Gilberto, At 12:32 PM 10/14/2005, you wrote: >>I don't necessarily have the same understanding as most Muslims. I would say >>that the Quran and sunnah provide certain parameters for how Muslims should >>understand the Bible, but within those parameters a large amount of variation >>is possible.<<
Okay. As I understand it, the original idea was perversion of doctrine. Perversion of the texts (intentionally) was a later innovation. >>In terms of the New Testament, for me, the question is what books should have >>been canonized in the first place. Or more precisely, out of the many >>different Christian groups which had different scriptures, which one best >>represents Jesus' actual teachings.<< And the folks associated with the Jesus Seminar have been looking at that issue for many years. However, if we are asking which books should have been incorporated into the Christian literature, I don't think it can be answered by comparing various Christian mss. to the Qur'an, the Baha'i Writings, or to some other sets of ideas. Unfortunately, that is precisely what some people have done with the Gospel of Barnabas. They have accepted it without consideration to its dubious authenticity. (Of course, it would be apologetically advantageous to both Muslims and Baha'is.) In the popular literature, one also sometimes finds that people accept the Nag Hammadi tractates, not because there is evidence that one or more of these books has greater historical validity than certain others in the NT, but because the content (Gnosticism, etc.) appeals to, and confirms, the sensibilities of that particular writer. >>I would say some "errors" actually are more radical than that. If the Torah >>was a revelation given to Moses, then the Documentary hypothesis, which is >>very widely accepted in the circles of Biblical scholarship implies some >>serious problems with naively equating the first five books of the Bible with >>the Torah.<< Yes, but that doesn't tell us whether the content reflects the teachings of Moses. >>Another significant issue would be the difference in the Catholic and >>Protestant canons. Two major groups of Christians have substantially >>different Bibles. And on top of that, they have different versions of Esther, >>Jeremiah, and Daniel. That's not just forgetting a word or two, or >>substituting a word for its synonym.<< I wouldn't say "substantially different." About the only difference I know of is that most Protestants accord only an apocryphal status to the Roman Catholic deuterocanonical books. On the other hand, neither Roman Catholics nor Protestants see those books in the same light as the rest of the biblical literature. Since Roman Catholics center authority in the Papacy, the issue is simply not as important to them as it is to those Protestants and neo-Protestants (e.g., the Jehovah's Witnesses) who claim to accept sola scriptura. Via moderna, Mark A. Foster . http://markfoster.net ... [a] word is ... a universal. - William of Ockham Structurization Tech: http://tech.structurization.com The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments thereto ("e-mail") is sent by the Johnson County Community College ("JCCC") and is intended to be confidential and for the use of only the individual or entity named above. The information may be protected by federal and state privacy and disclosures acts or other legal rules. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please immediately notify JCCC by email reply and immediately and permanently delete this e-mail message and any attachments thereto. Thank you. __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Public - http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
