rosends
Well-Known Member
I'm just trying to find a way to label the "God" from the "God idea" (the character from the characteristics). I don't mean "incarnation" as per the literal "i n the flesh" meaning of the word.
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Is the Christian God the same as the Jewish God?
- Thread starter Harel13
- Start date
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- Tags
- christianity god judaism
rosends
Well-Known Member
Doesn't Islam say that Ishma'el was offered as a sacrifice and not Isaac?
Islamic tradition says this but it's not actually in the Qur'an, iirc.
exchemist
Veteran Member
OK. I can understand you want a word meaning "God in action" or "God operating in the world" or something like that. Is that more or less what you are getting at?
rosends
Well-Known Member
God's iteration as whole, acting character vs. the underlying idea of what defines a being as God.
ecco
Veteran Member
Marcion didn't think so.
Marcion of Sinope - Wikipedia
According to Marcion, the god of the Old Testament, whom he called the Demiurge, the creator of the material universe, is a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, whose law represents legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins through suffering and death. In contrast, the god that Jesus professed is an altogether different being, a universal god of compassion and love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy.
But other early Christians desperately wanted to recruit Jews, so they kicked Marcion out and called him a heretic.
Of course, it's not just differences between the Christian and the Jewish God. Views of God differ widely between different groups. Pentecostalists and Mormons and Roman Catholics don't all view God the same way.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
Either you're not following my train of thought or you're introducing folks who aren't relevant or I'm simply unable to make sense of what you're saying.
"Not meant" by whom?
- If you say "God did not intend for the Qur'an to replace the NT", you're asking me to concede that "God" revealed something to Muhammad:
- that could be and was recorded;
- that was intended to clarify things that are not well understood; and
- that neither Muslims or Christians understand.
- And I don't concede that.
I think that this statement is insensitive.
rosends
Well-Known Member
So do Jews.
exchemist
Veteran Member
So God in action is the point. Fair enough.
What then is it that makes God in action according to Islam different from that in Judaism, in a way that God in action in Christianity is not?
That is very interesting and a real gift to compare and put yourself on the hot spot.
Thanks. This was an interesting comment. I have heard people, generally secular people, emote that the God of Christianity is a God of mercy versus the God of the 'Old Testament'. Actually the God I was taught about seemed to me sort of two-headed, because people were sent to hell yet God supposedly loved us all so much that we were like unique figurines each irreplaceable in the master collection. It was like if I went to hell it hurt God more than it hurt me...but really? The views about God change over time, I think leading to these kinds of difficulties.
In the writings preserved the major canon of the NT, that which is accepted by almost everybody it doesn't to me change the nature of God to believe that it is God's mercy that draws people to repent. I don't think that I can trace this to a root cause of problems. Rather I think problems come from the acceptance that God's judgments are arbitrarily right rather than consistent within a framework. This acceptance varies over time. It has a lot to do with translation problems.
Even Jews disagree with interpretation but that doesn't translate into "you really don't understand".
rosends
Well-Known Member
If there is a claim in Islam that Isaac wasn't offered but Ishmael was, then the claim is that the God character performed an action IN AN EARLER TEXT that the other culture says wasn't performed. This means that the two are talking about 2 different actors (ignoring claims that either text is not authoritative, as each is for its culture).
Christianity is not saying that events in the earlier text didn't happen or happened differently, but that the underlying meaning of them is different.
rosends
Well-Known Member
It goes along with "you don't understand your own texts."
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
- Primary means:
- The Shekinah
- Ruach Ha-Kodesh
- A Bat Kol.
- Visions
- Dreams
- Secondary means:
- Angelic messengers
- Tertiary means:
- Human messengers
Are you saying that it is the statement that Jewish people say to each other when they don't agree?
rosends
Well-Known Member
No, it is what Christians say (implicitly or explicitly) when they present their understanding/theological approach to Jewish ideas.
There is a difference between saying "your text is wrong" (which is effectively what Islam says when it claims that Jews changed the Jewish texts -- Tahrif) and "you don't understand your text" which is what Christians say.
Zoroastrians and Muslims have many many different "names" of God. It's our way of trying to understand what cannot be understood with the intellect.
Why, the Abrahamic one does?
Well...we were talking about the Garden sin, weren't we?