Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Beverley, James A. and Craig A. Evans. Getting Jesus Right: How Muslims Get Jesus and Islam Wrong. Brechin, Ontario: Castle Quay Books, 2015. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Beverley, James A. and Craig A. Evans. Getting Jesus Right: How Muslims Get Jesus and Islam Wrong. Brechin, Ontario: Castle Quay Books, 2015. [ Citation Page ] GETTING JESUS RIGHT HOW MUSLIMS GET JESUS AND ISLAM WRONG JAMES A, BEVERLEY AND CRAIG A. EVANS INCLUDES A CRITIQUE OF REZA ASLAN’S ZEALOT AND NO GOD BUT GOD Castle Quay Books [ Title Page ] Getting jesus Right: How Muslims Get jesus and Islam Wrong Copyright © 2015 James A. Beverley & Craig A. Evans All rights reserved Printed in Canada International Standard Book Number 978-1-927355-45-9 soft cover ISBN 978-1-927355-47-3 Hard Cover ISBN 978-1-927355-46-6 EPUB Published by: Castle Quay Books Lagoon City, Brechin, Ontario Tel: (416) 573-3249 E-mail: info@castlequaybooks.com www.castlequaybooks.com Edited by Marina Hofman Willard, and Lori Mackay Cover design by Burst Impressions Printed at Essence Printing, Belleville, Ontario All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without prior written permission of the publishers. US spelling used. • Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible ®. Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,1975,1977,1995 by THE LOCKMAN FOUNDATION. All rights reserved. • Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Copyright © 1977,1984, Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979,1980,1982. Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Beverley, James A., Evans, Craig A., authors Getting Jesus Right: How Muslims Get Jesus and Islam Wrong / Craig A. Evans, James A. Beverley. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-927355-45-9 (pbk.).-ISBN 978-1-927355-46-6 (epub) 1. Jesus Christ. 2. Islam. 3. Aslan, Reza--Criticism and interpretation. I. Beverley, James A. II. Title. BT301.3.E93 2013 232.9'01 C2013-906619-5 C2013-906620-9 Castle Quay Books [ Title Page Verso ] In memory of Jennifer Susan Keirstead Daughter of David and Darlene Keirstead March 3, 1993-September 6, 2014 Memories of fun times, your loving spirit, your amazing creativity and your fabulous smile will hold us Until we meet in that place where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes (Revelation 21:4) [ Page i ] Table of Contents Introduction .... 9 Chapter 1: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable? .... 15 Chapter 2: Are the Manuscripts of the New Testament Gospels Reliable? .... 25 Chapter 3: How Did Jesus Understand Himself and His Mission? .... 37 Chapter 4: Did James and Paul Preach a Different Gospel? .... 53 Chapter 5: Was Jesus a Zealot? .... 65 Chapter 6: How Do Muslims View Muhammad? .... 81 Chapter 7: How Reliable Is the Historical Record about Muhammad? .... 97 Chapter 8: Is Muhammad the Greatest Moral and Spiritual Model? .... 109 Chapter 9: How Do Muslims View the Qur’an? .... 125 Chapter 10: Is the Qur’an God’s Infallible Word? .... 145 Chapter 11: Does the Qur’an Get Jesus Right? .... 161 Chapter 12: Does the Qur’an Get the Death of Jesus Right? .... 171 Chapter 13: Does Islamic Tradition Get Jesus Right? .... 183 Chapter 14: Does Islam Liberate Women? .... 193 Chapter 15: Is Islam a Religion of Peace? .... 207 Chapter 16: Easter Truths, Muslim Realities and Common Hope .... 223 Appendix 1: Reza Aslan’s Zealot. Wrong at Many Points .... 229 Appendix 2: Was Jesus Married to Mary Magdalene? .... 235 Appendix 3: Modem Studies on the Qur’an .... 239 Appendix 4: New Testament Background and the Growth of Christianity .... 243 Appendix 5: Timeline of Islam .... 249 Appendix 6: The Islamic State and The Atlantic .... 261 Appenidx 7: The Infamous Fox News Interview .... 265 Resources .... 267 Endnotes .... 269 Index of Scripture and Ancient Writings .... 331 [ Page ii ] Introduction Peace on planet Earth depends on Christians and Muslims. It is quite sim- ple. There are over 2 billion Christians on planet Earth and 1.6 billion Muslims. If demographic trends continue, followers of these two world reli- gions will make up more than 50 percent of humanity. As Hans Küng has stated eloquently, if these two groups don’t learn to live with each other and with other religions or philosophies, we are doomed as God’s creatures to lives of discord, hatred, bloodshed and terror. Given numbers alone, understanding Islam and Christianity is an imperative. The necessity is made more acute by the tensions of our current world, particularly given the failure of the Arab Spring and the rise in 2014 of the Islamic State and its brutal takeover of large areas of Iraq and Syria. For the first time in recent history an Islamic caliphate has been announced and a new caliph is now celebrated by radical Muslims from all over the world. The familiar questions are back: What is jihad? Is Islam a religion of peace? Does Islam liberate women? Is shariah law the right path for humanity? Behind these issues lie fundamental matters about the nature of God, how Christian and Muslim Scripture should be evaluated, what a proper assessment of Muhammad is and how one gets accurate information about Jesus. In spite of common ground between Christians and Muslims, their respective religions offer largely different views on these four general matters and the related sub- topics noted previously. At one level, one must choose Christianity or Islam, the Bible or the Qur’an, Muhammad or Jesus. While binary options are not always [ Page ] 9 necessary and nuance is usually crucial, in this case a choice must be made. Both Islam and Christianity demand either a yes or a no: one cannot choose both together. They are largely irreconcilable religions and worldviews. Getting Jesus Right is an extended argument that humanity should choose Christian faith for spiritual truth, not Islam. We argue that Islam makes major errors in its understanding of God, teachings on Jesus, views on salvation, attitudes about Muhammad, stress on the Qur’an, downplaying of the Bible and ethical guidelines for humanity. These flaws in Islam have real-life, neg- ative consequences for the Muslim world, for Muslim families, for Muslim men, women and children and for those who do not follow Islam. Our book, then, is an invitation for the Muslim world and everyone else to consider the Christian gospel of Jesus Christ as the true and better alternative to Islam. We are not naive. We know that the vast majority of Muslims reject our fundamental beliefs and our arguments. For Muslims, Islam is the one true religion, Muhammad is the final prophet, the Qur’an is the eternal, perfect Word of God, Jesus is not the Son of God, and true liberation is achieved only through following the will of Allah. We recognize that Muslims believe we should abandon Christianity, submit to Allah as the one true God, follow Muhammad as the prophet of God and believe and obey the teachings of the Qur’an. We respectfully disagree, and our book tells why. In defending Christian faith and offering our critique of Islam, we decided to use the work of a very popular Muslim writer as our way to examine key issues. In the summer of 2013, Reza Aslan, a former evangelical Christian, became a publishing sensation courtesy of a Fox News interview with him that went viral. Aslan was grilled over his new book, Zealot, which was his study of Jesus of Nazareth. Both of us wrote articles on Aslan and Zealot shortly after his interview. We decided quite quickly to expand our work into a book but with the added element of analyzing Aslan’s popular apologetic for Islam called No god but God (now in a revised edition and published in several languages). While we deal with the basic subjects at the core of the Christian-Islam divide, there are some complicated topics left for future analysis (like the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the contours of Sufi Islam). We chose Reza Aslan not because of his accuracy but because his ideas express well what so many believe and repeat about both Islam and Christianity. To be clear, in spite of his popularity with Muslims and with mainstream media, Reza Aslan is not the source to seek for careful, accurate, truthful information [ Page ] 10 on Jesus. His book on Jesus is an academic failure, proof that distinguished pub- lishers sometimes place sales above scholarship. Likewise, Reza Aslan’s apolo- gia for Islam is a failure. It is based on misleading argument, special pleadings, avoidance of crucial issues, misrepresentation of others, twisting of issues and hollow, unsupported assertions about Muhammad, the Qur’an, jihad and the treatment of women. Of course, it is hard to be totally wrong, so we celebrate his choice of moderate rather than radical Islam. We share his dislike for many Islamic traditions and shariah law, but in the end we believe Aslan should give up his inconsistent, mangled defense of Islam and return to the worship of Jesus of Nazareth as Savior and Lord. He owes the world an apology for his reckless views on Jesus and his weak arguments for Muhammad as prophet and the Qur’an as God’s word. The same holds for his distorted understandings of jihad and his strained reasoning that Islam is the best path to liberate women. We do not expect the assertions of our introduction to convince anyone. This is simply laying out our general positions. The rest of the book provides the evidence that clearly supports our views. Did we say clearly? Yes. On the matters we address, we believe that the evidence is overwhelming that Reza Aslan and the vast majority of Muslims do not get Jesus or Islam right. In terms of specifics, the New Testament is the place to turn for accurate information about Jesus (see chapters 15), not the Qur’an or Islamic tradition (chapters 11-13). The historical worth of the New Testament is excellent, and the manu- script tradition supporting the New Testament is superb. In contrast, in spite of the highest regard for Muhammad in Islam (chapter 6), the historical reliability of Muhammad is doubtful (chapter 7). Likewise, the traditional Muslim portrait of the prophet is morally questionable (chapter 8). The Qur’an is not divine, as Muslims believe (chapter 9), but is a flawed human product that contains mis- taken teaching about Jesus, huge distortions of the Bible and unethical guide- lines, and all in a confusing, disorderly and often nasty text (chapter 10). When the traditional Islamic view of Muhammad gets combined with traditional Islamic interpretations of shariah law and morality, we often get the consequent mistreatment of women (chapter 14) and the emphasis on jihad in terms of military conquest, dominion over non-Muslims and the harsh binary division of humanity into the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War (chapter 15). This goes a long way to explain the military expansion of Islam after the prophet gained power in Medina, the Arab conquests after the death of the prophet and the reality of Islamic imperialism ever since. [ Page ] 11 Three caveats are in order here. First, we ask readers not to use the bare assertions of this introduction as grounds for aligning us with extreme and ill- informed critiques of Islam. For example, we do not share the view of some right-wing critics that radical Islam (aka jihadist Islam) is obviously the true understanding of Islam. Does this mean we believe Islam is a religion of peace? We will save that question for later. For now, we gladly acknowledge that most Muslims today are deeply disturbed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL). From another angle, while we do not believe that Islam offers women true liberation, we do not think that every Muslim woman who veils herself is a slave. The veil can be a liberating reality for Muslim women in our sex-saturated cultures, West and East. Likewise, our hatred of Islamic jihad interpreted as conquest and terrorism should not be taken to mean that we have a Pollyanna view of Western societies or of British, German, French, Dutch, Russian, American or other non-Muslim imperialisms. Second, our strong critique of Islam and our confidence in Christian faith does not mean that there are no serious problems in the Bible or in under- standing the Christian view of God, the nature of humanity, the extent of sal- vation, the problem of pain and evil and so on. Nevertheless, in spite of ambiguities and problems, we assert that Christian faith in Jesus of Nazareth offers true liberation and salvation to all humans. Third, we ask readers to pay special attention to the fact that the concerns of our book in relation to Muhammad are directed to the traditional interpreta- tion of him and not to Muhammad directly. We do not believe that anyone can credibly describe or reach the historical Muhammad. We do argue, however, that the traditionalist perspective creates many of the moral complications about the prophet and, consequently, that Muslims like Reza Aslan need to learn how to better handle these serious issues for the survival of a healthy Islam. In our respective disciplines we are used to debate and polemic, but we have written this book to inform, not inflame, even when we offer blunt ver- dicts about Reza Aslan’s numerous errors in scholarship on both Jesus and Islam. The same applies to our critique of Islam. Our concerns about the tra- ditional view of Muhammad and the standard Islamic view of the Qur’an are raised because of our serious, lengthy academic study of the historical Jesus, Christian tradition and Islamic faith. Given this, our book invites rational examination. We remain open to correction of any errors of fact or interpre- tation. And we are eager to engage in debate on the matters we address. Since [ Page ] 12 there is a rich philosophical tradition in Islamic thought, we hope that Muslims will meet our perspectives and evidence with reasoned argument. As the authors of the book we alone are responsible for its content. But we have many people to thank, some of whom are listed. Foremost among all, we thank our respective wives (Gloria Beverley and Ginny Evans) for enduring another book project. We also express our appreciation to Tyndale Seminary and Acadia Divinity College for consistently supporting our research in general and this project in particular. We remain appreciative to Brett Potter and Dwight Crowell for helping on various research tasks. It has been a pleasure to work with our publisher, Larry Willard, and his wife, Marina, on all the details that go into getting a book into print. Lastly, readers will note the dedication page m memory of Jennifer Keirstead, Professor Beverley’s niece, who died unexpectedly on September 6, 2014, at the age of 21. A month before her death she sat beside him at a baby dedication and sang with others “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” We offer this book in the unwavering conviction of the truth of that simple affirmation. James A. Beverley Craig A. Evans Note: For spelling alternatives, we usually adopt the spelling Muhammad for the prophet and Qur’an for Islamic Scripture. We use different translations of the Qur’an but highly recommend Arthur Droge’s new annotated version (Equinox, 2014). Generally, we avoid diacritical marks. To contact authors write professorjamesbeverley@gettingjesusright.com and professorcraigevans@gettingjesusright.com. A Thank-You to Colleagues, Friends and Fellow Scholars We express our appreciation to Tyndale Seminary (President Gary Nelson, Vice-President Janet Clark, and Vice-President Randy Henderson) for funding three research trips for Professor Beverley over the last several years in relation to his ongoing research on Islam. We also thank Dave Collison, a close friend of Professor Beverley, who helped cover costs on one research trip in February and March 2014. These forays have sometimes included interviews or contact by phone and email (Robert Hoyland, Kevin Van Bladel, Herbert Berg, David Cook and Dan Brubaker, for example) and also face-to-face contact with other [ Page ] 13 great scholars of Islam and related fields, including Hans Küng (Germany), Patricia Crone (USA), Lutz Richter-Bernburg (Germany), Frank Peters (USA), Efraim Karsh (England), Josef van Ess (Germany), Christopher Tyerman (England), Michael Cook (USA), Andrew Rippin (Canada), Gerald Hawting (England) and Angelika Neuwirth (Germany), among others. Professor Neuwirth initiated a visit for Professor Beverley to her Corpus Coranicum project at the Free University of Berlin. The Corpus Coranicum is probably the most significant academic project on the Qur’an in history. Thanks to Professor Neuwirth and to three researchers at the Coranicum (Yousef Kouriyhe, Tobias Jocham and Laura Hinrichsen) for their assistance. Professor Beverley is grateful to informed friends who helped him on various debatable issues in Islamic studies and the study of religion. Among them are Jay Smith, Wafik Wahba, Sam Solomon, Andy Bannister, Eileen Barker, Bob Morris, Gordon Nickel, Tom Holland, Tony Costa, Keith Small, Rick Love, Don Wiebe, Chad Hillier, Robert Spencer, J. Gordon Melton, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Keith Small and Massimo Introvigne. Professor Beverley is also grateful to two Muslim friends, Muhammad Iqbal Al-Nadvi and Mohammed Atieque (leaders in Canada’s Islamic community), for many hours of conversation. We also thank President Hany Gardner and the Divinity College of Acadia University for its generous support of Professor Evans’ research, which has made possible travel to scholarly conferences as well as to archaeological exca- vations in Israel. Professor Evans is grateful to several scholars who over the years have served as dialogue partners and collaborators in various scholarly projects. These include Dale Allison of Princeton Theological Seminary, Bruce Chilton of Bard College, John and Adela Collins of Yale Divinity School, Jimmy Dunn of Durham University, Shimon Gibson of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Helmut Koester of Harvard Divinity School, Joel Marcus of Duke University, Scot McKnight of Northern Seminary and Armand Puig i Tàrrech of the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia in Barcelona. Heartfelt grati- tude is also extended to wonderful colleagues of Professor Evans who in recent years have passed from this life. This includes Martin Hengel of Tubingen University, Bruce Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary, Ben Meyer of McMaster University, and Graham Stanton of Cambridge University. The world of biblical studies and scholarship concerned with the historical Jesus and Christian origins is challenging and rewarding, but above all it is collegial. [ Page ] 14 ***** This is the end of the e-text. 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