Was God ignorant and savage?
The Bible describes Jesus (pbuh) as follows:
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man”
Luke 2:52
and “Though he were a Son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”
Hebrews 5:8
If Jesus is God and they are not two separate gods, then did God start out as an ignorant and savage god and then become a learned (wisdom) and prestigious (stature) god? Does God have to learn? Does God start out savage and increase in stature? Does God need to learn obedience to God? Does God increase in favor with Himself?
If there is only one God in existence, and this god is a “Trinity” with three faces: God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost (required by Isaiah 43:10-11 and countless other verses), then is Jesus (pbuh) learning obedience to another side of his own personality?
If, as we are constantly told, God Jesus and the Holy Ghost are ONE God, and if God surrendered some of His godly attributes and became man, then did He also surrender His knowledge and become ignorant, and His stature and become savage? Did He have to rebuild His knowledge and His stature from scratch?
This also brings up another interesting question. If Jesus (pbuh) can change from one state to another and thus increase in (a)wisdom, (b) stature, (c) favor with God, and (d) favor with mankind, then this means that he can in no way be God, since one of the characteristics of God Almighty is that He does not change in any way, shape or form:
“For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
Malachi 3:6
But what else can we learn from the Bible? Let us read:
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand [to be] a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
Acts 5:30
If Jesus (pbuh) were God, then would it be an “exaltation” for him to be made a “prince” or a “savior”? Is God “exalting” himself from being “merely” God to the lofty new heights of “prince” and “savior”?
Mr. Tom Harpur says:
“In fact, if you read Mark’s whole Gospel carefully you will discover that the disciples were far from recognizing the divinity later attributed to Jesus. The very ones who should have been most able to see through the ‘disguise’ are at times depicted as dull-witted and even downright stupid.
Some scholars, indeed, have calculated that Mark deliberately showed the disciples in a rather bad light because he was conscious of a serious problem. If Jesus was the Son of God in the later; more orthodox sense, how was it that his closest associates – the witnesses of his miracles and the confidants of his deepest teachings – never knew who he was until well after the resurrection?”
For Christ’s Sake, pp. 59.
Remember, most Christian scholars today recognize that the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke used the “Gospel of Mark” as the source document from which they obtained their material.
The authors of the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible have the following to say regarding the Gospel of Luke:
“The evangelist’s use of Mark is beyond question. It is one of the principles sources and is generally held to provide the framework for his gospel… Luke uses Mark with a high degree of fidelity to his source, despite additions and changes. They justify hesitation when elsewhere in the gospel commentators find it necessary to describe Luke’s narratives as ‘editorial’ or as a ‘radical revision of Mark’.”
Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 3, p. 184, Abingdon Press.
The same authors of the Interpreter’s Dictionary go on to say the following regarding the Gospel of Matthew:
“..Matthew is the first of the gospels, in the traditional order. But this is not necessarily the chronological order, and there is good reason for thinking that Matthew was one of the later gospels, rather than the first. Tradition has maintained its early date, and the location of Matthew as the first book of the NT has in turn supported the tradition, at least has maintained its wide acceptance in popular thought.
But in the first place it is quite certain that Matthew is later than Mark, upon which, like Luke, it is based …So far as internal evidence goes, it is only a general probability that the order of the gospels was Mark, Matthew, Luke, John. But this literary probability is confirmed archeologically.”
Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 3, p. 302, Abingdon Press.
In Grolier’s encyclopedia, under the heading “Mark, Gospel According to”, we read:
“Mark is the second Gospel in the New Testament of the Bible. It is the earliest and the shortest of the four Gospels. …Much material in Mark is repeated in Matthew and in Luke, leading most scholars to conclude that Mark was written first and used independently by the other writers”
Well, what then is the Islamic perspective on all of this? Islam teaches that God does not need to lower Himself in order to display His love and mercy for humanity, rather, He retains His glory, majesty and sovereignty and then raises humanity:
“Allah will exalt those who have believed from among you, and those who have been granted knowledge, to high ranks. And Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do.”
The noble Qur’an, Al-Mujadila (58):11
“Whosoever desires honor, power, and glory, then [let them know that] to Allah belongs all honor, power and glory. To Him ascends the good word, and the righteous deed does raise it; but those who plot iniquities, theirs will be an awful doom; and the plotting of such (folk) will come to naught.”
The noble Qur’an, Fatir (35):10
Actually, In the Bible, words having to do with killing significantly outnumber words having to do with love.