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Chapter 1: Christian-Muslim
Dialogue
"Come now, and
let us reason together, saith the
LORD" Isaiah
1:18
Christians believe that Jesus (pbuh) came to teach all of
mankind the religion of God and to show them the path to
salvation. All mankind is therefore required to follow his
message and only those who believe in the crucifixion and
the redemption will be saved. They believe that the Jews are
also required to convert to Christianity since Jesus was
sent to them, therefore, they are the most qualified people
to recognize the word of God and the signs of Jesus (pbuh)
to be found in their own book. Most Jews, on the other hand,
tell us that Jesus (pbuh) was not a messenger of God, but
rather a false prophet, a sorcerer, an offspring of
adulterers, and many other allegations. They claim that
there are no prophesies of Jesus (pbuh) in their book and
that he was not the promised Messiah/Christ (anointed one).
Their Messiah is yet to come. For this reason, they claim
that they are not required by God to follow Jesus (pbuh) and
were justified in killing him.
Muslims believe in both Moses and Jesus (pbut) as true
prophets of God. We believe that both Moses and Jesus as
well as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and all the rest of the
prophets of God were all truthful messengers as well as
faithful and faultless servants of Allah Almighty. We also
believe in the miracles of Jesus (pbuh), including his
miraculous birth. Muslims believe that each time a messenger
of God would pass away, mankind would begin to slowly fall
back upon their evil deeds until they had managed to corrupt
His original message. When this would happen, God Almighty
would send a new prophet to renew His original message to
these people and return them to the straight path. In this
manner, the true message of Allah would always be available
to all those who searched for it until the day of judgment.
This can be seen in the Bible in such verses as Matthew
5:17-18 we read:
"Think not that I (Jesus) am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till
all be fulfilled, Fulfillment of Law of Moses."
The Jews know God as "Elohiym" or "Yahweh." The
Christians know Him as "God," or "Father," or "Jehovah,"
etc.. Muslims know him as "Allah" (and more than 99 other
venerable names). Muslims believe that Allah Almighty did
not send down many messages to mankind but only one: The
religion of submission to His will, the uniqueness of
Himself, and the knowledge that He is the only one worthy of
worship. The details of the religion were molded to suite
each individual people, but the message was one
message: "Allah is One. Worship Him alone!" This is made
apparent in the verse of Aal-Umran(3):84 which states that
which means:
"Say (O Muhammad): We believe in Allah, and that which
is sent down unto us, and that which was revealed unto
Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the sons of
Jacob, and that which was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus
and the Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction
between any of them and unto Him we have surrendered."
Also, in Al-Nisaa(5):138 we read that which means
"O you who believe! Believe in Allah and His
messenger, and the Scripture (Qur'an) which he has revealed
unto His messenger, and the Scripture which He revealed
aforetime. Whosoever disbelieves in Allah and His angels and
His Scriptures and His messengers and the last day, he
verily has wandered far astray."
Muslims are told in the Qur'an that the unscrupulous few
had managed to pervert the words of God Almighty sent down
to Jesus (pbuh) and the previous prophets after the passing
of their prophets. The well meaning masses were then misled
by what was claimed to be 100% the "inspiration" of God. The
changes made by these people have resulted in countless
contradictions between the verses. As we shall soon see,
these contradictions and changes have been well recognized
and documented in the West for centuries now. However, their
actions have been excused because they are assumed to have
been well meaning and were only trying to clarify that which
was obscure and so forth when they changed the word of God
(See chapter 2). Whatever their motives, these apologists
forget the command of Deuteronomy 4:2
"Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you,
neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep
the commandments of the LORD your God."
The liberties mankind has taken with God's previous
scriptures is one of the reasons why God sent down the
Qur'an as His last message to mankind and took it upon
Himself this time to personally preserve it for all time
from corruption or modification
Professor Arthur J. Arberry writes:
"Apart from certain orthographical modifications of
the originally somewhat primitive method of writing,
intended to render unambiguous and easy the task of reading
the recitation, the Koran (Qur'an) as printed in the
twentieth century is identical with the Koran as authorized
by Uthman more than 1300 years ago."
On the other hand, Mr. C.G. Tucker says:
"...Thus Gospels were produced which clearly reflected
the conception of the practical needs of the community for
which they were written. In them the traditional material
was used, but there was no hesitation in altering it or
making additions to it, or in leaving out what did not serve
the writer's purpose."
"The history of the Christians in the light of modern
knowledge," C. G. Tucker, p. 320
Mr. C.J. Cadoux has the following to say in his book
"The life of Jesus" :
"In the four Gospels, therefore, the main documents to
which we must go if we are to fill-out at all that bare
sketch which we can put together from other sources, we find
material of widely differing quality as regards credibility.
So far-reaching is the element of uncertainty that it is
tempting to 'down tools' at once, and to declare the task
hopeless. The historical inconsistencies and improbabilities
in parts of the Gospels form some of the arguments advanced
in favor of the Christ-myth theory. These are, however,
entirely outweighed- as we have shown- by other
considerations. Still the discrepancies and uncertainties
that remain are serious- and consequently many moderns who
have no doubt whatever of Jesus' real existence, regard as
hopeless any attempt to dissolve out of the
historically-true from the legendary or mythical matter
which the Gospels contain, and to reconstruct the story of
Jesus' mission out of the more historical residue."
Reverend Dr. Davies says:
"But to come to realities, no serious modern scholar
believes that the speeches appearing in the New Testament
are verbatim records of what the speaker said. Even as
conservative a scholar as Headlam has to admit that the
speeches are 'in a sense' - he does not say what sense - the
author's 'own composition.' ... Schmidel, in his article on
Acts in the Encyclopedia Biblica, says unreservedly that 'it
is without doubt that the author constructed [the
speeches] in each case according to his own conception
of the situation.' Schweitzer thinks the speeches in Acts
may be 'based upon traditions of speeches ... actually
delivered, but in the form in which we have them they
doubtless belong to the author of Acts and are adapted to
his representation of the facts," Rev. Davies goes on to
quote Thucydides who admits that "..[assigning
fictitious speeches to Biblical characters] was the
universal ancient custom."
"The First Christian," Reverend Dr. Davies, pp. 23-24
Prof. J.R. Drummelow says:
"A copyist would sometimes put in not what was in the
text, but what he thought ought to be in it. He would trust
a fickle memory, or he would make the text accord with the
views of the school to which he belonged. In addition to the
versions and quotations from the Christian Fathers, nearly
four thousand Greek MSS of the Testament, were known to
exist. As a result , the variety of reading is
considerable."
"Commentary on the Holy Bible," page 16
Not long after my arrival in the United States, I had the
pleasure of meeting a Christian gentleman who shall
henceforth be referred to only as Mr. J. Unlike this lowly
author, Mr. J. is a "professional" Christian. He also has a
history of strong evangelical activity, at least with the
Muslim students of our university. Mr. J made himself known
to us through written letters to us, calls to our Muslim
chaplain, and his appearance before us on other occasions
wherein he called upon us to believe in Jesus (pbuh) and to
accept his sacrifice. Mr. J. had sent our Muslim chaplain
and myself books with many allegations against the Qur'an
and a general condemnation of it. A series of friendly
discussions ensued between us and we have since come to know
each other quite well and have managed to remain friendly
and outgoing towards one another even with our differing
beliefs. However, the fact that this author is not a
professional religious person or a professional preacher,
but rather a simple science student, has made it necessary
to schedule these matters around other more immediate
scholarly concerns. It was first and foremost the will of
Allah, then the continuous efforts of Mr. J., his claims
regarding Islam, and his sincere efforts to convert me and
grant me salvation which compelled me to step up my research
of the Bible and the Qur'an and ultimately, publish this
book. I therefore thank Allah Almighty that he sent Mr. J.
to me as a blessing from Himself for me, and hopefully for
many others.
Before this book was written, I had published a series of
articles in a local publication which had been progressing
slowly from exhibiting some of the more minor examples of
human modification to the Bible, such as the fact that the
authors of the Bible are not who they claim to be, and had
been working up to more fundamental issues. Mr. J asked us
to publish his counter viewpoint in our publication and we
accepted.
Mr. J believed that the examples of contradictory
statements in the Bible which we had been jointly discussing
did not in any way affect the founding beliefs of
Christianity (see examples in chapter two). He provided me
with literature by men such as Mr. F.F. Bruce stating such
things as
"...Does it matter whether the New Testament
documents are reliable or not? Is it so very important that
we should be able to accept them as truly historical
records?"
and also"...the story of Jesus as it has come down
to us may be myth or legend, but the teaching ascribed to
him- whether he was actually responsible for it or not - has
a value all it's own," and so forth.
Muslims know for a fact that Jesus (pbuh) was
neither a myth nor a legend but a true prophet of God, but
we do feel that an inspired book of God should contain no
contradictions, historical or otherwise. For this reason we
do not believe that his book has reached us as it was
originally submitted by him.
Mr. J believes that such matters as knowing the true
authors of the books of the Bible are not crucial to a
Christian's faith and challenged us to prove that a
Christian's basic faith is at all in error and not
the same message preached by Jesus 2000 years ago. In
compliance with his request, he was sent four very brief
questions concerning the founding beliefs of Christianity.
He was then asked to provide carefully researched and
weighed answers to these questions. These four questions are
presented below. They have been slightly modified in this
book in order to ensure that they are as clear as possible.
The basic questions, however, remain the same:
- IS THERE A TRINITY? If so then please
present us with as many Biblical references as you
possibly can and briefly explain it's fundamental
concept. What I mean by this question is: Is God one,
period? Or is God three, period? Or is He some
combination of one and three? Please write down a brief
but clear description of the nature of the Trinity and
the exact relationship of each of it's three members to
one-another. Please do not move on until you have done so
since your definition shall have to stand up to the test
of the Bible and be endorsed rather than refuted by the
Biblical verses we shall be studying throughout this
book.
- Is the great and faithful messenger of Allah,
Jesus the son of Mary (peace be upon them both), the
PHYSICAL SON OF ALLAH OR NOT? If he is, then give
us as many biblical references as you possibly can. If
not then why does the majority of Christendom believe
that he is the physical/begotten/sired son of
Allah?
- Did Jesus (pbuh) HIMSELF ever say in the
Bible "I am a god!," or "Worship me!"? If so then give us
as many Biblical references as possible. If not, then why
does the majority of Christendom believe that he is a god
(not a mortal), and the son of? Jesus (pbuh) is invoked
daily as God to forgive sins, cast out devils, and
generally sought after in prayer. UPON WHO'S
AUTHORITY do Christians believe that Jesus (pbuh) is
God? Jesus (pbuh) himself or others? Give as many
references as possible.
- If it can be proven, through the Bible, that Jesus
(pbuh) is not God, nor the physical/begotten/sired son of
God, neither is there any Trinity, then will this prove
that the unscrupulous few have corrupted the word of God
or not?
"Faith" is without a doubt one of the most basic and
fundamental ingredients in the doctrine of any religious
belief. However, when you wish someone to believe in a given
fundamental doctrine which you propose, it is first
necessary to prove the validity of your assertion before you
can ask that person to "have faith." In other words, faith
is indeed important, however, it can not precede the proof.
Once the proof has been established, only then can faith
come into play. This is indeed what prophet Jesus (pbuh)
taught his followers during his lifetime. Jesus (pbuh) did
not simply show up before the Jews one day and demand that
the Pharisees, Sadducees, and everyone else accept him
without proof. Rather, he performed many miracles for them
and at the same time reasoned with them and used logic to
convince them. The Bible is full of examples of how Jesus
(pbuh) would go out of his way to explain things to his
followers, reason with them and prove his case to them.
Obviously, when we ask for proof that a given person
taught a given doctrine, the very first place to look for
proof of this claim is the words of that person himself. If
I believe that Jesus (pbuh) taught a given fundamental
doctrine such as the Trinity, the "Son of God," the
"original sin," or the "atonement," then not only would I be
justified in expecting him to have mentioned it at least
once throughout his whole ministry, but I would expect him
to have spoken of practically nothing else. For this reason,
the above four questions have been proposed in order to
arrive at the command of Jesus (pbuh). If Jesus did indeed
ever command that I should worship a Trinity or that I
should believe that he is God, then I would expect him to
say so clearly at least once in his whole life. If he says
it at least once then others shall be justified in repeating
it a thousand times. However, I want to first know ...
What did Jesus really say?
The Bible says:
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me,
he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we
will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
John 14:23
Jesus (peace be upon him) clearly outlines here that it
is his words that we must keep and that shall
lead to the love of God. Naturally, I wish to know what
Jesus said so that I might follow his command, and his
alone. Every one else's words without exception shall then
be either accepted or rejected based upon their conformance
to the words of the great and pious messenger of Allah,
Jesus the son of Mary. Does this sound fair?
The Christian world has performed a very admirable job in
providing us with Bibles in practically every size,
language, shape and color. Among these Bibles are the series
of Bibles titled the "Red letter editions." These Bibles are
set apart from more conventional Bibles in that the words of
Jesus are distinguished from the rest of the text by writing
them in red ink. This makes the process of locating the
words of Jesus and differentiating them from those of
everyone else much simpler for the reader. Our goal in this
book is to find evidence in the
RED ink of where
Jesus (pbuh) himself ever taught mankind any of the
fundamental concepts of the religion which has been
attributed to him and which is named "Christianity". We
shall see in what follows that whenever someone tries to
validate such doctrines they always attempt to do so with
the words in the BLACK ink and never the ones
in RED ink.
Muslims are told in the Qur'an that Jesus (pbuh) was one
of the most pious and elect messengers of God Almighty for
all time. However, we are also told that he was not himself
a god, nor the physical son of God. We read in the
Qur'an:
"And when Allah said: O Jesus, son of Mary! Did you
say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside
Allah?* he said: Be You glorified. It was not
mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I used to say
it, then You knew it. You know what is in my
[innermost] self but I know not what is in Yours.
Truly! You, only You are the Knower of things hidden. I
spoke unto them only that which You commanded me, (saying):
Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord, and I was a witness
over them while I dwelt among them, and when You took me You
were the Watcher over them, and You are Witness over all
things."
The noble Qur'an, Al-Maidah(5):116-118
Obviously, both claims can not be true. Either Jesus
(pbuh) did indeed command mankind to worship him or he did
not. Since my level of knowledge of the words of the Bible
obviously can not compare with that of Mr. J., therefore, I
was hoping that he could demonstrate to me where Jesus
actually said any of these things. Since the issues of the
Trinity, the Son of God, the original sin, and the atonement
comprise the most fundamental differences in belief between
the Islamic and Christian faith, therefore, I had hoped that
in answering these four very brief questions it might be
possible to once and for all arrive at the true command of
Jesus. Mr. J's response follows:
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