From: darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: "Jesus did not claim divinity" Part 1
Date: 9 Sep 92 15:35:38 GMT
Organization: University of California, Davis

Here is the post from soc.religion.islam. I'm posting it in two parts
because it's LONG and my posting program won't let me do it all in
one shot.

>From: RBNXHS%ROHVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Jesus did not claim godhood/a rebuttal of missionary theology
Date: 29 Aug 92 04:34:19 GMT
Reply-To: RBNXHS%ROHVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Originator: gwydion@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu

Does the Bible quote Jesus as claiming equality with God? Bible texts
are produced to show that Jesus used the terms 'son of man', 'son of
God', 'messiah' and 'saviour'. But each of these terms were also applied
to other individuals in the Bible (see my previous article posted on the
SRI: The so-called divinity of Jesus).

This article is written as a response to a non-Muslim who brought up a
number of verses from the Bible to suggest that Jesus is God and that
he was worshipped. In my response article that follows I have attempted
to show that there is *not* a *single* verse in the Bible to suggest
such a claim. The verses that you will see below (as presented by
Khushro) are very typical of the ones used by christian missionaries to
sell the idea that Jesus was God. You will also notice why the gospel
"according to" John (and not the Synoptic gospels) is the most favorite
in the hands of gospel-thumping christians. You are welcome to make
copies of this article and distribute among fellow Muslims, and use
the material (with acknlowedgement) for debate with non-Muslims.

=== Habib Siddiqui.

N.B: Abbr.: NT=the so-called New Testament (used by Pauline christians)
            OT= "     "      Old Testament (used by Jews). Note that
                             Jews don't consider their books to be
                             "Old" Testament. So the terms used here
                             are based on christian terminology.
=====================================================================

><khushro@niagara.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
>   ..The one God has made Himself known to us in 3 different
>forms. Hence we know the same God by the following 3 names. (This isn't
>surprising, the Quran has 101 names for God.)

 Wrong. The names of God (Asma al-Husna) are the attributes of God.
 They are not the forms (morphe) of God. Allah is All-merciful,
 All-knowing, Everlasting, etc. While the Christian god is a mixture of
 three co-eval components (each having exactly equal power). As you
 explained in your words:
>1. God the Father, who is in the heavens,
>2. God the Son, who came down to earth in the form of a human, as Jesus
>to save us. The reason we know that Jesus is God, is because He said so
>Himself.                                                     ----------

 You are wrong again.
 There is not a single verse in the Bible where Jesus said: "I am god"
 or "a god-incarnate" on earth or "worship me."

>3.God the holy spirit, that lives inside each of us who believe in Him.
>At the same time He was also the son of man,since in His human form, he was
>born from Mary.                  ----------

 Yes, Jesus was nothing more than a son of a *woman*, Maryam (Mary).
 Pagan mythologies are rife with gods who come to earth and dead
 persons who become gods. In some cases these gods needed some type of
 precursors among the lower beings (human beings or other creatures)
 to appear on earth. Dying and reborn god theme was pervasive in just
 about every every European culture. Does this give you any clue as to
 why the Hellenized writers of the NT books changed the role of Jesus
 to suit the already held pagan beliefs of Romans and Greeks?
 (For similarities between the christian god and mythical god, Zeus,
 please, read Dr. Ali Shariati's "Marxism and other Western Fallacies,"
 Mizan Press, Berkeley.)
 Why does the son of God require a human mother to be born in the womb
 of Mary? He could have directly descended on earth in the form of a
 human being.

>It's very mportant to realize that the Trinity is the 3 names or 3 forms of
>the same one God.A few very poor examples can be given from the material

Yes, the water-ice-steam is a very poor example, since it even violates
the very basis of Christian doctrine of Trinity as laid down in the
Athanasian creed.

>Proof that Jesus is God:
>There can be no doubt about the clarity of meaning of the following
>quoptations from the Bible. Therefore, there can be only 2 possible
>conclusions:
>1.that Jesus was a liar or a lunatic, and that christianity is not from
>God. This is denied by the Quran.

You are wrong. Nowhere in the Qur'an it says that Christianity is from
Allah.
>2. that the following claims are true, and Jesus is really God.

The same old *missionary* trick question. We have seen this question for
the last few hundred years. Is the antonym for liar - God? Is the
antonym for lunatic - God?. If that be the case, then most Muslims
are gods. What a christian logic| What is the antonym for God? Is it
more than a created being? No. The Qur'an clearly says that Jesus was
nothing more than a human being, a prophet of Allah. How about this
alternative understanding about Jesus (John 7:40, Luke 7:16, 24:19)?

>Direct claims to divinity:

>1.Jesus was crucified for blasphemy, for claiming to be God, and not because
>other people said so,but because He Himself said so. When the High priest
>asked Him "Art thou the Christ,the Son of the Blessed?", He said "I am:"
      Jesus did not claim that he was God.

>MAR 14:60 And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus,
>saying,Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?
>MAR 14:61 But he held his peace,and answered nothing. Again the high priest
>asked him,and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
>MAR 14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sittingon
>the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
>MAR 14:63 Then the high priest rent his clothes,and saith, What need we any
>further witnesses?
>MAR 14:64 Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?And they all condemned
>him to be guilty of death.

It was *not* blasphemy to claim to be the Messiah. It only became
blasphemous through the writings of the gospel-writers. In the history
of children of Israel there had been many persons who claimed to be the
Messiah, both before and after Jesus.

Let us now scrutinize the verses of Mark:
The high priest asked, Art thou the Christ, the son of the Blessed One.
And Jesus said, "I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on .."
.................................(Mark 14:61-62)
First, the verses do not imply that Jesus is the son of man.
   As a matter of fact, the identity of this very
   *Son of Man* is unknown (I am, however, quite familiar with other
   verses in the Bible where the phrase has been used for other
   Jewish personalities, including Prophet Ezekiel in the OT), so
   any notion as to Jesus's sitting on the right hand of God is
   at best a hypothetical one.
Secondly, The gospel writer tries to make an equality:
            Christ = Son of God (Blessed One)
   as if that was the Jewish understanding about the nature of Messiah.
   This suggestion is totally out of line with Jewish expectations
   about the messiah and is simply preposterous (see below).

   Jews expected a messiah (Gr. Christos) and in their understanding
   messiah was/is always a human being, not a Son of God in the
   literal sense (Read RamBam's interpretation on the subject of
   Mosiach). I have already shown in my previous article
   (The so-called divinity of Jesus, posted on the SRI) that the use
   of such terms: son of man, son of God, messiah are extant in the
   Bible and were used for persons other than Jesus as well (e.g.,
   Jesus himself spoke of peace-makers as 'sons of God' (Matt. 5:9)).

   Let me quote a few words from Mishna on the subject of Messiah:
       "Can there be a greater stumbling block than (Christianity)?
       All the prophets spoke of Messiah as the redeemer of Israel
       and its savior, who would gather their dispersed and strengthen
       their (observance of) the Mitzvot. (By contrast, Christianity)
       caused the Jews to be slain by the sword, their remnants to
       be scattered and humbled, the Torah to be altered, and the
       majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the
       Lord." (tr. Rabbi Eliyahu Tougar, Moznaim Press, from Halacha 4)

As to Jesus's answer: I am. The answer is very vague in the sense
   that he could have said yes to both parts of the question (i.e.
   he is both the messiah and the son of God) or just one of them.
   If he said that he was the Messiah, we don't have a problem
   (as per our Qur'an). If he said, he is both (which most christians
   believe) than we can only take the figurative meaning (not literal)
   for which there are several examples within the OT itself to support
   such claims (see my previous article again). And in none of those
   cases, Jews ever took the phrase literally (otherwise they have
   their hands full with these *sons* of God, even *Gods*).

   Now the question comes why then accuse Jesus of blasphemy (if it
   actually happened the way the gospel writer wrote)?
    Our understanding is *iff* the Jews understood
   that the Messiah was supposed to be a god-incarnate (god-man) then
   they could only try to kill the claimer for one reason -  to
   check if the person was a false messiah (since the *true*
   messiah cannot be killed by Jews, and as such will not die. He is
   even expected to be as powerful as Moses was, so that the glory
   of Jewish people  will again be restored to its maximum).
   In this context, let me again quote from RamBam:
      "If he (the claimant of Messiah) did not succeed to this
      degree or he was killed, he surely is not (the redeemer)
      promised by the Torah." (op. cit.)

   It is crystal clear that Jesus never met any of those Jewish
   aspirations. He was not like Moses (cf. Deut. 18:18). The gospel
   writers also claim that Jesus was crucified and died on
   the cross. It only strengthens the Jewish belief that Jesus was  a
   "false" messiah and nothing more than that, and as such, deserved
   to die (this is the Jewish opinion).

   Any supposed connection between the word Messiah and the attritutive
   of divinity has no bearing on this matter. The bottom line is,
   the Jews have never believed that the promised Messiah would be
   a man (or a god-man) who is equal to God. Here, the christians
   try to explain that this is the precise reason why the Jews tried
   to kill Jesus (i.e., when the Jews found out that the true messiah
   was supposed to be a god-man and not an ordinary man, which Jesus
   was trying to tell them, then they accused him of blasphemy). The
   question arises how come this message that the Messiah was supposed
   to be a god-man was never explained to them by multitudes of prophets
   who came. Christians say that well this message was brought by
   Isaiah (9:6). We shall discuss this issue later (since Khushro does
   bring this verse as a supporting doctrine at the end of his article).

Several other points can be raised from the gospel "according to" Mark:
1. How did Mark know about what happened during the questioning? Read
   the NT thoroughly and you will recognize that all the dispciples
   had fled when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus (Mark 14:50). Mark
   was not there nor were any disciple of Jesus (except Peter who was
   beneath the Palace of the High Priest (14:66). It is, however, very
   unlikely that Peter would be allowed anywhere close to the actual
   place where Jesus was questioned. Do not forget that he himself was
   afraid of his own life (14:71)). Mark  was not even a disciple.
   We are here reminded by christians that the gospel writers were
   inspired (a kind of minor revelation). Our question is: were the
   other gospel writers inspired, too? Again, christians tell us that
   they were. Then our question is: how come the accounts of each gospel
   writer varies so drastically from the other (as an example, how come
   the names of the twelve disciples vary between Mark and Luke? When
   was he crucified - the 3rd (Mark 15:25) or 6th hour (John 19:14)?
   There are several other such anomalies. Interested readers may
   like to read Ahmed Deedat's Is the Bible God's word and 50,000 errors
   in the Bible;  Rahmatullah Keranwi's Izharul Haq)? These anomalies
   alone can mean one thing: the gospel writers were not inspired by
   "GOD".
2. It is not the custom of Sanhedrin (the Jewish high priest's office)
   to meet after the sunset. So the whole story about Jesus being
   tried by the Sanhedrin could well be a hoax.
3. The punishment for blasphemy in the Jewish canon is death by stoning.
   And to execute such punishments the Sanhedrin had autonomy and
   needed no permission from the Roman government nor were they required
   to hand over any such culprits to the Romans. They could carry out
   the punishment on their own. So the whole gospel account is doubtful.
   (Let me also remind my readers that the punishment for treason
   against the Roman government, on the other hand, was crucifixion.
   So, if Jesus was crucified, as the gospel writers tell us, then
   he could well have been punished for treason against the state.)
   Moreover, why would the Roman authorities try to kill a good, law-
   abiding person, who advised his followers to render unto Ceaser
   what is Ceaser's (Matt. 22:21)? (Read, Hammudah Abdalati's "Islam in
   Focus)
   (Note: The Qur'an rejects the idea of crucifixion of Jesus.)

Given the above facts, the whole account of what Jesus said during his
"supposed" trial is of dubious origin and unworthy to be trusted. Mark
14:62 is obviously insufficient to prove Jesus's sonship to God.

On the so-called divinity of Jesus, Khushro quotes:
>JOH 10:30 I and my Father are one.
>JOH 10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
>JOH 10:32 Jesus answered them,Many good works have I shewed you from my
>Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
>JOH 10:33 The Jews answered him,saying, For a good work we stone thee not;
>but for blasphemy; and because that thou,being a man, makest thyself God.
>JOH 10:34 Jesus answered them,Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are
>gods?
>JOH 10:35 If he called them gods,unto whom the word of God came, and the
>scripture cannot be broken;
>JOH 10:36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the
>world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
>JOH 10:37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
>JOH 10:38 But if I do,though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye
>may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
>JOH 10:39 Therefore they sought again to take him:but he escaped out of
>their hand,

Let me make some points very clear to my readers before I scrutinize the
verses in the gospel "according to" John:
1. Most Biblical scholars do not consider that this gospel was written
   by the disciple - John.
2. The writer was, nevertheless, influenced by the writings of a former
   Hellenized Jew - Philo of Alexandria, who introduced the concept of
   LOGOS several decades before the birth of Jesus.
3. This gospel was written in the Greek city of Ephesus, most probably
   close to the end of the first century (98-110 C.E.), well after the
   Jewish Revolt of 70 C.E. As such, pagan, Hellenic
   elements leading to deification of Jesus (in line with Roman
   concept of gods) are extant in this gospel. (And that is what makes
   John's gospel to be the most *favorite* among the Trinitarians.)
4. John's gospel is, therefore, quite different than Synoptic gospels
   (i.e., gospels *according to* Mark, Matthew and Luke).

Now as to the verse John 10:30:
   The use of the term 'Father' (Abba) is inconclusive evidence that God
   was literally the Father of Jesus. All christians use the term when
   addressing God (see, also, Romans 8:15, Gal. 4:6). The Jews them-
   selves used the term in John 8:41. Jesus told them that the devil
   was their father (John 8:44). Of course, he was not speaking
   literally.

   The Greek word translated "one" is Hen. Most scholars have insisted
   that the only possible understanding of this word is 'one in
   purpose.' One need not be a Greek scholar to refute the unjustified
   claim by christians (who think that Jesus is same as God). A counter
   example is sufficient. The same word is used in John 17:11, 21-23,
   where Jesus includes his disciples in this oneness, whatever its
   meaning. E.G., "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in
                   me, and I in Thee, that they also may be *one* in
                   *us*: that the world may believe that Thou hast
                   sent me." (John 17:21)
   If Jesus is one with God (literally) and that oneness makes him God
   or equal to God, then why not include his disciples also as Gods?
    AS such, the only logical and sound explanation for this very
   ambiguous statement is that it cannot be taken literally, and that
   the "oneness" referred  above only meant "one in purpose".

Jesus demostrated to those Jews,by quoting their own scripture, that
   they had no ground for their accusation against him. For example,
   in John 10:34-35, Jesus was referring to Psalm 82:6 ("I have said,
   Ye are Gods: and all of you are the children of the Most High").
   So what he was trying to tell the Jews was that in their own books
   God had called their Prophets (to whom the word of God came) as
   gods (see also Exodus 7:1 where Moses is referred to as a god:
   "See, I have made thee (Moses) a god to Pharaoh") then why would they
   try to kill him for even an inferior claim: "I am the son of God"?
   (Again, I would like to reemphasize that the verses similar to
   Exodus 7:1 were never taken literally by the Jewish people.)
   The Jews, however, were looking for an excuse for beating him, they
   were not ready to listen to reason. Jesus had, at other occasions,
   called their men of learning as vipers, hypocrites. He had challenged
   the authority of the corrupt clergy. (Read, the Gospel of Barnabas,
   where it provides some more reasons for wanting to kill Jesus,
   notably, about the true identity of the promised Messiah.)
   The above verses cited should, therefore, be considered in that
   figurative context, not in the literal sense. Jesus even did not
   claim that he was equal to God. In the verse just prior to the ones
   cited here, John 10:29, Jesus even said that:
      "My Father,which gave them (disciples) me, is *greater* than all."
   (This verse alone is sufficient to disprove the co-equality condition
   between the Son of God and Father the God, as laid down in the
   Trinity doctrine.)
   Jesus also said that his Father is the same Father for his disciples,
   too: "I ascend unto *my Father*, and *your Father*; and to *my God*,
   and *your God*. (John 20:17) So, if this verse is taken literally
   then God has not just one son (Jesus), BUT MANY SONS. Are you willing
   to accomodate all these Sons of God?

Khushro says:----------------------------------
>3. "I am" is God's name, given by God to Abraham, according to the Old
     ====
>Testament.This name is so sacred to the Jews, that they don't even speak
>these words.Jesus used this name for Himself, and again he was stoned for
>balsphemy.

  You are wrong (see below).

>EXO 3:13  And Moses said unto God,Behold, when I come unto the children of
>Israel,and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto
>you;and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
>EXO 3:14  And God said unto Moses,I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt
>thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

>JOH 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
>Abraham was, I am.
>JOH 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him:but Jesus hid himself, and
>went out of the temple,going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

In order to get a good understanding of the verses in John, one should
  read the entire chapter 8. Here it shows that there was a dispute
  between Jesus and Jews. The Jews were very boastful about their
  ancestor - Abraham, (8:39) and accused Jesus as one 'born of fornica-
  tion' (most of them did not accept his miraculous birth), and said
  that 'we have one Father, even God'. Then Jesus reminded them that
  'If God were your Father, ye would love me', because he came (as a
  Prophet) from God and that 'neither came I of myself, but He sent me.'
  (8:41-43) Jesus said that they were in fact sons of devil (John 8:44).
  (Again, I warn my readers not to take this literally. Jesus was
  coining the phrase 'your father the devil' metaphorically, similar
  to the statement made by Jews as God being their Father.)
  When the dispute turned nasty, Jesus said, "If a man keep my saying
  he shall never see death." (8:51) Was he using the phrase 'never
  see death' literally? No, since all his disciples (the ones who
  truly kept the commandments, e.g., Barnabas and James) died in
  due time. But the Jews were looking for creating the trouble, so they
  interpreted Jesus's saying literally and asked: "Art thou greater than
  our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom
  makest thou thyself?" (8:53) That is to say: 'who do you think
  you are? Every old prophet, including our father - Abraham is dead,
  and now you say that if someone follows you, he is not gonna die?'
  Jesus again tried to reason with them saying that if they
  were true children of Abraham then they would have followed him,
  because he was propagating God's message and Abraham himself would
  have rejoiced of his work. But the Jews in the temple would not
  accept his reasoning, they tried to make a big fuss about the
  apparent meaning of his statement (while he was speaking metaphori-
  cally, see also John 6:63, 10:6). So Jesus reminded them that
  before Abraham appeared as a flesh on earth, Jesus's spirit was
  created. And that is the context of the verse 8:58.

  Does that prehuman existence of Jesus's spirit make him God?
  If the answer is yes, how about Jeremiah (1:5) where the Prophet
  Jeremiah is reported to had a pre-human existence (if taken
  literally)? But, I am sure, christians' *selective* usage of the
  Biblical terminologies would not let that be acceptable.
  There are lot of Muslims in the world who believe that before
  the Prophet Muhammad sallal-lahu alaihe was-salam (SAWS) came as a
  flesh (man) on earth that Allah created his spirit (before others).
  No Muslim, however, considers that Muhammad (SAWS) was a God or
  had anything to do with divinity.

Here, the christian deception, however, lies with the equality of
the phrase "I am" in both the verses (of Exodus and John).
Is that a valid argument? Consider the case, A says: *I am* good;
and B says: *I am* good. Does that make A=B? Not, necessarily. It is
a very poor logic that the missionaries have been toying with.

  Let us consider John's verses (again the favorite gospel writer
  for the Trinitarians).

As I mentioned, christian deception lies with the equality of
the phrase "I am" used in Exodus and John. For more than 200 years
before the birth of Jesus, Jews used a Greek translation of their
Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint. This work translated the phrase,
"I am" (of Exodus) as HO ON. The Hellenized writer of John's gospel
(written also in Greek) could have easily used the same phrase HO ON
to write the above verses if Jesus had claimed divinity. But he did
not and, instead, used Ego Eimi. What we see in Exodus is God asks Moses
to say that, HO ON sent him, while in John's gospel, Jesus said that
before Abraham was Ego Emi (before Abraham was I am).
The divinity of Jesus is therefore far from conclusive in this verse.
(Read, Gary Miller's (AbdulAhad Omar) "A Concise Reply to Christianity",
Ordinary Press, Canada.)

Moreover, the book of Exodus was originally written in Hebrew (not in
Greek). The Hebrew word for 'I am' is ani or anokhi (aleph nun waw khe
yod). The actual Hebrew rendering of the Exodus verse would be:
A^hea a^sher A^hea. It has nothing to do with 'I am that I am' as the
christians had deceptively translated into English (the meaning of
asher = that, A^hea = very sacred name of God, it is not 'I am').
Christians are very good with such deliberate manipulations with the
text of the Bible (changing meanings, capitalizing letters for Jesus
while ignoring captitalization for God, etc. In the semitic languages,
Hebrew like Arabic and old Syriac - Aramaic, there is no upper and lower
case letters). We shall see a similar, glaring example of christian
deception with their most favorite OT verse (Isa. 9:6) later in this
article.
(Read, Hizbul Bahar by Abul Hasan Shadili.)

>From the above discussion, it is clear that Jesus did not claim divinity
in any sense of the term. It is only in the Christian *fertile*
imagination based on willful, distorted rendering of some Hebrew and
Greek words.
Newsgroups: alt.pagan