The True Relationship Between Christanity and Islam Part II

The Quran Origins Are Much Older Than First Believed

Third, there is a great deal of new information that has been recently discovered about the Muslim faith. In August of 2015, the University of Birmingham in England began to Carbon 14 date fragments of the oldest Quran is known to exist. Their findings were released from these tests showed that the oldest Quran had been written from 568 and 645. This is very significant because this would have the Quran being written before the birth of Mohamed and clearly written before he allegedly received it from the angel Gabriel. Muslims accept the copies of the Quran they have in their homes to be the exact same words that were spoken by Prophet Muhammad in the early 600s AD.

Muslims believe that Allah has already promised to protect the Quran from the change and error that happened to earlier holy texts. Allah states in the Quran in Surat al-Hijr, verse 9: “Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian.”

For Muslims, this verse of promise from Allah is enough to know that He will indeed protect the Quran from any errors and changes over time. But why would this appear in the Quran in the first place? If it was the word of God given from God’s mouth to the Prophet’s ears would you need to write this down? Maybe because it was already written down before it was given to the Prophet. For people who do not accept the authenticity of the Quran in the first place, however, clearly, this verse cannot serve as proof of its authenticity, since it is in the Quran itself. It is a circular logical fallacy and clearly falls in the proof department but it does cast a great shadow over the concept of the entire revelation of the Quran.

Traditionally the revelation of the Quran was not considered an isolated event in time. It was a constant stream of verses descending to Muhammad throughout the 23 years of his prophethood in Makkah and Madinah. The Prophet appointed numerous companions of his to serve as scribes, writing down the latest verses as soon as they were revealed. Mu’awiya ibn Abu Sufyan and Zaid bin Thabit were among the scribes who had this duty. For the most part, new verses would be written on scraps of bone, hide, or parchment, since the paper had not yet been imported from China. Now compare this traditional belief with the new evidence from the University of Birmingham which Carbon 14 tested the oldest Quran pieces that were written down. The stories do not add up. In fact, the oral tradition revelation story is completely and utterly taken out by the evidence of the Carbon 14 testing.

It is important to note that the traditional taught Muslim belief was that Muhammad would have the scribes read back the verses to him after writing them down so he can proofread and make sure there were no errors. Well if the entire process of writing began either before Muhammad was born or years before his death, the facts in evidence now take out the supposition of the belief that was previously heretofore represented as the truth.

To further ensure that there were no errors, Muhammad ordered that no one records anything else, not even his words, hadith, on the same sheet as Quran. Regarding the sheets that the Quran was being written down on, he stated “and whoever has written anything from me other than the Quran should erase it.” This was allegedly done to ensure that no other words were accidentally thought to be part of the text of the Quran. However, now it could also be across applied that it was done because the entire process was finished before Muhammad was involved in this elaborate creation. In other words, the entire story was not true. Finding a written piece of the Quran dating from way before it was supposed to have been written is historically extremely significant.

It is important to understand, however, that physical writing down of the Quran was not the main way that the Quran was recorded. Arabia in the 600’s was an oral society. Few people outside of the learned Monks could read or write. With only a very few people who could read and write, thus huge emphasis was placed on the ability to memorize long poems, letters, and other messages. Before Islam, Makkah was a center of Arabic poetry. Annual festivals were held every year that brought together the best poets from all over the Arabian Peninsula. Exuberant attendees would memorize the exact words that their favorite poets recited and quote them years and decades later. Thus, in this type of oral society, the vast majority of the companions learned and recorded the Quran by memorization. This is the politically correct concept that the Muslims have told for centuries. However, the truth is far different. Cross apply the fact that recent University of Birmingham Carbon 14 dating has the oldest Quran being written from at least 30 to 100 years before it was supposedly have been written as well being written down on paper in society that was known for oral tradition this would mean that if the story was correct about living in an oral society and the Carbon 14 dating was accurate that writing was a copy of oral tradition then this oral tradition that Quran was based on predates Muhammad by many decades if not centuries.

The Quran was not narrated to just a few select Companions. It was heard and memorized by hundreds and thousands of people, many of them travelers to Madinah. Thus, chapters and verses of the Quran quickly spread during the life of the Prophet to all corners of the Arabian Peninsula. Could one of the reasons why it spread so quickly to all of the areas of the Arabian Peninsula have been because it was already common knowledge in oral tradition at the time? If this is the case this explains that instead of being new or different, it was just more of the same.

Those who had heard verses from the Prophet would go and spread them to tribes far away, who would also memorize them. In this way, the Quran achieved a literary status known among the Arabs as mutawatir. Mutawatir means that it was so vastly disseminated to so many different groups of people, who all had the same exact wording, that it is inconceivable that any one person or group could have falsified it. Uniform thought is important when developing a political base. It greatly helps if you unify a belief that is already commandingly believed in. Could you imagine the concept of individual rights being taught to American Colonists for the first time on July 3, 1776, would we have had the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776? Of course not, you must have fertile ground to plant these seeds in, and to have that you must have the concept known before or build upon another concept for it to take off like that.

Some sayings of the Prophet are known to be authentic through its being mutawatir, but the entire Quran itself is accepted as being mutawatir, because of its widespread during the life of the Prophet through oral means. Cross apply the findings of the University of Birmingham’s 2015 Carbon 14 dating to prove that oral traditions came after the writing and writing came before Muhammad making Muhammad, not the author of either the conversations with God or the transcribing of the conversations. He was a mere salesman or front person for an idea that was already put together. In this way, Muhammad’s greatest gift was not the universal truth to be taught to all nations, but a universal truth that could be learned by all people- nothing he said about its origin was really true.

Through the use of numerous Companions of the Prophet prevented it from being subject to the protection of a few people. As verses became widespread across the Islamic world, it was impossible for those verses to be changed without Muslims in other parts of the world noticing and correcting them. Furthermore, during the life of Prophet Muhammad, the angel Jibreel (Gabriel) would recite the entire Quran with him once a year, during Ramadan. Cross apply that traditionally this concept was taught so that Muhammad would learn the Quran. However, the findings of the University of Birmingham 2015 clearly show that the entire Quran already complied during this time. This would mean that the need for an Angel to test him would not have been the case. If it was written already why do you need an Angel to test you? You wouldn’t.

If you wouldn’t need an Angel why would pick the Angel Gabriel? This is significant because it was the Angel Gabriel who came to Mary to tell her that she was about to have a child from God. The Angel Gabriel is a messenger Angel. The problem here is that why would you need a messenger Angel to come to Muhammad? The book was already written and it predated the facts that are in evidence. Therefore, the only reason you would have the Angel Gabriel would be to justify an elaborate cover-up. It would be based on the concept that knowledge in the Arab community was such the Angel Gabriel was known as a messenger angel and if introduced as such would be believed by an adoring public. Gabriel was selected not by God but by Muhammad. He was not selected to give Muhammad a message but to take the message from Muhammad to the world. This was message was nothing more than an Arian heresy. These facts became clearly apparent with the death of the Prophet. During the reigns of the first caliphs, however, a need was created to compile all the verses into a central book arose.  This contrived need was constructed because the caliphs who ruled the Muslim world after the death of the Prophet feared that if the number of people who had the Quran memorized dipped too low, the community would be in danger of losing the Quran forever.

During Muhammad’s life, the story was never revealed that Quran was already written. It was reported to be an oral tradition passed down by the Angel Gabriel. As a result, the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who ruled from 632 to 634, ordered a committee be organized, under the leadership of Zaid bin Thabit, to collect all the written pieces of Quran that were spread throughout the Muslim community. The plan was to collect them all into one central book that could be preserved in case the people who had the Quran memorized died out. Please note the dates of this and the fact that in 2015 the University of Birmingham’s Carbon 14 dating clearly shows that the earliest pieces of the oldest Quran were more than likely already 75 o 80 years old at this point in time.

Zaid was very meticulous about who he accepted verses from. Because of the enormous responsibility of not accidentally altering the words of the Quran, he only accepted pieces of parchment with Quran on them had to have been written down in the presence of the Prophet and there had to be two witnesses who can attest to that fact. These fragments of the Quran that he collected were each compared with the memorized Quran itself, ensuring that there was no discrepancy between the written and oral versions. Wait this is interesting. You compare the oral to the written and you take the oral to be true when it was based on the written and yet the written was older than the oral. This would not be logical in a strict sense considering that you are taking secondary information to indict the truthfulness of the primary information.

In August of 2015, Keith Small of Oxford's Bodleian Library said after studying the results of the University of Birmingham’s Carbon 14 dating of the oldest known Quran pieces, "This gives more ground to what have been peripheral views of the Quran's genesis, like that Muhammad and his early followers used a text that was already in existence and shaped it to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than Muhammad receiving a revelation from Heaven."

This text could have been taught to a young Muhammad by Raeb Bahira (Segius the Monk) who was an Arian Monk in Bursa when the prophet met him on a trip with his Uncle. Surprisingly  Western Church history and Western Islamic studies really miss point the lack of evidence for pre-Islamic Islam, that is to say, its Ebionites Christians, Sabaean pagans, Seekers (Hanifi), and Meccan pagans probably also Nestorian and Jewish roots. Why are all the pre-cursors to Islam all pagan or heretical Christian? The simple answer would point to the concept that they had to be Christians since there were no real Pre- Islamic groups. The only Pre- Islamic groups in the Arabian Peninsula were groups of people who knew the stories of Jesus, Mary, and the Bible.

Why are the early sources of Islam not Islamic when even the Nag Hammadi library of ‘gnostic Christianity’ survived.   Paul Addae and Tim Bowes (1998) wrote that the Ebionites were faithful to the original teachings of Jesus and thus shared Islamic views about Jesus’ humanity. Ebionites believed in Jesus being human (like the Arians), they believed in keeping the Jewish laws, and they believed that Jesus was a prophet. In this sense, the Ebionites were outside the mainstream of both Jewish religion and the Christian religions of their day. It was Bishop Warka that taught Muhammad about God and wanted him to succeed him as the Bishop of Mecca. He did his teachings in a cave at Mount Hira a suburb of Mecca. These teachings went on for a while and were in line with the beliefs of the Ebionites who were a heretical sect of Christians who had an Arian approach to Jesus divinity, a belief that Jesus was Prophet, and that some of the laws of the Jewish Church needed to be maintained. Then one day studying by himself in the same cave, he is visited by an angel. Muhammad was upset and ran home to tell his wife. His wife brought him to Bishop Warka who declared that Muhammad was the Prophet. A Christian Bishop declared that Muhammad was indeed the prophet. How could you not see the link between heretical Christianity and Islam?

The period immediately preceding the time of Muhammad witnessed the bitter fight of theistic sects and the Christological question which formed the background to the controversy: “How are divinity and humanity joined together and related to each other in Jesus Christ?” 

Christians believe Jesus was a human and divine being sent by God.  With the exception of Unitarian Christians and Ebionites Christians, who like Islam today do not believe in the Trinity, most Christians now believe in the Divinity of Jesus, which is connected to the belief in the Trinity. They say he is the second member of the Triune God, the Son of the first part of the Triune God, and at the same time “fully” God in every respect. The concept of the Trinity is totally foreign to the Ebionites or Arians. They viewed Jesus as a prophet not the Son of God. Cross apply the fact that Angel Gabriel came to Mary to tell her that she was going to be blessed with having a son of God. The concept of the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her that she a virgin was having a Son of God is important to the Muslim belief because Gabriel is an important Angel that delivers very important messages from God. You need to believe in the Angel Gabriel visiting Mary so that you can believe he visits humans. You must believe that

God has messengers and important things to tell humans. So if the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that God chooses her to be the mother of God’s son- then Jesus was divine and the paradox becomes the internal contradiction within the Muslim faith. The Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her the news and visited Muhammad. If the Angel Gabriel visited Mary then Jesus was the Son of God and there is no need for Muhammad. If the Angel Gabriel did not visit Mary then he did not visit Muhammad either and the Muslim religion is wrong. Either way, they are trapped within an irrefutable logic trap.

Belief in all of the Prophets and Messengers of God is a fundamental article of faith in Islam. Thus, believing in Prophets Adam, Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad is a requirement for anyone who calls him or herself a Muslim. A person claiming to be a Muslim who, for instance, denies that Jesus was a messenger, is not considered a Muslim.  Does the problem become if Jesus was a Messenger for Allah why did he not ever say that? Why didn’t the Angel Gabriel tell that to Mary? Why John The Baptist does not say that? Why did the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem get so upset with Jesus if this was the case? The Quran says in reference to the status of Jesus as a Messenger:  “The Messiah (Jesus), son of Mary, was no more than a Messenger before whom many Messengers have passed away; and his mother adhered wholly to truthfulness, and they both ate food (as other mortals do). See how We make Our signs clear to them; and see where they are turning away!” (Quran 5:75).

Both Muslims and Christians believe Jesus was born of a Virgin Mother, a chaste and pious human woman who gave birth to Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, the Son of God, and at the same time “fully” God Almighty in every respect. Christians believe, however, that while she was a virgin, she was married to a man named Joseph (Bible: Matthew:1:18).

According to Matthew 1:25, Joseph “kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus”

Like Christians, Muslims believe Mary, Maria in Spanish, or Maryam as she is called in Arabic, was a chaste, virgin woman, who miraculously gave birth to Jesus.  “Relate in the Book the story of Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East. She screened herself from them; then We sent to her Our spirit (Angel Gabriel) and he appeared before her as a man in all respects. She said: I seek refuge from you in God Most Gracious (come not near) if you do fear God. He said: Nay, I am only a Messenger from your Lord, to announce to you the gift of a pure son. She said: How shall I have a son, when no man has ever touched me, and I am not unchaste? He said: So it will be, your Lord says: ‘That is easy for Me, and We wish to appoint him as a sign unto men and a Mercy from Us’: It was a matter so decreed” (Quran 19:16-21).   The Quran says:  “She (Mary) said: ‘O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me.’ He (God) said: ‘So (it will be) for God creates what He wills. When He has decreed something, He says to it only: ‘Be!’- and it is” (3:47).  It should also be noted about his birth that:  “Verily, the likeness of Jesus in God’s Sight is the likeness of Adam. He (God) created him from dust, then (He) said to him: ‘Be!’-and he was” (Quran 3:59).

Muslims, like Christians, believe Jesus performed miracles. “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, while thou stretches out thy hand to heal, and sign and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant Jesus (Bible: Acts 4:30). But in Islam, these were performed by the will and permission of God, Who has power and control over all things.  “Then will God say: ‘O Jesus the son of Mary! recount My favor to you and to your mother. Behold! I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit (the angel Gabriel) so that you did speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught you the Book and Wisdom, the Law, and the Gospel. And behold: you make out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and you breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by My leave, and you heal those born blind, and the lepers by My leave. And behold! you bring forth the dead by My leave. And behold! I did restrain the children of Israel from (violence to you) when you did show them the Clear Signs, and the unbelievers among them said: ‘This is nothing but evident magic’ (5:110).

With the exception of the Unitarian Christians and at that time Ebionites Christians, the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Christian religion. Islam charged Christianity with having distorted the pure monotheism of Jesus through the doctrines of Trinity and through the veneration of icons. The belief is that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three Persons or beings are distinct from each other while being similar in character: uncreated and omnipotent. The word “trinity” is a term used to denote the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of the persons is distinct from the other, yet identical in essence. In other words, each is fully divine in nature, but each is not the totality of the other persons of the Trinity. Each has a will, loves, and says “I” and “You” when speaking. The Father is not the same person as the Son, who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit, who is not the same person as the Father. Each is divine, yet there are not three Gods, but one God. There are three individual subsistences, or persons. The word “subsistence” means something that has a real existence. The word “person” denotes individuality and self-awareness.  Included in the doctrine of the Trinity is a strict monotheism which is the teaching that there exists in all the universe a single being known as God who is self-existent and unchangeable (Isaiah 43:10; 44:6,8). Therefore, it is important to note that the doctrine of the trinity is not polytheistic but monotheistic by definition.

Muslims believe in the absolute oneness of God, who is a Supreme Being free of human limitations, needs, and wants. He has no partners in His Divinity. He is the Creator of everything and is completely separate from His creation.  It is very interesting to note that this added to the Quran is a clear reason to point out the logical fallacy of the straw man argument. Note that at the time of Muhammad several heretical Christian sects were dead set against the concept of the Trinity and believed that Jesus was human without being divine. It is very convenient to have this exact statement “revealed” in the Quran. It was also very convenient to have an Ebionite Bishop to teach you this information or to have the benefit of a heretical book to guide you. The interesting question here would be why God chose to have Jesus be born of a virgin if he was not the son of God or why was it important to understand that the concept of the Trinity is not that there are three distinct people who are God- but there is one person with three different responsibilities or capabilities. This is how the Christians would understand it. This is not how the Arians or the Muslims would understand it.

Only Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (Bible: John 3:16).  However, it is interesting to note that the term “son of God” is used in other parts of the Bible to refer to Adam (Bible: Luke 3:38), Israel (Bible: Exodus 4:22), and David (Bible: Psalms 2:7) as well. The creatures of God are usually referred to in the Bible as children of God.   The notion of Jesus as the son of God is something that was established under the influence of Paul of Tarsus (originally named Saul), who had been a disbeliever, but later changed course and joined the disciples after the departure of Jesus. Paul is considered by a number of Christian scholars to be the father of Christianity whereas Islam later opposed the trinity view, Paul, as the Christian religious leader who misrepresented the true message of Jesus. 

Heretics struggled to reject the notion of the Divinity of Jesus for close to 200 years.   The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the Churches of Alexandria till 325 CE. Irenaeus (130-200) wrote in support of pure monotheism and opposed Paul for injecting into Christianity doctrines of the pagan Roman religion and Platonic philosophy.  In 325 (CE), a council of Christian leaders met at Nicaea and made Paul’s beliefs officially part of Christian doctrine.

Muslims believe that God is one, that there are no gods except God. They may contend that even though Christians claim to be monotheists, they actually believe in more than one God. This concept is consistent with Arianism not with the truth as been reported throughout history. Since Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, to them they, therefore, err like other people of ancient or modern times who have believed in a plurality of gods or the sons and daughters of God. The Quran, of course, is simplified in that respect and strictly monotheistic. “Say: “God is Unique! God, the Source [of everything]. He has not fathered anyone nor was He fathered, and there is nothing comparable to Him!” (Quran 112:1-4).  The Quran also states: “Such was Jesus, the son of Mary; it is a statement of truth, about which they vainly dispute. It is not befitting to the majesty of God, that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter,

Only Christians believe that Jesus was killed on the cross then resurrected. In that respect Islam is similar to  Docetism belief that Jesus’ physical body was an illusion, as was his crucifixion; that is, Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die, but in reality, he was incorporeal, a pure spirit, and hence could not physically die. Docetism believes that Jesus Christ did not actually die, and therefore was never resurrected bodily. This belief is actually explained in the Quran. “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.” (Quran 4:156) “God lifted him up to His presence. God is Almighty, All-Wise” (Quran 4:157).

Death and resurrection is a core Christian belief and it relates to the concept of atonement. However, the heretical sects of Christianity who do not believe in the resurrection cannot then believe in the atonement you need to both for the argument to work correctly. According to this belief, Jesus died to save mankind from sin. However, this is not stated explicitly in the four gospels which form the primary source texts of Christianity. It is found, however, in Romans 6:8,9.   Christians believe Jesus was spat on, cut, humiliated, kicked, striped, and finally hung up on the cross to endure a slow and painful death.  According, to Christian belief, the original sin of Adam and Eve of eating from the forbidden tree was so great that God could not forgive it by simply willing it, rather it was necessary to erase it with the blood of a sinless, innocent Jesus.   The four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul are the main sources of Christianity that discuss the Resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion.

According to St. Matthew, Jesus appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee. Mark’s Gospel tells a different story: Jesus was seen by Mary Magdalene, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven.  Luke’s Gospel says Jesus walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter, and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem. In John’s Gospel, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. 

Another account of the resurrection by St. Paul is found in Bible: Corinthians 15: 3-8.  According to Christian belief, Resurrection is a manifestation of God’s justice, who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled himself unto death (Phil., 2: 8-9). This event also completes the mystery of Christian salvation and redemption. The death of Jesus frees believers from sin, and with his resurrection, he restores to them the most important privileges lost by sin (Bible: Romans 4:25).  More importantly, the belief in the resurrection of Jesus indicates Christian acknowledgment of Christ as the immortal God, the cause of believers’ own resurrection (Bible: I Corinthians 4: 21; Phil., 3:20-21), as well as the model and the support of a new life of grace (Bible: Romans 4: 4-6; 9-11). The emergence of Islam can so be seen as a part of ancient church history.  World-renowned Islam researcher Dr. Friedrich Schwally, a Professor of Semitic Languages at the University of Konigsberg said 1919 shortly before his death, “The theologians are not aware that Islam is a part of our church history. The more one studies the Quran, the clearer it becomes that its origin comes from a form of Christianity.  Probably only around the year 800 from Islam became its own religion.”

What are the central proofs? As said, the Arian church always saw Jesus as a prophet, as a messenger of God. They often call Jesus, “The large prophet,” not the son of God, but the son

Maria’s, and on this theology the Quran is based upon. They wrote that “Muhammad is actually a name for Jesus. Muhammad is called the praising and the first coin minting, on which this title appears, carry excluding Christian symbols, the cross, the baptism Jesus or the like.

The Kalif Abd Al-Malik established the rock cathedral, which is considered as the first Muslim building in Jerusalem, but it was a church. The inscription the inside, is a purely Christian text, against the thesis, Jesus is the son of God.  If one, as Christopher Luxenberg suggests, reads in such a way Muhammad literally translated and the sentence: is praised (Muhammad), then it is to be referred to thereafter the mentioned Jesus. Abdallah, the slave of God, is an old Syrian name for Jesus. Later the inscription was read: Mohammed, son of the Abdallah. 

The first Muslims did not know this at all in fact they did not know that they were Muslims. They held themselves for Christians, a special form of Christianity that rejected the Trinity. This could be the cause could be for the fast propagation of Islam: That people did not have to be converted, where the religion was already a rather Unitarian tradition, where Jesus was admired as humans and an envoy (messenger) of God, not as God. Can such realizations carry the communication between the religions?  No, but the consciousness that one has common roots, can lead perhaps nevertheless to communication, as it the communication between Christians and Jews.