The Qur’an tells us that Abraham was Muslim (Sura 2:128, 2:131, 2:133) In the Qur’an it rhetorically states, Sura 2:140 “Or do ye say that Abraham, Isma'il Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes were Jews or Christians?”

The Bible tells us Abraham is a Hebrew, which are Jews, He is the father of their nation. He is also called a Jew by Jesus, he is included in the detailed genealogical line of the Israel. He is not a Muslim, he did not worship Allah and neither did Jesus worship Allah. For Jesus called himself God’s son of which Allah has no son. If Abraham is a Muslim then what is all the fighting going on in Israel today? Then Muslims (or Arabs) should embrace Israel as their brothers. The fact is, they are related (Gen.14:13, 39:14 40:15).

Sura 3:67 “Abraham was not a Jew nor yet a Christian; but he was true in Faith, and bowed his will to God's (Which is Islam), and he joined not gods with God.” So he was Muslim according to their interpretation, but not according to the Bibles written down perfectly by Moses the blessed prophet.

The Bible tells us that Abraham was first neither a Jew, Muslim nor a Christian, but came from a pagan family and land. He became a monotheist as God called him away from his family, and he started the Hebrew people according to the ancient revelation found in the Old Testament written by the prophet Moses.

It is written in Gen. 14:13. “Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew.”

God speaking to Abraham in Gen. 17:5-7 says, “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.” I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.” And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.”

V:9 “And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants.” This became the Hebrew people, a nomadic tribe that turned into 12 tribes through Jacob, the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham.

God had promised a Son to Abraham who would inherit the land which was part of the covenant he promised him in Gen.12. After Abraham had his first son Ishmael we see Abraham in Gen. 17:18-21 “And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.” And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” Gen. 21:12-13 “..for in Isaac your seed shall be called.” Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman, because he is your seed.” So God was gracious and gave his blessing to Ishmael who was Sarah’s plan.

The problem begins here as Muslims do not believe the Bibles testimony that was given by God over 2,000 years before their religion began with Mohammad. Sura 2:125 “and We covenanted with Abraham and Isma'il,” 2:140 “Or do ye say that Abraham, Isma'il Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes were Jews or Christians? Say: Do ye know better than God?” Almost each time Isaac is mention Ishmael is given equal prominence as well, and they challenge the Bibles revelation.

The Qur’an teaches it was Ishmael not Isaac that was sacrificed and that Ishmael was the promise, the messenger and prophet “Also mention in the Book (the story of) Isma'il: He was (strictly) true to what he promised, and he was an apostle (and) a prophet. (19:55) So when they had both submitted their wills (to God), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice) Sura 37:103)

“Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!” - thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial (Sura 37:105-106)

This God of Scripture becomes known as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Ishmael is not included in this because he was not part of the promise, although God did bless him as part of the family. The Bible records that Isaac was Abraham’s “only son” three times (Gen. 22:2, 12, 16).Gen. 32:9 “Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you”

Islam claim’s that Abraham traveled with Ishmael to Mecca. Alfred Guillame who is a Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies states that: “ there is no historical evidence for the assertion that Abraham or Ishmael was ever in Mecca, and if there had been such a tradition it would have to be explained how all memory of the Old Semitic name Ishmael (which was not in its true Arabian form in Arabian inscriptions and written correctly with an initial consonant Y) came to be lost. The form in the Quran is taken either from Greek or Syriac sources.” (From Islam, by Alfred Guillame, Penguin Books Inc., 1956, pp. 61-62.) Dr. Guillame points out that many words in the Qur'an do not yield a meaning unless they are traced back to their Hebrew or Syriac sources, which is significant because the Qur'an claims to have been written in only Arabic and no other language.

The Qur'an does not recognize Israel and removes her as being a chosen people and nation. In its place are the Arab people, descendants of Ishmael. One of the major annual feasts celebrated in Islam, is called Ishmael. A commemoration of of Abraham's willingness to offer Ishmael instead of Isaac on the mount. Ishmael (and his seed, the Arabs) replaces Isaac (and his seed, the Jews) as the Promised Seed. This becomes a more serious challenge to Scripture as Jesus Christ who is the seed of promise is brought into the picture.

God said of Ishmael in the Bible, “A wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand against him, and he will dwell (settle, encamp) in the presence (“in the face”) of his brothers.” (Genesis 16:1-12; 17:2-21; 21:8-21; 25:9,12-18)

Gen 50:24 “And Joseph said to his brethren, “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” This land they were in was Egypt of which the Hebrews became slaves centuries later, they would be lead by Moses into the land that is known as Israel.

In Exod. 2:24-25 “So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.”

When Moses fled Egypt it is 40 years later he meets the Lord in a burning bush that was not consumed. When the time came God met Moses and said, in Exod. 3:6 “Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father-- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

Exod 3:14 “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” In the Hebrew- eyeh asher eyeh, that He is in himself the self existing self sufficient one, he is the cause of all things to exist, and He will be to you whatever you need (Ex.3:14-15). Surely the Qua'ran agrees with this.

God further identified himself to Moses in Exod. 3:15, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.' Nowhere does the Lord ever include Ishmael, not once do we find this in the Bible. Is there is a conspiracy to remove him, no, the Bible is what God has spoken, this is the way He has it.

Exod. 6:8 'And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.”

Deut 1:8 “See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers-- to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-- to give to them and their descendants after them.”

In Isa. 60:16 we find that God calls Himself after the patriarch he made covenant with for the people of Israel. You shall know that I, the LORD, am your Savior And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” He never calls himself the God of Ishmael along with Abraham or Isaac. Let's look at the land of Israel, specifically Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Tanach, it is not mentioned once in the Qur'an. It was King David who founded the city of Jerusalem, the Jews lived there. Mohammed never came traveled to Jerusalem. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim nation or group, and up until recent times Arab leaders did not come to visit. So this territory becomes part of the equation today. In the Abrahamic Covenant there are 3 provisions to Abraham; to the Seed, Israel; and to the Gentiles. It includes the entire Jewish nation: the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In the genealogical record provided by Luke the historian, he traces Christ back to be “the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, (Luke 3:34) This clearly has Jesus as a Jew and he is traced to Abraham.

The “original Jews” are the physical descendents of Abraham, his son Isaac, and his son Jacob through Jacob's sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. The name “Jew” is primarily tribal (from Judah). the Hebrew yehudhi, originally meaning a member of the Hebrew tribe of Judah. It is first found in 2 Kings 16:6, as distinct from Israel, of the northern kingdom. After the Captivity it was chiefly used to distinguish the race from Gentiles, e.g., John 2:6; Acts 14:1; Gal. 2:15, where it denotes Christians of “Jewish” race; it distinguishes Jews from Samaritans. By New Testament times, the terms “Hebrew,” “Israelite,” and “Jew” had become synonymous.

In the Scripture we have the statement that all men are either Jews or Gentiles (Rom. 2:9; 1 Cor. 10:32; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:11-18.)

Mary in her magnificat to the Lord because she has been found pregnant with the Messiah says, “He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.” (Luke 1:54-55) Jesus is the fulfillment of the blessing to all nations first spoken by Abraham in Gen.12

The prophets after Abraham were Jewish prophets called to the Hebrew people. The apostle Peter spoke saying, “But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, “and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, “whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. “For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 'And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.' “Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. “You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' “To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (Acts 3:18-26)

In this portion of Peters speech we find several things, that Jesus is the prophet that is to be sent, one that is like Moses. He is sent to his brethren the Jews, but whoever does not hear what Jesus says and believes (Whether Jew or Gentile) will be condemned. He points to the Jews as sons of the prophets and keepers of the covenant. That Jesus is the fulfillment promised to Abraham in Gen.12 where all people of the earth will be blessed. We would have to reject everything in the bible to come to a different conclusion than what Peter has summed up inspired by the Holy Spirit.

All people will be blessed. It is a fact then whether one is a Muslim or a Jew, whatever ethnicity or religion, when they become a believer in Christ they receive peace with God their creator that Jesus promised. They become one in Christ and with God with no division at all. Because the Abrahamic covenant has not been completed there will be a national salvation of Israel.

Jesus was specifically called the “King of the Jews” because he affirmed this. The Scripture explains this was written over his head at His crucifixion.

Rom. 1:1-5 “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name”

Gal 3:8-9 “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

This Gospel is the the good news in the New Testament delivered to us by the apostles. It tells us our sins are forgiven because of Jesus' death on the cross and that we have eternal life because he rose from the dead.

Claiming Christianity existed before Christ is insane

What about those who have never heard the Gospel?
That is a good question. The Bible says that God is a just God. We know that whatever He does is right. When it comes to those who have never heard the Gospel, He will do what is right, whatever that is. But as for you, you have heard the gospel and He will judge you according to how you respond. He is calling you to repentance, to turn from sin and come to Him.
In Romans 2:11-16 it speaks about those who have never heard the Law of God and how they will be judged according to the law that is written in their hearts. The Law written in their hearts is the knowledge of right and wrong. Perhaps God's judgment of those without a proper knowledge of Him is included there where it says that they will be judged according to their own consciences that "bear witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them." All I know is that God will do what is right and the only way to have your sins forgiven is through Jesus.

Are there apemen in your ancestry?
by Russell Grigg

Apemen have long been the stuff of science fiction. For example, in 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle1 wrote The Lost World, a novel in which four male explorers search for dinosaurs in the Amazon valley and find a whole tribe of apemen/missing links. In 2001–2002, the BBC’s adaptation of this, with computer-generated dinosaurs and a star cast, was shown on TV screens around the world.

In an apparent attempt to vilify Biblical belief, the BBC added a mad priest (played by Peter Falk) to the explorers’ team; also his nubile niece (for romantic interest). Falk’s character tries to kill the explorers to stop them taking news of the apemen back to the world, lest this discovery destroy faith in the Genesis account of Creation!

So what is the truth about so-called ‘apemen’?2

Scientific implications
Scientifically, the concept of apemen implies the following.

That evolution is true and that it produced a line of semi-human creatures from some original non-human ancestor.
That the process which ultimately produced man was death of the less fit along the way.
That the millions of years necessary for this process did occur.
That the fossils claimed to be relics of such creatures constitute a reliable record, i.e. have been interpreted correctly in anatomy, age, and presumed evolutionary relationships.
What is the evidence?
There are many differences between humans and apes that can be seen in fossil remains. These include the fact that humans walk erect and so have appropriate/distinctive knee and hip joints, backbone, toes, etc. Humans also have an opposable thumb, make and use sophisticated tools as well as fire, and engage in diverse creativity. They have a larger brain capacity than apes, smaller teeth set in parabolic or V-shaped, rather than U-shaped, jaws, and they sometimes write, paint or make and play musical instruments.

Communication by language is another crucial difference, as is the ability to do mathematics. Other differences include the exercise of reason and free-will, rather than just instinct. However, evidence of these capabilities is not usually observable from fossil fragments.

The spiritual dimension
Christians would add to this list that man was made in the image of God. God is spirit (John 4:24), therefore this ‘image’ cannot have anything to do with man’s physical form. Rather, humans have a spiritual dimension.3 This means that they can communicate with God and receive answers to prayer. ‘God is light’ (1 John 1:5), so humans have moral consciousness—i.e. an understanding of right and wrong, and so the capacity for either holiness or sin. ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8), so humans can know the love of God in experiencing forgiveness for sin, which brings peace of mind, and a love for God and fellowship with Him on our part.

Humans can also be filled with His Holy Spirit through a right relationship with God. The fruits of this are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).

No animal worships God, or gives evidence of having moral consciousness, or concern for spiritual behaviour. Spiritual qualities are not things that can be seen in the fossil record. However, the spiritual dimension of man includes belief in life after death, and this is often shown by evidence of religious burial ceremonies.

A fertile field for hoaxers
Evolutionists looking for evidence of apemen search for fossils that show anatomical features that look ‘intermediate’ between those of apes and humans, or that show some but not all of the above bodily characteristics. This has provided a fertile field for hoaxers.

The most notable hoax was Piltdown Man, ‘discovered’ in England from 1908 to 1912. This comprised a human skullcap plus the lower jaw of an orangutan, the teeth of which had been stained and filed to make them look human and match the size of the teeth in the upper human jaw. Although the hoax was poorly done, it fooled the establishment and was probably the most quoted ‘evidence for evolution’ for around 40 years, until 1953, when the fraud was exposed.

Another huge hoax field has been the way in which scores of deformed humans were exhibited as ‘apemen’ or ‘apewomen’ in circus sideshows from the early 1800s for over a century, with no known scientific refutation of the frauds so perpetrated.4

The desperate need of evolutionists to find a missing link has also contributed to some inexcusably gross scientific boo-boos. The most notable of these was Nebraska Man. A pig’s tooth, found by Harold Cook in 1922, was proclaimed by the eminent evolutionist Dr Henry Fairfield Osborne5 to belong to the first anthropoid (man-like) ape of America, which he named Hesperopithecus (‘western ape’). The Illustrated London News for June 24, 1922, printed an artist’s impression of the tooth’s owner as an upright-standing apeman, showing the shape of his body, head, nose, ears, hair, etc., together with his wife, domestic animals, and tools.

This highlights the fact that fossils of so-called ‘hominids’ are often only fragments of bones which, when combined with a huge dose of imagination, are transformed into apemen. Another factor is that ‘hominid’ fossils are sufficiently rare that many researchers have never actually handled one, so that many scientific papers on human evolution are based on only casts or published photos, measurements and descriptions.

So where does all this leave the matter of the evidence for apemen?

Australopithecines.
Australopithecus (‘southern ape’) is the name given to a number of fossils found in Africa. These are claimed by evolutionists to be the closest to the alleged common ancestor of apes and humans. However, Dr Fred Spoor has done CAT scans of the inner ear region of some of these skulls. These show that their semi-circular canals, which determine balance and ability to walk upright, ‘resemble those of the extant great apes’.6

The most well known australopithecine is ‘Lucy’, a 40% complete skeleton found by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974 and called Australopithecus afarensis.7 Casts of Lucy’s bones have been imaginatively restored in museums worldwide to look like an apewoman, e.g. with ape-like face and head, but human-like body, hands and feet. However, the original Lucy fossil did not include the upper jaw, nor most of the skull, nor hand and foot bones! Several other specimens of A. afarensis do have the long curved fingers and toes of tree-dwellers, as well as the restricted wrist anatomy of knuckle-walking chimpanzees and gorillas.8,9,10 Dr Marvin Lubenow quotes the evolutionists Matt Cartmill (Duke University), David Pilbeam (Harvard University) and the late Glynn Isaac (Harvard University): ‘The australopithecines are rapidly sinking back to the status of peculiarly specialized apes … .’11

Homo habilis.
Next up is Homo habilis or ‘handy man’, so named because he supposedly was handy with tools. The most well known is called KNM-ER 1470,12 comprising a fossil skull and leg bones found by Richard Leakey in Kenya in 1972. Spoor’s CAT scans of the inner ear of a Homo habilis skull known as Stw 53 show that it walked more like a baboon than a human.6 Today most researchers, including Spoor, regard Homo habilis as ‘a waste-bin of various species’, including bits and pieces from Australopithecus and Homo erectus, and not as a valid category. In other words, it never existed as such, and so cannot be the supposed link between australopithecine apes and true man.

Homo erectus.
Next up is Homo erectus or ‘upright man’. Excavations of many of these fossils show evidence of the use of tools, the controlled use of fire, that they buried their dead, and that some used red ochre for decoration. Their brain size, though smaller on average than modern humans, was within the human range. Recent research on Flores has shown evidence of seafaring skills.13 Spoor’s CAT scans of their inner ear architecture show that their posture was just like ours.6 Even some evolutionists concede that they should be put in the same species as modern man, i.e. Homo sapiens.14 Creationists can thus legitimately regard them as distinct variants of true humans.

Neandertal man.
This is a group that once lived in Europe and the Mediterranean lands.15 The researchers who first reconstructed these fossils gave them a bent-over (i.e. ape-like) appearance. However, the early reconstructions suffered from a heavy dose of evolutionary bias, along with the fact that some specimens suffered from bony diseases such as rickets, which is caused by vitamin D deficiency from childhood and can result in bowing of the skeleton. One cause of this is a lack of exposure to sunlight, consistent with their having lived in the post-Flood Ice Age.

Modern reconstructions of Neandertals are consistent with the creationist contention that they are fully human. Their minor skeletal variations from the modern average, including a larger braincase volume on average, are no different in principle from the minor physical differences between people groups today, which have been shown to be consistent with the genetic unity of humanity.

Despite attempts made on the basis of mitochondrial DNA fragments in one set of Neandertal bones to try to assign them to a separate species, even some evolutionist authorities claim that they should be regarded as Homo sapiens.16 [Ed: A forthcoming article will deal with Neandertals in much more detail.]

So how did these and other extinct human fossils originate?

Answer: Creationists say that the early human fossils are of various groups of people who lived post-Flood. The reason the oldest ape fossils are found below the oldest human fossils in many locations is that, after the Flood, animal migration happened more quickly than human migration, which was stalled until Babel.

Conclusion
How fossil bones are interpreted depends on the worldview of the researcher. The theory of human evolution requires one or more missing links, so in the post-Darwin era many candidates have been put forward. Not one has stood the test of honest, rigorous investigation, as all have turned out to be from either an extinct ape or an extinct human. The fossil evidence does not compel belief in the existence of apemen, nor that man is the product of evolution. Man was directly created by God and in the likeness of God, not in the likeness of an ape.

Christians who flirt with the evolutionary idea that apemen once roamed Earth and that God chose one of these to be ‘Adam’ are flying in the face of both true science and the Word of God.

So are you saying we are all Native American because we did not come for ancestors originally from Europe who where Christian. Christians with history all the way back to the beginning? If not Native AMerican then we were created in a Vacumn? The only vacumn on this point is between your ears

The desperate need of evolutionists to find a missing link

are you suggesting that christianity is not a religion of the west? this would be equally wrong, but twice as hilarious.

At the beginning of the year 367, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria sat down to write an Easter letter to his church. He wrote these "festal" letters every year to put his people into the right frame of mind for celebrating Easter.

This year, he saw that church people were being fooled by books that claimed to be scripture but weren't. For instance, they might wonder if the Epistle of Barnabas was to be obeyed. Or they might fall for The Gospel of Peter by the Gnostics, a group who claimed secret knowledge of God. Peter's name was given to the work, to give it creditability, but it was not by the apostle. Athanasius realized that the best defense against error was a clear understanding of scripture... but which writings were actually scripture? In his festal letter, written on this day, January 7, 367, he wrote, "Inasmuch as some have taken in hand to draw up for themselves an arrangement of the so-called apocryphal books and to intersperse them with the divinely inspired scripture...it has seemed good to me...to set forth in order the books which are included in the canon and have been delivered to us with accreditation that they are divine."

The church already accepted the books of the Jewish scripture as inspired by the Holy Spirit. These became our Old Testament. The church also agreed that books and letters written by the apostles or by writers under their direct influence were probably scripture, if the books had been used for a long time by the church. These became our New Testament. Athanasius thought it best to list the trustworthy books. He was the first man to compile a list of New Testament books as we know them.

Desperate? I don't think so, they're just doing what scientists do. And if they're proven wrong, they start over looking for the real answer.