Has Your Bible Become A Quran?

blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings ^ | Fr. Stephen Freeman

[bad company]

Those who engage in debates on a regular basis know that the argument itself can easily shape the points involved. This is another way of saying that some debates should be avoided entirely since merely getting involved in them can be the road to ruin. There are a number of Christian scholars (particularly among the Orthodox) who think that the classical debates between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages had just such disastrous results for Christian thinking.

Now when engaging in religious debates it is all too easy to agree to things that might make for later problems. It is possible, for example, to agree to a comparison of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and the Book of the Quran. After all, Muslims have a holy book – Christians have a holy book. Why should we not debate whose holy book is better?

It is even possible to agree with the Muslim contention that Christians (and Jews) are “People of the Book.” Of course Muslims meant that Christians and Jews were people of an inferior book, but were somehow better than pagans. Again, it is possible, nevertheless, to let the matter ride and agree that Christians are “People of the Book.”

And it is also possible to give wide latitude to the Muslim claim that the most essential matter with regard to God is “Islam,” that is “submission.” After all, if God is the Lord of all creation, then how is submitting to Him, recognizing and accepting that He is God, not the most important thing?

But each of these proposals had disastrous results in the history of Christianity and may very well be the source of a number of modern distortions within the Christian faith.

Thus, at the outset I will state:

The Bible is not the Christian Holy Book. Christians (and Jews) are not People of the Book. Submission to God is not a proper way to describe the Christian faith Further, any and all of these claims, once accepted, lead to fundamental distortions of Christianity. An extreme way of saying this is that much of modern Christianity has been “Islamified.” Thinking critically about this is important – particularly in an era of renewed contact with Islam.

The Historical Debates

Most modern Christians are unaware of the contacts and debates between Christianity (particularly in the West) and Islam (particularly in Spain) during the Middle Ages. A great deal of the learning in early European Universities, especially in the model of scholasticism, owed much to the encounter with Islam scholasticism – this was especially so for the work with Aristotelean philosophy. Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars, such as Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), are foundational for Medieval thought. (Averroes is sometimes called the “Founding Father of Western secularism“). But the rationalist movement represented by these schools had lasting effects in the Christian West – not all for the best.

The notion of the Scripture as the Book whose place and authority in Christian life are similar to the Quran in Islamic life is one such idea. Islam has no Church – no one stands between the believer and Allah. There are communities, to be sure, but not in the necessary form of classical Christianity. The exaltation of the sovereignty of God and the working of the Divine Will (predestination) are hallmarks of Muslim thought. They eventually become hallmarks within certain forms of Christian scholasticism.

The Protestant Reformation is rightly described as a product of Christian scholasticism. Other historical forces shaped it, but it is worth noting that Luther, Calvin and their like were all “schoolmen.” Their ideas, particularly in Calvin, were largely absent prior to the Medieval dialogs with Islamic scholasticism. It is not that the Reformers borrowed directly from Islam – but that Islam contributed certain key notions that have, in time, become foundational for certain segments of contemporary Christianity.

The Bible is not the Christian Holy Book

As I have recently written, the Bible is properly seen as the Holy Scriptures, a collection of writings that span some 1500 years or more. They represent a variety of genres, address very different situations and understandings of God, and lastly (in the case of the New Testament) represent the internal documents of the primitive Christian community. Christians treat these books as inspired, though there are some books not included, or only included by some Christians, that are also recognized as having a case for inspiration.

The Christian Scriptures are books (particularly in the Old Testament) that have a unique history of interpretation. Christians and Jews, traditionally, do not read these books in the same manner. In such a sense, they do not possess an “objective” meaning. Indeed, Christian Fathers have recognized more than one meaning being present in the text.

The Christian community predates its own texts (the New Testament) and is not described as in any way having a foundation on the Scriptures – the Apostles and Prophets are described as the foundation of the Church. And though the Tradition does not describe the Scriptures as somehow inferior to the Church, neither do they consider the Scriptures to exist apart from the Church. They are the Church’s book.

In short, the place of the Scriptures within Christianity are utterly unlike the place of the Quran in Islam. Any confusion on this point is a distortion of the Scriptures.

We are not People of the Book

Christians are not baptized into the Bible. Jews were circumcised and made part of the Covenant people before ever a word of Scripture was written. God revealed Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob some hundreds of years before Moses ever wrote a line.

Christians may rightly see Islam as an ersatz version of Christianity – an attempt to create a rival to meet the peculiar needs and desires of the man, Muhammed. The Quran is Muhammed’s distorted idea of the role played by a “book” in the life of Christianity and Judaism. It is his attempt to create a rival. But this book, unlike any writing or utterance of a Biblical prophet, came with new claims. The Quran is what a misinformed desert preacher thought the Christian and Jewish holy books looked like. It is a poor substitute and a caricature of those writings. In this sense, the Quran is more akin to the Book of Mormon, a fabrication that tells what Upstate New York con-men thought an ancient religious book should look like. It tells us much about the mind of 19th century Upstate New York, but nothing about God. The Quran tells us about the perception of a 7th century Arabian merchant, but nothing about God.

It is thus a supreme religious irony that such a misperception should have changed how Christians saw their own sacred texts. But, it can be argued, this is indeed the case. The movement from authoritative Church to authoritative book that occurs over the 15th and 16th centuries (the Protestant Reformation), should not be considered apart from the dialog with Islam in the two or three centuries that preceded it. It is worth noting that scholasticism in the West was largely begun in Andalusian Islam. It was not a natural development from within. Scholasticism was ultimately rejected in the Christian East.

Martin Luther’s, “Hier, stehe ich!” (demanding that only a Scriptural argument would be an acceptable response to his position) would have been unimaginable four or five hundred years before. The “Bible” had not yet become a Christian Quran. Today, however, many Christians are indeed, “People of the Book.”

Christianity is not submission to God

On the face of it, denying that Christianity is submission to God seems ludicrous. Surely, if God is truly God, then submission to Him is the only proper response. But submission is not a word that passes the lips of Christ. His invitation to become a child of the Father is not a demand to submit to the Supreme Being. It is why there can be no conversion at the point of a sword in Christianity, and why conversions at the point of a sword have never ceased in Islam. (Such conversions have indeed occurred in Christian history – but have been later subjected to deep criticism and condemnation).

The question placed in Christian Baptism (Orthodox) is: “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” This is the language of union, reflecting St. Paul’s teaching that Baptism is union with the death and resurrection of Christ. The modern Evangelical phrase, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” has more in common with Muslim submission. For there need be no union implied in the question – many who have become Christians under the guise of this question have no perception of union whatsoever.

Obedience to the gospel is, in critically important ways, not at all the same thing as submission. In proper Christian understanding, obedience is a cooperative action, a synergy between God and believer. As such, it is part of the eternal dance of union between Creator and created. Submission (particularly as taught in Islam) contains no synergy – it is the recognition of a force that can only move in one direction. It is the diminution of the human person, even its obliteration. Obedience, rightly understood, is an invitation into true Personhood – and, strangely, the beginning of true freedom.

Classical Christianity exalts the dignity of the human person and proclaims a gospel that unites humankind to God. The proclamation of Christ’s Lordship, though derived from Christian teaching, can easily become a distortion that takes on the submission demands of classical Islam. I have seen such a Christianity. It is not a pleasant place to dwell.

Contemporary Christianity needs to come to its historic senses and reexamine its various distortions of the gospel. Christ is not a cypher for Allah – they are nothing alike. The fullness of Christian distinctives is required in our present confrontation with Islam. The Bible is not the Christian Quran. It is nothing like it. Being able to articulate this is essential. Christians are the Body of Christ and not People of the Book. The absence of a true ecclesiology in contemporary Christianity is a hallmark of its Islamification. The call to relationship with God in Christ, true union in the Divine Life of the Triune God, must be rightly proclaimed and taught among Christians. We have centuries of unthinking to do if we are to reclaim the wholeness of the Christian faith and speak truth to error.

[ealgeone]

>>Christianity is not submission to God<< James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Submit in Greek hupotassó - I place unde r, subject to; mid, pass: I submit, put myself into subjection.

Catholics relying on these leaders who are obviously ignorant of what the word of God says is not going to turn out well for them.

they do display a lack of knowledge of the Greek. amazing.

[Gamecock]

Nah. You aren’t going to make the cafeteria Catholics on this site happy at all.

[caww]

...”Catholics relying on these leaders who are obviously ignorant of what the word of God says is not going to turn out well for them”.....

The article is a heap of goobly-goop similar to so many their people set out there, which simply are intended to feed and engage the “intellect” of catholics so they can further get lost in the layers upon layers of non-sense.

I At the very start the author set Christianity and Islam side by side......an immediate heads up he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. There is no comparison they are diametrically opposites.

However not surprising such articles are out there as the catholic leadership is set on unity with Muslims and there continued path for that.

[CynicalBear]

>>However not surprising such articles are out there as the catholic leadership is set on unity with Muslims and there continued path for that.<<

The attitude of the Catholic Church in that regard is truly interesting given the times in which we live.

[Alex Murphy]

Nah. You aren’t going to make the cafeteria Catholics on this site happy at all.

I thought the CaffyCaffs were okay with it, but the RadTrads were the ones who were unhappy?

[Gamecock]

Nah. These guys and gals disagree with sections of the cathecism, picking and choosing as they go.

Oh they’ll rationalize, but the fact is they do not agree with what Rome, Inc. teaches.

[caww]

......" So long as they convert to the "right kind" of Catholicism, of course"....

Why would anyone convert to a church that displays 4,000 skulls, venerates them, and creates such things as this.... further naming it after the Immaculate Conception of Mary?

“Skull Chapel” where people worship..even hanging a skeleton under the roof, to be adored and venerated, and this 'in the heart of the Italian capital',.... located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome, Italy.

What "Kind" of spiritual madness and insanity made the Vatican faithful make this kind of "art" to decorate a place of worship?

Here we have a copy-cat Jesus pictured in the center of these copses

The Church is the burial place of several cardinals, which are in the main central aisle to the alter so you actually walk over their remains to your seat

This church was built by Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was 'the brother of Pope Urban VIII'.... "the first" church in Rome that was named for the Immaculate Conception of Mary"

[caww]

...”The attitude of the Catholic Church in that regard is truly interesting given the times in which we live”....

Yes it is...I’ve been following some of the events at the UN and the WCC regarding this unification of faiths...which includes Islam.... It’s far more advanced then many realize.

They’re uniting based on common causes such as the environment and helping the poor and third world countries.....and the acknowledgement that “all” serve the same God”. Which we know is not true. Further this wraps itself around all educational systems where the worlds children are being taught about their duty to protect “mother earth” etc.

It’s soooo deceptive Cynical...I can’t say enough about that.

[CynicalBear]

Satanic comes to mind when seeing those pictures.

[CynicalBear]

>>It’s soooo deceptive Cynical...I can’t say enough about that.<<

And it's just begun. People have no idea of what is coming.

[caww]

Yes, looks that way regardless how they tweek it to appear as if “Holy” and worthy of “veneration”..it’s not.

But then the dark side works that way as we know...twisting peoples minds to defy what their natural God given senses tells them, which they then ignore or excuse even further....layers then upon layers...year after year. Until their senses are no longer effective to discern good from evil.

God says to “bury the dead”...they dig them up.
God says not to “kneel down” to idols....they kneel.
God says it’s “an abomination”...they call it veneration.

...and the list goes on and STILL they refuse to see.

[CynicalBear]

>>..and the list goes on and STILL they refuse to see.<<

John 12:40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

[caww]

Yes,...but they had to turn away 'From'Him....'TO'something else.... 'behavior' is a matter of choice regardless of the mental dancing false teachers put in peoples heads.... .... And that begins with turning from God to "believe" in something else.....and the enemy of men's souls stands by to be certain that their 'belief' is filled with all sorts of counterfeits and other things to "dazzle" the heart, mind and soul...layering it with what 'appears' to be all sorts of things 'which conceals the reality' beneath.....as is said ..."All that glitters is not gold"....

[boatbums]

Protestants say that Catholics “added” seven books to the Old Testament. In fact, Luther even argued that seven New Testament books were not inspired, and rejected all doctrine from those seven books. (Modern Protestants have uniformly restored the seven New Testament deuterocanonicals to their bibles, so this has been forgotten largely.) Catholics assert that they have always been part of the canon. And indeed, they were universally read as scripture in masses (the Catholic test of what is scripture) since the first century.

I'm guessing that you meant to say the OLD Testament deuterocanonicals/apocryphal books? There are additional points that you err on as well. Here are a few links to help on that:

Luther on the Canon

The Formation of the New Testament Canon

The Apocrypha are not Canonical

[metmom]

It gives the word *macabre* a whole new meaning.

It takes it to a whole new (read: deeper) level.

[dangus]

No, I meant Martin Luther removed seven NEW TESTAMENT books (1-2-3 John, James, 1-2 Peter, Revelations) from his canon, but these NEW Testament “deuterocanonicals” were added back in.

[dangus]

Mary needed a Savior, not a Restorer. Most of what Evangelical Christians mean by “savior” (one who prevents destruction) is actually alternately worded “restorer” (one who makes new again after partial destruction). Of course, the words are far from mutually exclusive: restoration is one way in which Christ saves us. But not all that has needed saving has necessarily needed restoring.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Those of faith were, examples of which are found in chapter 11 of the NT book of Hebrews, beginning with Abel's blood sacrifice looking forward by faith to Christ's sacrifice, to Abraham's offering up his only begotten son looking forward by faith to Christ, followed by Moses and the temple blood sacrificial system.

And when the object of their faith came, the Messiah (Christ), the faithful Jews realized this is the one to whom their blood sacrificial system pointed, and accepted him. THESE are "the people of the book, no one else is."

Those who reject him and hate him, are no longer the people of the book, for the entire "book" points to faith in Christ. His blood offered, not just for Jews but the entire world.

It never ceases to amaze me how you chrstians don't seem to notice that the only reason you say and believe this is that you already accept the authenticity and authority of the "new testament" from the start (a priori).

Here's a hint: quoting the "new testament" to prove chrstianity is no different than quoting the qur'an to prove islam or quoting the book of mormon to prove mormonism.

BTW, the article at the head of this thread was another attack on Fundamentalist Protestants from their so-called "co-religionists." I was defending both the Bible and Fundamentalism, but never mind that.

[dangus]

LOL! The leader you are referring to is not a Roman Catholic, but a “Greek Catholic,” as the Orthodox commonly refer to themselves. Go ahead and lecture the Greek about his Church’s ignorance of Greek.

I wouldn’t’ve said, “Christianity is not submission to God,” but what the author meant is that the Christian’s relationship to God is entirely different to the mere abject submissiveness of the Muslim.

[x]

Here's a hint: quoting the "new testament" to prove chrstianity is no different than quoting the qur'an to prove islam or quoting the book of mormon to prove Mormonism.

... or quoting the Hebrew Bible to prove Judaism or some Noachide notion ...