Dear Isla,

I appreciate your very nice post.  You have shown that you can be funny in print, and now you’ve shown that you can write a polite yet intelligent post, so now all you have to do is bring back your “funny” while remaining polite yet intelligent.  If you can manage to do this, I know that readers will search out your posts just to drink in what you have written.  This is a goal for any and all posters everywhere.  Allah’s blessings to you in this! And best wishes from me as well.  I will finally return to calling you by your pen name, IslamisPeace.  Great job!

IslamisPeace, you said, “Your attempts to prove that the Tanakh does not contradict the NT by mostly quoting the NT is irrelevant.  If you want to prove that the NT does not contradict the Tanakh, you need to demonstrate that the teachings of the NT match those of the Tanakh.  In order to that, you have to quote from the Tanakh, not the NT's understanding of the Tanakh. “

So the title of the string says that we are going to compare the OT (Tanakh) with the NT to see if they contradict.  We seem to be discussing mostly the OT.  Are you telling me now that we should not be quoting from the NT at all?  Because I barely quote anything from the NT in any of our discussions?  What are your standards for comparison, IslamisPeace?  Do we really have comparison if we do not quote from both testaments?

You wrote, “Thus far, your entire argument is one big non-sequitur.  (And your argument is one big confuso.)  By saying that the Tanakh "identified the three persons" does not prove that it supports the trinitarian doctrine.  The evidence I have shown proves conclusively that the trinitarian doctrine is not present in the Tanakh. 

I have told you that the Trinity is not a doctrine, but is a term that refers to what is already in the OT and NT.  It doesn’t refer to anything more than what is already in the Holy Bible.  When a book speaks of leaves rustling in the wind, apples dropping to the ground, and the color of bark in the sunlight, it would be incorrect to say that the existence of apple trees is not supported by the story because the story does not mention apple trees, yet this is the same reasoning you are using with the OT.  Jesus simply spoke of what was already present in the OT and did give some indication that this was all the same God, and the Christians who were taught by Him gave this a name, the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Trinity is not some foreign concept or teaching.  It is just a name for what is already and clearly in both the OT and NT.

Your whole argument, IslamisPeace, is about the meaning of the OT according to modern Jewish sources, while telling me to stop quoting the NT.  Then you turn around and make it clear that your Jewish sources don’t agree with one another.  I, on the other hand, am simply comparing NT with OT and reflecting on how that comparison has affected Christian belief.  Yes, I did use the Answer.Yahoo page to begin with, as you can see that the answer given by a poster on the page was so full of biblical references that one almost could not follow what he was trying to say.  He did a very fine job in answering a question, and without trying he showed very concisely how OT and NT do not contradict.  And this is how I used it:  I simply looked at it, took the biblical references contained in it, and ran with those biblical references.  I did not use the web page address as a source, as the Holy Bible did just fine as a source of its own accord.  I did not use my own interpretation of the Holy Bible, nor did I use the Yahoo author’s interpretation, but simply used biblical context to establish the meaning of the verses referenced.  You have had to bring in extra Jewish sources to prove that I was wrong in identifying the meaning of the biblical verses, though you admit your sources do not agree with each other (more on this next), which ruins the credibility of your sources.  About the credibility of your Jewish sources, you have even admitted two things:

First, in reference to Ruach Elohim and Ruach HaKodesh, you said that your sources said they are identical over a certain range and are both sometimes used as straight synonyms for Allah, yet these Jewish sources claim that the two terms are “conceptually distinct”.  Then here is what you said in your own words about your Jewish sources, “the Talmud is not exactly clear and sometimes seems to confuse the two.  One possible explanation for this is that these confusions were due to copyist errors, which is certainly possible.  Another possible explanation is that they are simply examples of contradictions within the Talmud.“  This doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the Talmud.

Second, you have said regarding the Shekhinah’s being created, “I gave the Talmud reference a few weeks ago.  I also referred to Amos 4:13 which is also used by the Talmud to show that the spirit of God was created.  Amos 4:13 says:  “He who forms the mountains,  who creates the wind,  and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD God Almighty is his name.”  In this verse of Amos 4, the wind is mentioned, not the Breath of Allah, nor His Spirit, nor His mind.  Thus, all this verse says is that the wind is created.  Allah’s Breath, Spirit, and Mind are not included in the verse.  So it is incorrect to say that Allah’s Breath, Spirit, and Mind are created.  So this verse is evidence that the wind is created, but not that the Shekhinah is created.  In support of what I am saying, you have said and I quote, “They (the Jewish sources) don't agree on the matter of whether the Shekinah is created.”  This also does not bode well for the credibility of the Talmud.

Then about your extra Jewish sources, you also have admitted that they do not get correct their assumptions about what Christianity teaches.  Here is what I wrote, followed by your honest response:  “Your Jewish sources keep referring to the Holy Trinity as three separate gods, but the Holy Trinity is not three separate gods, so your sources are arguing against a concept of Allah that Christians would argue against as well.”  Your honest response was, “The website "Turn to Torah" did, which I admit is wrong.”  So this does not bode well for the credibility of your extra-Jewish sources, either.

So you indirectly admit that your Jewish sources are not totally reliable in this discussion.  The greatest and most reliabile of the Jewish sources is the OT, or Tanakh.  That is what I mostly have been pulling from.  But there is some value to what you have presented, as we shall see below.

So, here is the yahoo.com page I used to begin responding to this thread in print nice and big and blue as you seem to need it to be:  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071224154058AA8IJKm

I have to commend you, IslamisPeace, for finally bringing official Catholic teaching from official Catholic sources into this discussion.  As you are trying to prove the teaching of the Holy Trinity wrong, it helps to actually define it first, so I am glad that it is now here for all to see.  The website “Turn to Torah” has been referring to the Holy Trinity as “separate gods or persons.”  I took issue with this definition and referred to the Holy Trinity as being three separate aspects of the same one Allah.  You were wise to see that I was not using the official Catholic definition.  You have paraphrased the Holy Trinity in your own words from the Catholic Encyclopedia, mainly in reference to the Holy Spirit.  Before I quote you, I’d like to say that I took a risk and used the term “aspects” from one of your Jewish sources to refer to the three members of the Holy Trinity, choosing in this way to not accept the “Turn to Torah” website’s use of the word “person.”  I did this because I did not want to get into the issue of the meaning of the word, “person.”  But with the very nicely put paraphrasing that you have given below, I am pleased to now get into the issue of the meaning of the word “person.”  I’ll do this first, which will put your paraphrasing more into perspective with what the OT, Talmud, and Jewish sources have been saying about the Holy Spirit and how it is practically the same as what the Catholic Church has always said.

First, the word “person” originally comes from an Etruscan word phersu (Online Etymology Dictionary), which means “mask.”  When the Greeks colonized southern Italy in 900 BC, they borrowed the word and integrated it into Greek as, “persephone” (in Greek, masks tended to increase the volume of the actor’s voice so the audience could here better, and hence the addition of the term, “-phone” to the word “phersu-“).  The Italian dialect of Greek, which came to be called Latin, used the term in the following form, “persone,” which continued to refer to masks in drama, and also characters in the drama, until the Roman Senate began using the term for legal purposes to refer to both human and business entities.  By the 13^th century in France, the term personne had come to mean, “human being.”  Now, the meaning of the word is so varied and depends on the context of its usage that it may lead to the moral and legal ripping apart of the United States of America as a nation.  One must be careful in using the term, whether in a religious context, sociological, psychological, legal, or philosophical context.  Just check any English dictionary for the word and you will see how many meanings there are.

The word was used by the Catholic Church officially for the first time to refer to the Holy Trinity back in the 3^rd or 4^th century, so that is the definition I will use.  In Christian theology, it refers to a mask.   This is probably part of the reason why Muhammad and Judaism can’t seem to get it correct that the Christian faith does not recognize the Holy Trinity as three connected gods, but rather as one God.  That is also why I chose to refer to the “Persons” of the Holy Trinity in our discussion as aspects of the same God.  Do you understand now, my friend, IslamisPeace?  Maybe not.  Let’s look at what you wrote (I’ll explain in green and in parenthesis throughout):

• The Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.  (If we say that a person is like a mask per 3^rd and 4^th century definition, than it would be easy to say that the Holy Ghost is but the same Allah, appearing in a form other than himself, as if Allah were wearing a mask to hide his appearance from us. After all, doesn’t the OT say that none shall see the face of God and live, yet there are incidences of people such as Moses speaking to Allah “face to face?”  “Face-to-face” is a term meaning that there was nobody between Allah and Moses when they spoke, so then in order for Moses to live through the experience, Allah would have to wear a mask to hide his face, and hence, the old Latin term of “person.”) 
• Though really distinct, as a Person, (the face is often jokingly called one’s “mask,” so Christians are actually here saying that Allah has a mask of the Son(Jesus), a different mask of the Holy Spirit, and a third mask which is his own face.) from the Father and the Son, He is consubstantial with Them; being God like Them, He possesses with Them one and the same Divine Essence or Nature. (this one and the same Divine Essence or Nature is the Church’s way of referring to what Jesus said in John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but the will of Him who sent me.”  Thus the Essence, Nature, or “Will” of Jesus is the same as that of Allah, and it is only the mask, or “Person” appearing before us that is different or separate.)
• He proceeds, not by way of generation, but by way of spiration, from the Father and the Son together, as from a single principle" [2].

So, the website's use of the word "person" is accurate.  (this was the issue.  The website used the word “person” as it used the word “god” to mean separate entities or begings.  But you can see by your paraphrase of the Catholic Encyclopedia above that the Catholic Church does not recognize the Holy Spirit, or Jesus the Son, or Allah the Father as separate entities, but rather as one and the same entity appearing (your Jewish sources say “appearance”) as separate persons or masks.  Your paraphrase continues:)  But more importantly, the Catholic Encyclopedia's explanation of the trinity serves as more evidence that the NT is in opposition with what the Tanakh states since:

1.  The Holy Spirit is not the Shekinah.
2.  The Holy Spirit is created.
3.  The Shekinah is simply another name for God and refers to His "presence" and not to a distinct "person" which proceeds "by way of spiration..." 

So let’s discuss your three point conclusion from your paraphrase above.  I’d like to address the 2^nd point first.  You say that the Holy Spirit is created.  First of all, you never showed where the OT said word for word that the Shekinah “is created.”  You simply said that its meaning included the word, “wind,” and that the wind was created.  But Shekinah means so much more than “wind.”  Even in point 3, you say that Shekinah is another name for Allah and refers to His “presence.”  “Presence” is not an object to be created.  Rather, it is a condition.  So if Allah is present in your house right now, IslamisPeace, can you say that Allah’s presence is an object that was “created” for you?  It just does not make any sense to say that Allah’s presence is a created thing.  So, no, the OT does not say that the Shekinah is created.  You haven’t shown that it did, nor where it did, nor does it make any sense to say that it was created.  Rather, you have shown a bunch of Jewish sources that don’t agree with one another where only some claim the Shekinah was created, and others disagree.   Let’s take the first half of one of your summary statements, IslamisPeace, “They (the Jewish sources) don't agree on the matter of whether the Shekinah is created or not but they unanimously agree that it (the Holy Spirit) is different from the Shekinah.”  Your second point against the Catholic understanding of the Holy Spirit is null and void due to disagreement of your sources. 

Now Let’s look at your first point, that the Holy Spirit is not the Shekinah.  You are saying that the Ruach Elohim and the Ruach HaKodesh are the Holy Spirit and not the Shekinah in Jewish belief.  So let us consider Jewish belief per the OT where we find the Shekinah. and I’ll produce the Holy Spirit as Christians know Him from the NT, then compare Him to the Jewish understanding of the Shekinah.  Then we will see if, as you have said above, “...the NT is in opposition with... the Tanakh...”  If we look in the NT in the following verses (Luke 1:15, Luke 1:41, Luke 1:67, Acts 2:4, Acts 2:48, Acts 4:31, Acts 9:17, Acts 13:9, and Acts 13:52), we see that the believers who do great work for Allah are able to do so because they are “filled with the Holy Spirit.”  In other words, they are filled with the “presence” of Allah, and isn’t the Shekinah simply the “presence” of Allah, as you have shown that the Jews believe?   Let’s see... you have used the Encyclopedia Judaica to define the shekhinah:  Shekhinah (Heb. שְׁכִינָה; lit. “dwelling,” “resting”) “Divine Presence”.  In terms of the Shekhinah, the OT and NT does not contradict.

For your third point, you say first that Shekhinah is simply another name for God and refers to His "presence".   This, my friend, IslamisPeace, is what I have been saying throughout.  It is what the Catholic Church has always taught since the beginning.  As this is a Jewish description from the OT, then it only makes sense that on all accounts you are right about the OT and Jewish belief, but are wrong about the Catholic Church and the NT by claiming they are in disagreement with the OT.  They are in full agreement, and nearly so with Jews it seems (accept that Jews claim they are not, though their theology seems to be in full agreement).

One more point about the Shekhinah.  You said that, “...the Shekinah was associated with light...”  One event in the NT where the Holy Spirit appears as light is in Acts 2:3, “3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”  Fire at the time of Jesus was the only way to get light in the dark of night, so it is only correct, then, that verse 4 of that chapter names the Holy Spirit, saying that the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit.  By all indications, it seems that the Shekhinah is what the NT refers to when it speaks of the Holy Spirit.  So though you say that the Shekhinah is not the Holy Spirit of the Old Testament (Ruach Elohim, Ruach Hakodesh), it is definately the Holy Spirit of the NT.  I have to say that in terms of the Shekhinah and the NT, there is no (what are your exact words?) opposition with what the Tanakh states.

So what about the Holy Spirit and Ruach Elohim/Ruach HaKodesh.  You said that Jews define the term Ruach as meaning either wind, spirit, breath, or mind.  You also said that Jews believe that, “...they (Ruach Elohim/Ruach HaKodesh) are identical over a certain range and are both sometimes used as straight synonyms for God.”  Then you clarify your statement by saying, “It also states that the two are "conceptually distinct".  (commentary on the Talmud)”   You had said that Elohim is the royal “we” name for God, and HaKodesh means “of God” and refers to Allah’s Divine Wisdom.  Therefore we can be sure that if the terms Elohim or HaKodesh accompany the term Ruach, that the meaning of Ruach is not “wind,” but rather one of the other three meanings:  spirit, breath, or mind, and that these are referenced to Allah himself.  It is no wonder that these terms are often used as synonyms for Allah Himself.  I pointed out that your sources had mentioned that Jews believe that the Holy Spirit (referenced by these two terms) is Allah interacting with humanity.  You responded with, “Yes, it may agree with the Christian belief that the Holy Spirit is used as a way to interact with humanity.”  So everything here, though choppy, is exactly what Christians believe about the Holy Spirit, IslamisPeace.  How can one say that the Catholic concept of the Holy Spirit is not the same.  The Jews believe that the Holy Spirit is Allah interacting with Humanity through His Spirit, and this is what Catholics believe.  Jews say that this is not the same for them, but when they describe the details of their beliefs, it matches Catholic theology exactly. 

One more thing about Ruach Elohim/Ruach HaKodesh – you said, “the Holy Spirit was associated with wind.”  So Ruach Elohim/Ruach HaKodesh is the Holy Spirit associated with the wind, and Shekinah is associated with light.  The passage of Acts 2:1-5 in the NT tell us that the Holy Spirit appeared as a wind and a light (flame).  Thus, Christians recognize the Holy Spirit to be the transforming presence (Shekhinah) and wisdom (Ruach HaKodesh/Elohim) of Allah.  The message here is that the NT and the OT fit together like a hand in a glove, IslamisPeace.  Using your own words and the sources you provided to show how they fit pretty much raps up the issue brought up in the first few posts of this string.  The NT does not contradict the OT.

So, you have used multiple external sources that do not agree with one another in explaining the meaning of the OT, and have shown that these sources actually contradict one another.  Where they agree, they also agree with Christian sources on the meaning of the OT.  But then the external Jewish sources you use all unanimously “clarify” that they don’t agree with Christianity just in case you might see that they do.  Then you, IslamisPeace, turn around and say that even you don’t accept these Jewish sources as authorities on the subject because they are not Muslim sources.  Don’t you see the futility in your arguments, my friend?  I do.  I have just taken to patiently reminding you of the simple truth in this matter which you have brought up, that the NT simply does refer to what is in the OT, and that the Christian faith refers to what is in each testament by the term, Holy Trinity.  It should be this simple.  It is for me, but why not for you, my dear?

About my accusations that you put your own words into the quotes, if you are telling the truth now, I must say that you certainly did not make any effort to print the quotes so that they appeared as evidence rather than direct argument with my assertions to you.  You also did not explain that numbers in parenthesis are actually links and not numbered “points”.  I’ve never seen such a link in my life. I don’t apologize for challenging your quotes, or even for challenging you for that matter.  But I will admit that I was mistaken in what I perceived to be the truth, which was that you were writing your own words into the quotes and calling them “quotes”.  I see now that this was not the case, and I thank you for clearing this up.

Hey, as always, Allah’s blessings, my friend,

Jack Catholic