I’m very sorry this is late…I’m just catching up…and I’m disappointed that no one actually answered your assertion that Acts 10:28 is a boldfaced lie. If you would only look up the word “foreigner” in a searchable bible, and check out the many references…you might see that although there certainly is no prohibition against speaking with a foreigner, per se, there certainly were cultural prohibitions that were indeed recorded in the Septuagint (speaking of which, according to Biblegateway,

Psalm 40:6 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but my ears you have pierced [a] , [b] ;
burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not require.

Psalm 40:6 Hebrew; Septuagint but a body you have prepared for me (see also Symmachus and Theodotion)

Deuteronomy 14:21
” You shall not eat anything which dies of itself You may give it to the alien who is in your town, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the LORD your God You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

Leviticus 22:25
“…nor shall you accept any such from the hand of a foreigner for offering as the food of your God; for their corruption is in them, they have a defect, they shall not be accepted for you.’”

The list goes on and on and on. There’s certainly evidence that Peter was not telling a boldfaced lie, by any stretch of the imagination–and certainly there is no attack upon Judaism here.

There is no lie in Acts, and I do not see why it should be considered so.

RiverCocytus on March 11, 2008 at 8:10 AM

To quote Acts 10:28, using the KJV:

“And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation”

There are no such prohibitions. Simply false, either out of malice or ignorance – but you can take your pick.

If you are Jewish, its contents themselves are mostly of no concern to you, since Saint Peter and company broke off from what was mainstream Judaism anyway.

I care very little when someone wants to preach something I don’t believe in but if they conveniently twist my religion to achieve their goals, it becomes my concern and that of every Jew.

Must I remind you that the truth will set you free?

There is no lie in Acts, and I do not see why it should be considered so. If you are Jewish, its contents themselves are mostly of no concern to you, since Saint Peter and company broke off from what was mainstream Judaism anyway.

Robert, thank you again for your excellently researched and well-balanced account. As we say, May God grant you many years.

Were any of the “tests” that Muhammad went through recorded elsewhere?

No, there aren’t even any contemporary non-Muslim records of Muhammad.

Why would Ibn-Kathir assume this was “pre-Christian” when Muhammed lived six centuries after Christ, and three after Constantine? Something that supposedly happened 300 years before could easily have passed into folklore so quickly.

Good question. I guess he was assuming that the two groups had no contact with each other.

Also, why does the “perfect book,” the Quran, not have a definitive answer for the number of sleepers? If Muhammed was fuzzy on the number of people involved, clearly Allah wasn’t communicating with him very clearly or Allah was suffering from some form of memory disorder, or… Muhammed wasn’t a true prophet after all…

Well, this is no problem from the standpoint of Muslim belief. Allah simply didn’t will to reveal the actual number. That’s all.

The only specific “prophesy” of Mohammad is in the Bukhari hadiths- 2; 26; 666.

There are others. For example, he prophesied that Islam would conquer Constantinople and then Rome. And of course, he famously prophesied that the end times would be ushered in by a Muslim genocide of Jews. And there are still others.

Are they restricted from watching animations or cartoons, then?

Generally considered OK — or at least widely produced. See, for example, here.

HeIsSailing on March 9, 2008 at 4:19 PM
Robert Spencer on March 9, 2008 at 5:24 PM

It was also a statement against any prejudice me might’ve held against gentiles, since shortly there after the emmisaries from Cornielius arrived to take him to Ceasarea.

If he tells you about these things, then he is a Prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit

Were any of the “tests” that Muhammad went through recorded elsewhere? It would seem rather dubious if every testing Muhammad went through was only recorded and verified by himself or his word alone.

This also seems like a real open ended test, perhaps there is more to the story than I am reading. As I don’t see how he passed any test if they said “have him tell you a story” and he tells them a story.

(Ibn Kathir, however, thinks the story is pre-Christian, since the Jewish rabbis know of it and ask Muhammad about it as one of their tests of his prophethood.)

Why would Ibn-Kathir assume this was “pre-Christian” when Muhammed lived six centuries after Christ, and three after Constantine? Something that supposedly happened 300 years before could easily have passed into folklore so quickly.

Well, two questions, actually:
Also, why does the “perfect book,” the Quran, not have a definitive answer for the number of sleepers? If Muhammed was fuzzy on the number of people involved, clearly Allah wasn’t communicating with him very clearly or Allah was suffering from some form of memory disorder, or… Muhammed wasn’t a true prophet after all…

Tony737 on March 9, 2008 at 10:34 AM

We had a dog in Mehtar Lam, Afghanistan that would bight any and every Afghan it saw (even those who’d spent the last thirty years in America). All other nationalities were welcome to give her belly rubs.

As for my own understanding, the kosher laws were part of the sacrificial system, since only clean animals could be sacrificed.

Bigfoot on March 10, 2008 at 8:08 AM

Just one problem with your theory. Explain why the kosher laws include fish and locusts as well, which are never brought as an offering. Same is true for numerous kosher species of bird and fowl, which are ineligible as offerings in the Temple.

Yes, whatever living birds and animals are legitmate for offerings are indeed kosher but kashrut laws are a prerequisite of animal and bird offering laws and not vice versa.

And we haven’t even begun to discuss atonement for poor people by bringing an offering of flour – no animal, no bird, no blood.

Their true end would have come when Christ died on the cross, which abolished the sacrificial system.

Yet sacrifices continued until the destruction of the Temple. And Hebrews 10:5 is a blatant mistranslation of Psalm 40:6. Paul never failed to misquote when it suited him.

Prophesying that “a thin-legged black man from Ethiopia will tear down the Ka’aba, stone by stone“.

Still waiting…

No, contemporary authorities such as Sheikh Al-Qaradawi have generally allowed for these. The argument is that the prohibition of representation is designed to keep human beings from imitating Allah’s creative act. But a photograph, and by extension television etc., does not involve imitating Allah’s creative act, but merely records Allah’s creative work. Thus they are OK.

Robert Spencer on March 9, 2008 at 4:53 PM

Are they restricted from watching animations or cartoons, then?

This is a terrific series.

Thanks. And I was trying to find the passage where in a vision or dream one of the Apostles (Paul? Peter?) is shown that ALL living things were cleansed before God’s eyes. I cannot find it though. Therefore dogs and all other living things are clean and worthy.

Fact check me though, and correct me if I am wrong.

CrimsonFisted on March 9, 2008 at 4:08 PM

Ok, let me see what I can come up with.

In Acts 7, Jesus says that what makes a man unclean is not what goes into him, but what comes out of him. In verse 19, it says “Thus He declared all foods clean” or “purging all meats”, depending on the translation. However, there are no dreaming apostles in this passage.

In Acts 10, Peter goes into a trance, sees a vision of all kinds of creatures, and a voice tells him to eat. He refuses, saying that he has never eaten anything unclean. The voice replies “what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” He then meets Cornelius, a Gentile who has sought him out. Peter realizes, in verse 28, that he must not call any man unclean. Thus, the vision is thought to be an analogy, the previously unclean animals representing non-Jews.

As for my own understanding, the kosher laws were part of the sacrificial system, since only clean animals could be sacrificed. Their true end would have come when Christ died on the cross, which abolished the sacrificial system.

As someone studying the Eastern Roman Empire, I’m seeing a lot of cultural transfusion, assimilation, and exclusion. At the time of the Islamic conquests outside Arabia, was there a clear meaning of Islam?

That’s not known for certain. The orthodox Islamic perspective is that yes, certainly there was: the Muslims came out of Arabia with the Qur’an and the traditions of Muhammad, albeit with the latter not yet codified, and thus they brought Islam with them.

However, the fact that the Al-Aqsa Mosque contains inscriptions that are not Qur’anic, plus other considerations including the inchoate state of the Qur’an’s earliest manuscripts, which do not separate the words or contain pointing (leading to a multiplicity of possibilities for the text and its meaning), has led some scholars (notably Christoph Luxenberg) to conclude that the Arabs did not have Islam at the time of the early conquests, but rather cobbled it together out of various available materials in order to justify the conquest and give the conquerors their own religion to compete with those of the Byzantines and Persians.

I think this is a fascinating possibility, well worth further investigation.

What I mean is that for Judaism, one has to have a Jewish mother. For Christianity, one has to know and belief in the decrees of Christ. But for Islam, all that is needed is to state “One god, and Mohammad is his prophet”.

Judaism/Christianity having the “one god” part, couldn’t there be a mix with some Christians and Jews saying “hey, maybe Mohammad had some things going and was God’s prophet”, and some Muslims saying “Jesus was an ok guy, too”. Hence when Muslims invaded Syria, they were met with a population receptive (especially after the Constantinople declaring them heathens for not believing in the “correct” Christ) and lines began to blur.

Lines like this always blur. There is some evidence that in the Qur’an there is an attempt to reconcile several competing theological positions by giving everyone a bit of what he wants: the Jewish prophets but also Jesus, albeit not Jesus as a Savior. Instead, Jesus not crucified (as per the Gnostics) and Jesus not divine (as per the Arians) — both heretical groups that had at least in some numbers left the Empire for Arabia.

B. If clerics were beginning to worry about a blurring of the faiths, and potentially Islam becoming a sub-sect of Christianity, how did they take steps to combat it?

I don’t think this was ever a worry. The earliest Islamic texts, from whatever standpoint, present themselves as a correction of and rebuke to Christianity.

C. I was listening to some Muslim students talk in the defense of the burqa, comparing it to the headscarf of Mary, and a rebuttal that the burqa concept probably came from Syriac Christians. Is there any historical evidence to support either claim, and that Muslims have assimilated something they liked.

Sure. The problem with this as a defense of the burqa, however, is that Syrian Christian women don’t wear it today (except when under Islamic pressure or influence), while Muslim women do. It is founded on the authority of Muhammad in the Hadith, not on the Syrian Christians’ example. Muslims assimilated many non-Muslim things they liked (most notably the Ka’aba) but this assimilation has to be ratified in all cases by Qur’anic word or the word of Muhammad.

A.

This is an adaptation of the Christian story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus

As someone studying the Eastern Roman Empire, I’m seeing a lot of cultural transfusion, assimilation, and exclusion. At the time of the Islamic conquests outside Arabia, was there a clear meaning of Islam?

What I mean is that for Judaism, one has to have a Jewish mother. For Christianity, one has to know and belief in the decrees of Christ. But for Islam, all that is needed is to state “One god, and Mohammad is his prophet”.

Judaism/Christianity having the “one god” part, couldn’t there be a mix with some Christians and Jews saying “hey, maybe Mohammad had some things going and was God’s prophet”, and some Muslims saying “Jesus was an ok guy, too”. Hence when Muslims invaded Syria, they were met with a population receptive (especially after the Constantinople declaring them heathens for not believing in the “correct” Christ) and lines began to blur.

B. If clerics were beginning to worry about a blurring of the faiths, and potentially Islam becoming a sub-sect of Christianity, how did they take steps to combat it?

C. I was listening to some Muslim students talk in the defense of the burqa, comparing it to the headscarf of Mary, and a rebuttal that the burqa concept probably came from Syriac Christians. Is there any historical evidence to support either claim, and that Muslims have assimilated something they liked.

After Irving became financially independent due to the publication of his short stories such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle he traveled to Europe and Spain looking for fresh material. He wrote biographies of various notable people. In Madrid’s archives, which is rich in manuscripts and history of the Moorish influence, he did research on Muhammad and published a biography of Muhammad. He also published a book on the people who came after Muhammed.

I have a copy of the Muhammad biography written around 1850, and it appears to be a fair and balanced view of Muhammed discussing his strong and his weak points. Washington Irving had no ax to grind, but simple wanted to give an accurate account of the man based upon the information available at that time. It’s a fascinating account of Muhammed.

I’m sure all Islam would be grateful if a movie was made using this book as basis for a screenplay on the life of Muhammad – just as they appreciated the El Cid movie. A picture is worth a thousand words. Where is director Van Gogh when you need him? Hmmm, I guess it’s more aptly said RIP Van Gogh instead of Rip Van Winkle.

Immediately after recieving the vision, Peter is hailed from downstairs by visitors. They invite him to the house of a gentile–a no no under Mosaic law.

TexasDan on March 9, 2008 at 7:02 PM

Acts 10:28 is a baldfaced lie and its motivation is obvious. Verse 35 happens to be correct.

TexasDan on March 9, 2008 at 7:02 PM

hmmm.. I never thought about it that way – I mean with respect to the Gentile house he was visiting (House of Cornelius, I think? – going off memory here). That does make quite a bit of sense, but I’ll have to re-read those passages. Thanks for the insight!!

I can’t think of a truer friend than any of the dogs I’ve ever owned. Yet another reason why I could never be a Muslim.

irishspy on March 9, 2008 at 7:12 PM

I still miss them, lo these many years later. She would lay with me when I was sick, follow me anywhere, kept me company, and fended off intruders. The other was blond and beautiful and happy all the time.

, I think it is just left up to the reader to figure it out – and by linking together with the council in chapter 15, that is not too tough.

HeIsSailing on March 9, 2008 at 6:15 PM

Not really. Immediately after recieving the vision, Peter is hailed from downstairs by visitors. They invite him to the house of a gentile–a no no under Mosaic law.

Peter goes, and if you read the story the Holy Spirit falls on the inhabitants of the house as he is preaching. Peter’s takeaway from this event is that they are clean, made holy. This was a revolutionary concept and he ended up having to defend this position to the rest of the apostles. The vision has to be understood in the context of what was happening to Peter at the time, and what happenend to him immediately afterward. I don’t think it was a bit hazy to him, nor was it to the Jews of the day.

The NT and all Christian traditions agree that the vision was designed to indicate that Christians were not to be bound by Mosaic food laws…

Yes, I also agree with this traditional interpretation – I think that is the point the author of Acts is trying to make with the vision. Rather than giving an explaination of the vision, I think it is just left up to the reader to figure it out – and by linking together with the council in chapter 15, that is not too tough.

Robert Spencer on March 9, 2008 at 5:24 PM

Thanks again, I should learn to read ALL comments first.