IV.
Why Islam’s view is inadequate
There are two main reasons why I find Islam’s view of Jesus to be inadequate and wrong.
Though the Qur’an claims at least 9 times to confirm the teaching of the prior Scriptures, meaning the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians (S. 2:91; 3:3, 81; 4:47; 5:48; 6:93; 10:38; 12:111; 35:31), it actually presents a Jesus with more affinities to views of Jesus present in 7th century Arabia and the theological disputes current then, than it presents a Jesus that is actually of the setting of the 1st century.
[This also happens to be the problem with many other views of Jesus. The Gnostic gospels and books fit settings more from the 3rd century to the 8th. The Gospel of Barnabas fits a 14th century setting more than the 1st century. The Book of Mormon fits more with thinking and stories going around in the mid 1800’s than the first century.]
Back to the Qur’an, it records that two of Jesus’ most notable miracles were speaking from a cradle (S. 19:30) and giving life to birds of clay he had made (S. 3:49). Neither of these miracles is in the earliest records of Jesus’ ministry- the Gospels in the New Testament. They are however found in some later popular Christian literature from the 400’s, particularly in a book that has come to be called the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. The author of this book took some of his material from other books, like the Biblical Gospels and other Christian popular literature (like one book called the Protevangelium of James). When you examine the themes of the book, they reflect the theological disputes of the 400’s, especially concerning the exaltation of Mary, Jesus’ mother, well above normal womanhood. Now, whoever wrote the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy was careful in that when he was using a Gospel story from the Bible, he quoted it exactly or almost exactly. (He also quoted carefully from the Diatessaron, a harmony of the Biblical Gospels that was popular in Syria at that time.) But when he borrowed from other early Christian literature, he was much more free to paraphrase and invent, showing that he understood a distinction between Canonical Scripture and Christian literature. The Qur’an incorporates elements of these stories without a consciousness of that distinction. It incorporates facets of stories that had their beginnings in earlier popular Christian literature and treats them as Christian Scripture.
This point can be carried on with other facets of the Qur’an’s portrayal of Jesus and Christianity as well - that it was using Christian material current in the 7th century without really having an understanding of the Jesus of the first century.
Another crucial example is statements in Surah 5:72-75,116 that Allah is not one of three and that Jesus should not be taken as a god alongside Allah and Mary. A statement like that would have made no sense in the 1st century. The followers of Jesus at that time were not saying Jesus was one of three- as they did later when they formalized the doctrine of the Trinity, nor did they associate Mary with God. She was rather one of the followers of Jesus that traveled with him and the disciples. But, such a view of the exaltation of Mary makes sense in 7th century Arabia, because there had been groups in Arabia that did excessively venerate Mary in the centuries immediately preceding Islam. And there were major Christian groups in 7th century Arabia that were continuing the debate about the Trinity.
Like the AGI gives us a Polaroid of 5th century theological disputes, the Qur’an gives us a Polaroid of 7th century disputes going on in Arabia. If the statements about Jesus and attributed to Jesus in the Qur’an were truly from Him and preserved intact, we would expect them to evince their first century origins by stating things that were congruent with the 1st century setting. Instead, they come across as 7th century words being put in Jesus’ mouth. This would be comparable to putting words from a speech from Tony Blair into the mouth of King Henry the Vth in the 1400’s.
It is because of this kind of thing that the Qur’an cannot be taken as a more reliable or authoritative source than the gospels in the Bible about the life and teachings of Jesus.
The second reason why the Qur’an’s view of Jesus is inadequate is that the Qur’an’s and Islam’s view of Jesus starts with a different view of God’s nature than the Bible, one more in line with the Aristotelian view of a distant god than with the one of the Bible who freely enters human affairs and experience to communicate not only His will but Himself.
I find that in talking with Muslims, they often do not realize how different the Bible’s view of God is from the Qur’an’s view of God. I find they often expect the Bible’s to be the same as the Qur’an’s and they inadvertently or even purposely try to read the Qur’an’s view onto the Bible. One way this can be seen is in the question that I often receive: “Do you believe Jesus is God?” If by that the Muslim means, “Do I think He is Allah as presented in the Qur’an? No. I do not think Jesus is that kind of god. Do I think He is Yahweh as presented in the whole of the Bible, then the answer is a definite Yes.” The Bible’s God is different from the distant and remote god of ancient Greek philosophy, of the Gnostic religions of the 2-8th centuries, of Islam, and the more modern views of Deism. He is a much more personal God- one who, while He is the unique Creator and Judge and is exalted over the universe, is also able and willing to enter time and space to reveal Himself and His will to people.
It was this God that the Bible records walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was this God who personally revealed Himself to Abraham, to Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, and to Jacob in the person of Angel of the Lord. It was this God who accompanied the Israelites and Moses in the pillar of smoke and fire out of Egypt. It was this God who appeared to Moses and the 70 Elders of Israel and then dwelt personally in the Tabernacle and then the Temple through His Shekinah glory resting over the mercy seat in the most holy place. It was this God who came upon Israel’s Kings and her prophets through His Spirit and indwelt them. And it is this God who came in human flesh as Jesus Christ.
[Also, in the Old Testament and in ancient Jewish thinking, to personify different attributes of God and to treat them as distinguishable personal entities was allowable. It did not violate their sense of monotheism. And not just as a figure of speech but signifying some real personal distinction existing within God. God’s Word, Wisdom, and Spirit are treated this way by a number of prophets in the Old Testament (Prov. 8:22-31, Wisdom; Isaiah 9:6, Micah 5:2, Messiah is called God; Jeremiah 23:5,6, Branch is called Lord; Isaiah 48:12-16, 63:8-16, Holy Spirit and a third person). The New Testament also picks up on many of these facets and presents Jesus as the Word of God incarnate (John 1:1), God’s wisdom incarnate (Luke 9:58), and refers to the Holy Spirit of God as another person. (The New Testament never refers to Jesus as God’s Spirit.)]
[Even the word for the oneness of God in the Bible allows for there to be more than one person within the one God. The word for one in the shema: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is One!” (Deut. 6:4) is echad, which allows for internal divisions. It is the word used when it is said of man and wife that they become one flesh. It is the only word used for God’s oneness in the Old Testament, and yet there was a perfectly good Hebrew word for solitary, mathematical oneness: yachid, used in Gen. 22:2 when God said to Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac…” to take him to the place of sacrifice.]
Another way is that I find Muslims who try to find an Islamic view of God from the Bible inevitably take only a partial sampling of its verses. They pick and choose statements that seem to support their view while missing out on ones that do not.
And this view of God is not because anyone has changed the Bible and corrupted it away from some original that was more congenial to Islam’s view. The Old and the New Testaments of the Bible have not been changed that way, even though many people think they have. The Christians took the Hebrew Scriptures as they found them and still regarded them as Scripture. To these they added the books they believed contained the God-inspired authoritative teachings concerning Jesus. There is abundant manuscript evidence and historical evidence that demonstrates this if one cares to look into it with an open mind.