Was Jesus Crucified? Part 1

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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The priest is long gone. And what's very interesting is

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Jesus is supposedly making a reference to Daniel. And the reference to Daniel about the

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Son of Man coming in the clouds is a reference about the end times. And as we all know, it didn't happen.

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So these are clear apocalyptic teachings, and I can bring up many more. In fact, some of the Bible, some of the

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New Testament itself is telling other Christians that the end times is not coming.

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Why is that? This is a historical fact that there were many Christians who believed the end of the world was imminent.

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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.

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So there were three solutions to these false apocalyptic teachings. Jesus was wrong.

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He made false prophecies, just like many modern age people do. Or number two, the gospel authors who are supposedly the disciples, or people transmitting from the disciples, misunderstood the message of Jesus.

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Or number three, you could just add your own spin to it and ignore the clear context of the verse.

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And Dr. White might try to argue what the word generation means. Well, just for everybody,

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I have every single verse from the New Testament which mentions that word generation. And generation means generation as in a specific time frame.

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And I have all the verses right there. So when Jesus said that this generation will pass, it never did.

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And in fact, even Christian scholars have come out and said that that is an embarrassing verse in the

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Bible. So if they misunderstood Him here, then it's very possible that they misunderstood

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Him there. But now the problems don't just end there. You see, my contention is that Jesus' disciples misunderstood an alive

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Jesus or a resurrected Jesus. In fact, one of the biggest problems for the supposed resurrection is the amount of contradictions between the narratives.

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Now why is this important? The reason this is important is because I contend that a resurrection never happened.

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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.

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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.

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And in most likelihood, it's made up. Which is why you find so many contradictions.

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And this is one of the biggest irony. I've seen so many debates between Muslims or atheists and Christians on the crucifixion.

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And so many times I've seen the Christian apologist, namely William Lane Craig, who says, Well, these contradictions don't matter.

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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.

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That's why the contradictions don't matter. So you can't simply turn around and say they don't matter.

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They do. And here are the clear and explicit contradictions. Who did the woman see at the tomb?

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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.

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According to John 20, there's nobody at the tomb. Who went to the empty tomb?

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According to Mark 16, Mary Magdalene married the mother of James and Sarah.

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I think I mispronounced that. In Matthew chapter 28, it's Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary. In John chapter 20, it's Mary Magdalene alone, who's later followed by Peter and the other disciple.

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Where do all the eleven disciples see Jesus together? The Great Commission. According to Matthew chapter 28, it's in Galilee.

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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.

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According to Mark chapter 16, when the ladies arrive at the tomb, the stone has already moved away.

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According to Matthew chapter 28, a great earthquake happens and an angel comes down and he's like lightning and he rolls the stone away.

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Here's some more evolution to the story. Were there guards at the empty tomb? According to Mark, there's nothing.

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No guards. According to Matthew chapter 27, guards are placed at the tomb because they're afraid that his disciples might steal the body.

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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.

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And people are making these stories up to conform with their supposed belief that Jesus rose from the dead.

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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.

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And all the numbers he was giving you were filled with contradictions. Would you give him your life investment?

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None of you would. In fact, I doubt any of you would give your life investment even if his numbers did add up.

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But if you were to give your life investment to a man, a businessman who was contradicting himself.

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Something like money, which basically is worthless. We make the value of something like paper, which has no value.

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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?

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If you want to do it with a businessman who won money, don't expect me to do it with a book in which my hereafter lies in.

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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.

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Now the first thing we need to ask, was the crucifixion even needed? According to Christian apologists, atonement must be made for sin.

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Your sin needs to be punished. You can't just get away with it. So someone had to die for you.

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Well, according to the Bible, sin was already being forgiven before Jesus, the baptizer, in Mark chapter 1.

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People were getting baptized for the remission of sin. In fact, here's a matter. Jesus forgave sin, and according to you, that makes

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Him God. But if Jesus could easily forgive someone of their sin, such as in Mark chapter 2, then why does

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He have to die? He was forgiving those people without any atonements. And what about your prayer?

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The prayer you made to God, as Jesus taught you in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 -15.

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According to Jesus, when you pray, you are supposed to forgive somebody.

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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.

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No atonement, no sacrifice on the cross. And we need to ask ourselves, what about all the people who came before Him?

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Are they all damned to death? And not only the Jews who had the Jewish Bible. There were other races other than the

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Jews around the world 4 ,000 years ago. What about all those people who didn't have the Bible, who didn't have the

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Old Testament? Are they all condemned to death because they didn't have that specific way of repentance?

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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.

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Now let's go to another point. Is the death of Jesus even just? Many Christians say, you have to atone for your sin.

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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?

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According to your own doctrine, Jesus was an innocent, sinless man.

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So according to you, the way to get rid of sin, you go to the court, you're the criminal, and all you have to do is tell the judge, judge

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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.

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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?

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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.

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In this case, I'll just give it up for my sins, and put it on Jesus, and everything is good.

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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.

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The atonement is all about an innocent human who was sacrificed for your sins.

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This is no different to ancient pagan religions, and ancient cults, who also believed in human sacrifices.

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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.

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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.

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Now Jesus wasn't a baby, but he was pure, he was innocent. So the concept is exactly the same.

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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.

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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.

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Your entire faith rests on a human sacrifice. Not according to me, but according to the

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Apostle Paul, who himself wrote that without the crucifixion of Jesus, and his raising from the dead, your faith is in vain.

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So if there was no human sacrifice, your faith is not important. So in order to guarantee your salvation, you need to believe in ritualistic sacrifice of an innocent man named

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Jesus to atone for your salvation, which is really no different than ancient pagan cults.

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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.

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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 a human sacrifice to get rid of their sin.

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So what about them? They're using the same book you're using. So why don't they see what you see in the

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Old Testament that supposedly points to a crucifixion?

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And another point to make is Jesus is the Messiah. And there is no Jewish belief that the

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Messiah was going to be killed by his enemies. No Jewish person believes that, that he could be killed by his enemies.

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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.

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How do you conquer death when you die? That's not conquering it. Conquering death is not by dying, it's by surviving.

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And you have five seconds left, and I'll end it on that. Thank you. Now just before James comes and he's going to give his 25 minute,

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I wanted to welcome some others that are really not in this room, but are also present with us.

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This morning and this afternoon, through the hard work of a friend of mine by the name of Alex Crane and Philip, they've been able to connect together.

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So there's a live stream of the debate happening just as we speak. It's now on Christianity .com.

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If you're not familiar with that, you can go to Christianity .com and there's a link available. We presently have,

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I think, just about 300 individuals who are also watching in right at the moment. And I was just speaking to Alex, and he said the number is rising quite rapidly.

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So there will be several hundred people that are going to be joining in with us and watching. Well, let's welcome

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James Weinberg Johnson and give his 25 minutes. Well, thank you very much.

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Thank you for being here. And, of course, thank you to Sandy for being here again. I believe the first debate that we did here was with Sandy about four years ago now.

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And so, obviously, he must like us because he keeps coming back. So that's good.

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It is a very important subject that we have this evening. And let me just start off, since it's fresh in my mind, by pointing out that we believe on the cross of Jesus Christ could not be any less like pagan sacrifices.

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Because, of course, the one who gave himself did so voluntarily. He was the creator who then did his own creation.

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And we could not do it for ourselves. It was not the taking of a sinful life by another sinful individual.

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It was the giving of a sinless life voluntarily by one who was doing so out of love, which is a completely different concept, utterly unknown in any type of pagan context whatsoever.

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And that is why, in Galatians chapter 4, Christians say,

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It may never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified, as me and I can grow old.

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The cross is central to the experience of every single Christian. Every single day when we rise, we believe that we have peace with God, not because of anything within ourselves, because we know we're on Mars.

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We know we cannot atone for our own sins. We know there's no meaning up this man, so that I can stand before a holy

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God. You'd have to have a much less holy God than the true God of the Bible for my washings to have any avail before Him.

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There has to be another way. There has to be a way in which I can have a perfect righteousness, and we believe that that righteousness is imputed to us because of what

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Jesus did upon the cross of Calvary. Now that is not just a modern belief, that has been the belief of Christians all along.

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Around AD 107, a man by the name of Ignatius of Antioch was going to Rome to die a martyr's death.

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And as he went, he wrote letters to churches and individuals. And in one of those letters, he said,

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I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who, the God, this is very early on, late in the day in Christ, the

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God who made me so wise, for I saw that you were established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed as it were to the cross of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, in both body and spirit, and firmly established in love by the blood of Christ, totally convinced with regard to our

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Lord that he is truly of the family of David with respect to human descent, son of God, with respect to the divine will of power, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John, for that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate, was the historicist of the crucifixion, and Herod the

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Tetrarch, from his crew we derive our existence, that is, from his divinely blessed suffering, in order that he might raise a banner for the ages through his resurrection for his saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in the one body of his church.

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This is the first generation after the apostles themselves testifying of the centrality of the crucifixion of Jesus.

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Now historically, scholarship, whether believing and conservative or unbelieving and liberal, acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth died in the early fourth decade of the first century, and that by crucifixion we have more evidence of the time and method of Jesus' death than from almost any person in all of ancient history.

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Every documentable source that can be meaningfully placed the first 100 years after Jesus' death, that is prior to about AD 130, says the same thing.

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Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem. The sources that testify to this include the aforementioned

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Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred around AD 107 -108. We have also the epistle of Clement to the

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Corinthians dated as early as AD 95, clearly makes reference to the comment of the Christians on the death of Jesus Christ.

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It says, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in accordance with God's will, gave his blood for us, or believed in atonement, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives, in verse 49.

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Another early Christian leader, Polycarp, makes reference to the death of Christ in his letters as well. He is dated concurrently to both

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Ignatius and Clement. Josephus makes reference to Jesus in Antiquities 28, 63 -64, and it's highly unlikely that the portion about Jesus' death is a later

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Christian interrelation. This is around AD 85. Roman historian

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Tacitus, writing around AD 115, makes derogatory reference to the early Christian movement, and mentions that the founder of the movement had been executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

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That was meant to be a put -down. There simply is no evidence of conflict or confusion on the matter of Jesus' death by crucifixion in these sources.

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In fact, John Bonaparte and I have debated on the reliability of the Gospels. In his book,

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Jesus, a Revolutionary Biography, said that he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both

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Josephus and Tacitus agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.

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And another man that I've debated, Barth Berman, said in The Historical of Jesus, Part 2, page 162, one of the most certain facts in history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the

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Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Now, of course, from our perspective, the

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New Testament witness is extremely important, and that is the multiple testimony that we get from the

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New Testament corpus. Despite the skepticism of atheists and liberals, the New Testament presents to us multiple streams of witness with important elements of that witness coming from within less than a matter of a few years to the time of the death of Jesus.

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The testimony included in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 5, provides an ancient creedal statement of the

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Church, which includes the direct assertion of the crucifixion, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ.

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These words predate Paul's use of them by a number of years, placing them in the most primitive possible time frame, some believe within 18 months of the actual events themselves.

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The Paulian corpus of writings presents to us firm, contextual, historical witness to the belief in the crucifixion of Jesus dating to as early as AD 48.

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Given that his letters were sent to cities all around the Mediterranean, clearly the belief in the death of Christ by crucifixion was widespread, despite how repulsive the idea was to the intellectual elite of that particular day.

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There is no compelling reason, outside embracing naturalistic principles, to date the Gospels as late as the most modern scholarship.

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Strong internal arguments can be presented for a pre -AD 70 date for the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and if in fact

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Luke acts was meant to be an amicus brief for Paul's trial whenever he was arrested by the

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Romans and charged by the Jews, this would put Mark, if it was written earlier, into the mid -40s for the time of its compilation.

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Theologically, the crucifixion is central and definitional to the entirety of the proclamation of the

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Gospel itself. It is the self -giving of God in His Son, the reality of His wrath, the necessity of atonement, the perfection of the

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God -man's work as high priest, as sacrifice, and as mediator that forms the very bedrock of the

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Christian message itself. Hence, we have a unanimous witness to the crucifixion from every

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Roman source within the first century of the time of Christ's death. Remember, the majority of what

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Muslims believe about Muhammad has no literary testimony until well after 100 years after his death, so is the

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Muslim consistent in its application of standards at this point? We will be looking at that carefully.

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There is only one reason, I submit to you, why Islam denies the crucifixion and has never written about it.

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40 Arabic words written 600 years after the events of Christ's life.

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Only 40. There is only one ayah in all of the Quran that denies this, and if it wasn't there, there would be two other ayah that would seem to talk about the death of Christ.

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Surah 3 -5 of 1833. Well, what is that ayah? Well, you've already heard Surah 4 -157.

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But we need to think about what it says. That they, the Jews, said in most, we killed the

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Messiah, Christ. In Arabic, it's the Messiah. Jesus, the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah.

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But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them.

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Allah is a very important term we're going to look at a lot this evening. That's what's translated as it was made to appear to them.

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And those who differ therein are full of doubt, with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for over surety, they killed him not.

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Now, my friends, this ayah is not mubinun. It is not clear. There are so many questions we can ask about it that Muslims have argued about for a long time now.

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For example, do Jews call Jesus the Messiah? We killed the

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Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary. Would Jews actually boast about this?

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But then it says, but they killed him not. Who? The only antecedent is the Jews. We don't say the

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Jews did. It's the Romans that did. So could the Romans have done it, but the Jews didn't? The text doesn't seem to say.

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Now, if this came from a book that interacted a great deal with the New Testament, we might be able to have some basis for dealing with it, but the fact of the matter is there are no

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New Testament citations in the Quran. There is no evidence that I have found, even in writing a book on the subject of the

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Quran over the past year and a half or so, that the author of the Quran had any firsthand knowledge of the testimony of the

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Gospels or any of the New Testament as a whole. And so what does it mean? It means that they killed him not.

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The Jews did not kill him, or he was not killed at all. As it says later on, they killed him not.

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I'm sure it's true, but is that still just talking about the Jews? There are people who interpret it that way. And why does it say that?

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I appreciate the fact this is one of the reasons there were lots of debate with Sami on this. It says, yeah, it's frustrating to debate the apathy view of this with the swoon theory and stuff like that.

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It's very different, and that doesn't represent the vast majority of Muslims anyways. I would say that Sami's position does represent the vast majority of Muslims, and so that's what makes this debate so valuable, so I thank him for that.

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But then it says, they killed him not, nor crucified him. Well, why say the two?

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Because I guarantee you something. History tells us that if you're crucified, you're going to die.

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History tells us of one man, one man in all recorded history, who received a partial crucifixion.

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He didn't receive the death blow. He received a partial crucifixion, and he survived. That's one.

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There were tens and even hundreds of thousands of people who were crucified, and we know of one who survived the process.

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So why is it divided up like that? And what does shabihallah mean? What does it mean it was made to appear to them?

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There are translations of the Quran that actually say, he was made to appear to them.

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Well, that's not what it says. It simply says, it was made to appear. What was made to appear?

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I know the vast majority of Muslims believe someone else was put in Jesus' place.

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The substitution theory. And most Muslims I've talked to think it was Jews. I had one send me an e -mail once proving, gosh, that it was

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Simon of Cyrene. And given the number of colors and boldface he used in his e -mail, that proved the point to me.

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I don't know about the rest of you. And he was absolutely certain. Shabihallah. He wasn't saying anything. He didn't send me an e -mail.

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How did he know? How? Well, did the disciples know about that? Oh, they weren't there.

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Actually, according to gospel testimonies, some of them were there. And the women who were in front of their gospels, who had actually provided for the ministry of Jesus, certainly would have known the difference.

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So is there some type of miracle or he's transfigured into what somebody looks like Jesus?

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There are Muslims that actually believe that. Is that really what this text is saying? That's a good question.

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And then the next ayah says this. Verse 158. Nay, Allah raised him up, ra 'afahumu, raised him up of himself, and Allah is exalted in power and glory.

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Now, now, Muhammad SAAD has pointed out that every time that that root ra 'af is used in the Quran, it does not mean to actually lift somebody up off the planet.

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It literally means to exalt them and to honor them and to glorify them. But most Muslims I know believe this means that God has spoken to Jesus.

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In fact, I've had Muslims make exact arguments about it. You know, in the place where Jesus and the disciples met, they found a cave, and they were slept in, and there was a hole in the middle, and that's how

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Jesus got out. Was Allah walking through a hole in the roof? So is that what

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Surah 4, verse 158 means? Well, these are questions that have to be asked, and we're going to have to ask, because I didn't hear

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Sammy address Surah 4, verse 158. I didn't hear it, but if you would, I would really appreciate that.

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It's a question I'm going to be asking. Now, there is no authentic interpretation of this one ayah to be found in the

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Hadith literature. Now, that to me is amazing. No Muslim for 200 years could remember anything

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Muhammad said about this one ayah. That troubles me. It troubles me because if you know Sahih al -Bukhari 6, 509 and 510, there are these two ayahs in the

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Quran that were found with only one person in the compilation of the

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Quran both at the time of Abu Bakr and at the time of Muhammad. One person remembered it.

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Where did this one come from? Why isn't there any commentary on this? On all sorts of other places, if Sammy and I were debating

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Surah 5, verse 16, we could go to the Hadith and we could find all sorts of commentary.

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We could find things that Muhammad said. If we were talking about the end of the opening surah of the

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Quran, when it talks about those who earned God's wrath and those who were misguided,

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I could go to the Hadith and I could show you numerous places where Muhammad said that's a Jew, that's a Christian, and we can go there, but we can't here.

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There is no authentic interpretation that we can go to. And the context gives us nothing.

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We simply have 40 isolated Arabic words written 600 years after the events that have any connection to what was going on at that time that stand against all of history.

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That's what we have in this situation. Now where I mentioned, what

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Jewish person ever called Jesus Messiah, what does it mean to appear to them? Appear to whom? Surah 35 and 19 .33

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both speak of Jesus' death, as long as you translate them correctly. Surah 19 .33 is parallel to Surah 19 .15,

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where the words are applied to John the Baptist. Remember how John the Baptist died, everybody? He was beheaded.

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I can guarantee you, he died. No one ever survives that one. And the exact same words are used of John the

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Baptist's death that are used for Jesus in Surah 19 .33. Again, if this one strange verse were not in the

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Quran, there wouldn't be any question here. You wouldn't have the entirety of the Quran standing against all of recorded history.

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So where did it come from? And why should we reject everything that we have in the New Testament that goes back to the time of Jesus, including the prophetic fulfillments of Jesus' self -giving sacrifice that go before that, based upon the words of one individual who is over 700 miles away, 600 years later in a different language.

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But that's what we're being asked to do in that particular situation. So again, 40

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Arabic words, 625 years after the death of Jesus, 765 miles before his death, no first hand contact, completely different language.

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That's the basis of why we should reject what that says. Now, Sam didn't do it unthankful, but this is what

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I want you to see when I get to his materials in a moment. But an amazing example of inconsistency.

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Muslims in modern times, and you can go online and find this all over the place. It is amazing.

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And it's sort of rather interesting for us tonight in light of the events today, if you've been following the news. Muslims in modern times have allowed themselves the ancient polytheists, those who do not agree with the

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Creator God being the Gnostics. Yeah, those nasty Gnostics again. Proving the old axiom, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, many

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Muslim apologists are queer to embrace the assertions of the Gnostics, despite the fact that Gnosticism is clearly not consistent with the views of Jesus that they themselves hold.

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Muslims fail to understand why in the beginning of the middle 2nd century, Gnostics began denying the crucifixion of Jesus.

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The reason is simple. Gnostics are dualists. They believe that which is spirit is good and that which is material is evil.

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Jesus was good, hence, in direct contradiction of the Bible and of Islam, they denied

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Jesus had a physical body. Obviously, it's very difficult to crucify a spirit.

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Think about that for a moment and you'll figure out why. The Gnostic religion is completely contrary to both

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Christianity and Islam. They identify the creator of the physical world as an evil deity and they were polytheists preaching the entire body of divine beings emanating from the one true spirit of God.

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One of those beings, far removed from the spirit of God, a demi -urch, created the physical universe.

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That means the Gnostics identify Allah as an evil deity. They're not her friends.

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Every Muslim using Gnostic sources is relying upon pagan polytheism for his arguments and if you want to see it, just go online tonight.

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It's all over the place. I'm thankful that Sammy did not go there. The Gnostics did not care about history.

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They did not care about doctrine. Salvation for them did not involve faith in the truth but instead involved gaining esoteric knowledge,

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Gnosis, through secret ceremonies allowing them to find the path to full enlightenment and eventually freedom from the physical body, hence their mockery of the resurrection.

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Now, we did here, however, Sammy said there's no need for the atonement and we do have a quotation here from Yusuf Ali on Surah 4, verse 157 where he says,

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The Orthodox Christian churches make it a cardinal point in their doctrine that his life was taken on the cross, that he died and was buried, that on the third day he rose to the body with his wounds intact and walked about in converse and ate with his disciples and was afterward taken up bodily to heaven.

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This is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins which is rejected by Islam.

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The Quranic teaching is that Christ was not crucified or killed, but the Jew was not, withstanding apparent circumstances which produced that illusion in the minds of some of his enemies.

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Well, here's the problem. It also produced that illusion in the minds of all his friends. Now, the explanation has been given by Sammy.

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He goes, well, see, he never died and so when they encountered him again then they thought he had been resurrected. The main problem is that it's rather simple.

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First of all, the women were the first ones to tell about the resurrection and they were the ones who took the promise. And secondly, don't you think

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Jesus would have said something to them? Uh, guys, it wasn't me. You know how, see the little prints in my hand, the little sign?

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Once they said we've seen a phantasma, a ghost, a spirit, Jesus would have said, what are you talking about, guys?

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Don't you notice Judas is missing you on the cross? It wasn't me. I mean, he's got 40 days.

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And what are we told he's doing during those 40 days? He's opening their minds to understand the scriptures and the necessity of the fact that the

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Christ must suffer and die and see Luke chapter 24. And so obviously, if they had just encountered the living

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Jesus, Jesus would have said, guys, um, I'm, I'm, I've not died.

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I am not resurrected. And that's why we do need to look and search for 158. 158 and see if we can understand that to be related to 157 and to be related to Jesus being taken up or not.

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Because again, I think he will confirm many of the Muslims do understand that we're not making something up here. That is a perspective that has been taken by many people before.

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Now obviously, we do have clinical differences and I'll talk during my rebuttal period about the issue of the atonement.

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I did a little bit of that in the beginning. But let me just simply emphasize the fact that from the biblical perspective, we had all the way back in the

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Old Testament literature. We had in the prophecies of the Jews the discussion of the one who would come who would be a suffering believer.

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Both Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, you have an incredible discussion of the self -giving sacrifice, this one, who by his suffering would justify the many.

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Now, Samuel asked, why didn't Jews see that? Well, all the early disciples were Jews. So many of them did.

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But there is a lengthy discussion in the New Testament of why it is that there has become a harbinger upon the

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Jews so that the Gospel would go out to the Gentiles. This is part of the entire discussion of the meaning of the

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Gospel in that early period of time. But there can be no question that all of the

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Christians of the first century believed in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. So my question for anyone who would say, well, there were other

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Jews that didn't believe in the Anointed Christ, they didn't believe in the Crucifixion, where are they? Where are the disciples of Jesus that did not believe in the

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Crucifixion? Show me a single disciple of Jesus in the first century, beginning of the second century, and anybody in the second century who is a

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Gnostic who actually denied the Crucifixion. They all believed. Was it because they had all been fooled?

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But if they had been believing Jesus, how could that be? He would have corrected them. And so what's my summary argument this evening?

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Well, the unanimous testimony of the relevant historical sources of the first century, after Jesus, all testified to his

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Crucifixion in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. Both secular and religious sources testified this fact in numerous ways as we have mentioned.

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And again, if he was not crucified and yet he met with his disciples after that time of Crucifixion, then there would have been disciples contradicting this story unless you're going to say that those true disciples were all just swallowed up or taken off the planet or didn't have the guts to stand up for the truth against the falsehood that was being proclaimed in Jesus' name.

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Non -historical Gnostic Gospels and movements in the second and third centuries denied the Crucifixion for purely theological and mystical reasons and as such are utterly irrelevant to any serious truthful examination of the issue.

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And so we return to the main issue. 40 narrative words without context, over 600 years removed, that are themselves unclear and are nothing but themselves speculation because they have no connection to the first century.

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The Christian has a consistent message of God's saving purpose in Jesus Christ to offer every possible hope and that's why we preach the cross to you.

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We don't worship the cross. We worship the one who gave himself on the cross because it is by his sacrifice that we have life and peace with God.

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Thank you very much. Thank you,