Issues of Integrity
Comments on Akbarally Meherally's Prophecy Paper
October 25, 1997
Some months ago, Akbarally Meherally created his web site, including
the article Isaiah
and Jesus Prophecying about Muhammad, containing the following
statement:
A
MALE SALVIFIC FIGURE LIKE JESUS
The passage quoted below
from the world renowned and distinguished Anchor Bible confirms that the
original concept among the noted Christian scholars and populace, for the
Paraclete was for a male salvific figure,
but that concept was later confused with the "Holy Spirit".
"The word parakletos is
peculiar in the NT to the Johnannine literature. In 1John ii1 Jesus is
a parakletos (not a title), serving as a heavenly intercessor with the
Father. ...Christian tradition has identified this figure (Paraclete) as
the Holy Spirit, but scholars like Spitta, Delafosse, Windisch, Sasse,
Butlmann and Betz have doubted whether this identification is true to the
original picture and have suggested that the Paraclete was once an
independent salvific figure, later confused with the Holy Spirit."
(page 1135).
(Note: All my quotes from A. Meherally's material are cut and
pasted from his pages including font size and colors ... which is the
reason that his quotes are so huge. It is not because they are so profound
)
In December 1995 I have debated this issue with Mr. Meherally on the
newsgroups. Besides a number of other issues, I have shown him that
the is a very misleading quotation.
Nearly two years later, he puts it on the web without any change
in the essential and false claim. Is this man interested in honesty
and truth? Please examine the evidence on this page.
Side remark: He has not even corrected the misprint I pointed out. The
above mentioned scholar has the name "Bultmann" not "Butlmann".
May 1998 Update: I just discovered that Mr. Meherally
has taken note of this web page. The following changes have
therefore been made by him some time during the last two months:
1. He corrected "Butlman" to "Bultman".
2. He added the following paragraph under the above quotation:
Note: A Christian critic has been complaining that I have ignored
his remarks that my introductory note to the above quoted passage from
the Anchor Bible, gives a false impression that it's author is in agreement
with the quoted passage. Since his accusations were based upon false assumptions,
I did not feel it necessary to respond. Unfortunately,he has made my silence
an "Issue of my Intergrity". To mislead his readers, the critic has in
his remarks at one instance , intentionally deleted the opening words from
my note which reads; "The
passage quoted below from".
No, it was not the silence of Mr. Meherally, it is his continuing
abuse of the quotation which I am calling an issue of integrity.
He only accuses me (without daring to name me) of misleading the
readers. He does not explain what is misleading about it. I challenge
Mr. Meherally to link from his article to my response and let the
readers judge for themselves. I link to his article. I have nothing
to hide. It seems he refers to my concluding
evaluation on his misquotation. I feel it is a quite correct
summary. Certainly without any intention to mislead. In order
to make sure not to mislead, I do give all the necessary information,
I quote A.M. several times in full and link to his original article.
I am not trying to hide anything from the reader. The same cannot be
said about Mr. Meherally.
3. He corrected "MSS" to "MS" in the second paragraph quoted
and and discussed by me in this page. He did not change the misleading
claim of "the older manuscript". Older than what?
End of update.
March 2003 Update:
The only change Meherally has made in the meantime is that the formerly
unnamed critic is now given a name. Otherwise, no change: He still uses
his deliberately misleading quotation, and still does not link to my
response.
End of update.
Back then I received the following response email from him:
From: amedamne@trianon.worldtel.com
Message-Id: <199512210801.DAA27345@euclid.skiles.gatech.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 23:57:48 -0500
To: Jochen Katz , soc-religion-islam@telerama.lm.com
Subject: Re: Did Jesus & Isaiah Prophesy the coming of
...
> One short comment though, do you really want to build your
> argument on people like Bultman? Bultman, (not Butlman) also said,
> that Jesus never did any miracles, that he was not born of a
> virgin. Don't you think that something with Bultman's
> presuppositions might be wrong, if that is the conclusion he
> comes to?
The prophecy is based upon the actual wordings of Jesus as found in
the New Testament and not upon Bultman or Butlman alone! Even if
you disqualify Bultman, what about the other scholars; Spitta,
Delafosse, Windisch, Sasse and Betz, mentioned in the text quoted
from the Anchor Bible?
After this side remark on spelling, and the hint that it might be
necessary to also have a look at the presuppositions certain people
espouse before we take hold of their conclusions, now to the beef
of the main quotation above. I am challenged to give my evaluation
of this quotation which is supported by all these scholars! Luckily
I don't need to say much myself. The only ability needed is reading
the Anchor Bible correctly.
I agree, the Anchor Bible is "renowned and distinguished" as
Mr. Meherally says. But this doesn't mean that any out of context
quote is also distinguished and worthy of renown. In 1995, I wrote:
"Let me quote a bit more of this distinguished commentary and
correct your (un)intentional mistakes. I leave it to you to
decide if they were (un) or not." In 1995, I wanted to give
Mr. Meherally the benefit of the doubt. The fact that he claims
the same thing in 1997 after I have corrected him and shown him
wrong cannot be seen other than deliberate deception of his
readers. And this is how he corrupts the meaning:
First, he asserts that "the passage quoted below from the world
renowned and distinguished Anchor Bible confirms that the
original concept among the noted Christian scholars and populace,
for the Paraclete was for a male salvific figure, ..."
This is obviously twisting the quotation. Mr. Meherally wants to
give the impression that the Anchor Bible states this as a fact
but the quotation actually only says that some "scholars
like Spitta, ... and Betz have doubted and ... have suggested
that ..." There is no mentioning in this quote of any
certainty or conclusive evidence for this statement. Only that some
scholars have presented this as a hypothesis.
Mr. Meherally wants to make his readers believe something to be the
consensus of responsible scholarship which was only a suggestion
for discussion. This is the first part of his deception. But the
next part of this drama is a lot worse.
Not only does he present as certainty what was only a suggestion,
the way he writes that "the passage ... from the world renowned
and distinguished Anchor Bible confirms ..." he clearly wants
to give the impression that this quotation is in agreement with
the author of this commentary. But this is a plain lie, fabricated in
the hope that the reader of article will not check the truthfulness
of the quotation as we will show in the following.
Mr. Meherally failed to mention that this is not from the
text of the commentary itself but from the appendix, where
Dr. Raymond Brown (the author of this volume) is discussing some
other peoples' opinions and objections. It is not a
valid interpretation in the eyes of the author of the world
renowned and distinguished Anchor Bible Commentary. But as for any
scholarly commentary Dr. Brown also has to list opposing views and
to carefully discuss them. This is the proper scholarly approach.
Yet Mr. Meherally cited the quote of the opposing view -
which the author is about to discuss in the pages that follow it -
as if it were the opinion of the author of the Anchor Bible.
Please pay attention to the very next sentence in the same paragraph
of the Anchor Bible after the place Mr. Meherally decided to cut
short his quotation:
"... but scholars like Spitta, Delafosse, Windisch, Sasse,
Bultmann and Betz have doubted whether this identification is
true to the original picture and have suggested that the Paraclete
was once an independent salvific figure, later confused with the
Holy Spirit. To test this claim, we shall begin by .... "
and then follow several pages of analysis of the textual evidence.
After completion of this analysis, on page 1139, Dr. Brown gives his
own conclusion and writes:
"It is our contention that John presents the Paraclete
as the Holy Spirit in a special role, namely,
as the personal presence of Jesus in the Christian
while Jesus is with the Father."
Is that quote not crystal clear? The renowned commentator has
established after detailed analysis that the Paraclete is
the Holy Spirit. This is the exact opposite of what
Mr. Meherally claims the position of the Anchor Bible to be.
Would anyone maintain that this was an honest quotation? Why does
Mr. Meherally continue to to spread these lies in full knowledge
(for two years) that he is lying? This is no longer an honest
mistake.
And on page 1140 the commentary continues:
"..., we would stress that the identification of the Paraclete
as the Holy Spirit in 14:26 is not an editorial mistake,
for the similarities between the Paraclete and the Spirit are
found in all the Paraclete passages.
The peculiarity of the Johannine portrait of the Paraclete/Spirit,
and this is our second point, centers around the resemblance of
the Spirit to Jesus. Virtually everything that has been said
about the Paraclete has been said elsewhere in the Gospel about
Jesus."
The emphasis in boldface letters in the above is mine, just
so that the essential word is not overlooked. But otherwise it is
the exact quotation from Dr. Brown's commentary in John from the
world renowned and distinguished Anchor Bible.
Do I need to say more?
Sadly, yes. Akbarally Meherally claims:
"HE"
NOT "IT"
"When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from
the Father, that is the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds
from the Father, he will
bear witness of me." John 15:26
This verse further clears the confusion, if there is any.
Here the Paraclete is called the "Spirit of Truth" and not the "Holy Spirit".
These are two separate terms and two independent entities. The first entity
takes the pronoun "he" being a male figure.
Whereas, the second one takes the pronoun "it". The
Greek word 'pneu'ma' (spirit), is of neutral gender and takes the pronoun
"it". Whereas, in almost all the verses referring
to Paraclete quoted below, the pronoun used is "he".
"But the Paraclete, the Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
John 14:26
Notes:
1. In the older MSS, Codex Syriacus discovered in 1812
on Mount Sinai by Mrs. Agnes S. Lewis (and Mrs. Bensley), the text of John
14:26 reads; "Paraclete, the Spirit"; and not "Paraclete, the Holy Spirit".
"The Spirit" is a reference to "the Spirit of Truth" as in 15:26.
2. In 1 John 4:6, the terms "the spirit of truth" and
"the spirit of error" are used for the human beings.
3. History records that prophet Muhammad was known for
his Truth and Honesty, long before he received the Divine Revelations.
In the above, I have to at least acknowledge that Mr. Meherally
took heed of my correction given in our earlier discussion. He had
originally written:
From amedamne@trianon.worldtel.com (amedamne)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Did Jesus & Isaiah Prophesy the coming of Muhammad?
Date: Tue Dec 19 01:44:39 EST 1995
Organization: World Tel
...
"When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the
Father, that is the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the
Father, he will bear witness of me." John 15:26
Note: The Paraclete is called the "Spirit of Truth" and not the
"Holy Spirit". These are two separate terms and independent
entities. The first one takes the pronoun "he" and the second one
"it".
"But the Paraclete, the Spirit, whom the Father will send in
my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your
remembrance all that I said to you." John 14:26
Note: In the older MSS, e.g. Codex Sinaiticus, as well as in the
palimpest of Codex Syriacus discovered in 1812 on Mount Sinai by
Mrs.Agnes S. Lewis (and Mrs. Bensley), the text of 14:26 reads;
"Paraclete, the Spirit"; and not "Paraclete, the Holy Spirit".
...
(By the way, it is palimpsest, not palimpest, bold face
is my emphasis.)
The meaning of these verses is adequately discussed in the
other
response to his paper. Here I only want to deal with the manuscript
evidence that Mr. Meherally presents.
In December 1995, I responded:
It is important to learn to read the abreviations. Your information
is just not true. My Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament doesn't even
indicate in its critical apparatus that there is any variant reading.
That doesn't mean, there is none, but it means the variants are so
weakly testified to, that they don't count in the over all testimony
of all manuscripts. Then I looked up what your Anchor Bible says.
And it says the manuscript OSsin
does omit 'Holy' and has only 'spirit'. But that is the only
manuscript that does so. What sort of manuscript is it? It is
a manuscript of the old Syriac translation of the New
Testament. It is the manuscript that was found at Mt. Sinai [that is
what the superscript 'sin' is about]. But it is not the very
important Codex Sinaiticus, which is in Greek and not in Syriac.
If you have other sources who say that it is omitted in the Sinaiticus
as well, please let us know. Bring your proof. Anchor Bible doesn't
say so. And my Nestle-Aland would say so if the that indeed were the
case.
Well, that was some laborious effort (I guess it was for you too,
producing it in the first place). I hope it is laid to rest once
and for all. ...
Obviously, it is not laid to rest. So let us continue with the
discussion.
Mr. Meherally has at least deleted from his footnote the claim about
the Codex Sinaiticus and only left Codex Syriacus. This
is progress though a very small one. He now says: "In the older MSS,
Codex Syriacus ..." which is still a lie since (a) MSS means
'manuscripts' in the plural but there is only one such manuscript
and on the other hand there are many other manuscripts that have
the standard reading "the Holy Spirit" (from which all Bibles are
translated), (b) by claiming 'them' to be the older manuscripts
he wants to give the impression that they are more trustworthy.
The OSsin is in fact old, dated to
about 4th to 5th century, but it is not older than other manuscripts,
in particular it is younger than the Codex Sinaiticus which he had to
delete from the list of his witnesses. There are several manuscripts
older or of similar age which do not have this reading. Certainly to
say "the older (suggesting these to be all of the oldest and
most trustworthy) manuscripts" is misleading in the least and more
likely intentionally deceptive. Somebody who has read the fine print
in the footnotes of the Anchor Bible cannot be called ignorant and
this is no accident. (c) the name of this manuscript is not Codex
Syriacus but the Old Syriac (OS). And there are many gaps
in the text, unlike the Codex Sinaiticus which is basically the
complete New Testament. (d) It is not the text in its original
language but a translation from the Greek into the Syriac. Usually
Muslims emphasize the importance of looking into the original language.
But suddenly Mr. Meherally stresses a variant reading attested to in
only one manuscript and that not in the original language but
in a translation.
It seems, as long as it serves his agenda of propaganda (his own word
for it is dawah), scholarly ethics of honest reporting does not have
an entry in his dictionary.
One last comment: Mr. Meherally cannot claim that he had only
forgotten about my email and therefore accidentally not corrected his
paper when he prepared it for the web.
My first rebuttal dealt with the interpretation of the Biblical
text. My second rebuttal email contained two issues. First a lengthy
explanation that this quotation from the Anchor Bible was by him
made to say the opposite of what it does in the Anchor Bible itself.
I wrote to him essentially what is presented above. And only at the
end of this email I made the comment that he was wrong about the
"Codex Sinaiticus" and only the "Old Syriac" contains this variant
reading. After all, I found this in the same session of researching
his quotes from the Anchor Bible. He corrected the information
towards the end of my message to him but not that from the beginning
of my email. He will have to do a lot of explaining if he wants to
make us believe this was not deliberate but oversight. He did take
the minor second correction and ignored the first and more important
one, since this would cut out a large part of the substance of his
paper and would leave him without the nice claim that "the renowned
and distinguished Anchor Bible confirms ..." his own efforts in
corrupting the meaning of the Biblical text.
Mr. Meherally also states in his footnotes that "3. History records
that prophet Muhammad was known for his Truth and Honesty, long
before he received the Divine Revelations." Why then does this not
inspire Mr. Meherally to imitate what he believes about his prophet?
Jochen Katz
Shabir Ally most likely aware of the above response to Meherally, but
found this deceptive approach too tempting to pass by and created his
own version of misrepresenting Raymond Brown's commentary in
Who really is the Paracletos?
Plenty more examples of Meherally's dishonesty can be found in our
section of rebuttals to his writings, but this following one contains
an exeptional number of them in just one article:
Meherally on the Bible - Revisited [Part 2]
Rebuttals to A. Meherally
Answering Islam Home Page