sotto voce

One is free to trail red herrings, yes. If one has lost interest in the real deal.

Pamela Spencer

Interestingly enough, the exact inquiry [regarding the supposedly, misconstrued statement concerning the relationship between Mary and Moses] was posed before, especially during the lifetime of Muhammad (by the Christian Najran community):

In Sahih Muslim, the hadith related by Mughirah ibn Shu`bah [5326] says:

When I came to Najran, they (the Christians of Najran) asked me: You read "O sister of Aaron" (i.e Mary) in the Koran, whereas Moses was born much before Jesus. When I came back to God's Messenger, I asked him about that, whereas he said: The (people of the old age), used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostle and pious persons who had gone before them.

In Arabic the word akhun or ukhtun seems to confer two discrete meanings:

a) Blood brother or sister
and
b)Brotherhood/sisterhood via clan and faith.

Koranic verses 19:27-28 employ the term ukhtun to denote clan affinity. As an idiomatic expression, we see equivalent phrases found in the pages of the Scripture e.g In chapter 11 verse 78, Prophet Lot refers to the women folk of his community as "my daughter"; "And unto the (tribe of) A'ad (We sent) their brother (7:65); And to (the tribe of) Thamud, (We sent) their brother, Salih (7:73); And unto Midian (We sent) their brother, Shoaib (7:85), and "The 'Ad, Pharoah, the brethren of Lot,..." (50:13).

Furthermore, there appears to be a reference of sorts in the NT, the Gospel of Luke (1:5), in particular, that Mary was a "cousin of Elisabeth", and that this Elisabeth was "of the daughters of Aaron". Confounding this issue, is the presupposed idea of "Joachim and Anna" as the alleged parents of Mary, despite the non-canonical whereabouts being traced back to the Protoevangelium of James (rather than the NT). Since the Bible has been relatively mute on the topic of Mary's parents, for all we know, Aamran may have also been the name of Mary's father. In addition, the rather keen Koranic understanding of the Midrashic record would, in essence, preclude the possibility of such a simple and grossly inaccurate oversight.

Additional investigation into biblical sources seems to reveal a Scripture replete with idiomatic expressions of lineal affiliation e.g "Jesus, son of Joseph" (Luke 3:23), and elsewhere "son of David". Considering the lack of biographical data concerning Mary, the Mother of Jesus (regarding death, documentation of extant relatives, etc.), it would seem exceedingly difficult to prove that the Koranic narrative is false or to gauge the extent of accuracy found within the Scripture (unless ongoing archaeological data seems to corroborate or suggest otherwise)

Pamela Spencer

Islam is essentially a religious tradition that exists primarily in continuity with the Spirit of the Essene Nazarene community. The Koran alludes to the authenticity of the Nazarene by using the term "Nasara", specifically for the "Christians". Modern Arab Christians tend to refer to themselves as "Maseehi", though. Theoretically, Islam's role is to restore the Noachide Laws, and reintroduce "Milaat Ibrahim"/ "the Faith of Abraham". Talmudically speaking, the Muslims can be regarded as Judaic equivalents or gerei tōshav. Thus, it would not be inaccurate to state that Islam, in theory, balances the laws of Judaism with the Spirit of Christianity. To Muhammad's credit, he did maintain that Islam was not a new religion, but a revival of an oft-forgotten path.

Pamela Spencer

I find the belief concerning Ezra as a "son of God" peculiar, but fascinating, nevertheless. Where is the origin for the issue praising Ezra to a divine status? According to Encyclopaedia Judaica:

H. Z. Hirschberg proposed another assumption, based on the words of Ibn Hazm, namely, that the 'righteous who live in Yemen believed that 'Uzayr was indeed the son of Allah.' According to other Muslim sources, there were some Yemenite Jews who had converted to Islam who believed that Ezra was the messiah. For Muhammad, Ezra, the apostle (!) of messiah, can be seen in the same light as the Christian saw Jesus, the messiah, the son of Allah.

Furthermore, G.D Newby, author of A History Of The Jews Of Arabia relays information regarding other idiosyncratic practices that were specific to the Jewish mystics of Yemen, notably their insistence on angel worship, e.g Metatron.

sotto voce

The Spirit of the Essene Nazarene community?

Or is it the spirit of the Essene Nazarene community that is referred to? That might not be quite so holy?

And I'm a brain surgeon.

Someone needs to put them right, then.

'Noachide Laws' are imaginary.

Those aims conflict. Abraham (or rather Abram) was righteous because of his faith, not because he observed laws. If you do one, you can't do the other.

Of course, the Qur'an contradicted this, but the Qur'an is objectively farcical. 'The Talmud' has no authority whatever that anyone can justify. One might as well quote a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel as quote either of those sources. It might well be preferable, in fact.

Islam is imaginary, by any standard. 'Judaism' is imaginary, if Jesus was the Messiah.

It would be a travesty to state that. Islam contradicts Christianity totally, in just one line, aforementioned upthread. The author(s) of the Qur'an copied the Roman caricature of the church as far as was possible. The Roman caricature was the old Roman state works-based legalism dressed up as Christianity.

The author(s) of the Qur'an were greatly embarrassed by the presence of Christians uncontrolled by Rome, and fixed up their own caricature, very possibly with the assistance of Romanist agents embarrassed by the contrasts between real Christianity and their own 'cardboard cut-out' version.

Net2004

christians are always going on about how the deciples of jebus died for thier faith ect. now lets apply the same argument to muhammad and his followers. muhammads target audience/groups was the polythiests, jews who read thier bables in hebrew and christians who read their anajeels (pl of injeel) in aramaic/ syriac. so how did muhammad CONVINCE these oppositions which according to the kur'an wanted to DESTROY the moslims ? did they, like paul, START to see muhammad in thier holy books? why would they, according to the ahadeeth, fight side by side with muhammad and even give up thier lives FOR THE CLaims OF A caveman? don't the SKEPTICS here think that williams lane craigs arguments CAN BE STRONG argument for muhammed SUCCESS? the caveman has been turning the other cheek for 13 years going back and forth from mecca to madina , in those 13 years he's able to get more than 12 deciples on his side. i'm not DEFENDING islam, all i am asking is LETS APPLY christian apologetic BS on Islam and Ask why LIGHTING success in the spread of the religion all over arabia? why are christian missionaries always saying " muhammad kill and thats why he was successful"
but look at the koran, it sez that the idolaterors are to be RELEASED after thier CAPTURE.

Net2004

i have a question, did abraham sacrifice and burn animals ? did he look after them before he terminated them? did he feed them and give them water and clean them? if he was doing all these things and the animal WAS WITHout blemish then WASN'T he carrying out laws in the torah ? wasn't he doing good deeds according to the torah perspective? so lets say he offered a drunk goat to yhwh, would yhwh be pleased? lets say that he offered a half dead chicken which had its legs bitten off, would yhwh have been pleased?

Net2004

have you ever been to messiah truth forum and have you seen how badly christianity contradicts judaism/torah? this wasn't even missed by muhamamd koran, it sez something like " the jews they their INTERPRETATION is right and the christians say their interpretation is right" and it says something like both using the same book and divided on the same book lol.

Net2004

christianity is a roman religion . it seems it get along with with people of italy, but has very big failures with the jews in jerusalem. even the trial scenes seem to be PRO- roman anti-jew. the earliest account portrays pilate as a crowd pleaser, the later ones portray pilate as a handicap with his hands tied and the lawles jews trying thier best to force him to crucifiy sottos jebus crist.

Chili

E.i. Jewish protestants.