Thomas is misunderstood in verse John 20:28:
From Sheikh Ahmed Deedat's work; may Allah Almighty always be pleased with him:
It is often claimed that since Thomas referred to Jesus as "My
God, my Lord (John 20:28),"
that Jesus was God. An ignorance of the context of the verse and of Christian doctrine
prompts this claim. The context of the verse talks about an unbelieving Thomas being
surprised when Jesus offers him evidence.
The exclamation, "My God," on his part was just
astonishment. We use such exclamations everyday while talking to people. This doesn't mean
that the person we are talking to is God. For example, I see John cutting his wrist with a
Rambo knife. I say: "My God, John what are you doing?"
Do I mean that John is God? Of course not. Similar is the use of the expression by Thomas.
If you go into Jewish or Muslim societies even today, you'll hear people exclaim "My
God, my Lord," at every situation which surprises them or causes them anguish or is
astonishing. In the verse above Thomas says: "My God, my Lord." He was not
claiming that Jesus was his (1) God and (2) Lord. If he did then the church and the
disciples should have stamped him as a heretic right there and then. Because
claiming that Jesus is Lord and God is a violation of Christian doctrine, which asserts
that there is One God, the Father and One Lord, Jesus. Jesus can't be God and Lord. "...yet for us there is but one God, the Father...and one Lord, Jesus
Christ ...(I Corinthians 8:6)".
Believing the above (i.e Jesus is Lord and God) would leave a person with unorthodox
doctrine branded by the church as Sabellianism, Patripassianism, Monarchianism.
Further from Muslim-SA:
1.2.2.11 John 20:28
"Then saith he (Jesus) to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands;
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but
believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God."
Once again, when I was first quoted this verse, I immediately thought that I had at
long last found my elusive goal. Finally, I had found a verse that explicitly claims that
Jesus "is" God. However, it was not long after that, upon further research into
Christian theological literature, I once again would come to find that the true meaning of
this verse was quite different than what a casual glance might have me believe.
This verse is at best an example of an "implicit" affirmation of a
"Duality." This is because this verse appears to imply that Thomas thought that
Jesus was God Almighty. The words are those of Thomas and not Jesus. However, there are a
number of problems with interpreting this verse to mean that Jesus is God.
Firstly, the phrase "Thomas answered" is somewhat misleading since nowhere
before this verses was Thomas asked a question. Thomas' words could more appropriately be
referred to as an "outburst" or an "exclamation." This is indeed why
most translations of the Bible (excluding the King James Version) follow this exclamation
with an "exclamation mark" as follows: "And Thomas answered and
said unto him, My Lord and my God !"
Christian scholars such as Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.350-428), the Bishop of
Mopsuestia, interpreted this verse to not be directed at Jesus but at God "the
Father." Thus, it is similar in meaning to our modern exclamations of surprise
"My God!" or "My Lord!." In other words, this was an outburst designed
to display surprise and disbelief rather than an affirmation that Jesus was in fact God
"the Father."
Secondly, the word translated in this verse as "God" is indeed the Greek
"Ho theos" (The God), and not "theos" (divine). However, when
studying the history of this verse in the ancient Biblical manuscripts from which our
modern Bibles have been compiled we find an interesting fact, specifically, that the
ancient Biblical manuscripts themselves are not in agreement as to the correct form of
this word. For example, the codex Bezae (or codex D) is a fifth century manuscript
containing Greek and Latin texts of the Gospels and Acts, which was discovered in the 16th
century by Theodore Beza in a monastery in Lyon. The predecessor of the codex Bezae and
other church manuscripts do not contain the article "Ho" ("THE") in
their text (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart D. Ehrman, p. 266). What this means
is that this verse in it's original form, if it is to be understood to be addressing Jesus
(pbuh) himself, only addresses him as "divine" and not as the "Almighty
God." Thus, it is similar in meaning to the meaning conveyed when prophet Moses is
described as being a "god" in Exodus 7:1 (or when all Jews are described as
being "gods" in Psalms 82:6, or when the devil is described as god in 2
Corinthians 4:4), effectively reducing the exclamation of Thomas, if it were indeed
directed to Jesus, to "My lord the divine!," or "my divine lord!"
For a Muslim the matter is simple. The Qur'an very explicitly states that Jesus was not
forsaken by God to the Jews to be crucified, rather "it was made to appear so to
them." So the claim that Jesus came to Thomas and asked him to witness the imprint of
the nail in his hand and the spear in his side is, for a Muslim, clear evidence that this
whole episode was a fabrication and later insertion. However, since a Muslim's claim in
this regard would not be regarded as authoritative unbiased proof in this matter,
therefore, it is necessary to use a little logic to arrive at the truth.
Since we now have on our hands a dispute between the ancient Biblical manuscripts
themselves as to what Thomas actually said, therefore, let me pose this very simple
request. Please get out a pencil and a piece of paper, stop reading this book for the
moment, and in your own words, please write down in about twenty words, very concisely but
as directly as possible, what is the foremost obvious conclusion you are able to draw from
Thomas' outburst. Study your words carefully and write them down as if your very life and
the salvation of thousands of generations depend on what you are about to say. Make it
clear and to the point. Have you finished?. Okay, let us continue.
Let us now compare what you have just written with what the actual author of this
Gospel had written when faced with the same requirements I have just presented you with.
If we were to continue reading from this same Gospel of John, we will find that
immediately following this discourse between Jesus and Thomas depicted by the author of
"John," the same author of "John" goes on to write:
"And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."
John 20:30-31
If the author of John had recognized Thomas' words to be a testimony that "Jesus
is God" and if the author interpreted Jesus' silence to be his approval of this
claimed testimony, then John would have written "that ye might believe that Jesus is
the Almighty God" and not "that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ..." (For an explanation of the terms "son of God" and
"Christ" please read sections 1.2.3.2, and 1.2.3.8 which are coming up soon).
To make this matter clearer let us first remember that Christian scholars tell us that
the disciples did not fully comprehend who Jesus "was" until after the
resurrection. They admit that the Trinity was not "fully" incorporated into
Christianity until three hundred years after the departure of Jesus (see rest of chapter
one). However, they then point to this verse in order to exhibit to us how in the end the
"true" nature of Jesus was made clear to the apostles. Now, we need to ask, what
is the single most important piece of information we have just learned from Thomas'
outburst? What is the single most glaring, obvious, and outstanding, piece of information
we have learned from this statement? Any random missionary would tell us that it is the
fact that "Jesus is God!" In other words, the disciples have just spent many
years with Jesus learning from him, following him, obeying him, and preaching his message.
Suddenly he is allegedly taken away, crucified, buried, and then he is resurrected. Now
Thomas sees him and according to the testimony of "John," he realizes that Jesus
is "God the Father" who has come down to earth to walk among us. So what would
we logically expect to be the foremost topic of most urgent and critical concern in the
eyes of the author of "John"? Obviously, it should be the instillation within us
of the "fact" that "Jesus is the 'incarnation' of God Almighty!" Does
this not stand to reason? Why then does the author now casually disregard such an earth
shattering observation and choose to simply return to describing Jesus with the benign
terms of "son of God" and "Messiah/Christ"(see sections 1.2.3.2, and
1.2.3.8)? Did the author of this book not make the connection which we have just made? Did
the author of "John" have less understanding of what he was writing than us?
Think about it.
Furthermore, some Christian scholars believe that the whole episode of "doubting
Thomas" is a later "insertion." "The Five Gospels" mark this
passage as being a complete fabrication and not the word of Jesus (pbuh).
There are a number of other verses which could be brought up in this comparison,
however, the ones just quoted are the strongest and most often quoted verses. A number of
other verses that are brought up in such discussions shall be dealt with in chapter 1.2.3
since they are more directly applicable to the concept of the divinity of Jesus or the
claim that he is the physical/begotten son of God than they are to the discussion of the
Trinity.
Last modified: Sun Nov 17 01:58:07 EST 1996
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