Muslim Responses to Anti-Islam Polemics
One of the most popular argument often proposed by missionaries as “evidence” that Luke was “inspired”, or at least someone who we can blindly trust without second thoughts, is as follows : he was an excellent historian who conducted a careful investigation during the course of composing his books.
For those who are familiar with “Faithfreedom International”, the name of its founder Ali Sina (a pseudonym) is synonymous with the bigotry and vile rhetoric often displayed against Muslims and Islam. He openly advocated for the atomic bomb to be used on Muslims and declared that he will “wipe out” Islam within 30 years.
Occasionally, we come across Christians face-to-face and, more frequently, on the Internet, who, when informed that the text of the gospels underwent corruption during their transmission, often react with the following type of questions : “When ? Who did the corruption ? In what country ? Before or after Muhammad ? Why was it done ? How come no one noticed it?” These type of seemingly “innocent” questions merely reveal the incalculably colossal ignorance of the person in question.
A special “gift” for the Christian missionaries on occasion of Good Friday. I wish to show by an analysis of Wisdom Christology in Matthew’s gospel chapter 23, that the evangelist took the dramatic step of changing Jesus’ metaphysical status from creature to Creator by altering the Q tradition, and to reflect on the theological implications of this metamorphosis for Christianity, and where we go from here.
What proceeds is an analytical view of Christmas and appropriate Muslim conduct during the Christmas season.
After the last war in Kosovo, the overall economic situation of the country has deteriorated in a drastic way. As is well-known, the end of war meant that Kosovo became a target for many Christian organizations, a phenomenon which seems to accompany every war-emerging country nowadays. The same happened to post-communist Albania, as well as Bosnia, Rwanda and several other countries in the world involved in different conflicts. Needless to mention, great poverty is a gate to disbelief, as man is continuously in search for the provision granted to him by the Almighty and frustration seems to cause all kinds of incongruent decisions. In order to elucidate the bitter reality in Kosovo, we are presenting the case of the conversion of an entire Muslim family to Christianity.
Instead of writing a full-scale biography of Jesus of Nazareth, I want to focus on some aspects of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth that are commonly overlooked by most Christians. Any attempt to reconstruct the historical Jesus (as distinct from the incarnate deity of ecclesiastical faith) needs to take into account all the recoverable data about Jesus, much of which has been ignored by many Christians because of its’ embarrassment to Christian orthodoxy. Jesus’ reported sayings in the Gospels are frequently subjected to tortuous exegesis by fundamentalist Christians to make them fit later church tradition. Paradoxically, the data has been critically examined by none other than Christian scholars themselves.
The Bible
Explore demographic disparities in biblical accounts, focusing on Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers. Through textual scrutiny and mathematical models, unravel the enigmas of ancient Israelite society. Discover the delicate balance between narrative tradition and empirical evidence, shedding light on historical complexities.
But the first of the four gospels, i.e., the Gospel according to Mark, apparently did not receive Paul’s memo. And this is a very important point as we keep in mind that each of the gospels were initially divorced from each other and were written in different localities for different audiences.
So which is the correct Gospel account concerning the choice of Jesus’ first apostles ? Between Mt. 4, 12 – 22 ; Mk. 1, 14 – 20 ; Lk. 5, 1 – 11 ; Jn. 1, 35 – 42, which is the correct Gospel account regarding the call of the first disciples of Jesus ?