What does it mean when the Qur’an calls Jesus al-masīḥ? How does this relate to Jewish and Christian understandings of the Messiah? Do share your thoughts, either on the original post or below 🙂
Categories: Islam
What does it mean when the Qur’an calls Jesus al-masīḥ? How does this relate to Jewish and Christian understandings of the Messiah? Do share your thoughts, either on the original post or below 🙂
Categories: Islam
Is Jesus the Messiah, according to the Qur’an?
YES!
Sort and sweet and biblical.
Short and Sweet!
The Christian understanding of the messiah is profoundly unJewish and unbiblical: ie a God-man who was to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and rise from the dead.
No Jew known to history prior to Christianity ever expected this of the Messiah.
I agree that before Christianity there wasn’t the expectation of ‘ie a God-man who was to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and rise from the dead.’ But I have two responses:
1) We have to consider the constituent elements. Were there Jews who believed the Messiah would suffer? Were there Jews who understood a passage about vicarious suffering (Isaiah 53) to be about the Messiah? Was there an idea of a priestly Messiah (bearing in mind that priests sacrifice for sins)? Was there an idea of a heavenly Messiah figure? Were passages about a divine figure that were understood to be about a Messiah?
2) The Qur’an chastises (non-Christian) Jews for rejecting Jesus. Indeed, the Qur’an presents the Jews as a pretty rebellious people throughout their history (echoing Old Testament and Christian themes). Should it therefore matter to a Muslim that no Jew before Christianity held to all of the points that you mention? The Qur’an clearly doesn’t put much value upon their recognising of the Messiah or lack thereof.
Richard you conceded:
‘I agree that before Christianity there wasn’t the expectation of ‘ie a God-man who was to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and rise from the dead.’
So Christianity is not Biblical. Its doctrines are not taught by the prophets. They are absent from Israel’s expectations of the messiah. You concede all this.
Your two points do not change this crucial fact in any way and are not strictly relevant to this admission.
I think my two points are relevant, and if you don’t think so, then we’ll have to agree to disagree 🙂
I’m also curious your ideas about one of the core ideas of the article – the Qur’an affirms Jesus as Messiah, so what do we make of this? Does the Qur’an affirm the Messianic prophecies behind this, or go along with and fulfill messianic expectations that God himself did not promise? Given that the Qur’an affirms Jesus as messiah, is it not legitimate for Christians, both in the first century and today, to look to what messianic prophecies say, to help us understand who Jesus is?
Thank you Paul! The only one that I know of and by his actions he proved it was Judas Iscariot. Yes, he believed in Jesus as Messiah but with a twist! The Quran by the way has a tremendous amount of knowledge concerning the Dead Sea Scroll people and part of this knowledge should appear on my website islamtheway.org under the title ALLAH Is the EVER WATCHFUL ALL-KNOWING!
It simply is amazing what the Quran reveals that we have missed!
Things like the war between the Gnostics (thankfully they lost) and the side that has a type of ‘oneness’ for GOD. As Muslims we know that, the worship of others beside GOD is the worst sin! Well, the believers in ONE GOD won out as the Gnostics (a very powerful group) believed in two gods.
About Judas, he didn’t make the Last Supper as it appears briefly in the Gospel of Luke and in the Quran because he felt so sad that he caused such a loss to his Creator LORD by having Jesus killed (which of course he wasn’t) THE ARROGANCE OF THAT MAN THAT HE COULD HINDER GOD’S PLAN!!! And we know the hadith that ALLAH states that only HE can wear the cloak of Pride and that if any try to wear it HE will humiliate them.
Poor Judas wanted to take credit for ‘stimulating’ Jesus to do something aginst the false Jews and the heathan Romans as he believed that when ‘taken’, Jesus would start on his dynamic rampage to take down Rome and the false Jews who were hobnobbing with the Romans.
Anyway, in just a few short words (Mary (of Noble lineage) going to the East) gives us the knowledge, along with another Quranic verse, that she was one of a few chosen vessles to enter into a training period to see if she would be that vessle chosen! And so east of where they lived, we find the Qumran sect (Essenes) and an excellent memember of their sect Zacharia (pbh)!
Her family was definitely not a member of the Pharisee sect nor, GOD forbid one of the Sadducees.
The trinitarian understanding of the messiah is definitely and profoundly unbiblical
The Messiah never shared the same essence or substance of divinity with the God of Israel according to biblical Jewish views about God and the Messiah
According to a Gospel pericope uttered by Jesus that accords with the Quran
Jesus declared. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’ ”
Any worship directed to another object, person or deity, including the Messiah is polytheism and in breach of biblical Jewish Monotheism
Exactly!
See comment above about whether ‘Jewish views’ are binding or not; whether something is biblical though, which you also mention, is more important.
‘trinitarian’ – yes the doctrine of the Trinity is Christian, but there is still an interesting discussion to be had about whether some Jews held to a view of a heavenly Messiah (Qumran), and why some Jews have recognised the Messiah in passages that could be understood as referring to a divine figure (Daniel 7, Isaiah 9).
I’d also be interested to hear your thoughts about one of the key issues of the article, which is the significance of the Qur’an affirming Jesus as Messiah. If the Qur’an is buying into the concept of Messiah, is it not therefore legitimising messianic texts?
Richard I am sure you accept that no Jew prior to Christianity expected the messiah to be God (as you do); or that the messiah would die for the sins of the world and rise again on the 3rd day (as you believe).
Given the absence of this fundamental Christian belief from the prophets, or indeed anywhere in the Jewish Bible, how can you maintain it is biblical?
“If the Qur’an is buying into the concept of Messiah, is it not therefore legitimising messianic texts?”
Richard, only those messianic texts that accord with the Quranic texts and authentic Hadith about the person of Jesus, especially related to his second coming inshaallah
Hi Paul,
I believe I’ve responded to the thrust of your objection above, and in fact you haven’t responded to my question about why you as a Muslim think that Jewish expectation is binding. The rest of my response, as made above, is that the constituent parts I believe to be biblical, even if Jews did not successfully put all the pieces together.
Which is understandable given that Isaiah 49, 52-53, Zechariah 12:10, suggest that the Jews would in fact reject the Messiah when he came. It is therefore not surprising that the Jews did not have a completely accurate picture of the Messiah.
Hi Purple Rain,
‘“If the Qur’an is buying into the concept of Messiah, is it not therefore legitimising messianic texts?”
Richard, only those messianic texts that accord with the Quranic texts and authentic Hadith about the person of Jesus, especially related to his second coming inshaallah’
But the Qur’an betrays no awareness of the need to correct Messianic ideas in light of the Qur’anic texts and hadith. The Qur’an simply says Jesus is the Messiah, and chastises Jews for rejecting him.
Rich you may think their is an interesting discussion to be had but your though process is weak. You cherry pick and then discard any over whelming evidence and manipulate ie common understanding of ancient text and then try to form a question out of it. I applaud anyone who answered you with a one-liner given the reason that you spared no regard in wasting anyone’s time with this nonsense
‘Rich you may think their is an interesting discussion to be had but your though process is weak. You cherry pick and then discard any over whelming evidence and manipulate ie common understanding of ancient text and then try to form a question out of it. I applaud anyone who answered you with a one-liner given the reason that you spared no regard in wasting anyone’s time with this nonsense’
I don’t mean to cherry pick, but I portray things as I see them. If you disagree, no problem, and sorry you feel I’ve wasted your time
Richard, seek Quranic tafsirs to understand some of commentaries about the various exegesis given about the expression ‘masih’ and way’s it applies to the Quranic Jesus inshaallah
Hi Purple Rain,
Thank you for your comment – if you know of any particular Tafsirs that address the issues I raise (and go beyond just a definition of the etymology of masih), please do let me know.
Best wishes,
Richard
Dear Richard:
Try to investigate the last 55 articles on the website Islamtheway.org. Might be hard to ingest at first unless you were thinking that there is ONE GOD for all peoples. There is but only ONE GOD. There is but one group of believers (not all on the same level), one faith all working towards trying to understand the mutual harmony between the religions.
The website above gives lots of quotes showing how there has been only one body of believers existing from the beginning and how those willful believers are put into situations for their spiritual training. Not that we can understand much about this but we can try and understand that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet!
And it is so true that if it looks like a duck and swims like a duck and sounds and flies like a duck, then it probably is a duck!
Perhaps we could get back to your original question, Is Jesus the Messiah, according to the Qur’an?
What does it mean when the Qur’an calls Jesus al-masīḥ? How does this relate to Jewish and Christian understandings of the Messiah?
I believe this question has become “Why is Jesus not the Christian Messiah according to Muslims?” to commenters.
The reality is that except for the concept of ‘Messiah’ meaning ‘anointed one’, Islam provides no other reasons for muslims to believe Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And when asked to explain why Jesus is the Messiah to the Jews, Islam has no further definition of the term ‘Messiah’. Somehow, without ANY ability to explain why they believe as they do, muslims just simply know Jesus IS the Messiah to the Jews but certainly NOT the Messiah Jesus of Christianity.
Islam does not provide when asked, nor recognize any Old Testament prophecies by which the Jews would identify their promised Messiah and by which Christians prove Jesus to be the Promised Messiah.
There are over 200 prophecies in the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilled and certain prophecies which Jews still wait for a Messiah to fulfill, and yet Islam does not quote any prophecies when asked as part of your original question.
Good question but it provides no answers. If indeed you want to uncover the ‘universal truth’ of the Messiah as it relates to what is found in Islam and Christianity by virtue of their agreement, then go to Islamtheway.org website which discusses this point in approximately 55 articles. Jesus and the Quran renders the judgment that people will follow their priests and other religious leaders NOT BASED ON TRUTH BUT ON BIASNESS. This from the Quran stating that ‘they take their religious leaders (priests and anchorites etc in derogation to ALLAH and from Jesus (pbh) when he stated that they would rather follow after (the commandments of men) rather than what he taught (Matthew?). We, the peoples of the Abrahamic Faiths, have only ONE GOD and ask yourself this: Is 2+2=4 in the base 10 system the same all over the world and on the Moon? Yes, it is!
No matter the language a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. So, don’t get lost in delusional terminology or my house is bigger than yours and my religion is better than yours type of bull! There is only ONE GOD and the religion is also one – progressive in combating foolish philosophical arguements and philosopher pipe dreams, but progressive as it has evovled and was prophecied to evolve!