Post 7. Mohammedanism an offshoot of Christianity?

La', ila illaa, la', Allah!
GOSPELS--ISLAM.
( An interview with Cristoph Luxenberg, by Alfred Hackensberger, published originally in german on " Suddeutsche Zeitung ", translated into italian by Elisabeth Horvat for the italian magazine " Espresso ", dated 18th March 2004, translated into english by the Templar Ferrerix ( as the blogger ), who, although a barbuto ( i.e., a word used by the Benedectine Order of Monks to indicate a lay-worker of the monastery; not a knight of noble birth and a self-elected member ), nevertheless a qualified theologian from the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne. )
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Translator's personal views--:
I have allowed myself to add to the original in order to make the subject more clear to the average western reader, too busy with earning a living and keeping pace with the escalating changes of technology, thus unable to accumulate the knowlege required to appreciate fundamental problems such as the un--reformed condition of Qu'ranic interpretation and exegesis which allows ignorant and scheming leaders of islamic societies to send their nations on paths of hatred, destruction, evil. Reformation has been attempted in the past by several islamic scholars but has always been drowned in blood. See articles on Islam by " Encyclopedia Britannica ".
For the sake of justice however, I must also add that western christianity is degenerate, and also needs reformation, western society having embraced the abominable and obscene idols of indiscriminate freedoms. The decadence and degeneration of western societies may explain, although it cannot justify it, the irrational behaviour and activities of islamic leaders and fundamentalists. My advise to these people is to reform and rationalise the readings of the Qu'ran on the foundation of peace and love that inspired it, through the work of eastern churches' missionaries, numerous congregations of which have been massacred and oppressed by the very arabic cultures they have helped to build up in the centuries between the I and VII. However, no one is totally innocent in front of God.
We must shelve our past ( must not forget it though ) and focus on the future. Only those who are able to do this shall survive.
Deus vult!
My recognition of the worth of Mohammedanism ( I wish to differentiate here between Mohammedanism and Islamism which are not necessarily the same, as, while the former may be a religion, the latter is a religious ideology ) is based on the understanding that it has historically been willed by God, as christianity in the days of the Byzantine Empire was even then degenerate and corrupt and in need of reformation, as all religions shall always be. Islam has in fact acted as a punishing sword for christianity. I also base my acceptance of the place of Islam, side by side with Christianity and Judaism, on the basis of the significance to me of the encounter between Abram and Melchizedek ( Genesis 14:18-20 ). However my acceptance also includes the realization and belief no one can claim exclusive knowlege of the truth and the right to dictate to and dominate over others' religious beliefs. Hence the futility and waste of attempts at conversions. Finally, justice and common sense must eventually prevail. Moslems must understand that ‘ Jihad ‘ is not their monopoly and that, as it is written, Allah, Jehovah is one, in the unity of all believers. Unity, Peace, Love, Hospitality are the only and true signs of being with God.
All other behaviours are of the devil. Amen !
page 1.
Gospels-Islam.

(Shared views of all-; Professor, interviewer and translator. )
Question-: The Qu'ran ?

::"The religious part of it is a christianity-inspired writing. Compiled (loosely put-together, not necessarily written down in a sytematic order with any distinctive newly adapted message or purpose ) in the syro-aramaic language and orally in the various arabic dialects to preach christianity to the expatriate arabic ethnic groups living in Mesopotamia between the I and VII centuries. Note please my use of the word expatriate and ethnic enphasizing the fact that the arabic people were then strangers in the countries of Mesopotamia, with the exception of the Arabian Peninsula.
At this point I wish to enphasize as written in the following paragraphs, for the benefit of Mohammedan believers whose duty is to reform their potentially, worthy world-religion as envisaged by Mohammed, the great Prophet, before the late redaction of the Qu'ran took place that-: In relation to the heavy arabic/cultural, political and ideological bias loading, the Qu'ran in its post-Mohammedan redaction ( which is still its present, never-reformed form to-day), with its materialistic worldy concerns ( of which even the Old Testament suffers ), unreformed Islamism may not strictly and legitimately ( by present-world theological standards ) qualify as a pure and universal religion, but rather be considered as a religious-ideology ( see Juan Luis Segundo's theological definitions in "Jesus of Nazareth, Yesterday and To-Day "), thus becoming disqualified from claims only a reformed, pure religion ( very few can qualify ) can hold.
The Qu'ran was redacted, written and organised in classical arabic only after the VIII century, at least 150 years after Mohammed's death, and given the specific and distinctive purpose to politically and ideologically unite all Arabs and their future converts in a society of people determined to conquer and convert the whole world by any possible and available mean. It is quite possible that, whereas Mohammed may have been principally concerned with the eradication of paganism/polytheism, inter-tribal warfare and any foreign influence among his people in the Arabic Peninsula, the idea of a world-wide conquest may have been his followers' alone. As a reformer Mohammed would concurr to-day in the need to reform the interpretation of the Qu'ran for the sake of peace and the survival of the earth.
The latest estimate for the compilation ( as distinct from its redaction which must have occurred later ) of the Qu'ran is 150 years before arabic became a written language ( i.e., AL-KHalil ben Ahmad, the organiser of arabic lexicography ( dictionary ) ‘ Kitab al-ayn ‘, who died in 786 A.D. and Sibawwayh, the developer of the classical arabic grammar, who died in 796 A.D. ).In view of the need for a written language in order for these works to be published, and in view of the complexity and beauty of the classical arabic in which the Qu'ran has been written, in contrast to the poverty and primitiveness of the original compiled in a mixture of syro-aramaic and various arabic dialects, the redaction of the Qu'ran must have occurred at least 150 years after Mohammed's death. The redactors ( writers and organisers) of the Qu'ran, must have worked with oral or even written compilations in vulgar arabic, the semantic and lexicographical content of which, originating as it did from siro-aramaic language and cultures, must have become lost or corrupt following the death of the original compilers or transmitters of the sources who were massacred or enslaved into forced labours by the fanatical warriors from the deserts of Arabia. Arabic conquests began in fact in the life of Mohammed and in about 100 years, with the Qu'ran still unwritten, while both the classical arabic grammar and lexicon were being developed, most of North Africa and of Mesopotamia had been conquered.This explains the need to go back to the original siro-aramaic linguistic and cultural sources of the christian documents which inspired the religious parts of the Q'uran, for a true understanding of the meaning behind the classical arabic text.
Mohammed, the Prophet, died in 632 A.D. (VII century).[It is the opinion of the present translator, that Luxenbergh's thesis does not deny the possibility that Mohammed may indeed have been an inspired prophet, who having learnt from both jewish and christian missionaries ( St.Paul the Apostle himself spent three years preaching the kerygma in the deserts in the I century A.D.) about the monotheistic religions with their various branching sects, murdering one another for minor theological differences in belief, decided to adapt his new found learning to a naively and excessively simplified way of belief and worship which totally neglected to observe how the New Testament and the orthodox understanding of Jesus of Nazareth's mission and person, alone could fill and mediate for humanity through the immensity of the gap between the biblical God and human beings. One must not forget also the hypocrisy and corruption of the Byzantine Empire, heir to the degenerated and fallen Roman Empire of the West. However, having said this, there is no doubt that the interpretation of the Qu'ran must be reformed!
These are the thesis and facts offered by Christoph Luxenberg, a german scholar, who is an expert in semitic and middle eastern languages.
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In many islamic societies, those who become concerned with the rationalization and normalization of Qu'ranic interpretation( exegesis ), independently from the closed circle of the Imams, many of whom are not scholars at all, place their lives at risk. This has been demonstrated in recent times by the murder of an egyptian scholar Faragh Foda, shot in the open streets and by that of Suliman Bashear, a professor at the University of Nablus, in Palestine, thrown down a window by his students. The accusation in both cases was--: Insulting the Qu'ran, by doubting the sacred and unquestionable word of God.
Here we are presenting the doubts of a non-moslem, hence of one who is free from the condemnation visited upon doubting moslems, of a german scholar called Christoph Luxenbergh ( an assumed name to cover the possibility a fanatical fundamentalist assassin deciding to act independently and attempt to kill him ), who is an expert in semitic and middle-eastern languages.
Luxenbergh states to have found numerous and fundamental " errors in reading [ from a lexicographical viewpoint ] and interpretation " concerning the sacred book of the Qu'ran.
In Germany, the second edition of his book ‘ Die Siro-Aramaische Leseart Des Korans ‘ ( A Siro-Aramaic Reading of the Qu'ran ), which two years ago had already generated interest and concern, is about to be published in a revised and extended form.While many Moslems have already accused Luxenbergh to have profaned what is the foundation of their faith, scholarly circles have received with great interest his readings of the Qu'ran ( lexicographical findings ), which was written 1400 years ago:"

Interview.

Question-: Professor, what has motivated your reading of the Qu'ran ?
::" The fact that the attempts to interpret a series of obscure passages of the Qu'ran, with a plausible meaning, have failed and have occurred since the redaction [ as distinct from compilation ] of the Qu'ran. This has been so much so that even the first arab commentators have been compelled to confess their uncertainty ":

Question-:Uncertainty ?
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::" As I have already said, numerous obscure passages are to be found in the Qu'ran, about which even arab commentators, from the beginning [ i.e., after its redaction in written classical arabic in VIII century ] could not supply a plausible translation and exegesis. ":
A usual attitude about these texts is that God only understands the obscure passages of the Q'uran.Western Qu'ranic research has begun in a systematic way only around the middle of the XIX century, and, as a rule, has always adopted, as a foundation, the arabic scholars' commentaries. These commentaries however did not go beyond the etymological [ historical origins and changes of the word, from an arabic cultural point of view ] explanation of terms of foreign origin ":

Question-: You claim to have succeeded to interpret correctly even those ‘obscure passages' which no one until now has been able to understand.What differentiates your method from that of those who preceded you ?
::" My approach is based on the idea that the language of the Qu'ran has to be seen through Historical-Linguistic glasses. You see, at the time when the Qu'ran began to be compiled [ as a siro-aramaic collection of christian homilies which may initially have been translated in spoken vulgar arabic for the use of arabic ethnic communities in Mesopotamia ], the arabic language did not yet have a written form; it has therefore occurred to me that the reading and interpretation of the Qu'ran must take into consideration above all, the aramaic language which, in the historical period comprised between the IV and the VII centuries was the officially spoken and written language in that area of western Asia where the compilation of the sacred text had its origins.This is why 10 years ago I have begun to read the Qu'ran using this approach :"

Question-: Please explain this method of reading.
::" Initially reading was ‘ synchronous ‘--: Holding symultaneously both the arabic and its parallel in the aramaic language. Thanks to this procedure I have been able to find out the level of influence, hitherto unsuspected, that the aramaic language has had on the language of the Qu'ran-: In fact, a great deal of what to-day is defined as ‘ classical arabic ‘ is of aramaic derivation ":
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Question-: What can therefore be said of the thesis, hitherto accepted, that the Qu'ran is the first book written in the classical arabic language ?
::" According to islamic tradition, the Qu'ran was redacted [not just compiled ] in the VII century [ Mohammed died in 632 A.D. ], however the first examples of arabic literature which can strictly be called as such [ classical ], are to be found only at the time of the

‘ Prophet's Biography ‘, written by IBN HISCHAM who died in 828 A.D.We can therefore conclude that arabic, post-qu'ranic literature can only have been produced in stages, following the work of Al-Khalil Bin Ahmad [ who died in 786A.D. ], the redactor of a classical arabic lexicography [ dictionary= kytab al-ayn ] and of Sibawwayh [ who died in 796 A.D. ], who organised a grammar of classical arabic.Now, [apart from the absence in the VII century of a lexicon and grammar without which a beautiful and complex written language, such as that used in the redaction of the Qu'ran, cannot exist ] if one assumes that the redaction of the Qu'ran may have been completed at the death of Mohammed the Prophet [ in 632 A.D. ], one finds it difficult to explain a 150 years interval during which there is no trace of notable, [written] arabic literature":

[ These are important considerations because one can appreciate a compilation by siro-aramaic compilers in their cultural and linguistic background over a period of six centuries, an oral synthesis and interpolation made by the prophet Mohammed during his productive life-time as a caravaneer, the oral transmission over a period of at least 150 years by various disciples of Mohammed, unlettered and raw, finally, in the VIII century, a written (redaction ) synthesis and interpolation made by cultured, rich, proud arabs reaping the fruits of a weak, degenerate, divided, corrupt, hypocritical christian conglomeration of nations.It is not difficult to see that the redaction of the Qu'ran without the necessary interpretation required to re-capture the original message of peace, love and justice intended by the poor ancient christian missionaries, became, in the hands of the Sherifs, Emirs and Khalifs ( warriors and secular ) the tool for the justification, glorification of the arabic tribes and culture, an incitation for the acquisition of empire, in the name of the humma and islam. No wonder therefore that the history of Islam is nothing else than a repetition of Roman, Byzantine, Western histories, in which love, peace and justice are made a mockery of. If one isolates Mohammed's message in the Qu'ran, one finds I am seeing the truth. This is why a reformation of the interpretation of the Qu'ran is needed, now, to re-capture the original message, before it is too late. ]
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Question-: If, at the time Mohammed lived and died, the arabic language did not have yet a written form and was not used in written communications, how can ISLAM claim it has been written in the VII century ?
::" You see, at the time there were no arabic schools, with the exception perhaps of christian arabic centres at AL-ANBAR and at AL-HIRA, in the south of Mesopotamia, an area which corresponds to the modern Iraq of our present days.The arabic speaking ethnic groups [ the area became dominated by Islam only after Mohammed's death ] in that area had been converted to christianity by Syrian christians, whose language for liturgical purposes [preaching and worshipping] was siro-aramaic. This was in fact the medium of expression for their own culture and, for that area in general, theirs was also the written language in use for official, administrative and legal transactions and communications ":
Question-: What is the connection between " this language as the medium of culture and of written communication", and the birth of the Qu'ran ?
::" Since the III century, Syrian christians extended their missionary work beyond neighbouring nations-: i.e., Armenia, Persia ( modern Iran), etc. They did in fact reach China and the western coast of India, even the Arabic peninsula, even as far as Yemen and Ethiopia. It is therefore highly probable that, in order to preach the Gospels to arabic speaking people and ethnic groups in the areas adjacent their own, they used, among other languages, the language of the

‘ bedouins ‘, i.e., the arabic speaking desert tribes, that is, [what is loosely called] the arabic language.
However, since the arabic language of those times was a not yet organised [ the first arabic lexicon had to wait for the work of Al-Khalil Bin Ahmad in the VIII century] mixture of dialects without a written form, [ the first grammar of classical arabic had to wait for Sibawwayh, also in the VIII century] the missionaries had no other choice but to draw intellectually and spiritually from the existing literary language and cultural circles, which were then, siro-aramaic.It follows that, although the language used in the writing [redaction stage] of the Qu'ran was the written arabic developed in the VIII century, both the content, cultural background, and, generally, the language of the sources had been siro-aramaic at the compilation stage; moreover, these also contributed to the redaction of the lexicon and of the arabic grammar in the VIII century. It can in fact be stated that the classical arabic lexicon and grammar are both arabic-aramaic derivatives:"
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Question-: Are you saying that both a non-arab scholar and an arab one cannot correctly translate and interpret the Qu'ran , on the basis of a knowledge of classical arabic alone that does not take into account the siro-aramaic influences ?
::" Yes. Whoever wishes to deeply reach into the understanding of the Qu’ran must acquire adequate training in the siro-aramaic grammar, literature and culture of [ at least ] the VII century when the compilation [of the religious part ] of the Qu’ran reached its zenith, [ i.e., when Mohammed was alive
This is required to avoid the errors made by the arabic redactors and commentators [ at least 150 years after Mohammed’s death] in their adoption of arabic expressions and words, the interpretation of which as to the intended meaning of their siro-aramaic sources from which they were derivated, can be achieved only by a translation back into their siro-aramaic original statements, paying attention, of course, to the siro-aramaic cultural background in which they were born":
Question-: What is the level and degree of analogy and synonimity between arabic and siro-aramic [ lexicons ] ?
::" There are numerous common roots, but at the same time considerable semantic differences. In other words, although there exists a correspondence between dictionaries, this does not extend to symbolic and logical structures and usages":
Question-: Let us consider the errors of interpretation--: One of the most stirring examples you have mentioned is about thevirgins promised to suicidal terrorists in the islamic paradise.
::" Let us begin with the word ‘ huris ‘, for which arab scholars have not been able to find other explanation than that of the heavenly virgins.If one takes into account a siro-aramaic origin, that expression refers to ‘white grapes ‘, which is a christian symbol for paradise, in an analogy to the Supper of the Gospels.There is another qu'ranic expression wrongly interpreted as ‘ ‘ the children ' or ‘ the youths ‘ of paradise, which in the aramaic sources denotes the fruits of the vine. Now, in the Qu'ran's classical arabic these are compared to pearls.As an aside, particularly in relation to christian symbols of paradise, these errors of redaction and interpretation have certainly a lot to do with the male monopoly in the field of qu'ranic redaction, interpretation and commenting ":
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Question-: The observation reminds us of a subject at the centre of widespread discussions--: i.e., the islamic injunction for the use of the veil [ by women ].
::" There is a passage in sura 24 [qu'ranic chapter ] , verse 31, that in its isolated arabic interpretation is purported to mean " Let them beat their khumur on their purses [ probably carried around their waist-line in those ancient times]."This, taken on its own, is an obscure passage, of which, on the one hand, the following arabic interpretation has been offered [ by arabic commentators ], " Let them spread their hand kerchief over their breasts ". On the other hand, if this passage is read in synchrony with its siro-aramaic source, it simply means " Let them fasten their belts around their waist-line".

Translator's digression.

[ The opinion of the present translator of this article is that the arabic interpretation of a clearly symbolic exortation to modesty in the christian siro-aramaic source has been obscured since the first rendering by arabic compilers and redactors, through their concern for low moral standards existing in the pagan societies of the middle east, before the birth of Islam. In fact, the arabic culture, as in generally all archaic, patriarcal ones, provocation has much more bearing on a judicial decision about a failure in human relationships, than it has in christian cultures--: i.e., women tend to be punished more heavily than men in sexual misbehavior. The original, christian exortation has therefore become an injunction, a coercion, which in christian, and post-christian, enlightened societies has no place. In fact, in christian morality, every individual is a free ( bearing in mind St. Tomas Aquina's definition about the freedom of the individual having to equate at every event that of the collective ) human person, and, as such, responsible for his/her actions, irrespective of provocation. In fact, Adam and Eve, as an example, were not fully excused and justified by their having been provoked by the Serpent's suggestion that they would not really die if they transgressed God's command, i.e., in fact they did not loose their vocation towards heaven, only their physical immortality.The harsh, anachronistic law of Islam, the Law of the Khaliffs must therefore be tempered by God's infinite mercy, compassion, and toleration, about which the beginning of every sura of the Qu'ran reminds the believer.In fact the severity of the Khalifs is not accepted in a world that has known christian compassion, reformation and justice, in our modern times.The wearing of veils by women, as an example, should therefore become purely voluntary, on the basis also of the biblical prophets' realization around the times of Isaiah that the perfect sacrifice offered by the human person to God should not any longer be an externally expressed one, but should consist of the purity of intention, will, and love for God, to be truly present in the human person's heart and mind. This has sometimes be called, appropriately so, ‘ the circumcision of the heart '. I am convinced that Islam, as understood by the prophet Mohammed, was meant to be a purification of what the religions of the Books had become in his times, a return to the original archaic message hidden in the story of the encounter between Abram ( not yet the circumcised Abraham ) and the King of Salem, ( Peace= Salaam, Shalom)
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Melchizedek, which is simply about hospitality, love, peace, respect, the essences about Who God is ( Genesis 14:18-20 ).

End of translator's digression.

Question-: Should we therefore understand the veil as the equivalent of a chastity belt ?
[ Translator's comment-: Please note how even the question of the interviewer remains biased by the hidden understanding about the motives of the ancient arabic compilers and redactors. The real issue in christian understanding is about the purity of the heart, of intention and will, not so much about physical integrity.This is what christian symbolism is all about. ]
::" Not exactly. Even if, in the christian religion, the belt is a symbol of chastity.Mary wears a belt tied around her body. In the syrian version of the Last Supper it is written in aramaic that the Christ tied an apron about his body before washing the Apostles' feet.There are evidently numerous parallels between the ‘ veil ‘ and similar symbols in the christian faith ":

Question-: You appear to have found that sura 97 of the Qu'ran mentions Christmass. In your translation of the famous sura about Mary, her pregnancy " is legitimated by God ( the Lord )". Moreover, the text, according to your understanding, even contains the invitation to accede to the Divine Service, that is, to the christian Mass. Could we therefore postulate that the Qu'ran is first of all, an arabic version of the christian message of the Bible ( New Testament ) ?
::" Actually, the Qu'ran is a liturgical book of siro-aramaic inspiration, with passages taken from the Scriptures, which may have been programmed for the Divine Service. These passages are found in various parts of the Qu'ran, may have been liturgical hymns, in their siro-aramaic original form. One can also see that the Qu'ran is also the result of christian missionary attempts to orally transmit belief in the Scriptures to the pagans of Mecca [ up to the days of Mohammed ], in the arabic spoken dialects [ during the long compilation period prior to its redaction into the classical arabic developed by Al-Khalil Bin Ahmad before his death in 786 A.D. ]. In so far as the socio-political part of the Qu'ran is concerned,
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it has not much to do with the original Qu'ran [ the one of the compilation stage of Mohammed's concern ], and has been added later on, at Medina [ the redacted one ].Since the beginning, the Qu'ran has not been conceived as the foundation od a new religion, in so far as it presupposes faith [ belief ] in the Scriptures and was intended only to serve as a medium to transfer the message of the christian Gospels to arab ethnic groups and societies.

[ I believe that the professor errs in not separating Mohammed's from the missionaries' aims in the use of siro-aramaic sources and do not agree with these conclusions, as I believe Mohammed was concerned with the corruption and degeneracy of belief as held by the dominant classes in the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and decided to found a new religion. From this point of view, I therefore consider Mohammed even as a reformer of judaism and christianity. However, I also believe that the severe purification of judaeo-christian theological beliefs and dogmas adopted by Mohammed, set-up a retrogressive movement in the future religious evolution of islam with the fatalistic and static attitude of the Khaliffs, that stifled the reforming intentions of Mohammed and ended up making islam into a fossilized civilization, unreasonably opposing progress and evolution.]

Question-: Many mohammedan believers for whom the Qu'ran is the sacred book containing the only, all-exclusive truth, may consider your conclusions blasphemous. What reactions have you met so far ?
::" In Pakistan, sales of ‘ Newsweek ‘ have been forbidden, containing an article on my work. However, I must say that, in general, I have not noticed any hostile attitude in Moslems I have met.To the contrary, these persons have recognized, valued and honoured the commitment of a non-moslem to a study directed to an objective understanding of their sacred book.My work can only be considered blasphemous by someone who chooses to stick by the errors of interpretation of God's Word.

But, it is written---: " No one can turn back on the right path those whom God has induced into error ":. "::

Question-: Are you afraid of a fatwa, or a death-sentence like the one directed toward Salman Rushdie ?
::" I am not a Moslem, and therefore do not have to contend with this. Moreover, I have not offended against the Qu'ran ":.

Question-: Nevertheless, you have preferred to use a pseudonym........
::" I have done so upon the advice received from moslem friends, who feared some fanatical fundamentalist may decide to act without a fatwa, on his/her initiative":.

Al ham u dullahi!
God ( Allah/Jehovah) be praised !

Post 6. Religious versus secular content of the Quran.

The Great Mohammedan Introductory Prayer.

Faatihah: Sura I: Section 1: Verses 7.

Sura I.
Faatihah I.
Verses: 7. Section: 1.

1.

Bismillaahir-Rahmannir-Rahiim.
2.

"’Al-Hamdu lillaahi Rabbil-’Aalamiin:
3.

Ar-Rahmaanir-Rahiim;
4.

Maaliki Yawmid-Diin!
5.

’Iyyaaka na’-budu
wa’
iyyaka nasta-’iin
6.

Ihdinas-Siraatal-Mustaqiim
7.

Siraatal-laziina ‘an-amta alay-him
‘Gayril-magzuuli alay-him
wa’
laz-yaaallin."

Sura I.
Faatihah I.
Verses: 7. Section: 1.
1.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
2.
Praise be to Allah,
The Cherisher and Sustainer
of the Worlds:
3.
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
4.
Master of the Day of Judgment!
5.
Thee do we worship,
And
Thine aid we seek,
6.
Show us the straight way,
7.
The way of those on whom
Thou hast bestowed the Grace,
Those whose (portion)
Is not wrath,
And who go not astray."

Extracted from-:

" Roman Transliteration of the Holy Quran "

with Full Arabic Text

an English Translation.

by

Abdullah Yusuf Ali

SH. Muhammad Ashraf

Publishers & Booksellers

7, Aibak road ( New Anarkali)

Lahore.

" Mohammedanism a branch of Christianity? "

I am uploading this Post as a sign of my appreciation, love and respect for the charismatic content of the Quran, arabic culture and language, although I personally find arabic script as not having the full-bodied solidity and reassurance of western alphabets. This cannot be ascribed to any semitic trait as the hebrew alphabet is one of the most solid and architecturally balanced I know.

A short Digression on the beginnings

of the written and spoken classical arabic

used in the Sacred Book-: The Quran

I wonder why the arabic scholar Al-KHALIL ben AHMAD ( died in c. 786 A.D.) who created the arabic lexicography (dictionary ) and SIBAWWAYH ( died in c. 796 A.D.) who developed classical arabic by producing the first arabic grammar by selecting the best and most accomplished usages from the many dialects spoken in the arabic peninsula, in the days of Mohammed, did not decide to adopt the readily available hebrew alphabet and adapt the hebrew grammar to arabic, thus allowing a convergence rather than the divergence between the two semitic branches which is causing so many problems to the World

since the days of Mohammed, the Great Prophet.

Could any professor of classical arabic enlighten us in a suitable Post readable by the non-scholarly?

German professors have carried out in-depth parallel studies of sirian/mesopotamic languages, many of which belong to the indo-european group, comparing and contrasting these to arabic, exploring the influence of christian missionaries on the religious conversion of Mohammed ( Before his conversion to monotheism he had been an arabic polytheist with a strong attraction for the monotheism of the Hebrews to whom he was related and with whom he worked and lived since three large hebrew communities of the Diaspora are known to have established their roots around Mecca and Medina prior to the times in which Mohammed had been born. )

This issue shall be taken up again when I'll publish the Post mentioned above, which is my translation in english from an Article printed in an Italian authoritative nagazine, "Espresso".

Their Title is "Vangeli-Islam?", that is " Gospels-Islam? ".

End of Digression.

However, " that the arabic alphabet may be architecturally too light ", may be a purely subjective opinion. On the other hand I have artistic skills and appreciation that should give some weight to this opinion.

I am certainly aware of the calligraphic artistry, inventiveness and skills of arabic, writtten ornamental decorations, an art-form which has been pushed to its limits by the prohibition to produce iconic art to avoid the danger of idolatry, which is common to the unreformed branches of both the islamic and the judaeo religious-ideologies. As a theologian who has studied the history of both the Hebrews and the Arabs, I have become aware of the reality that idolatry cannot be totally avoided and that one good way to reduce it is by learning to sublimate, lift and elevate it through free-willing educated renunciations of the material around us, not by placing severe limitations and handicaps on whatever is thought to be liable to tempt the human being or by stopping progress and history itself. The renunciation of idolatry for the love of and to the greater glory of Allah ( Jehovah ) must be a free, personal, individual, responsible, accountable, decision, the more meritorious the stronger the temptation is allowed to naturally exert itself, freely. The presuppositions to this scenario of freedom are education that includes ethics and morality and a freedom of choice that takes into consideration the interests and freedoms of both the individual and collective.

Moreover, I have used the couplet religious-ideology differentiating this on purpose from the purely religious/ethical issues, on the basis that the theocratic obsession that still appears to inform and dictate a behaviour of violence and enforcement by a small group of fundamentalists on the majority of those who try to behave normally-: To work, to raise families and to progress in a democratically possible way, vitiates these legitimate and human aspirations.

A jesuit, the liberationist theologian Juan Luis Segundo teaches learnedly on religious ideologies in a christological work titled " Jesus of Nazareth, Yesterday and To-day ".

What do my mohammedan visitors to the blog think about this?

I would lovingly appreciate their comments, opinions and views .

Having stated what I can see as being positive in the Quran,, I am bound by honesty to also express my concern for the fact that, theologically and historically, the interpretation of the Quran has never been officially reformed. By reformation I mean here a rationalisation and normalisation of what is secular in the Quran in order to make it compatible with non-islamic cultures and above all, since democracy is now, when properly managed, in the absence of corruption ( i.e., make information on the income of everyone evident ) and de-stabilisation, the accepted solution to the issues related to the problems of the equitable distribution of resources, mutuality and reciprocity in all types of relations between races, religions, cultures etc. for the sake of peace and survival.

Yes, the survival of the whole human species.

Co-operation and not war is necessary to-day for the solution of the problems of a plentyful, globally available, New Energy and New Water which solved, can in turn allow the solution to the problems of Global Warming.

Yes: Energy and Water.

All the rest to be enabled by these two.

Also, since global catastrophic events caused by sources outside the Earth are always a possibility, inter-planetarian and even inter-stellar exploration must be pursued.

This is made extremely difficult by all the divisions, alignments, wars and wastages caused by sabotaging, fundamentalist-minorities.

The West may have eventually no other alternative but to behave very nastily.

Nobody may win, but honour which is, historically, on the side of the West.

Whoever is out there, playing dangerous games, BEWARE!

Common sense should prevail.

Beware of the adoption of Confrontation Ethics!

My warning is out of my heart.

So help us God!

I'd like to end this Post with the exortation from Abdullah Yusuf 'Ali, the interpreter of the Quran in the english translation mentioned above-:

" To all who love and reverence the Book.

And earnestly strive to find in it,

Not a reflection of their own fancies,

But the Call to higher matters of the spirit,

I dedicate this humble effort at Interpretation,

The fruit of my Life, Thought and Study. "

Abdullah Yusuf 'Ali ( Servant of Islam )

Al-Hamdu lillaahi!

Post 5. The Baghavad Gita: Index of Content.

Extracted from a CD "Library of the Future" 3rd Edition, a collection of 1750 Literary Titles.

WORLD LIBRARY, INC., 2809 Main street, Irvine, CA 92714.

Distributed in Australia by TECO MULTIMEDIA,16 Longstaff road, Bayswater, Vic., 3153

Note 1-: The blogger is publishing this Content List hoping readers shall be tempted to read and study this outstanding work on spirituality and the different paths leading to the perfectibility of the human soul.

Note 2-: According to tradition this devotional work should be read in one uninterrupted session.

Note3-: I am uploading this Post as a sign of my appreciation, love and respect for my asian visitors

and for all human beings of good-will

( especially the long-suffering women whom I am learning to love

as a Budha,

during the sunset of my life ).

The Song Celestial,

or,

Bahgavad- Gita.
( Aryan, ca. 400 B.C.)

( In the translation made by Sir Edwin Arnold, a scot. )

I. Arjun-Vishad.
Book of the Distress of Arjuna.

II. Sankhya-Yog.
Book of Doctrines.

III. Karma-Yog.
Book of Virtue in Work.

IV. Jnana-Yog.
Book of Religion through Knowledge.

V. Karma Sanyasa Yog.

Book of Religion by Renouncing Fruit of Works.

VI. Atma Sanyama Yog.

Book of Religion through Self-Restraint.

VII. Vijnana Yog.

Book of Religion through Discernment.

VIII. Akhsharapara Brahma Yog.

Book of Religion through Devotion to the One Supreme God. I

IX. Raja Vidyara Jaguhya Yog.

Book of Religion through the Kingly Knowledge and the Kingly Mystery.

X. Vibhuti Yog.

Book of Religion through the Heavenly Perfections.

XI. Wiswarupadar Anam.

Book of the Manifesting of the One and Manifold.

XII. Bakhti Yog.

Book of Religion through Faith.

XIII. Kshetrashnetrajna Vibhaga Yog.

Book of Religion through Separation of Matter and Spirit.

XIV. Gunatraya Vibhaga Yog.

Book of Religion through the Separation of the Qualities.

XV. Purushottama Prapti Yog.

Book of Religion through the Attainment of the Supreme.

XVI. Daivasarasaupad Wibhaga Yog.

Book of the Separatedness of the Divine and Non-divine.

XVII. Sraddhatraya Vibhaga Yog.

Book of Religion through the Threefold Kinds of Faith.

XVIII. Mokshasanyasa Yog.

Book of Religion through Deliverance and Renunciation.

Post 4. Genesis 1-3 for the XXIst Century.

Genesis 1-3.
( A Revision for the 21st Century )

General Note-: If short of time, patience and fortitude, skip the Notes and go directly to page 1.

page i

NOTES.

Note 1-: Since God the Father is really a pure spirit having neither male nor female gender, the writer has decided to use for God the neutral form of the predicated and personal pronoun, to appear in capital, bold letters throughout this essay. In my opinion, it is wrong to say that the use of the neutral form is disparaging to the honour of God, since the neutral is, in the English language, also used for animals and inanimate objects, and these are not human persons, because the neutral form in relation to God, in this essay, is intended to just mean: ' neither male nor female '. The same criterion is used for all the spiritual persons in the Holy Trinity, the exception being the Word when expressed in the homeostatic unity with Jesus of Nazareth, the really human and divine man. I wish to avoid the use of ' He/She ' or the traditional male form for God, one which discriminates against feminists for whom I have great respect and love, provided they do not go all the way Fiorenza Schlusser was prepared to go in relation to the Scriptures and the Patriarchs. May God be all that is good to all human beings and creation!
Note 2 -: Some readers may take offence at my boldness in dealing with the writing of the scriptures in what they might think a light hearted way. Let me assure you that as a theologian I am required by my profession to be bold, this being, as in a soldier, a desirable characteristic. This is more so in a christian who is struggling with the mystery of evil and malice-: To such a person, boldness is totally justified. I am also qualified for the task I have attempted in this essay, because as a man I have had a long schooling in the problems of scarcity and necessity. Let me also add that, when writing about scriptural matters, one must be very free from ideological ( this term includes also religious ideologies as understood in the theological circle of the liberationists belonging to the school of Juan Luis Segundo, S.J. ) or congregational fetters and this is, on its own, not easy and painful, as it is always a relatively lonely and unpopular struggle. Moreover, and finally, the approach and choice of perspective is very, very unpalatable and the least plausible possible to our well-to-do fellow human beings, or to the everpresent multitude of individuals aspiring to belong to the ' well-to-do ' bracket and to jump onto the wheel of fortune, without giving a damn about their less endowed or fortunate ( by wordly standards ) fellow human beings,
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therefore a rather unpopular and unrewarding task as the world is concerned. One shall never get a Master or a Doctor's Degree by harping on scarcity and oppression-: Too many Dogmas to re-word. However God compensates me in other ways. I am not a radical, a revolutionary, an atheist, advocating that Genesis 1-3 be done away with, in the way feminists of the Fiorenza's school would, if and when it suites them, as I have far too great respect for the Patriarchs who, in their times, were the best humanity could offer to God. The existing version of Genesis 1-3 is to be of course retained, as the patriarchs meant well, in relation to the limitations to their world view, the presence of scarcity and necessity, imperfection, freedom and chance. In fact, the word of God cannot be altered, only interpreted and explained at our own risk and at that of our listeners. But risk is anyway a corollary of natural freedom and boldness and I am always prepared to pay for it, if I err, knowing God loves me as one of God's beloved poor and oppressed. ' Natural freedom' is another name for chance, contingency, probability, fate. With fate on the other hand, one generally associates a degree of finality and stability. However this last interpretation is not a truly christian one, as a christian always believes in a person's worth as an individual, and in a person's value---- no matter how apparently insignificant such a person's prayers and actions may appear to the world----- as a participant in God's Plan. Just think that even experiments on sub-atomic particles' behaviour point to the fact that both the experimenter and the experiment condition these. Is it so difficult to believe then that in an analogical and very distant way, the believer's participation can influence history, always of course under the a priori presence of God's final Divine Freedom and Will? Even writing an essay such as this must therefore affect history even if it went unread and unnoticed to the world, just through its spiritual charge and power participating at the ultimate hyerarchical level of reality where everything and everyone is pure spirit and thought.
I, Ludovicus, am also aware that this revision may need further revisions, as the bounty of God's knowledge keeps revealing itself through our veiled eyes. I am also certain that it can be carried out much better than I have done, by more skilled, sophisticated, learned and pious theologians than I am. But it certainly requires someone who is poor and oppressed, and who has not been spared God's rod and discipline, the signs of which I carry in my spirit and flesh; this may narrow down the number of applicants for the task.
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With regard to the matter of a writer's literary sophistication,I would like here to quote a statement Georges Bernanos made through the young, poor, and oppressed parish priest of Saint Vaast who is the central character of his novel, Diary of a Country Curate -: " I probably have a rather unsophisticated, rather oppressed personality; but I must confess that the priest who feels he has to belong to the literati in order to be full of grace, has always horrified me. To give great value to one's belonging or not to a circle of elegant intellects, is like wishing to have lunch in the best restaurants, in the City-: One does not live lavishly, whilst being conscious, as a priest should, that many are dying of hunger in this world. ", [ My translation from an Italian translation-from-the-original in French ]. I would also like to mention the great Origen, of Church Fathers' fame, who speaks about the non-essentiality of a polished or stylish language or writing in connection with revealed matters, as, if these are true, the spirit shall suffice to those who rightly interpret and understand. See, for example Anti-Nicene Fathers, vol. X, Book I; vol X, Book IV,Section 2, and I quote from the latter reference-: '......and they [ 2 Cor. 10:16 ] confess themselves accordingly to be rude in speech but not in knowledge; for we must consider that the other Apostles would have said this too as well as Paul. As for the text of 2 Cor 4:7, ''........ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us,.............''.The reference to Origen is from ' Origen's Commentaries on John and Matthew ' ( partial ) , Book I, IV, vol. X , Anti-Nicene Fathers, Early Church Fathers ( Special Protestant Edition ), LOGOS Library System's CD-ROM, http://www: logos.com
Please also note that I am heavily indebted to Origen's interpretations regarding the understanding of the scriptural, theological associations: i.e., ' in the beginning ', ' in Wisdom ', ' at the beginning ', ' the flow of the Spirit as a work of the Word in Wisdom ( i.e., In the beginning ), at the beginning ' etc.
Regarding my understanding of God's ontological freedom and its assumption of the human nature, this is grounded at second hand, on my readings of Juan Luis Segundo's work--: Jesus of Nazareth Yesterday and Today; to give an example, see chapter I --: Jesus and God: Approach to
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the Council of Chalcedon. Brutally perhaps, and in a nutshell, any belief and speculation about God ends up in idolatry, narcisism and self pampering, if/when in separation of or consciously ignoring the Plan that is from the beginning, in Wisdom, and that includes the carpenter from Nazareth, the man called Jesus and what he really stood for. The Father and the Son are One, and christology is meant to be ' from below ', that is-: Starting with the man Jesus of Nazareth.
Note 3 -: In the part of the essay where God is speaking, there is an inevitable chronological telescoping of this revision of Genesis 1-3, that is going on in the present, but is however trying to appear as if going on, simultaneously, in the past -----as if it were a new or even an original revelation, although we know the existing version is not to and cannot be replaced----- with the references to the already existing Old and New Covenants into which it is trying to fit, as if written before their times and existence. However, since in God there is no subservience to time, all this should be accepted as natural, if inspired of God, as it very well may be. It is nice to write, believing oneself to be doing so under God's express mandate, believing in such an overpowerful and overpowering Master as God undoubtedly and incredibly is! Alleluiah! Alleluiah!

page 1.

1 revision. These are the words written in MMI, of Ludovicus, a Lombard from Milan, now in terra australis since MXCLIX, during the reign of God's beloved and gracious Elizabeth II, by the Grace of Jehovah, Queen of Great Britain. Australia and of the Commonwealth Nations, therefore, by Her Grace and Benevolence also an unworthy australian theologian, a son of Josephine, a strong and fairly just woman from Brianza, Italy.And he proceeded to say, in his human wretchetdness, notwithstanding his total unworthiness, driven by the mystery of Jehovah's Grace and Providence, through the proddings of the Spirit that does not know rest and does not suffer resistance or refusal-:
" Jehovah has been mightily concerned, through the reports from ITS only begotten Son, the now glorified Jesus of Nazareth, the Word in the beginning/Wisdom, the Christ of the Old Testament about the anachronisms in the Book of Genesis 1-3 which was sent down to the Priests of the Temple, in the days of the Kings of Judah and Samaria, through the word of mouth, and through human ears, from time immemorial, since the times of the generation of Adam. Jehovah has decreed that a revision is now needed!.
First of all, let us all remember Jehovah created the world because of ITS Love ( concern ) for the other than self, and created human beings in the image of ITS Son, committed to love one another, in freedom.Since the world qua inanimated or not-human and human beings qua created and unlike the Son who has been generated of the same substance as the Father's, from the Father, the whole of creation would not be made totally divine, but required to be made subjected to imperfection, that is, with regard to human beings, with the need to learn how to love with God's Love, in order to become divine and actually God's own.Indeed, although human beings, in virtue of the fact that they have been made in the image of the Son, have an openness to the supernatural and to divinization, ' at the last day ', matters that have been written about by God's beloved children in the New Covenant established by God's dear Son Jesus of Nazareth, and sealed in his blood by his death on the Cross, human beings, with the exception of God's Son, are born imperfect, not-divine, i.e., In need to learn how to love one another, like the Father and the Son, through the Spirit. This means that they have been made subject not only to the Law of Love and Freedom, but also to that of scarcity and necessity, in which chance ( fate ), which also rules together with natural law, order, and intelligence, is a type of random natural freedom that is required in creation to avoid, by foiling and thwarting attempts made by misguided human beings for the establishment of permanent human controls on nature and Spirit. Only the Law of Love and of the Freedom of God , by the Grace and Providence of God, can supply the means to maintain humankind on the path of divinization, established by God's Son by his ( he became then truly a man in the human flesh, although now being the glorified human being) Incarnation, stimulated as human beings naturally are,

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by desires which keep them prodding on the harsh and narrow track of scarcity and necessity, the corollaries of imperfection and want.Please be also reminded in relation to these matters, that, provided the Law of Love and Freedom is obeyed globally, no one on earth should want for the necessaries of living that are normally required by a fallible and limited human being, even under God's Grace, to truthfully, honestly praise and give thanks to God , who created the world out of Love, so that the consciousnes of humankind would feedback to God the overabundance of the Spirit that was hitherto overflowing into the nothing of nothingness, in excess to the Love enjoyed within the divine relations of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It is important to note also that ----- this was not understood and not expressed by my mouthpieces in the former revelation of Genesis 1-3----- although human beings consider the postulation of their a priori , original subjection to imperfection as a limitation to the power of an omnipotent God, God's omnipotence cannot be separated from the rationality of a God who is also just, consistent with ITSELF, whose power cannot by the definition of ITS own essence and nature, be created but only outpoured into an eternal act of outpouring, that must flow back finally to ITSELF into forms that are images of ITSELF , grounded into substances that are made out of nothing ( i.e., the non-divine, the non-existent-by-itself ). Verily, wilst the outpouring of God is perfect, the image cannot be so, not without the Incarnation of the Word, who makes this perfectionable on an individual basis ( i.e., the light shines out from the lamp but is neither just the ray of light, as a whole, nor the lamp itself, nor the vital energy represented by the light, nor the ray itself, nor the wave of light, nor the frequency of light, etc. etc. to the inclusion of elementary component elements or particles, themselves images of the divine, unknowable essence ). Nevertheless, God is omnipotent and whatever IT makes, it does so to the limit ( to use imperfect human concepts which are nevertheless dear and important to God, who loves humanity ) of ITS infinity and creativity insofar as making is concerned, and is, in-spite of the imperfection of the made thing, qua made and not generated, still a task commensurate to ITS infinite power of making, involving God to ITS limits ( to use human imperfect language which is nevertheless dear and important to God, who loves humanity ), still a task indeed worthy of God. Finally, scarcity, necessity, natural freedom, random freedom ( chance, contingencies ), divine freedom are not signs of weakness on the part of God, but the instruments of ITS work according to God's Plan ( in Wisdom ) for the divinization of creation, an act of mighty and infinite Love. " Amen.

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Ludovicus further proceeded to say-: " Jehovah has commanded me to act as ITS mouthpiece and said "-:
" I, Jehovah, command that a revision be made to The Book of Genesis 1-3, by my slave Ludovicus whom I have long trained in the school of my Love that does not spare the rod, but is suffering and wretchedness, however salved with the balm of my desire for love, that is his own love for God. I am a God requiring love, glory, praise, free and voluntary worship from my people, who although my slaves, are allowed the chance to escape from my house and even oppose and deny me, their sovereign Lord-: At times they are even driven to flee from me by my persecutors themselves. Woe to these exploiters and oppressors!But do not forget in your blasphemous dreams of human world-rule that I am also and always shall be the mighty hunter of old who ITS own and shall have it all, at the end. Many have attempted to escape from my Love, through the countless generations of humankind, seeking their own illusions, and mightily have I had to struggle with humankind for their hearts, in which also and above all, not only in their minds, and in their flesh, the mysteries of my Love and their love can weave the patterns of worship, praise and glory. In fact, do not forget you weavers of rituals, speeches, musics, songs, dances, in fact, of the whole liturgy, which in the absence of divine love, are all so much like onto the burnt offerings of old that I finally got tired of and rejected, that the only sacrifice acceptable to me is the sacrifice of your hearts. Remember that only in your heart your love can meet mine own, only through your love of the other than self-: Preferably the poor and oppressed amongst you, who shall never cease to exist, who also on their part, must recognise and respond to love, which is a two-way exchange.Consider how many have run away and I have hunted and brought back to myself! Consider how in the course of innumerable generations of human beings, my word has been uttered through imperfect mouthpieces, for imperfect listening ears, for imperfect human beings. Oh, how I have greeved and burned in fury and anger at the abyss existing between us and you, oh my children! Verily I must insist, the book of Genesis 1-3 needs revising as it has been compiled by my people when most nations had deserted me, confusing my faithful. Ah, my beloved patriarchs, what a faithful but wretched lot of human beings you shall be! Yet, in your days you still were the best I could muster! In an era in which slavery was the lot of most human beings you alone, although actually also enslaving many, believed in sanctuary for the run-away slave and eventually allowed a former slave

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either the freedom to go elsewhere or membership in your own household! To the point that my people shall eventually become a tribe of liberated slaves, whose prayer shall become-: ' I was once a poor and wretched Aramean, oh Jehovah ........................' Many laws, amazing and advanced for your times, for the relief of the poor and oppressed amongst you shall you issue in my name and make to actually apply. My heart melted from the love of you then like the fat of your choice sacrificial meat; how grateful was the odour of your sacrificial smoke and of the burning incense, hyssop and myrrh. On the other hand, your vision of the world and creation was tainted by your ignorance and the customs and belief of profligate neighbours, and had to be so, in a creation subjected also to chance (fate ), scarcity and necessity.Let me then tell you that it shall come to pass that 2000 and more years after my Son shall have come amongst you, to die and resurrect for your salvation, I shall speak again to you through Ludovicus my servant, as I am now doing. Much shall you have learnt about me and creation in this time, certainly aided by the presence of my Son amongst you, by the New Covenant, by the stirrings of the Spirit that flows without rest toward and from every direction it chooses to blow. Much shall have also been learnt through the sciences about nature. Also, I have noted that the development of world communications as well as the trend in the world's multi-national businesses is toward a global distribution and influence, and that it very well might also turn out to be for a global exploitation and oppression of the poor. But I shall, if, whenever and wherever the latter events take place, shatter the dreams of those responsible, with plagues of their spirit and flesh. Much has been said by those who have functioned as my mouthpieces, or by those who have listened with their ears to my words, about sin and the responsibility in regard to it of a personal being who opposes me since the beginning-: Satan. Let me tell you, since it is not relevant whether this being is living, personal, conscious, etc., that, since the beginning there have been human beings who have joined together in their delusions concerning desires, activities directed at grabbing an unreasonable share of resources for the sake of their delusion to permanently ensure their own survival and enjoyment of riches, even through the permanent exploitation and oppression of their fellow human beings-: The well known historical poverty and oppression about which my beloved sons of Ignatius Loyola of indomitable faith, shall so boldly and well write in their books, in the days after the establishment of the New Covenant, from whom my son Ludovicus shall also draw knowledge! The activities of those people, rising and falling as individual persons, through the generations of humankind, but always present as a class at each generation, replaced by others like themselves existing and acting through the ages, in history, through the surviving structures of sin, have ended by giving these structures a life of their own, that can be called satanic ( i.e., At the edge betwen the divine and the demonic ) indeed, an impersonal, pseudo-personal system-of-being

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having the capacity to relate to and to be related to by humanity in a pseudo-human way, albeit very actually a quasi human being without a divine destiny, devoted to condemnation and death. Consider that a belief in a living, supernatural, personal demon can only serve as a reason to excuse human beings from sin, while perhaps making them despair of their victory over sin, even through the victory of Jesus over the body of sin. Do you remember Adam and Eve and the Serpent? How very convenient and confusing in your freedom and ITS (the serpent's) own! No, neither an advisable, nor safe a belief. The structures of sin are social and quasi-human, quasi personal, very actual and real and these you can certainly fight and conquer. Therefore beware! It is here and now about time that a more specific definition be given of sin, other than the generic one of the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God-: The Dogma of Original Sin needs rewording. Granted, sin is initially and finally against God, but takes its form, actuality and concreteness through the dealings of human beings towards other human beings. Are not the great commandments and sermons that shall be given on the Mountain, about love of God and love of fellow human beings whom should be loved as one loves even oneself? Many a Rabbi of the Old and the New shall agree, and even Jesus has always agreed even when, as the Word he agreed, since the beginning, that the summary of the Law is in those two commandments. So let us be more specific and say that one can only love God through the love of one's fellow human being. Even a lesser poet, an englishman called Leigh Hunt ( 1834 A.D. ), shall write in a short poem, unusual for his times, one titled ' The Dream of Abu Ben Adem ', that one who loves one's fellow man, indeed loves God. Now, many can easily love, and there may be nothing sinful about this, someone who is goodlooking, with great and rare personality, rich, generous, etc., someone who belongs to one's own family, class, clique, party, club, religious congregation, ideology, nation, race, etc. The test of love ----- remember that we have been created so that we may learn how to love with God's own Love for ourselves----- must therefore be a love for someone who is poorer and more oppressed than oneself. Is this not really the meaning of the love for the Cross? Do not be hypocrites like my hard and cold hearted Pharisees! I certainly love you all, always and without exception or partiality -----as Jesus' own brother James shall tersely say----- due to the fact that I have created you out of matter, which in turn I made out of nothingness( i.e., What was not divine, virtually non-existent ), yet in the image of my Son ( i.e., The reflection/image is neither the direct light, nor the ray, nor the lamp, nor the vital energy, etc. etc. ) -----thus naturally imperfect and wretched, since images and in relation to matter, yet blessed in relation to God----- nevertheless normally, infinitely ( in relation to God ) poor and oppressed until ' at the last day ', and yet blessed, therefore infinitely lovable.As to revising the whole of the two Testaments, there is no need to do so, because, there is nothing in these that, in the light of this revision to Genesis 1-3, conflicts with what I, Jehovah have

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asked Ludovicus to revise according to my commands, and for the reasons given above. So, my dear Ludovicus, I have commanded, am commanding now and shall command you to boldly speak and put an Amen to it! "
And Ludovicus proceeded to say-:
2r. " In the beginning there was nothing at all but God. Virtually, nothing sensuous existed, and whatever may have been potentially or actually visible, audible, colourful, or spatially drawn out was virtually invisible, not-heard of, and as if un-extended, because there was nothing like living material sight or hearing or smelling, spacially distributed matter ( including air or gas ) or sensuous life of any kind in the void. Neither was there any intellectual or spiritual life other than God.This is not to say however, that the divine could not have knowledge of all that was to come and that was to be stored potentially, actually and kinetically in Wisdom, the first begotten of the Father, even insofar as the sensuous mode of knowing any existent thing or being is concerned. The truth is however that the manner of knowing by the divine is infinitely more direct and immediate than the sensuous mode. Therefore, insofar as the sensuous mode of knowing is concerned, nothing existed and there was only God at the beginning. That is why it is not wrong to humanly say that, at the beginning, there was nothing at all outside God and that God alone existed or that God existed alone with Wisdom and in Wisdom and that Wisdom alone was as God was, at the beginning. Insofar as the mystery of knowing is concerned, God was, is, shall be pure, divinely living and communicating Thought, and it is through thought that human beings know that there is God, although more than thought is required to love and know God; in fact God is not just thought, God is more, infinitely more than thought can be spoken of, in human terms. And all the while, in the beginning, that is, in Wisdom, the Spirit flowed in the divine communications, from Thought and back ontowards Thought, in the analogical way that electrical power oscillates back and forward in a purely inductive circuit without power being used at all ( if a theoretically pure inductive circuit ). God as Thought, as the archee ( prototype ) of all that human thought can think of, in freedom and in a non-ultimate and non-absolute way -----for only what is really ultimate and absolute is God, and God cannot directly, immediately, without mediation, analogy and complementary reasoning, be thought of by the human mind----- means Life pure and eternal. Life, or God's self-communications, is Love, all these in a state of pure, non-historical being, ( even now unbelievable, unfathomable to sensuous/intellectual/self-conscious human beings and to their sensing, feeling, knowing, understanding, judging, willing, acting and being ). There was virtually neither a beginning as the source to an end, nor an end as the goal to a beginning, therefore time was not yet, neither space, nor matter, nor colour existed, life being a centered

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flashing ( in the language of the sensuous sensible being ) of instantaneous, self renewing, loving, body-less, non-materially-related energy, and God's dear son Einstein had not yet been born to relate matter to energy through the speed of light. Thought, willing in eternity, from eternity, to express God's Love in an evermore divine way, to the ever greater glory of God, a task indeed even more commensurate to God's ultimate greatness, ( as distinct from God's absolute greatness in self-sufficiency ) first generated Wisdom ( Sophia ), as the disembodied, living, restless flowing of God's powers and love in the self-communications of God according to a Plan for creation, and Wisdom is the organizer and holder of all the powers of ' Thought the God ' ( o-theos). As God's dear son Origen shall later on say, the ' Thought the Father ' (theos ) then uttered the Word that was in Wisdom, as the executor of all the works that the Father had designed and planned for Wisdom to hold. And the Word was in Wisdom and Wisdom is in the Word, and the Word is Wisdom. Yes, the Father generated the Word by uttering it in Wisdon giving way to the Word as the Son in a body-less birth, and the Word was fully divine, generated but not made, the very same and only substance of the Father. And the Word, uttered by the Father, also drew out the Holy Spirit that also was in Wisdom as a work ( made and not generated ) of the Father at the beginning, and the Spirit was in Wisdom and with the Father. All, Father, Wisdom/Word/Son, Holy Spirit are in God in Wisdom as the beginning, since the beginning, without time.And the Word, as the executor of the works of the Father, was to make all other creatures that already existed in Wisdom as the Wisdom of the Father -: The spiritual ( divine ) and material ( sensuous ), the invisible and the visible, the sensible and insensible, the animated and in-unimated, the organic and inorganic, and others modes of being unknown to human beings, all these according to the powers of God which were in Wisdom, as the Father ( Creator ), Wisdom being the beginning, since the beginning, without time. The learned scholar Origen of the Alexandrine school, well was to write and has written on these matters, under the spell of the Word as the Logos, and is now blisfully witnessing these truths in heaven, at the sight of the beatific vision.
Yes, Thought willed that Being be exalted over and above nothingness ( resulting from the absence of sensuous/intellectual/spiritual life outside the divine ), and that through the generation and creation of other beings ( to the ultimate perfection of the self- conscious human being ), by the resulting separation from and dynamic return to itself, the Power of God to be truly and gloriously manifested and expressed, through use, historically across time.
And time was.

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And this is the meaning of Love-: That a unity into oneness existed in the beginning, at the beginning; that a separation by generation and creation occurred and that a return to the Father would follow at the end toward a unity into oneness. Thought, Word and Spirit were one and equal onto one another, one very same and only substance of the Father, except that, in Wisdom, the Spirit is like the differential of the living, spiritual Power of the Father. There was no separation between, no distinction about, no division within, no limitation from one another; they were one unified oneness of three and equal onto themselves, through integrating, theocratic Spirit-: A unified oneness of the same substance-: There was no boundary whatsoever in their mutual relations as all else was virtually nothingness. There was nothing else whatsoever outside and within themselves-: There was no outside, no within, no boundary, no space, no time, no becoming, only one unified oneness of three beings in one being and their mutual relations. There was Love and fulfilment in God through Spirit, in the outward communications between the Father and the Son. There was totally only one unified God, alone with itself in its relations as Father with the Son ( and human beings and Creation still at the Planned-stage), by the Word ( in Wisdom as Wisdom ) through Spirit.
This was indeed perfection and bliss, pure and eternal! Yet, there was more even than perfection owing to the over-abundance of God's over-flowing loving kindness!

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3r. But there was also an overubandance of the flow of Spirit. In ITS Love, God felt the overflow of the Spirit into the virtual nothing as if it were a falling off into non-existence ( in human terms which are dear to God, who loves humanity )-: There was in fact a virtually invisible, in-audible, un-measurable ( in relation to an absence of sensuous and material, sensible and even insensible life which is still unfathomable in ITS divine modes of expression, to present human thought ) firework of divine emotions, feelings that through the Spirit overflowed into the void around the Father and the Word ( now the glorified Son ), a superabundance of Love that went off into nothingness, although still feeding back to God, through an eternal return, yet, without a witnessing or praise from any sensuous, material ( sensible, insensible) and even insensible creation. In fact, the virtually sensuous groaned and clamored for God's attention, for seing, hearing, smelling, touching and feeling, knowing, judging, willing, acting, being and finally, for loving, self expressing and growing, for praising, worshipping, glorifying God.
And God said to the Word, that was in Wisdom at the beginning-:
" Let us create a world of beings and things that shall witness this our over-plenitude of Love, each according to its assigned nature, status, siuation, condition of being, and share in my Power, and thereby give us praise, thanks and glory, each in accordance to capacity, in an analogical rational and orderly way. Let us make the invisible and what is virtually nothing ( not-divine ) visible and appraisable through sensuous and sensible, even insensible life. Let us fill the virtual void with conscious love, through being that shall give us back the overflow that is going into the void, pregnant with the praises of creation itself, now all assembled in overflowing, bursting over Wisdom! A not doing so would indeed be un-godly, un-worthy of us, utterly selfish! Let us even astonish ourselves! Let us do even so! " Think ye about the coming marvel and crowning glory of Jesus of Nazareth, the babe of Beth-Lehem!
In fact, the exaltation of God's being resulting from the contrast with what was virtually nothingness, was to be made even ever greater by the contrast with something and someone that imaged God, through the Word.

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4r. God therefore, through the Word, that was in Wisdom at the beginning, decided to create matter, and ordained the formation of the microcosm of all elemental particles and gave these, motions too innumerable and wondrous to account for, that made sensible ( in human terms which are dear to God, who loves humanity ) to the human beings that were to rise through the evolution of the biological cell, the fireworks of feelings and emotions that God experiences in uttering its love unto the Word through the Spirit. These particles and matter are not God, but the sensible symbols of the love of God. Matter and energy, in their mutual exchanges, became the carriers of God's ordinances devoted to the process of creation. These motions generated, generate and shall eternally re-generate forces that assemble matter in the numerous ways that build up the structures of the universe and are powered by the Spirit of God through material structures of power, in an analogical hyerarchy of being that can only be apprehended by the unglorified human mind through the contemplation of symbols. Symbols are not just cyphers, but receive their own power from the will of God, within the infinite horizon of God's creation and knowledge, which generously and mercifully includes the human horizon of knowledge.Indeed symbols take on life from God in ourselves and occur in a hyerarchic ladder of being that spans the inanimate and the spiritual rungs, between the lifeless and the living forms, between the visible and the invisible realms
5r. Thus it came to be that God's ordinances carried by the currents, driven by the forces, powered by the Spirit, supervised by Wisdom that presided as Word, order and intelligence in creation, assembled the structures of the sensible universe grounded on matter and loving energy. Order, intelligence and plan were since the beginning, not entirely unmixed with chance ( fate ), in order to permit whatever degree of freedom could be allowed by the overpowerful but loving God to an imperfect creation subjected to scarcity and necessity in which some human beings are free to become oppressors and exploiters of both nature and their fellow human beings, themselves remaining however open to the random retribution of fate or to that directly coming down from God onto their head. In truth, God is the God of love, intelligence and order-: God is above all an ethical, personal ( in relation to human beings ) God who aimed at the creation of rational, ethical, aesthetic consciousness.

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6r. So the earth was also formed, with its expanses of water and land, and the canopy of air above the surface. However, a great number of changes had to occur before the formation of the first biological cell, that was to herald the beginninng of material life, through the evolution of which, under the continuing supervision of the Word, the giver of plan, order and intelligence, human kind would rise. Humankind was the last to arise because, in God's plan, all creation was to belong to the same hyerarchic ladder of beings and things spanning the distance between the inanimate and the animated, between the visible and the invisible, up to the spiritual rung, linked as if by a chain, by the same love/energy that is God's Love-: Humankind is thus linked to all creation; in fact it is the most comprehensive form of creation, a recapitulation of creation. In fact, humankind was to provide the mediation between world and the supra-world in the process of that conscious witnessing of the super-abundance of God's Love flowing into virtual nothingness before creation came into being, that God had desired in the beginning, that is, in Wisdom. Let us in fact note that consciousness also gradually evolved in the human being, in whom it is destined to reach a divine level, at ' the last day '. As the biological cell evolved into more complex biological beings, matter met life, spirit and consciousness in a forming of complex structures and relationships in which and through which matter became conscious of spirit and spirit became responsible for matter in such a way that matter would lash back at spirit when abused by it through human beings' activities through the structures of sin. In fact consciousness eventually provided the link between matter, spirit and sin, in the structures of sin, that made these into a quasi personal, quasi human, quasi rational, quasi ethical, certainly real and actual demonic powers for sin in human beings.
In a way, a making of Satan by human beings, that was to be blasphemously ascribed to God's doing !

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7r. And so it happened to be that humankind arose after the great host of the microscopic biological world took form and life, after most of the animal and the vegetable world evolved to a stage when human life could exist. In fact, life first developed in the waters, then spread to the land, so that, for example, enough oxygen would be accumulated in the air to allow the breathing processes of all those beings including mammals and human beings themselves. With consciousness, gradually, a dialogue began between human beings and God, through spirit. The structures of evil also began to form under the clashing of the forces of scarcity, necessity, and natural freedom. Human beings began to kill, enslave and oppress others for the sake of their own exclusive survival and aggrandisement. These silly creatures began to think about themselves as gods, equal to Jehovah, deserving priviledged consideration over the others. They began to worship idols as the projections of their own illusions and delusions, imagining the independent eternality, self-existence and subsistence of matter, and its independence from and even superiority to spirit.
Matter then lashed, is lashing back at and shall destroy them through the structures of evil they made for themselves and their kin.
8r. God saw that everything was good insofar as there was, in the beginning, that is the same as to say, in Wisdom, some sort of equilibrium in all things and relationships that it had created, but God was also dwelling together with the Word in the Spirit, pondering on a stage of its plan that, in a way commensurate to its greatness and divinity, promised to be even distracting, insofar as God had taken a calculated gamble ( in human language ) regarding the allowance of a mixture of freedom and chance (contingency ) in the ordered plan of the creation events.
'Let us make human beings in our own image' God had said to the Word, ' With the freedom to deny and go against us. We shall always win in the end. In a way that is part of our being divine, for the sake of the divine fundamental law of rationality and consistency, that is to avoid contradiction, outside of the hypostatic unity of Jesus Christ, who had both an originally, fully divine as well as a fully human nature, originally divine beings should not be made; originally divine beings should only be generated by a direct generation from the Father, by God, as is the case with the Wisdom/ Word, or by an indirect generation from God in Wisdom, by the Word, as is the case with the Holy Spirit, or made to become divine through the glorification of the human body of death by the Word, in the being of humanity. However, the

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limit of directly generated, originally divine perfection has been encompassed by my will in the generation of the Word in Wisdom, a unique event even in my own eternal and divine life. In fact, there can only be one Word in Wisdom, at the beginning, a being who is God itself, in the flow of the Spirit, from Wisdom and back into Wisdom. So human beings and the world must be non-divine, physically subjected to becoming and change, to the cycles of nature, to birth and death. Because of the freedom and chance they enjoy, many shall happen to deny us, because a world subjected to some degree of chance and freedom, driven by desire in order to provide a stimulus to walk all the way between birth, desease, illness, old-age betrayall and death, must be, a world subjected to poverty and necessity, of course and without any doubt, ad majorem Dei gloriam, as good old Ignatius Loyola, S.J. shall say, and good Luis Segundo, S.J. also agree with later on. In fact, in this type of scenario, it shall occur that some human beings shall be rich and others poor. It shall also happen to be that some human beings shall take matters in their own hand and actually ' load their dices ' and grab at riches and power by actually oppressing and exploiting their fellow human beings, in contravention to the spirit of love that made me desire to create -----to share my overabundance with a nothingness that became something and someone, in an analogically rational imaging of God----- by the Word in Wisdom, that is the same as to say, in the beginning, at the beginning, without time.' So the Father and the Son were putting their heads together ( in a human way of speaking ) to work out a solution to the problem of a non-divine world, made out of nothing ( nihilo, that is, non-divine), in which human beings would be able to choose to become oppressors and abusers of nature as well as of their own people in contravention to the law of love that requires them to choose a path of equilibrium in unselfishness ----through the impartial sharing of resources---- in which all human beings and somehow, in a difficult way to explain, even all creation, would be able to enjoy the blessing that God certainly gave, in Wisdom, in the beginning, at the beginning, that is the blessing of survival, to have a normal life, or even, such a mere existence, which would even suffice to naturally and truthfully praise and worship God the creator, thus glorifying God,in the case of creation, through the mediation of human beings. Moreover, this possibility, this potential for good, honoured by all creation, would have to itself evolve through a history in which a multitude of generations of human beings would take part. Indeed an immense plan, with tremendous calculated odds, halas heavily biased towards God, commensurate to the greatness of God! And to see how and what has been pre-ordained for the solution of the problem, plenty has been written, rightly understood and interpreted, of course, in the Books of the Old and the New Covenants. Amen for ever and ever!Have an inspired, revised reading from Genesis 4 onward my children! "

Post 3. Hanuman the Monkey.

A link to the technorati-:

" Hanuman the Monkey ",

the ensign-badge of Arjuna the silvery hero

of Barata, India.

The glorious, epic, mythical, gentlemanly World of Cricket has recently been rocked by the casual call of "monkey " worded by an indian player at an australian opponent, who took it as an offensive slurr.

While reading Baghavad-Ghita the epic Aryan poem written in 400 B.C., I came across a passage which I wish to quote here:

"Beholding Dhritirashtra's battle set,

Weapons unsheathing, bows drawn forth,

the war Instant to break- Arjuna,

whose sign-badge Was Hanuman the monkey,

spake this thing

To Krishna the Divine,

his charioteer

...................................................................................."

Unquote.
The many branches of the great Ferrarii of Gens Ferreria ( Ferraria ) accumulated since 1000 A.D. when heraldry was born in western Europe, more than 100 Coat of Arms, called sign-badge in the translation of the Baghavad-Ghita made by the scottish Sir Edwin Arnold.
Ferreri....... Ferrarii's sign-badges show lions of all colours, eagles, black crows, one only showing " a silver horse rampant in a red field " which Signor Commendatore Ferrari, the racing car manufacturer, ignored, borrowing the Porshe's family's " black horse in a golden field " in the classical igoramus-fashion pragmatic italians are known to indulge in, preferring foreign things to their own ( they do not even trust the italian shade of anything in Italy. I wonder why? ).

So, if anyone had to call me a lion or an eagle or a horse, or even a scroogy, scraggy and crappying black crow, I, in my self-conceit and vanity, would probably feel proud and elated and put my spanish morion ( see helmet in my personal profile ) on and strut around like a two-bob-hidalgo ( member of spanish noble caste ).

Oh, pardon me, I was going to forget simpatico Mickey Mouse the cute Walt Dysney 's icon, not to mention also our glorious, long suffering australian footballers who proudly don magpies, cangaroos, lions, you name it, they have it, without any umbrage whatsoever.

Now, why on earth did the Australians make such a fuss and caused such a great clamour to pass, when the Hindus' Great Sacred Book itself places the " monkey in a golden field, azure " as the exalted sign-badge of the greatest indian, aryan hero, the mythical Arjuna, the silvery one of Brahma, the one whose charioteer was even the lofty and compassionate Lord Krishna?

Praised be the god-inspired indian and confounded should the australian players be for their ignorance and misunderstanding. I remember even seing a BBC documentary showing how a town in India worships mice to which it builds temples in which these are allowed to go free and to which all sorts of respect and veneration is given and shown.Not to mention the same and even more being carried out with regard to monkeys.So where is the offence, Dear Watson? The indian player's consciousness may have been awakened by some inspiration to the effect that he uttered the word monkey for any reason connected to the above stated comments.
Why......it might have even been uttered as a sign of covert admiration for the aussie player who reminded him of Arjuna's monkey-icon.

Nothing to do with racial prejudice, which is to-day incorrectly and too easily brought to the surface by the ignoramuses or quarrel-mongers, but with culture.

The same thing happens in Australia where the word bastard can be uttered without offence being taken, this even being considered by some as an affectionate compliment. I reckon our dear Paul Hogan as well as...... was it the unforgettable Graham Kennedy, sadly departed, would love these speculations of mine, don't you think so?

As Romeo said " What is in a name Dear Juliet............... ?

or something to this effect.

Ergo ( just to hint to you colonials, I have been at Oxford ),

I dare say, old chaps, let us keep our under-pants and hairs on,......... what?