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Thu 24 Shaban 1444AH 16-3-2023AD at 1:02 am in reply to: The Old Testament – Bible,Quran and Science #82877
There is good reason to believe that after the Jewish people settled in Canaan, at the end of the Thirteenth century B.C., writing was used to preserve and hand down the tradition. There was not however complete accuracy, even in what to men seems to demand the greatest durability, i.e. the laws. Among these, the laws which are supposed to have been written by God’s own hand, the Ten Commandments, were transmitted in the Old Testament in two versions; Exodus (20,1-21) and Deuteronomy (5, 1-30). They are the same in spirit, but the variations are obvious. There is also a concern to keeping a largely written record of contracts, letters, lists of personalities (Judges, high city officials, genealogical tables), lists of offerings and plunder. In this way, archives were created which provided documentation for the later editing of definitive works resulting in the books we have today. Thus in each book, there is a mixture of different literary genres: it can be left to the specialists to find the reasons for this odd assortment of documents.
The Old Testament is a disparate whole based upon an initially oral tradition. It is interesting therefore to compare the process by which it was constituted with what could happen in another period and another place at the time when primitive literature was born.
Let us take, for example, the birth of French literature at the time of the Frankish Royalty. The same oral tradition presided over the preservation of important deeds: wars, often in the defense of Christianity, and various sensational events, where heroes distinguished themselves, that were destined centuries later to inspire court poets, chroniclers and authors of various ‘cycles’. In this way, from the Eleventh century A.D. onwards, these narrative poems, in which reality is mixed with legend, were to appear and constitute the first monument in epic poetry. The most famous of all is the Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) a biographical chant about a feat of arms in which Roland was the commander of Emperor Charlemagne’s rearguard on its way home from an expedition in Spain. The sacrifice of Roland is not just an episode invented to meet the needs of the story. It took place on 15th August, 778. In actual fact it was an attack by Basques living in the mountains. This literary work is not just legend; it has a historical basis, but no historian would take it literally.
This parallel between the birth of the Bible and secular literature seems to correspond exactly with reality. It is in no way meant to relegate the whole Biblical text as we know it today to the store of mythological collections, as do so many of those who systematically negate the idea of God. It is perfectly possible to believe in the reality of the Creation, God’s transmission to Moses of the Ten Commandments, and Divine intercession in human affairs, e.g. at the time of Solomon. This does not stop us, at the same time, from considering that what has been conveyed to us is the gist of these facts and that the detail in the description should be subjected to rigorous criticism, the reason for this being that the element of human participation in the transcription of originally oral traditions is so great.
5. Average life span of females is more than that of males
By nature males and females are born in approximately the same ratio. A female child has more immunity than a male child. A female child can fight the germs and diseases better than the male child. For this reason, during the pediatric age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the females.
During wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows in the world than widowers.
6. India has more male population than female due to female foeticide and infanticide
India is one of the few countries, along with the other neighbouring countries, in which the female population is less than the male population. The reason lies in the high rate of female infanticide in India, and the fact that more than one million female foetuses are aborted every year in this country, after they are identified as females. If this evil practice is stopped, then India too will have more females as compared to males.
7. World female population is more than male population
In the USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one million more females as compared to the number of males, and of the male population of New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites. The U.S.A as a whole has more than twenty-five million gays. This means that these people do not wish to marry women. Great Britain has four million more females as compared to males. Germany has five million more females as compared to males. Russia has nine million more females than males. God alone knows how many million more females there are in the whole world as compared to males.
Fri 18 Shaban 1444AH 10-3-2023AD at 1:01 am in reply to: The Four Gospels. Sources and History – Bible,Quran and Science #82998THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
John’s Gospel is radically different from the three others; to such an extent indeed that Father Roguet, in his book Initiation to the Gospel (Initiation à l’Evangile), having commented on the other three, immediately evokes a startling image for the fourth. He calls it , a different world’. It is indeed a unique book; different in the arrangement and choice of subject, description and speech; different in its style, geography, and chronology; there are even differences in theological outlook (O. Culmann). Jesus’s words are therefore differently recorded by John from the other evangelists: Father Roguet notes on this that whereas the Synoptics record Jesus’s words in a style that is “striking, much nearer to the oral style”, in John all is meditation; to such an extent indeed that “one sometimes wonders if Jesus is still speaking or whether His ideas have not imperceptibly been extended by the Evangelist’s own thoughts”.
Who was the author? This is a highly debated question and extremely varying opinions have been expressed on this subject.
A. Tricot and Father Roguet belong to a camp that does not have the slightest misgivings: John’s Gospel is the work of an eyewitness, its author is John, son of Zebedee and brother of James. Many details are known about this apostle and are set out in works for mass publication. Popular iconography puts him near Jesus, as in the Last Supper prior to the Passion. Who could imagine that John’s Gospel was not the work of John the Apostle whose figure is so familiar?
The fact that the fourth Gospel was written so late is not a serious argument against this opinion. The definitive version was probably written around the end of the First century A.D. To situate the time it was written at sixty years after Jesus would be in keeping with an apostle who was very young at the time of Jesus and who lived to be almost a hundred.
Father Kannengiesser, in his study on the Resurrection, arrives at the conclusion that none of the New Testament authors, save Paul, can claim to have been eyewitnesses to Jesus’s Resurrection. John nevertheless related the appearance to a number of the assembled apostles, of which he was probably a member, in the absence of Thomas (20,19-24), then eight days later to the full group of apostles (20,25-29).
O. Culmann in his work The New Testament does not subscribe to this view.
The Ecumenical Translation of the Bible states that the majority of critics do not accept the hypothesis that the Gospel was written by John, although this possibility cannot be entirely ruled out. Everything points however towards the fact that the text we know today had several authors: “It is probable that the Gospel as it stands today was put into circulation by the author’s disciples who added chapter 21 and very likely several annotations (i.e. 4,2 and perhaps 4,1; 4,44; 7,37b; 11,2; 19,35). With regard to the story of the adulterous woman (7,53-8,11), everyone agrees that it is a fragment of unknown origin inserted later (but nevertheless belonging to canonic Scripture)”. Passage 19,35 appears as a ‘signature’ of an ‘eyewitness’ (O. Culmann), the only explicit signature in the whole of John’s Gospel; but commentators believe that it was probably added later.
Fri 18 Shaban 1444AH 10-3-2023AD at 1:01 am in reply to: The Gospels – Introduction – Bible,Quran and Science #82964In editions of the Bible produced for widespread publication, introductory notes more often than not set out a collection of ideas that would tend to persuade the reader that the Gospels hardly raise any problems concerning the personalities of the authors of the various books, the authenticity of the texts and the truth of the descriptions. In spite of the fact that there are so many unknowns concerning authors of whose identity we are not at all sure, we find a wealth of precise information in this kind of introductory note. Often they present as a certainty what is pure hypothesis, or they state that such-and-such an evangelist was an eye-witness of the events, while specialist works claim the opposite. The time that elapsed between the end of Jesus’ ministry and the appearance of the texts is drastically reduced. They would have one believe that these were written by one man taken from an oral tradition, when in fact specialists have pointed out adaptations to the texts. Of course, certain difficulties of interpretation are mentioned here and there, but they ride roughshod over glaring contradictions that must strike anyone who thinks about them. In the little glossaries, one finds among the appendices complementing a reassuring preface, one observes how improbabilities, contradictions or blatant errors have been hidden or stifled under clever arguments of an apologetic nature. This disturbing state of affairs shows up the misleading nature of such commentaries.
The ideas to be developed in the coming pages will without a doubt leave any readers still unaware of these problems quite amazed. Before going into detail, however, I will provide an immediate illustration of my ideas with an example that seems to me quite conclusive.
Neither Matthew nor John speaks of Jesus’s Ascension. Luke in his Gospel places it on the day of the Resurrection and forty days later in the Acts of the Apostles of which he is said to be the author. Mark mentions it (without giving a date) in a conclusion considered unauthentic today. The Ascension, therefore, has no solid scriptural basis. Commentators nevertheless approach this important question with incredible lightness.
Fri 18 Shaban 1444AH 10-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Historical Reminder Judeo-Christian and Saint Paul – Bible,Quran and Science #82975It is essential to know these facts to understand the struggle between communities that formed the background against which the Gospels were written. The texts that we have today, after many adaptations from the sources, began to appear around 70 A.D., the time when the two rival communities were engaged in a fierce struggle, with the Judeo-Christians still retaining the upper hand. With the Jewish war and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the situation was to be reversed. This is how Cardinal Daniélou explains the decline:
“After the Jews had been discredited in the Empire, the Christians tended to detach themselves from them. The Hellenistic peoples of Christian persuasion then gained the upper hand. Paul won a posthumous victory. Christianity separated itself politically and sociologically from Judaism; it became the third people. All the same, until the Jewish revolt in 140 A.D., Judeo-Christianity continued to predominate culturally”
From 70 A.D. to a period sometime before 110 A.D. the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were produced. They do not constitute the first written Christian documents: the letters of Paul date from well before them. According to O. Culmann, Paul probably wrote his letter to the Thessalonians in 50 A.D. He had probably disappeared several years prior to the completion of Mark’s Gospel.
Thu 17 Shaban 1444AH 9-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Old Testament and Science Findings – Bible,Quran and Science #829152. From Abraham to The Beginnings Of Christianity
The Bible does not provide any numerical information on this period that might lead to such precise estimates as those found in Genesis on Abraham’s ancestors. We must look to other sources to estimate the time separating Abraham from Jesus. At present, allowing for a slight margin of error, the time of Abraham is situated at roughly eighteen centuries before Jesus. Combined with information in Genesis on the interval separating Abraham and Adam, this would place Adam at roughly thirty-eight centuries before Jesus. This estimate is undeniably wrong: the origins of this inaccuracy arise from the mistakes in the Bible on the Adam-Abraham period. The Jewish tradition still founds its calendar on this. Nowadays, we can challenge the traditional defenders of Biblical truth with the incompatibility between the whimsical estimates of Jewish priests living in the Sixth century B.C. and modern data. For centuries, the events of antiquity relating to Jesus were situated in time according to information based on these estimates.
Before modern times, editions of the Bible frequently provided the reader with a preamble explaining the historical sequence of events that had come to pass between the creation of the world and the time when the books were edited. The figures vary slightly according to the time. For example, the Clementine Vulgate, 1621, gave this information, although it did place Abraham a little earlier and the Creation at roughly the 40th century B.C. Walton’s polyglot Bible, produced in the 17th century, in addition to Biblical texts in several languages, gave the reader tables similar to the one shown here for Abraham’s ancestors. Almost all the estimates coincide with the figures given here. With the arrival of modern times, editors were no longer able to maintain such whimsical chronologies without going against scientific discovery that placed the Creation at a much earlier date. They were content to abolish these tables and preambles, but they avoided warning the reader that the Biblical texts on which these chronologies were based had become obsolete and could no longer be considered to express the truth. They preferred to draw a modest veil over them and invent set phrases of cunning dialectics that would make acceptable the text as it had formerly been, without any subtractions from it.
This is why the genealogies contained in the Sacerdotal text of the Bible are still honoured, even though in the Twentieth-century one cannot reasonably continue to count time on the basis of such fiction.
Modern scientific data do not allow us to establish the date of man’s appearance on earth beyond a certain limit. We may be certain that man, with the capacity for action and intelligent thought that distinguishes him from beings that appear to be anatomically similar to him, existed on Earth after a certain estimable date. Nobody however can say at what exact date he appeared. What we can say today is that remains have been found of a humanity capable of human thought and action whose age may be calculated in tens of thousands of years.
This approximate dating refers to the prehistoric human species, the most recently discovered being the Cro-Magnon Man. There have of course been many other discoveries all over the world of remains that appear to be human. These relate to less highly evolved species, and their age could be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of years. But were they genuine men?
Whatever the answer may be, scientific data are sufficiently precise concerning the prehistoric species like the Cro-Magnon Man, to be able to place them much further back than the epoch in which Genesis places the first men. There is therefore an obvious incompatibility between what we can derive from the numerical data in Genesis about the date of man’s appearance on Earth and the firmly established facts of modern scientific knowledge.
Thu 17 Shaban 1444AH 9-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: The Story of Habil and Qabil (Abel and Cain): #80649Narrated Imam Ahmed, Abu Dawud and At-Tirmidhi on the authority of Sa’d Ibn Abu Waqqas his statement upon the ordeal of
Uthman Ibn
Affan that reads: I testify that Allah’s Messenger (Peace be upon him) said: “There will be soon a period of turmoil in which the one who sits will be better than one who stands and the one who stands will be better than one who walks and the one who walks will be better than one who runs.” Someone said: ‘Allah’s Messenger! What is your opinion if someone entered my home and stretched his hand to kill me?’ Allah’s Messenger (Peace be upon him) said: ‘Be just like the son of Adam (Abel). “Narrated by Ibn Mardwiyah after Hudhaifah Ibn Al- Yaman in another wording as saying: “Be just like the best of Adam’s two sons.”Imam Ahmed transmitted after Mu
awiyah and Waki
their saying: We were told by Al- Amash on the authority of
Abdullah Ibn Murrah after Masruq afterAbdullah Ibn Mas
ud (May Allah be pleased with him) as saying: The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, “None (no human being) is killed or murdered (unjustly), but a part of responsibility for the crime is laid on the first son of Adam who invented the tradition of killing (murdering on earth). ” (Ahmed’s Musnad)However, there is a cave, called the “Blood Cave”, in a mountain located to the northern part of Syria. It is thought to be the scene of the crime where Cain killed his brother Abel. The people living there came to know this through the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) and only Allah Almighty knows the validity or realness of this. .Al-Hafiz Ibn
Asakir mentioned in the biography of Ahmed Ibn Katheer that "He (Ahmed) saw in a dream Allah's Messenger (Peace be upon him), Abu Bakr,
Umar and Abel. Ahmed came to know from Abel -who took an oath of that- it was his own blood (that was spilt there (in that very cave)). Abel said that he had asked Allah Almighty to make the invocations and supplications offered in that place acceptable. Allah accepted his own invocations and His Messenger, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) believed in that and said: I (Allah’s Messenger), Abu Bakr and `Umar used to visit that place every Thursday. “However, it is to be stated that this narration represents only a vision. Even if it were true, no religious ruling can ever be based on such a thing; and Allah knows best!Allah Almighty says: {Then, Allah sent a crow who scratched the ground to show him how to hide the dead body of his brother. He (the murderer) said: “Woe to me! Am I not even able to be as this crow and to hide the dead body of my brother? “Then he became one of those who regretted}. (Al-Ma’idah, 31) Some interpreters said: “After Cain had killed his brother, he carried him on his back for a full year (not knowing what to do with his brother’s corpse!).” Others said: He carried him on his back for one hundred years till Allah Almighty sent two crows who fought against one another. One of them was killed. The murderer scratched the ground to hide the body of the dead crow. Seeing him doing that, Cain said: Woe to me! Am I not even able to do as this crow and to hide the dead body of my brother? Then, he buried the body of his dead brother and covered it with earth.
Tue 15 Shaban 1444AH 7-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Must Muslims Read the Quran in the State of Wuduu’? #80861However…….
Reading its translation, or tafseer or the Mushaf with translation has different law. Since this kind of text is not seen as Mushaf, so touching it does not require ablution and covering the awrah. But still, respecting the text is important since it contains a holy text not a usual text.
Mon 14 Shaban 1444AH 6-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Old Testament and Science Findings – Bible,Quran and Science #82909Second Description
The second description of the Creation in Genesis follows immediately upon the first without comment or transitional passage. It does not provoke the same objections.
We must remember that this description is roughly three centuries older and is very short. It allows more space to the creation of man and earthly paradise than to the creation of the Earth and Heaven. It mentions this very briefly
(Chapter2, 4b-7): “In the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up-for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;but a flood went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground-then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”
This is the Yahvist text that appears in the text of present-day Bibles. The Sacerdotal text was added to it later on, but one may ask if it was originally so brief. Nobody is in a position to say whether the Yahvist text has not, in the course of time, been pared down. We do not know if the few lines we possess represent all that the oldest Biblical text of the Creation had to say.
The Yahvist description does not mention the actual formation of the Earth or the Heavens. It makes it clear that when God created man, there was no vegetation on Earth (it had not yet rained), even though the waters of the Earth had covered its surface. The sequel to the text confirms this: God planted a garden at the same time as man was created. The vegetable kingdom, therefore, appears on Earth at the same time as man. This is scientifically inaccurate; man did not appear on Earth until a long time after vegetation had been growing on it. We do not know how many hundreds of millions of years separate the two events.
This is the only criticism that one can level at the Yahvist text. The fact that it does not place the creation of man in time in relation to the formation of the world and the earth, unlike the Sacerdotal text, which places them in the same week, frees it from the serious objections raised against the latter.
Sat 12 Shaban 1444AH 4-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Books of the Old Testament – Bible,Quran and Science #82885By publishing, in 1753, his Conjectures on the original writings which it appears Moses used to compose the Book of Genesis (Conjectures sur les Mèmoires originaux don’t il parait que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse), he placed the accent on the plurality of sources. He was probably not the first to have noticed it, but he did however have the courage to make public observation of prime importance: two texts, each denoted by the way in which God was named either Yahweh or Elohim, were present side by side in Genesis. The latter therefore contained two juxtaposed texts. Eichorn (1780-1783) made the same discovery for the other four books; then Ilgen (1798) noticed that one of the texts isolated by Astruc, the one where God is named Elohim, was itself divided into two. The Pentateuch literally fell apart.
The Nineteenth century saw an even more minute search into the sources. In 1854, four sources were recognised. They were called the Yahvist version, the Elohist version, Deuteronomy, and the Sacerdotal version. It was even possible to date them:
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The Yahvist version was placed in the Ninth century B.C. (written in Judah)
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The Elohist version was probably a little more recent (written in Israel)
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Deuteronomy was from the Eighth century B.C. for some (E. Jacob) , and from the time of Josiah for others (Father de Vaux)
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The Sacerdotal version came from the period of exile or after the exile: the Sixth century B.C.
It can be seen that the arrangement of the text of the Pentateuch spans at least three centuries.
The problem is, however, even more complex. In 1941, A. Lods singled out three sources in the Yahvist version, four in the Elohist version, six in Deuteronomy, and nine in the Sacerdotal version, “not including the additions spread out among eight different authors” writes Father de Vaux. More recently, it has been thought that “many of the constitutions or laws contained in the Pentateuch had parallels outside the Bible going back much further than the dates ascribed to the documents themselves” and that “many of the stories of the Pentateuch presupposed a background that was different from-and older than the one from which these documents were supposed to have come”. This leads on to “an interest in the formation of traditions”. The problem then appears so complicated that nobody knows where he is anymore.
The multiplicity of sources brings with it numerous disagreements and repetitions. Father de Vaux gives examples of this overlapping of traditions in the case of the Flood, the kidnapping of Joseph, his adventures in Egypt, disagreement of names relating to the same character, and differing descriptions of important events.
Fri 11 Shaban 1444AH 3-3-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: Old Testament and Science Findings – Bible,Quran and Science #829131. From Adam to Abraham
Genesis provides extremely precise genealogical data in Chapters 4, 5, 11, 21 and 25. They concern all of Abraham’s ancestors in a direct line back to Adam. They give the length of time each person lived, and the father’s age at the birth of the son and thus make it easily possible to ascertain the dates of birth and death of each ancestor in relation to the creation of Adam, as the table indicates.
All the data used in this table come from the Sacerdotal text of Genesis, the only Biblical text that provides information of this kind. It may be deduced, according to the Bible, that Abraham was born 1,948 years after Adam.
ABRAHAM’S GENEALOGY
date of birth after creation of Adam
length of life
date of death
after creation
of AdamAdam
Seth
Enosch
Kenan
Mahalaleel
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah
Lamech
Noah
Shem
Arpachshad
Shelah
Eber
Peleg
Reu
Serug
Nahor
Terah
Abraham
130
235
325
395
460
622
687
874
1056
1556
1658
1693
1723
1757
1787
1819
1849
1878
1948930
912
905
910
895
962
365
969
777
950
600
438
433
464
239
239
230
148
205
175930
1042
1140
1235
1290
1422
987
1656
1651
2006
2156
2096
2122
2187
1996
2026
2049
1997
2083
2123Wed 9 Shaban 1444AH 1-3-2023AD at 1:01 am in reply to: The Four Gospels. Sources and History – Bible,Quran and Science #82986THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Matthew’s gospel is the first of the four Gospels as they appear in the New Testament. This position is perfectly justified by the fact that it is a prolongation, as it were, of the Old Testament. It was written to show that “Jesus fulfilled the history of Israel”, as the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible note and on which we shall be drawing heavily. To do BO, Matthew constantly refers to quotations from the Old Testament which show how Jesus acted as if he were the Messiah the Jews were awaiting.
This Gospel begins with a genealogy of Jesus [ The fact that it is in contradiction with Luke’s Gospel will be dealt with in a separate chapter.]. Matthew traces it back to Abraham via David. We shall presently see the fault in the text that most commentators silently ignore. Matthew’s obvious intention was nevertheless to indicate the general tenor of his work straight away by establishing this line of descendants. The author continues the same line of thought by constantly bringing to the forefront Jesus’s attitude toward Jewish law, the main principles of which (praying, fasting, and dispensing charity) are summarized here.
Jesus addresses His teachings first and foremost to His own people. This is how He speaks to the twelve Apostles “go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans [ The Samaritans’ religious code was the Torah or Pentateuch; they lived in the expectation of the Messiah and were faithful to most Jewish observances, but they had built a rival Temple to the one at Jerusalem.] but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10, 5-6). “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. (Matthew 15, 24). At the end of his Gospel, in second place, Matthew extends the apostolic mission of Jesus’s first disciples to all nations. He makes Jesus give the following order. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28, 19), but the primary destination must be the ‘house of Israel’.
Tricot says of this Gospel, “Beneath its Greek garb, the flesh and bones of this book are Jewish, and so is its spirit; it has a Jewish feel and bears its distinctive signs”.
On the basis of these observations alone, the origins of Matthew’s Gospel may be placed in the tradition of a Judeo-Christian community. According to O. Culmann, this community “was trying to break away from Judaism while at the same time preserving the continuity of the Old Testament. The main preoccupations and the general tenor of this Gospel point towards a strained situation.”
There are also political factors to be found in the text. The Roman occupation of Palestine naturally heightened the desire of this country to see itself liberated. They prayed for God to intervene in favour of the people He had chosen among all others, and as their omnipotent sovereign who could give direct support to the affairs of men, as He had already done many times in the course of history.
What sort of person was Matthew? Let us say straight away that he is no longer acknowledged to be one of Jesus’s companions. A. Tricot nevertheless presents him as such in his commentary to the translation of the New Testament, 1960: “Matthew alias, Levi, was a customs officer employed at the tollgate or customs house at Capharnaum when Jesus called him to be one of His disciples.” This is the opinion of the Fathers of the Church, Origen, Jerome and Epiphanes. This opinion is no longer held today. One point which is uncontested is that the author is writing “for people who speak Greek, but nevertheless know Jewish customs and the Aramaic language.”
It would seem that for the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation, the origins of this Gospel are as follows:
“It is normally considered to have been written in Syria, perhaps at Antioch (. . .), or in Phoenicia, because a great many Jews lived in these countries. [ It has been thought that the Judeo-Christian community that Matthew belonged to might just as easily have been situated at Alexandria. O. Culmann refers to this hypothesis along with many others.] (. . .) we have indications of a polemic against the orthodox Judaism of the Synagogue and the Pharisees such as was manifested at the synagogal assembly at Jamina circa 80 A.D.” In such conditions, there are many authors who date the first of the Gospels at about 80-90 A.D., perhaps also a little earlier. it is not possible to be absolutely definite about this . . . since we do not know the author’s exact name, we must be satisfied with a few outlines traced in the Gospel itself. the author can be recognized by his profession. He is well-versed in Jewish writings and traditions. He knows, respects, but vigorously challenges the religious leaders of his people. He is a past master in the art of teaching and making Jesus understandable to his listeners. He always insists on the practical consequences of his teachings. He would fit fairly well the description of an educated Jew turned Christian; a householder “who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” as Matthew says (13,52). This is a long way from the civil servant at Capharnaum, whom Mark and Luke call Levi, and who had become one of the twelve Apostles . . .
Everyone agrees in thinking that Matthew wrote his Gospel using the same sources as Mark and Luke. His narration is, as we shall see, different on several essential points. In spite of this, Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark’s Gospel although the latter was not one of Jesus’s disciples (O. Culmann).
Wed 9 Shaban 1444AH 1-3-2023AD at 1:01 am in reply to: Why can’t a Muslim woman marry more than one husband? #80732A lot of people, including some Muslims, question the logic of allowing Muslim men to have more than one spouse while denying the same ‘right’ to women.
Let me first state emphatically, that the foundation of an Islamic society is justice and equity. Allah has created men and women as equal, but with different capabilities and different responsibilities. Men and women are different, physiologically and psychologically. Their roles and responsibilities are different. Men and women are equal in Islam, but not identical.
Surah Nisa’ Chapter 4 verses 22 to 24 gives the list of women with who you can not marry and it is further mentions in Surah Nisa’ Chapter 4 verse 24 “Also (prohibited are) women already married”
The following points enumerate the reasons why polyandry is prohibited in Islam:
1. If a man has more than one wife, the parents of the children born of such marriages can easily be identified. The father as well as the mother can easily be identified. In case of a woman marrying more than one husband, only the mother of the children born of such marriages will be identified and not the father. Islam gives tremendous importance to the identification of both parents, mother and father. Psychologists tell us that children who do not know their parents, especially their father undergo severe mental trauma and disturbances. Often they have an unhappy childhood. It is for this reason that the children of prostitutes do not have a healthy childhood. If a child born of such wedlock is admitted in school, and when the mother is asked the name of the father, she would have to give two or more names! I am aware that recent advances in science have made it possible for both the mother and father to be identified with the help of genetic testing. Thus this point which was applicable for the past may not be applicable for the present.
Sun 6 Shaban 1444AH 26-2-2023AD at 1:00 am in reply to: The Four Gospels. Sources and History – Bible,Quran and Science #82994THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
For O. Culmann, Luke is a ‘chronicler’, and for Father Kannengiesser he is a ‘true novelist’. In his prologue to Theophilus, Luke warns us that he, in his turn, following on from others who have written accounts concerning Jesus, is going to write a narrative of the same facts using the accounts and information of eyewitnesses-implying that he himself is not one-including information from the apostles’ preachings. It is therefore to be a methodical piece of work which he introduces in the following terms:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having informed myself about all things from their beginnings, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning things of which you have been informed.”
From the very first line, one can see all that separates Luke from the ‘scribbler’ Mark to whose work we have just referred. Luke’s Gospel is incontestably a literary work written in classical Greek free from any barbarism.
Luke was a cultivated Gentile convert to Christianity. His attitude towards the Jews is immediately apparent. As O. Culmann points out, Luke leaves out Mark’s most Judaic verses and highlights the Jews’ incredulity at Jesus’s words, throwing into relief his good relations with the Samaritans, whom the Jews detested. Matthew, on the other hand, has Jesus ask the apostles to flee from them. This is just one of many striking examples of the fact that the evangelists make Jesus say whatever suits their own personal outlook. They probably do so with sincere conviction. They give us the version of Jesus’s words that is adapted to the point of view of their own community. How can one deny in the face of such evidence that the Gospels are ‘combat writings’ or ‘writings suited to an occasion, as has been mentioned already? The comparison between the general tone of Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s is in this respect a good demonstration.
Who was Luke? An attempt has been made to identify him with the physician of the same name referred to by Paul in several of his letters. The Ecumenical Translation notes that “several commentators have found the medical occupation of the author of this Gospel confirmed by the precision with which he describes the sick”. This assessment is in fact exaggerated out of all proportion. Luke does not, properly speaking, describe things of this kind; “the vocabulary he uses is that of a cultivated man of his time”. There was a Luke who was Paul’s travelling companion, but was he the same person? O. Culmann thinks he was.
The date of Luke’s Gospel can be estimated according to several factors: Luke used Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels. From what we read in the Ecumenical Translation, it seems that he witnessed the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’s armies in 70 A.D. The Gospel probably dates from after this time. Present-day critics situate the time it was written at .circa 80-90 A.D., but several places it at an even earlier date.
The various narrations in Luke show important differences when compared to his predecessors. An outline of this has already been given. The Ecumenical Translation indicates them on pages 181 et sec. O. Culmann, in his book, The New Testament (Le Nouveau Testament) page 18, cites descriptions in Luke’s Gospel that are not to be found anywhere else. And they are not about minor points of detail.
The descriptions of Jesus’s childhood are unique to Luke’s Gospel. Matthew describes Jesus’s childhood differently from Luke, and Mark does not mention it at all.
Fri 4 Shaban 1444AH 24-2-2023AD at 1:01 am in reply to: The Four Gospels. Sources and History – Bible,Quran and Science #82981Culmann, in his book The New Testament (Le Nouveau Testament) [ Pub. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1967], says of this that the evangelists were only the “spokesmen of the early Christian community which wrote down the oral tradition. For thirty or forty years, the Gospel had existed as an almost exclusively oral tradition: the latter only transmitted sayings and isolated narratives. The evangelists strung them together, each in his own way according to his own character and theological preoccupations. They linked up the narrations and sayings handed down by the prevailing tradition. The grouping of Jesus’s sayings and likewise the sequence of narratives is made by the use of fairly vague linking phrases such as ‘after this’, ‘when he had’ etc. In other words, the ‘framework’ of the Synoptic Gospels [ The three Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke.] is of a purely literary order and is not based on history.”
The same author continues as follows:
“It must be noted that the needs of preaching, worship and teaching, more than biographical considerations, were what guided the early community when it wrote down the tradition of the life of Jesus. The apostles illustrated the truth of the faith they were preaching by describing the events in the life of Jesus. Their sermons are what caused the descriptions to be written down. The sayings of Jesus were transmitted, in particular, in the teaching of the catechism of the early Church.”
This is exactly how the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible (Traduction oecuménique de la Bible) describe the writing of the Gospels: the formation of an oral tradition influenced by the preachings of Jesus’s disciples and other preachers; the preservation by preaching of this material, which is in actual fact found in the Gospels, by preaching, liturgy, and teaching of the faithful; the slender possibility of a concrete form given by writings to certain confessions of faith, sayings of Jesus, descriptions of the Passion for example; the fact that the evangelists resort to various written forms as well as data contained in the oral tradition. They resort to these to produce texts which “are suitable for various circles, which meet the needs of the Church, explain observations on the Scriptures, correct errors and even, on occasion, answer adversaries’ objections. Thus the evangelists, each according to his own outlook, have collected and recorded in writing the material given to them by the oral tradition”.
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