Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams has recently claimed that Muslims worship a "monkey-god." On his blog, Mr. Williams wrote:
The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god (repeat: "the terrorists' monkey-god." if you feel that fits a description of Allah then that is your own deep-seated emotional baggage not mine, talk to the terrorists who use Allah as their excuse and the Muslims who apologize for and rationalize them) and a "cultural center" to propagandize for the extermination of all things not approved by their cult. It is a project of American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, essentially the same group of apologists (but under 2 different names) for terrorists and the animals who use it as a terrorist ideology. They cloak their evil with new age gibberish that suggests Islam is just misunderstood.
This was in response to plans for a 13-story mosque next to Ground Zero. Then, in another post, Williams apologizes to Hindus for calling Allah a "monkey god," because they actually worship a monkey-god: Hanuman.
A few days ago I wrote an article critical of a monument to the 911 hijackers to be built at Ground Zero and scheduled to open on 9/11/11. I can only assume the date is only to emphasize the perverted message of the monument. The only thing sicker is that Americans will not only allow it but that they will defend it.
In the course of the article I described the "god" worshiped by terrorists as "a monkey god". I was wrong and that was offensive. I owe an apology to millions of Hindus who worship Lord Hanuman, an actual Monkey God.
Moreover, Hanuman is worshiped as a symbol of perseverance, strength and devotion. He is known as a destroyer of evil and to inspire and liberate. Those are hardly the traits of whatever the Hell (literally) it is that terrorists worship and worthy of my respect and admiration not ridicule. So, again, to my Hindu friends I offer my sincerest apologies for my horrible lapse and my insensitivity. It was unintentional, inexplicably ignorant and I am ashamed at my offense toward you.
I find this quite interesting. According to Williams, Allah is the "terrorists' monkey god." Yet, if "Allah" is truly the "terrorists' monkey god," as Mr. Williams asserts, then someone should really tell the millions of Arab Christians who also call God "Allah." In fact, my Arab Christian friends (and patients) have frequently said to me, Allah ma'akum, which means "May God be with you." Do they know that they are using the name of the "terrorists' monkey god"?
What about all the millions of Arabic Bibles, which have "Allah" as the name of God? Shouldn't we tell their publishers that they have the name of the "terrorists' monkey god" printed all over them? How about the Catholics in Malaysia? They sued for the right to call God "Allah" and won. Didn't they know that they were actually calling upon the "terrorists' monkey god"?
When I researched the origin of the word "Allah," I learned that "Allah" comes from the two Arabic words al ilah, which means "The God." It is very similar to the words for God in Hebrew: El, Elohim, and Eloah. "Allah" is also very similar to the word for God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, which is: Elah. In Syriac, which is very closely related to Aramaic, the word for God is Alaha, and some also say that the Aramaic for God is Alaha. These words: Allah, Elah, Eloh, El, Alaha are cognates, or words with a common etymological origin.
But, Mark Williams said Allah is the "terrorists' monkey god."
Oh my God (not "Allah")! That means Jesus Christ got it all wrong! Since the name for God in Aramaic/Syriac is Elah or Alaha, and Jesus spoke Aramaic, that means he was using the name of the "terrorists' monkey god"! Why didn't anyone tell Christ this? Why wasn't Mark Williams alive at the time of Christ? He could have corrected Jesus, as he was suffering on the cross, when he called out:
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34)
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi,[a] lama sabachthani?--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)
Remember that Eloi is a cognate of Allah. In fact, Jesus was actually quoting Psalm 22:1, which says:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
Since this was originally in Hebrew, then that means that King David was also calling upon the "terrorists' monkey god"!
This is absolutely terrible! How could we have been getting it all wrong for so long? I shudder to think of the enormous crisis of faith this revelation will create! Thanks be to God (not "Allah") for Mark Williams!. Thanks be to God (not "Allah") for His sending Mark Williams to clear the record for us all, Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. Thanks be to God (not "Allah") for Mark Williams, who has restored the proper name for God after more than 2,000. But, don't feel too bad: even Jesus Christ didn't know he was calling upon the "terrorists' monkey god."
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o'stephanie
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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ignore them
in general, Americans are tolerant
The word Elah isn't a cognate of Allah. Elah is a proper noun, referring variously to an ancient King of Israel, the valley where David slew Goliath, and to one of the attributes of God: Elah actually means "fear" and is not the name of God.
The word usually transliterated in English as Yaweh and translated as Jehovah (when it should have been translated into Yahovah) is one of the unpronounceable names of the Hebrew God.
While there are many learned theories about the actual definition of the word, it remains the only name of God in Hebrew for which there are NO meanings implicit in the word.
In Hebrew, as in Arabic, all words can be reduced to three letter roots, from which a number of other words can be constructed. In Hebrew, those other words are generally understood to be secondary meanings of that word.
Of course, Jews never pronounce this word. When they come to Yaweh in a reading, they say "adoni" instead of Yaweh.
A more correct pronunciation for Yaweh would be Ya Vah because there is no W sound in Hebrew. It then becomes obvious that the Arabic "Allah" and the Hebrew "Ya Va" are indeed corruptions of each other.
Further difficulty develops when we recall that Jews NEVER pronounce this word and whenever it appears in a text, instead of reciting the transliteration of the sounds, they say the word "Adonoi" which means, literally, "My Lord."
Therefore, finally, it comes to pass that your assumption Jesus ever used the word Elah as the name of God is clearly erroneous.
In his discourses, he would have used the word "Our Lord" and he would never have spoken of sacred matters in the Aramaic dialect.
The lingua fraca of the Roman Empire was Greek and that was the language that Jesus would have used in everyday conversation, not Aramaic or Hebrew.
Finally, the meaning of YHVH is usually understood as "I Am" or some derivation of that phrase.
Allah, in turn, is literally, "The God." "Al" is the definite article in Arabic. "Lah" is usually translated as God, but it could also mean Great Being or Presence.
In other words, Allah can be construed to mean "I Am" or "The God."
If we take the latter meaning, we find ourselves at an interesting conclusion:
The proper names for both the Arabic Allah and the Jewish YHVH both turn out to mean pretty much the same thing....but Jesus probably said YaVah because the prohibition against speaking the name of God only became part of Jewish belief AFTER the life of Jesus and after the Dispersion precisely because the Jews no longer knew for certain how the word was to be pronounced.
It's one thing to be familiar enough with your lord to use his proper name. It's quite another thing to mispronounce the name when you use it.