In article <4phqos$51t@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, shaherkh@acasun.eckerd.edu (Khan H. Shaheryar) asked on the Islamic newsgroup:
Dear sir,I would like to sincerely ask you if you can produce the following words from the pages of the bible: TAURAT & INGEEL? Please no twisted derivatives.
This question/request is important and necessary to be answered before I can tell you and others who are muslims in this forum the position of the "Bible" according to the Quran.
My answer was as follows:
It took me some digging in the original language editions of Old and New
Testament to find what you want. But still, there are some "misconceptions"
I have to address so that you better understand what is going on.
Just as the word "Qur'an" is written differently in English as "Koran",
"Qoran" and "Qu'ran" by different people, and the latter form is only
the "recently standardized" form, [just as well as we find "Mahomet",
Mohammad", "Muhammed" etc for the name of your prophet] so has the name
of these books suffered under transliteration into another language
[and what you give me above is even a transliteration from Arabic,
which is in turn a transliteriation from the Hebrew and Greek].
TORaH (singular) and TOROT (plural) are the "letter by letter" transcriptions
from the Hebrew to English of the word we find in the Bible. Upper case
indicating the "written letters", and lower case letters which are only
present in the vowel marks.
Ingeel is properly spelled in Greek as "eyangelion" from which we have in
English the more rare form "evangel" meaning "Good News" (archaic: Good Spell)
= Gospel. And the transliteration "injil" or "ingeel" is basically a little
distorted spelling from the original Greek word.
Both of these words in their original spellings are to be found in the Bible,
but in the English translations they are usually translated and not left as
"names".
For "TORAH/TOROT" you will usually find "Law/instruction/teaching" and for
"eyanggelion" you will find "gospel" or "good news" which is what these words
mean.
Where do we find these words now? In many places. Let me just give you a few
prominent ones.
TORaH: (in each case the word "law" in bold face "law" is "TORaH" in Hebrew)
Deuteronomy 1:5 East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab,
Moses began to expound this law, saying: ...
Joshua 1:1: After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD,
the LORD said to Joshua ...
Joshua 1:7: Be strong and courageous. Be careful to obey all the law
my servant Moses gave to you. Do not turn from it to
the right or to the left, that you may be successful
wherever you go...
Malachi 4:4: Remember the law of my servant Moses,
the decrees and laws I gave him at horeb for all Israel
But the word is not only a "proper name", but just means the "law/instruction"
of God and is used in that way many times, e.g.
Isaiah 2:3: ... the law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem
and this Hebrew poetic structure of parallelism shows that "TORaH" basically
just mean "word of the Lord" (any word of the Lord) not just the specific
revelation that has been given to Moses. Also in
Jeremiah 6:19: Hear, O earth, I am bringing desaster on this people,
the fruit of their schemes,
because they have not listened to my words,
and have rejected my law....
Summary: "Torah" can be used for the specific body of 'law' or 'instruction'
that has been given to Israel through the Prophet Moses, but it can generally
be used for any word of God that was given through the prophets. In the New
Testament I could not find an instant where the word "torah" is used, it is
always the translation of "law" into Greek, i.e. 'nomos' [which means law]
and Jesus speaks of the "law of Moses" which is "ho nomos Moyseos" in Greek.
The word for Gospel in the New Testament is used similarly.
It is the normal word in Greek for "good news", "ey = good" and
"angelion = message" [angelos = angel = messenger] and was used in completely
secular and non-religious contexts.
Just a few quotes where the word is mentioned in the New Testament:
The Gospel according to Mark starts with:
1:1 The beginning of the gospel [good news] about Jesus Christ, ...
[and probably from this sentence, it was derived to call the four records of
Jesus life and teaching "the gospels".] But originally it just meant "good news"
as it is used in the same chapter
1:14 After John [Yahya] was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee,
proclaiming the good news of God. ...
In each case, the word in boldfaced letters is "eyangelion" in Greek.
We already see, it is used in both ways, "the good news of God" and "the good
news about Jesus Christ". And this is exactly as the Apostle Paul also uses it
in his letter to the Romans:
1:1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and
set apart for the gospel of God -- ...
1:3-4 regarding his Son, who as to
his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the
Spirit of holiness was decared with power to be the Son of God by
his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord...
In both, Mark and Paul, taken the message in its entirety, it is clear that
"the gospel" is both "of God" (originates with God) and in content is "about
Jesus" (is messages is God's love to us as demonstrated to us in Jesus).
There are many many more references where "gospel" is mentioned in the New
Testament, but let these suffice for now. Feel free to ask more specifically.
But one thing is clear from the New Testament, both from "the Gospels" and the
epistles, that 'gospel' is primarily a MESSAGE and not 'a book'. Later as time
went on, the books containing this 'gospel' [singular, because it is only one
gospel message] also were called 'Gospels' [plural, because they are several
books reporting about Jesus' life, death and resurrection, which is the center
of the gospel message].
See also the summary of "the gospel" in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, particularly verse 3.
Overview on the questions
Answering Islam Home Page