Ali Ataie – Finding Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the Bible
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss various prophecy and poetry in the Bible, including the importance of "will" in paraphrasing and the use of the Holy Spirit in paraphrasing. They provide examples and background information on various versions of the Bible and discuss the meaning of "will" in paraphrasing and paraphrasing paraphrases.
AI: Summary ©
And welcome to,
another,
Zaytuna lecture.
We often find that we start late and,
people
usually describe it as being,
Islamic time. And I'd like to make a
correction.
It's Muslim time versus Islamic time.
Islamic time is precise
and being always on time. Muslim time is
like peoples of color time. So when you
are invited at 6,
you know, that's actually the invitations for you
to show up at 9 and InshaAllah, you'll
eat at 10.
Right. So,
this is just to get us on, the
right footing.
This is an exciting lecture that we have,
finding the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
in the bible. An
inquiry into Surah 7157,
1 58,
verses.
We're really,
honored to have such a wide breadth of,
specialties and expertise,
among our Zaytuna faculty.
Doctor. Ali Ata'i is definitely one of our
beloved faculty in here. He has been involved
in interfaith activities for over 20 years.
He spent some time in Yemen studying Arabic
and Islamic theology.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
to alleviate the suffering and pain,
on the people of Yemen,
considering how beautiful the country and the people
are. And we also ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala to alleviate
the suffering of people in Syria,
as well. And we could go through other,
countries as well. But,
he's been to see he's been to Yemen
and studying
Arabic and Islamic theology.
Doctor. Ata, he holds a PhD in Islamic
studies from the Graduate Theological Union
and an MA degree in biblical studies,
from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.
Just for point of reference,
Daytona College purchased this building,
from the Pacific School of Religion, which is
our partner
institution at GTU across the street.
Doctor.
Degree in, in biblical studies,
he was the first Muslim seminarian
in the over 150
years of history of the
Muslim
DNA field. So he's definitely
outside,
the Muslim DNA field. So he's definitely outside
of the Muslim DNA fields. Again, for those
who don't know, Muslims usually studies 2 2
majors.
We have Muslim MDs and Muslim engineers.
So definitely he went even beyond,
intellectual genetic mutation
to
explore areas that are
considerably outside the fields
of Muslim majors.
He is certified in Arabic,
Hebrew,
and biblical Greek
and is fluent in Farsi.
Here's an important description for, Ali
Atai. He describes himself as an Iranian Sunni
who reads Hebrew
and loves chicken tikka masala.
So without all fur without further ado,
We welcome doctor Ali Atai to the stage.
So I'm not doctor Ali Atayee,
but, I'll be doing the opening recitation, Inshallah.
And to those who follow the messenger,
the unleaded prophet whom they find mentioned in
their Torah and gospel.
He enjoins them to do good and to
forbid evil
and makes lawful to them the good things
and unlawful the impure things
and he relieves them of their heavy burden
and shackles that were upon them.
Thus those who believe in him and who
honor and support him
and follow the light which has been sent
down with him,
those are the prosperous.
Say, oh people,
I am Allah's messenger to you all,
He to whom belongs the dominion of the
heavens and the earth.
There is no God but he. He gives
life and causes to die.
So believe in Allah and his messenger,
the unlettered prophet who believes in Allah and
his words,
and follow him that perchance you may be
well guided.
This is the first time I'm using technology.
So if you know, my students know
me. This is, inshallah will be okay. I'm
kind of a techno, peasant.
So we'll see how it goes. Inshallah.
We are gonna take a break, obviously, for
a Maghrib prayer at 8 o'clock.
Now before we look at actual verses from
the biblical text,
we have to,
set the table as it were with respect
respect to our methodology.
And when we do look at actual biblical
verses, we're going to focus almost exclusively on
the Hebrew Bible and not on the New
Testament. That's just because we don't have
enough time. Inshallah, maybe next year or something,
I'll do a lecture on something related to
the New Testament comparative
or crucifixion in the Quran or something like
that, Muslim understanding or reading of the gospel
of John.
So early Muslim exigits
prompted by this ayah, ayatul,
surah al Araf, ayah number 157,
quickly scanned the bible, the Tanakh, the Hebrew
bible, which is called the Old Testament by
Christians,
and the New Testament
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
and they found nothing explicit, no explicit mention
of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, anywhere.
Therefore, according to Imam Tabari, for most exegetes
for most exegetes, the qualities
the qualities that identify
and describe him, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, as
a prophet, a true prophet, what Jewish theologians
would call a Nabi emet,
these are mentioned in the Torah and in
the gospel,
the general qualities of a true prophet, and
he fits the description.
Others concluded,
no, there must have been specific
references to the prophet
And Imam Tabari also mentions,
that the position that the Ahl al Kitab,
the people of the book, and here Kitab
maybe means Bible, the word Bible means book.
The people of the book, specifically the Jews,
must have removed all references and descriptions of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam
from their scriptures, and this is called tahareef
an nas. Let's see if I can do
it. Ready?
SubhanAllah.
Textual alteration or corruption.
And then a few Quranic ayat or passages
recited as evidence of such corruption or tahri.
Tahri. For example, Surah Tun Nisa, ayah number
46, mina ladinahadu,
yuharifun
al kalimaamma
wadiri.
According to one translation,
from the Jews are those who displace words
from their proper places.
Or Al Baqarah verse 79,
until the end of the eye. Woe to
those who write the book,
the Bible with their right hands or with
their hands and then they say, this is
from God.
Now interestingly,
they were early Christian scholars
who made the same claim about the Jews.
The early church father, an apologist to Justin
Martyr, who died 165
of the Common Era, who's the father of
Logos Theology, he says in chapter 72 and
73 of his famous treatise, dialogue with Trypho
the Jew,
he claims that Jewish leaders removed references
to wood,
w o o d.
They removed references to would in the, from
the books of Jeremiah
and the Psalms and the Greek Septuagint, not
the original Hebrew, but its Greek translation.
Wood, for Justin Martyr, being a reference to
the cross,
a symbol of the crucifixion.
So according to some early Muslim exegetes,
certain Jews corrupted the text. According to certain
early Christian exegetes,
certain Jews corrupted the text, or at least
it's very popular
and semi sacred Greek
translation. Imam Fakhruddin al Razi, a towering figure
in Sunni Islam, finds the claim that the
Jews were able to
remove
all of the quote unquote Mohammedan
passages
from the Tanakh,
simply untenable given the fact that at the
time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the
Tanakh had basically reached a level of tawater
or multiple attestation.
So how can they possibly
pull this off? Wonders, all of the Jews
on the entire planet?
Now, one might point out that the Ben
Asher Masoretic Hebrew text did become the standard
text of the Jews starting around the 12th
century of the common era.
And that probably has a lot to do
with, none other than
Maimonides endorsing that text.
So Ben Asher did gain ascendancy
over other
Masoretic
vocalizations
or vocalizations that would eventually,
be used by people like Ben Chayim in
the early 16th century.
But when you compare the 2 textual traditions,
Ben Asher and Ben Chayim,
there are some variations in wording,
but the vast vast majority of differences
are differences in what are called the nikut
in Hebrew or vowel notations,
vowel pointings.
So the bottom line is the Hebrew bible
that was,
existent in 7th century Arabia
is basically the same as the Hebrew bible
used today
in the ayah in question that the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam is That
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is described in
the Torah and the gospel that is with
them in the 7th century,
and there have been no major
evidences of some sort of major redaction that
was done to the Tanakh after that point.
The differences between the textual traditions of Ben
Asher and Ben Hayyim are very, very minor.
Now, there are several Muslim scholars who did
not confirm that the Bible had been the
text of the the text of the Bible
had been altered at all, at least not
in a significant
way. Rather, the meanings of the texts,
right, had been altered or corrupted
or concealed, or ignored. This is called tahrif
al ma'ani,
exegetical or interpretive alteration or corruption. This seems
to be the position of Imam al Razi
himself, and perhaps even the position of,
Imam Ghazali.
This, what I call textually affirming approach to
the Bible, is no better exemplified
by the great Damascene scholar, Imam Ibrahim ibn
Umar al Bikayi,
who died 14/80,
who used the Torah as a primary source
of exegesis
of the Quran,
which is called an nathmud Durar. And he
even did a,
an Arabic deatessaron
as a harmony of the 4 canonical gospels
of the New Testament.
So, Imam al Bikha'i, in his tafsir, Surat
Al Araf 157,
will actually quote specific pesukim
or ayaat
of the Tanakh
that he believes are references to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. For example, and we'll talk
about this one, Deuteronomy 18 18. He quotes
Deuteronomy 30 32,
Psalm 118.
It even goes into some New Testament passages,
the paraclete passages of John 14 and 16,
he believes to be references to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So for these ulama
for these ulama, the Quran does not argue
that the text of the Bible was rewritten
or replaced with false scripture, but rather that
the text has been ignored,
or forgotten,
or concealed,
or misinterpreted.
So
another translation,
according to Gabriel Saeed Reynolds at Notre Dame,
from the Jews are those who shifted the
meanings of words from their proper contexts. In
other words, they've misread the text, not altered
the text.
Now the point of tonight's lecture is not
to examine
both Muslim approaches to the Bible, whether it's
textual alteration
or textual,
affirmation,
and to make a case one way or
another, that's a lecture for another time. The
point I'm making now is that if we're
going to find the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam
in the bible, let us for now entertain
Imam al Bikari and assume that the text
of the Bible is sound. With this said,
a cursory skim of the Bible will not
do.
We need to look closer. We need to
be more sophisticated.
Now,
according to the Quran,
Jesus of Nazareth, peace be upon him, is
the Messiah. He's Al
Masir, Mashiach,
Christas, the Christ.
And the Quran chastises the Jews for not
accepting him as such. Now, the Quran's claim
that the Jews, by and large, failed to
read their scriptures properly
with respect to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
echoes what New Testament authors said with respect
to Jesus, peace be upon him.
2nd Corinthians,
chapter 3 verse 14, Paul says about, quote,
the children of Israel. He says, but their
minds were closed even until today. The same
veil remains over their reading,
anagnosis,
their reading of the Old Testament.
He continues, it is not lifted
for only in Christ is it lifted.
In other words, reading the Tanakh, the Hebrew
Bible, with Christ in mind, this is a
proper reading, an agnosis
of the Old Testament. Christ is the key.
Salam, alaihis salam, Jesus peace be upon him,
both the Quran and the New Testament appeal
to a proper reading
of the Hebrew text. So I'll give you
an example. According to the New Testament Gospels
this is according to the Gospels. When Christ
was crucified,
Messiah,
how could he die?
A dead messiah for them was oxymoronic.
It's like a four sided triangle.
This is how they understood their scriptures.
By scriptures, I mean the Hebrew Bible, the
Tanakh.
They were Jews.
Now, in Luke chapter 24, 2 of Jesus's
disciples
were walking to a town called Emmaus.
And Jesus saw them and started to walk
with them. And this is after the passion
narrative and resurrection.
Luke says that their eyes were restrained
so that they did not recognize him. The
Greek term here, means
to know something
very well, to understand something,
to know something at an intimate level, to
have or
to recognize recognition,
to understand something you already knew, but at
a deeper level.
So Jesus says to them, oh, foolish ones
and slow of heart,
to believe in all that the naveem,
the prophets have spoken.
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these
things and enter into his glory. They're probably
thinking suffered?
The Messiah will suffer.
And then Luke says, and beginning at Moses
and all of the prophets, beginning at Moses,
Deuteronomy, so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, then
all the prophets, Jeremiah,
Isaiah, Micah, Ezekiel, so on and so forth.
He expounded to them the scriptures, the things
concerning himself.
And the Greek term here for expounded is,
dirme neu o, which is a combination
of, a preposition,
which means
through or by means of, and
which is where you get the word hermeneutic
from. So Jesus interpreted to them through an
interpretation.
He interpreted the scriptures,
the things concerning himself.
Then Luke concludes and says, then their eyes
were open. And
they knew him. They understood him. They him.
They recognized
him. Ah, it is Jesus.
So what did Jesus actually say to the
disciples? Luke doesn't tell us, but early Christian
exegetes imagine the conversation to have gone something
like this. Do you remember the Passover lamb
of Exodus 12 and Leviticus
16? Do you remember Psalm 22?
Elahi Elahi, lama sabachthani,
this cry of dereliction?
Do you remember the suffering servant of Isaiah
50 and 50 2 and 53?
He was smitten and afflicted, a man of
sorrows. They were all pointing to me.
Oh, now we recognize you.
So
according to Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and
Jesus himself,
a proper reading of scripture
entails
accepting that scripture is polyvalent.
It has multiple levels of meaning.
Scripture for them, and early Christian exegetes and
church fathers, was oracular,
sibiline,
prognostic,
predictive. In other words, it pointed to the
future.
Matthew alludes to the Hebrew Bible some 80
times
in his gospel. Oftentimes, he prefaces by saying,
this was to fulfill what was spoken through
the prophet, whoever that prophet might had been.
So for early Christian exigits,
scripture,
typological exegesis.
Is
is implicitly future,
and an allegory, which can be implicitly future.
We'll come back to these terms Inshallah.
Now, if you study the history of Sunni
exegesis or tafsir,
you will notice that Sunni exegetical methods were
inclusive.
They were integrative,
they were interdisciplinary.
Initially, the Sunnis or proto Sunnis, they used
the hadith corpus, but
then they incorporated things like philology, which is
the primary method used by the Muertazila,
Imam Azamakhshari.
And then they incorporated things like mystical exegesis
or tawil, a sufi method. This idea that
there that, the Quran has a or exoteric
aspect as well as a botany, a an
esoteric aspect.
Why would the sunnis like this?
Because the goal was to have fam of
this ocean, as Imam Al Ghazali refers to
the Quran. And if utilizing
different methods
facilitated this deep understanding or penetrating insight to
Dabur into the Quran,
then they would use that method, of course,
within the framework of Sunni theological
orthodoxy.
No less than Imam Al Ghazali says,
The Quran
has an exoteric
and esoteric
dimension.
And for Ghazali, it is imperative that both
be acknowledged. So in the Mishkati quotes a
hadith,
The angels don't enter a house that has
a dog,
and he would argue that if the esoteric
aspect is denied,
for example, you simply say, that simply means
a dog. Period and that's all it
means. He said, this leads to literalism.
And then he says, if the exoteric
aspect is denied.
Right? If you say, no, it doesn't mean
a dog at all. It means something like
dog like qualities.
This is also wrong according to him. The
exoteric aspect is denied, then you fall into
the dangerous waters of isegesis. So exegesis means
to pull out from the text.
Isagesis means to read into the text something
that isn't there.
Some scholars refer to this as hermeneutical, waterboarding,
that you torture a text long enough and
it will say whatever you want. Some refer
to this as chasing leprechauns.
With respect to tafsir,
the apparent Sorry. With respect to the the
apparent aspect of the Quran, there is a
rule of tafsir.
When defining a word in the Quran, the
meaning of that word
must fall within normative
semantic parameters. And this is called the hadith
according to the hadith. An acceptable
semantic range, insofar as
that
as that definition doesn't conflict with the plain
meaning
of the text,
and it is understood by its initial audience.
In this case, Qurayshi Arabs living in the
Hejaz in the 7th century.
Imam Zarqashi said, the exeget must choose the
most prevalent meanings of words, primary definitions,
and not utilize
vague or obscure obscure definitions
as used by poets.
Not to use definitions
hidden in the deep dark recesses of the
Arabic
lexicon. I'll give you just an example.
In the Quran, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells
Musa
strike with your staff the ocean.
And that's how the Arabs understood it. It
makes sense immediately. They would understood it like
that. It makes sense according to the context.
If somebody comes along and says, no. You
know, Al Baharat doesn't mean ocean. It means
the noble man.
So God is telling Moses, take your staff
and strike a noble man of Bani Israel,
then this would
break the rule of tafsir, or breach its
had, its prevalent
semantic range. So it's not about possible meanings,
it's about prevalent meanings when dealing with the
Quran's
vahir or apparent
aspect.
Now, according to the hadith,
that is quoted by Imam Soyalty and Tabari,
every verse of the Quran also has a
or a point of ascent.
And this is taken by scholars to mean
a deeper or higher meaning.
So there's a horizontal aspect to the Quran.
Horizontal aspect
corresponding to the the prevalent
meanings of Arabic words at that time.
And then there's a vertical aspect.
Right? Higher meanings. Now these meanings may not
readily be known, but their existence
should be acknowledged. The polyvalence
of the Quran should be acknowledged.
Another example,
Imam Al Ghazali says, again, again, God and
Moses, that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, the
Musa alaihi salam,
Take off your sandals. Imam Al Ghazali says,
well, what do you think that means?
Exactly what it sounds like. Take off your
sandals.
And then he says something interesting. He says,
yeah, but there's something deeper here. He says,
the left sandal represents the dunya, the right
sandal represents al akhira.
Strip yourself of the 2 worlds and focus
exclusively
on me, on Allah
Not that the word, naal means world, but
it represents the world. So some might call
this a tafsir bilishara.
And this is in Sunni tradition.
So these are insights given by God himself
to an exigent
or a reader as divine gifts. However, the
exigent must insist on the absolute correctness, insist
on the absolute correctness, insist on the absolute
correctness,
insist on the absolute correctness,
or authority of these subtle insights, must not
be dogmatic.
Rulings or creedal articulations are not derived from
these. These are things just to think about.
Okay. Getting close. So let us entertain the
Ghazalian paradigm,
that there are exoteric and esoteric dimensions
to the Quran.
This is how early Christians
viewed the Hebrew Bible
and were thus able
to find Jesus in the Hebrew scriptures. Perhaps,
we can find the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam
in the same way. As stated earlier, for
early christian exigits,
scripture was oracular,
it was predictive.
Identifying Christic typologies
in the Old Testament
was of paramount importance.
Typology
or typological exegesis
examines Old Testament figures and events as prefiguring
or foreshadowing
figures and events
in the new testament.
For example, Paul says in Romans chapter 5
verse 14, he's doing a comparison
between Adam
and Jesus, peace be upon them. And this
is what he says about Adam. He says
he says,
Adam, who is the type of the one
to come.
Adam is the type, the foreshadowing
of Jesus, who is the anti
type. One of the most popular Christic typologies
in the old testament is in Genesis 22.
This is called the Akeda passage, the binding
of Isaac, which is related to the word
Akeda,
beliefs that bind us.
So here,
Clement of Alexandria,
Origen of Alexandria,
Augustine of Hippo,
they say very interesting things. They say here,
Abraham,
whose name means father of many nations, the
father, he takes wood and he puts it
on the back of Isaac, his son, his
beloved son, his only beloved son, according to
Genesis 22, and he has him march up
a hill and he's going to sacrifice him.
So these Christian exegetes, they say, this is
exactly what God would do to his son,
in quotes.
A sort of dress rehearsal of the crucifixion.
So with typological
exegesis,
the the here
is the actual concrete historical event, which is
the binding of Isaac.
Whereas the baton
let me just check the time here.
You have 1 minute. Whereas the baton is
a foreshadowing of a future person or event.
Something pointing to the future.
Augustine referred
these two aspects
as history and symbol.
Mhmm. Or we can say,
type and anti type. Another very famous
example of typological
exegesis amongst early Christians. We'll end with this
and then we'll take a break. Isaiah chapter
7 verse 14,
where it says, where Isaiah is speaking to
a king named Ahaz
and he says to the king that the
Lord himself will give you an oath which
means sign. It's the same as the word
He says,
Behold
the young woman will conceive.
A young woman will give, will conceive and
give birth to a son and she shall
call his name
Emmanuel,
which means God with us.
Now Justin Martyr actually mentions this in chapter
84
of his dialogue with Trypho the Jew. His
Jewish interlocutor,
Trypho,
no doubt responds that Emmanuel
is actually born in the very next chapter,
Isaiah chapter 8. He is the son of
King Ahaz.
Justin responds, periphrastically,
yes.
Emmanuel Ben Ahaz
is also a tupas,
a symbol of Christ. Ben
Ahaz is the concrete
meaning.
The hidden meaning points to Christ in the
future,
the virgin birth.
Of course, Jesus himself
saw what had happened to Jonah as prefiguring
himself.
Matthew and Luke record that Jesus said, peace
be upon him, for as Jonah was 3
days and 3 nights in the belly of
the whale,
so shall the son of man, referring to
himself, be 3 days 3 nights in the
heart of the earth, or Jesus himself, according
to the New Testament,
engages in typological
exegesis.
He identifies himself as a Noahitic
anti type. Okay. It's a good time for
a break.
I know this is a bit long winded,
but I have to set the table.
When I come back, inshallah to Allah, we'll
talk about typology in amongst Muslim exegetes, and
then we'll get into some,
verses actual verses of the Hebrew Bible. So
let's break for a prayer.
So I was talking about type and anti
type or typological exegesis.
Is
is a 2 pass or a type or
an illustration of the anti
a powerful
world leader who will oppress the people of
God, claim divinity,
be opposed by a prophetic hero, and then
eventually dies epically.
They also mentioned that Joseph, Youssef 'alay salam,
is a Mohammedan Tupas or type
opposed by his brethren, in this case, the
Quraish,
forced to leave his city of Mecca, given
political power in Medina,
eventually given power over his brethren, and then
he forgives them. In fact, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
he seems to have seen himself
as a Josephine
anti type of sorts.
He said at the conquest of Mecca,
This is
quoting Surat Yusuf alaihis salam. So somebody might
say, well, what's your dalil? What's your proof
that we can engage in this type of
typological exegesis?
Well, it seems that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam himself seems to have thought in terms
of typology.
Now typology, while being a popular method of
interpretation among
early Christians, is not popular
among Jewish exegetes.
Similarly, typology is much more prevalent
among Shia exegetes than Sunni exegetes,
although the latter do not reject this method
completely. One of the reasons could be that
both groups were trying to prove their theological
positions
in the face of an overwhelming
majority
that did not accept their positions.
In the case of the former, the Messiah
ship or Christhood of Jesus, peace be upon
him,
and in the latter, the imamate.
In other words, appealing to the acknowledged
polyvalence
of revealed scripture provided these minority groups with
a strong argument for their positions.
None other than the eponym of the Jafari
school of thought,
jafar as Sadiq is reported to have said
that scripture has 4 levels of meaning. There
is the expression, the love, which is
gathered by the awam, the laity. Then there
are illusions,
isharat,
that are known by the.
There are subtleties, that are known by and
and then realities that are known, and realities
that are known,
only,
and then Haqqa'ik
realities that are known,
only to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So I
just want to look at a few brief
examples.
Oh, yes.
Okay. Good.
Of typology
amongst,
the Shia
And the first one I didn't put on
here, it's Hadith of Safina. This is a
hadith that's also in Sunni books,
where the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam is reported
to have said,
That the similitude of my family, the prophetic
house is like the Ark of Noah, whoever
embarks upon it is saved, and whoever rejects
it is doomed.
So the Ark of Noah, which is historical
according to,
Islam or Muslims,
is a symbol of the prophetic house. In
other words, the prophetic house is a noahitic
anti type. But the flood at the end
of time will not be of water, although
there will be floods, but rather a deluge
of sin and immorality.
At least according to the Shi'a exigits.
Another example, Surah Anbiya aye number 73,
which is about the family of Ibrahim alaihis
salam.
Shia exegetes who engage in typological
exegesis.
They see in this ayah a prefiguring
or foreshadowing
of the Ifna Asharaimaman,
the 12 Imams.
And we made them Imams.
That they are given iha, which is a
type of non prophetic
revelation. They also point out things like the
word, imam is mentioned exactly 12 times in
the Quran.
Right.
The last example, very very interesting example I
wanted to give you, imam taba taba'i al
mizan.
So this is from what's known as the
Quranic
aqidah passage. So remember that we said, Clement
and Origen and Augustine, they all see in
Genesis 22, the biblical aqeda passage,
the binding of Isaac,
a typology of Jesus Christ.
The The Shee Asi in Surah 37,
a typology
of Imam al Hussain.
So verse 106, they point
out, right? God,
stops Abraham from sacrificing his son. Indeed, this
was an obvious test
and then we ransomed him with a with
a great sacrifice. And imam Tabataba'i,
he quotes here, imam al suyuti,
why is this sacrifice so adhim? It's because
the ram is paradisal. Gabriel brought a ram
from paradise. He said, that's true. That's on
the vahir, but the botini meaning is a
foreshadowing or typology
of the martyrdom of Imam al Hussain.
And then verse 115,
Right? That,
we saved them both. And here the context
is Moses and Aaron, which according to the
Shia
exegetes here are Muhammadan
and Alawi
types.
Right?
Hadith of the prophet
mentioned in Sunni
in books that the prophet
said this said to say
are you not pleased that you are to
me as Aaron is to Moses, except there
is no prophet
after me? So he points out here, you
have Bala,
right, in verse 106. There's something interesting.
10 verses later, you have the word, karbala.
Right. On 10th of Muharram. And then you
have, the great sacrifice
in the middle of that.
The last example I'd give you, this is,
an example of allegorical exegesis.
So there's a difference between typological exegesis and
allegorical exegesis. Allegorical exegesis has an abstract concept
attached to a concrete image
and the hidden meaning or the abstract meaning
is privileged over its literal sense. Whereas in
typological exegesis, both the concrete and hidden meanings
are equally important.
So in allegory, the hidden meaning is more
important. CS Lewis's the lion, the witch and
the wardrobe.
That's not a true story.
I hate to burst your bubbles.
It is a religious
allegory.
Is
Christ.
Right?
Superman
doesn't exist.
Or does he? No. It doesn't exist. It's
an allegory. It's a it's a christic allegory,
believe it or not. And the founders, the
the inventors of Superman were 2 Jewish men.
Go figure.
The Wizard of Oz,
the Scarecrow
represents the agrarian past,
the tin man, the technological future. We need
to forge ahead with the courage of a
lion.
So it's interesting here, Mohammed Bakr
By the sun and its light, by the
moon when follows it, by the day when
it manifests it, and the night when it
envelops it.
That's what it literally says. But the hidden
meaning takes precedence over this according to Al
Majlisih.
The Shams is the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
The light is his pure
unadulterated
teaching, the pure sunnah, the true sunnah. The
moon that follows him is Ali, the
nahar are the,
imams that manifest the the true sunnah in
the layl Bani Umayyah,
who envelops or persecutes
the true sunnah of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasallam. Okay.
All of that was intro.
Had to be said.
So far so good with the technology.
I'm going to reach for my Hebrew Bible.
So at this point, I'm gonna do my
best Imitatio Christi, my best imitation of Christ.
And instead of going to Emmaus, let's take
a trip to Medina.
I was working all night on that.
So beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
I will attempt to expound the Tanakh,
the things concerning the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Do I know for sure that these are
describing the prophet sallallahu alaihi? No. I don't
know.
Right?
But something interesting to again, just think about.
So first one here.
This one, I would consider to be a
straightforward
prophecy, explicitly future.
So, the context is that Jacob is on
his death bed, 12 sons around him. And
he says to them, he says to them,
gather yourselves together so that I might tell
you what will befall you in the latter
days that he
you what will befall you in the latter
days.
The Hebrew is,
literally,
in the latter days. Right? As the Mormons
would say, the latter days.
And the prophet, salallahu alayhi salam, he's
right? He said, the, this the hour, the
eskaton, and I are like this. Meaning, that
he is the first major sign of the
or the eskaton.
So Jacob, he begins to prophesize
about his sons. So about Reuben, about Simeon,
and Levi,
and then he gets to Judah.
And Judah,
in the latter days,
is the eponym of the entire
group of Bani Israel. The Jew, the Bani
Israel collectively are known as Yehudim,
the Jews.
So this is what he said. What's going
to happen to the Jews in the latter
days? The Hebrew says,
He says, the shevet, which is the king's
staff or scepter, will not
pass or depart from Judah,
meaning the Jews.
Nor
the legislator
or sacred law from between his feet literally,
meaning from his seed or progeny,
until the coming of someone called the Shilo,
and to him shall be the gathering of
all nations.
Right. So this is interesting.
It seems to say
that
prophecy so what is what does the king's
staff represent, the scepter? According to the new
testament, it seems to indicate prophecy. So Matthew
21, 43, and 44,
Jesus is reported to have said to the
Pharisees, have you ever read in the scriptures?
And then he paraphrases
the Psalms.
Psalm 118,
the stone that the builders
rejected.
The same has become
the Rosh Pinah, the main cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing
and it is wonderful in your eyes. Therefore,
I say unto you that the Malkutha
de Allaha, Syria for kingdom of God prophecy
shall be taken away from you and given
to a nation that bears
the proper fruits.
Who is this rejected stone if not
Isma'il alaihi salam as doctor Winter says, the
outcast, the ethnically impure son,
the rejected son is finally chosen.
There's a hadith in Bukhari and Muslim. It's
in the
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is reported to
have said,
I am the gatherer
upon whose feet all of humanity
will be gathered.
So it seems like this
this prophecy of Jacob is referring to the
vocation of the prophet as
the shafir, wal mushafa,
as the one who's into the one who
intercedes on the yomul qiyama
and whose intercession,
is accepted.
And then,
and unto him shall be the gathering of
everybody, all peoples. This idea that this
shiloh and this is a This
is the only time this word appears in
the entire Hebrew Bible. It's very very mysterious.
What is what does Shiloh mean? Geisinger says
that the root is shala, which means something
like
peace or tranquility,
and he will actually translate this as the
peacemaker.
And then he also jisinya's Hebrew Caldi lexicon
to the new testament to the old testament.
He also says that this could be a
reference to someone in Isaiah chapter 9 verse
5 that we'll talk about as well, but
this person is universal.
Right?
Okay. And
obviously, many Christian exegetes believe that this,
is a reference to Isa alaihis salaam, and
we can certainly
talk about that.
The next one I want to look at
is
probably the most famous one.
This is in Deuteronomy or Devarim. And this
is the 5th book of the Torah or
the Chumash,
Pentateuch, what have you. And this begins This
is very interesting. The beginning of this,
has very unconventional
syntax. The first word,
which means a prophet.
Why is that interesting? It's because biblical Hebrew
is not inflected.
Some philologists believe that archaic Hebrew was inflected.
There was inflection,
like sometimes, you know, we say,
depending on
its case ending in a sentence. Right? If
it's nominative or accusative or genitive.
Hebrew is not Biblical Hebrew is not like
that. So word order is very very important
in Hebrew.
You have to follow
And if there's a break in this
in the syntax and it's unconventional like it
is here, then there's very strong emphasis being
made. So a prophet. What a prophet.
A prophet, God is speaking to Moses,
a prophet I will raise up from their
brethren.
Right? And who are the brethren of the
Israelites? Well, other Israelites in Deuteronomy
chapter 17,
God commands the Israelites to pick a king
from their brethren, and they pick King Saul,
who was a Benjaminite.
Deuteronomy that the Edomites,
the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob,
and the Jacobites and Edomites don't like each
other, but that's not the point. It's that
the Edomites are Arabs. And in Deuteronomy, they're
not
like each other, but that's not the point.
It's that the Edomites are Arabs. And in
Deuteronomy chapter 2, it's God says to the
Israelites, you're going to pass through Edom, the
land of your brethren.
So a hehim could refer either to fellow
Israelites
or to Arabs. That we have to
keep reading.
Who is going to be like you. So
here we have the typological,
aspect of this verse,
right? That this prophet to come is going
to be like Moses. Moses is the type,
and this prophet is
a mosaic anti type. Now, what's very interesting
is, when the prophet
salallahu alaihi wasalam received the initial revelation on
Jabal Anur, he went to Warakah bin Nofal,
who is a Christian scribe. There's a hadith
in Bukhary that says that,
that Warakah used to write the gospel in
Arabic and in Syriac or Hebrew.
And so he explained to Waraqa Benofar what
had happened to him, and Waraqa said something
interesting. He said,
The great
nomos.
Right?
The great law or sharia of God has
come unto you.
Just as is the same particle used in
18/18
Deuteronomy. It's possible that had this verse in
mind when he was giving this advice to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
just as it came to Moses, you are
going to receive the great law. What's also
interesting is in the Quran, you find a
common juxtaposition
between Musa alaihis salam and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. This technical term in Semitic rhetoric
is called parataxis
according to Michelle Kuipers. I promised I'd give
him a shout out. There you go, Abdullah.
Where are you?
For example,
That we have sent unto you an apostle
to be a witness against you just as
we sent,
to pharaoh
an apostle.
So we have this juxtaposition
between Musa alaihi sallam and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi sallam.
But I think the greatest similarity between the
2 prophets that cannot be denied is that
both prophets received a comprehensive
law
code. Musa alaihis salam received the, according to
the orthodox, a written and oral Torah from
which halakah,
which is Jewish law is derived.
Whereas the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam received the
Quran and of course his normative ethos or
sunnah, which is the source of Islamic Sharia.
No other 2 prophets, at least in the
Abrahamic tradition, come close to this similarity.
Now,
we keep reading.
So this prophet will be like Moses and
it's and then it says,
and I shall put my words into his
mouth, and he shall speak of course, we
have the ayaat in the Quran.
And of course, we have the Ayat in
the Quran.
That the prophet
It's
a imperfect tense verb. Usually it's negated with
but here it's which means never, that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam never speaks from
his desire or caprice.
Everything he says is is revelation.
Okay. Now what's interesting also is
this,
this prophecy is carried into the New Testament
period in John chapter 1.
In the New Testament, we were told
that Levites sent messengers to Yahya alaihis salam,
John the Baptist, who was baptizing people in
the Jordan River. They want to know, who
do you think you are? So they say
to him,
who are you? To John the Baptist.
And then John says, the author of the
gospel of John,
the
evangelist,
he says that John the Baptist did not
deny, and he confessed, and he said,
Christas.
I am not the Christ.
So then the messengers ask him,
who are you then? Are you Elijah?
According to Jewish theology, the prophet Elijah
or Eliyahu
was carried up into heaven on a chariot
of fire, according to the book of 2nd
Kings, and that he will come again just
before the Messiah. He will be sort of
the herald of the Messiah.
So then the messengers from the Levites ask
John the Baptist, are you Elijah?
And he says,
Ook Amy.
I am not.
So then they asked him a third question.
So the Jews, the new testament period, were
waiting for 3 great luminaries. This is how
they understood
this verse. They asked him a third question
and that question is,
Are you the prophet?
Right? So the question is not, are you
a prophet?
The question is, are you the prophet?
And the prophet, if you have a cross
reference in your Bible,
it is reference to Deuteronomy 1818,
the mosaic antitype.
Right? So there's 3 distinct lines of prophecy.
The coming of Elijah, or should I say
the second coming of Elijah,
the coming of the Christ, and the coming
of the prophet.
So I would say that really only in
Islam do these scriptures find fulfillment,
right? In Luke, Jesus actually says, John the
Baptist is
Elijah. John the Baptist didn't know at that
time, but he comes in the spirit and
power of Elijah, not a literal reincarnation.
Obviously, Jesus is the Christ, so who is
the prophet. I'm aware that in the book
of Acts, Jesus is identified as being the
Mosaic prophet of 18/18 Deuteronomy,
but there seems to be some,
incongruency
here because in the gospel of John, clearly,
these are 3 distinct lines of prophecy.
Alright.
Next one, there's only 6 of these.
I hope I'm not boring you stiff.
As long as I'm entertained,
it's really all that matters.
So this one is from Isaiah.
It's a very interesting book, by the way.
Isaiah is prophesizing.
And this one again is taken by Christians
to be a reference or a prophecy and
a typology
of Jesus. So a typology because perhaps the
immediate reference is to King Hezekiah.
Right? It's probably describing King Hezekiah, but there's
something under the surface foreshadowing someone else to
come, possibly.
So this is what it says. It
says, in the Hebrew.
It says,
for, for a child will be born to
us.
And this verb
is actually a,
perfect. It's it's
in the past tense,
but it's translated as future because according to
Williams, in his Hebrew,
grammar,
he's oftentimes and he says, oftentimes in the
old testament,
God will use
a past tense verb,
to
emphasize something to come in the future. This
is called the prophetic past. For example,
We find this in the Quran. In,
past tense, we will give you or we
have already given you
So it says, a child will be born
and then it says,
a son will be given.
And there will be some sort of symbol
of authority
upon his
upon his shoulder.
Now at this point,
Christians have an interesting translation for the rest
of this
or this verse, this ayah, if you will.
They take this next verb,
which means to call as passive.
So their translations are invariably,
and his name shall be called
wonderful counselor,
mighty God,
the eternal father,
the prince of peace. That's how they translate
it.
But if you look at the actual vowel
pointings here,
it is clearly in the active voice
and clearly there's a subject to her and
the direct object
here. At least, this is my contention.
So why do Christians tend to translate that
way? It's because it's his mighty God. Right?
And Christians, at least trinitarians, believe that Jesus
is essentially God. But there's a problem here.
It also calls him eternal father and the
father and the son are separate and distinct
hypostatic
entities. So even a Christian reading of the
text has some,
in my opinion, theological problems from a
Christian standpoint.
But a better translation in my mind is
that
taking the verb as active and the wonderful
counselor meaning God, the mighty God, the eternal
father, which means
Abba means rub.
Shall call his name Prince of Peace.
Amiru Salam.
Of course,
the business of the birthmark or
symbol of authority on the prophet or
Ketif. Right? This is mentioned in in multiple
sources. Bahira, the monk, according to Sira, knew
about this
this khatam between his shoulder blades. Salman al
Farisi,
apparently knew about it. There's actually an entire
chapter in the
The whole chapter on this birthmark on his
shoulder blade, which is an indication of his
authority as a prophet.
What's also interesting is that when the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam entered into Medina,
Abdullah ibn Salam, who's a rabbi at the
time,
he said that the first thing that the
prophet said first of all, he said,
I recognize,
recognize.
I recognize his face was not the face
of a liar.
And then he said, that the prophet said,
Oh people spread peace. Share your food.
Maintain ties of kinship.
Pray in the night when others are asleep,
and you shall enter paradise in peace. So
it begins with peace. He ends with peace.
That's the what what rhetoricians will call the
inclusio
theme of that entire
statement. It's about peace, almost as if he's
identifying
himself
as the prophet of peace or the Sar
Shalom, Amiru Salam, the Prince of Peace.
Okay.
That one usually ruffles a lot of Christian
feathers.
It's okay. We can have a nice
discussion.
Many of my teachers are Christian. I love
them.
Okay. Here's another one.
This is
also in Isaiah.
This one doesn't not need a lot of
commentary.
I would consider this also a straightforward
prophecy,
as well as a typology. I think the
immediate references to people at that time,
I think the lesson is something like whether
one is
learned or unlearned in order to be guided
by God,
one must approach God's word with sort of
his openness and a teachable spirit.
Right? But there's interesting verse 12 here.
So this says,
and this is perfect with a verb consecutive.
So this is explicitly future.
And the book
the book, The Revelation,
Scripture,
The book will be given to one who
does not know letters.
And it shall be said to him, which
is here.
It is the exact cognate
of
And he shall answer,
I don't know a book. I am unlettered.
Moving on. Almost done.
Isaiah 42.
This is very interesting. Again, I would consider
it a straightforward prophecy and possibly a typology.
Maybe the immediate reference
is to Israel that is personified as a
servant of God.
So this is a long chapter. I'll just
give you some highlights. It says,
Behold my
whom I uphold.
Right? And this is the primary title
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in
the Quran.
And when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
would hear these ayat, he would begin to
weep that Allah is calling him
So here, behold my abd, same word in
Hebrew, whom I uphold, my chosen one and
whom my soul delights. And of course the
prophet
salallahu alayhi wasalam is al Mujtaba. He is
al Mustafa al Muhtar.
It continues,
alive. I shall put my
upon him,
a spirit of revelation.
He shall bring law and order to the
The
are Gentiles. The word in Arabic for Gentile
is Right?
So those who follow the apostle, the unlettered
prophet, the Gentile prophet. These are possible.
The motherly prophet.
All of these meanings are possible.
All these meanings are
prevalent.
And then it continues.
Very interesting.
He will not raise his voice in the
marketplace.
There is a hadith in the Shema'il, her
mother Aisha
She says about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam because again, nobody knows the husband like
the wife.
She
says, That he didn't even raise his voice
in the marketplace.
It continues now we have
in the Hebrew text. We have sudden change
of person. Now God is speaking directly to
this
to this the servant of God. And he
says,
I will give you as a covenant
of humanity.
So this prophet is again, this
He's universal.
158.
The ayah that we heard one of the
ayahs that we heard at the beginning of
the event.
It says, as a light of the gentiles.
A light of the Gentiles. This is a
construct phrase.
Construct noun, absolute noun.
Just skipping
around, sing unto the Lord a new song,
a sacred song,
a new scripture, a new language, possibly.
Continuing,
Who will sing this new song according to
the text? It says, the islanders,
the gentiles,
right. The the
Islanders.
The
the Gentiles.
And then it says,
and the villages that Kadar
inhabits.
Kadar. Who is kedar?
Kedar is the second son of Ismail alaihis
salam according to Genesis.
His name is mentioned 8 times
in the Hebrew Bible.
Jisinya says, the rabbis call all of the
Arabians
universally by this
name. And
is called is used of the Arabic language.
The Jews refer Arabic as,
the tongue of kedar.
So this,
he will be
accepted. They will sing his new song. Who
will the islanders,
the Gentiles,
and the Arabs?
Another proof text of this, Ezekiel 27/21.
It says,
Arabia
and all the princes of
Kedar. And then it continues here, Isaiah 42.
Let the inhabitants
of the rock sing. What is the rock?
Of course, Alcatraz.
Just check. I'm just checking to see if
you're still awake.
Good.
You're paying attention.
No, not, maybe.
I mean, we are we are entertaining typological
exegesis.
Anyway,
maybe I'll go to Alcatraz and sing and
fulfill the prophecy. No.
This
this is very enigmatic. Nobody really knows what
this means.
Some believe it's is just sort of what
the Bible calls a generic sort of house
of God, a fortress,
a tabernacle of God of some sort. Some
say it means Petra.
In Jordan,
there is a mountain in Medina called Salah.
By the way. There's a mountain in Medina.
It's mentioned in the Hadith.
Continuing with this Isaiah chapter 42,
they will be greatly ashamed,
those who trust in carved images.
Those who say to molten images,
you are our gods.
So this servant, this evid of God,
stands as a bulwark against idolatry.
And then it continues to call him,
my servant,
my messenger.
He calls
him, like the perfect or sound one.
So that's 42.
Last one.
This is in the song of songs.
There's many more we can look at, but
again, no time.
This is the last one I'll talk about.
And again, this is just,
just some
some of it. The song of songs is
called the canticum
canticorum
in Latin.
It's called the song of Solomon as well.
In Hebrew it's called Shir Hashirim.
Shir Hashirim,
which is a way of forming a superlative
in Hebrew,
meaning sort of the best song, right, or
the best,
eulogy, something like that.
This is, probably an allegory,
I would say.
So what we have here is really a
dialogue
between a lover and his beloved.
Looks like a man and his wife.
You know, one of my teachers said, marriage
is a living parable
for mystical union with God, at least it's
supposed to be.
Inshallah, it is.
Allegory,
possibly for the relationship between
God and Israel according
to Talutic rabbis,
rabbis or God and humanity according
to Maimonides. Christians believe this is an allegory,
of the love between Christ and his
church. Right. There's a book by Roger Aylesworth,
who is the president of the Illinois Baptist
Association. It's called, he is altogether lovely finding
Christ in the song of songs.
But anyway,
chapter 5 verses 10 through 16, we have
a physical description of the beloved.
A physical description.
So this is what it says,
My beloved is literally white and red.
White and red.
In the Shamael, the Prophet
is described,
says,
which is something like a white mixed with
redness.
The Hebrew continues,
chosen amongst 10,000,
which is something like saying he's very very
special.
His head is like gold.
Meaning his intellect
is
fantastic. His locks
are wavy
and black
as a raven.
In the
Shamal, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's hair was
was neither straight nor curly, but wavy.
And what's interesting here,
this word
is Arab. This is the same word for
Arab,
and it's translated as raven here. Now this
word appears in the plural in the book
of 1st kings,
and it says that when Elijah was in
the wilderness,
the translation, almost all translations except for 1,
say that the ravens came and gave him
food and drink.
There's one loan translation I found. Farrar Fenton
died 1920.
The holy Bible in modern English who translates
it there as Arabs. That the
Arabs came and brought food and drink to
Elijah. And many rabbis accept this translation
and say that this is an indication
that towards the end of time,
Arabs and Jews will come together under the
banner of the Messiah.
Almost
done. And it continues to describe his eyes,
his cheeks, his hands,
his,
countenance.
Verse 16, it says,
His mouth is
sweet.
He is altogether
desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my
friend,
Oh daughters of Jerusalem. So we have this
word here,
which is.
So this is poetry.
Right? It's elliptical.
It's indirect. That's the nature of poetry.
So we have something like an echo of
the name
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
This might relate to its esoteric aspect.
So poetry is not going to give you
the answer. For example, we have a sort
of clue as to the name of the
Messiah. In Psalm 20 verse 6, David writes,
David writes, I know that God saves his
Messiah. He shall hear him from his holy
heaven with the saving power of his right
hand.
Yesha Yamino. The name of the messiah is
Yeshua,
the one saved by God.
Right? That's how poetry works.
Alright.
I am done.
It's almost 9.
I took so much time.
Sorry about that. But we'll try to take
a few, maybe 1 or 2.
People aren't tired. You can get out and
leave if you want.
Don't
throw fruit at me.
Any questions or comments? Anyone has a question,
there's they can just go forward now to
the q and a mic, which is at
the front left.
Thank you for this informative,
lecture.
Most exegetes will say that it's an it's
an allegory. So it's,
it's presented as a dialogue between a lover
and his beloved and her beloved.
Right?
Some say that it's
describing Solomon and Solomon is describing one of
his wives. Right?
In that case, we would
probably say allegory or typology,
but usually,
and this book is quite controversial. It actually
almost didn't make it into the Hebrew Bible
canon
in the 1st century, the Council of Yovneh.
But most rabbis would say that this is
really describing this is really an allegory
for,
God and Israel is describing their relationship. And
at times the relationship is quite intimate, but
of course, this type of,
parable, you know, this The marriage parable is
controversial, but sort of gets the point across
that Israel is very beloved
to God. So that's this sort of immediate
meaning of it.
Now I was wondering if you could talk
a little about a little about the verses
in John
Yes. And the paraclete, the Ahmed, and if
I have to go away or the one
who will bring you into all truth will
not come unto you. Yes.
He threw me a softball.
I think I can handle that one. So
the verses were about
the periculate passes passages in John.
There's a few ways you can go about
dealing with this.
John 14 and John 16.
If you read those texts, it seems at
times that Jesus is talking about a human
messenger to come.
And then at other times, he identifies
the paraclete as the Holy Spirit.
Right?
And the gospel of John, by the way,
is known for double entendres
or sort of double meanings.
So both of them could be true. Now
what's interesting is that Jesus in the first
John, the first epistle of John is called
Right? Which is evidence that a human being
can be called Paraclete. And then,
and then also in first John, it says,
it says, believe not every spirit,
but test the spirits to see whether they
are from
God. For indeed, many false prophets have gone
out into the world. So it seems like
in the Johannine community,
the author of these texts, the word spirit
and prophet can be used interchangeably.
In other words, the Paraclete
seems to be a spirit of true prophecy.
Maybe that's how we can do with these
texts.
Now,
yeah, there's a condition.
I believe it's in John 16
that I have yet many things to say
unto you, but you cannot bear them now.
But when he, the spirit of truth has
come, he will show you all things. It
is expediting for you that I go away
for if I do not go I think
that's John 14, actually.
If I do not go, the paraclete will
not come unto you. Right? So that's an
interesting verse
that the coming of the paraclete,
who or whatever it
is, is conditional upon the departure of Christ.
And clearly, if you read the new testament,
the Holy Spirit was active in the world
before Christ made this statement.
Right? And of course, Catholics have a response
to this whether it's good or not. I
don't know. But they have this idea of
the Holy Spirit,
that precedes eternally, but is sent in economy.
The Holy Spirit comes and goes
in economy in the temporal world and this
sort of explains,
the apparent contradiction here in the text.
As far as any etymological
similarities,
there is an opinion that
perakletas
is a corruption
of peraklutas.
So the
eta, it used to be a upsilon and
it became an eta. There's no manuscript evidence
of this.
There's a great,
article written by,
I wanna say Sean Anthony,
Ohio state,
where he says that, probably the first person
to make that claim, it seems like it
came from an Italian professor named Bonacci, I
believe, from
La Sapienza
University in Italy.
That,
that,
with
an eta is a,
is a, mutilation of.
Again, there's no external evidence of that.
The other question is, this is Greek. So
what did Isa Alaihi Salam actually say in
Syriac?
Now, if you look at the Peshta, which
is the Syriac translation of the Greek,
unfortunately it says,
it says They
just transliterated
the Greek term.
Ibn Utayib who was a Christian scribe who
translated Tatians
Diatessaron,
into Arabic,
so Syriac into Arabic. He rendered
the Arabic as Al Faraklet.
Right?
We don't really know what he said. However,
in the 12th century,
at Saint Catherine's Monastery,
some lectionaries,
New Testament lectionaries were discovered,
and
here we have an actual Syriac
term for paraclete,
and it's
So this is from the root naham.
Naham. So according to the Brown driver Briggs
Hebrew English Lexicon,
Syriac does not have a hamada root. There's
no root in Syriac
like ham hamada, yahmadu. It doesn't have that.
It has naham, which might have subsumed
that root.
So
there there could be an etymological correspondence. Right
means
to be next to someone, and
means to be next to someone,
and klatus, kaleo in Greek means to call
somebody.
So the Pericleto is someone you call in
distress. Right?
Seems like Jacob
and the Shiloh,
it seems like Isa alaihis salam is also
prophesizing the shilo here.
The the,
the intercessor
and of course the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam's
name on the yomulul qiyama is Ahmad.
So, Ismuhu Ahmad, alaihi salallam is quoted to
have said in the Quran. He doesn't say
Ismuhu
Muhammad
and this could be a straight superlative. Meaning,
his name is the most praised
rather than his name is Ahmed. It's a
superlative.
Meaning, the name of the prophet Muhammad
is mostly praised
or it's an indication that,
on the Yom Al Qiyamah, this is his
actual name, Ahmad.
I know that was sort of all over
the place, but
Yes, sir.
I
when I look at I I I skimmed
a book by the Baha'i community claiming that
Baha'u'llah is
foreshadowed in the Quran for example. Is there
a clear criterion by which one could distinguish,
you know, reaching in the text versus,
straightforward foreshadowing? Or is there any sort of
reach and and vice versa?
Is there a particular book what? I didn't
catch
last part. I'm wondering if there's a a
book or a resource that could go through
and say, for example, like some some of
the things that you've mentioned sound extremely convincing.
And I think to dis to dismiss it
as a reach is simplistic.
But I would also say that some of
the things, for example, the other
To reach. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
The other faith communities have have taken, you
know, ones after the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
are reaches in my mind, but I'm, you
know, biased as a Muslim. So I'm wondering
if there's something that kind of goes through
it. Well, I I would say that it's
important. I mean, we're looking at isolated verses.
Right? Yep. I think it's very very important
to look at the, look at the totality
of the text and of
what we can ascertain to be the original
teaching of that would be who that prophet
might be. So original teaching of that would
be who that prophet might be.
So with the case of Baha'iullah, I mean,
there are multiple hadith,
where
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is
characterized as being the final prophet. Right. Right?
So what do you do with all of
that? Right?
Well you can say, well, the ulema, you
know, they corrupted things and so on and
so forth. Yeah. But there are texts that
are difficult to deal with. So what I
can do, I'm prepared to deal with the
entire biblical text. I don't think there's necessarily
anything,
in the biblical text that cannot be reconciled
in one way or another,
with the Islamic tradition. Now we actually
have,
a way of dealing with
apparent contradictions between the bible and the Quran,
and this is intimated in the Quran itself.
If you take that approach that there's tahrif
and the naus, that there's,
that there's corruption in the text. Right? And
according, if you read someone like Ehrman, right,
for example, it's very clear that there is
definitely corruption in the text, although his method,
can be called into question,
at times.
So,
I mean, it's interesting
that Christians might characterize this as reaching and
they do. You're right.
It's very interesting to me because,
for a Christian to go into the Hebrew
text and to draw out the deity of
Christ
from a Hebrew text,
wow, that's difficult.
Many times in the Hebrew bible, indeed I
am God and not a man. Indeed I
am God and not a man. God is
not a man. Right?
But they've managed to do it. Now if
you ask a Christian, well, why do you
believe that then? The Christian response is, well,
this is what is stated in scripture.
Like Matthew,
right? He's quoting these things from the old
testament, and Matthew is inspired by the Holy
Ghost.
So that is the word of God. So
what I'm showing here,
this none of this is binding upon us
to believe in any of this.
Right? This is just an illustration I'm making.
So there's a difference between
something revealed in a scripture,
and something that a scholar is simply sort
of proposing.
Right? So I think the the short answer
to your question is, I think we need
to look at the totality of the tradition
and deal with other problematic,
aspects that people tend to ignore. We don't
want to engage in what's known as salad
bar hermeneutics.
So walk by and pick up what we
want.
Right?
So
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean I mean taking vicarious atonement,
deity of Christ, trinity from the Hebrew text,
that's that's quite a difficult task, I think.
Much more difficult to what
I'm doing because
Islamic theology and Jewish theology, I mean, you
can read the 13 principles of Maimonides and
pretty much go, yeah.
Sounds pretty good. Obviously,
he believes that there's no prophecy.
There's no prophet greater than Moses.
But as far as his theological understandings of
God and,
as far as the the oneness of God,
we're certainly in agreement with that.
Yes.
I apologize.
I was a little late. So, if these
questions have already been answered in the first
part, I'll go back to the video.
So the the ayah that mentions,
I've heard many people use this as a
not this particular I other iat,
that are what is the end of home?
Are we saying that all of the text,
the canonized text, what are we looking at?
So that's one part of the question.
You know, do we consider the apocryphal text
as part of that material? I know they
don't, obviously.
And then the second part of that would
be here it mentions specifically the Torah, and
that's supposed to be the first five books.
And so we did jump into some of
the non first five books. And I'm curious
if that's just natural as part of the,
evaluation of it. And the third part possibly
to the question is, how early does this
go? I mean, how far back can we
text from,
you know, their scriptures. About here are the
text from, you know, their scriptures, maybe people
who converted from Christianity or Judaism.
Is this something in our modern, you know,
few 100 years that this research has been
done? Or can we go back a 1000
years and find people talking about it?
Apparently, you did miss the first part.
No. So
so we said
that seems to mean
what they have with them at that time.
What the Jews and Christians have when this
ayah was revealed,
that
there are descriptions. Now, again, what are these
descriptions? Are they sort of general qualities and
the prophets fits the descriptions or are they
specific references? That's a difference of opinion. But
end of whom seems to mean that. And
the translation that the sister read was a
good translation,
whom they find mentioned in their Torah and
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. As seem to point to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
As far as Torah goes, the word Torah,
the word Torah is a very, very,
very, imprecise word. Right? So yes, the first
five books are called the Torah. They're also
called Chumash.
The entire old testament
is called
Torah Shebi,
Ketav,
the written Torah. So rabbis
use the word Torah for the entire old
testament
in addition to the word Tanakh. In fact,
the entire old testament, the Tanakh as well
as the Gemara
and the I'm sorry, Mishnah and Tamara, which
is the Talmud.
You put these two together, the written the
old testament
the Torah which is from heaven. So the
word Torah
can mean
the entire corpus,
the entire corpus of Jewish sacred texts because
rabbis at least orthodox Judaism, believes that the
Mishnah and the Gemara
are inspired
by the Ruach Kadosh that rabbis are being
inspired to write those things. That's sacred
text. So the word Torah, as they understood
it, and could mean a lot of things.
Not just necessarily the first five books.
And then the last the question,
I mentioned earlier that at the top of
my lecture that initially initially,
Muslim
exegetes
would sort of do a cursory reading of
the Torah and the gospel.
Right?
With limited knowledge of, you know, Greek and
Hebrew and Syriac and biblical
history and things like that. And on the
surface, they concluded that there's nothing about the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So then you have
this idea of tahrifunas,
and there's some Quranic ayat that can be
interpreted to mean that indeed, there's corruption of
the text of what the Jews and the
Christians call the Torah and in the in
the Injeel. But upon further inspection,
later after Imam Tabari, you have exigence going
into these books and saying, wait a minute.
There's there's something more to this.
Right?
And
so that is with them. There have been
no major redactions to the Tanakh since this
ayah was revealed. So end of the film
still is in effect as it were. So
there's something
in the bible today that seems to indicate
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Is it these?
I don't know. This
is my sort of,
guesswork, if you will. Thank you. That
probably
is.
We'll
take one more question from the microphone,
I was a Christian,
and,
going through some of the passage, you actually
asked a question. I don't know how Christians
answer
this part, which is John,
how it is supposed it's supposed to be
the Holy Spirit
coming to,
coming to like, coming after Christ
leaves. Right?
So
in our discussion with my parents,
I came and I told them
how
in nowhere
in the New Testament, Jesus
says, I am God.
And then I put them on the spot
when I said, if Jesus was God, who
was he praying to in the Mount of
the Olives?
Wow.
And then they came up when they said,
they came and they said,
when he was talking,
but I don't know how that translation, and
I mean and this goes back to the
when Constantine
call all the 12 tribes, and they decided
what books to stay, and and and and
put the Bible together.
And also,
a lot of a lot of it is
lost in translation.
When Jesus
is,
when he's talking and he says that my
father,
And so that's
kind of like
him saying, that's where, you know,
that's where they came back with that statement,
that Jesus himself said
that he was
the son of the father. Therefore, he's God.
Mhmm. And or or that there's,
or that the 3 he also mentioned the
3. I don't I know what passage it
is on the Bible,
but I I remember reading it. So how
how did that
come? Like,
I'm trying to clarify my question. So with
the translations,
you know, we need to go back to
Aramaic.
Yeah.
How did the
how did
the,
did the father
part came to be? Mhmm. Okay. That's that's
a good question. So it's interesting.
These terms, father, son, holy spirit,
these are all Hebraisms.
These terms are used in Judaism,
and we must not disconnect them from their
roots.
Now these terms were,
what's the right word, appropriated,
co opted by early Christian scholars, and redefined
or re theologized,
in the form of a triune deity.
Right? But the terms themselves are found in
the old testament. In Isaiah, for example, one
of the prayers of Isaiah is,
you are the Lord our father.
And, you know, Jews don't believe that,
anyone on earth is a literal or pre
eternal son of God. Right? That's a Christian
belief. The term is there. So you can
say that
even in the new testament, right,
there is no explicit verse, in my opinion,
that says that these 3 are 1. I
mean, there was something in first John 5:7
that was removed.
It's not found in the most ancient Greek
manuscripts.
So you've you have the terms again, father,
son, holy spirit, but those are terms also
found in the old testament.
So the ingredients, if you will,
of the trinity
is in the old and new testaments, but
I don't think the doctrine
is there. You have to you have
to,
you have to engage with the patristics, the
early church fathers,
as to how they are interpreting
these terms these verses in the new testament.
Right? So these are Hebrews. I mean, Jesus
prays.
He teaches his disciples how to pray in
Matthew, in Aramaic.
Our father who art in heaven, our father,
all of us. Right? Who is who is
this, this father?
So
Rumi says he says, you know, don't you
know that that father means rub and
means.
Right? That father
in the biblical text, it really means
Lord.
Right? The one who is the one who
is close to you, the one who takes
care of you. Right?
This is a du'a we make for our
for our parents.
Have mercy on them as they raised me
up in stages.
That's your rub.
Right? So this
is majaz. This is figurative language that is
thoroughly literalized
by
early proto orthodox Christian church fathers,
and now
the father is the literal father. He has
a literal son, and literal does not mean
begotten of the flesh. It means that he's
pre eternal. They share an essence.
Right? So but I agree with you the
the fact that Christ in the new testament
worships the father. I mean, Christ in the
New Testament worships the father.
I mean, the father is greater than the
son in his hypothesis or person. That's what
Jesus says. The father is greater than I,
but they are essentially equal. So if they're
essentially equal, does that merit worship of the
father by the son if they're essentially the
same person? I don't think so.
But
even if you read Paul, Paul says in
Romans chapter
8, for as many as are led by
the Spirit of God, these are the sons
of God.
And he uses the word,
which is what's used for Jesus.
The the son of God. So according to
Paul, this is figurative language. Now what makes
Jesus
What makes him the one of a kind
son, which is oftentimes translated as only begotten
son, but
means unique one of a kind son. Why
is Jesus the unique son? It's because he
is al messiah. He is the Messiah, and
there's only 1 Messiah.
That's that's what Arius said. I think we
need to Arius got a bad rap.
You know, my students in my comparative theology
class, every 15 minutes I go, Meskeen Arias.
I think he was right about Of course
Arias is totally reviled for the last 16
centuries by by the proto orthodox and the
orthodox.
But the way that he interprets the text
is very interesting. I mean, the father and
I are 1. This is John 10:30,
and and Christian Trinitarian exigence, they say, see
right here, this is, you know, this is
oneness, essential ontological oneness. But Arius says, look
at the context. You're not pulling verses out
of, you know, there's no apparent context. That's
why I'm saying we have to look at
context. And in the context of John chapter
10, it's very clear that this oneness is
a unity of purpose and intention,
not in ontology.
I think that is quite a stretch.
This scheme areas.
Thank you. If I could
close with
a question from online, then Oh, yes. We
can close it out. Thank you.
So chaplain Rafael
asks
in the Quran chapter 2 verse 79,
it literally states,
well, what may be translated as, that they
quote, write the scriptures or book with their
hands.
Then they say, quote, this is from God.
To barter with it a little price.
So woe to them
for what their hands have written
and woe to them for what they earn.
Is this not to be understood
literally?
How can it be limited to only quote
mister misinterpretation
or misunderstanding?
And then the last
question was,
can the same standard
of applying hermeneutics to prove Muhammad, peace be
upon him, in the bible
also be used to support claims
of Jesus's, peace be upon him's divinity
according to Christianity. Thank you. Excellent questions. I'll
start with the second question. The second question's
been done. Giulio Bessetti Sani, a Franciscan
Catholic,
wrote a book called What do you call
it?
The
Quran with a k. The Quran in the
light of Christ,
where he claims that the entire Quran First
he thought it was a satanic inspiration, and
then he changed his mind. It's a little
bit better now. That it's an actual revelation
of God, but it's a Christian text.
And that the, that only a Christian can
actually understand the Quran. That everything in the
Quran is pointing to the deity of Christ.
So my response to that is, yeah, you
can do it. Good luck.
You know,
What do you do with that? Don't say
3.
So good luck with that.
So different.
Historians
will
tell
us
that
very
evidently, there was always a Unitarian
strain within Christianity.
Unitarian. An airman would say the original Christians
were
and these are just basically Jews who believed
in Jesus as the Messiah.
The the Aryans believed in the gospel of
John, they didn't believe in
the ontological
sameness,
between the father and the son, and they
reviewed the gospel of John. My point is
there's always been a Unitarian understanding
of the biblical text, New Testament, but no
one in the history of
Quranic exegetical history has ever said, you know
what, I think the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is a divine incarnation, or I think the
Quran,
or or to claim that the the Sahaba
actually worshipped Jesus. That's the original creed of
the Sahaba.
Good luck.
I don't know if it's going to work
out for you. It didn't work out for
Julia Besserisan.
But
So I see that that was That would
be the difference. The other question
about,
to those who write the book with their
right hand. Yeah. This is a verse that
is used to as a proof text or
daleel, that there has been tahrif of the
nafs,
that there has been corruption of the text
of the Bible. But you can also
examine that verse
in light of
attempted
scriptural alterations
made by scribes
for theological reasons, that certainly there were attempts
made by Christian scribes
to change the text of the New Testament.
And as time went on, these,
fabrications of the text were eventually weeded out.
I mean, one could make that that claim
as well. I mean, there was a I'm
not gonna mention his name, but there was
some Egyptian scientist who thought he was a
prophet, and he started printing Qur'ans. He removed
2 verses from Tawba.
Well, what did he do? Did he corrupt
the Quran then? No. Because there's a strong
oral tradition
and
the the Quran the Allah
is providentially guarding the Quran with his hafav
and with his scholars the scholarship of the
ulema. There's a way of interpreting
that ayah to mean something like, there have
been scribes who have tried to alter the
text of the Bible
unsuccessful. Right? And this has been going on.
I mean, just read Ehrman's book, Misquoting
Jesus. I
think there's a section in there where he
talks about proto orthodox alterations to the text,
gnostic alterations to the text, Marcionite alterations
to the text, docetist alterations to the text,
and these things over time with new discoveries
and scholarship have been weeded out of the
text.
Attempts were made.
I think,
I'm tired.
So.
Thank you.