From: Dr. Habib Siddiqui (RBNXHS@rohvm1.rohmhaas.com)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Jesus did not claim Godhood/A reply to R. Watson
Date: 16 Nov 92 22:12:17 GMT
To: religion-islam-request@ncar.ucar.edu
Status: RO



Roland Watson (rhw@chaser.co.uk) replied to my article on the above
subject, which I have included in my reply below. I personally don't
see the merit of discussing whether Jesus claimed Godhood or not merely
because of the fact that it is highly unlikely that these kinds of
debates ever produce anything more than mind-boggling arguments and
counter-arguments. Every believer, be it a christian or a Muslim, lives
through his notion of self-righteousness. It is almost always never
shaken by these kinds of dialogues. Despite these debates, I fancy that
Watson's views are going to remain what they were and mine would be the
same. Despite this realization, the question is why am I responding?
To answer: the reason is I did not start this debate. It was K. Paulson,
a Trinitarian christian, who first insulted Muslims by using our Net
(SRI) to accept Jesus as the saviour, God, by twisting and misquoting-
verses from the Qur'an. Then it was, Khushro Shahakoor (a Zorastrian
student, who did not have time to study his own religion), who went on a
mercenary zeal, to act as a surrogate mother for delivering Jorge-
Batista's brain-child(?): Koran Contradictions. I as a nominal Muslim
all along felt that these arrogant missionaries ought to be answered
and as a result responded back to each one of their articles by showing
that even the Bible does not explicate that Jesus claimed Godhood.

We, the Muslims, go by the Qur'an and Hadith of our beloved Prophet,
Muhammad sallal-lahu-alaihe-was-salam (SAWS) concerning matters relating
to our belief about Eesa (AWS), the son of Maryam, and the present form
of the Bible. In this there is no room for divinity of Jesus, or any
human being, whether the missionaries like it or not. The matter is
closed for us. But somehow the Bible-thumping, born-again missionaries
don't give up. Do they? Else, we would not have seen the 70+ page article,
foster-parented by Khushro, appearing on our net recently. This cannot
go on indefinitely. I don't think SRI should be allowed to be used as a
mail-delivering wagon for unloading non-Muslim missionary-materials to
either insult or proselytize Muslims. Let these missionaries use their
own group nets to post matters concerning invitation or proselytizing,
not the SRI. With that I would draw the attention of our
Moderators to kindly discriminate such topics sent by the non-Muslims.

Since, Khushro's 70+ page article already got posted, even insulting our
Prophet, in due time I am InshaAllah going to answer some of the salient
features of that article. After that if any non-Muslim has concerns as
to the material posted,let us discuss the issues raised on an individual
basis. And let us see if we understand each other. This kind of debate
has no end. Other moderated groups, esp. soc.religion.christian never
allowed our articles on Islam to be posted, because they don't allow
their groups to be a propaganda/preaching platform for other religions.
Why should we? (I DON'T include Watson in the category described above.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Watson wrote:
" For example, Herman Hoeksema in Part IV Chapter II of
'Reformed Dogmatics' says

	It is generally accepted that the name 'Son of Man' is derived from
	Daniel 7:13, and certainly refers to His HUMAN NATURE as He assumed
	it in Bethlehem ...

As you can see,not every scholar uses Ezekiel as the origin of the phrase 'Son
of Man'."

It is agreed upon by most Biblical scholars that the book of Jeremiah
was written earlier than Daniel's, as such, Hoeksema may have been
mistaken in identifying the origin of the phrase "son of man". Muslim
scholars, interestingly, consider that Daniel 7:13 speaks about Muhammad
and not about Jesus (peace be upon them both). I am of course aware of
the fact that Christians like to consider the verse as a messianic verse
referring about Jesus. As a reference you may like to read
"Muhammad in the Bible" by Abdul-Ahad Dawud. That book
would give enough proofs about the very title of the book.
------------------

Watson wrote:
"On the subject of saviour,when the *synoptic* gospel calls Jesus the saviour of
his people (Matthew 1:21), is this not a title that should only be given to God
since only He can save us from our sins?"

Muslims don't believe in original sin, so they don't agree that someone
has to die for it. The whole idea of original sin is illogical and bet-
rays common sense. Why should someone be punished for the sin of other?
Moreover, in our understanding while Adam and his wife, Hawa (Eve) did
break the commandment of Allah as a result of their *forgetfulness*,
they later repented, and Allah forgave them. Indeed, our Lord (Allah) is
Rahman and Raheem. On the other hand, pagan societies had such supersti-
tions and we do see a parallel between those mythical human-gods coming
on earth to give their lives and the story about Jesus, which the
Synoptists manufactured. (For example, note the similarities between
Biblical Jesus with pagan gods - Osirus, Adamus, Bal, Dyanishes or
Bakus, Athus and Mithras.) According to Muslim traditions, Muhammad,
the greatest messenger of Allah, would be given the highest honor among
all His creations on the Day of Judgement. It is he, who alone, would
first approach Allah and be the Advocate for the sinners (Shafiul
Muzlimin). In that sense, Muhammad is the saviour for entire mankind.
The other prophets and messengers, including Jesus, would only be able
to advocate for their own communities/tribes. But whoever transgressed
by blaspheming God (e.g., saying that Jesus is God) will not find any
Advocate/saviour, and would be thrown to hell, where he/she will live
forever being tormented. The verses in Daniel 7:13, therefore, fits
exactly to Muslim expectation about Muhammad sallal-lahu-alaihe was-
salam (SAWS) on the Day of Judgement.
-------------

As to your remark that "only begotten" is the right translation used
in John 3:16, I would only ask you: why then the RSV dropped the word
"begotten" from its use in the 1952 publication? The Revisers were
claiming that the version went back to the *most ancient* manuscripts.
Were they joking or was it a money-making gimmick? I ask you to compare
RSV (1952) with KJV on many such changes, e.g., the word "virgin" in
Isaiah 7:14 has been replaced with a "young woman"; the key-stone of
Trinity, 1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word (Son as per KJV), and the Holy Ghost: and these
three are *one*" - has been scrapped; the phrases relating to ascension
of Jesus (e.g., Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51) were expunged. (The entire
last part of Mark 16:9-20 was a later interpolation.) All these point
to the fact that the KJV and most other versions of the Bible were not
accurate and probably were based on manuscripts which were not that
"ancient" and might have been tampered to establish christian myth.
It is, therefore, all likely that the compound word 'mono-genes' was
a fabrication.

Apart from the above problem concerning the age of manuscripts, I have
shown in my previous reply that the word "only" (which you highlighted)
loses its significance when we compare with the verses Psalm 2:7 and
89:27. The only logical conclusion out of this can be that the phrase
"(only begotten) son of God" was only figuratively used. In that sense,
all the rightly guided slaves of God were/are/will be the "sons of God."
I know this is too much for Christians to swallow, but this is the way
I, like most non-christians, look at the verses in question.

I wrote - (in my previous response):
In Psalms 2:7, David is called a "begotten" son of God ("I will declare
the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art *My Son*; this day
have I *begotten* thee.") Thus, Jesus's claim of being a begotten son
of God is *not* unique, and as the Psalm shows he was definitely not th e
ONLY such begotten son.

Watson responded >
"Psalm 2 does not refer to the prophet David.It refers to the Messiah of verse
2 (His Anointed One). I ask you, did David receive the nations as his
inheritance (verse 8)? Did he have the ends of the Earth as his possession(verse
8)? Did he rule them with a rod of iron (verse 9)? No, David ruled a very small
nation called Israel and nothing else. These verses refer to a more potent
figure - the Messiah."

Jews consider the above verse to refer to David and not to a coming
Messiah. Read the entire verse: "I will declare the decree: the LORD
hath said unto me (who is this me, other than DAVID?), thou ....begotten
thee." Note also that in Psalm 89:20 David himself is considered to
be a Messiah. So, I don't see your point. It is not only the above verse
- Psalm 2:7 that declares persons other than Jesus as 'sons of God', but
a multitude of such verses, e.g., Exodus 4:22 (Israel is MY SON, even MY
FIRSTBORN), Luke 3:38 (Adam, which was the SON OF GOD), can be found.

As to the verses Psalm 2:8-9, I don't see the point of your argument as
it is clear from the verses that God is saying to David, "ASK OF ME, and
I shall give thee ....", which means if David asks for such and such
things, God is going to give them to him. Whether David asked God for
such material things, we would never know. David did, in fact, created
the first multi-racial kingdom on earth that included Israelites and
non-Israelites and did rule with an iron fist. So your objections regar-
ding David are unfounded. Moreover, Jesus, during his earthly mission
did not even possess any of the *little* things which his ancestor did.
Jesus obviously did not rule, neither had any territory under his
control (even not the *very small nation called Israel*). Well, as per
your argument, Jesus was not then the Messiah (cf. Psalm 2:8-9).
--------------

I wrote earlier that -
"What you call Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of
Jesus or his early followers (James, Peter and others), but it is about
what became of it in the hands of Paul - the innovator and his gentile
followers who saw to it that their new faith might no longer be linked to
the Jews and the Judeo-Christians (the Monotheists), esp. after the Revolt."

You responded >
"The Apostle John was an early follower of Jesus,but you reject his gospel
account on the pre-supposition that he could not have possibly written such a
thing. The Apostle Peter stated the so-called Pauline doctrines of the atonement
and resurrection in his first epistle.

	I Peter 2:24
	He himself (i.e. Jesus) bore our sins in his body on the tree ...

	I Peter 1:3
	He has given us new birth ... through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
	from the dead ...

The only reason to doubt Peter's authorship is to pre-judge the issue. Peter
even commends Paul's teachings in II Peter 3:15-16. Critics of Paul are forced
to assume that these verses are interpolations without any textual evidence to
support their views. They pick and choose which verses suit their theology, as
a Bible Christian I meet every verse head-on. James called Jesus "our glorious
Lord Jesus Christ" in James 2:1. If James believed that Jesus was a humble human
messenger of God, would he call Him that? I think not.

So you see, it is not just Paul's writings which exalt Jesus to a position
beyond that of prophet. One further question, how did this "upstart" Paul manage
to delude Peter, James, John, etc, into believing his views on the atonement and
resurrection when presumably they had first hand experience that Jesus was not
crucified?"

MY RESPONSE to this is that it is agreed upon by most Biblical scholars
that all the New Testament books are of pseudopigraphic origin,including
the gospels, the epistles of John, Peter and James. The author of John's
gospel or his epistles is not the same John, the disciple of Jesus. The
books of the NT were written down by different authors, some based on
oral traditions others to suit the teachings of the churches in which
they were accepted, over a period of three centuries. The socalled
Most Ancient Manuscripts (all in the Greek language) that the Church
boasts of date no earlier than the middle of the 4th century, e.g.,
the Codex Sinaiticus, and others - Codex Alexandrinus (not earlier
than the 5th century, it is incomplete - several leaves are
missing) and Codex Vaticanus (parts are missing). As we well-know
by that time the Church has fully established itself, thanks to the
pagan emperor - Constantine the great who chaired the Nicaen Council.
It is therefore quite obvious that during the censoring process to
canonize the books which agreed with the Trinitarian church only those
books which agreed with the doctrine were accepted, the rest rejected.
It is not surprising under the above circumstances to find writings
which were attributed to the original disciples like Peter, James, John,
and others, while they were not written down by them. Church theologi-
ans themselves have testified to this fact that copyists have altered
the writings, by adding, deleting verses, phrases, words. It is no
wonder that RSV (1952) expunged the entire section at the end of Markan
gospel (Mark 16:9-20). The NT books are basically pseudopigraphic.

Still, I maintain that the word "Lord", as you quoted from James 2:1,
means nothing more than "master". Sarah herself called her husband,
Abraham as "Lord" (1 Peter 3:6). So the verse in James does not ascribe
divinity to Jesus, the son of Mary.
-------------------

To my question:
>                  Why the book of Acts (author(s): unknown; possibly
>Luke, a gentile follower of Paul) is also silent about rest of the
>original disciples of Jesus (see chapters 16-28)?

Watson responded:
"The book of Acts is silent because its account moves into gentile areas beyond
Judaea and Samaria. James, Peter, etc. were ministers to the Jews alone (see
James 1:1, I Peter 1:1 and Galatians 2:9) so therefore their involvement
diminishes."

Even then you cannot justify why NT does not include books on the acti-
vities of these original disciples among the Jews. It is inconceivable
that these followers did not write about their activities, esp. given
the fact that more than 240 books were rejected/destroyed by the Trini-
tarian Church during the canonization process? I think the obvious expl-
anation is that the materials which others wrote were in direct conflict
to what the Pauline/Trinitarian Church was preaching (e.g., by altering
verses and attributing authorship to original disciples for legitimacy).
As a result of the tampering with the texts, it is difficult to discern
what Jesus said and what the original disciples wrote or reported in
the NT.

Historically, that is why we find christian communities at different
parts of the Middle East who believed differently than the established
Trinitarian church. Some of these Christians, following the original
disciples, were awaiting the appearance of the last mighty messenger of
God from Arabia, whose name would be Muhammad, and during the time of
Muhammad (SAWS) they followed him voluntarily. (Read: Muhammad, his life
based on earliest sources, by Martin Lings) If these former christians
had known only what the so-called canonical NT books were saying and
did not know anything outside those books, it would have been quite un-
likely for them to expect the appearance of the Prophet from Arabia, who
would be from the family of Ishmael (AWS). As a matter of fact, most of
the Christians in the Arabian peninsula voluntarily accepted Islam
during the early period of Islam. What caused the entire north Africa
to accept Islam? No, it was not sword. It was merely because of their
understanding which differed significantly from the Trinitarian Church.
(The Nag Hamadi findings in 1945 showed that the beliefs of some of the
original christians were quite contrary to what the Trinitarian church
stood for. Read: The second treatise of the great Seth.)
-----------

In my earlier response, I wrote:
>As to what the original writer of John's gospel wrote, we don't have any
>clue other than what has been passed on to us through the debate between
>the church and Bar Disan, an early Christian of Syrian origin. It show s
>that Bar Disan maintained that the Greek form of the genitive case
>"Theou" (meaning God's) was deliberately ALTERED by the Trinitarians
>into "Theos" (meaning God). As such, the verse should have read, "In
>the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was
>God's." If we are to accept Bar Dishan's view, then the very verse in
>John 1:1 has nothing to do with divinity of Jesus.

Watson commented:
"I have no idea who Bar Disan is, he does not appear in any of my books on
Christological controversies. His claim regarding John 1:1 is unprovable. I
have a Greek New Testament which gives variant textual readings for various
verses from scholars such as Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford
and Wordsworth. Not ONE of them gives "theou" as a variant reading. Since such
men were prepared to mercilessly replace "theos" with "(h)os" (he) in I Timothy
3:16, I have no doubt they would have done the same thing with John 1:1. But
they did not because there was no manuscript with such a reading of John 1:1.
Until such a manuscript surfaces, this argument must be put aside."

Of course, you are not going to find the "Theou" in the so-called Ancient
Manuscripts (which don't date older than the middle of the 4th century)
that you possess. We are here talking about the versions older than
these. Bar Disan (ca. late 2nd to early 3rd century) read it "Theou"
in John 1:1 and not "Theos". Otherwise, why should he be ostracised by
the Pauline church in those days? St. Ephraim, among the "fathers" of
the Eastern christians, in combatting the so-called heresy of Bar Disan
wrote in old Syriac:
          "Wai lakh O, dovya at Bar Disan
          Dagreit l'Milta eithrov d'Allaha.
          Baram kthabha la kthabh d'akh hakhan
          Illa d'Miltha eithov Allaha."

Moreover, as it stands, John 1:1 was not the words of Jesus. This is the
statement made by the author(s) or interpolators of the gospel according
to John, during the period between 98 to mid-4th century C.E. It is,
however, very interesting to note that every erudite Biblical scholar
acknowledge that the sentence (John 1:1) was written by a Hellenized Jew
- Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jew, who philosophized the concept
on eternity of LOGOS, decades before John the disciple was even born.
Philo never claimed divine inspiration to write the sentence. The author(s)
or interpolators of John's gospel simply borrowed the sentence and
inserted it to justify the divinity of Jesus. Were they inspired to
plagiarise? Based on the controversy between early church fathers with
Bar Disan, we can only say that there was indeed a variant reading of
the verse in question, which could drastically alter the meaning.
--------------

In my article "A lesson in history" I said that the gospel accounts con-
cerning John the Baptist being Elias (who is supposed to be a forerunner
for Christ) was contradictory. John 1:21 says that Baptist denied
being Elias, while Jesus is reported to insist upon Baptist's being
Elias (Matt. 11:11-14, 17:13). John 1:29,34 suggests that Baptist recog-
nized Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb and son of God, while Luke 7:19 says
that the Baptist sent his disciples to inquire about the nature of Jesus's
mission (while the former was in prison awaiting his death, Matt. 11:2),
since he was unaware of its true purpose. We don't expect either John
the Baptist or Jesus, the son of Maryam, to lie. But the gospel accounts
force us to believe that one of them definitely was lying. The alternative
seems to be that one or both of the writers of the gospels were lying.
--------------------

Concerning my objection to putting much value to Paul's writings, Watson
wrote:
"And why not, I regard Him (Paul) as one of God's infallible Apostles."

You can believe whatever you like. But as a non-beliver in Christianity
I have serious doubts on the credentials of Paul. First, he abrogates
Mosaic laws. Jesus did not violate a single iota, but rather fulfilled
the law. (Matt. 5:17) Paul suggests that Malchisedec is God (see Jorge-
Batista's explanation for the verse on Hebrews 7:3 in the SRI-net). I
therefore don't think such a man could be divinely inspired. Oddly
though he himself confessed that he was not divinely inspired (see
I Cor. 7:25) on some matters. With such a confession, can one accept
the entire Bible to be inspired from God? Hardly.
-----------

Watson wrote:
"You have the problem of explaining why these Hellenistic Pauline Christians
who corrupted/wrote John's gospel did not put in a straight interpolation into
the gospel such as

	 And Jesus said, 'I am God, worship me'

If they were so intent on proclaiming Jesus' divinity your theory should predict
such a verse. There are no such *extremely direct* verses in the gospels so your
theory seems at best to be in need of revision, at worst, rejection.

Proof texts for the deity of Jesus are more subtle than the bold pronunciations
you demand from the gospels. Since Jesus spoke to the Jews in couched terms a
lot of the time, He was not always direct and plain speaking with them (refer to
Matthew 13:10-16 which states why Jesus spoke to the Jews in difficult parables)
One exegetical technique is to compare the qualities of Jesus Christ with that
of Deity. For example,

			Jesus			God
Saviour of His people	Matthew 1:21		Isaiah 45:21-22
Lord of the Sabbath	Matthew 12:8		implicitly true of God
Lord of the angels	Matthew 24:31		Psalm 91:11
Judge of the world	Matthew 25:31-33	Psalm 98:9
Ruler of the world	Matthew 28:18		Psalm 103:19

You will notice that I have drawn all proofs from just one *synoptic* gospel."

My comments:
So, you also agree that there is no verse within the gospels which proves
that Jesus directly claimed Godhood (yet, there are fanatics, e.g., Jorge-
Batista, who claim there are such explicit statements). As to the use of
non-explicit, parables, e.g., the verses you quoted from Matthewan gospel,
these are open to interpretation. Our objection to extrapolating the me-
nings to deify Jesus is based on the common sense that such terms, e.g.
saviour, judge, ruler, etc., have been used for other human beings thro-
ughout history. See, e.g., II Kings 13:5, Nehemiah 9:27, Obadiah 29 for
"saviour". Except Matt. 28:18, the rest of them refer to "Son of Man",
whose identity is debatable. If Jesus was truly that person who is going
to judge the world, be the lord of the angels, etc., explicit statements
would have proved his superiority to others. Even the verse Matt. 28:18
which states that Jesus claimed that the authority in heaven and earth
is *given* unto him, is a passive sentence. It means that he is depende-
nt on other's (some superior being's) bestowing that authority upon him.
If he is truly equal (for the sake of our argument) in the heavens, why
should such authorities be delegated upon him? He could have said that
"I am the ruler of the world and heavens." So the argument that Jesus
had to use parables during his earthly mission, because of fear of
persecution by the Jews - a thesis again very weak if one has to accept
the notion of son of God coming for the atonement of sin, is flawed
owing to the ground that we find him saying things (e.g., Matt. 28:18)
that puts him in a subordinate category, even after his sacrifical rite.

In our understanding by the phrase, Lord of the Sabbath, is meant one who
could abrogate the law of the sabbath. We find Jesus rather observing
the sabbath as a dutiful Jew (except, of course, challenging its false
understanding among the ignorant Jews by healing infirms on a saturday).
How could then Jesus claim to be the son of Man, the lord of the sabbath
day, while he was obliged to observe and keep it like every other Jew?
Please, note also that the Jewish Apocalypses ascribe the titles of "the
Messiah" and "the Son of Man" exclusively to the last Prophet, who will
fight the powers of darkness and vanquish them, and then will establish
the kingdom of Peace (Islam, literally) and of light or guidance on
earth. The Synoptists tell us that Jesus categorically denied being the
Christ and forbade his disciples to declare him the "Messiah" (Luke
9:20-21).

Jesus truly was not the Barnasha the way Christians believe him to be.
If Jesus were the "Son of Man" or "the Messiah" as seen and fortold by
the Jewish prophets and divines, he would have authorized his disciples
to proclaim and acclaim him as such, and he himself would have supported
them. The fact is he acted the very reverse. He even challenged the
false understanding among the Pharisees, who had propagated that the
promised Messiah was going to be an Israelite, specifically, from the
David's family. (Luke 20:41-45) Again if he were the Messiah and/or the
Barnasha, he would have at once struck his enemies with terror, and by
the aid of his angels destroyed the pagan powers ruling over Jerusalem.
But he did nothing of that sort. For further explanations, please,
read Prof. Dawud's "Muhammad in the Bible."

A cardinal principle in anyone's belief has to be very clearly laid down
in the scripture, so that it is not open to other forms of interpreta-
tion. Unfortunately, we find, the entire Christology to be dependent on
selective interpretation of certain verses within the Bible, without any
explicit statements to support the doctrine. Yes, strange though it may
sound, even the most generous of Trinitarian authors, namely the author
of the Johnian gospel, failed to incorporate such explicit statements
of divinity of Jesus. While we are told that the synoptists were always
afraid of putting such explicit statements because of their continual
interaction with Jews, we cannot understand why the author of the John's
gospel would be in such a similar situation, esp., when the researchers
agree that his audience was comprised of the gentiles. It can only
restrengthen our belief that Jesus simply did not claim divinity.
-----------

I have deleted your explanation on the 'morphe', since obviously we have
a disagreement as to the interpretation of the verse in Phil. 2:6, and I
don't see the merit about discussing it any further. Further, I explained
elsewhere that I have difficulty in valuing Paul's teachings. When he
could make Melchisadek = God, I simply don't expect him to be divinely
inspired in his teachings/writings.
----------------

To my question >
"Does it occur to you that the concept of original sin is completely
foreign to Judaism and Jews? (Deut. 24:16) Why were not they ever told
about carrying such a burden on their shoulders and that the only way
for remission was by the sacrifice of God's *only begotten* son (a.k.a.
Jesus)?"                                                                y

Watson remarked:
The doctrine of original sin encompasses actual as well as Adam's transgression.
The doctrine states that Adam's sin nature was imparted to his offspring via
heredity (see Genesis 5:3) and the guilt of his first sin imputed to them (the
imputation part is not so generally held). Ultimately, God will judge everyone
for their own personal sins. Deuteronomy 24:16 refers to personal sin only and
not original sin, but does not exclude it. The imputation of Adam's sin was a
once-only act, subsequent sinful acts of fathers are NOT imputed to offspring.

My comments:
Gen. 5:3 says: "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a
son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth."
IMHO the verse simply says that Adam became a father of Seth, a human
being like him. In Islamic context, Adam repented for his mistake of
forgetting God's order (not to eat the fruit of a tree) and he was for-
given. There is no notion of original sin, like Judaism. Even the present
form of Deut. 24:16 supports our view: "The fathers sahll not be put to
death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for
the fathers: EVERY MAN SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH FOR HIS *OWN* SIN." I think
the above verse is clear enough for any Jews and Christians, who consider
the Bible to be word of God, to see that there is no room for dying for
other's sin (be it Adam or someone else). The whole idea of someone
dying for sins of human beings (since the time of Adam) and then getting
salvation iff he/she believes in Jesus as the Lord God is illogical and
repugnant. The people who died before the birth of Jesus (or more speci-
fically before his crucifixion), e.g., Abraham, Noah, Moses and others,
then cannot see the salvation in the Hereafter, merely because Jesus
gave his life after they were dead. This is ludicrous.

To my statement:>
" Yet, you and other Trinitarians always remind us (when asked why
>Jesus must be divine) that Jesus must be divine if his death is to be
>sufficient atonement for the sins of mankind. When we ask why the death
>of any man would be insufficient, we are told that this is an inheri-
>tance from our fathers, so all of us are sharing that sin; Jesus on the
>other hand, did not have any human father, as such he was sinless. Never
>the less, they still require that Jesus be divine to suit the role of
>redeemer. So, when we ask, "Did God die on the cross", they say, "no,
>it was the human part (the God Incarnate part which is *subordinate* and
>not equal to God Absolute part) which died." If that be the case, then
>obviously, a slave of God (a human being) has atoned for sin, not one
>who is co-equal to God. There lies the fallacy of the Trinitarian dogma
>which demands that the Infinite is required for this (pagan, saddistic,
>cultist) ritual of sacrifice but in reality the Infinite is not actually
>sacrificed, only its subordinate."

You remarked:
"I think that those who say that only the human side of Jesus died on the cross
have not thought through the implications of such a stance as you rightly point
out. I believe that God incarnate died on the cross, in other words, the divine
nature remained in union with the human nature throughout the death process.

Death here is physical death which is the parting of the soul and body, since
the divine nature was involved in this psychosomatic split, it is correct to say
that God incarnate died. It is not correct to say "God died on the cross" if one
means God Absolute."

So, in your opinion, both the human and divine part of Jesus died. Yours
is probably a belief which is not shared by most other Christian deno-
minations. You might have read Jorge-Batista's article on the above sub-
ject, which said that it was the only human part which felt death. Yours
is a rational approach to justify the cult of sacrifice, while Jorge's
is definitely not. But then, don't you see that out of this rationaliza-
tion, you have opened the door for an even larger problem about Trinity:
i.e., if the son of God (a.k.a. Jesus) died on the cross as a divine
being and he was part of the triune God (as in Trinity) and he was in
the belly of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights (before resurrection)
then obviously there was a period during which one component of Trinity
was not functioning, i.e., there was a biune God? Does not that violate
Trinity, the coexistence of all its components at all times?

To my question:
"Question is if John the Baptist inherited sin from his father (despite
>his being called the greatest among men (Matt. 11:11)) which makes him
>a sinner, how can he baptise *sinless* Jesus, a.k.a son of God? How
>about Mary, the mother of Jesus, was she a sinner, too?"

You remarked:
"John the Baptist inherited a nature predisposed to sin from his father, not any
actual sin. Mary also possessed a sin nature. Relative greatness is no
indication of absolute purity.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the incarnation of God the Son saw to it that
no quality relating to sin was inherited from any ancestor. I repeat, ancestors
pass on NO sins to their offspring - only the sin nature with the propensity
to produce personal sin."

What you are saying is that Jesus was not born with any sin-nature,
unlike the rest of the humanity. His sacrifice is therefore supposed to
be a price for our sin-nature, not personal sin. But it is one's perso-
nal sin which is going to take one to the hell in the Hereafter (not the
sin-nature itself). So what kind of saviour in Jesus are we talking about?
Should not the sacrifice of Jesus make every believing Christian a person
without the sin-nature? Why we don't see that? As a matter of fact,
most of the criminals on earth are christians. They are so sinful that
history is full of their evil actions. Did the Holy Ghost forget to
do its duty of erasing the sin-nature from these christian-demons? All
this suggests to me that Jesus's supposed sacrifice was meaningless.
Either he did not die for human (or more specifically christian)
sin-nature or he was not crucified, to begin with.
--------

To my remark: >
>Jesus himself is described as disclaiming divinity: "Why callest thou me
>good? There is none good but One, that is God." (Mark 10:18)

Watson commented:
"I could be as demanding as you are and ask for a verse which says:

	And Jesus said, 'I am not God, do not worship me'

a verse you cannot produce."

Yes, you are right that I cannot produce a statement like that in the NT
(as it stands). But that is not expected of any human being. Do we go
about saying to the people that we are not God and don't worship us? Even
all of us, including writers/authors, never write a single phrase
which reads: "I am not God, do not worship me." But that does not make
us any less human than what we are and conversely does not lift us to
the state of divinity, either. So those statements are not necessary
to prove our being men. Similarly, when Jesus was preaching the true
gospel of God, he was, like everyone else, a human being. If he had any-
thing to do with divinity, i.e., he was a God-incarnate, then he must
had explicitly stated that out. You don't expect first century Jews
to decipher his parables suggesting his divinity (again, as I have shown
there are no proofs for Jesus's divinity). Have I made myself clear on
this? As an example, an entity, which looks like a dog and barks like a
dog and behaves like a dog, has to tell other dogs that it is not a dog,
but rather an elephant, if it is really an elephant. Else, other dogs
would always consider it to be one of them.

In Jesus, as reported in the canonical gospels, we only discover a human
being, who prayed, who ate, who slept, who showed emotions, who was
tempted by Satan, who agonised/cried, who was even scared before his
supposed sacrificial death, who complained to his Creator from the cross
(Oh God| why have you forsaken me), and who mostly made sure that his
disciples and fellow human beings never consider him to be more than a
Prophet (performing numerous miracles) by constantly reminding them that
he was a human being by uttering: "My Father (God) is greater than I",
(despite all the miracles I performed because) "I do nothing of myself."
---------------

As to Watson's questions:
How can God forgive sins without any appeal from His attribute of justice being
satisfied?

Why does God ignore His justice which demands retribution for every sin?

Is the divine attribute of justice inferior to the divine attribute of mercy?

Is there subordination of attributes within the personality of God?

Or has God determined to equally glorify all His attributes in creation?

Quotations from the Qur'an are not sufficent but must be backed up by reason.

My reply for all the above questions can be summed up in a few sentences -
God guides whomever He likes to be guided. He is Rahman and He is Raheem,
i.e., He is Merciful to all (Muslims and non-Muslims) during this life,
but He is Merciful ONLY to Muslims (those who submit unconditionally to
His Will and keep His commandments) in the Hereafter.
God's mercy outweighs His anger. God will not show mercy to those who
worship others besides Him, for God is very zealous about His right
to be worshipped alone. Good explanation for this is given in the
statements attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Barnabas (I am not giv-
ing you Qur'anic explanation, but suggesting that you read what Jesus
said, as reported by his trusted lieutenant). G. Housieni's article
on "Basic points in Islamic belief" (posted earlier on the SRI) would
also be a good start for learning about God's attributes, from an
Islamic perspective.
--
H. Siddiqui.