In answer to the video "Jesus is The Messiah of The Muslims - Tawhid Dilemma Ep 14"
Jesus was rejected by his fellow Jews, not for claiming to be the promised ruler, who in addition to his functions will be "a" messiah, but because, just like his predecessors Israelite prophets whom they calumnied, rejected, killed, for harshly condemning their straying from their own Books. Jesus in particular was rejected and almost killed for his harsh condemnation of the Jewish elite, their religious hypocrisy. The Quran quotes him as urging them to fear God and obey him in his application of Torah 3:48-50 which they resisted. This is amply demonstrated throughout the NT and the numerous demonstrations by Jesus as to the importance of prioritizing the spiritual dimension of the Law.
There is a reason why plenty evidence exists for Jewish messianic claimants during or just a few years after Jesus, but not 1 concerning a person named Jesus who claimed to be the Davidic king.
There is a reason why the NT authors could not but paint that whole part of Jesus' ministry as some sort of hidden reality, with Jesus telling his followers to keep it to themselves Mk8:29, secretly admitting it to a woman Jn4, and offering differing answers to the high priest's charge against him, either obscuring or confirming the charge of him claiming to be the king messiah Matt26:63-64,Lk22:70,Mk14:62. Yet Jesus himself says
Jn18:20"I have spoken openly to the world..I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret."
"Jesus spoke about this own role reluctantly. He rarely, if ever, referred explicitly to himself as Messiah. On the other hand, so many aspects of his actions and teachings were “messianic” in a broad sense that we can understand how his followers claimed soon after Easter that Jesus was the promised Messiah."(Graham Stanton – Professor Cambridge).
The appeal to secrecy is one of the devices needed to paint the Jesus of the NT as a success rather than failure. His disillusioned followers and converts wanted him to be more than another prophet calling out the Jews for their transgressions and who was defeated by his enemies. The only thing higher in rank in Jewish scriptures is the awaited end times davidic king who shall fulfill well known criteria and usher the utopian Kingdom of God. But Jesus did not fit the role prior to his crucifixion, he had to do it a little later, within the generation of the disciples at his cataclysmic return and forcefully establish the kingdom of God. The prophecy failed of course and further reinterpretations were needed. The kingdom of God became a spiritual thing, with its associated Christologies and Pauline concepts. The writers however did not know the prediction they put in Jesus' mouth would eventually fail. They still expected it to happen, and so had no choice but to paint the plot as a secret because the Romans were on the lookout for any rebel leader. If, as Christians nowadays claim, the kingdom of God was something else all along then Jesus' job is done; he wouldnt need to come back so as to violently establish what the Jews and his disciples anticipated, and the Romans feared. If Jesus' kingdom of God had nothing to do with what everyone (including his disciples) understood and anticipated, then he did not need to fear the Romans either and be secretive about his operation. The Romans would have allowed this Jewish sect and their spiritual kingdom of God to flourish so as to supplant the rebellious messianic HB ideology of world dominance which every 1st century Jew expected, and still does till this day. Further, even by Christian standards, none of what Jesus did, or was done to him, brought about "victory over sin and death". These are still plenty, even among sincere Trinitarians. Anyway one turns it, the contrived NT narrative paints Jesus as a false prophet and false messiah. This is worse to those that love and follow him, than the Quran's proposition. Christians are always taken aback by the purpose the Quran gives to Jesus. Being "just a prophet" is to them a degrading proposition, not only in light of Paul's christologies, but because in the biblical paradigm, "just a prophet" carries with it a paradigm of sinfulness. Yet here again, Islam untangles the distortions of past scriptures, as it paints prophets as the highest spiritual potential humans can achieve, the most sublime examples of morality and the highest legal and spiritual authorities.
In light of these historical realities, and the fact that the end times messianic figure did not materialize in Jesus, that it appeared to many that he was murdered, those who nevertheless believed him to fit the messianic role could not but paint this aspect of his life in "purposeful" obscurity, as explained earlier. His death/failure became his self-predicted success, purposefully orchestrated, in fulfilment of ancient prophecies retrospectively applied to him, or rather misapplied to anyone familiar with the HB. The whole NT is a poorly written apology of a new concept of the end times king messiah, as here stated
Jn20:31"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name".
Matt12:15-21 attempts to show that Jesus' appeal to secrecy was in fulfilment of Isa42:1-4, a passage that only relates to what Matthew infers by the most farfetched analogy. He implies that by the vast majority of Israel's being purposefully denied access to the truth, the Gentiles instead will be saved. But for these gentiles to have access to this truth after Jesus' death, there had to be a select few who would understand the secret scheme. The plot was supposedly achieved through obscured parables only his disciples would understand Mk4:11-12,Matt13:13-15 yet we many times read throughout the NT how his closest followers who supposedly were among those select few at least struggled in comprehending him if not completely misunderstood him. In fact towards the end of Jesus' mission people in general and his closest entourage had no clue about his messiahship, to the point that when Simon identifies him as the messiah, Jesus tells him that he could only have received that information in a supernatural way Matt16.
The simple reason is that the historical Jesus did not go around claiming to fulfil the messianic predictions of the HB. The claim was later made for him. If he did, people would have laughed their lungs off, including the Romans. The Gospel writers, writing at least 50 years after the events knew that what Jesus accomplished had nothing to do with the highly anticipated establishment of the kingdom of God. They were thus left with no option other than painting the whole matter as they did.
The Jewish people were thus divinely blinded for that purpose, at least temporarily as stated in
Rom11:11"I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous".
As if God could not provide salvation for both Jew and Gentile without deliberately withholding knowledge so that only some Jews are saved.
When Jesus was apprehended and judged by the Romans, with the complicity of the Jewish leaders who wanted to get rid of him for his denouncing their sins as past prophets did, he did not claim to be the king messiah, neither to the Jews who were seeking a pretext to make him arrested, pressing the question to have him confess Matt26:63-64,Mk14:62,Lk22:70 nor in front of the authorities, who eventually sent him to be crucified. By doing so, and acceding to the request of the Jews, the romans validated the Jewish charge against him of messianic kingship which is punishable by death under state laws. Now that Jesus and his band became official outlaws wanted by the state, his close apostles are reported to have fled with Peter even denying he knew Jesus 3 times. The Romans, lobbied by their Jewish stooges, deemed the allegation against him enough for him to be crucified. This punishment was most often reserved to those who threatened the political status quo, regardless of their background motives (religious or else). Jesus' enemies painted him as one whom the Romans would typically go after in those days, a charismatic leader who proclaimed a kingdom "with God" not "with Caesar" at its head was seen as an immediate threat. The person didnt even have to present a violent danger to be inflicted with such punishment, nor tangible evidence, especially a non-Roman citizen or a slave. Simple suspicion, in this case instigated by their Jewish minions, was enough to trigger the authorities.
As to Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the decision to execute a political agitator, a man known for his brutality against his subjects, is obviously a scribal corruption with an agenda. The Greeks were writing the Gospels after the Roman legions had returned to crush the Jewish rebellion of 66CE and did not want to antagonize Roman power and attract their hostility at that point in time. What is interesting to add is that, contrary to similar cases where accomplices would be tracked down and killed to crush a potential rebellion, the Romans left Jesus' disciples to freely preach their gospel. This shows that, as said above, Jesus was seen as inconsequential in terms of posing a violent threat, that the savage Roman police would easily be triggered on simple basis of suspicion and that they would readily accommodate their local puppets to safeguard their own dominion in the distant regions of the empire.
As far as the matronym "son of Mary" (others in the Bible were referred to with matronyms such as Shamgar son of Anath), it isnt a known name in the Christian world, while it is in the Muslim world. The Gospel writers had no interest in tracing Jesus' genealogy through Mary since it goes against Jewish law. Secondly, their object was to fulfill the HB's tribal requirements for the messiah. To that end they invented 2 (conflicting) genealogies through an adoptive father, Joseph. Jesus was thus described with the patronym "son of Joseph". In the process, they made flaws in both genealogies cancelling any legitimate claims to the throne of the King Messiah (see the Jeconia curse, among other blunders).
The Quranic matronym "son of Mary" carried several deep implications, besides being simply an appellation. In 3:45 the angels give Mary the news that she will soon conceive of a child. This information in itself doesnt indicate anything special, unless it was given to a barren old lady with an equally barren old husband, as in Sara's case who was consequently incredulous at the angelic declaration 11:71-3. Mary would have naturally understood she would conceive in a normal way and there wouldnt have been any reason for her to be surprised at the news 3:47,19:20-1. But by adding the information that the future child will be named "son of Mary", among other names, the angels were telling her he would be born without the agency of a father, in a miraculous way. In semitic tradition a person was identified by the father's name so nothing could have been more striking in the psyche of a woman of the time to be told that her son will not be identified by his affiliation to a male, but to a woman.
This miraculous conception is a sign not only Jesus would be known by, but also his mother and the name "son of Mary" implies exactly that; she would jointly share this sign with him forever as both of their names will be mentionned together
23:50,21:91"and made her and her son a sign for the worlds".Jesus as well as his mother were chosen to be made jointly, "A" single sign of the power of the Maker and Creator over all things. So from a Quranic perspective, that miracle equally sets Mary and Jesus appart from humanity. Before discussing the implications of this sign, it is worthwile noting that by honoring Mary in such a way and joining her name to that of one of the most illustrious individuals to have walked the earth, God has defeated in His final revelation and until the resurrection, the slanderous talk of some among her contemporaries and those that followed, who wanted to put a stain on her and abase her.
As regards the sign, it consists in demonstrating how the resurrection of bodies isnt a difficult task to God. We deem it impossible for a female to give life without the necessary biological process yet God did it, so just as He easily creates life in conditions we think are impossible then similarily He is able to bring the dead back to life even if the conditions make it unfeasable from our perspective. The rejection of the concept of resurrection by many Jews of the time adds to the relevancy of that miracle.
One can even argue that Jesus was given the greatest evidence for resurrection among God's prophets who all equally stressed the importance of that tenet to their people. This is because Jesus is the only explicit case in the prophetic history where a human's birth did not result from mating. The Quran doesnt even state that Adam was born in such a way, ie that he was not the result of sexual reproduction.
Other miraculous births are recorded in the Quran, including around the time of Jesus as was the case for the prophet John/Yahya. But they primarily served the purpose of a reward and were not meant to be disclosed and shared openly other than within the circle of the people concerned. Jesus' birth not only was different than all others in its prominence because as already said, intercourse between a man and a woman did not even precede it, but also because it was primarily meant as a sign for all of humanity.
As a testimony to this, the Quran uses a linguistic subtelty, showing again and again how it uses words surgically in order to maximize the impact. There is a slight different wording between God's answer to Mary
3:47"Even so Allah creates what he pleases"and to Zakariya
3:40"Even so does Allah whatsoever He pleases".The nuance -creates vs does- lies in that the miracle of a child born of a virgin is definately more striking than a child born to a couple, even if barren. It must be kept in mind the Quran was recited in the form of speech, publicly and instantly as it came to the prophet, with no chance a re-editing and modifying, and the 2 verses are very closely located. How would one, let alone a known illiterate without any background in poetry or any form of oral eloquent speeches, instantly and naturally make such a distinction in a flowing discourse?
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