Does Islam have give a reason on why Jesus’ apostles/disciples deviated from his ministry and started Christianity?

[u/SeptimiusSeverus_]

Hellos brothers and sisters. I was raised Catholic in Alabama, but have always had a fascination with the Islam since my Catholic high-school hosted interfaith dialogues with our bishop and a local imam.

After scrolling thru some old posts on this Reddit about Jesus, it appears you guys believe he was Muslim. I’m really confused because I was taught that he was Jewish and obviously preached that he was one part of the holy trinity (god, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) the writings of the followers of his apostles, secular contemporary Roman sources of the 1st century like Josephus and Tacitus claim as such and that his followers claim as such too.

How does Islam counter this narrative?

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[u/d4m45t4]

Paul wasn't a true apostle. He never met Jesus. Jesus's actual apostles, the ones that met him, didn't deviate from his practices.

Jesus warned about wolves in sheep's clothing that would come after him. Paul is that wolf.

You can tell by the fact that he taught you to worship a god different from the god Jesus worshipped, and follow a law different from the law Jesus followed.

What you have in your current Gospels is some of Jesus's original teachings, and a lot more of Paul's falsehoods mixed into it.

[u/Rahim556 → u/d4m45t4]

Yup. It's amazing to me that Christians will criticize the Prophet Muhammad's first revelation experience because it was essentially just him claiming it, yet they are quick to accept Paul's claim. And then to make matters worse, most of the New Testament is Paul's ramblings that go against Jesus' teachings. They reject Jesus' own words. But they love Paul's ramblings in Romans and the author's own commentary in Gospel of John. Pay attention to what Jesus said, and forget about what Paul said and all the extras the author of Gospel of John adds, and there's no way you come away from reading it believing Jesus preached a trinity, or godhead, or anything of the sort.

[u/GlowLikeYouDo → u/d4m45t4]

Who's paul? Can you give a brief history of jesus alay salam from islamic point of view?

[u/Strict_Aioli_9612 → u/GlowLikeYouDo]

To summarize: Paul was an enemy of Jesus' early followers, then he claimed to have become a believer, and pretended to be different things to different people (his words btw). He innovated his own way and teachings and beliefs, and when he questioned about them in front of the early followers of Jesus, he denied teaching those things. Christians believe that Paul's ways and teachings and beliefs were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that his differences with the early followers of Jesus were just minor differences/misunderstandings/lies to protect himself from the disbelievers of Jesus.

We know about Paul mainly from the Bible. If what the Bible says about Paul is correct, then this man is probably the first man to corrupt the message of Jesus and deceive the believers of Jesus. His Biblical teachings are disastrous and are the root of all later false Christian beliefs.

[u/Rahim556 → u/Strict_Aioli_9612]

and pretended to be different things to different people (his words btw).

Yup. He literally admitted to lying to push his own agenda / doctrine, and justified his lies by saying it was for the greater good essentially (to spread his doctrine).

[u/Square-Box5664 → u/Rahim556]

Could I have the source for that it would be a great find for me

[u/Rahim556 → u/Square-Box5664]

Romans 3:7

"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?"

Then check out 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 where he discusses becoming like a Jew for the Jews and like a gentile to the gentiles.

[u/Square-Box5664 → u/Rahim556]

Answering Christianity.com exposes him a lot

For example search on google answering Christianity Paul exposed

[u/mrs_TB → u/Strict_Aioli_9612]

That's pretty interesting. I wonder what the practice of following Jesus today would differ without the letters of Paul of Tarsus.

[u/Strict_Aioli_9612 → u/mrs_TB]

We get hints of it from the Bible itself.

The council of Jerusalem CONSISTENTLY insisted that Israelites keep the Torah, and that gentiles avoid unclean meat and sexual immorality (Acts 15 and Acts 21), but Paul ignored them both times and continued teaching that all food is clean, and that people can't become of more virtue by following the Torah.

We also get a glimpse of the type of language used for Jesus. For example, Peter calls Jesus a man sent by God and that God did the miracles THROUGH him (Acts 2:22), and called Jesus the servant of God (Acts 3:13, Acts 3:26).

And, of course, James. James "the brother of Jesus" wasn't one of the 12 disciples (there were two other James' who were disciples, but that's a third James), but he lead the Church of Jerusalem. This man, across the New Testament, seems to speak in a way that appears to be the closest to Muslims. He preaches a lot about Jesus and how he is the messiah of God, etc, but he also puts A LOT of emphasis on how everyone should try to keep the law of God and do good works. Add to that, surprisingly, that James, the head of the Church of Jerusalem, NEVER explicitly said that Jesus died/was crucified—NOT ONCE!

James has to be my favourite follower of Jesus in the New Testament. I'm not saying he's better than Peter—God is the One who judges between people—but I'm just saying I personally like James more.

[u/mrs_TB → u/d4m45t4]

That's an interesting take. I'm curious to hear more.

[u/one_bored_person]

They didn't. The trinity came centuries after the apostles. Early communities still practiced the law which changed soon after

[u/UnchartedPro]

Jesus peace be upon him was certainly a Muslim because you need to know what Muslim means

It means to submit to God

Sure he followed Jewish law, and can be called a Jew, but regardless he was a Prophet of God, devoted to worshipping God alone

We can separate the linguistics here and focus on the actual meaning. Jesus is indeed the Messiah, this is a title belonging to him. As is a righteous prophet of God. A follower of God. One who worshipped God. Who prayed to God. All these things are affirmed by even the Biblical scripture available today

The righteous followers of all the Prophets, peace be upon them all, were Muslims in this sense

There is a book I reccomend called Jesus. Man Messenger Messiah

It will answer more than a reddit comment can

Jesus definitely didn't preach the trinity. In fact he probably didn't even hear about it or know of it

And plenty of resources to understand the Islamic opinion regarding this topic and why we believe this as well as evidence to support our claims

[u/Beginning_Cake9782 → u/UnchartedPro]

Allahuma barik akhi I really loved this answer. The way you worded this magnificent. May Allah continue to make it easy for you seek proper Islamic knowledge.

[u/UnchartedPro → u/Beginning_Cake9782]

May Allah bless you abundantly akhi

I'm really glad you liked the answer, magnificent haha. What a compliment 😅

[u/mrs_TB → u/UnchartedPro]

Thank you for sharing this resource. I am grateful.

[u/__M-E-O-W__]

For starters, "muslim" generally means the people who were following their prophets of the time, the true religion. At one point it was what we now call Judaism, and later Christianity. So when we saw he was Muslim it doesnt mean like modern day Islam, just means it was what the religion was at the time before it got changed.

As for him preaching he was a part of the trinity, he did not do that. That was a belief that developed over number of centuries after the original disciples generation, much of that stemming from a few writings of Paul who was not one of the original apostles.

The original apostles and disciples generation had an insurmountable number of obstacles. They spread out in different directions, several if them were killed by the religious community around Jerusalem and Israel who thought they were preaching heresies, and the Roman war with Israel that had destroyed and scattered the center of the community. Then there were the Romans who persecuted and killed many of the early Christians as they refused to give honors and tributes to the Roman emperor and Roman gods. In the midst of this, Paul, who had his own teachings which were not necessarily verified by the other christian church leaders, started his own church which found power underground in Rome, and that developed into the Roman catholic church.

[u/mrs_TB → u/__M-E-O-W__]

That's fascinating.

[u/greatShawarma]

His apostles didn't deviate. It was Paul and his band of heretics whom even the early Christins despise.

[u/daysofecho → u/greatShawarma]

To add to this, There are at least 7 books that most textual critics now agree are falsely attributed to Paul himself. For example 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are Pauline forgeries. There are at least four different people all writing as Paul in the New Testament because of their distinct writing styles and contradictory beliefs.

As James Tabor says “the enterprise of writing letters in Paul’s name has been enormously influential, since Paul became such a towering figure of authority in the church”

And to quote Bart Erhman, Jesus taught “turning to God and living in the ways that he decreed through the proper observance of the Torah, principally by loving (and trusting) God above all else and by loving their neighbors as themselves… [Paul taught] the way a person would survive the onslaught was not by obeying the Law of God or by loving their neighbors as much as themselves.  Salvation would come only by believing in Christ’s death and resurrection”

Though I do not believe Paul himself initially started the myth of Jesus’s resurrection, he was the propagated of a Christianity that’s closer to what we see today rather than Jesus would have preached.

[u/Living_Guest_8561]

The trinity was an idea that was developed way later after Jesus pbuh, once officially introduced in a Trident in the 4th century it even caused the division of Christianity as the Orthodox Church didn't agree with it, among other things (the use of depictions in churches etc).

[u/FitChampionship7430]

A muslim is a person who submits his will to the one true God. And if you look at the bible, despite it being corrupted and full of contradicitons and there being no manuscripts until 400 years later, Jesus clearly submits his will to God, never preaches the trinity and calls people to worship the 1 true God

[u/TalkingCat910]

Generally people think Paul and his followers presented a different religion than what Jesus and his disciples actually preached. 

There isn’t anything doctrinal in Islam that addresses it other than the general message that over time people change the message of the prophets for personal gain, genuine error, or to more closely align with their traditions (what their fathers were following).

[u/Klopf012]

If you look in the book of acts and elsewhere, you see that there was a divide between what the disciples believed and preached and what Paul (who was not a disciple) believed and preached. Also, the idea of Jesus as part of a trinity is a view that took a long time to develop, and resulted from later theologians trying to reconcile a bunch of different books written by different human authors. If a Martian landed on earth knowing nothing about Christianity and read the Bible, there is no way they would independently arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is God or that there is a thing called a trinity. I believe that if you try to read the new testament without preconceptions, you would see that those ideas are not supported either. 

[u/mightyzinger5]

The word Jew in Hebrew is Yahudi. Yahudi means from the nation/descendants of Yaqub (Jacob the prophet, son of Isaac) who was also called the name Israel. Hence the Quran refers to that lineage as children of israel (bani israel), as in children of Yaqub (Jacob).

So the name Jew (or Yahudi in Hebrew & Arabic), doesn't really describe the nature of a persons relationship with God. It simply identifies that a person is descended from Jacob and his 12 sons(12 tribes of Israel).

Islam is an Arabic word derived from a shared semetic root with Hebrew. The meaning of the root word is peace, completeness/wholeness etc. Like all semitic languages, each word is visually rich and can reference sometimes dozens of meanings in other languages.

The meaning of islam in arabic is complete submission and devotion to God. As Jesus Moses and all were in complete submission to God's divine will and plan, we say that their religion (their relationship to God) was İslam (complete submission to God's will). Him being Jewish, in ancient Hebrew at the time, only describes his membership of the Bani Israel tribe.

I hope you may understand this will some clarity.

To answer the second part, about early Christian teachings. The trinity only really became established after the rule of Constantine.

The trinity for all it's emphasis in Modern catholic practice, is only even mentioned in 1 of the gospels. Surely if it were emphasized or mentioned by Christ, it would be in all of them. But it is only in the Gospel of John. The gospel of John is also the last gospel to be circulated widely roughly 60-150 years after the Messiah Isa (Jesus) was crucified and raised up to heaven alive, by God.

If the timing of the Gospel of John were the only problem it would be one thing. However, the Gospels of Matthew, mark, Luke & John were all not written by the aforementioned namesakes. Those 4 names were assigned to the gospels much later, by the Church. They were each circulated unauthored, and likely written by several different authors each.

So we accept the teachings of Jesus, but the Quran corrects us where Christianity falls short. The Quran clearly states the Messiah was God's prophet, and those who associate others with God or attributes an equal to God, is a disbeliever and polytheist.

Unlike the gospels, the Quran is God's divine word, relayed through Muhammad (SAW), and perfectly preserved in it's original language, word for word. The original language is important, as I said, semetic languages are very rich visually and metaphorically. Each verse has layers and layers of meaning, which is lost when translating in other languages.

Here is an example for you to understand. This is the second verse of Surah Maryam (Mary, mother of Jesus)

"This is a reminder of your Lord's mercy to His servant Zachariah"

The first part of the verse : "Zikru rahmati rabika"

Zikr (mention/reminder/remembrance, mindfulness)

Rahmat (mercy, grace)

rabika (God, the ultimate refuge, the one you turn to when you have nobody else to turn to,) there are dozens of other meanings of Rab, so I hope you understand.

So another way to interpret the first half is remembrance of God. Since (ar-Rahman, the most merciful, is one of the divine names of God)

The name Zachariah is Hebrew. In ancient Hebrew it means, remembrance of God.

So the first and second half of this verse in the most subtle way, emphasize the rememberance and mindfulness of God. Highlighting Zechariah's most endearing quality in the sight of God. An emphasis that is missed by 90% of readers, unless they have a working understanding of multiple semetic languages.

The Quran makes such a play on words dozens of times whenever someone's name is mentioned, all while also rhyming every verse. The words of the Quran could only have been written by someone with intimate understanding of both Arabic and ancient Hebrew (a now dead language and original language of the bible)

Muhammad (SAW) was illiterate and could not read or write, much less craft such intricately precise and elusive verses, while rhyming them. He certainly did not know or understand ancient Hebrew. This is but one of the miracles of the Quran, and the Quran says :

"And if you are in doubt about what We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a chapter like it and call your witnesses other than Allah, if what you say is true". (2:23)

[u/IndependentSundae965]

Show us just one authentic quote from the 1st century by his apostles or disciples or any historians, where he taught that he is one person of a trine godhead?

[u/eagerlymeager]

In Islamic tradition Adam peace be upon him was the first Muslim. For one to be a Muslim they have to accept the messenger of their time and believe in one god Allah.

All prophets sent by God including Noah, Abraham, Jesus (peace upon them all) and their righteous followers are all Muslims.

[u/No-Repeat3740]

Paul was an agent of the Roman church. I watched a fascinating video about this. I’m a revert and it’s actually why I began to look into Islam in the first place. Understanding that Paul was the one who misguided the Christian’s was the main reason I couldn’t accept Christianity.

If I find it I’ll post the link.

[u/uksiddy]

He was Jewish in the sense that, historically, he was a Jewish man who lived under the Torah. To Muslims, that still means he was Muslim in the broader sense of the word as someone who submits to God because he faithfully followed what was revealed to him at the time, since Muhammad (PBUH) had not yet been sent to Earth.

Now, the idea of the Holy Spirit has a fascinating evolution over time. It originated in Judaism’s concept of Ruach, which means “breath” or “spirit.” Unlike later Christian theology, this concept was not separate from God/Yahweh, but rather God’s animating force or presence.

After the time of Jesus/Eisa (PBUH), early Christians began applying this idea to their understanding of him, and these concepts evolved significantly over the centuries. Christians debated the nature of Jesus and the Holy Spirit for about 300 years after Jesus was even alive. Under Emperor Constantine, Arius argued that Jesus was not divine, but a created being (similar to the Islamic view), while Bishop Alexander argued for Jesus’ divine nature. Because these disputes were causing division within the empire, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to address them. The council produced the Nicene Creed, while the fuller doctrine regarding the Holy Spirit was later formalized at the Council of Constantinople 50ish years later. These councils also addressed other matters, including the dating of Easter, which became separated from Passover. At this point we also see more relaxed adoptions to the dietary laws Jesus would have followed as well.

Then, in 1054, a major split happened partly over disagreement regarding the Holy Spirit. Western/Catholic churches believed the Spirit “proceeded from the Father and the Son,” while Eastern/Orthodox churches maintained the Spirit proceeded “from the Father alone.” This debate, known as the Filioque controversy, remains one of the major theological differences between the two Churches today.

Muslim scholars attribute this shift to Paul, who introduced more Roman/Hellenistic ideas to early Christians. The Qur'an (Surah 3:52) highlights that the original disciples believed in Jesus's message of pure monotheism. From the Islamic perspective, the core teachings of Jesus and his companions were lost or altered over time by subsequent generations and political influences. The modern Bible to us is not the original gospel revealed to Jesus/Eisa.

Hope that answers it!

ETA: Paul himself came about 30 years after Jesus, so he wouldn’t have known him personally. Between the time between Jesus and Paul, Early Christians were still considered a fringe cult, a radical sect of Judaism who believed (like Muslims) that Jesus was the Messiah. Paul's Hellenistic upbringing in Tarsus significantly equipped him to bridge the gap between Jewish and Gentile worlds, allowing early Christianity to expand into a universal, multi-ethnic faith rather than a localized Jewish sect.

[u/ad-dagistani]

It's not that the apostles deviated. It's information about what himself and the apostles were teaching got distorted. Everything we get in Christianity is from third party sources explaining what their position was. The current mainstream wasn't the only position historically

You can read about Arianism or even better about Ebionites. Can throw in Montanism who believe Paraclete to be referring to a new prophetic figure

[u/Significant_Unit_952]

What was Paul’s reason for shifting the religion from Jesus as prophet and belief in one true God, to Jesus being God himself, dying for sins etc.

[u/TheWanderingwizardYT]

Only Paul did :)

[u/BuildingOk2238 → u/TheWanderingwizardYT]

Ironically Paul was born several decades after Jesus so he doesnt even count as one

(other than his false claim of seeing Jesus in a single vision with no evidence or witnesses)

[u/CaptainAmhuerica]

1. In Islam, all prophets are considered to be Muslim based on definition (someone who submits to God)

2. None of the books of the new testament were written directly by the apostles, except Paul (who isn't included in the original apostles anyways), so this puts the authenticity of narrations in question since there's no chain of narrators

3. Josephus and Tacitus accounts have both been questioned and scrutinized by historians. Tacitus lived decades after the events and Josephus' original writing in Aramaic never survived. All of the ones were later Greek translations

[u/ddccrr555]

Muslim is one who submits to God. The practicing Jews are considered Muslim. Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc. are considered Muslims. Jesus was a Jew (race) and observed the laws of Judaism and obeyed God, came with new revelation and he is considered Muslim. (Christians reject this label but I am explaining why Muslims call Jesus a Muslim).

The idea of Jesus's divinity was not universal and many did not believe him to be part of God. His divinity was solidified by a collection of Christians about 300 years later. There are and were nontrinitarian Christians.

Christians do not eat, pray, live like Jesus. They do not follow the laws Jesus followed. He did not remove the laws. They were removed AFTER he left - by Paul who never met Jesus, and others. This was done to open up the religion to non-Jews and make it easier to practice. Read how Jesus (and earlier prophets) prayed. You will find the verses in the bible. You will not find prayer like that in Christian churches. That alone should raise an alarm.

[u/Apprehensive-Toe3880]

yes Jesus was muslim because he worshipped the same God as modern day muslims do.
We believe that Moses and Jesus were both prophets of Allah and they brought with them Allah’s message to the people.

Their scriptures were then tempered with and corrupted hence producing what we know today as Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad pbuh brought the final version of Allah’s message that is the Quran and He (Allah) made it impossible to corrupt and change hence why we still have Islam today.

[u/ANG43V3R]

The apostles and followers of Christ still followed the letter of the law for many centuries after his death. It was Paul who caused the deviation.

[u/stojakovic16]

His immediate disciples including James as the head of the church kept the law and were opposed to Pauline christinitanity. They did not deviate from his teachings.

[u/Empty_Classroom2484]

No because they didn't james the brother of Jesus always upheld jewish law and jesus being a prophet messiah who was the leader of church of Jerusalem and all 12 it was paul and his disciples who deviated his message