The limitations of Western historiography and the Quranic revelation: a question of epistemology

I post this short comment as an addendum to my recent post: The failure of western biblical scholarship to come to certain results in the quest for the historical Jesus

Western historians chose to operate within certain materialist constraints which originate from the secular rationalism of the European Enlightenment. See the article Philosophy of History in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

These historians therefore reject a priori information about historical events from Revelation. Muslim historians reject such an unwarranted bias. See the excellent work of Dr Shabbir Akhtar of the University of Oxford: The New Testament in Muslim Eyes (Routledge Reading the Bible in Islamic Context Series).

For Muslims the Qur’an is the actual speech of God Almighty. It was not created in the 6th century (or at any other moment). God knows all of history timelessly and perfectly. He is therefore a more reliable source of historical information about a subject than any mere human could ever be.

Do purchase this excellent work which is essential reading for an Islamic view of Christian origins: 

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Categories: Bible, Christianity, History, Islam, New Testament scholarship, Recommended reading, Scholars, Secularism

10 replies

  1. @ Paul

    I have no idea why this is difficult to understand. Before Ehrman came on the scene:

    Muslim: Jesus(as) never claimed to be God he was a prophet.
    Christians: Jesus was a prophet and more than a prophet that’s why he says….

    Muslims: Yo people changed the Bible.
    Christians: Lol what’s your proof? Who did it? Where?

    A few years later, Ehrman more or less makes NT criticism mainstream and says the same thing.

    Muslims: Word? Who would’ve guessed…🙄🙄🙄

    https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MarriedShortGalapagossealion-size_restricted.gif

    For some odd reason (maybe because these people have no critical thinking skills) they think we have to accept EVERYTHING this person says as opposed to just the objective evidence to prove our point (btw Ehrman is really smelling himself by thinking we care about his work to “further our agenda”. All he did was make it easy and provide some references for us to now apply hadith criticism to their fanfiction (you have served your purpose move it along) I could never quote him again and still pick apart their sources.

  2. Do you realize the implications of doing history with your “epistemology”? It’s not only the Quran that’d have to be analysed that way.

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