Did God proclaim the Quran or the Bible to be Holy?
There are many facets to the Bible vs. Quran debate on the differences, as well as similarities, between the two. But the central debate between the Bible and the Quran is this: Does the Bible contain Tahrif (corruption) that the Quran corrects, or does the Quran attempt to corrupt God's words in the Bible?
The Quran was written about 550 years after the Bible and affirms the Bible as the Word of God, less the alleged Tahrif. By contrast, the Bible refutes the Quran in its entirety with a stern warning in its final paragraph that nothing is to be added to or deleted from the Bible:
"...If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things that are written in this book."(Revelation 22:18-19)
God wrote the Bible using as His pens, about 40 different people, most of whom did not know each other, over a period spanning some 1,600 years. Yet their works fit together with perfection, like a commercial airliner whose parts, produced all over the world, fit together with engineered perfection. Further, God did not entrust just anyone to write His words. The holy scriptures tell us that the scriptures were only given to holy men of old to write as the Holy Spirit led them.
And since its completion in the first century AD, the Bible has been probed and scrutinized by each generation's scholars, both religious and secular, and withstood all of their challenges. In fact, more and more of the Bible's details have been and continue to be proven true as archaeology, astronomy, biochemistry, history, physics and other bodies of human knowledge advance.
By contrast, the Quran has not undergone such scrutiny, and this was intentional. While Christians welcome everyone to read, challenge and probe the Bible and its Author for themselves, Islam prohibits anyone from even questioning the Quran and its author. Going so far as to kick people out of their church if they do not conform to their ways and are called infidels.
Muslims are not even supposed to read the Quran in a language other than Arabic, so the vast majority of the Muslims in the world today, including the 220 million Muslims in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, are kept from reading, let alone probing, the Quran for themselves.
Why does Islam try to limit access to and inquiry of the Quran and its author?
It is to hide the fact that even though it was dictated by just one man, the Quran is rife with self-contradictions, scientific, mathematical and other errors.
Quran is the principle text of Islam and one of the three sources from which the Sharia law is cast. The Quran (also spelled Koran or Qur'an) was dictated from 609 to 632 AD by Muhammad and compiled after he died.
The most sensitive issue with the Quran, concerns errors. Muslims claim the Quran is infallible and error-free, while others claim the Quran has errors.
Are there errors in the Quran?
The Quran does have errors. Some of the errors in the Quran are self-contradictions that Naskh tries to bridge. But Quran also has historical and archaeological errors, as well as errors in mathematics and logic. For example, the Quran states that one night, Allah took Muhammad to "al-Aqsa" mosque in Jerusalem:
"Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjidal-Aqsa..."- Quran 17:1
The Muslim army captured Jerusalem in 637 AD and al-Aqsa mosque was buit in the early 8th century. The problem with the above claim in the Quran is that Muhammad died before the Muslim army even reached Jerusalem and decades before al-Aqsa mosque was built (for details, look up al-Aqsa Mosque).
Or consider Quran 20, which claims that Moses confronted "Aaron" and a "Samaritan" for having made the golden calf for the Israelites, while he (Moses) was on Mount Sinai:
"[Moses] said, "O Aaron, what prevented you, when you saw them going astray, from following me? Then have you disobeyed my order?" [Aaron] said, "O son of my mother, do not seize [me] by my beard or by my head. Indeed, I feared that you would say, 'You caused division among the Children of Israel, and you did not observe [or await] my word.'" [Moses] said, "And what is your case, O Samaritan?"- Quran 20:92-95
Assyria conquered the Jewish northern kingdom in 722 BC, exiled its upper class and brought in conquered people from other lands who intermarried with the lower class Jews who had been allowed to stay. Their offspring were called "Samaritans" ("Samiri" or "Samarians" in some translations of the Quran) because they occupied the region of "Samaria," named after its original owner, "Shemer" (see 1 Kings 16:24 in the Bible). The Jews despised the Samaritans both for being a mixed race and for setting up their own temple to compete against the temple in Jerusalem.
But the golden calf incident near Mount Sinai, mentioned in Quran 20:92-95 above, took place in 1446 BC, which was 725 years before the first Samaritan was born in 721 BC.
Moreover, its author is a confessed false prophet - "I have fabricated things against Allah and have imputed to him words which he has not spoken." (Al Tabari, The History of Al-Tabari, vol. 6, p.111) - who even admitted to having mistaken the words of "Satan" (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, pp.165-166) as Allah's.
Another difference is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God or Savior of the world. They believe you get to Heaven by good works, which the Bible clearly says is impossible.
Muslims also believe their religion is the only one going to heaven. What about the rest of the world? Jesus did not die for religions or any special denominations or groups of people. The Bible says Jesus died or the whole world so that all could be saved. I can list quite a bit more errors, but I think you can see the differences between the two books.
The Quran was written about 550 years after the Bible and affirms the Bible as the Word of God, less the alleged Tahrif. By contrast, the Bible refutes the Quran in its entirety with a stern warning in its final paragraph that nothing is to be added to or deleted from the Bible:
"...If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things that are written in this book."(Revelation 22:18-19)
God wrote the Bible using as His pens, about 40 different people, most of whom did not know each other, over a period spanning some 1,600 years. Yet their works fit together with perfection, like a commercial airliner whose parts, produced all over the world, fit together with engineered perfection. Further, God did not entrust just anyone to write His words. The holy scriptures tell us that the scriptures were only given to holy men of old to write as the Holy Spirit led them.
And since its completion in the first century AD, the Bible has been probed and scrutinized by each generation's scholars, both religious and secular, and withstood all of their challenges. In fact, more and more of the Bible's details have been and continue to be proven true as archaeology, astronomy, biochemistry, history, physics and other bodies of human knowledge advance.
By contrast, the Quran has not undergone such scrutiny, and this was intentional. While Christians welcome everyone to read, challenge and probe the Bible and its Author for themselves, Islam prohibits anyone from even questioning the Quran and its author. Going so far as to kick people out of their church if they do not conform to their ways and are called infidels.
Muslims are not even supposed to read the Quran in a language other than Arabic, so the vast majority of the Muslims in the world today, including the 220 million Muslims in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, are kept from reading, let alone probing, the Quran for themselves.
Why does Islam try to limit access to and inquiry of the Quran and its author?
It is to hide the fact that even though it was dictated by just one man, the Quran is rife with self-contradictions, scientific, mathematical and other errors.
Quran is the principle text of Islam and one of the three sources from which the Sharia law is cast. The Quran (also spelled Koran or Qur'an) was dictated from 609 to 632 AD by Muhammad and compiled after he died.
The most sensitive issue with the Quran, concerns errors. Muslims claim the Quran is infallible and error-free, while others claim the Quran has errors.
Are there errors in the Quran?
The Quran does have errors. Some of the errors in the Quran are self-contradictions that Naskh tries to bridge. But Quran also has historical and archaeological errors, as well as errors in mathematics and logic. For example, the Quran states that one night, Allah took Muhammad to "al-Aqsa" mosque in Jerusalem:
"Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjidal-Aqsa..."- Quran 17:1
The Muslim army captured Jerusalem in 637 AD and al-Aqsa mosque was buit in the early 8th century. The problem with the above claim in the Quran is that Muhammad died before the Muslim army even reached Jerusalem and decades before al-Aqsa mosque was built (for details, look up al-Aqsa Mosque).
Or consider Quran 20, which claims that Moses confronted "Aaron" and a "Samaritan" for having made the golden calf for the Israelites, while he (Moses) was on Mount Sinai:
"[Moses] said, "O Aaron, what prevented you, when you saw them going astray, from following me? Then have you disobeyed my order?" [Aaron] said, "O son of my mother, do not seize [me] by my beard or by my head. Indeed, I feared that you would say, 'You caused division among the Children of Israel, and you did not observe [or await] my word.'" [Moses] said, "And what is your case, O Samaritan?"- Quran 20:92-95
Assyria conquered the Jewish northern kingdom in 722 BC, exiled its upper class and brought in conquered people from other lands who intermarried with the lower class Jews who had been allowed to stay. Their offspring were called "Samaritans" ("Samiri" or "Samarians" in some translations of the Quran) because they occupied the region of "Samaria," named after its original owner, "Shemer" (see 1 Kings 16:24 in the Bible). The Jews despised the Samaritans both for being a mixed race and for setting up their own temple to compete against the temple in Jerusalem.
But the golden calf incident near Mount Sinai, mentioned in Quran 20:92-95 above, took place in 1446 BC, which was 725 years before the first Samaritan was born in 721 BC.
Moreover, its author is a confessed false prophet - "I have fabricated things against Allah and have imputed to him words which he has not spoken." (Al Tabari, The History of Al-Tabari, vol. 6, p.111) - who even admitted to having mistaken the words of "Satan" (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, pp.165-166) as Allah's.
Another difference is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God or Savior of the world. They believe you get to Heaven by good works, which the Bible clearly says is impossible.
Muslims also believe their religion is the only one going to heaven. What about the rest of the world? Jesus did not die for religions or any special denominations or groups of people. The Bible says Jesus died or the whole world so that all could be saved. I can list quite a bit more errors, but I think you can see the differences between the two books.
