Duvduv

I am not sure I understand either of your points. We don't know what exactly the Quranic authors thought about "canonical Christianity" because they don't say anything about it, and despite certain similarities to stories in GLuke and brief condemnation of the trinity, it is unclear what sources they used. Isn't it just as possible that they relied on stories that circulated from non-canonical sources for a long time among the Arabs long before Islam? Especially since there were not only types of Christians in Arabia but they must have had contact with them in places like Alexandria and Antioch on the caravan routes.

sotto voce

So they had no inkling that humanity could be justified by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross?

What trinity? Do explain how 3 = 1.

Duvduv

It doesn't matter what they knew. It matters that they apparently relied on their own Arabic sources. And for them the Trinity was condemned as three gods and idolatry as a doctrinal issue.

sotto voce

So we are to suppose that the Qur'an was divinely revealed by Allah. It's only if it wasn't divinely revealed by Allah, if what they knew doesn't matter.

So now, we believe in just one deity.

Who actually thinks that?

Can you make up your mind? Now we're back to three deities.

Duvduv

I am referring to what the Quran thinks is the trinity. And there are those who do believe that the Quran incorporated previous Arab traditions or stories. What's so incredible about that? There were several hundreds years of possible contacts between Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Palestine.

sotto voce

Not true. You without qualification refer to 'the trinity', just as a Catholic does. So does trinity exist, or not?

Books don't think, of course. People tell lies, though.

It's not incredible that human beings say that they believe that the Qur'an incorporated previous Arab traditions or stories. People will say that 3 = 1, so people will say absolutely anything.

Six hundred of them since Paul gave Arabia the message that Jesus died. Which gave the Arabs plenty of time to think about saying that he didn't.

Duvduv

Did the author of Luke and the authors of the Quran have access to similar sources for the NT stories?
Were Arab stories about Jesus and the Baptist incorporated into the Quran drawing on the same stories that found their way into GLuke?

Duvduv

Same here.....i know it doesn't involve Bart Ehrman, but perhaps it's interesting to discuss anyway.

Toto

This is a bizarre way to put things. The Qur'an was written centuries after Luke. Luke might very well have made up the stories that he or she incorporated into the Gospel of Luke; the writers of the Qur'an would have probably heard Christian missionaries repeating a version of the gospels.

Duvduv

Toto, I have been mentioning that the Arabs would have had access to the canonica texts via Antioch and Alexandria yet do not relate to those stories or to anything from Paul. The biography of the Baptist is more in lime with what is found in Luke BUT ignores the storyline of the virgin birth of Jesus.
So if the writers of the Quran had old traditions of their own which also had ended up in GLuke a few centuries earlier, what's hard to believe about that?
The quranic stories do not suggest having heard anything or relying specifically on what canonical Christians may have told them.
If they had, the nativity would have had a few more recognizable elements since they adopted the virgin birth.