Is Jesus Prophet Or Son Of God? I Shabir Ally Vs Douglas Jacoby I

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my name is Michelle Wright I'll be serving as the moderator for this evening's debate between dr. Shabbir Ali and dr. Douglas Jacoby it's entitled as Jesus prophet or son of God thank you so much for joining us this evening I'm taking time out of your very busy schedules dr. Ali thank you for coming to Georgia and joining us here all the way down Toronto it's great to have you here this in fact is the third debate between these two men and it's designed to be a very respectful debate which is great their first debate was ten years ago back in 2008 and that was on the topic the true legacy of Abraham their second debate was just last year in Toronto and they debated on violence the Bible and the Koran again this is designed to be a very respectful debate that's being designed to engage you in some dialogue about Jesus who lived some 2,000 years ago in Islam Jesus is a great prophet but not divine in Christianity Jesus is the Son of God so these two aspects of Jesus will be what we are discussing tonight during this forum in the next few hours I say we because it's not just the men on stage here that will be talking you will actually get the opportunity to ask some questions there is some time that is set aside for the audience to ask questions of both doctors Jacoby and Ollie what I ask is that you keep your questions to 30 seconds or less if that helps you might want to write something down so you can keep it down I have instructed the sound engineer if you go beyond the 30 seconds to silence your mic so we can be respectful and have as many people as possible be able to ask as many questions as possible so we want to be fair I will signal the time during that Q&A you'll come up here you'll be able to ask your question to which ever of the Baader the debaters you would like or you can ask both of them now speaking of these two fine men that are up here on stage with me I'd like to tell you a little bit about them dr. Ali holds an MA and a PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Toronto he also has a BA in religious studies with a specialization in biblical literature dr. Ali lives in Toronto where for the last 30 years he's been actively involved in the Muslim unity and he's also quite involved with several interfaith dialogues and initiatives around the world in fact he's known as one of the top if not the top debaters in the Muslim world so it's really an honor to have him here today dr. Ali serves as the president of the Islamic information and Dawa centers international in Toronto where he also functions as Imam he's also got a weekly TV program called let's let the Quran speak you can feel free to check out any past episodes it's at Quran speaks calm follow him on Twitter at dr. Shabbir Ali on Facebook or at his website Shabbir Ali comm dr. Jacoby holds a BA in history from Duke and MTS from Harvard and Dieppe men from Drew University he's served as a minister and pastor of several churches both domestically here in the US and internationally in countries like Britain Sweden and Australia he's currently a freelance Bible teacher and consultant based here in the metro Atlanta area and an adjunct professor of Bible and theology from Lincoln University he spoken in more than 20 majority Muslim nations and lectured at several Muslim universities he's the author of over two dozen books hundreds of podcasts which can also be found on his web site Douglas Jacoby comm you can also follow him on twitter at @ SS jacobi and on Facebook now before we get to the opening statements a little explanation of how the evening is going to go as the moderator I'm planning to move the evening along keeping a note of time and helping shape and formulate any questions to the participants that you may have and working to maintain an equal balance of those questions going to either dater if someone is going over their allotted time I will notify them and I will ask them to finish up their statement in the next 15 to 30 seconds if they are unable to wrap it up I will ask again the sound engineer to turn down their microphone so the next person will be able to speak as you can tell we're pretty strict about this before each segment I will state who will be speaking and how much time they have and in what order so this leads us to our opening statements before we do our opening statements if there's anybody in the foyer who'd like to come in please come on in now find yourself a seat if not the next time you will be able to come on in we'll be in 15 minutes so if you'd like to enter now we'd love to have you if not you'll are going to be listening for another 15 minutes before you'll get the time to come on in thank you feel free to come on in thank you and welcome again for coming we've got seats please feel free to come find some seats and now it's time for opening statements our first opening statement will be from dr. Jacoby it'll be followed by dr. Ali dr. Jacoby you have 15 minutes for your opening statement first let me see I say what a pleasure it is to see such a great crowd tonight all over from all over the Atlanta area and even beyond it's an honor to meet again you shibir for our third engagement our fourth actual meeting and it's he's not just noted as one of the top debaters in the world it's fairly unanimous he's too modest to admit it the top debater in the Muslim world I better be careful what I say and Mishelle putting the fear of God into us with discipline we promised not to go over okay we don't want to be taken to the punishment room or wherever it is all right you know Christians and Muslims have awful lot in common far more in common than they do that separates them particularly when you look at the globe as a whole if you're looking at Eastern religions Hinduism Buddhism and then you look at the great monotheistic faiths Judaism Islam and Christianity we agree on a lot more than we disagree on however there is a fairly major difference that is under discussion tonight and that is the identity of Jesus Christ because in Islam the sin of idolatry the sin of shirk associating a being with Allah as a divine being that's a very serious sin you could see unforgivable and the Quran is emphatic that Allah does not have sons yet in Christianity the Incarnation God coming into our world through his son is actually the central doctrine it's not a peripheral thing it's the central teaching of Christianity so that's what we're here to talk about is Jesus only a prophet or is he actually son of God and that's a position I'll be defending now actually you may not know it but Quran supports many of the biblical claims about Jesus the Quran teaches that he was born of a virgin he did miracles he he raised the dead he's coming back it'll be the Judgment Day Jesus is a messenger he's an apostle he's a messiah and more but they're indicators even within the Quran that Jesus is more than just a prophet I mean that the whole thing about the second coming and we learn more about that in the traditions in the hadith the teaching that Jesus is sinless no offense to the Prophet Muhammad but for three passages in the Quran that speak of forgiveness for Muhammad but so what is going on with that and then we read in surah 4 Christ Jesus the Son of Mary was a Messenger of Allah and His Word now that passage is saying that Jesus is a word that's not a messenger that's a message and I believe that that notion has come from the Gospel of John so what is the truth is Jesus only a prophet or something more and just to set things in the timeframe Islam comes about six centuries Muhammad dies just over six centuries after Jesus died and so it's quite a long time later well what does that term son of God mean anyway it could mean all kinds of things in the Bible but the question for this evening is when it was applied to Jesus Christ what did it mean and I believe it means a couple of things it points to his authority but more than that also his divinity how could Allah have a son when he has no companion a question asked in surah 6 verse 101 yet Christians don't believe that God had a son they believed that he was the son eternally but I understand it's common in the ancient world to have gods and goddesses paired together in the pantheon of gods and if you study world religions you see this everywhere and I i have little trouble believing that in 7th century Arabia Christians had their whole pantheon of gods and saints in other words I think there was certainly a lot of idolatry going on and Muhammad's message would have resonated with me but Christians don't believe that God had a son that he's always had a son Jesus God is spirit Jesus is not God's Son biologically he's God's son analogically it's an analogy I'm not saying it's not true but if you make it biological or sexual then it's definitely not true and certainly Muslims are just as capable as anybody else of distinguishing metaphor from literal language I in the Quran you have the phrase mother of the book in Sura 13 in Pakistan I understand sometimes Muhammad is called the father of the nation in Arabic I've heard if someone travels a lot you could say he's a son of the road these are not family relationships these are metaphors and we use them in Christianity to two things I hope we'll be able to keep in mind before I give you the evidence and first the Christians the original Christians were monotheists they believed that only one God for them the most important command was here o Israel the Lord the Lord your God is one Deuteronomy 6:4 and why am I talking about the Jews because Jesus was Jewish because all of his apostles were Jewish the Apostle Paul was Jewish the base of leadership in the early Church was Jewish these are not people who are going to easily say oh yeah let's add some gods in and the second is this the word God in the New Testament I'm not referring to the Old Testament but the New Testament God normally refers to God the Father it can refer to God in the Christian sense as we understand father son spirit but that's a very rare kind of usage in the New Testament God normally refers to the father now let me explain if I can how the Bible shows Jesus is divinity and how he is son of God it was very very surprising that any Orthodox Jew would have said well there's God and then here's another God but then that's not what the Jews were saying but even in the time of Jesus and earlier there were documents circulating my first Enoch and and forth Ezra that had a preexistent divine figure in the Dead Sea Scrolls there are Scrolls especially from cave number four that say the Messiah will be son of the Most High and the Messiah will be the Christ will be the son of God so that language is there in the background then you've got the Old Testament which prophesies it foretells in several places that at one point God will come to our world I think of Ezekiel 34 God says your Shepherds are corrupt I'm going to come and I myself will Shepherd you how're you do that we'll do it through us descent of David it also says David will come and yet this is centuries after David's death we have in Malachi 3 one of the most striking passages behold I am going to send my messenger and he will clear the way before me and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple so there would be a forerunner and then God Himself would come there are other hints and indications but the Old Testament itself looks forward to a day where God will break into history and appear and teach and lead now sometimes those lovers will use the Koran particularly survives two three and seven to say that the Torah may have been changed it may have been corrupted when I look at it for example in surah three I see the charge that some Jews had corrupted the the taurah the law with their tongues more what they said than what they did and i think that's an important point at any rate we can hardly accuse the jews of rewriting or changing their scripture to support the christian claims of the Incarnation that's something that we ought to think about we have John the Baptist who views himself as the herald preceding the coming of the Lord and you notice this in mark 1 the way Isaiah 40 and Malachi 1 are tied together that's quite amazing and he realizes he's completely unworthy of this one who is greater than him in the letters of the New Testament which are earlier than the Gospels for the most part Jesus is routinely called the Lord and because it's in Greek the New Testament and because the Old Testament that most of the Jews use was in Greek Hebrew yes but in the Holy Land but outside Greek was the language because of that when the Jews were being told that Jesus is kurios he is Lord and that's the same word for God in the Old Testament one of the names of God that is quite significant we have Jesus's own brother James calling his brother the Lord of glory and he is the lord of glory reflecting the love and mercy and holiness of the father Paul speaks of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ in Titus 2:13 they're multipath is when you look them up you look up the reference in the Old Testament you say that's talking about God but it's been applied in the New Testament to Jesus then we have Jesus is teaching Jesus accepts worshiped for example in mark 5 in John 20 with Thomas he accepts worship my Lord and my god he claims a unique relationship with the father that is he prayed my father we're supposed to our father all four Gospels have Jesus as son of God the earliest gospel is most scholars would agree as mark written in 65 or so Matthew a few years later a little bit later Luke a little bit later John in mark 1:1 Jesus is the Son of God this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God but that's a Roman term that's applying to the emperor the emperor is called Lord and God savior the emperor is called son of God he's acknowledged again a son of God by an unclean spirit in chapter 3 by Legion in chapter 5 and by the Roman centurion at his death in chapter 15 moreover Jesus acts like God third-party forgiveness if Michele sins against me I forgive Michele okay but if Michelle's sins against shibir I don't forgive Michele that's something only God would do read mark 2 Jesus is David's Lord Jesus says he'll be coming in the clouds in mark 14 and coming in the clouds is something attributed to the Lord in the Old Testament - God Almighty his cloud chariot then we have the ancient creedal statements is Lord well since Jesus said you can only have one master you can only follow one Lord he's Lord either he's a second God or by making him Lord we're following the true God and all this means that the divinity of Christ is not some kind of development it's there at the very beginning interesting fellow an atheist New Testament scholar named Judah man says that the Christian message was fixed certainly in the first three years after Jesus died that is between somewhere between the years 30 and 33 and yet these scriptures unanimously portray Jesus as the Son of God and I am unaware of any ancient manuscript of the New Testament or any manuscript fragment I'm unaware of any one any manuscript that takes a different view that says Jesus is just just like us in every way because he is the son of God and there's no evidence to show that that teaching has changed so why don't Muslims believe do not they blaspheme who say Allah is one of three but in the time of Muhammad and if you read the Quran carefully the Trinity is God Jesus and Mary it's Allah Issa unmark Maryam because Christians are praying to a pantheon of saints and gods and I understand that they've been doing that actually for several centuries but Christians don't believe that Jesus is let me clarify this thing about the Trinity we don't think Jesus is his own father it's not like well Jesus is God and gods the Father so Jesus had himself and how could he do that well he's God he could do anything a way was such silliness what we believe is that Father Son and spirit are equal in nature but not equal in attributes and not equal in order the son was subordinate to the Father he was the one sent to the earth he is the one who obeyed his father and even at the end of time when he gives the king back to the father first with Ian's 15 he is still subordinate so there's a difference in rank and attributes not jut it but what they're equal in nature and that means that Jesus and God are not identical unless you mean to say is Jesus God at nature okay yes but is Jesus God well no because it's much more than just the Son of God it's not a question of one plus one plus one equals three it's more like one times one times one equals three not arithmetic but more exponential and that explains why Jesus told us to pray to the Father through him by the spirit John 16 26 the Quran itself tells us Christians to follow the injeel to obey what was taught there and that's in the quran chapter 3 verse 3 and yet muslims hold that the core gospel message something's been corrupted but I would like to know what is the evidence in summary the Quran supports many of the Bible's teachings about Jesus Christ but stopped short does not go all the way to say he's the son of God even though there are hints as son of God Jesus has Authority divinity and this claim is not late it's at the very foundation of Jannetty in all the letters in the gospel from John the Baptist to Martha to the apocalypse where Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega that is the first in the last identifying himself with God in the presence of strong evidence for Jesus's identity one should no more accept the verdict that he was only a prophet that one would say that Einstein was only a mathematician one who says that shows he doesn't understand what he did oh he's just a patent clerk but in the same way anyone who claims Jesus is only a prophet does not truly know who he is as I'm reasoning he is the son of God and He is Lord thank you very much for those of you who are caught in the POI yay if you'd like to come in now please feel free to come on in and grab a seat if you could do that quickly that will hear from dr. Ali but we want you to be able to come on in grab a seat thank you so much for joining us here this evening and if for some reason you do need to leave there are screens in the foyer so you can be able to watch until you're able to return into the into the area thank you again so much and dr. Ali your opening statement Thank You Michelle I begin by praising our creator and fashion or the creator of the heavens in URIs ask him to send peace and blessings upon all of his prophets as messengers all of the righteous people of all time I asked him to repair the damage that was done in the Florida Panhandle and elsewhere with the recent hurricane Michael and I encourage all of you here to do what you can to give charity and to help in the relief and cleanup efforts after that great disaster now as for our being here tonight I I thank God that he's brought us together in such an amiable atmosphere and I thank Doug for giving me this opportunity to speak here and all of you folks here in this great and beautiful church for giving me the opportunity to speak here before you I want to thank Michelle for being here with her great radio voice to guide us along and I pray that God would bless us all here tonight bless our families or loved ones keep us safe and keep us guided as for what will be discussed here tonight I ask God to open up our hearts and minds for the truth that he wants us to accept for our salvation and whether that truth comes from Doug or comes from me it will be our obligation to accept that truth don't want this to be Muslims versus Christians but rather Muslims and Christians together in the mutual a search for truth dog knows the Greek language you can read the New Testament in Greek so you'll teach me a few things and if there is something that I stumbled upon and I have a question about I know that dog is here to answer my question so we'll all come out more enriched at the end of this than the way we came in we will all be further better so my obligation tonight in this debate is to deal with the question is Jesus a son of God or a prophet of God Doug picked the topic and he billed it as a debate I would have said let's have a dialogue but since it is it is built as a debate that's good too so that we can have clarity of thought and we can be very precise in thinking about this now one of the issues in debates is who has the burden of proof for what now normally if somebody is claiming something extraordinary that person has the burden of proof that person has to prove the extraordinary thing imagine with me imagine that there is a certain disease that strikes one in a million persons now we could not point to just any individual and say well this is the person that has that disease for us to be able to point to that individual we have to have some evidence and proof and it has to be some reasonable evidence and proof otherwise one and we only have a one-in-a-million chance of getting it right now our Christian friends tell us that there's only one person in all of history one human being who was the son of God in the Christian sense of asserting this so that's one out of more than a hundred billion people I don't know the actual number of people who have existed since Adam but you can well imagine the number so if we're saying this one in a hundred billion persons was the Son of God he has this unique quality and characteristic about him well then we need to know what is the evidence what is the proof and it has to be a reasonable proof that this person is to be called in this way the son of God now what we're not discussing up here tonight so that we clear we're not discussing whether Jesus was the son of God in a metaphorical sense because Muslims will point out but there are many persons who are called sons of God in the Bible of course in a metaphorical sense meaning the way in which one might say you know to a child on the street you are my son or Peter says mark my son but we all know that mark was not his son or Jesus speaks to the Pharisees and he says in John's Gospel your father is the devil and in contrast Jesus's father is God well here we have a contrast their father is the devil Jesus's father is God so if one is metaphorical in the case of the Pharisees naturally the devil did not give birth to them then it's also metaphorical in the case of Jesus in this particular place so we're not talking about that now we could have spoken about got Jesus being son of god by adoption so that's where somebody declares formally that I'm adopting this child as my child now of course that would set Muslims and Christians at a difference but it wouldn't be such a major differences what we're discussing here tonight I believe that what Doug has put before us is that Jesus was eternally the son of God so he didn't become son of God at a particular moment in time in which case it's not the case that God just simply adopted him so he was always the son of God so we're speaking about an ontological reality here and that requires some proof so how would we know that somebody is the son of God out of the hundred billion persons that have walked the earth how would we know that this particular one is to be given this particular designation the son of God now we might see if somebody's a great man and dog pointed out that the Quran actually shows that Jesus was a great man in fact is right it seems that in the Quran Jesus is even more than a prophet but a great man and more than the Prophet does not make him automatically son of God Jesus in the New Testament speaks of John the Baptist and asked the people what what did you go out to see when you went out into the wilderness did you go out to see a prophet I tell you more than a prophet so according to Jesus himself John the Baptist was more than a prophet but more than a prophet does not automatically equate son of God we have to see where in the spectrum and hierarchy of beings does Jesus actually fit and Doug is right the Quran says a lot of great things about Jesus I don't need to reiterate that but let's get more to the point about what how Jesus is fits within that hierarchy of beings so for Jesus to be called the Son of God we might expect that maybe he himself said it and and so people picked it up and they believed in him and and they took it from there all right he said it we believe him and that's the end of it like somebody says God said it I believe it and that's the end of it no question after that but now there was great question as to whether or not Jesus on whom be peace when he walked the earth in Palestine some 2,000 years ago whether he actually said I am the son of God meaning in that ontological sense there can be many instances where he means it in a metaphorical sense there are instances where it says that God spoke to Jesus from heaven and said this is my son that could mean son by adoption but now to know that Jesus is eternally the Son of God we have to have some greater evidence than this it has to be very specific maybe Jesus on one occasion said that I am eternally the son of God but of course there's no such thing in the New Testament he didn't actually say that so how did Christians come to believe that that this is the title that should be applied to Jesus to say that he is the son of God my answer to that is that it came in a series of developments Christians over time notice that Jesus you know said some great things he did some great things they reflected upon that and eventually they came to many different conclusions various writers of the New Testament materials their various twenty-seven books that make up the new test men had different ideas about what to say about Jesus some call him curious means Lord but the term Lord is an ambiguous title it can refer to the Lord of the world which for Muslims is Allah the only God or it can refer even to a human master or teacher and in fact to this day I met a gentleman outside who said that he is Greek and we can check with him later on but from my humble knowledge of the Greek language and I'm still only a beginner and that term Korea is an address to a of respect to another person so if you go to Greece and somebody addresses you as clay they only mean sir they don't mean Lord so that same term Lord is translated in the Bible as Lord for the Lord God and it is also used many times in reference to Jesus so some people by using this term Lord for Jesus I have allowed a certain bit of ambiguity so that sometimes in your New Testament we cannot be sure whether the writers are talking about Yahweh the only true God and the Lord of lords or they're talking about Jesus the Lord Jesus sometimes they specify the Lord Jesus but sometimes they are not so very specific now Christians later on looking at this can say well yeah it looks like Jesus is the Lord God but against this we can see that there are many instances where Jesus and whom be peace makes it crystal clear that he is not the Lord God so what is he then he can be addressed as Lord in the sense of Master and teacher but not as the Lord God now I said a series of developments we can trace some of this development I hope if I walk around the camera folks won't won't get mad if it's me if they have to make some adjustments I hope they will they will be alert to that so we can see that there are four Gospels in the Bible and Doug has rightly named them as Matthew Mark Luke and John and he's actually given the sequence in which these Gospels were written you remember the sequence that he said mark around the year 65 ad and followed by Matthew Luke and then follow finally by John now we can look at these four Gospels in their historical context and we can see that the stories about Jesus were being transformed from one gospel to another that means mark writes about three decades after Jesus Matthew and Luke are writing a decade later and John is writing a decade later still and we can see that as we go from Mark to John the stories have been transformed now suddenly Jesus is being called for a son of God more and more something like once in mark and then like a or maybe three four times in mark but then like a hundred times in the Gospel according to John now if John was a was like 25 times larger than mark we would say that this is just a a product of size but John is only about maybe 30 40 % lar longer than done mark so how does it have suddenly this term son of God in the stories of Jesus appearing all over the place 25 times more frequently than they occur in Mark's Gospel now look at Mark's Gospel again and how many times does Jesus speak about the kingdom of God many many times how many times does he speak about himself very so go to John how many times does Jesus speak about the kingdom of God very seldom how many times does he speak about himself in self reference I am this I am that about a hundred times so for the actual statistics discs on this I would direct you to a book by James DG done the British scholar of international acclaim a book entitled the evidence for Jesus so what has happened between mark and John at the two ends of these Gospels is that the story of Jesus has been transformed nob it's no longer about the kingdom of God so much it's more about Jesus all of these iron beings I am this I am that I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me I am before Abraham was I am whoever has seen me has seen the father I am the father are one where are these statements in which gospel tell me in the Gospel according to John now you might think about this yourself if let's say somebody came into this room and he said that he is God or he said something close to that that would be the most important thing you want to say you're chuckling already and when you go home and talk to your family and friends you can I said on this guy came in and he said that he is God isn't that crazy well that's the one memorable thing about him everybody who reports about it this is what they're gonna say now it will make no sense for you to go and tell everyone there was a guy who came into the room and you know he was wearing a necktie and and so why these details and omit the most important thing that he said well if Jesus said that he was odd or said that he was the son of God in that ontological sense if he made such grandiose claims about himself that would have been the one thing that everybody would want to report all of the Gospels would have it why is it that the Gospel according to mark has such a paucity of such granules claims about Jesus and only the Gospel according to John picked it up later and we can see some middling position which with Matthew and Luke so there's a development if mark if in mark Jesus looks like a human being maybe slightly greater than the human being then in Matthew and Luke he looks greater and then in John he looks much much greater he's going through the ceiling in John's Gospel Jesus is like the creator of the world he is the agent through which God made everything else he's not the Almighty God but he is close to that he is the first agent through which God created everything else God created him and then he created everything else that's John's Gospels presentation of Jesus there's only one true God the one whom Jesus prayed to according to John chapter 17 verse 3 but nevertheless John speaks about Jesus in such a way that Christians can come away thinking well this guy is the creator of the world so when we look up we don't see the actual God we see Jesus he is our Creator so he is God to us and this is how the confusion has actually are proliferated over time I only have a minute left so let me very quickly sum this up by saying that Muslims and Christians have as Doug said a lot of things in common and I'm so glad that we're here to discuss seeing these commonalities but it's important also that we discussed the differences in in a in a friendly and cooperative manner so that we all come up come away from this and more enriched than we were before Doug is going to teach me some things about the Greek language and and many more things and and I'm here to learn so as we reflect on these differences we realized that there is a continuing stream of revelation God has sent previous prophets as Doug said in the Old Testament these narratives were there then in the New Testament it picked up more speed the Quran now is a final revelation from God bringing us back to that reality the true Jesus as he was before they made him son of God and even God thank you thank you so much dr. Ali for those in the FOIA if you'd like to come on in please take the time now to come on in as we transition into the next portion of our program that portion will be the questions program a portion of the program between the two doctors here on stage so our first point will be dr. Jacoby will be posing questions to dr. Ali and dr. Ali will answer and then we're gonna flip that that'll be ten minutes so again feel free to head on out but again it won't be another ten minutes till you can return back in however there are cameras and there are monitors outside in the foyer if you do need to step out you won't miss too much of the debate and so now dr. Jacoby I hand it over to you so you're saying that the understanding of Jesus was radically transformed between the time of Mark 65 and John in the 90s not only between a mark and John but there's there's a transformation of which we have two mile posts we have mark and we have John and we can see the transformations that took place between mark and and John you know as a biblical scholar how the writers have shaped the tradition we understand how oral tradition works how written tradition works would you not say though that the fundamental level of the New Testament at the earliest source Jesus is already viewed as son of God a term reserved for the Emperor it's a political statement in mark 1:1 to say not Caesar is Lord but Jesus is Lord would you not agree with that well mark 1:1 actually is not uniform in the textual tradition as you probably are aware I the son of God in mark 1:1 has been identified by some as not present in some of the earliest manuscripts and this is why some modern translations of the New Testament omit son of God in that particular place this does not mean that mark does not present Jesus as the Son of God but the question first of all is what kind of son of God is marked referring to is he referring to Jesus as metaphorically the Son of God or an adopted son of God and when he quotes the Centurion as saying this man is the son of God according to some Bible translations that should probably be translated this man is a son of God because for the Roman centurion there were many sons of God so he Roman centurion conceivably would not have at this stage thought that God has only one son and this is the son it's he's probably thinking this is a son which means a virtuous man as Luke put it in his gospel the Centurion said truly this man is innocence so that's another way of saying this man is innocent if we put the two Gospels together right but in in if you want the latest version of the Greek New Testament based on the oldest versions it came out at the end of last year it's right here and Mark 1:1 the full version is there that's the weight of the consensus that is legitimate well okay I mean you're seeing a consensus and that's fine I will bow to biblical scholars fair point we so we have to yeah some things are more conclusive than others in mark as I've mentioned Jesus acts as though he's God forgiving sins third party described himself at the end of coming back in the clouds in Isaiah in Psalms in the prophets that's what God does he does a lot of things that God God walks on the sea in job in mark jesus walks on the sea there are so many things and we don't just have to talk about mark but you know Philip says show us the father that will be enough well Jesus isn't the father he's the son but he says don't you know me Philip anyone who sees me sees the father because in nature they're not equal in rank or attribute but they're equal in nature okay so let me respond first always mark 1:1 while I would like to bow to scholarship I'd like it to be known that the scholarship is not uniform for example at lar Bowl Collins in her Armenia commentary on on mark 1:1 just translates it this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ . no son of God at that point when she explains the reason because this is not present in some of the most reliable early manuscripts as for the Gospel of Mark and others presenting Jesus as being more than a human being more than a prophet or that he does things which we know that God in the Old Testament did that is not by definition what is meant by son of God like we have to have a definition what is meant by son of God God son of God as you defined it is that one who was eternally begotten of God I know if you use the term begotten in your presentation nobody but you would agree to that is eternally begotten of God all right so then jesus walks on water how do you know that he was eternally begotten of God all you know that he has is that he has a great lot of great power allowing him to walk on water so he could have been a prophet whom God allowed to have this power to walk on water Satan has a lot of great power but Satan is not considered by Christians or anyone else to be the Son of God eternally begotten of God so you have to have something that clinches it to say well this is what we're gonna call Jesus because that's what son of God means well that term was already in circulation as a term for the Messiah as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls and an intertestamental literature jesus says before Abraham was born I am ago and me you know that phrase appears over and over in John it's the name of God in Exodus 3 okay but but but notice what you're doing here with with quoting previously Phillips cross to Jesus father and then Jesus saying whoever has seen me has seen the father and now you are quoting John's Gospel again what you're doing here is you're confirming my general thesis that there has been a development such that when Christians want to find proofs that Jesus is either the Son of God and that ontological sense or that he is God you more likely find the proofs in John's Gospel but I don't want to neglect what you said about Mark's Gospel when Jesus spoke about son of man coming on the clouds of heaven Bruce Shelton a New Testament scholar has written an article in Bible review in which he examined the sayings about the Son of Man very carefully in Mark's Gospel and he says that sometimes Jesus is speaking to himself about himself with that title son of man yes everywhere sometimes Jesus is speaking about another figure to come in the future who will be somehow associated with Jesus but it's not Jesus so that great son of man who will come in the future in Mark's Gospel is that not Jesus according to Bruce Chilton it's somebody else because Jesus is always referring to that Son of Man in the third person Jesus and he does often refer to himself in the third in a third person I don't deny that Chilton's a fine scholar but one of many I mean in a few weeks I'll be at the biblical the big conference in Denver there are 10,000 biblical scholars there we can find a scholar here and there to back us up on one thing or another but we need to learn from them as a whole not just cherry-pick our favorite scholar to back up our point Jesus is presented as divine more in John than in Mark I'll agree with that I'm just saying he's presented as divine it's not Caesar who is God and Savior it's Jesus and that's the way he's portrayed and I would challenge anyone in the audience to read Mark's Gospel and say he's a prophet and he's not God's Son yeah but I take it you're asking me questions here right these are the questions for me to respond to let me respond to that very quickly Kim and I can I just interrupt and say do anything or are there questions because again you will have the ability to to ask Doug and there will be some rebuttals so we do have just under three all right so let me I want to make sure that all the questions are asked and then you'll be able to ask these questions well sure the show that won't happen because I'm here let me respond to what you just said so you're asking about a Marx presentation of Jesus and you're saying okay and John Jesus appears more divine than he was in in Mark's Gospel no it's portrayed as divine more more often more readers may not put words in your mouth but let me get to the answer to that in March gospel is taken as a whole it is very clear that Jesus is a great prophet he has his God's Messiah and he has great powers but he also has limitations this is what is very important to understand in Mark's Gospel so in Mark's Gospel Jesus denies that he has omniscience he shares of that hour no one knows not even the son but only the father right if Jesus does not have omniscience then he is not God a man came to Jesus and asked him good teacher what must I do to have eternal life and Jesus says says to him why do you call me good no one is good but God alone so Jesus is distancing himself from being praised to such an extent moreover Jesus and some of his miracles obviously has limitations mark says he could not do any mighty works in his hometown but of course the later Gospels changed this from could not do to did not do if we go to Matthew and Luke so if jesus heals some in in a certain location in Mark's Gospel he healed them all in Matthew and Luke you see a develop don't deny the the differences and I don't don't have those differences at all but do we have time for these questions let me give you one because maybe we'll circle back with some of this material when we trade roles in a second you have a minute and a half in the in Islam the Quran it by the majority of Islamic scholars is considered to be eternal and uncreated right these are our terms that came up in Muslim discussions right in the in the middle of it medieval times yeah I don't want to revive those discussions now because I can't revive I can't provide the discussion I thought nurse Slav wolf did a great job in his book Allah explaining where that came from but unless I'm misrepresenting Muslims the Quran is eternal that uncreated so is Allah I'm Christianity we have you refer to inscription we have a father-son in spirit being eternal it uncreated yes lab you have the Quran joining Allah is eternal uncreated were you referring to a book that discuss this yeah eternal uncreated Ness of the Quran it's not what you were referring nah you didn't okay I just I was reading about a few when involved book came out I was right but now the difference is very quickly because we only have half a minute remaining so if one the reason I don't want to get into this is that a lot of it is semantics like what do you mean when you refer to the book of God so some Muslim said it is on eternal uncreated because by the Quran they meant the knowledge of God and of course the God's knowledge is eternal and uncreated some who said that the Quran was created there referring to the physical object in our hands and obviously it's written on paper which was created with ink which was created and so on so here muslims debated with each other without properly defining their terms so it is a non-issue really so this doesn't perfectly match the qur'an in heaven if I had time I would have answered you the answer okay so what we would say is that the Quran we have in our hands now is a representation of that message which God wants us to have for our salvation and that message is already in the mind of God and the mind of God is reflected in what called Elohim muscles because it is related in a tradition he said the pen right and the pen right asked what should I write and he said my knowledge of all things that will happen up until the the last day you talk about Sura 25 not I'm speaking about a tradition not some passage of the Quran and there's two shows that it's it's something outside of the of the Quranic requirement and this is something that comes up in Muslim discourse largely based on what is mentioned in other sources okay alright for those who are in the POI if you'd like to come in now would be the time to come on in find your seat grab a seat thank you so much we are now going to do the reverse so dr. Ali will be able to ask dr. Jacoby questions and we'll have a dialogue and will allow ish minutes for that give or take how long she's shaping the tradition well you know what she's still true to her original message shabbir yes so she begins the dog you mentioned that the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the Messiah as son of the Most High but here my challenge to you still is to explain how you know that that son of the Most High would be the eternal son of God as opposed to let's say adopted son or metaphorical son such as for example you use the term impossibile in Arabic which means son of the road I was just saying that that that phrase has has been used before the time of Jesus as I also refer to the phrases and first Enoch and fourth Ezra I'm just saying the Jews were already thinking very much outside the boxes so if you're looking for precedents to this notion that the divine could become human you have it not only in the Old Testament but you have it in some of those intertestamental places even in the Dead Sea Scrolls okay still with the Dead Sea Scrolls since you've read the scrolls you know that the scrolls speak about three messiahs to become in the future a priest a prophet and a king ones over here depending on which scroll yes I'm aware okay so if if you say that the new Messiah is going to be son of the Most High then are these three messiahs gonna be each son of the Most High I'm not trying to stake the whole case on q4 to 46 or whatever the number is but the way burden of proof works it's not that way am I allowed to give a quotation to offer a quotation sure and that gordon-reed New York law school demanding that individual terms of evidence amount to proof sets the standard that can only be met in the rarest of circumstances either in history or in the law the evidence must be considered as a whole before realistic and fair assessment can be made will understand Mark's Gospel as we understand Jesus experientially as we look at the other Gospels as we look at the Christian tradition but my case doesn't come down to a single line in a Dead Sea scroll or a verse in one of the Gospels I'm talking about the original the ancient Christian position that Jesus is Lord he is God in nature his son of God okay now you you spoke of of James the brother of Jesus and it seems to me that you assume that James is the author of the Epistle named James there are you assuming that it wouldn't matter for the point I'm making I'm simply saying that all the documents in the New Testament have this idea of Jesus's divinity he's the Lord of glory whether it was written by James's brother the conservative view or by someone else and they may be right I don't know it doesn't matter it doesn't matter to my case mmm okay now you mentioned the creedal statement that Jesus is Lord so now I spoke about the ambiguity in the term Lord with the original courious and you know the Greek so tell us when somebody says Jesus is Korea's does that mean automatically that he is the Lord God because if Peter Peter says that Sarah called Abraham Lord the Sarah referred to Abraham as her Lord Lord God or is this term Korea's the meaning of a word is not determined by a lexicon lexicon only gives you the range of possibilities to determine in the context it's quite clear if anyone who's read Genesis and then reads first Peter 3 that Sarah wasn't saying that Abraham was her God or that he was acting like a God in that way there it's clear kurios means master Lord in that way but when we say Jesus is Lord which is a scholarship shows this as a it's a baptismal confession it's a treadle confession we're not saying Jesus is a sir like Jesus is a very respectful respectable man why would you be thrown to the Lions for saying yeah Jesus is a good guy it's when the claim comes at a conflict with the claim that the Emperor is making to be Lord the Emperor is claiming total lordship it's a totalitarian idea and the Christians are saying no the government is not supreme Jesus is Lord and they're using the same word that their Old Testament uses for God and so it's suggestive it makes that connection so we determine the meaning from the context and from the situation not from what it means somewhere else and as in any language a word can mean different things we have to ask how it's being used and I'm saying kurios is used of Jesus identity as the second member of the Trinity oh ok so now I need to ask you about the Trinity alright so explain to me what is meant by the Trinity because a lot of Muslims here would be totally confused about this they want to know tell us what's meant by the Trinity Trinity is it's a working concept that I find fairly persuasive but we see often Father Son and spirit mentioned together not always in that order but for example the end of Matthew 28 or the end of 2nd Corinthians 13 some Christians think that you shouldn't use the word Trinity because it's not in the Bible but then the word Bible is not in the Bible so we have to say something Trinity we believe strictly there's only one God but that God is Father Son and spirit so when we say Jesus is God we never mean Jesus is father son in spirit that would be nonsensical we're saying he's got it in nature and it's not there obviously not 3 rotating God's or manifestations of God this is not modalism this is not civilian ism I know you've studied all that theology and church history bless you for doing that but that's not what Christians mean they hold on to a belief in one God only one God but a God who reveals himself as a human in Jesus earthly ministry through Jesus Christ so that's what we mean and we definitely don't think it's Allah Issa and Maruyama okay as in the quran neither do i but let me ask what it is in the quran that way it's not in the quran that way but let me ask my question oh yeah so you say that jesus is by nature god and i think you will agree that God by nature is spirit from given the biblical language about this true God is spirit in Christianity yeah John 4:24 okay so so God is spirit and Jesus is by nature God's so he's the spirit true true before the Incarnation the Incarnation is is a spirit joining with flesh so before he incarnated into flesh he was a spirit and I mean I I presume that's the right word put it yeah there's a better way to so presumably there were at least two holy spirits Jesus and what we call the holy spirit that's the language you're using is alien to biblical theology yeah because you wouldn't because because God got his spirit yeah angels are spirits yes okay anything that's not physical is gonna be spirit so I'm not sure that this is actually helping us yeah but we're asking about like ultimately there are obviously two holy spirits martoma lesser beings who are hurt beings whether angels or Devils what we're asking now at the highest echelon you have a trinity of divine persons and at least two of them we can now identify our spirits so you have two spirits in the highest echelon and both of them have to be holy so you have two Holies well the father is holy too so if you want to make it go right ahead so you have three but you're moving the Trinity is an analogy and when you press an analogy at some point it's going to break down yes but then the question is how did Christians come up with this analogy because you said that Jesus is the Son of God not biologically but analogically so how did Christians come up with this way of saying it such that it is so flaky that you press it a little bit it breaks down and not only at this one point but if we keep going at this for hours we will see that this is how it's going to go again in the game like no matter how you press it it's gonna break so how do you know that this is the correct way of speaking about God as a Trinity as opposed to for example the simple way of saying there is only one God he sent his Messiah Jesus he was a human being a great one a great messenger a prophet of God but still a servant and Messenger of God right in the Quran you have this holy spirit as well you're asking me now okay I'm to say yes the Quran speaks about the spirit of holiness through hell kudos right but I don't say and so you've got two spirits Allah or is the Quran spirit or is it a you know analog Quran but you see we don't we don't have a problem with the spirit of holiness right there are simply in the Quran we're playing with words here God reveals himself through Jesus Christians monotheists are trying to make sense of who Jesus is and what he's saying about his father and that's where Trinity comes in the effort to understand Jesus is teaching and from our experience of the Trinity in our lives the difference is that when we speak about there being only one God and we say the Quran is this book this is a revealed message for us there's no confusion in our minds as to who is God and who is not well no we were straight to and whom did we not pray to so when we say there is one God that's never compromised by our ever uttering three I was only saying that there's a precedent for having more than one eternal uncreated entity in Islam itself but but I'm not asking about an eternal and uncreated entity I'm asking about the highest echelon which only belongs to God do you have three persons and are the three each a spirit each a Holy Spirit and in that case how does the Bible say there is only one spirit one times one times one okay plus one plus one what about 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 I didn't finite them that would also be one true so you can have many holy spirits and still have one God I don't know any Muslims Jews or Christians who think that there's more than one Holy Spirit and I don't think it's so confusing and that ends the question point of portion of this and now we will move on yeah for those out in the foyer if you'd like to come on in now is your chance to come on in grab yourself a seat we're going to move on to our rebuttal portion of the evening and this will will again have some rebuttals from the questions that we've heard and what you've brought up again a little bit later on you'll get a chance to ask some questions so I'll be explaining that in just a little bit but again now is the time for rebuttals and doctorally you have the hearse rebuttal I'm gonna try to reset my stopwatch here oops and I'm not doing it the right way so I'm gonna have to look up there No okay I'm Seth yeah okay well I don't see my timer up there but that's okay Michelle is here to pull me off a stage in case I go over time and so let me say folks that in the rebuttal I don't want to sound negative or to be overly critical I just want clarification of the important points that Doug and I have been discussing you remember my point about the need for clarity we cannot just say that Jesus was a great man and greater than the Prophet and therefore he is the son of God especially now as it turns out that in the background of this that that if we if we admit that he's the son of God then Doug wants to make that that he is one of the persons and the Holy Trinity so not only son of God but God's well I want to say that this actually is part of what I spoke about in in about the development now Doug said that a god Jesus is not son of god biologically but analogically and that means that we're taking the term son from what we know from human experience and we're applying it to Jesus and we're saying the relationship that applies between father and son as we know it that must somehow apply between God and Jesus but then if you wanted to say that they're part of the Holy Trinity which means that they have to be co-equal and call eternal why would you call my father and one son implying a hierarchy of being an order and and at different levels of authority why wouldn't you call him for example twin brother now the reason it happened like this in Christianity is the things developed something stayed and then they branched off there are parallel lines of development so at one stage people refer to Jesus as the Son of God in a metaphorical sense that means God is with this man and another stage they took him to be son of god by adoption God has adopted this person later on some people saw that because he was born of a virgin that means he must be somehow ontologically the Son of God leased for his human person and then later on they thought well he must have been son of God from all eternity and so it goes from one stage to another by the time they get to you that he was son of God from all eternity now they're making him God true God of True God as is declared in the Council of Nicaea I know Church is not so much particular about church councils but nevertheless I'm showing where that development went so now they declared Jesus to be true God of True God but guess what the previous stories that prove Jesus to be metaphorically son of God adopted son of God biologically son of God and now eventually so all of these stories are still there in the minds of Christians and in their writings and the title son of God still applies to him they could not forget that title that's why they're still referring to him as son of God and also God at the same time but we all know that my son is not me even though some people might mistake him for me because we resemble each other so much but when we come to examine the matter carefully we know that my son is not me so if we wanted to refer to Jesus as cool equal and COO eternal with God that should have been the declaration from the start we don't need to go through the intermediary stages to say that he was the son of God and we don't need to call him son of God which implies a sort of hierarchy so in short I believe that I have shown that there has been this development and when Doug spoke he actually confirmed that some aspects of this development because notice what happens in order to look at Mark's Gospel 1 it only takes the few points which might indicate that Jesus is greater than a human being omitting the parts in Mark's Gospel which shows that he had very human limitations which would mean automatically that he is not God especially limitations in knowledge which means that he's not omniscient and therefore he's not the all-knowing God then we go to the later Gospels Doug and naturally would find proofs for Jesus's high position more likely in the Gospel according to John than in the previous Gospels and he even admitted that yeah the Gospel according to John is doing it more often but but he's he wants to say that the Gospel according to mark has done it already has placed Jesus on the level of divinity but his proofs one after another were examined during the Q&A and and we found that his proofs do not hold up for example John shall one verse mark chapter 1 verse 1 it says the Son of God but that phrase has been dropped from some modern trance because it is found to be lacking in some ancient and reliable manuscripts of the Bible and no Cardinal Christian doctrine can rest on a disputed text this is something accepted by Christians themselves because if it could be this way and could be that way and you build your foundation here and this collapse is well then you know perhaps the other thing is right you have to have an undisputed text and and this is what is lacking in the Gospel according to Mark to promote Jesus to the level of absolute divinity so in short is Jesus a prophet or is he the son of God we have shown that in order to say that he son of God we have to have proof we don't have that proof therefore we go back to him being a prophet of God Muslims and Christians can agree on that thank you thank you very much anybody in the foyer please come on in and as we reset the clock dr. Jacoby it is your turn for your rebuttal the Quran tells Christians they should follow the revelations in the gospel that since there are three ayat three the Gospels show us but not only the gospel show us Jesus divinity in mark as we've seen Jesus acts like God he does usurps things that only God would do and he's described it with that divine term son of God but we see the same thing happening in Matthew in a Luke and in John now limitations you might say he's not God because he's limited because he doesn't have all knowledge he referred to I think it was mark 13:32 someone asked him about the time of his coming I don't know only the father not even the Angels no but what the Christians don't believe that Jesus was Father Son and spirit or that he was the father on the earth I think he became human and the incarnation means limitation no longer was he omnipresent he was not in all places at one time he was geographically confined to one single place he didn't have all knowledge but that's not surprising to me because he becomes flesh he got tired even John presents him that way John for Jesus gets tired he sweats he's under the pressures and temptations that were all under as it says in Hebrews four we don't even need to go to the Gospels because earlier we have the letters that refer to Jesus has our great God and Savior the letters that refer to him as a Lord and Savior Jesus Christ or God and I see that in Romans I see that in 2nd Peter explicitly I see it in Titus and I see it in many other places the Quran and the Muslim tradition will claim that the Muslim tradition will claim that the Gospels have been changed somehow they've been corrupted they've been changed but I say no they'd not been changed there's no manuscript evidence that the Gospels have been changed and shabbier did not give me an example of a manuscript that turned up that gives any problem for the Christian position what I think Muhammad was a is not that the Christian the Christians corrupted the gospel is that they not that they changed the written gospel but they corrupted Christianity and I think there's abundant evidence for that but there's nothing remarkable about such a claim because Jesus himself said in Matthew 24 that the love of most will go cold John said there are many false prophets in the world 1st John 4:1 and second Peter 3:1 there's two Peter says that it would be false teachers among the people but there's no evidence that the poor gospel message has been changed and if people are just putting words in Jesus's mouth well then very well they've made some mistakes but we've been very handy as they're just making stuff up to have Jesus tell us what is the answer to the issue of the spiritual gifts or what's church government or and there'll be another apostle coming along his name will start with the P and you know the Christians did not feel at liberty to put words in his mouth this idea that the divinity developed the Son of God developed no no it's at every stage there now it's a common misconception in our day and I think it's spread especially by that New Testament scholar Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code that there's a conspiracy that the church did want people to find out that Jesus wasn't divine the afraid that they would find out he was just a human but this is an app earnest ik and it's also the kind of thing someone says who hasn't read a lot of ancient history because even in the first century it was much more easy for the people in the Mediterranean world to believe that Jesus was a God than to believe that he was fully human we'd have first in second John in the New Testament because of this very problem Christians some Christians are thinking well he's so spiritual can he really have a body the issue wasn't was he divine the issue was he fully human and the church had these councils that talked about it because this is abstract stuff and it's tough even atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman maybe the best-known atheist in the u.s. that's quite possible he admits that all four Gospels all four not John Luke Matthew but all four mark included proclaim Jesus is divine the deity is at the very beginning he's portrayed that way to me there's no problem with this logically human and divine in one person may sound like a contradiction how could you be God in human but we have flesh and spirit uniting in one person in us we have flesh and spirit so why not human and God God becomes one of us he said he would do it in the Old Testament Jesus made remarkable claims his followers endorsed those and that is what accounts for the rise of Christianity when you look at that and you look at how Jesus reflects God as his son through his amazing miracles even raising the dead through through his influence today which is visible we realize that this is just a prophet not just more than a prophet it's actually what the early Christians were saying all along Jesus is Lord and we can experience that if we open ourselves to it thank you very much I'm looking out I don't necessarily see anybody in the foyer but if you're in the foyer and you want to come in now they know I don't want to be able to do that now it's time for summations and each of the doctors will have two and a half minutes to give their summations and we start with dr. Ali yeah so very quickly for before actually give my summation but using my time for that I want to answer some of the things that dog is still waiting for waiting for answers on one is does the Quran actually say that Muslims need to believe in the Torah and the gospel as they are now the answer to that is no some people that advance that claim but recently Sydney Griffith and some other scholars have clearly come out and said that the Quran the Quran is position regarding the previous scriptures is that the Quran sees itself as a corrector of the previous scriptures that there were mistakes and errors from the Quranic point of view and the Quran is giving us what is correct in the second chapter of the Quran is 79 verse the Quran says for while Allah ladina after boon al-kitab ABI diem so Maya : I had I mean and Allah hylia Shuba he salmon and kalila woe to those who write the scriptures with their own hands and then say it is from God in order to profit by it thereby a little so I do not take it that the Quran have acknowledges the validity of the previous scriptures in total but that the Quran is saying it has some previous knowledge and revelation which came from God but we have to be careful in how we use it notice that dog actually admitted that Jesus did not have all knowledge when he was here on earth now this is highly problematic because it would mean that not only Jesus can do this but the father and the Holy Spirit they call all abandon their knowledge but how do you abandon your knowledge how do you forget something that you actually know even as human beings to see that God suddenly doesn't have all of his knowledge this is to me blasphemous but dog must know what he means by this in any case while he was here on earth he didn't show that he had all knowledge the contrary he shows that he does not have all knowledge that means he's showing that I'm not on mission and therefore I am at least at the moment not God and so when did he actually become God that will have to be clarified now dog refers to Bart Orman I don't quote Bart Ehrman one of the reasons is that I don't believe in everything he says and I think he's mistaken if he means by divine the the ultimate God when he says that mark in mark also Jesus is divine but if you mean that Jesus is in the hierarchy of divine beings higher than human beings well then I don't dispute that but as John Bowden has pointed out what we saw the other Gospels doing after mark mark must have done with his sources as well thank you all very much walk out start preaching on Sunday I would walk out a little bit more jesus is son of God at every level of the Old Testament the letters than the Gospels the book of Revelation read the book of Revelation and tell me you don't you can't tell this is talking about Jesus and he's described as God's son and he's described in divine terms but there is a concern that the Apostle Paul had he said to the Corinthians I'm afraid as a serpent deceived Eve by his cunning that your thoughts will be led astray from his in serum pure devotion to Christ how so Paul he says this if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed or you accept a different gospel you're putting up with you're putting up that there is one Jesus but we have to work to understand who he is many rivals to that Jesus today demotion of Jesus from son of God to a prophet I think is exactly the kind of development that Paul had in mind Jesus of course he's limited addressing that last little thing there because he is limited in space if only be in one place at one time he doesn't have all knowledge he lives as a human I mean he's his life is squeezed into the frame of 30-something years he's limited but that doesn't mean the Spirit was livid and the father is limited that's a category switch an error where we're trying to say Jesus is God means Jesus is Father Son and spirit and I'm not arguing for that that would be nonsensical he actually warns the apostle that even if an angel from heaven should come we should not be led astray because their faith has been delivered once or all Jude verse 3 so the Islamic charge of corruption really doesn't hold water you won't find any support for that in early Christianity or in the manuscripts themselves and Muslims should contend with the people of the book in the fairest way possible surah 29 I said that I accept the Trinity because I've experienced the Trinity Trinity is not a word of a New Testament people wrestled long and hard with who Jesus was because he was not just remarkable but he had such a miraculous and global impact it took time to process to think about this I experienced that I came to know God as my father and that's not very Islamic of me but I came to know God his father through Jesus the son by the power of the Spirit Christians believe that we come to the Father through the son by the spirit Christian experience is therefore intrinsically Trinitarian whether we can spell the word or not does it matter the evidence check out proverbs 18 17 I don't have time to read it but the evidence leads us to one conclusion the ancient confession Jesus is the Son of God not just a prophet and that is the evidence thank you now's the time in our program where you get involved and this is the question and answer period and here's how this will go that we have a microphone that's right here by the side of the stage so we ask that anybody who has a question would come on up and be able to deliver your question ask your question formulate a line Troy will be over here he will help determine the order to be in because again we want to keep things fair so we want to make sure that each of the doctors gets a question posed to them and so what we're going to try to do is alternate Troy will ask you who you like that question to be posed to and then we will then line you up with that again we're going to keep you to 30 seconds or less imposing your question to ensure that as many people get a chance to ask questions as possible okay we will if we run out of time I apologize we're going to do that I will get to that as soon as we finish explaining and we'll have the ability to do that and again if we could formulate a line and listen to that that would be great and our first questioner if you would go ahead step up to the mic and direct your question to who you'd like to direct it to and ask your question that'd be great that we get to respond after right you will answer the question once it is asked you know your other guy if that is who the question is asked - that's correct yeah just a point of order point of order so feel free to advocate that question if there is something that the other doctor would like to row but that's fine please keep those rebuttals very short though so as we can see we have a lot of people who want to answer questions ask questions thank you hi my question is for duck two parts first when you worship Jesus or when questions worship Jesus how do you make sure that you're only worshiping worshiping the one hundred percent God in Jesus and not the hundred percent man and the other part you paste you put a lot of emphasis on the word the usage of word Lord for Jesus as meaning Lord God but how do you justify that with John 17:3 where Jesus called the Father as the only true car or in Acts 2:36 where Peter says that God made Jesus both Lord and Christ so God made Jesus both Lord and Christ how do you write the say the first question again um basically when you're worshiping Jesus I'm told that how do I hear in my mind yeah 100% God and hundred-person Christians don't have Matt I don't know what's in people's head as they worship but we believe as the Quran teaches that Jesus has returned to heaven and so I don't think of him as a human human limitations but I can see how it could be confusing if you're visually imagining God with the flowing robes and the long beard right when he was on earth Oh because Jesus freely accepted worship on earth in mark in John I gave two examples but he accepts worship so he's people what people are worshipping is is God they may understand that Jesus is representing God I don't know what was exactly in their head but he doesn't decline the worship because he is divine in nature but but to say it's diviner nature's not to say he's God as in Acts 2:36 God made him both Lord and Christ because that would be jumping between two different meanings of God the name of God because in Trinity only that the nature is shared but the attributes in order are different so but that's all I would say maybe what because Jesus was a monotheistic only true God but the father is represents God but Jesus is God the Spirit is God in nature say again well he's he's described that way in the language of first Timothy but normally that's language we've reserved for the father because the New Testament God almost always means the father okays are great questions yes okay next question please okay this is for dr. Ali so ultimately the question of whether Jesus is the Son of God comes down to two questions right what are the scriptures from God and what are the scriptures say okay the two questions I'm sorry no no those I'm just saying it comes in the groundwork yeah the question of whether Jesus is the Son of God comes down to two parts one is what the Scriptures that are from God and secondly what do those scriptures say so that's just the back end we need your question okay got it so I want to get clarity on the Muslim position concerning the Jewish and Christian scriptures perhaps described in the Quran as the Torah and the gospel okay are you saying that the original writings were flawed or only that the propagation of those original writings were flawed and if one could get to the original writings then you would in fact have authoritative message from K thank you very much the Quran speaks highly of the previous scriptures because they contain revelations that were given to God's prophets to Moses to David to Jesus those revelations that were vouchsafed to prophets for example Jesus those are authoritative and true teachings but the Muslim idea is that we do not have those original statements from Jesus themselves we have for example in the New Testament words which are colored red and these are said to be the words of Christ but we've already seen in my demonstration how their stories about Jesus and I can add now even the words of Jesus have been changed from one gospel to another to make Jesus appear bigger and greater than he was in fact I've already spoken about John's gospel and how John's Gospel shows Jesus as claiming things for himself which were not claimed in the previous Gospels so this is a transformation of the message of Jesus so for a Muslim point of view the original revelation which was given to God's prophets those are authoritative and true but we do not have accurate copies of those revelations in our hands today especially in the pages of the Christian Bible we have to move on dr. Jacoby do you have a response to that well I mean we have we have a biblical manuscripts that are way older than the oldest quran's and in that respect there's just no basis for some of these things are being claimed I have to also comment on the red letter thing Christians don't think that the red letter words are more important than the others that's a very modern innovation only about a hundred and fifty hundred sixty years old we think that the whole the whole New Testament the whole Bible is red letter it's all urgent important and a holiday and a wonderful and wonderful good good news okay thank you please next question according to the Muslim believe that we believe the God Almighty Creator of everything his Alpha Omega and his for everybody his mercy is for everybody but we see Jesus in Matthew chapter 15 when a can annoyed women come and offered the blessing and clearly say I am NOT fastened to anybody but I'm only sent for the children of Israel yes which which is what the Quran says about him that he was only sent to the children of Israel so if he is only sent for the children of Israel and he is himself saying are we all the children of Israel okay and if like you said if the Jews in their book also in the Old Testament there were if he gets about you know that God's coming why not the Jews became Christian why didn't that they accepted all that message and why don't they agree on that in fact they were the first yeah that's that's good Matthew 15 I thought you were gonna talk about Jesus implying that she was a dog or a puppy you know that the qunari on point but he says I've only been sent to the law to the lost sheep of the house of Israel he says a similar thing five chapters earlier when he tells his disciples to focus on the Jews and yet this wasn't the long-term plan because in Matthew 1 we have Gentiles in the genealogy in Matthew 28 we have a commission to go to the whole world it was a question not of limitation for all time but just for a time the gospel would begin with the Jews and it would spread out through Judea Samaria the ends of the earth you said why did about Jews becoming Christians a huge number of Jews became Christians I mean nearly all the Christians that the early stages were Jewish of course they continued to reject him others continued to accept it was the same with the Romans but to say that it was a failure that that's not right that many Jews became Christians and for the early Christians as you know the Old Testament was their Bible the Jewish Bible was the Christian Bible he is he is for everybody yes oh okay I'm sorry we're just going to have talked about dr. Ali do you have I think it's a very pertinent question because if he was really the Son of God as the questioner put it lastly now then why is this message limited in his own words to only the children of Israel and the Islamic conception it makes sense God sends many prophets to many different people over time and then finally he sent a universal prophet that is the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him who was declared as a universal prophet in the Quran but in Jesus's own words he's declared he declares himself as a limited prophet only to the people of Israel and he specifically tells his companions do not belong the Samaritans for example now who took his message and made that a universal message in the Acts of the Apostles a Christian history book within the New Testament in the Christian Bible it is clear that there are persons who thought about this later on for example Peter and especially Paul who took this as a message to the non-jews to the Gentiles if it was a question settled already in Jesus's own Proclamation if he had said okay it is only for a limited time keep the message among the Jews and later on preach it to the Gentiles then there would be no dispute and no debate okay but we are gonna have to I'm sorry right you are we are we'd want to make sure we get as many questions as possible please next question question for dr. Ali and Jesus does say Matthew 28 to go and preach the gospel to all nations so he didn't limit it but in mark chapter 3 verse 11 it says whenever the impure spirit saw him they fell down before him and cried out you are the son of God but he gave them strict orders not to tell others about so you said that we would expect someone to reveal the most important thing about themselves right away and since we don't see this its basis for the compromise of the consistency of his message but here we see that Jesus strategically did not want to reveal his identity at this time which would be contradictory to your point about him not always revealing his identity how would you respond to them okay first of all about Matthew's say Matthew's Gospel saying that Jesus said go and baptize the nation's this is really a disputed point because Matthew's Gospel shows that Jesus appeared to his disciples and they worshiped him but they doubted so what was there to doubt the whole episode requires some clarification in any case this is not Jesus walking in the flesh and blood that everybody knew prior to his crucifixion saying that this is going to be his universal message this is an esoteric experience that the disciples of Jesus had a sort of vision in which they are being told by the to go and baptize the nation's now as for Mark's Gospel in which the holy the devil's about prostrate before Jesus the term process and I out I could mean that they do him honor not necessarily that they're worshiping him but in any case if people the devil is in particular do this their actions cannot be trusted we know that even those who arrested Jesus were mocking him by pretending to worship Him so we don't know what the devils were actually doing and when they proclaim him to be the Son of God their Proclamation is not necessarily to be believed it is a very strange argument for us to say oh the devil said he's the Son of God therefore we should believe is the Son of God rather we should be suspicious of what the devil's say yes and I'm sorry I'll just weigh and I know I only have 60 seconds Matthew 28 I think is verse 16 some doubted this is a group of over 500 people maybe some of the eleven doubted but either way it doesn't say they were all doubting is there some doubted there's addicts there he was not an esoteric source of a vision the New Testament shows that Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection he had an actual body a resuscitated body but a resurrection body first fifteen explains it and as far as prosecute Isis or worshipping you've got to determine from the context is it worship or is it mock mock worship or is it just deep respect but see it with Jesus it's as God okay please next question I have a question dr. Douglass who is the first man on this earth Adam after Adam how many prophets came on this earth if it Jesus is Son of God for Christian people so you should say Moses is also son of God right because they worship Moses and Adam is the first man why don't you believe the first man should be the son of God why are you coming down and down and dong and then you pick up the Jesus only why where's the first man okay the the Jews there's nowhere that I'm aware of in Exodus to Deuteronomy where the Jews worship Moses that now that phrase son of God is used of Israel as a nation in a sense they're God's son but they're also God's pride son of gods use of the Angels it's used the political rulers we're simply trying to clarify terminology yes word me I would have had it clearer earlier on but as one of our questioners made a point Jesus was not revealing everything at the same time he's letting people grow in their ability to to absorb but the Jews didn't worship Moses I'm not sure if I answered the point but I'm trying to respond the right way okay well Adam is actually called son of God in the Gospel of Luke chapter 3 but in in a sense all humans are God's children we see then acts 17 even with the politicus that idolaters loosely speaking were all God's sons and daughters but it's really a question of how the term is being used the way it's being used of Jesus is very different the way it's used of anybody else okay and believe it okay the next question thank you yes I'm sorry we have maybe after we can check next question thank you next question I appreciate you both have a lot to study and learn my question is for dr. Allie we spoke about mark 14 earlier when Jesus is asked if he's the Christ and the son of the Blessed One and in 62 Jesus responds in the affirmative is Doug already quoted and you know he would be at the right hand of power and be coming on the clouds of heaven and so at this response the high priest is irate he rips his clothing he said that Jesus has committed blasphemy so if Jesus saying this was claiming to be the Son of God metaphorically or as an adopted son why do you think this would elicit such a strong and angry response from the high priest okay so here to the question is in this form the the the Jewish rabbi here or the head of the Sanhedrin the Jewish leader is saying I'm responding in such a way to make it clear that he thinks that Jesus was claiming to be God and therefore we should believe that Jesus was claiming to be God this is how the question is put and and the answer is why should we believe this person when they are painted in the New Testament as trying by hook or crook to put Jesus to death to the extent that they brought false witnesses against him in Mark's Gospel in chapter 2 Jesus healed a man on the synagogue in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and from that time on they started plotting how are they going to put him to death so they want to put into death by one means or another by false methods or true methods so we cannot take their reaction as an automatic proof that Jesus claiming to be my second as Bruce Chilton has pointed out even if you look at this statement clearly you will see that Jesus is speaking about the Son of Man and the third person as though this is someone else and Bruce Chilton says this is really someone else in Mark's Gospel the son of man the eschatological figure of the future now looking at it more logically now or for the third point looking to get it from the logical perspective if Jesus it was God in the Old Testament and he gave a law to the Jews that says if a man comes to you and claims to be God you put him to death and then he comes in the form of a man and he claims to be God what is he doing to the Jewish people he's making it necessary for them to put him to death by the same law that he had given them in the past in which case it would mean that that somehow Jesus has this elaborate plan to come and die and he needs somebody to kill him and he makes the Jews the scapegoat who will have to kill him by the same law that he gave them in the first place so logically it makes no sense to say that Jesus was claiming to be God dr. Jacoby would you like to respond respond to which of those points there's normally responses to the other response not to the greater question now I've no further comment right now that's thank you first of all thank you for the opportunity welcome as you guys were both debating here today and we're not gonna have time to go into every question you mentioned scripture I'm a Muslim I don't know if you could tell could tell it was pretty simple when the doctor was mentioned in verses in fact you were mentioned in verses I could go home open up a Quran I can look at those I can verify it I can verify he's not making a mistake and you can in many cases you also mentioned verses of the Bible now I'm not a Muslim so as a Christian if I went to a book store and I wanted to go get a Bible so I could you know verify some of the things that you were saying I've done that before it's very difficult because I wouldn't know where to begin I wouldn't know what version what standard what would you say to a non-christian we're gonna look up some of the things that you were saying what book would you have which one would you have in your library to to reference and contrast shake can mentioned the same difference with Quan you know we're so spoiled if you're looking for a book and if you're looking for a Bible in English they're more than 100 versions and I could recommend 10 that are really good the most popular in this country is the New International Version it's you know any translation there's a trade-off whether it's strict sore or loose there's a trade-off with clarity and a trade-off with well ease of expression but IV is what the public votes for you might try the English standard version there are lots of books can help you I actually wrote a book called a quick overview of the Bible which is intended to help people to see where to begin and who are these people and these books and these persons I'd be happy to give you a free copy if you talk to me after the meeting because I think that could help you and they could check out the bibliography and find even better works that I reference our name was oh that's it yeah sit there there are many translations of the Quran as well and they more or less give you the bate same basic ballpark meaning Muslims have to a large extent tried to stay close to the original Arabic so we still read the Quran in the original Arabic language many of us do not know the language as a language but we try to still preserve the Word of God in the original language and we have many people in the Muslim community who are Arabic speakers so they can guide us further on the detailed meanings and the finer points of the Arabic meaning for a non-muslim who wants to get a quick introduction to the Quran on your way out today some of my colleagues will be distributing some copies of the English translation of the Quran having already received permission from the church our authorities here I understand for doing this otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned this and when you pick up a copy of that to English translation you want to know what it says about Jesus so you go to the third chapter of the Quran that's called Surat Ali mehran to the chapter of the family of Imran and Imran is given in the Quran as the grandfather of Jesus so that tells us a detailed story about Mary and the message that came to her and how come she has a child when no mortal has touched her similar stories torrid tolls in the nineteenth chapter of the Quran and for that reason that chapter is called the chapter of Mary so you want to look at these chapters first you might want to go to the index of the back of the book look up Jesus and see that his name is mentioned 25 times in the Quran you may want to go to each one of those 25 places to see what the Quran says about Jesus and you follow that method what does the Quran say about drinking alcohol about gambling about family life about social life you can find that probably in a well preserve and a well-put-together index and that will be getting your feet wet with the Quran great thank you next question please my name is Kendall Kendall night dr. Eileen thank you for being here tonight and dr. Jacoby thank you for being here as well I really enjoy this my question is this for you dr. Olle we see in Isaiah 53 verse 5 the prophecy about Jesus it says by His stripes we are healed then we see in 1st Peter chapter 2 24 through 25 Peter says that we are the shepherd he is the Shepherd and oversee of our souls we were like sheep going astray in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 we know that the word reconciled defines in the Greek Catholic a which means that from the beginning God knew that our hearts would be rebellious and he sent Jesus to reconcile him to to him to himself in addition John 14:6 says really quickly no one comes to the Father except through me why would Jesus make those claims we see the consistency in the scriptures how would you define that as you see the Old Testament prophecy which is 700 years prior to Peterson Peter witnessing okay so very quickly when we referred to first Corinthians we're talking about one of the writings of Paul and Muslims generally do not recognize the authority of Paul and of course we know from Christian history that Paul was a disputed figure there were some early Jewish Christians who thought that Paul was a heretic and Peter is the champion of the faith there was a dispute between Peter and Paul Paul mentions that in this letter to the Galatians but as Bruce Chilton pointed out in the introduction to the New Testament Peters reply is not actually given in the New Testament but you also quoted 1st Peter so how do we make sense of that two letters are credited to Peter in the New Testament as though he wrote them a second Peter was widely recognized in the ancient world of Christians to not really be from Peter modern scholarship concurs and the 1st Peter is disputed some scholars think that Peter wrote it something he didn't write it what about 700 years before Jesus Isaiah chapter 53 now this is referring to a servant of God so now we're back to saying that Jesus is a servant of God moreover as some scholars had connected that with Hezekiah chapter 30 in Isaiah chapter 38 another servant of God to whom this passage actually refers in any case this is speaking about a person who will live long enough God will rescue him he will not die but give him an extension on his life so that he will see his offspring and this obviously does not apply to Jesus but New Testament writers and students more generally have thought that this passage is a reference to Jesus it is not would you like to respond quickly I can't respond to all that it's too it's too many concepts but those are great passages shabbir is explaining it well I think for the Muslim perspective I would encourage you guys yes go to the Quran surah 3 surah 19 but read the New Testament - you're gonna find that they tell quite different stories about Jesus next question thank you good afternoon dr. Jacoby hi born I was born Christian in 1999 I was blessed to embrace Islam one of the major keys is differentiating in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 15 yeah and quite frankly the Prophet that is that God Almighty just told Moses yes he would send to the people versus the Prophet in Deuteronomy 18 18 in that prophet and basically tying that to first John chapters night on verses 19 through 23 and when john the baptists asked who are you are you the Christ are you Elijah or are you that prophet my question is how do you differentiate the prophet that god almighty stated in the Old Testament and tying that to the knowledge that the Jews had when they asked John the Baptist okay so you're referring to a it was a very important passage in the early church even the Apostle Peter uses it in his message in Acts chapter 3 Moses says a prophet will rise among your people it'll be someone like Moses now it's true you can also read about the false prophet but let's focus on the true prophet section this if he's gonna be like Moses Moses was a leader of the people he did miracles he brought the law he had an intimate relationship with God and if we look for any other we go through the rest of the Old Testament there's no one else who is that there's no prophet who matches that until you get to Jesus but as Peter explains he's more than a prophet I know the Muslims use that to say it's talking about Muhammad but the problem is if you read Deuteronomy 18 it's got to be a Jewish person I don't think that will sit very well and it's kind of like taking John 14 and saying that's talking about Muhammad instead the Holy Spirit but that would be our response on Deuteronomy 18 it's a it's a figure like Moses in the New Testament we see that's Jesus but there's no one else from Deuteronomy all the way to the end of the old test but no one else fits the bill okay we've got 9 minutes left so I want to make sure that we get as many questions in as possible so next question you'll have to direct it to one or the other to make sure that we can get as many questions as possible I'm sorry you won't have time to rebut what the other person says thank you dr. Ali for coming to share with us I wanted to ask you a question you referenced a prince to a development about the divinity of Jesus through the Gospels I was wondering if you have considered that the different Gospels were written by the authors for different purposes just like the letters in the New Testament are written to address misconceptions or misdeeds the the Gospels were all written for specific reasons Matthew to the Jude John for the Gentiles that kind of thing yes so the Gospels were written by various writers in different times in different places and obviously they had their own individual reasons and proclivities in their writing but one one point should be clear that the most important claim about Jesus has to be represented in all of them it's like you know the president of this great country makes an earth-shaking declaration well then every every newspaper has to mention that something I mentioned some of details that the others do not mention but you cannot have the most important message missed if Jesus was God who came into the world this is the most important thing to know about him and it is unthinkable that the writers would not make mention of this fact if that if that were indeed a fact that they knew about yea we see the transformation going on and we can see that the purposes of the later writers is to transform the message of Jesus to make Jesus look bigger and greater so that in Mark's Gospel when Jesus was asleep in the boat the disciples came to him and they rebuked him they saying teacher do you not care if he drown go to Matthew's Gospel same episode the disciples say master save us we're drowning now it's not the same message it's not the same saying of the disciples the message has been transformed from one gospel to another and we can see the proclivity of the later writers to make Jesus appear bigger and greater than he appeared in the previous gospel okay thank you next question thank you gentlemen for coming this has been really really helpful this question is to dr. Jacoby um so my understanding is that a lot of the other Gospels use mark or some of mark to encompass what they were they what was written so le dr. Ali's point of sort of the progressive nature of the Gospels could there be us both could there be my name is Michelle Wright I'll be serving as the moderator for this evening's debate between dr. Shabbir Ali and dr. Douglas Jacobi it's entitled as Jesus prophet or son of God thank you so much for joining us this evening I'm taking time out of your very busy schedules dr. Ali thank you for coming to Georgia and joining us here all the way down watch pronto it's great to have you here this in fact is the third debate between these two men and it's designed to be a very respectful debate which is great their first debate was ten years ago back in 2008 and that was on the topic the true legacy of Abraham their second debate was just last year in Toronto and they debated on violence the Bible and the Koran again this is designed to be a very respectful debate that's designed to engage you in some dialogue about Jesus who lives in 2000 years ago in Islam Jesus is a great prophet but not divine in Christianity Jesus is the Son of God so these two aspects of Jesus will be what we are discussing tonight during this forum in the next few hours I say we because it's not just the men on stage here that we'll be talking you will actually get the opportunity to ask some questions there is some time that is set aside for the audience to ask questions of both doctors Jacoby and Ollie what I ask is that you keep your questions to 30 seconds or less if that helps you might want to write something down so you can keep it down I have instructed the sound engineer if you go beyond for 30 seconds to silence your mic so we can be respectful and have as many people as possible be able to ask as many questions as possible so we want to be fair I will signal the time during that Q&A you'll come up here you'll be able to ask your question to whichever of the beta the debaters you would like or you can ask both of them now speaking of these two fine men that are up here on stage with me I'd like to tell you a little bit about them dr. Ali holds an MA and a PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Toronto he also has a BA in religious studies with a specialization in biblical literature dr. Ali lives in Toronto where for the last 30 years he's been actively involved in the Muslim community and he's also quite involved with several interfaith dialogues and initiatives around the world in fact he's known as one of the top if not the top debaters in the Muslim world
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Length: 109min 19sec (6559 seconds)
Published: Thu Nov 08 2018
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