Let me see if I have this right...

[Forced_In]

Well, it is neither English nor gibberish. It
was written in Greek. And the WHAT? in question is simple. God the one
and only, who is and was and who is to come. The beginning and the end.
The Alpha and Omega. The first and the last. The one who died and who
behold is alive forevermore.

<snip>

Hi

This is a very important issue. Why majority of bibles in use in the west are
translated from Greek ? It is well expected that original scriptures were
written either in H_e_b_r_e_w or A_r_a_m_a_i_c ( the then language of
mid-east ).

Now translating from Greek means putting unnecessary buffer language in
and thus making chaos. I have seen efforts to make direct translations from
those languages to English. Unfortunately they seem lacking funding,
attention and so on. I suppose it would be nice if some one read those
translations and compare the critical parts such as so called trinity with more
used bibles.

Peace

 

[Imam]

we Christians see Jesus as God himself and not a partner to God

search well for his other two partners in the Godhead ,the one who is sitting on his left hand (God The father) and the one who sends to Earth for the believers (God The Holy Spirit)!.

it is hard for me to understand why you accuse of associating partners with God.

on the one hand
If Jesus isn't God ,and only the father is God (some Biblical proof text and logic to support that) then it ISN'T hard for you to understand why we accuse of associating partners with God.


on the other hand ,If you claim that Jesus is God and the father is God (and your only defense the word mystery,or that is what Trinitarians interpret the bible),then again it ISN'T hard for you to understand why we still accuse of associating partners with God.

 

[Forced_In]

<snip>

Hi

This is a very important issue. Why majority of bibles in use in the west are
translated from Greek ? It is well expected that original scriptures were
written either in H_e_b_r_e_w or A_r_a_m_a_i_c ( the then language of
mid-east ).

Now translating from Greek means putting unnecessary buffer language in
and thus making chaos. I have seen efforts to make direct translations from
those languages to English. Unfortunately they seem lacking funding,
attention and so on. I suppose it would be nice if some one read those
translations and compare the critical parts such as so called trinity with more
used bibles.

Peace

Hello

After some searching I found these interesting link , of course there is much
to investigate on these matters. Why there are only four gospels accepted
by Pauline church and hundreds of other gospels rejected destroyed and so
on ? What is the gospel of Barnabas ? take a look at this for instance :

http://web.archive.org/web/20050102022555/www.mlife.org/bible_kjv/historyofbarnabas.html

From above link :
"In 325 A.D., the famous Council of Nicea was held. The doctrine of the
Trinity was declared to be the official doctrine of the Pauline Church, and one
of the consequences of this decision was that out of the three hundred or so
Gospels extant at that time, four were chosen as the official Gospels of the
Church. The remaining Gospels, including the Gospel of Barnabas, were
ordered to be destroyed completely. It was also decided that all Gospels
written in Hebrew should be destroyed. An edict was issued stating that
anyone found in possession of an unauthorised Gospel would be put to death.
This was the first well-organised attempt to remove all the records of Jesus's
original teaching whether in human beings or books, which contradicted the
doctrine of Trinity. In the case of the Gospel of Barnabas: these orders were
not entirely successful, and mention of its continued existence has been
made up to the present day."

Peace

 

[coddles76]

Or at least this is what Muhammed said was the case

He must of been one amazing human then to know things that NO other human could have possibly known.

Muslims are the only group of people who think this refers to Muhammad

Thats because muslims are the only group who lead by logic and facts, so We'll take that as a compliment.

That makes sense if you accept the premise that Muhammad was God's chosen prophet and said all of what God told to him and only what God told to him, with none of his own thought mixed in. I know that you do. I do not.

"I", This discussion is not about YOU. You are merely another human with a freethinking mind to decide what you wanna believe but what YOU believe does not change the facts of revelation or the facts of religion.

Why did God choose Abraham and not others? Why did God send Jesus to the Jews and not others? A great deal of the history of God's interaction with people involves him selecting only a small targeted group, and then that group is supposed to take the message to the world. Is this not exactly what you see with Muhammad? I would say that the trinitarian God is NOT restricted to just Christians, but that others do not always listen and see the full truth when God makes himself known to them

I don't think your understanding quite effeciently enough, try to let your inner spirit lead you in the right direction.
What I have been stating and quoting from christian belief is that the trinitarian GOD did NOT reveal himself to NONE but the christians, What makes them so special? The trinitarian GOD NEVER revealed himself to Abraham nor to noah, nor to moses. Did they miss something? Were they not intelligent enough to understand what GOD was telling them?If the trinitarian GOD is not restricted to christians then why did GOD reveal himself only to christians and not to any other group that ever exsisted? Why did GOD skip Adam, noah, abraham, moses and muhammad? From what I have been interpreting from your speech is that NO other group was worthy enough, and that they weren't intelligent enough to understand GODs nature as per the christian belief.

A great deal of the history of God's interaction with people involves him selecting only a small targeted group, and then that group is supposed to take the message to the world. Is this not exactly what you see with Muhammad?

Incorrect, Islam is not a small targeted group. The message has always been islam from the beginning of time. Submit to the ONE and only god, NOT 3 in 1 or 1 in 3. The ONE the only 1=1. Muhammad was sent only to cement this to humanity, and was the next selected messenger to pass on that message so we sould submit to our creator. Islam is for all or creation and it is not for a small targeted group and wasn't revealed to a small targeted group.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Why majority of bibles in use in the west are
translated from Greek ? It is well expected that original scriptures were
written either in H_e_b_r_e_w or A_r_a_m_a_i_c ( the then language of
mid-east ).

Expected by whom? There is only a very small handful of scholars that think that the original autographs of the New Testament were written in either Hebrew or Aramaic. George Lamsa and a few Syrian Christians are among them, but the rest are predominately Muslims. And the reason that the dominant view is that the original writings were in Greek is because the oldest extant copies in any language other than Greek come from the 4th & 5th centuries, while we actually have parts of the New Testament in Greek that pre-date those copies by some 200 years.

There is some conjecture that perhaps there was an Aramaic version of Matthew that served as a rough draft for the Greek text that we have today, but nothing has ever been found to clearly make that case, so it remains a an unproven hypothesis.

As for the rest of the NT, no one who has proposed that the NT would have originally been written in Aramaic has yet to be able to give a rationale for why Paul's letters written to Greeks living in Greece or Greek-speaking Asia minor would have been written in anything other than Greek? No one has yet been able to give a rationale why the letters of Peter, James, and John which were written to the larger Christian community, in a world where the lingua franca of the day was Greek, where the language of commerce both international and domestic was Greek, in a world where Greek even the uneducated were bilingual speaking their native tongue and Greek to such an extent that Greek (not Latin) was the everyday language of the even the peasant population of Rome -- why in such a world would these letters that were meant for the Church universal scattered around the world be written in something other than Greek. No one has yet been able to give a rationale why a Greek such as Luke or a Roman such as Mark would have written in Aramaic when their intended audience were living outside of Israel. No one has yet provided a rational as to why John, after living the majority of his life in the Greek-speaking world and writing a Gospel that was crafted to speak to those who had been raised on Greek philosophy and Greek ways of thinking, would write in some language other than Greek.

In short, no one here has yet to give a rational rationale for why any book of the NT other than Matthew might possibly have been written in any language other than Greek. (One could probably make an argument for the letter to the Hebrews also, but I have yet to see anyone actually put forth that argument.) And yet, what I do see is that many here blindly hold that the the entire NT was written in Aramaic. It makes me wonder why it is so important for people who don't even hold that the NT is authoritative to adopt a position that is so lacking in support or logic?

 

[Grace Seeker]

If the trinitarian GOD is not restricted to christians then why did GOD reveal himself only to christians and not to any other group that ever exsisted?

As I've already said, I believe he did. You are arguing from a premise that I do not believe is in fact true.

 

[coddles76]

As I've already said, I believe he did. You are arguing from a premise that I do not believe is in fact true.

Hi Once again GS,

I think your inner spirit has left you and I in the dark and I'll take your response as a signal that you have not been able to confidently convince me or the audience on the speciality that the christians hold to have been the ONLY group in history to have had the pleasure to recieve the true identity of God. Secondly I don't think I'm arguing, I'm merely trying to grasp some logic from your explanations.

Allah SWT does not hold the flaws of being predjudice or selective nature. He has revealed his true nature to all of his messengers and prophets from the time of Adam to the last of the messengers, Muhammad, peace be upon them all.

 

[Forced_In]

Hello ,
Please note that I want it to be a discussion to lead us to the truth, so if
you feel it is offensive just point out so we can stop it. Also lets narrow the
discussion to gospels of new testament about Jesus Christ PBUH. That is the
four canonical gospels and their possible sources.

Expected by whom? There is only a very small handful of scholars that think that the original autographs of the New Testament were written in either Hebrew or Aramaic. George Lamsa and a few Syrian Christians are among them, but the rest are predominately Muslims. And the reason that the dominant view is that the original writings were in Greek is because the oldest extant copies in any language other than Greek come from the 4th & 5th centuries, while we actually have parts of the New Testament in Greek that pre-date those copies by some 200 years.

Ok, I suppose this is not a correct belief to say that only Syrian Christians
and muslims hold this view. Please take a look at this Catholic site post for
instance :

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=122301

Even more let me ask some questions.
Where did Jesus appeared and traveled to teach people the massage of God
? What was his native language ? What was the language of his companions
? What was their religion before following Christ ? what was their holy books
? What was the language of their holy books ? If we assume they wrote
down the gospels, what language do we expect them to use ? If the so
called canonical gospels are written by companions of Jesus why the three of
them namely Mathew,Mark and Luke have a very similar structure ? Why in
many parts they match each other word by word ? Does those three share a
common source ?

There is some conjecture that perhaps there was an Aramaic version of Matthew that served as a rough draft for the Greek text that we have today, but nothing has ever been found to clearly make that case, so it remains a an unproven hypothesis.

Does the council of Nicea has an effect on this ? What about non-canonical
gospels ? Is it possible that one of those books has actually been the source
of these so called canonical books ? What was Arian Controversy ? Why the
controversy was "solved" via voting in a council rather than decades of
research into the subject ?

In short, no one here has yet to give a rational rationale for why any book of the NT other than Matthew might possibly have been written in any language other than Greek. (One could probably make an argument for the letter to the Hebrews also, but I have yet to see anyone actually put forth that argument.) And yet, what I do see is that many here blindly hold that the the entire NT was written in Aramaic. It makes me wonder why it is so important for people who don't even hold that the NT is authoritative to adopt a position that is so lacking in support or logic?

As already pointed above I mean the words revealed to Jesus Christ. So it is
possible that other books of NT contain such words, the discussion is not
about them though.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Hello ,
Please note that I want it to be a discussion to lead us to the truth, so if
you feel it is offensive just point out so we can stop it. Also lets narrow the
discussion to gospels of new testament about Jesus Christ PBUH. That is the
four canonical gospels and their possible sources.

As already pointed above I mean the words revealed to Jesus Christ. So it is
possible that other books of NT contain such words, the discussion is not
about them though.

So, you no longer mean what you said above:

Why majority of bibles in use in the west are
translated from Greek ? It is well expected that original scriptures were
written either in H_e_b_r_e_w or A_r_a_m_a_i_c ( the then language of
mid-east ).

Now you only mean the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Well that is a big difference, as 4 books out of 27 books is only refering to 15% what it seemed like you were at first claiming.


But that is fine with me. So let us address those books, and the questions you put to me:

Ok, I suppose this is not a correct belief to say that only Syrian Christians
and muslims hold this view. Please take a look at this Catholic site post for
instance :

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=122301

I took a look at it. The item of discussion in that thread is limited to one and only one book, the Gospel of Matthew not the whole of the NT that I was addressing. But with regard to Matthew in particular, what did I in fact say? I'll refresh your memory:

There is some conjecture that perhaps there was an Aramaic version of Matthew that served as a rough draft for the Greek text that we have today, but nothing has ever been found to clearly make that case, so it remains a an unproven hypothesis.

There is nothing in that thread that disagrees with what I wrote.

Even more let me ask some questions.

[I have broken them out below with your comments remaining in black type and my responses in red.]


Where did Jesus appeared and traveled to teach people the massage of God? Israel.

What was his native language? Aramaic.

What was the language of his companions? Most likely both Aramaic and Greek, and quite possibly Hebrew as well. Even a little bit of Latin is not entirely unlikely. It was common for even peasants in this crossroads of the world to be bi-lingual speakers. With Greek the dominant language of the day, it would have been as likely for people to use Greek then as is for LI posters who have a native language of Arabic, German, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, or Malay to post in English here.

What was their religion before following Christ? Judaism.

What was their holy books? The collection of books that today is known by many names: the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

What was the language of their holy books? In Judea it was in Hebrew. Throughout the rest of diaspora Judiasm it was in Greek.

If we assume they wrote down the gospels, what language do we expect them to use? Greek, the common language of their dispersed audience.

If the so called canonical gospels are written by companions of Jesus why the three of them namely Mathew,Mark and Luke have a very similar structure? The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from Mark and then added additional material of their own composition.

Why in many parts they match each other word by word? The same answer as above.

Does those three share a common source? Again, same answer.


Does the council of Nicea has an effect on this? I don't see how. The canon of scripture may not have been officially ratified until the Council of Carthage in 400 AD, the recognition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as THE four accepted gospels had occured prior to 200 AD (Nicea was not till 325 AD) and that determination was never seriously disputed. Indeed, "by the early third century (i.e. between 200 and 250 AD), a consensus had been reached throughout the church concerning the main contents of the canon. Only a handful of books continued to be debated" (Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity, Tim Dowley, ed.; Eerdman Publishing, Grand Rapids:1975; p. 105). Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not among the books being debated.


What about non-canonical gospels? What about them?

Is it possible that one of those books has actually been the source of these so called canonical books? Hardly. The books that people speak of today as non-canonical gospels (books like the Gospel of Peter, or the Gospel of Thomas) did not appear on the scene until after the recognition and use of the canonical gospels had become established and accepted. It is possible, I would submit even likely, that there were other sources used by the Gospel writers, but they would not be those that you suggested in identifying any of the non-canonical gospels.


What was Arian Controversy? I just recently posted quite extensively on this in the thread "Can the Quran Stand the Test", post #119. In the interest of saving space, I'll just refer you there for this question. For those who don't want to look up another thread, the principle issue of the Arian controversy was whether or not Jesus should be understood as fully God or not.

Why the controversy was "solved" via voting in a council rather than decades of research into the subject? Because coming together as a council to conference about and decide issues in the life of the Church was already established as recorded in the book of Acts -- the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15). This set a precedent which they saw themselves following. In addition, there actually was a continued decades long discussion of the issue beginning with the gathering of the Council of Nicaea (in 325 AD) and then continued in the Council of Constantinople (381 AD), the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) and the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD). These councils reaffirmed the original statements made at Nicaea and developed them further.


Some good questions. I hope that you found my answers helpful.

 

[أبو سليمان عمر]

Grace Seeker if you look at one book it really isnt complete right i mean thats now fair to look at one book, when you are suppose to follow them all am i right?

There are 27 books in the New Testament, this is accepted by all Christian denominations. OK SO IF all Christian FOLLOW THIS 27 books hmm tell me how do you deal with matthew not agreeing with luke or luke not agreeing with john or matthew not agreeing with john or mk vs lk mt or so on so on i mean out of the 27 we see alot of times contradictions and God is perfect we all agree there and the bible is to you the Word of God All Mighty yet did your God make a mistake in the new Testament ?
pls dont tell me there is none i can list more then 150 right now but wont waste my time
but any how see read this
quran 4 82. Do they not then consider the Qur'ân carefully? Had it been from other than Allâh, they would surely have found therein much contradictions.
see God himself tolds us if it was other then they Word of God we would find truly many contradictions. so pls go read you Book look at it and and i hope you see what im talking about so if you are intrested in learning the truth pls let us know and inshallah we will be able to help you see the truth

 

[Joe98]

.....how do you deal with matthew not agreeing with luke or luke not agreeing with john or matthew not agreeing with john or mk vs lk mt or so on so on...

The answer is so simple! Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were witnesses to events.

Nobody put their words in their mouths.

They recorded what they witnessed.

If John says, Jesus cleaned a temple on a Tuesday evening and Mark says it was Wednesday morning, the difference is due to fraility in human memory.

The message is that Jesus cleaned a temple and that has ramifications.
-

 

[GreyKode]

The answer is so simple! Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were witnesses to events.

Nobody put their words in their mouths.

They recorded what they witnessed.

If John says, Jesus cleaned a temple on a Tuesday evening and Mark says it was Wednesday morning, the difference is due to fraility in human memory.

The message is that Jesus cleaned a temple and that has ramifications.
-

Honestly, I have never looked at the gospels myself, but I understand there is quite a significant difference in what the four say about the last words of jesus on the cross.

 

[coddles76]

Originally Posted by Joe98
The answer is so simple! Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were witnesses to events.

Nobody put their words in their mouths.

They recorded what they witnessed.

If John says, Jesus cleaned a temple on a Tuesday evening and Mark says it was Wednesday morning, the difference is due to fraility in human memory.

The message is that Jesus cleaned a temple and that has ramifications.

Honestly, I have never looked at the gospels myself, but I understand there is quite a significant difference in what the four say about the last words of jesus on the cross.

Not only is there a difference but there were many many more witnesses and Literally, hundreds of gospels and religious writings were hidden from the people. Some of those writings were written by Jesus disciples, and many of them were eyewitness accounts of Jesus actions. The Nicea Council decided to destroy all gospels written in Hebrew, which resulted in the burning of nearly three hundred accounts. So what we have left is only a very small account of Jesus actions and message.

 

[Joe98]

but I understand there is quite a significant difference in what the four say about the last words of jesus on the cross.

Christians emphasise the part:

of jesus on the cross.

Muslims ephasise the part:

but I understand there is quite a significant difference in what the four say about the last words of jesus on the cross.

...thereby ignoring the central issue.


...it is exactly the same with other so - called contradictions in the new testament. The central issue gets ignored by muslims.

-

 

[sacredagent]

The answer is so simple! Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were witnesses to events.

Nobody put their words in their mouths.

They recorded what they witnessed.

If John says, Jesus cleaned a temple on a Tuesday evening and Mark says it was Wednesday morning, the difference is due to fraility in human memory.

The message is that Jesus cleaned a temple and that has ramifications.
-

To call a book Words Of God is to have better accuracy than "it was either Tuesday or Wednesday"

And, I have already give up hope of knowing the surnames of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke.

Big deal to non-Christians. Big deal.

 

[glo]

To call a book Words Of God is to have better accuracy than "it was either Tuesday or Wednesday"

And, I have already give up hope of knowing the surnames of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke.

Big deal to non-Christians. Big deal.

Greetings, sacredagent

In this forum (and others) I have learned with great interest about the things in Christianity, which cause such a stumbling block to non-Christians. There is the trinity, of course, and the concept of God becoming man and dying - just to name a few.

Not knowing the surnames of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke is a new one to me!
Why do you think that's so important to you?

Welcome to LI, by the way. :welcome:

Peace

 

[sacredagent]

Greetings, sacredagent

In this forum (and others) I have learned with great interest about the things in Christianity, which cause such a stumbling block to non-Christians. There is the trinity, of course, and the concept of God becoming man and dying - just to name a few.

Not knowing the surnames of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke is a new one to me!
Why do you think that's so important to you?

Welcome to LI, by the way. :welcome:

Peace

because I come from a place where you need to fill in your particulars for a lot of things, otherwise people will doubt you, or reject your forms among others..

pay attention to the word "doubt" there

 

[Forced_In]

Hello Grace Seeker,

Thanks for time taken to answer the post. Considering the size of our posts I
am afraid after some time I would be exhausted by what I would point, do
not know about you though. So let me say what I intended to say in the
first place, some of my points my directly or indirectly relate to your post
(#69) on this thread or other sources I have read. Please feel free to show
possible mistakes. I might not be able to compete on though .

Some observations:
Christ and his companions are/were:
- Jewish
- From Judea
- Dealing mainly with Jews
- Reading old testament in Hebrew

Furthermore Christs mother tongue is Aramaic/Hebrew.

Now Christ speaks Aramaic/Hebrew to people to call them to the right path
as shown by previous profits. His companions are said to have recorded the
events taken place an Christs sayings in writings. Naturally I expect there to
be two major parts to take place for the messages to guide the people in
future.

1. Documentation
2. Interpretation

For the Documentation to take place properly it is important IMO to record
events just as they happended. That is, if Christ spoke any language, the
companions record it the same language.

Could they do so ? IMO: Yes, and they could and they have.

Now my point is that by claiming that Jesus spoke Aramaic/Hebrew but the
companions wrote down in Greek, this means to me that the two phases are
mixed; For that translating essentially means translator is interpreting the
text/sayings because no translation is perfect.

Does all this means that if an older gospel written in one of the
aforementioned languages is found, it should be accepted as a more reliable
source ? IMO : no, because it might be the case that some nonbelievers
might have forged some text to satisfy their wrong believes.

So does it mean that the search for such gospels should stop ? Again IMO :
no because the opposite can be true too. That is, a more trustful source is
likely to be found and accepted as such.

Hence comes the huge effort concept I mentioned in an earlier post.

Regards.

 

[Joe98]

That is, if Christ spoke any language, the companions record it in the same language.

No, if you are trying to tell the Greeks what happened, you write in Greek.

If you want Americans to read the Koran, you write it in english.

-

 

[Grace Seeker]

For the Documentation to take place properly it is important IMO to record events just as they happended. That is, if Christ spoke any language, the
companions record it the same language.

The above is, as you have noted, a statement of your opinion, not actual fact. It is your view that for the documentation to take place properly it is important to record them in the same language in which Christ spoke. But you will not find the historians in full agreement with you.

I agree that translation does mean interpretation, but we use interpretors all of the time to record documents in multiple languages. Yes, the interpretor's task is especially difficult and important that it must be done right. But, when you are the author of the document, and not just the translator of it, this is not as major of a difficulty as it might seem.

Now, of course, the gospel writers were not authors of Jesus' words, they were only translators of them. But you have to remember the difference between the Muslim understanding of the purpose of the Gospel record (i.e., as you said, what is being documented) and the Christian undestanding. From my conversations on LI, I have learned that for the Muslim, what was of first importance to document are Jesus' words, his message. But from the Christian perspective what was of first importance to document is what Jesus did, his actions.

So, I can see why the translation issue is important for you, but from the Christian perspective, telling the narrative of what Jesus did can be written effectively in any language and translation of an exact phrase is not key to the integrity of the gospel as long as the proclamation story of what he did is correct.