My rebuttal to Jochen Katz' "Shaking the Trunk of a Palm Tree?" article:
This article is a rebuttal to Jochen Katz' article that is located at: http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/qe007.html.
He wrote:
Qur'an Contradiction:
From one of our readers we received this message:
Dear friends,
I am sure you might know this, but I haven't seen it mention in any of the sites I have visited. Its about the contradiction in Quran.
In surat Maryam Aya # 25 where the verse asks Maryam " And shake toward thyself the trunk of the palm tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee."
Okay we are the people of the desert and we know the palm dates come only in the summer. How come all Christian sects thinks the birth of Jesus is in December or January. No dates fruit during that time. If that was a miracle, then why the Quran does not say so? And if Quran want to differ with what the Christianity believes then why not stating that? And anyway you need to be really super strong to shake a trunk of a palm tree!
May be you publish this... and my apology of my ignorance if you are already aware of it.
Best, H.
Remark: And as is well known, women are particularly strong when they have just given birth...
My response:
I'd like to first answer the comment about one needing to be "super strong to shake a trunk of a palm tree!" The Christian questioner doesn't find it hard to believe that Mary, peace be upon her, gave birth to a baby while she was a virgin, but he does find it impossible to believe that GOD Almighty would Miraculously shake a palm tree for Mary as soon as she puts both of her hands on it and applies little pressure to shake it. I find that to be quite hilarious indeed!
Now as to Jesus being born in the summer, some Christians actually believe in this
fact! Not a single Christian out there agrees that Jesus was born in December 25th.
Most Christians even have disagreement on whether or not Jesus, peace be upon him,
was born during the winter season. There are actually Christians who believe that
Jesus was born during summer, maybe toward the end of the Summer:
Some believe he might have been born around summer or end of summer:
Article #1:
From http://members.tripod.com/~PetraGrail/page5.html: (bold and color emphasis below are mine)
How can we know the exact day--and nearly the hour--of the birth of Jesus?
Simple arithmatic. A child could have done it, if
only the basic assumptions had been
correct. But they weren't. In the 19th century, critical scholars made a
crucial decision to
reject a total lunar eclipse in January 1 BC and to accept instead one in March 4 BC, as
the chronological cornerstone for dating the death of Herod the Great, and thereby, the
possible birth years for Jesus.
By so doing, the critics could argue Jesus had to born
before 4 BC, contradicting
Luke, who tied Jesus' 30th year to the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, 27-28 AD. Luke
effectively placed the birth in 3 BC, as did many of the early church fathers.
Ironically,
even the date used by the Pope during the Christmas Eve midnight mass ritual is itself
consistent with the last half of 3 BC.
The dirty little secret is that virtually all the
available evidence has always pointed
at the harvest period of 3 BC as the focal point of the Nativity--including the possibility
of a late summer birth.
By rejecting Luke, scholars also threw out the date of the
birth Luke gives in his
Gospel. In his second chapter, Luke tells what happened the day Mary came to the
Temple for purification 40 days after the birth of Jesus. All one has to know is
what
day this was. And Luke plainly names the day. In fact, he includes
three statements
identifying the day. So what day was this?
Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. The 10th day
of the seventh month of the
Hebrew calendar.
In Luke's time, Yom Kippur was called three things: The day
of the "Fast," the day
of the "Purification,"and the day of "Redemption." Luke uses all
three to identify the
day Jesus was brought to the Temple. And he even quotes the Torah rule that mandates
the 40-day period for the mother to wait after the child's birth [Lk 2:22-38].
And if there were any doubt that it was Yom Kippur,
Luke tells of a woman named
Anna who had been in the Temple for a "night and day" without leaving.
There was
ONLY ONE DAY A YEAR when a person could pray overnight in the Temple: Yom
Kippur. All other days, the Temple was locked at sundown.
This shows the 40th day of Mary's Purification had begun at
the end of Yom Kippur,
the end of the 10th day of the 7th month, because we know the Purification was done at
the earliest opportunity--at the beginning of the 40th day after birth. And
since the 6th
month normally had only 29 days, simple arithmatic shows Mary's 39 days of Purification
had to have begun around sundown on the 1st day of the 6th month, called Elul.
This was the night of the first sighting of the new moon of
Elul. The Magi in Babylon
were recording this sunset sliver of the new moon on a clay tablet. The cuneiform
tablet
the Magi made at that hour 2000 years ago, along with thousands of others from Babylon,
resides in the British Museum. It is possible that this clay tablet was inscribed by
one of
the famous Magi who later brought a strange set of gifts to Bethlehem. So the new
moon
seen by the Magi in Babylon at the very moment of Jesus being born is recorded on one of
the tablets now in London. Cuneiform scholars have identified the date on this
tablet as
equivalent to September, 11, 3 BC.
The Hebrew lunar calendar dates vary with respect to our
solar calendar. So the 1st
of Elul was September 11th in 3 BC, but began on August 22 in 1998. The same was
true
in the days of the early church, of course. In a given year, the 1st of Elul could
have fallen
on September 8th, for example.
This may solve another ancient mystery. No one seems
to know how Rome came to
honor September 8th as the birthday of Mary. There is no Biblical, historical,
or church
tradition to explain it. It just emerges out of nowhere. Rome keeps the 8th of
December as
the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary [ie. conceived without original sin].
It is
a holy day of obligation for all Catholics to attend Mass. This feast is clearly
based upon
September 8th also, and mortal sin is attached to the failure of a Catholic to observe it,
yet
the origins of these dates are unknown.
On the other hand, we can now see that if Jesus were born
on September 11th as Luke
indicates, then Jesus would have been conceived around December 8th in 4 BC. The now
mysterious Mary dates fit Jesus quite well. How might this have happened?
In the late 4th century, in early 380 AD, Pope Damasus I
was endeavoring to force all
Christians in the Roman Empire to yield to his authority. He got the Emperor to
issue an
edict requiring them to practice the religion of Rome. We know that it is
about this time
the Christmas midnight Mass was first celebrated and December 25th first identified as a
Catholic holy day. It is said Damasus was seeking to lure the people away from pagan
rites honoring the birth of the sun god at midnight by compelling Catholic attendance at a
memorial in honor of Christ's death, ie the Mass. The people confused this Mass with the
pagan solar birth rituals conducted at that same time. Gradually, the Christ-Mass
became
associated with the Nativity.
Meanwhile, the true feast around September 8th, which
naturally honored Mary in
giving birth to Jesus, was converted into a day commemorating her own birth, and an old
holyday honoring the conception of Jesus was converted into a day commemorating the
conception of Mary on December 8th. Strangely, there is still widespread belief
among
non-Catholics that this is the day Jesus was concieved--a possible lingering remembrance
of the original meaning of this date.
We can also tell from Luke's Gospel that Jesus had been
born in early evening, for
Luke says the shepherds were keeping watch by night, but still had time to go into town
and tell the people what they had seen earlier that evening. People rose early with
the sun
in those days, and would have been asleep by 9 or 10 pm. Therefore, the birth had
taken
place no later than 8 pm, and probably before 7 pm. Yet Luke says it happened at
night,
which means after sunset--surely after 6 pm in September. Hence, it follows that
Jesus
was born within a few minutes of 6:30-7:30 pm on the evening of September 11th, 3 BC.
A confirmation of this time is in the book of Revelation.
Historian Ernest L. Martin
consulted NASA lunar-phase tables and found the image of the heavens in Revelation 12
showed where the sun and the moon were, relative to Virgo, at the time Jesus was born,
pin-pointing sunset of September 11th of 3 BC. It seems the moon moves so quickly it
is
"beneath the feet" of Virgo only a few hours every month. Moreover, the
moon comes
within two lunar diameters of Virgo's feet at the time of a new moon but once in 30
years.
The only such occurance any time near the birth of Jesus was on September 11th, 3 BC.
Most previous attempts at determining the birth time were
based upon astrology and
dating the Star of Bethlehem. No one considered 3 BC because that year had
erroneously
been assumed to follow Herod's death. However, Dr. Martin has proven that Herod did
not die in 4 BC, but in 1 BC. Scholars are now generally accepting the new
chronology for
Herod, and this in turn has allowed the confirmation of the New Testament date for the
birth of Jesus. Unfortunately, many churches continue to promote the critics' errors
and
paganized traditions about the Nativity.
Article #2:
From http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=468:
Also, Luke 2:1 says that when Mary was just about to give birth to Jesus, she and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to fulfill their obligation to be counted in a Roman census. They did not travel in the Winter because it would have been much too hard. Rather, people traveled in the Fall, between the heat of Summer and the cold of Winter. And at that time of year the grain, and also some fruit, were ripe, and travelers were allowed to eat some of the “gleanings”—Lev. 23:22) as they passed by.
Article #3:
Some believe Jesus was born in Spring with the possibility of it being in the end of summer:
From http://www.nccg.org/241Art-6April.html:
Why We Believe Christ was Born on 6 April
Whilst it is true that the flocks are also under the shepherds' watchcare during the summer and autumnal/fall months as well (they are outdoors from late March to early November), it is by no means as demanding as in the lambing season when predators are more likely to exploit the vunerability of both sheep and lambs. We should also recall the prophetic events surrounding Yahshua's (Jesus') birth and how it was that Herod the Great, that human predator, attempted to massacre all the newborn children of Bethlehem following Christ's reported birth (Matt.2:16-20).
Considering how the seasons of the year affect the behaviour of the sheep and the shepherds, it seems reasonable to conclude that the shepherds in the Judean hills would be "keeping watch over their flocks at night" in the spring and that, therefore, spring was a likely time for the birth of Christ. The night of 5-6 April falls during the lambing season.
My Conclusion:
As we clearly see, Christians can't even accurately determine from their own sources when Jesus was exactly born. There seems to be good evidence from their own sources that Jesus was born during the summer. But to me as a Muslim, it is irrelevant what they say. They can not disprove the Noble Quran by using their dubious and man-altered and man-corrupted bible and resources.
It is ironic that even the bible's own theologians and historians admit that its books and gospels are corrupt. See the NIV and KJV bible's theologians quotes for yourself.
Responses to all of the so-called "Contradictions" in the Noble Quran.
My Rebuttals, and exposing the lies of the Answering Islam team section.
Rebuttals to Jochen Katz' Articles section.
My rebuttal to Sam Shamoun's "A Brief Rebuttal to Anti-Missionary Attacks on the Trinity" article.
What is the Role of the Holy Spirit in Islam? Why can't we call it GOD?
Errors and History of Contradictions and Corruption in the Bible.
Christians are Commanded to follow the Old Testament.
Allah, Islam, Quran, Muhammad questions and answers.
What is the place of Jews, Christians and non-Muslims in Islam?
"Allah" was GOD Almighty's Original Name in the Bible according to the Hebrew and Aramaic sources.