In the Name of God...

[iscovedel]

In the Name of the One God, the Most Merciful who controls all things, and may peace be upon all of His Prophets and Messengers...

I don't want to start a debate, but I feel it is my duty to at least mention this to the forum, I wouldn't want to be someone who is guilty of distorting or hiding the truth.

I admire the intentions and diligence with which so many of you pursue the truth, the research, the logical and contextual analysis, this is very praise worthy. And as a Muslim I respect your faith also, though I know this is not exclusively a christian forum, I realize there is a large contingency of christians present. The Quran says:


And there are, certainly, among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), those who believe in Allâh and in that which has been revealed to you, and in that which has been revealed to them, humbling themselves before Allâh. They do not sell the Verses of Allâh for a little price, for them is a reward with their Lord. Surely, Allâh is Swift in account. (Aali Imran 3:199) [/b]

The reason I'm writing is that, since so many of you KNOW the way that the media and government as well as other corrupted institutions alter the facts and misrepresent the truth, I would suggest, respectfully, that you research the history of Judaism, Christianity, Monotheism, Islam. Things are definately not always the way they are often presented. I'm sure you would agree that
the NEXT Life, our eternal life beyond the grave is far more important than this wordly life, and that Justuice will ultimately be done. This being said, if you would PLEASE look into, for your own sake, the origins of Christianity as we know it today (I'm sure many of you have already) and compare and contrast the ACTUAL AUTHENTIC teachings of Islam.

It may be difficult to take advice from someone you believe less knowledgeable than yourself, but it is MANDATED on all of us to know WHO God is and how He (the most high) wants to be worshipped.

Here is a resource:

http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/l.../contents.html

The fact is that Jesus (peace be upon him) has never said in the Bible that he was to be worshipped. Also, it is written many places in the Scriptures that God is One.

I offer this because I believe that anyone who worships other than the One God, the God of Abraham, knowingly associating partners with Him or holding others as equal with Him or holding Him to be less Perfect somehow than He actually is cannot be forgiven if they die without repenting. All other sins than this can be forgiven, if God chooses.

Thanks for all the help so far, may God help us all...

[1onaip]

God has commanded us to worship only him (Deuteronomy 6:13). Even Jesus knew this, since he quoted this to Satan when he was tempted (Matthew 4:10). Why did he never admonish anyone when they worshipped Him? Even God commanded the angels to worship Jesus (Hebrews 1:6).

[iscovedel]

No offense intended, but the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation, much can be lost in the process, as well as various sects with varying doctrines that have interposed thier particular interpretaions while believing they were doing God's work or guided by the Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons for the many versions of the original texts (all of which are held in the vatican, cut off from public access, more than 100,000 in all, without a single one completly agreeing with the other.)

Another important question is the various doctrines in place before the creed of nicea, or more importantly, before the conversion of Saul (Paul). Again, no offense, but historically and contextually (from the Bible itself) there is much solid evidence that God intended to be worshipped alone and concieved of as Abraham and the rest of the Prophets (peace be upon them) believed.

There is an amazing store of knowledge in Islam if looked into honestly.

[weishaupt1776]

Originally Posted by iscovedel

No offense intended, but the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation.

Is that an arbitrary opinion?

Originally Posted by weishaupt1776

Is that an arbitrary opinion?

Can you prove it's origin?



Henry Franklin

Originally Posted by iscovedel

No offense intended, but the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation, much can be lost in the process, as well as various sects with varying doctrines that have interposed thier particular interpretaions while believing they were doing God's work or guided by the Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons for the many versions of the original texts (all of which are held in the vatican, cut off from public access, more than 100,000 in all, without a single one completly agreeing with the other.)

Another important question is the various doctrines in place before the creed of nicea, or more importantly, before the conversion of Saul (Paul). Again, no offense, but historically and contextually (from the Bible itself) there is much solid evidence that God intended to be worshipped alone and concieved of as Abraham and the rest of the Prophets (peace be upon them) believed.

There is an amazing store of knowledge in Islam if looked into honestly.

Iscovedel,

You write interesting points, esp. in your most recent post. Even original manuscripts for all the worlds religions were written by the hand of man. As Inspired as they may or may not be, it does not mitigate the fact that all were written by the hands of men . . . many of whom we know little if anything about nor their intentions or purpose. While there may be great words of wisdom contained therein a book is simply pieces of paper with ink on them often written by people long dead to us or of whom we know little about.

Perhaps I will never see Thor Nor father Odin Alfadur in Valhalla across the Asgard because I have not lived up to the standards the Valkyrie use in choosing the brave. When my time here is done I'd sure like to go out on a flaming longship though.

[iscovedel]

sorry this posting's so long...

I believe the books of the Bible, at some point, were revealed by God, that's obviously a matter of faith and can't be disproven and (to someone who chooses to disbelieve) can't be proven...however, according to the Bible itself (and I realize it gets tricky using a text you believe has been compromised as far as it's authenticity as a proof against itself, but here goes anyway) in Deuteronomy it refers to the Jew's mis-transcribing the text, or altering it (that verse will be forthcoming, God-willing) from it's original form. I believe this has to do ( un-exclusively) with the "Oral Torah" vs the written Torah, the Oral taking precedence juristically to the written. The Oral Torah was held in the minds and hearts of the Rabbinical Class and could basically be interpreted and re-interpreted as they saw fit at any given time or circumstance, depending on the situation they (the Rabbis and/or the people) were in at the time. Basically, if you weren't a Rabbi it didn't matter what the text said, the spirit of revelation (and thus right to interpretaion) rested with the Rabbis in the "Oral Torah."


It's common knowledge, from what I know, that the revelations the Bible is based on were in Hebrew, possibly Assyrian (the language of Abraham peace be upon him..?) Aramaic, not to mention whatever the language Adam (peace be upon him) spoke was, and it goes on and on...

The translators of the first English Bibles may or may not have been

1) fluent and knowledgable as to the various nuances of the language they were translating from,

2) guided by the doctrine of their particular sect.

3)Knowledgable as to the history behind the text they were translating.

So, the revelations were passed down from generation to generation, orally, somtimes splitting through different tribes and sects, many of whom had problems with each other. (Keep in mind the stories of the early Prophets were passed down, possibly over hundreds of thousands of years, from ANCIENT langauges, Noah's langauge for instance, what was it?)

Then, when the texts were written down they also passed through the same filtering, through generations and sects. Some of these translated them into the langauge they knew (after a while leaving the hebrew langauge to actually die, it was not a spoken langauge. We lost the living langauge and it was dead for nearly eight centuries). Filter that again, same as before. This is going on LONG after Jesus Christ was sent (peace be upon him). Then the same thing happens to the Gospels, only from aramaic originally. THEN, after all this, a HUGE world power, a corrupt Empire, decides to compile the texts into one heap but keep them from the hands of the common people. Then all these disparate texts are sifted through in an attempt to find the most cohesive form. Then, long fter that, we have the KJV, the New International, and so many others.

As "God is not the Author of confusion" I think you'll agree that we can only attribute the inconsitencies found in the text of the Bible to men, fallible humans.

If you want, look into the Quran and the way it was compiled (the best way to study Islam is from muslim sources).

peace

PS: The "Jews" and "Christians" and other nations who stayed on the religion of their Prophet, in it's original form, were, according to Islam, Muslims, since "Islam" means submission to the One True God.

[iscovedel]

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[1onaip]

iscovedel said "The Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation".

That is what many people believe but this is a common misconception. Some people think that the Bible was written in one language, translated to another language, then translated into yet another and so on until it was finally translated into the English. The complaint is that since it was rewritten so many times in different languages throughout history, it must have become corrupted . The "telephone" analogy is often used as an illustration. It goes like this. One person tells another person a sentence who then tells another person, who tells yet another, and so on and so on until the last person hears a sentence that has little or nothing to do with the original one. The only problem with this analogy is that it doesn't fit the Bible at all.
The fact is that the Bible has not been rewritten. Take the New Testament, for example. The disciples of Jesus wrote the New Testament in Greek and though we do not have the original documents, we do have around 6,000 copies of the Greek manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals. These various manuscripts, or copies, agree with each other to almost 100 percent accuracy. Statistically, the New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. That means that there is only 1/2 of 1% of of all the copies that do not agree with each other perfectly. But, if you take that 1/2 of 1% and examine it, you find that the majority of the "problems" are nothing more than spelling errors and very minor word alterations. For example, instead of saying Jesus, a variation might be "Jesus Christ." So the actual amount of textual variation of any concern is extremely low. Therefore, we can say that we have a remarkably accurate compilation of the original documents.
So when that we translate the Bible, we do not translate from a translation of a translation of a translation. We translate from the original language into our language. It is a one step process and not a series of steps that can lead to corruption. It is one translation step from the original to the English or to whatever language a person needs to read it in. So we translate into Spanish from the same Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Likewise we translate into the German from those same Greek and Hebrew manuscripts as well. This is how it is done for each and every language we translate the Bible into. We do not translate from the original languages to the English, to the Spanish, and then to the German. It is from the original languages to the English, or into the Spanish, or into the German. Therefore, the translations are very accurate and trustworthy in regards to what the Bible originally said.

Source: Carm.org

Ok, people. Getting back to the original statement that Jesus did not want to be worshiped. That was in his eartly form. Remember the trinity? FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST? THAT IS THE ANSWER. JESUS IS GOD!!

THAT IS GREAT NEWS FOR ALL OF US, HE IS OUR SALVATION. THANK YOU!!