WM: Muslims revere Jesus more than you. For us, his greatest miracle is, as a baby, defending his virgin mother’s honour while declaring the existence, and one-ness, of God. [Check out this link for more information.]
DV: I don't get why it (the above article) calls Him the Messiah. (And), unlike a series of Gospels, this seems to be some narrative with quotes that do not feature in the Bible. And the ending is unconvincing to me. But interesting that he is so revered.
WM: It is based on the Quran (the Word of God, [by the way], not the word of man, like the Gospels). And why is he called the messiah? Because he was for the Jews and because he will return before the Final Day. Finally, once again we revere Jesus more because we DON’T believe he was humiliatingly executed – contrary to God’s wishes in your own Bible (Old Testament).
DV: Do you mean he was the Messiah for the Jews despite their rejection of him? And I'm afraid if you take away the cross and the execution you take away much of the whole point of Christianity, as you know.
WM: Christianity forgot Jesus and his teachings and instead launched a new religion based on Paul’s teachings about original sin, the crucifixion, the resurrection – none of which Jesus talked about, even in your own man-made gospels.
DV: I think you'll find Jesus talked quite a bit about the crucifixion and the resurrection, directly and indirectly. Here is one of many examples of how that is incorrect:
“And they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them the things that were to happen unto him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him; and after three days he shall rise again.” (Mark 10:32-34)
WM: I understand your desire to focus on the crucifixion-then-resurrection myth and your obsession with it - without the crucifixion the resurrection becomes irrelevant, and without the resurrection Christianity itself is rendered meaningless, e.g. "and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain." (Corinthians 15:14)
The problem you have is that your sources are all over the place: the Gospels – as you know from your history (as well as, hilariously, from the Da Vinci Code!) – are only four out of the many Gospels that were written but later abandoned, under state or sectarian pressure. Their authors were not all Apostles nor do we know much about their sources. As for the later books of the New Testament, they are largely based on the writings and teachings of Paul, the real founder of Christianity. All of the dodgy doctrines of Christianity – the divinity and sonship of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection, original sin, etc – derive from Paul and not from Jesus (it is no wonder that Jesus never mentioned the name “Christian” or “Christianity” in his own lifetime). As Paul, a former enemy of the fledgling Christian population, himself notes: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught [it], but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:11-12)
He basically elevates himself to prophet-like levels, i.e. receiving revelation, and goes out of his way to deny that his teachings are based on things he might have learned or adopted from Peter et al.
As for Jesus, even in the distortions of the four surviving Gospels, we find the chinks of light which support the Muslim position – that God is One, that God does not beget “sons”, that Jesus was a prophet of God and not God incarnate:
- "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but One, that is God." (Mark 10:18)
- "...whosoever receives me, receives not me, but Him who sent me." (Mark 9:37) "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent." (John 17:3)
- "Now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard from God." (John 8:40)
- "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, my God and your God." (John 20:17)
DV: You claim: "All of the dodgy doctrines of Christianity – the divinity and sonship of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection, original sin, etc – derive from Paul and not from Jesus".
This is similar to your statement that: "Christianity forgot Jesus and his teachings and instead launched a new religion based on Paul’s teachings about original sin, the crucifixion, the resurrection – none of which Jesus talked about, even in your own man-made gospels."
Again I refer you to this passage from Mark 10:32-34 (see above).
So, not only did Jesus - repeatedly - describe premonitions of his own betrayal (at the Last Supper, when he declares that one of the disciples will betray him), death and resurrection, but also the whole story of Jesus in the Gospels (pieces of evidence to me, plotlines of the Da Vinci Code to you maybe), is of a pre-destined and looming fate for, yes, the son of man/God. On that latter point, you claim that even the "divinity and sonship" of Jesus is some invention of Paul, yet throughout the New Testament and Gospels there are reference to the Son of God and the Son of Man, especially from Jesus' own lips.
And I do not understand why the Quran, allegedly dictated by God, sounds to you like a firmer basis of belief and "evidence" that written testimonials by witnesses (even if a select few) – unless of course you accept that religion involves some mystique, and we can’t understand everything, nor will, or should, we on this earth.
It would be interesting to know when the Islamic narrative veers off away from that of the New Testament. We know it takes a sharp turn at the end, claiming that Jesus was not in fact crucified but went off somewhere else. So we know you would reject one of many examples of direct prayer to His Father: His questioning, on the cross, of why he appeared to have been “forsaken” by Him: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? - that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) For me this is interesting because it shows Jesus as part-human, partly unable to come to terms with or comprehend what is happening.
I know you do not accept this side of the Prophet, and it is cleanly dealt with by the fact that you reject that last – crucial - episode of his life, and see it as fictional fantasy. But where do you draw the line? What about the night before, when Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemanie, again showing his human side, sweating blood out of fear of the fate he knew awaited him? When he prayed to his Father: "My Father, if it is possible, do not let this happen. However, I want to do the things that you desire. I choose not to do the things that I desire” (Matthew 26:39)
As to your - to me offensive - claim that there are in the Gospels "chinks of light which support the Muslim position", including: “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but One, that is God” (Mark 10: 18, see above) you seem to conveniently forget that Christianity, Islam and Judaism ALL believe in One God - that is why they are called monotheistic religions.
But perhaps the most absurd - and for me blasphemous - of your claims is that "the real" founder of Christianity is Paul. In line with this, you say: "it is no wonder that Jesus never mentioned the name “Christian” or “Christianity” in his own lifetime". This is as hilarious as it is wrong. I am assuming you have worked out that "Christianity", relates to the name of the Prophet and Messiah and King and Prince of Peace himself, Jesus Christ. So it is natural that a gradually growing following (after he was near-universally rejected in his day in Jerusalem) should be, named AFTER him. It is after all only vain, earthy politicians who name their following while still in harness, like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. The founder of Christianity was Jesus himself. Paul was a later convert. So, to conclude, on the question of your Corinthians quote - "and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain" - we are in agreement, precisely because we disagree on everything else.”
WM: The problem with the Bible’s authenticity is that you do not even pretend to base it on the words of Jesus, only on those of four single-named (No surnames? No father’s names? No biog’s for them in the book label or jacket?) men who may or may not have met Jesus and/or his Apostles and who were not the only four to collect together his life’s words and works in books called “Gospels”. Where are the footnotes, where are the names of their sources, where is this eyewitness testimony you refer to? The Gospels are the equivalent of our Muslim collections of “hadith”, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. As is the entire Bible, in fact. If submitted as a piece of historical scholarship in a university examination, it would fail.
I do not forget that all three Abrahamic faiths are monotheistic but I do question modern Christianity’s adherence to that monotheism: the Trinity is a shot across the bow of God’s oneness. You know it, I know it, every Christian scholar knows it. And there is no proper or clear basis for the Trinity in your own limited four Gospels from the mouth of Jesus – you yourself quote him referring to another entity as “God”. Or was he talking to himself? Sorry to be flippant but the Trinity does lend itself to such bizarre and perhaps circular conclusions (and puns). We DO need to discuss it – in fact, prior to any discussion of any theoretical crucifixion-then-resurrection.
It is not “blasphemous” to claim that Paul created and founded Christianity – it is both historical fact (there were no “Christians” during Jesus’s lifetime, only Jews) and theological fact (Paul is the originator of the doctrines that underpin modern Christianity, like original sin and resurrection and says so himself on more than one occasion in the New Testament). Your reference to Thatcher is irrelevant – we are not talking politics here. We are talking religion, faith, God. For example, we Muslims take pride in the fact that the God in the Quran refers deliberately and purposefully to “Islam” and “Muslims” and the “Quran”. It stops later generations from changing things. Unfortunately, Jesus makes no reference to “Christianity”, “Christians” or the “Bible” in any of the Gospels – and never claims to have come to start a new religion. In fact, and this is one of my favourite killer quotes from the New Testament, he says quite clearly and unarguably in Matthew 15:24: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ”, i.e. he is a Jewish prophet (as we Muslims believe he was and he indeed saw himself). The idea that anyone who claims to follow Christ is a Christian and that Christ somehow bestows that title upon them is nonsense and does not follow at all.
As for your reference to the “sonship” of Jesus and the “reference to the Son of God and the Son of Man, especially from Jesus’ own lips”, you have walked into the trap that I have been setting for Christians since I first began debating them.
(a) Jesus may refer to himself as the “Son of God” but he also refers to himself clearly as the emissary, the prophet, the teacher from God, and, crucially, lesser than God: “The Father [God] is greater than I" (John 14:28), and
(b) if your argument is that Jesus called himself “Son of God” so he is therefore, literally, rather than metaphorically, “the Son of God”, how then do you view Adam? In the Gospels it says: “…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God" (Luke 3:38). How then do you view David, who, prior to Jesus, the Bible refers to as the only begotten son of God: "I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Psalms 2:7).
...And so ends Part 1, please return tomorrow for the next installment in this fascinating discussion.
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