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Speaking In Tongues

Speaking in Tongues
By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓
Speaking in tongues (aka glossolalia) is in fact a biblical spiritual gift. But it refers to speaking a known human language. It is mentioned in several places, including Acts 2.1-11, 1 Corinthians 13, and 14. It is said to be a gift from God. But not every believer receives this gift. Therefore, speaking in tongues is not a necessary manifestation of salvation. Paul says that there are various gifts distributed by one and the same spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12.8-11, Paul says:
To one is given through the Spirit the
utterance of wisdom, and to another the
utterance of knowledge according to the
same Spirit, to another faith by the same
Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one
Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to
another prophecy, to another the
discernment of spirits, to another various
kinds of tongues, to another the
interpretation of tongues. All these are
activated by one and the same Spirit, who
allots to each one individually just as the
Spirit chooses.
However, since everything in the spiritual life can be mimicked, so can this gift. In the spiritual life, there are authentic gifts of grace, but there are also false imitations. Some thinkers maintain that the *division* between authentic and inauthentic epistemic concepts doesn’t really exist. The assumption is that people create a false dichotomy out of whole cloth, which is labeled as the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. In other words, the appeal to purity or truth constitutes an informal fallacy in which one attempts to defend their generalization from a falsifying exception by precluding the said exception inappropriately. But very often the so-called “no true Scotsman fallacy” is not a fallacy at all. That’s because it wrongly presupposes that rhetorical concepts such as “true,” “real,” “authentic,” “genuine,” and “pure” are nonsubstantive platitudes that don’t exist. However, this form of Relativism is completely bogus and misinformed!
Although the “no true Scotsman fallacy” can be applied in some measure to expose fallacious argumentation, to indiscriminately repudiate truth-functional propositional logic is utterly erroneous. That’s because such a duality between the pure and the impure——between the true and the false, between the genuine and the bogus——does in fact exist in real life! This is *not* fallacious reasoning. For example, there are very expensive handbags that sell for millions of dollars. The Mouawad 1001 Nights Diamond Purse is selling at $3.8 million. The Hermes Kelly Rose Gold handbag is selling at $2 Million; the Chanel “Diamond Forever” Handbag at $261,000, and so on. But there are obvious copies and imitations, what we informally call “knockoff” merchandise. There are handbags made to look like these expensive ones that are of poor quality and that try to trick the buyer into thinking that they are authentic. Scammers with fraudulent merchandise abound in these types of businesses. These types of scams are happening everywhere at an alarming rate, whether we’re talking about the diamond industry, the home appliance industry, the technology industry, or the Clothing industry. So you can see that a real dichotomy between authentic and false versions does exist!
This carries over into the spiritual life as well. For instance, we have authentic versus inauthentic “salvation.” There are those who are radically changed and transformed by the spirit during a very painful experience called “the dark night of the soul,” and then there are those who go to a crusade and, without experiencing any suffering whatsoever, simply make a one-minute “pledge of allegiance” to Christ and mistake that for “rebirth” and “regeneration.” In the same way, there are those who receive the gift of tongues, but there are also those who exhibit false charismatic gifts without having received these gifts from God. You can find many of these false teachers in the pentecostal and charismatic movements, people like Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, and Kenneth Copeland!
There are many YouTubers that have exposed these false spiritual imitations. However, they don’t usually do a good job of explaining the essential differences between the true and the false versions, and so they give off the wrong impression that almost all of them are fake. Some of these critics are “cessationists” who believe that the gifts of the spirit ceased during the apostolic age. But for those of us who have experienced the gifts of the spirit in a powerful way (i.e. “continuationists”), we know that this approach is dead wrong because it limits God in terms of what he can and cannot do. God is much bigger than that. God is neither dead nor inactive!
There’s also a further hermeneutical consideration, namely, how to interpret the biblical text when it refers to people speaking with new tongues. Is it always meant to be taken literally, or can speaking with new tongues be taken metaphorically? In some cases, it may not be a literal interpretation at all. Why? Well, take the concept of rebirth, for example. Rebirth means a new you: a new way of seeing, a new way of talking, a new way of being. A reborn person has a new language, new thoughts, new words. He doesn’t speak the way he used to. He speaks in a new language. Thus, speaking with new tongues can, in some rare instances, be taken metaphorically or symbolically. In Mark 16.17, Jesus says:
And these signs will accompany those who
believe: In my name they will drive out
demons; they will speak in new tongues.
In the final analysis, although speaking with new tongues is mentioned several times in the Bible as a gift of the Holy Spirit, we should, nevertheless, be cautious about people who advertise that they speak in new tongues, especially sensational Bible teachers who often preach on tithing and donations. Most of these claims are false, especially those made by people like pastor Bill Johnson——who heads up Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry——who will supposedly “equip you to walk in the gifts of the Spirit.” Nonetheless, there are authentic gifts of tongues that do in fact exist!
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More Posts from Eli-kittim

The Quran: A Critical Review
By Bible Researcher & Author Eli Kittim 🎓
Islamic Origins
Aside from the fact that the Quran was initially built on bloodshed and violence——in which the founder of Islam, Muhammad, participated in many military battles to convert neighbouring peoples and tribes——there are many other problem areas with the history of Islam as well. Many Jews were slaughtered who would not convert, as well as many other innocent people. The motto is the same now as it was then: “convert or be killed by the sword.” The question is, would the pure and holy God of Heaven and earth condone, or even encourage, such behavior? It’s true that during the Middle Ages the Catholic Church did the same. However, the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, did not engage in any military battles or in any terrorist attacks to convert people to Christianity by force. Muhammad did! One began with peace; the other with war. That’s the main difference.
Bloodshed and violence also marked the beginning of the Islamic period following the death of Muhammad. Rival Muslim leaders were vying for control of the Caliphate. Many killed their rivals or were themselves assassinated. Even Ali (aka ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib)——a cousin, son-in-law, and companion of Muhammad——was himself assassinated in 661 AD. That’s when the Shia–Sunni split began. Since then, there have been so many different splintering sects (denominations) and myriads of different schools and branches of Islamic theology that it is downright misleading to claim that there’s only one interpretation of the Quran:
Islamic schools and branches have
different understandings of Islam. There are
many different sects or denominations,
schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and
schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah
(creed). Within Islamic groups themselves
there may be differences, such as different
orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within
Sunnī Islam different schools of theology
(Aṯharī, Ashʿarī, Māturīdī) and jurisprudence
(Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī). Groups in
Islam may be numerous (the largest
branches are Shīʿas and Sunnīs), or
relatively small in size (Ibadis, Zaydīs,
Ismāʿīlīs). Differences between the groups
may not be well known to Muslims outside
of scholarly circles, or may have induced
enough passion to have resulted in political
and religious violence (Barelvi, Deobandi,
Salafism, Wahhabism). There are informal
movements driven by ideas (such as Islamic
modernism and Islamism) as well as
organized groups with a governing body
(Ahmadiyya, Ismāʿīlism, Nation of Islam).
Some of the Islamic sects and groups
regard certain others as deviant or not truly
Muslim (Ahmadiyya, Alawites, Quranists).
Some Islamic sects and groups date back
to the early history of Islam between the 7th
and 9th centuries CE (Kharijites, Sunnīs,
Shīʿas), whereas others have arisen much
more recently (Islamic neo-traditionalism,
liberalism and progressivism, Islamic
modernism, Salafism and Wahhabism) or
even in the 20th century (Nation of Islam).
Still others were influential in their time but
are not longer in existence (non-Ibadi
Kharijites, Muʿtazila, Murji'ah).
—- Wikipedia (Islamic schools and
branches)
Another criticism that has been levelled against the Quran is that it has not been critically scrutinized rigorously in the same manner as the Bible, neither does it have a critical edition, nor is the manuscript evidence made available to scholars for serious study. There’s a secrecy surrounding it that seems to prevent scholarly investigations. For example, because it lacks a critical edition, there are no footnotes in the Quran to notify the reader about manuscript evidence, textual discrepancies, or omissions!
Textual and Linguistic Problems with the Quran
But these are not the only problems. There are many more problems with the Quran. While the Bible remained uniform, even though it was revealed to many different authors and prophets——written in different languages, during different time periods, and in many different locations——the Quran was only revealed to one man who happened to be illiterate. And how good was his memory? We don’t know. How much of what he heard was he able to retain? Let’s face it, the Quran is a relatively large book that is virtually impossible to memorize word for word, especially in the consonantal language of its day. Add to this the fact that in 632 CE, following Muhammad’s death, the Battle of Yamama ensued where a great number of those who had supposedly retained the Quran in their memory (hafiz) actually died. How then can Muslims claim the preservation of the Quran through memory and oral transmission?
Muslims often claim that the Quran is a reliable, uncorrupted text because there is supposedly only one Quran. However, that is actually a misleading and fallacious argument. For one, Classical Arabic was a consonantal language that had no vowels and was thus open to various interpretations. It was different from the Arabic of today. For another, the controlled transmission of the Quran makes it impossible to know what was the original text. Hence its textual integrity has been seriously compromised. The text was in fact controlled by one person, the khalifa, as attested by Uthman's authority to recall and uniformly revise all the manuscripts. Therefore, when Uthman ibn Affan (the 3rd Caliph of Islam) burned all the existing variant copies of the Quran, he uniformly corrupted it in a textually undetectable manner. That’s actually a manipulation of the evidence. Why? Because the Quran doesn’t allow us to come any closer to the original text than the Uthmanic Revised Standard Version 20 years removed from Muhammad. Any errors which found their way into the URSV would be permanent and uncorrectable. And, unfortunately, historical accounts from early Islam tell us that such errors existed because we have, for example, the “Sanaa manuscript,” which contains earlier developments of the Quran, demonstrating textual variances that diverge from the Uthman copy. Besides, there are so many different “readings” of the Quran which give rise to so many different Islamic interpretations.
Moreover, Islam has nothing new to offer by way of revelation. Its doctrine could simply be classified as a modified theological redundancy of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Biblical heritage that preceded it. The main difference between Islam and Christianity is this. Unlike the Quran’s singular witness and source——given that it was only revealed to *one* man (Muhammad)——the revelations of the New Testament were imparted to many different people, thereby authenticating its message by multiple attestations and witnesses!
But there is more. With regard to source criticism——that is, the sources that the Quran’s message is derived from——there are some very serious issues of forgery involved. For example, there are well-known parallelisms between the Quran and the extra-biblical, non-inspired book of Talmud (e.g. Surah 5:32; cf. Sanhedrin 37a) as well as borrowing from Christian apocryphal works. Case in point, the Quran copies from the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus gives life to clay birds. The Quran also uses the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, an apocryphal Gnostic text of the 3rd century. This is one of the texts where the idea that Jesus was not crucified comes from. The text claims that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in Jesus’ place. Jesus is seen as standing by and supposedly "laughing at their ignorance.” The Quran also employs the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, an “uninspired” text that is part of the New Testament apocrypha. This text also denies the crucifixion of Jesus and suggests that there was a substitute. This is attested in the Quran, which says that Jesus was neither killed nor crucified (Sura 4:157-158). So, the Quran clearly employs Jewish and Christian apocryphal works that were never accepted as “inspired” either by the Jews or the Christians. Thus, the sources of the Quran are highly dubious, even though they are described within the text as “revelations” from God.
Theological and Historical Discrepancies
Muslims claim that the Quran is neither corrupted nor influenced by Judeo-Christian sources, and yet upon further scrutiny the book clearly incorporates passages from both the Jewish Talmud and from various Christian apocryphal works. Plagiarism abounds, and so does forgery. Therefore, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that it’s a “revelation” when at least some of the sources of the Quran are highly dubious! In fact, the evidence suggests that the Quran is the product of a late *Gnostic Christian revolt* against Byzantine Orthodoxy. What I am proposing is that the *Gnostic-Christian Sects* that were marginalized by Byzantine Orthodoxy from the fourth century onwards didn’t go away quietly but seemingly conspired against the Church during the early part of the dark ages! The result of those efforts eventuated in the Book we now call the Quran. The syncretistic-gnostic elements present in the Quran suggest that it was in fact an amalgamation of heresies that characterized many different Gnostic Christian sects. In other words, Islam was originally a heretical Eastern-Christian sect!
The aforementioned textual criticisms are further compounded when we realize that the Quran contains further theological discrepancies. For example, there are numerous verses in the Quran where Allah is swearing by created things that are less-than-God, thus committing “shirk” (i.e. the sin of ascribing divine status to any other beings beside Allah). Here’s a case in point. In sura 81:15, Allah says: “But nay! I swear by the stars.” Another example is sura 91 verse 1: “I swear by the sun and its brilliance.” When God supposedly swears by something which is less than himself the truth value of his assertion is obviously weakened. By definition, an oath is meant to buttress an argument, not to decrease the weight thereof. Therefore, the truth value of an oath is equivalent to, and connected with, the truth value of the one who declares it. As such, Allah’s oaths (swearing by created things) directly contradict his so-called divine status. By contrast, the God of the Bible swears by Himself, since there is nothing greater to swear under (cf. Gen. 22.16; Isa. 45.23; Heb. 6.13). By definition, an oath is a solemn attestation of the truth of one's words. In this case, how can Allah’s oaths be trustworthy if they appeal to something that is less than himself? Answer: they cannot! It appears, then, that the aforementioned oaths in the Quran are reflecting a human rather than a divine author.
These are just some of the problems of the Quran. But there are many, many more. The Quran lacks historicity. Mecca and Medina, for example, were deserts without water or vegetation, making it highly unlikely for a civilization to live there, let alone thrive, according to Islamic expert Dr. Jay Smith. Not to mention that these cities are not mentioned anywhere until the late 8th century. This would strongly suggest that the stories concerning these locations are probably nothing more than historical fiction.
The Biblical Stories are Altered in the Quran
There’s also a great deal of deliberate misinformation that is coming from Islamic scholars. For example, I’m currently reading “The Clear Quran Series: A Thematic English Translation” (Lombard: Book of Signs Foundation, 2016), translated by Dr. Mustafa Khattab, with chief editors: Abu-Isa Webb, Aaron Wannamaker, and Hisham Sharif. They are affiliated with the site: TheClearQuran.org. In the preface, Dr. Khattab says (p. xvi):
Arab Muslims, Christians, and Jews call
God ‘Allah.’
This is false. Neither Jews nor Christians call God Allah. In providing a definition for the name, Dr. Khattab is disingenuous because he fails to inform readers that Allah was a pre-Islamic god who was worshipped long before the writing of the Quran. On the same page, he makes another linguistic error by stating that “Jesus used ‘Alaha’ to refer to God.” This is false. Jesus never called God Alaha. On the following page (xvii), Dr. Khattab begins a paragraph with the title “Was the Quran Copied from the Bible?” He writes:
It is worth mentioning that the first Arabic
translation of the Bible was done centuries
after the Prophet’s death.
He attributes the similarities between the Quran and the Bible not on “intertextuality” (i.e. literary copying) but rather on “divine revelation.” However, this is another misleading argument. The Bible had been translated into Syriac, Coptic, Aramaic, and Latin within the first few centuries of the common era, which makes it highly improbable that the first Arabic translation occurred in the 9th century. Just because we haven’t found earlier Arabic manuscripts doesn’t mean they did not exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Besides, we know that there existed an Arab-Christian community long before the time of Muhammad. There were certainly Christian churches in the East where the Bible was regularly preached. Textual criticism demonstrates a literary dependence of the Quran on various spurious works of a Christian and Jewish bent. Scholars can trace many of the stories of the Quran back to the Bible and the early Gnostic apocryphal texts. How would the early Muslims know about these texts or be able to copy them if they were not written in Arabic? Dr. Khattab makes many other erroneous and fallacious comments that I will not mention at this juncture because they will divert us from the topic in question.
Things actually get much worse once we start reading the Quran. Dr. Khattab claims that it is a masterpiece of Arabic literature, something akin to Shakespeare. But once you start reading it, it quickly becomes apparent that it doesn’t have the majestic refinement, eloquence, elegance, loftiness, or the wisdom of the Bible. In fact, it is so crude, unrefined, and tasteless that it doesn’t even sound “inspired,” let alone revealed. It actually reads like a second rate text in which a very insecure author is trying to establish himself either by gaslighting the readers or by blowing smoke about his knowledge of the Bible via the use of repetitive phrases such as “remember” Moses, “remember” Abraham, etc. But who gave him the literary license to alter the Biblical stories and to present them mangled and distorted? How is the reader supposed to “remember” the Bible if the author of the Quran is constantly interpolating new material and changing the stories, either deliberately or because he never really understood them?
As I started to read the Quran, I noticed that God is not talking in the first person. Rather, there seems to be a human narrator, which begs the question: how is this text divine? The preface claims that the Quran is scientifically accurate, yet Surah 2:22 refers to God who made “the sky a canopy.” The sky is obviously not a canopy. Also, the author seems to have little confidence because he’s constantly challenging the reader to defy him. God would not speak in that tone. As you read on, it becomes apparent that the author wants to discredit the Christian Trinity. But he devised a clever rhetorical device to do so. He has God supposedly saying “We” did this, or “We” did that. And then he explains that God is talking to the Angels. This would suggest that God used the help of angels to co-create. This would elevate the status of angels to “co-creators,” which is certainly a theological and hermeneutical contradiction! This is also theologically problematic because when God says in Genesis 1.26 “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness,” he is obviously not talking to angels because humankind is not made in the image of (created) angels but rather in the image of (the uncreated) God! Yet the Quran (Surah 2:30) directly contradicts this by claiming that God was talking to the angels about the creation of human beings:
‘Remember’ when your Lord said to the
angels, ‘I am going to place a successive
‘human’ authority on earth.’
Further theological discrepancies occur in Surah 2:32 in which the angels admit to not knowing “the names of all things” (Surah 2:31). But, surprisingly, “God said, ‘O Adam! Inform them of their names’ “ (Surah 2:33). In other words, the human Adam had more extensive knowledge than the divine angelic host combined. I’m not sure how a finite and limited human being who doesn’t have access to divine knowledge can possibly know more than the angelic beings who have existed for aeons upon aeons before the creation of the universe! This passage is yet another instance that reveals Allah’s lack of confidence, in which he’s constantly challenging the angels in order to prove that he knows more than they do. To make matters worse, the author once again invokes the memory of an episode that doesn’t exist in the Bible. So, there’s actually nothing to “remember.” This is a fabrication out of whole cloth. Yet, in Surah 2:34, the author writes:
And ‘remember’ when We said to the
angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam,’ so they all
did——but not Iblis [Satan], who refused
and acted arrogantly.
This Quranic commandment actually violates the 1st commandment of the Torah: “You shall have no other God’s before me.” In the New Testament, Romans 1:25 also condemns those who have “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” The Book of Revelation 19.10 strictly prohibits people from worshipping even angels, let alone humans. Therefore, this Quranic passage not only directly contradicts the Bible but is also ironically forcing us to “remember” a false memory, namely, that God commanded the angels to worship Adam. But there’s no evidence that God ever said that. So how can anyone “remember” something that never happened? This is nothing short of literary gaslighting.
What is more, Surah 2:35-36 directly contradicts the Genesis creation account by claiming that Adam and Eve lived “in Paradise,” and after the fall had to “Descend from the heavens ‘to the earth.’ “ This also contradicts the Bible which states that Adam was created on earth (Genesis 1:27). In Surah 2:51-52, the author says that even though “you worshipped the calf in his [Moses’] absence, … We ‘still’ forgave you.” It appears that the angels have the power to forgive sins. I thought only God forgave sins. Apparently, the angels forgive, too. Then, in Surah 2:57, the author says to the Israelites:
And ‘remember when’ We shaded you with
clouds and sent down to you manna and
quails, ‘saying’, ‘Eat from the good things
We have provided for you.’ The evildoers
‘certainly’ did not wrong Us, but wronged
themselves.
Since the author will later deny the Trinity by proclaiming that God is one, it begs the question: who does the plural pronoun “We” refer to? It seems as if the author of the Quran is trying to reinterpret the plural pronoun “Us” in Genesis 1.26—-when God said “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness”——by suggesting that God was talking to the angels. Thus, the “We” plural pronoun, once again, suggests a reference to the angelic host. However, this theological language is problematic because God wouldn’t speak about the angels as being co-creators or providers of the human race. On the contrary, Philippians 4:19 says that it is God (and God alone) who supplies “every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Furthermore, God wouldn’t share his glory with the angels by implying that they’re co-creators, co-providers, and co-forgivers. Isaiah 42:8 reads:
I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not
yield my glory to another or my praise to
idols.
Therefore, in using the plural pronoun “We” to describe the joint efforts of God and the angels, the author of the Quran clearly demonstrates that he has misunderstood the theology of the Old and New Testaments. That’s precisely why the Quran doesn’t sound like divine scripture. It doesn’t have the ring of truth; it doesn’t sound genuine. This unbiblical conflation of God with angels is seen again in Surah 2:59, which reads: “We sent down a punishment from the heavens upon them for their rebelliousness.” Notice, it is not God who sent it; “We sent” it! Not to mention that God’s language in the Quran is rather vulgar and insulting. Surah 2:65 records the punishment for the Sabbath-Breakers:
You are already aware of those of you who
broke the Sabbath. We said to them, ‘Be
disgraced apes!’
A very insulting and demeaning language is used that is uncharacteristic of a pure and holy God. This is certainly not the language of the Bible. Incidentally, Jesus also broke the Sabbath and healed a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years (John 5:1-18). Is the author of the Quran alluding to Jesus as well, calling him an ape? How insulting!
Then comes a projection. We already know that Muhammad was illiterate. We also know that the Quran knows nothing about Holy Scripture because it keeps getting the stories wrong, misinterpreting them, distorting them, and adding to them. But, ironically, instead of admitting this, the author of the Quran pronounces a condemnation on those who do these things. But that’s exactly what the Quran is doing. He writes in Surah 2:78-79:
And among them are the illiterate who know
nothing about the Scripture except lies, and
‘so’ they ‘wishfully’ speculate. So woe to
those who distort the Scripture with their
own hands [writings] then say, ‘This is from
God’——seeking a fleeting gain! So woe to
them for what their hands have written.
In Surah 2:102, the Quran talks of magical themes:
They ‘instead’ followed the magic promoted
by the devils during the reign of Solomon.
This reference is not found anywhere in Scripture. As far as I know, the only known text to discuss demonic magic during the time of Solomon is a pseudepigraphical text, ascribed to King Solomon, which is known as The “Testament of Solomon.”
Another linguistic problem with the Quran is that it has God openly disrespecting Christians and Jews and their scriptures in a manner that is not theologically persuasive or convincing. God would not talk down to Christians and Jews by mocking their Scriptural beliefs. This is uncharacteristic of the holy and pure God of Scripture (see e.g. Surah 2:111, 113, 120). The Quran is also embellishing and contradicting the Scriptural stories by adding extraneous elements. If these stories were revealed in the 7th century, why were they not known to the earlier prophets or mentioned in Scripture? Nowhere throughout the Old and New Testaments is there the slightest clue, for example, that Abraham was in Mecca. So how are the readers supposed to remember this story? Yet Surah 2:126 declares:
And ‘remember’ when Abraham said, ‘My
Lord, make this city ‘of Mecca’ secure and
provide fruits to its people.
Unless this is copied from a spurious, apocryphal Gnostic text, there’s really nothing to remember. What is more, the Quran distorts Scripture. In the Bible, Ishmael and Hagar are disowned by Abraham. In Genesis 21:8-21, Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away. Moreover, Isaac is the promised seed or the heir of the promises (see Gen. 13:15; 15:5; 22:17). But in the Quran it’s the exact opposite. It is Ishmael who is the promised one, and Abraham celebrates him. This is called “twisting God’s Word,” which is a manipulation of the Scriptural evidence. It represents a kind of underhanded (sleight of hand) Islamic apologetics. It is as if we have a new film director who decided to change the plot. In this 7th century (dark ages) sequel to the Bible, it’s all about Abraham and Ishmael. And we have another plot twist in which the second commandment that prohibits the worship of idols is broken. There’s also an allusion to the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which was also venerated in pre-Islamic pagan times. Paradoxically, Surah 2:125 urges the reader to remember a time that never existed. I suppose it’s a clever way of attempting to historicize a fictional narrative that has no basis in history or literature:
And ‘remember’ when We made the Sacred
House [Ka’bah] a centre and a sanctuary
for the people ‘saying’, ‘You may take the
standing-place of Abraham as a site of
prayer.’ And We entrusted Abraham and
Ishmael to purify My House for those who
circle it, who meditate in it, and who bow
and prostrate themselves ‘in prayer’.
Then there is a theological fabrication of the one true God which departs from Scripture and tradition. It also falsifies Hebrew Scripture which never mentions Yahweh as the God of Ishmael. Surah 2:133 declares:
Or did you witness when death came to
Jacob? He asked his children, ‘Who will
you worship after my passing?’ They
replied, ‘We will continue to worship your
God, the God of your forefathers——
Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac——the One
God. And to him we all submit.’
There is also a seeming allusion to the Christians, whom the anonymous author of the Quran is denouncing as polytheists (see Surah 2:135). The author of the Quran obviously doesn’t understand the theological concept of the Trinity. It doesn’t evoke polytheism. The Triune God is defined as one God who exists in three coeternal, coequal, consubstantial divine persons. An analogy would be the fingers of a hand. Although there may be 5 fingers, it is still one (1) hand!
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For further details on the Trinity, see the following article:
Is the Trinity a Biblical Teaching?
https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/631800420436754432/is-the-trinity-a-biblical-teaching

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The Quran Contradicts Itself
Finally, I will put forth one last statement before I make my closing arguments. The anonymous author of the Quran claims that he follows the revelations of the Hebrew patriarchs and of Jesus. He writes (Surah 2:136):
Say, O believers, ‘We believe in God and
what has been revealed to us; and what
was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac,
Jacob, and his descendants; and what was
given to Moses, Jesus, and other prophets
from the Lord. We make no distinction
between any of them.
There are two things, here, worthy of consideration. On the one hand, the author claims to accept the revelation of Jesus. On the other hand, he contradicts the revelation of Jesus by saying that Jesus is no different than anyone else. Well, which is it? Does he accept Jesus’ revelation or not? He’s violating the law of non-contradiction, which states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. Jesus claimed that God is a trinity. Matthew 28.19, for example, is an authentic verse that is part of the New Testament critical edition. In this verse, Jesus describes what God is:
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
If the anonymous author of the Quran accepts Jesus’ revelation, as he claims, then it is incumbent upon him to also accept the revelation of the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Moreover, if this author accepts Jesus’ revelation, then it is incumbent upon him to also accept the divinity of Jesus! Otherwise he is contradicting himself.
The Deity of Jesus Christ
In John 1:1 (“the word was God”); Colossians 2:9 (“in him the whole fullness of the godhead [θεότητος] dwells bodily”); Hebrews 1:3 (“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of his being”); Titus 2:13 (“our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”); Philippians 2:6 (“being in very nature God”); Colossians 1:15 (“The Son is the image of the invisible God”); 2 Peter 1:1 (“our God and Savior Jesus Christ”). And in John 1:3 and Hebrews 1:2 Jesus is the creator and the “heir of all things, through whom he [God] also created the worlds.” John 1:3: “All things came into being through him [Jesus], and without him not one thing came into being.”
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Jesus’ Incarnation Prophesied in the Tanakh (Old Testament)
Leviticus 26.12:
“I will walk among you and be your God”
Micah 5.2:
“out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel—One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.”
Daniel 7.13-14:
“one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. … He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him.”
Isaiah 53.3-5:
“He was despised and rejected …, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. … Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Zechariah 12:10
“They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn”
Isaiah 9.6 (emphasis added):
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, MIGHTY GOD, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
You have to be exegetically ignorant or completely illiterate not to notice that the divine Messiah was prophesied in both the Tanakh and the Habrit Hachadashah. If the author of the Quran accepts Jesus as the Messiah——as well as Jesus’ revelation, and his future coming——then he must also accept the aforementioned revelations!
Conclusion
So, the Quran was built on bloodshed and violence in which its prophet, Muhammad, participated in many military battles to convert people to Islam. Bloodshed and violence also marked the beginning of the Islamic period following the death of Muhammad. Rival Muslim leaders were vying for control of the Caliphate killing each other off and forcing conversion by the sword. The Quran was written in consonantal Arabic, a language which is susceptible to multiple interpretations. There were also multiple versions that were burned and destroyed, so that the controlled transmission of the Quran makes it impossible to know what was the original text. What is more, the Quran lacks a critical edition, and has no scholarly apparatus to inform us about important text-critical questions. The hafiz died, and so did the oral tradition. And the Quran itself is full of discrepancies and contradictions, constantly changing and falsifying the Biblical stories to suit the author’s theological needs. But Adam was created on earth, not in heaven. God never asked the angels to worship Adam, nor did he make man in their image. And Yahweh is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac. So, when the Quran tells us to “remember” these fabricated stories that have been ripped out of their original contexts and altered, this is a deceptive way to gaslight its readers. The Quran is also a collection of forgeries of many different apocryphal and pseudepigraphical Jewish and Christian texts. The Quran lacks the majestic refinement, eloquence, and loftiness of the Bible. In fact, it is rather crude and unrefined, so much so that it doesn’t even sound “inspired,” let alone revealed. It actually reads like a second rate text in which a very insecure author is trying to establish himself either by gaslighting his readers or by trying to persuade them of his biblical knowledge through the use of repetitive phrases such as “remember” Moses, “remember” Abraham, etc. But who gave him the literary license to alter the Biblical stories and to present them mangled and distorted? No! The Quran doesn’t read like Scripture. It doesn’t have the ring of truth.

Spanish translation of Eli Kittim’s article
Traducción al español del artículo de Eli Kittim
——-
EVIDENCIA QUE DANIEL 12.1 SE REFIERE A UNA RESURRECCIÓN DE LOS MUERTOS BASADA EN LA TRADUCCIÓN Y EXÉGESIS DE LOS IDIOMAS BÍBLICOS
Por el autor Eli Kittim
¡Daniel 12.1 está en el contexto de la gran tribulación de los últimos tiempos! Se repite en Mateo 24,21 como el tiempo de la gran prueba: καιρός θλίψεως (cf. Apocalipsis 7,14).
Daniel Teodoción 12.1 LXX:
καὶ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀναστήσεται Μιχαηλ ὁ ἄρχων ὁ μέγας ὁ ἑστηκὼς ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ σου καὶ ἔσται καιρὸς θλίψεως θλῖψις οἵα οὐ γέγονεν ἀφ’ οὗ γεγένηται ἔθνος ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἕως τοῦ καιροῦ ἐκείνου.
Theodotion Daniel 12.1 de la Septuaginta traduce la palabra hebrea עָמַד (amad) como αναστήσεται, que se deriva de la raíz de la palabra ανίστημι y significa “surgirá”.
Traducción:
En ese momento se levantará Miguel, el gran príncipe, el protector de vuestro pueblo. Habrá un tiempo de angustia, como nunca ha ocurrido desde que las naciones comenzaron a existir.
Mi afirmación de que la palabra griega ἀναστήσεται (“restaurará”) se refiere a una resurrección de entre los muertos ha sido cuestionada por los críticos. Mi respuesta es la siguiente.
La primera evidencia es el hecho de que Miguel es mencionado por primera vez como el que “resucitará” (ἀναστήσεται; Daniel Theodotion 12.1 LXX) antes de la resurrección general de los muertos (ἀναστήσονται; griego antiguo Daniel 12.2 LXX). Aquí, hay evidencia lingüística sólida de que la palabra ἀναστήσεται se refiere a una resurrección porque en el versículo inmediatamente siguiente (12.2) ¡la forma plural de exactamente la misma palabra (a saber, ἀναστήσονται) se usa para describir la resurrección general de los muertos! En otras palabras, si exactamente la misma palabra significa resurrección en Daniel 12.2, ¡entonces necesariamente también debe significar resurrección en Daniel 12.1!
La segunda evidencia proviene de la versión griega antigua de Daniel de la Septuaginta que usa la palabra παρελεύσεται para definir la palabra hebrea עָמַד (amad), que se traduce como “surgirá”.
El griego antiguo Daniel 12.1 versión LXX dice:
καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὥραν ἐκείνην παρελεύσεται Μιχαηλ ὁ ἄγγελος ὁ μέγας ὁ ἑστηκὼς ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ σου ἐκείνη ἡ ἡμέρα θλίψεως οἵα οὐκ ἐγενήθη ἀφ’ οὗ ἐγενήθησαν ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης.
La versión griega antigua de Daniel de la Septuaginta demuestra además que Daniel 12.1 está describiendo un tema de muerte y resurrección porque la palabra παρελεύσεται significa "fallecer" (morir), lo que indica el fallecimiento de este príncipe destacado en el momento de la muerte. ¡final! Por lo tanto, prepara el escenario para su resurrección, ya que la forma llamada "Theodotion Daniel" de la LXX llena los vacíos al usar la palabra αναστήσεται, que significa una resurrección corporal, para establecer el período de los últimos días como el tiempo durante el cual esta figura principesca resucitará de entre los muertos!

The Error of Subordinationism
By Biblical Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓
Ontological Subordinationism
The theological literature defines Subordinationism as comprising hierarchical rankings amongst the persons of the Trinity, thus signifying an ontological subordination of both the Son and the Spirit to the Father. The word ontological refers to “being.” Although some of the ante-Nicene fathers supported subordinationism, this doctrine was eventually condemned as heretical by the Post-Nicene fathers:
Athanasius opposed subordinationism, and
was highly hostile to hierarchical rankings
of the divine persons. It was also opposed
by Augustine. Subordinationism was
condemned in the 6th century along with
other doctrines taught by Origen.
Epiphanus writing against Origen attacked
his views of subordinationism. — wiki
Calvin also opposed subordinationism:
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion,
book 1, chapter 13 Calvin attacks those in
the Reformation family who while they
confess ‘that there are three [divine]
persons’ speak of the Father as ‘the
essence giver’ as if he were ‘truly and
properly the sole God’. This he says,
‘definitely cast[s] the Son down from his
rank.’ This is because it implies that the
Father is God in a way the Son is not.
Modern scholars are agreed that this was a
sixteenth century form of what today is
called, ‘subordinationism’. Richard Muller
says Calvin recognised that what his
opponents were teaching ‘amounted to a
radical subordination of the second and
third persons, with the result that the Father
alone is truly God.’ Ellis adds that this
teaching also implied tritheism, three
separate Gods. — wiki
The Eastern Orthodox position is yet another form of subordinationism that has asserted the Monarchy of the Father to this day:
According to the Eastern Orthodox view, the
Son is derived from the Father who alone is
without cause or origin. — wiki
The Catholic Church, however, is overtly antithetical to the subordinationism doctrine:
Catholic theologian John Hardon wrote that
subordinationism ‘denies that the second
and third persons are consubstantial with
the Father. Therefore it denies their true
divinity.’ — wiki
In theology proper, unlike ontological subordination, there is also the doctrine of “economic subordination” in which the Son and the Holy Spirit play subordinate roles in their functions, even though they may be ontologically equal to the Father. New Calvinists have been advancing this theory of late:
While contemporary Evangelicals believe
the historically agreed fundamentals of the
Christian faith, including the Trinity, among
the New Calvinist formula, the Trinity is one
God in three equal persons, among whom
there is ‘economic subordination’ (as, for
example, when the Son obeys the Father).
— wiki
According to the Oxford Encyclopedia, the doctrine of Subordinationism makes the Son inferior to the Father, and the Holy Spirit inferior to the Son. It reads thusly:
Subordinationism means to consider Christ,
as Son of God, as inferior to the Father.
This tendency was strong in the 2nd- and
3rd-century theology. It is evident in
theologians like Justin Martyr, Tertullian,
Origen, Novatian, and Irenaeus. Irenaeus,
for example, commenting on Christ's
statement, ‘the Father is greater than I’
(John 14:28), has no difficulty in
considering Christ as inferior to the Father.
… When Origen enlarged the conception of
the Trinity to include the Holy Spirit, he
explained the Son as inferior to the Father
and the Holy Spirit as inferior to the Son.
Subordination is based on statements
which Jesus made, such as (a) that ‘the
Father is greater than I’ (John 14:28); (b)
that, with respect to when the day of
Judgment will be, ‘of that day or hour no
one knows, not even the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father alone’ (Mark
13:32), and that He spoke of God as
somebody else (Mark 11:18). — wiki
However, Jesus’ statements are made from within the confines of his human condition, and thus they don’t pertain to his eternal status. As the Son of Man, namely, as a finite, limited human being, in comparison with the eternal Father, Jesus is obviously incapable of knowing all things. So Jesus’ statements must not be taken out of context and used to support the idea that he’s ontologically an inferior God. Micah 5.2 would certainly challenge that notion when it reveals that the messiah is actually uncreated: “His times of coming forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” Subordinationism ultimately leads to Arianism, the notion that the Son was created by the Father, and is not thus God:
Arius, therefore, held that the Son was
divine by grace and not by nature, and that
He was created by the Father, though in a
creation outside time. In response, the
Nicene Creed, particularly as revised by the
second ecumenical council in
Constantinople I in 381, by affirming the co-
equality of the Three Persons of the Trinity,
condemned subordinationism. — wiki
According to The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology, Subordinationism sees “the Son” and “the Spirit of God” as lesser deities, especially as demi-gods, or inferior gods:
Subordinationism. The term is a common
retrospective concept used to denote
theologians of the early church who
affirmed the divinity of the Son or Spirit of
God, but conceived it somehow as a lesser
form of divinity than that of the Father.
— wiki
Subordinationism is reminiscent of Gnosticism in which there’s a supreme God as well as lesser divinities. In Subordinationism, the Son is viewed as an inferior god, or a lesser god. However, as will be shown, Jesus is not a subordinate god in relation to God the Father. Some theologians argue that although the three persons of the Godhead are coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial ontologically, the Son and the Spirit are nevertheless subordinate in terms of economy, that is, in terms of their functions and roles. This notion of ranking or subordination within the trinity is supposedly supported by scripture when it says that the Father “sent” the Son (Jn 6.57), or that the Father and the Son “send” the Spirit (Jn 15.26), or that the spirit will “speak only what he hears” (Jn 16.13).
But this still implies a greater versus a lesser god, which makes the Trinity theologically indefensible! Not to mention that these verses are taken out of context. The temporal operations of the Son and the Spirit are scripturally depicted in anthropomorphic terms, ascribing human characteristics to divine operations and energies so that they can be better understood. As, for example, when scripture says that God changed his mind, or that he repented. And as regards Jesus’ connection to the God of the Hebrew Bible, appropriate New Testament language must be used so as to preclude a theological deviation from the monotheistic God of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, scripture does tell us categorically and unequivocally who Jesus is. Revelation 1.8 tells us that the Son is the Almighty! Who, then, ranks above him? Moreover, Jesus is Yahweh (the Lord) in the New Testament. Proverbs 8.28-30, John 1.3 and Hebrews 1.2 all indicate that Jesus is the creator. John 1.3 declares:
All things came into being through him
[Jesus], and without him not one thing
came into being.
Acts 4.12 reminds us of Jesus’ preeminent position within the Godhead:
there is salvation in no one else; for
there is no other name under heaven that
has been given among mankind by which
we must be saved.
In my view, subordinationism leads to tritheism!
The Eternal Subordination of the Son
The doctrine that the Son is eternally created by God the Father smacks of Arianism, as if his divinity is mediated to him by God the Father, implying that the Son doesn’t legitimately possess divinity in and of himself. It suggests that the Son and the Father were not always God in the same way, and that there was a time when the Son did not exist. Accordingly, only the Father was in the beginning. In other words, the Son is not eternal. This view holds that the Son is God only because Godhood is bestowed on him as a gift from the Father. To phrase it differently, the Son is God by grace and not by nature. Today, among the theologians who hold to Subordinationism are Bruce A. Ware, Wayne A. Grudem, and John W. Kleinig. But this doctrine contradicts John 1.1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and God was the word.
We must always remember that all of Jesus’ words must be understood within the context of the human condition. That is to say, Jesus is speaking of his human nature, as a human being, not as eternal God. He is a creature, a man, a finite being, located in time and space, and in that sense he is obviously in a subordinate relationship to the Father who remains eternal and is everywhere. So when Jesus employs the language of grace——specifying what the Father has “given” him——he is referring to what the eternal Father has done for the mortal Son of Man, namely, to give him authority, exaltation, worship, and glory (cf. Daniel 7.13-14). This apparent inequality between the Son and the Father is, strictly speaking, limited to Jesus’ humanity, a humanity which will then in turn redeem human nature and glorify his elect. It is not referring to Jesus’ ontological relationship with the Father, which is one of equality. And since he is appealing particularly to the monotheistic God of the old testament, which the Jews understood as a singular deity, Jesus is careful to use the language of grace in order to appease the Jews who would otherwise take exception to an incarnate God. But scripture is quite adamant about the fact that Jesus is both man and God! John 1.14 puts it thusly:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt
among us.
Colossians 2.9 reveals that the Son is fully God, and that the fullness of the godhead (πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος) dwells in him bodily:
in him the whole fullness of the godhead
[θεότητος] dwells bodily.
Hebrews 1.3 proclaims that the Son is of the same essence as the Father:
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and
the exact imprint of his being.
Titus 2.13 calls him “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” And in John 1.3 and Hebrews 1.2 Jesus is the creator and the “heir of all things, through whom he [God] also created the worlds.” That is to say, the Son of Man, in his *human nature*——as the mediator and savior of mankind——becomes heir of all things. Not that the Godhood is given to him as a gift or as an inheritance. How can a lesser god or a created being act as the ultimate judge of the universe? John 5.22 reads:
For the Father judgeth no man, but hath
committed all judgment unto the Son.
It doesn’t mean that the Son is given this office as a gift because the Son is God by nature and not by grace! How can God the Father hand over his Sovereignty to God the Son as a gift if Yahweh never yields his glory to another?
I am the LORD [Yahweh]; that is my name! I
will not yield my glory to another.
— Isaiah 42.8
How can an inferior god, a lesser god, or a created god be completely sovereign over the entire universe? In Matthew 28.18, Jesus declares:
All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me.
The clincher, the verse that clearly demonstrates the Son’s divine authority is Revelation 1.8. Since we are not waiting for the Father but rather for the Son to arrive, it becomes quite obvious that this is a reference to Jesus Christ:
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the
Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is
to come, the Almighty.’
In Daniel 7.14, why was the Son of Man “given authority, glory and sovereign power”? Why did “all nations and peoples of every language worship[ed] him”? If he’s a created being, why do the heavenly host prostrate before the Son in heaven? Partly because he is God, but also because of his deeds on earth. Revelation 5.12 exclaims:
Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to
receive power and wealth and wisdom and
might and honor and glory and blessing!
Not that the Son doesn’t have power, or wealth, or wisdom, or honor, or glory, or blessing. But it’s as if additional exaltation is offered to him because of his achievements as a human being (as the Son of Man)! First Timothy 6.15-16 calls Christ the “only Sovereign” God and that “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light”:
he who is the blessed and only Sovereign
[μόνος δυνάστης], the King of kings and
Lord of lords. It is he alone who has
immortality [ἀθανασίαν] and dwells in
unapproachable light, whom no one has
ever seen or can see.
Hebrews 1.3 reveals that the Son (not the Father) “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Colossians 1.17 also says: “He [Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (cf. Philippians 3.21). What is more, if the Son is subordinate to the Father, then the Father is the source of life, not the Son. Yet John 14.6 says the exact opposite, to wit, that the Son is both “the truth” and “existence” itself:
Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the
truth, and the life.’
Jesus also alludes to himself as Yahweh, using the ontological Divine Name “I AM” from Exodus 3.14:
Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly I say to you,
before Abraham was born, I am.’
— John 8.58
In Matthew 28.18, Jesus says that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·). That means that Jesus has *ALL AUTHORITY*; not just some authority or most authority. So, if the Son possesses all authority, how is he subject to a higher authority? Consequently, there’s no one higher than him! We also know this through Special Revelation❗️
Eternal Sonship vs Incarnational Sonship
In his essay “JOHN 1:14, 18 (et al.),” Edward Andrews writes:
Literal translation philosophy versus
interpretive translation philosophy plays a
role here too. I submit that rendering
monogenēs as “only begotten” is the literal
rendering. In translating the Updated
American Standard Version (UASV), our
primary purpose is to give the Bible readers
what God said by way of his human
authors, not what a translator thinks God
meant in its place.—Truth Matters! Our
primary goal is to be accurate and faithful
to the original text. The meaning of a word
is the responsibility of the interpreter (i.e.,
reader), not the translator.
Therefore, a literal reading of monogené̄s is “only begotten” or “only-born.” However, scholars commonly argue whether the meaning of the Greek word μονογενὴς (monogenēs) is “only begotten” or “unique.” I will discuss that in a moment. Moreover, theologians have devised the doctrine of eternal Sonship, and have viewed this process as an eternal begetting, namely, the eternal begetting of the Son. That is to say, the 2nd person of the Trinity has always been the Son of God throughout all eternity. This is primarily based on the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) which states: "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” However, the preposition “from” (e.g. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God) is very problematic. So is the phrase “eternally begotten of the Father.” Both suggest that the the 2nd person is not fully God in his own right but derives his divinity eternally from the Greater God, the Father. So, for example, if the Father were to suddenly cut off the supply lines, for whatever reason, the Son would no longer be God. That’s the implication. Insofar as this language gives priority to the Father as the only true God, it suggests that the Son and Spirit are inferior and that they derive their divinity and existence from the Father. Yet Isaiah 9.6 calls the Messiah “Everlasting Father”!
In his book “Systematic Theology,” Wayne Grudem identifies one particular hermeneutical problem with these types of interpretations, namely, that they try to illustrate the eternal relationships within the Godhead based on scriptural information which only address their relationships in time. Therefore, it is both feasible and conceivable that the Bible uses the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to describe the manner in which the members of the Trinity relate to humanity in space-time. For instance, the numerous references pertaining to the Father “sending” the Son into the world allude to time. Furthermore, the Father-Son-and-Holy-Spirit formula is an “analogy” to the human family and to human relationships, not an exact representation concerning the relationships of the persons within the Trinity. Moreover, the notion that the Son is “eternally begotten” of the Father is dangerously close to Arianism, which maintains that the Son of God didn’t always exist but was rather begotten by God the Father, thus implying that Jesus was not co-eternal with God the Father.
Those who take exception to the concept of eternal Sonship often espouse what is known as the doctrine of the Incarnational Sonship. While affirming the Son’s deity and eternality, this doctrine holds that he was not always the Son of God. Rather, his Sonship began when he was “begotten.” In other words, the Father-Son-and-Spirit formula only describes the manner in which the members of the Trinity relate to humanity in space-time. This means that the second person of the Trinity became the Son of God at some point in history, namely, at His incarnation. There are several nontrinitarian offshoots of this view, which hold that the second person of the Trinity was adopted as the Son of God at his baptism, his resurrection, or his ascension. This view is known as Adoptionism (also called dynamic monarchianism). Since this is a nontrinitarian formula which asserts that Christ was simply a mortal man who was later adopted as the Son of God at some point in human history, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Incarnational Sonship that I’m describing, which recognizes and affirms Christ’s deity and eternality. Advocates of this position view the Sonship of Christ as a title or a function that he historically assumed “in time,” at his incarnation. They do not view the Sonship of Christ as an essential element of “who he is” within the Trinity. The same is true of the Father. According to this view, the first person of the Trinity became the Father at the time of the incarnation.
MacArthur (who has since changed his position) originally denied that Jesus was “always subservient to God, always less than God, always under God.” He claimed that sonship is simply an “analogy.” In like manner, Ergun Caner describes Sonship as “metaphor.” Caner similarly argues that “sonship began in a point of time, not in eternity.” Other notable Christians who have taken exception to the doctrine of eternal Sonship are Albert Barnes, Walter Martin, Finis J. Dake, and Adam Clarke.
The language of Hebrews 1.5 clearly defines the relationship of the Father to the Son as beginning during Christ’s incarnation. That’s precisely why this verse is often used as proof of the Incarnational Sonship, in which the titles of Father and Son begin to be applied during a specific event that takes place at a particular point in time: “ ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.’ “ Thus, there seems to be an apparent subordination in the economy of God only insofar as Christ’s human nature is concerned.
Monogenēs
Scholars often argue whether the meaning of the Greek word μονογενὴς (monogenēs) is “only begotten” or “unique.” Given the view of Incarnational Sonship, in which the titles of Father and Son begin to be applied during Christ’s incarnation, the expression “the only begotten God” seemingly means “the only God who has ever been born on earth!” And in that sense it also means “unique,” or “one of its kind.” Otherwise, if we think of the Son begotten eternally of the Father, it implies that he is not God in and of himself but derives his divinity from the Father. Thus, he is not “true God from true God”!
Although the term monogenēs could mean the “only one of its kind,” the literal meaning is “only begotten” or “only born.” Given that the earliest papyri have μονογενης θεος in John 1.18, for example, monogenēs seemingly means “the only God who has ever been born in time,” or the “only-born God” (i.e. only-begotten). Put differently, no other God has ever been born in history. But the primary meaning is “only begotten,” or, literally, “only-born.” However, its meaning is commonly applied to mean "one of a kind,” or “one and only.” We can see the interplay between the two meanings in the book of Hebrews:
The word is used in Hebrews 11:17-19 to
describe Isaac, the son of Abraham.
However, Isaac was not the only-begotten
son of Abraham, but was the chosen,
having special virtue. Thus Isaac was ‘the
only legitimate child’ of Abraham. That is,
Isaac was the only son of Abraham that
God acknowledged as the legitimate son of
the covenant. It does not mean that Isaac
was not literally ‘begotten’ of Abraham, for
he indeed was, but that he alone was
acknowledged as the son that God had
promised. — wiki
Nevertheless, excerpts from Classical Greek literature, as well as from Josephus, the Nicene creed, Clement of Rome, and the New Testament suggest that the meaning of monogenēs is “only-born”:
Only-born
Herodotus [Histories] 2.79.3 ‘Maneros was
the only-born (monogenes) of their first
king, who died prematurely.’ — wiki
Herodotus [Histories] 7.221.1 ‘Megistias sent
to safety his only-born (o monogenes, as
noun) who was also with the army.’ — wiki
Luke 9:38 ‘only born (o
monogenes)’ {noun}. — wiki
Josephus, Antiquities 2.263 ‘Jephtha’s
daughter, she was also an only-born
(monogenes) and a virgin.’ — wiki
John 3.16 For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only-begotten Son (o
monogenes uios). — wiki
Nicene Creed - ‘And in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.’
Clement of Rome 25 [First Epistle of
Clement] – ‘the phoenix is the only one
[born] (monogenes) of its kind.” — wiki
Notice the *meaning* in the last quotation. It’s not just the only-born, but “the only one [born] of its kind”: a combination of both interpretations. And that seems to capture the meaning of *monogenes* in the New Testament. The titles of Father and Son seemingly begin when Christ is earth-begotten or earthborn:
Heb. 1:5 ‘For unto which of the angels said
he at any time, ‘Thou art my Son (uios mou
ei su), this day have I begotten thee (ego
semeron gegenneka se)’? And again, I will
be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a
Son?’ (citing Ps.2:7, also cited Acts 13:33,
Heb. 5:5) —wiki
Filioque
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Father is seen as Greater than the Son and the Spirit. To offset this imbalance, the Nicene creed was amended by the Roman Catholic Church with the addition of the filioque clause. The original creed from the First Council of Constantinople (381) states that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father,” to which the Roman Catholic West added, “and the Son,” as an additional origin point of the Holy Spirit. Maximus the Confessor, who is associated more with the Orthodox East than with the Catholic West, didn’t take issue with the filioque. Similarly, I. Voronov, Paul Evdokimov and S. Bulgakov saw the Filioque as a legitimate theologoumenon (i.e. theological opinion)!
The reason we’re discussing the filioque is because this issue bears on the question of whether Jesus is God by nature or by grace. The Filioque was added to the Creed as an anti-Arian addition by the Third Council of Toledo (589). It is well-known that The Eastern Orthodox Church promotes the “Monarchy of the Father,” which signifies that the Father alone is the only cause (αἰτία) of the Son and the Spirit:
The Eastern Orthodox interpretation is that
the Holy Spirit originates, has his cause for
existence or being (manner of existence)
from the Father alone as ‘One God, One
Father’, Lossky insisted that any notion of a
double procession of the Holy Spirit from
both the Father and the Son was
incompatible with Eastern Orthodox
theology. — wiki
The view of the superiority of the Father actually finds expression in both east and west:
The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215):
‘The Father is from no one, the Son from the
Father only, and the Holy Spirit equally from
both.’ — wiki
This view leads to Arianism, as can be seen from the seventeenth ecumenical council:
The Council of Florence, session 11 (1442),
in Cantate Domino, on union with the Copts
and Ethiopians: ‘Father, Son and holy Spirit;
one in essence, three in persons;
unbegotten Father, Son begotten from the
Father, holy Spirit proceeding from the
Father and the Son; ... the holy Spirit alone
proceeds at once from the Father and the
Son. ... Whatever the holy Spirit is or has, he
has from the Father together with the Son.’
— wiki
This implies that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are not God by nature but by grace. Thus, they’re not fully God: they’re inferior, lesser gods, created eternally by the Father so to speak. This smacks of Arianism and contradicts scripture which states that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2.9). Conversely, Eastern Orthodoxy tends to put the Father on a pedestal:
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity theology
starts with the Father hypostasis, not the
essence of God, since the Father is the God
of the Old Testament. The Father is the
origin of all things and this is the basis and
starting point of the Orthodox trinitarian
teaching of one God in Father, one God, of
the essence of the Father (as the uncreated
comes from the Father as this is what the
Father is). — wiki
Conclusion
It doesn’t appear as if there are hierarchical rankings amongst the persons of the Trinity, comprising an ontological subordination of both the Son and the Spirit to the Father. To say that “the Son is derived from the Father who alone is without cause or origin” is nothing short of Arianism. As Catholic theologian John Hardon put it, subordinationism denies that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father. Thus, it denies their divinity. This doctrine can be construed as if Christ, the Son of God, were inferior to the Father. It would also invalidate the three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons of the Trinity. The New Testament also makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is Yahweh (i.e. the Lord) and the almighty (see Revelation 1.8)!
It’s also clear that there’s no eternal Sonship in which Christ is eternally begotten. The appellations of Father and Son relate to the economy of God as it pertains to the Incarnation of Christ (cf. Hebrews 1.5). And *monogenēs* doesn’t seem to mean that the Son is eternally begotten and ontologically subordinate to the Father. Rather, it seems to denote the only God who has ever been born in time, or the “only-born God” (i.e. only-begotten). That is to say, no other God has ever been born in human history. So, as the Son of Man, Christ can be described as both “unique” and as the “only begotten.”
Finally, it should be stressed that Jesus is God by nature, not by grace which suggests Adoptionism. The Filioque was added to the creed as an anti-Arian formula to offset the “Monarchy of the Father,” which signifies that the Father alone is the only cause (αἰτία) or principle of the Son and the Spirit. However, there’s no basis for claiming an ontological inequality within the Trinity. What is more, it’s *a contradiction in terms* to speak of an inferior and a superior God. God is God. And there’s only one God. Therefore, if we don’t want to fall into heresy, we must maintain the concept of the Trinity, which affirms the existence of one God in 3 coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons who share one essence (homoousion)!

Polish Translation of Eli Kittim’s article
Polskie tłumaczenie artykułu Eli Kittima
——-
DOWÓD, ŻE DANIEL 12.1 ODNOSI SIĘ DO ZMARTWYCHWSTANIA NA PODSTAWIE TŁUMACZENIA I EGEGEZY JĘZYKÓW BIBLIJNYCH
Autor Eli Kittim
Księga Daniela 12.1 jest w kontekście wielkiego ucisku czasów ostatecznych! Jest powtórzony w Mateusza 24.21 jako czas wielkiej próby: καιρός θλίψεως (por. Ap 7,14).
Daniel Teodotion 12.1 LXX:
καὶ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀναστήσεται Μιχαηλ ὁ ἄρχων ὁ μέγας ὁ ἑστηκὼς ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ σου καὶ ἔσται καιρὸς θλίψεως θλῖψις οἵα οὐ γέγονεν ἀφ’ οὗ γεγένηται ἔθνος ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἕως τοῦ καιροῦ ἐκείνου.
Teodotion Daniel 12,1 z Septuaginty tłumaczy hebrajskie słowo עָמַד (amad) jako αναστήσεται, które pochodzi od rdzenia ανίστημι i oznacza „powstanie”.
Tłumaczenie:
W tym czasie powstanie Michał, wielki książę, obrońca twojego ludu. Nastanie czas udręki, jakiej nie było, odkąd narody po raz pierwszy powstały.
Moje twierdzenie, że greckie słowo ἀναστήσεται („powstanie”) odnosi się do zmartwychwstania, zostało zakwestionowane przez krytyków. Moja odpowiedź jest następująca.
Pierwszym dowodem jest fakt, że Michał jest po raz pierwszy wymieniony jako ten, który „powstanie” (ἀναστήσεται; Daniel Teodotion 12.1 LXX) przed powszechnym zmartwychwstaniem (ἀναστήσονται; Starogrecki Daniel 12.2 LXX). W tym przypadku istnieje solidny dowód językowy, że słowo ἀναστήσεται odnosi się do zmartwychwstania, ponieważ w następnym wersecie (12.2) liczba mnoga tego samego słowa (tj. ἀναστήσονται) została użyta do opisania ogólnego zmartwychwstania! Innymi słowy, jeśli dokładnie to samo słowo oznacza zmartwychwstanie w Daniela 12.2, to musi również oznaczać zmartwychwstanie w Daniela 12.1!
Drugi dowód pochodzi ze starogreckiej wersji Septuaginty Daniela, która używa słowa παρελεύσεται do określenia hebrajskiego słowa עָמַד (amad), które jest tłumaczone jako „powstanie”.
Starogrecki Daniel 12.1 wersja LXX brzmi:
καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὥραν ἐκείνην παρελεύσεται Μιχαηλ ὁ ἄγγελος ὁ μέγας ὁ ἑστηκὼς ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ σου ἐκείνη ἡ ἡμέρα θλίψεως οἵα οὐκ ἐγενήθη ἀφ’ οὗ ἐγενήθησαν ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης.
Starogrecka wersja Septuaginty Daniela dalej pokazuje, że Daniel 12.1 opisuje temat śmierci i zmartwychwstania, ponieważ słowo παρελεύσεται oznacza „odejść” (umrzeć), tym samym wskazując na śmierć tego księcia w czasie koniec! Dlatego przygotowuje scenę dla jego zmartwychwstania, ponieważ tak zwana forma „Teodotion Daniel” z LXX wypełnia luki, używając słowa αναστήσεται, oznaczającego zmartwychwstanie cielesne, aby ustalić okres dni ostatnich jako czas, w którym ta książęca postać zostanie wskrzeszony z martwych!

Was the Word “God” or “a god” in John 1.1?
By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓
John 1.1 (SBLGNT):
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς
τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
John 1.1, which is a throwback to Genesis 1.1, aims to define the primordial relationship of “the Word” (i.e. Christ) to God. But certain skeptics have challenged the idea that the fullness of the godhead was in Christ (Col. 2.9), who is said to be “the Word” (i.e. ὁ λόγος). Specifically, Jehovah's Witnesses have raised the argument of “a god” in John 1.1, implying that Christ is a lesser and inferior god that was created. Let’s explore that assertion. John 1.1 is traditionally broken up into three phrases that are separated by commas:
1st phrase: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος,
2nd phrase: καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς
τὸν θεόν,
3rd phrase: καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
First, to suppose that John is talking about many gods, or more than one god, is a theological speculation and a grammatical imposition that is going beyond what is written in the text or what we know about the theology of the Gospel of John.
Second, John *did* mention the definite article τόν in the second phrase, and so he is not obligated to repeat it in the third phrase, as that would be redundant and tautological.
Third, another reason why the third phrase of John 1.1 doesn’t require the definite article (before the term θεός) is because it was already *used* in the second phrase, and therefore it necessarily *carries over.* For example, if I were to write, “I have a pretty good temper, and a very amiable disposition,” I would not be required to repeat the first part of the phrase. In other words, I wouldn’t be required grammatically to write “I have a pretty good temper, and [I have] a very amiable disposition.” The “I have” is *carried over* and doesn’t need to be repeated. It would be considered redundant. Similarly, in addressing τόν Θεόν with a definite article in the second phrase, John doesn’t have to repeat τόν Θεόν in the third phrase, since it is *carried over.* Here’s another example. I could write “God is one being, not two beings.” But that’s redundant. Now, if I were to rewrite the same sentence correctly and say “God is one being, not two,” would anyone argue that the term “two” may not necessarily refer to the concept of being because the word “being” is not mentioned? That’s the same kind of argument that skeptics are raising here in John 1.1.
Since John has already established (as a monotheist) that he’s talking about one (and-only-one) particular God (namely, τόν Θεόν) in the second phrase, then this syntactical construction must necessarily *carry over* into the third phrase. In other words, the term Θεός in the third phrase grammatically refers back to “the God” (τόν Θεόν) mentioned in the second phrase. Therefore, when John writes——… τὸν θεόν (second phrase), καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (third phrase)——the “God” of the third phrase is a direct reference to “the God” of the second phrase. It’s obviously the same “God” in both phrases, not a different one. And given that God is one being, not two, which other god could John be possibly referring to?
In Greek, the third phrase in John 1.1 is actually read in two different ways, not only as “the Word was God,” but also as “God was the Word.” In the third phrase, there’s no ontological distinction between God and the Word——after all, they share one being: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10.30)——because John already made the distinction (of persons) in the second phrase.
Thus, the “a god” argument of the Jehovah’s Witnesses——which is raised in “The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT)——is totally bogus and unwarranted both grammatically and theologically!