Who was Jesus?  (4)

Adaoted from Kamal Salibi

Apparently, there was a Christianity in Arabia - that of the Nasara, or 'Nazarenes' – which was several centuries older than the one which relates to the historical Jesus of the Gospels: a primordial Christianity which survived on its original home ground certainly until the coming of Islam. The Koran assumes it to be the true Christianity, and asserts that its founder, Issa Ibn Maryam, was the true Jesus who did not die on the cross. On the other hand, the Koran implicitly recognizes the existence of another brand of Christianity – allegedly a false one – whose followers, in grave error, worshipped the same 'Jesus' as a god, maintaining that he was actually crucified. This claim is roundly dismissed in the Koran as a delusion. We already know, however, that there was in fact a historical Jesus who was put to death on the cross in about AD 30: a Jesus who was allegedly a descendant of David, not of Aaron, and therefore belonged to the Israelite tribe of Judah, not to the tribe of Levi. This Jesus could not have been the son of a woman called Mary, and at the same time have a maternal aunt with the same name, as the Gospel of John asserts. Moreover, he was called Jeshu, not Issa, and the little that can be known about him comes basically from the Christian Gospels, where he is certainly given some of the The Koranic testimony 59 attributes of the older Issa. Matthew, Mark and Luke, for example, assert that his mother was called Mary, Matthew and Luke pointing out that this Mary was still a virgin when she conceived him. John gives the man other important attributes of the Koranic Issa, as we shall soon discover; and so does Luke. All four Gospels call him the Son of God – an appellation which, according to the Koran, was attributed to Issa by his followers in grave error. How much more do the Gospels confuse between the Jesus who was Jeshu, and the one who was Issa? More important, what was the source of their information about the older, original 'Jesus', considering that it could not have been the existing text of the Koran, but a text or tradition which was much more ancient?