Nabeel Qureshi at Georgia Tech

good evening everyone we're gonna get started here my name is ASA Burke I'm the president of Rascher Christie here at Georgia Tech we are a student-led Christian apologetics Club that started up a couple years ago and for those of you maybe who haven't had much exposure to apologetics before apologetics essentially is it's answering the questions that nons Christians ask about Christianity it's looking at the truth campus of Christianity through you know theological lens scientific lens and philosophical lens and everything in between and just kind of really looking at why we believe what we believe and so that that's what drives rusher Christi here at Georgia Tech and then the way we have gone about that is we bring in speakers like like we have tonight to give us a lot of really solid information with people who have done the research and dedicated their lives to these topics and then we get together as students every other week and then have discussions amongst ourselves and then we can really kind of hash out a lot of these really deep topics that you know you can't solve in one night but we like to take that time a students to then come together and really talk talk deep about these things so tonight we have the pleasure of hosting dr. Nabeel Qureshi he's a former devout Muslim who was convinced of the truth of Christianity and the gospel through historical reasoning and a spiritual search for God since his conversion he has dedicated his life to spreading the gospel through teaching preaching writing and debating Nabil has given lectures at universities and seminaries throughout North America including New York University Rutgers the University North Carolina the University of Ottawa Eastern Virginia Medical School Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Biola University he has participated in 17 moderated public debates around North America Europe and Asia his focus is on the foundations of the Christian faith and the early history and teachings of Islam Nabil is a member of the speaking team of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries who we've had the pleasure with of partnering with for this event tonight he holds an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School and an MA in Christian apologetics from Biola University and an MA from Duke University in religion and also nabeel's first book seeking ala finding Jesus which is a lot of what you be hearing tonight him speaking on is going to be released in January and also we have the pleasure of live-streaming tonight's event if you have any friends from out of town you the link is on our Facebook page Rachel Christie of Georgia Tech they can find that tune in and listen to this whole talk from there and they can also interact on Twitter using the hashtag Nabeel GT and then they can also follow dr. Qureshi @na Qureshi on Twitter so if y'all could join me in welcoming dr. Qureshi thank you good evening I can by the way see you I'm not on a TV screen so let's try that again good evening great my name is Nabeel Qureshi it's an honour to be here for those of you who are so inclined please join me in prayer as we ask God to be here this evening God we ask that you would be here God we ask that it would be in a spirit of truth that we have our discussions I pray that when we talk about matters of Islam and Christianity which are so dear to people's hearts all around the world god I pray that we would understand that we're making matters of truth and I pray that this wouldn't be something that would be a matter of fighting with other people or trying to get one up on someone but rather I pray God that everything we do would be in order to seek the truth to draw closer to our maker the one true maker of this universe and God I pray that we would walk alongside other people not in a spirit of adversarial in dialogue but one of truthful open dialogue in God at the end of the day I pray that in everything we do we would please you we pray this in your name Amen so on my way here this evening I actually looked outside and I saw that there is a prayer room right across the way from here where Muslims were engaged in salat and I find that wonderful I think it is great there's one of the things that I loved about Islam when I was a practicing Muslim was that I would pray 5 times a day and there's a there's a discipline in that there's something that draws you closer to your maker when you stop and you give time out of your day to him to call out to him to remember him that's one of the things I really respect about Islam it's something that I still like about Islam even today it's when Muslims are ready to call upon God and to ask him into everything they do one of the first things I used to do when I was a Muslim before I did anything was I would recite bismillah he rahmani raheem in the name of God the most gracious the most merciful and whether or not Christians agree on the dot on the details of who God is on what he has done we can all agree as Christians that in Islam that is an amazing thing to dedicate so much attention in time to one's Creator so there are definitely beautiful aspects of Islam we should all agree with this it's also my sister for example she wears the hijab she whenever she leaves her home she wears a burqa and she doesn't do that because anyone forces her to it's because she has respect for the Islamic tradition and she believes that it protects her from views of from the evil looks of men as they walk around in society and so I respect that modesty I find that a beautiful thing and so what I'm doing up here tonight is not trying to bash on another person's culture I find certain aspects of Islam to be absolutely beautiful but when I was a Muslim I didn't necessarily understand the Christian gospel all that well and the gospel is this this is an amazing story that God knows you from before the beginning of time and realizes he knows full well that no matter how hard you try you will not be able to break away from sin you will sin and since God is perfectly holy there can be no sin in his presence so when it comes to after ones death it's a simple matter of can you be in his presence or can you not and if you have any sin you by definition can't be in God's presence because he doesn't coexist with sin and so according to the Gospel message God has to sacrifice for the sake of sin he has to remove it all himself there's nothing we can do to come up before God without sin he has to cleanse it of us himself and so the message the Christian message is God loves us so much that despite our sin he will continue to love us he will do what he can to save us from destroying ourselves even if it may his humiliation even if it means God is not being worshipped on the throne by angels but rather being crucified on a cross God is willing to do that because he loves people more than he loves His Majesty there's an amazing message in the gospel they're they're beautiful things here in Christianity and I hope we can understand that they're beautiful things about both faiths and we should respect them both to that end but the question is not what is beautiful because what I know is that when I've talked to Muslims what I've talked to Buddhists when I've talked to Jews when I've talked to Christians generally speaking and you can tell me if this is wrong but generally speaking people like what they were raised with they like the faith that they were born with they feel comfortable with that at most they'll tend towards some kind of a nominal less devout adherence to that faith but generally speaking people don't leave their faith they like what they were raised with so the question is not what do we like the question is not what is it that we think sounds beautiful the question is what's true what's true because at the end of the day ultimately Muslims believe and Christians believe that there is one God and only one God and Muslims believe that there are certain things you must do to go to heaven and Christians believe that there are certain things you must have faith in in order to go to heaven and the two don't coincide Islam is an exclusivist faith and so is Christianity and both cannot be true so the question is which one is true now I'll tell you this from a very young age I absolutely loved Islam I adored it just like I said and my parents taught me to adhere to Islam to the best of my ability to give you an example of how I used to live my Muslim life as a child my parents had taught me by the age of five the last seven chapters of the Quran by memory so that I could recite them during my five daily prayers regularly I recited portions the Quran every single day not only that but we would also recite various prayers throughout the day before starting something like I recited earlier even upon waking up first thing in the morning before my feet have hit the ground my parents taught me to recite a prayer alhamdulillah hila dianna ba da matta na wa alayhi no-showed thanking god for giving me life every single all day thanking God that he's the one who's given me life and he causes me to die and he caused me to rise up again a foreshadow of the resurrection the Day of Resurrection which all Muslims believe in but also a daily thanks to God for waking me up every single morning because I have no say in whether I'm going to wake up in the morning or not Thank You Allah for waking me up every morning this is the type of prayer that we pray and I loved it and as I went out through my day I would practice Islam absolutely as best as I could I absolutely loved it but when I got to college I met a Christian who was able to start defending Christianity now I had believed from a very young age that there's no way you can defend Christianity I believe that the Bible had been corrupted I believe that Jesus never claimed to be God and the Quran says so in chapter 5 verse 72 the Quran makes it very clear chapter 5 verse 116 as well the Quran makes it very clear that Jesus is not God he never claimed to be God that's something that people invented after he left surah al-maida is very clear on this I also believed as a Muslim in surah an-nisa verse 157 chapter 4 verse 157 of the Quran well mark at the Lu hua masala boohoo wa lakin should be challah whom Jesus was not killed on the cross nor was he crucified but so it appeared to them Jesus didn't die on the cross islam teaches he wasn't crucified so he's not God he wasn't crucified on the cross and surely if he wasn't crucified he didn't raised from the dead so Islam denies these things about Jesus but Christianity not only does Christianity affirm those very three things but it says that you must believe them in order to be saved chapter 10 of Romans verse 9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved now work with me for just a moment here the Quran says Jesus did not die on the cross he is not God therefore he's not risen from the dead Christianity teaches he did die on the cross he did claim to be God and he did rise from the dead notice then it's not feasible to say all religions are true we're making truth claims here about a man who existed in the first century Jesus Christ Islam and Christianity as laying claim to him in Islam saying he did not do certain things Christianity's saying he did do certain things let us have no pretenses about both being true in these matters one of them is true and one of them is not now the foundational claims for Christianity are exactly those claims notice the statement here was if you wish to be saved if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved so these are central matters to Christianity in fact I believe that these are the very three matters that determine whether or not you were Christian do you believe that Jesus is Lord and chapter 10 of Romans defines very clearly Lord as Yahweh God himself not just some leader to follow but God do you believe Jesus got number two do you believe he died on the cross for your sins and then rose from the dead if you do you're a Christian as far as I'm concerned if you believe in multiple gods if you believe in three gods or who knows how many gods a pantheon of gods you're not Christian because by definition you don't believe in Yahweh any more you're not a monotheists now Islam Islam doesn't have the same core sets of beliefs it has different beliefs now where do we go for Islam's core set of beliefs you can hear every single day five times a day called from every minaret you can hear it every time someone convert converts to Islam the Shahada la ilaha illallah muhammad rasool allah there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger by saying this if someone says it with Nia with intention to convert to Islam then they are a Muslim so this is what you need to say if you want to be a Muslim and basically this is what Muslims here as soon as they're born when I was born which was a wonderful day just as my parents when I was born my parents first my father first recited into my ear the Athan which starts with the buck beard Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar and then it continues ashildr la ilaha illa allah muhammad rasool allah which is essentially the Shahada it was the first thing I ever heard in my entire life and my parents and my Imams they all taught me that when I die or as I as I'm dying I should recite the Shahada again so that angels will usher me into heaven and many many Muslims recite the Shahada as they're on their deathbed so literally their lives are encompassed by the proclamation there is no god but Allah and muhammad is his messenger this is the core claim to Islam and Muhammad said in Sunan Abu Daoud he said that any man who recites la ilaha illallah he is a Muslim and you are not to excommunicate him from Islam no matter what so these are the core beliefs of Christianity Jesus lordship his deity and his resurrection in the core beliefs of Islam there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger so as a young college student I set out to determine which of these is true which of these two faiths if either is true because let's face it again maybe both of them are false maybe neither of these two religions is true maybe of something else but it's interesting that relatively speaking Islam and Christianity the two most adhered to faiths in this world have relatively verifiable claims what do I mean by that relatively speaking we can take a look at the historical events into the first century to see if these claims about Jesus are true did he die on the cross or not and in fact Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verses 14 and 17 Paul says very clearly if Jesus is not risen our faith is in vain some of you know this verse if Jesus has not risen our faith is in vain he also says if Jesus is not risen we of all are most to be pitied in other words Christians who believe that Jesus rose from the dead if Jesus didn't actually rise people should take pity on us because we're believing a lie we have faith in a falsehood so this is something that if it did not happen Christianity falls flat and it's false also did Jesus claim to be God or not important matter extremely important matter because based on the view of the gospel Christian soteriology Jesus must be God in order to pay for the sins of mankind it doesn't work for a man to die on the cross and pay for the sins of all mankind that doesn't make any sense at all that's like me walking up to Obama and saying hey Obama I realized that the government debt is 17 trillion but let me give you my bank account we'll call it square it doesn't work because that doesn't pay for the trillions and trillions of dollars of debt and similarly with Jesus if he was just a man his death would not pay for the lives of the billions and billions of people on earth who have sinned but if Jesus is God all of a sudden God well his bank accounts infinite he can pay for anything infinitely times over so whether or not Jesus is God is very important now how can we test whether or not Jesus is God this is important question don't forget as a Muslim this was one of the things that really really mattered to me is Jesus God or not because if he is the quran is wrong and i never believed it was possible the quran could be wrong so obviously he did not claim to be God now how do we know whether someone is God when they claim to be God so coming from more of an agnostic position for just a moment if some man walks into a room and claims to be God now I went to medical school I saw people walk into the hospital and claim to be God all the time this was normal and I would say to them well good for you we have a room for you come on in it's padded it's locked you love it it's normal for people that claim to be God usually they're hallucinating or they're delusional whatever it is now if one of them says to me no Nabil listen I am God and they're going to kill me in three days after I die to prove to you what I am saying I will raise myself from the dead now we have something to watch now we have something to verify this on because if someone dies and rises from the dead then I'm going to listen to what they have to say especially if they prophesied that and if there's anyone I'm going to listen to about the afterlife it's the person who's been to the afterlife and has come back now where does Jesus say this by the way this is in the book of Matthew people asked Jesus to show him a sign now keep in mind Jesus has just done an exorcism he's shown them something miraculous so when they asked him for a sign he says didn't base achlys implying did you just see what I did but his response to them is an evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign I'm not going to give you any sign except for the sign of Jonah for just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth in other words in order to prove to you what I'm saying you're asking me for a sign I'll show you one sign I'll be dead in in a grave for three days in Sheol in the heart of the earth for three days and then I'll come out just as Jonah came out of that whale I will come out from that grave that's his claim to prove that Christianity is true and can we see why then the resurrection is so important to the Christian faith can we see why then we have to see whether this actually happened we have to investigate the evidence it's our duty as 21st century historically minded people from the West we're not people who just generally believe what we're told we're skeptical about pretty much everything and so it's our duty if we're going to believe this to have a reason for the belief that we have and in fact the Bible tells us to have a reason for the hope that lies within us that's 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 15 if anyone says to you we're supposed to believe these things on faith they have not understood the biblical term faith the biblical term faith is trust and basically the type of faith that Christians are called to have is a faith in someone they know in other words you're supposed to know God you're supposed to know what he's done and then have faith you're supposed to trust that he will stay true to his promises and to give you a quick example of that with my wife if she is ever away from me I trust that she's being loyal to me not because I have no evidence but because I know who she is I have faith in her because I've seen her I've known her I've walked with her I've seen her loyalty I have good reason to believe she will stay true to her promises so I have faith in her same with God we're not supposed to randomly believe what preachers tell us we should ask them what good reason do we have to believe what you're saying that's why the Bible says test the spirits we're not supposed to randomly believe things when we have good reason to believe in someone then we have faith in that person because of those good reasons that's the faith were called to have so the Christian faith is based on the fact that we have good reasons to believe the core claims Jesus died on the cross he rose from the dead he claimed to be God now with Islam then how do we investigate Islam now I investigated Islam after three years of investigating Christianity I investigated the historical method first this is what all while I was in the university and in medical school I decided to learn how to study history and I would meet with historians and I'd ask then how does one study history how can one know when something is true or not and they would teach me various criteria of the historical method we can go into details on the criteria for the historical method if you like we can do that on the QA but I'll essentially and just by telling you this the way we look into history is we look at the earliest most reliable sources regarding that event or that person that we're investigating we determine what the biases are because keep in mind every single work is biased regardless of whether it's a newspaper which we often see as relatively unbiased that's false it's biased or if it's a personal testimony about someone's friend that's also biased everything has biases and angles so we've got to see what's the earliest most reliable source that discusses an event determine what its biases are whether we can see past those how reliable it is and then draw our conclusions so with this lung what were the two things that I decided to look at well the Shahadah is la ilaha illa Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah there's two things there there's Allah in theirs Muhammad so how can we take a look into Allah and how can we take a look into Muhammad well the first I would say is the Quran you go to the Quran to see what Allah is like who he is what his claims are and as a Muslim I offered a few arguments that the Quran is divinely inspired and there are other arguments that people use that I didn't use which we will also take a look at briefly tonight and the other sets of arguments I used was on Muhammad I believe having been raised as a Muslim that Muhammad was the best man who ever walked this earth al insan okama the perfect man this is the man who's the perfect exemplar as I was taught Muhammad and I was taught Islam Muhammad was the most peaceful man who ever lived he's the most generous man who ever lived he's the most loving the most kind the most humble he took their women who took care of orphans took care of widows Muhammad was the best statesman he was the best diplomat he was the best general it doesn't matter what epithet you throw at him he deserves it because he's Muhammad he's a chief of the prophets that's what we believe but what do the earliest sources say about Muhammad and how reliable are those sources we're going to take a look at that tonight and we're going to take a look at the sources for the Quran so I hope that gives you a good overview of what we're going to be discussing first let's start with Christianity what are the sources regarding Christianity and some of you might be even asking the Biel why should I even believe Jesus is real why should I ever even believe that he's a man who existed the first thing I'm going to start off by telling you is that it is incontrovertible according to the historical principles of investigation that a man named Jesus existed in the first century how do we know this we have over 40 records of Jesus life from ancient times describing this man who is essentially a carpenter in Palestine he didn't have much of anything he wasn't a centrally important figure at the time yet we have 40 sources that refer to him you know the Emperor was at Jesus time someone shouted out Tiberius good Tiberius was the emperor of Rome at that time now this is a man who obviously we should have a lot written about we can expect tons and tons of records about this man can't wait the historical records contain Tiberius name by 10 different individuals that's it 10 for Tiberius the emperor of Rome 40 for Jesus you can see we have excellent reason to believe that this man Jesus of Nazareth lived and existed in the 1st century that's why very very few in fact I could probably count it on one hand actually I'd know if two scholars who study the historical Jesus actually claimed that Jesus never existed in one of them's Bob Price who most other scholars say is just not not even possible what he says so we can dismiss just due to the reasoning and due to the lack of scholastic support that this is actually the case so Jesus certainly exists ok what can we know about him well of the scholars that study him and keep in mind there is an entire area of historical studies called historical Jesus studies so we have scholars who've been studying this on all sides these aren't all Christians by any means should the most influential ones wouldn't a lot wouldn't align themselves with Orthodox Christianity you have people like Paula Frederick's and Marcus Borg Bart Ehrman you have people along these lines who would say like John Dominic Crossan who would say that of Jesus we can know for a fact that he died on the cross now keep in mind that's one of our three points that we're proving for Christianity are attempting to show to determine its reliability did Jesus die on the cross the scholars who study his life regardless of whether they're atheist Buddhist agnostic Hindu Christian it doesn't matter they all conclude that Jesus died on the cross now if I left it there would be an appeal to Authority and we're trying to be academically rigorous tonight so I'm not going to do that I'm going to give you some of the reasons why they believe Jesus died on the cross but we're going to keep it brief because scholars are unanimous on this issue by the way it's not just them even Muslim scholars will argue that Jesus did die on the cross how many of you heard of Raisa Ellen's book recently zealots that came out this this year few of you raised us --lens a a scholar who has studied the historical Jesus and as a Muslim he says yes Islam denies Jesus death on the cross and I am a Muslim but I confirm that Jesus death on the cross is historically certain in fact he builds his whole book off the fact that Jesus died and so even as a Muslim he says Jesus died on the cross so why why do they say this well because first off all the evidence that we have all the records of Jesus life which talk about his death indicate that he did die if they say anything it says that he did die on the cross under Pontius Pilate which is why Paula Fredrickson says if there's anything we can know about Jesus anything at all it's this that he died on the cross under Pontius Pilate if you go away from Christian records you go to Jewish records like Josephus we can also see in the first century that non-christians are saying Jesus died on the cross we go to Gentile scholars they are also agreeing that Jesus died on the cross in fact we also have some of them saying that these people believe he has risen from the dead we'll get to that in just a moment so we have excellent reason to believe Jesus died on the cross because all the records point to that plus if you study the historical process of crucifixion nobody ever in the here in the in the entire history of of the Roman process of crucifixion no one ever survived a full Roman crucifixion all they were crucifying people by the hundreds especially when it came time around Jesus time all the way till the fall the temple they were crucifying people by the hundreds to make a point that if you rebel against the Romans we will humiliate you we will torture you and we will destroy you and your pea Boal and that's exactly what was happening to all the Jews who were amongst this rebellion that happened at the late 60s beginning of the 70s in the first century AD not a single one of them survived the process of crucifixion why well first there's a flogging process and this flogging isn't light it's not like painting the flogging process went with a Roman flagrant now if you understand what a flagrant is it's a whip that has six leather cords that come off of it and each of those leather cords has leather balls at the end with shards of bone and metal dumbbells as a person would be whipped this whip was designed to cause extreme vasodilation on the skin you have those metal dumbbells there for that reason to bring the blood vessels to bring lots of blood to the fore to bring pain receptors to the surface and then those bones those shards of bones would latch into the skin and rip it off so you would bleed more blood than you otherwise would that's how this whip was designed all this whole process of crucifixion was designed to be as painful as torturous as possible Cicero I believe it was Cicero who said that let no Roman citizen even think or hear the word crucifixion and Roman citizens were not allowed to be crucified this was reserved for the most treacherous criminals not a common criminal the worst criminal it was also said that arteries and veins were laid bare during the process of the crucifixion I'm sorry of the flogging that people's intestines often fell out because their abdominal wall was ripped open this was horrific and people often died during the flogging process it's called the pre death for that very reason and in the case of Jesus we know that something happened according to the Gospel of John Jesus was flogged more than normal because Pilate wanted to bring bring Jesus back in front of the crowd and say look we've flogged him do you still want to crucify him we punished him and they say no crucify him it would stand to reason that he flogged him more than they thought they would in order for him to say okay let's go ahead and release him but they said no let's let's crucify him let's move on for just a moment this process of flogging would often leave someone devoid of skin their skin would be falling off in ribbons as they are carrying the cross they're not carrying it with a loincloth on with skin on their body no their skins hanging off in tatters and they're naked made to parade through a group of people and once they're finally nailed on the cross the crawled through the interosseous space here between the radius and the ulna it's because that is where the the force of the weight could be held if someone was nailed through the hands the hands would just rip and someone would would die that way the reason why it says hands in some places is because in those times they refer to this whole area as hands they're nailed through here right through the median nerve the major sensory motor nerve of the hand if you were nailed through that place you immediately lose all use in sensation of your hand then you're nailed through your feet a seven-inch nail goes through both your feet why because if someone were just to hang on the cross they would have no way to breathe out as they sink back down they breathe in and have to push to breathe out well what are they going to push against a nail through their feet it's to prolong the torture it's to prolong the death and when they finally wanted to kill you they'd break your knees so that you couldn't push up anymore and you just fixie ate and died or they would stick a spear through your heart that was a way to be sure that you'd be dead or they'd crush your skull with a hammer or their light your body on fire or they'd take your body and feed you to dogs they were going to make absolutely sure that you died that was the whole point and no one in all of Roman history survived a full crucifixion so we have excellent reason to believe Jesus died on the cross did he rise from the dead this is an important matter and lots of historians say we cannot investigate the resurrection because that's not a historical matter that's a supernatural matter and you can't study supernatural matters well that's jumping the gun just a bit if every explanation that is naturalistic falls short and falls very short of explaining what happened then we have read to believe that something supernatural may have happened if there simply is no good explanation naturalistically speaking we can use a historical process of investigation to conclude that quite likely maybe something supernatural happened here so what happened when Jesus died shortly after his death we take a look at what happened and those historical scholars we've already referred to in general agree with three facts that are considered relatively incontrovertible and I'm giving you what's called the minimal facts argument if you want to look into this it's called the minimal facts argument primarily promoted by a man named Gary Habermas who's written a book called the historical Jesus also by his protege Michel okona who's written a book called the case for the resurrection of Jesus he wrote alongside Gary Habermas and he's also written his manifesto a rather large book that serves well for curing insomnia he's written that as well sorry Mike he's written that as well and if you want to look at a very thorough investigation of the historical method on whether or not Jesus died I suggest you take a look at this book published by Edmunds Michel okona is the author the argument runs as follows pretty much all every scholar who studies this at least a vast majority if not virtually all scholars conclude three things happened after Jesus died well number one the first one is that Jesus did die on the cross which we just looked at number two that the disciples Jesus disciples all believed he had risen from the dead now get me get me right here that doesn't mean he did just because they believed it but it means they did sincerely believe it they went to their death believing Jesus died and rose and appeared to them so it's that belief that we're holding on to not necessarily that he did but they sincerely believe he had risen from the dead and why do they conclude that by the way all the scholar all the disciples ran away from Jesus when he was arrested they were fearful they didn't know what was going on even Thomas who was willing to go to his death for Jesus when Jesus was arrested they all ran away of course we know John watch to watch the crucifixion and we do know that Peter came to the trial scene but at least at that time they all ran away however after the resurrection these men were willing to go to their deaths proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead these men were willing to die for the fact that this man had risen again that doesn't mean he had actually risen that we're not there yet but it does mean they sincerely believed it because Liars make poor martyrs people aren't going to die for a lie or something that they know is false of course people die for things that are false all the time but not things that they know are false so the disciples truly believed that Jesus has risen from the dead and according to most historical Jesus scholarship Christianity wouldn't have gotten off the ground if it weren't for that fact fact number three fact number one was Jesus died on the cross fact number two the disciples truly believed he had risen from the dead fact number three people who were enemies of Jesus or not his disciples also believed he had risen from the dead now who are we talking about we're talking specifically about two people James the brother of Jesus and Paul or Saul of Tarsus as it were James the brother of Jesus did not follow Jesus during his lifetime we see in the book of Mark that Jesus family comes up and says to people around Jesus that he is out of his mind basically that he's crazy which is what leads Jesus to say who is my mother and brother and sister it's those who do the will of God so Jesus family is not on his side it wasn't until after the resurrection or supposedly the resurrection when all of a sudden the disciple James becomes a I'm sorry the brother of Jesus James because becomes a leader of the Christian Church and also Saul of Tarsus who is a Saul guy Saul was the student of Gamaliel one of the chief leaders of the Jews in the time this man was primed and groomed to be a leader of Jews a leader of Pharisees he was going to have all kinds of power in the temple he already had all kinds of power because he was able to deliver people to prison he was given special permission to hunt Christians down yet this man was willing to go to his death over and over and over again for something for what he claims it was because he has seen the Risen Jesus now let's stop and think for just a second we've got these three facts that again virtually every scholar agrees with who studies the historical Jesus how do we account for these three facts well let's put the Resurrection aside for a bit what is the most common alternative hypothesis for the resurrection of Jesus number one it's that the disciples hallucinate 'add Jesus they hallucinate at his return and the argument goes as follows people who have followed a man like Jesus their spiritual leader for years and years and years they've grown to love him of course we can expect them to see the Risen Jesus after he dies they hallucinate at him they loved him so much he returned to them at least in their in their eyes and we know that people today and this part is true we know that people today often see their loved ones after they died that must have happened with Jesus disciples they saw Jesus after he died okay there's let's take a look at that that hypothesis for just a minute the earliest records of Jesus resurrection say that 500 people saw him risen at the same time now what am I talking about I'm going to explain this briefly because I want you to have the evidence before you so mean so you know what we're talking about first Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 through 8 first Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 through 8 yes they're written by Paul and Paul wrote first Corinthians probably towards the end of the 40s ad or the beginning of the 50s ad but here's what a group of when I say non-christian I mean non Orthodox Christian scholars have claimed this is called this is the Jesus Seminar many of these people call themselves atheist and agnostics none of them is really a friend to traditional Christianity here's what they argue 1st Corinthians 15 verses three through eight comes from a formulation that arose two to five years after Jesus death two to five years after Jesus death stop and think for just a moment what from all of history comes that quickly the first biography of Alexander the Great that we consider substantial comes three hundred to four hundred years after Alexander died 300 to 400 years after Alexander died this is two to five years after Jesus death nothing in history comes that fast in fact one scholar who's even more respected then many of the Jesus Seminar scholars is a man by the name of James DG done and in his book Jesus remembered James DG done is a professor emeritus out of Durham University in the UK in his book Jesus remembered he says that this formulation came within months after Jesus death so he dies at the Passover before the end of the year people have already formulated the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to Peter and James in the twelve and then to the five hundred all of that is formulated within months after Jesus death this is history at its finest even according to the Jesus Seminar and on Christian scholars so you have the fact that 500 people saw Jesus risen at the same time can we really have a mass hallucination that's like inventing a miracle to avoid a miracle there is no such thing as a mass hallucination so this theory that the hallucination theory is a good one it just doesn't fit the facts but the fact it really doesn't fit is that third fact why in the world would Paul have hallucinating the return of Jesus he had no psychological phenomenon that would explain this he had no he had followed Jesus for three years he had given his life to Jesus as it were yet even Paul is willing to go to his death because jesus is risen so this theory simply does not fit the three facts that pretty much all scholars will grant what's the next most common theory the next most common theory instead of the resurrection is that Jesus body was stolen by the disciples well again that doesn't explain why Paul saw the Risen Jesus and it doesn't explain why the disciples would have gone to their death proclaiming the Risen Jesus they don't die for a lie they honestly believe this so the theory that fits the facts the best and after after that by the way you start getting to some other theories like Jesus had a twin that no one knew about who came right at that time then we get to the Jesus the super alien theory I mean it gets it gets really fanciful after that so none of the arguments explains the facts as well as the resurrection so what is the claim that I'm making is a historic certain that Jesus rose from the dead that's not the claim I'm making the claim I'm making is that Jesus resurrection is historically the most responsible claim it is by far the one that fits the facts the best that's my claim so number one we've looked at Jesus death on the cross number two we've looked at the fact that it's good - it's it's reasonable to believe in far the most reasonable thing to believe that he rose from the dead what about number three this is the one that mattered to me most as a Muslim did Jesus claim to be God or not well the first thing we have to look at are what are the reliable sources regarding Jesus life what sources do we have that we can look at which are relatively reliable I'm going to quote a scholar for you this is one that a lot of my Muslim friends enjoy quoting his name is Bart Ehrman Bart Ehrman was my professor when I studied at UNC and he is well known as someone who challenges the traditional Christian claims Bart Ehrman has said that if you want to study the historical Jesus you have to go to the four canonical Gospels you have to there's no one at nowhere else to turn that comes remotely close why does he say that because the four canonical Gospels are the earliest records of Jesus life maybe like going to taking a an interview if there was a traffic accident and you go to talk to people who are at the scene of the accident immediately right after the accident happened what happened tell me what happened who hit who who was driving what was going on give me the details or waiting for months calling those very same people in and saying what happened four months ago at that traffic accident who hit who tell me what happened of course the more reliable stories are the ones that are taken immediately the earliest ones are better we all know this and there is no gospel that comes anywhere close or no no account of Jesus life that comes anywhere close to the historical out of proximity as the four Gospels we can talk about the dating of the Gospels if you'd like during the Q&A session I'm going to give you the critical datings of the gospel I'm not going to give you the Christian datings I'm going to give you the critical datings of the Gospels Mark's Gospel comes first approximately 70 AD Matthew and Luke come next approximately 80 to 9 dat 85 is Matthew 85 to 90 is Luke and then John's Gospel comes last 90 to 180 now I hear me I don't agree with these dates I think that they're very tenuous I don't think we can actually defend them but critical scholars use those dates so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and go with those dates if we go with Mark's Gospel being written at 70 AD that is just 40 years away from Jesus for decades still in the lifetime of many people who are alive at Jesus time Jesus if you if people were 20 years old while Jesus is around they're 60 by the time Mark's Gospel is around and we know people live to a ripe old age at that time yes many died orally but many also led to a ripe old age we know Polycarp for example who was contemporary to that time lived into his hundreds or was it 90s he lived till it was very old so and John the elder lived he was very old died in Turkey so we have people who are alive at this time well what did they say now generally speaking when we turn to the four Gospels historical Jesus scholars are going to leave out John's Gospel they're going to say we're not going to look at John's Gospel and why is that because it's the last of the four and it looks different from the other four it looks fairly different and I'll agree to that so historical Jesus scholars don't generally look at John's Gospel now I think that's a mistake I think there's good reason to think it came early and for those of you who are looking for a defense of the early dating of John's Gospel please look take a look at Dan Wallace's work he argues that John's Gospel based on the grammar found in John's Gospel is written somewhere in the 50s or 60s and he has good reasons to believe that and he's not just your run-of-the-mill grammarian he is the go-to man on Greek grammar he's the one who's written the most the best-selling books on Greek syntax so he believes we can be pretty certain or fairly fairly certain that John's Gospel is written the 50s or 60s so I'm not agreeing that we should put John's Gospel aside but for the sake of fair investigation to have common ground here let's put John's Gospel aside for a moment and let's go to the synoptic Gospels in fact to be really fair why not just go to Mark's Gospel the earliest of the four Gospels to see if Jesus claims to be God because I would argue as I did as a Muslim that if Jesus we claim to be God we would see it in the first of the four Gospels we wouldn't see it and we would have to wait till John's Gospel we'd see it in the first so what does Mark's Gospel have to say about Jesus I'm going to distill it for you every time Jesus is asked who he is in a public setting or every time someone says to Jesus this is who you are in a public setting Jesus has a response don't tell anyone don't tell anyone even when Peter his disciple in mark chapter 8 says who Jesus is Jesus says don't tell anyone there's only one place in the entire Gospel of Mark that Jesus comes out and boldly proclaims who he is are you with me so far let me see some nods good and not this kind of nod okay there's only one place in Mark's Gospel where Jesus says clearly who he is now up until then he's been using a title for himself quite regularly what is that title Son of Man over 80 times in the Gospels Jesus used the term son of man the first time is found is in mark chapter 2 verse 10 the next time is found is mark chapter 2 verse 24 throughout Mark's Gospel son of man is the one where Jesus uses the title to refer to himself frequently now there are two sons of men in the Old Testament one found in Ezekiel and one found in the Book of Daniel okay these are two very different sons of men the son of man in the Book of Ezekiel is a lowly human figure God refers to Ezekiel in the vaca t'v every time calling him the son of man son of man do this son of man do that and it's to emphasize how human Ezekiel is but then there's a son of man in the Book of Daniel which looks very very different this is a son of man who comes on the clouds of heaven what does that mean the only being that comes on the clouds of heaven in the Old Testament is a divine being in fact God comes on the clouds of heaven in the Old Testament so here in the Book of Daniel chapter 7 verse 13 you have one who looks like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven very different son of men which one is geez is claiming to be well like I said there's one place in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus boldly loudly publicly clearly proclaims who he is and that's mark chapter 14 verse 62 in mark chapter 14 verse 62 Jesus has been asked by the high priest who is he who is he up until this point he hasn't been saying this is known as the climax of Mark's Gospel this is what everything has been building to this question Jesus who are you and Jesus responds oh the question is who are you were you the Christ the Son of the Blessed One Jesus responds I am and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven you will see the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven so which consent of man is Jesus referring to I can hear you Daniel he's coming he's referring to the one in Daniel the son of man who comes to the clouds of heaven that's the one he's been talking about let's revisit Daniel and see what the Son of Man is about Daniel is looking at his vision he's having a vision and he sees God the Father the Ancient of Days being worshipped on a throne so this is God the father being worshiped on a throne surrounded by angels and then Daniel says something very interesting he says behold verse 13 chapter 7 behold I look in my night visions and one like a son of man approached the Ancient of Days so here's God the Father the Ancient of Days being worshipped by angels one like a son of man came on the clouds of heaven as only God and divine being comes the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven and to him that son of man is given glory authority and sovereign power okay so whoever the son of man is it looks like a son of man according to Daniel he's given glory authority in sovereign power he's coming as a God into heaven he's given glory authority and sovereign power in heaven then it says people of every nation and language served him stop who is the one who receives service in heaven God or you might ask Nabeel what kind of service is this maybe it's some other kind of service I don't know there's there's tables restaurant tables in heaven we're all going to get served right what is this service this service according to the Bible over 130 time this word is used in the Septuagint in the Greek New Testament it's the word 'la true oh every single time this word service is used it's used as a word due only to God do only to God no human ever receives 'la true oh actually one time a human does receive the true and God curses that he says essentially that is due to me you are cursed for having received a true and yet here the one who looks like a son of man who has glory Authority and sovereign power in heaven came as God comes is being served in heaven with the service due only to God by all people of every nation and language and then it says his kingdom is one that will not pass away in his Dominion will never be destroyed wait a minute stop in the Old Testament you've got God being worshipped in heaven and then you have one who looks like a son of man being worshiped in heaven with the service due only to God in his own kingdom no one tell me that there's no foreshadow of the Trinity in the Old Testament it actually starts Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 but it's clearly found here as well and as if Jesus needed to make his point any clearer he then says you will see him sitting at the right hand of the power that Son of Man will be sitting at the right hand of the power what is this this is a reference to Psalm 110 verse 1 in Psalm 110 verse 1 it says the Lord said to my lord sit at my right hand and I will make the enemies a footstool for your feet no one in all of second temple Jewish history ever claimed the right to sit next to God on his throne not only did no one ever claim it for themselves no one claimed it for anyone else because if you were to say that then essentially what you're saying is that God has an heir it's like the king sitting on his throne with his son the Prince next to him that's what it means to sit next to God in that context that's why Moses was never shown sitting next to God that's why anak was never shown sitting next to God or any of the Archangels they were all shown standing this to God sitting next to God would be blasphemy that would mean that they are God yet Jesus claims not only to be the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven whose worship with the service due only to God but also has the right to sit next to God on the throne he's the heir to the throne of God is it any surprise then why the high priests in this Inquisition opened up their robes and said you have heard the blasphemy for himself what shall we do and everyone responds crucify him what was blasphemy at that time again I'm going to defer to Bart Ehrman Bart Ehrman says that it's not blasphemy to claim to be a messiah it's not blasphemy to tell people they're wrong is blasphemy to claim prerogatives due only to God and that's what Jesus claimed that's why he was found guilty for blasphemy that's why he was crucified by the way this claim from Psalm 110 verse 1 is it historically sound now I use remark gospel that I don't want to make it sound like the Bible says it therefore it's true historical Jesus scholars take a look at the term son of man and they say that the term son of man fulfills the most stringent criteria of historical investigation and what's that criteria called it's called the criterion of double the similarity this criterion of the historical method is so selective that once it fulfills that scholars conclude this must have been said and we can I can answer questions exactly on how that works if you like during the Q&A that's how strong it is the son of man claimed by Jesus and what about the one that says Jesus was sitting at the right hand of the power how strong is that this is the Old Testament reference that's used the most in the New Testament over 20 times it's found in the New Testament it permeates all sorts of letters it permeates the Gospels is found by multiple authors in the New Testament it is so woven into early Christian history we can't deny that it's at the earliest stratum so did Jesus claim to be God once again I argue that we can't ever claim certainty in these matters but if we're going to say what's the historically most response and by far most responsible conclusion I would say yes the evidence points to the fact even in the earliest gospel interwoven through all the Gospels verified by the strongest criterion of historical investigation Jesus claimed to be God and I realize this has a Muslim by the way I'm not saying this to you as a Christian having done the investigation I was one who is still reciting the five daily prayers I was one who was leading the Juma I was giving the Jamaat spot whenever the Imam was gone whenever my father wasn't around I would do the Jamaat footba the the Friday sermon at the mosque I was the one who would do tough see it on the hadith when when we had no tough co-present commentary my friends would bring to me hadith they'd see Nabil what does this mean they would come to me and I would be the one doing this as best I could of course Allah knew best is what I would say but that's as best as I could do because they were coming to me and yet I concluded if I'm going to be responsible here history points to the death resurrection and deity of Jesus Christ he's proved his case now what about Islam remember these are two separate things now Islam does deny those things aslam does deny jesus died on the cross yet it's the most historically responsible conclusion it's LOM does deny the deity of Jesus Christ but once again it's the most historically responsible conclusion so already before getting off the ground when we take a look at Islam which comes 600 years after Jesus 600 miles away from Jesus what it says about Jesus is not historically sound could it still be true of course it could still be true but we'd have to throw out history in order for it to be true and if we're willing to throw out the evidence that anything could be true but let's take a look at the claims of Islam remember la ilaha illaallah muhammaden-rasul allah' our our claim for Islam is Allah the god of this universe as found in the Quran and we have good reason to believe the Quran is the inspired Word of God number 2 Muhammad is he a prophet of God or not if I can show either of these things to be true then I have a good reason to believe in Islam so what does the evidence say let's first take a look at Muhammad's life the first story and I'm going to try to be as as objective as possible please forgive me I am just human and I'll probably introduce some biases into what I'm saying but I'm trying to be as objective as an element of graciously appreciated the earliest source on Muhammad's life is eben is Hawks Sadat rasoolallah okay eben is Hawk seeded rasool ullah even Assad wrote somewhere around 150 years after Mohammed died so already we should keep in mind that John's Gospel came about 65 to 70 years after Jesus and scholars were throwing it out this is twice as late and when it comes to reliability I would put that on a logarithmic scale I wouldn't put it on a linear scale this is exponentially less reliable than John's Gospel but let's just put that aside for just one moment that's my conclusion now in the 21st century but what did the people at that time say let me clarify for you we don't actually have even is Hawks Edith's rasoolallah what we have is a recension by a man named eben Hisham so even hashem saved even is hawks sita through solola even it's not suitable has been lost to history a man named even Hashanah it and here is what eben hisham says he says I found in eben is Hopps work things that were so offensive so impossible that I have taken them out what is left is those things that I have found true so what is even if Sean's saying about even his Hawks Edith rasoolullah he's saying that it is not reliable at least in the form in which it's found and he has had to alter it so what we have the earliest source that we have on Muhammad's life 150 years after Muhammad has died and not exactly from then a little bit later but let's just say it is that is an altered version of a source that Muslims at the time Muslim scholars at the time found untrustworthy in parts that's what we have to start with okay so this is before we've even gotten to the hadith literature this is still Seeta literature we've got Seeta mikaze happening here and we've got a few more we have even side we have a few others who happen and then we get to the sources that Muslims consider the most reliable now the most reliable source according to Sunni Islam now generally speaking if someone says Muslim they're referring to Sunni Muslims because 80% of Muslims around the world unless someone puts a qualifier in Shia or some other denomination generally speaking you're talking about sunni beliefs now 80% of Muslims believe then that a book called sahih al-bukhari is the most trustworthy source on Muhammad's life Sahih al-bukhari was collected by a man named imam bukhari who wrote and died approximately 250 years after Muhammad's death so now we're 250 years away the next most trustworthy book is sahih al Muslim written by a man named Imam Bukhari and the two are not independent of one another Imam Muslim was the student of Imam Bukhari so they're not independent sources but these are the two most reliable sources according to Muslims Sunni Muslims there's a lot more to this by the way there's hadith methodology there's there's scholars who study the method of understanding hadith they look at its nod the train of transmission between Muhammad and the person who wrote these down and they they weigh the hadith as mulatto toward ie for aahed you know the strength of the hadith they'll say some trade traditions are reliable some are not regardless what we're left with is these two as the most reliable sources now what do these sources say about Muhammad I don't want to go too far in detail because it can be offensive it can sound like I'm trying to bash Islam but I will tell you this I'll tell you my conclusion and if any of you are so bold as to ask the question over Q&A I will answer it once you read even is Hawks Edythe Rasul Allah you do not walk away with the conclusion that this man is a prophet of God far from it you see some tragedies that you would say are unconscionable and again I can answer those questions for you in the Q&A if you'd like when you come to Sahih al-bukhari and say healed Muslim same thing I I was raised believing that Islam was a religion of peace that's that's why when 9/11 happened it shook me to the core I was just shocked when 9/11 happened I said how can people attack innocent human beings in the name of Allah who is a peaceful God that's how I was taught it and when I started studying Islam with my own eyes instead of with what people had taught me I come to sahih al-bukhari I'm Sahih Muslim vol one book third Volume one of Suhail muslim hadith number 30 and what it says is a Muhammad said that I will drive all Jews and Christians out of the Arabian Peninsula no I'm sorry that's Sahih Bukhari Sahib Muslim is I will leave none alive except Muslims I didn't believe it was true I said that must be a weak hadith must be false so I went to the next one and the next one in the next one and they just kept piling on and on and on all these hadith that made me think this religion I can't walk away from an objective perspective and say this man is a prophet of God I can defend him as a Muslim I can throw out these hadith and I can say but Muhammad did it this and this in this context and this happened in this context and you can start defending him you can take a defensive posture that's fine but as an objective investigator coming to the books of hadith and the books of Sita are the historical records of Islam you do not walk away feeling like there's an objective case that Mohammed is a prophet of God far from it you start seeing him as a product of the seventh century a natural product of the seventh century so then I turn to the Quran and I said where in the Quran can I find good reason to believe that the Quran is inspired by God there are five arguments that I found Muslims using most commonly and I myself used some of these arguments to show that the Quran is inspired of Allah the first argument is the Quran the Grands own argument five times in the Quran a challenge is issued saying if you think this book is a forgery try to write another book like it it doesn't matter if you call all your friends it doesn't matter if you call Jin which are kind of like demons but not really you call jinn and men alongside you and try to write something like the Quran you will not be able to that's the challenge the Quran gave five times it's in fact the only defence people used to come up to Muhammad and say you are but a forger this is recorded in the Quran you are someone who's committing a forgery you're just copying poems are you just saying poems the Quran is challenges you try to recite something like this you couldn't do it doesn't matter how you look at that argument it has been answered if you look at it methodologically is it even an objective argument to say this is as good as that it's too subjective in its methodology to be a real test so it fails in its own method all it fails in the sense that it's trying to show something out of excellence means it's written by God I'm not going to argue like if I like I don't know if I like Kirk Cameron films I'm not going to argue he's God because his acting is so good I'm not going to argue that Eminem's rapping makes him divine it's good stuff sure but that doesn't make him divine so even the end point is not necessarily true but what's more the challenge has been met there's a book called Alfred GaN Alf O'Connell Huck I believe it's called the true foregone and this is a book that was written in the past few decades which attempts to copy gronic style try to write a book like it it attempts to copy qur'anic style yet teach other doctrine and so using Quranic orthography using Quranic poetry and grammar it tries to produce something like the Quran this book has been recited in public places throughout the Islamic world and Muslims regularly come up to those reciting it and saying thank you for having recited the Quran in public that's how well it matches the challenge in fact India has found this such a devastating book that they have banned it from entry in its borders so that to challenge has been answered methodologically in its end point and also the challenge itself has been answered it doesn't work what's the second most common argument I see for the inspiration the Quran the second most common argument I see for the inspiration of the Quran is that there scientific miracles found in the Quran in other words there's such advanced science found in the Quran that it could not have been written by a man who was just a man who only had human knowledge either he had prophetic knowledge thereby making Mohammed the prophet or the Quran is inspired by Allah and so you have the inspiration of the Quran and the arguments that are used is for example the Quran has miraculous knowledge about the oceans the Quran has miraculous knowledge about the atmosphere the Quran has miraculous knowledge about X Y & Z I believe this as a Muslim Muslim in fact there's a whole book published on this by a French physician named Maurice Busey and it's called the the Bible and science and so I had that book as a Muslim and I used to go through it I used to use the arguments but by this point in my own investigation I was in medical school and I was able to study science especially things like embryology human development in the Quran knowing my knowledge from medical school and testing to see whether or not they're true I'll give you one example in the Quran it says it gives a process of embryo logical development in fact this is one of the most popular examples used by Muslims is found in Maurice pea-size book as well and it gives this development process and at one point in the process it says that this this embryo it says this this clot this leech like substance is then developed by God in two bones and then it is clothed by flesh and then it becomes something entirely new and so it's pointing to this pasta process of embryological development the problem is ask anybody who studied embryology that's not how it works you don't get first bones then flesh then develop into something new you have the same embryo logical layer the mesoderm that differentiates into both muscles and bones at the same time and so what's wrong it's not true and so when you have clear statements in the Quran that that are shown false you can't point to obscure ones to try to say this is somehow scientifically more Actives if the clear ones are false why are you pointing to obscure ones to say it's true and if you need something more clear the Quran says and forgive forgive me if this is a bit crass I don't believe it is but it's in the Quran and here's what it says it says that grant the sperm a man's sperm comes from between his backbone and his ribs no it does not it doesn't really take much of a degree in medicine to prove that but I have one and I assure you that's not where it comes from so how is it that this is defended well Muslims will say you have to look at one of those words it's a feminine the other one's masculine and so what it's saying is that when a woman in a man get together no look when the clear statements have to be reinterpreted in order to be shown to be scientifically true then you're not coming objectively you're coming with the bias and someone who comes objectively to this is not going to conclude what you conclude and so that argument isn't enough to convey an objective observer either the third argument that I used and this is the last of the three that I use there's two others that other people used was an argument from perfect preservation that the Quran has never been changed is the argument and now this is something that runs deep in the Islamic veins because as a Muslim I believe that the Bible had been corrupted all right the New Testaments corrupt the Old Testament crub it's all corrupt the only thing Allah has guarded is the discernment according to Sudan 15 verse 9 Allah has guarded the Quran this one has been unchanged it's perfect once again when we study the early Islamic sources we find that to be false I'll give you a few ways to look into that first you can look into it through the manuscript evidence we've seen portions of certain manuscripts that have been published for example portions of this of the Yemeni manuscripts the son our manuscripts and we find differences between that and the modern Quran that's not my main point you see palimpsests such as fogs palimpsest which contains within it writings from what seems like even Massoud is going on we'll talk about that in just a moment but that's been washed out and a different text has been written over it that's not my main point either my main point is that you look at the earliest Islamic records and you see Muslims not just random Muslims but the Muslims who had been entrusted with the protection of the Quran arguing with each other over what goes into it and what does not where do we start seeing this well we start seeing it in sahih al-bukhari volume 6 book 61 the entire book is a collection of how the Quran came together in it you see phrases like well I'll give you the I'll give you a key one first a key one is Mohammed said if you want to learn the Quran go to these four men the first person he mentions Abdullah even Masood and then he mentions two other men Salomon wad and the fourth one he mentions is obey even God so if you want to go to the Quran learn from these four two of them are Abdullah ibn Masud and obey even gob okay so Muhammad picks them as teachers with Quran what else does sahih bukhari say same book of sahih bukhari volume six book sixteen one says obey even gob recites portions of the Quran that none of the rest of us recite he's a teacher of the Quran he recites portions of Quran that none of the rest of us recite and when asked not to he says he will not leave it for anything whatsoever because he heard it from the mouth of Mohammed surprising Dola even Masood he's the first one Mohammad mentioned you look at the records of what Abdullah even Masood had in his grunt he had 111 chapters of the Quran well what does today's Quran have 114 there's three chapters in today's Quran that were not included in the number one teacher Mohammed picked what is Mohammed what is of the leaven Masood say about those three chapters he says these are hadith Qudsi these are revelations sure but they're not grown these are just prayers what about the other guy oh by even God what does he say he says Abdullah even masu you're wrong and both man's Quran is wrong it's 116 chapters there's two more that should belong in here these are the most trusted men with the teaching of the Quran and they disagree with today's version of the Quran the historical record points to this the early Islamic records point to this there's a lot more by the way so he'll Muslim actually says in hadeeth number four four three four I believe it is no I'm sorry that's internal doubt this is in sahih al Muslim where it says that the reciters of Basra used to recite large sections of the Quran but they forgot sections out of which they remembered only this part and they would recite portions of out of large sections they had forgotten those are not found in the Quran today now some people argue those have been abrogated it doesn't work for those of you who know the law of abrogation this does not fit one of the three types of abrogation it doesn't work it's simply lost so you have the early Muslims arguing over these things you have record saying portions are lost you cannot once again objectively conclude that the Quran has been perfectly preserved again you can defend it as a defensive position sure defendant all you want and I'm not up here arguing that the theology has been changed I'm not arguing that I think the early Muslims did an excellent job of preserving their theology I'm just talking about the verbatim preservation of the Quran there's no good reason to believe that once you look at the earliest sources unless you're coming at it from a defensive angle the last two arguments that Muslims use to defend the Quran I'm just going to mention them briefly one is mathematical patterns they'll say there's beautiful mathematical patterns in the Quran and another one is that there are prophecies in the Quran when you come right down to them you look at those mathematical patterns they don't add up and when you come down to those prophecies they're not prophetic and we can talk about those under the Q&A time if you'd like so I'm going to end by saying this as a Muslim then I'm looking at these arguments three that all need to be strongly evidenced in order for Christianity to be true and they were at the earliest historical records using the strongest historical criteria two arguments either of which I needed to show in order for Islam to be true and neither of them ended up being strong in the eyes of an objective observer so what did I have to do I had to make a choice do I follow the religion that I was raised with do I follow my family or do I dishonor them and pick something else and for those of you who don't have a Middle Eastern or Eastern lineage it might be hard to grasp just how difficult it is to take everything your parents have given you and throw it back in their faces which is not what I was doing but that's how they interpreted it very difficult process so difficult that I didn't do it I did not do it I convinced myself that Islam was true anyway until I couldn't bear it anymore and I asked in prayer Allah and I was I would pray to Allah and I'd say Allah who are you are you Jesus or are you Allah the God of Islam and I asked for dreams because that's what I was taught to do as a Muslim I would pray Estacada the salat that we would ask a lot to give us a dream to find tell us if something was true so I asked God for dreams and visions and he gave me a vision in three dreams which pointed me to Christ and I'm not here to talk about my testimony I'm here to give you the evidence but if for those of you who are interested this book comes out in February you can read it there so in the end I want to challenge you no matter who you are in this room if you're a Christian or if you're Muslim if you were raised by faith to believe something and you believed it without challenging it without testing it I urge you I challenge you to go talk to people who disagree with you let them challenge you study these matters for yourself because when the winds come and the foundation shakes if you don't have strong answers to these questions you're going to be left without grounding and in that time that extremely painful time you better believe you need a god to hold on to and not just any God the true God who can bear you through so whether you're Christian whether you're Muslim whether you're neither find the truth search the truth don't have these questions ring around in your mind and not address them a question under the surface left will fester like an infection and even if you don't see it it is destroying your flesh it is destroying you to your bones air those doubts disgust them so that you can be solid so that you can know with certainty and pursue God pursue truth by all means because God is the most beautiful unimaginably wonderful being in this universe and if he created you if he gave you everything you have I would challenge you to say you owe it to him to find out who he is or you can walk away the choice is truly yours thank you I'm sure thing for everyone class say thank you dr. su for coming forward with all that to us we'll begin the Q&A now there you will see a mic in the center of the room please just form a queue behind that and we ask please that you come with your question in mind already so you may keep it concise as we can get as many questions and as possible we're going to have about probably 20 to 25 minutes so please just keep your questions brief so that and then we don't allow dr. kress to answer as may as possible so you may line up at the mic at your leisure I don't bite hey ma'am come closer the mic please if you wouldn't mind oh you can tilt it down yeah okay I'm close okay um I'm short um you said that the first person was a hundred and fifty years after Mohammad was dead to understand that correctly to be more precise the first person who whose biography we have a record of that ever existed of Muhammad's life was 150 years after his Raya okay so not to be disrespectful I'm I'm totally honest in its origin where did Mohammad come from was he a descendant of Ishmael I mean he just surfaced from where great question now whenever we talk about the historical Muhammad we have two routes we go one route is the traditional route as determined by hadith the Muslim records the Muslim traditions Seeta as well and aunt dotty the the Islamic history has recorded by TT and the like or we go the critical route you have a critical historical scholarship route that uses modern Western methodology in order to determine who Muhammad actually was the answer to your question from the traditional route is that Muhammad was an Ishmaelite born to a man named Abdullah who died before he was born he was born 570 ad in Mecca and so he comes from the line of that's the traditional Muslim response or Islamic response the scholastic response by modern critical scholarship is we can't be entirely sure of where Muhammad was from he was probably from Mecca but we can't be sure the records just are not strong enough and they're not uniform enough to to give us these details so you don't know about the Ishmael part I mean he's the descendent of course I guess all right so like I said in there under the traditional Islamic perspective yes Muhammad is an Ishmaelite but from the critical scholastic Western scholastic perspective we don't know go ahead and don't forget I'll stick around afterwards in case you still have more sir your talk to Emma medical doctors I really appreciated a lot of the aspects that you brought in from the medical standpoint we're just in your own personal journey through all this was there anything during your residency anything during your medical training that also pointed you towards the I guess the claims of Christ any other person and it goes you can think of there are plenty of personal anecdotes thank you so much doctor friends asking the question there are plenty of personal anecdotes I find that on a stage like this if you share the personal anecdotes they get mixed up with the historical logical argumentation and so people start saying oh you believe that because of this personal anecdote look how weak your beliefs are and so generally speaking I don't bring them up but since we have distanced ourselves from that I will argue I will share this I had become a Christian by this point so take that into account when I was a third-year medical student I was doing oh began rotations and we were at a high-risk facility in Norfolk Virginia and so we got the worst of the worst my whole time in my two months of ob9 rotations I saw one family everyone else was single mothers or drug addicts or or what have you one night a fifteen-year-old girl comes in in labor and it turns out she was not willing to have her baby and so she had taken a significant amount of crack cocaine because she had heard that that would cause you to go into premature labor and she did and the baby was born and I'm sorry this is a difficult to remember they had the baby being examined by the neonatologists and just very small very light and breathing heavily and obviously on the verge of death and I asked what the situation I knew about the baby for me about the mother and so I asked situation was they told me I went to see the mother and I walked into mother's room to ask her what had happened because I didn't tell me all the details and I walked in and I saw her texting and not a single care in the world laughing texting and I asked her what's going on what are you concerned is this the right room is this the right baby and she would not refer to the baby as her she would refer to her as it it it was just something that didn't matter now how does how does this play in I was shocked that day absolutely shocked at the level of apathy in fact I almost I would say in anger welled up in me at the level of apathy towards this girl and so I went and I started reading her her HMP I started reading her records and when I found out her history she had been abused as a child her family all did drugs she didn't have a father in the picture and I'm reading this and I say who do I get angry at Who am I supposed to be angry at here is it her is it the person who was supposed to be in her life and take care of her as a father there's a people who supposed to protect her from the who do I get angry at and for the first time I was just furious at the sin in the world and yet all of a sudden I had this desire to care for this girl despite what she had done despite the heinous crime that she just committed killing another human being in my perspective I had this desire to care for her and all of a sudden it hit me and I'm not a father yet but it hit me that the love of a father goes beyond any sin the love of a father who understands their child goes beyond any sin I think about my father who I call Abba if I sinned against a but it doesn't matter what I do doesn't matter what I do he would still love me now the Gospel message is that God is more loving than any human being we can imagine if my father would forgive me no matter what by definition God has to be more loving than that now in Islam it's clear in the Quran God does not love those who are unrighteous this isn't something I'm making up it's in the Quran God does not love the sinners and so as you look through the Quran you don't have unconditional love you have love for those who perform you have love for those who are good Muslims but not unconditional love and to me that makes God less loving than a human which I don't think is possible and so again this is a personal anecdote this is something that tied things together for me the beauty of the Gospel message that God loves even those who sin because he understands and that for me was powerful thank you so much for asking the question thank you thanks Nabil for your very logical and clear presentation my question is what is the Islamic view of Bukhari six 509 and 510 where it seems that caliph Uthman has brought all the little pieces of scripture together destroyed them and has everyone sit down to write a new single holy scripture great question okay so the reference here is to the same book I was talking about sahih al-bukhari volume 6 book 61 hadith number 509 and 510 in these two hadith they're fairly long and you have a description of how the Quran was collected and we talked about how essentially the hadith goes as follows when abu bakr after abu bakr's Quran had been collected so first you have Mohammed Mohammed dies there's no one codex of the Quran after Muhammad there's a man named Abu Bakr who comes Abu Bakr after a few years is challenged people say to him you should collect the Quran he thinks it's not a good idea because Mohammed didn't do it then people urge him collect the Quran into a book and so he does he collects it into a book that book is given to a woman named Huff's ah ultimately first he had it and ultimately passed to huff so when the third caliph again this is according to Sunni Islam when the third caliph comes Khalifa Othman people are arguing about the Quran again and so Oman gathers the Quran from Hafsa he asks everyone to bring their manuscripts of the Quran he collects them he gets the same guy who wrote up a buckers Quran a man named zeb bin Thabit he gets him to take all these manuscripts to write the quran in the kuranda dialect of the Quraish makes five copies burns all the manuscripts he destroys them so that there will be no variants he provides five and it is reported in early Islamic history that there were variants among those five but not significant ones at least not that would affect doctrine how do muslims reconcile with this ok let's first start with the 20% I don't with this hadith they'll often say it their errors the Shia in particular they'll say their errors in this collection other Muslims will argue that there were people who had the Quran memorized so you had you know like say bin Thabit himself was a man who's a Hafiz he was a man who collect who had the entire Quran memorized they'll say that the Khalifa they all four of them had the Quran memorized problem is this doesn't stand up to scrutiny you have even with in sahih al-bukhari the same book in two separate places it says we left out of the Quran this verse and we couldn't find it with anyone except with this man Hosea even thought it and so there are multiple verses in the Quran that were known by only one man so how could it be that everyone had memorized the Quran and some people will say oh that was only written it wasn't that man had the written version he didn't everyone else had to memorize he only had the written version that is a 13th century argument it's not one that was found early on plus the sahih al-bukhari also says right there in but in book 61 that these were collections from either writings or people's hearts so you didn't have to have it written in order for that so we're getting in far too much detail here but that's generally how its reconciled so do do a lot of Muslims not even they're not aware of that or its of controversy amongst them as well you can ask Muslims yourself I would encourage you to understand that generally speaking as people learn their religion whether they're Muslim Christian what-have-you people generally learn from their teachers so they learn what their teachers have taught them and generally speaking most teachers are not going to go to the problematic hadith pull them out and talk about them to their Muslim congregation so no most Muslims do not know about Sahih Bukhari book sixty-one sir you mentioned a couple examples in the Quran where some of the claims that made didn't match up with current medical knowledge have you found anywhere in Christian scripture where you might find something like that I know I can't think of off the top of my head I know some critics would say that parts of Scripture are seen figuratively and some are literal have you in your study of the Bible have you found anything like that is an excellent question it really is and I'm glad you brought it up one thing that I want to point out to everyone here is that it is an incorrect comparison to compare the Bible to the Quran if we're determining centrality to the faith okay what do I mean by this are they both books of Scripture yes but that's about as far as the comparison goes the Quran is far more central to Islam than the Bible is central to Christianity the analog here the proper comparison is Jesus Jesus in the Quran are analogous in the two faiths what do I mean by that well the Quran is the closest thing that you have to the encapsulation of Allah on earth it's the closest thing you have to the word in earth a tangible Word of God is the Quran it's believed that the Quran is Co eternal with Allah just as Jesus is koel with the Father Jesus is the word of God so also the point that I want to make is epistemological II speaking when people are investigating is Christianity true you're not supposed to focus on the Bible no one ever made the claim that the Bible is perfect therefore Christianity is true people made the claim that Jesus rose from the dead therefore Christianity is true Islam not the same Islam it's the Quran the Quran is perfect the Quran is the word of God incarnate therefore are incarnate in a sense therefore that's the proper analogue so I wanted to give you that as a background before I address your question these two do not hold the same place epistemological e in their respective faiths are there are there places in the Bible where there are incorrect statements scientifically speaking it depends on what you're trying to extract from the Bible for example if I were to say to my friend Hey look I watched the sunrise this morning it was amazing it was beautiful he could if he wanted laugh at me and say Nabil the Sun doesn't rise the earth revolves you're an idiot you're inaccurate for having said that if he's trying to extract that degree of scientific accuracy from my statement then you could say I was being scientifically inaccurate but if you are trying to extract the message I'm saying I watched you know as the Sun come in came above the horizon as it was perceived by me if you're trying to extract the that the Bible is actually saying what it was asserting in that there are no errors thank you I have a similar question actually that was my question but then I had a second part look at you do you believe that the Bible is correct and its interpretation in Genesis that the earth was actually made in seven days that's a great question I'm going to start off by saying I'm not a theologian I'm a historian so I study the historical Jesus I study the historical method I look into what happened in Jesus life historically speaking so part of what I do is I ascertained genres of various books for example I don't come to the Book of Psalms the way I come to the book of mark okay The Book of Psalms is a poetic book and so what it says in there is supposed to be interpreted through a lens of poetry the Gospel of Mark is an account of Jesus life it's a greco-roman bio it's a biography or something close to that so I interpret them differently the genre of Genesis well that's in flux so we're not entirely sure what the genre of Genesis is there are certain statements that would seem to indicate that the Bible says that the world was made in seven days or six days whatever the argument is they would seem to indicate it was made over a short period of time then the reason why it's argued that is the word Yom is used and it'll say in the first night in first day ii nicely and etc problem is parts of those days you have things that would take much longer than a day and not only that the sun isn't made until the fourth day so how do you have light if the sun isn't around to a fourth well there's ways people argue that and the way people argue against it in addition you know the taking the the rib out of Adam it says that he slept a very long time before the next day when you say someone slept a very long time you don't generally think it's less than a day it takes more than that so they're good reasons to conclude both in my opinion and neither one of them actually disqualifies you from a Christian faith in my view so again I'll state it very clearly I believe that you were a Christian if you believe that Jesus is the one God Yahweh he died on the cross and rose from the dead died for your sins rose from the dead to prove it that's what I think makes you a Christian if you believe in multiple gods you're not a Christian if you believe that Jesus is not God you're not a Christian so what you believe about genesis your your particular interpretation of Genesis or a revelation doesn't disqualify you in my opinion thank you I I saw the anemic response there I'm guessing we've got a lot of young earthers in the crowd it's okay I love you anyway assalamualaikum waalaikumsalam so Mike so being a Muslim as you can already mentioned my main problem is with the Christian doctrine of godhood of use so my there is a couple of questions are related first of all I find this concept logically fallacious like there are many aspects to its logical fallacy as in maybe one of them could be that how can God be finite and then infinite at the same time like this is like it's like saying that they could exist a square circle it's it's a logical fallacy right so when we say that Jesus was God or son of God we are actually saying that God existed in finitude during the life of Jesus and he also is infinite at the same time this is logically fallacious now because you are like you're coming from a historical story it's a relief I'm like the same question continuing so because you're going at it from a historical standpoint another thing that adds like the historical evidence that adds like that supports this argument is that the concept of Trinity the word Trinity itself it doesn't appear as a theological term till near the end of the second century after Jesus so it was first used by as try ass by Theophilus the Bishop of Antioch and AD 180 so we can us and like adding up to that when you refer to mark chapter 14 verse 62 which is what you say is the proof that Jesus claimed to be God are you really applying the same criteria of objectivity that you are applying previously to the Quran when interpreting this as meaning that Jesus is claiming himself to be God because if you like look at it completely objectively looking at the entire text like there is nothing in entire text that's it that's saying that Jesus claimed to be God and in fact the verse that you yourself quote is actually saying Son of Man so I mean you don't go anywhere what's your name munzur ones are away from I'm from Pakistan Pakistan both ho Shi Hui absolutely I had the exact same questions when I was when I when I practiced Islam what I want to point out is that first in foremost what we have to see is what Jesus claimed for himself now the secondary of stuff that follows the theological unfolding or unpacking of what he said we can spend years and years debating what it means but what did he say about himself that's the first thing we want to look at so again that's a historical perspective theologians argue all day long back and forth back and forth you know theologians argue all the time and I just sit back and watch and smile because you can't really prove it one way or another but when it comes to historical events we can show with relative degrees of certainty if the evidence is good if the records are good what the most likely conclusion is so first and let me give you an answer before if you feel like interjecting we can talk afterwards first I want to point out you are absolutely right the term Trinity is not used till the end of the second century what is the doctrine of God called in the Koran in Islam what is the doctrine of God called out all heed is that in the Quran I know the word that way the heat is a derived word from ahead alhamdulillah good so you understand the word tawheed is not itself in the Quran in the same way the word Trinity is not itself in the Bible this doesn't pose a problem the Shahada is not found in the Quran you have the components of the Shahada in the but you do not hold on you do not have la ilaha illaallah muhammaden-rasul allah in that way found in the quran the component hold on the components are found in the Quran with the Trinity the components are found in the Bible so the Vertov does appear in the hadith oh that's great but it's not in the correlations of the program the in the hadith is much later so we're looking at the u.s. for the Bible and we have within the early canonical tradition people calling a God a Trinity in the early canonical tradition in fact much closer to Jesus time then the hadith were to Muhammad's time so it whichever way you stack it when you're consistent you end up with a stronger case for the Trinity for Jesus deity now I want to continue on to your next part of your question which is is Jesus finite or infinite the argument is that Jesus is you know I'm sure him to pose it in a slightly different way can Allah come on to this world if he wants can he be in this world if he wants I don't think you wouldn't think so so so Allah is on nipa tense is limited he can't come on to this world it's it's like basically you a lotta luck I cannot do logically Felicia still you cannot create a square circle right mm-hmm because that's that's something logically but how do we know that for the things that I love a lot how how do we know that's what this is because for example in surah al-imran when Allah is talking to Moses it says in surah al-imran I think it stood al Imran might be sore 18 but double check that Allah as he spoke to Moses Allah was in the bush Allah was in the bush so if you want to say that meant something else you're gonna have to argue with the Quran on that one it seems to be pretty clear that Allah can emanate his voice from a physical place he can be in a physical place in a sense in the same way we don't believe I don't believe that God coming to this earth limits his omnipotence it's not a limitation of his omnipotence Jesus has taken on flesh God the Father is still everywhere God Jesus the son is here on this earth it's a limitation in that sense but it's not a limitation of his nature he is both the divine and human nature that's the argument now I want to talk about briefly and then we're going to have to go the next question but let's talk after for sure you asked about the son of man you said he's not calling himself the son of God he's call himself the son of man I'm emphasizing to you my friend when this hit me again while I was practicing Islam when this hit me it hit me like a bolt of lightning the claim son of God according to Jews at that time was not anything divine Adam was called the Son of God Solomon was called the Son of God in the Psalms it says you are gods it's not a divine claim to call someone a son of God but when someone refers to that son of man coming on the clouds of heaven who's going to receive glory authority and sovereign power in people of every nation and language are going to worship him with the worship due only to God that son of man is more than just a human he is divine he's going to be worshipped by all people of all time so when Jesus calls himself the son of man he's not it's not the Son of God title and lots of Christians get this wrong so I'm not I'm not pointing the finger at you lots of Christians say O son of man means he's human and son of God means he's God no it's the Oh around into the Jewish context son of God was a normal human title son of man from Daniel 7 that was something divine go back and read Daniel chapter 7 see that this man is worshipped by all people from all eternity this man the one who looks like a human anyway is worshipped by all people alongside of God the Father that's the one Jesus is claiming to be definitely understand that point that I'm trying to make and so when you see that Jesus claim is found there in mark 1462 it's found in all the Gospels and every time Jesus uses the term son of man he's alluding to that you cannot extract that from the Gospels so please put mark 1462 next to Daniel chapter 7 and see what Jesus is claiming for himself and we'll talk afterwards for the rest Lord bless you my friend we'll take one last question I thank you for this great dog I really admire the fact that you argue with reason in fact so my question was basically in John 5 if you read from nineteen onwards Jesus says that he can he can actually do nothing and that you know wherever his power is come from the Father and John 5:30 he says I can of my own self to nothing and as I hear I judge for my judgment is just where I seek not my will but the will of the Father and also in John 17 he says that I have completed your mission that God father gave him on this earth and at that time he was not crucified so and also the last items were he in an Old Testament Abraham was visited by God with two angels that's in Genesis was three angels God oh I thought like it was God in two angels that's what all three of those angels are god it's very interesting when you write it carefully okay and but in human form ray yes in human form so was God Jesus at that time okay those in human form did he come I see great question great series of questions the first thing I want to mention again is one more time I'm not theologian so I don't deal with Genesis per se I deal with the historical aspect of Jesus but I can look at what Genesis says and I can't be sure are those three angels Jesus is one of them Jesus is it not we can't be sure nothing is said and I don't want to say that the Bible says something that it doesn't say because that's a very dangerous thing that's why you have people saying that the world is going to end this may you know it's like no you put something in the Bible that's not there and so I want to be very careful with that I'm taking Genesis for what it says at face value are those three God is one of them Jesus are all three of them Jesus or all three of them Yahweh ones father son Holy Spirit I don't know it's not said clearly when it comes to the Gospel of John though I want to encourage you the Quran and the Bible are not the same book of course but a lot of times we come to them exegetically as if they were Muslims and Christians will come to the Quran x2g ting them as if they were their own book or they'll come to the Bible executing it as if it was the Quran this is a problem the Quran was not written like the Bible how was it written Muhammad would have Seve a revelation or so the Islamic sources say about five verses at a time generally speaking according to the hadith he would relay to his scribes the scribes will write them down and that was one recitation and later again and later again later again and then at the end and sometimes would be longer at the end all of them were collected when he died so it's very possible that one section of the Quran one verse has very little to do with the next verse at least at face value that's why you have the whole series of hadith called s Bob on nasal which I'm sure you're familiar with the hadith that say this is when this verse of the Quran came this is what it means this is when this verse of the Quran came this is what it means that's who the seed of the Quran that's where they get this stuff from this bobbin is all hadith and so you need the hadith to exegete the Quran because one verse does not necessarily relate to the next Bible is not like that in the Bible the Gospel of John John 1:1 relates to John 21 it's all related so you need to relieve the whole book before you try to pull a part out and exegete it and I'm not saying cherry-picking is is necessarily a negative intention it's just what happens when you've exited the Quran that way for Sola so we have to make sure when we read John 17 which you referred to that we also read John 14 where in john 14 jesus says when i am gone whatever you pray in my name i will hear it and i will do it for you Jesus is saying when I'm gone so he's not there he can hear people's prayers so he has to be omniscient and I will do it for you omnipotent right there same discourse we can't divorce the two it's the same discussion in the same way we cannot leave out John chapter one when John writes his gospel he expects everything that you read in there to be interpreted through his introduction the introduction of John's Gospel is vitally important for example my book that I wrote I don't know where it went if you don't read the prologue if you don't read the prologue of that book you're not going to get a lot of it you're not going to get a lot of it you have to read the prologue it explains the rest in the same way John chapter 1 verse 1 through verse 18 is the prologue of John's Gospel what does it say it says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God in the beginning there was the word and the Word was with God so you have this thing that is the word it was with God and it was God already you're having to set up for the Trinity in John chapter 1 verse 1 and then it says nothing was made in this world apart from that word that means the word is in a sense of the creator John's telling you right off the bat no matter what you read in John's Gospel the word should be understood to be the creator of this universe was created through him and then it says in verse 14 the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory he makes it clear this word is Jesus and in verse 18 if you have a good translation of the Bible verse 18 makes it clear that this word is the only begotten God that's how you're supposed to read the rest of John's Gospel so any any verse we take should be read in that light any verse we take should be read in that light I forgot the rest of your question that was John 5 verse 30 which was why is Jesus saying that I can of my own self do nothing when he's actually got himself exactly great question the argument here is that the the Jews are saying that you have a demon that you are not you are not working with God you're working against God Jesus response is here look if I can of my own will do nothing except through the will of the father in other words he doesn't have a separate will from the father insofar as what he wants to see accomplished what he wants to see done that's not he's not standing against his father's will so the point he's trying to make is no I'm not the devil I'm not anti God I proclaim God I do his works I do these healings I'm not against him I'm with him that's the point he's making and we can read further into that and say oh he's not God but if you do that you're ignoring the context you have to let the context speak and where the context is clearest that's where exegesis should be the strongest Thanks thank you very much that is gonna be all the time we have sorry me too um any fun like your outfit though any final words dr. Qureshi um if I if I have offended anyone tonight if I have upset anyone or if I have said anything incorrect it wasn't my intention I have come to do with the absolute best I could represent the truth if you feel I have offended you I wouldn't mind hearing about it if you feel I've said something incorrect I wouldn't mind hearing in fact I would love to hear if I said something incorrect please correct me so that I can speak more accurately in the future I pray that God would bless you all with a true abundant joy that comes from him in him alone and that you would know him to the full thank you so much so thank you all for coming here tonight and dr. crusher will be around for a bit please don't mob him you know form an orderly line if you'd like to go talk to him but so for us we have a few more events going on this semester we have this semester we've had speakers every other week so two weeks from now we have dr. Brandon Dixon who's a professor here at Georgia Georgia Tech talking about the christian's relationship to God in science and that's gonna be down in the Student Center Theatre two weeks from now and then the weeks the week in between then and then and after that we'll have student discussions the best way to keep updated on what we do here is a club is to be on our email list there will be clipboards out on that table out in the front if you'd like to be on our email list and then also our Facebook page rest or Christie at Georgia Tech is kept very diligently updated with what we all have going on

Channel: RZIM HQ

Views: 369,971

Rating: 4.740788 out of 5

Keywords: islam, christ, jesus christ, Christianity (Religion), RZIM, Nabeel, Nabeel Qureshi, Qureshi, book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, Georgia Institute Of Technology (College/University), Atlanta, Allah (Deity)

Id: HaYR4G7oRiw

Length: 107min 25sec (6445 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2013