CHRIST(PBUH) IN ISLAM (by Ahmed Deedat)

"IN THE BEGINNING"

"where does Jesus say - "I am God," or "I am equal to God," or "Worship me"? I asked the D.D. from Canada, again.

Reverend Morris took a deep breath and took another try. He quoted the most oft-repeated verse of the Christian Bible
- John 1:1. (Chech note 1)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

Please note, these are not the words of Jesus. They are the words of John (or whoever wrote them). Acknowledge by every erudite Christian scholar of the Bible as being the words of another Jew, Philo of Alexandria, who had written them even before John and Jesus were born. And Philo claimed no divine inspiration for them. No matter what mystical meaning that Philo had woven around these words (which our john has plagirised) (Check note 2) we will accept them for what they are worth.

GREEK NOT HEBREW

Since the manuscripts of the 27 Books of the New Testament are in Greek, a Christian sect has produced its own version and has even changed the name of this selection of 27 Books to "CHRISTIAN GREEK SCRIPTURES" ! I asked the Reverend whether he knew Greek? "Yes," he said, He had studied Greek for 5 years before qualification. I asked him what was the Greek Word for "GOD" the first time it occureds in the quotation - "and the Word was with God"? He kept staring, but didn't answer. So I said, the word was HOTHEOS, which literally means "THE GOD". Since the European (including the North American) has evolved a system of using capital letter to start a proper noun and small letters for common nouns, we would accept his giving a capital "G: for God; in other words HOTHEOS is rendered "the god" which in turn is rendered - God.

"Now tell me, what is the Greek word for God in the second occurrence in your quotation - "and the Word was God"? The Reverend still kept silent. Not that he did not know Greek, or that he had lied - But, he knew more then that, the game was up. I said the word was TONETHEOS, which means "a god".
According to your own system of translating you aught to have spelt this word God a second time with a small "g" i.e. god, and not God with a capital "G"; in other words TONTHEOS is rendered "a god". Both of these, "god" or "a god" are correct.

I told the Reverend "But in Corinthians 4:4 you have dishonestly reversed you system by using a small "g" when spelling GOD - "(and the devil is) the god of this world." The Greek word for "the god" is HOTHEOS the same as in John 1:1. "Why have you not been consistent in your translations?" "If Paul was inspired (?) to write hotheos - the God for the Devil, why begrudge him that capital 'G'?"

"Why do you do this? Why do you play fast and loose with the Word of God?" I asked the reverend. He said, "I didn't do it." I said, I know, but I am talking about the vested interests of Christianity, who are hell-bent to defy Christ, by using capital letters here and small letters there, to decieve the unwary masses who think the every letter, every comma and full stop and the capital and small letters were dictated by God."