When Jesus, son of Mary, said, "O children of Israel, I am God's messenger to you, authenticating what is present with me of the Torah and bringing good news of a messenger to come after me whose name will be ‘most acclaimed.'" But when he showed them the clear proofs, they said, ‘This is clearly magic.'
Translation endnotes
[61:6] The word ahmad is an adjective meaning "most acclaimed" or "most celebrated." Traditional sources consider it a proper name for Muhammed. This contradicts historical facts. The name of the prophet that came after Jesus was Muhammed, which is used in the Quran four times. Centuries after the departure of Muhammed, Muhammed-worshipers fabricated 99 names, including Ahmad, for Muhammed, in order to compete with the attributes of God. They could not accept one God having so many beautiful attributes, with their second god having only one attribute, Muhammed. They included many divine attributes, such as, "The First, The Last, The Judge.." in their list for Muhammed. Furthermore, we do not find the word Ahmad in the Bible. Rather we see the translation of the Greek adjective, "paracletos". "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter/Counselor (paracletus), that he may abide with you for ever" (John 14:16). Also, see John 14:26; 15:26 16:7. Jesus predicted the coming of another prophet. The one whose coming was foretold by Jesus is mentioned as "Paracletos" or "Periclytos" in Greek manuscripts. Paracletos means advocate, comforter, or counselor. Periclytos, on the other hand, means "admirable one" (in Arabic ahmad). The "spirit" here, does not mean other than human. There are cases where the word "spirit" is used for humans (2 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 John 4:1-3). If indeed Jesus had prophesied the proper name of the prophet after him, this prophecy would have gotten the attention of almost every one of his supporters. Furthermore, we would see many people among his supporters and later Christians giving the name Ahmad to their sons, hoping that their sons would fulfill the prophecy. But, we do not even see a single Christian named Ahmad. Therefore, the Aramaic or Hebrew equivalent of this word did not become a name. However, the name Muhammed sharing the same root and similar meaning with the word ahmad is instructive. Bible-thumpers assert that there are more than two thousand prophecies foretelling the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Evidently, this is a preposterous claim. But, an impartial reader will find several clear prophecies. Then, the reader may ask, "What is wrong with Jews? Why don't they see those plain prophecies in their book?" Obviously, this problem is not peculiar to Jews. Whenever a new messenger comes, the bigoted religious people reject them in the name of previous messengers. For instance, Egyptians rejected Moses by claiming that Joseph was the last messenger (40:28-38). Jews rejected (J)esu(s) when he started his mission. Those who started worshiping Muhammed too claimed Muhammed to be the last messenger, in contradiction to the Quran (3:81). Christians were and are not different. The Old Testament in Deuteronomy 18:18 prophesies the coming of Muhammed, since he was more like Moses and came from among the Arabs, the brethren of the Children of Israel. "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." (Deuteronomy 18:18). Christians try hard to use 18:18 as a prophecy about Jesus, but their fictional "son of God" who "died for the sins of the world" is not like Moses; neither is his miraculous birth, his marital status, nor his political power. However when we compare, we see that Muhammed is much more like Moses than Jesus was. Besides, the Biblical prophecy does not say "among themselves" or "among Children of Israel," but "among their brethren." The word brethren is directly used by the Old Testament to describe the relationship between the family of Isaac and the family of Ishmael (See Genesis 16:12; 25:18). The New Testament too contains some clues regarding the coming prophet, other than the Messiah. John 1:19-25 lists the expected three persons: Christ, Elijah, and That Prophet. These verses, if they are not a fabrication of John, provide us with clues that Jewish people were expecting a "prophet" besides Christ, a prophet that had been prophesied in Deuteronomy 18:18. It is not a surprise that some Christian scholars are using their famous formula, in order to hide this obvious Biblical fact: "Christ + Elijah + That Prophet = Jesus." This is Trinity in Trinity or Pandora's Trinity.