Okay? Because there's one book that
these people are following that calls
for freaking murder and death of
non-believers. And if I hear one more
person message me and TRY TO SAY, "WELL,
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, SAMUEL WAS a
>> The Bible is no God at all." In fact,
they accuse it of being corrupted and
changed is that they changed the Torah
with their hands.
>> Muhammad is told by God here to go talk
to the Christians and the Jews.
>> This guy Vinnie, he knows jihadm
this is a term in the Bible. He had
mentioned some things about Muslims
commanded to
>> stab people in the neck. Stab Christians
in the neck and I was surprised by that.
Tell me this. What was the relationship
between James and Paul like?
>> So I don't I call this the Christian
delusion, not the Islamic dilemma. You
know, I don't I don't think they're
being honest.
>> How would you answer that? What is the
deal?
>> Islam has changed, William, in the most
amazing ways. Most amazing ways.
>> We're here to educate humanity. And you
see brothers and sisters what we're up
against. But alhamdulillah, we're going
to continue striving to get the Da
Center, the educational center open so
we can go ahead and educate humanity on
the most misunderstood way of life. We
need your support right now.
>> Alhamdulillah. Asalamikum. Greetings of
peace. My next guest Dr. Aliatia is a
PhD scholar of the Bible and a
specialist in biblical languages. He can
also read and write Arabic, Hebrew, and
Greek, allowing him to engage primary
religious texts in their original
languages. His work focuses on biblical
studies, early Christianity, and
comparative theology.
Alhamdulillah.
>> Good to see you. How have you been?
>> Alhamdulillah. Doing well. Doing well.
Thank you so much. Good to see you
again.
>> It's good to see you also. Let's get
right into it. I want to
have you, you know, there's been a a a
very desperate
attempt
for critics to
recycle increasingly weak arguments
against Islam. Now, now, one of one of
these now gaining some traction online
is what critics claim is their strongest
argument. And I want you to go ahead
have a go ahead and have a look at this
and explain if it passes or fails and
and would you also I call it the
dilemma and I want to see if
you agree or you have another name for
it and then I want you to contrast it
with what you've referred to as the
Christian dilemma. A dilemma from which
there is no coherent escape once
examined carefully. God of the Bible is
no God at all. In fact, they accuse it
of being corrupted and changed. that the
God of the Bible is no God at all. In
fact, numerous times the Quran spells
out what it thinks has been revealed to
the Christians and the Jews, calling the
Torah and the Gospel a message that was
sent down by God. If Muhammad has
doubts, the Quran says that he should go
and ask those who have been reading the
scriptures revealed before him.
Contextually, the only times the Quran
has talked about previously revealed
scriptures is when it's talking about
the Torah and the Gospel. Muhammad is
told by God here to go talk to the
Christians and the Jews because they
have revelation given to them already.
Muhammad should have confidence because
in the very same section that says that
the previous scriptures were revealed,
it also says that no one can alter God's
words. We know exactly what the Torah
and the Gospel would have looked like in
Muhammad's day. We have copies, copies
in fact, that come from the Arabian
Peninsula during the time that Muhammad
lived. These, of course, don't differ in
any significant way in their core
doctrine and teaching from any of the
other thousands of manuscripts that
predate the 7th century. In chapter 5 46
and 47 of the Quran, it lays out a chain
of custody that God sent down the gospel
to Jesus confirming the Torah, both of
which contained guidance and light and
said that the people of the gospel, in
other words, the Christians must judge
by what God has revealed to them in the
gospel. If they don't judge by the
gospel that God has given to them, then
they are referred to as the defiantly
disobedient. The Quran has already
stated emphatically that the gospel and
the Torah were given by God. That these
are revelations in this. your thoughts.
>> Yeah. So I have a lot a lot of thoughts
inshallah. Um so now be before so I
don't I call this the Christian delusion
not the Islamic dilemma. Um and I just
think it's uh I just think it's made in
in bad faith. Um you know I don't I
don't think they're being honest. Uh but
be before we look at at the argument and
and dismant dismantle it essentially um
we should know that there are uh zero
absolutely zero mainstream academic
scholars um professors of uh Quranic
studies
um you know people with advanced degrees
who actually believe uh that the Quran
is confirming every single word of the
Torah uh or of the Bible. Um, in other
words, uh, this this premise, uh, that
the Quran affirms the Bible hook, line,
and sinker. Zero academics accept this
premise. This is just a few
Christian apologists online. Okay. Um,
so a uh a book recommendation that I'll
make at this point is called the Bible
in Arabic. Uh, the scriptures of the
people, the book, and the language of
Islam. is by professor emeritus uh
Sydney Griffith. Um and and his view is
basically a view uh the view of the
consensus of all western academics is
essentially that the Quran speaks that
the Quran speaks of biblical textual
alteration
uh and that the Quran attempts to uh
correct the biblical text in many
places. Another thing that's interesting
is that the vast majority of Western
scholars of the New Testament um do not
maintain that the four gospels, for
instance, were written by eyewitnesses.
And this includes the majority of
confessing Christian academics. This is
not just like Bartman making this
argument, right? I say, "Oh, Bartman,
Muslims are always quoting Sheh Bartman
and Bartman is an agnostic. He's an
atheist." Well, EP Sanders, who is a
confessing Christian, right, Protestant,
he doesn't believe the gospels were
written by eyewitnesses. Neither did
Raymond Brown or Dale Allison or Dale
Martin. And these are four of the most
eminent and highly respected scholars of
the New Testament. Confessional
Christians don't believe that the four
gospels were written by eyewitnesses.
Why? Because the evidence is is just not
there. Okay. So, one thing to keep in
mind uh that's really really important
when we're talking about the so-called
Islamic dilemma uh is that terminology
in scripture, okay, is is multi-layered
and context dependent. So, the big
question is how is the Quran, how is
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala using these
terms Torah and gospel uh in the Quran?
So um it seems to me that there's an
equivocation of these terms in the
Quran. Uh that is to say that these
terms are used in at least two senses
and this is normal. For example, the
word ayah ayah in the Quran uh could
refer to a verse in the Quran. Okay. But
also Isaam is called an ayah. It's the
same word but it depends on context. or
R. What is R? Your soul, but also
Gabriel or N is a physical light. It's
also one of the names of God and it's
also a title of the prophet in the Quran
or the word yom, right? And this is
something that's found in the Bible as
well. The the word theos uh in the New
Testament uh could mean uh God the
father, the god, haos. Uh Jesus in the
gospel of John is called theos without a
definite article. Um but also Satan uh
Paul says somewhere where does he say
that? Um in one of his letters Paul says
that that Satan is the god of this
world. So that term uh is used in
different senses. This is really really
important. Uh in Genesis um the word
Torah is applied to Abraham. Abraham
followed the Torah. And I said, "Wait a
minute. That's that doesn't sound right.
That's an anacronism. How can Moses how
can Abraham follow the Torah when he
lived 350 years or so before Moses?"
Well, the word Torah there means
something else. It means a teaching that
was given to Moses. This is how
Christians and Jews interpret those
texts. The word nomos, which which in
the New Testament usually is a
translation of Torah, the five books,
the Penetuk, um, but not always. In in
John 10:34,
the Johannan Jesus says, "Is it is it
not written in your law in the nomos? I
said you are gods, all sons of the most
high." And here he's quoting the Psalms.
He's not quoting the books of Moses.
So the point is that these terms in
scripture are contextbased. So the word
Torah in the Quran at times, yes, means
the original revelations given to the
Israelite prophets starting with Moses
like in 3:45 of the Quran, 544 of the
Quran. But at other times, it seems to
mean the Jewish scriptures or tradition
capital T, the sacred teaching,
including the Tanakh and Talmud, which
preserve many authentic teachings, some
of which were uh some of which the Quran
confirms. The Quran is called the musak
a confirmer and some of which the Quran
clearly repudiates on its surface. It's
very clear as supreme authority. This is
the meaning of mumen
and muan. Okay. And it's the it's the
same with the the injil sometimes in the
Quran the term injil because there's an
equivocation of these terms. the
original uh it refers to the original
revelation given to Jesus and there's
many many verses 345 546 5727
that has that sense but also sometimes
in the Quran in refers to the Christian
Bible you can even say the New Testament
which preserves many authentic teachings
uh some of which the Quran confirms
again as a mudik and some of which the
Quran repudiates as again a supreme
authority a muan so that's I think
that's very very important. So if we
look at the Islamic dilemma very quickly
here. I just want people to understand
this. Okay? I I don't want to straw man
this argument. I want people to really
understand what is this argument. I want
to steal man this argument and then we
can dismantle it uh systematically. So
premise number one is essentially um
that uh according to the Quran the Bible
is accurate, authentic and authoritative
hook, line and sinker word for word.
Again, zero academics, uh, western
academics, um, scholars with advanced
degrees in Islamic studies, Quranic
studies, take this position. Zero.
That's the first premise that that we're
supposed to believe. Premise number two
is that, however, the Quran repudiates
certain Christian beliefs such as the
Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the
crucifixion of Jesus. Okay. Okay. So
given those two premises, here's the
first horn of the dilemma, right?
Therefore, the Quran is wrong because it
doesn't agree with these Christian
beliefs. The Quran is saying the Bible
is accurate, yet it repudiates these
doctrines found in the Bible, which is
in and of itself uh a debate. Is the
Trinity really found in the Bible? I
don't think so. But let's just humor the
argument for now. So therefore, the
Quran is wrong because it it doesn't
agree with these Christian beliefs. The
other horn of the argument is okay, even
if the Bible is inaccurate.
Okay, even if the Bible is inaccurate
and corrupted, the Quran is wrong again
because it teaches that the Bible is
accurate. So, this is supposed to be the
undefeable
knockdown, drag out uh Christian
argument um uh that that that Christians
want to to pedal uh to the Muslims. Um
there there's kind of a sub a
subargument uh that I can give you here
as well. This idea that the Quran
affirms the text that the text of the
Bible is totally sound. Yet Muslims
insist that the text of the Bible is
corrupt. But if it's corrupt, they'll
argue. Then why does the Quran claim um
that uh there are accurate descriptions
of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam uh in the Torah, in the
Gospel, i.e. the Bible. Therefore, the
Bible must be sound. after all, why
would there be accurate descriptions of
the prophet in a corrupted text? Um, so
the answer is is just is just very easy
and basic. Um, the Quran does not affirm
uh the accuracy of the entire Bible.
There are elements of truth mixed with
distortions. And in fact, you know,
Christians who make this argument, they
throw their own salaf under the bus
because Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Gaul,
Tertullian of Carthage, they made the
exact same argument about the Hebrew
Bible. Their claim was that Jewish
scribes had fabricated and changed and
manipulated, taken things out of
context, moved things around, erased
things, concealed things in the Old
Testament about Jesus. This was their
claim of the early church fathers, the
Salaf of Trinitarian, you know, what's
known as the protoorthodox church
fathers. Their their claim was that
despite those changes in the Tanakh,
despite those changes and those
alterations and those corruptions,
there's still some descriptions of
Jesus, peace be upon him, as they uh
understood Jesus in the Hebrew Bible.
So, the Quran is making that same
argument that the early church fathers
made. Uh,
>> I was I was going to I was just going to
highlight that. That's so important that
they're actually agreeing with what God
is saying almighty in the Quran.
>> Exactly.
>> Wow.
>> Exactly. They don't know their they
don't know their history. This is the
same argument the early church fathers
made uh to argue for Jesus against their
Jewish interlocutors. read Justin Martyr
dialogue with Trifo the Jew. He accuses
scribes of changing things in the Hebrew
Bible.
>> Wow.
>> Okay. Now, let's let's actually look at
the what the Quran actually says here.
So, I I point the listeners, your
viewers to two verses in the Quran and
and these are just very clear everyone
all all academics all agree what these
verses are saying. Okay. So, chapter 2
verse 79 of the Quran. Al Bak verse 79.
Okay. These verses are going to prove uh
that the Christian premise that first
premise that the Quran affirms the
entire
text of the old and new testaments uh is
absolutely false. So Allah subhana wa ta
says
so here's something interesting.
So alab means the book this is one of
those terms that needs to be defined
based on its context. Okay, this very
very important going back to this idea
that the text of scripture is
multi-layered and contextbased. So if
you look at those ayat in alakar where
this verse occurs 79 Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala uh is um repudiating and he's
he's arguing against
Jews and Christians the people of the
Bible
Bible means uh right how do you say
Bible in Arabic
so here clearly according to the context
means Bible so woe to those who write
the Bible be a dem with their hands
And they say this is from God seeking a
fleeting gain.
So woe to them for what their hands have
written and woe to them for what they
have earned. So this is called
this is called textual corruption. It's
very very clear. This is what the ayah
is saying. Christians they want to
mystify this verse. Oh, it doesn't mean
this, it means that. But that's that
tends to be the Christian apologist
method with the Old Testament as well. I
mean, it's very loish. Numbers 23:19 is
el God is not a man that he should lie.
Any man who claims to be God is a liar.
It's very very clear. They say, "No, it
doesn't actually mean that. It means
something like this." And but over here,
when a man steps on this uh serpent's
neck or crushes its head, this is
talking about the divinity of Jesus.
Okay? I I don't really see that. So they
take what is clear and they mystify it
and then take what is misst mystifying
or what is what is kind of and they say
this is very very clear. So that's one
verse, right? And and we can prove this
historically. 1 John 5:7, you know, 1
John 5:7 is a is a fabrication to the
text of the New Testament. It's called
the Johanna. There are three three that
bear witness in heaven, the father, the
word, and the holy ghost. And these
three are one. That's in the 1611 King
James version of the Bible. A Bible that
millions and millions of
English-speaking Christians believed was
the word of God and went to their graves
believe believing this was the word of
God. And that's a that's the only verse
in the New Testament that contains an
explicit uh reference to the trinity.
These three are one. Okay, that it was
fabricated into the Latin tradition
sometime in the fifth century. The Latin
Vulgate of Jerome was was uh was
fabricated with that verse. It didn't
enter into the Greek tradition until the
time of Arasmus probably sometime the
14th or 15th uh century. So this is
clearly you I mean they just cannot deny
this. So that's that one verse. And then
if we look at the next surah in Ali
Imran ay number 78 Allah subhana wa t
says.
So there are some among them the people
of the book the the people of the Bible
who distort the Bible with their tongues
and make you think that this distortion
is from the Bible. So this is talking
about
this is talking about corruption of the
meaning or you might even say the
translation of the text. And I'll just
give you one example. I can give you
example heaped upon example of both of
these of
this is absolutely undeniable.
uh for example uh psalm uh psalm chapter
2:12 this is one of the favorite uh you
know sort of dilonus of the trinitarian
Christians psalm chapter 2:12 where it
they translate the king James translates
uh kiss the son son s o n right and they
say this is a reference to um this is a
reference to uh the son of god the
second person of the trinity kiss
meanings rever or worship the son s o n
right not the shumps not su that. But if
you actually look look at the Hebrew
here, okay, is nashku. Nashku.
So nashak is the verb and nashak is a
homonym, right? A homonym, which means
that it's it's a word that that's that
has multiple meanings. It's the same
sounding word. For example, in um in
English we say bat b a t, right? Bat
could mean like an animal, like you
know, b a bat that flies around a cave.
It could also mean a uh something that
you hit a baseball with. It's the same
word. That's the that's a homonym. So
nash can in Hebrew means to kiss. That's
true. But it also means to arm oneself.
To arm oneself. And then bar in Aramaic
means son. Okay. But in Hebrew means um
purity.
Okay. So the psalms are written in
Hebrew not Aramaic. So if we want to
translate Nashkar as kiss the son s o n
then we would have to believe that the
author of the the principal author of
this psalm is David or of the psalms or
David David apparently wrote this that
he wrote every single word of the psalms
in Hebrew but when it came to this word
he switched to Aramaic in 1000 BC that's
highly highly highly highly implausible
so that's an example of it doesn't say
kiss the son lest he be pleased it means
arm yourselves with purity less god be
pleased
Uh, okay. So, there's there's no doubt
what the Quran say is saying here is
correct. Here's another example of why
this Islamic dilemma is just a Christian
delusion.
There are many many examples of the
Quran in the Quran of the Quran
correcting the Old and New Testaments.
The author of the Quran engages in what
scholars refer to as a critical rewrite
of many biblical teachings and
narratives. This is absolutely clear.
Uh, and and I've talked about this in in
other podcasts. The Quran makes these
little adjustments to, for example, the
Exodus. The Exodus in the Bible says
600,000 men of of fighting age made
Exodus, which means that something like
2 million, 2 and a half million people
left Egypt, which is like a a quarter of
the population of Egypt. This is why
most historians reject the biblical
version of the Exodus. These numbers are
way too high. There would have been some
evidence of that. The Quran of seemingly
avoids
This is just a small band. So, isn't it
interesting the Quran avoids uh this
historical implausibility?
Um there's many other examples in the
Bible in in first kings 11. We're told
that
died upon kufur. When Solomon was old,
his wives turned his heart after other
gods. This is what it says. First Kings
11:4 in the Quran. It's very
interesting. We have the story of
Solomon and then almost as if it's
parenthetical, Allah subhana wa ta'ala
says,
and by the way, Solomon uh did not
disbelieve. The Quran is engaging
critically with the biblical text and
correcting it. Jesus was not crucified.
I mean, do Christians who who pedal this
argument actually believe that the Quran
is affirming the crucifixion? I don't
think they do. That's why I think it's a
bad faith argument. I don't think they
really believe in this Islamic dilemma.
Um the last supper
at the end of ma uh it seems like the
Quran here is correcting the last supper
and removing the pagan elements. This
idea of theopafophagi which means to eat
or to consume one's god. Eat the bread.
This is my flesh. Drink this wine. It is
the it is the blood of the new
testament. I mean drinking blood. This
is anthma. This is this is revoling. A
Jewish rabbi claiming to be the Messiah
at a Passover seder would never pass
around wine and say, "This is my blood.
Drink it." That has nothing to do with
Judaism. That is absolutely revoling
with with all due respect to the
Christians. This doesn't come from the
historical Jesus, David and Ba'ath
Sheba, Aaron or Asam, Jesus not being
divine. Um there's there's tweaks in the
story of Ysef.
Um the Quran corrects the book of
Esther. Hammon or Hmon was not at the
time of Xerxes. He was at the in ancient
Egypt. Isam is a legitimate son. So
there's many many times in which the
Quran is correcting the biblical text.
This is clear as day. I'll give you
another verse here uh at the beginning
of Ali Imran in which Allah subhana wa
ta says
so he has revealed to you oh prophet the
book in truth confirming what came
before it. Okay. And he revealed the
Torah in the gospel previously as a
guide for the people. Okay. And also and
then he revealed the decisive authority
alan is one of the names of the Quran.
This this is just uh accepted by a
consensus of Quranic exigits Muslim and
non-Muslim. The alan is a a reference to
the Quran. The Quran the word alan comes
from which means to separate divide or
that which is decisive.
Decisive in English is related to the
word decide. It means to cut something
off. When you decide something, you take
something and then you leave or you cut
off the part that you reject. So the
Quran is the decisive authority alan
because it cuts off or cuts through we
can say the falsehood the bottle to get
to the truth the h. Okay. So the very
word alan suggests very clearly that the
Torah and the gospel which were revealed
previously and they were pristine at one
point uh have been uh corrupted. And the
other thing is um I mean again I think
people need to study biblical history.
Okay I want to don't want to get too
technical but there was certainly
different schools of law and theology um
among the Israelites in ancient
Palestine. A good book I recommend is
called Introduction to the Bible by
Christine Hayes who is a Yale professor.
So there's different schools operating
in ancient Palestine. These are called
the D school, the E school, the P
school, and they all have their own
version of of different laws and they're
correcting each other. Uh that's why
there's two versions of the Ten
Commandments because the ESchool author
um wrote the Ten Commandments, his
version of the Ten Commandments sometime
in like um I don't know 800 B.CE. Uh and
then the the dchool author writing
around 700 B.CE has his own version of
the ten commandments and the and these
schools contradict. At some point around
500 B.CE some redactor probably Ezra. He
took all of these different opinions and
different texts uh that were written by
different schools and he stitched them
all together and now we have the
penetuk. This is called the documentary
hypothesis. The the other uh theory is
called the supplementary hypothesis. But
both of them state that the Torah that
we have, the five books of Moses today,
none of it was actually written by
Moses, some of it may go back to Moses,
but this was a composite work that has a
more protracted history over hundreds of
years written by different authors.
Okay? And here's here's something
interesting as well that I'll mention.
In Jeremiah 8:8, Jeremiah, whoever wrote
the book of Jeremiah
uh is a dchool adherent. Okay? So, he
doesn't agree with with some of the uh
laws that are in the so-called Torah
during his time. Jeremiah 88, one of the
indictments of the prophet Jeremiah
against the Israelite scribes of his day
is that they changed the Torah with
their hands. Jeremiah 88. How can you
say we are wise and we have the law of
God, the Torah Adonai. And in Hebrew, he
says,
you know, Some Christian apologists they
want to say no what Jeremiah was talking
about. He was saying that the scribes of
his day were misinterpreting the Torah.
I don't think so. If you read the the
actual Hebrew indeed the false pens
means Hebrew stylus the false pens of
the scribe the false pens of the scribes
have turned it the Torah into a lie.
>> Wow.
>> Right. So the dchool which is
represented by Jeremiah the book of
Jeremiah corrects the E school laws like
like in in Exodus 20 23 that's that's
the covenant code written written by the
Elohist the E school again I don't want
to get too technical here uh but the
Quran I mean uh
this is absolutely true from the Jewish
scribes are those who decontextualize
the text or move words around or distort
the text in some way, right? And these
are these are like this verse here. A
lot of a lot of Christians, they've
never even it's like the first time
they've they've read this verse,
Jeremiah 88. If they've read it, they
don't know what it means. People don't
really read with understanding anymore.
But the Quran reminds us, the Quran says
in chapter 5, uh, verse 15,
Oh people of the book, oh people of the
Bible, our messenger has come unto you
revealing, uncovering a lot of what of a
lot of what you used to hide or conceal
in the Bible. You know, don't read this,
don't look at this, rather look at this.
Right? These little details in the Bible
that people forget, the Quran uncovers.
So um uh that's important as well.
>> Um what else can we say here?
>> So can we finally now with this people
can take it, clip it, share it and now
they can we can put this uh to rest.
There is no such thing as an Islamic
dilemma. I call it the u
dilemma. Uh you just some sometimes
you're just trying to wrap your mind
around it. You're trying to like how
does this even make sense? You've
explained it thoroughly and it's put to
rest. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Um there's one more thing, a
couple of more things I want to talk
about
>> because I want you to go I want you to
also go into what there is no escape
from. You actually called it the
Christian dilemma.
>> Yeah. There's a couple of Christian
dilemmas. Uh before we get to that,
there's one verse I I
>> Wesley Huff was this is this is verse
547. This is a verse that they'll always
quote,
>> right? So this is what Allah subhana wa
ta'ala says,
right? So let the people of the gospel
judge by what Allah has revealed
therein. So oh you see the Quran is is
affirming the text of the god. Why would
the Quran tell the Christians to take a
judgment from a a corrupted text? Uh
this type of thing. Uh so there's a
couple of ways we can look at this.
Okay. Um I mean people just they have to
become familiar with our exogetical
tradition and make these arguments in
good faith. Our scholars have dealt with
these things uh in detail. Um so Imm
Razi uh he has two opinions about about
this verse and the first opinion is the
dominant opinion and that is that Allah
subhana wa ta'ala here is simply giving
us a chronological history of the major
kutub of wahi. So if you read those ayat
beginning in verse 43 or 44 all the way
to verse 49, Allah subhana wa ta'ala is
giving us a history of how he revealed
the Torah, you know, and then he told
the the Israelites to judge by the Torah
and then he gave the the the injil to
the Christians and told them to judge uh
by the injil and then he gave the Quran
to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. The language is similar and
then he told the prophet judge by what
Allah has revealed therein. But then he
adds something here with the Quran,
right?
Right. So we reveal to you, oh prophet,
this book with the truth, as a
confirmation of previous scriptures and
as a supreme authority over them.
Again, this very clearly tells us that
the Quran overrides
the uh the the authority of the previous
scriptures and that if we put the the
puzzle pieces together and and other
places of the Quran, verses I've already
quoted, it's very clear that the text of
the Bible itself has changed, not just
the meanings of the Bible. Um and then
uh so I just want to uh there's one more
thing here. Um so so that's the first
interpretation. Let me just back up a
little bit here. Is that uh and let the
and let the people of the gospel judge.
This is an account of what was imposed
upon them at that time to judge by what
the gospel contained. Um and then Imam
Razi says secondly, this is why I like
Imam Razi's you know his his taps
because he gets into these these issues.
He says his saying so let the people of
the gospel judge is a fresh command to
the Christians to judge by the gospel.
So he's entertaining this question. How
is it permissible that they be commanded
to judge by the gospel after the
revelation of the Quran? And he says
this has several answers. First, the
meaning is that the people of the gospel
should judge by what Allah revealed in
it of the proofs indicating the
prophethood of Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. So in other words,
examine those verses in the New
Testament that find their fulfillment in
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And so the talas here, the gay, the goal
is conversion.
And then he says second they that they
should judge by what Allah has revealed
in it uh of that which has not been
abregated by the Quran. In other words,
the Christians are encouraged to
implement those rulings that the Quran
confirms. Why? Because those rulings
will affect their heart because their
true revelation. Again, the point here
is conversion. Not everything the gospel
says is wrong. And how many times have
we seen I mean tens of millions of
examples probably of Christians
converting to Islam, right? Uh and one
of the reasons why they converted to
Islam is because they did a deep reading
of the New Testament, a deep reading of
the New Testament uh gospels of of the
history of the New Testament, the
language of the New Testament. And
that's the third meaning he says here.
The intent of the saying is to let the
people of the gospel judge by what Allah
has revealed therein is to warn them
against distorting and altering what is
in the gospel as the Jews did by con by
concealing the rulings of the Torah.
Thus, the meaning of let them judge is
let the people of the gospel establish
what Allah revealed therein exactly as
Allah revealed it without distortion or
or alteration. In other words, let the
people of the gospel judge the
authenticity. Try to determine what did
Isaam actually say um that's recorded in
the gospel. apply a type of uh reason to
the text uh and and and and determine
what did Jesus actually uh say uh and
and you you'll come to again the point
here is is conversion. So I mean we we
apply different standards of
authentication to the Quran the entire
Quran is to that there there's no doubt
about that but with the hadith we we
apply standards of authentication. So
Christians should apply the same to the
New Testament, especially the Gospels.
And when historians actually do that, we
get a different picture of the
historical Jesus. A Jesus who probably
did not claim to be divine. Uh a a Jesus
who claimed to be some sort of Messiah
pro possibly a prophet Messiah who was a
practicing rabbi who who never claimed
to be God. Uh who spoke of the son of
man to come after him who will set up
his kingdom on earth and that Jesus
might eventually rule that kingdom. So
we get a very different uh uh portrait
of uh of Jesus. So according to Imm Razi
just to um again um uh summarize here
that this verse here is the first
opinion is that it's referring to the
original Christians the original
believers in Jesus who were given the
gospel and Allah is just going kind of
giving their history that Allah told
them to judge according to the original
injil but he says even if it's now the
so-called injil today which is the new
testament the point is to really
establish what Jesus actually said and
this will lead to conversion uh to Islam
and we've seen that millions of times.
times. Okay. Um, so that's that that
verse. Now, yeah. So, I've I've actually
I've come up with a couple of because
here's the thing is like, you know, um,
we're constantly defending. We're on the
back foot, right? Um, and it's just uh,
it becomes exhausting and people get
tired of that. And we should also we
should also challenge a little bit uh as
well um our Christian interlocutors,
Christian apologists uh but in good
faith um and with sincerity. Okay. And
this is an intellectual argument. Um
and uh and you know we have a uh we have
a method of da in the Quran
a call to the way of Allah meaning Islam
with with wisdom that means with
academic sophistication and with good
character
beautiful preaching with which many
exists um will uh interpret as with
beautiful character and so both really
have to be there. Um, so this is just
something for Christians to think about.
Maybe they can come up with an answer.
Okay. Um, but I call this Christian
dilemma. Uh, this is one one version of
it. So the premise is um and and this
premise is according to trinitarian
Christians. Uh, the I am statements of
Jesus in the Gospel of John are divine
claims. Okay. Again, this is debatable,
but this is the Christian the
trinitarian position. the I am before
Abraham was I am. I am the way, the
truth and the life. The father and I are
one. These are divine claims according
to trinitarian Christians. Okay,
according to them yet none of the
Johannan statements, these Johannan
statements, these I am statements uh
were recorded by the synoptic authors,
okay, Matthew, Mark and Luke do not
record any of these statements that are
in the Johannan gospel. These I am
statements. Okay, so we have a dilemma
here. The first horn of the dilemma is
the following. The synoptics, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke knew of these claims yet
chose to ignore them, considering them,
I don't know, inauthentic.
Okay? Or they failed to record them,
which makes them incompetent recorders.
Jesus claiming to be God. Okay? Um, and
here's the thing also is that uh
Christians will say, "No, you see what
happened is
you know how like you you have that one
parable, the four blind men touching
different parts of the elephant." Have
you heard of of that before?
>> Yes.
>> They'll say, "Oh, yeah." Like, yeah. So,
there's one of the one of the guys, one
of the men is touching the the trunk.
Oh, the elephant looks like a snake. One
is touching the ear and so forth.
The the problem with that is that in the
gospel of John, okay, the Johannes is
not making these statements in secret.
He's not calling John over and saying,
you know, John be, you know, before
Abraham was, I am the father and I are
one and you know, don't tell anyone.
Write these things down later in about
70 years, you can write these things
down. He's not saying anything like
that. um he's actually making these
statements in public debates against the
Pharisees in front of the disciples. So
according to John, so Matthew was
standing right there. Matthew was
hearing before Abraham was I am the
father and I or Peter is hearing this,
right? Peter is right there. Peter
supposedly taught Mark. Uh Mark doesn't
record any of these statements. Uh the
father and I are one. I am the way, the
truth, and the life. I'm the
resurrection and the life. Right? Um so
that's very strange. Uh all four gospel
authors record Jesus riding a donkey
into Jerusalem. Apparently that's very
very important fulfillment of prophecy.
Uh but divine claims made by Jesus. 75%
of the gospel authors um are did not
record them. Either they heard them and
consider them to be inauthentic or um
they didn't do their due diligence uh
for some reason and so they're
incompetent recorders. That's just one
horn of the Christian dilemma. the first
version of it. The second horn is, well,
Jesus never made these statements. That
explains why the synoptics didn't record
them. He never made these statements.
Why is that problematic? Well, then the
author of John invented them. In other
words, they are fabricated words put on
the words put put into the mouth of
Jesus. And this is actually the position
of the Jesus seminar. I don't know if
they operate anymore, but this was I
don't know a hundred leading North
American historians of of the New
Testament who didn't consider much of
anything uh in the Gospel of John to be
actually historical. Yet, if you ask
Christians, where does Jesus claim to be
God in the New Testament, almost
invariably 99.999% of the time, they're
going to quote one of these I am
statements from the Gospel of John. So,
this is the dilemma. Which is it? Uh did
the did the synoptic authors hear these
statements and consider them
inauthentic? Did they not do their due
dil diligence and therefore they're
incompetent recorders? Or Jesus never
made these statements and John made them
up? That's the dilemma. Um there's a
second dilemma I came up with. I can go
into that now.
>> Uh if you like.
>> Yeah. Go ahead. Please share it with us.
>> Okay. So this one, um I I I I like this
one a little bit better than the last
one. Um I'm just interested as to how
Christians might tackle this. So
Christian dilemma version two. So the
premise here, premise number one is that
Jesus is the incarnated second person of
the trinity. So this is the Christian
belief, right? This is a trinitarian
Christian belief. Jesus is the
incarnated second person uh of the
trinity. At least uh that's what came to
be Christian orthodoxy. I don't believe
that this was the uh belief of the
authors of the four gospels even though
they were Pauline Christians. I don't
believe Paul believed this himself.
Certainly Paul was not a trinitarian.
That's totally anacronistic. But okay,
fine. Let's Okay. Jesus is the
incarnated second person of the trinity.
That is what does that mean? He is the
God of the Old Testament, right? Who
gave commandments to Moses and the other
Hebrew prophets like Isaiah, right?
Therefore, Jesus taught explicitly uh
Leviticus 24:16. What does that say?
Blasphemers must be stoned to death.
Okay? Okay. Leviticus 24:16, blasphemers
must be stoned to death. Numbers 23:19.
I I quoted this earlier. God is not a
man that he should lie, nor the son of
man that he should repent. Okay? God is
not a man that he should lie, nor the
son of man. In other words, God is not a
man because men lie. They change their
minds. Right? So God is uh transcendent
above being a human being, being a man.
This is the plain and obvious meaning of
the text. Okay? God is not. It's three
words. It cannot be more rhetorically
perfect.
Not a man is God, lest he lie. Okay.
Deuteronomy 4 15-16. God has no form.
Therefore, no human likeness is divine.
Okay. Isaiah chapters 40 to 46 in in
Deuter
um God is incomparable. He's unimbodied.
He's utterly utterly unique.
Now, some historians believe that the
the Old Testament just kind of just as a
just kind of a footnote, there's a
popular belief among historians that the
Old Testament uh goes from polytheism to
monotheism. Maybe that's true. I don't
know. By the time you get to Deuteronomy
and and duo Isaiah, I would say that the
Bible is monotheistic. So they were able
to sort of excise
or or remove um uh polytheistic notions
in their text uh by the 7th century BCE
or so when Deuteronomy was written and
and and and due to Isaiah and then we
have a backsliding back into idolatry um
uh with Hellenization with this idea
with with Greek influence in that
region. this idea of a two powers in
heaven doctrine which I believe Paul
actually was an exponent of that idea
that there's a major god the father and
there's a son of god which is a lesser
deity but there's two gods anyway that's
sort of a side note okay but those
verses are clear in the bible let me say
it again Leviticus 24:16 that
blasphemers must be stoned to death is
not a man in other words if a man claims
to be God he's a blasphemer when you
have to stone him to death uh
Deuteronomy 4 15- 16 God has no form. No
human likeness is divine. Dudero Isaiah,
the entire section of Duderro Isaiah,
God is incomparable, unembodied, and
utterly unique. That's the first
premise. Here's the second premise,
okay, of the Christian dilemma. Version
two, uh God the son then becomes a man.
Uh he takes on human form and claims to
be God. And when this claim is
understood by the Jews, they attempt to
stone him for clear blasphemy according
to the Torah, a law revealed by Jesus
according to Trinitarian belief.
However, Jesus quote unquote God then
calls them children of the devil
for rejecting his claim, for rejecting
his blasphemy.
So, this sets up a dilemma. Here's one
horn of the dilemma. God lied to the
ancient Israelite prophets. Okay? God
lied to the ancient Israelite prophets
um
and basically set the Jews up for
failure. Failure to accept Jesus, i.e.
God himself. In other words, God is
highly deceptive. You know those verses
in Isaiah and Deuteronomy, those are
just all lies, right? Uh I I lied to
them, right? And then I tricked them and
became a man and expected the Jews to
believe me when they didn't uh I
condemned them to hell for and called
them children of of of the devil. Okay,
that's war one horn of the dilemma. The
other horn is and by the way that's the
position of Marcian of Cinnop. So
Marcian was a second century Christian
theologian. Okay. And he had quite a big
following in Rome. In fact, the first
Christian ever to propose a New
Testament cannon was Marcian. Okay,
people need to do research on this. The
first Christian ever to propose a
cannon. He said 10 letters of Paul and
some version of the Gospel of Luke.
Marcian was a bitheist. He believed in
two gods. The god of the Old Testament
is Yaldabboath, a son of predition, a
trickster god who uh is not the true
god.
uh the god of the ancient Israelites uh
and then the god of the new testament is
the true god who sent his son Jesus as a
spirit as a fantasm why did uh Marcian
take this position because he could not
reconcile the old and new testaments he
couldn't reconcile what the old
testament says with what the new
testament says okay in other words his
position is that the god of the old
testament is highly highly deceptive
okay um the second horn of the uh
Version two of the Christian dilemma
says this. God inspired the ancient
Israelite prophets to write these things
in an extremely ambiguous fashion so
that nearly all ancient Jews
misunderstood the text. Oh, you know
when it says God is not a man that he
should lie, it doesn't really mean that.
It means something else. You know, in
Deuteriah
where God is incomparable and you know
to whom are you liken God and etc etc.
uh that's not really what it means. So
in other words, God is an incompetent
communicator. So these are the two horns
of the either God is highly deceptive or
God is an incompetent uh communicator.
Um what's interesting is I I debated a
Christian uh about a year ago uh a
Christian professor
and basically he affirmed I mean uh in a
sort of roundabout way the the second
prop the second horn here. So his his
his uh contention was that yeah the
trinity is not clear in the Hebrew Bible
because the Hebrew prophets including
Jesus did not have the language to
adequately communicate the subtleties of
the trinity. Um that we needed to wait
for the Greekeaking Christian
philosophers to give us the terminology.
We had to wait for you know the the
former pagan philosophers who converted
to Pauline Christianity to give us words
like usa and hyposas and anosen whoasios
and pericores and hama
right in other words god was unable to
express himself effectively in the old
testament but trust us this is what he
meant this is what he meant he meant
that you know god there's a trinity
second person is going to incarnate so
that's that's that's the the other trin
the version of the of the I hope that
makes sense. I don't
>> All right. Beautifully said. Let's go. I
got a few more questions. I want to get
through these quickly. I wanted to
ask you, I recently had a conversation
with I don't know if you know Vinnie
from the PBD podcast and he had
mentioned some things about Muslims
commanded to
Christians in the neck and I was
surprised by that and I addressed it to
him that we were speaking and then I
told him I said look use me as a source
that you can ask me any questions that
you have and if I don't have the answers
I can go to people who are qualified.
Then recently after our conversation, he
went online and he repeated the same
thing. That people in the neck. So now I
have someone even more qualified than
myself to to answer what he's saying and
hopefully this can help him in his
journey looking for the truth. So we'll
go ahead and look at this uh what
Vinnie's talking about and then we can
have you address it. that this inf
globalized infidat what antifat
deli fittata I don't give a damn
whatever the hell you want to call it
when are we going to stop pretending
okay because there's one book that these
people are following that calls for
freaking murder and death of
non-believers and if I hear one more
person message me and try to say WELL IN
THE OLD TESTAMENT SAMUEL was a you're
bringing up one war story in the Old
Testament when Jesus Christ came on the
scene in the in the New Testament where
does Does he call for murder? Where does
he call for the innocent? Where does he
call for stabbing people in the neck?
Where does he hook up with a
nine-year-old? Go ahead. Go ahead and
try to show me that.
>> Vinnie, my friend, this is out of care
and love for you that we're answering
this question. Uh Dr. Ali, can you go
ahead and address this?
>> Yeah, I mean I mean he's just um he's a
very emotional guy. I mean I I app I
appreciate the uh the passion for his
for his religion. Uh but it's important
that you know we we don't let our
emotive soul as it were override our the
rational the rational soul. Um so I mean
it's it sounds like a nice piece of
rhetoric. Uh but it's just it's just not
it doesn't hold water when you actually
study Islam. Uh so he's he he's
apparently referring to verses in the
Quran that that talk about wartime
situations and things like that. And of
course the Quran is a holistic text and
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
has many different aspects to his life.
Um it's one of the reasons why he's
considered um the perfect man. Uh one of
the most influential human beings in
history. Uh because not only was he a
statesman, was he a father, he was a uh
he was a he was a prophet, a spiritual
leader, he was also a military leader
and he had to defend uh his his people.
Obviously, there's going to be verses
that deal with warfare in in in in the
Quran. Uh and you know, it's just not 1
Samuel in the Bible. Um there's many
many verses that that deal with warfare
in the Old Testament. And again, this is
the same kind of you know, sort of
pseudoarcian mentality. Oh, Jesus said
this, but the Old Testament, you know,
says that. Well, according to his
belief, unless he's a btheist, which I
don't think he is, you can't have your
cake and eat it too. Jesus is the God of
the Old Testament. You cannot get away
from that. So Jesus himself as the
second person of the trinity and the
father and the son and holy spirit never
disagree. They're of one mind. This is
called pericorasis is a Christian
doctrine. Uh when God the father, son,
and holy spirit reveal these laws to
Moses
uh to attack and kill into and to
basically kill women and children to
exterminate entire communities of men,
women, and children. That was Jesus. You
can't get away from this. Um, you know,
it's uh well, where does Jesus say in
the New Testament to kill anyone? Uh,
Jesus in the New Testament was never in
a position of power. But in the book of
Revelation, he will be in a position of
power. And just just read what what the
book of Revelation says about the second
coming of Jesus sitting on his horse
covered in the blood of his enemies, a
sword coming out of his mouth. I will
kill your children with death. That's a
direct quote uh from the book of of
Revelation, you know, the synagogue of
Satan, etc., etc., etc. Okay, so that's
that's New Testament Jesus in the
position of power killing children.
That's what he says he's going to do.
Show me where the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam women and children, you
can't find it. There's there's no such
ruling in our tradition that women and
children can be targeted. But all over
the Bible, okay, all over Deuteronomy.
Yeah, he mentioned 1 Samuel, many other
places. Book of Daniel, uh book of uh um
uh of Judges, uh the book of Joshua.
Men, women, and children are targeted
for extermination. This is called
People have to know this term. They know
jihad. This guy Vinnie, he knows jihadm.
This is a term in the Bible. It's
mentioned many, many. It means to
exterminate. It is to commit.
>> You can watch happening right now in
Palestine.
>> You can watch our previous show where
you went over detail. If you want to
watch our previous show, you went in
detail about this is a very important
concept. Yeah. Many don't know about. Go
ahead.
>> Yeah. So, you know, that's just um I I
don't know. It's just an emotional
argument, you know, it's it gets a lot
of views, but it's not based in reason.
It's not based in in scripture. Um you
know, um you know, even in the Gospel of
John, Jesus says, "My kingdom is is not
of this world. If my kingdom were of
this world, my disciples would have
fought, right? But my kingdom is not
from here. But his kingdom will be from
here because evangelicals like Vinnie
over here, who's probably a a a a
preerttrib premillennial
dispensationalist Zionist Christian, uh
believes that Jesus will come back and
and uh he'll set his kingdom up on this
earth and then all of these things in
the book of Revelation are going to come
to fruition. And Jesus is no Mr. Nice
Guy. He's no turn the other cheek.
Resist not evil. Love your enemy. He's
going to take out nations when he comes
back. This is his belief. Okay. So
again, this is kind of this pseudo
Marcianite mentality of of oh that's the
Old Testament and and Jesus says this
and that and it's just it it doesn't
work theologically. It doesn't work
logically, but it works emotionally. It
makes a good Yeah. strike their neck,
marry a nine-year-old, you know, that
sounds good. Oh, really? Oh, amazing. Uh
but it's just it's just uh it's just a
horrible emotional argument.
>> But I do appreciate his passion. He has
a lot of passion. He can bring that may
Allah guide him. He can bring that
passion into Islam in
>> I mean I mean I'd love for us to have
more civil conversations where he can
ask where they can ask people who are
qualified to answer these questions
instead of just you know spewing the
same talking points from the hate
provocators. Now let me uh get into this
next question. I'm trying to you know
get through these fairly quickly. Um I
had so many for you. Uh this I think is
is really fascinating. You know they did
a poll survey on Christians asking them
what they thought about Jesus. So I want
to set this framework up that you don't
have to believe like many like the
Ebianites the um the early earliest
Christians they like the like many
Christians today if you ask in this poll
which we see 50% didn't believe Jesus is
a pro as a prophet righteous teacher
even 30% of evangelicals if we can get
this survey up. So now going into this
question, if for those that do claim
that he's God, then the natural
follow-up question can be did God have a
brother? Because the New Testament early
Christian sources identify James the
just come James the just as the brother
of Jesus you know who was actually
appointed as a leader after Jesus and he
ran the Jerusalem church for
approximately 30 years if I'm not
mistaken and was regarded as a central
authority in early Christianity. So my
question to you is why is James the Just
arguably the most influential leader of
the original Jesus movement largely
unknown to Christians like Vinnie and
others if you ask him they're like James
who what?
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's interesting Allah
subhana wa tala he says in the Quran
that we took a covenant from
um I don't remember how the ayah begins.
We took a covenant from those who say we
are Christians.
That we took a covenant from those who
say we are
or Nazarines. The original term for the
Christians.
>> Yeah.
Um right. Uh and so
and then they forgot or abandoned a
portion of what we gave them. Okay. Um
and because of that as a punishment we
we put uh enmity and ranker between
them. Christian sex you know since the
very beginning uh have this type of
fitna basically among them. So the Quran
intimates here that um that there's an
essential component of of the teaching
of Jesus that the Christians have
abandoned. Okay. And then in another
ayah in the Quran chapter 61 verse14
Allah subhana wa ta'ala he says that
when Jesus asked the disciples
who is going to be my my helpers to the
work of Allah uh the disciples said we
will be your helpers
then one group or one faction said we
believe and another faction said we
disbelieve and if you read the of those
of that ayah it's not talking about like
Jew Jews who disbelieved in Jesus and
then Christians who believed in him.
It's talking about two groups of of
Israelites who believed that Jesus was
the Messiah. One went astray and one
believed correctly. So we see this very
early uh split in early Christianity uh
what we might call the Pauline line of
Christianity. Pauline Christianity led
by Paul apostle of Jesus and then
Jamesian Christianity. Jamesian
>> uh which is James the brother of Jesus.
Jesus had a brother according to the New
Testament. James is interesting. He's
almost written out of the New Testament
completely. We don't really find him
anywhere in the Gospels. Uh suddenly in
the book of Acts, he's the leader of of
the apostles in Jerusalem. We're not
actually told, you know, how that is.
What happened here? Why is James
suddenly the leader uh of the apostles?
There is an epistle of James in the New
Testament which may reflect some of
James's teachings. There's nothing about
the death, resurrection or divinity, a
deity of Jesus in the epistle of James.
Martin Luther, the famous um uh reformer
wanted to remove the book of James from
the Christian cannon. He called it an
epistle of straw. He didn't like how the
book of James focused on works and
there's no sort of high christologology
in the book of James. Didn't like it at
all. So he was talking about a cannon
within a canon. That's why the council
of Trent was called in the 15th century
by the Catholic Church to reaffirm the
canon. Um but uh who was James? James
the brother of Jesus. Okay, you're
right. He was the leader of the apostles
in Jerusalem for 30 years until he
martyed him in the year 62.
>> There's extra biblical sources that
mention James.
>> Um Josephus mentions James. He actually
writes more about James than Jesus,
which makes sense because Jesus's
ministry was either one, two, or three
years, probably three years. James was
the leader of the Messianic movement.
They're not called the Christians during
this time. They were a group of Orthodox
Jews who practiced the Torah, did not
worship Jesus, just believed he was some
sort of Messiah. Uh for 30 years in
Jerusalem. So, Josephus mentions him. Um
other historians uh mention him uh as
well. Um uh let's see
um Ucius of Ces Cesaria mentions him um
and uh Heesipus mentions him the second
century Hessipus 2 century Christian
historian has a lot to say about James
actually praising James that he was very
righteous he was devoted to the Torah uh
he believed in the oneness of God. His
knees looked like the knees of camels
because he was constantly praying to
God. He was constantly sagda
>> like Muslims do. He's praying like
Muslims do.
>> He's praying like Muslims. He didn't
drink wine says Hessipus. James didn't
drink wine which is very interesting
because the major sacrament in
Christianity at least in trinitarian
Christianity is that uh on Sunday you go
to the church and you partake in the
Eucharist which is wine uh which
transubstantiates into the blood of
Jesus which again in my opinion has
nothing to do with Christianity. This
comes from this idea of theophagi which
is a pagan uh belief that was
incorporated into the early Pauline
churches. James did not drink wine. Um
and then uh so basically
of Cesaria in his ecclesiastical history
he mentions you know James as the leader
of the apostles in Jerusalem until the
year about 132 or something. So James
had these different successors, six or
seven successors of James until Hadrien
uh crushed the Jewish revolt, the
Barooba rebellion around 132, 135,
something like that. Uh and so the
Jamesian Christians, they moved out of
Jerusalem or they were expelled out of
Jerusalem by Hadrien. And so they
settled, most of them settled in a place
called Pella uh in Jordan. Um uh where
they continued uh to live and to teach,
waiting for the kingdom of God to
manifest uh practicing the Torah,
believing in one God. They were not
trinitarians, did not worship Jesus. And
Ucius says that the Ebianites of the
second century, they would claim their
lineage, the Ebonites and Pella, they
would claim their lineage back to James.
And then you have interestingly you have
uh modern historians like um like Dr.
Dr. Robert Eisman uh and um Dr. Jeffrey
Buts uh and who's a Lutheran minister
professor at at Penn State. Um and then
you have um Dr. James Taber uh who all
suggest that somehow the Quran restores
original James Christologology. Right.
Very interesting. So the historical uh
explanation because they need to come up
with something naturalistic was that oh
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
when he was in the hij in Mecca there
were some Ebianites there were some
Jamesian sort of remnants living over
there and they kind of taught him uh the
gospel and things like that and that's
that's how he got it right but it's very
interesting that the Quran is restoring
the original Christologology uh taught
by James is the true successor of Isaam
uh and in the gospel of Thomas which you
know some a Most Christians would say,
"Oh, Thomas, this is an apocryphal
gospel and it's a gnostic gospel so on
and so forth." And you know, to
discredit it, the gospel of Thomas was
probably written, uh, around the time of
the gospel of John. Some scholars
actually, uh, date it earlier. Um, uh,
you know, Ela Pagles calls it the fifth
gospel. Okay? Whether it's whether it's
dependent on the synoptics or not is a
is a question of debate. Uh, but
Christians, they want to dismiss it very
quickly. uh because uh there is no
there's nothing about the death or
resurrection of Jesus in the gospel of
Thomas. It was discovered in 1945 at
Nagamadi. Okay, it was written probably
like I said end of the first century
early second century. Nothing about the
death and resurrection of Jesus, nothing
but the divinity of Jesus. In fact, in
statement number 12 of the gospel of
Thomas, Jesus says, "When I am gone, you
must go to James the just for whose sake
heaven and earth came into being." James
is a successor of Jesus. Uh no, everyone
reports to James in the in the book of
Acts, Peter, Paul, everybody reports to
James. Okay. Uh but where where are the
where are the letters of James? Where
are the authentic writings of James? We
have nothing. Everything we have the
entire New Testament reflects Pauline
Christianity. That that version that
strain of Christianity nothing from
Jamesian Christianity.
That's just that's really mind-blowing
when when you think about it. Tell me
tell me this. What was the relationship
between James and Paul like because from
what we understood when James when Paul
went to the Galatians teaching or
sending his disciples there then next
thing you know James is sending his
missionaries his people there you know
his students to correct the falsehoods
that Paul's was teaching. So what what
kind of relationships did that Paul and
James have?
>> That's exactly right. That's exactly
right. Um you know there's there's
there's a a set of texts from the second
third century called the the pseudo
Clementine literature which includes the
homalies and the recognitions and this
is believed to be uh indicative of
Jamesonian christologology where where
Peter identifies his enemy as Simon
Maggus. Most scholars believe Simon
Maggus is a cipher for Paul. Right? So
we have we see this although those are
late second third century they most
scholars believe they reflect a tension
that goes back to the first century. Now
in the book of acts I mean it's
interesting the book of acts is you know
kind of whitewashed history. It's
revisionist history probably written in
the second century. There's nothing from
there's no manuscript of any book of the
new testament that's dated to the first
century. Zero exit manuscripts zero
physical evidence of any book of the new
testament written in the first century.
Okay. So this is why many scholars are
now dating these things into the second
century. So the book of Acts is meant to
kind of smooth over these kind of
differences between uh Peter and Paul or
James and Paul. So when you read the
book of Acts, it's it's almost like
they're on the same page. If you listen
to a sermon of of pe of Peter, if you
listen to a sermon of Peter and the book
of Acts and then a sermon of Paul, it
sounds like the same person. And the
reason is it is the same person. It's
Luke writing both uh speeches. Uh and
Luke is a is a Pauline Christian in many
respects.
Uh but if you read the letters of Paul,
this betrays what we have in the book of
acts. Peter uh and Paul and and Paul and
James had some major beef as they say uh
according to uh the letters of Paul
which are the first books of the New
Testament uh to be to be written. That's
the thing also is you know people open
the New Testament and they see the book
of Matthew and they think Matthew was
written first chronologically. No,
that's the canonical order. Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. The first books of
the New Testament written are the
letters of Paul. And in Galatians, it's
very very clear who the enemies of Paul
are. The men sent from James. You see,
Paul has many enemies. He has enemies
that are pagans. He has enemies that are
uh non- messianic Jews. You know, Jews
who disbelieved in Jesus as the Messiah,
but also other Christians. In fact, his
chief opponents are other types of
Christians uh who uh reject Paul's
gospel. And that's how he puts it. This
is my gospel. He's he uses that phrase a
few times uh in his letters. So men from
James come into Galatia. This according
to FC Bower, which I still think is uh
authoritative in its in its exugesus of
of Galatians. They come into Galatia to
correct many of Paul's deviant
teachings. Um so there's there's some
major beef. Um again, unfortunately, we
don't know exactly what the men from
James, the apostles sent from Jerusalem,
are actually saying. uh we have to sort
of read the subtext of Paul's letters,
but there's there's major issues. I
mean, Paul, he calls James, Peter, and
and John the so-called pillars, you
know, he's he's very sarcastic. These
super apostles, you who do they think
they are? They added nothing to me,
right? This type of thing. Uh I don't
need them. You know, in second
Corinthians, the people of Corinth are
asking for a letter of recommendation.
They're asking Paul for an eaza from
James. Essentially, you know, you're
you're saying that you're an apostle of
Jesus Christ. you you're you have a
teaching authority to teach the gospel.
Where is your letter of recommendation?
Because again according to the gospel of
Thomas uh and according to Acts,
everyone has to get authorization from
James. Now Paul says that he visited
James at some point. Whether Paul's
telling the truth or not uh who knows um
we have two different we have multiple
versions of Paul's conversion, so-called
conversion, Damascus road conversion. Uh
Paul says, you know, when I first
encountered the resurrected Christ, I
didn't go and confer with the apostles.
I went to Arabia for 3 years. He's
talking about Arabia because Paul claims
to be the apostle sent to the Gentiles
uh of Isaiah's chapter 42 and Isaiah
chapter 42 is clearly a description of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
where it says that the Karites and the
Nabotans will believe in that apostle
sent to the nations. So Paul goes to
Arabia to try to convert some Arabs. Uh
he is not successful. Uh and then
apparently he goes into Jerusalem and
speaks with James and then they
apparently they they grant him uh
apostilhip at least according to the
book of Acts. But what actually
happened? We don't know. Who was Paul in
reality? He has Roman citizenship. How
did he get Roman citizenship as a Jew?
That's a big mystery. He probably did
something for the Romans or his parents
did something for the Romans. Uh but the
last we hear of Paul in the book of Acts
is that he's in Jerusalem and there's a
group of Jews, maybe even Messianic Jews
like Christians, Nazarines, who are
beating him for blasphemy and then he
appeals to Caesar and then a group of
Roman centurions surround him and
protect him and allow him to give a
lecture and then they give him an armed
escort back to Rome. And that's the last
we hear of Paul of Tarsus. you know,
Christian later Christian tradition
says, "Oh, he went he was there and he
was in prison and they beheaded him and
things like that." That's all legend. We
don't actually know what happened to
Paul. I mean, who was this person? Uh,
but clearly in the in the New Testament
letters of Paul, there's serious there's
serious difference of opinion. There's
some serious beef between uh James and
Paul that is very much downplayed uh in
the book of Acts. That's the point of
the book of Acts is to smooth these
things over and give the impression that
there really was no major major
contention between between them. But but
but Paul's letters uh uh don't don't
confirm that.
>> Isn't there some academics who say that
Paul was a Roman agent?
>> Yeah, that's that's an opinion. Some
historians, they take that that opinion
um that that basically Paul was kind of
a Roman informant uh and that he was
paid by the Romans. This is why he has
Roman citizenship uh to kind of
infiltrate the early messianic movement.
And uh what's what's the sort of point
of doing that? Well, um you know, the
Jews have been talking about a messiah,
a king messiah who's going to come
liberate Palestine from these heathen
colonizers, the Romans. this king
messiah will be a military leader etc
etc. Uh so we need to turn this king
Messiah into you know a docile you know
lamb led to the slaughter who opened not
his mouth um who uh teaches turn the
other cheek and resist not evil love
your enemies uh this type of thing. Uh
and so according to this theory um uh
the Romans employed Paul who's one of
them. He's he's a Roman citizen himself.
uh kind of an amateur philosopher from
from Tarsus. Uh I don't believe that he
was a student of Galiel. I think that's
false. Uh I think he was kind of a
marginal Jew. Um uh who, you know,
wanted to make a name for himself, but
also wanted to make some uh you know,
some some money and thing. I for me and
and and I'm and I'm sorry if this
offends people, but I mean I've I've
studied Paul for a long time and I try
to give him all the goodwill in the
world, but for me, Paul just seems like
one of these televangelists on TV,
right? uh you know these televangelists
on TV who probably believe in
Christianity to a certain degree but um
you know they they also believe in
making a lot of money uh and um putting
on a good show and uh gaining influence
and power and buying you know private
jets and things like that. Um so Paul
seems to be to me like sort of the
forerunner of archetype of of this type
of Christian. Um and and so one of the
ways in which you can really um distort
Jewish expectations of a king messiah is
to present this savior man god who dies
for your sins and that his kingdom is
not of this world. It's a spiritual
kingdom and and and so we see that um in
in Mark for example Mark tells Caiaphas
you will see the son of man coming on
the clouds at his trial. You will see
the son of man. Referring to himself
ostensibly. You will see the son of man.
The present generation will live.
Caiaphas never saw that. Caiaphas never.
What that means is I'm going to return
in your lifetime and I'm going to set up
shop here on earth and you're going to
be in trouble when I come back. This is
what Jesus threatening Caiaphas. Okay.
Now, by the time Luke is writing his
gospel, it's very clear that didn't
happen. So Luke makes these little
adjustments to Mark and says, "From now
on, the son of man is seated at the
right hand of power." In other words,
this is not something you'll see. This
this is happening. It's invisible. You
just have to trust me, bro. This is
happening now. Okay? Not that it's going
to be a physical kingdom. This is a
spiritual kingdom because it didn't
happen. The mark in Jesus made a false
prophecy. I don't attribute that to to
Isaam. Jesus as a true prophet never
made false prophecies. But the mark in
Jesus who is essentially a Pauline
interpretation of Jesus because Mark is
a Pauline Christian and Paul believed
the second coming of Jesus in his
lifetime which did not manifest. So that
belief was incorporated into the gospel
of Mark and then later gospel authors
had to do damage control because it
became very clear that Jesus is not
coming back in the lifetime of the
apostles. So they softened all of these
kind of immediate second coming
references.
>> I had a couple more questions. Are you
good with time answering them or?
>> Yeah, I have a couple more minutes.
>> Okay, beautiful. Beautiful. Tell me, uh,
they actually have people chanting in
some videos, what's the angel? What's
the angel? So, I'm asking you
>> when this comes up, what is the angel?
Can the geo be equated to the Q source
also? Because in there you don't have
anything claiming that Jesus is God. You
have the biatitudes. You have things
that obviously go in line with Islam.
How would you answer that? What is the
angel?
>> Yeah. again. So, injil in the Quran,
there's an equivocation. It's
contextbased term. Okay? Um, this this
is just how scripture is read. Again, we
find the same idea uh in the New
Testament and the Old Testament. So,
injil in the Quran sometimes means the
original revelation given to Jesus in
some fashion and sometimes injil means
the so-called gospel that the Christians
have because the New Testament contains
elements of the true Injil. Some of the
words of Jesus are in the New Testament.
There's no doubt about that. Okay. So,
there's an equivocation of terms. So,
what is what is was there uh an original
document written called the injil? Uh
maybe there was um you know when Jesus
in the in the book of Mark or Matthew
for example when Jesus goes to a certain
place and it says he preaches the
gospel. My question to the Christians is
what is Jesus preaching? What is that
gospel he's preaching? Because if I ask
a Christian today what is the gospel?
They'll point to the New Testament say
this is the gospel the gospel of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That's
the four-fold gospel, right? That's the
Ineal. But Jesus in the year 30, it
doesn't have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John with him.
>> Thank you.
>> So, what is he saying? What is that
gospel? If I went back in time to uh
Galilee in the year 31 or 32 of the
common era and I were to approach Jesus
peace be upon him and I asked Jesus uh
can you recite Matthew 23 from the
gospel? Recite Matthew 23. What's
Matthew 23? The book of Matthew 23.
That's the gospel, isn't it? Look at
Matthew. Did Matthew Did you write Did
you write something? I don't know what
he's talking about. Okay. Can you can
you recite uh 1 Corinthians chapter 15
from the gospel? First what? What? What
are you talking about? First Corinthians
written by Paul. Who?
Who's Paul?
So what is the gospel that Jesus was
preaching in the year 30 3132? He's not
he's not teaching Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. Now some of his words are in
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I admit
that. That's that's my position. But
that's not the Injil. That's a corrupted
version, an adulterated version of the
Injil. Although some of his words are
there. Okay. If I went back in time to
Medina in in in the year 6:30 of the
common era and I approached the prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him and I asked
him to recite Yasin, he would know
exactly what I was talking about because
the Quran is Quran and it's never been
corrupted. What is ayati? He knows
exactly what I'm talking about. What is
he would know exactly what I was talking
about. What is Bakar? He knows exactly
what I'm talking about. Okay. Is was
there a written uh true injil? Maybe
there was something called the Q source
document as you mentioned uh brother
Eddie that that that most scholars
believe and I think there's pretty
compelling evidence that Matthew and
Luke had two sources on their desks as
it were when they wrote their gospels.
They had the gospel of Mark and they
also had something called Q which means
source in in German. It's like a sayings
gospel, a source gospel that is lost but
most likely existed because Matthew and
Luke have ver word for word verbatim
agreement in hundreds and hundreds of
places uh in their in their gospels. So
certainly they had some source in
common. Now we can isolate Q source
material
uh even though we don't have Q because
all we have to do essentially is uh take
Matthew and Luke isolate what they have
in common that is missing from Mark and
is not unique to their own gospels and
it probably comes from the Q source. Uh
and what we get is Jesus as an
apocalyptic Jewish prophet. He's the
Messiah. He's not God. There's no
passion narrative. He's not killed. He's
not resurrected. the ministry of John
the Baptist, you get the sermon on the
mount, the biatitudes, nothing really
there as far as I see that contradicts
uh Islam. Q according to most historians
of the New Testament again is the
earliest source of any book in the New
Testament. It probably predated even
Paul's letters. So, it's not
representative of Pauline Christianity.
It's actually representative of that
other early strain, Jamesian
Christianity, uh most likely. And really
we don't get anything contradictory to
Islam. To to quote John Dominic Crossen,
the imminent New Testament historian, he
said, quote, "There is nothing nothing
in the Gospel according to Q about the
crucifixion or resurrection of Jesus.
There is nothing nothing."
So the Christians who wrote Q,
if Jesus was crucified, they didn't care
about the crucifixion one iota. Maybe he
wasn't crucified.
Either way, the crucifixion has nothing
to do with the teachings of the earliest
messianic movement, which is counter to
Paul because in Paul's letters, the
cross is everything. Paul doesn't even
quote Jesus barely one time in all of
his letters. He doesn't really care
about the historical Jesus or his
historical teachings. All he cares about
is the significance of the so-called
death of the Jewish Messiah.
>> Let's end with this. I thought it was
fascinating this thought. Yes.
Absolutely. beautiful this um you spoke
on this before the styometric study of
the Quran. I thought this was
mindblowing when you look at this study
and you can see because either the Quran
is from the devil either the Quran is
from Prophet Muhammad a group of people
or from God. So now when you look at
this study the study shows that if you
compare it like for example to Paul's
books I think 14 of them that he wrote
but seven of them are forgeries. uh when
you look at when you put it to the test
now when you put the Quran to the same
study you find out that there's one
author and if you can elaborate on this
and that author is not prophet Muhammad
can you go into this I think is this is
mindblowing and the way you explained it
can you go ahead and um say why is this
so important why is this uh like I'm
saying mind-blowing
>> yeah the Quran is what's known as
univocal in its voice meaning that the
Quran is really uh one voice speaking
Um whereas the Bible is written by
different authors at different times in
different centuries and that's why there
are major there are many uh
contradictions and inongruities in
congruencies and incoherences uh in the
Bible you have different theologies
different people saying things about
about Jesus in the Old Testament
different laws that contradict because
the Bible is not univocal uh in its
message. So yeah, computationalbased um
highly advanced styometric analysis was
applied to the Quran. Uh there are two
highly sophisticated studies conducted
by Dr. Haleem Sud in 2012 and 2015. This
is at a university in Aljir. And so his
his question was um is the speaker in
Sahil Bkari the same speaker in the
Quran? Right? So everyone agrees that uh
the speaker in Sahil Bkari is the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Um, and then the speaker of
the Quran is also at least from a uh
from a secular standpoint, the speaker
of the Quran is also the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam because they
don't believe it was revealed by God.
But interestingly, these studies reveal
uh that the words of the prophet that
the speaker in Sahib Bukari is actually
different than the speaker in the Quran.
These are two different voices, two
independent texts authored by two
different authors which different styles
in the vocabulary, linguistic
structures, expressions, word frequency.
They're completely different. Okay. So,
and we know that because the Quran is
not the Quran are not the words of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He
is the conduit or the mouth mouthpiece
through which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
uh is speaking these words. Okay?
They're not his words. They're words of
Allah subhana wa tala. the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Uh so
Allahhana chose the very wording of the
Quran verbatim, word by word, the
ipsisma verba as it's called. Uh very
much like how the Jewish conception is
of the Torah. Um so so high um highly
advanced styometric analysis proves that
the speaker in the hadith is different
than the speaker in the Quran. And the
Quran is a seventh century document. We
have the entire Quran in 7th century
manuscripts many times over and it's
from the hijaz and this is according to
the most eminent western secular
scholars Marin van Putin and others they
they confirm that uh as well um so
that's one thing when salometric
analysis was applied to the letters of
Paul it's very clear that so there are
13 letters in the new testament
attributed to Paul explicitly the writer
is uh explicitly claiming to be Paul
okay um but uh through this analysis it
be now this is basically a consensus of
New Testament historians even many I
mean you take you take classes I took
classes at at Christian Madaris I took
Christian classes at Christian
seminaries um you know um Jesuit uh
schools uh um Dominican Lutheran and
this is what they're teaching this isn't
just a bunch of like lefty professors
atheists who are teaching these things
my professors wore collars there were
Catholic priests who were saying that
six of these Pauline letters are
forgeries in his name because they're
clearly not written by Paul based on
styometric analysis.
>> Wow.
>> Okay. So, we have we have several books
in the New Testament that are admitted
to be forgeries that were canonized as
scripture. Okay.
The Quran says it again. Their forgeries
have deceived them even as their as even
as to their own uh religion. And then
salometric analysis was also applied to
the Book of Mormon. And they discovered
that the Book of Mormon also has
multiple authors, not just Joseph Smith,
right? Uh and there's different ways in
which Mormon Mormons try to actually
justify that and say, "No, that's that's
okay." And they have their explanation
uh for it. Um but you know it just
becomes clear in the Quran says that um
uh that if this Quran were from other
than Allah Quran don't they think deeply
don't they think very deeply about this
Quran right if it were from other than
Allah subhana wa ta'ala they would have
found many they would have found many
inconsistencies contradictions in
congruencies we do find these things in
the Bible because the Bible does not
speak with a univocal voice okay that's
why there's many contradictions. You
have these different books and
traditions written by authors stitched
together under one cover and given the
same status as revelation. Uh but with
our sources uh we are very um keen to
separate Quran from hadith. Not all
hadith are sound. There are hadith that
are mold that have been fabricated.
There are hadith that are that are
singular attested. There are multiple
attestation. We apply rigorous rules of
authentication uh to the hadith uh and
uh as well as the Quran and what we have
in the 10 readings of the Quran is
multiple attestation an ineitable text
that is of a different nature a
different speaker than the speaker in
the hadith.
>> Dr. Ali, thank you so much for spending
some time with us. Uh the things that
we've spoken about, do you have a book
uh that you also have published that u
people can read more about some of these
things in?
>> I I don't have any books at the moment.
I'm working on a few things. Inshallah,
>> I think it's time now. You got to put a
book together. Get a get a book
together.
>> It's time for a book.
>> I guess
>> and we so we can help promote we can
help promote it also.
>> We'll do something in
Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Eddie. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Tell me.