Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts

Aren't all these events also in the Quran?PE

What makes you think the Bible stories aren't plagiarised?

From earlier cultures, of course. Not sure what this has got to do with the Bible not being a plagiarism.PEThis message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 04-25-2005 05:34 PM

Jar - according to this site it was a message sent by the Prophet to the monks of Saint Catherine in Mount Sinai.PE

Salaams CheckmateWelcome to EvC - its good to have a Muslim here, even if there are many things we disagree upon (I was brought up as one). I hope you'll stick around.About that website, I don't know anything about it, but I looked up the quote and thats where it led me, so I'm not going to comment on its accuracy. I did try to find the original source of the quote but couldn't, so maybe the entire quote is a fabrication. In particular, the line: seems to imply that you can force non-Christian women to marry against their wish, but perhaps thats something lost in translation.Interesting that you can see mistakes on the web for Islamic websites - is this because you have a very particular view of what Islam should be, or that you see some factual errors (rather than errors of judgement or interpretation)? From your posts, I'm guessing that you're probably a Sunni, who holds some ahadith (the sahih ones) as authentic. Am I right? (Btw which side of the EvC debate are you on?)The mods don't like topics losing focus here so maybe meet you in another thread?PEThis message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 04-26-2005 04:23 PM

PecosGeorge - I'm assuming you don't know this, but probably one of the greatest insults you can hurl at a Muslim is to suggest that his / her religion has its roots based in polytheism. Was that really necessary in a thread about the validity of eye-witness accounts?Incidentally, when the Bible is translated in Arabic, the word "God" is translated as "Allah".PE

My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that in Islamic societies the word "Allah" is used practically every other sentence. This isn't just in Arabic, but in all the Islamic languages there are frequent references to Allah as in insha'allah (God willing), alhamdolillah (God be praised) - it would be churlish when it came to translating the Quran to substitute God for Allah.Although, that said, "Allah" is sometimes translated to "God", as I'm sure your extensive reading of some of the Quran taught you. If we take as an example the fist line of the Kalema:La illaha ill allahThis translates as: "There is no God but Allah" - but the word Allah is used twice in the Arabic! So one of the "Allah"s has been translated as God = this is because Arabic doesn't have any words for God other than "Allah" Why can't it be both? If memory serves, Islam has 99 different names for God (none of them YHWH). Aren't there several names for God in the Jewish faith as well? So the Bible is plain wrong in this case as it contradicts the Quran....... or should that be the other way around? How to tell? How to tell? (brings us nicely back to the subject ) I bet you've got two different names.Muslims say that they worship the same God as Jews and Christians. Many Jews and Christians claim that this isn't true. As far as I'm concerned you're all talking about some superbeing who created the Universe, Adam as the first man, heaven and hell and all that guff. The only differences seem to be in the way that you guys all relate to him. If he exists, he's hardly going to worry about what humans call him - not as if he has to fill out a tax return. All much of a muchness if you ask me.You seem to have your plate full which is why I stopped discussing stuff with you earlier. I'm only here intermittently at best, so no biggie if you don't respond to this to concentrate on your other conversations.PEPS Apologies to Checkmate if I've got any of the muslim angle wrong - I was only stepping in to prevent what looked like unfair goading of a newbie (not by Faith).This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 04-27-2005 08:38 PM