 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. As-salallahu alayhi wa ala ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. As-salamu alaykum. Rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Peace be upon all of you. Thank you, Reverend Andy, for that very thorough introduction to Jesus and the Christian tradition. I'll just get to it. So, who is Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, Isa ibn Madiyam. Peace be upon both of them. Of course, here we have the Temple Mount, the Masjid Qulb al-Sakhra. They're done with the rock, the western wall there. So, just begin by quoting some verses from the Quran in translation. This is from the third chapter of the Quran starting at verse 42. And remember when the angel said, O Mary, surely God has chosen you, purified you, chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, be devout to your Lord and prostrate yourself and bow down with those who bow down. This is the news of the unseen that we reveal to you. O Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi sallam. You were not with them when they cast lots to decide who would be Mary's guardian, nor were you there when they argued about it. Remember when the angels proclaimed, O Mary, God gives you glad tidings of a word from him. His name will be the Messiah, Jesus' son of Mary, honored in this world and the hereafter. And he will be one of those nearest to God. Continues. And he will speak to people in the cradle and in adulthood and will be one of the righteous. Mary wondered, my Lord, how can I have a child when no man has touched me? The angel replied, So will it be, God creates what he wills. When he decrees a matter, he simply says to it be, and it is. And God will teach him, i.e. Jesus, peace be upon him, revelation and wisdom, the Torah and the gospel, and make him a messenger to the children of Israel to proclaim, I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I will make for you a bird from clay, breathe into it, and it will become a real bird by God's leave. I will heal the blind and the leper and raise the dead to life by God's will or God's leave. And I will prophesize what you eat and store in your houses. Surely in this is a sign for you if you truly believe. It continues. And I will confirm the Torah revealed before me and legalize some of what had been forbidden to you. I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. So be mindful of God and obey me. Surely God is my Lord and your Lord. So worship him alone. This is the straight path. Now we jump to chapter 61 verse 6. And remember when Jesus, son of Mary, said, O children of Israel, I am truly God's messenger to you, confirming the Torah which came before me and giving good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Ahmed, the most praised, which is one of the names of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Yet when he came to them with clear proofs, they said, this is pure sorcery. Okay, so according to the Quran, Jesus, peace be upon him, was a great prophet of God, a great Nabi or Navi. These languages are very close. Hebrew and Arabic, a great messenger of God, a Rasul. He's called the Messiah, al-Masih al-Mashiach. He was born from a virgin. He was the worker of miracles, by the permission of God. He is a great teacher and reviser of the Torah. He is the predecessor of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Jesus was a spiritual master, a bringer of the gospel, which is called Al-Injil in Arabic. And he's a human being in all respects. It's not divine. Interestingly, according to most historians, the historical Jesus was, most plausibly, a self-proclaimed prophet. And I say self-proclaimed because secular historians, they don't entertain the supernatural in their method of historiography, right? It doesn't mean that they denied his supernatural, but that's not how modern secular history is done. So they're not going to say he was a prophet, but what did he actually claim historically? So he was a self-proclaimed prophet. This is probably what he claimed. He claimed, probably, to be some sort of messiah. He claimed to be a teacher and reviser of the law of Moses. In other words, he was a rabbi. He claimed to be some sort of healer. He claimed to be a teacher of great spirituality. He claimed to be the announcer of someone after him. So in the synoptic tradition, the Bar-in-ash, the son of man, who will come to earth and set up his kingdom and defeat the fourth beast. In the Gospel of John, the Johannin Gospel, ha perecleitas, the pereclete, someone to come after him, who will guide you into all truth, and someone who did not claim to be divine. This is what most historians will say about the historical Jesus of Nazareth, peace be upon him. The Christology of the... And interestingly, going back to this, it's interesting the position of the historians regarding the historical Jesus is very close to Islamic Christology, as to what the Quran says Jesus claimed to be. The Christology of the Quran. So what's really important is to establish what's known as the essential theological consistency. Okay. So for example, in the Torah, it says, In Hebrew, God is not a man that he should lie. And the meaning of this, according to Rabbi Abahua of Caesarea, is that whoever claims to be God, any man who claims to be God, is a liar. Indeed, I am God and not a man. Every man is put to death for his own sin. Deuteronomy 24-7. Look at Ezekiel chapter 18. A long sustained argument for personal responsibility. The sin of the father does not pass to the son. The sin of the son does not pass to the father. But if the wicked should turn from his wickedness and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live. He shall not die. What does it mean to turn? To shuva, toba, right? To literally turn your body, or to reorient yourself to God, to repent to God. That is the way to become right with God. Through repentance. Whoever is hanged on a tree is accursed by God. Deuteronomy 21-23. Do not drink blood. A haqaf ulam, an everlasting statute among your generations. Leviticus 3-17. Here are Israel. The Lord our God. The Lord is one. One means one. Here are Israel. The Lord our God. This is called the shema. And this is actually quoted by the New Testament Jesus at one point. It's only in one Gospel. And Matthew and Luke had access to Mark. But they did not choose to include this in their Gospel. Where Jesus quotes this verbatim. Here are Israel. The Lord our God. The Lord is one. He shall love the Lord, that God with all the heart, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. These are the greatest commandments. Rabbi Hillel. Some say Akiva was asked, what is the Torah in a nutshell? And he said Deuteronomy 6-4. Deuteronomy 6-5. Leviticus 1918. God is one. Love God, love your neighbor, everything else is commentary. That is not important. He's a rabbi. But this is the essence. is evil many places blood is not necessary for the forgiveness of sin Psalm 51 second Chronicles chapter 7 and the last one here for I know that God saves his Messiah he shall hear him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand David writes Psalm 20 verse 6 God saves his Messiah I'll come back to this verse so we have to establish this consistency with the revelation given to Moses and the Hebrew prophets and what is given to the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to establish his bona fides as it were as a true prophet of God the Christology of the Quran a restoration of Jamesonian Nazarianism the Nazarenes under James the just which reflected the original teachings of Jesus the Nazarene Yeshua Hanoutsiri and his original followers who were called the Nazarenes Hanoutsirim here's a verse from the Quran oh believers stand up for God as Jesus son of Mary asked the disciples who will stand up with me for God the disciples replied we will stand up for God then a group of the children of Israel believed while another disbelieved we then supported the believers against their enemies so they prevailed 61 14 so this verse according to our classical exegets indicates that within the children of Israel there was a division and the word used in Arabic is a thought if I and I thought if I means a group but it could also mean one man so this verse seems to indicate this Paul versus James paradigm Paul versus James this is an early split in the early first century of the common era among Christians Jewish Christians early Nazarenes this is mentioned everywhere FC Bauer mentions this Robert Isaman you can read him James Tabor Bart Ehrman many others this tension is seen in the New Testament in Galatians chapter 2 men from James are Paul's opponents men sent from James in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 the Corinthians demanded Paul to produce something called the letter of authorization where is your letter letter of authorization what does that mean well presumably he needs a teaching license from James right because everyone answers to James even in the book of Acts everyone answers to James if you're not authorized by James this in Arabic is called an Ijazah if you don't have a teaching license then you're a freelance apostle and you don't have any authority okay so the Corinthians are demanding from Paul of Tarsus to produce this letter of authorization interesting in the Gospel of Thomas which is sometimes labeled a Gnostic gospel which Gnostic does not have a good connotation in Christianity in Islam it's a good thing and I don't know is a good marifa is beautiful right when Christianity a Gnostic is a deviant right but there's other studies on the Gospel of Thomas that reveal it to be just as Gnostic as the Gospel of John this is eternal life to know you Ginosco is the verb in Greek to know you the only true God that sounds very Gnostic that's John 17 3 right so other scholars say no the Gospel of Thomas which is very interesting is a sayings Gospel 114 sayings of Jesus there's no narrative right Jesus said Jesus said Jesus said logion number 12 when I am gone you must go to James the just for whose sake heaven and earth came into being and this is a way of saying that James the just is the one man on earth who has the truth from me he has the he has the correct yahyidu to heed he has the oneness of God and you must report to him a hyperbolic praise of James who is James the brother of Jesus the head of the Nazarene messianic movement for 30 years a lot of people haven't even heard of James James is not even mentioned in the Gospels by most accounts James the less is not he's not a disciple the disciple mentioned in the four Gospels that's not James the brother of Jesus it seems like he's been sort of systematically written out of the Gospels the head of the early messianic movement for 30 years yet none of the writings of the New Testament were authentically written by James according to the vast majority of critical scholars including the epistle of James this is considered to be pseudonymous according to the vast majority of critical scholars James did not write this who is the principal author of the New Testament Paul of Tarsus seven of the books of the 27 books almost by consensus of historians was written by the historical Paul of Tarsus another six are written in his name that is to say pseudonymous that is to say someone is pretending to be Paul and the book of Hebrews was attributed to him but is actually anonymous so Paul is the principal author of the New Testament who wrote the four Gospels the four Gospels were not called Matthew Mark Luke and John until Irenaeus in the year 180 of the Common Era Matthew Mark Luke and John so these books are anonymous they're written by Pauline Christians Paul's Christology Paul's Gospel he says and Paul calls it my gospel Evangelio mood that's what he says my gospel right is all over the four Gospels what is the Q source document this is very interesting so according to the vast majority of New Testament scholars when Matthew and Luke are sitting at their desks they have two things in front of them at least two they have the Gospel of Mark because they had word for word verbatim agreement with Mark in many places sometimes they edit Mark right but they also have agreement among themselves Luke and Matthew that is not in Mark word for word verbatim in many cases that means they have something else on their desk and this is called Q from Kuala in German the unknown sometimes this is called the sayings gospel Dr. Dennis McDonald he calls it the first gospel the original gospel what does Q say about the crucifixion well to quote John Dominic Crossen imminent New Testament historian there is is a direct quote there's nothing nothing nothing and the gospel according to Q about the crucifixion of Jesus or the resurrection of Jesus thus according to historians the earliest known source of the Gospels what I mean early earliest known source Q according to most Gospels predates Paul is pre Paul line the four Gospels if you if you open a New Testament you'll see Gospel of Matthew that's the canonical order that's not the chronological order Paul wrote all of his letters and they were well circulated before Mark wrote his gospel the first gospel Paul is writing in the late 40s early 50s late 50s early 60s mark isn't 70 or so this is a dominant opinion but Q according to most scholars maybe it had various strata of authorship but Q in its original authorship is pre Paul line some even put it in the 40s and reflects an authentic James Sony and Christianity so that's why I say according to historians the earliest known source the Gospels says nothing nothing nothing but the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus so I would say there's three stages of Christological conflict between proto Islam or Islam and so we believe that the religion the actual religion of Jesus and the disciples was Islam in the sense that they were submitters unto God right just as Moses was a submitter unto God and Abraham was a submitter unto God a monotheist Islam does not mean necessarily a Muslim does not mean necessarily strictly a follower of the prophet Muhammad's a lot of Islam we're not Muhammad in right Islam and it's perfect in pristine and latest form came to us through the prophet Muhammad so all of these prophets are Muslim prophets so that's why I'm saying here proto Islam Islam and Christianity right whoever does the will of my father you know that saying in the Gospel of Mark say Jesus your mother and brother are here who is my mother and brother whoever does the will of my father that is my mother and my brother whoever so submits his will that's called a Muslim so so you have these three stages of conflict Christological conflict early post-apostolic and modern the early stage the earliest stage Jamesonian Nazarenes versus Pauline Nazarenes this is in the first century this is presented very vividly in Galatians in first and second Corinthians right Paul has these enemies and he doesn't like them at all and these aren't like pagans well he doesn't like the pagans and these aren't just Jews he doesn't like them that don't believe in Jesus right but these are other Christians these are his primary opponents are other Christians this conflict is very downplayed in the book of Acts because acts is trying to smooth things over a little bit so when you read acts and you listen to a sermon of Peter and Paul it's almost like the same person and in fact it is the same person is Luke writing it Luke is the actual author of whoever wrote the gospel Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles and the Quran alludes to it in that verse I read of to the James the James Paul Pauline paradigm and then you have the post-apostolic stage so this is called Ebianism versus proto orthodoxy or orthodoxy so who are the Ebianites so the second century saw this emergence of a group called the Ebianites if you name right which means the poor people now this is a derogatory term that was invented for them by proto orthodox Christians right like origin of Alexandria and others who said these people they have a very poor Christology they don't even worship Jesus they don't believe he's divine these are masakine theologically they're so poor they didn't call themselves Ebianites right these are Nazarenes these are Jamesonian Nazarenes so you have these Ebianites versus proto orthodox so the second century to the seventh century so we see that tension in the polemical writings of the patristic fathers right Justin Martyr Irenaeus of Gaul Clement of Alexandria the the Panoraian who was the Epiphanes of Salamis etc etc and then you have the modern stage oh as well as the so-called pseudo the Clementine literature so in the second third century you have this literature that comes out that's attributed to the Jewish Christians who are anti-polline this was written later but it sort of reflects their positions so they considered Paul for example to be an apostate rather than an apostle idolater they believe Jesus was a human being that he was some sort of prophet Messiah and then the modern stage Islamic Unitarianism or we what we might say a Quranic Christology versus Christian Trinitarianism so seventh century to the presence so according to people like Robert Eisenman who James Tabor these are imminent New Testament scholars there's a clear trajectory of Christology that starts with Jesus of Nazareth peace be upon him and moves to his brother James and goes from the Jamesonian Nazarenes to the Ebonites to Islam this is a clear trajectory and of course Robert Eisenman who's an atheist right he can't just say well the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he restored the gospel through revelation he can't say that because he's an atheist or he's trying to be secular so he says well there must have been some Ebonites hiding in caves and in Mecca going to a cave and here's an Ebonite hey how you doing and he's you know taking notes from this Ebonite and you know so that's how he came up with this that's how we knew it so then there's a clear line of trajectory then from Paul right to the proto orthodox fathers to the ecumenical church councils council of Nicaea where the son of God officially becomes God the son and then in 381 at Constantinople the Holy Spirit is now the third person officially of the Trinity etc etc. Messiah wasn't crucified so this is the verse I promise I come back to Psalm 20 verse 6 what I underlined there says God saves his Messiah Messiah this is in the Hebrew the Quran says and on account of their some of the Jews denial of their saying against Mary a great slander and they're saying we have surely killed the Messiah and of course they're saying this in mockery this so-called Messiah Jesus son of Mary the so-called messenger of God and then God says in fact they did not kill him nor did they crucify him but it appeared to them as if they had so this is a major point of contention between Christians of these traditional Christianity and traditional Islam and indeed those who differed over him meaning Jesus are in doubt about it they have no knowledge of it just following conjecture and certainly they did not kill him so I just reproduced here a page from the Strong's Concordance you know if you read a Bible in English you read the Old Testament you'll come across a name Jeshua right you heard this name before Jeshua they get to the New Testament you see the name Jesus you know these two names are exactly the same Jesus's name is Jeshua but for some reason in the English Bibles he's called Jesus but the same name in Hebrew Yeshua in the Old Testament is Jeshua so up here on the top it says Yeshua this is the name of Jesus means like Josh right and if you look down at the bottom the meaning is he is saved this is the meaning of the name Jesus he is saved and the names of prophets have significance of Raham right the father of nations the ab of the father of all nations right Moshe Moshe is actually not Hebrew Moshe according to most historians is an Egyptian name Moshe like Amos in Egyptian name one of the Pharaoh's name Amos born of ah the moon god Tut Moshe Tut Moses born of tote the God of magic Ramesses Ramesses born of raw but just Moses so when he was found in the Nile by the family of Pharaoh they knew he was an Israelite they don't know the name of his God he's just born of someone we don't know he's abed something right abbed of someone we don't know the name of his God so that verse said just following conjecture about the crucifixion so the crucifixion is not in the pre Pauline Q gospel that's something very interesting you know I said Matthew and Luke have something of the Q source on their desk along with Mark we can piece together the contents of Q even though it's not extant how do we do that well you look at Matthew and Luke and whatever they have in common that is missing from Mark and not unique to their own gospel they took that from Q and if you look at all this Q material you will be hard pressed to find anything that contradicts Islamic theology you'll be very hard press so Q is pre Pauline there's no passion narrative there's no passion prediction in Q there's no passion narrative there's no passion prediction and the gospel of Thomas gospel of Thomas written around the time of the gospel of John John is a canonical gospel right some say even earlier than John some say Thomas has different strata it's just as Gnostic is John's gospel there was a very strong opinion that John's gospel was actually written by a Gnostic and some of the early church fathers rejected it the crucifixion has no extant witnesses no extant eyewitness reports according to a near consensus of historians so when this verse was revealed about Jesus in the Quran in the year 625 or something of the common era Wama qataluhu wama salabuhu they did not kill him nor did they crucify Jesus okay and that those who differ therein are following done done means conjecture like guesswork or hearsay at that time I can imagine the Christians and the Jews coming to the Prophet Muhammad and saying what what do you mean they have Matthew's gospel Matthew's a disciple and he's writing about the crucifixion John is a disciple and he wrote about the crucifixion well as studies of the New Testament progressed in the 18th century 19th century today there's almost a near consensus that these books are anonymous that these books are attributed to these four men right who did not write them these books are anonymous they're not written by disciples do not written by eyewitnesses do not written by disciples of eyewitnesses so we have no extant eyewitness reports according to a near consensus of historians of anyone who saw the crucifixion so-called crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth the crucifixion was a major cause of dissension Paul uses the word eras eras is the Greek god of strife in Galatians chapter 1 Galatians is what Paul is really thinking like in Romans he's kind of you know holding back a little bit and he's being more philosophical when in Galatians you know towards the end of Galatians he said now write this down in big bold letters he says that to his scribe right this is what I really think so Galatians 3 1 oh stupid Galatians who has bewitched you is how he says it who has bewitched you that you now follow a different gospel hetaran iwangelion there's another gospel and then I love the eason another Jesus didn't I clearly portray him as crucified before your eyes didn't I clearly portray him as crucified you see the problem with Paul is we only have one side of phone conversation you ever hear like someone talking on the phone you can hear what this guy's saying but what's that guy saying you don't know what do you think Paul is responding you to here it seems like he's responding to Christians in Galatia who denied the crucifixion well how do they what they get that idea from well according to FC Bauer the imminent New Testament scholar when Paul went to Galatians evangelize them with his gospel again he calls it my gospel and he leaves James sends men into Galatia to correct Paul's gospel this is standard exegesis you can read this FC Bauer and so it seems like the Galatians are getting this idea that Jesus wasn't crucified from James himself when I am gone wherever you are go to James the just yeah I'll put a dick for who's a for who's sake heaven and earth came into being the crucifixion was first mentioned by Paul who claimed to have received his gospel via direct revelation not from the disciples he's very adamant about this right so his so-called Creed in 1st Corinthians 15 he actually you have to read that in the sort of scheme of his entire corpus where he says in Galatians I received this gospel from no man it was it was taught directly to me by revelation of Jesus Christ the crucifixion is something that we don't know for certain what the actual disciples believed about they likely believed in as Paul says another gospel another Jesus compared to Paul's gospel the crucifixion is mentioned in the gospels but many events in the gospel passion narratives are highly implausible historically either fictitious symbolic or memetic of Hellenistic literature I can give you many many examples of this many many examples of midnight trial in the Sanhedrin Jesus being tried in the house of the high priest is completely against Jewish law you say well they made an exception okay but that's implausible that's not plausible who betrayed Jesus Judas right what is who Judas is scary it yahoo to Ishkari of how convenient a Jew from the cities you know you know these these country bumpkin disciples of his who can't read or write these fishermen swindled by a city-slicking Jew this seems to be an anti-Jewish trope is this historical Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesus following Jesus take up a cross and follow me Simon Simon's Peter he can do it but this Simon can do it many examples of this the Pascal pardon the way that Pontius Pilate is is described in the gospels clashes severely with how Philo of Alexandria describes him other historians a way to describe Pontius Pilate would not have a second of compunction and swatting any Jewish rebel he was absolutely ruthless yet you have him bring out the two Jesuses they're both Jesus by the way Jesus baraba yes yeshua baraba yeshua hanotsiri who shall I release unto you a Pascal pardon you know trying to release him this is completely against the description of Pilate and other sources outside the New Testament is highly implausible maybe Jesus just had that effect on people and he probably did but historically this is highly implausible and there's other examples oh the useful the JFK assassination is a useful example because the charge that Muslims get all the time is you guys are denying a historical fact Jesus of Nazareth was crucified it's a historical fact interestingly you know the JFK assassination okay happened 50 years ago in broad daylight with video cameras eyewitnesses and to this day we still don't know exactly what happened you're telling me two thousand years ago we know exactly what happened to someone no eyewitnesses no technology nothing you know exactly what happened no you don't you don't happen and if you read these sources if you look at these sources the context behind these sources you'll see that there's massive heiress Paul calls heiress strife major strife about the crucifixion not just what it means did he die for our sins or do we have to follow the holocawe what what what can we be Ben and Noah no no no no did this thing actually happen didn't I portray him as crucified who portrayed him otherwise that's the subtext and then in 1975 you have the Zapruder video you know this thing Zapruder Abraham Zapruder video so everyone believed it was Lee Harvey Oswald right until 1975 and here comes this video 13 years later 12 years later that shows Kennedy sitting in his motorcade and then as Jim Garrison used to say the bullet comes and he goes back into the left oh okay the bullets coming from here he's going this way ah no nothing is conclusive but like this Quranic aya this verse is like that Zapruder video the Quran is saying they followed conjecture and they go back and look at the sources these are not written by eyewitnesses we have to think about this but historians are dragging their feet on this issue they need to reassess the evidence here you know they don't want to look at some Muslim source there's a little bit of bias I think especially with the orientalists and new orientalists anyway so the Christological middle away there's a verse from the Quran oh people of the Bible yeah I had a kitab people of the revelation kitab right could mean Bible and the Bible means book kitab means book do not get in this and in this sorry in this verse the Jews and Christians are being directly addressed according to the context do not go to extremes in your religion and do not say about God except the truth the Messiah Jesus son of Mary is indeed nothing but God's messenger in his word that he cast a Mary and a spirit from him so believe in God and its messengers and do not say three now interesting here the Quran is what I tell you three just don't say three so any type of three the Quran is not saying don't say three persons don't say three beings don't say father son holy spirit don't say father son mother just don't say three in the mallah who in one head for your God is one highly exalted to see they should have a son and again son here okay let me explain this okay imam al-ghazali one of our great scholars he said during the time of bani Israel bani Israel right during the time of the children of Israel when they had the prophecy father and son these terms were used honorific Lee figuratively right so for example Isaiah 64 16 at ta adonai avinu you are the Lord our father right in the Psalms you are you are my beloved kula Kim you are all sons of God right in the Psalms so this is meant to be figurative but here the Quran is talking about this idea that Jesus is the son of God in his metaphysical sense or even in a physical sense because Mormons believe in this kind of physical sense but this idea that God shares anything that the father shares anything with other persons this called perichoresis this is a trinitarian doctrine the father son holy spirit three separate and distinct persons for each each one fully God in and of itself in and of himself they share in the actions and they share in their actions and they're inseparable in thought and consciousness you know they're of one mind to him belongs whatever is in the heavens in the earth and God suffices as a trustee so the Jewish position regarding Jesus this is a traditional Jewish position if you read the Talmud for example he was a false prophet in a pseudo messiah you might get someone who will say well he was just you know just a rabbi who made a mistake you know this guy Ben Shapiro just recently said he was a criminal who wanted to start an insurrection and he was killed by the Romans there's been many of them you're the other extreme Christian position regarding Jesus he's God incarnate and divine Savior the Muslim position is a great messenger in prophet messiah and this is the conclusion that is Jesus this is what our brother read from the Quran that is Jesus son of Mary and this is a word of truth about which they dispute the words the aforementioned Christology that the Quran is mentioning this is the truth about Jesus that all these people are disputing about so thank you for listening I hope I didn't offend you but I wanted to be honest with you and give you what I believe to be the traditional Muslim position in my position regarding our Christology thank you so much