Are God & Allah the same?

In the New Testament, Jesus cries out before his death "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” Eloi is the exact Arabic word "Elahi" which comes from the same root as Allah.

 

It's irrelevant to point out to someone who suggests that 'Allah' is an Arabic moon god that our own terms 'God', 'Gott', and 'Theos' are also terms that came to Christianity with 'pagan' baggage?

I believe I am making the point quite clear that languages use 'words' to suggest 'concepts' which can and do evolve. Language is a medium for communication and as ideas and concepts evolve so does the words man uses to communicate. This doesn't happen so rapidly that communication is unreliable but it does happen.

No one is suggesting that there is more than 'One God' so I'm not sure why you are bringing up this passage. Islam agrees that there is 'only One God' just as the Jews and Christians do. We may all have varying concepts which differ due to our cultural and Scriptural influences but to suggest that those cultural and Scriptural differences suggest that we 'actually' worship a different God is very questionable in my opinion.

Regardless, the term Allah is not invalid as a term for that One True God anymore than our use of the German 'Gott' or the Greek 'Theos' etc. As I have posited, the term Allah is used in every Arabic Bible and Jewish Scriptures written in Arabic. To write concerning God in Arabic one is going to use the term 'Allah'.

The point I would make is that Allah is the term used to speak of the One True God 'regardless' is one is an Arabic Muslim, Jew or Christian. The term is not unique to Islam. I wish we had an Arabic Christian on this board... it would be very helpful for you to understand this point.

I believe the Incarnate God spoke in Aramaic and His apostles wrote in Hebrew and in Greek. God doesn't have a particular 'Holy Language'. He uses what is necessary for 'us' to understand Him. We are the ones who need language to communicate not God. He can and does speak to men's hearts. We need to express that verbally and then in written form.

Are you suggesting that God's medium to communicate His revelation (man) was and is 'limited'.

I believe that key word is 'perceived'. Christ told His disciplines to be as innocent as lambs but as wise as serpents. Ignorance is not an attribute of discipleship and we should not attempt to suggest such.

Logos was a common word... could you give us a definition of the Greek Logos? You'll find that the term is very specific and used in early, middle and neo Platonism which also taught that 'The One' thought of Himself and thus begets the Nous (i.e. Divine Mind, Logoi) and the begetting and contemplating between the two spirates the World-Soul (i.e. Holy Ghost) which brings life into the World. Such Greek Philosophy predates the writing of Gospels.

Either the Gospels borrowed from Platonism or Platonism was inspired but the two share a common framework in which one speaks of the divine and it is only within Platonism that the Holy Trinity could emerge (i.e. The One begets The Nous and spirates the World-Soul) creating through a process of Emanations all that exists.

Read Philo, who predates our Lord's Virgin Birth, and you'll see the beginning of a synergy between Judaism and Greek Philosophy. Ask yourself, what what Christ... Paul called him the cornerstone which unites the two houses (i.e. Jew and Gentile) into One. In Christian Theology, God is three persons in one essence. Non-Hellenist Jews utterly rejected this and ultimately crucified Christ just as later Muslim would reject this as alien to their understanding of the Tawhid (singularity) of Allah. Jews and Muslims reject Christianity because they didn't have a platonist framework to make sense of God begetting a Son and a Holy-Ghost proceeding from Him. These are very 'Greek' ideas and they were ultimately rejected as 'pagan'.

We could start a new thread to discuss this because this is going to take some time.

First off, remember that many Christians in the Middle-East at the time of Muhammad ibn Abdullah were heretics outside the reach of the Church so we get a couple of different views of Christians through the eyes of Muhammad. Some Christians, who were not Trinitarian, Muhammad saw as fellow worshippers of the One True God and recognizing Jesus as His Prophet. Other, more orthodox Christians who were trinitarian, he accused of Shirk. Trinitarians are thought of as Polytheists because Muhammad lacked the sophisticated platonist framework to make sense of multiple personages sharing in one divine essence just like the non-hellenist Jews of Jesus' and Paul's day.

As Islamic Culture spread and became prosperous Islamic Scholars read Plato and Aristotle and many others and these great minds influenced the school of Islamic jurisprudence and to the schools of theology through the great works of the falasifa.

Sufism is not a 'sect' but the mystical tradition of Classical Islam. Just as Fundamentalist Christians have rejected the mystical traditions of Christianity so the Wahibi's and Fundamentalist branches of Sunni and Shiite Islam in the Middle-East has also done so. You'll find a lot in common between the two groups if you choose to study them. Both claim to 'return' to their 'roots' by rejecting the majority of the traditions of their Faith and adhering to a very literal method of interpretation of their Scriptures. Read any of the falasifa, a loosely defined group of Islamic philosophers from the 8th through the 11th centuries (like Avicenna and Al-Farabi) who drew intellectually upon the Ancient Greeks creating the Golden Age of Islamic Culture (around 1000 AD till the invasion of the Mongols).

[to be continued]

 

You are stretching the teachings of Islam in order to twist a distinction between it and Calvinism. The two have a very similar view of the sovereignty of God. Every Action is Predestined by God's Omniscience. This is one of the reasons I find Calvinism so ugly because a Calvinist would argue that God did will the terrorism to take place because to look at it any other way would be an offense to His Sovereignty.

Without God's approval nothing happens...

If Calvinism teaches Limited Atonement and Unconditional Election then it teaches a form of Hard or Soft Determinism. What's the difference?

 

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Why do you insist on making false claims? Mohammed did indeed take his god from the origins of a pagan moon god. That is known fact. Will you dare to say that that is how God revealed himself to mankind in history--through paganism? That is blasphemy!!! This is not a matter of semantics. It is both historical and Biblical truth. On the one hand it is historical truth about the origins of Islam, and on the other hand it is both historical and Biblical truth about how God revealed himself to mankind--and it wasn't through "pagan baggage" as you put it. That my friend is blasphemy.

When the meanings of words change we go back to the source of those words. That means we go back to the Greek in the NT, and the Hebrew of the OT, just as the Muslims go the Arabic no matter what translation they may be using. We all have a standard because there is meaning lost in translation. That is why your German example is irrelvant to this discussion. It is the Greek and Hebrew that God inspired the holy prophets (and apostles) to write in.

You have just mentioned three very distinct Gods: The God of Islam (a false God), the God of present day Judaism (a false God), and the God of Bible-believing Christians (the only true God). There is only one God--not three. There are not three concepts of this one God. There is only one God. He is not defined by culture. He is defined by the Bible.

Now you are playing a game of semantics and confusing the reader with the word Arabic Christians use, with the God of Islam, which are two different gods. The word in the Arabic Bible is Allah and does mean God, inasmuch as the word in the NWT is god and does not refer to Jesus Christ:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god."
The Word was a god. The J.W.'s believe that the Word was a god, not that he is actual deity. They believe in a lesser god. Do you believe in the god of the J.W's? Do you believe in the god of the NWT, as defined in the NWT in John 1:1? They use the same word, "god," but mean something entirely different.
They even use the same basic Bible, but mean something entirely different.

And so Arabic Christians use the word "Allah" and mean something entirely different than the Muslim's use of Allah, and you ought to know this.

I understand the point very clearly. The word "God" is defined by the Bible, when referring to the One True God. When it is defined by any other book (as in the Koran) it refers to a false and demonic god. It doesn't matter what language is being used, Arabic included.

You are wrong. The Apostles spoke Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and possibly some other native languages. But all wrote in Greek. The NT was handed down to us in Greek. It was inspired in Greek. The OT was inspired in Hebrew except for a very small portion of it which was written in Aramaic--parts of Daniel, and in a couple of other places. 99% of the OT was written in Hebrew. The NT was written in Greek. It matters not what the prophets or the Apostles spoke. The manuscripts were inspired of God in these two languages: Hebrew and Greek.
God does preserve his word. But the inspired manuscripts are only inspired in the original manuscripts which we no longer have today. However we do have copies. When we have a question of the meaning of a certain word or passage we need to go back to the Hebrew of the OT, and the Greek of the NT to find out the meaning of those words--not the German or Greek philosophical platonism that predated the Koine Greek which the NT was written in.

Somewhat, yes. That is why the command is given--

2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

We are not mystics, but students of the Word of God.

It was the Sanhedrin that used the word "ignorant" not me. It meant that they had not been to their so-called "semnaries," or schools. The rest of the verse indicates that they could tell that they had been with Jesus. Needless to say John was not schooled in the philosophies of the Greek. You have no evidence of that. It is pure speculation on your part.

So what! Platonism does not define Biblical words. We do not define Biblical words by paganism. When will you learn that? You honestly think that John was influenced by Platonism when he wrote John 1:1 and not by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I feel sorry for you.

A logical fallacy. The gospels were inspired by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit didn't have to inspire Platonism to do it. Your stand is ridiculous. In Paul's sermon on Mars Hill he quoted a Greek poet. That does not mean that all Greek poetry is inspired. But it does mean that the poetry that Paul quoted is inspired because it is in the Word of God and accurately quoted as such. To Titus he quotes one of the Cretians. That does not mean that all Cretians are inspired of God. Your logic is absurd. [/FONT]

 

1. I don't have to read Philo to get an understanding of either Judaism or Christianity. The Bible gives me an understanding of both.
2. Jews did not reject Christ on the basis of the trinity. That is ridiculous. One of the charges against him was blasphemy, that he being a man made himself God.
3. The basic rejection of the Jews and Christians by Mohammed was because they wouldn't accept his teaching--even by threat of the sword. So he started killing them, and established his own religion.

You have a warped view of the history of Islam. I don't know where it came from. Mohammed was an illiterate camel driver. He was first cared for by his uncle who went from place to place with his uncle and his camels. When stopping in various towns, Mohammed had the opportunity to go to the town square where the people gathered. There he would listen to the stories (both OT and NT) by various Jews and Christians. This is where he gained his knowledge of the Bible, and learned about the monotheistic belief of the Jews and Christians. He was impressed about a monotheistic belief over the superstitious polytheism that pervaded the animistic tribes that surrounded the area in which he lived in. Thus he developed his own form of it. You can read through the Koran and see how much influence these stories had on him. He had a good memory, but not good enough to get all the details perfectly accurate. You will find many inaccuracies in Mohammed's retelling of the Biblical stories that he learned while traveling with his uncle.
No doubt he also gained a lot of information when he married Khadija, a Jewess much older than he was. She was the one who convinced him that his visions (which he thought were demonic) were really from God. Thus was the beginning of Islam.

 

Dr. Ergun Caner is not from Turkey. According to his own testimony in Unveiling Islam he was born in Stockholm, Sweden. His parents then moved to America following the birth of their second child. His younger brother, Dr. Emir Caner, was born in Ohio. Source: Unveiling Islam pg. 17. Their father was a Turkish Mulism and leader in the local Mosque. However, it would be appropriate to refer to either of the two Dr. Caners as former Muslims of Turkish descent.

 

Excellent points bound!

I think it is safe to say that everyone on this thread agrees that the Christian God and the Muslim Allah are different.

But I think we need to appreciate that the Christian God and the Arabic Christian Allah are the same.

 

Do you happen to know any Christian Arabs. I know a couple of Missionaries who go over for extended periods of times to reach the people over there. It was through them I received the opportunity to know a now beloved friend of our family (and some other believers in her family as well) in whom my first daughter is named after (Shohrah) the lady and her family are Persian. Of these 20 or so believing Arabs who came out of Islaam, they ALL will tell they nor any other professing Christian Arab will dare to use the term "Allah" to denote the One True and Living God. Allah is KNOWN as a specific god and has an already defined personhood and character. Yes, "Allah" might be just a title (the god) but it is a title ascribed and defined to an already existing false deity. They (Arab Christians) use the biblcal name of God to denote the God they serve and will tell you without reservation they would NEVER call out the name "Allah" to refer to "The God". Then again they renounce the Koran and all teachings of Islaam. An actvie muslim will tell you they are the same God (just currupted), but an Arab Christian will not.

But that is their two cents worth.

Added later:
They would not use the word "Allah" to speak of the One True and Living God to other Arabs because it would give the assumption to the other Arabs that they were one and the same God, which in turn would make you blasphamous (because their message different messages, with different bibles, and different messengers) and worthy of death in their culture. Their God and His prophet are not the same and YWHY and His Son./Prophet.

But that is all I will say and will this for you to argue.

 

What you say may be true for some Arab Christians that you know. But it is not true for a majority of Arab Christianity.


Here is an image from an arabic Christian bible with John 3:16.

"For God so loved the world..." is translated as Allah

This link is from a Christian site that tries to reach muslims.

Truth for Muslims: The Arabic Word “Allah” and its Use in Christian Witness to Muslims


Here is a page from Christian Answers.net to the same effect with quotes from Nav Press and the Moody Bible Institute.

Christian Answers: Why do many Arab Christians refer to God as “Allah”?

 

Ok, I lied. I'm back to say this

I am well aware that the name Allah is used by some Arab speaking Christians for the God of the Bible. In fact, the root from which the name is derived, ilah, stems from the ancient Semitic languages, corresponding to the Mesopotamian IL, as well as the Hebrew-Aramaic EL, as in Ishma-el, Immanu-el, Isra-el. These terms were often used to refer to any deity worshiped as a high god, especially the chief deity amongst a pantheon of lesser gods. As such, the Holy Bible uses the term as just one of the many titles for Yahweh, the only true God.

The problem isn't that it is just another word for "God", but the problem arises from the fact that Muslims insist that Allah is not a title, but the personal name of the God of Islam. This becomes problematic since according to the Holy Bible the name of the God of Abraham is Yahweh/Jehovah, not Allah:

So a Christians could use Allah as a title in conjuction with Gods TRUE name but your issue again is the Arabs see it as a name for the God of the Bible, and it infactically is not!

Or should we all chant "Allah Akbar"!

PS. Regarding the fact that Paul didn't see an issue with using "Theos" for God being that it is a pagan and not a Jewish word for God - from your link Christian Answers:
That is not a valid point for using "Allah" for God. Why? Because "Theos" is not the name of any specific God, Allah is!

Also someone (I believe it was bound)questioned earlier about Islaams worship of the moon god. Here is a little peice to look into regarding worship of the Islaamic moon god and its archeological proof. There is TONS more out there on this.
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm

 

There is not much to be gained by debating the language semantics of what "allah" or "Allah" mean in Arabic. The real question is whether the god of the Muslim religion is the same as the God of Judaism and Christianity. Title or name are not so important.

Now, I have let a Muslim family member know in no uncertain terms that I disagree with his claim that we worship the same God. I informed him the Jesus Christ is my Lord, and my King, and my God. So if he worships the same God, great, but he simply does not.

Now, as to whether the Muslims truly worship the God of Abraham, that's trickier. You see, Islam is a religion created by Muhammed as a political and military response to the threat he perceived from Judaism and Christianity. He borrowed some stories and ideas from our Bible, but twisted them into his own conceptualization of a religion. Similar to what Joseph Smith did. The result is a created "god" using imagery and symbology reminiscent of Christianity and Judaism but something completely different in nature and character. No created god is the same as my God.

 

Great post. Besides, Mohammed was illiterate. He had to make someone write down his "revelations" probably under threats of beheading.

 

Whats so "tricky" about it???

Muslims do not worship the God of Abraham----on the other hand, they deny the God of Abraham and His Only Begotten Son, You cannot live in denial of the God of Abraham and worship Him at the same time. Either you are for the Lord Jesus or you are against Him and to deny the only Begotten Son of God is to deny His Father, the God of Abraham. Muslims are a bunch of God deniers!!!

 

I meant it is tricky in terms of how you refute their claims. You see, they do claim imagery and lineage to Abraham. It is a false story Muhammed adapted from Judaism, just as their holding of Jesus as a "prophet" is a false story that was adopted from Christianity so that Muhammed could corrupt it into a false god. You have to understand the history of how Islam came about, I think, in order to understand that just because they claim Abraham and Jesus in their heritage does not make it so.

 

I've never seen a Muslim claim Jesus in his heritage, except for those Messianiac Muslims who have been born from above by accepting him as their savior.

However, to deny that they are descendents of Abraham is silly. They are the descendents of Ishmael, just as the Palestinians (modern) are the descendents of Esau.

 

Islam teaches that Jesus is a great prophet who was born of a virgin. But they alter Him into something that He is not. They deny His deity and His resurrection as well.

There are Muslims who are of the Negro race in Africa, of the Mogoloid race in Indonesia, the Caucassian race, and so forth. In what way are they descended from Ishmael? How can we determine this?

You say it is silly, but I have never seen a shred of true evidence for this claim. It is only a claim made by Muhammed in his attempt to invent a religion that somehow drew on Judaism but attempted to improve on it. The Ismael claim is how he chose to spin his story, but that is not evidence.

 

Very insightful! Thank you. I never thought of that. That speaks loudly when you think about it.

 

I also know several Jews who are Black and a few who are Asian.

In what way are they descended from Isaac?