Zechariah and John The Baptist
In the Bible and the Quran, Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist. In Surah 19 we have the story of Luke 1 and it’s been radically changed. I don’t know the exact reason why the author of the Quran decided to make these changes but here are a few things that I noticed.
The Hagia Sophia in Iznik
There is a church in Turkey that I want to visit and that’s the Hagia Sophia. I’m not referring to the grand former Church in Istanbul(which I also want to visit) but one in the little town of Iznik. Iznik is the municipality once called Nicaea. The famous city where two Ecumenical councils were held; the first in 325 AD and the second in 787 AD. Like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, this one is also now a Mosque/Museum.
I’m very careful about the arguments that I use when dealing with Islam or any other religion. There are arguments out there that will stump the average Muslim, but when used on a Muslim who knows their faith will be shredded. Enter Jay Smith’s coin argument.
An Eastern Orthodox reader of this blog recently posted the following in the comments section on one of my previous posts:
I was recently discussing with a muslim gentleman on twitter, and he constantly stated that Mohammed was mentioned in the Book of the Prophet Haggai, specifically Chapter 2 verse 7. Have you come across this further example of rather peculiar Islamic exegesis?
Both the Catholic and Orthodox Church have been debating an issue called the Filioque for centuries. Basically the Orthodox Church claims that the Catholic Church has innovated in saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son(Filioque in Latin). This caused a small controversy in the 7th century but erupted in the 9th century with a guy named Photios of Constantinople. Today the Orthodox Church reveres him as a Saint and Pillar of Orthodoxy while the Catholic Church doesn’t think much of him. Photios wrote a book called Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit which argues against the Filioque doctrine.
In the morning I had to take care of some business downtown. When I was finished I was walking back and noticed some LDS missionaries. Downtown is pretty empty on the weekends so when I saw them I knew that I’d be able to get a conversation going.
My French Quran
We’ve all heard of the perfectly preserved Quran, right? Millions of Muslims around the world memorize the Quran which hasn’t been changed since the time when Muhammad received it from Allah, right? We’ve all heard the argument and recently I got into a debate with a Muslim on Twitter regarding this issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEputG3uUho
We know that Muslims claim to follow Jesus Christ. Starting with Ahmed Deedat and many just parroting him, Muslims have requested the words of Jesus in determining Church doctrine. Where did Jesus say….
Jesus Christ
What evidence would I accept for the Injeel? According to orthodox Islam, there was a document given to Jesus Christ called the Injeel. The truth is that there is no Injeel. The Quran assumes that the document with the Christians today is the one that was supposedly given to Jesus Christ. Since this is an obvious impossibility and since the Injeel with the Christians contradicts Islam, this myth was born.
As I mentioned in my last post, Mecca is entirely absent from the Bible and it really bothers Muslim apologists. There is not a single reference to it or Medina(Yathrib). As I mentioned in my previous post, Adnan Rashid recently had a debate with Samuel Green about Muhammad in the Bible. I pointed out in that post how Sela couldn’t be Medina. I will now show why Paran can’t be Mecca as Rashid claims.