The Quranic View of Pauline Christianity:

An Aberration of the Truth? 

Sam Shamoun


Here is our final response to Nisar’s assault on Paul. In this part, we again turn our attention to the Islamic testimony. But we would first like to clarify our reasons for appealing to the Quran. We do not believe that the Quran is God’s Word. However, we do believe that the Quran is an early record of what the first Muslims believed. As such, the Quran becomes an important source of information for discovering the official beliefs of the first Muslims. 

In light of this, it might once again come as a surprise for our readers to discover that the Quran testifies that the Christianity proclaimed by Paul (i.e., “Pauline” Christianity) is actually true Christianity. The Quran testifies that Christ’s true believers would prevail and remain dominant till the Day of Resurrection: 

According to these passages, Allah gave Christ’s followers the power to prevail over the disbelievers, and made them superior till the day of resurrection. Yet the ones that prevailed were Apostles such as Paul his followers. This means that if the Quran is correct, then Paul’s message is the truth since it has dominated and prevailed over all other opposing messages. 

Yusuf Ali, in his translation The Holy Qur’an- Text and Commentary, p. 1543, footnote 5448, states:  

A portion of the Children of Israel - the ones that really cared for Truth - believed in Jesus and followed his guidance. But the greater portion of them were hard-hearted, and remained in their beaten track of formalism and false racial pride. The majority seemed at first to have the upper hand when they thought they had crucified Jesus and killed his Message. But they were soon brought to their senses. Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70 and the Jews have been scattered ever since. “The Wandering Jew” has become a bye-word in many literatures. On the other hand, those who followed Jesus PERMEATED the Roman Empire, brought many new races within their circle, and through the Roman Empire, Christianity became the predominant religion of the world until the advent of Islam… (bold and capital emphasis ours) 

What Ali failed to note is that the form of Christianity that permeated the Roman Empire is what Muslims degradingly call “Pauline” Christianity. Hence, that Paul’s message dominated is a sign that his Gospel was that which God had entrusted to Christ’s true followers. If it were argued that Paul’s version of Christianity is an aberration of the truth, this would then imply that the Quran is wrong for claiming that God had caused Christ’s true followers to prevail and had made them superior UNTIL THE DAY OF RESURRECTION. This would also mean that Paul was able to thwart Allah’s purposes, and was able to undo what Allah claimed would be done. Interestingly, noted Muslim commentator Ibn Kathir was forced to contend with this fact:

“This is what happened. When Allah raised ‘Isa to heaven, his followers divided into sects and groups. Some of them believed in what Allah sent ‘Isa as, a servant of Allah, His Messenger, and the son of His female-servant.

However, some of them went to the extreme over ‘Isa, believing that he was the son of Allah. Some of them said that ‘Isa was Allah Himself, while others said that he was one of a Trinity. Allah mentioned these false creeds in the Qur’an and refuted them. The Christians remained like this until the third century CE, when a Greek king called, Constantine, became a Christian for the purpose of destroying Christianity. Constantine was either a philosopher, or he was just plain ignorant. Constantine changed the religion of ‘Isa by adding to it and deleting from it. He established the rituals of Christianity and the so-called Great Trust which is in fact the Great Treachery. He also allowed them to eat the meat of swine, changed the direction of the prayer that ‘Isa established to the east, built churches for ‘Isa, and added ten days to the fast as compensation for a sin that he committed, as claimed. So the religion of ‘Isa became the religion of Constantine, who built more than twelve thousand churches, temples and monasteries for the Christians as well as the city that bears his name, Constantinople (Istanbul). THROUGHOUT THIS TIME, the Christians had the upper hand and dominated the Jews. ALLAH AIDED THEM AGAINST THE JEWS BECAUSE THEY USED TO BE CLOSER TO THE TRUTH THAN THE JEWS, even though both groups were and still are disbelievers, may Allah’s curse descend on them.” (Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged), Volume 2, Parts 3, 4, & 5 (Surat Al-Baqarah, Verse 253, to Surat An-Nisa, Verse 147), abridged by a group of scholars under the supervision of Shaykh Safiur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri [Darussalam Publishers & Distributors Riyadh, Houston, New York, Lahore; First Edition: March 2000], p. 171; bold and capital emphasis ours) 

Ibn Kathir’s explanation doesn’t solve the problem since the Quran claims that the true followers of Christ would prevail and yet the Christianity that prevailed is the one that Ibn Kathir attacks as false. At the same time Ibn Kathir admits that this aberration is that which God caused to prevail!

Hence, much like Ibn Kathir, Nisar is in a dilemma that he cannot resolve since to accept the Quran is to accept Pauline Christianity. Yet to accept Pauline Christianity is to reject the Quran, since the Quran contradicts the core teaching of Paul as has been preserved in the pages of the Holy Bible and amongst true Christians historically. . 

Nisar may wish to argue that these verses refer to Muhammad and Muslims as being the ones who would truly believe in Christ and it is they who would dominate till the Resurrection Day. This response will not solve the problem for Nisar. The passages do not say that Christ’s followers would only prevail during the time of Muhammad, but rather that Allah caused Jesus’ followers to dominate over the unbelievers from the time Christ was taken to God, and would remain the dominant force until the Day of Resurrection. 

This is perhaps why men such as Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Kathir, al-Tabari and al-Thalabi could view Paul in such a positive light. They seemingly realized that Paul had a tremendous influence in the growth and spread of Christianity, and had been sovereignly used by God as his instrument of domination over the unbelievers. 

To summarize the Islamic evidence, we discovered that: 

1. Early Muslim belief of Paul was essentially positive. 

2. The Quran records the domination of Christ’s true believers over the disbelievers. 

3. This domination would continue till the Day of Resurrection. 

4. Paul’s message dominated and became superior to all other opposing messages.  

5. This implies that if the Quran is right then Paul’s message must be correct.

Yet, these factors introduce the following problems for Nisar to solve, namely: 

The Quran contradicts the core teachings of the Apostle Paul as well as the message of the Holy Bible as a whole. 

Since the Quran and early Muslim commentators clearly testify to the accuracy and legitimacy of Paul’s preaching, this means that the Quran cannot be the word of God. Rather, it must be the word of fallible men such as Muhammad and/or others. 

This also implies that the author(s) of the Quran was unaware of the true message of the Holy Bible and of the Apostle Paul, and thought that it agreed with his(their) own preaching. The author(s) presumably thought that in acknowledging the testimony of the Holy Bible he(they) would therefore be legitimizing the prophetic claims of Muhammad. Had he(they) been aware of the true message of the Holy Bible the author(s) might not have given so much credence to both Paul and the Holy Bible. This concludes our rebuttal. There will be more rebuttals to follow shortly, Lord Jesus willing. 

 

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