Mohammed Hijab – For Sincere Christians

AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses various prophecies and prophecy that have been described as accurate, but also acknowledges the difficulty in translating them into actual events. The Greek Paracase is used in a variety of ways, including in versions of the Bible, and the use of "opposed to" and "opposed to" in the Greek language is common. Parak wake is also discussed as a common practice, and the transcript suggests that the use of "opposed to" in the Greek language is common. The transcript also discusses various interpretations of the Parak suite problem, including the use of "has it been," "has it been," and "has it been," to describe the meaning of the word.
AI: Summary ©
Here the Qur'an makes the claim that
Jesus foretold that Muhammad, upon whom be peace,
would be sent after him.
Looking to the New Testament, we find mention
of a similar prophecy in the Gospel of
John in a series of passages known as
the Paraclete Sayings, in which Jesus said, But
very truly I tell you, it is for
your good that I am going away.
Unless I go away, the Paraclete will not
come to you.
He will not speak on his own, he
will speak only what he hears, and he
will tell you what is yet to come.
When the Paraclete comes, he will testify about
me.
I will ask the Father, and he will
give you another Paraclete, that he may be
with you forever.
He will teach you all things, and will
remind you of everything I have said to
you.
Note the characteristics of the Paraclete, who Jesus
proclaimed would be sent after him.
It is said that he will not speak
on his own, instead speaking only what he
hears.
In other words, the Paraclete will not be
someone who talks from his own desires, rather
he will be inspired with God's words.
This perfectly describes the revelation of the Qur
'an, the very speech of God, dictated to
Muhammad via the angel Gabriel.
The chapters of the Qur'an literally start
with the words, In the name of God.
The coming Paraclete is also said to tell
you what is yet to come, meaning that
he will be given knowledge of the future.
Both the Qur'an and Muhammad's teachings happen
to contain numerous detailed prophecies, which have been
proven to be accurate, again a perfect fulfillment
of the prophecy.
Please check out my video series, Mind Blowing
Prophecies for many such examples.
The coming Paraclete is also said to testify
about Jesus.
Muhammad affirmed the Messiahship of Jesus, his miraculous
virgin birth, as well as the second coming
when Jesus will return to the world to
defeat the Antichrist.
Many Christians are unaware that the Qur'an
mentions Jesus by name more times than Muhammad
himself.
There is even an entire chapter of the
Qur'an that is named after his blessed
mother Mary.
The coming Paraclete is also said to be
someone who will remind us of Jesus' teachings.
This actually implies that the original, true teachings
of Jesus will somehow become compromised, such as
being forgotten or distorted.
A good example of this is Christians today
who worship a trinity which contradicts the strict
monotheism that Jesus taught.
Islam corrects Christians in this regard by reminding
them that Jesus never claimed divinity for himself,
but rather preached and worshipped the same one
God as Old Testament prophets such as Abraham
and Moses.
In summary, we can see that the Paraclete
foretold by Jesus was perfectly fulfilled with the
coming of Muhammad, upon whom be peace.
The New Testament scholar Robert Price fully acknowledged
that the Paraclete was plausibly a human figure
who could be interpreted in light of Muhammad.
Well, there is some reason to think that
Jesus is predicting another human being to follow
him to explain his teachings more, because some
early Christians thought Paul was the Paraclete.
Others said Marcion or Montanus or Priscilla or
Aquila or Elchisai or Mani, and then finally
Muslims said Muhammad was the Paraclete.
I have to admit there is some strength
to that theory.
Let's now take a closer look at the
language of the prophecy.
The word Paraclete that is used to refer
to the individual who will come after Jesus
is a transliteration of the Greek Paracletos.
This word has posed a great challenge to
New Testament translators, which is why it has
traditionally been interpreted in various ways including advocate,
comforter and helper.
However, the problem with all such translations is
that none of them adequately captures the full
range of functions that Jesus attributed to the
Paraclete.
Recall from our earlier analysis that the coming
Paraclete will be someone who will perform a
rich variety of functions.
He will speak the divinely inspired words of
God.
He will prophecy about the future and teach
the world about Jesus.
This profile of a multifunctional teacher-prophet has
greatly troubled many New Testament scholars who say
that it cannot be reconciled with the meaning
of the word Paraclete or Paracletos as it
is rendered in the original Greek.
All the common translations such as advocate, comforter
and helper fail to adequately satisfy the profile
given by Jesus who spoke of an individual
to come whose functions are far more active
and go far beyond a mere advocate, comforter
or helper.
To give a simple analogy, it's like saying
I will send a bus driver to perform
heart surgery, which is obviously problematic because a
person with the job role of bus driver
cannot carry out the medical function of heart
surgery.
As Professor Glenn Nielsen informs us, there is
a visible gap between the title Paraclete and
the function John assigns to it.
The difficulty reveals itself in the attempt to
translate the term, but none of the translations
have met with widespread approval.
They all fail to capture accurately and comprehensively
John's use of the title, a title to
which he has given such roles as teacher,
reminder, witness and convictor.
The Bible scholar Raymond Brown, widely considered to
be an authority on Johannine New Testament studies,
wrote, we find that no one translation of
Paracletos captures the complexity of the functions that
this figure has.
The New Testament scholar Gary Burge wrote, the
etymology of Paracletos and its Johannine meaning has
proved to be a baffling problem.
We can see that none of the common
New Testament translations of the Greek Paracletos, such
as advocate, comforter and helper, adequately solve this
linguistic challenge that academia has dubbed the Paraclete
problem.
This is apparent when one compares different Bibles.
Several Bible publications have in fact given up
on even attempting to translate the word, instead
using the transliteration Paraclete, which is meaningless in
English.
The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966, initially translated
it as Advocate, only to then later change
it to Paraclete in its revised 1985 edition.
It's not only modern scholars who have been
troubled by the term.
Even the early church recognized the problem.
For example, Jerome, a Christian theologian, who is
widely recognized as the most learned of the
Latin church fathers, wavered when it came to
translating the term.
In his famous commentary on Isaiah, Jerome cross
-referenced the Gospel of John, rendering Paracletos as
Consulator.
While in his work, the Latin Vulgate, Jerome
used transliterations such as Paracletus and Paracletum.
Amazingly, it is the Qur'an that provides
the solution to this linguistic riddle.
Recall that the Qur'an claimed that Jesus
referred to the one to come after him
by his personal name, Ahmed.
Let's now take this Qur'anic approach and
apply it to John's Gospel, by interpreting Paracletos
as a name rather than a function, to
see whether it solves the Paraclete problem at
hand.
According to Greek lexicons, the word Paracletos is
a compound of the prefix para- and
the verbal adjective kleitos.
The prefix para- can be understood to
mean besides or alongside, and the verbal adjective
kleitos can be understood to mean called.
So it's understandable why New Testament interpreters sometimes
translate Paracletos in terms of a legal advocate,
as it carries the meaning of called alongside.
However, as we have already seen, it is
this common meaning that poses the linguistic issue
known as the Paraclete problem.
Now, these words also carry other meanings.
The preposition para- is defined as follows
in Thayer's Greek-English lexicon of the New
Testament.
Above, beyond, equivalent to more than.
The Liddell-Scott-Jones lexicon likewise defines it
as follows.
Past, beyond, over and above, in addition to,
more than, in excess over.
So, para- can be translated in the
quantitative sense of more than or in excess
over.
Para- contains these quantitative meanings even when
it's part of a compound word, as in
the case of Paracletos.
As Strong's exhaustive concordance confirms, in compounds it
retains the same variety of application.
Linguistics professor Despina Chiller-Marcopolao confirms that para
- carried this quantitative meaning of excess at
least as far back as Hellenistic times, citing
the example of the compound word para-gerau,
which means to age excessively.
The Greek version of the Old Testament, known
as the Septuagint, provides a scriptural example of
para- being used in a compound word,
in the quantitative sense.
Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him
in a rage.
Here, the word translated as rage is the
Greek compound word para-thermeno, which carries the
literal meaning of heat to excess.
Let's now consider alternative meanings for the second
word in Paracletos, namely kleitos.
The verbal adjective kleitos has two possible etymologies
that it can be derived from.
The first etymology carries the meaning to call,
and the second etymology carries the meaning to
praise or glorify.
As the ancient Greek grammarian Hesychius of Alexandra
confirms, kleitos, the one called by name, or
the glorious.
Professor Gregory Nagy, a specialist in archaic Greek
poetry, wrote that the second etymology's verbal forms
are usually translated as praise and be praised.
The New Testament itself even uses the related
noun form kleios in the context of praise
or glory.
For example, the first epistle of Peter says,
For what praise glory is it if, when
you sin and are buffeted for it, you
shall take it patiently?
Given that the New Testament employs the noun
form kleios in the context of praise and
glory, it's not unreasonable to derive the same
meaning praised and glorified using the related verbal
adjective form kleitos as it is found in
the Gospel of John.
The Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of Jesus,
also used the related noun form kleios in
the context of glory.
But my scepter shall be the book of
the copy of the law, that shall be
my boast and my incontestable glory.
Putting all this analysis together, an alternative literal
translation of the parakletos prophesied by Jesus is
praised in excess over or glorified in excess
over.
This just happens to match the Arabic word
Ahmad with great precision as it means more
praised and glorified.
Hence, both the Gospel of John and the
Quran, both parakletos and Ahmad, eloquently convey the
point that the coming person is more praised
and glorified than everyone else.
We can see that by adopting the Quranic
methodology and interpreting the Greek word parakletos as
a name rather than as a function such
as advocate, comforter or helper, as New Testament
translators typically do, the millennia-old linguistic riddle
known as the paraklete problem highlighted earlier is
elegantly resolved.
This suggestion that the word paraklete might be
better treated as a name should not be
too controversial.
Bible scholars themselves have suggested leaving the term
untranslated so that it can serve as a
name.
As the eminent Johannine scholar John Ashton argues,
the best solution to the paraklete problem is
to use the transliteration paraklete since it, quote,
provides a distinct and recognizable name for the
personage identified in the farewell discourse.
Moreover, we've already seen that some Bible versions
use the transliteration paraklete rather than translating it
into English.
So, just as I am suggesting, they're effectively
treating the term as if it's a name
anyway.
One might be wondering, why didn't the author
of the Gospel of John just use the
word Ahmad?
Why is parakletos present instead?
It is possible that the author came across
the word Ahmad in a Semitic language that
Jesus originally spoke the prophecy in and decided
to translate its meaning into the Greek equivalent
parakletos in order to make it easier to
understand for its Greek-speaking audience.
This phenomenon of biblical authors modifying foreign names
is not at all uncommon.
For example, the Gospel of John contains the
following account in which the Apostle Simon is
said to have been given the name Kephas
by Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, You are
Simon, you will be called Kephas, which, when
translated, is Peter.
The name Kephas happens to be Aramaic in
origin and has the of a rock.
Despite this name being personally bestowed upon Simon
by none other than Jesus himself, we only
find a handful of instances, around nine in
total, of the original Aramaic name being retained
within the entirety of the New Testament.
For the vast majority of cases, over 150
instances, the New Testament authors translate the Aramaic
name Kephas to the Greek Petros, which also
carries the related meaning of a stone.
Clearly, the New Testament authors had no issue
converting foreign language names into Greek equivalents based
on similar meaning.
With precedents such as this, it is easy
to conceive that the author of John's Gospel
changed Ahmed from its original Semitic language by
replacing it with the Greek equivalent in meaning,
Parakletos.
A common objection that needs to be covered
is that Muhammad cannot be the Paraklet, because
John's Gospel explicitly defines the Paraklet as the
Holy Spirit in the following prophecy, but the
Paraklet, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name.
There are, in fact, major issues with this
identification of the Paraklet as the Holy Spirit.
Firstly, we've already seen that Jesus made it
a condition that he must go away so
that the Paraklet may be sent by God.
This is at odds with the fact that
the New Testament tells us that Jesus was
already filled with the Holy Spirit when he
went into the wilderness to be tested by
the devil.
The New Testament also informs us that Jesus
was casting out legions of demons from people
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The New Testament also tells us that the
disciples themselves had already received the Holy Spirit
before the departure of Jesus.
Since the Holy Spirit was clearly already present,
it stands to reason that it cannot be
the same Paraklet who is said to only
appear at a later date after Jesus departed.
There are also historical and textual reasons to
doubt the authenticity of the mention of the
Holy Spirit in the prophecy.
Professor Gary Burge informs us that some manuscripts
omit the word holy from this prophecy.
A few manuscript variants omit holy, while others
read spirit of truth.
Some scholars have refused to identify the Paraklet
as the Holy Spirit.
The renowned New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger mentioned
that scribes had a habit of adding the
word holy with the word spirit.
The tendency to add holy was both natural
and widespread among Christian scribes.
Copyists introduced a variety of modifications.
The scholar George Johnston suggested that scribes added
the word holy because of theological reasons.
The insertion may have been done innocently by
a scribe in order to bring the text
into harmony with other New Testament passages and
with the creeds.
This alternative reading of the Paraklet as a
spirit can indeed refer to a human figure,
as other passages of the New Testament associate
the mention of spirit with human prophets.
Now for the sake of argument, even if
we take the reading describing the Paraklet as
the Holy Spirit to be legitimate, this phrase
can still refer to a man.
A first century Jewish apocryphal work known as
the Assumption of Moses referred to Moses as
the Holy Spirit.
In conclusion, all the various interpretations that one
can take for the mention of Holy Spirit
in the Paraklet prophecy happen to fit very
well with the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be
peace.
Another objection worth covering is that interpreting Parakletos
to be the name Ahmed creates absurd scenarios
in other passages where the Greek Parakletos also
occurs.
For example, John chapter 14 verse 16 mentions
Jesus stating that God will give you another
Paraklet, which implies that Jesus is also a
Paraklet.
So, if Parakletos is the name Ahmed, as
I have argued, then the implication is that
Jesus is also Ahmed, which is nonsensical.
In response, there is a big assumption being
made in this objection, namely that a single
author called John is responsible for recording all
the Paraklet sayings.
There are, in fact, good reasons to believe
the Gospel of John has multiple authors.
For example, the end of John's Gospel informs
us, this is the disciple who testifies to
these things and who wrote them down.
We know that his testimony is true.
Note the plural pronoun we, indicating that the
commentator here is not a single individual, but
rather a group or community of people.
As the Bible scholar Raymond Brown confirms, we
discussed the phenomenon of duplicate discourses in John,
and here seemingly we are dealing with another
instance of this phenomenon.
The same themes and even the same sayings
have been preached, gathered and written down in
two different collections that may stem from different
periods in the history of the Johannine tradition
or from different circles in the Johannine community.
Regarding the Paraklet sayings specifically, these demonstrate evidence
of multiple different sources.
Recall that the Paraklet sayings we have covered
in this video occur in three separate chapters
in the Gospel of John, chapters 14, 15
and 16.
Note the following comments by the disciples in
chapter 14.
Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know
where you are going.
We can see that chapter 14 has disciples
asking Jesus questions about where he is going,
yet chapter 16 then oddly has Jesus commenting
that no one is asking him where he
is going.
None of you asks me where are you
going.
It is clear that the Paraklet sayings in
chapter 16 represents a stream of tradition that
is different to that of the Paraklet saying
from chapter 14 as they contradict one another.
This conclusion that the Paraklet sayings are composed
from multiple sources is widely accepted in academia.
As the textual scholar Bart Ehrman confirms, readers
have devised different ways of explaining these kinds
of literary problems over the years, but perhaps
it is simplest to say that they have
resulted from the author's decision to weave different
written sources into his narrative.
There is a repetition between chapters 14 and
16 because they were in fact two accounts
of the same event joined together.
We can see that the various chapters containing
the Paraklet sayings were not taken from a
single source, but rather are multiple sources joined
together.
Hence it is not inconceivable that these different
sources applied the term Parakletos in different ways.
As the theologian Kenneth Greyston confirms, if it
seems improbable that different meanings of Parakletos should
be present in such close proximity, it may
be replied that John 14 and John 15
-16 are now widely regarded as variant forms
of a final discourse, presumably composed to suit
different situations.
Another possibility to consider is that the authors
of the sources that call Jesus a Paraklet
were uncomfortable with the notion that there could
be someone coming after Jesus who will be
more praised and glorified than him.
In other words, Jesus was transformed into another
Paraklet for theological reasons.
One chronological sequence that explains how such a
situation might arise is as follows.
First, the author of the earliest Paraklet saying
source changed Ahmed from its original Semitic language
by replacing it with the Greek equivalent in
meaning, Parakletos, as we have already discussed.
Second, the later authors of other texts which
explicitly refer to Jesus as a Paraklet were
aware of this earlier Paraklet saying source when
composing their writings.
They would have also been aware of the
multiple meanings of Parakletos, one of which is
praised in excess over or glorified in excess
over.
They could have been disturbed by the notion
that someone might be more praised and glorified
than Jesus.
Hence, for theological reasons, they decided to call
Jesus a Paraklet as well in order to
elevate his status to be on an equal
footing with the prophesied Paraklet.
This scenario is not so far-fetched considering
that we have already seen evidence that scribes
inserted the word holy into the Paraklet sayings
in order to transform the Paraklet from a
human figure to the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, there are many examples throughout the four
gospels in which their authors manipulated accounts about
Jesus in order to elevate his status.
Some examples include the incident of the woman
in the crowd.
Compare Mark 5 with Matthew 9.
The incident on the boat in the storm.
Compare Mark 4 with Luke 8.
The incident of the man questioning Jesus.
Compare Mark 10 with Mark 19.
And the incident of Jesus on the cross.
Compare Mark 15 with Luke 23.
For more details of all these examples, please
refer to my video, Were the Gospel Authors
Divinely Inspired?
So, in summary, Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be
peace, could well have been the original and
only Paraklet, whereas Jesus was transformed into one
for theological reasons.
For more information on Biblical prophecies about the
coming of Muhammad, upon whom be peace, please
download your free copy of the book, Abraham
Fulfilled, at the link below.