3 ms·

I don't think they are very similar texts at all, have you read both? The old testament is a compendium of an entire people's history over a significant period

I don't think they are very similar texts at all, have you read both? The old testament is a compendium of an entire people's history over a significant period of time; with one of the primary themes being the this-worldly reward for correctness / obedience of God's Law where disasters and tragedy indicate the deviance or transgression from the Law. The Quran is a revelatory text from a single generation, revealed by God to Muhammad, primarily providing divine justification for Muhammad's conquests and further expansion. If your intent is to suggest they are similar as in terms of laying down God's law and Morality - sure: but that's the essence of monotheistic religion more generally.

roymurdock 10y ago
I've read both. Yes, similar in laying out God's vision of morality and justice through parables and stories. This is the goal explicitly stated on the website: The mission of BibleOrQuran is to educate people about the true nature and content of the Bible and Qur'an. False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an is about killing infidels!" and "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly thrown around with little evidence to back them up. Despite their lack of credibility, however, they still continue to polarize and cause irrational hate and fear. We hope that by showing random Bible or Qur'an passages, we show how similar the two texts are and allay many of the fears of Islam and its teachings.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  > False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an is about killing infidels!" and "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly thrown around with little evidence to back them up. We must be engaged in conversations with very different interlocutors, at least I don't know of anyone claiming things akin to the above. The new testament may be peaceful, - but the old testament is downright bloody! O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
cholantesh 10y ago
>The Quran is a revelatory text from a single generation, revealed by God to Muhammad, primarily providing divine justification for Muhammad's conquests and further expansion. Quite a bit of the OT involves God instructing, encouraging, or justifying the Hebrews' conquests around the Levant.
- candiodari 10y ago
  This is, however, put forth as a story. A history. In most ways OT is no more aggressive than a book detailing any serious amount of history containing a war. It is cruel, sure, but no more than other books from that long ago or even more recent (Cicero, for instance, contains quite a few gruesome passages). The quran, on the other hand, instructs people to war. There is no temporal dimension in the vast majority of the war, and every 50 verses or so, muslims are instructed to attack this or that. I guess what I'm saying is that in the OT's case, especially when viewed through the interpretation the NT provides, requires quite a bit of roundabout reasoning to get it to say to make war. In contrast, it is a quite well established fact that islam teaches eternal war ("through words when possible, militarily when necessary"). It quite directly states that anything opposing their spread is to be attacked (and yes it uses words like attacked). First with words. Then with soldiers. And then through traps and sabotage, through raids and blind destruction. Islam, and this is an incredibly well established fact, teaches that there will be war until islam reigns supreme and all dead muslims will rise again. Needless to say, there are more than a few variations on the exact mechanism, but none are peaceful. Furthermore, islam's history (of the religion/state) is a history almost without significant periods of peace. Islam was created in a 100-150 year long war (as in the people who wrote the quran were born into a muslim-instigated set of wars, raised during war, and died during war. Several generations had that experience). Then a period with expansion wars but internally relative peace, then devolving into a millenium of constant warfare everywhere, internally and externally. That period is still going on, the violence there may have reached quite low levels since 1970 or so, but it certainly looks to be increasing again. Worse: wherever islam went, large scale massacres followed. Famously in Spain and India, but let's get real here : those are famous because they were recorded. We know, for instance, that there was an islamic massacre in Carthage. It killed or kidnapped and enslaved every last man, woman and child. Every last one. There was never any recovery and to today the city/country lies in ruins. We have plenty of reports from the Roman Empire of muslims doing that to towns, farms and cities. Plus let's get real here. Christianity spread because it convinced the population to convert and help eachother. For the poor to work together to make life better and provide a large-scale improvement of the life of the poor in the Roman Empire. Any revolution or any form of violence would have failed, so Christians didn't do that. You might want to look up once, for instance, exactly why Nero was fiddling when Rome burnt. Islam succeeded because it caused a millenium of large-scale wars of conquest, with constant massacres. The cases of conversion to islam without military intervention exist, but they are few and far between (and in many cases it's nobles converting to then go to war using a muslim army). To say these ideologies are the same when it comes to war and violence, is incredibly ignorant of everything. From their own texts, their history, both from their own perspective and from other sources.

roymurdock 10y ago

I've read both. Yes, similar in laying out God's vision of morality and justice through parables and stories. This is the goal explicitly stated on the website: The mission of BibleOrQuran is to educate people about the true nature and content of the Bible and Qur'an. False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an is about killing infidels!" and "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly thrown around with little evidence to back them up. Despite their lack of credibility, however, they still continue to polarize and cause irrational hate and fear. We hope that by showing random Bible or Qur'an passages, we show how similar the two texts are and allay many of the fears of Islam and its teachings.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
> False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an is about killing infidels!" and "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly thrown around with little evidence to back them up. We must be engaged in conversations with very different interlocutors, at least I don't know of anyone claiming things akin to the above. The new testament may be peaceful, - but the old testament is downright bloody! O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

cholantesh 10y ago

>The Quran is a revelatory text from a single generation, revealed by God to Muhammad, primarily providing divine justification for Muhammad's conquests and further expansion. Quite a bit of the OT involves God instructing, encouraging, or justifying the Hebrews' conquests around the Levant.

candiodari 10y ago
This is, however, put forth as a story. A history. In most ways OT is no more aggressive than a book detailing any serious amount of history containing a war. It is cruel, sure, but no more than other books from that long ago or even more recent (Cicero, for instance, contains quite a few gruesome passages). The quran, on the other hand, instructs people to war. There is no temporal dimension in the vast majority of the war, and every 50 verses or so, muslims are instructed to attack this or that. I guess what I'm saying is that in the OT's case, especially when viewed through the interpretation the NT provides, requires quite a bit of roundabout reasoning to get it to say to make war. In contrast, it is a quite well established fact that islam teaches eternal war ("through words when possible, militarily when necessary"). It quite directly states that anything opposing their spread is to be attacked (and yes it uses words like attacked). First with words. Then with soldiers. And then through traps and sabotage, through raids and blind destruction. Islam, and this is an incredibly well established fact, teaches that there will be war until islam reigns supreme and all dead muslims will rise again. Needless to say, there are more than a few variations on the exact mechanism, but none are peaceful. Furthermore, islam's history (of the religion/state) is a history almost without significant periods of peace. Islam was created in a 100-150 year long war (as in the people who wrote the quran were born into a muslim-instigated set of wars, raised during war, and died during war. Several generations had that experience). Then a period with expansion wars but internally relative peace, then devolving into a millenium of constant warfare everywhere, internally and externally. That period is still going on, the violence there may have reached quite low levels since 1970 or so, but it certainly looks to be increasing again. Worse: wherever islam went, large scale massacres followed. Famously in Spain and India, but let's get real here : those are famous because they were recorded. We know, for instance, that there was an islamic massacre in Carthage. It killed or kidnapped and enslaved every last man, woman and child. Every last one. There was never any recovery and to today the city/country lies in ruins. We have plenty of reports from the Roman Empire of muslims doing that to towns, farms and cities. Plus let's get real here. Christianity spread because it convinced the population to convert and help eachother. For the poor to work together to make life better and provide a large-scale improvement of the life of the poor in the Roman Empire. Any revolution or any form of violence would have failed, so Christians didn't do that. You might want to look up once, for instance, exactly why Nero was fiddling when Rome burnt. Islam succeeded because it caused a millenium of large-scale wars of conquest, with constant massacres. The cases of conversion to islam without military intervention exist, but they are few and far between (and in many cases it's nobles converting to then go to war using a muslim army). To say these ideologies are the same when it comes to war and violence, is incredibly ignorant of everything. From their own texts, their history, both from their own perspective and from other sources.