Who is God?

Rob Scott.

Rob Scott helps oversee the International Outreach at St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, which involves supporting the church's mission partners overseas as well as outreach cross culturally in London. For the letter, he's often share the platform with Muslim speakers to discuss similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam. And these meetings for better understanding have taken place in churches, mosques, community centers, and universities. His book, Dr. Abdullah, eight questions Muslim people ask about Christianity came out of these talks and he also lectures in Islamic Studies at Oak Hill theological college in North London. 10 years ago, Robert and his family

spent 18 months in Bangladesh learning the seletti language in order to better understand that many people have selective background in Tower Hamlets. And now back in Tower Hamlets. He and his family are partnering with other local churches to share the gospel of seletti people. Previously, he worked for the World World Health Organization and the Charity Commission.

Adnan Rashi is a historian with a specialty in the history of Islamic civilization comparative religion, and Hadith literature. He has represented Islam and Muslims on a number of media platforms, including the BBC. He's also the head of the hittin Institute as well as a senior researcher and lecturer is presently serving as a khateeb in a number of London mosques Currently, he is also conducting an extensive Tafseer calls explaining the meaning of the Quran to wider or wider audiences based on the work of EB Catia. So what we're going to do is we'll have each of these speakers speak for 10 minutes, then they both get to reply to the

respective other speaker for five minutes each. And after that, we'll open up for q&a.

This is one of the ways for you to submit a question. The other is just to raise your arm and we have a microphone here and you could just ask your question in person since we're back to in person events, that is also a nice way of engaging.

It is obviously the most important topic if there is a God, how do we get to know him? How do we live in his world? Now, this guy, Miroslav Volf, he's a Croatian theologian based at Yale University in the States, it's microphones just said Christians and Muslims worship one and the same God, I reject the idea that Muslims worship different gods and do Jews and Christians. And when asked for a show of hands as to whether you agree or you don't agree, but does it matter whether we do believe in the same God or not? Miroslav both, as his name suggests, is a correlation. He grew up in former Yugoslavia and saw the mess the horrible mess between Croats and Serbs, and more importantly, the

genocide of Bosnian Muslims and in Kosovo, and so recognizes that religion can cause real, real damage, and so wanted to bring unity, which is why he wrote this book, suggesting that we believe the same thing, but do we believe the same things?

The Bible and the Quran clearly share words and concepts, they talk about Gods and talk about heaven and hell, they talk about sin, they talk about prophets. For duration meanings, we might use the same words. But do we have the same meanings and that's what we're going to explore this afternoon in the little time that we do have, but this is supposed to start a conversation between members of the Christian Union members by So members, the university, we can't have these kinds of conversations happening. We live in the same community together.

Recently, with some friends in Tower Hamlets, like a football with some Muslim friends, we were having various discussions, political, economic, all kinds of things. And we thought, let's try and compare and contrast our stories, the prophets. We've been doing that on Zoom and in person. And it's been really interesting working through what the Bible says, Iran, Islamic and Christian tradition say about these different prophets, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and so on. It's going to begin that we thought there'd be lots of similarities and there are, but actually pulls out one big difference, which is again, the beginning of this talk, really.

We're looking at one of the stories about Abraham, when he was told that he would have a son, even though me and his wife were childless, they were very old. We were told the Lord's as in God's appears to Abraham to promise in Assam.

That same story, the rate of Islam the Quran says this, And surely our messenger angels came to Abraham with good news.

have a son,

same news, same son, but who brought the news? Was it God Himself the Lord's present with Abraham? Or was it as a messenger angels?

Throughout the Bible, God's the Lord's. Yahweh does seem to relate to people. The word Lord in capitals in the Bible is the kind of proper name or the translation, the proper name Yahweh. In the Hebrew, Jewish people were very hesitant to say the name Yahweh. And so when he got translated into Greek when Jewish people in the second century BCE, they put the word kind of Lord in Greek in capitals and English translations of statement. Were just Yahweh the personal name of gods and your way, right, the beginning of the Bible and thought acts as a spirits who hovers over the chaotic pre creation waters, and powerful works, which creates all things, including people in his own image

with

Yahweh were told personally interacts with Adam and Eve. He tells them not to eat from the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or they will surely die, He speaks to them. And then when they do eat that tree, evens walks in the garden to find out where they are hiding in their fear and shame and fills the space and walks.

Yahweh also sees and agrees, which is in the middle of our handout he sees in grieves over the world of wickedness in a time of Noah, he talks him know and he blesses now there's a personal relationship going on there. And that kind of personal needs that appearance that relational Ness carries on with Abraham with it with Jacob. With my footballing friends, we were looking at the story of Jacob last week, actually. And it's interesting again, similar stories, similar story about a dream up to heaven, again, compact and Angel descending and ascending. But then there's a story about Jacob mysteriously wrestling with a man and knights. And that is, I'm interested since that's

an angel again. But the Bible says that spoils.

So God again, appears to people and then Yahweh appears in the burning bush, the Prophet Moses, and declares his name, he reveals his name, but Great I AM, which becomes the name Yahweh in Hebrew, it comes down to a mountain, Mount Sinai to speak with Israel, so scared, I don't want to hear his voice. I want Moses to intercedes for them. And then he passes before Moses on Mount Sinai for claiming his name, his character, it says, The Lord the Lord, the gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

but not holding the guilty and punished.

And in that phrase, there, we've seen two sides to Yahweh and gods, we see a holiness, a purity, a light, that he can't be approached except on his own terms, but sinners can't get close to him.

And we see he is merciful. He is kind, He is compassionate. And there's two themes trapped throughout that the Hebrew and the Greek scriptures. And in some ways, I've summarized in one part of the New Testament, where we're taught that God is light, in him is no darkness at all. And shortly after that, we're told that God is love. Those two things trapped throughout the Bible there, from the beginning, to the middle to the end. And when we come to the ends of the Bible, we see this. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, the first heaven and the first disappears, and the sea vanished. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared and ready, like a bride's dress to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne. Now God's home is with people, he will live with them, and they shall be His people. God's himself will be with them, and he will be their gods. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, there'll be no more death, no more grief or crying or painting old things that disappears. The gods who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve now dwells in a city with its people forever.

So we see throughout the scriptures that Yahweh is relational, his personal is involved. His presence is also described as a father, a husband, a helper, relational words with deep meaning

is that the same kind of God that you know, within your own tradition, whatever that is. And we also see particularly it's not just uniquely relational and personal, but it's unique Revealer and rescuer. It is one thing that said to the Prophet Moses, you always said search the past the time before you were born all the way back to the time when God created human beings on earth. Has anything as great as this ever happened before? Has anyone ever heard anything like this? Have any people ever lived after hearing a God speak some from a fire as you have an assignment as any guy ever dare to go and take people from another nation make his his own

as Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, he used his great power and strength, he brought claims and war work, miracles and wonders, of course terrifying things that happen, that Yahweh has shown you this to prove to you that he alone is God's, and there is no other. He let you hear his voice from heaven so he can instruct you. And here on Earth, let you see his holy fire. And he spoke to you from it. It says that only Yahweh has spoken through the Bible, he's thinks that he is revealing Himself to us. And it says only Yahweh has saved taking a people for Himself out of another nation. Through the Bible, he constantly rescues people for himself.

And we've seen that kind of thing tracked through when we come to Jesus. The last question for you is, is just after Jesus has spent over 5000 people. Now about eight days after the sentence, he Jesus took with himself, Peter, and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was portraits, and his clothing became dazzling whites. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which means exodus in green, which was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now pizza, and those who are with them were heavy with sleep. But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory,

and the two men who sit with them. And that's the moment parting from Peter center, Jesus, Master, it's good, we're here. But let's make three tents, one for you, one for Moses.

I would say, the god of the Quran is very much consistent with the God of Moses, the god of Jesus, even though the biblical text is,

is altered, it is, you know, not found the actual profits themselves, even though what we do find are snippets or glimpses of the truth or glimpses of the teachings of Moses and Jesus, even then, I believe the god of the Quran, is very consistent with the God of the Bible, if we minus if we take out the doctrine of the Trinity, which was a purely Christian conception

of God Almighty, of God of the Bible. Thank you very much.

Get another five minutes.

Thank you very much. Websites. I think it is wonderful that the Bible contains over 40 Difference human authors who had been inspired by gods to write down truth from God, we have all the prophets in our book, not just one. And so we can see whether this message is in keeping with one another, and how Jesus might fulfill that, as he says he does. I don't think people would dispute actually the scholarly level that Moses wrote the Hebrew that we have. And as you know, all of these books are free, Mohamed pre Quran, the Quran seems to accept them in some way. And I think we need to be careful that we can never have certainty about anything.

We can never be 100% certain about anything. But do we have a reasonable surety about something? That's how courts work? That's how historians when they look at evidence can we know and I think we can know an awful lot from the evidence of the many prophets that are recorded in these scriptures. Personally, I think it's quite a problem. That the god of the Quran only seems to speak in Arabic. It is wonderful that the God of the Bible speaks in a language that people understand because that is the God who wants people to understand them. It is always going to translate it word for us. So Did Jesus speak Greek? I think he probably did, because of the region that he lived in. And he spoke

Aramaic, I suspect you say the writing as well, for a reasonable degree. But why is the New Testament written in Greek? Because God wanted his message to go out and cross that part of the world. Greek was like the English today, and probably like the Chinese will be in 100 years time. It was everybody's second language. God wanted people to hear about himself, because he's a personal relational God that wants people to know him,

gave him being spirits, and the Jewish people wouldn't accept that. And so the spirits is an active part of God throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, along with the Word

document Trinity was not made up by the church is rooted in the witness of the Bible. Why is it that Jesus is accused of blasphemy when he calls himself the Son of the Father? It's rooted in those texts? Absolutely not. Allah Elohim very similar. Etymologically why is it that Christians in the Middle East or in Bangladesh are happy to call God the High God Creator Allah, they they will do that, but they're also rapid

realize that that Allah, Allah Elohim is further distinguished. And you can know Him as Father, Son, and spirits. And it's clear that Jesus calls God's Elohim, but also other, meaning father, and closeness.

I don't think there is evidence for texts being coupled, since you've seen a lot. There's no evidence for that thing.

There is no evidence, if you want to pick out all the evidence, I think the evidence is there, and we can look at that. But I would just love to ask you. And now when you think that you can know God personally, yourself, does he reveal himself to people? Is he relational in that way?

What does it mean to love God? Obviously, the great kind of

high point just after those few verses that I said about Moses, when God says he's the unique Revealer, and rescue, just shortly after that, it says, Here, O Israel, the Lord Yahweh, Your God is one, meaning He's unique. He's one of a kind, Imperial is reloadable is one, love him with all of your heart, soul and strength, but who God is provoke a response in us a love response, because of His great love for us. That's a question

to what what does love for God's look like, in your experience? And what do you teach? And how does how does the Koran play a part in that?

Is that how you get to know God in some way? Him personally?

Just another question. So

the confession of faith for missing people? Isn't the shimmer of Deuteronomy here, it was really logical is one. It is. It was like Oh, my God, and how it is his prophet in glyph? Why do you put the Prophet with God that seems to be adding something to God's blessing rather than required to do joy? Is God alone? God is unique. You don't need anything added. It feels like an outsider. You're adding a person to God and I, I can't find one verse in the Quran that gives that as this 100. And professional, clearly the Quran says God is there's one cause, but doesn't seem to say, more than that. So lots of questions. We are really happy to talk about the text. But let's talk about God.

Thank you very much. Well, five minutes for me now.

Language of Jesus, Rob claimed that he, Jesus would have spoken.

Greek, there is no evidence for that.

I would be very willing to accept the evidence if you presented. Then you said,

Why would God speak in Arabic, and it spoke in the Greek language and in the Hebrew language so that people don't understand God. But equally, if people can understand the Arabic language, and they can understand Greek, they can translate from Greek and Hebrew, I'm sure people can translate from the Arabic language to so Arabic language didn't come from the moon.

It is a human language.

Then spirit you said a Jewish people don't know the spirit,

as Gabriel Gabriel, a spirit. Now, in the book of Daniel, we have references, but it was Angel Gabriel who came to the prophets to bring revelation. So we have references to that. So he is also known as the Spirit.

So, evidence for the alteration of the Bible, there is a book I would recommend written by a Christian scholar himself, scholar of the highest repute, Bruce Metzger, has authored a book titled The text of the New Testament. It's transmission, corruption, and restoration. So in the title of the book, the word corruption is there, the text of the the New Testament was corrupted. And it is now in the process of being restored. So you can look into the book, I read it. And he actually means that when he says the text was corrupted, it meant that the manuscripts of the Bible were corrupted. And we to this day don't know what was actually written by the authors of four gospels

and beyond. We have no idea what they actually originally wrote. We don't know the original text, even though even if it wasn't the Greek language, we don't have it. That's another question we can address. Then having relationship with God, absolutely. We all have relationships with God, we pray.

And we have spiritual experiences, which may be personal, we we when we pray five times a day, we are dedicated to God, that's our relationship. We speak with God, we pray to him. He responds to our prayers, through dreams through things that happen in alive, and we get cured, cured by God. There are so many things I can talk about, that God is actually present in our lives. We all speak to God every single day Muslim

instance when they pray five times a day, they pray with firm conviction that, that God the God that worshiping is listening to them and responding to them. So they have a very strong relationship with God. Okay?

Love for God Of course it comes from one's dedication once one's attention towards God, it may vary from person to person, the more detail it was, the more you will fall in love with God and you will see his wonders.

So, confession of faith when you mentioned the Shema,

I would like to mention that Shama is exactly La ilaha illa. There is no one worthy of worship except God and Jesus, Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Mark chapter, Paul was 29 when a Jewish man asked him, What is the first commandment and he said there Israel, the LORD our God is one Lord. That's the Shahada. Right? And Jesus Himself said, I said, I've been sent by God. And that's the second part of the charter that when you Christians claim that there is no way to God except through Jesus, okay? You cannot come to God, except that's the second part of the charter. So the first part is you worship one God alone. And the second part is that Jesus is the way to God at his time for

his people, right. Then when Moses was alive, he was the way to God. When Abraham was preaching to his people, he was the way to government Muhammad came, he was the way to go and that's why we say lai lai Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah, Lisa rasool Allah, Musa Rasul Allah, Ibrahim Rasul Allah, we consider we accept all of those prophets. With regards to the doctrine of the Trinity. That's a very big question. I have had extensive debates with Christian friends on that, that is a development or an extension of the God of the Bible or extension to the God of the Bible, which cannot be found in the Bible. And I say this with absolute confidence, and honesty and integrity, that the doctrine of

the trinity or the Trinitarian conception of God cannot be found in the Bible. It is superimposed it is actually read into the text of the Bible not the other way around. Thank you so much

thank you both very much. Also, times perfectly makes my life very easy and we're opening this up for questions now. You can either ask him online and if you do that, I hope that we could see them somewhere or No, I see them

I have it here. Okay. While I tried to figure out the technology you can also ask a question in person in the room in which case oh there's a microphone. So if I request maybe one question for Robin one question from myself

to keep things balanced, maybe if we get one minute to answer and 30 seconds to

give a response to the answer and vice versa good okay. We can find that stick to

some evening Yeah, no, thank you. And so we have you in the front with Could you pass the microphone

Christian view Crisco consulting

I gave you summarize for everyone that came late depression.

I say now

I think I have these people speak from summarize for what the whole debate for late comers.

We can only summarize in the q&a. I think it would be unfair for everyone else to to for us to go through the same exercise again. So I think jump into the water and swim I would say

pencils are the coolest things since

Forgive me, what is your name? My name? Yes. My name is Adnan. Adnan.

Thank you so much for coming. My question is more contemporary in terms of its where it comes from, particularly scholars like Dr. Glenn Gibson, Dr. J. Smith, and a few other more recent scholars have come begun to apply a lot of the same literary techniques and a lot of the same criticisms to the origin of the Quran. Particularly around the origin of language and verbiage and its construction.

From You talk a lot in your your speech about the Bible and the construction of the Bible. But she spoke very little about the construction of the Koran. I was just hoping that you could speak on that and whether

or not the more recent scholarship that has come out? How do you interpret that? And for those who don't know, there's some

scholars who have taken a look at some of the earliest manuscripts and seeing that they have corrections and adjustments to them. I'm just curious what your responses stuff. Thank you very much. You mentioned a couple of people don't consider them to be scholars do excuse me for that. Because they're not peer reviewed. They're not published in any reputable academic journal or institution. So they're not scholars.

Scholars are people like to rush. You can look at his book, The homemade Quran, for example, you have Nikolai Saina. And these are not Muslims are mentioning non Muslim scholars in particular, there is a man called Man booty, marine ban, Putin is very active on Twitter, and he's is at Leonard University. So if you look at their works, and how they see the Quran, from a non Muslim perspective, you will you'll see a lot of

a lot of a lot of study of these manuscripts you mentioned. So none of them actually amazingly use the word corruption for the Quran. Actually, all of them what I have seen so far is unanimous that the text of the Quran was well established and canonized very early on within the lives of the companions of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, if not the life of the prophet himself. Right? So there is no such discussion on the Quran. That's why I didn't indulge in that. But when it comes to the text of the New Testament, it's a completely different story. Because both documents were written in different circumstances and different times, for different people. The history of the

Quran is very different to the history of the Bible, completely different. So to be fair, they have to be treated differently.

You won't case for 30 seconds.

Yeah, I don't think that that is true, I think that is very careful of getting rid of evidence I wanted to deal with. I don't think the earliest corones do agree, I think there are differences between them. I think they have the same kind of issue with manuscripts as any ancient texts, in many ways. So the earliest two aren't complete for copying someone comes and they disagree with one another. That doesn't actually matter. You could work it out, except even within the Orthodox history of Islam, because that was when he destroyed the different copies in New Zealand know what the original was back in the day. So I think there are there are real debates to be had other people

to read, it would be something like, I gotta go with another German scholar who looks at the social media in which they think the Koran was constructed, maybe in northern Arabia, rather than in Mecca. Maybe later, maybe they have done

lots of things that can be discussed. But I think the important thing for us both discuss, discuss is who is the God that we want him to follow and worship? And is he trustworthy? And can we name him?

Thank you very much. So yeah, the top rated question, oops, just deleted.

It is. Why would Christians not accept Muhammad as a prophet if the Bible says a profit will come after Jesus?

I guess it goes just for rockets. Yes, great question. And

finally, because of what Jesus said, himself, says, he says he's come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He says, the law and the prophets of the Psalms and rebuilding his life and his death and his resurrection. So we don't need to look for anybody else. Be it someone in the sixth century, someone in the 18th. Beer, Joseph Smith in New York, and is Utah with his golden plates, be it whoever comes later, Jesus fulfills everything that has been promised in the previous prophets, which is why it's great. We've got all the prophets in here so we can check it out. That's the beauty of having all of them, then I don't think Muhammad is prophesied at all, within the Hebrew

Scriptures or the Greek scriptures. I'm sure that none will disagree. But I think if we want to look at all of those texts we can do, but I don't think he's prophesied in any way.

Thank you, Rob. I will simply ask everyone to watch one of my debates with an Australian scholar, Christian scholar, his name is Salman green. And the title of the debate is Muhammad foretold in the Bible, watch the debate and make your own minds. I use biblical references extensively coming to the differences in the Quran copies please present them. If you have the evidence, please do present the differences. So let us see I want these differences to come out so that I can actually know about them as well. Are we looking for the last 20 years? We haven't found any differences in verses in words? Yeah, readings if you're talking about variations in how to pronounce the words how the

reading styles work on the Quran? Absolutely. There are differences not out. But if you will claim differences in the manuscripts of the court.

and you will have to present the evidence that you

thank you. I suggest I read out one more question from here and then it goes back to the audience in the room. So can you conclusively and coherently explain why attributing Jesus as a son and equal to God is not polytheism?

Is that a question to me? Or? I don't know. I don't mind it. Rob goes first, no problem.

The understanding of God has revealed himself in the Scriptures from Moses onwards is that he's a creator, He says the statement is a revealer is a rescuer. That's what it means for the God of the Old Testaments to be one unique one of a kind. People sadly seeing Does anyone else know, which sadly is true, they are unique they are winning is only one of them. In that sense, they that's what it means that the Lord Phillips to be one unique is unique is created to sustain it, repeat it and rescue it that's all the way through is incomparably that kind of way.

As that is revealed in Scripture, though, it's clear that there is a spirit is active, and a word that is active even through the Hebrew scriptures to as we come into the Greek scriptures, we see that that words takes flash, that that word is creative. That word sustained that words is Jesus, as he stills a store with the same words in which the God of Genesis one creates, he says, Let it be simple. And it is just like there has to be lights in the beginning, he calls himself his son to show that he's not a threat to his father, he is of the same stuff, and I don't think God stuff exists is the son following his father, as well as he's not a freshman father in any way. Because

the same things that his father does all the way through. So for example, in John's gospel, he does that. And the Jewish people are listening to him think he is that seeming so they are hearing him making divine claims about himself. But he shows he's not a threat to God in any way, he follows his father's will, in order to rescue and reveal to people, that's not politics, because politics is defined as adding extra to God is a God who is not the creator is not the sustainer is not the reveal, but not the rescuer. And the son, as he walks in Palestine shows himself to be those things we've seen, keep them the whole understanding of God in the Old Testament.

Thank you. It is an absolutely polytheism

I believe if you put Jesus Christ on par with the father, whom he worshipped. So if father was equal to God Almighty, of not the father, let's say, as the doctrine of the Trinity stipulates, then that would mean, Jesus doesn't have to worship is equal, but he's worshiping the father. If you read the text of the New Testament, he's consistently worshiping the Father, He called him about the father of the creating father, right. So if father is equal to Jesus Christ as a person within the Trinity, then there is no point of worshipping someone who is equal to you. Right? Doesn't make sense. So the doctrine of the Trinity by necessity constitutes polytheism, or we call it shake in the Arabic

language. Because if all three persons are part of one being, that these three persons are not each other, the son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son. And if that's the case, then each person has an independent mind and independent will. If that's the case, that's a separate personality.

And that's a separate God with separate thinking, separate minds separate independence. And if that's the case, then that's three gods

put together in allegedly one being, which is impossible. That's that's a paradox, which Christian scholars have been debating for centuries, last 2000 years, and hence, they have declared it a mystery. Mystery,

that 30 seconds if you want or otherwise, that was my response, in response to the response to go all night, otherwise, we're going to be debating the trading teacher, maybe we should, there's a question over there.

Hi,

I just want to make a comment just online at the meta level looking at the debate. And then my question was my real question is, is the so how do you think Christians and Muslims can make sure we have when we die? No. is obviously like that's that's if the back I deal with the Crusades to 1400 years of life, which is great, and we're here not killing each other. It's amazing. We've gotten lawyers. How do you take like Christians and Muslims to have better dialogue about faith with the adjuster will be due to chemical fuel use? Because I think it's like quite often what ends up happening is just speaking past each other. And it's so happening as long as sort of like the

Christian has a certain way of doing

theology, which the Muslim has a way of, and I think MPs traveling around, because it seems to me that from what you're saying, it's all within Islamic faith. So the Quran is the literal word of God and that sentence, and it's, it is sort of like at the core of the of absorb Islamically. Right? You accept further from that. And it's really important that every word of it is from God and informs the geology.

And whereas I guess, for Christian perspective, like some Christians, maybe Rob would not agree with this, but lots of Christians would agree with you and say no, which is why you have Christians who agree that you have the Bible is in my view corrupted because for them your view of adoption revelation is that the revelation of God is Jesus Christ, not the Bible as we have that. And yes, we do all the scholarly work because we want to find out who the real Jesus is. And you can still find that even they still have a critical Scholarship, which applies across like an atheistic view to look at the Bible, you can still kind of come up with some things you can say about Jesus, which are

still quite significant. And we just want to get to know some Christians like you say them. Others books say that the Bible sculptor is very disturbed that because on average revelation is not about the Bible, what it is about Jesus Christ. So it's just like an example of when people speak past each other. And it seems, by sweating on how you guys think about at the practical level, how Christians it was a better dialogue.

I think you very much.

I think it's a common for both of us, we can comment on this. I think the dialogue between Christians and Muslims has never been so good. Historically speaking. I think we're living in a golden age, in that regard, where Christian and Muslim have been debating for the last, let's say 5060 years actively. And the debates have been very civil. They will call them riots. There hasn't been a crusade launched for Jihad launched because of those debates, right? So these debates are very healthy, they should continue. So that we can come close to each other the purpose of these debates is not to spread hate or dislike each other. While that is to appreciate each other. I

actually appreciate Christian devotion towards a common I actually do appreciate it. I admire it. Right. I don't agree with it. I believe it's misguided, but I admire it. Okay. And that dedication in direct directed correctly, can lead to great results.

I'm pretty sure many Christians see

devotion in Muslim similarly. Right? So I think this dialogue is amazing, even though if we seem to be talking past each other, let it continue. Let people watch. Let them listen. And let them decide. Because there are people who are listening. We're talking past each other, but there are people who are listening to both of us, and they might go and research these questions and find different results. So dialogue is always

encouraged, encouraged, and I think it should continue.

Yeah, absolutely. I think So beginning with Microsoft, both. He was very fearful at the party where he wants to say we believe the same God is so we don't disagree and hurt each other. Because that's what he saw. Informed maybe slightly, but I think hopefully we can disagree. One shake friends, he says is our meetings are better understanding their meetings for better quality disagreements, I mean, hope that we can understand one another better live in the same community listen to each other.

I think the way to do that is to talk to open up texts with one another. That's what I found really useful with my footballing friends in Tower Hamlets to compare and contrast. So is the prophets to tease out differences, which is really important, even as we accept crucial similarities as well. I think opening up text, rather having the confidence to do that, and the confidence to ask difficult questions, but in a polite way, not seeking to offend or wind up we both think we're rights. Clearly we both can't be rights. But we can still have you would hope, a reasonable discussion about these kinds of things and our foundations and what it means for us to know God, and when we can, we'd hope

that you guys could do that too. And just open up text, talk to one another. What does this mean? How can I have confidence and what does it mean for my life? And is it is interesting that I want everybody to read Bible, I think it is God's word to us. It shows us who he is what he has done, how we come to know him. I very rarely found listen to people wanting to open up the Koran with me. And I think that's very sad. I wonder if that's something about their faith or something about the Koran thanks and don't want to do it, but I think is a great thing to do.

Let's take another question from the audience here. Where's our

Thank you very much for for coming and speaking with us today. Really appreciate it. I just wanted to ask you about your beautiful art of the Trinitarian concept of Christianity and

And my belief is that my Christian friends also share the same belief as well as the, the idea of the concept of the Trinity goes hand in hand with the belief that Jesus was fully God fully human, as long as he was incarnate God incarnate.

When Jesus was born in the Prophet said that he is he is a manual, sort of God, God with us. And I think that that the idea maybe

can can go hand in hand with the idea of the Trinity as well. And in terms of

Trinity being like a divine divine mystery as well as like something if God is on this sea and all powerful and all knowing, then maybe for our human brains is very complicated to understand the

machinations of of the Trinity and how it works on on meta concepts, and I guess wants to know your thoughts on that?

Again, I've had a debate in Australia on this very important topic is Jesus God, do watch the debate is online with some green, I present all my evidence from the Bible and the Quran, as to why I believe Jesus could not possibly be God. Because of the evidence I presented. I believe this notion of Jesus being God came from pagan Rome. It didn't came from it didn't come from the Jewish people.

Jesus was speaking to the Jewish people. He was a Jewish prophet, or Israelite, to use a more

historically correct term, he was an Israelite prophet, he was not

a profitable Gentiles, which is very clearly stated in the text of the Bible. Okay.

And if that's the case, then the Jewish people did not give you, God man. God man came from the Romans, okay? Or people were directly inspired by the Greek philosophy, the hidden links, the Hellenic philosophy, I don't know if you know much about it.

Many of the Church Fathers who postulated the doctrine of the Trinity, or actually Greek philosophers, many of them, I can name them, and you will be shocked to know that the doctrine of the Trinity was entirely their product. Not Jewish theologians, or Jewish or Israelite sages, or even Jewish Christians, Christians who actually were, were Jewish. Originally, they were following the Mosaic Law and they believe in Jesus Christ as a prophet. They didn't believe him. believe in him as a god. Right. So this notion of the divinity of Jesus Christ could not possibly come from the Israelites, it came from pagan Rome.

And this is a very huge topic. It's a vast topic. And I advise you to read Bart Urban's book when Jesus became God.

That gives you a lot of insights into this topic. So this is not as simple as reading the text of the Bible and reading the Divinity into the text, because there are verses there in that. That argued the exact opposite. That he could not possibly be God. If you're saying Father is greater than I, I can have my own son do nothing. Okay.

He doesn't know the hour. Okay, there is no God. Okay, who is hungry? Who will be nailed to the cross and is crying, oh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is not God. This is a human being who is going through human difficulties. Okay. But then again, it's a very complicated topic that requires a lot of detail which we cannot give in this short circuit.

The first levers, the first followers of Jesus were Jewish people who were following him and as the sun. I think the lady said about that. The previous scriptures talk about a messianic figure, someone in the life of David, who will also lead his people as God places people in zekiel. Prophet Ezekiel 500 years before Jesus, the proper desire, he talks about someone being born again in David's line again, as a Messiah, who will be mighty gods, it's prophecies again, in all the prophets that we have in the book, not just one, but all of them, to show the continuity to show fulfilled and to show who Jesus is and why you came to do. So that whole doctrine of following one

guy whose Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was believed by the first believers and taught throughout inscriptions. And it's interesting just that the title Messiah already blows categories is that who Jesus is, it's not simply a prophet's the Messiah means anointed one saint that a Greek word Christ they

In the same Anointed One, and Jesus is an anointed one, and the prophets, speaking God's words, is an anointed one, as a king ruling for God's people, he's anointed ones of priests bringing people into God's presence. There are three types of anointed ones in the previous scripture. So already, he's more than a prophet. And it's called Son of God. It's called a different ways. The Kings records I've gotten into like that Adam was called a son of God to represent and he's like that Israel is called beside God. And he's like that in close relationship with Gods. But he's more than that. It's the mindset of walking on Earth, doing godlike things that's killing a storm, like

feeding 5000 people out of a boy's lunchbox, white diamond rising again.

Thank you. And here's the next question. The third most popular question, which is what is the evidence for the Quran and being written in a single language? How is the origin point linguistically so certain?

The evidence is overwhelming. And we have,

if not 1000 Hundreds of manuscripts of the Quran from the very lives of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad.

And we can complete the Quran entirely from within the first century when many of his companions are alive. Why do I say companions? These are the people who took the Quran directly from the prophet, and handed down on parchment on vellum on copies. And those copies still remained to this day, we have them distributed in international libraries. Some of them we can find in Britain, one of them is actually the Birmingham parchment that has been carbon dated to come from the life of the provenance of the animal was killed within the life of the prophet, the animal urine because vellum is skin. And carbon dating shows you when the animal was killed. So the text could be later or it

could be at the same time. But my theory on that particular Parchment is that it is worth money. It is not from the life of the prophet it is actually later because the rendition or the ascension, the text that's found in the parchment is with Monica ascension. So we have overwhelming evidence, no serious scholar, no peer reviewed, serious scholar in the world has ever challenged the veracity or the early canonization of the Quran. And those who did they themselves, basically

went back on the theory and they followed the majority. And the majority is very clear on this. And I'm talking about non Muslim scholars who have no agenda to promote the Quran in the Word of God.

I think the Burning Man shoot is interesting in itself as an outset, this is going to read the data has already gotten does and one of the earliest days before his birth simply predates Muhammad, which is interesting. So one of the things around before Mohammed's spec, there is no complete Koran for the first century. No complete, we haven't got one complete text from the seventh century. And that's I find it really interesting because the technology is available to preserve whole books. You've got a whole bible from the fourth century. Why don't we learn a whole Koran? And the seventh century is an interesting question. I think that he's answering. And just to pick up some tiny

Arabic. I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not saying God can't see Arabic. So clearly, I think he can speak every language. I think my issue with the Koran being an Arabic Is it suggests that God only speaks Arabic, and that he's untranslatable. Whereas the God is always translated, always knowable, always relational. And that's why I have a book that is translatable.

Can I quickly? Comment on this very quickly?

Yes, sit there is the whole Bible from the fourth century.

Which one is that kind of sentence because it's not complete, was missing. It's missing the verses of the gospel of Mark, which means and it's from nine to 20. The last verses 16. It is

missing baroque period artery. That's, that's no problem at all because it's missing. Right. But they're not they're not part of the manuscript. It's quite clear. There's not an original and it doesn't have the the Old Testament, the Old Testament is not completed it. But you can see you can claim that it is the earliest Why don't we?

Why don't we have a whole Arabic around the seventh century when the technology is available? Good question.

Do we have a complete Quran from the first century in one copy? For let's say from within 100 years of the Prophet of Islam, that's absolutely not. We don't have one copy of what we do have. We have chunky volumes?

Okay, for example, I can give you example, names you want me to name some of the manuscripts 1/3 of the Quran is with the British Museum. It is called the Hejazi Quran is it is a mild script, it is from the first century, right? 1/3 is there, okay? So I'm going to be slightly impolite here. Now, when our Christian missionary friends use these tactics to deceive the Muslims, that you don't have the complete Quran for the first century, this is a this is this is very incorrect. We do have the complete Quran from the first 100 years, because we have so many copies, so many copies, that we can easily complete the entire Quran in one text, right, and they're so consistent with each other,

there are no differences. But that cannot be said for the for the New Testament accent, the complete the most complete Bible in history, you will be shocked to hear this

is from the 16th century where the complete text of the Old Testament and the New Testament can be found in one manuscript 16th century

in brought silence, take me up on this during the q&a or after the q&a. Take me up a second, please, please. I think that's a crisis reading industry.

So we have two more questions here, which have both been popular, but problematic. So the first is irrelevant to the talk. But can we use some seletti from Robert,

which I leave to you, but when approaching the end? So if you're at the moment is now and the next question, that's a difficult one, how we how can you believe in something you don't have complete certainty about? Good luck with those questions? Is that when we I don't know?

How can we believe in something?

I have absolute certainty that Islam is true. The Quran is from God, God exists, I have no doubt. Absolutely no doubt that there is a Creator. We call Allah and he has to be one.

He alone deserves to be worshipped. He sent prophets. And one of them is Prophet Muhammad, I have absolutely no doubt. In fact,

I am so certain that I can put my life on it. Okay. Right. So I am absolutely certain that Prophet Muhammad was a true prophet of God, and the Quran is revealed by God. So I have no doubts, this conversation because it's technical, we have to sometimes get into technical details, technical details, doesn't mean doubt, or lack of certainty, it means that we are actually justifying our certainty. We're showing you the reasons why we are certain, right? So this doesn't mean lack of certainty. Not at least on my part. Now, I don't know what rah rah can speak for itself.

I am like an unlike utterly convinced that God won't. It's true, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, philosophically, logically. And all the other kind of academic type words, we cannot have 100% certainty for anything, but it's how we deal with those doubts and how we work through them, and what level of certainty we can that is reasonable. So I cannot be certain that this chair is going to hold me up for the next 10 seconds. I can't be absolutely certain something might break because I rock on it. But I still sit on it. I put my faith, my trust in it. Similarly,

I act and put my faith in this book. Because it fulfills itself. It shows me that a god that makes sense of me as relational beings, because God is relational so I can relate to him.

Johnson's let's see, yes, joyful.

An internet search a horse can smell funny enough, whatever where

I went to select 10 years ago with my family to see if anyone understand this

anything

amazing, I'm impressed.

I think it went from profound to then very difficult, like certainty to incomprehensible at the very end.

The moment we should stop I'd like to thank our two speakers very much for their willingness to come in and speak with us.

online and in person, and have a good evening, everyone.

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