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It's amazing contrasting this with Quranic scholarship (the faith I follow now). I grew up in a Christian school and even they were totally honest about the hi

It's amazing contrasting this with Quranic scholarship (the faith I follow now). I grew up in a Christian school and even they were totally honest about the high probability and academic theories that the 4 gospels were not written by the claimed authors. I always found that odd. You don't even believe your own faith was recorded down correctly but you call it the word of God?

jrumbut 6y ago
How it was recorded and that it was recorded correctly seem like separate issues (which I don't feel equipped to decide).
vmception 6y ago
sounds like you really need the authentic "word of God" much more than others... like, you can't even appreciate the honesty and pivoted to something written 700 years later based off the same source material? well at least its just one person's rehashing of it and there is no ambiguity there. I can acknowledge that are plenty of other reasons to find Quran scholarship fulfilling, I just can't let a good irony go to waste.
- countrymile 6y ago
  Whether it is one person's rehashing is another debate. We don't possess any original Quranic manuscripts, early manuscripts show changes, parts of the Quranic script was eaten by goats and current manuscripts vary in content, albeit in minor ways. It's not to say that Mohammed didn't receive a correct revelation, that his followers didn't memorise it correctly and the first version of the Quran wasn't a perfect copy of Mohammed's revelations. It's just we don't have the original scripts to support this claim. And if we're going to subject the new testament to higher criticism then we need to do the same to the Quran. It's worth reading tom Holland and Dan brubaker. Others will disagree, but from a historical perspective there is a lack of evidence for the perfect recording of a single author.
  - wnscooke 6y ago
    Could you suggest any particular book by either TH or DB?
    - countrymile 6y ago
      TH - in the shadow of the sword DB - Corrections in Early Qurʾān Manuscripts
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  I appreciate the honesty so much that I went looking for more verifiable answers. If there is no authentic Word of God, then the whole concept of revelation falls apart (what's the point of revelation if it's so subjective?). Many people say the Quran was written based on the Bible, but if the God of the Abrahamic faiths is the same and if the events outlined in the Bible really did happen, why would they be completely omitted by the third revelation (actually the fourth according to Muslim beliefs)? The truths discussed in the Old Testament are touched upon in the New Testament, why would they not also be touched upon in the Quran? >at least its just one person's rehashing of it and there is no ambiguity there Why isn't this the same for the New Testament? There the Prophet Jesus several times makes his own commentary on Old Testament books.
cygx 6y ago
Well, with the Quran, you've still got the destruction of pre-Uthmanic variants, ahruf, qiraʼat, ...
Bayart 6y ago
Coming from a Catholic background, we'd call the blind belief that a piece of text is the accurate and perfect word of God delusion, not faith. Free will, which is also to our understanding a divine gift, is what allows us to differentiate between what's worthy of faith and what's not. Its separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Hence the need for scholarship. The idea that a text has to be perfectly passed down from God to justify faith and that reciprocally faith dictates that you cannot allow yourself to believe that it isn't is alien to Nicean Christianity.
betterunix2 6y ago
Who wrote a text is a different question from whether or not the text was copied accurately. Before the printing press, scribal errors could accumulate over time. It was a fact of life for every religious group that their own copy of a sacred text had at least a few scribal mistakes, and methods were developed to identify and correct errors. I cannot comment on Christian or Muslim approaches, but among Jews it took centuries to develop a sufficiently reliable system of detecting and correcting scribal errors to give us an acceptable copy of the Hebrew bible (the Masoretic text). One of the reasons the Dead Sea Scrolls was such an important discovery is that the Hebrew texts discovered there are extremely close to the Masoretic text, which confirmed its reliability.
wl 6y ago
The extant Quranic manuscripts are so consistent because early on, Caliph Uthman had an official version of the Quran created and made a concerted effort to destroy the manuscripts that disagreed with it. And in practice, the number of textual variants that actually mean something to Christians in NT texts can be counted on one hand (Comma Johanneum, the ending of Mark, the Pericope Adulterae).
yawboakye 6y ago
If the Qur'an were the subject of the scholarship the Bible has received, or even allowed criticism without the threat of death there will be nothing left of it, with all due respect. In many parts it's a poorly reasoned commentary on stories in the Bible (sometimes way below the level of some apocrypha that have been summarily debunked with little work). So the doubt shoe is on the wrong foot. I can go on and on about how the legitimacy of the Qur'an is inextricably bound to that of the Bible (at least the Law and the Prophets) so that every poverty shown by the Bible is at least a double blow to the status of Qur'an as inspired recitations.
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  > If the Qur'an were the subject of the scholarship the Bible has received, or even allowed criticism without the threat of death there will be nothing left of it, with all due respect. This isn't true at all. There's extensive critical scholarship of the Quran (as many others pointed out). Most of it centers around the fact that Uthman had scholars codify the Quran during his rule. Uthman was a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (whereas most Biblical scholars will agree no living contemporary of the Prophet Jesus actually wrote any of the Gospels). In addition, the memorized recitation of the Quran (from which the documents at the time arose) could not have been destroyed the way alternative or miscopied (depends on your belief) versions of the Quran were by Uthman. The fact that none exist nowadays (or at any time in recorded history) bolsters the idea that it really was revealed by the Prophet Muhammad. The authenticity of the Quran is far more sound than the authenticity of the Bible. But this makes sense in terms of the story told by both Christians and Muslims. Christians believe the Prophet Muhammad is a false prophet. A false prophet can manufacture a long work of poetry and convince people to preserve it. So can a true prophet (except instead of manufacturing the work, it is revealed divinely). Christians believe the Quran is derivative of the Bible, the way the Bible is derivative of the Torah. Christians also point out that stories of the Quran match apocrypha that Biblical scholars reject. But this too makes sense in both the Christian and Muslim versions of history. For Christians this is evidence of false prophethood (because the stories needed to be cribbed from other sources). For Muslims, this is evidence of the oneness of God and religion because the religion hasn't changed and the Prophets of God haven't changed, rather the record on them is corrected. And the fact that some Christians don't accept certain apocrypha that matches Muslim beliefs makes sense to Muslims, since the books Christians do accept still aren't authentic in a way (I mean, if John didn't write the Gospel of John, then how many other things in the book could be falsified). Muslims don't rely on the Bible or Torah as they currently stand to verify their beliefs, and they don't see reason to.

jrumbut 6y ago

How it was recorded and that it was recorded correctly seem like separate issues (which I don't feel equipped to decide).

vmception 6y ago

sounds like you really need the authentic "word of God" much more than others... like, you can't even appreciate the honesty and pivoted to something written 700 years later based off the same source material? well at least its just one person's rehashing of it and there is no ambiguity there. I can acknowledge that are plenty of other reasons to find Quran scholarship fulfilling, I just can't let a good irony go to waste.

countrymile 6y ago
Whether it is one person's rehashing is another debate. We don't possess any original Quranic manuscripts, early manuscripts show changes, parts of the Quranic script was eaten by goats and current manuscripts vary in content, albeit in minor ways. It's not to say that Mohammed didn't receive a correct revelation, that his followers didn't memorise it correctly and the first version of the Quran wasn't a perfect copy of Mohammed's revelations. It's just we don't have the original scripts to support this claim. And if we're going to subject the new testament to higher criticism then we need to do the same to the Quran. It's worth reading tom Holland and Dan brubaker. Others will disagree, but from a historical perspective there is a lack of evidence for the perfect recording of a single author.
- wnscooke 6y ago
  Could you suggest any particular book by either TH or DB?
  - countrymile 6y ago
    TH - in the shadow of the sword DB - Corrections in Early Qurʾān Manuscripts
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
I appreciate the honesty so much that I went looking for more verifiable answers. If there is no authentic Word of God, then the whole concept of revelation falls apart (what's the point of revelation if it's so subjective?). Many people say the Quran was written based on the Bible, but if the God of the Abrahamic faiths is the same and if the events outlined in the Bible really did happen, why would they be completely omitted by the third revelation (actually the fourth according to Muslim beliefs)? The truths discussed in the Old Testament are touched upon in the New Testament, why would they not also be touched upon in the Quran? >at least its just one person's rehashing of it and there is no ambiguity there Why isn't this the same for the New Testament? There the Prophet Jesus several times makes his own commentary on Old Testament books.

cygx 6y ago

Well, with the Quran, you've still got the destruction of pre-Uthmanic variants, ahruf, qiraʼat, ...

Bayart 6y ago

Coming from a Catholic background, we'd call the blind belief that a piece of text is the accurate and perfect word of God delusion, not faith. Free will, which is also to our understanding a divine gift, is what allows us to differentiate between what's worthy of faith and what's not. Its separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Hence the need for scholarship. The idea that a text has to be perfectly passed down from God to justify faith and that reciprocally faith dictates that you cannot allow yourself to believe that it isn't is alien to Nicean Christianity.

betterunix2 6y ago

Who wrote a text is a different question from whether or not the text was copied accurately. Before the printing press, scribal errors could accumulate over time. It was a fact of life for every religious group that their own copy of a sacred text had at least a few scribal mistakes, and methods were developed to identify and correct errors. I cannot comment on Christian or Muslim approaches, but among Jews it took centuries to develop a sufficiently reliable system of detecting and correcting scribal errors to give us an acceptable copy of the Hebrew bible (the Masoretic text). One of the reasons the Dead Sea Scrolls was such an important discovery is that the Hebrew texts discovered there are extremely close to the Masoretic text, which confirmed its reliability.

wl 6y ago

The extant Quranic manuscripts are so consistent because early on, Caliph Uthman had an official version of the Quran created and made a concerted effort to destroy the manuscripts that disagreed with it. And in practice, the number of textual variants that actually mean something to Christians in NT texts can be counted on one hand (Comma Johanneum, the ending of Mark, the Pericope Adulterae).

yawboakye 6y ago

If the Qur'an were the subject of the scholarship the Bible has received, or even allowed criticism without the threat of death there will be nothing left of it, with all due respect. In many parts it's a poorly reasoned commentary on stories in the Bible (sometimes way below the level of some apocrypha that have been summarily debunked with little work). So the doubt shoe is on the wrong foot. I can go on and on about how the legitimacy of the Qur'an is inextricably bound to that of the Bible (at least the Law and the Prophets) so that every poverty shown by the Bible is at least a double blow to the status of Qur'an as inspired recitations.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago
> If the Qur'an were the subject of the scholarship the Bible has received, or even allowed criticism without the threat of death there will be nothing left of it, with all due respect. This isn't true at all. There's extensive critical scholarship of the Quran (as many others pointed out). Most of it centers around the fact that Uthman had scholars codify the Quran during his rule. Uthman was a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (whereas most Biblical scholars will agree no living contemporary of the Prophet Jesus actually wrote any of the Gospels). In addition, the memorized recitation of the Quran (from which the documents at the time arose) could not have been destroyed the way alternative or miscopied (depends on your belief) versions of the Quran were by Uthman. The fact that none exist nowadays (or at any time in recorded history) bolsters the idea that it really was revealed by the Prophet Muhammad. The authenticity of the Quran is far more sound than the authenticity of the Bible. But this makes sense in terms of the story told by both Christians and Muslims. Christians believe the Prophet Muhammad is a false prophet. A false prophet can manufacture a long work of poetry and convince people to preserve it. So can a true prophet (except instead of manufacturing the work, it is revealed divinely). Christians believe the Quran is derivative of the Bible, the way the Bible is derivative of the Torah. Christians also point out that stories of the Quran match apocrypha that Biblical scholars reject. But this too makes sense in both the Christian and Muslim versions of history. For Christians this is evidence of false prophethood (because the stories needed to be cribbed from other sources). For Muslims, this is evidence of the oneness of God and religion because the religion hasn't changed and the Prophets of God haven't changed, rather the record on them is corrected. And the fact that some Christians don't accept certain apocrypha that matches Muslim beliefs makes sense to Muslims, since the books Christians do accept still aren't authentic in a way (I mean, if John didn't write the Gospel of John, then how many other things in the book could be falsified). Muslims don't rely on the Bible or Torah as they currently stand to verify their beliefs, and they don't see reason to.