Hello there!

Dear Ahl al-kitab,

I assume, at least from your earlier postings,  you have sufficient knowledge about your faith as well as about Islam. As many christian brothers have already suggested to you, and I would also suggest the same that is, don't ever believe in anyone except to your own mind (i.e. your own logic and wisdom) and heart (your inherrant nature). But I would also suggest that one should always pray to the God and God alone, the God to whom Jesus also used to pray. Is it not fair? Since you yourself pointed out the difference between the two religions, is it not fair to leave the ambiguous and conjectural doctrines of the both aside (according to you)  and to pray to the God who is common to both the religions. That way, atleast you would be neutral in your approach to find the truth.

Now coming to your study about Bible and Quran, have you ever looked at the authenticity of the two books. Who the real authors are behind these books before one can put his whole life behind them? Even if I take away the more mysterious part of the Bible (i.e. the OT), merely talking about the anonymous authors of NT would be sufficient to take any ones mind and heart out of their beliefs. All the present day chritian dogma is purely based upon conjectures derived through these anonymous books. I hope to find more thoughts on this line, till then Cheers to all.

Dear Tawhid,

Its useless to make allegations without evidence. Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammad during his life time over a period of 23 years. Prophet Mohammads' scribes used to write it down as and when it was revealed to him. So not even Prophet Mohammad was its author but God Himself. Prophet Mohammad was just His messanger to mankind. The fact that this whole Quran was not only written down and arranged as it is in present form, right there in the life time of Prophet Mohammad, but was also being memorized and regularly rehersed by many of his followers. However, I also know the fact that it was not in bound form as the one we see it now. Its first bound form was done during the time of first Muslim Khalifah, Hazrat Abu Bakr. During the time of 3rd Khalifah, Hazrat Usman, Islam spread to far distant areas beyond Arabia and the need was felt to distribute the copies of Quran to such a far flung places from where ordinary person couldn't be assumed to travel to Madina, the capital of muslim state, to obtain the right guidance about Islam. The muslims who went in those place, did have some form of Quranic knowledge through various means like memorization of some chapter of it or those who knew how to read were having their own personal copies of some chapters of the Quran.Hence he, Hazrat Usman, got sufficient additional copies as per the requirements and got them distributed all over the places. However, it was also required prudent to confiscate all such personal copies of written portions of Quran so that the written source of information could remain central with its due authenticity. There were several hundreds, if not thousands of follower of Prophet Mohammad who had memorized the Quran by heart and who attested its correctness when caliph Usman distributed its copies. They all were the witness to the correctness of the Quran. Therefore your comments like 

...uthman burned the first kuran and supplanted it with another one so you tell me...conjecture in kuran?

are totally false and neither has anyevidence nor even have any logical arguments to assert such a thing. Pray that God of Jesus may help all of us to show us the right path. Amen.

Regarding your comments on differentiating between "Christian God" and "muslim god", sufficient is to say that after all, Jesus was also used to pray to some one; to some God. Even your anonymous writters said so. Of course, it is this God that we believe, is the God of everyone. He is the one who is omnipotent and all encompassing over everything. Technically speaking, as long as you christians keep Jesus christ as your god, Muslims would not mind with your statement that  both have different gods. However, once you also realize that God must be infinite in His capacity, only then we say that our God is same and is for everyone. So, don't try to twist your beleives with the reality you face for an infinite God. Don't try to cover it up with words like "Trinity" or "Triune" as these were the ways of Pagans. The authenticity of the Books, you say don't matter, is a naive statement. You got be kidding me. . Where have your appeal to all logic and reasoning gone? Is this the way you shut up your own inner conscious? Kindly don't befool yourself. God clearly asks us to leave the conjecture and follow what is fact. Don't live in the state of confusion and come to light. Open up your mind to logical reasoning and deductive logic. May Allah bless us all. Amen. Cheers.

tawhid great points...but your arguments are further supporting my claims as a christian...sukran yes...christ did pray to his father....but here is the paradox and the truth of christ... he also called HIMSELF the great i am in john 8:58 so how can this be? either your prophet jesus was crazy and insane by calling himself i am or hshm in hebrew.... or he WAS the great hshm he claimed...while ALSO praying to his father.... eternal relationship....eternal co-existance....in eternal loving relationship more? simply read the first genesis 1:26 [absolutely any translation of any language of the old testiment wrote: where GOd spoke in plurality {yet retaining god's unity} with "US" instead of "I" and just to let it sink in more....hebrew language in that context during that time did NOT use the majestic [or the "royal"] "me" but i do have a scripture for the holy bible proclaiming doctrines outside of its pages.... revelation 22:18....."if anyone adds to these things, GOd will add to him the plagues that are written in this book" but what do we have....some book called the quran....   blessings to you and thank you AhmadJoyia for strengening my faith in christ my lord and my god  who manifested himself in human form while also proving his eternal relationship with his eternal father

My Dear Tawhid,

The only thing that I am stressing upon is the conjecture based upon paradoxes that you have identified yourself. The understanding that you are trying to deduce out of john 8:58 are full of conjectures. These writings are full of parables and if one starts taking literal meanings out of them, then one can't justify them against our human mind through our wisdom. For example if you read a little before your own quote i.e. in john 8:50 "I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. ⁵¹I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.� Now I am sure one needs to understand this parable in its metaphorical sense and not in literal sense. Same is the case in passage john 8:50. My advise on this would be to leave out the conjecture and simply pray to God, the God of Jesus and that is it. There is no conjecture in it and its not out of your own Bible. Is it not fair enough? However, if one starts looking at the commentaries to explain these paradoxes, then the trap is already laid for him to understand them through human conjectures. So just to begin with one's most innerself honesty and truth, before one could go and join a particular path, it is really important to start with the facts and not the proposed solutions to the paradoxes.

Now, coming to some issues related to the anonymity of these books and since you have quoted book of John, I would present to you the stance of present day Christian scholars on the issue of "Authorship of fourth Bible".. Kindly read it yourself and then decide how much one can put his weight on authenticity of this book before even going into the solutions of the paradoxes in the book. The following is from a course taught in Australian Catholic University course # theo-252 (the Fourth Gospel). 

"

There are various opinions about the author of this Gospel.

1. John the apostle, brother to James and one of the sons of Zebedee.
2. The unnamed disciple (1:35-42; 18:15, 16; 20:3, 4, 8) referred to in the Gospel as the disciple whom Jesus loved (13:23; 19:26; 20:2).
3. John the elder, who identifies himself as the author of Revelation (Rev 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8).

Around a hundred years after the Gospel was written, ie. towards the end of the second century, a famous Christian writer and martyr called Irenaeus (about 130-200 C.E.) identified the author of this Gospel as a man named John, called a disciple of the Lord and the one who leaned on Jesus at the Last Supper ie. the disciple whom Jesus loved. "Lastly John, the Lord's disciple, who also reclined on his breast, himself produced the Gospel when he was staying in Ephesus in Asia".

Irenaus is writing at a time when this Gospel is in great danger of being rejected as a legitimate or canonical Gospel. Some are saying it comes from a heretical group called the Gnostics who emphasised knowledge (gnosis) and the mind, and downplayed the value of the physical and human experience. To rescue this gospel it was important to attribute it to an eyewitness, preferably one of the disciples - even better if it was one of the inner circle of Apostles - Peter, James and John.

The earlier commentaries of Schnackenburg (1965) and R. E. Brown (1966) identify John, the son of Zebedee as the disciple called in the Gospel the Beloved Disciple. This disciple is the authority behind the text, probably the leader of the community that produced this Gospel. The actual author of the gospel, the evangelist, was a disciple of this John. In his later work -The Community of Beloved Disciple (1974) Brown changed his view. While still naming the Beloved Disciple as the authority behind the text, he no longer identified this disciple as John son of Zebedee.

Most contemporary scholars take the view that the unnamed disciple, later called the Beloved Disciple, is the authority behind the Gospel. This unnamed 'other' disciple was at first a disciple of John the Baptist but then with Andrew was the first to be called to discipleship (1:35-42), he was present as eye-witness to the crucifixion (19:26, 35) and was the first to come to Easter faith (20:8).

You will notice that more recent authors speak of The Fourth Gospel, while earlier commentators called it St. John's Gospel. Care is now taken to show that there is some uncertainty about the identity of the actual author."

I hope readers would now have better understanding of the gospel's origin. Cheers!