On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 23:37:27 -0600, Susan Maneck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "I > think that it should be possible for us to come up with a reasonable > definition of "prophet" such that a good number of Christians will > allow for future prophets after Jesus but the typical Muslim will not > allow for future prophets after Muhammad." > Dear Gilberto, > Obviously if one wanted to come up with such a conclusion as was prepared to > ignore the fact that Paul and Muslims are talking about very different > things when the refer to prophets one could come to that conclusion.
No. You aren't understanding what I'm saying. I'm conceding that when the English New Testament says "prophet" and when English translations of the Quran say "prophet" that different concepts are intended. What I'm saying is that it is possible to come up with a third (perhaps even one of the first two) concept of "prophet. And when we apply it to both belief systems, you get the above result. > While > there might well be 'prophets' within the church they could not add anything > to scripture. You are really being silly here. The New Testament church created the scripture after Jesus. > But when a Muslim talks about prophets they usually mean one > who brings a Book. There are about 25 prophets mentioned in the Quran and the only revelations mentioned are the Torah, Zabur, Injil, Quran, and the suhuf of Ibrahim and Musa. Traditionally there were about 124,000 prophets and I've heard the claim that there were a couple hundred revelations altogether. Most prophets didn't come with their own book. Christianity did not allow for that. The last passage of > the Book of Revelation, however misinterpreted, was understood by most > Christians to mean that nothing else could be added to scripture. I think "added to scripture" is a kind of red herring. Whether there is new revelation or not the Bible is a relatively fixed book. Neither Bahais or Muslims change the Bible to add more stuff to it. The New revelations are seperate. > > "Not everyone was a prophet. Prophet is still a meaningful category." > > Yes, it was a particular office within the church. But it has no bearing on > the station of prophethood in Islam which goes by that name. > I never said that Christians believe that figures satisfying the Islamic definitions of prophet would continue to appear. > Mark: > "> Regardless of whether one equates Paul's view of a prophet with > Muhammad's, to Paul, prophecy takes place in the context of the Gospel of > Christ. Paul's christocentrism was unaffected. > > Gilberto: > And what you are calling ethnocentrism I would probably call > exclusivism (not finality)" > > He said Christocentric, not ethnocentric. That's a very different thing. Yes, having 4 or 5 different conversations with people on the same subject and nearly 3 in the morning sometimes put strains on my powers of concentration. Luckily you are smart enough to know what I had in mind. Mark: Unlike the qur'anic concept of prophecy, under Paul's system, no further "book" and law was revealed. IMO, that is the main difference. Gilberto: > "That would be alot more convincing if Paul didn't write more of the > Bible than any other person, including Jesus." > Susan: > That is really irrelevant to the question of whether or not Christianity > makes the same claims to exclusivity and finality as does Islam. Gilberto: Mark claimed that the kind of "prophets" permitted in a Christian context had no book. According to Christianity, the New Testament was inspired scripture and it was written after Jesus. Peace Gilberto "My people are hydroponic" __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:archive@mail-archive.com To unsubscribe, send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, use subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu Web - http://list.jccc.edu/read/?forum=bahai-st News - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Public - http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu
