CHAPTER 7 : "IN THE
BEGINNING"
"Where does Jesus say - "Iam God," or "Iam
equal to God," or "Worship me" I asked the D.D.from Canada, again.
Reverend Morris took a deep breath and took another try. He quoted
the most oft-repeated verse of the Christian Bible--John 1:1.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was
God."
Please note, these are not the words of Jesus. They are the words of John (or whoever
wrote them). Acknowledged by every erudite Christian scholar of the Bible as being the
words of another Jew, Philo of Alexandria, who had written them even before John and Jesus
were born And Phil claimed no divine inspiration for them. No matter what mystical meaning
that Philo had woven around these words (which our John has plagiarised) we will accept
them for what they are worth.
GREEK NOT HEBREW
Since the manuscripts of the 27 Books of the New Testament are in
Greek, a Christian sect has produced its own version and has even changed the name of this
selection of 27 Books to "CHRISTIAN GREEK SCRIPTURES"! I asked the Reverend
whether he knew Greek? "Yes," he said, He had studied Greek for 5 years before
qualification . I asked him what was the Greek Word for "GOD" the first time it
occurs in the quotation - "and the Word was with God"? He kept staring, but
didn't answer. So I said, the word was HOTHEOS, which literally means "THE GOD".
Since the Europen (in cluding the North American) has evolved a system of using capital
letter to start a proper noun and small letters for common nouns, we would accept his
giving a capital "G" for God; in other words HOTHEOS is rendered "the
god" which in turn is rendered - God.
"Now tell me, what is the Greek word for God in the second
occurrence in your quotation - "and the Word was God"? The Reverend still kept
silent. Not that he did not know Greek, or that he had lied - But, he knew more than that,
the game was up. I said the word was TONTHEOS, which means "a god".
According to your own system of translating you aught to have spelt
this word God a second time with a small "g" i.e. god, and not God with a
capital "G"; in other words TONTHEOS is rendered "a god". Both of
these, "god" or "a god" are correct.
I told the Reverend "But in 2 Corinthians 4:4 you have
dishonestly reversed your system by using a small "g" when spelling GOD -
"(and the devil is) the god of this world." The Greek word for "the
god" is HOTHEOS the same as in John 1:1. "Why have you not been consistent in
your translation?" "If Paul was inspired (?) to write hotheos - the God for the
Devil, why begrudge him that capital 'G'?"
And in the Old Testament, the Lord said unto Moses, "See, I
have made thee a god to Pharoach"(Exodus 7:1). "Why do you use a small
"g" for "GOD" when referring to Moses instead of a capital
"G" as you do for a mere word - 'WORD' - "and the Word was God."?
"Why do you do this? Why do you play fast and loose with the
Word of - God ?" I asked the reverend. He said, "I didn't do it." I said,
"I know, but I am talking about the vested interests of Christianity,who are hell
bent to deify Christ, by using capital letters here and small letters there, to deceive
the unwary masses who think that every letter, every comma and full stop and the capital
and small letters were dictated by God."
Christ in Islam by Ahmed Deedat
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