In my last post I talked about the five books where one needs to get started on studying church history. Notice that I’m really focusing on primary sources? All five books that I’ve mentioned are written in the first millennium so they can’t be warped by a modern bias. Obviously if you want to learn about the Church of England and how it was founded, read Bede and not John Foxe.
I’ve made no secret that I focus a lot on Church history. I believe that history is really important in general but since I blog about religion, it makes sense that Church history is brought into account. I also think it’s a great polemic against Islam. Islam clearly makes historical claims about Jesus Christ and the early Christians that cannot be meshed with confirmed history. Aside from Muslims though, it’s a good tool against the cults. If one knows history then the “Great Apostasy” card can no longer be played. I once asked some LDS missionaries why Joseph Smith needed to restore the Church. Their response was the Council of Nicaea. I then challenged them if the Gospel was readily available prior to the Council. They were in a hurry at that point.
I have written about the Mecca-Petra theory before. I’ve always cast doubt on it. I don’t believe that a major religion could change their holy site over 1,000 kilometres and no one blinks an eye. Wouldn’t all the Christians at the time tell them how much a joke they are for that?
We all know who Simon of Cyrene is, don’t we? The man who helped Jesus Christ carry the cross. What people don’t know is that he is the one who actually died on the cross while Allah rescued Jesus and raised him to himself as the Quran says in Surah 4:157. Actually that’s not what happened, but the New Testament tells more than we think about Simon of Cyrene.
An ex-Muslim contacted me on social media regarding my last article and pointed something out to me. He said that Surah 26 had God talking to Moses and giving him the specific task of rescuing the children of Israel from Egypt.
In the Bible in Exodus 3 and 4 we have the story of Moses and the burning bush. God appears in it before him and identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He also tells Moses that he has seen the oppression of his people in Egypt and will deliver them into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
I’ve got a tactic for dialogue with Muslims. Muslims don’t think much of St. Paul. He’s the one who screwed up the teachings of Christ supposedly. We can work with that based on a lot of things that I’ve been writing about recently.
The Christian and Islamic Scriptures which the Quran tells Muslims to believe in
How much of the Bible does the Quran confirm? I used to say quite a bit but I’ve since modified my answer. My answer is now all of it. There is no verse in the entire Quran that says that the Bible is corrupt, not one. We have Surah 2:79 but this doesn’t refer to all people as Surah 3:199 shows. Now, let’s start off with the Torah and the Gospel.
Constantine XI
Today is the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople. On May 29, 1453 Ottoman Janissaries breached the Theodosian walls and killed everyone in their path. Emperor Constantine XI cast off his purple cloak and made a last stand with his remaining soldiers. He was killed in the melee.
Back in July I had an interview with Sam Shamoun on introductory topics regarding Islamic apologetics. One was the Bible and the Quran and the other one was Trinity and Tawheed. I recently had Shamoun on again to talk about a more advanced topic. We discussed the role of St. Paul in Islam.