[Vision2020] Did Jesus Pray to Allah?

[Donovan Arnold]

Nick,
 
That is a great question. I file it right next to what if the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause had a love child? 
 
Your Friend,
 
Donovan Arnold

--- On Fri, 1/29/10, nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:


From: nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com>
Subject: [Vision2020] Did Jesus Pray to Allah?
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 10:55 PM


Dear Visionaries:

As promised here my radio commentary/column inspired by the Malaysian governments decision to ban the use of Allah for God by the country's 2.5 million Christians.

The full version with images of the earliest extant Arabic Bible and a picture of the Virgin Mary holding an Arabic text is attached as a PDF file.

Nick Gier

DID JESUS WORSHIP ALLAH? 
The Malaysian Government Bans Christian Use of Allah

There are about 12 million Arabic speaking Christians in the world. They live as substantial minorities in Lebanon (35%) and Syria (10%) and in lesser numbers in Iraq, Palestine, and North Africa. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Arabs living in the U.S. are Christians, not Muslims.  Ralph Nader, for example, comes from an Arab Christian family.

For at least 1,200 years Arab Christians have read their Bibles with the Hebrew and Greek words elohim and theos translated as Allah. Jews and Christians prayed to God as Allah long before the prophet Mohammed, who himself acknowledged that Arabian Jews and Christians of his time used the word Allah for God.  

In 2007, under pressure from Muslim fundamentalism but going against two millennia of tradition, the Malaysian government decided to ban all Christian publications that translated God as Allah. 
Government leaders said that they did it because they did not want members of the Muslim majority (60 percent) to be confused and to be misled into converting to Christianity, a punishable offense in Malaysia.

Last month a judge for the nation’s highest court ruled that the prohibition violated the principle of religious freedom. Judge Lau Bee Lan declared that Malaysian Christians "have a constitutional right to use Allah." 

Thousands of Malaysia’s Muslims have been protesting the high court decision and the government has appealed the ruling. Since January 7, 10 churches, a convent, and a Sikh temple have been fire bombed by militants on motorcycles. The Sikhs have been targeted because they have always used Allah for God.

The 2.5 million Malaysian Christians are primarily Chinese and Indian immigrants, and Hindu Indians, who have also come under attack, joined these Christians in candle light vigils at the churches in Kuala Lumpur. To their credit the government and Muslim leaders have condemned the firebombing of churches.

Laying out a detailed linguistic explanation, Malay Christian scholar Ng Karn Weng informs us that “allah is an ordinary Arabic word which is not specifically linked to a particular religion.”  The word is composed of two parts “al-ilah” literally meaning “the strong God.”  

The root word Il is exactly the same as the Canaanite El, which appears many times in the Old Testament as El Bethel (God at Bethel) and El Shaddai (God of the Mountain). The plural form Elohim is the most common word for God in the Old Testament. 

Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language from Syria. There are at least a dozen phrases in the New Testament where the authors have transliterated Jesus’ Aramaic words or sayings into Greek. Trying to be as authentic as possible in his film The Passion of Christ, Mel Gibson has his Jesus speaking Aramaic and praying to Aalah, Western Aramaic for God.

Malaysian Muslims have proposed that Christians choose the Malay word Tuhan, which means Lord, for the Christian God, but they insist that Allah is more accurate and they are supported by Muslim authorities all over the world..

When Roman Catholics missionaries produced the first Chinese translation of the Bible, they chose the Chinese phrase Tian Zhu, which means "Lord of Heaven." Coming much later Protestant missionaries were not satisfied with this, and a great controversy arose about this issue. They finally agreed, very reasonably, on the Chinese word Shen, a generic term for deity just like Allah and Elohim. 

When I taught the existence of God in my philosophy classes, the conclusion, if any the arguments are valid, was that there is one God not many.  That conclusion could be expressed in any number of languages as Allah, Elohim, Deus, Dios, Dieu, Gott, or Gud, but of course it would be absurd for believers to insist that only their word for deity is the legitimate one.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.



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