The Quran is purely the Word of God since He dictated it Angel Jibril who brought it to mankind through Muhammad.
This sounds laudable but actual sense it leaves God extremely vulnerable.Not only can any hint of drivel be directly attributed to Him but the likes of Chinua Achebe and other authors can be driven to think they can do better.Besides,there are theological debates as to whether God can morally govern man.
The bible on the hand is the inspired word of God.This inspiration could be through visions etc, it was upon the prophets to write these in their own words.
Quote:
- The more than 300 different denominations, all of them claim three different Bibles!
- Different books, different number of verses, even old and new testaments!
- And no one among the Christians, no one in the world has memorized the whole of the Bible, because they have not agreed what is the whole Bible!
Agreeing on every other doctrinal issue is not a core teaching of the BIble.
Quote:
I wish you people could understand that matters of faith cannot be explained. They are not based on facts or any known truths. You have been indoctrinated
to assume they are factual but you simply cannot defend them.
Faith is New Testament jargon
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.Heb 11:1
Meaning faith has to be accompanied by results.Faith is not going against known facts,truths or common sense without any immediate results.Now Alpha, you can see why the church across the deniminations glorifies miracles.
Quote:
- But the Torah of Moses, the Zabur of David and the Injeel of Jesus have been tampered with by people, we do not have them as it was revealed.
- But the last book the Quran, God protected it Himself.
I'll reiterate,its impossible for any person to tamper with scriptures:
1.No evidence exists for this.We have historical records detailing worship in ancients societies from druids ,Aztecs,mayans etc.Despite the fact that these religions have little or no adherents
there religious texts/symbols are still present.Meaning, its much more difficult to alter scriptures belonging to religions that have active participants.
2.The average priest/prophet simply does not have time to alter scriptures and later preach them ,he/she would prefer to completely come up with something new.
Take for example the average pastor He/she has never and might never even open a Quran or any other religious text apart from the bible.
3.Examining the point above, a case study helps.Looking at Buddhism and many eastern religions mainly from India.They sprang up when Hinduism was the main religion.Hinduism was not extinguished.
The same scenario could have played out if there were apostatic people who did not believe the Torah ,this group would have splintered from the rest and formed there own text.Thus two parallel religious texts would
exist at any given time.
4.It's a counterproductive exercise in this sense.Because if I alter scriptures what would prevent my new formed scriptures being changed in the future?I will have set a precedent.
5.Its against human nature.Writing is more or less a work of art.When MichaelAngelo began his masterpieces he did not contemplate destroying the works of Leornado da Vinci.All He had to do to prove he was the boss was for him to come up with better paintings/sculptures so that the world coulf compare.No sane writer would dream of destroying another's work.The quran bigget selling point is having the bible around.
6.The number of copies in circulation should be examined.While the Quran has only early texts(Samarkand and the one at Al Azhar) dated 150-200 years after Hijra
.The new testament had at least 20000 manuscripts in different languages by more or less period the same period.
http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence.
Which is easier gathering two manuscripts or twenty thousand?
The first 100 years of islam were marked with conquests.Here is something to note:
1.No mention of Quran,Muhammad by the vanquished .I.e they never said their conquerors came with a book. etc.Many societies referred to them as “Ishmaelites,” “Saracens,” “Muhajirun” and “Hagarians.” etc in their texts.
2.Among the first masjid/mosques to be built had a cross.Cross and Islam do not mix.
3.THe first coins to be minted after the conquests had crosses and no reference to Quran or Muhammad.
The first biography of the Prophet by Ishaq appears 125 years after his death .Imagine having a biography of Mandela 100 years plus after his death.