Sunday, July 01, 2007

Choosing Silence


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In the Koran, Muhammad plainly tells his followers to believe the Prophets who preceded him and “…discriminate against none of them” (The Family of Imran 3:84). Moreover, Muhammad specifically mentioned Moses as a Prophet worthy of belief.

When Moses led the Hebrews to the “Promised Land,” before they had even entered the land, he told them of the future fall of their yet-to-be created nation and the exile of their disobedient descendants. But he also foretold their eventual return to the resurrected nation of Israel (Deut. 30:3-5).

So, how do Muslims reconcile their devotion to destroying today’s “resurrected” Israel with Muhammad’s instructions to believe Moses? To date, most of the Muslims who contact me through my website and blog tell me that the Hebrew Scriptures have been “corrupted.” Therefore, they can “righteously” seek to “drive Israel into the sea,” because its current existence is based on lies inserted in the ancient Texts by the exiled, desperate, homeless Jews.

Regardless of what some Muslims clerics tell their followers, the fact remains that there is not a single piece of evidence to prove that the Hebrew Scriptures we read today, which foretell Israel’s restoration, are not faithful renditions of the original Text. The most ancient Scriptures in the Hebrew language discovered to date were retrieved from caves near the Dead Sea. Dating methods cannot determine the exact age of the individual Scrolls, but authorities agree that most were written during the last three centuries before Jesus. That means, before the Jews were exiled, as Moses foretold, and many hundreds of years before Muslims existed to declare them “liars” who corrupted their own Scriptures, the Jews were warned of their future — the precise future they have actually endured.

To us, the Dead Sea Scrolls are of ancient origin. But we need to remember that those Scrolls were, themselves, copies of much older Writings, which have probably long since disintegrated. It’s believed the Hebrews in Biblical Israel ceremoniously buried their worn Scrolls, to prevent their desecration. Hence, there’s no way for us to know if the Dead Sea Scrolls are faithful renditions of previous copies, much less of the Prophets’ original teachings. Nor is there a shred of evidence to prove they are not recordings of the actual words spoken by men who lived long ago. That means, any claim that portions of the Hebrew Scriptures were significantly altered has nothing but man’s unlimited imagination to support it!

Still, that fact does not deter those Muslims who choose to believe the Hebrew prophecies of Israel’s “resurrection” were deceitfully placed in their Scriptures after the Jews’ exile from ancient Israel. When people choose to eliminate portions of the ancient Scriptures, they are accepting their “alterations” as facts. And, to persuade others of those “facts,” they must first convince themselves they know “the absolute truth.” Whether they are telling themselves deliberate “lies” or simply making “mistakes” might be open to debate. Yet, when Muslims tell themselves and others that God never promised to resurrect Israel, they are denying a promise delivered by the very Prophets that Muhammad told them to believe! Once they have chosen to deny that promise, they have embarked on the path of self-deception that offers no further choices on the matter until they choose to acknowledge their “lies” or “mistakes” or whatever you choose to call them.

The world desperately needs wise Muslims who choose to speak the truth about those prophecies to their fellow Muslims — but, so far, they’re choosing silence.

(The above contains edited excerpts from my book, “Of Promises and Previews”)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

If you would like to talk Torah...

There is also a line in the Torah that's highly ignored by most people today that says that the Jews should remain Nomadic.

There is also no proof that the prophecies you speak of mean Israel in it's current location. After WWII, there were 3 potential sites for Israel. They chose to seize land from Palestinians to use for Israel. Since then, Israeli government has seized land from Lebanon, more of Palestine, and attempted an attack on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (which failed after a long conflict).

The Qur'an reveals the prophecies of the past as truth or fiction. It doesn't matter when it started, where, how, or who did it. The prophecy is not in the Qur'an and that is why Muslims do not believe in it or follow it.

When Palestine, with its large Muslim population, was split, they should have expected to have conflict. They were displacing people to put displaced people somewhere. This is not the Jews' fault. What happened afterwards is governmental policy and religious doctrine.

In Islam, if someone takes your land, you are allowed to take it back. Wars have started over this before, not just in Islam, but between the British, the French, the Japanese, etc etc etc. Any country hates being conquered or divided. When things like this happen, there is a tendency for it to get ugly, which it has.
I think your opinion that Israel is the "prophesied" land is false and inaccurate. Saying that we are liars because we reject your beliefs makes you look like a hate monger.

Parts of the Bible negate some of the laws in the Torah. Parts of the Qur'an negate parts of the Bible and Torah because they are no longer accurate. Maybe Allah (GOD)'s plan changed...who knows? To say that Muslims must follow Christian and Jewish doctrine is wrong because the Qur'an specifically reveals some of the prophecies (which we believe are the real ones) and specifically leaves some out (the ones we see as false). That is why Muslims reject the ancient Scriptures.

If you want to argue stuff, please do so with more knowledge and less hate. It speaks clearly about Miracles in the Qur'an...the ones it leaves out are left out for a reason. To assume that the other two doctrines are absolute truth when you can't prove their absolute origins (who wrote the torah? who arranged the bible as it is read today), while Muslims can trace their book back to one man, shows a little blindness, to me at least.


And why is everything about Israel? Are you that programmed that Israel is your whole life, when there are other issues at hand?

jbd said...

Dear Noor,
I would like to reply to your comments but, for technical reasons, I cannot do it here. If you would like to privately correspond with me, please send your email address to:
janebdrake@vzavenue.net

Anonymous said...

If someone wants to know or wanna talk about Islam, they need to learn it from the very beginning. No one would achieve anything just by blaming Muslims. Muslims know what their religion is and thats why they stick to that until death. Reason we see is the happiness in their lives. They live without any trouble in their families. There are no drug problems, family breakups, disobedient and violent kids, kids doing massacres in schools in their society. Muslims call those people stupids who talk about Islam without knowing the history and the origin of Islam.