Posted by Amir on 6/6/2009, 9:38 am, in reply to "Re: The Holy Spirit"
41.212.201.170
"It appears that Mohammad himself tells Muslims to acknowledge that they believe in that which has been "revealed to you (Christians), and our Allah and your Allah is One, and to Him do we submit?"
This verse was revealed by Allah to the prophet Muhammad(saw).The Books of God as revealed to Moses and Jesus do not exist now in the original form and language today and this fact is attested by christians scholars themselves.The language of the original Torah was ancient Hebrew;now nobody speaks that language.The first five books of the Old Testament contain ideas from the original Torah and also stories, which could have never been part of the divinely revealed Book. So the Jewish or Christian Torah contains some parts of the Original Torah, as well as other things.
The same is the case of the Bible. It was revealed to Jesus by God, in Jesus’ own language of Aramaic, which is a Semitic language, an eastern language similar to Hebrew and Arabic. The “original” extant copies of the gospels are in Greek, a western language. Now there are four gospels, supposed to have been written by four of the disciples of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Was Jesus quoting, from these Greek books, written many years after his disappearance when he was addressing his people? Certainly not! He was quoting from the Book he received from God, which was the original Bible in the language of his own people.The argument that God revealed his Bible to Jesus in Greek is like saying that God revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad in English!
So the original Gospel was not in Greek, it was in the language Jesus and his people spoke and understood.We have no record or evidence to indicate that; this original Gospel was written down by scribes under Jesus’ own supervision.
Instead of the original Gospel, we have four books written by persons who are supposed to have been Jesus’ disciples.I say ‘supposed’, because modern scholars who have done research on the subject, question the claim that these were the disciples of Jesus,in the first place.These four books called the Gospels are placed at the beginning of some 27 books,bound together into one volume, called The New Testament.Out of these 27 books, thirteen were written by a man called St. Paul.This Paul was not a disciple of Jesus, nor has Jesus met him, as he himself testifies. Modern Christians are ardent followers of St. Paul,even in cases where Paul clearly contradicts Jesus.This is why i don t believe christians follow Jesus(peace be upon him)
The Islamic request to Christians is just this: Please follow Jesus,don’t follow Paul, who preaches a different gospel.The Islamic belief about the present Book, which the Christians use as "the word of God", called the New Testament is that it is not the Gospel of Jesus mentioned in the Qur'an. Still, Muslims believe that the Gospels in the bible contain some teachings of Jesus, as well as the interpretations of the writers of those books, whoever they might have been. Also Muslims believe that in the words quoted from Jesus in these gospels, you come across certain ideas, which he received from God too.So the New Testament (particularly the Gospels) is valuable to the Muslims. It is valuable in that there is the "word of God" in it, exactly as the Old Testament (particularly the Pentateuch) is valuable to Muslims in that it contains also the "word of God" in it.
The Quran does not claim that the Torah and the Bible remained uncorrupted throughout history.
To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety: so judge between them by what God hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging from the Truth that hath come to thee. To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute;
Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from God," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.
In fact this claim cannot be supported in the light of your own scriptures:
"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie"(Jeremiah 8:8, quoted from the New American Standard Bible).
Here the Prophet Jeremiah is scolding the Israelites that their corrupt scribes have made the Law of the Lord (that is the Torah) into a lie by their ‘lying pen’ (that is the pen they used to change the verses). This proof in the Book, the People of the Book are carrying, clearly establishes that their Book has been corrupted by their own scribes.
We have good evidence in the Gospels themselves that Jesus was using the original Bible for his preaching. He used to refer to it as The Gospel of the Kingdom:
"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people."(Matthew 4: 23)
Here it is said that Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. Ask those Christian disputants whether Jesus was preaching one of the four Canonical gospels included in the Bible in 325 C.E, written not in Jesus’ own Aramaic language, but in the western language of Greek, at least thirty years after his alleged crucifixion. It is so obvious that no Christian scholar, worth his salt, can deny the fact that the present gospels contain the words of God,the words of Jesus and the words of the writer.That means that they are not fully God’s word.The Islamic belief is also the same.
We are told in the Qur'an only to verify that what is in the Qur'an agrees with some extant verses of the Bible. The Muslims can quote the Bible, because they believe there is some truth in it. But we need to be clear: we understand that there is also falsehood there, which is wrongly presented as truth. By quoting the Bible we can show that the Qur'an confirms teachings already present in the earlier books. We must however always be clear that we are not asserting anything else about the remaining contents of those earlier books.
When Allah says not to dispute with people of the book(jews and christians) and to believe in what was revealed to them ,it means to what was ORIGINALLY revealed to them and not of what remains today.In fact it would not be logically coherent if we believed in the Bible today when the Quran clearly says that the scriptures have been corrupted.
""I checked all the verses in the Koran which discuss the Holy Spirit. I did not find any verse which supports your claim. This leaves me puzzled. If you believe that the Koran is inspired by God, then why do you feel the need to redefine the words in the Koran?""
I do not redefine words in the QUran because this would be like lying to yourself and ultimately i would be the only one to lose.
Allah Almighty Said:
"The Day that the Spirit and the Angels will stand forth in ranks, none shall speak except any who is permitted by (God) Most Gracious, and He will say what is right. (The Noble Quran, 78:38)"
We can see from this verse that the holy spirit in under Allah's command just like the other angels.
Now i am the one puzzled by your claim.You argue that u did not find a single evidence that the Angel Gabriel is the holy spirit.
So what about these:
Say, "The Holy Spirit has brought it (Quran) down from your Lord, truthfully, to assure those who believe, and to provide a beacon and good news for the submitters."(16:102)
This (Quran) is a revelation from the Lord of the universe.(26:192)
The Honest Spirit(Gabriel)came down with it.(26:193)
Who brought the Quran to the prophet Muhammad(saw),if it was not Gabriel?
It is interesting that God chose to mention the " Spirit and the angels" in these last two verses. In the Arabic language it is not unusual to specify part of a whole group to emphasize the significance of that part.
It is also interesting to know that the name " Gabriel" in Arabic (Gbryl) has the same gematrical value of the word "Al-Ruh' " (the Spirit), both being 245. G=3 , B=2, R=200, Y=10 and L=30, therefore 3+2+200+10+30 = 245. While the word Al-Ruh' (The spirit) has , A=1, L=30, R=200, U (waw)= 6 ,H'=8, therefore 1+30+200+6+8 = 245
The holy Quran does not bear witness to trinity.
"Mohammad says that Muslims worship the same God as the Christians? If Christians are actually polytheists as you claim, then how can Mohammad’s statement possibly be true?"
Allah said in the Quran that christians worship the same god as muslims and this is correct in the sense that christians believe in one God but which has different aspects through trinity.The father as mentionned by Jesus(peace be upon him) is the only God which christians also believe but they also believe that Jesus is God which is not supported by the Quran.So while christians believe in one God who has different aspects(although these diferrent aspects are not supported by the Quran),this one God is the one mentionned.We believe that the one God that christians believe in is the same while the different aspects of trinity however is incorrect.
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