7 verses Christians and Muslims read differently, and why

Christians: a declaration of shared divine nature.^[1] The audience took it that way, since they replied, “You, being a man, make yourself God.” Early Christian writers such as Tertullian used the line to argue that Father and Son are one in substance and yet distinct as persons.^[2]

Muslims: unity of will and purpose, the same sense in which Jesus prays a few chapters later that his disciples may be one as he and the Father are one.^[3] Nobody reads that second verse as making the disciples divine, so the word “one” cannot carry divinity by itself.

The scene supports this. Accused of blasphemy, Jesus does not answer by claiming to be God. He quotes the Psalm in which those to whom the word of God came are called “gods”, and asks why the one whom the Father sanctified should be accused of blasphemy for saying “I am God’s Son.”^[4] Christians reply that the following line, “the Father is in me and I am in the Father,” points to more than agreement. The Muslim answer is that the same language is used of believers elsewhere in the same gospel.

Christians: an echo of God’s name from the burning bush, a claim to eternal existence.^[5] The Greek egō eimi (“I am”) matches the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14, and Jesus’ hearers reacted as if he had pronounced the divine name.

Muslims: pre-existence in God’s foreknowledge and plan, a status the Bible also gives to prophets, as when God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”^[6] The phrase egō eimi is also ordinary idiom, used by the blind man whom Jesus healed to say “I am he.”^[7] The crowd’s reaction, picking up stones, shows they took it as blasphemy. It does not show they were right, and the gospels record a similar reaction when Jesus tells a paralysed man that his sins are forgiven.

The Muslim reading also asks what the claim means in the sentence. The sentence compares ages, “before Abraham was”, and Muslims read the reply as a claim to a place in God’s purpose that predates Abraham. The Christian answer is that the plain sense of the comparison, and the stoning, show that more than a plan is meant.

Christians: the clearest confession of Jesus as God in the gospels.^[8] It closes John’s gospel, which opens with the claim that the Word was God, and Jesus accepts the words without rebuke.

Muslims: an exclamation, spoken by a man who had just seen someone he thought dead, and unrepeated by any other disciple anywhere. If the confession were the doctrine, it is odd that it appears once, from the doubter, and is never taught. In the same chapter Jesus tells Mary Magdalene to say to his brothers, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”^[9] He uses “my God” of the One he worships.

Jesus’ answer to Thomas is about seeing and believing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” It does not mention divinity. The Quran describes Jesus on the Day of Judgement as saying only what God commanded him: “Worship God, my Lord and your Lord.”^[10] Christians answer that the gospel’s stated purpose, that readers believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, shows that Thomas’s words are the climax. The Muslim reply is that “Son of God” is a title which the Bible gives to Israel and its kings.

Muslims: plain subordination.^[11] A being who says another is greater than he is does not claim to be that other. The saying occurs while Jesus is comforting the disciples before his death, and it is presented as a reason for them to rejoice.

Christians: greater in role during the incarnation, equal in nature. Paul speaks of one who, “though he was in the form of God”, took the form of a servant.^[12] The Muslim reply is that this reading imports a distinction the text does not make, and that every hard verse gets the same treatment: the divine nature says the exalted things, the human nature says the rest, and the doctrine is never at risk from any verse because the doctrine decides in advance which nature is speaking.

The history is worth noting. In the fourth century Arius and his followers read this verse as proof that the Son is less than the Father, and the Council of Nicaea in 325 ruled against that reading. Athanasius answered that “greater” describes the Father as the source of the Son and the Son in his human condition.^[13] Christians took the verse seriously then, and their answer was the doctrine of two natures.

Muslims: Jesus refuses the compliment and redirects it to God alone.^[14] A being who was God would have no reason to. Luke has the same words, and the sentence that follows sends the young man to the commandments, which are the way to eternal life.

Christians: a question meant to make the young man think about what he was implying, not a denial. The Muslim response is that this is what the verse would have to mean for the doctrine to survive it, which is different from what it says. Many New Testament scholars, Christians among them, think Matthew rewrote the wording to avoid the difficulty: his version has Jesus say, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.”^[15] Mark and Luke keep the sharper form.

The patristic reply is that Jesus was testing the man and inviting him to recognise who was speaking. That is a possible reading. It requires the reader to supply the unspoken half of the conversation, whereas the Muslim reading takes the words as they stand.

Christians: the Logos is God, and became flesh.^[16] The Word “was with God” and “was God”, and the gospel goes on to say that all things were made through him.

Muslims: the Quran also calls Jesus a word from God.^[17] A word belongs to its speaker; it is not the speaker. The Quran explains the sense: “The likeness of Jesus before God is that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him, ‘Be’, and he was.”^[18] The creative command is the word. And the Greek of that clause has been argued over since antiquity, since the noun for God appears without the article, which is why some early readers took it as “the Word was divine” and stopped short of identifying the two.

Origen, writing in the third century, drew exactly that distinction between “the God” who is the Father and “God” without the article who is the Word.^[19] Christians reply that the grammar permits the stronger sense and that the gospel’s own opening line, read with its prologue, fits it. The Muslim position is that the word of God and the God who speaks it are not one.

Christians: Jesus as the sole way to salvation.^[20] The apostles repeat it in Acts: “There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

Muslims: the sole way for his audience, in his time, as each prophet is for his people. The Quran has every messenger saying the equivalent to his own community: Noah, Hud, Salih and the rest each tell their people, “Fear God and obey me.”^[21] The verse is exclusive in the way a doctor’s instruction is exclusive: binding on the patient in front of him.

The Quran also says that to each community God gave a law and a way, and that those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good will have their reward, a verse about which Muslim scholars differ. Some read it as covering earlier communities in their time, and others as limited by the verse that no religion is accepted apart from islam.^[22] Christians hold that Jesus is the exception, because he is the one through whom God acts. Muslims hold that every messenger is such a way for his own people, and that Muhammad is the way for all people after him.