I don’t know if you, as a Muslim, personally believe this but most muslims on here have unequivocally stated that Deuteronomy 18:17-19 and Isaiah 42 are prophecies about Mohammed.
I understand this question and sympathize with the point you are trying to make, but you have to realize that this equally (if not more so) applies to Christian apologetic attempting to legitimize Jesus, as written in the NT which themselves openly quote (eg Isaiah 7:14, as if that passage is either literal or referring to Jesus).
Your contention here is a form of special pleading if it not able to be equally applied to Christian presumption.
As for my own position on the topic, I don't see the Bible the way you Christians (at least, Protestants) and Jews do, even Jews agree that a chunk of the Tanakh is only literature (particularly the Ketuvim books).
This is beside the point though.
I don't think your referenced verses from Deuteronomy and Isaiah respectively refer to Jesus though, that's for sure.
If you don’t believe this, I understand but to other Muslims who do, it would then be reasonable to assume that Moses “knew” Mohammed, right??
Just as with Jesus, I don't think it's right to characterize that Moses know Muhammad, rather Muhammad (like Jesus) had a vision of Moses (like Matthew 17:2-3).
It depends on what your conceptualization of time is, doesn't it?
To assume that the corporeal Moses knew any of the Prophets after him is preposterous, however the other way around with Jesus and Muhammad having visions of previous Prophets (who are RIP) is more likely, logically, if we assume some realness to the supernatural or a form of divine vision at the least.
It would also mean that if Jesus isn’t mentioned in the Tanakh/Torah as you say but Mohammed is, then somehow the latter is of greater importance than the former since God only saw fit to reveal Mohammed’s future “ministry” rather than Jesus’ to Moses.
Yes, but you're also so historically and culturally distanced from those texts that you've got to realize that they could easily be referring to something unexpected (under the impression we are taking these texts as valid in the first place). Deuteronomy 18:17-19 could easily be referring to Joshua (coincidentally similar name to someone else...) or even Elijah. However I can't see Deuteronomy 18:18-19 ever applying to Jesus (as recorded in the NT) by any stretch of the imagination, Jesus' whole persona as a Prophet was contrary to that.
Only the Jesus (as spoken of in the Qur'an) could possibly apply to that, seeing as Jesus as seen in Islam, received direct revelation from God, like Muhammad did.
The Jesus of the NT didn't. Even taking on the idea of "Jesus as deity", he taught in parables and never is attributed to accounting any massive passages revealed to him by God, which the Deuteronomy passage clearly states.
Also, its easy to dismiss/undermine the biblical text but can you show evidence of a heralding of the coming Mohammed outside of the bible or Jewish texts? A Babylonian/Sumerian/Sanskrit text, perhaps? Or do Muslims have to rely on a faulty biblical text as evidence for his foreshadowing?
I
could say a lot here but how is this argument you are pulling any better than "The Bible is correct because the Bible is correct"?
So, if the Catholic Church took pains to include in the canon, books that contain prophecies about Mohammed, doesn’t that cement the argument or claims made on and off the board that the RCC created (or had a hand in creating) Islam? Seeing as the RCC actually predates Mohammed’s birth?
This is you making assumptions and a non-sequitur fallacy. The Catholic Church established the 'official canon' of the Bible after much disagreement, they closed off doctrinal dispute and made the Trinity unquestionable.
However my reasons for that Vatican thread obviously allude you here, let me just say though that you're not picking up the right stance there.
This is aside from how your non-sequitor here makes no sense, even as a serious question.
I guess that to answer this, we have to ask; how did Moses understand the themes of redemption and where did he get them from? And do they align with Islamic understanding of redemption or the sin problem?
This kind of polemic (also applied to exegesis, or more accurately eisegesis) is a form of anachronism, likely just from unfamiliarity of the overall worldview of the Israelite religion, Samaritanism and Judaism. The Torah, the Tanakh has no concept of redemption or even salvation - in the semantics as known in Christianity.
This kind of false expectation clearly makes it difficult, if not impossible, for many Christians to make sense of other religions - because of supplanting foreign doctrines onto a completely different worldview and evaluating it through that.
In Judaism, the actual requirements is based around love, righteousness and a willingness to obey God. Look at all of the prophets of the Tanakh, what is the message there? it's entirely different from Christian doctrine and expectations, which is perhaps also why much of the "old testament" alienates so many of you.
Law (Torah, in the more definitive sense) is one aspect of it but the actual function of Torah is to bring someone closer to God, not Jesus but
THE God. In Jesus' terms, it's all about "the Father".
Why would somebody that understands this need a savior intermediary figure between them and God? what logical role does this serve?
No disrespect but questions like this are important to ask, especially when most of your peers are very hostile over that topic.
Islam shares a similar, albeit more thorough explanation, in that Submission to God and Consciousness of God (Taqwa) are the paths to salvation, through that one obtains righteousness, Taqwa is the consequence of true piety.
Both Judaism and Islam realize that nobody is perfect, the point is that we don't dwell on that because we know that the whole point of the scriptures is to enlighten us, not depress us. We have to understand what the root of suffering and sin are before we can learn to prevent it.
Most of Jesus' own words seem to fly under most Christians' noses even though they incessantly quote from their book.
OR, the information about Moses that the 3 Abrahamic faiths have; does it support Moses believing salvation only through “keeping the law” (as prescribed by Islam) or does it support Moses believing that “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins”?
You are strawmanning Islam on that, Sharia is not salvation, it is discipline, it is a way of life. Just like Jews believe about Torah, Sharia is a cosmic thing. Sharia is universal law, the orbit of planets so-to-speak. It's a topic I can't do justice to in a single post but I do see a very strong tendency for Christians to look down on any traditions that are spiritually disciplined.
As for 'shedding of blood', under your presumptions there, how is that better than the idea of a man somehow dying so that people can have salvation? does this make your contention about Leviticus 17:11 any better? IMHO, it just makes far more problems (and perhaps a lack of understanding how that actually applies in Mosaic law?)
“The Day of Atonement, according to Biblical tradition, is one in the cycle of holidays instituted by Moses… In every sacrifice there is the idea of substitution; the victim takes the place of the human sinner. The laying of hands upon the victim's head is an ordinary rite by which the substitution and the transfer of sins are effected; on the Day of Atonement the animal laden with the people's sins was sent abroad (compare the similar rite on the recovery of a leper, Lev. xiv. 7; see Azazel). The sprinkling of the blood is essential to all sin-offerings. By dipping his finger in the victim's blood and applying it to a sacred object like the altar, the priest reestablishes the union between the people that he represents and the Deity.” www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15117-yom-kippur
[Exodus 25:8, Lev 16. Esp vs 6, 20-22,31-34, Exodus 36-38]
None of this was necessary if infact re-establishing the union between man and God only required “keeping the law”. God wouldn’t have dictated the Sanctuary rituals to Moses if there was a sufficient and “less bloody” alternative. If you argue that Moses was into paganism (above quoted), Islam prides itself on not denigrating the prophets, so why does your own sacred text acknowledge the Levites/Priesthood when these kinds of things wouldn’t happen without the Priestly class? If you argue that Mosaic Law wasn’t…well, written by Moses, you’d have to prove that outside of the Quran otherwise we are being asked to simply take the Quran by faith.
Several things here.
1. Your quoted ritual is not Paganism, if so define "Paganism".
2. What is the theological root of this "separation" (as you put it) between man and God? if you're speaking of the "original sin", then you'll once again get a blank stare from both Jews and us Muslims. "Original sin" is completely theologically absent.
3. Islam takes claim to the religion of Abraham not Moses. Islam is opposed to both the very idea of a priestly class and more famously opposed to Monasticism.
4. On the latter, this has already been brought up, but we'll perhaps leave that for another time.
I understand that many people have a problem with ‘vicarious atonement’/’substitutionary punishment’ or whatever other words are used to describe it. If God’s solution to the sin problem is as simple as Islam prescribes it and Christianity just dreams up substitutionary punishment, complicating the matter then the origin of Mosaic Law (specifically the Sanctuary rituals) has to be called into question.
Christianity finds its definition in the Cross, without it, it becomes like every other religion where righteousness is achieved by simply “keeping the law”. If the Islamic theme of redemption is sufficient enough to deal with the problem of sin, both in this age and the age to come, then how are we to interpret the events of the first century?
Go back to the book of Genesis alone, what do you see the non-Prophets doing? do you make any connections to the way history works in general?
On the latter, with or without Islam, I see it as a massive confluence of different ideas and movements all competing for the copyrights to Jesus, of which went on for several centuries till the Catholic Church decided to enforce their own vision of Christianity as inherited from the previous streams of the Early Church.
If “keeping the law” is all there is to man’s redemption, then the seers need not have prophecied of the coming Redeemer; Christ need not have come and there was no need for His death and as such Christianity wouldn’t have arisen. Therefore, by insisting that righteousness is achieved solely through “keeping the law”, it in and of itself negates Christianity because our faith finds its definition in the Cross. As Christians, we can argue over whether Jesus is or isn’t God but to deny the crucifixion or the remission of sins through shed blood, then one would as soon “revert” to Islam.
“…if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:21
Ok firstly, do you actually know what the Tanakh actually prophecies? and do you know what the Jewish view of a messiah actually is? because Christianity is completely divorced from what it claims to be a fulfillment of.
Well, as James 2 states:
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture (Leviticus), “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law (Torah) as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law (Torah) and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Actually brings to mind the very Bismillah that is a centerpiece of our faith, "In the name of God, the (most) compassionate, the (most) merciful". Compassionate "Rahman" is one of the 99 names of God in Islam, as is merciful "Rahim". As with all the 99 names, these two names which crucially open most Surahs and are present in every prayer and formal introduction, these two names have immense implication. Our very existence itself is an act of compassion and mercy by God, in the Islamic view, the very fact that we've been given an opportunity to experience sentience and grow in this world through all of it's hardships, to have the ability to reflect God's mercy and compassion on others likewise says a lot about how we should be treating others.
God sets out laws for a reason, if we follow, observe and actually learn from what these laws teach us about ourselves and how we relate to not only God but to each other.
One question which you might actually answer (idk but I'll try at least because no other Christian here would even lift a finger on it):
If Jesus dying 'for the sins of the world' as Christianity puts it, is the epitome of salvation, then why did it take the 1st century for this to happen and not in the period of Cain/Abel?