Right…but none of that requires reciprocation. I mean, a Muslim can say, “I worship the same God as a Christian”, but the Christian can still say “You’re wrong. You don’t”. Or a Christian can say “I worship the same God as a Jew”, but the Jew can say, “You don’t.”
So it sort of is a philosophical question.
Yes, I think it’s all a matter of standpoint.
From my perspective, deities are very much a creation of their believers. The Christians and Muslims have taken the Jewish deity as a starting point and modelled two very different gods from him. Certainly, there are points of identity, as would be expected. But to call them the same God is to ignore and make light of the substantial differences between them, and those differences, after all, are the very bedrock of each of the faiths.
To call each God the same God is to reduce the deity to a nebulous concept of ‘Godness’. All very well, but it doesn’t really signify much.
Noah and Abraham are generally mentioned in the same breath as the above three. In addition to those five biggies, Islam recognizes a whole slew of prophets generally - the Qur’an specifically lists 25, including the above.
Christianity dealt with this with Marcion who rejected the entire Hebrew Bible, and declared that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a lesser demiurge, who had created the earth, but was also the source of evil and antogonisitc toward the SUpreme God the Father (of Chrisitanity).
Mainstream Christianity utterly & completely rejected this, excommunicated Marcion and (eventually) stamped out this “wrong belief” [or heresy] - really after the “are we a Jewish Sect or something different?” question, it was the earliest intellectual/theological question Christians had to contend with among themselves.
It is safe to say if you are in any Catholic, Traditional or fundamentalist Protestant, or a member of an Orthodox Christian Community today your sect understands the Jewish Yahweh to equal God the Father
cite cite
DtC The issue is that Jesus was (arguably) predicted in the Torah, I don’t think the Bible or the Torah makes any kind of prediction of Mohamad or Islam, I could be wrong and have started a thread to help find out.
It doesn’t predict Jesus either.
I disagree. If a Muslim says he worships the God of Abraham, no Christian has the right to tell him he doesn’t. If anyone’s off the reservation, it’s the religion which deified a human being.
I should also add that the OP was essentially what would happen to Christian who got to heaven and discovered that Islam was the One True Religion. If that were the case, then the Muslim view that their God is the God of Moses and Jesus would also be true. Christian opinion would necessarily be irrelevant in that scenario.
One more thing, for the record. The Torah only refers to the Pentateuch, not the entire Hebrew Bible. There are no Messianic prophecies in the Torah at all, much less prophecies of Jesus. The Hebrew Bible also says that the Messiah is not God. FYI.
Interesting.
Could you give me a link to this statement?
Thanks.
Any denomination that signs up to the Nicene Creed does. Otherwise, [Professor Joad]“it all depends on what you mean by ‘Christian’.”[/PJ]
Btw, I thought Allah meant “the One”? (Paging Johanna…)
Technically, shouldn’t that read “The Hebrew Bible also does not say that the Messiah is God”? The use of “El-Gibbor” (“Mighty God”) in Isaiah 9:5 and the
attribution of Messiah’s actions to “The LORD” in other Messianic predictions are
regarded by us C’tians as at least hints that there is more to Messiah than just a special human being.
Ah, so Islam goes like this:
[ol]Jesus
[li] ???[/li] Profit![/ol]
Well, while I agree with you that the conceptions of “God” in Judaism and Islam are a lot more similar than either is to Christianity, I don’t think it’s a matter of “right”. I don’t think any religion is required to consider the faith claims of another religion true. I mean, Christianity is as free to consider Islam wrong, deluded, or evil (and the Muslim conception of God as wrong, deluded, or evil), as Islam is to consider Christianity or its conception of God as wrong, deluded, or evil.
Which statement?
Not really. The Hebrew Bible says the Messiah is a human being, the “seed of David,” and therefore cannot be God. The idea of an incarnation is non-existent in either Hebrew scripture or Jewish tradition and is actually incompatible with Jewish theology.
Isaiah 9:5-6 is about Hezekiah. The honorific El-Gibbor was not intended to be a literal claim that Hezekiah was God, but a figurative way to claim that God’s power was manifested through his reign (especially as it pertained to “miraculous” end to the siege of Sennacherib).
“Lord” just means “master” and is applied to kings all the time. It’s used in reference to David, for instance. That doesn’t mean that anyone thought David was God.
Gum, here are the quotes from the Quran:
Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve. (2:62)
Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve. (5:69)
Here is a statement of official doctrine from one online Islam FAQ (there are several that all say the same thing).
Hopefully Tamerlane can chime in here too. He knows more about Islam than I do.
‘The God’. Usually etymologized as a contraction of al- ‘the’ and ilâh ‘god’.
Although there are other, more fanciful etymologies proposed in classical Sufi literature, like Allâh is derived from walah ‘bewilderment’. Classical Sufi literature also includes symbolic poetry like “The glass is thin and the wine is clear. It looks like all glass and no wine, or all wine and no glass” about the closeness of the relation between the Sufi’s heart and Allah.
Barbara G. Walker says Allâh is a masculinized form of the Goddess name Allât (Qur’ân 53:19); the ending -t is a feminine gender marker in Semitic and other Afro-Asiatic languages. It could go either way: Allâh could be a masculinized form of Allât, Allât could be a feminized form of Allâh, or perhaps neither form is prior and they co-originated, since divine male-female couples were a feature of ancient Semitic paganism. Leaving aside the definite article, Walker says Lât is related to the Anatolian Goddess name Leto known from Greek mythology. She might have something there, but then–because al-Lâtuis a Mother Goddess–she connects it etymologically with Italian latte ‘milk’, which is the worst howler I’ve seen in all my born days of Neopaganism and etymology. Latte, sheesh. :rolleyes: It’s decaf for you from now on, Barb.
Actually, ‘the One’ is a translation of two from the list of 99 Names: al-Ahad and al-Wâhid.
Much obliged.
According to the Koran, all who believe in One God and do good works attain paradise. The name of The God, God, Dios, Dieu, Allah, Trinity, doesn’t matter.
Also, the Koran says we are not to favor any one prophet (I know, I know, some Muslims do.)
So, the only way your straw man would burn is if he caused mischief and/or worshiped many gods.
(And don’t ask me about Christians who believe worship a son of God. Thank God that’s not my judgement call.