The Bible and the Qu'ran

Tonight was the second week in the Islam seminar by Dr. Richard Wells at South Canyon Baptist Church in Rapid City. The title of tonight's presentation was "The Bible and the Qu'ran." While last week's contrasted God and Allah, this week's compared and contrasted the Bible and the Qu'ran.

Below are my notes in mostly raw format; again time is short. But I think you'll get the gist of what Dr. Wells said, these notes being quotes or very close paraphrases of what he said.

I'm encoding and uploading the video I took tonight and hopefully it'll be ready in the morning. I'll post it here, as I did last week's video, as soon as it's ready.

Meanwhile, I hope these notes are useful...

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There is no place in the Qu’ran for suffering, yet Paul says all who desire to live a Godly life in Jesus Christ will experience suffering.

As Dr. Wells mentioned last week, there is no such thing as a legitimate translation of the Qu’ran because Muslims believe a perfect copy of the Qu’ran exists in Heaven, and it is in Arabic. Therefore all copies must be in Arabic in order to be true to the original.

The Qu’ran is regarded as “the very words of God.”

The most widely accepted understanding of the plenary verbal theory of inspiration. This means we do not believe that the Scriptures just sort of fell down from the sky. Many people may believe, like the King James Version, that the apostle Paul used thee and thou and 17th Century English, but that's simply not the case. Old Testament was mostly in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic. New Testament was in Greek. We believe that God “bore along these holy men of old” so that even though they wrote using their own linguistic vocabulary, and ended up writing exactly what God wanted to be written. These were not just inspired concepts, but the actual words were inspired.

By contrast, the Qu’ran is viewed as a dictation from Allah.. It was given to Mohammed over the course of about 22 years through a number of visions. The Qu’ran was known orally until sometime after Mohammed died, and it was then written down by men who knew him.

To Muslims, it is viewed as the dictated words of Allah, with the perfect copy of this dictation existing in Heaven in Arabic. The Qu’ran in Muslim theology is itself as a sacred object.

"I love my copy of God’s word," Wells said of his Bible. "While I hold the Word of God in the highest reverence, I don’t think of this particular copy of God’s word I hold in my hand as a sacred object. To hold any sacred text in holy reverence is bibliolatry."

But Muslims believe the Qu’ran cannot be touched with impure hands. God intends His Word to be in our hearts. He wants us to worship Him and not an object of sacred text.

The Hadith is a collection of sayings. Since Mohammed didn’t write anything, being illiterate, and there wasn’t even a Qu’ran at the beginning, in order for Islam to develop as a religion after 632 AD, it was felt that the sayings and teachings of Mohammed needed to be written down. After Mohammed’s death, there were vast numbers of sayings, etc. concerning the life, practices, teachings etc. of Mohammed. Collectively these are known as the Hadith. There isn’t just one simple collection of the Hadith; there are thousands of these sayings. How do we know any go back to Mohammed? We have no idea, only the word of those who wrote them, and in many cases we don’t know who these people are. There are several major collections of these. This also helps explain why there are so many differences in the various sects of Islam, because different groups of Muslims use different Hadiths.

The Qu’ran isn’t what drives Islam as much as the Hadith does. The sunna are the practices of Muslims, and there is a saying among Muslims is that the Qu’ran doesn’t interpret the sunna, but the sunna interpret the Qu’ran. In other words, the Qu’ran has to be interpreted in light of these practices.

In Christianity, you have the Bible, but there are also religious traditions. Many people in Christendom believe these traditions are important in carrying out Christianity. However the dominant theology for centuries has understood that it is the Bible alone that dictates orthodox Christianity. Sola Scriptura; the Bible alone is sufficient. Most statements of faith in churches today say something like, “We believe the Bible is the revelation of God…and it is the only sure guide to faith and practice.”

In Islam, it is the Qu’ran and the Hadith. And at a practical level, the Hadith is seen as more important than the Qu’ran.

It has sometimes been said that the Qu’ran has but one point (quoting Islamic scholars): the absolute unity of God. Absolute monotheism. This is where we as Christians we have our greatest problems or differences with the Qu’ran.

Reading from Surah 19, verse 35.

It is not befitting to Allah that he should sire a son. Glory be to him! When he determines a matter, he only says to it, be, and it is.

And skipping to verse 88

88 They say: Allah most gracious has sired a son!
89 Indeed you have put forth a thing most monstrous!
90 At it the skies are ready to burst, the earth to split apart, and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin,
91 That they should invoke a son for Allah most gracious.
92 For it is not consonant with the majesty of Allah most gracious that he should sire a son.

Deuteronomy 6:4 says Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. We would all as Christians agree with this. So where’s the difference? It bears on the nature of the Qu’ran.

Remember also that Christians do not believe in many gods (or three gods). We see God manifesting himself in three distinct beings of the Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. To many, the distinction may seem nonexistent, but it is very important and very real.

The Qu’ran came into existence in the space of a generation, basically Mohammed’s lifetime. Some might see this as a virtue.

The word “canon” is the word we use as Christians to describe what we call the Bible. These are the 66 books of the Bible. Canon is a Greek word originally meaning a reed which could be used to measure things. We use the word to mean those books which have come to be accepted as true Scripture, as opposed to the vast amount of writings that are not accepted as canonical.

For instance, why weren’t the other letters written by Paul included in the Bible? We don’t regard everything he wrote as Scripture.

With the Qu’ran, men who knew Mohammed wrote down after his death what they could remember of what he had said. This resulted in many discrepancies in what these men wrote down and the Third Khalifat tried to put them all together.

The Bible was put together over about 1,600 years by dozens of different men on three different continents. The Jewish scholars recognized that certain books were of prophetic character. They also recognized that there was something about these books that gave them “life.” By 275 BC when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the Old Testament canon was already established.

New Testament canon had to have apostolic authority and “evidence of life.” When they were read, taught and preached, did God work in people’s lives? AD 368 the Bishop of Alexandria said over the years since the resurrection of Christ, these books have proven themselves time and time again.

The Qu’ran claims to be the very word of God out of Heaven, but it grotesquely misinterprets the Christian faith. It accuses Christians of what they have never believed. The most significant example concerns the Trinity. The Qu’ran actually teaches the virgin birth of Jesus. Surah 3 verse 45 talks about the virgin birth of Jesus, though it sounds like the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.

It says Christians believe in three Gods. It says God had a son with Mary
Surah 4 verse 171 says Jesus was only a messenger of Allah and tells Christians to cease saying there are three Gods. We have never believed this or said this. Not even cult Christians have ever believed there are three Gods, but the Qu’ran claims we do. Claims like this are many throughout the Qu’ran.

Even Islamic scholars struggle with this. Islamic writer Caesar Farah says "Perhaps one reason for the differing conceptions of the Qu'ran background lies in the seeming contradictions to the untrained eye…In the twenty-three years of Mohammed's prophethood, revelations were received as the occasion merited. Chronology was not the factor, and what appeared out of focus at first was usually set in perspective by further revelation at a later date." [in other words, Mohammed corrected himself]. Apparently Mohammed was not concerned with the exact wordings of the revelations.

Continuing to quote Farah “We have, by way of example, revelations recognizing the two pagan deities, al-Uzzah and al-Lat as the daughters of Allah; we have also revelations rescinding the same. This suggests a much different time frame. To Mohammed there was no contradiction here because if Allah is absolute and arbitrary, why should there be any restraint on what he commands and forbids? Allah may vary his ordinances at pleasure, prescribing one set of laws for the Jews, another for the Christians, and still another for Muslims.”

This is another difference between God and Allah: God is unchanging and consistent, where Allah can change at whim and even contradict himself if he chooses.

As Christians we hold to the Word of God because we see that for hundreds of years, God acted through history, chose a people for himself, gave prophecies and fulfilled them, and those over the centuries who have read God’s word and believed on it have found life, forgiveness, and hope. They have been able to star in the face of death and accept it with joy and peace. This is the difference.

Near the end of the seminar, Wells read the story of a man who was condemned to die for converting to Christianity, and said this illustrates the difference between the Bible and the Qu’ran. This man, though condemned, refused to recant his belief, and still faced death with peaceful reassurance.

Next week's seminar will be about Islam and prophecy. And what has happened in the last 500 years to bring us to where we are now.