In What Way Was the Bible Corrupted?

[wil]

Naw...man has been on the planet longer than 5k....but if had meant millions of years it would have been before Adam were animals and bedore that plants and before that itty bitty organisms and before that rock and before that molten ball of fire...and befoe that ....well....not Adam....

 

[BigJoeNobody]

This obviously means our planet is more than 5,000 years old.

Maybe I'm missing what you are saying.

I know the Quran states a day for Allah is 1000 years of our knowing (22:47). So that still puts Adam being created 6000 yrs after the earth was created. Which if you take the 1000 yrs to mean the phrase in Arabic which essentially is like saying "an incredible many" it could be 10-10000000 times that.

I've heard 6 periods of time many times, and I've heard the idea that it is the 6 Major Messengers, but I fail to see much evidence to it (again I'm fairly new). And Ali's statement alone without a great deal of explanation and context is vague at best. (Assuming you are referring to the companion and Caliph Ali) I also object to using his word as knowledge of the unseen. If he did not hear it from the Prophet (PBUH) then it is just his idea of what it might be. Or he could be giving the safe answer, that Adam was the first, And so noone is to be mentioned before him. I agree with the sentiment that the earth is much older than 5000 yrs old. I also don't think Adam was created in the middle of the Bronze age though. When the Chinese and Egyptian empires were far reaching. I would also argue that the stories in both texts aren't conducive to others being created before Adam, but I do see where that is a difficult argument to make if the Bible is indeed fully intact and true as ever. That is the issue with a genealogy with years given, it makes it very hard to rationalize.

 

[Ahanu]

Naw...man has been on the planet longer than 5k....but if had meant millions of years it would have been before Adam were animals and bedore that plants and before that itty bitty organisms and before that rock and before that molten ball of fire...and befoe that ....well....not Adam....

Hi, Wil!

And before that molten ball of fire? Not Adam? Assume for the sake of argument that the universe is eternal. Infinite worlds. I'm not limiting Adam to this pale blue dot we inhabit . . .

 

[wil]

So what is Adam?

This thing that.exists before everything?

Including ALLAH?

 

[Ahanu]

And Ali's statement alone without a great deal of explanation and context is vague at best.

Here's Seyyed Hossein Nasr's explanation in "The Nature of Man." This essay also answers Wil's question. See the excerpt below (but I encourage you guys to read the entire essay):

"Once it was asked of ʿAlī, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet: What existed before Adam? He answered Adam, and to the question what existed before that Adam he again answered Adam, adding that were he to be asked this question to the end of time he would repeat Adam. This saying means that irrespective of when he appeared in the time-space matrix of this world, the metaphysical reality of man, of the Universal Man, has always been. It could not become but is, because it transcends time and becoming. It is, furthermore, this eternal archetype that determines the meaning of the human state and which man always reflects and bears potentially within himself in all time and space. Those who speak of the future evolution of man perhaps do not realize that higher possibilities of existence do not lie in some future time ahead of man but here and now above him, yet within his reach. Frankly, it must be said that the way man is “evolving” today makes it ever more difficult for him to attain these higher states of consciousness and being, whose very existence he has begun to doubt in general, while a certain number of people in this very climate of doubt seek to reach these states through the short-cut of drugs and pills rather than through spiritual discipline. One might say that the total and central nature of the human state, deriving from man’s theomorphic nature, makes his relation with other states of being not a temporal one but a spatial one. Man stands at the crossing of the vertical and horizontal dimensions containing the amplitude and breadth of universal existence within himself here and now. It is for him to delve into himself in order to realize who he is, to realize these states which comprise his full nature."

I would also add "this saying means that irrespective of when [and where] he appeared in the time-space matrix of the world . . ."

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Interesting discussion! Where I am getting confused is in trying to align the religious words with the reality we know happened. The planet is 4 ½ billion years old. Human kind only arose about 3 million years ago. There has been five major extinction events in the history of the planet. A very great deal came and went before Adam, no? Humanity has been alive on the planet for the merest fraction of the time the planet has existed.

 

[wil]

It appears in all abrahamic religions there are those apologists that work societal ways, newly discovered archeological history, and latest science or philosophies and metaphysics who offer tratises to explain why the old understanding is wrong and this new one is right....as discovery moves forward evry few hundred years or so, as needed it will be updated....

 

[Thomas]

Hi Ahanu –

I've stayed clear of this discussion for obvious reasons, but I could not pass up the chance to commend anyone who commends Dr Nasr. He continues to speak and write on behalf of the Sophia Perennis in its most recent incarnation in the movement pioneered by René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon.

 

[Ahanu]

It appears in all abrahamic religions there are those apologists that work societal ways, newly discovered archeological history, and latest science or philosophies and metaphysics who offer tratises to explain why the old understanding is wrong and this new one is right....as discovery moves forward evry few hundred years or so, as needed it will be updated....

Wil,

Al Insan al-Kamil (the Universal Man), the idea I assume you're labeling new, isn't new. We can trace it back to 14th century thinkers and the Koran. Seyyed Hossein Nasr explains the history of the term below:

"Al Insan al-Kamil is the name of a treatise written by Abdul Karim al-Jili (ra) who was originally Persian but lived in Yemen. The treatise was written in Arabic and it was written in the 14th Christian century, 8th Islamic century. It is really a summary of the teachings of the Sufi Ibn 'Arabi (ra) on this issue. Actually, Ibn 'Arabi's teachings are themselves a kind of crystallisation and formalisation of the teachings which go back to the Quran. The heart of the idea of the "Insan al-Kamil" (meaning the perfect man which is often translated as the universal man) is that when God created Adam, he created within his being what Sufis call mirrors to reflect all the Divine qualities and attributes and only man (by man of course I mean insane, which means male and female), only the human being is potentially not actually capable of possessing all the levels of reality within himself or herself. Now "Al-Insan al-Kamil" is the person who has actualised all his realities. He or she is the perfect mirror in which God can contemplate all of His qualities and all of His attributes. Now only the great prophets and the greatest of saints have attained the level of "Al-Insan al-Kamil", but that is the ideal we are all potentially "Al Insan al-Kamil." The importance of the text of Abdul Karim al- Jili (ra) is to show what we are in reality when God created us and how we have fallen from that. The "ahsani taqwim," from which we have fallen to "thumma radadna asfallahu safilin." The ahsane taqwim, the most perfect of norms, that is so deep within us and to advance it spiritually is to actualise those potentialities within us with God's help and the help of revelation of the Prophet (pbuh) of the Quran, of the saints, of the Shaykhs and to become "Al Insan al-Kamil." That is the ideal that Sufism sets before us. It means acquiring our virtues; it means to have our roots in God and not the world. It means to be humble and not proud, to be charitable and to open oneself, noble towards others, to seek the truth, to be satisfied with what God has given us, to have complete reliance upon God and on the highest level, it means to realise our own nothingness before God which is called fana'in Sufism. The "Insan al-Kamil" has the quality of fana'. The Sufis say that the only worthy thing that man has which can be offered to God is nothingness, is being a mirror. Everything else God has. What can be offered to God? Our wealth? God does not need our wealth. He wants us to help others of his creatures. But what can be offered to God himself is our being, and what he wants from us is the realisation that we are nothing and he is everything, that we are a mirror. On the highest level "Al Insan al-Kamil" is the perfect mirror before God but at the same time, he or she contains all of the virtues, all of the perfections which we should strive for in this life. This doctrine is therefore very important and central to Islamic anthropology in the deepest sense, and especially Sufi anthropology."

As for new explanations, I see nothing wrong with that. The Koran itself states in multiple places there are concealed meanings in the scriptures that haven't been explained:

"Nay, but they deny that whose knowledge they cannot comprehend and whose interpretation has not yet come to them" (Koran 10.39).

"And none know its interpretation save God . . ." (3.7)

". . . it is for Us to explain it" (75.19).

"Do they wait for aught save the full disclosure thereof? The Day when its full disclosure comes, those who forgot it beforehand will say, 'The messengers of our Lord indeed brought the truth!" (7.53)
​

 

[Thomas]

It appears in all abrahamic religions there are those apologists that work societal ways, newly discovered archeological history, and latest science or philosophies and metaphysics who offer tratises to explain why the old understanding is wrong and this new one is right...

I would refine that and say there are two streams of scholarship.

There is the one who finds new ways to express those eternal truths that underpin all religions, and for them the old understandings are not wrong, it's just contemporary understanding has a different terrain to cross to get there.

There are those whose insight and understanding of the Traditions is governed by their culturally, and these insights etc., actually reflect ephemeral cultural mores rather than reveal 'new' insights into traditional wisdoms.

... as discovery moves forward evry few hundred years or so, as needed it will be updated....

I would reflect upon the difference between this opinion and the words of Dr Nasr:

It is, furthermore, this eternal archetype that determines the meaning of the human state and which man always reflects and bears potentially within himself in all time and space. Those who speak of the future evolution of man perhaps do not realize that higher possibilities of existence do not lie in some future time ahead of man but here and now above him, yet within his reach. Frankly, it must be said that the way man is “evolving” today makes it ever more difficult for him to attain these higher states of consciousness and being...

When one realises the truths espoused in the world's sacra doctrine transcend the time and space of the everyday and the ephemeral, then one realises it's not so much a case of 'updating' as discovering whats been the case all along. It's not going forward, it's getting back.

Too often today, 'updating' is simply the pursuit of novelty, or finding the latest sentimental or sensational expression in pursuit of book sales. How many 'sensational' theological books hit the NYT bestseller list, whilst serious works of real theological and philosophical insight never make such numbers?

The core data of the Traditions, the foundational truths, insights, wisdoms and understandings of their Scriptures have always been and, in each age and generation, remain to be discovered anew.
But don't for a moment think they were not known before. Anything 'new' is probably local, conditional, determined by circumstance and likely to change.

The real search into these texts is not to find what's new, but what's eternal.

 

[Ahanu]

Hi Ahanu –

I've stayed clear of this discussion for obvious reasons,

Hi!

What are those obvious reasons, Thomas?

 

[Thomas]

Al Insan al-Kamil (the Universal Man), the idea I assume you're labeling new, isn't new. We can trace it back to 14th century thinkers and the Koran.

And back and back ... it's there in Christianity, it's there in Judaism, it's there in the Greek philosophers ... it's there in the Tao, in Hindu doctrines ...

 

[Thomas]

What are those obvious reasons, Thomas?

I don't believe the Bible was corrupted.

Actually there's strong evidence to indicate that the Father's of Islam founded their views on Christianity on Nestorianism, which had broken from the Orthodox Church and who preach a 'two-natures' theology that Orthodoxy refutes. It has been suggested by Christian scholars that had Islam been informed of Trinitarian doctrine from Orthodox sources, there might not have been the misunderstandings that currently inform Muslims about traditional Trinitarian Christians believe. We do not believe in tritheism, for example, nor is the Trinity 'Three Gods'.

There are also tales of the childhood of Christ in Islam that had been long been refuted in the Christian world as spurious tales with no foundation in truth.

 

[Ahanu]

It has been suggested by Christian scholars that had Islam been informed of Trinitarian doctrine from Orthodox sources, there might not have been the misunderstandings that currently inform Muslims about traditional Trinitarian Christians believe.

I don't know why Christian scholars say that. Muhammad met Jesus during the Isra and Mi'raj. Surely Jesus should have informed him of the traditional Trinitarian view then?

There are also tales of the childhood of Christ in Islam that had been long been refuted in the Christian world as spurious tales with no foundation in truth.

Which refutations are you talking about here?

 

[wil]

I don't know why Christian scholars say that. Muhammad met Jesus during the Isra and Mi'raj

Which Christian scholars say this?

 

[Ahanu]

Which Christian scholars say this?

I was referring to Muslim tradition. As a Christian you can think of the Mi'raj in terms of Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28.12). In Genesis angels ascend the ladder, but in the Mi'raj Muhammad ascends the ladder. Here's a brief retelling of the story. Muhammad returns to the Ka'ba for prayer. The angel Gabriel pays him a visit. They go on a journey. Before ascending the ladder to heaven, they visit Jerusalem. This journey is the Night Journey (Isra) that is mentioned in Koran 17.1. In Jerusalem Muhammad meets other prophets, including Jesus. They all pray together. That's the first meeting with Jesus.

Next is the Mi'raj. Many ancient people believed heaven consisted of seven layers. Muhammad ascends each layer. He meets Jesus in the second heavenly sphere. He also descends to Hell.

Considering this, does it matter whether or not "Trinitarian doctrine from Orthodox sources" informed Islam? No. Because Muhammad had a direct encounter with the source: Jesus himself. This is a broader explanation of why I don't know why Christian scholars are saying this. Unless they just don't trust the Muslim narratives, believe Muhammad was delusional, and the like . . .

(Note: I tried to include some images of the Mi'raj, but I had some trouble linking them here).

 

[wil]

Ah,... I misunderstood... So this is part of the Quran that Allah did not tell Mohamed but his telling of what happened to him in a vision?

 

[Ahanu]

Ah,... I misunderstood... So this is part of the Quran that Allah did not tell Mohamed but his telling of what happened to him in a vision?

Read the ayahs from the Koran. Tell me what you think, Wil.

The ayah below refers to the Isra:

"Glory be to Him Who carried His servant [Muhammad] by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque [the ancient Temple in Jerusalem], whose precincts We have blessed, that We might show him some of Our signs [probably referring to Muhammad's encounter with past prophets]. Truly He is the Hearer, the Seer" (Koran 17.1).​

The Mi'raj is alluded to in 53.1-18.

"By the star when it sets, your companion has neither strayed nor erred; nor does he speak out of caprice. It is naught but a revelation revealed, taught him by one of awesome power [some say this is God and some say this is Gabriel]. Possessed by vigor, he stood upright when he was upon the highest horizon [probably a reference to the Mi'raj here]. Then he drew nigh and came close, till he was within two bows' length or nearer. Then He revealed to His servant [Muhammad] what He revealed. The heart lied not in what it saw. Do you then dispute with him as to what he saw? And indeed he saw him another time, at the lote tree of the boundary, by which lies the Garden of the refuge, when there covered the lote tree that which covered. The gaze swerved not; nor did it transgress. Indeed, he saw the greatest of the signs of his Lord."
​

 

[Ahanu]

It has been suggested by Christian scholars that had Islam been informed of Trinitarian doctrine from Orthodox sources, there might not have been the misunderstandings that currently inform Muslims about traditional Trinitarian Christians believe. We do not believe in tritheism, for example, nor is the Trinity 'Three Gods'.

Jewish scholars say that had Christian theology developed in the medium of Hebrew and not Greek, the traditional incarnation Christians believe in wouldn't have developed. Clearly these Jewish scholars don't see this as a revelation . . . just a mere product of happenstance.

Similarly these Christians scholars . . .

 

[Thomas]

I don't know why Christian scholars say that.

Because the Christianity in the region that Muhammad would have been exposed to was largely Nestorian.

Muhammad met Jesus during the Isra and Mi'raj. Surely Jesus should have informed him of the traditional Trinitarian view then?

Quite. That He didn't puts the whole thing in doubt.

Which refutations are you talking about here?

That Christ spoke from the moment of His birth. That He brought clay birds to life. In the 3-4th centuries there was a minor industry in concocting childhood narratives of Christ. Because they were without provenance they were dismissed as fictions.