h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly, Nowhere in the whole of the Qur'an does it call God Jehovah. God is always called Allah, which means God.

Secondly the word in hebrew Elohim, means God, as the Hebrew word for God is Elo ,or Ela. IM is a plural of respect. Such as the Queen says WE but its not her and her family, its indicating her majesticness.

Whoops one more thing, there is 99 nine attribute of Allah, I know ou can't prin them all, but it would have been good to mention that there are 99 in total and here is a few of them or some thing.

Adib

"Secondly the word in hebrew Elohim, means God, as the Hebrew word for God is Elo ,or Ela. IM is a plural of respect. Such as the Queen says WE but its not her and her family, its indicating her majesticness."

I don't know Hebrew grammer, but it seems to me that "plural of respect" is a first-person thing, and the begining of Genesis is in the third person.

Also, if it was normal in Hebrew to use a plural to mean a single god, why is that only found in Genesis? Not in books written later?

IM is the Hebrew plural of respect.
The problem is that in English they have translated parts as 'Us' 'We' etc without telling people that it is a plural of respect.

Christinas use this 'Us' to say that there is a trinity, but if you ask any Jew who should be able to read Hebrew he/she will tell you that there are two types of Plural, plural of numbers and plural of respect.

Of which the one used in context is plural of Respect.

If it was a plural of numbers then the whole Bible is wrong.
Read the first line of Genesis.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now in the hebrew text the word God is also plural of respect. But they have translated it as GOD and NOT GODS.

Now of course the above is a plural of respect as well.

Anyway to get to the point you raised, thats why Muslim's say the Bible is corrupted. They say that Moses wrote the Torah, old testament and that Jesus wrote the New testamont. But dealing only with the old testament there are at least 400 examples that proves that the Old Testament was not written by Moses or by God.

For Example:

Exodus 6 10-12

Then the Lord sad to Moses, "Go tell Pharoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country."
But Moses said to the Lord, "If the Isrealites will not listen to me, why would Pharoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips."
An of course Deuteronomy 34:6 and 34:8

And Moses the servant of the Lord DIED there in Moab, as the Lord had said.

Moses WAS a hundred and twenty years old when he DIED...

All of the above is third person but they still say Moses wrote it.

But getting back to the piont of subject, this Plural of respect is not just personal pronoun, when Jews want to say god i.e not talking about there Lord but rather the lord of other faithes say like a Hindu god, they will use the word Eloh or Elah which means God.

When talking about there God they will say Elahim or Elohim and im is that plural of respect, which signifies that this God is the all mighty god and not a false god.

So this plural is used by anyone who speaks Hebrew and talks about the God they believe in.

Going back to the third person thing, there is three types of evidence found in the Qur'an, there is the word of God, the words of prophets and the words of Historians.
Another reason why Muslim's dislike the bilbe is because it is mostly the words of a historian ie not God or a porphet.

Muslim's have these three types to, but we keep them in seperate books. Qur'an is word of God, The Sunnah (or Hadith) is the words, saying and actions of the Prophet and there are various books written by Historians.
As we keep them seperate we can give them different levels of crdability. I'e anything the Prophet says has to fit with what the Qur'an says.

Adib

I agree that the whole bible could not possibly be the word of God, although many Christians claim that it is.

Even the New Testament Canon hasn't been finally settled (Revelation?), and the early canonisation decisions seem to be decisions of individual people, choosing from among writings that attempt to capture an oral tradition.

Question: Why consider the Qur'an to be the word of God? Also, when was it written? How long was the oral tradition before that? Who decided what writing to canonise and why?

Well Muslim's consider the Qur'an the word of God because firstly it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad who was illiterate, but yet the Qur'an is the best example of Arabic writing ever. Even today its beauty in Arabic has not been equalled not even close.

If you go to learn Arabic or Classical Arabic (which the Qur'an is written in) then in most cases they will use the Qur'an for learning to read Arabic.

The other reason why Muslim's follow the Qur'an is because there are very many scientific facts that are in it that were not known back then. Such as the Big Bang theory and the Expansion of the Universe.

As for why some Christians convert to Islam well it’s because in the Bible it says that there will be a prophet like Moses and Christians are told that this is Jesus, but Muslim's say it was Muhammad. An if you compare the two then it becomes obvious that Muhammad is more like Moses than Jesus.

Plus that Jesus him self says that it is imperative that he goes as the Comforter will not come, and that he has many things to say to you but you can not bear them now.
The Christians say this comforter is the Holy Ghost, but looking at the Bible we see that the Holy Ghost was around on Earth well before Jesus and that in the last two thousand years the Holy Ghost has not given one thing or said one thing yet, Jesus says he has many things to say.

Now Jesus is asked how they will know who is a real prophet and he says that any real prophet will say that Jesus was from God.

Islam is the only religion other than Christianity that makes it an article of faith to believe in Jesus. No Muslim is a Muslim if we do not believe in Jesus.

Now another thing to think about is the type of Miracle that the prophets performed.

Moses came at a time of Magic and his miracles were based around Magic far superior to what any one could do at that time.

Jesus came at a time of herbal medicines and medicine in general and his miracles were based on medical feats that no one could then. I.e. cure the blind and raise the dead.

Muhammad came at a time in Arabia when poetry and literature was the most important thing, and Muhammad’s miracle was a piece of literature that is unparalled then and now.

So these are a few reasons why we believe in the Qur'an.

Moving on to your next question.
The Qur'an was revealed over a period of 23 years, which started around the year 610. As soon as a revelation was given to Prophet Muhammad he would get his companions to write it down and then several times a year he would make them read back what he had wrote and make sure that it was what was revealed. Once a year and twice in the last year of his life the Angel Gibreal would come down and go through with him and make sure that he Muhammad had recited it accurately. The whole of the Qur'an was checked through and through by the Prophet to make sure it was what was revealed. He would get his companions to recite it back to him at various times to make sure it was accurate. Not only this but ever since the first words revealed there have been followers who have learned every word of by heart. If all the Qur'an's of today were burned then it would be possible to get groups of Muslim's together and they could rewrite the Qur'an exactly how it was from memory.

After Muhammad’s death the first Calipha heard from travellers that people in distant lands from him, where reciting the Qur'an in a strange way. Now Christians like to say that this is proof that there is more than one version. But they over look one thing, It says recite differently not written differently.

Let me explain, in Arabic there are vowel indicators, and these vowel indicators are left off from the text a lot of the time, i.e. when writing in short hand. For example if we have the sentence:

The man sat on the bed.

Short hand Arabic would write:

Th mn st n th bd.

Now a fluent man used to English will be able to look at that in English and see that bd is bed, not bod, bid, bud etc.
Now for an Arabic man who is fluent in Arabic there in no problem in reading in short hand as they where used to short hand, but for non Arabic fluent speakers they pronounced things differently, for example in stead of saying:

Al Hamdulillah they might say Ol Humdalolloh as they don't know the language.

So the Calipha he got all the copies of the Qur'anic manuscripts (It was not in a book at this stage) and burnt all the texts that had no vowel indicators and was not written in what we call today Classical Arabic, as that’s the Arabic Muhammad spoke. He then put the Qur'an in to book form and all copies from then on had to be in the dialect of Muhammad and with vowel indicators. Of course the Qur'an can be translated now a days but back then it was not required as most people new Arabic if only a little.

So the oral tradition was always backed up by written texts but the Qur'an was not in a book form until shortly after Muhammad’s death.
No words from the Qur'an have been taken out or new ones in placed, if you get a Qur'an in Arabic today and compare it with the oldest Qur'an known of dating back to the first Calipha it is exactly the same.

The only thing destroyed where ones that had no vowel indicators or were not written in Classical Arabic the dialogue of Muhammad. These said the same things as the classical Arabic but sounded differently when recited.

I hope that has been helpful.

Adib Qasim.

"Of which the one used in context is plural of Respect."

Are you saying that the only way to tell which plural it is is from context? In which case there is another interpretation--it is plural because parts of Genesis had their origens before the Hebrews became monotheistic.

Is the plural used in any context other than when refering to YHWH? Such as with royalty? If not, then perhaps that is not the origional form of the "im" plural form. I'm not a linguist, but it seems possible to me that the "im" ending may have started out as an archaic plural form that old pre-monotheism scriptures used to refer to the gods and which was later reinterpreted as a plural of respect when monotheism became dominant and it was necesary to view the old scripture as monotheistic.



"Anyway to get to the point you raised, thats why Muslim's say the Bible is corrupted. They say that Moses wrote the Torah, old testament and that Jesus wrote the New testamont. But dealing only with the old testament there are at least 400 examples that proves that the Old Testament was not written by Moses or by God."

Yet you claim that the basic ideas in it are mostly true--ie Moses was a prophet. I assume that that comes from the Koran.



"Muslim's have these three types to, but we keep them in seperate books. Qur'an is word of God, The Sunnah (or Hadith) is the words, saying and actions of the Prophet and there are various books written by Historians.
As we keep them seperate we can give them different levels of crdability. I'e anything the Prophet says has to fit with what the Qur'an says."

But weren't the things in the Qur'an written by a prophet? As opposed to being delivered prewritten? So what is the distinction betweens things he wrote in the Qur'an and things he wrote elsewhere? Presumably he was a prophet all the time and not just some of it--correct me if I'm wrong, I don't fully understand the theology of your religion.

One more question--I thought I already posted it but it doesn't seem to have taken.

What verses/suras/lines of the Koran do you claim state the big bang or that the universe is expanding? Numbers/Names, not just quotes, please. I'd like to be able to find it again without going back to this conversation.

What I ment by context is that its using IM which is the Plural form of respect rather than the pural of numbers word.
The word Im can also be used when referring to someone of importance to symbolise the respect people should have to that person.

As far as I'm aware it has always been a plural of respect. For example Hinduism has many God's in it, but they still have a plural or respect and a seperate plural of numbers. Every eastern language that I know of has these plural of numbers and plural of respect.
If as you say it might in Hebrew be from earlier than monothesic faith and so its meaning was changed why would all the other languages do the same even though the people practising it might believe in multiple god's.

Yes Moses was a prophet and so was Jesus. What we mean by not beliving in the Bible or Old Testament is that a lot of it has been changed or altered or been added to; for example the 7 different types of incest, and the whoredoms of the two sisters.

As far as the New Testament goes Muslim's believe in the Gospel preached by Jesus and not the 'according to' you find in the bible today. Jesus never wrote a word or never told some one to right a word down, and so this 'according to' Paul etc is not good enoguh.

Indeed in the Qur'an Muslim's are taught that Jesus, Moses and the other Prophets were Prophets and should be believed in. I wrote an article on here about the first pillar of Islam that covers the Belief in the previous Prophets.

Well actually not one word of the Qur'an was written by Prophet Muhammad as he could not read or write. It was written down by his companions as the Prophet dictated it to them.
They were told to write it down, and at various times of the year they would read back what they had written to the Prophet and he would check it is exactly what he had said.

Muslim's believe that the Angel Gibreal came down and revealed to him the Qur'an over a period of time, and he recited it to his companions whom he told to write down. Then every year the Angel would make sure that Muahammad had recited it correctly to his companions, and Muhammad would make sure his comanions had writtend down exactly what he said.

The only words ever written by God is the Ten commandmants that Moses destroyed.
What I am referring to is that the Qur'an is only God speaking.

The Sunnah is only what the Prophet said or did.

The History books are all the rest of the things, like what the compnions said etc.

Moving on to the verse's that talk about the expansion of the universe and the big bang.

'Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before We clove them asunder? Then We made from water every living thing. will they then not believe?'
Sura 21 ayah 30

'Moreover He comprehended in His design the sky, And it had been (as) smoke: He said to it and to the Earth: "Come ye together, willingly or unwilling." They said: "We do come (together), in willing obedience."
Surah 41 ayah 11

‘It is We Who built the universe with (our creative) power, and, verily it is We Who are steadily expanding it’
Surah 51 ayah 47.

‘God is the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. All the celestial bodies moving in orbits’.
Surah 36 ayah 40

'He has let free the two bodies Of flowing water, Meeting together: Between them is a Barrier Which they do not transgress'
Surah 55 ayah 19-20

'It is He Who has Let free the two bodies Of flowing water: One palatable and sweet, And the other salty and bitter; Yet has He Made a barrier between them, And a partition that is forbidden To be passed'
Surah 25 ayah 53

And many many more

>>

And Moses the servant of the Lord DIED there in Moab, as the Lord had said.

All of the above is third person but they still say Moses wrote it.<<


Yup. Moses wrote the entire thing in third person, and recorded his death. When God dictates, you can do things like that.

as for all IM stuff,

As far as I know, the reason Elokim is not plural as in 'many gods' is because of the grammar. "Amar" is singular. It means 'said' but only for one person or being. 'amar Elokim' means 'Elokim said', (or, 'One Elokim said'.)

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But how do you know what the Gosple taught by Jesus is if the only records of it are ones "according to other people".

Thats always bothered me too. The New testament strikes me as a cobbling together of a lot of people saying what they want people to believe.

Then again, I dont consider it proof that the Koran is from God just because its poetic. You can be poetic without knowing how to write.

Any christians around to answer?

"Then again, I dont consider it proof that the Koran is from God just because its poetic. You can be poetic without knowing how to write."

In fact, poetry is especially important in societies where people are illiterate because it is a good way to memorize things that would be hard to memorize as prose. That's probably how poetry origionated--a way for illiterate bards to keep track of their stories.

Things to keep close in mind. Muhammad (PBUH) did not have the pleasure of growing up in areas of civilization excelling in Academia and Philosophy like many other influential figures in history. He grew up in Mecca (modern day Saudi Arabia), at that time a desolate and backward area of the world shrouded in ignorance.

The Arabs of that time would compete in poetry and Arabic was at its highest level of eloquence. That is why the Qur'an was revealed in the unparalleled Arabic that was considered far supreme to any of the great poets of that time, it was a sign from God.

Also another thing to consider. There was little outward indication that Muhammad (PBUH) was to be a remarkable man that would change human history. It was not until suddenly at the age of 40 that the revelation came down and he begin to dictate this revelation to the people. He had never had the reputation of a respected poet at that time. Instead he had the reputation as a beloved, and trustworthy, honorable man. They used to call him by "Al-Sadiq, Al-Ameen", "The Truthful and Respected".

It has always fascinated me that most of the atheists I find here in the West have become atheist usually from Christianity... disputing some of the apparent unjustfied traditions stated in the Bible. Such as "And God hardened Pharaoh's heart." This idea does not exist in Islam. I encourage all of those who truly call themselves Skeptics and Truth-Seekers to read the Qur'an and understand the Islamic tradition before declaring that God does not exist or their agnosticism. Do not loop all the monotheistic religions together without knowing all of them very well. Islam makes it very clear that where Judaism and Christianity go wrong and deviate which has been done largely through the fabricating (intentional and unintentional) pens of the scribes. Such as the scribes attempting to reconstruct the Torah after they had lost it thanks to the Babylonians. Also, the four gospels of the Bible being named wishfully and blatantly wrong after the disciples of Jesus. All of the writers of the Gospels are arbitrarily anonymous and show ignorance of the Torah and geography, (Gospel of Mark especially).

Islam has come to bring the religion back to its true origin and complete the faith.

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Of course, this all assumes that there is any secular history of the time period and location under discussion. Is Muhammad mentioned in any contamporary source other than Islamic religious tradition? If not, there is no reason to accept this view of him unless one accepts the validity of the histories of him written by those who would want to make him seem as obviously inspired as possible. I have to admit I have not made any real study of the history of Islam, so I don't really know much about the time period. I do recall reading in several locations that there is no historical or archiological evidence that Mecca existed in Mohammed's time--this seems odd if it was a village with an important shrine to the gods of the pre-Islamic Arabs.


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While I accept that it is wise to try to understand the teachings of all religions, many of the arguements for agnosticism do not depend on Christianity or any other religion's teachings--they are instead based on the idea that the existance of any god cannot be proven or disproven by any evidence.


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Certainly true, but I think most Christians except the most fundamentalists accept that the gosples were written by people who couldn't have known Jesus.

>>IM is the Hebrew plural of respect.
The problem is that in English they have translated parts as 'Us' 'We' etc without telling people that it is a plural of respect.<<

Muzaakboy, teach your teacher.
I'm a fluent speaker of Hebrew, as well as a bible scholar, and I can tell you that the suffix "IM" in 96% of the language is pluralizing.
The rest of the time its merely part of the word. Like MAYIM (water) Shamayim (sky) chayim, (life). etc.

If you want info about Judaism, I suggest you go find a Jewish scholar. They usually know their relegion, not mention their book, (the bible) better then any other people, including recent muslim converts being trained in the falsehoods of all other relegions.
for info on the New testament, find a preist to argue with. Muzaakboy would be a good source for all things Muslim. He can teach us stuff from his teacher.

Thanks, Leo.

anytime.
R, if you want serious stuff about any particular relegion, find someone who belongs to that relegion, and is considered a scholar. Every relegion has outreach programs ready and willing to prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that theirs is the correct one. Obviously you are not going to get the complete picture from a recently converted muslim.

I dont really do philisophical debates, but the word Elokim is used to connote a power. Its used in two specific contexts inthe bible. One is singular, (that is, its always preceded by a verb in the singular. In english, the closest you can get to the specificity of Hebrew is 'him' instead of 'them'.) the other is plural. The plural one is always, without exception, talking about powers worshipped by other nations, (ie: not the Jews.) The singular is used for The-source-of-all-powers kind of description- which is why it is singular. The source of all powers, meaning, one God.

Like I said, I dont do debates, so I probably wont be back.
Adios, and have an enjoyable rest of your life in the case that we dont meet again.

I hope the recent convert thing was not a jibe at me, as I have been a Muslim for several years, and studied it before coming to brace Islam.

An I do agree it is best to learn from a scholor or someone else with a high degree of knowledge.

Adib