AbuAbdallah
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Jazak Allahu khairun akhi, I am really interested in what you have to say about the trinity. May Allah reward you in this life and in the next.
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Keltoi
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Many Christians do believe that the sins of Adam have left a permanent hereditary stain on mankind. You will be hard pressed to find any agreement on what this means in terms of salvation and the coming of Jesus Christ. I think St. Augustine rejected the notion altogether, but I'm not certain.
Hello again, Brother Keltoi
St. Augustine invented the concept of Original Sin as we have it today.
From the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (on Original Sin)
Original Sin, in Christian theology, the universal sinfulness of the human race, traditionally ascribed to the first sin committed by Adam. Theologians advocating original sin argue that the concept is strongly implied by the apostle Paul, the apostle John, and even by Jesus himself. Late Jewish apocalyptic writings attribute the world's corruption to a prehistoric fall of Satan, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and the resulting disorder, disobedience, and pain of human history. Saint Augustine appealed to the Pauline-apocalyptic understanding of the forgiveness of sin, but he also included the notion that sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the act of procreation. He took this idea from 2nd-century theologian Tertullian, who actually coined the phrase original sin. Medieval theologians retained the idea of original sin, and it was asserted by 16th-century Protestant reformers, primarily Martin Luther and John Calvin. Liberal Protestant theologians later developed an optimistic view of human nature incompatible with the idea of original sin.
Peace
Peace
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The Nicene Creed and Truth about the Trinity
Now I wish people would stick to one subject at a time (I'm equally guilty of wandring off)
I need to talk about The Nicene Creed and Truth about the Trinity since Concept of G-d has to be first and foremost, talking about anything else would cause pointless argument and/or it will turn in to a silly slanging match between the ignorami brothers.
following are exerpts from books on trinity:
"God can in no way be described." -- Plato (Father of the pagan Trinity)
In the preface to Edward Gibbon's History of Christianity, we read:
"Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it" (Soren
Kierkegaard, cited in Time magazine, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 64).
Now I wish people would stick to one subject at a time (I'm equally guilty of wandring off)
I need to talk about The Nicene Creed and Truth about the Trinity since Concept of G-d has to be first and foremost, talking about anything else would cause pointless argument and/or it will turn in to a silly slanging match between the ignorami brothers.
following are exerpts from books on trinity:
"God can in no way be described." -- Plato (Father of the pagan Trinity)
In the preface to Edward Gibbon's History of Christianity, we read:
"Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it" (Soren
Kierkegaard, cited in Time magazine, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 64).
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Re: The Nicene Creed and Truth about the Trinity
Eesa, I think you did more than a credible job presenting the views of both Judaism and Islam with respect to Original Sin. However, can you please tie them into the discussion of the Trinity you were going to address, or were they just a tangent?
One does not have to wait for the Catholic Church in Rome to make pronouncements about the Trinity a few hundred years later. One can see that as early as the birthday of the Christian Church that belief in Jesus as God and in the Holy Spirit as divine are already present. They just weren't tagged with the label the doctrine of the Trinity yet is all.
Now one may reject this teaching as being false. But no reasonable person can deny that it was indeed existant in the life and teachings of the followers of Jesus from day one. The evidence just will not allow it.
Eesa, I think you did more than a credible job presenting the views of both Judaism and Islam with respect to Original Sin. However, can you please tie them into the discussion of the Trinity you were going to address, or were they just a tangent?
In the very first sermon of the Christian Church, long before there was any church in Rome, when it was just the handful of disciples in Jerusalem, we see Peter make a statement that can only be reconciled with monotheism if one has a trinitarian understanding of it. Peter closes his sermon with these words:
Peter says that Jesus is BOTH Lord and Christ. So, this is more than just recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. Speaking to the assembled Jews in Jerusalem, the word that Peter would have used for Lord was Adonai, a term the Jews used to speak about God. This is backed up by Peter's own use of that term when he answers the questions about what his hears should do in response to his sermon:
Here when Peter uses the word "Lord" it is in reference to God. Now just seconds before Peter had said the Jesus was Lord, and now we see that the Lord is "our God". Further the Holy Spirit is also involved in providing people the gifts that God has promised to them.
One does not have to wait for the Catholic Church in Rome to make pronouncements about the Trinity a few hundred years later. One can see that as early as the birthday of the Christian Church that belief in Jesus as God and in the Holy Spirit as divine are already present. They just weren't tagged with the label the doctrine of the Trinity yet is all.
Now one may reject this teaching as being false. But no reasonable person can deny that it was indeed existant in the life and teachings of the followers of Jesus from day one. The evidence just will not allow it.
Ancient Greek and ancient Roman thought have found their way into much of Western thinking, and that includes the Church. So, it has no doubt had its impact on the way that theology is done in the church -- most of it is linear thought like Aristotle, rather than synergistic like Hebrew thought. But that is not the same as saying that the message is untrue. Further, some things may seem repugnant to us, such as a Father being willing to sacrifice his son, but that does not mean they are not from God -- the story of Abraham comes to mind. So, if you wish to reject something because it does not measure up to your standards that is your choice, but be ware that in doing so one takes the risk of substituting man's standards (your own sense of repugnance) for God's way of doing things.
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wow Brother! that is far to complicated for my confused old headI'll try to keep my replies as short as possible in the hope of getting shorter answers
Peace!
[FONT="]Have you ever noticed that Bible Dictionaries and most scholarly religious encyclopaediae and reference works don't use scriptures when discussing the Trinity?
Why is that? Because scriptures don't prove a trinity.
For a trinity you need "THREE". But if the Trinity is not in the Bible in plain sight I wont get it (understand it or take it as Gospel)
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[/FONT]"The word Trinity is not found in the Bible . . . It did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century." -- The Illustrated Bible Dictionary
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OK. I'll keep this one short as I can.
I'll try to keep my replies as short as possible in the hope of getting shorter answers
Peace!
Duh. Nothing new there. I referred to that in my above post, and have discussed it dozens of times on these boards.
I think I gave you scriptures above. I would give you more, but you want this answer short.
Keltoi
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I'll try to keep my replies as short as possible in the hope of getting shorter answers
Peace!
[FONT="]Have you ever noticed that Bible Dictionaries and most scholarly religious encyclopaediae and reference works don't use scriptures when discussing the Trinity?
Why is that? Because scriptures don't prove a trinity.
For a trinity you need "THREE". But if the Trinity is not in the Bible in plain sight I wont get it (understand it or take it as Gospel)
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[/FONT]"The word Trinity is not found in the Bible . . . It did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century." -- The Illustrated Bible Dictionary
The Bible doesn't mention the word "Trinity" because the word is used to describe a concept. You will find numerous mentions of three words, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a word used to summarize the relationship.
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Hey, don't forget Father, Keltoi.
God is one being; it is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which are the three pesons by which God has manifested the one being to us. And that aspect of the nature of God is spelled out time and time again in the scriptures without ever having to mention the word that seems to scare so many people, so I won't mention it here. That word is not important to an understanding of God. It is a label attached to the reality of what is known and experienced about God as revealed in the scriptures, the teaching of Jesus. and from the experience of the disciples.
Keltoi
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Ugghh...absolutely. Can't believe I forgot that aspect. Thanks for the correction.
paarsurrey
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Hi
The labels are also important, that is why they are used to facilitate everybody. If there are different things in three boxes/packets, we know from labels for certain that they contain different things, unless we think that one who has put the labels has done it by mistake, labeling one packet of medicine and putting name of another medicine would become fatal and would not be forgivable by the public. The labels are then named after the properties of the contents in the boxes/packets, and not otherwise. Father, Son, Holy Spirit are named differently, if the purpose is not to mislead, having same properties why then name/label them differently? One should be straight forward in matters of religion. It is reasonable and rational.
Thanks
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No argument with you on your principle of having things labeld appropriately. That is why I have been arguing that Unitarians should not be labeled as Christians, not because they don't have anything in common with Christians (of course so do other religions that are also not Christian), but because they have so many ingredients in their faith package that are different than what is in the Christian faith that to label them as Christian is to mislabel them. Even if not dangerous, it confuses people as to what a Christian really is.
As to the use of the labels of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit however, the Christian understanding is that it isn't humans that did the labeling, but God himself. When a higher authority than us labels the package, it isn't up to us to change the label, just to educate people as to what the labels are and what one can expect to find inside the packages so labeled.
Another question, it's rather personal if you don't mind, how many labels are there on you in your life? I actually carry several. Some people call me by my first name, some by my title. My children call me Father, my father calls me Son, and my spouse calls me (well, maybe I better not go there :giggling: ). Anyway, you get the idea that these people are not mislabeling me, I am just one single person, the same thing inside the oackage each time you look. And each of these people know that all of those things are true about me everytime they deal with me, but as they deal with me from only one aspect of my life, they call me by the label that is appropriate regarding that aspect of myself which manifests (shows) itself to them in their life. It's not a perfect analogy regarding how God might be known and even experienced as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and yet be only one and not three, but maybe it does help with your concerns over labeling.
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The Complex Issues of Inspired Scriptures.
I have followed this thread carefully and can see from a Christian perspective that there are certain difficulties most of perception.
I want to define some of the major differences in both what constitutes our different scriptures and how we view them which ultimately shows how we use them.
The Holy Qur’an, as I understand it, is the inspired words of one person, The Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) said in the original language of Arabic (using the very words he spoke) as he had received them from the Angel Gabriel. For Muslims these are the actual words of Allah, every part imbued with the wisdom and call from God to man. The Qur’an is sacred, even the books themselves are revered and treasured. Worn out copies are collected by some to be treasured as they contain the very words of Allah himself. That is my limited understanding of the Qur’an.
About the Bible I can speak with more certainty as I studied it at Theological College and have a fair working knowledge of it.
The Bible is not one book. It is a collection of many different books by some 66 different authors written over a time period of about eighteen hundred years. Much of the earlier books in what we call the Old Testament were not in fact written down until comparably recent times. In fact under the Scribes movement while the Jews were in exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar 11 (c 625 BCE) was probably the first time the scriptures had been physically written down. The language was of course Chaldean. Later after Cryrus the Great they were translated into Aramaic and later still into Hebrew. Nor are all the books of the Old Testament necessarily Jewish in origin as certainly the two creation myths in Genesis differ and show a Chaldean influence.
As in any collection of books with different authors based upon different aural traditions there will be contradictions. In fact it never ceases to amaze me that they are so few considering. Also as your thread above points out there are references to books that never became part of the cannon of scripture. The scribes will have had to make some choices and maybe by then some of these earlier books had been forgotten in all but title. In any collection of books there will be references to books outside of that collection. Two of the great libraries of the ancient world were destroyed by fire. I refer to Bagdad and Alexandria. Who knows what great treasures of scholarship were lost forever.
When we come to the New Testament our problems become even greater as no one body was responsible for recording the scriptures. Again we have several different writers producing very different accounts of what they had seen or known about. We have parts that seem to have been added at much later dates like the account in John 8. Most scholarship agrees that the earliest gospel account was that on Mark written as it was in the present tense throughout in strict Aramaic tempo. Mark has no birth accounts and is the shortest of the gospels. But for all that there are some unique observed details in Mark that make reading it interesting…the fact that there was a cushion in the boat for instance. (Compare Mark 4: 37ff and Luke 8: 23ff). The four gospels were written in three languages Matthew (Hebrew) Mark (Aramaic) Luke & John (Greek). Then there is the old problem of the different tables of Genealogy found in Matthew and Luke. Matthew was writing in Hebrew (the language of the educated person in first centaury Palestine) and followed the Jewish custom of tracing heredity through the mother. (Having a Jewish Mother makes one Jewish…not having a Jewish father) Luke on the other hand was writing to the Greeks (again the intellectuals in Greece and the Diaspora following the sacking of Jerusalem). He follows the Greek custom of tracing heredity through the father’s side. Again given the time that they were writing after the sacking of Jerusalem there would have not been the libraries where they could look up their facts. In other words they could have just have got it wrong or remembered it wrongly. Luke’s Gospel was probably written in present day south Turkey.
Moving on to the question of tampering with Scriptures. One hesitates to admit the possibility of this as we all like to think our traditions as being pure as the driven snow. But given the long and peculiar threads of the various parts of the church and the numbers of schisms, heresies and splits this tampering is of course possible. The main problems is that of translation itself. The Holy Qur’an is read in the original Arabic using the very words spoken by Mohammed (PBUH). At the start of the translation I have (by Abdullah Jusuf Ali) the notes say clearly that to really understand the sacred text it has to be read in the original tongue, the English version being but ‘faint reflection of the beauty and the power’ original.
The Bible as we have seen was not only written in many languages but was translated into many more. A great deal of the original will have been lost in the translation process. No translation is exact. It tries to convey the meaning, the music, the tone of the original; but it is not the original. The oldest versions of the Bible in English were based upon some very dubious translations done in the past. Just to give an idea of this let us consider the first five books of the Bible.
In the Aural stage they were transmitted through Proto Aramaic (forerunner of present language) through to Egyptian (former exile) through to Hebrew and later at the Babylonian exile into Chaldean. That’s three translations so far. In the written version it was translated from Chaldean to Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek (Septuagint version of the Diaspora) to Latin (Vulgate version) to French (Douay Rheims version) to English. Still with us to this point. I make that nine translations so far. Each of these translations being only an approximation of the previous one. As I said it only amazes me that so much has arrived that we can use at all.
Alongside the great differences therefore between the two scriptures we should also reflect briefly upon the different uses that the scripture fulfil in our two traditions. As I understand it the Holy Qur’an is central to the faith of Islam being as it is the very words of Allah. The fact the no iconography exists within Islamic art apart from textural calligraphy shows this central place of the actual words. Within Christianity the central focus is upon a person who we believe to have been the person of the Godhead. Scripture therefore plays a very different role for the Christian. Comparatively few Christians hold the Bible up as being the ‘Actual words’ of God. (we call those fundamentalists) Christians view the Bible variously as an inspired collection of stories for guidance purposes. When my bible gets worn out I sling it in the bin. I would not dream of doing that with a Qur’an. When I read the gospels it is not to look at unquestionable facts but to learn about the message that Jesus Christ (PBUH) came to bring and demonstrate with his life.
I know this has been rather long but I wanted to lay some ground work as I firmly believe that there are more points of agreement between us that points of contention. It is upon these former issues that I seek to build a dialogue.
May the blessing of Allah (God Almighty), the Most Gracious, the Cherisher and Sustainer of all worlds be upon us all.
I have followed this thread carefully and can see from a Christian perspective that there are certain difficulties most of perception.
I want to define some of the major differences in both what constitutes our different scriptures and how we view them which ultimately shows how we use them.
The Holy Qur’an, as I understand it, is the inspired words of one person, The Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) said in the original language of Arabic (using the very words he spoke) as he had received them from the Angel Gabriel. For Muslims these are the actual words of Allah, every part imbued with the wisdom and call from God to man. The Qur’an is sacred, even the books themselves are revered and treasured. Worn out copies are collected by some to be treasured as they contain the very words of Allah himself. That is my limited understanding of the Qur’an.
About the Bible I can speak with more certainty as I studied it at Theological College and have a fair working knowledge of it.
The Bible is not one book. It is a collection of many different books by some 66 different authors written over a time period of about eighteen hundred years. Much of the earlier books in what we call the Old Testament were not in fact written down until comparably recent times. In fact under the Scribes movement while the Jews were in exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar 11 (c 625 BCE) was probably the first time the scriptures had been physically written down. The language was of course Chaldean. Later after Cryrus the Great they were translated into Aramaic and later still into Hebrew. Nor are all the books of the Old Testament necessarily Jewish in origin as certainly the two creation myths in Genesis differ and show a Chaldean influence.
As in any collection of books with different authors based upon different aural traditions there will be contradictions. In fact it never ceases to amaze me that they are so few considering. Also as your thread above points out there are references to books that never became part of the cannon of scripture. The scribes will have had to make some choices and maybe by then some of these earlier books had been forgotten in all but title. In any collection of books there will be references to books outside of that collection. Two of the great libraries of the ancient world were destroyed by fire. I refer to Bagdad and Alexandria. Who knows what great treasures of scholarship were lost forever.
When we come to the New Testament our problems become even greater as no one body was responsible for recording the scriptures. Again we have several different writers producing very different accounts of what they had seen or known about. We have parts that seem to have been added at much later dates like the account in John 8. Most scholarship agrees that the earliest gospel account was that on Mark written as it was in the present tense throughout in strict Aramaic tempo. Mark has no birth accounts and is the shortest of the gospels. But for all that there are some unique observed details in Mark that make reading it interesting…the fact that there was a cushion in the boat for instance. (Compare Mark 4: 37ff and Luke 8: 23ff). The four gospels were written in three languages Matthew (Hebrew) Mark (Aramaic) Luke & John (Greek). Then there is the old problem of the different tables of Genealogy found in Matthew and Luke. Matthew was writing in Hebrew (the language of the educated person in first centaury Palestine) and followed the Jewish custom of tracing heredity through the mother. (Having a Jewish Mother makes one Jewish…not having a Jewish father) Luke on the other hand was writing to the Greeks (again the intellectuals in Greece and the Diaspora following the sacking of Jerusalem). He follows the Greek custom of tracing heredity through the father’s side. Again given the time that they were writing after the sacking of Jerusalem there would have not been the libraries where they could look up their facts. In other words they could have just have got it wrong or remembered it wrongly. Luke’s Gospel was probably written in present day south Turkey.
Moving on to the question of tampering with Scriptures. One hesitates to admit the possibility of this as we all like to think our traditions as being pure as the driven snow. But given the long and peculiar threads of the various parts of the church and the numbers of schisms, heresies and splits this tampering is of course possible. The main problems is that of translation itself. The Holy Qur’an is read in the original Arabic using the very words spoken by Mohammed (PBUH). At the start of the translation I have (by Abdullah Jusuf Ali) the notes say clearly that to really understand the sacred text it has to be read in the original tongue, the English version being but ‘faint reflection of the beauty and the power’ original.
The Bible as we have seen was not only written in many languages but was translated into many more. A great deal of the original will have been lost in the translation process. No translation is exact. It tries to convey the meaning, the music, the tone of the original; but it is not the original. The oldest versions of the Bible in English were based upon some very dubious translations done in the past. Just to give an idea of this let us consider the first five books of the Bible.
In the Aural stage they were transmitted through Proto Aramaic (forerunner of present language) through to Egyptian (former exile) through to Hebrew and later at the Babylonian exile into Chaldean. That’s three translations so far. In the written version it was translated from Chaldean to Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek (Septuagint version of the Diaspora) to Latin (Vulgate version) to French (Douay Rheims version) to English. Still with us to this point. I make that nine translations so far. Each of these translations being only an approximation of the previous one. As I said it only amazes me that so much has arrived that we can use at all.
Alongside the great differences therefore between the two scriptures we should also reflect briefly upon the different uses that the scripture fulfil in our two traditions. As I understand it the Holy Qur’an is central to the faith of Islam being as it is the very words of Allah. The fact the no iconography exists within Islamic art apart from textural calligraphy shows this central place of the actual words. Within Christianity the central focus is upon a person who we believe to have been the person of the Godhead. Scripture therefore plays a very different role for the Christian. Comparatively few Christians hold the Bible up as being the ‘Actual words’ of God. (we call those fundamentalists) Christians view the Bible variously as an inspired collection of stories for guidance purposes. When my bible gets worn out I sling it in the bin. I would not dream of doing that with a Qur’an. When I read the gospels it is not to look at unquestionable facts but to learn about the message that Jesus Christ (PBUH) came to bring and demonstrate with his life.
I know this has been rather long but I wanted to lay some ground work as I firmly believe that there are more points of agreement between us that points of contention. It is upon these former issues that I seek to build a dialogue.
May the blessing of Allah (God Almighty), the Most Gracious, the Cherisher and Sustainer of all worlds be upon us all.
David Gould
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Apocrypha
These fifteen books were regarded as sacred by Greek speaking Jews at the time of Jesus (PBUH) as they were only written in Greek rather than the Aramaic of the time. They were never accepted into the Jewish cannon of the Scriptures. Because they were included in the LXX (Septuagint) they were accepted by Christian authors up and including the fourth century when Jerome in producing the Vulgate (Latin version 400 CE) included the books in a lesser section deeming them to be of less importance. However the Eastern Orthodox Church up to the Patristic period and the Catholic Church up to the Reformation nominally accepted the importance of the Apocrypha. During the Reformation (particularly the Westminster confession) it was demoted as useful only for examples of morals but not to base doctrine upon. (Geneva Bible and the Thirty Nine Articles) Many Protestant Churches omit then entirely from their Bibles while the Council of Trent re-instated their canonicity; hence their inclusion in the Roman Catholic’s faith of today.
Interestingly the reason for their omission was that they were written in Greek by the seventy Jewish scholars (200 BCE on the Island of Pharos) that translated the LXX and were not therefore considered to be part of the original Jewish Scriptures. Modern Scholarship has however located large parts of the fifteen books in earlier Hebrew or Aramaic scripts. There have been some moves toward re-instating them as part of the Bible. Much of the language of the Apocrypha is beautiful and clearly part of very ancient texts.
The Christian Church like many of the world’s great religions has been riven with schisms and splits. No one part can really speak for the sum of all its parts. I always wonder at the endless patience of our God that he puts up with all our factions and differences. I would imagine that come the final judgement there will be many surprises for us all at just how wide that patience has been and how wonderfully accepting is the grace of God.
May Allah be praised by all that know Him.
These fifteen books were regarded as sacred by Greek speaking Jews at the time of Jesus (PBUH) as they were only written in Greek rather than the Aramaic of the time. They were never accepted into the Jewish cannon of the Scriptures. Because they were included in the LXX (Septuagint) they were accepted by Christian authors up and including the fourth century when Jerome in producing the Vulgate (Latin version 400 CE) included the books in a lesser section deeming them to be of less importance. However the Eastern Orthodox Church up to the Patristic period and the Catholic Church up to the Reformation nominally accepted the importance of the Apocrypha. During the Reformation (particularly the Westminster confession) it was demoted as useful only for examples of morals but not to base doctrine upon. (Geneva Bible and the Thirty Nine Articles) Many Protestant Churches omit then entirely from their Bibles while the Council of Trent re-instated their canonicity; hence their inclusion in the Roman Catholic’s faith of today.
Interestingly the reason for their omission was that they were written in Greek by the seventy Jewish scholars (200 BCE on the Island of Pharos) that translated the LXX and were not therefore considered to be part of the original Jewish Scriptures. Modern Scholarship has however located large parts of the fifteen books in earlier Hebrew or Aramaic scripts. There have been some moves toward re-instating them as part of the Bible. Much of the language of the Apocrypha is beautiful and clearly part of very ancient texts.
The Christian Church like many of the world’s great religions has been riven with schisms and splits. No one part can really speak for the sum of all its parts. I always wonder at the endless patience of our God that he puts up with all our factions and differences. I would imagine that come the final judgement there will be many surprises for us all at just how wide that patience has been and how wonderfully accepting is the grace of God.
May Allah be praised by all that know Him.
Grace Seeker
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Mr. Gould, aside from our self-classification on this board as Christian and our shared view that Christians and Muslims begin in different places with some of our apriori assumptions with regard to what is the role of the respective faith communities' sacred scriptures, I find that we have widely divergent views on some things I would have thought we would have held in common. For instance, it appears that your education in theological college regarding the formation of the Hebrew texts of the Bible and my training in theological seminary have been different.
First, I know of no Bible publisher who would not in preparing a contemproary translation ask for its scholars to go back to the most ancient manuscripts available rather than continue to translate from a translation when there were documents available from which those later intermediary translations were made.
It also appears that you hold to a very late writing of the Old Testament, as late as the Babylonian Exile before even the first words of the Torah are penned to paper. Surely you are aware that this view is not universally held by either Christians or Jews. Indeed, even the classical Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis of competing oral traditions being editted into one single work have this process underway in writing during the monarchy of David and Solomon several hundred years before the exile. King Josiah's "Deuteronomic Reform" of 621 predates the exile by some 30 years and puts the lie to it first being penned in Chaldean while in exile in Babylon. Certainly that is true of some works like Daniel, perhaps Ezekiel, but not of the earlier works.
Also I submit that the writing of the Torah had been completed long before the time of Josiah. Kegel examined the implications of the reformation under Josiah in a work that repudiated the theory that the "Book of the Law" was a recent composition that was being foisted upon the people of Judah by priestly interests, and argued for its antiquity and the general correctness of the historical narrative describing the event. (See Die Kultus-Reformation des Josia, M. Kegel, 1919.) Kegel shows that the newly discovered book must have consisted of the entire Torah rather than the book of Deuteronomy alone, positing an early date for the Law in its complete written form. Granted there are those such as Kennett and Holscher who challenged Kegel, preferring a post-exilic writing. But I am not among them. I find more credible the position of those like Oestreicher, Staerk, and Adam Welch who have advanced cogent arguments for a comparatively early date for the book of Deuteronomy, assigning it to the period of Samuel. (See The Code of Deuteronomy: A New Theory of Its Origin, A. Welch, 1924.) Others who share this view include Edward Robertson (The Old Testament Problem with Two Other Essays, 1950), R. Brinker (The Influence of Sanctuaries in Israel, 1946) and the Jewish scholar J.H. Hertz (The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 1937, a commentary); all date the writing during the time of Samuel, in Canaan, before the time of King David.
I have simliar problems with your assertions that Mark was written in Aramaic and I even have my doubts about Matthew having been written in Hebrew (though I am aware that Eusebius recorded a statement by Papais in that regard). But this thread is more about the message of Christianity than one devoted to textual criticism, so I'll leave my concerns with your views here in this post and then move back to the message contained in them, not the penning process.
First, I know of no Bible publisher who would not in preparing a contemproary translation ask for its scholars to go back to the most ancient manuscripts available rather than continue to translate from a translation when there were documents available from which those later intermediary translations were made.
It also appears that you hold to a very late writing of the Old Testament, as late as the Babylonian Exile before even the first words of the Torah are penned to paper. Surely you are aware that this view is not universally held by either Christians or Jews. Indeed, even the classical Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis of competing oral traditions being editted into one single work have this process underway in writing during the monarchy of David and Solomon several hundred years before the exile. King Josiah's "Deuteronomic Reform" of 621 predates the exile by some 30 years and puts the lie to it first being penned in Chaldean while in exile in Babylon. Certainly that is true of some works like Daniel, perhaps Ezekiel, but not of the earlier works.
Also I submit that the writing of the Torah had been completed long before the time of Josiah. Kegel examined the implications of the reformation under Josiah in a work that repudiated the theory that the "Book of the Law" was a recent composition that was being foisted upon the people of Judah by priestly interests, and argued for its antiquity and the general correctness of the historical narrative describing the event. (See Die Kultus-Reformation des Josia, M. Kegel, 1919.) Kegel shows that the newly discovered book must have consisted of the entire Torah rather than the book of Deuteronomy alone, positing an early date for the Law in its complete written form. Granted there are those such as Kennett and Holscher who challenged Kegel, preferring a post-exilic writing. But I am not among them. I find more credible the position of those like Oestreicher, Staerk, and Adam Welch who have advanced cogent arguments for a comparatively early date for the book of Deuteronomy, assigning it to the period of Samuel. (See The Code of Deuteronomy: A New Theory of Its Origin, A. Welch, 1924.) Others who share this view include Edward Robertson (The Old Testament Problem with Two Other Essays, 1950), R. Brinker (The Influence of Sanctuaries in Israel, 1946) and the Jewish scholar J.H. Hertz (The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 1937, a commentary); all date the writing during the time of Samuel, in Canaan, before the time of King David.
I have simliar problems with your assertions that Mark was written in Aramaic and I even have my doubts about Matthew having been written in Hebrew (though I am aware that Eusebius recorded a statement by Papais in that regard). But this thread is more about the message of Christianity than one devoted to textual criticism, so I'll leave my concerns with your views here in this post and then move back to the message contained in them, not the penning process.
Eesa Abdullah
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bismillah
The Christian message about Jesus (as) revolves around three things: "the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection." These three concepts are significant to the Christian message.
Now, to put it in Islaamic terminology in regards to the trinity for the brother and sisters who do not really grasp the concept. According to trinitarians
Allaah ----> God the Father
'Isa ----> God the Son
Jibr'il ----> God the Holy Ghost/Spirit
The majority of Christians are taught that the above three are co-equal, co-eternal, and none are greater or less than the other in any of the qualities that are attributed to God.
Christians often accuse Muslims for not showing enough respect to Jesus due to the fact that he is not worshipped as God. As Muslims, however, we contend that the Bible itself denied the divinity of Jesus.
I will not post every single verse, however, there are also numerous verses that appear to support a triune theory, but I will only post 1 verse from each side.
*********************************************
1 John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."
**********************************************
John 17:3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
**********************************************
Now unto the "Trinity in Salvation"
the doctrine of the trinity is best understood in terms of Christian salavation.
Christians believe that God the Father wills that we be reconciled to Him from sin, hence He sent the Son, who in His perfect life and redeeming death provides the basis of reconciliation, and that the Father now, in Jesus' name, sends forth the Holy Spirit, who applies the salvation of Jesus to the Christian believers. Thus saving them and inspiring them to live lives of victory over sin. Thus is the Christian's experience and assurance of salvation in terms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Proof Texts:
"therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..."
(Matthew 28:19).
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men."
(I Corinthians 12:4-6).
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
(II Corinthians 13:14).
Christians claim that the the doctrine of the trinity is substantiated in John 10:30
"I and my father are one."
This is a fallible notion because Jesus is not speaking of being of the same subtance as the God the Father, but as one in purpose. Read the following:
John 17:20-22
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."
Now if John 10.30 is still seen through a trinitarian prism than the Christians would have to assert that all the believers are also a part of the Godhead.
Other verses as such can be seen to mean that we are not "literally" one substance, but in purpose and spirit we are one. Read the next verse:
"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit,"
1 Corinthians 6:15-17
And also
"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
Ephesians 4:6
And
"For as the (human) body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many."
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
Lastly,
"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
Ephesians 4:4
"St. Paul" was speaking about Christian unity not a plurality in the Godhead.
I will post more later insh'Allaah.
WaAllaahu alam
Wasalaam
Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
The Christian message about Jesus (as) revolves around three things: "the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection." These three concepts are significant to the Christian message.
Now, to put it in Islaamic terminology in regards to the trinity for the brother and sisters who do not really grasp the concept. According to trinitarians
Allaah ----> God the Father
'Isa ----> God the Son
Jibr'il ----> God the Holy Ghost/Spirit
The majority of Christians are taught that the above three are co-equal, co-eternal, and none are greater or less than the other in any of the qualities that are attributed to God.
Christians often accuse Muslims for not showing enough respect to Jesus due to the fact that he is not worshipped as God. As Muslims, however, we contend that the Bible itself denied the divinity of Jesus.
I will not post every single verse, however, there are also numerous verses that appear to support a triune theory, but I will only post 1 verse from each side.
*********************************************
1 John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."
**********************************************
John 17:3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
**********************************************
Now unto the "Trinity in Salvation"
the doctrine of the trinity is best understood in terms of Christian salavation.
Christians believe that God the Father wills that we be reconciled to Him from sin, hence He sent the Son, who in His perfect life and redeeming death provides the basis of reconciliation, and that the Father now, in Jesus' name, sends forth the Holy Spirit, who applies the salvation of Jesus to the Christian believers. Thus saving them and inspiring them to live lives of victory over sin. Thus is the Christian's experience and assurance of salvation in terms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Proof Texts:
"therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..."
(Matthew 28:19).
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men."
(I Corinthians 12:4-6).
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
(II Corinthians 13:14).
Christians claim that the the doctrine of the trinity is substantiated in John 10:30
"I and my father are one."
This is a fallible notion because Jesus is not speaking of being of the same subtance as the God the Father, but as one in purpose. Read the following:
John 17:20-22
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."
Now if John 10.30 is still seen through a trinitarian prism than the Christians would have to assert that all the believers are also a part of the Godhead.
Other verses as such can be seen to mean that we are not "literally" one substance, but in purpose and spirit we are one. Read the next verse:
"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit,"
1 Corinthians 6:15-17
And also
"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
Ephesians 4:6
And
"For as the (human) body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many."
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
Lastly,
"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
Ephesians 4:4
"St. Paul" was speaking about Christian unity not a plurality in the Godhead.
I will post more later insh'Allaah.
WaAllaahu alam
Wasalaam
Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
The Issue : The nature of Christ: Was He the same substance as God or was He created?
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but like truthfully now...
say you were like tarzan or somebody, stuck in the jungle with no access to the outer world, and if you really pondered about it, what is the most likely conclusion that you would come to?... a trinity? i think not.
Using logic that Allah granted us we would come to the conclusion that there is One Creator...
you need to go back to the beginning, think -don't just believe what your fathers believed. Even muslims should ponder and not just follow on just because you were born in this state
say you were like tarzan or somebody, stuck in the jungle with no access to the outer world, and if you really pondered about it, what is the most likely conclusion that you would come to?... a trinity? i think not.
Using logic that Allah granted us we would come to the conclusion that there is One Creator...
you need to go back to the beginning, think -don't just believe what your fathers believed. Even muslims should ponder and not just follow on just because you were born in this state
Last edited:
Keltoi
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Tarzan? If you are referring to people born into a jungle culture and alone with no access to outside influences, I doubt this Tarzan would ponder the question much at all. As most tribal hunting cultures do, they look at all aspects of the natural world and "worship" those that give them the most benefit. So instead of a "Trinity", which of course has nothing to do with three distinct entities at all, you would be talking about a rather large pantheon of "deities".