About 700 years BEFORE Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born, Isaiah the prophet, miraculously predicted this: “The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”
You can read it for yourself in Isaiah 7:14 (By the way, Immanuel is a prophetic title that reveals Jesus’ deeper purpose and mission.)
At no time in history past, since the world began, has a virgin given birth to a child nor is it humanly possible. Either Isaiah was a crazy liar or he was speaking the words of God. As it turned out, Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. It is confirmed in the Gospels. In fact, Matthew quotes Isaiah’s prophecy WORD FOR WORD in Matthew 1:23 to make sure that no one gets it wrong or misses it.
The Quran which came 1400 years after Isaiah, and 600 years after Matthew, repeats what was prophesied and written more than a thousand years earlier in the Bible, about the virgin birth. God had already planned this birth thousands of years before it happened. The Bible reveals the prophecy as well as the fulfillment of the prophecy. And the purpose for it.
The Quran has a whole sura dedicated to Mariam but gives no reason for the purpose of the virgin birth. Mariam is said to be the sister of Harun and the daughter of Imran.
However, this raises some questions because according to Bible scholars, Mary’s father’s name is Heli (drawn from Luke’s genealogical record.) Mary has a sister (John 19:25) and a cousin, Elizabeth but there is no mention of any brother and her father’s name was definitely not Imran. There is no record anywhere for a thousand years to back up what the Quran claims in the 7th century AD.
So who is this Imran & Harun that the Quran claims are the father and brother of Mariam?
Muslims scholars have tried to explain it away for decades in claiming that Mary-Imran-Aaron was not a physical relationship, but in doing so they contradict the Quran as you can see if you carefully follow the following verses which connect Mary and Imran and his wife, Aaron and the virgin birth.
When the wife of Imran said, ‘Lord, I have vowed to Thee, in dedication, what is within my womb. Receive Thou this from me; Thou hearest, and knowest.’ And when she gave birth to her she said, ‘Lord, I have given birth to her, a female.’ (And God knew very well what she had given birth to; the male is not as the female.) ‘And I have named her Mary, and commend her to Thee with her seed, to protect them from the accursed Satan.’ S. 3:35-36 Arberry
Then she brought the child to her folk carrying him; and they said, ‘Mary, thou hast surely committed a monstrous thing! Sister of Aaron, thy father was not a wicked man, nor was thy mother a woman unchaste.’ S. 19:27-28
And Mary, Imran’s daughter, who guarded her virginity, so We breathed into her of Our Spirit, and she confirmed the Words of her Lord and His Books, and became one of the obedient. S. 66:12
Was there confusion because Mariam, the mother of Jesus, had the same name as another Mariam?
That Mariam (Miriam in the Bible) was the daughter of Amram (Imran in Arabic) and the sister of Aaron (Harun in Arabic) & Moses (I Chronicles 6:3). So te Quran got that absolutely correct! BUT…that Mariam lived 1500 years before Mariam, the mother of Jesus!
Was Muhammad aware this huge As he was illiterate, he did not have the opportunity to read the Torah or Zabur or Injeel and make a comparison.
Could he have listened to Jews reading their scriptures and heard the name Maryam (Miriam) – Imran’s (Amram) daughter and Harun’s (Aaron) sister, mentioned in the Torah? And could he have heard Christians reading the Injeel where Mariam (Mary), the mother of Jesus is mentioned? Can you really blame Muhammad if he thought that both the Mariams were the same person!? It’s a mistake anyone can make.
Epilogue
Muhammad’s fascination with Mariam does not end there.
1.) Muhammad said, “In heaven, Mary mother of Jesus, will be one of my wives.” — al-Siyuti (6/395)
and
2.) “The Messenger of God … said, ‘God married me in paradise to Mary the daughter of ‘Imran and to the wife of Pharaoh and the sister of Moses.’” — Tabarani (Ibn Kathir, Qisas al-Anbiya [Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 1968/1388]
So which is the Mariam that Muhammad said will be his wife in heaven? Mariam, the mother of Jesus or Mariam, the daughter of Imran and sister of Moses? Or was it just all a colossal divine mix-up?
Christians don’t really know Mary’s fathers name they use an apocryphal Gospel of James to prove this and there’s other men in Church history that Anna married and were called the father of Mary.
legend held that Anne was married three times first to Joachim, then to Clopas and finally to a man named Solomas and that each marriage produced one daughter: Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Salome, respectively: Source https://web.archive.org/web/20130605122050/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden267.htm
All our information concerning the names and lives of St. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James.
Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority.
Even the Church says we can’t accept these sources as the real name of Mary’s father. Source http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01538a.htm
Your going off a apocryphal manuscript in witch you don’t believe in yourself, this is forbidden in Christianity, but since you don’t really know his name you pick a banned book from the Bible, the Gospel called the Gospel of James and claim the Qur’an is wrong.
Let’s wait until we discover more manuscripts as evidence before we start claiming that the Qur’an is in error when Christianity has no clue what Mary’s fathers name was.
No. I made no reference to any apocryphal sources. You are the one who did that.
I said in the article that:…Mary’s father’s name is Heli (drawn from Luke’s genealogical record.)
Thank you.
I was searching online and I stumbled upon your page. And since I have some free time I will respond.
First of all, Miriam and Mariam(Mary) are two different names. The first one, MIRIAM, is a Hebrew name. It is pronounced (mee-r-yam) and it means: the doubting one or the arguing one. The other name, MARIAM, is an Aramaic name. It is pronounced (mar-yam). It means: servant of the Lord (Mari= Lord, Ama= female slave or bondwoman or servant).
You can see the difference when you read the Greek manuscripts. The name of the sister of Moses and Aaron is spelled Miriam( “I” after “M”), but the name of the mother of Jesus is spelled Mariam( “A” after “M”). So, the two names are different. And we know, according to scholars, that the lingua franca (common language) in the region of Palestine was Aramaic. So, if the disciples of jesus heard the name Miriam, why would they pronounce it and spell it as Mariam? They are clearly using the Aramaic name.
The second point is the phrase “sister of Aaron.” This is what the Jews said to Mary. This is a figure of speech meaning that she is from the same tribe as Aaron. Meaning that she is a Levite, from the tribe of Levi. And the Jews were emphasizing that because Levites have a special status in their society. Levites are responsible for religious duties. They are the temple servants. God said in the Torah “Levites are mine.” So, they were shocked. They thought that Mary committed adultery. And if you read the context you will get the point. I will give you the context and you can look up the verse and read it.
This is the context:
When Mary came with a baby in her arms, they said: “What a shocking thing you did Mary?! You Mary! You! The Levite! The daughter of a righteous man and a righteous women!! You did that?!” They thought the child was illegitimate, since Mary was not married. So, Mary did not respond and she pointed to the baby. Then, they said: “how can we talk to an infant in the cradle?” Then, the baby spoke. Jesus spoke as a baby and defended his mother.
You can read the whole story in the Quran. But this phrase means that she is a Levite. And when a Levite commits adultery that would be a greater disgrace and shame because of their status. This is why they said that phrase. This is how Arabs and Jews speak.
Now, if you insist on understanding this phrase literally then you have to apply the same standard on the Bible. The Bible says that Elizabeth, the wife of Zachariah and the mother of John the Baptist, was one of the daughters of Aaron. This is a mistake. Also, the Bible says that Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham. This is also a mistake. So, would you apply the same standard?
Regarding the name of the father of Mary, Imran, it is just a namesake. Just like Jesus having the same name as Joshua.
The name you are quoting from Luke is actually the name of the father of Joseph, not Mary. Read it carefully.
Finally, the sayings of the prophet (Hadith) you quoted are all INAUTHENTIC. Muslims call inauthentic Hadith: “Da’eef” which means: weak, unreliable, fabricated, “apocrypha.”
What would you think of someone who criticizes Christianity by quoting apocryphal sources? You are doing exactly that.
Please be sincere in your research. Take care!
Thanks for your comment.
Unfortunately, your entire premise collapses because of one important detail.
Mary was NOT of the tribe of Levites.
Looking at just the canonized Christian Gospels, we have no idea who Mary’s father was. All we know is that her cousin Elizabeth was a Cohen, so Mary was probably a Levite. Matthew and Luke give different lists for the ancestry of Joseph (Matthew says he was the son of a man named Jacob, which makes things confusing because Joseph who was sold to Egypt was also the son of Jacob, but I guess if your name is Jacob you can’t just rule out twelve very important baby names right away) but both lead back to David. Legal ancestry was traced through the father, making Jesus legally from the tribe of Judah (specifically, a descendant of David). In terms of actual theology I don’t think it matters much what Mary’s family name was before getting married, the only important thing would be the disconnect between Joseph’s not being the literal father and the Messiah being the descendant of David (which I don’t think is “made up” but I can’t go searching for counterexamples right now, just that God’s promise to David seems pretty powerful) which works if you look at legal and literal ancestry as different things and where it says in Matthew 22:41-46 with “Why, then…did the Spirit inspire David to call him ‘Lord’?”
Hi Marta,
Elizabeth and Zechariah were descendants of Levi.
Jesus came from the line of Judah, not Levi. Both Mary and Joseph were descendants of Judah.
Scholars believe the genealogy in Matthew is the legal line through Joseph; while the genealogy in Luke is the birth line through Mary.
The God of the beginning set everything as it was. And since, everyone has been wanting to take out what they want and make changes to make a new religion. This is of the devil, the one who has wanted to be like the Most High and was cast out. This angel of death has been giving visions to people so they distort the Gospel and lead people ashtray.
Musa had an older sister named Maryam, who would later give birth to Isa! He must’ve been a proud uncle, then…