Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 11:1 (Spring 2020)
Article: Christ In The Scripture Of Islam: Remnantal Revelation Or Irredeemable Imposter?
Author: Matthew Bennett

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Christ In The Scripture Of Islam: Remnantal Revelation Or Irredeemable Imposter?

Matthew Bennett

Cedarville University

The Qur’an endorses and reveres Jesus, providing Christian missionaries with communicative traction as they can lean into a shared Messiah. Or does it? This article compares the qur’anic Jesus (‘Isa) and the biblical Jesus (Yasua‘) in order to investigate whether or not the apparent similarity extends beyond superficial similarities. By employing Daniel Strange’s categories of “remnantal revelation” and “subversive fulfillment” as a helpful heuristic for assessment, this article contends that the two Jesus characters are not compatible. In fact, the Qur’an’s use of ‘Isa appears to be an attempt to subvert the message and work of the biblical Yasua‘. As a result, it recommends rejection of the missiological impulse to utilize the qur’anic nomenclature in evangelism, discipleship, and Bible translation. Such attempts at contextualization are counter-productive since this name is inextricably tied to a character whose intent is to subvert the message and work of the biblical Jesus.

Key Words: Arabic, contextualization, evangelism, ‘Isa, Islam, missiology, Qur’an, translation, Yasua‘

When Lesslie Newbigin arrived as a missionary in India, he quickly identified a major communication problem. Since the local language was permeated by Hindu theological presuppositions, the danger of syncretism attended any and all communication of biblical teaching. Newbigin reports,

I saw how, inevitably, the meaning of sentences spoken by my Christian friends was shaped by the Hindu background of the language. The words used, the only available words for God, sin, salvation, and so on, are words that have received their entire content from the Hindu religious tradition.1

Newbigin’s observation reveals a perennial missionary problem: How does one communicate biblical truths using language that derives its

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meaning from non-Christian religious systems?

Two Competing Missiological Realities

One of the realities that cross-cultural communicators around the world encounter is the one that presented itself to Newbigin in India: language is not a value-neutral communication vehicle. In the quote above, Newbigin highlights the fact that Hindus use the word “god” to refer to one of the many deities in a polytheistic pantheon. When a Christian is forced to use the same word to identify YHWH, intentional labor is required to distinguish and define the term Christianly since the default understandi...