quran

A Syrian refugee opens her Quran Nov. 18, 2015, at the Muslim Association of Lehigh Valley in Whitehall, Pa.

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

With terrorism on the minds of Americans, scholars and Averages Joes alike have asked: Is Islam inherently violent?

Last month, a software developer entered the conversation with a text-analysis tool.

"It's an unpleasant discussion at best," developer Tom Anderson recently wrote in a blog post. "Nonetheless, it is occurring in living rooms, coffee shops, places of worship and academic institutions across the country and elsewhere in the world."

Anderson, whose company developed text analysis software OdinText, decided to use the technology to compare language in the Quran to the Bible's two testaments -- and his findings might surprise Christian Americans.

The Old Testament of the Bible is significantly more violent than the Quran, with more than twice as many mentions of destruction or killing, according to his algorithm. Even the New Testament is slightly more violent than Islam's holy text.

Anderson published his findings with a key caveat: "I must emphasize that this analysis is by no means exhaustive, nor is it intended to advance any agenda or to conclusively prove anyone's point." He described the project as a "surface-level" attempt to compare the texts with as little bias as possible.

With that in mind, let's explore a few other points of comparison:

The New Testament references the concept of love more than the Quran or the Old Testament

The concept of grace and forgiveness appears more often in the Quran than the New Testament or Old Testament. Anderson notes this might be due to the Quran frequently referring to Allah as "The Merciful." He chose not to exclude those mentions of mercy because he thought it significant that the author(s) chose "mercy" as God's chief attribute, as opposed to terms like "mighty" or "powerful."

The texts are fairly similar when it comes to the prevalence of positive and negative sentiment.

The Old Testament includes more angry sentiments than the Quran or New Testament.

The Quran reflects more joy, trust and fear than the Old or New Testament.

For more data points and details about how OdinText works, see Anderson's three-part write up, which starts here.

Are you surprised by Anderson's findings? In conversations about inherent violence, what's more important: actual mentions of destruction in the scripture or historical interpretations and doctrine?

-- Melissa Binder

mbinder@oregonian.com

503-294-7656

@binderpdx