Rebuttal to Sam Shamoun

Did Jesus Contradict Himself?

By Abdullah Smith

[Part I] [Part II]

 

 

 

Arrogant Shamoun has recently written a response to my article “Jesus Contradicts Himself” under the heading “More Alleged Bible Contradictions”. Here is my response to his pathetic attempts to defend the Bible; he apparently believes the Bible is the Word of God fully preserved without reading certain books that expose the Bible.

I highly recommend:

The Bible Contradicts itself (John Bowden)

Self-Contradictions of the Bible (William Henry Burr)

 

SHAMOUN WROTE:

Mr. Smith just recently posted a paper where he accuses the NT of teaching that the Lord Jesus was a liar.

He writes:

 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

 Therefore Jesus told them, "The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come." Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.

 However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. (John 7:1-10)

How many Christians have overlooked this verse? The footnote regarding John 7:8 says

"Some early manuscripts do not have yet". The word ‘yet’ was added to later manuscripts to cover up the lie.

RESPONSE:

We must again repeat the point we have made throughout this paper. The problem doesn’t lie with what the text says, but with Mr. Smith’s shallow reading of the Holy Bible. Let us highlight the points he missed due to his zeal to try and show that the NT presents Jesus as a liar in a similar manner to the Quran’s teaching that Allah is a liar and the best deceiver of them all:

"After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret IF HE SEEKS TO BE KNOWN OPENLY. If you do these things, SHOW YOURSELF TO THE WORLD.’ For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, ‘MY TIME HAS NOT YET COME, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, FOR MY TIME HAS NOT YET FULLY COME.’ After saying this, HE REMAINED IN GALILEE. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, NOT PUBLICLY BUT IN PRIVATE." John 7:1-10

 

RESPONSE:

My “shallow reading” of the Bible is shared by millions of Christians who also don’t understand the words of their “lord and savior”. This explains why Christians have produced the Message Bible which changes the translation to make it appeal to younger crowds. For example, many passages have been softened by later Bible versions, giving us the implication that Christians are equally offended by these passages, and guilty for misunderstanding the words of Jesus.

 

EXAMPLE #1

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26, New International Version)

These words are softened in other Bible versions.

"Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters--yes, even one's own self!-can't be my disciple. (The Message, Luke 14:26)

"If you want to be my follower you must love me more than your own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. (New Living Translation, Luke 14:26)

 

EXAMPLE # 2

Paul degraded Jesus in the following verses:

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, English Standard Version)

Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, 21st Century King James Version)

 

Paul emphasized that Christ was not perfect, hence his teachings should be discarded, because according to Paul, they are like ‘filthy and useless rags’ (Isaiah 64:6) and we must excel towards “perfection and maturity”. The deceptive editors changed the English translation of Paul’s damaging words. This outrageous statement has been softened in many other versions of the Bible:

 

So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don't need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7. New Living Translation)

We must try to become mature and start thinking about more than just the basic things we were taught about Christ. We shouldn't need to keep talking about why we ought to turn from deeds that bring death and why we ought to have faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7, Contemporary English Version)

 

According to the Jesus Seminar, the Logia (words) of Jesus have been altered:

"Hard sayings are frequently softened in the process of transmission to adapt them to the conditions of daily living...Variations in difficult saying often betray the struggle of the early Christian community to interpret or adapt sayings to its own situations... Matthew's version of the aphorism "The last will be first and the first last"(Matt 20:16) is softened in Mark 10:31 to "MANY of the first will be last, and of the last MANY will be first"." (The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the AUTHENTIC Words of Jesus, p. 295)

There is naturally much more manuscript variation in the gospel sayings than in the narrative sections, since it was the sayings that were repeatedly reinterpreted. Such variants are to be expected in any text which existed only as different manuscripts for many hundreds of years before it could be printed in the form of thousands of identical copies; for every single manuscript is the artifact of an individual scribe, who could introduce errors or what he—or his patron or his particular religious community—took for improvements. (G.A. Wells, The Jesus Myth, p. 4)

The New American Bible tells us in its introduction, under the heading How to Read Your Bible:

“It is difficult to know whether the words or sayings attributed to Jesus are written exactly as he spoke them.  (St. Joseph Medium Size Edition, p.23)

 

Questions for Shamoun:

(1) Can you tell us why the editors changed the Bible?

 

“The number of deliberate alterations made in the interests of doctrine is difficult to assess.”  [Bruce M. Metzger's "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration", 1964]

"Many thousands of the variants which are found in the MSS of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of careless handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons (even though they may not affect the substance of Christian dogma). It is because the books of the NT are religious books, sacred books, canonical books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading. [George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).] 

It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was later committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation, involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633)

 

Some of the events in the early mission of Jesus] were not strictly true but were added to the story of Jesus by the early Christians to express their faith in him as a Messiah."  [London Daily Mail, page 12, 15/July/1984] 

 

(2) Why did the Bible editors soften Luke 14:26 if they were not offended? Why did they soften Hebrews 6:1?

"Hard sayings are frequently softened in the process of transmission to adapt them to the conditions of daily living (ibid, The Five Gospels, p. 295)

“The Bible can be changed at any time by the Christian leaders. For example, in the early days, it was altered by copyists and today there is a revised version.” (A.D. Ajijola, The Myth of the Cross)

 

 

(3) Why did the early Christians fail to preserve the sayings of Jesus? The Church leader Tertullian testifies about the Gospel being corrupted:

You have now our answer to the Antitheses compendiously indicated by us. I pass on to give a proof of the Gospel--not, to be sure, of Jewry, but of Pontus--having become meanwhile adulterated; and this shall indicate the order by which we proceed. (Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 2)

 

 

(4) Do you know Jesus was misunderstood by his own disciples? (Matthew 15:17, 16:9, 11, Luke 18:34, John 12:16)

Jesus deliberately spoke in a manner no one could understand:

"Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. (John 16:25)

 

What about my “shallow reading” of the Bible?

 

YOU WROTE:

Jesus’ brothers were asking him to go up and publicly present himself to the people, obviously with the intention of trying to get him killed. Jesus doesn’t deny that he will go up to the feast, but says he won’t go up and present himself publicly since the time for him to do that had not yet come. The text shows that later on Jesus did go up, but not publicly, since the time had obviously come for him to go to the feast but in secret. Basically, the Father had granted Jesus the permission to go up privately since it still wasn’t time for him to show himself openly. As it stands the text nowhere supports the erroneous assertion that Jesus lied, especially when we find statements such as these later on in the very same chapter:

 

RESPONSE:

Jesus had been preaching publicly even before his brothers challenged him to speak openly to the world. According to John, he was deliberately preaching publicly from the very beginning:

 

 

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.  (John 2:23)

 

 

While he yet talked to the people, behold, [his] mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. (Matthew 12:46)

 

 

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. (Luke 4:14-15)

 

 

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, (Luke 4:20)

 

 

"Just what I have been claiming all along," Jesus replied. "I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world." (John 8:26)

 

 

Jesus answered, "I've spoken openly in public. I've taught regularly in meeting places and the Temple, where the Jews all come together. Everything has been out in the open. I've said nothing in secret. (John 18:20, The Message)

 

Jesus replied, "What I teach is widely known, because I have preached regularly in the synagogues and the Temple. I have been heard by people everywhere, and I teach nothing in private that I have not said in public. (New Living Translation)

 

But Jesus told him, "I have spoken freely in front of everyone. And I have always taught in our meeting places and in the temple, where all of our people come together. I have not said anything in secret. (Contemporary English Version)

 

"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. (New International Version)

 

Jesus made answer, I said things openly to the world at all times; I have given my teaching in the Synagogues and in the Temple to which all the Jews come; and I have said nothing secretly.  (BBE)

See also http://bible.cc/john/18-20.htm

 

Apparently, the world already knew about Jesus, because he publicly made himself known (purposefully) even before his brothers challenged him to show himself to the world. Therefore, Jesus was deliberately risking his own life; he was doing that since the very beginning, without anyone forcing him. Where does the context of John 7 say his brothers intended to “get him killed?” they wanted to see him preach publicly so they could witness the miracles he does and believe in him. The brothers of Jesus were lacking faith; they needed evidence for his claims of Messiahship.

 

The disciples also had weak faith in Jesus:

And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, [It is] because we have taken no bread. [Which] when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? (Matthew 16:5-8)

And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth [his] hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? (Mark 14:28-31)

Some disciples doubted that Jesus resurrected from the dead:

 

Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. (Mark 16:14)

 

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. (Matthew 28:17)

 

HE WROTE:

The last thing that John would try to do is present his Lord and Savior as a blatant liar like Allah of the Quran.

 

RESPONSE:

According to the Bible, there is no Lord and Savior except Yahweh, the Creator of the Universe:

I, [even] I, [am] the LORD; and beside me [there is] no saviour. (Isaiah 43:11)

Yet I [am] the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for [there is] no saviour beside me. (Hosea 13:4)

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. (Luke 1:47)

 

Allah is not a deceiver, these are Shamoun’s delusions based on his misunderstanding of the Holy Quranic passages, and his personal interpretation of the Quran is different from the authentic Commentaries given to us by Muslim scholars. I highly recommend Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi.

 

The Bible describes God as the chief deceiver and liar:

 

O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. (Jeremiah 20:7)

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. (Ezekiel 14:9)

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12)

"Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." (1 Kings 22:23)

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul. (Jeremiah 4:10)

 

 God contradicts Himself:

 

(1)   Should we kill?

Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus 20:13)

And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. (Exodus 32:27)

And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. (1 Samuels 6:19)

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuels 15:2-3)

And the LORD smote Benjamin before Israel: and the children of Israel destroyed of the Benjamites that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men: all these drew the sword. (Judges 20:35)

 

(2)   Should we tell lies?

Thou shalt not bear false witness. (Exodus 20:16)

The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. (1 Kings 22:23)

 

(3) Should we steal?

Thou shalt not steal. (Exodus 20:15)

But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians. (Exodus 3:22)

 

(3)   Shall we keep the Sabbath?

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Exodus 20:8)

The new moons and the Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity. (Isaiah 1:13)

 

(4)   Should we make graven images?

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (Exodus 20:4)

And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. (Exodus 25:18)

 

(5)   Does God change His mind?

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: (Numbers 23:19)

And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (Genesis 6:6)

 

(6)   Are we punished for our parent's sins?

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (Exodus 20:5)

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. (Deuteronomy 24:16)

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. (Ezekiel 18:20)

 

* GOD changes his mind:

"Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: 'I promised that your house and your father's house would minister before me forever.' But now the LORD declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.  The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line. (1 Samuels 2:30-31)

Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. (Exodus 32:14)

 

* GOD breaks his promise/covenant:

      But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed. Thou   hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground. Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin. (Psalms 89:38-41)

 

HE WROTE:

Furthermore, is it any wonder that some scribes felt the need to add the word "yet" in light of the author’s blatant distortion of the text? (This assumes of course that this word is not part of the original reading). They apparently realized there would be weak-minded Christians who may misunderstand Jesus’ meaning here, as well as deceivers who would try to use such passages to pollute the minds of believers much like Mr. Smith has unsuccessfully tried to do.

 

RESPONSE:

The forgery of the word ‘yet’ is evidence that John has been seriously adulterated. The Gospel of John is the least historical gospel:

 

"Since the beginning of the period of modern critical study, however, there has been much controversy about [the Gospel of John's] authorship, place of origin, theological affiliations and background, and historical value" (The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 2, Abingdon Press, p. 932)

 

"…… the fourth Gospel does not emanate or profess to emanate from the apostle John , who cannot be taken as an historical authority…… the author of the fourth Gospel acted with sovereign freedom , transposed events and put them in a strange light. He drew up the discussions himself and illustrated great thoughts with imaginary situations". (Harnack, What is Christianity)

 

Harnack further refers to the work of the famous Christian historian, David Strauss, whom he describes as having "almost destroyed the historic credibility not only of the fourth but also of the first three Gospels as well". (Source: Jesus Prophet of Islam, Muhammad Ataur-Raheem)

 

It is a fact that relatively few Christians are aware of the fact that the four Gospels not only contradict each other but at times violently disagree. According to the French surgeon , Maurice Bucaille , in his book , "The Bible, The Qur’an and Science" (1979, Indianapolis, American Trust Publications), Christians are very often astonished at the existence of contradictions between the Gospels – if they ever discover them. This is because they have been repeatedly told in tones of the greatest assurance that the New Testament authors were the "eye witnesses" of the events they describe! It is also because the majority of Christians know only selected sections of the Gospels read during Church services or commented upon during sermons. Also, particularly for Catholics, it is not customary for them to read the Gospels in their entirety; books of religious instruction only containing extracts with the "in extenso" texts hardly circulated at Roman Catholic Schools. Bucaille observes that there can be no doubt that a complete reading of the Gospels is likely to disturb Christians profoundly.

The more one studies the Gospels, the more the contradictions between them become apparent. Indeed, they do not even agree on the day of the crucifixion. According to John’s Gospel, the crucifixion occurred on the day before the Passover. According to the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Mathew, it occurred on the day after. And most significantly, the Gospel of John makes absolutely no reference to the institution of the Eucharist – the consecration of the bread and wine which become the body and blood of Jesus – the most essential act of the Christian liturgy. How can this omission in John’s Gospel be explained? If one reasons objectively, the hypothesis that springs immediately to mind – always supposing the story as told by the other three evangelists is exact – is that a passage of John’s Gospel relating to the said episode was lost. Explanations by Christian theologians that ‘John was not interested in the traditions and institutions of a bygone Israel, and was therefore dissuaded from showing the institution of the Eucharist in the Passover liturgy’ do not really help to explain the omission. Are we seriously to believe that it was a lack of interest in the Jewish liturgy which led John not to describe the institution of the most fundamental act in the liturgy of the new religion? (http://www.islamtz.org/nyaraka/aziz-e.htm)

 

The contents of the Gospel of John do not seem to the present writer historical at all, in our sense of the word historical…they have all passed through the alembic (distillations) of the Evangelist’s mind and have come out changed. I do not think the writer distinguished his own consciousness between what he remembered (or had derived from the reminiscences of others) and what he felt must have been true, and I greatly doubt whether we can distinguish often in that Gospel what is derived from tradition and what is derived from imagination. (Francis Crawford Burkitt, History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge, A Collective Work, quoted in M.A. Yussef, The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gospel of Barnabas, and the New Testament (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1990), 209.)

 

It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was later committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation, involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633)

 

“THE EVIDENCE IS, THEREFORE, THAT THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF THE CHRISTIAN GREEK SCRIPTURES HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH, THE SAME AS THE TEXT OF THE LXX” (Ahmed Deedat, Is the Bible God’s Word? p. 24)

 

“About the Gospel of John, there is much controversy as to authorship, date, and even as to whether it was all written by one person” (Yusuf Ali, English Translation of the Holy Quran, p. 286)

 

The Gospel of John was composed “by an anonymous Christian in Alexandria” (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 98)

 

“It is certain that the New Testament (as the Gospels) was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with. (Reverend Taylor, Diegesis, Boston, 1872, p. 114)

 

The author of John “was not concerned with the sort of questions which trouble many Christians today---Did Jesus actually say this? Did he use these exact words? and so on” (James Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus, p. 43)

 

You have now our answer to the Antitheses compendiously indicated by us. I pass on to give a proof of the Gospel -not, to be sure, of Jewry, but of Pontus-having become meanwhile adulterated; and this shall indicate the order by which we proceed. (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter two)

 

Regarding the forgery of the word ‘yet’, the Bible tells us:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelations 22:18,19)

Furthermore, the Jehovah’s Witnesses added the word “a god” in John 1:1, and changed the translation. (Doesn’t this verse apply to them?)

 

Conclusion

We love Jesus Christ, we believe in Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), but we DO NOT believe what the Bible has to say about him, the false sayings and failed prophecies that are attributed to him!

It is sad how Christians cannot see the Light of Islam; instead they want to attack it.  Yet the Islamic Version of Jesus is the true and correct Jesus, as the whole world should believe. The Jews regard Jesus as a false prophet, Christians over-praise him as the “Son of God”, but the Islamic version of Jesus is absolutely true.  Muslims believe, just like the Nazarenes and Ebionites before “Christianity” existed, that Jesus was a Prophet and Messenger of God, the Christ, but he was not the “Son of God” or the “Sun of God”.

https://www.answering-christianity.com/jesus_hypocrite.htm

We must label Christianity as the religion of lawlessness, as Christians are very proud to say “we are saved by faith only”, which directly contradicts the teachings of the Bible!

Another reason for Jesus’ second coming is that he will be honored with the opportunity to personally correct the belief of his people. Too many have disbelieved and rejected him. Many others have believed incorrectly about him. When he returns, everyone will believe in him correctly. Yet another reason for his coming is that some of his teachings have been forgotten (see Qur'an 5:14), and replaced by misguided teachings (see Qur'an 5:77, 9:30). Jesus will have the honor of breaking the symbols of such false teachings and dramatically confirming his true teachings which were also taught by his brother in faith, the last prophet, on whom be peace. (Shabir Ally, Answers to Common Questions People Ask About Islam)

 

Say: "O People of the Book! come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah." If then they turn back, say ye: "Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah's Will). (Al-Quran 3:64)

 

Written by Abdullah Smith