The Bible Led Me to Islam
Abdul Malik LeBlanc tells how he discovered Islam within the pages of
Bible
Source: International Edition Voice of Islam - November 1998, Page 25
During my Christian days there were many verses in the Bible that made me
question the religion I was following (Christianity). There was one
particular verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 which says; "pray without ceasing,"
that lingered heavily in my mind. I often wondered how a person
(Christian) was supposed to pray (be in a state of worship) without
ceasing? Without any biblical or divine guidance, the only way I thought
this to be possible was to always do good deeds and keep the remembrance
of God on my tongue and in my heart.
However, I found this to be impossible to do as a human being. But when I
was introduced to Islam in 1987, and began to read and learn more about
this way of life, I found that Islam provided divine guidance both from
God (Allah) and Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by which a person could pray (be in
a state of worship) without ceasing, if it was the Will of God.
Whether waking up, eating, sleeping, putting on clothes, being in the
presence of a woman, looking at a woman, going shopping, going to the
bathroom, looking in the mirror, traveling, visiting the sick, sitting in
a non-religious meeting, taking a bath, having sexual intercourse with
one’s wife, yawning, cutting you nails, sneezing, greeting people,
talking, hosting guests at home, walking, exercising, fighting, entering
one’s house, praying and many other acts, Islam and the guidance therein
of the Quran, and the acts and sayings of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), provided
ways in which I could observe 1 Thessalonians 5:17. In addition, it
allowed me to be at peace with myself and in submission to the one True
God - Allah (SWT).
This divine guidance of Islam taught me greatly about my duties,
responsibilities and birthright to my Creator (Allah), and more about the
religion of Christianity as a Muslim, I [By the Will of Allah (SWT)] felt
it necessary to share with you how the Bible led me to Islam.
Christianity
Given the fact that there has never been in the history of the Torah (Old
Testament) the religion of God to be named after a Prophet (i.e.
Adaminity, Abrahamity, Mosanity, etc.), I hope to explain that Jesus did
not preach the religion of Christianity, but a religion that gives all
Praise and Worship to The One God.
One of the questions I asked myself as I took an objective (second) look
at Christianity was; where did the word Christianity come from and was the
word ever mentioned to Jesus? Well, I did not find the word Christianity
in the Bible, not even in a Bible dictionary. Specifically, I did not find
in the Bible where Jesus called himself a Christian.
The word Christian was first mentioned by a pagan to describe those who
followed Jesus. It is mentioned one of three times in the New Testament by
a pagan and Jew in Antioch about 43 AD, (Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28 and 1
Peter 4:16) long after Jesus left this earth. To accept the words of
pagans as having any value or association with divinity, Jesus or God is
contrary to the teachings of all Prophets.
Jesus prophesied that people would worship him uselessly and believe in
doctrines made by men (Matthew 15:9).
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men." This verse, Matthew 15:9, is further supported by these words of
the Quran:
"And (remember) when Allah will say (on the Day of Resurrection): "O
Jesus, son of Mary! Did you say unto men: "Worship me and my mother as two
gods besides Allah?" He will say: "Glory be to You! It was not for me to
say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, You would
surely have known it. You know what is in my inner-self though I do not
know what is in Yours, truly, You, only You, are the All-Knower o fall
that is hidden and unseen.
Never did I say to them aught except what You (Allah) did command me to
say: ‘Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ And I was a witness over them
while I dwelt amongst them, but when You took me up, You were a Witness to
all things. (This is a great admonition and warning to the Christians of
the whole world)." (Al-Ma’idah 5:116-117)
I found that Biblical verses like John 5:30, John 12:49, John 14:28,
Isaiah 42:8 and Acts 2:22 support the above mentioned verses of the Quran.
Before leaving the subject of Christianity, I should mention one small
point of observation. If Christians are Christ-like, why are they not
greeting each other with the words; Peace be with you (Salamu Alaikum), as
Jesus did in Luke 24:36. As you may be aware, the greeting from one Muslim
to another Muslim is Assalamu Alaikum; a Christ-like saying.
Various Holy Bibles
It is worth mentioning that the Bible references cited might not be
exactly as the Bible you are using. There are MANY Bibles on the market
that are used by different Christian sects and all of these sects say that
their book, though different, is the word of God. Such Bibles are: The
Revised Standard Version 1952 & 1971, New American Standard Bible, The
Holy Bible; New International Version, the Living Bible, New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures used by Jehovah Witnesses, Roman
Catholic Version and the King James Version. A special note: I have not
found in any of these Bibles where the "New Testament" calls itself the
"New Testament," and nowhere does the "Old Testament" call itself the
"Old? Testament." Also, the word "Bible" is unknown within the pages of
the Bible.
In addition to the many different Christian sects and Bibles, I have
learned that there are also different men, not Prophets, who founded these
sects and are using various interpretations of the Bible and/or man-made
doctrines as their creed.
I would like to share with you some thoughts that you may not have read or
known about the Bible being the word of God. Briefly, let me mention that
on September 8, 1957, the Jehovah’s witnesses in their "Awake" magazine
carried this startling headline - 50,000 Errors in the Bible. If you ask a
Jehovah’s witness about this headline, it may be said that today most of
those errors have been eliminated. How many have been eliminated, 5,000?
Even if 50 remain, would one attribute those errors to God?
Let me pose another question: if a "Holy" book contained conflicting
verses would you still consider it to be Holy? Most likely you will say of
course not. Let me share with you some conflicting verses both in the Old
and New Testaments:
II Samuel 8:4 (vs)
II Samuel 8:9-10
II Kings 8:26
II Samuel 6:23
Genesis 6:3
John 5:37
John 5:31
I Chronicles 18:4
I Chronicles 18:9-10
II Chronicles 22:2
II Samuel 21:8
Genesis 9:29
John 14:9
John 8:14
Only two contradictions of the New Testament have been mentioned, but
others will be referenced when the Trinity, Divinity of Jesus Christ,
Divine Sonship of Jesus, Original Sin and Atonement are reviewed.
How could the "inspired words" of God get the genealogy of Jesus incorrect
(See Matthew 1:6-16 where it states 26 forefathers up to Prophet David,
and Luke 3:23-31 says 41 in number). Or for that matter, give a genealogy
to Jesus who had NO father? See II Kings 19:1-37, now read Isaiah 37:1-38.
Why is it that the words of these verse are identical? Yet they have been
attributed to two different authors, one unknown and the other is Isaiah,
who are centuries apart; and yet, the Christians have claimed these books
to be inspired by God.
I looked up the word Easter in the Nelson Bible dictionary and learned
that the word "Easter" (as mentioned in Acts 12:4) is a mistranslation of
"pascha," the ordinary Greek word for "Passover." As, you know Passover is
a Jewish celebration not a Christian holiday. I think human hands, all to
human, had played havoc with the Bible.
From the brief points mentioned above, and the fact that Biblical scholars
themselves have recognized the human nature and human composition of the
Bible (Curt Kuhl, The Old Testament: Its Origin and Composition, PP 47,
51, 52), there should exist in the Christian’s mind some acceptance to the
fact that maybe every word of the Bible is not God’s word.
As a side note to this subject, let me mention that some Christians
believe that the Bible was dictated to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by a
Christian monk, and that is why some of the biblical accounts are in the
Quran. After some research, I found that this could not have happened
because there were no Arabic Bible in existence in the 6th century of the
Christian era when Muhammad (SAW) lived and preached. Therefore, no Arab,
not even Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who was absolutely unlettered and
unlearned, would have had the opportunity to examine the written text of
the Bible in his own language.
The Gospels
If you read Luke 1:2-3, you will learn, as I did, that Luke (who was not
one of the 12 disciples and never met Jesus) said that he himself was not
an eyewitness, and the knowledge he gathered was from eyewitnesses, and
not as words inspired by God. Incidentally, why does every "Gospel" begin
with the introduction According to. Why "according to?" the reason for
this is because not a single one of the gospels carries its original
author’s autograph! Even the internal evidence of Matthew 9:9 proves that
Matthew was not the author of the first Gospel which bears his name:
"And as Jesus passed forth thence, He (Jesus) saw a man, named Matthew,
sitting at the receipt of custom: and He (Jesus) saith unto Him (Matthew),
follow me (Jesus). And he (Matthew) arose, and followed Him (Jesus)."
Without any stretch of the imagination, one can see that the He’s and the
Him’s of the above narration do not refer to Jesus or Matthew as its
author, but a third person writing what he saw or heard - a hearsay
account and not words inspired by God.
It is worth noting, and well known throughout the religious world, that
the choice of the present four "gospels" of the New Testament (Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John) were imposed in the Council of Nicea 325 CE for
political purposes under the auspices of the pagan Emperor Constantine,
and not by Jesus. Constantine’s mind had not been enlightened either by
study or by inspiration. He was a pagan, a tyrant and criminal who
murdered his son, his wife and thousands of innocent individuals because
of his lust for political power. Constantine ratified other decisions in
the Nicene Creed such as the decision to call Christ "the Son of God, only
begotten of the father."
Literally, hundreds of gospels and religious writings were hidden from the
people. Some of those writings were written by Jesus’ disciples, and many
of them were eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ actions. The Nicea Council
decided to destroy all gospels written in Hebrew, which resulted in the
burning of nearly three hundred accounts. If these writings were not more
authentic than the four present gospels, they were of equal authenticity.
Some of them are still available such as the Gospel of Barnabas and the
Shepherd of Hermas which agree with the Quran. The Gospel of Barnabas,
until now, is the only eyewitness account of the life and mission of
Jesus. Even today, the whole of the Protestant word, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Seventh Day Adventists and other sects and denominations condemn the Roman
Catholic version of the Bible because it contains seven "extra" books. The
Protestant have bravely expunged seven whole books from their word of God.
A few of the outcasts are the Books of Judith, Tobnias, Baruch and Esther.
Concerning Jesus’ teachings of the Gospel (Injeel), the Gospel writers
frequently mentioned Jesus preaching the Gospel: Matthew 9:35, Mark 8:35,
and Luke 20:1. The word "gospel" is recurrently used in the Bible.
However, in the New Testament Greek edition the word Evangeline is used in
place of the word gospel, which is translated to mean good news. My
question was: what Gospel did Jesus preach? Of the 27 books of the New
Testament, only a small fraction can be accepted as the words of Jesus,
and only of the 27 books are known to be attributed as the Gospel of
Jesus. The remaining 23 were supposedly written by Paul. Muslims do
believe that Jesus was given God’s "Good News." However, they do not
recognized the present four Gospels as the utterances of Jesus.
The earliest Gospel is that of Mark’s which was written about 60-75 AD.
Mark was the son of Barnabas’s sister. Matthew was a tax collector, a
minor official who did not travel around with Jesus. Luke’s Gospel was
written much later, and in fact, drawn from the same sources as Mark’s and
Matthew’s. Luke was Paul’s physician, and like Paul, never met Jesus. By
the way, did you know that the names Marks and Luke were not included in
the 12 appointed disciples of Jesus as mentioned in Matthew 10:2-4?
Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; the first, Simon, who is
called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican;
James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;
Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
John’s Gospel is from a different source, and was written in about 100 AD.
He (John) should not be confused with John, the disciple, who was beheaded
by Agrippa I in the year 44 CE long before this gospel was written. It
should be accepted as a reliable account of the life of Jesus, and whether
it should be included in the scriptures.
Christians, as I once did, boast about the Gospels according to Matthew,
according to Mark, according to Luke and according to John. However, if we
think about it, there is not a single Gospel according to Jesus himself.
According to the preface of the KJV (King James Version) new open Bible
study edition, the word "Gospel" was added (see below) to the original
titles, "According to John, according to Matthew, according to Luke and
according to Mark."
The permission to call "According to" writings the Gospel was not given by
Jesus nor by any other divine guidance. These writings; Matthew, Luke,
Mark and John, were never originally to be the Gospel. Therefore, Mark 1:1
can not be a true statement that his writing is the gospel of Jesus.
It should be mentioned that Muslims must believe in all Divine scriptures
in their original form, their Prophets and making no distinction between
them: The Suhuf (Abraham); Torah (Moses); Psalms (David); Gospel - or the
Injeel (Jesus); and the Quran (Muhammad). It is clearly stated in the
Quran 3:3 that Allah sent down the Torah and the Gospel. However, none of
these scriptures remains in its original form now, except the Quran, which
was sent for all mankind everywhere and for all times.
In addition to other reasons why the Quran was sent to mankind, as
mentioned in 18:4-5 it was sent to warn the Christians of a terrible
punishment from God if they cease not in saying: "Allah has begotten a
son."
Muslims sincerely believe that everything Jesus (May the peace and
blessing of Allah be upon him) preached was from God; the Gospel (Injeel):
The "good news" and the guidance of God for the Children of Israel. There
is no place mentioned in the present four Gospels that Jesus wrote a
single word of his Gospel, nor is it mentioned that Jesus instructed
anyone to do so. What passes off, as the "Gospels" today are the works of
third party human hands. The Quran 2:79 says:
"And woe to those who write the book with their own hands and they say:
"This is from Allah (God)." To traffic with it for a miserable price! So
woe to them for what their hands do write, and woe to them for what they
earn thereby!"
Jesus As the Son of God
Is Jesus the Son of God? Matthew 3:17 could be used by some Christians to
support the divine Sonship of Jesus. If Matthew 3:17, "And Lo a voice for
heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased," is used
to support divine Sonship, then there should be no other verse that
contradicts or gives equal divine Sonship to another person or persons in
the Old or New Testament. However, many references were found in the Old
and New Testaments that mentioned someone other than Jesus as having a
divine Sonship to God. See Exodus 4:22:
"Israel is my son, even my firstborn." II Samuel 7:14 and I Chronicles
22:10: "...and he shall be my son (Solomon)." Jeremiah 31:9: "...and
Ephraim is my firstborn." Also, Psalm 2:7.
The word "Son" must not be accepted literally because God addresses many
of his chosen servants as son and sons. The Jews have also claimed Ezra to
be the Son of God. The New Testament Greek words used for "son" (pias and
paida, which mean servant or son in the sense of servant) are translated
as son in reference to Jesus and as servant in reference to others in some
translations of the Bible.
Further, the term "Father" as used by Jesus corresponds more closely to
the term Rabb, i.e. One who nourishes and sustains, so that in Jesus’
doctrine, God is "Father" – Nourisher and Sustainer – of all men. The New
Testament also interprets "son of God" to be mystical: "For as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Romans 8:14). This
mystical suggestion is further supported with Jesus being called the only
begotten Son of God.
In Psalm 2:7, the Lord said to David:
"...Thou art my son: this day have I begotten thee."
Does this mean that God had two sons? Jesus also said that God is not only
his Father but also your Father (Matthew 5:45, 48). Luke 3:38 says:
"...Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the Son of God."
Who is mentioned in Hebrews 7:3 as like unto the Son of God? It is
Melchisedec, King of Salem, as mentioned in Hebrews 7:1. He (Melchisedec)
is more unique than Jesus or Adam. Why is he not preferred to be the Son
of God? Moreover, Adam did not have a mother or father, but was the first
human being created by God and in the likeness of God to exist in the
Garden of Eden and on earth. Wouldn’t this give more rights to Adam to be
called the Son of God in its truest meaning?
I would like to share with you an obvious contradiction between John 3:16,
Luke 10:25-28 and Matthew 19:16-17. John 3:16 reads:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten, Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Now let’s read Luke 10:25-28:
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, what is written
in the law? How readest Thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said
unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and Thou shalt live.
These verses tell us that the inheritance of eternal life is for anyone
who believes and worships no other God, but the One True God. Luke
10:25-28 agrees with Matthew 19:16-17 which says;
"And behold, one came and said to him (Jesus), Good teacher, what good
things shall I do that I may have eternal life? So he (Jesus) said to him,
‘Why do you call me good? – No one is good but One that is, God. But if
you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments."
There is no commandment that says to worship Jesus, but there that tells
us to worship God alone.
In Luke 4:41, Jesus refused to be called the Son of God by demons. Do you
think that Jesus would rebuke the demons, or anyone else for that matter,
for telling the truth? Unquestionably, no! Jesus rebuked the demons
because they were saying something false by calling him the Son of God.
Also, if the demons knew that Jesus was the Christ, for Jesus to shut them
up because they called him the Christ is a contradiction to Jesus’
mission.
In Luke 9:20 & 21, Jesus said unto his disciples:
"But who say ye that I am? Peter answered saying, "The Christ of God, and
Jesus straightly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that
thing."
Furthermore, verses like John 3:2, John 6:14, John 7:40, Matthew 21:11,
Luke 7:16 and 24:19 confirm that Jesus accepted the title of teacher,
Prophet and called himself the son of man in Matthew 8:20, 12:40, 17:9 &
12, 26:24, Luke 9:26, 22:48, 22:69, and 24:7. The most conclusive verse
that says Jesus is the son (servant) of man is Mark 14:26 where Jesus is
mentioning the Day of Reckoning. Jesus specifically said we would see the
son of man, not the Son of God, sitting in the right hand of power, and
coming in the clouds of heaven.
The act of begetting is a physical act and such act is against God’s
nature. The Qur’an 19:35 says:
"It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son.
Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter He only says to it "Be," and
it is." (Maryam 19:35)
The teachings of Jesus as the Son of God were not preached by Jesus nor
accepted by Jesus, but were taught by Paul as supported in Acts 9:20:
"And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son
of God."
Did Jesus ever claim to be God or say, "Here am I, your God, worship me"?
The answer is no. For there is no single, unequivocal statement in the
Bible whereby Jesus himself declares, "I am God, therefore worship me."
Virtually all of the more than two thousand verses of the epistles of Paul
are his own fabrications to include Romans 9:5 that says, depending upon
which Bible you read:
"...Christ came, who is overall, the eternally blessed God."
Christians should know that Paul himself mentions his own gospel, not
Jesus, in his epistle to the Romans when he says in Romans 2:16:
"In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ,
according to my gospel."
In face, the Pauline epistle to the Romans serves as the foundation of
today’s Christianity. Thus, it is the Christians whose efforts will be
wasted in this life as they think they were acquiring good by their works
when they attribute partners to God, as stated in Chapter 18:103-106 of
the Qur’an:
"Say: Shall we tell you of those who lost most in respect of their deeds?
Those whose efforts have been wasted in this life, while they thought that
they were acquiring good by their works?" they are those who deny the
Signs of their Lord and the fact of their having to meet Him (in the
Hereafter): vain will be their works, nor shall We, on the Day of
judgment, give them any weight. That is their reward, Hell; because they
rejected Faith, and took My Signs and My Messengers by way of jest.
(Al-Kahf 18:103-106)
Indeed, it is so strange and ironic, knowing that none of Paul’s epistle
to the Romans, more than 430 verses, were ever formulated by Jesus. Paul
should have made direct reference to the pristine teachings of Jesus, if
only the former claim for apostleship by divine inspiration was indeed
true. Instead, large parts of his epistles’ Biblical quotations (notably
those in the Epistle to the Romans) were taken from the Old Testament –
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Psalms,
Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Hosea. His epistles were, indeed a product
of tedious efforts, but that does not make Paul far better than any of the
other men who authored the Bible, nor does it make him a Prophet.
Other practices that were adopted under Paul included the following: the
Roman sun-day as the Christian Sabbath; the traditional birthday of the
Sun-god as the birthday of Jesus; the emblem of the sun-god (the cross of
light) to be the emblem of Christians; and, the incorporation of all the
ceremonies which were performed at the Sun-god’s birthday celebrations.
As I come to a close concerning the position of Christ, I would like to
ask my Christian reader bow down and pray earnestly to God and ask Him to
invoke His curse on you, your wife, your sons, and your daughters if what
you believe about Christ (Christ is God, Son of God or part of a trinity
of God) are false. Likewise, I have learned that if you asked a Muslim to
earnestly pray to God to invoke His curse on him, his wife, his sons, and
his daughters if what he is saying about Christ (Prophet, Messenger of
God, A Word from God) are false, the Muslims are firm in their faith
knowing that Christ is not God, nor the Son of God and nor part of a
trinity of God. This exercise of asking God to invoke His curse on you and
your family may sound a bit cruel, but it would prove two points: (1) you
would know that you are on the wrong path; and, (2) it would put you on
the right path.
The Crucifixion and Atonement
A very significant event in the Christian doctrine is the Crucifixion of
Jesus. Before talking about the many controversies surrounding the
Crucifixion, it should be mentioned that it was a gospel of Paul’s which
professed the Crucifixion/Resurrection of Jesus (II Timothy 2:8):
"Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead
according to my gospel."
In addition, the gospel of the resurrection in Mark 16:9-20 was already
removed from the text by gospel writers in the 1952 edition of the Revised
Standard Version and then, for some reasons, restored in the 1971 edition.
In many Bibles, if not removed, it is printed in small print or between
two brackets and with commentary (See the Revised Standard Version, New
American Bible and New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures).
The traditional biblical account of Jesus’ Crucifixion is that he was
arrested and crucified by the orders and plans of the chief priest and
Jewish elders. This account was denied in the 1960’s by the highest
Catholic Christian authority, the Pope. He issued a statement in which he
said the Jews had nothing to do with Jesus’ Crucifixion.
Did any one of the disciples or the writers of the Gospel see the
Crucifixion or the Resurrection? No! In Mark 14:50, it says the disciples
forsook Jesus and fled. Even Peter forsook Jesus after the cock crowed
three times as Jesus foretold:
(Matthew 26:75) And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto
him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and
wept bitterly.
The most likely persons whom may have witnessed this moment in Jesus’ life
were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, the mother of
Zebedee’s children and other women (Matthew 27:55-56). However, there is
no statement or account in the Gospels from those women as to what they
saw or heard.
The disciple(s) found the sepulchre where Jesus was laid down, empty, and
made the conclusion that he was resurrected because the disciples and
other witnesses saw him alive after the alleged Crucifixion. Nobody saw
the moment he was resurrected. Jesus himself stated that he did not die on
the cross in Luke 24:36-41, as explained in the following paragraphs.
Early Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went to the sepulchre, which was
empty. She saw somebody standing who looked like a gardener. She
recognized him after a conversation to be Jesus and wanted to touch him.
Jesus said (John 20:17):
"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father..."
Now read Luke 24:36-41:
"And as they (disciples) thus spoke, Jesus himself stood in the midst of
them and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and
frightened, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto
them, Why are you troubled? And why so thoughts arise in your hearts?
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me end see; for a
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus
spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed
not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And
they gave him a piece of boiled fish and of a honeycomb. And he took it,
and did eat before them."
Does a spiritual or dead body have a need to eat food? Jesus eating of
food was to prove to the disciples that he was not a spirit, but rather,
he was still alive and not dead.
Jesus being alive and not dead is further supported in his own prophecy
(Matthew 12:40):
"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth."
Did Jesus fulfill this miracle? Christians would say "yes," because Jesus
died and rose three days later according to Luke 24:36 and Matthew 20:19,
to name a few verses. However, in line with the miracle of Jonah and
according to the Bible, Jesus only spent one day and two nights in the
sepulchre, and not three days and three nights as he prophesied.
Jesus was put in the sepulchre just before sunset on Friday (Good Friday)
and was found missing before sunrise on Sunday (Easter). If we were to
s-t-r-e-t-c-h the time frame a bit, one may say that Jesus spent three
days in the earth, but there is no way and I repeat, no way, that Jesus
spent three nights in the earth. We must not forget that the Gospels are
explicit in telling us that it was "before sunrise" on Sunday morning that
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty.
Consequently, there are some inconsistencies as to whether Jesus fulfilled
his own prophecy. Whether he was actually crucified, or if the day (Good
Friday) of his alleged Crucifixion is wrong. Another significant point to
mention is that Jonah was alive in the belly of the whale. The Christians
says, Jesus was dead in the belly of the earth/tomb, and this contradicts
Jesus’ own prophecy. Jesus said (Luke 11:30):
"As Jonah was...so shall the Son of man be."
If Jonah was alive, so was Jesus.
One critical event that took place before the alleged Crucifixion was the
prayer of Jesus to God for help. Luke 22:42:
"Saying Father if thou be willing, remove this cup (of death) from me:
nevertheless not my will, but thine be done."
Jesus’ prayer not to die on the cross was accepted by God according to
Luke 22:43 and Hebrews 5:7. Therefore, if all of Jesus’ prayer were
accepted by God, including not to die on the cross, how could he have died
on the cross?
In Matthew 27:46, it states that while Jesus was on the cross, he said:
"Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?).
If Jesus said these words, it represents a blatant declaration of
disbelief according to all theological authorities. This is a great insult
as such words could only come from an unbeliever in God. Further, it is
incredible that such words should come from a Prophet of God, because God
never breaks His promise and His Prophets never complained against His
promise, especially when the Prophet’s mission is understood. It could be
said that whoever relates that this statement was said by a Prophet
(Jesus), is a disbeliever.
Muslims believe, as the Qur’an states, Jesus was not crucified. It was the
intention of his enemies to put him to death on the cross, but Allah saved
him from their plot. Qur’an 4:157:
"That they (Jews) said boasting, "We killed Christ Jesus, the son of Mary,
the Messenger of Allah, but they (Jews) killed him not, nor crucified
him..."
(An Nisa 4:157)
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