Home > New Testament Stories in the Quran
The New Testament is famously silent on the childhood of Jesus, with one notable exception: his visit to the Temple at age 12 (Luke 2:41–52).
John 2:11: The Gospel of John explicitly states that turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana was the "FIRST of his signs." This occurred when Jesus was an adult.
The New Testament says Jesus "increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). This implies a real human development. To deny Jesus' true human growth was to deny his true humanity, which is essential for the Atonement.
From a historical and polemical standpoint, the "Infancy Miracles" of Jesus in the Quran are a primary example of what scholars call literary borrowing.
While the Quran presents these as divine revelation, a textual comparison reveals they are direct lifts from late-dated, legendary "Infancy Gospels" that were circulating in the Middle East centuries after the New Testament was completed.
Thi is from "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas" (do not confuse this with the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas). It was created approximately 150–185 AD (Mid-to-late 2nd Century).
Chapter 2 describes a 5-year-old Jesus making twelve sparrows out of soft clay on the Sabbath. When rebuked, he claps his hands and commands the birds to fly away.
The early Church rejected this book as a "pious fiction" because it depicted Jesus as a temperamental, sometimes even dangerous, child (in other chapters, he strikes children dead for bumping into him).
Thi is from "The Arabic Infancy Gospel@ (also known as the Syriac Infancy Gospel). It was created approximately 5th or 6th Century AD.
The very first chapter states, "Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth."
This text was a late compilation of earlier legends and Syriac traditions. It was written 400–500 years after the events it claims to describe and was widely known in the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad’s time.
The Quran does not "confirm" the original Gospel here; rather, it "confirms" 7th-century folklore. The author of the Quran appears to have been unable to distinguish between the 1st-century historical accounts of the Apostles and the popular, late-dated fairy tales that were being told by local Syriac-speaking Christians.
The presence of these stories in the Quran suggests it was influenced by the oral traditions of its time rather than a direct divine source, as it repeats the same legendary material found in books the Church had already discarded as "apocryphal" (false) centuries earlier.
The Quran ultimately chooses to follow the 2nd-century "fable" (Clay Birds) over the 1st-century "historical witness" (Cana miracle). By doing so, it sides with a text that the early Church had already proven was a late-dated forgery.
When the Quran includes these specific miracles (Clay Birds, Speaking Cradle), it is not "restoring" lost truths. It is accidentally preserving rejected folklore from groups that the early Christians had already identified as heretical.
The author of the Quran appears to have lacked the "discernment" of the early Church, failing to distinguish between the historical Jesus of the 1st century and the legendary Jesus of the 2nd-century Gnostics.