The difference between the Bible and the Quraan
Dr Abdul Ahad Omar was formerly known as Dr Gary Miller. He was an ex-Christian missionary who later embraced Islam.
(Part-I)
The
Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors. The Quran is a
dictation. The speaker in the Quran - in the first person - is Allah
(Subhaanahu Wa Ta'aalaa), the God, talking directly to man. In the Bible, you
have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God
speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing
about history. The Bible consists of 66 small books. About 18 of them begin by
saying:
This
is the revelation God gave to so and so...
The
rest make no claim as to their origin. You have for example the beginning of
the book of Jonah begins by saying:
The
word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Elmitaeh saying... quote and then it
continues for two or three pages.
If
you compare that to one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus, Luke begins
by saying:
"many
people have written about this man, it seems fitting for me to do so too".
That
is all... no claim of saying " these words were given to me by God here
they are for you it is a revelation", there is no mention of this.
The
Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word 'Bible' is not in the
Bible. Nowhere does the Bible talk about itself. Some scriptures are sometimes
pointed to in the Bible, say: Here where it talks about itself, but we have to
look closely. 2nd Timothy 3:16 is the favourite which reads: "All scripture
is inspired of God" and there are those who would say, here is where the,
Bible talks about itself, it says it is inspired by God, all of it. But if you
read the whole sentence, you read that this was a letter written by Paul to
Timothy and the entire sentence says to Timothy: "Since you were a young
man you have studied the holy scriptures, all scriptures inspired by God"
and so on... When Timothy was a young man the New Testament did not| exist, the
only thing .that stems he was talking about are scriptures - which are only a
portion of the Bible —
from before that time. It could not have meant the whole Bible.
There
is at the end of the Bible a verse which says:
"Let
anyone who takes away from this book or adds to this book be cursed".
This is sometimes pointed to me saying: Here is where it sums itself as a whole. But look again and you will see that when it says: Let no one change this book, it is talking about that last book, number 66, the Book of Revelation. It has to because any reference will tell you that the Book of Revelation was written before certain other parts of the Bible were written. It happens today to be stacked at the end, but there are other parts that came after, so it cannot be referring to the entire book.
It
is an extreme position held only by some Christian groups that the Bible - in
its entirety —
cover to cover is the revealed "word of God in every word, but they do a
clever thing when the)' mention .this, or make this claim. They will say that
the Bible in its entirety is the word of God; inerrant (no mistakes) in the
original writings. So if you go to the Bible and point out some mistakes that
are in it you are going to be told: Those mistakes were not there in the
original manuscript, they have crept in so that we see them there today. They
are going on problem in that position. There is a verse in the Bible Isaiah
40:8 which in fact is so well known that some Bibles printed
it on the inside front cover as an introduction and it says :
"The grass weathers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands
forever."
Here is a claim" in the Bible that the word of God will stand forever, it will not be corrupted, it won't be lost. So if today you find a mistake in the Bible you have two choices. Either that promise was false that when God said my word won't fade away, he was mistaken, or the portion which has the mistake in it was not a part of the word of God in the first place, because the promise was that it would be safeguarded, it would not be corrupted.
I
have suggested many times that there are mistakes in the Bible and the
accusation comes back very quickly: Show me one. Well, there are hundreds. If
you want to be specific I can mention a few.
You
have for example at 2nd Samuel 10:18 a description of a war fought by David saying
that he killed 7000 men and that he also killed 40000 men on horsebacks. In
1st' Chronicles 19 it mentions the same episode saying that he killed 70000 men
and the 40000 men were not on horsebacks, they were on foot. The point is, what
is the difference between the pedestrian and not, is very fundamental.
Matthew 27:5 says that Judas Iscariot when he died he hung himself. Acts 1 says that no he jumped off a cliff head first. If you study Logic very soon you will come in your course to what they call "undecidable propositions" or "meaningless sentences" or statements that cannot be decided because there is no contextual false. One of the classic examples cited is something called the Effeminates paradox. This man was Cretan and he said "Cretans always lie", now was that statement true or false? If he was a Cretan and he says that they always lie is he lying? If he is not lying then he is telling the truth then the Cretans don't always lie! You see it cannot be true and it cannot be false, the statement turns back on itself. It is like saying: "What I am telling you right now is a lie" would you believe that or not? You see the statement has no true content. It cannot be true and it cannot be false,- If it is true it is always false. If it is false it is also true.
Well
in the Bible at Titus 1:12 the writer is Paul and he is talking about the
Cretans. He says that one of their own men - a prophet - said: "Cretans
always lie" and he says that what this man says is true. It is a small
mistake, but the point is that it is a human mistake, you don't find that if
you carefully examine the true content of that statement. It cannot be a true
statement. Now I come back to the Quran, and as I mentioned the speaker in the
Quran is —
in the first person — is Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta'aalaa), the God. The book
claims throughout that it is the word of Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta'aalaa). It
names itself 70 times as the Quran. It talks about its own contents. It has
self-reference. The Quran states in the first Soorah (Chapter) after Faatihah
that "This is the book, there is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for
those who are conscious of God" and so on and so on... It begins that way
and continues that way stressing that. And there is one very amazing statement
in the Quran when you come to the fourth Soorah 82nd Aayah (Verse) which says
to those who say Quran is something else than the word of Allah (Subhaanahu Wa
Ta'aalaa). It challenges them saying:
"Do they riot, then, ponder about the Qur'an? Had it been from someone other than Allah, they would have found in it a great deal of discrepancy." (an-Nisaa 4:82)
You are students, would you dare to hand in a paper after you completed a
research work or something at the bottom you put down there "You won't
find mistakes in this". Would you dare to challenge your professor that
way? Well, the Quran does that It is telling: If you really think you know where
this came from then start looking for mistake because you won't find any.
Another interesting thing the Quran does is that it quotes all its critics. There has
never in
hundreds of years — ever been some suggestion as to where that book came from
but that the Quran does not already mention that objection and reply to it.
Many times you will find the Aayah saying something like: Do they say such and
such and so, say to them such and such and so. In every case, mere is a reply.
More than that the Quran claims that the evidence of its origin is in itself and that if you look at this book you will be convinced.
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