WE HAVE TO PERSEVERE PATIENTLY & GUARD AGAINST EVIL

MY BELOVED MUSLIM BROTHERS & SISTERS, WE HAVE TO PERSEVERE PATIENTLY & GUARD AGAINST EVIL

Christians seem to have an incredible ego, especially when it comes to other religions. Almost without exception, a Christian believes that his is the only true religion.

Judaism have come along beforehand, but to the Christian, it was simply a preparation for the faith of Christianity.

To his way of thinking, God made the Jews His Chosen people. This designation meant that the Jews were set aside by God, and it was to them, and them only, He sent His revelations and prophets. Therefore, the Christian feels he can only believe in Israelite prophets, and all others are impostors.

Islam presents another matter altogether for the Christian. Almost as soon as Islam burst out of Arabia following the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Christians began to carry on about the fact that a man from Arabia actually had the audacity to go around claiming he was a Messenger from God.

Even though Islam emphatically stated that it would be a denial of universal providence to God by saying that He would raise prophets in only one nation, the Christians still would not listen. Prophet Muhammad was not a Jew, therefore, in their eyes, he was a false prophet bearing false witness from a false god.

At first, the Christians reaction to Islam was simply that of low grumblings. When the Fatimid caliph Hakim destroyed the Christian shrines In Jerusalem in 1010, however, the grumbles developed into a roar. The Christians in Europe were already living in fear of a Muslim invasion, and this was the last straw. When Pope Urban 11 called for a Crusade in 1095 to liberate the Holy Land from the Moslems, the hate campaign against Islam took off like a rocket, coming into its heyday in the twelfth century.

In their verbal assaults upon Islam, many vile and shameful things were foisted off by the so-called "learned people" of that time upon the people at large.

Prophet Muhammad was considered to be the Anti-Christ; a false prophet; a nationalistic charlatan, a bombastic egotist; a tyrant; and a sensualist, among other things.

The Qur'an was said to be a collection of harangues, insane drivel, and "toilsome reading that is wearisome, confused jumble". In the eyes of the Mediveal Christians, the Qur'an could not possibly be the Word of God, since Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a false prophet, so it was said to be a forgery; they went on to say that it was nothing more than the result of epileptic seizures on the part of Muhammad which he then proceeded to pass off as divine revelation.

Islam, the religion, was seen as nothing more than an aberration--a heresy--of Christianity; it was viewed as the "religion of the sword", and was insultingly termed "Mohammedanism".

Muslims themselves did not escape the wrath of the Medieval Christians, who called them infidels, pagans, Saracens and Mohammedans.

Unable to accept Islam, the Christians became downright hostile. In their verbal assaults, the Church leaders made full use of techniques such as bias and distortion, mispresentation, inventing details in order to attack them, etc. Time has not made things better, unfortunately; the time of the Crusades is long gone, but Christians still cannot accept Islam. For many modern Christians, however, a new approach is being taken to what they consider "the menace" of Islam.

The Missionary Efforts

The violence against the Muslims that marked the Crusades was also coupled with a missionary effort on the part of the Christians in order "to return the pagans to the Lord". These missionary efforts, however, met with very little success, despite all the time and money that has been spent over the many hundreds of years that it has been going on.

First efforts at converting Muslims utilized the same polemic that was used on the Christians themselves, and the Muslims, naturally, refused to listen to such talk. Time has shown the Christians that insults do not gain interest, so the modern Christian missionary effort to the Muslims has taken a whole new direction, in that the Christians are now "reaching out to Muslims with love".

In the United States, an organization called "Center for Ministry To Muslims" (CMM) has put out quite an array of material aimed at presenting the message of Christianity to a Muslim. Polemics are not used, but methods are still unsavory as distortions, mis-translations and even fabrications are being used. The truth of Christianity is covered up under a sugary coating, and CMM targets those Muslims who are alone in that country, without the spiritual and moral support of family and friends.

One of the more interesting efforts on the part of the folks at CMM is a magazine entitled "Noor Ul Haq", or "Light of Truth". Printed in English and Arabic, its format gives all the appearance of it being an Islamic publication, yet it is really a Christian missionary magazine aimed at reaching Muslims. It makes use of Islamic terminology and Quranic revelations, but subtleness is the key here, as these things are distorted and interpreted out-of-context in order to give the impression to a Muslim that they back up Christian teachings. For a Muslim with limited knowledge, this sort of thing can lead to a good deal of confusion.

CMM is small-time, however, in the face of the Zwemer Institute For Muslim Studies. This California-based institution, which takes its name from a Dutch Reformed missionary who spent approximately fifty years in the early part of this century ministering to Muslims in the Middle East, trains Christians in the technique of ministering to Muslims. The students at this institute study Arabic, Islamic history, Islamic culture, and the state of Islamic faith and practice. These people really have their act together, and are not, by any means, ignorant when it comes to Islam.
Biased, yes; ignorant, no.

This is a very thorough effort: Student ministers and missionaries enrolled at the Institute take all sorts of regular classes on Islam; in addition to study carried out at the Institute itself, nine-hour seminars on Islam are available for interested church groups, and the Institute has a publishing center that churns out all manner of flyers, newsletters, brochures, pamphlets, books, and even films and videotapes.

....contd.

Contd:


It is all quite impressive for the Christian, but dangerous for the Muslim. The Christian missionaries who come out of this place no longer attempt to show that Islam is a "mass of errors". They now try to show that Islam contains "fragments of disjointed truths", and from there, they try to convince a Muslim that these fragments of truth are made whole in Christianity. Verbal assaults have now been set aside in favor of trying to establish doubt in the mind of a Muslim regarding his beliefs. The Christians hope that this doubt will lead to dissatisfaction, which will then lead to a switch from Islam to Christianity.

The Christian missionaries look with great interest at the tensions within the Muslim world today. The Zwemer Institute tells its people:

"Such displacement of peoples and disruption of normal lives has shaken old traditions and brought new openness among many Muslims to hear the good news of Jesus Christ...the myth of an impregnable Islam is no longer valid."

The figures given by the Zwemer Institute for converts are no doubt "enhanced"--after all, small numbers won't keep the students and the money coming in--but the fact does remain that this Christian "tree" IS bearing fruit.

Muslims are being enticed to leave Islam for Christianity.

As Islam continues to grow, organizations like CMM and the Zwemer Institute are getting stronger and more adept themselves at what they do. No longer can the Muslim sit back and ignore this; it will come knocking on his door sooner or later, and he must be prepared. He must be strong in his faith, and he must know about "the other guy" in order to stand up to it.

The Anti-Hate Campaign

Although organizations such as CMM and the Zwemer Institute are chugging along quite nicely with their "reach out to Muslims with love" campaign, in the background lurks the other method Christians use even frequently to deal with Islam; it is the one that began during the time of the Crusades, and one which never fully died out. Dubbed "the Crusades Mentality", these verbal assaults on Islam are simply a continuation of activities that began over 900 years ago when Pope Urban II whipped up the crowds at Clermont regarding the infidels in the East.

Evidence that this hate campaign still continues to rear its ugly head can be seen in bookstores--particularly the Christian ones-- on the shelves of public libraries and the internet. The assaults used by SFE/Debmey, Josh40, .8, Mat Roket are obvious examples.

So-called "orientalists" in the nineteenth and twentieth century have written some pretty disgusting things on the Islamic world: examples can be found in Durant's "Story of Civilization", Gibbons' "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Gunther's "Inside Asia", H.G. Wells' "The Outline of History" --all of which are considered to be "classics" in the world of history. Bias and hostility shine through in all cases, and one can only wonder why these men would choose, as their life's work, to study a region of the world for which they feel so much hatred. Even Albert Hourani's recent and celebrated "A History of the Arab Peoples" is replete with bias and hostility.

But the anti-hate material really comes its own in the hands of the fundamentalist Christians: take the book "Islam Revealed", written by an Arab Christian in 1988. On its back cover, it promises to give its readers "an eye opening look at the deadly beliefs of every one in five people on earth".

American author Robert Morey, an "internationally acclaimed scholar" in the field of comparative religions--and a fundamentalist Christian to boot--recently came out with a book entitled "Islam Unveiled: The True Desert Storm" (1991) which claims, on its back cover, to "prove" that all the rituals and beliefs of Islam can be traced to pre-Islamic pagan origins. Dr. Morey also has a radio show in which he regularly blasts Islam; in a recent show, he actually came out and said:

"...if Muhammad were alive today, he most likely would be diagnosed as a psychotic serial-killer mass-murderer and child-molester. " Material such as this, just a representation of the considerable volume of hate material being produced today, is despicable. It merely serves to strengthen and expand the stereotypes of Islam held by Christians, and to increase the levels of distrust and hostility between members of the two faiths. How is it possible to approach one another on a friendly basis when garbage like this is permeating one's mind?

As Islam continues to grow and spread, these attacks will increase. The Christians are afraid, and this is one way they have chosen to deal with that fear. It is a method that has been around for hundreds of years, and they are most comfortable with it. Rather than try to open the doors of dialogue, they lash out in vitriolic fury.

Portrayal In Other Forms of Media

Besides the books, pamphlets, radio shows, etc., that are aimed directly at Islam, there are the more subtle attacks made by Christians through main-stream works of fiction and non-fiction, along with television and movie portrayals of Islam and Muslims as a seething mass of terrorism and terrorists.

Books include such works as "The Source" by James Mitchner and the recent "The Sum of All Fears" by Tom Clancy; then there are the stereo-typing titles such as "Jihad", "The Holy Sword", and "Sacred Rage". One quite disturbing novel, "Holy of Holies", tells the story of how several Frenchmen, with Soviet backing and Israeli support, level the Grand Mosque during hajj. And of course, forget Salman Rushdie's infamous novel "The Satanic Verses"; he has said time and time again that insulting Islam was not his purpose, but the names and places he has used in his book are just too coincidental to believe what he says.

Attacks made through television are interesting. In the summer of 1991, for instance, a series of debates were held between two Muslims and two Christians on matters of difference between the two religions. The six debates were televised on a Christian gospel show over several weeks, and the Muslims did a very good job of representing their faith, even in the light of outright hostility from all sides, including the moderator, the two Christian debaters, and even the predominately Christian audience.

The people from the television show, however, managed to get "the last laugh". first of all, they "edited" the broadcast tapes in order to cast the Muslims in a particularly bad light, and then they issued a booklet in conjunction with the debate series for home viewers that was entitled "The Facts On Islam". A more appropriate title for the booklet would have been "The Fallacies of Islam", since one finds very little truth therein, but a lot of distortion, misrepresentation and outright lies.

As for films, there is "Black Sunday", where Palestinian "Terrorists" plot to annihilate all those attending the Superbowl (annual professional football championship game), along with the movie "Not Without My Daughter", which paints a truly terrible picture of relationships within Muslim families.

Stereotypes are fostered and continued by things such as this; as long as such continues, Islam will have a difficult time being seen in anything but an unfavorable light.

As Muslim, we must be strong when it comes to attacks such as this upon our faith--be it by "methods of love", or outright venom. God tells us in the Qur'an:

3:186



"Ye Shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions and in yourselves; and ye shall certainly hear much that will grieve you, from those who received the Book before you and from those who worship partners besides Allah. But if ye persever patiently, and guard against evil, -- then that indeed is a matter of great resolution."

Debmey

Christians seem to have an incredible ego, especially when it comes to other religions. Almost without exception, a Christian believes that his is the only true religion.

Don't Muslims believe that their's is the only true religion? Muslismeven conquer land and fiorce people into accepting Islam till today. What a hypocrite.

Judaism have come along beforehand, but to the Christian, it was simply a preparation for the faith of Christianity.

Islamis even further behind,not only that, Islam says that all of the Christian and Judisam holy books are wrong and ciorrupted and these are abrogated by the Quran.

To his way of thinking, God made the Jews His Chosen people. This designation meant that the Jews were set aside by God, and it was to them, and them only, He sent His revelations and prophets. Therefore, the Christian feels he can only believe in Israelite prophets, and all others are impostors.

Since yu believe that Jews are the chosen people, why do you hate them & persecute them in the name of allah?
Contrary to what you said, Christians have no concept of prophets restricted only to Hebrews. In case yu are not aware, the books of Mark & Acts in teh Bible were not written by Hebrews.
You see, you don't even know what yu are talking about.

Islam presents another matter altogether for the Christian. Almost as soon as Islam burst out of Arabia following the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Christians began to carry on about the fact that a man from Arabia actually had the audacity to go around claiming he was a Messenger from God.

Mohd contradicted the Bible and broke almost all the ten commandments.
The Christians in Arabia were correct, Mohd was  false prophet.

Even though Islam emphatically stated that it would be a denial of universal providence to God by saying that He would raise prophets in only one nation, the Christians still would not listen. Prophet Muhammad was not a Jew, therefore, in their eyes, he was a false prophet bearing false witness from a false god.

Thats a lie by Muslims. Mohd was rejected not based on his race but by his behaviors. He violated the Bible with his behavior.

Prophet Muhammad was considered to be the Anti-Christ; a false prophet; a nationalistic charlatan, a bombastic egotist; a tyrant; and a sensualist, among other things.

That is correct, mohd was  carnal man, a charlatan and false prophet.

The Qur'an was said to be a collection of harangues, insane drivel, and "toilsome reading that is wearisome, confused jumble". In the eyes of the Mediveal Christians, the Qur'an could not possibly be the Word of God, since Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a false prophet, so it was said to be a forgery; they went on to say that it was nothing more than the result of epileptic seizures on the part of Muhammad which he then proceeded to pass off as divine revelation.

I'll say an amen to that. Quran is jumbled writing that makes no sense. Thats why Muslism need to interpret interpret interpret when reading it in order to make sense. Very few Muslism actually read the quran on a regular basis.

Unable to accept Islam, the Christians became downright hostile. In their verbal assaults, the Church leaders made full use of techniques such as bias and distortion, mispresentation, inventing details in order to attack them, etc. Time has not made things better, unfortunately; the time of the Crusades is long gone, but Christians still cannot accept Islam. For many modern Christians, however, a new approach is being taken to what they consider "the menace" of Islam.

And what did teh early Muslims do, they killed Christians Jews and pagans who do not accept Islam. That how the jihads started. Surely one cannot talk about the crusades w/o first talking abt teh jihads who started it all.
In response to the jihads, Christians started the crusades to defnd themselves.

peace

pls don't  whine..

Debmey

Hahahahahaha........ thats right, Muslims like Kennkid are whining.They also lie in the process.

cheers

While creeds do play an important role in Christianity, the true foundation of the faith is to be found in a collection of 66 books known as the Bible. The Bible is the guideline for the Christian; within it God's blueprint for man, built around Jesus, has been revealed.

A revealed religion is only as sound as the revelation upon which it is based. In the case of Christianity, this all-important foundation is quite weak due to tampering in its scriptures by man. The revelation is there alright, but the problem rests with what happened between the time that the divine inspiration was given and the time that these revelations were then written down.


A Closer Look At the Old Testament

The Jews saw their Temple at Jerusalem utterly destroyed in 581 B.C.E., and with it went their original copies of the Torah. Although scribes--most notably Ezra--did eventually restore that loss, these scribes worked with copies from which they made yet more copies. That changes were made is a fact that few Biblical scholars will deny: changes in style, changes in grammar, additions to various stores to embellish the tale, and even deletions for things the scribe himself didn't feel comfortable with. The work of these scribes was, in short, affected by both the times they lived in, along with their own personal feelings and beliefs.

Several examples of text alterations are as follows:

1) there are two different versions of creation found in Genesis: in chapter one, it says that creation took six days; according to in chapter two, however, God did it all in just one day (2:4). Going along with this line of thought is the fact that Adam was said to be the last thing that was created in the first version (1:27), whereas he was created first, before anything else, in the second version (2:4-9).

Along with two different versions of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, we can find two different versions of the Flood in Genesis 6, 7 and 8: we read two different versions of the number of animals Noah takes into the ark, two different versions of the agent of the Flood, and two different versions of how long the Flood lasted.

2) in Genesis 22:2, God issues the following command to Abraham: "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac...". The words "thine only son" can be taken as nothing else than an interpolation as Abraham had TWO sons at that time--Isaac AND his older brother Ishnmael--not just one.

3) and if Moses is considered to be the author of the book of Deuteronomy, how is it possible that he could write the account of his own death as is found in Deuteronomy 34?

There is also the matter of how God is depicted in the Old Testament as a rather stern and savage being:
1) in Numbers 21:5,6 when God sent poisonous snakes among the Jews, with the result that many people were bitten and died, simply because they complained about their food.

2) in Deuteronomy 7:2 when God tells the Jews that they are to kill every one of the people they capture in battle--they are to show no mercy.

3) in II Samuel 24:1-7 when 70,000 Jews die from a plague sent by God because He was not pleased with a census of the people taken by David.

[ Last edited by KENNKID on 16-1-2004 at 04:08 PM ]

Debmey

er looks like Kennkid cannot even counter my rebuttals of the first few parts of his attacks on Christianity.

peace

Originally posted by Debmey at 16-1-2004 04:13 PM:
er looks like Kennkid cannot even counter my rebuttals of the first few parts of his attacks on Christianity.

peace

I'm talking to my Muslim brothers and sisters. You can watch and read. Your participation is not required under this thread, for we know what they are going to be. Efven if you participate, you will be ignored. Sorry about that. :2cool:

My beloved Muslim brothers and sisters..

In addition to those odd depictions of God, there are numerous examples of defamation and degradation of various prophets of God:

1) Lot's daughters get him drunk in order to seduce him in Genesis 19:30-38.

2) David is said to be an adulterer in II Samuel 11:4,5.

3) Solomon is said to be an idol worshipper in II Kings 11:9,10.

Yes, it is necessary for us to realize that these early prophets were human beings in all respects, but saying such degrading things about them, as in the afore-mentioned examples, is going a bit TOO far.

This is not all. The books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles recount many of the same events that took place in early Jewish history, but also contain a fair number of contradictions between them in their treatment of said events. The book of Isaiah, a favorite "prophecy" book for the Christians, holds the distinction of having the most glaring example of corruption in the Old Testament, that of outright plagarism: look at Isaiah 37, which is nearly an exact copy of an earlier effort by a Biblical author to be found in II Kings 19.

These are just a few of the many examples that can be found within the pages of the Old Testament to substantiate a charge that text has been tampered with. It would be hard to think otherwise, given the numerous examples that attest to such, not to mention the fact that no original manuscripts of the Old Testament are in existence.

Sonny~~ is welcomed to participate and contribute in this discussion. Among the christians, he is full of sensibilities.:2cool:

Debmey

Aha! looks like Muslims  are feeling the heat from Debmey, now they wanna get out by straying away. hahahahahahahaha.............

cheers

A Closer Look At the New Testament

While the Old Testament is of utmost importance to the Jews, it does not hold such a prominent place for the Christians, who see it mainly as a collection of prophetic testimony for the coming of Jesus. Its commands and teachings hold no real validity for them anymore.

Their affections are reserved for the New Testament.

These twenty-seven books consist primarily of writings by Paul; The 27 books include the four Gospels--which Paul did not write, but which do however, support ideas that he introduced. In essence, it is pretty much Paul's "show" all the way.

I remember reading the book about science and the Qur'an by Dr Maurice Bucaille - Having taken a close look at both the Bible and the Qur'an, Dr.  Bucaille says that "...a complete reading of the Gospels is likely to disturb Christians profoundly".

He makes such a statement because, according to his studies, the contradictions, improbabilities, inconsistencies and textual distortion "...add up to the fact that the Gospels contain chapters and passages that are the sole product of human imagination".

[ Last edited by KENNKID on 16-1-2004 at 05:03 PM ]

Debmey

Muslim boys run run run run, hahahahahahahahaha..............

cheers

Several examples of contradictions in the Gospels are:

1) Matthew's gospel contains a genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:7) which traces him from Abraham on down through Solomon, a son of David, whereas the genealogy found in the gospel of Luke (3:31) traces Jesus from Adam through Nathan, a completely different son of David. Even a cursory study will show names present in Matthew's account that do not match up to those in Luke, and vice versa.

A point to note here is that to include ANY sort of a male genealogy of Jesus through Joseph is somewhat of an oddity, being that Jesus did not have a biological father. A more proper genealogy would have to be that of his mother, Mary--not of Joseph.

2) The gospel of John is at odds with the other three gospels on nearly EVERY facet of Jesus' life and ministry such as where he was born and grew up, his baptism, and even the places and the length of his ministry. It is said, in fact, that 92% of the material in John is not even covered in the other three gospels.

[ Last edited by KENNKID on 16-1-2004 at 05:56 PM ]

Truth.8

Kennkid is real hypocrite. He will condemn about Christian and next he will bring his shit brain like patient, calm and those rubbished things. Great pretender.

No wonder he hates to participate in Muslim forum because he want to be superior than that Moderator.

Newly convert the so called Bin Abdullah makes more noise than born Muslims.

He just using his Muslim identity to gain statues and benefits. Sooner or later he  going learn painful lesson frm his own so called brotherhood Muslims  as it says" poison can be remove by poison". mark my words. I hve seen many newly convert telling me this after their conversion.

Silly fella so confident with this new religion but failed proof the mystery room  at Ka'ba room.



[ Last edited by Truth.8 on 16-1-2004 at 07:21 PM ]

As I mentioned earlier, 92% of the material in John is not even covered in the other three gospels.

One of the more interesting differences between the Gospel of John and that of the other three is that John says absolutely nothing about the institution of Holy Communion. During John's account of the Last Supper, found in chapters 13-17, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and then gives them a long (and now considered rather controversial) speech about the coming of a Comforter after him. There is not even a passing mention in these chapters to the consecration of the bread and wine which is a mainstay in Christianity today.

3) Neither Matthew nor John speak of Jesus' ascension.

While Luke speaks of it in both his gospel and in the other book he wrote entitled the Acts of the Apostles, the time and place differs in both accounts. Mark also talks about the ascension, but Biblical scholars now agree that the entire record of this event as reported in the gospel of Mark is "not authentic".

In the manner of "odd teachings", we look to the Christian doctrine of atonement, which is based on the principle that Jesus was a perfect being in all respects. In the light of that, one can only wonder how the Christians justify various references in the Gospels to Jesus as being not so-perfect a person, some of which are as follows:re::

1) in Matthew 16:23, Jesus calls Peter "Satan" and a "dangerous trap" when Peter tries to protect him.

2) in Mark 11, Jesus curses a fig tree simply because it did not have fruit out-of-season when he happened to be hungry and came across it.

3) in John 2: 1-4, Jesus is quite disrespectful of his mother.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus tells his disciples to go out and baptize in the name "of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost". That these nine words were most likely a later addition to the text can be seen by simply reading the letters of Paul: he says therein that baptism in the early church was done in the name of Jesus alone.

It is interesting to note that in Mark 16:15, Jesus says:
"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

Mark accounts the same event in 16:15 as Matthew does in 28: 19; exactly where did those extra words come from that we find in Matthew's account?

Jesus In the Gospels

As mentioned earlier, the New Testament--three Gospels in particular--hold a special place for Christians. They look to these four books for guidance, and with good reason: the Gospels were written FOR Christians BY Christians. In the four gospels, the historical Jesus has been set aside in favor of a "christianized" Jesus.

The authors of the gospels themselves are still in question. Although not exactly sure who wrote them, most Biblical scholars are in agreement that Matthew and Mark were not the authors of the gospels that bear their names.

The Gospel according to Luke is thought to have been written by a Gentile friend of Paul who never even met Jesus; it is part one of his account of early Christianity that also includes the book of Acts. While many Christians say that the Gospel of John was written by a disciple of Jesus who had this name, Biblical scholars now question this in light of the fact that this book was written around 100 C.E., and John, the disciple of Jesus, was martyred 70 C.E.-- over 30 years earlier:2cool:.

[ Last edited by KENNKID on 17-1-2004 at 12:23 PM ]

My beloved Muslim brothers and sisters, we shall continue with what we were discussing and pondering over. Lets just stop for a moment and appraise and examine the last Book of God that we hold on to with love and reverence, in the light of our topic:

3:69



It is the wish of a section of the People of the Book to lead you astray. But they shall lead astray (Not you), but themselves, and they do not perceive!

How true, they shall lead astray (Not us) but themselves...and which 'section' of the People of the Book, my brothers and sisters?...The section that is inheriting the falsified book.  Where is their original book? Only God knows. Even the language is missing.

So, as we have seen, it was other men and not the disciples of Jesus who wrote the four gospels. These authors were probably not eye- or even ear-witnesses to many -- if not all -- of the events they wrote of.

Even if one wishes to cling to the idea that Jesus' disciples did have a hand in the writing of the gospels, we know that they were not witnesses to the events that took place once Jesus was taken by the soldiers from the Garden of Gethsemane because we read:

"...then all the disciples forsook him and fled..." in both Matthew 26:56 and in Mark 14:50.

In short, much of what we find in the gospels is based on hearsay  -- not the writings of men who actually witnessed the said events.

Another point to take into consideration regarding the gospels is that none of them were written during the time of Jesus, since no record was kept of his activities during his lifetime. In fact, nearly 40 years elapsed between the time when Jesus left the earth and the first gospel made its appearance. When the Gospel of Mark did finally come out, Paul had already been preaching for nearly 20 years; he had even written his epistle to the Romans, which is the one in which he laid out all his doctrines for Christianity. In this light, we can see that the teachings of Paul undoubtedly influenced the writers of the Gospels to a great degree.

The gospels were all written between 70 C.E. and 100 C.E., with Mark coming first; it was followed by Matthew, Luke, and then John. The first three gospels follow pretty much the same general outline; in fact, a cursory examination will show that the authors of both Matthew and Luke borrowed rather heavily from Mark when writing their respective gospels. This is why these three appear to tell "Synoptic" gospels.

The Gospel of John is completely different from the other three, however, and is one which still incites controversy simply because its author was more concerned with the significance of Jesus for the Christian faith than of what Jesus actually said or did.

We can reasonably conclude, therefore, that due to the time factor, writing from hearsay, and the influence of Paul, the picture of Jesus which is presented to us in the gospels is not that of the historical Jesus; instead, these authors wrote of a legendary Jesus, using a theological point--of-view that "christianized" the truth of what took place. The authors were committed to Christian beliefs, and they wrote with that view in mind.

The result is that the four gospels contain more myth than they do fact. The Divine Message of Jesus is all but lost under a mass of what men hoped and wanted Jesus to say and do rather than what actually took place.

Copies of Copies

All early copies of the Bible were just that: copies. These copies were entirely handwritten (the first printed copy of the Bible did not come along until the 13th century---the so-called "Gutenburg" Bible); original manuscripts were discarded early off in favor of newer copies and also because they had simply become worn out through use. These newer copies, in turn, then served as the basis for even more copies.

Each copy made, however, meant that there were more chances for changes -- whether inadvertent or even deliberate -- to creep into the text. As with the Old Testament, the text of the New Testament also suffered from imaginative editing, unintentional modifications and deliberate manipulation of the text on the part of its scribes.

It must be pointed out that there was no way to go back and check on the authenticity of the scribes' work, as there are no original manuscripts of either the Old or New Testament of the Bible still in existence. The oldest existing copies of the old Testament date back to the 7th or the 8th centuries C.E., when a standardized text was produced from all the various manuscripts -- themselves copies of copies:re: -- that were floating around at the time.

As for the New Testament, no original manuscripts of it exist, either -- we have only copies, the earliest of which dates to the 4th century, the time when the "canonical", or official, scripture was set by the Church. This lack of original manuscripts eliminated the opportunity for anyone to check on accuracy; changes that crept into the Biblical text stayed in the Biblical text.

A Case of Incompleteness

The early Christian churches did not have any official set of Holy Scriptures. Some churches had one set of books, others had another. Still others were happy with only one of the gospels, believing as they did that all told pretty much the same story. There were even books in circulation that one cannot find in most Bibles of today -- 15 extra ones from the Old Testament, and 16 from the New Testament.

Due to this lack of organization in the Church regarding its Holy Scriptures, the bishops gathered together to set official Church policy on the matter of the trinity at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. also took it upon themselves to set up an official "Canon of Scriptures" for the Church.

They gathered everything together that was currently in circulation and made a decision once and for all on what would comprise Christendom's sacred Scriptures. In the end, 66 books were chosen -- 39 for the Old Testament, and 27 for the New.

Seven of the 15 extra Old Testament books were retained by the Catholic Church, but even these were dropped by the Protestants during the Reformation movement of the 16th century. NONE of the extra 16 books of the New Testament, however, were made part of the official Canon of Scripture.

Now called the " Apocrypha" --a Greek word that means "hidden" -- these extra books that were once part of the Bible were simply discarded by Church leaders because they were "at variance" with accepted Church doctrine: "the authors of these Apocryphal books were certainly pious and sincere laborers..and yet when you read what they have written, you will soon perceive that their words are...far below the dignity and sublime power of the Scriptures..."

Interestingly enough, references to some of these hidden books can even be found in the official Bible of today such as "The Book of the wars of Jehovah", mentioned in Numbers 21:14, and "The Book of Jashar", which is mentioned in Joshua 10:13.

Thus, the Bible of today, besides being a victim of text-tampering, cannot even be considered as complete.

How is it possible that the Words of God can be removed and discarded at the whims & fancies of man??:stp:

[ Last edited by KENNKID on 18-1-2004 at 06:01 PM ]

Baiduri Othman

Salam Kennkid,

This is an interesting thread. Thank you for providing us with the info. Keep on going. Don't bother Truth, SFE & the gang. They're jealous b'coz all they know is just heckling. Notice Josh only posts one sentence in his post.

Originally posted by Baiduri Othman at 2004-1-18 05:49 PM:
Salam Kennkid,

This is an interesting thread. Thank you for providing us with the info. Keep on going. Don't bother Truth, SFE & the gang. They're jealous b'coz all they know is just heckling. N ...

Salam to you too, sis. Thank you for your words of encouragement. This info is for us to share so that we are aware and equipped with knowledge - which can help us in our preparedness and perseverence, especially for the younger generation of Muslims. insyaAllah.

Baiduri Othman

Salam Kennkid,

I really admire you. Thanks to you, Fuzzman, Jukebox & the rest of the Muslims - thanks for your efforts & sharing us your findings & research.

May Allah swt. bless you all.


Best regards.