Dying & Rising Gods? / The Ideal Human

THE NEWSLETTER OF IBTM
with Douglas Jacoby

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16 April 2025

Good morning!

Vicki and I have just returned from a road trip to Scotland and North East England. I preached the Palm Sunday message in Edinburgh. It was great to see the old group again. Then we headed down to Durham, enjoying a wonderful time with a scientist / theologian I met last autumn, David Wilkinson. The English countryside is so beautiful—a road trip provides ample reminders of the fruitfulness and liveliness of God’s creation.

The English countryside is so beautiful—a road trip provides ample reminders of the fruitfulness and liveliness of God’s creation.

In a few days it will be Easter Sunday. Rather than offer a reflection on Christ’s resurrection, I thought it might be interesting to go in a different direction. I was first confronted with the concept of dying and rising gods 45 years ago, at Harvard Divinity School. Even as a young Christian, just beginning to explore the world of biblical scholarship, I knew a few simple facts:

• The pagan tales, unlike Jesus’ resurrection, featured gods who died and rose annually. This is nothing like the unique (one-time) death and resurrection of Jesus.
• These “resurrections” had no connection with forgiveness of sins—one of humanity’s deepest needs. Rather, they were connected with agricultural cycles.
• Further, these myths generally originated later than the time of Christ, and may have even drawn some of their content from the Christian story.
• Nor do the myths claim to be anchored in history, unlike the Easter story.

I hope you’ll enjoy the article by Timothy Paul Jones on this subject. Today we also wrap up the 10-part series on the life of Muhammad. The final offering is a much-needed reflection on humility.

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DYING & RISING GODS? (Timothy Paul Jones)

Could it be that Christians based the story of Jesus on earlier tales of pagan heroes or dying-and-rising gods? This is one of the oldest arguments against the resurrection of Jesus. A philosopher named Celsus made this case in the second century, comparing the resurrection of Jesus to the mysterious disappearance and return of a well-known poet. According to a more recent writer, the stories of Jesus are so similar to the stories of the Egyptian god Horus that early Christians must have ripped off the resurrection from the Egyptians.

Might the early church have constructed a tale of resurrection from stories like these? Click the image (above, R) to read the entire article.

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WHO IS THE IDEAL HUMAN?
The Life of Muhammad, pt. 10

In the previous nine installments we’ve unearthed a good deal of material on the man Muḥammad—his words, actions, and attitudes. Most of you reading this series are familiar with the New Testament—and know the life and character of Jesus.

We conclude this study of The Life of the Messenger of Allah (Sīrat Rasūl Allāh) with a question. Who is the ideal human? Christians say Jesus. Muslims say Muḥammad is greater—just as they intone “Allahu akbar” (Allah is greater). Let’s bring the series to and end with a comparison of these two remarkable men. (How do Muslims see their founder and prophet? And how do Christians regard their Lord?)

Muḥammad

• Sinless and pure: “No camel every carried a purer man / More true to his promise than Muḥammad …” (830). “Muḥammad is a man, an apostle to my Lord / Who errs not, neither does he sin” (850). And yet there are passages in the Q where Muḥammad is said to need forgiveness: 40.55; 47.19; 48.2.
• A source of light and wisdom and righteousness: According to ḥassān, “He was the light and the brilliance we followed / He was sight and hearing second only to God… By God, no woman has conceived and given birth / To one like the apostle the prophet and guide of his people / Nor has God created among his creatures / One more faithful to his sojourner or his promise / Than he who was the source of our light. Blessed in his deeds, just, and upright” (1025).
• Modest: “Quraysh’s modest hero who concealed his good deeds / A powerful zealous defender of his dignity / Handsome of face, no weakling…” (111). Note: the Quraysh are the prophet’s tribe.
• Worth dying for: “By His power He made us kings and chose the best of His creation as an apostle, and honored him with lineage, made him truthful in speech, and favored him with reputation, and sent down to him His book and entrusted him with it above (all) that He had created. He was God’s choice from the worlds. Then he summoned men to believe in Him, and the emigrants from his people and his kinsmen believed in God’s apostle; the most noble man in reputation, the highest in dignity, and the best in deeds. The first of creatures to respond to God when the apostle called them were ourselves. We are God’s helpers and the assistants of His apostle, and will fight men until they believe in God; and he who believes in God and His apostle has protected his life and property from us; and he who disbelieves we will fight in God unceasingly and killing him will be a small matter to us” (935).
• Peerless: “I have never seen or heard of a man / Like Muḥammad in the whole world…” (879). At the eulogy of a fallen Muslim the qualification is added: “Always excepting Muḥammad / Whom no living being can equal” (801). The apostle was “the finest of his people in manliness, the best in character, most noble in lineage, the best neighbor, the most kind, truthful, reliable, the further removed from filthiness and corrupt morals, through loftiness and nobility, so that he was known among his people as ‘the trustworthy’ because of the good qualities which God has planted in him” (117).

Jesus

Yet Christians hold that Jesus is the ideal human—and far more than that. For we understand that Christ was divine—God in the flesh.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:15-19).

• Jesus actually was sinless (John 8:46; 2 Cor 4:21; Heb 4:15; 9:7).
• And the Light of the World (Matt 4:16; 17:2; Luke 2:32; John 1:4-5, 9; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35-36; 12:46; Eph 5:14; 1 John 1:5).
• In every interaction, Jesus showed himself to be full of grace and truth (John 1:14, 17).
• And peerless—without parallel! As God in the flesh (John 1:14; Col 2:9), how could he not be?
• As Paul states in Col 1, he is the visible image of the invisible God, the agent and sustainer of creation, and the one through whom we have reconciliation with God.

Compare the lives and impact of these two men. Study the Sīrat and the Gospels. Weigh the evidence. See if you’re not convinced that the ideal human being was not Muḥammad, but Jesus Christ.

END

Once again, as Arabic is not one of my languages, I invite any learned Muslims or scholars of Ibn Ishāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh to send me any comments, including references I may have incorrectly cited.

Click HERE to view all 10 installments in a single document.

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THE OUTWARD LOOK AND FEEL OF HUMILITY
by Abraham Cho

By all accounts, humility ranks as one of the most important virtues of the Christian life. In his classic book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, Andrew Murray famously referred to it as “the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue.” As scholar F. S. Fitzsimmonds put it, “The importance of this virtue springs from the fact that it is found as a part of the character of God.” Stunningly, humility is an attribute of the biblical God himself.  KEEP READING

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