- If “ecumenism” or “ecumenical matters” were a sub-category, I would have listed it in addition to Biblical Interpretation.
- I’ve long held the opinion that Allah and Yahweh are the same God has been a goofy idea.
- I’m pleased to report that the Jewish Biblical scholar, Jon D. Levenson agrees. I refer the contentious to: Jon D. Levenson: Abraham in History, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam | The Abrahamic Religions Myth
- Yet another really long YouTube video, that I almost tried to edit, but haven’t been able to yet. Short version is in the video title: “The Abrahamic Religions Myth”.
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I think that the contention that Christians have with Islam is essentially that Christians believe in the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ, which are concepts not accepted in Islam. Conversely, Muslims uphold the belief in the oneness of God (Allah) and the prophethood of Muhammad, which are not accepted in Christianity. So, it is a question of interpretation rather than of identity.
It is also a linguistic thing because Arabic Jews and Christians use the word Allah, and the Syriac Jews and Christians use Alaha. Some scholars have said that the God of the OT is not that of the NT. So, just because a certain scholar agrees with your opinion doesn’t mean it is right.
- When you figure out a way for Yahweh to know that Jesus Christ died on a cross and Allah to be ignorant of what crucifixion did to Jesus’ sarx, let me know.
- And when you have more credibility than Jon Levenson, let the world know.
- BTW, your opinion doesn’t make make my opinion wrong either.
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So much is in the context. Certainly the God of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is considered to be the God of Abraham, but if you look at the Christian God as being the Trinity, then even some groups which identify as Christian but are non-trinitarian might be considered not be worshiping the same God. These include Oneness Pentecostal, LDS, some Church of God groups, Jehovah’s Witness, and others.
I’m glad I am not responsible for making those judgements.
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It’s important not to watch the video.
@ 4:35 You would hear Jon say:
- People sometimes say: “Well, Abraham’s Father has promised he’d be the father of many nations.” And people then say: “Well, that means many religions”, which is not what Genesis says. But basically, it’s a modern concept. The person I think who pushed it the most is really a French Catholic scholar, named Louis Massignon, who died in 1962. He was a Catholic scholar of Islam who adopted the religious name "Ibrahim”, and eventually became a priest in the Melkite Rite at the Roman Catholic Church. He was in love with Islam. In fact, he spoke about it. He says the Muslim believes in the original equality of the three Abrahamic religions: the original equality of the three Abrahamic religions: namely he says, Israel, Christianity. and Islam. He means, when we would say Judaism, Christianity, Islam. But you know, one can wonder—and you would know much, much more than I do—but you wonder whether Islam actually believes in the original equality of the three Arabic religions, or does it rather assert that it is the re-invigoration and representation and recovery of the original Abrahamic religion. I think the Arabic is not mistaken. I may be wrong; “Ibrahim” is something like that: the religion of Abraham not restored through the Quranic Revelation. I think that’s where it really got its start, but the concept really took off after 9/11, because people have been speaking about a Judeo-Christian tradition, another very problematic idea, in my opinion, a problematic term.
- But all of a sudden, they discovered that there are all these people out there, 1.4 billion people, who are Muslims. And they’re not, … they don’t fit in the Judeo-Christian tradition. But they also speak about Abraham, and they speak about Moses, and they speak about David and Ezra and Joshua, and this and that, Jesus. And so, people began to say: “Let’s expand the purview, and use this term ‘Abrahamic religion’. Now, Abraham sounds very, very inclusive; and that’s the idea: to be universal, inclusive, not exclude anybody. But in fact, those traditions all assume that they pertain to a particular subset of humanity that God, so to speak, has formed for Himself a subset of humanity as his special worshipers: the People Israel , Bene Yisrael in Hebrew, or the Church of Christ, or the Ummah of Islam.
- In a Biblical context, if you’re talking about something like the Book of Genesis, where you find almost all the Abrahamic traditions in the Bible, if you were to go to Genesis, and you want to make a universal statement, it seems to me you shouldn’t go to Abraham, who’s selected out from among all the peoples on the earth. You should go to Adam or Noah, because according to the Biblical narrative, everybody is to someone. And because of Adam and Noah, only a small subsection of humanity, comes from Abraham. So it’s really less inclusive in a universal holistic then you think I mean people say Abrahamic religions. How much we have in common, there’s not much to be said for that. But I always say: “Well, what have you got against Hindus; you know? What do you have to say Jainists, Sikhs, Shinto. You see what I mean? The term is, I think it is motivated by a very good, very nice, positive, humanistic motivations, this isn’t quite accurate to what Abraham means in the Bible or in the traditions that descend from Abraham.
============================== - Louis Massignon, French scholar
- Louis Massignon (25 July 1883 – 31 October 1962) was a French Catholic scholar of Islam and a pioneer of Catholic-Muslim mutual understanding. He was an influential figure in the twentieth century with regard to the Catholic church’s relationship with Islam and played a role in Islam being accepted as an Abrahamic Faith among Catholics.
- Although a Catholic himself, he tried to understand Islam from within and thus had a great influence on the way Islam was seen in the West; among other things, he paved the way for a greater openness to dialogue inside the Catholic Church towards Islam. Some scholars maintain that his research, esteem for Islam and Muslims, and cultivation of key students in Islamic studies largely prepared the way for the positive vision of Islam articulated in the Lumen Gentium and the Nostra Aetate at the Second Vatican Council.
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- Encouraged by Mary Kahil and with the permission of Pope Pius XII, he became a Melkite Greek Catholic on February 5, 1949, which meant he still remained in the Catholic Church, but was no longer affiliated with the Roman Rite. Instead the Melkite Church consists of Arab Catholics and its Byzantine Rite liturgy is celebrated in Arabic. This indirectly allowed Massignon to be closer to Arab Christians and Muslims alike.
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When a muslim says ‘there is only one God’, Jews and Christians should say ‘Amen’.
The doctrine of Trinity does not tell there are many Gods.
All three religious traditions believe in the God of Abraham, the Most High. It does not matter if we call the Most High God, Allah, Jumala, or whatever the word for God is in different languages. What matters is what we teach about this God.
Although all three Abrahamic traditions refer to the same God of Abraham, what we teach about this God and His will is different. The key difference is naturally Jesus Christ and how do we get peace with God. Muslims tell Isa (peace be upon him) was a great prophet of God [only Mohammed is a greater prophet in Islam]; Jews think Yeshua was a Jewish teacher that his disciples turned into a heretical figurehead; while Christians teach he was something radically more - the way to salvation, to get peace with God.
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I suppose it depends on how you define “Abrahamic”. If it just means that those religions have Abraham as their common forefather, I don’t see why we can’t use that term.
But every definition beyond that has its issues.
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- Simplistic nonsense leading to syncretic fantasy, in order to achieve what? An ability to engage in ecumenical worship services, like trying to breed bats and pigs in hope of producing fat bats that we can eat or pigs that can fly? LOL!
- Wave goodbye to Acts 4:12 “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Mix enough differences together and Jesus gets watered down so much that He saves no one; He just becomes one of many prophets, a nice guy, and a common example of comfortable ecumenical charity.
- If you think calling a sky god by any name is the best way to achieve world peace, lots of luck with that. I don’t.
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Here’s an idea:
- Imagine a cubic unit of Absolute Space, define it as a subset of God-by-any-name, we can now draw a simple picture of Him.
- Imagine a cubic unit of Absolute Space, define it as a subset of God-by-any-name, we can now draw a simple picture of Him.
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Now worship Him.
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Recognizing what is common between the three Abrahamic traditions is not waving goodbye to truth. There are no reasons to fear to acknowledge the facts. We do confess that the only true God was once known as the God of Abraham. However, it matters what we teach about the one and only God, and there is the core difference.
Teaching of salvation (and of Jesus/Yeshua/Isa) is different in the three Abrahamic religions. It does not help to know that there is only one God, if you have made yourself the enemy of the true God by fighting against the will of God. Even the demons know there is only one God and they tremble in front of God.
I want to make it clear that I do not think that muslims are somehow demonic. I think they are just humans who have received misleading teaching about God and need forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ, as we all do.
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- Really? In what Scripture or Catechism can I find what is common between the three traditions that say Abraham is their ancestor? The Bible with and without the New Testament, and/or the Qur’an?
- Do all three traditions agree that humans were created in His image?
- It does not help to know that there is only one God.
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But what has using the term “Abrahamic religions” to do with ecumenism? When scholars talk about “Christianity”, they are not suggesting that all the different denominations are in communion.
For example, both the Donatist church and the Roman state church were Christian groups. But the latter excommunicated the former.
Scholars just use such terminology. Writing “the origins of the Abrahamic religions” is much easier than “the origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
As I already said, this seems to have already developed in a semantic dispute. So I will not say anymore hereafter.
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- You’re young. Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the Baha’ullaha and the Baha’i who, because the Baha’ullah was technically a Persian Muslim, and his followers, initially, underwent persecution, imprisonment, and even death for their confident faith in Iran, are now considered an “Abrahamic religion” and devoutfully committed to ecumenical, peace-loving, community-building activities that boil down to their own form of supersecessionism. Baha’i taught that:
“The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men…Whatsoever is raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure.” - According to Baha’ullah,
- Do you like to play in strange sandboxes? If so, someday go to: www.reliigiousforums.com and play in their “Abrahamic Faith” sandboxes. But be careful, the moderators there can be tougher than the ones here.
- “In communion”? A nebulous, almost meaningless, if not literally meaningless term in “Interfaith Conversations.”
- So, in your opinion, the scholars who use the term “Abrahamic religions” are intentionally imprecise? Or are they just “lazy” or “ignorant”?
- Levenson is a Biblical Scholar and says that term is as “problematic” as “Judeo-Christian”, I agree.
- Words matter, or they don’t. If their “semantics” are ambiguous and unclear, quibbling over their meaning will seem like thumb-wrestling over petty stuff. Do you want to go on record as one who believes the Nicene Creed or the Athanasion Creed was and are “petty stuff”.
- You leave too late.
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- The Building “a Tower of Babel” impulse is strong, isn’t it?
- “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
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I would say that this point of view is almost inevitable if we don’t see any principal difference between a “simple” monotheism and the doctrine of Trinity. Certainly, Christians accept the latter. But to accept the doctrine is one thing, while to deem it the key, central teaching is another.
Thinking of God as of absolutely solitary being that is eternal, perfect, and absolutely independent of anything else may ultimately destroy any theology by plunging it into the abyss of apophatism. Already enjoying the absolute bliss in itself, this being will never relate to anything else. Hence, the theology of impersonal and inactive Godhead arises.
This logic ends with the two-layered theology: any idea of God who wills, acts, creates, communicates with the creatures, and so on, is relegated to the level of profane understanding, whereas the impersonal and inactive Reality is allegedly approached or contemplated by mystics or sages.
One may retort that the perfect being may relate to something else (e.g., create some other things) out of love, without necessity. In this case, the other difficulty arises. To say that such being is essentially related to something else is to imply that it is dependent on something other than itself.
Therefore, a solitary God is either dependent on something that is not God - or is not essentially related to anything else. In short, it’s impossible to say that a solitary God is Love.
The Trinity is the principally different concept of God. Here we encounter the God who is self-differentiated without losing essential unity; who is not dependent on anything that were not God, but contains interpersonal relations as essential properties. As a relational being, this God has intentions and, therefore, is capable of intentional acts.
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I don’t see how it is a goofy idea. When the Latter Day Saints talk about what Jesus did in the Americas (allegedly) they are referring to the same Jesus of Christianity. They may be wrong about what Jesus did, but they are still talking about the same person. It also changes nothing if the actual Aramaic name of Jesus was Yeshua.
To use an analogy, we English speakers might call a specific city Rome while others will refer to it as Roma. We are all talking about the same city. We may have wrong or right descriptions of what that city is, but we are at least talking about the same city.
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True, but it gets a little different when you speak of people. Friends call me Dr. Phil oftentimes, but I am not that Dr. Phil. And while two people speak of God, they may be talking of a different person.
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Using my analogy earlier, that would be like confusing Rome, Wisconsin and Rome, Italy. That doesn’t seem to be analogous to what is being discussed here.
What Muslims are saying is that they believe in the same God Abraham believed in. They also believe that Abraham’s God handed down the Koran to Muhammad (if memory serves, inspired would be the wrong description here). Whether Abraham’s God actually did this is questioned by non-Muslims, but there is little doubt they are talking about the same God found in the Jewish and Christian faiths. For Muslims, the Tanakh is scripture as well just as in Christianity.
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Allah is a god of violence. Yahweh is a God of love. Allah wants soldiers, Yahweh wants a family. Allah designates half of humanity as property, Yahweh designates all as free in Him.
What more needs to be said?
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The Jesus of the Mormons is the “spirit brother” of Satan, and the bastard son of a rapist Father – how is that the Jesus of the New Testament?
A single name can refer to completely different entities. It is the description of the particular entities that will tell whether or not they are the same.
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