Can we...?

[123xo]

Can we as muslims read the Torah and the Bible ? Just out of curiosity ? I know almost all of it has been altered and is no longer the word of Allah.  Also are there original copies of both scripts ever found? I tried googling if we can read it and someone said no but i'm not sure how valid that answer is. 

[JannahLM]

Of course! I read the Bible from time to time myself. Even if the book has been corrupted there's still a lot of valuable wisdom to be found within.

[Abu Hadi]

As Muslims, we are not afraid of any books including those. Of course u can read them. At the same time realize that these books ar not the Taurat and Injeel spoken of in Quran. They are not books 'from God'. They were in their original forms but they have been changed so much by people over the centuries that it is impossible to tell which parts are truly from God and which are not. I read them myself sometimes, but I think of them as history books.

The only book that we (non masoom) have access to which is 100 percent from God, cover to cover is the Holy Quran which is wny we value it and protect it to the point that some people think we are crazy. Lol 

Edited January 6, 2024 by Abu Hadi

[PureExistence1]

5 hours ago, 123xo said:

Can we as muslims read the Torah and the Bible ? 

are there original copies of both scripts ever found? 

Salaam, I personally have never heard an objection to us reading them, just as long as we understand that like you said, they have been corrupted.

It's pretty easy, at least for me coming from a Christian background, to read the Bible and know what is in agreement with what the Quran says and what isn't. So the discernment needs to be there, but otherwise it's actually a very good thing to do because it helps us with interfaith dialogues. It helps us to better understand where christians and jews are coming from. 

One of the important things NOT to do is, don't try interpret what the Quran says based on the Torah and Injeel/New Testament. Because the Quran came to clarify what was changed in the other books, so dont use the other books to understand the Quran because it could lead You astray in your understanding of islam.

Muslims don't take our religion from Christians and jews. That is one of the major objections to the Hadith that some use to justify fasting on muharram 10th... They claim the prophet(SAWS) came across some Jews that were fasting and when he asked them why they were fasting, they told him because they were commemorating the Jews release from egypt, and so the prophet supposedly decided to make fasting on muharram 10th something for Muslims to do, but we don't accept that for a few reasons. One of them is because the prophet (SAWS) would never take religious rulings from christians or jews. He took them only from Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى), and if Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) wanted the ummah to fast on muharram 10th, it would have been a command from God, not a random person he ran into on a trail somewhere.

As far as original Scriptures being around, I think the oldest scriptures that are tied to the New testament go back to around 75 years after prophet Issa's(عليه السلام) death, but I am not sure of any existing ORIGINAL scriptures from the Torah/Old Testament. I'd have to look further into that. I mean, there's probably some stuff, but I don't know for sure.

[Abu Hadi]

2 hours ago, PureExistence1 said:

Salaam, ...

One of the important things NOT to do is, don't try interpret what the Quran says based on the Torah and Injeel/New Testament. Because the Quran came to clarify what was changed in the other books, so dont use the other books to understand the Quran because it could lead You astray in your understanding of islam.

Muslims don't take our religion from Christians and jews. 

I think this point needs more emphasis. I have seen many especially new revert brothers and sisters make this mistake get confused, and then some of them end up losing their deen all together

We should realize that Islam is in no need of any other religion to 'prop it up'. It stands on its own as a complete system. 

[123xo]

@PureExistence1 salaam, thank you for your insightful answer xx 

[Ashvazdanghe]

Salam just for more information

Is it wrong for a Muslim to read the Torah and other divine religious books? Question: Is reading Torah and other books of heavenly religions wrong and haram for a Muslim?  

brief answer

There is no problem for those who recognize its truth and falsehood. Otherwise, if there is a possibility of deviation of opinion, it is not permissible.

 Appendices:

The answer of the great Marjas of Taqlid regarding this question is as follows: [1] 

Hazrat Grand Ayatollah Khamenei : There is no problem for those who recognize its truth and falsehood. Otherwise, it is not permissible if he is afraid of  endangering of his religion or deviation in belief.

 

Hazrat grand  Ayatollah  Shabiri Zanjani : There is no problem in itself, unless there is a fear of deviation, in which case it is not permissible.

Hazrat Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi: If he knows enough about his Islamic beliefs, there is no problem, but we recommend that you first strengthen and complete the basics of your beliefs.

Hazrat Grand Ayatollah Noori Hamedani : If he is not an expert and able to diagnose, there is a problem.

https://www.islamquest.net/fa/archive/fa57121

[Ibn Maymun]

Salaam.

Wonderful thoughts on this post.

On 1/6/2024 at 8:08 AM, 123xo said:

Can we as muslims read the Torah and the Bible ? Just out of curiosity ? I know almost all of it has been altered and is no longer the word of Allah.  Also are there original copies of both scripts ever found? I tried googling if we can read it and someone said no but i'm not sure how valid that answer is. 

There aren’t originals of Torah to be found.  We are talking about an extremely old document.  The oldest fragment of Torah dates back to around the time of the fall of the first Temple.  It’s a priestly blessing on an amulet.  The oldest relatively complete Torah is found among the Dead Sea scrolls.  
The Samaritans argue that their Torah is the oldest in the world.  
 

There’s actually a lot of commonality between the Septuagint (a Greek translation by Jewish sages of Egypt), the Samaritan Torah, and the Torah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Where the Dead Sea Scrolls vary from the Masoretic text (the Torah found on scrolls in synagogues around the world), they tend to agree with the Septuagint and Samaritan Torah.  Point being - when we talk about Torah, it’s been a document in flux.

As far as the written gospels go, there was a tendency of the disciples of rabbis to follow their masters around and record what they taught and did.  The goal was to understand how they lived and applied Torah.  These collected “notebooks” were later argued over, redacted, and codified into Talmud.  I suspect that the “gospels” were very much documents of this sort, acquiring the name of Jesus’ message much in the way that someone might point at the moon and the observer focuses in on the finger.  Divorced from their context, I believe those gospels took on a new meaning and lost their substantive meaning.  As far as oldest texts, I have no idea.

Take care.

[123xo]

On 1/13/2024 at 12:46 AM, Ibn Maymun said:

Salaam.

Wonderful thoughts on this post.

There aren’t originals of Torah to be found.  We are talking about an extremely old document.  The oldest fragment of Torah dates back to around the time of the fall of the first Temple.  It’s a priestly blessing on an amulet.  The oldest relatively complete Torah is found among the Dead Sea scrolls.  
The Samaritans argue that their Torah is the oldest in the world.  
 

There’s actually a lot of commonality between the Septuagint (a Greek translation by Jewish sages of Egypt), the Samaritan Torah, and the Torah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Where the Dead Sea Scrolls vary from the Masoretic text (the Torah found on scrolls in synagogues around the world), they tend to agree with the Septuagint and Samaritan Torah.  Point being - when we talk about Torah, it’s been a document in flux.

As far as the written gospels go, there was a tendency of the disciples of rabbis to follow their masters around and record what they taught and did.  The goal was to understand how they lived and applied Torah.  These collected “notebooks” were later argued over, redacted, and codified into Talmud.  I suspect that the “gospels” were very much documents of this sort, acquiring the name of Jesus’ message much in the way that someone might point at the moon and the observer focuses in on the finger.  Divorced from their context, I believe those gospels took on a new meaning and lost their substantive meaning.  As far as oldest texts, I have no idea.

Take care.

Wonderful answer! 

I've also came to the conclusion that whatever the original Torah & Bible had written in them would be pretty much the same to what the Quran has as they are all the world of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) and the Quran mentioned everything that happened during each period and every prophet that was sent to the jews and christians before islam and the last prophet. 

[root]

Question is, why would you ride a Prius when you have a Ferrari?

[kadhim]

There’s a lot of benefit to reading through the Bible. On multiple levels. There is the interfaith relations level of understanding what people of the book have as their sources. But also partly for our own understanding of the Quran. The Quran, for the most part, does not have a lot of long-form narrative. Some for the story of Yusuf, some for the story of Musa. But aside from that, not really. When it deals with figures also in the Bible, it’s mostly callbacks. It alludes to the Biblical story without getting into the details. It seems to assume that the readers are already familiar with the stories. The focus is less on telling the details of the story, and more on calling out the story as an example of some larger point, often stringing together similar messages from the stories of different figures. 

There are a multiple passages in the Quran I recall that were rather obscure and only made any sense after having read the Bible story to which it alludes. 

I see some calling on the popular conception that the Bible was “corrupted.” It’s definitely a widespread understanding among our community, but in terms of basis for that belief in our sources, it’s not so clear. Some passages from the Quran seem to undermine this notion; the Quran talks about the Torah and Injeel as something the Jews and Christians of the day had, and as something that they could use as a basis for judgment. Which would be hard to do if they didn’t have it. 

It should be said though that Jews and Christians don’t understand most of their scripture in the same way as Muslims do the Quran — that is, as the literal “word of God.” Aside from perhaps the Torah and the “red letter” parts said to the words of Jesus in the Gospels, it’s all recognized as being the words of men, although perhaps with some inspiration from God. 

One interesting thing to reflect on is the meaning of “tahreef” — typically translated as distortion, and the forms it can possibly take. As we should be well aware from what we see from folks like Salafists, you don’t need to change the actual words to change the meaning. You just need to change how you read it. 

A good example is the New Testament. If you read through it, front to back, very carefully, you will be very very hard-pressed to find any hint of the supposed doctrine of the divinity of Christ there. Even in the letters of Paul, it’s almost not mentioned. There is much more emphasis on Jesus dying and being resurrected, and on the salvific benefit of that, that sort of stuff. But in terms of calling Jesus God — which is one of the most key beliefs in mainstream Christianity, it’s largely not there in the Bible. Ditto in terms of straightforward ideas of the doctrine of the trinity. Bart Ehrman has a pretty good book called How Jesus Became God that touches on some of this, how understanding shifted over time. So this is a classic example of how people just pull different things from the same text without trying to delete or add actual words. 

Edited January 14, 2024 by kadhim

[123xo]

3 hours ago, root said:

Question is, why would you ride a Prius when you have a Ferrari?

I like learning new things, just to understand the pov of others. 

[root]

10 hours ago, 123xo said:

I like learning new things, just to understand the pov of others. 

Fair enough

[Arteg]

It would make it easier for me as a bible reader but not the Quran to talk with you. I believe the bible is a collection of books.

I like the idea.

For Khadim who mentions the trinity: the trinity is a concept that began to be widely adopted by the council Nicaea called by a non Christian roman Emperor (a Sun God believer). Trinity is also a concept widely worshiped by Greeks and others at the time. It is fairly normal to find this kind of differences between the bible narratives and the christian religion narratives, in particular which details of the whole story a Christian denomination choose to adhere to. 

[Bea1620]

Quote

Can we as muslims read the Torah and the Bible ? Just out of curiosity ? I know almost all of it has been altered and is no longer the word of Allah.  Also are there original copies of both scripts ever found? I tried googling if we can read it and someone said no but i'm not sure how valid that answer is. 

Hi, I think by now you have established that you can read the Bible.  But if it's "not the word of God" then what are you looking to find in it and why is it important to you that you have the "original" manuscripts? I ask because I am curious why so many are telling you above that "as long as you understand that it is not the word of God because it has been altered" then you can read it. Like if the alteration of this book will make you doubt/lose your faith. It seems to me they are portraying the Bible as a very powerful book even though it has been "altered". That's ironic. I encourage you to read for YOURSELF and not for anyone else.

In regards to the earliest manuscripts of the new testament(gospel). Currently we have many fragments and one dating back to the 2nd century, very close to Jesus resurrection. This is the link to further read https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/15/the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts/

• P90 (P. Oxy. 3523), is a small fragment of papyrus with portions of the Gospel of John (18:36-19:7) on both sides in Greek. It has been dated paleographically to the second century A.D.⁴   This text is part of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, a group of  manuscripts discovered in the ancient garbage dump near Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.

[BlessedUprising]

It depends on whose opinion you are asking, the opinions of Muslims, Christinas or Jews? 

In Islam, it is permissible for Muslims to read the Torah/Bible, but this permissibility is subject to conditions. If there is a risk that you might be corrupted by these texts it is impermissible. If there is no risk, it is permissible. This is the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Sistani on this question:

https://iraq.shafaqna.com/AR/75249/رأي-السيد-السيستاني-حول-جواز-قراءة-الك/

In Christianity, it is permissible for Muslims to study the Bible/Torah. In this time that we live in, Christianity in most countries does not prohibit Muslims and/or non-Christians from studying its texts. This was not always the case. 

In Judaism, non-Jews are forbidden from studying the Torah and Judaism. Those that do are in Jewish Law punishable by death, specifically by way of stoning. So, in Judaism, it is not permissible for Muslims to study the Torah. 

"The punishment of a Gentile who studies the Torah is like that of one who engages in intercourse with a betrothed young woman, which is execution by stoning" The Talmud, Sanhedrin 59a (a holy book of the Jews, one they consider the word of God and more important than the Torah).  

As a side note: The Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible are practically one and the same book. The Christian Bible is made up of the Old Testament and the New Testament whilst the Torah is made up of the Old Testament. 

A second side note: If you want to study Judaism, you will not learn much of anything about it by reading its Torah. Judaism is not like Christianity. Judaism has many holy books to which it refers as the Sefaria or "Esfar" in Arabic. 

Here's a link to the Jewish Esfar translated into English:

https://www.sefaria.org/texts  

What are the Esfar? Simply, they are the interpretations of the Torah by Judaism highest authorities. Note that Jews consider these Esfar, these interpretations, the word of God. They consider them holy. Note that the website cited above does not include them all. Jews have other Esfar that are not included in this website.

Most people outside of judaism don't know the facts that I have stated above, because few people research Judaism, including Shia, a huge shortcoming in the followers of present day Shia Islam whose research is largely focused on the [edited out] sect.  

[PureExistence1]

On 3/6/2024 at 5:37 PM, Bea1620 said:

Hi, I think by now you have established that you can read the Bible.  But if it's "not the word of God" then what are you looking to find in it and why is it important to you that you have the "original" manuscripts? I ask because I am curious why so many are telling you above that "as long as you understand that it is not the word of God because it has been altered" then you can read it. Like if the alteration of this book will make you doubt/lose your faith. It seems to me they are portraying the Bible as a very powerful book even though it has been "altered". That's ironic. I encourage you to read for YOURSELF and not for anyone else.

In regards to the earliest manuscripts of the new testament(gospel). Currently we have many fragments and one dating back to the 2nd century, very close to Jesus resurrection. This is the link to further read https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/15/the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts/

• P90 (P. Oxy. 3523), is a small fragment of papyrus with portions of the Gospel of John (18:36-19:7) on both sides in Greek. It has been dated paleographically to the second century A.D.⁴   This text is part of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, a group of  manuscripts discovered in the ancient garbage dump near Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.

Hello, interesting article and thanks for linking it.

The only thing I have to say is, well yes, these are very ancient and lead back to a very early period of time close to Jesus(عليه السلام). The issue for me comes with the fact that he didnt speak in greek, he spoke Aramaic, so  a translation had to take place and what happened with that translation, God knows... It's not in the original language. No matter how old something is, there's always room for alterations or mistakes once it's translated from one language to the next.

But yeah I totally agree, people need to read for themselves.

Pease:)

[BlessedUprising]

On 3/14/2024 at 3:41 AM, PureExistence1 said:

Hello, interesting article and thanks for linking it.

The only thing I have to say is, well yes, these are very ancient and lead back to a very early period of time close to Jesus(عليه السلام). The issue for me comes with the fact that he didnt speak in greek, he spoke Aramaic, so  a translation had to take place and what happened with that translation, God knows... It's not in the original language. No matter how old something is, there's always room for alterations or mistakes once it's translated from one language to the next.

But yeah I totally agree, people need to read for themselves.

Pease:)

Some facts that might inform this reply of yours that yourself and others reading this reply of mine might find interesting:

The Catholic Bible, otherwise known as the Roman Catholic Bible, one of the two most popular bibles in current use in Christianity is translated into English from the Latin Vulgate, a text compiled and translated from Hebrew and Greek by a man named Jerome, this in the fourth century, roughly 400 years after Jesus, peace be upon him. The Catholic Church chose the Vulgate as its Bible in the seventh century, 700 years after Jesus, peace be upon him. This book, adopted by the Church nearly a whole millennium after Jesus, peace be upon him, is the earliest copy that Christians poses of their Bible, the one that they use today. They have nothing earlier but archeological snippets they have found which they claim are a part of their Hebrew and Greek Bibles, many proven nothing but fake, this thanks in large part to the fact that The Catholic Church destroyed all original sources and killed anyone that dared question Jerome's translations, which it adopted in the 7th century, translations which were up until then heavily disputed in Christianity.

Jerome, was at the time that he translated the Bible into the Latin Vulgate accused of heresy, of distorting it by most Christians of his time. He was in his time widely in Christendom considered a liar and a heretic. Such are the authors of these books, which are by Christians today claimed to be the word of God. Like the so-called Sunnis, most Christians do not know these facts about their most seminal texts, all distortions put together by liars and thugs driven by ulterior motives, whose books became accepted as the true word of God at the tip of the sword. Anyone that dared question them was liquidated. People accepted these distorted books written centuries after Jesus, peace be upon him, by known liars and widely accepted heathens, as the true word of God or else.

Another popular bible in Christianity is the King James Bible, which is another translation of the bible made for political reasons by the Church of England roughly in the 1600s, 1600 years after Jesus, peace be upon him, from books the Church of England deemed authentic ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED YEARS AFTER JESUS.

Don't be fooled by the rubbish that you find online in the mainstream that claims the bible was compiled and written shortly after Jesus, peace be upon him. It wasn't.  

You won't find this information that I have written above easily without in-depth research, a research when expressed in the mainstream today almost always costs its author a price, research which I encourage those brave in Shia to do, a research in Christianity and in Judaism, the latter which throughout the history of Christianity heavily infiltrated and distorted Christian texts, so much so that Christianity became in many ways nothing but a servile  extension of Judaism, as can be best demonstrated by the Evangelical community in the US, a community that prides itself in serving Jews, a community serving those whom according to its own religion killed its God, a community whose main Bible is the Scofield Bible, new translation funded entirely by Jews and written by a shill in such a way as to promote Jewish interests in the US. 

These religions are all so asinine, they are beyond comical. They are an affront to human intelligence, this one of the many reasons that they are dying so fast in this age of reason, so fast that nothing can save them, nothing that is but distortion, perversion, subversion, deception, censorship, wars, violence.

 

[TheWayofTheSalaaf]

Remember you are ready and translation. These translations protect doctrines such as trinity and other shirk. If you read it read with a Christian who reverted and can read greek. If you feel confused feel free to post on here and I would be happy to answer. I use to be christian and read greek.

[Bea1620]

On 3/13/2024 at 10:41 PM, PureExistence1 said:

Hello, interesting article and thanks for linking it.

The only thing I have to say is, well yes, these are very ancient and lead back to a very early period of time close to Jesus(عليه السلام). The issue for me comes with the fact that he didnt speak in greek, he spoke Aramaic, so  a translation had to take place and what happened with that translation, God knows... It's not in the original language. No matter how old something is, there's always room for alterations or mistakes once it's translated from one language to the next.

But yeah I totally agree, people need to read for themselves.

Pease:)

Hi, for a while now God has urged me to reply to your comment.

At least you agree with the historical evidence that there exist manuscripts/portions of the New Testament close to the 1st century when Jesus was alive (He died & resurrected 30 or 33 AD). But the problem for you is that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. Why are you so certain of that if history tell us otherwise? By the time Jesus was alive and started his ministry the Hebrew Bible which is the Tanakh which includes the Torah(law of Moses), the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Why? Because at the time they were under the Roman Empire and the official language was Greek. Jews at the time spoke more Greek than Hebrew and then yes, there was Aramaic and perhaps that is the language that the mass spoke but they still needed to speak Greek to do basic trade and also speak to Roman officers. Scholars debate on this matter but my logic says to me that Jesus knew the three languages that were spoken at the time, Greek, Hebrew, & Aramaic. There is much evidence of artifacts found in that regions with the 3 languages. The Bible has references of Aramaic too. I mean, to me it is so obvious of the need to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek if you want your children to continue to understand the sacred word of God (YHWH). So by the time you get to the writing of the gospel of course they will write it in Greek because you want more and more people to understand this precious message and then translate into more and more languages, the more the merrier! This is the GOOD NEWS= euangelion=Evangelio=gospel. Also, I don't follow your logic of the translation issue since by your standards I could be reading an altered versions of the Quran because I read it in English or in Spanish. Afterall, "it's not the original language... and there is always room for alterations from one language to the next..." 

I write all of this with much love and respect and as a follower of Christ that would love to see more people come to the Bible with an objective view, not a skew view of what the Bible "should be". I have many resources to share if anyone is interested.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." -Jesus

Bea

[PureExistence1]

On 7/4/2024 at 8:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

altered versions of the Quran because I read it in English or in Spanish. Afterall, "it's not the original language... and there is always room for alterations from one language to the next..." 

Hello, sorry I can only comment on this specific area at the moment as I only have a few minutes due to caretaking responsibilities and my own health issues.

No muslim claims any translation is correct. It is ALWAYS encouraged (according to some, mandatory) for a Muslim to learn Arabic as there are many details of the Quran that can only be discovered through the actual Arabic language. Any translation is only a general guide to what is being said.

There are multiple definitions of numerous words and often times the translations get them wrong but when an actual Arabic scholar addresses the issue, you learn of the deficiency of the translated version. 

Theres a good website called https://corpus.quran.com/ that is a great resource for discovering how even a one letter change in an arabic word can completely shift the meaning and understanding of the verse/ayah.

I will revisit this thread at a better time, hopefully shortly.

Thanks for your reply!

@Abu Hadi Salaam brother, is there anything you can add about this particular point? I think maybe you as a convert and someone who has studied Arabic, you may have more information on this topic than I do.

JazakAllahkheyr

[Guest Guest 4 u]

On 7/4/2024 at 9:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

Hi, for a while now God has urged me to reply to your comment.

At least you agree with the historical evidence that there exist manuscripts/portions of the New Testament close to the 1st century when Jesus was alive (He died & resurrected 30 or 33 AD). But the problem for you is that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. Why are you so certain of that if history tell us otherwise? By the time Jesus was alive and started his ministry the Hebrew Bible which is the Tanakh which includes the Torah(law of Moses), the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Why? Because at the time they were under the Roman Empire and the official language was Greek. Jews at the time spoke more Greek than Hebrew and then yes, there was Aramaic and perhaps that is the language that the mass spoke but they still needed to speak Greek to do basic trade and also speak to Roman officers. Scholars debate on this matter but my logic says to me that Jesus knew the three languages that were spoken at the time, Greek, Hebrew, & Aramaic. There is much evidence of artifacts found in that regions with the 3 languages. The Bible has references of Aramaic too. I mean, to me it is so obvious of the need to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek if you want your children to continue to understand the sacred word of God (YHWH). So by the time you get to the writing of the gospel of course they will write it in Greek because you want more and more people to understand this precious message and then translate into more and more languages, the more the merrier! This is the GOOD NEWS= euangelion=Evangelio=gospel. Also, I don't follow your logic of the translation issue since by your standards I could be reading an altered versions of the Quran because I read it in English or in Spanish. Afterall, "it's not the original language... and there is always room for alterations from one language to the next..." 

I write all of this with much love and respect and as a follower of Christ that would love to see more people come to the Bible with an objective view, not a skew view of what the Bible "should be". I have many resources to share if anyone is interested.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." -Jesus

Bea

Jesus ( (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم)) was from the lineage of Jacob(Israel) and he was ministering to the Jews so why on earth would he speak to them in Greek rather than their language, Aramaic which is a dialect of Hebrew which was spoken at the time ? 

It makes no sense. 

[Ashvazdanghe]

On 7/4/2024 at 8:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

At least you agree with the historical evidence that there exist manuscripts/portions of the New Testament close to the 1st century when Jesus was alive (He died & resurrected 30 or 33 AD

Salam this is totally wrong approach about history because New Testament has been written & collected too many years after  ascending prophet Isa (عليه السلام) aka Jesus for you which story of his death & resurrection has been refuted countless times .

On 7/4/2024 at 8:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

But the problem for you is that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. Why are you so certain of that if history tell us otherwise?

There is Malula village in Syria which it's residents are still talking Aramaic ( Jesus' Tongue) which it's people have been saved from Daesh/ISIS by Hizbullah .

The Village In Syria Were They Speak Jesus' Tongue

In Syrian Villages, the Language of Jesus Lives

Quote

MALULA, Syria Elias Khoury can still remember the days when old people in this cliffside village spoke only Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Back then the village, linked to the capital, Damascus, only by a long and bumpy bus ride over the mountains, was almost entirely Christian, a vestige of an older and more diverse Middle East that existed before the arrival of Islam.

 

 

Quote

Yona Sabar, a professor of Semitic languages at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that today, Malula and its neighboring villages, Jabadeen and Bakhaa, represent “the last Mohicans” of Western Aramaic, which was the language Jesus presumably spoke in Galilee two millennia ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/world/middleeast/22aramaic.html

https://www.nydailynews.com/2012/05/28/pair-of-villages-in-holy-land-teaching-aramaic-in-effort-to-revive-language-that-jesus-spoke/

 

On 7/4/2024 at 8:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

Scholars debate on this matter but my logic says to me that Jesus knew the three languages that were spoken at the time, Greek, Hebrew, & Aramaic.

It's a good point which all prophets including prophet Isa (عليه السلام) /Jesus knew all spoken languages .

On 7/4/2024 at 8:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

. Jews at the time spoke more Greek than Hebrew and then yes, there was Aramaic and perhaps that is the language that the mass spoke but they still needed to speak Greek to do basic trade and also speak to Roman officers.

It's not a valid point because Bible has not been translated into commercial language & dialect likewise Greek but it has been translated due to migration of Christians for separation from Jews which there was always great enmity between them which as you have said new generation have needed a Greek translation due to being born in Greek regions however Greek language has been developed based on paganism which has not equivalent for divine words so therefore in translation to greek a great mistranslation has been happened due to adopting Bible into paganist language & lack of knowledge of translators or their agenda for distortion of Bible through mistranslation .

[Abu Hadi]

On 7/4/2024 at 9:50 PM, Bea1620 said:

Hi, for a while now God has urged me to reply to your comment.

At least you agree with the historical evidence that there exist manuscripts/portions of the New Testament close to the 1st century when Jesus was alive (He died & resurrected 30 or 33 AD). But the problem for you is that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. Why are you so certain of that if history tell us otherwise? By the time Jesus was alive and started his ministry the Hebrew Bible which is the Tanakh which includes the Torah(law of Moses), the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Why? Because at the time they were under the Roman Empire and the official language was Greek. Jews at the time spoke more Greek than Hebrew and then yes, there was Aramaic and perhaps that is the language that the mass spoke but they still needed to speak Greek to do basic trade and also speak to Roman officers. Scholars debate on this matter but my logic says to me that Jesus knew the three languages that were spoken at the time, Greek, Hebrew, & Aramaic. There is much evidence of artifacts found in that regions with the 3 languages. The Bible has references of Aramaic too. I mean, to me it is so obvious of the need to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek if you want your children to continue to understand the sacred word of God (YHWH). So by the time you get to the writing of the gospel of course they will write it in Greek because you want more and more people to understand this precious message and then translate into more and more languages, the more the merrier! This is the GOOD NEWS= euangelion=Evangelio=gospel. Also, I don't follow your logic of the translation issue since by your standards I could be reading an altered versions of the Quran because I read it in English or in Spanish. Afterall, "it's not the original language... and there is always room for alterations from one language to the next..." 

I write all of this with much love and respect and as a follower of Christ that would love to see more people come to the Bible with an objective view, not a skew view of what the Bible "should be". I have many resources to share if anyone is interested.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." -Jesus

Bea

The fact that you don't know what language Jesus spoke is, in itself, a huge, gigantic problem. 

To give you an example of your giantic problem, lets take the word logos λόγος.

It is also used to refer to the revelation of God in the world.” logos is a noun that occurs 330 times in the Greek New Testament. Of course, the word doesn’t always—in fact, it usually doesn’t—carry symbolic meaning. Its most basic and common meaning is simply “word,” “speech,” “utterance,” or “message.” 

https://www.logos.com/grow/greek-word-logos-meaning/

The word is only used a few times in the way that most Christians understand it (i.e. to refer to Jesus as 'god'), actually only one time that I can find, in John 1:1. I don't need to quote this since, you have probably memorized that usage of the word but most Christians are unfamiliar with the many, many other times it is used (see link above) to simply refer to a word or speech in the common sense. 

Another point, I am not familiar with any point where Jesus((عليه السلام)) refers to himself as the logos. This is only said about him by others AND if Jesus did refer to himself as the "logos' (maybe he did and I am not familiar with this verse) then did he use the Greek word or is this a translation into Greek from the Aramaic and he actually used an Aramaic word which might have a different meaning and was translated as logos. If we don't know, then really we can't rely on John 1:1 because we don't actually know the word that was used by Jesus (assuming he ever used this word). 

And let me just save you some trouble here with this one. Jesus couldn't have referred to himself as the Logos (capital L) because Greek didn't have capital and lower case letters at the time of Jesus(p.b.u.h). Also why Jesus(p.b.u.h) could not have referred to himself as the 'Son' of God, capital 'S', at least in Greek. Aramaic (a dialect of Hebrew that was spoken in Palestine in the 1st century A.D.) , like Arabic and Hebrew also does not have capital letters. These languages use a definite article before the word instead. In Arabic, this is the 'Al', in Hebrew, 'El', etc (even Spanish has this, 'El' (masculine) and 'La' feminine but Spanish also has capital letters in addition to the definite article). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#:~:text=The Greek alphabet is the,Latin during the modern era.

If the Bible, including the Old and New Testament is the absolute word of God, inspired thru the authors, as Christians claim, then we are obligated to understand and act on every word, period. The question is, what were those words ? Ask a Christian that and they will tell you things like the above. Jesus probably spoke Aramaic but could have spoken Greek or a combination or three languages. So which is it ? Which verses of the Bible are original Greek, which are original Aramaic, etc. 

As you probably know, translating one language to another is an approximation, not an exact science. Anyone who speaks more than one language can tell you this. Each language has it's own context, it's own history, it's own literature, and it's own entomology, which is how we deduce the meaning of words in a particular context. 

I speak English, some Arabic, and some Spanish. There are many phrases in Spanish that are not translatable into English, you can only approximate, and same with Arabic to English and English to Arabic. Under normal circumstances, this isn't a problem because we only need to know 'enough' to find the bathroom, get on the plane, get the girls number (lol), etc. When it comes to the word of God, an approximation is definitely not good enough since we are responsible for every word. 

You cannot compare the Bible with the Quran. The Quran was written in Arabic, every word and syllable from cover to cover, and everyone even non Muslim know that. In addition, it was written in the Classical Arabic (fusha) which is much more extensive and expressive vs modern Arabic. Every word and every syllable of the Quran was fixed in that language a few days after the death of Prophet Muhammad(p.b.u.h) and not one letter or syllable has changed since then. In addition, we have extensive literature that pre dates Islam in the Classic Arabic to help us understand the context and meanings of words. 

 

Edited July 11, 2024 by Abu Hadi