Posted on 11/28/2002 7:06:02 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Do Moslems, Christians & Jews Believe in the Same God?
One in a series of excerpts adapted by Robert Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s new book, The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam
One of the clichés endlessly repeated by those who would conceal the dangerous potentialities inherent in Islam is that Moslems "believe in the same God" as Christians and Jews. But this is a severe distortion of the truth, for what Moslems fundamentally believe is that they know the true nature of the God that Judaism and Christianity tell lies about. Lies for which Christians and Jews will be punished in hell. The fact that Moslems share Levantine monotheism with us thus makes them more, not less, antagonistic to us on a religious level. Hopes for reconciliation on the grounds of common monotheism, as opposed to a realistic "good fences make good neighbors" civilizational détente, are wishful thinking.
The widespread belief in the non-Muslim world that Islam accords respect to the Old Testament and the Gospels as steps in progression to Mohammad’s revelation is mistaken. Modern Muslim apologists try to stress the supposed underlying similarities and compatibility of the three faiths, but this is not the view of orthodox Islam. Muhammad’s insistence that there is a heavenly proto-Scripture and that previous "books" are merely distorted and tainted copies sent to previous nations or communities means that these scriptures are the "barbarous Koran" as opposed to the true, Arabic one. (Let’s leave aside for a minute the puzzling question of how any degree of "distortion" of the Koran could produce either an Old or a New Testament.) The Tradition also regards the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, and not the New Testament, as the one that Jesus taught. The Koran alone is the true word of God and sets aside all previous revelations.
While the influence of orthodox Christianity upon the Koran has been slight, apocryphal and heretical Christian legends are the second most important original source of Islam. In other words, Islam contains an awful lot that Christians have deliberately rejected over the years as religiously unsound. There are also influences of Sabaism, of Zoroastrianism, and of ancient Arabian paganism, including the divine sanction for the practices of polygamy and slavery. The reports in both the Koran and the Hadith (authoritative traditional sayings) concerning paradise, the houris, (virgins) the youths, the jinn (genies) and the angel of death have been directly taken from the ancient books of the Zoroastrians. Zoroastrianism also originated the story that on the Day of Judgment all people will have to cross a bridge stretched across hell leading to paradise on which the unbelievers will stumble and fall down to hell.
The biblical stories been passed on to Muhammad presumably from Jewish and Christian sources, but it is probable that he never read the Old or the New Testament. Those narratives had deeply impressed him, but being incomplete and imprecise, they gave his imagination free rein. Of the books of the Old Testament he knew only of the Torah or Pentateuch and the Book of Psalms, while the Scriptures he treats collectively as "the Gospels." Muhammad took these narratives as they were given to him, and their use in the Koran amounts to random, approximate and often badly misunderstood reproduction of the Talmudic traditions and the Apocrypha. Moreover, they are of course devoid of their original contexts and of the spiritual message of the original.
Many Old Testament stories are changed beyond recognition, and can be treated as a "source" only in the most general sense. Abraham did not offer Isaac, but Ishmael, as a sacrifice. "Haman" was pharaoh’s chief minister, even though the Haman known to Jews lived in Babylon one thousand years later. Moses was picked from the river not by his sister but by his mother. A Samaritan was the one who molded the golden calf for the children of Israel and misguided them, even though Samarians arrived only after the Babylonian exile. The accounts of Moses’ life are sketchy and say nothing of his character, descent, the time he was sent as a prophet, the purpose of his mission, and where, how and why he appointed Aaron as his deputy. It does not relate the argument between them and the people of Israel, which is crucial to the story. The story of Noah reflected Muhammad’s dilemmas and difficulties rather than Noah’s mission, and even the names of the idols that Noah warns against are Arabic.
The Koran makes reference to Jesus, Mary and events related to them, but with a critical distinction. It explicitly denies that Jesus was crucified: Allah made the Jews so confused that they crucified somebody else instead who had the likeness of Christ: "They slew him not nor crucified but it appeared so unto them." Muslims claim that an impostor by the name of Shabih was crucified, and he resembled Jesus in his face only. It seems illogical to those who count "proud" as one of the "99 most beautiful names of Allah" that Jesus, who was capable of raising the dead and of healing the blind and the leper, willingly submitted to the cross and failed to destroy the Jews who intended to hurt him. Islam rejects the whole concept of the crucifixion, claiming that it is against reason to assume that Allah would not forgive man’s sins without the cross: to say so is to limit his power: "He forgives whom he will, and he chastises whom he will."
The denial of the Trinity is also explicit: Allah begets not, i.e. he is no Father; and was not begotten, that is, he is no Son; and no one is like him, which means he is no Holy Spirit. "They are infidels who say, Allah is the third of three." But "Isa" is not the Son of Allah, only a special prophet, and the Christians’ contrary claim shows how they are perverted. The Christians are guilty of blasphemy because of their belief in the "trinity" of Allah, Mary, and Jesus. The "real" Jesus was a righteous prophet and a good Muslim who paved the way for the final prophet, Muhammad himself.
There is a wishful myth in circulation among liberals that Islam accords respect to all "people of the book," i.e. Christians and Jews in addition to Moslems. While Islam indeed accords them a higher standing than it does to polytheists like Hindus (pace the question of whether Hinduism properly understood is truly polytheistic) or African animists, this hardly amounts to respect. Of all the "people of the book" only Muslims can attain salvation. Jews’ and Christians’ refusal to acknowledge Mohammed as the messenger of God dooms them to unbelief and eternal suffering after death. Christians are mortal sinners because of their belief in the divinity of Christ, and their condemnation is irrevocable: "God will forbid him the garden and the fire will be his abode."
Unlike the Christian faith in God revealing Himself through Christ, the Koran is not a revelation of Allah – a heretical concept in Islam – but the direct revelation of his commandments and the communication of his law. It has been said that the Koran, to a Muslim, is not the perfected Gospel, it Christ, the Word Incarnate. This is a somewhat tenuous metaphor, however, not a valid parallel: Christian God "comes down" and seeks man because of His fatherly love. The Fall cast a shadow, the Incarnation makes reconciliation possible. Allah, by contrast, is cold, haughty, unpredictable, unknowable, capricious, distant, and so purely transcendent that no "relationship" is possible. He reveals only his will, not himself. Allah is "everywhere," and therefore nowhere relevant to us. He is uninterested in making our acquaintance, let alone in being near to us because of love. We are still utterly unable to grasp his purposes and all we can do is what we have to do, to obey his command.
The Koran claims to be the fulfillment of a religious design which was imperfectly revealed to the Jews and to the Christians. It is the crowning synthesis, the final word. But viewing the matter objectively, leaving aside for a moment the question of the actual truth of the book, it seems hard to see how the Koran is a synthesis of anything. The way in which Christianity makes sense – again, simply as a logical matter and leaving aside the truth of it – as a fulfillment of Judaism, is clear even to the unbeliever. But the Koran’s claim is singularly implausible. Non-Muslim commentators fail to see in what way is the Koran an improvement over, or advancement on, the moral teaching, language, style, or coherence of the Old and New Testament. It is looks, feels, sounds like a construct entirely human in origin and intent, clear in its earthly sources of inspiration and the fulfillment of the daily needs, personal and political, of its author.
Finally, one cannot ignore that whatever mildly friendly things the Koran may say about Judaism and Christianity in its early part, the late Surras also signify the final break with the Jews and Christians, who are fiercely denounced. The Muslims must be merciless to the unbelievers but kind to each other. "Whoso of you makes them his friends is one of them." War, not friendship, is mandatory until Islam reigns everywhere. Muslims are ordered to fight the unbelievers, "and let them find harshness in you." They must kill the unbelievers "wherever you find them." The punishment for resistance is execution or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides. By the stage in his life during which these Surras were written, Muhammad was no longer trying to convert his hearers by examples, promises, and warnings; he addresses them as their master and sovereign, praising them or blaming them for their conduct, giving laws and precepts as needed. His raw dogmatism stands, finally, naked of all pretence.
I was on vacation two weeks ago in St. Augustine, a settlement that preceeded Jamestown by 42 years.
Unlike Jamestown (I was there while I was in college), St. Augustine still functions as a city.
Nor have I read the Koran in its original text of Arabic. I must rely upon those who have and those who translate. Its translation into English, as the Bible was also translated from several languages into English, is that, a translation. If written poorly in the original language, grammer "mistakes," syntactical "mistakes," and errors can be "fixed." If the entire book is a "mistake," it cannot be fixed unless it is re-written. Neither text has been rewritten. We are reading, to the best of the translators' (many, many, many) abilities, the word for word, understanding for understanding, into the English language.
I sometimes wonder if the Bible is hailed as great literature merely because people are suckers for Shakesperean English. That it, they're reacting to the King James translation, rather than to the Bible itself.
There are other literary works I have read, originally written in German, French, or Russian, for example. Again, I had to rely upon the translator(s). I love Shakespeare, but he didn't invent the words in the Bible. He translated them. And I do not read, any longer, the King James Version. I prefer to read others, for different reasons, the Amplified, which expands upon the exact word used in the Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew texts. Then there's the New American Standard version, which I find easiest to read.
There are study Bibles which quote the exact word in Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, etc., so the reader can understand how that particular word was originally used and translated.
Simply because a text was translated into my mother tongue does not negate the right to critique that text's syntax, style, structure, meaning, or inherent logic, or lack of any. If that were so, I'd have read and critiqued few texts in college.
I've read some of the King James translation, not much. While there's some good quotes, there's also much turgid boring stuff. All that begetting, and all those looong descriptive passages of the tabernacle, or whatever.
Judged purely as literature rather than "the word of God", much of the Bible, even the King James Bible, should have been cut -- that is, judged purely as literature.
There's also some boring pages in Plato's Republic. However, I would not have the "boring" passages cut. First of all, what's boring to me is of interest to another. It was translated as written by Plato. There were reasons why he wrote the "boring" parts, too. Just because I don't understand that or enjoy that, means nothing. There were, also, important reasons for all the "begatting" in the Old Testament. It is, in part, how to follow the lineage to rightful rulers of Israel, down to Christ, our rightful Ruler. This may not be important to you, but it may well be the only way to get a Jew, for example, to accept Christ as Savior. Reading text that, inasmuch as it is possible, is translated and accurate, "boring" parts and all, may be the only way a particular person comes to the Lord. Our lack of understanding, or dislike, of the specific purpose of a passage is irrelevant.
But, again, SkyPilot was originally focused not on the content and its "believability," but its structure, the thought process, the logic, how the piece flows. Purely as literature, the Bible is a masterpiece. Purely as literature, the Koran is a far cry from that.
Content and believability is another subject matter, altogether, as I previously stated.
Wrong. I surely do believe in the all powerful God. Satan was originally Lucifer, the most beautiful angel, kicked out of heaven, because he wanted to be like God. He is the great deceiver, and has deceived millions, including Moslems, into believing in false gods. He is the author of the Islamic faith. God the Father is not.
Moslems share the essential core concept of one God, but don't follow the teachings of the New Testament any more than Jews. For that matter, neither do most people who describe themselves as 'Judeo-Christians.' That your belief can accept the notion that it does about Satan merely identifies it as an ancient heresy and not Christianity. Your thinking is very much the same as the Moslems, and clearly disconnected from Christs.
Wrong. Moslems share no essential core concept of God, do not follow any teachings of Christ, and do not believe in His divinity. Jesus is God. They believe He was a prophet, but that Mohammed is the better prophet.
My thinking is not dillusional, it is biblical. Your thinking obviously is not.
Crystalk, you say, "who had lost their faith." Faith in what? Faith in whom? In the passages I have cited in post #218 (the specifics of which you have not addressed), Jesus and the Apostle John make it very clear that it is faith in Jesus Christ that is needed. If Jews truly believed the promises of God in the Old Testament, they would welcome the one whom God has sent. If they reject Christ, they do not have faith in or worship the God of Israel.
This is not to say that there are not Jews (descendants of Jacob) who have believed in Christ. All of the apostles and much of the first-century church were Jewish. But today the reality is pretty much the opposite of what you say: There are particular Jews who come to believe in Jesus, but as a whole the Jewish people have rejected Christ.
BTW, if you claim to be a Christian, and yet you see other ways of salvation outside of faith in Christ and you deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, you have placed yourself outside of the one orthodox faith and have made yourself a heretic.
I know of no Christian who disbelieves in the Trinity of God. What religion do you practice, crystalk? It is one with which I am unfamiliar.
Yes, and Bill Clinton never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski.
America was founded by rejecting the notion of the Divine Rights of Kings, which you claim is the will of God, and on the idea that man has a divine right to self-govern. Your ideology not only portrays the Founders as having turned their backs on the will of God, but because of the very notion of self-government generated with the founding of this nation, the subsequent world-wide anti-monarchic movement (by your definition anti-Christian and Luciferic), was in fact begun with the birth of this Nation.
The United States of America, if one follows your thoughts to their logical conclusion, caused Christians to embrace beliefs which you yourself associate with Lucifer, an abomination.
In turn, you now also claim that a good Christian's duty is to "cheerfully obey(s) his nation's laws (un-Christian and Luciferic Laws), respects its culture (a culture built upon a lie straight from the Serpent's mouth), fulfills his civic obligations (paying taxes, etc.) (bow to un-Christian, Luciferic rituals, set in place by people defying the Word of God) and is willing to fight and if necessary die in its defense (defend Satan and his right to rule mankind)".
One last thing before you skulk away, if America is not a Christian nation (your own words), then how could this struggle against Islamic terrorists be a Christianity vs. Islam thing?
Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.
Ezekiel 8:3
He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy.
lock
6734 tsiytsith {tsee-tseeth'}
from 06731; TWOT - 1912; n f
AV - fringe 3, lock 1; 4
1) fringe, tassel, lock
Now the Koran's view...
Koran 55.041
YUSUFALI: (For) the sinners will be known by their marks: and they will be seized by their forelocks and their feet.
PICKTHAL: The guilty will be known by their marks, and will be taken by the forelocks and the feet.
SHAKIR: The guilty shall be recognized by their marks, so they shall be seized by the forelocks and the feet.
Another 'religion of peace' moment.
Well, yes. That's to be expected. To postulate that there is a God who preceded creation and will exist after creation is gone, who is external to space and time, and who is both omiscient and omnipotent, and then to expect to find His nature to be easily comprehensible, is absurd on the face of it.
Complicated apologetics are the unavoidable consequence.
Oberon: Well, yes. That's to be expected. To postulate that there is a God who preceded creation and will exist after creation is gone, who is external to space and time, and who is both omiscient and omnipotent, and then to expect to find His nature to be easily comprehensible, is absurd on the face of it.
Our inability to understand or grasp a concept does not negate or limit the "concept." Unfortunately, because our brains have a limited ability to understand or grasp things of this magnitude, many people use this to either justify their disbelief or limit the power of God.
I agree. In fact, I would say that an individual's claim to fully understand God is prima facie evidence that he does not.
Having just posted an absurdism, let me clarify... an individual's claim to fully understand God is prima facie evidence that the individual's theology is suspect.
From my limited exposure to Islam, incidentally, I find that Allah and his vision for the order of creation are quite simple and easily understood. That immediately renders them suspect.
Wrong Answer! The difference is Jesus!
Similarly, the Holy Spirit working as God in temporal time.
I am making any sense? The human need to "compartmentalize" everything leads to trouble understanding the Trinity, but if you know that God is external, then everything starts to clear up because God has to always exist.
Perhaps, but, as you said, it is, indeed, a mystery. My only thought about your idea. If God, who lives outside of time, "needed" a way to manifest Himself inside of time....is this not, again, placing a limitation on God? I do understand what you are saying, on the one hand; but on the other, the thought also seems to be, at the same time, limiting God's power and ability by "needed" to find a way to cross over the "problem" of "time." Perhaps there was no "problem," rather, we cannot see Him fully revealed as God, because of our inabilities. I'm thinking here of the Old Testament where Moses went blind for a time from just catching a glimpse of God.....As you said, it's a mystery. : )
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.