Author: Linda Thayer

Growing up Christian, Dr. Linda Thayer came to realize in her teens, that Jesus as 'divinity' and Jesus as the second 'person' of a 'Godhead' (the doctrine of the 'Trinity') were philosophical constructs, evolved later and not part of the New Testament Gospel books' portrait of the Son of Mary. In her 30's, when working as Bible translations consultant and linguistic advisor in West Africa, she had already added all things Islamic to her reading list, along with Biblical Studies. She has three university degrees in linguistic science (BA, MA, PhD), with a minor in anthropology. She believes that her fellow Muslims need to be current with the thinking and findings of modern Biblical Studies in order to meet Christians halfway in understanding the prophetic mission and personal nature of Jesus. To this end, she writes of the historical phenomenon of the Jesus movement from an interfaith perspective that dovetails with the Quran and ahâdîth.

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 10 | Linda Thayer

Using Richard E. Rubenstein’s book, When Jesus Became God, The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome, we have introduced the 4th century theological dispute in Alexandria, Egypt, featuring Arius vs. Athanasius, a controversy that would develop and continue…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 9 | Linda Thayer

We return to retelling the story of the 4th century Church’s theological exploits, following Richard E. Rubenstein’s book, When Jesus Became God, The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome; page numbers refer to material taken from this work.…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 8 | Linda Thayer

HOW DID JESUS become defined as ‘God’? Beginning with this installment, we travel back to the 4th century of the Christian Era (ce) and observe the proceedings of Christian authorities. These events account for a bellwether stage in the historical legacy left…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – Part 7 | Linda Thayer

We ended our previous Part 6 noting that if the Church had not accepted Paul as a valid spokesman for Jesus, then a “Christological” belief system—including the supposed divinity of Jesus, a divine son-ship relationship to God, a Trinitarian model of deity—could…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – Part 6 | Linda Thayer

In previous parts of this series, we concluded that Paul’s ‘gospel’ differed dramatically from the Gospel message (Arabic: injîl) of Jesus as found in the several opening documents (Gospel books) of the New Testament of the Bible (i.e., Christian scripture). Accordingly, we…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 4 | Linda Thayer

WE HAVE BEEN looking at Dr. James D. G. Dunn’s study of the use of words in the Christian New Testament (NT) (compared with Hebrew/ Jewish usage in the Old Testament—since Jesus conformed to the model of a Jewish prophet), words meaning “worship”—as…

Monotheism in Interfaith Exchange – Part 3 | Linda Thayer

As a means toward interfaith understanding of Islam’s vindication and re-establishment of true monotheism among the Heavenly Revelations, we are analyzing James D. G. Dunn’s arguments in his book Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence. Dunn is a British New Testament…

Monotheism in Interfaith Exchange – Part 2 | Linda Thayer

Mainline Christians today speak of the One God as consisting of three ‘persons’: ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit’—a doctrinal explanation hammered out by the institutional Church but found nowhere as such in Christian Scriptures. How is it that a major Christian doctrine…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange -18 | Linda Thayer

We continue here with what the Muslim needs to know for understanding the formation of the Christian ‘canon‘ [1] (the writings which were to become the New Testament) —as it relates to the story of shaping Christian ‘orthodoxy.’ Page numbers in this…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange -13 | Linda Thayer

CONTINUING IN THIS installment, we look further at Richard E. Rubenstein’s book, When Jesus Became God, The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome so as to elucidate the 4th CENTURY ARIAN CONTROVERSY that divided the dominant Christian Church…