Vinnie

Do all four Gospels do this? Examples? What if these documents were written for Greek speaking audiences familair not with the Hebrew Bible, but with the Greek version? This is kind of tautological as they were written in Greek right? Why not quote the Greek version in a Greek Gospel to a Greek speaking audience?

Personally, I think Jesus spoke Aramaic. This does not mean he did not ever pick up any Greek.

Vinnie

Magus55

I think Jesus spoke Aramaic, and probably some Greek as well, but Aramaic is closer to ancient Hebrew than it is to Arabic. Have no clue how you get that Jesus is muslim, because He spoke a language derived from ancient Hebrew.

Vinnie

Uh, I never argued that.

Vinine

deano

how could jesus preach something that was created a thousand years after him?

perhaps it is islam that preaches christianity.

Magus55

Was referring to river based on your reply, sorry.

River

I have the flu, so pardon me if I cant respond fast enough. I will have to correct you on One thing ( for now). The Qur'an does not say that the Bible( 4 gospels) is true . This is something that Christian missionaries have exploited. The Qur'an says the Holy Injeel was true. The Injeel translates to Gospel ( singular not plural) and is believed to be the Original Scripture of Jesus Christ. Some scholars have dubbed the Holy Injeel as "Document Q". Others have stated that the Aramaic Mathew (preserved by Tibetan monks) or Gospel of Holy Twelve has some parts of the Injeel. Well, to make things short. The Bible ( NT canon) you have today is derived from a much larger text called " Injeel". The Bible is "inspired"....while I believe the Injeel might have been "Uncreated" or something similar.

River

Because Primordial Islam or " Submission to G-d's Will " has originated from even before Adam (pbuh). While Judaism began with the 12 Tribes of Jacob(pbuh). And Christianity in Practice began around the Time of St. Paul and Jesus Christ (pbuh).


Islam teaches a purified vision of Christianity.

River

The following article is extracted from Maurice Bucaille's book " The Bible, The Qur'an and Science".

Paraclete: Why it MUST only be Prophet Muhammad ( a Logical Deduction).


John is the only evangelist to report the episode of the last dialogue with the Apostles. It takes place at the end of the Last Supper and before Jesus's arrest. It ends in a very long speech: four chapters in John's Gospel (14 to 17) are devoted to this narration which is not mentioned anywhere in the other Gospels. These chapters of John nevertheless deal with questions of prime importance and fundamental significance to the future outlook. They are set out with all the grandeur and solemnity that characterizes the farewell scene between the Master and His disciples.

This very touching farewell scene which contains Jesus's spiritual testament, is entirely absent from Matthew, Mark and Luke. How can the absence of this description be explained? One might ask the following. did the text initially exist in the first three Gospels? Was it subsequently suppressed? Why? It must be stated immediately that no answer can be found; the mystery surrounding this huge gap in the narrations of the first three evangelists remains as obscure as ever.

The dominating feature of this narration-seen in the crowning speech-is the view of man's future that Jesus describes, His care in addressing His disciples, and through them the whole of humanity, His recommendations and commandments and His
concern to specify the guide whom man must follow after His departure. The text of John's Gospel is the only one to designate him as Parakletos in Greek, which in English has become 'Paraclete'. The following are the essential passages:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and
he will give you another Paraclete." (14, 15-16)

What does 'Paraclete' mean? The present text of John's Gospel explains its meaning as follows:

"But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (14, 26).

"he will bear witness to me" (15, 26).

"it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will
not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will
convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment . . ." (16, 7-8).

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not
speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will
declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me . . ."
(16, 13-14).

(It must be noted that the passages in John, chapters 14-17, which have not been cited here, in no way alter the general meaning of these quotations).

On a cursory reading, the text which identifies the Greek word 'Paraclete' with the Holy Spirit is unlikely to attract much attention. This is especially true when the subtitles of the text are generally used for translations and the terminology commentators employ in works for mass publication direct the reader towards the meaning in these passages that an exemplary orthodoxy would like them to have. Should one have the slightest dimculty in comprehension, there are many
explanations available, such as those given by A. Tricot in his Little Dictionary of the New Testament (Petit Dictionnaire du Nouveau Testament) to enlighten one on this subject. In his entry on the Paraclete this commentator writes the following:

"This name or title translated from the Greek is only used in the New Testament by John: he uses it four times in his account of Jesus's speech after the Last Supper[42] (14, 16 and 26; 15, 26; 16, 7) and once in his First Letter (2, 1). In John's Gospel the word is applied to the Holy Spirit; in the Letter it refers to Christ. 'Paraclete' was a term in current usage among the Hellenist Jews, First century A.D., meaning 'intercessor', 'defender' (. . .) Jesus predicts that the Spirit will be sent by the Father and Son. Its mission will be to take the place of the Son in the role he played during his mortal life as a helper for the benefit of his disciples. The Spirit will intervene and act as a substitute for Christ, adopting the role of Paraclete
or omnipotent intercessor."

This commentary therefore makes the Holy Spirit into the ultimate guide of man
after Jesus's departure. How does it square with John's text?

It is a necessary question because a priori it seems strange to ascribe the last paragraph quoted above to the Holy Spirit: "for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." It seems inconceivable that one could ascribe to the Holy Spirit the ability to speak and declare whatever he hears . . . Logic demands that this question be raised, but to my knowledge, it is not usually the subject of commentaries.

To gain an exact idea of the problem, one has to go back to the basic Greek text. This is especially important because John is universally recognized to have written in Greek instead of another language. The Greek text consulted was the Novum
Testamentum Graece[43].

Any serious textual criticism begins with a search for variations. Here it would seem that in all the known manuscripts of John's Gospel, the only variation likely to change the meaning of the sentence Is in passage 14, 26 of the famous Palimpsest
version written in Syriac[44]. Here it is not the Holy Spirit that is mentioned, but quite simply the Spirit. Did the scribe merely miss out a word or, knowing full well that the text he was to copy claimed to make the Holy Spirit hear and speak, did he perhaps lack the audacity to write something that seemed absurd to him? Apart from this observation there is little need to labour the other variations, they are grammatical and do not change the general meaning. The important thing is that what has been demonstrated here with regard to the exact meaning of the verbs 'to hear' and 'to speak' should apply to all the other manuscripts of John's Gospel, as is indeed the case.

The verb 'to hear, in the translation is the Greek verb 'akouô' meaning to perceive sounds. It has, for example, given us the word 'acoustics', the science of sounds.

The verb 'to speak' in the translation is the Greek verb 'laleô' which has the general meaning of 'to emit sounds' and the specific meaning of 'to speak'. This verb occurs very frequently in the Greek text of the Gospels. It designates a solemn declaration made by Jesus during His preachings. It therefore becomes clear that the communication to man which He here proclaims does not in any way consist of a statement inspired by the agency of the Holy Spirit. It has a very obvious material character moreover, which comes from the idea of the emission of sounds conveyed by the Greek word that defines it.

The two Greek verbs 'akouô' and 'laleô' therefore define concrete actions which can only be applied to a being with hearing and speech organs. It is consequently impossible to apply them to the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, the text of this passage from John's Gospel, as handed down to us in Greek manuscripts, is quite incomprehensible if one takes it as a whole, including the words 'Holy Spirit' in passage 14, 26. "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name" etc. It is the only passage in John's Gospel that identifies the Paraclete with the Holy Spirit.

If the words 'Holy Spirit' (to pneuma to agion) are ommitted from the passage, the complete text of John then conveys a meaning which is perfectly clear. It is confirmed moreover, by another text by the same evangelist, the First Letter, where
John uses the same word 'Paraclete' simply to mean Jesus, the intercessor at God's side[45]. According to John, when Jesus says (14, 16): "And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete", what He is saying is that 'another' intercessor will be sent to man, as He Himself was at God's side on man's behalf during His earthly life.

According to the rules of logic therefore, one is brought to see in John's Paraclete a human being like Jesus, possessing the faculties of hearing and speech formally implied in John's Greek text. Jesus therefore predicts that God will later send a human being to Earth to take up the role defined by John, i.e. to be a prophet who hears God's word and repeats his message to man. This is the logical interpretation of John's texts arrived at if one attributes to the words their proper meaning.

The presence of the term 'Holy Spirit' in today's text could easily have come from a later addition made quite deliberately. It may have been intended to change the original meaning which predicted the advent of a prophet subsequent to Jesus and was therefore in contradiction with the teachings of the Christian churches at the time of their formation; these teachings maintained that Jesus was the last of the prophets.

Magus55

Um, Judaism began with Abraham, not Jacob.


You call jihad, beating woman, and paradise full of virgins and homosexual adolescents to please the "worthy" men, "purified"?

EstherRose

River, you cannot take isolated verses out of their context. John 14:14-16 is not the same meaning as John 14:14-17. Jesus is clearly talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in the believers and is not seen or known by the world, only by the believers. Mohammed does not fit that description.

There are over 5300 New Testament manuscripts that have the Greek word paraclete. Jesus personally identified the Counselor as the Holy Spirit. John 14:16 indicates the Counselor would abide with God’s followers forever. Mohammed has been dead for 1300 years. John 16:14 says the Counselor would glorify Jesus. The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. Mohammed doesn’t. The Bible teaches that the fulfillment of Jesus’ words about the Counselor took place 10 days later on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5) not 600 years later in a city hundreds of miles away from Jerusalem.

There is a concept of how to read the meaning of any text. You need to draw the meaning out of the text (exegesis) rather than reading/forcing a meaning into the text (eisogesis). I suggest you reread the passages below carefully.


John 14

14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 14
26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 15
26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

John 16
7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Acts 1
4On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

Acts 2
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"