Observations like this one by Anthony F. Buzzard below illustrates why a scholarly approach to the gospels can be so threatening to traditional Christian faith. Matthew and Luke suggest that the ‘son of God’ came into existence at his biological conception in Mary. The Quran (3:59) reinforces the truth of this:
Indeed, in God’s eyes Jesus is just like Adam: He created him from dust, said to him, ‘Be’, and he was.
Categories: Bible, Biblical scholarship, Christianity, God, Quran
Blogging Theology 
Take a read through my series ‘A Book we can Trust’ Here a link to Part 1
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https://apmci.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/a-book-we-can-trust-part-1/
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do you have a comment to make about the post?
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Only that the Bible stands up to scrutiny, I would be interested in your views about what I have written on the subject.
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I would be more interested in your views on my post – rather than you using my blog to advertise your article which is anyhow off topic (like your comment)
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On the contrary, you are casting aspersions on the validity and authority of the Bible, this is vet much the topic.
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How so? I am affirming the teaching of Matthew and Luke. You disagree with the gospels?
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Luke 1:34-35
Jesus is called “the Son of God” because He is the same nature as the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Muslims don’t agree with calling Jesus “the Son of God”.
Do you?
His pre-existence is revealed to us in John 1:1-5; John 1:14 (showing the connection back to John 1:1-5) and John 17:5 and John 8:56-58.
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On the contrary, Luke taught, that the power of the highest overshadowed Mary, yes the Son of God was born and a man but he pre existed his incarnation as the Logos, the eternal Word, the second person of the trinity whom John described so clearly. You take the Biible as one whole book, or not all. It is a tapestry of corroborating evidence written over 1500 years, not like the Quran stemming from the thinking of one man in a few years.
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Tell me, where does Luke teach that Jesus “pre existed his incarnation as the Logos, the eternal Word, the second person of the trinity” as you claim?
The Bible is a library of books written by mostly unknown people over a thousand year period. It did fall from the sky as a single book. Its teaching is varied and occasionally contradictory. It is far from being an inerrant text as an objective reading clearly shows.
Unlike the Qur’an, it does not even claim to be inspired or the Word of God.
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In Luke 1v31-34, the angel declared that the child would be the son of Mary, she would bring forth ‘a son’. However, the son of Mary was also ‘the Son of God’. If the power of the highest overshadowed Mary and if the essence of the child was divine this argues for deity, because the essence of God in eternal. The whole passage cries out teaching the deity of Christ, he was the Son of the Highest, his Kingdom would have no end. Yet he would be truly man also. Mary was the mother of His humanity but as the Son of God He pre-existed from eternity as the Son of God, That which shares in the essence of deity can have no beginning.
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In Luke (3:38) even Adam is called ‘the son of God’. Adam was not God. Matthew and Luke teach and believe that the ‘son of God’ came into existence at his biological conception in Mary. He was not pre-existent in these two gospels.
John is a later gospel and puts words into Jesus’ mouth that most scholars consider were invented by the author of the Forth Gospel. John appears to disagree with the earlier gospels and teaches the pre-existence of the son of God.
I agree with Matthew and Luke.
You agree with John.
The three gospels though do not agree with each other.
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The historical value of John’s Gospel: ‘one of the biggest gulfs between New Testament scholarship and the ‘man in the pew’
On the question of the historical value of John’s Gospel there is probably one of the biggest gulfs between New Testament scholarship and the ‘man in the pew’. In preaching and devotional Bible study the assumption is regularly made that all four Gospels are straightforward historical sources for information about what Jesus did or said. Whereas scholars have almost always found themselves pushed to the conclusion that John’s Gospel reflects much more of the early churches’ understanding of Jesus than of Jesus’ own self-understanding. There is Christian interpretation in the other three Gospels, as we have seen, but in John’s gospel there is much more of it. Again, evangelical or apologetic assertions regarding the claims of Christ will often quote the claims made by Jesus himself (in the Gospel of John) with the alternatives posed, ‘Mad, bad or God’, without allowing that there may be a further alternative (viz. Christian claims about Jesus rather than Jesus’ claims about himself). Or again, ecumenical pronouncements will frequently cite Jesus’ prayer, ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17:21), without ever raising the question as to whether the prayer was formulated by Jesus himself or at a later date.
How then are we to understand John’s Gospel? The issue here is obviously a peculiarly sensitive one. And the answer to it will have wide repercussions on our use of John’s Gospel at all these different levels (preaching, evangelism, etc). It is important therefore that the Christian community at large should recognize how scholars see John’s Gospel and why they see it that way. That is our task here.
James DG Dunn The Evidence for Jesus pp. 31-32
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Dunn and other scholars like him have betrayed Christianity. Sad.
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that is not a very intelligent answer Ken.
You fail to engage with the academic study of the gospels. Your uncritical fundamentalism imprisons your ability to think.
Consider:
In Luke (3:38) even Adam is called ‘the son of God’. Adam was not God. Matthew and Luke teach and believe that the ‘son of God’ came into existence at his biological conception in Mary. He was not pre-existent in these two gospels.
John appears to disagree with the earlier gospels and teaches the pre-existence of the son of God.
I agree with Matthew and Luke.
You agree with John.
The three gospels though do not agree with each other.
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David Waltz exposed your inconsistency and got to the root:
“And to my question of whether or not you “embrace the higher-critical method when dealing with the Qur’an”, you wrote: “no, the HCM is not appropriate for the Qur’an.”
I am pretty sure that you have already discerned that I would find your stark contrast in methodology between the Bible and the Qur’an to be inconsistent. ”
Your answer was not very intelligent or scholarly.
In the comboxes of
https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/06/02/catholic-truth-society-fails-to-answer-its-own-question-about-the-trinity/
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The HCM has a justified reputation for anti-supernaturalism in its frequent dismissal of the miraculous in the Bible, such as the Virgin birth and the miracles of Jesus (though to be fair many NT scholars are not so dogmatic in their views). Some of these Biblical stories might well be embellishments or invented stories, but I do not reject them on a priori grounds. God is the King of His Creation and quite at liberty to do the miraculous if he so chooses. But there are reasonable grounds for thinking that Matthew has invented miraculous stories in his gospel. We can discuss this further if you wish.
The Quran is not the Muslims’ Bible. It is believed by Muslims to be the actual words of the Creator himself. The Bible makes no such claim for itself, and is clearly authored by human beings – see the prologue to Luke’s Gospel and the letters of Paul for example.
So you are comparing apples and oranges. Therefore there is no inconsistency if I say that believing as I do that the Quran is the uncreated Word of God, the HCM is an inappropriate tool for studying this Revelation. Islamic scholarship has developed other sciences for Quranic study (the occasion of Revelation, linguistic analysis, etc).
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I agree with all of them. Since they come from one mind / source = God; they are not to be manipulated by arrogant human scholars so as to contradict one another; but taken as a whole from God (God-breathed, inspired), and so they supplement and compliment one another with no contradictions.
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but the gospels say different, contradictory things about Jesus as has been clearly demonstrated Ken. Anyone who is sincere can see that. You choose to sacrifice intellectual integrity for religious dogma. Sad.
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The quran affirms that jesus is the spirit of god breathed into mary, and neither mat 1-18-20, Luke 1:35 give any indication that jesus was created. Anthony Buzzard is an interesting character, but he tends to cherry-pick verses and ignore parts of the same chapter that refute his beliefs.
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God is uncreated, with no beginning and so God cannot produce a Son who has no beginning! See genesis, Matt. 1.1,18-20; Luke 1.30-35.
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You’ll have to explain what you mean by “produce a son”.
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create.
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That’s extremely unhelpful – I still don’t know what you mean. It sounds like your point is circular.
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I don’t understand your confusion. God created Jesus just as Luke, Matthew and the Quran teach. You are being obtuse.
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No, just genuinely confused by your laconic statements. Of course, I disagree with your claim that the gospels and quran affirm that jesus was created.
The quran even says that jesus is the spirit of god breathed into mary – nothing about being created there.
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casebook obtusity
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It was not God who was born (an impossibility) but the Messiah Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 echoing Psalm 110:1 sums it all up.
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He was a hungry, helpless infant you could have held in one hand, a breathing bundle of billions of cells, formed in the body of a young lady 2,000 years ago and he was GOD. He was the God of the universe and he was a baby boy. All things that were created were created for him and by him and through him.
A patch of sky one tenth the size of the surface of the moon appeared not to have anything visible in it. Hubble focused on that spot for four months trying to capture any light sources that might be visible over time. Tens of thousands of galaxies emerged, one of them so large, it defies the law of physics. Another has one trillion stars in it. 1,000,000,000,000 stars, all in a spot where nothing was observed before.
God is pretty far beyond my understanding. He should be. I never created a star let alone a universe. And yet, he was a baby born to a real mom, cared for and raised by her and her husband in a tiny little remote village two thousand years ago with none of the comforts I take for granted. In my mind’s eye I picture him enthralled at all he had made as he gazed at the stars and worlds. Imagine.
He’s just a man. He’s just a man. And I’ve had so many men before in very many ways. He’s just one more.
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So you believe.
However, Matthew and Luke suggest that the ‘son of God’ came into existence at his biological conception in Mary.
They are right.
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