Ali Ataie – Who Is Christ in the Muslim Tradition
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the historical credibility of Jesus as a straight path, with Jesus being a teacher and reviser of the law of Moses, a messiah, and a straight path. They stress the importance of establishing the centrality of Jesus's teachings and provide examples of the tension between the church and the world. They also discuss the importance of love and understanding one's own abilities, with a focus on the holy Bible's origin and its significance in the world. The discussion also touches on Christian positions and their implications for the teachings of Jesus, including the JFK assassination and the Zapruder video.
AI: Summary ©
Peace be upon all of you. Thank you,
reverend Andy, for that very thorough,
introduction
to, Jesus and the Christian tradition.
I'll I'll just get to it. So
who is,
Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, Isa ibn
Maryam, peace be upon both of them? Of
course, here we have, the temple mount, the
masjid Qubas of Sakhra. They're done with the
rock,
the western wall there.
So just begin by quoting some verses from
the Quran in translation.
This is from the 3rd chapter of the
Quran,
starting at verse 42.
And remember when the angel said, oh, Mary,
surely God has chosen you, purified you, chosen
you above the women of all nations.
Oh, Mary, be devout to your lord and
prostrate yourself and bow down with those who
bow down.
This is the news of the unseen that
we reveal to you, o Muhammad,
sallallahu alaihi sallam. You were not with them
when they cast lots to decide who would
be, Mary's guardian,
nor were you there when they argued about
it.
Remember when the angels proclaimed,
oh, Mary, God gives you glad tidings, of
a word from him. His name will be
the messiah,
Jesus, son of Mary,
honored in this world and the hereafter,
and he will be one of those nearest
to God.
Continues,
and he will speak to people in the
cradle and in adulthood
and will be one of the righteous.
Mary wondered, my lord, how can I have
a child when no man has touched me?
The angel replied,
so will it be, God creates what he
wills.
When he decrees a matter,
he simply says to it be and it
is.
And God will teach him, I e Jesus,
peace be upon him, revelation and wisdom,
the Torah and the gospel,
and make him a messenger
to the children of Israel to proclaim,
I have come to you with a sign
from your lord. I will make for you
a bird from clay. Breathe into it, and
it will become a real bird by god's
leaf.
I I will heal the blind and the
leper and raise the dead to life by
God's will
or God's leave. And I will prophesize what
you eat and store in your houses. Surely,
and this is a sign for you, if
you truly believe.
He continues,
and I will confirm the Torah revealed before
me and legalize some of what had been
forbidden to you.
I have come to you with a sign
from your lord, so be mindful of God
and obey me.
Surely God is my Lord and your Lord,
so worship Him alone.
This is the straight path.
And now we jump to chapter 61
verse 6. And remember when Jesus, son of
Mary, said, oh, children of Israel,
I am truly God's messenger to you,
confirming the Torah which came before me,
and giving good news of a messenger after
me whose name will be Ahmed,
the most praised, which is one of the
names of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him.
Yet when,
yet when he came to them with clear
proofs, they said,
this is pure sorcery.
Okay. So
according to the Quran,
Jesus, peace be upon him,
was a great prophet of God,
a a great nabi or nabi.
These languages are very close, Hebrew and Arabic,
a great messenger of God, a Rasul.
He's called the Messiah,
Al Masih,
Mashiach.
He was born from a virgin.
He was the worker of miracles, the ibnillah,
by the permission of God.
He is a great teacher and reviser
of the Torah.
He is the predecessor
of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Jesus was a spiritual master,
bringer of the gospel, which is called an
Injeel
in Arabic.
And he's a human being in all respects.
He's not divine.
Interestingly, according to most historians,
the historical Jesus was, most plausibly,
a self proclaimed prophet. And I say self
proclaimed because secular historians, they don't entertain the
supernatural
in their method of historiography.
Right? It doesn't mean that they denied the
supernatural, but that's not how modern secular
history has done. So they're not going to
say he was a prophet, but what did
he actually claim historically? Okay. So he was
a self proclaimed prophet. This is probably what
he claimed.
He claimed
probably to be some sort of messiah.
He claimed to be a teacher and reviser
of the law of Moses. In other words,
he was a rabbi.
He claimed to be some sort of healer.
He claimed to be a teacher of great
spirituality.
He claimed to be the announcer of someone
after him.
So in the synoptic tradition, the bar Inas,
the son of man,
who come to earth and set up his
kingdom and defeat the 4th beast.
In the gospel of John, the Johannine gospel,
the
Paraclete,
someone to come after him, will guide you
into all truth,
and someone who did not claim to be
divine.
This is what most historians will say
about the historical Jesus of Nazareth,
peace be upon him.
The Christology of the and interestingly, going back
to this, it's interesting the,
position of the historians
regarding the historical Jesus is very close
to Islamic Christology
as to what the Quran says Jesus claimed
to be.
The Christology of the Quran. So what's really
important is to establish what's known as the
central theological consistency.
Okay. So for example, in the Torah, it
says
in Hebrew.
God is not a man
that he should lie. And the meaning of
this, according to Rabbi Abahu of Caesarea,
is that whoever claims to be God, any
man who claims to be God is a
liar.
Hosea 119, Indeed I am God
and not a man.
Every man is put to death
for his own sin,
Deuteronomy
247.
Look at Ezekiel chapter 18, a long
sustained argument
for personal responsibility.
The sin of the father does not pass
to the son. The sin of the son
does not pass to the father. But if
the wicked should turn from his wickedness and
do that which is lawful and right, he
shall surely live. He shall not die.
What does it mean to turn, to shuvah,
toba, right? To literally turn your body or
to reorient yourself
to God, to repent to God.
This is the way to become right with
God,
through repentance.
Whoever is hanged on a tree is accursed
by God,
Deuteronomy 21
23.
Do not drink blood,
a hukaf
olam, an everlasting statute among your generations.
Leviticus 3 17.
Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is 1.
1 means 1.
Here, O Israel, the Lord our God this
is called the Shema.
Right? And this is actually quoted by the
New Testament Jesus at one point. It's only
in one gospel.
And Matthew and Luke had access to Mark,
but they did not choose to include this
in their gospel, where Jesus quotes this verbatim.
Hear Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord
is 1. And he
continues,
He shall love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, soul, and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
These are the greatest commandments.
Rabbi Hillel, some say Akiva,
was asked, what is the Torah in a
nutshell?
And he said, Deuteronomy 64,
Deuteronomy 65, Leviticus 1918. God is 1. Love
God, love your neighbor, everything else is commentary.
Not that it's not important, he's a rabbi.
But this is the essence.
Human sacrifice
is evil, many places.
Blood is not necessary
for the forgiveness of sin.
Psalm 51, 2nd chronicles, chapter 7.
And the last one here, for I know
that God saves his messiah.
He shall hear him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.
David writes
Psalm 20 verse 6. God saves his messiah.
I'll come back to this verse. So we
have to establish
this consistency
with the revelation given to Moses and the
Hebrew prophets
and what is given to the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam to establish his bona fides,
as it were, as a true prophet of
god.
The Christology of the Quran,
a restoration of Jamesonian
Nazareanism,
The Nazarenes under James the Just,
which reflected the original teachings
of Jesus the Nazarene, Yeshu ahnudzri.
And his original followers who were called the
Nazarenes, nudzriim.
Here's a verse from the Quran, O believers,
stand up for God as Jesus, son of
Mary asked the disciples,
who will stand up with me for God?
The disciples replied, we will stand up for
God.
Then a group of the children of Israel
believed,
while another disbelieved.
We then supported the believers against our enemies,
so they prevailed, 6114.
So this verse, according to our classical exigence,
indicates that within the children of Israel,
there was a division.
And the word used in Arabic is
and means a group but it could also
mean one man.
So this verse seems to indicate this Paul
versus James paradigm.
Paul versus James, this is an early split
in the early 1st century of the common
era among Christians, Jewish Christians,
early Nazarenes.
This is mentioned everywhere. FC Bauer mentions this.
Robert Eisenman, you can read him. James Taber,
Bart Ehrman,
many others.
This tension is seen in the new testament.
In Galatians chapter 2,
men from James
are Paul's opponents,
Men sent from James.
In 2nd Corinthians chapter 3,
the Corinthians demanded Paul to produce something called
the letter of authorization.
Where is your letter letter of authorization?
What does that mean?
Well, presumably, he needs a teaching license
from James.
Right? Because everyone answers to James, even in
the book of Acts,
everyone answers to James. If you're not authorized
by James, this in Arabic is called an
ijazah,
if you don't have a teaching license, then
you're a freelance apostle
and you don't have any authority.
Okay? So the Corinthians are demanding from Paul
of Tarsus
to produce this letter of authorization.
Interesting in the gospel of Thomas,
which is sometimes labeled a gnostic gospel, which
gnostic does not have a good connotation in
Christianity. In in in Islam, it's a good
thing. An arif billah is a good an
arifah is beautiful.
Right? In Christianity, a gnostic is a deviant.
Right?
But there's other studies on the gospel of
Thomas
that reveal it to be just as gnostic
as the gospel of John. This is eternal
life to know you. Ginosko is the verb
in Greek. To know you, the only true
God. That sounds very gnostic. That's John
17:3.
Right?
So other scholars say, no. The gospel of
Thomas, which is very interesting, is a sayings
gospel, a 114 sayings of Jesus. There's no
narrative.
Right? Jesus said, Jesus said, Jesus said.
Logion number 12.
When I am gone, you must go to
James the just,
for whose sake heaven and earth came into
being.
And this is a way of saying
that James the just
is the one man on earth who has
the truth from me. He has the he
has the correct, yachiduth tohid, he has the
oneness of God and you must report to
him.
A hyperbolic praise of James.
Who is James?
The brother of Jesus,
the head of the Nazarene Messianic Movement for
30 years.
A lot of people haven't even heard of
James.
James is not even mentioned in the gospels
by most accounts. James the less is not
a disciple.
The disciple mentioned in in the 4 gospels,
that's not James, the brother of Jesus.
It seems like he's been sort of systematically
written out of the gospels.
The head of the early messianic movement for
30 years.
Yet none of the writings of the New
Testament were authentically written by James,
according to the vast majority of critical scholars,
including the epistle of James. This is considered
to be pseudonymous
according to the vast majority of critical scholars.
James did not write
this.
Who is the principal author of the New
Testament? Paul of Tarsus.
7 of the books of the 27 books,
almost by consensus of historians, was written by
the historical Paul of Tarsus. Another 6 are
written in his name, that is to say,
pseudonymous, that is to say someone is pretending
to be Paul,
and the book of Hebrews was attributed to
him,
but is actually anonymous.
So Paul is the principal author of the
New Testament. Who wrote the 4 gospels? The
4 gospels were not called Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John until Irenaeus
in the year 180 of the common era,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So these books
are anonymous. They're written by Pauline Christians,
Paul's Christology,
Paul's gospel, he says, and Paul calls it
my gospel.
Evangelio Mu, that's what he says. My gospel,
right, is all over the 4 gospels.
What is the q source document?
This is very interesting.
So according to the vast majority of New
Testament scholars,
when Matthew and Luke are sitting at their
desks,
they have 2 things in front of them,
at least 2. They have the gospel of
Mark because they had word for word, verbatim
agreement with Mark in many places. Sometimes they
edit Mark.
Right?
But they also have agreement among themselves, Luke
and Matthew,
that is not in Mark.
Word for word, verbatim in many cases,
that means they have something else on their
desk.
And this is called q.
Verkola in German. The unknown. Sometimes this is
called the sayings gospel.
Doctor Dennis McDonald, he calls it the first
gospel,
the original gospel.
What does Kyuh say about the crucifixion?
Well, to quote John Dominic Crossan,
imminent new testament historian,
there is is a direct quote. There's nothing,
nothing, nothing
in the gospel according to Q about the
crucifixion
of Jesus
or the resurrection of Jesus.
Thus, according to historians,
the earliest known source of the gospels what
do I mean early earliest known source? Q,
according to most gospels, predates Paul.
It's pre Pauline.
The 4 gospels, if you if you open
a New Testament, you'll see
gospel of Matthew. That's the canonical order. That's
not the chronological order.
Paul wrote all of his letters, and they
were well circulated
before Mark wrote his gospel, the first gospel.
Paul is writing in the late forties, early
fifties, late fifties, early sixties.
Mark is in 70 or so.
This is a dominant opinion.
But q, according to most scholars, maybe it
had various strata of of authorship,
but q in its original
authorship
is pre Pauline.
Some even put it in the forties
and reflects an authentic Jamesonian Christianity.
So that's what I say. According to historians,
the earliest known source of the gospels
says nothing, nothing, nothing
about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
So I would say there's 3 stages of
Christological
conflict between proto Islam
or Islam.
And so we believe that the religion, the
actual
religion of Jesus and the disciples,
was Islam in the sense that they were
submitters unto God.
Right? Just as Moses was a submitter unto
God and Abraham was a submitter unto God,
a monotheist,
Islam does not mean necessarily
a Muslim does not mean necessarily
strictly a follower of the prophet Muhammad salallahu
alayhi sallam.
We're not Mohammed Din.
Right? Islam, in its perfect and pristine and
latest form, came to us through the prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. But all of these
prophets are Muslim prophets.
So that's why I'm saying here proto Islam
Islam
and Christianity.
Right? Whoever does the will of my father.
You know that saying in the gospel of
Mark. Say, Jesus, your mother and brother are
here. Who is my mother and brother? Whoever
does the will of my father,
that is my mother and my brother. Whoever
submits his will, that's called a Muslim.
So you have these three stages of conflict,
Christological conflict, early, post apostolic, and modern. The
early stage, the earliest stage,
Jamesonian
Nazarenes versus Pauline Nazarenes.
This is in the 1st century. This is
presented very vividly
in Galatians, in 1st and second Corinthians.
Right? Paul has these enemies,
and he doesn't like them at all.
And these aren't like pagans.
Well, he doesn't like the pagans.
And these aren't just Jews. He doesn't like
them that don't believe in Jesus.
Right? But these are other Christians. These are
his primary opponents,
are other Christians.
This conflict is very downplayed in the book
of Acts because Acts is trying to smooth
things over a little bit.
So when you read Acts and you listen
to a sermon of Peter and Paul, it's
almost like the same person.
And in fact, it is the same person.
It's Luke writing it. Luke is the actual
author of whoever wrote the gospel of Luke
wrote the Acts of the Apostles.
And the Quran alludes to it in that
verse I read
of 2, the James the James Paul Pauline
paradigm. And then you have the post apostolic
stage. So this is called Ebionism versus proto
orthodoxy or orthodoxy.
So who are the Ebionites?
So the 2nd century saw this emergence of
a group called the Ebionites,
evyonim,
right, which means the poor people.
Now this is a derogatory term that was
invented for them by proto orthodox Christians,
right, like Origen of Alexandria and others, who
said these people, they have a very poor
Christology. They don't even worship Jesus. They don't
believe he's divine.
These are Mesakim
theologically.
They're so poor.
They didn't call themselves Ebionites.
Right? These are Nazarenes.
These are Jamesonian Nazarenes.
So you have these Ebionites
versus proto orthodox to the 2nd century to
the 7th century.
So we see that tension in the polemical
writings of the patristic fathers.
Right?
Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus of Gaul, Clement of Alexandria,
the
Panorion,
who is it?
Epiphanius of Salamis, etcetera, etcetera.
And then you have the modern stage. Oh,
as well as the the so called pseudo
the, Clementine literature. So in the second, 3rd
century, you have this literature that comes out,
that's attributed
to the,
Jewish Christians who are anti Pauline. This was
written later, but it sort of reflects
their positions. So they considered Paul, for example,
to be an apostate
rather than an apostle,
idolater. They believed Jesus was a human being,
that he was some sort of prophet
messiah.
And then the modern stage, Islamic Unitarianism,
or what we might say
versus Christian Trinitarianism,
so 7th century to the present.
So according to people like Robert Eisenman, who,
James Taber, these are imminent new testament scholars,
there's a clear trajectory
of Christology
that starts with Jesus of Nazareth, peace be
upon him, and moves to his brother James,
and goes from
the Jamesonian Nazarenes to the Ebionites
to Islam.
This is a clear trajectory. And, of course,
Robert Eisenman, who's an atheist,
right, he can't just say, well, the prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him, he restored the
gospel through revelation. He can't say that because
he's an atheist or he's trying to be
secular.
So he says, well, there must have been
some Ebonites hiding in caves in in Mecca,
going to a cave, and here's an Ebonite.
Hey. How are you doing? And he's, you
know, taking notes from this Ebonite.
And so that's how he came up with
this. That's how he knew it.
So then there's a clear line of trajectory
then
from Paul,
right, to the proto orthodox fathers,
to the
ecumenical church councils, Council of Nicaea,
where, the Son of God officially becomes,
God the Son. And then in 381 at
Constantinople, the Holy Spirit is now the 3rd
person officially, of the trinity,
etcetera,
etcetera.
Ah,
messiah wasn't crucified. So this is the verse
I promised I'd come back to.
Psalm 20 verse 6,
What I underlined there says,
God saves his messiah.
Messiah.
This is in the Hebrew, mashiach.
The Quran says, and on account of their
some of the Jews denial of their saying
against Mary, a great slander,
and they're
saying, we have surely killed the messiah. And,
of course, they're saying this in mockery, this
so called messiah. Jesus, son of Mary, the
so called messenger of god, And then God
says, in fact, they did not kill him
nor did they crucify him, but it appeared
to them as if they had. So this
is a major point of contention between
Christians, at least traditional Christianity,
and traditional Islam.
And indeed, those who differed over him, meaning
Jesus,
are in doubt about it. They have no
knowledge of it, just following conjecture.
And certainly, they did not kill him. So
I just reproduce here a page from the
Strong's Concordance. You know, if you read it
in a bible in English, you read the
old testament, you'll come across the name, Jeshua.
Right? You heard this name before? Jeshua. And
you get to the New Testament,
you see the name Jesus.
You know these two names are exactly the
same.
Jesus' name is Jeshua, but for some reason,
in the English
Bibles, he's called Jesus.
But the same name in Hebrew, Yeshua,
in the Old Testament is Jeshua.
So up here, on the top, it says
Yeshua, this is the name of Jesus.
Means like Josh.
Right? And if you look down at the
bottom, the meaning is
he is saved.
This is the meaning of the name Jesus.
He is saved. And the names of prophets
have significance.
Avraham,
right?
The father of nations.
The Ab,
Av, the father of all nations.
Right? Moshe.
Moshe is actually not Hebrew.
Moshe according to most historians is an Egyptian
name.
Moz,
like
Ahmose, in Egyptian name, one of the pharaohs
named Ahmose,
born of Ah,
the moon god.
Tutmose,
Tutmoses,
born of Thoth, the god of magic.
Ramoses,
Ramzes,
born of Ra,
but just Moses.
So when he was found in the Nile
by the family of pharaoh, they knew he
was an Israelite, they don't know the name
of his God. He's just born of someone.
We don't know who, he's Abed something,
right?
Abed someone.
We don't know the name of his God.
So that verse said, just following conjecture about
the crucifixion.
So the crucifixion
is not in the pre Pauline q gospel.
That's something very interesting.
You know how I said Matthew and Luke
have something have the q source on their
desk, along with Mark?
We can piece together the contents of q
even though it's not extant. How do we
do that? Well, you look at Matthew and
Luke and whatever they have in common that
is missing from Mark and not unique to
their own gospel, they took that from q.
If you look at all this q material,
you will be hard pressed
to find anything that contradicts Islamic theology.
You'll be very hard pressed.
So q is pre Pauline.
There's no passion narrative.
There's no passion prediction
in Q.
There's no passion narrative, there's no passion prediction
in the gospel of Thomas. The gospel of
Thomas written around the time of the gospel
of John. John is a canonical gospel.
Some say even earlier than John. Some say
Thomas has different strata.
It's just as gnostic as John's gospel. There
was a very strong opinion that John's gospel
was actually written by a gnostic,
and some of the early church fathers rejected
it.
The crucifixion has no extant witnesses,
no extant eyewitness reports,
according to a near consensus of historians. So
when this verse was revealed about Jesus in
the Quran, in the year
625
or something of the common era,
They did not kill him nor did they
crucify Jesus.
Okay?
And that those who differ therein are following
dun. Dun means conjecture, like guesswork or hearsay.
At that time, I can imagine the Christians
and the Jews coming to the prophet Mohammed
and saying, what what do you what do
you mean? They have Matthew's gospel. Matthew is
a disciple,
and he's writing about the crucifixion.
John is a disciple,
and he wrote about the crucifixion.
Well,
as studies of the new testament progressed
in the 18th century,
19th century,
today, there's almost a near consensus that these
books are anonymous,
that these books are attributed to these 4
men,
right, who did not write them.
These books are anonymous. They're not written by
disciples. They're not written by eyewitnesses. They're not
written by,
disciples of eyewitnesses.
So we have no extant eyewitness reports,
according to a near consensus of historians,
of anyone who saw the crucifixion, so called
crucifixion
of Jesus of Nazareth. The crucifixion was a
major cause of dissension.
Paul uses the word Eris. Eris is the
Greek god of strife
In Galatians chapter 1, Galatians is what Paul
is really thinking. Like in Romans, he's kind
of, you know, holding back a little bit
and he's being more philosophical.
When in Galatians, you know, towards the end
of Galatians, he said, now write this down
in big bold letters. He says that to
his scribe. Right?
This is what I really think.
So, Galatians 3:1, Oh, stupid Galatians, who has
bewitched you? This is how he says it.
Who has bewitched you
that you now follow a different gospel?
There's
another gospel?
And then,
another Jesus?
Didn't I clearly portray him as crucified before
your eyes?
Didn't I clearly portray Him as crucified?
You see the problem with Paul is we
only have one side of the phone conversation.
You ever hear, like, someone talking on the
phone? You can hear what this guy is
saying, but what's that guy saying?
You don't know.
What do you think Paul is responding you
to here? It seems like he's responding to
Christians in Galatia who denied the crucifixion. Well,
how did they where did they get that
idea from? Well, according to FC Bauer,
the imminent new testament scholar, when Paul went
to Galatia and evangelized them with his gospel,
again, he calls it my gospel,
and he leaves, James sends men
into Galatia to correct Paul's gospel.
This is standard exegesis. You can read this
F. C. Bauer.
And so it seems like the Galatians are
getting this idea that Jesus wasn't crucified
from James himself.
When I am gone, wherever you are, go
to James the just, You Apu Fazadik,
for whose for whose sake heaven and earth
came into being.
The crucifixion was first mentioned by Paul
who claimed to have received his gospel via
direct revelation, not from the disciples. He's very
adamant about this.
Right? So his so called creed in 1st
Corinthians 15, he actually you have to read
that in this sort
of scheme of his entire corpus where he
says in Galatians, I received this gospel from
no man.
It was it was taught directly to me
by revelation of Jesus Christ.
The crucifixion is something that we don't know
for certain what the actual disciples believed
about They likely believed in, as Paul says,
another gospel, another Jesus
compared to Paul's gospel
The crucifixion is mentioned in the gospels,
but many events in the gospel passion narratives
are highly implausible historically, either fictitious, symbolic, or
mimetic of Hellenistic literature. I can give you
many, many examples of this.
Many, many examples.
A midnight trial in the Sanhedrin.
Jesus being tried in the house of the
high priest.
This is completely against Jewish law.
You see, well, they made an exception. Okay,
but that's implausible.
That's not plausible.
Who betrayed Jesus?
Judas.
Right? What is who? Judas Iscariot.
Yehuda Ishkarioth.
Oh, how convenient. A Jew from the cities.
You know, you know, these
these country bumpkin disciples of his who can't
read or write, these fishermen,
swindled
by a city slicking Jew.
This seems to be an anti Jewish trope.
Is this historical?
Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesus,
following Jesus.
Take up your cross and follow me, Simon.
Simon is Peter, he can do it, but
this Simon can do it.
Many examples of this.
The Pascal pardon.
The way that Pontius Pilate is
is,
described in the gospels,
clashes
severely with how Philo of Alexandria
describes him. Other historians, the way they describe
Pontius Pilate, would not have a second of
compunction
in swatting any Jewish rebel.
He was absolutely ruthless.
Yet you have him
Bring out the 2 Jesuses. They're both Jesus,
by the way.
Jesus Bara Abba. Yeshuah Bara Abba.
Yeshuah Hanutzri.
Who shall I release unto you?
A Pascal pardon.
You know, trying to release him. This is
completely against
the
description of Pilate and other sources outside the
New Testament. Is highly implausible.
Maybe Jesus just had that effect on people
and he probably did. But, historically, this is
highly implausible.
And there's other examples.
Oh, the useful
the JFK assassination is a useful example. Because
the charge that Muslims get all the time
is, you guys are denying a historical fact.
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
It's a historical fact.
Interestingly,
you know,
the JFK assassination,
okay, happened 50 years ago
in broad daylight
with video cameras,
eyewitnesses.
And to this day, we still don't know
exactly what happened.
You told me 2000 years ago, we know
exactly what happened to someone. No eyewitnesses. No
technology. Nothing.
You know exactly what happened. No. You don't.
You know what happened.
And if you read these sources,
if you look at these sources, the context
behind these sources, you'll see that there's massive
eris. Paul calls eris,
strife, major strife about the crucifixion.
Not just what it means, did he die
for our sins, or do we have to
follow
the halakah,
Can we be
Ben Noach? No, no, no, no. Did this
thing actually happen? Didn't I portray him as
crucified?
Who portrayed him otherwise? That's the subtext.
And then in 1975,
you have the Zapruder video. Remember this thing?
Zapruder, Abraham Zapruder video. So everyone believed it
was Lee Harvey Oswald, right, until 1975.
And here comes this video
13 years 12 years later that shows Kennedy
sitting in his motorcade, and then as Jim
Garrison used to say, the bullet comes and
he goes back into the left. Oh, okay.
The bullet's coming from here. He's going this
way.
Now nothing is conclusive.
But like this Quranic ayah, this verse is
like that Zapruder video. The Qur'an is saying
they followed conjecture.
They go back and look at the sources.
These are not written by eyewitnesses.
We have to think about this. But historians
are dragging their feet on this issue.
They need to reassess the evidence here.
You know, they don't want to look at
some Muslim source. There's a little bit of
bias, I
think, especially with the orientalists and neo orientalists.
Anyway.
So the Christological
middle way. There's a verse from the Quran.
Oh, people of the Bible,
People of the Revelation. Kitab, right, could mean
Bible. And the Bible means book. Kitab means
book.
Do not in this and in this, sorry,
in this verse,
the Jews and Christians are being directly addressed
according to the context.
Do not go to extremes in your religion
and do not say about God except the
truth.
The messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is indeed
nothing but God's messenger and his word that
he cast a Mary and a spirit from
him. So believe in God and his messengers
and do not say 3. Now interesting here,
the Quran is.
Just don't say 3. So any type of
3. The Quran is not saying, don't say
3 persons, don't say 3
beings, don't say father, son, holy spirit, don't
say father, son,
mother. Just don't say 3.
For your God is 1. Highly exalted to
see that they should have a son. And
again, son here. Okay, let me explain this.
Okay.
Imam Al Ghazali, one of our great scholars,
he said,
during the time of Bani Israel, Bani Israel,
right? During the time of the children of
Israel when they had the prophecy.
Father and son, these terms were used
honorifically,
figuratively.
Right? So for example, Isaiah 6416,
ata Adonai Avinu, you are the Lord our
father.
Right?
In the Psalms,
you are,
you are my beloved kulakim,
you are all sons of God.
Right? In the Psalms.
So this is meant to be figurative.
But here the Quran is talking about this
idea that Jesus is the Son of God
in his metaphysical sense.
Or even in a physical sense, because Mormons
believe
in this kind of physical
sense.
But this idea that God shares anything,
that the father shares anything with other persons.
It's called perikoresis.
This is a trinitarian doctrine.
The father, son, holy spirit, 3 separate and
distinct persons for each each one fully God,
in and of itself, in and of himself.
They share in the actions and,
they share in their actions, and they're inseparable
in thought and consciousness. They're they're of one
mind.
To him belongs whatever is in the heavens
and the earth, and God
suffices
as a trustee.
So the Jewish position regarding Jesus, this is
a traditional Jewish position. If you read the
Talmud, for example, he was a false prophet
and a pseudo messiah.
You might get someone who will say, well,
he was, you know, just a rabbi who
made a mistake. You know, this guy, Ben
Shapiro, just recently said he was a criminal
who wanted to start an insurrection, and he
was killed by the Romans.
There's been many of them.
The other extreme
Christian position regarding Jesus, he's God incarnate,
divine savior.
The Muslim position,
he's a great messenger and prophet messiah.
And this is the conclusion,
That is Jesus. This is what our brother
read from the Quran.
That is Jesus, son of Mary,
and this is a word of truth about
which they dispute.
In other words, the aforementioned Christology that the
Quran is mentioning, this is the truth about
Jesus that all these people are disputing about.
So, thank you
for listening.
I hope I didn't offend you. But I
wanted to be honest with you and give
you what
I believe to be
the traditional Muslim position and my position regarding
our Christology. Thank you so much.