Ali Ataie – The Crucifixion and The Qur’an An Exegetical and Historical Inquiry Into Surah 4157158.
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AI: Transcript ©
Welcome.
Thank you for coming
to this lecture. I'll be your speaker. My
name is doctor Ali. I'm a professor here
at Zaytuna College.
I teach a number of courses here.
Lecture tonight is on the crucifixion and the
Quran.
Before we get into it, I would like
to invite
brother Abdul Ahmed to recite some ayaat of
the Quran.
In the name of God, the benevolent, the
merciful.
Then for their breaking of their covenant and
their disbelieving in the signs of God and
their slaying of the prophets without right and
their saying our hearts are wrapped.
Rather, God has set a seal upon for
their disbelief,
so they believe not except for a few.
And for their disbelief and their uttering against
Mary a tremendous slander.
And for their saying, we slew the messiah,
Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.
Though they did not slay him nor did
they crucify him, but it appeared so unto
them.
Those who differ concerning him are in doubt
thereof.
They have no knowledge of it that follow
only conjecture.
They slew him not for certain,
but God raised him up unto himself and
God is mighty and wise.
So, again, the title of the lecture is
The Crucifixion and the Quran,
an exegetical
and historical inquiry
into,
chapter 4, verse 157, 158.
The first time I ever read the Quran,
I was a bit old. I was about
18.
And I came across
this ayah, or 4157,
and a Yusuf Ali translation.
And it said about, Jesus, peace be upon
him, that they did not kill him nor
crucify him.
And immediately, I thought to myself, what? He
wasn't crucified?
And initially, I felt a type
of relief.
I said, thank God, that didn't happen to
him.
But then I felt a type of tension.
Why are the Bible in the Quran seemingly
saying different things? Because I grew up in
the 19 eighties,
and on cable TV during the holiday season,
they would always play these classic Jesus movies,
like Jesus of Nazareth or King of Kings
or Ben Hur.
And I found these movies to be very
fascinating. And of course, all of these movies
have crucifixion scenes. I mean, that's the sort
of crescendo or the climax of these movies.
So I I found those scenes to be
very powerful and poignant,
but as a child, you can imagine I
also found them a bit confusing, even disturbing.
So initially, it was quite refreshing what the
Quran was saying, but then I had that
tension. Why are the Bible in the Quran
saying different things?
So the quick and lazy answer from many
Muslim apologists,
goes something like this.
The Quran is correct because it's a divine
revelation.
So the Bible must be incorrect incorrect or
corrupted because it's different than the Quran.
And in fact, they continue to say, many
secular historians almost all confirm that the Bible
is wrong about many things.
And then they'll start quoting people like Ehrman
and Pagels and James Dunn and John Dominic
Crossan,
even Richard Carrier.
So the point is that very often, Muslim
apologists apply a very liberal a very liberal
historical critical method
when it comes to the New
Testament, a method that they would never apply
to the Quran,
while seemingly choosing to ignore the fact that
these same secular historians would also assert that
the Quran is also wrong about many things.
For example, as a Muslim, if you're going
to use Julius Wellhausen's
documentary hypothesis,
and argue against mosaic composition of the Pentateuch,
then it probably behooves you to have a
very compelling response
to what Wellhausen says about the Quran's origins.
So we must be thorough and consistent,
in our methodology.
I want to make it clear from the
outset that this lecture will not contain a
formal critique of Trinitarian soteriology.
That is to say, a vicarious atonement.
That is to say, the significance of the
crucifixion,
for most Christians, nor is it necessarily an
examination
of the scriptural authenticity
of the New Testament Gospels, although I will
be forced to say something about that. In
tonight's lecture, I simply want to present to
you what Muslim exegetes have said about
the ayah under analysis, 4157. I call I
call it ayatul sunba,
the verse of the crucifixion.
Why they have said these things, and then
examine their conclusions in light of intertextual and
historical concerns.
Much of what I will present to you,
you can find in the wonderful book,
called The Crucifixion and the Quran, A Study
in the History of Muslim Thought,
excuse me, by professor Todd Lawson.
Okay.
Oh, good. So far so good with the
technology. That's my biggest fear, by the way.
There's only one explicit reference to the in
the entire Quran to the crucifixion or alleged
crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The first half of the ayah is translated
by the study Quran as follows.
And for their saying,
we slew the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary,
the messenger of God. Though they did not
slay Him, nor did they crucify Him,
but it appears so unto them.
So the big question is, what exactly
is this ayah saying?
Now, the vast majority of exegetes from pre
Tabari times throughout the classical and medieval periods
and into the modern period have maintained what
Lawson calls a negative interpretation of the ayah,
namely that the Quran is categorically denying the
historicity of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth,
that Jesus was not crucified.
This position stems from a semantical understanding
of the highly enigmatic phrase,
with the verb
being
a which is a an academic way of
saying that this is the only occurrence of
this verb in the entire Quran,
within a phrase that Lawson calls a textbook
example of a multivocal
verse, which is another academic way of saying
a very unclear, ambiguous verse.
And what Sydney Griffith,
refers to as a crux interpretum or a
central difficulty of exegesis,
and you'll see why.
This apparent denial of the crucifixion by the
Quran has incurred the academic wrath, if you
will, of Christian thinkers,
from John Damascene in the 8th century to
William Lane Craig in the 21st century.
For example, the latter put it like this.
Quote, the one indisputable fact about Jesus of
Nazareth that is recognized by every single historical
scholar,
or every historical scholar is that Jesus died
by crucifixion.
And yet, this is the one historical fact
about Jesus that the Quran denies.
End quote.
For Christians, the crucifixion,
and,
subsequent resurrection
of Jesus are the seminal
events in salvation history.
Everything is built upon these two events.
Paul says, if Christ is not raised, he
says,
then your faith is in vain.
So,
most, just to correct doctor Craig here, I
would say most
secular historians agree that while the crucifixion
of Jesus of Nazareth is historical because it
probably happened, history is based on probability,
the resurrection
cannot
be historical because it probably didn't happen. The
resurrection is, by definition,
a miracle, which is the least probable event.
Now,
let's take a quick look at the
historical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus offered
by secular historians, and this is also,
evidence that supports the Christian position.
The death of Jesus of Nazareth is,
by crucifixion is is attested in ancient Latin
and Greek sources.
So these are Roman, these are Jewish, and
these are Christian.
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote in the Annals,
this is passage 1544,
and he's writing around 116
of the Common Era. So it was about
85 years after the historical Jesus.
He says, the Christians who were persecuted by
Nero take their name from Christ. And then
he says in the Latin,
Jesus, who was executed during the reign of
Tiberias
under the governor, Pontius Pilate.
Now, this quotation, however, actually comes from an
11th century manuscript of the Annals of Tacitus.
So that's very, very late.
There is also the,
Testimonium Flavianum in passage 18/3 of Josephus' antiquities,
which was written in the nineties, so about
60 years after the historical Jesus. Now, Josephus
was a Jewish historian.
Most scholars actually believe that this passage was
fabricated
in part
by later Christian historians, possibly by Eusebius of
Caesarea, but many also maintain
the authenticity of Josephus'
description of Jesus when he says,
that he was condemned to a cross by
Pilate.
Many other historians, however, believe the entire passage
is a fabrication.
Of course, all four New Testament Gospels say
Jesus died on the cross.
These Gospels are the primary historical sources for
the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
They're written between 65
and 95
of the Common Era, according to most historians,
although the modern trend is to actually date
them even earlier, according to Raymond Brown.
Muslim theologians,
or Christians believe that these writings are
inspired,
holy, and accurate, as do some Muslim theologians,
by the way. But historically speaking,
speaking non confessionally,
you will get opinions,
that classify the Gospels as being anything from
the genre of non historical symbolic myth,
to semi historical ancient biography.
Examining these opinions is not an objective of
tonight's lecture.
I will say, however, that most secular historians
will grant that there is definitely
an historical element to the New Testament gospels,
which one must somehow
extract through a method of historical criticism.
And this process began in 17 seventies during
the enlightenment.
Famous historian Bart Ehrman, who has many historical
issues with the New Testament
gospel accounts, nonetheless,
he says, quote, one of the most certain
facts of history is that Jesus was crucified
on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea,
Pontius Pilate.
He also said, you cannot explain the crucified
Messiah
as something that was made up.
You cannot explain the crucified messiah as something
that was made up. In other words, for
airmen, this fulfills the historical
criterion
of the principle of embarrassment,
that the early disciples, early Christians,
who were mitzvot keeping Jews,
they would not have invented the death of
their messiah
because that is embarrassing.
A dead messiah
messiah was viewed by them as initially impossibility,
a failure.
So why would they maintain that he died?
Well, the one answer is because he must
have died.
No one would invent a dead messiah. It's
too embarrassing.
Mark, who's running around 70 of the common
era, he tells us that while on the
cross, he says,
that Jesus made a loud sound,
then his
his spirit, his soul. This is also the
wind the word for wind or breath exited
him. Or you might say euphemistically, he took
his last breath.
The same verb is used in Luke, who's
writing around 80.
Matthew who's also writing around 75 or 80,
he says,
Jesus again shouted with a loud voice and
let go or yielded up the spirit.
John, who's running around 90 or 95, he
says,
He gave up or handed over the spirit.
Now notice something.
No gospel author says that Jesus died on
the cross.
They don't use that verb. The verb to
die in Greek, is
used a 122 times in the New Testament,
but the gospel authors don't say that. Now,
that's clearly what happened.
I'm not saying that the Gospels are saying
that he didn't die.
They're saying he did die.
But they all use a euphemism
that his soul or spirit was lifted away,
let go, or given up.
This idea that Jesus
relevant
Quran
the relevant Quranic,
passages linguistically,
because the Quran, I contend, does the very
same thing, mirroring the gospel,
discourse.
So keep that in mind. Paul, of course,
is very explicit.
He says in 1st Corinthians 153, and he's
writing in the mid fifties, so this is
actually before the 4 gospels. He says, Christos
apethanen,
Christ died.
Okay. Historically,
Muslim exegetes have interpreted this ayah to support
1 of 3 positions.
And when I say exegetical
tradition, so Sunni, Shi'i, Mu'tazili and Sufi.
All three positions maintain
that there was a crucifixion.
There was a crucifixion,
yet they differ on the victim.
Incidentally,
there is no hadith that is both sahir
and marfur
that provide details of the events of the
first Good Friday. Of course, today tonight is
Good Friday. It is at this very moment
that Christians believe Jesus actually died on the
cross.
In In other words, there isn't a hadith
that is sound and it's isna, this chain
of transmission, that can be traced back to
the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that
that give us an explanation as to what
this verse is actually saying.
So there are 3 theories here. The first
one is the substitution theory, also known as
literal docetism. I'll explain this term, docetism.
And it has 2 flavors.
The first flavor is supernatural identity transference,
which is either volitional or punitive. I'll explain
all of this,
God willing. Deo Valente. Inshallah.
And the other flavor is mistaken identity, which
is rational or naturalistic.
The other position is called the swoon theory
or figurative death.
Crucifixion.
I call this figurative docetism, and it has
two flavors,
natural biological death, which is more or less
the Christian position,
and unnatural
biological death,
which involves,
divine pneumatic rapture or assumption.
So we'll take these one at a time.
And before I forget, we are gonna take
a break,
at 7:50
for the prayer and some light refreshments if
they're there. I don't know. I don't see
any.
It's okay. You don't you don't need physical
madad. You're gonna get a lot of intellectual
and spiritual.
Anyway,
so we're gonna break at 7:50, and we'll
be back at 8:05, Inshallah.
Let's try to come back promptly. I do
have a lot to say, and I do
want to,
leave a lot of time for question and
answer and discussion.
I will tell you before the night is
over which position I think is correct.
That is to say what I think the
Quran is actually saying, and I think it'll
surprise you.
I might have to run out that way.
The most popular theory by far and away
is the substitution theory. In other words, there
was a crucifixion, but it wasn't Jesus.
Why? Because this was how the enigmatic phrase,
was almost always interpreted.
Exigits took Jesus to be the conceptual
subject of the passive
verb, so they did not kill him. Who's
they? That's another question. They did not kill
him nor did they crucify him, but he
was made to appear so unto them.
I e, he was seemingly crucified.
And they took this to mean that a
semblance or a simulacrum
of some sort was crucified, and not the
genuine
article.
So let's start with 1 a, the substitution
theory via supernatural identity transference that is either
volitional or punitive.
So Neil Robinson maintains that the earliest extant
textual witness for the substitution theory is from
the pen of a Syrian exegette of the
Quran,
a Christian named
Yohannadimashri,
or John of Damascus, John Damascene,
who died 749.
Damascene was the very first Christian scholar to
launch a polemical critique of Islam, which he
actually considered to be a Christian heresy. He
didn't believe it was a different religion. He
called it the heresy of the Hagareans
or the heresy of the Ishmaelites.
Although there certainly are pre damascene Muslim traditions
that advocate the the substitution theory,
these are only textually witnessed in the much
later encyclopedic
super commentary of Imam al Tabari, who died
in 9/23 23
of the Common Era. So Damascene
seems to be relaying what some early Muslim
exegetes were already saying about the ayah. So
I don't believe that Damascene
originated the substitution theory.
Interestingly, according to Louis Massignon, the famous
orientalist,
the substitution theory originated with radical Shiite groups
who claimed that their imams only appeared to
suffer and die,
like the Khattabiyyah.
Substitution of the imams, however, is not a
standard twelver position
of the Ith Ifna Asharia.
Nonetheless, the exact
the exact popularity of the substitution theory in
pre damascene Islam is simply impossible to know.
The substitution theory, by way of supernatural identity
transference,
is attributed to none other than Mufassidul Quran
ibn Abbas,
who says that a Jewish enemy of Jesus
that he identifies as,
natyanus,
was transfigured in the likeness of Jesus and
crucified.
So this is punitive
or punishment,
substitution.
There are many scholars, Western scholars like Andrew
Ripon, who maintain that the so called Tanwirul
mitbas
is probably the work of a much later
exeget,
named Mohammed al Kalbi.
In fact, many confessional ulama have often questioned
the authenticity of the tafsir attributed to ibn
Abbas as well.
Now,
Imam al Tabari surveys several early exegetes, who
all basically subscribe to the substitution theory in
some form of an or another.
So Mujahid Qatada al Qasim Asudi
ibn Ishaq.
He gives special treatment, however, to Wahab ibn
Umunabi,
who died 732, a Yemenite Muslim reputed to
have been a scholar of Judaism and Christianity.
Lawson actually says, quote, the most influential traditions
denying that Jesus was crucified are traced to
his authority, end quote.
Now, Wahab's reputation
varies from trust trustworthy
to brazen liar.
Wahab gives several accounts,
some based on material found in the New
Testament Gospels and some not.
Tabari's preferred account and final opinion from Wahab
says that when the Jewish authorities came to
arrest Jesus, all but one of his disciples
scattered.
Or in the language of the synoptic gospels,
they forsook him and fled.
This sole disciple was then voluntarily
transfigured to look like Jesus, and he was
tortured and crucified.
The other disciples then erroneously reported that Jesus
had been crucified.
But Tabari is insistent that we should not
consider the disciples liars.
They actually believed that Jesus had been killed.
So this is volitional or volunteer
substitution.
Somebody
to substitute
Jesus. This was Imam Tabari's final position.
And we know that his tafsir, which is
the seminal January Bayan,
was influential
beyond measure for future exegetes.
Due to Imam al Tabari's tremendous influence,
the substitution theory dominated Muslim exegetical tradition, whether
it was Sunni, Shihri, Sufi or Muertesidi
during
So the classical period is between Tabari and
Suyuti.
In other words, between the 10th 16th centuries.
That is to say, the stories of Wahab
dominated,
the classical period. The proto Sunni, maturidi, has
no major issues with the substitution theory.
Athalabi says that Pilate, the Roman governor, was
made to look like Jesus.
So punitive identity transference.
The famous
exegetes, and
pioneers
of 12 or Shi'ism,
they say it was some unnamed
disciple of Jesus. So
that's volitional identity transference. The sufi alpusheri,
he says this as well. Baydawi advocated punitive
identity transference. He identifies the crucified victim as
Tadanus, crucified victim as Tatus, an enemy of
Jesus. Ibn Kathir al Suyuti also advocate supernatural
identity transference in some form. Reynolds at Notre
Dame sites
in some
form.
Reynolds at Notre Dame sites these various, and
in many cases, contradictory legends as a prime
example
of Tayinul Mubham,
which is the exegetical
construction of narratives
intended to clarify a scriptural ambiguity. What he's
trying to say
there is they made them up. In the
pre modern and modern period, supernatural identity transference
also reign supreme.
This is advocated by Al Alusi, for example.
Sayed Qutb of the modern reformist movement, who
died in 1966
in his highly influential Fidilal al Quran,
polemically attacks
the Johannine passion narrative. He attacks the passion
narrative in the gospel of John. He calls
it kabir,
disgusting,
and written too late to be accurate.
Yet, he utilizes the disastrous
the gospel of Barnabas,
to establish his own opinion that Judas
Iscariot, Judas was the disciple who betrayed Jesus
in the New Testament, that Judas was transfigured
to look like Jesus and subsequently
crucified.
I'll say more about Barnabas and these modernists
a little bit later,
inshallah.
But let's move to 1 b. This is
a substitution theory via mistaken identity.
So this tends to be a Mu'tazili, a
rationalist, and sometimes a Shi'i position.
According to this, the confusion that ensued from
the events leading up to the crucifixion
can be explained away purely on rational grounds.
No supernatural identity transference is needed.
Human air is to blame.
So Abdul Jabbar, the famous laker,
Pause for laughter.
Just making sure you're still awake.
Okay.
Abdul Jabbar, the famous Mortazili, rationalist scholar, he
says that Judas identified
person.
Apparently, the authorities did not know exactly what
Jesus looked like to begin with.
This random man was interrogated
and found innocent by both Herod Antipas and
Pontius Pilate, but nonetheless,
crucified by an angry Jewish mob in a
field.
Judas felt remorse later about falsely accusing this
innocent man and eventually hanged himself from a
tree.
As
zamachshadi relates the old story of Jesus asking
for a volunteer to be martyred
and Jesus casting his likeness upon this disciple.
But it is not clear at all whether
a Zamasri actually endorses this opinion.
Zamasri is a linguistic master.
And once in a while, a commentator will
hit exegetical
gold.
He'll arrive at some significant
realization
about the text that essentially challenges
the standard reading. And we'll see this again
with Imam al Razi.
As Samach Shari proposes that the conceptual
subject of shubbiha cannot be Jesus.
If you want to go with the substitution
theory, then
can only mean that Jesus was made to
look like someone else,
not vice versa.
Thus, substitution becomes untenable.
He rather proposes that the conceptual subject
in
is the impersonal pronoun
it.
So not, he was made to appear so,
but rather it, the event of the crucifixion
was made dubious unto them. In other words,
the Jews did not understand the significance of
the crucifixion.
They misjudged it. They misread it. And this
actually sounds like Paul in 1st Corinthians.
This linguistic subtlety has far reaching implications.
We'll come back to this, but Lawson says
that this quote makes room for a break
with the substitution
legend.
The substitution theory via mistaken identity also tends
to be the position of the modern reformist
school. So Tafsir Al Manaar, Rashid Rida, Mohammed
Abdu. So Rida was actually the first to
employ the infamous gospel of Barnabas some 30
years before Sayyid Khotub.
Although,
Barnabas is cited by Ridah, he doesn't seem
to endorse a supernatural
identity
transference, but rather that it was a simple
case of mistaken identity.
Judas was taken to be Jesus and subsequently
crucified.
So the core of Barnabas is affirmed, sort
of stripped of its supernaturalness.
Maududi,
in 1979,
he does not use Barnabas at all, but
seems to suggest
that Barabbas
may have been mistaken for Jesus and crucified.
The story of Barabbas and Jesus is mentioned
in all four gospels.
Now, what is characteristic among these modern exegetes,
whether it's Qutub or Ridha Abdul or Maududi,
is almost a an obligation
to oppose Christianity
at every opportunity.
Mahmoud Ayub suggests that their highly polemical tafasir
are more of more a result of their
social, religious,
cultural and political climates
than an even method of scholarship.
For example, criticizing the New Testament Gospels written
in the 1st century
as spurious,
untrustworthy,
late,
suspicious and disgusting,
yet relying heavily upon the gospel of Barnabas,
a text written in Italian
that that calls the prophet Muhammad the Messiah,
that contains clear anachronisms
and has 0 textual witnesses
prior to the 16th century.
That is simply inexcusable.
And this goes back to what I was
saying earlier about methodological
unevenness in modern Muslim apologetics.
Viewing the East and West as competing or
clashing civilizations
will do that to you. That's a worldview
that often betrays our intellectual honesty.
Well, what about FDR?
Not Franklin Delano Roosevelt silly.
Fakhruddin al Razi. I thought it was another
opportunity for some comic relief. It gets really
serious and then,
So, Imam al Razi, he gives us a
new deal to lift us out of the
exegetical
depression.
Imam al Razi is very critical.
He's very critical of the standard,
substitution theory via supernatural identity transference.
His concerns are both epistemological
and ethical.
He says, and I'm quoting from Lawson,
he says, such confusion about perceived phenomena, al
Mahsusat,
would threaten the foundations of all religious laws,
neither is it permissible to argue for such
transference of identity
by appealing to the tradition that allows for
miracles during the time of prophecy.
Such a provision would bring into question the
identity of the prophets themselves,
which in turn would call into question the
probity of the sources of religious knowledge.
In other words, we count on our senses
to a certain extent
to know reality,
to gain knowledge, to identify people, to give
legal testimony.
Why would God, in effect, deceive people with
respect to these things?
So, Imam al Razi finds
supernatural identity transference
a bit morally unacceptable.
In the counter to this, if one were
to play devil's advocate,
would be something like, well, if Islam is
true theologically,
then the trinity is false.
Therefore, billions of people for 1000 of years
were ultimately deceived anyway,
one could argue.
Rossi then surveys several substitution legends,
doesn't seem to endorse any one of them.
He also suggests that when God raised Jesus
to himself,
it says in aiah
158
of chapter 4,
God raised him unto himself. It wasn't a
physical raising that occurred when the Jewish authorities
came to arrest Jesus and someone else was
transfigured to look like him, but rather that
God raised the rank and degree of Jesus
in the same sense as.
This may be similar to what Bart Ehrman
actually calls exaltation Christology,
which is found in Paul and Mark and
Matthew.
In other words, Jesus' obedience and selflessness
led to God exalting him.
So Jesus wasn't rescued as it were,
nor was there a transference of identity.
Now, Lawson remarks that Razi's tafsir actually had
very little influence on later Muslim exegetes, and
the reason I think is clear. His tafsir
can actually be read to affirm the physical
death of Jesus on the cross. Now, Razi
doesn't say that explicitly, but it can be
inferred.
Now, what does one do with,
They did not kill him nor crucify him?
We'll come back to the linguistics and subtext
of that expression.
Before we move to the swoon theory,
let's ask an important question.
Are there pre Quranic precedents for literal docetism
during the interval era? Right? The interval era,
the fatra, that's the time between Jesus, peace
be upon him, and the prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him.
Are there pre Quranic precedents for this idea
that it only seemed as though Jesus was
crucified,
but he really wasn't?
There are, and they come from the gnostic
Christian communities.
The early gnostics were very diverse in their
Christological beliefs.
They maintained that proper gnosis of God offered
by Christ was the means of salvation, not
the death of Christ as a vicarious atonement
for sin. The gnostics loved Jesus's statement in
Matthew 9 13, where Jesus quotes the first
half of Hosea
6 6, where he says,
Indeed, I require mercy and not sacrifice. The
second half of that statement says,
and I require the knowledge of God more
than burnt offerings.
The of
Christ, and many even maintained that Jesus only
seemed to have a physical body because he
was pure deity.
This is why they're called the
from the Greek verb,
which means to seem or to appear.
Jesus only seemed to be a fleshy body.
In reality, he was a pure divine spirit,
a phantasm of a human being,
Kind of like a thick ghost.
In in the First Epistle of John chapter
4 in the New Testament, the author says
that anyone who claims that Jesus did not
come ensarki,
in flesh,
in the flesh, is an is
an antichrist.
So the the author clearly condemning the Gnostic
docetae for their beliefs.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in, on his way
to be executed by the Romans, he wrote
a famous letter to the Trelians in the
early second century.
He says, quote, but as some that are
unbelieving say that he only seemed to die,
then why am I in bonds? Why do
I long to be exposed to wild beasts?
Do I therefore die in vain?
In other words, why would I give my
own life if he, Jesus, really didn't give
his life?
Now, while this idea of a of an
illusory
crucified
messiah is by definition docetic,
this is clearly not what most Muslim exegetes
have espoused.
Their literal docetism is that someone else died,
not an illusory
Jesus.
The the mufasarin,
the exegetes, did not maintain that Jesus was
a divine phantasm. That's not what ruhala means.
They maintained a substitute was crucified.
So what about this type of docetism?
Is there precedent for it in the interval
era? And again, the answer is yes.
In 1945,
the Nag Hammadi library was discovered in Egypt,
and buried in the sand was something called
the Second Treatise
of the Great Seth.
Now, Araman dates it to the 3rd century
in its original composition,
so it was very late compared to the
New Testament gospels. Nonetheless, in this book, we
are told
that a man named Simon of Cyrene was
mistakenly crucified in Jesus's place.
Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in the synoptic
Gospels. If you know your Bibles, it should
ring a bell.
He's actually mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke
as the random man the Romans pulled out
of the crowd
and compelled to bear the cross of Jesus
on the way to Golgotha.
Interestingly, the author of the 4th gospel, the
gospel of John, tells us that Jesus was
He was carrying his own cross, thus contradicting
the synoptics.
This gives us a glance into the,
like the setting of life of the Johannine
community, the community that authored the gospel of
John.
It seems that the rumor that Simon was
crucified
was pressing enough to have influenced the author
of the gospel of John even as early
as the 1st century to write Simon out
of his
teacher
named Bacileides.
According to Saint Irenaeus and his Against Heresies,
Bacileides maintained that Simon of Cyrene was crucified
after being, what he says, Transfigured,
so that he was thought to be Jesus.
Jesus then assumed the likeness of Simon
and stood by laughing at the proceedings.
So here we have
substitution via supernatural
identity transference
being taught by a popular Christian teacher
in the early second century in a major
center of Christian learning.
Bacileides even gives an Isnad, a pedigree, if
you will, for his teaching.
Bacileides claimed that his teaching came from Glaukos,
who learned from Peter,
who learned from Jesus.
The question is, why didn't facilities just read
the New Testament? The New Testament clearly says
that Jesus was crucified, and I agree. It
does say that.
The answer is, there was no New Testament.
The constituent books existed in their early forms,
as did dozens of other books, gospels and
epistles, etcetera, and they varied in their popularity.
But the definitive
27 book canon of Scripture
was not nearly universally recognized at his time,
and it wouldn't be for another 250
years.
So,
by the way, Vasilides' own magnum opus, which
was called the exegetica,
is lost to history. We only know about
his positions because his opponents, his theological opponents
wrote about him, like Saint Irenaeus.
Okay.
Moving on to the swoon theory.
I don't know why this is my favorite
one. I don't know.
I don't agree with it, but it's my
favorite one. Anyway,
the swoon theory is a rather modern phenomenon.
It essentially states that Jesus survived
the crucifixion.
In confessional circles, it probably started with the
Ahmadiyya movement, whose founder, Mir Zoholam Ahmad, claimed
definitively
that Jesus had survived the crucifixion, then traveled
to Kashmir
where he died as an old man. To
this day, there stands a tomb in down
downtown Srinagar, where thousands make pilgrimage
to visit the grave of Jesus.
In Sunni circles, a contemporary of Mirza Ghollam
Ahmad named Sayed Ahmad Khan, who's the founder
of a league or university in India, he
explicitly endorsed the swoon theory
in his Tafsir.
This theory gained some acceptance among Western intellectuals
during this time as well.
The earliest proponent was the German biblical scholar,
Carl Friedrich Barth. It's not Carl Barth. This
is Carl Friedrich Barth, who died 17/92.
This was towards the back end of the
age of enlightenment in Europe. Thus, a type
of sort of rationalism
rose to prominence in biblical studies,
which of course culminated in the monumental
and highly influential quest for the historical Jesus
by doctor Albert Schweitzer that you have to
read if you're going to study western religion.
It's a must.
Even Friedrich Schleiermacher,
the founder of modern hermeneutics,
played with the idea that Jesus might have
been reanimated
after apparent death.
I want to give you Barth's theory though.
It's very interesting. According to Barth,
the 2 secret disciples of Jesus, the gospel
of John says Jesus had 2 secret disciples,
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.
According to Barth, they weren't really Pharisees. They
were members of the Essenes,
which Barth describes as a male only secret
society of sorts. And Jesus was also a
member of this secret society called the Essenes,
according to Barth. Now, there was a group
called the Essenes,
historically.
Barth,
by the way, was a high ranking freemason.
So he's into the secret society stuff.
Thus, a plot was about to be hatched.
The goal was to rid the Jews of
the idea of a militaristic
messiah
by faking the death and resurrection of Jesus,
and then essentially reinterpreting Jewish messianism
on on purely spiritual grounds.
The Roman centurion standing at foot of the
cross incidentally, was bribed not to break Jesus's
legs.
Jesus bowed his head as a roost
to give the appearance of death.
Then Jesus' semiconscious body was handed over to
Joseph and Nicodemus,
who took him into the garden tomb and
resuscitated
him with healing herbs under the pretext of
embalming his body.
After 3 days, Jesus was able to walk
and presto, a resurrected Messiah. Interestingly, contemporary
Muslim
apologists.
So
Ahmed
Deedat should contemporary Muslim apologists.
So Ahmed Deedat, Shabir Ally, Zakir Naik have
all espoused
some form of the swoon theory.
It seems that they finally admitted that supernatural
identity transference, with its potential ethical problems,
its roots in gnostic docetism,
and its endorsement
by the indefensible gospel of Barnabas
is just no longer advisable.
So there is an admission now that the
best sources to utilize
are the New Testament Gospels themselves,
although the Gospels are half mistaken
according to them.
Their method,
inspired by the historical critical method and by
the Jesus Seminar,
is an attempted
extraction
to detangle historical truth from pious embellishment. To
detangle historical truth from pious embellishment.
However, their method in reality is not grounded
in modern principles of historiography.
They simply pick and choose whatever agrees with
the Quran, and that's called salad bar hermeneutics.
It's like going to a salad bar. I
like I like tomatoes. You want some pickles?
According to Muslim swoon theorists,
Jesus in fact survived the crucifixion,
was then revived by his secret disciples, Joseph
and Nicodemus, in the tomb. This explains the
post Easter appearances.
The argument continues, Jesus passed out on the
cross. He was comatose.
The Roman centurions did not check his pulse.
He simply looked dead enough.
They took him off the cross as fast
as they could, the skies turned dark and
the Sabbath was fast approaching.
This explains Mark's comment that Pilate, who was
a professional
Jew crucifier,
he said that Pilate, he
marveled.
This man is dead already. He's already dead
after just 6 hours on the cross. It
takes days to die.
Well,
apparently,
God hastened the night, created a massive storm,
and caused an earthquake to both
They
statement about the sign of Jonah.
They mentioned that Jesus was in disguise
after his alleged
resurrection according to Luke and John. That only
makes sense if you survive the the cross
and you fear being spotted by Jewish authorities
or Roman soldiers.
Then they point out Jesus ate food with
his disciples in Luke chapter 24, to prove
that he was the same Jesus, because resurrected
bodies become pneumatic and are no longer in
need of nourishment.
So goes the argument.
Muslim swoon theorists also point out that when
God says to Jesus in the Quran in
355,
the meaning here is something like, I will
cause you to sleep.
That form the form 5 verb, tawafah,
means to take one soul during sleep,
yet the person remains alive.
And Ayah is cited in support of this,
chapter 39 verse 42.
God seizes the souls at their deaths and
those that do not die in their sleep.
And those upon whom he decrees
those upon whom he decrees death, he retains.
And then he releases
or returns the others until an appointed time.
There's also a hadith so Jesus, a soul
was returned. This is the argument. Jesus, a
soul, was returned, so he could not have
died. It was not biological death. There's also
hadith and Bukhari, narrated by Abu
Potada. Indeed, God seizes your souls when he
wills, and he returns them when he wills.
Now the context of the hadith is when
some people missed the morning prayer because they
overslept,
then prayed it later when their souls were
returned to them.
So Jesus was merely sleeping. That's the argument.
Okay.
Now, 3 a, affirmation of Christ's crucifixion. Now,
moving on to the 3rd position.
Affirmation of Christ's crucifixion, figurative docetism,
natural biological death. So this asserts now we're
getting into the into more of the realm
of controversy.
Right?
So if you're gonna throw fruit,
aim high.
3 a. This asserts that Jesus died on
the cross due to being crucified,
a natural biological death, because this was God's
plan to begin with.
It was according to God's well pleasing or
preferential
will for the messiah to die in such
a way. This is essentially the Christian position.
Popular Muslim author, Gerald Dirks, he says, quote,
the Quran clearly states that Jesus Christ was
not crucified.
End quote.
But notice the Quran actually says,
They did not kill him nor did they
crucify him. The Quran does not say,
The Quran does not say he was not
killed nor was he crucified.
Muslim professor, Mahmoud Ayu, who affirms the crucifixion,
he says, would it be in consonance with
God's covenant, his mercy, and justice to deceive
humanity
for so many centuries? And again, there's that
this this deception
Lawson put it like this.
The point is that tafsir,
not the Quran, denies the crucifixion.
Now, let's return to the linguistics of tawafah
mentioned earlier.
Tawafah is used
in the Quran
25
times. In at least 23 of those instances,
it is clearly used to mean biological death.
Go to a concordance
and look at the ayat. For
example, Oh, our Lord, give us patience and
make us die as Muslims.
So have patience. Indeed, the promise of God
is true.
Whether we show you some of that which
we promised them,
or we cause you to die,
for to us is your return.
So the primary definition of tawafah is physical
biological
death.
Now, ibn Mandur's definition of tawafah in the
sun al Arab,
God seizes the soul, is ambiguous
because this is also what the Quran says
that God does to people who are sleeping,
as we said. Hence, the swoon theory's assertion
that Jesus was merely sleeping the whole time.
However, it makes perfect sense, some would argue
even more sense, to define
in the Quran's Jesus passages
as denoting his actual death, his mote, physical
death.
In one hadith, Aisha refers to the actual
death, physical death of the prophet, peace be
upon him, by saying,
In another hadith describing the similar situation, the
same situation, she said she says,
So she used these verbs interchangeably.
So when god tells Jesus,
using the active participle,
even Imam Tabari admits that this could mean,
I will seize your
or receive your soul and cause you to
die.
However, Imam Tabari says,
but there's a big caveat.
But in that case, it would only refer
to Jesus' death at the end of time,
in the
in the second coming.
Ibn Kathir mentions a tradition in his tafsir,
that an early Muslim report from Wahab even
says that Jesus was crucified,
dead for 3 days, then resurrected by God,
and finally ascended to heaven.
Ibn Kifir, however, predictably outright rejects this.
He maintains that
must refer to Jesus' death at the end
of time,
but there's a problem with what they are
saying.
The ayah 350
5 says that God said to Jesus,
I will cause you to die
and raise you to myself
in that order.
Ibn Kathir says, however, you have to understand
this backwards.
Namely,
I will raise you to myself because he
has to escape crucifixion.
Then I will cause you to die much,
much later in the second coming.
This is an example of,
he says.
I don't think, however, we need to be
reading the Quran backwards.
I think it says what it clearly appears
to say.
No syntactical
gymnastics are necessary.
It says, I will cause you to die,
then I will raise you up to myself.
Now among the pre Tabari exigates,
3 a is the purported position of Imam
Ja'far as Sadiq,
who was a great great great great grandson
I gotta get my grades, 4 greats. Great
great great grandson of the prophet, peace be
upon him, and the teacher of Abu Hanifa
and Malik ibnoo Anas and the eponym of
the Jafari school of jurisprudence.
Imam Tabari does not quote from Imam Ja'far's
tafsir at all,
possibly because there's actually a strong opinion that
his tafsir,
the tafsir of Jafar
was actually pseudonymously
ascribed to him by a much later author.
Even Lawson calls him pseudo Jafar.
It is interesting to note also that almost
all twelve or exegetes that followed Imam Ja'far's
time
came to endorse
some version of the substitution theory, not Ja'far's
own purported opinion,
by being
By being killed,
God raised Jesus's rank
just as God raised the rank of his
other prophets.
So this again, exaltation Christology.
God seated Jesus on the throne of intimacy,
and reunion,
the author says.
Jesus is depicted as the great martyr prophet
who gave his life for the sake of
God.
Lawson points out the paradox
of appearing to be nailed to a cross
in humiliation,
but in reality being seated on a throne,
figuratively
docetic.
Or as Fakhr ad Din Razi said, the
rifa or raising of Jesus mentioned in 4158
was one of rank and stature. So you
have this dichotomy here of what appears and
what really is.
Now, notwithstanding
the twelve position,
many zedi and Ismaili
Shia ulama
upheld
the the historicity of the crucifixion of Jesus.
The Isma'ili inspired Ikhwan U Safa, who are
who are the synthesizers
of of Greek philosophy and Islamic scripture,
they also affirm Jesus' death by crucifixion.
And one of their epistles called Rasael, they
paraphrase
basically the gospel of John
and explicitly describe Jesus' death and resurrection 3
days later.
The Ismaili
philosopher, Abuhatam
al Razi, this is not this is Abu
Hatem al Razi.
He said that Jesus is nasut.
These are Aramaic terms that are Arabized.
Jesus is nasut
element,
his human element
experienced death, while his lahut,
his divine or eternal
end of the that was officially
condemned at the Council of Ephesus
in 431.
Nestorius denied what's known as hypostatic
union between the divine son and the human
Jesus.
Thus, the divine or lahuti person of the
sun did not experience death, only the nausuti
person of Jesus. Indeed, some scholars trace the
origin
of Ismaili Christology directly back to Nestorius
and his hypostatic
distinction.
That's sort of just a side note there.
But to clarify
Abu Hatta Marazi's position, what he's saying is
that the messiah died Biljessad,
not Berruh,
in the body, not in the spirit.
And then he quotes extensively from the New
Testament Gospels, which he believes are accurate.
Such as Luke, who quotes Jesus as saying,
I say to you, my friends,
soma,
but cannot do more than that.
Or in the Methian version,
do not fear those who are able to
kill the body, but are unable to kill
the soul.
Rather, fear the one who can kill both
body and
soul. So for these exegetes, Jesus cannot be
killed in the full sense, both soma and
pneuma. Both
and both body and soul.
But then the objection here is, who can
be killed in the full sense?
Can a person kill another person's soul?
Perhaps another meaning is possible here.
Imam Al Ghazali said that when Mansur Al
Hallaj,
the martyr of divine love, was being led
to his execution
by crucifixion,
mind you,
found guilty of blasphemy due to his shatria,
theopathic
verbal utterances.
Al Hallaj was singing,
Kill me, oh my friends,
for in my death or in my killing
is my life.
Then as they were fastening him to the
gibbet,
Al Hallaj haughtingly quoted the Quran.
They did not kill him nor did they
crucify him, but it was made to appear
so unto them.
What did he mean by that?
In other words, they can kill my body
but not my hulud,
my hulud, my timeless aspect,
I e, the spirit of my teaching which
will abide in my disciples.
So Al Hallaj viewed himself as a Christic
anti type of sorts.
The Baghdadi authorities thought they had done away
with Al Hallaj and his apparent blasphemy once
and for all, not knowing that by killing
him, they drew attention to him.
And his
message. He was put on the cross. He
was put on the throne of his cross.
Mahmoud Ayub mentioned something similar about Imam Hussain,
that through his death, Hussain sent a powerful
message to the world.
Outwardly,
apparently, Hussain's head, severed head, was put on
a pike
and paraded around various cities in Iraq.
Yet the poet intimated his reality,
Shah hasth Hussain. Hussein is king.
So death
or martyrdom as a means of spiritual ascent.
Now speaking of Ghazali,
I mentioned earlier that his method with respect
to the New Testament Gospels was actually one
of,
textual affirmation.
In other words, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
are authentically the Injil for Ghazali.
Why does Ghazali take this position?
A position
in total contrast
with the vast majority of his exegetical predecessors,
botinia, the Isma'ili Shia, like Abu Hatem al
Razi or Hamiduddin al Kirami, Abu Yaquba Sijistani,
when he the works of these, philosophers,
he actually came to be convinced of some
of their positions because he was being honest.
So Abu Hamad al Ghazali hujatil Islam
affirmed the historicity of the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ. At least that's what it appears to
be.
Now
perhaps
this type of figurative docetism
is intimated in the Coptic
apocalypse of Peter. This was discovered at Nag
Hammadi in 1945.
It was written during the interval era.
The author
said, the savior said to me,
he whom you see above the cross, glad
and laughing, is the living Jesus.
So the exalted Christic reality,
right, his was
laughing, was seen by those with discerning insight
as having been raised above the
cross. It continues,
but he into whose hands and feet they
are driving the nails
is his physical part, which is the substitute.
So his jessad, his flesh is the substitute.
It concludes,
they are putting to shame that which is
in his likeness.
So here, the substitute and likeness of Jesus
who died on the cross was not another
person.
It was the flesh,
the sarcs or soma
of Christ himself.
While his real or immortal
aspect, the transcendental
gnosis
that he imparted to his disciples
was never and can never be killed.
The Acts of John, written in the late
2nd century, suggest similar things.
However, I would argue that a form of
this position, figurative docetism, can also be found
in the New Testament canonical gospels.
Jesus says in John chapter 10 verses
being can take it from me. And the
Greek is very, very
emphatic.
Nobody can take my life from me, but
I lay it down willingly.
I have permission to lay it down and
permission to receive it again. I received this
order from my father.
In other words, it is God's will for
Jesus to die,
and Jesus has submitted himself fully to do
that.
It is something that he has accepted
voluntarily.
It cannot be forced upon him
by human beings.
It doesn't defeat him.
It exalts him. Now verse 19 says something
significant.
It says, therefore again, there was a schisma
division. That's the Greek word, schisma. Of course,
the Ayatul Salb uses a verb related to
ikhtilaf.
That's what schisma means. There was a division
among the Jews because of these words.
Well, of course, there was. For them, a
dying messiah is no messiah.
Paul famously said in 1st Corinthians that a
crucified messiah is a stumbling block for the
Jews.
Now, remember I said earlier that all 4
gospels use a euphemism to describe Jesus' moment
of death,
that he handed over, yielded up, or let
go of his spirit.
This intimates
Jesus' total
submission and contentment with God's will.
The Jewish authorities thought that by killing him,
they invalidated
him as the Messiah, debasing and humiliating him
in the process.
The higher understanding is, but they did not
really kill him nor crucify him.
That is only what apparently happened.
They did not kill him in reality.
You see, God used the authorities as a
vehicle to carry out his plan,
or as Reynolds says, God outsmarted them.
Or in the language of the Quran concerning
Jesus,
They plotted and they planned.
God also planned God is the best of
planners.
Well, where else does the Quran speak like
this?
At the battle of Badr,
when the Muslims,
killed many idolaters on the battlefield,
they killed them physically.
There was a verse that was revealed that
said,
You did not kill them.
That's only what happened
on the apparent.
You did kill him. You did not kill
them.
But God killed them.
God intended and actually did these actions.
God is the doer of all actions in
reality.
So God took Jesus's soul because it pleased
God to do so.
Thus, the killing of Jesus does not debase
him. It exalts him as he gave his
life in obedience to God or in words
of 4158,
So this position states,
on the surface, the Jewish authorities killed Jesus.
But in reality,
Jesus offered up his soul in obedience to
God's will and God received it. Then 3
days later, it was returned to him,
confounding his enemies,
and God is great and wise.
Jesus tells his disciples
in John 724,
do not judge according to
In other words, do not judge according to
outward appearance or what is
he wants
he wants his people to actualize the greater
significance
of people and events.
Stop being so superficial.
In John chapter 9, a man born blind
is given physical sight and spiritual insight,
Whereas the Pharisees who were born with physical
sight become insightfully blind.
In the words of the Quran,
It is not their eyes that are blind
but verily their hearts which are in their
chest that are blind.
Do not imitate Satan who judged Adam's worth
strictly on an outward basis. Look deeper. Be
insightful.
So the crucifixion of Jesus must be viewed
through this higher
realization.
Jesus tells his disciples in Mark chapter 4
that those on the outside,
he says, those on the outside, so not
them, the outsiders,
they see but don't hear.
Sorry. They see, but don't perceive.
They hear, but don't understand.
They don't get it. You get it. At
least they're supposed to get it.
But in Mark, the disciples
don't quite get it.
Okay.
Personally, I think that,
3 a, that position I just expounded is,
is an interesting position, but ultimately a bit
too elusive textually.
I would rather incline towards a more literal
and plain reading of the ayah.
I think when the Quran says,
they did not kill him nor did they
crucify him, I think it means that literally.
The Jewish authorities did not kill him or
crucify him.
So at this point, I'm gonna tell you
what I think the ayah is saying,
but I have to stop abruptly and give
you a cliffhanger, and we're gonna have to
go,
pray.
But this is what it is. 3 b,
affirmation of Christ's crucifixion.
So figurative
docetism,
followed by divine pneumatic rapture
or assumption.
So allow me to explain a little bit.
In my opinion, the key to understanding what
Ayatul Salb is actually saying, so it's
and by I don't mean some,
mystical esoteric meaning. I mean its original intended
meaning.
Its meaning that is Awal, hence the term
to find its origin.
The key to its
is examining its subtext
and its philology. Now, we we dealt a
little bit with philology,
but not yet with subtext.
So this next line here,
this one here is a line that
I repeat in class, and I expect my
students to know quite well that the Quran
must be read.
That's why it's underlined and italicized. I was
gonna bold it too, but I thought that's
too
much. The Quran must be read
with a cognizance
that it is engaging intertextually
with Jewish, Christian, and Near Eastern textual,
textual and oral traditions during the late antiquity.
The Quran in many instances
expects you to know its religious subtext, its
backstory.
Otherwise, you will misunderstand the Quran.
I'll give you just 2 quick examples out
of potentially 100.
In the Quran,
Surah
27,
we were told that the Queen of Sheba
walked across the glassy floor of Solomon's Palace,
and she thought there was a shallow pond
of water there, so she tucked up her
skirt, exposing her legs.
What's the point of that?
Well, be modest.
Well, what else?
Well, did you know that that there was
a rabbinical
Aramaic midrash
of the book of Esther? There was a
tafsir done by rabbis, the book of Esther,
called Targum Sheini.
And in this Midrash,
you will find more or less the same
story with the added detail that the Queen
of Sheba had hairy feet.
So let that marinate. Now, Turgum
Turgum Shani
is dated anywhere from the There's a big
range, from the 4th to 11th century of
the common era.
So the big debate, of course, is which
text influenced the other in Western academic circles.
It's likely that the Quran is
critically responding
to a known Jewish oral tradition that eventually
became this Midrash,
that Solomon married a woman who was half
demon.
A woman who had hooves for feet.
Thus, the Quran exonerates Solomon of the charge
that he that he consorted with demons.
Of course, later in the Kabbalah,
it explicitly says that the Queen of Sheba
was the queen of the demons.
Without knowledge of this rabbinical Midrash,
you would not fully understand the significance
of the Qur'anic story.
Last example, then we'll take a break. The
Jews in Yathrib asked the prophet, peace be
upon him, about Dhul Qurnayn.
After several days, 17 verses of Suratul Kahf
were revealed,
describing the 3 military
expeditions of Dur Qurnayn.
The Jews obviously knew the answers, or else,
what's the point of asking the questions?
How would they check his answers?
The Yaphrebi Jews had something in their possession
called the Syriac Syriac legend of Alexander.
There are way too many points of contact
between the Quran 17 ayat and the Syriac
legend to leave any doubt that Dur Qurnayn
is Alexander the Great, who died 3/23 before
the the common era. Historians would refer to
the Syriac legend of Alexander as a, quote,
pre literary
tradition that the Quran is engaging with, just
like the Bible is.
On ancient Macedonian coins, Alexander is depicted as
having 2 horns.
Imam Sayyuti says about Durkur
name,
His name was Alexander, and he was not
a prophet. Imam al Razi also says, Ismuhu
Iskandar.
In fact, Josephus says in the antiquities
that Alexander the Great visited Jerusalem around 3:30
before the common era,
and the temple priests showed him his own
description in the Hebrew Bible,
That he is described symbolically in the book
of Daniel chapter 8 as a ram having
2 horns
or in the Hebrew,
and
are exact cognates.
However,
many classical and most modern authorities say Dhul
Qurnayn
was an unknown prophet, some angel, some unknown
king, Cyrus the Great, I've even heard Hammurabi
the Amorite.
Without knowledge of various texts prevalent in the
late antiquity,
such as the Syriac legend,
the antiquities of Josephus, or the Tanakh, the
Hebrew Bible, an exeget will miss the meaning
of the Quran's verses.
I do wanna reiterate
here again,
the Quran must be read with a cognizance
that it is engaging intertextually with Jewish, Christian,
and Near Eastern textual
and oral traditions during the late
antiquity. Okay. Now, in tractate Sanhedrin 43 a
of the Babylonian Gemara, this is the Talmud,
the rabbi said Yeshu, and Yeshu is what
they called Jesus,
Yeshu was hanged on the eve of Passover,
hanging being a euphemism for crucifixion.
However, the rabbis are insistent that Jesus was
stoned to death first,
then crucified postmortem.
And this is how the worst of malefactors
were punished according to Jewish halakha law.
The author of John's gospel says explicitly as
well that Jesus was crucified,
parasqueua
to Pascha, that on the eve of Passover.
However, he was not stoned first according to
the gospels, and it was the Romans who
carried out the execution, albeit at the behest
of the, Jewish religious authorities, the Sanhedrin.
Peter Schaeffer says in his book Jesus and
the Talmud,
he says, I interpret this, and by this
he means what the Talmud says,
as a deliberate misreading of the New Testament,
reclaiming Jesus as it were for the Jewish
people and proudly acknowledging
that he was right rightly and legally executed
for being a Jewish heretic,
in effect in effect saying, we did this,
and we want the credit for it.
The Babylonian Talmud's explicit Jesus passages, according to
Schaeffer,
were first composed
in the late 3rd or early 4th centuries
during the interval era.
These are, quote,
sophisticated
counternarratives
to the stories of Jesus' life and death
in the gospels, narratives that presuppose a detailed
knowledge of the New Testament.
I would contend that the Quran makes the
same presupposition.
It often assumes a full knowing reader, a
reader that is familiar with the biblical
and near eastern traditions that it is critically
responding to its religious
subtext, its backstory.
Reynolds says that Ayatul Sal also reflects the,
quote, anti Jewish polemic
in Syriac Christian writings during the late antiquity.
For example, Jacob of Saruk, who died 521
CE,
a Christian father, Aramaic father,
he refers to the Jews as, quote, a
people who boast that they tied a man
to the wood.
Therefore,
Ayatul Salb, 4157,
is a corrective,
a repudiation
of rabbinical
Talmudic
tradition,
which stated in boast, pride, and ridicule, we
killed Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, the
messenger of God.
It is also an affirmation of the Syriac
Christian tradition
rooted in the New Testament.
Again, Ayatul Salb is a both is both
a corrective of rabbinical Talmudic tradition,
as well as an affirmation of Syriac
Christian tradition.
The Quranic response to the Talmud is
Notice the order
and the apparent,
only apparent redundancy.
They did not kill him by stoning,
says the subtext,
nor crucify him after post mortem.
Well, that can shub be a lahum, but
the event of the
crucifixion mentioned in the Injeel
or the fourfold gospel enshrined in the New
Testament.
In the same tractate in the Talmud, the
rabbi said that Mary, they call her Miriam
the hairdresser, quote, played the harlot with carpenters.
God forbid. Jesus is called Ben Pandara in
the Talmud. Pandara was the name of a
Roman soldier and biological father of Jesus according
to the Talmud.
Thus, Mary is slandered.
Now, the subtextual
ground
of Ayat al Salb, as well as its
predecessor,
Ayatul Bukhitan,
verse 156,
comes clearly into view that these verses are
linked
semantically.
They both begin with
They're linked semantically.
They're also linked historically.
They're linked historically.
Both Ayatul Salb and Ayatul Bohtan were intended
to counter the Talmudic rabbinical claims
that Jesus was born illegitimately
and that he was stoned and crucified
post mortem, as the worst of criminals were
put to were handled, were punished.
These Talmudic counternarratives
are both false.
This is what the Quran is saying. The
context of these ayat are clear. Read the
entire section.
I don't believe that they're denying the well
established Christian nativity and crucifixion narratives.
Quite the contrary, they are supporting the Christian
narratives as well as supporting the prevailing anti
Jewish Christian discourse.
They are denying the Jewish rabbinical
nativity
and crucifixion
counternarratives.
So these are counter counternarratives,
narratives or they're corrected counter narratives.
Many would contend,
that the Quran and Hadith
actually affirm the text of the New Testament
Gospels
as being the authentic Injeel. Again, this is
quite controversial.
And this is usually at the the time
in the speech where people will kind of
check out
theologically.
But this is the this is the the
position of Imam al Razi, Imam al Ghazali,
Imam al Bihqawi.
Classical exegetes held this position
that the tahrif, the corruption with respect to
Christianity
is not of the text, is not of
the nous of the New Testament Gospels,
but rather the Ma'ani, the proto orthodox or
trinitarian
exegesis
of the New Testament Gospels.
For example, the Quran refers to the Christians
as ahlul Injeel.
Now, why would the Quran refer to the
Christians as a as the people of the
gospel if they don't have the actual gospel?
The Quran says,
let the people of the gospel rule by
what God revealed therein. But how could they
apply rulings from a lost or irretrievably
corrupted
text?
The Quran calls itself
and Muhammin,
confirmer and protector of the Torah in the
gospel.
We are told in Bukhari that
and who was a man who converted to
Christianity,
who used to read the gospel in Arabic.
Now, was Waraqa reading some now lost Injil
archetype
written by Jesus
himself in Syria?
No. He was obviously reading the New Testament
Gospels.
But the Quran and Hadith used the singular
rather than the plural
Well, I would contend that Warakah is most
likely reading and translating Tatian's
famous gospel harmony
known as the Diatessaron
from Syriac into Arabic.
According to Griffith, the Diatessaron
may well have been the best known form
of the gospel
among Arabic speaking Christians in the Quran's milieu.
This is why the Quran says gospel in
the singular. It is referencing Tatian's.
Thus, Ayatul Salb actually affirms that Jesus was,
in fact, crucified,
but he
but he was alive when put on the
cross
and dead when taken off. Now, that's essentially
the Christian narrative, but here's the twist, I
think.
Not dead due to being crucified,
Jesus offered up his soul, his pneuma, his
ur,
and God intervened and received it in full
directly
before natural biological death could set in,
as evidenced in the language of the gospels,
as well as the Quran.
In other words, he was raptured by God.
The modern the learned modern Shi'i exegete at
Tabateva'i
suggests that the meaning is that Jesus did
not die
by their hands, but the matter appeared so
unto them.
So then John 1018 is quite literal.
No human being can take my soul from
me. That's quite literal, not figurative.
God intervened directly and took his life, took
Jesus's life before natural death could set in.
In Luke 2346,
Jesus' last words were, father, into your hands,
I commend my spirit. And, of course, the
term father,
does not mean
literal father in the sense that he shares
an essence with God. I mean, this whole
Unitarian reading of this text that we don't
have time to go into. But, basically,
ab ab means rub in the new testament.
Think of it like that.
Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.
Then Luke says, having said this,
his soul or spirit exited him. Now a
person who goes into hypovolemic
shock
and then dies from asphyxiation
on the cross would not be able to
make a sound,
let alone speak an audible and intelligent sentence.
In other words, he died on the cross,
but was not killed by the cross.
He did not die at the hands of
his enemies.
That's what they thought. He was raptured up
by God directly.
Now Jesus' name in Aramaic
is Yeshua.
According to the Lexicon Strong's Concordance, it means
he is saved.
It is a shorter form of Yehoshua,
Joshua,
which means whose salvation is Adonai according to
Geesenius. And I'm reading Adonai for the tetragrammaton,
Yod
Psalm 20 verse 6
says this in Hebrew.
It says, David writes,
David writes, I know that God saves his
messiah.
He shall hear him from his holy heaven
with the saving power
of his right hand. God saved his messiah
from being killed by his enemies.
The synoptic gospels tell us that just before
death,
Jesus cried out with a phone megalae, a
loud voice.
What does this psalm say?
He shall he shall hear him from his
holy heaven.
In Psalm 91, a messianic Psalm according to
the New Testament,
God is the speaker and he says, because
he has set his love, the word for
love here in the Hebrew is hashaq, which
is
according to Jacenius, intensive love. Because he has
intensively loved me, I will deliver him and
set him on high.
Because he has known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I shall
answer
him. I will be with him in trouble.
I will deliver him and honor him with
long life. The words in Hebrew is
extended days.
I shall deliver him, satisfy him, and show
him my
salvation. And that word there, salvation,
here at the very end,
that in Hebrew is Yeshua,
which is aspirated,
which means something like salvation by God is
etymologically related to the name of Jesus, Yeshua.
The objection here, The objection here from a
Christian perspective would be the following.
In the synoptic gospels, like in Mark chapter
9, Jesus makes clear passion predictions.
He says that the son of man, referring
to himself, will be delivered unto sinful men
and apaktenusenauton,
and they will kill
him. Now, given the premise that the Quran
is affirming the text of the gospels,
under 3 a, this passion prediction can be
affirmed as well. They killed his body, not
the spirit of his message. No problem. Figurative
docetism.
Under 3 b, divine rapture, these synoptic passion
predictions become more difficult to reconcile,
and we seem to be at an impasse.
This doesn't invalidate this position. I mean, the
same apparent inconsistency is found in the Bible.
You can ask Christians,
how do they reconcile Mark 931
with John 10 18?
Mark 931 says, they will kill him. Jesus
referring to himself, essentially saying, they're going to
kill me.
John 10 18, no one can take my
life from me.
How do you reconcile these? Well, Christian exegetes
will say, well, the contradiction is only apparent.
When Jesus says no one can take my
life from me, what he means is they
can't take
they can't they can take his life from
him, but it's only because he's willing to
let them do that.
Right?
So under 3 b, they will kill him.
Yeah. In their perceptions,
in their intentions, but in reality, no one
can take his life from him. In other
words, there's a way of,
resolving the apparent contradictions. Now, historians like Ehrman,
by the way, do not believe that these
synoptic passion predictions are historical.
They believe that Jesus' predictions of a future
son of man to judge the world are
historical because early Christians would not have made
those up, and Jewish apocalypsicism
was everywhere at the time.
However, after Jesus's death, historians say, early Christians
made Jesus' claim in Matthew, Mark, and Luke
that he also was the son of man
who was meant to die, so they had
to justify a dead
2 more slides.
Now some may object here and say, well,
there are no references to Jesus' death or
resurrection in the Quran.
Well, I'd say, look again,
355. Oh, Jesus, I will cause your death
directly. That's explicit.
And raise your soul to myself or exalt
you in degree.
And purify you from those who have disbelieved.
In other words, exonerate you from the claims
of your enemies.
What were the claims of his enemies? That
he was a false messiah.
Because he died, he was killed. Well, how
did God exonerate him? By raising him from
the dead. I mean, this could be an
implicit reference
to the resurrection.
But explicitly in 1933,
peace be upon me, the day I was
born, the day that I die, and the
day that I am raised up to life,
the day that I am resurrected.
The standard exegesis here is that Jesus is
referring to the general resurrection at the end
of time, and this is why God says
the same thing about John the Baptist, 18
verses earlier, but I don't really know about
that. I
don't find that very compelling. Why would the
Quran mention this specifically about John the Baptist,
18 verses earlier, but I don't really know
about that. I don't find that
very compelling.
Why would the Quran mention this specifically about
Jesus and John
if it's not unique to them at all,
if it's going to happen
resurrections
of both Jesus and John at that time.
In other words, the Quran indicates that John
was also resurrected.
And guess what? According to the New Testament
gospels, there was indeed a rumor that John
the Baptist had been resurrected.
Mark says in 614,
Elagon, they were saying that John
the his disciples, who do people say that
I am? In Mark chapter 8, they responded,
some people say John the Baptist. Others say
Elijah.
Others say one of the prophets.
The people knew that John was executed by
Herod Antipas, so here they mean a resurrected
John, because that was the rumor.
Also in Matthew 27, we are told that
many Hagion,
holy people or saints,
were resurrected when Jesus was resurrected.
Thus, John could have been one of these.
Thus, John and Jesus mirror each other quite
nicely in the Quran. They were both born
miraculously.
They were both vehemently
opposed by corrupt authorities.
Both died quite young, and both were resurrected
as signs of God.
Last slide.
Okay. This is the last part of the
lecture. If you've been listening,
you no doubt have a very pressing question
in mind,
a question that has soteriological
implications, and that is why.
Why was it necessary for the messiah to
die like this? Why was it pleasing to
God to take the life of his Christ
in such a way? Now,
we know the Christian answer. He vicariously atoned
for the sins of humanity,
establishing a new covenant with his blood.
As promised, I will not critique this dogma
in this lecture. I think it's sufficient to
say that that will not jive
with the Quran or with Islamic theology,
as far as I know.
In Islam,
forgiveness
is through repentance and grace.
No animal or human sacrifice is
Or as the songwriter said,
Harun Sellars,
does a man really have to die
for me to be forgiven?
Or is that just a lie,
my god?
If the man was innocent, does that really
make sense?
My guilt is my expense,
my god.
Just some lines from other hardwood sellers that
I thought were beautiful.
However,
while there is no
concept of vicarious
atonement in Islam as I understand Islam, In
other words, there's no possibility of someone literally
taking your sins and being punished for you
quite literally.
There is a concept of redemptive suffering.
Redemptive suffering. And here I recommend the book
of, the work of Mahmoud Ayub. He says
redemptive suffering may be seen as direct intercession
or direct example.
And I think Jesus provided both. As far
as direct, example goes, he provided a living
example of virtue,
selflessness,
courage, patience, and assertive nonviolence to be
faith. As Tertullian famously said, the blood of
the martyr is the seed of the church.
As far as direct intercession goes, think about
what Caiaphas, the high priest, said according to
John chapter 11.
Caiaphas said, it is expedient for 1 man
to die to spare the nation.
And if Jesus is left alone, he says,
all will believe in him and the Romans
will take away our place and nation.
Place here probably a reference to the temple.
The author of John's gospel says that Caiaphas
did not speak this from himself, but actually
prophesied
enough Jews begin declaring Jesus as the rightful
king of Israel, the king of the Jews,
a title saturated with political ramifications,
then Rome will destroy the temple and crush
the entire nation.
It would be better to placate the Romans
now and throw them a scapegoat.
It's better for 1 man to take one
for the team, as it were.
So Jesus' self sacrifice
ransomed, as it were, Israel from national
catastrophe.
By giving his life, he effectively
saved his nation, a savior in this sense.
More importantly, his death allowed world jewelry in
Palestine and in diaspora to hear the gospel
via apostolic mission,
The apostle, the apostles being extensions of Christ
himself.
In fact, a specific apostolic mission is actually
mentioned in the Quran,
Surah
Yassin, where 3 Mursalin,
apostles of Jesus, according to classical commentators,
are sent to a certain city.
Ibn Kathir
says that the city was called Antakya,
Antioch,
and he identifies the 3 apostles as Sham'un,
Yohanna, and Bulus,
Peter, John, and Paul.
Perhaps the Quran has Acts chapter 13 in
mind here, where a group of
disciples, apostles, Paul among them, go to Antioch.
40 years later, after Jesus, the same duration
of Israel's wilderness wandering under Moses, a biblical
generation, Israel's stay of execution, if you will,
ended with
her almost complete rejection of her messiah,
and Rome was finally unleashed upon her, destroying
her temple.
In other words, Jesus's shafa'ah, his intercession for
his people, postponed the wrath of God for
1 generation, until finally the temple was destroyed
by general Titus, thus marking the end of
the messianically earned and divinely granted grace period.
So only in this figurative majazi
sense does Christ die for the sins of
many.
Only in this figurative sense can Isaiah
53 be understood,
which is quoted all over the New Testament
by John, Peter, Paul, Matthew,
and and Mark.
In fact, many early Christian fathers, church fathers
interpreted
the destruction of the temple on 9th of
Av and 70 of the common era as
divine wrath upon the Jewish nation
and the revocation of the Mosaic covenant
for their rejection of Yeshua
Meshiach, of Jesus Christ.
These include Clement, Origen, and Tertullian.
This is not politically correct to say anymore,
by the way. Jesus himself predicted the inevitable
destruction of the temple in the synoptic gospels,
explaining it with reference to Daniel chapter 9,
where Gabriel tells Daniel,
yikares
yamashiach,
the Messiah will be cut off. That is
to say killed or have his life ended
abruptly.
So Jesus' death served three purposes as I
see it. It provided an exemplar, a virtue
to follow.
It postponed God's wrath upon the Jewish nation,
saving his nation in that sense, and it
gave Jews and Gentiles the opportunity to hear
the gospel via apostolic mission and believe in
Christ. The end.
So we have an open mic here.
If you'd like to step up and
ask a question, you have a comment, we
can do that.
We do have until 9 o'clock. There's
also people watching or listening on the live
stream that have some questions as well.
If I may go ahead and take one
from online. Yes, sir.
Alright. From Facebook, we have the question,
why did 3 positions develop on the verse?
Why isn't it clear and crisp
leaving no doubt on the topic?
Why is no authentic hadith
present on the subject? Isn't the sunnah the
means of explaining the Quran?
That's the question I've had for 20 years.
I I don't know
it's
well I indicated this in my initial presentation
that the verse itself is is enigmatic.
Very enigmatic, mysterious.
Different ways of dealing with this
this portion of the ayah.
And then the whole idea,
And there are some that say, yes, the
Jews did not kill him nor crucify him.
The Romans did that.
Right? And you'll find this opinion, Giulio Bessetti
Sani, who's a Catholic Islamicist,
he takes that opinion. He actually believes that
the Quran is a divine revelation
and perfectly in line with the the 4
gospels. So I think it's just the nature
of the ayah. And the thing is, it's
not really important for us. It's very important
for Christians for Jesus to die, because Paul
says, if Christ isn't raised, then Christianity is
in vain. Your faith is in vain. Because
Paul says, if Christ isn't raised, then Christianity
is in vain. Your faith is invalid. It's
in vain.
But for us, I mean, a prophet dying
or not, I mean, prophets were cut in
half, prophets were tortured.
Right? Prophets were decapitated.
It's not so much of a big issue
for us.
Just as, you know, who was the son
to be sacrificed, Ishmael or Isaac? Believe it
or not, a lot of Muslims don't know
there's an Ikhilaf
and that there's a very strong opinion that
it was Isaac to be sacrificed, not Ishmael.
This is the opinion of ibn Mas'ud and
Saidna Ali, and these are people who know
what they're talking about.
So,
that's a genuine Ikhdila. So it doesn't really
matter. Yeah. It has to be Isaac because
he is the progenitor of the Jewish nation,
and and it has to be Isaac for
Christians because he's an ancestor of Christ. But
for us, either one is a prophet. They're
beloved
either way.
So I don't think it's just a big
issue. Why is there no hadith? I I
don't know.
I don't know.
Yes.
Thank you for your presentation.
I would like to ask how should we
think of, the Bible
in terms of
how could we think of it as a
revelation? Because we know for example that the
Quran has been revealed,
to the Quran and
we know that,
Moses Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam
has received it in a plate or on
plates. How, how how do we how do
we,
think of
Yeah.
The Bible. Yeah. I think I get your
question. Yeah. So there's,
if you study Ulumar Quran, there's,
there's different types of revelation.
Right? So you have Wahi, which is prophetic
revelation,
right? So,
the Quran from a confessional Muslim perspective is
considered Wahi ipsisima verba, the very words of
God.
Right? And that's analogous to the Jewish position
on the, with respect to the Torah.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy are not the
words of Moses. They are the words of
God spoken through Moses.
Now, what you have in the rest of
the Tanakh of the Hebrew Bible, you have
the prophets and writings.
Of
of revelatory
authority.
There's actually a hierarchy of revelation.
They're still inspired, but they're not the very
words of God. They're the very voice of
God.
So it's still a holy text.
Right?
So for example, something analogous in our tradition
would be like the Hadith.
The Hadith are generally not considered to be
the very words of God, not even the
Hadith Qudsi or some take the Hadith Qudsi
to be in that category as well.
But it's inspiration that's put in the heart
of the prophet, and he is choosing the
articulation.
Right? And then there's something and then there's
something called
is nonprophetic
revelation, and this is mentioned in our sources.
The
Quran says, we gave
we reveal to the mother of Moses.
The dominant opinion is that the mother of
Moses, her name was Yahobed.
That's her actual name. It's not Her name
is not mentioned in the Quran, but in
the Torah, her name is Yahobed. The dominant
opinion is that she's not a prophet per
se. There is an opinion that she was,
but the stronger opinion is that she's not
a prophet. But but Allah said,
So
the ulama say, that's
That's nonprophetic
revelation. It's still a lower degree
than prophetic revelation. So the way we can
think about, like, the new testament Testament gospels
is really sort of a combination,
of all three of those. It's conceivable
that in the gospels, you have God speaking
to Christ and Christ quoting God. You have
Christ speaking
inspired speech. And then these 4 books were
written by apostles, apparently. The Quran says, well,
that we gave
to the disciples.
Right?
Is this a reference of matthew mark Luke
and john is the quran confirming that these
four books are written by apostles of jesus
and that they were given
right different degrees of revelation.
So not necessarily Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
as being the very words of God,
right, but an inspired text.
So that it's a broader way of thinking
about revelatory text.
Yes, sir.
So I had a question with regard to
this wound theory then, for those who believe
that Jesus had a natural death, then what
about I can't I'm sorry. One more time.
So people who believe that Jesus had a
natural death, like in the swoon swoon theory,
then how would they, like, reconcile hadiths that
at the end of time Jesus comes back
alive
from the sky?
How would, would they assume that he had
a natural death and then spirit gets,
invited invited again in another body and comes
back towards the end of time? Or
So the swoon theory is that he survived
on the cross. Right. But then he eventually
he they assumed that he must have had
an actual death on earth.
So
you're talking about Muslims are Muslim position. Yeah.
So the Muslim position is he swoon from
the cross and then he died.
A natural death. I mean, that that's at
least the Ahmadiyya. I don't and then the
Ahmadiyya believed that
that he came back in a new incarnated
form. And Olam Mirza Ahmed claimed to be
the second coming of Jesus and also the
Mehdi. So he it's a 2fer
apparently.
So so yeah, the body died but does
the spirit so, you know, because the spirit
doesn't die. The spirit leaves the body and
it was reincarnated into a Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
So
yeah. But Imam al Ghazali had the same
opinion. Imam al Ghazali seems to affirm the
death of Christ.
That's what it's that's what he seems to
be saying. Because he wrote this book, Radu
Jamil,
the reputation of the divinity of Jesus through
the gospel. So he's taken this as the
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he's calling the
gospel. Maybe he's humoring the text and saying,
okay. Let's just say this is for argument's
sake, this is the gospel. This is how
I would argue against the divinity of Jesus.
Because because he sort of does that with
the Tehafatul philosophy. It sort of takes their
premises,
the Abyssinian
or the Hellenistic,
Neo Platonic philosophers and sort of uses their
own method against them. Maybe that's what he's
doing with the Ratu Jameel. But apparently,
the way that many scholars will read Ghazali
is that he's affirming the text of the
New Testament that includes
the crucifixion or passion narratives.
So let me just finish. So that when
he died, his soul was taken and then
and then,
there will be,
there was an ascension.
Jesus eventually ascended, and then he'll come back
at the end of time. Yeah. And will
he die again? I don't know.
Yes.
So my question is
about the the Gospels. So as a Muslim,
we're taught obviously that the Quran that the
scripture has never changed.
And with the gospels,
is there
original text for the gospels that exist today?
Like, what like, so for my my question
is, like, Imam Ghazali when he or whoever
believes that the gospels are may have been
misinterpreted,
but they're consistent with the Quran. Yeah. So
it's consistent to which script because there's many
translations of the gospels. Yeah. So which are
the are there originals that
people can go back to, like, in the
Quran?
Well, as far as originals go, it seems
like what the Quran is saying is that
what the Christians have in their possession in
the 7th century, in the late antique, in
the Arabian Peninsula represents an accurate rendering
of the message of Christ. It is the
gospel.
So scholars have,
surmised that,
the immediate reference is to Tatians Diatessaron.
So Tatians Diatessaron is a translation of the
Greek into Syriac. The Greek the rich the
original Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are in
Greek. They're not in Syriac or in Aramaic,
but they're translated back into or translated into
Aramaic.
And that seems to be that was the
most popular form of the New Testament Gospels
in Arabia during that time.
As far as originals go, yeah, there are
no extant originals.
I mean, the oldest
the oldest,
the oldest manuscript of anything from any gospel
is called p 52, which is about this
big. It's the size of a credit card.
It's, you know, 6 verses of John chapter
18, and it's dated to, like, 120, 120
5, so they say 150.
But something we have to also
be cognizant of that there was a strong
oral tradition. I mean, those were oral cultures.
Right? So most people were illiterate. I mean,
90, I mean, Ehrman says that even in
5th century Athens at the height of, you
know, Greek civilizations,
90, 95 percent of people were illiterate.
It was an oral culture.
So these things were transmitted orally. Now the
danger with orality is that things are added
and subtracted and expanded upon and things like
that. That's why you have
manuscripts that are, I mean, there's 5,500
Greek manuscripts
of the New Testament that date from the
earliest period into the Middle Ages and no
2 of them are identical.
Granted, the vast, vast, vast majority of the
differences are spelling errors. They're due to parablexis,
you know, a scribe copying in his eye
would skip a line and things like that.
They're very, very minute.
Once in a while, you do find deliberate
changes and things like that for doctrinal reasons.
So it seems like what the Quran is
saying is that, you know, that there were
attempts made to change the word of God.
Right? But eventually, those things were discovered by
the Scholastic community and and corrected.
That that seems to be what it's saying.
And that's a contentious issue. But there's no
originals. As far as, like, even original Qurans,
you know, Uthmani codices.
Apparently, there were 5 to 9 of
these. And there are some candidates, I mean,
you know, the top copy museum,
some claim that that's an original Uthmani manuscript,
but nothing's been verified for for certain.
Right?
So,
but you have to remember that there's there's
strong orality.
Right? I mean, people memorize the text. They're
literally writing the text from memory.
So I hope that Yeah. So just one
follow-up question. So isn't isn't problematic that something
could get lost in translation? Like, I understand,
obviously, having an oral tradition
and writing it down
decades, centuries later, but
going back to the the gospels.
Yeah. It's it's certainly possible to be lost
in translation.
But, one could argue that
the the overall teaching of Christ is is
preserved,
in, for example, Tatiens the Etesteron. Sure. There
might be a blown translation here and there,
but doesn't affect the overall a general message
of the gospel. Right.
Alright. Thank you. Very interesting. Yeah. Thank you.
I got 2 part question actually. The only
is on the
answer you were saying on the first question,
it says the Christian believe the Romans killed
Jesus Christ.
One part.
But I think in the New Testament in
first the region,
it says chapter 2
verse 15.
Uh-huh. It says, the Jews killed
Lord Jesus Christ
and all the prophets.
Indeed the Jews are
enemy of God
and enemy of humanity.
If their belief of the Christian is the
Jews killed God, the second part of my
question is why their books
is part of the
book of the Bible which is Old Testament
and Torah?
Because
if this really they think they are killing
their God, there should be separate books.
Like take the gospels away, they do their
own book. So that's my question.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So, yeah,
just to reiterate part of the question is
there's a there's a verse in first Thessalonians.
It was written by Paul, which
is Paul's earliest letter by consensus or near
consensus of historical scholars,
where Paul describes the Jews
as, he says they are they killed,
the Lord Jesus and their own prophets.
They please not God and are contrary to
all men.
Right? And some have said that this is
the most anti
Semitic statement
ever made in any text. Now, textual criticism
reveals that this verse was probably added later,
believe it or not.
And there's a there's a growing consensus actually
that first Thessalonians 214
was indeed added later
by an anti Jewish,
pro Pauline polemicist.
It doesn't seem to jive with the rest
of what's authentically Pauline.
So that that's one thing. I mean, it
just seems weird that Paul would say that
because Paul himself is ethnically Jewish. I mean,
he's
a he's a Benjaminite
Pharisee.
Jesus was
Jewish. His mother was Jewish. All of the
disciples were Jewish. And this is part of
the problem also with the gospel of John
that has baffled scholars for many years. In
the gospel of John, the enemies of Jesus
are called.
That's it. The Jews.
The Jews. And it's like, wait a minute.
Jesus and Mary and and the disciples, you
know, Jesus went to the upper room after
the after the resurrection, and they had to
lock the doors because they were afraid of
the Jews. Well, there's Jews inside. They're the
disciples.
You know?
So that seems to indicate that that text,
the gospel of John, was written later at
a time when there was a definitive split
between church and synagogue,
that there were Jews and there were Christians,
and most Christians were probably Greco Roman. I
mean, those were the obviously, the people that
were converting
the quickest.
As far as the old testament being sacred
text, so let's just entertain that first Thessalonians
214 is written by Paul. Why did the
Christians retain the Hebrew Bible?
Well,
it's because the Hebrew Bible
reveals,
the Christ event.
Right? The the old testament is the new
testament
concealed,
and the New Testament is the Old Testament
revealed. So that's part of the heritage.
Also, Romans did not like trendy new things.
They wouldn't believe in things that are trendy
and new. They like things that are based
in antiquity.
So for for Christians to come into Rome
and say, there's a new religion,
there was a divine incarnation,
the logos made flesh named Jesus who died
for our sins, They would say, when did
this happen? This happened a couple of years
ago. Okay. Get out of my face.
That's new and trendy and modern.
You have to anchor something in antiquity.
So the Christians,
by retaining the old testament,
albeit, you know, many of the laws have
been abrogated,
they they
fulfill that demand for antiquity
with a Greco Roman audience. Now certainly Marcion,
there was an early Christian in the first
end of the first century,
very popular Christian preacher named Marcion,
sometimes his name is pronounced Martian,
but I call him Marcion.
I think he was from planet Earth.
His his opinion was that the God of
the Old Testament is a different God.
That's a different He was a bi theist.
Jesus is the real God. The God of
the Old Testament is the demiurge.
He's a weak God. He's the one who
created this terrible world where there's sin and
suffering and wars and pestilence,
but Jesus is the real God. So he
was by theistic. He was vehemently anti Jewish.
Right?
And he did not want anything to do
with the Old Testament.
He wanted to He was actually the 1st
Christian to ever propose a New Testament canon,
he said, let's use the gospel of Luke
and 10 letters of Paul,
but not like Matthew or anything like that.
That's that's too Jewish.
You know? Martin
Luther incidentally also wanted to revise the canon
in the 16th century.
He didn't like the the book of James
because that that's too Jewish.
He called it an epistle of straw.
And so Luther's positions,
prompted the ecumenical
council, the council of Trent, where the Catholic
church definitively said the canon is closed. Don't
talk about the canon.
Right.
So your question is, you know, why do
the Jews that's a that's a concern that,
like, Marcion had,
who
who bought into this idea that the Jews,
you know, they're now accursed by God. The
covenant is revoked. I mean, that was a
standard Christian position anyway that the covenant has
been revoked.
But it's a different God. Jesus is a
new God.
Jesus is the the real God, I should
say. Yeah.
But there are other passages,
in the New Testament.
I mean, there's the argument, yeah, the Jews
didn't kill God.
The Romans did.
Right? That's like saying, you know, the guy
who shot the other guy, he didn't do
it. The gun did it.
If you read the New Testament, it's very,
very clear,
that the enemies of Christ are are the
are the Jewish authorities.
Not saying the Jewish people,
and we're not saying there's some blood curse
that runs, you know, throughout the centuries.
Right. If you just look at the text
from a historical and literary perspective, it's very
clear that Jewish's enemies, that Jesus's enemies are
the religious authorities.
In fact,
Pilate, the Roman governor in the New Testament,
the way that he's presented as this, like,
this weakling who's just being manhandled
by these
these
Jewish high priests,
you know, just cowering and being afraid of
them. And, you know, at one point, you
know, Pilate in the gospel of John, he
actually because he interviews Jesus three times and
he says, I don't find anything wrong with
him. You know,
judge him according to your own law. And
they say, no, you have to crucify him.
If you don't crucify him, you're no friend
of Caesar. So at one point,
Pilate is so afraid, he looks to Jesus
and he says, tell me what to do.
And then Jesus says to him, he's and
then, you know, Pilate says to Jesus, he
says, I have power to release you or
crucify you. And then Jesus says to Pilate,
you have no power over me except that
it was given to you from above, but
the one who led you but the one
who led me to you has the
mob here,
this mob here, these leaders.
Right?
Now, if you read Philo of Alexandria
and Josephus,
Pilate is very very different than that.
Pilate was a bar was a brutal
governor
who would execute people at the drop of
a hat without trial.
He would stamp anything out in 5 minutes,
You know? So this idea that he's being
manhandled and he's trying to save Jesus, it
doesn't seem to work historically.
So and then you have the, you know,
the
the statement in Matthew,
where Jesus is being tried. And Pilate, you
know, he comes out again and he says,
you know, it's Passover and I want to
release a prisoner as an act of goodwill.
So who do you want me to release
to you? Barabbas,
a known brigand,
or Jesus?
And then the the crowd, you know, sort
of,
cries, you know, release Barabbas and kill Jesus.
Right?
So then Pilate, he washes his hands
in Matthew, and he says, I am free
of the blood of this innocent man,
the author is telling us in Matthew,
Rome had nothing to do with this really.
Right?
And then on top of that, you
Caiaphas,
he says, may his blood be on us
and our children after us.
Right?
So that verse was used to justify pogroms
all throughout the middle ages, anti jewish pogroms,
that these are Christ killers. The catholic church
had to eventually
apologize
to the jewish people for that
but if you if you saw the movie
The The Passion of the Christ, which I
don't recommend, but I had to watch it
for research
many, many times,
and I couldn't eat for a week after
that.
But this scene is in the movie
where, you know, he washes his hands and
then you hear Caiaphas in the background and
Aramaic say, may his blood be upon us
and our children, but Gibson doesn't translate that.
You know? But it's in it's in the
movie,
the most notorious statement in the New Testament.
You know?
So anyway
Can I take another question from online real
quick?
Sorry to the person
in contrast to Paul's
statement in the New Testament,
quote, for the for without the shedding of
blood, there's no forgiveness of sin.
How does God forgive sins in Islam?
What does the sinner do after sinning?
1 Christian Christian wider writer wrote
that Muslims are slaves to works
in order to be forgiven
which will always be flawed before a perfect
God and therefore futile so Christians have grace
through the sacrifice of the perfect Christ.
Yeah. But is perhaps the Quran's
lack
of crucifactory
detail
is this perhaps an intentional arrow
pointing to a more expansive path and means
of bloodless salvation?
Yeah. So this very common straw man that's
used to characterize Islam,
that,
that Muslims by and large, they believe that
by good works, they shall be reconciled unto
God and they'll go to heaven.
So this this is not correct. This is
this is not a belief that's found, as
far as I know, a normative Islamic theology.
The prophet himself said, no man has entered
into paradise by his works.
Not even you, not even me,
except that my Lord envelops me in mercy.
This a hadith.
No one can work their way to heaven.
Salvation in Islam is through grace.
You know, you sin against God, you make
toba, it's called teshuvah
in Hebrew.
And if it's sincere, and there's certain requisites,
and the Catholics have these things too, by
the way. There's repentance in Catholicism. There's a
way to fall out of grace in Catholicism.
There are mortal sins that'll take you to
*.
So there's, you know, there's contrition, which is
nadama, which is a type of brokenness you're
supposed to feel
when you sin,
after after your sin and you're making repentance.
And then there's Azima or there's resolution never
to return to the sin. These are requisites
of Tawba.
And
and so when one does that, one has
a good opinion of God that that he
or she has been forgiven. No one has
to die. No blood has to be shed.
So even Jesus, and I mean, it depends
what gospel you read. In in the gospel
of Luke, Jesus doesn't die for anyone's sins,
and his teaching has nothing to do with
vicarious atonement.
Read Luke chapter 15. Right? This is the
travel narrative of Luke, The parable of the
prodigal son.
So Jesus says, there's a man who has
2 sons. 1 of them stays with him.
The other one goes out and is a
mustrif.
Right? He is someone who, you know, spoils
all of his, you know, possessions and lives
a life of sin, and he ends up,
you know, sleeping next to pigs in a
pigpen.
And then after some time, this son returns,
the prodigal son returns. Right? And his father
sees him at a distance, and and they
start running towards each other with open arms,
and they begin to hug. That's the end
of the parable. What is Jesus teaching here?
Vicarious atonement.
He's teaching toba. He's teaching repentance.
Right? If you turn, reorient yourself to your
heavenly father as it were, he will he
will welcome you with open arms.
This is the teaching of Judaism.
Jews do not believe
that,
do do not believe in
a literal transference of sin upon any animal
or person. Is not a Jewish belief.
Now, on Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur, 22 goats 1 goat was sacrificed,
1 was led out into the wilderness. That
was just an outward symbolical sign of what's
supposed to be happening inwardly. True repentance was
internal.
It's not that they believed that their sins
were literally transferred upon a goat.
No one believes that.
So when the when the temple was destroyed,
Judaism doesn't end. There's still Toba.
Right? Because if that if that was true
and there's no more temple and we can't
we can't, you know, we can't sacrifice on
Yom Kippur, then I guess there's no forgiveness
of sin anymore. Nobody took that position
because repentance is internal. That's an outward sign
of forgiveness.
The idea that someone else can take your
sin
literally is not a Jewish idea. It is
a Hellenistic idea.
So,
you know,
Hellenism is a massive, massive,
phenomenon that swept over the entire near east,
and and so and it was very
popular.
So you have, you know, in in Persia,
you have Persian religion
that took elements of Hellenism,
an element of a dying and rising savior
man God. It's called Mithra ism.
In Egypt,
the existing Egyptian religion
also took Hellenistic elements of a dying and
rising savior man god, and that was Osiris.
And it it appears that even in Palestine,
a small Jewish sect combined elements of Judaism
with Hellenistic
religion.
And those are sort of the origins of
Christianity.
At least that's what many historians
would contend, that this idea of vicarious atonement,
right, literal
sort of,
blood magic, if you will, is is something
that is foreign to Judaism. The teaching of
the old testament is clear.
Ezekiel 18:20, the soul that sins, it shall
die, meaning spiritually.
The wickedness of the wicked
the iniquity of the son shall not be
upon the father, nor shall the iniquity of
the father be upon the son. The wickedness
of the wickedness of the wicked shall be
upon him. The righteousness of the righteous shall
be upon him. But if the wicked would
turn from their sin and do that which
is lawful and right, he shall surely live,
he shall not die. And the word for
turn here is related to the word teshuvah,
toba.
This is old testament teaching.
Right?
So,
yeah, I mean, you can say, well, in
the gospel of John, behold the lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the
world.
Yeah. That seems to be what John is
saying, but it certainly is not what Luke
was saying,
if John is even saying that.
That this idea that,
I mean, you can you can read that
passage in John as being what I stated
earlier is Jesus being sort of a a
ransom
postponing the wrath of God upon his nation.
In that sense, he's the lamb of God.
So
it is 9.
Time flies when you're speaking gospel.
Speaking Torah and speaking Quran.
Notice I said Quran with a k. I
don't know why I did that,
but that's what happens, I guess.
Ustaz, can
I sneak in one more question? Oh, yes.
If the if people are willing if you
have to go, you can get up and
leave. I won't be offended. I promise.
Yes. There were several people asking about the
status of Alexander
the great.
Yeah.
Was he a believer? Doesn't the text of
Surah Al
Kef shows that he is a righteous and
just person, but Alexander's popular history does not
show this?
Yeah.
So
that's that's,
I don't know if I have a good
answer for that.
You know, the movie there was a movie
that was made about Alexander in 2,000 and
4 or something
by Oliver Stone, I believe was a director.
And the Greek government wanted to sue him
for defamation
because Oliver Stone presented Alexander the Great as,
you know, his assumption was this is pre
Christian. There are no morals and, you know,
people were, you know,
they were doing a bunch of crazy things
at the time, so he was just a
man of his time, and they said, no.
That's inaccurate. We don't believe that about Alexander.
Alexander was a student of Aristotle, a direct
student of Aristotle.
Aristotle was
the father of virtue ethics,
and his student is Alexander the Great.
And according to Josephus, and there's obviously a
bit of issue with Josephus, but according to
him, Alexander came into Jerusalem,
as I as I said, and he he
read a text in Daniel that described him.
There's even an opinion that Alexander might have
even converted
to monotheism at that time.
It's
possible. You know, so he might have been
a believer in the God of Israel who
is God, who is Allah.
Right?
Not that he became a practicing Jew,
but a righteous gentile.
And maybe this is why the Quran is
praising him.
Aloha Adam. I don't
know. But I'll leave it at that.
Zazaqollah Khairan.
Thank you.