http://www.ghmag.net/index.php?p=1_111_Reformed-Baptist-1689

Like to bring to the attention of all the people in the discussion about this very authoritative study by Toshihiko Izutsu available online.

http://www.bible.ca/islam/library/islam-quotes-izutsu.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QYQ/is_2_5/ai_n21119033/?tag=content;col1

HP

Yes, just press the ‘Delete’ button. As you’ve said, it’s the proper response to bullshits.

I moderate the comments posted on my blog too. I am not as gracious as you. I don’t apologize whenever I delete remarks of which I find contribute nothing to the post they commented. Time is too precious to spent on bullshits.

Having that said, I am very excited to see yours and Tien Fock’s responses. Give the impression that there are still vocal and intelligible voices to be heard in our context.

Appreciate your work here.

Comment from kam weng
posted at 1330 hr 26 Nov 2009
This guy is up to mischief again in putting up a text in Greek (for whatever reasons). As it stands it is useless to all readers. Maybe he wants to give an exaggerated and wrong impression about his ability.

His comment has absolutely no relevance to the post. When translated it merely talks about Islam as God’s revelation to the prophets, complete way of life. Irony is that it ends with claim of peace, forgiveness non violence etc – I refuse to give the exact translation, but give only enough to indicate how irrelevant the comment is.

His provocation is certainly not peaceable and is violence against other people’s blog. It does not reflect well on his faith if he is supposed to be one its more educated representatives.

One more such comment from this guy and I will henceforth delete all his comments without further explanation and without apology.

Let’s not get into foolish arguments about words, but let us in love correct and admonish those who disagree with us.

It is not our place to judge, but to state our beliefs clearly and without reservation. If someone else chooses to believe differently to us, then it is their God given right to do so.

I affirm that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, according to His word, but not just merely by His written Word, but indeed the Word of Life that flows from His throne of Glory into my life.

Hold on to the faith that God has indeed sent Jesus His one and only begotten Son to die on a cross for our immortal souls. It is indeed only God who is able to forgive our sins.

We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Let us resolve to pray for our friend that God Himself will reveal the Truth to Him.

Is it not the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sins, and our need for salvation?

So let us be wise and not argue like foolish people would, but in gentleness and kindness rebuke and correct.

No one can deny you your beliefs, regardless of who you are, or what you choose to believe in.

Let us rather pray for the outpouring of the Spirit of God on all flesh as He has promised in His Holy Word. So that all men may come to know Him in the power of His resurrection!

In all things let us esteem Love, for love is of God and everyone who knows it is born of God and knows God. Let us love our brother who is arguing with us, and not condemn him. Did not even Jesus when He was being crucified cry out to God,” Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We all were once ignorant of the truth, but God by His Grace still loved us enough to die not only for us, but for the sins of the entire world.

Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father.

But it is an obvious error to claim that this designation cannot refer to Jesus. One who does not know enough about the New Testament may be misled by 1:4, which distinguishes “the one who is and who was and who is to come” from Jesus Christ. But there is no excuse if one would just read through the whole first chapter of Revelation. For in 1:8, the Lord God, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” In 1:18, the one who again says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” also says, “I died, and behold I am alive forever more.” Who else could this be, especially in the context of a book that begins with, “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1)? Whether this phrase means the revelation by Jesus Christ or the revelation about Jesus Christ makes no difference. There is no doubt, except in the minds of those who for whatever reason refuse to see the truth, that Jesus here claims to be God.

Yes, scholars who translate ego eimi in John 8:58 as “I Am” and understand that Jesus here claims to be God are biased. No one interprets a text like this with a blank (unbiased) mind. The question is whether he is biased towards the truth or not. Besides sound hermeneutical principles, our interpretation of ego eimi must be influenced (or biased) by the immediate and larger contexts.

In the immediate context, when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, ego eimi,” the Jews took up stones to stone (kill) him. Why did they respond this way? In John 5:18 we are told that the Jews wanted to kill Jesus because he not only broke the sabbath but “also called God his Father, making himself equal with God”. The Jews knew Jesus claimed to be God and so wanted to stone him for blaspheme. Whether John 8:58 is rendered, “Before Abraham was, I have been/was/am,” Jesus is claiming to have existed before Abraham was born. What could that mean, especially given the hostile response?

People today who read the Gospels and deny that Jesus claimed to be God think they understand what Jesus said about himself better than the Jews who heard him in the flesh. How ridiculous this is, given the linguistic and cultural distance we face today. Relatively speaking, it makes better sense to deny the reliability of the Gospels.

In the larger context, we have just seen that in Revelation, Jesus not only claimed to be God but also the one “who is and who was and who is to come,” or, simply, “I am who He is/was/is to come”. How then could any honest scholar, whether he personally believes that Jesus is God or not, deny that in John 8:58 Jesus was claiming to be God? Linking this verse (and Rev 1:4, 8; etc.) to Exod 3:14 is most natural.

It is obvious to me that the real contention here is whether, according to the New Testament, Jesus claimed to be God. To anyone not already biased against this claim, it is unmistakable, without even considering John 8:58. So it does not matter whether the ego eimi in John 8:58 echoes the ego eimi or ho on of Exod 3:14 (LXX), though I see no reason to discredit the link. To persist in denying the link is barking up the wrong tree.

I am a just fellow guest who has just dropped by for a visit. I do not intend to get into a debate (no energy for that). So this will be my only post here. Also, I think Kam Weng wants the case closed.

Yes! my English is too bad, but if I don’t use it as what I’m doing now it will becoming more worst, I’m learning. And About Koine Greek, (not just Greek as splim said), I praise God, my teacher is not discourage me from learning the elementary of this koine eventhough my English need to be brush up (as says Splim), we are based on ‘Learn New Testament Greek (3rd Edition),’ by John H. Dobson. The book is specially design for the student like me – English as a second language. It is quite good book as you start to read and do excercise on it you feel like you don’t want to stop it, try it splim………and feel it!

Ok lets get back to the business…….

Since several times Dr. Kam Weng try to escape from answering the verses which ‘EGO EIMI’ is using by somebody else not only Jesus is indirectly proved that the word ‘EGO EIMI’ has nothing to do with Jesus claiming to be God, it is a free word using by every Tom, Dick and Harry. So here I’ll give in Koine that David himself was using it while communicates with God, read from the 1st of Chronicles, chapter 21, verse17:

“And David said unto God, [Is it] not I [that] commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but [as for] these sheep, what have they done? let…..”

In Koine the word “..I it is that have sinned..” is “Kai ego eimi ho hamarton”

Verse Exodus 4:10, where Moses said to God “…O my Lord, I am not eloquent…”, again “I am” here is using “ego eimi”, did Moses was also claimed to be God?….give me a break!.

Pls read also 2 Samuel 7:18, again “ego eimi” is using by King David. So once again I stress here that…”EGO EIMI” is a free word using by every Tom, Dick and Harry AND by using that you are not commiting blasphemy as what David and Moses did (they are also using this word “ego eimi”). Your comment about Isaiah, yes Almighty God also using “ego eimi” for himself and He not restricted the mention word only for Himself, otherwise pls. give the biblical proofs for that!

Dr. Kam weng said, “The actual phrase of Exod 3: 14 is ego eimi ho on – The two phrases are juxtapoxed and not simply contrasted.”

Ego eimi translated to Hebrew is “ani hu” or “I am he” and this “ego eimi” not only used by Jesus (John 8:58) in NT but also by Peter in Acts 10:21. But in Exodus 3:14 is using “ego eimi Ho On” instead of only “ego eimi”. As far as I’m concern “Ego Eimi Ho On” means not only “I Am” but “I Am The Being” which not been used by Jesus in John 5:58.

This “Ho On”n appears five times in the book of Revalation (Revelation 1:4, 8; 4:8; 11:17; 16:5). Significantly, in each instance, it is used as a title or designation applied to god, not Jesus. So Dr. where Jesus ever used the word “Ego eimi Ho On” or “Ho On” so that he is qualified to be god?

Learned Christians not always translated John 5:58 as what you want it to be translated (biasly), there are many proofs shown that John 5:58 been translated differently not using this “I Am”, this indirectly says that there is no linking between John 5:58 and Exodus 3:14, read a parts of them:

“Before Abraham was, I have been“……….Syriac Edition: A Translated of Four Gospels From the Syriac of the Sinaitic Palimpset, by Agnes Amith Lewis, London 1894.

“Before ever Abraham came to be, I was“….Curetonian Syriac Edition: The Curetonian Version of Four Gospels, by F. Crawford Burkitt, Vol. 1, Cambridge, England, 1904.

and the last one….

“Before Abraham was born, I was“….Ethiopic Edition: Novum Testamentum Aethiopic (The NT in Ethiopic), by Thomas Pell Platt, revised by F. Praetorius, Leipzig, 1899.

So I still do not see any linking in John 5:58 and Exodus 3:14….not only you but also some of your learned men….

Please brush up your English first before you even try to understand Greek. Trust me. English is much more simpler than Greek. Don’t try to run before you know how to crawl.

(Friendly advice from a part-time theological student who is struggling with elementary Greek)

It is not surprising that there are occurrences of ego eimi in a few places that do not directly refer echo Exod 3:14. Greek, with its various grammatical declensions gives much more freedom in composition than English in word order and the choice of word order reflects the writer’s emphasis among various connotations of a word, again depending on the context. After all, in Greek, unlike English one may use individually ego, eimi and ego eimi depending on emphasis. Hence I use the phrase self-designation and emphatic pronoun with ego eimi referrence to Exo 3:14.

More importantly, one should distinguish between ego eimi used with a predicate and ego eimi used without the predicate as in John 8:58 (what is called an absolute in Greek grammar). If you can’t see the difference here, there is no point for me to go further with you on matters of handling Greek grammar

So far you recurrent mistakes in using these phrases suggest that you may not have awareness of these distinctions and I really don’t care to take time to explain to you the various grammatical nuances of Greek.
It is easy for you to just throw a verse here or there without offering your own constructive grammatical explanation of the linguistic phenomenon cited -without which I have no obligation to respond to your distractions. I got better ways to occupy my time.

Words are never used in abstractions. They are linguistic codes. Anyone who uses ego eimi (without a predicate) should be sensitive the grammatical history of this word. Be rest assured, for Christians over the last 2000 years, this absolute usage of ego eimi points to Jesus’ words in John 8:58.

I give an example how words are always coded. Fuhrer is a simple word that means leader or guide for every Tom, Dick and Harry. But after Hitler, it will be insensitive (to put it very mildly) for someone to raise his hand and then shout I am Fuhrer to a European crowd.

You decide how you want to conduct your self as an uninvited guest. I have better thing to do.

One last comment, simply to contrast ego eimi and ho on without saying much else also says a lot about your fragmentary grasp of Greek grammar. The actual phrase of Exod 3: 14 is ego eimi ho on – The two phrases are juxtapoxed and not simply contrasted.
For those interested in more nuanced analysis of ego eimi, look up Isa 43:25 – ego eimi ego eimi exaleiphoon tas anomias.

It is said, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. How true in matters of Greek grammar, we end up more likely to misread the finer grammatical nuances rather than read them correctly.

I rest my case