Posted on 12/04/2006 10:22:38 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Which One God? Comparing the Muslim and Christian conceptions of God.
By Bat Yeor
With the passing of time, hidden challenges, which for a long time had been growing unnoticed and unaddressed, can suddenly emerge into the full-blown light of current events with a force which seems quite overwhelming. Today the Western world, or Judeo-Christian civilization, shaken by jihadist terror, is being rudely awakened to theological realities blurred for decades. From clashes of civilizations to the jihad that is declaring to the planet its genocidal intentions, rational discourse concerning faith is becoming increasingly fraught.
It is within this tumult and confusion that Mark Durie, an Anglican minister, has written Revelation? Do We Worship the Same God?, in which he raises a couple of fundamental questions: Who is God? Is God Allah? Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?
To answer these questions, he analyzes Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God in Christianity and Islam. The reader is given a concise representation of Muslim and Christian arguments. Such an endeavor needs both solid scholarship and theological training. Mark Durie possesses both, being a theologian and a graduate in the language and culture of the Acehnese, a Muslim people from the north of Sumatra in Indonesia. In addition, the subjects he addresses, in the current context, request much intellectual integrity and courage.
But how to know the identity of “God” in the Koran and in the Bible? The author stresses that this profound and deep question requires engaging with the very essence of God’s identity. With perspicacity and great objectivity, Durie delineates the diverse aspects of his investigations, but he warns that his book should be seen only as guidance, and not the last word.
Durie’s questioning grows from the Koran’s statement that Jesus is a Muslim prophet, named Isa — a prophet whose birth, life, teaching, and death are found to be totally at odds with the testimony of the Gospels and with Biblical theology. The Koran — which for Muslims is the literal word of Allah that cannot be doubted — affirms that Muhammad’s prophetic message is exactly the same as that expressed by the Torah and the Gospels. Since there are many contradictions between the Koran and the Bible, Muslim orthodoxy considers the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity as falsifications of the primal and unique Islamic revelation. It is this accusation that provided the doctrinal justification for the discriminatory legal status of Jews and Christians living under Islam.
In the first section, the author provides information about and reflections upon the Muslim Jesus (Isa). He stresses as fundamental the Koran’s teaching that Islam is the first, primordial religion, preceding Judaism and Christianity, which are dismissed as invalid traditions, being falsified versions of Islam. Because Christianity and Judaism are thought to be a corruption of the pure message of Islam, anything true in these religions comes from their Islamic roots. Consequently, to obey their true religion, Jews and Christians should “revert” to Islam and accept the prophethood of Muhammad.
This implies, writes Durie, that anyone who opposes Muhammad is not a true Christian, nor a true Jew. Seen in this light, the Koranic verses sympathetic to Jews and Christians refer to those who will see the light and find it to be Islam. If Islam recognizes only itself in Judaism and Christianity, one can wonder whether this replacement theology is not the negation of the very principle of recognition of other religions.
Many Christians profess that Christianity is closer to Islam than to Judaism, because of a common reverence of Jesus/Isa and his mother Mary. They will be astonished to learn from Durie that according to hadiths — acts and sayings attributed to Muhammad, and endowed with theological and legislative authority — Isa, the Muslim Jesus, will be the ultimate destroyer of Christianity.
Durie examines the characters of Jesus and Isa, separated by six centuries; he compares their name and biographies and explains the differing understandings of the prophecy in the Bible and the Koran. While Christianity accepts Jewish Scriptures as the foundation of their belief and practice, and as an integral part of Christian ministry, read in churches around the world, Muslims disregard the Bible. They claim that it is Islam that is the common heritage of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and that Jews and Christians should work to recover this heritage. Durie comments that, in this process, the Islamization of Jesus and the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets destroys both Christianity and Judaism.
The author analyses with great clarity and depth the fundamental principles of the two religions and, in a powerful chapter that raises essential questions, he discusses the concept of “Abrahamic Faith” that has become so fashionable today as a framework for dialogue. This definition, he points out, originates from the Koranic statement that Abraham was a Muslim prophet and from Islam’s core doctrine that Islam was the one revelation given to humanity by Allah through the Biblical figures and through Jesus. For Durie, the many “Abrahamic Faith” conferences throughout the world point to the Islamization of Christian understandings of interfaith dialogue. How should Christians respond to this claim which is a fundamental point of Muslim doctrine? Durie develops several arguments based on a rational analysis of history and the texts.
In his conclusion, Durie writes that profound contrasts exist in Islam and Christianity in their understanding of the identity of God. These have far-reaching implications, affecting attitudes, ethics, and politics. The clarification of misunderstandings and false assumptions, masterly exposed by Durie, is a condition to open the way for more constructive dialogue.
Durie’s book could not have been more timely. He offers a well-balanced analysis, acknowledging the important similarities of the two faiths, without ever misrepresenting the real disagreements or ignoring the hard issues. In this time of globalization, when crucial challenges are emerging for the West’s post-Christian societies, Durie’s reflections provide essential and fundamental guidance that will enable Christians to engage in a dialogue based on truth.
This is all the more urgent now that the cultural jihad in the West is preventing the free expression of thought and belief, and is subverting the whole ethical foundation of Judeo-Christianity.
— Bat Yeor is the author of studies on the conditions of Jews and Christians in the context of the jihad ideology and the sharia law. Recent books include: Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide and Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, both at Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Christ did not call out to Allah. What he said was
"Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani" which means My God, My God why has hast Thou forsaken me.
Not true. Christians kept the Old Testament as part of the Holy Scriptures. And the Christian religion came from the Jews. First Christians were Jews who believed that Messiah came. Non Jews became Christians later.
Not so with Islam. Islam was founded outside of Church and Synagogue, was not based on Jewish or Christian writings - instead made false claims about them.
Actually, the best explanation I have heard for Jesus's exclamation on the Cross is referential. If I were to say to you, "Four score and seven years ago", you would understand I was talking about The Gettysburg Address.
Here is the opening of Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?". I would argue that Jesus is pointing those around Him to this Psalm (known as the Suffering Servant Psalm) to help them understand what they are witnessing. Although it begins in agony, the Psalm ends in triumph.
The Aramaic "el" and Arabic "ilah" share a proto-Semetic root mean small-g god. "Allah" is a contraction of "al-ilah", and means "the [one] God." Any decent Arabic-language Bible will use "Allah" for "God." As you have shown, "Allah" is much closer to the term that Jesus used for His Father than the Germanic "God".
From Constantine through Jews who refused to accept Jesus were frequently considered to be in open defiance of Christ for refusing to accept him as Messiah like the early Christians did.
I thought that when Jesus cried out "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me", was when God turned his back on Christ because Christ had taken on the sins of the world and God will not condone sin.
Allah, Elohim, Eli, Eloah, Ilah etc ... are Semitic words with the same root. They all mean God or Divinity.
Interesting. I never realized that.
Judaism of today is not the faith and practice of the OT.
Judaism of today has characteristicts of paganism.
Well, isn't it what they/you do? :)
Yes they are Semitic words, but they are pronounced differently depending where you came from. That does not mean Christ said Allah or that he meant an Islamic god.
Especially Reformed Jews. They and Unitarians go along very well.
I see it as a teaching moment. Read Psalm 22 and imagine Jesus preaching it from the Cross about what He was doing and what was to come... I believe He did that with the breath He had left.
Such as?
There is either One God or there isn't. There is no such thing as "an Islamic god" any more than there is "a Jewish god" or "a Christian god". Such relativist language subverts the very concept of monotheism.
It's less of "open defiance" (and pogroms) these days. ;)
Yes, but even in the modern Arabic you pronounce the words differently, depending on which country you are from. So the Arab from Algeria might need to right the words down in order to be understood by Arab from Iraq.
In Semitic languages vowels are especially fluid, the consonants tend to be more stable and usually they are written down.
In paganism, gods are local.
A geographic locality, an ethnic locality, national locality, etc.
The god of today's ethnic Jews has these characteristics.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Jehovah of the OT; ethnic Jews today call him a liar; therefore they do not worship Jehovah.
Their Jehovah is one conjured up after the crucifixion and the splitting of the veil which lead to the Holy of Holies.
Not it is not Relativist. There is only ONE GOD, however, Islam twists and changes God from a loving and forgiving God to a hateful god. They are using this twisted belief to say others who do not believe in their version of god is wrong.
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