dost

Hi again Hiran and thanks for your reply.

Apologies for my late response.

Thanks, I came her basically to discuss the issues relating to the New Testament as there are many knowledgable individuals around here, so I thought it would be good to pose some of the questions bugging me in order to get replies etc. In anycase, its always great to talk about the Quran as well. Below I will refer you to some books that you may find helpful in your studies regarding the Quran's textual history etc.

Before Tisdall, Abraham Geiger, the Jewish polemicist, wrote a book on the sources of the Quran. Tisdall's work is basically based upon Geigers. I think Geiger did refer to the Infancy Gospel, but I am not certain if anyone before him raised this issue.

Parallels and similarity though do not imply "borrowing". I am not denying parallels, but only that they do not prove that what is mentioned in the Quran was borrowed from another document. I figure you are familiar with the history and details of the formation of the New Testament. You will know that in the past the Christians followed a wide variety of literature. Some documents came to be admitted into the canon on various questionable criterias whereas others were rejected and labelled "apocrypha". Nevertheless, a number of Christian communities in the past did follow these documents and accepted their contents to be the truth as they were their "scripture".

Obviously those who followed the infancy gospel accepted its claim that Jesus did form clay birds and breathed life into them. For them this was the truth. During the time of Prophet Muhammed, a Christian delegation from the region of Najran came to see him in order to have a discussion/debate that spanned for a few days. These Christians were the guests of Prophet Muhammed were allowed to live in the mosque for as long as they required. During the discussions, these Christians argued that Jesus was god because he gave life to the dead, healed the sick and formed clay birds and gave them life. This is mentioned in the Muslim traditions, such as the sira of Ibn Ishaq for example. The point here is that these Christians accepted this story as the truth. In response, the Quran states that Jesus did not do these miracles from his own, rather God was the one who did these miracles through Jesus. In other words, Jesus did these and other miracles through God's leave and permission, not on his own.

The Christians did not raise allegations of "borrowing" when they read in the Quran that Jesus formed bird clay which later became alive and flew. That is because they did not consider this miracle of Jesus to be "apocrypha", for them this was a real incident from the life of Jesus. Therefore I believe that the stories to be found within the apocrypha material should not be looked upon through modern day "orthodox" glasses. The fact that they consider these stories to be "apocrypha" does not mean that Christians in the past considered them as such.

Lastly, a minor point, if you compare the story of Jesus forming clay birds between the Quran and the apocrypha you will also come across certain differences between the two accounts. For example, and correct me if I am wrong, the infancy gospel states that Jesus "clapped" and gave life to the clay birds. And as far as I know, they do not state that it was in reality God who did the miracle and not Jesus. Whereas the Quran does not state the "clapping" performed by Jesus and clearly states that God was the miracle worker and not Jesus, meaning Jesus did not perform the miracle from his own power.

The citation was from Tisdall's book that was quoted by islamic-awareness.org.

I have already mentioned my views on the "borrowing" above, hence I will try not to repeat myself. However, In order to prove "borrowing", you need to demonstrate the existence of these apocryphal gospels in the Hijaz region. Also, how was the Syriac or latin version "borrowed"? Did the author of the Quran speak syriac and latin? Anyway, since you admit that the stories within the infancy can be traced as far back to the second century, is it not possible that they date from an even earlier period? And what could be the reason to reject them (putting aside the issue of whether miracles can happen or not)? Just because they are not to be found within our canonical gospels does not imply they are altogether false.

I have Karen Armstrong's history of Islam. As for English works of textual criticism of the Quran, then check out the English translation of Fihrist al-Nadim. The author comments upon the manuscripts of the Quran available in his time, their state, contents etc. Is considered a very valuable source by scholars. Other sources:

Nabia Abbott, The Rise Of The North Arabic Script And Its Kur'ânic Development - I read this book a long time ago, has information on a number of manuscripts dating from the 1st century of Islam and onwards, and detailed information on the scripts etc.

Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy And Islamic Culture, 1984, New York University Press: New York & London, p. 4.

Adolf Grohmann, "The Problem Of Dating Early Qur'âns", 1958, Der Islam, p. 216. - This is an article to be found in Der Islam.

Martin Lings & Yasin Hamid Safadi, The Qur'ân: Catalogue Of An Exhibition Of Quranic Manuscripts At The British Library, 1976, World of Islam Festival Publishing Company Ltd.

More useful references are mentioned in islamic-awareness.org. The above, however, are the ones I believe that contain information your looking for in quite some detail.

Other than the above, the books I mentioned to you earlier on contain detailed information on textual criticism of the Quran and its history, together with dealing with a number of other topics. And of course you can read the detailed papers at the islamic-awareness.org website on the manuscripts of the Quran, the script, and issues besides.

Arken

Going back to the original question, while it is never stated explicitly within the new testament that Jesus is God, it is certainly implied many times over, most notably in passages such as this one in Matthew 8:

Now granted, 'Christ' or 'Messiah' literally means 'the anointed one' but you could definitely make the argument that it is a metaphor for 'God in human form' based on the way it is used. Now it is true that in the NT, Jesus himself never claims to be anything more than 'the son of Man' and there are definite problems with his being the son of God if his Messiahood is to fall within the predictions of the OT as it is claimed. After all, the Messiah is supposed to be of the house of David and Jesus' lineage is traced to it- through Joseph. Oops.

YHWHtruth

The Bible does not clearly teach the Trinity doctrine. That much is
conceded by a number of Trinitarians. Reading works about the Trinity has taught me a lot about the Trinitarian mindset, helping me to understand where people are coming from vis-a-vis their outlook. For instance, Owen Thomas seems to express
the sentiments of Trinitarians adequately, when he notes:

"The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear
explicitly in the Bible (Very few doctrines, if any,
do.) Rather it is the immediate *implication* of the
biblical testimony. The Bible contains the 'seeds of
the trinitarian understanding of God' (Moule), the
'beginnings of trinitarian theology' (Stauffer), from
which the doctrine of the Trinity was a 'natural and
necessary development' (Grant). The doctrine of the
trinity is the result of the *church's reflection upon
the biblical testimony* in the face of various
distorted interpretations" (Introduction to Theology,
p. 59).

Charles Ryrie observes that the Trinity, while
scriptural, is not "clearly" taught in the NT. His
exact words with regard to the Trinity doctrine are:

"Furthermore, this is a doctrine which in the New
Testament is not explicit even though it is often said
that it is implicit in the Old and explicit in the
New. But explicit means 'chracterized by full, clear
expression,' an adjective hard to apply to this
doctrine. Nevertheless, the doctrine grows out of the
Scriptures, so it is a biblical teaching" (Basic
Theology, p. 51).

Scripture teaches that Jesus is not God not coequal with Him.

Max