 So we're gonna start Christianity and we're going to begin tonight by talking about the New Testament That is to say the Christian scriptures and Then next week next Tuesday, inshallah We're going to look at the Nicene Creed Orthodox Christian Creed Trinitarian Creed As well as the Trinity So that's the plan for Christianity and Again, we are live. I'm looking at the chat box here. So if there are any questions, I forgot to mention this in weeks past, unfortunately But if there are people that want to ask questions, you can go ahead and type them into the chat box And I'll answer them if they're appropriate I'll answer them on the on the air inshallah Okay, so Last week we said that the primary text of Judaism Is the Old Testament of course again Old Testament? It's Christian terminology It's called the Tanakh in Hebrew Which of course again stands for Torah Nebim Ketobim The Torah the Pentateuch the first five books the prophets like Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and the writings like Psalms and Proverbs Ecclesiastes 1st and 2nd Kings so on and so forth Okay with the New Testament We have Something interesting. So so the Christians now they believe in the Old Testament, right? They believe it to be the word of God. However, they have their own set of primary scriptures and these scriptures are not affirmed by the Jews So Doesn't look like the video was working here inshallah it'll come back So I can if people have questions we can deal with that inshallah t'a'ala So New Testament, right? It's called the hey can I df a df a K Literally the New Testament now the phrase New Testament is actually in the Old Testament. It's in Jeremiah 31 31 Where there's this promise of God that I'm going to establish what's called a buried Hada shah in Hebrew Which literally means New Testament? Of course the Jews take that to mean something completely different than the Christians In Jewish circles Jeremiah is prophesizing that towards the end of time during the reign of the Messiah The Messiah will implement the Jewish law and that's going to be new for most people because most people are not Jews and It's going to also be sort of a renewal for Jews that weren't practicing the law But nonetheless, this is the name of the Christian scriptures The New Testament. So what is the essence of the Old Testament the old bid'it the word bid'it means Testament? It Basically is the following it is if you adhere to the law of Moses if you follow the law of Moses Then you will gain salvation Right, that's that's basically the the essence of the law The essence of the law in a nutshell, let me just quickly try something here so I can Try this again I think we're okay now. Yes, so let me just reiterate It's Tuesday August 18th Tuesday evening. We are live For people out there that want to ask me a question feel free to type that into the chat box inshallah to Allah Okay, so the the essence of the Old Testament is Or the mosaic covenant which is preferred language According to Jews is that if you follow the law of God you follow the mitzvot Right, and you will be saved you will gain salvation and this is interesting because this is the answer of Jesus Peace be upon him at least according to the New Testament Gospels we'll talk more about these what are these Gospels? There are four Gospels in the Christian New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John you have this pericopee or this this story in three Gospels where a Jewish scribe comes to Jesus and he says to him good master. What must I do to gain eternal life? And then Jesus says to him why are you calling me good? There's no one good but one and that is God and then he continues follow the commandments and you shall enter the life Right, there's variations. I mean, that's the reading in Mark. That's how Mark has it There's slight variations in Matthew and Luke. That's Mark 10 18 and you have it in Luke 18 18 and Mark Matthew 19 17 so here Jesus peace be upon him according to this Christian text these Christian texts is Affirming the old bidet the mosaic Covenant, but then by Gospels end right later on in the Gospel Mark 14 Matthew 26 and Luke 22 We are told that Jesus celebrates the Passover the last supper with his disciples and he takes the bread and he gives it to them and says This is my the bread and the wine. This is this is my body This is my blood of the new Covenant of the new Testament. So now he's establishing a new Covenant Right a new agreement. So what that means is now is that the old Covenant that God made with the Israelites is Sinai This Covenant has been revoked. It is abrogated right and now one has to simply believe in Jesus as a Lord as Paul says and that God raised him from the dead and you shall be saved Right, so that's the essence Paul states this I believe in first Corinthians. That's the essence of this new Covenant then Okay, so let's take a closer look then at the the new Testament So there are 39 books in the Old Testament. There are 27 books in the New Testament It's called a canon of 27 books there are four four major types of books in the New Testament the first major type of book is Called a gospel. So a gospel is basically a narrative about Jesus that really focuses on the passion Right The last week of Jesus's life According to these texts So they're basically for extended passion narratives. The real focus is on the suffering and death resurrection of Jesus That's really where the focus is So you have you have Gospel one of the types of books of the New Testament there are four of them Matthew Mark Luke and John We'll talk more about them inshallah Then you have a book of history one book of history in the New Testament. It's the fifth book of the New Testament It's called the book of Acts ACTS also called Acts of the Apostles in the Catholic In the Catholic version English versions. So basically this is early ecclesiastical history early church history There are three main characters really two main characters. There's Peter and there's Paul, but there's also James, right? Acts chapter 15. You have the famous Jerusalem Council. This is really this sort of seminal event in the early Christian movement And the sort of prototype of the later church councils ecumenical church councils that are going to follow in the fourth century all the way into the 21st century Or 20th century. We haven't had one there hasn't been an ecumenical church council in the 21st century The last one was in the 1960s called Vatican II. So the sort of Prototype of that the archetype was the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15 and the issue of that time was How much of the mosaic law is required for these Gentile proselytes for these Greeks? The Greeks are becoming Christian. How much of the law of Moses should we impose upon them? That's why they held the council basically So you have early church history the book of Acts and then you have something called the epistles Which simply means letters and there are 21 of them so four gospels There's one book of history called the book of Acts Then you have 21 epistles or letters and these are written by various Apostles right various apostolic authorities various Disciples of Jesus at least according to Christian Christian tradition So these epistles they deal with the doctrine they deal with council instructions They deal with just different issues that arise in various congregations According to historians Seven of these 21 epistles were genuinely written by Paul Right the Apostle Paul will talk about him inshallah So scholars agree almost by consensus that that seven of them are written by Paul Seven of them Another seven of them are disputed But claimed to have been written by Paul Right in other words someone pretending to be Paul So scholars have deemed these to be Pseudo Pauline Which is sort of a nice way of saying they're forgeries, right? Someone is writing these letters pretending to be Paul and they're not Paul. They're forging these letters Pretending to be Paul and then you have seven what are known as Catholic epistles not Catholic with a capital C not Roman Catholic But Catholic with a lower case C which simply means universal epistles and these are written by various Apostles as well like James and Peter and John and Jude although again the vast majority of historians do not believe that These men actually wrote these books that bear their names. These are also forgeries When it comes to the Gospels, they're called Matthew Mark Luke and John, but in reality they are anonymous None of the authors identify themselves church tradition Assigns them or attributes these books to two disciples of Jesus Matthew the tax collector who's also called Levi and John Yohanan the son of Zebedee who's one of the disciples of Jesus the beloved disciple According to the Gospel of John, although it's disputed whether John the son of Zebedee is the beloved disciple. That's the dominant opinion Historians do not believe that these two men actually wrote these Gospels and then you have the Gospel of Mark Mark Was according to church tradition. He was a student of Peter So he's like a tabby and then you have the Gospel of Luke who is a A friend of Paul or Paul's traveling companion So this is very interesting We notice that you have the Gospel of Mark which is accepted by the church is totally canonical And written around according to the vast majority of historians Probably around 70 of the common era or so most historians put that they even many confessional Christian scholars they place the date of Mark's gospel around 70 around the time of the destruction of the temple But there's also something called the Gospel of Peter a Gospel of Peter is not accepted as canon and The reason is well, it's just too late That's one sort of way of looking at it Another way of looking at it is that it contains material that is that is offensive to the early Christian movement So in the Gospel of Peter It states that Jesus when they were crucifying him he was silent as if he felt no pain So that doesn't work with the early church because For the early church at least the early Pauline church Jesus needs to suffer. It really needs to hurt You know his pain is our gain as they say It's the most painful death ever. He's bearing the sins of the world. He's smitten and afflicted He's bruised for our iniquities. He's crushed for our transgressions as Isaiah chapter 3 53 says which Christians believe to be Referencing Jesus. So it seems like in the Gospel of Peter. He's just he's not feeling pain or perhaps his soul has left his body They're crucifying an empty shell Some things going on there the church didn't like it So the Gospel of Peter is rejected but the Gospel of Mark who's whose Peter student is accepted Right as canonical And then the Gospel of John There's good reasons for placing John around 70 or even earlier as well but the vast majority of Historians placed the Gospel of John anywhere from about 90 to 110 of the common era if we just take the low number, right? The earliest date of 90 right It's that's called the terminus post quem, right the earliest of date 90 so that's you know gospel the the Apostle John who wrote the Gospel was probably let's say he was I don't know 30 years old At the crucifixion around the age of Jesus probably the same age, right if the disciples were probably not old men Here are probably young men around the age of Jesus. He's 30 years old, right in the year 30 So he waited then 60 years Right to write his gospel Around 90 again. We're taking the low end date of 90. So he's 90 years old Right, and he's writing this gospel and he's writing it in Greek and it's quite sophisticated grief and John the son of Zebedee is supposed to be a Galilean fisherman and 95 percent probably of of people in Palestine at the time certainly You know fishermen and peasants they were illiterate. They could not read or write where they were unlettered So how is it that he can produce this gospel where he's talking about? referencing the logos which is a Hellenistic Philosophical idea that goes back to Heraclitus. Maybe studied for 60 years But it still doesn't make a lot of sense that he would write it in Greek and not an Aramaic or in Syriac Another issue is that in John So if you ask a Christian Where does Jesus claim to be God in the New Testament in the four Gospels, right? Invariably the Christian will quote something from the Gospel of John Right, it is the highest Christology So a Christian would say well John 10 30 the father and I are one There you go a John 8 58 Before Abraham was I am right, so print Print Abraham Guinness they a go and me right present tense before Abraham was I am I already was before Abraham So here Jesus he's intimating his Pre-eternality that he predates Abraham Oh, they'll say I Am the way the truth and the life right John 14 6 so you have these I am statements That's what these are called the famous I am statements of the Johanin or gospel of John the Johanin gospel We find none of these I am statements in Matthew Mark and Luke these three Gospels which are called the Synoptic Gospels Right synoptic meaning one-eyed basically that Matthew Mark and Luke they follow Basically the same chronology of events In the life of Jesus whereas in John we have this drastic departure From the synoptic chronology not only in chronology, but in content So in Matthew Mark and Luke the preferred method of teaching his preferred Pedagogical method of teaching is through parable, but in John he is giving these very long Monologues about his relationship with the father making big big claims. He's he's engaged in these long and sometimes Very tense debates with the Jews as it says right the Jews That I mean it's very clear in the gospel of John that the enemies of Jesus are not scribes and Pharisees Right, I mean you find that language in Matthew Which is written around 70 or 80 85, but by the time John comes around there's a there's a clear departure You have Christians and you have Jews Right In earliest of Christianity The the Christians were a sect of Judaism They're called the not serene or the Nazarenes or the Evionim which means like the spiritual poppers the poor people But now we have a definitive Split in the late first century. These are Jews is so it's very clear if you read the gospel of John Hoy you would die oi right me Jews are the enemies of Jesus and Jesus is always budding heads with the Jews So it's very very interesting But the main point I was going to make is That these I am statements which are supposed to be divine claims of Jesus Jesus is claiming to be God in these I am statements If he truly made these statements, then we really have to sort of give an F to Matthew Mark and Luke For how they wrote their Gospels You know Matthew Mark and Luke mentioned all three of them mentioned that Jesus he wrote a donkey into Jerusalem When he came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he wrote a donkey into Jerusalem all three of them Mentioned that right you might think well, is that really important apparently there's something in the book of Zechariah or Zephaniah That says, you know, the king of Zion comes to you seated humbly upon a donkey So it's a fulfillment of prophecy Okay, still doesn't seem very important, but if Jesus is making a divine claim. He's claiming to be God He said before Abraham was I am the father and I are one I am the way the truth and the life. I am the good shepherd. I am the door These big big claims that he's making in the gospel of John Matthew Mark and Luke a hundred percent failed in Recording these divine claims. How could they not record these divine claims of Jesus? So the answer is they're completely inept and they've done a horrible job at writing their Gospels or Jesus never made those statements right and The majority of historians nowadays They believe that the latter is actually true that the Gospel of John is really an ahistorical document. It's really just sort of a Christological meditation of a certain community of Christians called the Johanin community And you know this this community if you read the Gospel of John for example He and he's aware that you have Matthew Mark and Luke floating around In that in the Mediterranean, but he at times deliberately contradicts the synoptic right, for example in Matthew Mark and Luke it says Jesus was crucified on The day of Passover which is a strange day to be crucified But John says that he was crucified on the eve of Passover So the question then becomes Who's right can they both be right? Were there two crucifixions? How can these texts be inerrant? Right, and this is the position of like Fundamentalist Bible colleges like the Moody Bible Institute probably Liberty University Oral Roberts University that these books are inerrant. How can both of these be true? Was Jesus crucified on Passover or the eve of Passover, which is it were there two crucifixions? somebody got it wrong or They both got it wrong right It says in a synoptic Gospels that when Jesus was Going to be crucified for no apparent reason The Romans pulled a random guy out of the crowd named Simon of Cyrene and Compelled him to bear the cross Right, so he took the cross of Jesus will probably cross beam. It says Stados, which is like a stake or a beam probably just a crossbar And made him bear the cross while Jesus sort of just followed in front or behind I don't remember What it says in the synoptics, but that's in Matthew, Mark and Luke John knows this but John goes out of his way to contradict the synoptics and he says Jesus bore his own cross To Golgotha the place of the skull where the Romans used to crucify Jews insurrectionist Jews or trouble-making Jews So why does John do that? right Well, there's probably Some sort of Christological or polemical reason why he does that Now we know that there were early Christian groups that denied the crucifixion of Jesus One such group was the were the Basilladians named after Basilladies I might have mentioned him in the past He was a Christian teacher in Egypt, Alexandria in the first quarter of the second century and Basilladies his Opinion was that Simon of Cyrene Was transfigured or he uses that word in Latin Transfiguratum transfigured to look like Jesus And Jesus to maid was transfigured to look like him and so the Romans grabbed You know the apparent Jesus. So this is called substitution theory supernatural identity transference And so Jesus was able to escape the crucifixion. So it seems like John is familiar with this belief around the time when he's writing at 90 CE or at a hundred CE possibly 110 CE So what he does is he completely eliminates the entire episode of Simon of Cyrene for a Christological reason Even though he knows he's contradicting the synoptics even though his readers will eventually know that he's contradicting the synoptics Right, but his whole point is to teach you is is not to give you Accurate history John admits at the end of the gospel these things have been written to convince you that Jesus is a son of God Right, that's the whole aim. That's to tell us That's his muxa of writing his gospel is to convince you by any means necessary That Jesus is the son of God All right That he died for your sins. So don't get it twisted. He wasn't Substituted died on the cross and then John tells us something else at the crucifixion scene so Matthew Mark and Luke we were told that Jesus is on the cross for a few hours and Mark it's maybe three hours and this is why pilot Marvel Pontius Pilate the robin governor this man has died already after just a few hours on the cross Pontius Pilate made a career of crucifying Jews So if he's astonished and he's and he's marveling that this man has died already Then there's something happening there or something to look into how can he be dead already and of course Christians will say that well Jesus, you know, he was beaten beyond recognition and you know, he was flogged Front and back down to his bowels. I mean his intestines were falling out you read things like this and and and Christian polemical writings like by Joshua McDowell and others Mike Lacona and things like that So he's just you know, he's a bloody bloody mess, you know, he's going into his body's going into shock and and so three I'm surprised he even lasted three hours. Why is Pilate shocked? Pilate is an expert Jew killer. He is an expert Jew crucifier and He is it says he marveled this man is dead after three hours. Are you sure he's dead? How can he be dead and he oversaw all of you know, these so-called beatings and flogging and so on and so forth I mean nowhere in Matthew Mark and Luke doesn't say that he was nailed to a cross Right, that's not mentioned in the synoptic tradition We find that in John and it's not mentioned directly It's when you know in the upper room where the you know the doubting Thomas and Jesus shows his hands You know in his feet apparently the marks of the crucifixion. So we find that in John Right, but something else that happens in John is Jesus is on the cross and he's impaled on the cross We don't find this in Matthew Mark and Luke Why didn't Matthew Mark and Luke if Matthew is an eyewitness? This is what Christians believe at least traditional Christians Matthew is an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus right Why didn't Matthew so well he he foresook Jesus and fled I mean that's what it says in Matthew Mark and Luke when Jesus was on It was in the on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane the Jewish Temple guard came to arrest him and as all of his disciples for sick foresook him and fled so Matthew wasn't there Okay, but Matthew could have there were there were people that were there Matthew could have interviewed somebody and eyewitnesses how what happened at the crucifixion Matthew seems to know a lot about what happened at the crucifixion even though he wasn't there Matthew records the final words of Jesus on the cross. How did he know that somebody told him? Why didn't somebody tell him that? Jesus was impaled on the cross John that's what John says writing in 90 or 100 Well, it probably didn't happen. That's why it's not historical. Why does John say that Jesus was impaled on the cross? Because apparently there might have been Christians who had the belief that Jesus was put on a cross But he didn't actually die. He might have swooned. He might have survived the cross right There that's that's why he was seen alive in his fleshy body After the supposed his supposed death. Well, John eliminates this type of Heresy according to him and says no, no, no, no, don't get it twisted. He was impaled on the cross He's dead. There's no doubt about it All right So basically Okay, so went a little bit off Of course here But that's okay so We said that there's four Gospels. There's the book of Acts there's 21 epistles and then we have one Apocalypse right apocalypse is a Greek word apocalypse Meaning an An unveiling or a disclosure kashf. It's called kitabu mukhashaf and this is sort of a Book that describes visions of the eskaton the sa'a Towards the end of time. It's very very cryptic. It's very symbolic very very strange very enigmatic Four horsemen and you have you know the lake of fire and it's very strange book you have the mark of the beast The mark of the Therian in Greek Which is 666 it's stated in Revelation Chapter 13 verse 18. So this book is called the book of Revelation right in the Catholic version. It's called the apocalypse You have all these strange things happening the mark of the beast the anti-christ is 666 nobody knows what that means some people believe it's the numerical value of his name some scholars believe that it's a reference to Nero the Roman emperor who was who Was compared today by Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump He said I think he said Sanders said today. What did he say? He said when Rome was burning Nero Was was playing his fiddle, but Trump was golfing right so Nero is sort of seen as this this This sort of prototypical horrible leader right So some scholars believe that the numerical value of Emperor Nero is 666 Okay So you have these 27 books Okay, now The first books of the New Testament to be written were not the Gospels Okay, the first books chronologically of the New Testament Were the Pauline epistles Right the letters written by Paul. So who is Paul? So Paul is actual name is Saul of Tarsus He was a Benjaminite Jew from Sicily Who was also a Pharisee? Who early on was a very zealous Christian persecuting Pharisee so he would persecute the earliest of Christians like the disciples Right before they were actually called Christian They were they were the Nazarenes Right, so Jews who happened to believe that Jesus was the Messiah Paul was the the man that the high priest would call upon to According to his own words. He would bind them up capture them bring them back To Jerusalem for for trial So he was a persecutor of the early Jesus movement And then according to Paul he had some sort of conversion experience on the road to Damascus where He claims that he had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus Who commissioned him to go into all nations and admonish the Gentiles, right? So he's the apostle to the Gentiles so then Paul goes to different major Metropolitan areas around the Mediterranean and he begins to preach what he calls my gospel. That's what he says My gospel remember Jesus of the seed of David Rose from the dead According to my gospel he says and he uses that phrase three times in his in his In his letters two of them are genuinely written by Paul one of them is Pseudo Paul So when Paul says my gospel it seems like he's making a distinction between What he is saying and what this other gospel is saying and he actually says that in the book of Galatians He chastises his congregation in Galatia, which is in Turkey for believing in quote another gospel. So there's another God According to Christian historians the story is this Paul went to Galatia and he made a lot of converts to his gospel his understanding of the gospel That Jesus was the divine son of God and that he died for your sins and that's the new that's the new covenant and and and then he left Galatia and then a group of Apostles from Jerusalem sent by James who is Jesus's brother or cousin It's not really clear what brother means half brother or cousin possibly stepbrother Nonetheless the book of Acts tells us that James is the leader of the Jerusalem Apostles He sends messengers other apostles into Galatia to Correct Paul's deviant teachings All right, and so they're able to convince these Galatians That Paul was wrong about many fundamental Issues so then Paul writes now the book of his letter to the Galatians Where he chastises the Galatians How dare you believe in this other gospel? Right, we didn't bring this gospel and then he goes on to accuse Peter James and Barnabas of hypocrisy in the book of Galatians So Paul is budding heads. He has fundamental big issues With actual disciples of Eesa alaih salam. He admits this in the book of Galatians He refers to them sarcastically So-called pillars that's what he says these so-called pillars of the church He says these these super apostles Who do they think they are these super apostles? This is his sarcasm Who is he talking about? He's talking about actual disciples of Eesa alaih salam. He says I don't need a letter of recommendation You know I have my I Have my experience I experienced the resurrected Jesus. What does he mean? I don't need a letter of recommendation according to New Testament scholars These apostles that are coming into these cities in Paul's wake and correcting his deviant gospel Have actual e jazat. They have these teaching licenses That they've brought from Jerusalem signed by James who is the leader of the Nazarenes the early Christian movement Paul has no such letter because he's a freelance self-appointed apostle So he says to his congregations. I don't need a letter. I had this Experience and he's any brags. I don't I didn't take this teaching from any human being from any man I took it directly from Christ This is what he says yet. He is at odds Iqtai Fundamental issues he's budding heads with the actual disciples of Eesa alaih salam All right, so Paul is a highly problematic person to say the least So So then so Paul began writing Around 52 his his first letter was to his congregation at Thessalonica a major Greek city Right. It's called first Thessalonians and in first Thessalonians Paul is very clear and there's certain central Pauline themes This is how scholars like textual critics can tell if this is written by Paul or not. So you have these 14 Epistles that are claimed to have been written by Paul according to historians seven of them are by Paul because that you know, they they they they would Analyze the texts through certain textual measures and the other seven are deemed to be forgeries in the name of Paul Right, so the seven genuine letters the first genuine letter is called first Thessalonians and then you have Galatians Philemon first Corinthians second Corinthians Philippians and Romans and in these seven letters you have these central Pauline themes the second coming of Jesus will be in his lifetime This is absolutely fundamental to Paul's understanding of his gospel what he is claiming he has taken from Jesus absolutely fundamental we're going to be Transformed in the twinkling of an eye. He says in first Thessalonians caught up in the clouds with the Lord and all of his advice on marriage celibacy on Commerce all of it is predicated upon his belief that at any moment Jesus will manifest in his second coming and set up his kingdom of God on earth Right as as the Jews believe the Jewish Messiah would do right and Of course, this never happened It never happened, you know, so we have here a A a a falsifiable claim of Paul Paul is very very clear. He believes the second coming will occur in his lifetime In fact the author of Mark's gospel and these four Gospels So you have the Pauline letters that are written between, you know, 52 and 65 or something And then you have the first gospel mark So the four Gospels are highly influenced by Pauline doctrine Right and again, that's why in these four Gospels I mean, they're basically four extended passion narratives because the cross is so central for Paul Paul says in first Corinthians if Christ is not raised our faith is in vain If Christ did not raise from the dead if he was not resurrected our faith is in vain There's no point to this religion right so you can see how Christians are oftentimes offended by the Muslim suggestion That he salat salam was never crucified. He's never crucified. He's never killed. He's never resurrected and Christianity is in vain But this is what Paul says in first first Corinthians So now in Mark, right? You have Jesus saying that among those standing here Right, he says There are some standing here That shall not taste death Until they see the son of man coming in the clouds Right and for Mark the son of man seems to be a a A title of Jesus himself Coming in the clouds. He's paraphrasing Something found in the book of Daniel chapter 7 the apocalyptic son of man Which Christians or mark at this point believes to be a prophecy of the Jewish Messiah The bar in Nash the son of man who's exceedingly powerful on the earth Jesus is saying there's some standing here. He's telling this to Jews around 29 or 30 of the common era There are people here now alive that will see me coming with great power in the clouds Now we cannot possibly attribute such a statement to Issa alaihi salam because that would make him a false prophet and True prophets do not make false prophecies All right Christians have ways of sort of working around these things But what's very interesting is Mark wrote that around 70 so he's you know, he's taking a big risk because You know, if if there are few people alive in the generation of Jesus around 70 of the common era But it seems like Mark believes because because of what's happening in Jerusalem around the time of Mark's composition Mark believes it is the end of the world What's happening in Jerusalem between 67 and 73? It's the Jewish war that Josephus writes about So you have an all-out assault upon the Jews in Palestine by the Roman war machine all right, so there was an insurrection by the the qana ni qana im the The zealots of the proto zealots These were Jewish insurrectionists that tried to seize the land And implement Jewish law from the heathen colonizers the Romans They were absolutely crushed Over this six-year period the Romans started in the north in Galilee where Jesus was raised and they just swept right down the entire country destroyed the temple in 70 and massacred You know men women and children the of that mass Suicide that happened at the fortress in Masada Around 73 of the common era so mark believes this is the end of the world Right, so this is the end of the world then the second coming of Jesus is imminent So he has no problem saying putting the words into the mouth of Jesus There are some standing here that shall not taste death until until they see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power All right, we would not Attribute this false prophecy to a true prophet Mark is influenced by Paul who made this false prophecy Paul believed the second coming was imminent. It did not materialize Paul also believes in justification by faith alone. He believes that the law of Moses was abrogated Almost completely and He believes in vicarious atonement this idea that Jesus was a Savior man God a divine son of God Who died for your sins? All right What's also interesting about Paul is that he does not mention anything about the historical Jesus Paul does not quote Jesus accurately one time in Any of his letters whether they're genuine Paul or pseudo Paul? Paul never mentions a miracle of that Jesus performed like these Exorcisms that are such a big part of the synoptic tradition the healings, right? The resurrection of Lazarus He doesn't mention any of these things Paul does not mention anything about the historical Jesus. He's completely focused on The crucifixion and resurrection the significance of the death of a Savior man God That's what his attention is almost exclusively focused on right He doesn't mention the virgin birth of Jesus Why wouldn't he mention that? Very very strange He actually says Jesus who was of the seed of David. I mean it seems like he believes that Jesus was just born As a descendant of David in the conventional sense Right, why wouldn't he mention these things? He doesn't quote Issa alaihi s-salam doesn't quote the Jesus of the Gospels if there's an oral tradition Floating around where Jesus is making divine claims that are recorded by John Paul doesn't seem to quote it. He doesn't quote them. Why doesn't he quote them? He either he doesn't care that Jesus claimed to be God and I think he would care or these statements did not exist and John invented them out of whole cloth In order to convince his audience that Jesus is the son of God Now Paul does something quite radical what he does is he appropriates an old pagan motif Okay, this is known as the dying and rising Savior man God motif So this was a motif a belief that predated Christianity by hundreds and hundreds of years this idea that Some sort of Incarnation a divine son of God comes to the earth suffers and dies for the sins of humanity It's very beautiful story. You have a personal Savior, right? What Paul does is that he gives it a Jewish makeover and He uses it to explain what he believes to be the gospel So what Paul basically does I liken it to like a Christmas tree a Christmas tree, right? So you have this tree Which is brought into the home? Which is what the ancient pagans used to do. I mean in Jeremiah. I think chapter 10 verse 2 He says imitate not the way of the heathen the infidel who brings a tree Into their house and dex it out with gold and silver That's what the tree worshippers used to do today. We call them tree huggers. No, I'm just kidding But that's what they used to do right What Paul is doing is basically he's taking a tree a Christmas tree a Symbol of paganism that's his foundation and he's putting a star of David at the top of it So he takes paganism's he takes paganism as his foundation and he kind of dresses it up with the trappings of Judaism before Christianity You had Osiris the savior man god of Egypt Adonis of Syria Romulus of Rome Salimoxus of Thrace who's mentioned by Herodotus in his histories Inanna of Sumeria who's a female daughter of God and of course Mithras the Persian Sun God who although he didn't actually die He did suffer for the sins of his people There's a book called the world the world's 16 crucified Saviors by Curse graves written 1875 There are some problematic elements to this book from a historical standpoint, but it's an interesting book Christianity before Christ is the subtitle. There's another book by Tom Harper called the pagan Christ, which is quite interesting as well So Osiris Adonis Romulus Mimoxus Inanna Mithras all savior gods all sons of God with the exception of Inanna who's a daughter of God But basically all you know all children of God, but not the God They are not the God, right? So all of these traditions are what's known as henotheistic And I am convinced that Paul himself was a henotheist. I do not believe that Paul is a monotheist Paul believes that Jesus is a second deity Paul is highly highly influenced by Hellenistic philosophy Hellenistic motifs like this one here that dying and rising save your man-god motif but also this idea of You know this middle platonic idea that the Godhead is three Unique deities Where there's a hierarchy of being the one the word the logos and the spirit Right all three are divine the latter two are the effect of the cause who is the one He's the the the the source and origin of everything even though the logos and the spirit So even though the logos and spirit are from the very essence your ex dayo there from the very essence of God They are not as exalted as the one who is without origin right who is the origin and And is the the cause of the others so you have this hierarchy of gods Right, so Paul is borrowing this idea. So is John John directly calls Jesus the logos right So it's hard to Very difficult. I mean eventually Christian apologists in the third and fourth century they had a way of sort of working out how this is still monotheism It's not monotheism according to the Islamic definition of monotheism but they they sort of took these middle platonic and Neal platonic ideas of a hierarchy of Hierarchy within the Godhead and said there's really no hierarchy of being just a person So a kind of sleight of hand. We'll talk about that next week Insha'Allah Teala But anyway, you have the savior man gods. They all undergo a passion some sort of suffering and They obtained victory over death It's very interesting. You know Quran says that the Christians say Al-Masi'u Hubeen Allah that Christ is the Son of God That I can call them be a foy him You got here own a call a lady to cover him in Kabul That is a saying that issues from their mouths in this they but imitate What the unbelievers of all these ancient pagans used to say it's all the way back? hundreds and hundreds of years and Of course, Hellenistic religion tended to be Sync syncretistic Right, they would mix in match different elements. So like the cult of Mithras was an amalgamation of Hellenistic meaning Greek as well as Persian beliefs The cult of Dionysus was an amalgamation of Hellenistic as well as Phoenician beliefs the cult of Pauline Christianity is an amalgamation of Hellenistic and Jewish beliefs. So now you have this kind of new hybrid Religion and when that happened now you have this definitive split Paul set the foundation Right in the middle of the first century by the end of the first century you have this definitive split These are not Jews. These are a separate religion. They're called Christians. They worship Christ as a God right, so that's So you have these 27 books that just to wrap up inshallah Four Gospels one book of Acts 21 epistles one one apocalypse Okay, I think that's Good for tonight inshallah So we will see you Next time. I think that's a good place to stop. I don't want to start a new I know there's a few minutes left here, but I don't want to get into a new topic This is going to take a bit of explaining to do So we'll save that for next time. We'll talk. We'll finish our discussion on the Gospels There's one more thing I wanted to say about about what's known as Backward Christology, which is very very interesting that we find in the four Gospels Christology in the making James Dunn this idea. We'll talk about that and then we'll go into the Nicene Creed and talk about the Trinity inshallah, so this is our Final session on Christianity So last time we talked about the four Gospels It's something of the Christology Christology is a academic term meaning Belief about Christ we talked about the Christology that's found in each Gospel Historians have noticed that through the years the Christology of the Christians Has become higher and higher So throughout the Gospels so in the Gospel of Mark Jesus is peace be upon him according to He is a a prophet. He's the hidden Messiah He is It's a very very short Gospel His statements are very brief and then in Matthew. He is now the open Messiah He fulfills all of these prophecies the Old Testament Many times Matthew takes a lot of liberties as to how he's Interpreting Old Testament Stories and texts and applying them to Jesus. It seems at times. He is simply make things up for example, he says in In at the beginning towards the beginning of his Gospel that because Jesus came from Nazareth This is so that it might be fulfilled what was written by the prophet. He shall be called the Nazarene He shall be called the Nazarene Matthew is presenting the statement as if it's from the Old Testament from the Tanakh But there's no such statement in the Old Testament In the Gospel of Luke Jesus is called Soter in Greek, which means Savior Although there's different ways of understanding that term in Luke But the main thing about Luke is Jesus becomes now this universal messenger Universal prophet Jesus becomes this sort of quasi Aristotelian philosopher Where he is expounding truths through Parable I mean we get some of that obviously in Matthew and Mark as well, but especially in Luke because Luke is trying to appeal to a Gentile audience a Greco-Roman audience And then finally in the Gospel of John Jesus is called the word the Lagos The word made flesh made divine incarnation So Today then we're going to look at The Nicene Creed. This is an Orthodox Christian Creed When I say Orthodox, I'm talking about Trinitarian Christianity and this creed was Ratified in the early 4th century of the common era Following the Council of Nicaea in 325 of the common era Before the Council of Nicaea you have many different types of Christians many different types of Christianities Too numerous to even mention here. It would take a seminar to mention what was happening In the first three or four centuries of the Christian era with the Christian religion You had Christians who believed that Isalae salam that Jesus peace be upon him was only a human You had other Christians who believed that he was only God You have Christians who believed that he was one of many gods You have Christians who believed that he was the only God You have Christians who believed that he didn't have a physical body. He was a phantasm There were Christians who believed that he was both divine and human You had Christians who believed that not only was he both divine and human that he became divine at his birth You're Christians who believed that he became divine at his baptism There were Christians who believed that he became divine at his resurrection It's called exaltation Christology You had Christians who believed that he was always divine Right that he was the pre-existent or pre-eternal son that he was the logos again. This is a great idea You had Christians who believed that there were three gods You had Christians who believed there was one God But this God had three different modes father son and holy spirit It's like God putting on three different masks one person of God who has sort of three modes So he would father and then he totally became the son and then he becomes the spirit Resurex the son he becomes the son again, and then he becomes the father again this type of Christology is Called modal monarchy an ism or Sebelian ism so you have many many types of Christianity now Constantine who was the first Christian emperor? he wanted a Unity in his empire and So after defeating his rivals to the throne He called for this council the council of Nica very important council 325 of the common era The first so-called ecumenical world church council Although all of the bishops that attended Nicaa believed Already that Jesus some these be upon him was divine in some way right Although that is debatable, but certainly there were no ebunites present at the council, you know Nazarenes They weren't any Jewish Christians that were at the council the Jewish Christians were extinct by this time and and if they were still Practicing and there were pockets of them. They certainly were not going to be invited to the council of Nicaa So it's not really an ecumenical or universal or world church council so Constantine called for this this council and there's a lot of sort of Information up as to what actually happened at this council Dan Brown wrote a book called the Da Vinci Code and Which he is gives a lot of false information as to what happened But at the end of the council and and whether Constantine was actually Christian or not during this council is actually Open to debate. It's it's not clear. Certainly. His mother was Christian. His mother was a very hardcore Christian But it seems like Constantine called the council for more political reasons. He wanted unity in the Empire So at the end of the council After deliberations upon deliberations the bishops a draft This creed and it's a short creed. So we'll just go through it The creedal exposition of the 318 fathers All right, that means the bishops that attended the council So they say and It begins and it's written in Greek right Whether Eesa alaihi salam spoke Greek or not is open to debate It seems like he probably knew some Greek Because it was the lingua Franca of the Mediterranean at the time so the New Testament Documents the New Testament books are all written in Greek and those are original documents Originally written in Greek Paul wrote his letters in Greek. He did not write them in Syriac or Hebrew All right, the original documents are in Greek. So Eesa alaihi salam, you know He he grew up in a very eclectic environment in the north of Palestine And a province called Galilee So no doubt he knew Hebrew that was a language of the synagogue liturgy He was a rabbi you have to know Hebrew It's like being a sheikh today and not knowing Arabic doesn't make any sense or just being an alim and not knowing Not knowing Arabic. So, you know Hebrew. He knew Aramaic or Syriac Syriac is sort of late Aramaic or sometimes called Christian Aramaic It's related Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic the language of these sort of masses Right the sort of a Mia. So he certainly knew that as well He probably knew some Latin which was the official language of the Roman Empire and of course Palestine at the time was a colony of Rome and then and then Greek as well Which was widely spoken in that area even the Romans adopted Greek In that area in the Middle East in the ancient Near East. So the Romans spoke Latin in Greek So he saw a salam and many of the Jews at the time probably spoke Greek as well But since the New Testament was written in Greek and coin a Greek which is also called Alexandria in Greek So this is the language of Alexander. Don't forget what Alexander did is that he conquered all of North Africa and and the ancient Near East during his time and his Influence in that region was still very much alive in the first century of the common era It's called Hellenization like Greek influence and all spheres of life and many disciplines including theology and philosophy But also cultural aspects Right linguistic aspects very heavy Influence So the creed begins like this and if You're watching live you can feel free to ask questions. Insha'Allah in the chat box and I will get to them Insha'Allah it begins by saying Pisteu Amin we believe Acehna Theon Patera Panto Kratora. So that's the Greek. It says we believe that's how the the creed begins We believe in one God the father Panto Kratora means the Panto crater The sort of creator of all sometimes that's translated as the Almighty The Latin says Kredimus in Unum Deum Patrem Amniputri So they translate Panto Panto crater Panto Kratora as basically omnipotent and that's why we get the English all mighty So the father we believe in one God the father the creator of all Continues the maker of all things seen and unseen and We believe he says or they say a Hanna Kuryan Iesun Christan Ton Huyon Tuthayu We also believe in one Lord Huryan means Lord in Greek now this word Lord Is a tricky word because the word Lord can apply to both God and man in New Testament Greek right Philip in the Gospel of John Somebody comes to Philip and says Kurya Kurya right Lord Lord now Philip is certainly not God Philip was a disciple of Jesus But in the creed the fathers don't mean it like that the fathers mean to say that Jesus is God He is divine Right, so it's important for us when reading this creed that we understand these terms as they were understood How they were understood at the time they were written so we have to be a bit of an originalist when it comes to these reads Right, just as when we read things in the New Testament When Isala islam is called Lord Kuryas in Matthew for example You can make a good case that Jews are not referring to Jesus as Lord God. Why would a Jew do that a? Jew comes to Jesus Kurya Kurya my the Lord God Lord God All right, that's that's kufr. That's apostasy a Jew would not do that so looking at the sort of context the social location of Isala islam himself the word is a bit ambiguous Kurya can simply mean master or even rabbi even the word rabbi Robbie right means my Lord Right, you know rabbi Schmooley Botak You know, he's not the Lord God when people refer to him as rub rub the rabbi they mean to say master teacher right But here in the creed they're taking Kuryas to be a divine title and We believe in one and one Lord Jesus Christ the son of God That's what they say here the son of God and then it says getting a sent to ektu patras monogony Which means be gotten from the father uniquely They say this is from the essence of the father Right, this is from the uzias to patras So what does it mean then Jesus is the son of God according to Trinitarian Christianity? What do Trinitarians mean by that? It's important for us not to build a straw man. It's a oh Christians believe that when that that God had relations with Mary physical relations and Jesus was The offspring of God and Mary in that that physical sense That's not what Christians believe at least not what Trinitarian Christians believe Mormons on the other hand do believe that but Mormonism is a very strange Form of Christianity if we can even call it Christianity Certainly Orthodox Christians whether they're Eastern Orthodox or Protestant Catholic Would probably not consider Mormons to be true Christians Any more than they would consider Muslims to be Christians But what they mean by son of God is that the father Generated the son So we have to be careful about our language Generated not created the son of God was not created. That's a heresy Right that was Arius's position who was also at the Council of Nicae by the way and whether Arius believed that Jesus or the son was a Semi-deity somehow is open to debate But certainly From what has survived from his writings and what we can take from his opponents Albeit with a grain of salt it seems as though Arius believed that The son of God was created by the father So that's not the Trinitarian position The Trinitarian position is that when they say Jesus is the son of God or when they say we believe in the son of God right That the meaning of that is that God generated or caused the son to be from his very essence right from the Uzias to Patras as it says In the creed so God did not so the father did not create The son out of nothing ex nihilo Right, that's a heresy the father created the world out of nothing But the father generated or begot. That's the term they use begot Which of course has a lot of baggage to it because we think okay This father begot this son and this this man begot this this child So we sort of take it in this physical sense, but it's not meant to be taken physically Right that God generated the son from his own being and this was done in pre-eternality This is their position So in other words, there was never a time when the father was sort of alone by himself and Then the son came after him. There's no before or after this is in pre-eternality There is no time When this happened even my language cannot cap because I'm saying when this there's no when When this happened, right? So this is their position He's the son of God in the sense that he shares an essential essence Right essence is called that in Arabic, you know, we say in our theology No one shares with Allah's that is essence is see fat is Attributes and his a faal no one can do the actions of God Right whereas the Christians say no God shares God is three persons at least these three persons share God's essence actions and attributes One God but three persons Right the essence of the son is identical to the essence of the father, but they're different persons What does it mean to be a different person meaning they have different attributes? Right, for example, the son has the attribute of begottenness. He's an effect of the father who is his cause So the father has uncausation the son is caused But they're equal in essence because the father Generated or produced the son from his very own essence. This is their position Obviously, they're they're very problematic from our perspective the whole idea of a pre-eternal son Seems like a bit of a contradiction Pre-eternal son will the son is always an effect of a father So it comes after but you're saying he's pre-eternal the pre-eternal son seems like a bit of a oxymoron Nonetheless, this is their position and this was to avoid this idea that Chris that you like his other Christians at the time and other and Jews And pagans were saying about the early Christians. You're worshiping two gods. Just admit it You're saying that this God is a son of God. He has a father That's two gods, right? Even if this was done before time The fact that the son is an effect of the father the the fact that the the father is Uncaused and produces a son Even if it's done before time in pre-eternality The fact that the father is uncaused means that he is ontologically superior to the son He's a higher state of being Right and so like a Neoplatonist or a middle Platonist would make that argument The middle Platonist would also say that the one generated the low ghost from his being he's ex-deo, but the low ghost Who's also divine is not as divine as the one because the low ghost is the effect of the one of the cause right I Think the camera just panned out For some reason there we go Again people that are watching you can ask questions for clarification or Questions that are related to this topic inshallah So that's what they mean by son of God be gotten from the father uniquely This is from the essence of the father and they continue and say describing the son How do they describe the son say on ek say you God from God? God capital G from God capital G Fos ek photos light from light True God from true God be gotten not made. It's a very famous phrase here be gotten not made Right again a Fentah. Oh boy a Fentah in the Greek. What does it mean be gotten not made meaning? Generated or caused naturally not created The son is not created What am I what am I mean when I say a son am I talking about Jesus of Nazareth? No, I'm not talking about Jesus was created Jesus was a human being. That's not the Christian. The Christians are not saying that Jesus is uncreated right Jesus was a human being we're talking about the son of God that incarnated into Jesus of Nazareth The essence that dwelt within The flesh of the man Jesus Is pre-eternal is God This is their position So the son was not willed into existence Right, that's Judaism right that that that God Chooses and wills something to exist Funfayakun ida wa ida qada amran fa inna mayakulahu funfayakun whenever he decrees a matter He merely says to be and it is Right, that's not what happened with the son. He wasn't willed into existence and It wasn't sort of this involuntary Emination that happened. That's the sort of Neoplatonic idea That's how the logos in Neoplatonism and middle Platonism Came to exist that God the one was sort of thinking about his own thoughts As they say and there was an involuntary sort of spillage of light Right and this light became the logos the second Tear of being and this hierarchy of being Right, so it wasn't it wasn't something willed. It wasn't involuntary They use the word naturally the son was born just naturally from the father What they mean is it's just who God is God is naturally a father. He's always been a father Right, that's just who he is God is personal He's social. He is he is in relationships right this type of thing Begotten not made and then they say co substantial with the father and This is also a famous phrase ha ma usian Ha ma usian or homo usian So again a little bit of a Greek lesson. I don't want to get to I didn't intend to get so technical with these classes. I was told to keep it very very simple but I Don't think it's too difficult, but we do have to sort of Push ourselves a little bit to get more of a substantive understanding of these things. It's still not difficult. I think So if we look at the word Homo usian H H O M. Oh homo means same right like homosexual, right? Everyone knows that word So that's from a Greek homo same homo in Latin means man like homo erect erectus Right like the man who stands upright? Right, so that's a different language. So Homo usia. So ha ma means same or homo means same who see us means Essence same essence. This is the position of The Trinitarians called homo usian Christology that word homo usian is mentioned here in the Nicene Creed. It is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament right This term is so important Yet it is not mentioned in the New Testament now now Christians will counter here and say oh, yeah Well, what's the most important theological concept in Islam? We say to heed and the Christian will say take the Quran and show me the word to heed in the Quran It's not in the Quran. So the Christian point here is that the concept of to heed is in the Quran Just as the concept of ha ma usian Same essence Christology is found in the New Testament and that's the ladder obviously is open to debate that Christians certainly take that position The Arians certainly did not take that position the early Christians did not take that position or at least the Christians in the second Century that did not believe that the son was equal to the father. They still revered these four texts I mean the Arians still believed in the Gospel of John Jesus says in John 10 30 remember those I am statements we talked about last week that Logic tells us we're probably never uttered by Jesus, but let's just entertain the text for now Let's say he did say that the father and I are one so Trinitarian say ah, you see the father and I are one They're the same essence All right, I mean that's sort of a It is a giant leap to go from a statement the father and I are one to saying that they're the same essence Jesus is a hundred percent God. He is co-substantially God the Arians also believed in that statement What did they how did they interpret that statement? Well, they would look at it in its context, right? so He's Jesus is talking To the Pharisees and he's saying that you know the I'm watching over my disciples No one can snatch them out of my hand. In other words, no one can take them out of my protection. I'm watching over them And then he says the father who was greater than all is also watching over them And no one can snatch them out of his hand Ego chi pater mu hen Esmin the father and I are one so one in purpose one in Intention Right not one in essence one in in in in Objective to protect the disciples from the enemies All right, so we'd read it in its context So anyway, so you have Homo Ussian Christology and then you have something Homo Ussian H.O.M.O.I Just an iota in Greek So the difference between the words Homo and Homo Homo Homo I is a difference of one iota one iota But it makes a difference in in theology So Homo Ussian Christology means that the father and son are exactly the same essence Whereas Homo Ussian Christology, which could have been the position of Arius I don't think it was but some have argued that that the son is similar in his essence to the father He's still divine, but he's not as divine as the father, but he's still not the same. He's not like a human being Right, he's sort of in this middle space Right, so Homo means similar Hama means the same and then of course you have hetero ussian hetero like again hetero sexual Hetero ussian heteras in Greek means another right another essence and this is the position of Unitarian Christians That the son of God the son of God, that's a title. It's honorific. It's takrimi Majaz figurative is just a way of sort of exalting Issa alaihi salam It's not to be taken literal in any way shape or form Right, and that Jesus is essence is other than God The father by father they mean again the rub the Lord. That's also a figurative expression Okay, and then they say here So co-substantial with the father through whom all things in heaven and earth became The one meaning the son the son of God Who for the sake of us human beings and for the sake of our salvation came down? and became flesh and Dwelled in man right and on throw pey santa is The Greek but the latin translation says incarnatus est Right incarnatus in carney in means in carney means flesh Like if you ever had some chili con carne chili with meat or flesh right So the son of God he descended from the metaphysical realm and incarnated into a human being Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 years ago according to Trinitarian Christianity And then they continue Became flesh and dwelt in man. We said that suffered and rose on the third day ascended into the heavens And will come the judge to living in the dead uh, so Belief in a second coming well, he will basically be the judge on the yomul qiyama Uh, and we believe in the holy spirit So that's all the holy spirit gets In the nicene creed he just gets that one little thing at the end and by the way We believe in the holy spirit because the holy spirit is not on the table for discussion at the council of nicia That's going to come at the next council Right what happened at nicia is They're simply dealing with the son of god Is the son of god The same essence as the father or a different essence or a similar essence That's that's what's on the table And of course they voted and christians Christians believe that And catholics still believe this That at the council of nicia Um, uh, they're actually 19 Persons there so 318 bishops and then the holy spirit was there and the holy spirit sort of Guides the discussion of the bishops Towards the right answer right so What doctrine or dogma is hammered out at these ecumenical councils and there have been 20 22 of them. I believe the last one was in the 1960s called making two So the first seven of them are believed to are are accepted by Protestant christians roman catholics eastern orthodox and then After that from eight to twenty one or twenty two Those are only those are The decisions are believed by catholics only Uh, so the eastern orthodox stop after seven and so do the Protestant christians So in other words all trinitarian christians believe That whatever came out of the council of nicia, which was the first ecumenical council. It is infallible because it was It was a product of the providence of the holy spirit Who is also the third person of the trinity? We don't get that here in the creed yet, but we will get that later And then the very last part of the creed here They actually quote The proto orthodox or trinitarian. I mean they're not trinitarian at this point again So i'm using trinitarian as somewhat anachrodistic right So, um We can say proto the proto orthodox bishops They quote their theological opponents here and say as for those who say there was once when he was not Right, so they're actually quoting the arians. This was a sort of credo of the arians In the early fourth century, of course again arius is present at the council What did they used to say? There was a time when he was not there was a time when the son of god did not exist Right So the son that is not pre-eternal They're saying those who say that and then they quote a few other things Uh that the arians were saying out of non-being he became and Um the sun is changeable or alterable these the universal and apostolic church Uh deems accursed unethematizes. I mean that's that's the the greek word Uh on a on a thematizai, which is where we get the word unethematized in other words They're saying that we are pronouncing kufor We're making takfir Right Of the arians now That that the arian position That the son of god is not pre-eternal and not fully god Is so that's the that's the nicene creed now A few years later in 381 They held another council It's called the council of constantinople Right, so they're both in turkey constantinople means the the polis of constantin the city of constantin, which is now istambul in turkey So now the the roman emperis theodosius the first And he's definitely a christian There's no doubt about it 115 bishops are present. So what's the issue now? So the issue at or the the problem for the proto orthodox at nicia was these arians Who are saying that the son of god is inferior to the father? so they put it to vote and majority rules And the son of god officially becomes god the son After the council of nicia in 381 now the the issue is what about the holy spirit? So now you have christians who are saying okay fine The son and father are hama usian. They're the same essence But the holy spirit is inferior to both of them So you have you don't have a trinity you have i don't even know what the word is Uh, you have a a by unity because trinity comes from triune and then unity So they're saying now there's the father and the son. That's the true god and then beneath them You have the holy spirit who's not quite god Right And and then you have the rest of creation beneath the holy spirit Right, so these enemies were dubbed pneumo tamakians By the proto orthodox. These are that literally means the spirit fighters Those who are fighting against the holy spirit and will not recognize the full divinity of the holy spirit So theodosius the first he called for this council and After again many deliberations They came to the conclusion that indeed the holy spirit is also god hama usian pneumatology Holy spirit Shares an essential essence But the father and the son although he's a different person. We have three persons one essence There was a christian theologian in the middle ages Hillary of poitiers Who came up with this diagram and it's a very famous diagram basically it's a triangle right And so this is supposed to sort of be a diagram if you will of the trinity So you have a triangle At each point you have father son holy spirit Right And so imagine that On on each side of the triangle You have the words is not Is not so equilateral Equilateral triangle at each point father son holy spirit and then written along the lines of all three sides Is not so in other words the son is not the father. You're a different person The father is not the spirit the holy spirit. The holy spirit is not the son Right, so this is their belief three separate and distinct persons Now imagine three lines three arrows Coming or pointing towards the middle of the triangle from each corner And at the center and on the lines of these arrows is is So in other words the son is god the holy spirit is god the father is god Probably would have been better if I brought Visual aids of some sort, but you can google this Hillary of poitiers The triangle diagram of the trinity right Persons separate and distinct Who are all three god because they share and they share in essence The analogy that we can maybe use here. Um, and there's no there's no, um adequate analogy But christians have You know, they've tried to posit approximations like for example a water right You have water that can exist in three different states Uh, you have liquid vapor and ice And all three are h2o essentially one essence three forms The problem with that is, um That you can't get all three forms at the same time in place That's what i'm told at least so it's inadequate Uh, another example is or analogy is like an egg. It's very famous analogy They say god is like an egg Um, so there's three parts. There's a shell. There's a yolk and there's a white Yet it's one egg The problem with this analogy is that if I just took the shell of the egg And I put it off to the corner Can I still call that egg? I can't now it's just shell But if I took the son of god and isolated him He's totally 100 in and of himself god So that analogy doesn't quite work either So three persons that share an essence it's like um It's like three species Of the same genera. So imagine you had Um imagine you had three species of shark Right, so what makes a shark? How do we know what a shark is? We have to abstract the essence from attributes A shark in other words a shark has certain attributes and if it doesn't have those attributes it doesn't qualify as being a shark A shark has a dorsal fin A shark has uh is is is made of cartilage A shark has teeth. It has these sort of dots on its nose where it can sort of detect motion in the water um, it has um Uh, it has a vertical tail Right, if a shark didn't have one of these things, it's not a shark Right, so so that's how we establish the essence of shark or sharkiness Right, so imagine you have a hammerhead shark you have a great white shark And you have a a bull shark right so you have you have you have three As it were persons of shark that all share in the essence of sharkiness Three persons have got so the bull shark by itself is totally shark Even though it lacks an attribute of the great white Right or it lacks an attribute of the hammerhead the bull sharks head is not like a hammer But it is a hundred percent shark This analogy also doesn't work because each one of these sharks has its own consciousness Right a great white shark is over here eating something this bull shark over here is I don't know just swimming around But with the trinity Father son, holy spirit are inseparable in action and thought It's called perichoresis in greek Whatever the son is doing it necessitates the participation at some level Of the father in the holy spirit So the great white shark is eating something The bull shark has no idea what that shark is doing So maybe a better analogy is imagine Three people That all share a mind Right if three different people that say I don't know You have peter paul and mary right and But they all share a mind it's one consciousness So if peter has a thought mary and paul have that thought If peter, you know is hungry the other two as well if peter stubs his toe the other two feel it as well One mind one consciousness So the son of god according to christians according to trinitarians Does not have the attribute of on causation Only the father has that But christians will argue that still does not deny him his Godness the essence of godness just as again using this crude analogy just as the the The fact that the um the great white shark doesn't have a hammerhead does not deny The great white shark of its full sharkiness as it were right Okay, I mean a big question is you know How did we get here? How do you How did they get from You know a a a basic and simple message of tohed being in northern palestine by a jewish prophet to You know three hypothesis one usia perichoresis hama usian this type of thing I would say it's from Hellenistic influence Right, we have to be careful about that um because As we said in the past The greeks were very gifted. I mean the arab say Al-hikmah nasal at al-thalatha that wisdom descended upon three people The greeks the chinese and the arab's of course the arab's also had wahi But hikmah is not wahi, but it's but it's very close. It's a great type of wisdom Uh, they were given so there's a lot of truth in what they're saying. I mean Aristotle was incredible intellect Plato and an incredible intellect Right, so we can take from greek Thought and you know logic Ethics even as long as it doesn't contradict our Uh, our essentials, but greek metaphysics. We have to be careful about Um, and this is what ghazali says ghazali was not anti-scholastic Uh, he didn't condemn all things greek or Hellenistic. He was he he was a great proponent of logic Christos and mustaqeem right in his text online Says the Christos and mustaqeem is the is the intellect is reason When Allah says in the Quran judge by a just balance Ghazali says that's using your reason using logic He'll argue that the prophet in the Quran the appeal to logic logic arguments ibrahim aleyhislam is appealing to logic When he's when he's telling nimrod that you know bring the sun Uh from the east from the west and put it in the east He's teaching him a lesson that you're not god. You have you have a very limited volition You don't have you're not omnipotent All right So when it comes to metaphysics, we have to be careful. So that's that's what I would say is that A um a significant influence of Hellenistic metaphysics Just saturated the early proto orthodox christians many of whom were Basically pagan philosophy pagan philosophers Before they became christian like justin martyr as an example So they took these concepts and they apply it to the basically the judaism the tohid Uh, that the islam that was by the prophet isa aleyhislam And of course if you don't have a basis in sharia, you don't have a basis in law You don't have a basis Um in theology correct theology Uh, then you're going to make these theological and metaphysical mistakes Okay So just have a few minutes the council of Constantinople revised The council of nicaea and now we have something called the niceno constantinopolitan constantinopolitan creed The niceno constantinopolitan creed of 381, which is the first truly trinitarian creed Because all three constituents are now dealt with father son, holy spirit So now 381 of the common era you have trinitarianism officially So this is sort of a nicene creed 2.0 It's very much similar. There are some additions We believe in one god the father the creator the maker of heaven and earth and all things seen and unseen We believe in one lord jesus christ the unique son of god Now they add the one begotten from the father before all the ages Right, so they're they're not just stressing The pre-temporality of the son which seems to have been the area in position area says okay fine the son The son predates time He's the first creation Right that still doesn't make him god Just the first creation But what they're saying here in this creed is no Uh, it's not he's not pre-temporal. He's pre-eternal the son shares an essential pre-eternality With the father so he's not a possible being So, you know, if the son is the first of creation that he's still just a possible being But if he has an essential pre-eternality, then he's a necessary being two types of being Right, there's their mumkinat possible beings and then there's wajibul wujud There's the necessary being the necessary existent So that's what they're saying here. He's absolutely necessary Light from light true god from true god. That's now they're saying they're going back to the nicene Creed begotten not made cosubstantial so on and so forth And then they say he became flesh and then they add By the holy spirit and mary the virgin So they mentioned here the sort of parents as it were of of jesus mary is mentioned explicitly now in the creed so the status of mary Keeps climbing by the next ecumenical council 431 the council of emphasis mary will be given the title of theos Which is sometimes translated as mother of god, but that's not a good translation It really means the bearer or carrier of god right And then in the 19th and 20th centuries at the strictly roman catholic councils mary The the catholics believed that mary was assumed into heaven. She never died. She she was carried into heaven and they also espoused the the belief in what's known as the immaculate Conception that mary was conceived without sin. She never had original sin Those are much later developments and then they continue And they say something now that's not in nicene creed. He was crucified You notice the nicene creed did not say crucified The nicene creed said suffered and rose on the third day So they want to make it that doesn't mean that the bishops at nicia did not believe jesus was crucified Of course, they believed jesus was crucified, but they just want to be more explicit here He was crucified for our sake under Pontius Pilate now they mention Explicitly the roman governor of judia Who was Pontius Pilate so they want to situate it seems jesus in history that he was Really crucified it is historical It's not a myth. It wasn't a rumor All right, he was crucified by Pontius Pilate All right, it's not just it's not just saying he suffered what do you mean he suffered that's so vague and okay fine he was crucified, but You know who can anyone corroborate that here? There's yes. He was crucified Under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried so they do mention suffering too and was buried That's something new We get here In this creed so it seems like they want to say that it was an actual body Right because you have different types of literal dosetism. There's another term for you dosetism a very common Christology Christological belief in the first few centuries of Christianity You have dosetic Gnosticism That espoused that uh, jesus never had a physical body Huh, so you can't you can't bury a phantasm That's what he was. He was just he was just a sort of ghost You have dosetic dosetic substitutionism This belief that uh, jesus's body somehow escaped the crucifixion Someone else was crucified Right, uh, it's called the substitution theory someone else facilities believe that Simon of Cyrene was supernaturally transferred transformed Transfigured is the term he uses transfiguratum Uh That jesus was transfigured to look like simon and vice versa. That's called dosetic substitutionism You also have dosetic separationism Also a belief of some of the Gnostics that okay jesus had a flesh body And okay, you know, they're crucifying him but at some point His soul left his body Before his body died So his body didn't actually Uh, so so he didn't actually feel the pain as it were of the crucifixion. They simply crucified an empty shell of a body Right So they're saying here He was buried. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate He was suffered and he was buried the body was underground or he was in the tomb in this case And rose on the third day and then they add according to the scriptures They didn't say that in the Nicene creed So this is very important for them fulfillment of scripture that this was foretold to happen All right, the jews at the time they had this belief and I also believe that what the jews were expecting about the messiah By the way was erroneous, but their belief was this messiah will be a military leader That he will come and he will You know, he will take up the sword And he will completely annihilate these heathens these romans and purify the land that god gave us um as an inheritance right so so Um, obviously jesus didn't do that Um, so the jews were going to the early christians and saying what kind of messiah is this? You know, he gets killed You know, what are you talking about? How can this be the messiah? So the christian retort can only be well, you're misreading your scripture And I think the jews were misreading the scripture, but then now we have compounded misreadings Where the christians are saying oh look over here in isaia 53 There's this prophecy of someone who's going to be Crushed for our iniquities the suffering servant and this is about the jewish messiah Right, of course nowhere in that text does it even mention the word messiah at all But christians would go back into these texts and they would sort of rework them And interpret them to fit in with what they believed happened Uh to jesus isaia 53, you know this person Whoever this person is who's being tortured is is saying he says i was i was led as a Lamb to the slaughter They cut me off from the land of the living that's from isaia 53 And the christians say yes, that's exactly what happened in jesus But if you read the if you read the book of jeremiah Jeremiah actually says those words And applies it to himself I was as a dumb lamb led to the slaughter. I opened not my mouth. I was cut off from the land of the living So it seems whoever wrote isaia 53 was sitting in babelon after the exile and was remembering the words of jeremiah Jeremiah is the suffering servant I mean it just works out completely by looking at the text But this is how to justify What happened to jesus, right That it was they say according to the scriptures And ascended to heaven and a seated at the right hand of the father And he will come again with gloria, so they add that part to he seated at the right hand of the father Not that like he seated next to the father like his vizier or something. No, he seated on the same level They share a throne. That's what they mean by this They judged the living and the dead so jesus according to them will be the page on the yom al qiyama In the quran says Maryam Jesus not judging anyone on the yom al qiyama you'll be questioned in front of the whole of humanity according to the quran Of course his response subhanak Glory be to you. Never did I say what I had no right to say I said Uh, so Let's see how we're doing. Yeah, it's nine o'clock now There's there's a few more things mentioned in the creed, but but basically they just repeat the nicene creed So we've we've uh come to the end of our section on christianity Um, as you can see that it's quite involved and requires I hope these sessions just sort of inspire you to do Some more research inshallah. So next week, we're going to get into hinduism go way back in time And look at the basic tenets and beliefs of hinduism inshallah As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi