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Religion

2006-08-01 09:43:00

With all the mess, are we closer to the end times?

QUESTION: I wonder why God had the Bible and Koran (Quran) written,for all future generations of mankind, by people from around 1500 B.C. to the first few centuries A.D.   Why did He not allow for other people to be so inspired as to write additional books through the present day? Is everything, that any generation ever needs to know, contained in what we already have?

ANSWER: Christians and Jews believe that God moved certain men to set down in writing ideas which He inspired: in order to provide authentic teaching for His people during their journey through life: so that they might come to know and love and serve Him in this life, and so please Him that they deserve to be with Him forever in heaven.
Although every part of the Bible is inspired by God, the written text is authored by human individuals, whose manner of writing and expression reflects their own culture and education and concerns of life. Thus we say the Bible has as author: both the human writer and God inspiring him.  Christians believe that official revelation concluded with the death of St. John the Beloved, the gospel-writer, who died around the year 97 A.D.  Thus the Bible was complete at that time.
Learned Muslims recognize that, during his lifetime their prophet Mohammed himself wrote very little. After his death, his followers collected all the notes, written on parchment or skin or papyrus and even bark of trees by those who heard the Prophet, as well as explored the collective memory of those who had heard Mohammed speak or cited by their ancestors, and gathered these fragments into the book called the Koran (Quran). The collectors of Mohammed’s sayings and teachings did not bother to place them in logical or chronological order; hence the various Sura contain sayings on a variety of topics, frequently unrelated to each other. Gradually this book took on a kind of divine aura, as if God had given it directly from heaven to the Prophet. Copied and re-copied through the centuries, and distributed and read devoutly through-out the Muslim world, this book came to be considered the very words of God.  Just as in the Bible, so in the Koran one can find contradictory statements.  These statements,often used out-of-context, in controversy, have given rise to divisions and even civil wars among the believers.  Many Muslims believe that the Koran is an encyclopedia containing all useful knowledge about Allah (God), the Creator, and his universe. That opinion seems unrealistic.
In view of the immense problems confronting the world community today, it would be most useful if God would resume direct revelation and preferably to a large group of people. In the meantime He has left the interpretation of his inspired writings to weak human believers. For Catholics, that is the function of the Pope and a General Council of the Church. Protestants allow each individual to interpret the Bible according to his/her faith and reason. For Jews, interpretation is made by learned and skilled rabbis, who often disagree among themselves. For Muslims, this duty is left to temporary leaders, although there is no official authority to determine or interpret the Koran.   The interpretation of one leader can be challenged and changed by any other Moslem leader. For example, Osama Bin Laden’s calls for all-out war, which he alleges to be based on the Koran, have been rejected by the majority of Moslem scholars and leaders.  Osama is lying when he pretends to speak for all Muslims.  No one can speak for all Muslims!
As to why God has limited his official revelation to a certain specific period in world history, you must ask God. Certainly, God is able to resume his revelation!   A synod of Jewish rabbis, meeting at Jamnia sometime between the years 90 and 100 A.D. determined which books were to be included in the Old Testament. This was approximately the time of the conclusion of the New Testament. The Muslims consider official revelation concluded with the death of Mohammed.   Probably, these conclusive determinations were made for the sake of truth: to preserve what the believers consider as inspired by God, and to exclude alleged revelations of human origins seeking acceptance into the Canon of Scripture in order to promote a private agenda.  Private revelations from God to certain holy individuals continue in various places and at unexpected times and circumstances.  But these are not official and are not accepted by many believers. The messages in private revelations must not be confused with or preferred to official revelation, about which we can be certain.