Ingabe iBhayibheli lishintshile?

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00:00that Jesus sacrificed himself and died for the sins of mankind.
00:03Why is this belief wrong?
00:05You say that the Bible and the Torah have been changed.
00:08This is not a simple claim for Christians.
00:11Can you prove it?
00:13As a Muslim, you also believe that Jesus was born without a father
00:16and that he brought dead people back to life.
00:18These are very extraordinary things.
00:20Aren't they enough reasons to call him a deity?
00:23So, how do you know that the Quran also has not been changed?
00:27Centuries have passed since then, right?
00:33As-salamu alaykum, Brother Muhammad Hijab.
00:35Thank you for accepting our invitation.
00:37Today, in this cross-examination concept,
00:38we will ask some frequently asked questions about Christianity.
00:41We are not Christians, of course,
00:42but we convey their difficult questions so that the truth can come out.
00:46But be careful, this is not Speaker's Corner.
00:48We ask more serious and difficult questions.
00:50If you're ready, let's begin.
00:52Yes, I am ready.
00:54Christians believe that Jesus is God,
00:56but Islam accepts him as a prophet.
00:58Is Jesus really mentioned in the Bible as God,
01:00or is he described as how Islam says about him?
01:02So, we don't believe that the Bible is authoritative.
01:04We believe that there are remnants of truth in it,
01:06but that has been corrupted and changed.
01:08We don't believe that the Bible that we have today is something
01:10which is unauthoritative in that perspective,
01:12and that can be seen by different scholarly authorities
01:15comparing and contrasting the different Gospels.
01:17The Gospel of John, for example,
01:18seems to have a higher Christology than other Gospels.
01:22There are some indications from other Gospel writers
01:24that Jesus might be divine,
01:26but Jesus himself doesn't come across as saying that at all,
01:28in fact, in the Gospels.
01:30But be that as it may, we don't really care,
01:31even if he did come and say in the Gospels that he was God,
01:34because we don't believe in the authenticity of that document.
01:37But we would say above and beyond all of that
01:39is the fact that Jesus Christ couldn't be God
01:42for logical necessity.
01:43I mean, it doesn't matter if the Bible said it
01:44or any other book said it,
01:45because you can't have a man God anyway.
01:47You can't have an unlimited, limited being.
01:49So, it doesn't matter what book said this.
01:51It's false.
01:52And so, I think anyone who knows the definition of God
01:55and the definition of Jesus Christ as a human being
01:57cannot put these two things together,
01:59no matter what book said it.
02:00If Jesus didn't call himself a deity, as you say,
02:03then how could this belief arise?
02:05How could they turn a prophet into a God?
02:08There was clear motivation from the initial Roman Empire
02:12when, you know, Christianity became a religion
02:14in the Roman Empire.
02:15In the year, let's say 313,
02:18there was Constantine actually made it legal
02:20to believe in Christianity.
02:21And afterwards, he spread Christianity.
02:23And other people, other rulers spread Christianity,
02:25like Theodosius II and others.
02:27You can see a clear historical development
02:30in how, for example, the beliefs of the pagans
02:34and the polytheistic and pantheistic beliefs
02:37of the Romans from Greek mythology
02:40incorporated themselves into Christian frameworks.
02:44And there was a political motivation for that,
02:46which is that Constantine and others
02:48wanted to make Christianity
02:50a more palatable religion for these people.
02:53And so how could it be that, you know,
02:56Jesus became co-equal and co-eternal as a God and a person?
03:00And how could it be that the Holy Spirit had the same status?
03:02You can see a clear historical development
03:04where that happened from what you call subordinationism
03:07until you had the three co-equal, co-eternal gods
03:10at the turn of the fourth century.
03:11And so how could it be?
03:13Well, it could be when you have a strong political authority
03:16in the Roman Empire and clear political
03:18and sociological motivation.
03:20And then when you combine those factors
03:22with the evidence that we have from primary source materials,
03:24it's pretty clear how that can be.
03:25Christianity says that Jesus sacrificed himself
03:28and died for the sins of mankind.
03:29Why is this belief wrong?
03:31This belief is wrong on many different grounds,
03:32on a very basic logical grounds.
03:35If you think about the Christian belief,
03:36they're effectively telling us you are born into sin,
03:39original sin, because Adam ate from the tree.
03:42So you're born into sin because Adam ate from the tree,
03:45and then that sin is removed away from you
03:47because Jesus died on the cross.
03:50So effectively, you're given sin
03:52and it's removed from you from two people.
03:54All you have to do is believe in this story.
03:56Now that seems to me to be an affront
03:58to individual responsibility
04:00because the religion of Islam doesn't have it this way.
04:03It has it in the way that you are responsible
04:05for your own actions.
04:06What the religion of Christianity is telling you
04:08is you have a sin for no action of your own
04:10and you will have that sin removed
04:12for no action of your own.
04:13So we will say this doesn't make sense.
04:16And how could it be that a god anyway,
04:17dies on the cross?
04:18This makes no sense.
04:19What does it mean for a god to die on the cross?
04:22So all these propositions,
04:24no matter how much one wants to say
04:26they're historical and they're attested to
04:28and there's testimony and whatever,
04:30the argument on the other side is,
04:31frankly, even if that was all the case,
04:34it's still logically incoherent.
04:36So it's unacceptable, frankly.
04:38As a Muslim, you also believe
04:39that Jesus was born without a father
04:41and that he brought dead people back to life.
04:43These are very extraordinary things.
04:45Aren't there enough reasons to call him a deity?
04:47After all, Allah gives life and takes life.
04:50I mean, Allah answers that question very directly
04:52in chapter 3, verse 52 of the Quran.
04:59That certainly the similitude of Jesus
05:00is like that of Adam.
05:01He created him from dust and he said to him,
05:03be and he was.
05:04Because the argument is this,
05:05is that if you're saying that Jesus is a god
05:07or the son of god
05:08because he didn't have a mother or a father,
05:11then surely Adam should be a bigger god
05:13because he didn't have a mother or a father.
05:15And so if this is the argument,
05:17then the argument falls flat on his face on these basis.
05:19But he brings dead people back to life.
05:21He cures the blind.
05:22All of that with God's permission.
05:23Of course, Allah says,
05:25And one could argue that quite frankly,
05:27splitting the sea in the way that Moses did it
05:29is more impressive in many ways
05:31than curing the blind.
05:32Because frankly, splitting the sea,
05:34everyone can attest to that.
05:36Curing the blind,
05:37there could be a degree of conspiracy.
05:38That could be like, for example,
05:40we see now in many of the African countries,
05:42someone could say, pretend that you're blind
05:43and then I'll cure you.
05:44Splitting the sea, frankly,
05:46it cuts that, undercuts that in a more meaningful way.
05:49So I would say if you're using miracles
05:51to try and prove the deity of God,
05:53of Jesus Christ,
05:54then frankly, you can do the same thing with Moses
05:56on a higher level.
05:57You say that the Bible and the Torah have been changed.
06:00This is not a simple claim for Christians.
06:02Can you prove it?
06:03I mean, to be honest with you,
06:05the proof of it is in what you call textual criticism.
06:08Now, this has become a field of biblical studies
06:10or a subfield of biblical studies
06:12which now is being taught everywhere
06:13in the Western Academy.
06:14And there is almost consensus,
06:15in fact, there is consensus
06:17among scholars of Christianity, not Islam,
06:19that there has been change, interpolation and corruption.
06:22In fact, this was the name of one of the books
06:24of Bruce Metzger, a very famous book
06:26that was talking about the corruption of the Bible.
06:28It's something which everyone attests to.
06:29And the question is,
06:31where is the chain of narration?
06:32Where is the link between Jesus and the gospel writers?
06:35Because there is a degree of anonymity
06:38and it's anonymous.
06:39These people are anonymous.
06:40We don't know who they are.
06:41And there is no link between them
06:43and there's almost a hundred years between them.
06:45So much so that it's interesting,
06:46E.P. Sanders, who wrote a book
06:48called The Historical Figure of Jesus Christ,
06:50he said that if you remove the gospels
06:52and you remove the Christian evidence,
06:53you're left with almost no evidence
06:55of his existence even, Jesus Christ.
06:57So you have a lacking of evidence of Jesus' existence
06:59except for that which Tacitus and Josephus says.
07:02And Josephus himself, who was a Jewish philosopher,
07:05or Jewish historian, was accused
07:08or the interpolations of his works
07:09were accused of being put in there anyway.
07:11The point is, is that quite frankly,
07:14we have weak evidence of Christianity
07:17and the preservation mechanism of Christianity has failed
07:19and there's no doubt about that
07:21according to the consensus of all scholars.
07:22Can you also prove that these books have been corrupted
07:24from the books themselves,
07:26maybe through contradictions?
07:27Absolutely, and that's a very good point
07:28because you'll find that especially, for example,
07:31let's take one of the deepest and most meaningful
07:34central tenets of Christianity,
07:35the crucifixion, the resurrection.
07:37Just look at the accounts of crucifixion
07:41in Matthew, Mark, and Luke
07:42and compare them with each other
07:43and you'll find a shocking level of contradictions.
07:46And not just that, there's contradictions
07:47on many different fronts in the Gospels themselves.
07:51That's looking at the New Testament.
07:53The Old Testament is filled with contradictions.
07:55I'll give you one example because I'm mentioning it
07:57and I've read this actually from William Lane Craig
07:59of all people and he mentioned that,
08:01and I'll quote him in fact or paraphrase him,
08:03he said that if you look at the biblical story
08:05in Genesis chapter one, the very first page of the Bible,
08:08you're looking at the very first page of the Bible
08:10and it said that as you know, on the fourth day,
08:12God created the vegetation, the sun,
08:16and sorry, God created the vegetation on the third day
08:18and God created the sun and the luminaries
08:20on the fourth day.
08:21So God created the sun and the luminaries on the fourth day.
08:23That's in Genesis chapter one verse number six
08:25and God created the vegetation,
08:27the plants and stuff on the third day.
08:29But if you look at Genesis chapter two verse number five,
08:31it says no plant had sprung up yet.
08:34But already we found in Genesis chapter one verse number six
08:36that the plants have been there.
08:37So it's a contradiction.
08:39If you just turn the page of the Bible,
08:40so much so that William Lane Craig said about this
08:42that it's as if the author of the Bible didn't care
08:44if there was a contradiction in there.
08:46That's how embarrassing it was
08:47that even one of the notorious preachers
08:50and scholars of Christianity of the 21st century
08:52had to admit there's a contradiction
08:53and he said this, as if he didn't care.
08:55Origin of Alexandria, who wrote on first principles,
08:58one of the biggest ecumenical church fathers,
09:01said what man of education will believe in this kind of thing?
09:04And this is one of their biggest scholars
09:05in the early days of Christianity.
09:06So contradictions are there in the Bible.
09:08The Old Testament, the New Testament, everywhere else.
09:10And it's very easy to see.
09:11Don't they see these contradictions as well?
09:13Why do they keep believing in it?
09:14They do see these contradictions
09:15and I think the way they try and get around it nowadays
09:18is they, what you call, spiritualize the text.
09:21So they'll say it's all metaphor.
09:22Because they cannot live with these contradictions anymore.
09:24They cannot endure them.
09:25So they have to spiritually say,
09:26this is just metaphoric language.
09:27You're just, you're a literalist, you know?
09:29And of course, if you look at the early days of Christianity,
09:32apart from what you call the Alexandrian school,
09:35where you have origin of Alexandria,
09:37like Philo, his Jewish teacher.
09:39You don't find this kind of belief
09:40among the schools of Antioch
09:42and other places in early Christianity.
09:44When they were writing what you call the homilies
09:46and the exegesis or the tefessir of their Bible,
09:49they weren't taking it like that.
09:50Even Augustine, who wrote a book called
09:52Against the Literal Interpretation of Genesis,
09:55doesn't have a metaphoric interpretation
09:57the way in which they were.