Comparison between the Bible & Quran (1/3)

Whereas, the Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors, the Qur’an is a dictation (or recitation). The speaker in the Qur’an –in the first person– is God Almighty (Allah) 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 or personal exchanges of information to one another (ex: Epistle of John 3). The Bible in the English King James Version 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 which 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.

We see the author of the Book of “Luke” saying essentially, “Many people have written about things, it seems fitting for me to do so too.” “Luke” says it seems to him that as long as others are taking in hand to write something about it, even though they were eye witnesses to the whole thing, he feels that even though he was not, he still has “perfect understanding of all things from the very first.”

Therefore, this is only a letter from one person to another, neither of whom knew Jesus, peace be upon him, nor were eyewitnesses to any of what had taken place. [Y. Estes]

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.

“Bible” Is Not in the Bible

The Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word ‘Bible’ is not in the Bible. Now here 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. 2^nd Timothy 3:16 is the favorite which reads: “All scripture is inspired of God” and there are those who would say, here is where the Bible it talks about itself, it says it is inspired of God, all of it. But if you read the whole sentence, you read that this was a letter wrote 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.

Bible Curses Church Fathers Who Removed Book of Revelations:

There is at the end of the Bible a verse which says:

Rev 22:18 “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book (Revelations): If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book:

19. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, god shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” [Y. Estes]

“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, 66 (or is it 73 in the Catholic Bible?), the Book of Revelation. It has too, 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.

(Incidentally, according to different manuscripts much older than the King James Version, there are different words at the end of the Book of Revelation, so how would we resolve that matter? (Y. E.)

Note: The Book of Revelation was taken out of the Bible several times and then replaced and then taken out and replaced according to various Church Councils throughout Church history. Guess the Church Fathers didn’t read the curse at the end of the book?

Whose Word Is It?

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 they 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 will not 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 will not 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.

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Source: www.bibleislam.com