****As a Muslim I believe--- (1) that all people will be rewarded according to not only their deeds but also their intentions (so if you intend to do good and serve God, and you do it in the only way you know how then…. you get the goods). (2) That 'true' Christians, Jews and anyone else who serves God with all their heart, in all sincerity are in fact actually Muslim---which means ‘one who surrenders his will to the will of god’---- and will have their reward in paradise. ****

Now that being said...I honestly don't understand how anyone could proclaim to believe in a religion that’s validity is placed on a Holy Book of which there ARE NO ORIGINAL COPIES (the books were compiled after the times of prophets Jesus and Moses) and all of the oldest copies (which are translations) are in a language that THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ! All your reading (and this is a problem with Christians, Jews and Muslims who don’t know the original language of their text) is someone else’s INTERPRETATION! They may call it a translation, but trust me the implications and depth of most words cannot be transferred across language...especially the allegorical and metaphorical language that is found in most scripture. Take for example the Arabic word Sabir it is commonly translated as ‘patience’ in most translations of the Quran but it actually implies much more…Sabir means to be patient-but not the passive patience of English—it is an active thing, it means to work, struggle, and to be consistent while being patient for what you want to happen and to become reality…all these things and more are implied meanings in the Arabic word. The most popular version—translation—in actuality just an INTERPREATION-- of the bible is the King James…. How many Christians ever explore beyond the opinions of this one interpreter!!!(I think he actual organized a group of scholars—but still the point remains!!)…Or do they think him flawless…No they don’t think that, because no one and nothing is flawless but god (Christians Jews, and Muslims all agree on that)…and if your reading something that is not the direct word of god (because it is filtered through the language and understanding of men)…umm then it must be………………flawed!
In addition, your understanding of your religion must be…………..flawed!
Moreover, your faith must be.………
………..Ultimately flawed.

Anyone who bases there faith on interpretations will ultimately have a flawed understanding of their religion...be he christian muslim or jew.

Note*(I myself am an African American Muslims, so Arabic (the language of the Quran) is not my first language and I am not even currently fluent in it or anything…but I am an active student of the language and my vocabulary and understanding of it grow everyday…. I would suggest that all people, of all religions study the language of their respective religion, and not be satisfied with the flawed interpretations of anyone!)


Phew sorry for the lengthy post!!!

"...why am I still denied, despite all my good deed's? Is it a question of what I've done, or a question of what I need..."- Polarboy ( a christian band)

One thing many people fail to realize is that christianity offers salvation through grace, not through good works. Most of the people in my town claim to be "christian" but they think the fact that they are usually good will get them into heaven. Jesus clearly stated that this is not the case.

woa-
The new testament was written shortly after Jesus Died, by people who knew him while he was alive. The Koran, however was not written until hundreds of years after mohammad's ( apologies if I didn't spell his name right) death, and therefore by people who did not personally know him.

1) You’re right---the Bible wasn’t written by Jesus. However you’re wrong about the second part of this. First of all, over half the Bible (old testament) was written before Jesus even came to earth! Second of all, the gospels, epistles (letters to churches), etc. of the new testament were not written “hundreds of years after his supposed ‘death’” For example, most scholars think the gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke were written between 55 and 70 AD; the gospel of John is the latest of the gospels and is thought to have been written around 98 AD; To my knowledge this book was written the latest of all the books in the Bible…only about 65 years after Jesus’ death…not “hundreds’’!

2) The fact that the Bible has different authors only confirms its authority. They do not contradict one another. The fact that so many authors can write about so many topics and agree on them all is amazing and only credits the validity and power of the Bible.

I agree with you that a lot of Christians act like Christians in church then go out into the world and deny Christ by their actions. This is disheartening…but occurs in every single religion on earth... including Islam. While I cannot know for sure (only God does) I’d wonder if those people were true Christians or not.

Can you please explain what you mean by Christianity is “watered down”?

Dante ***I apologize for the double post …guess I was a little over eager!:)

Jstar

First, I commend you for your aspirations to study Greek or Hebrew. (Jesus spook Aramaic, although you cant find any books with the language today.)
1) The various books of the bible were not written by Jesus but rather by people-saints-most of whom lived hundreds of years after his supposed ‘death’.
2) The books of the bible have different authors…some contradict each other...some concur

“Christians do not believe that the copies we use are flawless, but we do believe that the originals, or autographs, are flawless because they were God-inspired. This, of course, makes you ask, "Why should I trust the Bible at all, then?"”…. Yeah it does make me ask that……… “Well, the copies of the Bible we have are 98.5% textually pure!”…. Says who? How can they be--how can you know if they are ‘textually pure’ if there is no completely pure copy (original copy) to compare it with to see if the information is consistent?

“You’re right, we don’t have original copies of our scripture…but we don’t have original copies of the Iliad and nobody doubts the authenticity of that.”… Yes people do! Theirs a big debate in the literary world over whether Homers stories were fictional tales or some weird historical narrative… and the Iliad is not a book upon which nearly 2 billion people place there faith!
.
"Just because we are reading a translation does not mean that we are reading somebody else’s interpretation"…. I just flat out disagree—language just doesn’t work like that, how often do you find two languages with, grammar, conjugation, active & passive, and the tenses all expressed in the same way. It just didn’t happen as language evolved and for anybody to take a book (especially a highly allegorical one like the bible) and translate it takes I certain amount of interpretation to find the closest matches in another language. And that process allows room for a great deal of opinion!!

I agree the key tenets are there and that’s why it really isn't such a big deal...its just in all honestly Christianity is straight-UP watered-DOWN...I think most religious people are more 'American' then they are Christian...they don't even follow their own book--they'll go to the Chruch on the weekend and then be f**** there 'girl friend' on Monday when your in actuality not supposed to fornicate. (Sames true for muslims to though on a smaller scale)

…Any way the original intent of my post was to say you can’t base you faith on translations and interpretations of scripture...and that being so Christians are in quite a predicament because that is all they have: translations-which are just interpretations-interpretations which are just the flawed opinions of the mostly anonymous human authors of the bible.

jstar(and anyone else who will reply):

Aren't there various versions of the bible in which there are different translations of meanings? I spoke about this in another post about how the words 'witch' and 'sorceress' are used interchangebly when they are in fact very different things, etc.

My view on the bible is this:

I think that the only two valid ways to take the bible are either as an allegory or to take it completely literally.

1. Literally: When it says Jesus walked on water, he walked on water. When it says eve was created from adam's rib, that is so. When it says specific things about the Devil, witches, homosextuals, etc, then those statements are to be taken completely literally.

2. Allegory: All of the miracles and whatnot aren't meant to be taken literally, but to show the goodness of people. The Devil was created to show the evil in people and together god and the devil were representations of both sides of the spectrum. Things aren't meant to be taken literally, but you're meant to look deeper into the scripture to find more meaning than what is really there.


What I see most commonly is a mixture of the two interpretations. People interpret the bible in different ways, finding different meanings for each sentence. But how can there be any REAL/COMPLETELY RIGHT way to interpret the bible when there are so many ways to look at it?

The bible could be just like Iliad or The Odyssey, speaking of Jesus and his journeys. No one knows if Odysseus was a real person, though there is some evidence of different things that happened in the epic. This is also true of the bible. Jesus may very well have lived, but does that mean he did everything the book said? No. I could write a book about myself as a warrior who could change into a lion, bury the story in the ground and wait for someone to find it thousands of years from now, and once someone did find it, how would they have any evidence that I did those things? They may find evidence of my existance, but does that mean that everything I said I did was true? And we don't even know who really origionally wrote the bible. Maybe it was meant to be a myth, a story, a fictional tale of 'good' against 'evil'! That would also compensate for the differences in opinion. Many stories speak of things like slavery, hate, etc being right, but we know now that those things AREN'T right! Can't that also be true of the issues on Homosexuality and such?

I'm sorry, I got rather carried away, but I would definately like to know if anyone has answers to my questions/statements.

Thanks

~Becca

Let me start out saying that I completely agree that all religions should study the language of their scriptures. I plan to study either Greek or Hebrew in college. However, I do not think that it is required to do so…just cool. I applaud your efforts to learn Arabic. A lot of the Bible studies I do include parts where the author will spotlight a certain word in a verse and name the word in the original language, then define it. It is very interesting and gives a new depth to the scripture that cannot be seen without this information. In the key doctrines of the Bible, however, the message in the native language is no different than in English.

I disagree on your belief that basing faith on scripture makes faith flawed. Yes, there are certain typographical errors. Christians do not believe that the copies we use are flawless, but we do believe that the originals, or autographs, are flawless because they were God-inspired. This, of course, makes you ask, "Why should I trust the Bible at all, then?" Well, the copies of the Bible we have are 98.5% textually pure! This means that compared to other ancient documents, the Bible has far more textual evidence than any other ancient writing. (Ask me if you want more info on this topic, cus I got it.)

So what accounts for the other 1.5%? The vast majority are errors like misspelling, reversing the order of words, putting words together (i.e. therein instead of there in), or separating words (i.e. now here instead of nowhere). The rest of these errors present no significant doctrinal conflict.
(for more info on this topic please look at my posts on the second page of “Would you Sacrifice your life for your religion” in the “In your face and in your school” forum.)

You’re right, we don’t have original copies of our scripture…but we don’t have original copies of the Iliad and nobody doubts the authenticity of that. Our copies however, are very reliable. For example, the monks that copied the scriptures had to make flawless copies… if there was any error or blemish (like making a letter too big) then they had to re-copy it. Yes…there have been many translations. However, all of these translations have been by a group of people who carefully picked through the scriptures and held each other accountable to avoid bias being interjected into the translation. It is my understanding that our oldest copies are not all translations… correct me if I’m wrong and please show me evidence of that.

Just because we are reading a translation does not mean that we are reading somebody else’s interpretation. There is quite honestly little room to put your own bias into a translation from Hebrew or Greek to English.

You’re wrong in assuming that few Christians read any other translations than the King James version (which by the way, was translated by a group, not by the King of England.) I for one have rarely read the KJV…I normally read the New International Version (NIV) or the New King James version (NKJV.)

Just because there are some small textual errors does not make our understanding of our religion flawed. The key tenets of Christianity are still there, in any language.

1. Don't double post like that. It dilutes the discussion and is confusing to others.
2. They base their faith on a book generally.