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The Christological Shema or Shahada?
The Shema for the Jew is found in Deuteronomy 6:4 and states:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one
It is the great foundation of the Jewish faith. Not only this, but the Shahada for the Muslim is stated in it's truest form as:
There is no god but God
Both of these form a creed of sorts to help show what is the true foundation of the messages of these great historic monotheistic faiths. Yesterday, I found this tweeted from Chuck Huckaby:
Speaking of Jesus' diety, a greek scholar told me that 1 Cor 8:6 is a Christological paraphrase of Shema in Dt 6:4 from LXX
This I found quite interesting so I went to the passage, which does very much show forth what sounds like a great understanding of a Christological Shema or Shahada of the Christian faith:
yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
1 Corinthians 8:6
Of course, as a follower of Jesus, I believe that 1 Corinthians 8:6 takes the Shema and the Shahada to their more fuller understanding through the work of Jesus Christ in whom is our Lord and in whom all things exist.
I found this quite interesting.
1 comments:
I think chronological order and progressive revelation have to be taken into account here. Yes, the sh'ma is "taken to a fuller understanding" by the work of Christ, because it is part of the progressive revelation that led up to Christ's redemptive work. Christianity grew up out of Judaism. But to say that the Muslim shahadah is "taken to a fuller understanding" by the work of Christ is anachronistic. As Christianity grew out of Judaism a fuller and more complete revelation of God, Islam grew out of both Judaism and Coptic Christianity a twisted and heretical hybrid of these and various pagan religions of the Arabs.
Jesus is the next logical step to the shema and his person and work do not contradict it. But Jesus the Son of God is not the next logical or revelatory step of the Islamic Creed because Islam has already overtly rejected Christ as Son of God (in fact, to claim such is blasphemy; Surah 18:4-6) and Jesus as Lord (Surah 4:171-172).
Therefore, the statement that there is no God but God may be compatible enough with Judaism and, therefore, Christianity... but "and Mohammed is his prophet" assumes the truth of Mohammeds prophecies, which (in part) form the Koran, including a false Christ, false Gospel, and sundry false hopes.
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