Why the Bible and Quran exist.
This is not a Bible VS Quran post. Rather we are going to look into the reasons why these books exist in the first place. It’s a much more digestive and simple way of understanding Islam and Christianity instead of going back and forth with verses from each book.
Muslims and Christians have different presuppositions of their scripture. It’s the reason why Muslims often, if not always miss the point of why the Bible exists in the first place. They hold the Quran as al-furqan which means it is the ultimate criterion to judge between good and evil or between truth and falsity. So it does not matter to the Muslims whether scientific or Biblical scripture contradicts the Quran. A Muslim is forced to refer to the Quran in every matter. Christians do not hold this view on the Bible nor did the Jews of the Old Testament. They never believed that ultimate authority could or would be contained by a book. Limiting God to ink on paper or information transmitted through oral means is and has never been the way of Abraham, Moses, or Jesus. The Holy Spirit works at this very moment and has been doing that for the last 2000 years and before that, unlike Allah who passed down a book to one man that serves as a complete tutorial.
The Quran came down as a ready-to-go instruction book that came gradually over the years of Muhammad’s life. His revelations ended with his death so he was the sole and last receiver of God’s messages. Surah 11:1 explains how the Arabic book is perfectly clear and explains everything. The greatest miracle of Islam is that the Quran is preserved. Not a dot or a comma has been changed even though Muhammad was illiterate. This is the cornerstone of Islam.
How the Bible came to be, and what its purpose is, is different from the Quran. Firstly, it’s a collection of books written by men who were divinely inspired, guided by the Holy Spirit. Christians and Old Testament Jews do not claim that the scriptures are the final or sole authority on every matter. The Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament and served as a guide to the flock of Moses. Wholly, the Bible serves as a guide to salvation but is not a super necessary thing to be saved. It’s not the reason why Christians believe in Christianity but explains what they believe; the life, death, resurrection, transfiguration, and ascension of Jesus Christ who made it possible for humankind to be saved from hell, and redeem all creation.
The Bible is not an explanation of literally everything. It’s not a science journal or a rigorous life tutorial. Its miraculous preservation and divinely inspired texts are great reasons to believe in it but not as important as Christ’s sacrifice. It’s a total 180 compared to the Quran. The content of the Islamic book is confusing, incoherent, and unintelligible even according to Muslims, especially Sunnis without the Sunnah i.e. the recorded events of Muhammad’s life. However, the actual texts are not as remarkable for Muslims compared to its preservation (or poetic beauty). The proof of that statement can be found in the prayer life of Muslims. Recitation is done in Arabic, also by non-Arabic speaking Muslims so most of the time they do not fully understand what they are saying. Muslims are not concerned about the actual texts, unlike Christians.
The ironic thing about the Quran is that Muslims still have not decided what the Quran canonically is, while the Bible was canonized by councils led by the Holy Spirit. All the churches and bishops (except heretics) agreed on the canon. The texts of the Bible were never disputed until the Reformation which had no ground or authority to remove books from the Bible, but I digress. The point is, that biblical scripture was ‘standardized’ very early on in Christianity while the Quran is still disputed. But we could say that the Muslims finally standardized their texts in 1924 in Egypt or when Uthman arbitrarily burned manuscripts of the Quran after Muhammad’s untimely death. The 31+ variations of the Quran prove that Muslims still do not have an ultimate canon of their holy book. Muslims cope by saying that the differences are merely dialectical, but that is false. At a glance, the texts seem similar, but further inspection exposes devastating differences in the meaning.
Islam’s primary marketing strategy is the preservation of the Quran. Again, allegedly not a dot or comma has been changed. Just merely two examples annihilate these claims. Why should anyone believe in Islam if the main bait is simply not true?
I did not intend to debunk the preservation of the Quran but to show you these major errors are important. It destroys the reason why Muslims believe in Islam. Christians do not have this problem because they never claim whatever the Muslims claim. Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked how hypocritical the Muslims are on this issue. The Bible has many different translations originating from the same Hebrew and Greek texts. This is a reason for Muslims to reject Christianity, and it is wrong for two reasons; one, Muslims cannot apply the same criterion for Christians regarding the Bible, and second, different translations do not prove corruption of the texts.
Muslims (intentionally) misunderstand why Christians believe. Attacking straw men is what they do to affirm their lies, even top Islamic sheiks apply these tactics to remain relevant in academia. Muslims attack a ‘‘Christianity’’ they fabricated. Islam is a book religion while Christianity is historical. Muslims fail to understand that or are willfully ignorant.
Except for ( what appears to be ) the assumption that the moral stories, testaments and descriptions of historical figures in what is commonly referred to as “The Old Testament” ( still puzzled why scholastically endowed writers still use such terms ) - were - “Jews” - i appreciated this article.
The man commonly referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth” was -not- Jewish in any way. Once that inconvenient truth is revealed and accepted, all manner of wisdom about ( and from ) the book of books commonly referred to as “The Bible” ( as well as others, such as ‘The Apocrypha’ ) will pour-out like cool, clean water into a parched mouth.