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To: Jonty30

Similarities and differences:

If they could get over their political differences, Muslims and Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Christians have many similarities. But there are differences, too.

On the concept of God: Christians have a personal God because of Jesus. Roughly, God the Father of Christianity is like God of Judaism and God of Islam. I say “like.”

Jesus changes everything for us.

Still, the Old Testament God, while a pure spirit, is with his people (”Emmanuel” meaning God is with us) and, furthermore, is sending his messengers (sometimes described as “the” angel of God), and also is raising prophets from his people. But, these relationships between God and his people seems to have come to an end as far as Jews are concerned.

For Christians and Jews, man is created in “the image of God.”

And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female created He them.

That we are created in the image of God gives us dignity. We have the spark of the divine in us. We are sons and daughters of the living God.

I don’t think Islam has such a clear statement asserting that we are created in the image of God. I believe they have an hadith, or saying of the prophet, to this effect, but its meaning is debated.


15 posted on 08/09/2024 10:25:36 PM PDT by Redmen4ever
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To: Redmen4ever

language

The last speaker talks about Biblical Hebrew in the same way that Muslims talk about Koranic Arabic.

Two of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were written in Biblical Aramaic, not Biblical Hebrew. So, when a Torah student is reading a Bible in Hebrew, part of what he is reading is a translation.

Furthermore, languages change over time. So, the Hebrew of the time that Job was written wasn’t the same Hebrew as when later books of the Hebrew Scripture were written, and isn’t the same Hebrew of today’s speakers of Hebrew.

Jews who can read Hebrew, like everybody else, are dependent on scholars to know the meaning of what they are reading.

For Christians, none of this is a problem. We don’t believe the original texts were delivered to us verbatim from God. We believe the original texts were written by men inspired by God.


18 posted on 08/09/2024 11:04:21 PM PDT by Redmen4ever
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