In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"
Jesus did not proclaim anything dissimilar to what his contemporaries expected from an Israelite prophet. Jesus was the final prophet in a series of prophets sent to the Bani Israel exclusively Matt10:5-6,15:24-26,21,Quran3:49, to warn them of their constant betrayal of their covenant with God, including their hiding and distortion of the true expression of the Torah, just like Moses foresaw Deut31:25-29 and Jeremiah confirmed Jer2:8,7:21,8:8,23:9-36.
Being the last one in the line of Israelite prophets, Jesus had to prophecy the coming of the final prophet who would be sent to all of mankind and he did so through his prophecies of the paraclete, as echoed in the Quran 61:6. It is this distinction between the prophet Muhammad and the other prophets that make his prediction a necessity by his predecessors from among the Israelites, Moses and Jesus included 6:20,7:157,61:6. Muhammad is the only prophet whom the Quran says was announced by previous prophets.
As to Jesus, one can clearly see from his few reported NT sayings that he did not come to establish a new religion. That is why the earliest Christian creed was simple and concise as compared to the one grossly inflated centuries later at Nicea then Constantinople so as to integrate new theological notions. Although speculations were rife about Jesus' nature and relationship with God the Father, prior to the 4th century, the authorities of the church did not view the persons of the trinity as equal in divinity. The Father was understood as the supreme God and the Son came second in worship, subordinate in knowledge and power, followed by the Holy Ghost as third in rank.
Jesus, per the Quran, came to verify the truth remaining in the Torah
3:50,5:46,61:6"verifying what is between my hands MIN/OF the Torah".
Just as the prophet Muhammad was tasked in doing with the Quran, Jesus wasnt going around listing every single error and absurdity of the scriptures and traditions that preceded him. His words and deeds testified to the truth and falsehood in them. Most of those words and deeds have been forgotten, misinterpreted or purposefully put aside by the gospels writer's own admission. These writers reported what was transmitted to them with their heavy pagan Hellenistic perspective, if not outright fabricated events that do not stand the test of internal and external scrutiny. Their sole purpose was to advance the notion of Jesus being "the messiah, the son of God" as candidly admitted in Jn20:31.
The Quran gives several examples of how his words and deeds testified to some of the corruptions of the HB. For example when Jesus, with God's leave, creates life from inanimate material and resurrects the dead, these were meant to demonstrate to an audience highly skeptical of the concept of resurrection how life can be gathered from dust and how a lifeless body can be risen back. During the volatile transmission process of the HB, such concepts, like the concept of an afterlife were almost entirely blotted out from their books. These actions from Jesus acted as a criterion of what is true and false in the HB, confirming the very few passages vaguely attesting to resurrection. The near scriptural absence of those concepts was an obvious manipulation. Because of their sins for which they were successively destroyed and humiliated during their tumultuous history, the Israelites became averse at the notion of an afterlife in which one is resurrected and held accountable for his worldly deeds. And so they progressively denied the concept, leading to the polemics within their sects during Jesus' time. The Pharisees forcefully argued in favor of the concept, using scattered biblical references including 1Kings17:17-24,2Kings4:17-37,13:20-1,1Sam2:6,Isa2:17,26:19,66:14,Ezek37:1-28,Ps71:20,Prov6:22,Prov31(see Rashi),Dan12:1-2 while their main opponents, the Sadducees strongly denied that basic monotheistic tenet.
The Quran points to another important reality. This confusion as regards the afterlife and resulting conjectures which one can find in the rabbinical writings, are due to the erasing of clear references from their scriptures, leaving their thinkers to come up with all kinds of theories to fill the uncomfortable void. Other cultures like them, including the Greeks, came up with different scenarios more or less resembling the Islamic afterlife, using reasoning and deductions so as to make sense of how to account for the level of morality of a mortal creature.
The Quran makes a powerful observation revealing why the Israelites neglected that aspect of the religion until its near disappearance from their writings. They are, from all people, the most attached to this very life, no matter in what shape or condition as denoted with "hayatin", as long as it is extended indefinitely 2:96. How can a scripture that speaks of God, divine laws, intelligent design, angels, prophets, moral accountability, have no explicit and repeated, stressed and emphasized mention of the afterlife? The only place where individual justice can be fulfilled to perfection? The only explanation is that they have blotted out a concept they deeply loathed due to their attachment to this life and unwillingness to face the consequences of their spiritual condition and failures as a community bound by a collective covenant 2:93-5.
Their history of internal dispute as regards even the concept of resurrection as show earlier, let alone the mass of speculation on the most convenient or acceptable picture of the hereafter is testimony to this reality. Even more corroborative of this Quranic charge against them, is that over and over again, the Hebrew Bible promises as the climax of physical and spiritual bliss, the ushering in this very world of the messianic era, with the dead actually coming back to this world in order to be rewarded. Even prior to the ushering of that era, over and over, divine promises of material gains and rewards of all types are promised in return for spiritual uprightness.
The Quran on the other hand absolves the previous prophets from such an important omission, saying they, from Abraham to Moses believed and spoke of the resurrection, judgement and life in the hereafter 2:260,7:155-6,20:48-9,40:38-9. What is also very interesting is that almost all the cataclysmic descriptions preceding the establishment of the blissful "new earth", agree with the Quran's depiction of upheaval and destruction of the universe and the earth, followed by the resurrection of the earth and all humans for judgement. This is rooted in the principle that 28:88"all things are perishing save His Face". Then comes the righteous people's admission into Heaven, a place beyond the limits of the material world 3:133"And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord; and a Garden, the extensiveness of which is (as) the heavens and the earth, it is prepared for those who guard (against evil)". The difference, again, is that the Bible writers place these events as happening in this world, with the Jewish people and the land of Israel being the focal point. The punishment through fire, humiliation and torture will be the lot of Israel's enemies only until the Jewish people are re-established to their station of honor among the nations Zech14:10,etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment