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Quranic View of Pauline Christianity
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:
Behold! Allah said: “O
Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of
the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme;
I will make those who follow thee SUPERIOR to those who reject faith,
TO THE DAY OF RESURRECTION: Then shall ye all return unto Me, and
I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute.” S. 3:55
O ye who believe! Be ye
helpers of Allah: as said Jesus the son of Mary to the Disciples, “Who
will be my helpers to (the work of) Allah?” Said the Disciples, “We
are Allah's helpers!” then a portion of the Children of Israel believed,
and a portion disbelieved: But We gave power to those who believed
against their enemies, AND THEY BECAME THE ONES THAT PREVAILED.
S. 61:14
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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