Is this ancient rock inscription the earliest evidence of Christianity in Arabia?Photo: Courtesy of the Badia Epigraphic Survey Project
Is this ancient rock inscription the earliest evidence of Christianity in Arabia?Photo: Courtesy of the Badia Epigraphic Survey Project
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Well, after his conversion St Paul did say he spent three years in Arabia. And since he was the Apostle to the Gentiles you can bet they had three years of good preaching. Galatians 13-18
15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas[b] and stayed with him fifteen days.
In the eastern part of S.A., in the vicinity of the town of Jubail, there are ancient remnants of an early Christian settlement. Neither Muslim nor Christian is allowed to visit the site though the locals refer to it in a respectful manner.
It’s likely that Mohammad did not exist, at least not as personified by later accounts.
Either way, the religion justified the outcomes not the other way around, which is why early Arabian warlords used crosses and other Judeo-Christian traditions and symbols as they expanded into the Levant.
The best analogy I can make is to the uneducated who use “I” in the objective form as pretense for sophistication.
Between you and I, Mohammad was a fabrication of expansionist Arabs who seized upon local traditions without understanding them.
