Ali Ataie – Jesus in the Abrahamic Tradition
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AI: Transcript ©
To begin,
we'll begin with the, Jewish conception of the
Messiah.
So, the Bani Israel were given were given
prophecies
of someone to come to deliver them. And
most of these prophecies actually were were given
to Hebrew prophets
right around the time of the split of
the, the 2 kingdoms.
So, when the Assyrians attacked,
722
before the common era,
the, the kingdom of Israel, the Israelites were
divided to North and South.
And as the history goes, the 10 tribes
in the North were were taken into captivity
or some say they were slaughtered, some say
they moved to different countries.
But around this time, many of the Hebrew
prophets were inspired by Allah
to give hope to the mani Israel
that some sort of
of messenger, some sort of
figure, eschatological
figure
would come towards the end of time and
that he would gather the lost sheep of
the house of Israel,
and give them victory,
in with respect to
military
aspect and also victory in the spiritual realm
as well.
So,
there were many messianic pretenders,
and,
the Jews were given descriptions,
of this
Moshiach as he's called. Moshiach.
So the word Moshiach in Arabic,
it's it's taken. It's a loaner word from
the Hebrew Mashiach.
Mashiach,
literally comes from it comes from in
Hebrew, which means one who is,
anointed.
So when,
the high priest would,
anoint
or concentrate a prophet into the temple, he
would pour oil over his head,
thus anointing him,
shining him,
making him glow,
choosing him, something like that,
into the priesthood.
So when we make, for example, make wudu,
we make
So the word masha comes from the same
root of mashah.
Masaha,
to anoint.
So
the Bani Israel was given these prophecies,
and they actually knew where he was going
to be born. So, in the book of
Micah, in the Old Testament, Micah is a
Hebrew prophet from the 5th century,
He actually
says that,
that Bethlehem,
small as you are amongst the towns of
Judah, there shall arise from you a king
who shall shepherd my people Israel.
So this is confirmed in our hadith,
on later till Isra wal Mi'raj,
the prophet Muhammad,
he when when he was taken from,
Beit El Haram,
he made 5 stops
northward and before he prayed on the temple
mount in Jerusalem.
One of the stops was a place called
Beit El Echem, which in Hebrew means the
house of meat or the house of bread.
He dismounted and he prayed,
and then he asked Jibril alayhi salaam,
where are we? And Jibril alayhi salaam said,
this is,
Bethlehem,
the city of the birth of your predecessor,
Al Masih, Risa alayhi salam.
So they knew the city who was going
to be born.
Now
when Isa alaihi salam came to them,
one of the major reasons why,
he was rejected
by most of the Mani Israel.
And we don't really know,
what was the response of the first generation
because
the,
their the the historical records are quite sketchy.
So,
when Constantine
became
Christian, he was the 1st Christian Roman emperor.
In 324
of the common era,
that's when the Council of Nicaea was held.
He probably became Christian a few years earlier
according to Eusebius of Caesarea. Of course, Eusebius
is not very trustworthy.
He was actually an advocate of fraud and
deception to catch fish for Christ and things
like that.
But according to the story and, the what's
known as the ecclesiastical
history of Eusebius,
he said that Constantine was
fighting his rival on the Milvian bridge and
that he saw
a cross shining through the sun and he
knew that and he said, by this sign,
conquer.
So he took it as a, as a
sign from God and then he adopted Christianity.
But what's interesting is Eusebius doesn't actually say
there was a
cross, it was actually the labrum,
also known as the chi roe. So the
first two letters of the name of Jesus
or the name Christ,
in Greek is kai and rho. And this
is also the
the symbol of Cronus,
who was the father of Zeus.
So this is something that was,
basically,
taken on by,
the early Christians. So basically, you take a
pagan symbol and you sort of Christianize it.
And there's many examples of this as well.
Saint Peter's Basilica is used to be a
holy ground on the pagans.
December 25th, the birthday of Mithra as the
sun god. And many, many, many other examples.
So
so before that time, the first 300 years
of Christian history, we really don't know
who were the original Christians.
Now, we know there are groups called Ebionites.
We know there are groups called Nazareans.
Right? So Ebionites,
according to historians like Bart Ehrman, they probably
represented the,
the true message of Israel, alayhis salaam. They
were Syriac speaking Palestinian Christians who believed in
Tawhid.
They believed that Isa, alaihis salam, was the
messiah.
They kept the mitzvot,
the laws and commandments, the kashrut, the kosher,
all of that was kept by them. They
did not identify themselves as being different than
Jews. They said we're we're a sect of
Judaism,
that has come to believe in Isa alaihi
salam as the Messiah.
Unfortunately, we don't have any of their writings.
Right? So the only writings
the only knowledge we have of Ebionites were
Nazarenes because there was a gospel called the
gospel of the Ebionites.
There was a gospel called the gospel of
the Nazarenes.
There was a gospel called the gospel of
the Hebrews. This is in the Jewish Christian
genre of early Christian literature,
but we don't have these documents.
The reason why we don't have them is
because these groups and these and these scriptures
were basically marginalized into oblivion, and many of
them were persecuted for their beliefs. So every
so often,
archaeologists, they go digging in the caves and
they find these huge,
libraries of of literature, early Christian writings,
right, buried in the caves in the sands
of Egypt, like in the Nag Hammadi Library
in 1945,
which actually contained
many gospels,
of that
are ascribed to to apostles.
The gospel of Thomas, for example,
was found in 1945,
which probably is the closest
to what we would say is the original
gospel of Isa alaihis salami.
There's no narrative material in the gospel of
Thomas though. It's a 114
sayings
of Christ.
A 114, of course, is the number of
surahs in the Quran. I don't know what
that means, but this is kind of a
coincidence that's a 114 sayings. But what's interesting
there is that the author says, this is
Thomas the Israelite, the twin.
So why is Thomas I mean,
Thomas Toma in Aramaic means the twin. Why
is he called the twin? So scholars have
theorized that Thomas was actually,
he looked very similar to Isa Alaihi Salam,
that he almost looked identical to Isa Alaihi
Salam. And this could explain
that Allah
says in the Quran
that, it was made to appear so unto
the the enemies of that they had killed.
Maybe a look alike was killed in this
place. The Quran doesn't go into such details.
Most of our details of the would be
crucifixion are are from Israelite tradition.
But, anyway, in the gospel of Thomas,
he says in his introduction,
whoever discovers the spiritual meaning behind these words
shall not,
shall not perish. Right? Which is very different
than the gospel of John.
Right? The gospel of John 316,
for God so loved the world, he gave
his only begotten son, whoever believes in him
shall not die but have everlasting life. Of
course, the Pauline,
doctrine
is very different as well. That one must
believe in the death and resurrection
of Isa, the
so called death and resurrection, in order to
gain salvation.
So
Thomas's gospel is very different. Also very interestingly,
in Thomas's gospel,
which was according to Elaine Pagels, who's at
Harvard,
she has an interesting theory. She wrote a
book called The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
And in her book, she claims that the
gospel of John was written in response to
Thomas's gospel,
which places it in the 1st century or
right at the end of the 1st century.
Because in John's gospel, Thomas is, you know,
he's the doubting Thomas. Right? He doesn't believe
until he sees.
Right? So,
perhaps this was a polemic against Thomas who
had written his gospel because Thomas does not
mention anything about a passion narrative. Jesus is
not killed in the gospel of Thomas. There's
no prophecy of any passion, and this is
the crux of Christianity.
This is the point of Christianity. This is
on the on the tongue of Paul who
says if Christ is not raised, our faith
is in vain.
Right? The resurrection is is the quintessential
definition
of Christian piety.
Right? So it's interesting because Paul's message is
solidified faith alone. Right? It's all about faith.
Your works are as filthy rags, which is
seen as antinomian by the Muslims. So there's
a group of Muslims called
the who had a similar opinion that as
long as you call yourself Muslim, you don't
have to you don't have to do anything,
and you're entered straight into paradise
with no with no punishment to the grave.
There's no
purification in Jehanim. Your faith isn't affected by
what you do or what you don't do.
This type of thing. Right?
So
here he says in the gospel of Thomas,
he says,
he says, when I am gone, wherever you
are after me,
go to James the just for whose sake
heaven and earth came into being. Right? So
here
according to the gospel of Thomas,
very clearly
is giving a,
endorsement for his khalifa.
Right? The khalifa of Isaad, a salam,
is James the just. Who is James the
just?
So James the just is called Ya'aqv Hatzadik
in Aramaic.
So what's interesting about the lakab, James the
just,
Isa alaihi wasalam calls him the just. The
lakab is the same as the lakab of
the successor of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam.
He's Abu Bakr as Siddiq.
So Ya'ahu has had Siddiq. They have the
same lakab. Right? Which I thought was I
don't again, I don't know what that means,
but this is really interesting coincidence.
Right? So who is James? James was the
successor of Isa alaihis salaam. But if you
read the New Testament, there's one book ascribed
to James
called the epistle of James,
which is very different in its theology
than the rest of the new testament.
Right? So we have to understand that very
early on we have 2
distinct
strains of Christianity.
You have Semitic Christianity and then you have
Hellenistic Christianity.
Semitic Christianity is the original Christianity
of and his,
disciples, his Hawarion, his Sahaba. And James was
the leader of that church.
However, that church was completely marginalized
by Paul and his adherence. When Paul goes
and preaches in the Mediterranean,
this religion this this strain of Christianity
is eventually adopted by Constantine.
When Constantine becomes emperor,
then it's game over. You have to you
have to follow Constantine's
version of Christianity.
Right? So Cornel West calls this Constantinian Christianity,
and there's still people who have the mindset
of Constantine.
This idea that it's all about empire building
and building,
an imperialist type of mentality
and forcing people to believe in our way
of life, Still very much alive in the
world today, very prevalent amongst certain elements of
Christianity,
unfortunately.
So,
so the only thing we really know about
the original Christians, like the Ebionites,
the Nazarenes,
is
what proto orthodox church fathers say about them
in their refutations of them.
So for example, Justin Martyr or Irenaeus of
Lyon
or Tertullian of Carthage, these are proto orthodox
Christian fathers. In other words, these are the
forerunners of Christian orthodoxy.
So they're writing about these, quote, heretical groups
called the Nazarenes,
the Ebionites.
And they're saying, well, they believe this and
that, and this is what we say about
them. Right? This is our refutations of them.
So they'll quote from the gospel of the
Ebionites,
but then they'll refute them, but we don't
actually have the gospel of the Ebionites.
Right?
They don't actually have the book that they're
refuting. We just have the refutations of those
books. So we only have one side of
the story, basically.
Okay? So
going back to the Jewish concept of the
messiah
is that when Esar ed, e s salam
came,
it seems like the the the primary impetus
why they rejected his message is because,
he wasn't immediately a military leader.
Right? So the Jewish expectation of the Messiah
was one who will come because at the
time
what was going on in Palestine
in 63 before the common era. The Roman
general named Pompey, he comes into Jerusalem
and basically sacks the city and makes it
into a Roman colony.
Right? So you know how these these Romans
or pagans,
who are just controlling the city, controlling the
country. So this was seen as a defilement
by the Bani Israel and and the Romans
once in a while, they would have to
deal with would be messiahs
coming out of the woodwork. There's been many
messianic pretenders.
One of the most famous messianic pretenders,
of recent history was in
1666
of the common era. So a few 100
years ago, his name was Shabbetai Svi.
And this man was a European Jew. He
was a rabbi.
He declared himself the Messiah in Jerusalem.
He stood on top of a hill or
something,
possibly the Mount of Olives, I don't know,
on top of a building,
and he said I am the Messiah.
So then the, authorities captured him. They arrested
him. The Ottoman authorities, he was taken to
the Sultan.
And because to claim to be the Messiah,
is the the the title of Messiah is
bound up with politics. If you claim the
messiah, you're claiming to be the king of
Israel. That means you're you're basically claiming some
sort of political authority.
So this was seen as sedition or treason
against the Ottoman Empire.
So the sultan, he said, you have to
recant or else you're going to be executed.
Because sedition in any society today,
right,
is is a capital offense. Even in America,
in postmodern America in 2012,
if you're guilty of treason against the American
government, they'll they'll take you off, probably torture
you first. Although we don't torture, in Islam,
it's haram. Ta'adeeb is haram.
So no waterboarding,
or what does he call it? Advanced interrogation
and and advanced interrogation techniques. That's what Cheney
said on The Tonight Show. Anyway,
so so he asked this rabbi Shabbetai Tzvi,
he said, you know, if if you're the
messiah, then we can't kill you anyway
because it says in Psalm 91 that the
Messiah won't even dash his foot against the
stone. He won't even stub his toe. He's
untouchable. You come near him, halas, legion legions
of angels will protect him. Right? And this
is the Jewish concept of the Messiah, which
is very interesting. We'll talk about that more
in a minute.
So he's they said to him, if you're
the Jewish Messiah, if you're the true messiah,
then you cannot be killed anyway.
And if you're the second coming of the
Christian Messiah or the notion of the Christian
Messiah, then that's also a political office and
you have work to do, so we won't
be able to kill you anyway.
Or you can admit you're lying and we'll
let you go. Just make Tovah.
And he said, I I admit I'm lying.
And he made Tovah, and he lived amongst
he changed his name to Mohammed something. He
didn't need to change his name, but he
converted to Islam, and he just lived the
rest of his life. And he admitted he
was a, you know, he was he was
a messianic pretender. And this has happened many,
many times in Jewish history.
Even in Galilee,
right at the time of the birth of
Esai alaihi salaam, there was a man named
Yehuda
the Galilean, Judas the Galilean,
who claimed to be the messiah
and the Romans,
crucified him.
At the time of there
was a man named Barabbah
or Barabbas.
Barabbah actually wasn't his real name. His real
name was actually Jesus,
but most people don't know that. There's a
good reason why people don't know his first
name.
Because in the gospel of Matthew,
when Pontius Pilate
is
going to
ask the crowd right? So this is on
the on the day of the Jewish feast.
So there was a custom. He wants to
show goodwill to the Bani Israel,
so he says, I'm going to release one
of your prisoners. Right? If you're familiar with
the gospel, the synoptic gospels. It's also in
the gospel of John.
So he says, which which one should I
release to you?
Barabbas?
Right, or Jesus who was called Christ?
So the crowd screams, release Barabbas.
Right? So then they crucified Jesus. Now, in
very early,
manuscripts of Matthew's gospel,
so if you study textual criticism in the
New Testament,
very revealing,
historical study, textual criticism. Let's there's a book
called The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
This is one of their books, The Orthodox
Yani Taherif
of Scripture. This was written by eminent New
Testament scholars, like Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman.
There's another book called misquoting Jesus, which is
written by Bart Ehrman as well, which is,
more of a, like, a a a it's
it's another version of the orthodox correction of
scripture, but for the laity. There's another book
by Metzger called the text of the new
testament,
its transmission, its corruption, and restoration.
It's corruption. This is something that the scholars
admit.
Right? So
one of the variant readings of this story
from Matthew, very interesting,
and it's based on very reliable Greek manuscripts
of Matthew's gospel called Alexandrian
text type. They're the they're the least corrupted
type of New Testament Greek manuscript.
Basically, Pilate is saying, who shall I release
to you?
And he says, Jesus
Barabbas
or Jesus Christ.
Right? So
basically, it's the same thing because Barabbah in
Aramaic means the son of the father.
Right? So this is a messianic title.
So they say that Barabbas was a zealot.
He was an insurrectionist.
He was part of a group called the
which means the dagger men. These were these
were Mujahideen of Bani Israel who didn't play
around with the Romans. Right? It's there's zero
tolerance.
So it seems like he was given this
title by his followers and was being hailed
as the messiah. So therefore, he was given
the title Bar Abba, the son of the
father,
which is a messianic title. And his first
name was also Yeshua, Jesus.
So basically, Pilate is saying, who shall I
release to you? Yeshua Barabbah
or Yeshuah Bar Abba? Yeshuah Bar Abba or
Yeshuah Hamashiach?
It's the same name and the same title.
So somehow so
possibly
they screamed for the wrong Jesus to be
crucified.
Right? And the real Isa Alaihi Salam was
saved. This is this is
one of the explanations or a possible theory
as to what actually happened to Isa alaihi
salam.
But later manuscripts of Matthew,
they took the first name of Barabbas out
of Matthew's gospel for this very reason
that we don't wanna be unclear.
We don't wanna be ambiguous as to who
was actually crucified.
That Barabbas was the one freed and was
crucified. We wanna make that very clear so
scribes would remove
the name Yeshua,
in Greek, from later manuscripts of Matthew's gospel.
So this was a belief of the Jews
that the Messiah is born in Bethlehem
and that he's untouchable.
You can't touch him.
Right?
So there's a very interesting proof text, and
this is what the Quran says as well.
Yes?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, according to the tafsir
so,
the first
level of Quranic tafsir is tafsir.
So you you would you would make, exegesis
of the Quran with by looking at other
parts of the Quran, and then you look
at Hadith.
So when Allah says
remember in the book the story of Mary,
how she went to a remote place, They'll
say she went, she was in Bethlehem at
the
time. What she was doing in Bethlehem, Allahu
Adam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala placed her in
Bethlehem
for some reason, and that's where she gave
birth to Isa alayhi salaam. But it appears
that Isa alayhi salaam was raised in a
northern city called Galilee,
the province of Galilee in the city called
Nazareth.
So,
that's according to the tafsir, the shiv that
that he was born in Bethlehem, and the
hadith mentions that as well. But there's no
Joseph the carpenter.
There's no stable
like like, you know, it says it says
in the gospel of Matthew I mean, Mark
and John, they don't mention
a nativity narrative. Right? Jesus is he's 30
years old and he's preaching.
Right? Except for that short prologue in John's
gospel, the prologue of the logos.
But the Quran mentions the modid of Isa
Alaihi Salam
at least twice in the Quran it's mentioned.
So where does this character of Joseph the
Carpenter come from? This is another,
way
that Christian authors have tried to tie in
with
the concept of the Jewish Messiah.
So the
Jews, they believed based on writings,
like the one I quoted Micah chapter 5
verse 2,
that from Bethlehem, from the towns of Judah,
the birthplace of David will come a king
who shall shepherd my people
Israel.
Now the Jews, they would say, well, that
means that the Messiah is a descendant of
David.
He's a descendant of David. He's a descendant
of Judah.
Judah is one of the sons of Jacob.
So, Isa alaihis salam,
if you look at
his lineage, it does not go back to
David.
Right? So Joseph the carpenter had to be
invented
in order for Jesus to sort of have
this lineage back to David. So Matthew and
Luke, they give genealogies of Jesus.
These are the these are the genealogies,
the generations
of Jesus, and say Abraham
begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, Jacob begot Judah,
Judah begot all the way down to Joseph
the Carpenter.
But Joseph the Carpenter
is not the biological father of Esai alaihi
salam.
Right?
So how does he tie in with the
lineage of David?
Because Mary is not from David.
Mary is.
Mary is a Levite.
Right?
And this is what the gospel of of
Luke says
also, that Mary was from the,
daughters of Aaron,
and first and she was the cousin of
Elizabeth, who's a Levite.
So in order to connect Jesus with this
Davidic line,
right,
they would invent this the gospel authors,
would say that,
his
his stepfather stepfather was Joseph
the carpenter. This man named Joseph the carpenter,
but he's not mentioned in the Quran.
Now what's also interesting about this is that
according to Jewish law,
the the tribal distinction or the nesab of
the child,
is taken from the mother and all of
the tribes except for the tribe of Levi.
Okay? So you are what your mother is,
which whatever tribe your mother is, that's what
you are, except Levi. So Mary is a
Levite, and she's not actually allowed to marry
outside of her tribe and marry, like, a
Judaic or something or a Benjaminite.
Right? So the son of Mary will will
basically have the tribal distinction
of his
father. Only then can you call him an
Israelite.
Right?
So what that means is that Islam
then cannot be
from the Bani Israel.
Right?
He's not from Bani Israel.
The Quran makes it very clear.
So in the Quran, every prophet refers to
their people by saying
which means, oh, my people.
Right? What does it mean for a people
to be your That means your father is
from the people.
If your father is from that people, then
you can say You Omi. But Isa alaihi
sallam never says You Omi.
Oh, children of Israel.
The wisdom behind that according to the is
that Isa alaihi salam is actually in the
Ummah of the prophet Muhammad
That he's a Sahabi of the prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because what is a Sahabi?
Let me I'll get to your question in
a minute. What is a Sahabi?
According to the definition of the theologians
is that someone
who
was alive at the time the prophet
laid his blessed gaze upon them. Not they
looked at the prophet. The prophet looked at
them because there were Sahaba who were blind.
The prophet looked at them while they're both
alive and he had faith at the time
and he died upon faith.
Right?
So was
not killed nor crucified.
Right? So he was alive. We believe he's
now a cultation.
He's been raptured if you will, and he'll
come at the end of time, but he
did not suffer a mortal death, not yet.
Everyone will die eventually. Isa alaihi salam will
die eventually when he comes he believed in
the second coming. When he was alive,
the prophet
saw him on the night of later to
Israel and Mirad. And he said, Alayhi Islam,
was a prophet.
So he has it's it's obvious he has
faith in the prophet.
So Imam Suyuti says, you know, when we
talk about who is the greatest Sahabi, some
people say, most Muslims will say Abu Bakr
Sadiq. Some Muslims say,
He says, consider Isa Alaihi Salam,
who is the Sahabi of the prophet,
who comes at the end of time and
confirms the message of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
salaam.
Yes. Question?
Yeah.
Yes. Imran.
Yeah. So
Imran is a is that your question?
Okay. So Imran, according to the book of
Exodus,
was the name of the father of Moses
and Aaron. His name was Imran.
Now some of the Muslim exegetes will say
that Mary's
her father is was also named Imran,
But it seems like from the verse,
when they say,
they're reminding her of her priestly lineage.
Some some Christian
will say that the prophet
he got 2 people confused when he wrote
the Quran.
Right?
Because in the in the Torah, the sister
of Aaron is called Miriam or Mariana.
So he's saying, oh, he he's he's got
his chronologies confused here. Right? Because,
oh, sister of Aaron.
But Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not
the sister of Aaron. He's obviously you got
something wrong here. But that's not necessarily what
it means. She she could have had a
brother named Aaron as well. Very common name.
She's a Levi. She's a priestly
woman, and it's a very common name. Mariam
and Aaron are very common name. Harun.
Right?
But many commentators will say that this is
not this does not mean that her literal
brother is Harun,
but she's from the lineage of Harun. Elizabeth,
is it Harun,
Elizabeth's
father?
No. Elizabeth of Mary Adam of Mary. No.
No. Elizabeth is a contemporary of Mariam alayhis
salaam. So Elizabeth is the wife of Zakaria.
Right. So,
the mother of Yahya alayhi salam. Right. Yeah.
So this was this was many this is
about 1400 years after Harun alaihis salam. Harun
alaihis salam was the brother of Musa alaihis
salam. So he probably died around 1300 before
the common era.
Right?
So,
what was the point I was gonna make?
Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's, it's very
interesting because the Christian orientalist or the
the Christian polemicist,
when he comes to the Quran,
there tends to be,
a hermeneutic suspicion.
Right? In other words, the prophet is
a forger until we can prove that he
wasn't. But when it comes to the new
testament and,
you know, it's it's a hermeneutic of acceptance.
We accept them until we can prove them
wrong. It's exactly the opposite. And many of
that I think is motivated by racism.
To give you an idea, I can say
the same thing. I can say, well, in
the New Testament,
when Isa, alaihis salam, is extracting demons
from people, the demons fall down and they
say, have mercy on me, son of David.
And I can say, well, he's not the
son of David. His father's name is Joseph
according to you or Mary. And the Christian
response is no. No. No. That's that's you
know, it's it's his
forefather.
Well, Harun is his is her forefather. Yeah.
Is reminding her of her forefathers lineage. So
there's a hermeneutics of suspicion.
Another example of this
is,
like, if you listen to, like,
you know, early Christian debates,
there was a Christian scholar named Justin Martyr,
and he wrote this book called Dialogue with
Trifo the Jew.
It's very, very interesting.
But one of the things that are mentioned
in these early debates between Christians and Jews
before Islam, because both of them accused each
other of tahrif, you're changing scripture.
Right? The Jew would say to the Christian.
And then the Christian says, no. You guys
were changing scripture to hide things. You're motivated
what's by what's known as odium christi, the
hate the hatred of Christ. So your intent
so they're accusing each other of tahrib.
And then when the Quran came and said
both of you are making tahareeb, they suddenly
said, no. You know, we're cool, and and
the Muslims are wrong. So it's there was
an there was an alliance by by that
time. But one of the things that that
is mentioned in the debate is
the Christian will say to the Jew, why
don't you accept Esai alaihi salaam as the
messiah?
And the Jew will say, you know,
why should we accept them? And the Christian
will say, look, It says in the book
of Zechariah that the king of Zion rides
upon a donkey,
humble upon a donkey.
Right? And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all
say that when Elie said, hey, salam, was
coming into Jerusalem
to declare himself the Messiah, he told his
disciples, bring me a donkey.
Right? So he rode a donkey. And then
the Jew will say what? He'll say, oh,
yeah. He he knew about that.
So
he told his disciples, bring me a donkey
because I want to self fulfill this prophecy.
So that's called a hermeneutic of suspicion.
Right? So exactly,
what,
the, are
going doing to some Christian elements, how the
Christians are doing to the Muslims. Right? And
say, oh, the prophet is inventing these things
and so on and so forth.
But, we have to study these things much
more closely.
So
the Jewish concept of the Messiah then is
a political leader, a spiritual leader, one who
was not touched.
There's very interesting prophecy in the book of
Psalms,
which was ascribed to Dawud alaihis salam. So
he writes you know, when Christians will point
to different passages
in the Old
Testament that seem to indicate,
the crucifixion of Isa alaihis salam.
I would say, however, they're very ambiguous, very
cryptic.
The title Messiah is never used in any
of these passages.
Most most Jews will say that these are
actually
analogies or descriptions
of the suffering of the Jewish people,
that they have nothing to do with the
Messiah. But a Christian hermeneutic of the Old
Testament will say these are actually typologies of
what happened to Esar, Esarim, in in an
esoteric type of way. So there's two ways
of looking at scripture. There's an exoteric way,
which takes a literal apparent meaning, and then
you have the esoteric way, which takes a
mystical meaning. So,
this this this mystical meaning could be a
foreshadowing of an event to come in the
future.
Right? So
interestingly, there is a passage in Psalms
where the met the Messiah is mentioned explicitly.
So David writes in Psalm 20 verse 6.
He says
in Hebrew, he says,
He says, I know that God saves his
messiah.
Right? God saves his messiah. Now it's very
interesting about
this statement
is that the name of
Isa alaihi salam really was.
There's there's always been difference of opinion. Because
if you look in the the Talmud,
which is kind of the official position
of Judaism regarding Isa alaihis salam. Obviously, he's
not gonna be mentioned in,
you know, the oral law, So
we'd have to do a little background. So
on Sinai,
Jews believe that Musa alaihi salaam received
the Torah,
right, the written law, and also the oral
law. And the oral law wasn't written down
until about the 1st century, which became the
Mishnah.
And then up to the 6th century,
you have what's known as rabbinical rabbinical Judaism.
The rabbis
would comment on the oral law.
Right? And this is called the Gemara, and
there's a Babylonian version and a Palestinian version.
So Isa alaihi salam is mentioned in the
Babylonian Gemara.
The Gamara and the Mishnah make up the
Talmud.
Talmud comes from the Arabic tilmiv,
the little student of the Torah.
Right? So in the Talmud,
Isa alaih
salam, is called by the name Yeshu
without the ayn.
Now scholars have wondered why did they take
the ayn off the name Isa Alaihi Sanam.
And some say this is a way of
defaming him by changing his name. Right?
But,
this became problematic
especially in Christian Europe and France
when many of the Jews actually converted to
Christianity
and then they would expose their former co
religionist by saying, don't you Christians know that
this is Jesus? And it's saying these things,
and I won't repeat what the Talmud actually
says about peace alayhis salaam,
because it's some ajeeb and khareb type of
insult that I don't want to reproduce.
But after that happened, the pope basically said,
well, we have to burn every tug wood
in France so that that they would have
these huge bonfires
while Jewish literature was thrown into these fires
and and so on and so forth.
But
it seems like the dominant opinion is that
Isa Alaihi Salam's original name was Yeshua
or Yeshua
or Yeshua
with an aspiration.
And if the latter is correct, this is
on a form of a passive participle.
So a passive participle means,
a noun,
that an action is done to, a victim
of a verb.
Right? So
for example, if I say,
I touched the cat. Right?
So I is the subject.
Right? Touched is the verb and cat becomes
the object.
Right? It's the victim of the action.
So if we make that into a passive
participle, for example, the name Mohammed,
Mohammed is a passive participle.
Right? So there's a difference between Mohammed and
Mohammed.
I don't know anyone named Mohammed, but that's
actually it has a meaning. That's an active
participle. The one who is praising is called
Muhammad.
The one who is praised,
who's taking the praise, right,
is called Muhammad.
Right? So the the name of the prophet
is also a passive participle, meaning the one
who is constantly praised
because this is also on the second verbal
form, the fa'ala form, which indicates
intensive action,
intensively being praised. So then if if Yeshua
is the name of,
it's on the it's on the scale or
on the form
of a passive participle.
So now we have to
investigate what is the root meaning of Yeshua.
And the root meaning is it's a trilateral
root like all Semitic most Semitic names.
The root is
which means to save someone
to save someone.
So then what would be the passive of
to save
is the saved one.
The saved, not active as in savior.
Right?
But the saved one.
So interestingly, his name
means the saved one. If his name is
Yeshua,
it means the one who is saved, and
there's actually a clue
or there's a typology of this in this
psalm that I quoted, 26.
I know that God
actively saves his Messiah.
He shall hear him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.
That's what the Psalm says.
Now for the longest time,
Christians would say that the only religion that
made this claim
that El Salaam
was not crucified,
were the Muslims.
Right? And initially,
the the Muslims were seeing were seen as
this heretical group of Christians.
So like in Dante's divine comedy.
Right? He puts the prophet, you
know, in in Jahannam,
and he says this is a schismatic.
He doesn't say this is a founder of
a deviant religion. He said this is a
Christian deviant.
So that's initially how they the Muslims were
seen.
So
for the longest time, 1200 years, 1300 years,
the only religion that made this claim that
Isa alaihi wasalam wasn't crucified
were the Muslims. And then 1945,
they found this huge corpus of literature
called the non commodity library. And in this
library,
they found
documents written by Christians that predate Islam,
and they found documents like the second treatise
of the great Seth, the Coptic apocalypse of
Peter, and many other writings that actually categorically
denied
the crucifixion of Isa alaihis salam. So the
concept of Isa alaihis salam, the concept of
the messiah
not being crucified
in the Islamic tradition is more in line
with Jewish messianic
expectations
than the
Christian idea of the Messiah. The Christian idea
of the Messiah is radically different than what
the Jews were expecting.
Right? So,
to give you an example,
the idea that the Messiah is not only
the Messiah, but he's a divine incarnation.
Right?
A divine avatar.
So God comes down and dwells within
the temporal world. This is called hulu
or tajasud
in Arabic,
divine incarnation.
This is totally
blasphemous
from a Jewish perspective.
Right? Because Jewish theology is very clear and
it's very similar to our theology.
The first three commandments,
right, is very, very clear that,
you shall not make unto thyself any graven
image of the likeness of
anything in the heavens above or of the
earth or beneath the sea, for there's nothing
like unto god. Right?
So if you read Deuteronomy Isaiah, for example,
it's very, very clear, this type of theology,
that basically the message is whenever we bring
God within the temporal world, we make an
idol out of God.
God does not reside in the temporal world.
God transcends
space, time, and direction.
Right? So many of the Jews that came
after,
the
the conversion of Constantine
and kind of inherited,
this type of theology from the Christian,
we can't blame them for rejecting really
because what they actually heard about was
that he was a divine incarnation.
Right? And that's completely
anathema. I mean, that's that's
unacceptable.
So the Torah says
in one place.
And
the, in the book of 1st Kings, it
says,
that I am the lord and not a
man. God is not a man. Right? It's
very, very clear.
So,
this is another aspect,
that was rejected by the Jews. Also, this
idea
that Isai alaihi salaam and this comes primarily
from the teachings of Paul, that East Side,
and this comes primarily from the teachings of
Paul, that East Side, and Islam is a
sacrificial lamb that he vicariously atones with the
sins of humanity in. This type of idea
as well. Muslims would say and Jews would
say,
has nothing to do with Abrahamic teaching, that
this was something that was taken from outside
elements,
from from,
Paul's missionary
work and was eventually incorporated in Christianity
because the book of Ezekiel is very, very
clear. Many other places in Deuteronomy,
every man is put to death for his
own sin.
So
to summarize
the Jewish concept of the Messiah
is that
the or the Jewish the Jewish belief about
Esai alaihi salam is that he was I
guess the most congenial opinion you'll get was
that he was a very great rabbi.
Right? Who came to think of himself as
being
some sort of son of god
in the metaphorical sense. And at one point,
possibly, he claimed to be the messiah,
and he was executed
by the Romans.
Right? And then they they basically made up
a story about,
his tomb being empty. This is from a
Jewish perspective.
Possibly his disciples took the body, or it
was just a myth that was borrowed from,
ancient,
Greek mythos,
that was recycled and applied to Isa, alaihis
salaam.
So, yes.
I have 2 questions. Yeah. The first one
is,
during the time
Christians who believed in the Torah? Or who
were the oldest?
Yeah. So the the,
these were
these were monotheists.
They weren't Christians and they weren't Jews.
They were basically
they claimed to be in the tradition of
Ibrahim alayhis salaam, in the tradition of Abraham.
So,
exactly what they what they believed,
what their positions were regarding, for example, the
Old Testament, the New Testament is unclear.
But we would say that the prophet Muhammad,
he was a Hanif
before he received the bibtha,
before he received the Quran,
that he never worshiped idols
because the reputation of a prophet is very,
very important.
Right?
So before,
before he was commissioned as a Rasul,
he was known as Asad iqul Amir.
And what's also interesting is that early Christian
early Muslim historians
like Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham
and at Tabari,
they mentioned very interesting things about the year
of the birth of the prophet
They mentioned
that in the in the year that he
was born, it's about 570
of the common era, it's called the that
there were
5 children born that year named Muhammad
and that it was never known as a
name before that year. There's no record of
any child having the name Mohammed
in all of history, and and the Arabs
were masters of.
They would and this is it's one of
the beautiful aspects of how Allah
prepared them for this whole science of hadith
and Quran memorization that they would actually memorize
not only their own lineages, but the lineages
of their horses
of, like, back several generations. And they have
amazing memories,
and they were very gifted in in poetry.
Right? Again, facilitating them to the message of
the prophet
but they mentioned that
in this year,
4 children were born in Yathrib named Mohammed
and one in Mecca. And the 4 that
were born in Yathrib were born to Jewish
parents.
So their conclusion is that somebody knew something
from the Bani Israel
that
a prophet would be born to even knew
his name.
Right? And they also mentioned
that,
when the prophet
just before he was
commissioned as a prophet
that the Arabs in Medina, which was known
as Yefrem, who are idolaters at the time,
they were always threatened by the Jews
in Medina.
The Jews would come to them and say,
because the Aus and the Khazaraj, which became
the Unsar, they were always fighting each other.
They fought 3 civil wars.
And, so the Jews were monotheists living in
in Yathrib,
which, you know, begs the question, what are
they doing in Yathrib? Why not I mean,
what
amongst these pagans and and these people who
are fighting and so on and so forth.
But they would always tell the Arabs that
a prophet is coming here who's going to
punish you for your idolatry.
Right? So they would actually give bushra to
the to the to the arrows that the
prophet would come.
So,
So was he cousin of, was a Christian.
He was a Christian. He was a Christian.
He was a Christian scribe. Yeah. But the
the dominant opinion is that he died upon
Islam
because of his statement to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
where he basically confessed his belief in the
messengership of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
We don't really know what kind of Christian
he was,
but he did say that
yeah.
He
said So he said there has come unto
you the great
law of God.
So Namus in Arabic is from the Greek
nomos,
and nomos is what the Septuagint calls the
Torah. So there's something similar coming to you
that came to Musa, alayhis salaam, which is
also a fulfillment of a prophecy in Deuteronomy,
the prophet light unto Moses,
right, that that Musa alayhi salam prophesizes a
prophet is coming from our brethren who's going
to be similar to me. So Warakah actually
identifies the prophet
by saying that this is the same type
of sacred law
that is coming to you. And then he
says that he actually knows. He says that
these people are going to persecute you and
eventually expel you from the city,
and, I wish I was alive
to defend you then. Now Christian polemicists and
Western Orientalists,
they try to account for the revelations of
the prophet
because he wasn't a shayab. He wasn't known
to recite poetry. But the early Meccan Surah
are so lyrically beautiful
that he must have some teacher. Right? So
they say it was Warakah bin Naufal who
was teaching him. Right? But the thing
is died the very next year.
Right? So you have 12 years that are
unaccounted for.
And they say, okay. In in Medina,
there was a Jewish rabbi named
Abdullah ibn Salam. He was his teacher at
Medina,
but Abdullah ibn Salam didn't actually become Muslim
until 2 years prior to the prophet's death.
Right? So this is what I'm talking about
when I say a hermeneutic of suspicion. Right?
The prophet is out out at forger before
we can before anything. Just
case closed. You have to prove to me
and they're not being objective.
Right?
But there must be deeper study into this
into the gift. I have a question.
As far as
the conspiracy
Yeah.
So what's interesting about that is,
there was a great rabbi
who basically founded the signs of tafsir of
the Torah.
His name was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak
or Rashi. They have these acronyms. Like, Maimonides
is Rambam.
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak who is,
sheikh Soleiman is happy. Right?
Like, like, Maimonides was from Spain. He's also
called Imam al. Right? That's what the Jews
used to call him. So there's 2
but he actually gives the fuller dialogue
of this event of Genesis 22.
So if you read Genesis 22, it says
God says to Abraham, take your son,
your only son, the one whom you love,
Isaac,
and I'll offer as a burnt offering to
the Lord.
So it seems like from a literal reading
reading of this passage
that
Isaac is not only the only son
of Abraham,
one would argue that no. It it doesn't
say that. It says he's the only son
that Abraham loved. So now the insinuation is
that Abraham did not love
Ismail alaihis salam.
Right? And people still make this argument. You
go to the bookstore today, and you find
all this literature about Isma'il alayhi salaam, and
they say, oh, his his name really means
this and that
and all of these
crazy things
denigrating. It's again, it's motivated by this underlying
sense of prejudice and racism against Arabs and
Muslims.
But Rashi,
again, one of the founders of tafsir of
the Torah, he gives the full dialogue of
that exchange
between Abraham and God. This is totally orthodox
Judaism. He's not some
nut on the front or something. He's like
the
of Islam. He's like the Danny,
Imam Suyuti of Islam,
and many other scholars. So he says
that God said to Abraham,
sacrifice your son. And Abraham says, which son?
And he says, your only son. And Abraham
says, this is the only son of his
mother, and this is the only son of
his mother. And then God says, the one
whom you love. And Abraham says, I love
both of them. And then he says, Isaac.
Right? So this is the tafsir of this
ayah
that Ibrahim alaihi salaam, according to Rashi, one
of the most authoritative
Torah commentators to ever live, that Ibrahim alayhis
salam loved Ishmael alayhis salam.
Right? Now,
however, the story in the Torah,
has problematic aspects to it. Like, for example,
it says that,
they were banished into the desert because Ishmael
was playing with Isaac on the day of
Isaac's weaving
when as a child weaned in Jewish law
at 3 years old.
However, the problem here is according to the
Torah,
Ibrahim alaihis salaam was 86 years old when
Ismael was born
and 100 years old when Ishaq was born.
In fact, the name Ishaq,
means laughter in Hebrew. The exact cognated Arabic
is idhaq
from.
Right? Why is he called laughter?
Because the Quran says when and also the
Torah says, when the angels came to them
and said, you're going to have a son,
Sarah did what?
She laughed.
Do you do you marvel at the the
order of God? So they named their son
laughter.
Means laughter.
Right?
So so this would have made Ismail
17 years old
at the time of Isaac's weaning. Right?
Because 14 years old
he when Ismail was 14, Isaac was born.
Now it's today of Isaac's weaning. That means
Ishmael is 17 years old. He's a grown
man. 17 year old man back then is
a grown man.
Right? So, however, we're given the profile of
an infant here.
What does it say?
Banish this woman and her son and Abraham
takes some knapsack
and the son and puts them on her
shoulder. She's carrying the son into the wilderness.
He starts crying. She puts him down under
a shrub. He starts kicking his feet. She
picks him up. Lift him up in your
hand. I will make of him a great
nation.
So the chronologies here don't line up. Right?
It it it there's something wrong here.
Right? Because Ismael alayhi wasalam would have been
17 years old at the time. Now
Muslims
the the story as it's told in the
Quran is very
interesting because
Isma'il is not even identified in the Quran.
This story is is told in the 37th
Surah
called Sunatul Safa.
Right? And Allah
doesn't say this is Ismail. Now, Imam Suyuti
and many others say the verses indicate Ishmael,
and that's the dominant opinion. But big Sahaba
said this this is Ishaq.
That's an opinion of big Sahaba. Imam Ali
had this opinion
that the child that Ibrahim was going to
sacrifice was Ishaq because it's not a big
issue for the Muslim.
It's not that big of an issue because
the lesson of the story is the most
important thing. That Ibrahim alaihis salam was willing
to sacrifice the most beloved thing to him,
to the most beloved object to him, even
more beloved than himself as his son. It's
the hardest thing to do. Right? So that's
what the Muslim takes from the story. But
Allah
and he just says,
We gave him glad tidings of a forbearance
son,
and then he tells a story. And then
he says,
And then we gave him and it and
it depends on how you take this fa.
Is it
is it so or is it and? Is
it indicating
the story before or is it a new
son? So So there's a difference of opinion
as to how you take this conjunction.
But the dominant opinion is that the son
to be sacrificed is Ismail
also based on the hadith of the prophet
and the ibn Zubayin.
I am the son of the 2 sacrifices.
So when Ismail was ransomed,
a ram was sacrificed,
a celestial ram brought by Jibril alaihis salam,
and also,
his father, Abdullah, was ransomed for 100 nuk
or she camels because his grandfather had made
an oath, if I have 10 sons, I'm
gonna kill 1 of them. Right? So we
know that story as well.
But it's a major issue for Bani Israel
that it is Ishaq
because,
it for nationalistic,
considerations.
And it's also a big deal for the
Christian that it's Ishak because Isai alaihi salam
is the descendant of Ishak. And this is,
again, an esoteric
foreshadowing
of God
killing his own son.
Right? Abraham killing his son, putting wood on
his son's back, leading him to the slaughter.
Right? Binding his son,
this type of thing. Of course, the son
was saved. The Muslim will say, maybe that's
true, but he was saved at the end,
and the was saved at the end as
well.
Well, that's a long answer answer to your
question.
I appreciate it. No problem. Well, just open
it up for questions and comments.
Yes. Oh, Assalamu alaikum. Hi. How are you?
Well,
the the Catholic position is that What was
the question? The question is,
was Joseph married to Mary,
and why is he not the father of
Jesus?
So the the the Catholics have a doctrine
of Mary's perpetual virginity.
So,
it it's seen as something,
you know, I think a lot of it
is motivated by,
sort of this,
I don't know how to put this exactly,
but
this kind of low view of women, I
think,
that that the sexual act is something
that
is seen as,
you know,
something that is kind of just given as
a dispensation and not the natural state of
things.
So the highest ideal amongst the early church
fathers is celibacy.
Right? Paul says, for example, in his letters,
it is better for a man not to
touch a woman.
Right?
In the book of Revelation, it says that
a 144,000
Israelites
will go to paradise, 12,000 from each tribe
undefiled by women. Right? This type of thing.
So a lot of the early Christian writers,
not all of them but many of them,
especially people at Tertullian of Carthage were total
misogynists.
I mean, you read Tertullian,
you know, it's Eve's fault. She's soulless.
She's the the reason for the downfall and
so on and so forth. And,
and basically puts all the blame on Eve.
And Paul has similar statements about Eve as
well. So this idea of being free from
the contact of women,
was seen as a very high ideal. So
the Catholics believe
to this day that Mary
remained a virgin
for the rest of her life.
The,
the protestant
has no problem with that, but also has
no problem with taking the position that later
on she might have been married.
Right? Because Isa alaihi salam, according to the
New Testament, had an extended family.
He had brothers and sisters.
Now these could have been brothers and sisters
that she had with Joseph,
after
she had Isa, alaihis salaam, from a miracle.
But, you know, it's kind of an open
question for Protestants.
So for Catholics, it's very important. Now the
reason the Muslims believe in the virgin birth
is because it's expressly mentioned in the Quran.
Right? And that's the only reason why.
And
the wisdom behind that according to the mufasilim
of the Quran
is that,
Allah
wanted to manifest his power
by performing a special miracle
as a sign of Isa alaihis salam's Nabuwa,
and that's all it is.
So Adam Alaihi Salam so the Quran says,
that the similitude of Isa Alaihi Salam
is like that of Adam
He created from dust
He created him from dust
And then he said to him, be and
there he was. It's a of Allah
where he breaks cause and effect of natural
law,
in order to demonstrate his power.
Now
why is I mean, Paul in Romans
Paul in Romans actually doesn't know anything about
the virgin birth.
Right?
Paul actually says that
Jesus is of the seed of David according
to the flesh.
So he doesn't mention the virgin birth. But
the gospels, at least Matthew,
Matthew and Luke are clear that Mary was
a virgin.
So this was something that was,
problematic for early Christians in order to reconcile.
But Jesus also had to be according to,
like I said,
the early
the previous Jewish conceptions of the Messiah, a
descendant of David. So how do you reconcile
the virgin birth
from a Levite woman and at the same
time, he has to be from David? So
this became very problematic. It's still a conundrum
to this day. It's how do you trace
Jesus to David? Now what's also interesting is
the Essene community at Qomoram, they believed in
the dual messiah, and some Jews believe in
the dual messiah, and the Essenes were Jews,
obviously.
That there's 2 messiahs. There's a priestly messiah,
and there's a kingly messiah.
A messiah from David and a messiah from
Aaron,
which is
another very interesting thing to look into.
Of course, they found this,
copy of it seems like it's Barnabas' gospel.
Have you heard about this recently? And I
think they found it in Turkey. It's written
in Aramaic and like in a gold book
or something
where it says,
that
prophetizes
the prophet by name.
Right? And it's dated about a whole 100
years prior to the oldest versions of Barnabas'
gospel
that we have. What's interesting is that,
and this document says that the Messiah is
not
from,
David. He's the son of Ishmael,
and that he identifies the prophet, sallaihi salam,
as being the messiah. Now if we look
at that literally or from the outward superficial
perspective,
the Muslim will say, well, this is counter
to the Quran because
the Quran says that Isa alaihi salam is
the messiah.
Unless
unless somebody takes it in the sense that
there's a dual messiah, a kingly messiah and
a priestly messiah, which is possible,
but. And I hope I answered it. Okay.
Yes.
Sorry. So
so Joseph,
he he was an actual person. I think
he said he he was made up by
the Christians. He's probably he's probably invented. I
mean, that's
that's just my opinion.
Yeah.
Because,
again, to keep in line with Jewish ex
ex Jewish expectations of the Messiah being from
the son of David
and Jesus very clearly is a Levite from
Mary,
how do you tie him into David's lineage
is that you say that Mary was betrothed
to Joseph,
who is from David, and that somehow,
mystically,
Jesus inherits the Davidic line from his stepfather.
What's also very interesting is,
according to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
tradition,
Joseph was in his nineties at the time,
when he married Marianne, who was 11 or
12.
So he had grandchildren older than his wife.
Right? And it's and that was basically the
the average age of marriage for a girl
at the time was 11 or 12 years
old in Palestine 2000 years ago.
So it wasn't seen as scandalous or anything
like that. Of course, in our according to
our postmodern sensibilities,
we'd say, oh, this is, you know,
whatever. But there's aspects of our lives today
that ancient peoples will say, this this is
just animalistic behavior.
So it goes both ways, I think. I
think in in
you mentioned James,
the successor of Jesus.
I believe the book says that he was
the brother.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, James is the brother of
Jesus.
Yeah. He's also his successor.
So that's that's the thing is how is
how is,
and what is the nature of James being
the brother of Jesus?
Does it mean brother in the sense that
he's just his
Muslim brother, so to speak? Or is it
is he the son of Mary from Joseph
that was born after?
Or is he actually
one of the sons of Joseph and not
married, and Mary did not,
have * for her the rest of her
life? So Christians have wrestled with this issue.
What is the nature of James being the
brother of Jesus? What does that mean?
So it's an it's an open question.
But, definitely, the book of Acts tells us
that James was the successor of Jesus. He
is the leader of the Jerusalem apostles.
And according
to the
commentaries of the book of Galatians,
the apostles that come into Galatia
to correct Paul's deviant teachings were sent by
James from Jerusalem.
So very early on, this is like in
the forties of the common era, before any
gospel that's in the bible was written, there
is a clear,
difference of opinion that's fundamental between,
people that Paul is evangelizing
and the,
the teachings of James out of Jerusalem.
I didn't understand the question.
Oh, it wasn't it wasn't they didn't draw
lots.
It was a custom of the Romans to
release a Jewish prisoner,
before the Passover
as a as a show of goodwill. So
they bring out the prisoners and say, which
one of these men do you want to
test to release to you?
So most of the men were insurrectionists.
Right? They were Mujahideen.
They tried to fight against the Romans.
So from the gospel accounts, they cried for
Barabbas to be free, and they crucified Isa
alaihis salami.
But, again, the very reading in Matthew says
that they're both named Jesus, so it adds
a level of ambiguity as to which Jesus
was released, which Jesus was actually crucified.
The drawing of the lots comes,
with the guardianship of Mary, and this is
mentioned in the Quran, and it's also mentioned
in what's known as a proto gospel of
James,
which is not in the New Testament. So
the 2nd century gospel called the proto gospel
of James, which actually,
has many stories that are confirmed in the
Quran,
like the casting of the lots to take
care of Mary,
angels feeding Mary in the temple,
like it's mentioned in the Quran. Zakari alaihi
salam, who was her custodian, comes into the
temple, and he sees and an imam Tabari
says it was fruit out of season.
So he says, yeah, he says,
Where where did you get this?
This is from God. Right? This story is
from the gospel of James. That could be
the source of the story. Now the thing
is that
a Christian might say, well, James' gospel is
apocryphal. It's it's it's not even in the
it's not even in the New Testament.
But you have to remember that
this this gospel was written in the 2nd
century,
and the gospel did not become canonized
and closed until the Council of Trent in
the 15th century.
So 1300
years later in the Catholic tradition was the
canon finally closed. So
that's the whole question is, what is
heterodox and orthodox Christianity
in the 1st 3 centuries? Nobody knows. There's
a great book written by F. C. Bauer
called Orthodoxy
and Heterodoxy in Earliest Christianity, in which he
tries to prove that what we know today
as being Trinitarian
Orthodox Christianity
was by no means
the dominant opinion of the Christians in the
1st 3 centuries. In fact, after the Council
of Nicaea, when Jesus was made God by
vote,
by 360,
the vast majority of bishops
had,
Aaron Aaronist
or Ebionite
Christology.
They believed that Isa was not god. The
vast majority of the bishops by 360 did
not believe Isaiasimov was god.
Even after Nicely when it was put to
vote in. So I have 2 questions. 1
Yes. Good question. So, dealing with the Dead
Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls,
as far as we can tell, are not
Christian documents.
So they were written before,
the Christian era or contemporary with,
early Christian writings.
Basically, the Dead Sea Scrolls was authored by
a group of monastic Jews called the Essenes,
and it's basically the entire Old Testament
and a few other documents known as the
community rule.
And then there's some kind of eschatological,
very cosmic writings.
It's kind of cryptic about a teacher of
Christ's righteousness,
a wicked priest. And some Christians will say,
well, the teacher of righteousness
is
is Jesus, and the wicked priest might be
Paul or might be James or the the
righteous
teacher might be James, but that's all conjecture.
As far as we can tell,
these are Jewish writings and totally Jewish writings.
So what what does it mean for Christianity?
It means that we have,
manuscripts of the old testament, and they're not
complete manuscripts,
but we have manuscripts of the old testament
that can be dated to the 1st century.
Because before the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, the oldest complete
version of the old testament in existence is
called the Masoretic text, which is dated to
1,008
of the common era.
So you can imagine the Torah was revealed
to Musa alaihis salaam in 1400 before the
common era.
The oldest complete version of the old testament
is 1,000 of the common era. So you
have 24 100 years where there's no complete
version of the Old Testament in Hebrew.
Right?
But now we have the Dead Sea Scrolls,
which,
again, it's not complete, but most of it
is there.
As far as the Ebionites fleeing into the
Arabian Peninsula, that's certainly possible. I've heard that
argument as well from,
from
critics of Islam that the prophet,
might have been influenced by MPNI elements. What's
interesting, though, is the Christology presented,
in the Quran
isn't purely Ebionite.
The Quran confirms the virgin birth. And as
far as we know, the Ebionites did not
confirm the virgin birth.
The Ebionites were adoptionists. They said that Isa
alaihis salam was made son of god at
the baptism.
But the Quran says he was born from
a virgin,
and that's something that the Ebionites that's that's
a proto orthodox belief. The Ebionites, as far
as we can tell also,
again, we don't have their writings, but as
far as we can tell, they believe that
Isa Alaihi Salam was crucified,
but the Quran says he wasn't crucified.
That's actually a gnostic, quote, unquote, gnostic
belief. So where did he get this? So
this idea that the prophet you know, he
had you know, the story of
making,
birds out of clay and then breathing on
them. This is found in the gospel called
the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,
which is written in the 2nd century,
and it's just so highly improbable
that the prophet
even most Christians even knew about this gospel
in in the Arabian Peninsula. There were no
Christian or Jewish tribes living in Mecca. We
know that for certain. There were individual Christians
and Jews that might have passed by. Like,
Warakah was you know, he was a Christian
scribe living in Mecca,
but there are no tribes.
So this idea that
how did the prophet
know of the story if he wrote the
Quran?
You know? Some have said, well, maybe he
had a copy of Thomas's gospel underneath his
pillow when he was sleeping. I mean, it's
just
it it doesn't make any sense to account
for the entire Christology. Yeah. Elements of the
Christology,
Like saying, Isa alaihi salam was,
he was a prophet in the Messiah, but
not God. That's the United Christology.
But that's not how the Quran says about
Isa, alaihis salam. Isa, alaihis salam, born under
a palm tree,
speaking as an infant. These come out of
seemingly nowhere. There is no source for this.
Where does it come from?
Where is he getting this from?
So,
you know, it's kind of, in Western Academy,
you have to find a source for something.
Like,
even in my my new testament gospels class
we're we're talking about what is Mark's source
of his gospel. And people are saying, oh,
he had, you know, oral tradition, and he
might have this and that. And I raised
my
hand, non Christian, and said maybe Mark was
inspired to write it from God. And everyone
just gasped.
How can you say that here? That's something
we say in church.
And here's a Muslim saying this. Right? So
in Western Canada, there has to be a
source. He got it from somewhere.
Right? So there is a major rift,
that I notice
between Christian laity and the Urlamaz Christianity.
That they don't see eye to eye most
of the time,
because of issues like this. But the Quran
invites this type of criticism. Criticism in an
academic way means to analyze something very closely.
Allah says.
Do they not have
which means to penetrate something to find the
end of it? Right?
Do they not have this type of deep
contemplation
of the Quran? This is what the Quran
invites upon itself upon itself, which interestingly was
exactly
in your private possession.
It's actually a capital offense,
and many were executed. William Tyndale,
who was executed in 15/25,
not not that long ago,
15/25,
he actually he was he never apostated. He
was a Christian. But what he did was
he translated
the old and new testaments directly from Greek
and Hebrews.
And they thought that was just heretical. So,
he was burned at the stake.
And then they had the reformation.
Right? Just a few years after him and
And then in 16/11,
less than a 100 years after Tyndale, they
made the official King James version
based on Tyndale's translation.
Right? So the poor man was burned at
the stake, and then his contribution
became
the greatest contribution
in the history of of of American Bible
translation,
English bible translation.
Right?
So and I think this kind
of this kind of led to what's going
on in Europe right now as far as
Christendom becoming a land of atheism. I mean,
there's some countries in Europe that are 80%
atheist.
Right?
You know, you have the Protestant Reformation, and
then you have a printing press, so everyone
has access to bibles in their vernacular.
And,
reading the entire bible for many Christians is
is it becomes problematic.
Because, you know, before that time, you know,
you go to the church and they recite
something like
the letter of Paul or John 316 16
or John 11. Mhmm. And when you read
the stories of the Torah Old Testament,
it can be very
faith shattering. And it and it has been
even to now many many many Christians are
leaving Christianity right now.
Millions of them. That's why you have all
of these atheists coming out of Europe like,
you know, Dawkins and Ditchins and these guys
kinda come to America and say, well, you
know, this is what the Bible actually teaches
and you guys don't know. You guys are,
you know, illiterate Americans.
I'm from Oxford. I know what I'm talking
about. I have 2 questions.
Is there any record of what happened to
Barabbas after,
the crucifixion scene? And secondly,
would you talk a little bit more about
the scene
idea of, priestly messiah and, like, kingly messiah?
Was that, like, the human nature
within one man?
Or Well, as far as Barabas goes, I
don't know if Josephus mentions him.
I don't think he does. I know they
made a movie about Baraba starring Anthony Quinn.
And according to this movie I didn't know.
According to this movie, he was also crucified
at the end.
But, the only one that I can imagine
would mention Barabbas
would be, Josephus,
in the Jewish war.
But I don't I don't remember a reference
to
him. But I have to check that, so
I I don't know.
As far as the dual messiah,
it seems like the dominant opinion was that
there'll be 2 messiahs, 2 independent people.
And there's even evidence of this in the
old testament as well.
A a messiah from David and a messiah
from Aaron
or a Levitical
messiah and a a Judaic
messiah. And it seems like this was a
major part of the,
theology, if you will, of the Christology Christology
of the Essenes, that there would be 2
messiahs.
So would that have been that duality between
the political and the
It's possible. Yeah. I've I've heard that opinion
as well.
But then the question comes, what what tribe
is he from then?
Right? But that that could be. I mean,
they were very cosmic.
The Essenes were very cosmic, very dual,
in their cosmology. So
I've heard that as well. The dominant opinion
is that there are 2 independent salvific figures
to come.
1 was basically a manifestation of jalal attributes,
majestic attributes, and one was a manifestation of
jamal or beautiful attributes.
So the prophet he has both of these
attributes.
Right? And Medina,
what was manifested from him because now he's
the, you know, al Farabi would call him
the philosopher king of the city.
He's the head of the government, so,
he has to to punish people who are
breaking the law, but at the same time,
he visited a young boy because his bird
died.
Right? He felt bad for the boy. So
he is the manifestation of the jalali and
jalali attributes as well. And in reality, he
is a reflection of Allah
There's no real duality in Islam.
Right? Allah everything comes from Allah
Ultimately,
everything comes from Allah
and that even Satan
is has respite because Allah
gave him that ability,
to do what he does. In Jahannam, hellfire,
it's just a manifestation of the jalali or
majestic attributes of God.
And Jenna is a reflection of the Jamali
attribute.
But, yeah, that's a that's a very good
question.
I'd have to do further research. Yes?
Okay. So
I know that you said to the lesson
that doesn't have a bad label, but I
just need it for clarity.
So when you were going back and forth,
What who's that conversation was who? And,
the son of the account or Christian account
or what?
And then he said and then the last
thing was said was Isaac. Yeah. That's that's
according to Rashi.
He's he's a rabbi.
He's a medieval rabbi from France. He's basically
one of the most famous, exdigits of the
Torah. And he actually, in commenting on Genesis
22,
he gives this full dialogue. Presumably, it's from
the Talmud,
which is the oral law and the opinions
of the early rabbis,
commenting on
what does it mean for Isaac to be
the only son of Abraham, the one whom
he loves? So according to Rashi, which is
again, as mainstream Judaism as you can get,
the point I was trying to make was
that according to the account,
Ibrahim alayhis salam, he loved both children. He
didn't hate 1 and then loved the other
one. He loved them both, but ultimately,
Isaac was the one to be sacrificed, and
that's what the Torah says.
And, there's some Muslims, like I stated, that
have that opinion as well. Some of the
Sahaba
concluded
that Ishaq was the one to be sacrificed
because Muslims don't make an issue over the
identity of the sun. It's not a major
issue for us.
Although the dominant opinion is that it's Ishmael
based on hadith of the prophet, salallahu alaihi
wasalam. I didn't even move the pain. I
am the son of the 2 slaughters.
But that's, yeah, it's from a Jewish source.
Thank you. So we're we're just gonna have,
like, these last 2,
and then we're gonna wrap up because we
didn't kinda Oh.
They do end up becoming Muslim.
But are there any
contemporary
Christian groups who do doubt,
I said, with the trinity
and who do believe that he's
a
prophet or something along the line? Yeah. I
mean, there's Unitarian Christians
that are
I mean, I've apparently, they're still around. I've
never met a I've never met a Unitarian
person in my life, but apparently, there's still
Unitarians around. It's like a handali. I've never
been a handali, but apparently, they're still around.
Kind of an endangered species.
So there are the same thing that I
got to do about there that you should
make sure. Are there any other, like, smaller
Yeah. I mean, the Jehovah's Witness who are
not considered Christian by the mainstream orthodox, they
don't believe in the divinity of Christ. They
believe he's the Son of God, but they
still believe in the in in the inerrancy
of the New Testament. They also have their
own translation of the New Testament, which is
called the New World Translation. They believe Jesus
is the savior, but they would deny that
Jesus is the deity.
Right?
And, of course, you have the Mormon physician
that believes that Jesus is a God amongst
the plethora of many, many gods.
They're actually polytheistic.
Probably the most polytheistic
religion in the world is Mormonism.
So for that reason, they're rejected by the
mainstream as well.
But Orthodox Christianity,
as far as Catholicism,
Eastern Orthodox,
and Protestantism
will say that Jesus is God,
begotten, not made,
co equal, co substantial, co eternal with the
father and the holy spirit and that obviously
is very problematic to to the Muslim,
and, you know, we can go into details
as to what that actually entails
but it would be beyond the schedule.
Alright. But, yeah, apparently, they're still around.
The conclusion that I came to just is
that
with
Christianity and and all of the,
like, the Jewish and the Christian scholars and
everything, it's like one big endless argument.
Because even when you mentioned how there's
manuscripts and writings,
another group's theory
or their belief
is still not leading to
one of the, you know, one of the
divine sources
of revelation
to where it seems like
it's on the way of life.
Where
I look at Islam,
when we have the solids of Islam,
it's it's
it seems like it it helped,
the Muslims
be a little more organized, or they made
it easier
for us
to kinda,
you know, draw beliefs and actions about how
we should live our lives and how we
should view Allah
and and view the, like, the the articles
of faith and pillars.
You know, like, it's all put into perspective
Right. To where
you have
Muslims from all over the world
who who have the same exact view.
Whatever the concept is or whatever the ritual
is. Yeah. I mean, you may have variances,
you know,
of of a of a ritual, but basically,
you know, like,
we have it or you go to Hajj
Mhmm. And you don't have a bunch of
Muslims arguing at the Haram,
like, what day do you do, Sahid,
or are you going to Mena today or
tomorrow? You know, so it's like at the
end of the day, if you just wanted
to have,
a good conversation
with a Christian or a Jew about,
you know, this and that.
Right. Yeah. That's that's the thing about the
hatch you mentioned is that they don't it
doesn't get a lot of play time. This
is a world event. Yeah. But very rarely
when you see, like, something on,
you know, Nightline or something or CNN. They
only just use the word mega. Oh, they're
right at the bottom. It's about millions of
Muslims, you know, the little script at the
bottom. Will they show, like, a still shot?
Because it's very, very powerful.
The image of I mean, they've done Hud
had just in the Michael Wolf did a
HUD special a few years. Like, once in
a while, they do something, but it's so
powerful because there's nothing like this on Earth.
Right? And you're absolutely right. I mean, we
can go to a masjid in China and
be able to follow a very you know,
what's going on as far as he's making
the adhan, now we're gonna bring the sunnah,
now we're gonna sermon, right, so on and
so forth.
They're interestingly, there are churches in the Middle
East. There's there's actually congregations in Syria that
still conduct their liturgy in Aramaic.
And if you go to the church, you'll
see the Christians standing in rows and praying
and making sajdah and they're reciting in Aramaic.
You'll think it's a masjid. I saw the
Jews. I saw some Jews doing that. Yeah.
They they Yeah. Americans, they they pray like
that as well. Yeah. So it's very interesting.
I mean, you take one of those Christians
in a Muslim country, and they haven't been
influenced by Islam. They were there before Islam.
That's this is how they've been taught to
pray. They actually believe, like, in in in
Egypt that Saint Mark started that church and
you go to Iraq and Thedeus was these
are disciples of Jesus, right, that predate Islam.
If you took one of those Christians from
a church and put them into Yankee Stadium
in a Joel Osteen
revival, you would have no idea what's going
on. What are they talking about? Right. But
if you put him in a masjid, he's,
oh, yeah. I see what's going on here.
There was they're
praying and they're making sajdah. I mean, that's
that's because he's inherited something of a sunnah.
So transmission from east side of the sunnah
from James is the Jerusalem apostles.
We're gonna, wrap up unless we got any
pressing
questions that we don't answer tonight.
Somebody's gonna like apostics.
No. That's not I'm just playing.
So if we could just have somebody make
the event, and then we'll just end with
prayer and show them. Yeah. We'll go ahead.
Come on. Just end
with prayers.
I'm sorry if I said anything that offended
anyone. It's not our intention.
Please please, pray for us.