Page 156 - Prophet Jesus (Pbuh): A Prophet Not A Son, Of God

154 Prophet Jesus (pbuh): A Prophet, Not A Son, of God

development to take place in this final period of the 20 th century.
This need stems primarily from an increase in information concern-
ing the origins of Christianity. Moreover, it depends on the accep-
tance of Prophet Jesus as a human being sent by God with a special
duty and for a holy purpose. And it is based on accepting that the
belief that Prophet Jesus was the incarnation of God and that he is
the second element in the Trinity is a poetic and mythological ex-
pression of what Prophet Jesus means to us. 50
Throughout the book, Hick concentrates on the fact that the term the
son of God is a belief put forward after Prophet Jesus' (pbuh) death, one
that he never communicated himself. 51

Jesus did not make the claim to deity that later Christian thought
was to make for him… [I]t is extremely unlikely that the historical
Jesus thought of himself in any such way. Indeed he would proba-
bly have rejected the idea as blasphemous; one of the sayings attrib-
uted to him is, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God
alone' (Mark, 10.18). Of course no statements about what Jesus did
or did not say or think can be made with certainty. But such evi-