Who Was Jesus – Sarah Snyder

Adnan Rashid

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Channel: Adnan Rashid

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Worship for Trinity youth worship one person alone and that was the father, which the Bible is very, very clear about.

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And then hombre de la wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. I'd like to greet you all with the summit greetings of peace. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

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I am the chair today, Hamza Patterson. I'd like to thank you all for attending this discussion as we're here today at the big debates. Also, I'd like to thank you for your patience. Due to some technical technicalities. With the PA system under law, we finally managed to get it up and running. So today's discussion, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, and respected elders is who is Jesus? Now, Jesus, as we know is a very influential figure in history and

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figure that has had a discussion between many people amongst not only the Christians but non Muslims, humanists sacrificing atheists. So who was Jesus?

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How did he live? Is the historical Jesus? Is the biblical narrative true? Does Islam paint the right picture? Well, today we're going to have a detailed discussion on who is Jesus by our fellow panelists, but Adnan Rashid and Sarah Snyder, and nanosheet is

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a historian with a speciality in the history of Islamic civilization,

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comparative religion and Hadith sciences, which are sayings, statements and actions of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.

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He also takes a keen interest in Islamic numismatics, ancient manuscripts and antiques. He has debated many high profile figures in the field of politics, history, theology, and Christianity. He has defended his views success successfully in many prestigious universities, including the University of Warsaw, which is in Poland, and the American University of Beirut, in Lebanon. anon has presented Islam and Muslims represented Islam and Muslim sorry, internationally, appearing on a number of radio and TV platforms. He is presently serving as a city

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at the West London Mosque, where he is presently conducting an intensive course on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. anon believes that Islam is a way of life, which promotes modernity in all of its positive monist stations, and provides particularly realistic solutions for all problems facing mankind. Amnon Rashid currently is a senior researcher and lecturer for our era, the Islamic education and research Academy, which is an organization dedicated to presenting Islam to the wider society.

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Sarah Snyder

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was a BBC television producer and journalist before returning to Cambridge University as a theologian, specializing in Abrahamic religions. She works with the Cambridge interfaith program, and teaches for the wolf Institute for Islamic for Abrahamic faiths and the Cambridge Muslim college. She is currently producing a multimedia series, introducing Christianity to the non Christian world. Following on from understanding Islam, introducing Islam to non Muslims. She is a Christian married with four children, and she will be

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for the for the other side against a nun. Now, the format is that there'll be two

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presentations as you could say, from either side for 20 minutes. And then after that, there'll be a 10 minute response on either side.

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Then we will take some q&a from the audience, and then we'll close. I'm going to ask a nod on my left to start the discussion. So without further ado, Professor Amnon Rashid

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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim

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Al Hamdulillah madona Stein who want to start 010 Billahi min Sheree and fusina. Woman sejahtera Marlene marlina Mija Hello fala mo de la Romain, usually for la de la la Chateau La ilaha illallah wa de la sharika. A shodhana Mohammed Abu rasuluh, a MOBA, la Samira Li Min ash shaytani r rajim Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem Rahim logica for Allah Zina kalu in Allah who will mercy of no Miriam will call mercy who Bani Israel abajo la hora de Valera back home in Houma you Shrek Bella for kaadhal Rama Allahu Allah Hill Jenna Wagner O'Malley dalemain Minh and SAR respected brothers and sisters in Islam dear friends and brothers sisters in humanity as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatu.

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Thank you all for attending this interesting discussion between myself and Sarah Snyder or Schneider, I don't know if I'm pronouncing your name correctly, I am truly privileged to be

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on the same platform with someone like Sarah, who is an academic from

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from the Cambridge University, and she is well versed in her field. And I really appreciate her attendance, especially

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when such a short notice was was given to her. And it is a privilege to see her in a job.

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So today's topic is an interesting topic, indeed, who was Jesus? Or who is Jesus? This is the question, Muslims, Jews, and the Christians have been asking for centuries, one of the bones of contention between the Muslims and the Christians, and the Christians and the Jews, is the personality of Jesus Christ. Who is he? What is his significance as a prophet of God, as a messenger of God, as a supreme agent of God, or as God Himself, as some of the Christians would assert. So his personality is central,

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in the sense that, once we clarify the picture of his reality, once we clarify who really who he really is, then all of these three fates can come together on a common platform. The Jews have a perception of Jesus Christ, the Muslims have a perception based upon the Quran, and so have the Christians based upon the biblical text. And the Christians, they attempt to substantiate the divinity of Jesus Christ, from the Old Testament. And then they also use some of the verses to be found in the New Testament to support this notion of Jesus Christ being God in flesh with capital G. Today, my presentation will be based upon

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the reality of the source material we have, which actually tells us who Jesus Christ is. So how do we know who Jesus is? Did Jesus just appear all of a sudden on the planet Earth and and we got to know him somehow, without any background information? No, Jesus is known to us through many different sources. And those sources are what the first source we refer to,

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is the New Testament, which is what the Christians read as the Word of God, the inspired Word of God, with the Muslims referred to primarily to to the Quran. The Quran is what tells us what Jesus Christ really is, or what he really was, and what he preached, and what was the nature of his message. And we as Muslims, because we believe Koran is the Quran is the word of God. We believe every single word to be found within the Quran, especially with regards to Jesus Christ. And the Christians also believe the same about the Bible, specifically the New Testament, because New Testament actually talks about Jesus Christ in His ministry in his life, and in general terms, his

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biography.

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So how do we know Jesus Christ? How do we get to know him? This is the question how do we establish as to who we really want

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Was he a prophet of God? Was he a messenger of God? Was he a God with small g? Or was he a God with capital G, to be worshipped

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as part of the Trinity? What was he?

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Or was he a messiah as the Muslims claim? Or was he a messenger of God as the Muslims claim? Or was he, someone who had a virgin birth, all of these things are very important, we must establish as to what the reality of these statements are these ideas is. So now we go to the first source material we have with regards to the life of Jesus Christ.

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We know Jesus Christ primarily through the New Testament, about from the teachings to be found in the New Testament. New Testament tells us who he was and how his ministry began. However, the problem with the New Testament is, is that it was written for religious purposes.

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It is seen as a supernatural text, it talks about his miracles, it talks about supernatural things. It talks about Jesus Christ, feeding 5000 people, it talks about him walking on the water, it talks about him being lifted by the devil enjoying the world. It talks about him being God in flesh, in not so many words, if, as the Christians see it, in the Bible, I don't personally believe that the New Testament as it stands today,

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substantiate the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, it does not, in my humble opinion, as we will come to see in due course.

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So the first source material we have for the life of Jesus Christ is the New Testament, can we take it at face value? This the point I will be addressing this is the first contention I will be addressing. The first contention is, can we take the New Testament The first question is, can we take the text of the New Testament at face value? Can we accept it as the Word of God? Can we accept it as the Divine Word as a trustworthy testimony for the life of Jesus Christ? The second point I will be addressing today will be what the historians have to say about Jesus Christ, because the historians are not concerned with the miracles and the supernatural acts attributed Jesus Christ,

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what do they have to say. And then the third contention I will be addressing is that even if we accept the New Testament, at face value, it does not substantiate the the assertions Christians have attributed to Jesus Christ. And the fourth contention I will be addressing is the doctrine of the Quran, seems appears to be accurate in the light of historical evidence we have for the life of Jesus Christ. So we will begin, we have the new testament to tell us who Jesus Christ is. And the Christians always refer to the New Testament as the Word of God.

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When we study the New Testament, and his collection, his canonization and his authentication, we come to realize, based upon scholarly works, that the New Testament was changed many, many, many times.

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The first point is, who chose the New Testament for the Christians? How did the Christians come to realize that this is the word of God? These four gospels in particular, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, and then the epistles of Paul, and then the Epistle of Jude and, and James and all the rest, who gave the Christians, this particular canon, who decided that the Christians will read these particular books as the Word of God. When we study the history of the canonization of the New Testament and its collection, we come to realize that the the reality is far, far more complicated than the Christians would want us to think. For example, the first time the four gospels were

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mentioned together by any Christian author, or any Christian writer, or any Christian preacher, in the history of Christianity was in the year 200. And the person who mentioned the four gospels together, as scripture was Irene is one of the Church Fathers Irenaeus was the first person to mention these four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, as scripture for the Christians. We do not have any evidence prior to Arrhenius. Anyone mentioning these four gospels together, my point is together. The gospels are of course written, the manuscript was being circulated in the Christian world at the time. Many people were reading the gospel of john the Gospel of Matthew, Luke and mark

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and the gospel of Nicodemus and the Gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Mary, the gospel of Judas and the list goes on. 200 documents were attributed to Jesus Christ and his life and his reality and his

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Biography and someone somewhere Some were known as gospels, his words, his deeds. This is what he wanted people to do. One of them is the Gospel of Thomas. Gospel of Thomas, is a very, very interesting

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document. It was found among the Nag Hammadi scriptures. And this particular library or collection of books was found in Egypt, in the 1940s, late 1940s. In Egypt, somewhere buried in sand. And they found the Gospel of Thomas is complete text with the scriptures, and it has 114 sayings of Jesus Christ. Amazingly, this particular gospel,

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the Muslims know what Hadith is right? Put your hands up those of you who know what this is, or this is Yes, okay, thank you. This is the word, the deed, and what prophet confirmed

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as accurate, and this is what we know as Hadees Hadees is the tradition of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, Prophet Muhammad, what he said what he did and what he confirmed, as accurate as Hadees. Okay, likewise, Gospel of Thomas is a collection of hadith of Jesus Christ, His sayings, his deeds and what he confirmed to be accurate. So we have 114 of those sayings in this particular gospel, amazingly, and quite shockingly, we do not find any mention of crucifixion, we do not find anything about atonement, we do not find anything about the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather, to the contrary, what we find in the Gospel of Thomas is the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ. For example, one

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of the things it states that if one wants to see God, if one wants to see God, then find the one who wasn't born of a woman. So in other words, the Gospel of Thomas is asserting that those who are born a woman can never be God. Jesus Christ was, of course born of a woman, married. Then, Gospel of Thomas makes another interesting point, this particular gospel, and amazingly, most authoritative scholars in the field of this particular gospel, those who studied this particular gospel and its origin. They believe that Gospel of Thomas the Gospel of Thomas is earlier than the Synoptic Gospels. The first Gospel to have been written was the Gospel of Mark some time around 60. See the

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year 60 C. And the scholars who study the Gospel of Thomas assert, they believe that this particular gospel was written before the Gospel of Mark some time around 50. See,

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if that's the case, then is earlier than the Synoptic tradition. The tradition we find in the Gospel of Thomas is earlier, and it states that Jesus was asked as to who the disciples should go to when he disappeared. Jesus Christ told the questioner that you must go to James, Peter is not to be found. Peter is not mentioned as the rock in the Gospel of Thomas. So you go to James, once I disappear, you go to Jay, who was James, James was a practicing Jew worshipping in the temple, and was killed by the temple authorities due to his belief in Jesus Christ. And this is what we find in the earliest Christian histories.

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So who chose these gospels? Who canonize them for the Christians? We had 200 other documents. We are told by the leading authorities in the field of the canonization of the biblical text. One of them is Bruce Metzger.

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Are you aware of him?

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Sure, Bruce Metzger is one of the leading authorities in this field. And he wrote a book, specifically dealing with this very topic, the canon of the New Testament. And the book was published in 1987. And of course, the title was the canon of the New Testament. And on the page number 2251. He states, a basic prerequisite for canonicity, was conformity to what was called the rule of faith. That is the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition, recognized as non normative by the church justice under the Old Testament, the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions, but by the agreement of the substance

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of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel's religion. So also under the new covenant, it is clear that the that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative, were judged by the nature of the content. So

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Bruce Metzger is telling us that the writings were judged based upon what the church believed in, not the other way around. In Islam, what do we have our doctrines or creed must be

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conform with the text, not do the other way around, the text shouldn't conform with our doctrines. For example, if a verse of the Quran goes against my doctrine, then I should change my doctrine. And, and and believe something which is in accordance with the verse of the Quran, not the other way around what the Christians are doing in the early centuries, every time they received a document, a gospel, which was attributed to Jesus Christ, they judged it against their doctrine, okay, if it conformed with the doctrine of the Church established doctrine of the Church, then it was accepted, otherwise, it was rejected. It was not the word of God, because it does not conform with what we

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believe in. It should have been the other way around. It should have been the Gospels and the documents, which should have formed the doctrine, not the doctrine, which should have formed the Gospels. So hey, Bruce Metzger is clearly telling us the doctrine form the Gospels, not the other way around. So for this reason, and I don't blame the Christians for doing this, because there were so many documents, so many different

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writings attributed to Jesus Christ, saying so many different things. So the Christians were left with no other choice then to choose

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to, to speculate and have some kind of system to to figure out what may be the Word of God. And it was purely the work of men, men were the people who chose what may be the Word of God, and what may not be the Word of God. Having established this, that the Canon was chosen by men, and they decided what may be the Word of God and what may not be God has nothing to do with it. Then we go to the second point, even if we accept that the gospel of how much time has

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another 10 minutes, okay, makes me feel good. Okay.

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Once we have established how the Canon was chosen, or how the books of the Bible were established to be the Word of God, for first two centuries,

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all different Christians were reading different documents. Even in the third century, all Christians were even reading different documents. Even in the fourth century, Christians were reading different documents attributed to Jesus Christ. And it was in the late fourth century, when Emperor Theodosius in the year 381, he issued laws against those people who are reading any other documents,

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of course, except what the church authorized, so anything other than what church authorized was deemed to be radical, and those people who were found

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possessing these books, they were persecuted and prosecuted at the same time. So this is how the documents came to be known or came to be established as the Word of God. But even if we accept that the documents we have today are the Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, are from God, and they were inspired, and Jesus Himself left statements behind that when I go away when I disappear. Please make sure that you read the gospel of john, please do read the Gospel of Luke, please do read the epistles of Paul, please definitely read the Epistle of Jude.

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If even if we had a statement like that, from Jesus Christ, whereby he stated that these are the books you must read and reject the gospel of Nicodemus, reject the Gospel of Thomas, reject the gospel of Mary, all of these things, read these ones, even if we had a statement like that. Do we have the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke and john today? That's another question. Even if we accept that they were from God. And they were written by those authors, and they were also inspired, do we have the road? This is the question now? We don't we simply do not have what they wrote. And why do I say this? I say this, because

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of what Bruce Metzger, again, is telling us.

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We have 5700 manuscripts in the Greek language today of the New Testament,

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almost 6000. Now,

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due to the recent research, scholars have conducted, and they found some new manuscripts, we have almost 6000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and these are the oldest writings, we have to support the texts we read as the New Testament today.

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And the New Testament, which is there on the table is based upon those manuscripts. There is nothing in that New Testament which is out of those manuscripts. So what do we have in front of us what the scholars do? They put all of these 6000 Greek manuscripts in front of them, and they scrutinize them. Now amazingly, all of them, all of them are different in contents. They don't have the same contents every single verse

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The New Testament is different from the other one in the other manuscript. For example, the interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, which is a Christian source states, it is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscript tradition is wholly uniform. This is

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a shock. This was a shock for me when I read it for the first time.

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When I read this statement, for the first time, I was shocked that how can Christians claim that they have the word of God that don't? And if all manuscripts are different in contents, contents, which one is from Matthew, Mark, Luke and john, forget God for a second, take God out of the picture? Which one is from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john? That's the question. What did they write because Matthew wrote one gospel, one manuscript, so did john so did Luke. And then later on, these manuscripts were copied and changes were made to them by scribes, which one came from Matthew, we don't know, we will never know. We will never get to know that because all 6000 manuscripts the

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extend manuscripts we have, they're all different contents. What is Bruce Metzger say? How was this New Testament then constructed? How do we get this? How do we know that this is from God or not? Bruce Metzger, again tells us in his book, a textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition, page number 11. He states, and please pay attention

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of the approximately 5000 Greek manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament that are known today. No to agree exactly in all particulars. confronted by a mass of conflicting readings, editors must decide editors must decide which variants deserve to be included in the text, and which should be relegated to the apprentice. Although at first, it may seem to be a hopeless task amid so many 1000s of variant readings to sort out those that should be regarded as original

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textual scholars have developed certain generally acknowledged criteria of evaluation, these considerations depend, it will be seen upon probabilities. And sometimes the textual critics must weigh one set of probabilities against another.

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And the list goes on. And Bruce Metzger is giving all the details for that for details, please consult.

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So brothers and sisters, dear friends, Bruce Metzger, is telling us, it is the editors who decide what goes in the Bible. It is not Matthew, Mark, Luke, john, not john. It is the editors who sit down, and they put all the 6000 manuscripts in front of them, and they decide what may be the Word of God, not what is the word of God, what may be the Word of God, because it is based upon probabilities. probabilities do not give you certainty.

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So this is how the Bible is constructed, which is there in front of Sarah, on the table. So having established that even if we accept that, Matthew, Mark, Luke and john were inspired, and what they wrote was authorized by Jesus Christ, and it may be from God, we simply do not have what they wrote. So the text of the New Testament cannot be taken at face value. We simply don't have a choice. I would love to accept the text of the New Testament. These are amazing documents from ancient times. Absolutely. These are fascinating documents. Historically, theologically, there are many moral teachings to be found within the New Testament. But can we accept the New Testament at face value as

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a historical and historical document? authentic document? No, we cannot.

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We cannot. So once we have established that this document, or the collection of documents known as the New Testament cannot be taken at face value. We move on to the church fathers, those who are closer to the time of Jesus Christ. What did they see Jesus asked,

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How did they come to see Jesus?

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Some of the early church fathers such as Justin, Justin was alive in the second century CE II. And Justin, Justin was closer to the time of Jesus Christ than we are. And he read all of these scriptures. How did he understand them? How did he understand them, Justin,

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and now have moved on to the second point I was going to address. So keep that in mind. The first point has been dealt with the sources we have for Jesus Christ from the first century in the second century. Are they trustworthy? I have already established in my humble opinion, they're not trustworthy due to the changes which were made to them, and they were selectively chosen. And the rest of the documents were systematic system systemically destroyed by the church in the latest centuries. So once I have established that I'm moving on to the second point, what does the history tell us? those early church fathers, what they read, how did they understood what

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They read just in writing in the second century, one of the Church Fathers states, the logos is God's offspring and child before all creatures God began in the beginning, a rational power out of himself. So justice is talking about Jesus Christ as the Word of God. And he believed that he was created, he was be gotten. Justin believed he was becoming bigger than there was a beginning for Jesus Christ. And this is exactly what the ariens in the fourth century, they were arguing that if there is a beginning to Jesus Christ, and he simply cannot be God, because God does not have a beginning. He is the first and he's the last. And if he is the first, then Jesus if he was begotten,

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cannot be the first. So we move on to origin. Origin was born in the second century CE II and was alive in the third century CE II. He was one of the alama the classical alama of Christianity. You see, we have in Islam, we have scholars of Islam such as Mr. Mohammed Mohammed, Abu hanifa, Mr. Mallika Shafi found authority, and you have been studied to look upon and the list goes on. We are these classical allamah, explaining what Islam is, and how do we understand our religion in the light of the prophetic tradition and history and, and the language of the time, they understood the Arabic language, likewise, origin who was closer to the time of Jesus Christ, he understood how to

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understand the Greek language and the Greek tradition and the Jewish tradition at the time, origin believed.

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He stated, We are not afraid to speak of it, in one sense as to God's and in another sense, a one God, he's talking about Jesus Christ, okay. He was about us about us.

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Yeah, subordinate? Yeah, that's right. He believed that Jesus Christ was a subordinate being to God Almighty, He was adopted, he was an adoption adoption. And he didn't believe that Jesus Christ was equal to God Almighty, He was adopted by God Almighty. So origin writing in the second and the third century is saying that God Almighty, okay, give me a few minutes to sum it up, please.

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So origin was not a Trinitarian. He was not even a binary terian. He was a Unitarian in the sense that he believed Jesus Christ was was one of the Supreme agents of God, but not God Himself. He was created, he was made and he was subordinate to God, he was adopted by God. And from origin came pamphlets. pamphlets, was a student of origin origin, who inherited the library of origin origin was the most learned man in

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the Christian world at the time. And origin was persecuted, then pamphlets inherited his library, pamphlets was also imprisoned because of being Christian. But these people were Unitarians. They were not trinitarians. Now, pamphlets, he gave his library to a man called Eusebius of Syria, who was present in the Council of Nicea. And he was also a Unitarian. And again, I don't want to go into too many technical technicalities, we can address those technicalities in the in the q&a. And of course, you know, rebuttals. So the early church fathers did not believe did not see Jesus Christ as God.

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And it is very difficult to prove that it's very difficult to prove that, especially when we actually study the primary sources, and the language they were written in, ie, Latin and Greek. early church fathers did not believe most of them did not believe that Jesus Christ was God. So what do the modern scholarship or the modern scholars have to say in this regard?

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James dg done, who is in front of me, he is one of the leading scholars and I'm

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trying to sum up my presentation, and I will talk about the Quran during my rebuttal. or second presentation, James Dunn stated that, and he's one of the leading authorities in the field of

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first century history of Christian Christianity in the first century. He is one of the leading authorities in patristic history, and he is well recognized by all scholars in the world, and he's still alive. And he recently wrote this book, which is very, very interesting. I want you all to go. This is a suggestion to go and read this book did the first Christians worship Jesus Christ, the New Testament evidence James Dunn. In another book, James Dunn stated, The book is titled Jesus remembered on the page number 85, that in the closing decades of the 20th century, the most hopeful advance in life of Jesus research

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was the recognition that the quest must primarily have in view, Jesus, the Jew, and a clearer and firmer grasp of the consequences. What distinguishes this third quest of the historical Jesus is

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The conviction that any attempt to build up a historical picture of Jesus of Nazareth should and must begin from the fact that he was a first century Jew, operating in a first century millio. After all, when so much is historically uncertain, we can surely assume with confidence that Jesus was brought up as a religious Jew, James Digi Don page 85. Jesus remembered, and also in the conclusion of this very book he states. One is that one is that there are some problems, even dangerous in Christian worship, if it is defined to simply as worship of Jesus, for if what has emerged in this inquiry is taken seriously. It soon becomes evident that Christian worship can deteriorate into what

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may be called Jesus Allah tree that is not simply into worship of Jesus, but into a worship that falls short of the worship due to the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I use the term Jesus oratory as in an important sense, parallel or even close to idolatry. As Israel's prophets pointed out, on several occasions, the calamity of the idolatry is that the idol is in effect taken to be the God to be worshipped. So the idol substitutes for for the God takes the place of God. The worship due to God is absorbed by the idol. The danger of Jesus solitary is similar that Jesus has been substituted for God, the worship due to God is absorbed by by Jesus Christ. Jesus is absorbing

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the worship due to God alone. So this is James Digi Dan, who is a Christian. He's not a Muslim, who is a Christian. This is what his conclusion is having studied all the evidence, historical and theological, and all the Gospels and all the documents attributed to Jesus Christ. This is exactly what his conclusion is, and he is not a Muslim. And this was the conclusion of Jewish scholars such as Giza. vermis, is that you cannot read about Jesus Christ without his first century Judaic context, you must read about Jesus, and you must recognize him as a Jewish man, a Jew, who was practicing the Jewish law in the first century. And once you do that, when you come to the Quran,

00:37:13--> 00:37:15

this is exactly what the Quran tells you.

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The final statement, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. And

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the Quran tells us again and again, telling the Muslims that do not ascribe partners to God Almighty, do not ascribe partners to go to MIT. And then this is exactly what the Quran asks the Christians and the Jews to do. So the Quran puts these words in the mouth of Jesus Christ, he apparently allegedly uttered these words. And what did he say? la carte kafir en la? Vina palu in the la cual Merci. memoriam. Allah tells us God Almighty tells us in the Quran, that those who say that Jesus Christ is God Almighty, or blasphemous. Or bla bla streamers. And what did Jesus say? We'll call mercy. Oh, yeah, Bani Israel, o de la hora. B were a bomb. And the Messiah told the

00:38:09--> 00:38:17

people of Israel, he told them, all people of Israel worship one God, your Lord and my Lord, thank you very much for listening was Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.

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Should the first presentation by provide not

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went over slightly to half an hour, so we'll give half an hour for her presentation. And then after, then we'll have to be a bit more time with the time restrictions as

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time permits, we can't go on as we would like to. But without further ado, I'll give sir, the mic for her presentation.

00:38:46--> 00:38:52

Thank you, and thank you for having me. It's a privilege to be here. May God bless the words in my mouth as I speak.

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First of all, I want to just say that I do want to speak today, primarily Well, first and foremost as a Christian, rather than as an academic theologian. That's why I'm here, I believe. So I'm going to be sharing with you my understanding of Jesus from a Christian perspective.

00:39:13--> 00:39:14

Yep, that's fine.

00:39:15--> 00:39:18

One, one, is that better?

00:39:19--> 00:39:32

No, no, that's fine. One question that I just do have in response to my colleagues, presentation there. And one that actually I'm not going to address today, but I'll explain why

00:39:33--> 00:39:59

is, of course, the issue of the Bible as a corrupt book, corrupt scripture. And a question that I've often had and I've still not heard a good answer to. So I'd love to ask this now before I forget, is why it is that God in the Quran, in current talks about the previous scripture and encourages the believers to talk with the people of the book, because that was given at a time, much later.

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When the scripture was there, certainly the Jewish scriptures were there as a full testament, if you like, and the Christian scriptures were circulating, too. So that's, that's a question I'd love to ask for later on. Meanwhile,

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I am not here to prove Jesus identity, because I believe as all of you do, I'm sure only God can do that. But I do want to encourage you to ask questions about him. What kind of Prophet was he? What did he come to do? What did he asked of his followers? On whose authority did he teach? On whose authority? Did he perform miracles? How is the angel mentioned in the Quran relevant? Can the four gospels about Jesus life found in the Bible be trusted? And we've looked at that a little does their portrayal of Jesus agree with the Quranic one? These are all vital questions. But for today, I'm going to assume that the Gospels in the Bible are a reliable source about Jesus. They have been

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accepted as such by the Christian community ever since they were written and assembled. One thing that Christians do believe is that the way in which the books of the New Testament were written, and subsequently assembled by the church leaders, was constantly in the under the guidance of God, that God through His Holy Spirit was guiding those decisions being made. So it's not simply that there were lots of books out there, and only some of them ended up in the Bible. It's that God was continually guiding those people who are making those decisions. So that's a very strong Christian belief.

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Today's primary question is, who was Jesus? Too many folks here in Britain, Jesus is just a swear word. But for both Christians and Muslims, he is clearly far more than that. Firstly, who was he not? He was not God's Son, in the physical sense of God having had sexual relations with Mary. Christians would be just as appalled at that idea as Muslims. Christians think of Jesus as the Son of God, but not in the physical sense of a son, the word wallet, perhaps, in Arabic, instead, it's more the word even, it's referring to the relationship between God and Jesus. When God condemns the idea of him having sons or daughters in the Quran, I believe he's referring to pagan beliefs in

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which the gods often had children together. Likewise, elsewhere in the Quran, he confirmed that he is not three, God, Jesus and Mary. That was a common misunderstanding at the time of the Prophet. The Byzantine church appeared to hold Mary in such high regard that she was almost or possibly was worshipped. God swiftly condemns such views.

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Christianity like Judaism and Islam, affirms absolutely the idea of one God. The confusion arises over the three ways in which Christians understand the one God. Yet God is able to communicate himself physically within this world, as a book, for example, the Arabic Quran, so why not as a human being, if God can speak his word through the pages of a book, why not through the mouth of a man, neither of these methods needs compromise God's oneness, he is and always will be one God.

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At the start of John's Gospel, written about 60 years after Jesus, he does not describe Jesus as created in Mary's womb at a particular moment in time. Instead, he describes Jesus as God's word, who has always been with God throughout all time and beyond. This is what he writes, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only

00:43:50--> 00:44:09

that was written by john in his gospel, john does not think of Jesus It seems as a creature created by God. Rather, he describes him as the very word of God, ie as the revelation of God. Hence, when he becomes flesh, I human, he continues to reveal the heart and mind of God.

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As a Christian, I believe that Jesus was a prophet in that he was sent by God with a message for humans. But I also believe he was more than a prophet. During the three years of his public ministry, Jesus companions, his disciples, were also asking themselves all the time, Who is he,

00:44:29--> 00:45:00

Jesus's disciples were Jewish, and we've heard about the importance of understanding the Jewishness of Jesus, and I thoroughly agree with that. their understanding of God was actually similar to Muslim ideas about God, that God is absolutely one. In that sense, the disciples views about God are very similar to some of the views that you will have here today. At first, therefore, they view Jesus primarily as a religious teacher or rabbi. But as I spent time with him, hearing his teaching, witnessing His miracles.

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And learning from what he said about himself, they began to ask Who is he really?

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I'm going to look at a couple of the reasons for that. Jesus talked primarily about the kingdom of God, the day when God's rule will reign over all the earth. In preparation for this day, Jesus encouraged the people to repent of their sins and turn back to God. For example, in Mark's gospel one, chapter one, verse 15,

00:45:25--> 00:45:41

Jesus's miracles, particularly made the disciples wonder about his identity. For example, on Lake Galilee and a wild storm, Jesus commanded the winds to stop, and they did. The disciples said, What kind of man is this, even the winds and the waves obey Him?

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Jesus miraculously fed a crowd of 5000, when there was no food, that's a miracle also recorded in the Quran. He healed the blind, the Deaf and the lame, and he raised people from the dead. The Quran also refers to some of these miracles. And we asked how can Jesus perform miracles? The Quran is answer in Surah five, verse 110, is that it's by God's permission, possibly the disciples would have thought something similar. They watched Jesus do things that only God the Creator can do? So they asked, how is this man related to God, creator of the universe?

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Jesus also forgave sins. For example, when he healed a paralyzed man, this man's friends were so convinced that Jesus could heal him that they made a hole in the roof of the Crowded House where Jesus was teaching and passed him down. Jesus said to the man, son, Your sins are forgiven.

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The Jewish leaders were shocked, of course, and thought, why does this man talk like that? He's blaspheming, who can forgive sins, but God alone?

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No doubt the disciples to would have thought something similar.

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Jesus taught by his own authority, not by referencing traditional authorities, like the great rabbis. So instead of saying, Rabbi, so and so said, Jesus would often say truly I say to you,

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in fact, his well known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus first quoted, Jewish scripture or traditions, he'd say, you have heard that such and such said, and then he would say, But I say to you, this, so on whose authority was Jesus teaching?

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Jesus claim that one day he will judge the world. For example, in his parable of the sheep and the goats, he said, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory, all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another.

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On what basis could Jesus ever act as Judge on the final day?

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And if Jesus thought of himself as God, why did he never say so?

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The titles Jesus used for himself were all taken from the Jewish scriptures. His favorite, for example, was Son of man. In some verses of the Jewish scripture, which is the Christian Old Testament, this term emphasizes humanity. And Jesus would have been aware of this when he used the term.

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There is also a significant passage in the Old Testament about the dream of a prophet named Daniel. And this is what it said, this is from the Jewish scriptures. In my vision, at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days, and was led into His presence. That's God's, he was given authority, glory and sovereign power. all peoples nations and men of every language worshipped him.

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That's from the book of Daniel chapter seven.

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So this son of man is clearly a human being. And yet he was also accepted right into God's presence, given authority and power, and then worshipped by people of every nation. That would have seemed immensely strange to the Jews. And yet there it is, in their scripture.

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Jesus also described himself as God's son, he always spoke to an off God as his father, and described himself as the son, for example, he told his disciples, all things have been committed to me by my by my father, no one knows the son, except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

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The title Son of God is actually a Jewish title from the Jewish scripture, in which it is often used to refer to the Jewish people whom God calls Israel. For example, when God tells Moses what to say to Pharaoh, he says, This is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son, let my son go so that he may worship me. That's from Exodus four.

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Another example is when God spoke through the prophet Hosea saying, When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my Son

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Son of God is also a title

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In the Jewish Scriptures for their king, who was chosen by God as His representative on Earth. In the Psalms, for example, King David writes, I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, You are my son, today I have become your father.

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In the Gospels, God also called Jesus my son on two very important occasions, both times the language used is the same as that used in the Jewish scriptures to refer to King David.

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For example, when Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan, God's voice spoke from heaven, saying, You are my son, whom I love.

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And when Jesus met with God at the top of the mountain with his two closest disciples at the Transfiguration, Gods said, again, this is my son, whom I love.

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Jews would mostly have understood this phrase in the scriptural sense, as one specially chosen by God to be His representative on Earth, a little like another King David.

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So just to sum up briefly, Jesus does things only God can do, like raising the dead and other miracles, Jesus claims to do things and in Jewish minds, only God can do, for example, forgive sins and judge the world. yet Jesus never says directly, I am God. Instead, he uses titles for himself that are all drawn from the Jewish scriptures.

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The disciples must have been confused. They knew Jesus was a human because they were living, sleeping and eating with him 24 hours a day. But he seemed to be acting on behalf of God, and furthermore, seem to have an intensely close relationship with God.

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So how did all this change the way the disciples thought of Jesus?

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When Jesus and his disciples were on Mount Hermon, and Caesar, I philipe. Jesus asked them, who do people say I am? The disciples replied, some say john the baptist, a prophet, others say Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked, What about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Messiah.

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So what did Peter mean? The Quran also describes Jesus as the Messiah. For example, when the angel announces the birth of Jesus to Mary, Mary alphabets, you rejoice in a word from him whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, he shall be prominent in this world and the next and shall be near to God. That's sort of three. But to understand its use in the gospels, we first need to understand what the title Messiah or Christ meant to the Jews. In the Jewish scriptures, kings and priests were anointed with oil as a public sign that they were set apart for their special work. They were appointed and commissioned by God. In time, the Jews spoke about a hope that one day God himself

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would intervene in the history of his people, by sending a Messiah, who would be a descendent of King David, this Messiah would finally establish God's kingdom on earth.

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So when Peter called Jesus the Messiah, he would have had this concept in mind. He thought of Jesus as the descendant of David, chosen by God, to establish His kingdom on earth.

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Why didn't Jesus ever call himself the Messiah or the Christ? Perhaps because the Jewish leaders of his time had developed a wrong understanding of Messiah, as a political or a military leader. And Jesus understanding of his own role was definitely not that.

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When Jesus was eventually arrested by the Jewish leaders and brought to trial before the chief priests, he was asked, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? And what did Jesus reply? I am, which, by the way, it's a name God gives himself at the burning bush when Moses asks who he is.

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But At his trial, Jesus immediately continues, by describing himself as a son of man, in very similar terms. So that dream of Daniel I described earlier, he was not claiming to be some kind of replacement God, he still affirmed the absolute oneness of the Almighty God.

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So again, how did the disciples understanding of Jesus change? When Jesus was crucified, the disciples were devastated and confused? How could God allow his appointed representative on earth to suffer such a shameful death?

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But then they saw the empty tomb and soon after met face to face with Jesus again, this time risen from the dead. They began to realize this was God's way of vindicating Jesus and affirming him as someone utterly unique.

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So take the disciple Thomas, for example. He was the one who most doubted that Jesus could be alive again after having seen the empty tomb. So what did Thomas say when Jesus stood before him and allowed him to touch the holes in his hands from where he'd been nailed to the cross? He said,

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My Lord and my God.

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So how did the disciples change in their thinking? Remember, their outlook is entirely Jewish. So perhaps they thought something like this. If Jesus is the one through whom God is establishing his kingdom on earth, Jesus must have the authority of a king like King David, in order to be God's representative on Earth. Jesus always referred to God as his father, and spoke of himself as his son. He had an intimately close relationship with God.

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Jesus was able to come storms heal the sick and raise people from the dead. These are miracles that only God can do. Jesus forgave sins, and claim that one day he would judge the world, which made him somehow more than a prophet.

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Jesus was fully human, and yet he did things that only God can do.

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The disciples never rejected their belief in the oneness of God. And yet, as eyewitnesses, they realize that Jesus had a very close connection with God.

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By the time the gospels are written, within decades of Jesus returning to heaven, the disciples and the other early Christians have realized that God's oneness is not necessarily compromised by the idea that he is also physically present in this world. And that's really important that his oneness is not compromised by the fact that he can be physically present in this world. Just seven weeks after Jesus came back from the dead, the disciples experience the arrival of God's Holy Spirit, to enable them to continue the ministry Jesus has begun. That was his record in Acts chapter two, they too were then able to perform miracles and teach in God's name.

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In some way, then God remains one and yet his spirit moves in the world. The disciples and the growing Christian community began to realize the close connection between God the Father, Jesus, the Son, and God's Holy Spirit. All are one God and yet all function in different ways. God's oneness is not compromised in any way.

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The greatest challenge to the early Christians came from areas or areas and Egyptian priests who taught that Jesus was not the eternal Son of God, but was actually created by God in Mary's womb. The church subsequently rejected very strongly this claim their various councils,

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particularly the Council of Nicea, and Charles said on but there are others, too. This was when the church clarified the Christian view of Jesus as both fully human and fully divine. By this point, the church was having to define itself within non Jewish context, in particular, in a world of pagans, and Greek philosophy. Although some of the words developed by the church like Trinity, for example, Trinity, us and Latin, were not used by the disciples, they did not actually represent anything new, I believe, it was just that they were trying to formulate difficult concepts in in a different media.

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So Jesus is son of god refers not to his origin in Mary's womb, and certainly not to the product of a sexual union between God and Mary. Rather, it refers to the relationship Jesus had with his father.

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So I would actually encourage you to read a gospel to find out more about Jesus. Note how many times the Jewish scriptures are referenced. And remember all the time you read that Jesus moved in Jewish circles, his disciples and all those he interacted with had an orthodox understanding of God, that was and is very similar to the Islamic view, firmly and squarely monotheistic. And yet they came to realize that Jesus was more than a prophet.

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John's Gospel says, No one has ever seen God. But God's the one and only who is at the father's side has made him known.

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In writing this, john shows that he believes God, the unseen, eternal, Almighty God has revealed himself and made Himself known to us as Jesus.

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For me as a Christian, Jesus is the clearest possible revelation of God, we could ever have a revelation not as a book, but as a human being like us, his character, his life, his death, and his resurrection, all reveal the character of God, and communicate to us how we should respond. So Jesus did not just bring a message like the prophets, he actually was the message. And what was this message? It's one that reconciles human beings with God, God will judge us one day, and Jesus came to show us how to be those who are saved, not those who are condemned.

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And then I'll end actually with something else that john wrote, in his gospel that you will all have heard many times, probably quoted at you by Christians, but it is relevant and very important in this context, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And that's from john chapter three, verse 16.

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Hopefully, the two presentations by Adnan and Sarah have been informative. What we're going to do now is have a 10 minutes response from each side, from Barbara, Nan and from Sarah. And then we will open up to the panel where they can ask any questions that didn't we'd like to,

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to do to the to the open panel who says the audience, and so they can ask any questions that they're allowed to. But we'll start with a non with 10 minutes response

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10 minutes, GMT or the Pakistani time.

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Okay, thank you very much for listening to Sarah and myself. I was quite fascinated by Sara's presentation, although I've been exposed to that evidence many times in the past. But I have already given my reasons for not accepting that evidence at face value, although it's fascinating, it's beautiful. Some of the teachings of Jesus Christ in the New Testament are amazing, but I cannot accept them in my

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mind, because I am not fully content with the authenticity of the New Testament which I have given, given reasons for serious question as to why we believe that the New Testament or the or the Old Testament for that matter is corrupted or changed. I don't like to use the word corrupted because it's seems very negative, but changed, it was changed. And then the Quran tells us that go and speak to or ask the people of scripture in chapter 10, verse number 94. In the Quran. However, when we study the history of Islam, again, we go to the earliest authorities.

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In Islam, we come to realize that that didn't actually understand that particular verse in this way. There was a purpose, there was a reason why that verse was revealed in the first place, because the prophet of Islam was initially in doubt, in doubt, in doubt, in the sense that when he received the revelation, in the cave of Hara, he was shocked. This was a shock for him, an angel appeared to him all of a sudden, and tells him read Accra, Miss Mira, bacala, the clock reading the name of your Lord. And he says Myrna Bukhari and I have not learned, I cannot read. And then this particular incident, or this event was shocking. He was traumatized. He was terrified, and he went to his wife

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and he asked her to cover him. So he was not too sure what's going on. And then God tells him that if you are in doubt about this revelation, if you think that this revelation is something new or something strange, go to the people of Scripture, they will tell you about Moses, David, Solomon, and Abraham and all these people received revelations before you so it's not something new. So that's what the context of that particular verse is not that you go to the people of Scripture to learn from them, or take authority for them or take religion from them. It doesn't mean that how do we know this? Because if we go to the book of Bukhari, chapter nine, book number 93, Hadith number

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614 614. There is a report narrated by

01:03:25--> 01:04:09

Aveda Levin Abdullah and he states Abdullah bin Abbas radi Allahu anhu, the one of the cousins of the prophet who learned directly from the Prophet he was a direct students of the Prophet Abdullah bin Abbas. He said, all the group of Muslims, how can you ask the people of scriptures about anything while your book which Allah has revealed to you to your prophet contains the most recent news from Allah, and is pure and not distorted? Allah has told you that the people of the Scriptures have changed some of our last books and distorted it and wrote something with their own hands and said, this is from Allah so as to have a minor gain for it won't the knowledge that has come to you

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stop you from asking them? No By Allah, we have never seen a man from asking you about the book of Al Quran which has been revealed to you. So Abdullah bin Abbas was a direct student of the Prophet salallahu Salam who will learn from the prophet and he knew exactly what the verse of the Quran means because he was a scholar in the field of interpreting the Quran. He was the top interpreter of the Quran, among the companions of the Prophet Mohammed. So he knew exactly what every single verse means and what the context is. So he understood that particular verse in this way. Also, the verse he quotes from the Quran is to be found in chapter two verse 79, whereby Allah states God Almighty

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states, although we live in a shutdown rajim Bismillah R Rahman Rahim For ye Lula Zina Yakubu Kitab a big him from Morocco Luna has Amina Angela Lee just through the yester will be someone

01:05:00--> 01:05:15

alila, yesterday, Hassan calida bObi onto those who write books with their own hands, and say these are from God. So this is exactly what he quote from the Quran. So this is what the understanding of the earliest generation of the Muslims

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was, with regards to the biblical text and the Scripture, the scripture of the Jews and the Christians. So that's how they saw it. And that's how we see it today. We believe that the Bible does have some element of truth or truth in it, and also has the word of historian, the poets, and scribes, and there were many changes made. And that's not what I am saying. That's what the scholars are saying the major authorities in the field. Having established that we move on to my basic contention, although Sarah gave a lot of evidence from the Bible, which I will address in due course, very quickly, I still believe I still believe that the Bible, the biblical texts, cannot be

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taken at face value, because it was chosen by people in the second and the third and the fourth century. And it took the Christian centuries to even accept these books as canonical. I'll give you an example. Even as late as the 16th century, Martin Luther, Martin Luther, one of the reformers in the 16th century, did not accept some of the biblical books as canonical, for example, he believed you the, the Epistle of Jude and James, are dubious. He believes the book of Revelation is dubious, it should be thrown out of the Bible, he and he also raised concerns about some other biblical books. So as late as the 16th century, we have Christian scholars authorities, doubting some of the

01:06:46--> 01:06:49

books of which we find in the Bible today.

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So what about the early centuries, early centuries, what were what were much more chaotic than what we found later on? The Christians simply could not make their minds up as to what they should read as the Word of God, because there were so many books attributed to Jesus Christ. So for this reason, those people who chose these four Gospels and epistles of Paul cannot be trusted. Because even if we trust them,

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I believe, I don't know what the Christian I mean, you, you, you're you are you are an evangelical Christian. Right? And you believe Catholics are? Or they have gone astray?

01:07:25--> 01:07:28

You don't? Okay, what do you mean, very quickly, if you can tell me what No.

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Catholics? And if you like, Protestants have slightly different understandings of Scripture.

01:07:37--> 01:07:38

They both

01:07:39--> 01:07:45

followers of Jesus and sure, but do you appreciate their worship of Mary?

01:07:47--> 01:08:24

Okay, this is exactly what I'm these are the points on me. Exactly. Catholics have differences with with the Protestants. And then, again, participants are divided into many different branches. What I'm saying is the people who collected these books for you to read as the Word of God, later on, they themselves had erroneous beliefs. Some of them some of those beliefs you would reject today, you would not because those people actually believed the Council of childhood on you mentioned it. It was established in the Council of childhood on that Mary is the mother of god theater costs. That was one of the findings, and you would reject that, right? She is the mother of God, of course, I

01:08:24--> 01:08:26

mean, the language they use, right?

01:08:27--> 01:08:57

Sure. So this is the point I'm making, that these people who were allegedly or maybe some would put it, put them as heretics are the ones who collected the Bible. So for that reason, we cannot take it at face value. But even if we do, going back to the evidence you used, for example, the gospel of john, one one use, you use the worse, whereby Jesus Christ or sorry, john, john wrote that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God with God. And I want you to

01:08:59--> 01:09:16

consider this. Paul Anderson is, is the leading scholar in the field. He actually wrote a book on the gospel of john the fourth gospel. The book is titled The fourth gospel and the quest for Jesus Christ in the year 2007 is quite recent on page number

01:09:18--> 01:09:22

This one's again I'm finding the right quote making sure that the right quote

01:09:27--> 01:09:27

okay.

01:09:29--> 01:09:59

On page number 32, to 33, Paul and Anderson states in accommodating these major production, perplexities, it may be inferred that our first edition of john was probably produced around or shortly after, etc. And this edition was produced to show that Jesus was the authentic Jewish Messiah, john 2031. Of course, the preaching Ministry of the evangelist continued, however, after his death, this material, john One, two

01:10:00--> 01:10:48

john chapter one, two, from what? From the verse number one to 18. And chapter 615 17. And chapter 21, was added by the redactor. There was another reducto came later on. And this information was added later on in to the gospel of john. JOHN himself, according to Paul Anderson didn't actually write that, in the beginning of the Word the Word was with God and word itself was God. So again, we can find Christian scholars going against some of these notions we can we can substantiate from the New Testament, coming back to how much sorry, one minute okay, my summary. So, what are we left with? If we cannot, if we cannot believe the biblical text, text as at face value cannot take it at

01:10:48--> 01:11:34

face value. And the historians and theologians are the most modern academics are telling us that only thing or only information we have on Jesus is, the only facts we can establish today are that he was a Jewish man living in the first century. And he was a practicing Jew, born to a Jewish family, and he was taken to the temple and he worshiped in the temple. That's all we can establish for certain. That's all, from all the information we have a new thing. So people like James Digi Don are saying this, and this person has studied, he has studied the biblical text and the information around it for 50 years, someone like that is saying that we all that we know about Jesus is this,

01:11:34--> 01:12:08

that he was a Jew, and he was practicing Judaism. This is exactly what the Quran tells us, that he came to the Jews, and he preached a message of reformation to them, all people of Israel, worship one God, my Lord and your Lord, and do not follow your desires do not change the scriptures do not twist the law. All of these things, some of the some of this information we can find in the four gospels, but the Quran is the text, which we can substantiate through powerful evidence to be from God. And once we do that, we can see what Quran tells us about Jesus Christ is accurate. Thank you very much philarmonic.

01:12:12--> 01:12:20

Okay, now 10 minutes response from Sarah, thank you very much for what she said,

01:12:22--> 01:12:27

difficult to know where to go in 10 minutes, that the primary,

01:12:28--> 01:12:40

I suppose the primary message I would want to get across is that there is a difference between academics of the Bible, and between Christians who faithfully read their Bible as the Word of God.

01:12:42--> 01:13:02

I couldn't read my Bible is the Word of God if I thought it was not the word of God. And so, for me, spending a lot of time looking at which bits were edited in and out which bits were excluded, which bits were included in all of those decisions. I have to

01:13:03--> 01:13:13

I have to say to myself, if God is sovereign, he was sovereign over the decisions that were made. Because this was a book that was written in the human realm.

01:13:15--> 01:14:00

The Quran ultimately was written down in the human realm. It was given by God to the Prophet, but it was written down in the human realm, there are always going to be human influences and human errors involved in that process. So as a Christian believer, I trust that God was sovereign over the decisions that were made, and therefore the scripture that we have here, the Bible is actually God's word. I take comfort, I have to say in my reading of the Quran, because it refers so often to Scripture, and I do believe it is referring to God's word in the same way that Muslims believe the Quran is God's word. And very often in the Quran, I read.

01:14:02--> 01:14:28

God's saying, tell them the story of or tell them about or remember when, and all of those are references to the Bible. Those are references to incidents from the Bible. And I find it really hard to believe that God would be pointing those people at that time and subsequently to a scripture that was changed from his word. So the bottom line for me it has to be that the Bible is true and trustworthy.

01:14:30--> 01:14:46

And every discussion I ever have between Islam and Christianity always ends up focusing on can you trust the Bible? And I think probably we could go on for weeks and months and not come to a happy conclusion. We'll we'll all know one day, but that that's my feeling for now.

01:14:48--> 01:14:59

The other thing I was going to say was this book, it caught my eye. I think that churches who hold up banners that say worship Jesus, or Jesus is Lord can often say

01:15:00--> 01:15:26

very misleading to those who don't actually understand the thinking behind that. So personally, I'm not in favor of those kind of banners outside churches, it does give the impression that Christians are worshipping another god, another God called Jesus. And for the average pastor by who doesn't understand the ways in which Christians understand God to have revealed himself as a human being as Jesus,

01:15:27--> 01:15:41

and therefore, it's, therefore a banner like that can compromise the idea that that God is one and I do want to reinforce that Christians the world over believe in one God, we don't believe in three Gods little gods.

01:15:43--> 01:15:45

And going back to your presentation, are we at 10?

01:15:46--> 01:15:57

All right, yeah. Okay. Okay. So going back to two Adnan's presentation, I suppose. My response to the first part, it really is that we have to agree to differ.

01:15:58--> 01:16:13

I respect fully where you're coming from. And, as a historian, I'm not a historian. But as a historian, I can see how difficult it is to trust in a book like this as the Word of God. I suspect if we really went into the historical

01:16:16--> 01:17:01

gatherings of the Quranic texts and various manuscripts, we would also find some anomalies I haven't tried to do that I'm sure some have in terms of the, of the writing of scripts, and the copying process, etc, etc. But I think we need to have our starting point, and then move on from the fact that you accept the Quran as the Word of God. And actually, I also having read the Quran, would find it very hard to stand up and say the Quran is not the word of God. So a lot of my personal wrestling with Islam is is looking at how how it what what the Quran says, and where it does seem to disagree with the Bible? How can I reconcile that with the fact that God is one God, and that he gave in my

01:17:01--> 01:17:06

mind, he gave the Bible of Scripture, and he gave the Quranic scripture.

01:17:07--> 01:17:18

And the second part of your presentation was on the historical sources. And I can only say, you know, I've read all those sources. And I agree with a lot of the findings that you said, so.

01:17:25--> 01:17:37

So they haven't profited since dividends and gentlemen, those are the presentations from either side. Now, it's your turn, to get involved Sharla, you can ask your questions to the panelists.

01:17:38--> 01:17:50

If what you can do is you can direct it. And what I'll do is, I'll pose it as a question and direct it to the panelists who you would like it directed to for the ones that would just like to ask the question, is there anyone now?

01:17:52--> 01:17:54

Yes, thank you very much.

01:17:57--> 01:17:58

I can hear you There we go.

01:18:01--> 01:18:07

interested in this topic, and we can spend hours on this a couple of very important things that you mentioned, one,

01:18:08--> 01:18:09

bring up the dead.

01:18:15--> 01:18:17

If you look at the Old Testament, there are other prophets who have done that.

01:18:19--> 01:18:41

What's much more important, much more fundamental, is the presentation of Jesus the person the human being, as something but he is not because Quran in perspective, assume what you're talking about here is, if I need more control 100 years ago, and press the button, that was a miracle.

01:18:42--> 01:19:05

Today is normally when God brings out miracles, my understanding is what was a miracle 2000 years ago, is no longer a miracle. Today, my doctor deistic lepers. And, again, God Harvey straight woman who's not known men connection.

01:19:06--> 01:19:34

So this is the point I'm trying to make. Because if you look at Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, it's very clear how the genealogy of Jesus is being brought. As you may, I'm sure, as you all know, they expecting Messiah for the Jewish people, not Jewish, that's wrong. House of Israel, just because they hide that title from Lebanon, this is another matter. So important thing is the house of Israel waiting for somebody on the line of David. They refer to Joseph from blind the

01:19:37--> 01:19:39

same again, in

01:19:42--> 01:19:52

and you could follow that it comes to evil son of a son of son of son of Adam, who was the son of God. So again,

01:19:53--> 01:19:59

the point here is how Islam deals with it. It's much more beautiful in my view, this human

01:20:00--> 01:20:14

Imagine God who created the universe. Did he touch manipulate? No, it happened? forces energy. Yeah, just put us just suspend disbelief one minute. And imagine Holly Street.

01:20:15--> 01:20:35

One person sperm, a woman's egg appears in midair, Merage and goes back into the uterus. I'm gonna have to ask you to ask your question, please. This is a clear case of if you read the Gospel of Matthew and Mark, the genealogy of Jesus coming from the line of David, if it happened to be Joseph's,

01:20:36--> 01:20:49

how it merges with Mary, to God's miracle, it's quite possible because God does need to test these things, or he does not need to touch it, so that you can legitimize the Messiah. So that method, in other words,

01:20:51--> 01:20:58

this was the message that we need to pick up, and we can see the relationship. There you are, the first thing

01:20:59--> 01:21:01

is that to me?

01:21:02--> 01:21:11

I'd like to ask you. So the question is really, from Joseph and Mary, how would you reconcile of Jesus being the son of God?

01:21:12--> 01:21:13

Being a normal human?

01:21:15--> 01:21:32

So I think, to sum that up, the question is, if Jesus is a human baby, born of Joseph and of Mary, even by miraculous means of Joseph and of Mary, how can we worship Him? Is that is that the question?

01:21:35--> 01:22:01

Yeah, so. So, again, I would go back to affirming the Christian belief that Jesus is not a human, baby, as other human babies are, that he was born, he was he was, when he existed, first of all, with God, before the world began, he was the word of God before time began.

01:22:02--> 01:22:20

And that, at a moment in time, he did enter this world through the womb of Mary, and the Spirit of God. But that, that that was God revealing himself in, in this world, if you like revealing his word in this world, in human form.

01:22:21--> 01:22:34

So Christians would, in that sense, recognize the divinity of Jesus, as well as the humanity of Jesus. And if Jesus is only human, then Christianity is finished, there's no Christianity.

01:22:37--> 01:22:40

I'm gonna have to stop you there. Well, I'm gonna have to stop it. I'm gonna have to ask

01:22:42--> 01:23:05

Bubba before, but I just like to remind people, if you could just keep your questions precise, you know, 10 seconds short, and then regard to the response, a minute maximum for the speaker to answer the question. And now we've had a question directed at Sarah, can we have a question directed at none would like anyone to ask a

01:23:06--> 01:23:07

question?

01:23:09--> 01:23:10

Yes.

01:23:25--> 01:23:28

Okay, so the question is that,

01:23:29--> 01:23:53

for the sake of the audience, the question is that you don't be believed as empirical evidence to believe in the Bible, so, but why can you not let others believe in the Bible and just let them believe? Sure, thank you for that question. I don't have any problem whatsoever with you believing in the Word of God, or word of men as Word of God,

01:23:55--> 01:24:10

which is the Bible. I don't have a problem with that. Muslims have historically defended Christians to believe in what they want to believe in or what they should what we have examples from the Christian Islamic history where the Muslims allowed the Christians to live

01:24:11--> 01:24:55

according to their own ways, the Christians could farm pigs, the Christians could produce wine for themselves and the Christian lived as the like, in Spain, in the Ottoman world, we have so many historical examples and the Quran actually tells us in chapter two was number two 256 that there is no compulsion in religion. So we will establish a case and this in my entire presentation was based upon the Quranic premise. The Quran tells us, the Bible was changed. And the Quran doesn't even mentioned four Gospels. Quran mentions one gospel. Koran uses the term Injeel to refer to the book of Jesus Christ. And Injeel is one gospel. One book one good news, okay, and when it refers to the

01:24:55--> 01:24:59

books of the Jews, it calls them the Torah, the fire

01:25:00--> 01:25:17

Books are Torah, the law of Moses, Torah, simply in Hebrew language means the law. Okay? Whether there were five books or 10 books or six books doesn't really matter the Quran, amazingly, and shockingly, uses terms which are comprehensive, which cannot be twisted in any other way in jail, the gospel of

01:25:18--> 01:25:52

Jesus, and the Torah, the law of Moses, it doesn't even mention the names of the books, Deuteronomy, number of Leviticus and all of that, it doesn't go into that. So Quran gives comprehensive formulas, which are applicable in all time for all people, and all places, amazingly, so we don't have a problem. Are you worshiping Jesus Christ, if you want to do that, it's up to you. Our job is to clarify the picture. And if you want to do what you want to do, it's your choice. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Can I have another question? directed, sir? Okay.

01:25:56--> 01:25:57

Jesus,

01:26:00--> 01:26:00

God, Son

01:26:02--> 01:26:03

of

01:26:06--> 01:26:08

God so loved the world.

01:26:12--> 01:26:13

In the King James version of

01:26:23--> 01:26:38

so you, so the question is that you don't see Jesus as a physical Son of God. However, a new version of the Bible contains verse he actually says begotten, which denotes sexual acts of God.

01:26:40--> 01:27:11

Yes, thanks. I think that'll be the translation that I used rather than because I didn't use the King James Version. The word be gotten the word be gotten isn't actually in the Greek that the understanding, if you like that, that the use of the word be gotten has actually come into our Creed's, and it's widely used by Christians, but gotten not made, is the expression that Jesus would was be gotten not made. What that phrase is trying to clarify is that Jesus

01:27:12--> 01:27:12

was

01:27:14--> 01:27:49

Jesus was not forgotten, in the sense of about a man and a woman, a human man and a human woman having a sexual act and creating a child that God planted, if you like, God allowed His Holy Spirit to create that child within Mary's womb. So when it says in the creed, but gotten not made, it's trying to untangle that word. Because in that in our English language, we understand there's a physical act, if you like, and it's trying very strongly to clarify to distance itself from that. I don't know if I've explained that very well. But

01:27:51--> 01:27:54

I think that's probably a linguistic thing more than

01:27:55--> 01:27:56

anything else.

01:27:58--> 01:28:00

Question directed to Adnan?

01:28:01--> 01:28:10

Yeah. I mean, the discussion is very exciting, interesting. And as someone else said, it can go on forever. But I mean, to pick up on to

01:28:11--> 01:28:13

correct me if I'm wrong, that

01:28:14--> 01:28:19

something which usually is not spoken about in the in

01:28:21--> 01:29:05

the past is the scholarly fact is that also the Quran was not written down during the prophets lifetime. And it was also the Quran, which is derivative, just like the Gospels, derivative of many other people's views. And the only difference is that the Christians, for whatever reason, have more democratic cynicism in approaching their creed than the Muslims who are of course, more faithful and more religious, and therefore, more stick to the rules and accepted as a word of thought. It wasn't even directly from the Prophet himself.

01:29:07--> 01:29:40

Peace be upon him, I mean, in other words, there is the same problem of the nation. Now. I mean, you can insist that the Quran language in later centuries was not missed about but initially, surely, when they collected the Prophet sayings from his disciples from people who have directly 13 speak, therefore, in that process, surely there was some corruption, and it is untrue to say that it is entirely on corruption.

01:29:43--> 01:29:54

Can I disconnect this committee spirit? Can I have to we are really short on time. So I'm just gonna ask you just to basically sum up what is it that you want to say into a question? The question is, can

01:29:56--> 01:29:57

you think about this

01:30:00--> 01:30:25

It is a historical fact never mentioned by Islamic brothers and sisters. I'm trying to say why the Christians I hear it is it is interesting that it is only us who represented Christianity. The second I mean, it shows you how Christians are totally bored with religious matters. While the rest of you are very interestingly, immensely nicely, religious.

01:30:28--> 01:30:28

So

01:30:31--> 01:30:39

I really do have to because I need to be fair to everyone you see. So if we do have time, I will get back to you. I do promise you, I will get back to you. Yeah. Okay.

01:30:41--> 01:30:44

All right. Is that something that both kind of dress?

01:30:45--> 01:30:46

And none?

01:30:47--> 01:31:27

Yeah, the, the fact is, you know, the Quran is changed. So how could you then still say that it's through the Word of God? And no, thank you for that question. You You mentioned very quickly, I'll try my best to answer this question as short as possible. You said that it's an established scholarly fact. Can you give me one name of a scholar who said that the Quran was changed? One name, just one name, I studied the scholars. I'll give you the names of the scholars who have actually studied the Quran in this text. And as a Muslim, I have to be consistent. And I cannot have double standards, one standard for the Bible and another for the Quran. I have done exactly the same for

01:31:27--> 01:32:06

the Quran, what I did for the Bible. For myself, I went to look scholarship, and I studied scholarship in order to establish whether the biblical text is authentic, and also whether the Quranic text is authentic. When I did that I came to realize I mean, I'll give you references so that you can go and check. There is a book published by the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge companion to the Quran. Okay. And there is an article on the text of the Quran specifically dealing with the question you asked by a woman, a lady called Angelica Neuwirth. She is a German non Muslim scholar. She is a scholar in the field of the Quran and she stated that the Quran as it stands today

01:32:06--> 01:32:45

is exactly what Muhammad transmitted to his companions. Number one, number two, Montgomery Bell sorry Montgomery Ward and Richard Bell, two scholars in the 1970s. He wrote a book title and introduction to the Quran and page number 53. They stated the Quran we have today is essentially automatic. And that the the job done by the companions of Muhammad in transmitting the text of the Quran was amazing. And the Quran we have today is what Muhammad gave to his companions. So these are Christian. I mean, Montgomery Ward and Bell were both Christians. I don't know what Angelica Neuwirth is, she may be an atheist or she may be a Christian. So scholarship, another gentleman I

01:32:45--> 01:33:19

met in person, Michael marks, who is studying one of the biggest collections of the Quran manuscripts in Germany. I asked him this question in person, I took them on the side, I told him forget the historical correctness and political correctness. Put it on the side, tell me what the honest truth is. The manuscripts you have in front of you, is there any Eagle's Nest, there are no shocks, there are no surprises for anyone. He knows the Christians are always I mean, not all Christians, of course, some Christians who are deeply interested in demonizing Islam, for example, people such as Robert Spencer, and there are there are some crazy people running around in America,

01:33:19--> 01:33:49

Pastor Terry Jones and people like that. They're always looking for things to find some kind of information to, you know, demonize Islam or confuse people about Islam. But as far as scholarship is concerned, what you said is not not correct. Also, Aramaic, the Jewish people at the time, mostly living in Jerusalem spoke Aramaic. They didn't speak Hebrew. So what you said about Aramaic is not correct as well the Jews, predominantly they were Aramaic speaking people. Thank you,

01:33:52--> 01:33:53

sir.

01:33:56--> 01:33:56

Speaking Aramaic.

01:34:01--> 01:34:13

Now we do have some questions are written down a lot to ask the questions. But the panel you know, the audience do confess Agusta spoken questions. So I'd have to take from that. Yeah, you've had to handle for a while. So

01:34:16--> 01:34:24

like you saying, Jesus God, okay. of Jesus garden Who? Who He worshipping in the Bible,

01:34:25--> 01:34:39

saying that God is worshiping himself. Would you say that God is all powerful? Would you say that God is has complete authority? Would you say that God is all knowing? How can Jesus and God

01:34:41--> 01:34:59

just one How does this how can how can Jesus God be one, the same when they they have different worlds? Jesus said, as a hair, I judge and and my judgment is not just because of sickness, my own

01:35:00--> 01:35:07

Well, but they will have that powder. Okay, so the different ways that they are one, here's the contradicting.

01:35:08--> 01:35:12

Okay, so Jesus saying, I'm not going by my will, but

01:35:14--> 01:35:18

you're saying the old one, so would you over to the console?

01:35:24--> 01:36:19

So one question I would ask back because I think it is part of this difficult difficulty in understanding the human world and the supernatural world, is how are the words of the Arabic Quran? God's words, when God is is, is is not in the Quran? You know, how does that happen, that there is a separation that can happen of God, that doesn't compromise God being one, it doesn't compromise his unity. So my understanding of Jesus as someone who is praying to his father to Father God, is that at that time, Jesus was both human and divine. And in his humanity, he was having a conversation with God with God. And that conversation was if you like going on within the Godhead,

01:36:20--> 01:36:25

there weren't, there wasn't a splitting of God in order for Jesus to exist and be God.

01:36:26--> 01:36:39

And I know that doesn't make scientific sense, such as a supernatural understanding of Jesus's God. But but the nearest equivalent I can find, I suppose it is this idea of the Arabic Quran and the Word of God.

01:36:42--> 01:36:45

Okay, any questions directed to or not?

01:36:46--> 01:36:47

Yes.

01:37:03--> 01:37:13

Okay, so the question is, what would you say to Christians who believe that Jesus have died in a cross where in fact you do not believe that Jesus started cross, it's not in Islamic

01:37:14--> 01:37:15

belief?

01:37:18--> 01:37:23

I think you're referring to chapter four, verse number 158. Well, where the verses state,

01:37:24--> 01:37:37

Mama Petaluma masala, bumalik, insha, Allah whom he was not killed, he was not crucified. Rather, it was made to appear. So that's what you're referring to is why were the Christians received? Well, the Christians were not deceived.

01:37:38--> 01:37:39

The people who were around at the time

01:37:41--> 01:37:46

someone was crucified, and the story was spread by the Christians initially, okay.

01:37:48--> 01:38:09

Paul, is the person who made a big deal out of it the Atonement of Jesus Christ as as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Okay, this is it was it was made by Paul, this particular doctrine of atonement was emphasized by Paul, and he's the one who spread it. And he's the one who said that if there is no crucifixion,

01:38:10--> 01:38:48

and if there is no resurrection, then there is no Christianity. Okay, so the central message, this is exactly what when I debate some of the Christians or when I have discussions with Christians, when I explained to them that the Bible cannot be trusted, they they turn around and say yes, or what if it cannot be trusted, but we have one central fact. And that fact is that Jesus was crucified and he died for our sins. That's all we need to know. And that's, that's enough for us. But the Quran simply denies that fact. Simply, the Quran says he was not killed, he was not crucified, rather, it appeared to people so okay. Now, the problem is if he was the Messiah, which

01:38:48--> 01:39:14

the Christians and the Jews and the early Jewish Christians accepted, because they were Jews who are Christians, in the sense that they believed in his prophecy, they believed in Jesus Christ, and they accepted him as a prophet, such as AB unites people known as Ammonites. They believe that Jesus Christ was a messenger of God, he was a prophet, and he was not God. He was born of Mary, who was virgin. And there were other astronauts who didn't believe that, of course.

01:39:15--> 01:39:56

And they believe that Paul was an apostate from the law, because Paul in the book of Romans, and in the book of First Timothy, he actually clearly says the law is no longer necessary for the Christians, because Jesus Christ has paid for your sins. So these Jewish Christians, they believe that Jesus Christ, okay, but they did not make a big deal out of this atonement issue. Likewise, the Gospel of Thomas, which is allegedly or some, some scholars assert is earlier than the Synoptic tradition. It doesn't mention the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It does not mention the crucifixion. So what do we do now with these documents, do we? so amazingly, the four gospels are written after

01:39:56--> 01:39:59

the writings of Paul Paul wrote his letters

01:40:00--> 01:40:38

There was a theology formed, based upon Paul Paul's letters. He was writing to the Thessalonians. He's writing to the Corinthians. He's writing to the Romans, he's writing to the Hebrews. And the list goes on, okay? And a theology of Paul was around at the time, his his theology was believed in. So now the gospel writers come later on and Paul died in 60 C. Okay. And the first gospel the Gospel of Mark was written in the 60s, according to the scholarly opinion. Okay, so the gospels are written after the epistles of Paul from gospel, these particular gospels were written to support Paul's doctrine. And the reason why they were accepted as the Word of God by the church, because the church

01:40:38--> 01:41:13

which was, which was examining them was Pauline church, they already adopted Paul's doctrine. So anything which went against Paul's doctrine, or the doctrine of atonement, or the doctrine of crucifixion had to be rejected. The Gospel of Thomas for that reason was not canonical. It doesn't mention atonement. It doesn't mention crucifixion, throw it out. We don't need it. The Gospel of john mentions it the Gospel of Mark, Matthew and Luke mentions it, accept them because they support what Paul said, and this is what the church has come to believe in. So now this is what we will accept as the Word of God. And anything that goes against it, even though it's from even though it

01:41:13--> 01:41:29

may be from Jesus Christ. It has to be rejected because it's not in conformity with the doctrine of the Church. As put by Bruce Metzger, Bruce Metzger clearly stated that the gospels are the documents were accepted based upon the doctrine of the Church and not the other way around. I hope that answers your question.

01:41:31--> 01:41:31

Thank you.

01:41:32--> 01:41:33

Question for Sara.

01:41:38--> 01:41:41

Majority of his presentation was focused on

01:41:42--> 01:41:58

early on in your talk, you sort of dismissed it, and said, Look, let's agree to disagree on this. Let's assume that the Bible is accurate. And majority of your presentation, talk about your personal beliefs about what Jesus means to you, and how he is important to your life. And I'm sure

01:41:59--> 01:42:37

shaped by many Christians as well. I think in this day and age has rational level headed people, it's difficult for us to really believe that our accept that I mean, have you justify discounting all of the biblical criticism, considering its its volume, its its depth, over the many centuries, as saying, Look, just believe that the Bible is okay. And and you know, you believe in you understand what Jesus means, you know, as level headed, rational people today, this is all we have to God, you know, Jesus supposedly came 2000 years ago, he's not here, we don't have these artifacts, his to his bones, or anything like that. He wrote all statements, and so forth. We have

01:42:38--> 01:43:01

scriptural evidence. So for us to decide whether it's true or not the same way we would do with grant with any other scripture, or with any book written about anything, really, we would base it against other evidence, we would test it, we would try and justify whether it's accurate or not. How do you justify discounting that completely insane? Look, just ignore all that and believe this is the concept of Jesus?

01:43:03--> 01:43:06

So the question is, how would you justify,

01:43:08--> 01:43:14

you know, discount in order the evidence that goes against authenticity of the Bible and belief in the Bible?

01:43:15--> 01:43:28

Thank you. I hope the presentation I gave wasn't simply along what I believe it was based on the source material that I, as you rightly said, chose to focus on which was the gospel source material.

01:43:30--> 01:43:49

So to retrack, I, I likewise, have a rational thinker, I've been brought up in the West, I've still in an education system, I'm still teaching, and I have to teach rationally. And I agree with you that it doesn't work in this day and age in the West, to keep trying to

01:43:51--> 01:44:29

try and avoid rational thinking and rational decisions. I do, however, think that we could spend hours and hours discussing the authenticity of the Bible, as over the Quran. And the topic of today is looking at Jesus and I wanted to get away from spending a lot of time giving my reasons I have my reasons. I am not a Christian, just out of a bubble. You know, I've thought it through. I've looked at the evidence, I've weighed up the Islamic evidence. I teach Quranic studies, I've looked a lot at the Quran.

01:44:30--> 01:44:39

I, I suppose I chose not to start giving that kind of evidence, but to home writing on Jesus. And for me,

01:44:40--> 01:45:00

the decision to home in on the biblical gospels, rather than to say, to begin talking about the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Barnabas are all the other gospels that that were out there is because the consensus of the Christian community over throughout history has been to reject those sources.

01:45:00--> 01:45:07

It's as unreliable sources. So I chose to home in on the ones that the majority Christian community have chosen is reliable.

01:45:09--> 01:45:13

Thank you. Question for provide not

01:45:14--> 01:45:16

a question for not Yes.

01:45:19--> 01:45:24

Historian How can you explain the way that

01:45:25--> 01:45:30

Prophet Mohammed had many miracles that he conducted his companions and

01:45:31--> 01:45:44

the fact that the companions did not worship Muhammad, they did not venerate him as much as the companions of Jesus venerated him, and throughout the many decades Afterwards, he became the Son of God.

01:45:46--> 01:45:52

How can you explain the difference the different approaches the companions had? historical

01:45:53--> 01:46:23

Okay, so from historical account, Muhammad, peace be upon he did have a miracles as well as being said with the Quran. How can you compare that with the followers of nowadays Jesus, where they come to worship? Thank you for the question. Historically, we know a lot more about Mohammed than we know about Jesus Christ. This, there is a consensus on this point among the historians. We do not know much about Jesus Christ and the Gospels for the reasons given already,

01:46:24--> 01:46:34

cannot be accepted at face value as historically authentic, trustworthy documents. This is why the historians most historians do not accept the gospel record

01:46:35--> 01:46:44

as authentic and they just treat it as fiction, or religious religious stories made up to to support religion. Likewise,

01:46:45--> 01:47:17

the Quran cannot be accepted. As far as the historians are concerned historians, I'm talking about historians one who are looking at the Quran as a historian not as a Muslim, okay. They cannot accept the Quran at face value to not because it's not authentic, they can establish the Quran the text as it stands today was definitely given by Mohammed salatu salam, there's no doubt about that. Okay? Whether the Quranic miracles, for example, Moses parting the sea, his staff becoming a big snake, or things like Jesus Christ making

01:47:18--> 01:47:21

living birds out of clay, things like these

01:47:22--> 01:48:04

historians cannot accept because they cannot establish the proof. Okay, now the question comes back to the supernatural, the philosophy of miracles, do miracles exist? Does the supernatural exist? This is where the question comes along. This is exactly where we are debating the atheists. Okay. atheists are naturalist, they are empiricists. You must show them empirical evidence for them to believe. And the debate we have against them is that the supernatural definitely exists. And if the supernatural exists, then the miracles also exist, because the miracles are supernatural beyond the capacity, or the producing capacity of man. So historically, we know more about Mohammed than we

01:48:04--> 01:48:12

know about Jesus. And what we can establish about Jesus Christ is that he was a Jew. And he lived in the first century See, and

01:48:13--> 01:48:16

historically, historians are mostly agree

01:48:17--> 01:48:20

are in agreement that he was crucified.

01:48:21--> 01:49:01

This will the historians have to say, of course, we as Muslims reject I mean, a lot of the things in history are based upon the Chronicles written at the time. So the person for example, if we reading about the crusades, and we reading the chronicle of falck of charts, or gay of nausia, or all these people who are writing about the crusades, they our view of crusades is based upon what they wrote, they could have been lying. Okay, so the Quran is exactly telling us that, that Jesus was not crucified, he was not killed, he was not crucified. But earlier sources, for example, the gospels are telling us he was crucified, and then the writings of tacitus.

01:49:03--> 01:49:37

And then we have the writings of Josephus, all of these writings, of course, based upon what the Christians were telling these historians, the Romans, and the Jewish author known as Jesus, he was told what he knows about Jesus Christ by the Christians. So they wrote it down. So the historians think that there is no other we don't have a problem with accepting that he was crucified. But we have a problem with that, because we believe the Quran is the word of God. And why do we believe that that's another topic in itself, we can have another debate on that topic. So historically, we don't know much about Jesus Christ, and we will never know whether his his disciples worshipped him.

01:49:37--> 01:50:00

Even that point is well contested by this authority. James Digi done, he actually argues against that he actually argues what is the word word worship actually means in the first century, you'd like context, worship could mean paying respect, balling to someone paying respect, leaving your spot for someone else to sit down. Okay, this could mean worship in the first century, that context which would

01:50:00--> 01:50:14

mean worship, worshiping God Almighty worshiping someone like you worship God Almighty. So there is there are a lot of academic points which we simply cannot cover in such short amount of time. I have answered your question. Question directed to Sarah.

01:50:17--> 01:50:17

Yes.

01:50:25--> 01:50:26

I just wanted to go back to

01:50:31--> 01:50:32

Jesus was fully

01:50:35--> 01:50:36

that Jesus is

01:50:37--> 01:50:41

God. So as an interesting

01:50:45--> 01:50:52

question. So my question to you, is with this premise that it is fully human.

01:50:54--> 01:50:56

What is human and what is God?

01:50:57--> 01:50:58

I think

01:50:59--> 01:51:00

that God is

01:51:01--> 01:51:01

all powerful.

01:51:04--> 01:51:09

And human beings are extremely opposite. We're needy, we're ignorant.

01:51:10--> 01:51:11

We're not?

01:51:12--> 01:51:16

Like, for instance, like, I say, my water is fully

01:51:18--> 01:51:30

and completely empty. At the same time, what does that mean? It is completely full of water. And then it's completely empty, it has no water. So you basically states that one time does that?

01:51:31--> 01:51:32

How can you?

01:51:36--> 01:51:37

So basically,

01:51:39--> 01:52:08

sisters are just saying that there's a universal principle that something cannot be the opposite. So a dog cannot be a cat, same time. So how can we create to be the creation at the same time? How would you how does that fit into your belief? That's a really good question. And when I said that Jesus was fully human, I also said and fully divine. So so I was stating opposites. In that case, I wouldn't leave it at just fully human. Because that would emphasize the humanity of Jesus more than I would be happy to do.

01:52:09--> 01:52:36

I also wouldn't emphasize I wouldn't say fully divine and leave it at that, because that would ignore the humanity. So we we are faced with a very difficult and mysterious question that says, how can how can Jesus have been two things which in our worlds are opposites? And I suppose I have to say, I don't know the answer to that. I can't explain it. If I could, I'd probably convert everybody. You know.

01:52:37--> 01:52:48

I do, though, believe that Jesus, that, that when Jesus became human, when he took on flesh of a human being, he was still fully God.

01:52:51--> 01:52:59

I don't know how else to say it. But that's, that is that that is the case. I wish there was another example that we we could have

01:53:01--> 01:53:23

that made it easier to understand, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. But, but again, maybe going back to the, the Quranic experience, when you hear the words of the Quran recited in Arabic, the the take on the Word of God, they become the Word of God, God's word.

01:53:24--> 01:53:56

That doesn't mean that God's words are no longer with him, you know, once they've they've hit your ears, if you like, do you see is that that's the only similarity I can say that when Jesus took on human became human to the cat, you took flesh or when God's rather became human, and took on the shape of a human being, he didn't stop being God. So there wasn't a there wasn't at all a case of the bottle being half full and half empty, half full, God half empty Jesus bit.

01:53:57--> 01:54:09

It was that God remained fully God but was able to reveal himself as a human being. I do believe God reveals himself all the time, to us in many different ways.

01:54:11--> 01:54:26

That leads into another very complicated discussion about revelations. So we shouldn't really go down that. But I suppose I finished by saying, I believe God can indeed reveal himself as a human being, and that that never compromised his oneness.

01:54:30--> 01:54:36

We only have really five minutes left, really literally. So if you've got a question for none, then yes, you can ask

01:54:41--> 01:54:43

when he was talking about

01:54:44--> 01:54:48

so my question is, do you not believe?

01:54:52--> 01:54:59

So what is the Islamic view of return? If we if I understand you correctly, you're asking whether our sins can be wiped away.

01:55:00--> 01:55:02

Someone's sacrificed some another

01:55:03--> 01:55:15

good deed. For example, I mean, we were told by the prophet of Islam, that if you do good deeds, they wipe away you wipe away your evil deeds. So for example, if you follow

01:55:18--> 01:55:21

an evil deed, sorry, follow a good deed.

01:55:22--> 01:56:04

Are you if you do a good deed? Yeah, that's right. If you do a bad data and you follow it with a good deed, then your bad deed is simply wiped off as long as it was a minor sin. major sins are only forgiven by repentance, you must repent sincerely to God Almighty, in order for you to be forgiven. And God is merciful. God tells us in the Quran that he is loving, who will dude that he is most loving. So he is the most forgiving being and he's the most loving being okay? He's not love himself. So what what happens is if you commit sins, all sins may be forgiven by God Almighty, all sins, except polytheism, except shirk in Arabic, which actually means in effect, ascribing partners

01:56:04--> 01:56:50

to God Almighty, and this is exactly what Jesus in the Quran condemned, that all you believe all the people of Israel, anyone who ascribe partners with God Almighty will end up in Hellfire will go to hell, because you are committing one of the major sins in the sight of God. So for that reason, Jesus Jesus Allah tree that put as put by James digital, it comes under that category when you worship Jesus Christ and take God the Father out of the picture. And the Holy Spirit is not existed in the first place. In that sense every all the focus is on Jesus Christ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus worship Jesus, that in fact turns it turns into jesus holy tree, which is what digit on condemns.

01:56:52--> 01:56:54

clarify the issue

01:56:56--> 01:56:57

of God Himself,

01:56:58--> 01:57:04

is to ask his worshippers to make by slaughtering land

01:57:05--> 01:57:06

to be a freshman.

01:57:10--> 01:57:16

One point Christianity is Christ when He made

01:57:18--> 01:57:34

sure I'm aware of that. Yes. Okay. Can I? Yeah, very quickly. Your point is valid. And also your point is valid too. Because the biblical Jews, they used to offer a tournament in this in this way, but offering

01:57:35--> 01:58:03

but those of you let me clearly answer those atonements for for individual sins, okay, those people who are actually sacrificing lambs, those atonements for work for them, okay? Here we have an atonement where whereby we have one man or one God, if you don't see him as that God and man, he puts him selves on himself on the cross, and he pays for the sins of everyone, everyone, so all the murderers, all the rapists, and all the All

01:58:05--> 01:58:05

right.

01:58:07--> 01:58:12

I'm afraid it can't really go back and forth, if you would like to have a discussion or debate and it has to be somewhere else other than the platform.

01:58:13--> 01:58:17

Okay, so a non your two minute conclusion. Can you please

01:58:20--> 01:59:02

Bismillah R Rahman R. Rahim. Thank you very much, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to us and paying attention to our words and being patient. At the same time, I would like to thank Sarah, for her valuable time, I really, really appreciate it from the depths of my heart. Thanks for being here. Also, this question is a very important question we should all go away and do some more research, read some necessary works, and look at the subject in an academic way. And we will come to see as to what Jesus Christ was or who he was. And my contention was quite simple, that if we have the documents attributed to Jesus Christ coming from the first and the second of the

01:59:02--> 01:59:11

third century, and they cannot be taken at face value, because there is so much confusion in them, there are seeing so many different things, then we have to look at things historically,

01:59:12--> 01:59:55

with an eye of historian, historian, and once we do that, we come to realize that all we establish is that he was a Jewish man practice Judaism. And he was a Unitarian in the sense that he believed and worshiped the same God, the Israelites are worshipping. How do we know this? In the Gospel of Mark chapter 12, verse 29, a Jewish rabbi comes to him. Now if Jesus was a Trinitarian, or if he himself was divine, then this was the best time for him to preach the doctrine of the Trinity or his own divinity. What did he say? The Jewish rabbi comes to him, asks asks him, Master, what is the first commandment? And what do you say, here, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord. Now this

01:59:55--> 02:00:00

Jewish man has one person in his mind. He doesn't have a

02:00:00--> 02:00:41

Trinity in his mind, the Jews never never worshipped a trinity. How do we know this? Again, in the Gospel of john, the same Bible in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, when he speaks through a Samaritan woman or non Jewish woman, in the chapter four, verse 21 onwards, she tells her that, that salvation is the Jews. Salvation is off the Jews, because they worship the Father in spirit. Okay, that's fine, but who do the work? Who do the Jews worship? How many persons, how many persons three persons or one person, his salvation is from them. So we go to the gospel of john again, chapter eight, verse 54. Do Jesus is speaking to a crowd of Jews, and he tells them, that I do not glorify

02:00:41--> 02:01:04

myself. My father glorifies me, of whom you say is your God. So the Jews are worshipping one person, and that is the Father. So when that Jewish rabbi comes to Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Mark chapter 1229, asking what is the first commandment, and Jesus tells him here, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord. The Jewish man has one person and one God in his mind, and that is the Father.

02:01:05--> 02:01:44

And if that's the Father, what does the Jewish man say? He said, Master, you have spoken the truth, there is no one else. There is no one else beside him. And he's the father, who is one God. And what does Jesus say? He turns around, and he says to him, you are close to the kingdom of God, you're not far. So if Jesus was a Trinitarian, if he was divine in any sense, if he was God, this was the best time to tell him, the Jewish man, that I am God, so his Holy Spirit, so he's the father, all three of us share one being three different distinct persons. Now you worship us all. He didn't do that to that Jewish man. And that Jewish man was not a Christian. He was a Jewish scribe. Thank you very

02:01:44--> 02:01:45

much for Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.

02:01:46--> 02:01:49

Okay. Now, your ultimate conclusion.

02:01:50--> 02:01:54

Thank you, everyone, for your patience and for listening as well.

02:01:55--> 02:02:20

I suppose I'd like to conclude, probably by picking up on this atonement theme, we need another debate really about the theme of atonement, to say that, as a Christian, I do believe along with many others, that not one of us is good enough on our own merit, to make it into heaven, that God will judge each one of us that all of us sin, all of us make mistakes.

02:02:21--> 02:02:50

And all of us turn our back on God at different points in our life. So I believe that adjust God has to punish every one of us, or else he's not just. And that's why I think Jesus needed to die on the cross. Because the only way in which God could punish us justly, is actually by taking the punishment on himself. He couldn't put it on ourselves, or we wouldn't none of us would ever be with him in heaven.

02:02:51--> 02:03:01

The only way he could get around that is to take that punishment on himself. And that's why it's also vital that Jesus is God at that point when he takes the sin on himself.

02:03:03--> 02:03:05

So he made that prayer at that point, because

02:03:06--> 02:03:24

at that moment, God was unable to look on the weight of sin that he bought on himself at that cross. And that is why he disappeared for several days. And then when he was resurrected, he he came back as a different way he came back as a pure man who was God.

02:03:26--> 02:03:28

We call recording, however, as a debate, I told you,

02:03:29--> 02:03:33

so we do have to wrap it up. We do have one minor presentation

02:03:34--> 02:03:34

from

02:03:37--> 02:03:44

right, so just before you go, we'll just finish up the presentation and then which is about three minutes and then we'll wrap it up.

02:03:45--> 02:03:49

Okay, let me introduce Yes, we have a young brother

02:03:50--> 02:04:03

and he has prepared a presentation for us on the Islamic view on Jesus Christ and He will inshallah tala present his presentation and don't have like me and go over your time.

02:04:13--> 02:04:21

Back bad that Israeli said that he wished me Well, you look better. melissani iffco Kohli.

02:04:22--> 02:04:28

I welcome all of you with Islamic greeting. Aslam, Malik rahmatullah wa barakato.

02:04:32--> 02:04:57

My name is Enos, and I'm seven years old. Dear brothers and sisters. The topic today is about what is the position of Prophet Jesus Peace be on him in Islam? Islam is early non Christian faith, which makes it an article of faith to believe in Prophet Jesus piecemeal name. No Muslim is a Muslim faith does not believe in Prophet Jesus.

02:04:59--> 02:04:59

We believe

02:05:00--> 02:05:32

Leave that he was one of the mightiest messengers of Allah subhanaw taala. We believe that he, born miraculously without any male intervention, which many modern day Christians did not believe. We believe that he was the Messiah, translated Christ, please believe. We believe that he gave light to the dead with God's permission. We believe that he is born blind and the lepers with God's permission.

02:05:34--> 02:05:35

As Allah says in Surah

02:05:36--> 02:05:43

Nisa, chapter four, verse 1562, and five v kauflin.

02:05:46--> 02:05:48

idema Bocconi.

02:05:51--> 02:05:52

A similar Miriam

02:05:55--> 02:05:57

woman my selaku

02:06:00--> 02:06:01

levinas

02:06:03--> 02:06:06

Luffy shikimic, malami

02:06:09--> 02:06:12

lujah, Bina by rafaello.

02:06:13--> 02:06:47

Okay, can Alo as Ethan hakima and we are for their disbelief, and they sing against Mary peacebuilder a great cylinder and for dancing that indeed, we have killed the mercy, Jesus and Mary Lucy, messenger of Allah, but they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but another was matrix him or him to them, and did does he differ or inductive about it, they have no knowledge of it, except in the form of exemption.

02:06:48--> 02:06:56

And they did not give him for second rather, and arrest him to himself and Alex Martin wise.

02:06:57--> 02:06:59

And as soon

02:07:00--> 02:07:01

as

02:07:02--> 02:07:04

it was 59

02:07:06--> 02:07:09

down the line, committee, Adam.

02:07:12--> 02:07:13

Hello,

02:07:14--> 02:07:14

good.

02:07:16--> 02:07:21

Indeed, the example of Jesus instead of Allah, it seemed like Adam, that

02:07:22--> 02:07:25

he does, and he said to be and D was

02:07:27--> 02:07:27

dead,

02:07:29--> 02:07:44

and they are disbelievers. He see a lot is Christ, the son of Mary. And Jesus never claimed divinity or never says, I am good and worship me. In fact, if you read the Quran, Allah says in Surah

02:07:45--> 02:07:47

chapter five, verse

02:07:49--> 02:07:53

11, Allah will miss you.

02:07:55--> 02:07:57

Miss you yapanese

02:08:01--> 02:08:05

for a book come in, No, me You should be let

02:08:07--> 02:08:07

Jen

02:08:10--> 02:08:25

Amina, no, sir, surely they have this belief. We say, Allah is a mercy Jesus sent very to me. But the message is, is Jesus said, children of Israel in worship Allah, my lord in your Lord,

02:08:26--> 02:08:37

which sets up partners in worship with Allah that Allah is forbidden by them and the fire will be out of hand for designing and wrongdoers, there are no

02:08:43--> 02:08:45

chapter five verse 73.

02:08:47--> 02:08:49

In Allah says,

02:08:51--> 02:08:53

Elaine Illa Illa

02:08:54--> 02:08:59

when lamento yo boo Luna, DMS Cena Lavina

02:09:01--> 02:09:02

other banally

02:09:03--> 02:09:11

I surely disbelievers are this is it is a third of the three in at&t, but there is no God.

02:09:12--> 02:09:17

We worship but one God Allah, that if this is not from what they see

02:09:19--> 02:09:21

on the disbelieves among them,

02:09:22--> 02:09:27

if you read the Bible, Jesus said in God's love john, chapter three.

02:09:29--> 02:09:40

I cannot make myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge and my judgment just because I seek not my word my father just sent me if someone says

02:09:42--> 02:09:46

with the will of my Father, he's a Muslim. Jesus peace. Your name was a Muslim.

02:09:50--> 02:09:51

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