Rudolph P. Boshoff

“We cannot avoid this controversial question when we deal with the topic of spiritual warfare. First, we should define what we mean by demon-possessed. Some scholars today prefer the term demonized rather than possessed.1 The objection is that the New Testament does not use the word possessed. Furthermore, the word possessed implies ownership and property. We fervently deny the concept that Satan can own a believer.2 The preferred term, demonized, comes from the Greek word [...]

The Qur’an’s rejection of original sin (inherited ancestral guilt) and its specific construction of human accountability are not a historical vacuum or an unprecedented theological novelty. Instead, they map directly onto a fierce, pre-existing theological civil war raging across the Late Antique Near East. While Western Latin Christianity (following Augustine of Hippo) codified the doctrine of peccatum originale—the idea that humanity biologically or spiritually inherits Adam's moral guilt—the surrounding Rabbinic Jewish and East Syrian Christian [...]