A Response to Mujtahid2006, Part 2

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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May 4, 2008

I continue my reply to Mujtahid2006.

A Response to Mujtahid2006, Part 3

00:08: I am continuing with my response to Mujtahid 2006 and the video that he posted just a few days ago.
00:18: I've already posted one response and I would like to respond to the rest of what he had to say in that particular video.
00:25: At one point he says that the Bible has some true narrations. I remember asking
00:31: Shabir Ali in our debate at Biola University in 2006, how can we know?
00:36: And it seems that the only consistent Islamic response is, well, if it agrees with the
00:41: Quran then it's true, and if it doesn't, it's not, and if it's in between, we don't really know.
00:48: This leads to what I've called Islamic anachronistic eisegesis. Instead of looking at the text as it develops over time, instead of looking from Old Testament and New Testament to Quran, you start with the
01:01: Quran and then use that as the lens through which you look back at everything else. And that's why
01:08: I say when you use one standard to defend the Quran and a completely different standard to attack the
01:15: New Testament, that inconsistency from my perspective is absolutely fatal to the truth claims of Islam.
01:22: If you can't use a consistent standard, from my perspective, you really don't have a case to present that is going to be truly meaningful.
01:31: Likewise, I think it's very important to keep the same standards in choosing what authorities you will cite.
01:39: I think that would help you out a lot. That is, you cite it as Gospels, works from Gnostics in the 2nd century.
01:47: Since Gnostics believe the god of the Torah was an evil demiurge, an evil god, and they believed in many levels of divine beings, and they denied
01:58: Jesus ever had a physical body, why would a Muslim even give these pagans the slightest bit of credibility at all?
02:09: Are you seriously suggesting that these people, with their wild beliefs, beliefs never held by Moses or David or Jesus, people who are deniers of monotheism, deniers of the creator of all things, that these people reflect the earliest beliefs of Jesus and his disciples?
02:31: There was paganism all around early Islam, too. We know that the Kaaba was surrounded by pagans before Muhammad was born.
02:41: Is that somehow relevant? Do we make reference to these people as if somehow they're relevant to our argumentation?
02:48: So why would you be making reference to the Gnostics as if the Gnostics somehow demonstrate something about early
02:55: Christianity? I'll have more to say about that. You talk about the Nazarenes and the Ebionites.
03:01: Are these the original followers of Jesus, then? If they are, why did they pass away?
03:07: Why did they never have the preeminence? I'm thinking of two particular texts in the
03:14: Quran that I'd be very interested in getting some serious response to. Surah 355 says,
03:21: And remember when Allah said, O Jesus, lo, I am gathering thee and causing thee to ascend unto me.
03:27: I think a more consistent translation would be, I'm causing you to die, as some translations actually say, but anyway.
03:34: And I'm cleansing thee of those who disbelieve, and I'm setting those who follow thee above those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.
03:47: Now that sounds, the only way I can understand this, if this is being said to Jesus and it's talking about his being raised up to Allah, is that the followers, his followers, are going to be set above.
04:07: It says, I'm cleansing thee of those who disbelieve, and I'm setting those who follow thee above those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.
04:15: How do you interpret this text? I'd be very interested in knowing, because it sounds to me like a promise that would be consistent again with what
04:22: I've seen in Surah 5, that these true believers are protected by Allah, and they are made to be victorious over the disbelievers.
04:35: Now you seem to believe that Paul is one of the disbelievers. You seem to buy into the Paul perverted
04:40: Christianity and all the rest of this type of argumentation. And so, how do you understand
04:46: Surah 355, in context? Same thing with Surah 61, verse 14, which says,
04:53: O ye who believe, be Allah's helpers, even as Jesus, son of Mary, said unto the disciples,
04:59: Who are my helpers for Allah? They said, We are Allah's helpers. And a party of the children of Israel believed, while a party disbelieved.
05:07: Then we strengthened those who believed against their foe, and they became the uppermost.
05:12: If the Nazarenes, if the Ebionites, are the true followers of Jesus, then they became the uppermost, right?
05:18: Isn't that what the Quran says in Surah 61, verse 14? Well, but they didn't become the uppermost.
05:26: So how do you understand these texts? If you're trying to say these are the groups that actually represent the earliest followers of Jesus, then how do you understand the promises of the
05:36: Quran regarding these people? And why were they always just very small, marginalized groups that really didn't have any impact?
05:46: Why is it that Orthodox Christianity is the Christianity we see spreading all over the world, being persecuted, and yet being consistent on these central doctrines of the faith, the very central doctrines of the faith that you as a
06:03: Muslim deny? I just had to stop the recording for a moment because all of a sudden floating out of my
06:11: Vista tablet unit on the desk behind me was a Surah of the
06:16: Quran, and it was a gadget that I have on the desktop that lets me know when the prayer times are for Muslims, because sometimes when
06:25: I try to contact someone or something like that, I don't want to call them at an inopportune time.
06:31: And I'd forgotten and left the alarm function on, so it was asking me if I was ready for evening prayers, but found that rather ironic.
06:41: You said in your article, quote, at one point, the majority of the Christian world was
06:46: Unitarian and did not believe Jesus was God, end quote. Now I'm assuming, having taught a little church history in my past, the only time
06:57: I can think of that you'd be making reference to would be the post -Nicene -Aryan ascendance.
07:04: That is, that period of decades after the Council of Nicaea, where primarily through political means and the force of the
07:12: Roman Empire, the Nicene faith was forced out of the vast majority of professing churches, so that you have the situation where athanasius contra mundum, athanasius against the world.
07:30: And eventually the Aryans turned on themselves, the political climate changed, and all of that was reversed.
07:37: It's interesting, the Nicene faith that I would defend clearly defended itself during that period of time as being biblical, and it became predominant because men like Athanasius would not give in.
07:51: I've written on this subject a number of times before. But that isn't even an accurate understanding of Arius' teaching, or even the semi -Aryanism that was codified in some of the councils that took place during the
08:09: Aryan ascendancy. All of these confessed Jesus to be a divine person.
08:16: They denied the full deity of Christ, but they certainly did not take a
08:22: Muslim perspective and say that Jesus was merely a razul. Arius believed
08:28: Jesus was the Son of God. And so to make reference to him as if somehow that is relevant to the
08:35: Islamic perspective, I think might not be the best approach you could possibly have, because that's really not historically accurate at all.