Is Jesus Prophesied in the Old Testament? Part 1

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You're very welcome here to join us for this evening's debates, I say not debate but debates because we have two debates this evening.

I'm the pastor here, Mike Gilbert Smith, the pastor here of Twine Home Baptist Church, the church that meets here in this building, and you're very welcome to be here this evening.

This evening's presentation is part of a series of debates that have been happening over the last few days which are designed for both

Christians and Muslims to come together and to have an opportunity not only to present their ideas as understood in their faiths but also to ask one another questions and to cross -examine one another.

It's my belief and the belief of many that the true toleration takes place not when we pretend that we have no differences but when we seek to understand those differences and seek to hear one another clearly and it is my prayer that that will be happening this evening and that we will therefore be able to understand each other's positions and have honest conversation about those.

There are two questions that are going to be looked at this evening in the two debates. The first question is, is

Jesus prophesied in the Old Testament? Is Jesus prophesied in the

Old Testament? And the second topic is, is Muhammad prophesied in the

Bible, that is in the Old and New Testaments? In each debate, each speaker will be given 20 minutes to give their opening statement followed by 15 minutes to rebut one another's opening statements and then a 10 minute cross -examination and then a seven and a half minute closing statement.

We will have a 10 minute break between the two debates. To argue from the

Muslim position is on my left, Sheikh Shabir Ali, you're very welcome here, thank you for coming to speak with us this evening.

Mr. Ali holds a BA in Religious Studies from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario with a specialization in Biblical Literature and an

MA in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Quranic Exegesis. And he's now in his fourth year of PhD studies in Quranic Exegesis at the

University of Toronto. He's the President of the Information and Da 'wah Center International in Toronto where he functions as an

Imam and he travels internationally to represent Islam in public lectures and interfaith dialogues.

He explains Islam on weekly television programs, particularly one called Let the

Quran Speak and past episodes of this can be seen on his website at www .shbirally

.com. Arguing for the Christian position is Dr. James White, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Dr. White is the Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona in the

United States. He's the author of more than 20 books, a professor, an accomplished debater and an elder of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is the final debate in the series of debates that have been taking place. If you want a

CD or DVD of any of the debates then you can contact the site that's producing those at www .ministrytomuslims

.com. It would be a great time now to take out your mobile phones and to ensure they're switched not just on to silent if at all possible because that will interfere with the

PA system but actually switched off. Restrooms are located at the back if you go out and then turn right you'll find the ladies, if you go out and then turn left you'll find the gents.

The fire exits, there's a fire exit here or if you go out of that door and turn left there's a fire exit or if you go out of that door and carry straight on there's a fire exit.

It's now my privilege to welcome our first speaker, Dr. James White. It is indeed a privilege to be with you this evening.

I wish I had more time to greet everyone but we have a lot to do this evening.

I would like to thank Shabir Ali for once again debating me, we've debated twice before and I'm very much looking forward to this evening but it is going to be a very, very challenging evening.

We're sort of crammed in here, I hope that you are ready to listen and I hope that you are ready to follow along because both of us have much to say but not a whole lot of time in which to say it.

So why this debate this evening? Shabir Ali has insisted that we must address whether Jesus is prophesied in the

Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim before we address whether Muhammad is prophesied in the

Bible and I assume this is so that a consistent hermeneutic can be established and surely of course that is quite relevant and very useful.

But really there is no question for the Muslim that Jesus is in fact the

Jewish Messiah. The Quran is very clear in this matter. You will notice it says, Behold the angel said,

O Mary, Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him. His name will be Christ Jesus. Of course that is the term for Messiah, the son of Mary held in honor in this world and the hereafter and of the company of those nearest to Allah.

In fact, we find out the Arabic term for Messiah is used repeatedly in the

Quran and appears nearly a dozen times in that text. It is used alone simply as the

Messiah, for example, in Surah 572. It is even interestingly enough put on the lips of the

Jews in Surah 4157, an actual text that Shabir and I have debated in Seattle in the

United States. So it must be asked, if Jesus is not prophesied in the

Old Testament, then I have to ask, how could the Jews have known he was the Messiah? The Quran says he was, so there must have been a way for the

Jews to recognize him as such, yes? Well, what would that way be? Further, Muslim scholars recognize the existence of prophecies about Jesus.

Mahmoud M. Ayyub quotes Arazi as saying, quote, furthermore, since the Torah contains prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus, then neither his coming nor his law would be contrary to the

Torah, end quote. So I must ask, Shabir Ali, this evening, Arazi says the Torah contains prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus.

Please identify what these prophecies might be. Now in regards to the nature of prophecy, prophecy in scripture has many aspects, only one of which necessitates a future fulfillment.

The prophets were first and foremost messengers with a word for their people of their day from God.

When prophets spoke of future fulfillments, those prophecies could have immediate fulfillments that could be tested by their hearers, as we see, for example, even in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

But they could also have fulfillments that were much greater than even within their own lifetimes. They weren't just limited to a prophecy of their own lifetime.

Now the earliest Christian conviction very, very clearly was that Jesus fulfilled the

Old Testament scriptures. In Luke 24, 44, after his resurrection, Jesus said to the disciples, these are my words which

I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

Psalms must be fulfilled. So here is a very part of the resurrection narrative, is the fulfillment of the entirety of the canon of what we call the

Old Testament, the Tanakh, the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. This is a part of the

Christian belief. Surely we cannot even quote all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in the time we have this evening.

If I had started reading them, 20 minutes would not be enough to even read all of them. Hence, I will have to focus upon key prophecies that are the most relevant to the

Christian Muslim dialogue. The first and greatest one to deal with, of course, is

Deuteronomy chapter 18. The key to correctly handling Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 15 through 19, is the phrase, from amongst your brethren.

From amongst your brethren. It appears, for example, in verse 2 of chapter 18.

Speaking of the Levites, they shall have no inheritance among their brothers. The Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.

This is speaking about the Levites, and clearly, among their brothers means among the twelve tribes of Israel, as verse 5 makes plain, quote, for the

Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the

Lord. Clearly, from among your brothers and out of all your tribes refers to the same thing.

Israelites, not anyone outside the specific twelve tribes of Israel, compare the same usage in the preceding chapter of Deuteronomy chapter 17, where we see, you may indeed set a king over you whom the

Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you.

You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother. So, very clearly, this phrase, from among your brothers, excludes anyone else.

So, when we come to the key text, the context of Deuteronomy chapter 17 and 18 plainly indicates that from among your brothers equals

Israelites, not foreigners, Ishmaelites, Edomites, or anyone else. Now, this is a consistent means of exegesis, for I recall very clearly, many years ago when

Shabir debated Robert Maury, at one point Shabir complained that Maury was not allowing a particular surah to define its own terms, that you had to allow the preceding context and the surrounding context to define the meaning of the terms.

And that's exactly correct, and that's exactly what we're doing right here. So, we finally get to the key text,

Deuteronomy 18 .15, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers, it is to him you shall listen.

Now, before reading the rest, is there anything in the context that would cause us to look to the errors for a fulfillment of this verse?

There is nothing in the context that would lead any person reading it to think, oh yes, this is going to be fulfilled in that fashion.

Deuteronomy 18 .18, I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him, and whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name,

I myself required of him. Now, notice how it is that this prophet is like Moses. He speaks the words of God.

People can come up with long lists of parallels between Moses and others, but the text says that what is similar, what is parallel, is the fact that he speaks the words of God.

Now, when we go to the New Testament, we see that the New Testament specifically tells us that this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Peter, preaching in Acts chapter 3, says, Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

You shall listen to him and whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

And all the prophets who have spoken, this is Peter again speaking, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days.

These days being the ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so, you have one of those followers of Christ, one of those close followers of Christ saying this is the fulfillment.

But does Jesus fulfill the parallel that is even found in Deuteronomy 18? He most assuredly does.

Look at John 14, 24. He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the

Father's who sent me. Jesus talks about the fact that his message is in perfect harmony with the Father. It comes from the

Father. And in John 8, 28, so Jesus said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the

Father taught me. And so clearly, Jesus fulfills Deuteronomy chapter 18. There is no reason in the context to see any other fulfillment than in him.

Jesus is also called the Prince of Peace. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 says, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

How is this text fulfilled? Well, it's fulfillment is seen in Jesus' kingship over his people.

His description as God throughout the New Testament, his description as being the creator of all things, that's what Everlasting Father is in reference to, avi ad, the

Hebrew term that is found there. And he's also the provider of true and lasting peace in the cross of the

Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5, 1, hence the Prince of Peace. He is prophesied to be the ruler of the nations.

Psalm 2 says, the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the

Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the

Lord scoffs at them. Notice, against the Lord and against his anointed, the

Meshiach, the Christos in Greek. Verse 7 of Psalm 2, I will surely tell the decree of the

Lord. He said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now therefore,

O kings, show discernment, take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

Do homage to the Son, that he not become angry, and you perish in the way. For his wrath may soon be kindled, how blessed are all who take refuge in him.

There's much fulfillment of this, but Jesus even uses these words of himself in one of the letters to the churches in Revelation chapter 2, verses 26 through 27.

It's important to note, Jesus is a ruler. He is a king in many ways in Christian belief.

He is the ruler of his people through the spirit in their hearts. He is a giver of law, the law of Christ by which we live, and the rulers of the nations will be judged by their duty to obey him and his law.

He is prophesied to come forth from Bethlehem, Micah 5, 2. But as for you, Bethlehem of Prophet, too little to be among the clans of Judah.

From you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.

We see the fulfillment of this in Matthew chapter 2, verses 5 through 8. He comes on the foal of a donkey,

Zechariah 9, 9 says, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey, fulfilled in Matthew chapter 21, verses 2 through 7 in Jesus's entry into Jerusalem before the people rejected him.

Very important and also relevant to the previous debates that we had in the course this week is the title,

The Divine Son of Man. In Daniel chapter 7, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

In Greek, septuagint, by the way, that's the very same term with the highest form of worship, latreo, that is used there. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

Jesus applied these very words to himself in Mark chapter 14, verses 62 through 64 and the

Jews understood what it meant because it goes on to say, tearing his clothes, the high priest said, what further need do we have of witnesses?

You have heard the blasphemy. How does it seem to you? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death.

Well, what was deserving of death? They saw that this was in fact a claim to deity. How about the coming of the

Lord? We know very clearly, a voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord. Yahweh in the wilderness, make smooth in the desert a highway for our

God. Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low and let the rough ground become a plain and the rugged terrain a broad valley.

Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

The same prophecy found in Malachi 3 .1, behold, I'm going to send my messenger and he will clear the way before you.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the

Lord of hosts. We see the fulfillment of this in John the Baptist in Luke chapter three, verses four through six.

But most especially, and especially most precious to Christians, the crucifixion prophesied long before it takes place.

In Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me, smear me.

They separate with the lip. They wag the head saying, commit yourself to the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him because he delights in him.

I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue cleaves to my jaws and you lay me in the dust of death for the dogs have surrounded me.

A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones.

They look. They stare at me. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots.

But this is not how the 22nd Psalm ends. Posterity will serve him. He will be told of the

Lord, the coming generation. They will come and will declare his righteousness to a people who will be born that he has performed it.

This one described in Psalm 22 is victorious in the end and you can see the fulfillment of so many of these images in Matthew 27, verses 27 through 54.

But of course, who could even begin to forget that 700 years before Christ, these words were written.

Beginning Isaiah 52, 14, just as many were astonished at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men.

For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted and he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led the slaughter and like a sheep that before it shares his silence, so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off by the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my sir, make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I'll divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

My friends, 700 years before the coming of Christ, 700 years before his ministry, 700 years before his crucifixion, these words are written.

Here is the great Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are not things that were made up afterwards.

These are things were written by the prophetic voice long before Lord Jesus was born.

I must confess that this study for this very debate, I'm thankful that Shabir asked that we do this first, has been tremendously encouraging to me as a

Christian to consider what God has done in the writing of the scriptures. And so the thesis established in the resurrection, after the resurrection,

Jesus in speaking to the disciples said, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

And he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

But please know what Jesus had to do, even with his disciples, even with those who had walked with him in the way.

What does he do for them? He opens their minds. Just before this, he had been walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And even though their eyes were prevented from recognizing him, even they themselves said later, did not our hearts burn within us as he opened the scriptures to us?

That's what we need to do. That's what we need to have done in our day. I trust that the spirit of God will be here with us this evening.

He will open hearts and minds to see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is truly our intention this evening to speak of the truth of Christ and to do so in such a fashion that you, the audience, become the judges.

You have a responsibility. Tonight we will speak very, very quickly.

Tonight we will not be able to expand on all the points we would like to expand on. But we are doing this to provide you with a starting place.

And I would challenge each and every one of you, Christian, Muslim, or neither, take the time to examine what each one of us says.

Do not just go with what we say during this time period. Examine what we have to say.

Go beyond merely being surface listeners. Don't be like so many in the modern day where you have to make a decision right now.

Delve into these things. There is so much written on this. There is so much good literature on this. Yes, there's bad literature too.

You have to be discerning. But I challenge you this evening, take out a piece of paper.

Start writing down what each person says. Follow and see who is consistent with their own world view.

Who is a consistent Christian this evening? Who is a consistent Muslim this evening? And then make a decision based not upon what people look like.

Shabir wins on that level anyway. Make a decision not on presentation, not on voice, not on dress.

But make a decision based upon an honest examination of the fullness of truth.

Let's do something people in our society don't generally do. Let's honor truth this evening.

Thank you very much. Shabir Ali, may

I welcome you to come and give your opening statement. Hello everyone.

Peace be with you and the mercy and blessings of God. Well, I think James wins on the technological apparatus.

There he is with his fancy laptop. And he's already advised me on how to get a good one. So perhaps next time.

I begin by praising our creator and fashioner, the creator and fashioner of the heavens and the earth. And asking to send peace and blessings upon all of his prophets and messengers.

And to bless every person, every man and woman in this gathering today. And everyone who will watch this tape or listen to our voices in whatever form or follow this debate forever.

Now to get on with the topic. I've made some adjustments to what I was planning to say in listening to James.

And I think it's important that we do that always. Because by listening to each other, we do learn from each other as we go.

I hope that these debates will prove to be learning experiences, not only for us, but for others who will try to follow the debates later on.

I am very much impressed with a book written by James Dunn. Reverend James Dunn has written a book entitled

The Evidence for Jesus. And in looking at a number of questions that have been raised concerning belief in Jesus, he answers many of the questions by saying yes and no.

And then he explains why yes and why no. And that makes us realize that some of the greatest scholars do not know everything.

And those who do know something realize that very few questions can be answered categorically yes or no.

Some questions do have to be answered with a yes and a no. So too is the question before me, the first question this evening.

Does the Old Testament predict Jesus? My answer is yes and no. First, from the perspective of a

Muslim, James is right. Muslims believe that Jesus is a prophet of God. And Muslims would not want to argue that Jesus is not prophesied.

No benefit will be gained from the purpose of Muslim belief by arguing that point.

At the same time, I should clarify that there's nothing in the Quran which necessitate that a

Muslim must believe that something was predicted about Jesus before his entry into the world. The fact that he is a true prophet does not necessitate that something must have been said about him in the previous scriptures prior to his birth.

Razi and some of the commentators on the Quran do in fact assume that Jesus was predicted in the

Old Testament. But I think they took that as a matter of principle, that all prophets must somehow be predicted by a prior prophet until eventually the last of all of the prophets is predicted by not only the one before him, but by all of them.

But Razi could not, if he were challenged I believe, produce anything that is satisfactory from the

Old Testament to show that this is a definite prediction about the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. He just took

Jews and Christians at their word, in this case particularly Christians, that Jesus was predicted in the previous scriptures.

So in principle I have no objection to Jesus being predicted, but as we look at the predictions in some great detail, we might see that they do not quite measure up to actual predictions of Jesus.

But let's look at that after I finish my yes part.

Still dealing with my yes answer to that question, I would be willing to grant that Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18 does speak of Jesus.

But in a particular sense. Let me explain. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary explains that that verse which speaks about a prophet to come after Moses, actually though given in the singular, actually means plural prophets.

And the author of the New Jerome Biblical Commentary commenting on Deuteronomy has his own way of explaining that, looking at the grammar of the

Hebrew. But the same point is captured by William Montgomery Watt in a citation I'll just read before you.

He writes in his book on the

Muslim and Christian perceptions, that the prophecy is in fact plural, and in that sense it would refer not only to Jesus, but also to the

Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace. In other words, there's going to be a series of prophets coming after Moses, not just one prophet, otherwise people might have looked to Joshua, and there have been so many prophets over time.

Why not one of those prophets? But if you think of a series of prophets to come after Moses, and it makes sense, Moses is leaving, but people will not be left without guidance.

God will continue to send prophets to people over time. In that case, we can include the

Prophet Jesus, especially for some of the good reasons that James has mentioned. It does seem that this is a prophecy about an

Israelite prophet, and Jesus was an Israelite prophet. I don't, for this part of my debate, wish to dispute that it is an

Israelite prophecy. I'll come more to that in my second part, where I will try to apply the same prophecy to the

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. But I won't do that yet. But for this part of the debate, I want to comment on that small point that James has raised.

Obviously we have here the Old Testament, which was written by Israelites. And notice what happens.

Let me tell you a story. A woman is giving birth, and she has twins to deliver.

One of the babies sticks his hand out, and the midwife immediately ties a string around the wrist to identify this as the first born.

But while he was drawing his hand back in, his brother rushed out ahead of him. Now we all know that babies don't rush out like this.

I mean, I've waited for my four children to be born with my wife in the delivery room. They don't come out quickly,

I tell you. Now this story is the story of Tamar and the birth of her two sons.

And the story can be read in Genesis chapter 38 towards the end. Now what is the story doing here?

According to the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Harper's Commentary on the Bible, you can check several commentaries on this to see what the story is there doing.

The story is for the purpose of explaining how did the younger son, not the firstborn, become so prominent?

It turns out that this younger son is the forefather of David. So he's prominent.

Now the storytellers have to deal with this as a problem. First, it's no problem. Doesn't matter whether God favored the firstborn or the secondborn or whoever rises to greatness due to circumstances much of which we do not control.

But the storytellers want to explain why not the firstborn but the younger brother rose to prominence.

Of course, the story is written by his descendants. And so even though we have the other brother who is recognized with the string on his hand to be the firstborn son, nevertheless, somehow he touched the finishing line but his brother went all the way past it before he could get there.

So that's the story. The story becomes clearer when we look at the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis chapter 27.

Now the mother is told by God that there are two nations struggling within her. The babies are already fighting.

See, the storytellers observed that the nations are at war with each other. The descendants of Jacob, the descendants of Esau.

And they project that fact back to the womb of the mother. And now eventually, the one child is born.

Esau comes out first. He's the firstborn. But then Jacob comes out immediately after him grasping the heel of his brother.

You must imagine that the midwife is there. She pulls out one baby and the second baby pops out hanging onto the heel of his brother.

The storytellers here have to deal with the fact that Esau is the firstborn but they are the descendants of Jacob. And Jacob must rise to prominence in their world.

The firstborn has that automatic prominence but they must construct a story to prove that Jacob deserves it.

And of course, they have an elaborate story about how Esau sells his birthright to Jacob. How Jacob tricks

Esau into getting the blessing from his father. And you must imagine that God is complicit with this because a blessing would be of no effect pronounced by the father unless the father in heaven is really giving the effects of this blessing.

So through Jacob's trickery he gets the blessing that should have gone to his firstborn son.

So the Bible says God loved Jacob but hated Esau. Why would he do a thing like that?

It's not God who hated Esau. It's the writers of the story. And of course, the storytellers before the written phase who wanted to construct a narrative to promote

Jacob and to demote Esau. Well, the relevance of that story from my point becomes more clear now when we turn back a few pages of Genesis and we look at Genesis chapter 16 for the story of Ishmael and his brother

Isaac. Ishmael is by far the firstborn son, 14 years older than his brother so we have no struggling in the womb here of the mother but we have the struggling between the two mothers.

Sarah is jealous and she says, cast out that bond woman and her son so that the son should not inherit with my son.

And then Abraham is told by God that he should listen to his wife and do exactly as told. And so he casts out the woman and her child leaving them in the wilderness to perish.

Now is this cruelty to be credited to Sarah and Abraham and to God or to the storytellers who wanted to promote their forefather

Isaac above Ishmael the other? And so you see my point then that when the narratives tell us that this is an

Israelite book that this is the book that comes from the God of the Israelites, the

God of the Hebrews and that the king should be from the Hebrews or we can understand the king being from his own people otherwise perhaps he might not command any respect.

But if we are thinking about the blessing of guidance that comes from God that blessing can come to anyone whether an

Israelite or an un -Israelite an Arab, an un -Arab, a Canadian, a Briton anyone can receive the blessings from God.

Why would we want to confine the guidance from God only to the Israelite people? In fact,

Muslims understand that God's guidance has been offered to every people everywhere for all time and we should understand that his blessings of guidance continue to people of all time.

There are people who haven't heard about Jesus. There are people who died before Jesus was born. So we must understand that the world is larger than the world that was imagined by the storytellers who constructed the narratives that we now find in the

Hebrew Bible. So when we come back later on to look at Deuteronomy 18, 18 as a possible reference to the prophet

Muhammad in whom be peace we should bear in mind that while I'm granting now that there is good reason for applying this to the prophet

Jesus that is my yes part of the answer. Deuteronomy 18, 18 just seemed to refer to a number of prophets including and why not the prophet

Jesus especially since he was an Israelite and the text explicitly says that this is going to be from one of the brethren of the

Israelites. But then the no part of my answer and I don't enjoy doing this the no part because who likes negativity anyway but the demands of the debate on me is that I should approach that aspect of the question as well.

Well Deuteronomy 18, 18 doesn't stop at 18. It continues to tell us how do we recognize a false prophet?

What if somebody claims to speak on behalf of God but he doesn't actually speak on behalf of God. Now as a

Muslim this doesn't even occur as a question. Jesus couldn't be a false prophet not for a Muslim because Muslims believe on the strength of the

Quran that Jesus is a true prophet of God but the demands of the debate on me tonight is that I should approach this question.

Certainly when James will speak of the prophet Muhammad he will approach it from that angle as well. Is it possible that the prophet

Muhammad is a false prophet and he will offer his evidence for that position? Well that text in Deuteronomy actually does say that if a prophet pretends to speak something in the name of God and then that turns out not to happen the way he predicted well then that is a false prophet and he should be rejected.

Is there any such thing happened in the case of Jesus? Well let me mention just some minor points and then something major.

Well as for minor points I mean this may seem like I don't know like just picking holes or something like that but I should mention it for the sake of completeness.

We all know the prediction before the cock crows Peter will deny Jesus three times so it is in the Gospel according to John but Mark's Gospel has it before the cock crows twice he will deny me three times.

So the cock crows and he denies but of course by the second time he is denied three times.

This means that the prophecy as given in the Gospel according to John did not actually occur.

Well we might say that must be the mistake of John. But let's look at something else which is more form.

Matthew chapter 12 verse number 40 has Jesus say that as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights so shall the son of man be in the belly of the earth three days and three nights.

And we all know that that did not occur because according to the reports he must have been crucified on the

Friday and then by Sunday morning his tomb was empty so he was there probably a couple of parts of two days and one night.

So that prediction failed and the Abingdon Bible commentary does actually say specifically and very clearly that the statement is inaccurate.

But the Abingdon Bible commentary will probably want to credit that to Matthew as the writer of the

Gospel or the storytellers before Matthew actually got that. But there's something very major and most scholars today actually believe that Jesus actually himself failed in this respect.

Not Muslim scholars but non -Muslim and even Christian scholars. For example E .P. Sanders in his very important book

The Historical Figure of Jesus tells us on page 180 that the history of these adjustments he's talking about it'll become clear what adjustments he means.

The history of these adjustments to the view that God would do something dramatic while Jesus' contemporaries were still alive is fairly easy to reconstruct.

Jesus originally said that the son of man would come in the immediate future. While his hearers were alive.

After his death and resurrection his followers preached that he would return immediately. That is they simply interpreted the son of man as referring to Jesus himself.

Then when people started dying they said that some would still be alive. When almost the entire first generation was dead they maintained that one disciple would still be alive.

Then he died and it became necessary to claim that Jesus had not actually promised even this one disciple that he would live to see the great day.

And for this one disciple story you can refer to John chapter 21. John Bowden in his book Jesus the

Unanswered Questions on page 115 says in concluding his discussion on this point it is hard to dispute that on this central issue

Jesus' expectations were not fulfilled. Now if we are to look at this question on technical grounds one would have to say that according to the criterion given in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 18

Jesus would qualify as a false prophet. In that case we could not use any prediction from the

Old Testament as a prediction of Jesus because he's already automatically disqualified.

Of course as a Muslim I would maintain that Jesus is a true prophet but for the purposes of this debate

I have to offer this material. Second, still part of my no answer question is is

Jesus the true Messiah of God? Certainly the New Testament insists that he is and I don't want to be disrespectful to the faith of my

Christian friends here but again isn't the Messiah supposed to be the son of David?

And isn't Jesus born of a virgin according to the New Testament? In that case the genealogies which are constructed to show that he was born of David in fact do not make the grade because in that case he would not be from the seed of David as the prediction seems to require.

So he seems to fail on that score. Luke has it nicely by saying Jesus was, as was supposed, the son of Joseph and who was the son of Eli and so on.

But then if he was only supposedly the son of Joseph then he's only supposedly the son of David not actually, not reality, not in fact and in that case he fails to be the

Messiah son of David. Moreover in Matthew's genealogy the name

Jeconiah is mentioned as one of the ancestors of Jesus. See Matthew chapter 1 verse 11.

But Jeconiah according to Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 30 in the Bible should be written down as childless by God's express decree and God says that his descendants will not be able to sit on the throne of David.

So we have it here that Jesus seems not to qualify for according to his ancestry to be the true

Messiah. James spoke about the crucifixion of Jesus but actually when one looks at what the

Messiah was supposed to be and to do the crucifixion actually shows that he failed. I know it's the resurrection that proves that he succeeded.

It's by the resurrection from the dead that Jesus is proven to be victorious by the help of God. But for most of us we are still in the phase of the doubting

Thomas because we have not seen any evidence that Jesus actually resurrected from the dead. It was only after Thomas put his finger in the wound that he could convince himself that this was true.

Why this tremendous doubt? Because as Dr. William Dayne Craig explains in many of his debates and as Josh McDowell explains in his book

More Than a Carpenter a dead Messiah is a false Messiah. If one is crucified by the

Roman government instead of sitting on the Roman throne taking it over to establish the kingdom of God then he has actually failed.

Through all eyes he is a false Messiah. That was the whole point. The Jews wanted to crucify him to prove that he's false.

And if they did succeed well then they have proven that he is false. And of course he came and proved himself to his disciples and his disciples know that he's true according to the story.

But we are not eyewitnesses to the same story. So we don't know that he actually resurrected from the dead.

Or you might know it but we have no way of proving it to one who doesn't already seem to know it. In that case from the perspective from which

I stand if I'm a Muslim I would believe that Jesus is a true prophet and the true Messiah of God.

But if I am to lay aside my Muslim priest oppositions for the moment and look at the no part of the answer that no part is also very clear.

That Jesus by his false prediction of his second coming in particular has disqualified himself to be a true prophet and by his crucifixion in public he has actually again proven himself or he has been proved to be the false

Messiah. And in that case how could we actually use any predictions from the

Old Testament to say that this is a prediction about a true prophet Jesus. Finally we should look at the passages that James has cited and others in the

New Testament which say that these are passages in which Jesus fulfills an