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 Trifkovics 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 Mohammads 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. Muhammads 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. (Lets 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 pharaohs 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 Muhammads dilemmas and difficulties rather than Noahs 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 mans 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 Korans 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.
Ahem.
Have you actually read the Old Testament? The God in its pages is a good deal more bloodthirsty than that of the Koran.
YHWH regularly called for entire cities and nations to be exterminated to the last man, woman, child and domestic animal, whether they surrendered or not.
Allah, at most, called for giving resisting males the option of conversion or death. Women and children were to be at most enslaved. I believe the animals got a free pass.
There are also rather a large number of passages where many thousands are slaughtered for failure to worship God in the proper manner.
The OT is a revealed Christian scripture [binding and infallible], so whatever is said of YHWH in the OT is equally true of the Christian God, who also is YHWH for that matter.
The NT, as the Dead Sea Scrolls have now made clear, were the writings of a not-entirely-mainstream Jewish group, but not so far out as many another that flourished in that era. Many books like the NT ones, obviously written by saints, were not found authoritative or canonical by the rabbis. But that could be said of the Talmud, the Kabbalah, and the Essene scrolls themselves.
Such debate is only about whether the one identical YHWH does or does not require certain behaviors and observances, not really vital stuff.
As to whether there is or is not a holy Trinity, that is for each to decide for himself. Neither the NT nor the OT says there is. It is a theological concept by scholars to help them understand and communicate.
We now find from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources, that Christianity's way of understanding and interpreting the OT was very much the standard and "de rigeur" way of seeing things in Second Temple Judaism, and especially of course in the various Essene sects that were the immediate parents of Christianity.
Thus IT IS RABBINIC JUDAISM, that of the Talmud and the last 1600 years, that has diverged in its thinking more from what was held in 100 BC Judaea, than Christianity has.
Thus Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are not daughter and mother, but sisters, both siblings, both having the Second Temple as their parent.
"Pat Robertson has the issue right. He knows that Islam, despite the existence of millions of "bad" Muslims who reject some of the fundamental tenets of their faith, is a religion of war not peace, that any country with a sizable population of even bad Muslims contains a ticking time bomb, ready to go off in hard times when confused people begin looking for their spiritual roots. When Christians find their roots, they find the Prince of Peace. When Muslims rediscover theirs, it is Muhammad the terrorist. I wish no ill to Muslims, either as human beings or as adherents of a religion I reject. I would like to leave Muslims alone, in exchange for being left alone." Thomas Fleming, LITTLE WHITE LIES (Administration tells about Islam)
My thoughts exactly.
It is PC on the Left to say that all three share the same God. But it is just as PC among necons to say that Jews and Christians share the same God -- as opposed to Muslims.
Really, everyone's spinning, jockeying for alliances.
In truth, and at the risk of sounding Clintonesque, it all depends on how you define "same God." If you mean the same concept of God, all three religions -- and indeed, different sects within those religions -- have a different concept of God.
One may even push the issue to existential extremes, and with some accuracy, state that every individual has a somewhat different concept of God, and thus every individual believes in a different God.
But you can also jigger definitions to state that all people, everywhere, believe in the same God. I know a Hindu who says that Hinduism is really a monotheistic religion, the various deities reflecting different aspects of the same God -- and that we all, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims -- believe in the same God.
But this article is not about a search for theological truth. It's political spin, trying to firm up a Jewish-Christian allianace for a war against Islam. Spin, spin, spin.
Sounds like you think that the New Testament is the last word from God, hence you disregard the Koran. Do you also regard the Book Of Mormon to be a false book?
They represent the extermination of persons infected with the diseases of satanism and paganism. These were brutal, human-sacrificing pagan religions like the abortionists of today. If you think them too harsh, you are not alone, but there are many of us who think something similar will have to be done with Amalek today.
God says so after all.
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