QUESTION: "WHY MUSLIMS SAY THEY BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE AND YET THEY DON'T BELIEVE THE BIBLE?"

by Meer Sahib - Nov 12, 2007 (msahib@sympatico.ca)

http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/whymuslims.htm

The other day, a lady in the audience asked me if I were a 'Mozlem. I told her, "M'a'm, if you mean if I were a 'Muslim', yes I am".

After apologizing for the wrong pronunciation, she said, "Muslims always say they believe in the Torah, and the Bible, but I know you don't really believe in the Bible. So, why do you keep saying that?"

I told her to answer her question, I would need a lot of time, and it was not the right place (the auditorium), as we had to whisper, not wanting to disturb others. Even though I was not a scholar of Islam, I would try to answer her, by giving her scholarly references.

She gave me her email address and told me that she would be waiting for my answer. While trying to respond to her, I came across a lecture at the Stanford University, by a renowned Bible scholar and author. I am sending her this video, and sharing the same with my eLIST, as I believe this is a topic of great interest, to all - Muslims and non-Muslims.

To the question, "Do Muslims believe in the Bible?', the answer is that there is no other faith which is closest to Christianity than Islam, and there is no other religion which accepts Jesus and honours him, as Islam does, and Islam teaches Muslims that Injeel was revealed to Jesus and none is a Muslim if he does not believe in the Prophets previous to Muhammad and the Books revealed to those Prophets. But Muslims are faced with the same dilemma the Christians are faced with : Which Bible is the Book revealed to Jesus as there are thousands of them, and as the Bible scholar in this documentary explains, so many changes have crept in via translations, scribes and others.

While the Christians are still scratching their heads, Muslims have a solution. So long as any passage in a given version of the Bible does not contravene the Qur'an, we accept that passage. I, for one, often use the Bible as a reference, for my comparative studies on various topics, and I prefer to quote those passages along with verses from the Qur'an in my writings, as I have many Christian friends in my eList, who would appreciate Biblical verses due to their familiarity with them.

Anyway, I am sure this remarkable lecture by Dr. Bart D.Ehrman, "Misquoting Jesus", will have you spell bound. Watch the lecture online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN8NI7JNPHc