Posted on 06/28/2005 12:47:49 PM PDT by forty_years
Asked if Muslims worship the same Almighty as Jews and Christians, President Bush replied some months ago, "I believe we worship the same God." The Islamic deity, known as Allah, in other words, is the same Supreme Being to whom Jews and Christians pray.
The president's statement provoked widespread dismay among Evangelicals; one poll found 79% of their leadership disagreeing with this view. Pat Robertson pungently explained why, observing "the entire world is being convulsed by a religious struggle. … whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is Supreme."
Muslims at times agree that God and Allah are different. Irshad Manji has recounted how her teachers at a madrassah in Canada taught her this. And a Jewish scholar, Jon D. Levenson, finds the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God "if not false, then certainly simplistic and one-sided."
This debate plays out at many levels. In the American scouting movement, Muslims promise "I will do my best to do my duty to God"; their British counterparts instead do their "duty to Allah."
This might seem like a minor semantic quibble, but the definition of Allah has profound importance. Consider two alternate ways of translating the opening line of Islam's basic declaration of faith (Arabic: la ilaha illa-la). One reads "I testify that there is no God but Allah," and the other "I testify that there is no deity but God."
The first states that Islam has a distinct Lord, one known as Allah, and implies that Jews and Christians worship a false god. The second states that Allah is the Arabic word for the common monotheistic God and implies a commonality with Jews and Christians.
The first translation is 40 times more common in a Google search than the second. Yet, the latter is accurate. Mr. Bush was right. There are several reasons to use the translation that equates Allah with God:
Scriptural: The Koran itself in several places insists that its God is the same as the God of Judaism and Christianity. The most direct statement is one in which Muslims are admonished to tell Jews and Christians "We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you; our God and your God is One, and to Him we do submit" (E.H. Palmer translation of Sura 29:46) Of course, the verse can also be rendered "our Allah and your Allah is One" (as it is in the notorious Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation)
Historical: Chronologically, Islam followed after Judaism and Christianity, but the Koran claims Islam actually preceded the other monotheisms. In Islamic doctrine (Sura 3:67), Abraham was the first Muslim. Moses and Jesus introduced mistakes into the Word of God; Muhammad brought it down perfectly. Islam views Judaism and Christianity as flawed versions of itself, correct on essentials but wrong in important details. This outlook implies that all three faiths share the God of Abraham.
Linguistic: Just as Dieu and Gott are the French and German words for God, so is Allah the Arabic equivalent. In part, this identity of meaning can be seen from cognates: In Hebrew, the word for God is Elohim, a cognate of Allah. In Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, God is Allaha. In the Maltese language, which is unique because it is Arabic-based but spoken by a predominantly Catholic people, God is Alla.
Further, most Jews and Christians who speak Arabic routinely use the word Allah to refer to God. (Copts, the Christians of Egypt, do not.) The Old and New Testaments in Arabic use this word. In the Arabic-language Bible, for instance, Jesus is referred to as the son of Allah. Even translations carried out by Christian missionaries, such as the famous one done in 1865 by Cornelius Van Dyke, refer to Allah, as do missionary discussions.
The God=Allah equation means that, however hostile political relations may be, a common "children of Abraham" bond does exist and its exploration can one day provide a basis for interfaith comity. Jewish-Christian dialogue has made great strides and Jewish-Christian-Muslim trialogue could as well.
Before that can happen, however, Muslims must first recognize the validity of alternate approaches to the one God. That means leaving behind the supremacism, extremism, and violence of the current Islamist phase.
http://netwmd.com/articles/article1056.html
That idea would appear to be inconsistent with John 1, which dates at latest to the early second century. Specifically, the following passage:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The Gospel of John is canonical, and John himself was quite Jewish. How would you reconcile the notion of early Jewish Christians thinking of Jesus as a flesh-and-blood super-prophet only with John's clear indication of "Word become flesh"?
Son of G-d is a totally alien concept to Judaism, but not to the Greco-Roman culture of the time. The original Jerusalem Church largely did not survive into the early second century. by then its members either perished in the revolt or drifted back to mainline Judaism and was suplanted by Pauline Chrisianity - which was quite different. Subsequent writings were then written or reedited for a new audience, and some original writings suppressed.
So you're saying that the Gospel of John is a revised version, and not the actual writing of John the Apostle?
Your thesis that the first-century church didn't recognize the Christ as the "Son of G-d" (I'll use the dash as a courtesy) would also require us to toss the virgin birth onto the ash-heap of subsequent revision...because if that bit was originally in Matthew, the Jerusalem church would have known it, and not discounted it.
Then they weren't Christians. The Gnostics had weird beliefs about Christ and Paul and John preached against them.
If Allah "has no Son" (we were informed that this is the doctrine of Islam by Muslims in the Philippines, and have seen this in their literature published in Manila and approved in Saudi Arabia), then it cannot be the same God as Jehovah, who does have His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and millians of adopted sons accepted in the Beloved, Jesus Christ. To any Christian who adheres to the Final Authority of the Bible, this is paramount. (If you don't, then it won't matter to you.) Jesus Christ being the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16; 1 John 5:1-12); that Christ is GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH (1 Timothy 3:16) makes all the difference in the universe. Does Allah have a son who is Allah himself, who came and took upon himself the nature and body of man (yet without the sin nature) to die as the propitiatory substitute in Allah's judgment upon sin and sins? Does Allah have a son who fulfilled what you read in Romans 3:20-26 and Romans 8:3)? No, Allah and Jehovah are not the same person. Allah is not even a person.
from ebioinite.org
Was Yahshua "born of a virgin"?
If I may ask, from what faith perspective are you speaking?
since you seem to be a true believer, let us politely agree to disagree.
I might have been an Ebionite had I lived in Judaea 50 AD.
And what does that make you today? I really would like to know. I'm not looking for ammunition against you, I'm just highly curious.
You're right, but you've not told quite the whole story...which is that you're a true believer too, but of a different sort than I.
...let us politely agree to disagree.
By all means.
Jewish as you have probably surmised, moderately orthodox and a friend of the so called Christian Right, LDS, and post Vatican 2 catholics.
No.
I ( and many others) wonder if the gospels chosen by the council of Nicea were the correct ones,however Since your faith is based on the current canon, I do not want to make an issue of it.
Perhaps though you can answer a question i have had for some time.
The Jerusalem Church headed by James , the brother of Jesus(be it blood brother, half brother or cousin) were devoted Orthodox Jews that were believers in Jesus.
They had a major disagreement with Paul on the status of gentiles(for the sake of argument I won't distinguish the Noachides from non-Noachides). The compromise the Jerusalem Council developed was that the gentiles could enter the cult without becoming Jews.(I don't know if they made an official statement that they felt it to be desirable but not needed). However the Judeaism of the Jewish Christians was affirmed. James et al still observed 613 commandments etc. This seems logical and consistant with traditional Judaisms belief that the nations need only to follow the Noachide code and that the Jewish nation play the role that the levites played in Israel.
The Jerusalem Church was largely destroyed by the revolt. Some people even theorize that they may have played a major role in the rebellion. Afterward because of the death and destruction, the gentile community became the predominant group of Christians.
My question is that based on the practices of the original church of James the just, should not Jews stay (or become) Orthodox Jews that accept Jesus?
Should not a missionary tell a converted secular Jew " now that you believe in Jesus, put on Tefillin?" Shouldn't the Catholic Church instead of persecuting Jews for centuries , tried to get them to be Orthodox Jewish Christians? Obviously based on James' principles becoming a good Catholic is NOT the goal of a good Jewish Christian . Instead of torturing Jews in Spain to eat pork, shouldn't the inquisitors tried to get them to believe in Jesus but also to keep kosher? Should not the watchtower missionary not only tell the assimilated Jew to accept Jesus but to also go to synagogue more often?
thank you . I have enjoyed our discussion
I do believe I've been dismissed. Ah, well...wouldn't be the first time. Good day, then. =]
In parting...If one were to postulate that Jesus was indeed the Messiah but not for the purpose of atonement, then what was his purpose? Under those conditions, whole swatches of Isaiah stop making sense to me.
You jest!
no I didn't dismiss you, I was just thanking you for the continuing discussion.
But do you have an answer for my question ? and yes James is my favorite Nt book.
My question is that based on the practices of the original church of James the just, should not Jews stay (or become) Orthodox Jews that accept Jesus?
Should not a missionary tell a converted secular Jew " now that you believe in Jesus, put on Tefillin?" Shouldn't the Catholic Church instead of persecuting Jews for centuries , tried to get them to be Orthodox Jewish Christians? Obviously based on James' principles becoming a good Catholic is NOT the goal of a good Jewish Christian . Instead of torturing Jews in Spain to eat pork, shouldn't the inquisitors tried to get them to believe in Jesus but also to keep kosher? Should not the watchtower missionary not only tell the assimilated Jew to accept Jesus but to also go to synagogue more often?
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