Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts

No of course not, and how does this follow from my statement you quote where I say it is NOT all presented as witness accounts? Some reports such as the one you are bringing up were obviously handed down from generation to generation, perhaps rehearsed orally from one generation to the next, or perhaps even written down in some form or other, until they were incorporated by Moses into the Pentateuch.This is not direct witness evidence, but it IS witness evidence, handed down over the generations. The same chain of witness testimony may have played a large part in the Flood accounts of Genesis. Perhaps even the Creation account was handed down from Adam. Nobody knows. But oral transmission was certainly practiced by many peoples. Jews and Christians for 3500 years attribute the Pentateuch to Moses, both in the sense of its being BY him and about him. That should carry a lot of weight. And there are many references to Moses' being told to write this or that down, and certainly references to his receiving the law from God; and the delineation of the Law is the substance of a great part of the Pentateuch. You demand a kind of authorship (literal pen to paper for every single word) and proof of authorship (a signed, witnessed and notarized signature or the like) that is unrealistic and ignores the limitations and cultural conventions of the times. If you don't trust the text as written then you will simply have to believe it or not believe it without further evidence because that's all the evidence there is. If you need extra evidence then simply don't believe it. But why then keep bugging people who do believe it, simply because we believe the text as written? It's enough to convince me. And since there isn't any more evidence to be had, just stop nagging the thing to death. The historical events are a major part of the preaching of the Bible in Christian churches and for all I know in Jewish synagogues to some extent, but that I don't know. It's too bad if you miss the lessons in them. They reveal how God deals with ALL human beings - and nations- by showing it happening in the example of His relationship with Israel.Paul said the Old Testament was given to us for examples, for our admonition, that is, for the purpose of learning about what God expects of us and the consequences of one's behavior and the behavior of nations as a whole too. That's why all the reports of what the leaders of the nation of Israel DID are so important: You can trace their behavior and the consequences of that behavior.All this is interconnected from one end to the other. The rules and the consequences are spelled out in God's law in the first place (as in "Forum Guidelines"), and then the prophets warn the people of coming judgment for specific transgressions (Admin warnings), and either the people repent as Nineveh did, or they don't, and the punishment comes after many years to the "fullness of time" -- executed upon the transgressors in various judgments, such as attacks by enemies, such as the captivity in Babylon and various other things (Admin only bans people).In other words, all these reports are ESSENTIAL to an understanding of how God operates in this world, how He deals with particular sins and righteous behavior both. If you don't grasp that the reason the Kingdom was split into two, and the reason the northern tribes were absorbed by the Assyrians, and the reason the southern tribes were sent to Babylon, are all a direct consequence of sins committed by the leaders of the people and the nation as a whole over the centuries, then you are missing a MAJOR teaching of the Bible.The prophets are the ones who teach us the cause and effect of these things. As my pastor teaches it, they are bringing God's legal indictments based on His Law against His people and various other nations. Isaiah starts out with a "legal brief" as it were, stating charges against God's people by God Himself, who calls on "heaven and earth" to WITNESS to the people's breaking of the Covenant they made with Him. Jeremiah continues the case against the people. Ezekiel and Daniel are already among the people during the judgment for those sins, and Daniel then understands the end of the transgression according to Jeremiah's prophecy.Throughout it all of course, God never completely abandons His people. The threats are tempered by frequent reminders of God's faithfulness and His future forgiveness and restoration of the people through the Savior Messiah He will send.All this is why the Bible is written as history. It shows the ACTUAL interventions of God in actual time and space. See above. You are missing the whole point of the histories and the interconnectedness between all the events. You fragment it and so will never see the meaning of it all. Neither do I. That's a long long discussion about why that book is bogus. I don't get your point. Yes the Bible includes wisdom literature as well as history. I said somewhere that the historical parts are 50 to 80% of it, not the whole of it. Agreed.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 07:10 PM

"have" and no, it does not. it has story of their creation, but not an eyewitness one. actually, no. that's not in the story:

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Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof

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adam makes up the names, not god. (but still, no.) genesis was written well after moses. but here's the kicker: it was written directly from earlier texts. (some of those were still written well after moses). and the legends contained are even older. genesis is a history of the cultural mythology. these are OLD stories they're telling. who said anything about achieving salvation? if you mean going to heaven, well, genesis tells a story about enoch, who went to heaven. so it's not out of the realm of possibility... but overall, the god of the old testament doesn't seem concerned with "salvation" in the christian sense. what torah? there is no torah at this point, this story is IN the torah. you cannot write a book about events that concern the book, unless you're al franken. and even by the most conservative standards, this would be when moses is writing the torah with god. if he's not down the mountain yet, they don't have it.the golden calf is another interesting subject. i'll save that for later. jesus, evidently, had read the torah. as had everyone he talked to. the torah exists today. now, it may not be in its FIRST incarnation... yes, but show me where jesus came up with it. he never advocates the idea that he's god himself, or even the son of god, although there's some curious references in john.hey, i have an idea. let's talk about john. how reliable is john as "eyewitness" account, do you think?

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אָרַח

so if this is all written down later -- why do we suppose, say, sodom is an eyewitness account? let's look at sodom, actually. one of three people could have written genesis 19 if it was eyewitness account: lot, or his two daughters? what about genesis 6-9? did noah write it?if moses did, it's not eyewitness. eyewitness and divine revelation are different things. yes. this is traditional, attributed authorship. it is dogma, nothing more. ask a reform jew if they think moses REALLY wrote the torah. and why should it carry any weight? the catholics have giant crucifixes and statues of the virgin mary. they use these in religious services, which breaks one of the first commandments. it's tradition, not scripture. where and what, though? if someone after jesus said it, it had already become tradition long before that. i'll agree to that part. this law is delivered to the people of israel by mouth -- maybe moses even has a written copy. no, my point is exactly that this is NOT what happened at all. people on here all the time demand that this indeed was what happened. moses literally wrote every word in the torah, dictated to him personally by god, including the bits about his own death and speeches he wouldn't deliver until israel crossed the jordan and left him behind. -- in other words, parts of it had to be written BEFORE it happened. which would be great prophesy, i agree, but that's almost as bad as eddy penngelly's pre-hoc propter-hoc fallacy. (he was arguing for time machines and dvd players, not revelation) heck, it could be signed "with love, moses. ps: god says hi" and i'd suspect it still. but we're talking about the validity of witness accounts and authorship here. although, granted, being written in first person would help. exactly. what we have is a set of stories filtered by 2000+ years of editting, collected and pieced together in different fashions, from different sources. most of them original account were not written by people present, either, especially in the case of genesis. these stories may have been passed down orally for a long time, sure. maybe even from times contemporary to the events. but god himself did not personally pen the bible, and neither did moses or jesus. some stuff in there is bound to get distorted, changed, left out, added to, etc. yes, and this sometimes the case, i agree. for instance, the fact that egyptians have no record of it means absolutely nothing: they had no record of tutankhamen, either. it's not that they were BAD record keepers; they kept excellent records. they just would occasionally clean them out.records, you see, aren't usually good enough evidence on their own. we have lots of records from the war we're in right now that say we're winning it with flying colors. and i'm sure we have lots that say we're losing it too. if 1000 years from now, somebody digs up our government records, and only find stuff on how well we did, would they have enough evidence to say conclusively that we won?but, hey, maybe some israelites were in egypt. maybe a lot or all of them were. and maybe one day they got up and left, under the leadership of moses. and maybe they left nothing behind, no traces. it's possible -- but we have no HARD evidence of it, just a hebrew text written many years later that traditionalizes the account.(and an egyptian record and archaeological evidence of a ruling class of semitic people in egypt called the hyksos, but i don't know if they were hebrew or not. if they did, the moses story is considerably backwards) cause christian churches are boring. i never said i did. in fact, i think i've indicated in several posts before how i think that those lessons/explanations/examples are probably the fundamental reason behind the stories, and not the issue of whether they happened or not. yes, i rather like this idea. we had an old thread about lessons in genesis. go there and bump it back up, and we'll discuss. i'll warn you, i'm playing devil's advocate in that thread, so we can actually analyze whether genesis is trying to teachings, or if lessons can just be read into it in some places. however, i do like the idea, even if it is only interpretation. i think whether the authors meant it that way or not, maybe god did. there are two accounts i want specifically dealt with in that thread above, because they make me itch a little. one is the wife/sister thing that abraham does with sarah twice (and isaac does with rebekah once) and why god doesn't punish them for lying. i've heard an apologetic jewish answer, but i don't think it's right. (the lesson being "half-truth are ok, if it keeps your ass off the line." which of course, doesn't explain the isaac story, where it's not a half truth at all)but i think i answered this question myself earlier today. if you have an idea, go post in that thread, and we'll move on to the next one. (it's a good one) "savior messiah" is a bit redundant. the messiah they predicted would save them [from captivity] and reunite israel and judah under davidian leadership, restoring god's covenant with david.but yes. and he sent prophets too. no, i take it apart so i can see how it works. it's like the engine of a car. i know basically how it work, and sort of what the parts are. but you get a much more detailed and rich understand of exactly how it works by breaking it off into its separate pieces. it wasn't made as one solid piece, but a bunch of little moving ones -- it wouldn't work otherwise.my point above was the contrast an attempt at factual, event-driven history with traditional story-driven history. they are different pieces of the engine. i believe we've had it before here. (mormons get offended faster than christian, on average). however, the point is that witness statements are meaningless. i'll give you another example.autographs and signed memorbilia are very popular sellers on ebay. fake autographs, that is. and they always have a certificate of authenticity, ESPECIALLY the fake ones. no, i watch a lot of vinyl lp's relating to one of my favourite bands. and a couple of signed lp's popped up recently. now, i know what a real signature for frontman of this band looks like. it's pretty easy to spot.these ones are fake. very fake. not only are they fake, there's three of them, and they all look really different. and every single one comes with a certificate of authenticity: a witness statement signed by a notary public saying they personally saw the person in question sign the item. these witness statements are meaningless: forgeries or errors themselves. religion was a HUGE part of culture for many, many years in the hebrew nation(s). had they even been able to separate religious and secular, the same libraries would have contained both types of texts. the bible is a kind of library: it's the set of scrolls a church/temple would have had.and so even later secular works (esther/ruth) are mixed in with religious works (psalms) or wisdom work (job) and most books are somewhat a mix of two of the three. even the histories present philosophical ideas. kings, for instance, STRONGLY favours judah over israel, and accuses israel of sinning for having a temple besides jerusalem.

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אָרַח

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In another thread, it was asked how the eyewitness accounts in the bible were more "valid" than similar content in other religious texts.
What is the criteria that we should (or do) use to make an assumption of validity?

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Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. It befits not Allh that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decrees a thing, He says unto it only: ‘Be!’ and it is. (Maryam 19:34-35)
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" truly the likeness of Jesus, in God's sight is as Adam's likeness; He created him of dust, then He said upon him, 'Be' and he was. (Al-Imran 3:59)
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How would we decide if those accounts from the Koran are less valid than the accounts presented in the bible?

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You may need to define "valid." A teaching may be "valid" by a different process of reasoning than an eyewitness account is "valid." But I'll proceed as if we could all figure out what we all mean, a very risky assumption of course.

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1. The first quote from the Koran is a teaching, a teaching about the character of Allah not a witness report of an event but a "statement of the truth". The Bible contains such teachings also. The criteria for their validity could include:

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a) The authority of the author (this authority may have "witness" value for teachings as well as external events, as it does in the Bible for Moses, whose witness of the Creation, for instance, is taken on His recognized standing with God):

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1) The only speaker/author in the entire Koran is Mohammed as I understand it, not even his informant "Gabriel" being quoted. Also,as I understand it, and I could certainly be wrong about this, the author of the text is never even named anywhere or described, nor are any credentials for his authority presented.
2) The life and character of Moses, on the other hand, just to name one of the Bible authors and main witnesses, is described in great detail in the Bible, and his authority is firmly established in the narration itself. Many others attest to his authority within the narrative. In other words, he doesn't just spout off commands and instructions out of the blue, without a context, as Mohammed does.

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Other Biblical authors also take some care to establish their authority: Many of the prophets give us as least the equivalent of name, rank and serial number to establish their authority and the truth of their report, that is, their name and often their father's name and the time of their writing in relation to the kings of Israel, and how they came by their message, and when they received it:

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Jer 1:1 The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that [were] in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: Jer 1:2 To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. Jer 1:3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

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Eze 1:1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month, as I [was] among the captives by the river of Chebar, [that] the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. Eze 1:2 In the fifth [day] of the month, which [was] the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, Eze 1:3 The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.

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The Koran fails the validity test on its paucity of authenticated authority for its authorship, that's for sure.

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b)Corroboration by other speakers/writers & other internal evidence of the same testimony:

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1) The Koran has none. The Koran is all writings in a complete vacuum of context. there are no references to other authorities than the writer {EDIT: Except for the rip-offs from the Bible, most of which completely contradict the Bible}. And again, there is not even any attempt to authenticate the writer's authority.
2) The Bible has at least 40 writers and hundreds of quoted witnesses over some 1500 years, and millions of people described as witnessing or taking part in the various events from Genesis to Revelation. Also, the Biblical writers after the books of Moses refer frequently back to the Torah, the Law of Moses, and to each other. Jesus quotes, I believe, every book in the Old Testament; certainly most of them -- I will have to check to be sure, but his quoting even a few of them supports his authority and his testimony and in turn authenticates the Old Testament.

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2. The second quote from the Koran appears to be more of a witness report, that is a statement about something "Allah" supposedly did: " truly the likeness of Jesus, in God's sight is as Adam's likeness; He created him of dust, then He said upon him, 'Be' and he was." (Al-Imran 3:59)

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This may not be all that different from the first quote actually, though it struck me as different at first read. All the same criteria apply in any case:

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a) To validate a witness report of an event of this sort, that purports to "see" the actions of Allah in the creation of Jesus, would need at least all the credentials of a Moses, but none are given of any sort at all. The credentials of Mohammed are just that he is generally supposed to have heard from an angel called "Gabriel" but none of the details of the encounter, how he knew it was Gabriel the angel, and how he qualified to receive a divine message in the first place are given in the Koran.
{As Jesus said: John 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.}

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b) But treating it as a direct eyewitness account I'd add that I'd expect the Koran to say something about the importance of witnessing to validate its right to make such statements. My impression is that it says nothing whatever, but I may be wrong. My impression is that it is mostly a string of instructions and admonitions with very little reference to any historical events, with no care taken to set them in time and place as the Bible's are set. I await correction on this point. However I DO know that it is MOSTLY just a string of instructions with no context.

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3. Concern with the importance of witness authority and authenticity:

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a) My impression is that the Koran shows no interest in witness authenticity. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
b)In general the Bible is very concerned with the importance of witnessing and with witness authenticity. There are 135 uses of the word "witness" in the Bible in the English language. You can peruse them at

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Blue Letter Bible

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BLB list for "witness"

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4. Direct assertions of having the status of eyewitnesses to the important events:

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a) Far as I know there is not a single one in the Koran.
b) In the Old Testament they are for the most part implicit in the narrative history sections, but directly stated by the prophets for their direct messages from God. In the New Testament there are many direct assertions of being eyewitness to the events surrounding Jesus:

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Acts 22:12-15 And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt [there], 13 Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. 14 And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. 15 For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.
1Peter 5:1 The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed....

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1John 1:1-3 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2(For the life was manifested, and we have seen [it], and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us) 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you....

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Luk 1:1-4 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; 3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect {older English, means more like "excellent"} understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, 4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

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Some afterthoughts:

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1. I apologize for using the King James with its archaic language. I'd rather use the New King James, but the AV is easier to copy from the Blue Letter Bible site.

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2. I apologize if my outline structure is out of whack. I think it is but not seriously, and I'm not up to correcting it.

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3. I would like to comment that the Koran in many ways seems to me to have less claim to any kind of "validity" than even the Mahabharata, which was discussed on the previous thread. While the Mahabharata makes no claims to being authentic history, as teaching it appears at least to have context and coherence, which can't be said for the Koran IMO.

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This response posted by "Faith" is a good example of the level to which religious studies has sunk in recent years, the author (Faith) presents himself and/or herself (?) as one who has the knowledge to instruct us in his/her chosen subject, is found to be incredibly ignorant of the most basic understanding concerning his/her (?) supposed area of expertise (Qur'aan).

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Faith's absolutely absurd post on and/or about Glorious Qur'aan and Islaamic traditions has falsely been invented outright, while the author (Faith) depends on his/her (?) readers' ignorance of such arcane subject matter.

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Does Faith possess any required qualifications to speak and/or comments about Qur'aanic matter? I don't think so, since his/her (?) post itself an evidnece that Faith has never read the English translation of Qur'aan, let alone reading the Glorious Qur'aan in its original language it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by Allaah. Following would suffice as the "Final Word" from Muslims' point of view, on Faith's absurd post.

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

Your post simply attacks Faith's credibility. That has nothing to do with the content. If you have specific constructive points to make, fine, we welcome them. But do not simply attack the messenger.In addition, it it usually easier to deal with one issue at a time. Pick one assertion you believe is incorrect and cover that. Try to reach consensus, not victory.

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In another thread, it was asked how the eyewitness accounts in the bible were more "valid" than similar content in other religious texts.
What is the criteria that we should (or do) use to make an assumption of validity?

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quote:
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Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. It befits not Allh that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decrees a thing, He says unto it only: ‘Be!’ and it is. (Maryam 19:34-35)
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quote:
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" truly the likeness of Jesus, in God's sight is as Adam's likeness; He created him of dust, then He said upon him, 'Be' and he was. (Al-Imran 3:59)
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How would we decide if those accounts from the Koran are less valid than the accounts presented in the bible?

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Hi General KrullI respectfully and appropriately responded to your post quoted above some time back @ * .However, I was wondering that why so far you have not dignified my response to you, with a counter response. I was anxious to know whether you acknowledge your fallacious assertions by misquoting off target Qur'aanic verses to deduce assumptions derived using Biblical Yardstick. Also the topic and/or subject matter was neither well defined not agreed upon (Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts)I would also like to know that why do you think that a "Divine Revelation" requires an eyewitness account. Islaam is unlike any other religions, where man makes and/or decides the god of picks the god through a council.Not that there are no witnesses for the revelation of Qur'aan. There are, in fact, too many witnesses of revelation of Qur'aan. But we Muslims never made a big deal about such things and never entered in chest-beating contest with others. Glorious Qur'aan was first preserved in the memory and the Prophet of Islaam, Muhammad (SAW) was the very first Hafiz (one who memorizes the entire Qur'aan by heart) and his Companions immediately followed him by putting the Qur'aan into memory; not to mention they were personally thought by the Prophet of Islaam. They also witnessed the revelation of the Qur'aan.According to Christian account, when Jesus was arrested all the disciples fled and no one stayed behind with Jesus, while Judah (a disciple) sold out Jesus.When Moses asked the Israelites to prepare for holy war, they simply refused and replied: 'so go thou and thy Lord and fight! We will sit here.'Contrary to Judeo-Christian cowardice cited above, the fidelity and valor of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is known the world over and in history books. These Companions made such sacrifices financially as well as physically for their Prophet (SAW), the like of which are not found among any of the former nations in history. Again, look at the rightly guided Caliphs, who built the entire Empire of Faith within three decades never known to human history.Qur'aan does not need the eyewitness accounts though it has more than one can imagine. Because Qur'aan sets the standard Bible can't even come close to that. So what is Qur'aan and what is the text that we Muslims consdier to be Qur'aan and unanimously agree on its contens since over 1400 years.For Glorious Qur’aan Tawatur (continuity) is a must. The Glorious Qur’aan is defined as,( —) ‘ ‘ ی It is the word of Allaah, miraculous, revealed on the Prophet Muhammad —, written in Mus-haf , passed on from generation to generation with Tawatur (continuity)[recitation of which is done as a worship]. Tawatur (continuity) means that something is passed on in such as way that in each generation its narrators and/or reciters are so numerous that they cannot be counted and it is logically impossible for so many people living in different parts of the world to get united for telling a lie and/or making a mistake. For an Ayaah (verse) to be a part of Qur’aan this Tawatur (continuity) is must. Therefore, only those Ayaat of the Glorious Qur’aan which have come to us from Prophet Muhammad — by Tawatur (continuity) are recited as the Qur’aan. An interesting fact must be mentioned here that Jews and especially Christians cannot produce the Tawatur (continuity) for their scriptures, tracing their scriptures back to Moses and/or Jesus and/or any other Biblical prophets etc. beside making hollow claims.*** I don't know how to make Arabic text appear.So, now my friend, I have established what the Qur'aan is and the impossibility for slightest error or corruption in Qur'aan, while I can also present the eyewitness accounts about the revelation of the Qur'aan. In the beginning I mistook the vague and open title of thread to be about the "eyewitness accounts" of alleged resurrection of Jesus. You really want to explore than do it using the much higher and impossible standard set by Muslims and especially by the Glorious Qur'aan i.e. continuity with unbroken chain of narrations, recitations and worshipping it with each generation worldwide with unanimous consent. Contrary to that Bible followers don't agree with each other and we have 100s of versions of Bibles worldwide. I have over 124 different versions in my library, while there are more out there.Conclusion: Your assertion and off target Qur'aanic references to deduce authenticity of a scripture was like trying to find medicine and/or cure in the book of law. The assertions made in your post are mute and proves nothing, beside that you have tried to judge the Qur'aan with Biblical yardstick. While the Bible can't even reach the perfectness of the Qur'aan, which is the truly Divine revealed word of Allaah.P.S.Qur'aan is not a book of hisotry as fallaciously asserted by Fatih and neither the Qur'aan is a book of some caca-maimie stories about some sham human god. Glorious Qur'aan is a Book of GUIDANCE for MANKIND (PERIOD).This message has been edited by Checkmate, 04-26-2005 11:48 PM

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

The General is inside a 24 hour suspension so he may answer you tomorrow.ABB

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The General is inside a 24 hour suspension so he may answer you tomorrow.

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HiThanks for the heads-up, I didn't know that.

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

fWell, if you were following what I said, the idea is that at the very least Lot's family would have passed the story down -- and Abraham and his family would certainly have known of it and passed it on. For whatever Moses didn't personally experience he had a lot of witness testimony that went before him to draw from. And the role divine revelation may have played in any of this in Moses' case is simply not known. He may in fact have received special revelations from God about events such as the Creation and the Flood. But we don't HAVE to assume this. It COULD have been passed down the generations. Dogma is simply the codification of knowledge. It is valid only insofar as the knowledge it codifies is valid. There are plenty of people who pronounce dogmatically on all kinds of things without the slightest knowledge to support it, such as those who like to pronounce that dogma is meaningless. Again, tradition, dogma, are only as valid as the knowledge they declare. There is nothing except modernist dogma, as a matter of fact, that opposes the tradition that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch.I don't take reform Judaism as a standard for anything of course. Like all liberal theology they simply throw out the supernatural because it doesn't sit well with their modernist preconceptions. And yes it may be that Catholics break the commandment against making images for the purpose of worship, but I'd reserve the judgment for those cases where they are known to get on their knees to a statue and pray to it. But you are being illogical. That some traditions / dogma are wrong doesn't make all traditions/dogma wrong. Of course. But I'm not sure I'm getting your point. Possibly scribes wrote it down from Moses' oral delivery. Perhaps he wrote it down himself later. Well, that's too bad, obviously very bad argument. So THEY have this way too literal notion of what must have happened. Well, then, I disagree with them. HOw about if it was literally written down by scribes more than by Moses himself, either from his direct dictation, or their memory of his oral teachings to the people that he then proofed after the writing, or he wrote a sketch of them and the scribes filled it out, or some of the elders of the people contributed parts of it, but Moses had authority over it all -- though others contributed the passages about his death and other things like that. The authenticity of Moses' authorship is usually questioned on the ground that other personalities appear to have written parts of it, but that's a silly objection to the tradition of his authorship. Even Paul 1500 years later had an amanuensis who wrote his letters for him -- most certainly by direct dictation and authorized by Paul himself in that case however. Now THAT does not follow at ALL! There is no reason whatever to suspect that it was not all written and assembled in Moses own time, at least within a short time after his death. It has been treated as such from the very beginning, by people who had the same fear of God Moses had, who would fear to tamper with such a writing. I certainly have never said God literally "wrote" the Bible, and that is really a silly idea. I hope no Christians have tried to defend that one. Moses however may very likely have written most of the Pentateuch personally -- this is very possible as Moses was raised in Pharoah's household where he would have learned all the arts and sciences of the day. Jesus is never said to have written anything. He supports His testimony by witnesses. That is what God did all through the Old Testament, appointed witnesses to His doings to write it all down and guided their writing by His Holy Spirit. That is how God "wrote" the Old Testament. In the same way we can say that Jesus/God "wrote" the New Testament though He did not literally pen a single word. He inspired His followers by the Holy Spirit to put it into words for posterity.There is absolutely NO reason to believe that "some stuff in there is bound to get distorted, changed, left out, added to, etc." The fact is that the scribes were scrupulous in copying the text. I know PaulK kept challenging me on this, but it seems pretty reasonable to me to believe that if the Old Testament books we have today are identical in meaning to those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls from a hundred or so years before Christ, that scribal accuracy is VERY reliable, and why shouldn't it have been as reliable BEFORE the DSS as after?{{{{PaulK claims there were changes to Isaiah made before the DSS. This kind of stuff is based on modern destructive fragmenting "scholarship" that thinks it can determine historical events from scholars' own subjective speculations about the appearance of the text no matter what kind of nasty motives it slimes the people with who believe in it, and it makes me sick to have to deal with that kind of thinking, but at some point I may have to study it well enough to try to answer it. I have no doubt whatever that Isaiah has been intact since it was put together by Isaiah himself or soon after his death by scribes, just as I KNOW that Daniel was written when it says it was written and not a few hundred years later, which is claimed only because of the prejudices of scholars who refuse to accept the reality of prophecy. But this is a digression by now. There is absolutely NO evidence whatever for these things , just prejudiced subjective speculations.}}} The problem with this thinking is that the records of the Israelites were written and compiled by men who had a deep reverence and fear of the God who had performed miracles for them and showed them His nature and powers and goodness, and those who had the responsibility for the scriptures treated them as sacred. You cannot just assume they would have met with the same fate of neglect as ordinary human records. In fact they WERE neglected for periods in Israel's history when the leaders had fallen away from God, but the scriptures remained in the temple in their same condition ready for the revival under Josiah for instance, when they were brought out and read to the people and national reformation was the result. Exactly right. As I've been saying over and over all we have is WITNESS evidence, the Hebrew text, probably written after years and years of oral rehearsal by the people and by Moses himself. And for all you know Moses did some writing during the wanderings. You don't know that he didn't. It is quite possible. Sorry, I don't follow. Well, if they didn't happen the lesson is useless because the lesson is how God acts in REAL time and space, how God's law and will actually affect all of us, so it is crucial to their meaning that they in fact happened. This is God acting in REAL history. If you don't get that you really don't get anything of importance out of the Bible. At the moment I'm focusing on the history of Israel though. Genesis is another kind of discussion. I'm already stretched way too thin, but maybe I'll at least take a look at it if you bump it.{TO BE CONTINUED}This message has been edited by Faith, 04-27-2005 11:32 AM

Hey Checky, have you tried asking Faith if she has ever read the Koran?I must admit that it is very good to see a new face in town, especially one that has a different faith in a religion other than christianity. Hope you stay here longer than a few days.

I've read some of the Koran.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-27-2005 05:22 AM

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Hey Checky, have you tried asking Faith if she has ever read the Koran?
I must admit that it is very good to see a new face in town, especially one that has a different faith in a religion other than christianity. Hope you stay here longer than a few days.
Hey Checky, have you tried asking Faith if she has ever read the Koran?
I must admit that it is very good to see a new face in town, especially one that has a different faith in a religion other than christianity. Hope you stay here longer than a few days.

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Hi TroyThanks, yes I did ask "Faith in the very beginning this question that has she ever read the Qur'aan. And I don't recall Faith answering this question. However, I just noticed that she answered you by stating that: 'she has read some of the Qur'aan.'I think that she has only read perhaps a little of the "English translation of the Qur'aan." That is not the Qur'aan, the true revealed of Allaah upon Prophet Muhammad (SAW). What she has read is the word of man (translation), based on his or her knowledge and understanding. Some of the English translations of Qur'aan are outright absurd and a joke. They are an absolute combination of ignorance and ulterior motives. But thanks God, since Muslims have the original revleaed Qur'aan in original language, we can detect and correct any error or distortion. This is not the case with Bible. By the way Musims also publish the Qur'aan with original and the language it is translated. Means, one side of the page has the original and other side is the translation on the same page.Translation has it limitations and cannot replace the original. They are OK for a layperson. But for in-depth discussions translation does not help at all. If you read this article, than you may know what I am talking about; as it help understand the limitations of English transaltion.Regard

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

Just a couple more comments: You have no idea of the meaning of Esther and Ruth if you call them "secular." Esther is all about God's faithfulness in protecting His people even while they are in exile under pagan rulers. Ruth is a model of faithfulness to the LORD by a Gentile, giving a prophetic picture of God's future salvation of the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, as she leaves her homeland and attaches herself to the Israelites and their God. The picture is complete in her becoming an ancestress of Jesus Christ. Nothing "philosophical" about that. If you were following the actual history carefully you'd know that God had decreed Jerusalem for His temple, as He decreed everything to do with the forms of worship. In His Law He is the one who specifies every ingredient in the temple and everything pertaining to His worship. As the narrative history of Israel unfolds, people are punished who violate those rules: Nadab and Abihu were killed for making up their own form of worship; the bearer of the Ark of the Covenant who grabbed it with his hand to keep it from falling was also killed, because God had said it must never be touched by human flesh.Likewise, God had decreed Jerusalem to be the acceptable location of the temple --Mount Moriah to be exact, where Abraham had gone to sacrifice Isaac, 2 Chronicles 3:1, and which later was the threshing floor David bought from Araunah the Jebusite for the purpose of building the temple, 2 Samuel 24:18.In other words its location was of extreme importance, far from an elective matter. Here's one commentary on it: This message has been edited by Faith, 04-27-2005 12:19 PM

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I was anxious to know whether you acknowledge your fallacious assertions by misquoting off target Qur'aanic verses to deduce assumptions derived using Biblical Yardstick. Also the topic and/or subject matter was neither well defined not agreed upon (Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts)

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My apologies if I misquoted those sections of the Koran. In error, I assumed that the use of proper names for chapter titles meant that those sections were written by eye witnesses.

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I would also like to know that why do you think that a "Divine Revelation" requires an eyewitness account. Islaam is unlike any other religions, where man makes and/or decides the god of picks the god through a council.

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I don't think that Divine revelation requires an eyewitness account - I don't believe in god, so it's a bit of a moot point. The question was intended to determine the status of eyewitness accounts and in those circumstances you have provided some clear points why it is not a valid measurement for the Koran.I'll skip off the religion rant bit as I don't think it's particularly helpful.

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The assertions made in your post are mute and proves nothing, beside that you have tried to judge the Qur'aan with Biblical yardstick. While the Bible can't even reach the perfectness of the Qur'aan, which is the truly Divine revealed word of Allaah.

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I don't really see any assertions in the first post beyond, suggesting those quotes in error. I was posing a question.

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I was anxious to know whether you acknowledge your fallacious assertions by misquoting off target Qur'aanic verses to deduce assumptions derived using Biblical Yardstick. Also the topic and/or subject matter was neither well defined not agreed upon (Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts)
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My apologies if I misquoted those sections of the Koran. In error, I assumed that the use of proper names for chapter titles meant that those sections were written by eye witnesses.

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I would also like to know that why do you think that a "Divine Revelation" requires an eyewitness account. Islaam is unlike any other religions, where man makes and/or decides the god of picks the god through a council.
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I don't think that Divine revelation requires an eyewitness account - I don't believe in god, so it's a bit of a moot point. The question was intended to determine the status of eyewitness accounts and in those circumstances you have provided some clear points why it is not a valid measurement for the Koran.

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I'll skip off the religion rant bit as I don't think it's particularly helpful.

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The assertions made in your post are mute and proves nothing, beside that you have tried to judge the Qur'aan with Biblical yardstick. While the Bible can't even reach the perfectness of the Qur'aan, which is the truly Divine revealed word of Allaah.
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I don't really see any assertions in the first post beyond, suggesting those quotes in error. I was posing a question.

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Hi General KrullThank you for your response and acknowledging the mistake.Regards
Checkmate

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."