Jesus and Muhammad: A Comparison/Contrast
The evidence for the life of Jesus Christ is almost entirely restricted to the four Gospels as found in the Holy Bible. According to Timothy George, Jesus was born "shortly before the death of King Herod the Great in 4 B.C.E.," although the exact date has not been determined (2003, 45). He was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry sometime after John the Baptist had begun preaching and baptizing his followers in the River Jordan. Jesus' ministry lasted for approximately three years, taking place mostly in Palestine with a few short journeys beyond its borders into Phoenicia and Decapolis. The main center of Jesus' teachings and his home province was Galilee. In contrast to his alleged "supernatural conception, i.e. born to a virgin mother named Mary," Jesus was raised in a very ordinary "middle class" home in Nazareth, with his father Joseph working as a "carpenter" or as some other skilled craftsman (some have alleged that Joseph was a stonemason). Joseph may have died rather young, leaving Jesus as the eldest son to run the family business and provide for his younger brothers and sisters (Gabriel, 2004, 156). Jesus' knowledge of the Holy Scriptures shows that he had a normal Jewish child's education based at
At first, Jesus was challenged by Satan to doubt God's care in his extreme need and to compromise his loyalty to God his Father. Muhammad led the "Farewell Pilgrimage" and on the last day of this pilgrimage, he preached his final sermon "sitting on his camel on the slopes of the Mount of Mercy. Jesus soon won much notoriety among the Jewish establishment for keeping company with the outcasts of society. At his farewell meal known as the Last Supper, Jesus met with his disciples and gave them final instructions. The first supernatural event was a visit from an angel who instructed Muhammad to recite words revealed to him. After Judas Iscariot informed the Roman officials of Jesus' activities, he was quietly arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, he frequently debated with Jewish religious leaders and despite his lack of a formal education as a scribe, his style of teaching and his growing group of disciples soon cast him in the role of a rabbi. Thus, after the death and alleged resurrection of Muhammad, came about a new religion called Islam which is currently the third of the major Semitic monotheistic religions in the world today, along with Christianity and Judaism. He saw himself and his followers as fighters in the cause of Allah, "a stance toward the hostile and skeptical world that is articulated in the holy Quran" (Gabriel, 2004, 234). The story of Muhammad's death is eerily similar to that of Jesus, for in 632 A. Muhammad invoked the name of God (Allah) for his assistance which resulted in both victory and defeat. Jesus' calling as the true Messiah was then confirmed by a miraculous revelation from God which was then followed by his temptation by Satan in the desert. Yet unlike Jesus Christ, Muhammad never claimed to be anything but a mortal human being.
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Acceptance Essays
