[Keyblctt]

hello, I would like to convert to Islam, being originally Christian, but I encounter one problem, that is I dont know or understand how Muslims see the Lamb of God of the Christian Bible described in the Book of the Revelation(last Book of the Christian Bible).

The Lamb is an analogy with a Lamb that is sacrified for God at Passover, and one cannot imagine a sacrifice without killing.

The Lamb of God is usually described as Jesus Christ who has been killed at Passover or Easter. But in Surah 4:157-158 it is written that Jesus was not killed or crucified.



So how do Muslims explain the vision of Saint John, how do they interpret the concept of the Lamb of God in the Book of the Revelation?.

Thank you for your reply, this is extremely important!

[Carfanate]

I greet you with peace bro

Basically, as the old and new testament and have both changed and been corrupted over time, they contain correct and incorrect prophecies. Hence, it doesn't matter what John says in Revelations (it is highly debatable whether John even wrote Revelations... or anyone named John for that matter, let alone the Disciple). Therefore, Jesus was not sacrificed as a 'lamb' and the whole concept has been created by anonymous figures from the early Christian Church

I invite you to enter into Islam right now bro, don't delay! Just say La ilaha ilallahu muhammad urrasool ullah

There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger

[ATTILAGLIC]

to add upon what brother ahmad12 has said,

the concept 'lamb of God' is there only to neutralize the concept of 'original sin'. If 'original sin' doesn't exist, there's no need to have a sacrifice at all. Since the Old testament doesn't mention anything about 'original sin', meaning that the concept of 'original sin' was not known before the time of Prophet Isa (jesus) . So it was a new concept which was introduced much later than the time of the Prophet Isa

[Keyblctt]

Hello,

thank you for your kind reply.
The problem is that I would like to keep this Lamb of God when I convert to Islam...

the Quran states that "we believe in your revelation and in our revelation" (29:46) and that people need to believe in other previous prophets too.

Is that possible?

I greet you with peace bro

Basically, as the old and new testament and have both changed and been corrupted over time, they contain correct and incorrect prophecies. Hence, it doesn't matter what John says in Revelations (it is highly debatable whether John even wrote Revelations... or anyone named John for that matter, let alone the Disciple). Therefore, Jesus was not sacrificed as a 'lamb' and the whole concept has been created by anonymous figures from the early Christian Church

I invite you to enter into Islam right now bro, don't delay! Just say La ilaha ilallahu muhammad urrasool ullah

There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger

[agiopwer]

let me first say I converted from Christianity to Islam, so I went through many of the same theological debates and reconcilations in my mind.

Before taking a biblical or christian concept and trying to apply it or compare it to Islam, you must first look at the origins of it - this methodology helped me to weed out the things in christianity that I was suspicious of and that caused me to look at other religions in the first place.

So the concept of the lamb of God is found not in revelations, but in the book of John 1:29 - So first you have to question the Authorsip of this book. Of course the church has declared that John the Apostle wrote it, but before the council of Rome in 382ad, the major christian theologians debated weather Jonhn the Apostle wrote them because the author refers to himself in one book as John of Patmos, and in the Gospel of Jond as "the Beloved Dicsiple", and in another book as John the Evangilst. Polycarp sat at the feet of John the Apostle and he attributed The 3 epitles of John to him, but questioned revelations and the Gosple of John. Polycarp later conceded that they were all written by John the Apostle. Modern Biblical scholars doubt it was written by John the Apostle, but rather by a sect of christians who lived in Asia Minor and were somehow connected to John of Patmos - who may be John the Apostle. So, the Authorship is a little murky, but not a game stopping point.

Second - you have to look at when it was written - the dates range from 60AD all the way to 182AD - this means, that if Joghn wrote this, it happened at least 30 years after Jesus had left this world. So, this begs the question, Why did Jesus never say he was "lamb of God" while he was on earth?

Third - Lamb of God is a refrence to Judaisms sacrafice of lambs on Passover - and, if this was written by john the apostle, and as early as it was written, then it would be speaking to jews - so, we need to ask ourselves, what is the Jewish intent behind the Passover sacrafise. The Hebrew word for this is Korban Pashal - Muslims do the same thing durring Eid ul Adha commemorating Ibrahims intended sacrafise of his son, we call it Qurban. Now, during the time of John, which was pre-talmudic Judaism - every Male who had a family large enough to cosume a wild goat or lamb had to sacrafice one at the tmple in front of 30 witnesses. There were exceptions to this though, if you were poor, single, in state of purity. So, this means that not every Jew was obligated to perform the sacrafice, which means that God forgave them of their sins in other ways. This flys in the face of the christian logic that prior to Jesus laying down his life for mankind, every sin must be epiated with blood of a sacrafice - appearantly, the jews believed, as Muslims beleive today - that while doing Korban/Qurbani is one way to epiate your sins, there are also other ways, like say, just asking for forgiveness from the Most Merciful.

finally, fourth - you need to evaluate who is qualified to recieve divine guidance. For me, before I became muslim, I beleived this honor fell only to the Prophets, and while the Apostles may have been rightously guided, they did not have the authjority to bring forth new divine laws and revelations. If you evalute this factor for yourself you will get your answer immediatley, because each book of the Bible, weather apochraphyl or canonical was written by someone who was not Jesus , and 1/3 of the NT was written by a man who never even met Jesus , Paul.

So hopefully Ive helped you in your path for the truth, like I said, I was once where you are now, and when I was at that point, I had Muslims on the right saying "take shahadah now, now now" and christians on the left saying "ask Jesus for guidance to help you understand the riddle of christianity" - but what I didnt have was someone who could unbiasedly show me the facts and without adding in their personal beleif.

[ATTILAGLIC]

Hello,

thank you for your kind reply.
The problem is that I would like to keep this Lamb of God when I convert to Islam...

the Quran states that "we believe in your revelation and in our revelation" (29:46) and that people need to believe in other previous prophets too.

Is that possible?

Peace.

May we know the reason to keep the concept and why is it important? For your information, Prophet Jesus is highly respected by the Muslims, perhaps even more than the Christians themselves. Prophet Jesus is also known as the Al-Masih (the anointed one). After he fulfilled his task of killing the dajjal laknatullah he will rule for more or less about 40 years after which he will die. His grave will be next to the Prophet Muhamad()'s grave .

[agiopwer]

Hello,

thank you for your kind reply.
The problem is that I would like to keep this Lamb of God when I convert to Islam...

the Quran states that "we believe in your revelation and in our revelation" (29:46) and that people need to believe in other previous prophets too.

Is that possible?

Something that isnt always conveyed clearly is how the Islam defines "other revelations" - We do beleive that Moses and Jesus received revealtions in the form of a book - as the Quran was revealed to Muhamed - however, this does not mean that the Torah today and the Bible today are those revealations - we concede that there may be parts of those books which are divine knowledge, but they have been cluttered and mixed with man made revealtions - so we dont know which is divine and which is not unless we compare it to the Quran - so if a passage in the bible agrees with the Quran - we can say that its divine - if it doesnt, we can only speculate on its origins.

heres an analogy - When Jesus was on earth - the Injeel, which was his revealtion was a clean bucket of water - then over the next 300 years - man began to drop impurities in that bucket - the impure parts and the clean parts are now indistinguishable - thus necesitating the need for a new, clean bucket of water - which was given to mankind in the form of the Quran.

[costamarianavia]

Something that isnt always conveyed clearly is how the Islam defines "other revelations" - We do beleive that Moses and Jesus received revealtions in the form of a book - as the Quran was revealed to Muhamed - however, this does not mean that the Torah today and the Bible today are those revealations - we concede that there may be parts of those books which are divine knowledge, but they have been cluttered and mixed with man made revealtions - so we dont know which is divine and which is not unless we compare it to the Quran - so if a passage in the bible agrees with the Quran - we can say that its divine - if it doesnt, we can only speculate on its origins. Heres an analogy - When Jesus was on earth - the Injeel, which was his revealtion was a clean bucket of water - then over the next 300 years - man began to drop impurities in that bucket - the impure parts and the clean parts are now indistinguishable - thus necesitating the need for a new, clean bucket of water - which was given to mankind in the form of the Quran.

SubhanAllah, you should make a sticky post or blog designed for Christians where you can also engage with them, Allah swt clearly blessed you with knowledge that would be beneficial to them

[agiopwer]

SubhanAllah, you should make a sticky post or blog designed for Christians where you can also engage with them, Allah swt clearly blessed you with knowledge that would be beneficial to them

My post may appear knowledgable, but many christians are far more knowledgeable then me on these subjects - when confronted with the problems of the Bible and christianity - they put up their "faith" sheild and say "I dont understand it, but I trust in jesus" - When I was searching for the truth I sat with several pastors and one christian theologian and none of them could accurately defend the flaws in the religion - they couldntnt even define what a prophet was - they themselves are unclear if the Apostles count as prophets or not.

[Suvuseh]

Something that isnt always conveyed clearly is how the Islam defines "other revelations" - We do beleive that Moses and Jesus received revealtions in the form of a book - as the Quran was revealed to Muhamed - however, this does not mean that the Torah today and the Bible today are those revealations - we concede that there may be parts of those books which are divine knowledge, but they have been cluttered and mixed with man made revealtions - so we dont know which is divine and which is not unless we compare it to the Quran - so if a passage in the bible agrees with the Quran - we can say that its divine - if it doesnt, we can only speculate on its origins. I think with the Christians we have to make it clear from the beginning that the 'Injeel' revealed to 'Isa (Alayhi Salaam) does not even have a connection with the books of the New Testament at all, except for passing references to "Jesus preached the Gospel". With respect to the Bible in general, we can only say that those portions which are not blasphemous may have a divine origin, but we cannot even say that they are word-for-word of divine origin either, since there is no chain of transmission, the original books were lost and recovered, lost again and so forth.

[agiopwer]

I think with the Christians we have to make it clear from the beginning that the 'Injeel' revealed to 'Isa (Alayhi Salaam) does not even have a connection with the books of the New Testament at all, except for passing references to "Jesus preached the Gospel". With respect to the Bible in general, we can only say that those portions which are not blasphemous may have a divine origin, but we cannot even say that they are word-for-word of divine origin either, since there is no chain of transmission, the original books were lost and recovered, lost again and so forth.

True, One piece of evidence of this is that every christian docterine that we Muslims find blasphemous comes not from the mouth of Jesus , but from the mouth of an anonymous person saying they heard Jesus say such and such or saw a vision, post ascension, where jesus revealed to them such and such. - even the Lamb of God idea came not from Jesus in his lifetime, but from a vision of jesus post ascension.

This is the crux of where christianity and Islam butt heads - every aspect of christian aqeedah is based on evidence Muslims would reject in our own religion - there is no example of one of the Sahabah seeing a vision of Rasoolullah after his lifetime, and deriving a juristic ruling from such a vision. Even the Bible itself would be considered da'if or even fabricated if scrutinized by our scholars.