Islam_mulia said:
My POV is that it is very difficult to interprete the miraculous actions of the prophets, by the will of God, using modern scientific discoveries. You cannot 'prove' the crucifixion and resurrection just as much as you cannot prove Muhammad (pbuh) split the moon by the will of God.
You're talking about two different things. Classic Christians have never attempted to
interpret miraculous actions by science. We don't try and
explain away the walking on water by saying there was a sandbank there or something.
I'm not talking about making them reasonable by explaining them with scientific properties.
I'm not talking about science at all. I'm talking about using historical methods to prove
something happened- that there is a historic core to the events reported in the Scriptures.
And by
standard historical methods, it can be proven that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
It is a mere exaggeration, added with a dose of dishonesty, to say that you can use 'modern historical methods' to prove the miracles, the crucifixion and resurrection.
Maybe you just haven't done the research, or just ignore it so nothing challenges your beliefs...
1. How do prove that the NT 'accurately potrays Isa' (pbuh) while the Quran does not? Interesting proposition and I like to hear more of this.
Ok basic historiography- primary documents and secondary documents. Primary documents are written closer to the time, whereas secondary documents are written based on primary documents. History is based off primary documents.
Without going too much into it... the New Testament writings, particurally the Gospels and the Pauline epistles, are primary documents. They are reflections of the original apostolic community on the events. Moreover, they reflect numerous, varied, and even tensious viewpoints,
and yet agree on the historical core. Their disention on some matters makes their agreement on others all the more impressive. Mark, John, Paul, and Hebrews represent four independent first century sources testifying to the crucifixion of Christ. First century non-Christian historians like Josephus and Tacitus also testify to the event. The crucifixion is also consonant with standing orders against messianic leaders in Judea.
The Qur'an was written centuries later, after the fall of the Roman Empire, by a different ethnic group with no firsthand knowledge.
On a purely historical basis, the New Testament documents are
exceedingly more reliable as sources to discover the historical core behind our varied Jesus-legends than the Qur'an. Have you ever wondered why
no historical Jesus scholar, even those who are very, very pro-Islam (Robert Eisenmann), have ever used the Qur'an as a source? It's basic history.
If we can say
anything about the historical Jesus (and we can say quite a lot), the most universally attested fact is that he was crucified. What does an Arabic document written centuries later have to contradict that?
2. The hadiths are possible narrations of Muhammad (pbuh) and the accuracy of the hadith can be ascertained by its consistency with the Quran and other sahih hadiths. If the argument is of divine origin, you should compare the Quran, not hadith, with the bible.
I'm not talking about inspiration and divine origin. I'm simply comparing historical testaments to Jesus and Muhammad, hence why I'm talking about the hadiths and not the Qur'an.
3. The consistency in the bible cannot be compared with the consistency in the Quran. You'll find many differences in narrations in the gospels according to mk, mt, lk and jn. You do not have inconsistencies in the Quran.
You're not arguing with an inerrantist, or someone who believes in verbal inspiration. You're arguing with a historian. Contradictions don't bother me, and in fact they make the core agreements all the more impressive since they meet the criterion of
multiple attestation- a central criterion in historical investigation.
To start with, God says in the Quran that the book is from God alone, there is no discrepanise in the book, and He challenges you to prove otherwise. There is nothing in the bible that says the 66 books are from God and you do have a clear and explicit differences in the bible, with or wothout scribal errors.
So? Just because it claims to be inspired doesn't mean it is. Even if that were so, then wouldn't 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:15-16 convince you?
And internal consistency is no argument for inspiration. Karl Marx's
Communist Manifesto is internally consistent. The question is whether or not it is consistent with
external reality. Your probabilities fare far worse than our's in this respect.
Raul7 said:
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is mentioned by name in the Song of Solomon chapter 5 verse 16:
"Hikko Mamittakim we kullo Muhammadim Zehdoodeh wa Zehraee Bayna Jerusalem."
This is absolute nonesense. It's not Muhammad. It's machmaddim.
In the Hebrew language ‘im’ is added for respect. Similarly ‘im’ is added after the name of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to make it Muhammadim.
Nonesense! The Hebrew 'im' just means plural! (For instance,
perush is singular for Pharisee, whereas
perushim is plural for Pharisees)
Anyways, of course the Bible doesn't refer to Islam (submission to the Lord). The Bible (Greek for book) is series of excerpts from numerous texts that often contradict each other and that closely resembles the Qumran texts.
What does the name 'Bible' have do to with anything?
As for excerpts- what historical and textual evidence do you have? Just the Qur'an? I'm not trying to insult the Qur'an or your religious sensibilities, but I'm speaking on purely historical grounds, and on historical grounds the Qur'an is not a useful or reliable testimony in tracing the textual development of considerably more ancient Scriptures.
And what to the Qumran texts/Dead Sea Scrolls have to do with anything? If anything, their conformity to the Masoretic and LXX textual norm is a critical tool that shows the antiquity of the text as-is. By what critical techniques of evaluation does the seventh century Qur'an judge the accuracy of far more ancient texts? It doesn't- it makes bold, open, sweeping claims without reason or merit.
It is obvious that this is not the Gospel Jesus (pbuh) used to preach with; the Bible is an offshoot stem that has gone astray from the mainstream message of Jesus (pbuh) which is submission to God.
The gospel Jesus preached was the coming and arrival of the kingdom of God through his very person. Scholars moderate and liberal affirm this basic fact.
Do you even know what gospel (
euangelion) means? It's the same Greek word used by ambassadors of Rome to announce the ascension of a new Caesar. The very use of the term gospel implies the rule of a king- a king named Jesus Christ, to whom we submit as Lord.
Can't argue with that. 
