} I assume from the title of your Bible commentary page that you have at least
} some familiarity with Islam. If so, perhaps you are familiar with 54:1 in
} the Qur'an that makes a reference to the rending of the moon asunder.
} Muslims claim that this is a reference to a miracle that Muhammed performed
} when he actually rent the moon asunder. My version of the Qur'an has a
} lengthy footnote at this verse, which gives the names of eyewitnesses who
} claimed that they saw this event and witnessed the peak of Mount Hira
} projecting between the two pieces of the moon. Do you believe that this
} event happened? If not, why not? Would your rejection of it be based at
} least in part on the fact that it would have been an extremely supernatural
} event whose acceptance requires a bit more than just the mere say so of
} alleged witnesses that such an event as this happened? If so, then are you
} sickened by your own anti-supernaturalism when there is an answer to any
} objections that you or anyone else can make to this Islamic claim? That
} answer is simple: Allah could easily have enabled Muhammed to perform this
} miracle.
KATZ
Hm, Adnan you might ask Mr. Till for me what version of the Qur'an he has?
My version doesn't have these detailed notes and I might get myself another
version for comparison.
Every miracle as to come with "appropriate" testimony. The Persians,
the Chinese etc were eagerly watching the sky. This would have been
recorded. Why do we not find any independent records?
Furthermore, my footnotes [Yusuf Ali] gives also the alternative of
reading this as a future and not a past event. He gives several
possiblities and doesn't commit himself and there are a substantial
number of Muslims who read this to be a future event. And that is
consistent with the text becase "the hour" is (nearly) always used
for the end of the world/coming of Jesus.
A virgin birth is not something that can be witnessed widely. Most
births are only witnessed by the mother maybe father and some sort
of doctor and / or nurse. And then there is no way to ascertain
the issue if there was no father. This is an issue that depends
totally on the trustworthiness of the report of one or two
witnesses, Mary and Joseph (his dream info), and/or the evangelists
who record it for us.
Since I have no reason to doubt this testimony I am going to take it
at face value. But I am personally not going to built any apologetics
on it.
Now, a split moon is something that shouldn't only be seen by two
people, on top of it, the hadith on which this report probably depends
only have been collected about 200 years after the death of Muhammad,
that is surely a bit different to the gospel accounts.
In any case, this particular verse is very cryptic and much debated in
regard to what it even means, ... but it if should mean that it was a
past event, then there is certainly the question why there is no
independent witness to such a momentous event.
Regards,
Jochen Katz