Saturday, April 4, 2009

Pathetic Polemics: literary styles of the Bible

The state of Islamic polemics against Christianity is usually pathetic at best. Here is a clear example by 'Yahya Ahmed' in their article Carm.org agrees with the Quran on the Bible's corruption.

The argument:
"That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:-" (Quran 4:157)

Conjecture i.e Guesswork, fiction.

The above Quranic verse says that whoever differs in the matter of crucifixion and agrees that Christ (pbuh) was crucified are actually following conjecture(Guesswork,fiction).

See how Carm.org confirms the Quranic verse.

"The Bible contains many different styles of writing such as poetry, narration, fiction, history, law, and prophecy and must be interpreted in context of those styles. It is the source of the Christian religion in that the Bible contains the words of God and how the Christian is to apply the words of God to his life."

Response:

First things first. Does anyone other than Yahya see how the quote from Carm.org confirms the Qur'anic claim that:

  1. Jesus was not crucified?
  2. The Bible is corrupted?

The Carm.org quote says nothing of Jesus' crucifixion or Biblical corruption - and if you were to read the site an honest individual would struggle to claim the authors hold such positions.

To examining the quote. It seems that Yahya is attempting to persuade us that Carm.org is claiming the Bible is fiction. Even a cursory reading of the quote will not leave such a nonsensical belief in someone's mind - but alas, it is the deceptive meaning Yahya finds himself propagating.

The quote is rather clear- the bible contains "different styles of writing". No one can argue with that. As mentioned there is "poetry" such as is found in the Psalms, and there is "fiction" such as the parables. Although the parables were factually told the narrative recounted by Jesus is fiction - invented to illustrate a point.

I do not believe I have to comment any further. The pathetic nature of such dishonest attacks on Christianity, the Bible and apologists is what I have assuredly come to expect.

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