Re: ’ From Facts to Fiction ’ a Rebuttal.
In addition to the above said, we can see that TMS states, that the ‘lifespan of man on earth does not extend beyond a hundred and fifty years or so;’ okay, this may be true today, but according to our scriptures there have been humans who lived for millennia. Also, who is saying that Jesus (AS) is on Earth? The days with Allah :swt: are like 1000 or even 50,000 years of our reckoning. This should be evidence enough to support the Qur’an. I find it amazing that TMS requests us for proof when the Qur’an clearly talks of the taking up of Jesus (AS). The verse in question is clear. Allah (SWT) states that Jesus (AS) was not killed, nor was he crucified, but he was ‘called back’ to Allah (SWT), then Allah (SWT) states that He is All-Powerful, All-Wise. You see those who reflect will see that Allah (SWT) is making a point of His Power. There would be no significance of the point had it been just a mere natural departure from the world.
Stepping back slightly, at the top of page 64, a claim is made that the ‘lost sheep of Israel, who after their exodus under Babylonian and Roman invasion, scattered in many eastern lands, were awaiting his ministry.’ However, reading from Matthew 15:21 – A Canaanite woman a gentile (non-Jew) comes to ask Jesus (AS) to have her daughter cured. Jesus (AS) replies, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’ She continues to ask, he terms his ‘curing a miracle’ the ‘food’, he calls his own tribesmen the ‘children’ and any gentile, ‘dogs’. That it would be wrong to give the children’s food to the dogs, but she insists and says even the dogs eats the crumbs off the floor. Confirming her faith, he by Allah (SWT) cures her daughter. Notice Jesus (AS) according to the Bible states, ‘only’ which means his deed thus far were for the Jews of that location. They were the lost sheep. The term lost sheep were therefore no who TMS suggests as the scattered people. Rather they were those who were ‘spiritually’ lost of that location.
In Jeremiah 23:3,4 But the remnant of my flock I myself shall gather from all the countries where I have driven them, … For them I shall raise up sheherds to shepherd them. – Each nation shall have their own prophets.
Jeremiah 25:5 – The message was this, "Turn back, each one of you, from your evil behaviour and your evil actions, and you will go on living on the soil Yahweh long ago gave to you …’
The Bible makes a clear distinction between ‘lost’ and ‘scattered’. Jesus (AS) was already preaching and was so to the ‘children of Israel’. Contrast John 10:16 with John 16:10 and John 16:28.
In John 10:16 the context is that Jesus (AS) is saying, ‘And there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold. I must lead these too.’ Then in John 16:10 Jesus (AS) says, ‘about who was in the right: in that I am going to the Father and you will see me no more;’ The verse in 16:28 is when Jesus (AS) talks to them in ‘unveiled language’ i.e. direct speech and not in parables. He says, ‘I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I am leaving the world to go the Father.’