The following is an email conversation that I had with a Christian. It took place between the 23rd and 28th of July. This is the entire conversation, except that I removed the signatures in our emails and I removed any mention of his name and I fixed a spelling error in one of my replies to him. His comments will be in red and mine in black.

Him:

I got on google today and decided to do a search starting with "christianity is". Google’s search bar dropped down with the most popular searches along those lines, one of which was "christianity is false". Out of curiosity I clicked on it and saw a link to your top ten reasons. Why do you hate christianity and democracy? Were you raised a Muslim? I myself am a Christian, a Jesus-follower. I am honestly interested in hearing more about why you feel the way you do. I understand nothing I say will change your mind just as nothing you say will change mine. But maybe we can understand more of why the other believes the way he does.

Me:

Peace be upon those who follow righteous guidance,

Thanks for the email. I’m glad that you have taken some time to converse with me. I am a bit concerned when you say nothing will change your mind. It reminds me of a joke Steven Colbert made at the expense of G. W. Bush when he said that on Wednesday Bush believes exactly as he believed on Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday. In any case, my mind can be changed. I only desire truth because when I die and stand before my Lord I will have to answer Him myself.

God said in His Quran [52:11]:
Then woe that Day to those that treat (truth) as falsehood

I was not raised Muslim. I grew up attending Southern Baptist (my father’s side) and Pentecostal (my mother’s side) churches. I was baptised as ‘Born Again’ at 15 and I left Christianity at 16. I became Muslim just before my 19th birthday. I’ve now been Muslim for over 10 years.

I hate Christianity because if I had died at 15 as a Christian, I would have gone to Hell. I came to the brink of Hell, one push and it would have been over. I can never forgive Christianity for that.

 
God said in His Quran [4:48]:
Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin Most heinous indeed.

I hate democracy because by its very design it intends to remove authority away from God to the most despicable of men with money and charm.

God said in His Quran [12:40]
the command is for none but Allah

In short anything that seduces mankind from pure monotheism and the worship of our Lord deserves hatred and ridicule.

Again thank you for taking the time to email me, I am looking forward to your reply. May God make our correspondence beneficial, may He instil a sincerity for truth in us, and may He bring us ever closer to the straight path. Ameen.

P.S. I didn’t get this email until I was nearly finished replying to your comment on my blog. I will hold off publishing either your comment or my reply until we conclude our discussion here. That is to prevent us from having two separate discussions, which will take away from our ability to have a productive discussion.

Him:

Thank you very much for your reply and the deal with the comment reply sounds good to me. Now my comment about not being able to change my mind is based on the fact that I do sincerely believe I know the truth and that the truth I know is in Christ Jesus. So, yes I believe the one and only truth of God can change hearts and minds but being that I believe I already know that truth, I don’t expect my mind to change.

 
That is extremely interesting about your up-bringing in the church. I’m the opposite actually. I never attended church growing up and was without any real influence religiously to any one belief system. It was when I was in my first year of college in Las Vegas that I came to a brink with depression and a feeling of futility that I began to read my Bible that I had owned for years but never read. Through reading Ecclesiastes and then into the Gospels I drew closer to God and committed my life to Christ in January of 09′. So yes I am a very young christian.

 
I appreciate the verses that you have used from the Quran, but I think the burden of proof rests on the credibility of the Quran. I understand it’s original language is Arabic and being written around 620 A.D. would mean that the copy of the Quran in English that we have today is beyond all reasonable doubt very accurate to the original manuscript penned by Muhammad. But the credibility of those original words written by Muhammad being truly inspired revelations given by God is what worries me. Is there considerable archeological and historical evidence that under girds the credibility of the Quran’s authenticity as God-inspired revelation?

 
About your points on democracy; I do agree that it is very sad how this system of government has condemned monotheism in the way that it does. But I do cherish the freedoms provided by this government and the opportunities it gives to live a lifestyle that is safe for all people to practice their respective beliefs and to come to God by their own free will and choice of heart rather than by the threats and dangers impressed by a theocratic or totalitarian government.

 
If you don’t mind talking about some more personal stuff, I was just wondering where you grew up and where you currently live. I was born and raised in Texas, myself.

 
And was there a significant occurrence or event that lead you to leave the Church at 16?

Thank you again for your willingness and friendliness in discussing these topics of interest. I am looking forward to your reply and the continuance of our correspondence.

Me:

Peace be upon those who follow righteous guidance,

I do not expect my mind to be changed and even less when it comes to Christianity. However, to say nothing will change your mind suggests that you will disregard everything the other has said that doesn’t fit with your narrative. That is not my position and I hope not yours.

January ’09 makes you a very young Christian indeed. I wonder how long you were reading the Bible before you were inclined to become a Christian. Was it instant or did it take time and thought?

You are right to question the credibility of the Quran. If the Quran is not credible then Islam is false. How can we determine if the Quran is credible or perhaps easier how can we disprove the Quran’s credibility?

Is there archaeological and historical evidence that the events mentioned in the Quran actually happened? Yes. Is there archaeological evidence that these things did not happen as described by the Quran? No. Does the fact that these things happened convince you that the Quran is authentic? Should you be convinced?

Some early points to establish the authenticity of the Quran:

• The Quran we have today is the Quran of Muhammed, salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
• The Quran remains in its original language.
• Muhammed, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was known as ‘The Trustworthy’ even by his enemies.
• Muhammed, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, never materially profited from his claim of prophethood or his position as the leader of a large state.

Do you know that the Quran established freedom of religion long before Europeans thought it was a good idea?

God says in His Quran [2:256]:
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.

Despite what is happening in Israel there are large numbers of Jews living peacefully in North Africa, Iran and other places within the Muslim world. In fact, during the Spanish Inquisition the Jews fled from Spain to the Islamic empire where they settled and never left. Moreover, in Egypt there are millions of Christians and yet they have lived under Islamic law for over 1,000 years (they are not living under Islamic law now).

 
I was born in Baytown, Texas and raised in Dayton, Ohio but I now live in Europe. There wasn’t any special event that lead me away from Christianity except the regret I was feeling and the my disillusionment with the Bible. I used to ask God everyday to guide me towards the truth and everyday I felt less and less inclined towards Christianity. Then I read things in the Bible that I could not accept. I had no choice but to leave Christianity and I did it happily.

Him:

My turn to Christ did take time and thought but was a very prominent pull from the very beginning. Thank you for the information on the Quran. But no, I am not yet convinced that it is credible as the Word of God. I do hold to the belief that it is written in the Bible that no revelation will follow the close of the cannon which ended with the writing of Revelation. So I do have a very hard time believing in any such acclaimed revelations as the Quran and the books of Mormonism alike.

 
What parts of the Bible can you not accept? Are they actual teachings of God or are they actions people performed in the Bible that are not necessarily deemed by God? I don’t agree with Samson sleeping with a prostitute, but neither does the commandments of God. And the literary use of this event in no way represents an action that is favorable or should be exampled after. It is merely part of a story, the redemptive story of God’s people.

 
If the Quran established religious freedom, then why do some muslims believe that Quran 2:191-193 supports jihad and the killing of any religion opposed to Allah? Why is it mortally dangerous to preach the Gospel in such places as Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia (all Islamic countries if I’m not mistaken)? Why is there not one publicly permissible Christian church in all of Saudi Arabia?

I do know that Jesus is mentioned in the Quran, but I don’t know as to what extent. Is Jesus believed to just be a prophet of God? How is Jesus portrayed in the Quran?

Me:

I didn’t expect you to be convinced just yet. However, you must acknowledge that these early points are favourable to the Quran’s credibility.

 
I find your belief that no revelation will follow the close of the cannon very curious. Where did you get that from? Who decided which books would be part of the cannon and why?

 
There was no agreement as to which books should be included, with each Church adhering to their own cannon. For example the codex Sinaiticus contains two extra books in the New Testament, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas.

 
It wasn’t until the fourth century that an effort was to determine which book belonged and which didn’t. I find this very telling. Christians did not receive direct guidance from Jesus, his companions, Paul, or anyone else close to the events. In addition, there was a large body of writing that must have been outright lies and forgeries, while claiming to be divinely inspired. I wonder what was the system that was used to determine the accuracy of the manuscripts. Moreover, 300 years is an amazing amount of time and it is unlikely (read impossible) for 100% accuracy. Please describe the system that was used to accept or reject these manuscripts.

 
To determine which books belong or didn’t belong, the council of Nicaea (325) was established, they determined that the Epistle of Jude was authentic and believable and announce the rest as doubtful. Another council in Liodicia (364) determined that, in addition to Jude, six other books were to be added to the acceptable list. Again in Cartgage (397) they added another six books. There would be three more councils that in the end would include all the books that were originally declared as doubtful, including Revelations. Later came the Protestant Reformation, which saw some books purged from the Bible. Until this day, Christians do not have a consensus about which books belong in the cannon.

I do not accept a single word that is written in the Bible. My opposition to Judges 16:1 is not whether God condones Samson’s fornication or not. Nor do I care whether Samson was a good or bad person. Nor whether it actually happened or not. My opposition to the verse is that it is there. The verse is superfluous and unduly profane. Past that, I cannot accept the sin attributed to David, I cannot accept the impure lineage of Jesus, I cannot accept the apostasy of Solomon, I cannot accept incest between prophet Lot and his daughters, I cannot accept rape and murder committed on the orders of God, I cannot accept the divinity attributed to Jesus, I cannot accept Paul’s campaign against the law, I cannot accept the hippy and cowardly portrayal of Jesus.

Jihad has nothing to do with religious freedom. No Islamic army ever entered into a place and forced people to convert to Islam because that was never the purpose of Jihad in Islam. In fact, there have always been specific orders to leave places of worship and the priests, rabbis, monks, nuns were to be safeguarded. Couple the fact that buildings of worship and people of faith were protected even during the heat of battle with the historical truth of long standing Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian and other religious communities we can safely say that Jihad has nothing to do with the religious freedoms of non-Muslim communities in Islamic law and practice.

 
Quran 2:191-193 do not say kill anyone from any religion that is opposed to Allah. When the prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, first publicly announce the message of Islam to the idol worshippers of Mecca, they lashed out very hard. They tortured, robbed, murdered and forced Muslims from their homes in an attempt to crush the Islamic movement in its infancy. Throughout this time, the prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, forbade his followers from fighting back and told them to remain steadfast. After the Muslims migrated to Medina, the polytheists of Mecca raised the stakes and threatened to wipe out the Muslims with armies. It was then that Allah gave permission to the Muslims to defend themselves. These verses are saying fight them like they are fighting you, do to them what they are doing to you, but if they stop fighting you then you must stop fighting them. Moreover, even during this fight you are not allowed to kill women or children or priests or the elderly. You are not allowed to cut down trees or kill animals without a useful reason (such as eating).

 
Islam does not have a command to kill non-Muslims just because they are non-Muslim nor does it have a history of doing it; do you know of a religious community that does? A religious group force converted African slaves in America, they force converted the native populations of the Caribbean, they force converted in Spain and in England. Moreover, they force converted people in the most horrific way. Can you guess what religious group that I’m talking about?

 
Can you please give me the name of a missionary killed in Saudi Arabia? Even when the Taliban caught missionaries in Afghanistan, prior to the war that is going on there now, they released them unharmed. Tell me why there is no Mosque in Vatican City. Moreover, tell me why there is so much opposition to mosques in a supposedly ‘religion neutral’ country like the US?

Regarding Jesus in the Quran please review the short article found here.

Him:

Hey Abu,

I have been pretty busy the past couple days and will be for the next couple of days with wrapping up some school stuff and some ministries in the Church before I head back out for college so it may be another couple days before I can really sit down and spend the time worthy of answering your questions and responding. But I wanted to at least give you a heads up. I hope your week is going good and your family is well. I will talk to you soon! Have a good one.

Me:

Thanks for the heads up, however, do not feel that you are under any sort of obligation to reply or that you must do so quickly.

God says in His Quran [3:64]:
Say, "O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you – that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah ." But if they turn away, then say, "Bear witness that we are Muslims [submitting to Him]."

That is how our conversation ended, the last message being received on the 28th of July. I waited nearly two months for the promised rebuttal. Enjoy.

Here is my top ten list of ways to know Christianity is false. Enjoy.

Number 10: Missionary Deception.

Lying and deceiving is part of the Christian evangelic tradition, which started with the founder of Christianity, Paul. Every method of trickery is employed to catch the gullible, the poor, and the ignorant. The missionary is a vulture preying on the destitute and the disadvantaged. He is in the service of Satan and his call is evil.

Number 9: Pagan Influence.

The religion of Jesus the son of Mary, alayhi sallam, was the antithesis of paganism and idolatry. However during the first few centuries after Jesus, there was no consensus on such things as which texts to include in the Christian canon,  the role of Mosaic law, or whether Jesus was a man, a man-god or God. As early Christians struggled to create an orthodox identity, politicians and other unscrupulous characters took advantage and shaped Christianity to secure their own places of power and influence. Pagan customs and idolatry were Christianized and became part of the orthodoxy. A religion claiming to speak for the one true God must be free from such influences.

Number 8: The Bible is Inconsistent.

There is nothing wrong with a book written over thousands of years to contain stylistic differences. However, if the source is the same unchanging and perfect God then we expect a consistent and coherent message throughout. The Bible suffers from drastic schizophrenic  changes. God’s very nature gets turn upside-down. The changes are so great that it is impossible for someone to give an intelligent description of God’s nature based on the entire Bible.

Number 7: Jesus Rejects Christians.

The Jesus of the Bible rejects those that preached and taught in his name. He casts them aside and disassociates himself from them because their work was evil and they were evil.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7:21-23.

This rejection is for the Trinitarian who ascribes Jesus as a partner to God, because there is nothing more evil and disgusting than ascribing a partner to God.

Number 6: Jesus Isn’t God.

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Luke 18:19

Does anything more need to be said?

Number 5. Jesus is Unknown.

No Christian knows Jesus. He is a mystery figure. There are arguments about what he looked like, what language he spoke, whether or not he ever married and whether or not he was crucified. Even the authors of the Bible are confused about him. Did he cry tears of blood out of fear for his impending death? What were his last words before he died on the cross? Did he leave Palestine and travel to Egypt as a youth? Was he killed on the day before or after Passover? On all these things the Bible gives conflicting answers. How strange that Jesus is so central to Christian theology and yet they are so ignorant about him. It might be that the only thing Christians and the Bible can agree on is that he existed!

Number 4: The Bible witnesses against itself.

The Bible tells us that the Bible is not from God. The word of God must be perfect (Psalms 19:7) but the Bible falls far short of perfection. What scribes write is in vain (Jeremiah 8:8) and the Bible is the failed effort of scribe writing and changing what they inherited. Every verse in the Old Testament must be fall under one of the four categories: doctrine, reproof, correction or instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16) but there are many examples of Old Testament verses that do not fall into any of those categories and could only be classified as pointless (example Judges 16:1). Since the Bible is telling us it is not from God, why do some claim that it is?

Number 3: Jesus wasn’t Crucified or Resurrected.

Christianity relies on the gory death of an innocent man. However, there are reasons to disregard its claim as an absurdity.  The Bible is inconsistent in its description of the crucifixion. There is no independent attestations that it was a historical event. There was no need to sacrifice Jesus because the people were already forgiven. Early manuscripts do not contain the passion narrative. Many early Christians did not believe in the crucifixion. In short, there is no proof.

Number 2: The Bible is corrupt.

The original Torah, Psalms and Gospel have not reached us. What we do have today could not even be described as a copy of a copy of a copy. It is a copy of a copy of a copy of a mistranslation of a copy of a mistranslation of a copy of a copy of a rewrite of an account by someone who wasn’t a witness to the events. It is riddled with errors, contradictions, failed prophecies and unintelligible verses. As such, it is impossible to know what the message of the originals might have been and, therefore, impossible for reasonable people to put any trust in its conclusion.

Number 1: Islam is Truth.

Two opposing statements cannot both be true. If Islam is true then Christianity must be false and Islam is true. Free from the problems of Christianity, Islam is unique among faiths for its purity, perfection and its strict adherence to monotheism. There are no pagan influences or absurd stories. There is no filth or lies. There is only perfection. All praise and thanks belong to Allah for making me a Muslim and saving me from the kufr of the Christians.

Have I got these right? What would be your top ten?

Regular readers of this blog will remember a conversation that I had with with a Christian in the post, Why I’m Not Donating Any Money to Haiti. This person objected to my use of the word bastard as a description for Christian missionaries. Instead of apologizing, I defended my use of the term citing missionary deception in the quest for converts. Before that I made this post, Contradiction or Contrast, highlighting a deception of John Gilchrist in one of his debates with Shabir Ally. In the comments of that post I promised a post on deception in Christian evangelism. This post both a fulfilment of my promise and examples for anyone who wishes to deny deception among the callers to Christianity. I hope that this will also serve as a warning to Muslims not to be duped when you come into contact with these silver tongue devils.

And say: “Truth has come and Batil has vanished. Surely! Batil is ever bound to vanish.” [Quran 17:81]

A special duaa for our brother and sheikh, Ahmed Deedat, who spent a very large portion of his life working to uncover the ugly face of Christianity and giving the fruits of his labours away freely. Ya ar-Rahman have mercy on Ahmed Deedat, forgive his sins, overlook his shortcomings and reward him handsomely for his faith and righteous deeds. Deedat is a hero of ours and we love him. Surely a man loved by the ummah of Muhammad is loved more by You. All praise belongs to You. There is no God except You.

To proceed:

I would like to clear something up from the beginning. I often use the words missionary, apologetic and evangelic interchangeably and often they are synonymous with the meaning of, ‘someone calling to Christianity’.  However, they have slightly different meanings. I don’t really care about the different meanings, just remember that I use these words to mean someone calling to Christianity and that I will try to stick to the use of ‘missionary’ for this purpose. If you object to my definition or usage of any of these terms please keep it to yourself.

The Bible Endorses Missionary Deception:

“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.”

(1st Corinthians 9:19-22)

“But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.”

(2nd Corinthians 12:16)

“But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?”

(Romans 3:7)

And most devilish,

“But what does it matter? Nothing matters except that, in one way or another, people are told the message about Christ, whether with honest or dishonest motives, and I’m happy about that. Yes, I will continue to be happy.”

(Philippians 1:18)

Could these verses be any clearer in their endorsement of lying for the case of Christ? Watch the videos and look at the pictures with these verses in your mind.

Using Political Turmoil to Convert Muslims:

Talk by Sheikh Ahmed Deedat on Christian Missionary Deception:

If Christianity were true then it would not need to resort to trickery and lies to convert, because there is no way that falsehood can stand up to truth.

And say: “Truth has come and Batil has vanished. Surely! Batil is ever bound to vanish.” [Quran 17:81]

Allah, the Most High, the Sublime vouches for the Quran’s completeness, accuracy and Divine origin in a number of ayat in the Quran:

Verily, this Quran guides to that which is most just and right and gives glad tidings to the believers, who work deeds of righteousness, that they shall have a great reward. [17:9]

And,

Do they not then consider the Quran carefully? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found therein many a contradiction. [4:82]

The reader of the Quran can now consider the claim, is the Quran from God, has it been protected and perfectly preserved, does it guide to justice and righteousness? The claims themselves are necessary. Why should intelligent people contemplate on the divinity of a book that makes no such claim? Many eloquent lines of poetry, which has moved men’s hearts and persuaded their minds, have been written and yet do not claim to be divine. Many have written words of obvious truth, wisdom and foresight but make no claim to divinity. These words then must be regarded as the hand who wrote them regarded them and nothing more.

How then should we understand a book that makes this claim of divinity and also bears witness against that claim? Such is the position we find ourselves with the Bible.

Undoubtedly, the Bible purports to speak for Allah and His prophets. Even though there is no direct claim that the Bible is divine in origin (in fact the word Bible does not appear in the Bible), it makes claims about Allah’s nature, His creation and His prophets that only Allah Himself can possibly know. However, oddly, it is a witness against itself in two places.

In Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 8, we read:

How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.

Adam Clarke wrote, concerning this verse, ‘The deceitful pen of the scribes. They have written falsely, though they had the truth before them. It is too bold an assertion to say that “the Jews have never falsified the sacred oracles;” they have done it again and again. They have written falsities when they knew they were such.’

The Jew was not the only to be blamed, the deceitful pen of Christian scribes has also been hard at work since the first century of the common era. Some ready examples are the interpolations of 1 John 5:7, Matthew 28:19, Mark 1:1, Luke 3:23. Even more damning is the layered composition of the four Gospels themselves. It seems as if no Christian was satisfied with the original documents and sought to correct and clarify them, resulting in a ‘final’ compilation that would scarcely be recognised by the original author. I put forward that each sect of early Christianity attempted to change these writings in order to strengthen their own sect’s position. It makes the mind wonder how these early Christians viewed the four Gospels. If they thought them divinely inspired their willingness to alter their words and meanings is nothing short of criminal and if they did not regard them as divine then what a dirty trick they played on the generations to come.

In 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, we read:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

This verse is a test that every phrase attributed to God through inspiration must pass. It must be doctrine, which is something that is taught or advocated as part of a collective teaching. It must be for reproof, which is censuring or rebuking someone for their misdeeds. It must be for correction, which is a punishment or rebuking that intends to reform or improve. Or it must be instruction in righteousness, which is detailing righteous behaviour meant to be emulated.

I cannot see any mistake in the above verse or in its meaning but it does beg us to ask where does Judges 16:1 fit in?

Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

Is it Christian doctrine that when I man visits a place and sees a whore that he has sex with her? Is there any reproof or correction present in the verse, or the ones before or after? Is this an instruction in righteousness? Will pious Christians be rewarded for emulating Samson’s behaviour? With 2 Timothy in mind (or not) how can such profane and pointless words be attributed to God?

Where does the pornography of Genesis 38 fit? I will not reproduce the chapter here, however, any interested party can read it here. Be warned that it is a smut story filled with sex, incest and whoredom, which in the end produces one of the descendants of Jesus according to Matthew. Yes, according to the Bible, David, Solomon and Jesus, may the peace and blessings of God be upon them, are the sons of incest and whoredom. Read the chapter and tell me where it fits in the above test of 2 Timothy. Answer how such profane words can be attributed to God and please tell me how on God’s earth Christians can teach that filth to their children.

If a book creates a test to determine the divine status of text and fails that same test, one can only regard that book as man-made and not in any way divine.

This is the second part of a booklet entitled ‘The BIBLE – The Facts’.

Read the first part of: The BIBLE – The Facts

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[Jerald F. Dirks M.Div., Psy.D., is a former minister (deacon of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver. Author of “The Cross and the Crescent: An Interfaith Dialogue between Christianity and Islam.” (ISBN 1-59008-002-5 – Amana Publications, 2001). He has published over 60 articles in the field of clinical psychology, and over 150 articles on Arabian horses. Below appears his own narrative.]

One of my earliest childhood memories is of hearing the church bell toll for Sunday morning worship in the small, rural town in which I was raised. The Methodist Church was an old, wooden structure with a bell tower, two children’s Sunday School classrooms cubbyholed behind folding, wooden doors to separate them from the sanctuary, and a choir loft that housed the Sunday school classrooms for the older children. It stood less than two blocks from my home. As the bell rang, we would come together as a family, and make our weekly pilgrimage to the church. In that rural setting from the 1950s, the three churches in the town of about 500 were the center of community life. The local Methodist Church, to which my family belonged, sponsored ice cream socials with hand-cranked, homemade ice cream, chicken potpie dinners, and corn roasts. My family and I were always involved in all three, but each came only once a year. In addition, there was a two-week community Bible school every June, and I was a regular attendee through my eighth grade year in school. However, Sunday morning worship and Sunday school were weekly events, and I strove to keep extending my collection of perfect attendance pins and of awards for memorizing Bible verses. By my junior high school days, the local Methodist Church had closed, and we were attending the Methodist Church in the neighboring town, which was only slightly larger than the town in which I lived. There, my thoughts first began to focus on the ministry as a personal calling. I became active in the Methodist Youth Fellowship, and eventually served as both a district and a conference officer. I also became the regular “preacher” during the annual Youth Sunday service. My preaching began to draw community-wide attention, and before long I was occasionally filling pulpits at other churches, at a nursing home and at various church-affiliated youth and ladies groups, where I typically set attendance records.

By age 17, when I began my freshman year at Harvard College, my decision to enter the ministry had solidified. During my freshman year, I enrolled in a two-semester course in comparative religion, which was taught by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, whose specific area of expertise was Islam. During that course, I gave far less attention to Islam than I did to other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, as the latter two seemed so much more esoteric and strange to me. In contrast, Islam appeared to be somewhat similar to my own Christianity. As such, I didn’t concentrate on it as much as I probably should have, although I can remember writing a term paper for the course on the concept of revelation in the Qur’an. Nonetheless, as the course was one of rigorous academic standards and demands, I did acquire a small library of about a half dozen books on Islam, all of which were written by non-Muslims, and all of which were to serve me in good stead 25 years later. I also acquired two different English translations of the meaning of the Qur’an, which I read at the time.

That spring, Harvard named me a Hollis Scholar, signifying that I was one of the top pre-theology students in the college. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years at Harvard, I worked as a youth minister at a fairly large United Methodist Church. The following summer, I obtained my License to Preach from the Untied Methodist Church. Upon graduating from Harvard College in 1971, I enrolled at the Harvard Divinity School, and there obtained my Master of Divinity degree in 1974, having been previously ordained into the Deaconate of the United Methodist Church in 1972, and having previously received a Stewart Scholarship from the United Methodist Church as a supplement to my Harvard Divinity School scholarships. During my seminary education, I also completed a two-year externship program as a hospital chaplain at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Following graduation from Harvard Divinity School, I spent the summer as a minister of two United Methodist churches in rural Kansas, where attendance soared to heights not seen in those churches for several years.

Seen from the outside, I was a very promising young minister, who had received an excellent education, drew large crowds to the Sunday morning worship service, and had been successful at every stop along the ministerial path. However, seen from the inside, I was fighting a constant war to maintain my personal integrity in the face of my ministerial responsibilities. This was was far removed from the ones presumable fought by some later televangelists in unsuccessfully trying to maintain personal sexual morality. Likewise, it was a far different war than those fought by the headline-grabbing pedophilic priests of the current moment. However, my struggle to maintain personal integrity may be the most common one encountered by the better-educated members of the ministry.

There is some irony in the fact that the supposedly best, brightest, and most idealistic of ministers-to-be are selected for the very best of seminary education, e.g. that offered at that time at the Harvard Divinity School. The irony is that, given such an education, the seminarian is exposed to as much of the actual historical truth as is known about: 1) the formation of the early, “mainstream” church, and how it was shaped by geopolitical considerations; 2) the “original” reading of various Biblical texts, many of which are in sharp contrast to what most Christians read when they pick up their Bible, although gradually some of this information is being incorporated into newer and better translations; 3) the evolution of such concepts as the triune godhead and the “sonship” of Jesus, peace be upon him; 4) the non-religious considerations that underlie many Christian creeds and doctrines; 5) the existence of those early churches and Christian movements which never accepted the concept of the triune godhead, and which never accepted the concept of the divinity of Jesus, peace be upon him; and 6) etc. (Some of these fruits of my seminary education are recounted in more detail in my recent book, “The Cross and the Crescent: An Interfaith Dialogue between Christianity and Islam”, Amana Publications, 2001.)

As such, it is no real wonder that almost a majority of such seminary graduates leave seminary, not to “fill pulpits”, where they would be asked to preach that which they know is not true, but to enter the various counseling professions. Such was also the case for me, as I went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in clinical psychology. I continued to call myself a Christian, because that was a needed bit of self-identity, and because I was, after all, an ordained minister, even though my full time job was a mental health professional. However, my seminary education had taken care of any belief I might have had regarding a triune godhead or the divinity of Jesus, peace be upon him.

(Polls regularly reveal that ministers are less likely to believe these and other dogmas of the church than are the laity they serve, with ministers more likely to understand such terms as “son of God” metaphorically, while their parishioners understand it literally.) I thus became a “Christmas and East Christian”, attending church very sporadically, and then gritting my teeth and biting my tongue as I listened to sermons espoused that which I know was not the case. None of the above should be taken to imply that I was any less religious or spiritually oriented than I had once been. I prayed regularly, my belief in a supreme deity remain solid and secure, and I conducted my personal life in line with the ethics I had once been taught in church and Sunday school. I simply knew better than to buy into the man-made dogmas and articles of faith of the organized church, which were so heavily laden with the pagan influences, polytheistic notions, and geopolitical considerations of a bygone era.

As the years passed by, I became increasingly concerned about the loss of religiousness in American society at large. Religiousness is a living, breathing spirituality and morality within individuals, ans should not be confused with religiosity, which is concerned with the rites, rituals, and formalized creeds of some organized entity, e.g. the church. American culture increasingly appeared to have lost its moral and religious compass. Two out of every three marriages ended in divorce; violence was becoming an increasingly inherent part of our schools and our roads; self-responsibility was on the wane; self-discipline was being submerged by a “if it feels good, do it” morality; various Christian leaders and institutions were being swamped by sexual and financial scandals; and emotions justified behavior, however odious it might be. American culture was becoming a morally bankrupt institution, and I was feeling quite alone in my personal religious vigil.

It was at this juncture that I began to come into contact with the local Muslim community. For some years before, my wife and I had been actively involved in dong research on the history of the Arabian horse. Eventually, in order to secure translations of various Arabic documents, this research brought us into contact with Arab Americans who happened to be Muslims. Our first such contact was with Jamal in the summer of 1991. After an initial telephone conversation, Jamal visited our home, and offered to do some translations for us, and to help guide us through the history of the Arabian horse in the Middle East. Before Jamal left that afternoon, he asked if he might: use our bathroom to wash before saying his scheduled prayers and borrow a piece of newspaper to use as a prayer rug, so he could say his scheduled prayers before leaving our house. We of course, obliged , but wondered if there was something more appropriate that we could give him to use than a newspaper. Without our ever realizing it at the time, Jamal was practising a very beautiful for of Dawa (preaching or exhortation). He made no comment about the fact that we were not Muslims, and he didn’t preach anything to us about his religious beliefs. He “merely” presented us with his example, an example that spoke volumes, if one were willing to be receptive to the lesson.

Over the next 16 months, contact with Jamal slowly increased in frequency, until it was occurring on a biweekly to weekly basis. During these visits, Jamal never preached to me about Islam, never questioned me about my own religious beliefs or convictions, and never verbally suggested that I become a Muslim. However, I was beginning to learn a lot. First, there was the constant behavioral example of Jamal observing his scheduled prayers. Second, there was the behavioral example of how Jamal conducted his daily life in a highly moral and ethical manner, both in his business world and in his social world. Third, there was the behavioral example of how Jamal interacted with his two children. For my wife, Jamal’s wife provided a similar example. Forth, always within the framework of helping me understand Arabian horse history in the Middle East, Jamal began to share with me:

1)stories from Arab and Islamic history;
2)sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him; and
3)Qur’anic verses and their contextual meaning.

In point of fact, our every visit now included at least a 30 minute conversation centered on some aspect of Islam, but always presented in terms of helping me intellectually understand the Islamic context of Arabian horse history. I was never told “this is the way things are”, I was merely told “this is what Muslims typically believe”.

Since I wasn’t being “preached to”, and since Jamal never inquired as to my own beliefs, I didn’t need to bother attempting to justify my own position. It was all handled as an intellectual exercise, not as proselytizing. Gradually, Jamal began to introduce us to other Arab families in the local Muslim community. There was Wa’el and his family, Khalid and his family, and a few others. Consistently, I observed individuals and families who were living their lives on a much higher ethical plan than the American society in which we were all embedded. Maybe there was something to the practice of Islam that I had missed during my collegiate and seminary days.

By December, 1992, I was beginning to ask myself some serious questions about where I was and what I was doing. These questions were prompted by the following considerations.

1)Over the course of the prior 16 months, our social life had become increasingly centered on the Arab component of the local Muslim community. By December, probably 75% of our social life was being spent with Arab Muslims.
2)By virtue of my seminary training and education, I knew how badly the Bible had been corrupted (and often knew exactly when, where, and why). I had no belief in any triune godhead, and I had no belief in anything more than a metaphorical “sonship” of Jesus, peace be upon him. In short, while I certainly believe in God, I was a strict a monotheist as my Muslim friends.
3)My personal values and sense of morality were much more in keeping with my Muslim friends than with the “Christian” society around me. After all, I had the non-confrontational examples of Jamal, Khalid, and Wa’el as illustrations. In shore, my nostalgic yearning for the type of community in which I had bee raised was finding gratification in the Muslim community. American society might be morally bankrupt, but that did not appear to be the case for that part of the Muslim community with which I had had contact. Marriages were stable, spouses were committed to each other, and honesty, integrity, self-responsibility, and family values were emphasized. My wife and I had attempted to live our lives that same way, but for several years I had felt that we were doing so in the context of a moral vacuum. The Muslim community appeared to be different.

The different threads were being woven together into a single strand. Arabian horses, my childhood upbringing, my foray into the Christian ministry and my seminary education, my nostalgic yearnings for a moral society, and my contact with the Muslim community were becoming intricately intertwined. My self-question came to a head when I finally got around to asking myself exactly what separated me from the beliefs of my Muslim friends. I suppose that I could have raised that question with Jamal or with Khalid, but I wasn’t ready to take that step. I had never discussed my own religious beliefs with them, and I didn’t think that I wanted to introduce that topic of conversation into our friendship. As such, I began to pull off the bookshelf all the books on Islam that I had acquired in my collegiate and seminary days.

However far my own beliefs were from the traditional position of the church, and however seldom I actually attended church, I still identified myself as being a Christian, and so I turned to the works of Western scholars, including one biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Further, I began to read two different English translations of the meaning of the Qur’an. I never spoke to my Muslim friends about this personal quest of self-discovery. I never mentioned what types of books I was reading, nor ever spoke about why I was reading these books. However, occasionally I would run a very circumscribed question past one of them.

While I never spoke to my Muslim friends about those books, my wife and I had numerous conversations about what I was reading. By the last week of December of 1992, I was forced to admit to myself, that I could find no area of substantial disagreement between my own religious beliefs and the general tenets of Islam. While I was ready to acknowledge that Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a prophet of (one who spoke for or under the inspiration of) God, and while I had absolutely no difficulty affirming that there was no god besides God/Allah, glorified and exalted is He, I was still hesitating to make any decision. I could readily admit to myself that I had far more in common with Islamic beliefs as I then understood them, that I did with the traditional Christianity of the organized church. I knew only too well that I could easily confirm from my seminary training and education most of what the Qur’an had to say about Christianity, the Bible, and Jesus, peace be upon him. Nonetheless, I hesitated. Further, I rationalized my hesitation by maintaining to myself that I really didn’t know the nitty-gritty details of Islam, and that my areas of agreement were confined to general concepts. As such, I continued to read, and then to re-read.

One’s sense of identity, of who one is, is a powerful affirmation of one’s own position in the cosmos. In my professional practice, I had occasionally been called upon to treat certain addictive disorders, ranging from smoking, to alcoholism, to drug abuse. As a clinician, I knew that the basic physical addiction had to be overcome to create the initial abstinence. That was the easy part of treatment. As Mark Twain once said: “Quitting smoking is easy; I’ve done it hundreds of times”. However, I also knew that the key to maintaining that abstinence over an extended time period was overcoming the client’s psychological addiction, which was heavily grounded in the client’s basic sense of identity, i.e. the client identified to himself that he was “a smoker”, or that he was “a drinker”, etc. The addictive behavior had become part and parcel of the client’s basic sense of identity, of the client’s basic sense of self. Changing this sense of identity was crucial to the maintenance of the psychotherapeutic “cure”. This was the difficult part of treatment. Changing one’s basic sense of identity is a most difficult task. One’s psyche tends to cling to the old and familiar, which seem more psychologically comfortable and secure than the new and unfamiliar.

On a professional basis, I had the above knowledge, and used it on a daily basis. However, ironically enough, I was not yet ready to apply it to myself, and to the issue of my own hesitation surrounding my religious identity. For 43 years, my religious identity had been neatly labelled as “Christian”, however many qualifications I might have added to that term over the years. Giving up that label of personal identity was no easy task. It was part and parcel of how I defined my very being. Given the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that my hesitation served the purpose of insuring that I could keep my familiar religious identity of being a Christian, although a Christian who believed like a Muslim believed.

It was now the very end of December, and my wife and I were filling out our application forms for U.S. Passports, so that a proposed Middle Eastern journey could become a reality. One of the questions had to do with religious affiliation. I didn’t even think about it, and automatically fell back on the old and familiar, as I penned in “Christian”. It was easy, it was familiar, and it was comfortable. However, that comfort was momentarily disrupted when my wife asked me how I had answered the question on religious identity on the application form. I immediately replied, “Christian”, and chuckled audibly. Now, one of Freud’s contributions to the understanding of the human psyche was his realization that laughter is often a release of psychological tension. However wrong Freud may have been in many aspects of this theory of psychosexual development, his insights into laughter were quite on target. I had laughed! What was the psychological tension that I had need to release through the medium of laughter? I then hurriedly went on to offer my wife a brief affirmation that I was a Christian , not a Muslim. In response to which, she politely informed me that she was merely asking whether I had written “Christian”, or “Protestant”, or “Methodist”. One a professional basis, I knew that a person does not defend himself against an accusation that hasn’t been made. (If, in the course of a session of psychotherapy, my client blurted out, “I’m not angry about that”, and I hadn’t even broached the topic of anger, it was clear that my client was feeling the need to defend himself against a charge that his own unconscious was making. In short, he really was angry, but was he wasn’t ready to admit it or deal with it.) If my wife hadn’t made the accusation, i.e. “you are a Muslim”, then the accusation had to have come from my own unconscious, as I was the only other person present. I was aware of this, but still I hesitated. The religious label that had been stuck to my sense of identity for 43 years was not going to come off easily.

About a month had gone by since my wife’s question to me. It was now late January of 1993. I had set aside all the books on Islam by the Western scholars, as I had read them all thoroughly. The two English translations of the meaning of the Qur’an were back on the bookshelf, and I was busy reading yet a third English translation of the meaning of the Qur’an. Maybe in this translation I would find some sudden justification for.

I was taking my lunch hour from my private practice at a local Arab restaurant that I had started to frequent. I entered as usual, seated myself at a small table, and opened my third English translation of the meaning of the Qur’an to where I had left off in my reading. I figured I might as well get some reading done over my lunch hour. Moments later, I became aware the Mahmoud was at my shoulder waiting to take my order. He glanced at what I was reading, but said nothing about it. My order taken, I returned to the solitude of my reading. A few minutes later, Mahmoud’s wife, Iman, an American Muslim, who wore the Hijab (scarf) and modest dress that I had come to associate with female Muslims, brought me my order. She commented that I was reading the Qur’an, and politely asked if I were a Muslim. The word was out of my mouth before it could be modified by any social etiquette or politeness: “No!” That single word was said forcefully, and with more than a hint of irritability. With that, Iman politely retired from my table.

What was happening to me? I had behaved rudely and somewhat aggressively. What had this woman done to deserve such behavior from me? This wasn’t like me. Give my childhood upbringing, I still used “sir” and “ma’am” when addressing clerks and cashiers who were waiting on me in stores. I could pretend to ignore my own laughter as a release of tension, but I couldn’t begin to ignore this sort of unconscionable behavior from myself. My reading was set aside, and I mentally stewed over this turn of events throughout my meal. The more I stewed, the guiltier I felt about my behavior. I knew that when Iman brought me my check at the end of the meal, I was going to need to make some amends. If for no other reason, simple politeness demanded it. Furthermore, I was really quite disturbed about how resistant I had been to her innocuous question. What was going on in me that I responded with that much force to such a simple and straightforward question? Why did that one, simple question lead to such atypical behavior on my part? Later, when Iman came with my check, I attempted a round-about apology by saying: “I’m afraid I was a little abrupt in answering your question before. If you were asking me whether I believe that there is only one God, then my answer is yes. If you were asking me whether I believe that Muhammad was one of the prophets of that one God, then my answer is yes.” She very nicely and very supportively said: “That’s okay; it takes some people a little longer than others.”

Perhaps, the readers of this will be kind enough to note the psychological games I was playing with myself without chuckling too hard at my mental gymnastics and behavior. I well knew that in my own way, using my own words, I had just said the Shahadah, the Islamic testimonial of faith, i.e. “I testify that there is no god but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah”. However, having said that, and having recognized what I said, I could still cling to my old and familiar label of religious identity. After all, I hadn’t said I was a Muslim. I was simply a Christian, albeit an atypical Christian, who was willing to say that there was one God, not a triune godhead, and who was willing to say that Muhammad was one of the prophets inspired by that one God. If a Muslim wanted to accept me as being a Muslim that was his or her business, and his or her label of religious identity. However, it was not mine. I thought I had found my way out of my crisis of religious identity. I was a Christian, who would carefully explain that I agreed with, and was willing to testify to, the Islamic testimonial of faith. Having made my tortured explanation, and having parsed the English language to within an inch of its life, others could hang whatever label on me they wished. It was their label, and not mine.

It was no March of 1993, and my wife and I were enjoying a five-week vacation in the Middle East. It was also the Islamic month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from day break until sunset. Because we were so often staying with or being escorted around by family members of our Muslim friends back in the States, my wife and I had decided that we also would fast, if for no other reason than common courtesy. During this time, I had also started to perform the five daily prayers of Islam with my newfound, Middle Eastern, Muslim friends. After all there was nothing in those prayers with which I could disagree. I was a Christian, or so I said. After all, I had been born into a Christian family, had been given a Christian upbringing, had attended church and Sunday school every Sunday as a child, had graduated from a prestigious seminary, and was an ordained minister in a large Protestant denomination. However, I was also a Christian: who didn’t believe in a triune godhead or in the divinity of Jesus, peace be upon him; who knew quite well how the Bible had been corrupted; who had said the Islamic testimony of faith in my own carefully parsed words; who had fasted during Ramadan; who was saying Islamic prayers five times a day; and who was deeply impressed by the behavioral examples I had witnessed in the Muslim community, both in America and in the Middle East. (Time and space do not permit me the luxury of documenting in detail all of the examples of personal morality and ethics I encountered in the Middle East.) If asked if I were a Muslim, I could and did do a five-minute monologue detailing the above, and basically leaving the question unanswered. I was playing intellectual word games, and succeeding at them quite nicely.

It was now late in our Middle Eastern trip. An elderly friend who spoke no English and I were walking down a winding, little road, somewhere in one of the economically disadvantaged areas of greater ‘Amman, Jordan. As we walked, an elderly man approached us from the opposite direction, said, “Salam ‘Alaykum”, i.e., “peace be upon you”, and offered to shake hands. We were the only three people there. I didn’t speak Arabic, and neither my friend nor the stranger spoke English. Looking at me, the stranger asked, “Muslim?”

At that precise moment in time, I was fully and completely trapped. There was no intellectual word games to be played, because I could only communicate in English, and they could only communicate in Arabic. There was no translator present to bail me out of this situation, and to allow me to hide behind my carefully prepared English monologue. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t understand the question, because it was all too obvious that I had. My choices were suddenly, unpredictably, and inexplicably reduced to just two: I could say “N’am”, i.e., “yes”; or I could say “La”, i.e., “no”. The choice was mine, and I had no other. I had to choose, and I had to choose now; it was just simple. Praise be to Allah, I answered, “N’am”.

With saying that one word, all the intellectual word games were now behind me. With the intellectual word games behind me, the psychological games regarding my religious identity were also behind me. I wasn’t some strange, atypical Christian. I was a Muslim. Praise be to Allah, my wife of 33 years also became a Muslim about that same time. Not too many months after our return to America from the Middle East, a neighbor invited us over to his house, saying that he wanted to talk with us about our conversion to Islam. He was a retired Methodist minister, with whom I had had several conversations in the past. Although we had occasionally talked superficially about such issues as the artificial construction of the Bible from various, earlier, independent sources, we had never had any in-depth conversation about religion. I knew only that he appeared to have acquired a solid seminary education, and that he sang in the local church choir every Sunday.

My initial reaction was, “Oh, oh, here it comes.” Nonetheless, it is a Muslim’s duty to be a good neighbor, and it is a Muslim’s duty to be willing to discuss Islam with others. As such, I accepted the invitation for the following evening, and spent most of the waking part of the next 24 hours contemplating how best to approach this gentleman in his requested topic of conversation. The appointed time came, and we drove over to our neighbor’s. After a few moments of small talk, he finally asked why I had decided to become a Muslim. I had waited for this question, and had my answer carefully prepared. “As you know with your seminary education, there were a lot of non-religious considerations which led up to and shaped the decisions of the Council of Nicaea.” He immediately cut me off with a simple statement: “You finally couldn’t stomach the polytheism anymore, could you?” He knew exactly why I was Muslim, and he didn’t disagree with my decision!

For himself, at his age and at his place in life, he was electing to be “an atypical Christian”. Allah willing, he has by now completed his journey from cross to crescent. There are sacrifices to be made in being a Muslim in America. For that matter, there are sacrifices to be made in being a Muslim anywhere. However, those sacrifices may be more acutely felt in America, especially among American converts. Some of those sacrifices are very predictable, and include altered dress and abstinence from alcohol, pork, and the taking of interest on one’s money. Some of those sacrifices are less predictable. For example, one Christian family, with whom we were close friends, informed us that they could no longer associate with anyone “who does not take Jesus Christ as his personal savior”. In addition, quite a few of my professional colleagues altered their manner of relating to me.

Whether it was coincidence or not, my professional referral base dwindled, and there was almost a 30% drop in income as a result. Some of these less predictable sacrifices were hard to accept, although the sacrifices were a small price to pay for what was received in return.

For those contemplating the acceptance of Islam and the surrendering of oneself to Allah – glorified and exalted is He, there my well be sacrifices along the way. Many of these sacrifices are easily predicted, while others may be rather surprising and unexpected. There is no denying the existence of these scarifies, and I don’t intend to sugar coat that pill for you. Nonetheless, don’t be overly trouble by these sacrifices. In the final analysis, these sacrifices are less important than you presently think. Allah willing, you will find these sacrifices a very cheap coin to pay for the “goods” you are purchasing.

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Read the first part of: The BIBLE – The Facts

This is the story of the Codex Sinaiticus, which maybe the oldest Bible in existence. If not the oldest it is certainly one of the oldest. This Codex is being digitised by the British Library in a £1 million project and will be available to anyone with an internet connection. Of course this is exciting for anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity and it will not be surprising if this Codex differs significantly to the modern Bible.

The online Codex can be found here:
The Codex Sinaiticus

Here are a couple of links of related articles for those interested:
Oldest Surviving Christian Bible to be Launched Online
BBC Magazine – The Rival to the Bible

And here is a video that quotes extensively from the BBC article but also includes an invitation to worship God and follow the perfectly preserved Book of God, the Quran.

I know that many Christians will dismiss this just as they dismiss other evidence of the corruption of the Bible, but let those with thinking minds contemplate on why God did not see fit to preserve the Bible in its original form if it was meant to be a guidance until the Day of Judgement.

A few days ago I was researching the Christian concept that good deeds are worthless, which naturally brought me to Isaiah chapter 64. While reading Adam Clarke’s commentary (as is my custom when researching the Bible), I came across this interesting passage in regards to the forth verse of the chapter:

Under these difficulties I am at a loss what to do better, than to offer to the reader this, perhaps disagreeable, alternative: either to consider the Hebrew text and Septuagint in this place as wilfully disguised and corrupted by the Jews; of which practice in regard to other quotations in the New Testament from the Old, they lie under strong suspicions, (see Dr. Owen on the version of the Septuagint, sect. vi.-ix.;) or to look upon St. Paul’s quotation as not made from Isaiah, but from one or other of the two apocryphal books, entitled, The Ascension of Esaiah, and the Apocalypse of Elias, in both of which this passage was found; and the apostle is by some supposed in other places to have quoted such apocryphal writings. As the first of these conclusions will perhaps not easily be admitted by many, so I must fairly warn my readers that the second is treated by Jerome as little better than heresy.

Some of the other verses in that particular chapter do not fair any better. In the fifth verse Adam objects to the phrase, ‘bahem olam venivvashea’ saying that, ‘I am fully persuaded that these words as they stand in the present Hebrew text are utterly unintelligible’ and later writes, ‘In this difficulty what remains but to have recourse to conjecture?’.

Is the Bible the inerrant Word of God? I wouldn’t be placing my hope in the hereafter on it and I recommend you don’t either.

The subject of the debate covers errors, contradiction and discrepancies in the Bible. The atheist was told to find 10 errors in the Bible, since he claims there are thousands and the Christian will answer them.

In this post I will only deal with the first contradiction because I stopped listening after it to write this post.

In 2 Kings chapter 8 verse 26 we find this verse:
Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 22 verse 2 we find this verse:
Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri.

A seemingly clear contradiction in the number of Ahaziah’s age when he became the king.

These verses are quoted from the King James version of the Bible if you read some other versions this number is changed to 22. HOWEVER, the oldest manuscripts of the Bible contain this error as well. So in one part we have an error in the oldest Biblical texts and in newer versions an attempt to deceive people by ‘fixing’ the error!

Adam Clarke, who has to be my favourite Biblical commentator, had this to say:
The reading in 2 Kings 8:26 is right, and any attempt to reconcile this in Chronicles with that is equally futile and absurd. Both readings cannot be true; is that therefore likely to be genuine that makes the son two years older than the father who begat him?

What did the Christian who was debating say regarding this error:
I don’t know!

Khubayb was a companion of the prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, who was captured by the pagans of Mecca, tied to a trunk and was painfully and slowly killed as revenge for the losses that the pagans of Mecca suffered at the battle of Badr. We could look at how Khubayb lived his life and we could gain tremendously from it, however, it was when death was staring him in the face that we seen his real worth. In the middle of his torture, among the shouts and piercing blades he was asked if he prefered Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, to be in his place. His beautiful reply was, ‘By God, I would not want to be safe and secure among my family while even a thorn hurts Muhammad’. He went on to endure this torment until he was martyred.

Khubayb was not more than a man but his faith was strong and his devotion to the messenger of Allah was uncompromising. He showed us how to die and I ask Allah to reward him immensely for that.

Was Khubayb unique? No! History is replete with stories of people sacrificing their lives for their beliefs or a perceived just cause. A quick look through ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ will uncover many such stories of Christians suffering under the pagans of Rome, with many dying for their religion. A case of great personal sacrifice is not an evidence for the truthfulness of your faith but it is an evidence for your commitment to that faith. We Muslims respect Khubayb for his commitment to Islam and Allah’s prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, not just they way he died.

If Khubayb had enough faith to die in this manner, how do we expect a prophet to handle a similar situation? Do you think that those men whom God prefered over all nations would crumble, beg or shout in despair and anguish? It would be or should be unthinkable because these are the men that were sent to guide the rest of us. We look to them for examples of righteousness, piety, steadfastness, endurance and so on and so on. If they were weak characters then God would not be able to blame us for our weakness because we could exclaim, ‘but so and so prophet did this or that!’ What about someone who is supposed to be better than the prophets and better than the angels?

The book of Matthew goes into some detail explaining the Christian version of the supposed crucifixion of Jesus, alayhi sallam. In that account [Matthew 27:46] we find this verse:

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Astonishing! This verse claims that the ‘Son of God’ and part of the Godhead cried out in anguish and despair right at the moment of his death. He had endured and endured but at that final moment he broke and became despondent.

Was Khubayb better than Jesus, alayhi sallam?

Dr. John Gill’s explanation of this verse was to claim that Jesus was showing that he was like his brethren, human in his suffering and that is why he shouted out. However, we must dismiss that explanation because those people around Jesus would have seen him tired, hungry, angry, sad and they would have seen him go to the toilet. Meaning that they would have already known of his humanism. What need would there have been to shout out in anguish and utter words of disbelief? We have already seen humans with no claim to divinity nor prophethood nor sainthood die a more befitting way.

Adam Clarke goes into some detail about the translation of this verse and offers some alternate translations, some that go along with the above translation and some that give a different meaning but then he admits that those translations do not fully make sense and he expresses doubt in them because of the translation of the word ‘why’ in the above verse. Then he goes on to make a similar claim to that of Gill:

The Deity, however, might restrain so much of its consolatory support as to leave the human nature fully sensible of all its sufferings, so that the consolations might not take off any part of the keen edge of his passion; and this was necessary to make his sufferings meritorious. And it is probable that this is all that is intended by our Lord’s quotation from the twenty-second Psalm. Taken in this view, the words convey an unexceptionable sense, even in the common translation.

Here you have it again. Jesus cried out in such a manner because he was left fully sensible of his human nature but Jesus’ sufferings were not worse than the sufferings of other people and we have seen and we can produce many people that never claimed divinity that died in a more befitting way. Why was Jesus so weak?

This error in the Bible has come about because the confusion that surrounded those events. Christians have failed to get at the truth because of their dependence on the Bible, which clearly misses the boat on this one. Had the Christians looked to the Quran they would not have to write and write and jump around to absolve Jesus of what amounts to a serious crime. Jesus did not utter those words and he did not die on the cross and he is free of the lies of the Bible.

One other point of interest is that Jesus cried out to God saying, My God, my God. He did not cry out to himself and this is not the only time mentioned in the Bible where Jesus prays to God, which proves that Jesus could not be God, the Son of God or anything but a righteous mortal man.

Gill said:

and Christ, as man, prayed to him as his God, believed in him, loved him, and obeyed him as such: and though now he hid his face from him, yet he expressed strong faith and confidence of his interest in him.

God does not pray to Himself, therefore Jesus is not God!

May Allah bless his noble prophet Jesus, his pure mother Mary and all the Muslims.

In the first post, I mentioned a contradiction in a genealogy given in 1 Chronicles chapter 8 and then later in 1 Chronicles chapter 9. The response from a Christian was that it is not really a contradiction but a simple problem of language and although the names appear different the are different spellings for the same name. That attempt at an explanation completely ignored the fact that I quoted a Bible commentator admitting to the contradiction. The person did not even try to rebut this claim and simply chose to ignored it. It was a laughable attempt to defend the Bible but it is also the sort of thing that I expected and a direct result of what appears, from the outside looking in, to be Christian culture. That is, make a claim, without proof or evidence and pass it on as an undeniable fact.

Let’s now move on to the next contradiction in this series.

If you read 2 Samuel chapter 24 verse 13, you will find this phrase:

So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days’ pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.

And if you read 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verse 12 you will find this phrase:

Either three years’ famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent m

So, which is it seven or three?? Let’s see what Adam Clarke, the respected Biblical commentator had to say:

In 1 Chronicles 21:12, the number is three, not seven; and here the Septuagint has three, the same as in Chronicles: this is no doubt the true reading, the letter zain, SEVEN, being mistaken for gimel, THREE. A mistake of this kind might be easily made from the similarity of the letters.

He says that the true number is three not seven and that mistakes like this one can be easily made from the similarity of the letters!

This error in the Bible highlights the fact that it was possible for mistakes to be entered into the text by men.

Let every person reflect. If God Almighty allowed this mistake to enter into the text, how can we imagine that this would be the only mistake? How many more? What verse that Christians rely on today are simple misreadings or such. It is clear that this is not a book that God has protected and therefore it cannot be a book meant to guide mankind since we would have to shift out the nonsense before accepting it.

May Allah be pleased with those who follow guidance.