Archive for December 19th, 2009
7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Though you have not seen him, you love him; ....
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I'm Going To Read The Bible This Year: Day 354 - 1 Peter 1-5
This is the fourth article of the series:
"The Foreigner woman in Bible versus Quran"
Few quotes from the first article of this series are given here.
In language, the foreign or the strange woman is the alien or the exotic or the outsider woman. However, as determined by the Bible (e.g. 1 Kings 11:1), the foreign or the strange woman is the non-Israelite woman.
Subsequently, all non-Israelite women are foreign or strange women.
This indicates that the women in the Bible are but one of two categories; they are either Legitimate or Foreign.
Moreover, the Bible (Ezra 10:2) states that you break faith with God if you marry foreign women.
Ezra 10:2 (English Standard Version):
"…We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land…"
According to the inspired word of God (1 Kings 11:1-11), the Bible says that
- The mouth of the strange woman is a deep pit: He that is abhorred of the Lord, Jehovah, shall fall therein. Why be captivated by a strange woman? Why embrace the bosom of a foreigner? Your eyes will see strange women, and your heart utter perverse things; then, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.
The commandment is a lamp and the law is light to keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman which flatters with her smooth words. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Her (the strange woman) house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. She has cast down many wounded: many strong men have been slain by her.
Herein, there is an interesting remark:
Proverbs 22:14 Says that the mouth of the strange women is a deep pit.
On the other hand, Proverbs 23:27 says that a prostitute is a deep pit…
Proverbs 23:27 (English Standard Version): For the prostitute is a deep pit…
(Read the second article of this series: The Foreigner woman in Bible versus Quran (2)
Meaning-wise, does this indicate that the mouth of the strange women is equivalent to a prostitute?
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On the other hand, all women are equal in Islam.
Historical backgrounds:
There were some historical events that happened before the Quran puts the Law that all men and all women are equal in their duty and responsibilities regardless of their race, color, location etc.
(1) The first event was when Thabit ibn Qays who was hard of hearing and when he came to see the Messenger of Allah, the Companions made room for him in order for him to sit next to the Prophet so that he could hear him. He came one day when people were already seated and started stepping over people, saying: “Make room! Make room!” One man said to him: “You have found a place, so sit down!”
- Immediately, Muhammad said: 'Who mentioned that woman (which Thabit gave her names)?
Thabit stood up and said: 'I did, O Messenger of Allah!'
The Messenger said to him: 'Look at the faces of those present'.
And when he looked, he asked him: 'What do you see?'
He said: 'I see white, red and black people'.
The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Well, you are not better than any of them unless it be through your good deed and faith and God- fearfulness and apprehension.
(2) The second event; on the day Mecca was conquered, Muhammad ordered Bilal (a black Ethiopian slave) to climb on the roof of the Ka'bah and perform the call to prayer.
A man commented on this: 'Praise be to Allah, that Allah has taken my father to Him and made that he did not see this day'.
Another man said: 'Did Muhammad not find any other caller to prayer except this black raven?'
One person said: 'O servants of Allah! How can this black slave be allowed to perform the call to prayer on top of the Ka'bah?'
Another man said: 'If Allah is displeased, He will change him'.
- Muhammad summoned them and asked them about what they said and they admitted it. Allah then revealed this verse warning them against boasting about their lineages and abundance of wealth and against looking down on the poor, the color, the race etc.
(3) The third event; Safiyyah bint Huyayy ibn Akhtab (a Jewish wife of the Prophet Muhammad) went to Muhammad, and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, women revile me, saying: O Jewess, daughter of Jewish parents!’
Muhammad said to her: ‘could you not have said to them in reply: my father is Aaron, my uncle is Moses and my husband is Muhammad’.
In response to such events, Allah revealed Verse 49:11 and 13 of the Quran.
The meaning of Verse 49:11
- Evil is the name, mentioned out of mockery, derision and mutual reviling, of immorality after faith!
And whoever does not repent, of such immorality, those, they are the evildoers.
In other words, do not defame one another nor backbite against each other, nor insult one another by nicknames that he or she dislikes to hear. Bad is the name of lewdness after having accepted faith. And whoso turned not in repentance from doing that after having accepted faith, such are those who are evil-doers and they harm themselves with punishment in the Hereafter.
The meaning of Verse 49:13
O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female from Adam and Eve, and have made you nations and tribes that you may know one another. Lo! The noblest of you in the Hereafter, in the sight of Allah on the Day of Judgment, is the best in conduct in the life of the world Lo! Allah is Knower of your status and lineage; He is Aware of your works and standing in His sight.
In other words, the verse says:
O mankind! We have indeed created you from a male and a female, from Adam and Eve, and made you nations and tribes that you may come to know one another that you may acquire knowledge of the customs of one another and not to boast to one another of whose is the more noble lineage, for pride lies only in the extent to which you have fear of God. Truly the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most God-fearing among you. Beyond doubt, God is Knower of you; He is Aware of your inner thoughts.
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The Bible (King James Version)
Proverbs 5:20
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Proverbs 6:23-24
23For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
Proverbs 7:4-5 and 25-27
4Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman:
5That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
25Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
26For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
27Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
Proverbs 23:33-35
33Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
Proverbs 22:14
14The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein.
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The Quran (Yusuf Ali Translation):
Verse 49:11 and 13
11) O ye who believe! let not some men among you laugh at others: it may be that the (latter) are better than the (former): nor let some women laugh at others: it may be that the (latter are better than the (former): nor defame nor be sarcastic to each other, nor call each other by (offensive) nicknames: ill-seeming is a name connoting wickedness, (to be used of one) after he has believed: and those who do not desist are (indeed) doing wrong.
13) O mankind! we created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. and Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).
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Back to my question to the smart and interested reader:
Are the Scholars honest when they claim that the Quran quoted from the Bible?
Professor Dr. Ibrahim Khalil,
Prof. of Clinical and Chemical Pathology, Head (ex-) of Clinical Microbiology and Infection Control Unit, Ain-Shams University. Cairo, Egypt
President of the Egyptian Society of Inventors, Honorary President of SPIC-Egypt (The Society of Practitioners of Infection Control – Egypt), Co-Chief Editor of the Egyptian Journal of Lab. Medicine
Member of the Egyptian union of Writers, Published 5 Books and some 60 Medical Articles, Supervisors for 79 PhD theses and111 Master Degree theses.
GEORGE HERBERT
George Herbert is one of our great hymn writers. He lived through dramatic times in English history. Although he died at the age of 40 he lived through the reigns of three monarchs – Elizabeth I (1558-1603), James I (1603.1625) and Charles I (1625-1649). Contemporaries of Herbert's were the explorer and circum-navigator of the globe, Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, the first English slave-trader and William Shakespeare. It was an age when Britain was developing into a great sea power. Drake's daring voyages to the little known West Indies opened the way to the treasures to be had from the New World. The great European powers of the time were England, France and Spain. Socially it was a period when the plague visited Britain, followed by famine. The population was heavily taxed to finance the war with Spain. Henry VIII had dissolved the monasteries, many of which deserved their fate. However, the ministry to the poor carried out by the better ones collapsed. Thus a compulsory Poor Tax was imposed in 1597 and well-known institutions were founded – such as Christ Hospital for the education of boys, St. Thomas' and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals for the sick, and Bethlehem (later Bedlam) for the care of the insane. Yet England was full of vagabonds and tramps, travel was not really safe without escort. It was the age of alchemy. Originating independently in Egypt and China, it remained for 1,500 years a legitimate branch of science and philosophy.
This then was the world into which George Herbert was born on the 3rd of April 1593 in Montgomery, Wales. He was one of ten children. After the death of his father his mother raised the children alone. Mrs. Herbert was patron to the Rev'd. John Donne (1571-1631), the 'passionate Dean' of St. Paul's, London.
George Herbert was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He wrote circular verse and sonnets as well as religious composition. He was elected a major Fellow of Trinity, was Reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge and was a public orator. He was elected to represent Montgomery in parliament in 1624-1625. His mother died in 1627 and John Donne gave the funeral oration. Two years later Herbert married Jane Denvers. The following year he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders, becaming Rector of Bermerton by Salisbury. He wrote a great deal and succeeded in rebuilding his church, funding the work partly himself. He helped the poor, becoming known as 'Holy Mr. Herbert' until his death in 1633 from tuberculosis. He is commemorated in the Anglican calendar on 27th February. Some of his best-known hymns are: King of Glory, King of Peace, Let all the world and Teach me my God and King
Our second great hymn writer chronologiocally is Isaac Watts. It had never occurred to me that the writer of such well known hymns in our Anglican hymnals as 'O God our help in ages past', 'Joy to the world', 'When I survey the wondrous cross' and 'Jesus shall reign' could not have been an Anglican. However, an article in the Vienna magazine 'Crossways' has shown me to be mistaken.
He was a prolific hymn writer from an early age, and has some 750 hymns to his name. His propensity for rhyming almost drove his parents to distraction during his childhood years. Watts was born in Southampton in the home of a firm non-conformist. He attended King Edward the VI School where he studied classical languages. Because of his nonconformity entry to Oxford or Cambridge was barred. Thus he became a student at the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690.
He later became the pastor to a large independent chapel in London. He also worked as a private tutor, living with the Hartopp family at Fleetwood House and later with the family of the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Abney. Sir Thomas, although a Dissenter, showed a certain openness towards the Church of England. Watts himself adopted a more interdenominational attitude towards religious belief than was normal for Dissenters of his period.
His textbook on Logic, published in 1724, became the standard work on the subject at Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard for over 100 years. He died in 1748 in Stoke Newington and was buried in the Dissenting Cemetery at Bunhill Fields. His papers were given to Yale University which was largely a Dissenting foundation. He is commemorated in the Church of England Calendar on the 25th of November.
Watts lived in a turbulent period. He lived through the reigns of six kings from the Restoration to the the Hanoverian George II. The Book of Common Prayer, banned under Cromwell, was reintroduced (in almost the form we know it) in 1662. The Declaration of Indulgence allowed Protestant dissenters to worship openly again. He was born just after the Plague and the Great Fire of 1666. Thus Sir Christopher Wren was rebuilding St. Paul's during his lifetime. During these years the Union of England and Scotland was achieved. A dark chapter of these years was the massacre at Glencoe and the crushing of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 and 1745. A number of important charitable movements though also took form during these years. By the time of his death witches were no longer burned
Charles Wesley was born on the 18th December 1707 in Epworth, Lincolnshire – the 18th (and last) child of the Rev'd. Samuel and Susanna Wesley. He was first educated at home by his parents, and later at Westminster School. He went on to Oxford with a Westminster scholarship. While at Oxford he and his brother John formed the Oxford Holy Club in 1729 for the purposes of worship and visiting the sick and those in prison. Its members received the nickname of 'Methodists'. It was at this time that his lasting friendship with George Whitfield began. Charles was made Deacon in the Church of England in 1735. In this same year he, accompanied by his brother John, made his first voyage to the colony of Georgia as part of the entourage of the governor, George Oglethorpe. He returned to England the following year as a result of poor health. His brothers, John and Samuel the Younger, were also ordained as priests of the Church of England.
Charles and John together are considered to be the founders of Methodism, although they did not always agree. In particular Charles was strongly opposed to any breach with the Church of England. Just before his death he sent for the Rector of St. Marylebone Parish Church, in which parish he lived, and said to him, “Sir, whatever the world may say of me, I have lived, and I die, a member of the Church of England. I pray you bury me in your churchyard.” On his death, his coffin was carried to the church by eight clergymen of the Church of England. In 1749 he married Sarah Gwynne. She was much younger than Charles. They had eight children together of whom only three sons survived infancy. Sarah accompanied Charles and John on their preaching tours throughout Britain until Charles ceased to travel in 1765. In the course of his life Charles wrote the words for over 7,000 hymns. 5,500 of these he published during his lifetime. It is sometimes said that these hymns had as much impact on the mission of the two brothers as the preaching of John. Many of these hymns are still commonly sung today. They include: And can it be that I should gain?; Christ the Lord is risen today; Christ whose glory fills the skies; Come, Thou long-expected Jesus; Hail! The day that sees him rise; Hark the herald angels sing; Jesu, Lover of my soul; Lo! He comes with clouds descending; O for a thousand tongues to sing; Rejoice, the Lord is King; Soldiers of Christ, arise; Jesus, from whom all blessings flow; Come, Holy Ghost our hearts inspire; Forth in Thy name O Lord.
Dr Simon Harding
www.biblon.com
www.chronosoil.com
Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/christianity-articles/great-hymn-writers-part-1-1599996.html
