Is the Quran a fabrication of the Catholic Church?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Muhammad used a lot of both Jewish and Christian doctrine in his book.

You can look on this several ways. I'll hit two:

1.) If you are going to claim you are the next prophet of God come to set the faith on its true path, you are going to build on elements of the faiths that came before. Notice that Jesus did not wholly reject the Old Testament, only the state of its priesthood and legalism.

2.) If God really did decide to send another prophet to clean up how we are getting it wrong, then is He going to utterly scrap everything He did before or is it more likely He is sending a message to get back on the straight and narrow like Jesus did?

Muslims believe in #2. The rest of us believe in #1. Atheists don't believe in anything.

But in short, either way you look at it, it makes perfect sense for the Koran to dovetail and mirror scripture, even borrow from it in places given what Islam is said to be.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

The Popes established their totalitarian authority in 495 AD, but the Quran wasn't written until 632 AD. So the Catholic Church was well established long before Mohammed was born.

The Catholic Church was legally established by the Theodosian Code on 27 February 380AD. The term 'Catholic', however, had been in use by Christians since considerably earlier. As most people know, it means ‘universal’.

In the first and second centuries, before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Bishop of Rome was supposedly the senior official of the Church and the arbiter of doctrinal disputes. This ceased to be the case after the Emperors took up Christianity and settled down in Byzantium, which they renamed Constantinople. The various Christian communities of the Empire began to go their separate ways.

Over time, weakened by barbarian incursions, Rome grew more and more cut off from the civilized world. Its church declined in power and influence. The Empire became Christianized, all right, but from Constantinople. Doctrinal leadership was long contested by the powerful bishops of Constantinople and Alexandria — whose edicts the bishops of Rome refused, most of the time, to countenance. There were no popes. The de facto head of the Church was the Emperor, and it was largely at the urging of successive emperors that the fractious Church fathers of the East developed a uniform doctrine and practice for Christians. Modern Christianity is still based on it.

In 410AD Rome was sacked by the Visigoths under Alaric. By then it wasn't even the capital of the Western Roman Empire any more; that was Ravenna. Alaric, who like many barbarians wanted to be more Roman than the Romans, was a ‘Christian’ — but of the Arian persuasion. That is to say, by Church reckoning he was a damnable heretic. Under his successors, Rome became a tumbledown ruin. By then it had long ceased to be a player in world affairs. So much for the power of the 'Roman Catholic Church'. It didn’t even exist.

‘Christianity’ of some kind (probably many kinds) continued to be practised in the barbarian city that had formerly been the capital of the world’s greatest empire. It had little to do with the religion practised by the ‘Romans’ (that is, by Greeks) within what was left of that empire. And it had no effect whatsoever on events in seventh-century Arabia, a place that, as far as the barbarians of Rome were concerned, might as well have been on the Moon. There could be no contact between the two regions except via the (Eastern) Empire, which lay between them. Look at some maps of the period and you will understand why. Even the coast of North Africa belonged to the empire whose capital was Constantinople.

It was Eastern Christianity, not Roman Catholicism, that was influential in the development of early Islam. And it was massively influential.

Roman Catholicism as a community of believers united by doctrine and headed by a Pope did not come to exist until the eleventh century. It had absolutely no effect on Islam; if anything, it was the other way round.

Such are the facts as history knows them. People are welcome to make up whatever stories they like and believe them, too, but it will not change the truth.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Muhammad used a lot of both Jewish and Christian doctrine in his book.

You can look on this several ways. I'll hit two:

1.) If you are going to claim you are the next prophet of God come to set the faith on its true path, you are going to build on elements of the faiths that came before. Notice that Jesus did not wholly reject the Old Testament, only the state of its priesthood and legalism.

2.) If God really did decide to send another prophet to clean up how we are getting it wrong, then is He going to utterly scrap everything He did before or is it more likely He is sending a message to get back on the straight and narrow like Jesus did?

Muslims believe in #2. The rest of us believe in #1. Atheists don't believe in anything.

But in short, either way you look at it, it makes perfect sense for the Koran to dovetail and mirror scripture, even borrow from it in places given what Islam is said to be.

You are utterly wrong, unfortunately.

We, muslims, actually also believe #1 and not #2.

We believe that God revealed his books to previous prophets, and we do not reject them wholly. We only reject the man made interpolations which crept in those previous books - WHICH IS A FACT - even in your own book (read Jeremiah) it says that the "lying scribes" were changing the word of God.

That's why there was a need for a final prophet and a final revelation which will correct the man made interpolations and will be guarded by God Himself.


There are many examples of this:

In the OT you read that god created the universe in 6 days and on the seventh He "rested".

In the Qur'an - the correct part of that statement - that is, the part where it says God created the universe in 6 days - is repeated as truth - but, and this is an interesting thing - the Qur'an explicitly states that "the creation of the universe DID NOT TIRE HIM" -- it's a direct rejection of the notion that God would need to "rest" --- which is a part Jeremiah's "lying scribes" must have ADDED.

In the OT, the prophets of God, who are supposed to be the best of mankind, are often shown as being arrogant, drunk, incestial, adulterous horrible people!!

The Qur'an opposes this as well - directly rejecting the lies put in the OT by the lying scribes - describing His prophets as the best of humanity with the highest moral values!

The hypocrisy of many christian scholars is that they ALWAYS claim Muhammad was not a prophet but simply "plagiarized" the NT or the OT --- but this is the case only with Islam --- why would they then not say that Jesus was not sent by God - but simply plagiarized the stories from the Old Testament?

See the double standard right there?

In fact many jewish scholars could (and do) claim exactly that! They say Jesus was a bastard, a "false rabbi" and the Gospels are nothing more than plagiarism of the Old Testament!


Is it then so hard to just think for a moment that ALL the prophets, from Adam to Muhammad had the SAME SOURCE and the SAME MESSAGE - belief in ONE GOD - and they preached the same thing?

Why do you think God KEPT SENDING prophets???

I mean he sent Moses and gave him the Book --- what was the need to send many more prophets after him - AGAIN AND AGAIN --- and give them books AGAIN AND AGAIN?

Think about it? Why?


Because people kept CHANGING GOD's WORD!!


God had entrusted the Israelite priests with guarding the Scripture - but what did they do? - prophet Jeremiah tells you what they did! --- THEY CHANGED IT - they invented LIES and put them in the Scripture.


People kept changing God's Word.

He then sent Jesus who accused the scribes of exactly the same thing - and God gave him the Book --- and what happened??

Not even 10 years later and there comes a dude (Paul) and CHANGED GOD's WORD AGAIN!

Jesus said "I have not come to abolish the Law!" i.e. the Law is still valid - for example "do not eat pork!" ---- and here comes Paul along and says "No, no, no --- you CAN eat pork, it does not matter".

See, they kept changing God's Word.



That is why Qur'an was revealed - and this time, God made sure that it will not be changed! It was written down in the life of the prophet, and it was MEMORIZED (word for word!) by THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.
Hundreds of thousands more memorized at least a few chapters of it (always in the same language) --- so that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to change anything in it!

I mean I am not arab, but if someone decided to change even the smallest chapter of the Qur'an, and say, just change a SINGLE WORD, I WOULD IMMEDIATELY NOTICE.

Here:

Someone would change this:

"Inna eatayna, kal-kawthar" into

"Inna eatayna, kal-marhab"


I WOULD IMMEDIATELY NOTICE. As would almost a BILLION PEOPLE.

Because it is a chapter almost EVERY MUSLIM, regardless of nationality, knows by heart - in it's original - in arabic.


Today we have MILLIONS of hufadha - people who have memorized the ENTIRE QUR'AN. Word for word.

Even if you burned all the copies of the Qur'an in the whole world- and you erased every digital copy and every part of the Qur'an saved anywhere ---- we would be able to reconstruct the whole Qur'an in less than 24 hours! In it's ORIGINAL. WORD FOR WORD.

You cannot change it. You cannot destroy it. It is the last revelation of God which He himself promised He will guard.

"Indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur'an and indeed, We will be its guardian." - Qur'an, 15:9

a reply to: sHuRuLuNi

There is a lot that you do not know about the Bible. There are multiple copies of it with variances, but the original words are still there. The Bible is metered from beginning to end, and I have seen it for myself.

Is the Quran metered?

BTW, the Quran is not as perfect as you may have heard. Just like the Bible there are textual variants, but in the case of the Bible, the true text can be verified by counting the syllable metering.

Textual varients in the Quran.

Furthermore, Gen 1:1-2 does not say that God created the universe in 6 days. It says that He created it, the world became corrupt, so He destroyed it and refurbished it in 6 Days.

6 Day Restoration.

Here are some very good videos that go though the Quran and show that even the Quran teaches that Jesus is God. I don't think that Mohammad intended for Muslims to believe that, but it shows that the writers of the Quran drew heavily from the Torah and New Testament.

This puts the Quran at odds with itself.



Jesus, the Resurrection and the Judge...but isn't Allah supposed to be the "Resurrection and the Judge"?



Jesus, the Spirit of Allah...but isn't Jesus nothing more than an a Prophet (per the Quran)?



Jesus, the Last Prophet...but wasn't Mohammad supposed to be the "last prophet"?



So, is the Quran a Catholic fabrication? I suppose its possible, but there is very little direct evidence to prove that. What does seem apparent is that Catholicism, Islam, and Kabbalistic Judaism all seem to guide the worshipper to the Cana'anite Mystery Cult of Ba'al. These three religions differ wildly from the teachings of the Old Testament and New Testament.





For those who have time, this video shows the occult symbols in both Catholicism and Islam which tie them directly to Ba'al worship.



Who is Allah? His name is Ba'al. Its ironic how ISIS doesn't see that.

a reply to: sHuRuLuNi

So you are saying that Muslims do not believe that Muhammad actually received divine revelation of any kind but just sought to make up something so he could create a religion in an attempt to co-opt believers out of both Christianity and Judaism?

That is what I was implying with #1.

So I think you misunderstood me and really meant that you believe #2 - Muhammad received authentic revelation. Yes, I get that he claimed to have received them via Gabriel and not God himself, but they still were supposed to be from God ultimately.

Christians don't believe Muhammad was an authentic prophet much like Jews reject that Jesus was the Messiah.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
...videos from an "expert" ----yada yada

Just as I said in another post: You take writings or videos from alleged "experts" (christian apologetists) who have NO IDEA what they are talking about, and who twist the Qur'an to make it say something it is not.



First video: Where in the Qur'an does it say that Jesus said "He is The Light"? Nowhere.
You are quoting from writings from the NT written by God knows who.

Second video: Jesus is not The Spirit of God, but a spirit FROM GOD. And he is a word God bestowed on Mary. As God clearly says that when he intends to create something he justs says to it "Be" and it is. That's what happened in the case of Jesus. He said to it "be" - and a fetus was created in the womb of Mary. He then sent a spirit which inhabited that fetus, and the fetus became alive -- that is something that happens EACH TIME A BABY IS CONCEIVED.

And the verse does not say a "holy son" -- the word "zakiyen" does not mean holy - it means "pure". If it was "holy" the word "kuds" would have been used.


Third video: How exactly does Jesus' return to earth make him "the last prophet"? He already IS a prophet. He was a prophet 2000 years ago.
He is not coming as a "new" prophet, and he is not bringing a "new" revelation from God.



And don't just read one translation of the Qur'an - read the original, and if you cannot - then do a little research, read different translations. You take everything at face value because it is convenient.
The Qur'an clearly states that Jesus was merely a man, and that he is NOT a God nor the son of God - because God does not have sons or daughters.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: sHuRuLuNi

So you are saying that Muslims do not believe that Muhammad actually received divine revelation of any kind but just sought to make up something so he could create a religion in an attempt to co-opt believers out of both Christianity and Judaism?

That is what I was implying with #1.

So I think you misunderstood me and really meant that you believe #2 - Muhammad received authentic revelation. Yes, I get that he claimed to have received them via Gabriel and not God himself, but they still were supposed to be from God ultimately.

Christians don't believe Muhammad was an authentic prophet much like Jews reject that Jesus was the Messiah.

Yes, what I meant was he received revelation from God, but did not reject the previous revelations - since they all came from the same God -- but he rejected the interpolations in the previous revelations.

a reply to: sHuRuLuNi

Don’t waste your time arguing with Islamophobes and Christian bigots. I have a question for you.

What is your response to historians and antiquarians who state that

1. the earliest traceable and credible sources for both the Qur’an and the hadith date from about the ninth century, almost two hundred years AH. In other words, neither the Qur’an nor any of the hadith can be reliably regarded as having being spoken by Muhammad.

2. The internal evidence of these documents — such as, for example, the description of Mecca that includes the presence of vines and olives — makes it far more likely that they were composed by people not living in Arabia, but in the borderlands between Syria and Mesopotamia, Palestine and Arabia?

These possibilities have been raised by serious scholars who apply the same techniques of textual criticism that have shown us that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by at least two later authors writing centuries apart, and that many of the words of Jesus in the New Testament are second- or third-century interpolations.

Are you open to the possibility that the Qur’an did not originate in Mecca and was not recited by Muhammad but written and edited by others during the period of the Ummayad dynasty, near the Ummayad heartland of the Middle East?

a reply to: Astyanax

The Catholic Church was legally established by the Theodosian Code on 27 February 380AD. The term 'Catholic', however, had been in use by Christians since considerably earlier. As most people know, it means ‘universal’.

In the first and second centuries, before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Bishop of Rome was supposedly the senior official of the Church and the arbiter of doctrinal disputes. This ceased to be the case after the Emperors took up Christianity and settled down in Byzantium, which they renamed Constantinople. The various Christian communities of the Empire began to go their separate ways.

yet according to the "code" you're speaking of..

On March 26, 429, Emperor Theodosius II announced to the senate of Constantinople his intentions to form a committee to codify all of the laws (leges, singular lex) from the reign of Constantine up to Theodosius II and Valentinian III. Twenty-two scholars, working in two teams, worked for nine years starting in 429 to assemble what was to become the Theodosian Code.[3] The chief overseer of the work was Antiochus Chuzon, a lawyer and a Prefect and Consul from Antioch.[4]

Their product was a collection of 16 books containing more than 2,500 constitutions issued between 313 and 437

so again... the "Roman catholic" church orginated with the first "roman" emperor claiming to be "christian"

And their doctrine was solidified just before the "empire" of Rome was decimated... but the religion and the creeds that came from said empire remained...

To this day...

a reply to: Akragon

No. It gave birth to what is known today as the Eastern Orthodox Communion.

a reply to: Astyanax

Says who?

a reply to: Akragon

Everyone who knows. This is standard stuff.

Here's a timeline of the development of Christianity I found for you. Note when Roman Catholicism appears.

a reply to: Astyanax

If I were him, I would give the same answer that Christians give for this. Roman historians who are accepted as factual sources also wrote at a generation or two's remove and there is little to no direct evidence for what they wrote in some cases too, but no one questions them with the same intensity they question the founding figures of world religions.

a reply to: ketsuko

Roman historians are not the principal sources for the history of Islam.

a reply to: Astyanax

No, but they are principle sources for a lot of the history of Rome that no one questions quite like they do religious history.

a reply to: ketsuko

No, but they are principle sources for a lot of the history of Rome that no one questions quite like they do religious history.

Do I detect a touch of religious resentment? Sorry, can’t help you there.

Perhaps if you provided a few examples?

a reply to: Murgatroid

True about Alberto Rivera!!!
That's why he was killed, and now some of all this secret knowledge lays with the Christian of the Middle-East, that's why they are being persecuted...

a reply to: Akragon

Sorry, my upload doesn’t seem to have worked. Let me try again.

a reply to: Astyanax

Quite alright....

Do you not see "roman catholisim" on that list?