A talk regarding Islamic perspectives on Jesus, and historical and contemporary debates about his nature and role. The talk also highlights the possibility of a shared Christological dialogue between the Abrahamic faiths. Dr Timothy Winter, also known as Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, is an English Sunni Muslim scholar, researcher, writer and academic.
I have listened to this last year, very interesting. Professor Winter has become something of a Lancelot Andrewes for the western muslim world. He is a true scholar and worthy of respect. He and Hamza Yusuf seem far more intelligent and informative than somewhat dubious gentleman such as Zakir Naik or Yusuf Estes. We may disagree, but we may admire one another arguments.
I think the problem with this approach in judging people is related somehow to the mindset of western people. Just because Dr. Winter or Hamza match how your paradigm works, it doesn’t mean that other paradigms are dubious or wrong!
I hope that you are well and thank you for your comment upon my comment. I was merely making the point that Dr Winter and Hamza Yusuf seem to make more considered and scholarly statements as opposed to Dr Zakir Naik, currently in exile due to charges of tax laundering and dissemination of extremist material, or Yusuf Estes, who in his most famous online video claimed that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Alexander the Great.
Abdullah1234 I disagree. See the incredibly embarrassing video of Yusuf Estes below. Dr Tim Winter and Hamza are educated people. Estes is obviously not.
I’m not sure he should be giving dawah at all.
I don’t think anyone would suggest to do Dawah without knowledge. However, knowledge is not necessarily to be a Phd degree or an academic talking! Would you give an academic talking as Dawah for some tribes in Amazon or in a desert?
Also, let’s say that some people who have done a great job in Dawah and brought many people to Islam do have some mistakes, what would that be supposed to mean?
Some Muslims at Speaker’s Corner once gave me a booklet by Zakir Naik — I think it was called ‘Answering questions about Islam’ or something like that.
I learned that plants feel pain, and that eating pork will make you behave unhygienically, like pigs.
I am afraid that he did, and stated that the Emperor St Constantine, of holy and blessed memory, and his nefarious bishops ( i know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but i could not resist ) added divinity to Our Lord Christ. The Arian creeds might disagree, but that is neither here or there. The entire video can be found if you type ‘A Catholic sister asked Yusuf Estes-why he accepted Islam-2011’.
It is truly shocking. This man should not be preaching if he doesn’t know what he is talking about. Educated Christians will doubtless think that if he is so embarrassingly wrong about their faith how reliable is he about Islam?
Indeed, what a goofy claim that the Roman Catholic church was started by Alexander the Great around 300 BC. He should be embarressed. Also, he said other goofy things and made several other errors about Constantine and the Council of Nicea of 325 AD, etc.
35:27 “If you want to understand the origins of the Jesus narrative you have to look at apocryphal Christian stories”. Correct.
To understand these sources you don’t have to to dream up in a leap of faith arabic “Ebionites” of the 6th century.
Because you arrogance annoys me, I actually wasn’t the one who made the connection genius.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“Of the history of this sect hardly anything is known. They exerted only the slightest influence in the East and none at all in the West, where they were known as Symmachiani. In St. Epiphanius’s time small communities seem still to have existed in some hamlets of Syria and Palestine, but they were lost in obscurity. Further east, in Babylonia and Persia, their influence is perhaps traceable amongst the Mandeans, and it is suggested by Uhlhorn and others that they may be brought into connection with the origin of Islam.” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05242c.htm
And Hans Joachim:
Hans Joachim Schoeps observes that the Christianity Muhammad was likely to have encountered on the Arabian peninsula “was not the state religion of Byzantium but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebionite and Monophysite views.”[121]
Thus we have a paradox of world-historical proportions, viz., the fact that Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam and thereby extended some of its basic ideas even to our own day. According to Islamic doctrine, the Ebionite combination of Moses and Jesus found its fulfillment in Muhammad.[122] https://www.scribd.com/doc/134169105/Hans-Joachim-Schoeps-Jewish-Christianity
You have little knowledge of either religions and are arrogant with the little bit knowledge you do know. How about you learn how to wipe your butt properly after using the bathroom then come try and debate? Here:
Maybe you should get acquainted with more recent scholarship.
Also see the works of Fred Donner, Angelika Neuwirth.
I wonder why Mr. Winter omits the latest scholarship in his talk. The “Red Sea Scrolls” he longs for are currently compiled in “Corpus Coranicum” project at Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
I hope that you are well,although I must confess that this is a somewhat curious quotation. Monophysitism and Ebionism are very much two extremes on the horseshoe of theology.
On the one hand Monophysitism, or rather Miaphysitism, holds to the belief in the one incarnate Nature of God the Word, that the humanity and divinity of Christ were never separated even for an instant or a twinkling of an eye. It could be considered a reaction to the teachings of the heretic Nestorius, the accursed of God. The Monophysite Churches of Syria, Armenia, Egypt, India and Ethiopia reject the Holy Council of Chalcedon, claiming that it was simply Nestorianism repackaged.
The most powerful church in the area of the Red Sea was and is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church which, despite being Miaphysite, is staunchly loyal to the Creeds of Nicaea and of Constantinople. Women and men pray separately, shoes are removed when in the holy place and systematic prostration is a prominent aspect of worship. As such while there may be several aesthetic similarities to Islam, there is absolutely none in the doctrinal sense.
Secondly in our return to the mysterious and shadow shrouded Ebionites. According to the indomitable Dr Winter, whose lecture we have been listening to, the concept of an Ebionite presence in Arabia is speculative at best and fictional at worst. It will, in the words of Dr Winter, always remain a question of guess work. As I said before the evidence, literary and patristic, points to a doctrinal similarity between the Ebionites and the Elcesaites, namely a mixture of Hebrew mysticism and greco-roman platonic cosmology. In the fragment of their gospel we posses, we see the Holy Spirit not only descending upon Our Lord at Baptism, but actually entering into him. There is a flash of blinding light, and the Forerunner calls him Lord. The perfect Israelite is adopted and divinised. Bart Ehrman, widely seen as the darling of new textual criticism, has this to say regarding this group:
‘the Ebionites differed from non-Christian Jews in asserting that Jesus was the sacrifice for the sins of the world and that all other sacrifices had therefore become meaningless. Among other things this belief led them to embrace a vegetarian diet, since most meat was procured, in the ancient world, through the religious act of sacrificing an animal… Some of the Ebionites’ distinctive concerns are embodied in their Gospel. This is shown, for example, in the reference to the diet of John the Baptist, in which the canonical statement that he ate locusts (i.e. meat) and wild honey was modified by the change of simply one letter, so that now the Baptist, in anticipation of the Ebionites themselves, maintains a vegetarian cuisine: here he is said have eaten pancakes and wild honey’.
And according to another fragment, the Ebionite adopted Jesus said:
‘I have come to destroy the sacrifices. And if you do not stop making sacrifice, God’s wrath will not stop afflicting you’
Not very Islamic sentiments. Should you say that there were certain Ebionites who held to matters such as the birth of the Saviour from the holy virgin, and that these individuals were the true followers of the Messiah in hiding and were essentially proto muslims, does this not have a greater resemblance to Dan Brown than serious history. It does all seen highly speculative.
God Love You
PS I assure you that the Orthodox Church has externally stringent rules on the subject of personal hygiene.
PPS In case you like religious jokes, this one made me chuckle helplessly:
‘A mitred archpriest from a popular cathedral in a major city, a veteran monk from a strict monastery, and a soon-to-graduate seminarian from St. Vladimir’s Seminary are having a conversation.
The archpriest says, “In Bright Week, I like to dine at the Four Seasons and have chateaubriand with a side of white truffles, although it costs a lot of money, its worth it once a year to celebrate the Resurrection.”
The aged monk replied “I beg your pardon, Father, could you remind me, what is this thing called chateaubriand and white truffles?
The seminarian replied “Father, I also beg your pardon, my memory also fails me, what is this thing called money?’
The post was not aimed towards you. You have all decided to reject any scholarly quotes about the subject and are reaching for anything to the contrary hence me having to dedicate an article to it. The topic was “did stewjo004 make the connection?” And I did not as the arrogant moron claimed.
P.S. I assure you-you all think you’re clean but aren’t.
How was that relevant to your initial contention? You trying to make a catty comment and claimed I made up the connection between the Ebionites and Islam. After that was proven false you have now switched to:
“Well modern scholarships says blah,blah,blah”
This is irrelevant to my point that I did not make the connection. So to prove my point about your arrogance will you concede I am not the one who made the Ebionite/Islam connection as you asserted earlier?
Also as a quick point, this gentlemen‘s opinion does not make something fact. This is literally his lone opinion hence statements like:
“My opinion”, I don’t think,” etc.
All orientalist opinions change like the wind, so this is not “scholarships new opinion” it is this man’s single opinion. Finally, I did NOT argue that the Prophet(saw) learned from Christians in Hijaz or that there was a community in the region, I argued that these people are proof that Islamic beliefs existed among early Christianity. You guys want them to be reading the Qur’an and that is not our beliefs regarding earlier forms of the religion. It is the belief in One God that matters the rules, vocab used, etc do not.
Dear All
I have listened to this last year, very interesting. Professor Winter has become something of a Lancelot Andrewes for the western muslim world. He is a true scholar and worthy of respect. He and Hamza Yusuf seem far more intelligent and informative than somewhat dubious gentleman such as Zakir Naik or Yusuf Estes. We may disagree, but we may admire one another arguments.
God Love you.
LOL I agree
I think the problem with this approach in judging people is related somehow to the mindset of western people. Just because Dr. Winter or Hamza match how your paradigm works, it doesn’t mean that other paradigms are dubious or wrong!
Dear Abdullah
I hope that you are well and thank you for your comment upon my comment. I was merely making the point that Dr Winter and Hamza Yusuf seem to make more considered and scholarly statements as opposed to Dr Zakir Naik, currently in exile due to charges of tax laundering and dissemination of extremist material, or Yusuf Estes, who in his most famous online video claimed that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Alexander the Great.
God love you
‘claimed that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Alexander the Great.’
Really?
Abdullah1234 I disagree. See the incredibly embarrassing video of Yusuf Estes below. Dr Tim Winter and Hamza are educated people. Estes is obviously not.
I’m not sure he should be giving dawah at all.
I don’t think anyone would suggest to do Dawah without knowledge. However, knowledge is not necessarily to be a Phd degree or an academic talking! Would you give an academic talking as Dawah for some tribes in Amazon or in a desert?
Also, let’s say that some people who have done a great job in Dawah and brought many people to Islam do have some mistakes, what would that be supposed to mean?
Some Muslims at Speaker’s Corner once gave me a booklet by Zakir Naik — I think it was called ‘Answering questions about Islam’ or something like that.
I learned that plants feel pain, and that eating pork will make you behave unhygienically, like pigs.
I’ve heard many christian pastors even in person say that Jesus actually talked to them and told them to be pastors. 🙂
Dear Mr Williams
I am afraid that he did, and stated that the Emperor St Constantine, of holy and blessed memory, and his nefarious bishops ( i know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but i could not resist ) added divinity to Our Lord Christ. The Arian creeds might disagree, but that is neither here or there. The entire video can be found if you type ‘A Catholic sister asked Yusuf Estes-why he accepted Islam-2011’.
God love you
good grief
It is truly shocking. This man should not be preaching if he doesn’t know what he is talking about. Educated Christians will doubtless think that if he is so embarrassingly wrong about their faith how reliable is he about Islam?
“Educated Christians”
FYI, most christians have no idea about bible’s content, and they think Islam is cult invented by the catholic church!
Indeed, what a goofy claim that the Roman Catholic church was started by Alexander the Great around 300 BC. He should be embarressed. Also, he said other goofy things and made several other errors about Constantine and the Council of Nicea of 325 AD, etc.
Alexander the Great was no Roman Catholic, he was Muslim. Because God says so.
Why does God say so lol
good grief
35:27 “If you want to understand the origins of the Jesus narrative you have to look at apocryphal Christian stories”. Correct.
To understand these sources you don’t have to to dream up in a leap of faith arabic “Ebionites” of the 6th century.
Because you arrogance annoys me, I actually wasn’t the one who made the connection genius.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“Of the history of this sect hardly anything is known. They exerted only the slightest influence in the East and none at all in the West, where they were known as Symmachiani. In St. Epiphanius’s time small communities seem still to have existed in some hamlets of Syria and Palestine, but they were lost in obscurity. Further east, in Babylonia and Persia, their influence is perhaps traceable amongst the Mandeans, and it is suggested by Uhlhorn and others that they may be brought into connection with the origin of Islam.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05242c.htm
And Hans Joachim:
Hans Joachim Schoeps observes that the Christianity Muhammad was likely to have encountered on the Arabian peninsula “was not the state religion of Byzantium but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebionite and Monophysite views.”[121]
Thus we have a paradox of world-historical proportions, viz., the fact that Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam and thereby extended some of its basic ideas even to our own day. According to Islamic doctrine, the Ebionite combination of Moses and Jesus found its fulfillment in Muhammad.[122]
https://www.scribd.com/doc/134169105/Hans-Joachim-Schoeps-Jewish-Christianity
You have little knowledge of either religions and are arrogant with the little bit knowledge you do know. How about you learn how to wipe your butt properly after using the bathroom then come try and debate? Here:
Maybe you should get acquainted with more recent scholarship.
Also see the works of Fred Donner, Angelika Neuwirth.
I wonder why Mr. Winter omits the latest scholarship in his talk. The “Red Sea Scrolls” he longs for are currently compiled in “Corpus Coranicum” project at Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
https://corpuscoranicum.de/
Dear Abdullah
I would never deny that there are Christians who are nitwits, just as there as Muslims or Jews who are nitwits.
God Love You
Dear Stewjo004
I hope that you are well,although I must confess that this is a somewhat curious quotation. Monophysitism and Ebionism are very much two extremes on the horseshoe of theology.
On the one hand Monophysitism, or rather Miaphysitism, holds to the belief in the one incarnate Nature of God the Word, that the humanity and divinity of Christ were never separated even for an instant or a twinkling of an eye. It could be considered a reaction to the teachings of the heretic Nestorius, the accursed of God. The Monophysite Churches of Syria, Armenia, Egypt, India and Ethiopia reject the Holy Council of Chalcedon, claiming that it was simply Nestorianism repackaged.
The most powerful church in the area of the Red Sea was and is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church which, despite being Miaphysite, is staunchly loyal to the Creeds of Nicaea and of Constantinople. Women and men pray separately, shoes are removed when in the holy place and systematic prostration is a prominent aspect of worship. As such while there may be several aesthetic similarities to Islam, there is absolutely none in the doctrinal sense.
Secondly in our return to the mysterious and shadow shrouded Ebionites. According to the indomitable Dr Winter, whose lecture we have been listening to, the concept of an Ebionite presence in Arabia is speculative at best and fictional at worst. It will, in the words of Dr Winter, always remain a question of guess work. As I said before the evidence, literary and patristic, points to a doctrinal similarity between the Ebionites and the Elcesaites, namely a mixture of Hebrew mysticism and greco-roman platonic cosmology. In the fragment of their gospel we posses, we see the Holy Spirit not only descending upon Our Lord at Baptism, but actually entering into him. There is a flash of blinding light, and the Forerunner calls him Lord. The perfect Israelite is adopted and divinised. Bart Ehrman, widely seen as the darling of new textual criticism, has this to say regarding this group:
‘the Ebionites differed from non-Christian Jews in asserting that Jesus was the sacrifice for the sins of the world and that all other sacrifices had therefore become meaningless. Among other things this belief led them to embrace a vegetarian diet, since most meat was procured, in the ancient world, through the religious act of sacrificing an animal… Some of the Ebionites’ distinctive concerns are embodied in their Gospel. This is shown, for example, in the reference to the diet of John the Baptist, in which the canonical statement that he ate locusts (i.e. meat) and wild honey was modified by the change of simply one letter, so that now the Baptist, in anticipation of the Ebionites themselves, maintains a vegetarian cuisine: here he is said have eaten pancakes and wild honey’.
And according to another fragment, the Ebionite adopted Jesus said:
‘I have come to destroy the sacrifices. And if you do not stop making sacrifice, God’s wrath will not stop afflicting you’
Not very Islamic sentiments. Should you say that there were certain Ebionites who held to matters such as the birth of the Saviour from the holy virgin, and that these individuals were the true followers of the Messiah in hiding and were essentially proto muslims, does this not have a greater resemblance to Dan Brown than serious history. It does all seen highly speculative.
God Love You
PS I assure you that the Orthodox Church has externally stringent rules on the subject of personal hygiene.
PPS In case you like religious jokes, this one made me chuckle helplessly:
‘A mitred archpriest from a popular cathedral in a major city, a veteran monk from a strict monastery, and a soon-to-graduate seminarian from St. Vladimir’s Seminary are having a conversation.
The archpriest says, “In Bright Week, I like to dine at the Four Seasons and have chateaubriand with a side of white truffles, although it costs a lot of money, its worth it once a year to celebrate the Resurrection.”
The aged monk replied “I beg your pardon, Father, could you remind me, what is this thing called chateaubriand and white truffles?
The seminarian replied “Father, I also beg your pardon, my memory also fails me, what is this thing called money?’
Once again God Love You
@ Tobias
The post was not aimed towards you. You have all decided to reject any scholarly quotes about the subject and are reaching for anything to the contrary hence me having to dedicate an article to it. The topic was “did stewjo004 make the connection?” And I did not as the arrogant moron claimed.
P.S. I assure you-you all think you’re clean but aren’t.
@ Agnostic
How was that relevant to your initial contention? You trying to make a catty comment and claimed I made up the connection between the Ebionites and Islam. After that was proven false you have now switched to:
“Well modern scholarships says blah,blah,blah”
This is irrelevant to my point that I did not make the connection. So to prove my point about your arrogance will you concede I am not the one who made the Ebionite/Islam connection as you asserted earlier?
Also as a quick point, this gentlemen‘s opinion does not make something fact. This is literally his lone opinion hence statements like:
“My opinion”, I don’t think,” etc.
All orientalist opinions change like the wind, so this is not “scholarships new opinion” it is this man’s single opinion. Finally, I did NOT argue that the Prophet(saw) learned from Christians in Hijaz or that there was a community in the region, I argued that these people are proof that Islamic beliefs existed among early Christianity. You guys want them to be reading the Qur’an and that is not our beliefs regarding earlier forms of the religion. It is the belief in One God that matters the rules, vocab used, etc do not.