Who was Jesus?

Issa, Jeshu and the Gospel of the Nazarenes

Adapted from Kamal Salibi, Who was Jesus?

Apparently, there was a Christianity in Arabia, that of the Nasara, or 'Nazarenes', probably from the 6th century BC. that was several centuries older than the one related to the historical Jesus of the Gospels: it was a primordial Christianity that survived in its original homeland certainly until the arrival of Islam, that is, for more than 1,000 years between the sixth century BC. and the seventh century AD

The Koran assumes that this is true Christianity, and affirms that its founder, Issa Ibn Maryam (Jesus, son of Mary), was the true Jesus who did not die on the cross. '

Issa bin Maryam (meaning Jesus, son of Mary) lived in the 6th century a.c. and his lineage would last until the first century of the common era and even beyond

On the other hand, the authors of the Koran (Muhammad and his disciples) who knew Arab Nazarene Christianity very well recognize implicitly the existence of another type of Christianity, supposedly false. According to the Koran, the followers of that false Christianity, in grave error, worshiped the same "Jesus" as a god, maintaining that it is who he was who was crucified. This claim is dismissed outright in the Koran as a hoax.

However, we already know that there was a historical figure (Jesus?) Who died on the cross around 30 AD: a Jesus who was supposed to be descended from David, not from Aaron, and who therefore belonged to the Israelite tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi. This Jesus could not have been the son of a woman named Mary, and at the same time have a maternal aunt with the same name, as the Gospel of John affirms. Also, it was not called Jeshu, not Issa (Issa is the name of Jesus in Arabic), but Jeshu (which is a Greek version of the name that has lent itself to permanent confusion). The little that is known about this second person comes basically from the Christian Gospels.

In the Gospels this Jeshu is certainly given some of the attributes of ancient Issa. Matthew, Mark and Luke, for example, claim that their mother was named Mary, Matthew and Luke pointing out that this Mary was still a virgin when she conceived him. John gives man other important attributes of the Qur'an Issa, as we will soon discover; and so does Lucas. The four Gospels call him Son of God, a denomination that, according to the Qur'an, 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 importantly, what was the source of their information about the original and ancient 'Jesus', considering that it could not be the existing text of the Qur'an, but a text or tradition that was much older?

The Gospel that still existed in Arabia in the seventh century AD, was the one used by Waraqah Ibn Nawfal, probably written in Aramaic, not in Hebrew. From this lost Aramaic Gospel, nothing can be directly known unless its text is rediscovered one day; but one can safely assume that the story he told about Jesus was not very different from the one that was reconstructed in the previous chapter of the Qur'anic text. It must have been the Gospel of the Nazarenes, whose Jesus was the Issa of the Qur'an Issa, not the Jeshu of Paul and the Greek Gospels. Had it not been so, the Koran could not have claimed that his description of Issa's career was identical to that of the real Injil without exposing this claim to a serious challenge. Certainly, he would not have spoken of the Christian "priests and hermits" who recognize the truth of the Qur'an, and weeping to hear that they are recited (see chapter 4), unless there were known cases in which this happened. The Islamic traditions already recorded in the eighth century AD, and that claim to relate first-hand information, indicate that the same Gospel (in its original Aramaic? In translation?) Still existed in the time of Muhammad in Ethiopia (known by the Arabs as al- Habashah, or 'Abyssinia'). Several of the Prophet's early followers were persecuted in Mecca and fled across the Red Sea in search of refuge in that country. But his Mecca enemies immediately sent a message to warn the Ethiopian king (called Negus) that the Muslim fugitives had abandoned the faith of their ancestors and emigrated to their country without seeking to convert to their religion and become Christians, as was proper to they. do. According to Ibn Ishaq, who wrote the oldest known biography of Muhammad, the Negus summoned the fugitives to his presence and interrogated them on the matter, while his chief bishops attended armed with his writings. In response, the spokesman of the Muslim group recited the chapter of the Koran that speaks of Jesus as Issa Ibn Maryam.

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?

Who was Jesus? (3)
Adaoted from Kamal Salibi

There are two points in this reconstructed Koranic story which are particularly remarkable. First, it makes the correct distinction between the Mosaic monotheism of the early Israelites, and the Jewish faith which began to evolve from it in post-exilic times – with the career of Ezra, by general reckoning. Second, the story clearly depicts Judaism and the original Christianity of the Nazarenes as different departures from the original religion of Israel, and thus suggests a new The Koranic testimony  vision of the origins of Christianity as a sister religion to Judaism, rather than as a runaway Jewish sect as has long been the common view. While the Koran does not fix a place or date for the mission of Issa, it does give the general impression that, as a latter-day prophet to Israel, he was active in the same environment where Islam was born, i.e. in Western Arabia; also, that Nazarene Christianity emerged at a time when the Israelites, as a people, as distinct from the Jews as a latter-day religious community, still existed – which implies a date for the mission of the Koranic 'Jesus' which is perhaps closer to the fifth century BC than to the first century AD. While there is nothing in Islamic literature to endorse such an early date for the career of Issa, there is at least one indication in this literature that Christianity (certainly, the religion of the Nasara ) originated in Arabia rather than Palestine. Writing his geographical dictionary alRawd al-mi'tar fi khabar al-aqtar in the fourteenth century AD, Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Mun'im al-Himyari, a North African Arab originally from the Yemen, expanded on the history of pre-Islamic Christianity in the region of Najran, on the north-eastern peripheries of the Yemen, remarking unequivocally that 'the origin of this religion was in Najran' (wa-kan asl dhalik al-din bi-Najran).* That Christianity should have originated in Arabia before making a fresh start and assuming a new form in Palestine is not implausible. As indicated in the introduction, I remain personally convinced that the history of the Biblical Israelites ran its full course in Western Arabia, and that the original monotheism of Moses as well as the Judaism that evolved from it have their roots there, and not in Palestine. In terms of historical geography, Palestine can be viewed as a northward extension of Western Arabia, and some Arabian Israelites apparently did arrive to settle in that country in Biblical times. Later, during the Hellenistic period, Judaism under the Hasmonean dynasty came to have one of its main political centres in Palestine, where the principal Jewish city was called Jerusalem after the older, Israelite (and hence * See al-Rawd al-Mi'tar fi khabar al-aqtar, ed. Ihsan Abbas (Beirut, 1984), p. 573. 54 Biblical) Jerusalem of Arabia - probably the present village of Al Sharim in the Asir highlands, once referred to in ancient Arabi literature as Uri Shalim. Subsequently, Herod the Great erected a great temple in the Palestinian Jerusalem, which was destroyed when the city was sacked by the Romans in AD 70. The so-called Wailing Wall in this city is the remnant of this temple, and of no other. Despite continuous archaeological efforts, not the least shred of evidence has been discovered to indicate that the Biblical temple of King Solomon had earlier stood on the same site. In fact, there is clear evidence that it did not. The most outstanding natural feature of the premises of Herod's temple is the monolith which stands to this day under the famous Dome of the Rock, which was erected to provide it with architectural cover in Islamic times. The Biblical description of the temple of Solomon, which is fully detailed (1 Kings 6:2–36), does not mention any conspicuous monolith standing within its precincts. In Western Arabia, the political history of the Israelites, as recorded in the Hebrew Bible, came to an end with the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the captivity of its people by the Babylonians in 586 BC. After conquering Babylon in 539 BC, the Persians arranged for large numbers of the Israelite exiles to return to their Arabian homelands and attempt a reconstruction of their society on its original territory. The career of Ezra belongs to this period. While the returned exiles were not successful in re-establishing themselves in Western Arabia as a state, they probably continued to exist in the area for a long time as a people organized in different urban or rural communities, or as tribes.

Who was Jesus? (2)
Adaoted from Kamal Salibi

To appreciate the real extent to which the Gospel material is in fact exegetical elaboration of Old Testament material, let us consider the example of the Christmas story as told in Matthew. This Gospel explains that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she discovered that she was with child by the Holy Spirit. Matthew immediately adds: 'Now all this happened in order to make what the Lord had said through the prophet Isaiah come true, "a virgin will become pregnant and have a son . . ." ' (1:22–3, referring to Isaiah 7:14). Matthew next explains that Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, 'For this is what the prophet wrote: "Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least of the cities of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel" '

When King Herod of Judea heard that the Magi were asking where the baby was born who was destined to be the 'king of the Jews', he ordered the killing of all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighbourhood who were two years old or younger (Matthew 2:16). King Herod of Judea (37 BC –AD 4), as is well known, was an important historical figure in early Roman Palestine, but the available records do not indicate that he ever ordered a massacre of all the male infants of the Bethlehem district. However, after relating this episode in his Christmas story, Matthew stops to point out that: 'In this way what the prophet Jeremiah had said came true: "A sound is heard in Ramah, the sound of bitter weeping. Rachel is crying for her children; she refuses to be comforted, for they are dead" ' (2:17–18, quoting Jeremiah 31:15). Rachel, it must be explained here, is spoken of in the Old Testament as a wife of Jacob, the common ancestor claimed for the Israelite tribes, and she reportedly died in the vicinity of Bethlehem and was buried there (Genesis 35:19). Matthew next says that Joseph, to keep Jesus safe from the massacre ordered by Herod, took the baby and his mother to Egypt, then brought them back after Herod was dead – all this 'to make what the Lord had said through the prophet come true, "I called my son out of Egypt

Jesus is referred to in Mark (6:3) as 'the carpenter' (Greek tekton), and in Matthew (13:55) as 'the carpenter's son'. This could mean that Jesus actually came from a family which traditionally practised carpentry. On the other hand, it may simply indicate that the surname of Jesus was the Aramaic Bar Nagara, meaning 'Son of the Carpenter'. In Semitic surnames (as in modern Arabic ones) the part of the appellation indicating descent or flliality (in Aramaic Bar, meaning 'son of) can be maintained or dropped. Hence, the surname of Jesus could have been indicated either as Bar Nagara (i.e. 'Son of the Carpenter'), or more simply as Nagara (i.e. 'the Carpenter'). 2 The father of Jesus was called Joseph. On this point all four Gospels agree (Matthew l:16ff.; 2:13ff.; Luke 1:27; 2:4ff.; 3:23; John 1:45; 6:42). It is not certain that the mother of the historical Jesus was called Mary. While Matthew, Mark and Luke identify her by this name, but say nothing about her immediate family, John seems to make a point of leaving her unnamed (2:1, 3, 5, 12; 6:42; 19:25, 26), but speaks of her in one instance as attending her son's crucifixion accompanied by a sister (Greek adelphe ) called Mary, identified as Mary the wife of Clopas (19:25). The mother of Jesus could not have been called Mary if she really did have a sister by the same name. Faced with this problem, Christian tradition has assumed that the two women were half sisters by the same mother but by different fathers, although there is nothing in the Gospels to support this assumption. 3 Jesus had four brothers called James, Simon, Joses and Judas, and more than one sister (Matthew 13:55;* Mark 6:3). 4 He began to attract public attention shortly after the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (i.e. AD 28 or 29, Luke 3:1), when he was about 30 years old (Luke 3:23); when Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee (4 BC–AD 39, Matthew 14:lff.; Mark 6:14ff; Luke 3:lff.); and when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea (AD 26–36, Luke 3:1). Of this information, the reported age of Jesus is the only one that raises a question, because it seems to plead for two Old Testament parallels: first, the reported age of the Old Testament Joseph when he entered the service of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:46); second, the age of David when he first began to reign as king (2 Samuel 5:4). 5 Jesus had disciples and friends (men and women) whose names are cited in the Gospels, though not always with consistency (see below). 6 He led a disturbance in the Jerusalem temple, after which he was tried in the presence of Pontius Pilate and put to death on the eve of the Jewish passover (Matthew 27:2ff; Mark 15:lff.; Luke 23:lff.), or the day before (John 18:29ff.). Here, one may doubt that the crucifixion of Jesus necessarily took place one or two days before the Jewish Passover, because this can imply an esoteric comparison between his execution and the killing of the Jewish Paschal lamb. Some of this Gospel information about Jesus is validated by other sources. It has already been noted that both the apostle Paul and the Jewish historian Jospehus attest to the fact that Jesus had a brother called James, who was their contemporary. Paul actually met this James. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesaria (d. AD c.340) speaks of grand* Matthew, repeating the information from Mark, renders the name Joses as Joseph. The Gospel evidence 41 children of another brother of Jesus, Jude (i.e. Judas), who were living in Galilee during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (AD 81–96). Quoting the authority of the secondcentury Christian historian Hegesippus, whose original work has been lost, Eusebius (3:19–20) relates the following story about them: The same emperor ordered the execution of all who were of David's line . . . And there still survived of the Lord's family the grandsons of Jude, who was said to be His brother, humanly speaking. These were informed against as being of David's line, and brought. . . before Domitian Caesar .

Who was Jesus? (1)
Adaoted from Kamal Salibi

Most scholars today agree that the Gospels cannot be regarded strictly as history; not as many may be prepared to admit how little history they actually contain. Written probably between about AD 70 and 100, the four canonical Gospels have been attributed by Christian tradition to four apostles: two of them (Matthew and John) companions of Jesus; the other two (Mark and Luke) companions of Paul.

Paul, whose writings are older than the oldest known Gospels, did not believe all the stories about Jesus circulated in his time by the apostles in Jerusalem. To him, some of these stories were mere legend' with no more historical truth than the false reports circulated about Paul himself by these same apostles. Considering that the Gospels, at least in part, probably repeat what the Jerusalem apostles had originally taught about the person and mission of Jesus, it is highly unlikely that Paul would have fully endorsed the truth of their contents. For example, while he did agree with all four Gospels that Jesus was a descendant of David, it is clear that he rejected the accuracy of the various genealogies – among them, no doubt, the two conflicting ones that ultimately found their way into the texts of Matthew and Luke. Yet Paul, in his own writings, said very little about Jesus as a human being. For information about the man in the Christian scriptures, we have mainly the Gospels to go by. Because they frequently speak of general political events in connection with the life and career of Jesus (what are technically called 'synchronisms'), the canonical Gospels give the impression that their authors had done their historical homework and knew exactly what they were talking about. Upon closer scrutiny, however, this turns out to be largely incorrect. Scholars today commonly concede that the Gospels were written to prove that the historical Jesus was in fact the expected Israelite Messiah, or Christ, rather than provide an accurate biography. It is for this reason that they are replete with references to prophecies from the Israelite scriptures - what Christians call the Old Testament.

For example, while he did agree with all four Gospels that Jesus was a descendant of David, it is clear that he rejected the accuracy of the various genealogies – among them, no doubt, the two conflicting ones that ultimately found their way into the texts of Matthew and Luke. Yet Paul, in his own writings, said very little about Jesus as a human being.