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MY GOD IS YOUR GOD
John Kearney, New York Times
John Kearney is a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism.
And no more a theologian than I am...
Sunday is one of the most important holidays in Islam: Eid al-Adha, the feast celebrating Abraham’s faith and willingness to sacrifice his son to God. It would also be a good occasion for the American news media to dispense with Allah and commit themselves to God.
I'm in favor of a secular press, myself...
Here’s what I mean: Abraham, the ur-monotheist, represents the shared history, and shared God, of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Many Christians and Jews are aware of this common past, but seem to have a tough time internalizing it. Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense, made headlines last year suggesting that Allah is not "a real God" and that Muslims worship an idol. Last month in Israel, Pat Robertson said that today’s world conflicts concern "whether Hubal, the moon god of Mecca known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme." Never mind that Hubal was actually a pre-Islamic pagan god that Muhammad rejected. Mr. Robertson’s comments, like those of General Boykin, illuminate a widespread misconception - one that the news media has inadvertently helped to promote. So here’s a suggestion: when journalists write about Muslims, or translate from Arabic, Urdu, Farsi or other languages, they should translate "Allah" as "God," too. A minor point? Perhaps not.
Or perhaps it is. It still doesn't change the mechanics of Islam. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all view God and their relationship with God differently, and within those religions there's a wide variation in the actual relationship among schools of thought. The fact that Allah is or might be the same God (or god) as Elohim — one of the older versions of the Old Testament God and plural to boot — doesn't mean that 3000 years later they're still the same. But I'm no more a theologian than the writer is. I'm still trying to pick my way through the Homoöusian Controversy, so I'll probably never get caught up...
Last August the Washington Post Web site posed this question to readers: "Do you think that Muslims, Christians and Jews all pray to the same God?" One Muslim respondent wrote yes, each of the three major monotheistic faiths "pray to the God of Abraham." Christian respondents, however, were equivocal or hostile to the notion. "Jews pray to Yahweh," one Virginia woman wrote. "As a Christian, I pray to the same God." But she insisted that "Muslims pray to Allah. Allah is not the God of Abraham." This woman might be surprised that Christian Arabs use "Allah" for God, as do Arabic-speaking Jews. In Aramaic, the language of Jesus, God is "Allaha," just a syllable away from Allah...
Jews don't pray to Yahweh. The YW symbol was substituted for the Name of God, which isn't to be uttered. On Jewish websites, for instance, you'll usually see God rendered as G-d, out of the same principle of respect, even though God (or gods) is the class, YH is the specific. Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism, but with elements from a number of other religions which were thriving at the same time Christianity was born. The duality of God and Satan, Good versus Evil, for instance, takes much from Zoroastrian thought. Some of the ceremonial and lots of the miracle tales come from Mithraism. Christianity is also an outgrowth of only a part of Judaism, rather than the entirety of the religion; its roots seem embedded in the Essenes, who rejected most of what the Pharisees and Sadduccees practiced, or perhaps in a subschool of Essene thought. The Teacher of Righteousness of the Dead Sea Scrolls doesn't seem to have been Christ, and probably not John the Baptist. Modern Judaism is an outgrowth of the dominant schools of Christ's time, whereas the Essenes were pretty much wiped out by Vespasian and Titus. Islam on the third hand, reinvents Judaism, and a rather bookish Judaism at that. Man's relationship with God is entirely different under Islam and still retains the oriental butt-in-the-air, face-to-the-floor ethos that's gradually worn off both Christianity and Judaism. That's because the overlay of the religion is the Arabian culture. That leaves us with a Jewish G-d and a Christian God who're noddingly close acquaintances, and a Muslim Allah who's more a distant cousin.

Posted by: Rowen 2004-01-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=25187