A Comparative Glance at the Quran and the Gospel

The Abrahamic religions believe that the source of the universe is the Only One Allah(SWT). He possesses all virtues and presents religions to man according to His own wisdom so that the religions, as a detached intelligence, can bring to perfection the man's thoughts, rational and theoretical perceptions. This is why we must consider the Abrahamic religions very syncretistic and consistent in principles, doctrines and beliefs that confirm one another. As the principles lay stress on realities and consistent bases of the world, these religions are consistent in themselves and do not contain any instability. For example, each of the following theories such as the source of the universe is either unique and needless or it is not self-existent; man is charged with a duty and responsiblity or he is free and in suspense; judgement day is an absolute reality or.... and other theories, they are consistent and invariable. However, the necessity of such insight is the consistency of the holy religions, at least, in the field of essential beliefs. In this article, we are going to manifest some of these consistencies and then show you how differenceshave been imposed on the Torah and the Gospel. We do this researsh according to the viewpoints of the Holy Quran .

The Holy Bible  
All books which are considered holy according to the Christian Church constitute "The Holy Bible" which itself is divided into two parts: Old Testament and New Testament while the second one begins with four Gospels and contains the book "Acts" and some other compilations attributed to the Prophets(A.S) and finally it ends with the Apocalypse. The first part (i.e. Old Testament) is abbreviated by two letters of "O.T" and the New Testament by two letters of "I.M" The well-known Old Testament includes thirty-six books and compilations. Christians believe they have been written by the Jewish Prophets from Moses (A.S) to Jesus (A.S). The New Testament which is believed by the world famous Christians, includes twenty-seven books and short letters. According to Christians some of them have been written by Jesus(A.S)'s students and the rest of them by the leaders of the first ages of Christianity. From one point, the New Testament has been divided into two parts:

1) Historical books such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts 
2) Scholarly books including the letters of the leaders of the very beginning of Christianity 

 As the precepts (Ahkam) of some parts of Christians' beliefs have been mentioned in these letters, they are called scholarly books which contain Paul's letters who is the founder of present day Christianity. The Christian Church calls the set of the compilations (i.e. Old and New Testaments) as "The Bible" which is derived from the Greek word "Biblous" meaning book. The Bible includes the Christians' beliefs and religious principles that are called "Canon" which means scale in Greek so it can be considered as the balance of the Christians' beliefs ... . So the Bible that the Christians have consists of both the old Testament, including the Torah and some various compilations, and the New Testament including the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Acts, numerous letters and the Apocalypse. In this research, we will mostly focus on the New Testament especially the Christians' four Gospels. 

The Structure of Christianity  
Christianiny is divided into three great religions : Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant among which Catholic is the most important and other two religions are of lesser importance. In addition to the above mentioned religions, Christianity includes 150 other religions. Nowadays the largest Christian sect is Catholic (according to quantity and not quality) whose leader is the Pope II. "... Today, there are about 360 sects of Christianity and each of them have specific beliefs and each are bigot toward other religions". 

The Main Rites of Christianity  
1- Babtism : It means the holy ceremonial washing in order to purify from sins that we call it " The water of repentance. " The ceremony is performed for a Christian person's readiness to have the honour of entering the divine world.

 2- Lord's Supper : It is the most important rite of Christianity and includes eating bread and drinking wine to recall one's own promise with Jesus (A.S). It originates from the last night of Jesus (A.S)'s life when he ate bread and drank wine with his Disciples. This ceremony was always performed on Sundays but was stopped later on and now it is performed only once a year. 

3- The ceremony of the young adults' enterance into the group of Christians and membership in the church.According to the ceremony, the young adults go near a priest and then ask forgiveness and also strengthen their promise and faith toward His way and teachings and as a result they have the right to attend in the ceremony of Lord's Supper. 

4- Confessing sins formally to a priest and asking forgiveness (This ceremony is not common among Protestants). 

5- The marriage contract which should be performed according to the church rules and ceremonies. 

6- Chrismation :It is a ceremony in which a priest make a person in a dying state ready for the Day of Judgement by saying special prayers and using the holy olive oil. 

7- Believing in the ranks of the Christian clergymen and respecting their postions from the Pope to local priests is the basic necessity of Christianity.About the confession ceremony, a researcher says :"In 1354 when I travelled to Italy , I stayed in Rome for three days and went to Peter's cathedral ...There,I saw priests who were purchasing the sins. In the main hall the believers had fallen on the priests' knees and were confessing their sins. At the same time, an old man came in along with his wife and sat beside the priest. To confess easily a curtain was put up and then they began to confess their sins slowly so that others could not hear them. After a while the old man and his wife came out while they were happy and smiling as though they had the paper of entering paradise in their hands." 

The Exact Number of the Gospels   
Mr. 'Abdul Ahad (a Christian converted to Islam) says in his book "Al-Injill Wa Al-Salib" that: "A lot of people from different countries had gathered in Niqiah conference in 325 A.D. They were more than two thousand representatives of clergymen who had brought tens of the Gospels and hundreds of religious letters in order to survey them. They chose four Gospels from among more than forty Gospels and twenty-one letters among uncountable ones. At the end of the conference they decided to approve the available Gospels in the New Testament and rejected all other Gopels and ordered to burn them. In this regard one of the researchers says :" ... Some of the Gopels (the false ones) are still preserved intact (such as St. Thomas, St. Jack and two Fikorm). However, some of the Gospels have partly become ruined and the whole book is not available today , but, there are other Gospels which have completely become ruined and just their names have been mentioned in books contemporary to their time.  To study the reasons for choosing the four Gospels (Matthew, Luke, John and Mark) Instead of the other Gospels should be discussed in another place but here we will briefly refer to one saying that : "Religious disagreements have come to an end, the Bibles have now a distinct number, the king Kostantin who worshipped idols has converted to Christianity and he wants to unite Christians on the base of one belief and union (ie Bibles). In 325 A.D, he also organized a conference in Niqiah where the beliefs were approved by the majority of those present. Thus, the available Gospels in the New Testament were recognized officially but other Gospels were announced to be illegal. (The word "Gospel" has been borrowed from Greek. As Tolsto explains in the introduction of his Gospel, the word "Gospel" is derived from two words "EV" meaning Good, and "Angelion" which means news and therefore these two words beside each other mean good news). 

The Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)  
Wiliam Edi, the commentator of the Gospel, says in his commentary: "Certainly, Jesus (A.S) has not compiled the Gospels, rather it is the history of his life that we study. At the beginning of the New Testament, language was the means of transferring the Gospels to the next generations and none of the Gospels were written until twenty years after Jesus (A.S)'s ascension and John wrote the fourth Gospel fifty years after Jesus (A.S)'s ascension." John Nass, the author of "Jam'a Al-Adian" says:" So much is certain that Jesus(A.S) has not compiled his teachings but he trusted his students and dispersed them all around the world in order to teach people of what they themselves have learnt from Jesus (A.S). One point agreed by all researchers and the men of church is that the present Gospels are neither indited nor dictated by Jesus (A.S). Since the word here is about the accuracy of attributing the Gospels to their real owners, so we proceed to the viewpoints stated by the researchers and the church masters. 

The Church Viewpoint   
"... The church believes the authors of the Gospels are the Disciples or their relatives and tries to disseminate this belief that the real author of all books is Allah (SWT) who dictated his word to the authors by the Holy Spirit." "...The first books of the New Testament are called "Gospel" which means "good news" in Greek language. The books were written by four different authors and each of them is a separate book that explains about Jesus (A.S)'s life and teachings ....Christians know the books as the word of Allah (SWT) and they believe Allah (SWT) guided the authors of the Gospels by the Holy Spirit in such a way that their books are absolutely true!." Today Christianity of the world admits the holiness of the Bible and believe that its contents are Allah (SWT)'s commands that He dictated them to the authors by the Holy Spirit ." 

Some Researchers' Viewpoints 
Many researchers are still in doubt about the accuracy of attributing the Gospels to the attributed persons (i.e. luke, Mark, John, Matthew). And on the basis of contradictions among the Gospels, some of them believe that their contents were collected by unknown people who published them under the patronage of some respected men among Christians and they hereby resorted to disseminate their own pre-made thoughts. "... The clergymen and leaders of the church collected the Gospels under the name of the respected men in order to validate them among the people, while there is no relationship between the real authors of the Gospels and the attributed authors .... According to some researches which are often confirmed directly or indirectly by the Church, the authors of the Gospels are not certainly known and the chosen names for the Gospels are imaginary and symbolic ." In this regard, Mr. Carl Kaotski says : "It is most certain that with the exception of a few books which belong to primitive Christianity the rest of the books were not written by those attributed people. The books were written much before the time that their authors have claimed and also in many cases the main texts have been impudently distorted in the next revisions by additions. The last point to be  mentioned is that it is confirmed today that the Gospels and none of the books which belong to the earlier Christianity have not been written by the contemporary writers of Jesus (A.S). A Russian philosopher named "Tareof" who has taught in the religious academy of Moscow says in his book " The historical philosophy of the Gospel" published in 1903, that:" The Gospels are neither history nor historical documents they can not be even considered as calendar ." Some researchers have hesitated about the existence of Jesus (A.S) himself. They say: "There is no reliable historical resource which confirm Jesus (A.S)'sexsitence." It is now better to proceed to the historical background of the Gospels : "The available manuscript of the New Testament is more ancient than that of the Old Testament. The oldest manuscript belongs to the fourth centuty and is preserved In the Vatican. The most ancient translation which is in Aramese language (spoken in Syria) belongs to the end of second century and is entitled "The Simple Translation." Two other translations in Egyptian which relate to the third and fourth centuries are available too. There is another translation in Latin which was finished in about 400 A.D." "... The only books trusted by the Christian researchers are those in Latin that were discovered by Mr. Terotri. The experts think they have been written in 180 A.D. In the discovered papers, the books of the New Testament have been attributed to the same present names of writers." The only evidences that Christians rely on them are the following manuscripts: 

1. The available manuscript in the second Pope's library in the Vatican and experts believe it has been written in the fourth century .

 2. The Sinaese manuscript that was preserved in Leningrad library for sometime and is probably written in fourth century. Some researchers guess that the above manuscript is the same one which Dr. Tishindorf discovered in St. Catrine and then sent it to the Leningrad library.

3. The manuscript in Alexandria which is still preserved in the treasury of England. It is estimated that it was written in 500 A.D. It is now opprtune to proceed to the debate between Iman Reza (A.s) and a Christian scholar: " When Jesus(A.S) ascended and his Gospel disappeared, the christians went to their own scholars and asked them What are we to do now? Jesus(A.S) was killed and his only Gopel was lost too. You are our scholars so you must think of a remedy." Luke and Mark answered:" The Gospel is in our hearts and every time we will present a part of it to you. Do not worry about it and do not leave the synagogues. When we write the Gospel, we will inform and recite it to you. " Then luke, Mark, John and Matthew gathered and compiled the present Gospels while these four persons were not Jesus(A.s)'s students... ." Some researcher's viewpoints regarding the Gospels were mentioned above but studying them needs much more time.