For those who are interested to see the Bible written in several Malaysian languages, please check out the Bible Society of Malaysia website.
The term Allah has been used since the 1800s as I had repeatedly explain to several readers on this blog. I have said it again and again that it is not a 2008 issue. Therefore, to those of you interested, please check it out.
John Chapter One, verse One speaks about the Word of God. (Word, as we understand it, is Jesus Christ and how He lived life as the Son of God, walking amongst us mortals.)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(NIV)
(screenshot of High Malay version of the Bible, in year 1818)
There are several versions of John 1:1 in different languages
Maka bahwasanya adalah pada mula mulanya Kalimah itu, maka Kalimah itu b?s?rta d?ngan Allah, dan Kalimah itu Allah adanya. (High Malay, 1818)
Pada mulanja adalah Kalimat, dan Kalimat adalah sama Allah, dan Allah adalah Kalimat. (High Malay, 1821)
Sebelum dunia ini diciptakan, Firman itu telah ada. Firman itu ada bersama-sama dengan Allah, bahkan Firman itu ialah Allah juga. (Modern Malay, 1976)
and the Catholic Alkitab that I am reflecting now says :
Sebelum dunia ini diciptakan, Firman sudah ada. Firman itu bersama-sama Allah dan Firman itu sama dengan Allah. (Alkitab, 2001)
May 18th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Interesting. First time I get to see the contents of a Malay Bible.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
bible is lying! no god excpt allah!what firman?????
jasus go to pryer on the hill
my question is,yo whom jsus pryer?
November 6th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
bible is lying! no god excpt allah!what firman?????
jasus go to pryer on the hill
my question is,to whom jsus pryer?
November 6th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
john – Correct. There is no God except God the Father who made Himself man and walk on earth with humans, as Jesus and then, He died and became the Holy Spirit. So, yes, Jesus the Son of God was praying to God the Father. And Jesus is spelt J E S U S. Not JASUS OR JSUS. And I bet He wouldn’t mind anyway.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
who is god of father?
allah?
lilian,do believe allah?
do you kwow who is allh?
our god only one
he is allah.can you tell me,whts mean of cristian?
i would like to know it..
November 6th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
as i already know,the bible now is not the orignal type.the orgnal bible has tell us about allah n prophet isa a.s..it also tell us about the prophet who brings a new religion,he is prophet muhammad s.a.w after isa a.s
November 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
dont mke me feel boring lilian..
January 8th, 2009 at 5:00 am
Salam. There’s no right or wrong in this issue. Just misunderstanding.
First of all, the word of God in Arabic is Elah and Eloi in Hebrew. In pre-Muhammad time, Arab believe in Allah (the only one to be worshipped , the almighty god, single god) but they need mediator to reach Allah. So Muhammad was sent to correct this perception. this is because of the religion of previous prophet and Abrahamic faith which is Hanif (straight way). In this case, i can not blame christian from using this term if that what u’re referring too. The Almmighty God with no characteristic equal to His Creation.
However, in the context of malay bible, the word of Allah has been misuse by evidence of John 1:1 (i reject this verse because of it’s greek manuscript gives different translation)
“Pada mulanya kalimah, kalimah busurta dengan Allah, dan kalimah itu Allah adanya.”
Now you see why the muslim reject it. Because from this verse, kalimah becomes Allah. and that kalimah according to christian is Jesus Christ. So it also gives the meaning that Jesus= Allah. That’s how the confusion arise..
Christian in arab use the words of ILah to refer GOd not Allah. Just those who from Abrahamic faith and monotheism christian use the words Allah. And this christian, we called as Hawariyyun(from the lineage of 11 disciples of JEsus but their story did not present in the Bible) After all the arabic bible not present until
-OT R.Saadias Gaon 900 C.E
-NT Erpenius I 1616 C.E
I have no problem if you want to use the word Allah in Malay. but my question is why just in Malay?? Why not in other bible version. Why not in english version you use the word Allah? That’s all that i need explanation from you..
March 7th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Can We Use Allah in the Bahasa Malaysia Bible?
By all means you are most welcome. Such a beautiful word and most accurate to refer The Almighty God according to ISlam. SubhanAllah .. MasyaAllah the Christians believers in Malaysia and Indonesia particularly(leave out the middle east because Allah is God in their arabic language) do believe in Muslim God Allah s.w.t. and thats why they vehemently stress to be allowed to use Allah in the Malaysian and Indonesian bible. So thoughtful to promote the kalimah Allah, i guess the word Tuhan(Melayu) and Gusti(Indonesia)are not linguistically accurate to be referred as God in your bible or i personally think u need to engage a professional translator to translate the bible to bahasa malaysia and indonesia or u will end up with other new Christians dominants and sects soon.
And i would suggest a new name for the Christians(non arabic descent ) as Christian Hadhary cos they so much love to use Arabic language in their Bahasa Malaysia and Indonesia bible translations only. Peace be upon u. And please use Salam when u greet the fellow Muslims so that one day we will share the same masjid for prayers. Bi iznillah.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Please have a look at http://www.balaams-ass.com/ALHAJ/yitha.htm
The Malay translation of the Bible should not use the word Allah! I suggest that the ‘Tuhan’, ‘Yahweh’, ‘Jehovah’, ‘Elohim’ be used.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:14 am
The entire Bible is corrupted anyway according to its Theologians!
We must know that the Bible can not be trusted. Let us look at what the Theologians and Historians of the NIV Bible wrote about the Book of Song of Songs:
* Please be advised that the Bibliography of the NIV Bible that I used is listed at the end of this article. I used the latest version of the NIV Bible.
About the book of Song of Songs: “Verse 1 appears to ascribe authorship to Solomon. Solomon is referred to seven times, and several verses speak of the ‘king’, but whether he was the author remains an open question. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 997)”
As we clearly see, no one knows who wrote the porn-full book of Song of Songs. How can you claim that the books were indeed all revealed by GOD Almighty? If you’re not sure, and you still insist on your claim, then you are committing a crime against GOD Almighty’s Revelations.
(www.answering-christianity.com/authors_gospels.htm)
The NIV Bible Theologians and Historians also commented on other books of the Bible to be corrupted by the scribes:
“…portions of the book were probably added by scribes or editors from later periods of Israel’s history… (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 183)”
The Jewish scribes had very badly corrupted the Bible and turned it into a big lie. That is why GOD Almighty said:
“`How can you say, “We [the Jews] are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?’ (From the NIV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)”
“How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. (From the RSV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)”
In either translation above, we clearly see that the Bible has too many narrated stories and man-made cultural laws that were inserted into it that were not Divine Revelations from GOD Almighty.
It’s quite obvious that the Bible is more like a man made cultural book than a divine book that is meant to be for all times and all places. Anyway, the Bible was not even written by its original authors. That is why you see things such as “And Moses went up to the mountain….” instead of “And I [Moses] went up to the mountain….”, or “And Jesus said to Matthew….” instead of “And Jesus said to me [Matthew]….” Most of the Books and Gospels of the Bible were written by third party people that were not even chosen by GOD, which makes the Bible just a cultural history book rather than a divine book from GOD Almighty.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Brother,
I am a muslim. I don’t find using Allah is a problem to me.Would you mind to send me a copy of Bible(Bahasa Melayu version). I read malay quran. I don’t find reading quran in Arab helping me to understand the quran because i’m not Arabian. So,reading Bible in english is not a good option.Please.
January 4th, 2010 at 8:27 am
so The Question here is which is the right path and which is the wrong..? any NGO’s out there please organise some sort of religion debat..
January 4th, 2010 at 11:22 am
hi lilian, happy new year. i am interest about the topic we can share here. And i want to know can you please read or show to me the chapter in your Holy Bible the book of Ezekial chapter 23 in malay version. I am extremely want to know. please reply me thank you lilian.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:03 am
m.radzy
5th jan 2010 00.55am
Sejahtera kepada semua umat manusia yang masih hidup dan pada semua organisma hidup atau mati ciptaan Allah, Al Jabbar,Ar aaRahman ,Ar Rahim, Al Quddus,Al Aziz,Al Malik dan apa juga nama Yang kita gunakan untuk merujuk pada Allah,Tuhan semesta alam.Sedia ujud,Allah dengan sifat pengasih dan penyayangnya dengan Nur Muhamadnya telah menciptakan bumi dan sekelian alam ini serta apa juga yang ada di antara keduanya sebagai saksi akan keesaan dan ujudnya Allah dan memberi peluang manusia membuktikan siapakah diantara mereka yang beriman dan baik amalannya dengan mengikuti jalan Allah.tanpa mengira apa pegangan kita,adakah kita benar benar ‘mengenali’ Tuhan kita Allah(bagi muslim), jesus(bagi kristian), dan seterusnya,adakah perjalanan cara hidup kita perjalanan yang sebenar.semua kita datang dari Tuhan tetapi dapatkan kita pulang kepada Tuhan sebagaimana kita mula mula datang.sekiranya kita masih kabur akan siapakah Tuhan kita bagaimana pula kita akan kembali kepadaNya.selama ini kebanyakkan dari kita hidup dengan cara yang kita kehendaki dan bukan cara yang kita sepatutnya hidup.kita selalu menyalahkan orang lain bila sesuatu yang buruk terjadi dan mengharapkan hanya yang baik berlaku pada kita.siapakah kita sebenarnya.Allah telah menunjukkan jalan yang lurus pada semua makhluknya melalui sekian banyak nabi dan rasulnya tetapi mengapa kita masih berpaling dari jalan yang lurus.saya terpanggil menunis disini bagi mengingatkan diri saya sendiri sebagai muslim iaitu adakah saya kenal Tuhan saya,dan saya rasa kasihan pada penganut kristian yang telah beribu tahun dipesongkan oleh pihak yang memperdagangkan agama dan ajaran Isa yang sebenar.percayalah bahawa walaupun kita semua terkadang lupakan Tuhan tetapi Tuhan tidak pernah lupakan kita,buktinya kita masih bernyawa dan alam ini masih beredar sepeti dikehendakiNya.fikirkan jika sebaliknya.masanya adalah sekarang.kajilah diri kita kenallahTuhan kita ,bersihkan hati kita seperti nabi muhamad dibersihkan hatinya semasa kecil.caranya mudah sahaja jika kita berusaha mencarinyalebih kuat iman kita maka akan lebih haluslah akhlak kita
January 5th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
The King James version has removed “Allah” in its translation.The Pope has never refer God as Allah.The declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, The Second Vatican Council, Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, October 28, 1965 decided that Allah and the Christian God(s?) are not the same.Christians,without knowing it,you’re admitting your god to be Allah,the one and only.Don’t be so fascinated with the court decision.It can be to the advantage of the Muslims as they can say,”Look,the Christians nowadays admit that their god is Allah,the one and only”.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Jacknaim, nobody is asking you to ACCEPT the truth of John 1:1. It is for those who believe in Christ not for non-Christians. You asked why Christians use ‘Allah’ in the BM version and NOT in the English version. The Bible is different from the Quran which is NOT allowed to be translated into any other language ! That is why!
January 5th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Razif, this is a matter of faith not the outcome of a debate. You will know the Truth if you truly seek the Truth. The Truth will reveal Himself to you.
January 6th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
hi razif,
yes in ezekial 23 all the “TUHAN” in the malay version is for the English bible word “LORD”, and “Tuhan ALLAH” for “Sovereign LORD”.
In the “God” is written as “Allah” in the indonesia malay bible.
In this internet age, it is pointless to limit usage of any word.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Why they use only “Allah” in Malay bible but not all the bible (languages)?
Answer: The Bible was the most translated book in the world. More than 100 languages all over the world already. Every time the bible translated, the translation will pick the most “understandable” word to represent the word for “God” according to the respective language of a territory. You know “God” is English language, but the Greek language is not “God” and the Hebrew also did not use the word “God”.
If you ever in Sabah, We here use the;
1. “God” for English service
2. “Allah” for Malay Service
3. “Kinoingan/ Kinorohingan” for Kadazan or Dusun Service.
And I want you to know that there are many of my Muslim friends, my villages and my relatives, even my sister (a Muslim Convert) know the difference between “Allah” for Muslim and “Allah” for Christian and we never quarrel.
You know that every morning we says, “Selamat Pagi” (when we meet), “Selamat Hari Raya” when the Hari Raya comes, and “Selamat Hari Krismas” when 25 December comes. This is our environmental here in East Malaysia. Everyone is respecting everybody religion/ belief.
So I ask you, What is the problem?
We don’t have that problem here in Sabah and Sarawak. Only you (Semenanjung – West Malaysia) has this problem.. Your politician create the problem. No one East politician saying like west Malaysia politician do.
It’s a shame for politicians to speak in behalf of a religion. They create tension among the society when we had live in harmony even before Independence Day.
January 8th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Brothers and sisters,
I’m an Christian Iban from Sarawak and I found out that the West Malaysians took the issue seriously about the case of Catholic Herald and when I got home, I heard from my family in Terengganu that their church was burnt down. To tell you the truth, us EAST MALAYSIANS always use the word ‘ALLAH’ ever since four centuries ago. Even when we talk about our religion (please take note that we have Muslims here in Sarawak here too), we use Allah. Most of our bibles come from Indonesia and THEY use the word Allah. If you Malayan are so interested to burn our faith down, pls do so by having your own country as Tanah Semenanjung and Sabah and Sarawak as our own country. I think this is better than burning the churches to show your faith to your Allah.
January 12th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Dalam bhs arab, ‘Tuhan’ itu bermaksud ‘Ilah’, ‘Allah’..
Allah is the Arabic word for God..
Isunya, kristian di Indonesia/Malaysia bukan disebar oleh kristian arab, tapi dr penjajah barat..
Maka dari mana penggunaan ‘Allah’ itu muncul?
Maka ada baik jika kalian rujuk kembali teks bible yang asal ..
Even the word of God in Hebrew is Eloi/Elohim not Allah..
Wahai Ahli Kitab, janganlah kamu melampaui batas dalam agamamu, dan janganlah kamu mengatakan terhadap Allah kecuali yang benar. Sesungguhnya Al Masih, Isa putera Maryam itu, adalah utusan Allah dan (yang diciptakan dengan) kalimat-Nya yang disampaikan-Nya kepada Maryam, dan (dengan tiupan) roh dari-Nya. Maka berimanlah kamu kepada Allah dan rasul-rasul-Nya dan janganlah kamu mengatakan: “(Tuhan itu) tiga”, berhentilah (dari ucapan itu). (Itu) lebih baik bagimu. Sesungguhnya Allah Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, Maha Suci Allah dari mempunyai anak, segala yang di langit dan di bumi adalah kepunyaan-Nya. Cukuplah Allah menjadi Pemelihara. (Maksud Surah An Nisaa’, ayat 171)
January 15th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Mr LebaiCute,
I am not sure what you want to prove which according to your poor understanding that the bible is corrupted. I guess, it is better left to those who believe to jugde. There is more christians on this plannet than Islam and they can’t be all fool.
Like all those easily confused muslims in this country, I am really2 confused on the issue of using “Allah” by non-muslim suddenly become a big sensitive issue. There are tons of evidents indicated that “Allah”-an arabic word is not merely exclusive to islam and yet the narrow minded and bigot muslims in this country thought the word Allah is belong exclusively to them and using this term can confuse them..CONFUSE??
It seems to me that the fondation of believe of these confuse muslims are so narrow. They pray 5 times to their great Allah and yet they cannot differentiate btw their Allah and the “Allah” use non-muslims.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:39 am
If your faith is strong there is no need to worry about being confused or not.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
To Shah,
Allah is a word for the concept of God in Arabia long before Muhammad was born. It is used by him to tell his followers about his own message from god. Hence people in Arabia region has never had any problem with this word being used by Moslem, Christian, Jews, etc interchangeably. Today in Malaysia, some self-righteous motivated people wants to HIJACK this word for their exclusive used within the few Sultanate states of Malaysia. I have this to say : Please open your eyes and mind before creating trouble outside your own “pious” circle. Do not remain the proverbial frog under the coconut shell “Katak bawa tempurung” – come out and see the real world – corrupt politians, poverty, unfair bully act by powerful rich against poor, etc.
Do not use false allegation of being confusing. If confused, then go and gain better understanding.
The world is laughing at how easily confused Malaysian moslem can get as said by their own confused leadership. If remain confused over this simple historical word of “Allah”, then be ready to be voted out next election and lose to not “confused” leaders.
January 27th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
PEACE BE UPON YOU MY DEAR BROTHER JOHN, you are right, the truth some how will reveal it self, but sometimes it also reveal trough da’wah am i right my dear brother? the debates is one way of da’wah. we need a debates bro…. let the world know, let the world think, let the malaysian (not just malay) choose which is the right path.. 1malaysia, 1path and 1islam.
(are muslim or non?) just asking sorry…
February 5th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
The Quran states that Isa Al-Masih is Kalimatullah which means firman.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The Bible in Indonesian can be found here http://www.wordplanet.org/id/index.htm =)