establishment of dialogue and cooperation between the two faiths.
However, God also reveals in the Qur’an that two fundamental teachings in the New Testament are erroneous.
The first of these is the belief that Jesus was crucified and was a kind of “sacrifice” for all mankind.
The second is the claim that Jesus is the “son of God.” (God is surely beyond that. Far exalted is He above having a son.)
One interesting point is that the statements in the gospels regarding these two beliefs are actually contradictory.
The Four Gospels
The New Testament contains four separate “gospels” which describe the life and ministry of Jesus. The first three of these, the gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke are to a large extent parallel to one another. They are thus described as the “synoptic” gospels in the Christian tradition. (The word “synoptic” means “taking the same point of view, and describes the perspectives of the first three gospels.) Despite being the second gospel in the Old Testament, the earliest is the gospel according to Saint Mark. It is accepted that Matthew and Luke used the gospel according to Saint Mark as a source when writing their own gospels, making a few additions to it.
The fourth gospel is that of John, and this is very different to the line taken by the synoptic gospels. Some events described by John do not appear in the synoptic gospels, or are described in a contrary sense. Moreover, one event described by John is described totally differently from the way it appears in the synoptic gospels.
The Contradictory Descriptions of the Crucifixion
As we have already
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