Hi there. Today I'm going to talk about
Jesus and Islam - the copy pasted prophet.
So to begin, I'm going to assume that
Jesus was a real person, and that he really
existed. Dr. Carrier has made a good
argument in the book, "On the Historicity of
Jesus", that Jesus may not
have actually existed. Rather than
exploring that idea I'm going to go by
the mainstream understanding that Jesus
was a real person and that he really
existed, and you know we'll assume that
to begin.
So first of all, what does Islam say? Islam
says that it sets the record straight.
That it has a final and correct
story and everything before that was
corrupted, and whoever agrees with
Islam is right, but whoever doesn't agree with
Islam is incorrect. Now let's take
a look at this and see if it makes any
sense.
One of the other claims
the Quran makes is that
these stories Muhammad could not
have known them, and because he knows
them he's a true prophet from God,
because Allah told them these stories.
It says in 3:44
And in 18:13
And in 11:120
This is 11:120.
And in 2:79 Allah says
So basically the Quran is saying
that we were giving you the
(we meaning Allah) were giving you the
correct story.
You couldn't have known these things
You know, you're just a man.
And the reason you know them is because
I'm going to tell you these things.
Because they're from the heavens above.
The first thing that's interesting about
about the story of Jesus in Islam is
that Jesus has no father and was born to
the Virgin Mary. Now, in relation to Christianity
this makes sense, in relation
to the doctrine of Christianity that
says that Jesus is the Son of God and
that God is a father. Now, in Islam, Jesus
is not the Son of God and God is not his
father, yet Allah decided to give him a
virgin birth. It's kind of strange, out of
the millions of babies born every year
Allah simply decided to just give Jesus a
virgin birth. But it just seems strange.
It makes sense in Christianity, in
context of what they're trying to claim,
but in Islam it's a very strange idea. Not
only that, the idea for virgin birth has
been a long since antiquity. If
you look at ancient Egypt there was
Horus, who was born to the virgin Isis.
As well as many other references to
virgin births. This idea has existed a long time
in Egypt, in Paganism, and in Hinduism.
You can find ancient stories of
virgin births. When did the idea come
into Christianity? Well to tell you the
truth, this is something I found very
interesting as well. The virgin birth was
not in the earliest Gospel. There's
four Gospels of the New Testament:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first
Gospel, Mark, does not include the virgin birth.
But now it's interesting.
Why didn't he include the virgin birth
if this was a well-known story and it
was true? What we find is the later
Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew and Luke,
70 years after the, you know, supposedly
event decided to include the story and
they included the story to
prove that Jesus was, like I said, the son
of God. But the Quran decides to take the
story, by the time it reached
the Prophet, he took it as a
fact and included it in the Quran that he (Jesus)
had a virgin birth. But interestingly enough
this wasn't in the earliest Gospel. This
is something that came about later. And
as well, we find parallels to virgin birth
ideas in other religions and we
also find that this makes more sense in
the context of a Christian claim, not an
Islamic claim.
Jesus, the Messiah. The next claim is that
Isa is a Masih (Messiah). Now what does that mean?
So Jesus was a Jew,
and he was a Messianic Jew
And he was a Jew that was
claimed to be the Messiah. Now what
does that mean? The Messiah is supposed
to be a king. Is supposed to be someone
that's going to bring peace to the world.
Its kind of like the idea of the Mehdi
in Islam. And you know, it says in the
Torah
This is a prophecy of the
Messiah. So Jesus actually didn't
fulfill any of these claims. He didn't
restore peace to the Earth, he didn't become
the ruler of the Jews, and in fact he was (appeared to be*)
crucified like a common criminal.
So the Jews, of course they don't accept
Jesus is a Messiah. They don't
accept that. And you know the
Christians actually change the idea of
Messiah to be someone that died for the
sins of humanity, but in Islam the
Messiah, Jesus, it doesn't
seem to fit, you know? It doesn't match
the prophecy of the Jews. As well, the
next point I have is about the
Injeel of Jesus. Now interestingly enough,
what does the Quran say about Jesus
and the Injeel?
This is in Quran chapter 5 verse 46. So Allah
says in the Quran that he gave Jesus
the Injeel, just like Moses
got the Torah. So the Torah is
a revelation of God to Moses,
and he's saying the Injeel was a revelation of
God sent to Jesus. Now interestingly
enough, when we look at
what the Christians claim
Christians don't have any recollection
or any trace of a book that was sent to
Jesus. All that we have is the four
Gospels. Not one Gospel, but four Gospels:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are
considered the inspired speech of God.
Not the verbatim revelation sent to Jesus.
In fact these are stories about Jesus
describing what Jesus did.
It's not a revelation
sent to Jesus. It's a totally different
claim than what the Quran is coming
with. But it seems
that Mohammad thought the
Injeel, the Gospel, was a book. I don't
know if this is a mistake he made, if this
is a misunderstanding, or was there really an
Injeel that was completely lost and we
have no recollection of it, even though
much less important texts were
preserved and saved, yet the Injeel was
completely lost. It's very strange.
We know the four Gospels. We
don't know much about the authors but
we know they were Greek speaking Christians.
We know, forty to a hundred years after the death
of Jesus, they wrote down these books, and
this is what is considered to be the New
Testament - the four Gospels. We don't
have any evidence or recollection of
any sort of revelation sent to Jesus
himself. Now the Infancy Gospel stories.
Some of the stories included in the Quran
we've actually found sources for them.
And these are documents that even
less reliable than the Gospels -
than the four Gospels. For example, the
story of Jesus making clay birds and
bringing them to life, which is mentioned
in the Quran, is found in the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas, which
scholars agree, or they believe was written
in the mid to late second century to show
more miracles of Jesus. It says in...
I'll read it
This is in the Infancy Gospel
of Thomas, and of course the same stories
are in the Quran, where it says
And this is in chapter 5 verse 110.
So we find
interesting that there is an Infancy Gospel which
was considered to be a doubtful
apocrypha, which is a story that
was written in order to prove
certain political points, and to
satiate the need for miracle
stories. And then there's another Gospel
called the Syriac Infancy Gospel, which
was in the 5th to 6th century. It's also
called the Arabic Infancy Gospel.
This was much later,
closer to the time of Muhammad, and
which has more miracles of Jesus
which also ended up in the Quran. It says for
example in the Arabic Infancy Gospel
So interestingly, in this document
which was believed to be written
within the 5th to 6th century, was based
on the previous Infancy Gospel of Thomas,
it's said that he spoke as a
baby, and the Quran says
This is in chapter 19 verses 29 to 34.
So interestingly enough, the Quran
decided to include a story of Jesus,
both stories which were
included in documents, which were
considered fabricated, were considered a
apocrypha, meaning less reliable
historical documents about Jesus.
Those stories ended up in the Quran
as if they were true stories.
It's also interesting that
these stories were available in a
language, and in a time close to the
time of Muhammad. So just to summarize
everything that I said...
The first point I made was that the story of
Jesus having no father, born as a virgin birth
The story doesn't make sense in the
context of Jesus just randomly, you
know, God just decided to make him
have a virgin birth, and then
the fact that the
virgin birth wasn't in the earliest
sources of the New Testament and came a
little bit later. The fact that Jesus is
a Messiah, yet this whole idea of a
Messiah, you know, the prophecy of the
Messiah doesn't doesn't match what we
know about Jesus, and Jews would
also say the same thing. The fact that
Jesus was crucified, but at least
the claim was made that he was
crucified or killed,
whatever the case is.
That again goes against the
idea that Jesus is the Messiah, because
the Messiah was not supposed to be
taken advantage of, and
these things are not supposed to happen
to the Messiah. The fact that there's not one
Injeel or Gospel, but there's actually four
Gospels, and these are not the book of
Revelation, which is actually the
inspired word of God according to
Christians. The fact that
doubtful stories from the Infancy Gospel of
Thomas and the Syriac Infancy Gospel
such as Jesus bringing clay birds
to life or Jesus speaking as a baby. All
of these stories ended up in the Quran
and we know where they came from.
So these are just a few interesting
points think about. You know, the story of
Jesus in Islam and there's a lot more that
could be said about it.
This is a very big topic. I just wanted
to go into a few small, quick points and
as usual thank you for watching.
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