btw, what do you think of my idea of taking your show on the road instead of preaching at us? Go tell it on the mountain! And if you don’t want to put in the effort, try to arrange a virtual press conference at the BioLogos offices.
Surprise! Surprise! the Universal Consciousness that you want to call “Allah-Yahweh” is a delusional creation of an overactive imagination; and right now, you’re the only person I know who wants anybody around here to think that that delusion is certain. BTW, let me be the first to say: I deny and reject your claim.
What does that even mean?
Surely you can’t be suggesting that John 14:6 is insufficient because it doesn’t have a date and time stamp appended to it.
Good grief, Bharat! I realize that you’re very probably unaccustomed to reading the New Testament, so I’ll try to help you out.
Find the book of John, Chapter 13. It should start with something like this, in the English version:
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, …
Now scan that page and notice that Chapter 13 continues its narrative–without a break–in the same room in the same building in the same city [which happened to be Jerusalem] just before the Feast of the Passover, and Chapter 13 ends with verse 38:
Jesus *answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.
The very next chapter is Chapter 14, which continues the narrative in Chapter 13. What that means is that the narrative in Chapter 14 continues to describe events in the same room in the same building in the same city on the same day immediately after the events described in Chapter 13.
THAT, Bharat, is about as the then “present time” and as absolute as things can get in this world in your lifetime.
Now you are being unreasonably silly.
Initially, you said: “Jesus never said he was the ONLY way.”
I pointed out, refuting your claim, that in John 14:6: “Jesus said to him [i.e. Jesus’ disciple Thomas, in the presence of Jesus’ other disciples] ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.’”
Then you counter the clear prroof that I showed you with an objection to the absence of a date and time stamp, and that the words of Jesus were “not absolute”, when it’s clear that they were, and you end with the unreasonably silly objection that Jesus’ words which I cited don’t transcend space and time.
Where are you that you want something date-stamped, absolute, and outside of space and time?
Unreasonable silliness on your part, Bharat, … for the second time. Is this going to become a pattern?
I say: “No true Muslim would claim to be a Jew.”
And you ask: “What is true?”
A "true Muslim believes that the Qur’an contains the actual words of Allah, communicated to Muhammad via the angel Jibrāʾīl. Prove otherwise.
X tells Y that X has a dog which X has named “Alfred” because the dog reminds X of his brother, whose name is “Alfred.”
Y tells X: “I have a dog, too.”
X asks Y: “You do? What’s the dog’s name?”
Y says: “Dog.”
X says to Y: “So, you have a dog and you named it ‘Dog’?”
And Y says: "Yes. I call my dog ‘Dog’ because it won’t tell me its name and I didn’t know what else to name it.
A Jew has an elohim that has personally given Jews His name by which they may call and know him. That name is
Which romanized is "YHWH* and often pronounced by non-Jews as: Yahweh. Rather than say Yahweh’s name frivolously, Jews commonly call Him “Ha-Shem” which is Hebrew and translates as: “The Name” or they’ll call Him “Adonai” which translates to “Lord”.
Muslims, on the other hand, have a “God” whom they call “Allah” because he has never given them any other name to call him.
How far into that rabbit-hole, do you want to go?
So, based on “a maybe”, you gloss over an irreconcilable difference, contrary to the law of Non-contradiction, and imagine that you have reconciled Biblical and Muslim understandings, in an effort to maintain your tenuous position. In Catastrophe Theory vocabulary, you’re a “singularity” poised on the verge of a catastrophe. Good luck with that. I’m no longer interested in playing chess with you in this “sandbox”.
I didn’t. The words that came out of your mouth (typed on your keyboard) are the same ones used by my Muslim co-worker.
And I am sure, as I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, that Dr. Merrill wouldn’t agree with this approach, but let me ask a friend who is currently on staff at DTS. He laughed and said no way would he agree with this argument. Yes I know this is an appeal to authority.
Cute, but still doesn’t fit. Fit “footprint on the ground” to trade. Anyway trade was undertaken by camel.
Edit to add cute story.
I had a friend who was a welder by trade. He was tasked with making the various sections of steel fire escape steps fit together. They had been fabricated by several different shops and things didn’t match up. I asked him how he got them to fit together and he said, “With a rubber ruler I can make anything match.” Meaning he just beat things together until he could get them welded. You want to apply a “rubber ruler” to the scriptures of 3 different faiths and claim you have made them fit together.
The Qur’an’s account of Jesus’ birth and childhood, too, are spurious versions from non-canonical sources. The Messianic title and details of the "Anointing"of Jesus in the New Testament are substantially different and more than what the Qur’an has to say about them, casting doubt on Allah’s, Muhammad’s, and the Quran’s knowledge of them.
Regardless where you got that from, that is certainly not in accord with what the New Testament and orthodox Christianity say. You’re “preaching” a strange “gospel”.
That "the Qur’an has “picked up that view” does not make the claim true nor support your goal to undermine Christianity and replace it with fantasy: yours or the Qur’an’s.
My 2nd response:
You begin your 3td Post by citing Basilides, whose teachings were judged heresy by Irenaeus. Basilidism was a minority view and diminished or ceased by about 2 centuries after Basilides. Claiming that a historical Christian minority view–that is insignificant or non-existent today–carries weight against a majority Christian view is unwarranted, unreasonable, and unacceptable. It also makes a historical fact a matter of opinion. I cry “Foul!”.
Your "4th Point:
My response:
Yeah, right! And you have an overactive imagination. “A possibility?” For a person who rejects the law of Non-contradictionanything is possible : even “flying pigs”. So, go right ahead and study whatever text you want; meanwhile, back here on earth, “anything” is not possible.
Recapituatlion of Bharat’s “4 points”:
Point #1 creates two categories, one “primary” and the other “secondary”, then selectively designates what is primary and what is secondary, creating “a need” for additional work and prolonging the agony of debate. The actual fact of the matter is that the Quran’s simple statement that “they killed him [i.e. Jesus] not nor crucified him” contradicts what the New Testament and Christianity proclaim: that Jesus was crucified, died as a result of the crucifixion, was entombed, and resurrected.
Point #2 assumes facts not in evidence, creating thereby a spurious and unsolvable contradiction.
Point #3 equates all sects of Christianity, a minority of whom disagree with the majority, and suggests that the Qur’an “picked up” on that division. I cry “Foul!”. Bharat, being neither a Jew, Christian, nor a Muslim, but biased nonetheless is trying to plow a field with a camel, an ox, and a mule, … and then planting a bag of mixed seeds to confuse his readers.
Point #4 asserts one of several improbable solutions–which have long been proposed by Muslim authors–to reconcile the Qur’an’s fiction with the New Testament’s facts.
For serious folks in the audience, willing to learn about the modern deconstruction of Islamic sources, I direct your attention to:
The reason that the western church celebrates Christmas on December 25 is because they decided that the Annunciation took place on March 25. It was a matter of counting forward 9 months to calculate the date of Christ’s birth.
True Muslims believe that Allah gave the words of the Qur’an to Muhammad through the angel Jibrāʾīl; that Muhammad is the last of the Prophets of Allah; and that Allah approved of everything his Prophets said and did .
True Muslim historians tell us that when Muhammad was 25, Khadija bint Khuwaylid–the widow of three husbands–who was either 28 or 40 years old asked him to marry her. He did and they were married for about 25 years. Khadija was the first of Muhammad’s wives and, while she was alive, she was his only wife.
Muslim historians also say that after Khadija died, beginning when Muhammad was 50 years old, he married 13 more wives. All of them, except Aisha, were either widows, divorcées or captives.
Muslim historians say that Aisha was “betrothed” [that is: promised to marry] Muhammad when she was about 6 years old and Muhammad was in his 50’s. The marriage was “consumated” when she was about 9 years old.
Muslims believe that Allah approved of Muhammad’s marriages. Many Muslims believe that what Muhammad can do, they can do.
Jesus was never married.
True Muslims believe that Allah says that Jesus was not killed nor was he crucified.
True Christians believe that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross as the result of being crucified. The belief that Jesus was resurrected does not make sense if he did not die.
People who believe that Jesus was not killed or that he was not crucified, but that he was resurrected on earth AND also believe that Jesus was crucified and died as a result of being crucified do not believe in “the law of Non-contradiction”. People who do not believe in “the law of Non-contradiction” are very strange.
No, we have no idea when that took place. But the Church has traditionally accepted March 25 as the date of the Annunciation. It’s part of the liturgical calendar in the West.
