The Islamic and Christian View of Jesus:
A Comparision

The person of Jesus or Isa in Arabic (peace be upon him) is of great significance in both Islam and Christianity. However, there are differences in terms of beliefs about the life and the occurrences of this noble Messenger.

Source of information about Jesus in Islam

Muslims take their information about Jesus from two main sources: the Quran, the direct word of God, as revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), as well as the Hadith, or the sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad.

Most of the information about Jesus is actually found in the Quran. It is interesting to note that contemporary scholars and scientists, Muslims and non-Muslims, have discovered that the Quran talks about scientific phenomena which could not have been known by humans when the Quran was revealed in seventh century Arabia. Accurate information about embryology is one such example.

As a result, a number of non-Muslim scholars have concluded that the Quran can only be the Book of God.

The Quran was memorized, written down and revised in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Today, anyone who calls him or herself a Muslim believes in the complete authenticity of the Quran.

Source of information about Jesus in Christianity

Christians take their information about Jesus from Bible, which for them includes the Old and New Testaments.

This includes four biblical narratives covering the life and death of Jesus. These have been written, according to tradition, respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are placed at the beginning of the New Testament and comprise close to half of it.

Encyclopedia Britannica notes that "none of the sources of his life and work can be traced to Jesus himself; he did not leave a single known written word. Also, there are no contemporary accounts written of his life and death. What can be established about the historical Jesus depends almost without exception on Christian traditions, especially on the material used in the composition of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which reflect the outlook of the later church and its faith in Jesus."

Wayne A. Meeks, Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies at Yale University, interviewed for the 1998 PBS documentary "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians" adds: "there is only an interpreted Jesus, there are many interpreted Jesuses. So where do we begin? We begin not with Jesus, we have no access to him. We begin with the responses to Jesus, by his followers, by outsiders who heard about him.... We begin with those reactions as they're enshrined in the text we have."

Below are the views of Islam and Christianity based on primary source texts and core beliefs.

ISLAM

1. Do Muslims believe he was a Messenger of One God? YES

Belief in all of the Prophets and Messengers of the God, Allah as He is known in Arabic, is a fundamental article of faith in Islam. Thus, believing in Prophets Adam, Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon them) is a requirement for anyone who calls him or herself a Muslim. A person claiming to be a Muslim who, for instance, denies the Messengership of Jesus, is not considered a Muslim. The same is true of any other Prophet.

The Quran says in reference to the status of Jesus as a Messenger:

Also in the Quran, God says:

2. Do Muslims believe he was born of a Virgin Mother? YES

Like Christians, Muslims believe Mary, Maria in Spanish, or Maryam as she is called in Arabic, was a chaste, virgin woman, who miraculously gave birth to Jesus.

3. Do Muslims believe Jesus had a miraculous birth? YES

The Quran says:

It should also be noted about his birth that:

4. Do Muslims believe Jesus spoke in the cradle? YES

5. Do Muslims believe he performed miracles? YES

Muslims, like Christians believe the Prophet Jesus performed miracles. But these were performed by the will and permission of Allah, Who has all power and control over all things.

6. Do Muslims believe in the Trinity? NO

Muslims believe in the Absolute Oneness of God, Who is a Supreme Being free of human limitations and wants. He has no partners in His Divinity. He is the Creator of everything and is completely separate from His creation.

Allah says in the Quran regarding Trinity:

Also:

7. Do Muslims believe that Jesus was the son of God? NO

As mentioned above, Muslims believe that God is One and free of all partners and associates. He is above all that others associate with Him. All power and control are with Him. It is above His Majesty and Glory to take a son, partner or associate. He is independent of everyone and everything, while on the other hand, everyone and everything is dependent on Him.

The Quran also states:

8. Do Muslims believe Jesus was killed on the cross then resurrected? NO

CHRISTIANITY

1.Do Christians believe Jesus was a human being and Messenger of God? YES & NO

With the exception of Unitarian Christians, most Christians now believe in the Divinity of Prophet Jesus, which is connected to the belief in Trinity (which is discussed in point number six).

They say he is the second member of the Triune God, the Son of the first part of the Triune God, and at the same time "fully" God in every respect. 

Early followers of Jesus never believed that he was God.

2. Do Christians believe he was born of a Virgin Mother? YES

A chaste and pious human woman who gave birth to Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, the Son of God, and at the same time "fully" God Almighty in every respect.

Christians believe however, that while she was a virgin, she was married to a man named Joseph (Bible: Matthew:1:18). According to Matthew 1:25, Joseph "kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus".

3. Do Christians believe he had a miraculous birth? YES

4. Do Christians believe he spoke in the cradle? YES and NO?

There is a second century Arabic apocryphal fable from Egypt called the Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ which mentions this:

5. Do Christians believe he performed miracles? YES

Christians believe that Jesus performed these miracles because he was the Son of God as well as the incarnation of God. However, this passage clearly indicates that it was actually God acting through His servant Jesus.

6. Do Christians believe in the Trinity? YES

With the exception of the Unitarian Christians, who do not believe in the Divinity of Christ, the Trinity, according to the Catholic encyclopedia, is the term used for the central doctrine of the Christian religion. The belief is that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three Persons or beings are distinct from each another, while being similar in character: uncreated and omnipotent.

The First Vatican Council has explained the meaning to be attributed to the term mystery in theology. It lays down that a mystery is a truth which we are not merely incapable of discovering apart from Divine Revelation, but which, even when revealed, remains "hidden by the veil of faith and enveloped, so to speak, by a kind of darkness" (Const., "De fide. cath.", iv).\ The First Vatican Council further defined that the Christian Faith contains mysteries strictly so called (can. 4). All theologians admit that the doctrine of the Trinity is of the number of these.The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that of all revealed truths, this is the most impenetrable to reason.

More specifically, the Trinity is mentioned in Matthew 28:19:

One passage in Mark 12:28, 29, and 30 contradicts the "three in one theory" though. It says:

7. Do Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God? YES

However, it is interesting to note that the term "son of God" is used in other parts of the Bible to refer to Adam (Bible: Luke 3:38), Israel (Bible: Exodus 4:22) and David (Bible: Psalms 2:7) as well. The creation of God is usually referred to in the Bible as children of God.

The role of Paul of Tarsus in shaping this belief and the belief in Trinity

The notion of Jesus as son of God is something that was established under the influence of Paul of Tarsus (originally named Saul), who had been an enemy of Jesus, but later changed course and joined the disciples after the death of Jesus.

Later, however, he initiated a number of changes into early Christian teachings, in contradiction, for instance, to true disciples like Barnabas, who believed in the Oneness of God and who had actually lived and met with Jesus.

Paul is considered by a number of Christian scholars to be the father of Christianity due to his additions of the following ideas:

• the idea that Jesus is the son of God,
• the theory of Atonement,
• the renunciation of the Law of the Torah which affected rulings about food and circumcision in early Christianity

His letters are the primary sources of information on Jesus according to the Christian tradition.

Initially, Paul was a staunch opponent of Jesus. However, when he did join the followers of Jesus later on, he added many changes in the original teachings of Jesus in hopes of winning over the Gentiles (non-Jewish people), such as the three examples mentioned above.

The original followers of Prophet Jesus opposed these blatant misrepresentations of the message of Jesus. They struggled to reject the notion of Divinity of Jesus for close to 200 years.

One person who was an original follower of Prophet Jesus was Barnabas. He was a Jew born in Cyrus. He was a successful preacher of the teachings of Jesus. Because of his closeness to the Prophet, he was an important member of the small group of disciples in Jerusalem who had had gathered together following the disappearance of Jesus.

The question of the Jesus’s nature, origin and relationship with God was not raised amongst Barnabas and the small group of disciples. The Prophet was considered a man miraculously endowed by God . Nothing in the words of Jesus or the events in his life led them to modify this view.

The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the Churches of Alexandria till 325 C.E. Iranaeus (130-200) wrote in support of pure monotheism and opposed Paul for injecting into Christianity doctrines of the pagan Roman religion and Platonic philosophy.  He had quoted extensively from the Gospel of Barnabas in support of his views. This shows that the Gospel of Barnabas was in circulation in the first and second centuries of Christianity. 

Since Paul’s alterations to the original monotheistic message of Jesus were very appealing to the Gentiles, the true believers were unable to stop the misguidance.

In 325 Common Era (C.E.), a council of Christian leaders met at Nicaea and made Paul's beliefs officially part of Christian doctrine. It also ordered that all original Gospels in Hebrew script which contradicted Paul’s beliefs should be destroyed. An edict was issued that any one in possession of these Gospels will be put to death.

The Gospel of has miraculously survived though.

8. Do Christians believe he was killed on the cross? YES

This is a core Christian belief and it relates to the theory of atonement. According to this belief, Prophet Jesus died to save mankind form sin. However, this is not stated explicitly in the four gospels which form the primary source texts of Christianity.

It was Paul of Tarsus, considered the real father of Christianity, who came up with this idea (see explanation above). It is found in Bible: Romans 6:8,9.

Christians believe Jesus was spat on, cut, humiliated, kicked, striped, and finally hung up on the cross to endure a slow and painful death.

The original sin of Adam and Eve of eating from the forbidden tree was so great that God could not forgive it by simply willing it, rather it was necessary to erase it with the blood of a sinless innocent god named Jesus who was also "fully" God.

Resurrection

The four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul are the main sources of Christianity which discuss the Resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion. According to St. Matthew, Prophet Jesus appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee. Mark’s gospel tells a different story: Jesus was seen by Mary Magdalene, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven.

Luke’s Gospel says Jesus walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem. In John’s Gospel, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.

Another account of the resurrection by St. Paul is found in Bible: Corinthians 15: 3-8.

According to Christian belief, Resurrection is a manifestation of God’s justice, who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Phil., 2: 8-9). This event also completes the "mystery" of Christian salvation and redemption. The death of Jesus frees believers from sin, and with his resurrection, he restores to them the most important privileges lost by sin (Bible: Romans 4:25).

More importantly, the belief in the resurrection of Jesus indicates Christian acknowledgment of Christ as the immortal God, the cause of believers’ own resurrection (Bible: I Corinthians 4: 21; Phil., 3:20-21), as well as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Bible: Romans 4: 4-6; 9-11).