Muslim, Jewish and Christian views of God, all vs. the Bible.

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Oct 10, 2018 at 00:30

Hi, DNM.

As you say, Tafsir of al-Tabari has not been translated satisfactorally into English, and is tainted by Muslim lies. It is way beyond my ken, to try to dig into something like that. Instead, I will comment on your own interpretations:

"And remember that the ethnic God of the Jews is Echad or One. The Jews were very familiar with Greek logic and this is why, as far as I know, the Jews do not claim that their God is anyone else's God! By contrast Muhammad fails because he claimed that his God is the only God for all of humanity and this is why the Jews asked him the Aristotelian question: If Allah created this creation then who created Allah! Muhammad had no answer Did you get it this time?"

Isaiah 45:
[5] I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
[6] That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

"The LORD", of course, is "YHVH" in Hebrew, The proper name of the God of Moses. He doesn't say there is no other "YHVH" besides Himself; He said there is no other "God" beside Himself, anywhere on earth. That seems to refute what you said, about YHVH being merely the "ethnic" god of the Jews.

"Again, the Qur'an attests that Jesus is a man (prophet), the Logos (Kalimatu Allah) and Allah's Spirit or Roh Allah (al-Roh al-Qudus?) and this is really what the Trinity is all about: A Samad or a Bundle may be?"

Jesus is described as only a human, throughout the New Testament. His statements about being "one" with God (i.e. with "The Father") use the same language that describes our own relationship with Him (John 17). Concerning "Logos", I understand that it refers to the SPOKEN word of God, whereas "The Law", or Torah, refers to His written word. It was the Logos that created everything in Genesis 1. Since EVERYTHING came into being through this Logos, it is not surprizing that Jesus also is said to have acquired humanity this way (as in, "The Logos became flesh"). I do not see this as proclaiming that Jesus somehow IS the Logos; only that he is human, or, as John said, "come in the flesh".

Paul himself describes him in Romans 2 as being a descendant of David; and both genealogies in the NT have Joseph descended from David -- one through a natural line, to agree with Paul; and one through an adopted line, no doubt. To fulfill the requirement of being the promised special "Messiah", he had to be a natural descendant of David; but he also had to be of the Royal Line (probably via the adoptive line in Matthew). Two lines were required, because the Matthew line had been cursed. No Davidic genealogy is given for Mary in the Bible; and what I see of the Roman Catholic tradition (Anna and Joachim), the genealogies of her that have been presented are not Davidic. Moreover, "Joachim" is not even the father of Joseph in either NT genealogy; so apologists that claim Jesus' Messianic claim comes through Mary do not seem to have any basis. Jesus must therefore have been the natural son of Joseph, howbeit through a miraculous birth that did not involve coitus.

I see nothing in the Bible that identifies Jesus as the Holy Spirit (the Ruach ha Kodesh, in Hebrew). Jesus and the Gospel narrators all describe the HS as a separate entity. If Muslim commentaries say Jesus is somehow a "bundle" of God's spoken word, the Holy Spirit and a human prophet, I strongly suspect these ideas are the product of the Christian councils of the centuries immediately preceding Muhammed.

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