The True Message of Jesus bu A.B. Philips (2007)

 After conversations around the Christmas table about Jesus being in the Quran, this was offered as an explanation on how he is depicted in the Bible vs. the Quran, so today I read the book. First there was a description on how each of the holy books came about. The Bible having many authors over centuries, many unknown, certain texts having been chosen over others by church leaders, and having been rewritten and translated so many times, that scholars have been working for years trying to figure out what is and is not authentic in the Bible. The Quaran was written down during the life of the prophet Mohammad, and people have been memorizing the whole thing ever since, so if anything, I have to credit Muslims for being consistent. And yes, Jesus is mentioned as an important prophet who came before Mohammad. 

I have been meaning to reread the Gospels, mostly so I can again see the differences between them, and here many of the main points were compared. The book also looked at Jesus as a person, coming to a conclusion that Jesus was not divine, but a messenger of God, and this author thinks that Christians have misinterpreted what Jesus himself said. Another chapter talks of his message, mainly to follow the laws set down by Moses. There was an interesting section that explained various Muslim religious practices - circumcision, not eating pork or meat not drained of blood properly, alcohol, prayer, veiling women, greeting with "peace be upon you," fasting, no interest on loans, and polygamy (4 wives allowed, why does it only have to go in that direction, what if 4 husbands were allowed?) After a while the book got too detailed on parsing texts. I consider both books written down by humans divinely inspired with good guidelines on how to live ethically, but written during certain historical times and cultures, so I cannot take either literally. But I believe this took me a few steps closer to understanding Islam.

Just a minor point coming from an academic environment: I was surprised how many times standard encyclopedias and popular magazines were cited. Not that this was an academic work, just that I am used to seeing more scholarly sources cited.