Wednesday 21 January 2009

Isa bin Maryam, Al-Masih

As He is presumably called by Arab Christians, just as they call God "Allah". But they mean something different, both explicitly by "Al-Masih" and at least implicitly by "bin Maryam", than do their Muslim neighbours, just as their "Allah" is the Divine Trinity, Who is the One True God in the ontological sense.

That Islam - a Semitic reaction against the recapitulation in Christ and His Church of all three of the Old Israel, Hellenism, and the Roman Empire - depicts Jesus as both virgin-born and the Messiah foretold by the Hebrew prophets is an important insight into the debate as to whether or not the circumstances of His conception described in the New Testament really are the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.

Of course, had there been no expectation that the Messiah would be virgin-born, then there would have been no reason for the Evangelists to invent it. And that would have been just as strong an argument in the doctrine's favour.

But the Islamic view, staunchly Semitic and anti-Hellenistic as it is, adds considerable weight to the belief that the Virgin Birth is, as the New Testament writers maintain entirely matter-of-factly that it is, the fulfilment of the words of the Old Testament prophets.

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