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It sounds like you are talking about the hindu "avatars" which I know very little about and therefore I can't say authoritatively but from what I do know I think it's a similar concept.
Out of curiousity what is the most strange/peculiar aspect of the Trinity to muslim ears? Is it the "triune God" part or is it that one part we believe was a living breathing human being?
Well, not as the collins dictionary defines it. The problem there is that the bible was written in greek based on the common language of the day (though probably not one Jesus used).
The greek word for "Son" literally translated is "Yios" which as far as I know is not the greek word used for Jesus.
The actual greek word used in the bible which we translate into english as "only begotten son" is "Monogenes." Gennao (declined to Gene) is a byzantine greek word for "beget" and "Mono" means one as in "sole" or "only." Thus the actual title of Jesus Christ - the one he admits to in Luke as mentioned above, the one the disciples called him and the one God the Father calls him at his baptism more accurately translates to "the only begotten" "of the Father."
He is [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=beget]begotten[/url]/sired by the father, and there is only one of him. As this establishes a "filial" connection to who he referred to as "the father" we call him "the Son" out of convenience. That is what I meant by earlier when I said that he is called "Son" not necessarily for the same reasons you are called son by your father - but rather because their connection is "filial" to "paternal"
I really have no idea, all we have is the written record of what the disciples and early Christian community called him.
Each book of the Old Testament was written either by the prophet himself or contemporaries/disciples of that prophet at or about the time they were preaching. It was then included in the "Neviim" to be passed on to the next generation as part of the "Tanak."
The Tanak was completely translated into Greek sometime around 300 B.C. and that has lasted up even to the present day, but as the common language of the empire during Jesus' time was greek the "Septaguant" as the translated Tanak was called became the book that the disciples apostles and earliest Christians used to spread their message (along with the gospels, also written in greek), so that it could be heard by Jew and gentile alike.
As for the New Testament:
The letters were writen by St. Paul of Tarsus. We do not know if he was greek or jewish however he was an early persecutor of Christians. He was knocked off his horse on the Road to Damascus and was blinded by God, at which point he believed. He is a controversial figure in the bible due to allegations that he was a saboteur/spy sent to destroy Christianity by Caesar. The allegations do not carry much weight though. He is responsible for the Christian community reaching out to non-jews in the very early years of the community, and set up early Christian laws governing the sharing of wealth and divorce (called "Petrine/Pauline privilege and exists for only certain situations)
The Gospel of Mark was written by St. Mark the Evangelist the first Pope of the Egyptian Catholics he was a contemporary of Paul and a disciple of St. Peter from whom we believe he learned about Christ.
The Gospel of Matthew was written by St. Matthew the Evangelist was a tax collector from Capernaum who was personally called to serve by Christ. He became a disciple and we do not really know what happened after the events written down in the bible, supposedly he died in either Arabia or Africa (not sure about that).
The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by St. Luke the Evangelist a Syrian doctor who was not a disciple but was introduced to the ministry by Paul of Tarsus.
The Gospel of John and possibly the Book of Revelation was written by St. John the Evangelist he was a disciple and was the caretaker of Mary in her later life. He came from Ephesus and was most likely a greek.
We believe that the Gospels, like the earlier books of the bible were written with the "inspiration" or "guidance" of the Holy Spirit - due to the Pentecost when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to bring the word on to the Christians. The books New Testament were't authored by God or by any specific aspect in the Trinity. Nor do we believe that any of the books of the Bible in the Old Testament were written by God.
The authority of the Bible stems from it being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that it is the most contemporary account of the life and work of Jesus Christ.
We know it is God's words through a process which determines what is called "Canon." The point of which is to scrutinize potential revelation to determine if it is "inspired" and then add it to the Bible. In the earliest Christian community that was less necessary since they relied on the Torah and the oral tradition taken directly from first most immediate generation that followed Jesus. However when things began to be written down and standardized the abover process developed to attempt to stem the possibility of heretical scripture from being included.
so it was translated from hebrew right?
i think Muslims agree with those allegations - we believe he was responsible for the corruption of Jesus' (a.s) true message.
[size=9]I NEVER WORE IT BECAUSE OF THE TALIBAN, MOTHER. I LIKE THE [b]MODESTY[/b] AND [b]PROTECTION[/b] IT AFFORDS ME FROM THE EYES OF MEN.[/size] [url=http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Dust.html]Dust, X-Men[/url]
Zakir Naik is excellent their is not a question in the world he cannot answer, he truly Optimises the phrase , 'knowledge is power'
A muslim women asked him why should i wear a hijaab , where at my university girls wear an hijaab and still act unislamically
he used the methaphor that if someone buys a brand new car and the person who drives it cannot drive and crashes the car, is it the fault of the driver or the car?
he went on to further elaborate but i understood his answer excellently from that.
The same could be said for people who see muslims doing bad things and then blame islam, but you should blame the driver not the car
Yes. Hebrew (most likely) to greek, then back to Hebrew and still in greek.
The thing is the allegations come from a book called "Caesar's Messiah" from the 80s and rest on some very sketchy evidence.
Given the age and lack of other sources (Josephus and the Bible) it's difficult to determine anything is contrary to those testimonies with anything other than speculation.
Even if it were true none of the major issues which run awry with Muslims would be resolved - divinity of Christ etc.
y did it have to be translated 'back' into hebrew when it was originally in that language?
btw Dave, have you heard of 'Jehovah's Witnesses'?
[size=9]I NEVER WORE IT BECAUSE OF THE TALIBAN, MOTHER. I LIKE THE [b]MODESTY[/b] AND [b]PROTECTION[/b] IT AFFORDS ME FROM THE EYES OF MEN.[/size] [url=http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Dust.html]Dust, X-Men[/url]
lol yea they're kinda fun they used to harass gardeners when they couldn't find any of us. One time my mom (a devout materialist) was approached by one, she misunderstood and had her carry in some purchases than gave her 5 dollars and walked away.
That girl looked lost confused and a little sad... haven't seen her ever again.
JW are somewhere between an evangelical knockoff and a jesus cult - they aren't technically christian and they aren't technically not. They reject the trinity construction and follow "reflection" instead.
They also harass people.
[size=9]I NEVER WORE IT BECAUSE OF THE TALIBAN, MOTHER. I LIKE THE [b]MODESTY[/b] AND [b]PROTECTION[/b] IT AFFORDS ME FROM THE EYES OF MEN.[/size] [url=http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Dust.html]Dust, X-Men[/url]
Well, no Christian believes "in" the Trinity. It's the ideas behind the Trinity that we believe in. Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is One with God etc. There are many different doctrines to explain why this is so (since all the above is textual). Modalism, Trinity, Arianism and Reflection are all examples of models used to help us understand the text.
A lot of Muslims seem to think that we basically elected Jesus to be God at the Council of Nicaea - this is not so. The model "Arianism" was rejected in favor of "Trinity" as the best explanation for the textual evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, Divine, part of God etc.
Likewise a lot of Christians seem to think that Jehovas Witness aren't Christian because they decided that Jesus isn't divine. That is not so, they took the Reflection model over the Trinity model. They believe in a Divine Jesus et al, because they believe he is an exact reflection/representation of God on Earth. Much like an Avatar. Curiously they do not believe he is the same as Jehova (but possibly part of him) and therefore they fall awry of Christian scripture.
I don't know if they can be considered Christian or not. I know for certain they consider all other Christians to be on the wrong path - they believe (like muslims) that at some point in the very early Church there was a "Great Apostacy" in which the Church parted ways with Jesus' teaching and that Jesus chose JW as the "true religion."
They are extremely forceful and sometimes very rude - they usually wouldn't have any reservation about saying everything you believe is wrong and you're going to hell. This is because they believe the end is very soon and they have to save as many people as possible (this obssession verges on cultish).
I suggest if possible do not invite them in, and do not talk to them since they cannot be reasoned with and have no intention of listening to you (though they will pretend they do).
The Torah was translated into greek at the behest of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, for his Library at Alexandria. This served as the Jew's text for roughly 3-400 years; however with the rise of the Christian Church (which preferred the Septuagint), and a resistance against hellenization the Jews abandoned it in favor of the Masoretic Text which was written in Hebrew.
Textual Critics and archaeologists are not sure about the origins of the Masoretic Text. On the one hand it is thought it dates to the 10th century ba'alei masorah, a group of scribes living in Palestine during those periods. They are responsible for recompiling and editing the texts into a coherent document once more. On the other hand we have scraps like the Nash Papyrus dated to the 2nd century B.C. which has the Ten Commandments and Shema Yisrael written on it. There is also the oral tradition which survived.
All of these things together indicates that while the Torah was translated into Greek in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. and that because the primary text for the next several hundred years, the original (in Hebrew) scriptures survived through uncompiled writings and an oral tradition which was eventually recompiled at some later date around the 10th century A.D.
The reasons for this were to maintain cultural heritage (not become hellenized), differenciate themselves from the Christians and the death of the greek language in the region.
I am far less clear on the origins and evolution of the Old Testament than I am on the New (just bought a copy of the Codex Vaticanus). Ergo 100man really should have the final say there, though I will ask my rabbi for you.
wow, thanks for the long reply.
actually the first time i heard that was from this JW lady who i mentioned in my earlier post. who created these models and how are they different? hmm yeh, i asked the JW lady that if she thinks Jesus (a.s) isn't God and seperate from Jehovah, then what is his status, Muslims see him as a Prophet of God like Adam, etc etc. and she did seem reluctant to answer the question, didnt really go into it. huh, how could Jesus (a.s) have 'chosen' JW when they didnt even exist in his time. well in their defense i must say my experience with them hasnt been in keeping with their (bad) reputation. they were polite enough and thankfully the woman didnt condemn me to hellfire but yeh, i know a lot of my atheist friends dislike JWs for that very reason. nah i dont see anything wrong with having a discussion, i mean if u both know the other person is firm in their faith and go from there, shouldnt be a problem right? interesting, thanks for that.[size=9]I NEVER WORE IT BECAUSE OF THE TALIBAN, MOTHER. I LIKE THE [b]MODESTY[/b] AND [b]PROTECTION[/b] IT AFFORDS ME FROM THE EYES OF MEN.[/size] [url=http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Dust.html]Dust, X-Men[/url]
Yes, they especially would not be happy with the council of Nicaea. Next time you run into her you might want to point out that what was really under consideration was the Arian model, and whether it was a heresy. Other positions were not debated.
Early church fathers for the most part - the reflection model is exclusive to JW and came about in the 19th century.
The [b]Trinitarian [/b]model is probably the oldest, you can see early trinitarian thought in the letters of Paul. To boil it down the Trinity model is 3 "persons" of the same "substance" form the one God - "Godhead." The personalities are defined by their relationship to one another (father always paternal to the son etc).
The [b]Arian [/b]model comes from bishop Arius in the 4th century, that model teaches that first was God the father, who created God the son, who together created God the Holy Spirit. It was rejected at Nicaea because it denied Christ's "always existing" and seperated him from the Father - a bit too close to the idea of 3 gods.
[b]Modalism [/b]came about through bishop Sabellius during the 3rd century. This idea is that there are not three seperate "persons" but rather the same "person" acting in three different forms "modes." - Basically like God wore different masks, in which case Jesus was never a person - more like an office.
[b]Monophysitism [/b]comes from Eutyches during the 5th century ad is the belief that Jesus had one nature (as opposed to a human nature and a divine nature). They believed that the human nature of christ was either destroyed by the presence of God in him.
There is also [b]Nestorianism[/b] which comes from Patriarch Nestorius in the 5th century. They believe Christ literally was two people, a divine christ and a human christ.
Those are the big five I can think of, there are many many more though as a result of the breakdown in doctrinal/dogmatic control. The entire branch of Christian theology that studies the nature of Christ, his relationship to the father and his divinity is called "Christology."
She probably didn't want to answer because its that confusing. He's not considered divine, but rather reflects God's divine nature, and he is God's Son (literally), because he was created first, they believe he is actually archangel michael who they believe God transformed into a human to be impaled on a stake. Well, Charles Taze Russell claimed a divine mandate to return Christianity to what it was. A sort of "New Revelation." In that case JW is seen by followers as a return to true Christianity. That's very fortunate then... I know they are especially unkind to muslims, and can be very insulting after being invited in. Does this woman come a lot or was it just the one time?lol true...
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