Islam and its relationship to Christianity and Judaism

 Islam and its relationship to Christianity and Judaism.

I have a friend, who since the election, has gone over to the dark side. She has rejected the freedom for all religions to worship in this country as they wish, and has become very anti-Muslim, even to complaining about Muslims and other religions giving prayers in our capitol.

If she was arguing that all religious observances and prayers have no place in our official government meeting places, I would agree, but that horse left the barn ages ago. She is convinced that this is a Christian nation, even though the Constitution makes no reference to Christianity or Jesus. And she is ignorant of the intentions of the founding fathers in creating a secular, free country where all may observe their religious rites (rights?) equally.

She shares the beliefs of most fundamental Christians that somehow Islam is a different, opposing religion. They don’t realize that Islam is one of the three Abrahamic religions, along with Judaism and Christianity. 

The Koran brings Islam even closer to Christianity than Judaism, because in that book, Jesus is recognized as one of the greatest of prophets. The Koran has a whole chapter on Mary and the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Moslems believe Jesus was a Messiah, just not the Son of God. The fundamental belief of Islam is that there is only ONE God, and Mohammed is His prophet.

One of the things that puzzles me after many years of studying the early Christian writings, is how the Catholic Church decided to put the book of James in the Christian Bible. To me, James is the crossover book that bridges the beliefs of Islam and Christianity. 

The 27 books in our New Testament were first proposed by Bishop Athenasius of Alexandria, Egypt, in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicaea, called for by Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to claim Christianity.

The list of books wasn’t finalized until over seventy years later. Meanwhile, some objected to including the book of James, precisely because there was no mention of Jesus as the Son of God, or of his redemptive death on the cross for our sins, although there are a lot of words about sinning. But in the end James was accepted into the canon. 

In the centuries leading up to the Carthaginian Councils, some prelates objected to the Revelation of John as being too hard to understand. At the time it was interpreted to refer to Nero or Herod Antipas. Since then every generation has found its own Anti-Christs and Beasts. Some wanted to leave it out and insert The Shepherd of Hermes instead. I think that might have been a good idea.

The final list of approved books in the New Testament wasn’t done until about four hundred years after the crucifixion. Following are excerpts from the records:

“Councils were nowhere more frequently called in the Primitive Times than in Africa. In the year 418–19, all canons formerly made in sixteen councils held at Carthage, one at Milevis, one at Hippo, that were approved of, were read, and received a new sanction from a great number of bishops, then met in synod at Carthage. This Collection is the Code of the African Church, which was always in greatest repute in all Churches next after the Code of the Universal Church. 

The Canon approved by the third Synod of Carthage (397 CE)

The first council that accepted the present New Testament canon was the Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa (393 CE): however, the acts of the Council are lost. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by the third Synod of Carthage.

Canon XXIV. Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of divine Scriptures. Moreover, the Canonical Scriptures are these: [then follows a list of Old Testament books]. The [books of the] New Testament: 

the Gospels, four books;

The Acts of the Apostles, one book;

The Epistles of Paul, thirteen;

Of the Same to the Hebrews, one epistle;

Of Peter, two;

Of John, apostle, three;

Of James, one;

Of Jude, one;

The Revelation of John.

Concerning the confirmation of this canon, the transmarine Church shall be consulted. On the anniversaries of martyrs, their acts shall also be read.

(The transmarine church is the Church in Rome, across the Mediterranean Sea, which still had to approve the acts of the African church Synod, which was not always a given. D.V. Rogers)

Note that Hebrews is listed separately from the other 13 epistles.

According to Zahn, in 419 another Synod held at Carthage gave the concluding words in the following form:

Fourteen epistles of Paul…

The Revelation of John, one book. 

Let this be sent to our brother and fellow Bishop,  Boniface [of Rome], and to the other bishops of those parts, that they may confirm this canon, for these are the things that we have received from our fathers to be read in church.

One thing few modern day Christians realize, is that after the crucifixion, there was not one unified church with just one set of doctrines. When I was younger, I wished I could go back and find out what the original apostles believed. That is what led to my obsession with the early church and everything that was written in the first four hundred years or so of the church history.

 In their choice of books the Catholic Church, in an attempt to make it seem as though it had always been one church, declared all other groups of Christians as heretics, banning their scriptures and persecuting those who persisted in other interpretations of Jesus’ message. But even in the New Testament, the differences are apparent.

For instance, some thought Jesus was a physical human being with a physical body. Some were sure he was a spirit, of divine and not human nature. So included in the canon is the story of Thomas, who doubted the real body of Jesus and was asked to touch his side to prove he was really flesh and blood.

Those two beliefs persisted, and became branches of the early Christian church. For those who believed he was a flesh and blood human, who suffered on the cross in agony, there was Matthew’s Gospel, which says he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And then when he had cried aloud again, he died.

For those who believed he was composed of divine spirit, and felt no pain, there was John’s Gospel. First he took care of business, telling John to take care of his mother. Then Jesus, noting it was time to fulfill the prophecy, said, ”I’m thirsty.” They gave him vinegar on a sponge, and then he simply said, “It is finished!” And he died. No sign of pain at all. 

The followers of Marcion taught that the real Jesus was up above the scene somewhere laughing at the presumption of mere men thinking they could kill God.

The most telling evidence of the controversy in the early church is hinted at in Acts of the Apostles, chapter 15. 

“And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren. “Unless you are circumcised as Moses taught, you can’t be saved!”

When therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.”

This was not just about circumcision - this is about Moses’ teachings. James’ church in Jerusalem was Jewish in all respects. In order to join the Christian church in Jerusalem, you had to become a Jew. You had to keep all the Mosaic laws, including those related to food. You also had to believe in one God, our Father, as Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer. But you could not be a Jew and believe that Jesus was “The Son of God.” 

Just as Moslems believe today, James’ church believed that Jesus was a great prophet, Lord, and Messiah, but not God.

Paul, on the other hand, was teaching a new religion. Jesus was the Son of God and came down to earth to pay for all the sins of men, and allow them to be saved without keeping the laws of Moses perfectly. God’s love and grace covers all those who accept his sacrifice, and you were no longer in bondage to the old Jewish laws. 

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith in Jesus Christ…and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Galations 2:16

“Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law.” …”Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Romans 13:8,10.

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.” “And now abides faith, hope, and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.”  ! Corinthians 13: 3, 13.

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, thusly: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Galations 5:14, 18

James and Paul argued about this for all the rest of their lives. As noted in Acts 15, they came to a compromise where Paul’s Gentile and Greek converts didn’t have to be circumcised to remain Christians, but the rule still applied to the Jews in Judea, where James’ churches were. 

Peter, who lived in the town of Capernaum, in Galilee, seemed to try to have it both ways. When he came up to Antioch to see Paul, he dispensed with the Jewish dietary rules when with Gentiles, but when others came up from Jerusalem, he went back to following the Jewish rules. Paul called him out for his hypocrisy. In Galations, chapter 2 verse 11, Paul says he got right up in his face!

James makes it plain that keeping the law was essential to being a Christian. And he makes it plain that he is talking about the law of Moses.

“If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well.”

“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, “Do not commit adultery” said also,”Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, but you kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.” James 2:8, 10, 11.

In verse 19, James asserts his monotheism: “You believe that there is one God; you do well. The devils also believe, and tremble.”

In verse 20, James is vehement - “But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” Want to take a guess who the vain man is that James is referring to?

In their lifetimes, Every time that Paul went to Jerusalem to argue with James, he seems to have lost. Even when he took lots of cash to the Jerusalem church, they still could not find agreement. Eventually the record shows the Jews were about to stone him to death, and he appealed to Caesar, being a Roman citizen, and they sent him to Rome as a prisoner. Those Jews who sent him just might have been James’ Christian/Jews.

Peter was already in Rome, as a missionary. In about 67 CE both were executed by Nero, who claimed the Christians set the fire that burned Rome.

So how did we get to the modern era, where Christian churches still have that argument going about faith and works?

James’ churches near Jerusalem were destroyed and annihilated in 70-72 CE by the Roman army of Titus. All Jews in and around the city were carved and sliced to pieces until the streets of Jerusalem were awash in blood, according to Josephus. The Roman army even attacked Jews at Masada, near the Dead Sea, and kept a siege going until they all killed themselves.

What few of his followers escaped went to the east, through Petra in Jordan, and on into Arabia. A few hundred years later a new religion appeared there, led by a prophet named Mohammed, with beliefs that strongly resemble those of the Christian Jews from Jerusalem. 

Islam believes in all the Old Testament prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaiah and Jesus, with Mohammed the last, most important, one. They still keep the dietary laws as the Jews do, except the Arabic term is Halal, rather than Kosher. And there are strict laws which they must follow in order to be faithful Muslims.

Paul’s churches, on the other hand, continued to thrive and expand throughout the Roman world. They had the advantage of Paul’s writings, which were copied and read in every church. Peter and John were illiterate fishermen, and the books attributed to them were written by close friends or followers, scribes probably. Half of the books that became the New Testament were attributed to Paul. His ideas on religion became the rule.

I find that ironic, since the Catholic Church claims Peter as its founder and first apostle. Paul is the one who preached Christ’s death on the cross and his redemption for our sins. Grace is a Pauline concept.

But the Catholic Church tried to make it all fit when they chose the books to make the New Testament. They needed James to make it necessary to do good works to be in the church, such as doing penance, paying into the church treasury, and helping build large buildings.

 

They also needed the vision of Christ on the cross from Paul, to give people hope, and to keep people believing that his grace and forgiveness could be found in the Catholic Church, with the help of the priests.

They also ruled that gospels and epistles that implied that one could find his own salvation without the church, as a group called Gnostics believed, were heretical and those books should be destroyed. 

Luckily for us, when Bishop Athenasius sent those orders out to the churches in Egypt, one church near a town called Nag Hamadi chose to pile those books in a tall jar and bury it in a cliff near the Nile River. They were found by local people in 1945 and eventually found their way out to the world where we could read them and discover what some of the other Christian churches believed.

There is also an intriguing book called the Gospel of Barnabas, which is of Muslim origin from about the eighth century, which has this quote from its introductory chapter:

“Dearly beloved the great and wonderful God hath during these past days visited us by his prophet Jesus Christ in great mercy of teaching and miracles, by reason whereof many, being deceived of Satan, under presence of piety, are preaching most impious doctrine, calling Jesus son of God, repudiating the circumcision ordained of God for ever, and permitting every unclean meat: among whom also Paul hath been deceived, whereof I speak not without grief; for which cause I am writing that truth which I have seen and heard, in the intercourse that I have had with Jesus, in order that ye may be saved, and not be deceived of Satan and perish in the judgment of God. Therefore beware of every one that preacheth unto you new doctrine contrary to that which I write, that ye may be saved eternally.”

— Introduction to the Gospel of Barnabas 

The author is unknown, (we know it wasn’t Barnabas, since he died on the isle of Cyprus a couple of years before Paul died in Rome), but the text pretty well sums up the beliefs of the Judean Jamesian Christians and their disputation with Paul. If this is true, it corroborates the text in Galations 2:13, which implies that Barnabas reverted to the beliefs of the Jews from Jerusalem.

So, in conclusion, (I could write a book on the Marcionites, Valentinians and other Gnostics, etc. but I’ll leave those for another day) anyone who believes that Islam doesn’t belong with Christianity and Judaism as the three Abrahamic religions, and somehow worships a different God, needs to go back to their studies again.

If Christians can give prayers in our national capitol, then Jews and Moslems should have the same rights. Maybe even Hindus, Sikhs, or Pastafarians! It’s a free country, isn’t it?