Ali Ataie – Jesus for Muslims How Does Islam View the Person of Jesus Christ
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the confusion surrounding Paul's gospel community and the theory that he cannot forgive anyone unless somebody dies. They also discuss the importance of Christian understanding of God and the theory that Paul's gospel community is a hybrid religion based on priority. The discussion also touches on the theory that Paul's gospel community is a false version of Judaism and is not linked to any other Christian community. The speakers provide videos on the Bible and the Bible through a Muslim lens and encourage people to stay strong in faith and study.
AI: Summary ©
So,
the topic today is, is Jesus, peace be
upon him, God? This is a very big
topic, obviously.
Is there support for the Christian belief in
the Bible even
if he's God?
The Quran is very clear about this issue,
as you know.
The Quran,
is is unambiguous
in in its,
assessment of Christian doctrine.
In Surah number 5, ayah number 17,
the Quran tells us
Right? That it is a statement of those
who disbelieve. It is a statement of those
who blaspheme.
Right? Who say that Allah
that God, glorified and exalted as he, is
the Messiah, is Risa alaihi salam.
And maybe a lot of people don't know
this. A lot of Christians were not familiar
or whatever.
Atheists or agnostic or Jews don't know this,
but
Muslims believe that Jesus
is the Messiah. Right? He's al Masih. Now
that doesn't mean,
what it means in Christianity, and we can
maybe talk about that,
as well maybe in future shows, but that's
also an important important topic
related to Islamic Christology.
But the point of today is, what does
the Bible say about the divinity of the
so the so called divinity
of Jesus, the Messiah. So the Quran is
clear that Jesus is not God. Okay? Jesus
is not divine in any way.
No human being is divine. Muslims don't believe
in
the incarnation,
right, of the logos or the Son of
God.
Muslims don't believe that God,
you know, essentially killed himself,
for the sins of humanity.
All of these things are absolutely
repudiated in the Quran.
No human being is God. No prophet. It's
not just, you know, Isa, alayhis salam. The
prophet Ibrahim alaihi salam is not God. He's
a servant of God.
The prophet Nuhaday Salam, the prophet Musa alaihi
salam, the prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi Salam is
a servant of God. Now he's the greatest
creation. The prophet salallahu alaihi Salam is the
greatest of creation, but he's still created. He's
from the Mahlooqat.
Okay? But Allah
is the Khalip. He is the creator.
Okay? And the creator does not come and
dwell within his,
creation.
Okay?
So so that has to be made very,
very clear. When we say that
Right? There is no god, there is no
deity, there's nothing worthy of worship except Allah
But who is Allah He is the God
of Risa, alaihis salam.
Okay. So in the Quran, Risa, alaihis salam
is quoted as saying
Right? Indeed, Allah, which is
you know, Allah is the Arabic name for
God.
Okay?
And Arabic is a Semitic language. All of
the Semitic languages,
the word for God in all of the
Semitic languages
is some variation
of al, alif, lam, or alif, lamed.
So like in the Hebrew bible, you find
el or elohim.
Right? In in Aramaic, you find Allah.
In Arabic, you find Elah. You find Allah.
Right? So this is the name of God
in Arabic. This is the God of Abraham.
So Isa, alayhis salam, according to the Quran
says, indeed, Allah is my lord and your
lord. Worship him. This is the straight path.
Okay?
And, of course, the Quran says,
Say he is God,
the one and only.
Okay? He is Ahad.
So this is very important too that God
is 1.
Right?
And the Quran here is confirming because the
Quran says that it's a musadhiq.
To some degree,
the Quran is confirming
primarily the theology
of the Torah of Musa, alaihis salam. Right?
So the Akham can change over time
because the Akham,
have to,
they have to sort of be updated according
to the society as it were. Right?
So it's a progressive revelation in that sense.
But theology cannot change because theology
is based on God, and God is immutable.
Allah cannot change.
Right? Allah is the same. Allah is pre
eternal and eternal.
Okay?
So what you might have is a sort
of a a sharper or more refined,
way of speaking about god, but god cannot
fundamentally
change. Only your understandings of god of god
changes.
So in the Torah then, in Deuteronomy
chapter 6 verse 4,
right,
what do we find? We find the famous
Shema,
that Shema Israel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, Hear
O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord
is Echad. And the word in Hebrew
in Deuteronomy,
right, the 5th book of the Torah as
it exists today,
that word is echad, and echad means 1.
Okay? Now interestingly,
in the gospel of Mark,
Isa alaihi salam, according to Mark,
he actually quotes
the Shema,
or here or Israel. The Lord our God,
the Lord is 1.
Okay? So if if if Jesus, peace be
upon him, if Isa, alaihis salam,
was sent by God, essentially, himself,
to teach the trinity,
then why is he quoting the Shema here
without any type of caveat, without, you know,
God is 1. Okay. But
he's also 3. There's nothing like that from
him. He stops. God is 1. And then
what does he do? He keeps quoting Deuteronomy.
And you shall love the lord thy god
with thy heart, soul, and strength, and love
your neighbor as yourself. He's quoting the Torah.
The Quran says that Isa alaihi salam said,
Musa'di athalimabeina yadayamina
Torah, that Isa alaihi salam. He's confirming
the feel the theological
aspect
of the Torah. If he was sent by
God, again, essentially sent by himself. Right? That's
the trinity.
That the father is a different person, but
it is the essential same being
as God.
If he was sent here by his father
to teach the trinity, then why is he
not teaching the trinity?
Why isn't he teaching that he's going to
die,
for the sins of humanity?
These ideas now, Christians will sort of point
to certain things in the gospel. And so
Jesus is is teaching, you know, that he's
going to die for your sins over here.
But this doesn't make sense historically.
Okay?
So we have to be, we have to
be discerning when it comes to the 4
gospels
from a historical standpoint.
If you ask Christians where does Jesus claim
to be God in the 4 gospels,
there it's it's nowhere clear, first of all.
I wanna make that very clear. Nowhere in
any gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or
John, does does Isa, alaihis salam, according to
these books, ever claim,
to be God in a very clear unambiguous
way.
Okay?
But Christians, they still point to certain things
and say, oh, he's claiming to be but
where where are these things?
Nine times out of 10, they're in the
gospel of John,
right, the 4th gospel. The gospel of John,
according to consensus of historians, was written around
90,
of the common era by an anonymous person.
And, you know, in the gospel of John,
Jesus says, for example, the father and I
are 1.
Now there's a way of understanding that statement
from a Unitarian
way. But Christians say, no. No. Here he's
claiming to be God. The father and I
are 1. So this is a divine claim
according to the Christians.
Right?
Okay. Let's humor the Christian. Let's okay. He's
claiming to be God here. Here. Jesus is
claiming to be God in John 10:30. The
father and I are 1.
The gospel of John was written in 90
or 95, maybe a 100 of the common
era, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all Christians
agree, Matthew, Mark, and Luke was written before
John.
So Matthew, who's supposed to be a disciple
of Jesus,
and Mark, who's supposed to be a student
of Peter, who's a disciple of Jesus,
and Luke, who's supposed to be Paul's traveling
buddy.
Right?
Why didn't they record this statement, John 10:30,
the father and I are 1?
If Jesus is walking around claiming to be
God,
and John,
you know, is the only one that picks
these claims up, why didn't Matthew record that
statement?
Luke says at the beginning of his gospel
that he has a perfect understanding of Jesus.
This is what he says. Read the beginning
of Luke's gospel. It's called the preamble.
Right? He says, having perfect understanding of these
things, I decided to write an orderly account
to you. Oh, your excellency, Theophilus. See, the
gospel of Luke is actually a letter that
he's writing because a man named Theophilus,
and he claims to have a perfect understanding.
Yet Luke, 100%
of these divine claims
that Jesus makes in John's gospel, Luke does
not record.
So what does that tell you? Neither does
Matthew or Mark.
So what does that tell you? Either Matthew,
Mark, and Luke heard
Jesus heard that Jesus had made these statements.
They heard that Jesus had made these statements,
but they rejected them.
Okay? Or they knew that Jesus made these
statements, but for some reason, they didn't record
them, which makes them terrible recorders.
If if you want to convince someone that's
that a man was God and he's making
divine claims, but you don't record them, then
what are you doing?
How can you have a perfect under are
these inspired words of God?
That's that's that's horrible journalism.
Okay? So
so this is what the Quran is doing
then, just to wrap up this,
this, the opening comments here, is that the
Quran is restoring the true theology.
So you have Jewish theology, which believes in
the Tawhid of God. Okay? Now Judaism obviously
has some problems,
but they got their essential theology correct. God
is 1. Right?
The Christians come along, and
they give sort of lip service to the
oneness of God, but they say to the
trinity. So then the Quran is revealed,
right, to restore the true theology.
God is
The Quran here is confirming what? Deuteronomy 64,
Mark 1229.
But then the Quran continues,
Allahu Samad
The Quran is clarifying.
Right?
God does not did not beget
nor was he begotten.
Right? God did not generate
another person who was essentially equal to him
nor was he generated
from another person essentially equal to him. So
this this verse,
this short surah of 4 ayaat
called Ikhlas in the Quran, so that's a
Tawhid.
It's called Al Asas. There's different names of
this surah. The prophet
he said, he call it.
This Surah in 4 verses
confirms Jewish theology,
the Tawhid of God, and repudiates
the trinity, this divine sonship idea.
Chapter
0976.
Yes.
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So we're here to serve our community. We're
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3609,
76.
What's very interesting is a lot of times
Christians,
they just assume that what's written in the
4 Gospels
are the words of Jesus. It's just an
assumption
that they make. But we have to ask
the question, where do these 4 gospels actually
come from? Who wrote these 4 gospels?
You know, in in the in the gospels,
it says that Jesus would go to a
certain place, and he would teach the gospel.
Right? He would teach the Injude. So, what
is he teaching?
Does he does he have, you know, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John with him when he's
teaching the gospel? No. He doesn't. Those things
were written after. I mean, you're reading this
in Matthew that Jesus would go somewhere and
teach the gospel. He certainly doesn't have the
gospel of Matthew with him. Nobody believes that
he had Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
with him. So what is he actually teaching?
He's teaching
the the the actual message that he's receiving,
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So
so c s Lewis, he had this interesting
way of, he was a Christian philosopher,
this interesting way of dealing with,
or con trying to convert people. He would
say, look, Jesus was either a liar,
the Lord,
or a lunatic.
Right?
Because he is taking it,
as
as fact that that whatever the New Testament
says
is accurate. Whatever
the gospel say Jesus said
is accurate. That's his premise.
Okay? So in the gospels,
Jesus is claiming to be God according to
CS Lewis. Right? So he wants to sort
of pigeonhole us into a corner and say,
look. This is what Jesus said. He claimed
to be God. So is he lying? Is
he a liar?
Okay.
So maybe he's a liar. Oh oh, and
maybe he's a lunatic. Okay. So I think
we got a We got a Oh, okay.
I
have a quick question regarding,
Christianity.
My question is,
do Christians, they believe in a triune God,
a Trinity, a Hamahusian
Godhead. What does the Quran and, Muslim, theologians
and exonists have to say refuting this point?
So that's my question. Alright. Thank you very
much. Thanks for your we're gonna answer you
pretty soon, Insha'Allah.
Good. Thank you so much. Yes, sir.
Very good question. Very educated question. I like
this question.
And I'll I'll explain the the terminology that
was used by the caller,
inshallah.
But just to go back to what I
was saying before is that Christians, like c
s Lewis, they assume that the 4 gospels
accurately,
record the words of the historical Jesus
and that Jesus actually claimed to be God.
So you have three choices, they say. He's
either lying when he claimed to be God,
or he's a lunatic because a lot of
people that are out of their mind, they're
they claim to be God, or he's the
Lord. Right? But from a Muslim perspective,
it's none of the above. He wasn't a
liar. Arud Billahi. He's a prophet of God,
mentioned in the Quran, and Muslims love him
as a prophet of God. He's
He's he's not much known. He's not a
lunatic.
Right? A lot of people that were prophets,
they were called
insane by by their people, by the by
the Kafirun.
And he's certainly not lord,
because he was a human being,
and Christians who worship Jesus
are in 100%
breach
of the theology that was taught by Musa
alayhis salam.
Okay? It is it is totally
antithetical. I mean, it destroys
the theological basis
of of Judaism. It's kind of a weird
contradiction,
in Christianity. Christians will always say,
oh, you know, our belief is grounded in
the Old Testament.
Tanakh, grounded in the Tanakh.
Right? Jesus was a Jewish rabbi.
Right? So, you know, Judaism
is our mother
religion, and Christianity is sort of this natural
or organic
sort of,
child of of Judaism.
Right? But then you can ask these same
people who are saying this,
why why did the Jews pick up stones
in John chapter 8
to to stone Jesus?
Maybe they didn't like what he was saying.
And they said, no. No. No. Jesus here
is claiming to be God.
So you can't have it both way. Is
is the basis of your religion Judaism?
Because if that's true, then Jesus would not
claim to be God. There's a big contradiction
here. You can't have your cake and eat
it too.
Okay? Either it's either you're wrong and Jesus
is,
is in that prophetic line that goes back
to Moses.
Okay?
Or this is a completely different theology. But
don't tell me you're you're grounded in the
Old Testament. You're grounded in the Tanakh.
You're grounded in the the theology of of
Bani Israel.
Right? The Jews don't believe in the trinity.
They don't believe God became a man. They
don't believe God died for your sins. They
don't believe God has a literal son. None
of these things
none of these things are found in Judaism.
These are things that Christian theologians,
have invented.
So the caller has an interesting question
about Christianity.
Christians worship a triune god.
That means sort of a god that has
3 aspects.
The the term that Christians use, 3 persons
of god, but one essence of god,
this kind of same
substance. Right? So all three persons share one
being.
Right? So what what do what does the
Quran
what do Muslim theologians have to say about
this? There's no basis for such a belief.
Okay? This belief,
really comes from
the the Greek philosophers
of the 1st and second century that converted
to Christianity.
A lot of these beliefs actually come from
from from Greek philosophy.
Okay?
So this idea of, you know, the logos,
you know, the the one, the perfect level
of being
begets a son.
You know, this son is called the logos
or the firstborn son of God. These things
predate Christianity.
Philo of Alexandria, who's a Jewish philosopher, who
was highly influenced by by Greek metaphysics, was
talking about these things even before,
Christianity.
Okay? So so what happened was the early
Christians who believed in Paul's gospel,
right, they began to apply these concepts,
these Greek concepts, not Jewish concepts,
these Greek concepts to their understanding
of the gospel of Jesus. That is Paul's
gospel. So now you have vicarious atonement, you
know, God coming down
or God sending his son
as a savior to come down into human
flesh and kill himself
for the sins of humanity. This is not
a Jewish idea. This is antithetical to Jew
Judaism. Human sacrifice
is completely
contradictory, is is totally condemned in the Old
Testament, human sacrifice.
Okay? But this is the basis of Christianity.
Where does this come from? This doesn't come
from Judaism.
It comes from the paganism. It comes from
these mystery religions that were so prevalent
in that area around the Mediterranean. This is
where the early Hellenistic or Paul line Christians
took this belief,
from.
So the Quran is telling us
Don't say 3. And notice here, it doesn't
say trinity. It says 3
because some Christians believe in the trinity, 3
persons. Some Christians used to say that there's
3 gods. They were tritheistic.
There's this idea of, you know, that there's
1 god, but 3 sort of particulars.
Anything to do with 3, just let it
go, the Quran.
God is 1. God is 1. Okay? If
God wanted to if God was 3, then,
you know, why is he so sort of,
you know, shy about
about telling us that there's a trinity in
the old or new testaments?
Yeah. It's a very good question. So the
trinity, you have to understand, we have to
do some,
we have to do some studies in history.
It's very, very important to study history.
And,
in in our tradition, in the Islamic tradition,
one should not accept any type of credal
statement or theology
uncritically.
It's actually
impermissible to do that. Right? This is called
theological
taqleed in Arabic. In other words, I believe
in this because somebody told me to believe
in it. And if I ask you, well,
why do you believe in it? You say,
I don't know. I just he said believe
in, I believe in it. Right? No. You
have to be able explain why do you
believe in something. Right? You shouldn't blindly follow
any type of creedal statement. So I think
the vast majority of of of Christians, if
you ask them, why do you believe in
the trinity?
They would say, extinct instinctively,
well, it's it happens to be in the
Bible. Right?
And and so we'd ask them, well, where
is it in the Bible? Give me, you
know, give me the book, chapter, and verse.
Where is it where does it talk about
the explicit
doctrine of the trinity?
And they say, oh, over here, Jesus is
called the son, and then he refers to
someone called the father. And then at the
baptism, there's something called the Holy Spirit. Well,
those are just, you know,
three names of different entities that that's not
the doctrine of the Trinity. Those are actually,
Hebrew terms. Like in the Old Testament,
the Jews,
metaphorically figurative
figuratively refer to,
God as the father. Right? This is majaz.
It's in Arabic. It's called figurative language.
Right? It's not meant to be literal. And
then if you look in the Old Testament,
you know,
God says to King David, you are my
son, not his literal son. This is a
term of endearment. Again, this is this is,
figurative. It's majaz. It's takrini.
It's it's for honor, for honoring the servant.
Right? And if you look in the Old
Testament, you have something called Ruach Chodesh,
a spirit of holiness.
So these are Jewish concepts. But what I'm
asking is the doctrine of the trinity
that father, son, holy spirit are essentially the
same being,
but 3 different persons.
There is no such verse. There is no
such teaching anywhere.
So Christians, they they have to really stop,
accepting these things uncritically. Where does this come
from? The trinity did not become
official official church doctrine
until 3.81
of the common era.
Okay? That was the 2nd ecumenical council. So
the 1st ecumenical council again, do some research
on this. The Council of Nicaea,
324 of the Common Era. Cons as you
mentioned, Constantine,
the first Christian emperor, presided over this council,
and they voted. Right? It's a very democratic
process.
Right? Let's vote. Is Jesus
you know, is he equal to God, or
is he not equal to God? That was
the debate. Okay? This is what they're going
to vote on. So 300 years after
the ascension of Isa, alaihis salam, you have
a bunch of Christian bishops
sitting in a room in Turkey,
okay, Christian bishops,
voting on whether Jesus was God or not.
Okay. So if the scripture was clear that
he's God, then why are they having this
debate 300 years later?
Right? Obviously, the scripture is not clear about
this.
Right? That's why you have different Christian denominations.
So at Nicea, they voted,
and lo and behold,
at the end of the debate, Athanasius
won the debate.
Arius lost the debate. And, you know,
the son of God officially became
God the Son,
right, by vote. But then what about the
Holy Spirit? Because the Council of Nicea did
not deal with the Holy Spirit. That wasn't
until 3.81. So now you have
350
years after
the Ascension of Isa,
where the Christian bishops voted again at the
Council of Constantinople
and 381 of the Common Era, and they
came to the conclusion, oh, of course, indeed,
the Holy Spirit is also God.
Okay? But it's not 3 gods, it's 1
God. This is what they say. We believe
in the father, son, holy spirit. The father
is a person, the son is a person,
the holy spirit is a person, but there
are not 3 persons as one person, and
not 3 gods is one god.
Why why did why are they going why
are they going there? Why do you even
go there? Right?
So the problem is that the text is
not clear. You have, basically,
the early Christian movement, which was a Jewish
sect,
okay,
of believers and Jesus that were hijacked by
Paul, the Paul line Nazarenes,
and then they were influenced by,
Greco Roman metaphysics,
and and different beliefs that were outside of
Judaism.
Okay?
So
these are the sort sort of historical things
that led to the trinity.
Now if you go back into the gospels,
if you ask a Christian, for example, is
Jesus God? And the Christian will say, yes.
Jesus is God. And you say, well,
God is all knowing. Right? You believe God
is all knowing? And the Christian, oh, yeah.
Of course. God he has these omni attributes.
They're called omni, like all knowing, omniscient.
God is omniscient.
So we say, okay. Jesus is God.
God is all knowing.
Therefore, Jesus is all knowing. Right?
Yes. Of course. Jesus that's that's the argument.
That's, you know, that's the logic. That's how
that's how the argument flows.
Jesus must be all knowing. So okay. So
Jesus knows everything. Yes. Of course. Jesus knows
everything.
Okay. In Mark chapter 11, Jesus did not
know when fig trees were out of season.
How can God not know
when fig trees I mean, if you if
you study
what's the science? Botany? I don't know. Some,
you know, some biology or something. I don't
know. If you study some science, you can
actually get to know,
you know, quite easily when fig trees are
in and out of season. But, apparently,
the Lord of the universe who created the
fig tree
doesn't know has no idea when fig trees
are in and out of season. In the
gospel of Matthew 2436,
Jesus is reported to have said, of that
day, the day of judgment or the day
of his return, knoweth no man,
No, not the angels in heaven, not even
the Son, but only the Father.
Okay. Well, I thought the Son I thought
the son of God was the 2nd person
of a trinity who was pre eternally begotten
from the father's essence, who has all of
these omni attributes.
Okay? So Jesus admits here, as the son
of God see, Christians, they like to they'll
say, oh, oh, oh. See, Jesus is also
human. He's a 100% human.
Not,
not even,
you know, the, not even Jesus or not
even the human
incarnation or something. No. He says, the Son
of God. The Son of God is supposed
to be the pre eternally begotten all knowing
god.
The son doesn't know something. The son doesn't
know the day of judgement.
Okay? So clearly here, there is
a, there is an essential
difference between the father and the son. It's
not just a difference in, you know, role
or office. Like, the Christians will say, no.
You know, father, son, holy spirit. It just
means, like, different,
different degrees of authority. So, for example, if
you go to your job, you have, you
know, the CFO.
He's like the father. And then you have,
you know, the the manager underneath him. That's
like the son. And then you have, I
don't know, the, the the staff accountant. I
don't know. Who's like the holies but they're
all they're all human beings. Right? They're all
the same essence, but they have 3 different
roles.
No.
We we already established that
God must have omniscience to be God. It's
a qualitative
attribute
of God, of God's essence.
The Son of God is supposed to be
God, fully God, yet the the Son of
God in the gospel of Matthew
does not know something.
That means he is not
the God
or he's another God who's not as great
as the God.
Okay? But, again, Christians wanna have it both
ways. They wanna say, no. Jesus is God,
but there's only one God.
You can't have it both ways. Either there's
2 gods
or Jesus is not God.
Okay?
So and then you mentioned also on the
cross.
Right? According to according to Mark and Matthew.
Of course, Luke doesn't mention this because it's
a a little bit embarrassing.
Right?
Jesus is supposed to be God. He's supposed
to know everything,
and he's on the cross and he says,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? In other words, why did why did
you forget why did you forget about me?
Why did you ignore me? You know, why
did you throw me away? Why is this
happening to me?
Right? Is this how
God speaks to himself? Is this supposed to
be the son of God or God? What's
going on here? So Luke, again, Luke is
supposed to have perfect understanding. This is what
Luke's claim is.
People sometimes they don't read the beginning of
the Gospels.
At the beginning of Luke, he says, I
have a perfect understanding
of the things that happened to Jesus, and
Luke does not mention this. If you go
to Luke's gospel, at the crucifixion scene, the
last words of Jesus are not.
No. He he doesn't he doesn't. What is
what are the last words of of Jesus?
He says, father, into your hands, I commend
my spirit.
Those are his last words. So he is
contradicting
very clearly
Matthew and Mark.
Okay? So
which gospel do you want to follow? They
both can't be right.
In the gospel of John, Jesus' final words
are it is finished.
Right? And in the gospel of John, he's
crucified on a different day than Matthew, Mark,
and Luke. So who's right? John or Matthew,
Mark, and Luke? They both cannot be right.
You can't have it both ways, unless you
believe Jesus was crucified twice.
Do you believe Jesus was crucified twice?
No. Of course, you don't. So which one
is it?
It? Constantine
Yeah. So so Christians today are basically 3,
large groups, and then they have thousands of
subgroups.
Okay? But generally
speaking, right, in the broadest of terms, we
can say there are 3 groups of Christians.
So you have the Roman Catholics.
Okay. Then you have the Eastern Orthodox
Christians. And there's some differences between,
the two here. The Eastern Orthodox, they do
not accept,
the pope of the Roman Catholic church to
have any type of,
abilities or powers, what's known as ex cathedra
powers over a regular bishop.
And then in the 16th century, you have
what's known as a Protestant reformation, which rebelled
against the,
the Roman Catholic Church and the sort of
spearhead or the leader
of the Protestant Reformation was a man named
Martin Luther.
Martin Luther himself was a was a Roman
Catholic priest,
who had major issues with the Roman Catholic
church. And he said that the Roman Catholic
church,
by by that time, was totally a totally
corrupt,
system that was exploiting people, that was getting
rich off people, lying to people.
He had, you know, his famous 95 Theses,
as they're called, 95 different issues that he
had with the Roman Catholic church. He wrote
them all down.
He nailed them to the door of a
church in Germany, Wittenberg, Germany.
And he basically is the founder or the
pioneer of the Protestant movement,
which rejects the authority of the Roman Catholic
Church and takes more of a what's known
as a scripture only approach. They sort of
reject the tradition of the Roman Catholic
church, and they and they simply follow the
Bible.
But the unfortunate news for the Protestants is
that, they still believe in the trinity. So
a lot of the
Catholic
baggage
they've retained, like the first seven ecumenical
councils. And you've mentioned, you know, some of
them, the Council of Nicaea, Jesus is God.
The Council of Constantinople, the Holy Spirit is
God. The spirit the the Council of Ephesus,
Mary is the mother of God, the the
council of Chalcedon,
Jesus is a 100% man, he's a 100%
God.
The first seven councils are accepted by the
Protestant,
Christians.
They also accept
Athanasius'
list of of his New Testament canon, the
27 books of the new cast New Testament.
But what's interesting about Martin Luther
is that Martin Luther really, really did not
like the Jews, and he was he was
vehemently
anti Jewish.
Okay?
And and,
you know, it's, and his his favorite his
favorite,
character from the New Testament,
not surprisingly, was Paul. And, of course, Paul
says in his letter to the Thessalonians,
first Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 14 and 15,
Paul says he says about the Jews that
they killed the Lord Jesus.
Right? So the Jews are Christ killers.
Okay? They're guilty of means
killing God,
you know, which is a very strange concept.
Right? What kind of what kind of all
powerful God
is killed by the Jews?
Very strange, or any people for that matter.
But anyway, apparently, according to Christianity, the Jews
killed God according because this is what Paul
is saying. If they killed the Lord Jesus
and their own prophets, they please not God
and are contrary
to all men.
This is what Paul says. Paul himself is
a Jew, by the way. According to his
own writings, he's a Benjaminite
Pharisee. The book of Acts tells us, written
by Luke, that he was a student of
Gamaliel, who was a great rabbi in the
1st century. This is very, very dubious. It
cannot be supported by anything.
But, anyway,
Martin Luther's great inspiration,
was in fact Paul,
and Martin Luther wrote a book very late
in his life.
Right?
Again, this is the founder of Protestant Christianity.
So, you know, if you go to an
Episcopalian church, if you go to a Baptist
church, you go to a Lutheran church, you
go to, like, a Calvinist church,
all of these Protestant,
denominations, they all flowed from Martin Luther. And
Martin Luther wrote a book called On the
Jews and Their Lies.
Okay. And and this is, again, later in
his life. It's not something he wrote earlier
than he recanted. No. 1 of his final
books.
And in this book, he actually because here's
the thing. People read the Quran. They say,
oh, the Quran is anti Semitic. The Quran
hates Jews. Muslims all hate Jews.
Read Christian sources. Read First Thessalonians.
Read the Gospel of Matthew.
Read Martin Luther on the Jews under he
says they're all snakes. We should burn down
the synagogue.
They're killers of the Lord Jesus.
You know, you know, we should exile them
from our,
from our cities.
You know, so this was the founder of
the process. And of course, you know, you
know, they say Jesus says in in Matthew,
by their fruits, you shall know them. You
shall know the false prophets by their fruits.
Right? So these are the fruits of Paul.
Right? This type of thing. So then you
have, you know, Hitler, who's, you know, heroes,
you know, were Friedrich, Nietzsche,
and and Martin Luther.
And this, you know, led to his developing
an ideology, which actually became the Third Reich
in in Nazi Germany.
So it it's very important for us to
study the history of these things.
Right?
And so and so you have these 3
broad groups of Christians.
Okay? And then, as I said, you have
many, many different splinter groups from them.
Okay?
And,
but one thing that seems to unite them
generally is belief in the trinity. So Eastern
Orthodox believe in the trinity, believe Jesus is
God. The Roman Catholics believe in the trinity.
The Protestants believe in the trinity.
Okay?
You have Jehovah's Witnesses who are Unitarian. They
don't believe in the trinity. They're not considered
to be Christians
by any of those Christian groups, the 3
broad groups I mentioned. You have Mormons who
are polytheistic.
Mormons are not
monotheists. They believe in millions of gods. They
believe that you can also be a god.
Okay? So they're also rejected,
by these sort of mainstream
Trinitarian,
Christians.
Okay?
So, again, I highly encourage people out there
to to study the history of Christianity,
study the history
of religion in general, and compare it to
the history
of of the Quran,
of Islam.
The the the oldest complete
version of,
of the Old Testament is 1500
years removed. The oldest complete version of the
Torah, the first five books of Moses, is
removed from Musa by 1500
years.
1500 years.
Okay?
The oldest,
complete New Testament is dated to the 4th
century.
4th century.
Okay?
If you go into museums in Turkey, you'll
find,
manuscripts of the Quran that are dated to
the time of of Uthman
with with 10, 15 years,
with within the range of 10, 15 years
to the prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam.
And as you said, the Quran that
the that the people at that time were
reciting,
is exactly the same as the Quran that
they were hearing, because these are all companions
of the prophet. These are ear and eyewitnesses
of the prophet. Thousands of them hearing the
Quran every single day recited to
them. Okay? Whereas, Isa alaihissalam, he never saw
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He never even
heard of these things.
Okay?
Musa alaihi salam, according to historians,
he never saw the book of Genesis or
Exodus or Leviticus.
These things were written much later by consensus
of historians.
Okay? So it's important for us to study
these things critically.
Jesus Christ
Yeah. So it's it's an interesting question. So
Quran does mention some of the
miracles attributed to the prophet, ayesha alaihi salam,
the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. And
one of the things it mentions, and this
is, in agreement with some of the material
in the New Testament gospels that he could
heal people. He could heal the lepers. He
could heal the blind. Right? The Quran even
says,
quoting
that
I can quicken the dead or I can
raise the dead,
by the permission of God.
Okay?
So that's the key, by
the permission of God. So nobody has any
intrinsic ability to do anything,
independently.
Okay?
Everything is through the power and will of
God. Okay? The Christian says, no. No. No.
Jesus is God. That's how we can raise
the dead. If you read the, you know,
the gospel of John, for example, he raises
Lazarus from the dead. But read John 11
carefully,
you know, because
the whoever wrote John tells us exactly what
Jesus said. I don't know how he knew
this. Maybe it was revealed to him somehow,
but it doesn't help the Christian case when
we actually read John chapter 11. It says,
father, I thank you for hearing my
prayer. Okay? So he's he's praying to the
father. Again, this does not mean literal father.
It doesn't mean that he's the literal begotten
son of God. When Jesus
in the gospel of Matthew,
and Luke taught his people, the Jews, how
to pray, He said, pray like this. He's
not teaching his disciples. He's telling the Jews,
avun devashma'il,
our Father who art in heaven. Again, this
is
metaphorical language.
Okay? This is not meant to be taking
taking literal.
Okay? Father,
ab in Aramaic means rub in Arabic. It
means the one who takes care of you,
who raises you, who provides for you, who
loves you. That's what that means.
Okay?
So,
so what what was the point? The
the death of the day. Oh, yeah. So
raising the sorry. I lost my trail. Raising
the dead. So he says, father, I thank
you for hearing my prayer. So he prayed
to God That actually is the John,
11:41.
John 11:41. Exactly. When he raised Lazarus. So
Jesus has no he he says in John,
I can of my own self do nothing.
Yeah. Nothing. I can of my own self
do nothing.
What does that mean? He can't do anything.
Exactly what he said. I can't do anything
by myself.
The words you hear are not mine, but
the one who sent me.
Okay? So
we would confirm that. And if you look
in the Old Testament, you have prophets performing
miracles. The prophet Eliyahu, the prophet Elijah.
Remember, he raised the widow's son.
The widow's the widow's son who had died,
she went to Elijah, oh, help me help
me. I think it's in the book of
2nd Kings or 1st Kings. And he goes
and he stretches himself.
Right? 2nd Kings, he stretches himself over the
boy's body, and the boy resurrected,
from the is Elijah God?
Do do you worship Elijah because he resurrected
some? No. This is by the permission of
Allah
And here's the thing also. Even Jesus in
the New Testament, he says, beware of false
prophets in Christ who shall perform great miracles
to deceive you in the very elect. So
even false prophets can perform miracles.
So so how do you know a a
true prophet from a false prophet? By their
fruits, you shall know them.
By their fruits, you shall know them. And,
again, if you look at the fruits of
some of these, you know,
early,
figures in the Pauline church, including Paul himself,
I mean, what what does Paul do? Paul
goes and evangelizes as you mentioned. He goes
to, you know,
Galatia. He goes he goes to, Corinth
and goes to places like that. And he
and he's preaching
and he's preaching the, you know, this
this gospel there.
And and, his gospel is fundamentally
opposed,
to,
to what's something he calls another gospel, another
Jesus. And if you read these the traditional,
commentaries on the on Galatians and first Corinthians,
they tell us that Paul's opponents are other
Christians.
They're Jamesonian
Christians. They're they're they're Christians that are sent
by James, Jewish Christians,
that Paul has fundamental differences of opinion with.
So Paul, as you said, he has this
vision on the way to Damascus.
He doesn't talk about this, by the way.
Luke tells us this in 3 places, and
all three stories are contradictory, by the way.
3 three narrations,
3 tellings of the same story, all of
them contradictory.
Paul doesn't mention this in any of his
genuine,
letters.
Right? But, apparently, Jesus appears to the resurrected
Jesus appears to Paul.
Right? And, and then, you know, Paul goes
to these different cities and starts to evangelize
what he believes is a gospel he's receiving
directly from Jesus, he says. He says, I
received this from no man,
but only through a revelation of Jesus.
And then he's preaching this gospel that is
fundamentally
opposed
to what
other disciples in Jerusalem are teaching.
So what does that tell you about Paul's
gospel? This is not the gospel. This is
something else. And that was not Jesus who
encountered him on the road to Damascus,
because why is he now antagonizing
real disciples of Jesus? I mean, read what
he says in Galatians.
You know, he he calls Peter and Barnabas.
These are hypocrites. You know, James, Peter, these
these are so called pillars.
Right? These are people of the circumcision.
I wish they would just let the knife
slip and, you know, and and emasculate themselves
completely. You know, forget about the foreskin. Just
cut off their their *. These are the
way he talks about the cycles of Jesus.
It's very strange. When it says,
circumcision, the the there are
dangerous dogs or something like that. So even,
yeah, disrespect. But, you know,
but I
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
James Kibbut,
Peter Kibbut
Yeah. So Paul is probably
the founder of Christianity.
Okay? Maybe maybe even more so than than
Esai, because Jesus,
he was a Jewish rabbi. And clearly,
he's he's in the tradition of Judaism. Now
he's a reformer according to the Quran. There
are certain amendments or addendums
that he made to the Jewish law, and
he can do that because he has the
office of messenger of God. Right? He has
the office of Risala.
But but this idea of Christianity
emerging as a sort of new religion,
I think we can trace this,
to Paul. Now
as you said, there's 27
books in the New Testament.
Okay?
14 of them are attributed to Paul, so
that's more than half.
However, scholars only
they only believe that 7
of of the letters that are written in
the name of Paul are actually written by
Paul himself.
So the other 7 are either forgeries or
they're later attributed to Paul or pseudonymously,
attributed to Paul. So according to historian New
Testament historians, and this is again, this is
basically a a consensus
of historians
and not some sort of, you know, conspiracy.
You know, these are not like antichrist,
you know, atheists,
you know, historians. No. These are mainstream
historians
are telling us that the vast majority of
the books of the New Testament are forgeries.
They're written in the name of somebody else.
Okay. To give you an example, 2nd Thessalonians,
by consensus
of of New Testament scholars,
was not written by Paul, yet the author
claims to be Paul.
Okay?
The 4 gospels, they are anonymous. Nobody knows
who wrote these these 4 gospels. Church tradition
tells us
that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but these
4 gospels don't identify
themselves.
Okay? So so Paul,
according to his own,
according to Luke, actually, his student, he has
this sort of experience
of the resurrected Christ, and we already dealt
with that a little bit why that's a
problematic experience
because this experience puts him in direct conflict
with actual disciples of Jesus
according to his own letters, the book of
Galatians. These are genuinely
genuinely written by Paul according to the consensus
of scholars.
The book of Galatians, the book of the
book of first Corinthians.
And he mentioned also in the book of
Galatians chapter 3,
you know, Paul is complaining because what happened
was Paul went to Galatia,
and he evangelized, you know, he calls it
my gospel. That's how he refers to his
teach this is my gospel. Right? Isn't all
the gospel of Jesus, my gospel. So he
goes and he teaches his gospel,
and then he leaves Galatia.
And then according to
a traditional,
exegesis,
disciples of Jesus
sent by James, they go to Galatia, and
they correct Paul's gospel. They correct his deviant
gospel.
Okay? And then Paul hears about this, and
then he writes this very strongly worded letter
called Galatians
to the people of Galatia,
and he basically chastises them. Why do you
believe in this other gospel, this another Jesus?
Didn't I portray Jesus as crucified before your
eyes?
Right? What's the subtext of that? What does
he mean by that? Didn't I portray Jesus
as crucified
before your eyes?
So it seems like what he's saying here
is that
these these disciples, these Jamesonian
apostles from Jerusalem, these actual disciples of Jesus,
or these apostles that are sent by James,
who is Jesus'
successor,
were teaching that Jesus was not crucified. So
Paul has these fundamental differences,
with with these
Nazarene Christians from Jerusalem.
Okay?
And then Paul's gospel caters,
basically, to these existing beliefs in the Greco
Roman,
world. So this idea again of a of
a of a, a God sending his son
in the form of a man and dying
for your sins. This is a recycled myth.
This is something that pagans believed in
even before before Paul.
Okay. So Paul found,
somehow he was convinced that this is what
happened,
with Jesus. So what Paul is basically doing
is he's creating this hybrid religion,
this kind of half Jewish,
half pagan religion,
that eventually became known as,
became known as Christianity.
So so and then so you have conflict
in the 1st century between,
Pauline Christians
and Jamesonian
Christians.
So you have these sort of,
proto Trinitarian
Christian, and then you have the Unitarian,
Moahedun.
Right? Christians who believe in Tawhid.
But by 325,
Paul's gospel had spread all around the Roman
Empire because, again, it catered to these ideas
that were found in Greco Roman society, Greco
Roman religion,
Greek philosophy.
So it grew exponentially.
And then when Constantine converts
Copeland Christianity,
well, then that's it. Right? You can't it's
illegal now, basically,
especially when Theodosius
becomes emperor.
It's that's the only form of Christianity,
that's that's legal.
Okay? So
as we said, what what the Quran is
doing, okay, the Quran wants to restore the
original
gospel of Jesus
that was transmitted to his actual disciples,
okay, before, before Paul comes onto the scene.
And there's a lot of problems with Paul.
You know, he, again, he he takes these
ideas
that have nothing to do with Judaism. Just
because a Jew is saying something, it it
doesn't make it Jewish.
Right? Sam Harris is a Jew. Noam Chomsky,
is is a Jew. That doesn't mean that
what they're saying is authentically
Jewish. Okay? So a Christian will say, no.
Paul is actually a he's a he's a
rabbi. He's a Benjaminite Pharisee. And so what
he's saying must no. It doesn't mean anything.
Paul is taking from these different,
traditions
and creating this hybrid religion.
And then we don't actually know what happened
to Paul at the end of his life.
You know, he was arrested in Jerusalem, apparently,
according to the book of Acts, and then
he appeals to Caesar. He has Roman citizenship.
Why does he have Roman citizen? And so
the so the Romans actually the centur the
Centurions, they come out and they actually grab
him and protect him. I mean, what what
is that about? And then and then church
tradition teaches that he ended up in Rome
and they they he was executed,
in Rome, but that's that's not stated anywhere,
in the New Testament. But what's something that
Paul says is that's attributed to Paul. You
know, the book of Hebrews is anonymous. Nobody
knows who wrote it. But church tradition says
Paul wrote it, and it is reflective of
Paul's gospel.
So in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 22, it
says, unless
blood is shed,
there can be no forgiveness of sin.
Right?
And the author of Hebrews,
is is is is stating this within the
context of Judaism. In other words, he is
saying that in Judaism,
unless blood is shed, there is no forgiveness
of sin. So this is not true. This
is not what Jews believe.
So this is someone who's teaching you a
false
version of Judaism.
When you look in the Old Testament,
you know, the people of Nineveh, the people
of Jonah,
they they repented to God. They didn't sacrifice
anything.
No blood was shed.
Right? But this is a Christian selling point.
So the Christians believe that God cannot forgive
you
unless unless somebody dies. There has to be
some sort of sacrifice to happen. So who's
the ultimate sacrifice? It must be God himself
or his son, right, in the form of
a human being. But but this teaching has
nothing to do to do with Judaism. Even
the sacrifices in the temple
that are mentioned in the old testament,
Jews don't believe that your sins literally are
transferred onto some animal. That's that's ridiculous. That's
not Judaism. This this is a false characterization,
of Jewish theology.
On on Yom Kippur when, you know, they
brought the 2 goats and one was released
and one was sacrificed. That was just an
outward symbol
of what's supposed to happen internally,
which was called teshuva or toba, repentance. This
is how
this is how one is right with God
is not through sacrifice.
It's actually from repentance. I require mercy, not
sacrifice. Right? Jesus is quoted in the gospel
of Matthew. He's actually quoting the Old Testament,
the book of Hosea. I require mercy, not
sacrifice,
and the knowledge of God more than burnt
offerings.
Okay? Ezekiel chapter 18.
The entire chapter
is a is a strong sustained argument
for for for toba, for repentance,
Right? Not sacrifice. There's nothing there's nothing in
Ezekiel chapter 18 that says you have to
kill something in order for God to forgive
you.
This is a mischaracterization
of Jewish theology,
but it's stated in the New Testament as
something that has to happen in order to
justify
what what Paul says Jesus did, is that
he he died for the sins of humanity,
a human sacrifice.
Jerusalem Council, we're told Luke tells us that,
you know, James who again, James is Yahuwetzadiyyah.
Okay? James, according to history, according to even
the book of Acts,
he's a successor of Jesus. He's a leader
of the Jerusalem
apostles. Okay? If you notice, you read the
4 gospels, you don't read about James. He's
written out of the 4 gospels. They didn't
like James because he opposed Paul. And, of
course, the 4 gospels are written,
after all of the letters of Paul are
in circulation. But in Acts chapter 15, we're
told that there's a crisis in the early
church and a lot of Greeks are becoming,
you know, Christian or be or they're becoming,
believers in Jesus as the Messiah. So the
big issue is how much of the Torah
do they have to keep? Should they keep
all of the Torah or part of the
Torah?
So James hears these rumors about Paul that
Paul does not keep the law, that he
rejects the Torah. So he makes Paul
go and pay for the,
purification rituals of 4 men that had taken
these special Jewish vows
to prove to himself and to everybody
that he also follows the law of God.
Okay? So Paul agrees to this.
Okay? And then it was decided at the
Council, of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15 that
all of the the Jews have to follow
the entire law, But Gentiles coming into the
movement, they have to follow basically what's known
as the Noahitic laws, where God is 1
and, you know, don't
commit adultery, don't steal, don't commit murder, don't,
you know, drink blood, things like that.
Okay. But then so Paul agrees to this.
But in Paul's actual letters written by his
own hand, he says nobody has to follow
the law of God. Nobody. Jew, Gentile, all
of us are 1,
in Christ.
You know?
So for Paul here's another thing that's interesting
is that, you know, a lot of people,
they, you know, they criticize the Quran because
the Quran, you know, it deals with the
the ummah of the prophet
in in stages, you know, progressively. You know?
At one point, you know, Muslims can drink
alcohol, and then it says don't come to
the prayer intoxicated.
And then finally, it says don't drink any
alcohol.
Right? And the Christians say, oh, you know,
God you know, why is God changing his
mind and this and that? And why you
have these these are contradict it's not a
contradiction.
God is training in Ummah. But the thing
about Christianity is the entire religion is based
on abrogation.
You know, why why do Christians eat pork?
You know, the book of Leviticus says you
you cannot you cannot eat pork. And Christians
say, oh, that's because there's a new covenant,
the new covenant that abrogates the entire I
mean, all of Christianity
is based on is based on abrogation.
So
it's very strange. Even the the new covenant
that that according to the new New Testament
gospels,
Jesus made the new covenant at the Last
Supper, you know, passing around wine and saying,
this is my blood, and would a would
a rabbi ever say this? This is totally
historically impossible.
A rabbi at a Passover Seder who's claiming
to be the Messiah
is is passing around a cup of wine
and saying, this is my blood, drink my
blood.
Leviticus 3 17 says, you shall never drink
blood. It's an everlasting statue.
Blood is unclean.
Right? So so why why would a why
would a rabbi order his Jewish followers
to drink blood? This this is this is
a pagan ritual. It has nothing to do
with Judaism. This is called theophagi. This is
a the idea of eating one's god. This
was a pre Christian pagan belief
that was incorporated into the gospels because the
gospel authors were heavily influenced
by Paul's letters.
Yeah.
Chapter.
Yeah. So I would, give advice to
people out there that are interested, people of
all ages, really,
because this is a very important topic, and
it's important for us to have a working
knowledge,
of of not only our religion, but, you
know, challenges that are that are that we're
facing in in the form of either atheism
or postmodernism or Christianity.
So I actually have a series on, you
can probably just find this on YouTube.
It's called the
the Bible through a Muslim lens. Okay. So
it's a series of 12 or
15 videos that I did a few years
ago,
where we go through all 4 gospels in
in detail,
and I give sort of a historical and
theological background,
in response to,
the 4 gospels.
So other than that, I encourage people to
always stay engaged,
stay,
strong in faith, and always study. Always be
in a mode of study. Right? The Quran
there's a beautiful Dua in the Quran, It's
the only time in the Quran where we're
commanded to ask her an increase in something.
And the increase is in knowledge. Radbi, oh
my lord,
Increase me with respect,
to knowledge.
So,
again, next time, you know, we didn't get,
we got one call today, which is fine.
But, in the future,
we encourage you to call the show. We'd
love to dialogue with you. If you have,
you know, Christian friends,
that,
you want to invite,
to your house to watch the show or,
you want them to ask us questions,
so we can engage with them and answer
their questions, We highly encourage, that as well,
for next time.
Okay. The the.
Thank you, doctor.