 In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful |
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful |
The idea of a Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Qur'an also. But this does not refer to the Christian idea of a Holy Spirit, but to the angel Gabriel.
These people are clergy and believe in the Bible, and are professed Christians. They merely interpret the Bible differently.
The source of the Gospels are questioned by many Christian scholars. Even so, assuming they were conclusive, I could get thousands to say Buddha was a God and that would not make him one. Such an important issue should not be determined by the points of view of a few individuals.
Secondly on the issues of the Gospel of John, it is considered to be non-synoptic, that is not written by one of the disciples, and shows echoes aspects of Greek philosophy. There are also alternative translations of the words, and not that ``the word was God'', but that ``the word was God's''.
Australia is still governed by the Queen. The Queen never refers to herself as ``I, the Queen''. There is something known in various languages as ``the Royal language'', such as ``we the king''. So if kings have the right to use the royal lagnuage, then the king of kings has the right to use the royal language also.
It was in the writings of Paul, I can't give you an exact reference, but it is quoted in Victor Wierwhile's book.
This is an issue which Christians themselves have discussed a great deal. In fact they discovered that if you look at the descriptions of the crucifiction of Jesus in the four Gospels, they contain many aspects that are not reconcilable. An example of that is: When did Mary go to visit Jesus? The last words of Jesus are also not reconcilable. In one Gospel it is stated as ``It is finished'' and in another it is stated as ``God, God, why have you forsaken me?'' This has led some people to believe that some of the early Gospels were altered to fit the ideas of philosophy.
Nowhere in the Qur'an does it refer to the Bible as the Bible. The Qur'an uses several terms, besides the leafs of Abraham. It uses the word Tawrat, which creates some confusion since it is not the same as the Olde Testament that is found in the Bible. It is not. What the Qur'an speaks about is the exact words revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, such as the Ten Commandments, and these Muslims can accept without any hesitation. Jews and Christians consider the first five books of the Bible as the Pentateuch or the Torat. In Deuteronomy, one of these books in the end it says: ``Moses, the man of God, died and was buried in the land of Moab''. Obviously, these are not the words Moses received.
There is no reference in the Qur'an to the Gospels (plural) but refers to the Gospel (singular) of Jesus, not the Gospels about Jesus. It does not mean that all the information in the Gospels has no parallel in the Qur'an. There are parts of the Gospels that agree with the Qur'an. A Muslim uses the Qur'an as the criterion for seeing what is correct in other religious texts.
The Bible itself says that Jesus said that after him there shall be false prophets. When they asked him how to differentiate between them, he said, ``By their fruits ye shall know them''. Of course, this also indicates that there are prophets to come after Jesus. Let us look at the fruits of Muhammad. Polytheists who used to worship idols came to worship one True God. People who used to bury girls alive were taught the status and importance of women. People who used to drink like fish, to the point where in poetry one of them asked for a vineyard to be planted on his grave, so that he could taste wine, became teetotallers, in a way that no laws have ever succeeded in. People who used to practice adultery and fornication became a pure society where one of the hallmarks was high levels of sexual morality. Muslims also contributed to science to the extent that some scholars have said that were it not for Islam much of the Greek writings would be lost, and the Dark Ages in Europe were the renaissance of Islam. There are also many miracles in the Qur'an.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes a Paracletos. First of all, he says the world did not know him before. Although most Christian theologians say that this is a reference to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit was known at the time of the baptism. He said he will complete the truth to them - i.e new revelations. There is no evidence that the Holy Spirit had any revelations. He also said that he will reprove the world of sin, but also of Jusgement. To do so, he would not only have to be a Prophet, but also a statesman, as was Moses. He described him as describing what will come. There is no evidence of the Holy Spirit prophesying anything. There were numerous prphecies made by the Prophet have turned out to be true.
Response from an audience member: The world didn't know the Holy Spirit, because it was hostile to God and the Holy Spirit's presence.
Dr Jamal's response: It is quite obvious that he is describing someone who has not appeared yet. It says in the Bible that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. He says ``one like me'' - that is not as a person.
Response: The Holy Spirit did reveal his message to Paul.
Dr Jamal: The original Greek it says God will send another Paracletos, where the another signifies another like me. Jesus himself is described as a paracletos in the original Greek. The term Paracletos is used five times in the New Testament, and once in the first epistle of John, yet for some reason the translators of the Gospel they translated as Holy Spirit, but the one in epistle of John they translate it as ``mediator'' and Jesus is described as this mediator.
Response:
Dr Jamal: The teachings of the Prophet will persist after his death, and that is how it will remain. In addition, he does not exclusively address those with him, but those that follow him. Furthermore Muhammad fulfills the role of defending Jesus from all extremes of deification and degradation.
Response: In one case Jesus is a mediator and so is the Holy spirit - they are both mediators and both can serve as mediators.
Dr Jamal: The argument John Mackenzie makes is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. You either always translate it as ``mediator'' or as Holy Spirit - you don't subjectively change the meaning to convey certain desirable theological points of view. Secondly, the idea of Jesus as a mediator seems unusual, since Jesus is himself God. God does mediate to himself. It has to be someone else other than God.
The question revolves around interpretations of the Qur'an. The Arabic is ``Inni Mutawaffika'' of which one translation ``I will make you dead''. Furthermore to be fair, we could strengthen the other argument by saying that in the Qur'an it says that Jesus said: ``Peace be upon me the day that I was born, the day that I died and the day that I will be resurrected'', allegedly a clear reference to the resurrection of Jesus. That is not necessarily correct. ``Tawaffa'' means ``completing a term'' - such as when you end the term of a contract, which does not necessarily mean he died. Muslims do also believe that Jesus will come back at a period of peace and will clarify the stance of Christianity with regards to him.
Yes there are some earlier manuscripts that precede the third century. The oldest versions of the Bible go to the third, fourth, fifth centuries. Even so, two hundred years is a big gap. No-one I know claims that the words of Jesus were recorded and preserved for the intermediate 200 years unaffected by the teachings of Paul and other theological concepts. I beg to differ that all the Bibles standardised and were identical, for example, the ending of John's Gospel. Why does the Qur'an refer to the scriptures of the People of the Book? The Qur'an actually describes itself as ``confirming what remains intact of that revealed before it and a guardian over it''. A learned Muslim would never say that the Bible is completely incorrect, nor that it is correct, but that there are parts of it revealed, and other parts that are human writings.
How does the Muslim know which is which? He uses the Qur'an as the guardian - as the ``quality control'' agent, if you like. The Arabic word is ``Muhaymin'' - a supervisor, if you like.
Yes, Muslims do believe in inspiration. But the main difference is that my inspiration is not binding on you, your inspiration is not binding on me, and if the inspiration contradicts the Qur'an and Sunnah, then it is not from God, but from Satan. Thus inspiration is not a basis to establish theology upon.
Response: The Bible says that Jesus said all the apostles were prophets and thus received revelation.
Dr Jamal: With all due respect, we do not give authority to opinions of followers. Even if the followers of Muhammad claimed to be prophets we would not believe them.