‘And so for breaking their pledge, for rejecting Allāh’s revelations, for unjustly killing their prophets, for saying: “Our minds are closed” – Nay! Allāh has sealed them in their disbelief, so they believe only a little – and because they disbelieved and uttered a terrible slander against Mary, and said “We have killed (‘qatalnā’) the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of Allāh.” They did not kill him (wamā qatalūhu), nor did they crucify him (wamā ṣalabūhu), though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: they certainly did not kill him – Nay! (‘bal’), Allāh raised him (‘rafaʿahu’) up to Himself. Allāh is almighty and wise.’ (Al-Nisa: 155-158; my emphasis).
Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) does not identify those Jews who ‘uttered a terrible slander against Mary’; nor the period in which they lived. However, there are clues in the writings of Origen, and in the Talmud.
Celsus, a polemic writer against Christians, produced his ‘Logos Alēthēs’ (‘The True Word’) between the years 175 and 180 C.E. Around 240 C.E. a copy was given to Origen of Alexandria, one of the most influential scholars in the early Church.
The original text of ‘Logos Alēthēs’ has been lost, but scholars have been able to reconstruct much of it, thanks to Origen’s many citations.
Origen writes:
‘He (Celsus) also introduces an imaginary character (a Jew) who addresses childish remarks to Jesus and says nothing worthy of a philosopher’s grey hairs…..After this he represents the Jew as having a conversation with Jesus himself and refuting him on many charges, as he thinks: first, because he (Jesus) fabricated the story of his birth from a virgin; and he reproaches him because he came from a Jewish village and from a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning. He (Celsus) says that she was driven out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, as she was convicted of adultery.’ (‘Contra Celsus – Book 1; Chapter 28’).
In Chapter 32 of his work, Origen writes:
‘Let us return, however, to the words put into the mouth of the Jew, where the mother of Jesus is described as having been turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, "as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera”’.
Henry Chadwick, in his translation of the ‘Contra Celsus, writes:
‘The title Jesus ben Panthera is not uncommon in the Talmud……. Eusebius, commenting on Hos. v. 14 (‘Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!’) says: ‘The text may be quoted against those of the circumcision who slanderously and abusively assert that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born of Panthera Epiphanius’
Peter Schäfer, a noted scholar in the field of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, and one-time Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Judaic Studies at Princeton University, writes:
‘But nevertheless, the (Babylonian) Talmud seems to be convinced that (Yeshua’s) true father was Pandera, his mother’s lover, and that he was a ******* in the full sense of the word.’ (‘Jesus in the Talmud’).
Could this be the ‘terrible slander’ that Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) refers to? I know of no other.
There is no mention of this slander in the Gospels – nor in any of the Epistles – so one may suppose that the authors of these works knew nothing of an ‘adulterous Mary.’
It is likely – perhaps very likely – that those who spoke ill of Mary lived in the late 1st or early 2nd Century, and therefore (of course) could not have been witnesses to the events of Yeshua’s life.
There are tafâsîr (interpretations of the Qur’an) by Wahb Ibn Munabbih; Ṭabarî; Makkî Ibn Abi Ṭâlib; Qurṭubî; Ibn Kathîr; Suyûṭî; Ṭabâṭabâ’î ; and Jazâ’irî. All of them (apart from Ṭabâṭabâ’î) claim that Yeshua was not crucified, but that another was made to resemble him – and to take his place. The text provides no justification for this claim.
I opine that the words ‘though it was made to appear like that to them’ are nothing more than a reference to the notion – widespread by the 2nd century, and even more so when Al-Nisa was revealed – that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was indeed crucified.
Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) corrects this notion.
Continued:
