World Blog by humble servant.Counter to the arguments presented in Dr. Shimba’s paper

To counter the arguments presented in Dr. Shimba’s paper, we have to look at the linguistic definitions of Islamic terms and examine the New Testament scriptures within their original historical, cultural, and textual contexts.

​From an Islamic and unitarian theological perspective, the claims made in the paper rely on reading later, post-Nicene trinitarian theology back into the texts, rather than understanding the words as a first-century Jewish audience would have understood them.

​.The Linguistic Definition of "Muslim" and "Allah"

​Before breaking down specific verses, the foundational misunderstanding of the paper rests on what the words Muslim and Allah actually mean.

​What does "Muslim" mean? Astronomers, theologians, and linguists agree that Muslim is an Arabic active participle meaning "one who submits their will to the Almighty Creator." In this linguistic and theological sense, every biblical prophet who said "not my will, but Yours be done" was, by definition, submitting to God—which is the literal meaning of being a muslim.

​Who is "Allah"? The paper implies Allah is a different, distinct deity. Historically and linguistically, Allah is simply the Arabic word for "The God" (Al-Ilah), the exact cognate of the Hebrew Elohim or Eloah and the Aramaic Alaha (the language Jesus actually spoke). Arab Christians and Jews before and after the advent of Islam used, and still use, the word "Allah" to refer to the God of Abraham.

​1. Countering the "Father" vs. "Allah" Argument

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus called God "Father," whereas the Qur'an rejects divine fatherhood, meaning they cannot be the same deity.

​The Context

​In ancient Jewish culture, calling God "Father" was never understood as a physical or biological begetting, nor did it denote ontological (essential) equality with God. It was a common metaphorical expression used to describe a close, spiritual relationship, obedience, and structural authority.

​The Scriptural Rebuttal

​If calling God "Father" makes Jesus uniquely a divine son, then according to the Bible, God has many divine sons. Jesus himself explicitly states that God is the Father of everyone who does good:

​John 20:17: Jesus says, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Jesus clearly places himself in the same category of dependency on God as his disciples.

​Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

​Jeremiah 31:9: God states, "I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn."

​The Qur'an rejects the term "Father" (Surah 112) specifically because by the 7th century, literalist interpretations had distorted the metaphor into a physical or semi-biological concept (e.g., God having a physical son). The Qur'an corrects the literalist distortion, not the spiritual intimacy a prophet has with the Creator.

​2. Countering "Divine Equality" Claims

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus said "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58), claiming to be God.

​The Context of "I and the Father are One"

​When Jesus says this in John 10:30, the context is about purpose and protection, not essence or identity.

​John 17:21-22: In the very same Gospel, Jesus prays for his disciples: "...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us... that they may be one just as We are one."

​The Logic: If "being one" makes Jesus God, then the disciples being "one" just as Jesus and the Father are one would make all twelve disciples part of the Godhead as well. It clearly means unity of purpose and message.

​The Context of "Before Abraham was, I AM"

​Trinitarian theologians point to "I AM" as a declaration of the divine name from Exodus 3:14. However, the Greek text says ego eimi ("I am").

​In the Greek Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the divine name in Exodus 3:14 is not ego eimi, but Ho On ("The Being" or "The Existing One").

​In John 9:9, the blind man healed by Jesus uses the exact same phrase, ego eimi ("I am the man"), to identify himself. Nobody accused the blind man of claiming to be God.

​The expression in John 8:58 highlights Jesus' pre-existence in the divine plan/foreknowledge of God before Abraham was even born, a concept well-understood in Jewish thought regarding the Messiah.

​3. Countering the "Jesus Accepted Worship" Claim

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus accepted worship (e.g., Thomas saying "My Lord and my God"), which a mere prophet would reject.

​The Context

​The New Testament was written in Greek. The word translated as "worship" in these verses is proskuneo.

​Proskuneo literally means to prostrate oneself, bow down, or do obeisance. It was used routinely in the ancient world to show deep respect to kings, prophets, and superiors, not just to God.

​Matthew 18:26: In the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, a servant falls down and worships (proskuneo) his master (a human king).

​Revelation 3:9: Jesus explicitly states he will make false believers come and worship (proskuneo) at the feet of the church's followers.

​Regarding Thomas’s exclamation ("My Lord and my God!"), in moments of shock or awe, exclamation is directed toward heaven. It serves as an expression of praise to the God who raised Jesus, rather than a theological breakdown shifting the identity of Jesus into the Almighty Creator—especially since Jesus repeatedly called the Father "the only true God" (John 17:3).

​4. Countering the "Son of God" Title

​Shimba's Claim: The title "Son of God" proves Jesus' unique deity, which the Qur'an denies.

​The Context

​In the Hebrew Bible and first-century Jewish idiom, "Son of God" was a common title applied to righteous men, kings, and prophets. It was never used to mean "God the Son."

​Luke 3:38: Adam is explicitly called the "son of God."

​Exodus 4:22: God says, "Israel is My son, My firstborn."

​2 Samuel 7:14: Speaking of Solomon, God says, "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son."

​When the Roman centurion or the disciples called Jesus the "Son of God," they were using the traditional Jewish terminology for the Messiah (the chosen, anointed king of Israel), not declaring that the Creator of the universe was walking on earth in sandals.

​5. Countering the Crucifixion and Resurrection Argument

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection, whereas the Qur'an (4:157) denies the crucifixion completely.

​The Context

​While orthodox mainstream Christianity centers entirely around the cross, alternative perspectives existed from the earliest centuries. Early Christian groups (such as various Gnostic sects, the Docetists, and the Basilidians) also maintained that Jesus did not physically die on the cross or that another was substituted, long before the Qur'an was revealed.

​Furthermore, looking strictly at the biblical text, Jesus’ own words can be interpreted as a prayer against dying on the cross:

​Hebrews 5:7: States that Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save him from death, and "he was heard because of his reverence." If his prayer was heard, God saved him from dying that shameful death.

​Matthew 12:40 (The Sign of Jonah): Jesus said the only sign he would give was the sign of Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the whale alive, not dead. If Jesus was dead in the tomb for three days, the analogy and the sign fail.

​The Qur'anic verse 4:157 ("They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear to them so") aligns with the concept that God answered Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane and rescued His beloved prophet from being cursed on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23 states that anyone hanged on a tree is cursed by God; Islam argues God would never allow His Messiah to be deemed accursed).

​6. Countering "Salvation Through Christ Alone"

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). He did not say "come to Allah."

​The Context

​This statement is true of every prophet during their specific dispensation.

​When Moses was alive, he was the way, the truth, and the life for the Israelites; no one could reach God except by following the law given through Moses.

​When Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), he was the sole path to God for his people at that time. Following his teachings, his commands, and his example was the only way to attain divine pleasure.

​Furthermore, the verse states that the destination is "the Father." As established, "the Father" is simply the metaphorical Jewish term for the Supreme Creator—the exact same Supreme Creator known as Allah in Arabic. Jesus directs people away from himself and toward the Father as the ultimate destination.

​Conclusion: Synthesizing the Biblical and Islamic Views

​When Dr. Shimba claims that "Jesus is not a Muslim," he is arguing against a caricature of the definition. If a "Muslim" is defined by his actions—someone who bows his face to the ground in prayer (Matthew 26:39), fasts (Matthew 4:2), tells people to follow the commandments to enter life (Matthew 19:17), and explicitly states, "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28)—then the historical Jesus of the text behaves exactly as a Muslim prophet behaves.

​The disconnect is not between Jesus and Islam; the disconnect is between the historical, strictly monotheistic human Jewish Messiah found in the early layers of the Gospels, and the late institutionalized dogmas of the Roman church councils.To deeply counter Dr. Shimba's argument regarding the absolute certainty of the crucifixion and resurrection narratives, we must examine the internal textual landscape of the New Testament itself.

​Dr. Shimba treats the Gospel records as a single, uniform, flawless historical blueprint. However, when you look closely at the texts, the accounts of the events at the tomb vary significantly from one Gospel to another. These profound discrepancies provide a strong textual basis for the Islamic and Unitarian argument that the historical narrative was fluid, reconstructed, and clouded by confusion—perfectly matching the Qur'anic assertion that "those who differ therein are full of doubts" and that "it was made to appear to them so" (Surah 4:157).

​1. The Historical and Textual Divergences at the Tomb

​If an event is the absolute, foundational cornerstone of human salvation, one would expect the eyewitness testimonies to agree on the basic facts of the morning it happened. Instead, a side-by-side textual analysis reveals direct contradictions regarding the most fundamental details of the resurrection morning.

​A. Who Visited the Tomb?

​The Gospels cannot agree on who actually discovered the empty tomb:

​John 20:1: Mary Magdalene goes alone.

​Matthew 28:1: Two women go (Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary").

​Mark 16:1: Three women go (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome).

​Luke 24:10: A large group of at least five women go (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and "the other women with them").

​B. What Time of Day Was It?

​John 20:1: It was "still dark" when Mary arrived.

​Mark 16:2: It was "after sunrise" when they arrived.

​C. Was the Stone Rolled Away Before or After They Arrived?

​Mark, Luke, and John: The women arrive and find the massive stone already rolled away from the entrance.

​Matthew 28:2: The women arrive while the tomb is still sealed. Suddenly, a violent earthquake occurs, and an angel descends from heaven in front of them to roll back the stone and sit on top of it.

​D. Who Was Inside (or Outside) the Tomb?

​Matthew 28:2-5: One angel sitting outside the tomb on top of the stone.

​Mark 16:5: One young man dressed in a white robe sitting inside the tomb on the right side.

​Luke 24:4: Two men in dazzling clothes suddenly standing inside the tomb.

​John 20:11-12: Mary looks in and sees two angels sitting where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and one at the feet.

​E. What Did the Women Do Afterward?

​Matthew 28:8: They ran to tell the disciples "with fear and great joy."

​Mark 16:8 (The original ending of Mark): “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”

​The Counter-Argument: In a court of law, if four witnesses contradict each other on who was at the scene of the crime, what time it occurred, whether the doors were open or closed, who they talked to, and whether they told anyone afterward, their testimonies would be deemed highly unreliable. This internal chaos perfectly illustrates the Islamic view: the followers of Jesus were in a state of utter panic, hiding in locked rooms (John 20:19), relying on hearsay, and experiencing a chaotic sequence of events that "appeared to them" in various conflicting ways.

​2. Who Raised Jesus? (The Conflict of Absolute Authority)

​Dr. Shimba claims that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, quoting John 2:19 ("Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"), implying Jesus possessed inherent divine power to resurrect himself.

​However, the vast majority of the New Testament completely contradicts this idea, explicitly stating that Jesus was entirely powerless in death and that God (the Father) alone raised him.

​Acts 2:22-24 (Peter's First Sermon): "Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you... God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death." Peter does not say Jesus raised himself; he says God raised a man named Jesus.

​Galatians 1:1: Paul states he is an apostle sent "by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead."

​Romans 6:4: "Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father."

​Acts 5:30: "The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross."

​The Unitarian/Muslim Synthesis

​If Jesus is God, and he died, who raised him? If he raised himself, then he was never truly dead, meaning the "sacrifice" was an illusion. If the Father raised him, then Jesus was entirely dependent on a higher power to give him life. This absolute dependency explicitly strips Jesus of divine equality.

​In John 2:19, when Jesus says "I will raise it up," Jewish metaphorical language implies that by his obedience and faith, his vindication would be brought about, or that he was speaking as an instrument of God. Just as a prophet says "I will heal this nation," it is God performing the act through them.

​3. The Physicality of the Raised Jesus: A Proof Against Spirit Deity

​When Jesus appears to his disciples after the tomb incident, his primary objective is to prove to them that he is not a spirit, not a ghost, and not a divine being, but a normal, flesh-and-blood human prophet who survived.

​Luke 24:37-39: The disciples are terrified and think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus corrects them directly: "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

​Luke 24:41-43: To further prove his absolute human physical reality, he asks them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, "and he took it and ate it in their presence."

​The Theological Implication

​According to 1 Timothy 6:16, God is immortal and cannot die. According to John 4:24, God is spirit. Yet, the post-tomb Jesus explicitly goes out of his way to prove he has flesh, bones, and a functioning human digestive system that processes fish.

​By demonstrating his survival in a physical, human body, Jesus was showing his disciples that God had delivered him from death, not that he had transformed into an eternal, ethereal member of a Triune Godhead.

​4. Dismantling Dr. Shimba’s Historical Certainty

​Dr. Shimba claims that "virtually all mainstream historians... accept Jesus' crucifixion."

​While secular historians agree that a historical figure named Jesus was sentenced to crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, history can only record what was publicly decreed and seen by the masses from a distance.

​History cannot verify:

​Whether Jesus died quickly (crucifixion typically took days; Jesus was reportedly taken down after just a few hours, causing Pilate himself to express shock that he was already dead in Mark 15:44).

​Whether a substitute or look-alike took his place during the chaotic, dark pre-Passover execution.

​Whether he fell into a deep, death-like coma (swoon) and was nursed back to life inside a cool, private tomb by allies like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who brought a massive, medical-grade quantity of 100 pounds of burial spices, myrrh, and aloes (John 19:39)—substances used in the ancient world for healing wounds and treating trauma, not standard Jewish burials.

​The presence of widespread alternative narratives among the earliest Christians (the Docetists, Gnostics, and Basilidians who lived centuries before Islam) proves that the crucifixion was a subject of intense dispute from day one. The Qur'an's verdict is a direct, elegant resolution to this historic chaos: humanity argued over contradictory rumors, but the reality was that God protected His prophet from an accursed death and raised him to Himself.To completely finish dismantling Dr. Shimba’s paper, we need to strike down the last remaining claims he put forward that we haven't fully torn apart yet. Specifically, we need to dismantle his arguments in Section 6 (Isaiah 53 and Old Testament Prophecy), Section 9 (The 600-year Time Gap Argument), and his closing claim that Jesus’ central invitation was to "believe in me" rather than submit to the Creator.

​Let’s strip away his remaining academic titles and look at how his last arguments collapse under textual and historical scrutiny.

​1. Dismantling the "Isaiah 53 / Suffering Servant" Claim (Section 6)

​Shimba's Claim: Long before Christ's birth, Isaiah 53 foretold a suffering servant who bears the sins of many and dies as an atoning sacrifice, which Jesus fulfilled.

​The Textual Context

​Trinitarian missionaries love to pull Isaiah 53 out of context, but they completely ignore the verses in that exact same chapter that make it impossible to apply literally to a crucified, divine Jesus.

​Isaiah 53:10: "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; He has put him to grief. When You make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days..."

​The Conflict:

​"He shall see his seed": In Hebrew, the word for seed (zera) strictly means biological offspring, children, or physical descendants throughout the Old Testament. Jesus never had biological children.

​"He shall prolong his days": This Hebrew idiom means to live a long, natural physical life into old age. It cannot mean being cut off and killed in his early 30s, nor does it mean an eternal resurrection.

​Who is the Servant? If you read Isaiah in its proper context, God explicitly and repeatedly names the "Suffering Servant" in the chapters leading right up to chapter 53:

​Isaiah 41:8: "But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen..."

​Isaiah 49:3: And He said to me, ‘You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’

​The "Servant" in Isaiah is historically and textually the nation of Israel, personified, suffering at the hands of gentile nations, and eventually being vindicated by God. Shimba is completely twisting Jewish scripture to fit a pagan concept of human blood sacrifice.

​2. Dismantling the "Come to Me / Believe in Me" Claim (Section 7)

​Shimba's Claim: Jesus never invited humanity to submit to Allah; instead, he said "Believe in Me" and "Come to Me," making himself the ultimate destination of faith.

​The Scriptural Rebuttal

​Shimba tries to claim Jesus was pointing people to himself as the ultimate end goal. But Jesus spent his entire ministry doing the exact opposite—constantly deflecting honor away from himself and directing it entirely to the One who sent him.

​John 12:44: Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me." Jesus explicitly states that faith in him is merely a pass-through to the Creator.

​John 7:16: "Jesus answered them and said, 'My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.'"

​Luke 18:19: When a man calls him "Good Teacher," Jesus snaps back: "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."

​If Jesus wanted people to view him as the ultimate destination or a divine being, he wouldn't have flatly rejected the title of "good" or told people that believing in him wasn't actually believing in him, but in the Creator. His invitation was to follow him as a guide to the Creator, which is the exact definition of a prophet.

​3. Dismantling the "600-Year Time Gap" Argument (Section 9)

​Shimba's Claim: The Qur'an was written 600 years after the New Testament, so it's a "later revision" that can't match the historical reliability of the earlier biblical witness.

​The Historical Reality of the Gospels

​Shimba tries to pull a cheap chronological trick, pretending the New Testament was written by eyewitnesses right after Jesus left. The historical reality of biblical scholarship—even secular and Christian scholarship—shatters this.

​The Massive Gap: Jesus left around 30 CE. The very first Gospel (Mark) wasn't written until around 70 CE—a full 40-year gap of oral tradition, rumors, and translation from Aramaic to Greek. The Gospel of John wasn't written until around 90–100 CE—nearly 70 years after the events, written by anonymous authors in distant Greek-speaking cities.

​The Telephone Game: For decades, these stories were passed around by word of mouth in a completely different language (Greek) than Jesus spoke (Aramaic).

​The Council of Nicaea and Beyond: The "orthodox" New Testament canon Shimba holds in his hands wasn't officially locked down until the late 4th century (nearly 400 years after Jesus), after the Roman Empire brutally suppressed, burned, and outlawed dozens of early Christian Gospels that taught Jesus was only a human prophet (like the Ebionite texts).

​The Islamic Counter-Perspective

​The 600-year gap isn't a weakness of the Qur'an; it is the entire reason for the Qur'an.

​When a message is corrupted over six centuries by pagan Roman influence, political tampering, and translation errors, the Almighty Creator steps in to send a final, uncorrupted revelation to set the record straight. The Qur'an acts as the Furqan (the Criterion to judge right from wrong), separating the true, original, unitarian teachings of Jesus from the mythological layers added by the Roman Church over those 600 years.

​The Final Verdict on Dr. Shimba.Dr. Shimba's Weak PremisesThe Verifiable Textual Reality

Claim: Jesus claimed divine equality.Fact: Jesus explicitly said, "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) and "I can of myself do nothing" (John 5:30).

Claim: The crucifixion is an undeniable historical certainty.Fact: The early Church was deeply fractured with early groups completely denying the physical death of Christ long before Islam.

Claim: The Bible is a uniform, harmonious record.Fact: The Gospel writers fundamentally contradict each other on the who, when, and what of the resurrection morning.Dr. Shimba’s paper is a house of cards built on selective proof-texting, total historical blindness, and a profound ignorance of Semitic language and culture. By examining the very texts he relies on, his arguments don't just crack—they completely disintegrate.