This topic came up in another thread , but had little to do with the original topic.

My stance is that the Quran is the more (indeed most) reliable source of information about God (Allah). I came to this conclusion for many reasons, most notably that the Quran does not present information which is clearly in contradiction to the natural world around us, as does the Bible.

Also, the Quran does not contradict itself, as the Bible does.

Finally, the text of the Quran does not show any evidence of having been tampered with, whereas the modern Bible has many verses which do not appear in earlier versions of the text.

As a result, I think the logical conclusion is that the Quran is the more reliable text.

Note, if you want to discuss a religious text other than the Bible or the Quran, please start a new thread, and leave a post here with a link. I would be interested in reading it too.

If you do not believe in God at all, and want to debate that issue, I think there are already plenty of threads about that.

define "true". "less contradictory" does not qualify as "true", in my eyes. and is "truth" covering unspoken (assumed) things as well?

you can debate on the differences between the two books. but not on the "truth", as such thing does not exist in my opinion. there is "logic", "historic fact", "faith", "belief", "wonder", and what not. but the question of what is true and what not leads to nothing. you can debate, for example, on the historic facts of jesus, not on <<"his" "truth">>.

therefor, please define "truth", what it means to you.


PS: you will also have trouble finding people who have read both books completely. i'm still struggeling with the "completion" of the bible..

Neither one of them and the Quran does have contradictions as well actually.

Usually it's a bit more poetic, but that doesn't make it more reliable. Then again, I'm by no means a Quran expert.



Hahaha, yeah, and then there's that and the relevance of the question itself. It's not like people that are convinced of one thing are going to agree with a rival religion because the texts may be more reliable,

Cheers

One of the problems we may get into here is with the actual LANGUAGE of the Qu'ran. Dooley, do you speak/read Arabic? If so, which "flavor" of Arabic? Are you actually able to read the form of Arabic that the Qu'ran is written in? If not, will we then be talking about possible errors/contradictions based on translation into English? If you can read the original Arabic in which the Qu'ran was written, are you able to translate it into English for those of us that cannot?

My understanding is that very few people can actually read, with understanding, the Arabic of the Qu'ran. There is a similar problem with the Old Testament of the Bible. Despite the fact that Hebrew is a spoken language, most people cannot easily understand all that is written therein. The main reason is the language has changed/evolved since the passages were originally penned. My understanding is that this situation is worse with the Qu'ran (understanding the original language) than with the Hebrew of the Old Testament. I might be incorrect about that, but that is what I have been led to understand.

in fact the the Quran has some more signs(like punctation but a bit diffrent) which normal Arabic alphabet doesnt have. The exact meaning of a multi-meaning word can be given with this signs.

And someone who can read Arabic can read/understand Quran. The Quran is one of the most clear texts and the most literary text written in Arabic.
(it's always like that, At the time of Jesus, sorcery was vogue and God gave Him such abilites, At David's time, processing iron was vogue, he could render Iron with bare hands, at Mohammed's time the thing was literature, God send hiö poetic words. )

As for the translation part, it is of course impossible to exactly translate the Quran to English because of the high diffrence between structure of the languages.

The main diffrence between Bible and Quran is the understanding of God and Jesus.
I posted something about that difrences(im no expert though) in "Does bible teaches Jesus is God?" topic.

Thank you for your answer, Quadraxas. I do appreciate it. However, from my understanding (and I have talked to some Arabs in the Middle East about this in the past) the Arabic of the Qur'an is more of a "high" Arabic or a "classical" Arabic which is different from modern Arabic that is commonly spoken and read today. If, for example, I were to find the average Arabic speaker (someone that may not be very religious, for example) I understand that he could most likely read the words (the sounds they make), but not always understand the meaning of all that he reads. I have also heard that because of this, mainly only the priests really have a grasp of the language. If this is the case, then much of what the followers of Qur'an understand from the Qur'an comes from what they are told more so than what they read for themselves.

This is often the case in Christianity as well. The Old Testament was written primarily in two languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. The New Testament, as we have it today, was written in Greek (some believe sections were originally in Hebrew, like the book of Matthew). However, the vast majority of Christians do not read a single bit of any of those languages. As a result, they rely on their pastors and priests to tell them what a passage means (especially if it is confusing). Like the Arabic of the Qur'an, many ancient words have multiple meanings and, as a result, have to be interpreted.

A classic example is the Hebrew word "yom" for "day" (as in the book of Genesis). Like our modern English word "day" it can mean a 24-hour period, the hours of daylight or even an undetermined period of time. I believe the Arabic version in the Qur'an uses a similar word (is it "youm"?) and that this word also has similar meanings. Therefore, the reader of the passage on the creation has to determine which sense fits best. Did god make everything in six 24-hour periods or six "ages" (undetermined periods of time)? Often this puzzle is solved by the context (in the Christian Bible there are quantifiers that led to the 24-hour day conclusion, but not all agree on that). In many cases, the puzzle is solved by what the one reading thinks is best. For example, if someone believes in evolution, then they would see "ages" there for the word "yom" or "youm". If someone believes in a young earth then they would read the word "yom" (Hebrew) or "youm" (Arabic) as being a literal 24-hour period.

By the above example it is easy to see that the understanding of any passage can be interpreted by someone's already preconceived belief. If someone is raised to be a Christian (or trained in that way) or a Muslim, then they will read their holy book with the understanding already given or taught to them.

yeah, it's like, day by day words die. They gets used less then usual,they get forgetten, they get replaced by other words. This happens to all languages.

It's sort of related to this, Quran is more than 1400 years old,it's fortunate that some words would die/lose their meaning.

It's like(but not exactly) there is more than 500k words in English but not every English speaker knows them.

Yes, but that is what I am talking about. I am guessing that there are words and even phrases in the Qur'an that are not easy to understand (perhaps even not known for sure what they mean) because of the change in the language over time. This is true for the Christian Bible as well. And this can present problems, especially in a topic like this when people are discussing "truth".

I have not found any real contradictions in the Quran. Please provide a source for your claim. I have heard this claim before, but I've never seen anything remotely near an actual contradiction. When I say the Bible has contradictions, I'm referring to things which just can't be explained logically.

i.e.
1. 1 Kings 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.(KJV)
2. 2 Chronicles 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.(KJV)

This is just one of many. If your interested, I can provide many many more.



But this is a description of me. I used to be Christian, and I became Muslim. I could not believe the Bible was 100% God's word, because God would never make so many mistakes. It was only logicall to assume that the mistakes came through human error, and with so many human errors, the reliability of the text as a whole comes into question.

After many months of research, I discovered the Quran, and found no problems in believing it. That does not mean that I can prove that it is 100% correct, but I'm convinced. Only one's own efforts and personal study and reflection can lead to belief, it can't be taught, or enforced on someone through an argument.

Dooley, I have looked at some of the discrepancies of the Qur'an and the Muslim responses to them. The problem with Muslim apologists is about the same as that of the Christian apologist: their faith blinds their objectivity. In many of the cases, some non-Arabic speaker will point out an error or discrepancy based on an English translation. The Arabic speaking Muslim will point out the error of the English translation and refer back the Arabic, which the English speaker has no way of reading or understanding. Then an Arabic speaker comes along and points out the error or contradiction in the actual Arabic (possibly validating what the English speaker said and the English translation used). The Arabic speaking Muslim will then point to the number of different ways a particular word can be translated and then chose the word that best fits HIS BELIEF and best counters the opposition's argument. In some cases this may be done despite the fact that the word in question was not understood to mean that when the Qur'an was written or despite the fact that the common understanding of the word in question is not typically used that way. This also happens with Bible interpreters that know the Hebrew and the Greek, by the way.

When things are this fluid, it is difficult to pin down anyone on anything. Also, many of the verses in the Qur'an are so vague that they can be interpreted to mean just about anything. Several of the scientific ones that you turned me on to are just like that. I tried to read some of these verses from the Qur'an without knowing the supposed scientific "fact" they pointed to and tried to see if I could even guess what it was supposed to point to. The verses were usually so vague that I had little idea.