Why are we Muslims and not Christians? - Dr. Laurence Brown

why Muslims are Muslims and not Christians regarding the Bible the Muslim believes that the truth of God is to be found in the Bible but doesn't mean that everything in the Bible is the truth of God we do find in the Bible the teaching that God is one the teaching of the prophets the teaching of the law but we find a great deal as well which appears to be written by the hand of man the next of our speakers will be dr. Lawrence Brown from the USA addressing us on the topic of why are Muslims Muslims and not Christians a brief background of the speaker dr. Lawrence Brown is a graduate from two Ivy League universities with subspecialty training in ophthalmology dr. Brown served as a respected ophthalmologist in the US Air Force for a period of eight years his term of service was distinguished by earning the position of chief of ophthalmology both at lackin Heath Air Force Base in England and Eglin Air Force Base in Florida Lawrence Brown received his BA from Cornell University his MD from Brown University Medical School and his ophthalmology residency training at George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC he now lives in the holy city of Medina Saudi Arabia where he continues his work as a medical director and sub specialists in cornea cataracts glaucoma and refractive surgery and also writes for a pastime so I invite to the podium to address us on the topic of why are Muslims Muslims and not Christians dr. Lawrence Brown from the USA USA this melaka Duffman Adhemar salat wa salam ala rasulillah my bad Salam alaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh the talk that i am going to give today about why Muslims are Muslims and not Christians is relevant because as the director of interfaith affairs for the Canadian dollar Association I attend to interfaith conferences where this question often comes up it comes up because whenever you have a group of people of different religions together there is always one unanswered question that sort of hovers in the air it's a question that everybody wants to ask but nobody ever does and as a result it never gets answered and the question that people want to ask is they want to ask why aren't you meeting the audience the same as me in reference to their religion now we find this in our personal lives as well we are frequently speaking with others of different religions and it's common for the Christian to run wonder why this person that they are talking with is not Christian in the same way that we as Muslims wonder why is this person not a Muslim in explaining why we as Muslims have chosen Islam as our religion we accomplish a number of things number one we defend our own faith number two we inform others about our choice which is valuable because it informs them not only about why we are Muslim it informs them about why they should be Muslim so let me begin by just mentioning that everything that I say today can be found on my websites and in my books my websites are level truth calm and eighth scroll calm so any information that I give there's no need to take notes it can be found there again that's eight scroll spelled exactly as it sounds e aí g h th scroll SC AR o ll calm the second website is level truth calm le ve l TR u th calm so to begin with when we are asked why are we Muslim why are you not Christian or any other religion the simple straightforward answer is simply that as Muslims we believe in God is one God and Muhammad peace be upon him as his final prophet however to answer the question in depth to the Christian audience we have to point out that the Muslim perspective on the Bible and on Jesus Christ and on Christian doctrine is important and unique in its understanding regarding the Bible the Muslim believes that the truth of God is to be found in the Bible but that doesn't mean that everything in the Bible is the truth of God we do find in the Bible the teaching that God is one the teaching of the prophets the teaching of the law but we find a great deal as well which appears to be written by the hand of man so how do we address this issue to begin with we point out that the Bible is not the gospel of Jesus Christ where is the gospel of Jesus Christ nobody knows it does not exist as far as anybody knows the Bible is a collection of writings that are translated from ancient manuscripts in fact at this time as of last counting we have approximately 5700 manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament 5,700 now if you have 5,700 manuscripts of the same document you would expect that among that group of literature some of them would agree the fact of the matter is out of 5,700 manuscripts no two manuscripts agree in all of their particular x' so what this means is that although we have 5,700 manuscripts they are all different in small or big ways from one another there are no two that agree with one another in every particular now the most ancient manuscripts the codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus date from the fourth century so in addition to the fact that we have this huge volume of manuscripts which do not agree with one another in all details in addition to that the oldest and most reliable Tech's are over 300 years older than the time of the mission of Jesus Christ they were scribed they were written over 300 years after the time of the mission of Jesus Christ what can happen in 300 years a lot we find that in these manuscripts errors were introduced in the form of additions deletions substitutions modifications most commonly just in letters and words but frequently in entire verses according to Metzger one of the greatest scholars of textual critisism quote numerous changes and accretions came into the text with the result that quote all known witnesses of the New Testament are to a greater or lesser extent mixed texts and even several of the earliest manuscripts are not free from egregious errors huge errors the interpreters Bible of the dictionary states quote it is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscript tradition is wholly uniform J anak Powell another biblical scholar regarding the book of Matthew quote at the cost of sometimes severe disruption wherever they appear passages about John the Baptist have been inserted according to Powell quote it is in fact possible that all the long discourses put into the mouth of Jesus are artificially introduced end quote this would of course include the great sermon the missionary charge every long passage attributed to Jesus Christ now in misquoting Jesus bar the ermine stated that the specific passages of the woman taken in adultery the last twelve verses of mark were added by later scribes furthermore these examples quote represents just two out of how many tens out of hundreds no these examples quote represent just two out of thousands of places in which the manuscripts of the New Testament came to be changed by scribes in fact entire books of the Bible were forged which books were forged officiants Colossians 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2 Timothy Titus 1 and 2 Peter and Jude count them that is 9 out of 27 that is a full one-third of the books of the New Testament that are now judged by biblical scholars by Muslim biblical scholars know by Christian biblical scholars to be forged now we have to admit that being forged doesn't mean that it's wrong but I'll tell you what it sure doesn't mean that it's right and it most certainly does not mean that it's from God as Ehrman tells us quote most scholars today have abandoned the identifications of Matthew Mark Luke and John why is this we have just discussed the fact that 9 out of 27 books in the New Testament are judged by Christian scholars as being forged so which books in the Bible can we rely upon if any if we speak to the Christian scholars on this point we will get different answers if we speak to Christian laity they will say well of course the Gospels the Gospels according to Matthew Mark Luke and John all Christians depend upon the Gospels more than any other writings in the Bible unfortunately all four of the Gospels are anonymous the authorship is anonymous modern Christian scholarship tells us that we do not know who wrote these Gospels they were not signed they were not attribute into any particular author hence the comment by scholars such as Barr Dearman quote most scholars today have abandoned these identifications hadn't recognized that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek speaking and writing Christians during the second half of the first century Robert Funke the head of the Jesus Seminar a seminar of 300 leading Christian scholars not a soul scholar quote the Gospels unlike most greco-roman writings are anonymous the familiar headings which give the name of an author the Gospel according to were not part of the original manuscripts for they were added only early in the second century added by whom by unknown figures in their early church in most cases the names are guesses or perhaps the result of pious wishes my words no his words again I'm going to read the passage who added the names quote by known figures in the early church in most cases the names are guesses or perhaps the result of pious wishes according to ermine quote Moses did not write the Pentateuch the first five books of the Old Testament and Matthew Mark Luke and John did not write the Gospels furthermore quote of the 27 books of the New Testament only eight almost certainly go back to the author whose name they bear the seven undisputed letters of Paul and the revelation of John although we don't know which John this was so only Matthew and John in the first case were disciples anyway if we look at our Bibles we find that the verses of Luke 6 14 through 16 and Matthew 10 2 through 4 enumerate the lists of the disciples Luke and Mark do not make the lists so even if the Gospels were written by those upon whose name they are labeled Luke and Mark were not true disciples there is good reason to believe that John did not write John and Matthew did not write Matthew even though they were disciples what are those good reasons well one of the good reasons is that it is recorded in Christian sources that John the disciple died on or around 98 C II however the gospel was written in 110 this is not according to Muslim scholars this is cording to Christian scholars acts 4:13 tells us that John and Peter were quote unlettered illiterate how can you write a gospel if you are unlettered to this end Graham Stanton poses a compelling question quote was the eventual decision to accept Matthew Mark Luke and John correct today it is generally agreed that neither Matthew nor John was written by an apostle and Mark and Luke may not have been Associates of the Apostles professor Bharti Erman is even more direct quote critical scholars are fairly United today in thinking that Matthew did not write the first gospel or John the fourth that Peter did not write to Peter and possibly not 1 Peter no other book of the New Testament no other book of the New Testament claims to be written by one of Jesus's earthly disciples there are books by the apostle of Paul of course 13 go by his name in the New Testament at least seven of which are accepted by nearly all scholars as authentic read between the lines he is saying 13 of Paul's books out of those 13 seven are accepted as authentic what does that say about the other six it is saying that the other six are not accepted as authentic 6 out of 13 basically have regarding copying errors we have to expect that most were unintentional many were inconsequential but all the same Barty Ehrman tells us that many others were not only deliberate but they were significant in fact they were doctrinally motivated and this is the scriptural alteration that we care about because if we find that the Scriptures have been altered according to doctrinal motivation we have to understand that this is the judgment of a human being not the strict faithful recording of revelation from God let's look at some examples if we look at those verses which appear not only to be altered but in fact transformed look first at acts 8:37 does anybody know what acts 8:37 says as anybody ever read acts 8:37 in the bible i will answer for you no nobody knows and with relative certainty I can say nobody here has read it why because it's empty any Bible you pick up you will find that it lists 837 in its numbers it goes 836 837 838 but 837 is left blank why because it is so well recognized among scholars that acts 8:37 was an insertion that they do not even translate it similarly acts 15 34 is enumerated but because it is unquestionably inserted by copyists the judgment of bruce metzger it is not translated in any of the modern faithful bibles are these two lone examples no Matthew 17:21 1811 Mark 716 944 946 11 26 part Luke 956 1736 23:17 don't copy all of this down it's all in my notes you will find it on my websites but the fact is whether you are looking at the First Epistle of John whether you are looking at John 5:1 Romans 16:20 for you will find that these verses are enumerated and all or part of them are not translated why because modern Christian scholarship has recognized that they are undeniably insertions by a copyist and if we recognize that those verses are insertions how can we trust any others now despite all the evidence to the contrary many Christians will still say well but the Bible is the Word of God you can present all of the evidence that I have presented and you will still find some Christians who have been raised upon the thought to believe that the Bible is the Word of God and they cannot let go of the concepts that they have been indoctrinated to believe is there any hard and fast undeniable proof that the Bible is not holy the Word of God yes there is and it comes from the Bible itself is there any hard and fast undeniable proof that the Bible is not holy the Word of God yes there is and it comes from the Bible itself if we read 1 Corinthians 7 12 we read that Paul stated but to the rest I not the Lord say well what's that here is one of the authors of what roughly half the Bible 13 out of the 27 books half of the Bible are attributed to Paul and what was Paul saying in this passage but to the rest I not the Lord stay so if somebody conceives the Bible to be the Word of God from front cover to back at least we know this passage is not from God because the Bible author himself says it's not from God does that verse stand by itself no 1 Corinthians 1:16 Paul is recorded as having baptized a number he lists them and then says quote besides I do not know whether i baptized any other besides I do not know whether i baptized any other would God talk like this 1 Corinthians 7:25 Paul was recorded as having stated now concerning virgins I have no commandment from the Lord yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy as may trustworthy I suppose therefore that this is good well he supposes that this is good he admits that I give judgment from himself why because quote I have no commandment from the Lord if everybody approached religion from that point of view doing what they supposes is good and giving Commandments or giving judgment without it dictated to them by Almighty God what is that if not corruption of the scripture 2 Corinthians 11 17 just makes it sound even worse quote what I speak I speak not according to the Lord but as it were foolishly I have just quoted a number of in which it is clear that this is not the Word of God because the author states that it is not the Word of God so whereas we find Paul and others writing because they supposed it to be good we have to understand that this is not the standard we expect of Scripture in Luke 1 3 we find the author beginning the gospel whoever the author was with the words that he assumed quote perfect understanding of all things a very bold assumption for any human being to make he wrote the gospel why because quote it seemed good to me how many people would like to write a gospel because quote it seems good to them and yet is this a reliable way of testifying to the truth of God when we are writing from our hearts and not from a real revealed revelation if we place the Gospels side-by-side and compare them word for word as I told you in the foundational manuscripts notice I am careful with my words Christians are fond of saying in the original Greek in the original Greek what does that sound like it sounds like you are saying well these were the words of Jesus Christ in Greek and that's what we translate from there is a problem the problem is that the manuscripts were written in Koine Greek and ancient Hebrew Jesus Christ did not speak Greek by agreement of all of the reputable scholars of this time Christian scholars Jesus Christ did not speak Greek who ever wrote the Gospels wrote them in the translation into Greek and all of us know that when you translate something the meaning is to one degree or another lost but let's not even bother to look at it up in the Greek let's look at it in the translation take a Bible lineup the four Gospels and compare them from the story of the alleged crucifixion on down we find that the last words of Jesus Christ in one gospel are it is finished in an author gospel it is into your hands I commend my spirit you can't have it both ways you can have this as being the last word or this is being the last word but if you said this and then this then this is no longer the last word and yet one gospel said the last words were it is finished another gospel says the last words were into your hands I commend my spirit after the alleged crucifixion was there an earthquake according to Matthew yes according to the other three Gospels no mention did an angel descend according to Matthew yes according to the other three Gospels no mention who rolled back the stone according to Matthew the angel who descended according to the other three Gospels not mention everybody here knows that if you are a serious historian you don't miss the big events we are talking about an earthquake and an angel descending in the Judean Desert where not a whole lot is going on it's not as though people would have a great deal on their mind to distract them to what is happening and yet three Gospels do not mention an earthquake or an angel or an angel rolling back the stone that's pretty hard to believe you have to come to the conclusion that is three Gospels voting against one that it didn't happen but in any case the inconsistency is obvious who is at the tomb according to Matthew an angel mark a young man Luke two men John two angels where were they Matthew the angel was sitting on the stone outside the tomb mark the young man was in the tomb sitting on the right side Luke the two men were inside the tomb standing beside them John the two angels were sitting one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain there is no agreement on whether they were men or angels one or two inside or outside the tomb and if inside the tomb where so the Muslim has good reason to question the validity of the Bible as Scripture and this is the point that we come to when we ask ourselves what does it mean to be Christian and when we ask our Christian friends what does it mean to you to be Christian the common reply is that it means to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and yet here is the paradox if you ask the Muslim do you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ the Muslim will give the same answer but Muslim will say yes we believe that we follow the teachings of Christ as a matter of fact we believe that we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ even better than those who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ even better than the Christians why because there is a disconnect despite everything that I have said about questioning the validity of the Bible Christianity has adopted a doctrine which is more strictly adherent to the teachings of Jesus no to the teachings of Paul it gives priority to Paul over Jesus let me give you examples Jesus Christ taught old estimate law that is why he is considered rabbi Jesus he lived and professed and bade his followers to follow Old Testament law Paul canceled it Paul negated the Old Testament law with the concept of justification by faith Jesus spoke of direct accountability and told his followers to pray directly to God Paul set Jesus up as an intercessor Jesus described himself as an ethnic prophet not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Paul described Jesus as a universal prophet Jesus identified himself as a son of man 88 times in the Bible he called himself the son of man nowhere did he call himself the Son of God in a literal sense or in a begotten not made sense but you guessed it Paul and the Pauline theologians set Jesus up as the son of God Jesus taught divine unity three places in the Bible he said no o Israel the Lord thy God the Lord is one and he proclaimed it the greatest commandment taken of course from the first commandment of the Old Testament Pauline theologians constructed the Trinity Prize in that case that we find that among many of the early Christians Paul's authority was called into question in the Bible we find Paul at odds with Peter Barnabas and James we find Herman stating the following with regard to early Christian sex quote in particular they considered Paul one of the most prominent authors of our New Testament to be an arch heretic rather than an apostle Leeman contributes what Paul proclaimed as Christianity was sheer heresy which could not be based on the Jewish or Essene faith or on the teaching of Rob Jesus Joel Carmichael we are a universe away from Jesus if Jesus came only to fulfill the law and the prophets if he thought that not an iota not a dot would pass from the law that the cardinal commandment was here o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and that no one was good but God what would he have thought of Paul's handiwork well Johannes Weiss quote hence the faith in Christ as held by the primitive churches and by Paul was something new in comparison with the preaching of Jesus it was a new type of religion where did the teachings of Jesus Christ go where did his teachings of one God of direct accountability to God without intercessors of himself Jesus Christ as a man and a prophet of the Old Testament laws of being bound by the law rather than being bound by faith where did all of this go and where do you find these beliefs preserved to this day for the most part you do not find them preserved at least not in Trinitarian Christianity but you do find them preserved in Islam which is why Muslims lay claim to following the teachings of Jesus Christ and not the teachings of Paul Islam honors Jesus as a prophet and as a man adheres to the strict monotheism that he conveyed adheres to the concept of direct accountability to God denies intermediaries between man God all in accordance with Jesus Christ biblical teachings now remembering this huge difference between the teachings of Jesus Christ and the teachings of Paul we can still go back and address the specific evidences that Christians hold up to their various beliefs we don't have time to address all of them but I will take some examples the Trinity if you ask any Christian his evidence for the Trinity the verse that is most commonly quoted it is what is called the johanan comma it is the First Epistle of John chapter 5 verses 7 through 8 in which it is recorded that the father the word and the holy spirit are as one one problem the verse does not exist not in Scripture the johanan comma has been recognized by modern biblical scholarship as having been a scribal insertion in the words of the interpreters Bible quote this verse in the King James Version is to be rejected it appears in no ancient Greek manuscript nor is it cited by any Greek father those are very strong words it is to be rejected according to the Scofield reference Bible quote it is generally agreed that this verse has no manuscript authority and has been inserted professors Kurt and Barbara Allen quoting a passage a glance of the data in the critical apparatus of Nestle a land which is exhaustive for this passage should make any further comment unnecessary to demonstrate the secondary nature of this and the impossibility of its being at all related to the original form of the text of one John professor Metzger quote that these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in another work he adds quote modern Roman Catholic scholars however recognize recognize that the words do not belong in the Greek Testament the words of a Muslim all of the quotes that I just quoted are from some of the highest Christian scholars the highest biblical textual critics alive in the previous century quote the memorable text which asserts the unity of the three who bear witness in heaven is condemned by the universal silence of the Orthodox fathers ancient versions and authentic manuscripts well let me ask a question this is the verse that Christians hold up as the greatest evidence for the Trinity if modern biblical scholarship recognizes this verse as being an illegitimate insertion not an element of Scripture to be rejected why do we still find this verse in our Bibles the answer we don't we have to remember that modern biblical scholars are sincere in many cases and they are honest in many cases and for this reason we find that this verse has been removed or altered to reflect the true meaning and who has altered it or removed it from their Bibles the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version the New International Version the new American Standard Bible the good news Bible the new English Bible the Jerusalem Bible Darby's new translation and the list goes on so I think it should be obvious by this point that the Bible does not exist in the authenticity of the original revelation it has been corrupted by emissions insertions alterations in some cases entire verses and in some cases entire books have been forged does it not then make a godly sense that our Creator would not leave us with an uncertain or with a corrupted book of guidance does it not make sense that our Creator would send us a final prophet with a clarifying revelation a revelation that will stand as a criterion by which we can measure previous revelations and know what part is from God and what part is from man well according to the Old Testament there were three predicted prophets to follow or I shouldn't say predicted but foretold we find evidence of this not only in the Old Testament if you go and ask any Jewish scholar they will confirm the fact and they will say yes we expect three prophets to follow the book of Malachi refers to one which we identify as John the Baptist there are many references in the Old Testament to a prophet we recognize as Jesus Christ but there are also many references in the Old Testament that did not fit the description of either John the Baptist or Jesus Christ are any of these three prophets foretold by name no none of them they are foretold by descriptors which give us a picture of the person which allows us to fit the description with the man with the Prophet so let's take it to the New Testament in the New Testament we find that the Jews sent their Levites and their priests to question John the Baptist as to who he was and in this passage we find mention of the three prophets they expected because they asked John the Baptist who are you and they asked him are you the Christ and he denies are you Elijah and he denies are you the Prophet and he denies one two three one time was not enough they want clarification so they asked him again if you are not the Christ and you are not Elijah and you are not the Prophet who are you one two three if we take it upon faith that John the Baptist was in fact alight and we have good reason to believe that because in one passage in the New Testament Jesus Christ identifies John the Baptist as Elijah in Matthew 17 11 so if we take it on faith that John the Baptist was the first of the three foretold prophets Jesus Christ was the second of the three foretold prophets we end up with an Old Testament prediction of three foretold prophets minus two equals one one expected foretold prophet who might that foretold prophet be and why do we not find Jesus Christ speaking of the foretold prophet in fact we do let me ask a question this is the verse that Christians hold up as the greatest evidence for the Trinity if modern biblical scholarship recognizes this verse as being an illegitimate insertion not an element of scripture to be rejected why do we still find this verse in our Bibles the answer we don't we have to remember that modern biblical scholars are sincere in many cases and they are honest in many cases and for this reason we find that this verse has been removed or altered to reflect the true meaning and who has altered it or removed it from their Bibles the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version the New International Version the new American Standard Bible the good news Bible the new English Bible the Jerusalem Bible Darby's new translation and the list goes on so I think it should be obvious by this point that the Bible does not exist in the authenticity of the original revelation it has been corrupted by emissions insertions alterations in some cases entire verses and in some cases entire books have been forged does it not then make a godly sense that our Creator would not leave us with an uncertain or with a corrupted book of guidance does it not make sense that our Creator would send us a final prophet with a clarifying revelation a revelation that will stand as a criterion by which we can measure previous revelations and know what part is from God and what part is from man well according to the Old Testament there were three predicted prophets to follow or I shouldn't say predicted but foretold we find evidence of this not only in the Old Testament if you go and ask any Jewish scholar they will confirm the fact and they will say yes we expect three prophets to follow the book of Malachi refers to one which we identify as John the Baptist there are many references in the Old Testament to a prophet we recognize as Jesus Christ but there are also many references in the Old Testament that did not fit the description of either John the Baptist or Jesus Christ are any of these three prophets foretold by name no none of them they are foretold by descriptors which give us a picture of the person which allows us to fit the description with the man with the prophet so let's take it to the New Testament in the New Testament we find that the Jews sent their Levites and their priests to question John the Baptist as to who he was and in this passage we find mention of the three prophets they expected because they asked John the Baptist who are you and they asked him are you the Christ and he denies are you alight and he denies are you the prophet and he denies one two three one time was not enough they want clarification so they asked him again if you are not the Christ and you are not Elijah and you are not the Prophet who are you one two three if we take it upon faith that John the Baptist was in fact Elijah and we have good reason to believe that because in one passage in the New Testament Jesus Christ identifies John the Baptist as Elijah in Matthew 17 11 so if we take it on faith that John the Baptist was the first of the three foretold prophets Jesus Christ was the second of the three foretold prophets we end up with an Old Testament prediction of three foretold prophets minus two equals one one expected foretold prophet who might that foretold prophet be and why do we not find Jesus Christ speaking of the foretold prophet in fact we do in the First Epistle of John 2:1 Jesus Christ is identified as an advocate in speaking of in relation to their father we have an advocate Jesus Christ the righteous now what is the word that is translated to advocate it is Parakletos Parakletos has mentioned five times in the New Testament only five times and interestingly only in the book and Epistle of John all of the other three Gospels failed to mention it all of the other epistles all the other books of the New Testament do not mention it only in the book according to John only in the Epistle of John do we find this word Parakletos that alone is unusual however the point is that Jesus Christ is identified as a Parakletos in the First Epistle of John 2:1 we then read in the Gospel of John 14:16 Jesus describing how it is good that he goes away because basically summarized following his mission would come a loose Parakletos now I'm quoting from the Greek not the translation in the translation you will find Paraclete translated two different things in different Bibles in the same way that you will find numa that is translated to Holy Spirit you will find Parakletos according to some versions translated to Holy Spirit and others Holy Ghost in others comfort her defender advocate helper it has many translations it doesn't matter why doesn't it matter because it's not the translation that's important what's important is the original and the original in the First Epistle of John defines Jesus Christ as a Paraclete or in the Greek Parakletos and then in John 14:16 we find Jesus Christ speaking of following his mission the sending of aloes Parakletos another Paraclete another of whatever Jesus Christ was Jesus Christ was a Parakletos he is telling of the coming of Alice Parakletos does the analysis end there no in the Greek there are two words for another one is heteros one is aloes heteros means another where there are two that is not the word that was chosen for this passage the word that was chosen for this passage was Alice which means another where there are many where there are many now doesn't this begin to sound more consistent with the concept of a final predicted profit in the long chain of profits and that is what we conclude that we have three prophets predicted in the Old Testament the prediction fulfilled in the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ the prediction affirmed by Jesus Christ when he speaks of it another prophet to follow him Alice Parakletos and a prediction fulfilled in the third and final prophet sent with the revelation to all mankind to serve as a criteria by which we can our lives and our conduct and our religion in the hope of achieving salvation and that final prophet according to Muslims is of course Muhammad peace be upon him the book of Revelation the Holy Quran now what I have discussed today is a very important subject I also have to tell you that what I have said believe it or not is just the tip of the iceberg I have books on the subject those who want to read in detail or in greater detail than what I have described please go to my websites you will find the articles you will find the unpublished chapters you will find the books and inshallah you will find the answers to your questions websites again are WWll truth calm and eighth scroll calm level truth and each scroll calm however I want to point out that the true objective in trying to guide somebody to consider the truth of Islam as the final revelation is not to get them to read our website our articles or our books but to read the book of Revelation to read al lawz revelation the holy quran and after that to learn about the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam by learning a serie of history and on that I conclude my talk thank you very much you've been a very wonderful audience so we now open the floor to questions which is echolocator doctor Lawrence Brown we will now have the first question from the front mind salaam alaikum brother well it's a story I forgot jazakallah hired for your presentation and this question is from my non-muslim friend who is present over here ok the question goes like this how can we explain Islam to those Christian sects which do not believe Jesus ELISA Lam to be God or the Son of God nor do they follow the common Bible but their own scripture ex-jehovah's witnesses what was the last thing you said that's our X Jehovah's Witnesses yeah well you know actually the question you ask is really a very beautiful question because you have to understand that most of my talk was geared to the majority of Christianity which is Trinitarian Christianity now this is what I am most familiar with in the West the vast majority of churches are Trinitarian churches okay however there have always existed a sect of Unitarian Christians and in addition there are the eastern versions of Christianity which were more faithful to the texts in many respects for example some Eastern versions of Christianity deny the concept of original sin and there are some sects of Christianity which are more faithful to the specific teachings of Jesus Christ and namely the ones that I mentioned belief in God is one God and the belief in Jesus as a man as a prophet and for this reason we find many people who are either adherents of these Unitarian sects or as in the case of this man have left an established church because that church did not satisfy their Unitarian beliefs they believed in God is one God they believed in Jesus as a man profit but they could not reconcile those beliefs with what their church was telling them to believe so it's a fairly small step to to take these people and just counsel them that in the same way that Jesus Christ was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel what does that mean why didn't the revelation end with Moses they had the revelation why didn't it has stopped there because it was corrupted it became corrupted and it became necessary to clarify the revelation hence the lost sheep of the house of Israel they were lost why were they lost because their revelation was corrupted they did not know how to guide their lives and their religion in the hope of achieving salvation hence the need to send Jesus Christ to clarify and the need to send the revelation that he received with the loss of the gospel of Jesus with the corruption of the Gospels and the other books that were assembled to to make the Bible similarly the New Testament became corrupted in the ways that I described does it not make godly sense to then renew the revelation one more time and clarify our role as God's creation how we should live our lives to serve and worship Him and by what laws of course it makes sense hence the final prophet as predicted by the Prophet this man believes in Jesus Christ and hence the Holy Quran does that answer your question yes sir jazakallah hi oh well the next question from the system assalamu alaikum warahmatu labor Cartman I'm asking this question on the behalf of another sister the question is Muslim to know that Jesus is the Messenger of Allah and not the son of Allah but the coating of Jesus varys's oh my father how do we describe it or explain it to the Christians because it says the red mark coating are the real coating of Jesus okay you know thank you if I understand correctly you're asking how we can explain to Christians that the quotes which they assume to be direct quotes might have errors within them is that what you're asking yeah okay there's a very easy way to do that actually there's a book called the five Gospels written by Robert Funke but it is the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar the Jesus Seminar was an assembly at 300 Christian fellows who were really uh actually at the top of their field they are some of the most respected Christian scholars in the West and they assembled under this title of the Jesus Seminar their conclusions are published in this book the five Gospels and what this five Gospels shows us is how the three hundred scholars analyzed the Gospels of the Bible in addition with I believe it was the Gospel of Thomas I'm not sure what the fifth gospel was that they analyzed but it was from the Apocrypha but in any case their book is written in black ink grey and red ink and what they do is they color code the words of Jesus Christ according to whether they agreed upon Jesus Christ having actually spoken those words or not so the words that they agree that Jesus Christ spoke those words are in red the words where they think perhaps he spoke those words perhaps not our in pink the words where they think that he probably did not speak those words are in gray and the words where they agree that he definitely did not speak those words are in black and you can leave through this book and you can show this Christian or any other Christian that 300 Christians dollars have basically agreed that ninety-five percent of this book is not read very very very little of what was attributed to Jesus Christ is actually in red letters for example just as an example and this was published in Newsweek magazine a couple of decades ago but just as an example the most famous prayer in the Bible is the Lord's Prayer our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name etc etc etc it is a beautiful prayer it is actually a non-denominational prayer anybody can pray it you don't have to be Christian but there are two versions of it in the Bible and they do not agree there are differences in the wording and when the Jesus Seminar analyzed the Lord's Prayer the most famous Christian prayer their conclusion was that the only word that they could definitely attribute to Jesus Christ was the word father out of the entire prayer 300 Christian scholars are sending us the message that the most famous Christian prayer the only word that they can definitively attribute to Jesus Christ was father so you know with this evidence alone I think you can answer that objection to any Christian who wants clarification next question please assalamu alaikum my name is jackie sosamma said you have told that how can we believe in many Christian scriptures as because they were written 300 years after the death of Jesus Christ then what is the proof of hadith of Muhammad are correct because they were also written after the days of Muhammad okay for this you need a scholar of hadith methodology and that talk is actually going to be given so don't leave the discussion of hadith methodology is going to be addressed during this conference the difference in methodology between the recording of the Bible and the recording of hadith is the difference between night and day also you have to understand that you are not comparing apples with apples if you compare an apple with an apple all right that is fair if you compare an apple with an orange that is not when we are speaking of the Bible we are speaking of something that is being held up as the word of Almighty God when you are speaking of the history of traditions you are speaking of something that is recorded by men one is expected to be perfect in errant in all aspects the other is excused if there are errors because we know that it is written by man and it is not misrepresented as being written by God choose very carefully what you set your guidance upon if you want to find the truth of God you look at his revelation and then you look at what clarifies that revelation or what adds to it alright so you had the Bible which I have described but in addition to the Bible you also have Christian scholars over the years writing explanations of the Bible right well if the Bible cannot be trusted how much can you trust explanations of a book that cannot be trusted on the other hand in Islam you have the Quran the inerrant Revolution of Almighty God and you have the hadith which are recorded according to their degrees of reliability the hadith are rated according to their degrees of reliability they are not represented as being the inerrant word of god make no mistake about it next question please King Jesus the next question from the sisters a long while ago my name is my mother Cora she and I am a student of Islam my question is you talked today was based on a great deal of research is there any book we can use to are refer to that briefly explains the compilation of the Bible which we can use for Dawa with the Christians you will yes and no there are books of varying degrees of accuracy and there is everything from you know short pamphlets on up to encyclopedias I would just say that if you like what you have heard today as I mentioned before go to my website find my books take the information from my books and then distill it down to as brief or as involved a presentation as you would like to make the bibliography to my books is in the hundreds I mean the number of references are extensive they are taken from everywhere from the British Library to the Library of Congress in America I literally traveled over three continents to get the reference materials to this book and you can go through it as I mentioned what I've said today is a very short tip of the iceberg mentioned compared to the two books I have written which come to 600 pages alright so just go to the website start with the articles start with the unpublished chapters and then look for the books the books I should mention you know it's very difficult to get books here from the West it's expensive for shaping but all of these books should be available as a download from amazon.com within one or two months so if you cannot find it for sale wait a couple of months you should be able to get it as a download okay okay just like a lot better welcome the next question from the front - I'm from Kolkata we heard your nice lip chat but Allah Arabic Allah says in quran i want to be la he mama liked it he no kotoba he wore a silly but you says that they are in bible 5700 manuscript so we bleep or god one angels i'm works and ethics so we I want that Bible well you have to understand the Islamic understanding of what you quoted that in the Creed of the Muslim we believe in the books all right but what are the books the books refer to the books of Revelation so yes we believe that the sheets came to Abraham we believe that the Torah was revealed to Moses we believe that the injeel was revealed to jesus christ but show me where they are they don't exist anymore in the purity of the original we have the Psalms of David we have the Torah of the Old Testament we have the Gospels of the New Testament but we also have the evidence to show that those books are corrupted just because the Jews hold up the book and say this is the Torah you have to believe in it because as a Muslim your religion tells you to believe in the books no we believe in Tora as it was revealed in the original where is that original nobody knows we believe in the injeel as it was revealed in the original where is that injeel nobody knows ok what I did say however is that we do believe that the Word of God can be found in the New Testament it doesn't mean that all of the New Testament is the Word of God no but we can find the Word of God I mean if you read the New Testament and you find Jesus Christ in three places saying no Oh Israel the Lord thy God the Lord is one how can any Muslim disagree with that when Jesus Christ called himself a man 88 times the son of man how can any Muslim disagree with that when he called himself a prophet how can any Muslim disagree with that when he said there is none good but the father how can any Muslim disagree with that so we find passages that represent the truth of God whether they were said and those specific words were not we know that those words are true how do we know that they are true because we have a criteria we have a criteria by which to measure all other books of Revelation and that criteria is the Holy Quran the passages in the Bible that agree with Allah's final revelation those we can validate the passages in the Bible that do not agree with Allah's final revelation we know that those passages are invalid so I hope I've answered your question the sisters please let go thank you dr. Brown for a royal research talk today my question is that as the source books of the Christian faith are so unreliable what is it that attracts so many people to the Christian faith even today well that's a very good question but I think most of you know the answer religion is for many people a tradition religion for many people is a family heirloom it is passed on down through the ages it is very difficult for people to break away from their traditions from their culture from the standards that are set within their families and within their societies we are however seeing that there is a movement we are seeing people like me who have left the fold of what they followed previously by the grace of Allah and come to Islam we see people converting to Islam and we see a flow that is for the most part you need directional we know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in America we know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and we do not see a mass movement of Muslims converting in the opposite direction towards Christianity towards Judaism oh sure there are there are rare cases and you have to question the sincerity of those people but the vast majority of conversions between religions are in the direction you know when we're measuring Christianity versus Islam is the movement from Christianity to Islam you know the other thing I would mention is that the far more common conversion is for Christians to convert from Christianity to nothing and I think this in a way is very understandable because as with the very first question today which was posed on behalf of a brother you know who had left Christianity and at present if I understand correctly it does not follow any particular religion in a similar way there are many people who are raised upon Christianity who have come to recognize the weakness of the foundation the inconsistency in its teachings and the fact that the Creed of Christianity does not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ who have left their churches because they cannot adhere to a faith they do not believe in and they have not yet found the faith that they can believe in the hope for those people of course is that someday they will examine the Islamic religion and find their answers there okay thank you dr. Brown for a very well-researched thought today my question is that as the source books of the Christian faith are so unreliable what is it that attracts so many people to the Christian faith even today well that's a very good question but I think most of you know the answer religion is for many people a tradition religion for many people is a family heirloom it is passed on down through the ages it is very difficult for people to break away from their traditions from their culture from the standards that are set within their families and within their societies we are however seeing that there is a movement we are seeing people like me who have left the fold of what they followed previously by the grace of Allah and come to Islam we see people converting to Islam and we see a flow that is for the most part you need errection 'el we know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in America we know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and we do not see a mass movement of Muslims converting in the opposite direction towards Christianity towards Judaism oh sure there are there are rare cases and you have to question the sincerity of those people but the vast majority of conversions between religions are in the direction you know when we're measuring Christianity versus Islam is the movement from Christianity to Islam you know the other thing I would mention is that the far more common conversion is for Christians to convert from Christianity to nothing and I think this in a way is very understandable because as with the very first question today which was posed on behalf of a brother you know who had left Christianity and a present if I understand correctly it does not follow any particular religion in a similar way there are many people who are raised upon Christianity who have come to recognize the weakness of the foundation the inconsistency in its teachings and the fact that the Creed of Christianity does not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ who have left their churches because they cannot adhere to a faith they do not believe in and they have not yet found the faith that they can believe in the hope for those people of course is that someday they will examine the Islamic religion and find their answers there but in countries like India there's still mass conversion to Christianity could that be attributed to the missionary work you know I think it men can be attributed to many things and again this is addressed in one of my books in any impoverished country you find this whether it is India whether it is in Africa whether it is in the Far East there are many people who are raised really not knowing their religion and you have to admit that there is a great ignorant about Islam even Muslims so there are many people who are raised within their religion if you ask them what they are they will say Muslim and if you ask them what that means they will not be able to tell you even the fundamentals of the faith all right and in impoverished countries is a very easy trick to tempt people away from their religion with the offer of the benefits to be gained there by their worldly benefits I mean we know that food is sometimes held out as you know a temptation money you know business etc so it's very common to find people who are ignorant of their religion converting because they largely do not know what they are leaving and in many cases they do not even know what they are going to but they are doing it out of convenience and because of the desperation of their circumstances and another reason is because many of these converts from Islam are not just ignorant from their religion but they are raised within a deviant sect of Islam and they grow up even if they know the religion they are being raised upon what they know is a deviant version of Islam which they cannot accept for the same reason that true Muslims could not accept that deviant version of Islam and so when they leave it it's no surprise that they leave it they should leave it but they should leave it for the truth thank you the next question from the front mike assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh Mike traceur I forgot my name is Tala I am a networking faculty at Nagpur I tried to do jihad to present Islam to the non-muslims during my effort I am at a 80 year old Christian lady who happens to be a principal of convent school she greeted me she said good morning I said Jesus did not say good morning I said are in Luke chapter number 24 verse number 36 jesus said peace be to you when next time I met she greeted me like dead she said is beyond to you but my daring increased so I asked what is this head cover is that relate to your Christianity Bible or this is your dress code for his school she said it is not even Bible when I showed her one Quarantine 11 verses 4 to 7 she agreed but she said dead for Christians it is not must abide by the words of the Bible they can be doing different what's written in Bible my question is is it not duty of every Christian to go by the words of the Bible uh first of all when you said that you make jihad meaning to make Dawa I just suggest that you do not use that word jihad it's an inflammatory word and the word Dawa is really much more gentle what we are doing as Muslims is making an invitation we cannot force religion upon anybody we can invite them to our house for tea that's an invitation that's a nice thing people will welcome that we can invite them to our religion and in the same way they may want it they may not but you know it puts the offer upon them the second of all you know Jews are clearing for you know all that you're doing in the points that you made I think that they are all very good points yes it's true in the Bible Jesus Christ has recorded because having taught his disciples to offer the greeting of peace there are then four other passages where he sets the example by actually meeting his disciples and saying you know peace so that is their example and many Christians are struck by the fact that when you correct them as you did and when they learn that this is part of their faith and that this is also the meaning of a Salam aleykum you are bringing them one step closer to understanding that there is a continuity in the chain of revelation and that the teachings of the Prophet have been consistent through time same thing with the headscarf same thing with many other matters that we do not have time to discuss here but this is a very nice approach that you have with regard to how do you convince the Christian that they should be following the Bible to the letter you know a lot of religion is state of the heart as well as state of the mind the reason why many Jews do not follow the Old Testament to the letter the reason why many Christians do not follow the Bible to the letter is because they can't they just simply can't they find the teachings to be restrictive inconvenient inoperable they cannot apply them to their lives or in some cases there are no answers to their questions the Christian world has been arguing over the state of law for as long as Christianity has been uncertainty for 2,000 years they cannot agree on the application of capital punishment they cannot agree on the appropriate sentencing for criminals of different crimes and so on and so forth they cannot agree on a justice system a political construct an economic construct etc etc why because in their view the Scriptures are uncertain okay the Scriptures do not provide definitive guidance so in the same way that you find entire Christian cultures unable to adopt a construct that they can live by as a culture you find many Christian adherents unable to find a cohesive message in the Bible that they can live by and this is another way of suggesting to a person you know if you cannot live by that don't you feel that there's something wrong don't you think that God would give us a revelation that a person should be able to live by a revelation that tells us everything we need to know but that is workable and that you can observe all of God's laws and by that pathway in Paradise thank you very much assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh and for all others peace in radical alfie kohn that is all the time that we do have so again a big thank you to dr. Lawrence Brown for his tremendous talk

Channel: Digital Mimbar

Views: 150,268

Rating: 4.8408189 out of 5

Keywords: hy, Are, MUSLIMS, Muslims, and, are, not, Christians, Dr., Laurence, Brown, reverts, Islam, the, true, religion, of, God, Allah, Muhammad, (peace, be, upon, him), Jesus, peace, him, moses, Ahmad, Quran, bible, torah

Id: GAuXTTyW5f4

Length: 83min 26sec (5006 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 22 2012