Trilliby wrote:
The Koran as well as the Old Testament were written a long time ago in a part of the world beset by war and violence. Yes, if people were to live strictly by all the rules and punishments listed in the Old Testament, our society would resemble the most extreme of Moslem groups. Just look at the genocide committed against the Midianites in the Bible. Scriptures are of their time and should be read with an open mind, in the light of modern ethical practices.
So you think that scripture is
passe, that it has no real and immediate worth to modern society, and as such deserves merely a cursory reading "with an open mind." I must say, that is quite a cynical approach to the value of scripture.
The Bible consists of 66 books written by 42 authors over a period of 15 centuries. Authors include Hebrew priests, prophets, judges, disciples and kings.
The Koran is the result of one man's revelations over a period of 23 years. Mohammed did not write anything down, he committed it all to memory as he dictated his revelations to family members and his closest followers. After Mohammed mounted his trusty white horse, Barak, and rode off to paradise (died), his followers wrote it all down. Almost immediately the Sunni/Shia schism emerged and the war within Islam began. This all occurred 600 years after the Bible was completed.
Muslims recite the Koran by rote, they are supposed to commit it to memory just as their prophet did.
Christians and Jews, OTH, study the Bible. The number of Bible study programs is enormous.
There are 1,817 prophesies in the Bible, 1,239 in the Old Testament and 578 in the New Testament. Nearly 400 of the OT prophesies are Messianic, all of which Jesus Christ fulfilled.
According to Islamic scholars there are 14 prophesies in the Koran. However there is a problem, none of them pass the tests for a true prophesy. At best they are predictions and they are vague. They predict such things as fingerprints, pollution, extra-terrestrial life, genetic engineering, roads in mountains, women's rights (of which there are few in Islam), zoos and aids (the disease). There is nothing in these Koranic predictions that involve life changing events or even refer to individual human beings.
Here are examples:
Sura 4:120 - “They will alter Allah’s creation.” How does one get genetic engineering from that?
Sura 42:30- “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and of whatever living creatures He has spread forth in both. And He has the power to gather them together whenever He pleases.” How they managed to interpret this verse as a prophesy of extra-terrestrial life is anyone's guess.
Regarding your mention of the Midianites, if you had studied the Bible account, you would understand why that happened. More importantly, you would understand the underlying causes and the overriding lesson in that event, a lesson that is as relevant today as it was then.
By the way, in a part of the world ruled by a despot king and beset with violence and the threat of war, the Constitution of the United States was written by 39 men over a period of 116 days.