ARE EXTRA-BIBLICAL PICTURE OF JESUS (SAYINGS/AGRAPHA, MIRACLES, AND LIFE EVENT) USEFUL AND TRUSTWORTHY IN EVANGELISM?

 

EPISODE 4

Isa of Quran

Islam is different from Hinduism in case of mentioning Jesus. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are considered as Abrahamic religion. All of them honour Abraham. They have very similar background. Muhammad himself grew in midst of Christian and Judaism environment. That’s why the Islamic Holy Book Quran mention both Jews and Christians. They are highly revered as people of book. Initially Muhammad was confident that they will accept his teaching since he thought he was preaching the same belief. Later when he was rejected by Jews because he believed Isa as prophet from Allah, their relation turned cold.

Here, my focus is not on describing Islam but Isa of the Quran. Muslims often say to Christians that they revere Jesus highly. No Muslim is a Muslim if he does not believe Jesus. However, the question must be pondered if Isa of Quran is really Jesus of the Bible.

Let me bring some important notes from the Quran and Hadith that are different from Gospel accounts from an apologetics site https://answeringislam.org/authors/durie/islamic_jesus.html:

1.      Jesus’ true name was Isa according to the Quran. He was a law giver and his disciples were true Muslims.

2.      He received the revelation of Islam in form of Injil i.e. gospel.

3.      His revelation verified previous prophets’ revelation. Muhammad himself verified all previously received revelations. However, it is believed that the original Injil was lost and hence the Quran is only trustworthy guide to Isa’s teaching.

4.      He is said to be messiah, supported by Holy Spirit and word of Allah.

5.      He was born of virgin Mariam in a desolate place under a date palm tree. [Not in Bethlehem]

6.      He spoke while still a baby in cradle. He breathed life into clay birds. He also foretold coming of Muhammad.

7.      The Bible has been corrupted from its original form. Jesus or Isa was never crucified. Isa did not die but ascended to Allah. On the Resurrection day, he alone shall be a witness against Jews and Christians for false testimony and witness of his alleged death.

8.      Muhammad is believed to be gift from Allah to correct Christians’ misunderstanding. Quran is revered as the final and pure revelation.

9.      Islam prohibits the position of Isa as Son of God, trinity and Jesus’ divinity.

10.  In the end times, Isa will have important role in establishing Islam and create war until he destroys all religions.

 

Points to ponder:

1.      The Qur’an’s ‘Isa is not an historical figure. His identity and role as a prophet of Islam is based solely on supposed revelations to Muhammad over half a millennium after the Jesus of history lived and died.

2.      Yeshua of Nazareth was never called ‘Isa, the name the Qur’an gives to him. Arab-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Yasou’ (from Yeshua) not ‘Isa

3.      The word Injil is a corrupted form of the Greek euanggelion ‘good news’ or gospel.

4.      This was just how Jesus referred to his message: as good news. The expression euanggelion did not refer to a fixed revealed text, and there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus received a ‘book’ of revelation from God.

5.      The term euanggelion later came to be used as a title for the four biographies of Jesus written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the ‘gospels’. This was a secondary development of meaning. Apparently this is where Muhammad got his mistaken idea of the Injil being a ‘book’.

6.      Virtually all of the so-called ‘prophets’ of Islam, whose names are taken from the Hebrew scriptures, received no ‘book’ or law code.

7.      They already had the Torah of Moses to follow.

8.      A Biblical prophecy is not regarded as a passage from a heavenly eternally pre-existent text like the Qur’an, but a message from God for a specific time and place.

9.      The claim that Jesus was not executed by crucifixion is without any historical support. One of the things that all the early sources agree on is Jesus’ crucifixion.

10.  The Qur’an contains many errors and anachronisms.

11.  Trinity is not a belief in three Gods.

12.  Many Qur’anic stories can be traced to Jewish and Christian folktales and other apocryphal literature

13.  Everything the Qur’an says about the life of Jesus which is not found in the Bible can be traced to fables composed more than a hundred years after Jesus’ death.

14.  Jesus’ titles of Messiah and Word of God, which the Qur’an uses, find no explanation in the Qur’an

15.  Jesus’ alleged foretelling of Muhammad’s coming (As-Saff 61:6) appears to be based on a garbled reading of John 14:26, a passage which in fact refers to the Spirit.

16.  Jesus did not call God Allah, which appears to have been the name or title of a pagan Arabian deity worshipped in Mecca before Muhammad.

17.  Qur’an’s sacred history is devoid of archaeological support. Its fragmentary and disjointed stories offer no authentic reflection of historical cultures.

18.  The Qur’an, written in the 7th century AD, cannot be regarded as having any authority whatsoever to inform us about Jesus of Nazareth.

19.  The ‘Isa of the Qur’an is based on no recognized form of historical evidence, but on fables current in seventh century Arabia.

20.  Isa becomes a warrior who will return with his sword and lance. He will destroy the Christian religion and make Islam the only religion in all the world. This final act of the Muslim ‘Isa reflects Islam’s apologetic strategy in relation to Christianity, which is to deny the Yeshua of history, and replace him with a facsimile of Muhammad, so that nothing remains but Islam.

 

Sources of fabricated Jesus legends:[i]

1.      Jesus speaking as a newborn baby is rooted in an unbiblical and completely fictional legend that we know existed in Arabic speaking “Christian” communities, as it is written in the apocryphal "Arabic Infancy Gospel." dated to the 5th or early 6th century AD.

2.      Jesus making clay birds and bringing them to life. This myth was earlier recorded in the gnostic "Infancy Gospel of Thomas," yet the Quran reports it right alongside his biblical miracles as if this were historical and in the true Gospels.

3.      Mary, still pregnant with Jesus, traveling and being driven by the pains of childbirth to sit under a tree. She expects to die there, but a voice speaks to her from beneath her (perhaps the preborn Jesus?) and tells her to shake the tree and she will be given both food and drink by the tree and will live. This odd story is paralleled by an earlier legend in the mythical "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew," except that in Pseudo-Matthew Jesus is a two-year-old boy at the time, and He commands the tree to bend down and feed Mary its fruit.

For core summary:

Jesus	Isa
Eye witness several accounts.	Single non-eyewitness seven centuries later
Born in Manger at Bethlehem (Luke 2:12)	Born under the dry palm (Surah 19:22-25)
Crucified (Matt. 27:50)	Not crucified. (Surah 4:157)
Resurrection. (Mark 16:6)	No resurrection (Surah 4:158)
Son of God (John 10:36)	Not a son of Allah (17:111)
It is finished: Salvation accomplished (John 19:30)	Muhammad again as final prophet (61:6)
God incarnate (John 1:14)	Like Adam from dust (3:56)
Cleans sins through his blood (1 John 1:71)	No salvation in him (35:18)

It can be clearly observed that the Quran depicts Jesus quite different from the Gospels. Not all details are claimed to be fabricated. However, a sort of mixed forms of detail cannot correctly guide anyone to real historical Jesus. One must not rely on those partial description but carefully find a common ground to begin a healthy conversation and guide them to reach true Jesus of the Bible.

 

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[i] http://carm.org/sources-of-the-quran