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Our praises for Allah, peace and blessings be upon his last and final messenger, upon his family, his companions and all those who follow him up until the day of resurrection. First of all I want to give everybody a hearty welcome, I want to welcome everybody, I want to apologize for the delay and also apologize to the people who are standing as well, as you can see we are full to capacity here.
So just a few announcements, first of all I want to welcome Dr. James White here to Birmingham and also Brother Zakir Hussain as well, both of them are prolific speakers who have participated in many high profile debates as well so we give them both a hearty welcome.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
They crucify him. But the resemblance of Isa was put over another man, and they killed that man. And those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture, for surely they killed him and not Jesus, the son of Mary.
But Allah raised him with his body and his soul unto himself, and Allah is all-powerful, all-wise. And there is none of the people of the scripture, but they must believe in him, Jesus, the son of Mary, as only a messenger of Allah and a human being.
And on the day of resurrection he will be a witness against them.
The words of the Prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 53. Who has believed our message, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we consider him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
And so he did not open his mouth, but oppressed and judged he was taken away, yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave of the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord who will crush him and cause him to suffer, and the Lord makes his life an offering for sin.
He will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge. His righteous servants will justify the many and bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion of the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong. Because he has poured out his life unto death and numbered the transgressors, for he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
Well, good evening to everyone. I hope you don't mind if I stand. If I sit, I figure I'm lecturing in a lecture hall, and you all need to be taking notes and have a final exam to be preparing for or something like that.
It's good to be with you. It's great to see such a big crowd. We have people standing around outside. It's good to see a good mixture of folks. I hope afterwards there will be some good conversations between the Christians and the Muslims who have gathered here this evening.
I hope you didn't come to see some kind of prize fight. I have no interest in trying to go for a knockout blow or anything along these lines. We are here to talk about very important things, and I am convinced that the attitude that you bring to these issues represents how much you actually honor the topics that are being discussed.
And so I think there is a way in which these things should be discussed with one another. We do not believe the same things, Christians and Muslims, on this subject. We cannot because of 40 Arabic words in your scriptures and because of many, many Greek words and Hebrew words in our scriptures.
We believe different things, and this is the heart of where our difference lies as to what Jesus Christ did, what he accomplished, and what took place, especially in regards to the cross of Calvary, therefore the resurrection, et cetera, et cetera.
But this subject must be addressed, I believe, in a respectful fashion by everyone, and I hope that's what we will have taking place this evening. It is an honor to be invited here, and I am very thankful to have this opportunity to be with you.
I would say that the Christian faith is centered upon the cross of Jesus Christ. We do not worship the cross. We worship the one who made us, and we believe that in the person of his son, he entered into human existence as the person of Jesus Christ who voluntarily gave himself upon Calvary's tree.
And hence the apostle Paul could say in Galatians chapter 6, may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
As a Christian each and every day, I interact with the world around me as a person who has died with Christ. The Bible teaches that I've been united with him, and therefore if I'm united with him in his death, therefore his burial, his resurrection, the new life that I have is because of what Jesus Christ has accomplished.
And so the cross is an everyday reality to the believing Christian. Notice I said the believing Christian. We know that there are Muslims who are Muslims in name only. They don't really pray the prayers.
They don't really believe things. There are Christians who are Christians in name only, just cultural Christians. Tonight we're having a conversation between believing Muslims and believing Christians, people who really believe that what we confess and what we profess is true.
And for a believing Christian, every day is the reality of the cross of Jesus Christ. So this is an extremely important issue. Now, all the way back to the period of the early church, we have testimony concerning the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Around AD 107 to 108, we have the testimony of Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, and he says, I glorify Jesus Christ. Please notice his language, by the way. This is some of the earliest writing outside the New Testament.
I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise, for I saw that you were established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ in both body and spirit, and firmly established in love by the blood of Christ, totally convinced with regard to our Lord that he is truly of the family of David with respect to human descent, son of God with respect to the divine will and power, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch, from its fruit 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.
This is written by the first generation after the time of the apostles. Very high theology, the deity of Christ, the crucifixion, the resurrection, our union with him, all the theology that makes the Christian faith what the Christian faith is, found in Ignatius, writing in that very next generation.
The idea that this is something that developed at a later time, very easily refuted by an honest examination of the earliest materials that we have in regards to this subject. 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 for almost any person in ancient history. 99 .9999 of all human beings who died in that era and all the way up to the modern period, we don't know how they died, we don't know when they died, we don't know the means by which they died, but we do know those facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
This is something that has come down to us with great clarity. Every documentable source that can be meaningfully placed in the first 100 years after Jesus' death, that is up to about AD 130, says the exact same thing.
Jesus of Nazareth died upon a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem. The sources that testify to this include the aforementioned Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred around AD 107 to 108. The epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, dated as early as AD 95 in some sources, clearly makes reference to the common belief of Christians in the death of Jesus Christ.
For example, in verse 49 of that epistle, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in accordance with God's will, gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives. Another early Christian leader, a man by the name of Polycarp, makes reference to the death of Christ in his letters as well.
He is dated concurrently with Ignatius and Clement. Josephus makes reference to Jesus in Antiquities 28, 63 through 64, and it is highly unlikely that the portion about Jesus' death is a later Christian interpolation.
Some people argue that some other portions of Josephus' words might be a later interpolation, but not in regards to his death, and that's from around AD 85 in the first century. The Roman historian 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.
Notice the historical reality of the crucifixion. You know who was in charge, Pontius Pilate, Herod the Tetrarch. This is something Ignatius mentions. This is something Tacitus mentions. This is not how myths and fables are presented to us.
This is something that took place in history. There simply is no evidence of conflict or confusion on the matter of Jesus' death by crucifixion in any of these sources. In fact, John Dominic Crossan, the co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, a man way, way, way to my left, says these words.
He says that he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be since both Josephus and Tacitus agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact. Now, you need to understand, Crossan is about as much of a skeptic as you can get.
He's a great guy. He's a really nice guy. I've told him that he's my favorite heretic, and so he accepts that. But he's as far away from my position into liberalism as you could possibly go. And yet, even from his perspective, this is a certainty in regards to Jesus' life.
And of course, another individual that I've also debated, Bart Ehrman, says one of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
And again, Ehrman is not a Christian. He is a former Christian. That makes him an apostate. But he is probably the best-known English-speaking critic of the Christian faith around. And he says one of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified.
Of course, the most important witness to the crucifixion of Jesus is to be found in the multiple witnesses comprising what is called the New Testament. 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 from the time of the death of Jesus.
The testimony included in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 5, provides an ancient creedal statement of the church, which includes the direct assertion of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
These words predate Paul's use of them by a number of years, placing them in the most primitive possible timeframe, some believe within 18 months of the actual events themselves. These are not things that developed over time as people were trying to make things up.
This is as primitive as you can go. The Pauline Corpus of Writings presents to us firm, contextual, historical witness to the belief of the crucifixion of Jesus dating to as early as A .D. 48. 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 the day.
If anybody tried to make up a religion that would be popular in the Roman Empire, this was not the way to do it. Crucifixion was repulsive to people. There were certain people who wouldn't even use the term.
They considered it almost off-color because it was such a horrific way to die. We'll have more to say about that later on. There is no compelling reason outside of embracing naturalistic principles. To date, the gospel is as late as most modern scholars do.
Strong internal arguments can be presented for a pre-A .D. 70 date for the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And if in fact Luke Acts was meant to be an amicus brief for Paul's trial, this would put Mark, if it was written earlier, into the mid -40s.
That's very, very, very early. Theologically, the crucifixion is central and definitional to the entirety of the proclamation of the gospel. What were Christians doing all those years? They were proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is the self-giving of God in his son, the reality of his wrath, the necessity of atonement, the perfection of the God-man's work as high priest, as sacrifice, and as mediator that forms the very bedrock of the Christian message itself from the very beginning in the earliest sources.
Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, yet repeatedly Jesus himself spoke of his impending death at the hands of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. For example, in Mark chapter 8, verses 31 through 32, and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again, and he was stating the matter openly.
Gospel of Mark, considered by many to be the earliest, very clearly, this is Jesus teaching that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed, and after three days rise again. In fact, Jesus said it was necessary that this take place.
In Luke chapter 22, for I tell you that this which is written must be the Greek term there is di, which means it is necessary, fulfilled in me, and then he quotes from Isaiah chapter 53, and he was numbered with transgressors, for that which refers to me has its fulfillment.
Jesus says Isaiah 53 is about him. That is his teaching. In fact, that tremendous text, which we heard read in Isaiah 53, is cited by Peter, Paul, Luke, Matthew, and Mark, all having its fulfillment in Jesus' death by crucifixion.
There is no question the earliest New Testament traditions focus upon the cross as a prophetic fulfillment. Let me remind you of the last portion of what was read to us, the last two verses. As a result, the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied.
By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will what? Justify, make righteous the many, as how will he do that? He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, he will divide the booty with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors.
These words were written 700 years before the birth of Christ. 700 years before the birth of Christ. In whom are they fulfilled? They are fulfilled in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Psalm 22, we have these words. For 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.
So clear are the prophetic words that modern liberals like to say, well, obviously the New Testament writers are just ransacking the Old Testament, making this whole story up. So clear are these prophetic words.
Now, we as Christians and Muslims, you can't join with the liberals and question the existence of prophecy, not if you're going to continue to believe that Muhammad is prophesied in the New Testament, can you?
You have to accept the reality of prophecy, and it is found right here in regards to the subject of this evening. Hence, we have a unanimous witness to the crucifixion from every relevant source within the first century of the time of Christ's death.
Remember, the majority of what Muslims believe about Muhammad has no literary testimony until, well, after 100 years after his death. So is the Muslim consistent in his application of standards at this point?
I just used the term consistent. Who won the game? I'm not sure, but I just used the term consistent. Everyone was expecting me to use that term, so there you go. There's someone out there named Ejaz that's very happy right now.
Now, the real reason that we're here this evening is because of 40 Arabic words written 600 years after the events of Christ's life. That's why we're here this evening. We're not here because of any of the historical information.
We're here because of these words, which were read to you in Arabic, and then a very interesting translation used, which maybe we'll get to discuss, was provided in English. Surah 4, 157, that they said in boast, we killed Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah, but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not.
This is why we are here this evening, these 40 Arabic words. The next verse says, Nay, Allah raised him up, Rafahoo, unto himself, and Allah is exalted in power and wise. So, the problem is that there is no authentic interpretation of this one ayah to be found in the Hadith literature.
There are numerous other ayat of the Quran that are interpreted within the Hadith literature. This is not one of them. As a text, it stands alone. It stands without context. In fact, if we were to read other texts in the Quran, such as Surah 355 in 1933, it would naturally be referring to the death of Jesus.
We have some questions about the text. What Jewish person would ever call Jesus the Messiah? What does it mean it was made to appear to them? Shabihallah. What does that mean? The translation that was used in the reading beforehand said his appearance was put on somebody else.
Well, that's a real stretch. That's an interpretive interpretation. It simply means it was made to appear to them. Well, what does that mean? Many Muslims believe he was made to look like someone else.
Well, there are many other Muslims that don't see it in that way. Appear to whom? To the Jews? To the Romans? To everybody? It doesn't say. We can't tell. It is not clear. As I said, both Surah 355 and 1933, both speak of Jesus' death, as long as you translate them correctly.
Surah 1933 is parallel to Surah 1915. Look at the Arabic there. And the words in Surah 1915 are applied to John the Baptist, who surely died. Because if you don't remember, how did John the Baptist die according to the Bible?
He was beheaded. I can assure you that is a very effective means of bringing about death. There isn't any question about John the Baptist's death, yet the very same words are used of Jesus. Forty Arabic words written 625 years after the ministry of Jesus, in a different culture, 765 miles from Jerusalem, no first-hand contact, in a completely different language.
And what we're being asked is to take all the united testimony of everything from the first century, of all the apostles of Jesus, the original followers of Jesus, the next generation after Jesus, the secular historians.
We are supposed to abandon the consistency of the fact that Romans, especially in Judea, had been using crucifixion a great deal at this point in history. All of the historical sources confirm that they were utilizing this as a method of seeking to control the people.
And so we have the consistency of who was in control, what was going on at that time, the history is right, the names are right, the dates are right, the times are right, and all the sources say the exact same thing.
And yet we have 40 Arabic words from 600 years later, upon which all of that is to be dismissed. You can see why, as Christians, we truly have a problem with that. So the unanimous testimony of the relevant historical sources from the first century after Jesus, all testify to his crucifixion in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate.
Both secular and religious sources testify to this fact in numerous ways. Non-historical Gnostic gospels and movements in the 2nd and 3rd centuries deny the crucifixion for purely theological and mystical reasons, as we may need to get into.
I'm not sure what Zacher's position is going to be. And as such, those, if we do hear them raised, are utterly irrelevant to any serious truthful examination of the issue. Jesus and all his apostles not only taught about the crucifixion, the entire message of the Christian faith and of the prophetic witness that testified to him as the Messiah is bound up in this single redemptive act culminating in his resurrection from the dead.
And so here's what I want to communicate this evening to all of us. We can have meaningful discussion. I've heard various objections. Well, you know, maybe some of the Gnostics did have some historical foundation, what they were saying, or, you know, what about the possibility maybe we could see some difference in approach between the synoptic gospels or something and all that kind of stuff.
We can talk about those things, but let's just make sure that both sides understand what's being discussed this evening. As a Christian, I want the Muslims to understand what you're asking me to do. You're asking me to believe that someone can come along over half a millennium after the founding of my faith, who had no contact with the original founders of my faith, did not speak the languages of the founders of my faith, and had no firsthand knowledge of the writings of my faith, and with only 40 words overthrow the centrality of the historical core of my faith.
That's what you're asking of me. And I've always asked my Muslim friends, put yourself in my shoes. If someone comes along 600 years after Muhammad, not knowing Arabic, not knowing the Quran, living somewhere in France, and says that the mirage in Israel never took place, that you should not be reading the Quran, it was not sent down from God, and I say this because I'm a prophet.
Now, that's exactly the situation that you would be in, that you're asking us to put ourselves in, when you deny with only 40 Arabic words, and they are unclear. We don't know exactly what they mean or what they're saying.
Could it just be saying that the Jews didn't do it, the Romans did? That is a possibility, grammatically speaking. And since there is no authentic Hadith narration of interpretation of this text, who is to say?
That's why there have been many interpretations down through history. And so this is the issue that we are facing this evening. Now, as a Christian, let me say to my Muslim friends, you need to understand something.
Many of you will say, well, you know, Christians are cross-worshippers. Well, I imagine you've probably seen some people bowing down before crosses and things like that, and doing things that they should not do, in a lack of purity of worship.
I get it. But you need to understand why the cross is so central. Not that we worship the cross, the cross itself is an instrument by which Jesus voluntarily gave his life. What you need to understand, I hear what the Quran is saying.
If you look carefully at the Quran, look at the other places where crucifixion is mentioned. I think for the author of the Quran, Jesus could not have been crucified, because the only people who are crucified are bad, evil opposers of God, and Allah would not allow one of his prophets to die in that way.
I think that was the primary argument that was being made there. I get it. I hear it. What's the response to that? To understand what the author of the Quran never heard, and those were the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
No one takes my life from me. I give it of my own accord. Jesus voluntarily gives his life. It is the purpose of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, to glorify themselves in this specific manner.
It's freely done, out of his great condescension to us. You see, when we look at the cross, my friends, what we see, first of all, is the holiness of God. God's law demands that sin be punished. God cannot simply allow his law, which represents his own nature, to be broken and trampled upon.
So, that sin must be punished. And yet, he desires to redeem a people, not because of anything in and of themselves, but because of his own goodness, kindness, mercy, and love. How is he going to do that?
Well, he gave us sort of pictures of it in the Old Testament, but it only comes to fruition when Jesus Christ, according to John 1 .14, the Word made flesh, entered into human flesh. He lived a perfect life.
He was obedient to the Father in all things. And then he voluntarily, he said, it's necessary that I go to Jerusalem. I must go. And he did. And what we see on the cross is God's power. The world sees weakness.
The world sees Rome crushing a small man. We see the one who made the very wood of the tree upon which he has been nailed, controlling that power, so as to bring about the greatest good that mankind has ever seen, the redemption of a people in and through his work.
That's what we see when we see the cross. And that's why we boast in it. And that's why we're here this evening. You don't believe that. We want you to. You want us to stop believing that. That's what we're talking about this evening.
No one's hiding anything. We're putting all our cards on the table, so to speak. That's the subject this evening. I thank you for being here. Thank you very much.
Ready to go? I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise to Allah, the one true God of Abraham, on whom be peace, who, I testify, has not only begotten sons, the only true creator of the worlds.
May he shower his blessings on all the prophets, especially the last and final messenger, Muhammad al-Mustafa, on whom be peace. May he continuously give us the means to defend the true status of the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, on whom be peace.
And may he guide us and keep us all on the straight path. I would firstly like to thank the brothers who organized this debate, especially Brother Tasneef, who worked very hard behind the scene, and also the brother for moderating.
I would like to give a special thanks to Dr. White for agreeing to grace us with his presence. I would also like to thank all of you for attending. The topic of today's discussion is, Was Jesus Crucified?
Why is this topic so important? This topic is important because of the fact that when the Qur 'an denies such a thing, it is in fact denying the very heart and foundation of mainstream Christianity, the claim that God had to die for the sins of the world.
Also, if the Qur 'an is denying that Jesus died, then by default it is also denying that Jesus resurrected, which is also one of the most important beliefs of mainstream Christianity. I will get to what the Qur 'an has to say on this topic towards the end of this opening statement, but first I would like to go back, and I mean way back.
There is a story recorded in the Torah that I believe may be the key to unlocking the answer to the question of whether Jesus died on a cross or not. This story has been seen through the centuries by Christian scholars and theologians as a key foreshadowing of the event of the crucifixion.
This story is known by the Jews as the Akheda, or in other words, the sacrifice of the only begotten son of Abraham. In this story, Christians maintain that there is imagery of the father sacrificing his only begotten son.
Interestingly enough, this story actually proves the opposite of what the Christians claim. Next slide. If in this prophecy Abraham represents the father and his only begotten son represents Jesus, then this means that Jesus was saved from being killed, as in the story God provided a ram with his horns locked in the thickets in the place of Isaac on whom be peace, who according to another way of reading the Hebrew is called the lamb.
If Isaac represents Jesus in this prophecy, then who was the ram that God substituted to be killed in the place of the only begotten son at the last minute? We will get to the answer very soon. Interestingly, although the only begotten son does not die in the story of the sacrifice, but instead has a near brush with death and is saved, the Israelites spoke of the story in the sense of having death and resurrection and atonement.
Next slide. The rabbis teach that scripture credits Isaac with having died and his ashes having lain upon the altar. Another source of rabbinic material says,. So Jews understood that because Isaac was willing to be sacrificed, it was as if he literally was killed and resurrected and atoned for the sins of his descendants who looked to his example as a way to repent and live in a better way.
Here we see that Jesus was willing to submit to God no matter what was in store for him. When he was saved by God at the last minute, his disciples in the language of the Israelites, who speak of someone who survives dying by the skin of the teeth, spoke of Jesus as dying and resurrecting just like Isaac.
Also, just like the example of Isaac was seen as a metaphorical atonement for Israelites, in the same vein the disciples had seen the example of Jesus' metaphorical death as an example for them. This is confirmed by the theology of Luke, which does not promote vicarious atonement, but the theology of Jewish martyrs, where people who give their life for God cause other people to repent and thus these martyrs are seen as atoning for the sins of others.
Next slide. Now let us get to the question of how Jesus was saved. It is reported in the Gospels that Jesus prayed to be saved from the cup of crucifixion in Mark, Matthew and Luke. In Matthew 26, verse 39 it says,.
In this prayer, no less than three times did he ask God to be spared from being crucified, but yet as a true submitter to God, he left it in the hands of God by saying,. Muslims maintain that God had accepted the request of his beloved Messiah, as it is attributed to Jesus in John chapter 11 that God always accepts his prayers.
Next slide. Also, another passage in the New Testament confirms that Jesus' prayer was accepted by God. There were cries and pleadings with a loud cry and tears to the one who could rescue him from death and God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.
Raymond Brand in his monumental book entitled Death of the Messiah on page 228 mentions that Hebrews 5 -7 was an early Christian hymn with its wording clearly based on Psalms 116. Amazingly, when one goes to Psalms 116, one realizes that it is about someone who praises God for answering his prayers and delivering him from a close encounter with death.
Also, the name of the Messiah is foreshadowed in the Hebrew text. Muslims are not inconsistent. The same way we maintain that the name of the Seal of the Prophets is foreshadowed in Song of Songs chapter 5 verse 16 is the same way we see the name of the Messiah foreshadowed in the Psalms in numerous places.
Any Jewish follower of Jesus who believed that the prayer of Jesus was accepted, as Hebrews 5 -7 states, would easily connect it to Psalms 116 and would clearly see the name of the Messiah alluded to in the Psalms.
The name Yeshua is in the Hebrew text of Psalms 116 as well as multiple times in Psalms 91, a text that Jesus affirmed was about him in the temptation. Let me read some of the passages found in these Psalms.
I will be reciting key verses in these Psalms and will skip some due to time constraints. I would like everybody to pay attention to the Hebrew idioms that seem to sound like they are talking about somebody dying and resurrecting when in reality every single time it is speaking about somebody coming close to death but actually being saved from dying.
Also please remember that Jesus prayed to be saved from dying in the first place. Bear this in mind when I recite verses where the Psalms say God heard his prayers. Next slide. Psalms 116. I love the Lord because he heard my plea for mercy and listened to me.
As long as I live I will call to him when I need help. The ropes of death tightened around me. Verse 6 I was in serious trouble and he delivered me. Yehoshua is in the Hebrew. Verse 13 has the name Yeshua in it.
Any Jewish Christian who followed Jesus would see clear cut allusions to the name of the Messiah in the text. Verse 16. Yes Lord I am indeed your servant. I am your lowest slave. You saved me from death.
Next slide. Psalms 30. I will extol you oh Lord for you have drawn me up. This is about the ascension. And have not let my foes rejoice over me. Oh Lord my God I cry to you for help and you have healed me.
Oh Lord you brought up my soul from Shul. You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Next slide. To you oh Lord I cry and to the Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my blood?
Now Christians tell us that there is profit in the blood of Jesus atoned for the sins of the world. Yet this rhetorical question is implying there is no profit in the blood of Jesus. Psalms 86. Verse 6.
Give ear oh Lord to my prayer and give heed to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I shall call upon you God and Gethsemane. Verse 14. God arrogant men rise up against me. While a company of ruthless individuals want to kill me.
Verse 16. Turn to me and have mercy on me. Show your strength in behalf of your servant. Save me because I serve you just as my mother did. That's an allusion to his righteous mother Mary. Who the Quran describes as one who served Allah in the temple.
A female priestess. Next slide please. Psalms chapter 31 which is confirmed by the New Testament as messianic. In you Lord I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed because you are righteous. Deliver me.
Listen to me and deliver me quickly. Verse 4. Rescue me from the net that they conceal to trap me. For you are my strength. Rescue me from the traps of these enemies. Verse 8. You have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy.
A messianic psalm that the New Testament confirms. Which makes it clear that Jesus was not delivered into the hand of the enemy. Next slide. You may be wondering why am I quoting so many passages. But this is to emphasize what God foretold again and again regarding the beloved Messiah praying to him.
To be saved and how God will answer the prayer of Jesus and save him from the crucifixion. The prayer of the Messiah was not to die and then resurrect after two nights and one day. But to be saved from dying on the cross at the hands of his enemies in the first place.
Psalms 118 verse 5 I called on the Lord in my distress. The Lord answered me openly. Verse 17 I will not die. But I will live to recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord will discipline me severely. But he will not hand me over to die.
I will praise you because you have answered me and have become my deliverer. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is a messianic psalm. Which makes it explicit in verse 18 that he will not be handed over to die.
Next slide please. Psalm chapter 20 verse number 6. Which can be translated in a future tense. Now I know that the Lord saves his Messiah. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand.
Answer what? What did the Messiah pray for? To be saved from the cross in the first place. Please remember that. Psalm chapter 91 also confirmed by Jesus in the New Testament. Which confirms the substitution theory.
Verse number 8. You will only observe it with your eyes. And you will see how the wicked are paid back. For he will command these angels to protect you in all your ways. With their hands they will lift you up.
Ascension again. So you will not trip over the stone. You will stomp on lions and snakes. You will trample young lions and serpents. It is interesting how many early Christians believe that Jesus was watching somebody else being punished on the cross.
As verse 8 of Psalm 91 alludes to. And Luke mentions how angels came to strengthen Jesus straight after his prayer to be saved in Gethsemane. It is clear according to the Psalms that the enemies of the Messiah will hatch a plot to kill him.
And that he will pray to be saved. And although he will come close to dying. God will save him. Since this is what the prophecies foretell. Then this had to be what happened to Jesus. And if this is what happened to Jesus.
Then this had to be what his disciples were preaching. So if the disciples were saying that Jesus rose from the dead. Then it was clear that in an Israelite context. They were using metaphorical language regarding him coming close to death.
And being saved by God just like Isaac. Even prophet Jonah metaphorically referred to himself in a way. As if he was dead when he was actually alive in the belly of the fish. Next slide. Jesus had foretold that he would be just like Jonah was in the belly of the whale.
This saying is found in an early source of Jesus' sayings known as Q. Which some scholars date back to the very decade of Jesus' ascension. As even a Sunday school child knows that Jonah was alive and not dead.
When everybody may have thought he was dead. In the same way Jesus was clearly saying that he would be in the same state as Jonah. Which means Jesus was also alive when everyone thought he was dead. Matthew added the time factor of 3 days and 3 nights to the word of Jesus.
As it is a clear false prophecy attributed to Jesus. I would like for Dr. White to tell everyone here whether Jesus was alive like Jonah. Or not according to his own saying. And I would like Dr. White to explain how the time Jesus was allegedly in the tomb.
Adds up to 3 days and 3 nights. Now we know in history there were Christians who maintained that it was actually Simon the Cyrene who died on the cross and not Jesus. This view originates to the first Christian century.
And even predates the gospel of John. Which tried to respond to those Christians who believed in such a thing. The claim that Jesus was not on the cross is endorsed by the prophecies in the Psalms. Especially Psalms 91 which says he shall only see the punishment of the wicked.
Also another fact to support the claim that it was actually Simon who was on the cross and not Jesus. Is found in the synoptic gospels themselves. Let's read the following passages very carefully. And pay special attention to the pronouns.
Next slide. How long do I have? Mark chapter 15. Who is the him referring to in these passages? It is clearly referring to Simon the Cyrene. In fact this has not escaped the attention of Bible scholars.
Which is why in many English translations of the Bible. They add the name Jesus in the place of the pronoun him into the text. The question is why? It is because they know that people may read it in a way that seems like it was Simon the Cyrene who was actually crucified.
This is even confirmed by the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Which in the text says Jesus but in the footnote clarifies that the Greek says him. Next slide. Just in case anyone entertains doubt on whether it was Simon on the cross.
I have more proof that it was not Jesus on the cross. Number 1. In the gospels it is mentioned that Jesus was whipped by the Romans whilst having his clothes on. Anyone who studies Roman methods of whipping would know that the whipping was severe and truly barbaric.
Roman whipping was so bad that some people would die from the whipping alone. They would use the type of whips that were designed to rip people's skin off and expose their guts and veins etc. Next slide.
Now since Jesus was whipped with his clothes on. Then this means that his clothes would have been torn up and bloody to the point of being shredded up. Yet the person who was on the cross had clothes that were decent enough for the Roman soldiers to want to divide up between themselves and keep.
What would Roman soldiers do with clothes that were torn apart and filled with the blood and guts and veins of a Jewish man? Next slide. The fact that the clothes were in a decent condition shows that the person on the cross was not the same person who was whipped by the Romans earlier.
Next slide. Number 2. In Luke chapter 22 Jesus made a prophecy that he would not drink wine again until he is in the father's kingdom. Yet the person on the cross drank wine as confirmed in John chapter 19 verse 29.
So Christians have a dilemma. Either Jesus was on the cross and drank wine which would make Luke 22 a false prophecy. And thus would mean a false prophet died for the sins of the Christians. Or the person on the cross who drank the wine was not Jesus.
I'd let Dr. White decide which option he prefers. Next slide. Point number 3. Jesus in Luke chapter 13 verse 33 made it clear that it was impossible for him to die outside Jerusalem. Yet the person who died on the cross died outside Jerusalem.
The gospels make it clear that Calvary was outside the city. So once again Christians have a choice. Either Jesus made a false prophecy when he said that it is impossible for him to die outside Jerusalem.
Or the person who died on the cross was not Jesus. I'd let Dr. White decide. And please bear in mind that Dr. White openly in his first opening statement clearly said Jesus died outside Jerusalem. Please remember to use those exact same words.
To sum up what I've said so far. The story of the binding of Isaac in the Torah which Christians say foretells the passion narrative. Shows that someone else died in the place of the only begotten son.
Number 2. The disciples were using metaphorical language regarding Jesus dying and resurrecting. And even atoning for sins just like Israelites used these terms for Isaac. Who never actually died but came close to being killed.
I would like Dr. White to confirm whether what I am saying is correct. That Israelites used the language of dying and resurrecting for Isaac who never actually died. I'd like him to address that please.
And if that is the case then that proves my point that the disciples used the same terminology for Jesus. Even Jonah used metaphorical language regarding himself on the belly of the well. Language that shows he was dead in a sense when he was actually alive.
Number 3. Jesus prayed to be saved and his prayers were accepted as a sign of Jonah in Q confirms. Hebrews 5 -7 confirms. The prophecies in the Psalms confirm. Early Christians would say that it was Simon who died on the cross confirm.
And some of the reasons I gave as to why it wasn't Jesus on the cross confirms. Now the question is. If the disciples were preaching that Jesus died and rose in a metaphorical sense. Then how did Christianity end up being based on the claim that Jesus literally died and rose from the dead.
We can thank Paul for this. When he went into Gentile circles to preach. He distorted the meaning of the Hebrew idiom into meanings that were foreign to Israelites. Let me give you an example. 2 ,000 years ago if you asked a Jew in Galilee what the son of God mean.
He would say that it means righteous person, servant of God or messianic king. On the other hand if you were to ask a Greek or Roman the same question. They would probably say Hercules. Same thing with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In Jewish circles it was used in light of him coming close to death and being saved just like Isaac. But in Greek and Roman circles these words would mean dying and rising gods. Paul true to his own statement that he would act like anything or anyone to gain converts.
Distorted the true message the disciples were preaching. In order to become the messenger to the pagan Gentiles. Paul even applied Isaiah chapter 49 to himself. In his own letters it becomes clear that James the leader of the Jerusalem church.
Was sending messengers to different places. In order to correct the distortions and false teachings of Paul. Paul himself speaks of these so-called pillars in his letter to the Galatians. In the same letter that he is speaking regarding Jewish Christians preaching another gospel.
And another Jesus. He interestingly says the following statement to the people of Galatia. Galatians chapter 3 verse number 1. Oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you. It was before your very eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
It seems that these Jewish Christians who were preaching another Jesus. And another gospel spoke against the claim he was crucified as well. Folks God does not require the death of a human for atonement.
The story of Isaac sacrifice proves this point. If God wanted human sacrifice. He would have allowed Isaac to be sacrificed. And thus would have set a pagan precedent for the rest of us to follow. Also Moses in the Torah asked God to punish him.
Instead of the rebellious Israelites and God said no. Can Dr. White tell us why God would not accept Moses request. But would allow Jesus to die for others. What is the difference between Moses and Jesus.
And what is the difference between Jesus dying for sins and pagan sacrifices. God in the Bible again and again makes clear that he hates human sacrifices. Also bear in mind that Moses of his own accord asked God to punish him on behalf of the Israelites.
Whereas Jesus in the gospels prayed to be saved from atoning for the sins of the Christians it seems. So Moses was ready. Jesus had second thoughts it seems. Since we know that the earliest sources of Jesus which is the Bible confirms.
That Jesus actually had not been killed by his enemies. And Christians up until the 7th century had known about the substitution theory. They were not surprised to hear the Quran confirm what God had said to his Messiah.
In response to his prayer. Just like the Psalms. Surah 3 says the following. To the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane. Surah 3 ayah 54. And the unbelievers plotted and planned. And Allah too planned. And the best of planners is Allah.
Verse 55 where God just like the Psalms replies to his beloved Messiah. In response to the Jews who were boasting about killing Jesus. The Quran says the following. They have incurred divine displeasure.
In that they broke their covenant. That they rejected the signs of Allah. That they slew the messengers in defiance of right. That they said our hearts are the rapids which preserve God's words. Nay God has set a seal on their hearts for their blasphemy.
And little is it that they believe. That they rejected faith. That they uttered against Mary a grave false charge. That they said in boast. We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary. The messenger of Allah.
But they killed him not. Nor crucified him. But so it was made to appear to them. And those who differed therein are full of doubts. With no certain knowledge. But only hearsay. Conjecture to follow. For of a surety they killed him not.
Nay Allah raised him up to himself. And Allah is exalted in power. Wise. And there is none of the people of the book but must believe in him before his death. And on the day of judgment he will be a witness against them.
I would like to thank you all for listening. And my last statement is that these 40 Arabic words are backed up by hundreds of Hebrew words in the Psalms. Thank you very much.
Let's get started. Well I only have 10 minutes. And to try to respond to 25 minutes in 10 minutes is very, very difficult to do indeed. But let me at least deal with the fundamental problem that I see.
Basically what you just heard was what I would call a Jewish approach. To the issue. And I think that causes some problems. And especially in light of the fact that you have in your own scriptures the assertion that Muhammad is prophesied in our scriptures.
I think you'd have a hard time coming up with anything if you applied the same standards in reverse. I think it's going to cause you a bit of a problem. But we may talk about that a little bit later on.
But I think the primary issue is this. The Jewish apologetic rejects the idea that the fulfillment of a prophecy can be greater than the parameters of the original prophecy itself. So the Jews did not believe Jesus could be the Messiah.
Because Jesus was greater than any of the single prophecies that pointed to him as Messiah. And of course there was a part of the prophecies that are fulfilled in his second coming that were not fulfilled in his first.
And they had a problem with that as well. But the point is, it's the Jewish perspective that says the fulfillment cannot be greater than the parameters of the original prophecy itself. And when you look at the fulfilled prophecies in the New Testament, they are always greater than that from which they were derived.
And so what you heard was, well, three days, these issues like that. You can only have what is found in the prophetic context. You can't have anything that is greater than that. Once you realize that that's an inappropriate thing being read into that, and the New Testament writers obviously do not follow that interpretation, then you see the problem.
For example, as pointed out, well, in the intertestamental Jewish literature, the idea of someone suffering is taken as having a perpetuatory effect, things like that. All of that's quite true. But for the whole world, in the sense of providing perfect righteousness, no, this goes far beyond anything that was pictured in the intertestamental literature.
And I think this can be seen very clearly when we look at one of the key texts that was presented to us, and that is Hebrews 5 -7. I've always been surprised when my Muslim friends go to the book of Hebrews because the central argument of the book of Hebrews is all about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his being the high priest who gives his life.
If you think that the writer to the Hebrews was in any way saying that Jesus does not, he goes into the holy place carrying his own blood, for crying out loud. It's so clear. It's the essence of the entire argument of the book of Hebrews.
So to take one of the verses and say, well, what he's actually saying is that Jesus wasn't crucified is really to completely miss the point of the book of Hebrews. So we have in Hebrews 5 -7 the assertion.
No, I don't want to talk to you, Siri. I want to do something else. We have the assertion, Hebrews 5 -7, he offered up in the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death.
And he was heard because of his piety. Oh, he didn't die. Well, what is death? What is death? In the understanding, the separation from God, Jesus was saved from death. The resurrection. That's the writer to the Hebrews' understanding.
Listen to the writer to the Hebrews. If you want to see how consistent this is, I did 80 sermons through the book of Hebrews just a couple of years ago. You can go listen to them. You can walk all the way through from the beginning, which talks all about the deity of Christ being the creator, all that kind of stuff.
That's what the writer of the Hebrews believes, who is heavily influenced by Paul, all the way through the rest of his writing. And it is a consistent testimony all the way through. So the only way to understand Hebrews 5 -7, if you're going to honor the context from which it's taken, is that he has been saved by resurrection.
He was heard because of his piety. And so, when we have these, well, the psalmist said this. Well, the psalmist is always going to be a small picture, not the great fulfillment. Unless you accept the idea that the fulfillment cannot be greater than the small picture, then none of that argumentation made any sense at all.
So, for example, a quotation, the psalmist said, what prophet is there in my blood? Well, he was specifically talking about what prophet is there to God if I die. In his context, that made perfect sense.
That was applied to Jesus. Somehow, what prophet would there be in Jesus' blood? Well, all the New Testament writers, not just Paul, but Peter, one of the original twelve apostles, all taught that because he was the sinless son of God who gave his blood voluntarily on the cross of Calvary, the prophet in his blood is the forgiveness of our sins.
There were a number of things that, unfortunately, either I wasn't typing fast enough, or my old ears weren't listening fast enough, or maybe Zacher didn't give us a foundation for some of the things that he said.
For example, he said early Christians believed Jesus was watching someone else die on the cross. The only story I know about that is not from Christians, it's from Gnostics. Now, I know people call them Gnostic Christians.
The problem is that Gnostics are not Christians any more than Jehovah's Witnesses are Muslims. And the reason for this is Gnostics believe that the God of the Old Testament is an evil deity. Now, if you think Yahweh is an evil deity, you're not a Christian.
And the Gnostics were not Christians. And so, I don't know, he didn't give a source, but the only stories I've heard are from Gnostic Gospels, where you divide Jesus up and the Christ spirit watches the physical body die and things like that.
These are ahistorical. They're second century at the earliest, normally third century. They have nothing to do with what's found in Jerusalem. And again, for you all as Muslims to go to Gnostic sources, you are really contradicting your fundamental principles in regards to any type of meaningful historical foundation.
Let's put it this way, if you're willing to go to the Gnostics, you've got no basis whatsoever for ever establishing almost any of the aspects of Muhammad's life. Because you just can't go there. You're contradicting your historiography at that point.
We were asked, oh, I was asked, and this is such an easy one, Zakir. Someone's going to think that I set you up with this or something like that. But you said, Dr. White, explain how it can be three days and three nights.
Now you already know the answer to this. Come on. Was that just stuck in the notes from some time back in the past? I don't know. But we all understand, and the only way to make sense of almost anything in the chronological language of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, in Jewish reckoning, any portion of a day was considered a full day.
And so we know, you know what the name for the word Friday in the Greek language is? Preparation day. Even to this day. Paraskewing. It's preparation day. You know why? Because it's preparation day for what?
The Sabbath, which is Saturday. So all the Gospels tell us the crucifixion took place on preparation day, Friday. And we all know that when the women come to the tomb on the first day, Jesus has been resurrected.
Now how can that work? Well, part of the day is considered a day. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So wait a minute. Jonah said three days, three nights. Again, this is language that is utilized in the same way as inside and outside Jerusalem.
Jerusalem could be a city. Jerusalem could be an area. Jerusalem could be a part of Judea. There's all sorts of different ways in which that takes place. And by the way, that's found not only in the New Testament but in the Old Testament language as well.
And so how could it be three days, three nights? Because that's Jewish reckoning just as you can explain the hour differences between the Synoptic Gospels and John is the difference between Jewish reckoning of time and the Roman reckoning of time.
Jewish reckoning of time starting at sunrise, the Roman reckoning of time midnight, noon like we do it today. Very quickly, one other thing, just going through these things a little bit too quickly, but one other thing I found really, really interesting.
Simon, Simon the Cyrene, the theory predates John. I need some evidence of that. I would love to see some manuscripts of where the idea that Simon the Cyrene was the person who was crucified predates the Gospel of John.
I, Zachary, I need some data on that one. I'd really like to hear that. And then you heard him read he this, he did that, he did that. See, it was Simon the Cyrene. The problem is when you read the original language, Simon's referred to as Tutah and Jesus is Altos.
They're different. There's a change in the verbal forms that is used and nobody who actually reads the language would ever be confused about that. That would be something that in my first year Greek classes, if somebody got confused about it, I'd understand.
But by second year Greek, you shouldn't be confused by that level of thing any longer. Still got one minute left. What about the cup? Was Jesus a false prophet? Again, I think you can all understand that drinking the cup in the supper, either in the context of the Passover or in the establishment of the Lord's Supper, drinking the cup is different than having a drink of wine on the cross.
One is a specific act within a specific religious context. The other was not in that religious context whatsoever. So to try to make Jesus a false prophet, you know what? I could sit around with the Hadith literature and do this all day long.
I'm not going to invest my time doing it because there really isn't any reason to do it. But the idea that the New Testament writers were communicating anything other than the plain words of their text, that Jesus died by crucifixion, not metaphorical language, but by crucifixion, is to truly be straining at gnats when they've made their words very, very, very clear.
That's all I can get into 10 minutes, but we'll have a little bit more later on. Thank you. Did you not want this? Because you didn't seem to be looking at it.
You should see what he's doing up here.
It's very impressive, but it's a little disorganized.
Just one second, please. Dr. White mentioned Ignatius, an early person who mentioned that Jesus crucified. I've actually given evidence of people earlier than Ignatius. But anyway, Ignatius himself, in a letter to the Christians of Samana, he speaks of unbelievers who claim that Jesus only seemed to suffer.
So when Dr. White says that that's the Gnostics, the rejection of the crucifixion precedes Ignatius, which doesn't make him a very early witness. Regarding Josephus, notice what Dr. White said, and this proves the Qur 'anic narrative.
What does the Qur 'an say? They follow nothing but conjecture, and they're full of doubts. Now, he quoted Josephus, and he himself said it's highly unlikely that this passage is a forgery. What does that mean?
There's doubt on the matter. In fact, I've got a challenge for Dr. White. Tell us, who was the first person to quote this forgery in Josephus' work? I'll answer the question, but I still want to hear it from Dr. White's own mouth.
Eusebius, in the 4th century, was the first person to quote this passage. There were church fathers before Eusebius who quoted from Josephus. Nobody quoted this passage. And Eusebius, by a majority of scholars, is the one that the scholars accuse of actually forging the passage.
And the earliest manuscript of Josephus is from the 10th century. What does the Qur 'an say? They're full of doubt, and they follow nothing but conjecture. You actually quoting Josephus proves my point and proves the Qur 'an, which is why I testify that the Qur 'an is the word of God.
Now, let's get to Tacitus. E .P. Sanders, in his book, The Historical Figure of Jesus, says that what Tacitus relates about Jesus' death was based on what Christians told him. This is what Richard Bolcom, in his book, A Major Investigation into History's Most Intriguing Figure, says.
That is all. And Tacitus is only repeating what Christians in his day were saying about their origins. What does the Qur 'an say? They follow nothing but hearsay. Thank you for proving the Qur 'an right.
Then, Dr. White mentioned that Jesus was baptized by John. And remember, Dr. White tried to make it like Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, etc. Then why was he baptized by John? According to Mark's Gospel, baptism was for the forgiveness of sins.
In fact, biblical scholars mentioned that Matthew was so embarrassed by this that he took out the sentence of baptism being for the forgiveness of sins and he had Jesus make it sound like it's just a formality.
Scholarship says it's a fact regarding that Jesus died on the cross. But as Bart Ehrman mentions in his book, the naturalistic historical method cannot verify miracles. Just like scholars will deny that Jesus was saved on the cross by the power of God, it's the same method that they will deny the resurrection.
And the Qur 'an says it appeared to them. So from a historical, critical methodology, they're going to say that Jesus died on the cross because they cannot verify God's miracles. So to reject the claim that Jesus died on the cross, got saved by the cross with this methodology, you are in fact quoting scholars who very premise undermines the resurrection.
Then, Dr. White says there's no evidence of conflict. But there is evidence of conflict because, like I mentioned, Jesus prayed to be saved from the cross in the first place. Remember, Dr. White mentioned that Jesus said to his disciples that I will be taken up in Jerusalem, I will be beaten and I will be killed.
So he knew he's already going to be raised from the dead. Yet he prayed to God to be saved from the cross in the first place. In fact, John Calvin actually mentions that this is what Jesus meant. And John Calvin actually starts talking about how could Jesus pray for something that's against God's decree.
So since Jesus prayed to be saved from the cross in the first place, and Jesus said in John chapter 11 that God always answers my prayers, then Hebrews 5, 7 is a clear cut tradition that Jesus' prayer was saved.
Robert Price mentions in his book, The Shrinking Son of Man, that this could be an early tradition of a passion narrative where Jesus actually survived. Not only that, like Raymond Brown mentions, the wording of Hebrews chapter 5, verse number 7 is based on Psalms 116, which I quoted all the evidence there.
It was all there on the slides. Dr. White can't see it. And for every psalm I put there, I put a Christian commentator at the bottom that said this psalm is speaking about somebody who comes close to dying, but doesn't actually die.
So the psalms proves my point. And notice something. I'm using the Jewish method of interpreting prophecies. So I just said what the text actually says. And Dr. White is doing his esegesis of the higher fulfillment.
The text says this person doesn't die. He will not be handed over to his enemies. And Dr. White's bringing his own interpretations onto the clear text. Psalms 22 ends the whole story. Psalms 22, originally about David, which John Calvin admits, does not say they pierced my hands and feet.
That is a later Christian forgery. Folks, think about this. Matthew, who was quoting so many alleged Old Testament fulfillments of Jesus, like Hosea 11, where he chopped off half the sentence, do you not think this would be the first passage the New Testament would have quoted in order to let the Jews know that the Messiah has to be crucified?
Yet not one book of the New Testament quoted this passage, the clearest passage in the whole of the Old Testament that the Messiah is going to get crucified. Do you think Matthew looked at this and said, although this text says they pierced my hands and feet, clear prophecy of Jesus, I cannot be bothered to write this in my gospel for all these Jews to see.
The reason being is because that text did not exist in that form at that time. The original Hebrew says ka-a-ri, that means like a lion, they came at my hands and feet. If you read the Psalms, the verse before this and some verses after, David's likening his enemies to animals like bulls and lions, etc.
And David's at the start of the Psalms wondering where is the help of God? Because my enemies are coming close to killing me and yet he still hopes that God will save him. And in verse 24 of the Psalms, David praises God for rescuing him.
So if Psalms 22 is a foreshadowing of the Messiah, then that means the Messiah was also rescued by God. So far from being a crucifixion Psalm, it's the substitution theory Psalm. Regarding 1 Corinthians chapter 15 predating Paul, I mentioned Q, that's almost as early as 1 Corinthians chapter 15, that Jesus said he will be like Jonah.
Dr. White never mentioned, was Jonah alive or was he dead? Dr. White mentioned that according to Jewish reckoning, that three days, a part of a day can add up to three days. The problem is Jesus said, I will be buried in the earth for three days and three nights.
But in order to get out of this, Christians try to include Friday, but you can't because in Mark chapter 15, Jesus is buried after sunset, which according to Jewish reckoning is the night of the Sabbath.
So even if you count part of a day as a full day, Saturday and Sunday make two days, not three days. So it's a false prophecy. The Abingdon Bible commentary actually admits this as an error. So because Muslims believe in the beloved Messiah, Jesus, we do not believe he uttered false prophecies.
This is the wording of Matthew, which is why Luke doesn't even mention this. Now regarding the Quran, Surah 355 does not teach the death of Jesus. The word Mutawaffika comes from Tawaffa. The same word is used in Surah 39, Ayah 42 regarding when we go to sleep, God takes our soul from us.
Do we biologically die every night? If God in the Quran wanted to teach that the Messiah will die, he would have used the word Malt, which is explicit. Not only that, the Quran never came in a vacuum.
It came with the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace, who, according to an authentic report in Tabari, told the Jews he did not die. And in many authentic Hadith, the Prophet said that Jesus is going to return.
Surah 4, Ayah 159 says that there are none of the people of the Book who will believe in him before he's dead, which means he hasn't died. Not only that, but Surah 355 says that he will be raised towards me, which is talking about the ascension.
Regarding Surah 19, Ayah 33, and when Jesus says, Peace be on me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive. Yes, we believe when Jesus comes back, he's going to rule as a messianic king, it's going to be a utopian society, then he's going to get married, have children, which is what Isaiah 53 says, by the way, that this servant would have seed.
So Isaiah 53 does not actually contradict what Muslims believe, because as the international critical commentary mentions, Isaiah 53 is very elusive regarding the death of the servant of God, because Isaiah 53 actually talks about him having long life after he allegedly gave himself to death.
The word in Hebrew, long life, implies a cut off date, which means that this servant will die one day. Giving long life to the servant doesn't mean he will live forever, it means he will live a long time, which is what Muslims believe, but he will eventually die.
So the only way Isaiah 53 can be used by Christians is if they believe Jesus is going to die in the future as well. Also, Isaiah 53 says he shall see his seed, the word Zerah in Hebrew is always used literally in the Tanakh.
Even Dr. Michael Brown, who is Dr. James White's colleague in his book, though he claims from himself that it's highly likely that Zerah can be used metaphorically, he admits every example he gives could be understood as literally.
In Genesis chapter 15, regarding Abraham having no offspring, when he's talking about his metaphorical son, Eliezer, the word Ben is used in Hebrew, when he's talking about him having literal offspring, the word Zerah is used, because Zerah is the word for physical seed, and Jesus never had no physical seed, so according to Christians he cannot be the servant of Isaiah 53, but according to Islam he can be, because in the future he will have children.
All right, 10 minutes is not very long when you get to speak, and it's really long when the other guy is talking, so I will do the best I can to fill the time. Ignatius was referenced, the fact that he referred to people who said that Jesus only seemed to suffer, these are called the Dosedics, and if you look at the New Testament, the Dosedics are taught against in 1 John and the book of Colossians, and so again, these were dualists, they believed that that which is matter is evil, that which is spiritual is good, they were not Christians.
Again, if you want to go for these sources, it's like Robert Price was quoted, Robert Price is a mythicist, Robert Price doesn't believe Jesus existed, why are you using Robert Price? Robert Price is a nice guy, I debated him, but Muslims have no business quoting Robert Price, you believe Jesus existed, you can't quote somebody who thinks that he didn't, the inconsistency is patent.
We had the idea of a higher fulfillment somewhat mocked or put down, here's a problem for you, the verse that you're quoting to deny the crucifixion, Surah 4, 157, identifies Jesus as what? A Messiah, right?
How are the people supposed to know how Jesus was the Messiah? What passage of the scripture do they have to look to that would identify Jesus as Messiah that did not require a higher fulfillment than the original?
Your Quran assumes those texts and then you turn around and attempt to undercut that, that's a self-contradictory methodology, it doesn't work. Want to see another thing that doesn't work? Saying that the Psalm 22, they pierced my hands and my feet, is a later Christian edition, that doesn't work either, not only are there a dozen medieval Masoretic texts that say pierced hands and feet, there is a specific scroll, it is 5 -6 Hev PS from Nahal Hever, predating the Christian church, that in Hebrew says pierced my hands and my feet.
So we were told it's a later Christian edition, we have a manuscript that reads it in the Hebrew prior to the time of Christ, how can it be a later Christian edition? The reality is, it is a very early reading and you can find it in a number of those streams and that's exactly where it comes from, that's why I read it.
This idea, like I said, of having a greater fulfillment, the seed issue, he shall see his seed, if you try to ask the question, what is Isaiah 53 actually talking about? I would invite everybody, start at Isaiah, I think it's 52 -13 as I recall, the chapter division there is a little bit strange, but read it for yourself and ask yourself a question, who is this about?
Who did these things? Who will justify, make righteous the many? Who intercedes for sinners by bearing their transgressions? Who is it? Jesus himself, I applied those words to himself, if you say, well that was just simply Matthew, that was simply Luke, whoever it might be, then you have no idea anything Jesus ever said and remember, you can't go there because as a Muslim, you accept that Jesus said words in the Quran that no one heard about for 600 years and these are words that come from the first century.
You have no consistent basis for saying that Jesus didn't say the words that are attributed to him by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it's just simply not there. And so, for example, one other, again the time goes by very quickly, it was said, well Tacitus, Tacitus is just repeating what Christians had told him, just like the author of the Quran repeats what Christians told him in regards to, for example, the infancy gospel of Thomas, which ends up being quoted, the Arabic infancy gospel, which ends up being quoted in the Quran.
These were Christian stories that had nothing to do with the first century and nothing to do with the apostles. They were simply stories, remember the forming of the clay birds and they become alive and fly away, that's from a proto-Gnostic source, it's not from the canonical source.
So if you're going to say, well Tacitus, we just need to dismiss Tacitus because he's just repeating hearsay and that proves the Quran is true. Now that one, I'll have to admit, caught me a little bit by surprise.
So if there's anything that's disputed about the crucifixion, that proves the Quran is true, is there anything disputed about the life of Muhammad these days? Are there not entire books being printed that say that in reality, the centerpiece of the Quran is not Mecca but Petra?
Does that prove something? It's disputed, right? There's all sorts of disputations. I was just reading a book on the authentication of Hadith that calls upon Sunni Muslims to reject even Mutawatir Hadith because they are in contradiction to at least this individual's understanding of the Quran.
There is disputation about everything. The mere existence of disputation proves nothing. And if you're going to say this proves the Quran because Tacitus heard these stories from Christians, what that proves is a secular source accepted those stories from the Christians he was talking to, which means the Christians of his day were saying those things.
That's all we're saying. To try to tie that in to the words of Surah 4, 157, I think is very dangerous for you. Because right now a lot of attention is being placed upon the origins of the Quran. And a lot of questions about its geography and things like that are coming up.
You've got to be careful because if you've been using one source of methodology to attack the Christian scriptures, that very same methodology may turn around and bite you in trying to defend the Quran.
Have you thought about that? I think it's something you should give some serious consideration to. It wasn't just simply following after any type of supposition that other people would have. So, once again, let's remind ourselves of a few things.
Every source that we have, every source that we have for a hundred years says the same thing. So, Zakir didn't give me any information, any documentary information about who these Christians were that were saying other things.
Well, Ignatius mentions the Thessitics. Okay, Thessitics weren't Christians. Thessitics, they can't even enter into our conversation because Thessitics deny what you and I as Muslims and Christians believe.
Isn't the most fundamental thing that God created the heavens and the earth? We have a creator. Isn't that part of it? They deny that the creator is a good being. That's fundamentally, they're outside the realm.
You're not quoting them as your source, are you? I certainly hope not. So, what documented sources do you have? You don't. What you have is sort of a Jewish approach that says, well, there's a different way of interpreting prophecy.
We can limit prophecy to just the words of the prophecy itself, and it can't have any greater fulfillment, so it has to be limited. The problem is that results in an inability on your part to have anything that's a prophecy about Jesus as the Messiah, who he was, and yet the Quran assumes all of those things.
It just creates tremendous havoc within your own system. We cannot use arguments against someone else's system that creates havoc within our own. That is a demonstration. Well, a long time ago, I mentioned it, and I've mentioned it about every debate ever since then.
Inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. If you're using argumentation against others that decimates your own position, you have a problem. So, what do we have? We have Jesus, who you believe, as a Muslim, as a prophet, and we have him prophesying of his own crucifixion and resurrection.
You simply have to reject those words while at the same time accepting those words for all your other arguments. So, you have to accept what allegedly Jesus says about, well, the gospel writers say about Simon the Cyrene, and then turn around and reject what's a few verses later when, for example, in Jesus' trial, he identifies himself as the son of man and identifies himself basically as the one who is worshipped back in Daniel chapter 7.
How is that consistent? You're not being consistent. When you're not being consistent, you cannot make truthful claims, and that's the problem this evening. I asked all my Muslim friends here this evening, what if all those prophecies were right?
What if all that documentation going back to the first century is right? All that stuff that's smack dab in the middle of the history, right there in the middle of Pilate and Herod and names, names, and everything else, what if it's right?
What if all Surah 4, 1 -7 was saying is it wasn't the Jews that killed Jesus, it was the Romans? You can't interpret it that way. What if that's the case? What are you going to do then with Jesus' own words about why he gave himself on that cross?
For the Christians in this room, if you have conversations with us, we're going to talk to you about what that self-giving of Christ means to us every single day. How here, 2 ,000 years later, in a completely different land, a completely different language, we live in light of what he did and what he accomplished, and we live in light of an empty tomb.
There's nobody in there. Not because he was taken up. There's a completely different understanding of Rafa who I think we understood in Surah 4, 1 -8, but not because he was taken up before he was crucified, but he has defeated death, and because he defeated death, I no longer have to fear it myself.
That's the message that we have. Think about it. Thank you for listening. Okay. You can answer me if you want. I'm trying to cancel it. It just doesn't want to stop.
Does my time start now? Yeah, okay. The first point I want to respond to, with all due respect, Dr. White needs to update his academic reading. The whole Quran copying from Gnostics has been debunked regarding the clay birds, as there's new information from scholars like Andres Van Arde in his paper, Ebionite Tendencies in the Jesus Tradition, the infancy Gospel of Thomas interpreted from the perspective of ethnic identity.
He actually mentions that it's only in one manuscript where it's got Gnostic tendencies, and all the other manuscripts is from Jewish Christians. So the Quran never copied from Gnostics. That's in Jewish Christian sources.
Number two, Dr. White said, I'm using a Jewish approach to scriptures. So if the Jewish approach to scriptures is reading what the text actually says, then yes, that's correct. Notice Dr. White never responded once to the Psalms I brought up, and said that, no, it's speaking about someone dying and resurrecting.
When I made it clear, it's about somebody being saved in the first place. Notice that I've repeated that a couple of times. I spent half of my opening statement speaking about these Psalms. Dr. White, in essence, admitted what I said, but allegedly there's higher fulfillment, easy Jesus.
And if you watch the video of me and Dr. White in the past, our first debate, Dr. White was accusing me of higher interpretations, easy Jesus. Then Hebrews chapter 5, verse number 7 is clear. That's why Barth Ehrman in his book, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, mentions that scholars such as Alfonso von Harnack, they added the word not into the text, that his prayer was not heard.
And Rudolf Bortmann, one of the greatest Christian commentators of modern times, he died actually a few decades back, he agreed with this amendation because they know what Hebrews 5, verse 7 actually means.
The plain reading of the text is, Jesus' prayers were answered. Now if that contradicts the rest of the Hebrews, well that's nothing new. Nearly every book of the Bible contradicts itself. Then regarding Isaiah 53, this actually proves my point.
All those Psalms that I quoted, international critical commentary says this. On page 282, they connect Isaiah 53 to Psalms 118, the very Psalm I went to that says that the Messiah will not die. This is what they also say on page 283 regarding Isaiah 53.
That might support the possibility just noted that the passages talk of death and restored life need not refer to the coming of death in our sense, but to deliverance from a deadly experience in life, such as Psalms 30 describes, another Psalm I quoted in my opening statement.
On page 322, the clause recalls the promise of long life, like Psalms chapter 91, verse number 16, same Psalm that I quoted in my opening statement. And in that text in the Psalms, the name Yeshua is there.
Read Psalms 91, verse number 16, the last word salvation is Yeshua in Hebrew. Any Jewish Christian who followed Jesus, they would know that. So Dr. White said that we shouldn't reject the prophecies in the Bible, and I'm using ink, I didn't reject no prophecy.
Even Psalms 22 proves my point. I've got the manuscript, the fragment that Dr. White was talking about, the Nahal Hever manuscript or scrap. It actually does not read dog as Christians claim. In order to get that word, you have to get the letter Aleph out of it.
You have to take a letter out to get the word that Christians claim is Pierce. So that actually proves my point that you've got no Hebrew manuscript. And just to confirm that more, in the books, academic paper, Psalm 22, 17, circling around the problem again, it says this.
Kaaru, which is not a word in the Hebrew language, is not a word. But when the Aleph is omitted, it becomes dig. So you have to take a letter out to get the Christian reading. So since that letter is there, it doesn't mean Pierce my hands or feet.
Thank you very much. No response to, if Jesus was whipped to the point of death, Josephus and Eusebius read the descriptions of Roman scourging. It would basically show your bones, rip your veins. So what would Roman soldiers be dividing the clothes of a person who was just whipped to the point of death?
So the person on the cross, his clothes were intact. That's why they divided it. According to John chapter 19, one of the Roman soldiers said, let us not tear it. How can you not tear something that was just ripped apart by Roman soldiers?
Twice, the gospels narrate he was scourged by the Romans. That wasn't responded to outside Jerusalem. Do you know why he was taken to Calvary and not killed in Jerusalem? Because according to Numbers chapter 15, it is against the law of the Torah to stone a criminal in the camp.
And as Raymond Brown points out, they used to take them out of the city to execute people. This is why Stephen Acts chapter 7 is also taken out of the city. Now regarding Simon the Syrian tradition preceding John, this is what Raymond Brown says.
Death of the Messiah, volume 2, page 917. However, there seems to be a deliberate quality in John chapter 19, verse number 17, indicating that while John knew the Simon tradition and thus implicitly testified to its antiquity, he rejected it for his own reasons.
Another quote, some think that the above-mentioned Gnostic view denounced by Arrhenius, in which Simon is the one crucified, was already in circulation and John was refuting it. Mark chapter 14, Jesus prays to be saved from the hour.
John chapter 12, verse 27, Jesus denies and makes such a prayer. Mark chapter 15, verse 21, it says Simon was forced to carry the cross. John chapter 19, verse number 17, Jesus carried the cross by himself.
Mark chapter 15, verse number 40, the women were far away and there was darkness over the earth, so they can't verify who's on the cross. But don't worry, John to the rescue, he has Jesus' mother and a beloved disciple standing next to the cross.
Regarding wine, the Greek, this is what, this is what, this is a commentary called The Gospel according to Saint John, an introduction with commentary and notes under, Greek text, CK Barrett, page 533.
There is no point in trying to harmonize this passage with Jesus' last supper promise, not accorded by John, to drink no more wine until he should drink it in the kingdom of God. Jesus gave a prophecy, do you reject the prophecy Dr. White, that he will not drink wine until he's in his father's kingdom, yet the guy on the cross drank wine?
So either it's a false prophecy or the guy on the cross wasn't Jesus, unless the cross is the father's kingdom, you can let us know that. I don't want to go there when I die, to the father's kingdom when it's the cross at Calvary.
Regarding Jesus predicting his death, many scholars such as Kurt Alland, they, in his book the Gospels were reconsidered, they doubt that Jesus made these predictions because in Luke chapter 24, when the women tell the disciples regarding Jesus' body not being there, Peter calls it nonsense, and then when he goes to the tomb, he looks around and then he wonders to himself, what happened, didn't he know that Jesus had called him Satan for rejecting that he's going to die?
Then, regarding the pronoun about Simon the Syrian, Dr. White tried to appeal to the Greek, which I knew he'd do that. This is an academic book called A Companion to 2nd Century Christian Heretics regarding Basilides, they say on page 22, Basilides may have said Simon based on Mark 15's ambiguity.
Do you think Basilides was reading it in English or Greek? So that's there, the pronouns are ambiguous, and if you read it naturally, it's referring to Simon, which is why Christian translations in English, they add the name Jesus there, and they give footnotes that the Greek says him at the bottom of the page.
Three days and three nights wasn't responded to. Saturday night, the night of the Sabbath, when Jesus was put in the tomb, and Sunday make two days, not three days. So that's another false prophecy that Matthew put in the mouth of the beloved Messiah.
So, Psalm chapter 22, the person in the Psalms praises God for rescuing him. David, in the immediate context, is praying to God that don't let my enemies kill me, and then he praises God for rescuing him, which means God accepted his prayer.
So if that's foreshadowing the Messiah, God saved him. So, Dr. White has no manuscript evidence that the Gospels go to the 1st century. He does it from internal evidence. That's the same internal evidence that scholars such as Raymond Brown mentioned, that John, he knew about the Garden of Gethsemane prayer tradition and that it was heard, so he omitted it.
He knew about Simon the Syrian tradition, so he omitted it. He knew that people were talking about the substitution theory, so he put Jesus' mother by the cross. So, it's clear from the internal evidence of John that the substitution theory precedes John, which means Ignatius and everybody comes later.
Then Dr. White said, when I said Tacitus and Josephus, I said the Quran is true. No, I said what the Quran is saying is true. You're just quoting hearsay, and I quoted Richard Baucom and other scholars who said this is all just hearsay.
So you have no definite evidence. So, to believe Jesus died on the cross outside Jerusalem, which Dr. White never responded to, would be he's a false prophet, because in Luke 22, he said he cannot die outside Jerusalem.
Also, Matthew and Luke knew that this place was classed as outside Jerusalem, because in one alleged saying of Jesus, according to Mark, when he's talking about himself dying, he says, and they killed him and they took him out of the vineyard.
So, according to Mark, Jesus was killed in the vineyard, which is Jerusalem. But Matthew and Luke, they corrected Mark's text by switching it around and saying, he was thrown out of the vineyard and then killed.
And scholars such as Raymond Brand, I'll get the quote here, one second, please. This is what the New Jerome Biblical Commentary say, on page 665, Matthew inverts the order of events to fit the view that Jesus died outside the city.
So, Matthew and Luke understood Calvary as outside the city, so that's not taken as literally. Is that my timer? So, thank you very much. Jesus did not die. Thank you.
Isaac, my name is Jonathan. Are you familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls? Yes. Are you aware of scroll 4Q Samuel A, which is a Hebrew manuscript, the oldest Hebrew manuscript that we have, dating to about 200 BC, that says, they pierced my hands and my feet.
So, to say that there is no Hebrew manuscript extant at the time of our Lord Jesus is to be in error. Thank you.
What I'm going to say now, I haven't got a source with this with me, because it's very easy to respond to and anyone can verify this. The Dead Sea Scrolls version of Psalm 22, the actual key word in question has missing letters, so you cannot get the word pierced with missing letters there.
So, how can you say it reads pierced when some of the letters are missing from there? That's why James White himself never appealed to the Dead Sea Scrolls. He appealed to the Nahal Heva Scroll. Thank you very much.
If you write down 4Q Samuel A of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the English translation by Peter Eckroyd, I believe, you can check that out. Thanks. You can respond?
I'm hoping so. Taz, Taz. Dr. White gets the time to respond. One of the problems we have here is the ancient form of Hebrew, and therefore it is a matter of interpretation. The fact of the matter is that that reading has Masoretic documentation in the medieval period that goes back to the period of Christ, and so it's not some later Christian edition.
It is able to be found there, and there's really no reason to be arguing about it, because the data is so very clear. I'll stop right there, because I'll make comments later about the sources of the information we're using.
You like me, don't you?
I do. Yeah, I just want to elaborate on when Jesus was asked for the signs of wonders, and he said, nothing but the sign of Jonah. And Zacchaeus spoke to you with regard to three days and three nights.
And you kind of said, oh, part of the day of Friday, part of the day of Saturday, and that's three days. I know Zacchaeus pushed on that, saying, for example, he wasn't put in the earth until the Saturday.
But what I want to understand is the three nights. Where are the three nights? If he was putting on Friday, and so it's Friday night, Saturday night, there's no Sunday night, because it was Sunday morning when he was gone.
So how do you understand that prophecy where Jesus made that claim that he would be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights? How do you reconcile that with the Gospel narratives?
The Gospel writers themselves, quite obviously, did not have the confusion that has been introduced by words written 600 years later, 600 miles away. They show absolutely no embarrassment about this. They're very clear.
They talk about Friday. They talk about Sunday. They use the words that identify these things. They have no issues with it. So they recognize when Jesus is talking about three days and three nights, he's talking about truly being dead and truly being buried.
He's not talking about chronological accuracy. People back then utilized temporal phraseology in a very different way than we do with iPads and iPhones and atomic clocks and things like that. This is very, very easily understood.
By the way, Jonah says in the Book of Jonah that he descended down into Sheol. I think Jonah was dead, and that's the connection, and that hence when he comes forth, he's been made alive. So the connection is very clear.
He says he went down to Sheol. What is Sheol? Sheol is the realm of the dead. So I know there are many people who prefer the idea of somehow being in the belly of the fish breathing somehow. I'm not sure how that tank of oxygen got in there, but it seems much more that he said he went down to Sheol, and that would be the connection.
The point is that Jesus prophesied his own resurrection, and he had to have died in that process. So no one was confused about that. Well, now we're going to get into debating and argumentation. We're going to do that.
Yeah.
Just the Well, the prophecy says alive, and then Yeah, not dead.
Okay. He went down alive. First off, Dr. White said that they would have known what they were saying. Why is it a plural? The only person who said the three days and three nights was Matthew, nobody else.
Matthew is the same anonymous author that had Jesus riding into Jerusalem on two donkeys. Now, was Jonah alive? Everybody knows Jonah was alive. Here's Matthew Henry's commentary. Observe when Jonah prayed, when he was in trouble under the tokens of God's displeasure against him for sin.
When we are in affliction, we must pray. Being kept alive by a miracle, he prayed. You don't understand the feeling when Christians have to reinterpret clear texts just to try to get around the objections Muslims raise.
David used the same language as Jonah in the Psalms that I quoted, because in Hebrew language, coming close to dying and surviving, as my opening statement made clear, like Isaac, is a form of metaphorical death and resurrection.
Even Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, when he used to wake up, he used to say, Praise Allah for raising me alive after I died. And the three days and three nights, Jesus was putting on what Jews call Saturday night, night of the Sabbath.
So, Saturday, Sunday, even if you take the full day, it's still two days. Clear-cut error. Now, Christians have a choice. Either Jesus is a false prophet who died for your sins, or what the Gospel writers are trying to put on the tongues of Jesus is not always accurate.
And regarding Psalms chapter 22, my question still remains. If this text read, they pierced my hands and feet, all these other proof texts that the New Testament quotes, and the clearest one, Matthew looked at this and said, You know, this is the clearest text I got, but I don't feel like this is important enough for me to write in the New Testament to prove to Jews that Jesus must be crucified.
That does not make sense at all. The only reason Matthew didn't quote this is because the text didn't exist in the form that the Christians forged it. It does not say pierced, as I proved. In order to get the word dog, they have to take a letter out of the word, and the very manuscript that Dr. White alluded to has the letter Aleph in it, which means it supports the Jewish understanding of Ka 'ari.
It's only that the Yod got elongated into a Vav, but the word is still the same word. Otherwise, Ka 'aru doesn't mean nothing in Hebrew.
Thank you, James and Zakir. I was just wondering, Zakir, how we can reconcile the Mark 15 passage, where it talks about Simon of Cyrene, because it says they forced a man coming from the country, who was passing by to carry Jesus' cross, when it's talking about Simon.
So presumably that means that the Roman soldiers, because that's who they're talking about when they're saying they, forced Simon to do this, so then they forced Simon to die. So the Roman soldiers act in contradiction to Pilate, because there's no doubt about who it is right there, but in Sura 4 .157, it seems that it is made to appear to them that it is Jesus who died, and so both things, it seems, cannot be true.
So, yeah, I was wondering how you reconcile those.
Okay. Early Christians, who have proven from the internal evidence, the same internal evidence that James gets the dating of the Gospels from, that there were people claiming that Simon of Cyrene was killed on the cross instead of Jesus, before John, and John was trying to react to the story.
Now, regarding the Romans putting Simon on the cross, as Basilides said, and Basilides is not a docetist, by the way, I'll quote scholars if Dr. White tries to say otherwise, he mentioned that Jesus' likeness went on to Simon of Cyrene, and Simon of Cyrene's likeness went on to him, and that's how the Romans got confused.
And even church fathers such as Tertullian, they used to believe that one of the miracles of Jesus is that he could change form, and they got that from the Gospels itself. On many occasions, the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus.
Do you think they were chasing him down the street, or miraculously God was protecting him with this miracle? Tertullian even believed Jesus changed form. Not only that, Sura 5, Ayah 110, God says to Jesus, under their judgment, one of His favors to Jesus is that I withheld the hand of the children of Israel from you.
Now if anybody asks, it was the Romans who killed Jesus, not the Jews, according to the Gospels, the Jews are the ones who forced Pilate to kill Jesus, so the Romans were the tools, according to the Gospels, the Jews were the ones who had done it, so the blame would be on them and their children as Matthew claims.
So the Quran is very, very clear, and when Dr. White says 40 Arabic words, which are backed up by the Psalms, as Sidney Griffith points out in his book, The Bible in Arabic, the Quran is a reminder, it assumes knowledge on the part of its audience, so the lay Christians may not understand, but the learned Christians in the 7th century knew the history of their so-called heretics with the substitution theory, and knew the evidence in the Gospels, they would know what the Quran is alluding to, that's why the Quran doesn't have to go into so much detail regarding the topic.
The Quran most definitely does assume the biblical narrative, and in that process, if you accept the radical argumentation, and it is radical, the people that Zachary is quoting are radical liberals, mythicists, people who believe Jesus didn't exist, quoted somebody from the University of Pretoria just a few moments ago, part of the Jesus seminar, we're talking about, these are people who vote about what Jesus said by dropping marbles in bags, this is just, for me, as a Christian, it's clear evidence that I could use the wildest Orientalists, and you would have to accept every word that I say, because you're using the wildest people on the left fringe to come up with your arguments tonight, and I hope that'll end someday, I'm looking forward to the day when the conversation we have about this will be with Muslims using believing sources that are consistent with their own defenses of the Quran, rather than using Dr. Price, who's a nice guy, but he's so far out there that even the citation of him would be like, think of the wildest critic of the Quran that I could possibly quote, as far out there as possible, if I was basing all my stuff upon that, that'd be the same type of thing that we're dealing with here.
And so when I look, when I read Mark chapter 15, there is a phrase here, and I'll just give it to you very quickly, Now, I'm not going to ask if you read Greek, but when you read this text, the only way, if you're reading carefully, is that this is Jesus's cross.
So the al-tans and the al-tos of verses 22 and 23 are referring back to Jesus. Now, if you're not reading carefully, I suppose you might get confused, but there's no reason to. And folks, I can misread the Quran pretty easily as well, if you want me to.
But misreading a text is not the same thing as convicting the text of having been changed or altered. The reality is, Mark and Matthew and all say the same thing, Jesus was crucified. Trying to change that basic reality just simply doesn't work.
According to Hebrews... Attacked by the guy down there. According to Hebrews chapter 10 verse number 10 to 18, we find very clearly... I'm sorry, chapter 10 what? Hebrews chapter 10 verse number 10 to 18.
Oh, 10 through 18. 10 to 18, where Paul is saying that normal...
I don't think Paul wrote it.
Well, okay, well, Hebrews is telling us anyway that, well, if he didn't write it, who wrote it then?
You want my quick theory? Just really, really fast. I think it's a sermon that Paul preached in Hebrew that Luke wrote down in Greek because it's Luke's grammar and vocabulary.
Well, according to Luke, in Hebrews chapter 10 verse number 10 to 18, he says no more sin offering is required because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. But when we find in Acts when Paul went to Jerusalem, James, who was the brother of Jesus, obviously, if Jesus came to die for the sin, then they know that there would be no more sin sacrifice needed.
But James is actually telling Paul to go and sacrifice animals because there were four men who were under a Nazarite vow. Nazarite. That's right. Now, if you read Numbers chapter 6 verse number 13, it will tell you what a Nazarite vow is.
And that consists of burnt offering, sin offering, and peace offering. And we know then that Paul actively took part in this ritual, which consisted of sin offering. Now, if Hebrews are telling us that no more sin offering is needed, and why is it that James, who sat eight o 'clock with Jesus, where Paul never met Jesus, why are they still offering sin offering when clearly no more should be done because Jesus prayed for the ultimate sacrifice?
Thank you.
The Nazarite vow is the issue here. And obviously, in Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians, especially, we're told in the book of Acts, there were many who were foreign priests, continued to do many of the things that identified them as the Jewish people.
They did not. The separation that took place between the synagogue and the church, while inevitable, has in many ways been tragic. It led to many of the acts of anti-Semitism during the medieval period.
And how it happened, it may have had to have happened over time, but how it happened is rather tragic. But what you do see in the book of Acts is a transition period, even in Peter. Peter hears from Jesus to not call any, he saw, for example, how he treated the Syrophoenician woman.
And yet, what does God have to do with Peter? I'm not sure how long it is after the resurrection. He has to give him a vision three times, slap him upside the head, before he finally gets the idea, I shouldn't call what God has called unclean, clean.
Okay, so let's say it was a full decade. Traditions die hard. And what we see in James and what we see in the church in Jerusalem is that transitionary period. And I don't know about you, but I would have had a hard time letting go of the traditions that I was raised with as a young person, even in the light of what Jesus taught.
So I think there's a clear transition period that you see in the book of Acts. And by the end of the book of Acts, what you have is the normative functioning of the church. Whereas in the beginning, you have, well, I haven't seen anybody struck dead in a deacon's meeting recently.
So Acts chapter 5 and Ananias and Sapphira. We could use it, but it hasn't happened recently. So I see it as a transitionary issue. Even though it's 30 years off? Oh, yeah. I think it takes, well, 30 years?
30 years off. I'm not sure of the chronology on exactly when that would be. But it's very clearly in Jerusalem, there continued to be, before the destruction of the temple, those people that struck very closely to their Jewish identity.
And I would see the Nazarite vow as a part of that element of it. Did they reinterpret the offerings in the light of what Jesus did? We're not told.
Okay. This proves exactly what I've been saying all along. The Old Testament does not teach that the Messiah will die for the sins of the world. And the disciples of Jesus never preached this and refuted Paul on this.
In fact, according to James Dunn, who quotes John Dominic Croson, who Dr. James White himself quoted, John Dominic Croson, he believed that James set up Paul in Jerusalem because they had found out that Paul was teaching this doctrine of the Torah being abrogated.
So they made him, in front of everybody, demonstrate he still follows the law of Moses. But not only that, out of everything James and the Jerusalem disciples could have done to expose Paul, they made him do a sin offering which abolishes everything Paul's been saying about the cross.
Why would they still be sacrificing when Jesus is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices? According to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 45, in the Messianic age, the Messiah will sacrifice an animal for his own sin and for the sins of his followers.
He's referred to as the Prince in Ezekiel 45. And just in case Dr. White tries to say that that's not talking about the Messiah, John Gill says it's about the Messiah, and Dr. Michael Brand, Dr. White's colleague, admits it's about the Messiah.
So normally Christians, they quote from the Quran, look, Mohammed has to ask for forgiveness for his own sins. Look, Jesus is sinless. But then we find in Mark chapter 1, Jesus is baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and Matthew omits it, and then in the Messianic age, he will still be doing animal sacrifices.
How does that go with the cross? Regarding Paul's action in Acts 21, which proves what I said, that Paul says, to a Jew I act like a Jew, and to one not under the law, which means pagans, I act like one not under the law, I act like a pagan, which is why when the disciples said that Jesus died and resurrected in an Israelite sense, he turned it into a mystery religion sense.
This is what the Interpreter's Bible says about Acts. Here the author of Acts makes Paul guilty of an act of insincerity to which he would never in reality have condescended. In reply, it must be said that if Acts gives a true picture, then we must admit a certain disingenuousness in Paul's conduct.
It says further, thus it is not the performance of the right in itself that causes difficulty. It was rather the fact that it was done with an ulterior motive to suggest something that was not strictly true.
Could Paul do this without hypocrisy? Proves my opening statement, the disciples were Muslims who believed the Psalms, and Paul came and took what they said, distorted it into a Gentile, pagan culture, and what does the Quran say in Surah 3, Ayah 78?
It accuses the people of the book of distorting with their tongues and interpretations. Paul's a perfect example of this.
My question is for Zakir Hussain. If Jesus was crucified, what evidence would you expect to see from the first century that we don't have? So, it seems like everything that we would expect to be true, if he was crucified, is true.
So, what would you expect that's missing?
The first thing I want to clear up before I answer this question, that with all due respect, Dr. White's methodology is flawed, because he doesn't realise that him and Robert Price, for example, are two extremes.
Robert Price finds the evidence for Jesus so flimsy that he denies the existence of Jesus, and he contradicts Islam, so why can't I quote him? Or why should I agree with anything he says? But then, Dr. White is at the other end of the spectrum, that everything said about Jesus in the first century, in the Gospels, is all historical.
That also contradicts Islam. So, if I should reject everything Robert Price says, then I should reject everything you say. Why not be in the middle ground and weigh each evidence? Then, regarding what I would need to believe Jesus was crucified, number one, the Psalms would have to make it clear, the Hebrew Bible would have to make it clear that the Messiah would die, the New Testament should have a consistent narrative, and there shouldn't be no early Christians denying the crucifixion, and of course, the Qur 'an, which is the word of God, proven beyond doubt, should not deny it.
Also, Dr. White says, but I can quote liberals and whoever, and launch arguments against Islam, but with all due respect, Dr. White, the difference between us is, if you do launch the arguments, it will actually get refuted, unlike half the things I brought up tonight, with all due respect.
I'm a little surprised by what I just heard, because the answer to the question was, well, I would expect that the Psalms would teach us. Well, every Psalm that has been brought up, once you recognize that it is inappropriate to say, well, you can't go beyond what the Psalmist says, once we realize Jesus did that, once we realize all the New Testament writers, it's a convenient thing to say, we just blame Paul, we just blame Paul.
The Qur 'an never does. But we know more about it than the writer of the Qur 'an did. Oh, how did that happen? That's an interesting fact to point out. None of those passages in the Psalms, and by the way, it's always Psalm 22, not Psalms 22.
It's one of my pet peeves, sorry. You never say hymns 106. So anyway, every one of those Psalms is consistent with the New Testament interpretation of it. There is a consistent New Testament interpretation.
You do not have to introduce all the alleged contradictions and misreadings that Zacher has introduced this evening, which come from a Jewish perspective and not from a Christian perspective. And then when it comes to the Qur 'an, well, let's just be honest.
The fundamental reason we're here tonight is because you take that as the lens to which you're reading all these other things. You don't have to read them the way that you've been reading them. You do it because of those 40 Arabic words, which are not clear in what they say.
They are not clear in their interpretation and not clear where they came from. And I could add all sorts of, I could start going into issues here about, well, how do you know this was originally a part of the Qur 'an?
I mean, let's look at the compilations. Look at the fact that there are certain verses that weren't even found in the original compilation made under Abu Bakr. Was this one that was, who had memorized this?
We can go into all sorts of issues like that. But I think we've gone late enough into the evening to recognize that the fundamental issue is that when you allow the New Testament to speak in the context in which it was written, and you allow for the fact that the New Testament has an intimate relationship to the Old Testament that the Qur 'an has to neither one, the Qur 'an has no meaningful intertextual relationship to either the Old or New Testament, none whatsoever.
Once you recognize that, then the question really becomes, well, what's the ultimate sources of authority we're using here? And you can come up with all sorts of wild-eyed liberals that will point out any contradiction, any type of religious text you can find.
But you will not find consistent people believe that God has spoken who will be following each one of these types of arguments. That's the problem this evening. So we have three minutes. I think we've done half an hour, haven't we?
What is it? It's ten o 'clock. Okay. Six minutes. Six minutes left.
Yes. I'm sure it's glowing. Yes. James, do you think what about deliberate excluding? Jesus has excluded in the church hymns in the prayer to be a messenger of God according to John 17 series. Definitely messenger.
He couldn't say no, no. If you say no, that means you reject John 17 verses 3. Having been entitled to be messenger of God according to Quran, according also to his real position at this time, impossible to be crucified.
But to be honored and to have more glory as a messenger can be crucified, can be killed. But as a prophet can be killed like Jeremiah, like John the Baptist, like Zechariah. But as a messenger, impossible.
So Moses never been actually killed by the Israelites. Abraham wasn't killed by Babylonians. Elijah was about to be killed by the Phoenicians, but also been rose to heaven as Jesus rose because he's a messenger.
And Quran, in fact, have answered all question of the Christian side. But sadly, Paul has broken the peaceful transfer of Jewish faith into Christian faith. Lastly, to Muslim faith and this Paul problem, not Jesus problem.
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't know what the question was. There was a lot of stuff there. So I'll just one thing that I heard was the common citation of John 17, 3. Again, a meaningful exegesis means you listen to everything that the text says.
And when you can take one text where Jesus in addressing the father refers to him as the only true God, assume Unitarianism. And then ignore that one sentence later, Jesus says, glorify me, father, with the glory which I shared in your presence before the world was.
Which refers clearly to the same vision we have in Daniel. We're talking about an eternal being here. This is the same book of John that begins with in the beginning was the word. Whereas with God, the word was God.
It ends with John 20, 28. Thomas confessing the Lord and my God. Meaningful exegesis. Which, to be honest with you, is what I try to do with the Quran. Which is why I don't use a lot of the arguments that many people use against the Quran.
Because I actually try to read it in its own context. When you do the same thing with the Gospel of John, you might understand why even Bart Ehrman, who is no friend of Christianity, says, well, obviously the Gospel of John presents the deity of Christ.
That's what it's all about. It's so apparent and so clear. And what it allows you to do is to recognize that Jesus was a monotheist. You only believe there is one true God. And yet that same book identifies father, son, and Holy Spirit as God.
That's why Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. I didn't understand the rest of it. I don't understand what Paul has to do with John 17, 3. Or any of the rest of it. I sort of got lost because I didn't really understand all of it.
I apologize. Part of it is because we were eating the microphone and I couldn't understand it really clearly.
John 17, 3 is the most difficult text for Trinitavians to explain. Now notice what Dr. White said. We're assuming Unitavianism. Whereas Augustine, who is one of the greatest Trinitavian minds in the history of the church, found John 17, 3 so difficult that he changed the wording of the text.
Anyone can check this for themselves. Regarding the next verse, I think it's the verse after verse 5, not the next verse. John 17, 5. Regarding the glory that I had with you before the world began. If Dr. White takes the statements of Jesus back into Jewish context, as Anthony Buzzard in his book has rightly pointed out, that is speaking about Jews speaking about the decrees of God.
For example, if God has told you by revelation that you're promised a place in heaven, a Jew can say to God, give me that place in heaven that was with me before the earth began. It's talking about God's decree.
Not only that, to further prove this point, Raymond Brown points out, Raymond Brown may be called a liberal according to Dr. White, but the manuscript that Dr. Raymond Brown speaks about is not a liberal manuscript.
There's a variant reading in this which doesn't say, which I had before you, before the world began. It says the glory that was with you before the world began. And regarding, folks, sometimes it feels strange to be that a Muslim, as a Muslim, we're seen as the bad guys in this debate of Jesus being crucified, when the whole reason the ayah was brought up in the first place, why does the Quran deny that Jesus was crucified?
It wasn't even speaking to Christians in that verse. It was in response to the Jews, because the Jews know, Dr. White said, which Jew would call Jesus a messiah? Read Mark chapter 15, mocking him on the cross.
They say, let this messiah get himself down from the cross. By saying, we crucified the messiah, Jesus, they're mocking, because in Jewish belief, they cannot kill the messiah. So it's like saying square circle, crucified messiah is like square circle.
So the Quran is defending Jesus and saying, no, you didn't kill him, he's returning. So we're actually the good guys in this debate. Because like Paul said, Jesus has been made a curse for us. The Quran says, regarding Jesus, that I am blessed wherever I be.
We're actually the good guys in this debate, defending Jesus.
My question is that, just framing my question, I'll say that it's interesting that you talk that the Quran was replying to the Jews in stating that Jesus wasn't crucified. That would also accord with what Josephus said, which was that the messiah was crucified.
So we have Jewish history, also through Tacitus, pagan history, as well as Christian history, but all of those you've addressed. The one which, I'm not sure if you addressed it, was modern secular historians.
Ba 'alman was the most, I think, I believe the most common author that you quoted. And despite him being a great skeptic of the Bible, of Christianity, he believes the books contradict itself just as you do.
He states that one of the most certain facts of history, not just religious history, but history, was Jesus' crucifixion. This would also accord with what John Dominic Croson said, also a skeptic, and even what James Dunn said, who you quoted yourself, he said that there's two facts which are certain in Jesus' life, and one of those more certain is Jesus' crucifixion.
So without reference to interpretive prophecies from Psalms, which came hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus, or the Quran, which came hundreds of years after Jesus, on a historical basis, what historical proof is there that Jesus wasn't crucified, but it was someone else, Simon of Cyrene, for instance.
I gave the evidence from your Gospels, and I proved, even with Raymond Branco, and from showing the difference between Mark and John, that John was reacting to Christians who believed Jesus' prayer was heard, and that Simon of Cyrene was on the cross.
So if you've never grasped that point, you can watch the video again, and you'll see me address it. I even addressed Bart Ehrman, and you mentioned James Dunn, so I'll mention what James Dunn mentions in his book, Remembering Jesus, I believe it's called, off the top of my head.
He speaks about the limitations of the historical critical method, and he himself mentions that they cannot, with that method, verify miracles, and if there's a choice between verifying a miracle, or going with something that we can see naturalistically, they will always go with a naturalistic option.
So if there's two choices, Jesus was saved by God, or Jesus died, a historian cannot verify the miracle, which is why they will say that the crucifixion is a fact, but on the same premise that they will deny that Jesus was saved from the cross through a miracle, is the same reason they would reject the resurrection, because Bart Ehrman even says they cannot verify miracles.
So if you've got the Psalms making it clear that the Messiah will be safe from dying, his prayer will be answered, and you've got these historians saying that he died on the cross, and the Qur 'an confirms that they did not kill him, then I'm going to take the Qur 'an and the words of the prophets over these historians any other day.
And also, with all due respect, Dr. White misrepresented Ehrman as well. Ehrman doesn't believe that John teaches that Jesus is Yahweh. Ehrman in his book, How Jesus Became God, says that John sees Jesus as our God, but still under Yahweh, because nowadays we think there's humans, and then there's God, and that's it.
In the ancient times, there were humans, and then there were these Elohim type of figures in the middle, and then there was Yahweh, the supreme God. So John has brought him up to Elohim, our God, but he hasn't made him on a level of Yahweh yet.
That would be later Christians after John. That's Ehrman's position. Thank you very much.
No, it's not Ehrman's position. I guess you don't keep up with his blog, but he has evolved greatly even since he wrote that book and now admits that all the Gospel writers viewed Jesus as a form of deity.
The idea that he denies that Jesus identifies as Yahweh, just last week someone said that they heard him say something he may be changing on that. I don't know. I hope so, because it's so obvious that all the New Testament writers did identify Jesus as Yahweh, including John.
That's a very important thing to keep in mind. Once again, what we've heard is a complete dependence on Zacher's part on ultra-liberal theology, ultra-liberal conclusions. We haven't heard this evening a consistent Islamic argument.
We've heard a good Jewish argument, or if you're a naturalist, a materialist, and an ultra-leftist, you can come up with your arguments. But as far as an actual interaction that would be consistent with the way that you would...
If anyone here believes in the mirage in Israel, you cannot believe what Zacher said this evening. Because the consistent application of the skeptical shotgun type of attack upon the New Testament you've seen this evening would destroy every element of the supernatural in Muhammad's life.
Every bit of it. Gone. You wouldn't find a single person he's quoted tonight that would substantiate your belief in the mirage in Israel. Not a one. Not a single one. Why? Because of the methodology they use.
Not because of the facts. Not because of the facts. So I continue looking for that opportunity. It's interesting, I asked a Muslim friend of mine once, a very erudite, learned young man, if he'd ever debate this subject.
And he said, no, I'd never debate you on it because Surah 4, 1 -7 says that it was made to appear to them, therefore all the historical evidence would substantiate that it was made to appear to them. So why should we debate it?
And if you take that position, that's a position of faith. If you take the position that says, well, all the history is going to be wrong, that's one thing. To turn around and try to use battery acid on the text of the Bible to substantiate the text of the Quran at this one point, without recognizing that you've had to dip into a barrel that will destroy the Quran as well, is not a wise direction to go.
Think about it. I think it's very, very important. Closing statements? Three minutes, right? And then we let you out of here. Once again, thank you very much for sticking around this late. It is always my tradition, starting when I debated Shabir Ali in 2006, to try to bring something.
And I'm going to tell you something, Zakir, I'm going to be really glad to give this to you, because I'm sick and tired trying to drag it upstairs, because it's a big honking book, which means it's also a big expensive book.
But this is a book called From Heaven He Came and Sought Her. It's on the subject of definite atonement. Not sure what, given all the reading you do, you might find it useful. Someday I may see you with dozens and dozens of photocopies from that that you're thumbing through very quickly.
There's things called computers, dude. They're really great. Secondly, despite how sharp our encounter has been here this evening, I want you to understand that when I leave this place, I'm going to pray for this young man.
And I hope he doesn't mind that. And I hope you don't mind that. We have disagreed. I disagree so much with Zakir's research methods and everything else. But I pray for him. And I want you to realize I pray for you, because the reality is I experience the resurrected Christ each and every day.
That doesn't make me right on the history. But I can tell you that what we believe, what we believe goes back to the earliest sources. And I just want to ask you once again, what if all those prophecies, what if Isaiah 53 is about Jesus?
What if a single manuscript here, we just heard about a single text of a variant. I couldn't even find it in Nessie, Holland. A single text. What if we actually do know what the New Testament text said?
And what if it's all true? Did the writer of the Quran know what was in the New Testament? My answer to that is no, he did not. So think about it. Consider that. And remember that Jesus Christ, I believe, has always been a perfect savior to everyone who has ever turned to him in faith.
Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for your attention. And thank you, Zacher, for being here this evening, even though I do not understand why the whole evening you've been wearing a jacket.
Don't judge. Thank you very much.
I can finally stand up because I don't have to use my papers now. It wasn't my fault. We could have hooked this up to that. My whole approach was supposed to be with a PowerPoint. So I was, like, fighting one-handed, as they say.
Anyway, Dr. White, I really appreciate you coming. A lot of people may not realize this. Sometimes in the heat of this WWF type of debate, it may look like we don't like each other, but I actually have a lot of respect for Dr. White, and I'm sure he knows that.
And I have a book for you, too, just so us Muslims don't look cheap. It's almost as heavy as that one. Folks, in summary of what we spoke about tonight, I showed that there's a prophecy in the Torah that the Christians' claim is about the crucifixion of Jesus.
I showed that Isaac was saved and the language used in Jewish sources was death and resurrection. In fact, the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, I believe it's verse 19, uses the same terminology regarding Isaac.
And that's how his disciples used it for him, and Paul went out and distorted it. I showed that before the Gospel of John, there were Christians with the substitution theory, and I gave all my sources.
Now, what am I really here for? To disprove that Jesus died on the cross? Yes, that's one of the reasons, but that's secondary. The real reason I'm here is to call everybody to Tawheed. This is the ultimate thing that everybody must know, that God is one person who should be worshipped alone, and He alone has the perfect names and attributes, etc.
This is the most important thing. So us Muslims are calling everybody to know that Jesus the Messiah was not a false Messiah. Prophets have died in the past. John the Baptist died. Muslims don't come up here and try to say, was John the Baptist beheaded?
Do we do that? Why is it different for Jesus, folks? Because the Psalms make it clear the Messiah cannot die at the hands of his enemies. I did not do no Jewish method, no Australian method. I read what the Psalms said itself.
And Dr. White didn't deny the Psalms said this once. Remember that. I showed that Jesus, according to the earliest sources, said it is impossible to die outside Jerusalem. And it's clear, according to Dr. White's own wording, that Jesus died outside Jerusalem.
So every time a Christian says Jesus got crucified, you are confirming he is a false Messiah. A crucified Messiah is like a squared circle. That's not what the prophecy said. So Islam, which is the resurrection of Jewish Christianity, the Christianity of the disciples, as the New Jerome Biblical Commentary mentions in Matthew 5, we're doing the same thing that the disciples did.
The disciples called up Paul for what he was teaching, and they died out. And with the coming of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, peace, their religion resurrected, and we're doing the same thing.
We are the followers of Jesus, like the Jewish Christians, and we're speaking to the other Christians who are the followers of Paul and doing the same thing that James did in Acts 21. Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoyed yourself.