In the Name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful
No doubt the Bible is a holy book to a large segment of human society. Born to Christian families, most Christians believe in what they were told by their parents, and are not familiar with other beliefs. It is with this in mind that I approach this subject. I will try to be sensitive but I will be frank with you. I honestly believe if one keeps an open mind and is objective, one will not be offended by what I am about to say on this issue.
Historically speaking, and this is very important for any student of Bible to note, the book that is called today the Bible did not exist at the time of the Prophet Isa (Jesus). If you look in the Bible you will find “most” writings are neither from God nor Jesus, but are what others wrote by their own initiative, some probably from heresy; therefore, the Bible is not the Injeel of Isa (Injeel of Isa is what was revealed to Isa and that was what he preached). What Christians have in the Bible are mainly other people’s recordings. Christian scholars have also a history of changing with the times, and changing things in the Bible itself to suit the people; this is a well known fact and one which every lay Christian should know. It’s also noteworthy to mention that while Bible contains some good moral teachings it also contains stuff that can at best be classified as “ungodly” material. Christians who read the Bible will testify to this and it’s not Muslims who wrote these "unholy" stuff, but people who profess the Christian faith.
But to be fair to you, dear reader, I will at the end of this article cut and paste for you very useful websites that will help open your eyes to things that are glossed over by people who want to keep you away from your Maker. The Church had played a major role in keeping you in the dark and it is about time you knew where you are being led.
Needless to say, Muslims consider Isa (Jesus) as one of “their” prophets and even though they do not consider Bible the word of God they love Isa and truly believe in the authenticity of what Isa preached. Had that been with us today, Muslims would have no problem accepting it. Rejecting Isa’s message is tantamount to rejecting Allah as it is one of the articles of faith in Islam to believe in all the books of Allah. Isa (Jesus) was a holy Prophet of Allah and you will never catch a Muslim saying anything but good about Isa, upon whom be peace. So if you love Isa (Jesus) you will love those who love him.
Isa is described in the Qur’an as Isa Ibn Mariam (Jesus son of Mary). His name is repeated in the Qur’an many times. There is a Surah (Chapter of the Quran) titled Mariam (Mary), and in this Surah and throughout the whole Qur’an you will find a summary of who the historical Isa Ibn Mariam really was and what he, upon him be peace, stood for.
And this is basically what you will learn:
- Isa is NOT the begotten son of Allah (This is an outrageous lie and a heinous blasphemy) A lie will always be a lie; no matter how many times it is recycled it will always remain a lie: “They say: "(Allah) Most Gracious has begotten a son!" Indeed ye have put forth a thing most monstrous! At it the skies are ready to burst the earth to split asunder and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin. That they should invoke a son for (Allah) Most Gracious. For it is not consonant with the majesty of (Allah) Most Gracious that He should beget a son. Not one of the beings in the heavens and the earth but must come to (Allah) Most Gracious as a servant.” Chapter 19, Verses 88-93
Allah is the supreme Lord of all. He begets not nor is He begotten. Nor is He one of three. Associating anyone with the Creator is idolatory. Isa’s relationship with Allah is therefore like that of Adam, He created him from dust “This similitude of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam: He created him from dust then said to him: "Be" and he was.” Chapter 3, Verse 59
- Isa did NOT claim divinity for himself, those who allege that are simply putting words into Isa’s mouth, and they’ve no basis for their claims. On the day of Judgement Isa will testify against them.
- Isa was not crucified (the person who hang on the cross was not him):"And (on account of) their saying, "We killed the Messiah, ‘Isa son of Maryam, Messenger of Allah." They did not kill him and they did not crucify him but it was made to seem so to them. Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him." Surat an-Nisa' 158:
- Isa did not die for anyone’s sins. Everyone is responsible for their own deeds.
- His mother was not divine (She was a good woman).
- Isa spoke while still in the cradle in defense of his mother and testified to his prophet-hood.
- He performed miracles, healed the sick and the blind, and the Lord did many fantastic miracles by him. Such miracles were a gift of Allah to support His prophet and make His servant's mission easier. Isa had never claimed these powers as coming from him. Other prophets were given miracles befitting their times (I won’t go into this as this will take us away from the topic at hand).
- Though his birth was of miraculous nature, being born only of one parent, Isa was human every inch of him. He ate food, went for the call of nature, walked the streets, suffered people’s ignorance, prayed to his Lord and went about his business of calling to Allah the hard hearted Jews of his time. He was not sent to the non-Jews (How in the world the gentiles came to embrace Isa is a conundrum in itself when he himself said he was sent “only”to the 12 tribes of Israel).
- He spoke the language of his people, and did not speak English.
- He did not preach the Bible (and if he saw it today I very much doubt he would recognize it).
- Isa did not choose any Popes nor did he give permission to anyone to keep pictures of him and his mother. Most probably Isa won't even recognize his own pictures...
- Isa upheld the law of Musa. He was circumcised and did not belong to any Christian denomination; he was a Messenger of Allah.
- While he walked the earth Isa did “not” worship "himself". He worshipped his Lord, he was therefore a Muslim, not a Christian. He worshipped his Lord by putting his head on the ground (same way Muslims do today) and never even once uttered the word: “Worship me”; those who worship him are doing a disservice to Isa’s pure message (Quran: 5:116)
- He will return to earth by the end of times and kill the Dajjal (a demonic tyrant who will terrorize humanity). He will live his life as a Muslim among the believers until the time of his death. Like everyone else Isa will taste death only once. His return is one of the big signs of the approach of the Hour.
Notes:
Islam is not a “new” religion. Qur’an is the pure Word of God brought down by the Angel Jibril (Gabriel) to the Messenger Muhammad, and is the culmination of God’s guidance to humanity. Jews and Christians are referred to in the Qur’an as Ahlul Kitab (People of the Book) as they received scripture prior to the Qur’an.
Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the last of a long line of prophets. He is the Khatimul Anbiyaa (Seal of the prophets) and he is sent to the whole of humanity, whether they accept him or not. His message (Qur’an) will be open to them until the last of times. It will not be changed and will remain pure for humanity. Anyone who claims prophet-hood after Muhammad is a liar.
Muslims believe and hold in high esteem all the prophets of the Lord without any favoritism. Religion with Allah is just one: Islam, meaning submission to the One True God. Submission to a non-existent god will only lead the follower astry.
The Creator of humanity is too merciful to leave humanity in the dark or throw confusion in their way, hence the need for absolute knowledge in the form of revelations.
Sources on Bible: http://www.jamaat.net/bible/BibleIntro.html
http://www.beconvinced.com/RELIGION/JESUSREALITY.htm
http://www.islamic-city.com/jesusinislam/jesus.htm
Qur’anic chapters containing Jesus’ story (Qur’an: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 19, 33, 42, 43, 57, 61)
Resources on Islam: http://www.islamworld.net
“Say ye: "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma`il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and we bow to Allah (in Islam)." (Quran: 2: 136)
I would like to make a few comments in order to clear up your misleadings of the Christian faith and of the Bible as well, and give you a Christian's perspective. I would like to first say that I did not accept what my parents told me as a child. My parents were actually not able to explain the Bible to me while I was growing up. It was not until I reached the age of 22 that I began to research its credibility and what it meant, so just know that this is coming from what I have learned, not what I have been told.
First, I would like to address the statement you made, "If you look in the Bible you will find “most” writings are neither from God nor Jesus, but are what others wrote by their own initiative, some probably from heresy; therefore, the Bible is not the Injeel of Isa (Injeel of Isa is what was revealed to Isa and that was what he preached)." Most writings were actually done by prophets throughout history. In the New Testament, the authors were desciples and apostles that had either eye-witness accounts, such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (the first four authors of the New Testament), or by those who had notes and letters from the apostle Paul. These are primary sources and historical evidence in support of the credibility of the Bible. Also, you have to remember that the Bible isn't just a book, it is many books (66 to be exact), written over approximately 1600 years, that are woven together. The interesting thing to point out is that these authors were all of different occupations, from poor farmers and shepherds all the way up to kings. The point is, it was written by men, but it was by the inspiration and instruction of God. How do we know this? There are over 40 authors, all saying the same thing who most had not met each other, written throughout centuries, of different education levels, all saying the same thing without quoting each other. That's pretty miraculous to me. That is more evident than your implication that they are not credible by saying it was "probably" heresay.
I would also like to know where you got the idea of Christian historians changing the Bible over time? Have you not heard of the manuscripts and also the Dead Sea Scrolls? There are over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the Bible, and the ones we have from the New Testament were written less than 100 years that the events actually took place. We can see that they say the same thing. Jewish scribes were also very careful while doing translations that they would actually go through the lengths of counting words and making sure every page had the same word that started and ended, and if one single mistake was made, they would toss out the whole manuscript. The only variations in these translations are in spelling and style.
Your statement that "[the] Bible contains some good moral teachings it also contains stuff that can at best be classified as “ungodly” material," is a contradiction in more ways than one. First by saying that it has great moral teaching and is "ungodly". You cannot be greatly moral and go against God at the same time. Second, it was C.S. Lewis who said "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God...You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
What he is saying is that you cannot accept Jesus as a great moral teacher if he said he was the Son of God and actually wasn't. Either he is the Son of God, or he is a liar, and therefore not a great moral teacher.
As far as our immorality, or "unglodliness" as you called it, is concerned, I would have to ask you, do you think it's right that Muhammad believed in spreading Islam through warfare? Jesus spread Christianity through service to others. As far as our God of the Bible being "ungodly" goes, I can only imagine that you're talking about the happenings in the Old Testament. Here is my answer to that: God created life. Life belongs to Him. He can do as He pleases with it, including taking it if He wishes. Did He want to do that? Of course not. That was not his original plan for humanity. He ordered genocide on the people that were destroying each other and killing His chosen people. What kind of god would he be had he let them live and do as they pleased, which was killing unmercifully? Also note that those who pleaded for mercy and repented were spared.
I do not believe that we, as humans, can fully comprehend the idea of morality. This is why we have so many people who die at the hand of another, or why there is war and torture. We have limited thinking. If you could fit God into your own understanding, He wouldn't be much of a God.
Also note that the Qur'an was written by one man, whose wife convinced him that he'd had a vision from Allah. There was no historical evidence supporting that, nor of his miracles. In fact, I learned in my college history class that the stories of his miracles were not even taught until centuries after his death. The earliest writings on the New Testament accounts of the miracles performed by Jesus were in that same century, which makes that more credible.
It is also important to understand that Jesus was not a Muslim, he was a Jew. I don't know where you got that idea from. In fact, Christianity was not meant to be a religion in itself. It was meant to be a completion of Judaism. Moses, also talked about in Islam, was also a Jew. This all is supported by historical evidence.
I would also like to point out one last thing if this has not convinced you that the Bible is the truth of God. There are approximately 2,500 prophecies written in the Bible. About 2,000 of those have already been fulfilled with 100% accuracy, and the remaining 500 are in regards to the End Times. In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet told the Jews that they should repent of their sins or they would undergo a divine punishment, in which they would be dispersed and held captive for a total of 430 years. They did not repent, and then they were overtaken by the Babylonians. After the 70 years they were under the Babylonian control, they had 360 years left of Divine punishment. In secular history, no major even was recorded, but if you look in the Bible (in the book of Leviticus), God sent them another prophet and said to repent or they would have their suffering increased 7 times over. 2,520 Biblical years (360 days each). It was fulfilled 100%. That alone should make you question the way people brust off the Bible, since it's impossible for that to happen unless God had a direct hand in it.
Ultimately, you have the freedom to choose how you will, but please do not try to turn others away from the Christian faith by telling them that the Bible is not credible and Jesus was not who he said he was, because that simply is not true. I have found that people are only ignorant of the facts of the Bible and its credibility because they choose to be.
After reading your article I have a few questions. I hope that you don't mind that I am frank in my questions.
1. Using your same logic that the Bible is so full of errors, how can you be sure what Jesus preached given that the Qur'an was written 500 years after Jesus?
2. Why is Jesus so prominent in the Qur'an, more so than any other prophet, when he lived 500 years before Muhammad?
3. Why is there a whole chapter on the mother of the prophet Jesus in the Qur'an?
4. If the New Testament's words can't be trusted because they were written 'third hand', why isn't the Old Testament even more suspect since it was written down after about a thousand years of oral tradition?
5. What is the Qur'an penalty for Christian blasphemy (triune God) and idolatry (pictures of Jesus)?
6. Was Jesus the only prophet with a miraculous birth? If so, why?
7. How is it that Jesus was a Muslim when he lived 500 years before Muhammad?
6. Who hung on the cross instead of Jesus?
7. Since Jesus spoke many times of his crucifixtion, doesn't that make him at an accessory to murder of whoever was on the cross instead of him? Where is the 'real' Jesus buried?
8. Why is Jesus coming at the 'end' and not Muhammed?
9. So the Qur'an says that the Jews and Christians are the 'people of the book', but that the 'book' is flawed?
10. Why did Muhammad lead armies while Jesus did not?
Awaiting your reply.
May God Bless you and lead you to Christ.
Joel Keene
4.
Regis
The question was asked - "what do Muslims think of the Bible?", but the answer was what Islaam says about the Gospel of Jesus (which is not in the Bible, just 4 hearsay accounts of which only 2 were from companions of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him). A Muslim such as Safi that knows what Islaam says about Prophet Jesus is a small minority within the group of one billion people who call themselves Muslim today. Most Muslims cannot understand 'arabiyah and have no idea what The Recitation (Al-Qur'aan) is saying to them. Just as the Catholic laity were prisoners of their Dark Age when the Bible was only in Latin, most Muslims who read Qur'aan only in Arabic cannot understand the words they are pronouncing. To them, pronouncing the Holy Words is good enough for good luck; the Godly Guidance is reduced to hokus pocus - a good luck charm. Many Indonesians, Bengalis, Malays, Indo-Pakistanis, Turks, Bosnians, and even Somalis have no idea what "Al-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alaymiyn" (all praise is to God, Lord of the Worlds) means. Most Muslims today are in their Dark Age. As a result, they don't "think" of the Bible no more than they "think" of The Recitation (Al-Qur'aan). If they did, they would know God's verses in The Recitation that acknowledge that enough remains in the Bible after its hatchet job by the Romans at Nicaea in 325, that "all who believe in Me and the Judgement Day and practice righteousness, unto them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve - the Jews, the Christians, and Sabeans". God is so impressed with the piety of Jews and Christians, whose faith must also hurdle the scriptural remnants not always accurately maintained found in current Bibles, that He even permits a Muslim male to marry a Jewess or Christian woman with the understanding that the Muslim male must respect and protect her path towards God. In fact, it is a duty of all Muslims to protect Jews and Christians. But the Muslim Dark Age must first find its Renaissance before Muslims can be counted on to propagate Islaam (peace through submission to God).
Peace, Salaam, Shalom
It is said by Indian Mystics that reincarnation and karma were struck from it in the 4th Century, from fear that many lifetimes would afford humans too much time to acquaint themselves with God... an untruth that has backfired on itself ... as lies have a habit of doing. (Sourced from Autobiography of a Yogi - Paramahansa Yogananda)
With love to you Safi doing the Great Work ... Dear Fellow Human Being!!
Suzie xox :-)
In the meantime, this link will tell you all you want to know about Moses and Islam. http://www.jews-for-allah.com/Why-Believe-in-Allah/Jews-inthe-Quran/moses.htm
Homepage: http://www.jews-for-allah.com
Thank you for your question!
Safi
Thank you for sharing this; you have educated many!
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in America, Karen Lynn in Texas. :D
you have penned an eye-opening, thought provoking piece. i shall save it to refer to again and again. very well written!
thank you for writing this.
(((HUGS))) and love, karla. :)