Islam Bible v Quran

[mindlight]

Which book has more authority?

I would say the bible for the following reasons:

1) The Quran affirms the bible , directly and by quoting from it, but there is no anticipation of the Quran in the bible?

2) the bible and the Quran give prophetic weight to the person of Jesus but Mohammed fulfils no biblical prophecies.

3) the bible includes prophecies that came true after the texts were written down e.g prophecies about Jesus, prophecies about Jews return to Israel, the fall of Jerusalem. The Quran has no such prophecies beyond a vague hope about the growth of Islam.

4) the bible texts have an audit trail and provides more credibility to the view that we have the original text today. The Quran by contrast has very few textual fragments before 200 years after Mohammed and Muslim history is clear that alternate suras were burnt, the men who memorised them lost in battle and that there was a consolidation and validation of texts by political decree rather than by the theological community.

5) Many more but think I have said enough to kick this off.

 

[SinoBen]

Which book has more authority?

You have a good list, but in terms of "Authority" on a subject it is like comparing a text book (B) with a fictional novel told by an illiterate transcribed (Q).

Not even considering the quality of author(s) and transcribers.

 

[anatolian]

You look from a Christian angle for sure. Islamically Quran never refers to a book called Bible but refers to some books contained in it and Quran abrogates all those books. Any abrogated book cannot have authority over Quran.

As for the textual accuracy, the NT was composed of several books, authored by several diffrent people, hand written by several different people in several different places, in several different times. It became one single book only in the late 4th century. On the other hand Quran was memorized by several people and compiled as a book just after the Prophet aleyhissalam

Do you really compare them?

 

[Long Beard]

the Prophet aleyhissalam

Does this prophet go by another name? I have never heard of him... when I studied Islam I was told it was Abu Bakr that had the Quran compiled... can you confirm?

Thank you,

 

[mindlight]

Does this prophet go by another name? I have never heard of him... when I studied Islam I was told it was Abu Bakr that had the Quran compiled... can you confirm?

Thank you,

Whenever Muslims refer to their prophet Mohammed they use the phrase peace be upon him. ( in this case in Arabic).

Abu Bakr collected suras and had them written down as the men who remembered them were dying out in battles. But we have no way of testing this evidence as a later caliph had all copies except his own destroyed. We know there was variation in the early versions collected cause one of the early manuscripts was written over an earlier one still ( recoverable with modern technology). But because this textual tradition was wiped out there is no way for a modern scholar to test the audit trail as with the Christian bible to establish the veracity of todays text.

 

[Long Beard]

Whenever Muslims refer to their prophet Mohammed they use the phrase peace be upon him.

Oh yes, I see. Thank you.

 

[mindlight]

You look from a Christian angle for sure. Islamically Quran never refers to a book called Bible but refers to some books contained in it and Quran abrogates all those books. Any abrogated book cannot have authority over Quran.

As for the textual accuracy, the NT was composed of several books, authored by several diffrent people, hand written by several different people in several different places, in several different times. It became one single book only in the late 4th century. On the other hand Quran was memorized by several people and compiled as a book just after the Prophet aleyhissalam

Do you really compare them?

We have a fragment of Johns gospel dating to within a generation of his death. We have rival traditions within the Christian world based on different languages and places which we can test against each other. So the original scriptures can be authenticated to the times of writing.with the quran we have no way of establishing if the suras selected were the original ones, were as originally given and have not been changed. Because political control was applied very early on we are effectively asked to trust the Caliph that burnt the original fragments that these are the words Mohammed dictated.

Furthermore since much of what is the Quran seems to be borrowed from earlier Christian stories or indeed distorted retellings of the bible we have reasons to doubt that this is an original text given directly by God. Especially because it contradicts the earlier accounts on Who Jesus was, the account of his death and the nature of God for instance.

 

[anatolian]

We have a fragment of Johns gospel dating to within a generation of his death. We have rival traditions within the Christian world based on different languages and places which we can test against each other. So the original scriptures can be authenticated to the times of writing.with the quran we have no way of establishing if the suras selected were the original ones, were as originally given and have not been changed. Because political control was applied very early on we are effectively asked to trust the Caliph that burnt the original fragments that these are the words Mohammed dictated.

Furthermore since much of what is the Quran seems to be borrowed from earlier Christian stories or indeed distorted retellings of the bible we have reasons to doubt that this is an original text given directly by God. Especially because it contradicts the earlier accounts on Who Jesus was, the account of his death and the nature of God for instance.

And we have much more with Quran what you have with Bible. During the reign of Uthman the Islam empire was expanded from India to Algeria and to Caucasus on the north. A lot of scribes who memorized Quran had already migrated to all those places. If Uthman have removed any of the original verses and singled out his own version all those scribes would contradict each other and we would have different versions in different parts of the empire. However history doesnt mention such a process.

 

[dzheremi]

It is the practice to this day among monastics to memorize if not the entire Bible (though plenty have; I have personally met priests who have) at least the Psalms and the portions of the Gospel that are read out every day in the book of hourly prayers, which are said seven times a day (in the Coptic tradition, this is called the Agpeya; everyone has one, even lay people like me, and we pray from it every day). Does this mean that you should follow the Bible, because think of all the many thousands of people who have memorized it?

For example here is secular singer and Melkite Catholic Raja Badr singing Psalm 93 in Arabic, apparently at some kind of dinner.

It's even in Arabic, god's most preferred language (this time)! What a miracle! I guess you should convert to Christianity, because look at how it is preserved throughout the very same ages in which Islam was born, by the very same method! How else do you think the pre-Islamic Christian poets among the Arabs preserved their works? It's the same thing. Only the religion is different, but Islam tries to make itself seem special as though other people were not already doing the same thing before it even existed, in the very same part of the world (as they still do today in the places that the Muslims invaded and now claim are theirs). So go on, Muslims -- convert to Christianity. It is clearly superior, as it was already doing what Islam later did, and has never stopped doing it this way, despite your religion's claims that it was 'corrupted', which are inherently unproveable and biased.

This is the Islamic logic, anyway, and if you find it silly and borderline offensive to your intelligence, then hopefully you can understand how non-Muslims have felt about your religion's weak arguments for 14 centuries and counting. You didn't do anything new, and you weren't better at the existing methods of preservation than others. In fact, the case can be made that your religion was far worse when it came to the written records, as Uthman simply had everything he could find burned; while there was some burning of texts in early Christianity, mostly those related to heretics like Nestorius, clearly that was not the M.O. for early Christianity in toto, because there are still many copies of the various Gnostic and other heretical gospels and various types of psuedographia around, whereas the Islamic tradition has very little outside of its main book and the various hadith and the sira, and then again many of its believers pretend that this is a strength rather than a weakness. Like maybe if you just repeat "the Qur'an is unchanged" over and over, the variations that we do see, as in the Sana'a manuscript and the few other palimpsests that did not get destroyed as studied by honest Islamic scholars like Asma Hilali will magically go away.

It doesn't work that way. The Qur'an has a textual history same as any other book (meaning it is not divine or unchanged or any of this), and it's not according to the religious narrative of the pious Muslim community.

 

[mindlight]

And we have much more with Quran what you have with Bible. During the reign of Uthman the Islam empire was expanded from India to Algeria and to Caucasus on the north. A lot of scribes who memorized Quran had already migrated to all those places. If Uthman have removed any of the original verses and singled out his own version all those scribes would contradict each other and we would have different versions in different parts of the empire. However history doesnt mention such a process.

The earliest version of the Quran is the Sana manuscript dated some 73 years after Mohammeds death. It contains only 43 of the 114 suras of the Uthman version. Its content is different and XRays of it indicate that it was written over another version that was also different. This indicates there was a process in the development of the Quran. Fact is at the Battle of Yamama many of those who had memorised original suras were killed prompting the action to write the Quran down. Uthman then further redacted what was collected and destroyed alternate versions. Unlike the spread of Christianity in which the scriptures carried , even more widely around the world, were not enforced by political authorities and yet do not contradict Uthman enforced his own version of the Quran on his empire. There is a massive difference here, the Muslim way is a top down fabrication and the Christian way reveals a text that was freely accepted and embedded in a church that was widely spread. Yet that church was able and is still able to affirm the consensus reached hundreds of years before the birth of Islam. With fragments like P52 or P64 we have textual confirmation going back to within a generation of the gospel writers. We have OT texts 250 years older than that. The multiplicity of traditions means we can check and verify that what we have is the original text. This is not something you can do with the Quran cause much of the evidence was deliberately destroyed and was very clearly controlled by politically motivated authorities. The process reeks of fabrication not revelation.

ApoLogika: Comparing the Bible and Quranic Manuscripts

 

[Barney2.0]

You look from a Christian angle for sure. Islamically Quran never refers to a book called Bible but refers to some books contained in it and Quran abrogates all those books. Any abrogated book cannot have authority over Quran.

As for the textual accuracy, the NT was composed of several books, authored by several diffrent people, hand written by several different people in several different places, in several different times. It became one single book only in the late 4th century. On the other hand Quran was memorized by several people and compiled as a book just after the Prophet aleyhissalam

Do you really compare them?

Is it logical for God to abrogate his own revelations? The actual books of the Old and New Testament were always available, what does it matter if the biblical canon was settled in the fourth century, that’s just the canon, the actual books were always around since they were written by more then several authors. The New Testament is coherent and manuscripts survive of its many variants which are compared to check if any additions are added or to make sure if textual corruption has occurred or not, the same cannot be said of the Quran when you had entire chapters or Surahs thrown out or burned by... yes Uthman the one and only:

Yes your right we shouldn’t compare the two since the difference is obvious to anyone that possesses a logical mind:

 

[Starcomet]

2) the bible and the Quran give prophetic weight to the person of Jesus but Mohammed fulfils no biblical prophecies.

A prophet need not fulfill prophecies to be a prophet no?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

With regards to point One, it's worse for the Quran because it doesn't affirm the bible as such but the Torah and the Gospel. The Quran specifically refers to the Gospel as a single book and tells Christians to judge by this single book. How could seventh century Christians judge by a book that has no historical evidence of it's existence? Was not in use by Christians at any time, that is a single text, called the Gospel, written or transcribed directly by Jesus himself, presented as a revelation of God?

I have not seen Muslims able to make sense of this.

 

[dzheremi]

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

 

[dzheremi]

 

[dzheremi]

(SE)

I dunno, my friend...the Qur'an may say that, but the religion of Islam is a bit odd in this regard, as mainstream Sunni Islam has for centuries been of the position that the Qur'an itself is uncreated and co-eternal with God, which not only calls into question Islamic monotheism (after all, what do we the uncreated and co-eternal Lord Jesus Christ in Christianity?), but also the comparison between the Bible and the Qur'an. It would seem, with the Sunni belief in the Qur'an being uncreated and co-eternal with God in mind (and also keeping in mind that Sunnis make up something like 80%+ of all Muslims), that the proper comparison is not between the Bible and the Qur'an, but between our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ and the Qur'an.

(And that's not something I came up with after reading a Wikipedia page just now. I first learned of that from Syrian Christian author Nabeel T. Jabbour in his book The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross back in 2008, which is all about how Christians can more effectively communicate our faith to Muslims.)

 

[mindlight]

I dunno, my friend...the Qur'an may say that, but the religion of Islam is a bit odd in this regard, as mainstream Sunni Islam has for centuries been of the position that the Qur'an itself is uncreated and co-eternal with God, which not only calls into question Islamic monotheism (after all, what do we the uncreated and co-eternal Lord Jesus Christ in Christianity?), but also the comparison between the Bible and the Qur'an. It would seem, with the Sunni belief in the Qur'an being uncreated and co-eternal with God in mind (and also keeping in mind that Sunnis make up something like 80%+ of all Muslims), that the proper comparison is not between the Bible and the Qur'an, but between our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ and the Qur'an.

(And that's not something I came up with after reading a Wikipedia page just now. I first learned of that from Syrian Christian author Nabeel T. Jabbour in his book The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross back in 2008, which is all about how Christians can more effectively communicate our faith to Muslims.)

I was unaware of the createdness debate. Thank you for the link. It poses major issues for Muslims though if they put the Quran on the same level as God. Because:

1) the Quran itself abrogates earlier verses in favour of later ones thus pointing to a God who changes his mind.
2) Also there is the issue of the Satanic verses
3) and Quranic references to Arabian contexts that obviously did not exist before the creation of the universe,
4) there is also the problem of borrowing from the bible and other Christian literature
5) and obvious mistakes in the Quran like as to what the Christian view of the Trinity was and about the death of Jesus on the cross.

Yes a comparison between the Logos and the Quran also does not bode well for Muslims. Jesus is explicable in terms of the incarnation , that God became a man and dwelt among us but how do you explain a book of words as somehow equal to God. Particularly if the origins of those words are disputable and what the original texts said may have been lost or changed.

 

[dzheremi]

The only thing I can conclude from talking to Muslims about this (and being a member of a native North African church puts you in contact with plenty, believe me) is that they don't seem to see the contradiction in their view of the Qu'ran and their commitment to tawhid (monotheism) in the context of their criticisms of Christianity. "You can't have a man who also God", they say, but then when you ask them how their book can be uncreated and preexist with God and yet not be God, they say it is because God's word is eternal. And in that we agree, they just disagree with the implications of that vis-a-vis Christian theology (i.e., the incarnation), yet don't seem to realize how their theology concerning their book (and we can call it that in a Christian context, since we call the One Who is uncreated and preexists with God God Himself) creates the very same situation that they say cannot happen, only this time concerning a book rather than a person (the God-man Jesus Christ).

So in Islam apparently a book can be God (i.e., eternal, preexisting) so long as you don't call it that (yet you see the reactions from the worldwide Muslim community whenever it is even rumored that someone said something bad about it or did something naughty with a Qur'an; it is definitely as though the book itself is divine!), and this is perfect monotheism, yet to say that God was incarnate as man in the person of our holy Lord and God Jesus Christ is blasphemy.

That's a rather odd sort of monotheism, if you ask me. But this is at the root of the theological divide between Christianity and Islam, which is lost on many people who hear the Muslims proclaim "There is no god but God" and think that this is the most solid and unconfused monotheism out there. Not so. Their book is talked about in 'orthodox' Islamic circles in ways that Christianity rightly reserves for God alone. Pure monotheism is worship of the uncreated and undivided perfect Holy Trinity -- one God, homoousios. Their own theology denies this and substitutes a kind of bibliolatry (Qur'anolatry?) that would be rejected in all but the most literalist Protestant circles, which would no doubt still find reason to disagree with Islam on theology.

 

[Limo]

One source

4 sources

How could seventh century Christians judge by a book that has no historical evidence of it's existence? Was not in use by Christians at any time, that is a single text, called the Gospel, written or transcribed directly by Jesus himself, presented as a revelation of God?

I have not seen Muslims able to make sense of this.

Very good question.
First Quran doesn't refer to Gospel(s) of Luke, Mathew, John, and Mark in addition to letters.
Quran refers to Ingeel which is a book inspired to the prophet Al-Maseeh not your Jesus.

Second, These books Gospel(s) are not connected to Al-Maseeh at all. Even you believe it's not, it's a creation (inspiration) to the writers. Even the writers of 4 Gospels are unknown.

It's know to your scholars that there were hundreds of Gospels but only 4 were accepted by Council of Nicaea.

Modern studies by christian scholars and researchers Textual criticism reached to a concrete conclusion that there were books. Nevertheless the 4 Gospels have copied from each other and from other books till we reach one book.

I like the theory of Multi‑source, or 4-sources This is Christian findings not Muslems. You see there were One unique book... disappeared... not by Moslems
Alsos, summary of many theories about how these books written

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

One source

View attachment 251237
4 sources
View attachment 251238

Very good question.
First Quran doesn't refer to Gospel(s) of Luke, Mathew, John, and Mark in addition to letters.
Quran refers to Ingeel which is a book inspired to the prophet Al-Maseeh not your Jesus.

Second, These books Gospel(s) are not connected to Al-Maseeh at all. Even you believe it's not, it's a creation (inspiration) to the writers. Even the writers of 4 Gospels are unknown.

It's know to your scholars that there were hundreds of Gospels but only 4 were accepted by Council of Nicaea.

Modern studies by christian scholars and researchers Textual criticism reached to a concrete conclusion that there were books. Nevertheless the 4 Gospels have copied from each other and from other books till we reach one book.

I like the theory of Multi‑source, or 4-sources This is Christian findings not Muslems. You see there were One unique book... disappeared... not by Moslems
Alsos, summary of many theories about how these books written

I said from the beginning that the Quran only refers to one supposed text called the Gospel which obviously discounts the Quran referring to our synoptics.

I would contend the notion that the writers are unknown. Much ink has been spilled over the issue but there is a case that can be made for the canonical authors. That's outside of the scope of this discussion. Though if you believe the Gospels were only accepted at the Council of Nicaea you have much learning to do. This is a myth and you can't find a single source to suggest that this is the case from Nicaea or from authors of the time. Fathers before, during and after the council referred to the four.

Now if you want to suggest Q as the document the Quran is speaking about, you still have the problem that the Quran tells Christians to judge by their own Gospel. Q, even if it did exist, faded out of existence by the time of Muhammad and the Christian canon was more or less fully shaped. The Gospels were undisputed within the Church and were our sources. So what is the Quran telling Christians during the time of Muhammad to judge by? It can't be our Gospels, they contradict the Quran. Yet there isn't any other text the Christians judged by as an authoritative source.

This to me is the problem and it suggests to me the author of the Quran was ignorant and didn't know what he was talking about. Which makes sense given the backwater context it arose out of.