From what I understood of the recent Muslim pandemic and vicious advertising of Bart Erhman's new book, the Quranic Issa is most certainly identical with the historical Jesus spoken of by Erhman. My purpose then is only to evaluate if Bart Erhman's Jesus is the Quranic Issa.
However after reading some excerpts of his book: "How Jesus Became God" provided by pro-Muslim fundamentalist Paul Williams I became unconvinced of the assertion that Issa is closest to the historical Jesus. It turns out Issa is not the historical Jesus of Bart Erhman, rather Erhman's Jesus is the false prophet and Messiah rejected by rabbinical Judaism which in turn is advertised and glorified by Muslim Apologists!
This is truly ironic that the Muslims are giving us evidence that the enemies of Jesus were right all along, as opposed to the Quran (3:54-55) which explicitly condemns the Jewish opponents of Christ who conceived of him as a complete blasphemer and impostor.
"But in fact he did nothing to make a person think that he was the messiah."And:
"The first is to reaffirm that we have no record of Jesus ever proclaiming himself to be the future king of the Jews, the messiah, in a public context."And:
"His message is about the coming kingdom to be brought by the Son of Man. He always keeps himself out of it."In other words, there is no direct evidence Jesus ever said the words: "I am the Messiah"
But it gets worse. According to Erhman, Jesus may have given the public every reason to think he was not the Messiah:
"He may well have been a pacifist (“love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” “blessed are the peacemakers,” etc.), which would not exactly make him a leading candidate to be general over the Jewish armed forces. He did not preach the violent overthrow of the Roman armies. And he talked about someone else, rather than himself, as the coming Son of Man."
So where does the idea that Jesus is the Messiah come from? Erhman explains:
"So if nothing in what Jesus was actively doing would make anyone suspect that he had messianic pretensions, why would his followers almost certainly have been thinking about him and calling him the messiah during his public ministry? The easiest explanation is that Jesus told them that he was the messiah."Erhman's primary evidence then is that Jesus followers thought of him as the Messiah, and therefore Jesus most likely told them this in private. Erhman is probably correct in believing the easiest explanation is that Jesus told them.
However why would a historian cling to an easy explanation? It's certainly possible Jesus may have merely received all due honors as a King/Messiah, but simply never advocated the idea himself. A contemporary example might do us justice, such as Menachem Mendel Schneerson. While the easiest explanation might be the Rebbe told many of his followers in private he was the Messiah, the fact of the matter is there is no evidence he ever explicitly denied or affirmed he was the Messiah, yet he allowed his followers to believe such near the end of his life.
Erhman goes on to explain how he thinks Jesus conceived of himself as the King/Messiah, which actually seems to vindicate the rabbinical Jews, that Jesus was to be rejected as the King of Israel, The Messiah:
"But what he meant by “messiah” has to be understood within the broader context of his apocalyptic proclamation."
And:
"Jesus must have thought that he would be the king of the kingdom of God soon to be brought by the Son of Man. And what is the typical designation for the future king of Israel? Messiah. It is in this sense that Jesus must have taught his disciples that he was the messiah."
Erhman is therefore an advocate of the Rabbinical Jewish position, that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic Messiah, who thought he was going to rule a soon coming divine kingdom on earth ushered in by the heavenly angelic figure the Son of Man:
"I have already argued that he did not consider himself to be the Son of Man, and so he did not consider himself to be the heavenly angelic being who would be the judge of the earth."The Son of Man while being distinct from Jesus himself in Erhman's view, yet cannot be Mohammed but a divine figure who ushers in God's kingdom in the life-time of Jesus and his disciples themselves.
Further, Keith Thompson presents an excellent case refuting the the untenable assertion that Jesus is not the Son of Man in the Gospel.
But this has serious implications on Erhman's view that Jesus is not divine in the Synoptic Gospel accounts. Since if Jesus is identified as the Son of Man, he is explicitly made divine in the Synoptic Gospels themselves! Erhman's entire case then, is left upon the flimsy notion that Son of Man is a distinct figure from Jesus, yet this idea is utterly indefensible in scholarly exegesis.
Erhman predictably contradicts Islam and asserts:
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| WHAT!! No way! Jesus was Crucified!!?? |
"Evidence that Jesus really did think that he was the king of the Jews is the very FACT that he was killed for it...And so Pilate ordered Jesus crucified on the spot. According to our records, which are completely believable at this point, the soldiers roughed him up, mocked him, flogged him, and then led him off to be crucified. Evidently, two similar cases were decided that morning. Maybe a couple more the day after that and the day after that. In this instance, they took Jesus and the two others to a public place of execution and fixed them all to crosses. According to our earliest account, Jesus was dead in six hours."
So how exactly did Jesus become the Messiah?
The evidence that Erhman uses for his assertion that Jesus thought of himself as the Messiah is:
- The Disciples (which Muslims reject) and
- Several hypothesizes of Jesus death (which Muslims reject)
From the Islamic perspective the evidence can therefore be discounted, why? For Muslims they do not believe the disciples of Jesus preserved his words, therefore we do not have the words of Jesus. What we have is the disciples interpretation of his words. We then have no self proclamation from Jesus regarding his Kingship as a Messiah. We have no direct statement from Jesus claiming to be the Messiah to his disciples or in his public ministry, we have every reason to believe Jesus claimed not to be the Messiah. Most Muslims require to hear these words from the lips of Jesus verbatim regarding his divinity, so to be consistent then we must demand the same from the historical Jesus proclaiming his Kingship, yet we have no such quotation. The explanations regarding Jesus trial and crucifixion must also be rejected from the Islamic perspective, as the Quran provides no coherent or consistent explanation on the final events of Jesus ministry.
However, the problem with relying on the disciples to interpret Jesus words to mean he is the Messiah, is that these very same disciples who claim that Jesus is the Messiah are the same disciples who according to Erhman claim that Jesus is divine. This would mean one would need to argue the disciples are reliable interpreters of Jesus own words during his earthly ministry, yet unreliable interpreters of Jesus after his death, proving themselves incapable of preserving his message after his death. This problem hits home immediately for a Muslim since it explicitly contradicts the Quran which speaks of Jesus disciples:
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 RESSURECTION: Then shall ye all return unto Me, and I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute." 3:55 (For an analysis see here)
In order to believe Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, we have to trust the disciples had the correct understanding of Jesus. Yet if we trust the disciples understanding, we must also accept their claim that he was divine in some sense!
But it gets worse, because according to Erhman, while no one except the disciples knew about Jesus conception of himself as the Messiah and his prosecutors, the Quran thinks of the enemies of Jesus as having this conception of Jesus aswell!
And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure. 4:157
How could the very enemies who opposed Jesus view him as the Messiah and God's messenger? Not only wasn't this public knowledge, it was not even believed by most of the followers of Jesus, who had no idea Jesus held such beliefs! How utterly anachronistic and irrational of the Quran.
In summary it seems Bart Erhman's case rests on a odd peculiar notion that we should trust Jesus very own inner-circle of disciples to accurately understand, present and interpret Jesus own conception of himself as Messiah in his presence during his life, yet after his death, we ought to dismiss the very same inner-group who believed Jesus is God and divine in some sense to be inaccurately reflecting Jesus conception of himself. I don't however believe Erhman in his own personal view has implied the disciples are theologically incorrect, rather only that Jesus may not have possessed a unique divine conception, that is identical to the disciples post-Jesus.
The most profound establishment I mentioned here, is that Bart Erhman conceives of Jesus most closet disciples believing of him as divine at all!! In any sense! This of course is a radical change of Erhman's previous view, a redaction that directly contradicts Islam which asserts only two categories of believers existed the believers and disbelievers, enemies and followers. The followers of course were not granted disunity and division, but rather preservation and dominance until the judgement day!
I had a discussion with Muslim Apologist Nazam on this, as you can see Nazam conveniently ignored the implications:
I believe my friend and a fantastic Christian thinker, Denis Giron summarizes the situation the best:
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