When one looks at the two largest religions in the world, we see that one is historical and one is not. What do I mean by that? Both can easily be traced from their origins in history but what I refer to is the scripture.
The Bible is a historical document. It starts with the Creation, goes through early civilization, the history of Abraham and the descendants of his Covenant. The Life of Moses is covered in detail as the Israelites leave Egypt and go into the Promised Land. After the conquest of the Holy Land, the Kingdom of Israel is set up and the Temple is built. More Prophets come until the time of Christ. One cannot deny that it is a historical book.
The Quran on the other hand is not historical. The references to Christ, Moses, Abraham and others have no time, location, or context. In the Bible, we can trace the ministry of Christ. We have his locations, his preaching and his life events.
If one were to read the Quran, you could not know anything about the lives of the prophets. You need to read the Bible to know about the prophets. The Bible contains Christ’s complete ministry, not just a few apologetically minded sentences inserted into his character by the author of the Quran.
Also, the Quran puts itself against the historical record by saying that Jesus did not die on the Cross. The Quran says in Surah 4:157:
“And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger – they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.”
Even the extremely liberal anti-Christian scholar Bart Ehrman says that Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman Cross in first century Palestine. The Quranic statement was inserted for polemical purposes but it does itself a great disservice. It impugns its own credibility by going against one of the most established facts in the ancient world. Because of this blunder, it is hard to take its other historical claims seriously whether they be about Jesus or any other character.
The two books share many characters in common: Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus and many others. If secular historians were going to do a historic quest for one of these characters, they would not even look at the Quran. I know this because secular historians have done investigations on the historical Jesus and they don’t use the Quran.
Since the Quran is not historically reliable, it cannot be used a spiritual guide. Muslims need to realize this and return to the correct revelation of God. The Quran acknowledges that God has spoken before but muslims insist that previous revelations have been changed and corrupted even though the Quran doesn’t say that. Christians acknowledge that Jews believe that the New Testament is not consistent with the Hebrew Bible. While we disagree with them, we are open and put both revelations side by side in collections of our scripture. We’re open and we always have been. I have never seen a Quran published with previous revelations included.
Simply stated, the Quran is not historical, and therefore cannot be trusted. I encourage all muslims to read God’s Word: The Holy Bible.
Sacred Scripture
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