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Continuation of my response to Mujtahid2006.
Now, I'd have to ask, does our Islamic presenter understand why Gnostics did not believe Jesus was crucified? More than once made reference to this idea that there are these people who didn't believe Jesus was crucified.
Well, why didn't Gnostics? Is it not relevant that when a religious group clearly outside the realm of the Jewish background of the life and ministry of Jesus, denies Jesus even had a physical body, that their denial of crucifixion is very obviously motivated not by any connection to history at all, but by a false religious motivation?
And since Muslims, and I would assume our video presenter here, since Muslims plainly believe that Jesus had a physical body, what relevance on an argumentation level can there be to Gnostic denials thereof?
You would have to reject the Gnostics, would you not? And their denial that Jesus had a physical body? So why then, they deny Jesus has a physical body, and then as a result of that they deny the crucifixion.
You too deny the crucifixion due to 40 Arabic words, and that's it. But you don't deny the crucifixion for the same reason that the Gnostics did. So why appeal to the Gnostics, as if this is relevant to your argumentation?
I really don't understand. I'd like to know why people keep making reference to sources that, if the sources are true, then you're wrong too. So why are you making reference to that source, without qualifying it, without providing some reason why this is relevant?
I'd really like to understand this, because I don't understand it. I do not understand why Muslims use these kinds of arguments that are in fact self-refuting and self-defeating. It seems to me that most of them don't understand that they're self-refuting and self-defeating.
And since I try to avoid, as best I can, as a fallible human being, using self-refuting arguments against you, why don't you do the same thing in reverse? That seems to be one of the questions that I really do have.
Paul and John, you said Paul was clearly writing against people. For example, you seem to indicate at one point that Paul was arguing against people who had denied the crucifixion. I don't know who you're referring to there.
I don't know what you're referring to there. Where does Paul ever say he is writing against people who are denying the crucifixion? He does write against Gnostics, proto-Gnostics anyways, and Colossians, and certainly John does as well.
They both refuted early attempts by proto-Gnostics to join the Christian proclamation with the Gnostic pagan worldview, just as early Muslims rejected the mixture of Tawheed and any form of polytheism, did they not?
And does it follow that since both religions from the beginning had to guard the faith, that neither of them actually possesses the faith they have been guarding? Since when did conflict mean there is no truth?
Now I hear this all the time from people like Bart Ehrman and those who follow after him rather slavishly. This radical skepticism that, and it's really a postmodern thing, a lot of postmodernists like this idea that, well, since there's been dispute, then we really can't know what the truth is, and since there's so many different opinions, we just can't know what the truth is.
This kind of skepticism is inherent in postmodernism, but it would not be inherent in Islam. So why utilize it and project it upon me? I don't understand that. You clearly have been reading a lot of Bart Ehrman, or at least people similar to Bart Ehrman.
You use the term Christian community, the early Christian community, and like Ehrman you use that term for those who specifically deny the fundamental assertions that even you as a Muslim must believe were part of the earliest Christian beliefs.
So why call it a Christian community? I mean, why include polytheists in the Christian community when at least you have to admit we've always said we are monotheists. You may say that we're not. We can argue that point and I think be very victorious on that point.
But again, why include Gnostics in this? Would you consistently identify as the early Muslim community? Every offshoot group, every offbeat cult or schism or prophet, as long as they make some kind of reference to Muhammad or to the Qur 'an?
Look at all the different groups that exist, especially in Iraq and places like that today, that make reference to the Qur 'an, make reference to Muhammad, do you consider them all to be Muslims? Of course you don't.
So why make me accountable for every offbeat group that use the name Jesus, even when their beliefs are so clearly impossibly to be attributed to Jesus and the original disciples? Why hold me accountable for them and use them as ammunition against me when you won't do the same thing?
Again, looking for a little consistency here in that. And then, I got to admit, the comparison with the Rastafarians, well, you know, they were already worshiping Haile Selassie, seems really far-fetched to me.
It is the Islamic claim that the original followers of Jesus did not view him as the son of God. Yet, the sources that are not Gnostic, that are first century, that are consistently Jewish and representative of the religious milieu of the first century and around Jerusalem, all testify to the early belief in Jesus as deity.
This testimony is continued in the early extant writings after the New Testament as well, for example, especially the letters of Ignatius. Now, if Haile Selassie were being worshipped by monotheistic Jews who were claiming that they were being consistent with the Shema, rather than crowds of ganja-smoking, chalice-drinking followers under the influence of various hallucinogens, a parallel might exist.
But no parallel does exist when you just sort of factor that reality in. Further, Jesus in the New Testament accepted the worship of his followers. Upon what logical basis do you reject this ancient testimony?
Without engaging in Islamic anachronistic eisegesis, taking the Quran and reading back, upon what basis do you reject the testimony that Jesus did, in fact, accept the worship of those early followers?
You then asserted that the Catholic Church got rid of these other Gospels. I remind you that from a historical perspective, the entire Roman Empire tried to get rid of the Christian scriptures for about 250 years, almost three centuries.
And they failed. Isn't it more likely that the reason that these texts are so rare is that they represent but a small minority and never gained any kind of wide popularity at all? I mean, we have New Testament manuscripts from that period of persecution, even when the Roman Empire was trying to destroy the Christian Church.
And that was a period of time when the Christian Church had no power or ability to be wiping out somebody else's manuscripts. So why are so few found in that same time period? I think it's a historical issue you might want to give some consideration to.
You also mentioned Codex Alexandrinus. You only mentioned it in passing, but you mentioned it in the midst of the Gospel of Thomas and things like that. And the problem I have is, what does Codex Alexandrinus, which is a document I've seen in the British Library myself, what do you allege that it contains that's counter to the Christian faith?
I didn't understand that, and that certainly caught my attention. I found that to be very, very interesting. You claim that the Church arbitrarily picked the canon. I'm sorry, this is simply untrue. There is no, I think you're specifically speaking of the Gospels, and so there is no other Gospel whatsoever that has any kind of meaningful claim to originate in the first century and to come from a consistent Second Temple Judaism as its background.
None. Thomas surely does not fall into that in any way, shape, or form. It's clearly tainted with a form of Gnosticism that does not arise until 130 or 140, the middle of the second century. And so none of the Gospels that you've mentioned have that kind of pedigree that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have.
None of them. So upon what basis do you say that they were arbitrarily picked? Did Zaid arbitrarily pick the surahs of the Quran? If not, why not? And are you applying the same standards in answering that question as you are applying to this claim of arbitrariness on the part of the New Testament canon as well?
Now when you start talking about Roman Catholic claims and the magisterium and stuff, you're really talking to the wrong guy. I would suggest you take a look at the past few decades of work that I have done in apologetics, including, for example, multi-hour debates, a number of them, with the leading Roman Catholic apologists at places like Boston College on these very issues.
And I really think that the utilization of that kind of argumentation isn't going to get you very far in this context.