Recently there was a article featured in the "Commentary Section" of the Chicago Suntimes dealing with the issue of Jesus in the Christian and Muslim Faith. The Suntimes is the largest and most read paper in the Midwestern United States. It was written by a columnist named Andrew Greeley.

This article is very important since the general issues of Muslim-Christian Dialogue and the character of Jesus is discussed here in great detail. According to Muslims, the same Jesus of the Bible is the same Jesus of Islam. If you are either Muslim or Christian and know very little about the issues of Jesus between the world's two largest religions, then this page is for you. This response to Mr. Greeley is in its original form with just a few minor corrections in spelling and grammer. Obviously, those who have been reading my site know my name and will see my response generally followed as "Que". All of Mr. Greeley's words are in all caps and green. All comments by Mr. Greeley are copyrighted by the Chicago Suntimes and though they express the opinion of the commentator, they don't necessarily reflect the general stance of this newspaper agency.

Good afternoon Mr. Greeley:

I am writing in response to your article dealing with Muslim-Christian Dialogue found in Friday's Chicago Suntimes- February 15, 2002. I want to respond point by point to your article while adding my commentary after.

Que-Usually after Sept. 11, it is common to hear about this same conclusion from Media and Muslim clerics alike. The problem is that no one has literally sat down to ask any Christian what they thought about this issue. Of course Muslims say that they share the same reverence as Christians and of course the media will echo this sentiment for the fear of not being politically correct or trying not to offend Muslims. But aren't you offending knowledgeable Christians who know a great deal about both Islam and Christianity?

Que-Any one who has studied the Quran exstensively and Christianity, sees little reference between the two religions other than some of the obvious connections. All religions have something that they share with one another, whether it is a monotheistic belief or any type of special ritual, however it is flawed to proclaim that these religions all have something of another in them or that they are closely related. In the Quran, there are less than 15 verses talking about Jesus period, (I am stretching by saying this, it is usually less) while the entire NT in the Bible focuses on him.

This isn't enough to proclaim to anyone that Islam has a whole lot of Christianity in it. That would be ludicrous and incredulous to say the least. Have you even read the Quran for yourself? Or are you just relying on second hand information like many western journalists are notorious at doing? (Note: I am not trying to sound argumentive, I am just asking a honest question). Christianity is centered upon the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, that is the entire message of Christianity. Islam rejects the death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore it has nothing to do with Christianity.

If you are saying that because it talks about Jesus, etc., that we can make this conclusion let me remind you that tons of history books and commentaries also give more information on Jesus than the Quran. Should we now start saying that these also have much Christianity in them too? Especially if they reject the message of Jesus or the information in the Bible? Hmm.

Que-That is very true and I totally agree, however many heretical sects were rejected and outlawed since they didn't conform to the biblical record and message of Jesus. Also this gives you a hint why Christians don't accept Islam. When Jesus first came with his message the Jews did oppose him but there was a large Jewish populace that accepted and spreaded his message. Among Muhammad and his followers, in Arabia, the Jews and the Christians rejected him and no great number came to Islam. Why? Because despite what Muslim apologists are propogating today, Islam didn't agree with Christianity as it claims.

Que-Any Jew or Christian will ask you this question: "How and where does Islam perfect either one?" Any Christian or Jew would be highly offended to hear that the word of God, which they knew to be inspired and perfect, was imperfect and was perfected by a message from Muhammad. This is blasphemy and it totally disagrees with what the Bible says about itself:

Que-Jesus said in the Gospel that the prophets wrote about him and that the law, which was perfect testified about him, not Muhammad or Islam or the Quran, who was supposed to perfect anything. Not only is the Gospel considered already perfected it is eternal:

Que-The Gospel, the good news of Jesus, written down in the Bible, is eternal with no need for perfection. Jesus says this:

Que-Jesus words in the Gospel will remain forever not waiting for Islam or Muhammad to correct them. Islam doesn't say anything at all on what Jesus preached other than about 3 verses, so where in can we believe that Muhammad and Islam perfected anything? Nowhere! Christians will always remain divided over this because according to Islam, the Bible needed to be perfected, according to the Bible, it already is.

Que-No. Because in order for a Christian to accept this Muslim ideology, they must believe that eveything said in the Bible, about it being perfect, is wrong and would be accused of following a God that promotes lies. You see Mr. Greeley, these religious dialogues aren't as easy as diplomatic sessions. For a Muslim to accept the entire Bible they would have to denounce Islam and its teachings. For a Christian to accept Muhammad, they would have to denounce Jesus and the apostles, as well as the Bible itself. No common ground can be found, no matter how much journalists and Muslim clerics try.

Que-Now you see why. Christianity and Islam is very divided. To claim that they share similarities , and must be related, is the logical fallacy of "Hasty Generalization". We can't accept Islam just like Muslims can't accept Orthodox Christianity. It is like trying to mix fire with water or oil and water. It just won't work period. To keep trying is like trying to put out a forest fire with gasoline!

Que-That is fine, however Muhammad was illiterate and wasn't an authority on the scriptures in the first place. Muhammad didn't even know what the term "messiah" dealt with or what it implicated. According to orthodox Jewish writings before Jesus, the Messiah was preexistent and a spinoff of God himself, he was also to be the ruler of the world. I give you some quotes to back this up:

Que-The Messiah was to be referred to as God! Here are some biblical verses to show just who the mighty God and wonderful counselor was:

Que-The term LORD refers to YHWH, the divine name of God himself. Hence, for Muhammad to say that Jesus was the messiah and not know what it represent is the same as me saying that a Baseball player is a person who wears a helmet and runs for touchdowns! Utter nonsense.

Also Jesus didn't just consider himself as a prophet, as Muhammad errorneously claims:

Que-Just in case the Muslim tries to water down the statements from Jesus Christ, we appeal to what they believe to be authoritative scriptures to show that the claims made by Jesus affirm that he is God in the Bible. Now read these verses from the Quran. (note, the "S" represents the term "Surah" or chapter in Arabic and the verse numbering is the same like reading the Bible:

Que-Yahweh (Allah for Muslims) is the one who controls and owns the earth, if the Muslim claims that Jesus never mentioned being Yahweh, why is he claiming that "All that God has is his? and that All that belongs to the Father God is also his? If this isn't a claim to deity, show us where any other prophet said that ALL WHAT GOD HAS IS THEIRS. This is the type of dilemma that Muslims try to avoid in discussing the deity of Christ. If any one of us was to say that all what God has is ours and that we were the heirs like Allah of the Quran, we would be killed for blasphemy in a Islamic country. However Jesus made these same statements and our Muslim friends swear up and down that he never claimed to be God and was only a prophet. Here is more:

Que-Jesus does not say to honor him as a prophet, but rather to honor him just as one would honor the Father--God. Christians can't ignore this burning information just to be accepted by Muslims.

Que-Not only does the Quran say that Christians are total disbelievers but that Allah himself fighted against them and that Islam is to prevail over all religions, not dialogue with them!! Tell me, why would any Christian want to talk to someone whose God fights against them and calls them these types of perverse names? Has the Western media become so naive? Here is more:

Que-According to the Quran and orthodox Islam, all of orthodox Christian belief is a total lie! One thing which needs to be address is how can Islam be religiously tolerant and call everything a Christian believes, a lie? For those who don't know anything about the Islamic world, this statement may seem contradictory to what you have been hearing or seeing on the news.

Que-Here is another problem in which a Christian can't reconcile since Jesus himself said that he would die many times. Infact the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his death is revealed in the first 10 men of the Bible:

Que-As we see above, the first 10 men of the bible have the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST encoded into them. (note: these names are very difficult in searching for the meaning, even a lexicon or concordance can prove to be disappointing. I first learned about this matter 3 years ago and it took me that long to verify everything) These are the fathers, with their sons mentioned after them in descending order. Put it together and you have the testomony of Jesus Christ mentioned in the old testament.

Que-When I first posted this on the internet, I got a wide range of responses from people. The Christians loved it because it showed the extra evidence for the authenticity of the bible, the Jews cringed and the Muslims did their best to downplay it by misunderstanding it. Look at part of the statement from the Gospel of Yeshua (Jesus) in the Old Testament, Read:

Que-This same gospel was spreaded by the apostles who were the followers of the Praised God himself “Jesus Christ”. All who read the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles notice that the doctrines which they preached and spread abroad in all the world were based on the message of Christ crucified for the sins of the world. For Christians to come to common terms with Muslims, they must reject everything Jesus himself said. Ask yourself this question "Was Muhammad a true prophet like until his contemporaries?"

Muslims may say yes but how do we know this? He didn't preach the same message as the previous prophets nor did he be subjected to the test of prophets that Old Testament strictly demands. He didn't perform miracles, he didn't predict the future, other than what was already known nor did he have a second witness to his claim to prophethood. Hence, he failed and is considered a false prophet by all orthodox Christians and Jews who know about Islam.

Now lets look at what the Quran says on the crucifixion, here are the 3 popular English translations of the Quran that deal with this verse about Jesus allegedly not being crucified:

Que-The Quran claims that the crucifixion never happened, but the only great response that Allah could give was “but it appeared so unto them.” Then Allah claims that “those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof: they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture.” This is very intruiging because we are supposed to agree with the Quran without it given us any detailed information on just how 1.) The Jews inability to crucify Christ, 2.) How did it appear to happen when it supposedly didn’t, and 3.) If Christ wasn’t crucified who was? Was there another man crucified? Now one must wonder who and what was everybody looking at when Jesus was appearing to be crucified? The Quran gives no detailed information whatsoever on this matter. To believe such nonsense a Christian would have to fall into using major logical fallacies and inconsistencies. Muslims are notorious at doing this; here I present some major fallacies on this issue of Jesus fake crucifixion.

The first of these fallacies is obviously "Begging the Question". The fallacy of "Begging the question" is assuming a conclusion by the premesis. Now lets give you some more examples of this fallacy:

Que-The way to disprove this theory is to show that in order to believe that the premises are true we must already agree that the conclusion is true. Therefore we must agree that the Quran is true by already believing that the crucifixion never happened. This is the equivalent of putting the horse before the cart or trying buy gas before buying a car.

What is intruiging is the fact that Muslims and Islam deny any other religion's followers to do the same thing. Hence they don't care if you say the Bible is God's word because it says so however they apply this same idiology with the Quran. As the Quran proceeds with this argument, next it begans to fall into the fallacy of "untestability".

This greatly exposes this book since you will see that Muslim disbelief of the crucifixion stems from the fallacy of "False Dilemma" which leads them to conclude from a circular argument "Jesus wasn't crucified since the Quran says so". Hence we have started where we began, "How exactly can you prove that he wasn't crucified?". Therefore by appealing to an unproven source, the question which they feel is answered, is still actually unanswered.

What happened after the fake crucifixion, as the Quran supposedly claims? Apparently all of the followers of Jesus, whom the Quran calls “THE MESSIAH” (also is known by Muslims as the word of Allah) thought that Jesus was dead since the verses clearly show that Jesus was taken up to Allah AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION PROCESS BEGAN. So one must ask this question, If Allah took Jesus to Heaven, how come he didn’t alert none of the followers and the disciples?

According to the passage in the Quran, Jesus was not killed on the cross, but was "raised up" to God. Does this settle the issue? Not really! Incidentally, there is an interesting problem with this account. Why would the Jews "boast" that they killed the Messiah? Think about it for a minute. The Jewish followers of Jesus did not kill him. In fact, they were horrified when he was put to death. The Jewish enemies of Jesus were certainly happy to have Him out of their way, but they would never have called him the Messiah or a "Messenger" of God since they viewed such statements as blasphemy! Again this is another situation not resolved by Allah, the greatest of devisors & God of Islam.

The picture is even more confusing when we consider Surah 5:75 :

This verse says that Allah makes his signs clear, (yeah right!!!!) which shows us that Jesus passed away and wasn’t caught up because if he didn’t pass away then Allah wouldn’t have said “many were the messengers that passed away before him” after just calling him a messenger. But yet this contradicts Suah 4:157-58!!

But Surah 3:144 says:

Therefore, Surah 5:75 tells us that Jesus was only a messenger and Surah 3:144 says that all messengers have died. Therefore, since Jesus was only a messenger and all messengers have died, Jesus could not have been "raised up" as Surah 4:158 claims, he must be dead and in a grave! This shows us that Allah and Muhammad can’t even reconcile their own inspired statments.

Surah 5:110 also confuses the issue of Jesus being "raised up" since the verse says that Jesus taught "when of old age":

Yusuf Ali, the great translator and commentator of the Koran believed that the ministry of Jesus ended when he was about 33 years old - hardly an "old age". (See his comment #388 on Surah 3:46). The age of 33 isn’t even middle aged!!! Even back in that time!!!!

To make matters even more confusing, Surah 19:33 claims that the baby Jesus spoke in the crib saying:

This verse not only contradicts the claim of Surah 4:158 (that Jesus did not die), it also says that Jesus, after his death, will be raised up to life again! It didn’t say that Jesus would be born, raised up to Allah, come back down and then die and then be raised again, it just said that he would be born, die and then be raised again!!! Allah can’t even get his own words straight!!! This incident, which has no parallel in the Bible, can be viewed as a sign and prophecy. If the words of Jesus did not come true (that he would die and be raised to life), then he does not deserve the title of "prophet" which Muslims give him.

For US to accept the Qur'an's claim that Jesus did not die on the cross, we would have to believe that all of the predictions of God's Prophets were wrong. And since the Quran mentions that the Torah, and the Gospel are the words of God, we would have to believe that Allah can’t even protect his divine revelations from normal men!!! We would also be required to accept that the testimonies of the Apostles and disciples of Jesus were false, and that the history written by the non-Christian historians of the era such as Tacitus, Porphyry, Celsus, Josephus, Suetonius, and Pliny were also incorrect. In the place of this overwhelming evidence collected by eye witnesses to the event, we would need to believe the testimony of Muhammad, who lived six centuries after the event and who was just a witness to himself.

Que-Muhammad was a man of many contradictions. Here is what he said on the early councils of the church:

Que-Ibn Kathir is the greatest commentary in Islam on the prophet and the Quran. Muhammad clearly stated the Christians kept the true ordanices of Christ.

Since the friends kept Christ ordanices for 200 years after him, what did Christians believe from the guidance of Christ? The following quotes show that the doctrine of the Trinity was indeed alive-and-well before the Council of Nicea, Muhammad and the Quran. Here we quote people who were born before 200 A.D. even though some lived past this time.

Que-If, as the Muslims maintain, the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine and was never taught until the council of Nicea in 325, why did Muhammad say that Jesus friends kept his guidance and ordances 200 years after him? The only way to resolve this contradiction of Muhammad and Christianity is the clear fact that he was illiterate and didn't have the knowledge to read for himself. All of the early christians believed in the Trinity and that has always been the case.

Que-Lets let Jesus speak on himself:

Que-The word Almighty can only refer to God himself and here is what the Bible and the Jesus disciples mention:

Que-The Jews clearly understood that Jesus was identifying himself with God, Muslims of today want us to deny this fact when the people who lived with Jesus at that time, knew exactly what he was saying. That is why Jesus said:

Que-No other prophet ever claimed that when a person looked upon them, that they were seeing God himself. This would be utter blasphemy, which Jesus clearly knew and said anyway. God himself said this in Hebrews about Jesus:

Que-If the Father calls Christ God, how can a Christian interact with Muslims in dialogue knowing this? Does God have amnesia when Muhammad comes upon the scene?

Que-Actually this is a common Muslim propogation technique that isn't even true in the Quran. One question in asking Muslims is if the Quran denied the Trinity, how come it didn't just mention the word Trinity in the Quran? This word was present long before Muhammad and we have to believe that him and Allah knew about this word. This is one question that begs to be answered and it greatly exposes Muslim apologetics for being interpolative as well as biased in propogating Islam. The question repeated again is:

Que-The Arabic word for the "Holy Trinity" is "al-thaaluuth al-aqdas", pronounced ath-thaaluuth al-aqdas. This isn't found in the Quran at all even though it was known in Arabia and before the time of Muhammad and Islam!! The one of the main alleged trinity denying passage called S. 4:171 is to be read in Arabic as:

And this certainly has to be translated as:

Que-The word "thalaathatun" is the usual cardinal number "three" referring to three things at least one which is of masculine gender. If Muhammad and Allah denied the Trinity, they should have mentioned it by name. Even if the Bible was formulated before Trinity was termed for God, this still isn't an excuse for Islam since this word was the most known word in Christendom. A person studying Christianity and Islam would be force to conclude that God doesn't even know popular terms that aren't supposed to be used for him or is it that Muhammad didn't outright reject the Trinity?

Que-The problem with this is that Muhammad was talking about Tritheism, not Trinityism. In fact you will see later that Muhammad couldn't be talking about the orthodox Trinity because his statements are way off. One common Muslim argument against the Trinity is that it consists of 3 gods and therefore is paganism. They use specific Quranic verses which they claim to refute the Trinity. Lets actually look at the historical definition of the Trinity to see if it is actually three gods:

Que-Based on Christian and historical doctrine which the Trinity is 3 persons in ONE God not 3 Gods, which would be tritheism. Does God not know how to use a dictionary? Trinity has never meant 3 gods, and it really isn't a mystery that ONE GOD CAN BE 3 BUT YET BE ONE. All one has to do is take an indepth look at the dictionary, at the term one:

Que-The term ONE God doesn't mean that God is necessarily ONE PERSON. The historical definition of ONE has never meant just a single numerical thing ONLY! One can be a unit or a group. Both of these are more than a single numerical ONE, but are as ONE working together.

Que-Muslims obviously don't know what the word one means. One can be anything from one person to a multipersonal, unit or group. Now obviously anything is a mystery if you fail to look it up, and in order for God in the Bible to be unipersonal instead of tripersonal, he must be spoken of in the Bible with singular verbage, etc, all the time. God is never spoken of as being a single numerical person in the Bible. God uses plural verbage, etc to express himself virtually all the time. Many people think that ONE always means ONE person or a single thing excluding the possiblity of plural usage. That is the reason why Islam believes that Christianity is in error, and many believe that the Trinity is such a mystery. They fail to utilize their common sense and read a dictionary. To say that ONE has always meant just single person is as foolish as trying to sky dive from an airplane without a parachutte.

Que-I think that is a very uninformed statement. Christians don't feel like they own Jesus, it would be errorneous to state it like this since according to Orthodox Christianity, Jesus owns and created them! Also whether Jesus is important to Muslims is irrelevant since he is also important to heretic Christian cults such as the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses. This is similar to the logical fallacy of appealing to Ad Populum. The way a Christian looks at it is this: "Do these religions or sects follow Jesus the way Jesus says to follow him?" If they don't then it doesn't matter since according to Jesus himself, many false prophets and Christs would arise anyway. The fact of the matter is, Jesus is found in Christianity first, that is undeniable, Islam came 600 years after Christ and other sects even later, what they claim that Jesus says is irrelevant since they weren't present to write down his teachings.

Que-If something is attributed to Jesus, then we should find some first or second century documentation to verify this matter. If a person comes 600 years from now and says that JFK didn't die but only appeared to an then people after this person write literature based on what this person said, this is nothing more than basing information upon errorneous information.

Que-Jesus wouldn't dare present dsound Muslim moral teaching. It is totally against what he stands for in the Bible. Now you mentioned before that Muhammad didn't believe in the Trinity, here is what Jesus said himself:

Que-This doesn't agree anything at all with Islam, which claims that God is only one person. Muhammad was notorious for plagerizing known religious information and readapting it to suit his unsubstantiated preconceived religious beliefs. The story that Jesus spoke from the cradle appeared first in the Injilut-Tufuliyyah, known today as the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, a late apocryphal work most significantly preserved in Arabic alone. The only difference between the record in this apocryphal work and the Qur'an is that Jesus is recorded in the former as saying annaa huwa Yasuu ibnullaah ("I am Jesus the Son of God") and in the latter simply as saying innii abdullaah ("I am the servant of God" - Surah 19.30). The reason for the difference is not hard to find. ----

Que-A Christian who knows this doesn't want to dialogue with someone who followers a religious leader that is known for forging and intentionally changing what people say.

Que-Yes that is true as shown above.

Que-This is another problem since really the Islamic Jesus isn't really Jesus read:

Que-In the Quran, the Islamic name for Jesus is ISA or Eesa, which is ESAU!!! The Quran confused Jesus with ESAU! Don't believe me, here is more, but first lets give those who don't know to much of the Bible a history lesson on ESAU:

Que-This means that ESAU's Mother wasy Miryam, which is Mary in Arabic, the same name as Jesus Mother and Mary is the sister of Aaron. When we look at this closely we see how Muhammad was able to confuse Jesus Mother with "Mary the sister of Aaron". Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. S 19:27-28

Que-This is simply stunning, notice in the Quran that Mary is called the Sister of Aaron. ISA, as we stated before is used as the name for Jesus but how could ISA be the nephew of Aaron? Simple, since Esau was the SON OF MARY, his mother was AARONS'S SISTER!!! That is why Muhammad fouled up Jesus bloodline due to the simple fact that he was talking about ESAU who is the Quranic ISA instead of YESHUA (Jesus). Muhammad believed that ISA was the name of Jesus and he must've heard that this same ISA's mother was the sister of Aaron. Shouldn't it be obvious, since both Esau and ISA are equivalent? Yes. They aren't even the same Jesus!!

Que-That is exactly the problem, ISA isn't the Jesus of the Bible, it means ESAU. Infact if you look at the Arabic Bible, ISA isn't even used as a name for Jesus. Why? If ISA is the Arabic equivalent to Jesus then we should find this in the Arabic Bible also right? No. The Arabic Bible uses the name Yasouu for Jesus which corresponds exactly to his Hebrew name. Hence, this mistake of calling Jesus "ISA" or ESAU is found in the Quran and the ARabic Christians don't even use this name of ISA since any Arabic speaking person knows that this word means ESAU.

Que-I agree to an extent, but Jesus is Esau, the reason why he wasn't crucified is becaused he lived 1300 years before the crucifixion. This embarrasing fact isn't even discussed by Muslims to Christians. Many Christians, particularly the Arabic ones, know about this mistake in the Quran. They wouldn't care about having a monopoly on Jesus since Muhammad didn't even know how to differentiate Jesus's name from Esau!

Que-Their gospel is a total contradiction to each other. Let me give you one grave example of this. According to Islam, Jesus isn't God. This is where both differ, here is the comparative analysis:

Que-To believe that Jesus isn't God is antichrist and a liar. How can a Christian find something complementary in the Muslim gospel when according to the Christian Gospel authors and Jesus they are antichrist?

Que-Christianity and Islam were never reliant on each other's witness. History has shown the Christianity never appealed to Islam to verify itself.

Que-That is true, but is it the Jesus that he himself preached though? That question obviously isn't true in Islam.

Que-Actually many informed Christians wouldn't say neither since careful study into Islam shows that they don't have the same Jesus whatsoever but ISA, a confusion of ESAU propogated to be Jesus. Remember the ARabic Bible uses the correct name of Jesus, "Yasouu".

Que-Jesus in the Bible is totally different from the one in Islam. ISA, is not Jesus:

More,

Que-The only place Muhammad could've have gotten ISA from is from the east where Hinduism originated. ISA was never used by Jews or Christians as the name of Jesus which is Yeshua, in Hebrew and Yasouu in the Arabic Bible. More. ISA was a common name in Hinduism and it is even the name of a text called "ISA UPANISHAD".

P.S. I hope that this help in showing that Jesus in Islam and Christianity is nothing of the same. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Because both are fruits doesn't mean that they are comparative. I hope to hear a response on you about this information. APPENDIX

As of current, we haven't heard from Mr. Greeley personally on this issue, however we do know that he did receive our emailed message to him. We do note that he has not mentioned any more Christian-Muslim related topics or any more comparative readings on Jesus since the date above. If we hear anything from him we will keep you inform. God Bless.

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Quennel Gale at queball20@yahoo.com