“Ahmad” only appears once in the quran – its possible its an attempt to render a derived meaning of paraclete in arabic.
But the paraclete (Jesus) of 1 John 2:1 is an advocate on our behalf with the father who intercedes as a sin offering for us with the father. This is consistent with the use of the word outside the NT – ** you do not have permission to see this link **
In the gospel of John there is a second Paraclete who is explicitly identified as the Holy Spirit.
brenmcg said
“Ahmad” only appears once in the quran – its possible its an attempt to render a derived meaning of paraclete in arabic.
That suggestion does make sense initially. It also faces several obstacles: the lack of any knowledge of Greek in the cities of Mecca and Medina where the Quran was promulgated, the paucity of Christians there, and the fact that the New Testament was not translated into Arabic till some time *after* the rise of Islam. Moreover, if the word ‘Paraclete’ had been known in its Johannine context, we would expect it to be rendered as ‘advocate’ and ‘intercessor’, since this is how people usually understand it: and this also fits perfectly with Muslim doctrines. So it would be very surprising to see ‘Ahmad’ being used, if it were really derived from ‘Paraclete’.
Omar6741 said
That suggestion does make sense initially. It also faces several obstacles: the lack of any knowledge of Greek in the cities of Mecca and Medina where the Quran was promulgated, the paucity of Christians there, and the fact that the New Testament was not translated into Arabic till some time *after* the rise of Islam. Moreover, if the word ‘Paraclete’ had been known in its Johannine context, we would expect it to be rendered as ‘advocate’ and ‘intercessor’, since this is how people usually understand it: and this also fits perfectly with Muslim doctrines. So it would be very surprising to see ‘Ahmad’ being used, if it were really derived from ‘Paraclete’.
The word injil itself is thought to be derived from greek, through syriac/aramaic, so paraclete to ahmad need not be a direct derivation.
The second person Muhammad saw after his first revelation was Khadija’s cousin Waraqa, who was a christian that would write out the gospel in the hebrew letters – as much as god wanted him to write. So even if christians were rare Muhammad still had good access to them. The gospel need not have had a written translation into Arabic for Muhammad to have heard stories from the gospels from christians like Waraqa.
There are quraish caravans doing business in Sham (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan) that are invited to the court of Heraclius the Byzantine emperor, so its unlikely there’s no knowledge of Greek in Mecca/Medina.
Robert said
Omar6741 said
An apologetic argument obviously, but that doesn’t mean everything in it is wrong. I am curious what people think of his linguistic arguments here
There’s some linguistic sleight of hand here. The video appeals to Antony Billington starting around 1:40, who is making a very common and basic linguistic point. Etymology alone can sometimes be insufficient or even misleading when one is trying to understand the meaning and use of a word in its context, here the gospel of John. Thus one needs to also pay attention to the author’s context to derive the meaning of the term here. The author of this video uses a partial quotation of Billington to cast doubt on the standard and correct etymology so that he can propose a different etymology of παρακλητος, without doing the necessary linguistic work to look at John’s use of this word to determine its meaning in this context. And, as Bren already pointed out, one should also be looking at the context of the use of Ahmed being discussed here to see if this later text is interacting with the use of the word in the Johannine literature.
Maybe the video addresses these errors later on; I didn’t have the patience to watch the whole thing. I have so little patience for apologetic arguments and magical thinking in my old age. No doubt one of my worst faults.
The context is really the key to the whole issue dealt with by the video: the basic problem raised by John’s use of παρακλητος is that it already has a known range of meanings (“advocate”, “intercessor”, “defense lawyer”, etc.), and these meanings do not have any connection with the functions attributed to the παρακλητος. That makes it hard to understand why the word παρακλητος has been used at all.
A number of critical scholars think the παρακλητος was originally a future figure, later identified with the Holy Spirit. If we take seriously the possibility that the Quran preserves traditions about this same future figure, though, a new solution to the problem of this παρακλητος becomes available: it might have been chosen, originally, to capture the meaning of the name ‘Ahmad’.
brenmcg said
Omar6741 said
That suggestion does make sense initially. It also faces several obstacles: the lack of any knowledge of Greek in the cities of Mecca and Medina where the Quran was promulgated, the paucity of Christians there, and the fact that the New Testament was not translated into Arabic till some time *after* the rise of Islam. Moreover, if the word ‘Paraclete’ had been known in its Johannine context, we would expect it to be rendered as ‘advocate’ and ‘intercessor’, since this is how people usually understand it: and this also fits perfectly with Muslim doctrines. So it would be very surprising to see ‘Ahmad’ being used, if it were really derived from ‘Paraclete’.
The word injil itself is thought to be derived from greek, through syriac/aramaic, so paraclete to ahmad need not be a direct derivation.
The second person Muhammad saw after his first revelation was Khadija’s cousin Waraqa, who was a christian that would write out the gospel in the hebrew letters – as much as god wanted him to write. So even if christians were rare Muhammad still had good access to them. The gospel need not have had a written translation into Arabic for Muhammad to have heard stories from the gospels from christians like Waraqa.
There are quraish caravans doing business in Sham (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan) that are invited to the court of Heraclius the Byzantine emperor, so its unlikely there’s no knowledge of Greek in Mecca/Medina.
I think the derivation from ‘paraclete’ to ‘ahmad’ is very unlikely, given that it requires a very specific way of reading that Greek term which never seems to occur to anybody who is not already trying to get a connection with ‘ahmad’; and an apologist would surely have tried to derive ‘muhammad’ rather than ‘ahmad’.
The Arabs living in the Transjordan area were likely bilingual — as they had been in the days of the Nabataean kingdom — and could serve as translators for merchants from Mecca and Medina; not those living in Medina or Mecca.
One can always imagine isolated individuals here and there with substantial knowledge of Greek in those two citites, but the far greater probability is that such individuals did not exist. In particular, Waraqa wrote out the Gospel in Hebrew letters, and there is no indication he knew Greek. Even if he had, why would he think to derive ‘ahmad’ from ‘paraclete’ when that was not even the name by which the new prophet(s) was known?
brenmcg said
Omar6741 said
That suggestion does make sense initially. It also faces several obstacles: the lack of any knowledge of Greek in the cities of Mecca and Medina where the Quran was promulgated, the paucity of Christians there, and the fact that the New Testament was not translated into Arabic till some time *after* the rise of Islam. Moreover, if the word ‘Paraclete’ had been known in its Johannine context, we would expect it to be rendered as ‘advocate’ and ‘intercessor’, since this is how people usually understand it: and this also fits perfectly with Muslim doctrines. So it would be very surprising to see ‘Ahmad’ being used, if it were really derived from ‘Paraclete’.
The word injil itself is thought to be derived from greek, through syriac/aramaic…
I know that is the common claim i.e. that Arabic ‘Injil’ (إنجيل) comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον.
But if it came from Greek, wouldn’t the Arabic more likely be something like ‘Aywanjeliun’ ( ايوانجيليون) ?
Omar6741 said
I think the derivation from ‘paraclete’ to ‘ahmad’ is very unlikely, given that it requires a very specific way of reading that Greek term which never seems to occur to anybody who is not already trying to get a connection with ‘ahmad’; and an apologist would surely have tried to derive ‘muhammad’ rather than ‘ahmad’.
An apologist would just try to get a derivation as close as possible to ‘muhammad’, prophecies are supposed to be interpreted not exact predictions.
I think understanding paraclete or ahmad as “most praised one” is contrived in both instances, but ancient authors would have better understanding of their meaning than anyone today. If that is what they mean its not difficult to believe an ancient apologist could come with that link.
The Arabs living in the Transjordan area were likely bilingual — as they had been in the days of the Nabataean kingdom — and could serve as translators for merchants from Mecca and Medina; not those living in Medina or Mecca.
Whoever the translators are those on mecca/medina would have access to them. Anyone looking to endear themselves to muhammad could come up with this contrived derivation and tell him the christian gospel has Jesus predict a messenger called ahmad will follow him.
One can always imagine isolated individuals here and there with substantial knowledge of Greek in those two citites, but the far greater probability is that such individuals did not exist. In particular, Waraqa wrote out the Gospel in Hebrew letters, and there is no indication he knew Greek. Even if he had, why would he think to derive ‘ahmad’ from ‘paraclete’ when that was not even the name by which the new prophet(s) was known?
This is one particular christian very close to muhammad. It cant be stated without evidence that muhammad was not influenced in any way by greek speaking christians. If this derivation is to be believed any one of these ancient bilingual christians could have come up with it.
Omar6741 said
I know that is the common claim i.e. that Arabic ‘Injil’ (إنجيل) comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον.
But if it came from Greek, wouldn’t the Arabic more likely be something like ‘Aywanjeliun’ ( ايوانجيليون) ?
It may or may not have been more likely but that says nothing about whether the arabic word we now have, injil, is related to the greek word evangelion.
brenmcg said
Omar6741 said
I think the derivation from ‘paraclete’ to ‘ahmad’ is very unlikely, given that it requires a very specific way of reading that Greek term which never seems to occur to anybody who is not already trying to get a connection with ‘ahmad’; and an apologist would surely have tried to derive ‘muhammad’ rather than ‘ahmad’.
An apologist would just try to get a derivation as close as possible to ‘muhammad’, prophecies are supposed to be interpreted not exact predictions.
I think understanding paraclete or ahmad as “most praised one” is contrived in both instances, but ancient authors would have better understanding of their meaning than anyone today. If that is what they mean its not difficult to believe an ancient apologist could come with that link.
The Arabs living in the Transjordan area were likely bilingual — as they had been in the days of the Nabataean kingdom — and could serve as translators for merchants from Mecca and Medina; not those living in Medina or Mecca.
Whoever the translators are those on mecca/medina would have access to them. Anyone looking to endear themselves to muhammad could come up with this contrived derivation and tell him the christian gospel has Jesus predict a messenger called ahmad will follow him.
One can always imagine isolated individuals here and there with substantial knowledge of Greek in those two citites, but the far greater probability is that such individuals did not exist. In particular, Waraqa wrote out the Gospel in Hebrew letters, and there is no indication he knew Greek. Even if he had, why would he think to derive ‘ahmad’ from ‘paraclete’ when that was not even the name by which the new prophet(s) was known?
This is one particular christian very close to muhammad. It cant be stated without evidence that muhammad was not influenced in any way by greek speaking christians. If this derivation is to be believed any one of these ancient bilingual christians could have come up with it.
The evidence for lack of influence by Greek-speaking Christians lies in the sheer distance of Mecca and Medina from any area where the ability to speak Greek might have been useful on a regular basis.
As for the bilingual folk living in or near Byzantine territory: it is unclear to me what motivation they might have for spending their time coming up with a novel apologetic on behalf of a new religious movement emerging in the Peninsula, a new religious movement that anyone would expect to fail or be crushed by the major empires of the day. Might they have been motivated by money? Maybe, though there was much more money to be found in serving the Byzantines than in propping up a new unheard of prophet who had little momney and in the beginning was facing persecution, and wouldn’t be expected to succeed anyway.
And if there was some such motivation, they would need to be highly literate, which was already rare. Then they would need access to the gospel of John, which is by no means guaranteed, as scripture was not made freely available (unlike today).
Then they would need to overcome the normal tendency to think that the paraclete was the Holy Spirit, something that would defeat any pro-Islamic apologetic based on the gospel of John.
Then, even if they decided to go along with the idea that the paraclete was really a man, something explicitly rejected by the text itself, they would need to overlook the more obvious and well-known meanings of ‘paracletos’, such as “intercessor”. But why would they have any motivation to do that, given that intercessor is a standard prophetic function in Islam, and fits perfectly with Islamic doctrine?
Using the name ‘Ahmad’ instead of ‘Muhammad’ in a prophecy would make for a pretty incompetent apologetic, as it opens the door for a new prophetic claimant to say “This prophecy does not refer to Muhammad, it refers to someone with a different name, Ahmad, and that is me!” In fact, new prophetic claimants in the Islamic world have regularly been claiming that.
Prophecies are most persuasive when they are exact; the tolerance for interpretation of prophecies comes from the failure of so many prophecies if one does not interpret them. Again, it is very unclear why anyone would go to such trouble to come up with a prophecy that does not really fit anyway, and that nobody could readily see in the text of John’s gospel.
Much more likely is a scenario like this: there were traditions independent of the Greek text of John that were circulating in Mecca and Medina, and that prophesied a future figure named ‘Ahmad’; Muslims appropriated these while expanding their repertoire of prophetic names to include ‘Ahmad’ alongside ‘Muhammad’ to overcome the obvious discrepancy.
brenmcg said
Omar6741 said
I know that is the common claim i.e. that Arabic ‘Injil’ (إنجيل) comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον.
But if it came from Greek, wouldn’t the Arabic more likely be something like ‘Aywanjeliun’ ( ايوانجيليون) ?
It may or may not have been more likely but that says nothing about whether the arabic word we now have, injil, is related to the greek word evangelion.
Something is wrong with an explanation which relates ‘Injil’ to εὐαγγέλιον if the latter word would have been more likely rendered as ‘Aywanjeliun’ in Arabic. We should then be agnostic about the proposed derivation.
Robert said
Omar6741 said
The context is really the key to the whole issue dealt with by the video: the basic problem raised by John’s use of παρακλητος is that it already has a known range of meanings (“advocate”, “intercessor”, “defense lawyer”, etc.), and these meanings do not have any connection with the functions attributed to the παρακλητος. That makes it hard to understand why the word παρακλητος has been used at all.
I don’t think that’s really true. It is indeed the pretext of this video for looking for a different meaning, but I’m not at all convinced that most critical scholars have any major problem deriving John’s sense of the meaning from its context. Do you know of any critical scholars who would agree that the Johannine contexts cannot establish a coherent meaning for the term παρακλητος in line with its ordinary meanings in Greek?
I only know the quotes from critical scholars to that effect already given in the video.
Robert said
Omar6741 said
The context is really the key to the whole issue dealt with by the video: the basic problem raised by John’s use of παρακλητος is that it already has a known range of meanings (“advocate”, “intercessor”, “defense lawyer”, etc.), and these meanings do not have any connection with the functions attributed to the παρακλητος. That makes it hard to understand why the word παρακλητος has been used at all.
I don’t think that’s really true. It is indeed the pretext of this video for looking for a different meaning, but I’m not at all convinced that most critical scholars have any major problem deriving John’s sense of the meaning from its context. Do you know of any critical scholars who would agree that the Johannine contexts cannot establish a coherent meaning for the term παρακλητος in line with its ordinary meanings in Greek?
A number of critical scholars think the παρακλητος was originally a future figure, later identified with the Holy Spirit. If we take seriously the possibility that the Quran preserves traditions about this same future figure, though, a new solution to the problem of this παρακλητος becomes available: it might have been chosen, originally, to capture the meaning of the name ‘Ahmad’.
Are you just going to ignore the issue of looking at the context of the Quran’s use of ‘Ahmad’? Are there indications that this passage of the Quran is a locus for intertextuality with the Johannine literature?
I was interested in hearing comments about a video that claims to resolve a problem in John, especially the video’s linguistic claims; I didn’t claim to give a scholarly treatment of the Quran’s use of ‘Ahmad’ in its context.
Still, when it comes to the broader context, I do see some evidence for intertextuality between the Quran and the Johannine literature in correlations between the attributes ascribed to the ‘paracletos’ in John, and the Prophetic attributes given in the Quran. For example, compare John 16:13 “For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears” with Quran 53:3-4 “Nor doth he speak of (his own) desire. This is naught but a revelation revealed.”
Robert said
I already showed you how the quotation of Antony Billington was distorted and misused. Can you cite any of the other quotations of scholars as making essentially the same point that the video is trying to make? From what I saw, these other ‘scholars’ did not really make the claims you are trying to attribute to them.
I just watched the first part again, and I don’t think the video-maker misused Billington at all: he interpreted Billington correctly and moved on. It is merely one aspect of the exposition. Please check out the scholarly quote just before Billington, around 1:30, though.
Robert said
Can you give us the context of the Qumran passage that mentions this Ahmad? I am not very familiar with the Quran.
Sure. The passage is in “sura” 61 (the Quran has 114 “suras”, or chapters).
And when Jesus son of Mary said, “O Children of Israel, I am God’s Messenger to you, confirming what preceded me of the Torah, and announcing good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is Ahmad.” But when he showed them the miracles, they said, “This is obvious sorcery.”
This obviously does not sound much like the Gospel of Mark, well known for its “messianic secret” motif. But it does portray Jesus being very open about his identity and mission, and using miracles to support that claim about his identity, and *to that extent* it is similar to the portrayal in John.
The full sura is here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
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