New Testament Book of James and the Quran
By ANNA JORDAN
INTRODUCTION
There was a time when Allah was considered a pagan god by many, the god of the Mohammedans, and any attempt to discover more about this Allah was thwarted due to the unavailability of a good English translation of the QURAN. The following comparison will show that the word of God as written in the book of JAMES is the same word of God as written in the QURAN, and that both scriptures support the worship of God alone.
Competing translations of the QURAN have differed in interpretation of many passages. Furthermore, practices of the faith allegedly supported by the QURAN often left the outsider bewildered if not enraged at times. Separating age-old traditions, called hadiths, and practices, called sunnah, from the pure teachings of the QURAN became the mission of Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D. His translation of the QURAN into English from the original Arabic has been hailed by many, including many of his opponents, as the best translation to date.
This comparison will demonstrate that the God of Islam is, in fact, the God of Abraham, the God of the New Testament. Remove the hadiths and sunnah, the traditions or sayings and actions attributed to the prophet Mohammed, which present day Muslims incorporate into their interpretation of Islam, remove the doctrine of the Trinity, which most Christians accept as necessary for salvation, and what is left is a common denominator, the monotheistic religion delivered to Abraham, belief in one God and the command to worship God alone.
The Book of JAMES was written by a contemporary of Jesus. Nowhere in the five chapters of his book of the Bible does JAMES mention the doctrine of the Trinity. Nowhere does JAMES speak of Jesus as a deity. The act of Jesus dying on the cross as a means of redemption is never mentioned. If belief in and acceptance of Jesus dying on the cross to save humanity from sin were true and necessary for salvation, surely JAMES would have been so informed and would have written about it. Instead, JAMES commands his readers in JAMES 4:8 to do the following:
And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash
your hands you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to
make them pure and true to Him.
This is clearly an invitation to salvation with the parameters required for that salvation perfectly defined.
Even more remarkable is the fact that the book of JAMES is separated in time from the revelation of the QURAN by approximately six hundred years. Yet it parallels the message of the QURAN, as demonstrated in the following comparison. Consider that in the interim, it took three hundred twenty-five years for the Nicene Council to formally adopt the doctrine of the Trinity in 325 AD. Contrast the distortion of Jesus’ message with the distortion of Islam after the advent of the QURAN. The hadiths and sunnah began appearing about two hundred years after Mohammed’s death, when the followers of Islam were no longer satisfied with the QURAN alone. While they have adamantly insisted they do not deify Mohammed, they have sought to supplement God’s word by looking for guidance in the words and actions of Mohammed, thereby elevating the prophet to a status never ordained by God.
It is not mere coincidence that these two scriptures bear the same message. The QURAN states in Sura 3:3,4:
He sent down to you this scripture, truthfully, confirming all previous scriptures, and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel before that, to guide the people, and He sent down the statute book. Those who disbelieve in God’s revelations incur severe retribution. God is Almighty, Avenger.
Such proof is presented in the following comparison, which shows the Book of JAMES is closely paralleled by the QURAN, verse after verse. The only discrepancy between the two scriptures lies in the account of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in the belief that he was following God’s command. Both scriptures agree that Abraham believed God inspired him. Both scriptures agree that God spared Abraham and his son from the awful consequences of such an action. The difference between the two accounts is fully explained in the following comparison following the reading of JAMES 2:21. What is truly significant is the agreement of the dynamics of the dilemma, although there is disagreement as to the identity of the son. Most important is the understanding that evil does not originate with God, nor does God inspire or conspire to cause humanity to commit evil.
The same common denominator is apparent in the following:
Let us meditate on God, His glorious attributes, who is the basis of everything in this universe as its Creator, who is fit to be worshiped as Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient and self existent conscious being, who removes all ignorance and impurities from the mind and purifies and sharpens our intellect.
Gayatri Mantra, Yajur Veda
Satan’s power exists only when we allow him to draw us away from the truth. When we dispute over religion, taking our focus away from God, and begin focusing on man-made dogma, we move farther apart and away from understanding. When we turn inwards towards the guidance that is always accessible within each of us, the Kingdom of Heaven becomes readily attainable, whether we are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu, to name a few.
God is too great to be described by the limited human mind. Thus the terms Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent must suffice. The time has come to stop anthropomorphizing God, to recognize that a creative force so great as to originate the big bang is beyond human comprehension. We must stop creating God in our own image. To deny the existence of God, given our current knowledge of the universe, to suggest that everything came about by some extraordinary accident without plan or purpose defies logic. Thus, there is a need to recognize the common thread of truth delivered throughout the ages in all the scriptures. No matter how much our ancestors tried to bring God down to their level, no matter how many fairy tales and myths they spun to help them relate to God, we should be beyond such fantasies. Our feel-good stories will only serve to mislead us and create division among us as we advance both intellectually and technologically. The risk is that intelligent minds will reject, indeed have rejected, belief in that great Creative force, call that force by whatever name you will, and through such rejection will mislead others.
The Book of JAMES contains no nonsense. Likewise, the QURAN contains no nonsense. That it supports previous scripture, as in the Book of JAMES, is no accident. It has been divinely orchestrated.
May God guide all who read the following comparison.
The following translation of JAMES was taken from a book titled THE GREATEST IS LOVE, a Paraphrased New Testament. It is an illustrated edition of The Living New Testament, copyright 1967 by Tyndale Foundation, Wheaton, IL 60187, paraphrased by Ken Taylor, additional text and title published by The World Home Bible League, South Holland, IL 60473, copyright 1971.
The verses in italics were taken from QURAN, The Final Testament, Authorized English Version, Translated from the Original (Arabic) by Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D. (Revised Edition), published by Universal Unity, P.O. Box 15067, Fremont, CA 94539, 1992.
Additional biblical references were taken from The HOLY BIBLE, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1901. The Quran had provided the right to own property and divorce to women, together with equality with men, 1400 years ago. These rights were given to western women only 150 years ago. The second class status of women in the vast Muslim world is not the result of following the Quran but of man-made fabricated laws instituted centuries after the revelation of the Quran.
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Afterword
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