Thread: God's Name

Originally Posted by bitpicker

But it should be said that nothing in the New Testament is attributed to Jesus as a writer, it's more like a biography.

Your deduction is flawless, except for the fact that it doesn't disprove the Islamic interpretation. Islam holds that the text of the Bible has undergone various modifications by Christian clergies. Things have been added and deleted here and there. It's hardly any surprise that the remaining looks more like a biography.

Actually, there are many lines in the Quran that prove it wasn't written by Mohammad in person. There are prophecies and historical references and such. So a non-Muslim can question the validity of the claim that "the Quran is divinely dictated" in a similar way: it has been manipulated by others.

What remains unquestionable, is the fact that Muslims, from pagan Arabs all the way to our time, have always held Jesus and Moses in high esteem. Talking in disrespectful language about Jesus is considered as foul as doing so about Mohammad. In that regard, Muslims rarely receive mutual respect from Christians and Jews.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Your deduction is flawless, except for the fact that it doesn't disprove the Islamic interpretation. Islam holds that the text of the Bible has undergone various modifications by Christian clergies. Things have been added and deleted here and there. It's hardly any surprise that the remaining looks more like a biography.

Do you mean to say that Islam views anything in scripture as having been written by Jesus?

Theology by the way along with historical research also holds the same view that all scripture has been rewritten and modified beyond recognition. And that there is little use in being literal about what's written there.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

Do you mean to say that Islam views anything in scripture as having been written by Jesus?

Did I say anything remotely resembling that?

From Wikipedia (under "Jesus in Islam"):

"Muslims believe that God revealed to Jesus a new scripture, the Injil (Gospel), while also declaring the truth of other previous revelations, the Tawrat (Torah) and Zabur (Psalms). Descended 600 years after Jesus' life on earth, the Quran speaks favorably of the Injil, which it describes as a scripture that fills the hearts of it's followers with meekness and pity."

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Did I say anything remotely resembling that?

Yes, you said:

According to the Islamic faith, neither Quran nor Tora were written by mere mortals. Moses, Jesus and Mohammad were not "writers". They didn't make things up. They were only "messengers".

Which implies to me that the three not-mere-mortals in question are the authors of the respective texts by divine intercession, and not others reporting about them. OK, I now see that you didn't mean to say that, but it's how I understood your words. Tradition holds in fact that Moses did write the books of the Pentateuch, completely ignoring the impossibility of it, whereas no such tradition exists regarding Jesus. That Mohammed dictated rather than personally wrote his text is a mere technicality, he's the only one who can be considered an author out of the three.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

all scripture has been rewritten and modified beyond recognition.

Not so sure! Remember the Qumran scrolls (at work, so can't check it up..) But essentially they were several thousand years old Torah scrolls that were found hidden away in a cave in an inaccessible mountainous area. When they were investigated, they found, if I recall correctly, that there were only a few letters that were different to the Hebrew "Torah" today! To Jews, it was a fantastic sign of the holiness of their Torah.

In the New Testament, I think they removed the "apocrypha" books and found some signs that a section had been added to one of the testaments during the Middle Ages. But that was about it! Apart from that, the the gospels were written 50-100 years after the death of Jesus, approximately. To some degree they are supported by a totally independent Roman history writer that was a contemporary of Jesus, but not a Jew. He wrote about it simply because it was major news in the area at the time. His name was Josefus.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Not so sure! Remember the Qumran scrolls (at work, so can't check it up..) But essentially they were several thousand years old Torah scrolls that were found hidden away in a cave in an inaccessible mountainous area. When they were investigated, they found, if I recall correctly, that there were only a few letters that were different to the Hebrew "Torah" today! To Jews, it was a fantastic sign of the holiness of their Torah.

Yes the Dead Sea Scrolls have pretty much cleared up any Islamic complaining that the "bible was changed". The odd thing is that nowhere does the Koran actually say that the Bible was changed. This accusation must have come from later Muslims with no Koranic authority.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Not so sure! Remember the Qumran scrolls (at work, so can't check it up..) But essentially they were several thousand years old Torah scrolls that were found hidden away in a cave in an inaccessible mountainous area. When they were investigated, they found, if I recall correctly, that there were only a few letters that were different to the Hebrew "Torah" today! To Jews, it was a fantastic sign of the holiness of their Torah.

But the Torah is older than those scrolls. Yes, after the Torah as a set collection had been established, it was handed down the generations and replicated in a very meticulous fashion, and it's no surprise to me that some versions of it were found among those scrolls. The Qumran scrolls are from a time betwen 250 BCE and 40 CE, which makes them a lot younger than the Torah.

You only have to read the creation myths in Genesis to see that there are two, following one after the other. Later Moses gets the set of commandments three times, and the third version is completely different from the first two (and completely useless as well, who needs commandments like "Thou shalt not cook a kid in the milk of its mother" or "Thou shalt not walk up the stairs to the altar before your son lest he see thy privates" today. There are inconsistencies and internal conflicts everywhere, one only has to read the text oneself instead of just listening to the easily digestible excerpts presented in church.

In the New Testament, I think they removed the "apocrypha" books and found some signs that a section had been added to one of the testaments during the Middle Ages. But that was about it! Apart from that, the the gospels were written 50-100 years after the death of Jesus, approximately. To some degree they are supported by a totally independent Roman history writer that was a contemporary of Jesus, but not a Jew. He wrote about it simply because it was major news in the area at the time. His name was Josefus.

You are completely wrong. You really need to read up on this before you talk about it, no offense, this is just a conglomeration of half-remembered facts. "Apocrypha" is a word of different meanings in the Catholic and Protestant Curches respectively. In the Catholic Church it refers to all the books considered for inclusion in the Bible but rejected as wrong or heretic during the 2nd century CE. It includes such works as the gospels of Magdalene and Thomas, some of which interestingly enough can also be found among the Qumran scrolls. In the Protestant church the term is often applied to some books from the Old Testament in the standard Catholic bible which Luther removed from the bible, while the former apocrypha are called pseudepigraphs. Historians have yet other views, so whatever term you want to apply, there is a very large number of texts not included in the Bible you know for mostly political reasons, and very early on in the process of the development of the Christian faith.

Actually if you care to look into any commented edition of the Bible you will find such information. Or you can read such books as "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels, who after all is a professor for religious studies, or the more accessible (if somewhat biased) "The Jesus Mysteries" by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. You don't have to follow their theories in order to see how much really has been faked in the bible.

The earliest books in the New Testament are the parts of Paul's letters which are not demonstrably forged, and they are from about 56 to 70 CE. The canonical gospels and other texts included in the New Testament are even younger. What's very interesting, and shown in the books I mentioned, is how that faith developed from a very mythical and absolutely not literal faith about an ideal man Jesus to a literalist faith which posited that a person Jesus really existed.

As for the very scant and far too vague historical references to Jesus, they have all been discounted. And Josephus was in fact a Jew, not a Roman historian, who wrote about the history of his people in an apologetic fashion in the wake of an uprising against Roman rule, and he supported the Romans. He in fact denounces several would-be messiahs and remains a Jew throughout. Would he do that if he believed that Jesus was the real messiah? What's more, the -for Christians- interesting passages in Josephus only turn up for the very first time in the 4th century CE, when bishop Eusebius mentions them. You'd think someone would have noticed them sooner. You know, not only the religious texts have been tampered with, but also the historical texts. Christian scribes in cloisters have copied them, and it was easy for them to add material as they saw fit for their needs. The passages in Josephus, which deal with Jesus, are widely seen as such additons today.

Really, this is a far too complex and wide-reaching topic for IIRCs and "I think that's". Whether certain specific elements of the Bible are forgeries and not is open for debate, and should be debated by theologians and historians. But the fact as such, that a lot of the Bible has been tampered with in no meaningless fashion, is simply demonstrably true. Unless you want to preserve your faith by any means possible I suggest strongly that you read up on this topic, if you are interested.

A few things need to be clarified.
It is not known that Mohamed was illiterate. He was the top man who worked for a wealthy merchant and made many long trips to into Arabia and Syria with valuable cargo, made deals and returned with traded goods. It is likely that someone in his position and influence and who had family members who were leaders of his city, that he was able to in fact read and write. Sure the Koran and Hadith alludes that he was illiterate but it also says that "Adam was formed from a clot of congealed blood" too, so I think it is fair to say that we can take the Koran with a grain of salt.

The Koran if not written at least in part by Mohamed was at least written UNDER HIS SUPERVISION so it is neither here nor there who actually wrote it. When Mohamed died (as a result from the poisoning of his food by his captive Jewish sex slave three years earlier) he left nothing but a pile of papers that had to be collected by his followers and put into some order. There was no end of story or accomplishment in the Koran. There was no original Koran. It just ended when Mohamed ended.

Many of the verses were found and burnt by Muslims because they did not fit into Mohamed's line of thinking as he progressed. An example of this would be the Satanic Verses where Mohamed proclaimed for a time that Allah existed with his daughters godesses; from Alah's relationship with the Sun godess. These verses were systematically searched for found an most of them destroyed. Another, according to Mohammed's wife, Aysha, with whom he resided at this death, was kept under their bed at the time of Mohammed's death, but was eaten by a domestic animal. References: Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal. vol. 6. page 269;

Mohammed's child bride, Aysha, said this after he died:
"The verse of the stoning and of suckling an adult ten times were revealed, and they were (written) on a paper and kept under my bed. When the messenger of Allah expired and we were preoccupied with his death, a goat entered and ate away the paper."


In 1972 in the Great Mosque of Yemen was found and ancient bag of decaying Korans (the earliest found). They differ from the Koran as it reads today in quite a few places proving that the Koran is not the "sacred copy of the version kept in a tablet in heaven."

... The devastating truth is that a large number of ancient Quranic manuscripts, dating from first century of Hijra were discovered in the Great Mosque of Sana’a (Yemen), which significantly differs from the present standard one. Carbon dating system confirmed that these Qurans are not forged one by religious rivalries. Moreover, these Qurans were discovered by Muslims, not infidels.

This is, probably, the most embarrassing event to Muslims in the 1,400-year history of Islam.

... Until now, only three ancient copies of the Quran are found. The one preserved in the British Library in London, dates from the late seventh century and was thought to be the oldest one. But the Sana’a manuscripts are even older. Moreover, these manuscripts are written in a script that originates from the Hijaz—the region of Arabia where prophet Muhammad lived, which makes them not only the oldest to have survived, but one of the earliest authentic copies of the Quran ever.

... As if it is not enough, many manuscripts showed the sign of palimpsests, i.e., versions very clearly written over even earlier washed off versions. The underwriting of palimpsest is, of course, often difficult to read visually, but modern tools, such as ultraviolet photography, can highlight them. It suggests that the Sana’a manuscripts are not only variants to the present version of the Quran, but the Sana’a manuscripts themselves were variants of earlier version, re-written on the same paper. It means, Allah’s claim that original text is preserved in heaven on golden tablets (Q 56: 77–78; 85:21–22), which none can touch except angels is also a fairy-tale.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS: THE SANA QURANS: PROOF THE KORAN IS A POORLY WRITTEN, TERRIBLY EDITED AND TOTALLY MISINFORMED BOOK, AND NOT THE REVELATION OF A PROPHET



Furthermore are the 35,000 microfilms have showed up.
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

Given the abundant evidence I think it is only fair to say that it appears that Mohamed may have simply been a man with the personality of a Charles Manson who made up stories using bits and pieces form Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian sources that he had picked up in his travels. His first wife had family members who were of a Christians sect and it is written than Mohamed used to meet with a certain hermit "monk" during his trips as a merchant into Syria. (That was before he started raiding and looting merchant camel trains) Allah was known as a name by some pagan Arabs for their Moon god. We have ancient Arab archaeological finds that confirm this. The Moon is a symbol all over Arab countries dating back to Pagan times and has been adopted by Islam. I think it is therefore a just a matter of closing the case.

Speaking of the Moon, I have to inform you that there is no such thing as the Moon. It's actually the left testicle of an ancient camel that has been mysteriously put in the orbit. Arabs knew that, so they worshiped the "Heavenly Testicle"; it was believed that the god of Moon would in that way save their camels from misfortune.

In 1969, when man finally conquered the Moon, the undeniable fact was revealed at last. But people in NASA decided not to tell anybody. Not a word about it. What? You think they should have let the cat out of the basket? Who would believe it then?

It was only quite recently that this greatest mystery of all times was made public. The Moon, the ornament of the skies, the glorious bride of heavens that has been a constant source of inspiration for poets, is in fact the left testicle of a camel.

Reference: "What I saw up there"; Niel A. Armstrong, page 25

Now go back to your Quran-burning ambitions.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

it was believed that the god of Moon would in that way save their camels from misfortune.

In fact, since the ancient Egyptians the humankind knew the moon is not a god on its own, but just a manifestation of the deity. Similarly to animals. So, what Neil had seen was not in fact a testicle, but at most a manifestation of the testicle.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Speaking of the Moon, I have to inform you that there is no such thing as the Moon. It's actually the left testicle of an ancient camel that has been mysteriously put in the orbit. Arabs knew that, so they worshiped the "Heavenly Testicle"; it was believed that the god of Moon would in that way save their camels from misfortune.

In 1969, when man finally conquered the Moon, the undeniable fact was revealed at last. But people in NASA decided not to tell anybody. Not a word about it. What? You think they should have let the cat out of the basket? Who would believe it then?

It was only quite recently that this greatest mystery of all times was made public. The Moon, the ornament of the skies, the glorious bride of heavens that has been a constant source of inspiration for poets, is in fact the left testicle of a camel.

Reference: "What I saw up there"; Niel A. Armstrong, page 25

Now go back to your Quran-burning ambitions.

If you have something to debate, about concerning the previous information complete with links and sources which I posted, then perhaps you should try to articulate your point, because right now you come across as giving the typical emotional response of name calling and labeling that an ideologue often gives when confronted with information that he can not assimilate. Truth is never discovered through emotions!

I see now from your avatar that you claim to be currently in Iran. If you are Iranian you appear to have turned your back on your ancestors who resisted fiercely the men of Mohamed when they came for them. Great battles were fought and many men died trying to preserve their freedom from Islam back then. The original Iranians were called the Aryans who came down from Russia and settled where they are today.
History of the Ancient Aryans

Thanks for the tutorial about my ancestors. I know who the Aryans were and where they settled and so forth. Learned that stuff in third grade. And I have not "turned my back on them". You appear to have neglected a previous post of mine in which I said I'm not a religious person. Please don't view my opinions from that perspective.

Talking history is ticklish work, pal. If one allows his imagination too much freedom, his whole argument will be doomed. If you have finally chosen to desist from the kind of language you used to use, then I shall be glad to debate.

Mohammad was illiterate. He couldn't read the Bible. He knew nothing other than what an ordinary shepherd knows. The fact that in some early stage of his life he was employed by a wealthy tycoon, doesn't automatically imply that he went to the desert equivalent of Harvard University. The number of people who could read and write across the entire Arabian Peninsula is said to have been 17 at that time. If you could read a script, Arabs would look at you like you had just come from Mars. It was too great a rarity to go unnoticed.

The Quran is, therefore, not written by Prophet Mohammad. By whom, then? The second principle of the Islamic faith states: Mohammad was a messenger from Allah. [The first principle says that there is one God, and only one God.] Mohammad's new religion did not disregard the older Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Judaism. Quite the contrary: Islam was presented as a continuation of the string of monotheistic religions started by Abraham.

Your saying that Mohammad preached the opposite of Christ's teachings is, at best, a common fallacy among Christians. Pagan Arabs of that era were only slightly different from animals. The only things they knew in their lives this side of the grave were: desert, camels, and swords. Mohammad started his mission in such a troubled surrounding, and managed to make but a few real human beings out of those barbarian people. Judging by that alone, Islam was an utterly successful religion. Whether it works today as well is quite a different story.

So how's that for a start? Let's debate. Only, later on don't call me an ideologue, if you please. Because I'm not one. On this forum, I have already openly expressed my dislike of some of the things associated with Islam. Seeing that you've joined the forum a bit later than me, I'd like to know your own religious orientation, for the sake of clarity.

Peace