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Different Books
North Miami Beach, FL May 11, 2002
A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
DIFFERENT BOOKS
We seem to judge books as all the same because they all have covers.
In examining the "original" text scholars and scientists show how the words
contained come from many different sources - from civilizations that
flourished in the same area for countless generations. Holy books are
deemed to contain words of God or at least presumptions about behavior of
God's children. Each contains lessons about how to live.
In Today's NY Times Nicholas Kristof made the distinction that the
Quran, the "Holy Book" containing the words of Mohammad, is not a book of
laws but a book of "exhortations". This leads to thoughts about the
difference in the books held sacred by the major "revealed" religions. It
does not matter what a scientist or scholar may say about the structure or
content of special writings because if those writings are believed to be
"sacred" then followers will accept even unclear, confusing or contradictory
sentences from out of the past as divinely inspired.
The "Torah" consists of the words spoken by God to Moses on Mount
Sinai in the desert at a time about 1000 years before the common calendar.
All the rest of the words in the 5 books of Moses were revealed as the
history of the Hebrew People, their journey into freedom and their pathway
to a promised land. They were depicted once as nomads then builders of a
kingdom and monarchy and their subsequent defeat by the super powers of the
ancient Fertile Crescent.
The "New Testament" corrects the Hebrew Bible by showing how it
predicted the eventual emergence of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, a
descendant of David, the first real king of the Jews. The story of Jesus
recounts various disciples' gospels as to the birth and death of a man who
lived 32 years and who was executed by Romans upon the direction of a
religious court. His teachings to his followers have been interpreted to
mean breaking away from the earlier teachings of the Jews and to embrace the
gentile world as receiving the message of God the Father. Jesus as the son
of God was thus anathema to the Jews. The break between the two religions
began when Paul and others declared the messiah had come and the laws of
Moses no longer had to be followed.
Unlike the ascription to Moses as the author of the whole of the
Torah, the New Testament is the transcription of the words of Jesus as
remembered by his companions and followers. To Christians the "Holy Book"
is a combination of the Hebrew Bible and the writings of the authors of
different chapters or "gospels".
Mohammad's revelation was that Allah spoke to him on a starry
night and told him to convert his family and followers from paganism to the
worship of one God. Mohammad knew the religions of the Hebrews and
Christians and devised an ethical monotheism. Mohammad's religious writings
took the form of exhortations (suras) of how to lead a virtuous life. The
Quran is the most difficult book for Westerners to read and understand. It
is clear that the holy journey (jihad) from Medina to Mecca, the capture and
elevation of the Kaaba as central to the religious observance of all Islam
and the subsequent effort to bring all peoples under the rule of Allah is
the message in Mohammad's writings.
A little over one thousand years covers the distance between the
Hebrew Bible to the Quran. Messages become less relevant as time passes.
Sometimes meanings are lost in modern translations of restive people.
Different books over time had basically contained the same message
for all peoples. Despite a Moses, Jesus and Mohammad the story each tells
is of an omnipotent, omnipresent and personal single God who is God at the
same time for all people who are God's children and who are also brothers
and sisters to each other.
These books have not been brought up to date to tell of the
dysfunctional family that has resulted.
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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