Monday, 30 July 2018
Christians are not certain
Sunday, 29 July 2018
Sun on the Run
Monday, 23 July 2018
Dirham
It comes with no surprise our friend Stephen Atkins keeps repeating himself with the same old busted argument, “what was the price that Joseph was sold for"? The problem isn’t on asking what price he was sold for, rather the problem is the hidden agenda behind the question.
- Shekels or Coins?
Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt. [Genesis 37:28]
Fact
- Joseph lived approximately 1700 BC
- Shekels were weighted measurement
- J. B. Irving a few coins
- Muhammed Farooq & Azam Malik dirhams (silver coins)
- Syed Ahamed a few dirhams
- Majid Fakhry dirhams
- The Noble Quran a few dirhams (silver coins)
- Pickthall a number of silver coins
The consensus by those translating the Quran is Joseph was sold for a few silver coins or dirhams
Fact
- The first coins were developed in Iron Age Anatolia around the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the
- Dirhams were not used as a coin until the 7th century
- Dirhams were not used as a coin until the 7th century”
Bible:
Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-AR)
Easy-to-Read
Version (ERV-AR)
Smith's says that according to
Genesis 37:28 Joseph was sold for 20 shekels. This was "about
a price of a slave around that time period. So not only does the Bible get the
right denomination, it also gets the right currency." There are serious
problems with Smith's claims. To start with, in the book of Genesis, Joseph was sold twice; firstly by his
brothers "who sold him for twenty shekels of silver to
the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt" (Genesis 37:28) and secondly, the
Midianites who "sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the
guard" (Genesis 37:36). The Qur'an, on the other hand, mentions only one sale of Joseph to al-ʿAziz in
Egypt by travellers who picked him from a well (12:19-21). Comparing the biblical and the Qur'anic stories, it
is amply clear that neither of the two books mention any price for the sale of
Joseph in Egypt. But the Qur'an does describe this sale as the one
involving a few pieces of silver which are countable. Undoubtedly, Smith has
confused himself thoroughly with the stories.
Secondly, the claim that Joseph
was sold for 20 shekels being "about a price of a slave
around that time period" is not based on data from Egypt because this sale
never took in Egypt! If he had bothered to check, he would have found that
Professor K. A. Kitchen used the data from the ancient Near East to work out
the price of a slave around the time when Joseph lived.[90]
From <https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/contrad/external/dirham.html>
Conclusions
In a lecture given to his
fellow missionaries Joseph Smith had claimed that the use of the word dirham during
the time of Joseph is an anachronism in the Qur'an. To support his claim, he
said that the dirham was created only after the advent of
Islam by ‘Umar, who subsequently introduced the dirham to
replace the drachma. Furthermore, he added that Joseph was sold to
the Egyptians for a few dirhams, counted out. According to him,
only coins are counted and there were no coins in the time of Joseph, it was
bullion. Regrettably, Smith's superficial knowledge of numismatics in general
and the numismatic history of the ancient near east in particular, has caused
him to make many gross errors fundamental in nature.
It was shown that pre-Islamic
Arabs were aware of the dirham. The evidence comes from the
pre-Islamic romance poetry of ‘Antara. The Arabs from pre-Islamic Arabia
handled Persian currency and called it dirham which came from
the Persian drahm. Both Muslim and non-Muslim philologists agree
that this is a word of foreign origin borrowed into Arabic. It is clear that
the use of the dirham in the Qur'an is not an anachronism, as
the Arabs from pre-Islamic times were already aware of it.
Moreover, during the advent of
Islam, any silver coin was called a dirham; it was also a unit of
weight and coinage, and represented a monetary unit that might or might not be
represented by a circulating coin. Given the multifarious nature of dirham,
the use of this word in the story of Joseph represents silver
"coinage"; the silver used as deben or sh‘t in
ancient Egypt. A study of "coinage" in ancient Egypt clearly shows
that precious metals, especially silver, were used as money in the form
of deben and sh‘t. During trade, the
numbers of deben or sh‘t were
specified, clearly suggesting that they were counted and were of a standard
metal quality as well as of a standard weight. The texts do not say that
either deben or sh‘t were weighed or
tested for quality during commercial transactions. Although very common from
Ramesside times onward, the evidence of such transactions extend all the way
down to the mid-5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom Period, where, in one particular
market scene, a particular length of cloth is valued at 6 sh‘t.
In assessing the evidence of
coinage in ancient Egypt, Černý came to the conclusion that sh‘ty "was
a flat, round piece of metal 1/12 deben, that is about 7.6 grams,
in weight, possibly with an inscription to indicate this weight or the name of
the issuing authority", adding "If so, the 'piece' was
practically a coin."[103] Although Černý's assessment was startling,[104] he
was not too far off the mark.
In conclusion, the Qur'anic
description of the transaction darāhima maʿdūdatin (i.e., a
few pieces of silver, countable) is accurate from the point of view of ancient
Egypt.
And Allah knows best!
Saturday, 21 July 2018
Ezra changed the Torah text
- In Genesis 18:22, the original text stated “God was still standing before Abraham” was changed to “Abraham was still standing before God.” The former is debasingly anthropomorphic; it depicts God in a somewhat servile manner, waiting upon Abraham.
- The original wording in Zechariah 2:12 has God saying “whoever touches you (Israel) touches the apple of my eye,” meaning pocking a finger in God’s eye, which suggests that God has an eye and can be harmed. It was replaced to “his eye,” saying whoever touches Israel has done such a grievous harm as if he hit the nation in its eye.
- The context of I Kings 21:13 indicates that Naboth is being accused of cursing God, but the act is so despicable that “cursed” was replaced by “blessed.”[5]
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