Call of the First Disciples

Exam­in­ing the Gospels’ Accounts : Call of the First Disciples

Abū Muḥam­mad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm (994CE-1064CE) oth­er­wise known as Ibn Hazm was a Mus­lim schol­ar of great repute from Cor­do­ba, dur­ing the Mus­lim Spain era. He is wide­ly regard­ed as the Father of Com­par­a­tive Reli­gion”. In his cel­e­brat­ed mag­num opus enti­tled Kitāb al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa al-Ahwā’ wa al-Niḥal, he pre­dat­ed mod­ern Bib­li­cal tex­tu­al crit­i­cism by sev­er­al cen­turies and as Krentz admits, Ibn Hazm’s crit­i­cisms gen­er­al­ly rep­re­sent the first, albeit rudi­men­ta­ry, sys­tem­at­ic his­toric crit­i­cism of the Bible1. He demon­strat­ed his prowess in Bib­li­cal tex­tu­al crit­i­cism by giv­ing many exam­ples of inter­nal con­tra­dic­tions in the Bible.

The call of the first dis­ci­ples : The fol­low­ing Bible con­tra­dic­tion was extract­ed from an unpub­lished the­sis enti­tled Ibn Hazm On The Doc­trine of Tahrif2 and insha’Allah this will be part of an ongo­ing series to repro­duce extracts of Ibn Hazm’s crit­i­cisms of the Bible and Chris­tian­i­ty, as well as fur­ther elab­o­ra­tion on our part to refine his argu­ments to solid­i­fy the charges against the Bible.

Which Gospel account accu­rate­ly depicts the selec­tion of Jesus’ first apos­tles ? Ibn Hazm quotes Matthew 4, 12 – 223 ; Mark 1, 14 – 204 ; Luke 5, 1 – 115 and John 1, 35 – 426 and con­cludes that there are four basic con­tra­dic­tions con­tained in the Gospel accounts of the first apos­tles. They relate to :

    (1) The time the first apos­tle­ship of Andrew and his broth­er Simon Peter com­menced. Was it before the impris­on­ment of John the Bap­tist as Math­ew and Mark records, or was it after the impris­on­ment of John as he him­self claims ?
    (2) The place where the first apos­tle­ship took place. Was it at the place where the Mes­si­ah found Peter and Andrew enter­ing their nets into the sea as they were about to fish as Matthew and Mark relates, or was it at the place where Andrew was stand­ing with John when he heard him remark when the Mes­si­ah walked past say­ing Behold the Lamb of God!”, as John records ?
    (3) The sequence of the first com­pan­ion­ship. Did Simon, Peter and his broth­er Andrew joint­ly become the Mes­si­ah’s first apos­tles at the same point in time, or was it Andrew who became the Mes­si­ah’s first apos­tle and sub­se­quent­ly recruit­ed his broth­er Simon ?
    (4) The con­di­tions in which the Mes­si­ah found his first two apos­tles. Was it as they were enter­ing their nets into the sea or was it as they were get­ting out of their boat in order to wash their nets after they had spent the entire night with­out catch­ing any fish ?

Who was Ibn Hazm ?

Ibn Hazm (994 CE-1064 CE) was a high­ly esteemed Mus­lim schol­ar from Cor­do­ba dur­ing the era of Mus­lim Spain. He is wide­ly regard­ed as the Father of Com­par­a­tive Reli­gion’ for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to Islam­ic the­ol­o­gy and his com­pre­hen­sive stud­ies of var­i­ous reli­gious beliefs and practices.

What was Ibn Hazm’s major work ?

Ibn Hazm’s major work is Kitab al-Fasl fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa’ wa al-Nihal (The Book of Dis­tinc­tion in Reli­gions and Sects). This mag­num opus delves into crit­i­cal analy­sis and com­par­i­son of dif­fer­ent reli­gions, includ­ing Chris­tian­i­ty, antic­i­pat­ing mod­ern Bib­li­cal tex­tu­al crit­i­cism by sev­er­al centuries.

What did Ibn Hazm antic­i­pate in his cri­tiques of the Bible ?

In his cri­tiques of the Bible, Ibn Hazm antic­i­pat­ed mod­ern Bib­li­cal tex­tu­al crit­i­cism, pre­sent­ing what schol­ars rec­og­nize as the ear­li­est sys­tem­at­ic his­tor­i­cal crit­i­cism of the Bible. He metic­u­lous­ly exam­ined the text, iden­ti­fy­ing inter­nal con­tra­dic­tions and inconsistencies.

What is the sig­nif­i­cance of Ibn Hazm’s cri­tiques of the Bible ?

Ibn Hazm’s cri­tiques of the Bible chal­lenged tra­di­tion­al per­cep­tions of its infal­li­bil­i­ty and served as pio­neer­ing efforts in the field of reli­gious crit­i­cism. His work laid the ground­work for lat­er schol­ars to engage in more com­pre­hen­sive stud­ies of the Bible, con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of his­tor­i­cal-crit­i­cal meth­ods of analysis.

What con­tra­dic­tions did Ibn Hazm iden­ti­fy in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ first apostles ?

Ibn Hazm iden­ti­fied four fun­da­men­tal con­tra­dic­tions with­in the Gospel accounts regard­ing the selec­tion of Jesus’ first apos­tles. These con­tra­dic­tions relate to the tim­ing, loca­tion, sequence, and cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the call­ing of the first disciples.

How did Ibn Hazm con­clude his cri­tiques of the Bible ?

Ibn Hazm con­clud­ed that the pres­ence of con­tra­dic­tions with­in the Gospel accounts under­mined their cred­i­bil­i­ty as reli­able sources of divine rev­e­la­tion. He argued that such dis­crep­an­cies could not be attrib­uted to God, prophets, or truth­ful indi­vid­u­als, sug­gest­ing instead that the Gospels were the works of deceit­ful individuals.

Accord­ing to Ibn Ḥazm, one of these four con­fus­ing sto­ries must be untrue. Such untruths, how­ev­er, can­not be attrib­uted to God, nor a Prophet, nei­ther of any truth­ful per­son. Ibn Hazm also points out that Saint John had trans­lat­ed the Gospel of Matthew from Hebrew to Greek and there­fore he must have come across the dif­fer­ences in the two accounts. These clear con­tra­dic­tions are suf­fi­cient proof, Ibn Hazm claims, that the Gospels are the works of accursed liars (min ʿamal kād­hibīn malʿūnīn).“7Endmark

Cite this arti­cle as : Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi, Exam­in­ing the Gospels’ Accounts : Call of the First Dis­ci­ples,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2017, last accessed March 28, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​b​i​b​l​e​/​c​a​l​l​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​d​i​s​c​i​p​l​es/
  1. Edgar Krentz, The His­tor­i­cal-Crit­i­cal Method (Fortress Press, 1975), p. 4[]
  2. Abdul Rashied Omar, Ibn Hazm On The Doc­trine of Tahrif (unpub­lished the­sis, 1992), p. 34[]
  3. Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he depart­ed into Galilee ; And leav­ing Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Caper­naum, which is upon the sea coast, in the bor­ders of Zab­u­lon and Neph­thal­im : That it might be ful­filled which was spo­ken by Esa­ias the prophet, say­ing, The land of Zab­u­lon, and the land of Neph­thal­im, by the way of the sea, beyond Jor­dan, Galilee of the Gen­tiles ; The peo­ple which sat in dark­ness saw great light ; and to them which sat in the region and shad­ow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent : for the king­dom of heav­en is at hand. And Jesus, walk­ing by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his broth­er, cast­ing a net into the sea : for they were fish­ers. And he saith unto them, Fol­low me, and I will make you fish­ers of men. And they straight­way left their nets and fol­lowed him. And going on from thence, he saw oth­er two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his broth­er, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mend­ing their nets ; and he called them. And they imme­di­ate­ly left the ship and their father, and fol­lowed him.” (Mt. 4 : 12 – 22)[]
  4. Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom of God, And say­ing, The time is ful­filled, and the king­dom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe the gospel. Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his broth­er cast­ing a net into the sea : for they were fish­ers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fish­ers of men. And straight­way they for­sook their nets and fol­lowed him. And when he had gone a lit­tle fur­ther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his broth­er, who also were in the ship mend­ing their nets. And straight­way he called them : and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired ser­vants, and went after him.” (Mk. 1 : 14 – 20)[]
  5. And it came to pass, that, as the peo­ple pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gen­nesaret, And saw two ships stand­ing by the lake : but the fish­er­men were gone out of them, and were wash­ing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed to him that he would thrust out a lit­tle from the land. And he sat down and taught the peo­ple out of the ship. Now when he had left speak­ing, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answer­ing said unto him, Mas­ter, we have toiled all the night, and have tak­en noth­ing : nev­er­the­less, at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great mul­ti­tude of fish­es : and their net brake.And they beck­oned unto their part­ners, which were in the oth­er ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, say­ing, Depart from me ; for I am a sin­ful man, O Lord. For he was aston­ished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fish­es which they had tak­en : And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were part­ners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not ; from hence­forth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they for­sook all, and fol­lowed him.” (Lk. 5 : 1 – 11)[]
  6. Again the next day after John stood, and two of his dis­ci­ples ; And look­ing upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God ! And the two dis­ci­ples heard him speak, and they fol­lowed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them fol­low­ing, and saith unto them, What seek ye ? They said unto him, Rab­bi, (which is to say, being inter­pret­ed, Mas­ter,) where dwellest thou ? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day : for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak, and fol­lowed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s broth­er. He first find­eth his own broth­er Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Mes­sias, which is, being inter­pret­ed, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona : thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by inter­pre­ta­tion, A stone.” (Jn. 1 : 35 – 42)[]
  7. As cit­ed from Abdul Rashied Omar, Ibn Hazm On The Doc­trine of Tahrif (unpub­lished the­sis, 1992), p. 34[]

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