Is it possible to be a Christian and a believer in Islam?

You don't think that is a bit of a stretch, considering that isn't even the exact quote or the context?

Obviously I do not think that, or else I wouldn't have proposed it, developed it, and offered it to the community. The quote is not "exact" only because of the difference in number of the second person (no pun intended). It is word-for-word cognate, however, between the two languages.

It is simply a fact, then, that the choice of words is not original with Jesus. It was written before him, and he had surely read where it was written before he spoke. Given his profession, the phrasing was plausibly not intended by him to be taken as his own original choice of words on that occasion. On the contrary, this is how he speaks routinely throughout the Gospels, doing what preachers do, salting his speech with scripture.

The context of the speech is human reluctance in final parting, which is the same situation in both scenes. Jesus is speaking to Mary, not to you, and he is expressing his state of mind to her - clarifying for her his motivation in having scolded her for her grip on him. Remove those words, and he is depicted as impatient and lecturing her. Add those few words, and he is revealed as parting tenderly. That's what being "fully man" means, to feel the ache of separation, even on the threshold of a hero deed. To treat Jesus as a cardboard cutout instead is to revive the heresy of docetism. Docetism is neither sides' view in this thread.

So, to answer your question as asked, no, I don't think it's a stretch. If you prefer a different reading, then that's fine. The verse was offered here as if it were a "proof" of something anti-Christian, a proof that was improved by faking the punctuation, citing a source well-known not to be "literal," and passing the resulting flim-flam off as if it actually were "literal."

The verse proves no such thing, because there is no punctuation of quotation marks whatsoever there. Nobody is denying Muslims their chosen reading of it. What is being denied is that Christians err when they don't read it the same way Muslims want them to.

The thread question isn't who's right, but whether the two views are compatible. It's not my place to opine on who, if either side, is right in the theological debate, but any fool can see that the two views are incompatible. The only synthesis of them is to adopt something different from both, like, for example, Bahai.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

That is hardly the same thing...

unless of course you consider your dad to be the creator of the universe...

How is it hardly the same thing? I call mine by his title and Jesus called His by His title.

It's precisely the same thing. It's a matter of respect, not accomplishments.

reply to post by eight bits


Their Torah states specifically that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Judaism is impossible without a temple. That's why Jamnia was convened. It's no longer based on the law, but now is a religion of works. Has been for a long time.

reply to post by eight bits

Hey eight bits! Always interesting chatting with you.

It seems that to each of us in this thread, you provided a different aspect of whether it is possible to be a Christian and a believer in Islam. To Scorpion, with your talk of "aspects" and "guidances" it seems you are saying yes, with each person individually turning to God in the way they know best, with NUT you phrase the response in the dichotomy of whether the Law binds Gentiles or not, and with me, you respond "No", putting the question in the form of whether one believes a man can be God.

The thing is, interestingly enough, for all three of these perspectives, you'll find people who self-identify as Christians (and not muslims) on either side of the fence.

Originally posted by eight bits
That wasn't Jesus' purpose in quoting Ruth, nor John's reason for including that bit of dialog in the scene. Jesus was a Jewish preacher. He dispensed situationally appropriate citations of Jewish scripture as his job. The scene is a parting; Jesus never sees Mary again in John. The scriptural allusion Jesus chooses is appropriate for a parting scene, a time of human emotional importance.

As for the passage I quoted, I'm not sure mine denied such a thing, nor was I really trying to hide it in any way. It could be that it is quoting Ruth, it could be completely unconnected, it could be a common phrase or idiom at the time. I'm not sure that Young's Translation denies it being a reference to Ruth (or acknowledges it, really), I just chose it out of convenience...different people here have issues with different translations, and now I've found a new person with a new issue with the latest one. Oh well...
I acknowledge it is totally possible he was quoting Ruth, but again, while it may add a new dimension to his meaning, it doesn't take away from what he SAID. I find it odd when people try to take away from Jesus's words by using the excuse "Oh, he was just quoting someone". A similar approach is used for his Word of Abandonment on the cross: "Oh, he's not calling to his God (as a non-God), he's teaching people about praying to God, by quoting from the Psalms". I understand you might not have said this same thing, but I hope you realise how absurd that argument is. So while Jesus MAY have been quoting from Ruth in the passage I quoted (and I don't feel the need to interpret it either way, because I'd say that is irrelevant to the argument), he still said what he said, and those were his words and had the meaning that those words had. The fact that they may have been quoted from elsewhere doesn't take away from that.

Originally posted by eight bits
There is no evidence that Patrick ever used any such story. Ireland was the first national scale conversion to Christianity without bloodshed on either side. One factor in that success is the intuitive obviousness of the Trinitarian conception of God within the pre-existing religious thinking of the Irish.

I don't know about NO evidence, otherwise the legend would never have come about. It is probable it was all made up by monks later on (like with the snakes), but that doesn't really take away from the point I made. However, I'm not sure you can really conflate the trinitarian concept of God with the Triple goddesses (even more removed from pure monotheism than traditional Christianity) they had in Ireland at that time.

Originally posted by eight bits
Obviously, to share such intuition, it is necessary to discard the politically correct notion that Allah and the Trinity are both the same God. Plainly that is a contradiction. There is no contradiction, however, between monotheism and a single God understood as the Trinity is understood. As noted, the Irish already understood that before Jesus revealed it. It took the Incarnation of God in order for the Greeks and Romans to catch up.

I suppose a point of common ground is that both Muslims and Christians worship the Father.

NotUrTypical

Their Torah states specifically that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

The problem in this thread is whether Christianity and Islam are compatible. It's a whole 'nother thread why Jews don't read their scriptures the way Protestants do. Also, not being Protestants helps explain why they evidently don't much care what Goyim think about how they should practice their religion.

babloyi

Always interesting to chat with you, too.

The thing is, interestingly enough, for all three of these perspectives, you'll find people who self-identify as Christians (and not muslims) on either side of the fence.

If a person wants to call themselves "Christian" or "Muslim," then that's all the same to me. But, most people mean something by "Christian" or Muslim," otherwise there would be no point in our trying to use words to communicate. What most people mean by each of those terms renders the terms incompatible with each other.

I find it odd when people try to take away from Jesus's words by using the excuse "Oh, he was just quoting someone".

It's not an excuse. He chose those words, he said them, so what was he trying to express? It's not the strangest thing in the world to try to understand what somebody is trying to express by reading the scene without the quoted matter, to see what's different. What's different is the quality of his interaction with the Magdalene, night and day, with five little words, whose meaning isn't that they are quoted, but what they are quoted from.

Christianity is different from other religions because its sacred text is supposed to tell a story of an actual man living an actual life. Fine, this man's job is preaching, and so if the scene is him giving a sermon, then read the sermon to learn his theology or whatever his subject is. But if the man is talking to a single person whom he knows well, and whom he isn't going to see again for a long time... figure maybe he isn't going to give a sermon. Nobody else would, why would he?

Abandonment on the cross: "Oh, he's not calling to his God (as a non-God), he's teaching people about praying to God, by quoting from the Psalms".

Not "the Psalms," Psalm 22, whose opening he recites while he is suffocating to death under his own weight, and must tear his flesh for every breath he manages to secure. So, maybe he cuts down on the chit-chat. I suppose he does teach people how to pray there, but the point of the Psalm is that it is an invictus narrative. This is not defeat, even though it looks that way.

Anyway, as I said in my post, I am not denying you whatever reading of whatever pericope you like. What I object to is to say that somebody else's reading is wrong, when it is amply defensible, especially when proposed alternative readings run counter to the obvious intentions of the author. But even then, if that's the way you want to read something, then that's fine

I don't know about NO evidence, otherwise the legend would never have come about.

There's enough evidence for Patrick that I think it is more likely than not he lived. (I am Irish, so yes, I have thought about this... Brigid is a different matter.) He is the author of a memoir and some liturgical items, plausibly authentic. Unfortunately, stories stick to heroic figures. This particular story is attested only very recently, found nowhere in writing until the 18th Century (Patrick died in the Fifth), when noted by Caleb Threlkeld as the backstory for a custom of interrupting Lenten austerity with a drinking game called "drowning the shamrock," on St Patrick's Day.

That's what "no evidence" looks like.

However, I'm not sure you can really conflate the trinitarian concept of God with the Triple goddesses (even more removed from pure monotheism than traditional Christianity) they had in Ireland at that time.

I don't know that I did comment on Irish "Triple Goddesses," although of course the Irish had that sort of thing, too.

The Trinity is one god, not three, and so there isn't much connection between the Christian Trinity and polytheist "triple god(desse)s" in general. If having triple gods or goddesses was the key, then all the Indo-European pagans would have joined up in Christianity, on national scale, bloodlessly on both sides. We both know that isn't what happened.

I suppose a point of common ground is that both Muslims and Christians worship the Father.

I agree.
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repIy to post by eight bits

It's a whole another thread why Jews don't read their scriptures the way protestants do.

Are you making a new argument? That's not something I stated at all.

Are you making a new argument?

No, what I wrote was that arguments about the authenticity of Rabbinical Judaism would belong in another thread. They are not the topic here.

However, how scriptures may be read differently, both according to the intentions of the authors and the beliefs of the readers is on-topic here, and the Hebrew Bible is revered by both Muslims and Christians. So, let us discuss that. While

That's not something I stated at all.

is true, what you wrote was

Their Torah states specifically that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

as if the Torah stating something specifically was the last word in Judaism, the way it would be for a Protestant if Jesus or a New Testament author had said something. In Judaism, it's not. God's word is God's contribution to a conversation, and in this case, a conversation specifically with Jews.

Jews, not God, decide whether animals are actually slaughtered in hopes of forgiveness. That decision will be reached by negotiation and thoughtful reflection on both sides. At the moment, Jews have decided not to reinstitute animal sacrifice, although they could if they wished. If God has some objection to their decision, then he has not voiced it.

We have seen in this thread a variety of responses to the belief that something is "the word of God," and found an impoverished vocablulary to describe the human reponses. On the assumption that God is more powerful than any combination of people, then all people will, in one sense or another, "submit" to him. But the quality of that submission is very different in different Abrahamic faiths.

Jews pray on their feet, and assume that when God says something, he means to hear what his listener has to say about it. If the listener's response is to tell God, politely of course, that the divine proposal would be even better if ..., then there is every expectation that among God's perfections is a desire for the cooperation of those he expects to do his will, not their "submission" in any sense that might be expressed by approaching him prone or on one's knees. Unless, of course, the person praying was receiving a consecration or knighthood at the time.
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Originally posted by Akragon
Jesus followed moses?

That is news to me...

Yes Jesus loved Moses and followed his words, Moses was like a best friend to Jesus, from the story about when Moses appearred to Jesus. Jesus also followed Enoch's words. Jesus believed Noah to be a real person. Jesus was a Jew and followed all of the old testament. Yet with times and changes and he brought new words and teachings to the scripture - like turn your cheek.