14-Religion
About Bible
(1) Magi
Nowhere in the Bible it is written exactly that three magi came to visit
the baby Jesus, nor that they were kings or rode on camels. It has
traditionally been assumed there were three magi because three gifts are
described, and artistic depictions of the nativity after about the year
900 almost always depict three magi. Additionally, the wise men in the
actual biblical narrative did not visit on the day Jesus was born, but
they saw Jesus as a child, in a house as many as two years afterward
(Matthew 2:11).
(2) Jesus' Fall
Nowhere in the Bible it is written that Jesus fell to his knees under the
weight or strain of carrying the cross, or couldn't carry it any longer,
and therefore the cross had to be carried by someone else. It has been
assumed that Simon of Cyrene was told by soldiers to carry Jesus' cross
due to Jesus being unable to carry the cross any longer due to weariness
and exhaustion. Three of the four books of the gospel give account of
Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry Jesus' cross by soldiers. [Matthew
27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26]. None of the accounts mention Jesus falling
to his knees or Jesus being unable to carry the cross himself.
(3) Forbidden Fruit
The forbidden fruit mentioned in the Book of Genesis is commonly assumed to
be an apple and is widely depicted as such in Western art, although the Bible
does not identify what type of fruit it was. The original Hebrew texts mention
only "tree." Early Latin translations use the word "mali",
which can be taken to mean both "evil" and "apple". German
and French artists commonly depict the fruit as an apple from the 12th century
onwards, and John Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 explicitly mentions the fruit
as an apple. Jewish tradition states that the fruit was most likely a fig.
(4) Domestic Animal
The only domestic animal Bible des not mention is Cat.
About Islam
A Fatavaa is a non-binding religious opinion on Islamic law issued by an
Islamic scholar, not a death sentence. The popular misconception likely
stems from the death sentence pronounced as a Fatavaa on the author Salman
Rushdie in 1989 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, when Fatavaa first
gained widespread media attention in the West.
The word "Jihaad" does not mean "holy war", but "struggle".
It usually implies an effort or struggle of a spiritual kind.
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