Calling Aineo - Christian-Muslim Dialouge

[Brother Andrew]

Peace be upon thou,

..............................My attention was bought to this forum in news of a speaker who dialouges with fairness. For the sake of truth i had to jump to the chance.

..............................But firstly let me introduce myself. I am Br. Andrew, as my name suggests. A convert to Islam for five years. I have a nice knowledge of both the Bible and the Qur'aan and have been completed at course of Islamic studies.

..............................I have been fortunate to dialouge with some of the finest and warmest of Christians. I also have been unfortunate to have dialouged with some of the worst, no need to mention them.

Anyhow - What would you like to say to a Muslim today ? -

Thats the topic.

What message would you give a Muslim like me?

Something friendly to break the ice. We can later move to futher issues as we progress in this dialouge.

Peace

[Brother Andrew]

..............................Hey how about i also suggest that we break into this moon-god allegation. As a topic starter. Besides, all classical missionaries tend to set their books in the following order: Allah>Muhammad>Qur'aan.

..............................If you like we can do it like that. As one debater said "Islam is a three legged stool, if one of these legs are broken then Islam falls to the ground."

..............................So in all fairness the first leg would be Allah. Is He the true universal G-d or simply a pagan deity that was transformed into the G-d of all monotheists?

..............................So to break the ice, any disscussion about Allah is fine by me.

[Aineo]

Allah is Arabic for God or god and depending on what deity is under discussion can refer to the one true God or any multitude of false gods. For Arabic Christians Allah is equivalent to "elohiym", which is an irregular nown that can be both singular and plural.

Now, since you converted to Islam and claim to have a good knowledge of the Bible and the Qur'an perhaps you can address why the Muslims who come to this board maintain that the Bible has been corrupted. If you are not willing to address this topic then I am not interested in another harangue from a Muslim who ignores the Qur'an and what it states concerning the Book of the People of the Book. Also I will not engage in another debate with a Muslim who takes portions of the Bible out of context. Therefore, if you try to pull this tactic this thread will be locked.

As to Muhammad, in my opinion he was nothing but a sex crazed opportunist who took the concept of oneness plus traditions from Catholicism and incorporated portions of the moon-god to develop what became known as Islam.

[Brother Andrew]

The issue i would like to discuss with you at this point is only about Allah. Was Allah a generic term as you suggest? We can discuss this. I know you wish to address the issue of the "authencicity of the bible", however i maintain that Allah should be addressed and issues about His nature from a Qur'aanic and Biblical perspective.


Then we can discuss Muhammad, Then the Qur'aan. Notice how i did not even bring the Bible into the field!

But i will tell you plainly that i do not believe the Torah or the Injeel was ever corrupted, Rather substituted. We can open that can of worms when the time comes. The topic for me is Allah.

I have not came to this site challenging you on matters of the Trinity, was Jesus the son of G-d, etc. In fact i have suggested we discuss some of the most difficult topics for a Muslim.

If you wish you can lock this thread but as a result you may regretfully have turn down a dialouge very very diffrent to the typical Christian and Muslim bash, Wherein red herrings and ad-hominems dominate the whole discussion.

I was told by a little bird that you are the numero uno at Christian and Muslim dialouge.

The future of this dialouge is at your own will.

[Aineo]

I have already addressed Allah and since you did not disagree with what I posted and have no desire to address the two major areas of disagreement brought to the board by Muslims then I would say the ball is back in your court. After all there are a plethora of passages from the Qur'an that tell Muslims the Bible is supposedly Allah's own words.

As to the Qur'an I put it in the same class as the Book of Mormon. Anyone who has researched the ecumenical councils prior to the 7th century can see Catholic/Orthodox traditions incorporated into the Qur'an as God's (Allah's) truth. This puts Muhammad in the same class as Joesph Smith, and since Smith was a charlatan so was Muhammad.

So you think the whole Bible has been substituted? This opinion does not change the fact that the Bible of the 7th century is the Bible of the 21st century and since your Allah validated the Bible of the 7th century, which is contradicted by the Qur'an you as a Muslim have a real problem.

[Brother Andrew]

I have already addressed Allah and since you did not disagree with what I posted and have no desire to address the two major areas of disagreement brought to the board by Muslims then I would say the ball is back in your court.

.....Fair enough. I have to disagree, now you have allowed this post to continue. Since you have asserted Allah is a generic noun that can be applied to any bodys god, you then bear the burden of proof to explain why you believe that.

.....If you know logic then you will know that when a person makes a claim then he has to back it up with evidence. In this case you have made the claim. As for the other topics you have bought up, i will seek to answer them when appropiate.

[Aineo]

There are a plethora of Internet sites that back up what I posted, but since you want to play games in lieu of showing me where or if I am wrong here is my proof:

Allah

Standard Arabic word for God, used by Arab Christians as well as by Muslims. According to the Qur'an, Allah is the creator and judge of humankind, omnipotent, compassionate, and merciful. The Muslim profession of faith affirms that there is no deity but God and emphasizes that he is inherently one: “nothing is like unto him.” Everything that happens occurs by his commandment; submission to God is the basis of Islam. The Qur'an and the Hadith contain the 99 “most beautiful names” of God, including the One and Only, the Living One, the Real Truth, the Hearer, the Seer, the Benefactor, and the Constant Forgiver.

Allah (ăl'ə, ä'lə) , [Arab.,=the God]. Derived from an old Semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others. Allah, as a deity, was probably known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Arabic chronicles suggest a pre-Islamic recognition of Allah as a supreme God, with the three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat as his “daughters.” The Prophet Muhammad, declaring Allah the God of Abraham, demanded a return to a strict monotheism. Islam supplements Allah as the name of God with the 99 most beautiful names (asma Allah al-husna), understood as nondescriptive mnemonic guides to the Divine attributes.
Bibliography

See S. Friedlander, Ninety-Nine Names of Allah (1978).
http://www.answers.com/topic/allah

[Brother Andrew]

You might want to do some editions to some unforeseen errors in your post. I will be popping by shortly. Please delete this post upon reading.

[Aineo]

I don't think there is anything germain missing from my post. I can link to a site that gives the full history of the Semitic languages, but if you are as intelligent as you put on you already know that Arabic as a major language came centuries after Aramaic and Hebrew.

Now, are you out to play games or engage in some meaningful discourse? So far all you have demonstrated is a psuedo-intellectualism that is nothing more than the mutterings of an ego that has little to add to this forum.

[Brother Andrew]

I think you misunderstood me and therefore misjudged what i was nibbling at. Please refer to your post. Ilah is not spelt as a square box! I know this is a common problems when copying and pasting. I just wanted to keep this post tidy, so readers can have a nice read without suffering from having to read the last three posts. Can i request you edit your mistake and then delete the last three posts. I take pride in the setting of threads. I just dont want this to look all pear shaped.

[Aineo]

I think if you check the link you will find I did not mispell anything since all I did was copy and paste information found on that site. If you have an issue with the spelling on that site take it up with them. Now, I will repeat if all you are going to do is play games then let's just terminate this thread. I do not have the time or the desire to play games with another Muslim.

[Brother Andrew]

I simply pointed out a mistake that is not due to you, "Allah (ăl'ə, ä'lə)"

Please take yout itme to notice the square box then please as your the admin delete every post that came after that post.

There is no need for you to get funny with me just because of the simple fact i am a Muslim.

I couldnt really care if this dialouge took place or not. Besides i am in direct contact with Dr. Robert Morey so why do i have to waste my time here?

If you want this dialouge then lets proceed, you can start by editing the square box and then deleting the unessecary posts. Its only to your own gain if you continue this dialouge.

Without boast, you should be privleged i have even came here to dialouge with you.

[Aineo]

I will repeat, if there is a problem with the site I linked to take it up with them. It seems you would rather critique than discuss. Now the topic under consideration is Allah (or any other way you want to transliterate Arabic into English), which is a generic term in Arabic for god and in Islam is the proper name for God. In Hebrew "el" is a generic term for god or gods and elohiym is a generic term for god or gods (as well as others) and God's proper name is Yaweh.

BTW, I do not have a problem with Muslims I have a problem with ego maniacle Muslims who would rather obfuscate discussions than discuss issues, which is what you are trying to do. Also, I am not going to delete your posts as they clearly demonstrate your attitude is not to discuss but to manipulate.

[Brother Andrew]

O.k,

Despite the mess, which as an admin you could have simply cleared up being an Admin, i will proceed further.

I submit that Allah is a name, a proper name! Al-ilah is a generic term that can be applied to any god by who considers whatever god what. Western scholarship has never been able to point out the linguistical link between al-ilah and Allah, some say that Allah evolved from the title al-ilah but this is disproved alone by the simple fact that Al-ilah is still used even today and the 'i' never drops.

Western scholarship has also proved Allah to be a proper name and different from the generic term. Allah has been etymologically traced back to the proper name of the Lord of Abraham, El, Elohim. Abraham did not know G-d by the name of Yahweh. In fact we find in Genesis 17:1 that the G-d of the Bible reveals Himself as El Shaddai, which is a proper name.

We find many epithets containing the name El, particularly Isra-el, a name given to Jacob by G-d Himself (Genesis 35:10). Why the G-d of the Bible would choose a name which was the phase of a pre-biblical pagan deity is beyond me and is a claim that Christianity needs to refute alone.

If G-ds proper name was Yahweh as many suggest, then why is there no mention of Yahweh in the New Testament? Without arguing through silence i will simply submit that Jesus did not once call G-d Yahweh, even when he was supossedly on the cross, he was said to have cried out in his final hour "Eloi Eloi lama subachtoni" which in Hebrew translates as "El, El azab rachowq".

Many Christian theologians have admitted that El is a proper name for the G-d of Israel, going against the view of the minority that El is a generic term. Also many Christian theologians aslo opine that Allah and El are one of the same and these are such scholars as John Gilchrist, Arthur Jeffrey, Alfred Guilaume and so forth.

I hope i was clear and presented sufficent evidence.

I would appreciate if you tidied up the posts and corrected the box issue - the site and your quotes are not the same, the difference being is that the sites said al-a and yours is the box! it not the sites fault nor yours, its simply an issue of copy and paste. However you seem to want to mak me look the monkey for pointing that out, well "oo-oo aa-aa."

The balls back in your court.

[Aineo]

First, the mess is in your mind not in the information found on the site you have a problem with, which has more to do with transliterating Arabic into English then it has to do with substance. Second, El Shaddai is a title that includes one of the characteristics of Yaweh, not His name, which is YHWH and is used over 6000 times in the OT vs. the 5 or 6 times the title (name) El Shaddai is used. Third, God communicates with man by using known languages so your appeal to western scholarship is nothing more than a tactic to obfuscate this discussion. What you have chosen to ignore is the Bible is a book of progressive revelation of the nature and character of God and His eternally predetermined plan for His creation. Now since the Arabic for Allah was used for the moon god worshipped by Arabs before Muhammad was born your appeal to symantics applies to Islam as well as Judaim/Christianity. Fourth, Jews considered God's name so holy they refused to say it, therefore the fact Jesus is not recorded as using Yaweh (which was never translated into Greek the language of the NT) ignores the historical and cultural background of the NT writings. And fifth, I thought this was going to be a different type of discussion with a Muslim not an attempt to obfuscate and avoid discussing Islam vs. Christianity.

If you converted to Islam based on symantics then your reason for converting is superficial as well as ludicrous.

[Brother Andrew]

First, the mess is in your mind not in the information found on the site you have a problem with, which has more to do with transliterating Arabic into English then it has to do with substance.

You are demonstrating the logical fallacy known as Ignoratio elenchi so I will offer my greatest apologies if I decline from answering what you consider to be the crux of the issue ay hand. Your point here proves nothing and is totally irrelevant to what is being discussed.

Second, El Shaddai is a title that includes one of the characteristics of Yaweh, not His name, which is YHWH and is used over 6000 times in the OT vs. the 5 or 6 times the title (name) El Shaddai is used.

Again you seem to be ignorant of the facts being presented before you. As I have stated “El” was not just used or viewed as a generic term for ‘god’, but it was a divine name in which the God of Israel revealed in reference to Himself. In the Hebrew of Genesis 17:1 we find that Yahweh reveals himself to Abraham as “El Shaddai.” In Genesis 35:10 Yahweh personally renames Jacob with the epithet “Yisraa’el,” I.e. Isra’el. The New Testament records that another name for Jesus was ‘Emanu’el’ (Matthew 1:23). Furthermore, Jesus supposedly called on “El” when he was suffering on the cross (Holy Bible, Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34).

My conclusion is based on the following evidence:

I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as Ēl Shaddāi, Exodus 6.2–3:


“The God of the Bible revealed the names by which he wishes to be addressed and worshipped (YHWH, Elohim, Adonai, Theos, Kurios, etc.) the Jews were not allowed to make up their own names for God but were limited to revealed names.”
- Robert A. Morey, Is Allah Just Another Name For God, pg. 2
- Wiining The Radical War Against Islam pg. 135.

“…El is the oldest known name for the deity; it was used in varying forms by almost all Semitic peoples as a proper name for God... The patriarchs who also worshipped El, recognized Him as the one true God identified with Elohim and Yahweh who revealed Himself in different ways…
- New Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 5, p. 236.

“…God revealed Himself to the patriarch’s not as Yahweh but as El Shaddai – an epithet (of unknown meaning ) …”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Vol. 10, page 303.

“Despite the prominence of name elsewhere among the Semitic peoples, the god Il (El) appears to play a comparatively minor role in the South Arabian inscriptions. Some modern scholars have sought to explain this circumstance by equating Il with the moon god, but this opinion has not prevailed… El, or in a longer form of the same name, Ilah. His veneration at a very early stage is attested by His appearance in theophoric names, that is, personal names of which one element is a divine name (the Biblical name Gabriel is and example). Among nomadic tribes in particular, a residual sense of El as being the god par excellence remained until the time of Islam.
- Encyclopedia Britannica Vol.1, pg. 1058, 15th Edition.

ELOHIM (Plural of Eloah) One of the Hebrew names for God, of frequent occurrence in the Bible…
-The Popular Encyclopaedia, Vol. V, pg. 146.

Elohim … A divine name for the God of Israel, the plural form here being purged of its polytheistic meaning, and used as a plural of majesty. There are over 2500 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, making it one of the most common divine names therein….
- The Cambridge Encyclopedia, pg. 373, third edition.

The oldest name for God used in the Semitic world consists of but two letters, the consonant ‘l’ proceeded by a smooth breathing, which was pronounced ‘Il’ in ancient Babylonia, ‘El’ in ancient Israel…
-Alfred Guillaume, Islam, p. 7
El, The supreme god of the pantheons of Phoenicia, Canaan, Syria , who forms a triad with his wife Asherat and his son Baal. He was a remote and all powerful god associated with the sky…El Elyon – In ancient Jerusalem, a name of El considered as the creator god.

- Guide to the Gods, Marjorie Leach, p. 31.
Yahweh or Jahweh, was regarded by the tribes of Israel as the creator of all things and the judge of the nations. He probably originated as a mountain god and was identified with El, the supreme deity of the Canaanite pantheon…

- The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Mythology, Arthur Cotterell and Rachel Storm, p. 329

El, Canaanite high god, El was identified with Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible.
- p.419, Sarah Iles Johnston, Religion of the Ancient World, Harvard University Press.

The god El, worshipped by Abraham and later identified with Yahweh, was the high god of the Canaanite pantheon….
- p.182, Sarah Iles Johnston, Religion of the Ancient World, Harvard University Press.

The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that El was indeed a proper name for the G-d of Israel, scholars here even admit it to be “the oldest divine name for G-d.”

Now, if you want to go ahead and argue and call every scholar here a liar, that’s up to you but I rather you be reasonable and take a close look at the evidence I have at my fingertips.

Let us move on to your next point

Third, God communicates with man by using known languages so your appeal to western scholarship is nothing more than a tactic to obfuscate this discussion. What you have chosen to ignore is the Bible is a book of progressive revelation of the nature and character of God and His eternally predetermined plan for His creation.

My use of western scholarship is certainly no attempt to obfuscate the discussion. What you have done here is a very clever form of the logical fallacy known as Ad-hominem.

By suggesting that I am attempting obfuscate this discussion you have thereby called me a liar and a deceiver in a very subtle fashion. Only due to the fact that your position in this discussion has been undermined by a Muslim who you would have thought to rave and rant about such issues.

To your surprise I am in deeper than you thought. Therefore you have resulted to the clever type of ad-hominems in order to save face.

However, despite the smokescreen tatics you have used, the issue still stands. Is El a generic term for G-d or is it a divine name? my evidence suggests yes, El is a divine name.

You have also committed the red herring fallacy by bringing up the Bible as a book of progressive revelation. However my quotation from the Bible restrains the topic from going elsewhere.

The subject is not how man came out of the darkness into a new light or G-ds nature and mistakes with Him repenting from sins and drinking wine as the Bible says. You have tried this before even entering this discussion about the moon god.

First you tried to take me to square five and knock me there. Talking about the authenticity of the Bible or the Qur’aan could have been discussed if I had followed your red herring, however you would have only jumped back to square one to claim that Allah is a moon god.

Therefore I have structured this to debate about Allah, then Muhammad and then the Qur’aan, but once again you want to speak about the Bible! And we haven’t even finished speaking about the topic here! Hoooooold your hoarses, we can discuss the Bible all in due course.

Now since the Arabic for Allah was used for the moon god worshipped by Arabs before Muhammad was born your appeal to symantics applies to Islam as well as Judaim/Christianity.

Firstly, I will repeat myself again. Al ilah is a generic term in which a person can apply to his own particular deity whilst Allah is a proper name for the true universal G-d! al ilah has been applied to false gods and even the Qur’aan refers to a false god as ilah. But none as Allah!
Allah is unique and I present the following evidence to prove this:

“It will be useful to point out here, however, that there is nothing unique about the word Allah, nor must it be regarded as coming originally from the pages of the Qur'an. On the contrary it is quite clearly derived from the Syriac word Alaha (meaning "God") in common use among Christians in pre-Islamic times (cf. the authorities cited by Jeffery in The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an, p.66)...” (Chapter 6 Textual History of The Qur’an & The Bible).

The site “Answering Islam” confirms this saying:

“It seems unlikely that the name Allah comes from al-ilaah "the God", but rather from the Aramaic/Syriac alaha, meaning 'God' or 'the God'. The final 'a' in the name alaha was originally the definite article 'the' and is regularly dropped when Syriac words and names are borrowed into Arabic. Middle-eastern Christianity used 'alah' and 'alaha' frequently, and it would have often been heard. But in the Aramaic/Syriac language there are two different 'a' vowels, one rather like the 'a' in English 'hat' and the other more like the vowel in 'ought'. In the case of 'alah', the first vowel was like 'hat' and the second like 'ought'. Arabic does not have a vowel like the one in 'ought', but it seems to have borrowed this vowel along with the word 'alah'. If you know Arabic, then you know that the second vowel in 'Allah' is unique; it occurs only in that one word in Arabic. Scholars believe that Jesus spoke mostly Aramaic, although sometimes he spoke Hebrew and he might have spoken Greek on some occasions. If Jesus spoke Aramaic, then he referred to God using basically the same word that is used in Arabic. (www.Answering-Islam.org)

Secondly Allah has never been used as the name for a moon god and you bear the burden of proof. Moreover, there are no ‘Arabic inscriptions found in any moon god temple which even suggest Allah is a moon god. You will have to go and dig up the past to show me “hard evidence” for your claim to be true. The science of archaeology plays and all important role her, since the evidence is none. Allah was never the moon god.

Fourth, Jews considered God's name so holy they refused to say it, therefore the fact Jesus is not recorded as using Yaweh (which was never translated into Greek the language of the NT)
ignores the historical and cultural background of the NT writings. And fifth, I thought this was going to be a different type of discussion with a Muslim not an attempt to obfuscate and avoid discussing Islam vs. Christianity.

The Jews refused to say what? So you are telling me that they used a “pagan” name in reference to G-d? when the Tanakh clearly states that they must not utter the name of any false god upon their tongue (Bible, Exodus 23:13) this only leaves one possible conclusion! That El was a proper divine name for the one G-d.

If you converted to Islam based on symantics then your reason for converting is superficial as well as ludicrous.

Ad-hominems do not guarantee you a defeat, in fact they only expose the weakness of your argument.

Back to you.

[Aineo]

The first word translated God in the Hebrew Bible is "elohiym" not "el". Therefore, if you are going to appeal to names used for God why start with Abraham and not Adam or Noah? You see Andrew "el" as well as "elohiym" are generic words or names of any god be it the one true God and the pantheon of false gods. Also I suggest that Abraham knew God's covenant name before Genesis 17:1.

Genesis 15:1-7
15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying,
"Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great."
2 And Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what wilt Thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "Since Thou hast given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." 4 Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." 5 And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." 6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. 7 And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it." NAS

The Hebrew word translated GOD in vs. 2 is YHWH as is the word translated LORD in vs 7. YHWH is God's name and it is this name that distinguishes the one true "el" from all the false "elohiym" that men invented.

Now that you have exposed your ignorance of linguistics and the cultural heritage of the Hebrews can we move on to something worth discussing versus symantics, especially since you seem to be ignorant of how languages developed over time.

[Brother Andrew]

If you consider the Islamic Allah to be of pagan origins then it is still the topic and i will not move from it until we have discussed every detail of this whole debate.

Please take note how you did not produce any archeaological evidence, inscriptions and so forth to proof that Allah evolved from a pre-Islamic pagan deity.

Also I want to ask you in regards to the numerous evidences documentating that El is a proper name, can you accept that El/Elohim were also proper names for the G-d of Israel or just generic terms that anybody can apply to any cat dog and mouse?

Once we have this point established then we can move on to the next part of this saga. Anyway i havent the time to fully reply, i am aware of the last post, and it does not dispute the fact that G-d revealed Himself as El.

[Aineo]

Okay, I will play your childish word games for a few posts.

ʾilāh is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic ’ēl and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʾ-l meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which in Arabic was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h not present in other Semitic languages. The word is spelled either إله with an optional diacritic alif to mark the ā (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif, إلاه .

The feminine is ʾilāhah إلاﻫﺔ "goddess", with the article, al-ʾilāhah اﻻﻻﻫﺔ according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to the great serpent in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or the new moon (see also Allat).

In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilah

You can also read this site since I cannot copy from it:
http://www.indiana.edu/~arabic/arabic_history.htm

And this one, which states the first Arabic script dates to about 328 A.D.
http://www.indiana.edu/~arabic/arabic_script.htm

In other words Arabic is the new kid on the block compared to Aramaic and Hebrew. Now, if I use the semantics you are trying to use the name Allah actually contains the name of the pagan moon god. Now, since Arabic as a written language did not gain much use until after Muhammad I am not going to take the time to research archaeological evidence per your request.

As to your continued contention that because Hebrew and Aramaic are Proto-Semitic languages the Jews worshipped a pagan god this is tantamount to saying that any Muslim who speaks English and uses the word "god" is actually worshipping a German pagan god because English is a Proto-German language or any Muslim who speaks Greek and uses theos is worshipping a pagan God. Is el and elohiym found in Scripture in the names or titles of God? Yes, however this does not indicate Yaweh is in fact a pagan god.

Also I am attacking your argument not you, therefore your charge that I am using an ab hominem is a misuse of that term. Your arguments are fallacious, superficial, ignore how languages develop, as well as the cultural and historical background of Moses and the other men who by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit penned our Bible. Abraham probably probably spoke Aramaic as did Jesus and his apostles. However, since Greek was the language used for both governmental and commercial communication within the Roman Empire and not all converts to Christianity understood Aramaic any argument you choose to use that ignores this fact is also fallacious and superficial.

[Brother Andrew]

Okay, I will play your childish word games for a few posts.

Ad-hominem all the way with you.

Whoever told me was fair and the person reccomended to talk with was wrong.

i will answer the rest later on in the week as its a work day commencing.

[Aineo]

In other words your whole thesis just backfired since if "el" is a pagan god so is Allah. Now, if you don't like my rebuttals bear in mind I told you I was not interested in another Muslim attempting to obfuscate truth and appealing to "western scholars" works against Islam in the same way you have appealed to "western scholars" to attack Judaism and Christianity.

Oh, and your appeal to terms used in western logic only confirms my opinion of your purpose for this thread. Judaism is not a western religion and since Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism the only way you will truly understand both is to think with more of an oriental mindset. The reason Catholicism and the Orthodox churches got so much wrong is they both used "western" philosophical concepts to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures.

As to any reply you choose to make I am finished with your attempt to show that "el" is actually the proper name for a pagan god. The fact is all pagan gods had a name like Baal or Dagon and "el" was a name/title like doctor. You see Andrew mythology was a passion of mine when I was in school. I wrote several papers on myths, including creation and flood myths that covered Egypt, Assyria, Canaan, indigenous North and South American tribes, and Asia. What you have appealed to is basic anthropology theories concerning the development of religions in the Middle East.

Now if and I emphasize the "if" you want to get down and dirty concerning Christianity vs. Islam you will discuss what each religion teaches. I can make a good case that Muhammad (or whoever compiled the Qur'an) plagiarized 2nd-4th century deuterocanonical and apocryphal Christian, Gnostic, and pagan Arab sources. In other words the Qur'an is a book of fiction.

[Brother Andrew]

peopleplease keep in mind that all because somebody has the last say, it does not mean they are logically correct. I have bigger fish to fry. Aineo didnt have the firepower i expected. sorry.

[Aineo]

Nice try, but no banana. The fact is your thesis backfired on you because you did not think it through.

[Brother Andrew]

No seriously Aineo, you should see how worked up you got over a simple little mistake that wasnt your fault, from there i knew this dialouge was not going to work with you. I have having a nice fruitful one with a professional at the moment. I will leave you to play with the chimpanzees, thats of course until your species can evolve some brain cells that actually produce some logic.

[Brother Andrew]

I never claimed that El was a pagan God, i was quoting western scholarship which says that and that very same western scholarship says that abaraham never exsisted and that very same wesetern scholarship Morey uses to boost hios moon god theory. Seriously, anybody that uses his ainus as a cave has some serious backdrafts on their thesis.

[Aineo]

Western scholarship also reveals that Allah is made up of the Arabic for "god" with the addition of an extra symbol, which indicates "The God". Your attempt to obfuscate this discussion is based on differences in Arabic dialects, not on scholarship. Now when you try to establish that El Shaddai indicates the God of Abraham was a pagan god you ignore that in Hebrew "el" is a generic term for "god". The same western scholars who write that El Shaddai is a proper name for God also agree with what I wrote. Although some western scholars have tried to prove that Abraham never existed, other western scholars disagree. Therefore, when you appeal to one scholar while ignoring others you expose your bias. When you demand I edit and delete posts that contain a "block" you don't like instead of explaining why the site I referenced is in your opinion is inaccurate, you demonstrate an arrogance that belies your desire to engage in a respectful discussion.

Now, when you decide you can carry on a respectful discussion on this board then feel free to re register with a new user name, since you last two posts are an egregious violation of our Forum Rules.