Disclaimer: This video may offend some people
Disclaimer: This video may offend some people
My article on the subject:
http://www.answeringabraham.com/2013/05/does-allah-have-penis-allah-is-capable.html
And:
http://www.answeringabraham.com/2012/08/joes-joesph-exposes-allah.html
Muslim Poem Not So Poetic: "Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus" Response
Disclaimer: Contains offensive language
In response to Kamal Saleh's video found here:
Pause the video for references supplied.
9/11 Mainstream View vs Conspiracy Theory
I think we've all had some skeptical thoughts regarding 9/11. Why do eye witnesses report hearing bombs going off in the basements? Why does it look like a controlled demolition? Why is there no plane parts around the Penetegon? Why do some report it as a Missile? Is the American government really incompetent enough to let cave-men attack the U.S.A? How do these arabs raelly get pass the elite forces of the United States, how is that possible?
We could poke holes in this theory all day!
It turns out the conspiracy theorists don't have a stronger case as many of us originally thought:
I for one would love to get my hands on this book.
We could poke holes in this theory all day!
It turns out the conspiracy theorists don't have a stronger case as many of us originally thought:
I for one would love to get my hands on this book.
Muslims: Calm Down - from TheAmazingAtheist TJ
Looks like TJ is on the way to discovering something many other Atheists have. One religion is more fucked up than the others.
Is there a valid distinction between religion and a relationship with Jesus Christ?
Evangelicals usually say "religion" and "a relationship with Jesus" are completely different.
Religion is about man working his way to God, Christianity is God coming down to man. Religion is about following rules and laws, Christianity is about life transforming relationship with Jesus.
Of course all these "distinctions" are highly ambiguous, vague, unbiblical, have nothing to do with Jesus himself and are really just a modern polemic for a clueless non-Christian audience to view Christianity as a modern fade and join up!
This kind of thinking has already effected the older generations of Christians, who actually buy into this hype and mutter these kind of distinctions as "legitimate".
TJ, TheAmazingAtheist gives his thoughts about this topic and exposes one particular Christian Evangelist who thinks like this:
Religion is about man working his way to God, Christianity is God coming down to man. Religion is about following rules and laws, Christianity is about life transforming relationship with Jesus.
Of course all these "distinctions" are highly ambiguous, vague, unbiblical, have nothing to do with Jesus himself and are really just a modern polemic for a clueless non-Christian audience to view Christianity as a modern fade and join up!
This kind of thinking has already effected the older generations of Christians, who actually buy into this hype and mutter these kind of distinctions as "legitimate".
TJ, TheAmazingAtheist gives his thoughts about this topic and exposes one particular Christian Evangelist who thinks like this:
Sweden and Islam: Just what the hell is going on in Sweden?
I've seen various articles and videos scattered across the internet including Wikipedia, YouTube etc, none of them have fully explained the situation in Sweden. Alas I have finally found something worth posting. Here a more fuller picture:
"Sweden is the best Islamic State." — Adly Abu Hajar, Imam based in Malmö
Hundreds of Muslim immigrants have rampaged through parts of the Swedish capital of Stockholm, torching cars and buses, setting fires, and hurling rocks at police.
The unrest -- a predictable consequence of Sweden's failed model of multiculturalism, which does not encourage Muslim immigrants to assimilate or integrate into Swedish society -- is an ominous sign of things to come.
The trouble began after police fatally shot an elderly man brandishing a machete in a Muslim-majority neighborhood. Although the exact circumstances of the May 13 incident remain unclear, police say they shot the 69-year-old man (his nationality has not been disclosed) in self-defense after he allegedly threatened them with the weapon.
Two days later, on May 15, a Muslim youth organization called Megafonen arranged a protest against alleged police brutality and demanded an independent investigation and a public apology.
On May 19, Muslim youths initiated a riot in Husby, a heavily Muslim suburb in the western part of Stockholm where more than 80% of the residents originate from Africa and the Middle East.
At least 100 masked Muslim youths set fire to cars and buildings, smashed windows, vandalized property and hurled rocks and bottles at police and rescue services in Husby. The riots quickly spread to at least 15 other parts of Stockholm, including the districts of Fittja, Hagsätra, Kista, Jakobsberg, Norsborg, Skaerholmen, Skogås and Vaarberg.
After two nights of spiraling violence, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt appealed for calm, condemning the riots as hooliganism. But his plea ("Everyone must pitch in to restore calm -- parents, adults") failed to prevent more nights of unrest, during which Muslim youth set fire to two schools, a police station, a restaurant, and a cultural center, and burned more than 50 cars and buses.
The unrest -- which has many parallels to the Muslim riots that occurred in France in 2005 -- has shocked Swedes who have long turned a blind eye to immigration policies that have encouraged the establishment of a parallel Muslim society in Sweden.
Although there are no official statistics of Muslims in Sweden, the US State Department reported in 2011 that there are now between 450,000 and 500,000 Muslims in the country, or about 5% of the total population of 9.5 million.
Muslim immigration to Sweden has been fostered by open-door asylum policies that are among the most generous in the world.
During the early 1990s, for example, Sweden granted asylum to nearly 100,000 refugees fleeing the wars in the Balkans. Sweden has also been a magnet for refugees from Iraq; as a result of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Gulf War (1990-1991) and the Iraq War (2003-2011), there are now more than 120,000 Iraqis living in Sweden. In fact, Iraqis (both Christians and Muslims) now make up the second-largest ethnic minority group in Sweden, second only to ethnic Finns.
More recently, Sweden has granted asylum to thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria, as well as from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
Sweden is forecast to receive some 54,000 asylum seekers in 2013, according to the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket), the highest level since the 1990s. In 2012, Sweden accepted 44,000 asylum seekers, up by nearly a half from 2011.
Sweden is expected to receive at least 18,000 Syrians in 2013 alone. Since September 2012, asylum seekers have arrived in Sweden at the rate of 1,250 per week, far more than the Migration Board's capacity of between 500 and 700.
Sweden is a prime destination for asylum seekers because the country offers new immigrants free housing and social welfare benefits upon arrival. But many immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East are poorly educated and have great difficulty finding a job in Sweden.
As a result, many immigrants are segregated from Swedish society and often live in areas where much of the population comes from countries other than Sweden. This in turn has encouraged the creation of parallel societies and the establishment of so-called no-go zones, parts of Sweden that are off limits to non-Muslims.
In some areas, no-go zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law where Swedish authorities have effectively lost control and are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.
In the southern city of Malmö -- where Muslims make up more than 25% of the population -- fire and emergency workers refuse to enter Malmö's mostly Muslim Rosengaard district without police escorts. The male unemployment rate in Rosengaard is estimated to be above 80%. When fire fighters attempted to put out a fire at Malmö's main mosque, they were attacked by stone throwers.
In the Swedish city of Gothenburg, Muslim youth have hurled petrol bombs at police cars. In the city's Angered district, where more than 15 police cars were recently destroyed, teenagers have been pointing green lasers at the eyes of police officers, some of whom have been temporarily blinded.
In Gothenburg's Backa district, youth have been throwing stones at patrolling officers. Gothenburg police have also been struggling to deal with the problem of Muslim teenagers burning cars and attacking emergency services in several areas of the city.
At the same time, Muslim immigrants are becoming increasing assertive in demanding special rights and privileges for Islam in Sweden.
In February, for example, a mosque in Stockholm received final approval from the mayor's office to begin sounding public prayer calls from its minaret, the first time such permission has ever been granted in Sweden.
A majority of the members of the city planning committee in the southern Stockholm suburb of Botkyrka voted to repeal a 1994 prohibition on such prayer calls, thereby opening the way for a muezzin to begin calling Muslims to prayer from the top of a 32-meter (104-foot) minaret at a Turkish mosque in the Fittja district of the city.
The issue was put to a vote after Ismail Okur, the chairman of the Botkyrka Islamic Association (Islamiska föreningen i Botkyrka), filed a petition with the city in January 2012 demanding permission to allow public prayer calls at the mosque.
In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagen, Okur said earlier generations of Muslim immigrants "did not dare" to press the issue, but that he represents the "new guys" who are determined to "exercise their right to religious freedom" in Sweden.
When told that Sweden has historically been a Christian country, Okur responded: "So it was perhaps before, during the 1930s and 1940s. Now it is a new era. We are more than 100,000 [sic] Muslims in Sweden. Should we not have our religion as well, especially here in Botkyrka, where we are so many?"
Swedish multiculturalists agree. The Multicultural Center (Mångkulturellt centrum) in Botkyrka recently called on Swedes to "separate whiteness from Swedishness in order to be a socially sustainable future Swedishness."
On the other hand, a growing number of Swedes are beginning to have second thoughts about the long-term sustainability of multiculturalism and mass immigration.
Immigration Minister Tobias Billström recently marked a turning point in the debate when he told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that Sweden needs to tighten rules for asylum seekers and other would-be immigrants to reduce the number of people coming into the country.
"Today Sweden is one of the countries that receives the most immigrants in the EU. That's not sustainable," Billström said. "Today, people are coming to households where the only income is support from the municipality. Is that reasonable?" he added.
Reflecting the unease about immigrants among many voters, an anti-immigrant party, the conservative Sweden Democrats, have risen to third-place in the polls ahead of a general election set to take place in September 2014.
But the riots in Stockholm imply that the damage has already been done. The fatal flaw of Swedish multiculturalism has been to grant asylum to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have no prospect of ever finding a job or making a meaningful contribution to Swedish society. Many immigrants are, and will remain, wards of the state.
The Malmö-based Imam Adly Abu Hajar, in an interview with the newspaper Skånska Dagbladet, recently summed it up this way: "Sweden is the best Islamic state." (source)
Criticism of Islam forbidden in Australia
THE Australian National University has cited international violence in the wake of the Danish cartoon and Innocence of Muslims controversies in justifying its decision to force student newspaper Woroni to pulp a satirical infographic which described a passage from the Koran as a "rape fantasy".
The university also threatened student authors and editors of the infographic with disciplinary action, including academic exclusion and the withdrawal of the publication's funding.
The piece was the fifth in a satirical series entitled "Advice from Religion" which had previously discussed Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism and Judaism.
No complaints were received about any of the earlier instalments.
In the April 16 edition of Woroni, authors Jamie Freestone, Mathew McGann and Todd Cooper posed the question, "How should I value women?"
Their answers referenced Aisha, the prophet Mohammed's nine-year-old wife, and described the 72 "houris" - women depicted in the Koran as large-bosomed virgins who are a reward in paradise - as a "rape fantasy".
The following day, Freestone, McGann, Cooper and Woroni's eight-person board of editors were summoned to a meeting with members of the ANU Chancelry, including pro-vice-chancellor (student Experience) Richard Baker, following a formal complaint from the ANU Students' Association's International Students' Department.
The Chancelry then issued a statement to Woroni, maintaining the infographic breached university rules and Australian Press Council guidelines, as well as posing a threat to the ANU's reputation and security.
"In a world of social media, (there is) potential for material such as the article in question to gain attention and traction in the broader world and potentially harm the interests of the university and the university community," the statement said.
"This was most clearly demonstrated by the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy ... and violent protests in Sydney on September 15 last year."
Woroni responded by publishing an apology on its website to any readers who felt they had been victimised, but noted that the piece was intended to be satirical.
At a subsequent meeting with deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Marnie Hughes-Warrington, the editors and authors were threatened with disciplinary action if they did not immediately remove the offending page from the online version of the newspaper.
The editors co-operated and the threat of disciplinary action was consequently withdrawn, but concerns remain about the precedent the incident has set for freedom of speech on campus.
The Australian understands that during the controversy, a member of the International Students' Department told Freestone words to the effect, "I don't think you understand the seriousness of this. In Pakistan, people get shot for this kind of thing." (source)
GodBless Exposed
godbless_u_67: isogum...the spirit is telling me to tell you TO GO FUCK YOURSELF AND MYSTY TOO
godbless_u_67: mysty is drowning in her shit tonight.
Click on images to enlarge:
godbless_u_67: liars go to hell
Does Allah have a penis? - Part 2 - A short argument by Jose Joesph
Jose Joseph said...
Q. 39:4 Allah could take a son from his creation if he so desired. And Q 6:101 says Allah doesn't have a son because he doesn't have a companion
On your second point. Allah says in the Quran "We are the best of creators". This already presupposes co-creators.
In light of both these quranic passages it is obvious that Allah is a being that is capable of procreating through sexual union.
In order for Allah to fulfill any future desires of having a son he must have a companion to produce that child. And it's a necessity for Allah to have a companion to accomplish that desire.
An objection could be, why assume sexual union? Even if I granted that it possibly isn't the case of sexual union between Allah and the companion.
There is still theological problems because that means Allah is a contingent being depending on a creature to produce for himself a child.
Secondly since some how, some way the companion helps Allah accomplish this desire that would make that companion co creator along side with Allah which Islam claims is shirk. Christtheway24
UPDATE
Jose Joseph said...
Just adding on to my previous post, notice this Quranic passage Surah 43: 81
Say [O Prophet]: "If the Most Gracious [truly] had a son, I would be the first to worship him!"
Muhammad would worship Allah's son if he had a son. And the result of that son coming to existence was through an act of Allah and his companion being co creators which is shirk
And the child would have to be a creature since Allah's son at one point of time didn't exist. Therefore since Muhmmad would be the first to worship that child that would mean Muhmmad would be committing shirk by worship of a created being.
Ironically Muslims find it problematic for Christians to worship Jesus since he is the eternal Son of Father but find no issue that Muhmmad worship a son produced by Allah and his companion which happens to be a creature.
462 Muslim Americans have been charged since 2001 for nonviolent crimes in support of terrorism
From Last Year: Radical U.S. Muslims Little Threat, Study Says
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/radical-muslim-americans-pose-little-threat-study-says.xml
A big "whoops" must be in order.
Does Allah have a penis? Allah is capable of sexual reproduction!
Can Allah have a Wife And Son?
Disclaimer
Is it possible or impossible for Allah to have a Son?
Firstly, I'll quote the Qur'an which answers this question:
Say: "If (God) Most Gracious had a son, I would be the first to worship." 43:81
Notice: "If God had a son then X would happen" pressuposes God has the ability to have a Son but has so far chosen to refrain from this. To break this down: If A occurs then B results, cause and effect. In simple logic: If A then B. If John walked, then he moved his muscles. The structure of the sentence then pressuposes John can walk if he takes that action, just like Allah can have a son if he takes that action.
Mohammed is then commanded to admit that God can have a son if he wanted to, and if God had a divine Son, Mohammed himself admits he would worship that Son of God. This means it's possible for Allah to have a son, but Allah chooses not to have a son.
However if Allah can have a son, why doesn't Allah choose to have a Son? The Quran gives us the answer itself:
Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could He have a son when He has no consort, and He (Himself) created everything, and He is the Knower of all things. 6:101
'And Exalted is the Majesty of our Lord: He has taken neither a wife nor a son. 72:3
In the past it was assumed this was a valid rhetorical question being made to the Christians. How can Jesus be the Son of God when God has no wife through which Jesus could be sexually reproduced as God's true biological Son? What this strong argument must mean is Jesus could not be the Son of God because he is not the offspring of God and his wife since God has no wife!
Muslims and Christians both thought about this and there was problems. The Quran in this verse assumes Son of God can only have one meaning, biological offspring of God.
Sam Shamoun says it best:
"To summarize, the reasoning of the Quran proceeds this way:
(1) If Allah has a son, then he must have (had sex with) a consort or wife.
(2) Allah does not have a consort (i.e. this is impossible for whatever reason).
(3) Therefore the claim that Allah has a son is refuted.
The structure is: (1) If A then B. (2) Not B. (3) Therefore, not A.
The structure of the argument is logically valid. If statements (1) and (2) were correct, then the conclusion (3) would follow. Although one could question statement (2) as well, the main problem is statement (1).
No reason is given why this statement is supposed to be true, but the argument is obviously based on analogy with human experience. The assumption is that it is not possible that a man can have a son without having sex with a woman. If there is a son, then there has to be a mother, and the man must have had sex with that mother."
If Allah was meant to be providing this as an argument to Christians he is making a false analogy from human experience and a strawman since Christians don't belive the only valid meaning of "Son" is offspring through sexual union, they never have and never will. So perhaps then, passages like this and other ones like it are being addressed to other groups of pagans or disbelievers?
Is it possible or impossible for God to have a Wife And Beget?
Furthermore this is confirmed by Muslim Apologist Ibn Anwar who cites several authorities:
"Jesus often becomes the focus of attention when discussing the verse in question even though he is not specifically the subject under discussion in the verse itself! Thus Dr. Louay Fatoohi states that “Interestingly, none of the verses (6.101, 72.3, 37.152, 112.3) that deny that God had a consort or begot offspring occurs in the context of talking about Jesus’ sonship of God.” [2]
Mawlana Abdul Majid Daryabadi in his commentary writes regarding the verse:
“This refutes the polytheism of several peoples like the Hindus, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, which maintained that each god had a female companion or consort. Indian polytheism wentstill further. ‘Even God’, according to the Upanishads, ‘had a desire for progeny and wanted a wife unto Himself for propagation.’ (Indra, Status of Women in Ancient India, pp. 129-133). See P. V, n. 513.” [3] (source)
Therefore since we know Allah may not be addressing Jews and Christians but rather Pagans, we can now evaluate the text further. The Quran then shows us how Allah is deficient in the sense of having a Son. It explains the true reason why Allah chooses not to have a son is because Allah has no consort or wife, he is lacking a necessary component of the process to produce a Son. Therefore if Allah wanted a Son, he requires a consort in order to have a Son! But why would that be? Isn't that highly suspicious for a God and Creator to need a Wife to have a Son? That seems like an awfully powerless deity.
For most of us humans this is very rational thinking: "Hey wait a minute, I'm not married, I don't have a partner, I can't have children!", therefore because we are humans and have genitals we can assume the real reason we dont yet have children is because of having no consort.
However if we didn't have any genitals or sexual organs or were reproductively deficient or more specifically we were asexual like God, we wouldn't say:
"I cant have a son because I have no consort"
Rather as a human you would say:
"I can't have a son because I am unable to court and reproduce since I have a reproduction deficiency (or I'm asexual, I cannot beget! if you're God)".
Better yet if we weren't capable of having a partner or having a consort due to a reproductive deficiency, you wouldn't be answering the question with an assumptive desire of having a Son: "I can't have a son because I don't have a wife" assumes the person desires to have a Son or is giving a proper qualification or explanation as to why it cannot have children, when supposedly it is unable to take an action that contradicts it's own nature so it needs no explanation to begin with! That's like asking "How can he (a person) jump off the cliff when he has no parachute?" But imagine if humans were incapable of jumping and incapable of having parachutes, then the question would be meaningless. Hence if Allah really is incapable of having a Son or having a Wife ontologically speaking, this response "How can Allah have a Son when he has no consort" would be meaningless. It would simply be "Allah cant have a Son or a Wife because Allah is absolute, sovereign and independent and those entity contradict those attributes".
And if there was no desire to have a son and you are asexual combined with an ontological impossiblity you would rather just be clear and say:
"By my very own anatomy it is impossible for me to have a Son, my nature prohibits me from having a Son! I literally can't have Son since I am asexual, I have no sex organs"
And if you were God of the universe: "I cannot beget, I am asexual by nature"
Therefore God can always appeal to his own asexual nature, as a non-sexual being and point out he has no sexual anatomy like humans and he certainly has no gender like humans. But it is the utterly confusing sense in which God answers this question in the Quran that causes utter chaos and confusion:
"He begets not, nor was He begotten" 112:3
"God has begotten children"? but they are liars!" 37:152
If Allah would have simply said: "He cannot beget nor is it possible he was begotten", but all the Quran confirms is that Allah chooses to beget not. So Allah wasn't begotten nor does he beget, does that mean he cannot beget? I don't know whether he can be begotten, but he can most certainly beget as:
- If Allah wanted a Son, then he would have to beget through his consort or wife as that is the only way to have a valid Son. (6:101;33:4-5)
- Allah could have a Son if he wanted (43:81)
- Therefore Allah could beget through his consort or wife
So even though the verse says "Allah begets not" it's quite apparent that Allah is passively not begetting even though he is fully capable of producing children.
Note in order for Allah to claim he can beget a Son if he wanted to, he would have to beget a Son while still remaining the Sole and Supreme God of the universe, otherwise Allah would cease being Allah. In fact if the author of the Quran were a little more thoughtful hey may have argued: Allah could not possibly have a Son based on the grounds that if Allah had a Son, then several of Allah's prime attributes might cease to exist like uniqueness and soleness therefore resulting in Allah no longer being Allah. Therefore in order for Allah to have a Son there would be no Allah, making it impossible for Allah to have a Son!
What do you know? I just created a better argument than the Quran!
However the fact that the author never makes this objection implies the author knew that Allah could have a Son (if he wanted) while still remaining to be fully God unique, supreme and divine. It is therefore apparent, the Quran never argues that God doesn't have a Son because he can't or it's impossible or because it would mean God ceases to be unique or stripped of his divine attributes, rather it argues God cannot have a Son because God simply made a choice to want to be the Sole Supreme Agent and receive all the glory and worship for himself.
Does God have sexual organs aka a penis and is God really a male?
The Quran assumes Allah can only have a son in the sense that he would have to have a wife in order to have a son! The author of the Quran thought the only way to concieve and have a child was through the animalistic act of physical intercourse known as begetting. So while the Quran denies Allah having taken a wife, it does however confirm Allah can only have a Son through a wife which means God has only a single way to produce a Son, the act of begetting. It may not be idenitical to human begetting, but rather a divine begetting with a wife.
But this is obviously fallacious logic, as the classical God of monotheism could have a Son in more than one sense especially since God is not human like us. In fact the only sense in which God couldn't literally have a Son in, is the sense in which the Quran affirms and advocates! (the only way Allah could have a Son is by having intercourse with a wife!) Thus this is the only sense in which it is impossible for God to have sex and have a Son since God in his divine essence cannot procreate or reproduce in the sense humans do since he has no tangible qualities like a penis or reproductive organs, nor does he have testes, sperm etc. God cannot have a penis as he is invisible, immaterial, formless, spaceless, timeless etc
Furthremore to say you lack something or anything in order to have a Son means you are imperfect or incomplete, quite simply: dependent on something else. Therefore Allah is imperfect and incomplete since he needs another entity in order to have a Son. Once again it's either God cannot have a wife, or God has taken not a wife.
Going back to the verses:
How could He have a son when He has no consort, and He (Himself) created everything, and He is the Knower of all things 6:101
Say: "If (God) Most Gracious had a son, I would be the first to worship." 43:81
Notice the first verse assumes God must have a consort to have a son, meaning God nessacerily relies on something else to have a Son. While in verse 43:81 : "If Most Gracious had a son" pressuposes God already has the complete power to have a Son whenever he wills to. Hence in one verse of the Quran, Allah can have a son but needs something outside of himself to complete this task, while in another verse Allah is fully capable of using his own divine power to produce a Son from his own might without a wife!
In addition notice 6:101 answers itself: How can Allah have a son without a consort? AND HE CREATED EVERYTHING AND KNOWS EVERYTHING. If Allah knows everything then, he knows how to have a Son without a WIFE! Further more if he created everything it's clear he can create a wife (and knows how to) at any time. The question is: If Allah sexually enters his consort in order to beget a Son, (since that is ontologically possible for him to do if he willed so) does that mean he is entering his own creation? Allah may not be incarnating like Jesus, but he is inserting himself into the creation and leaving his essence (sperm or whatever) in order to have a Son, unless someone argues for an eternal wife of Allah like the Mother of the Book!
It's possible for a Muslim to interject here and point out, well can't Allah have a son without a wife? Well maybe if he was actually all knowing. But even in the Quran the answer is yes and no. According to 6:101 Allah requires a wife to have a son as the contrary is impossible, while according to 39:4 Allah could just choose a being among his creation as his own Son.
Had Allah wished to take to Himself a son, He could have chosen whom He pleased out of those whom He doth create: but Glory be to Him! (He is above such things.)
He is Allah, the One, the Irresistible. 39:4 (Yusuf Ali)
Hence Allah refutes himself in his own Quran! How can Allah have a son without a wife? THOUGH ADOPTION, by choosing a being out of that which he created! In fact this is the very sense Christians are referred to as adopted children of God which the Quran denies (5:18)
It is impossible for God to take a Wife since the verses you quoted prove he cannot take a wife.
"Although it is formulated as a rhetorical question in S. 6:101, the implied answer is clear: There is no way that Allah (or anyone) could have a son without a consort. These two passages actually reject two ideas as impossibilities. First, it is impossible that Allah could have a son without a consort. Second, it is impossible for Allah to have a consort. No reason is given for the first "impossibility"; it is treated as self-evident truth, based on the general experience that it is impossible for a man or male animal to have a son without having a sexual relationship with a female. The second is rejected because it would be a contradiction to the exalted majesty and greatness of Allah to ascribe to him a consort. In the Quran, Allah’s greatness seems to depend at least in part on his aloneness."Note with 6:101 however: "How could He have a son when He has no consort" is different to "How could He have a Son when he cannot have a consort!" All this verse affirms is that Allah has no current consort and hasn't acquired one, not that he is absent the ability to attain one. Notice the version I provide is more effective and conclusive against the pagans as opposed to the softer version of the Quran. The next passage 72:3: "The truth is that - exalted be the Majesty of our Lord - He has taken unto Himself neither wife nor son " we are certainly given a reason why Allah refuses to take a wife or a son, but not told Allah cannot do such acts.
Indeed the statement "He has not taken" implies that he could have taken if he willed to, since Allah could easily have said: "He cannot take unto himself neither wife nor son" meaning it was impossible for Allah, what a powerful argument that would have been! Further, Shamoun has an excellent article where he points out Allah really can do all things, he has no limitations at all.
That's all for now, watch out for part 2 in the future.
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic
Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
As a result of comparing biblical and inscriptional evidence with the Ugaritic texts, we can see how the worship of other deities lasted for quite a long time in Israel's pantheon.
By Mark S. Smith
Skirball Professor of Bible and Near Eastern Studies
New York University
For decades, scholars have tried to penetrate the Bible's story about Israelite monotheism. According to traditional interpretations of the Bible, monotheism was part of Israel's original covenant with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, and the idolatry subsequently criticized by the prophets was due to Israel's backsliding from its own heritage and history with Yahweh. However, scholars have long noted that beneath this presentation lies a number of questions. Why do the Ten Commandments command that there should be no other gods "before Me" (the Lord), if there are no other gods as claimed by other biblical texts? Why should the Israelites sing at the crossing of the Red Sea that "there is no god like You, O Lord?" (Exodus 15:11). Such passages suggest that Israelites knew about other gods and did not simply reject them. It seems that Israelites may have known of other deities and perhaps various passages suggest that behind the Bible's broader picture of monotheism was a spectrum of polytheisms that centered on the worship of Yahweh as the pantheon's greatest figure.
In the past, the question of Israelite polytheism has been approached by looking for evidence of specific deities worshipped by Israelites in addition to Yahweh. These would include biblical criticisms of the worship of other deities, such as the goddess Asherah in 2 Kings 21 and 23, as well as apparent references to this goddess or at least her symbol in the inscriptions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom in the eighth century. In the Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions, the symbol is treated respectfully as part of the worship of Yahweh. The gods Resheph and Deber appear in Habakkuk 3:5 as part of the military retinue of Yahweh. Other deities who gain some mention in the Bible include the "hosts of heaven" criticized in 2 Kings 21:5, but mentioned without such criticism in 1 Kings 22:19 and Zephaniah 1:5. Scholars have also noted that the god El is identified with Yahweh in the Bible, again with no criticism. The criticisms of Yahweh's archenemy, the storm god, Baal, also seem to reflect Israelite worship of this god. While many of these deities are not well known from the Bible, they are described sometimes at considerable length in the Ugaritic texts, discovered first in 1928 at the site of Ras Shamra (located on the coast of Syria about 100 miles north of Beirut). As a result of comparing biblical and inscriptional evidence with the Ugaritic texts, we can see how the worship of other deities lasted for quite a long time in Israel down to the Exile in ca. 586.
This approach to the study of specific deities in ancient Israel was summarized in Smith's earlier book, The Early History of God (which is due to be published in 2002 in a revised version by Eerdmans), and it reached its apex in the valuable collection, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (edited by Karel van der Toorn et al.; second edition; Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). On the whole, Smith's book -- following a number of other scholars-- shows how Israelite polytheism was a feature of Israelite religion down through the end of the Iron Age and how monotheism emerged in the seventh and sixth centuries. It is in this period when the clearest monotheistic statements can be seen in the Bible, for example, in the apparently seventh-century works of Deuteronomy 4:35, 39, 1 Samuel 2:2 (earlier?), 2 Samuel 7:22, 2 Kings 19:15, 19 (= Isaiah 37:16, 20), and Jeremiah 16:19, 20 and the sixth-century portion of Isaiah 43:10-11, 44:6, 8, 45:5-7, 14, 18, 21, and 46:9. Because many of the passages involved appear in biblical works associated with either Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua through Kings) or in Jeremiah (with its similar language and ideas as these other works), most scholarly treatments until recently have suggested that a deuteronomistic movement of this period developed the idea of monotheism as a response to the religious issues of the time. The question has remained: why in the seventh and sixth centuries?
In his newest book, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, Smith tries to address this question, but from a different angle in regards to monotheism and polytheism. Beginning with the Ugaritic texts, Smith asks what is monistic about polytheism and how the answer to this question might help make the emergence of Israelite monotheism more intelligible. Ugaritic polytheism is expressed as a monism through the concepts of the divine council or assembly and in the divine family. The two structures are essentially understood as a single entity with four levels: the chief god and his wife (El and Asherah); the seventy divine children (including Baal, Astarte, Anat, probably Resheph as well as the sun-goddess Shapshu and the moon-god Yerak) evidently characterized as the stars of El; the head helper of the divine household, Kothar wa-Hasis; and the servants of the divine household, who include what the Bible understands to be "angels" (in other words, messenger-gods).
This four-tiered model of the divine family and council apparently went through a number of changes in early Israel. In the earliest stage, it would appear that Yahweh was one of these seventy children, each of whom was the patron deity of the seventy nations. This idea appears behind the Dead Sea Scrolls reading and the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32:8-9. In this passage, El is the head of the divine family, and each member of the divine family receives a nation of hi s own: Israel is the portion of Yahweh. The Masoretic Text, evidently uncomfortable with the polytheism expressed in the phrase "according to the number of the divine sons," altered the reading to "according to the number of the children of Israel" (also thought to be seventy). Psalm 82 also presents the god El presiding in a divine assembly at which Yahweh stands up and makes his accusation against the other gods. Here the text shows the older religious worldview which the passage is denouncing.
As a result of comparing biblical and inscriptional evidence with the Ugaritic texts, we can see how the worship of other deities lasted for quite a long time in Israel's pantheon.
By Mark S. Smith
Skirball Professor of Bible and Near Eastern Studies
New York University
For decades, scholars have tried to penetrate the Bible's story about Israelite monotheism. According to traditional interpretations of the Bible, monotheism was part of Israel's original covenant with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, and the idolatry subsequently criticized by the prophets was due to Israel's backsliding from its own heritage and history with Yahweh. However, scholars have long noted that beneath this presentation lies a number of questions. Why do the Ten Commandments command that there should be no other gods "before Me" (the Lord), if there are no other gods as claimed by other biblical texts? Why should the Israelites sing at the crossing of the Red Sea that "there is no god like You, O Lord?" (Exodus 15:11). Such passages suggest that Israelites knew about other gods and did not simply reject them. It seems that Israelites may have known of other deities and perhaps various passages suggest that behind the Bible's broader picture of monotheism was a spectrum of polytheisms that centered on the worship of Yahweh as the pantheon's greatest figure.
In the past, the question of Israelite polytheism has been approached by looking for evidence of specific deities worshipped by Israelites in addition to Yahweh. These would include biblical criticisms of the worship of other deities, such as the goddess Asherah in 2 Kings 21 and 23, as well as apparent references to this goddess or at least her symbol in the inscriptions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom in the eighth century. In the Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions, the symbol is treated respectfully as part of the worship of Yahweh. The gods Resheph and Deber appear in Habakkuk 3:5 as part of the military retinue of Yahweh. Other deities who gain some mention in the Bible include the "hosts of heaven" criticized in 2 Kings 21:5, but mentioned without such criticism in 1 Kings 22:19 and Zephaniah 1:5. Scholars have also noted that the god El is identified with Yahweh in the Bible, again with no criticism. The criticisms of Yahweh's archenemy, the storm god, Baal, also seem to reflect Israelite worship of this god. While many of these deities are not well known from the Bible, they are described sometimes at considerable length in the Ugaritic texts, discovered first in 1928 at the site of Ras Shamra (located on the coast of Syria about 100 miles north of Beirut). As a result of comparing biblical and inscriptional evidence with the Ugaritic texts, we can see how the worship of other deities lasted for quite a long time in Israel down to the Exile in ca. 586.
This approach to the study of specific deities in ancient Israel was summarized in Smith's earlier book, The Early History of God (which is due to be published in 2002 in a revised version by Eerdmans), and it reached its apex in the valuable collection, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (edited by Karel van der Toorn et al.; second edition; Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). On the whole, Smith's book -- following a number of other scholars-- shows how Israelite polytheism was a feature of Israelite religion down through the end of the Iron Age and how monotheism emerged in the seventh and sixth centuries. It is in this period when the clearest monotheistic statements can be seen in the Bible, for example, in the apparently seventh-century works of Deuteronomy 4:35, 39, 1 Samuel 2:2 (earlier?), 2 Samuel 7:22, 2 Kings 19:15, 19 (= Isaiah 37:16, 20), and Jeremiah 16:19, 20 and the sixth-century portion of Isaiah 43:10-11, 44:6, 8, 45:5-7, 14, 18, 21, and 46:9. Because many of the passages involved appear in biblical works associated with either Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua through Kings) or in Jeremiah (with its similar language and ideas as these other works), most scholarly treatments until recently have suggested that a deuteronomistic movement of this period developed the idea of monotheism as a response to the religious issues of the time. The question has remained: why in the seventh and sixth centuries?
In his newest book, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, Smith tries to address this question, but from a different angle in regards to monotheism and polytheism. Beginning with the Ugaritic texts, Smith asks what is monistic about polytheism and how the answer to this question might help make the emergence of Israelite monotheism more intelligible. Ugaritic polytheism is expressed as a monism through the concepts of the divine council or assembly and in the divine family. The two structures are essentially understood as a single entity with four levels: the chief god and his wife (El and Asherah); the seventy divine children (including Baal, Astarte, Anat, probably Resheph as well as the sun-goddess Shapshu and the moon-god Yerak) evidently characterized as the stars of El; the head helper of the divine household, Kothar wa-Hasis; and the servants of the divine household, who include what the Bible understands to be "angels" (in other words, messenger-gods).
This four-tiered model of the divine family and council apparently went through a number of changes in early Israel. In the earliest stage, it would appear that Yahweh was one of these seventy children, each of whom was the patron deity of the seventy nations. This idea appears behind the Dead Sea Scrolls reading and the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32:8-9. In this passage, El is the head of the divine family, and each member of the divine family receives a nation of hi s own: Israel is the portion of Yahweh. The Masoretic Text, evidently uncomfortable with the polytheism expressed in the phrase "according to the number of the divine sons," altered the reading to "according to the number of the children of Israel" (also thought to be seventy). Psalm 82 also presents the god El presiding in a divine assembly at which Yahweh stands up and makes his accusation against the other gods. Here the text shows the older religious worldview which the passage is denouncing.
By some point in the late monarchy, it is evident that the god El was identified with Yahweh, and as a result, Yahweh-El is the husband of the goddess, Asherah. This is the situation represented by biblical condemnations of her cult symbol in the Jerusalem temple (evidently) and in the inscriptions mentioned above. In this form, the religious devotion to Yahweh casts him in the role of the Divine King ruling over all the other deities. This religious outlook appears, for example, in Psalm 29:2, where the "sons of God" or really divine sons or children are called upon to worship Yahweh, the Divine King. The Temple, with its various expressions of polytheism, also assumed that this place was Yahweh's palace which was populated by those under his power. The tour given by Ezekiel 8-10 suggests such a picture. This picture of royal power was further developed with the monotheism of the eighth to the sixth centuries. The other gods became mere expressions of Yahweh's power, and the divine messengers became understood as little more than minor divine beings expressive of Yahweh's power. In other words, the head god became the godhead. Why at this time?
Two major sets of conditions can be suggested. The first involves the changes in Israel's social structure of the family. At Ugarit, social identity was strongest at the level of the family. Legal documents were often made between the sons of one family and the sons of another. The divine situation followed suit. The divine family was expressive of Ugarit's social structure. The same was true in ancient Israel through most of the monarchy. Hence, the story of Achan in Joshua 8 suggests a picture of the extended family as the major social unit. However, the family lineages went through traumatic changes beginning already in the eighth century with major social stratification, followed by Assyrian incursions. In the seventh and sixth centuries, we begin to see expressions of individual identity (Deuteronomy 26:16; Jeremiah 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18). A culture with a diminished lineage system (deteriorating over a long period from the ninth or eighth century onward), one less embedded in traditional family patrimonies, might be more predisposed both to hold to individual human accountability for behavior (as suggested by the passages just cited) and to see an individual deity accountable for the cosmos (as suggested by monotheistic statements in this period). In short, the rise of the individual as a social unit next to the traditional family unit provided intelligibility to the rise of a single god rather than a divine family.
The second major set of conditions apparent in forming this change involved the rise of the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires. As long as Israel was, from its own perspective, on par with the other nations, it made sense to have a religious outlook that saw Israel on par with the other nations, each one with its own patron god. (This is the basic picture described above with Deuteronomy 32:8-9.) The assumption behind this worldview was that each nation was as powerful as its patron god. However, the neo-Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in ca. 722 altered this religious way of looking at the world, for, if the neo-Assyrian empire were so powerful, so must be its god; and conversely, if Israel could be conquered (and later Judah ca. 586), it would imply that its god in turn is hardly as powerful as Israel had traditionally taught. As a result, new thinking separated the correlation of heavenly power and earthly kingdoms. Even though Assyria and later Babylon were so powerful, the new monotheistic thinking in Israel reasoned that despite its own weakness, its god was not weak. Moreover, just as Israel's fortunes fell, those of Assyria and then Babylon rose; inversely, Israel's monotheists now reasoned that Yahweh stood at the top of divine power, and correspondingly, the gods of Mesopotamia were reckoned to be nothing. As a result, Assyria had not succeeded because of the power of its god; instead, it was Yahweh now directing all the nations. In short, the conditions of human empires provided the model for divine empire; the Assyrian and Babylonian empires pointed now not to their own power and the power of their divine patrons but to Yahweh’s guiding all the events of Israel's life. Their exile was not their shame from the power of other nations and their deities, but rather was seen now as Yahweh's plan to punish and purify the one nation which Yahweh had chosen. Accordingly, the notion arose that the new king who might help redeem Israel might not be a Judean as traditionally thought in older biblical literature (see Psalm 2). Now, even a foreigner such as Cyrus the Persian could serve as the Lord's anointed (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1). One god stood behind all these world-shaking events.
See Mark S.Smith's Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century (Peabody,MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001).
More Info:
El in the Ugaritic Texts
Daniel 7 as interpretation through Ugaritic Texts
Ugarit and the Bible
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/
Two major sets of conditions can be suggested. The first involves the changes in Israel's social structure of the family. At Ugarit, social identity was strongest at the level of the family. Legal documents were often made between the sons of one family and the sons of another. The divine situation followed suit. The divine family was expressive of Ugarit's social structure. The same was true in ancient Israel through most of the monarchy. Hence, the story of Achan in Joshua 8 suggests a picture of the extended family as the major social unit. However, the family lineages went through traumatic changes beginning already in the eighth century with major social stratification, followed by Assyrian incursions. In the seventh and sixth centuries, we begin to see expressions of individual identity (Deuteronomy 26:16; Jeremiah 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18). A culture with a diminished lineage system (deteriorating over a long period from the ninth or eighth century onward), one less embedded in traditional family patrimonies, might be more predisposed both to hold to individual human accountability for behavior (as suggested by the passages just cited) and to see an individual deity accountable for the cosmos (as suggested by monotheistic statements in this period). In short, the rise of the individual as a social unit next to the traditional family unit provided intelligibility to the rise of a single god rather than a divine family.
The second major set of conditions apparent in forming this change involved the rise of the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires. As long as Israel was, from its own perspective, on par with the other nations, it made sense to have a religious outlook that saw Israel on par with the other nations, each one with its own patron god. (This is the basic picture described above with Deuteronomy 32:8-9.) The assumption behind this worldview was that each nation was as powerful as its patron god. However, the neo-Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in ca. 722 altered this religious way of looking at the world, for, if the neo-Assyrian empire were so powerful, so must be its god; and conversely, if Israel could be conquered (and later Judah ca. 586), it would imply that its god in turn is hardly as powerful as Israel had traditionally taught. As a result, new thinking separated the correlation of heavenly power and earthly kingdoms. Even though Assyria and later Babylon were so powerful, the new monotheistic thinking in Israel reasoned that despite its own weakness, its god was not weak. Moreover, just as Israel's fortunes fell, those of Assyria and then Babylon rose; inversely, Israel's monotheists now reasoned that Yahweh stood at the top of divine power, and correspondingly, the gods of Mesopotamia were reckoned to be nothing. As a result, Assyria had not succeeded because of the power of its god; instead, it was Yahweh now directing all the nations. In short, the conditions of human empires provided the model for divine empire; the Assyrian and Babylonian empires pointed now not to their own power and the power of their divine patrons but to Yahweh’s guiding all the events of Israel's life. Their exile was not their shame from the power of other nations and their deities, but rather was seen now as Yahweh's plan to punish and purify the one nation which Yahweh had chosen. Accordingly, the notion arose that the new king who might help redeem Israel might not be a Judean as traditionally thought in older biblical literature (see Psalm 2). Now, even a foreigner such as Cyrus the Persian could serve as the Lord's anointed (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1). One god stood behind all these world-shaking events.
See Mark S.Smith's Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century (Peabody,MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001).
More Info:
El in the Ugaritic Texts
Daniel 7 as interpretation through Ugaritic Texts
Ugarit and the Bible
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/
The New Testament Series - A Traditional/Conservative Perspective
1) Who Wrote The New Testament? - Click Here
Were any of them historically reliable eye witnesses or those who knew the eye witnesses? are they all anonymous and useless as valueless historical sources?
2) Do we possess the original New Testament? - Click Here
Are we reasonably certain that what we have today, is what they actually wrote down? How much has changed? Do any of the changes have any substantial effect on our creeds, history and doctrines?
3) Is The New Testament historically reliable? Is it telling the truth about Jesus? - Click Here
3a) Check out some character assassination attempts on Paul as an unreliable witness and immoral person: some objections addressed here
4) Who gave us the New Testament as a whole and are they reliable? - Click Here
How can we be reasonably sure the Church accurately canonized the New Testament? There were so many gospels, how do we know we have the right ones?(1) Who compiled, and assimilated the New Testament canon and gave it divine authority?
Shouldn't we become either Catholic or Orthodox since that Church is responsible giving everyone the Bible? Why accept their canon given by the authority of the Church but then reject the authority of the Church?
In Summary
The New Testament we have today was written by a disciple or associate of an disciple, it is therefore very close to the events and representative of the wide apostolic opinion of Jesus. It is virtually a duplication of the original texts written down in the original authors autograph. When applied with proper analysis it provides reliable, trustworthy factual history.
It was cautiously, carefully and selectively chosen, not arbitrarily or randomly or without thought or scrutiny, it had to meet a strict set of rigorous criterion, it was collected and collated by early members of the Church, possibly the disciples or those whom they put in charge, near the end of the first century, and the Church in general submitted to the canon provided by the Apostolic community but sometimes out of ignorance (not knowing the apostolic mandates) due to location, and time restrictions slowly accepted the universal canon, it is an argument from silence to say no Church in the second century accepted the full 27 New Testament canon, we just don't have enough detail.
After Thoughts: What do I make of this as an Agnostic?
Now I don't agree with the above summary in full, I am being overly-charitable here. But I just don't see even granting these arguments why non-Christians get so upset. I can still believe Jesus died and his disciples experienced him risen from the dead. If a historian is truly restricted to making no claims of the miraculous or divine, then do not claim he did or did not raise from the dead, just remain agnostic.
Clearly Jesus blessed those who professed faith in his Resurrection, those who had no eye witness testimony nor had first hand experience with the five senses, known as the empirical senses. In the same way Jesus did not have an argument from Resurrection in mind when he had to spiritually open up the minds of his disciples to reading the Scriptures to see this Resurrection. In both cases we have faith and spiritual enlightenment which are both a supernatural basis to accept the Resurrection. At the end of the day I can believe in all the facts presented to me by the Christian apologists but unless I am given a measure of faith and given eyes to see, I will remain in darkness. I don't believe Jesus appealed to rationalism or empiricism as a basis to believe in the Resurrection.
I honestly believe historically speaking the disciples of Jesus experienced and saw appearing a post-resurrected Jesus, I especially think Stephens vision seems genuine, I certainly think Paul's vision was genuine and have a great respect for Paul probably more than any other from that time period. I just don't want to say it's true or false. It's like saying "Is a dream true or false?" It doesn't even seem like the right question to ask. How can I make claims about events I was never at or interfere with personal experiences I can't personally inherit?
I can only give a filtered interpretation schemed through my own personal bias eyes. Perhaps some myths or miracles are literally true, what matters is it's personal relationship to me and to you, does it affect us? does it bother us? is it real to us? If it's not here and now it's not in my awareness, it's dead and irrelevant. Therefore maybe Stephen and Paul really saw Jesus, maybe they saw him in their heart, in their sleep, at that moment before death, at that moment in the hot dessert sun, it just doesn't matter whether you think it's physical, literal, spiritual or mythological, it's irrelevant.
A man rising from the dead on the one hand sounds like a glorious feat, he has conquered death! He has physically and corporally done the impossible. On the other hand it's symbolic powerful myth and story, every man must conquer death in some sense.
Everyman must go to hell and be resurrected to be a man. I'm tired of approaching this question theologically and scientifically as if these were the only two categories. Naturalists claiming to have exclusive rights to rule out all miracles all together as if they even understood the limitations of the natural laws of the universe itself, when there could be millions of unknown variables which include events like miracles. There are things about reality I don't understand, there are things about reality I can't understand, reality is not ruled by science and technology, reality is not altogether logical, there are many great paradoxes.
On the other hand dogmatic Theists claiming it has to be real and literal defined in this way in this sense as followed up by the seven ecumenical councils. Blind literalism on both sides which I care not for. Neither of these groups make up the laws of reality or define the rules of existence, both dogmatists camps I don't care for either position as long as it benefits you.
Is the New Testament relating reliable, trustworthy history? contents examined.
If you ask both gentlemen, is the NT relating reliable history by today's standard of historiography the answer would have to be a resounding "no". However if you are ask both gentlemen is the NT relating trustworthy, reliable history from the standard of ancient historiography the answer would have to be "yes" or close to it, because by ancient standards the Gospels are biographies/historiography, there was room to overlap the two types of genres in ancient history.
The strawman of: "The gospels/new testament dont relay perfect history and have contradictions"is irrelevant, since the only relevant question is can they be used as some kind of historical sources of value and can we in general trust what the New Testament says (not every little minute detail).
Notice in both occasions, Evans opening speech is particularly brilliant, but especially the second debate night where he "refines it, contracts, edits it" while keep the same meaning as the night before. A perfect example of "telescoping" or "changing" his own words from the night before yet retaining his same view, one may say. Close to how the authors of the Gospels represent Jesus, the gospel tradition is constantly changing, molding and reshaping, but the meaning is always being controlled and has limited parameters within the tradition itself. I would also add: by the second night it's clear Dr. Evans comes into his own skin, as Erhman even notes his 'lively presentation'. Evans therefore feels more at home to speak his mind in the comfort of his own skin and does a fantastic job. Well done to Dr. Evans for such a vast improvement in confidence and orator skills, I was happy with night 1, but this was impressive..
To supplement some of the points made by Dr. Evans about ancient historiography watch this series presented by J.P. Holding:
Social Concepts of The Bible
Small Criticism of Dr. Evans
Dr. Evans may have gone a little far in underestimating the
Gospel of John as having reliable credibility by traditional standards,
and since both speakers admit the Synoptic Gospels are interpretive
theological accounts, then Evans must admit although the Gospel of John
is not a synoptic, yet still being a highly theologically developed
interpretation of the life of Jesus does not mean the core message of
the gospel or the intent or meaning behind every verse was not
historical, it seems Dr. Evan's may have a double standard here since he
can picture theologically interpreted statements in the Synoptic Gospels as having some
kind of reliable historical core but not the gospel of John in the same sense, but why not? The answer is not given.
Yet clearly as Dr. Evans himself admits, the Gospel of John is the most Jewish of all the gospels, and the only gospel claiming to be explicitly written by an eye witness who observed all that he witnessed. In fact Evans mentions him and Erhman would never agree on that remarkable factor! So Evans concedes John is written by John the Apostle the very eye witness and disciple of Christ! It seems then that Dr. Evans is underestimating John as a source of historical value, even possibly superior to the former Gospels, I would push the restart button here.
Resources:
Who Authored The New Testament? A Traditional View Point
As provocative as J.P Holding (owner of Christian Apologetic website Tektonics.org) can be, one thing his Atheist and Skeptical opponents cannot accuse him of is being ignorant of the issues. I believe J.P Holding has done his homework, despite his disagreement with liberal/critical scholarship, he maintains his own more traditional view point.
In this series J.P Holding goes over (in an entertaining way) why he holds to the traditional authorship view of the New Testament, note he doesn't go over every conceivable objection against the traditional view in the series but some main objections he can think of, however in his articles he slides into mostly everything. I have linked you to his play list so you can pick whatever epistle of the New Testament you'd like to know more about. Or you can simply watch them all from the beginning:
And here is a vigorous video defense of the Markan authorship of the Gospel of Mark:
Articles that supplement his video arguments:
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/markdef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/mattdef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/qm/qmhub.html
http://www.bible.ca/canon.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/macarthur_john.html
New Testament Scholar, Richard Bauckham has resources all over the internet arguing the same: 1, 2, 3 as do many other Christian Scholars.
Lastly in an ironic twist Muslim Apologist, Bassam Zawadi in attempting to show modern scholarship views the many of the Gospels and parts of the NT as formally annoymous he ends up supplying conservative quotations which lend support to credible arguments to aid the traditionalist camp: 1, 2
In this series J.P Holding goes over (in an entertaining way) why he holds to the traditional authorship view of the New Testament, note he doesn't go over every conceivable objection against the traditional view in the series but some main objections he can think of, however in his articles he slides into mostly everything. I have linked you to his play list so you can pick whatever epistle of the New Testament you'd like to know more about. Or you can simply watch them all from the beginning:
And here is a vigorous video defense of the Markan authorship of the Gospel of Mark:
Resources
Articles that supplement his video arguments:
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/markdef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/mattdef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html
http://www.tektonics.org/qm/qmhub.html
http://www.bible.ca/canon.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/macarthur_john.html
New Testament Scholar, Richard Bauckham has resources all over the internet arguing the same: 1, 2, 3 as do many other Christian Scholars.
Lastly in an ironic twist Muslim Apologist, Bassam Zawadi in attempting to show modern scholarship views the many of the Gospels and parts of the NT as formally annoymous he ends up supplying conservative quotations which lend support to credible arguments to aid the traditionalist camp: 1, 2
Reliability Of The New Testament Text
Was the transmission of the New Testament reliable? Do we have any idea what the original New Testament looked like? Or do we just have an idea of what the earliest available form of the New Testament looked like? Do any of the most problematic 1% of difficult textual variants change Christian Dogmas?
J.P. Holding a Christian Apologist from Tektonics.org gives a brief summary of a more conservative view:
Here is a presentation on the same subject by Dr. James White:
James White critques Bart Erhman in his book "Misquoting Jesus":
James White debates Bart Erhman
Dr. Daniel Wallace debates Bart Erhman:
(Daniel Wallace provides a rebuttal to "Misquoting Jesus" over here)
Dr. Craig Evans debates Bart Erhman:
I happen to think that both maybe right. Erhman is right to say the New Testament text we have access to through textual criticism may not be the earliest in existence (that is limited to the autographs!) but rather we only possess the earliest available form that we know of (through textual criticism). The reason we may not possess and/or reconstruct the earliest form of the NT is because there was time for redaction by committees and/or churches, communities and/or individual scribes to make certain changes, arrangements after the autographs were written, especially since we know about bad scribal copying practices. Yet if the texts of the New Testament have been through changes? What then? How can we say we know what the New Testament before these changes looked like?
Wallace maybe right in saying the New Testament we do have is the 'orthodox' and correct text to have and possess since this text could of been redacted and collated and codified by those disciples of the Apostles or the remaining Apostles/Eye Witnesses themselves, if that is the case, then you have the last surviving eye witnesses or those who knew them (second and third generations) endorsing and ratifying the final version of the New Testament (or something like the New Testament).
They may not have specified a fixed canon, but rather a range of twenty or so epistles and related to the men of the church to rely on the canonical criterion and trusted in the providence and guidance of the holy spirit for the body of the church in the years to come to establish the fullness of the canon. Therefore if we have members of the Church who knew those who knew the Apostles, then we have descendants of the Apostles able to corroborate the oral teachings of the Apostles with the written works of the Apostles, and possibly able to compare copies of say John with earlier copies of John and still endorse the final text of John under the authority of the early Church community and other such New Testament Gospels and Epistles.
It is therefore by no means clear that we don't have the earliest version of the New Testament available or something very close to it, we cannot know whether we can precisely reconstruct it or something close to it. But we can imagine a quite likely scenario where overseers or those in authority in the church refused to let the tradition be significantly altered or changed, since the Church had passed down sacred oral and written traditions from those within the live times or close to the live times of the very Apostles so highly revered.
Considering then also, the reverence Jews and Christians gave to sacred scripture we may have grounds to believe they were extraordinarily selective, cautious and careful with the New Testament text, and the earliest form of the New Testament could certainly be one hundred percentage what the most earliest Christians gave their own personal stamp of approval, even if it were not completely identical, who says those elders/bishops/presbyters or those in charge may not have endorsed a final NT which was not word for word the earlier NT?
Simply put, it would be anachronistic to charge those in authority in the Church with the same standards of news reporting we adhere to today, so if anything the 'meaning behind the message' and whether it reflected the words of those involved in the events was the most important conception, meaning they may very well have approved of a copy of the NT that was not completely identical to all MSS prior to it.
What I have written above is of course this is all being very generous to Bart Erhman's position, that we are simply not reconstructing the original NT. It's quite unfair to say the NT we reconstruct via textual criticism does not represent the autographs, while the copies of Homer's Illiad we have do represent the original Homer's Illiad. Erhman seems to be noteriously inconsistent with his conclussions aswell, since if he really does think the New Testament we possess cannot be known to be highly relflective or true to what the original authors wrote in their own original autographs, then how does Erhman know that Jesus or Paul even existed? The entire New Testament could simply be a production or complete redaction of Greek speaking Christians who made the entire story up (with some help from surrounding nations/cultures).
For Erhman therefore to look for historical nuggets of information could be a complete waste of time, since differences between the synoptics may exist not because of multiple historical sources going back to a core strand, but because the redactor or committee put them there, or perhaps Mark doesn't reflect the original Mark at all? Erhman couldn't tell us anything. Essentially Erhman has to be agnostic not just about his belief in the existence of God, but agnostic about the existence of any historical reliability in the New Testament, and agnostic about any verse that may or may not have existed in the autograph. This is probably why this position is referred to as extreme/radical/fringe skepticism. If we can't know what the New Testament looked like before the first century, then don't make claims about historical persons and events in the first century!
I have also been generous to White and Wallace and that ilk of the ultra-conservative camp in assuming along with them that the disciples in general had something to do with the perspective books assigned to them, and therefore the church communities are in living memory and are real living descendants of a special revered spiritual head, an apostolic ancestor in recent pass. This position delegates more authority to the Church who may have overseen much of the process of canonization (how much exactly, I'm not for sure, but we can know certain things).
J.P. Holding a Christian Apologist from Tektonics.org gives a brief summary of a more conservative view:
Here is a presentation on the same subject by Dr. James White:
James White critques Bart Erhman in his book "Misquoting Jesus":
James White debates Bart Erhman
Dr. Daniel Wallace debates Bart Erhman:
(Daniel Wallace provides a rebuttal to "Misquoting Jesus" over here)
Dr. Craig Evans debates Bart Erhman:
My Own Thoughts
Essentially scholarship is divided on this point, where as Bart Erhman is representing a more modern liberal critical view endorsed by many scholars in the field, Daniel Wallace is representing the traditional view which is also endorsed by multiple modern day scholars, and of course representative of Erhman's teacher Bruce Metzger.
I happen to think that both maybe right. Erhman is right to say the New Testament text we have access to through textual criticism may not be the earliest in existence (that is limited to the autographs!) but rather we only possess the earliest available form that we know of (through textual criticism). The reason we may not possess and/or reconstruct the earliest form of the NT is because there was time for redaction by committees and/or churches, communities and/or individual scribes to make certain changes, arrangements after the autographs were written, especially since we know about bad scribal copying practices. Yet if the texts of the New Testament have been through changes? What then? How can we say we know what the New Testament before these changes looked like?
Wallace maybe right in saying the New Testament we do have is the 'orthodox' and correct text to have and possess since this text could of been redacted and collated and codified by those disciples of the Apostles or the remaining Apostles/Eye Witnesses themselves, if that is the case, then you have the last surviving eye witnesses or those who knew them (second and third generations) endorsing and ratifying the final version of the New Testament (or something like the New Testament).
They may not have specified a fixed canon, but rather a range of twenty or so epistles and related to the men of the church to rely on the canonical criterion and trusted in the providence and guidance of the holy spirit for the body of the church in the years to come to establish the fullness of the canon. Therefore if we have members of the Church who knew those who knew the Apostles, then we have descendants of the Apostles able to corroborate the oral teachings of the Apostles with the written works of the Apostles, and possibly able to compare copies of say John with earlier copies of John and still endorse the final text of John under the authority of the early Church community and other such New Testament Gospels and Epistles.
It is therefore by no means clear that we don't have the earliest version of the New Testament available or something very close to it, we cannot know whether we can precisely reconstruct it or something close to it. But we can imagine a quite likely scenario where overseers or those in authority in the church refused to let the tradition be significantly altered or changed, since the Church had passed down sacred oral and written traditions from those within the live times or close to the live times of the very Apostles so highly revered.
Considering then also, the reverence Jews and Christians gave to sacred scripture we may have grounds to believe they were extraordinarily selective, cautious and careful with the New Testament text, and the earliest form of the New Testament could certainly be one hundred percentage what the most earliest Christians gave their own personal stamp of approval, even if it were not completely identical, who says those elders/bishops/presbyters or those in charge may not have endorsed a final NT which was not word for word the earlier NT?
Simply put, it would be anachronistic to charge those in authority in the Church with the same standards of news reporting we adhere to today, so if anything the 'meaning behind the message' and whether it reflected the words of those involved in the events was the most important conception, meaning they may very well have approved of a copy of the NT that was not completely identical to all MSS prior to it.
Disclaimer
What I have written above is of course this is all being very generous to Bart Erhman's position, that we are simply not reconstructing the original NT. It's quite unfair to say the NT we reconstruct via textual criticism does not represent the autographs, while the copies of Homer's Illiad we have do represent the original Homer's Illiad. Erhman seems to be noteriously inconsistent with his conclussions aswell, since if he really does think the New Testament we possess cannot be known to be highly relflective or true to what the original authors wrote in their own original autographs, then how does Erhman know that Jesus or Paul even existed? The entire New Testament could simply be a production or complete redaction of Greek speaking Christians who made the entire story up (with some help from surrounding nations/cultures).
For Erhman therefore to look for historical nuggets of information could be a complete waste of time, since differences between the synoptics may exist not because of multiple historical sources going back to a core strand, but because the redactor or committee put them there, or perhaps Mark doesn't reflect the original Mark at all? Erhman couldn't tell us anything. Essentially Erhman has to be agnostic not just about his belief in the existence of God, but agnostic about the existence of any historical reliability in the New Testament, and agnostic about any verse that may or may not have existed in the autograph. This is probably why this position is referred to as extreme/radical/fringe skepticism. If we can't know what the New Testament looked like before the first century, then don't make claims about historical persons and events in the first century!
I have also been generous to White and Wallace and that ilk of the ultra-conservative camp in assuming along with them that the disciples in general had something to do with the perspective books assigned to them, and therefore the church communities are in living memory and are real living descendants of a special revered spiritual head, an apostolic ancestor in recent pass. This position delegates more authority to the Church who may have overseen much of the process of canonization (how much exactly, I'm not for sure, but we can know certain things).
A Conservative view of an early canonization of the New Testament
How can we be reasonably sure the Church accurately canonized the New Testament?
Who compiled, and assimilated the New Testament canon and gave it divine authority?
Shouldn't we become either Catholic or Orthodox since that Church is responsible giving everyone the Bible? Why accept the canon given by the authority of the Church but then reject the authority of the Church?
All his evidence (and more) is documented in his paper:
http://www.biblestudying.net/NTcanon.html
Note the mainstream view is vastly contradictory to the hypothesis he is offering here, but you can see where the mainstream view of scholarship obviously has some serious flaws e.g. it cannot explain how the gospels were already collated by the end of the first century, I will get into this more at a later date, hope you enjoyed a different perspective!
How can we be reasonably sure the Church accurately canonized the New Testament? There were so many gospels, how do we know we have the right ones?
Who compiled, and assimilated the New Testament canon and gave it divine authority?
Shouldn't we become either Catholic or Orthodox since that Church is responsible giving everyone the Bible? Why accept the canon given by the authority of the Church but then reject the authority of the Church?
All his evidence (and more) is documented in his paper:
http://www.biblestudying.net/NTcanon.html
Note the mainstream view is vastly contradictory to the hypothesis he is offering here, but you can see where the mainstream view of scholarship obviously has some serious flaws e.g. it cannot explain how the gospels were already collated by the end of the first century, I will get into this more at a later date, hope you enjoyed a different perspective!
How can we be reasonably sure the Church accurately canonized the New Testament? There were so many gospels, how do we know we have the right ones?
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