THE PORTRAIT OF JESUS IN THE QUR?

AN:
REFLECTIONS OF A BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

Scholars have approached the portrait of Jesus in the Qur^n mainly

from three different points of view, the polemical, the dialogical, and
the historical.1
The polemical treatment is the oldest. For more than one thousand
years it was the common practice for Christians to write about Islam
polemically, branding Muhammad as an impostor and a liar. On the
other hand, the same Christian readers, studying the QurDn from a
specifically Christian perspective, concluded that even the liar acknowledges, if unwillingly, the divinity of Christ, for does he not, after all,
call Jesus the "Word" of God?
The polemical tradition survives in a more attractive form in missionary treatments of the theme. In 1912 S.M. Zwemer wrote: "To help
our Moslem brethren to answer this question ['What think ye of
Christ?'], we must...lead them up to higher truth by admitting all of the
truth which they possess."2 On other occasions, the tone of missionary
writers was much less tactful. E. Kellerhals, for instance, wrote that the
Quranic portrait of Jesus reveals Islam as a form of Satanic antiChristianity, devised by the father of lies. On the surface, Christ is accepted and honored, but all this is mere cunning and calculation.3
Obviously, missionary study of Quranic Christology fails to do
justice to the other religion. It is easy enough to compare the Quranic
portrait of Jesus with the picture that emerges from the NT or with later
Orthodox Christology and to conclude that the "Christian prophet as
Islam knows him" is "sadly attenuated."4 But such an assessment does
not do justice to Islam, which "is an autonomous expression of
religious thought and experience, which must be viewed in and through
its own principles and standards."5 Moreover, missionary critics of the
1
For details and a bibliography see Heikki Risnen, Das koranische Jesusbild
(Helsinki: The Finnish Society for Missiology and Ecumenics, 1971). This paper as a
whole is based on the book to which I must refer the reader for all references. For a recent
brief treatment of the topic, see also Kurt Rudolph, "Jesus nach dem Koran," in Was
haltet ihr von Jesus? ed. by Wolfgang Trilling and Ingo Berndt (Leipzig: St. BennoVerlag, 1975), pp. 260 ff.
2
Samuel M. Zwemer, The Moslem Christ (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier,
1912), p. 8.
3
Emanuel Kellerhals, Der Islam (Basel: Basileia Verlag, 1945), p. 180.
4
Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956),
p. 261. Of course, Cragg's approach to Islam as a whole is nevertheless characterized by
sympathetic understanding.
5
Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Mohammedanism, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1962), p. vii.

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123

Qur^an have usually been unaware of the inadequacy of their own yardsticks. Missionary literature does not in general show much awareness
of the differences between the Jesus of the NT and the Christ of
Christological dogma, or of the existence of several rather different
Christologies in the NT itself. Hence, the customary missionary approach both fails to do justice to the alien tradition and lacks a realistic
picture of its own tradition. It goes without saying that this fault does
not lie with Christians alone. Standard Muslim criticism of Christianity
and the Bible is certainly not less guilty in this respect.
In recent times, however, polemics and criticism have to a great extent
given way to a new dialogical approach. There is a desire to achieve
"fraternal understanding between the children of Abraham"6 in the
search for social justice, moral values and world peace. One is eager to
find in representatives of the other religion allies against the increasing
encroachment of secularization. Laudable as such an enterprise is, the
dangers inherent in the dialogical approach are those of superficiality
and anachronism. One can easily read the Qur5n with a Christian bias,
more or less ignoring the historical context of the book. Paradoxically
enough, certain claims belonging to the old polemical literature are time
and again repeated in a new form in the dialogue: the Qwan, as opposed to later Islam, does not (it is held) deny the divinity of Jesus or the
Christian doctrine of the Logos.7 But the Qur5n is not to be expounded
by the NT. Against all dialogical claims it should be emphasized that a
knowledge of the NT is not at all necessary for an understanding of the
Qur5an in its historical setting.8
The third approach may be termed historical. During the last hundred
years much work has been done to trace all sorts of traditions which
went into the making of the QurDan. Jewish and Judeo-Christian,
Nestorian and Monophysite, Manichaean and Gnostic motives and
traditions have been discovered. Especially clear is the influence of certain popular apocryphal traditions concerning Mary and the birth and
childhood of Jesus. This tracing of sources is part of the historical task,
but by no means the whole of it or even the most important aspect. The
Qur5an is not just the sum of its 'sources.' The establishment of the
origin of some of its elements does not add up to an 'explanation' of the
book. Muhammad was not merely a collector of ideas. Whatever tradi* Denise Masson, Le Coran et la rvlation Judo-Chrtienne, I (Paris: AdrienMaisonneuve, 1958), p. 7.
7
See, e.g., R. C. Zaehner, At Sundry Times (London: Faber & Faber, 1958), pp. 209,
216.
Contra Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur^Qn (London: Faber & Faber, 1965),
p. 173.

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tions were available to him, they all passed through his fervid religious
experience and were transmuted by it. Every detail in the QurDan,
whatever its origin may be, must be interpreted in the light of the new
Quranic context. The QurDn must be explained by the Quran and not
by anything else. This is the lesson to be learnt from the 'redactioncritical' studies of the Old and the New Testament. No matter what the
Christians meant, for instance, when they spoke of Jesus as the
"Word" of God, from the point of view of the QurDn the only relevant
question is: "What could Muhammad possibly mean by that expression
in the context of his total view?" Seen against the background of
Muhammad's theology as a whole, the Quranic portrait of Jesus stands
out as coherent and clear. The various stories of Jesus and the
references to him, as well as the more dogmatic Christian statements
known to Muhammad, were reinterpreted by Muhammad in the light of
his own personal experience. Like other previous messengers of God,
Jesus became an example and a precursor of Muhammad, a guarantor
of Muhammad's message who had experienced similar things.
To speak of the Qur^an as an expression of Muhammad's religious
experience is bound to offend Muslims. Many Christian writers, Watt
and Parrinder for instance, attempt, therefore, to avoid such language
altogether.9 This kind of language also appears to violate an often cited
canon, formulated by W. Cantwell Smith, according to which "no
statement about a religion is valid unless it can be acknowledged by that
religion's believers."10 I think Cantwell Smith is right as regards
descriptions of what is believed today by adherents of a religion. But his
statement should not be applied to the historical study of religions.
When a NT scholar tries to reconstruct the teaching of the historical
Jesus, he does not and cannot stop to ask the average Christian believer
what he thinks of the issue. On the contrary, the Biblical critic is likely
to try to persuade the ordinary Christian to take another look at the
historical evidence and rethink the whole thing. There is no reverting of
the historical insights of the last two centuries. Christian theologians
have had to learn to cope with the strictly historical treatment of their
holy Scripture. They may be forgiven if they apply the same methods to
other Scriptures, provided that the standards they apply are in fact the
same.11 I feel justified in speaking of the Qur3an in terms of Muham9
Cf. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (London: Oxford University Press,
1953), p. x; Parrinder, Jesus, p. 10.
10
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "Comparative Religion: Whither and Why?," in The
History of Religions, ed. by Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1959), p. 42.
1
' For an attempt to compare the Bible and the Qur3an from this perspective, see Heikki
Risnen, The Idea of Divine Hardening, 2nd ed. (Helsinki: The Finnish Exegetical Society, 1976).

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mad's personal experience, since I use precisely the same kind of

language when speaking of the NT. The NT bears every mark of
successive transformations and reinterpretations of religious tradition
in new situations and in the light of new human experiences. To
acknowledge this does not necessarily detract from the value of the
Scripture, although it compels one to view its authority in a different
light. I would suggest that the same is true of the QurDan, although I
realize that Muslims are not willing to admit this. But it took Christian
theologians some seventeen centuries to get the historical criticism of the
Bible started. In comparison with that, Islam still has plenty of time. In
my view, a really penetrating dialogue between the two faiths can only
begin when both sides are prepared to take historical criticism seriously.
II
For my present purpose, a rapid survey of the main points in the
Quranic picture of Jesus is sufficient.12
The virginal conception of Jesus was a sign (S. 19:21) of God's
omnipotence. Jesus worked great wonders "with God's permission"
(S. 3:49; 5:110) and taught the same ethical monotheistic message that
countless other messengers before him had taught and that Muhammad
was to teach after him. A summary, appropriate in the mouth of any
messenger, is given in S. 43:63 f.: "Fear God and obey me. Assuredly
God is my Lord and your Lord. Serve Him! This is a straight path." In
addition, Jesus confirmed the earlier Book of Torah (S. 3:50; 5:46) and
clarified some controversial points in it (S. 43:63), just as Muhammad
felt called upon to pronounce judgment on some matters debated between Jews and Christians (S. 27:78). Jesus also announced the coming
of Muhammad (S. 61:6). He was a righteous man (S. 3:46; 6:85), one of
those who stand close to God (S. 3:45), displaying the characteristic
Muslim virtues: prayer, almsgiving and piety toward his mother (S.
19:32). Nevertheless, his contemporaries rejected his message as
"manifest sorcery" (S. 61:6; 5:110), except for his disciples who were,
like Jesus, real Muslims (S. 3:45; 61:14). The Jews tried to kill Jesus and
boasted that they had indeed done so, but they were wrong. They could
not really kill him, but God raised him up to Himself (S. 4:158). Christians regard Jesus blasphemously as God's Sonin fact, as one of three
gods. Yet neither Jesus himself, a created being like Adam (S. 3:59;
4:171), nor his mother, ever wished to be anything other than God's servant and messenger (S.4:171-172; 5:72, 116).
12
For details, cf. Risnen, Jesusbild, pp. 17 ff.; and Henri Michaud, Jsus selon le
Coran (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestl, 1960).

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This is a coherent and impressive picture of a messenger of the one

and only God, who proclaimed the unchanging message in his own time
and place. The coherence springs from the fact that Muhammad interpreted everything he heard about Jesus in the light of his own experience. Jesus' story, like that of other messengers, was a source of
deep comfort and consolation for Muhammad. Jesus had been taught a
Scripture by God, the Injl, just as Muhammad received the Qur^n. If
Muhammad was accused of sorcery and demonic possession, so was
Jesus! If Muhammad suffered hardship, remember Jesus whom God
saved from an ignominious death on the cross (probably letting him die
a natural death later on). Jesus' disciples are seen as a paradigm for
Muhammad's "helpers" (ansar) in Medina (S. 3:52; 61:14); they, too,
are Muslims (S. 5:111). Last, but not least, Jesus had even prophesied
the coming of the Arabian prophet (S. 61:6).
This is an outline of the general picture. A couple of points call for
special comment.
The Qur^an affirms the virginal conception of Jesus. Many Western
critics have accused Muhammad of inconsistency: since he rejects the
divinity of Jesus, he ought not to have accepted the Virgin Birth either
(or vice versa). This charge is groundless, however. Muhammad made it
quite clear how the Virgin Birth, as he understood it, should be integrated into his uncompromisingly monotheistic view. The manner of
Jesus' birth is a "sign" (S. 19:21) that proves God's unlimited power.
"God creates what He will" (S. 3:47). Interestingly enough, some of the
Jewish-Christian Ebionites, according to Eusebius, also combined a
belief in the Virgin Birth with a denial of Jesus' "pre-existence as God"
as well as of his being "the Logos and the Wisdom" (H.E. III.27.3).
One can go even further back, to the NT itself, and ask whether the idea
of the virginal conception actually stands in anything like a causal relation to Jesus' divine Sonship in the Lucan Infancy narrative. If Luke
perceived such a relation, he never says so in so many words. In other
parts of his work, as we shall see, he at least seems to conceive the Sonship in a different light. It is at least arguable that the idea of the virginal
conception in Luke is to be seen as a climactic development of the OT
motif of barrenness removed by God. If that is the case, then Luke is
speaking of God's miraculous creative power, the wonder of a new creation, rather than giving an explanation for the relationship between the
Father and the Son. In Matthew, too, the meaning of the virginal conception for the Evangelist is debatable. But whatever the original meaning of the idea of the Virgin Birth, the eastern Christians in Muhammad's time certainly connected it with Jesus' divinity. It was a creative
reinterpretation on the part of the Arabian prophet, triggered off by his

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strictly monotheistic conception of God, to place all the emphasis on

God's creative power in Jesus' birth, in analogy with the creation of
Adam. In a similar vein, Muhammad emphasized that Jesus worked his
wonders only "with God's permission," for "signs are only with God"
(S. 6:109); it is only with God's permission that a messenger can proclaim his message (S. 42:51) or give a sign (S. 13:38, 14:13 f., 40:78).
If the virginal conception does not raise Jesus above other men,
neither does the title "Word" applied to him a couple of times. Jesus is
"only God's messenger and His word that He uttered to Mary and a
spirit from Him" (S. 4:171). Undoubtedly, the title "Word" goes back
to the Christian use of Logos as a Christological title. But it is just as
clear that Muhammad did not take over the specific Christian meaning
of that term. In the context mentioned, the title seems to refer to the
manner of Jesus' birth by the power of God's creative word of command. Jesus is God's "Word," but certainly not in the sense of the
Christian Logos. It is futile to engage in a dialogue on this point in an
attempt to Christianize the language of the Qur3n.13
Ill
No wonder, then, that Christians have so frequently set out to
criticize the 'attenuated' and 'impoverished' portrait of Jesus in the
Qur?an, comparing it with the standard Christian picture. "The task is
to show forth the glory and beauty of the Christ revealed in the New
Testament to those who ignorantly honour Him as a mere prophet."14
The majority of such comparisons, however, suffer from a lack of differentiation. One does not distinguish sufficiently between the Bible and
the later dogma, certainly not between different layers and conceptions
within the NT itself. It is clear by now for NT scholarship that there is
hardly anything in the NT that resembles even remotely the doctrine of
the Trinity. This insight might in itself provide a fresh starting-point for
a dialogue. But perhaps even more interesting is the fact that some
layers of the NT bear a striking resemblance to the QurDanic portrait of
Jesus. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of Luke, especially as
regards the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, where he probably uses
at least some old traditional material.
Luke. On the whole, Luke gives us a Christology characterized by the
emphatic subordination of Jesus to God. Whereas the rest of the NT
uses the title 'Christ' absolutely, Luke speaks of Jesus as God's Christ
(Acts 3:18, Lk 9:20, etc.). Jesus is God's servant (Acts 3:13, 4:27) and
13
14

Contra Masson, Coran, pp. 205, 213.

Zwemer, Christ, p. 8.

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Chosen One (Lk 9:35, Acts 3:20). His mighty acts were in fact worked
by God through him (Acts 2:22), for God was with him (Acts 10:38).
One may compare Muhammad's contention that Jesus worked his signs
with God's permission. Jesus was killed according to God's plan (Acts
2:23). God raised him from the dead and made him Lord and Christ
(Acts 2:23, 36). Professor John Hick is quite justified in inferring from
such verses that "the first Christian preachers did not draw the conclusion that he [Jesus] was himself God but that he was a man chosen by
God for a special role and declared by his resurrection to be Messiah
and Lord."15 In his Infancy narrative Luke seems to indicate that Jesus
was chosen for this role from the very beginning, before he was born; he
also emphasizes God's creative activity in the whole matter. A certain
tension exists between this and the statement in Acts 10:38, where Jesus'
anointment with the Holy Spirit and with power is connected with his
baptism. In Luke 1 the anointment is dated further back. Nevertheless,
the total picture is not much affected by such differences. Jesus is God's
chosen agent who does God's work, submits himself to suffering and
death according to God's plan, and is raised to divine glory by God.
Canon John Drury comments:
Luke's Jewish historical faith determines his theology of Christ,
notoriously lower than some. It is in fact as high as traditional
historical monotheism will allow and no higher....
Luke's Jesus is the epitome and compendium of the men whom
God raised up: he is Son of God like the kings, wise men and
Joseph in Joseph and Asenath, he is Son of David born in David's
city, teacher, and, most striking of all, a prophet in the mould of
Elijah, which role Luke deliberately takes from John...and gives to
Jesus.16
Of the men raised up by God he is primus inter pares, as such
having the uniqueness which is a gift of the spirit bestowed on
man.... It does not seem necessary in the Lukan frame to posit that
uniqueness of kind which has been the rampart of Christian
separatism.... Monotheism reserves that transcendent uniqueness
for God....17
Altogether, Drury can speak of a "take off" rather than a "landing"
Christology in Luke.18
15
John Hick, "Jesus and the World Religions," in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. by
John Hick (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 171.
16
John Drury, Tradition and Design in Luke's Gospel (London: Darton, Longman &
Todd, 1976), p. 9.
17
Ibid., p. 12.
18
Ibid., p. 123.

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129

There are no seeds of Trinitarian doctrine in Luke. Jesus is not God,

even though he is divine in some way. Professor G. W. H. Lampe
writes: "The union between him and the Father is, as it were, an external bond. Luke does not picture such a unity as we find in the Pauline or
Johannine Christology. They are joined by the Spirit on the one side
and the human response of prayer...on the other."19
Of course, this is not to claim that Quranic Christology is somehow
identical with that of Luke. Obviously it is not. The passage just quoted
goes on: "Yet it remains true that the word of Jesus is the word of God;
his authority and power are divine; he is the agent of God's judgement
and God's forgiveness." This is more than Muhammad would have said
even about himself. The Lukan Christ plays a decisive, unique,
unrepeatable role in the history of salvation, and Luke's attitude to the
suffering of Christ is diametrically opposed to Muhammad's theologia
gloriae, to mention only some of the most prominent differences.
Nevertheless, the comparison with Luke should help one perceive that
the Qwanic portrait of Jesus is not so remote from the NT as might
seem to be the case at first glance. At any rate, it should help one to
realize that it is impossible to compare the Quranic Jesus with the
Christology of the NT; such a unified Christology does not exist. To call
Jesus the "Son of God," for instance, meant rather different things to
different groups from the start, depending on the particular experience
and cultural background of the group. Christians engaged in a dialogue
with other faiths would do well to take the debate on the 'Myth of God
Incarnate' very seriously.
John. Luke's presentation of Jesus is of particular interest in that it
seems to preserve very old material, thus showing that at least some of
the oldest interpretations of Jesus are closer to the Qur5anic portrait
than subsequent ones. From another point of view, the Christology of
the Fourth Gospel calls for close attention. Here we have an example of
a rather free reinterpretation of Jesus' teaching in the light of later
experiences and reflections. The Evangelist, for instance, makes Jesus
speak of the glory which he had with God before the world was created
(17:5), a statement which even Professor Moule, certainly not a scholar
to be suspected of theological radicalism, discounts as evidence for
Jesus' ipsissima vox.20 In the Synoptic tradition the doctrine of prexistence is not attested. Professor Ernst Ksemann comments on
John's overall perspective:
19

Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, "The Lucan Portrait of Christ," New Testament Studies, II

(1955-56), 172.
20
Charles F. D. Moule, The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977), p. 138.

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Indeed, the Johannine symbolism...robs...what happened once
upon a time of all intrinsic significance and only allows it any
significance as a reflection of the present experience. Even the
events of Good Friday, Easter and Ascension Day are no longer
clearly distinguished. We must admit that nowhere in the NT is the
life story of Jesus so emptied of all real content as it already is here,
where it seems to be almost a projection of the present back into the
past.21

And even C.H. Dodd, who made out an attractive case for the
existence of historical tradition in the Fourth Gospel, could write
concerning the statements about the Paraclete: "It would seem that the
evangelist was conscious of putting forward a bold reinterpretation of
what was believed to be the teaching of Jesus."22
The Johannine reinterpretation of older traditions is, needless to say,
quite different from the later Quranic one. They reflect different
religious experiences and, probably to an even greater extent, different
cultural presuppositions. The notion of Jesus' prexistence, so important to the Fourth Evangelist, came to him through traditions molded
by Jewish speculation as to the prexistent Wisdom of God, the
mediator of creation, as is recognized almost universally by NT scholars
today. John and his precursors interpreted their experience of the risen
Christ through the lenses supplied by such speculations. Muhammad,
on the other hand, interpreted the Jesus tradition known to him in the
light of his strict monotheism and through his experience with Arabian
polytheism. The results were bound to be poles apart, but the
phenomenological processes themselves look remarkably similar. Of
course, it may be argued, as Professor Moule does,23 that the Johannine
interpretation is only a development of something that was there from
the very beginning, whereas Muhammad's interpretation implies a far
more radical break with previous tradition. In other words, "reinterpretation" may turn out to be far too vague a category. On the other
hand, the category of organic development is problematic, too, as
Professor Moule himself admits. As regards the prexistence of Jesus, it
would seem that that notion simply did not exist, either explicitly or
implicitly, in Jesus' own message or in the Synoptic tradition and that it
may be taken as an extremely radical Christological reinterpretation. So
21

Ernst Ksemann, Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM Press, 1964),
p. 32.
22
Charles Harold Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, repr. 1968), p. 406.
23
Moule, Origin, pp. 2 ff. and passim.

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131

there are problems on both sides. I should like simply to point out that
at a certain level, at least, there are similarities between the Bible and the
QurDan which have hitherto been largely overlooked.
Prophecies. Christians have always objected that Muhammad falsely
applied Biblical prophecies to himself, above all the promise of the
Paraclete in John (if that is what the ahmad passage, S. 61:6, refers to).
Such a criticism is, of course, quite justified, but it is one that is likely to
backfire. Precisely the same kind of thing happened when the early
Christians read the OT, searching for prophecies about Jesus. Such
prophecies were detected everywhere. The Gospel of Matthew in particular offers a rich body of material in this respect. Even Professor
Moule admits that Matthew "seems to be doing much the same" as the
Qumran sect was doing in its "abuse" of the Scripture (as he chooses to
call it). "Ignoring the original context and doing violence to the original
meaning, the Evangelist fits the ancient words by force into a contemporary, Christian meaning...."24 Exactly. To be sure, Professor Moule
also asserts that the Christians' arbitrary use of the words of Scripture is
to be explained by the fact that they had "discovered in Jesus an overall
fulfilment, on the deepest level, of what Scripture as a whole reflected."
This he takes to mean that, in the case of Jesus, "in contrast to the
Qumran sect's leader, there was found to be fulfilment in a far profounder, and a deeply religious sense."25 But certainly the Qumran sect
had also discovered an overall fulfilment of Scripture in a deeply
religious sense in what was happening and what was expected still to
happen to them, and it is futile to quarrel as to whose discovery was the
more profound. Muhammad's procedure in his interpretation of what
he knew of Jewish and Christian Scriptures was neither less nor more arbitrary than that of the Christians or that of the Qumran sect (or the
Rabbis, or the Church Fathers).
John the Baptist. One last example. What happened to Jesus in the
Qur5an resembles in many ways the fate of John the Baptist in the NT.
In the Qwan, Jesus became a precursor of Muhammad and a witness
to him. This is exactly what happened to the Baptist with respect to
Jesus in the Christian tradition. It is doubtful whether the historical
John ever expected anyone like Jesus to come after him. Most probably
he only expected, if not God Himself, then the Danielle Son of Man,
conceived as a superhuman heavenly judge, to set his seal on his
preaching of repentance.26
24

Ibid., p. 128.
bid., p. 129.
26
See Jrgen Becker, Johannes der Tufer und Jesus von Nazareth (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1972), pp. 34 ff.
25

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The portrait of John in Matthew is particularly instructive.27 According to Matthew, John's message is perfectly identical with Jesus'
preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven. "Repent, for the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand," says John (Mt 3:2). So does Jesus, in exactly the
same words, as he begins his preaching (4:17). This parallel results from
Matthew's editing of his sources. At other points, too, identical
statements recur in the mouths of John and Jesus (3:1 Ob/7:19,
3:7b/23:33; cf. 12:34), both of whom have to face a similar front of opposition. The Pharisaic opposition to Jesus is retrojected into the mission of John, the clearest case being the editorial framing of John's proclamation of judgment in 3:7a, where Matthew (differing from Luke
and probably from the common source known as Q as well) makes the
Baptist address "the Pharisees and the Sadducees." On the whole, Matthew speaks of John as if he and his disciples were ordinary Christians.
All these features recall Muhammad's treatment of the Jesus traditions.
Jesus preaches just like Muhammad, faces a similar front of opposition
and makes his disciples Muslims. On the other hand, just as Matthew
never allows John to interfere with Jesus' exclusive significance as the
Redeemer,28 Muhammad makes a clear distinction in rank between
Jesus and himself, the "seal of the prophets." Both the Baptist in the
NT and Jesus in the QurDn point to the greater one who was to come.
IV
Different as the Bible and the Qur^n are, from a phenomenological
point of view the processes that led to their respective formations look
remarkably similar. Of course, the Qur^n is a single book, whereas the
Bible is a library in itself. In the Qur3n we can study the religious experience of a single individual within a relatively short period of time. In
the Bible we are confronted with the experiences and reinterpretations
of many succeeding generations in changing cultural circumstances.
Nevertheless, the general similarities remain.
Wherever our personal roots happen to be, we all exist within a living
and constantly changing context of tradition and interpretation. The
most meaningful thing to do would seem to be to help one another to
react in creative ways to our new situations and to find constructive
27
See Wolfgang Trilling, "Die Tufertradition bei Matthus," Biblische Zeitschrift,
III (1959), 271 ff.
28
Matthew makes a sharper distinction than Mark, omitting Mark's remark that
John's baptism was for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4) and inserting a corresponding
remark on forgiveness in the story of the institution of the Eucharist (Mt 26:28).

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133

ways of reapplying our respective traditions to our modern problems.

Certainly, then, the dialogue, rightly understood, is what we need. But
what I would like to see flourish, if it is impossible now, then at least
some time in the future, is a dialogue true to history and sensitive to an
historical-critical appraisal of even the most sacred tradition.
Jrvenp, Finland

HEIKKI RISNEN