Konsep Kemaksuman Nabi Menurut Judaisme: Penilaian Semula Kritikan Sarjana Islam

The concept of prophet’s infallibility according to Islam are not clearly stated in the Qur’an or hadith. It began to be debated among scholars when the Shiites raised the issue. The same thing could happen to Jewish religion as well. There are Muslim scholars who claim that the concept of prophets’ infallibility is not mentioned by Jewish religion. In addition, there are also Muslim scholars who claim that the Jews only limited the prophets’ infallibility concerning on delivery of revelation only, but not in major sins. They criticized the stories of the prophets in Tanakh (Old Testament) which outwardly seemed to have committed great sins, but most of these Islamic scholars did not refer to the interpretation of the Jewish rabbis. However, there are differences of opinion among the Jewish religious scholars themselves on one’s ability of being innocent throughout his life, but had never mentioned about it upon the prophets particularly. The methodology of this study is qualitative by using the method of literature, textual analysis and inductive. Therefore, the first objective of this study is to identify the characteristics of the prophet according to Judaism. The second objective is to study the concept of the prophets’ infallibility based on the rabbis’ interpretation upon the prophets’ stories in the Old Testament which was criticized by Islamic scholars. The third objective is to re-evaluate the criticism of the Islamic scholars based on the rabbis’ understanding. Studies have found that the Jewish rabbis not considered Lot as a prophet. Besides that, the Jewish rabbis have the idea of the prophets’ infallibility even though it is not explicitly stated, and most of the criticisms of Islamic scholars are inaccurate