{"id":14778,"date":"2014-03-27T14:36:31","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T03:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=14778"},"modified":"2014-03-27T14:36:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T03:36:31","slug":"the-synoptic-qurans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2014\/03\/27\/the-synoptic-qurans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Synoptic Qur’ans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest blogger Samuel Green has researched and written many articles which have come from his desire to understand Islam and from the many questions that Muslims have raised with him or he has heard Islamic leaders comment on.\u00a0 His desire is that we all try and work through our differences and agree on God\u2019s will.\u00a0<\/span>Here is an extract from his February Newsletter (permission granted).<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to talk to you about a new way I have been talking to Christians and Muslims about the Qur\u2019an.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When Christians and Muslims talk it is important to have some similar concepts so that we can appreciate what each other is saying.\u00a0 I think such a concept is that of the synoptic Qur\u2019ans.\u00a0 This helps Christians to understand better the nature of the Qur\u2019an and it helps Muslims to understand the nature of the New Testament. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

So what do I mean when I talk about the synoptic Qur\u2019ans?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Muhammad never made a collection of the Qur\u2019an; it was his companions who did this and he allowed variation in the way they did it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Muhammad\u2019s companions made their collections from their own material and a variety of other sources.\u00a0 These Qur\u2019ans were highly similar yet different.\u00a0 Some had 111 chapters, others 116.\u00a0 The chapters were arranged differently and there were differences in the verses themselves. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

These different Qur\u2019ans were consistent but each had its own unique character.\u00a0 In the early history of Islam there were synoptic Qur\u2019ans.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

However it was decided that only one of these Qur\u2019ans would be preserved and the others were destroyed and so Islam has one Qur\u2019an today.\u00a0 It is as if the church got rid of Mark, Luke and John and kept Matthew.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This action of the early Muslims may have made Islam simpler, there is only one Qur\u2019an, but it has made it all the poorer.\u00a0 Not preserving all these other authentic synoptic Qur\u2019ans removed the testimony of significant companions and how they understood the content and presentation of the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 Again, imagine how much poorer Christianity would be if it had only preserved the Gospel according to Matthew?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Also, the more evidence you destroy the less confident you can be.\u00a0 Removing the testimony of the other authentic synoptic Qur\u2019ans means we have less material to work with and this can only led to less confidence.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, Muslims have said to me, \u201cThere were 30 Gospels and Christians only kept four.\u00a0 What about the others?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The early Christians had good reasons for keeping the Gospels they did; these were the authentic Gospels, but this question can equally be asked of the Muslims.\u00a0 There are over a dozen different Qur\u2019ans from which only one was selected; what about the others?\u00a0 But the situation is actually worse for Islam.\u00a0 Christians preserved what was authentic, four Gospels, while Muslims destroyed what was authentic and just kept one version of the Qur\u2019an.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking about the Qur\u2019an in these synoptic categories is advantageous because it is an accurate descripts of what happened and it also provides categories to help Christians and Muslims understand better the nature of their scriptures.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A fuller version is available at: <\/span>http:\/\/www.answeringmuslims.com\/2014\/01\/jesus-gospels-and-synoptic-qurans.html<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Your brother in Christ, <\/span>Samuel Green<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

More information on Samuel\u2019s work is available at: <\/span>http:\/\/www.answering-islam.org\/Green\/<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest blogger Samuel Green has researched and written many articles which have come from his desire to understand Islam and from the many questions that Muslims have raised with him or he has heard Islamic leaders comment on.\u00a0 His desire … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14778"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14784,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778\/revisions\/14784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}