Over at liberal Huff Po Religion there is a piece I want to respond to that’s titled “Did Jesus Predict Muhammad?” This is part 2 of my response and earlier I wrote Part 1: Starting already in the Wrong Direction. In this post I will start to look at the bad exegesis found in part 2 of the article “Did Jesus Predict Muhammad?” Obviously Huff Po makes this out to be a great article. One starts wondering if there’s great exegesis going on here. But what I learned about Huff Posts Religion is that there’s a lot of huff and puffs, but no bites as far as exegesis or sound thinking is concerned. For instance, half a year ago they have on their website another piece that I responded to titled “HuffPost is wrong: Islamophobia is Racism?”

While it isn’t the main focus of the writer’s core argument that Jesus predicted Muhammad, we see right off the bat that the writer’s first effort in looking at a Biblical passage results in a bad interpretation. It’s like a sign of things to come.

Speaking of John 21:20-24 he writes:

This passage shows us that the author of the Gospel of John is in a different paradigm than earlier New Testament authors insofar as he no longer expects Jesus’ imminent second coming. Paul, for example, who wrote in the decades immediately following Jesus’ death and resurrection, believed that Jesus would return while most of the people he was preaching to were still alive. The author of the Gospel of John looks for new meaning in Jesus’ promise of the Spirit of Truth or Advocate because he realizes he will die before Jesus returns. When his Gospel was published he was likely already dead and his community was looking forward into a longer and more complicated future than originally expected.

Before responding let me quote John 21:20-24:

20 Peter, turning around, *saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” 21 So Peter seeing him *said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 22 Jesus *said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.

Response:

From John 21:20-24 the writer concluded that “This passage shows us that the author of the Gospel of John is in a different paradigm than earlier New Testament authors insofar as he no longer expects Jesus’ imminent second coming.” But what part of the passage does he get John no longer expecting “Jesus’ imminent second coming?” Nothing from the passage is quoted or specifically cited. Beware of those who quote a large passage and they say that the passage said something but he doesn’t demonstrate it with any arguments from actual words or phrases from the passage. John 21:20-24 isn’t a passage that the writer should go to try to establish his case about the timing of Jesus’ return. There’s no words of timing and duration concerning specifically of Christ’s return at all.

For the sake of the argument let’s say John no longer believed that Jesus can come anytime He wants to. What does that have to do with anything that Jesus predicted Muhammad? Of course our writer wants the anticipated Comforter in the Gospel of John to be about Muhammad. But it does not logically follow that if John wasn’t expecting Jesus to come in his generation therefore that the apostle John must now look “for new meaning in Jesus’ promise of the Spirit of Truth or Advocate because he realizes he will die before Jesus returns.”

Its strange that the writer has to assume the apostle John must now look “for new meaning in Jesus’ promise of the Spirit of Truth or Advocate because he realizes he will die before Jesus returns.” The writer has to assume John hasn’t received the promised Holy Spirit at his late stage of life. But that assumption doesn’t fit with the narrative of the Gospel of John. One chapter earlier in John 20:22 we already have seen that the original Apostles including John has already received the Spirit: “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This Huffington Post writer’s assumption is contradicted by the Gospel of John itself.

The writer ends the paragraph saying “When his Gospel was published he was likely already dead and his community was looking forward into a longer and more complicated future than originally expected.” Again there’s nothing in the passage that talks about the nature of Christ’s second coming. The passage discussion about the nature of Peter’s death or Peter not dying must not be equivocated as the same thing as talking about the nature of Christ’s second coming. This whole paragraph is an example of the logical fallacy of arguing from something that’s not there in the text.

The writer than turn the conversation towards passages on the Holy Spirit:

He says

Like Deuteronomy, the Gospel of John opens up an expectation for future revelation. John’s prophecy is not so specific that it must apply to Muhammad and only Muhammad. But insofar as the Qur’an makes the claim that Muhammad is the Spirit of Truth or Advocate that Jesus foretold, a strong interpretive option emerges for Christians to receive Muhammad as a prophet that Jesus predicts

Response:

Here the writer gives away his big assumption that his entire argument rest upon: “insofar as the Qur’an makes the claim that Muhammad is the Spirit of Truth or Advocate that Jesus foretold, a strong interpretive option emerges for Christians to receive Muhammad as a prophet that Jesus predicts.” Christians must have “a strong interpretive” to “to receive Muhammad as a prophet that Jesus predicts?” Why? Because “the Qur’an makes the claim that Muhammad is the Spirit of Truth or Advocate that Jesus foretold.” Notice our writer’s authority for accepting that Jesus predicted Muhammad is based upon the Qur’an.

But why should Christian accept the Qur’an in the first place? That’s not stated here.

On the contrary there’s reasons to reject the Qur’an. I’ve argued against it in the past how the Qur’an provides the framework of self rfuting itself: WITNESSING TO MUSLIMS: THE QURANIC VIEW OF THE BIBLE.

The writer goes on to quote John 16:12-15 and then writes

In this passage, the description of the Advocate or Spirit of Truth is qualitatively different than earlier mentions. Here we see the Spirit of Truth speaking not through the disciples but to them. Earlier, in John 14:17, Jesus says that this Spirit of Truth will abide with his followers and be in them; throughout the Gospel of John the Holy Spirit is spoken of as an abiding, inner presence. Again, in 14:26, Jesus says that the Advocate will “remind you of all that I have said to you.” In these passages, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit who helps his followers understand what he has said. Essentially, this would have been the experience of the beloved disciple, the author of the Gospel of John, who was guided by the presence of the Spirit in remembering and interpreting Jesus’ words and deeds (which he does spiritually rather than literally). However, in John 16:12-15, Jesus is talking about a Spirit of Truth who will bring forth new revelations, who will say the “many things” that Jesus does not say because his followers “cannot bear them now.” The clear distinction is that the Spirit of Truth in John 16 is predicted to declare new revelations not merely remind Jesus’ disciples of what he already said, as in John 14. The idea that he will “declare to you the things that are to come” is especially important because it acknowledges the uncertainty about the future that Jesus’ followers faced, given the fact that he had not returned as soon as expected. Jesus asserts that this future prophet will glorify him by declaring a new revelation that will come from the same source as his message: God. This discourse is designed to open the minds of Christians to receive a future revelation not as something that competes with or diminishes the Gospel, but rather as something that glorifies Jesus. Unfortunately, these words in the Gospel of John have been totally missed by Christians who reject and belittle the Qur’an; we have for the most part completely ignored the unity of the Gospel and the Qur’an in terms of their common revelatory source. However, if we take Jesus’ words seriously, we have the opportunity to receive the Word of God in the Qur’an in accordance with Jesus’ promise that the Spirit of Truth “will take what is mine and declare it to you.” We can accept the Qur’an as a revelation, not in opposition to the Gospel, but in unity with the Gospel and the will of Jesus.

For educational purposes here’s what John 16:12-15 says

12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.

Response:

Let’s not lose sight of the big picture. Earlier we quoted the Huffington Post writer as saying “the Qur’an makes the claim that Muhammad is the Spirit of Truth or Advocate that Jesus foretold” and the writer thinks this is an imperative for Christians to believe Jesus predicted Muhammad in the Bible.

It’s ironic that what the writer says here about the Holy Spirit quoted above now contradict the Qur’an’s claim of Muhammad as the Spirit of Truth and Advocated foretold by Jesus. Note the writer’s admission that in John 14:17 and in 14:26, in “these passages, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit who helps his followers understand what he has said. Essentially, this would have been the experience of the beloved disciple, the author of the Gospel of John, who was guided by the presence of the Spirit in remembering and interpreting Jesus’ words and deeds.” Muhammad cannot be the Holy Spirit. Muhammad is a man and even Muslims would say its not their paradigm to think of Muhammad as being present in people’s heart. Muhammad is not omnipresent. The Spirit predicted by Jesus cannot be Muhammad for another reason being that Muhammad came hundreds of years after John wrote his Gospel. So John obviously cannot have experienced the presence of Muhammad in his heart, and Muhammad was not the one who helped guide him with his presence in writing the Gospel. It’s absurd.

However the Huff Po writer thinks “the description of the Advocate or Spirit of Truth in John 16 is qualitatively different than the one mentioned earlier in John 14. The Spirit in John 16 will ” declare new revelations.” But just because John 16 mention the Spirit as giving new revelation in the future doesn’t mean the Spirit in John 16 is different than the Spirit in John 14. John 16 just adds an additional function. So all the previous point of why the Spirit can’t be Muhammad still applies.

Notice the excerpt said “This discourse is designed to open the minds of Christians to receive a future revelation not as something that competes with or diminishes the Gospel, but rather as something that glorifies Jesus.” True, but we not forget the same author of the Gospel of John also tells us in his epistles to watch out for false prophets (1 John 4:1). We must not forget that John also wants Christians to be discerning. There are such things as false prophets, something the writer over at Huff Po doesn’t even take into account in his interaction with Scripture or Islam other than to belittle Christians who aren’t Muslims.

From my previous point, it’s not accurate of the writer to say “Unfortunately, these words in the Gospel of John have been totally missed by Christians who reject and belittle the Qur’an.” It’s more accurate to say its our writer who has forgotten and totally missed the words of 1 John 4:1 when he belittles other Christians.

Notice again when the writer says “Unfortunately, these words in the Gospel of John have been totally missed by Christians who reject and belittle the Qur’an,” there is the assumption that the Quran already is God’s revelation. An assumption he makes without further argument. But there are serious concerns about the Qur’an being the revelation of God that Christians have brought up. The writer doesn’t even interact with them in his article. Here’s my collection of post for those who want to know some of these concerns: Index to Veritas Domain’s Islamic Marathon Week.

Our writer assumes that the Qur’an and the Bible can be in unity. I wonder how much of the Qur’an he’s read. Or even the Bible. That is, an accurate handling of the Bible given what we’ve seen of his handling of it thus far. The two Scriptures are antithetical to one another. Again see the link in my previous post.

The article does a terrible job proving its thesis. Imagine if people build cars and planes the way some people argue their point at Huff Po Religion.