Ali Ataie – Crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity and Islam
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AI: Transcript ©
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Dima Vasa, Ronnie Iran Dr Jain and even mo Karami
Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh and welcome back to
the rivers podcast in the dunya. The three Muslims today we are
joined with a very esteemed guest. He's a PhD in biblical Islamic
hermeneutics, and the Speaker of three different languages, not
just any languages, but some may be the most difficult languages to
learn and speak that is Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. So I'm only
gonna throw it out to Dr. Alia, Thai, how're you doing today?
Well,
going hamdulillah tomato, and this has been a long time coming. We
saw you on lung theology, you've done a lot of great work and great
presentations on there. So I suggest everyone check that out,
inshallah. And we've been trying to make this happen for for a hot
minute now. So it's a blessing to have you here as a young man, who
has discussed with many, many Christians, and you know, people
who will always reference the Bible. I have many, many questions
for us, I hope you're ready Inshallah, for all that. We'll do
our best inshallah. Inshallah. And everyone in the comments, feel
free to send your questions for it. But just to begin, I want to
know a little bit about your, your background, not so much your
educational background, but maybe more, so your upbringing and why
you decided to get into the field that you studied.
Yeah.
Muhammad Ali, he was a huge Marine. So I don't know, I've just
always sort of been interested in, in discovering the truth, keeping
an open mind. You know,
I was born in Iran, and many Iranians who came to America are
very secular, right? Not very religious, I would say. So,
most of my friends growing up, I grew up in the East Bay of
California, most of them were Christian. They were they were
white. They,
they took me to their churches.
They tried to convert me, I would say at the time, I didn't really
subscribe to any one religion, which is sort of interested in in
different sort of belief systems. So I attended
multiple churches, even a Mormon Sunday school for a couple of
years, actually. And they had mashallah they had immaculate eyed
up there. They're very moral people, right.
But when I got older, I looked into their theology, I said, Whoa,
what's going on? What's going on with this theology?
So none of that sort of stuck with me.
None of it sort of resonated with me.
Now, I did you know, I was, I've been studying the New Testament
and reading the New Testament since I was in elementary school,
or grammar school, whatever you guys call it up in Canada.
And so I kind of fell in love with with a sigh they Salam, before I
knew anything about the prophets of God send them, right.
But the, the theology of Christianity, right. It just, I
just found it so strange. I found it odd.
I didn't understand it. I tried to understand it. And I had it
explained to me multiple times by my friends, my peers, by adults,
by pastors.
The Trinity to me just was something that was
just something that I could not penetrate at all, you know. And I
thought, well, this isn't working. So when I was in college, when I
started college, at 17,
I was I took an intro to business class, and
the professor put us in alphabetical order and the class.
And I noticed that this, this guy behind me, he had the same last
name as I did. So I asked him, Are you Iranian? And he said, No, I'm
Afghan said, Okay. And then he said, Are you muslim? And I said,
Yeah, I'm Muslim, and I had, you know, sort of
been converted by I guess, you could say, by Malcolm X. I was 15
years old. So I started to call myself Muslim. I didn't know how
to practice or anything. So I had not met like practicing Muslims
until I got to college. I said, he told me about the MSA and he took
me there
and fluid there. And I started to really,
you know, study Islamic theology. I mean, at the time at a very
basic level, but to my surprise, Muslims believe in Jesus right.
And that's something I needed to hold on to because like I said, I
sort of fell in love with with Jesus. From from the from
In the Bible, but but the theology didn't stick up. So and then I
discovered that yeah, we can I can believe in Jesus. But I don't have
to believe in the Trinity. I don't have to believe in God,
and I can still love him. And so
it came to this realization that basically the, the, this teaching
our Christology about Christ peace be upon him, right our belief
about Jesus peace be upon him, is given through the prophet muhammad
sallallahu Sydenham, so he is the source of means of our guidance.
So then I started to appreciate the Prophet, somebody said, and
then of course, I started to learn about the Prophet studying the
Sierra, engaging in the Shemitah, Allah the Prophet sallallaahu
Salam, and immediately, you know, fell in love with him. And he
became the most beloved of human beings to me.
And so that's, that's sort of the the story in a nutshell.
Wow. Subhan Allah. So when do you think you you really made a, a
smooth transition to you know, I'm Muslim, kind of, I'm saying I'm
Muslim to wow, I am Muslim.
Yeah, I think it was, I
think it was one I first attended.
Like classes of sacred knowledge. Alright. So yeah, when I was 15, I
saw this movie Malcolm X, right? I actually remember the date, the
exact date is November 18 1992. I was four days short of my 15th
birthday. And so my dad for No, no apparent reason, I don't know why
he just said, Let's go watch this movie, Malcolm X. And I thought to
myself, yeah, I've heard of Malcolm X, but I don't know why he
wants to watch this movie. So I said, Okay, let's go with him. And
so I was sitting there, and to be honest with you, I was bored for
about the first two hours. And then, you know, he he goes to
hatch. And there was something about, I don't know, it's
something about the the way that those scenes were filmed, you
know, Spike Lee was a director.
That just resonated with me deeply. And then I was kind of
just sitting there in the movie theater, kind of just dumbstruck
just kind of staring at the screen. And I actually sat through
all of the credits, you know, and at the end of the credits, he
actually, they show the picture, an image of the autobiography of
Malcolm X, live, learned that I kind of took a mental picture I
went to, I went to my local library over here, and I checked
it out. And I took it home, and I started to read it, and it's very
thick, and at the time, I mean, I'm 14 years old, almost 50. So
then I went to the chapter on Hajj.
After I read that chapter, I remember I closed the book, and I
said, Okay, I Muslim, I just made it up in my mind that I'm going to
be Muslim. I didn't know anything about the practice of Islam that
didn't come until about three or two or three years later, when I
actually attended.
I was about 18 years old. So she comes a use of who was the
president of our college, say tonight, he was teaching a class
on Maliki Fick.
And so,
I went there. And I didn't know what Maliki was. I don't know what
fifth is.
But I just I was just watching him. And I was just completely
just just floored by, you know, his demeanor, his knowledge. You
know, I remember he started writing in Arabic on the board.
And I said, Wow, mind blowing, you can write, you can, you can write
Arabic.
And so, from that point on, I said, Okay, I need to learn this
religion, I need to start practicing this religion. So that
was the sort of turning point for me. So these two men really
Malcolm X, he comes up, really pulling me sort of embracing the
religion wholeheartedly. Well,
nothing happens by coincidence, you know, it's times like this
when you look back, and we all have these moments where it's kind
of similar to your father taking you to the movies, you know, and
it's not until way later that you put together the pieces and
realize that everything happens for a reason. I know like a lot of
non Muslims, they call it the butterfly effect. We call it the
color hula. But Allah plans in the most perfect ways possible.
Yeah. And so, and eventually there, I think got a point where
you just, you know, really, really leveled up. So would you say it
was at some point during studying, you know, achieving your PhD or
after you achieved it, where you got to this level where it's like,
you know, wow, you know, this is Dr. Alia, tie, he's on blogging
theology. He's super knowledgeable. He speaks three
languages. That's a big one, like speaking three languages.
Is this a part of your PhD? Well, I mean, I would say only really
speak English, right? I mean,
what language do you dream and what language do you custom?
That's really your main language, so that I have an academic
understanding of these other languages. I've always been
interested in language like this
that, you know, like, I grew up sort of reading the Bible. And but
I wanted to know, like, what the actual text says, I don't like
translation. So what does the text actual saying its original
language? Yeah. So it was more. Yes, I officially sort of learned
these languages in graduate school, but I studied them
independently to a certain extent as much as I could, before that
time, kind of taught myself the Greek alphabet and the Hebrew
alphabet, and,
you know, started to read Arabic a little bit. But it wasn't yet my
formal studies in graduate school, when I started to engage in these
languages, and it's really important to do that, you know,
sometimes,
you know, people character, characterize me as sort of being,
you know, anti Christian or anti biblical and things like that. But
I've invested so many years of my life to studying the Bible, it's
because I respect it as a text. And I really want to know, you
know, the history of this text.
You know, there's a lot of Muslim apologists who will attack the
Bible, and you know, sort of deconstruct it, but they haven't
really done a lot of studies in the Bible.
And so,
you know, I encourage people that if you're going to criticize a
text to do it academically, if you do it with a, with a, with a,
obviously with a good intention, but in a way that sort of
reflexive asst of sophistication and actual attitude of respect for
the text. So yeah, I've studied this textbook for many, many
years.
Because I honestly want to know the truth. You know, I want to
know what's going on with this book? What's going on with these
gospels? Who's Paul? You know, you know, what's, who wrote the Old
Testament? When was it, you know, sort of canonized?
What did these words actually mean in Greek and Hebrew?
So for me, you know, it's,
you know, the Bible also is, it's easily the most influential texts
in the history of Western civilization, is Mark Van Doren
said, in liberal education, he said, if, if you don't know, the
Bible, if you don't know who Abraham, Moses and David are that
you've been mis educated, you know, we and we're Muslims living
in the West, we need to know this text, we don't have to be experts,
we have to know something. Right?
Because the Quran does Engage with the Bible, the Quran, I would say,
in many cases, expects you to know the sub texts, many of its if,
right, because the Quran is engaging with biblical tradition,
with tradition of the late antique, you know, the sort of
backstory is taken for granted. We have to know what's going on with
the Quran.
We have to know what's going on with the Bible in order to
understand some of the the stories of the Koran. We can get into some
of that later if you want. But it's it's you know, it's I would
say it's part and parcel of our tradition as Muslims to engage a
little bit with with biblical history. Because, you know, before
the prophets, nobody sent them the bunnies, right? They were the
Muslim ummah. Right? They were the people of Ye, they were the people
that were given NBR.
You know, so it behooves us to study these texts and these
traditions in order to understand our own tradition.
I think that I think that's very beautifully said, because a lot of
the time and you'll see this on apps that are kind of all over the
place, like tick tock, you know, people just two young people
jumping on a live together and yelling at each other. And most of
them will say horrible things and Christmas, they horrible things,
and none of them really seem to care, I think academically is to
gracious of a word to use, I don't think they care about, you know,
even the discussion on a very basic human level. So I think it's
important to ask this, and then I think we can get to the specifics
later, myself, and I think many others are wondering, what is the
best way for a Muslim to interact with the Christian in 2023? Hmm.
Yeah, that's a very good question.
You know,
we have a lot in common with with Christianity. And I would say
Islam is by its nature, you know, conservative we have, we have
conservative values, we believe in family values, right? We believe
in human nature. We believe that human nature and forms if you want
to call them gender roles, you know, the word gender wasn't
actually used for human beings until the 20th century, we have we
have their two sexes, right? If they want to use that type of
language, we believe in, you know, objective truth with a capital T.
You know, we're close here to UC Berkeley. Their school motto is,
Fiat to Luke's Let there be light from the Bible. Right? That's from
Genesis, you have other schools. Luke's at Veta toss, right light
and truth.
But these other schools, they don't they don't teach traditional
religion they don't, they don't teach truth with a capital T.
Right?
Because that's seen as you know, archaic and antiquated and
offensive and etc, etc, etc.
But Christians to hold on to their tradition, right, we have a lot in
common with them.
And certainly in the face of the current zeitgeist, which is
totally anti religious, and anti tradition, and really anti truth.
I mean, you can make your own truth. Right. Everyone has their
own truth. And you heard us a lot of it'll live my truth. Well,
there's only one truth. Right? And that's, and that's what we
believe. And so the Quran, you know, what does the Quran say for
the GED humans on a level field, let the people have a gospel, you
know, judge by what Allah has revealed there in this doesn't
mean I mean, some Christians say they quote this verse And they
say, this verse means the Bible is completely
accurate. And, and perfect that No, I mean, the Quran, and this,
this is what we want. We want Christians to follow their
tradition. Right? This is this is good for this is good for the
world, that they follow their traditions, because there is truth
in their tradition. And they believe in objective truth, and
they believe in objective morality. Whereas you look at
what's happening right now in our society, it's a total jungle.
Right. So certainly, we have a lot in common. So I would say that,
you know, when we engage with Christians, obviously, we have to
do it with Adam, you know, and, you know, for me, you know,
you know, like, when I was an undergraduate, we had this, we had
this Thursday night, farmers market where, you know, I went to
school in the central coast of California, and that's known as
sort of a California bible belt, you know, California doesn't have
a Bible belt. So we would go out to the street, we make all the
weak debate all these Christians, and thank God, I think Allah
subhanaw taala, that none of those things are, this is pre internet
pre for you to none of that stuff is on is on is online, you know,
because, you know, debating is very difficult. And, you know, I
wonder like, some of these guys that go out, and they debate
people in the street, and they post them on YouTube. You know,
when they turned 40, I think they're going to regret
most of what they what they posted, right? Why do you think
that is? I think that's interesting. Why do you think that
is? It's, you know, debate G Gad, right? This is an art form, you
really need to have incredible addendum, you know, it's, you
almost have to completely remove your ego from that, right. Because
you have to really have, you know, obviously, a very sincere
intention for the guidance of the other person,
excuse me for on tells us how to how to debate right how to engage
with people been Hekmati will not be that it has been which added
ability he acts and so when we engage with people, as Kitab, in
debate, we have to do it with not only like a lot in like, you know,
basically like proofs,
scriptural proofs, historical proofs, etc, theological proofs,
but also with good comportment with a good attitude
with a sincere intention for the guidance of the other person. And
it's very hard to do that. The ego gets involved, especially if, you
know, there's a camera there and you know, followers and
I think it's just almost impossible. Unless someone is
very, very disciplined, right, with years of training, right?
People forget the inward sciences, they have to study these things to
see you to knifes is very, very important.
So I tell you a true story. What happened to me is, I was at one of
these debates, I was, you know, 21 years old or something, and I used
to go out there and, you know, just completely annihilate these,
these poor Christian guys.
You know, I look back on it, actually, it turns my face, right,
just thinking about what I used to say to them. But I used to go out
there and do that. And I remember,
I remember, you know, the brother was talking about like, Allah, you
know, he goes things and, you know,
according to His plan that we should take,
we should we should heed. So I was there and there's older a
Christian guy was there and he was listening to me. And he said to
me, you just said, you don't care about us, you don't care about our
guidance. And I said, Well, what are you talking about? And they
said, you just want to come here and embarrass us.
And of course, I said, No, you can't, you know, you can't answer
my questions. And that's a cop out and this and that, you know, and
then I went back to my dorm room, and I literally had like an
existential crisis, because I'm just sitting there and I said,
he's right. This is all knifes, right?
I was honest with myself. And so I said, look, okay, I'm going to do
this the right way. I'm going to actually study the bar.
Well, I'm going to study its history but to study languages,
I'm going to renew my intention and actually try to engage with
the Christians in a way that is, according to the ethos of the
Prophet sallallahu sallam, because the Prophet sallallaahu Selim,
when he called people to Islam, he did it with, with great concern
for them. Right. And, you know, this is this is something that is
known in our, in our tradition, that the Prophet salallahu Salam
had incredible concern for the guidance of His people. Yeah. And
the day of pi, for example, when the angel came and said to him,
you know, give me the view, okay, basically, you know, will destroy
the city of thought if and he said, No, I have hope and their
descendants. And his only concern that day was, you know, what is
this sort of? What is Allah's opinion of him? Right? If this is
happening to me, and you are not angry with me for that badly, then
I don't mind let it happen. Right. It's only concern was allows
opinion of him, not the opinion of the people.
But it's a you know, it's a difficult thing to do. You know,
so.
But yeah, I mean, we should talk about things we have in common
with, with Christians, as we have a lot of things in common,
especially nowadays. But we also have differences and those
differences matter. Right? So you know, we're not going to say that
it doesn't matter. It's, you know, two sides of the same coin. It
doesn't you know, it, you know, whether you're reading, bizarrely,
or Aquinas, it's just sort of semantics. No, we're not saying
that either. There are real differences between these
religions.
But in face of the current zeitgeist, we can certainly come
together with Christians, and voice our opinions as to, you
know, just sort of
advocating a modicum of sanity in the world that there is truth.
There is falsehood. There is there is there are things that are
moral, there is a man there is a woman these things are. I mean, we
knew these things not too long ago, but apparently
spiraled into chaos.
Yeah, may Allah protect us from it. And I really love the point
you made before about sincerity. I at one point, I was supposed to
give a speech. So I was thinking about,
you know, how the process has really transformed the sahaba?
Because you can argue, yeah, you know, they're like our shale, for
example, they helped transform the youth sometimes, but
a lot of the time not to the degree, that process and the
process of them he made, like people who hate each other, love
each other, come together as one and really just literally conquer
the Earth eventually down, you know, some generations. That is
tremendous. And if we as especially as Muslims don't study
how he did that, then we are, you know, we're falling behind
greatly, I'd say so I was looking into what was it that he had and I
just came to the conclusion that he just actually cared about them.
He really just cared about them. He was sincere and, and, you know,
he didn't just teach them as them the Quran. He genuinely loved
them. He genuinely wanted the best for them to the point where he
said, Oh Allah strengthen Islam with you know, one of the two
Omar's, either Omar m&a Sham, who was Abu gehele, or Omar even Jota,
who at the time was also an enemy of Islam. I made dua for both of
them. He said, Yo, Allah, whichever, whoever you love more,
and then Omar and the one who accepted Islam shortly after that,
so he really just cared about people. So I think that's a
beautiful point that no matter who we're speaking with, maybe even,
you know, big names like Islamaphobic names like David Wood
and, and red Vaughn and these people, I think there has to be at
least some of us who genuinely, you know, care for their guidance,
potentially, whether they accept it or not, it's up to them, you
know, how do you
how do you spell that a Coleman this is sort of the Toba the or
the must say this is this is a, a, a concern the Prophet salallahu
Salam had for the whole of humanity being Mininova Oh, four,
he now he has a special concern for the believers. But there is a
concern for the whole of humanity that he had. Right? And you're
right. I mean, if we don't want people to be guided, if we want
the destruction of people, right. I mean, I debated David Wood in
2007, six or seven, something like that. I make to offer him I know,
I honestly want His guidance. I don't want his disruption. I want
him to be guided.
And that's I think that is a prophetic ethos. You know, may
Allah subhanho wa Taala guide all these people now, you know, it's a
it's difficult when you know, we have to be, we have to be very
discriminatory as to who we engage with though. I think that's
important. Because according to the Quran, we're not even supposed
to platform like Musa has evil and people who mock and derived our
religion, people who mock and insult the Prophet salallahu
Salam, right.
The Quran says Allah subhanho wa Taala says that I will take care
of the Western Zeeland I will suffice you as against them.
Right? But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to pray for
people who do that because Allah subhanaw taala can can change the
hearts you know,
And as he says, stating her motive, no photography, a lot more
angle. I mean, he had the most evil intention in the history of
humanity. He had resolved upon the most evil intention in the history
of humanity, which is to go kill the Prophet Muhammad said a lot of
setup.
And a lot changed his heart.
So, a law is in charge of everything, you know, but yeah, I
mean, we have to have, we have to, we have to have this type of
prophetic concern for people, it's very, very important to do that.
Do you think with a lot of people that are either students of
knowledge, or they're trying to take a scholarly route and become
more learned in Islamic sciences, they lack understanding the
importance of other than etiquette today?
I think yeah, I think that's the sort of, according to our
scholars, this is the crisis of the modern world, the lack of
Adam, right? A lack of of a lack of discipline, discipline is a
good word, you know, the word disciple and discipline are, are
linked, right. So the person either, right is the educated
person, but also the virtuous person, you know, and nowadays, I
would say there's an epidemic of people who lack add up.
A lot of that has to do with social media, right? I mean, it's
just
I mean, I don't know if there's people that are writing like
dissertations or theses on what the effects on the internet on, on
our sanity. But
I'm sure it's quite profound, right? I mean, people waking up,
and,
you know, the first thing that comes to their mind is not a, a
DUA, or to pray, but you know, checking their phone to see who's
commenting on who's praising me, who's, who's criticizing me.
Right.
And then, you know, just sort of getting into impulses, having a
lack of discipline. I mean, I,
I was on Facebook, you know, until 2017. And
at some point, I said to myself, this is there's some benefits of
this, but
I think the the harm outweighs the benefit.
And it was difficult for me to sort of just be civilized with
people, people want to debate me people want to just said, forget
it, I'm not gonna engage. And that's just me, though. I mean,
there are people who could obviously, I'm not saying, you
know, get rid of social media, there's people that obviously, we
can use it for
a good end, and this was a good intention. But the most important
thing is the state of our heart and if we feel like something is,
is corrupting the state of our hearts, that we should get rid of
that thing. Right? We should, we should, we should have the ability
to adapt the discipline to be able to do that. Right, rather than
sort of giving in and this is the age of feeling, right. I mean, if
you had the age of faith, you know, the age of reason. Now we
have and now it's the age of feeling. I feel this I want to do
this, I feel like I'm this, if it feels good, do it.
Things like that. So
yeah, it's like I said, you know, this is a, either inward sciences
that we've neglected
in how to deal with, with with arrogance, with ostentation, with
vanity, you know, we have we have a whole tradition that deals with
how to deal with the signs if either of us have been setting
about Pakistan, he had a sound heart, right? A sound heart is the
most important things you bring to Allah Subhan Allah to Allah, on
the you
know, a lot of the viewers are just waiting for the crucifixion
stuff and a lot of the rational evidences but I do have one last
question on the settlement. You have a question? No, go for bro.
Okay, this one. So it's common knowledge now. And I'm sure with
your lived experience, doing this for a long time, that there's a
lot of debate disasters and coming at it to prove a point and defend
an argument. It's not always the most conducive way to do dollar to
Christians. So this being said, what advice would you have for
being aware of someone's emotional state and emotional obstacles of
leaving Christianity? And how would you tackle that? Because I
largely find that it's rarely in a logical issue or rational issue,
but it's usually some type of emotional attachment to
Christianity, and they just have this block coming to Islam.
Yeah,
I mean, it's a good question.
There needs to be a, you know, support system.
You know, we expend all of this energy to make converts, and
that's good, but when they convert, they seem to be sort of
left to their own devices. And many of them unfortunately, they
go back, they revert back to their old religion, because they don't
have that sort of support system to continue to guide them.
All right.
So just to continue to, you know, to keep contact with new converts
to, you know, welcome them to the community to give them resources
to answer their questions into,
you know, two,
three, reiterate these points I made earlier that if you leave
Christianity, you know, you're not leaving the love of Jesus, Muslims
are required to love Jesus use it
a great prophet in our tradition.
And so don't think like you're forsaking Jesus, or you're
abandoning him, while you're turning your back on him. Right?
He's a prophet in our tradition. So just to, you know, offer that
type of continued support education for Christians, because
it is, you know, anyone who leaves any religion, there's going to be
some trauma associated with that,
especially with their family. If they have Christian parents, it's
very, very difficult to
deal with with parents that are constantly
wanting to sort of debate you or, or the obviously they're doing
with good attention, because your mother and father only want good
for you.
How do they negotiate that pressure from their parents, but
also have a good up with their parents, but still having that
sort of is the karma in Islam? It's a difficult thing, but I
think the short answer will love it. The short answer is, they need
to have some sort of continuous support system with the Muslims
that guided them to Islam, and not sort of just leave them out there
just because they convert it.
Yeah, there's a lot of comments on our streams when we talk about
Christianity. And we have a revert that either takes the shahada or
accepts Islam and or they've already accepted Islam, and now
they share their journey. You see a lot of Christians commenting how
could you turn your back on Jesus? How could you turn your How could
you abandon Jesus? How could you leave Jesus? And for me, it's it's
very easy to spot that it's just out of ignorance. I don't think
they're coming out sideways. I just genuinely think they don't
understand Islam, and how we view each other. So yeah, I mean, what
is what is a Christian? And if you ask a Christian, what is a
Christian? You might get an answer. You have to believe in the
Bible that Christian believes in the Bible. What will the Bible was
in canonized until the fourth century? I mean, it was
efficacious is 39th festal letter? He was the first one to articulate
this 27 book cannon. That was in 367. That's for century. So there
weren't Christians before the Bible and say, okay, okay to be a
Christian. You have to believe that Jesus is God and He died for
your sins. Now, according to historians, the earliest
Christians did not believe that. Right? This this is essentially
fall on Christianity.
I mean, there were Christians, the Nazarene, the Knights were
probably you know what the Nazarene is what the early church
fathers referred to the Nazarene for the second century that the
Knights probably a derogatory term. But they didn't believe that
Jesus or those those not Christians, and these are the
earliest. So what is a Christian? You know, a Christian is basically
when it when it comes down to it, someone who believes that Jesus is
the Messiah.
That's what that's what it means to be a Christian, according to
this earliest conception, right?
was a Christian believes in the Trinity, that's, again, Trinity is
fourth century, the Trinity wasn't made official until 381, of the
Common Era. Right and the 324 25 you have the Council of Nicaea, or
son of God officially became God the Son, and then 381, you deal
with the Holy Spirit. Now you have the Trinity, the first true
Trinitarian theologians or the or the Cappadocia, church fathers in
in Turkey. And Agustin of Hippo. These are fourth century fifth
century theologians. So that's what it comes down to the the term
Christian in its original sense means someone who believes that
Jesus was the Messiah, and guess what Muslims believe that Jesus is
the Messiah. Right? So, you know, we are Christian in that sense,
in that the Quran purports to be and I think you can support this.
Historically, the Quran purports to be or claims to be
a, a restoration of the original teachings of the historical Jesus
of Nazareth. Right. And there's scholars who have mentioned this,
you know, you can, you know, Hans calling and so many words admitted
this, you know, Robert Eisenman,
James Tabor, you know, they they've noticed these parallels
between Islamic trust. I mean, they try to, you know, try to
explain these things naturalistically. Right, so
historically, right that there might have been at the Knights
living in caves in Arabia, but
often somebody said, I'm gonna go visit them and learn their
Christology and things like that.
They have to have some sort of historical or naturalistic
explanation as to how
Islam managed to do that.
But, but yeah, I mean, certainly
someone who becomes Muslim is actually following the religion of
Jesus. Whereas Paul and Christianity which is today
Trinitarian Christianity is not the religion of Jesus. It's the
religion about Jesus or the religion of reciting sunnah.
And he certainly Salam you know, in the earliest gospel as you
know, you know, when he was asked by a Jewish lawyer, what is the
greatest commandment he quoted the Shema, that hero Israel the Lord
our God, the Lord is one he is a Ha, should I use that I don't I
you know, thing I do not
write. Hello Allahu Ahad, this is the exact word over there exact
cognates and one here means one, right?
Three, one means one, you know, pen means pen and table means
table and man means man and woman means
three, but he could have been he said one but he could have meant
three. No, he could have said that. said that. Right. And I find
it I find it weird. I had only occurs once in the Quran. Exactly.
Yeah. One and Only, um, this is the plain meaning of the text,
right? Jesus did not try to teach Trinitarian Christianity. Right.
Even according to the New Testament, Paul did not even teach
Trinitarian Christianity. The authors of the New Testament are
not Trinitarians they were not Unitarians, either. I don't think
Paul's a Unitarian, I think he adopted this kind of
Heno theistic
view that is prevalent in the in the Greco Roman world, he was a
highly Hellenized Jew. But I don't believe him when he says that he
was a Pharisee if he even said that, you know, that's, I mean, we
have to, but anyway, yeah, Trinitarian Christianity did not
become an Christianity did not become officially Trinitarian
until way later the fourth century. So this is the religion
of Jesus Peace be upon.
us very briefly said. So a lot of Christians are going to find that
hard to believe. So I kind of want to walk through what maybe the
majority of New Testament scholars claim or believe but Jesus so it
seems to be the case that Jesus first came as you know, what they
call an apocalyptic cyst that he believed that there's life after
death, in the end times you were coming and he was a follower of
the Mosaic law. And he actually came to make practicing the Mosaic
Law easier for the people so he came to the people told them
worship one God gave them basically reminded them of the
Mosaic Law and maybe made some things easier for them to practice
in terms of that law and legislation. And then sometime
after Jesus, you know, died or disappeared, or left or was risen
by Allah spawn to oughta
came, amen. Predominantly, I believe Paul was the one who kind
of orchestrated a this kind of huge movement, where he was
claiming Jesus is God claimed to be God died for our sins, and so
on and so forth. And then this Christology kind of became common,
I don't know, at what point but at some point that Jesus was God, and
that He died for your sins. And then throughout the next few 100
years, you have a lot of speculation on how that worked,
you know, is it this hypostatic union, that he's, he has a god
nature and a man nature and they don't contend with each other? Is
it Modalism that Jesus had different modes? Is it separation
ism? That, you know, you know, it was separate somehow? Or was it
eventually what came to be Trinitarianism? That they're all
co equal co eternal? Apologize, my camera just chopped off. But Dr.
Ali, if you want to jump in on that, inshallah? I think that'd be
great. Yeah. So I think I think the problem is that the,
the first New Testament author is Paul of Tarsus, right.
And Paul was not a disciple of Jesus.
Nobody believes that, that Paul, meant the historical Jesus of
Nazareth, peace be upon him. So he's the initial author of the New
Testament, and clearly from his letters, and people don't know
this, because they read the Bible, and they, you know, they read it
in its canonical order. And, you know, after the Old Testament, you
come to the book of Matthew. Then you have marketing of Luke 20 of
John, and you have the book of Acts, and then eventually you get
to the letters of Paul, and you think, well, this, these are the
orders of books, chronologically, but that's not true. Everyone
agrees that Paul's letters were the first Christian writings that
eventually made it into the New Testament, right?
Which is a bit strange, because we know from historical sources,
the book of Acts, For what it's worth, historically.
as well as Josephus and others, that the early Christian movement
after Jesus peace be upon him, the leader of the Christians was
James. And it's amazing. Most Christians haven't even heard of
James, who's James. I mean, James, you know, the one of the disciples
of Jesus as mentioned,
know, James, the brother of Jesus. Right? Yeah. Cool. That's so deep.
This is what he's called James, the just James the righteous. He
was the leader of the, of the early Christians, of the of the
Nazarene in Jerusalem for 30 years. Right? Where are his
authentic writings? He didn't write anything. The Oh, the only
Christian that that was writing these letters and Epistles was
Paul of Tarsus, you know, and there's there's 14 attributed to
him, only seven of them according to almost a consensus of
historians. Only seven of them are genuine, genuinely Paul line
written by Paul, the authentic from Paul, in the New Testament,
the other seven or six are forgeries.
But what where are the letters of James, you know, so it's like
hearing one side of a phone conversation, right? If you're
listening to someone talking on the phone, you can only hear what
this person is saying, but you don't know what the other person
is saying. So what is what is James actually saying from Paul's
letters, we know that he has conflict with with other
Christians, right? I mean, read Galatians read First Corinthians,
it's very, very clear that he has enemies that are Christians. And
at one point in Galatians, you know, he, he basically chastises,
you know, Peter, James and John. Right. So he has major conflict
with disciples of Jesus, you know, this calls into question his his
vision on the road to Damascus, you know, his sort of experience
apocalypses he had, you know, who did he actually see on the road to
Damascus? If, if this vision is because of this conflict that he's
having with actual disciples of Jesus, then we are not out of line
to question
Paul's sincerity, or his belief that what he saw was the actual
sort of resurrection that resurrected Christ, because he is
in major conflict with actual disciples of Jesus.
So that's a big problem. And also the four Gospels, as we said,
they're written after the Paul line corpus. So all four gospels
are highly influenced by Paul line Christianity, or plotline
Christology. And Paul clearly believes, and I don't think, to
me, it's it's very clear, and people want to sort of, you know,
they want to obfuscate, but it's very clear that Paul believed that
the Second Coming of Jesus was going to be in his own lifetime. I
mean, just just read First Thessalonians, it's very, very
clear, all of his advice is predicated upon, you know, the
second coming of Jesus, that's going to be imminent, right? Don't
don't even get bothered to get married, right. Don't even count
on using your goods that you've bought. Because we're going to be
transformed in the twinkling of an eye and caught up in the clouds
with the Lord. I mean, he really believes that, that it's going to
happen any day now. And that's it just it didn't happen. You know,
that's what was wrong about that? Well, unfortunately, we have the
four Gospels. And in the earliest of the canonical gospels, the
gospel of Mark, this idea of an imminent Second Coming of Jesus is
actually put into the mouth of Jesus, by the author of Mark, we
can call we can conveniently call him Mark, we don't know who wrote
the Gospel of Mark, but certainly a Paul and Christian, who did
believe, you know, Mark is writing on 67 or 70, or something like
that. So right, you know, at the end of the generation of the
apostles, and a generation of it's 40 years, you know, he's on a
salaam ascended around the, around the year 30. So you go ahead 40
years, it's right around 70 and the mark and Jesus says, there are
some standing here that shall not taste death, until until they see
the Son of Man coming in great power, the present generation will
live to see it all right. And so the mark in Jesus made a false
prophecy. That's not the real me sideways. Right? That is the mark
and Jesus, who was highly influenced by Paul and
personology. But here's the thing I want to see. I want I want I
want to discover a you know, a, an epistle written by James You know,
and the Epistle of James in the New Testament. Everyone agrees
that's a fabrication James and right that that's like a second
century. First and Second Peter and Peter didn't write these
things. In a Peter was an illiterate fisherman from the
Galilee. I mean, you wrote these. He wrote first and second here,
the John the son of Zebedee, right, the Gospel of John. And
historically this doesn't make me
sense if Christians want to say, Yeah, you know, John, a son of
Zebedee, you know, he waited until he's about 90 years old. And you
know, he studied, he studied a bunch of Greek philosophy and he
became a master of the Greek language. And then he wrote his
gospel finally, and he said, In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You know, he wrote
that, okay, if they want to believe that, that's fine, but
historically doesn't make any sense. None of the books of the
New Testament were written by disciples of Jesus, and this is
this is not something. This is not a polemical claim. I'm making this
a standard, you know, New Testament scholarship, many
confessional Christians will admit to this, right? I'm not, you know,
insulting or attacking the Bible, is this is just something that's
historically true.
Among a vast majority of critical scholars in the New Testament,
so, yeah, I mean, I would say that,
I would say that Paul, basically, he married, you know, Judaism with
this idea of a dying and rising savior, man, God, I don't believe
that Paul believe that Jesus was, is he God, right. But but that
Jesus was a God, a divine Son of God. Right. But not not identical
to God, but equal authority to God.
Wow. And that's interesting. And I think that on the note of, you
know, kind of unanimous or majority opinion for the scholars
in New Testament scholarship, I feel that there's a huge
disconnect between the New Testament scholars and the
scholarship, and like the everyday average Christian, because every
Christian that I speak to, I say, these very basic claims that none
of the Gospels love them, or any of the other books, just the
gospels were authored by, you know, eyewitnesses or disciples,
and they just cannot fathom it. They just they think that I'm just
denying blatant history. And I'm like, I'm quoting names. I'm
saying, you know, CS Lewis, Bart Ehrman, all these scholars are
saying, historically, they're agreeing that one will never have
the original. And two, they were not written by eyewitnesses or
disciples, and they can't fathom it. So what do you think is an
effective and efficient or effective way to get this point
across to the average layman? Yeah, I mean, people just have to
be honest with themselves and engage in this a standard standard
is historical studies in the New Testament, this is not some
revisionist, you know, like, you know, people today they say like,
like the Quran is in Aramaic, it's not Arabic. And what is it the the
original tipologia is in Jordan, and this is just laughably
incorrect. And this is this is totally revisionist.
But what we're saying about the New Testament is completely
mainstream. Historically, I learned these things in the
Christian seminary, I took a class at a school called the Jesuit
School of Theology, that's the name of the school. And our
professor was not some, you know, liberal California weirdo, he was
a priest, he was a Catholic priest. Okay. And in that class,
he taught us the documentary hypothesis of Julius Wellhausen.
He taught us the two source theory of the New Testament, you know,
that Matthew and Luke, they took for Mark, but they also had
another source source called cue. And I said, Well, there's a cue
source in the queue sources is probably pre Paul line, you know,
and so it's not it's not sort of influenced by it by Pauline
Christology. And, you know, I heard a podcast recently with John
Dominic Crossan. And he said that his scholars have tried to
reconstruct the Q source document. And he said, in Dennis McDonald as
well, they they make this point, that there's nothing about the
crucifixion or so called resurrection of Jesus in the queue
source document, and a huge source document is the earliest source
that the, that the gospel authors have had access to. So, you know,
I think it comes down to just, you know, like you said, there's a
strong emotional attachment. I know, like at some Christian
seminaries, they actually have exit counseling, because they have
this sort of check. You know, the faith of Christian seminarians
leaving the center. Are you like, are you still Christian after
going through the wringer? And are they really a really deeply you
know,
deconstruct the the Bible in a very critical way, but it's still
you know, it's a it's a historical criticism of the text, you know.
So, yeah, I think it's just a lack of education. People need to, you
know, need to step up their body like you said, it's hard to do
them.
Yeah, yeah. 100% Absolutely. So we have a few comments here. I do
want to get to them because it's almost been an hour already and
I'm very clear that we're going to need more than one port. So
inshallah we'll definitely bring you back very soon. But to start
with the Super Chat, somebody says, very happy to see Dr. Italia
on the three muscles podcast learn so much about Judaism
Christianity, thanks to him. May Allah bless you all.
Oh, geez Aquila. Hi, Ron. From Oh, from Mercy of France.
Think it's more see more say sorry we need on *, bro. He's
Canadian too. I'm supposed to know French.
It's okay.
So that's just Acapulco southern May Allah bless you. We got a new
revert, I think from Christianity to Islam tortoise King, may Allah
bless you. We're gonna have him on this one's on the podcast and make
a special appearance. He said, have some watch Dr. Ali's videos.
He's really good. May Allah bless you. But like Luffy come. And I
think this is something you're just before. But maybe if you have
a few remarks talking about Paul, he was killed for his belief he
wasn't lying. So if someone's willing to die for their belief,
then how could they be a liar?
Yeah, I mean, you're Christians believe that Muslims who,
you know, Muslims who die for their belief
that they have to be right, because they die for their belief
or like a Hindu who gives us life. So it's just a non sequitur
argument. We don't know what happened to fall. The death of
Paul is not mentioned in the New Testament. This is just based on
church history and tradition. We don't know what happened to the
disciples. Well, this is not this is not like me speaking as a
Muslim, you can ask a secular historian, what happened to
disciples and they say, We don't know. There are legends from the
third and fourth century that they were murdered and decapitated and
crucified upside down and things like that. But we don't know what
happened to Paul. I mean, the book of Acts chapter 21, or 22,
something like that. Paul is, you know, he's sort of, he's preaching
in the temple precincts and the Jews start beating him. And then
he basically appeals to Caesar, because he has Roman citizenship.
I don't know how he has that. He has Roman citizenship. And then
he's actually the Roman legionnaires, they come in they
they protect him, and he gives a speech. And then they escort him
back to Rome. And that's the last we hear of Paul, in the book of
Acts. What actually happened, and we don't know, church history
teaches that he was, you know, decapitated, and he's buried
somewhere in Rome. But, you know, that's, that's those were later
legends. Maybe that's what happened, I don't know, but
historically doesn't have a lot of weight.
Shortly, so, but to answer the question, just because someone
gives their life for something, it doesn't mean that
that what they believe was true. I mean, certainly, we know that
right? Yeah. Yeah. Even if they were they were martyred, or they
died in kind of the fashion of a martyr. Because we have many
Muslims, as you mentioned, that did that as well. So and it seems
to be the case that it's not just, you know, this one point that is
very speculative. It seems like almost every fundamental point for
Christianity, it's very speculative. You know, there's
actually even enough speculation on the crucifixion of Jesus
definitely the resurrection. You know, people love to quote, oh,
it's 500 people who witnessed it. But it's one source that says 500
people. So there's a lot I think, of just ignorance with Christians
in regards to their own faith, and how certain these things are
historically, I think, and I want your opinion on this. Before I go
to some other comments. Do you think it's because we don't have
anything more solid than the Bible, like the Bible is maybe the
best historical source we have for early Christians and Christianity?
Or is it something else? Is it the faith? Yeah, I mean, the only
the only sources we have that mentioned Jesus from the first
century that are authentically written in the first century are
the Gospels. Right. And I think most scholars would put the
gospels in the first century, there are a few that would put,
you know, the gospel of Luke in the second century, the book of
Acts, obviously, is part two of Luke in the second century, the
Gospel of John many would put that in the early second century, even
even sort of 110 120, something like that. But I think most would
say that Mark and Matthew are written in the first century.
There, there are references. There's a reference a couple of
references in Josephus,
reference to Jesus of Nazareth, one of them is probably a total
forgery. We don't find it in any.
It's not mentioned by any Christian scholar until the fourth
century.
You see the successes of celeea. So he's probably the one that
fabricated
about about Jesus being sort of killed and more than a man and
things like that very sort of Christian undertones.
So for all intents and purposes, there's really nothing in Greek
and Roman or Jewish sources that mentioned Jesus. So yeah, we were
sort of sort of stuck with the New Testament sources.
But with the New Testament, as I mentioned, you know, we engage in
a type of
historical analysis of these gospels. We can do a bit of
a bit of separate separating the wheat and the chaff as it were,
and scholars
have dealt with these texts. And so I would encourage people to
take a good class on historical criticism. When I when I say
criticism, again, I don't mean to necessarily find fault with
something. That's how we sort of use the word criticism in our
modern sort of, you know, second word apology, no apology for
hundreds of years meant to defend something nowadays, it means to
say I'm sorry. Right? So criticism means to really engage with
something in an academic sense, right? So I encourage people to do
that you should take a class and, you know, I encourage the Muslims
to do it with the Quran. You know, I think the difference is, the
more we engage critically with the Quran, historically, the more our
faith is actually strengthened.
And this is this is seen with our you know, we noticed this with our
narrative, right, the Quran is is, you know, it's, it was
standardized in the seventh century by the by the Codex
committee of Signet Earthman. This was our standard narrative for 14
centuries. And of course, you had revisionists all throughout that
time, challenging this? No, it's an eighth century document, and
there was a committee of people who wrote it, and so on and so
forth. But now, this is becoming much more mainstream among secular
historians. But I don't think you can say that about
the New Testament Gospels,
that when you actually study these things, and and at the at a deeper
level, at a historical level, you'll notice that there are
problems, right, that are inconsistencies, there are
contradictions. You know, if if Matthew believed that the gospel
of Mark was divinely inspired, why would he, in effect, why would he
redact portions of Mark's gospel? There are things that Mark says
that Matthew doesn't like you didn't include them. Why would he
do that? If you believe that mark, was inspired by by the Holy Spirit
to write his gospel? You know, the mark and Jesus? You know, his
final words on the Cross are this cry of dereliction? You know, la
isla de la mesa? bathtime. Right? My God, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Matthew, Matthew included that but Luke didn't like
that. And Luke has mark on his desk as it were. Right? But he
didn't like he didn't he didn't like the fact that the last words
of Jesus was him accusing God of forsaking him of abandoning him.
Right. So
this is a major problem. Right? If you want to say no, no, Luke, you
know,
Mark did not Luke did not have marking? Well, then you're you're
putting yourself in conflict with the vast majority of critical
scholars in the New Testament.
Grants are just
fine. Do you have any questions before I jump to a few more
comments? No, man before? All right, so Orlando, actually, let's
start with the Super Chat.
As Dr. Ali about the Book of Revelations who wrote it, and
where did the author get his inspiration from to write it? Love
and Peace brothers?
The book of Revelation, it's not its singular and plural, the book
of Revelation.
It's called the apocalypse in the Catholic version, so who wrote it?
We don't know who wrote it. Just like we don't know who actually
wrote the four Gospels. It's an anonymous book.
It's attributed in tradition to John of Patmos. Now, there are
many John's in the New Testament, is this a, John that is, in
addition to the author of the Gospel of John, many, many
Christians will say it's the same John, some would say no, it's a
different John. So nobody knows who wrote it. Okay.
So it is the author of the
of the book of Revelation writing about the end times something that
happened in the future, or is he writing about something that's
happening during his lifetime? That's also a question for
historians to ponder. You know, like what he says about I think
it's revelation 1318? You know, the, the theory on the beast,
whose number is 666? Right? Is he talking about the Antichrist to
come in the future? Or is he talking about the Emperor Nero?
Apparently, the Emperor neuros name and Latin or Greek, whatever
it is, the numerical value of His name is 666. Or he's talking about
both this idea that he's sort of referring to a historical figure
at this time, but also there's there's sort of a foreshadowing of
a figure to come in the future.
So the short answer is, you know, stories don't know who wrote the
book of Revelation. I don't think the author identifies himself if
he does, I'd have to look back again at it.
Isn't the same genre with the Gospel of John, that's that's a.
That's an open question. Yeah. And he even if he did identify
himself, we would still have to bring into question if he's being
truthful or if it's enough
Their fabrication, correct? Yeah, yeah. Because like I said, you
know, there's there are 13 letters of Paul that are explicitly
attributed. Whoever wrote these letters, identifies himself as
Paul. But the vast majority of historians will say only seven of
them are genuinely written by Paul, the other six are actually
forgeries in Paul's name. So, you know, a Christian apologist may
say, Well, you know, doing something like that in the ancient
world wasn't necessarily
you might, you know, immoral or deceptive or something. But I
would disagree with that. And Bart Ehrman wrote a book on on this
topic called forged. And he says that by and large, forgeries in
the ancient world, were done with with ill intention and with the
intention to deceiving their audiences. Right. So I think it
was a way to sort of save Paul from, from massive criticism that
he was probably getting, like, you know, again, at first, First
Thessalonians, it's very clear that Paul believes the Second
Coming is going to be during his lifetime. But in Second
Thessalonians, you know, now you have Paul saying, well, there's a
few things that have to happen in the meantime, you know, so it
seems like whoever wrote Second Thessalonians with a was a Paul
line, you know, digital T, who tried to save his master from
massive criticism that he was probably getting from other
Christians who are accusing Paul of making a false prophecy.
SubhanAllah. And I, like I mentioned before, I did an
interview with Dr. Dennis MacDonald, which Shala will be
edited and posted, hopefully soon, which is looking for a, a podcast
editor for the time being, if any of you know anyone, let me know
Sharla. And he wrote a book. And this isn't exactly the same,
right, as forgeries, but something you discussed. And this is how I
was introduced to it, literary nemesis, which is the idea that
you would take a story that already exists with, with, you
know, a very, you know, heroic figure or a great figure from the
past, you would take that story, and managed to apply it to Jesus
and make Jesus not only the hero and main character in that plot
that you stole, but make him better than the original person is
somehow and they did this. And
as Dennis McDonald described, not a not a malicious way, it wasn't
in a malicious manner, it was just to get to a deeper truth, and
really exaggerate this truth about Jesus that he was so amazing that
he's like this person that I'm taking the story from, but even
better, and this is done all over the, the New Testament and the
Gospels. And I think one case, if this is i, this may be or may not
be the same story you were just quoting. But one of the disciples
or students of Paul, I think his name was Luke, wrote that Paul saw
this vision of Jesus when He was on the road. And there's a lot of
specific language use a lot of specific plot points used, and
it's just exactly the same as I think something that was included
in like a Greek play, or something like that hundreds of years or
years before the student of Paul wrote it. So I find it amazing
that these just blatant,
you know, stealing of stories and maybe forgeries or fabrications,
you know, are out there and people are not talking about it. Ya know,
you're talking about something thrown at you remedies, Bankai.
Penzias right.
his encounter with Dionysus is very similar to Paul's encounter
with the so called resurrected Jesus. No, this was this was
standard amongst the Greek novelists. So Mark, for example,
he's a he's a, he's an elite Greek novelist. And this was the style
of writing at the time that they would borrow stories.
They would,
they would use what's known as a flexible genre where they would
exaggerate certain things. And then it's known what he was doing.
And I think he knew that his audience knew what he was doing,
because this was an acceptable practice. I mean, John's gospel,
he moves the Christian crucifixion date up one day. Right? And and
the author of John's gospel, we can call them John. It's not like
he didn't know that his readers wouldn't figure this out. Of
course, they would figure this out. But that's not his concern.
His concern is not necessarily to do accurate history is concerned
is to communicate his Christology. So he wanted to move the cursor to
the crucifixion date up because that's, that's fine to do,
according to his genre of writing to make a theological point, that
Jesus was crucified on the day when the lambs were being
slaughtered. Right. So here's the Lamb of God. I mean, Jesus called
the lamb Lamb of God, only in John's Gospel and the Baptist sees
him. In the beginning of constantly John's gospel he says,
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes the sin of contextually the sin of
the world. What
He's very different than the Baptist in the synoptic tradition,
who was saying repent, for the kingdom of God is in hand. Right.
But, you know, John doesn't really care about that inconsistency,
because he wants his Christology
to
basically convince people as he says, At the end of his gospel,
these things have been written for you to believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, that Jesus Messiah, the Son of God. Right, so this is
this kind of flexible genre, and a lot of luck. Christian scholars
today are admitting this even so evangelical scholars, you know, so
like, for example, the Gospel of Matthew, we're told that when
Jesus was resurrected, these Jewish saints were also
resurrected, they came out of their graves, right, some of call
this sort of zombie apocalypse and whatever, and they walked around
the streets of Jerusalem. Right? You know, they're Christian
scholars, many Christian scholars today will say, well, that's, you
know, that's an example of, you know, sort of special effects.
This didn't really happen. It's not historical, that the author of
Matthew
is trying to make a theological point, right, according to his
genre of writing. And that's true. That's how the ancient Greek
novelists wrote their, their their books and novels. But the problem
is modern readers of these things. They're not familiar with this
genre. So they believe these things to be completely
historical. And that's just not you know, it's not accurate,
according to what we try to read our own sort of way of doing
things today back into the ancient world, and it just doesn't work.
Yeah, it's actually it seems to be very interesting because
it for example, when Jesus allegedly says in one of the
gospels that just like, I think Jonah was in the Belly, belly of
the whale for three, three nights, three days, three nights, the Son
of Man will also be in the belly of the earth, and then so on and
so forth. And it's like, Christians will read this and be
like, See, he made a prophecy. And what seems to be the case is that
No, someone stole the story from the Old Testament about Jonah, and
then put it onto Jesus, and a form of literary misses to exaggerate
this point that he is not only familiar with the work and the
prophets, but that he is divided in a way or that he will be killed
and resurrected and all this stuff. So it's, it's, it's
amazing, you know, what faith does to a person because there is a
very rational explanation that is, you know, congruent with all the
different examples that we discussed, that are out there that
scholars have written about and examined in depth, but they'd
rather at this point, believe that it's all truthful, and that Jesus
is God and all of this stuff. So I think it's very interesting, but I
would love to dig deeper Inshallah, and I think, probably
on future episodes, I do have a few more comments if, if we have
time for that. Yeah. All right. Bismillah. So Jonathan,
dockworker, thank you for the Super Chat. He says, Could the
Christ claimant that pulse on his vision be the Christ claiming that
Jesus peace be upon him warned against that would misguide his
ummah?
Hello, Adam, I don't know.
Did Paul actually have this vision or not?
Who knows, you know, something did happen to fall. I mean, I have
my opinion of Paul is you know, I expressed it. So I did a podcast
with with Paul Williams on on blogging theology. I encourage
people to watch that on the crucifixion, where I get into sort
of my, my stance on on Paul, but I'm just raising the question. I
mean, if, if Paul claims to have seen a silent Salaam in a vision,
but this vision is putting him into conflict with disciples, and
that conflict is very, very clear. We can see it in Paul's own
letters, the genuine corpus, the book of Galatians. First
Corinthians, all enemies are men of men from James men sent from
James, you know, well, who's James? James is the successor of a
Saudi Saddam, he's the leader of the Nazarene for 30 years. Why is
Paul in conflict with these people? What does that say about
the nature of his vision with the so called resurrected Jesus?
Right? So that's all I'm doing? I'm calling these things into
question like, is this was that really Jesus? Is Paul really
telling the truth here? Maybe it was someone else that also
so although
like I said, unfortunately, we don't have anything authentic.
From Peter or James. Right? The Epistle of James First and Second
Peter, these are not written by James and Peter, by almost
consensus of New Testament historians.
So
All right, next question. I believe there's a biblical
prophecy by Jacob that warned about someone that fits the
description of Paul of Tarsus, something like a Benjamin is a
ravenous wolf or something like that. Yeah, there's Genesis 49.
Yeah, explain that one time. Also on the podcast. One of the early
church fathers actually forget who it is. I have to look back at it
but he actually identifies
Paul is being this ravenous wolves. But then he said when he
you know, he converted and he became, he became, you know, a
devoted follower. So they, so even some early Christian fathers, they
see that parallel between between fall and really solve, right. So
like Saul, because Paul's name is Saul, right? Paul's actual name is
shokuhou, which means the one who's responsible, interestingly
enough,
right? So so Saul is sort of a, the type and then Paul of Tarsus
is the anti type. So just as Saul, this is how they explain it, just
as King Saul persecuted David. Right.
Paul of Tarsus will persecute Jesus who was supposed to be the
Davidic Messiah. So even Christian authors, they saw that parallel
as well. So yeah, some of the some of the some of the early Christian
fathers, they identified Paul as being the ravenous Wolf. That was,
that was prophesied by Jacob on his deathbed, but he became good
at the end because he accepted the gospel.
Well, it's very interesting SubhanAllah. And last one I have
saved here is can you talk to Alia Ty, if he read Benjamin summers
work on the bodies of God? And if Genesis 18 was heavily redacted?
Benjamin somewhere? No, I haven't read them.
Okay, and any comment on Genesis 18? If it was heavily redacted?
Well, I mean, the, the the Torah as we have it, right?
There I don't know of a single critical historian or critical
scholar who believes that, that what we have today as Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that this was written
by Moses on Sinai 14, you know, 1400 years BCE.
I don't know of anyone who believes that even amongst most
Jews, I mean, it's only really the Orthodox who cling to this
position. The dominant opinion is that
the Torah, as we have it, the Pentateuch, as we have it, these
five books
were really sort of stitched together by a redactor, around 500
BCE. So they're really four independent accounts.
Of, of
44, basically, four independent accounts of ancient Israelite
history. And scholars refer to this as the J source, the E
source, the D source, and the P source. This is called the
documentary hypothesis. It's still pretty much the standard, I would
say, at most, you know, Christian seminaries. This is not, this is
not something that Muslims came up with to slander the Bible, this is
something you learn in Christian seminary, okay, the documentary
hypothesis of Julius Wellhausen.
And so, the book of Genesis is really
a an amalgamation of these four sources. And one of the sources
the J source written around 1000 BCE, is very anthropomorphic,
right, the way that it describes God in very human terms, whereas,
and so some, some chapters of Genesis reflect that that type of
theology, but there are other chapters of Genesis that reflect
the the esource, the author who was more transcendent in his
descriptions of God. So God is more transcendent.
So but I haven't heard of this, this this man's work. Alright,
does that go ahead? And I think the last one for the day is a
super chat from Mark, which is Aqua hire Mike. Oh, sorry. Mike,
Mark, shout out to Dr. Ali and favorite, my favorite scholar, aka
beastmode. Thank you for all the knowledge you have put up in here
and your videos on the significance of Advait Salam, I
love you all, Mark.
Thank you, Mark. God bless. And I think Michelle, it would be good
to wrap it up. I do have one final question for myself. I feel like
it might be a bit of a silly question, because every person is
different and what works for one person might not work for another
but what do you say there is a best argument for lack of a better
term or a best way to explain to Christians than light of the
Quran, why their theology is incorrect and why Islam is
correct.
Yeah, I would I would appeal to theological consistency. Right? So
so the major reason why
the Jews rejected Jesus is not because they rejected the
historical Jesus. It's because they rejected the New Testament
Jesus. Right? So the tunnel mode if you read the Talmud, you know
what the Talmud says about Jesus is in reaction to the New
Testament, Jesus, that's not the real Jesus. Right? Because a Jew
could never accept the New Testament Jesus because it's a
breach of tokeep.
The New Testament Jesus or the Christian Jesus, the sort of Jesus
of Christian faith taught his
own deity. This is impossible to believe. As a Jew, it's it's sure
it's idolatry, right? A Jew cannot possibly believe that.
So, I mean, how does how does one reconcile, you know, New Testament
Jesus or I should say, the, the Jesus of Christian faith, with
clear passages in the Old Testament, right? Lo, each lb has
a God is not a man that he should lie in. And that's sort of a
strange translation, but the meat that's numbers 2319, but the real
meaning of that is any man who claims to be God as a liar. Wow.
Right. And man who claims to be God is lying. Right? So the Jews
have that very clear text, right? This is like Mark, it's wild. It's
very, very clear. You know, Hosea 11, nine,
that an ova widow, indeed, I am God and not a man. Right? So you
have they have these verses. So then why would God suddenly become
a man and expect people to believe him and not just any people Jews?
To believe him?
You know, in John, chapter eight, the Johannah, and Jesus, again,
this is not the historical Jesus, this is the Jesus of the Gospel of
John. And this only happens in John, you Johanna and Jesus, he
tells the Jews that are arguing with him that you are children of
Satan. Right, your children of Satan, because they don't believe
Jesus has claimed that, you know, he's God, according to the
standard sort of Trinitarian reading of these passages. How
could they believe he's God there? They would commit blasphemy by
doing that. And Christians admit that Jesus was crucified for
blasphemy. He committed blasphemy. So why would the New Testament
Jesus ever expect anyone to believe in him if he's going
around? committing blasphemy? Right? It doesn't make any sense.
You can't blame the Jews for disbelieving in him. Why would
they believe someone who's who's going around making blasphemous
claims?
So it's, it's totally incoherent. So what Islam does, right, what
Islamic Christology does is that it restores right this, this to
heed to the world, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, is the
greatest monotheist in the history of humanity. Right? And so this is
just a fact. And and monotheism is the claim to fame of the Jews,
they believe that they were, you know, that, that they were chosen
by God, to spread the light of a heart of the One God monotheism to
the world. So you know, Jewish writers in the in the medieval
period, they were very, very
hesitant to, to, to ascribe any type of kid or any type of
deceitfulness on the Prophet salallahu Salam, because they
recognize that he brought monotheism like no one else.
Right? And so you'll find opinions of him like, for example, Rabbi
Nathaniel Alpha unique in his book is called a double standard of
record, or something began has a fleet lithium or something like
that Hebrew, the garden of the intellects. He says that he
believes that the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam is a navy Emmet,
which means a true prophet, but he was only sent to the go in he's
only sent to the, to the Gentiles. So like the 99.9%, of, of
humanity, right? And there are many Jews even in Medina that
believe he was a true prophet, we read it and so he will hottie that
Jews would come and sit in the prophets presence and sneeze on
purpose because they wanted a prophet to say your hammer como
Latina, to the Quran. And the Hadith says that the Prophet would
say Allah, who is the prophets, Allah Yeah, and deaqon will use
that May Allah guide you and
states.
So the Jews were very low, very hesitant to ascribe any type of
kids but to the prophets of Allah, He said them, but the New
Testament Jesus, you know, it's obvious for them, this can't be a
prophet, because a prophet would never ever claim to be God, a
prophet would never claim to die for anyone sins. This is in total
breach of Mosaic tradition of the Torah. have, you know, hundreds
and hundreds of years 1000s of years of Jewish tradition. Why
would a rabbi at at a Passover Seder, you know, pass a cup of
wine around and say drink this, this is my beloved. What a rabbi
do that. I mean, this is this is something that is
is repugnant, revolting, drinking someone's blood, right? Clearly
this is not
Historical, this is not coming from the historical Jesus of
Nazareth. So I think that's a very strong argument to make.
Islam is really, and I mentioned this earlier is really a
restoration of the true teachings, that Christology of Jesus that
brings back this.
This this rigid monotheism is still hated, right? That you can
continue to love Jesus and honor Him and follow Him. But do not
worship Him because Jesus himself did not, did not worship himself
as it were, did not claim to be God, but he worshipped the one and
only true God, who was ALLAH SubhanA wa Allah. And of course, a
lot of people get hung up on these terms. You know, Allah is the God
of Abraham. Right? It's not that it isn't we maybe we can do
another podcast on this topic. Well, some say they believe in
Allah. I mean, Jesus spoke Syriac, you didn't speak Aramaic? I mean,
sorry, you didn't speak English. did speak probably didn't speak
Greek. Maybe he did a little bit, but in his own language, Syriac or
Aramaic.
The word for God is Allah. Right? That's how we would have said God.
So in all Semitic languages, you know, the adage lamb was found for
the for the word God in almost every Semitic language, but that's
a different topic. But I would, I would, I would point out that
theological consistency is a very strong argument. Yeah, I think
that's beautiful. And I think it's amazing because it uses kind of
Judaism and their their theology as a common denominator in a way.
It's like we're not just claiming these things about Jesus, we're,
we're using the common denominator denominator, which is the Old
Testament, which is what Jews already believed to show that
listen, if you if you want to claim that Jesus was this Jewish
preacher and he came to the the Jews, and then you know, died for
the sins of humanity, okay, no problem. But you still have to
deal with all of these what you pointed out inconsistencies. And I
think that's amazing, because I think the way you articulated it
was was beautiful. And I think that it's more than enough for
most people. But if someone wanted to take it further, I saw a few
comments, things like you know, hanging on across someone who hung
on a cross and Old Testament is a curse person, sacrificing
children. This is not something that's fathomable from the Old
Testament, you know, on top of the things you mentioned. So now this
begs the question, I think this is really good for the next thing
that we do. If these things didn't come from Jesus, where did they
come from? And I if people want to get ahead on my question, watch
the presentations that Dr. Atala he did on blogging theology with
Paul Williams because he discusses this in depth with different
philosophies that were injected into the Christology of Jesus and
what people believed about him. So with that being said, Zach, love
her so much. Everyone who came and attended and contributed jackal
hair for the Super Chat Zach O'Hara Doctor Ty for joining us
today. It has been a tremendous honor and I want to give you an
five the last word insha Allah before we end the stream I can't
wait for part two men and show love with honor this time because
brother on how it used to be you know, he was a Catholic. He was a
Christian. And then he reverted to Islam. He's a third Muslim in case
you're wondering
mashallah, yeah, thank you for having me just a lot less you
guys.
Viewers, keep us in your prayers and
inshallah Europe. And with that being said, just like everyone who
attended LaMattina dunya Hasina will fill Accra to Santa walk in
other Bernardo sha Allah will see on the next one. Salam aleikum wa
rahmatullah.