the signification of marriage or coitus is not understood unless by a word or phrase in connection with it.]

that shows us clearly meaning of marriage in islam = COITUS !! and was it was embarassing enough that they didnt tansalated coitus, just the meaning and not the word as is , so is this really accuarate translation ???

[P2728: makr=deciever, wicked? . No, ‘makr’ is used as praised or dispraised according to the nature of the object.]

No makr means decieved, any other person who knows arabic here, will simply correct you. Ask a kid, he will tell u!! tell him ya Makar , see if he is happy ?!


[For your update in knowledge once again, the same Qur’anic Arabic is still in use today and is taught even in western universities]

False, do u want to tell me they speak Arabic fosha , dont u watch arabic TV ?! look go watch MBC, AlJazeera, Rotana...etc is this the same language of Quran ?! r u kidding me ?! it is either u dont read quran , or u dont know arabs !!

And yes most of the quran is meaninless, incojerent, is not making a logical point to form ideas, and anyone here can simply judge this by themselves. Simple test: read any Sura, u will notice every fifth verse, there is deviation in thought, like linking noah with eisa ... never gave a complete accuarate story .. it is like a keyword puzzle set


Yes Odayat (as well as others surah ar not clear). Why go far, look at sura al fatha, what is the meaning of Fatha ?! which fatha is he talking about ?! does the quran has Fatha ?! what about the words in the fatha let me tell u some:

Serat mostakeem = straight serat .. what is serat ?!

I can give u many many examples.. el odayat is really one of the worst, especially after i knew its meaning, I found allah is swearing by the horses !!! it like me swearing by a goat !! or rat !!

Unknown said...

[You need to relax and ask yourself] I am very very relaxed , why do u have doubt about that ?! cause I am asking questions about islam ?!

[How on earth should one translate those disjointed ‘letters’- they are not ‘words’ but as you said, letters ?! ]

U are asking me ?! ask the author who is giving u meaningless codes !!

[These letters are the signs of the book, the Qur’an: did you not read: tua, sin meem. These are the SIGNS of the book…(Q26:1) ?]

LOOOOOOOL , what kind of signs are these ?!!
I can give u a better sign, BMW , how about that ?! what about H2o ? take this one add it to the quran signs, this one is great : @$$H*6#
i think muslims will like this one,(u are welcome)

I really wonder why allah would bother giving people codes that they dont understand, and muslim look say Subhan allah !! for what ?!!


again islamic unawareness .. no thanks, u havent already provided any reliable sources for the sanna manuscript except this sie, so do u want to trust your source, give me a recognized refernce

[I am merley pointing the fact to you all that we should be cautious about the defective facsimile COPY of the Samarqand mss. ]

And then u will claim any cariant / error to the printing or being inspired ... that is the muslim approach to studying MSS !!

[Since you cannot appreciate the power of oral transmission, that is precisely why I proposed to you to experience this personally what happens in practice. Ask Nabeel to explain to you, he was a qadiyani Muslim before, don’t you remember?]

Why ask nabeel , when muhammed forgot parts of the quran ?!

why ask nabeel , when Zaid went to collect the quran, which mean noone meorized al of it, just few verses each

why ask nabeel, when aisha, ubay, ibn umar, couldnt remeber the lost verses they talked about

With respect to nabeel, but I would think those are more authentic testimonies than Nabeel

Unknown said...

You don’t read carefully what we write, do you? Buy that book by Azami I recommended earlier. Your confusion will disappear. Or, ask Nabeel to help you understand this.


So my point goes un-answered, again Ask nabeel !!!
Sir u said those variant are scribal errors. so since u agreed on scribal error, then hman factor play a role in transmission, so memory also will have errors , like scribes had !


and still havent given valuable resources about the sanaa MSS which u quoted earlier, except islamic unawarness, which I doubt that anyone would consider as a reliable reference!!

[Are you willing to concede that The Qur'an can be committed to memory by thousands of people today but somehow reluctant to admit that this would have been possible back then? ]

Sir, i am trying to trust u , but in order to trust u , I have to untrust Aisha, Ubay, Ibn Umar ...etc etc who werent able to retrieve their lost verses !!! Aisha was the direct wife of the prophet from which u shuld take half of ur religion, when she says the verse was lost , How come she says that ?! isnt she supposed to memorize it ??????????????

Radical Moderate said...

Nak just read your response to Educating Christians. Looks like you educated him. Way to use Comforts New Testement text and comentary. :)

Unknown said...

Ashraf:

to make it very simple for you

Muhamed was talking about Gospel of Jesus

But jesus was talking about Gospel of the kingdom

So on what basis u say they are both the same ?!

Did mohamed said Gospel of Kingdom which Jesus talked about ?!

Or did Jesus spoke about gospel of Jesus which Muhamed Talked about ?!

Radical Moderate said...

DK said
This is old news. Informed Muslims have known this for centuries.

Well can you show me a informed muslim that has admitted this in public?

And I'm TheFatman here not Radical Moderate :)

Unknown said...

learnig

here is the word Makrمكر :

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/Farsi/%25D9%2585%25D9%2583%25D8%25B1

Unknown said...

and Here is the translation of the word Farj فرج :

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/فرج%20/ar-en/

See how bad this word is !! kunt !! and yet we find it in the quran... and to prove it is a shameful word, it was not translated !!!

Unknown said...

The word Nekah نكاح :

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/نكاح%20/ar-en/

F word !! yes it is in the quran !!
in the meaning of Bang !!!

( sorry everyone, but bassam was speaking that quran always in arabi no translated... not showing why ... here it is why ?! because it is SHAMEFUL )

Fernando said...

Learner saide: «Quite funny and rather untrue if we take the authors of the NT gospels to court. Which court of law in which country accepts as evidence testimony of individuals who only provides their first names and don’t ‘remember’ their last names? In a Christian court I suppose! The same court which punishes an innocent individual for the crimes of the many»...

no, mie friende, you're absolutelly wrong... this is absolutellie true... the writters off the NT were real persons, with first and lastte names eben when the books they wrotte received only their's first name because theire lastte names were:

1) well known to those withe whom they livved;

2) to the naming off the books theire last names is off no importance;

3) ans to whoich muhammad does the shahadah refers? there're tons off muhammad... does he habe nott a lats name? why is it nott refrreed eben in the qur'an? does that mean thate allah does nott know his name?

the point is whate I made: in any court off lawn (exceptt in some muslims countries where the truth is nott a value) multiplle and independent testimonies are more valuable than a single testimony thate cannot bee corroborated by anyone else...

Fernando said...

@ ashraf

you saide: «Dear Furnando & Shafsha, you guys can explain me about gospel of Jesus (Gospel of kingdom)& where is it»...

ashraf... thankes for your politte question thate manifestes, at vleats, the willing to learn something (butt I may bee wrong...).

"Gospel" is a worde thate "means good-notice", "good-anouncement"... by a mechanism off metonimia (I do nott know iff this is the proper worde inn english) itt has finally meant another thing: nott only thate oral anouncement, butt the text thate writtes aboutt thate anouncement...

so: we habe,

1) in the origin, an oral "Gospel", an anouncement off Jesus aboutte the "good-notice" off the Kingdom off God: this is, the anouncement thate God is actting, from within off everyone opened to him [Luke 17:21], whithe love, mercy (and "love" and "mercy" are nott sinonimous) and forgiveness to make them capable off a rellattion off intimacy and friendshipp [Jo. 15:15] with him in order to participatte [2Pt 14] in his liffe off Love [1Jo 4:8.16]...

2) then we habbe several persons thate, in theire communities thate they created, recuperated theyre memory and oral traditions abouthe thate first "Gospel" (teh oral announcement made by Jesus) and wrotte them down in order to preserve to persons who did nott understood aramaic and hebrew (the languages spoke by Jesus)... and then, every off these four texts thate present the SAME ralitty from different perspectives (iff you ask all the members off your family to writte aboutte whate happened in theirs last meal, everyone woulde writte about the same realitty whith difefrent points off view) received, by thate phenomenon off metonimia, the name off "gospels"...

the one and only Gospel off Jesus was written in four gospels... butt Jesus did nott wrotte a gospel (written text): He announced a Gospel (good-notice)...

Hoppe you bacame more inlightened... everything I saide is in the NT... God bless...

Royal Son said...

Ok, just a few comments and questions from me, and sorry if I'm covering ground that has already been addressed, but here goes:

1. DK, I disagree that Nabeel lost to Bassam. While Nabeel conceded some points, so did Bassam. To determine who really won the debate we have to ask ourselves the question - What were the goals of either speaker and who achieved those goals? I believe that Nabeel's goal in the debate was to illustrate that the Qur'an, just like other books has been subject to the same kind of variances that other books of antiquity have. I think Osama's goal was to show that the Qur'an was perfectly preserved in a way that is to be defined by Muslims, not by Christians. I say that Nabeel clearly won the debate because despite the points he conceded, he achieved his goal, and showed at every point how the concept of perfect preservation was flawed. Bassam on the other hand, while being a very good debator and obviously having done his homework, never actually managed to define what constitutes perfect preservation or corruption.

2. I would *love* to see Nabeel debate Johanathan Yahya Seymour or another Shia Muslim on this topic, because the Shia position on Qur'anic preservation is strikingly different to the Sunni Muslims.

3. I don't know why Bassam thought that it was sufficient for the surah of stoning to be mentioned in a hadith, because that is a HADITH preservation NOT a QUR'ANIC preservation. Are we seriously to believe now that Qur'anic preservation depends on hadith preservation?

4. The "eternal tablets" point was an absolutely excellent one to make. When it comes down to it, the Qur'an that muslims have in their hands CANNOT be the same as the "eternal tablet" so to speak. This is something Muslims need to come to grips with.

5. Joining the point about the eternal tablet and the 7 ahruf, I would like to know (sorry if I missed it in the debate), whether Muslims believe that the eternal tablets contain all 7 ahruf, or just 1.

6. If the Qur'an says that Allah does not cause something to be forgotten but substitutes it with something better, does that mean that when a verse no longer exists but the practice does exist, that the practice is better than the original word of Allah?

7. Are some parts of the Qur'an superior/inferior to others? e.g. the verse that permits Muslims to drink but not to come to prayers when intoxicated vs the verses forbidding alcohol?

8. Why is it that if Allah says that He will guard his book (Qur'an), that abrogation even exists?

God bless you all,
Royal Son.

Nakdimon said...

@ Educating Christians 1/2
Mohammed said you can only read any **ONE** of the 7 dialects that is easiest for you.

Did Jesus ever say you can only read any **ONE** of the four gospels you want?


Wow. Are you serious or is this a joke? Yeshua didn’t tell us how many Gospels we should have period! So your argument is pure desperation. As for your argument about Muhammad. You guys have just put Muhammad alongside Allah. Allah reveals 7 ahrufs and Muhammad says one is enough. So BY YOUR OWN LOGIC Allah shouldn’t have bothered to reveal the other 6 ahrufs. This is exactly what you told Sepher Shalom, remember? Yet your prophet abrogates what your god sent down. No matter who abrogated those other 6 ahrufs, the outcome is the same. You called this “ridiculous logic”. By saying that, you buried your own brother’s entire presentation without even knowing it. I thought Bassam did a very decent job in the debate, but it turns out that his own brother(s) think it was logically ridiculous.

If so, and a Christian chooses to ONLY read Mark, how will they ever know that Jesus is “the WORD” of God that pre-existed with Him and how the Word became flesh” and all that other nonsense that is found only in John?

You need all FOUR gospels to make the “gospel”.

We do not need all SEVEN dialects to make the Quran.


We don’t need to know that Yeshua is the Word of God. We need to know that He is the SINLESS SON OF GOD, who DIED FOR OUR SINS and ROSE FROM THE DEAD. I just gave you a demonstration of how Mark testifies about all this. And fact is that all the Gospels testify about the basics for salvation. The only thing they do is one gives more detail than the other. Our salvation through the Son of God is in ALL GOSPELS!

And your “all that other nonsense found only in John” argument is really a cracker. It so happens that the “Paraklete”, which your Muslim scholars rely to heavily on to try desperately to prove Muhammad was foretold by Yeshua, is also ONLY FOUND IN JOHN! Is it therefore “nonsense”? So your scholars and apologists rely on “nonsense”? It is embarrassing enough to see Muslims squirm around to find something, ANYTHING, in the Bible to try to prove that Muhammad is foretold while in the same breath crying that the Bible is hopelessly corrupted, but it is truly sad to see Muslims willing to do or say ANYTHING to discredit the NT. But I cant blame you, because you know this much to be true: If the Gospels and the Torah are true, then Islam is false. And that is one thing you cannot afford, is it? So you will attack the very source that you seek confirmation from. Even your book seeks confirmation from the Bible. Muslims have picked a real serious fight with God’s Word. You could have gotten away with the charge of corruption for any other document in ancient history. Instead you chose to wage Jihad on the best attested book from antiquity that man has ever known. Sorry, friend, but this is the one Jihad that Allah and his companions will not win!

Plus the end of Mark contains unique sayings of Jesus that are not found anywhere else, so get your facts right.

“so get your facts right”? Again, your embarrassing ignorance is astounding. Do you know what textual scholars say about the longer ending of Mark and the most likely reason how it got there? Of course not, who am I kidding? When you finally have done your homework you would know that they conclude that it’s a strong possibility that the person who added the longer ending drew from what is known of the disciples in Acts! (since the only “unique sayings” we can find that are allotted to Yeshua are the sayings of handling snakes, casting out demons, etc. I have every right to assume that you are alluding to that) So, again, there is NO information in the longer ending of Mark that we DON’T have elsewhere in the NT. Even if there was info in the longer ending, IT IS NOT AUTHENTIC! So AGAIN you are attacking a straw man, hoping, in typical Muslim fashion, to find something, ANYTHING, against the NT.

Nakdimon said...

The point is you’ll never know, yet alone agree, on whether that is the inspired words of your God or not because some scribe may have screwed it up for you a few hundred years ago and you cant tell what happened..

You keep thinking that the words of the NT are in and of themselves essential for our salvation. What I’m going to say now is for the sake of argument only, so that you will not get the impression that I regard the NT as uninspired. It is not if they are inspired or not but if they are TRUE. You don’t need Gods words to have true accounts. Even IF the 4 Gospels are NOT the words of God, then STILL, they are a reliable account of what happened in the first century! See this is the difference between the Quran and the NT. When we look at the two books in all boils down to this: Messianics/Christians CLAIM that the words of the NT are inspired, Muslims CLAIM that the words of the Quran are inspired. That’s all we have, our CLAIMS! We cannot prove that they are.

However, if the words of the Gospels are NOT inspired by God, that doesn’t necessitate that they are false accounts! The events can still be true if they are just MEN telling what they experienced with this Messianic Figure, that claimed Heavenly existence, to be the Son of God, was sinless, died for our sins, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. If these accounts are to be deemed historically reliable based on historical criteria, then we can still be confident in our salvation, yet Islam cannot be true. ON THE OTHER HAND, if the words of the Quran aren’t inspired, the jig is up for Muslims and everything ends right there. Then Islam is a farce and collapses like a house of cards. And, again, you keep bickering about the many errors in the NT. Tell me, based on the Gospels alone (I am narrowing the scope for you since you keep beating the same lame drum), what we can’t be sure of based on our manuscript tradition? Where did the scribes mess up so badly that we are unsure of what the original reading of a text should be?

Do we have that problem?

No.


Congratulations, but since the NT is a reliable set of documents, Islam is still a fraud.

Finally, if the last 12 verse of mark "aren’t needed", then why stop there?

What about the last 20 verses of Mark? Are they needed?

How about the first 100 verses?

How abouts the books of James, Revelations and phileimon.

Are they needed?


Dude, STOP the special pleading. It’s obvious that you have nothing meaningful to say. We don’t lack the last 20 verses because God preserved of the Gospels all we would need for our salvation. Go ahead, tell us that this argument is weak. Shoot your brother Bassam’s pinkie toe off while you’re at it, like you shot the rest off. And if you are consistent, which you as a Muslim cannot allow yourself to be, then you should ask yourself “if the Quran is preserved in the memories of the Muslims, why not burn them all, including the Uthmani script?”

Again, I still wait for your examples of errors that the scribes made that damages any of our doctrines.

Nakdimon

Yahya Hayder Seymour said...

Educating Christians,

I applaud you for exposing Shafsha, whilst it can be understandable to lose one's cool every so often, just look at Shafsha's behaviour.

Unable to deal with your points, we witness a plethora of Red Herrings and irrelevant questions, phrased in the rudest of ways.

Fernando

For you to call anyone Rude, is just hypocrisy so perhaps you want to pick the plank out of your eye before you proceed with that.

Nakdimon

If the Qur'an's preservation for you were such a trivial issue, then why even bother posting in this blog entry and why even watch the debate just out of interest?

el Lobo said...

Dear Learner and Educating_Christians

I think you can ignire shafsha from now on. Her list of innuendo questions clearly shows that she has to resort to insults due to running out of arguments.

I suggest we adopt the respectable tone requested by Sepher Shalom.

Fernando said:

Zakaria: in order to obercome whate you thinke there are odddities, can you present all off those? I woulde bee absolutely glade to explaine all to you using the Bible itself...
I'm not talking about oddities regarding peripheral matters. So you can do a better job explaining the strange and contradictory narrations about the passion and cruxifiction of jesus than christian scholars. Can you do a better job explaining why in some passages Jesus is depicted as an ordinary prophet and in other passages as G-d? Let's for arguments sake say you can. My point is that with or without your evangelical explanations a la Fernando they are at the end of the day still there. In the quran however nobody can claim that there are unclear passages regarding fundamental tenets of belief such as tawhid, the prophethood of Muhammad etc. I don't have to explain these things. THEY ARE CLEAR. You on the other hand have to explain fundamental tenets of belief in your book because of contradictory passages. Again I'm not talking about oddities you can find in both the quran and the bible regarding peripheral issues which prompt scholars to explain them. We are talking about the cruxifiction and the nature of jesus.

Fernando said:

yes, I agree thate to someone who has biasis presepusitions (filosophical or intelectual ones) some aspects off the Bible are hard to overcome, butt nott imposible from its own internal coherance... can I help you overcome your difficulties? Please: let me know whate you consider difficulties in the relation between God and Jesus...

Fernando you know very well that i'm not talking about aspects. There are aspects in both the bible and the quran that are difficult to understand for non-christians and non-muslims respectively. I'm talking about fundamental issues of belief. With or without philosphical prejudices it's very clear that the quran consistently teaches tawhid and the prophethood of Muhammad.

coulde you pointe out any major differences in the regard off THOSE aspects you mentioned amoung any off the major true Christian denominations? I'll bee right here to see to whate you're referring...
Well you can read catholic or protestant scholarly journals and you will find that these issues are debated.
In islam scholars don't debate twahid or the prophethood of Muhammad because the textual evidence is so overwhelming that there's no room for debate.
I'll try to give clear references.

with kind regards,
zak

P.S I want to appeal to shafsha to not insult our prophet. He lived in the 7th century and in that time eligibility for marriage was determined by the onset of puberty. You can't apply modern values on a man that lived 1400 years ago. If you do then be consistent and apply it on the people described in your bible D.S

Unknown said...

Learner / Bassam :

Here are more of inaccurate translations:

Islam
Arabic: اسلام

Transliteration: Islam

Common Muslim interpretations: Peace; Peace by Submission to God

Correct meaning: Submission

See related: Islam's Etymology

[edit] Lam Yahidh Na
Arabic: لَمْ يَحِضْنَ

Transliteration: Lam Yahidh Na

Context: Qur'an 65:4

Common Muslim interpretation: Stopped menstruating

Correct Meaning: Not menstruated yet

See Related: Pedophilia in the Qur'an




[edit] Idriboohunna
Arabic: اضْرِبُوهُنَّ

Transliteration: Idriboohunna

Context: Qur'an 4:34

Common Muslim interpretation: Leave them, Seperate from them

Correct meaning: beat them (for female plural)

Related word:

Arabic: اضربوا عنهن
Transliteration: Adriboo Anhunna
Correct meaning: Leave them
See Related: Beat your wives or "separate from them"?

[edit] Dahaha
Arabic: دَحَاهَا

Transliteration: Dahaha

Context: Qur'an 79:30

Common Muslim interpretation: egg shaped

Correct Meaning: ‘spread’ or ‘stretched’

See Related: The Flat Earth

[edit] Alssulbi waalttara-ibi
Arabic: الصُّلْبِ وَالتَّرَائِبِ

Transliteration: alssulbi waalttara-ibi

Context: Qur'an 86:7

Common Muslim interpretations: men and women reproductive organs; blood of the aorta; gonads in the embryonic stage; man’s penis and a woman’s erogenous zones;

Correct Meaning: spine and the rib bones

See related: Qur'an and Semen Production

[edit] Dakhala
Arabic: دخل

Transliteration: dakhala

Context: Sahih Bukhari 7:62:64

Common Muslim interpretations: completion of wedding ceremony

Correct Meaning: enter (in the sense of sexual intercourse)

See related: Consummate, Aisha's Age of Consummation, Pedophilia in the Qur'an

[edit] Makr
Arabic: مكر

Transliteration: Makr

Context: Qur'an 3:54

Common Muslim interpretations: Planner, words like plotter and schemer when used to mean plan

Correct Meaning: Deceiver/a deceitful person; schemer/plotter (in a wily or coy way); Trickster

See Related: Allah the best Deceiver

[edit] Yawm
Arabic: يوم

Transliteration: Yawm

Common Muslim interpretations: Period; stage

Correct Meaning: Day (same as English word). Cannot connotate anything else when specific number of days given.

Related usage: Bi ayam Shakespeare = In the days (period) of Shakespeare.

Unknown said...

for more about Allah the best Deciever in Islam read the following research:



http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/Allah_the_best_Deceiver

The Deceiver is the Winner for the 100th name for Allah!

http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/Farsideology:_The_100th_Name_for_Allah

Unknown said...

Learner Do u know why no-one should trust islam-unawerness or any other muslims at all:

cause: Muhammad admits to lying and encourages Muslims to do likewise

u want evidence>>> here it is:

1:

Narrated Zahdam:

We were in the company of Abu Musa Al-Ash'ari and there were friendly relations between us and this tribe of Jarm. Abu Musa was presented with a dish containing chicken. Among the people there was sitting a red-faced man who did not come near the food. Abu Musa said (to him), "Come on (and eat), for I have seen Allah's Apostle eating of it (i.e. chicken)." He said, "I have seen it eating something (dirty) and since then I have disliked it, and have taken an oath that I shall not eat it ' Abu Musa said, "Come on, I will tell you (or narrate to you). Once I went to Allah s Apostle with a group of Al-Ash'ariyin, and met him while he was angry, distributing some camels of Rakat. We asked for mounts but he took an oath that he would not give us any mounts, and added, 'I have nothing to mount you on' In the meantime some camels of booty were brought to Allah's Apostle and he asked twice, 'Where are Al-Ash'ariyin?" So he gave us five white camels with big humps. We stayed for a short while (after we had covered a little distance), and then I said to my companions, "Allah's Apostle has forgotten his oath. By Allah, if we do not remind Allah's Apostle of his oath, we will never be successful." So we returned to the Prophet and said, "O Allah's Apostle! We asked you for mounts, but you took an oath that you would not give us any mounts; we think that you have forgotten your oath.' He said, 'It is Allah Who has given you mounts. By Allah, and Allah willing, if I take an oath and later find something else better than that. then I do what is better and expiate my oath.' "

Sahih Bukhari 7:67:427, and also similar to : Sahih Bukhari 9:89:260; Sahih Bukhari 9:89:260; Sahih Muslim 15:4052; Sahih Muslim 15:4053; Sahih Muslim 15:4054; Sahih Muslim 15:4058; Sahih Muslim 15:4062

2: Allah the best Deceiver

3: lying is allowed in islam: ( so u guys are not trustworthy, Sorry), Islam is the only world-religion that implies in its scriptures that it is ever permissible (or even encouraged) to lie. In his Sira, Muhammad authorized lying to improve the chances of successful assassinations, for example in the case of Shaaban Ibn Khalid al-Hazly and Bin Kaab.

Muhammad said: "Lying is wrong, except in three things: the lie of a man to his wife to make her content with him; a lie to an enemy, for war is deception; or a lie to settle trouble between people" [Ahmad, 6.459. H]

1. To keep the peace in his house,
2. To protect himself
3. To bring peace among people.


also check these:
Q16:106, Q2:225:, Q3:28:, Q16:106, Q77:38 & Q9:5:

Questions: What did Islam add to humanity as far as lying is concerned? What is it that Muslims are not allowed to do today, that pagans were allowed to do before the founding of Islam in regards to honesty?

Educating_Christians said...

DEAR CHRISTIANS..

Well i was hoping the Ben Malik will get back to me, but since he seems to have dropped out my class, ill have to deal with Nikdimon instead

Apologies to all the others like Shafsh, Fith, Fat Guy, DK who responded to me requesting to join my class, but i don’t have time to deal with you all..

Perhaps if you elect one person for me to educate on this issue, then im sure he will be happy to pass his new found knowledge on to you all.

I respond to Nikdimon below only since i was yesterday too..

Regards to all..

Educating_Christians said...

HI NIKDIMON...

[POST 1 OF 3]

<< If everything means the Quran, then the Quran is not the “eternal uncreated word of Allah” as your brother Bassam Zawadi says, since it was at one time non-existent. Why didn’t you rebuke Bassam for trying to sell that lie? >>>

Everything doesn’t ‘mean’ the Quran, everything INCLUDEDS the Quran.

Its a very, very simple concept.
The tablet in heaven contains a record of all events that will ever occur on earth- including the Quran. God writes or blots out form that tablet as he pleases. What he writes occurs, what he doesn’t or blots out does not.
The tablet would thus include ALL revelved variation of the Quran, so none of them contradict the tablet.

Where is the contradiction between me a Bassam?

<< And if you want to help him out by claiming that the Quran existed in the thought of Allah, then we are all eternal and uncreated since we too existed in the thoughts of Allah. Unless you want to claim that at one point in time Allah didn’t know about us coming into being and eventually came to learn about us. >>>

Absolutely! Well done! You go to the top of the class above Ben Malik. :-)

Because God is All-knowing, then there was never a time where he didnt know EVERYTHING, including about us or the Quran.

Now what’s your point?

<<< Your ignorance of our scriptures is embarrassing. In the Torah, when the Gentiles were among the chosen people (yes, the REAL chosen people) they didn’t have to be circumcised either. Circumcision was only obligated for the Jewish boys >>

Only Jews circumcised? lol

I think you’ve just embarrassed yourself... Ever read your Bible?

“ This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner— those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.”
(Genesis 17:10-13)

So Ishmael is a “Jewish Boy” now?
Ouch! You must be SO embarrassed right now..

And by the way, when God said:
“My covenant in your flesh is to be an **EVERLASTING** covenant.”
What does everlasting mean?

Does everlasting mean “EVERLASTING”?

Or does EVERLASTING mean until a false prophet called Paul comes along and says:

“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.”
(Galatians 5:2)

<< If you did, the only conclusion you can draw from his position (and he has said many times in his lectures also) is he rejects the inspiration of the NT because of the missing ORIGINALS! >>

Sorry, I need a reference for that.

I want his exact words were he says that’s the SOLE reason.

As ive told you he did not immediately stop believing in inerrancy when he found out he didn’t have the originals, it was that coupled with the observation of examining the STATE of what you do have.

Educating_Christians said...

NIKDIMON

[PART 2/3]

<< What passage is there in the NT that we don’t know what the original text should be???? PUT UR MONEY WHERE UR MOUTH IS! Give us some examples of texts that supports Christian doctrine that we don’t know what the original must be! >>

Hello!?!

Where have you been for the last few days? Please pay attention.
Ive just given you ONE example of Mark 16:9-20.

1) Was the original ending of Mark lost like Metzger (who you quoted says), and how do you know?

2) Is Mark 16:9-20 the original “Word of God” and words of Jesus or not?

3) How do you know?

4) Have Christians always seen it that way for the last 2000 years, and if not, why not?

5) And do all Christians TODAY agree with your decision? And if not, why not?

Regards...

Educating_Christians said...

NIKDINOM

[PART 3/3]

<< "I DON'T KNOW OF ANY DOCTRINE THAT IS IN JEOPARDY,"…”NONE”…and scholars work very carefully to try to resolve them by getting back to the original meaning. THE MORE SIGNIFICANT VARIATIONS DO NOT OVERTHROW ANY DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But, again, THESE ARE RARE." (from Lee Strobel's book The Case For Christ, pg 84-85) >>

Ive already dealt with that.

COPY/PASTE:

Here we go again with the concocted “no doctrine affected” argument.

Who says that variants only matter if they affect a ‘doctrine’? Did Jesus say that? Paul? Or maybe it was Origen?

So this is another Ad Hoc escape-clause.

Secondly just stop and think about how ridiculous your logic is here..

You’re telling me that it doesn’t matter whether the last 12 verses of Mark are inspired or not since it doesn’t affect any ‘doctrine’ that isn’t also present in the other Gospels either way?

In that case, answer me this.. if the ENTIRE GOSPEL of Mark was removed from the NT, what “doctrine” would be affected that isn’t present in the other 3 gospels??

Please answer..

Thus according to your logic the ENTIRE gospel of Mark is DISPOSIBLE, which begs the question of why the Holy Spirit bothered to inspire it in the first place? What was the point?

And how may other of the ‘inspired’ 27 book of the NT can we dispose of before we rupture the main artery of ‘doctrine’?

Bottom line is that SOME variants in the NT- such as Mark 16- affect the INERRENCY of the NT.

<< As I said before to your brother Esteshaam. You can have 1000 Qurans which correspond 1000% accurately with one another, that doesn’t matter, since it contradicts the NT, the best attested ancient manuscript the world has ever known. >>

Best attested compared to what?

Compared to the likes of Josephus, Homer and Tacitus that have about 3manuscripts each for them??

Wow, im SOO impressed!

Obviously the NT would have more MSS then those works because no one belived them to be the Word of God, so why copy them?

Why not compare the NT to another book that ALSO claims to be the word of God like...err..... THE QURAN??

The NT has about 5,500 Greek MSS...
Yet 14,000 MSS of the Quran were discovered in the loft of the Sana Mosque in 1972.

That means we have **MORE THAN DOUBLE** the number of Quran MSS in just **ONE LOFT**, than you have Greek NT manuscripts IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!

And that just one collection, so dont even go there, dude...

Regards..

Unknown said...

One more evidence for your LEARNER, that the quran is meaningless, open up any tafseer, see how many times scholars disagreed about the explanation of a verse ?! almost the whole book!! everytime they try to explain a verse, they give u so many different explanation, and what is meant from that verse !! wow, and u telling me it is clear !! and it is the daily language !!

imagine if people talk together meaningless speech .. everything will go wrong in life , like u tell ur son go to school, he get it to go to sleep!!

Different meaning is almost in every single verse in the quran !!

for example: Who was in the burning tree , that Moses Saw ?! Did he hear the voice of Allah ?! many many things ..

So do youi still believe that the language of quran is clear to everyone when it is not clear to scholars ?!!

Unknown said...

for ben malik:

[Educating_Christians said about Ben Malik:
Since you and Sam Shaumoun are both as ignorant as each other, i couldn’t care less whether you are same person or not. ]

Me too. However, since in the past in this blog, ben malik has been accused of impersonating Sam Shamoun, it's time ben comes clean from the filth people accuse him with! Time for an Integrity test for the accusers and the accused.

INTEGRITY TEST for ben malik

If you have even an iota of any integrity left, then tell us this:

I solemnly swear in the name of my risen Lord Jesus that:

a)I, ben malik, am not Sam Shamoun.
or,
b)I, ben malik, am Sam Shamoun.

Matter will be settled. However if you don't answer directly, your silence or 'wildcat behaviour' will be taken as an affirmative that you are sadly him or, his alter ego.

Then in the latter case--Nabeel, help him with a prescription please!

Radical Moderate said...

Nabeel, David, Basam.
I'm wondering if any of you have heard any fallout from what Bassam said in this debate. I have shared the debate with several muslim on paltalk and I have to say they are not pleased. Not pleased at all with what Bassam said.

BTW Bassam if you come to paltalk I have a feeling your going to be decleared a apostate.

I also noticed Bassam that a Muslim in the QandA said words to the effect of "I have never heard a muslim say such a thing" I'm wondering was there any fall out?

Fifth Monarchy Man said...

ashraf

you say

Dear Furnaanndo & Shafsha,you guys can explain me about gospel of jesus(Gospel of kingdom)& where is it.

I respond
If you want to understand what the Bible means by this you need to remove your Islamic glasses

Contrary to what you’ve apparently been taught Gospel does not mean “book” it means simply good news.

For an example of Jesus' proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom.


Check this out


Luk 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.
Luk 4:17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news (Gospel) to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
Luk 4:19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Luk 4:20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
Luk 4:21 And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

The Gospel of the kingdom is simply the announcement of the arrival of the Messiah and it’s implications

peace

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating,

It looks to me most of what you said has been responded to. In the interest of avoiding redundancy, I will comment on a few things that I don't think were touched on:

Educating said: "What were ‘Mathew’, ‘Mark’, ‘Luke’, and ‘John’ doing 18 years after Jesus? Still running around Palestine catching fish, before they finally decided to sit down and make-up stories about Jesus a further 18 years after that!!"

Firstly, there was no such place as "Palestine" 18 years after the Resurrection. It was known as Judea and Samaria. It wasn't called "Palestine" until after 70ad when the Romans exiled most of the Jews and renamed the area Philistia as a slap in the face. So despite the fact that your Quran says The Disciples were pious Muslims, your view is that they just decided to make up stories about Yeshua? I have a hard time believing you even typed that without seeing how nonsensical it is for a Muslim to make that claim.

Educating said: "I have a lot of respect for Jews (orthodox ones) since at least they don’t ascribe multiple personalities to God."

That's an extreme misrepresentation of the Messianic faith that also belies you complete lack of understanding of orthodox Jewish theology. The Messianic faith doesn't have "multiple personalities" for G-d. That is a straw-man of the most absurd order. Just because you don't like our theology, it does not give you the right to make up things we don't believe and say we believe them. However, I suppose it can be said you are following the example of your Quran and Muhammad, since both misrepresented Jewish and Christian beliefs routinely. Try actually examining some orthodox Jewish sources. When you get to the parts that discuss the "multiple emanations" that proceed from HaShem, please let me know if you can say it's a nice fit with your Tawheed, and you are comfortable with it.

Educating said: "And while you’re scratching your head over that, why don’t you find me where this verse is in the Old Testament that Jesus quotes: “He who believes in me, AS THE SCRIPTURE HAS SAID, ”out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”(John 7:38) Looks like that’s gone missing too!!"

Wow. That was by far your most absurd and misinformed comment in this thread. In this passage, Yeshua was paraphrasing a concept that is written about in the Tanach. There is absolutely nothing that indicates he is directly quoting a verse. When Yeshua quotes verses, He says "It is written....". "As the Scripture has said" is an entirely different speech pattern that conveys an entirely different meaning. The passages Yeshua is referring to are Isaiah 49 [which is Messianic in nature], and concepts further elucidated in Ezekiel 47 [where the typology of rivers of water flowing from the Temple is applied to Messiah]. Isaiah 49 also prophesies the regathering of the 10 lost tribes, and their remarriage in the New Covenant through Yeshua. You may want to stick to NT transmission, Educating. I get the sense that these might be deep waters you are not accustomed to swimming in.

Couldn't find the quote, but on your comments about circumcision: A ger who sojourns with Israel was never required to be circumcised [as Nakdimon already mentioned], and circumcision was never a requirement for Salvation.

That's all I have time for now. Looking forward to seeing the way things move in this thread as comments come through.

Fernando said...

Zakaria... thankes for your wordes...

you asked: «Can you do a better job explaining why in some passages Jesus is depicted as an ordinary prophet and in other passages as G-d?»... yes I can... the fact in one passages He's declared as a prophet does nott imply He's nott alsso God... he's both 100% man (and a great prophet) and 100% God (and so, more than a great prophet)... and this is nott mie interpretation: it's the simple and clear message off the Holy Bible.

can you provide, please, more aspectes you wich to be explaines? you talke about the cruxifixion... whte do you mean?

And, just to make notice, for ounce, I, being as I was for 18 years, a muslim, I reconn to bee much more clear than the qur'an in the key aspects... the qur'an, in more than 80 % off itt, is absolutely non intelegible att all... you may say: these 80% are off non relevance... then: whie do they exist?

you, then, Zakaria, saide: «I'm talking about fundamental issues of belief»... I do nott wantt to convei the idea I'm being rude... can you explain to whate are you reffering? Thankes...

you, then, Zakaria, saide: «With or without philosphical prejudices it's very clear that the quran consistently teaches tawhid and the prophethood of Muhammad»... And so does the Bible aboutt the humanity and Divinity the Jesus... butt wahte evidences do you habe thate the qur'an is true? You onlie habe (and thate for you can be eniugh..and I respect that) the evidence presented by muhammad himself; and you now whate it's sad: no one can be a good judge in its defense... In teh Bible we have different and intechangeble evidences aboutt the same reality (and for me this is by far more eneough)...

you, then, Zakaria, saide: «
In islam scholars don't debate twahid or the prophethood of Muhammad because the textual evidence is so overwhelming that there's no room for debate»
...

more: can you, please, present aspects tahte Chriatian schoolars (we need to habe ana nalogy, since you are, I suppose, talking about muslim schoolars when you say that these agree on the prophettwood off muhammad... other schoolars may say thate tyhe qur'an say that, butt they woulde nott beliebe in tahte realiuty) are in desagrement about any fundamental aspect off the Christian faith? thankes

butt, oune gainne, one whate ebidence can they relly tahte the qur'an is true? to me thats a major point...

you, then, Zakaria, saide: «P.S I want to appeal to shafsha to not insult our prophet. He lived in the 7th century and in that time eligibility for marriage was determined by the onset of puberty. You can't apply modern values on a man that lived 1400 years ago. If you do then be consistent and apply it on the people described in your bible»...

I know you did nott spoke to me, butt teh problem is nott iff muhamamd had sex with a pre-pubescent girls (this as been debated here many times and the ebidences, that iI myself presented, are quite clear on thate aspect), buut iff, being him presented in the qur'an as the model muslim to all times, thate allows, eben nowadays, muslims to marry 9 years olde girls... and, unfortunantely, thate is the case... and you can teel us to do the same thate our only model, Jesus, did 2000 years ago: that's no problem...

Hope to continue our good, I recon, exchange off wordes... my heart is withe you.

Sepher Shalom said...

Educating_Christians said: "Well i was hoping the Ben Malik will get back to me, but since he seems to have dropped out my class, ill have to deal with Nikdimon instead

Perhaps if you elect one person for me to educate on this issue, then im sure he will be happy to pass his new found knowledge on to you all."


I just wanted to let you know that you are not funny. Have a nice day.

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