Was Jesus Crucified? Part 1

Daniel, the Son of Man, and the Problem of Failed Apocalyptic Expectations

Priest is law, God. And what's very interesting is Jesus is supposedly making a reference to Daniel. And the reference to Daniel about the Son of Man coming in the clouds is a reference about the end times.

And as we all know, it didn't happen. So these are clear apocalyptic teachings and I can bring up many more. In fact, some of the Bible, some of the New Testament itself is telling other Christians that the end times is not coming.

Why is that? This is a historical fact that there were many Christians who believed the end of the world was imminent. So some New Testament books, such as I believe it was 2 Thessalonians, and this is accepted by scholarship, was written by we don't know who, to supposedly get rid of that problem and tell people that the world wasn't about to end.

So there were three solutions to these false apocalyptic teachings. Jesus was wrong. He made false prophecies, just like many modern age people do. Or number two, the Gospel authors who were supposedly the disciples, or people transmitted from the disciples, misunderstood the message of Jesus.

Or number three, you could just add your own spin to it and ignore the clear context of the verse. And Dr. White might try to argue what the word generation means. Well, just for everybody, I have every single verse from the New Testament which mentions that word generation.

And generation means generation as in a specific time period. And I have all the verses right there. So when Jesus said that this generation will pass, it never did. And in fact, even Christian scholars have come out and said that that is an embarrassing verse in the Bible.

So if they misunderstood Him here, then it's very possible that they misunderstood Him there. But now the problems don't just end there. You see, my contention is that Jesus' disciples misunderstood an alive Jesus or a resurrected Jesus.

Contradictions in the Resurrection Narratives

In fact, one of the biggest problems for the supposed resurrection is the amount of contradictions between the narratives. Now why is this important? The reason this is important is because I contend that a resurrection never happened.

But they misunderstood a resurrection happened. Now since they assumed a resurrection happened, they came up with their own way to conform a supposed resurrection with their own beliefs. Now how can you prove this?

Very simple. Contradictions within the story. Contradictions within the narrative prove that these people don't have any basis for the story. And in most likelihood, it's made up. Which is why you find so many contradictions.

And this is one of the biggest eyebrows. I've seen so many debates between Muslims or atheists and Christians on the crucifixion. And so many times I've seen the Christian apologist, namely William Lane Craig, who says, Well, these contradictions don't matter.

Actually, that's the basis of my argument. The reason why these contradictions matter is because they're the basis to show that there is no basis to the story. That's why the contradictions don't matter.

So you can't simply turn around and say they don't matter. They do. And here are the clear and explicit contradictions. Who did the women see at the tomb? According to Mark 16, they saw one man in a white robe.

According to Matthew, it's an angel. According to Luke 24, it's two men in shining robes. According to John 20, there's nobody at the tomb. Who went to the empty tomb? According to Mark 16, Mary Magdalene married the mother of James and Sarah.

I think I mispronounced that. In Matthew 28, it's Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. In John 20, it's Mary Magdalene alone, who's later followed by Peter and the other disciple. Where did all the 11 disciples see Jesus together?

The Great Commission. According to Matthew 28, it's in Italy. According to Luke and Acts, it's in Jerusalem. Both can't be right. In fact, we even see an evolution of the story of the supposed empty tomb.

According to Mark 16, when the ladies arrive at the tomb, the stone is already moved away. According to Matthew 28, a great earthquake happens and an angel comes down and he's like lightning and he rolls the stone away.

Here's some more evolution to the story. Were there guards at the empty tomb? According to Mark, there's nothing. No guards. According to Matthew 27, guards are placed at the tomb because they're afraid that his disciples might steal the body.

According to Luke, no guards. According to John, no guards. All these contradictions, all these changes in the story are proof that there really is no basis to the story. And people are making these stories up to conform with their supposed belief that Jesus rose from the dead.

Why Contradictions Matter for Trusting the Story

Now, I have a question for everybody. If somebody came up to you, some businessman, and he told you to invest all of your life savings into his business venture, and all the numbers he was giving you were filled with contradictions, would you give him your life investment?

None of you would. In fact, I doubt any of you would give your life investment, even if his numbers did add up. But if you were to give your life investment to a man, a businessman who was contradicting himself, something like money, which basically is worthless, we make the value of, something like paper, which has no value, you wouldn't give that up.

So why do you expect me and billions of other people to place our salvation, our soul, which has a value, in these stories that are filled with contradictions? If you want to do it with a businessman and your own money, don't expect me to do it with a book in which my hereafter lies in.

And if you want to do it, don't expect me. Consistency. But now let's look at the theological issues as well, because there's a lot of theological problems with the supposed crucifixion of Jesus. Now, the first thing we need to ask, was the crucifixion even needed?

According to Christian apologists, atonement must be made for sin. Your sin needs to be punished. You can't just get away with it. So someone had to die for you. Well, according to the Bible, sin was already being forgiven before Jesus, the baptizer, in Mark chapter 1.

People were getting baptized for the remission of sin. In fact, here's an idea. Jesus forgave sin, and according to you, that makes Him God. But if Jesus could easily forgive someone of their sin, such as in Mark chapter 2, then why does He have to die?

He was forgiving those people without any atonements. And what about your prayer? The prayer you make to God, as Jesus taught you in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 -15. According to Jesus, when you pray, you are supposed to forgive somebody.

And if you forgive somebody, God will forgive you. So according to Jesus, all you have to do to remove your sin is forgive the other person. No atonement, no sacrifice on the cross. And we need to ask ourselves, what about all the people who came before Him?

Are they all damned to death? And not only the Jews who had the Jewish Bible, there were other races other than the Jews around the world 4 ,000 years ago. What about all those people who didn't have the Bible, who didn't have the Old Testament?

Are they all condemned to death because they didn't have that specific way of repentance? Because there was no atonement? Obviously not. So if there was a way to be saved back then, without the cross, then no matter what way you look at it, the cross was not really needed.

The Justice Problem with Substitutionary Atonement

Now let's go to another point. Is the death of Jesus even just? Many Christians say you have to atone for your sin. Sin cannot go unpunished. Well if that's the case, why don't you be consistent and punish the sinner instead of an innocent man?

According to your own doctrine, Jesus was an innocent, sinless man. So according to you, the way to get rid of sin, you go to a court, you're the criminal, and all you have to do is tell the judge, Judge, I accept this innocent man to take my crime.

And the judge tells you, well since you accept him as the one to take your crime, you're now pardoned. Does that sound just to you? Is that actually getting rid of the sinner? Or is that transferring the sin onto someone who's not responsible for the sin?

You know, take responsibility for yourself. That's a big problem we have to prevent. People always want to put the blame on somebody else. In this case, I'll just give it a formal license and put it on Jesus and everything is good.

And here's another big problem with the crucifixion. You see, at the end of the day, no matter what way you look at it, you guys believe in a human, ritualistic sacrifice. The atonement is all about an innocent human who has sacrificed for your sins.

This is no different to ancient pagan religions and ancient cults who also believed in human sacrifices. In fact, in the ancient days, this is even in the Bible, there was an idol named Moloch and they sacrificed their little babies to this idol.

And we see this in several ancient cultures. Now why would they sacrifice babies? The reason they sacrifice babies is because they're innocent, they're pure. And that's why they sacrifice them, because they're the perfect sacrifice.

Now Jesus wasn't a baby, but he was pure, he was innocent. So the concept is exactly the same. You see, because Christianity is a mainstream religion, I believe the second largest in the world with 2 billion followers.

Because it's a mainstream faith, people look at it differently. They don't really look at it and say, well, in reality, this is a human sacrifice. No different to those ancient cults and religions which have human sacrifices as well.

Your entire faith rests on a human sacrifice. Not according to me, but according to the Apostle Paul, who himself wrote that without the crucifixion of Jesus and his raising from the dead, your faith is in vain.

So if there was no human sacrifice, your faith is null and void. So in order to guarantee your salvation, you need to believe in the ritualistic sacrifice of an innocent man named Jesus to atone for your salvation.

Which is really no different than the ancient pagan cults. I say something more simple. No innocent man has to die for you. And if you want to atone for your sin, you atone to God, you become a better person.

Or you yourself get punished instead of another innocent person. And I can bring up a whole lot of other theological problems with this. I mean, even the Jews. The Jews even say that they don't need to add a human sacrifice to get rid of their sin.

So what about them? They're using the same book you're using. So why don't they see what you see in the Old Testament? That supposedly points to a crucifixion. And another point to make is Jesus is the Messiah.

And there is no Jewish belief that the Messiah was going to be killed by his enemies. No Jewish person believes that, that he could be killed by his enemies. The fact that the Quran says that Jesus was saved, shows that he's the true Messiah because he truly conquered his enemies and he truly conquered death by not dying.

How do you conquer death when you die? That's not conquering it. Conquering death is not by dying, it's by surviving. And you have five seconds left and I'll end it on that. Thank you. James comes and he's going to give his 25 minute.

I wanted to welcome some others that are really not in this room but are also present with us. This morning and this afternoon, through the hard work of a friend of mine by the name of Alex Crane and Phillip, they've been able to connect together.

So there's a live stream of the debate happening just as we speak. It's now on Christianity .com. If you're not familiar with that, you can go to Christianity .com and there's a link available. We presently have, I think, just about 300 individuals who are also watching in right at the moment.

I was just speaking to Alex and he said the number is rising quite rapidly. So there will be several hundred people that are going to be joining in with us and watching. Well, let's welcome James Weinberg out to say he gives his 25 minutes.

Thank you for being here. Of course, thank you to Sammy for being here again. I believe the first debate we did with Sammy about four years ago now. And so, sinful life. Ancient history. 1448. So, in the Muslim New Testament, which is rejected, certain apparitions reduce that allusion to the Gentiles.

We don't worship the cross.