Since when does knowing anything about Judaism have anything to do with genuineness in being a prophet? True, some prophets were learned, but prophecy is normally defined as indicating communication from G-d.
From the Jewish point of view, of course Muḥammad fails the Deuteronomy-13 test. But from his own point of view, Judaism was not the be-all and end-all of communication from G-d to Man. Muḥammad lived in a world, after all, where millions of people lived by a religion whose core prophet flatly contradicted the G-d-given tenets of Judaism. Yet because he (Jesus) is accepted as a prophet by his followers, before looking into the contradictions with the Old Testament, Christians do not have a problem with accepting that, to use a Jewish way of putting it, אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים: these and these are both words of the living G-d.
At Mt Sinai, the Israelites said נעשה ונשמע: we will do and we will listen. The order of these phrases is significant. Most people do not become religious by sitting down and considering a religion rationally. Instead, they react to it on a gut level. Only once you have the faith to sustain your beliefs if you run into difficulty do people look into their theology rationally.
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Re: Islam
Date: 2006-01-24 08:04 pm (UTC)From the Jewish point of view, of course Muḥammad fails the Deuteronomy-13 test. But from his own point of view, Judaism was not the be-all and end-all of communication from G-d to Man. Muḥammad lived in a world, after all, where millions of people lived by a religion whose core prophet flatly contradicted the G-d-given tenets of Judaism. Yet because he (Jesus) is accepted as a prophet by his followers, before looking into the contradictions with the Old Testament, Christians do not have a problem with accepting that, to use a Jewish way of putting it, אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים: these and these are both words of the living G-d.
At Mt Sinai, the Israelites said נעשה ונשמע: we will do and we will listen. The order of these phrases is significant. Most people do not become religious by sitting down and considering a religion rationally. Instead, they react to it on a gut level. Only once you have the faith to sustain your beliefs if you run into difficulty do people look into their theology rationally.
That's the way I see it, at least.