One thing is certain regarding the easy people eager to believe Jesus was a Muslim: you say it long enough, they will come to believe it. Their gullibility and naivete know no bounds. I hope this forum has none of them here. That would be terrible.

A "social justice movement" in which one of its proudest moments was separating out several hundred male prisoners from a sacked city, stripping the younger ones to see which had grown pubic hair, cutting the throats of all who had and making slaves of the prepubescents.

And this is supposed to be a good fit for Christ, who equated getting angry at someone with murdering them.


That's just sick.


Also, Jesus didn't really promote a "social" movement. Most of his teaching was directed at improving the individual and the individual's relationship to God. There is a sense that social issues would them take care of themselves.


Not to mention that Moe wasn't born for centuries after Christ, and so there were no Muslims at the time of Christ.

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“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

So if someone who was alive during WWII writes about his or her experiences from WWII, does the fact it is being written decades later invalidate the writing?

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

If Jesus wrote about his experiences decades later but I don't think he did. And I'm not even going into the old testiment

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Truth, Justice and the American way

Why couldn't it be someone who knew Jesus, or was around him earlier in their life? Seems like credible criteria to me.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

The make up of the middle east in the time period we are discussing was confusing. All through history there have been Christians and Jews living among Muslims and the reverse.
Based on the work of Crossan, however, I disagree that Jesus could have been a Muslim.
He was imho, as the title of Crossan's book so blatantly spells out, a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (who probably could not read or write).
Before you get all hyper over that, please note that at the time scribes were used by most of the peasantry, and that employment as a carpenter was not as it was later, an honored craft that allowed one to move up the ladder of society. In the Roman world there was no ladder. It was at best favor for favor which of course eventually spawned the Italian mafia. (no chit )
Was Jesus a revolutionary? Almost certainly. Would not knowing how to read impair his spirituality? I think perhaps it would enhance it as he would be free to think and act in the abstract.
But a Muslim? It is my opinion- based on the writings of Josephus and Crossan and excerpts of other biographers the answer is a definitive no.

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Untrue...

Of the last 20 centuries, Christians and Jews have been around for 20 of them while Muslims have only been around for 14 of them...That's 600 years of history where Christians and Jews were living without one Muslim around...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

And how long have Mormons been around?

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Truth, Justice and the American way

correct. I looked at that but didn't change it. Arabs with the same heritage would be a more proper term. But I hope you read the rest of my opinion.

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Mormon's, more commonly known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith. They accept Smith as having miraculously found and translated a divinely-inspired record of the early history and religions of America, the "Book Of Mormon," in Palmyra, N.Y. With Smith's own writings and the Bible, this forms the Mormon scriptures. Smith was murdered in Ohio in 1844. It was Brigham Young who led the Mormons westward into what is now Salt Lake City, Utah, still the location of their chief temple. Until the Mormon's abolished polygamy in 1890, they were met with severe hostility. Utah was admitted into the Union in 1896. The religion has no clergy, but is evangelical, they stress repentance and believe in the afterlife and the Last Judgment. They are notably temperate and law-abiding; their religion is an integral part of their lives, and numbers about 3 million.

That puts the Mormon religion 1979 years after Jesus Christ (whose ministry actually is between 30-33 AD), and doesn't include the Old Testament of the Jewish faith, which adds on another 5,000 years or so. and is the most ancient of the three major monotheistic faith's. Islam (submission to God) is founded in the 700's (7th Century), by Mohammed and has approximately 600 million followers.

Regarding the Bible, the Old Testament is the Jewish faith. The New Testament, combined with the Old Testament, is the Christian faith. Matthew traditionally is the author of the first Gospel (good news); He was a tax-collector before Jesus called him; little is known of him. The gospel, the fullest of the four was written probably c80 AD for Jewish Christians. By many Old Testament quotes, it shows Jesus as the promised Messiah of Judaism.

Mark (1st Century AD), traditional author of the second Gospel, which derived information from St.Peter in Rome. The Gospel is the earliest and simplest and was a source for the other Gospels. Mark accompanied Barnabas (his cousin) and Paul on their missionary journeys. His gospel is actually Peter's recollections of Jesus' life and times, and Peter was an apostle who walked and talked with him.

Luke, traditional author of the third Gospel and its sequel, the "Acts of the Apostles" was a Gentile and worked as a physician, probably in Antioch. He was influenced by his friend Paul, whom he accompanied on his missionary journeys. The Gospel, written for Gentiles, claims to be based on eyewitness accounts.

John (called the Evangelist or the Divine), son of Zebedee and brother of James, another Apostle of Jesus, is usually thought to be the author of three New Testament Epistles and possibly the fourth Gospel, written c100 AD and based on a series of long discourses by Jesus. It has little in common with the other Gospels, and emphasizes Jesus' deity and is spiritual and theological in tone.

Paul (d. c65 AD), Apostle to the Gentiles, major figure in the early Christian Church. His life is recorded in the "Acts of the Apostles." Son of a Roman citizen, he was a zealous Jew, active in the persecution of the Christians until a vision of Christ on the road to Damascus made him a fervent convert to the new faith. He went on extensive missionary journeys to Cyprus, Asia Minor and Greece.

Returning to Jerusalem, he was violently attacked by the Jews and imprisoned for two years. An appeal to the Emperor brought a transfer (c60AD) to Rome, where, according to tradition, he was executed after two years house arrest. His epistles, some of which are preserved in the New Testament, have had an tremendous impact on Christian faith. Paul is commonly referred as the 12th Apostle, after Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30-pieces of silver, repented, and hanged himself. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have connection, Matthew and John directly, to Jesus, while Paul's conversion was spiritual, consequently, his influence on the Christian faith is that Jesus was spiritual and God and Man at the same time. Paul never met the man, except through his spiritual conversion. Mark's gospel is Peter's story.

The idea that Jesus was, or could have been Muslim, doesn't fit into any known chronological historical possibility, and there is sufficient evidence that Jesus did in fact exist and held forth a public ministry in 30-33 AD, being executed in Jerusalem c33 AD approx. 600-years before Islam was founded.

BTW, Jesus died on Thursday, not Friday as Christian tradition believes. There were two Jewish Sabbath's in that year, Friday and Saturday, as it was a jubilee year for the Jewish faith, and the Romans honored their noisy little province of Judea and its traditions (as long as it remained peaceful and orderly), and nobody could be put to death on the Sabbath day.