Is Jesus the Word in the Quran?

So, I ran across something interesting in the Quran while reading it during this Ramadan. Something I never particularly noticed before, until I took my literature of the Bible class last semester. In Surah 3:45 it says:” [And mention] when the angels said, "O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary - distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah ].” The Quran specifically says, “God gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be Jesus.” The average Joe who hasn’t read the Bible or the average Muslims, wouldn’t find this verse interesting. Yet, if you are familiar with the book of John, you would know that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”.

I find this parallel striking and am surprised that there are not more scholarly writings on this particular verse. The Quran is very clear that Jesus Is not God, nor is God the father of Jesus. God begot Jesus by saying “Be!”, so Jesus is not a divine Hercules character in the Quran.  Since God said “Be!” and Jesus was begotten, Jesus is in essences the Word of God but not the essence of apart of God. We forget that mankind was “breathed” into by God, but we are not considered God ourselves. This doesn’t mean there aren’t any esoteric writings by Muslims that state all humans are in fact apart of God, but they make it very clear we are not God. When we die, we go back to the void of God, because God is not a male or female. God is simply IS.

If we compare it to John, technically Jesus was with God and was in the Beginning. Yet Quranically speaking Jesus is not God. The miracle of Jesus is the fact God spoke and Jesus came. The parallels of God speaking something into existence would in the book of Genesis where God spoke everything into being. God said, “Let there be Light” and there was light, what kind of light? Idk..stars, we got to remember this part of the Bible was a later addition and Gen 2 is the oldest creation myth. In fact, the Quran is very clear on how Jesus was created and how God can manifest anything it sees fit to manifest. So, I suppose we can say Jesus is the Word of God because Jesus was created by the Word of God. The meaning of Jesus in Surah 3:45 is different than in John 1.

A quick non-religious argument which is an interesting one is that perhaps Mohammad was aware of the book of John and didn’t believe that Jesus was God. There also could be an Apocrypha text floating around and he was aware of this one too. Surah 3 was revealed later in his life, so he could of in fact talked to the Muslims that came back from Christian Ethiopia about what they learned. We forget that Muhammad was a merchant and must have met plenty of interesting people. Not to mention Khadija’s cousin was a Christian man, who confirmed Muhammad’s prophetic visions. It may have been common for Christians to refer to Jesus as the Word, in general passing as well. All these factors may explain why the Quran mentions Jesus as his word. 

I actually would love to find more scholarly work on this particular passage in the Quran, either from non-Muslims or Muslims together. The Quran has loads of interesting sentences, that I just love and cherish. I guess I wouldn’t have converted to Islam if I didn’t love it. If you have any thoughts on this particular Quranic passage, comment below. Perhaps you have a non-religious explanation that I didn’t think of or an Islamic one.