hw many year did Abraham and Sarah waited on God b4 Isaac came. Hw old are u? Pls u r not wiser dan God. I realy knw u hv a great testimony buh ur litle faith is blockin it. I hv neva seen a true righteous man whose descendants ar begers. Buh if u also say God has not done anytin fr u, u r d most ungreatful being on earth. (sory fr dat). There ar many forms of prayer ok which christians ar fortunate to b endowed. Giv tanx nd glorify His holy name fr the small God has done fr u nd surely, u wil hav a testimony. Dnt mind d muslims. They ar hypocrites nd deir quran quessed by muhammed perfectly says it. B proud of God thru Christ nd God wil b proud of u bro. Buh i wil plead dat u read ur bible wel too

hw many year did Abraham and Sarah waited on God b4 Isaac came. Hw old are u? Pls u r not wiser dan God. I realy knw u hv a great testimony buh ur litle faith is blockin it. I hv neva seen a true righteous man whose descendants ar begers. Buh if u also say God has not done anytin fr u, u r d most ungreatful being on earth. (sory fr dat). There ar many forms of prayer ok which christians ar fortunate to b endowed. Giv tanx nd glorify His holy name fr the small God has done fr u nd surely, u wil hav a testimony. Dnt mind d muslims. They ar hypocrites nd deir quran quessed by muhammed perfectly says it. B proud of God thru Christ nd God wil b proud of u bro.

Muhammad hardly had any
original story at all. He picked
from any suitable sources, in
many cases from religious
legends he believed were stories
from the Bible, and also from
ordinary local fairy tales and
legends, and twisted them a little
or much to make them fit his
new religion. Not for nothing did
his opponents claim that he "just
told old tales". (Neither did he
have many original thoughts or
ideas - nearly without exception
they were picked or borrowed
from surrounding cultures and
mixed with the old Arab war and
robbery culture.) Below you find
some samples.
*00a 18/9: “Or dost thou reflect
that the Companions of the Cave -
- -”. This is an old tale - a
religious legend - that is
incorporated in the Quran. The
story of the 7 sleepers is well
known - and is just a fairy tale.
The 7 were Christians from
Ephesus in what is now Turkey,
that fled to a cave during a
pogrom under “Cesar” Decius the
story goes. Decius had the cave
walled up to kill them. Instead
the 7 fell asleep, and did not
wake up until in the 30.th year of
the reign of the pious
Theodosius - that is in 448 AD.
Decius reined for just over two
years around/just after 250 AD.
That means that if the fairy tale
had been true, they had slept
some 195 years (the Quran says
300 or 309 years - even in the
fairy tale it is wrong). Islam has
troubles explaining how this
story ended in the Quran, and
the “explanations” we have seen,
are very “lofty” and diffuse - f. ex
that it really is told about an older
Jewish fairy tale (does an
omniscient god need to rely on
old fairy tales?) - or that it derives
from misunderstandings about
the Esseers (does an omniscient
god misunderstand things?) - the
members of the Qumran society
(near the Dead Sea) but without
giving any sources or
documentation - only
speculations. Besides the age
does not matter – it is as made
up even if it should happen that
the original is a bit older. They
also tell it is an allegory - which
they very often do when they
have difficulties finding
“explanations” that are possible
to believe. But it obviously is not
meant to be an allegory - among
other things the meanings of an
allegory normally are very easy to
see or are explained. The Quran
further normally tells when it is
telling an allegory or something
similar, and not least; the Quran
itself stresses that it shall be
understood literally if nothing
else is said. The sleepers also
mentioned in 18/13 – 18/22 –
18/25.
001 105/3+4: “- - - Han (Allah*)
sent against them Flights of
Birds, Striking them with stones
of baked clay.” This refers to an
attack from Abyssinia in 570 AD
(though modern science
question if the year is quite
correct). The vice king Abrhah or
Abrah, lost much of his army
because of a virulent illness -
perhaps smallpox - and had to
return home without attacking
Mecca. The troops were NOT
killed by stones from birds.
(Muslims sometimes try to
“explain” the clear text and the
as clear mistake away by some
linguistic gymnastics that
includes that the Arab word for
stone and the one for writings
are not dissimilar, and they think
that these words have been
mixed up (in a holy book sent
down by Allah, and without
mistakes - how many more
mixing ups?), and then say the
meaning is metaphorical (in a
book the Allah says shall be
understood as it is written), it
may not mean stones, but hard
physical strikes - but also hard
physical strikes is not the same
as illness. Muslims frequently
have too use far out
“explanations” like this to try to
camouflage mistakes. But if
there is a linguistic mistake
here, according to Muslims –
how many more linguistic
mistakes are there in the
Quran?
00b 5/23: “- - - two (of Moses’
Jews*) on whom Allah hath - - -“.
Allah or Yahweh? See also 3/51.
*002 37/142: “Then the big fish
swallowed him (Jonah*)”. Wrong.
1. There exists no fish big enough
to swallow a man whole. There is
one exception, but that one does
not eat large prey (the whale-
shark). Besides there may be one
or two of the whales, but even
the orca does not swallow a seal
(reasonably similar size) in one
piece.
2. Even if he had been swallowed,
he had not survived - he had
died in minutes from lack of
oxygen.
3. And had he had a supply of
oxygen - which he obviously did
not - the acid juices in the
stomach of the “fish” had killed
him in a short time.
A fairy tale, even if this story is
“borrowed” from the Bible.
(There are some mistakes also in
the Bible). About Jonah also in
37/44 among other places.
00c 2/73: “Allah said: ‘Strike the
(body) with a piece of the
(heifer)’. Thus Allah bringet the
dead to life - - -“. It is not
possible to wake up a dead this
way. Islam will have to produce a
solid proof – especially as this
story is not in the Bible, and thus
is taken from a legend or
something.
003 2/102: “- - - the buyers of
(magic) - - -“. Magic is just
superstition.
004 5/110: “And behold, thou
makest out of clay, as it were, the
figure of a bird, by My leave, and
you brethest into it and it
becometh a bird by My leave, - - -
“. A made up story form the
made up legends in the made up
(apocryphal) Thomas Child
Gospel. See also 3/49 -
Muhammad often repeats
himself, even if that makes no
good literature. Besides: A
wonder like this had not been
forgotten in the Bible - and
especially not by “wrongdoers”
wanting to falsify the Bible to
make Jesus more holy, like the
Quran frequently says/indicates.
(But how to make Jews agree to
falsifications making Jesus more
holy? - falsifications in those two
religions had to be identical, if
not the Jewish scriptures and the
Christian OT would today have
been quite different from each
others.)
005 35/44: “Do they (people*)
not travel through the earth, and
see what was the End of those
before them - - -?” In and around
Arabia there were (and are) ruins
here and there. Muhammad
claimed – as normal without any
documentation as only non-
Muslims need to prove anything
– that each and every one of
them were results of Allah’s
anger because of disbelief etc. in
Islam. Wrong. In a dry and harsh
land inhabited by warring tribes
there were plenty of other
reasons for empty houses and
ruins.
006 27/39: “- - - (one) of the
Jinns - - -”. Jinns are beings with
a diffuse role in the Quran. They
are “borrowed” from old Arab
fairy tales and legends and
pagan religion. Allah made them
from fire, the book tells – though
one place it is said they are made
from the fire of a scotching wind.
There is said little about their
shape - perhaps roughly like
humans, but also perhaps with
different shapes as the word
may represent different kinds of
beings. They also have a diffuse
role in the “pantheon” - they
definitely do not belong in the
heaven, but neither in hell. There
simply is said nothing about
where they belong. Neither is
anything said about their role in
the “life” of heaven and hell or
their real connection to the
“inhabitants” those two places -
or to earthlings. As we said;
much is diffuse concerning them
and their life, except that they
must be beings that can die - and
end in hell mostly it seems, even
though the Quran tells they could
react positively to Islam. As said
they are borrowed from old Arab
folklore, fairy tales, and the old
pagan religion, and mostly seem
not really to belong in the
religion of Islam, though they are
mentioned quite frequently.
Generally we feel they are a little
suspect most of the time, but not
always. Some were f. ex. servants
(or slaves) for King Solomon, and
in the older times - not 100 years
ago - there shall have existed
laws for marriage etc. between
humans and Jinns, though no
marriage ever took place!!
Do they really exist in the hidden
world? - or are they in reality just
something from fairy tales used
for the mysterious effect?
Besides: If they are real and if
Islam is the original, age-old
religion – why do we not find at
least traces from them in other
religions? (The word sometimes
is translated with "bad spirits"
and bad spitits you find in many
religions, but this translation is
not exact.)
00d 55/15: “And He (Allah*)
created Jinns from fire free of
smoke.” Jinns are beings from
old Arab folklore, fairy tales and
legends relating to the old Arab
pagan religion. Is it just by co-
incidence that these beings in
Allah’s world – that according to
the Quran are real beings –
before only were known to the
Pagan Arabs and not to any
others, not even to the real (?)
prophets in the Bible? In a
religion for all the world and
made by a god for the entire
world, they never manifested
themselves any other place in the
entire world than just in that
area. What a lucky coincident that
Allah finally choose just an Arab –
Muhammad – for a messenger,
so that he could tell the rest of
the world what part the jinns
play in the real religion. But it
also is strange that except for
things borrowed from the Bible
and a little from other
neighbouring religions, there is
nothing about or from the rest of
the world in the Quran – and the
Quran has no stuff from those
parts of the world, even though
Allah is for all the world, and
there have been prophets all
over and to all times, according
to that book. Also see 27/39
above.

Answer: The question of which
(if any) religious text is the true
word of God is of utmost
importance. To avoid circular
reasoning, the first question we
must ask is: how would we
know if God communicated in
the first place? Well, God would
have to communicate in a
manner that people could
understand, but that also means
that people could make up their
own messages and simply claim
that they came from God. So, it
seems reasonable to think that if
God wanted to authenticate His
communication He would have to
verify it in a manner that could
not be duplicated by mere
humans - in other words, by
miracles. This narrows the field
considerably.
Beyond the evidence for the
Bible's correctness (manuscript
evidence) and its historicity
(archeological evidence), the
most important evidence is that
of its inspiration. The real
determination of the Bible's claim
to absolute inspired truth is in its
supernatural evidence, including
prophecy. God used prophets to
speak and write down His Word
and God uses miracles like
fulfilled prophecy to authenticate
His messengers. For example, in
Genesis 12:7, God promises that
the land of Israel was to be for
Abraham and his descendants. In
1948 Israel was returned back to
the Jewish people for the second
time in history. This may not
seem so astonishing until you
realize that no nation in the
history of the world has been
scattered from its homeland and
returned! Israel has done it
twice. The book of Daniel
predicts with accuracy the
coming of the four great
kingdoms from Babylon, to
Medo-Persia, to Greece, to Rome
centuries before some of those
kingdoms came on the scene (a
time span of over 1,000 years!)
with details concerning how they
would rule and be broken. This
includes the reigns of Alexander
the Great and Antiochus
Epiphanies.
In Ezekiel 26 we can see in
astonishing detail how the city of
Tyre was to be destroyed, how it
would be torn down, and how
its debris would be thrown into
the sea. When Alexander the
Great marched on that area, he
encountered a group of people
holed up in a tower on an island
off the coast near there. He could
not cross the sea, so he could not
fight those in the tower. Rather
than wait them out, the proud
conqueror had his army throw
stones into the sea to build a
land bridge to the tower. It
worked. His army crossed the sea
and overthrew the occupants of
the stronghold. But where did he
get so much stone? The rocks
that were used for the land
bridge were the leftover rubble
from the city of Tyre . . . its stones
cast into the sea!
There are so many prophecies
concerning Christ (over 270!)
that it would take more than a
few screens worth of space to
list them all. Further, Jesus would
have had no control over many
of them such as His birthplace or
time of birth. Second, the odds of
one man accidentally fulfilling
even 16 of these are 1 in 10^45.
How many is that? For
comparison, there are less than
10^82 atoms in the entire
universe! And Jesus, who
affirmed the Bible as the Word of
God, proved His reliability and
deity by His resurrection (an
historical fact not easily ignored).
Now consider the Quran - its
author, Muhammad, performed
no miracles to back up his
message (even when he was
asked to by his followers - Sura
17:91-95; 29:47-51). Only in
much later tradition (the Hadith)
do any alleged miracles even
show up and these are all quite
fanciful (like Muhammad cutting
the moon in half) and have zero
reliable testimony to back them
up. Further, the Quran makes
clear historical errors. Muslims
believe the Bible is inspired but
with some errors from editing
(Sura 2:136 as well as Suras 13,
16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25). The
question they cannot adequately
answer is: "When was the Bible
corrupted?" If they say before
600 A.D. then how can the Quran
admonish believers to read it? If
they claim it was after 600 A.D.,
then they have jumped out of the
frying pan and into the fire, for
we have absolutely no doubt as
to the accuracy of biblical
manuscripts from at least the 3rd
century forward. Even if
Christianity were false, the Quran
still has an insurmountable
problem because it makes
judgments against Christians for
believing things that they do not
(nor have they ever) believed. For
example, the Quran teaches that
Christians believe the Trinity is
the Father, the Mother (Mary),
and the Son (Sura 5:73-75, 116),
and the Quran also teaches that
Christians believe that God had
sex with Mary to have a son
(Suras 2:116; 6:100-101; 10:68;
16:57; 19:35; 23:91;
37:149-151; 43:16-19). If the
Quran is really from God, then it
should at least be able to
accurately report what Christians
believe.
Joseph Smith, the author of the
Book of Mormon, tried to do
some miracles such as prophecy
(a test for a true prophet in
Deuteronomy 18:21-22) but
failed several times. He foretold
of Christ's second coming in
History of the Church (HC) 2:382.
Joseph Smith preached that the
coming of the Lord would be in
56 years (about 1891). The
second coming did not occur in
1891, and the Mormon Church
does not claim that it did. Nor
has it occurred since. He also
prophesied that several cities
would be destroyed in Doctrine
and Covenants (D&C) 84:114-115.
New York, Albany and Boston
were to be destroyed if they
rejected the gospel according to
Smith. Joseph Smith himself went
to New York, Albany, and Boston
and preached there. These cities
did not accept his gospel, yet
they have not been destroyed.
Another famous false prophecy
of Joseph Smith was his "END OF
ALL NATIONS" in D&C 87
concerning the rebellion of South
Carolina in the war between the
states. The South was supposed
to call on Great Britain for aid,
and as a result war would be
poured out upon all nations;
slaves would revolt; the
inhabitants of the earth would
mourn; famine, plague,
earthquake, thunder, lightning,
and a full end of all nations
would result. The South finally
did revolt in 1861, but the slaves
did not rise up, war was not
poured out upon all nations,
there was no worldwide famine,
plague, earthquake, etc., and
there was no resulting "end of all
nations."
The collection of writings that
Protestants call the Apocrypha
(hidden writings), Roman
Catholics call the
deuterocanonical (later or
second canon) books. These
books were written between
300 B.C. and 100 A.D., the
Intertestamental Period between
the inspired writings of God's
Prophets in the Old Testament
and those of the Apostles and
their contemporaries in the New
Testament. These were "infallibly"
accepted into the Bible by the
Roman Catholic Church in 1546
at the Council of Trent. Now the
Apocrypha would be covered
under the evidence for the Bible
if these writings were truly
inspired - but evidence seems to
indicate that they are not. In the
Bible we find prophets of God
whose messages are ratified by
miracles or prophecy that comes
true, and whose message is
immediately accepted by the
people ( Deut 31:26; Josh. 24:26;
1 Samuel 10:25; Daniel 9:2; Col.
4:16; 2 Peter 3:15-16). What we
find in the apocrypha is just the
opposite - no apocryphal book
was written by a prophet. None
of these books were included in
the Hebrew Scriptures. There is
no ratification of the authors of
any apocryphal book. No
apocryphal book is cited as
authoritative by later Biblical
writers. There is no fulfilled
prophecy in any apocryphal
book. Finally, Jesus, who quoted
from every section of Old
Testament Scripture, never once
quoted from the apocrypha.
Neither did any of His disciples.
The Bible so far outshines every
competing source for being
God's revelation that if it is not
God's Word, it would seem
impossible to choose among the
leftovers. If the Bible is not God's
Word, then we have been left
with no clear criteria by which to
know what might be.

Answer: The question of which
(if any) religious text is the true
word of God is of utmost
importance. To avoid circular
reasoning, the first question we
must ask is: how would we
know if God communicated in
the first place? Well, God would
have to communicate in a
manner that people could
understand, but that also means
that people could make up their
own messages and simply claim
that they came from God. So, it
seems reasonable to think that if
God wanted to authenticate His
communication He would have to
verify it in a manner that could
not be duplicated by mere
humans - in other words, by
miracles. This narrows the field
considerably.
Beyond the evidence for the
Bible's correctness (manuscript
evidence) and its historicity
(archeological evidence), the
most important evidence is that
of its inspiration. The real
determination of the Bible's claim
to absolute inspired truth is in its
supernatural evidence, including
prophecy. God used prophets to
speak and write down His Word
and God uses miracles like
fulfilled prophecy to authenticate
His messengers. For example, in
Genesis 12:7, God promises that
the land of Israel was to be for
Abraham and his descendants. In
1948 Israel was returned back to
the Jewish people for the second
time in history. This may not
seem so astonishing until you
realize that no nation in the
history of the world has been
scattered from its homeland and
returned! Israel has done it
twice. The book of Daniel
predicts with accuracy the
coming of the four great
kingdoms from Babylon, to
Medo-Persia, to Greece, to Rome
centuries before some of those
kingdoms came on the scene (a
time span of over 1,000 years!)
with details concerning how they
would rule and be broken. This
includes the reigns of Alexander
the Great and Antiochus
Epiphanies.
In Ezekiel 26 we can see in
astonishing detail how the city of
Tyre was to be destroyed, how it
would be torn down, and how
its debris would be thrown into
the sea. When Alexander the
Great marched on that area, he
encountered a group of people
holed up in a tower on an island
off the coast near there. He could
not cross the sea, so he could not
fight those in the tower. Rather
than wait them out, the proud
conqueror had his army throw
stones into the sea to build a
land bridge to the tower. It
worked. His army crossed the sea
and overthrew the occupants of
the stronghold. But where did he
get so much stone? The rocks
that were used for the land
bridge were the leftover rubble
from the city of Tyre . . . its stones
cast into the sea!
There are so many prophecies
concerning Christ (over 270!)
that it would take more than a
few screens worth of space to
list them all. Further, Jesus would
have had no control over many
of them such as His birthplace or
time of birth. Second, the odds of
one man accidentally fulfilling
even 16 of these are 1 in 10^45.
How many is that? For
comparison, there are less than
10^82 atoms in the entire
universe! And Jesus, who
affirmed the Bible as the Word of
God, proved His reliability and
deity by His resurrection (an
historical fact not easily ignored).
Now consider the Quran - its
author, Muhammad, performed
no miracles to back up his
message (even when he was
asked to by his followers - Sura
17:91-95; 29:47-51). Only in
much later tradition (the Hadith)
do any alleged miracles even
show up and these are all quite
fanciful (like Muhammad cutting
the moon in half) and have zero
reliable testimony to back them
up. Further, the Quran makes
clear historical errors. Muslims
believe the Bible is inspired but
with some errors from editing
(Sura 2:136 as well as Suras 13,
16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25). The
question they cannot adequately
answer is: "When was the Bible
corrupted?" If they say before
600 A.D. then how can the Quran
admonish believers to read it? If
they claim it was after 600 A.D.,
then they have jumped out of the
frying pan and into the fire, for
we have absolutely no doubt as
to the accuracy of biblical
manuscripts from at least the 3rd
century forward. Even if
Christianity were false, the Quran
still has an insurmountable
problem because it makes
judgments against Christians for
believing things that they do not
(nor have they ever) believed. For
example, the Quran teaches that
Christians believe the Trinity is
the Father, the Mother (Mary),
and the Son (Sura 5:73-75, 116),
and the Quran also teaches that
Christians believe that God had
sex with Mary to have a son
(Suras 2:116; 6:100-101; 10:68;
16:57; 19:35; 23:91;
37:149-151; 43:16-19). If the
Quran is really from God, then it
should at least be able to
accurately report what Christians
believe.
Joseph Smith, the author of the
Book of Mormon, tried to do
some miracles such as prophecy
(a test for a true prophet in
Deuteronomy 18:21-22) but
failed several times. He foretold
of Christ's second coming in
History of the Church (HC) 2:382.
Joseph Smith preached that the
coming of the Lord would be in
56 years (about 1891). The
second coming did not occur in
1891, and the Mormon Church
does not claim that it did. Nor
has it occurred since. He also
prophesied that several cities
would be destroyed in Doctrine
and Covenants (D&C) 84:114-115.
New York, Albany and Boston
were to be destroyed if they
rejected the gospel according to
Smith. Joseph Smith himself went
to New York, Albany, and Boston
and preached there. These cities
did not accept his gospel, yet
they have not been destroyed.
Another famous false prophecy
of Joseph Smith was his "END OF
ALL NATIONS" in D&C 87
concerning the rebellion of South
Carolina in the war between the
states. The South was supposed
to call on Great Britain for aid,
and as a result war would be
poured out upon all nations;
slaves would revolt; the
inhabitants of the earth would
mourn; famine, plague,
earthquake, thunder, lightning,
and a full end of all nations
would result. The South finally
did revolt in 1861, but the slaves
did not rise up, war was not
poured out upon all nations,
there was no worldwide famine,
plague, earthquake, etc., and
there was no resulting "end of all
nations."
The collection of writings that
Protestants call the Apocrypha
(hidden writings), Roman
Catholics call the
deuterocanonical (later or
second canon) books. These
books were written between
300 B.C. and 100 A.D., the
Intertestamental Period between
the inspired writings of God's
Prophets in the Old Testament
and those of the Apostles and
their contemporaries in the New
Testament. These were "infallibly"
accepted into the Bible by the
Roman Catholic Church in 1546
at the Council of Trent. Now the
Apocrypha would be covered
under the evidence for the Bible
if these writings were truly
inspired - but evidence seems to
indicate that they are not. In the
Bible we find prophets of God
whose messages are ratified by
miracles or prophecy that comes
true, and whose message is
immediately accepted by the
people ( Deut 31:26; Josh. 24:26;
1 Samuel 10:25; Daniel 9:2; Col.
4:16; 2 Peter 3:15-16). What we
find in the apocrypha is just the
opposite - no apocryphal book
was written by a prophet. None
of these books were included in
the Hebrew Scriptures. There is
no ratification of the authors of
any apocryphal book. No
apocryphal book is cited as
authoritative by later Biblical
writers. There is no fulfilled
prophecy in any apocryphal
book. Finally, Jesus, who quoted
from every section of Old
Testament Scripture, never once
quoted from the apocrypha.
Neither did any of His disciples.
The Bible so far outshines every
competing source for being
God's revelation that if it is not
God's Word, it would seem
impossible to choose among the
leftovers. If the Bible is not God's
Word, then we have been left
with no clear criteria by which to
know what might be.

by Amy Orr-Ewing
Both Christians and Muslims
believe that their scriptures are
the Word of God. Three
questions will help in our
consideration of this subject.
IS THE QUR'AN ACCURATE IN ITS
RECORDING OF HISTORY?
The Qur'an refers to a number of
Bible stories but with altered
details. For instance, in the
Qur'an, Ishmael is Abraham’s
child of promise rather than
Isaac, and Moses’ sister Miriam is
also confused with Mary, the
mother of Jesus. In contrast, the
Biblical texts, written at the time
and passed down carefully by
scribes, seem to be more reliable.
Muslims insist the Bible is
corrupted because it undermines
the Qur'anic grasp of history,
however this is arguing
backwards from the assumption
that the Qur'an is true.
A further issue for Muslims is that
the Qur'an declares the Gospels
(Injil) and Torah to be true in
Sura 5.68. Muslims respond by
alleging that the Gospels and
Torah that Muhammed mentions
are the original ones, and that
our Bible has been changed.
Manuscript evidence suggests
otherwise. The Pentateuch and
four Gospels, as we have them
today, were in existence during
Muhammed’s time, and nowhere
in the Qur'an is it stated that
Christians, known as "People of
the Book", did not possess
authentic scriptures nor that
theInjilhad been corrupted.
IS THE QUR'AN A MIRACLE IN AND
OF ITSELF?
Muslims believe that, although
there are no miracles related to
Muhammad's life, the self-
authenticating miracle in Islam is
the Qur'an, which we are told is
unique and miraculous, its
beauty and elegance remarkable.
The book itself is considered
perfect, dictated by God and the
ultimate expression of truth.
Iranian Islamic scholar Sayyid
Hossein Nasr comments, “Many
people, especially non-Muslims,
who read the Qur'an for the first
time, are struck by what appears
to be a kind of incoherence.... It is
neither like a high mystical text
nor a manual of Aristotelian logic,
though it contains both
mysticism and logic.”
He goes on to say, “The Qur'an
contains a quality which is
difficult to express in modern
language. One might call it divine
magic.”
If the beauty and miraculous
nature of the Qur'an are not in
fact self-evident, on what basis
should one accept the book as
true revelation? This argument
requires a priori belief – a
commitment based not on
evidence but nonetheless
insisted upon. Using a rigorously
technical approach, the Iranian
author Ali Dashti commented in
his book, Twenty-Three Years:
The Life of the Prophet
Mohammed, that the errors in
the Qur'an were so many that
grammatical rules had to be
altered to fit the claim that the
book was perfect.
Muslims also claim that the
Qur'an is a miracle on the basis
of Mohammed's illiteracy.
However, all scholars agree that
Mohammed had scribes and
therefore could very possibly
have composed the Qur'an
without a miracle. We know that
Homer was blind and probably
illiterate, yet he authored The
Iliad and The Odyssey, the two
greatest epics of the ancient
world.
IS THE TEXT OF THE QUR'AN
RELIABLE?
Muslims claim that the Qu'ran has
not been altered since it was
recorded in Muhammed's day.
However, Islamic history in the
form of the Hadith tells us that
the third Caliph Uthman was
involved in canonising the
Qur'an.
Arthur Jeffrey, a noted European
archaeologist, discovered
Qur'anic texts that were written
prior to their canonisation by
Uthman, and he notes
differences from what we have
today. In his compilation Uthman
had a number of suras
destroyed, probably due to
contradictions contained within
them.
Jeffrey concludes, “There can be
little doubt that the text
canonised by Uthman was only
one among several types of text
in existence at the time.”
Discovery of some ancient
Qur'anic fragments in Yemen in
1972 has led to research into the
development of the Qur'an.
These fragments reveal
unconventional verse orderings,
textual variations and artistic
embellishment. Among the
manuscripts are versions which
have been written over earlier
and then washed off, which
seems to suggest an evolving
text.
“The impact of the Yemeni
manuscripts is still to be felt,”
wrote Calgary University religious
studies professor Andrew
Rippon in 1999. “These
manuscripts say that the early
history of the Qur'anic text is
much more of an open question
than many have suspected: the
text was less stable, and
therefore had less authority, than
has always been claimed.”
A STARK CONTRAST
On the basis of these three
questions, can the Qur'an be
called the Word of God? In my
opinion, it cannot.
The Bible stands in stark contrast
to the Qur'an in a number of
ways. First, it does not claim to
be dictation from God. The Bible
is unashamedly open about
human participation in its pages,
as it was written by a variety of
authors over 2,000 years. It is a
holy book inspired by God and
involving human collaboration.
The Bible is revelation from God,
which connects with us as
human beings who are capable
of reading, understanding and
appreciating it because it comes
through human messengers.
The Bible contains reliable
accounts of the life, ministry and
death of Jesus. These Gospels are
not written by Jesus himself but
by those who knew Him
intimately and composed them
during their lifetime.
The Encyclopaedia of Islam
(1981) suggests that “the closest
analogue in Christian belief to the
role of the Qur'an in Muslim
belief is not the Bible, but Christ.”
Jesus himself is the eternal Word.
He is superior to any book or
text. He is God incarnate, coming
in human form to live, die and be
resurrected on this earth.
Through self-revelation God
draws us to Himself. He does not
merely send tablets from heaven
– marvellous as that is - but takes
on flesh so that we can have real
relationship with Him. The Bible
is a conduit of that relationship,
with one clear intention: that we
might read it and believe (John
20.31).