Today, under the pretext of knowledge(gnosis - he is talking about Gnosticism) , heretics rise against the Church of Christ. They pile on their books of commentaries. They claim to interpret the gospel and apostolic texts. If we are silent and do not oppose them with true teaching, famished souls will be fed with their abominations. - Origen
Pages
▼
Friday, September 3, 2010
Islamic Double Standards
On one hand, we loved Christ so much that we began worshipping Him as a God 1; on the other hand, we make up all these fancifully-imaginary stories about Him partaking of a shameful and painful death, by crucifixion, being abused, beaten, cursed, flogged, hurt, insulted, laughed at, mocked, punched, ridiculed, scorned, scourged, slapped, smitten, spat upon, tortured, and finally exposed naked on the rough wood of a Cross, for anyone to look upon Him with disgust, and consider Him as accursed by God Himself! 2
On one hand, Islam denies Christ's divinity; on the other hand, its teaching about the Crucifixion being an illusion was adopted from Docetism, an early Gnostic sect, whose Christology is diametrically-opposed to that of Muslims, considering Jesus to have been solely-divine, possessing only a spiritual body -- and since disincarnate beings like gods, ghosts, and spirits can't die...
1 itself a question-begging double-standard, since early Christians abhorred the idea of deifying men, no matter how holy or high-up they were -- so why make an exception for Christ?
2 Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13.
There is no official teaching of illusion when it comes to Islam's view on the crucifixion
ReplyDeleteIs the Qur'an not official? -- all the ideas expressed in the Sura in question come from the Gnostic Docetists (his eluding of death by being raised up to Heaven while another one was crucified in his stead). -- that's what the word "dokeo" means in Greek: to seem or to appear as if.
ReplyDeleteAnd they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. -- Sahih International.
but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but the resemblance of 'Iesa (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man) -- Muhsin Khan.
they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them -- Pickthall.
but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them -- Yusuf Ali.
and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) -- Shakir.
And in no way did they kill him, and in no way did they crucify him, but a resemblance of him was presented to them -- Dr. Ghali