The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

Islam

Rick Warren: Next to the Bible, [Purpose Driven Life is] the bestselling book [in English]

While researching for my dissertation on the kingdom proffered and postponed, I came across a video of kingdom now proponent, Rick Warren, at a World Economic Forum panel. Talking about his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Warren said:

It became the bestselling book in English in world history, it’s, next to the Bible, it’s the bestselling book and it’s the most translated, [audience giggles] it’s the most translated book next to the Bible in over one hundred languages.

So, I did a little looking… and I do mean a little because all it took was a quick Google and Wikipedia search to find this information… and lo and behold, I found 42 books in English that sold more than The Purpose Driven Life and another 35 (other than the Bible) which have been translated into more languages.[Read More]

Did Allah tell Muhammad about embryos?

​One common argument in favor of the Quran being legitimate revelation goes like this:

​In the Holy Quran, God speaks about the stages of man’s embryonic development, 1,400 years before modern day scientists ‘discovered’ important information on creation of man and his development:

We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into an alaqah (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a mudghah (chewed-like substance)… [Noble Quran 23:12-14]

[…] How could Muhammad (peace be upon him) have possibly known all this 1,400 years ago when scientists have only recently discovered this using advanced equipment and powerful microscopes which did not exist at that time? (source)

There are two assumptions here: 1) that men did not know about the development of embryos and 2) that they could only know from revelation from the creator. But, here’s why this argument is rather weak.[Read More]

No, Jesus did not call God, ‘Allah.’

I have recently received a Qur’an in the mail along with a couple of booklets with some basic information about Islam. The booklet made an incorrect claim that stood out to me. It isn’t a fundamental doctrine to Islam, and I’m sure the author was not intentionally trying to mislead people, but he wrote:

Allah is the One and Only True God’s personal name […] It is interesting to note that Allah is also used for God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, peace be upon him […]1

Arabic and Aramaic (along with Hebrew and a bunch of other languages) are Semitic languages, and have lots of similarities. One similarity that pops up across Semitics languages is their words for “god.” There tends to be “el” or “il” somehow related to the word for god in Semitic languages; some examples include ʾil in Ugaritic, ʾl in Phoenician, and ilu in Akkadian.
[Read More]