Interesting, but more Shia Islam than Jesus

This is a short Kindle e-book, introducing the Shia Muslim perspective on Jesus. It´s full title is "The Lost Testament: What Christians Don´t Know About Christ". The author, Sayed Mahdi Modarresi, is an associate of the Grand Ayatollah Al-Modarresi in Iraq, currently regarded as a moderate Shia cleric. The book contains various statements attributed to Jesus by Muhammad, Ali and early Shia leaders. The introduction mentions an ecumenical meeting in the Vatican at which the Grand Ayatollah met the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It also expresses support for Christian resistance against ISIS.

Despite this irenic pose, the rest of the booklet is critical of the Christian view of Jesus, instead promoting an exclusively Shiite interpretation. The author uses a historical-critical approach to disprove the New Testament, but then runs into trouble since, of course, Muhammad and Ali lived centuries later than the Gospel writers. Besides, how do we know that the sayings attributed to Muhammad and Ali are authentic? We only have access to “copies of copies”, traduced by the real founders of Shia Islam, who lived even later…

Eventually, the author is forced to concede that his “unknown sayings” are based on divine revelation through the Quran and certain other sources, thus negating the historical-critical approach. Sayed Mahdi Modarresi also appeals to “logic”, but Muslim theology has a different view of what's logical than Christian theology. To Modarresi, it's curious that so few words by Jesus have been preserved in the Bible, considering that Jesus was an important prophet (and, to Christians, the Son of God). However, this makes sense only from a Muslim perspective, where the prophet is also a law-giver. But if Jesus had a different mission (to atone for humanity's sins, say), the paucity of law-like statements makes more sense. The pamphlet also contains a few errors. Like many non-Catholic Christians, Modarresi confuses the virgin birth with the immaculate conception!

That being said, I nevertheless consider Modarresi's compilation interesting, even intriguing. Many of the sayings attributed to Jesus sound strongly ascetic, sometimes even more so than the Biblical ones. Jesus is often described in words the Bible reserves for John the Baptist. The physical world is a gigantic testing ground and seems to be mostly negative, dominated by desire, love of money, wickedness and spiritual sloth. Some statements attributed to Jesus sound almost “Buddhist”, as when he compares the world to an ugly toothless woman clad in magnificent robes, killing all her husbands. As for concrete advice, fasting and nightly worship are strongly recommended. Islam is usually regarded as more “worldly”, even sensuous, by critical (or enticed) outsiders, but at least this Shia version is clearly the opposite! It's also interesting to note that the Shiite Jesus believes in a kind of purgatory. The righteous conduct of a living son can save the deceased father's soul from divine punishment (it's not clear whether this is permanent or merely temporary, though).

The e-book doesn't contain any material on the more peculiar Muslim views on Jesus, such as the denial of the crucifixion, or the Shia idea that Jesus will return together with the Twelfth (Hidden) Imam. Yet, “The Lost Testament” is nevertheless relatively interesting, and I therefore give it three stars.