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 – 21 | Linda Thayer

Resolving the fine print in the Church’s doctrine of the ‘divinity’ of Jesus—from which doctrine we” seek refuge with Allah”— was an ugly process, at its zenith throughout the 4th Christian century (ce). In previous installments we have viewed opposing positions—one taken…

Why is Allah ‘He’ Rather than ‘She’? (3)

IN PART 2 we explained that the Arabic name ‘Allah’ is a word in the noun category and as such this name belongs to one of two possible grammatical categories of Arabic nouns. For reasons about which we took an educated guess,…

Why is Allah ‘He’ Rather than ‘She’? | 2

"This grammatical gender of the name of Allah should not be a red flag for those self-identified ‘feminists’ among us, or for anyone else, once we understand how language works: The existence of noun grammatical categories ('genders ') has forced choice from…

Why Is Allah “He” Rather than “She”? | Part 1

Should it bother us that we speak of Allah as He”; would there be anything wrong with speaking of Allah as “She”? Some Feminists have done just that. Maybe you have come across the Feminist-inspired slogan that reappears from time to time:…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 20 | Linda Thayer

We continue our series recounting the monumental struggle within the Christian Church regarding what was to be their officially ‘correct’ understanding of how it was that Jesus was ‘divine,’ since his supposed ‘divinity’ was something that had been promoted by Paul—the Church’s…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 19 | Linda Thayer

We continue with the story of the Church’s formulation of the fine print in her doctrine of “divinity” associated with Jesus as contested in the 4th century of the Christian Era (ce) by Arius vs. Athanasius and their followers. Page references are…

Learning to Fast with Optimal Benefit

FASTING (Arabic ṣawm) has been used, in various forms, as a spiritual practice for thousands of years at least. It has been trod as a pathway to God through the ages; abstention from food and drink is woven into the fabric of…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange – 17 | Linda Thayer

WE PAUSE IN our look at Rubenstein’s best-selling book, When Jesus Became God, The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome, and in our re-packaging of his account of how the Church in her 4th century worked out her…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange -16 | 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…

Monotheism In Interfaith Exchange -15 | Linda Thayer

WE CONTINUE WITH Rubenstein, (When Jesus Became God, The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome), who—keep in mind—writes as a Jew and thus, like us Muslims, is unable to accept the Pauline, that is, the “Christian,” view of…