> Why God's Book Cannot Contain Error

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Abu Sayyad

Why dont we all get along?

This is a very interesting question and worthy of wider discussion. Of course there are always differences that separate us if we let them. Popper in 1943 said “I believe that a reasonable discussion is always possible between parties interested in truth, and ready to pay attention to each other” and this perhaps is the essence of using this discussion board - we don't have to agree but we should be willing to listen to each other with respect.

John Nash, a Nobel prize winner for Mathematics said that the only equation that really matters is the equation of love because that is what helps and supports us in bad and good times and make us value every living individual.

On might add finally, that if we actually were able to meet physically and get to know each other then again things usually work out just fine. I am not a Muslim but I have a very large number of Muslim friends so I know this is possible without any trouble

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Acid

Silver, I dont understand If you deliberately talk absurdly or whether this is only unintentional. I hope that this is the latter but past experience tells us that it is indeed the former.

By Silver - Let's agree not to insult each other any more?

First, I would show you the meaning of the word "revise" from a dictionary:[INDENT]revise

verb - examine and improve or amend, reconsider and alter (an opinion or judgement). reread work done previously in order to prepare for an examination. noun - a proof including corrections made in an earlier proof. look at again’.[/COLOR]

When I said that Prophet revised Quran with Angel Gabriel, you deliberately took it as that it included changes. While revised was used to convey that he proof read the Quran with Gabriel , look at it again. This does not mean that there is a need for change as you implied. Even IF that includes making changes, so what?

Comment by Silver - contextually I felt revise was used in its active sense. But if you agree that it includes making changes/updating to the Qu'ran then I have no quarrel with that at all as nothing else seems logically to be possible.

Now I have only cleared your misunderstanding here and now we should return to our original topic rather than coming to this secondary one. This discussion was related to the topic that Prophet did authorise the Quran which we have today. (Reference post #94)

What is it that Arabic script was not fully developed for another 200 years? It was fully perfected at that time. I bet you have no knowledge of what you are saying. You say that there were "no pointings". I challenge you to those pointings are a part of "fully developed arabic".

Comment by Silver - I am not, and I suppose neither are you and expert in Arabic script. That is why I quoted to you Professor Esack writing in the topic. Professor Esack has an international reputation as a Muslim Scholar so I think of his work as reliable and authorative. If you wish to challenge then write to Professor Esack at Havard University.

For your information only: the pointings were only included for the understanding of Quran recitation for "NON ARAB MUSLIMS" as they had problems to recite the Quran. This has got nothing to do with fully developed of half or semi-half developed arabic.

Comment by Silver - All I can do is repeat what Professor Esack say 'Early Qur'anic Arabic thus lacked precision because distinguishing between consonants was impossible given the absence of diacritical marks (a'jam) by which one recognizes these in modern Arabic. Furthermore, the vowelling marks (tashkil) to indicate prolongation or vowels were also absent. All of this made for endless possibilities in meanings and error in transcription. What you say is partially true for exactly the same reasons.

I never agreed to this. I only agreed that my faith and belief rests of the faith and beliefs of All Prophets of God. Note that you have not answered that which Prophet preached trinity or which Prophet bought similar beliefs like that found in NT. My faith, bought by Final Prophet of God is the same as the original message of Jesus, Moses , David, and all other Prophets of God. Unlike Christianity which seems to imply beliefs which Jesus never taught. Now that is a hearsay.

Comment By Silver - I have said before no single prophet brought the doctrine of the trinity and the word trinity is never used in the Bible but the doctrine is there all the same. I will write at length later but one striking verse will show what I mean for in John 14:11 Jesus says 'Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.'

You say you believe in all the prophets and the message of Jesus but all we know about all this is what we have in the Bible - there is NO other sources of Christian or Jewish beliefs. So either you believe the same as I do, with the same Bible, or you believe in some mythical original that no one has ever seen so how can you know what is says and is it not nonsense to believe in teachings which you have never seen? Which is it to be?

We have Prophet Muhammads authorisation and besides this there are hundreds of Companion who recited entire Quran and many thousands who knew all part of Quran by heart. LIKE BIBLE, Prophets biography cannot be trusted and you have not replied to my entire repy and again only tried to divert the topic:

Comment by Silver - as I have been at pains to point out if you wish to accept Prophet Mohammed authorisation then I have nothing to say as that is a matter entirely for you. But, logically, using Paine's argument, its is hearsay and as far as I can recall you have not and cannot refute it. You are accepting the word of one man, your whole faith hangs on that. It cannot be based on any other prophets because according to you we do not have their witness to examine because you reject the Bible which contains it.

Christians and Jews have the witness of the Prophets in full measure in the Bible and its only belief is some kind of impossible total corruption that stops you seeing the truth of what I am saying.

As for your last part, again it seems like its entertaining to you to believe that I muddle up OT and NT and therefore I will let you remain entertained as I have already cleared that part. And As far as how Jesus is spoken of OT in terms of redemption he will make , show me those verses, and even than that wouldnt prove trinity. Redemption from sins is by showing the Right path and exposing the deviated beliefs/lifestyle of Jews and above all that wouldnt prove of TRINITY. Anyway come up with this part in a new thread as that is not relevant to our discussion as that relates to a topic :
Was Jesus predicted in OT ? etc.

Allah is the Greatest.

I was not looking for entertainent only trying to show you there was and is an important distinction between saying Bible and saying OT and NT. Jesus is spoken of in the OT from Genesis to Malachi. It does not of course use the name of Jesus - but two passages are regarded by Christians as being the most precious because they talk directly about his redemptive work (but there are many many others refs) but just a sample from those books will suffice for now. Isaiah 53:3 'He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." and a similar short quote from Job 19:25 "For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:'

As I said earlier, I will write again on the trinity but here we see a prophesy about Jesus so he is spoken of in the OT. You perhaps need to understand the Jewish and Christian understanding. The Bible says that all have sinned and no matter what they do they cannot keep the law in every respect. So the problem is how can God accept us and the answer is via a Messiah (Jesus) who will take our sins upon himself and so if we believe in Jesus then we accept God word and have assurance of heaven because as it says in Hebrews 8:12 'For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.'

[salman]

I don't have the strength to go through all this as 90% of the arguments are repetitive and they have been already answered. Silver one last time, can you please use the "quote" functionailty when responding to others!? It makes it much easier to read and respond.

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

No you are MISSING the point. NO OTHER prophet confirmed Mohammed's revelation

actually, you've failed to realize that your own premise and conclusion is flawed and inconsistent. You call yourself a seeker of truth but so far you've displayed your stuborness.

1 - Which Prophet confirmed Prophet Jesus's revelations or whatever he said as you believe there was no prophet after him?

2 - If you say "well, the Bible confirms this as Prophets before him said the same thing", then I've asked you two things: a) how this is different from what we say b) is NT consistent with previous prophet's message?

Originally Posted by salman

the message in the Qur'an is consistent with the basic and common message of previous Prophets (peace be upon them)

and what is the common message I'm talking about?

Originally Posted by salman

All the Prophets preached same basic message, worship ONE God. However over period of time, God revealed new religious, social, economical etc laws for people to follow: praying, not lying, respecting and honouring parents, not murdering, not committing adultery etc. Tell me, is this not found in the Qur'an?

Originally Posted by salman

So tell me, which Prophet before and after Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) preached that God has a son, God is 3 in one and He will die for mankinds' sins?

Please respond to above questions.

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

Now you admit the Bible is good enough because the message is still there. And then we descend into farcical logic about the Qu'ran.

another attack with straw man; show me when did I say that bible is good enough for full message? You quoted me out of context; I said the BASIC AND COMMON message and refer to my above points where I quoted myself again.

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

If Allah is so great why did He not make sure the 'original Bible' was kept safe just as you argue He has done so for the Qu'ran? This is not even straw man its stubble man.

Because Allah Ta'ala had decreed to send new revealtion on His last and final Prophet (peace be upon him). Do you dare to question your Lord about what and why He does something? Talk about being Christian and serving the Lord!

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

There are many things here and I will use a few posts to talk about them. Let's start with Moses. I don't know why God revealed the 10 commandments and the law to Moses but I guess it was because by that time they had become a great people and nation. The only ones before Moses were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and then a very long gap until Moses appeared. All we know about those before Moses is who they are and how God dealt with them and they did not or were not given any teachings to write down but they all entered into a covenant with God even though none were perfect and the Bible records grievous sins for all of them. Hence I have no idea what you are talking about and you seem to be ignorant of simple Bible history and I suggest you at least read Genesis and Exodus.

1 - I thought Muslims are the only ones who say "you don't know about Islam". However, unlike you people, I admit that I don't know much about bible

2 - The point of my argument is to show the flaw in your premise: Islam is heresy as no Prophet confirmed it.

3 - So you agree that no Prophet before Moses (peace be upon him) confirmed 10 commandments or given any teachings to be written down. The written down argument is trying to run away but I don't want to focus on it. Therefore, it proves that the 10 commandments are heresy as no Prophet before Moses (peace be upon him) confirmed it or at least they were heresy for certain period of time before Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) appeared.

[salman]

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

It is difficult to respond to you because you knowledge of the Bible is so poor almost non existent. If you persist in not bothering to research and check your facts then there is no hope for you and one just hope that it is not simple blind prejudice that stops you from finding out what is truth. I will try to explain once more by copying what I have written elsewhere.

thank your for your kind advice

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

The Bible is traditionally divided into two parts: the Old and New Testaments. Whilst the NT was inspired after Jesus death (it could hardly be before could it) and it's list of books was 'closed' by the council of Carthage in AD 397 though all they did was agree what had been common ground from about AD 130 (again it could hardly have been much earlier). The OT existed long before Jesus was even born and its cannon is more complicated to explain but probably goes back to 250 BC where we have the Septuagent or the OT in Greek so books in Hebrew pre-date that.

and your point is?

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

You say the 'original' Bible is lost but your ignorance surfaces again because until about 250BC the OT may not have existed as complete and the NT was not completed until AD 130 so how could it have been lost? There were Jewish and Christian settlements all over the known world and they all had copies if not whole OTs or NTs then they certainly had large parts so how could all of these copies (we now have a huge collection of such copies) be lost and somehow according to you emerge again all over the known world but again according to you modified so much that they cannot be trusted - there is simply no reasonable foundation for your suppositions.

how does this prove that it is not corrupted or wasn't changed by people? I meant corruption by "lost" and let me remind you again that it is better to ask if you don't understand what people are trying to imply.

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

You talk about trustworthiness of authors but we trust the books because of what they say and the way the books support each other.

Your response shows where you stand! How can you trust the books if they were written by untrustworthy people? How do we know they were not enemies of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) and his followers? How does this prove that books were not written by authors in such way that they support each other? How can you take something from someone who is unknown? How do we know that they didn't change anything? Which court in the world accepts testimony from unknown people or liars?

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

What do you do with the Qu'ran as you cannot in any testable sense trace it back to God but only to Mohammed and why is he according to you more trustworthy than St Paul or David or Samuel or Jeremiah?

1) Prophet (peace be upon him) was known as truthful and trustworthy among his enemies, let alone his followers.

2) Qur'an was written down, memorized and transmitted by trustworthy people. Therefore, we believe in the historical accounts as they were transmitted by trustworthy people.

3) what you got in return? unknown authors?

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

I can say to you the original Qu'ran is lost because YOU cannot produce it for anyone to see.

1) who said this? we've the manuscripts of the Qur'an dating back to first century
2) history speaks for itself
3) do you dare to reject authentic historical accounts?

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

You argue it was recited but ask any qurra and you will find there are many ways to recite and ask any Muslim scholar and you will find there are dozens of traditions as to how the Qu'ran got written down.

yeh so? how does this prove that the Qur'an we've today is not the same? The same established historical accounts tell us that it was perfectly compiled and have been perfectly transmitted since then!

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

Wake up from your ignorance and start doing some real research. I have read the Qu'ran a number of times but I am certain you have not read the Bible even once or even one book of the Bible - try Mark's gospel start there.

thank you for your kind advice but last time when I started reading Bible, I found out the true nature of biblical god; check out the stick thread in Christianity section!

[salman]

Originally Posted by silver

I have said before no single prophet brought the doctrine of the trinity and the word trinity is never used in the Bible but the doctrine is there all the same.

how does this prove that NT is not heresy?

Regarding the Qur'an, please answer the following questions:

1 - Why do you reject authentic historical accounts?

2 - Why manuscripts written by unknown authors come before established historical accounts?

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by salman

how does this prove that NT is not heresy?

Regarding the Qur'an, please answer the following questions:

1 - Why do you reject authentic historical accounts?

2 - Why manuscripts written by unknown authors come before established historical accounts?

No one can prove this its all matter of faith in the end. But the Bible as a whole speak of the Messiah from Moses to Malaki and those prophesies are consistent and in other posts I have offered several Bible passages that show this. Bible History goes back almost 4000 years and everyone agrees it is a consistent message of God's gradual revelation to man.

1. Its not quite a matter of rejecting historical accounts because there are two issues here. Firstly, often the accounts do not agree with each other and secondly its what you infer from the account that is at issues. For example, you say historically Gabriel revised the Qu'ran with Mohammed and you say it because there is an authentic hadith. But obviously, all we have is Mohamed's word that this happened, nothing else so it is effectively hearsay. So yes historically Mohamed told his wives that this happened but that is as far as it goes no one else saw or heard Gabriel. Thirdly, almost everything in the Qu'ran except for Islamic history practice can be found else where. See The Sources of Islam by W. St. Clair-Tisdal.

2. With regard to Manuscripts as you know there is an unbridgeable gap as far as the Qu'ran is concerned because one supposes Uthman destroyed them all to establish the so called metropolitan Qu'ran's.

There is value in what you say about authenticity but let me ask you a question - I can establish the authorship of the Book of Morman historically so according to your logic I must accept it and indeed YOU must accept it? Suppose someone found a document with no author but is was a cure for cancer then according to you it should be set aside as it has no authority. I think the point you are neglecting is that in the end its what the document says that matters and whether it agrees with other documents we have.

The Bible that I have has been accepted for nearly 3,000 years if we include the Old Testament. It is consistent within itself and both Jews and Christians see it as the progressive revelation of God because we see God in the book in its teachings. In many cases we know the authors but also in many cases we know nothing but the book itself. But we recognise God speaking in those pages and that is our firm assurance.

In the end your ONLY assurance is the testimony of one man - Mohammed where as I have the testimony of a whole host of witnesses in these biblical books and authors. I refer you again to my point that everything in the Qu'ran is traceable to an external source that pre-dates it. I can give examples if you wish but you may prefer to look at the book I cited above for yourself

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by salman

actually, you've failed to realize that your own premise and conclusion is flawed and inconsistent. You call yourself a seeker of truth but so far you've displayed your stuborness.

By Salman - 1 - Which Prophet confirmed Prophet Jesus's revelations or whatever he said as you believe there was no prophet after him?

Comment By Silver - Just two example will suffice. You might like to look at Isaiah 53 as this is regarded by Jews and Christians to refer to the Messiah. And in Zechariah 11:12 we read "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. 13 And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD. Both these passage are specific, the first about the suffering of Jesus and the second is about how he was betrayed. But there are many many others.

By Salman - 2 - If you say "well, the Bible confirms this as Prophets before him said the same thing", then I've asked you two things: a) how this is different from what we say b) is NT consistent with previous prophet's message?

Comment By Silver - I think I have answered this above. It is different from what you say because only Mohamed heard the message. All the companions could do is accept what Mohamed said - there was NO other prophet?

By Salman - and what is the common message I'm talking about?

Comment By Silver Not quite sure what this refers to but Biblically the common message which we find throughout the Bible is that God loves us so much that he will provide a way of salvation through the Messiah.

By Salman - another attack with straw man; show me when did I say that bible is good enough for full message? You quoted me out of context; I said the BASIC AND COMMON message and refer to my above points where I quoted myself again.

Comment By Silver - No this is not correct - my point was and is that since you do not have this mythical original Bible you talk about You CANNOT know this basic and common message is still there. I am sorry but logically it is your argument that is straw not mine. Either you accept the Bible as I do as the word of God or you simply and blindly choose to ignore it for some mythical one that no one can now see.

By Salmon - Because Allah Ta'ala had decreed to send new revealtion on His last and final Prophet (peace be upon him). Do you dare to question your Lord about what and why He does something? Talk about being Christian and serving the Lord!

Comment by Silver - It is you that is at fault the Bible is the final revelation, nothing comes after it. Jesus is described as the:

Rev. 22:13 "The Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”

Rev. 1:1 "THIS IS] the revelation of Jesus Christ [His unveiling of the divine mysteries]. God gave it to Him to disclose and make known to His bond servants certain things which must shortly and speedily come to pass in their entirety. And He sent and communicated it through His angel (messenger) to His bond servant John

Rev. 22:18,19 18 .. we warn everyone who listens to the statements of the prophecy in this book: If anyone shall add anything to them, God will add and lay upon him the plagues (the afflictions and the calamities) that are recorded and described in this book. So my friend it is you who are in danger of God's judgement not me.

By Salman
1 - I thought Muslims are the only ones who say "you don't know about Islam". However, unlike you people, I admit that I don't know much about bible

2 - The point of my argument is to show the flaw in your premise: Islam is heresy as no Prophet confirmed it.

Comment by Silver Both you and brother Acid keep making the same mistake or you simply do not know what these words mean, I did not speak about HERESY (false doctrine) only about HEARSAY (unconfirmed). I say that Mohamed's revelation is HEARSAY of that there seems little doubt so I can ignore it if I wish as to whether its HERESY that is a different judgement and I don't recall saying anything about that.

By Salman - 3 - So you agree that no Prophet before Moses (peace be upon him) confirmed 10 commandments or given any teachings to be written down. The written down argument is trying to run away but I don't want to focus on it. Therefore, it proves that the 10 commandments are heresy as no Prophet before Moses (peace be upon him) confirmed it or at least they were heresy for certain period of time before Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) appeared.

Comment by Silver - NO again you are just muddled over the words HERESY and HEARSAY.

[SilverLJ]

[QUOTE=salman;7333]thank your for your kind advice.

Comment by Silver - Fine I hope you will take it and read the Bible for what it is as I have done for the Qu'ran and any other Islamic writings and may you find blessing in so doing.

By Salman - and your point is?

Comment by Silver - My point was that the text of the Bible we have today has existed for at least 2000 years for the NT and perhaps as much as 2,500 years for the OT. We know this because we have copies of the earliest available manuscripts so we can check

How does this prove that it is not corrupted or wasn't changed by people? I meant corruption by "lost" and let me remind you again that it is better to ask if you don't understand what people are trying to imply.

Comment by Silver let me reply in two parts. Firstly there are a huge number of manuscripts of very early date and we know there are corruptions in them caused mostly by scribal errors and some insertions and omission. If you can see a copy of the Amplified Bible translation it shows where there may have been variant readings and often give the variants as well etc.

Secondly, and for simplicity just consider the NT and consult Professor Bruce Metzger's book called "The Text of the New Testament: Its transmission, corruption and Restoration" you will see not only a detailed list of the most important manuscripts with dates etc. He then goes on to show how ancient texts can be reconstructed with pin point accuracy. If you want to ignore this work and many other books like it then that is a matter for you.

As to 'lost' I am not sure what you mean but the Bible was never lost. How could it happen? There were Jewish and Christian settlement all over the known world and they all had copies of scripture. So if you persist in this notion of lost or deliberate corruption then you have to show how it was possible to 'lose' many hundreds of copies all at the same time and then somehow many hundreds of adjusted copies took their place - it is not a credible argument is it. In terms of proof in the non-scientific sense you typically use then we have copies of all Bible books, the early church Fathers refer to them in their writings, dates of writing for most books are know, many authors are known and modern scholarship confirms all of this.

By Salman - How can you trust the books if they were written by untrustworthy people? How do we know they were not enemies of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) and his followers? How does this prove that books were not written by authors in such way that they support each other? How can you take something from someone who is unknown? How do we know that they didn't change anything? Which court in the world accepts testimony from unknown people or liars?

Comment by Silver - Your points in order:

The Bible authors were not untrustworthy. Was David untrustworthy when he wrote the Psalms, what Isaiah untrustworthy, etc. Biblical authors wrote as they were inspired but we do not accept them just because of who they are we do so because we recognise, and have done so for 1,000s of years, the writing as part of God's revelation.

Authors that support each other - this does not really stand up to critical review because sometimes writings were separated by many 100s of years and sometimes writings occurred at the same time and of course locations of the writings varied plus the fact that new writing did not just repeat what had gone before but added to God's revelation. One has to say here that the book that does copy is the Qu'ran as you must know.

Changing and acceptance - we know that the Bible has not changed because we have copies. We know there were corruptions but we know where there corruptions are and can get back to the original. See my arguments above.

In terms of acceptance in a court then we would look for multiple witnesses and Biblically we have many. For example, we have 4 Gospels written by 4 different people. For the Qu'ran you have only ONE witness and indeed if we went to court I would immediately show that many stories in the Qu'ran are in fact copies of Biblical ones and charge you with plagiarism.

By Salman
1) Prophet (peace be upon him) was known as truthful and trustworthy among his enemies, let alone his followers.

2) Qur'an was written down, memorized and transmitted by trustworthy people. Therefore, we believe in the historical accounts as they were transmitted by trustworthy people.

3) what you got in return? unknown authors?

Comment by Silver - see my comments above and frankly its an absurd argument to say that in your view every Biblical author was unknown or a liar

BY Salman
1) who said this? we've the manuscripts of the Qur'an dating back to first century
2) history speaks for itself
3) do you dare to reject authentic historical accounts?

Comment by Silver - history never speak for itself as there are always conflicting accounts and so we must be vigilant as to what we accepts or reject. In the case of the transmission the Qu'ran there are many traditions so of course I dare to evaluate historical accounts but you presumably accept them without question and that is both foolish and intellectually dishonest. Its almost as if you don't give a hoot what in the text but only who wrote it.

If there are first century manuscripts please tell us where they are and how many there are. My understandi ng is that ther may be odd fragments but no complete first century copies. Please explain why there are variant Qu'ran's. Again I refer you to Professor Esack's, an internationally respected Muslim scholar's, work.

Comment by Salman - yeh so? how does this prove that the Qur'an we've today is not the same? The same established historical accounts tell us that it was perfectly compiled and have been perfectly transmitted since then!

Comment by Silver - what can I say, I have pointed you to reliable scholarly sources that say this is not true. Professor Esack speaks about variant readings, problems with the scripts, multiple and conflicting traditions etc and so do many other eminent scholars. If you ignore this work then I cannot do much about it. The fact that you might regard the Qu'ran as God's teaching is not affected in my view by any of this because the Qu'ran you have now as Al Suyuti said is all you have. If your faith rests on a tradition that says this or that then you are stepping back from what God has actually because a mere human has told you it is God's word. I could not have such a faith.

By Salman - thank you for your kind advice but last time when I started reading Bible, I found out the true nature of biblical god; check out the stick thread in Christianity section!

Comment by Silver - I am glad you have found out by reading the Bible. I don't know where you started reading but if you are new to the Bible I would start with Mark's Gospel. Look for example at the Sermon on the Mount in Mat 6 - can there ever have been better picture of God and his teachings. When I read the Qu'ran it almost overflows with what might happen in the here after to unbelievers in the most horrible sufferings and and God for you mostly seem vengeful.

For Christians salvation and eternity depend not on what we do but on God and what he has done for us through Jesus. What does your hope of eternity depend on?

[Assad]

again you guys are moving to yet another topic! As If there was a lack already! I am out of this mess for now and would come up with a better debate format today..

[SilverLJ]

[QUOTE=salman;7332]I don't have the strength to go through all this as 90% of the arguments are repetitive and they have been already answered. Silver one last time, can you please use the "quote" functionailty when responding to others!? It makes it much easier to read and respond.

actually, you've failed to realize that your own premise and conclusion is flawed and inconsistent. You call yourself a seeker of truth but so far you've displayed your stuborness.

1 - Which Prophet confirmed Prophet Jesus's revelations or whatever he said as you believe there was no prophet after him?

Comment by Silver - the work of Jesus was foretold in the OT as I have shown in other posting. In terms of confirmation of Jesus message we have it from God himself - for example at the event know as the transfiguration where in Mat 17 Jesus also talks with Moses and Elijah and we also have confirmation via the Apostle John in the book of Revelation.

2 - If you say "well, the Bible confirms this as Prophets before him said the same thing", then I've asked you two things: a) how this is different from what we say b) is NT consistent with previous prophet's message?

Comment By Silver - the Bible says in Revelation that IT is the final message from God so how can Mohammed then claim his is the final revelation? If as you appear to be saying Mohameds message is the same as that of the Biblical prophets then one must assume you believe the Bible to be true as it stands. Logically, if you do not then your supposition about the Qu'ran seems to have no substance.

Comment by Silver - I cannot see a way through this that is credible unless you accept the Bible as it is, a true and full account of God's revelation to man. If you do not then how can anyone know and be sure that Mohammed's is or is not a final revelation

By Salman - another attack with straw man; show me when did I say that bible is good enough for full message? You quoted me out of context; I said the BASIC AND COMMON message and refer to my above points where I quoted myself again.

Comment by Silver - the point is that unless you accept the Bible as it is then logically you cannot know that it contains what you called a 'basic and common message' because that would mean you would have to pick and choose what that amounts to but without any criteria with which to do it. We are back again I think at this mythical 'original bible' so again your arguments rest on a book no one can now see.

By Salman - Because Allah Ta'ala had decreed to send new revealtion on His last and final Prophet (peace be upon him). Do you dare to question your Lord about what and why He does something? Talk about being Christian and serving the Lord!

Comment By Silver - I have answered this elsewhere and shown that the Bible states that IT is the final revelation so if there is any 'daring' here it is you that are doing it.