Introduction

Each of the three monotheistic religions possess itsown collection of Scriptures. For the faithful-be theyJews, Christians or Muslims-these documents constitutethe foundation of their belief. For them they are thematerial transcription of a divine Revelation; directly,as in the case of Abraham and Moses, who received thecommandments from God Himself, or indirectly, as in thecase of Jesus and Muhammad, the first of whom stated thathe was speaking in the name of the Father, and the secondof whom transmitted to men the Revelation imparted to himby Archangel Gabriel.

If we take into consideration the objective facts ofreligious history, we must place the Old Testament, theGospels and the Qur’an on the same level as beingcollections of written Revelation. Although this attitudeis in principle held by Muslims, the faithful in the Westunder the predominantly Judeo-Christian influence refuseto ascribe to the Qur’an the character of a book ofRevelation.

Such an attitude may be explained by the position eachreligious community adopts towards the other two withregard to the Scriptures.

Judaism has as its holy book the Hebraic Bible. Thisdiffers from the Old Testament of the Christians in thatthe latter have included several books which did notexist in Hebrew. In practice, this divergence hardlymakes any difference to the doctrine. Judaism does nothowever admit any revelation subsequent to its own.

Christianity has taken the Hebraic Bible for itselfand added a few supplements to it. It has not howeveraccepted all the published writings destined to makeknown to men the Mission of Jesus. The Church has madeincisive cuts in the profusion of books relating the lifeand teachings of Jesus. It has only preserved a limitednumber of writings in the New Testament, the mostimportant of which are the four Canonic Gospels.Christianity takes no account of any revelationsubsequent to Jesus and his Apostles. It therefore rulesout the Qur’an.

The Qur’anic Revelation appeared six centuries afterJesus. It resumes numerous data found in the HebraicBible and the Gospels since it quotes very frequentlyfrom the ‘Torah’ [ What is meant by Torah are the first five books ofthe Bible, in other words the Pentateuch of Moses(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).] and the ‘Gospels.’ The Qur’an directsall Muslims to believe in the Scriptures that precede it (sura 4, verse 136). It stresses the important positionoccupied in the Revelation by God’s emissaries, such asNoah, Abraham, Moses, the Prophets and Jesus, to whomthey allocate a special position. His birth is describedin the Qur’an, and likewise in the Gospels, as asupernatural event. Mary is also given a special place,as indicated by the fact that sura 19 bears her name.

The above facts concerning Islam are not generallyknown in the West. This is hardly surprising, when weconsider the way so many generations in the West wereinstructed in the religious problems facing humanity andthe ignorance in which they were kept about anythingrelated to Islam. The use of such terms as ‘Mohammedanreligion’ and ‘Mohammedans’ has been instrumental-even tothe present day-in maintaining the false notion thatbeliefs were involved that were spread by the work of manamong which God (in the Christian sense) had no place.Many cultivated people today are interested in thephilosophical, social and political aspects of Islam, butthey do not pause to inquire about the Islamic Revelationitself, as indeed they should.

In what contempt the Muslims are held by certainChristian circles! I experienced this when I tried tostart an exchange of ideas arising from a comparativeanalysis of Biblical and Qur’anic stories on the sametheme. I noted a systematic refusal, even for thepurposes of simple reflection, to take any account ofwhat the Qur’an had to say on the subject in hand. It isas if a quote from the Qur’an were a reference to theDevil!

A noticeable change seems however to be under waythese days at the highest levels of the Christian world.The Office for Non-Christian Affairs at the Vatican hasproduced a document result. from the Second VaticanCouncil under the French title Orientations pour undialogue entre Chrétiens et Musulmans [Pub.Ancora, Rome.].

(Orientations for a Dialogue between Christians andMuslims), third French edition dated 1970, which bearswitness to the profound change in official attitude. Oncethe document has invited the reader to clear away the”out-dated image, inherited from the past, ordistorted by prejudice and slander” that Christianshave of Islam, the Vatican document proceeds to”recognize the past injustice towards the Muslimsfor which the West, with its Christian education, is toblame”. It also criticizes the misconceptionsChristians have been under concerning Muslim fatalism,Islamic legalism, fanaticism, etc. It stresses belief inunity of God and reminds us how surprised the audiencewas at the Muslim University of Al Azhar, Cairo, whenCardinal Koenig proclaimed this unity at the Great Mosqueduring an official conference in March, 1969. It remindsus also that the Vatican Office in 1967 invitedChristians to offer their best wishes to Muslims at theend of the Fast of Ramadan with “genuine religiousworth”.

Such preliminary steps towards a closer relationshipbetween the Roman Catholic Curia and Islam have beenfollowed by various manifestations and consolidated byencounters between the two. There has been, however,little publicity accorded to events of such greatimportance in the western world, where they took placeand where there are ample means of communication in theform of press, radio and television.

The newspapers gave little coverage to the officialvisit of Cardinal Pignedoli, the President of the VaticanOffice of Non-Christian Affairs, on 24th April, 1974, toKing Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The French newspaper LeMonde on 25th April, 1974, dealt with it in a fewlines. What momentous news they contain, however, when weread how the Cardinal conveyed to the Sovereign a messagefrom Pope Paul VI expressing “the regards of HisHoliness, moved by a profound belief in the unificationof Islamic and Christian worlds in the worship of asingle God, to His Majesty King Faisal as supreme head ofthe Islamic world”. Six months later, in October1974, the Pope received the official visit to the Vaticanof the Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia. It occasioned adialogue between Christians and Muslims on the”Cultural Rights of Man in Islam”. The Vaticannewspaper, Observatore Romano, on 26th October,1974, reported this historic event in a front page storythat took up more space than the report on the closingday of the meeting held by the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

The Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia were afterwardsreceived by the Ecumenical Council of Churches of Genevaand by the Lord Bishop of Strasbourg, His GraceElchinger. The Bishop invited them to join in middayprayer before him in his cathedral. The fact that theevent Was reported seems to be more on account of itsunusual nature than because of its considerable religioussignificance. At all events, among those whom Iquestioned about this religious manifestation, there werevery few who replied that they were aware of it.

The open-minded attitude Pope Paul VI has towardsIslam will certainly become a milestone in the relationsbetween the two religions. He himself Mid that he was”moved by a profound belief in the unification ofthe Islamic and Christian worlds in the worship of asingle God”. This reminder of the sentiments of thehead of the Catholic Church concerning Muslims is indeednecessary. Far too many Christians, brought up in aspirit of open hostility, are against any reflectionabout Islam on principle. The Vatican document notes thiswith regret. It is on account of this that they remaintotally ignorant of what Islam is in reality, and retainnotions about the Islamic Revelation which are entirelymistaken.

Nevertheless, when studying an aspect of theRevelation of a monotheistic religion, it seems quite inorder to compare what the other two have to say on thesame subject. A comprehensive study of a problem is moreinteresting than a compartmentalized one. Theconfrontation between certain subjects dealt with in theScriptures and the facts of 20th century science willtherefore, in this work, include all three religions. Inaddition it will be useful to realize that the threereligions should form a tighter block by virtue of theircloser relationship at a time when they are allthreatened by the onslaught of materialism. The notionthat science and religion are incompatible is as equallyprevalent in countries under the Judeo-Christianinfluence as in the world of Islam-especially inscientific circles. If this question were to be dealtwith comprehensively, a series of lengthy exposes wouldbe necessary. In this work, I intend to tackle only oneaspect of it: the examination of the Scripturesthemselves in the light of modern scientific knowledge.

Before proceeding with our task, we must ask afundamental question: How authentic are today’s texts? Itis a question which entails an examination of thecircumstances surrounding their composition and the wayin which they have come down to us.

In the West the critical study of the Scriptures issomething quite recent. For hundreds of years people werecontent to accept the Bible-both Old and NewTestaments-as it was. A reading produced nothing morethan remarks vindicating it. It would have been a sin tolevel the slightest criticism at it. The clergy werepriviledged in that they were easily able to have acomprehensive knowledge of the Bible, while the majorityof laymen heard only selected readings as part of asermon or the liturgy.

Raised to the level of a specialized study, textualcriticism has been valuable in uncovering anddisseminating problems which are often very serious. Howdisappointing it is therefore to read works of aso-called critical nature which, when faced with veryreal problems of interpretation, merely provide passagesof an apologetical nature by means of which the authorcontrives to hide his dilemma. Whoever retains hisobjective judgment and power of thought at such a momentwill not find the improbabilities and contradictions anythe less persistent. One can only regret an attitudewhich, in the face of all logical reason, upholds certainpassages in the Biblical Scriptures even though they areriddled with errors. It can exercise an extremelydamaging influence upon the cultivated mind with regardto belief in God. Experience shows however that even ifthe few are able to distinguish fallacies of this kind,the vast majority of Christians have never taken anyaccount of such incompatibilities with their secularknowledge, even though they are often very elementary.

Islam has something relatively comparable to theGospels in some of the Hadiths. These are the collectedsayings of Muhammad and stories of his deeds. The Gospelsare nothing other than this for Jesus. Some of thecollections of Hadiths were written decades after thedeath of Muhammad, just as the Gospels were writtendecades after Jesus. In both cases they bear humanwitness to events in the past. We shall see how, contraryto what many people think, the authors of the fourCanonic Gospels were not the witnesses of the events theyrelate. The same is true of the Hadiths referred to atthe end of this book.

Here the comparison must end because even if theauthenticity of such-and-such a Hadith has been discussedand is still under discussion, in the early centuries ofthe Church the problem of the vast number of Gospels wasdefinitively decided. Only four of them were proclaimedofficial, or canonic, in spite of the many points onwhich they do not agree, and order was given for the restto be concealed; hence the term ‘Apocrypha’.

Another fundamental difference in the Scriptures ofChristianity and Islam is the fact that Christianity doesnot have a text which is both revealed and written down.Islam, however, has the Qur’an which fits thisdescription.

The Qur’an is the expression of the Revelation made toMuhammad by the Archangel Gabriel, which was immediatelytaken down, and was memorized and recited by the faithfulin their prayers, especially during the month of Ramadan.Muhammad himself arranged it into suras, and these werecollected soon after the death of the Prophet, to form,under the rule of Caliph Uthman (12 to 24 years after theProphet’s death), the text we know today.

In contrast to this, the Christian Revelation is basedon numerous indirect human accounts. We do not in facthave an eyewitness account from the life of Jesus,contrary to what many Christians imagine. The question ofthe authenticity of the Christian and Islamic texts hasthus now been formulated.

The confrontation between the texts of the Scripturesand scientific data has always provided man with food forthought.

It was at first held that corroboration between thescriptures and science was a necessary element to theauthenticity of the sacred text. Saint Augustine, inletter No. 82, which we shall quote later on, formallyestablished this principle. As science progressed howeverit became clear that there were discrepancies betweenBiblical Scripture and science. It was therefore decidedthat comparison would no longer be made. Thus a situationarose which today, we are forced to admit, puts Biblicalexegetes and scientists in opposition to one another. Wecannot, after all, accept a divine Revelation makingstatements which are totally inaccurate. There was onlyone way of logically reconciling the two; it lay in notconsidering a passage containing unacceptable scientificdata to be genuine. This solution was not adopted.Instead, the integrity of the text was stubbornlymaintained and experts were obliged to adopt a positionon the truth of the Biblical Scriptures which, for thescientist, is hardly tenable.

Like Saint Augustine for the Bible, Islam has alwaysassumed that the data contained in the Holy Scriptureswere in agreement with scientific fact. A modernexamination of the Islamic Revelation has not caused achange in this position. As we shall see later on, theQur’an deals with many subjects of interest to science,far more in fact than the Bible. There is no comparisonbetween the limited number of Biblical statements whichlead to a confrontation With science, and the profusionof subjects mentioned in the Qur’an that are of ascientific nature. None of the latter can be contestedfrom a scientific point of view. this is the basic factthat emerges from our study. We shall see at the end ofthis work that such is not the case for the Hadiths.These are collections of the Prophet’s sayings, set asidefrom the Qur’anic Revelation, certain of which arescientifically unacceptable. The Hadiths in question havebeen under study in accordance with the strict principlesof the Qur’an which dictate that science and reasonshould always be referred to, if necessary to deprivethem of any authenticity.

These reflections on the scientifically acceptable orunacceptable nature of a certain Scripture need someexplanation. It must be stressed that when scientificdata are discussed here, what is meant is data definitelyestablished. This consideration rules out any explanatorytheories, once useful in illuminating a phenomenon andeasily dispensed with to make way for furtherexplanations more in keeping with scientific progress.What I intend to consider here are incontrovertible factsand even if science can only provide incomplete data,they will nevertheless be sufficiently well establishedto be used Without fear of error.

Scientists do not, for example, have even anapproximate date for man’s appearance on Earth. They havehowever discovered remains of human works which we cansituate beyond a shadow of a doubt at before the tenthmillenium B.C. Hence we cannot consider the Biblicalreality on this subject to be compatible with science. Inthe Biblical text of Genesis, the dates and genealogiesgiven would place man’s origins (i.e. the creation ofAdam) at roughly thirty-seven centuries B.C. In thefuture, science may be able to provide us with data thatare more precise than our present calculations, but wemay rest assured that it will never tell us that manfirst appeared on Earth 6,786 years ago, as does theHebraic calendar for 1976. The Biblical data concerningthe antiquity of man are therefore inaccurate.

This confrontation with science excludes all religiousproblems in the true sense of the word. Science does not,for example, have any explanation of the process wherebyGod manifested Himself to Moses. The same may be said forthe mystery surrounding the manner in which Jesus wasborn in the absence of a biological father. TheScriptures moreover give no material explanation of suchdata. This present study is concerned With what theScriptures tell us about extremely varied naturalphenomena, which they surround to a lesser or greaterextent with commentaries and explanations. With this inmind, we must note the contrast between the richabundance of information on a given subject in theQur’anic Revelation and the modesty of the other tworevelations on the same subject.

It was in a totally objective spirit, and without anypreconceived ideas that I first examined the Qur’anicRevelation. I was looking for the degree of compatibilitybetween the Qur’anic text and the data of modern science.I knew from translations that the Qur’an often madeallusion to all sorts of natural phenomena, but I hadonly a summary knowledge of it. It was only when Iexamined the text very closely in Arabic that I kept alist of them at the end of which I had to acknowledge theevidence in front of me: the Qur’an did not contain asingle statement that was assailable from a modernscientific point of view.

I repeated the same test for the Old Testament and theGospels, always preserving the same objective outlook. Inthe former I did not even have to go beyond the firstbook, Genesis, to find statements totally out of keepingWith the cast-iron facts of modern science.

On opening the Gospels, one is immediately confrontedwith a serious problem. On the first page we find thegenealogy of Jesus, but Matthew’s text is in evidentcontradiction to Luke’s on the same question. There is afurther problem in that the latter’s data on theantiquity of man on Earth are incompatible with modernknowledge.

The existence of these contradictions, improbabilitiesand incompatibilities does not seem to me to detract fromthe belief in God. They involve only man’sresponsibility. No one can say what the original textsmight have been, or identify imaginative editing,deliberate manipulations of them by men, or unintentionalmodification of the Scriptures. What strikes us today.when we realize Biblical contradictions andincompatibilities with well-established scientific data,is how specialists studying the texts either pretend tobe unaware of them, or else draw attention to thesedefects then try to camouflage them with dialecticacrobatics. When we come to the Gospels according toMatthew and John, I shall provide examples of thisbrilliant use of apologetical turns of phrase by eminentexperts in exegesis. Often the attempt to camouflage animprobability or a contradiction, prudishly called a’difficulty’, is successful. This explains why so manyChristians are unaware of the serious defects containedin the Old Testament and the Gospels. The reader willfind precise examples of these in the first and secondparts of this work.

In the third part, there is the illustration of anunusual application of science to a holy Scripture, thecontribution of modern secular knowledge to a betterunderstanding of certain verses in the Qur’an which untilnow have remained enigmatic, if not incomprehensible. Whyshould we be surprised at this when we know that, forIslam, religion and science have always been consideredtwin sisters? From the very beginning, Islam directedpeople to cultivate science; the application of thisprecept brought with it the prodigious strides in sciencetaken during the great era of Islamic civilization, fromwhich, before the Renaissance, the West itself benefited.In the confrontation between the Scriptures and science ahigh point of understanding has been reached owing to thelight thrown on Qur’anic passages by modern scientificknowledge. Previously these passages were obscure owningto the non-availability of knowledge which could helpinterpret them.