We all welcome you once again to Islam focused today’s program inshallah
Muhammad, peace be upon him, the last messenger of God, and our knights and Mohammed, an Abrahamic family tree. We continue today with Muhammad as pre told by Jesus. I’m your host Shawnee Mission in here once again from St. Mary’s University. Is that the Gemma, si community center cinema. Because I have a summary please on last week’s program. Okay. Last week, we continued to discuss the term Paraclete or practice in Greek. And we indicate that while there have been improvements in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, avoiding the old mistaken translation come first serve. But we said that even then the translators were not very consistent in the translation, because why in
the term Paraclete, or practice appears in five places. in all places in john the four places it’s translated as counselor, and then deficit of john, even though it’s identical word productivities. It’s translated as advocate. And we have indicated that if you use the term counselor in the first episode of john, it would not have any meaning at all, we’d say we have a counselor with the with the farther
than that doesn’t make much sense. And obviously, Jesus is not regarded the same as the third person of Trinity. So we cannot say again, Holy Spirit that does not seem to to fit.
We indicated that this problem of translation was recognized by biblical scholars and we refer to the original work of James Heston in his Dictionary of the Bible, the 1900 edition,
where he discussed a variety of terms and how each one of them that have been used is not really very accurate is not complete, at least does not convey the meaning that could meet the requirements of all five places where the calculator is mentioned.
But in the meantime, we have given examples also of some writers who go into a great extent and greatness trying to explain out some of those clears in consistencies or impossibilities, even though their explanations seem to be really contrary to any logical OR ecological or linguistic evidence.
And then at the end do indicated also that the interesting thing about the parklets is that in the Greek manuscript,
and neutral, sorry, masculine pronoun has been used to refer to the parent letters. Whereas in Greek, there is a neutral pronoun that should have been used. If it were true that the para Cletus actually was a reference to the spirit of the Holy Spirit, a neutral pronoun should have been used instead of the masculine. And I think the last thing we mentioned at the end of the previous program is that this is not just a Muslim perspective or a newfangled idea that this is something that has been recognized by biblical scholars themselves. Well, it might be appropriate then, to to give some of these opinions by by the biblical scholars. I give you an example from Reverend Domingo, it’s d
UW m n o w, on his commentary, and that’s on page
773. Also page 799 through 101. One of the petition read like this code, his personality, that is the personality of the productivities. His personality is clearly implied by the masculine pronoun by the masculine pronoun. And then he refers to john 1416, comma, by the personal title advocate, peculiar to St. JOHN. And then he refers to john 14 1626, on the other four places in the Gospel According to john, and by his functions, and then he refers to john, especially chapter 16, verse eight, and verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter.
So, it is obvious here that what Reverend Domingo is saying really, that the personality of the product creators has to be understood in the light of the fact that a masculine pronoun would use to describe him which again
Like I said before, something that doesn’t grow with a spirit and Newton pronoun would have been more appropriate, but it’s actually masculine within us a person and made person. A second example about the importance of the use of the masculine pronoun, to designate the product leaders to come after Jesus is found in the interpreters Dictionary of the Bible in 1962, edition, volume three, on page 654.
And it reads like this, I’ve quoted elytis, quote, the use of masculine pronoun, and adjectives. That’s for the parakeet in john 1416, another
in 1426. He,
in 1615, shows that the Spirit is regarded as fully personal. It’s very interesting statement. because on one hand, we find that the writers of the interpreters Dictionary of the Bible recognize
the fact that the masculine parameter is used the term he is used. Another issue is,
but instead of carrying this observations to their logical conclusion, ie that person is a human being a means person, we find that we go back again, in what I call a sermon life type of explanation,
to use very ambiguous expression, that the Spirit is fully personal. What does that really mean? The spirit is for the person in the length of the clear evidence that has been discussed, especially in the previous program, that the parameters cannot be regarded as the Holy Spirit that it’s erroneous to refer to the packages as the Holy Spirit. And why not acknowledge the simple straightforward fact that the correct lead or percolators, about whom Jesus peace be upon him spoke that he would come after him. amusingly he
and a masculine pronoun could be none but the prophet like him, which in our humble understanding is none but Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon both
of you that are how can you explain to reason behind the identification of the parakeet? What the Holy Spirit I’m referring to john 14 years 26. Well, the expression, Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, which comes in john 1426, after immediately after the percolators
can not be of the words of Jesus, there is good reason behind.
Jesus peace be upon him, is a truthful person. And to the Muslims is a truthful Prophet would say nothing but the truth that he received from his creator and the one who assembling the God of all. And that precludes any error on the heart of Jesus.
We have indicated that it is erroneous to call the practice Holy Spirit, which leads us to conclude that that error could have not committed been committed by an inspired and Holy Prophet, like Jesus.
Start with
that leaves us with one of two possibilities. One
is that the writer of the gospel and I’m not saying john, because many scholars say, we don’t know, the writer of the gospel, according to john might have added to the words of Jesus about the correct letters are inserted the Holy Spirit as an interpretive statement, as you mentioned in the previous program, in the way he understood it, as he understood, but not quoting Jesus, word for word.
Now, it is quite possible that in the past, whenever an interpretive statement is made, it’s not put between brackets like we do today, like you can make a quotation. And if you want to make an interpretive statement, you can just make a bracket just to designate that this is not the original quotation, but your own interpretation. Maybe they didn’t do that.
But even then we find that the way it’s written also, it’s quite interesting, because it says, the Paraclete comma, the Holy Spirit, comma, which the Father will send and then continues with the description. So even the commas the two commas around the term
for the spirit might have been possibly the interpretive statements or the way the entity statement was inserted in the in addition to the words of Jesus,
in that particular possibility or case, the error cannot be the error of Jesus peace be upon him, but an error of the onset of the Gospel According to john, and ever, you might say in the way he tried to interpret the parameters which has been discovered to be not very productive, perfectly to say
is not the policeman.
The second possibility is that the error might have not been nicer, that of Jesus peace be upon him or the, the author of the Gospel According to john, but possibly an error of a native copyist.
Right, who might have added this, again as an interpretive statement, or for the sake of supporting a certain theological position that he was familiar with, or he wanted to, to strengthen.
And it might be noted also that the physiology
of john 1426 will not be affected at all, if you remove this insertion, this believes to be the assertion, the Holy Spirit will not be affected at all. And the flow of meaning would be quite smooth and quite sensible. See, if you remove it, it reads like this. But the counselor, the parent flipped room, the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, the meaning is perfectly alright. There’s no break and the meaning of this is not only sensible,
from the standpoint of physiology, but it does help also to remove all of the problems and inconsistencies which resulted from the existence in the text of this apparent insertion or you might say interpretive statement, in that case, this reasonable assumption is to be accepted, then there will be no need for going in circles or going around or using sermon life type of statements that is void or any, you know, clear truth
to, to try and explain and reconcile the mention of the Paraclete in the epistle on one hand, and then the gospel according to john on the other.
All the five references where the template has been used would be totally consistent and harmonious that Jesus is actually speaking about the human being after the prophets like him.
Well, Dr. Valley, you know, when you’re spent that way, that makes a lot of sense to me, and appears to be very logical. I wonder, however, why, why biblical scholars did not present this, at least as possibly an alternative explanation to to this problem of translation? Well, it is understandable to start with that.
Most of the scholars who wrote about this are people who are attached to certain religious institutions or churches.
And the position of those churches, of course, is definitely to eliminate any possibility or notion that there was anything after what they consider to be the climax of all the evolution, in the case of Jesus peace be upon which is based on the deification of Jesus and the idea of the Trinity, or God incarnate God coming to flesh.
And I had indicated in a previous occasion, that in some cases, their books even carry the signature of their superiors in the chairs, and the certificates from the religious institution that the writing is free from doctrinal error. And we said again, the definition of what is a doctrinal errors is something which is based on official position taken by these religious institutions throughout history,
especially on the issue of the authority of the Scriptures. Now, if it is admitted, and if any of those scholars come quite openly, and admits that there are statements in the Bible, which are not verbatim what Jesus said, but rather they are interpretive statements made by the writers or the authors of the Gospels, or the copyists have translators at later times, then authenticity, this might open the door,
that there might be also error statements, which might have been also interpreted statements without necessarily resorting to Jesus. Typical of that is the beginning of john, in the beginning, there was the Word the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then you continued that the Word became flesh. So it might raise the same issue about the this kind of interpretive statements also. And that, of course, would bring into question the longstanding traditions and dogmas that has been there for nearly 2000 years.
And that might raise at least the question that whether those traditions, dogmas, and very famous and often quoted, citations from the Bible,
might have necessarily not been representative of the true teachings of Jesus was just a prophet and a great messenger of God,
or opinions of writers. Now, in fairness, however, I am not saying
That there is absolutely no biblical scholars
who at least accept it in some form or the others. The idea that interpretive statements in the Bible which were not strictly of the words of Jesus did exist. I’ll give you an example of this again, the reference, I referred to before Reverend Domino, and his commentary. And that’s in the introduction on page 16, of the introduction. And he says, quote, a copyist means a copy is still the Bible, what sometimes notice put in, not what was in the text, but what he thought ought to be in it, what he thought ought to be, and that’s a very significant statement, he could trust a second memory, or be,
or he would even make the text, a chord with the views of the school to which he belongs, or belongs.
In other words, writing, trying to add the understanding, it ought to be part of the text, it ought to be part of the work of Jesus, because that is, to me what it means. But whether Jesus actually said that or not, that’s another issue.
On a significant statement, it’s a very, I would say, very honest statement when he spots you know, that he has come that far. So that’s why I didn’t want to steal your type and say, or biblical scholars, you know, don’t care about evidence, I think some do, at least, to some degree or data. See, in the same reference the commentary by Domino on page 770, he says, quote, The gospel is not only a history, but an allegory.
It is the work of a mystic, trained in allegorical method of interpreting the Scripture, and expecting his own work to be interpreted in a like manner.
That’s why I’m saying there are some of the biblical scholars who have at least accepted the idea, or this basic explanation. However, I don’t know, at least to my knowledge of any one of them, who came more frankly, clearly, and he said, are they based on that, therefore, the parently that Jesus speaks about this seems to be a reference, not to the Holy Spirit, but to another prophets and messengers to come after Jesus. Because to say that, obviously would differ with the foundation of the whole body of theology that has grown up over hundreds of yours.
But the question which is really interesting here, even here,
is that the some of the biblical scholars have at least accepted the main ingredients, when ingredients, which may lead logically to the conclusion that the product lead for thought, by Jesus peace be upon him, is simply another prophet. And I don’t know any other candidate that fits those description, but Prophet Muhammad peace. You see, the problem is that for the Muslim, there is no problem at all, for the Muslim, acknowledging the truthfulness, the prophet hood and messenger ship of Jesus as a prophet of God. There’s no question about that.
But that’s not as easy for a divine or biblical scholar, or a professor of theology or clergy. Because to say that, even though the evidence seems to be quite overwhelming, even in bad direction,
the recognition of the last prophet Muhammad peace with implying actually following him, because Jesus told His followers to listen, and to heed to the teaching of that productive because he was teaching them the whole truth. So I can understand why some aspects of the truth seem to have been acknowledged, sometimes even very frankly. But like I say, it didn’t go far enough
to bring this very scholarly observations made by Christian biblical scholars to the logical conclusion that the Berkeley actually is a human being. And another.
Let’s, let’s move on to a related question. Now, some say that apparently, is described also as the Spirit of Truth. Now, that does not necessarily
apply to a man. But Lastly, just before another related question, I think I’m kind of jumping ahead of myself. Now, it does not apply to a Holy Spirit is the argument that’s made by many biblical scholars, but it does describe a spirit but then to go ahead and say that the Prophet Muhammad is not a spirit and therefore it does not necessarily relate to him. And now we get to the second point, actually, we are actually both to the point that you raised are quite relevant, but
Maybe lipstick the first equation of this spirit, the word spirit itself, it is true that the term spirits, which is in Hebrew lower spends like are you H or an Arabic
equivalent or in Greek Nima or Trina P and you may
not be pronouncing this correctly correctly, but that’s how it’s spelled. All of these things are equivalent terms normally refer to something which is intangible.
And it is also true that the term
spirits, whether in the Quranic terminology, or biblical terminology,
has so many different meanings, depending on the context
where it occurs.
But it is also true that the word spirit is used also in the Bible, you’d be surprised to refer to human beings as interesting to human beings, and more specifically, even to prophets. I’ll give you examples of this. In the 78, some of David’s in verse 39, the word spirit is used, actually the innocence of men. And the first epistle of john in chapter four, verses one through three, when people are advised not to believe any spirit before testing it, and so on, because many people might be claiming prophets with and so on, that they must be tested. Well, obviously, here’s speaks about people claiming to be prophets. So spirit is used to virtue prophets
in the context where it occurs.
And also some biblical scholars say that a prophet actually is a man of the Spirit, a man of the Spirit.
You can refer, for example, to john McKinsey’s Dictionary of the Bible, on pages 840 through 45, under the term spirit, as such,
to describe the Paraclete or para Cletus, that Jesus said, will come after him, as his spirit does not negate that he is a human being and a prophet to come after Jesus. But in fact, from the description or profile of that directly it it’s obvious that he’s speaking about a human being like him, a prophet like in India indeed, as we have also explained Jesus peace be upon him himself. In the first episode of john was referred to as Paraclete. Jesus is a product lead, and the one who came after him is another product lead, ie, another human being and another
messenger and prophets of God. Reverend w. n. Emerson, it’s w m, e, m, m, e. r. s, are M. In his book, The Bible speaks on page 291. And 92 says on the course, what statements make it quite clear that the Spirit is a person and not merely divine influence? he poses the question, okay, okay. Then he answered the question. He says, quote, he that is the spirit is capable of speech.
He and then he quotes from the Bible from Revelation, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. In other words, that petition and Revelation chapter two verse seven, seem to indicate that the term spirit he means prophets, not just something vague.
Likewise, we find that the term spirit is used sometimes to refer to a good being, someone who has good reference to that is the dictionary of the New Testament by Leon, du Ford, neon dash, D, u, f, or you are published in 1980, on page 383.
Also, according to the new Catholic Encyclopedia, the 67th, edition, volume 10, page 989, we find that the term spirit also was used to refer to both human and angelic human and angelic mediators, or intercessors. So, in that sense, then,
there’s no way that one can
deny the fact that the spirits used in the Bible does not mean always a vague or intangible thing. It’s referred to a human being and a prophet. In fact,
documentary paradise has been described by some as the Spirit of Truth, but that itself does not apply to men. And associated with this I like for you maybe to answer how the expression spirit have to
relates to the Holy Spirit. Well, let me address the second part first because that we can dispose with rather quickly.
To my knowledge, nowhere in the Bible
does it identify the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, except, of course, in the problem here would be statements in which I’ve been talking about how problematic but nowhere else to my information, do we find that the Holy Spirit is equated and is regarded as one and the sin like the Spirit of Truth?
This corroborates what we said earlier, that apparently it was correctly to
is not the Holy Spirit, as john mentioned in 1426.
And the reason for that confusion is that in the very same gospel of john,
in the description of the Paraclete, or paralysis, as the Spirit of Truth, he describes it as the spirit of truth. You find that, for example, in john 1526, and john 1613,
even biblical scholars who tried to reconcile these two, Holy Spirit and spirit of truth,
did not say actually that they were the same thing. Nobody said to my knowledge that they were one in the same. But simply they said that the term Spirit of Truth only partially defines the role of the product lead, she didn’t see even the full role of the Paraclete, or the Holy Spirit, partially define the role of the product lead didn’t see even the role of the Holy Spirit, the role of the product lead. And just to give a couple of examples that might give some notion this, according to Sharon’s biblical commentary, edited by Arthur Brown, Fitz Mayer and Murphy, published in 1968, in Volume Two, page 453 really caught this this term. That’s the spirit of truth, used also in john
1526 and 1613 partially defines the role of the Paraclete to guide the church in truth. Truth is his characteristic, as it were, has been, as it has been death of the first parakeet. He refers to Jesus as the first percolate. Okay. In other words, to leave it in my humble understanding correctly, then, it It means to me that sense Jesus peace be upon him was a truthful profit, a truthful product leave the other product lead to come after him would be likewise, a truthful parakeet or truthful prophet like him. A second,
very similar kind of explanation, but more explicitly is found in the commentary on the whole Bible, edited by reverence for set and brown on page 14 in the code, the expression, even the spirit of truth, is a figurative way of saying that speaking the truth, would be so characteristic of him of the parakeet, that people would regard him as truth personified, as truth personal
or real. Thank you very much. Dr. burry. This, this topic is
there’s so much more of I don’t think we have any more time and he shall I will pick up on on this point next week.
Thank you all for joining us here in this hour focus. As always, your comments questions would be most appreciated. Our phone number and address will be appearing on the screen from all of us UNESCO and focus Assalamu alaikum
