The Islamic Jesus
Author: Dennis Newton
Date: 2025-09-04T22:33:30+00:00
Keywords: review;Jesus;Qur’an;Islam;Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;LDS;Mormonism
Description: Review of Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017). 288 pp., $17.99 (paperback). Abstract: In his book, The Islamic Jesus, Muslim author Mustafa Akyol paints a portrait of the Qur’an’s Isa (Jesus) and attempts to locate this picture within the landscape of Judeo-Christian biblical scholarship. He is excited to find Islamic Jesus parallels within the Gospels, the Epistle of James, and early non-canonical Christian writings such as the Didache and the Gospel of Thomas. Akyol follows the path of these discoveri
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The Islamic Jesus

Dennis Newton

Review of Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017). 288 pp., $17.99 (paperback).

Abstract: In his book, The Islamic Jesus, Muslim author Mustafa Akyol paints a portrait of the Qur’an’s Isa (Jesus) and attempts to locate this picture within the landscape of Judeo-Christian biblical scholarship. He is excited to find Islamic Jesus parallels within the Gospels, the Epistle of James, and early non-canonical Christian writings such as the Didache and the Gospel of Thomas. Akyol follows the path of these discoveries to so-called “Jewish Christianity” and postulates that remnants of this Christian movement might have been active in seventh-century Arabia. Ultimately, he writes to encourage Muslims to embrace Jesus as a focal point of much-needed reform within the Islamic world. In my review, I highlight three major themes in Akyol’s book. Each theme represents a topic over which I believe Latter-day Saints can ally with our Muslim neighbors theologically or at least glean helpful learnings from Akyol’s journey of discovery.

On 8 September 2010, Elder Russell M. Nelson dedicated the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the preaching of the gospel. Two years later, the government officially recognized the Church, and the first proselyting missionaries were assigned there. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of a handful of majority-Muslim countries where Latter-day Saints actively proselyte to Muslims without reservation. In 2016 my wife and I served as missionaries in Sarajevo, the country’s capital, and we became better acquainted with Islam and the beliefs of our many Muslim friends in Bosnia.1 I was first intrigued to learn more about Isa—the name for Jesus in Arabic—during a Christmas sacrament meeting where speakers recounted Jesus’s birth narrative as found in the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Qur’an.2

Upon returning home, Mustafa Akyol’s book, The Islamic Jesus, caught my eye.3 Intended as a discussion about the Islamic view of Jesus, Akyol summarizes the plentiful teachings about Jesus in the Qur’an, attempts to place these teachings within the context of ancient Judaism and emergent Christianity, proposes an Islamic Christology, and concludes that embracing the teachings of Jesus could provide a solution to the crisis of a fractured modern Islamic world. He states:

We Muslims are not living in the context of seventh-century Mecca and Medina. We are rather living in the context of first-century Nazareth and Jerusalem. Therefore, we need a “prophetic example” fit for the first-century drama. We need the method, and the message, of Jesus. Isn’t it none other than Jesus, after all, whose very “return” is promised in our tradition? (p. 203)

This review essay discusses Akyol’s book from a Latter-day Saint perspective, abstaining from traditional apologetics, and focusing instead on what Akyol can teach Latter-day Saints about less familiar Jesus traditions and the possible paths of future scholarship Akyol illuminates for us.

Like most Latter-day Saints, I was unaware of the quantity and depth of Jesus material found in the Qur’an. British scholar and Methodist minister Geoffrey Parrinder provides a helpful summary of the portrait of Jesus in the Qur’an:

The Qur’an gives a greater number of honourable titles to Jesus than to any other figure of the past. He is a “sign,” a “mercy,” a “witness” and an “example.” He is called by his proper name Jesus, by the titles Messiah (Christ) and Son of Mary, and by the names Messenger, Prophet, Servant, Word and Spirit of God. The Qur’an gives two accounts of the annunciation and birth of Jesus, and refers to his teachings and healings, and his death and exaltation. . . . Jesus is always spoken of in the Qur’an with reverence; there is no breath of criticism, for he is the Christ of God.4

According to Muslim tradition, up to 24,000 prophets have been sent to mankind. While all of these messengers are important, the Qur’an suggests that God has elevated the status of some: “We favoured some of these messengers above others. God spoke to some; others He raised in rank. We gave Jesus, son of Mary, our clear signs and strengthened him with the holy spirit” (Qur’an 2:253). While not the most frequently mentioned prophet in the Qur’an, a distinction that goes to Moses, Jesus is celebrated as the Messiah who worked miracles and is uniquely hailed as the Word of God. “Jesus appears in some ninety-three verses of the Qur’an in fifteen different chapters” (p. 78). Muslims also anticipate his second coming. His mother, Mary, is the only woman named in the Qur’an where she is mentioned thirty-four times compared to nineteen in the New Testament (p. 104).

Despite Jesus’s stature in the Qur’an, “reference to the example of Jesus . . . is relatively rare in Muslim culture” (p. 203). Akyol acknowledges that this is due, in part, to a political reaction to the “Christian West.” He quotes Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who claims that Muslims have an aversion “not only to Christianity . . . but even to the Islamic conception of Christ and Mary.”5 Fortunately, Akyol sees this as “a problem to be corrected, not a normality to be accepted” (p. 203).

Another possible reason for the lack of Muslim cultural discussion about the Islamic Jesus is the Qur’an’s lack of specificity about his teachings and mission. Muslims actively discuss other prophets, such as Moses, Job, and Elijah, whose stories are conveyed in the Qur’an with additional details. While early Muslim scholars and teachers supplemented their Qur’an reading with study of “Jewish and Christian texts” (p. 204), later “Islamic thought turned insular and self-referential. Inevitably, it stagnated” (p. 205). Akyol advocates for Muslims to return to studying both the Torah and the New Testament Gospels, with a particular focus on the sayings of Jesus. His proposed goal of this study: “A Jesus-centered renewal of Islamic law and Muslims’ behaviors.”6 He adds:

I believe that the teachings of Jesus to his fellow Jews can today give us Muslims reformist guidance especially in two key matters. The first is the Kingdom of God, which Muslims would call the Caliphate. The second is religious law, which Muslims would call the Shariah. (p. 206)

Mustafa Akyol is a writer, a New York Times journalist, and author of several books on contemporary issues within Islam. He is also a believer in the Qur’an. He is not, however, a scholar of the New Testament nor of the Qur’an. Thus, many of his historical arguments rely on the scholarship of others. In his book, he skillfully weaves together his narrative by surveying the findings of largely secular scholars and comes to conclusions that are uniquely his own. His is a Muslim voice advocating that the Islamic world should seek out the words of Jesus. As a Latter-day Saint, I am excited to applaud Akyol’s admonition to the Muslim community, as well as to glean insights from his summary of the Islamic view of Jesus. While I understand that my beliefs about Jesus will not fully align with those found in the Qur’an, the commonalities are enlivening. I am hopeful that both sides can benefit from meaningful conversation.

James and Jewish Christianity

Akyol’s first experience with the New Testament occurred in graduate school. Walking the streets of Istanbul, a Christian missionary handed him a Turkish copy of the New Testament and asked if he had heard “the good news.” Akyol had seen Turkish newspaper stories warning of strangers who were trying to convert Muslims and even recalled a rumor that the U.S. CIA was funding this missionary effort and had secretly placed $100 bills inside “free” copies of the New Testament to encourage readership. He accepted the missionary’s gift, noted the lack of money as he leafed through the pages, and began reading it that evening. He was intrigued enough to finish the book of Matthew before retiring that night. As he worked his way through the New Testament—admittedly through the lens of the Qur’an—he read much that he admired but also found some passages troubling:

At some point during my reading, I decided to use a method: I began underlining the passages in the New Testament that I liked the most with a blue pen while underlining the passages that I found objectionable with a red pen. It soon turned out that I had more blue lines in the gospels, especially in the first three, whereas the epistles of Paul got filled with many red lines. Paul’s “christology”—a term I would learn later—was just not working for me. Then, toward the end of the New Testament, I came to an epistle that rekindled my ambiguous affection for this book. This particular document was both full of teachings that deeply resonated with my faith and, more importantly, contained nothing that contradicted my faith. My underlining turned out to be all blue, in other words, no red. (pp. 2–3)

The book that so excited Akyol was the Epistle of James. In it he found a spirit and tone kindred to his beloved Qur’an and its portrayal of Jesus. As an example, Akyol marveled that James 4:14–15 seemed very similar to Qur’an 18:23–24, because both thematically compel the reader to not take any action “tomorrow” without properly acknowledging that the Lord “wills” the action.7 Another example is the side-by-side comparison of Qur’an 2:177 and James 1:27 (see table 1) which teach that true righteousness requires service to the poor and needy.

Table 1. Comparing James 1:27 and Qur’an 2:177.

James 1:27

Qur’an 2:177

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Righteousness is not in turning your faces towards the east or west. Rather, the righteous are those who believe in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Books, and the prophets; who give their cherished wealth to relatives, orphans, the poor, needy travelers, beggars, and for freeing captives . . . . It is they who are true in faith, and it is they who are mindful of God.

Later, as Akyol conducted a much more detailed study of the New Testament, he concluded that the Islamic Jesus found in the Qur’an was consistent with the Jesus portrayed in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and the Epistle of James, but that the Qur’an seemed somewhat in conflict with the vernacular and terminology found in John’s Gospel and in the Pauline epistles. This conclusion prompted Akyol to take on an in-depth and critical study of the scholarship relating to the early Christian movement. His discoveries about early Christianity comprise the first part of his book’s narrative.

It is not an exaggeration to state that every “known fact” about Jesus’s death and the earliest beliefs of Christianity are disputed by one scholar or another. So it is remarkable that New Testament archaeologist and scholar James D. Tabor makes the following definitive statement about the known facts concerning Jesus’s death:

Three facts appear to be indisputable: first, Jesus was truly dead; second, that he was hastily and temporarily buried in an unknown tomb; and third, that the movement Jesus began did not end with his death but revived and found new life under the leadership of Jesus’ brother James.8

Most Latter-day Saint readers would quickly acknowledge the first two “facts.” Yes, Jesus died, and yes, he was buried in a temporary tomb. But Latter-day Saints might appear slightly quizzical when told the third “fact.” Wasn’t Peter the first successor to Jesus as the earthly leader of the Church? Did not Paul later become the de facto head of the Church? Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? As theological heirs of the Western Protestant Christian tradition, Latter-day Saints often assume a direct lineage from Peter to the early Church Fathers to the creeds of the Roman Empire to Roman Catholicism and then to its Protestant offshoots.9 So why does Tabor assert that James’s leadership of Jesus’s religious movement is indisputable?

Akyol asked many of these same questions as he began to read “dozens of academic books on early Christianity and the historical Jesus” (p. 5). However, his reading of the passage below from the aforementioned James D. Tabor produced what Akyol calls his “aha moment,” personal “proof” that his red and blue underlining experience was not simply schizophrenic proof-texting inspired by an Islamic worldview, but rather possible evidence of two different faith traditions in early Christianity. Tabor wrote:

There are two completely separate and distinct “Christianities” embedded in the New Testament. One is quite familiar and became the version of the Christian faith known to billions over the past two millennia. Its main proponent was the apostle Paul. The other has been largely forgotten and by the turn of the 1st century A.D. had been effectively marginalized and suppressed by the other. Even within the documents of the New Testament itself, one has to look carefully to detect its presence. Its champion was none other than James the brother of Jesus, leader of the Jesus movement from A.D. 30 until his violent death in the year A.D. 62. (p. 261)

Akyol fully acknowledges that some New Testament scholars resist Tabor’s views.10 First-century Judaism was not monolithic, and neither was early Christianity.11 Still, he is grateful to Tabor for placing him on the path to investigate early Christianity, James, and what Akyol calls “Jewish Christianity.” It is along this path, which diverges significantly from the traditional path assumed by adherents to the Christianity of ancient Rome, where Akyol discovers echoes of the historical and theological groundwork that he argues are supportive of the Qur’an’s views on Jesus. Ultimately, Akyol believes it is possible to trace some of the sources of the Qur’an’s description of Jesus to Christian communities that survived in Arabia as late as the seventh century AD.

Akyol quotes religious historian Hans-Joachim Schoeps with regard to the historical dilemma faced by those trying to track the sources of the Qur’anic teachings about Jesus:

Here is a paradox of world-historical proportions: Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam.12

The first Western scholar to point out the parallels between the Qur’an and Jewish Christianity was John Toland in the 1700s. A century later, Adolf von Harnack claimed, “Islam is a transformation of the Jewish religion already transformed by the gnostic Jewish-Christians on Arabic soil.”13 More recently, Islamic studies scholar Patricia Crane published a comprehensive two-part article entitled “Jewish Christianity and the Qur’an.” Despite the work of these scholars and the obvious connections between the Qur’an and Jewish Christianity, only a handful of additional scholars have taken up the investigation.14

Nonetheless, the parallels between Islam and what has been called “Jewish Christianity” are startling. The Encyclopedia of Islam’s entry on “Jewish Christians” concludes, “Jewish Christians represented the real message of Jesus, and their image of Jesus is the same with that of Islam” (p. 88). Here are just five of many examples of parallels:

- Both Islam and Jewish Christianity insist that neither is a “new” religion . . . both seek to call people back to the “Abrahamic faith.”15

- “Like Islam, The Book of James, and the teachings of Jesus in Q, emphasize doing the will of God as a demonstration of one’s faith.”16

- The dietary laws of Islam to avoid “what dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine” (Qur’an 2:173) and the food sacrificed to idols seem to match the admonition given by James in Acts 15.17 Abstaining from wine, another primary Islamic dietary prohibition, is a personal characteristic for which James was well known.18

- “Both the Qur’an and the Didache speak of Two Ways, of good and evil, teaching that men are called upon to choose between them, to be either rewarded or punished by God.” (p. 85).

- Both the Qur’an and the Jewish Christianity teach a form of “low Christology” that only differs slightly. Strictly monotheistic, Jewish Christians would never elevate Jesus to the status of “Most High God,” and Muslims worship only Allah or “The God.” Both agree that Jesus is the Messiah.

To explain these similarities, Akyol postulates that an alternative form of Christianity must have survived in Arabia. He asks: “Is there a chance that Jewish Christianity, which seems to have vanished in history by the end of the fifth century, might have survived to have an impact in early seventh-century Arabia, to have influenced the ‘historical Muhammad?’” (pp. 88–89).19 Scholars most commonly track Jewish Christianity through the Jerusalem church and its continuous leadership by James and Simon, as well as through the New Testament texts attributed to James and Jude, the late first century AD apocryphal texts Didache and The Gospel of Thomas, the third-century pseudo-Clementine writings, and the reports of the existence of “heretical” groups such as Ebionites and Elchasaites.20 Each of these sources describe a version of early Christianity that appears different from the Pauline Christianity of Protestant reformers Calvin and Luther.

Authorship of the New Testament books of James and Jude are both attributed to brothers of Jesus.21 The Book of Jude assumes a first-century Jewish audience because it quotes, without attribution, two non-canonical Jewish texts (the Assumption of Moses and 1 Enoch) with which only a Jewish audience would be familiar. The Book of James is lauded as the epistle most closely aligned with Jesus’s sayings in the Gospels. “What is most amazing about the letter of James, is that the ethical content of its teaching is directly parallel to the teachings of Jesus that we know from the Q source.”22 Because many of Jesus’s teachings are based on the Torah and the teachings of the prophets, James’s message would universally appeal to his Jewish audience (the letter is addressed to the “twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,” James 1:1).23

Sociologist Rodney Stark has challenged many of the long-held assumptions about the rise of “Gentile” Christianity. Traditionally, historians assume that “Jewish Christianity” flourished until the Jewish revolt of AD 66–74, when it began to give way to growth among the Gentiles. However, Stark argues that Jews were formidable in the Christian movement for much longer than is traditionally presumed:

Perhaps only a sociologist would be foolish enough to suggest that, contrary to the received wisdom, Jewish Christianity played a central role until much later in the rise of Christianity—that not only was it the Jews of the diaspora who provided the initial basis for church growth during the first and early second centuries, but that Jews continued as a significant source of Christian converts until at least as late as the fourth century and that Jewish Christianity was still significant in the fifth century.24

With a teaching pool of nearly 1 million Palestine Jews and 4 million Diaspora Jews, it is easy to imagine that a significant number of Stark’s estimated 40,000 Christians in AD 150 were Jewish. The same was true in AD 200 when slightly more than 200,000 Christians existed. But, just 150 years later, in AD 350 when there were 33 million Christians, the voice of Jewish converts had clearly faded and likely had been minimized.25 Islam was born in an age when the Jewish voice of Christianity had effectively disappeared due to the overwhelming tsunami of Gentile conversions and the beginning of institutional Christian practices as the official religion of the Roman Empire.

According to Akyol, the Qur’an speaks of two different types of Christians: one that Muhammed seemed intimately familiar with and another much larger category of Christians. The first type, called “al-Nasara,” is warmly, even affectionately, described by the Qur’an. “Nasara” can either imply location—“from Nazareth,”—as in Nazarene Christians, or be viewed as a label—“to help”—since that is what the root N-S-R denotes. Thus, according to the Qur’an, Jesus asks his disciples “’Who will be my helpers to God?’ And the disciples reply, ‘We will be the helpers of God.’” (Qur’an 61:14). Whenever the descriptor al-Nasara is used for a Christian, the portrait is always positive.

On the other hand, there are other types of unnamed Christians who are routinely criticized in the Qur’an. Consider Qur’an 5:72 as an example:

Those who say that the Messiah, son of Mary, is God are unbelievers. The Messiah said, “Children of Israel! Worship God, my Lord and your Lord. If anyone associates anything with God, God has forbidden him the Garden and his refuge will be the Fire.” The wrongdoers will have no helpers.

The chief characteristic of this type of Christian, whom the Qur’an consistently describes negatively, is that they have elevated Jesus to a status equal to the “One True God” or Islam’s Allah. They represent the antithesis of al-Nasara (helpers) and thus will have “no helpers.” The Qur’an also identifies this type of Christian as those “who say that God is the third of three,” classifying this type of Christian as “unbelievers.” According to Akyol, the two types of Christians in the Qur’an can be summarized as 1) “helpers” or 2) “unbelievers.” For Akyol, the whispers of authentic Jewish Christianity that he is tracking represent the helpers described by the Qur’an, and the creedal Christianity of the Western world represent the unbelievers.

Did al-Nasara Christians exist at the right time and place to possibly influence this dichotomous portrayal of Christian believers found in the Qur’an? Akyol argues that the most substantial evidence for the existence of a late Arabia Jewish Christian sect—the helpers—is found in excavations first reported by Israeli archaeologist Yehuda Nevo in 1993. Nevo’s primary focus was rock inscriptions found in the Negev Desert in southern Israel. Many of these inscriptions date to the seventh and eighth centuries, near the period of the founding of Islam.26 One pre-Islamic inscription has garnered attention because it appears to be evidence of Akyol’s community of Christians living at a time and locale about to give birth to Islam:

Among the pre-Muhammadan texts, one was exceptionally remarkable. Discovered on a rock near Sde Boker, this was a short prayer for forgiveness. And it ended with this line:

Amin rabb-l-alamin rabb Musa was ‘Isa.

Or, “Amen, the Lord of Worlds, the Lord of Moses and Jesus.”

Muslims who just read the Arabic line above might experience a moment of awe, as I personally did the first time I read it. Because the term here, rabb-l-alamin, “the Lord of the Worlds,” is very familiar to almost every Muslim on the face of the earth. It is in the very first line of the very first chapter of the Qur’an, the “Fatiha,” or the “Opening,” which reads: “Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds.” It is a line repeated over and over every single day around the globe, in every single Muslim prayer. (p. 98)

In the beginning, a phrase associated worldwide with the Torah, is the biblical equivalent of the Qur’an’s rabb-l-alamin. Thus, to find the phrase the Lord of the Worlds in a pre-Islamic inscription is a remarkable discovery. This phrase appears to link the beginnings of Islam to a pre-existing Christian group that had continued to stress Jesus’s subordination to God, the Father.27 “The Lord of the Worlds” could not possibly have come from the creedal Christianity of Rome or the Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Akyol is convinced that a Jewish Christian community remained relevant in Arabia and that its teachings inspired many of the Jesus passages in the Qur’an. However, he recognizes that the core argument—“certain teachings in the Qur’an resemble those of Jewish Christians therefore Jewish Christians must have directly influenced the making of the Qur’an”—is a circular one (p. 100).28

For Latter-day Saints readers, the attention that Akyol brings to James is exciting, especially because historic Christianity purposely ignores the Book of James. Marcus J. Borg, commenting on the Book of James, claims that there is a unified effort within traditional Christian churches to suppress discussion about James:

Most American Christians will never hear these passages read or preached in church. They do not appear in The Revised Common Lectionary, the set of biblical texts designated for mainline Protestant and Catholic worship services.29

In contrast, Latter-day Saints have embraced the Epistle of James. It may be asserted that James 1:5—“If any of you lack wisdom . . .”—is the first scripture of the Restoration because of its inspirational and motivational effect on a young Joseph Smith. Latter-day Saints read and cite James regularly. An analysis of scriptural citations in General Conferences from 1942 to the present reveals that the Book of James is mentioned more often than other New Testament epistles of about the same length (see table 2).30 While nearly a quarter of these mentions are to the “Restoration scripture” (James 1:5–6), other often-quoted scriptures include “pure religion and undefiled” (James 1:27), “doers of the word” (James 1:22), “love thy neighbor as thyself” (James 2:8), and “confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16). Certainly, Latter-day Saints have embraced James and his message to a degree unique within the Christian community.

Table 2. Scriptural mentions in General Conference (1942–2024).

New Testament Book

Mentions

James

373

1 John

187

Galatians

168

1 Thessalonians

58

One of traditional Christianity’s issues with the Book of James is soteriological in nature (its salvation doctrine). The Protestant exclamation of sola fide (faith alone) is difficult to reconcile with passages in James that appear to teach an alternative and contrarian doctrine of salvation. In his textbook on the New Testament, Bart Ehrman states:

It is possible that some Christians had taken Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith apart from the works of the Law to mean something that Paul himself did not, namely, that it only mattered what a person believed, not how he or she lived. James stakes out the opposing position, arguing that true faith will always be manifest in one’s life, especially in the ways one treats the poor and the oppressed. To put it in his own words, “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24) because “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26)31

The soteriological vision portrayed in James is similar to that presented in the Qur’an. According to Akyol, both texts present the same salvific formula—“man can be saved only by two things: faith in God and good deeds” (p. 6).32 While this formula is not identical to present-day Latter-day Saint soteriological teachings, it is closer in context and tone than the Protestant doctrine of faith alone. Latter-day Saints embrace the salvific messages found in the Book of James. Familiar passages include the definition of pure religion (James 1:27), the admonition to be doers of the word (James 1:22), the teaching that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), and the call to submit ourselves to God (James 4:7).

Remarkably, despite the importance of the Epistle of James, Latter-day Saints remain relatively uninformed about James and his life. Scholar Robert Eisenman says, “the known details regarding James’ life and position are not inconsiderable. In many ways we have more independent documentation concerning him than any other New Testament character, except perhaps Paul.”33 While most Latter-day Saints could recount the missionary travels of Paul, the martyrdom of Stephen, or the stories of Mary, most are unaware that James led the church for thirty years, as well as the unique circumstances of his death, his impeccable character, and, importantly, his history of service in the temple.34 One of Akyol’s insights that Latter-day Saints should take to heart is that the study of the person James, the earliest Christian movement, and the writings attributed to the “Jewish Christians” could better illuminate our understanding of the earliest Christian church.

An Islamic Christology and the Trinity

There is a certain harshness found within the Savior’s declaration to Joseph Smith that “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight” (Joseph Smith—History 1:19). As I have studied this statement and the forcefulness of it, I have concluded that perhaps Christ is primarily expressing his frustration over the creedal statements that declare Jesus to be the same person (the same essence or “homoousios”) as the Father. For Jesus, who worships and adores his Father, this may be a high level of blasphemy. (This is simply a conclusion or conjecture I gained through my study of Joseph Smith—History.) So, I was surprised to discover these verses from the Qur’an and found myself nodding in agreement (my own equivalent of Akyol’s blue underlining):

And on Judgement Day God will say, “O Jesus, son of Mary! Did you ever ask the people to worship you and your mother as gods beside God?” He will answer, “Glory be to You! How could I ever say what I had no right to say? If I had said such a thing, you would have certainly known it. You know what is hidden within me, but I do not know what is hidden within You. Indeed, You alone are the Knower of all unseen. I never told them anything except what You ordered me to say: ‘Worship God—my Lord and your Lord!’” (Qur’an 5:116–117)

The Qur’an describes Jesus as the Messiah (Qur’an 4:171), the son of the Virgin Mary (Qur’an 3:47), a healer (Qur’an 3:49), a miracle worker (Qur’an 3:49), a prophet (Qur’an 19:30), a witness (Qur’an 5:117), an example (Qur’an 43:57), a sign for all people (Qur’an 19:21), a Messenger (Qur’an 4:171), a servant (Qur’an 19:30), the Spirit of God (Qur’an 4:171), the Word (Qur’an 4:171), and one of those nearest to God (Qur’an 3:45). There are two accounts of Jesus’s birth, plus references to his teachings, a short mention of his death—or at least the illusion of his death, and also his exaltation.35 Although not specifically stated in the Qur’an, most Muslims anticipate Jesus’s second coming. The Qur’an does not teach, however, that Jesus is God or even the “Son of God”—in fact, far from it.

A claim found repeatedly in the Qur’an is that the mainline Christian community has incorrectly elevated Jesus to the status of Allah or “The God.” The first pillar of Muslim belief is the shahada—there is no God but God. Akyol summarizes the historical context of this belief:

There was one specific god that both the pagan Arabs and the Qur’an honored: Allah. The term was a contraction of the article al, corresponding to the English word the, and the word ilah, corresponding to the English word god. Therefore, Allah was not just any god, but “the God.”. . . From this, there emerged the basic credo of Islam, which is still recited every day across the globe, from the lips of believers to the minarets of mosques: “La ilahe illallah,” or “There is no god, but The God.” This bold, forceful, uncompromising monotheism was the very core of the new faith. That is why it would call itself “Islam,” implying “submission” to that one true God—and to no one else. Yet who exactly was this one true God? The Qur’an’s answer is straightforward: the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob. (p. 62)

Based on their interpretation of the Qur’an, Muslims seem uncomfortable when Christians speak of Jesus’s divinity. The Qur’an speaks of Jesus as Son of Mary and uses other titles such as Messiah and the Word, but Jesus is never spoken of as the Son of God. Much of their discomfort comes from their aversion to the notion that someone could mistakenly worship a being other than God or Allah. This includes the manner in which many Christians worship Jesus Christ; Muslims view them as substituting Jesus worship with that of the One True God. Consider Akyol’s discussion about the seminal passage found in John 1:1 and note where he claims Muslims draw the proverbial Christological line in the sand in reaction to this famous text:

Muslims may agree with the opening statement of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” But they cannot agree with what follows next: “And the Word was God.” (p. 165)

Some Latter-day Saints also have had difficulty with the final declaration from this verse, especially when Christian commentators suggest that Jesus is “The God” rather than “a God” or a member of the “Godhead.”36 Latter-day Saints draw a sharp distinction between Jesus as Lord or God and Jesus as the “Most High God” or “God the Father.”37 Therefore, we are in a good position to understand the trepidation Muslims have towards those who have declared Jesus as “of the same substance” as the Most High God. Both Muslims and Latter-day Saints reject the triune (three-in-one) formula for God as proclaimed in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. Akyol explicitly summarizes Muslim beliefs when he declares:

If there is one single concept in Christian theology that will never be accepted by Muslims, it is the doctrine of the Trinity—that God consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. . . . Hence the Qur’an explicitly condemns the Trinity in two explicit passages. (p. 170)

Repeatedly the Qur’an teaches that those who profess the trinity are in error—in a passage that was previously quoted, they are labeled as “unbelievers” (Qur’an 5:72). The Qur’an also states:

Indeed, those who say, “God is the Messiah, son of Mary,” have fallen into disbelief. (Qur’an 5:17)

Those who say, “God is one in a Trinity,” have certainly fallen into disbelief, There is only One God. (Qur’an 5:73)

The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger of God and the fulfillment of His Word through Mary and a spirit created by a command from Him. So believe in God and His messengers and not say “Trinity.” Stop!—for your own good. (Qur’an 4:171)

Within the Latter-day Saint canon, Jesus never claims to be the “Most High God.” Consistently, Latter-day Saints are instructed to pray to “Our Heavenly Father” and not to Jesus or another divine being, such as Heavenly Mother. The temple endowment presentation also exemplifies Jesus’s important yet subservient role to his God, the Father. Latter-day Saint doctrine and the Qur’an are generally aligned in opposition to this central tenet of trinitarianism.

In fact, Muslims are generally uncomfortable with any suggestion that Jesus was divine. They are particularly averse to using the title “Son of God” for Jesus because the Qur’an criticizes this specific term: “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the son of God,’ while the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the son of God’” (Qur’an 9:30).38 Akyol explains why Muslims are so wary of the phrase Son of God:

But what does it mean exactly to be a Son of God? Since the Qur’an finds it so scandalous, it must have a very scandalous meaning. No wonder, when we look at the Arabic word the Qur’an uses for sonship: we see that it is, with one exception, walad, which means “son” in the physical sense. In other words, a god with a walad can only be understood as a deity who had sexual intercourse with a female counterpart. This was, of course, utterly disrespectful to, and absolutely incompatible with, the Abrahamic conceptualization of God. It was, on the other hand, the typical way gods were envisioned in many pagan societies, including Greeks, Romans, and, most importantly, pre-Islamic Arabs. . . . This suggests that the Qur’an’s very strong condemnation of the idea of divine sonship might have something to do with the pagan Arab context—the very “ignorance” Islam was determined to wipe out. . . . In contrast, however, sonship to God in the monotheist Hebrew context—in the Old Testament sense of being chosen and beloved by God—would not be offensive to Islam. (pp. 167–68)

Based on his understanding of the earliest strains of Christianity, Akyol argues that James and other Jewish Christians likely did not view Christ as divine or as “Son of God.” He argues that Jewish Christians must have accepted Jesus’s role as “son” in the light of the cultural understanding of the time. My position is that Akyol’s understanding about first-century Judaism is likely tainted by his desire to defend the Qur’an and that, contrary to Akyol’s assertions, the earliest Christians consistently attested Jesus’s divinity and employed the phrase “Son of God.”

Arguably, the earliest recorded chronological mention of Jesus as “Son of God” in the New Testament is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans.39 In his opening, Paul restates a pre-existing creed that extols the “definition of the gospel.”40 Importantly, scholar Bart D. Ehrman notes that “this creed contains a clear Semitism, which makes it highly likely that it was originally formulated among Aramaic-speaking followers of Jesus in Palestine”—in other words, the followers of James.41 This may be one of the oldest sayings available to us from James’s Jewish Christian community—the group whose beliefs Akyol feels are parallel to those found in the Qur’an. This creed states that:

Who was descended
from the seed of David
according to the flesh,
who was appointed
Son of God in power
According to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.42

Therefore, this pre-existing creed used by Paul in Romans is strong evidence that James and the original Jewish Christians used the phrase “Son of God” to describe Jesus, only a few years after his death. Note that the view of this creed is that Jesus was appointed the Son of God at the point in time when he was raised from the dead. In this sense, Jesus “obtained” the title Son of God, rather than being born with it, an important distinction.

So why should Jesus’s assumption of the title Son of God not matter, ultimately, to Akyol and other Muslims? Since the Qur’an acknowledges other supernatural heavenly beings such as angels, Akyol concludes that the term Son of God, in this context, could be viewed as acceptable to Muslims with the appropriate qualifiers:

Take a look at the key term, “Son of God.” In Jewish texts, “Son of God” was merely “any one whose piety has placed him in a filial relation to God.” So the term could be used for angels, Israel itself as a nation, or the King of Israel. In Psalms, for example, we read that God would make David his “first born and highest king of the earth,” and, in return, David would cry, “You are my Father.” In this Jewish context, sonship to God implied “divine favour rather than the sharing of the divine nature.” In Greek culture, however, the term “Son of God” would imply nothing but God-the-Son—in the sense that Apollo was the son of Zeus. (p. 44)

This is an important distinction. The relationship between the mythical Greek gods Zeus and Leto that produced Apollo was clearly sexual in nature and Zeus and Apollo’s familial relationship is best understood via the benchmark of human biology. It is not clear, however, how familial the relationship is between God the Father and Jesus or how familial our own relationship is with God the Father. The scriptures routinely refer to mankind as children of God—“ye are all children of God by faith” (Galatians 3:26). However, what this specifically means is undefined and up for interpretation. As Akyol mentions, Psalm 89 calls David the “firstborn” and David cries out “thou art my Father, my God.” Does this mean that we, Jesus, and David share God’s DNA? It is likely that we do not, at least in a physically human sense, yet we must acknowledge that we were created in his image.

Regarding Christology, I think that Latter-day Saints and Muslims, once we account for definitional differences, are more closely aligned than may be expected. Our beliefs are not the same, but both Latter-day Saints and Muslims find it somewhat blasphemous to claim that Jesus is the same as God the Father or the Most High God. Both would agree that Jesus and “The God” are the same in purpose, but definitely not the same in “substance,” as the Nicene Creed declares. And most Latter-day Saints would agree with Akyol that Jesus’s sonship does not necessitate or even imply a sexual relationship between the Father and Mary like that of Zeus and Leto.

Latter-day Saints maintain that there is one God with supreme authority—The Most High God. As Blake Ostler explains:

The Mormon scriptures make clear that there is a “God of all other gods” (D&C 121:32). It is implicit in this scriptural assertion that, although there is more than one individual of the kind “God,” there is only one who is preeminent and the God of all. Such language is similar to the New Testament language that the Father is “the God and Father of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:3), even though it calls Christ “God.” The book of Abraham says that this God of all other gods “is more intelligent than they all” (3:19). In any event, it is clear that the “one God” of the Old Testament is identified with the God and Father of Jesus Christ in the New Testament (1 Cor. 8:6, 1 Tim. 2:5). The Father is “the God” (John 1:1; emphasis mine) and “the only true God” (John 17:3). Such expressions entail that the Father is in some sense unique and superlative.43

How can Ostler say that there are more than one of the “kind ‘God?’” In the ancient world, “some humans were actually called God. This is true not only in documents from outside the Bible, but also—even more surprising—in documents within it.”44 While the Qur’an reserves the title of God solely for Allah or “The God,” this was not common in the ancient world. As Rodney Stark points out, true monotheism is very uncommon:

Absolute monotheism is very rare. . . . In none of the great monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—is there only one supernatural entity. In each, God is surrounded with “a cloud of beings.”45

Neither the Bible nor the Qur’an teach “absolute monotheism.” For example, Margaret Barker points out that “the psalmist depicts heaven as a place of many holy ones.” There are “angel figures who appear in texts from all periods in the Old Testament.”46 Therefore, substituting the phrase “angel” for “god” when discussing Christology with Muslims is probably a more accurate way of portraying Jesus’s role. This view aligns with another of the earliest known teachings of Christians, as recorded by Paul in Philippians 2:6–11, which is widely acknowledged as another early pre-existing Christian creed or hymn that Paul is quoting (often called the “Philippians Hymn” or the “Christ Hymn of Philippians”).47 Scholars estimate it may have been composed around AD 40, or about ten years after Jesus’s death. One translation of Philippians 2:6-11 is rendered thus:

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.48

Along with the Romans passage discussed earlier, this is one of the most definitive declarations of what the earliest Christians taught about Jesus’s divinity. Ehrman’s commentary about this passage is particularly relevant:

I want to stress that Christ appears to be portrayed here, in his preexistent state, as a divine being, an angel—but not as God Almighty. He is not the Father himself, since it is the Father who exalts him. And he is not—most definitely not—“equal” with God before he becomes human.49

Thus, the Philippians Hymn teaches that Jesus was a preexistent angel whom God exalted after completing his life mission and dying upon the cross. He is not God the Father, “The God,” or Allah. But he is a preexistent supernatural being—perhaps the most supreme—equivalent to the angels found in the Qur’an. Margaret Barker paints a similar picture of the milieu of pre-Christian Palestine:

The roots of Christian trinitarian theology lie in pre-Christian Palestinian beliefs about the angels. There were many in first-century Palestine who still retained a world-view derived from the more ancient religion of Israel in which there was a High God and several Sons of God, one of whom was Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel. Yahweh, the Lord, could be manifested on earth in human form, as an angel or in the Davidic king. It was as a manifestation of Yahweh, the Son of God, that Jesus was acknowledged as Son of God, Messiah and Lord.50

Barker’s argument is that the concept of being a Son of God was common in first-century Palestine and that this would have made perfect sense to the earliest Christians, who were exclusively Jewish. All of these themes and the two early Christian creeds from Paul’s letters seem consistent with the Christology taught in Doctrine and Covenants 93, wherein the Lord revealed truths related to certain passages from the Gospel of John:

And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us. And I, John, saw that he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace; and he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness. And thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at first. (Doctrine and Covenants 93:11–14)

Note that Jesus is called Son of God (“and thus he was called the Son of God”) as the result of his reaction to the grace offered by God. This is a view more harmonious with the portrait of Jesus in the Qur’an (“I never told them anything except what You ordered me to say”; Qur’an 5:117), the aforementioned creed in Romans 1, and the hymn found in Philippians.51 Protestant John Hick teaches something similar about Christ’s divinity, a sentiment which Akyol applauds:

“Jesus was so open to divine inspiration, so responsive to the divine spirit, so obedient to God’s will, that God was able to act on earth in and through him,” he wrote. “This, I believe, is the true Christian doctrine of incarnation.” And that, I believe, is a doctrine of incarnation that Islam can wholeheartedly accept.52

Jesus as Savior and Atonement Theories

As Latter-day Saint missionaries began to actively proselyte to Bosnian Muslims in the 2010s, they enjoyed some limited successes. Though there was some confusion over terminology, there was general agreement around the definition of the Most High God. There was also a singular question that they regularly encountered when they taught the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. In the Christian world, the need for a “savior” is almost taken for granted; it is a concept celebrated every Christmas and Easter. Culturally no one in the Western tradition seems to seriously question, a priori, the inherent necessity of the Atonement. But Muslims, when taught about the Atonement, would ask the simple question, “Why can’t God just forgive us?”

The Qur’an does not teach of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, nor does it teach of the crucifixion of Christ as the pivotal event of all human history. The Qur’an does not mention Gethsemane. The Qur’an does not discuss sin and justice in the context of an inherent debt that must be paid. Instead, one of the essential messages of the Qur’an is that all should worship God and ask for his forgiveness. Thus, Akyol points out that the doctrine of an infinite and necessary atonement is foreign to Muslims:

Neither Judaism nor Islam recognizes any “saints,” who are, in Catholicism, intermediaries between God and men. Similarly, neither Judaism nor Islam accepts the doctrine of original sin and the related notion of redemption. In both religions, humans just have to ask forgiveness from God for their individual sins—not seek atonement for some inherent guilt that they carry as Adam’s children. (p. 75)

As our missionaries in Bosnia discovered, it can be theologically difficult to counter the simple notion that God can and will forgive those who repent and believe in him. The point can be made that if God is omnipotent, then why can he not do something that he asks—even requires—us to do?

Akyol clarifies why the idea of atonement, particularly as it is predominantly taught in the Western Christian world, seems contradictory to the Qur’an’s teachings of self-determination:

The crucifixion was a cosmic event in which Jesus suffered as an atonement for the sins of all humankind. This theology not only has no trace in the whole Qur’an, it also goes against some of its core doctrines—such as that sin is strictly personal, and “no-burden bearer can bear another’s burden.” It also is theologically unnecessary, for the Qur’an does not share the theology of the Fall as well, which according to Christianity made every human being inherently sinful and thus in need of a savior. (pp. 154–55)53

All of this returns to the simple question that missionaries in Bosnia are routinely asked: Why can’t God forgive me? Or, in other words, why do I need a mediator between me and God? Muslims argue that they do not need a mediator and that God can forgive them on the condition of repentance. On this topic, the theology of Latter-day Saints and other Christians may benefit as they engage Muslim and Jewish thought. It may be said that too many Latter-day Saint and other Christian theologians have written about the Atonement and yet not adequately addressed this fundamental question.54 According to Blake Ostler, many writers have written about the Atonement, yet carefully avoided this basic question:

The Christian doctrine of atonement teaches that it is because of Christ’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection that forgiveness of sins is possible. . . . Why is it that healing, reconciliation, and unity are not possible without Christ? The traditional answers have focused on various metaphors and images that do not seem to answer this question. They instead seem to imply that Christ must overcome the anger of an unjust and unloving father, make a deal with the devil, or appease some realm of cosmic absolutes. Further, they don’t really explain why simply forgiving and being forgiven are impossible without these punishments, dealings, and cosmic contraptions.55

According to Ostler, this question raised by Muslims—“Why can we not just be forgiven without someone suffering?”—is so vital that he lists it as one of the few questions that any valid atonement theory must address.56

Christian thinkers have long puzzled about how to make theological sense of the Atonement. Protestant scholar John Driver has noted at least “ten motifs” in the New Testament into which types of atonement narratives can be “clustered.” Thus, there are many ideas—some of them complementary and some in competition—about the purpose of the Atonement found within the scriptural canon. Driver’s source list does not include the Latter-day Saint canon, the Hebrew Bible, nor other non-canonical writings.57 As Christians have tried to make sense of the Atonement, their attempts to create “theories of the Atonement” have been classified into three basic categories, organized by a determination of whose particular needs or demands the Atonement is meant to satisfy (see table 3).58

Table 3. Three paradigms (categories) of atonement theories in Christianity.

Paradigm

Focus

Description

Theories

Proponents

Christus Victor

Satan

Atonement as a divine conflict and victory over evil.

Christus Victor

Ransom

Classic View

Origen

Gregory of Nyssa

Martin Luther

Gregory Boyd

Objective

God

Atonement understands the work of Christ as primarily addressing a necessary demand of God.

Satisfaction

Penal Substitution

Moral Government

Anselm

John Calvin

Hugo Grotius

Charles Hodge

Subjective

Man

Atoning work of Christ is designed to effect a change in human beings.

Moral Influence

Healing

Moral Example

Peter Abelard

Faustus Socinus

Horace Bushnell

Thomas Schreiner

Latter-day Saint atonement theories generally fall within the Objective (typically Penal Substitution) or Subjective categories. The most prominent recent atonement theory, proposed by Ostler, is called the Compassion Theory. The uniqueness of this theory is that the focus of the Atonement is on a combination of Jesus Christ and mankind. Ostler states:

The compassion theory sees atonement as a reciprocal reconciliation of our alienation. . . . The suffering that Christ experienced not only moves us with compassion for him, but it also moves him with compassion for us. In the Atonement he not only becomes what we are, but he also brings us to be what he is. Atonement thus unites us and reconciles our alienation that we have freely chosen.59

Importantly, Ostler argues, “with the Compassion Theory God can forgive us without requiring someone to suffer.”60

Ostler’s Compassion Theory and other Subjective paradigm theories generally appeal to Latter-day Saint scholars. Recent writings by Val Larsen and Newell D. Wright adopt a Subjective paradigm as evidenced by their conclusion: “the necessity for atonement is located in self-existent human beings, not in God, though it falls to God graciously to provide it and thus make exaltation possible.”61 There appears to be an internal logical consistency among such atonement theories that appeals to philosophers and theologians. Consider, for example, how Peter Abelard’s subjective theory of atonement is described by Christian theologians and how it solves the question posed by some in the Islamic world:

The atonement was directed primarily at humanity, not God. There is nothing inherent in God that must be appeased before he is willing to forgive sinful humanity. The problem rather lies in the sinful, hardened human heart, with its fear and ignorance of God. Humanity refuses to turn to God and be reconciled. Through the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, the love of God shines like a beacon, beckoning humanity to come and fellowship.62

What is Jesus’s mission according to the Qur’an? The answer is complicated. Jesus is the Messiah, yet the Qur’an never defines what that means. But from a salvation perspective, the Islamic Jesus is consistently described as a messenger, an example, and a “sign for humanity.” For example:

She (Mary) wondered, “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me, nor am I unchaste?” He replied, “So will it be! Your Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me. And so will We make him a sign for humanity and a mercy from Us.’ It is a matter already decreed.” (Qur’an 19:20–21)

While Muslims are likely unwilling to accept either the Christus Victor or Objective atonement paradigms, the Qur’an allows that Jesus’s mission was to serve as an example and a sign for human beings. Therefore, the Subjective atonement paradigm, wherein man is the focus of Christ’s sacrifice, would seem to be a meeting place with Muslims—as would Ostler’s Compassion Theory.

But even more important, the Muslim objection to traditional atonement theories (“Why can’t God simply forgive me?”) should perhaps become a more active part of the Christian vernacular whenever the Atonement is discussed. This question should always be considered, especially when Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints set forth Penal Substitution theories.

Conclusions

In his essay “Understanding Islam,” Daniel C. Peterson argues that while Latter-day Saints should appreciate and understand the teachings of Islam, we also cannot fully embrace Islam and the Qur’an because of its teachings about Jesus:

What should Latter-day Saints make of Muhammad and Islam? If Qur’anic statements against the divinity of Christ accurately represent the teachings of Muhammad—and there is no evidence that they do not—then we cannot accept him [Muhammad] as a true prophet in the full sense of the word. We have little choice in this matter because, as Revelation 19:10 explains, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”63

While Latter-day Saints will likely never accept Muhammad as a prophet, and Muslims will likely never accept the Church’s prophets, Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus softens some of the barriers between Muslim and Latter-day Saint theologies. Clearly, the beliefs of Latter-day Saints and Muslims are different, with considerable theological disagreements on diverse topics, including deification, creation ex nihilo, pre-mortal existence, the divine feminine, revelation, anthropomorphism, pneumatology, and priesthood authority. These differences will not quickly disappear, but Akyol’s book suggests that we have one important and pivotal commonality that can bring us together. To my great surprise, that one significant commonality is Jesus Christ. And if Akyol’s portrait of the Islamic Jesus is to be trusted—and specifically if Jesus’s divinity is akin to the “son of God” of historic Judaism—then the Jesus gulf between the Muslim and the Latter-day Restoration is significantly lessened.

Latter-day Saints should, in my estimation, adopt a conciliatory approach when talking to Muslims about Jesus. Our traditional messaging, that He is the Lord of Lords, our Creator, our Savior, and so forth, is a message that is battle-tested in the world of Western Christianity, is overtly Pauline in nature, and is likely to engender resistance and defensiveness among Muslims. Instead, a message focused on the teachings of Jesus (as opposed to teachings about Jesus) might encourage a positive response and a more open dialogue about Jesus in our respective faith traditions. While the Qur’an does not include the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount, its spirit can be viewed harmoniously with Christ’s famous manifesto. These were some of the passages that Akyol underlined in blue pen when he first opened his New Testament, so this is potentially fertile ecumenical ground. The spirit of both Islam and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the love of God and service to our fellowmen.

Regarding the Jesus of the Qur’an, Akyol quotes the words of the Sunni Muslim scholar Khalid Muhammad Khalid from 1958:

He is the love which knows no hatred, he is the peace that knows no disquiet, and he is the salvation that does not perish. And when all this is realized on earth, then at the same time, the return of Christ is realized. This is the Christ who will return, and whose return the Messenger prophesied: peace, love, truth, the good and beauty. With the truthful Messenger, we declare: “Christ, not Barabbas, the true not the false, love not hatred, peace not war, life not destruction.” (p. 215)

Mustafa Akyol believes that the Muslim world needs the words of Jesus. He has seen Muslims embrace the words of Moses and Job as they learn from these prophets. His testimony is that the Jesus of Islam is the one that Muslims must embrace to mend the fissures found in today’s Islam. I close with Akyol’s final words in The Islamic Jesus:

As Muslims, who are latecomers to this scene, we have disagreements with both Jews and Christians. But we have major agreements as well. With Jews, we agree a lot on God. With Christians, we agree that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he was the Messiah, and that he is the Word of God. Surely, we do not worship Jesus, like Christians do. Yet still, we can follow him. In fact, given our grim malaise and his shining wisdom, we need to follow him. (p. 215)

[Author’s Note: I acknowledge the instructive example of two Bosnian Muslims, Emin and Senada Muratovic, who survived the siege of Sarajevo as children, returned, dedicated their lives to service, and named their oldest child Isa.]

Dennis Newton is a retired tech industry market research executive. As a marketing executive for several Fortune 200 wireless companies, he managed multiple functions including customer insights, public relations, marketing communications, database marketing, statistical analytics, marketing strategy, competitive intelligence, and big data. His current focus includes qualitative and quantitative research methods, statistical modeling, digital humanities, and text mining. He has a BA in English and an MBA from the University of Wyoming.

1 . Bosnia is the shorter way of referring to the more formal country name, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, it is important to understand that Islam is the religion, and a Muslim is a follower of that religion.

2 . The Muslim speaker on this particular Sunday, Emir Kaknjašević, is employed by the Church as a lawyer. He assisted the Church in gaining official status in Bosnia in 2012. He often attends Church worship meetings in Sarajevo and is familiar with the New Testament narratives about Jesus’s birth. He expertly wove together the details from the Bible and the Qur’an into one familiar nativity tapestry.

3 . Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017).

4 . Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’an (London: Oneworld Publications, 2013), 16, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 134.

5 . Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, 2nd ed., ed. Oddbjorn Leirvik (London: A. and C. Black, 2010) 2–3, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 203.

6 . Zeki Saritoprak, Islam’s Jesus (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014), 117, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 206.

7 . James 4:14–15 states, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” Qur’an 18:23–24 states “Never say about anything, ‘I am doing that tomorrow,’ without adding ‘If God wills.’”

8 . James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 228. Tabor also argues that following James’s death in AD 62, another of Jesus’s brothers, Simon, was elected as the church leader. Simon held this position until his death around AD 106. See Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 289–90. John Dominic Crossan has this to say about the prominence of James during the early Christian movement: “If you read only Paul’s letters you would know—from Galatians 1:18–19 or 2:11–12, for example—that both Simon ‘the Rock’ . . . and James ‘the Lord’s brother’ were important figures in early Christianity. If you read only the canonical gospels you would know that Peter was very important but you would know James only as one among the siblings of Jesus named in passing in Mark 6:3. If you read a non-Christian source such as Josephus, however, you would know only two individuals in earliest Christianity: one is Jesus himself and the other his brother James. You would not know, for example, that Peter or Paul had ever existed.” John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 463.

9 . Noel B. Reynolds notes the following about Latter-day Saint’s efforts, historically, to characterize the concept of apostasy: “In the 1960s, LDS historian Richard L. Bushman observed that LDS students of the apostasy had become too dependent on Protestant and often anti-Catholic writers and challenged us to look at the apostasy afresh.” Noel B. Reynolds, “Introduction: What Went Wrong for the Early Christians,” in Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], 2005), 3. I agree with Bushman’s sentiment and feel that it could be applied with much broader strokes. Latter-day Saints inherited and, therefore, often presume a Protestant bias with regard to many topics such as theology, the biblical canon, attitudes towards Paul, early Christianity, the Hebrew Bible, and social issues. One has only to look at which version of the Exodus Decalogue that Latter-day Saints have adopted to see evidence of this bias.

10 . In a discussion about what he calls a “divided tradition” in earliest Christianity, John Dominic Crossan acknowledges a division which he attributes to factors such as urban versus rural, different points of emphasis, models of salvation, north versus south, and so forth. He asserted, “It is necessary, then, to distinguish two traditions in earliest Christianity, one emphasizing the sayings of Jesus and the other emphasizing the death and resurrection of Jesus. We should not privilege one over the other, as I have said—not the death and resurrection over the sayings, as in past theology, nor the sayings over the death resurrection, as in present reaction.” Crossan, Birth of Christianity, 415. However, Crossan believes that the earliest differences do not represent different traditions: “In my own understanding, I rephrase those twin traditions of the sayings and of the passion-resurrection as the twin traditions of Jesus’s life and of Jesus’s death. They are, for me, two sides of a single coin” (p. 408).

11 . “The phenomenon known as Jewish Christianity is complex. One should not think of it as a unity but as a variety of religious developments.” Glenn A. Koch, “Jewish Christianity,” in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson, 2nd ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 613.

12 . Hans-Joachim Schoeps, Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church, trans. Douglas R. A. Hare (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 140, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 81.

13 . Adolf von Harnack, “Islam,” from an excerpt translated by Markus Gross from Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschicte (Tubingen, Germany: 1909), published in Christmas in the Koran, ed. Ibn Warraq (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2014), 246, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 83.

14 . Akyol quotes Hans Kung to argue that a significant reason for the lack of scholarly interest is because “not only Muslim theologians but also Christian dogmatic theologians of all confessions often simply ignore inconvenient results of exegetical and historical research.” Hans Kung, Islam: Past, Present, and Future (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2007), 496, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 84.

15 . Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 315.

16 . Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 315.

17 . Acts 15:29 reads, “that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled.”

18 . “We infer the Jewish Christian position on wine from the writings of church father Irenaeus. In his famous book, Adversus Haereses, or Against Heresies (c. AD 180), he wrote that the Ebionites ‘reject the commixture of the heavenly wine and wish it to be water of the world only. We also know from Hegesippus, the Christian chronicler of the second century, that James the Just, the brother of Jesus and the pioneer of all Jewish Christians, ‘drank no wine or other intoxicating liquor,’” quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 87. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.1.3, earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book5.html; Hegesippus, Fragments from His Five Books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church, earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html.

19 . While his initial study of this question led to a negative answer, the Qur’an and its witness of a non-traditional version of Christianity served as such a glaring exception that it forced Akyol to keep investigating. “That is why various scholars have been tempted to hypothesize the existence of Jewish Christianity in the time and milieu of the Prophet Muhammad, by simply looking at the doctrinal connection between Jewish Christianity and Islam and then assuming that there must be a historical connection behind it” (p. 89).

20 . The writings of these later groups have not survived but we know of their existence from writings of the Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus. According to the twelfth saying in the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples asked Jesus who would lead them after his death. “The disciples said to Jesus, ‘We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?’ Jesus said to them, ‘No matter where you have come from, you are to go to James the Just.’” Marvin Meyer, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, int’l ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 141.

21 . Most scholars are skeptical that James or Jude actually authored the letters that carry their names. The primary argument is that neither James nor Jude had the scribal training to compose a sophisticated Greek letter (both spoke Aramaic). I suspect that James, as a high-priest leader (“Nazarite”) who was well-known in Jerusalem, and as leader of the Christian church for nearly thirty years, would likely have developed either the literary skills to compose such a letter or would have employed scribes.

22 . Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 274.

23 . The original Christian movement was a Jewish movement: “Even the term ‘Jewish-Christianity,’ though perhaps useful as a description of the original followers of Jesus, is really a misnomer since they never considered themselves anything but faithful Jews. In that sense early Christianity is Jewish. Gentiles had been welcomed into the movement on the basis of Judaism’s universal ethical message to all humankind, but no one remotely imagined that John the Baptizer or Jesus had annulled God’s covenant with the people of Israel or the eternal Torah upon which it was based.” Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 266.

24 . Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (Princeton, NJ: HarperCollins, 1997), 49. Because I have been impressed by Stark’s body of work, I have often wondered how traditional biblical scholars and historians react to Stark. I was pleased to find that John Dominic Crossan, in his book The Birth of Christianity, called out and praised Stark’s The Rise of Christianity. He introduces Stark’s book as a “very, very good book” (p. 16).

25 . Stark, Rise of Christianity, 7.

26 . While some of the inscriptions have no discernible reference to Islam, Akyol points out that several clearly do, saying, “Later inscriptions, however, were unmistakably Islamic: ‘There is no God but Allah alone,’ one of them read, ‘and Muhammad is His servant and messenger’” (pp. 97–98).

27 . Nevo stresses that the inscription “makes Allah’s supreme position, and Jesus’ subordination, quite clear.” Yejuda D. Nevo, “Towards a Prehistory of the Qur’an,” in What the Koran Really Says, ed. Ibn Warraq (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), 148, quoted in Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 99.

28 . Akyol adds: “In fact, with such reasoning, Western researchers have found many other ‘heresies’ that must have been present in or nearby seventh-century Arabia. A short list includes Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Tritheism, Antideco-Marcianites, Manichaeism, and Gnosticism. And this is a bit too much, unless one is ready to imagine Arabia ‘as a kind of Jurassic Park for ancient ‘heresies.’ This is why we should perhaps entertain the possibility that such a Jurassic Park never existed, and the doctrinal connection between Jewish Christianity and Islam is not based on a historical connection.”

29 . Marcus J. Borg, Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 195. Likewise, Tabor claims, “the most neglected document in the entire New Testament is the letter written by James. It has become so marginalized that many Christians are not even aware of its existence.” Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 273.

30 . This analysis used the Scripture Citation Index, scriptures.byu.edu/.

31 . Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 475.

32 . Akyol also states, “this emphasis on faith and works is so powerful in the Qur’an that it defines its believers as ‘those who have faith and do right actions.’ This expression is used in some forty-five different verses and often as the definition of the very formula of salvation” (p. 66).

33 . Robert Eisenman, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2004), 116.

34 . “Hegesippus also reported that James wore the linen of priest and constantly prayed in the Temple, kneeling so much of the time that his knees grew hard like camel’s. According to Hegesippus, James was continually praying for the forgiveness of the people. Epiphanius, a 4th-century Christian writer, asserted that James, as a descendant of David, also exercised the ‘priesthood’ on behalf of his community, entering into the holy areas of the Temple where only priests could go and functioning as a ‘high priest’ to his followers.” Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 286.

35 . There is considerable debate whether or not the Islamic Jesus died on the cross or ascended directly to Heaven. The only mention in the Qur’an suggests that Jesus was not crucified but that it was made to appear that he was: “And for boasting, ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.’ But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so” (Qur’an 4:157). “The popular belief among Muslims is that a conspiracy was made to kill Jesus, God made the main culprit who betrayed Jesus [Judas] look exactly like Jesus, then he was crucified in Jesus’ place. Jesus was raised safe and sound to the heavens.” The Clear Quran, trans. Mustafa Khattab (Lombard, IL: Book of Signs Foundation, 2016), 54n230.

36 . Blake Ostler provides a robust analysis of Greek terminology. He suggests that the Greek term for “God” in the phrase “the Word was with God” should be rendered “The God,” but that the term for “God” in the phrase “the Word was God” should be translated just “God.” Thus, John is making a distinction between the Most High God and Jesus’s role as a God. See Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods, vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 167–70.

37 . Early Latter-day Saints had some confusion over the question of whether or not Christ and the Father are the same, due to Book of Mormon passages from Abinadi (Mosiah 15:1–5) and Amulek (Alma 11:44). Now these passages are routinely interpreted as meaning that Christ is a representative of the Father but is not the same person as the Father.

38 . The Qur’an continues “They have taken their rabbis and monks as well as the Messiah, son of Mary, as lords besides God, even though they were commanded to worship none but One God. There is no god worthy or worship except Him” (Qur’an 9:31). The Qur’an also states: “They say, ‘The Most Compassionate has offspring.’ You have certainly made an outrageous claim, by which the heavens are about to burst, the earth to split apart, and the mountains to crumble to pieces in protest of attributing children to the Most Compassionate” (Qur’an 19:88–91).

39 . According to Marcus Borg’s chronology, the book of Romans was the last of Paul’s seven authentic letters written between AD 50 and AD 60. Borg, Evolution of the Word, 31.

40 . James E. Faulconer, Romans 1: Notes and Reflections (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 18.

41 . Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 223.

42 . Ehrman’s translation, How Jesus Became God, 220–21.

43 . Ostler, Of God and Gods, 257–58.

44 . Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 5.

45 . Rodney Stark, One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 24. Later, Stark notes that “Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are dualistic monotheisms—each teaches that, in addition to the existence of a supreme being, there also exists at least one evil, if less powerful, supernatural being” (p. 25). He also states “the evolution of Yahweh, as revealed in the Ugaritic texts as well as the Old Testament, seems to have begun with a four-tiered pantheon. ‘Yahweh’ emerged as the supreme God from among the Gods on the highest tier, ‘Satan’ from the disobedient Gods of the third level, and the ‘angels’ from the servant Gods or messengers of the lowest tier” (p. 26).

46 . Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 29.

47 . “Most scholars see this passage as containing an early Christian hymn that Paul either wrote or is quoting. If it is a hymn that Paul knew his hearers would recognize, it provides a glimpse into how early Christian communities celebrated and remembered Jesus and the significance of his life and death.” Borg, Evolution of the Word, 93.

48 . Borg’s translation, Evolution of the Word, 96.

49 . Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 263.

50 . Margaret Barker, Great Angel, 3.

51 . Ostler, commenting on Doctrine and Covenants 93, says “I interpret it to mean that Christ had a fulness of divinity of which he emptied himself when he became mortal (though still possessing the divine nature in potentiality) and that he regained a fulness when he again entered into an intimate unity of indwelling love with the Father. I see the same view expressed in John 17:5 and Philippians 2:6–9.” Ostler and I see a Christological connection between these two (Doctrine and Covenants 93 and Philippians), although we arrived at the conclusion independently. Ostler, Of God and Gods, 269–70.

52 . Akyol, Islamic Jesus, 166, quoting John Hick, “A Pluralistic View,” in Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Books, 2010), 58.

53 . There are parallels between this verse and Alma 34:11, which states, “Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay.” In the following verse, Alma concludes that an infinite atonement will suffice to atone for the sins of the world.

54 . Tad Callister dances around this question but never fully addresses it head-on. For example, he writes, “the Savior observed every spiritual law with undeviating exactness. Apparently because of his compliance with each one, he received power upon power until he acquired the attributes of God, even in premortal times. . . . Evidently these immutable spiritual laws offer no leniency or mercy or second chances. If we do not comply, we have lost forever that opportunity for increased power that naturally flows from compliance. . . . Why does it work this way? There is no answer to that question. It is like asking, ‘Why does matter exist?’ or ‘Why is the sky endless?’” Callister implies that God cannot forgive us because of an “immutable spiritual law” without addressing the ramifications regarding the inevitable follow-up question about God’s omnipotence. Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 301–2. Elsewhere, Callister speculates about the necessity of the Atonement and suggests five possible reasons: 1) “comply with some immutable law,” 2) “dictated by God’s perfect attributes,” 3) “kindred spirits” . . . sanctioned “the necessity of the Atonement,” 4) “only event in the universe that had the motivational power to draw men to godhood,” and 5) “appeal on a universal basis to the instinctual sense of fairness in God’s children” (pp. 324–25). These reasons do not address the “why can’t God just forgive us” question.

55 . Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: God’s Plan to Heal Evil, vol. 4 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2020) 185–86.

56 . Ostler, God’s Plan to Heal Evil, 188.

57 . Driver’s categories are “conflict/victory/liberation; vicarious suffering; archetypal (i.e., representative man, pioneer, forerunner, firstborn); martyr; sacrifice; expiation/wrath of God; redemption; reconciliation, justification; and adoption-family,” as discussed in Paul R. Eddy and James Beilby, eds., “The Atonement: An Introduction,” in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 11.

58 . See Eddy and Beilby, “The Atonement,” 9–21.

59 . Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2006) 238.

60 . Ostler, God’s Plan to Heal Evil, 207.

61 . Val Larsen and Newell D. Wright, “Latter-day Saint Theology and the Problem of Evil,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 64 (2025), 423, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/latter-day-saint-theology-and
-the-problem-of-evil/.

62 . Eddy and Beilby, “The Atonement,” 19. Based on reactions to and criticisms of his views by his contemporaries, Peter Abelard was ultimately excommunicated by Pope Innocent II in the year 1141.

63 . Daniel C. Peterson, “Understanding Islam,” in Mormons & Muslims: Spiritual Foundations and Modern Manifestations, ed. Spencer J. Palmer, rev. ed. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2002), 22.