Every Reference to Jesus in the Qur'an on Today's DL

Broadcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

And now with today's topic, here is James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon. I began a little project today just to be ready for our time together this afternoon or if you're in the Eastern time zone.

This evening, I wanted, I was working out this morning and I was listening to some lectures and Jay Smith said something that really encapsulated some thoughts I had had, just said it a whole lot better than I could have come up with.

And basically what he said in regards to Jesus in the Quran is that the Jesus of the Quran is an argument, not a person. And if you have ever read the Quran and you have ever tried to make a coherent picture out of the person of Jesus as he appears in that text, you fully understand what it was that he was referring to there.

The Jesus of the Bible is a historical person. You can trace his movements around on a map. You can find the vast majority, not every single one, because some of the places he visited were very small and traces of them have either not been discovered or have not survived history, but the vast majority of places, Nazareth and Capernaum and Jerusalem.

You can go to these places and the Sea of Galilee and you can visit these places to this very day. And he's placed in history. We have Roman soldiers and we have Pilate and we have Herod and we have the political situation going on at that time.

And it is very, very clear that the writers of the New Testament intend to communicate to us a Jesus who existed in time and space, who was truly a man, who truly ministered for a specific period of time in a specific place and said specific things and did specific things.

And this is very clear. This is something we can look at and we can examine. The Jesus of the Qur 'an is very different. It is pretty clear to me that the Jesus of the Qur 'an is the Jesus of the understanding of Muhammad and the early Muslims.

And it is an understanding that is grossly flawed. Remember that Muhammad, and I made this point in the debate back in May, Muhammad is believed by most to be illiterate. That is, he was not trained in writing, could not read, and even if he could have, the scriptures were not yet available in his language.

And so, at best he is going on second, third, fourth hand information and this comes out very clearly in the Qur 'an. And as a result, it seems very obvious to me that Muhammad is assuming a certain level of knowledge on the part of his readers of what is communicated in the New Testament.

I don't see any evidence that Muhammad intended his followers to go down the road that they have gone down in becoming grossly anti-Christian. Now certainly he is opposed to Christianity, but he sees himself as the fulfillment, as a continuation of this line.

And it's his ignorance of the Christian scriptures that leads to all sorts of self-contradiction and error and things like that. And these are things we discuss in regards to the subject of apologetics with the Islamic people.

Now what I started to do this morning, I could have simply asked my computer programs that I have, and I have a number of them, to give us, to give me, a listing of all the occurrences of the name of Jesus in an English translation.

And in fact, I did that with Pictal, I did a search, came up with a certain list of words. But I just did not feel that that would be enough. So much of what we have, and I certainly feel this for myself, is based solely upon English translations, and so I wanted to double-check.

And it took a little while to do it, but I wanted to double-check the accuracy of that search, and so I used the Cassus Concordance of the Quran in Arabic, and of course, for those of you wondering, we're only dealing with one particular text that does not mean, as many Islamic apologists would like to claim, that there are not textual variations.

There are even textual variations between printed versions of the Quran today, but still, there is a ecclesiastical text, a received text, we might say, of the Quran, and that's what we're searching, that's what we're utilizing in talking to a Muslim anyway.

That does not mean that there are not textual issues that need to be dealt with in regards to the subject of the Quran. But anyway, I used the Cassus Concordance and was able to verify the listing that I got from the English search, but I wanted to double-check it, make sure that the Arabic and the English were matching up at that particular point in time.

And then, that gave me a listing of verses, starting in Surah 2 and going on from there. But the problem is that you need to remember that the Quran is not organized chronologically. The first Surah was not the first Surah written, the second Surah was not the second Surah written, the 114th wasn't the last one.

It is organized on the basis of size of the particular Surahs, the chapters, not necessarily the number of verses, because the verses can be divided up differently, and therefore you'll have some Surahs that have more verses than others, but they appear later, but it's because the versification makes them shorter, etc., etc.

So, I wanted to read in your hearing today every reference in the Quran to Jesus. And some of you are going, oh, wow, I think I'll go watch the paint dry. There are only 25. There are only 25 references.

There's no way on earth you could ever create a meaningful Christology from these 25 verses. Not possible. Once again, Islam depends upon Christianity even to deny what the Christian faith believes. But I wanted to read them to you, but I didn't want to read them to you in canonical order, that is, in the order in which they are found in the Quran, because that's an artificial order.

So, there are multiple suggestions as to what the actual order of the writing of the Surahs are. Remember, Surah is a chapter, Ayah is a verse. So, if you hear me using Surah and Ayah, that's just chapter and verse using their terminology.

And so, in the back of the Cassus Concordance, there's an appendix that provides two different ways of looking at the order of the Surahs. I just used the first one. They're fairly close to one another.

Don't make a whole lot of difference. And so, I'm going to read for you all 25 references to Jesus in the Quran, starting from the earliest and going to the latest. Now, again, think with me for a moment.

Why is this relevant? Well, turn on Fox News, and that should be the end of that. Secondly, just not right now. Secondly, why would we be even bothering to look at something like this? Remember the historical context of Muhammad's life.

When he starts off, he is a persecuted religious minority. When he finishes his life, he is now the leader of a brand new monotheistic religion, in essence, and has experienced military success. So, he is now a leader of cities and a growing religion state.

And things change when you go from becoming a... When you're a religious minority to becoming a religious majority. I mean, we can see this even in Islam today. Moderate and liberal Muslims know that they could not say what they say in a Muslim nation where Sharia law has been established.

They know that their own religion would preclude that freedom on their part. And so, things change, and things changed in Muhammad's perspectives and views as well. And so, this doing it in chronological order, obviously, at first, when Muhammad is basically unknown, there's not going to be as much of a reason to develop an argument against Christianity.

You will see, chronologically, that this grows over time, as I read through the list, as he encounters more and more people and has to try to adapt and answer to the questions. It's still very clear to me, he never had an accurate knowledge in his lifetime.

For example, the doctrine of the Trinity. He did not have an accurate knowledge of Christian theology in many, many ways. And of course, the Muslim listening is offended even by what I've just said on any number of bases.

But one of which is, I have constantly been referring to the Quran as the word of Muhammad, not of God. Well, they don't have any choice at that point, given the fact that the Quran contradicts the Christian scriptures and shows an ignorance of what Christians believed at that time.

God knew what we believed back then. And if the Quran is an error in what it is responding to, and in defining Christian theology, well, there's nothing we can do about that. It's an error, and I'm not going to attribute error to God.

I fear God more than I do someone with an AK -47. And that AK -47 doesn't change the fact that Muhammad was wrong in what he said. That's just reality, and we still live in a land where we can say those things.

And so, we need to say them while we still can, basically. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to read for you the 25 verses, 25 ayahs, and give you the references if you want to write them down, so that you can keep this list for yourself, and you won't have to do what I did, in looking through the Kassas Concordance of the Quran, and track these things down for yourself.

Now, obviously, I'm just looking at the particular ayahs. Some of these, you'll notice, are in a longer section of discussion, where second-hand references are being made to Jesus, something like that.

These are just the verses where the word Isa itself appears in the Arabic of the Quran. All right, the first one, chronologically, would be Surah 19, ayah 34. Such was Jesus, son of Mary. This is a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt.

So, there's a first reference, chronologically, in Surah 19, ayah 34. Such was Jesus, son of Mary. This is a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. Not much of a commentary that is made there.

Then, we skip to Surah 43, ayah 63. 43, 63. When Jesus came with clear proofs of Allah's sovereignty, he said, I have come unto you with wisdom, and to make plain some of that concerning which ye differ, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.

Now, please note, you need to understand, that a Muslim believes that Jesus was a Muslim. A Muslim believes that Jesus spoke as a Muslim, talked like a Muslim, worshipped like a Muslim. And that's one of the reasons why, if all they've ever seen is what the Quran says of Jesus, when they look at what the Bible says, that Jesus looks so different to them.

It's because the Jesus of the Quran is just basically a Muslim himself. That was Surah 43, verse, ayah 63. The next reference here is Surah 42, ayah 13. 42, 13. He hath ordained for you that religion which he commended unto Noah, and that which he inspired in thee, Muhammad, and that which we commended unto Abraham and Moses and Jesus, saying, establish the religion and be not divided therein.

Dreadful for the idolaters is that unto which thou callest them. Allah chooseth for himself whom he will, and guideth unto himself him who turneth toward him. That's 42, 13. Now, please note in that context, the consistent emphasis upon the fact that all of those who came before were Muslims.

That this is the same religion. There cannot be division. There is, in this time period, the calling of people to this one religious faith. Muhammad wants to see Jews and Christians embracing him as the prophet of Allah, the one true God.

And he calls them to do so in that context. And the final division has not yet taken place where they begin to oppose him and he comes to the conclusion they're not going to do that. So, that last one was 42, 13.

Now, Surah 6, ayah 85, 685. And Zechariah and John and Jesus and Elias, each one of them was of the righteous. So, again, just basically a listing of Jesus' name in the context of a previous apostle, a previous prophet, a revealer of the one true God.

That's 685, 685 if you're writing it down. Now, we'll have a number now that will appear in Surah 2. Surah 2 is where we'll be reading now, beginning in verse 87. Surah 2, ayah 87. And verily, we gave unto Moses the scripture and we caused a train of messengers to follow after him.

And we gave unto Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs of Allah's sovereignty. That, again, just stopping for a moment, echoing back to what we read before. Remember that. Continuing, and we supported him with the Holy Spirit.

Is it ever so that when there cometh unto you a messenger from Allah, with that which ye yourselves desire not, ye grow arrogant, and some ye disbelieve, and some ye slay? And so here the Quran is, again, putting the train, Moses, Jesus, and who now is speaking?

But Muhammad. He's standing as the final prophet in that line. And so Jesus has to be reduced to that level himself. That was Surah 2, ayah 87. Surah 2, ayah 136 says, Say, O Muslims, we believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us, and that, and, please note, this is an important one, and that which was revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord, we make no distinction between any of them, and unto him we have surrendered.

Now, I believe I made reference to this text in the debate back in May with Shabir Ali. And if you continue in that section, you have a basis, once again, for arguing that what was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Jesus, when he says we believe that, well, did it no longer exist?

Because, again, we can determine what the text of the Old and New Testaments was, really without any question, at the time of Muhammad. And we still have that today. So these allegations of wholesale corruption and wholesale change, how can they be understood within the context of the Quran itself?

It seems quite clear that Muhammad believed that the text that was available to him was still correct. It's just that people didn't understand it properly. If they just follow him, it was his later followers that really got into the textual corruption argument.

That's Surah 2, Ayah 136. Then we go to Surah 2, Ayah 253. Now, remember, you're going 253. Remember, Surah 2 is going to be the longest surah in the Quran. Surah 1 is not the longest. It is more of an introduction, but Surah 2 is the longest.

That's why there's hundreds of verses in it. 253 is the one we're looking at now. Of those messengers, some of whom we have caused to excel others, and of whom there are some unto whom Allah spake, while some of them he exalted above others in degree, and we gave Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs of Allah's sovereignty, and we supported him with the Holy Spirit.

We've heard that one before, haven't we? Yes. And if Allah had so willed it, those who followed after them would not have fought one with another after the clear proofs had come unto them. But they differed, some of them believing, and some disbelieving.

And if Allah had so willed it, they would not have fought one with another, but Allah doth what he will. Now, there's an interesting commentary on the divisions that existed amongst Christians. But if I'm reading that correctly, the question I would have to ask is, okay, there were differences, there was differing between the followers of Christ, but some believed and some disbelieved.

It doesn't say they all became disbelievers. So, who is the true line of Christians in Muhammad's day? There seems to still be one. There seems to still be a true line of scripture. There still seems to be a true line of Christians.

Who is it? Well, we can't really tell. I'm seeing some folks in channel asking questions about the translation. This is the Piktal translation. It's different than others that you might be using, but it is generally given the highest credibility because it is an Islamic translation in English rather than some of the non-Islamic translations, which we can understand.

I would imagine if we were looking at English translations of the Bible or Arabic translations of the Bible, some of which were done by Muslims, we might have some questions about the accuracy of that translation.

We would prefer to have a Christian do that. So, there is the reason. You're using the Yusuf Ali translation. It's going to be a little bit different. Okay, we move from Surah 2 to Surah 3. It's the first time I think we've moved chronologically there and canonically.

Surah 3, 45. Surah 3, Ayah 45. And remember when the angel said, O Mary, Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the hereafter, and one of those brought near unto Allah.

So, Jesus is here identified, as he almost always is, as son of Mary. The emphasis there is to emphasize the fact of his humanity, that he's not God. He is a human being, the son of a woman. But he's also the Messiah.

Jesus is the Messiah. This is one of the contradictions between the Quran and the 14th century fraudulent book called the Gospel of Barnabas, where the Gospel of Barnabas, probably written by a Christian convert to Islam, but one who was not yet quite up to speed on what Islam itself believed, or had teachers in his Islamic community that weren't themselves fully up to speed, the Gospel of Barnabas actually says that Muhammad was the Messiah and denies that title to Jesus.

But it is obviously a fraudulent book from the 14th century and meaningful Islamic apologists avoid it because they recognize that it's very common amongst lay Islamic apologists to try to utilize this source.

Anyway, Jesus is identified as the Messiah, and as I mentioned last week or possibly in the last dividing line, I don't remember which one it is, in discussing future debates with Shabir Ali, one of the questions that has come up is, does the Old Testament prophesy the coming of Jesus?

And without the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus, how can anybody know? I don't see any evidence at that point that the Quran is in agreement, but of course it doesn't really address the issue of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in that context.

But anyway, he's also seen as one of those brought near unto Allah, and this idea of Jesus being brought near unto Allah will come up more and more as we look at the text here. So 345, from there we move to 352, Surah 3, Ayah 52, But when Jesus became conscious of their disbelief, he cried, Who will be my helpers in the cause of Allah?

The disciples said, We will be Allah's helpers. We believe in Allah and bear thou witness that we have surrendered unto him. So once again, we have the picture of Jesus as a good Muslim, as a servant of Allah.

And he is not calling men unto himself. He is not saying, come unto me. He is saying, come unto Allah. That's why, again, and I'll just mention it here so you remember it. What got me thinking about this this morning was that statement that Jesus, and this statement actually, J. Smith was quoting from a Muslim scholar, a rather liberal Muslim scholar, but a Muslim scholar all the same, who was the one who said, the Jesus of the Quran is an argument, not a person.

And have you noticed anything so far about each one of these citations? We're not quite halfway through, but have you noticed something? None of them are put in any context at all. Jesus is just sort of floating around.

It's not said that Jesus said this in Capernaum. He didn't say this the week before Passover. We're not given times.

We're not given places. We're not given context. It's just Jesus speaking.

And it's that ahistorical nature. Well, how could it be any other? I mean, let's face it. Muhammad wouldn't have necessarily even known of many of the places in the New Testament because he couldn't read the New Testament.

It wasn't available to him. The few references that he would make would be from stories. And we're going to see here in a little while that he accepted as truthful the stories that are just clearly and plainly false and in error on a historical level.

So there's Surah 345. We've got 352. We just read that about we want to be Allah's helpers. These are the disciples. So now 355, Surah 3, Ayah 55. And remember when Allah said, O Jesus, lo, I am gathering thee and causing thee to ascend unto me and I'm cleansing thee of those who disbelieve and I'm setting those who follow thee above those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.

Then unto me you will all return and I shall judge between you as to what wherein you used to differ. Now again, here's this idea of the coming, the raising up of Jesus into the presence of Allah. But notice as well, notice what it said here.

He's being cleansed of those who disbelieve. And then notice this. I am setting those who follow thee above those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection. Now what does that mean? If that promise has been fulfilled, then again, isn't there a true remnant in the days of Muhammad?

The day of resurrection hasn't come yet, has it? And so what does it mean to set those who follow thee above those who disbelieve? Have these disbelievers corrupted the scriptures so we no longer know what the scriptures state?

I mean, there's all sorts of problems here. In light of the fact that really, Islamic apologetics have developed after the days of Muhammad himself. Oh sure, there's some level where he had to start interacting, but especially the interaction with Christianity does not take place immediately.

And it's really longer down the road before Islamic intellectuals are trying to engage with Christian intellectuals. I mean, this is the time of jihad and fighting. It's not a lot of intellect going on there, just like there's not a lot of intellect going on in Iraq right now.

Car bombs and swords do not give rise to a whole lot of meaningful interaction. They are inherently non-rational. And so, interesting comment in the channel. I wonder if the difference in our translations of the Qur 'an reflect differences in chronic manuscripts.

No, they would not. Not at this level. Arabic is a Semitic language, very similar to Hebrew. And I think if you were to look at, and if I were to note everything that's in parentheses in the translation that I'm reading, that might change some of these things.

But the fact is, no. Though there are variants, even amongst printed chronic texts, they would not have this level of impact. This is translational. It's due to the fact that you're translating a language.

If you look at a wide spectrum of translations of the Hebrew Old Testament, you'll see similar differences because you're translating a Semitic language. And there is less specificity in Semitic languages, in ancient Semitic languages, than there is in, for example, Greek.

I mean, Greek is just, it's just got more ways of saying things. It can be more specific than these languages, which is another interesting thing to comment on. But we'll move on from there because we're not even halfway through here.

All right. So we have 355, now 359. You can see we've got a context going here. Lo, the likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust. Then he said unto him, Be, and he is.

That's important. 359 is an important text to remember because of the fact that we are here, in essence, having that assertion being made. And this is an argument, again, that Jesus is but a created being.

The idea, it's very clear to me, Muhammad did not understand anything like the hypostatic union, did not understand anything about being the God-man, et cetera, et cetera. He's assuming Unitarianism, just like Jehovah's Witnesses do this very day.

And as every Islamic apologist does. And there you've got it being brought forth in regards to Jesus. He is likeness of Adam, create him of dust. He's a creature and totally dependent upon God who said, Be, and there he is.

That also becomes important, by the way, just in passing, don't have time to really get into this. I can't believe we're already halfway through the program and I've, I didn't expect this to take this long.

I was sort of figuring 15, 20 minutes and I'm expanding upon everything. That's because as I, partly as I'm watching the channel, I'm seeing where stuff needs to be expanded upon in explaining things to folks.

And so I'm doing that as it scrolls by when I can see it, I can't see everything that's going by. But anyway, it is important to recognize that one of the scandalous beliefs to Muslims is the concept of the virgin birth in the sense of the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary.

They just say, God can just simply say, Be, and he is. And DDOT especially like to cast aspersions on the account of the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. And so that goes back to that particular section.

Keep that in mind. We don't really have time to go over it right now, but it is important to remember that. Now, so we've got 359. So let's move from there to 384, Surah 3, Ayah 84. Say, O Muhammad, we believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord.

We make no distinction between any of them and unto him we have surrendered. Again, almost identical to what we read earlier. But once again, words that seem to me to indicate a continuity, not just in prophetic line, but in what was revealed.

So the argument would be, well, what was revealed was Islam. And if you believe something different Islam, then you're not really believing any of that. But that's a later sort of anachronistic reading back into the text itself at that particular point in time.

Now, where did, okay, that's coming up here. All right, next we have Surah 61, Ayah 6. And when Jesus, son of Mary said, O children of Israel, lo, I am the messenger of Allah unto you, confirming that which was revealed before me in the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger who cometh after me, whose name is the praised one.

Yet when he hath come unto them with clear proof, they say, this is mere magic. Now, Surah 61, verse 6 is going to be coming up in my debate with Shabir Ali. And I'd like to say hello to Shabir Ali because I know that Shabir listens to the dividing line and has ever since our debate.

And so I'd like to say hi to Shabir. It's good to talk to you. Of course, it's Ramadan right now. So I doubt that he'd have to, I guess he'd have to listen in the evening or something. But anyway, this is going to come up because this is a tough verse to understand.

If you actually say that the Torah, and now, of course, Torah technically can be limited to the first five books of Moses, the Pentateuch, but it is generally used by Muhammad. I think we can make a case of the Old Testament as a whole, the entire Jewish scriptures, rather than Tanakh, a term we would use Torah, Nevi 'im, Ketuvim, the law of the prophets and the writings.

And so notice what it says. I'm a messenger of Allah unto you, confirming that which was revealed before me in the Torah. Well, how do you confirm that? He's the Messiah. Is there nothing in the Torah about the Messiah?

Well, of course there is. The term Mashiach appears, the anointed one, Psalm 2, for example, and bring good tidings of a messenger who cometh after me, whose name is the praised one. Now there is the, you can see why this is going to be a text in both debates, because now you have being put into the mouth of Jesus with no context, nothing in history, different language, far removed geographically, half a millennium removed, more than half a millennium removed over time from a man who doesn't know the Old Testament, New Testament.

All of a sudden you have him claiming to have these words of Jesus somehow, which you just simply have to believe by faith that Allah just revealed this to him. And that's all there is to it. You can't have that same level of faith about the New Testament writers or the Old Testament writers or anything like that, but you can have that faith in Muhammad.

And so now you have being put into the words of the mouth of Jesus that he brought good tidings of a messenger who comes after me, whose name is the praised one. That, of course, is Muhammad. And I'm seeing Rich chuckling through the window and probably thinking the same thing that I have thought of over and over again as I've been studying Islam.

And there's only a certain number of people who would have these thoughts because there's only a certain number of people who would have in any depth studied either of these religions. But there was another guy who felt like he had to sort of stick into the mouths of inspired prophets of the past, prophecies about himself.

And his name was Joseph Smith. And he inserted some prophecies about himself into his inspired version of the Bible. And it does seem that when you're trying to get your own religion off the ground, it helps if you can somehow come up with the idea that the people have prophesied about your coming.

That definitely helps. And if you're a prophet, then you just simply can sort of act all inspired and insert these things into people's, the people's mouths. But anyway, so you have this assertion in Surah 61, Ayah 6.

And then also in Surah 61, now Ayah 14. O ye who believe, be Allah's helpers, even as Jesus son of Mary said unto the disciples, who are my helpers for Allah? They said, we are Allah's helpers. And a party of the children of Israel believed while a party disbelieved.

Then we strengthened those who believed against their foe and they became the uppermost. Now, this is really interesting too. I think you can make a case, and some people already have, I'm not coming up with anything new here.

But I think you can make a case that, think about what this says. Here, Allah is saying that he strengthened those who believed in Jesus against their foe and they became the uppermost. Well, who became the uppermost?

What party became the uppermost? It's fascinating to listen to Shabir Ali because his entire argument repeatedly is that Paul basically hijacked Christianity. And he loves using Jesus seminar type material, the leftist liberal material out there.

And you attack Paul and you blame Paul for the cross and you blame Paul for the substitutionary atonement and you blame Paul for the exaltation of Jesus, the status of Godhood and blah, blah, blah. And these original followers, Mark and stuff like that, they get basically run over by the Mack truck that's called Paul, or Paul's driving the Mack truck that runs them over or whatever.

That's how Christianity and even the later books of the New Testament become perverted from the Islamic ideal. But that goes directly against Surah 61, 14. That says, and this is not that we would strengthen, this is saying we strengthen those who believed past tense against their foe and they became the uttermost.

How does that fit with the modern viewpoint used by Islamic apologists on this issue? I don't see that it does, to be perfectly honest with you. Okay, well, I gotta pick up the pace here. I'm not even gonna get this done today.

My goodness, what's going on here? Stop preaching and you might get it done. Okay, all right, sorry. Surah 57, ayah 27, 57, 27. Then we caused our messengers to follow in their footsteps and we caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow and gave him the gospel and place compassion and mercy in the hearts of those who followed him.

But monasticism they invented. We ordained it not for them, only seeking all his pleasure and they observed it not with right observance. So we give those of them who believe their reward, but many of them are evil livers.

I think it means to live, not livers. But 57, 27 and now again, monasticism, monks and things like that would have been one of the things that he would have been encountering. And it obviously had begun to develop as early as the middle of the third century.

You've got the Desert Fathers and Egypt and things like that. And so that would have been something he would have encountered in the context of early, those first 600 years of Christianity. And so there you have the Quran saying, yeah, not good stuff.

Now, Surah 4. And of course, Surah 4 contains probably the most important reference to Jesus in the Quran, certainly the most controversial in debate and things like that. And that is Surah 4, 157. Surah 4, Ayat 157.

And because of their saying, we slew the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, Allah's messenger, they slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them. And lo, those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof.

They have no knowledge thereof, save pursuit of conjecture. They slew him not for certain. Surah 4, 157, the foundation of the Islamic denial of the crucifixion and hence of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Once again, something written over 600 years after the events by a man without direct access to the Christian scriptures, to the Jewish scriptures, an illiterate man dictating in a language other than that of the original documents.

That needs to be kept in mind. And the standards that are utilized by Islamic apologists, the sources that they use, which question the earliest sources of Christianity would, if taken consistently, likewise completely reject the utilization of that kind of material as being relevant historically.

Then Surah 4, 163. Surah 4, 163. Lo, we inspire thee as we inspired Noah and the prophets after him, as we inspired Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and Jesus and Job and Jonah and Aaron and Solomon, and we imparted unto David the Psalms.

Surah 4, 163. Once again, I don't see any reference to we gave them these things and now they're gone or they've been corrupted or anything along those lines. Instead, you have the divine origination of the Christian and Hebrew scriptures affirmed.

And of course, we then have to question, well, if Allah has protected the text of the Quran, why didn't he protect that which he had also given to these? It does seem to be a real question. Surah 4, 171.

Surah 4, ayah 171. O people of the scripture, do not exaggerate in your religion, nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah and his word, which he conveyed unto Mary and a spirit from him.

That's by the way, I stop right there. A spirit from him. That's there's a lot of conjecture as to what exactly that means. Won't get into it now, but this is another important text. So believe in Allah and his messengers and say not three.

Now some English translations. I'm not done here. I'm taking just about let me finish it. Cease it is better for you. Allah is only one God. Far is it removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son.