Restless Pilgrim

I was recently having a discussion online with a Muslim and he said “The Qur’an even tells you exactly how to disprove it if you’re in doubt of its authenticity, so if no one has disproved it in 1440 years, and you can’t disprove it”. Here he was referring to the Qur’anic challenge to “produce a chapter like it”, as evidence that the Qur’an is of divine origin. 

I have to say, this challenge is bizarre for a number of reasons… 

Firstly, the challenge is rather light on details! Do we have to produce it in Arabic? What does it mean to be “like” the Qur’an? What objective criteria can we use to measure it? How do we know when the test has been fulfilled?

Secondly, entire websites devoted to poetry in the Qur’anic style. Why do these fail the test?

Thirdly, it’s just an odd argument. Even if I couldn’t produce something like the Qur’an, it doesn’t mean it’s divine. I can’t produce a Beethoven Symphony or a Shakespeare sonnet either!  Even if Muhammad was the only person in history to produce something like the Qur’an, I still don’t see why that would demonstrate it’s divine. Alternative explanations would be that Muhammad was uniquely skilled, or you could even suggest that it comes from a nefarious spiritual source.

Personally, I think the poetry of Kahlil Gibran greatly superior to the Qur’an, both in terms of beauty and wisdom. The English is great and I’m sure the original Arabic is as well. 

This video pretty much sums up the most common misconceptions I’ve found about Qur’anic preservation among Muslims – the Birmingham Manuscripts being a complete Qur’an, the different manuscript traditions, assuming that the Qur’an memorized today is the same as the “original” etc.

From Sentinel Apologetics…

The Quran makes mention of 32 people, and all of them are defined as “prophets” without distinguishing between them. Among these names there are only 6 people that can NOT be clearly identified in the Bible. Nevertheless, the remaining 26 people come mostly from the Pentateuch. Thus, here’s a list statistically aligned from most referred in the Quran:

• Jesus (130 times)
• Moses (130 times)
• Abraham (69 times)
• Mary (11 times by name and 34 times as “mother” of Jesus)
• Noah (43 times)
• Adam (25 times)
• Lot (25 times)
• Aaron (20 times)
• Isaac (17 times)
• Solomon (17 times)
• David (16 times)
• Jacob (16 times)
• Ishmael (12 times)
• Jonah (4 times; the Arabic form Yūnus is taken from the LXX form Iōnas rather than the Hebrew Yōnāh)
• Job (4 times)
• Elijah (2 times)
• Elisha (1 time)
• Saul (1 time; Surah 2:247-249 is erroneously fused with Gideon’s story from Judges 7:4-7)
• Joseph (mentioned only as the name for Surah 12)
• John the Baptist
• Zechariah. – Shu‘ayb (Jethro)
• Idris (Enoch)
• Hūd (Eber)
• Dhū ’l-Kifl (Ezekiel)
• Luqmān (a figure whose origin is in Nubia, Sudan, or Ethiopia)
• Ṣāliḥ (believed to have prophesied to the Arabian tribe of Thamūd)
• Al-Khadir (one of the cave dwellers in Surah 18)
• Dhū ’l -Qarnayn (Alexander the Great).

You’ll often hear Muslims say that the Qur’an is the message for all mankind. However, the Qur’anic data doesn’t back this up…

P1. Every nation has been sent a messenger (16:36, 10:47 and 35:24)… despite the historical record not being able to substantiate this.

P2. Messengers are sent in the language of his people (14:4).

P3. Muhammad was the first person sent to warn the Arabs (36:6, 34:44 and 32:3)… despite Abraham and Ishmael supposedly having established the Kaaba generations before.

C. Muhammad was sent to those living in and around Mecca (42:7) to give them a warning in Arabic so that it would be clear to them (41:3, 43:3, 44:58, 26:195-196).  

The Qur’an says that the Jews and Christians are to follow their own Scriptures (5:43, 5:68). Rather than having to trust what Christians and Jews *say* about their Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, the Qur’an is sent confirming it in *Arabic* (46:12), a revelation in their own tongue (41:44, 6:155-157).   

In Qur’an 10:16 you have the simplest and clearest textual variation, between the Hafs and Qunbul:

If Allah had willed, I would not have recited it to you, He would not have made it known to you… (Hafs)

vs

If Allah had willed, I would not have recited it to you, He would have made it known to you… (Qunbul)

Tafsir al-Jalalayn points out this textual variation, saying:

Say ‘If God had willed I would not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you nor would He have made you aware of it the lā of wa-lā adrākum is for negation and is a supplement to what preceded; a variant reading has the lām sc. la-adrākum ‘He would have made it known to you’ as the response to the conditional law ‘if’ in other words He would have made it known to you by the tongue of someone other than myself. For I have already dwelt among you a whole lifetime of forty years before this Qur’ān not relating to you anything of the sort so will you not understand?’ that this Qur’ān is not from myself?

Mormons, Muslims, and most Protestant groups all have the same fundamental contention. While the details change depending upon the group, they all believe that the Early Church got things wrong, and pretty dramatically wrong at that…

I would suggest that’s a very problematic position to hold. One has to contend that the Apostles were terrible teachers and failed in their mission. Jesus effectively abandoned His Church until either Muhammad, Luther, Calvin, Joseph Smith, or some other figure came along to set things right centuries later.

As an aside, Atheism is a bold position for someone to hold as it necessarily asserts that everyone throughout history who claimed any kind of religious experience was fundamentally mistaken. I would suggest that many groups make a similarly bold claim, that most Christians throughout history have been fundamentally mistaken on core doctrines.

If one claims the Early Church was in deep error, cherry-picking inevitably results. For example, Baptismal Regeneration is universally believed in the Early Church. Yet, many Protestants reject this entirely, but basing this on the New Testament canon discerned by those who held to Baptismal Regeneration! They reject Apostolic Succession, but accept the Trinitarian doctrine which was developed by those who led the Church through Apostolic succession! Many other examples could be given.

Responses

I said this in a recent discussion online and my friend said:

“Yeah, it seems to me that heresies developed fairly quickly…”

Unfortunately, this is just another way to say that Jesus and the Apostles failed, that the long-awaited Messiah’s message was radically corrupted even within the lifetime of the Apostles, and long before the canon of the Bible was settled. Contrary to Biblical prophecy and the words of Jesus, the Kingdom doesn’t even get out of the gate. My friend went on to say:

“That’s an argument from silence, at best.” 

Actually,  *his* position is the argument from silence, positing that the Church was completely usurped without any “true believer” offering the slightest resistance. 

Mormons claim the Early Church were Mormon, yet we find no proto-Mormons in the Early Church and nobody in the “official” Church wrote against a heresy which looked anything like Mormonism. The same is true for Islam. In contrast, we know about Docetism, Gnosticism, Modalism etc. because they offered a significant enough challenge to the Church that Her apologists wrote works against them. Do we find anyone in the Early Church writing against how you understand the Faith? If not, why not?

> “But I don’t say they weren’t “real Christians.” They may have simply been “confused real Christians.” After all, they had a lot of theology to sort out. There was a lot of confusion.””

This seems rather like having your cake and eating it. According to you, the earliest Christians seem to have completely misunderstood even the basic mechanics of salvation. So, either these are grave heresies, or not a big deal. Which is it?