Is the Bible God’s word?
by Ahmed Deedat

Chapter one
What they say
Christians confess
Dr. W. Graham Scroggie of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, one of the most prestigious Christian evangelical mission in the world, answering the question — "is the bible the word of God?" (also the title of his book), under the heading: it is human, yet divine. He says on page 17:
"Yes, the Bible is human, though some, out of zeal which is not according to knowledge, 1 have denied this. Those books2 have passed through the minds of men, are written in the language of men, were penned by the hands of men, and bear in their style the characteristics of men."
Another erudite Christian scholar, Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, says on page 277 of his book, "The call of the minaret": "not so the new testament3 . . . there is condensation and editing; 4 there is choice, reproduction and witness. The gospels have come through the mind of the church behind the authors. They represent experience and history."
If words have any meaning, do we need to add another word of comment to prove our case? no! but the professional propagandists, after letting the cat out of the bag, still have the face to try to make their readers believe that they have proved beyond the shadow of any doubt that the Bible is the "irrefragable 5 word of God." their semantic gymnastics — equivocating, and playing with words — is amazing!
1. out of ignorance.
2. the Bible is not just a book. It is a selection and compilation of many books.
3. as opposed to the Qur'an.
4. another word for interpolating.
5. indisputable.
Both these doctors of religion are telling us in the clearest language humanly possible that the Bible is the handiwork of man, all the while pretending that the are proving to the contrary. An old Arab saying goes: "if such are the priests, God bless the congregation."

With this sort of drive, the hot-gospeller and the bible-thumper is "inspired" to harry the "heathen." 1 a theological student — a not-yet-qualified young evangelist — from the University of Witwatersrand, became a frequent visitor to the Newtown mosque in Johannesburg, with the "noble" thought of "witnessing"2 to the members of its congregation. When I was introduced to him, (and having learnt his purpose), I invited him to lunch at my brother's residence — a stone's-throw from the mosque. While discussing the authenticity of the Bible over the dinner table and sensing his stubborn dogmatism, I put out a feeler: "your professor Geyser, (the head of the department of theology) does not believe the Bible to be the word of God." Without the slightest surprise he answered, "I know." Now I personally had no knowledge of the professor's conviction about the Bible. I had only assumed so from a controversy which raged around him about the "divinity of Christ." 3 He had taken issue with the orthodox believers on this point some years ago. I continued further, saying, "your lecturer does not believe the Bible as being God's word." The young evangelist, responded again, "I know" but he continued this time-with the words, "but I believe that it is the word of God!" there is no real remedy for such people. Even Jesus bewailed this sickness: "... seeing they see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." (Matthew 13:13)
Al-Qur'an, the holy book of God, also condemns this mulish mentality:
“… deaf, dumb and blind, they will not return to the path.” Qur’an 2:18

These pages are now addressed to those sincerely humble souls, who are genuinely interested in seeking the light of God, and who wish to be guided by it. As for the other, with a sickness in their souls, the facts presented herein can only increase the disease of their hearts.”
1. see "How lost are the heathen?" by the same Moody Press of Dr. Scroggie.
2. when the Christian talks of "witnessing" he means propagating, proselytizng, converting.
3. this subject is dealt extensively in the book — "Christ in Islam"

Chapter two
The Muslims' standpoint
Presumptuous Christians
Whether Catholic, Protestant or a "cultist," of the thousand -and - one - sects - and - denominations-of-Christianity, never will you find a missionary who will not, prima facie, presuppose that his potential convert accepts his "Holy Bible" as the book of final authority on every religious opinion. The only answer the prospective proselyte has is to quote verses from the Bible which are contradictory to the missionary's or debate their interpretations.
When the Muslim proves his point from the Christian's own holy scripture, and when the professional priest, parson or predikant cannot refute the arguments — the inevitable Christian evasion is — "do you accept the Bible as God's word? on the face of it, the question seems to be an easy one, but a simple "yes" or "no" cannot be given as an answer. You see, one has first to explain one's position. But the Christian will not give one the opportunity. He gets impatient. "answer — 'yes or no!' " he insists. The Jews did the same to Jesus (PBUH) two thousand years ago, except that surprisingly he was not strait-jacketed, as is the fashion today!
The reader will readily agree that things are not always either black or white. Between these two extremes there are various shades of grey. If you say "yes" to his question, then it would mean that you are prepared to swallow everything hook, line and sinker, from Genesis to Revelation from his Bible. If you respond with a "no" he quickly unhooks himself from the facts you have presented, and rallies support from his co-religionists in the audience with; "you see, this man does not believe in the Bible! what right has he to expound his case from our book?" With this hydra-like somersault he rests content that he has safely evaded the issue. What is the muballigh1to do? He has to explain his position vis-a-vis the Bible, as he ought to do.
1. muballigh: the propagator of Islam

Three grades of evidence
We muslims have no hesitation in acknowledging that in the Bible, there are three different kinds of witnessing recognizable without any need of specialized training. These are:
1. you will be able to recognize in the Bible what may be described as "the word of God."
2. you will also be able to discern what can be described as the "words of a prophet of God."
3. and you will most readily observe that the bulk of the Bible is the records of eye witnessess or ear witnesses, or people writing from hearsay. As such they are the "words of a historian"
You do not have to hunt for examples of these different types of evidences in the Bible. The following quotations will make the position crystal clear:
The first type:
a) I will raise them up a prophet . . . and I will put my words in ... and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." (Deuteronomy 18:18)
(b) I even, I am the Lord, and beside me there is no saviour." (Isaiah 43:11)
(c) "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the end of the earth: for I am God, and there is non else." (Isaiah 45:22)
Note the first person pronoun singular (highlighted in bold) in the above references, and without any difficulty you will agree that the statements seem to have the sound of being God's word.

The second type:
(a) "Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying eli, eli, lama sabachtani? . . ." (Matthew 27:46)
(b) "and Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, hear, o Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord:" (Mark 12:29)
(c) "and Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God." (Mark 10:18).
Even a child will be able to affirm that: Jesus "cried" Jesus "answered" and Jesus "said" are the words of the one to whom they are attributed, i.e. the words of a prophet of God.

The third type:
"And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he, (Jesus) came, if haply he (Jesus) might find anything thereon: and when he (Jesus) came to it, (Jesus) found nothing but leaves . . ." (Mark 11:13)
The bulk of the Bible is a witnessing of this third kind. These are the words of a third person. Note the bold pronouns. They are not the words of God or of his prophet, but the words of a historian.
For the Muslim it is quite easy to distinguish the above types of evidence, because he also has them in his own faith. But of the followers of the different religions, he is the most fortunate in this that his various records are contained in separate books!
One: the first kind — the word of God — is found in a book called the Holy Qur’an.
Two: the second kind — the words of the prophet of God, (Muhummed, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) are recorded in the books of tradition called the hadith.
Three: evidence of the third kind abounds in different volume of Islamic history, written by some of high integrity and learning, and others of lesser trustworthiness, but the Muslim advisedly keeps his books in separate volumes!
The Muslim keeps the above three types of evidence jealously apart, in their proper gradations of authority. He never equates them. On the other hand, the "holy Bible" contains a motley type of literature, which composes the embarrassing kind, the sordid, and the obscene — all under the same cover — a Christian is forced to concede equal spiritual import and authority to all, and is thus unfortunate in this regard.

Chapter three
The multiple Bible versions
It will now be easy for us to analyze a Christian's claim about his holy book.
Separating the wheat from the chaff
Before we scrutinize the various versions, let us clarify our own belief regarding the Books of God. When we say that we believe in the Tauraat, the Zaboor, the Injeel and the Qur'an, what do we really mean? We already know that the holy Qur'an is the infallible word of God, revealed to our holy Prophet Hazrat Muhummed Mustapha (peace be upon him) word for word, through the agency of the archangel Jibraeel, (known as Gabriel in English), and perfectly preserved and protected from human tampering for the past fourteen hundred years! 1 Even hostile critics of Islam have grudgingly vouched for the purity of the holy Qur'an: "there is probably in the world no other book which has remained twelve centuries (now fourteen) with so pure a text." — (Sir William Muir)
The Tauraat we Muslims believe in is not the "Torah" of the Jews and the Christians, though the words — one Arabic, the other Hebrew — are the same. We believe that whatever the holy prophet Moses (peace be upon him) preached to his people, was the Revelation from God Almighty, but that Moses was not the author of those "books" attributed to him by the Jews and the Christians. 2
Likewise, we believe that the Zaboor was the Revelation of God granted to Hazrat Dawood (David) (peace be upon him), but that the present Psalms associated with his name are not that revelation. The Christians themselves do not insist that David is the sole author of "his" Psalms.3
1. Whether Muslim or non-Muslim, you do not have lo accept this claim on faith alone. You can verify the fact that al-Qur'an is the word of God. See "al-Quran- the Miracle of Miracles";
2- more evidence later on — "Moses not the author of the biblical "Torah”.
3- later on you’ll read how Christian "brains trust" confess — "author; principally David, though there are other writers."

What about the Injeel? Injeel means the "gospel" or "good news" which Jesus Christ (PBUH) preached during his short ministry. The "gospel" writers often mention that Jesus going about and preaching the Gospel (the Injeel):
1. "and Jesus went . . . preaching the gospel . . . and healing every disease among the people." (Matthew 9:35)
2. "... but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:35)
3. "... preached the gospel. . ." (Luke 20:1)


The "gospel" is a frequently-used word, but what gospel did Jesus preach? Of the 27 books of the New Testament, only a small fraction can be accepted as the words of Jesus. The Christians boast about the gospels according to St. Matthew, according to St. Mark, according to St. Luke and according to St. John, but there is not a single gospel "according" to (St.) Jesus himself! We sincerely believe that everything Christ (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) preached was from God. That was the Injeel, the good news and the guidance of God for the Children of Israel. In his life-time Jesus (PBUH) never wrote a single word, nor did he instruct anyone to do so. What passes off as the "Gospels" today are the works of anonymous hands!
The question before us is: "do you accept that the Bible is God's word?" the question is really in the form of a challenge. The questioner is not simply seeking enlightenment. The question is posed in the spirit of a debate. We have every right to demand in a similar vein — "which Bible are you talking about?", we may ask. "Why, there is only one Bible!" he mutters.

The Catholic Bible
Holding the "Douay" Roman Catholic version of the Bible aloft in my hand, I ask, "do you accept this Bible as the word of God?" for reasons best known to themselves, the Catholic Truth Society have published their version of the Bible in a very short, stumpy form. This version is a very odd proportion of the numerous versions in the market today. The Christian questioner is taken aback. "What Bible is that?" he asks. "Why, I thought you said that there was only one Bible!" I remind him. "Y-e-s," he murmurs hesitantly, "but what version is that?" "Why, would that make any difference?" I enquire. Of course it does, and the professional preacher knows that it does. He is only bluffing with his "one Bible" claim.
The Roman Catholic Bible was published at Rheims in 1582, from Jerome's Latin Vulgate and reproduced at Douay in 1609. As such the RCV (Roman Catholic Version) is the oldest version that one can still buy today. Despite its antiquity, the whole of the Protestant world, including the "cults"* condemn the RCV because it contains seven extra "books" which they contemptuously refer to as the "Apocrypha" i.e. of doubtful authority. Notwithstanding the dire warning contained in the Apocalypse, which is the last book in the RCV (renamed as "Revelation" by the Protestants), it is "revealed":
". . . if any man shall add to these things (or delete) God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book." (Revelation 22:18-19)
But who cares! They do not really believe! the protestants have bravely expunged seven whole books from their book of God! the outcasts are:
the book of Judith
the book of Tobias
the book of Baruch
the buck of Esther, etc.
* this disparaging title is given by the orthodox to Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists and a thousand other sects and denominations with whom they do not see eye to eye.

The Protestant Bible
Sir Winston Churchill has some pertinent things to say about the Authorised Version (AV) of the Protestant Bible, which is also widely known as the "King James Version (KJV)": "The authorised version of the Bible was published in 1611 by the will and command of his majesty King James the 1st whose name it bears till today. The Roman Catholics, believing as they do that the Protestants have mutilated the Book of God, are yet aiding and abetting the Protestant "crime" by forcing their native converts to purchase the Authorised Version (AV) of the Bible, which is the only Bible available in some 1500 languages of the lesser developed nations of the world. The Roman Catholics milk their cows, but the feeding is left to the Protestants! The overwhelming majority of Christians — both Catholics and Protestant — use the authorised (AV) or the King James Version (KJV) as it is alternatively called.”

Glowing tributes
First published, as Sir Winston says, in 1611, and then revised in 1881 (RV), and now re-revised and brought up to date as the revised standard version (RSV) 1952, and now again re-re-revised in 1971 (still RSV for short). Let us see what opinion Christendom has of this most revised Bible, the RSV:-
1. "the finest version which has been produced in the present century." — (Church of England newspaper)
2. "a completely fresh translation by scholars of the highest eminence." — (Times Literary Supplement)
3. "the well-loved characteristics of the Authorised Version combined with a new accuracy of translation." — (Life and Work)
4. "the most accurate and close rendering of the original" — (The Times)
The publishers (Collins) themselves, in their notes on the Bible at the end of their production, say on page 10: "this Bible (RSV), is the product of thirty-two scholars, assisted by an advisory committee representing fifty co-operating denominations." Why all this boasting? To make the gullible public buy their product? All these testimonies convince the purchaser that he is backing the right horse, with the purchaser little suspecting that he is being taken for a ride.

"The world's best seller"
But what about the Authorised Version of the Bible (AV), the "world's best seller?" These revisers, all good salesmen, have some very pretty things to say about it. However, their page iii, paragraph six of the preface of the RSV reads; "the King James Version (alternative description of AV) has with good reason been termed 'the noblest monument of English prose.’ Its revisers in 1881 expressed admiration for 'its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression ... the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm.’ It entered, as no other book has, into the making of the personal character and the public institutions of the English-speaking peoples. We owe to it an incalculable debt."
Can you, dear reader, imagine a more magnificent tribute being paid to the "book of books" than the above? I, for one, cannot. Let the believing Christian, now steel himself for the un-kindest blow of all from his own beloved lawyers of religion; for in the very same breath they say: "yet the King James Version has grave defects." and, "that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision . . ." This is straight from the horse's mouth, i.e. the orthodox Christian scholars of "the highest eminence." Another galaxy of doctors of divinity are now required to produce an encyclopaedia explaining the cause of those grave and serious defects in their holy writ and their reasons for eliminating them.
... to be continued , Insa'Allah (God willing)
Chapter 4 50,000 errors in the Bible

Tman, if you do not believe in the Bible or the God of the Bible you do spend alot of time on this site trying to prove your point.

Usually when one is convinced of what they are about, or who they are, or what they believe -in your case a Muslim- one does not waste time trying to convince others of what they are not; unless one is subconsciously uncertain of their own belief system.

Is the Quran any better? There are numerous criticisms about its organization, compilation and credibility. I'll give some examples:

Almost universally, independent scholars studying the Qur'an and Hadith, have concluded that the Islamic scripture was not revealed to just one man, but was a compilation of later redactions and editions formulated by a group of men, over the course of a few hundred years. The Qur'an which we read today is not that which was in existence in the mid-seventh century, but is a product of the eighth and ninth centuries. It was not conceived in Mecca or Medina, but in Baghdad. It was then and there that Islam took on its identity and became a religion.

The Qur'an reads like a jumbled and confused collection of statements and ideas, many of which bear little relationship to preceding chapters and verses.

Many stories in the Quran have been copied from Talmudic sources. Qur'anic stories include many distortions, amendments, and some bizarre additions to those familiar stories.
Eg.
The story of Abraham
In sura 21:51-71, we find the story of Abraham. In the Qur'anic account Abraham confronts his people and his father because of the many idols which they worship. After an argument between Abraham and the people, they depart and Abraham breaks the smaller idols, leaving the larger ones intact. When the people see this they call Abraham and ask if he is responsible, to which he replies that it must have been the larger idols which did the destruction. He challenges them to ask the larger idols to find out, to which they reply, "Thou knowest full well that these (idols) do not speak!" (aya 65). He gives a taunting retort, and they then throw him into a fire. But in aya 69 Allah commands the fire to be cool, making it safe for Abraham, and he miraculously walks out unscathed.

There are no parallels to this story in the Torah. There is a parallel, however, in a second century book of Jewish folktales called The Midrash Rabbah. In this account Abraham breaks all the idols except the biggest one. His father and the others challenged him on this, and with a humor removed from the Qur'anic account, Abraham replies that he had given the biggest idol an ox for all the idols to eat, but because the smaller idols went ahead and ate, showing no respect, the bigger idol smashed the smaller ones. The enraged father did not believe Abraham's account, and so took him to a man named Nimrod, who simply threw him into a fire. But God made it cool for him and he walked out unscathed.

The similarity between these two stories is unmistakable. A second century Jewish fable, a folklore, and myth is repeated in the "holy Qur'an." It is quite evident that the compiler of this account heard snatches of the Biblical narratives from visiting Jews and assuming they came from the same source unwittingly wrote Jewish folklore into the Qur'an.

Some Muslims claim that this myth, and not the Biblical account, is in reality the true Word of God. They maintain that the Jews simply expunged it so as not to correspond with the later Qur'anic account. Without attempting to explain how the Jews would have known to expunge this particular story, since the Qur'an was not to appear until centuries later, we nontheless must ask where this folklore comes from?

The old testament itself gives us the answer. In Genesis 15:7, the Lord tells Abraham that it was He who brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Ur is a place, also mentioned in Genesis 11:31. We have evidence that a Jewish scribe named Jonathan Ben Uziel mistook the Hebrew word "Ur" for the Hebrew word which means "fire." Thus in his commentary of this verse he writes, "I am the Lord who brought you out of the fire of the Chaldeans."
Consequently, because of this misunderstanding, and because of a misreading of the Biblical verse a fable became popular around this era, which stated that God had brought Abraham out of the fire. With this information in hand, we can, therefore, discern where the Jewish fable originated: from a misunderstanding of one word in a Biblical verse by one errant scribe. Yet, somehow this errant understanding found its way into the Qur'an.

It is obvious from these examples that the compiler of the Qur'an simply repeated what he had heard, and not being able to distinguish between that which he heard and that which was Biblical truth, he simply introduced them side-by-side in the Qur'an.

There are other instances where we find both apocryphal Jewish and Christian literatures within the Qur'anic text. The account of Mt. Sinai being lifted up and held over the heads of the Jews as a threat for rejecting the law (sura 7:171) comes from the second century Jewish apocryphal book, The Abodah Sarah. The odd accounts of the early childhood of Jesus in the Qur'an can be traced to a number of Christian apocryphal writings: the Palm tree which provides for the anguish of Mary after Jesus's birth (sura 19:22-26) comes from The Lost Books of the Bible; while the account of the infant Jesus creating birds from clay (sura 3:49) comes from Thomas' Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ. The story of the baby Jesus talking (sura 19:29-33) can be traced to Arabic apocryphal fable from Egypt named The first Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.

In sura 17:1 we have the report of Muhammad's journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque.' From later traditions we know this aya is referring to Muhammad ascending up to the seventh heaven, after a miraculous night journey (the Mi'raj) from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a "horse" called Buraq. More detail is furnished us in the Mishkat al Masabih. We can trace the story back to a fictitious book called The Testament of Abraham, written around 200 B.C., in Egypt, and then translated into Greek and Arabic. Another analogous account is that of The Secrets of Enoch ( chapter 1:4-10 and 2:1), which predates the Qur'an by four centuries. Yet a further similar account is largely modelled on the story contained in the old Persian book entitled Arta-i Viraf Namak, telling how a pious young Zoroastrian ascended to the skies, and, on his return, related what he had seen, or professed to have seen (Pfander 1835:295-296).

The Qur'anic description of Hell resembles the descriptions of hell in the Homilies of Ephraim, a Nestorian preacher of the sixth century (Glubb 1971:36) The author of the Qur'an in suras 42:17 and 101:6-9 possibly utilized The Testament of Abraham to teach that a scale or balance will be used on the day of judgment to weigh good and bad deeds in order to determine whether one goes to heaven or to hell.

The description of Paradise in suras 55:56-58 and 56:22-24,35-37, which speak of the righteous being rewarded with wide-eyed houris who have eyes like pearls has interesting parallels in the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, where the name for the maidens is not houris, but Paaris.

It is important to remember that the Talmudic accounts were not considered by the orthodox Jews of that period as authentic for one very good reason: they were not in existence at the council of Jamnia in 80 A.D. when the Old Testament was canonized. Neither were the Christian apocryphal material considered canonical, as they were not attested as authoritative both prior to and after the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Thus these accounts have always been understood as heretical by both the Jewish and Christian orthodox believers and the literate. It is for this reason that we find it deeply suspicious that the apocryphal accounts should have made their way into a book claiming to be the final revelation from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Muslims don't take kindly to scrutiny of their religion or their prophet. I agree with many of the criticism regarding the development of the New Testament. However, the same criticism may be said against Judaism and Islam. By the barrage of criticisms laid against the bible and Jesus, you couldn't tell that Islam accepts the Bible as a Holy Book and reveres Jesus as a prophet. In my opinion, the religious infighting is a distraction leading people away from God rather than toward Him. What do the HOLY BOOKS agree on...the Mosaic Laws and Monotheism. I wish people were also obsessed with espousing the Mosaic laws and the work of the scholars regarding its application today. I am not talking about the ten commandments only...Muslims, Jews and Christians have all developed other codes emanating from ten commandments and laws contained in the old testament. How do these laws apply today?

The evil cult that is militant Islam needs to be exposed for all of the free and united world. Militant Islam has been responsible for countless killings and destruction of world treasures. Militant Islam bears no love for secularism, freedom, dignity of women, right to freedom of thought, expression , faith , belief and worship. It is a totalitarian cult that fosters murderous fundamentalism and non tolerance of any other way of life except its own.

Islamist apologists are fooling nobody but themselves, for when the time comes for forceful conversion to Islam or payment of jizya , it will be too late for them. It is time that the free world recognizes militant Islam for the evil that it really is and unites to put down this murderous and deadly philosophy that has brought doom to millions throughout history.

Can you ever say exactly what YOU think? Do you ever get original thoughts in your head? Or do you just have to go around copying and pasting here without giving the original author any form of credit for their thoughts and ideas?


I am yet to see any thing original posted by you. All I ever see is copy and paste, copy and paste!

Read the Epic of Gilgamesh and see who copied what!

Some historians say that Zoroastrianism was the first monotheistic religion. It preceded Judaism probably by probably 400 years. It came out of ancient Mesopotamia...the cradle of civilization after the great flood. The code of Hammurabi was no revolution. It too was preceded by codes revealed to mankind by God and handed down generation after generation after creation. Noah preceded Abram and the Hammurabi code by 11 generations. By the time Abram was born Noah's sons, who would have known the so called "Noahide Laws" would have spread the same code among their descendants. Noah also had a covenant with God.

The Noahide laws are as follows:
1) No worship of false gods.
2) Murder is not permitted.
3) Stealing and Kidnapping are sins.
4) Sexual immorality if forbidden. This includes adultery and homosexual behavior, as well as incest.
5) Do not blaspheme God.
6) Do not consume any flesh torn from an animal that is still alive.
7) Establish a system of laws, courts, and police that is honest and effective.

There are a number of differences between Judaism's legal system and the Sumerian Code of Hammurabi (18th century BCE). For example: Hammurabi's Code is only consequential law; i.e., if you do X then Y will happen to you. The laws of the old testament on the other hand gives moral pronouncements; i.e., "You shall not…" - as well as consequences.
Hammurabi's Code contains no positive obligations toward others. The old testament on the other hand is replete with directives of love, kindness, lending, charity, etc. Hammurabi's Code protects the nobility and land-owners as privileged classes. The class of people "protected and favored" in the old testament are the widows, the orphans, the poor and the strangers.

Whatever similarity Hammurabi's Code bears to the old testament may be attributed to the following: Before the Torah was given to Moses at Sinai, Mankind already had seven categories of laws in the "Noahide Laws" which God had commanded to Noah.