Any muslim interpretation of the Bible is based on his/her knowledge of the quran and info gathered from his/her imam.
Not necessarily. There are some Muslims who obtain academic credentials in the study of the Bible or other religious scripture.
However, the Bible does not lend any validity to the quran because it never mentions the quran, and so the muslim interpretation is flawed from the outset.
That's not necessarily their purpose in studying it.
Furthermore, the quran would not exist if the Bible did not exist.
Again, not necessarily, especially given the fact that the Qur'an seems to have significant access to oral traditions.
(Islam is essentially another denomination with the Christian religion, with a doctrine far skewed from the norm).
Only if you consider Christianity a sect of Judaism.
Its proponents claim the quran essentially replaces the Bible but use a circular method of proving its validity using the book it claims to replace
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Some might say it replaces it, others would say it has the same relationship to the Bible as the New Testament has to the Old.
hehehehe. With that said, before anyone should ever consider replacing the Bible with the quran, one should take a look at the quran's deficiencies: 1) the fairytales taken from Jewish works and incorporated into quran (proof of plagiarism)
psst. An illiterate man cannot plagiarize.
2) missing sura as reported by Abu Harb Abu al-Aswad,
Why would we take an oral source over a written one?
3) countless of missing ayat (verses),
Again, the only sources for this would be less reliable than the Qur'an. I'm speaking here from an academic perspective, not a religious one.
4) the couple of hundred contradictions within quran
LOL. If I had the time I could come up with more than that for the Bible. But most of the contradictions Christians come up with are simply based on ignorance.
5) the 2000+ textual variants
And how many textual variants do you think there are in the Bible? Here is a list of just the major ones in the New Testament:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament
6) the claim of abrogation (changing text at will and without notice), and others.
Funny, I don't remember any reference to 'at will and without notice.' This really doesn't refer to changing a text in any case. It refers to the changing nature of religious laws such as the fact that Jews and Christians can drink wine, but Muslims (and Baha'is) can't.
To be clear, references to the Bible have no place in defense of the quran and they are not allowed in this thread.
I'm not sure you can stipulate that kind of thing. But it is a convenient way of ignoring the fact that the same problems appear in the Bible as in the Qur'an. For instance here are a couple of cases where exactly the same problem of the number of angels appears in the Gospels:
MAT 28:2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
MAT 28:3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
MAT 28:4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
MAT 28:5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
MAR 16:5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
LUK 24:4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
JOH 20:12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
Whatever method you use to explain these contradictions in the Bible, apply to the Qur'an. I guarantee it will work just fine.
