A group of Islamic clerics wants the Pakistani Supreme Court to rule certain Bible passages blasphemous. They say that these passages present some of the prophets of Islam as being just a tad shy of completely virtuous.
Take Lot, for example. Lot is a prophet of Islam and is, therefore, a perfect example of moral virtue.
But that's not how he's portrayed in the Bible. I'll let Professor Brothers tell you the story from Genesis 19.
Now if that isn't blasphemy, I don't know what is.
But Muslims aren't bothered by Professor Brothers' story. They couldn't be, since the same story is told in the Quran.
When Our messengers came unto Lot, he was distressed and knew not how to protect them. ... And his people came unto him, running towards him - and before then they used to commit abominations - He said: O my people! Here are my daughters! They are purer for you. Beware of Allah, and degrade me not in (the person of) my guests. Is there not among you any upright man? Quran 11:77-78
When the messengers came unto the family of Lot ... And the people of the city came, rejoicing at the news (of new arrivals). He said: Lo! they are my guests. Affront me not! ... He said: Here are my daughters, if ye must be doing (so). Quran 15:61-71
No, it wasn't that Lot offered his virgin daughters to a sex-crazed mob of angel rapers. That was perfectly virtuous. It was the rest of the story in Genesis 19, the part that Professor Brothers just couldn't make himself tell.
Here is the blasphemous bit that upsets the Muslim clerics.
I guess getting drunk and impregnating your daughters is not considered virtuous to Muslims. (It doesn't bother Christians, though. They believe messed-up Bible story #7, and yet still consider Lot a "just and righteous man.")
Muslims deny Lot's drunken incestuous couple of nights in the cave. They say it didn't happen and anyone that says it did commits blasphemy (and must, therefore, be killed). Which means, of course, that Genesis 19:30-38 is blasphemy.
And the Bible has to be banned.
Oh well.
8 comments:
Further evidence for my opinion that the koran is, (slightly) more coherent, modern and moral than "the good book" - not that that's saying much..
Any chance of some more of your comparisons, Steve ? Maybe some sort of meta-comparison of your previous ones, with some new stuff ?
Sorry for the OT !
Any state with a state religion and a blasphemy law, must inevitably end up banning LOADS of books - the price of theocracy :(
skanksta,
Yeah, I'd like to get back to some Bibliometry (Bible statistics), but it will probably have to wait until I finish revising the SAB.
Although I guess I could do some Old Testament analysis, since I'm done with the OT. Let me know if you have anything specific in mind, and I'll give it a try.
Those videos are a scream! I haven't enjoyed the Old Test-a-mint as much since I read R. Crumb's version of Genesis!
Steve Weeks
I didn't really have anything specific in mind - I just love the stats tables !
I guess I was hoping for some sort of comparison on what these holy books have to say on slavery, apostates, peaceful co-existence, rape etc.
The usual...
Erm.... how can Islamic scholars declare anything in the Bible blasphemy, since it was written hundreds of years before Mohammed founded Islam? C'mon guys, if you have older (or even coeval) source documents, stop holding out on us!
Love the post but really I just wanted to say thanks for creating the Skeptics Annotated Bible. It's a resource I've used more times than I care to count.
Cheers
As nazani pointed out, how can Islamic scholars declare anything in the Bible as blasphemy since it was written hundreds of years before Mohammed founded Islam? Moreso, merely not believing that Lot unknowingly committed incest with his own daughters while drunk, when such is documented in the First Book of Moses near the end of Chapter 19 is to say they do not believe documentation that was written by Moses. Just because one does not believe the Bible, does not make the Bible false. If Adam and Eve were the first humans to begin the population of the earth, who did their children become pregnant to, if not to each other? Many things that repulse many nations today, including incest and even nudity, were not originally forbade by God. In fact, Both of Lot's daughters were impregnated by him while he was drunk with wine. But nowhere in the Bible does the Lord forbid sex between a father and his daughters, only his daughter in-law.
And on the subject of nudity, God Himself would seem to have been a nudist in that He created mankind in His image. Adam and Eve were created to be naked and without shame (Gen. 2:25). If they had not disobeyed God with the eating of the forbidden fruit, perhaps we would all still be naked and without shame.
Evenso, God still loved nudity and in 2Samuel Chapter 6 after David danced to the Lord in the courtyard with nothing on but a sheer piece of cloth, even Michal (daughter of Saul), David's first wife, ridiculed David for dancing uncovered in front of the handmaidens. However, the Lord obviously did not take kindly to Michal's mockery of David's dancing in the nude as Michal had no children to her death (2Samuel 6:23).
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