A Muslim Sect that Promotes the Old Swoon Theory and Has Jesus Being Buried in Kashmir?

 

The book Jesus in India is by the founder and Promised Messiah of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam.  A very dear old freind of mine from Pakistan who is a member of the sect sent me several books and tracts. 

Interestingly these are the guys that claim the tomb of Jesus is in Kashmir (the founder identified an old tomb there as such at the end of the nineteenth century).  The claim there is that Jesus was going to seek the Lost Tribes of Israel (taken away in the 700s BC by the King of Assyria.  This despite the fact that the Neo-Assyrian Empire did not extend anything like as far east as Kashmir).   I'm just now trying to work out the actual history of the tomb itself. The town its in was apparently founded in the 6th century AD.  One often reads of the town being founded "over two thousand years ago," but that is not whatthe best scholarship on the matter says.

As for the tomb itself, it was apparently first identified as the tomb of Jesus by the author at the end of the 19th century.  We see this in his references in the book to the tombs having been "recently discovered." (pp. 26, 27, 32-33).

The author is quite blatant in his claim that he is the Messiah:  Here is an example from page 44:

"It should be noticed that the gospels contain two kinds of prophecies about the coming of Jesus: (1) The promise of his coming in the latter days; his coming is of a spiritual character, and resembles the second coming of the prophet Elijah, in the time of Jesus. So, like Elijah, he has already appeared in this age; and it is I, the writer; a servant of humanity, who has come as the Promised Messiah, in the name of Jesus (on whom be peace). Jesus has given the news of my coming in the gospels"

At the end of the book he signs his name: "Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The Promised Messiah." In the introduction he writes: "I am the light of this dark age; he who follows me will be saved from falling into the pit prepared by the Devil for those who walk in darkness." (p. 18).

The Author: Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908).

His basic approach is to take the Sign of Jonah parable as true, and his own take on it indubitable  (Jonah didn't die, therefore Jesus didn't) and then to arbitrarily treat the rest of the New Testament as true or false depending on whether it agrees with him there.  This of course raises a difficulty: 

Why should we accept that particular saying of Jesus, but not the rest?  Just because this author says so?  Further, why trust this author as over against some other author whose alternate theory leads him or her to assert with equal arbitrariness that some other saying of Jesus is true but that the Sign of Jonah parable false? 

One of the most remarkable proofs the gives as to why the New Testament generally can't be trusted is the story of the anointing of Jesus by the sinful woman.  The way he puts it may represent the purest and most quintessentially pharisaical temper I have ever read anywhere:

"the Israelite prophets, in accordance with the teaching of the Torah, undoubtedly had hundreds of wives at one time in order that they might thereby multiply a generation of righteous persons, but you will never have heard that any prophet had ever set such an example of freedom that he should allow an impure and an adulterous woman, a noted sinner of the city, to touch his body with her hands, to let her rub oil into his head -- art of her immoral gains -- and to rub her hair on his feet; that he should allow all this to be done by an unchaste young woman, and should not say to her 'Don't'." (p. 55)

One thing the Ahmadiyya Sect does have going for it.  It strongly opposes both forced conversion and violent Jihad.