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Muhammad claimed that the "People of the Book," (the Children of Israel, the Jews), "changed the words from their right places and forgot a good part of the message" and "altered words from their context and neglected a portion of the message they were reminded of." Yet the evidence proves otherwise. Virtually every place, person, custom, and event depicted in the Bible has been shown to have been grounded in history. And nearly every single archeological artifact, from Noah to Abraham, from Moses to Christ, is evidenced by the Bible and dated to a time preceding Islam. Since the historically verified people, places, and dates correspond perfectly to the Biblical account, then things can not be as the Qur'an claims them to be. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) survives to this day. It was translated 275 years before Christ. It matches today's Old Testament with astonishing fidelity. In addition, the Dead Sea Scrolls date between 250 BC and 70 AD, and are virtually indistinguishable from today's text. On them, Yahweh's name is written 6,868 times and Allah's not even once. Nor is Mecca or the Ka'aba. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint prove that the words of the Torah, Psalms, and Prophets did not change during the thousand years preceding Islam - or in the fourteen hundred years since. Concerning the New Testament, by the time Muslims said it was corrupted, there were hundreds of translations and as many as a hundred thousand copies distributed throughout the civilized world. And twenty-five thousand New Testament fragments and scrolls dating to more than five hundred years before the earliest surviving Qur'an testify that the Gospels remain unaltered. For Islam's claim to be true, all of these sources - the historical, the archeological, the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the hundreds of thousands of copies of the Old and New Testaments-- would all have to have been altered in a conspiratorial fashion that defies rational thought. The odds are beyond impossible. No scholar, historian, or archeologist has ever discovered any artifact to suggest that the Bible erred - not even in the smallest detail. In fact, the opposite is true. So the Qur'an's claim is impossible. And that means Islam cannot possibly be true. From chapter 14, "The Anti-Semite" I would like to give Maududi another chance, since this is the fulcrum surah of the Qur'an. More changed than just the Qiblah. He wrote, "The Jews had strayed away from Islam during the centuries of degeneration and had adopted many un-Islamic creeds, rites, and customs of which there was no mention and for which there was no sanction in the Torah. Not only this: they had tampered with the Torah by inserting their own explanations and interpretations into its text. They had distorted even that part of the Word of God which had remained intact in their Scriptures and taken out of it the real spirit of true religion and were now clinging to a lifeless frame of rituals." This is the very heart of the matter. It is the Qur'an's justification, its sole tenuous hope of authenticity. It is the reason for the change in Qiblah, and the impetus behind Islamic hatred and Muslim militancy. If Islam were not so ruthless, so fixated upon submission for the benefit of cleric and king, this assertion would have killed it. The claim that the Torah was inspired by Allah and its characters were Muslims requires it to have been corrupted beyond recognition. The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls prove beyond any doubt that tampering did not occur. Since archeology has proven that the Jews did not distort the Torah, the Qur'an is a lie. Muhammad deceived men on behalf of a god no bigger than the rock he occupied. However, it was not all as simple as that. The dark spirit that inspired Muhammad to make these preposterous claims was in a predicament himself. He (like his prophet) was covetous, so Lucifer wanted what belonged to Yahweh: the Jews and their Torah. It is no coincidence that a race representing a tiny fraction of one percent of the world's population became the victim of Islam's wrath. It should be no surprise that modern history's most famous occultist, Adolf Hitler, also wrapped himself in Bible symbols and picked the same enemy. They were both possessed by the same spirit. I dedicated the "Bad Boys" chapter in Tea With Terrorists to exposing the similarities between these men and their doctrines. I encourage you to read it if you haven't already. Considering that Muhammad indulged in pedophilia, led a dozen terrorist raids, inspired thievery, kidnapping, and murder, and said that his "spirit" approved such things, Maududi's comments are astonishing: "Consequently their [Jewish] beliefs, their morals and their conduct had gone to the lowest depths of degeneration. The pity is that they were not only satisfied with their condition but loved to cling to it. Besides this, they had no inclination to accept any kind of reform. So they became bitter enemies of those who came to teach them the Right Way and did their worst to defeat every effort. Though they were originally Muslims, they had swerved from real Islam and made alterations in it and had fallen victims to hair splitting. They had forgotten and forsaken Allah so much so that they had even given up their original name 'Muslim' and adopted the name 'Jew' instead. They made religion the sole monopoly of the Jews." Islam is apparently contagious. Maududi has become delusional. It's pathetic that Islamic clerics have to lie to make their prophet, scripture, god, and religion appear believable. These ideas are preposterous, wholly incongruous with history and reason. And while countless clerics have mumbled foolish things on behalf of their meal ticket, this is not Maududi's interpretation. This gross deception is proclaimed throughout the Qur'an. I recognize that we have been over this material before, but it's essential that you appreciate the impossibility of Islam's position. For Yahweh to have been Allah, for Jerusalem to have been Mecca, for the Temple to have been the Ka'aba, for Judaism to have been Islam, for Jews to have been Muslims most every word on most every page of the Bible would have had to have been corrupted, as would world history. While there is no intersection of history and Islam prior to Muhammad's death, Judeo-Christianity lived in the crossroads of nations. Imagine millions of people not knowing who they were, where they were, what they were doing, or why. Imagine dismembering thousands of Torahs, Books of the Prophets, and Psalms in a massive conspiratorial fashion so that they would all be the exactly the same - so that they would all deny their name, their purpose, their city, their temple, their God. Not only would thousands of (at the time nonexistent) Islamic symbols, names, and places have had to have been edited out, the Jewish symbols, names and places would have had to have been surreptitiously and universally substituted. And for what - to foil a demon-possessed, dictatorial tyrant who wouldn't be born for 2000 years? But alas, it is no greater leap of faith to believe the impossible corruption occurred than to believe that Islam is divine. The reason I encouraged you to read about Biblical archeology was so that you might have an appreciation for the magnitude of this deception. The 20th century brought an explosion of historically-based Biblical verifications. Virtually every place, person, custom, and event depicted in the Bible has been shown to have been grounded in history. And every single archeological artifact, from Noah to Abraham, from Moses to Christ, is evidenced scripturally and dated to a time preceding Mecca's existence. Since the historically-verified people, places, and dates correspond perfectly to the Biblical account, things cannot be as the Qur'an protests. Islam is a lie. From chapter 14, "The Anti-Semite" Allah, the god who said he turned Jews into "swine and apes," claims: Qur'an 2.47 "Remember, Children of Israel, the favor which I bestowed on you, and made you exalted among the nations of the world, preferring you to men and jinn." But then: Qur'an 2.59 "The [Jewish] transgressors changed and perverted the word from that which had been spoken to them to a word distorted; so We sent a plague upon them from heaven, for their evil-doing." The god of "favors" "bestowed a plague from heaven." Bukhari:V4B56N679 "Allah's Apostle said, 'Plague was a means of torture sent on the Israelis.'" While we differ on plagues being heavenly, bigger questions remain: when, how, and why did the Bible get so distorted that it became the opposite of the Qur'an? The claim is the crux of Islam, yet no Muslim cleric, prophet, or god has ever provided a rational explanation. And without an answer, Islam is a counterfeit, a lousy job of plagiarizing, nothing more. The Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls irrefutably prove that the Torah has remained unchanged since at least 250 B.C., a thousand years before the Qur'an was written. Since Islam claims otherwise, it's a fraud, not a religion. Not only is there a mountain of historical evidence to refute Muhammad's claim, reason alone will suffice. For the Jews to have written Allah, Muhammad, Mecca, the Ka'aba, Appeasement, Arabic, Islam, Tax, Jihad, Submit, Religion, Muslim, and the Five Pillars out of the Torah and Yahweh, the Messiah, Jerusalem, the Temple, Atonement, Hebrew, Judaism, Tithe, Love, Choose, Relationship, Jews, and the Ten Commandments in, requires a conspiracy infinitely beyond anything the world has ever known. A total suspension of rational thought is required to believe Allah. And then there is the little problem of motivation. Why would the nation of Israel collectively and comprehensively alter the totality of their scriptures and history in an attempt to foil a conman a thousand miles away and a thousand years distant? From chapter 17, "Good Muslims Kill" Along that same line, Allah declares the impossible: Qur'an 3.3 "He has verily revealed to you this Book, in truth and confirmation of the Books revealed before, as indeed He had revealed the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)." Although we have covered this before, it bears repeating. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint prove that the words of the Torah, Psalms, and Prophets did not change during the thousand years preceding Islam - or in the fourteen hundred years since. And twenty-five thousand New Testament fragments and scrolls dating to more than five hundred years before the earliest surviving Qur'an testify that the Gospels remain unaltered. Allah's claim that his Qur'an confirms books that differ in every way and on every page is ludicrous to the point of lunacy. Further, the magnitude of the supposed conspiracy to write Yahweh, Jews, Judaism, Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple, the Messiah, love, relationship, and peace into the Scriptures - and Allah, Arabs, Islam, Arabia, Mecca, the Ka'aba, Muhammad, hate, punishment, and war out - is beyond comprehension. The odds are beyond impossible. Islam is therefore based upon a false proclamation, a false god, and a false prophet. From chapter 17, "Good Muslims Kill" Since the verse is fatal to Islam, let's try another translation. "(And remember) when the angels said: Mary! Lo! Allah gives you glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is Christ Jesus, the Messiah, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the hereafter. The problem isn't the translation; it's the inspiration. The instant Allah admitted that "Jesus" was the Messiah, Islam was finished - at least for anyone who knows anything about "Allah's. divinely inspired Bible. But it's a great trick if you can pull it off. So in the 4th surah Allah bares all: Qur'an 4.171 "O people of the Book (Christians), do not be fanatical in your faith, and say nothing but the truth about Allah. The Messiah who is Isa (Jesus), son of Mariam, was only a messenger of Allah, nothing more. He bestowed His Word on Mariam and His Spirit. So believe in Allah and say not Trinity for Allah is one Ilah (God)…far be it from His Glory to beget a son." The "Messiah" is Yahweh's "Anointed." There are over 500 prophecies proclaiming His arrival, all of which Yahshua fulfilled (or will fulfill in his second coming). The prophet Isaiah wrote these words about him in chapter 9 of his book: "For unto us a child will be born...and His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father." In the 53rd chapter, Isaiah, speaking of the salvation the Messiah would bring to mankind from his cross, said: "He will be wounded for our transgressions.… We are like sheep, gone astray, so He will lay on Him the iniquity of us all.… The Righteous One shall bear the sins of many." If Allah was right, and "Jesus" is the Messiah, he is Mighty God. If he is God, the Allah/Lucifer combo aren't So that there is no misunderstanding here, you should know that the Messiah is central to the Bible, the fulcrum upon which the entire story pivots. His coming was proclaimed throughout the Scriptures. And there isn't the slightest possibility of revisionist history. The Biblical prophecies were written 400 to 1200 years before Yahweh entered our world as a man to show us what he was like, building a bridge from our polluted world to his perfect realm. The oldest Dead Sea Scroll fragments date to 250 B.C., a thousand years before the earliest surviving Qur'an. The Isaiah scroll is preserved in one piece, unaltered. It still proclaims the truth more than 2700 years after it was inspired and 2000 years after a scribe copied Isaiah's predictions onto the scroll that was discovered in Qumran. The combination of that scroll and these verses render an undeniable verdict: Islam is a complete fraud. It provides irrefutable proof that Allah was no more divine than an average garden rock. Lucifer, the wannabe god, and Muhammad, the wannabe prophet, were a pair of cons - just common crooks. Ill-mannered and moronic, they tried to play in Yahweh's league. Moreover, they tried to steal Yahweh's league - our souls. It's little wonder Allah says, "Booty is lawful and good," that he admits to being a deceptive schemer, or that he is fixated on hell. Continuing to speak of Yahshua, the Qur'an proclaims: Qur'an 3.46 "And he shall speak to the people when in the cradle and when of old age, and shall be one of the good ones." By claiming that he spoke while in swaddling clothes, Allah is conferring supernatural status on Christ - a status Muhammad did not enjoy. As for speaking in old age, that's impossible. There are ossuaries from mid first-century tombs with crosses carved into them and the words "Yahshua Saves." Since the Messiah was born around 2 B.C., and the sarcophaguses memorializing his crucifixion are dated to as early as 50 A.D., he couldn't have been old. Further, the Gospels detail his life in the context of history and they say that he was in his mid-thirties when he entered Jerusalem, died for our sins, and was resurrected. From "Source Material - Islam's Dark Past" "While Christianity can claim more than 5,500 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,500 other early versions, adding up to 25,000 New Testament manuscripts still in existence (McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict), most of which were written between 25 to 350 years after the death and resurrection of Christ (or between the 1st and 4th centuries), Islam cannot provide a single manuscript until well into the eighth century (Lings, Safadi, Schimmel). If Christians could retain so many thousands of ancient manuscripts, all of which were written centuries earlier, at a time when paper had not yet been introduced, forcing the dependency on papyrus which disintegrated more rapidly, then one wonders why Muslims were unable to forward a single manuscript from this much later period? This renders the argument that all the earliest Qur'ans simply disintegrated with age, absurd to the extreme." Excerpts from the Feedback Pages need some answers to these Bible contradictions, so that I may help a Muslim I'm working with. (L) You are going in the wrong direction here. A Muslim cannot criticize the Torah, Psalms, or Gospels without destroying Allah's credibility because the Qur'an claims Allah inspired them. So this is pointless for them and a waste of time for you. I covered the 101 most common Islamic claims of contradiction in the Bible in the article posted at the site called 101 Cleared Up Contradictions in the Bible. More can be found on the Resources page. We've also posted links to sites that deal adequately with "Biblical contradictions" on the Links page. If this stuff is of interest to you, read it. If not, forget it. The bottom line is that contradictions apart from meaningless scribal error are very rare in the OT and they don't discredit the book because Yahweh was smart enough to avoid claims that His scriptures were inerrant. The reasons for which are interesting but well beyond the scope of this email. The majority of implied contradictions occur because snippets of conversations are removed from their context. Understanding requires context. Others are the result of poor translations. Most result from not reading the whole book so that one does not understand the nature of Yahweh. Allah wasn't that smart, however. He claimed that the Qur'an was perfect yet it is scientifically and historically foolish and so contradictory it has verses that excuse its contradictions. So you need to focus on Allah's Qur'anic claims and then use them to prove that Islam is a fraud. Until you get the Muslim to address the idiocy of Islam, they are not in a position to review the godliness of Yahweh's Scriptures. My mission isn't to get people to accept Yahweh's scriptures, I just want them free of Islam so that they have the opportunity to chose. The choice is up to them. We are commanded to rebuke false teachings and false prophets. And we are called to present the truth. If someone wishes to ignore the rebuke and ignore the truth, it's up to them. Our job is done. As for your first comment, this is a part of Yahweh's 10 Commandments. When Muhammad violated all of them, he made a fool of himself because he said that his god wrote the book that revolves around them. The 2nd commandment is an order not to make or worship an idol. It isn't contradicted by the mercy seat command because the mercy seat symbolically represents Yahweh's throne on earth - the place where His spirit resides. It's called the mercy seat because it is the place where atonement occurred - something completely alien to Islam. The fact that Yahweh's relationship with man, according to the Torah and Gospels, was conditioned on atonement combined with Allah's claim he inspired them yet has no provision for atonement proves that Islam is a lie. The reason Muslims attack the Apostle Paul is that he didn't write a gospel they claim Allah inspired. Sadly, if they would only think, they'd realize that Allah's claim to have inspired the Gospels is absolute proof that the Qur'an is a lie. If Allah did this, how could they be errant and contradictory? How could their message be the opposite of the Qur'an? How could one be based on relationship, love, choice, atonement, the Messiah, and the ten commandments, and the other on no relationship, hate, submission, no atonement, no Messiah, and an attack on each of the ten commandments? Muslims will claim that they were altered around the time of Christ. But they provide no evidence. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary. And the degree to which they would have to be altered to be from the same God would require most every word on most every page to be purposely corrupted. Yet the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that the Bible hasn't change at all in 2300 years. So Muslims lose either way. As such they are irrational. And being irrational, refuting these "Bible contradictions" will not help them. In the end, the Muslim who brought up these questions isn't interested in the answers. He isn't going to be saved by them. (Craig) |
