When an Arabic speaking Muslim friend saw Mel Gibson’s movie Passion of the Christ with most of the dialogue in Aramaic, he was very surprised that he did not need most of the subtitles in English to understand the movie!

This connection is a critical bridge builder: sister languages, Arabic, and Aramaic, the written language which was once the global language, stretching from the Near East to Malabar in India and East China.

Dr. Sidney Griffith, a Catholic priest and noted Syriac scholar, states that, “neither Qur’anic nor Aramaic scholars have seen fit to make the linguistic connection and it is about time that connection was made.”

Western academia has been primarily concentrated on Biblical Greek. What we need to now consider is the Aramaic/Syriac New Testament, written in the language Jesus actually spoke, as an additional tool for comparative analysis. I have found this an invaluable tool working with the Islamic world in seeking bridges to the common ground.

Muslims respect the similarity of words, meanings, and relate to the Eastern traditions and idiomatic nuances of the Aramaic. They are very similar to the Arabic of the Qur’an and the Hebrew of the Torah; and can help unlock useful mysteries within the Eastern Holy Books.

The Prophet Muhammad and Aramaic

Some Islamic historians tell us that trusted Assyrian and Syriac speaking believers in Jesus interacted with the Prophet Muhammad and likely read to him from the Aramaic Eastern Text. The very word Qur’an, which means “The Recital,” is derived from an Aramaic/Syriac word qiriana.

Original Revelation of the Holy Books: Why the Aramaic has special meaning for Muslims

The most compelling logic for use of the Aramaic New Testament in building bridges to the Common Ground deals with the Muslim view of “original revelation.”

Islam holds that God, through the angel Gabriel, spoke the revelation to the Prophet Mohammed in Arabic and is considered the official language of “The Recital.” Thus, the only accepted written version is Arabic.

Since Jesus spoke Aramaic, Muslims believe (consistent with Islamic logic) the “Holy” written version of the Gospel would be in Aramaic.

It is helpful to note that Aramaic was the first written Semitic script of the three, followed by Hebrew and finally, Arabic. The ever widening “gulf” separating us is unfortunate, but it is my hope that studying the related Semitic languages of the East will serve as a key foundation, providing evidence that our faiths have more in common than we have believed in the past.

In a recent message to my email list subscribers I touched on the fact that we need a new strategy for interactions between Muslims and Christians, whether in America or in other countries throughout the world. I suggested Jesus of Nazareth as a model for our interactions. He demonstrated how to respect and strengthen relationships with those who were like him and those who were very different from him. He pointed people to God and painted a picture of what God’s Kingdom is really like.

One of the ways we begin to be able to connect to others different from ourselves is to understand them; eliminating barriers or unnecessary misunderstandings between us. An issue I hear over and over from Christians who struggle to understand Muslims is the belief that we worship two different Gods and that Allah is a false god.

This is one of the most painful misunderstandings. Many Christian laymen and leaders feel that Allah is not the same God as the God of the Hebrews, or Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Ishmael. In fact, they will often argue Allah is a moon-god. Televangelist Benny Hinn has commented, “This is not a war between Arabs and Jews. It’s a war between God and the devil.”

It would be wonderful if Christians and Muslims could get beyond the basics of respecting another’s name for God and reach a consensus. It would open doors to desperately needed dialogue and communication, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal common ground as to the nature of God. Let us make sure this “feeling” towards Allah is not merely a trained cultural response and/or an emotional one, but instead cultivate a view founded on fact and linguistics, seated in an understanding of the history and culture surrounding the origins of the names for God. Let us also approach this issue asking God to reveal the truth to us, as much as we are able to understand.

Seminary Students Consider: Is Allah a moon-god?

I recall speaking to an assembly of seminary students in Lancaster, PA a few years ago. When questioned, their view was unanimous that Allah was a false god and in fact, derived from a moon-god of ancient times. They were ready and had a prepared statement to read:

During the nineteenth century[1], then later in the 1940’s[2], and finally during the 1950’s[3], archeologists’ digs gathered from both North and South Arabia depict evidence of a moon-god (called Hubal during pre-Islamic times). This deity was worshiped even in the Prophet Muhammad’s day. According to inscriptions, while the name of the moon-god was not Allah, his title was al-ilah, i.e. “the deity,” meaning that he was the chief or high god among the gods.

The moon-god was called al-ilah, “the god.” However, this name (Arabic: Il or Ilah) did not originate as a title for the moon-god. Thousands of years before that, Semites used variations of Il/El and Alah to refer to their high gods.

Noted Christian historian Philip Hitti also feels the designation of Allah as a moon-god is not correct. [4][5][6] The Islamic symbol of the crescent moon is often raised as evidence reflecting a moon god. However, history reveals that the Ottoman invaders of the Byzantine Empire simply adopted their defeated Christian foe’s symbol of the crescent moon and continued using it.[7]

Muhammad viewed monotheists in history such as Abraham and those in his time as haneef, believers in the One Supreme God, creator of the heavens and universe, inspirer of the prophets through the Rouh Qudus, the “Holy Spirit.”And the word he used for this God was Allah.

I shared with the seminary students,

“If Allah was indeed one of the 360 gods represented in the Kabba in Mecca prior to Muhammad, it does not preclude one of them being the One True God of the Old and New Testament. It could be considered similar to Paul on Mars Hill in Acts 17, identifying the true God from all the false idols. Muhammad did the same by destroying all the other idols in the Kabba, leaving the one ilah. The Apostle Paul faced similar push back with the Greek pagans as Muhammad did with the Arab pagans. After gaining their attention by quoting various Greek philosophers, Paul announced that he knew the name of this ‘unknown god’ and proceeded to teach of the one true God. The scripture says that while ‘some mocked…many followed and surrendered’ to God. The point being, that the origins of a name do not always reflect on the later application.”

The seminary students were listening, but I could tell they were not with me yet.

To further emphasize and explain this topic, I will delve further into the origins of the name “God” from a linguistic viewpoint on this blog in the coming weeks. Please feel free to follow along with us in exploring this issue.

Shalom, Shlama, and Salaam,

[1] Amaud, Halevy and Glaser went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and Qatabanian documents that depict Allah as a moon god. Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion: Confronting The World’s Fastest-Growing Religion (Harvest House Publishers, 1992)

[2] Archeologists G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S. Coon made discoveries in Arabia. Morey.

[3] Wendell Phillips, W.F. Albright, Richard Bower made similar discoveries as they excavated sites at Qataban, Timna, and Marib. Morey.

[4] Tracing the origins of ancient gods is often tenuous. If the name Hubal is related to an Aramaic word for spirit, as suggested by Hitti, then Hubal may have come from the north of Arabia. Philip K. Hitti, History Of The Arabs (1937), 96-101.

[5] Welllhausen indicates that Hubal was regarded as the son of al-Lat and the brother of Wadd. Wellhausen (1926), 717, as quoted by Hans Krause, Hans Krause’s Research Reports, http://hanskrause.de/HKHPE/hkhpe_32_01.htm.

[6] Attempts to identify Hubal with Allah have been notably popular among evangelical Christians, but even they acknowledge that this hypothesis is speculative, and it is contradicted by the Islamic-period texts from which most knowledge of pre-Islamic Arab religion derives. Answering Islam, Moon God, http://www.answering-islam.org/Index/M/moongod.html (Jul. 29, 2009).

[7] Rick Brown, “Who is ‘Allah’?” International Journal of Frontier Missions, 23:2 (Summer 2006), 80 (http://www.commonpathalliance.org).

One of the core ways for misunderstanding to build up is by receiving incomplete information about something someone else has said.  I believe this is a big part of the distrust between the Abrahamic faiths, and indeed, many of our broader misunderstandings today.  For example, the media can emphasize one particular phrase a person says, and build a completely different story based on that statement than what was intended.

In some cases, we simply lack the information to understand what a person is saying.  Consider some of Jesus’ phrases, which sound familiar to the Western mind, but perhaps we have not fully understood.  It is cases like these where studying the text through the Eastern lens reveals perspective we have not seen before.

Did Jesus Really Say, “I Come to Bring a Sword”?

“Do not suppose I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” At first blush, this verse seems to be in total contradiction to all the of Jesus’ teachings. How could the man who taught us to “turn the other cheek” and “love our enemies” by claiming that he came to bring a sword? In fact, this verse has even been used by some to justify violence against “non-believers.”

The truer meaning here is not sword, but division. This is more accurately rendered in the common English translations of the corresponding passage in Luke: “Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? I say to you no, but divisions.”

The teachings of Jesus were so revolutionary and contrary to the political, social and religious order of the day that when people followed them, divisions among families, friends and institutions inevitably ensued. Dr. Lamsa comments that the Eastern idiomatic aspect of these verses were not known by the Greeks. Jesus never suggested that his followers ought to “take up the sword,” but rather that following him would inevitably cause “divisions” and persecutions-as history has in fact shown to be the case.

[The Aramaic example is excerpted from Appendix 3 of A Deadly Misunderstanding.]

If we realize we can misunderstand our own text without careful study and prayer for God to reveal the truth to us, how much more might we misunderstand a related but unique text of a neighboring faith?

A friend I met in Minneapolis this past summer, Mr. Tamim Saidi, recently sent me a link to his article, My God or Your Lord: Whom Should We Worship? where he offers his experience and perspective as a Muslim speaking on this important question that many ask regarding Islam and Christianity, “Is Allah the same as God?” If you’ve read A Deadly Misunderstanding, you are familiar with how I answer this question. Though I once believed wholeheartedly that Allah was a false god, through my experience and research I have found “Allah” simply the name for God in Arabic, used by both Christians and Muslims through the Arab world and moreover, Jesus our Lord used the nearly identical “Alaha” in his Aramaic language.  I thought you would be interested in hearing a similar perspective from a Muslim point of view. He begins:

“I still vividly remember one of my very first Islam 101 presentations shortly after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It was in a school auditorium in one of the northern Twin Cities suburbs.

Immediately after the teacher introduced me and before I had finished my first sentence, I noticed a hand raised high from a young man who asked, “Why is your God better than my God?”

I was rather surprised by this question so early in the presentation, as I had planned to talk about the Islamic understanding of God around the middle of my presentation.  I tried to explain that Muslims believe in the One and the only God, the Creator of the universe–the same God that Jews and Christians believe in.  I further explained that Muslims believe in the same God that the Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him (p) believed in.  We worship the same God that spoke to Moses (p) and we pray and prostrate to the very same God that Jesus (p) prayed to and prostrated to; the same God that created Adam and Eve and the same God that saved Noah (p) from the flood.

So my God is your God and your Creator is my Creator, even though we might explain God in different terms.  Understanding this could have saved thousands of lives, and could have helped people of different faiths grow closer together.”

Tamim goes on to offer several examples from language, culture and religion that help to demystify the questions that cause many to ask if Allah and God are one and the same.  If you have lingering questions on this topic, you will find his perspective helpful.

Because of so much misunderstanding, I often find myself pointing out through various means that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Can there be more than one Creator of the Universe? The misunderstanding of who we believe the other to worship often sets us up from the beginning with feelings of discomfort and mistrust which derail friendships before they begin! In all our striving to understand, we may miss the first thing God teaches us: to love our neighbor, to treat others as ourselves. Tamim finishes with a story reminding of the value of embracing humility when attempting to understand the infinite King of Kings:

“There is an ancient and very interesting Muslim understanding, perhaps another analogy or another parallel about understanding God. It is said that, when visiting a King, a peasant will have to ride his ass or horse (or, in our times, his Avalanche or his Honda) to the door of the castle, then leave his ass behind (or park his Avalanche), and meet the King on his own.  Even though our super-smart brains are designed to get us pretty far in understanding our Lord; at a certain point, it cannot get us any closer to understanding the King of kings. So we have to check our brains at the door of the castle. At that point, our heart and our intuition might get us a bit closer, if allowed by the King.

Thus God is beyond our imagination, and better than the best of the best that our super-smart brains can envision.”

For those of you wanting to begin a study of Aramaic after reading A Deadly Misunderstanding, we’d like to highlight the Aramaic Study resources available from Dr. James DeFrancisco.  His ministry seeks to provide “objective and accurate” resources to study the Aramaic language:

“Aramaic Bible Perspectives is dedicated to providing high quality information to Bible students. The Aramaic language was used by Jesus and the Patriarchs. Knowledge of it will enrich an individual’s understanding of the Holy Scriptures and reveal nuances of meaning that otherwise would be mistranslated and misinterpreted. We do not promote any particular doctrinal position so our research covers a broad spectrum of belief systems. Students and scholars are invited to send information and questions to Aramaic Bible Perspectives. We will provide a wide variety of resources to enrich study and research efforts: books, efiles, software, audio/video resources, etc.”

Did Jesus Really Say, “I Come to Bring a Sword”?

“Do not suppose I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). At first blush, this verse seems to contradict to all of Jesus’s teachings. How could the man who taught us to “turn the other cheek” and “love our enemies” claim that he came to bring a sword? In fact, this verse has even been used by some to justify violence against “nonbelievers.”

The truer meaning here is not sword, but division. This is more accurately rendered in the common English translations of the corresponding passage in Luke: “Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? I say to you, No, but divisions” (Luke 13:51).

The teachings of Jesus were so revolutionary and contrary to the political, social, and religious order of the day that when people followed them, divisions among families, friends, and institutions inevitably ensued. Dr. Lamsa comments that the Greeks did not understand the Eastern idiomatic aspect of these verses. Jesus never suggested that his followers ought to “take up the sword,” but meant rather that following him would inevitably cause “divisions” and persecutions—as history has in fact shown to be the case.

Examples of Aramaic Terms that Clarify Long-standing Biblical Misinterpretations

In chapter 3 of the book we detail several examples where the Aramaic terms of the Peshitta version of the New Testament clear up long-standing textual puzzles and misinterpretations. The examples there involved the passages “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” and “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple.” Both passages were found to be garbled versions of the original intent—and in each case it was a single Aramaic term that provided the solution to the riddle. This same process occurs over and over in the New Testament. In this blog we will deal each day with various differences from the Greek manuscripts to the Aramaic.

Here are further examples of passages where Aramaic, the “secret language of the Bible,” provides valuable clarification and sorts out long held misunderstandings.

Is the Lord’s Prayer wrong?

Of all the apparent contradictions in the text of the Bible, none is more intriguing than instances where Jesus’s own words appear to contain contradictory teachings. One such example occurs in the wording of the famous Lord’s Prayer, the prayer Jesus taught his followers in Matthew 6:9–13. The problematic passage is the prayer’s concluding words: “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (Matt. 6:13 nkjv).”

Here is the issue: In James 1:14 the New Testament says, “Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil; neither does he tempt any man.” But if it’s true that God never tempts us, why would Jesus instruct us to pray that God not lead us into temptation?

The Aramaic Peshitta text corrects this substantial inconsistency: “And do not let us enter into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (emphasis added).