Boazy,

I don’t believe Jay Smith is a liar just the approach of an 'excavation egineering' is flawed. The first question re scripture is its consistency with the natural laws of scripture: messenger selection and dictation. Throughout history and for unknown reasons to us God chose his prophets and dictated his scripture. Abraham, Moses, David, Mohammed. Similar to the Torah, The Quran was ‘forced’ or dictated to the prophet ( I won’t dwell on that since you studied the prophet’s biography, how can you explain Surah 80 “He frowned”?)

Anyway, if you insist on comparison, the following should be the philosophical fundamentals of comparison:

- The concept of God: who and what is God? a spirit, an energy, a cat, a man, etc..

- Teachings compatibility to timeless reasoning: Time change and teachings have to be reasonable and meets the average common sense throughout time. So matters like oneness of God vs Trinity, Original sin vs everyone is born innocent, the Messiah concept of salvation vs personal accountability, etc..

- Purpose of life: the Quran teaches the purpose of life is letarafu 49:13 “Oh humanity, we created you from a single pair, male and female, and fashioned you into tribes and nations, so that you would know each other and get to know each other and not hate and despise each other. Surely the most honored among you is the one who is most righteous and just”. As far as I know of the Bible the purpose of life is Armageddon.

- The Comprehension of the framework: regulations or governance framework to inter human relations, marriage, environment, animals, etc..

Just to clarify I am not criticising your faith, I am simply answering your direct question to me. Apologies if any comment above offended you or any follower of your faith.

Peace as always,

Pericles,
I take it you agree with the Qur'an then since you post current attitudes supporting a defence of it. The Qur'an is a religious text that defines how Muslims should live. Their devoted do live by its edicts.

Unfortunately many who call themselves Christian are not devoted to the Teachings of Christ or follow his example. To be a true devotee to each Teacher means diametrically opposite attitudes of behaviour in their devotees. The questions I ask still remain legitimate in the light of each sacred texts.

Sometimes this place gets surreal. But perhaps I am not expressing myself sufficiently clearly.

>>PERICLES.... a couple of points. 1/ 2000 yr old documents do indeed effect our thinking today, 'me' being a prime example<<

Boaz, the fact that you are affected by a 2000 year-old document is patently obvious.

But what I said was "I have never accepted that many-centuries-old documents are valid when assessing twentyfirst century behaviours"

The key word here is "valid".

I didn't say they don't affect people's thinking, Boaz, just that in my view, they should not be allowed to be used as the final judgement on any matter in the twentyfirst century. I was referring, of course, to your constant references to the Bible to justify your own position, and your constant references to the Qur'an to justify your belief that all Muslims are out to get you.

>>Pericles, I take it you agree with the Qur'an then since you post current attitudes supporting a defence of it"

<sigh> No, Philo, I am as ignorant of the contents of the Qur'an as I am of the contents of the Bible, and I hold them in identical esteem. They are the texts that different religious factions believe should help them through their confusion about life, and how it should be lived. That's utterly fine by me, I have absolutely no problem with it.

What does annoy me is when people misuse these ancient texts, recruiting them as weapons with which to beat up on others. That does not imply any "agreement", or even "disagreement", with the texts themselves.

>>The Qur'an is a religious text that defines how Muslims should live. Their devoted do live by its edicts. Unfortunately many who call themselves Christian are not devoted to the Teachings of Christ or follow his example.<<

I'd be interested to have a clearer explanation of this, I think it might be a key point.

And I'm sorry, Boaz, I'm not going to download 30MB of audio material, I simply don't have the time to sit and listen. Is it documented somewhere?

Hi Pericles.. yes I sympathize with the 'download' thing.. but I assure you, its a 'once only' thing.. I am not aware of it being documented, but in truth, much of what Jay says is documented in FF BRUCE material on the text of the new testament. It would take quite a bit of digging to bring it all together as well as Jay has.

I only recommend that audio because it is 'outstanding' in the material it presents, and contains some challenging bits which merit further exploration.

It might be possible to download it to a file and then to your memory stick as mp3 and just listen in bits and pieces during travel time in the car (which presumably is fitted with an mp3 input..unlike my own dinasaur)

I encourage you on this mainly because you have been very adamant in the past about 'evidence for' Jesus. Well this might be helpful.
If you want to send me 'Mosely' I'll happily read it, but probably not so much until Christmas which is when I tend to do most that kind of reading. I'll give you a PO box if you drop a line to newlifeinhim777@yahoo.com.au

FH.. hey.. don't forget our meeting :) but no mobile phone camera action k....

You have launched out into the philosophical netherworld there.. My starting point is
-Foundation Documents.
-Their validity.

If we go outside that, we can come up with umpteen zillion versions of "truth".... So.. I cannot address many of ur points in that last post. To me.. speculating outside the foundation doco's is futile.

Offend ? :) as our Lord said "Have I been with you this long, and yet you do not know me" ?

When have I EVER said a harsh word to 'you'?..

Boaz,

I sent you an email.
"mobile camera?" Please! Your ego is getting bigger by the second.

"You have launched out into the philosophical netherworld there.. My starting point is: -Foundation Documents. -Their validity"

Foundtion documents in your case was developed centuries after the event and are of philosophical nature around what happened to Jesus and what could be the wisdom and philophy behind his disappearance.

Your key challenge is that the core belief, the Trinity, is not in the Bible. The church ignored a number of other of opposing theories such as the famous banned GOB (Barnabos Gospel) which Muslims believe in, even though Barnabos is the only Author to have lived during and was a close companion to Jesus (pbuh).

Watch Deedat interview with Tracy Grimshaw on channel 9 and the following videos re Easter from a Muslim point of view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKqwlSzkEt8

Peace,

You are joking, of course.

>>It might be possible to download it to a file and then to your memory stick as mp3 and just listen in bits and pieces during travel time in the car (which presumably is fitted with an mp3 input..unlike my own dinasaur)<<

We are a one-car family, and that one will be twenty years old next July. Because my wife uses it to get to work, I rarely see it. It has a primitive single-play CD player.

Apart from that, a great suggestion.

Are you sure there aren't transcripts? What makes it so special anyway?