Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 01-29-2012, 02:17 AM

Can't that be determined from the content of the Quran itself? It refers of course to the nativity with slightly different narratives and to the Baptist. Although it condemns deification it calls Christians Ahl Al Kitab - People of the Book.

Duvduv · 01-29-2012, 05:08 AM

The Quran refers to the Injil which is "evangelion" but doesn't distinguish among the NT gospels or specify GJohn for condemnation for calling Jesus the Word. It seems to be satisfied with condemning deification without specifics and to refer to the Injil in general.

Duvduv · 01-29-2012, 07:35 AM

Unfortunately I have so far been unable to find online anything that addresses the specific issue of why the Quran never mentions Paul and the epistles. Nor is there a clear explanation (so far) as to what the authentic Injil referred to according to the Quran since sometimes the canonical New Testament is called the Injil......

Even if it could be argued that the authors of the Quran were only familiar with the Gospel of Matthew or Barnabas in Arabia, it is hard to imagine that they would have never come across Christians who adhered to the canonical New Testament texts in the 7th century that included th epistles and Acts. And why would the Qurans authors have only known the Gospel of Matthew?

Is it possible they had no contact with Christians at all and got their information about Christian beliefs (including the trinity) second-hand, for instance from Jews who were themselves unfamiliar with all the texts of the NT?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

The Quran refers to the Injil which is "evangelion" but doesn't distinguish among the NT gospels or specify GJohn for condemnation for calling Jesus the Word. It seems to be satisfied with condemning deification without specifics and to refer to the Injil in general.

mrsonic · 01-29-2012, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

...
If the writer(s) of the Quran knew about the gospels, they would have at least known about Peter and his role among the disciplies of Isa, and one would expect to see a rejection of Paul among the assorted condemnations of the Quran against other groups. ...
If the author(s) of the Quran heard about the gospels, one would assume that they heard about "the apostle Paul" as well.....either negatively or positively.

Why exactly? And it appears from you link that Islamic writers knew about Simon Peter.

You have to provide more context and details if you are going to argue a case based on silence. At the time when Islam absorbed Christian ideas, what were Christians saying about Paul? What were the contentious issues? Why would Islamic writer have picked up stories of Paul?

Francois De Blois is a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies and visiting Princeton, he is also a memeber of the Royal Asiatic
Society

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51920767/N...-by-F-de-Blois

"Nasrani [Nazoraios] and hanif [ethnikos]: Studies on the religious vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam", BSOAS 65, 2002, pp. 1-30

the Ebionites didn't recognize the Virgin Birth and regarded Jesus like another Old Testament Prophet.

the Elchasites recognized the Virgin Birth.

they had a Trinity consisting God, accompanied by two archangels, the Son and teh Holy Spirit as female, the Mother, as described in the Qur'an.

they recognized Jewish Law.

they did not eat pork, as the Qur'an says that all the food of the People of Book is permissable for Muslims, not mentioning that the fact that most Christians eat pork.

they had a single Gospel. the Qur'an uses Injil in the singular.

they did not recognize the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, they did not recognize prophets between Moses and Jesus. in the QUr'an, the names of prophets from the Pentateuch are Arabized Aramaic names. the rest of the prophets, such as Ilyas (Elijah) and Yunus (Jonah) are derived from Greek, as the -s ending indicates.

moreover, Arabic uses the term Nasara to describe Christians, a term cognate with Nazoreans, which described the Elchasites.

but there were Catholic / Orthodox Christians as well in the picture, as there are quotations from Luke, and the Qur'an says there were differences amongst the Christians.

mrsonic · 01-29-2012, 08:00 AM

F. de Blois "Islam in its Arabian Context"

http://www.orientalistics.com/news.php?item.26.1

The picture that I propose for the religious landscape in Mecca at the dawn of the Islamic era includes thus the existence of a 'Jewish Christian' (Nazoraean) community, which used Arabic as its cultic language[17], which practised circumcision, shunned the consumption of pork and of wine, prayed towards Jerusalem and adored a 'trinity' consisting of God the father, his son Jesus, and a female holy spirit (the mother of Jesus), and which had a canon consisting of the Torah and some form of the Gospel, but excluding the prophetic books of the Old Testament (the Nazoraeans do not seem to have recognised any prophets between Moses and Jesus) [18]. Muhammad was brought up as a pagan (as indeed the sirah informs us). As a young man he had close contacts with the Nazoraeans at Mecca and adopted many of their teachings. But he also got to know about catholic (presumably Melchite) Christians and his criticism of Nazoraeism, with its implied tritheism, is essentially from a catholic position.

>>

Duvduv · 01-29-2012, 08:04 AM

Do you think that the authors of the Quran would have known about all the streams in Christianity in the 7th century without choosing to identify (mistakenly of course) the idea of the Trinity with Paul? Or the divinity of Jesus with Paul or even GJohn?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrsonic

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Why exactly? And it appears from you link that Islamic writers knew about Simon Peter.

You have to provide more context and details if you are going to argue a case based on silence. At the time when Islam absorbed Christian ideas, what were Christians saying about Paul? What were the contentious issues? Why would Islamic writer have picked up stories of Paul?

Francois De Blois is a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies and visiting Princeton, he is also a memeber of the Royal Asiatic
Society

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51920767/N...-by-F-de-Blois

"Nasrani [Nazoraios] and hanif [ethnikos]: Studies on the religious vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam", BSOAS 65, 2002, pp. 1-30

the Ebionites didn't recognize the Virgin Birth and regarded Jesus like another Old Testament Prophet.

the Elchasites recognized the Virgin Birth.

they had a Trinity consisting God, accompanied by two archangels, the Son and teh Holy Spirit as female, the Mother, as described in the Qur'an.

they recognized Jewish Law.

they did not eat pork, as the Qur'an says that all the food of the People of Book is permissable for Muslims, not mentioning that the fact that most Christians eat pork.

they had a single Gospel. the Qur'an uses Injil in the singular.

they did not recognize the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, they did not recognize prophets between Moses and Jesus. in the QUr'an, the names of prophets from the Pentateuch are Arabized Aramaic names. the rest of the prophets, such as Ilyas (Elijah) and Yunus (Jonah) are derived from Greek, as the -s ending indicates.

moreover, Arabic uses the term Nasara to describe Christians, a term cognate with Nazoreans, which described the Elchasites.

but there were Catholic / Orthodox Christians as well in the picture, as there are quotations from Luke, and the Qur'an says there were differences amongst the Christians. there is quotation from Luke. there are the Greek derived names of the later prophets.

mrsonic · 01-29-2012, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Unfortunately I have so far been unable to find online anything that addresses the specific issue of why the Quran never mentions Paul and the epistles.

it denies pauline theology about there being an INTERMEDIARY between man and god. qur'aan gives the picture that all have a DIRECT link to god without intermediary. it says that animals blood and flesh DOES not appease God. "the blood and flesh does not REACH GOD it is your piety which reaches God"
qur'aan simply says that you should thank god for providing animal flesh for FOOD. there is nothing magical in animal blood or flesh according to the qur'aan.

mrsonic · 01-29-2012, 08:12 AM

"Do you think that the authors of the Quran would have known about all the streams in Christianity in the 7th century without choosing to identify (mistakenly of course) the idea of the Trinity with Paul? Or the divinity of Jesus with Paul or even GJohn?"

all i did was quoted a scholars opinion on what christian sect qur'aan was addressing

Duvduv · 01-29-2012, 08:31 AM

This is all very mysterious since the entire understanding of the Pauline texts would be based on the conventional view about the intermediary status of Christ as opposed to the salvic nature on behalf of people which does not interfere with the person of God except in gnosticism. If the writers of the Quran felt that Paul was introducing intermediary status of Jesus that contradicted the gospels and KNEW about the entire canon, one would imagine that the Quran would say so. It is almost as if the authors' view of the Christian texts was received second-hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrsonic

"Do you think that the authors of the Quran would have known about all the streams in Christianity in the 7th century without choosing to identify (mistakenly of course) the idea of the Trinity with Paul? Or the divinity of Jesus with Paul or even GJohn?"

all i did was quoted a scholars opinion on what christian sect qur'aan was addressing

sotto voce · 01-29-2012, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Is it possible they had no contact with Christians at all and got their information about Christian beliefs (including the trinity) second-hand, for instance from Jews who were themselves unfamiliar with all the texts of the NT?

In the 7th century, Christians were very likely to exist a) within the bounds of the Jewish diaspora and beyond, perhaps as far as China, but b) outside the Roman Empire. The diaspora stretched almost as far as India, so it is very likely that the authors of the Qur'an came into direct contact with Christians, who were of course familiar with the whole NT, but believed trinitarianism to be polytheism under Christian guise.

The Qur'an simply dismissed the crucifixion in a single sentence, without any theological argument whatever. Islam also dismissed as spurious much of the OT that related to atonement. So the same principle would have applied to the letters of the NT, particularly those of Paul. Paul et al. became 'invisible', because any recognition of them would have only raised doubt that the crucifixion had never taken place, and raised doubt about dismissal of OT atonement teaching. To this day, Islam fails to deal with Pauline teaching head on.

The Qur'an uses trinitarianism as a straw man, and legitimately, too, in an attempt to legitimise itself.

01-29-2012, 08:00 AM	#65
mrsonic Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: u.k Posts: 88	. F. de Blois "Islam in its Arabian Context" http://www.orientalistics.com/news.php?item.26.1 The picture that I propose for the religious landscape in Mecca at the dawn of the Islamic era includes thus the existence of a 'Jewish Christian' (Nazoraean) community, which used Arabic as its cultic language[17], which practised circumcision, shunned the consumption of pork and of wine, prayed towards Jerusalem and adored a 'trinity' consisting of God the father, his son Jesus, and a female holy spirit (the mother of Jesus), and which had a canon consisting of the Torah and some form of the Gospel, but excluding the prophetic books of the Old Testament (the Nazoraeans do not seem to have recognised any prophets between Moses and Jesus) [18]. Muhammad was brought up as a pagan (as indeed the sirah informs us). As a young man he had close contacts with the Nazoraeans at Mecca and adopted many of their teachings. But he also got to know about catholic (presumably Melchite) Christians and his criticism of Nazoraeism, with its implied tritheism, is essentially from a catholic position. >>

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01-29-2012, 02:17 AM	#61
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Can't that be determined from the content of the Quran itself? It refers of course to the nativity with slightly different narratives and to the Baptist. Although it condemns deification it calls Christians Ahl Al Kitab - People of the Book.

01-29-2012, 05:08 AM	#62
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	The Quran refers to the Injil which is "evangelion" but doesn't distinguish among the NT gospels or specify GJohn for condemnation for calling Jesus the Word. It seems to be satisfied with condemning deification without specifics and to refer to the Injil in general.

01-29-2012, 08:12 AM	#68
mrsonic Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: u.k Posts: 88	"Do you think that the authors of the Quran would have known about all the streams in Christianity in the 7th century without choosing to identify (mistakenly of course) the idea of the Trinity with Paul? Or the divinity of Jesus with Paul or even GJohn?" all i did was quoted a scholars opinion on what christian sect qur'aan was addressing

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