What Did Jesus Really Say?
The author of the majority of the books of the New Testament,
Saint Paul, says:
“For if the truth of God has more abounded
through my lie unto His glory; why am I
still judged as a sinner?” Romans 3:7
The great messenger of God, Jesus, says:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know
you the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom you have sent.”
John 17:3
The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said:
“Do not over-praise me as the Christians
over-praised Jesus the son of Mary. I am His slave, so say:
‘Allah's slave and messenger’.”
Narrated by both Al-Bukhari and Muslim
Table of Contents
Preface ..........................................................................................................................................................
8
Goal of this book........................................................................................................................................
14
Follow this chart from Christianity to Islam............................................................................................
21
Table of Definitions and Abbreviations.........................................................................
23
Chapter 1 Christian-Muslim Dialogue...........................................................24
1.1 Christian Perspective .......................................................................................................
28
1.2 Muslim Perspective
..........................................................................................................
33
1.2.1 'Blind faith' or 'Prove all things'?
......................................................................................................
37
1.2.2 The 'Trinity', or 1+1+1=1
.................................................................................................................
38
1.2.2.1 From the Bible's standpoint
............................................................................................................
38
1.2.2.2 From the Qur'an's standpoint
..........................................................................................................
44
1.2.2.3 From a logical standpoint
...............................................................................................................
45
1.2.3 The 'Son of God'..............................................................................................................................
48
1.2.4 'Worship Me!
'.................................................................................................................................
61
1.2.5 Historical origin of the 'Trinity' myth
...............................................................................................
64
1.2.6 The systematic destruction of the law of Jesus
.................................................................................
73
1.2.7 Christianity’s True Founder, Paul, Admits Fabrication
.................................................................... 76
1.2.8 What is a
'Trinity'?...........................................................................................................................
89
1.2.9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................
91
Chapter 2 Contradictions in the Bible...........................................................93
2.1 Christian scholars recognize
contradictions.................................................................
93
2.2 A small sampling of these
contradictions....................................................................
102
2.3 Did mankind tamper with the Old Testament?
......................................................... 122
2.4 When is a book an ‘inspired’ book? ............................................................................
130
Chapter 3 Ancient Pagan parallels to
Christianity.................................................135
Chapter 4 Jesus' second coming and the myth of
'Grace' .....................................144
Chapter 5 Various Miscellanea .....................................................................147
5.1 A Biblical Picture of
God..............................................................................................
147
5.2 My grandfather did it (or: Is King David Going to
Hell?)........................................ 150
5.3 Poison yourself or be damned
......................................................................................
151
5.4 Who's will is stronger? .................................................................................................
151
5.5 Who bears the sin?
........................................................................................................
152
5.6 Like Jesus prayed..........................................................................................................
156
5.7 Like Jesus'
greeting.......................................................................................................
156
5.8 Black slaves and Christian misinterpretation of the
Bible........................................ 157
5.9 Melchizedek, A god greater than
Jesus?..................................................................... 158
5.10 The Ultimate Test of Jesus ...........................................................................................
161
7 What Did Jesus Really Say?
5.11 Who Was
‘Immanuel’?.................................................................................................
163
5.12 Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani...........................................................................................
165
5.13 Hiding the
Miracles.......................................................................................................
166
5.14 Was ‘Christ’ a
‘Christian’?..........................................................................................
167
Chapter 6 Mohammad in the Bible ...............................................................169
Error! Not a valid heading level in TOC entry on page
171
6.2 Grave warnings for all who do not follow
him............................................................ 174
6.3 Three distinct
prophesies...............................................................................................
174
6.4 Foretells the story of the chapter of
'Al-Alak'............................................................. 175
6.5 The
emigration................................................................................................................
179
6.6 Truthfulness of Mohammad (pbuh)
.............................................................................
179
6.7 Isaiah's
vision..................................................................................................................
180
6.8 Legitimacy of Hagar and Ishmael
................................................................................
183
6.9 Reference to Moses, Jesus, & Muhammad in that order ...........................................
191
6.10 Jesus predicts the coming of
Muhammad....................................................................
193
6.11 God did not kill Muhammad for speaking in His
name............................................. 197
6.12 Glorifies Jesus (pbuh)
....................................................................................................
198
6.13 A Paraclete like
Jesus.....................................................................................................
198
Chapter 7 Jesus in the Qur'an ........................................................................210
Chapter 8 What is
Islam...........................................................................................221
Chapter 9 Islamic faith: Some
details......................................................................233
Chapter 10 Scientific Statements in the Holy
Qur'an................................252
Chapter 11 ‘We’ an Arabic plural of respect
.............................................................264
Chapter 12 Women in Christianity and
Islam..........................................................266
Chapter 13 1992:The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm the
Qur’an...................................274
Chapter 14 Additional
references..............................................................................288
Self-Test Section.......................................................................................................................................
290
Preface
Verily! the likeness of Jesus with Allah/God is
as the likeness of Adam.
He created him of dust, then He said unto him:
Be! and he was. (This is)
the truth from your Lord (O Muhammad), so be not
you of those who
waver. And whosoever disputes with you concerning
him, after the knowledge which
has come unto you, say (unto him): Come! We will
summon our sons and your sons,
and our women and your women, and ourselves and
yourselves, then we will pray
humbly (to our Lord) and (solemnly) invoke the
curse of Allah upon those who lie.
Verily! This is the true narrative. There is no
god save Allah, and verily! Allah is the
Mighty, the Wise. And if they turn away, then
Verily! Allah is Aware of the corrupters.
Say: O People of the Scripture. Come to a word
that is just between us and you: that we
shall worship none but Allah, and that we shall
ascribe no partners unto Him, and that
we shall not take each other for lords beside
Allah. And if they turn away, then say:
Bear witness that we are they who have
surrendered (unto Him)(literally: “we are
Muslims”).” The Qur’an, A’al-Umran(3)59-64.
“I have read in Moslem writings such deep and tender
expressions of respect and
reverence for Jesus that for the time I almost
forgot, I was not reading the words of a
Christian writer. How different, it is sad to say,
has been the way in which Christians
have spoken and written of Muhammad. Let us put it
down to it’s true cause, ignorance”
Reverend R. Maxwell King
In the name of Allah, most beneficent, most merciful. I give all
thanks to Allah for His
bounties and knowledge and that He has guided me to Islam. I also
ask Allah almighty
that He bestow his peace and blessings upon Muhammad and grant him
the highest
rewards and exalted stations in Heaven. Further, I ask Allah
almighty that He grant His
peace and blessings upon all of His prophets from the beginning of
time, including Adam,
Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, and Jesus, as well as all of the countless
others, peace be
upon them all, may their names be held in the highest honor for
all time.
I feel that this book is best described as my own humble attempt
at the compilation and
collection of the life long works of many famous and knowledgeable
scholars and writers.
My contribution to this book has probably been restricted to the
collection of these works
in one publication. So, as they say, I hereby give credit where
credit is due. Among these
authors are such people as Shaik Ahmed Deedat, Shaik Rahmat-Allah
ibn Khaleel al-
Rahman al-Hindi, Dr. Jamal Badawi, Mr. Muhammad `Ata ur-Rahim, Mr.
Akbarally
Meherally, Shaik Shams al-Deen ibn Kayyem Al-Jawziah, Dr. Muhammad
Ali alkhuli,
Mrs. Ulaft Aziz-us-Samad, Dr. Ahmad Dawood Al-Mizjaji, and Mr. M.
A. Yusseff to
name a few. To these individuals I dedicate this book. I also
dedicate this book to my
mother who always taught me to have tolerance and an open mind,
and to my father, who
taught me to continually seek out knowledge as long as I may live.
Muslims are encouraged to study and gain knowledge and to base
their worship upon
knowledge and not just faith. Abu-Darda said: I heard the
messenger of Allah (pbuh) say:
“If anyone travels on a road in search of
knowledge, Allah/God will cause him to
travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The
angels will lower their wings in their great
pleasure with one who seeks knowledge, the
inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth
and the fish in the deep waters will ask
forgiveness for the learned man. The
superiority of the learned man over the devout is
like that of the moon, on the night
when it is full, over the
rest of the stars. The learned are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave neither dinar nor dirham
(kinds of currency), leaving only
knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant
portion.” (narrated by Abu Dawood).
Muslims are also encouraged to study other religions and to
compare them to Islam.
They are commanded to never be among those who accept Islam on
blind faith or in
conformance to the current trend in their society. Rather, they
are commanded to make
up their own minds and to enter into Islam with their eyes wide
open, after they have
thoroughly tested it’s validity as the command of God. “There is no compulsion in
religion. The right path is henceforth distinct
from misguidance” The Qur’an, Al-
Bakarah(2):256.
It was because of the above reasons that, upon my arrival in the
United States in 1992, I
decided to spend my spare time researching Christianity. I did
this in order to verify the
affirmations of the Qur’an with regard to mankind’s distortion of
the Gospels. If the
Qur’an did indeed prove to have fabricated lies against the Bible
then I would know that
it was not the word of God. I therefore set about purchasing many
different “versions” of
the Bible such as the Revised Standard Version (RSV), the King
James Version (KJV or
Authorized version), and so forth. I also purchased many Christian
Biblical references as
well as some Islamic references. Armed with this cache of
information I set about my
task and as the Bible puts it “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” 1
Thessalonians 5:21.
Before, during, and after all of this I was continually being
asked by various people
about Islam. Many allegations were presented against Muhammad
(pbuh) and Islam in
general. I began to notice a basic trend of general ignorance of
the fundamental teachings
of Islam as well a tendency when cornered to invoke “Blind faith,”
or to attempt to
explain practically every single discrepancy in the Bible through
abstraction and applying
hidden meanings to every verse which did not set well with them.
The general tendency
was to reject the words of the Qur’an, even before bothering to
read them, because they
are the words of “some Bedouin Arab out of the desert” (Having
themselves forgotten
that Jesus, Moses, and ALL of the other prophets of the Bible,
peace be upon them all,
came from practically the exact same locale), not to accept the
words of Islamic scholars
because they are biased, not to accept the words of Christian
scholars because they are
“Liberals,” and not even to accept obvious discrepancies and
contradictions between the
verses of the Bible because of “blind faith” and because
“If you do not take the verses
so
literally but give them the following abstract
meaning then they will not contradict one
another...” and
so forth (see chapter 2.2). I felt that a belief that constantly needed
people to make excuses for it and that demanded blind faith
without understanding was
not for me. Thus, I managed to prove to myself the validity of the
affirmations of the
Qur’an.
In the Qur’an, we are told that mankind changed the message of
Jesus (pbuh) after his
departure. The Qur’an further states that if a book of God has
been tampered with by the
hands of mankind then this tampering will be recognizable by the
inevitable
contradictions which will result from this tampering. God says in
the Qur’an: “Do they
not consider the Qur’an
(with care)? Had it been from other than Allah, they would have surely found therein much discrepancy.” Al-Nissa(4):82. The Bible itself also
testifies to the fact that a false witness will inevitably result
in contradictions and
discrepancy: “For many bare false witness against him(Jesus), but their witness
agreed
not together.” Mark 14:56
I began to search for a comprehensive reference on the fundamental
differences
between Islam and Christianity such as the “trinity,” the
“incarnation,” the “atonement,”
and the “original sin.” I was, however, surprised to find none.
The information is out
10 What did Jesus really say?
there, however, it is distributed throughout countless books,
booklets, pamphlets and the
like. From the Christian side, I had at first expected my research
to involve a slow and
painful search through obscure ancient documents. This did not
prove to be the case.
Once I began to look for the truth, I was practically overwhelmed
by a veritable avalanche
of Christian studies all leading to the same conclusion: That St.
Paul, a man who had
never met Jesus (pbuh) personally, and the author of the majority
of the books of the New
Testament, had seriously corrupted the teachings of Jesus (pbuh)
and substituted them
with his own “version” of Christianity totally in opposition to
that which Jesus (pbuh) and
his apostles had taught their followers. I was astounded to see
that even with the many
thousands of Christian publications, from eminent Christian
scholars, which, to one
degree or another readily admit these facts, still, Christianity as
a whole is all but ignorant
of these matters. I therefore undertook to collect this
information into a series of articles
which were published on a very limited scale inside the university
I was studying at at the
time.
After having completed these articles I decided to collect them
into one handy reference
with the core information having being collected from external
sources but having been
reorganized into what I believe to be a more intuitive and useful
order. In some cases, I
have found myself unable to improve upon the wording and layout of
other authors, so I
have shamelessly copied their words almost verbatim. However, I
believe that such
straight copying has been confined to less than 5% of the content
of this book and has
been restricted to the writings of the first four of the
aforementioned authors as well as
Shaik Muhammad Al-Uthaimeen. Once again, credit where credit is
due.
Countless thousands of books have been published by Christian
scholars on the topic of
the various contradictions in the Bible. It has been my
experience, however, that most of
these books have gone one of two different routes: Either they try
to (1) Reconcile every
single discrepancy through abstraction and so forth, and when they
are presented with two
conflicting versions of one story in the Bible they simply choose
the one they personally
prefer and claim the other was a scribal error, or (2) They claim
that Jesus (pbuh) was no
more than a legend and a myth, and that the Bible, the apostles,
and even Jesus himself
were only figments of someone’s imagination. This book, however,
goes a different
route, that of Islam and the holy Qur’an. In this book it is
demonstrated that Jesus (pbuh)
was indeed a true prophet of God but that his message was
corrupted by those who came
after him for personal gain. It also demonstrates how the Bible,
even after all of this
tampering, still contains the message of Jesus (pbuh) for those
who truly place the words
of Jesus (pbuh) above those of all of mankind without
exception.
I do not deceive myself. This book will never be the definitive
answer to all questions.
There are just too many Christian sects for one book to be able to
address the beliefs of
them all. However, I hope that this book will at least get people
to think and get them
interested enough that they
may go out, read the Bible and the Qur’an carefully, and seek knowledge for themselves. If I manage to accomplish this then I
have done my job.
There are many other things I would like to say but I must keep
the size of this book
under some semblance of control. I have therefore spent most of my
efforts speaking
about comparative religion between Islam and Christianity in order
to prove the
truthfulness of the affirmations of the Qur’an and that it was
indeed sent by the same God
that sent Jesus (pbuh). If I could add one more chapter I would
probably speak in a little
more detail about the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as about Islam and
science and discuss
some of the scientific statements made in the Qur’an which are
only beginning to be
verified today (By independent non-Muslim scientists). Anyone
wishing to obtain further
information on this topic, however, will find the following books
to be extremely useful
and informative:
1) Qur’an and modern science: Correlation Studies, by Keith L.
Moore, Abdul-Majeed A.
Zindani, Mustafa A. Ahmed
2) The Developing Human, By Dr. Keith Moore.
3) The Bible, the Qur’an and science (book), by Dr. Maurice
Bucaille.
4) The Qur’an and modern science (booklet), by Dr. Maurice
Bucaille.
I would also like to point out that the “referencing” system
employed in this book still
needs some work in order to bring it in line with more accepted
modern norms, however,
that will have to be left to another day. I believe that it’s current
form is adequate for a
first version, and by Allah’s will, this issue will be dealt with
in the future.
I would like to make a couple of matters clear from the outset so
that there will be no
misunderstanding as to my beliefs and/or intentions:
1) Muslims do not hate Christians nor harbor ill will against
them. This is a common
misconception in the West about Muslims. My intent is only to
counter the continuous
and unrelenting onslaught of hatred and slander Muslims are
constantly being bombarded
with in the West. I have found that this is a direct result of the
Western media’s
campaign to portray all Muslims in the worst possible light and to
ensure that the general
pubic never hears the words “Muslim” or “Islam” unless it is
associated with the words
“fundamentalist,” “extremist,” “terrorist,” “gorilla,”
“underground,” “death squad,” and
so forth. This is especially the case since the fall of the Soviet
Union. Suddenly, there
appears to be a need for a new “bad guy”, since there are roughly
1.2 billion Muslims
around the world today, therefore, Muslims were chosen as the
prime candidates for this
position. Muslims are told in the Qur’an: “..and nearest among them (mankind) in love
to the believers (Muslims) will you find those
who say 'we are Christians': because
among these are men devoted to learning and men
who have renounced the world, and
they are not arrogant” The Qur’an, Al-Maidah(5):82.
“The people of the book” are also singled out by God in the Qur’an
to receive the
following treatment: “And argue not with the people of the book unless it be in (a way)
which is better (than mere arguing), except with
such of them that do wrong, and say
(to them): ‘We believe in that which had been
revealed to us and revealed to you, and
our God and your God is One, and to Him we have
submitted (literally: We are
Muslims)” Al-Ankaboot(29):46. Muslims simply wish for Christians the exact
same
thing that Christians wish for Muslims: That we all be guided to
the truth of God and His
ultimate reward.
By now it should be obvious that Islam is not, as the stereotype
would have one believe,
an underground terrorist group dedicated to the total destruction
of civilized life as we
know it. Because of all of the above, I have striven to avoid in
this book all statements
which might be misunderstood to be hateful, inflammatory, or
disrespectful. However,
the fundamental goals of this book make it necessary to exhibit
many contradictory
statements in the New and Old Testaments in order to prove the
Qur’an’s claim: that
mankind took great liberties with God’s scriptures after the
departure of their prophets
and have perverted His original message to them. Muslims are told
that these tampering
fingers have left many contradictions for those who would only
look for them. For this
reason, I have attempted to keep my own comments to a minimum and
only present the
12 What did Jesus really say?
contradictory verses of the Bible side-by-side so that they may be
studied critically (see
for example the table in chapter 2.2). Those people who have made
up their minds
beforehand that they will hate me for this and will not see the
contradictions and the
tampering fingerprints no matter how much proof is presented are
kindly asked to stop
reading now. This book is not for them. Those readers who are
willing to keep an open
mind are invited to accompany us in our quest for the truth of
God.
2) Some readers may misinterpret some of my statements to be
disrespectful of God
almighty, His prophets, His scriptures, or the apostles of Jesus.
This too is unintentional.
Any one of these matters is considered a sin of the highest order
in Islam. The goal of
this book is only to present the proof of that which Christian
scholars the world over now
recognize as scientific fact: That the alleged authors of the
Bible are not the true authors,
and as a result of this, they have written therein matters
regarding God/Allah, His
prophets, and their apostles that were not inspired by either God
nor his prophets. All
claims made in this book should be understood to be against these
“hidden” authors and
not God, His prophets, His original scriptures, or the original
disciples.
3) As mentioned above, I am not a scholar of religion, nor an
“evangelist,” nor have any
official diplomas in religious studies. I wrote this book in my
spare time while pursuing
graduate degrees in the field of Engineering within the United
States. My own feeble
contribution in no way compares to those of Islam’s more learned
and knowledgeable
scholars. However, I saw a void which in my opinion had yet to be
filled, so I have done
my best to fill it. There are many more comprehensive and detailed
studies of this topic
written in the Arabic language (e.g. “AlJawab Assahih”). However,
until such a time as
more of these great works can be translated into English, I hope
that this book will serve
as a temporary substitute.
4) When I speak about “Islam” in this book, I refer to the “Islam”
taught by Muhammad
(pbuh) and practiced by his followers, as preserved for us within
the writings of
thousands of Islamic scholars and handed down to us through an
unbroken chain of
authenticated narrators in the countless thousands of books of the
“seerah” and
“Hadeeth.” This is the Islam which has been preserved in the
Arabian peninsula (the
home country of Muhammad pbuh) to this day. This Islam, the Islam
of Muhammad
(pbuh), does not attempt to promote specific humans, or groups
thereof, to higher levels
of divine authority and power than others, such as is preached by
the leaders of the newly
established so called “Nation of Islam” groups in the United
States who are told by Louis
Farakhan, Elijah Poole, and W. D. Fard, that “Islam” preaches the
superiority of a certain
race or color and other such innovations. True Islam also does not
follow the beliefs of
the leaders of the “shi’ite” groups of some Eastern countries
which also attribute to
specific human beings boundless supernatural powers and the
ability to pass out passes to
heaven and so forth. True
Muslims are innocent of such people, their preaching, and their actions (remember David Koresh, Jim Jones, and the Christian Serb
army among many
others).
5) How to read this book:
As mentioned previously, this book has been written with the goal
of being a little more
comprehensive than most other such English publication which I
have come across
during my research. What I mean by this is not that I feel at all
superior to these great
scholars, only that the English publications I have thus far come
across did not convey the
overall picture
of Islam, Christianity, and the relationship between them which I wished
to see in one English reference. The inevitable result of making a
book comprehensive is
that it also becomes large. For this reason, an attempt has been
made to divide this book
into many sub-topics with each sub-topic spanning only a few
pages, and thus, the book
becomes easy to read a piece at a time. I strongly encourage the
reader to read this book
13 What Did Jesus Really Say?
in the order it was written. This is because the chapters will complement
each other more
completely if they are read in their written order. However, an
attempt has also been
made to make the chapters independent of one another for those
readers who wish to
jump directly to a specific topic of interest to them. For such
readers a chart has been
supplied to help them select the most relevant topic to them by
asking them a few
questions. Start at the top of the chart and work your way down by
answering the
questions and following the resultant directions.
I would like to thank all of those who helped me to publish this
book, including Shaik
Ahmed Deedat, brother Ammar Amonette, brother Idris Palmer,
brother Ali Tamimi,
brother Ismael Mujahid, brother Dawood Madan, Dr. Rafil Dhafir,
brother Abdullah
Firdous Abdulrazzak, brother Mansor Matbouli, brother Abdulrahman
Al-Ali, brother
Sherif Muhammad, brother Reza Scholten, brother Farid Adlouni, Dr.
Bassem Khafagi,
and brother Ibraheem Pastuszak, who all contributed in one way or
another in the
completion of this book, either with suggestions on modifications
or corrections, in
countless hours proof-reading it, or in various other aspects such
as generally helping out
with their comments and suggestions whenever possible. For all of
the countless others
who have assisted in this project but who I have forgotton to
mention here, I thank you
too. Your efforts are very deeply appreciated. I would also like
to thank all of the above
authors for their efforts which have made these matters clear for
us. May Allah almighty
guide us unto his whole truth. Amen.
Misha’al ibn Abdullah Al-Kadhi
April 1995
Goal of this book
he goal of this book is simple: To exhibit irrefutable tangible
proof that
mankind is guilty of tampering with the religion of Jesus (pbuh) after
his
departure. Fourteen hundred years ago, the holy book of the
Muslims, the
Qur’an, was sent down upon the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by God
informing him that
mankind had dared to change the religion of God which He sent down
upon Jesus,
Moses, and the previous prophets (peace be upon them all). It has
taken close to two
thousand years for Christianity to recognize this as a known fact.
Today, you would be
hard pressed to find a single scholar of Christianity who does not
readily acknowledge
this as a true scientific fact (A minority of the most adamant
conservatives will always be
the exception). The evidence is simply too overwhelming to ignore.
When I speak of “scholars of Christianity” I mean those people who
have dedicated
their lives to the pursuit of detailed historical facts regarding
the history of the Bible
through the unbiased logical study of the countless ancient
documents of the Christian
empire, the Bible itself, and other methods. These people are
found in abundance in the
religion departments of the various Western universities. A
“scholar of Christianity” by
this definition does not include the “televanglists,” the
“evangelists,” and so forth. It has
required the bravery and sacrifice of countless such unwavering
seekers of truth to bring
us this information. In the past, such people were casually put to
death without a second
thought. Even today, many of them are being fired from their jobs
and black-listed for
openly speaking about such matters. If they are liars then their
lies should be exposed. If
there is some truth to what they say, then such selfless
dedication and vigilance against
those who would distort the word of God should not be allowed to
go unrecognized. For
this reason we will study the details of their findings in this book.
The claims of the Muslims as taught in the holy Qur’an are:
1) That Muhammad (pbuh) was the last in a long and distinguished
line of prophets sent
by God.
2) That in the past, whenever a prophet of God would pass away,
his people would
begin to corrupt the religion of God until it would become so
corrupt that it would be
necessary for God to send a new prophet to return them to His true
religion which
was sent down upon their previous prophets.
3) That a pocket of unscrupulous people had managed to change the
religion of Moses
(pbuh) after his death, thus God sent Jesus (pbuh), in order to
return them to the
religion of Moses (pbuh). Similarly, a pocket of mankind managed
to change the
religion of Jesus (pbuh) after his departure and so it was necessary
for God to send
Muhammad (pbuh).
4) That God is one god. The “trinity” is a fabrication of mankind.
God has no sons, no
parents, nor any equal.
5) Jesus (pbuh) was not a god but only a very elect, but human,
messenger of God.
6) God does not hold anyone responsible for anyone else’s sin. He
is also a merciful
God who forgives without
requiring a price for His mercy.
7) Only a person’s own actions and worship in this life will
decide their final reward.
8) God has specifically molded Islam to be His final message to
all of mankind without
exception. It supersedes all previous messages from Him. For this
reason, this time
God himself has promised to preserve His final message from the
tampering fingers
of mankind.
In this book it will be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt
(by God’s will),
through the words of the Bible and some of history’s most eminent
Biblical scholars and
references only, how most of the founding beliefs of Christianity
today were indeed
fabricated by mankind after the departure of Jesus (pbuh) and that
Jesus (pbuh) himself
never had anything whatsoever to do with them. These beliefs
include:
1) The “trinity.”
2) The claim that Jesus (pbuh) is the physical son of God.
3) The “original sin” of Adam which mankind is alleged to have
inherited.
4) The “atonement,” or death of Jesus (pbuh) on the cross in order
to erase this sin of
Adam.
5) The “incarnation” of God in the form of a human being, namely,
Jesus (pbuh).
It will further be demonstrated that the true message of Jesus
(pbuh) was:
1) That God is one God. He is indivisible. He has no equal.
2) God has no children nor parents. There is no other God in
existence other than God
Himself.
3) Jesus (pbuh) was a human being. He was not a God, but only an
elect messenger of
God.
4) God does not hold anyone responsible for the sin of anyone
else.
5) God does not give preference to a certain race, color, nation,
lineage or anything else
above any other. Only a person’s individual actions and worship
will distinguish
them in the eyes of God.
6) No human being can bear the sin of any other.
7) God is a merciful god who bestows His forgiveness without a
price or asking for any
compensation.
Muslims are taught that throughout the ages, God sent messengers
to all tribes and
nations all over the earth beginning with Adam (pbuh), the first
prophet of God. Every
time a messenger of God would pass away, his people would begin to
fall back on their
evil deeds until a few generations later they would have managed
to have completely
corrupted His original message to them. When God’s message was in
danger of being
completely obliterated by these people, He would chose from among
them a new
messenger to receive the original, uncorrupted message and convey
it to them. Some of
them would listen. Others would not. However, the message would
always be available
for those who wanted it. In this manner, God made sure that all of
mankind would
always have access to His true religion, no matter where or when
they lived. It would
then be up to them to seek out this knowledge.
16 What did Jesus really say?
Muslims are further taught that each messenger was sent only to
his own people. His
message was then fine-tuned to suit them. Thus, the basic message
would be the same for
all messengers: “God is one!, Worship Him alone!” However, the
details of each
people’s worship would be molded to suit their lifestyle, state of
knowledge, and so forth.
This was also true for Jesus (pbuh). Jesus (pbuh) was sent
specifically to the Jews, and
only to the Jews. It shall be demonstrated how one of the most
fundamental reasons
which lead up to the corruption of his message was that those who
came after him
attempted to force his religion upon those who it was never
intended for: The Greeks.
The Greek’s hatred of the Jews and all Jewish practices was one of
the foremost reasons
why the religion of Jesus (pbuh) ended up being modified to suit
their preconceived
picture of “God,” and “worship.”
This book demonstrates how the corruption of the religion of Jesus
(pbuh) progressed
in the following stages:
1) Jesus (pbuh) came to show the Jews how their religion had been
changed from that
preached to them by Moses and their previous prophets (pbut).
2) Jesus (pbuh) called the Jews back to the true religion of God
sent down upon their
previous messengers. Jesus (pbuh) himself observed every single
aspect of the religion
of Moses (pbuh) steadfastly and uncompromisingly. He fasted as
Moses (pbuh) fasted,
he worshipped as Moses (pbuh) worshipped, he refrained from
tasting a single pig, he
believed in circumcision and himself was circumcised, he observed
the Sabbath, never
having violated it. He did this up until the crucifixion. It was
only after the
crucifixion, according to the Bible, that he allegedly returned in
“visions” to Paul in
order to nullify everything he had spend his whole life upholding.
The Bible actually
bears witness that during his lifetime, Jesus commanded his
followers to follow the
religion of Moses (pbuh) and threatened severe retribution from
God for all who would
forsake a single aspect of this religion until the end of time.
3) Jesus (pbuh) departed from this earth and his apostles
continued to follow his teachings
religiously. They too followed the religion of Moses (pbuh) as
Jesus (pbuh) had done
before them and commanded them to do. For the first three hundred
years after the
departure of Jesus (pbuh), “Christians” would merely be Jews who
believed that Jesus
(pbuh) was the Messiah. For the first three decades after the
departure of Jesus (pbuh),
his followers would continue to worship in the synagogues of the
Jews and observe all
of the aspects of the religion of Moses (pbuh) without exception.
4) Shortly after the departure of Jesus (pbuh), a Jew named Saul
of Tarsus persecutes
Jesus’ followers severely and kills them. He has never met Jesus
(pbuh) in person.
5) Suddenly Saul claims to be receiving “visions” from Jesus
(pbuh). He befriends the
apostle Barnabas until he manages to replace his reputation as a
persecutor and killer
of Christians with a reputation as a true convert.
6) Now Saul parts ways with the apostle of Jesus (pbuh), Barnabas,
and decides to preach
to the Greeks. He claims that the apostles of Jesus (pbuh) are
lazy, misguided,
hypocrites. He claims that it was necessary for him to constantly
guide the apostles out
of their ignorance into the truth of God which he was receiving in
his “visions.” The
Greeks hated the Jews with such a passion that he found it all but
impossible to
17 What Did Jesus Really Say?
convince them to accept the Judaism that Jesus (pbuh) practiced
his whole life and
taught his apostles to carry on after him.
7) Saul finds it necessary to “simplify” the religion for the
Greeks and make it more
acceptable for them.
8) Saul continues to simplify the religion and mold it closer and
closer to the Greek’s
established beliefs until all that is left is “faith” without
work. He then goes on to
justify this doctrine of “faith” and give it credibility by
claiming that Jesus (pbuh) was
not merely a normal human being but a “son of God” and that this
“son of God” died
in atonement for the sins of all mankind. In this manner, he
manages to convince the
Greeks (and other Gentiles) to accept the corrupted “religion of
Jesus.” This is
because, unlike the Jews, the religion of the Greeks already
accepts “trinities,” and
“father gods” and “son gods,” and the death of gods, and the
resurrection of gods, and
the incarnation of gods, and divine savior gods, and the eating of
the flesh of gods, and
the drinking of the blood of gods...etc. All of these concepts are
old news to them. He
becomes a great leader among them and is named “Saint Paul.”
9) “Saint Paul” now writes extensively and gains more and more
“converts.”
10) Once his converts begin to exceed the number of converts to
the more strict and
demanding religion of the apostles of Jesus (pbuh), they begin to
kill the followers of
the apostles, persecute them, and burn their Gospels.
11) The followers of “Saint Paul” are challenged to prove their
claims of “son of God,”
“original sin,” ..etc.
through the scriptures and prove that Jesus (pbuh) or God had anything to do with them. They cannot. There are too many verses
which declare that
there is only ONE God in existence and that He does not hold
mankind responsible for
the sin of any man. Examples of these verses are available to this
day (e.g. Isaiah
43:10-11, Ezekiel 18:19-20, Deuteronomy 24:16...etc.). Thus, it
becomes necessary
for them to create a “Trinity” similar to the ancient “trinities”
of the Greeks and
Romans so that they can have three Gods but claim that they only
worship one. The
ancient “trinities” of Greek philosophy are redefined and applied
to God almighty in
order to define this new doctrine of “three gods in one.” Once
again, the “Trinity” they
borrowed from their ancient paganism could not be proven through
the Bible, so it
became necessary for them to receive divine “inspiration” from God
commanding
them to “clarify” their Bible so that the “trinity” could be seen
clearly (such as 1 John
5:7). These “clarifications” would only be discovered by the
scholars of Christianity
centuries later. They would later provide irrefutable proof of
how, when, and by
whom these “clarifications” were inserted into the Bible. Thirty
two biblical scholars
of the highest eminence backed by fifty cooperating denominations
would throw out 1
John 5:7 as a fabricated insertion of the church. Many other
fabrications would be
discovered by them.
12) In the fourth century CE., the followers of the “trinity”
manage to enlist the aid of the
pagan Roman empire. They wield the power of this pagan nation to
“cleanse” the
earth of the “heretical” and “blasphemous” followers of the
apostles. They later launch
campaigns of “inquiry” to “convert” them.
13) “Trinitarian” beliefs are touted as the only truly correct
religion of Jesus (pbuh). The
writings of Paul are collected and today they form the majority of
the books of the new
testament. The books of the apostles are burned. They are all
“apocryphal” lies.
18 What did Jesus really say?
Within the span of a few centuries the Trinitarians manage to
“recognize” that all of
the books that were considered canonical and divine during the
very first centuries CE
were indeed all lies and apocrypha. Only those books that were
considered apocryphal
during these very first centuries CE are now “recognized” to be
canonical, authentic,
and divine. Those who are found concealing the original books of
the apostles are now
burned to death with their books. Paul’s followers obtain copies
of the Gospels of the
apostles. They copy them but with drastic modifications to the
doctrine found therein.
They claim that the apostles wrote them. These books are
attributed to Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. The additions to these books will continue
for many more
centuries. Only centuries later will Christian scholars begin to
see the evidence that
the claimed authors did not write these books.
14) Muhammad (pbuh) is born. He follows the religion of Abraham
(pbuh) which was
handed down to him and all Arabs from the father of the Arabs,
Ishmael, the eldest son
of Abraham (pbut). Upon reaching the age of 40, God sends the
angel Gabriel to him
to teach him His final message, the message of Islam. He tells him
that the “people of
the book” have changed the religion of Jesus (pbuh) and have
altered it from a religion
of submission to one God to a religion where multiple gods are
being worshipped. He
is told that he will be the final messenger, and that his message
is to be directed to all
of mankind including the Jews and Christians.
15) The Jews and “Christians” claim that Muhammad (pbuh) is a liar
and a false prophet.
They claim that he has just copied the Bible in order to write his
Qur’an. Just as the
Jews refused to accept Jesus (pbuh) as a true messenger of God, so
too do both the
Jews and the Christians refuse to believe Muhammad (pbuh).
16) Muhammad (pbuh) passes away. The Trinitarians continue with
their burning at the
stake any Christian who opposes the “trinity” or openly speaks
about the discrepancies
in the Bible. They launch campaigns of “inquiry” to cleanse the
earth of all remnants
of believers in one (monotheistic) god. The sentences of death by
these inquisitions
become so unbounded in their nature that whole nations are
sentenced to death. A
single holy decree of the Trinitarian church in 1568 would later
condemn three million
men women and children of the Netherlands to the scaffold as
heretics.
17) The Church loses it’s power to the scientists and is pushed
into a dark corner.
Without the threat of death hanging over their heads, many
Christian scholars begin to
publish countless books exhibiting detailed examples of
contradicting verses and
evidence of modification to the Bible. The ancient manuscripts of
the Christian
society are studied in detail and slowly, the previous picture begins
to come together.
Countless excuses are made by the church and those who’s
livelihood and power
depend on these established beliefs. They now begin to give
practically every single
verse of the Bible “abstract” meanings. They tell their flock to
have blind faith. They
convince their flock that they can not understand the Bible
without the “interpretation”
of the church. They tell their flock that Jesus (pbuh) never means
what he says and
that every reference he makes to following the religion of Moses (pbuh)
is not meant to
be taken “literally” but was meant by Jesus (pbuh) to have
“hidden” meanings totally
in opposition to the obvious meanings. Only they can tell you what
these “hidden”
meanings of Jesus (pbuh) were.
19 What Did Jesus Really Say?
18) Copies of the original Gospels of the apostles of Jesus (pbuh)
begin to surface. They
are found, of all places, hidden away in the capital of
Christianity, the Vatican itself.
These Gospels (Such as the “Gospel of Barnabas,” or the “Shepherd
of Hermas”)
confirm the teachings of the Qur’an. Copies of these Gospels have
a tendency to
disappear mysteriously. Suddenly, in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls
are discovered. For
close to forty five years, they are hoarded in Israel and hidden
from the masses. When
they are finally forced out into the open, an amazing discovery is
made. They too
confirm the Qur’an! They prophesy the coming of not one but TWO
messiahs. They
claim that these two messiahs will be announced by an
eschatological prophet. The
dual prophesy is very clear and prevalent throughout the scrolls.
The scrolls claim that
the first messiah will be betrayed by one of his followers but
will not be forsaken by
God to die, rather, the one who betrayed him shall be taken in his
place. There is so
much in the Dead Sea Scrolls that parallels the teachings of the
Qur’an, however, once
again it is all explained away with abstract meanings. We are told
that the fact that the
Jews who lived 100 years before Jesus (the authors of the Dead Sea
Scrolls) were
expecting TWO messiahs does not mean that they were expecting two different
messiahs, but rather, they must have been expecting a messiah
with two different
personalities.
Thus, we are told, Jesus (pbuh) is BOTH messiahs. On the other hand,
the Jews explain that both prophesies refer to past occurrences
and neither one could
possibly refer to Jesus (pbuh) or Muhammad (pbuh).
“I shall turn away from my signs those who are
arrogant in the earth unjustifiably,
and if they see all the signs (in creation) they
believe them not, and if they see the
path of righteousness they do not take it as
(their) path, and if they see the path of
misguidance they take it as (their) path. That is
because they deny our signs and are
used to disregarding them” The Qur’an, Al-Aaraf(7):146.
Muslims are told that when God created mankind, He gave them “The
Choice.” They
were told that they could either live their lives then die and
fade out of the picture, like
the animals do. Or they could elect to be held accountable for
their actions. If they
accepted the accountability, then the potential reward will be
great. The potential
retribution would be equally great.
With mankind’s acceptance of this accountability came their free
will. God gave
mankind a free will to chose to either worship Him or to disobey
Him. Out of God’s
infinite mercy, He then assisted mankind with many factors in
order to guide them to His
true path and the ultimate reward. Firstly, He sent the
messengers. In this manner, no
matter how much mankind tried to corrupt His religion, it would
always be available to
those who searched for it.
Secondly, He supplied mankind with minds. He gave them these minds
in order to be
able to distinguish between right and wrong using logic. If they
see someone
worshipping fire, and they see that the fire can not hear their
prayers nor answer their
calls, then no matter how much these fire-worshippers
“spititualize” their worship and tell
20 What did Jesus really say?
them of the great miracles the fire has worked for them and how it
has answered their
prayers, and how it “loves” them, their logic will refuse to
believe these concoctions.
Finally, God gave mankind an inborn sense called in Arabic
“Fitrah.” This “Fitrah” is
the small voice inside each one of us which tells us “this doesn’t
feel right.” When we
pick up a gun for the first time in order to kill someone, we have
to fight mightily in order
to overcome our “Fitrah” which tells us that killing is wrong. In
a similar manner, all
mankind is born automatically knowing that “God is one.” They must
really fight
themselves for a long time and be continually persuaded by those
who are around them to
believe otherwise. This is how they end up worshipping fire,
stones, statues, multiple
gods, and other things. It is forced upon them in spite of their “Fitrah”
as they grow up.
This book goes back to the arguments of the original apostles. We
will start with the
“Trinity” and work our way backwards through history. We will see
that there is
absolutely no basis whatsoever for the “trinity” in the Bible. Once
the “trinity” has been
disproved we will see how the rest of these fabricated beliefs
will unravel one by one till
we return to the original teaching of Jesus (pbuh). All of this
will be done in chapter one.
After that, it will be demonstrated how Muhammad (pbuh) was indeed
prophesied by
both Jesus (pbuh) and the previous prophets, as claimed in the
Qur’an over 1400 years
ago. This will demonstrate why the church teaches their flock that
they can never
understand the Bible unless the Church “explains” it to them. We
pray you will find this
information illuminating.
Definitions and Abbreviations
Allah: The
supreme God of all creation. He is known as “God” or
“Father” to the Christians, and as “El” or “Yahweh” to the Jews.
Muhammad: The
last messenger of God to all mankind. He was
the seal of the prophets of God, who included prophets Abraham,
Noah, Moses, Jesus, and many others.
Islam: The
last message of God to all mankind. It was sent down
upon prophet Muhammed (pbuh), recorded in broad outlines in the
Qur’an, and described in detail in the Sunnah. It is an Arabic
word
which means “Submission to God”.
Qur’an: The
holy book of the Muslims. It consists of 100%
the word of God and no words of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh),
his companions, or any human being.
Sunnah: The
title given to the collection of recorded words
and actions of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Most of what he
said or did throughout his lifetime is recorded in the Sunnah.
pbuh: Means
“Peace Be Upon Him”. Used most often in
reference to prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and also in reference to
the many other prophets of Allah, such as Noah, Moses, Abraham,
Jesus, etc.
pbut: Means
“Peace Be Upon Them”. Same as above, but used
in reference to more than one.
s.a.w./s.a.s.: Same
as “pbuh”. It is an abbreviation of the
original Arabic words “Salla Allahu alaihi Wa Sallam”, which are
translated as “peace be upon him” in English.
OT Old
Testament. The portion of the Bible transmitted by the
Jews.
NT: New
Testament. The portion of the Bible specific to the
Christian faith.
24 What did Jesus really say?
Chapter 1: Christian-Muslim Dialogue
hristians believe that Jesus (pbuh) came to teach all of mankind
the religion of
God and to show them the path to guidance. All mankind is
therefore required to
follow his message and only those who believe in the crucifixion
and the
redemption will be saved. They believe that the Jews are also required
to convert to
Christianity because they are the most qualified to recognize the
word of God and the
signs of Jesus (pbuh) to be found in their own book. The Jews, on
the other hand, tell us
that Jesus (pbuh) was not a messenger of God, but rather a false
prophet, a sorcerer, an
offspring of adulterers, and many other allegations. They claim
that there are no
prophesies of Jesus (pbuh) in their book and that he was not the
promised
“Messiah”/”Christ” (anointed one). Their “Messiah” is yet to come.
For this reason, they
claim that they are not required by God to follow Jesus (pbuh).
Muslims believe in both Moses and Jesus (pbut) as prophets of God.
They believe that
both Moses and Jesus as well as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and all of
the other prophets of
God were all truthful messengers as well as faithful and faultless
servants of God (Allah)
almighty. They also believe in the miracles of Jesus (pbuh) and
his miraculous birth.
Muslims believe that each time a messenger of God would pass away,
mankind would
begin to slowly fall back upon their evil deeds until they had
managed to corrupt His
original message. When this would happen, God almighty would send
a new prophet to
renew His original message to these people and return them to the
straight path. In this
manner, the true message of God would always be available to all
those who searched for
it until the day of judgment. This can be seen in the Bible in
such verses as Matthew
5:17-18 we read: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I
am
not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I
say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
The Jews know God as “Elohim” or “Yahweh.” The Christians know Him
as “God,” or
“Father,” or “Jehovah,” etc.. Muslims know him as “Allah” (and
more than 99 other
venerable names). Muslims believe that Allah almighty did not send
down many
messages to mankind but only one: The religion of the submission
to His will, the
uniqueness of Himself, and the fact that He is the only one worthy
of worship. The
details of the religion were molded to suite each individual
people, but the message was
one message: “God is one. Worship Him alone!” This is made
apparent in the verse of
Aal-Umran(3):84 which states that which means: “Say (O Muhammad): We believe in
Allah, and that which is sent down unto us, and
that which was revealed unto
Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and
the sons of Jacob, and that which
was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus and the
Prophets from their Lord. We make no
distinction between any of them and unto Him we
have surrendered.” Also, in Al-
Nisaa:138 we read that which means “O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His
messenger, and the Scripture (Qur'an) which he
has revealed unto His messenger, and
the Scripture which He revealed aforetime.
Whosoever disbelieveth in Allah and His
angels and His Scriptures and His messengers and
the last day, he verily has wandered
far astray.”
Muslims are told in the Qur’an that the unscrupulous few had
managed to pervert the
words of God almighty sent down to Jesus (pbuh) and the previous
prophets after the
passing of their prophets. The masses were then misled by what was
claimed to be 100%
the “inspiration” of God. The changes made by these people have
resulted in countless
contradictions between the verses. As we shall see, these
contradictions and changes
have been well recognized and documented in the West for centuries
now. However,
many of their apologists claim that these people were well meaning
and were only trying
C
25 What Did Jesus Really Say?
to “clarify” that which was obscure and so forth when they changed
the word of God (See
chapter 2). Whatever their motives, these apologists conveniently
forget the command of
Deuteronomy 4:2 “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall
ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the
commandments of the LORD your
God.” The
liberties mankind has taken with God’s previous scriptures are the reason
God sent down the Qur’an as His last message to mankind and took
it upon Himself this
time to preserve it for all time from corruption or modification
Professor Arthur J. Arberry writes: “Apart from certain orthographical modifications
of the originally somewhat primitive method of
writing, intended to render unambiguous
and easy the task of reading the recitation, the
Koran (Qur’an) as printed in the twentieth
century is identical with the Koran as authorized by
Uthman more than 1300 years ago.”
On the other hand, Mr. C.G. Tucker Says in “The history of the Christians in the light
of modern knowledge” p. 320: “.....Thus Gospels were produced which clearly reflected
the conception of the practical needs of the
community for which they were written. In
them the traditional material was used, but there was
no hesitation in altering it or
making additions to it, or in leaving out what did
not serve the writer’s purpose.”
Mr. C.J. Cadoux has the following to say in his book “The life of Jesus” : “In the
four
Gospels, therefore, the main documents to which we
must go if we are to fill-out at all
that bare sketch which we can put together from other
sources, we find material of widely
differing quality as regards credibility. So
far-reaching is the element of uncertainty that
it is tempting to ‘down tools’ at once, and to
declare the task hopeless. The historical
inconsistencies and improbabilities in parts of the
Gospels form some of the arguments
advanced in favor of the Christ-myth theory. These
are, however, entirely outweighed- as
we have shown- by other considerations. Still the
discrepancies and uncertainties that
remain are serious- and consequently many moderns who
have no doubt whatever of
Jesus’ real existence, regard as hopeless any attempt
to dissolve out of the historicallytrue
from the legendary or mythical matter which the
Gospels contain, and to reconstruct
the story of Jesus’ mission out of the more
historical residue” .
Prof. J.R. Drummelow says in Commentary on the Holy Bible, page 16: “A
copyist
would sometimes put in not what was in the text, but
what he thought ought to be in it. He
would trust a fickle memory, or he would make the
text accord with the views of the
school to which he belonged. In addition to the
versions and quotations from the
Christian Fathers, nearly four thousand Greek MSS of
the Testament, were known to
exist. As a result , the variety of reading is
considerable.”
Before this book was written, I had published a series of articles
in a local publication
which had been progressing slowly from exhibiting some of the more
minor examples of
human modification of the Bible, such as the fact that the authors
of the Bible are not who
they claim to be, and had been working up to more fundamental
issues. One of our
readers (whom we shall henceforth refer to only as Mr. J), asked
us to publish his
viewpoint in our publication.
Unlike this lowly author, Mr. J. is a “professional” Christian in
the sense that preaching
Christianity is his job. He is a very devout Christian. He also
has a history of strong
evangelical activity. Mr. J made himself known to us through
written letters to us, calls
to our Muslim chaplain, and his appearance before us on other
occasions wherein he
26 What did Jesus really say?
called upon us to believe in Jesus (pbuh) and to accept his
sacrifice (some of this long
before we started our series of articles). We have since come to
know each other quite
well and have managed to remain friendly and outgoing towards one
another even with
our differing beliefs. However, the fact that this author is not a
“professional” religious
person or a professional preacher, but rather a simple graduate
science student, has made
it necessary to schedule these matters around other more immediate
scholarly concerns.
It was first and foremost the will of Allah, then the continuous
evangelical activity of Mr.
J. and his claims against Islam which forced me to step up my
research of the Bible and
publish this book. I therefore thank Allah almighty that he sent
Mr. J. to me as a blessing
in disguise.
Mr. J believes that the examples presented do not affect the
founding beliefs of
Christianity and had provided us with literature by men such as
Mr. F.F. Bruce stating
such things as “....Does
it matter whether the New Testament documents are reliable or
not? Is it so very important that we should be able
to accept them as truly historical
records?” and
also”......the story of Jesus as it
has come down to us may be myth or
legend, but the teaching ascribed to him- Whether he
was actually responsible for it or
not - has a value all it’s own,” and so forth. Muslims know for a fact that
Jesus (pbuh)
was neither a myth nor a legend but a true prophet of God, but we
do feel that an inspired
book of God should contain no contradictions, historical or
otherwise. For this reason we
do not believe that his book has reached us as it was originally
submitted by him.
Mr. J believes that such matters as knowing the true authors of
the books of the Bible
are not crucial to a Christian’s faith and has challenged us to
prove that a Christian’s
basic faith is
at all in error. In compliance with his request, we sent him four very brief
questions concerning the founding beliefs of Christianity. We
asked him to provide us
with carefully researched and weighed answers to these questions.
They were:
1) IS THERE A TRINITY? If so then please present us
with as many Biblical
references as you possibly can and briefly explain it’s
fundamental concept.
2) Is the great and faithful messenger of Allah, Jesus
the son of Mary (peace be upon
them both), the PHYSICAL (BEGOTTEN/SIRED ...etc.) SON
OF ALLAH OR
NOT? If he is, then give us as many biblical references
as you possibly can. If not
then why does the majority of Christendom believe that
he is the
physical/begotten/sired son of Allah?
3) Did Jesus (pbuh) HIMSELF ever say in the bible “I am
a god!,” or “Worship
me!”? If so then give us as many Biblical references as
possible. If not, then why
does the majority of Christendom believe that he is a
god (not a mortal), and the
son of God? Jesus (pbuh) is invoked daily as God to
forgive sins, cast out devils,
and generally sought after in prayer. UPON WHO’S
AUTHORITY do Christians
believe that Jesus (pbuh) is God? Jesus (pbuh) or
others? Give as many
references as possible.
4) If it can be proven, through the Bible, that Jesus
(pbuh) is not God, nor the
physical/begotten/sired son of God, neither is there
any trinity, then will this prove
that the unscrupulous few have corrupted the word of
God or not?
27 What Did Jesus Really Say?
What we were looking for was not flowery sermons on belief and
blind faith, but only
plain vanilla proof from the Bible itself that Christ (pbuh) himself
ever had anything to do
with the current beliefs of “Christianity.” Muslims believe that
Jesus (pbuh) was one of
the most pious and elect messengers of God almighty for all time.
However, they do not
believe that he is himself a god, the physical son of God, nor do
they believe in a
“trinity,” but only in the uniqueness of God almighty, that He is
the only God in existence
and the only being worthy of worship. Muslims also do not believe
in an original sin or
an atonement but believe that an individual’s actions are the only
things that will decide
his final abode, either in
heaven or in hell. This is the reason why God almighty sent Muhammad (pbuh); In order to rectify these misconceptions which
have crept into His
previous message. We can find no more fundamental differences
between Islam and
Christianity than these. Mr. J’s response follows:
28 What did Jesus really say?
1.1 Christian Perspective
It is my great privilege and pleasure to have been invited to
address the readers (of this
publication) on some of the most important distinctions between
Christianity and Islam.
Four questions have been proposed as a means of clarifying the
Biblical perspective in
relation to the series of articles on Jesus and Christianity that
appeared last semester.
As I see it, all four questions essentially come together in one
basic question: Who is
Jesus? The answer to that question, and the heart of the message
that has been proclaimed
by followers of Jesus since His advent, is that “you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His
name.” (John 20:31).
Addressing each of these questions may now help clarify this
historic Christian
conviction.
1. Is there a Trinity?
The Biblical teaching of God's essential nature, summarized in the
word “trinity,” rests
largely on our understanding of the identity of Jesus, a question
I will take up in some
length under question #3.
At this point, perhaps a demonstration that the terminology for
the doctrine of the
Trinity is found throughout the New Testament:
* “therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” (Matthew 28:19).
* “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There
are different kinds of
service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working,
but the same God works
all of them in all men.” (I Corinthians 12:4-6).
* “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit be with you all.” (II Corinthians 13:14).
* “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy
faith and pray in the Holy
Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ
to bring you to eternal life.” (Jude 20-21).
The doctrine of the Trinity is perhaps best understood in terms of
Christian salvation.
Christian believe that God the Father wills that we be reconciled
to Him from sin, and
that He sent the Son, Who in His perfect life and substitutionary
death provides the basis
of that reconciliation, and that the Father now, in Jesus' name,
sends the Holy Spirit, Who
applies the salvation of Jesus to the Christian believers, thus
saving them and
empowering them to live lives of victory over sin. Thus is the
Christian’s experience and
assurance of salvation in terms of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Yet they
absolutely believe that there is only one God. How do we
put this together? This is
29 What Did Jesus Really Say?
where the word “trinity” comes in. It expresses this truth about
God as it is found in the
Bible.
This is certainly not an exhaustive explanation, but it may help
to demonstrate the
significance of the doctrine in practical Christian life.
2. Is Jesus the physical (begotten/sired) son of God?
Jesus is presented in the New Testament as the Son of God by
virtue of His unique
eternal relationship with the Father and by means of His unique
virgin birth. We need to
understand, then, how Jesus is the Son of God. The New Testament
tells us how:
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary
was pledged to be
married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to
be with child through
the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man
and did not want to
expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her
quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and
said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as
your wife, because
what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give
birth to a son, and you are
to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from
their sins. (Matthew
1:18-21).
The question as stated implies that Jesus is somehow the result of
a physical union
between God and Mary, but this is not at all the case. Jesus'
birth is a miraculous event
through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Son's deity is
incarnated, or made flesh; in
this Jesus is the “God-man”
Begotten is the old English word that, while in human terms means
to have a child, the
emphasis even there is that what a human father “begets' shares in
the essential nature of
that father. It is in this sense that the King James translates
the Greek word monogenes as
“begotten ; Jesus shares the essential nature of the Father, but
rather through some
physical act, but a supernatural one.
3. Did Jesus Himself ever say in the Bible “I am
God!” or “worship me!”?
What makes Jesus stand out from all other religious figures is the
nature of His claims
about Himself. He claims the prerogatives of God, the rightful
object of a person's
supreme allegiance, and receives with out censure the worship and
obedience of those
who believe.
A number of examples may help to illustrate this:
30 What did Jesus really say?
A. Forgiveness of sins
In Mark 2:1-12, we read the account of Jesus healing a crippled
man. What is so
surprising, and so shocking to His original audience, is the
statement that Jesus makes
before healing the man.
As Jesus sees a group of men bring the paralytic to Him, Mark
records the scene:
When Jesus saw their faith , he said to the paralytic, “Son, your
sins are forgiven.”
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to
themselves, “Why does
this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins
but God alone?”
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were
thinking in their hearts,
and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is
easier: to say to the
paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your
mat and walk'? But that
you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive
sins...” He said to the
paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got
up, took his mat and
walked out in full view of them all.
B. Titles
Jesus in the Gospels appropriates two significant titles
throughout His ministry:
1. The Son of Man
This is the title that Jesus Himself uses most frequently. It is a
Messianic title derived
from the Old Testament book of Daniel. When we read the passage in
Daniel, the implicit
claim that Jesus is making about Himself becomes apparent:
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a
son of man, coming
with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and
was led into his
presence. He (the son of man) was given authority, glory and
sovereign power; all
peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His
dominion is an
everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is
one that will never be
destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14).
2. The Son of God
At His trial Jesus affirmed this title: Again the high priest
asked him, “Are you the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. And you
will see the Son of
Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the
clouds of heaven.
(Mark 14:61-63).
C. Jesus' direct claims
31 What Did Jesus Really Say?
At the climax of a lengthy argument, Jesus speaks of Himself:
“Your father Abraham
rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was
glad..” “You are not yet fifty
years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “I
tell you the truth,”
Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they
picked up stones to stone
him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple
grounds.” (John 8:56-59).
The shock of this claim are those two words “I am.” It is the same
designation that God
used for Himself in His call to Moses: God said to Moses, “I AM
WHO I AM. This is
what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'“
(Exodus 3:14).
D. Jesus receives worship
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him,
Jesus said, “Do you
believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell
me so that I may
believe in him..” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he
is the one speaking
with you..” Then the man said, “Lord. I believe,” and he
worshipped him.” (John 9:35-
38).
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where
Jesus had told them to
go. When they saw him, they worshipped him... (Matthew 28:16-17).
E. Jesus accepts divine entitlement
In what is a clear dialogue between Jesus and “Doubting” Thomas,
we read: Then
Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach
out your hand and put
it into my side. Stop doubting and believe..” Thomas said to him,
“My Lord and my
God!” Then Jesus held him,” Because you have seen me, you have
believed; blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29).
Does Jesus say, “I am God”? No, because that would have been
misunderstood. Jesus is
not the Father (as it would have been thought), Jesus is the Son.
But He clearly claims an
absolutely unique relationship with God whom Jesus calls 'Father.”
Jesus claims
something about Himself that, through the various miracles, His
statements as cited
above, and the response He receives from other people, is slowly
filled-out, and the
meaning of His Sonship becomes clear.
In the very opening of his Gospel, the Apostle John presents Jesus
as “the Word” and
provides perhaps the clearest explanation of the identity of
Jesus, the meaning of the
incarnation, and a further glimpse into the reality of the
Trinity:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were
made; without him
nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that
life was the light of men.
The Word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace
and truth. (John 1:1-
4; 14).
4. If it can be proven, through the Bible, that Jesus
is not God, nor the
physical/begotten/sired son of God, neither is there
any trinity, then will this prove that
the unscrupulous few have corrupted the word of God?
The Christian message about Jesus revolves around three facts: the
incarnation, the
crucifixion, and the resurrection. Prove from the Bible or
otherwise that any one of these
three things are not true, and like a three-legged stool the truth
of the message would
collapse.
Most “proofs” against the traditional teachings of Christianity
consist of pitting one
passage of Scripture against another, and almost always taking
such passages out of
context. Context, I believe, always vindicates the understanding
of God and of Jesus as I
have here tried to briefly present.
I would conclude, then, with an encouragement for the readers to
read the Bible,
particularly one of the Gospels, for themselves. There, I believe,
the words and works of
Jesus would provide a most convincing reason to embrace Him as
Lord and Savior, and
find in Him the spiritual satisfaction that so many today seek
after.
33 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2 Muslim Perspective
(Note: the rest of chapter one is an expansion of the original
response to Mr. J’s letter)
hank you Mr. J for your most thought provoking letter. In what is
to follow I have
striven to avoid objectionable or disrespectful wording. This is
an academic exchange
and not a slug-fest. I am however human. If one or two cases have
slipped by me
then I apologize in advance for them. They were not intentional. I
also realize that this is
quite a lengthy response for someone to read in one sitting.
However, I ask the reader to
try to do so and not to pass judgment until they have managed to
receive a complete
picture. Now, the response:
The three monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam-- all purport to
share one fundamental concept: belief in God as the Supreme Being,
the Creator and
Sustainer of the Universe. Known as “Tawhid” in Islam, this
concept of Oneness of God
was stressed by Moses in the Biblical passage Known as the
“Shema,” or the Jewish
creed of faith: “Hear, O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
It was repeated word-for-word approximately 1500 years later by
Jesus when he said
“...The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O
Israel; the Lord our God is one
Lord.” (Mark 12:29)
Muhammad came along approximately 600 years later, bringing the
same message
again: “And
your God is One God: there is no God but He” (The Qur'an, al-
Bakarah(2):163)
Christianity has digressed from the concept of the Oneness of God,
however, into a
vague and mysterious doctrine that was formulated during the
fourth century CE (see
historical details in chapter 2.2.5). This doctrine, which
continues to be the source of
controversy both within and without the Christian religion, is
known as the Doctrine of
the Trinity. Simply put, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity
states that God is the union
of three divine persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
- in one divine being.
Christian sects are many and varied. However, the majority of
Christians around the
world believe in the following four basic concepts: 1) The
Trinity, 2) The divine Sonship
of Jesus (pbuh), 3) The original sin, and 4) The death of “the son
of God” on the cross in
atonement for the original sin of Adam. Everything else is pretty
much relegated into the
background. A Christian can be saved and enter heaven by simply
believing in the above
creeds. According to St. Paul, the previous law and commandments
of God are
worthless, this simple belief will guarantee for all comers a
place in heaven “Therefore
we conclude that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law.” Romans
3:28.
Christianity as it currently stands is the interpretation of St.
Paul of what he personally
thinks that Christianity should be. Muslims are told that the
message of Jesus (pbuh) was
directed towards the Jews alone as verified in the Bible (Matthew
15:24 “But he
answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel”).
The
T
34 What did Jesus really say?
verses wherein he is claimed to have told his disciples to preach
to the whole world are
now recognized as later insertions (we will get into this in a
little more detail in chapter
6.10). God almighty never intended for it to become the religion
of the masses as He
intended Islam to be. There is much internal evidence in the Bible
to support this claim.
Christianity as it stands today has been reduced to an interpretation of the words of
Jesus (pbuh) within the context of what Paul taught rather than the other way around
which is the way it should be. We would expect Christianity to be
the teachings of Jesus
(pbuh) and that the words of Paul and everyone else would be
accepted or rejected
according to their conformity to these “Jesuit” teachings.
However, we will notice in
what follows that Jesus (pbuh) never in his lifetime mentioned an
original sin, or an
atonement. He never asked anyone to worship him, neither did he
ever claim to be part of
a trinity or anything else. His words and actions are those of a
loyal messenger of God
who faithfully and faultlessly followed the commands of his Lord
and only told his
followers to do the same and to worship God alone (John
4:21, John 4:23, Matthew 4:10,
Luke 4:8 ...etc.).
Just one of the countless examples of this placement of the words
of Paul above the
words of Jesus can be seen in the following analysis: Jesus (pbuh)
is claimed to have
been prepared for his sacrifice on the cross from the beginning of
time and was a willing
victim (otherwise they would have to claim that God is a sadistic
and torturous God).
However, whenever Jesus (pbuh) was asked about the path to
“eternal life” he
consistently told
his followers to only “keep
the commandments” and nothing
more
(Luke 18:18-24, Matthew 19:16-21, John 14:15, John 15:10). Not
once did he himself
ever mention an original sin or a redemption. Even when pressed
for the path to
“PERFECTION” he only told his followers to sell their belongings.
He departed leaving
his followers with the very dire threat: Matthew 5:18-19 “For verily I say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall
teach men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever
shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Obviously, heaven and earth have not yet passed. The fact that you
are reading this book
bears witness to this very simple fact. So Jesus (pbuh) is telling
us that so long as
creation exists, the commandments will be required from his
followers. Anyone who will
dare to say otherwise, until the end of time, will be called “the least in the kingdom of
heaven.” Jesus (pbuh) had foreseen mankind’s attempt to distort and annul
his
commandments (the commandments of Moses, pbuh), which he had
taught his followers
to keep and himself had kept faithfully till the crucifixion, and
was warning his followers
in no uncertain terms to be wary of all those who would attempt to
do so.
Not long after, Jesus departs. Now Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), a
man who never met
Jesus (pbuh), comes along. After a lifetime of persecuting the
followers of Jesus (pbuh)
and killing them, Paul “sees the light,” receives a “vision” from
Jesus (pbuh), and takes it
upon himself to explain what Jesus really meant.
Paul claims that the law of God is
worthless, decaying and ready to vanish away and faith in the
crucifixion is the only
35 What Did Jesus Really Say?
requirement for a Christian to enter heaven (Romans 3:28, Hebrews
8:13...etc.). Who do
Christians listen to, Jesus or Paul? They listen to Paul. They
take the words of Paul
literally and
then “interpret” the words of Jesus (pbuh) within the context of the words of
Paul.
No one takes the words of Jesus (pbuh) literally and explains the words of Paul
within the context of Jesus’ words.
According to this system of explaining the words of Jesus within
the context of Paul’s
teachings, Jesus never actually means what he says but is
constantly speaking in riddles
which are not to be taken literally. Even when people attempt to
cite the words of Jesus
as confirming the teachings of Paul with regard to the original
sin, the atonement, the
divine Sonship ...etc. they never bring clear and decisive words where Jesus actually
confirms these things. Instead, they say such things as “When Jesus spoke of the Exodus
he was really speaking of the atonement” or so forth. Are we to believe that Paul is the
only one who can say what is on his mind clearly and decisively
while Jesus (pbuh) is not
capable of articulating what he means clearly and decisively but
requires interpreters to
explain the “true” meaning of what he said, and to explain how, when he
spoke of the
commandments, he was not talking of “the commandments” but of a spiritual
commandment and that they will now tell you what this spiritual
commandment is that
Jesus never managed to talk clearly about.
It is interesting to note that Jesus was not talking in riddles
when he commanded his
followers to keep the commandments but was talking of the actual
physical
commandments of Moses. This can be clearly seen by reading for
instance Luke 18:20
where Jesus spells out in no uncertain terms what he means by
“keep the
commandments.” In the past, we have posed the following points to
Christian clergy:
1) According to you, Jesus is supposed to have been prepared for
the “atonement” from
the beginning of time. He should know that it is coming.
2) Whenever he was asked about the path to “eternal life” (i.e.
Luke 18:18-24 ..etc.) he
consistently told
his followers to only “keep the commandments” just as he had “kept
my father’s commandments” ..etc.
3) Even when he was pressed for more, he only told his followers
that to be PERFECT
they need only sell their belongings.
4) Not once did he mention an “atonement” or and “original sin.”
5) The commandments he spoke about were the commandments of Moses
and not some
“spiritual” commandments. This can be seen in the text itself
where Jesus (pbuh)
explicitly spells out some of the commandments of Moses one by
one.
6) St. Paul, a disciple of a disciple, is the one who is followed
by Christianity and not
Jesus. Jesus’ teachings are explained within the context of Paul’s
teachings and not
vice versa.
Whenever we presented these points to a member of the Christian
clergy we would
always be greeted with a
response such as “Well, uh... Don’t take Jesus’ words literally ..uh...”
36 What did Jesus really say?
Getting back to the matter at hand, the reader will notice in Mr.
J’s response a
surprising absence of certain very fundamental verses usually
quoted by any Christian
man or woman off the street in defense of the “trinity” and other
issues. The reader may
further surmise that Mr. J might not be well versed enough in the
Bible to have referred to
these verses. This is far from the case. His occupation requires
that he know those
verses. The fact of the matter is that we have had an ongoing
correspondence with Mr. J
for a number of months now which he has now asked us to publicize.
In this
correspondence, many of these fundamental verses were dealt with
in detail and refuted
for various reasons. This is why he did not quote them here.
However, in order that all
may benefit from this information we will quote these same verses
that he has elected not
to. We will also tackle the other verses he has presented.
37 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2.1 “Blind faith” or “Prove all things”?:
efore actually getting down to our response, let us first
establish the ground rules.
All Bibles in existence today tell us that Christians are taught
by Jesus (pbuh) himself:
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the
commandments is, Hear, O Israel;
The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength: this is the
first commandment.” Mark 12:29-30.
They are also told “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” 1 Thessalonians
5:21
and “For God is not the author
of confusion” 1 Corinthians 14:33.
So, contrary to the teachings of most members of the clergy, Jesus
(pbuh) did not want
his followers to believe everything they were told on “blind faith,”
but he wanted his
followers to believe “with all thy mind.” He
wanted us to THINK in order to protect his
words from corruption. Let us comply with the teaching of Allah’s
elect messenger,
Jesus (pbuh), and see where the truth and our minds will lead us:
B
38 What did Jesus really say?
1.2.2: The “Trinity,” or 1+1+1=1
he myth of the “trinity” as originally fabricated three centuries
after the departure of
Jesus (see historical details at end of this chapter) and taught
to Christians ever since
is the merging of three entities into one while remaining three
distinct entities. In
other words: Three bodies fold, or blend, or merge into one body
so that they become one
entity while at the same time exhibiting the characteristics of
three distinct and separate
entities. It is described as “a mystery.” The first definition of
the Trinity was put forth in
the fourth century as follows: “...we worship one God in the trinity, and Trinity in
Unity...for there is one Person of the Father,
another of the Son, another of the Holy
Ghost is all one... they are not three gods, but one
God... the whole three persons are coeternal
and co-equal...he therefore that will be saved must
thus think of the trinity...”
(excerpts from the Athanasian creed).
When the Church speaks of worship, God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost
are claimed to be
one being.
Otherwise they would have to explain such verses as Isaiah 43:10-11.
However, when they speak of “the death of God” it is Jesus (pbuh)
who is claimed to
have died and not God or the “trinity.” Now the three are separate.
When God is
described as having “begotten” a son it is not the “trinity” nor
Jesus (pbuh) which has
begotten, but a distinctly separate being from
the other two.... there are many such
examples.
1.2.2.1 From the Bible’s standpoint:
Matthew 28:19, I Corinthians 12:4-6, II Corinthians 13:14, and
Jude 20-21? How
someone could refer to such verses as requiring a
“trinity” is beyond comprehension. Do
any of these verses say “God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are the
same being”, or “God,
Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are one and the same” etc.?. Just
because the words “God,”
“Jesus,” and “Holy Ghost” appear in one verse does not mean this
verse requires a
“trinity”, or “merging of three into one.” Even if this verse also
contains the word “one”
this still does not necessarily require a “trinity.” For example,
if I say “Joe, Jim, and
Frank speak one language” this is not the same as saying “Joe, Jim, and Frank are one
person.” Let
us clarify this with examples:
1) Matthew 28:19:
If President George Bush told General Norman Schwartzkopf to “Go ye therefore, and
speak to the Iraqis, chastising them in the name of
the United States, Great Britain, and
the Soviet Union,” does this require that these three are one physical entity? They
may be
one in purpose and in their goals but this does in no way require
that they are merged into
one physical entity. Also remember that the “Great Commission” as
narrated in the
Gospel of Mark, Bears no mention of the Father, Son and/or Holy
Ghost (see Mark
16:15). As we shall see in chapter two, Christian historians
readily admit that the Bible
was the object of continuous “correction” and “addition” to bring
it in line with
established beliefs. They present many documented cases where
words were “inserted”
into a given verse to validate a given doctrine. Tom Harpur,
former religion editor of the
Toronto Star says in his book For Christ’s sake (pp.
102): “All but the most conservative
of scholars agree that at least the latter part of
this command was inserted later.”
T
39 What Did Jesus Really Say?
2) I Corinthians 12:4-6:
If I were to say: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Santa Claus.
There are
different kinds of service, but the same Government.
There are different kinds of working,
but the same God works all of them in all men.” Do God, the U.S. Government and
Santa Claus now form another “trinity”? The same verse which
moments ago required a
merging of three gods into a “trinity” can now be understood
without the need for a
trinity. Is it impossible to receive “gifts,” “services,” and
“works” except from ONE
person? Once again, we see that it is necessary to spend a little
more time actually
reading the
verses in question in order to not read into them statements that are not
there.
Why does everything have to be so abstract? If this is the true
nature of God then why
can’t the Bible just come out and say “God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are physically
joined in one being” or “God,
Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are one and the same.” Is this
so very hard? Look at how much less space this would require. Look
at how infinitely
more clear and decisive that would be. Look at the clear cut
decisiveness of
Deuteronomy 4:39 “Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the
LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the
earth beneath: there is none else.”
God does not philosophize and speak all the way around matters. He
speaks clearly and
in no uncertain terms so that there can be no doubt as to what He
meant. If there was a
trinity why would He not simply just come out and say so, just as
clearly and decisively
as He does when He speaks about his uniqueness? Think about it.
3) II Corinthians 13:14
If I say: “May the
genius of Einstein, the philosophy of Freud, and the strength of
Schwarzenegger be with you all” does this require all three to be joined in a
“trinity”?
Does it require that Einstein is Freud (or a different “side” of
Freud)? Does it require that
Freud is Schwarzenegger (or a different “side” of
Schwarzenegger)?
4) Jude 20-21:
If a man on his death bed told his only son: “But you, dear son, build yourself up in
your strength and strive in good works. Keep yourself
in my love as you wait for the
fullness of time to guide you to manhood,” show us how these verses require a
trinity. Go
back and apply this same logic to the original verse. Deuteronomy
4:39 requires the
uniqueness of God. There are no two ways about it. It is very
clear, decisive, and to the
point. The explicit (and not the “hidden”) meaning is quite clear
and direct. Show me
just one verse of the Bible that is similarly decisive about the
trinity. All of these verses
require you to really strain the words and stretch their meaning
to arrive at any merging of
three into one.
With regard to your description of the trinity please read the analysis
of the original sin
and the redemption below.
An interesting point is that when people try to force a “trinity”
upon a certain verse of
the Bible they always do it with the New Testament and not the Old
Testament. Why is
that? Did the countless prophets of the Old Testament not know
about the “trinity”? Did
God not see fit to tell the Jews about the trinity? Think about
it.
When someone speaks to someone else about a specific matter, they
usually spend the
majority of their time explaining the major issues and much less
time on side-issues. For
instance, if I wanted to give someone my favorite recipe for
chicken parmesan I would
spend most of my time speaking about the ingredients, their
amounts, their order of
combination, the amount of time needed to cook each one and so on.
I would spend very
40 What did Jesus really say?
little time (comparatively) talking about how to set the table or
what color bowl to serve it
in. When comparing this observation to the Bible, we find that for
a matter of such
profound importance, the “trinity” is never mentioned in the Bible
at all. Sound
preposterous? Read on.
The verse most often quoted by almost every Christian around the
world in defense of
the “trinity” is the verse of 1 John 5:7 “For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and
these three are one.” This is the type of
clear, decisive, and to-the-point verse we were asking for.
However, this verse is now
universally recognized as being a later “insertion” of the Church
and all recent versions of
the Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version and the New
Revised Standard Version
...etc. Have unceremoniously expunged this verse from their pages.
Why is this? The
scripture translator Benjamin Wilson gives the following
explanation for this action in his
“Emphatic Diaglott.” Mr. Wilson says: “This text concerning the heavenly witness is
not contained in any Greek manuscript which was
written earlier than the fifteenth
century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical
writers; not by any of early Latin
fathers even when the subjects upon which they
treated would naturally have lead them to
appeal to it’s authority. It is therefore evidently spurious.” Others, such as the late Dr.
Herbert W. Armstrong argued that they were added to the Latin
Vulgate edition of the
Bible during the heat of
the controversy between Rome, Dr. Arius, and God’s people.
Whatever the reason, this verse is now universally recognized as
an insertion and
discarded. Since the Bible contains no verses validating a
“trinity” therefore, centuries
after the departure of Jesus, God decided to “inspire” someone to
insert this verse in order
to “clarify” the “true” nature of God as being a “trinity.” Notice
that mankind was being
“inspired” as to how to “clarify” the Bible centuries after the
departure of Jesus (pbuh).
People continued to put words in the mouths of Jesus, his
disciples, and even God
himself with no reservations whatsoever. They were being
“inspired” (see chapter two).
If these people were being “inspired” by God then why did they
need to put these words
into other people’s mouths. Why did they not just openly say “God
inspired me and I
will add a chapter to the Bible in my name”?
Also, why did God need to wait till after the
departure of Jesus to “inspire” his “true” nature? Why not let
Jesus (pbuh) say it himself?
It was Sir Isaac Newton who made public this forged insertion: “Of all the manuscripts
now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which
are more than 1200 years old, the
orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian
editors, of Robert Stephens are
becoming invisible; and the two manuscripts of Dublin
and Berlin are unworthy to form
an exception...In the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the Bibles were corrected by
LanFrank, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas,
a cardinal and librarian of the
Roman church, secundum Ortodoxam fidem.
Notwithstanding these corrections, the
passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin
manuscripts, the oldest and fairest; two
qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts....The
three witnesses have been
established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence
of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of
the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud,
or error, of Robert Stephens in the
41 What Did Jesus Really Say?
placing of a crotchet and the deliberate falsehood,
or strange misapprehension, of
Theodore Beza.” Gibbon, “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,” IV, p. 418.
Such comparatively unimportant matters as the description of Jesus
(pbuh) riding an ass
(or was it a “colt”?, or was it an “ass and a colt”? see point 42
in the table of chapter 2.2)
into Jerusalem are spoken about in great details since they are
the fulfillment of a
prophesy. For instance, in Mark 11:2-10 we read: “And saith unto them, Go your way
into the village over against you: and as soon as
ye be entered into it, ye shall find a
colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and
bring him. And if any man say unto
you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath
need of him; and straightway he will
send him hither. And they went their way, and
found the colt tied by the door without
in a place where two ways met; and they loose And
certain of them that stood there
said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And
they said unto them even as Jesus
had commanded: and they let them go. And they
brought the colt to Jesus, and cast
their garments on him; and he sat upon him. And
many spread their garments in the
way: and others cut down branches off the trees,
and strawed them in the And they that
went before, and they that followed, cried,
saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord Blessed be the kingdom of
our father David, that cometh in the
name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.” Also see Luke 19:30-38 which has a
similar detailed description of this occurrence. On the other
hand, the Bible is completely
free of any description of the “trinity” which is supposedly a
description of the very
nature of the one who rode this ass, who is claimed to be the only
son of God, and who
allegedly died for the sins of all of mankind. Which is more
important to Christian faith,
the “trinity” or the description of an ass?
Another verse quoted in defense of the “trinity” is the verse of
John 1:1 : “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.”
1) First of all, these words are acknowledged be every erudite
Christian scholar of the
Bible as the words of another Jew, Philo of Alexandria, who
claimed no divine
inspiration for them, and who had written them long before John or
Jesus (pbut) were
born. Groliers encyclopedia has the following to say under the
heading “Logos”(“the
word”): “Heraclitus was the earliest
Greek thinker to make logos a central concept ......In
the New Testament, the Gospel According to Saint John
gives a central place to logos;
the biblical author describes the Logos as God, the
Creative Word, who took on flesh in
the man Jesus Christ. Many have traced John's
conception to Greek origins--perhaps
through the intermediacy of eclectic texts like the
writings of Philo of Alexandria.”
2) Internal evidence provides serious doubt as to whether the
apostle John the son of
Zebedee wrote this Gospel himself. In the dictionary of the Bible
by John Mckenzie we
read “A. Feuillet notes that authorship
here may be taken loosely.” Such
claims are
based on such verses as 21:24: “This is the disciple which testifieth of these
things, and
wrote these things: and we know that his
testimony is true.”????? Also
see 21:20,
13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, and 21:20-23. The “disciple who Jesus
loved” according to the
church is John himself, but the author speaks of him as a
different person. In other
words, what we have here is a Gospel which someone wants us to
think was written by
the apostle John, but which in fact was not written by him.
42 What did Jesus really say?
3) The Gospel of John was written at or near Ephesus between the
years 110 and 115
(some say 95-100) of the Christian era by this, or these, unknown
author(s). According to
R. H. Charles, Alfred Loisy, Robert Eisler, and other scholars of
Christian history, John
of Zebedee was beheaded by Agrippa I in the year 44 CE, long
before the fourth Gospel
was written.
4) C.J. Cadoux writes in “The life of Jesus”: “The speeches in the fourth Gospel (even
apart from the earlier messianic claim) are so
different from those in the Synoptics, and
so like the comments of the Fourth evangelist
himself, that both cannot be equally
reliable as records of what Jesus said: Literary
veracity in ancient times did not forbid,
as it does now, the assignment of fictitious speeches
to historical characters: the best
ancient historians made a practice of composing and
assigning such speeches this way.”
5) Even if we are to take this verse as authentic, then we must
notice the following: In
the “original” Greek manuscripts (Did the disciple John speak
Greek?), the first
occurrence of the word “God” is the Greek word “ ,” (Hotheos)
which means “The
God,” or “God” with a capital “G” to denote a proper noun. The
second occurrence of
the word “God” is the Greek “ ,” (Tontheos) meaning “a god,” or
“god” (any god, not
necessarily the almighty). So, if the translators were consistent
in their translation, they
would have written the above verse as follows: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was a god” (If you read the New World Translation
of the Bible you will find exactly this wording). If we look at a
different verse, 2
Corinthians 4:4, we find the exact same word is
used to describe the devil, however, now
the system has dishonestly been reversed: “(and
the devil is) the god of this world.”
According to the system of the previous verse and the English
language, the translation of
the description of the devil should also have been written as
“God” with a capital “G.” If
Paul was inspired to use the same word to describe
the devil, then why should we change
it? Why is this word translated as simply a “god” when
referring to the devil, but
translated as the almighty “God” when
referring to a “word”? Are we now starting to get
a glimpse of how the “translation” of the Bible took place?
The apologists always manage to conveniently side-step this issue
by conveniently
forgetting the Hotheos/Tontheos problem and never mentioning a
valid explanation for
why one word was translated two different ways in two different
verses, but rather, they
say “I don’t personally like the New World Translation of the
Bible, thus, everything you
say is wrong.” Even if you do not like the New World Translation,
you still have not
explained the selective translation! This is blind faith talking
here.
One of the biggest problems with the Bible as it stands today is
that it forces us to look
at Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures through Greek and Latin glasses
as seen by people who
are neither Jews, Greeks, nor Romans. All of the so called
“original” manuscripts
available today are written in Greek. The verses of John 1:1 is
exactly equivalent to such
verses as Psalms 82:6: “I have said, Ye (the Jews) are gods; and all of you are children
of the most High”, or Exodus 7:1: “And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made
thee a god to Pharaoh” The Jews had no trouble reading such verses while
still affirming
that there is only one God in existence and vehemently denying the
divinity of all but God
almighty. It is the continuous filtration of these manuscripts
through different languages
43 What Did Jesus Really Say?
and cultures as well as the Roman Catholic church’s extensive
efforts to completely
destroy all of the original Hebrew Gospels (see last quarter of
this chapter) which has led
to this misunderstanding of the verses. If I were an American, and
I were to tell, for
example, the citizens of China: “Hit the road men,” we would more
than likely find
countless people beating the street with sticks. Did they
understand the words? Yes!
Did they understand the meaning? No!
Mr. Tom Harpur says in the preface to his book: “The most significant development
since 1986 in this regard has been the discovery of
the title “Son of God” in one of the
Qumran papyri (Dead Sea Scrolls) used in relation to
a person other than Jesus.....this
simply reinforces the argument made there that to be
called the Son of God in a Jewish
setting in the first century is not by any means the
same as being identical with God
Himself.” For
Christ’s Sake, pp. xii. (please read chapter 13 for more on the Dead Sea
Scrolls)
6) In the Qur’an we are told that when God almighty wills
something he merely says to
it “BE” and it is. This is the Islamic viewpoint of “The Word.”
“The Word” is literally
God’s utterance “BE.” This is held out by the Bible where thirteen
verses later in John
1:14 we read: “And the Word was made flesh”.
The third verse which Christians claim validates the doctrine of
the trinity is the verse
of John 10:30 “I and my father are one.” This verse, however is quoted out of context.
The complete passage, starting with John 10:23, reads as follows:
John 10:23-30 “And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the
Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long
dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus
answered them, I told you, and ye believed
not: the works that I do in my Father's name,
they bear witness of me. But ye believe
not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said
unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me: And I give unto
them eternal life; and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which
gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is
able to pluck them out of my Father's
hand. I and my Father are one.” In divinity? In a holy “trinity”? No! They are one in
PURPOSE. Just as no one shall pluck them out of Jesus’ hand, so
shall no one pluck
them out of God’s hand. Need more proof? Then read John 17:20-22: “Neither pray I
for these alone, but for them also which shall
believe on me through their word; That
they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be one
in us: that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me. And the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them; that they may be
one, even as we are one.” Is
all of
mankind also part of the “trinity”?
Well, what about the verse “He that hath seen me hath seen the father.” Let us look
at the context: John 14:8-9 “Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it
sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me
hath seen the Father; and how
sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” Philip wanted to see God with his own eyes, but
this is impossible since no one can ever do that (John 1:18 “No man hath seen God at
44 What did Jesus really say?
any time,” see also 1 John 4:12...etc.), so Jesus simply told him that his
own actions and
miracles should be a sufficient proof of the existence of God
without God having to
physically come down and let himself be seen every time someone is
doubtful. This is
equivalent to for example John 8:19: “Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father?
Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my
Father: if ye had known me, ye should
have known my Father also.” If we want to insist that when Philip saw Jesus
(pbuh), he
had actually physically
seen God “the father,” then this
will force us to conclude that John
1:18, 1 John 4:12, ..etc. are all lies.
Well, is Philip the only one who ever “saw the father”? Let us
read John 6:46 “Not that
any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of
God, he hath seen the Father.”
Who is this who “is of God” you ask? Let us once again ask the
Bible: John 8:47 “He
that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore
hear them not, because ye are not of
God.” And
3 John 1:11 “Beloved, follow not that
which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth
evil hath not seen God.” Have
all
people who have done good also physically seen God?
Such terminology can be found in many other places, read for
example 1 Corinthians
6:15-17 “Know
ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take
the members of Christ, and make them the members
of an harlot? God forbid. What?
know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot
is one body? for two, saith he, shall be
one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is
one spirit,” and also Ephesians 4:6
“One God and Father of all, who is above all, and
through all, and in you all.”
In the New Catholic Encyclopedia (Bearing the Nihil Obstat and
Imprimatur,
indicating official approval) we read:”......The formulation ‘One God in three persons’
was not solidly established into Christian life and
it’s profession of faith until prior to the
end of the fourth century. But it is precisely this
formulation that has the first claim to
the title the Trinitarian Dogma. AMONG THE APOLISTIC FATHERS, there had been nothing
even remotely approaching such a mentality or
perspective” (emphasis added).
SO,
JESUS’ TWELVE
APOSTLES HAD NEVER HEARD OF ANY “TRINITY”
Top Harpur writes in his book “For Christ’s Sake”: “What is most embarrassing for the
church is the difficulty of proving any of these
statements of dogma from the new
Testament documents. You simply cannot find the
doctrine of the Trinity set out
anywhere in the Bible. St. Paul has the highest view
of Jesus’ role and person, but
nowhere does he call him God. Nor does Jesus himself
anywhere explicitly claim to be
the second person in the
Trinity, wholly equal to his heavenly Father. As a pious Jew, he would have been shocked and offended by such an
Idea....(this is) in itself bad enough.
But there is worse to come. This research has lead me
to believe that the great majority
of regular churchgoers are, for all practical
purposes, tritheists. That is, they profess to
believe in one God, but in reality they worship
three..”
1.2.2.2 From the Qur’an’s standpoint:
“O people of the book! commit no excesses in your
religion: nor say of Allah aught
but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was
(no more than) a messenger of Allah,
and his word, which he bestowed upon Mary, and a
spirit preceding from him: so
believe in Allah and his messengers. Say not
“Three”: desist!, it is better for you, for
Allah is one god, Glory be to him, Far exalted is
he above having a son. To him belong
45 What Did Jesus Really Say?
all things in the heavens and the earth. And
enough is Allah as a disposer of affairs.”
The Qur’an, Al-Nissah(4):171
“Or have they (mankind) chosen gods from the
earth who raise the dead. If there
were therein gods besides Allah then verily both
(the heavens and the earth) would
have gone to ruin. Glorified be Allah, the lord
of the throne from all they ascribe (unto
Him)” The
Qur’an, Al-Anbia(21):20.
Think about it. If there were
more than one God in
existence, and one wanted you to do one thing and the other wanted
you to do another
then which one would have his way? If one wanted the sun to come
out of the West and
the other wanted it to come out of the East then which one would
win? Verse such as
Mark 14:36, and Matthew 26:39 clearly exhibit that God “The
father” and God “the son”
both have distinct wills. Further, we read:
“Allah coineth a similitude: A man in relation to
whom are several partners
quarreling, and a man belonging wholly to one
man. Are the two equal in similitude?
Praise be to Allah, but most of them know not.” The Qur’an, Al-Zumar(39):27. In
other words, which would be more conducive of harmony: For an
employee to have two
bosses quarreling over him, or for each employee to have only one
boss?
“Say (O Muhammad, to the disbelievers): If there
were other gods along with Him,
as they say, then they would have sought a way
against the Lord of the Throne.
Glorified is He, and High Exalted above what they
say! The seven heavens and the
earth and all that is therein praise Him, and
there is not a thing but hymneth his
praise; but you understand not their praise. Lo!
He is ever Clement, Forgiving.” The
Qur’an, Al-Israa(17):42-44.
“And say: Praise be to Allah, Who has not taken
unto Himself a son, and Who has
no partner in the Sovereignty, nor has He any
protecting friend through dependence.
And magnify Him with all magnificence.” The Qur’an, Al-Israa(17):111.
“Allah has not chosen any son, nor is there any
God along with Him; else would
each God have assuredly championed that which he
created, and some of them would
assuredly have overcome others. Glorified be
Allah above all that they allege. Knower
of the invisible and the visible! and exalted be
He over all that they ascribe as partners
(unto Him)!” The Qur’an, Al-Muminoon(23):91-92.
Think of the mythology of the Romans and the Greeks and their
countless “Gods”.
These “Gods” were constantly at odds with each other and declaring
war against each
other and it was mankind that was always caught in the middle.
1.2.2.3 From a logical standpoint:
If Jesus (pbuh) is part of a divine trinity which makes up the essence
of God almighty,
and Jesus (pbuh) died on the cross, then what happened to God
almighty? (Remember,
Christians such as Mr. J claim that they pray to one “triune” god
and not three separate
gods). Did the trinity die? Did it continue to exist in a severely
crippled form? If I am
made up of heart, mind, and soul, and one of them dies;
what happens to the rest of me?
Are they ONE or THREE? If God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three
names for the
same being, (definition of the “trinity” required by Isaiah
43:10-11 and many other
verses) and not three separate gods, then the “death of Jesus” is
just another way of saying
“the death of God the ‘Father’,” which is also another way of
saying “the death of the
Holy Ghost.”
46 What did Jesus really say?
Some members of the clergy will object that it was not “Jesus” per
se who died, but
rather it was “his human form” that died. His “godly” form was not
affected. It is
described as one describes someone removing his coat. This leaves
us with a dilemma,
because it leaves us with one of two cases:
1) Either Jesus (pbuh) “himself” died, in
which case, since he is claimed to be part of
the “Trinity”, and the “Trinity” is claimed to be ONE god, not
three (required by Isaiah
43:10-11 and many other verses), then God, Jesus, and the Holy
Ghost are all claimed to
have died, since they are all “the same essence”.
2) Or, Jesus (pbuh) “himself” did NOT
die, but only shed his earthly body (as it were),
and in this case we must ask, where then is the great sacrifice in
this shedding of a useless
shell? How is his shedding of this shell which is not his actual
essence an ultimate
sacrifice in atonement for all of mankind’s sins? Can he not
simply make one hundred
more human “shells” for himself to inhabit? Is his discarding of
one of them an “ultimate
sacrifice”?
Continuing with our theme of logic; remember when Jesus (pbuh) is
alleged to have
died (Luke 23:46: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said
thus, he gave up the ghost”)?
When
people die they go to their Lord to be judged. If Jesus (pbuh)
was, as claimed, a part of a
trinity and the trinity is only ONE god (otherwise Christians
would have to admit to
worshipping multiple gods), then Jesus was with God
in a trinity before his death. It was
only after his death that he was claimed to have left God
and gone down into hell for
three days. However, this verse tells us a completely different
story. It claims that Jesus’
soul was somewhere other than already with God (otherwise
it would not have to go to
him) and was now going to God. Also read John 17:11:”....I come to thee. Holy
Father.” And John 17:13: “And now come I to thee”...etc.
Sadly enough, most Christians are taught to brush off these
matters with words like “It
is uncomprehendable, that is why it must be true,” or “believe
blindly or you will lose
your soul.”???? Have we so soon forgotten “For God is not the author of confusion” 1
Corinthians 14:33 ?
When Jesus (pbuh) allegedly died and went to hell for three days
(1 Corinthians 15:3
“Christ died for our sins”, Romans 5:6 “Christ died for the ungodly” etc.)? Did the
trinity die then reside in hell also, or was a third of the
trinity ripped away from the
whole, then tortured and killed while the remaining two thirds (of
God?) remained in it’s
crippled form outside a safe distance away? Who was overseeing the
heavens and the
earth while all of this was happening? A crippled trinity? No one?
If it is possible for
one third of the “trinity” to die independently of the other two
then it becomes obvious
that they are separate and independent and not ONE God, this
contradicts Isaiah 43:10-
11. However, if they are indeed ONE God then the death of this one
God contradicts
many verses such as Jeremiah 10:10 “But the LORD is the true God, he is the living
God, and an everlasting king.” Also, if the giver of life is dead then who shall
bring
Him back to life?
God almighty is claimed to have “begotten” Jesus (pbuh). He is
claimed to be the
“father” of Jesus. Naturally a father is present before he
“begets” his son (no matter how
you wish to define “beget”). Before Jesus (pbuh) was “begotten,”
was the “trinity” a
“duality”? Was God complete? Explain Isaiah 43:10-11. If Jesus
(pbuh) was “begotten”
then he is not eternal, but the definition of the trinity which
was concocted in 325 AD
when the trinity was first defined requires the co-eternity of God
and Jesus (pbuh) (see
below).
47 What Did Jesus Really Say?
There are many such questions to be raised about this supposed
trinity which defy logic.
When someone loves God “with all thy mind” and
they “Prove all things; hold fast
that
which is good” are they not presented with countless contradictions
regarding the
“trinity”? We are speaking about the logic of Jesus (pbuh)
here and not blind faith. Jesus
is beseeching us to use our minds but we would rather follow
others who demand blind
faith. Jesus (pbuh) tells us that “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him.” John
14:23. Sadly, the same people who love him dearly have now been
taught that in order to
love Jesus they must completely disregard everything he ever
taught his followers and
must follow others who are better able to explain his message than
himself. In effect, his
words have been totally abandoned (see below).
If the Trinity designates god as being three separate entities -
the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, and if God is the Father and also the Son, He would
then be the Father of
Himself because He is His own Son. This is not exactly logical
(please read chapter
1.2.8).
Jesus (pbuh) claims to not even know when “that day” is “But of that day and that
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are
in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father” Mark 13:32. Is he not part of God? Is the “trinity” not one god?
The fact that
one of them has knowledge not available to the other “two thirds”
is a clear indication
that they are distinct and separate beings, and not three faces of
one being.
If I have three balls of clay and I press them together into one
ball then they become
ONE but now it is impossible to retrieve the original three
exactly as they were originally.
If I have three bricks and I stack them above each other then I
can separate them, but I
can not call the three bricks ONE brick.
If I have a cup of water which can become steam, water, or ice,
then it is not possible
for me to drink the “water” form while the “ice” and “steam” forms
remain inside the
glass. It is not possible for the “water” form to beseech the ice
form to save it from being
drunk while the ice form stayed a safe distance away. This is
simple logic. “And thou
shalt love the Lord thy God ... with all thy mind
... this is the first commandment” Mark
12:30
For the historical details of how such a doctrine was developed in
the first place, please
read chapter 1.2.5 which is coming up soon. But first:
48 What did Jesus really say?
1.2.3: The “son of God”:
nd unto Him belongs whosoever is in the heavens
and the earth and those who
dwell in His presence do not scorn to worship Him
nor do they weary. They
glorify Him night and day; They flag not. Or have
they chosen gods from the
earth who raise the dead. If there were therein
gods besides Allah then verily both (the
heavens and the earth) would have gone to ruin.
Glorified be Allah, the lord of the
throne from all they ascribe (unto Him). He is
not questioned as to that which He
does, but they will be questioned. Or have they
chosen other gods besides Him, say:
Bring your proof (of their godhead), this is the
reminder of those with me and those
before me, but most of them know not the truth so
they are averse (to it). And we sent
no messenger before you but we inspired him
(saying): There is no god save Me
(Allah) so worship Me. And they say: The
Beneficent has taken unto himself a son.
Nay! but (they) are but honored servants. They
speak not until He has spoken and
they obey His command. He knows what is before
them and what is behind them and
they cannot intercede except for those whom He
accepts and they quake for awe of
Him. And whosoever among them says: I am a god
other than Allah, the same shall
We reward with hell. Thus do We reward the wrong
doers.” The Qur’an, Al-
Anbia(21):19-29
“And the angles said ‘O Mary, Allah gives you
glad tidings of a Word from Him, his
name is Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, High honored
in this world and the next, of those
near stationed to Allah.” The Qur’an, A’al-Umran(3):40.
We do not differ with Christians in the fact that Jesus (pbuh) was
indeed born
miraculously without a human father. Muslims only differ with
Christians in the
Christian’s claim that Jesus (pbuh) must have
a father. Trinitarians believe that if he has
no human father then his father must be God. Muslims believe that he
had no father
whatsoever, and this was the essence of his miraculous birth.
“The similitude of Jesus before Allah is as that
of Adam, he created him from dust,
then said to him: 'Be' and he was” The Qur’an, A’al-Umran(3):59.
“They say: Allah has taken a son. Glorified be
He! He has no needs! His is all that
is in the heavens and that is in the earth. You
have no warrant for this, do you say
regarding Allah that which you know not?” The Qur’an, Yunus(10):68
“The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a messenger,
messengers (the like of whom)
had passed away before him. And his mother was a
saintly woman. They both used to
eat (earthly) food. See how we make the signs
clear for them, then see how they are
deluded!” The Qur’an, Al-Maidah (5):75.
“And this is life eternal, that they might know
you the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent.” The Bible, John 17:3.
Notice the above words of the Bible: “YOU the only true God.” Most Christians
always manage to see a hidden abstract meaning for the verses of the
Bible. Even when
they read the above verse they always manage to understand
something totally different
than that which they are reading. They always interpret the word
“you” to be “we,” and
thus, understand the above verse to say “WE the only true god.”
Jesus (pbuh) is
obviously talking to a distinctly different entity than himself
and telling that entity that He
ALONE is the only true God. Is Jesus (pbuh) incapable of saying “I
the only true God” or
“We the only true God” if that is what he meant? Can we see the
difference?
“A
49 What Did Jesus Really Say?
With regard to your second comment, we are not “implying”
anything. The Qur’an
clearly states in no uncertain terms that God “created” Jesus.
Let us quote from the
unbiased Websters dictionary as to what is “implied” by the word
“begotten”: “To
procreate as the father, sire, to produce as an
effect or an outgrowth.” Muslims
feel
such claims with regard to God almighty are an abomination.
Muslims are not the only ones who believe that Jesus (pbuh) is mortal
and not a god.
The Jews also believe this, in addition to the very first groups
of Christianity such as the
Ebonites, the Cerinthians, the Basilidians, the Capocratians, and
the Hypisistarians. The
Arians, Paulicians and Goths also accepted Jesus (pbuh) as a
prophet of God. Even in the
modern age there are churches in Asia, in Africa, the Unitarian
church, the Jehovah’s
witnesses, and even the majority of today’s Anglican Bishops do
not worship Jesus
(pbuh) as God.
The Church, as Heinz Zahrnt put it “put words into the mouth of Jesus which he never
spoke and attributed actions to him which he never
performed.” One of those who has
shown that most of what the church says about Jesus is baseless is
Rudolph Augustein in
his book “Jesus the Son of Man.” Another very comprehensive study of this matter can
be found in the book “The Myth of God Incarnate” which was written by seven
theologian scholars in England in 1977 and edited by John Hick.
Their conclusion in this
matter is that Jesus was “a man approved by God, for a special role within the divine
purpose, and..... the later conception of him as God
incarnate ... is a mythological or
poetic way of expressing his significance for us.” See also John Mackinnon Robertson's
“Christianity and Mythology” T.W Doane's “The Bible Myths and their Parallels in
Other Religions” (A good summary of these studies is available in M.F. Ansarei, “Islam
and Christianity in the Modern World”).
A University of Richmond professor, Dr. Robert Alley, after
considerable research into
newly found ancient documents concludes that “....The (Biblical) passages where Jesus
talks about the Son of God are later additions....
what the church said about him. Such a
claim of deity for himself would not have been
consistent with his entire lifestyle as we
can reconstruct. For the first three decades after
Jesus’ death Christianity continued as
a sect within Judaism. The first three decades of the
existence of the church were within
the synagogue. That would have been beyond belief if
they (the followers) had boldly
proclaimed the deity of Jesus.”
“Know therefore this day, and consider it in
thine heart, that the LORD he is God in
heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there
is none else” Deuteronomy 4:39.
“For thus saith the LORD that created the
heavens; God himself that formed the
earth and made it; he hath established it, he
created it not in vain, he formed it to be
inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else”
Isaiah 45:18.
“Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his
redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am
the first, and I am the last; and beside me there
is no God” Isaiah 44:6
“That they may know from the rising of the sun,
and from the west, that there is none
beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none
else.” Isaiah 45:6
“Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my
servant whom I have chosen: that ye
may know and believe me, and understand that I am
he: before me there was no God
formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even
I, am the LORD; and beside me there
is no savior” Isaiah 43:10-11.
If there was no god formed before or after God
almighty, then how was Jesus (pbuh)
“begotten” as a god? The answer is: he was not. He was a mortal
man, not a god.
50 What did Jesus really say?
Many people will now complain “but the Bible clearly says that
Jesus is the Son of
God.” Well then, how many sons does God almighty have? The Bible
tells us that Jacob
is God's son and firstborn: “Israel is my son, even my firstborn” Exodus 4:22.
Solomon is God's son “He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his
father, and he shall be my son”:
2 Samuel
7:13-14.
Ephraim is God's firstborn: “for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”
Jeremiah 31:9 (who is God's firstborn? Israel or Ephraim?).
Adam is the son of God “Adam, which was the son of God.” Luke 3:38.
Even common people are the sons of God: “Ye are the children of the LORD your
God” Deuteronomy
14:1. “For as many as are led by
the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God” Romans 8:14.
Well then, is Jesus the only begotten son of God?
Read Psalms 2:7 “I will declare the
decree: the LORD hath said unto me (David the king), Thou art my Son; this day have
I begotten thee.” When the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus (pbuh)
he defended
himself with the words of John 10:34: “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your
law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods,
unto whom the word of God came,
and the scripture cannot be broken...” referring to Psalms 82:6 “I have said, Ye are
gods; and all of you are children of the most
High..” As we can see from these and
many other verses like them, “Son of God” in the language of the
Jews was a very
innocent term used to describe a loyal servant of God.
Grolier’s encyclopedia, under the heading “Jesus Christ,” says: “During his earthly life
Jesus was addressed as rabbi and was regarded as a
prophet. Some of his words, too,
place him in the category of sage. A title of respect
for a rabbi would be “my Lord.”
Already before Easter his followers, impressed by his
authority, would mean something
more than usual when they addressed him as “my
Lord.”.... it is unlikely that the title
“Son of David” was ascribed to him or accepted by him
during his earthly ministry.
“Son of God,” in former times a title of the Hebrew
kings (Psalms 2:7), was first adopted
in the post-Easter church as an equivalent of Messiah
and had no metaphysical
connotations (Romans 1:4). Jesus was conscious of a
unique filial relationship with God,
but it is uncertain whether the Father/Son language
(Mark 18:32; Matt. 11:25-27 par.;
John passim) goes back to Jesus himself” .
There seems to be only two places in the Bible where Jesus (pbuh)
refers to himself as
“son of God.” They are in John chapter 5 and 11. Hastings in “The
dictionary of the
Bible” says: “Whether Jesus used it of himself is doubtful.”
Regardless, we have already
seen what is meant by this innocent title. However, Jesus is
referred to as the “son of
Man” (literally: “Human being”) 81 times in the books of the Bible.
In the Gospel of
Barnabas, we are told that Jesus (pbuh) knew that mankind would
make him a god after
his departure and severely cautioned his followers from having
anything to do with such
people. Even in the New Testament we find him calling himself “human
being” (Son of
Man) over and over again. What was he trying to tell us by
constantly repeating and
emphasizing to us in the New Testament “I am a human being”, “I am
a human being”, “I
51 What Did Jesus Really Say?
am a human being”?. Think about it!. Do Christians emphasize this
aspect of Jesus?
The New Testament Greek word used for “son” are “pias” and “paida”
which mean
“servant,” or “son in the sense of servant.” These are translated
to “son” in reference to
Jesus and “servant” in reference to others in some translations of
the Bible (see below).
Muslims are told that Jesus (pbuh) was a human being, not a god.
They are told that
Jesus (pbuh) continually emphasized this to his followers
throughout his mission. The
Gospel of Barnabas also affirms this fact. Once again, Grolier’s
encyclopedia says:
“...Most problematical of all is the title “Son of
Man.” This is the only title used
repeatedly by Jesus as a self-designation, and there
is no clear evidence that it was used
as a title of majesty by the post-Easter church.
Hence it is held by many to be authentic,
since it passes the criterion of dissimilarity” (emphasis added).
Is Jesus (pbuh) a divine son of God because God is his “father”?
Let us read Matthew
5:45 “That ye may be the children
of your Father which is in heaven...” and Matthew
5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” ...etc.
There are countless verses in the Bible to this effect. To
understand what is meant by the
reference to “father” we need only read John 8:42: “Jesus said unto them, If God were
your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded
forth and came from God; neither
came I of myself, but he sent me.” So the love of God and His prophets is what makes
God someone’s “father.” Similarly, John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye will do.” Obviously neither the Devil nor God is the physical
father of any of them.
Well then, is Jesus the son of God because he raised the dead? If
so, then what about
Ezekiel who raised many more dead bodies than Jesus ever did.
Ezekiel raised a whole
city from the dead (Ezekiel 37:1-9)
If we are looking for Godly powers and miracles as proof of
godliness then what about
Joshua who stopped the sun and moon for one whole day: (Joshua
10:12-13). Can
anyone but God almighty do this?
Elisha raised the dead, resurrected himself, healed a leper, fed a
hundred people with
twenty barley loaves and a few ears of corn, and healed a blind
man: 2 Kings 4:35, 13:21,
5:14, 4:44, and 6:11.
Elijah raised the dead, and made a bowl of flour and a jar of oil
inexhaustible for many
days 1 Kings 17:22 and 14.
To say nothing of Moses (pbuh) and his countless miracles. Of his
parting of the sea, of
his changing of a stick into a serpent, of his changing of water
into blood, ..etc.
And so forth......
Even Jesus (pbuh) himself tells us that miracles by themselves do
not prove anything:
“For there shall arise false Christs, and false
prophets, and shall shew great signs and
wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they
shall deceive the very elect” Matthew
24:24. So even false Christs can supply great wonders and miracles
of such magnitude
that even the most knowledgeable among men shall be deceived.
52 What did Jesus really say?
Jesus (pbuh) had a beginning (in the stable) and an end (“and he gave up the ghost”)
Melchizedec, however, had no beginning of days nor end of life.
Hebrews 7:3.
Solomon was with God at the beginning of time before all of
creation, Proverbs 8:22-
31.
Well then was Jesus (pbuh) the son of God because he was filled
with the Holy Ghost?
Let us read Luke 1:67 “Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost.” Also, Luke 1:41
“Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.” And, Acts 4:8 “Then Peter, filled with the
Holy Ghost said.” Also Acts 13:9 “Then Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes
on him..” How about Acts 2:4 “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began
to speak.”
Is Jesus(pbuh) a god because he was filled with the Holy Spirit
from his mother’s
womb? If this is the case
then John the Baptist should be a god also, as claimed in Luke 1:13-15.
Well then, is Jesus (pbuh) god because he performed his miracles
under his own power
while others needed God to perform them for them? Let us then
read: Matthew 28:18
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All
power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.” Luke 11:20: “But if I with the finger of God cast out devils.” Matthew
12:28 “But if I cast out devils by
the Spirit of God.” John 5:30: “I can of mine own
self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my
judgment is just; because I seek not mine
own will, but the will of the Father which hath
sent me.” John 10:25: “the works that I
do in my Father's name.” John 8:28-29 “...I do nothing of myself; but as my Father
hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that
sent me is with me: the Father hath
not left me alone; for I do always those things
that please him.”
Some will now say: But in 2 Corinthians 4:4 we read “....Christ, who is the image of
God.” Surely
this makes Jesus God. Well then, why not read Genesis 1:27: “So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female
created he them.”
In John 8:23 we read “And he (Jesus) said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am
from above: ye are of this world; I am not of
this world.” Does this make Jesus (pbuh)
a god ? No! Why not read John 17:14 “I have given them thy word; and the world
hath hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world” and
John 17:16 “They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” There are many
other examples.
In the Bible we read “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man,
that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he
not do it? or hath he spoken, and
shall he not make it good?”, Numbers 23:19
Now, do gods pray? Let us read Mark 14:32 “and he (Jesus) saith to his disciples, Sit
ye here, while I shall pray.” Also, Luke 3:21: “Now when all the people were baptized,
it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized,
and praying, the heaven was opened.”
And, Luke 6:12: “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a
mountain
to pray, and continued all night in prayer to
God.” Further, Luke 22:44 “And being in
an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat
was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground.” Matthew 26:39: “And he went a little farther, and fell on
his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it
be possible, let this cup pass from me:
nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” These verses do not speak of Jesus (pbuh)
53 What Did Jesus Really Say?
interceding, or consorting, or consulting, but PRAYING. Jesus
(pbuh) and his disciples
are continuously being described in the Bible as “falling on their
faces and praying”
which is exactly the way Muslims pray today. They pray the way
Jesus (pbuh) did. Have
you ever seen a Christian “fall on his face” and pray as Jesus,
Muhammad (pbut), and all
Muslims do?
Mr. Tom Harpur says: “In fact, unless we are prepared to believe that his
prayerdependence
on God was nothing more than a sham for our
edification, a mere act to set
us a good example, it is impossible to cling to the
orthodox teaching that Jesus was really
God Himself walking about in human form, the Second
Person of the Trinity. The
concept of God praying - let alone praying to Himself
- is incomprehensible to me. To
say that it was simply the human side of Jesus
talking to God the Father (rather than his
own divine nature as Son of God) is to posit a kind
of schizophrenia that is incompatible
with any belief in Jesus’ full humanity” For Christ’s Sake, pp. 42-43.
All of mankind are the servants of God. If a man were to own
another man then that
man would be his servant. Obviously this servant would be held in
a lower regard than
this man’s own children. We do not usually find people telling
their sons: “come here my
servant,” or
“Go over there my servant.” Let us compare this with what God has to say
about Jesus (pbuh): Matthew 12:18: “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen.” Further,
in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Acts 3:13 reads: “The God of Abraham,
and of Isaac,.... hath glorified his servant
Jesus.” and Acts 4:27(RSV): “For of a truth
against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou hast
anointed....” The Actual Greek word
used is “pais” or “paida” which mean; “servant, child, son,
manservant.” Some
translations of the Bible have translated this word as “son” when
it is attributed to Jesus
(pbuh) and “servant” for most everyone else (such as the King
James Version), while
more recent translations of the Bible such as the Revised Standard
Version now honestly
translate it as “servant” (The RSV was compiled from the “most”
ancient manuscripts by
the most knowledgeable among conservative Christian scholars).
The exact same word “pias” is attributed to Jacob(Israel) in Luke
1:54 and translated as
“servant”: “He
hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;.” It is
also applied to King David in Luke 1:69, and once again, it is
translated as “servant”:
“....the house of his servant David;” (also see Acts 4:25). However, when it is applied to
Jesus (e.g. Acts 3:13), NOW it is translated as “SON.”
This fact is further emphasized by Jesus (pbuh) in John 20:17: “Jesus saith unto her,
...I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to
my God, and your God.” Not only
is God Jesus’ father, but He is also his GOD. Think about this
carefully. Also notice
how Jesus is equating between himself and mankind in these matters
and not between
himself and God. He is making it as clear as he possibly can that
he is one of US and not
a god.
Okay, If Jesus and God are two distinct gods and one is greater
than the other (“my
Father is greater than I” John 14:28) then this contradicts such verses as
Isaiah 43:10-11
and the very definition of the “trinity” (see chapter 2.2.5) which
includes the words:
“..Co-equality..” in it’s definition (see chapter 2.2.8).
However, if they are not two separate gods, but ONE god, as
claimed by the Christians
and Mr. J, then is Jesus (pbuh) praying to himself? Is, for instance,
his mind praying to
his soul?
54 What did Jesus really say?
Matthew 11:11 “Verily I (Jesus) say unto you, Among them that are born of women
there hath not risen a greater than John the
Baptist.” Not even Jesus? Jesus (pbuh)
was born of a woman.
Job 25:4: “How
then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman?” Once again, Jesus (pbuh) was born of a woman. Shall we
now
apply this to him? Not as far as Muslims are concerned.
Luke 2:52 says: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature...” and Hebrews 5:8
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience
by the things which he suffered.” If
Jesus is God, then did God start out as an ignorant and savage god
and then become a
learned (wisdom) and prestigious (stature) god? Does God have to learn?
Does God
start out savage and increase in stature? Does God need to learn
obedience to God? If
there is only one God in existence, and this god is a “Trinity”
with three faces: God,
Jesus, and the Holy Ghost (required by Isaiah 43:10-11), then is
Jesus (pbuh) learning
obedience to another side of his own personality?
Mr. Tom Harpur says: “In fact, if you read Mark’s whole Gospel carefully you will
discover that the disciples were far from recognizing
the divinity later attributed to Jesus.
The very ones who should have been most able to see
through the ‘disguise’ are at times
depicted as dull-witted and even downright
stupid....Some scholars, indeed, have
calculated that Mark deliberately showed the
disciples in a rather bad light because he
was conscious of a serious problem. If Jesus was the
Son of God in the later; more
orthodox sense, how was it that his closest
associates - the witnesses of his miracles and
the confidants of his deepest teachings - never knew
who he was until well after the
resurrection?” For Christ’s Sake, pp. 59. Remember, most Christian scholars today
believe that the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke used
the “Gospel of Mark”
as the source document from which they obtained their material.
In Grolier’s encyclopedia, under the heading “Mark, Gospel According to”, we read:
“Mark is the second Gospel in the New Testament of
the Bible. It is the earliest and the
shortest of the four Gospels. ...Much material in
Mark is repeated in Matthew and in
Luke, leading most scholars to conclude that Mark was
written first and used
independently by the other writers”
But the Church will insist that it is necessary for Jesus (pbuh)
to be the son of God and
to die on the cross as an ultimate sacrifice in atonement for the
original sin, otherwise
they are all destined for hell. As Paul taught them “without shedding of blood is no
remission.” Hebrews 9:22. Let us study Paul’s claim:
If the sin of one man can make all mankind sinners as claimed in
Romans 5:12, then:
1) This requires that all babies are sinners from birth and are
only saved if they later
“accept the sacrifice of their Lord and are
baptized.” All others remain stained and
destined for hell. Till recently, unbaptized infants were not
buried in consecrated ground
because they were believed to have died on the original sin. Saint
Augustine himself is
quoted as saying “No one is clean, not even if his life be only for a day” (A dictionary of
Biblical tradition in English literature, p.577). This, however,
contradicts Matthew 19:14
“But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and
forbid them not, to come unto me: for of
such is the kingdom of heaven.” (see also Mark 10:14, and Luke 18:16). So Jesus (pbuh)
himself is telling us that children are born without sin and are
destined for heaven without
55 What Did Jesus Really Say?
qualification. In other words, no one is born stained with an
original sin. Once again, the
teachings of Islam.
2) All the many millennia of previous prophets (Moses, Abraham,
Jacob, Noah, ...etc.)
and their people are all condemned to eternal Hellfire simply
because Jesus, the alleged
“son of God,” was not born yet. In other words, they have sin
forced upon them (by
Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:22) and the chance for redemption withheld
from them (By
Jesus’ late arrival after their death, Galatians 2:16). In Romans
5:14, Paul says
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who
is the figure of him that was to
come.” Romans 4:2: “For
if Abraham were justified by works, he hath reason to boast;
but not before God.” Did Abraham or any of the other prophets ever preach
the
“crucifixion”? Did they preach the “Trinity”? We are asking for
clear and decisive words
and not personal forced interpretations of their words or “hidden
meanings” for their
words. If you are not sure then why not ask the Jews who we are
told faultlessly
transmitted two thirds of the Bible to us? Many people do not
bother to think about this.
As long as they are going
to heaven, what does it matter what happens to others?
3) What right did the prophets of God have to deceive their people
and tell them that
they would enter into heaven if they but kept the commandments?
What right did they
have to teach them all of these commandments and the observance of
the Sabbath and
other hardships if the only way into heaven was the acceptance of
a sacrifice that would
not occur till many hundreds of years after their death, or as
Paul put it “a man is not
justified by the works of the law ... for by the
works of the law shall no flesh be
justified..” Galatians 2:16.
4) Explain Ezekiel 18:19-20 “Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of
the father? When the son hath done that which is
lawful and right, and hath kept all
my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely
live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the
iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon him, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him..” This verse was revealed long before the
birth of Paul and his claims of “original sin” and “redemption.”
It clearly states that all
mankind are not held accountable by God almighty for the sin of Adam.
Also read Deuteronomy 24:16 “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children,
neither shall the children be put to death for
the fathers: every man shall be put to
death for his own sin..”
And Jeremiah 31:29-30: “In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have
eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are
set on edge. But every one shall die for
his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour
grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.”
And Ezekiel 18:1-9: “The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, What
mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the
land of Israel, saying, The fathers
have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth
are set on edge? As I live, saith the
Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to
use this proverb in Israel. Behold,
all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so
also the soul of the son is mine: the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just,
and do that which is lawful and right,
And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither
hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of
the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his
neighbor’s wife, neither hath come near to
a menstruous woman, And hath not oppressed any,
but hath restored to the debtor his
pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given
his bread to the hungry, and hath
covered the naked with a garment; He that hath
not given forth upon usury, neither
56 What did Jesus really say?
hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his
hand from iniquity, hath executed
true judgment between man and man, Hath walked in
my statutes, and hath kept my
judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall
surely live, saith the Lord God”
And Micah 7:18: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his
heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever,
because he delighteth in mercy.”
5) Isaiah 43:11 “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior.” How is
Jesus the savior if God Himself denies this? Remember, we have
already discarded the
doctrine of “trinity.” Even Jesus himself says: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”
Matthew 9:13. Also read Isaiah 46:9: “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and
there is none like me,” Deuteronomy 4:35: “the LORD he is God; there is none else
beside him,” Deuteronomy 32:39: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no
god
with me,” 1 Kings 8:60: “That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is
God, and that there is none else,” Isaiah 44:8: “Is there a God beside me? yea, there is
no God; I know not any,” Isaiah 45:5: “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is
no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast
not known me,” Isaiah 45:21: “and
there is no God else beside me; a just God and a
Savior; there is none beside me,”
Isaiah 45:22: “I am God, and there is none else.”
6) “Jesus answered and said
unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and
my Father will love him, and we will come unto
him, and make our abode with him.”
John 14:23. “If
ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have
kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his
love.” John 15:10. “And, behold,
one came and said unto him, Good Master, what
good thing shall I do, that I may have
eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? there is none good but
one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into
life, keep the commandments.” Matthew
19:16-17. Jesus (pbuh) refutes that he is even “good.” This is a
characteristic of a MAN.
When you complement a man, and this man is humble, he will say: “why are you
complementing me? I am not so good, I am just a
humble man.” This is how good and
decent men speak. However, if Jesus (pbuh) is God then he must claim
to be good. This
is because God is ultimate good. If
God claims not to be good then he will be a hypocrite
and a liar which is impossible.
Paul, a disciple of Jesus’ disciple Barnabas, is quoted to have
said that the law of Moses
is worthless. Belief in the crucifixion is the only requirement “Knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be
justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the
works of the law: for by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified” Galatians
2:16.
Also: “In that he saith, A new
covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which
decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” Hebrews 8:13. As well as Mark
16:16: “He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall
be damned.” Romans 3:28: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law.”
Jesus (pbuh), however, tells us that “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach
men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do
and teach them, the same shall be called great in
the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew
5:18-19.
57 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Even James 2:14,20 emphasizes that: “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man
say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith
save him?...But wilt thou know, O
vain man, that faith without works is dead?” It comes down to this: Who’s words carry
more weight with us, Jesus or Paul?
Jesus (pbuh) himself never said “Believe in my sacrifice on the
cross and you will be
saved.” He didn’t tell this young man “You are filthy wicked and
sinful and can never
enter heaven except through my redeeming blood and your belief in
my sacrifice.” He
simply said repeatedly
“keep the commandments” and
nothing more. If Jesus (pbuh) was
being prepared and conditioned for this sacrifice from the
beginning of time, then why
did he not mention it to this man? Even when this man pressed him
for more, Jesus only
told him that to be “PERFECT” he only
needs to sell his belongings. He made no
mention whatsoever of his crucifixion, an original sin, or a
redemption. Would this not
be quite sadistic of Jesus (pbuh) if Paul’s claims are true “for by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified”?
If Jesus’ (pbuh) whole mission in life was to die on the cross in
atonement for the “sin
of Adam,” and if this was the founding reason why he was sent,
would we not be justified
in expecting him to spend night and day drumming this into the
minds of his followers?
Should we not expect him to speak of nothing else? Should we not
expect him to spend
night and day preaching that the commandments shall soon be thrown
out the window
(Galatians 3:13) and faith in his upcoming crucifixion shall be
the only thing required of
them? (Romans 3:28). Should we not expect Jesus (pbuh) to echo the
teachings of Paul
who claims Jesus (pbuh) was preaching these things to him in
“visions”? Should we not
expect Jesus (pbuh) to tell everyone he meets “The commandments
are worthless. I shall
be dying on the cross soon. Believe in my sacrifice and you shall
be saved”? Is this not
dictated by plain logic?
Notice how Paul claims that “NO” flesh shall be justified by the
works of the law.
“NO” means “None.” Paul makes no exceptions whatsoever here. What
this means is
that even the young man who Jesus told to “keep the commandments”
and to sell his
belongings can not be justified by simply following these commands
of Jesus (pbuh).
Did Jesus (pbuh) then forget to remind this young man that he can
not be justified by
following Jesus’ command, keeping the commandments, and selling
his belongings?
Also remember our comments about the prophets of God. Are they all
going to hell?
Does any Christian today place the same emphasis on the
commandments of their
“Lord” Jesus (pbuh) that the Bible states he did, and died doing?
No! Christianity has
now been “spiritualized” by Paul, and the path to heaven is now
through a single trivial
belief that Jesus (pbuh) himself never even mentioned, while the
commands of Jesus have
now been totally ignored.
7) If a man were to steal from my home in New York City, and the
police were to
capture him. If I were to then say: “I am a very jealous man! I want you to not only
place this man in jail, but all of his kinfolk in
Ohio, Kansas, California, and China are to
be placed in jail with him. I want the child which is
in his pregnant wife’s womb to also
be condemned to life imprisonment as well as all his
future generation till the end of time,
which are all to live and die in jail.” Would this be called heavenly justice? Should I
then be called the most just man on earth? When Paul alleges that
God holds all of
humanity responsible for the single sin of one man (Romans 5:12),
is this justice? Is this
our perception of God?
Continuing our example, if I were to come after about forty years,
after many of these
people had already died in prison, and were to claim that I was
now ready to be merciful
58 What did Jesus really say?
but that I could not simply forgive and forget but must take my
five year old sinless child
and have someone whip him, kick him, spit on him, humiliate him,
and then kill him in
the most gruesome, humiliating, and drawn-out way I know how in
front of many people
and only when he was in heaven could I forgive them, would this be
the ultimate show of
mercy? Think about these allegation which are presented against
God almighty by Paul.
8) Jesus (pbuh) contradicts Paul, the inventor of the notions of
original sin and
redemption, by telling us that in order to be “Perfect” a man need
only “keep the
commandments (of Moses)” and “sell all that thou hast and give to the poor” (Matthew
19:16-21). Having done this Jesus (pbuh) would consider a man “PERFECT.” Now the
question arises: If I am “perfect” then what does my faith yet
lack? Answer: Nothing!
There is no need for the belief in the original sin or the
crucifixion. This is exactly the
teachings of the apostle Barnabas (the teacher and benefactor of
Paul, who Paul later
looked down upon) in his Gospel as well as the teachings of the
Muslim’s Qur’an.
9) In every religion of mankind there are believers and sinners.
Each religion also has
guidelines for the transition from the domain of a sinner to the
domain of the believer.
For instance, in Judaism, the guideline for this transition is the
commandments of Moses
(pbuh). Any Jew found respecting these commandments is regarded by
them a believer.
Similarly, Paul alleges that the guideline for this transition is
the “faith of Jesus Christ”
(Galatians 2:16). What does Paul mean by this?
*He obviously does not mean the belief in the trinity since, as we
have already seen (see
details below), the trinity was not invented by his church until
long after his death and is
nowhere to be found in the Bible.
*He also does not mean by the “faith of Jesus Christ” the
faith that Jesus (pbuh),
according to the Bible, practiced and taught his followers to
practice, which is the law of
Moses (pbuh) since in this same verse he casually sweeps the law
of Moses and Jesus
(pbut) under the carpet with the words: “a man is not justified by the works of the law.”
*Does Paul then mean by the words the “faith of Jesus Christ” the belief in his
miracles, his true prophethood, and his piety and sinless nature?
No! Because this
definition would make Muslims Christians too! Does any Christian
claim that Muslims
are devout Christians and deserving of salvation? No!
*What then does Paul mean? What he means is what his Church has
been preaching
for close to two thousand years now: To believe that a sinless
Jesus died on the cross in
atonement for the original sin Adam which we have all inherited.
In other words, if you
have “faith” in the “original sin” and the “atonement” then you
will be “saved.” YOU
NEED NOTHING ELSE! But Jesus (pbuh) himself did not believe this.
This can be
clearly demonstrated by reading Matthew 9:13 where Jesus said: “But go ye and learn
what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not
sacrifice: for I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance.” The Jews were admonishing Jesus (pbuh) for
eating with sinners. Jesus’ (pbuh) reply clearly divided his
people into “sinners” and
“righteous” people. The righteous are clearly free from the
original sin. Jesus (pbuh) was
not calling them because they had already been saved. He was only
calling the “sinners.”
But Jesus had not been crucified yet! He also never mentioned either a crucifixion or
an
atonement to them. So these people are described by Jesus (pbuh)
himself as righteous
without their having believed in the original sin or the
atonement! This observation is
further reinforced by reading Matthew 19:16-21. Did Jesus (pbuh)
intend to teach his
followers one thing during his lifetime and then come back in
“visions” to Paul and teach
them to totally disregard everything he had taught them after his
death? Not according to
him. Jesus (pbuh) said: Matthew 5:17-19: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfill. For verily I say unto you,
TILL HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law,
till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall
break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven: but
59 What Did Jesus Really Say?
whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall
be called great in the kingdom of
heaven.”
Also notice Jesus’ words “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.”
10) Paul himself is not even sure WHO is responsible for the
“original sin” he invented
and claimed we have inherited. He tells us in Romans that Adam
ALONE was
responsible: Romans 5:12: “Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned”
and also 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive.” However, in 1 Timothy 2:14 Paul tells us something
completely different.
He claims that Adam was NOT deceived (he was not the
transgressor), rather, Eve alone
was deceived and was the transgressor: “And Adam was NOT deceived, but the woman
(Eve) being deceived was in the transgression.” Unless we are willing to continually
keep coming up with new “abstract” and “hidden” meanings for
practically every single
verse of the Bible, then it becomes quite clear to an unbiased
mind that Paul was making
these things up as he went along.
11) In the Qur’an we are told that Adam (pbuh) did indeed repent “And Adam received
from his Lord words (teaching him how to repent)
and He relented toward him. Lo!
He is the Relenting the Merciful” Al-Bakarah(2):37. So Adam (pbuh) received a
revelation from God showing him how to repent and he did so. God
almighty did not
mandate a gruesome and torturous death for “His only begotten son”
or anything else. He
simply accepted Adam’s repentance and relented. This is true mercy.
Christians are taught that to enter heaven they only need to
believe in the single fact that
Jesus (pbuh) died on the cross for their sins and become baptized.
(However you define
“baptized”) Gods commandments are considered worthless (Romans
3:28). Christians are
not ignorant people. However, they have all been taught to have
two different standards
of logic. One for the Bible and one for everything else. They
would consider any similar
claim from anyone else preposterous. If they were told that the
United States
Government was passing out free mansions, checks for 100 Million
dollars and a
guaranteed “good life” to all comers if they would only believe
that previous Americans
died to give them their freedom, then the person making this claim
would be labeled a
crazy man.
A Christian gentleman from Canada once quoted John 3:14-15 in an
attempt to prove
that Jesus (pbuh) died and was resurrected. The actual words are: “And as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up: That
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life..”
Anyone who would simply read the above verses carefully will
notice that they never
mention either a “crucifixion” or a “resurrection.” They also do
not mention an “original
sin” or an “atonement.” They do not even mention a “Son of God.”
So, what do they
say? They say exactly what Muslims say: That Jesus (pbuh) was not
forsaken to the
Jews, but was raised by God!
“And because of their saying (in boast): We
killed the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary,
the Messenger of Allah, but they killed him not,
nor crucified him, but it was made to
appear so to them, and those who differ therein
are full of doubts. They have no
60 What did Jesus really say?
(certain) knowledge, except the following of
conjecture. For surely; they killed him
not. But Allah raised him up unto Himself, and
Allah is All-Powerful, All-Wise” The
Qur’an, Al-Nissa(4):157-158.
This is what the “Gospel of Barnabas” says too. If you were to
read the Gospel of
Barnabas (see chapter 11), you would find that when Jesus (pbuh)
was allegedly
crucified, all of the faithful were weeping in the streets and
they began to have serious
doubts about his truthfulness and his true prophethood. They said “Jesus told us that he
would not die until just before the end of time. Now
he has been crucified by his enemies.
Was he a liar?” (by the way, Muslims also believe that Jesus, pbuh, will return to
earth
just before the end of time and will guide mankind to the final
message of God. The
message of Islam). The same Gospel then goes on to describe how
Jesus (pbuh) returned
a few days later with four angels to the house of his mother Mary
(pbuh) and was seen by
the apostles. He described how God had saved him from the hands of
the Jews, and had
made it so that Judas resembled him and was taken in his place. He
told them that those
who believe in him must believe that everything he had preached to
them was true. If
they believed that he was raised by God and not forsaken to the
Jews to be crucified, then
they would have eternal life. Is this not what the verses say? Please
read chapters 5.10,
and 12.
It is amazing how people allow others to tell them what is and
isn’t a genuine Gospel
without asking for any proof whatsoever. The Gospel of Barnabas is
not the only Gospel
which confirms most of the teachings of the Qur’an. There is also
“The Shepherd of
Hermas.” In 1922, a third century papyrus manuscript of “The
Shepherd” surfaced, and
once again it confirmed the teachings of the Qur’an, and once
again, this Gospel was
destroyed and hidden from the masses. During the first centuries
AD., both of these
books were considered authentic and canonical and preached as the
true word of God.
61 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2.4: “Worship Me!”
ou say that: “What
makes Jesus stand out from all other religious figures is the
nature of His claims about Himself. He claims the
prerogatives of God, the rightful
object of a person's supreme allegiance, and receives
with out censure the worship
and obedience of those who believe.” Let us study the validity of this claim:
Muslims believe that a Muslim is rewarded for every single
hardship he endures during
his lifetime and that each hardship endured is used by God
almighty to erase a previous
sin by this individual. Even something so simple as a pin prick is
counted to this end.
How much greater the reward for a man who endured paralysis. His
reward may very
likely be the forgiveness of all of his sins. If Christianity
believes that forgiving sins is a
sign of divineness then what are we to say about the many millions
of people in the
Christian clergy who accept people’s “confessions” and “forgive”
their sins? Are they all
the offspring of God and part of the trinity? Do they call God on
the telephone and ask
His permission to forgive each individual or do they have “the
power to forgive sins”?
In “The Five Gospels,” written by 24 Christian scholars from some
of the most
prominent US and Canadian Universities around today, we read on
page 44: “Stories of
Jesus curing a paralytic are found in all four
narrative gospels, The Johannine version
(John 5:1-9) differs substantially...The controversy
interrupts the story of the cure- which
reads smoothly if one omits vv. 5b-10 (Mark 2)- and
it is absent in the parallel of
John...Scholars usually conclude, on the basis of
this evidence, that Mark has inserted the
dispute into what was originally a simple healing
story...If the words are to be attributed
to Jesus, v. 10 may represent a bold new claim on
Jesus’ part that gives the authority to
forgive sins to all human beings...The early church
was in the process of claiming for
itself the right to forgive sins and so would have
been inclined to claim that it’s
authorization came directly from Jesus.”
We have already spoken about the term “Son of God” and it’s true
meaning as
understood by the people of that time. What we want is a claim by
Jesus himself where
he says “Worship me” just as God almighty says for instance in
Isaiah 66:23 “And it
shall come to pass, that from one new moon to
another, and from one Sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship before
me, saith the LORD.” Show us
where
Jesus (pbuh) does the same.
Once again, the claim in John 8:56-59 “before Abraham was born, I am” is not the
same as “worship me!” The fact that Jesus (pbuh) was present before Abraham
(pbuh) is
not the same as him saying “worship me!” What then would we say
about Solomon
(pbuh) (Proverbs 8:22-31) and Melchizedec (Hebrews 7:3), who were
present not only
before Abraham (pbuh), but also before all of creation? With
regard to your comparison
of “I am” in the verse of Exodus with that of John, please note
that just because the
English translation of these verses is performed such that they
become the same English
words does not mean that the original words are the same. The
first is the GREEK word
eimi {i-mee'}, while the second is the HEBREW word hayah
{haw-yaw}. While both
can be translated into English to mean the same thing, they are in
actuality two distinctly
different words. The exact same Greek word is translated as “It is I” in Matthew 14:27
and as simply “I” in Matthew 26:22 ...etc. Notice
how people are driven in a chosen
direction of faith through selective translation? Also remember
that Jesus (pbuh) did not
speak GREEK. Show us his actual words.
Is it so hard to bring us one clear verse like the above verse of
Isaiah 66:23 wherein
Jesus (pbuh) also says “worship me!”? Why must we infer? If he is
God or the Son of
God then this is his right. The Bible
should be overflowing with verses where Jesus
commands his followers to worship him, where God commands mankind
to worship his
son, where God threatens those who do not worship His son, and so
forth. The Bible is
overflowing with verses like this from God about Himself, and from
Jesus (pbuh) about
God, but there are none from Jesus (pbuh) about himself.
Why is it necessary for God
almighty to ask for people to worship Him while Jesus (pbuh) is
not required to do the
same?
With regard to John 9:38 “Lord. I believe, and he worshipped him.” and Matthew
28:17 “they saw him, they worshipped
him.” Please note that the word
translated as
“worshipped” in both verses is the GREEK word proskuneo
{pros-ku-neh'-o} which
literally means (and I quote): “to kiss, like a dog licking his masters hand.” Go back and
check the Strong’s concordance for this word. Is the act of
kissing someone’s hand the
same as worshipping him? Once again, selective translation.
The whole episode of “Doubting Thomas” is also now recognized as a
later “insertion.”
Not by Muslims, but by the West’s own erudite Christian scholars.
“The Five Gospels”
mark this passage as being a complete fabrication and not the word
of Jesus (pbuh). Look
it up.
You say: “Does Jesus say, “I am God”?
No.” I am glad we agree. “...because that
would have been misunderstood. Jesus is not the
Father (as it would have been thought),
Jesus is the Son.” What?, are you claiming that Jesus is incapable when telling his
disciples “worship the Father” to add the words “...and the Son”?
Are you claiming that
the people he is talking to are incapable of comprehending that
one is the father and one
is the son? Would you have us believe that his twelve apostles
were so dense that they
could not comprehend the difference between a “father” and a
“son”? Are there no words
in his language to say “I am not God but His son, worship both of
us”? When you claim
that Jesus (pbuh) died on the cross, do you misunderstand this to
mean that God the
“Father” is the one who died on the cross?
With regard to the miracles of Jesus being proof of his Godhead
please read my
comments about other prophets and their miracles (Chapter 2.2.3).
What you appear to be trying to say is that the fact that Jesus
never told anyone to
worship him nor claimed to be God but left it up to them to
surmise by themselves is
proof that he wanted them to worship him??? God must ask for
worship, but Jesus
(pbuh) receives it “without censure” without
asking for it??
With regard to the opening verses of John, they have already been
dealt with in detail.
Jesus (pbuh) never in his lifetime told anyone to worship him. It
was others who did
that. Quite the contrary, whenever Jesus (pbuh) spoke of worship,
he always attributed it
to God and never himself: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve” Luke 4:8. Notice the words: “Him ONLY.” Jesus did not
say “US only,” or
“Him and I only.” How could he possibly make it more clear than
that? What abstract
63 What Did Jesus Really Say?
meaning are we now going to concoct for this verse to show that
what Jesus “really”
meant was “worship both of us.”
The problem with many apologists is that they “interpret” the
words “he” and “him” to
mean “we” and “us” when it suits them, and to mean “he” and “him”
only when it suits
them. In cases such as Luke 4:8, they claim that “him” really means
“us.” But in cases
where God “begets” Jesus, or where God “sacrifices” Jesus, “him”
and “he” is God alone
and does not mean “us” and “we.” Notice the trend ?
Want more ? “Jesus
saith unto her, ... worship the Father” John 4:2. “But
the hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and
in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship
HIM” John 4:23. Notice: “worship the
FATHER,” not “worship the father AND THE SON.” Also notice:
“worship HIM” not
“worship US.” “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 7:21. “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind.” Matthew 22:37.
In the Bible we find many verses to this effect: Exodus 34:14 “For thou shalt worship
no other god: for the LORD, whose name is
Jealous, is a jealous God.” Psalms
81:9
“There shall no strange god be in thee; neither
shalt thou worship any strange god.”
Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”
Well, what shall we then say to those who say: “I do not believe
in a ‘Trinity’ but I do
believe that Jesus was a god, or the son of God” (believe me, some
people have actually
said this)? Actually, this is refuted quite simply: If Jesus
(pbuh) was a god then there are
at least two gods, and this contradicts many verses to the
contrary in the Bible (the ones
we have just mentioned, e.g. Isaiah 43:10-11). We shall soon see how
it was exactly this
problem which forced the followers of Paul to later concoct the
“Trinity” doctrine in
order to validate their claims of “Son of God.”
If Jesus is one face of a “trinity” and the trinity is one god not
many, and Jesus died on
the cross, then this “one” god (the “trinity”) is the one alleged
to have died on the cross.
It also follows that if Jesus and God are “one and the same”
(definition of the trinity) then
anyone who sees Jesus has seen God, however, John 1:18 says “No man hath seen God
at any time.” When people love God “with all thy mind” they can’t help but keep
coming back to the same conclusion: That God almighty is the only
god anywhere. That
He has no physical (begotten/sired...etc.) sons. That Jesus (pbuh)
was only an elect
messenger of God, and that to enter heaven one must only “keep the commandments.”
This is exactly the message of the Qur’an, and this is the true
inspiration of God.
“Many will say to me (Jesus) in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy
name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and
in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you: depart from me, ye that
work iniquity.” Matthew 7:22
64 What did Jesus really say?
1.2.5: Historical origin of the “trinity” myth
ou say: “Most “proofs” against the
traditional teachings of Christianity consist of
pitting one passage of Scripture against another.” Should it not be impossible to “pit
one verse of the Bible against another”? Should the verses of the Bible not be
consistent? Should they not reinforce each other rather that
refute each other? What kind
of logic is this? Your own Bible bears witness that a “false
witness” will always result in
discrepancy (Mark 14:56). “...and almost always taking such passages out of context.”
Go back to such verses as “I and my father are one” and see whether Muslims or the
church quote the Bible out of context? Show us where our previous
comments have
taken Biblical verses out of context. Is it Muslims or the church
who are constantly
trying to explain the verses of the Bible through abstract
meanings? If the Bible had
remained 100% the word of God then it would be impossible for it’s
verses to contradict
each other, however, if mankind has been taking liberties with the
words of God then the
verses will indeed contradict themselves: “Do they not consider the Qur’an (with care)?
Had it been from other than Allah, they would
have surely found therein much
discrepancy.” The Qur’an, Al-Nissa(4):82. Why not apply the same
test to the Bible?
“The Christian message about Jesus revolves around
three facts: the incarnation, the
crucifixion, and the resurrection.” Have we now totally given up on such matters as the
“trinity,” the “original sin,” the “atonement,” and so forth...?
We have already disproved
all of these. “Prove
from the Bible or otherwise that any one of these three things are not
true, and like a three-legged stool the truth of the
message would collapse.” Is your
“stool” still standing, or can Christianity still stand without a
“trinity” a “divine son of
God,” an “original sin” and an “atonement.” If you would like, you
can find many
serious discrepancies in the narration of the crucifixion and many
other matters in Ahmed
Deedat’s books “The Choice,” and “Crucifixion or Cruci-fiction,”
as well as his many
other publications (you may get a sample from chapter 3.2).
Someone may now say: “If the trinity was not revealed by God
almighty or Jesus (pbuh)
then why does Christianity believe in it?” The answer lies in the
council of Nicaea of 325
CE.
In “The New Catholic Encyclopedia” (with all it’s seals of approval), 1967, p.295, we
get a glimpse of how the concept of the trinity was not introduced
into Christianity until
close to four hundred years after Jesus (pbuh): “.......It is difficult in the second half of the
20th century to offer a clear, objective and
straightforward account of the revelation,
doctrinal evolution, and theological elaboration of
the Mystery of the trinity. Trinitarian
discussion, Roman Catholic as well as other, present
a somewhat unsteady silhouette.
Two things have happened. There is the recognition on
the part of exegetes and Biblical
theologians, including a constantly growing number of
Roman Catholics, that one should
not speak of Trinitarianism in the New Testament
without serious qualification. There is
also the closely parallel recognition on the part of
historians of dogma and systematic
theologians that when one does speak of an
unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved
from the period of Christian origins to, say, the
last quadrant of the 4th century. It was
only then that what might be called the definitive
Trinitarian assimilated into Christian
life and thought” (emphasis added). Jesus
(pbuh), John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, all of
the apostles, and even Paul, were completely unaware of
any “trinity.”
Y
65 What Did Jesus Really Say?
So what did exactly happen in this fourth century CE? Let us ask
Mr. David F. Wright,
a senior lecturer in Ecclesiastical History at the University of
Edinburough. Mr. Wright
has published a detailed account of the development of the
doctrine of the “trinity.” In
“Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity,” in the chapter on “Councils and
Creeds,” we read: “...Arius was a senior presbyter in charge of Baucalis, one of the
twelve ‘parishes’ of Alexandria. He was a persuasive
preacher, with a following of
clergy and ascetics, and even circulated his teaching
in popular verse and songs.
Around 318 CE, he clashed with Bishop Alexander.
Arius claimed that Father alone was
really God; the Son was essentially different from
his father. He did not possess by
nature or right any of the divine qualities of
immortality, sovereignty, perfect wisdom,
goodness, and purity. He did not exist before he was
begotten by the father. The father
produced him as a creature. Yet as the creator of the
rest of creation, the son existed
‘apart from time before all things’. Nevertheless, he
did not share in the being of God
the Father and did not know him perfectly.” We are told in this book that before the third
century CE the “three” were separate in Christian belief and each
had his or it’s own
status.
Terullian, a lawyer and presbyter of the third-century Church in
Carthage, was the first
to use the word “Trinity” when he put forth the theory that the
Son and the Spirit
participate in the being of God, but all are of one being of
substance with the Father.
About this time, two separate events were about to lead up to the
official recognition of
the church by the Roman empire. On the one hand, Emperor Constantine,
the pagan
emperor of the Romans, had a son named Crispus. Crispus was a
handsome, charismatic,
and brave young man who was the popular hero of the Roman people.
His popularity
grew to such an extent that he began to pose a serious threat to
the rule of his own father,
Constantine. Therefore, Constantine had him killed. The people
were outraged, so in
order to cover his tracks, Constantine placed the blame for the
death of Crispus on his
son’s step mother and had her killed too. The people were now
thrown into a great fury.
Constantine had just made a bad situation much worse. He decided
to seek forgiveness in
the temple, but was told that no forgiveness could be granted for
such an action. Finally
he resorted to the church. They told him that forgiveness could be
his through
repentance. Thus, Constantine found salvation in the church. He
now began to look to
the church for support in shoring up his rule of the Roman empire.
On the Christian front, controversy over the matter of the Trinity
had just blown up in
318 between two church men from Alexandria, Arius, the deacon, and
Alexander, his
bishop. Now Emperor Constantine stepped into the fray. In 325 CE,
the pagan Roman
Emperor Constantine was faced with two serious controversies that
divided his Christian
subjects: The observance of the Passover on Easter Sunday, and the
concept of the
trinity. Emperor Constantine realized that a unified church was
necessary for a strong
kingdom. When negotiations failed to settle the dispute, the
emperor called the “Council
of Nicaea” in
order to resolve these, and other matters. The council met and voted on
whether Jesus (pbuh) was God or not. They effectively voted Jesus
into the position of
God with an amendment condemning all Christians who believed in
the unity of God.
There is even extensive proof that most of those who signed this
decree did not actually
believe in it or understand it but thought it politically
expedient to do so. Neo-Platonic
philosophy was the means by which this newly defined doctrine of
“Trinity” was
66 What did Jesus really say?
formulated. One of the attendees, Apuleius, wrote “I pass over in silence,” explaining
that “those sublime and Platonic
doctrines understood by very few of the pious, and
absolutely unknown to every one of the profane.” The vast majority of the others signed
under political pressure consoling themselves with such words as “the soul is nothing
worse for a little ink.” They then approved the doctrine of homoousious meaning:
of
“CO-EQUALITY, CO-ETERNITY, AND
CONSUBSTANTIALITY” of the second person of the
trinity with the Father. The doctrine became known as the Creed of Nicaea.
The matter was far from settled, however, despite high hopes for
such on the part of
Constantine, Arius and the new bishop of Alexandria, a man named
Athanasius, began
arguing over the matter even as the Nicene Creed was being signed;
“Arianism” became a
catch-word from that time onward for anyone who didn't hold to the
newly defined
doctrine of the Trinity. Athanasius, the bishop who is popularly
credited for having
formulated this doctrine, confessed that the more he wrote on the
matter, the more his
thoughts recoiled upon themselves and the less capable he was of
clearly expressing his
thoughts regarding it. After the Council of Chalcedon in 451,
debate on the matter was
no longer tolerated; to speak out against the Trinity was now
considered blasphemy and
earned stiff sentences that ranged from mutilation to death.
Christians now turned on
Christians, maiming and slaughtering thousand because of a
difference of belief.
Worship of the Roman sun-god was very popular during this period.
Emperor
Constantine (who presided over the council of Nicaea) was
popularly considered to be the
manifestation of the Roman sun-god. For this reason, in order to please
Constantine, the
Trinitarian church:
-Defined Christmas to be on the 25th of December, the birthday of
the Roman Sun-god
-Moved the Christian Sabbath from Saturday to the Roman Sun-day (Dies Soli),
the
holy day of the sun-god Apollo (see chapter 3)
-Borrowed the emblem of the Roman Sun God, the cross of light, to
be the emblem of
Christianity. Before this, the official symbol of Christianity was
that of a fish, a
symbol of the last supper (see chapter 3)
-Incorporated most of the rituals performed on the Sun-God’s
birthday into their own
celebrations.
Constantine was determined that the masses not think that he had
forced these bishops
to sign against their will, so he resorted to a miracle of God:
Stacks of somewhere
between 270 and 4,000 Gospels (one copy of all available Gospels
at the time) were
placed underneath the conference table and the door to the room
was locked. The
Bishops were told to pray earnestly all night, and the next
morning “miraculously” only
the Gospels acceptable to Athanasius (The Trinitarian Bishop of
Alexandria) were found
stacked above the table. The rest were burned.
Arius was quickly condemned and then excommunicated. He was
reinstated, but was
poisoned and killed by the Trinitarian Bishop, Athanasius, in 336
CE. The Trinitarian
Church called his death “a miracle.” Athanasius’s treachery was
discovered by a council
appointed by Costanatine and he was condemned for Arius’s murder.
Constantine had made it an imperial law to accept the Creed of Nicaea. He was a
pagan emperor and at the
time cared little if such a doctrine contradicted the teachings of Jesus (pbuh) and the centuries of prophets of God before him who
had suffered severe
hardship in order to preach a monotheistic god to their people as
can be seen in the Old
67 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Testament to this day. He just wanted to pacify and unite his
“sheep.” Ironically,
Constantine embraced the beliefs of the Arians, was baptized on
his death bed in 337 by
an Arian priest and died shortly thereafter. In other words, he
died a believer in the divine
unity and teachings of the Arians and not the new Trinitarian
beliefs of the Pauline sect.
This “triune God” theory was not a novel concept but one that was
in vogue during the
early Christian era. There was:
1) The Egyptian triad of Ramses II, Amon-Ra, and Nut.
2) The Egyptian triad of Horus, Osiris, and Isis.
3) The Palmyra triad of moon god, Lord of the Heavens, and sun
god.
4) The Babylonian triad of Ishtar, Sin, and Shamash.
5) The Mahayana Buddhist triune of transformation body, enjoyment
body, and truth
body.
6) The Hindu triad (Trimurti) of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
...and so forth.
However, it is popularly recognized that the “trinity” which had
the most profound
effect in defining the Christian “trinity” was the philosophy of
the Greek philosopher,
Plato. His philosophy was based on a threefold distinction of: The
First Cause, the
Reason or Logos, and the Soul or Spirit of the Universe. Edward
Gibbon, considered one
of the greatest English historians, and the author of “Decline and
Fall of the Roman
Empire,” generally considered a masterpiece of both history and
literature writes in this
book:
“..His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and
animated these metaphysical
abstractions; the three archical or original principles
with each other by the mysterious
and ineffable generation; and the Logos was
particularly considered under the more
accessible character of the Son of an eternal Father,
and the Creator and Governor of
the world.” Gibbon,
“Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,” II, p. 9.
Even the practice of promoting men to the status of gods was
common among the
Gentiles at the time. Julius Caesar, for instance, was
acknowledged by the Ephesians to
be “a god made manifest and a
common Savior of all human life.” In
the end, both the
Greeks and the Romans acknowledged Caesar as a god. His statue was
set up in a temple
in Rome with the inscription: “To the unconquerable god.” Another man who was
elevated by the Gentiles to the status of a god was Augustus
Caesar. He was
acknowledged as a god and the “divine Savior of the World.” Emperor Constantine was
also popularly believed to be the human embodiment of the Roman
Sun-god. And on and
on. Is it inconceivable that such people, after hearing of Jesus’
(pbuh) many miracles, of
his raising of the dead, of his healing of the blind, would
consider elevating him to the
status of a god? These were simple people who had become
accustomed to countless
man-gods, and Jesus (pbuh) had become a legend among them even
during his lifetime.
No wonder it did not take them long to make him a god after his
departure. In the Gospel
of Barnabas, Jesus himself indeed foretold that mankind would make
him a god and
severely condemned those who would dare to do so (see chapter 13).
The Bible itself
bears witness to the fact that these Gentiles were all too willing
to promote not just Jesus
(pbuh), but even the apostles of Jesus to the position of gods
(see Acts 14:1-14).
Moreover, the concept of resurrection was also not a novel one.
The Greeks, like many
other pagans, worshipped the earth and associated it’s fertility
with the fertility of woman.
Many earth-mother goddesses arose out of this belief, such as
Aphrodite, Hera, and so on.
With this earth-mother goddess came the concept of a man-god who
personified the
vegetation cycle and often the sun cycle. In the case of Osirus,
Baal, and Cronus, he also
represented a deceased king worshipped as divine. This man-god was
always assumed to
68 What did Jesus really say?
have been born on the 25th of December so
as to correspond to the winter solstice (time
of year when the sun is “born”). Forty days later, or about the
time of Easter, he had to be
slain,
laid in a tomb, and resurrected after
three days so that his blood
could be shed
upon the earth in order to maintain or restore the fertility of the
earth and in order to
provide salvation
for his worshipers. This was a
sign to the believers that they too would
enjoy eternal life. This man-god was usually called the “Soter” (Savior).
This “Soter”
sometimes stood alone, but usually was “The third, the savior” or “The
savior who is
third.” This
man-god would be defeated and usually torn into pieces and his enemy
would prevail. At this time, life would appear to have been sucked
out of the earth.
There would then come a third being who would bring back the dead
god, or himself be
the dead god restored. He would defeat the enemy. This matter will
be dealt with in
more detail in chapter three (for more also see “Islam and Christianity in the modern
world,” by
Dr. Muhammad Ansari, and “Bible
myths and their parallels in other
religions” by
T. W. Doane, and “The history of Christianity in
the Light of Modern
Knowledge; a collective work,” Blackie & son limited, 1929).
Does any of this sound at all familiar? Is it just an amazing
coincidence that Paul’s
“New covenant” which he preached to these pagan Gentiles was
almost a carbon copy of
their established beliefs, or did God intentionally mold His
religion after the departure of
Jesus (pbuh) in order to closely resemble that of the pagan
Gentiles? Remember Paul’s
own words: “For
if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his
glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” Romans 3:7.
Even though the “Trinity” was formulated in the council of Nicaea,
still, the concept of
“Jesus was God,” or the “incarnation” (mentioned above by Mr. J.)
was not formulated
until after the councils of Ephesus in 431, and the council of
Chalcedone in 451:
“...the Catholics trembled on the edge of a
precipice, where it was impossible to
recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall; and the
manifold inconveniences of their
creed were aggravated by the sublime character of
their theology. They hesitated to
pronounce that God Himself, the second person of an
equal and cosubstantial trinity, was
manifested in the flesh; that a being who pervades
the universe, had been confined in the
womb of Mary; that His eternal duration had been
marked by the days, and months, and
years, of human existence; that the Almighty had been
scourged and crucified; that His
impassable essence had felt pain and anguish; that
His omniscience was not exempt
from ignorance; and that the source of life and
immortality expired on Mount Cavary.
These alarming consequences were affirmed with the
unblushing simplicity of Apollinans,
Bishop of Laodicia, and one of luminaries of the
church.” Gibbon, “Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire,” VI, p. 10.
Groliers encyclopedia under the heading of “Incarnation” informs
us that “Incarnation
denotes the embodiment of a deity in human form. The
idea occurs frequently in
mythology. In ancient times, certain people,
especially kings and priests, were often
believed to be divinities. In Hinduism, Vishnu is
believed to have taken nine
incarnations, or Avatars. For Christians, the incarnation
is a central dogma referring to
the belief that the eternal son of God, the second
person of the Trinity, became man in the
person of Jesus Christ. The incarnation was defined
as a doctrine only after long
struggles by early church councils. The Council of
Nicaea (325) defined the deity of
Christ against Arianism; the Council of
Constantinople (381) defined the full humanity
of the incarnate Christ against Apollinarianism; the
Council of Ephesus (431) defined
the unity of Christ's person against Nestorianism;
and the Council of Chalcedon (451)
defined the two natures of Christ, divine and human,
against Eutyches.”
69 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Notice that it took the Church close to five hundred years after
the departure of Jesus to
build up, justify, and finally ratify the “incarnation.” Also
notice that the apostles, their
children, and their children’s children for tens of generations
were too ignorant to
recognize the existence of an “incarnation.” Jesus’ (pbuh) very
first and very closest
followers were too ignorant to recognize this “truth.” (for more
on this topic, please read
chapter 5.11)
It is not surprising then, that this doctrine of incarnation is
not mentioned in the New
Testament. Once again, the one verse which validates this claim, 1
Timothy 3:16, is
again recognized as a later forgery which was foisted upon Jesus
(pbuh) fully six
centuries after his departure:
“This strong expression might be justified by the
language of St. Paul (I TIM. 3.16), but
we are deceived by our modern Bibles. The word “o”
(which) was altered to “theos”
(God) at Constantinople in the beginning of the 6th
century: the true reading, which is
visible in the Latin and Syriac version, still exists
in the reasoning of the Greek, as well
as the Latin fathers; and this fraud, with that of
the three witnesses of St. John, is
admirably detected by Sir Isaac Newton.”(emphasis added) Gibbon, “Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire,” VI, p. 10.
Notice how, shortly after the “incarnation” was officially
approved, it was recognized
that the Bible needed to be “corrected” and “clarified” so that
the reader could see the
“incarnation” clearly.
Even the holy “Easter” holiday is a pagan innovation unknown to
Jesus (pbuh) and his
apostles. The name “Easter” is derived from the pagan spring
festival of the Anglo-
Saxon goddess of light and spring “Eostre.” Many folk customs
associated with Easter
(for example, Easter eggs) are of pagan origin also. Her festival
was celebrated on the
vernal equinox (March 21st), and so too is the Christian “Easter.”
It was celebrated to
commemorate spring and the sun regaining it’s strength. Once
again, the “Son” Jesus
(pbuh), very coincidentally, regains his power and comes to life
at the same time (see
chapter three for more).
After the council of Nicea, 325AD., the following proud
proclamation was made: “We
also send you good news concerning the unanimous
consent of all, in reference to the
celebration of the most solemn feast of Easter; for
the difference has also been made up
by the assistance of your prayers; so that all the
brethren of the east, who formerly
celebrated this festival at the same time as the
Jews, will in future conform to the Romans
and to us and to all who have of old observed our
manner of celebrating Easter.” For
much, much more on the topic of the pagan influence on today’s
“Christianity,” please
read the books “Islam and Christianity in the modern world,” by
Dr. Muhammad Ansari,
and “Bible myths and their parallels in other religions” by T. W.
Doane.
As mentioned above, the very first Christians were all devout
Jews. These first
followers of Jesus (including the apostles themselves) followed
the same religion which
Moses (pbuh) and his followers had followed for centuries before
them. They knew of no
“new covenant” or annulments of the commandments of Moses (pbuh).
They had been
taught by Jesus (pbuh) that his religion was an affirmation of the
religion of the Jews and
a continuation of it. “The first fifteen Bishops of Jerusalem,” writes Gibbon, “were all
circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which
they presided united the Law of
Moses with the Doctrine of Christ.” Gibbon, “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,” II,
p. 119.
70 What did Jesus really say?
Also remember the words of Professor Robert Alley: “....The (Biblical) passages where
Jesus talks about the Son of God are later
additions.... what the church said about him.
Such a claim of deity for himself would not have been
consistent with his entire lifestyle
as we can reconstruct. For the first three decades
after Jesus’ death Christianity
continued as a sect within Judaism. The first three
decades of the existence of the church
were within the synagogue. That would have been
beyond belief if they (the followers)
had boldly proclaimed the deity of Jesus.” (This would also have been beyond belief if
they had preached the total cancellation and destruction of the
law of Moses, as Paul did)
Toland observes: “We know already to what degree imposture and credulity went hand
in hand in the primitive times of the Christian Church,
the last being as ready to receive
as the first was to forge books, This evil grew
afterwards not only greater when the
Monks were the sole transcribers and the sole keepers
of all books good or bad, but in
process of time it became almost absolutely impossible
to distinguish history from fable,
or truth from error as to the beginning and original
monuments of Christianity. How
immediate successors of the Apostles could so grossly
confound the genuine teaching of
their masters with such as were falsely attributed to
them? Or since they were in the dark
about these matters so early how came such as
followed them by a better light? And
observing that such Apocryphal books were often put
upon the same footing with the
canonical books by the Fathers, and the first cited
as Divine Scriptures no less than the
last, or sometimes, when such as we reckon divine
were disallowed by them. I propose
these two other questions: Why all the books cited
genuine by Clement of Alexander.
Origen. Tertullian and the rest of such writers
should not be accounted equally
authentic? And what stress should he laid on the
testimony of those Fathers who not only
contradict one another but are also often
inconsistent with themselves in their relations
of the very same facts?”(emphasis added). The Nazarenes, John Toland, pp. 73.
Jesus (pbuh) himself did indeed foretell of this most tragic
situation in the verse of John
16:2-4 “They
shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time comes, that whosoever
kills you will think that he does God service And
these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me.
But these things have I told you,
that when the time shall come, you may remember
that I told you of them. And these
things I said not unto you at the beginning,
because I was with you..”
Well then, why did the masses in the centuries after this not
revolt and renew the
original teaching of Jesus (pbuh)? Because the Bible was made the
property of the
privileged few. No one was allowed to read it, nor to translate it
into other languages.
When these privileged few came into power in what would later be
called by the West
“The Dark Ages,” the Bible was hoarded by these men and they were
claimed to be the
only ones who could understand it’s teachings. The first
authoritative English translation
of the Bible was completed by Mr. William Tyndale, popularly
considered a master of
both the Hebrew and Greek languages. The King James Bible was
based upon his
translation. He was forced into exile in 1524 and later condemned
and burned to death as
a heretic in 1536 for the vile and blasphemous deed of translating
the Bible into English.
With the rule of the church came the great “Inquisitions.” The
Inquisitions were a
medieval church court instituted to seek out and prosecute
heretics. Notoriously harsh in
its procedures, the Inquisition was defended during the rule of
the church by appeal to
biblical practices and to the church father Saint Augustine
himself (354-430 AD), the
great luminary of the church, who had interpreted Luke 14:23 as
endorsing the use of
force against
heretics in order to convert them. Mr. Tom Harpur observes “The horrors
71 What Did Jesus Really Say?
of the Crusades and the notorious Inquisitions are
all but a small part of this tragic
tale.”
Okay, but surely of those who had access to the Bible there must
have been some who
would have revealed these matters. As it happens, there were.
Sadly, they were all put to
death or tortured until they recanted their views. Their books
were also burned. For
instance, Isaac de la Peyere was one of many scholars to notice
many serious
discrepancies in the Bible and to write about them openly. His
book was banned and
burned. He was arrested and informed that in order to be released
he would have to
recant his views to the Pope. He did. There are countless such
examples for those who
would simply research their history books.
The Trinitarian church’s campaign of death and torture for all
Christians refusing to
compromise their beliefs continued for many centuries after the
creation of the trinity in
325 CE. Many brilliant scholars and leaders of the Unitarian
Christians were condemned,
tortured, and even burned alive in a very slow and drawn-out
manner. Only some of
these men are: Origen (185-254 CE), Lucian (died 312 CE), Arius
(250-336 CE), Michael
Servetus (1511-1553 CE), Francis David (1510-1579 CE), Lelio
Francesco Sozini (1525-
1562 CE), Fausto Paolo Sozini (1539-1604 CE), John Biddle
(1615-1662 CE)... and on
and on.
This wholesale condemnation became so bad that it was not
sufficient to condemn
individuals any more, but rather, whole nations were condemned and
killed. An example
is the Holy decree of 15th of February 1568 which condemned all of
the inhabitants of the
Netherlands to death as heretics. Three million men women and
children where
sentenced to the scaffold in three lines by the benevolent
Trinitarian church. Why does
no one cry “Holocaust” for these poor people?
John Lothrop Motly’s “Rise of the Dutch Republic” indicates: “Upon the
15th of
February 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office
condemned all the inhabitants of the
Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal
doom only a few persons,
especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of
King Philip II of Spain, dated ten
days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition,
and ordered it to be carried into
instant execution. . . Three millions of people, men,
women and children, were sentenced
to the scaffold in three lines. Under the new decree,
the executions certainly did not
slacken. Men in the highest and the humblest
positions were daily and hourly dragged to
the stake. Alva, in a single letter to Philip II,
coolly estimates the number of executions
which were to take place immediately after the
expiration of Holy Week at “eight
hundred heads.”
Toland asks in his book The Nazarenes: “Since the Nazarenes and Ebonites (Unitarian
Christians) are by all the Church historians
unanimously acknowledged to have been the
first Christians, or those who believe in Christ
among the Jews with which, his own
people, he lived and died, they having been the
witness of his actions, and of whom were
all the apostles, considering this, I say how it is
possible for them to be the first of all
others (for they were made to be the first heretics),
who should form wrong conceptions
of the doctrines and designs of Jesus? And how came
the Gentiles who believed on him
after his death by the preaching of persons that
never knew him to have truer notions of
these things, or whence they could have their
information but from the believing Jews?”
(emphasis added).
Only today when true religious freedom, scientific knowledge, and
geological
discoveries have come together in the study of the Bible and other
ancient documents
72 What did Jesus really say?
have Christians started to see the truth. An example of this can
be found in the British
newspaper the “Daily News” 25/6/84 under the heading “Shock survey of Anglican
Bishops” We
read that a British television poll of 31 of the 39 Anglican Bishops of
England found 19 to believe that it is not necessary for
Christians to believe that Jesus
(pbuh) is God, but only “His supreme agent” (his messenger) as
taught by Muslims for
1400 years now and testified to by Jesus (pbuh) himself in John
17:3 “And this is life
eternal, that they might know thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent.”
73 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2.6: The systematic destruction of the law of Jesus
esus (pbuh) was a very devout Jew. No Jew could ever raise a
finger to him and say
why do you not observe the Sabbath? Why do you eat pork? Indeed,
it is the apostles
of Jesus and not Jesus himself who are depicted in the NT as
violating the law. Jesus
(pbuh) departed never having eaten pork, never having violated the
Sabbath, divorce was
disallowed except in adultery during his lifetime. He followed the
law of Moses to the
letter. However, Paul’s dreams have now legalized for all
Christians that which Jesus
(according to the Bible) died believing in.
You will not find a single priest or evangelist
who tells his Christian followers “to enter heaven, only keep the
commandments” (as his
“Lord” did). The vast majority of Christians today do not refrain
from eating pork nor do
they observe the Sabbath as their “Lord” did, and died doing.
There are so many
differences between Christians today and Jesus and his actions.
Christians in general
follow the commandments of Paul and others who are given the power
to totally cancel
out all of the commandments of both Moses and Jesus, and no
Christian has any
reservations whatsoever. Christianity is literally built around
the premise that disciples of
disciples, have the power to cancel the commandments of their
prophets and even the law
practiced by the alleged son of God himself.
Let us look at this matter a little closer. Jesus (pbuh)
considered pigs such filthy and
disgusting animals that not only did he never taste their flesh
(incidentally, Muslims also
live out their lives never having tasted a single swine), but he
literally considered them so
lowly that they were only fit as garbage dumps for devils. In
Matthew 8:31-32 we read
“So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast
us out, suffer us to go away into the
herd of swine And he said unto them, Go. And when
they were come out, they went
into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole
herd of swine ran violently down a steep
place into the sea, and perished in the waters..”
However, shortly after Jesus’
departure,
Peter is alleged to have had a dream and then made lawful all of
the creatures of the earth
(Acts 11:5-10). In one tragic moment, Jesus’ lifetime of restraint
was casually swept
under the carpet.
Jesus (pbuh) never in his lifetime changed a single commandment
from the law of
Moses (pbuh). He departed leaving his followers with the following
words: Matthew
5:17-19 “Think
not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto
you, TILL HEAVEN AND EARTH
PASS, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach
men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do
and teach them, the same shall be called great in
the kingdom of heaven.”
Paul’s dreams, however, have broken commandments right and left.
There is so much
of what Jesus (pbuh) did during his lifetime that his followers
have now totally neglected,
not because Jesus (pbuh) told them to break the commandments, but
because Paul would
later tell them to break them upon the authority of the “visions”
he was receiving.
So, what we have concluded from the current view of Jesus’ master
plan is the
following:
1) Jesus (pbuh) lived among his people for thirty three years
showing them many
miracles and teaching them to keep the commandments of Moses, to
observe the Sabbath,
to refrain from eating pork, to circumcise their children, to fast
with the Jews and so
forth. He did not do this with his words alone but gave them an
example in his own
actions.
Whenever he spoke about his miracles he claimed that he did them through “the
J
74 What did Jesus really say?
finger of God” and so forth and that he “can of mine own self do nothing.” Whenever he
spoke of worship he would say “worship the father” and not “worship
me,” “worship the
trinity,” or “worship us.” He also never said “I am a god.” The
term “Son of God” was
used by his people for many millennia before him to describe a
devout servant of God and
applied in the Bible to many prophets before him and even to
common people. Further,
God was understood by the people of his time to be the “Father” of
all those who love
him.
2) For three centuries after the departure of Jesus (pbuh), his
apostles and their
followers (excluding Paul and his followers) continued the
tradition of Jesus (pbuh) as
faithful Jews and followers of the law of Moses (pbuh). They
practiced their worship in
the synagogues of the Jews, and for all intents and purposes were
indistinguishable for all
other Jews except for the fact that they affirmed that Jesus
(pbuh) was the promised
Messiah, which many Jews did not (and still do not) accept. None
of these people, not
even Paul, had ever heard of a “trinity.” Jesus (pbuh) decided not
to reveal his (and
God’s) “true” nature until three centuries after his departure. He
decided that three
centuries after Jesus’ departure it would be time to come to the
church and give them
divine “inspiration” to “insert” verses in the Bible validating
the “trinity.” These
“inspired” revelations from Jesus are documented by Christian
historians to have been
continuing at least up till the fifteenth century CE (see above).
Jesus also “inspired” them
to utterly destroy all Gospels written before this fourth century
which did not teach this
“true” nature of Jesus as being God. He further “inspired” the
church to utterly destroy
all ancient manuscripts written in the original Aramaic or Hebrew
language of Jesus
(pbuh) and the apostles. He “inspired” them that the Greek and
Latin manuscripts would
be amply sufficient. And finally, he “inspired” them to launch a
massive campaign of
“inquiry” to “cleanse” the earth of all remaining Unitarian
Christians or convert them.
3) When Jesus (pbuh) departed, his followers continued to
faithfully follow his example
and observe the laws of Moses. Now Paul comes along and persecutes
the followers of
Jesus every way he knows how. He admits that: “For ye have heard of my conversation
in time past in the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure I persecuted the church of
God, and wasted it” Galatians 1:13. Now Jesus (pbuh) decides to bypass his
apostles and
go directly to the worst persecutor of his followers on earth in a
“vision” and give him
knowledge not available to the apostles. Paul now reveals that God
holds all of mankind
responsible for the sin of Adam (Romans 5:11-19, 1 Corinthians
15:22). God himself,
however, claims long before Paul was ever born that “The fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, neither shall the
children be put to death for the fathers: every
man shall be put to death for his own sin” Deuteronomy 24:16. and “The son shall not
bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall
the father bear the iniquity of the son”
Ezekiel 18:20....etc.
4) Paul further revealed that Jesus came to him in “visions” and
told him to nullify the
commandments of God which he had spent thirty three years on earth
upholding and
teaching his followers to observe, and that these commandments “decayeth,” were ready
to “vanish away,” and were a “curse” upon us.
The only requirement in order to enter
heaven, according to Paul, is to believe in the original sin and
the atonement. No actual
work is necessary. This one belief is the only necessary and
sufficient condition.
However, Jesus departed not only never having violated the law of
Moses but also having
told his people that “till heaven and earth pass” whoever would dare to do so would be
called “the
least in the kingdom of God.” Jesus
(pbuh) was claimed to have been
conditioned and prepared for “the atonement” from the beginning of
time, however,
whenever he was asked about the path to heaven he not only never
mentioned any
atonement but only (repeatedly) told his followers to “keep the commandments.” Even
when pressed for the path to perfection he only
told his followers to sell their belongings.
75 What Did Jesus Really Say?
5) Jesus never in his life saw fit to write a single inspired
word. However, after he died,
he started appearing to countless people in their dreams and
visions and commanding
them to write in his name and guiding their words. He did not see
fit to guide their hands
from writing conflicting versions of the same story (see chapter
3) since these
contradictions were intended to strengthen a Christian’s faith.
6) Since the only course to salvation is to accept the sacrifice
of Jesus (pbuh) and the
law of Moses is worthless, therefore, God did not see fit to allow
those born before Jesus
(pbuh) including countless previous prophets to enter heaven, but
rather allowed them to
remain stained with the sin of Adam and gave them a very strict
and disciplined law that
was totally useless and could never relieve them of this
hereditary stain. Only those after
Jesus (pbuh) will receive true salvation (Romans 3:28...etc.).
76 What did Jesus really say?
1.2.7 Christianity’s True Founder, Paul, Admits
Fabrication
uslims do not claim that Jesus’ true disciples corrupted the
Bible, but that others
claiming to act in their names did so later on. This is attested
to by the fact that the
Trinitarian church felt it necessary to totally obliterate all
Gospels written before 325
AD when they officially introduced the “trinity” to the world.
This is why we find such
serious contradictions in even the most basic of it’s teachings.
For example, we are told
that Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul) is the author of the majority of
the books of the New
Testament. He is claimed to be the author of Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Phillippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and
2 Timothy, Titus,
Philemon, and Hebrews. We would expect such a pivotal character in
the Bible and the
author of the majority of the New Testament books to be able to
keep his stories straight
at least in such fundamental matters as how he became a Christian
and was “saved.”
However, we can find in the Bible a sworn affidavit by Paul that
he is guilty of
fabrication. Sound incredible? Let us have a look:
If we read Acts 9:19-29 and Acts 26:19-21, we will find that Paul
is supposed to have
“seen the Lord in the way” and accepted Christianity after being a staunch enemy
of
Christians and having become famous for his severe persecution of
them. Barnabas (one
of the apostles of Jesus) then supposedly vouched for him with the
other apostles and
convinced them to accept him. Paul then went with all of the
apostles on a preaching
campaign in and out of Jerusalem and all of Judaea preaching boldly to
it’s people. Paul
then appointed himself the twelfth apostle of Jesus (in place of
Judas who had the devil in
him) as seen in his own books Romans 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:1 ..etc..
The verses mentioned are:
Acts 9:19-29: “And when he (Paul) had received meat, he was strengthened. Then
was Saul (Paul) certain days with the disciples
which were at Damascus. And
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues,
that he is the Son of God. But all
that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this
he that destroyed them which called
on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for
that intent, that he might bring them
bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased
the more in strength, and
confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus,
proving that this is very Christ. And
after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews
took counsel to kill him: But their laying
await was known of Saul. And they watched the
gates day and night to kill him. Then
the disciples took him by night, and let him down
by the wall in a basket. And when
Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join
himself to the disciples: but they were
all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a
disciple. But Barnabas took him, and
brought him to the apostles, and declared unto
them how he had seen the Lord in the
way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he
had preached boldly at Damascus in
the name of Jesus. And he was with them coming in
and going out at Jerusalem. And
he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus,
and disputed against the Grecians: but
they went about to slay him.”
Acts 26:19-21 “Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the
heavenly
vision: But shewed first unto them of Damascus,
and at Jerusalem, and throughout all
the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles,
that they should repent and turn to God,
M
77 What Did Jesus Really Say?
and do works meet for repentance. For these
causes the Jews caught me in the temple,
and went about to kill me.”
Contradicted by:
Galatians 1:15-23 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his
Son in me, that I might preach him
among the heathen; immediately I conferred not
with flesh and blood: Neither went I
up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles
before me; but I went into Arabia, and
returned again unto Damascus. Then after three
years I went up to Jerusalem to see
Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other
of the apostles saw I none, save
James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I
write unto you, behold, before God,
I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of
Syria and Cilicia; And was unknown
by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in
Christ: But they had heard only,
That he which persecuted us in times past now
preacheth the faith which once he
destroyed.”
With regard to the first two passages, Reverend Dr. Davies in “The
First Christian,” p.
26-32 says: “These
assertions are not inconsistent with each other, but are damaging for
another reason,: they are contradicted by Paul
himself in his letter to the Galatians
(Chapters 1 and 2).” Rev. Davies draws attention to Paul’s oath: “Now concerning the
things which I write to you, indeed, before God I
do not lie,” which makes his account a
sworn affidavit. He goes on to say: “To the story in Acts, this contradiction is
disastrous.
There never was a teaching campaign at Jerusalem and
through all of the county of
Judea (Acts 26:20). If Paul was unknown to the Judean
communities as he says, then he
had undertaken no mission among them. In fact he had
never joined the Judean
movement or even attempted to join it. He only saw
Cephas, and Jesus’ brother James.
Even of the other apostles, not to mention more
ordinary believers, ‘I saw none’ he
admits. Instead of his having gone ‘in and out of Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the
name of the Lord’ the Jerusalem community had not even known that he
was there.
‘They only heard’ he tells us ‘that he who once persecuted us now makes the faith of
which he made havoc’; but they never heard him preach it in Judea.” Rev. Davies
concludes that “..if
there is any portion of the New Testament that is authentic, it is
Paul’s letter to the Galatians. If we cannot rely
upon this letter, we can rely upon
nothing and may as well close our inquiry. But the
fact is that we can rely upon it. The
letter to the Galatians is from Paul himself and by
every test is genuine.”
According to the narration in Acts, Paul saw his alleged vision.
“Straightway” he began
preaching in the synagogues of Damascus. He built up a reputation
through his bold
preaching that amazed the masses. He confounded the Jews of
Damascus. Many days
later, the Jews tried to kill him so he escaped to Jerusalem. He
met Barnabas who
introduced him to the apostles for the first time. They were all
terrified of Paul, but
Barnabas convinced them to accept him. Now Paul and all of the
apostles went on a
preaching campaign in and out of Jerusalem speaking boldly in the
name of Jesus.
78 What did Jesus really say?
However, according to the narration in Galatians, Paul saw his
alleged vision.
“Immediately” he did NOT confer with “flesh and blood” nor did he
go to Jerusalem to
see the apostles, but rather he traveled to Arabia then back to
Damascus. He mentions no
preaching in any of these places. After at least three years he
goes to Jerusalem for the
first time and meets only Peter and James and no other apostles.
He stays with them for
fifteen days but, once again, he mentions no preaching campaign
either with all of the
apostles, with some of them, or alone. He also has never been here
in the past nor
performed a preaching campaign here in the past since he is
unknown by face to them and
they have “heard only” of his claimed conversion.
Some of the contradictions are:
1) Galatians claims that after his alleged vision, Paul “Immediately” spoke to “no flesh
and blood” but rather traveled to Arabia and then to Damascus. So he did not
“straightway,” if at all, preach boldly in Damascus as claimed by
Acts (How long
would it take to travel from Damascus to Arabia to Damascus? Could
he go and
come back “straightway”?).
2) According to Galatians, Paul did not go to Jerusalem where the
apostles were.
Rather, he went to Arabia then to Damascus. Now, after at least THREE
YEARS
(not many days), he goes to Jerusalem. It explicitly states that “Neither went I up to
Jerusalem to them which were apostles.” So this is claimed to be his FIRST visit to
Jerusalem after his claimed vision. This FIRST visit is claimed to
have occurred at
least THREE YEARS after Paul’s alleged vision. However, Acts
claims that MANY
DAYS after his vision he traveled to Jerusalem and performed a
bold preaching
campaign with all the apostles. Acts also mentions no intermediate
journey to
Arabia.
3) According to Galatians, upon Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem he met
Peter and James and
no other apostles. He can not have met any apostles in Jerusalem
before this because
he claims that immediately after his vision “Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them
which were apostles” Rather, it claims that he FIRST went to Jerusalem at
least
“three years” after his claimed vision. On the other hand, Acts
claims that the first
time he met the apostles was many days after his claimed vision at
which time he
met ALL of the apostles. This too is obviously his first meeting
with them since they
all feared him. Notice the words “they were ALL afraid of him.” This would not be
the case if Peter and James had already met him since even if they
had never
mentioned him to the other apostles, still, at the very least they
themselves (Peter and
James) would not fear him. Also notice that it was only Barnabas
who stood up for
him and not Barnabas, Peter, and James.
4) Galatians claims that after Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem all
the apostles feared him
but then Barnabas convinced them to accept him and they ALL went
hand in hand
“in and out of Jerusalem” preaching “boldly” to the
Jews. However, Acts claims
that his first visit to Jerusalem was after THREE YEARS and upon
this FIRST visit
he met ONLY Peter and James. He is not claimed to have gone with
Peter and
James on a preaching campaign in and out of Jerusalem, nor could
he have done so
in the past with ALL of the apostles since if he had done so he
would not have been
“unknown by face to the churches of Judea,” they would also not have “heard
79 What Did Jesus Really Say?
only” of
his conversion but would have witnessed his bold campaign with all of the
apostles with their own eyes.
If the author of the majority of the books of the New Testament
can not even keep the
narration of own “salvation” straight then how are we expected to
believe him in such
critical matters as the “true” meanings of Jesus’ words, or other
matters?
Strange as it may seem, there is a logical explanation for the
above contradictions. This
explanation is given by Paul himself. He says: “For if the truth of God has more
abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet
am I also judged as a sinner?”
Romans 3:7. So Paul is telling his followers that it is necessary
for a good Christian to
“lie unto God’s glory” in order for God’s truth to “abound.” Truth
and morality will
never be sufficient to completely establish God’s “truth.” He is
protesting to us that we
should not label him a “sinner” merely because he lied unto God’s
glory. If he had not
lied unto God’s glory then God’s truth would never have been
established so fully.
Sound logical?
The careful reader will notice many other holes in the story of
Paul’s alleged
“conversion.” For instance, in Acts 22:9 Paul claims that when he
spoke to Jesus (pbuh),
those traveling with him “saw the light,” but
“they heard not the voice.” While in Acts
9:7 those who were with Paul are claimed to have “stood speechless, hearing a voice, but
seeing no man.” Don’t take my word for it, by all means “prove all things.” The
teachings of Christianity as they are known today are built upon
the claims of Paul, the
author of the majority of the books of the New Testament. He is
trusted blindly because
he claims to have seen Jesus (pbuh) in a heavenly vision, to have
been vouched for by the
apostle Barnabas, to have met and been accepted by all of the
apostles, to have preached
with all the apostles boldly in the name of Jesus throughout
the land of Judaea, and as a
result of this to have endured severe hardship and persecution.
However, anyone who
would simply read their Bible will find that Paul himself swears in the
name of God
almighty that this is a fabrication because Judaea had never even
seen his face and had
“heard only” of his alleged conversion. Further, he never met any
of the apostles save
Peter and James. Even with all of this Christians insist on
interpreting the words of Jesus
within the context of Paul’s teachings.
There are so many more similar examples of how Paul openly and
blatantly made major
changes to the religion of Jesus that flagrantly contradicted both
the teachings of Jesus
and his apostles. Another example can be seen in the following
analysis: God almighty
commands in Genesis 17:10-14: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me
and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child
among you shall be circumcised. And
ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin;
and it shall be a token of the covenant
betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old
shall be circumcised among you,
every man child in your generations, he that is
born in the house, or bought with
money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
He that is born in thy house, and he
that is bought with thy money, must needs be
circumcised: and my covenant shall be in
your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the
uncircumcised man child whose flesh
80 What did Jesus really say?
of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul
shall be cut off from his people; he hath
broken my covenant.” So God himself is telling us that His covenant can
only be had
through circumcision. The significance of circumcision was also
noted by Biblical
scholars as being not merely an external act: “This was His own sign and seal that Israel
was a chosen people. Through it a man's life was
linked with great fellowship whose
dignity was it's high consciousness that it must
fulfill the purpose of God” (Interpreter's
Bible, p. 613).
Circumcision was considered of such critical importance
to Jewish faith that they
would even violate the Sabbath to circumcise their children if the
eighth day fell on the
Sabbath. John 7:22 “and ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the
Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of
Moses should not be broken; are ye
angry at me, because I have made a man every whit
whole on the Sabbath day?” Jesus
himself was circumcised on the eighth day just like all faithful
Jews: Luke 2:21: “And
when eight days were accomplished for the
circumcising of the child, his name was
called JESUS.” After the departure of Jesus, circumcision became an
issue of personal
conflict between the apostle Peter who insisted upon it (preach to
Jews only) and Paul
who wanted to do away with it (preach to non-Jews also). Galatians
2:7: “I had been
entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised,
just as Peter had been entrusted with
the gospel for the circumcised.” Paul then goes into great details about how the
apostles
were wrong and he was right and how even Barnabas followed in
their “hypocrisy” and it
was necessary for him to show the apostles the truth (in the King
James Version, the
actual word used by Paul in Galatians 2:13 is diplomatically
translated as
“dissimulation..” However, in the Revised Standard Version of the
Bible which was
compiled from more ancient
manuscripts than the KJV, the word Paul used is honestly
translated as “hypocrisy”).
Paul now mentions James (James the Son of Thunder, James the
Just), Peter (the Rock),
and Barnabas (Paul’s teacher and protector) in the following
manner: Galatians 2:14 “I
saw that they walked not uprightly according to
the truth of the gospel.” So
now it
becomes apparent from Paul’s words that, in addition to all the
above, the apostles were
also misguided. It would have been interesting to have heard for
instance Barnabas’
version of these matters had he been chosen as the “majority
author” of the Bible rather
than Paul. According to many similar passages, it seems that the
apostles were constantly
in need of Paul’s guidance to recognize the truth. To get
Barnabas’ version of these
matters, his opinion of Paul, as well as what really happened at
the cross look for “The
Gospel of Barnabas,” ISBN 0089295-133-1, at your local library, or
obtain your copy
from one of the addresses listed at the back of this book.
It is interesting to note that Paul himself was not even sure
about his own “visions.” In
2 Corinthians 12:1-5 we read: “It is expedient for me to boast; nothing is to be gained
by it, but I will go on to visions and
revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ
above fourteen years ago, whether in the body, I
cannot tell; or whether out of the
body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; such an one
caught up to the third heaven. And I
knew such a man, whether in the body, or out of
the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;
81 What Did Jesus Really Say?
How that he was caught up into paradise, and
heard unspeakable words, which it is
not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one
will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory,
but in mine infirmities..” So Paul did not know if the man in his “visions” was
“in the
body” or “out of the body.” Paul’s vision also contained
“unspeakable words” which
were “not lawful for a man to utter.”
If I told you that I had seen someone in a “vision,” had heard “unspeakable words that
are not lawful to utter” in this vision, had been commanded by this person to “lie unto
God’s glory,” and had been told to nullify the commandments which
Jesus (pbuh) had
upheld his whole life, who would you say this described? Who had I
seen?
The Qur’an says: “And if it be said unto them: Follow that which Allah has
revealed,
they say: Nay, but we follow that wherein we
found our fathers. What! Even though
the devil was inviting them to the torture of the
fire?” The Qur’an, Lukman(31):21.
What is wrong with this picture? Even if we were to disregard
Paul’s sworn admission
of fabrication and were to accept the established beliefs of
Paul’s inspiration and
faultlessness (a very big “if”), then we are still left with the
following picture:
Paul, a man who according to his own admission “beyond measure”
severely persecuted
countless Christians “slaughtered” them, and also “wasted” the
church (Galatians 1:13-
15, Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 9:41, Acts 6:5.. etc.), a man who
never met Jesus face to
face, underwent a “miraculous” conversion from a persecutor and
killer of Christians into
a more perfect teacher of Christianity than the apostles
themselves. He was singled out
by Jesus’ ghost to receive a “vision” which was denied the
apostles who had
accompanied Jesus (pbuh) during his lifetime (Galatians 1:10-12).
Paul had acquired such
a terrible reputation as a persecutor of Christians that no one
was willing to accept his
claims of conversion. It was only the intervention of Barnabas,
who’s words obviously
carried a great deal of weight with the apostles, which allowed
the apostles to grudgingly
accept him. Barnabas then traveled extensively with Paul building
up his reputation
among the Jews as a true convert. Once Paul acquired a reputation
of his own, he had a
falling out with Barnabas (Acts 15:39, Galatians 2:13). They
parted company. Paul now
claimed that Jesus (pbuh) wanted him to “relax” the law in order
to make it a little more
palatable for new converts, and this is when Paul began to make
drastic changes to the
law of Jesus (pbuh).
Paul decided that his “visions” were sufficient authority to
contradict the teachings of
the apostles and consider them hypocrites. Even Barnabas, the
apostle who traveled with
Paul teaching him and preaching to the Jews, who was willing to accept
this persecutor of
Christians claims of conversion at face value, and the man who
single handedly
convinced the apostles to accept this same persecutor of
Christians is now considered by
Paul a hypocrite and less able to understand the religion of Jesus
(pbuh) than himself.
Paul also believed that “...I labored more abundantly than they (the apostles) all” 1
Corinthians 15:10. So, the apostles of Jesus were such lazy
layabouts that Paul was doing
more work than all eleven of them. All of this even though the
apostles spent countless
years with Jesus (pbuh) learning directly from him while Paul, who
has never met Jesus
82 What did Jesus really say?
in person, practically overnight transforms from a persecutor and
killer of Christians and
the apostles to a more perfect teacher of Christianity than the
apostles themselves. It is
quite lucky for us that Paul received this “vision,” otherwise we
might have been lead
astray by the lazy, misguided, hypocritical apostles. For
Barnabas’ version of these
matters, read “The Gospel of Barnabas.”
Let us time out for a quick analyses of the above verses:
1) Paul according to his own admission “beyond measure” severely persecuted
countless Christians, strove to “slaughter” them, and also “wasted” the church
(Galatians 1:13-15, Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 9:41, Acts 6:5..
etc.).
2) Paul receives “visions” and is
saved (Acts 22:9, Acts 9:7...etc.)
3) Paul is not sure exactly what he saw in his visions.(2
Corinthians 12:1-5)
4) Paul’s visions contained “unspeakable words that it is unlawful to utter.” (2
Corinthians 12:1-5)
5) Paul tells us that the person in his visions was Jesus (pbuh).
He declares that he
received his teachings of “Christianity” from these visions and
from no one else, not
even the apostles. (Galatians 1:12).
6) Paul “lies”
unto “God’s Glory” in order that God’s “truth” may “abound”(Romans
3:7).
7) The apostles differ with Paul regarding the “truth” of the circumcision ordained by
God and other matters.(1 Corinthians 7:19, Galatians 2:7...etc.).
8) The apostles, according to Paul, did not walk “uprightly” according to the “truth of
the Gospel” and were lazy, misguided, hypocrites (1 Corinthians
15:10, Galatians
2:14, Galatians 2:13).
9) Most of the books of the New Testament are written by Paul
himself. In them, Paul
himself gives an unblushing pronouncement of how he was a vastly
superior apostle
of Jesus (pbuh) than the apostles who accompanied Jesus (pbuh)
during his ministry
and they all needed his guidance to see the “truth” of Jesus’
message and how Jesus
(pbuh) and the apostles appointed him the twelfth apostle..
Summary:
If the truth of God needs lies unto God’s Glory to establish it, and Paul
himself admits to having lied unto God’s Glory, and the apostles
were not following
this “truth” as close as Paul would have liked, then the apostles
must not have been
lying against God’s glory enough for Paul’s taste.
Regardless, it is well known that just prior to Paul’s
“miraculous” conversion and
“heavenly vision” he had been extremely infatuated with a woman
called Popea and had
wished to marry her. Popea was the attractive but ambitious
daughter of the high priest of
the Jews. She possessed haughty beauty, and an intriguing mind.
She liked Paul but
rejected his offers of marriage. She went to Rome as an actress.
She started on the stage
and ended up in Emperor Nero’s bed. She eventually married him and
became the
Empress of the Roman Empire. Paul, therefore, had good reason to
hate both the Jews
and the Romans. His “vision” coincided with Popea’s rejection.
(Jesus Prophet of Islam,
Muhammad ‘Ata ur-Rahim, p. 57).
83 What Did Jesus Really Say?
These apostles that Paul looked down upon as lazy misguided
hypocrites are the
selfsame apostles who had accompanied Jesus (pbuh) during his
lifetime, who taught all
of mankind (including Paul himself) the teachings of Jesus (pbuh),
and who endured the
persecution of many (including Paul) to convey this message. The
Pauline Church (the
Roman Catholic church which later gave birth to other churches
such as the Protestant
church) was to later go on and concoct the doctrine of the trinity
about three hundred
years after the departure of Jesus, to severely condemn,
persecute, and kill any Christians
who did not convert to their own personal brand of Christianity,
to have presided over the
death of millions of Christians who did not adopt this belief. To
have presided over the
destruction of many hundreds of “unacceptable” Gospels (some
sources claim thousands)
some of which were written by the apostles themselves, and to have
issued death warrants
for all those found concealing them... and on and on.
Even with all of this, the Gospel of Barnabas has managed to
escape this campaign of
destruction of the Gospels and is available today. It confirms all
that we have said and
what the Qur’an has been saying for centuries. It also presents
Barnabas’ response to
Paul’s claims and his account of what truly happened at the cross
and how Jesus (pbuh)
was not forsaken by God to the Jews, but was raised by God, and
Judas the traitor was
made to look like Jesus (pbuh) and was taken in his place.
Barnabas, of course,
accompanied Jesus (pbuh) and was an eye-witness to his mission.
Paul was not.
Getting back to our story... Paul had a falling out with the
apostles and decided that
“Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing, but the keeping of the
commandments of God” 1 Corinthians 7:19. Even though circumcision was held
in an
even higher regard than the Sabbath itself in the law of Moses and
the “commandments
of God,” still, Paul taught that it is possible to keep the commandments
even if, contrary
to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, this foremost
commandment of circumcision
was abandoned.
In the end, Paul decided that all the commandments of God through
Moses (pbuh)
which Jesus (pbuh) had kept faithfully till the crucifixion and
which the apostles had also
kept were all worthless decaying and ready to vanish away and
faith was all that was
required, thereby completely nullifying everything his “Lord”
Jesus had taught and
practiced during his lifetime. Romans 3:28: “Therefore we conclude that a man is
justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
He decided that the laws of Moses
(pbuh) (e.g. “thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, ...etc.”)
which Jesus (pbuh) had
taught the faithful during his lifetime were a “curse” upon them
and no longer necessary,
Galatians 3:13 “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.” He then went
about explaining the “true” meanings of the teachings of Jesus and
Paul’s preachings are
what are now known as “Christianity.”
Paul himself readily admits that he was both willing and able to
recruit new converts by
any means
at his disposal: 1 Corinthians 9:20 “And unto the Jews I became as a Jew,
that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under
the law(Gentiles), as under the law,
that I might gain them that are under the law” and 1 Corinthians 9:22: “...I am made
84 What did Jesus really say?
all things to all men, that I might by all means
save some” and 1 Corinthians 6:12:
“...all things are lawful for me, but I will not
be brought under the power of any.”
What are some of these “means” Paul used to “save some,”? Well, as
we have seen, one
of them is his admitted habit of LYING AGAINST GOD’S GLORY in
order to propagate
his doctrine. However, he believed that the truth “abounded”
through his lies (Romans
3:7). Paul also openly admits that his teachings were not obtained
from the apostles of
Jesus, but from a vision of Jesus denied the apostles: Galatians
1:12 “For I neither
received it of man, neither was I taught it, but
by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Did
Jesus (pbuh) come to Paul in a “vision” and command him to lie
against God? Is God’s
light so week that it can only be advanced through Paul’s lies?
Are Paul’s lies so “pious”
as to advance God’s glory in a manner that would be impossible
through truth and light
alone? Is this what Jesus (pbuh) was teaching him in his
“visions”? Is this the religion of
God?
Around the 25th of Sep. 1994 (I forget the exact day), a US
newspaper ran an article
about a man in California alleged to be the “Thrill” killer. He
was accused of killing six
people. During his trial he did something totally unexpected. He
suddenly jumped up
and said three words: “I am guilty.” He had not consulted his
lawyer and no one had
expected this turn of events. Was he thrown in jail? No. Was he
sentenced to the
“chair.”? No! Well what did happen? This admitted killer of six
people was proclaimed
to be mentally incompetent and his testimony could in no way
benefit the prosecution.
Does this sound like justice? Does this sound like logic? Paul
himself admits that he had
lied.
He does not admit to just any lie but a lie against God’s Glory.
Is he condemned as
a heretic? No. Is he called a blasphemer? No. Is he burned at the
stake? No! He is called
a “saint.” Can any other Christian openly admit to having lied
against God’s Glory and
get away with it? If a Christian were to jump up in church and
shout at the top of his
lungs “I have lied against God’s Glory,” would the congregation
proudly parade him up
and down the streets and call him a “saint”? Would they then burn
their Bibles and ask
for divine inspiration from him? Would they “interpret” his “lie”
sixty different ways to
make it a “good” and “pious” lie? Would they only interpret the
words of Jesus (pbuh)
through his words? Can you picture anyone in their right mind
doing such a thing? Is
this how we love God “with all our minds”?
The great apostle of Jesus (pbuh), Barnabas (the defender and
benefactor of Paul), in
the opening statements of his Gospel has the following to say
about Paul among others:
“True Gospel of Jesus, called Messiah, a new prophet
sent by God to the world
according to the description of Barnabas his apostle.
Barnabas, apostle of Jesus the
Nazarene, called Messiah, to all them that dwell upon
the earth desire peace and
consolation. Truly beloved, the great and wonderful
God has in these past days visited
us by His apostle Jesus (the) Messiah in great mercy
of teaching and miracles, by reason
whereof many, being deceived by Satan, under pretense
of piety, are preaching most
impious doctrine, calling Jesus the Son of God,
repudiating the circumcision ordained by
God forever, and permitting every unclean meat: among
whom also Paul has been
deceived, whereof I speak not without grief: for
which cause I am writing the truth which
I have seen and heard, in the fellowship that I have
had with Jesus, in order that you may
be saved, and not be deceived by Satan and perish in
judgment of God. Therefore,
beware of everyone that preaches to you a new
doctrine contrary to that which I write,
that you may be saved eternally. The great God be
with you and guard you from Satan
and from every evil. Amen.”
Paul himself admits that there were those who were preaching a
different Gospel than
his own and were gaining converts. He does not name his
adversaries, but we can read
about his most noble adversaries in two places wherein Paul uses
what Prof. Brandon
85 What Did Jesus Really Say?
calls “very remarkable terms” to describe them. The first is
Galatians 1:6-9. “I marvel
that ye are so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto
another gospel: Which is not another; but there
be some that trouble you, and would
pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or
an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, if any man
preach any other gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
The second is 2 Corinthians 11:3-6 “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds
should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that
cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we
have not preached, or if ye receive another
spirit, which ye have not received, or
another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye
might well bear with him. For I
suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest
apostles. But though I be rude in
speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been
thoroughly made manifest among you
in all things.”
These opponents of Paul were clearly preaching “another Gospel” and “another
Jesus,” they were also obviously operating among Paul’s own target group
and
converting his converts. All of this even though their teachings
did not exhibit the
“simplicity” that Paul preached but required their followers to work for
their salvation.
However, Paul displays amazing restraint when referring to them by
not lambasting them
with the vehemence of speech which he is so capable nor
questioning their authority.
Rather, he gives a clue to their identity with the words: “...For I suppose I was not a whit
behind the very chiefest apostles” and “we, or an angel from heaven,” and “unto
another gospel: Which is not another.”
Christian scholars today unanimously agree that the very first
Christians, including the
apostles of Jesus (pbuh) were all Unitarians and that the trinity
was not concocted until
around the beginning of the fourth century. These Unitarians
enjoyed a large following
and spread throughout much of North Africa among other places.
During this period, any
Roman or Greek gentile who wanted to enter into Christianity
pretty much was allowed to
choose which “Christianity” he wanted. The one preached by
Barnabas and the apostles
which involved a strict and disciplined law of Moses (pbuh), or
the much more simplistic
“New covenant” of Paul which only required “faith in Jesus” and
which was later made
more appealing to them by the Pauline Church by incorporating a
“Trinity” and other
changes into it so that it would more closely resemble the Roman
and Greek established
beliefs of multiple Gods and father-Gods and son-Gods and
Demi-Gods and Goddesses
...etc. Toland says in his book The Nazarenes: “...amongst the Gentiles, so inveterate
was the hatred of the Jews that their observing of
anything, however reasonable or
necessary, was sufficient motive for a Gentile
convert to reject it.” If Paul
wanted to
convert these people, he would need to make Christianity a little
more appealing to them,
which he (and his church) did.
One of these first Unitarian Christians, Iranaeus (130-200 AD), a
follower of the
Gospels of Barnabas and the apostles, and one of the first
Christians to be killed because
of their adherence to the unity of God, has the following to say
about such as Paul and his
church: “In order to amaze the simple
and such as are ignorant of the Scriptures of
Truth, they obtrude upon them an inexpressible
multitude of apocryphal and spurious
scriptures of their own devising” (the Gospels in our possession today).
When the Pauline Church gained power and influence in Rome these
Unitarian
Christians were officially condemned, persecuted and killed. An
attempt was made to
86 What did Jesus really say?
totally obliterate them and their books by forcing them to accept
the trinity or else to be
killed as heretics and by burning their Gospels. Over a million of
these Unitarian
Christians were then put to death because of their refusal to
compromise their belief. In
spite of this, their beliefs have survived even to this day. When
Islam came with the call
to one God and the belief in Jesus (pbuh) and his miracles, these
Unitarian Christians
were among the first people to recognize the word of God and
accept Islam.
So thorough has Paul and his church been in totally eradicating
all of the teachings of
Jesus (pbuh) and his first apostles that very little has survived.
Not even Jesus’ (pbuh)
preferred method of greeting his followers. From ancient times,
the prophets of God
including Moses, Joseph, David, Jesus, the angels of God and many
others including God
himself have made it their custom to greet the believers with the
words “Peace be with
you.” This can be seen in such verses as Genesis 43:23, Judges
6:23, 1 Samuel 25:6,
Numbers 6:26, 1 Samuel 1:17, Luke 24:36, John 20:19, John 20:26,
and especially Luke
10:5: “And into whatsoever house
ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house” to name a
few. Can anyone guess what Muhammad (pbuh) taught his followers to
say when
greeting each other or departing from each other? You guessed it!
“Assalam alaikum” or
“Peace be unto you.” Have you ever met a Christian who greets
other Christians with the
words of Jesus (pbuh): “Peace be unto you”?
So, what do the scholars have to say about Paul?:
Heinz Zahrnt calls Paul “the corrupter of the Gospel of Jesus.” From “The Jesus
Report,” Johannes Lehman, p. 126.
Werde describes him as “The second founder of Christianity.” He further says that due
to Paul: “...the discontinuity between
the historical Jesus and the Christ of the Church
became so great that any unity between them is
scarcely recognizable” . From “The
Jesus Report,” Johannes Lehman, p. 127.
Schonfield wrote: “The Pauline heresy became the foundation of the Christian
orthodoxy and the legitimate Church was disowned as
heretical.” From “The Jesus
Report,” Johannes Lehman, p. 128.
Another Christian, Mr. Michael H. Hart, in his book “The 100, a Ranking of the Most
Influential Persons in History,” places Muhammad (pbuh) in first place, next comes
Paul, and Jesus (pbuh) after Paul. Like most other western
scholars besides himself, he
recognizes Paul as being more deserving of credit for
“Christianity” than “Christ”
himself.
Grolier’s encyclopedia has the following to say under the heading
“Christianity”: “After
Jesus was crucified, his followers, strengthened by
the conviction that he had risen from
the dead and that they were filled with the power of
the Holy Spirit, formed the first
Christian community in Jerusalem. By the middle of
the 1st century, missionaries were
spreading the new religion among the peoples of
Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and
87 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Italy. Chief among these was Saint Paul, who laid the
foundations of Christian theology
and played a key role in the transformation of
Christianity from a Jewish sect to a world
religion. The original Christians, being Jews,
observed the dietary and ritualistic laws of
the Torah and required non-Jewish converts to do the
same. Paul and others favored
eliminating obligation, thus making Christianity more
attractive to Gentiles.”
“If by Christianity we understand faith in Christ as
the heavenly Son of God, who did
not belong to earthly humanity, but who lived in the
divine likeness and glory, who came
down from heaven to earth, who entered humanity and
took upon himself a human form
through a virgin, that he might make propitiation for
men’s sins by his own blood upon
the cross, who was then awakened from death and
raised to the right hand of God, as the
Lord of his own people, who believe in him, who hears
their prayers, guards and leads
them, who will come again with the clouds of heaven
to judge the world, who will cast
down all the foes of God, and will bring his own
people with him unto the home of
heavenly light so that they may become like His
glorified body - if this is Christianity,
then such Christianity was founded by St. Paul and
not by our Lord” Dr. Arnold Meyer,
Professor of Theology, Zurich University, Jesus or Paul,
p. 122
As we can see, this information is not new. It has been well
recognized and
documented for centuries now. Even centuries ago, it was well
known that most of what
was claimed by the church could not be verified through the Bible.
Thus, a shift was
made from obtaining ones inspiration from the Bible to obtaining
it from the “Bride of
Jesus,” the church. Fra Fulgentio, for instance, was once
reprimanded by the Pope in a
letter saying “Preaching
of the Scriptures is a suspicious thing. He who keeps close to
the Scriptures will ruin the Catholic faith.” In his next letter he was more explicit:
“...which is a book if anyone keeps close to will
quite destroy the Catholic faith.”
Tetradymus,
John Toland.
Many Christian evangelists would love dearly to provide salvation
for their non-
Christian neighbors. So much so that they can not understand how
their neighbors can
not see the clear and obvious love God holds for them such that He
would actually
sacrifice His only begotten son for them. In order to make this
clear for their neighbors,
they draw many analogies. For example, a Christian gentleman from
Canada once sent
our local Islamic center a six-page pamphlet with the goal of
demonstrating the love of
God to us. The pamphlet contained a short fictitious story wherein
all of the players had
Arab names. The story was about a fictitious Arab man who was very
moral and upright.
One day, his son committed a serious crime that deserved capital
punishment. The
authorities found evidence linking this crime to this man’s house.
When the authorities
came, the father falsely admitted to the crime in order to spare
his son. The pamphlet
concluded that just as the father’s love for his son made him
sacrifice himself, in a similar
manner, God Almighty’s love for mankind drove him to sacrifice
Jesus(pbuh).
Now, maybe it is just us, however, at the end of the story we were
expecting the parallel
to be that God almighty “the father” would now sacrifice Himself
in order that Jesus “the
son” would not have to die, just as the “Arab” father had
sacrificed himself to save his
son. Although we appreciated the consideration, still, we could
not see the similarity
between the two stories.
88 What did Jesus really say?
When a person is good and upright, that person may be willing to
sacrifice themselves
for the greater good or for a loved one. For example, if a mother
sees her son in danger of
being run over by a car, she may very likely run in front of the
car in order to save her
baby. If she raised the neighbor’s child with her own and grew
very attached to that
child, then she might also be willing to sacrifice herself for the
neighbor’s child too. She
might throw herself in front of the car for the neighbor’s child
as well. However, have
you ever heard of a mother who, when she saw a car about to hit
the neighbor’s child,
threw HER SON in front of the car so that the impact of her son’s
body smashing into the
car’s windshield would cause it to swerve away from the neighbor’s
child?
As the Bible says “prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” 1 Thessalonians
5:21. “And thou shalt love the
Lord thy God ... with all thy mind ... : this is the first
commandment.” Mark 12:30
We would like nothing more than to present much more supporting
evidence of these
matters, however, we must end somewhere. For a detailed historical
account collected
from the writings of the church itself, I strongly recommend the
book “Jesus, A Prophet
of Islam” by Muhammad `Ata ur-Rahim, and “Blood on the cross,” by
Ahmed Thomson.
If you can not find these books at your local library then you may
obtain a copy at one of
the addresses listed at the back of this book.
For a book that is claimed to have remained 100% the inspired word
of God, the sheer
number of contradicting narrations boggles the mind (see chapter
two). These matters
have been well known and documented by Christian scholars for a
long time now. It is
the masses who don’t know this. The information is out there for
anyone who will simply
look for it. The historical inconsistencies and scriptural
contradictions are well
recognized in this century and countless books have been written
about them. However,
their studies have always stopped short of the final step. People
have generally believed
that there is no way to retrieve the original teachings of Jesus
(pbuh) after such extensive
and continuous revision of the text of the Bible by the church
over so many centuries as
well as the Paulian Church’s massive campaign of destruction of
all Gospels not
conforming to their personal beliefs. But where human intellect
has failed, God has
intervened. The Qur’an has been sent down by the same One who sent
the Gospel. It
contains the original, uncorrupted teachings of God. We invite all
readers to study the
Qur’an just as we have studied the Bible, and to make up their
minds if our claims bear
merit.
89 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2.8 What is a “Trinity”?:
n the above historical analysis, we learned that in 325AD., the
Trinitarian church
approved the doctrine of homoousious meaning: of
“CO-EQUALITY,
CO-ETERNITY,
AND CONSUBSTANTIALITY” of the
second person of the trinity with the Father. The
doctrine became known as the Creed of Nicaea.
But they also went on to develop the
doctrine of “blind faith.” This is because those who developed the
“Trinity” doctrine
were unable to define it in any manner that could not be refuted
by the unwavering
Unitarians Christians through the Bible. In the beginning they
tried to defend the
“Trinity” through logic and the Bible. This continued for a long
time until the Trinitarian
church finally gave up on ever substantiating their claims through
the Bible. So they
demanded blind faith in their doctrines. Anyone who did not
believe blindly and dared to
question them would be branded a heretic and tortured or killed.
We will provide only a
small sampling of the verses of the Bible which refute this
definition:
Co-equality:
Jesus and God can not be co-equal because the Bible says: John
14:28 “... my Father is
greater than I.” Obviously if God is greater than Jesus (pbuh) then
they can not be
equal. We also read: Mark 13:32 “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man,
no,
not the angels which are in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father.” If Jesus
and God
were equal then it follows that they will be equal in knowledge.
But as we can see, God
is greater in knowledge than Jesus (pbuh).
Co-eternity:
God is claimed to have “begotten” Jesus (pbuh). Jesus (pbuh) is
claimed to be the
“Son” of God. “Beget” is a verb which implies an action. No matter
how you define
what God actually did in order to “beget” Jesus (pbuh), any definition
must require that
God almighty performed some action and then Jesus (pbuh) came into
being. Before God
performed this action Jesus was not. After God performed this
action Jesus came into
being. Thus, not only is Jesus (pbuh) not eternal, since there was
a time (before the
“begetting”) when he did not exist, but he can also never be
co-eternal with God since
God was in existence at a time when Jesus was not. This is very
simple grade-school
logic.
Co-substantiality:
First go back and read the comments on co-equality and
co-eternity. Next, remember
when Jesus died? (Mark 15:37, John 19:30). If God and Jesus are
one substance then
God died also. But then who was governing all of creation?
Remember Luke 23:46:
“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he
said, Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave
up the ghost.”? If Jesus and God
were one substance then Jesus (pbuh) would not need to send his
spirit to God because it
is part of God, who is also Jesus. Remember Matthew 26:39 “And he went a little
farther, and fell on his face, and prayed,
saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but
as thou wilt”? If Jesus and God were
one substance then this ONE substance must only have ONE will.
Remember Matthew
27:46 “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?”? If Jesus
and God are one substance then how can ONE substance forsake
itself?
Tom Harpur says: “The idea of the Second Person of a Holy Trinity knowing what it
is
to be God-forsaken has only to be stated to be
recognized as absurd” For Christ’s Sake,
pp. 45.
I
90 What did Jesus really say?
Even explaining the supposed “Trinity” away as a “mystery” does
not hold water. In 1
Corinthians 14:33 we read “For God is not the author of confusion.” Thus, confusion
can never be His very nature which composes Him.
Go to your local library and you will find countless books on this
topic. THIS is why
blind faith was demanded, and THIS is why millions of Christians
were put to death by
the church as heretics.
91 What Did Jesus Really Say?
1.2.9 Conclusion:
What we have learned from all of this is that:
1) There is no mention of a “trinity” in the Bible by God, Jesus,
Paul, or anyone else.
The Pauline (Roman Catholic) church fabricated it around or after
the fourth century CE
and Biblical verses were then casually “inserted” into the Bible
to validate this concept
(such as 1 John 5:7 which all Bibles now discard). Jesus, Matthew,
John, Luke, Mark
and all of the apostles (even Paul) were completely unaware of any
“trinity.” Eminent
Christian scholars (Yes, even Roman Catholics) today readily
recognize this as a known
fact in
some of their own most prominent
books and references. We have
seen how the
Bible does not contain a single verse validating the “trinity” and
that the only reason
Christians believe in it is because the Church has taken it upon
itself to “explain” and
“clarify” the Bible for them.
2) Since there is no trinity, therefore, if Jesus (pbuh) is a god
then this requires that he
be a separate god from God. This means that there must be at least two gods
in
existence, but this contradicts verse after verse after verse of the
Bible, all of which
constantly beat us over the head with the fact that there is only
ONE god in existence (e.g.
Isaiah 43:10-11, Deuteronomy 4:39, Isaiah 45:18, etc.) and which
is why verses verifying
a “trinity” needed to be inserted in the first place.
3) Since Jesus (pbuh) can not be god, and he himself never claimed
to be a god and
never asked anyone to worship him but only “the father,” therefore
God almighty is the
only one who must be worshipped (John 17:3, John 4:2, John 4:23,
Matthew 7:21,
Matthew 22:37..etc.).
4) The “original sin of Adam” which mankind is supposed to have
inherited was a
fabrication of Paul. It is explicitly refuted in the Bible in many
places (e.g. Ezekiel
18:19-20, Deuteronomy 24:16, Jeremiah 31:29-30, Ezekiel 18:1-9).
5) Since Jesus (pbuh) can be neither a god or a son of God, and
since the “original sin”
is a fabrication not taught by Jesus (pbuh), therefore, the
“atonement” is also exposed as a
fabrication. In other words, if we do not bear the “original sin
of Adam” then there is no
need for Jesus (pbuh) or anyone else to atone for it. This is
simple logic. You don’t need
the fire department if there is no fire.
6) Jesus (pbuh) never taught any of the above concepts to his
followers. He only taught
them to faithfully follow the religion of Moses (pbuh). Once we
recognize the above
concepts for the fabrications that they are, then we become ready
to recognize Jesus’
(pbuh) true message as a simple continuation of the religion of
Moses (pbuh)(Matthew
5:17-18, Matthew 19:16-21). He was simply sent to rectify the
Jewish religion, return it
to the original message preached by Moses (pbuh), and discard the
innovations and
corruption which had been introduced into it by a handful of the
unscrupulous.
7) Historical facts show how Jesus’ (pbuh) message was directed at
the Jews only. It
was only corrupted after it was forced upon those it was never
intended for, the Greeks
and other gentiles.
8) Paul is the author of the majority of the books of the New
Testament. The rest were
fabricated by his followers and were not written by the apostles
of Jesus (pbuh). The
supporting evidence of these claims from these books themselves is
overwhelming. The
teaching of Paul in the Bible totally contradict the teachings of
Jesus himself and include
obvious discrepancies even in such fundamental matters as his
(Paul’s) conversion to
92 What did Jesus really say?
Christianity and his acceptance among the apostles. He openly
admits in the Bible to
having “lied against God’s glory” (Romans 3:7), but the apologist
are so bent on excusing
him in his actions that even such a clear admission of guilt is
“interpreted” as being a
“good” and “constructive” lie against God’s glory. His admitted blasphemy
is elaborately
“explained” to us as being a “good” and “righteous” blasphemy.
9) Countless Biblical scholars themselves admit that it was a
common practice at the
time to insert and remove verses of the Bible and even to claim
that they were the words
of Jesus (pbuh), God almighty, and others without any reservation
whatsoever.
10) All of this was claimed by God in the Qur’an over 1400 years
ago. It has only been
independently verified by the West in this century.
11) All of this, in addition to the prophesies of Muhammad (pbuh)
in the Bible (Chapter
6) and the previous evidence of distortion in the Bible
continually verify the claim of the
Qur’an that mankind had taken great liberties with God’s
scriptures and thus it was
necessary for God to send down His final message, the message of
Islam, in order to
restore His original teachings sent down to His previous prophets
including His elect
prophet Jesus (pbuh).
“And if it be said unto them: Follow that which
Allah has revealed, they say: Nay, but we follow that
wherein we found our fathers. What! Even though
the devil was inviting them to the torture of the
fire?” The Qur’an, Lukman(31):21
“Allah coineth a similitude: A man in relation to
whom are several partners quarreling, and a man
belonging wholly to one man. Are the two equal in
similitude? Praise be to Allah, but most of them
know not. Lo! you will die (O Muhammad) and Lo!
they will die. Then lo! on the day of resurrection,
before your lord will you dispute. And who does
greater wrong than he who lies against Allah and
denied the truth when it reached him? Is there
not in hell an abode for the disbelievers? And whoso
brings the truth and believes therein, such are
the God-fearing. They shall have what they will of their
Lord’s bounty. That is the reward of those who
excel in good. Allah will absolve them of the worst of
what they did, and will award them their reward
from the best of what they used to do. Will not Allah
defend His servant? And they frighten you with
those besides Him. He whom Allah sends astray, for
him there is no guide. And him who Allah guides,
for him there is no misleader. Is not Allah mighty,
able to requite (the wrong)?” Al-Zumar(39):27-36
We leave you with the words of Jesus (pbuh):
“But in vain they do worship me, teaching for
doctrines the
commandments of men.”
Matthew 15:9 and Mark 7:7
93 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Chapter 2: Contradictions in the Bible
hen woe to those who write the book with their
own hands and then say:
'This is from Allah', to traffic with it for a
miserable price. Woe to them
for what their hands do write and for the gain
they make thereby” The
holy Qur’an Al-Bakarah(2):79
“And when there came to them a messenger from
Allah, Confirming what was with
them, a party of the people of the book threw
away the book of Allah behind their
backs as if (it had been something) they did not
know” The holy Qur’an Al-
Bakarah(2):101
2.1 Christian scholars recognize contradictions
(note: The following information was obtained from the writings of
Shaik Ahmed
Deedat as well as many other sources)
et us start at the beginning. No Biblical scholar on this earth
will claim that the
Bible was written by Jesus himself. They all agree that the Bible
was written after
the departure of Jesus peace be upon him by his followers. Dr. W
Graham Scroggie
of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, one of the most prestigious
Christian evangelical
missions in the world says on page 17 of his book “It is Human,
Yet Divine”:
“..Yes, the Bible is human, although some out of zeal
which is not according to
knowledge, have denied this. Those books have passed
through the minds of men, are
written in the language of men, were penned by the
hands of men and bear in their style
the characteristics of men....”
Another erudite Christian scholar, Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican
Bishop of Jerusalem,
says on page 277 of his book, “The Call of the Minaret”:
“...Not so the New testament...There is condensation
and editing; there is choice
reproduction and witness. The Gospels have come
through the mind of the church behind
the authors. They represent experience and
history...”
Throughout this book you will find countless other similar
quotations from some of
Christendom’s leading scholars. We will suffice with these for
now.
Christians are, in general, good and decent people, and the
stronger their convictions
the more decent they are. This is attested to in the holy Qur’an: “...and nearest among
them (men) in love to the believers wilt thou
find those who say 'we are Christians':
because amongst these are men devoted to learning
and men who have renounced the
world, and they are not arrogant. And when they
listen to the revelation received by
the messenger (Muhammad), thou wilt see their
eyes overflowing with tears for they
recognize the truth: They pray: 'Our lord! we
believe; write us down among the
witnesses'.”(5):82-83.
“T
L
94 What did Jesus really say?
However, it has been the case throughout history that the most
decent and honorable
people are usually the most trusting. All biblical “versions” of
the Bible prior to the
revised version of 1881 were dependent upon the “ANCIENT COPIES”
(those dating
between five to six hundred years after Jesus). The revisers of
the Revised Standard
Version (RSV) 1952 were the first biblical scholars to have access
to the “MOST ancient
copies” which date fully three to four hundred years after Christ.
It is only logical for us
to concur that the closer a document is to the source the more
authentic it is. Let us see
what is the opinion of Christendom with regard to the most revised
version of the Bible
(revised in 1952 and then again in 1971):
“The finest version which has been produced in the
present century” - (Church of
England newspaper)
“A completely fresh translation by scholars of the
highest eminence” - (Times literary
supplement)
“The well loved characteristics of the authorized
version combined with a new accuracy
of translation” - (Life and Work)
“The most accurate and close rendering of the
original” - (The Times)
The publishers themselves (Collins) mention on page 10 of their
notes : “This Bible
(RSV) is the product of thirty two scholars assisted
by an advisory committee
representing fifty cooperating denominations”
Let us see what these thirty two scholars of the highest eminence
backed by fifty
cooperating denominations have to say about the Authorized Version
(AV), or as it is
better known, the King James Version (KJV). In the preface of the
RSV 1971 we find the
following: “...Yet
the King James Version has GRAVE DEFECTS..” They go on to note:
“...That these defects are SO MANY AND SO SERIOUS as
to call for revision”
The Jehovah's Witnesses in their “AWAKE” Magazine dated 8th
September 1957
published the following headline: “50,000 Errors in the Bible” wherein they say “..there
are probably 50,000 errors in the Bible...errors
which have crept into the Bible
text...50,000 such serious errors...” After all of this, however, they go on to say: “...as a
whole the Bible is accurate.” Let us have a look at only a very few of these errors.
In John 3:16 - AV(KJV) we read: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only
BEGOTTEN son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have
everlasting life..” But this fabrication “BEGOTTEN” has been unceremoniously excised
by the Bible revisers as per their findings in the MOST ANCIENT
MANUSCRIPTS.
However, the humanity did not have to wait 2000 years for this
revelation. In 19:88-96 of
the holy Qur’an we read: “They (the Christians) say 'Allah most gracious has begotten
a son!'. Indeed you have put forth a thing most
monstrous! The skies are ready to
95 What Did Jesus Really Say?
burst (at such a claim), and the earth to split
asunder, and the mountains to fall down
in utter ruin. That they should invoke a son to
Allah most gracious. Not one of the
beings in the heavens and the earth but must come
to Allah most gracious as a servant.
He has taken account of all of them and has
numbered them all exactly. And every
one of them will come to him singly on the day of
judgment. On those who believe and
work deeds of righteousness, will Allah most
gracious bestow love.”
In 1st Epistle of John 5:7 AV we find: “For there are three that bear record in
heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST,
and these three are one.”
This verse is the closest approximation to what the Christians
call the holy trinity. This
cornerstone of the Christian faith has also been scrapped from the
RSV by the same thirty
two Christian scholars of the highest eminence backed by fifty
cooperating
denominations, once again all according to the MOST ANCIENT
MANUSCRIPTS. And
once again, we find that the holy Qur’an revealed this truth over
fourteen hundred years
ago: “O people of the book!
commit no excesses in your religion: nor say of Allah
aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary
was (no more than) a messenger of
Allah, and his word, which he bestowed upon Mary,
and a spirit preceding from him so
believe in Allah and his messengers. Say not
“Three” desist It will be better for you for
Allah is one God Glory be to him Far exalted is
he above having a son. To him belong
all things in the heavens and the earth. And enough
is Allah as a disposer of
affairs.”(4:171)
Prior to 1952 all versions of the Bible made mention of one of the
most miraculous
events associated with the prophet Jesus peace be upon him, that
of his assention into
heaven: “So
then the lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was TAKEN UP INTO
HEAVEN, and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19), and once again in
Luke: “While he blessed them, he
parted from them, and was CARRIED UP INTO
HEAVEN.” (Luke 24:51). In the 1952 RSV Mark 16 ends at verse 8 and the rest
is
relegated in small print to a footnote. Similarly, in the second
verse, the words “and was
carried up into heaven” is replaced by a tiny “a” which also points to a small
footnote
containing these words. It is doubtful that any honest Christian
will claim to believe that
a footnote in the Bible is the word of God. However, not long
after, two of the fifty
denominational committees forced the publishers to reincorporate
the interpolations into
the “inspired” word of God in every new publication of the RSV
after 1952. But why had
these references been expunged in the first place? It is because
the THIRTY TWO
scholars of the HIGHEST EMINENCE backed by FIFTY cooperating
denominations
working from the MOST ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS had found no mention of
the
assention at all.
Let us now time out and have a look at the alleged authors of the
New Testament. We
will note that every Gospel begins with the introduction
“ACCORDING TO.....” such as
“The Gospel according to Saint Matthew,” “The Gospel according to
Saint Luke,” “The
Gospel according to Saint Mark,” “The Gospel according to Saint
John.” The obvious
conclusion for the average man on the street is that these people
are known to be the
authors of the books attributed to them. This, however is not the
case. Why? Because not
96 What did Jesus really say?
one of the vaunted four thousand copies existent carries it's
author's signature. It has just
been assumed that they were the authors. Recent discoveries,
however, refute this belief.
Even the internal evidence proves that, for instance, Matthew did
not write the Gospel
attributed to him:
“...And as Jesus passed forth thence, HE (Jesus)
saw a man, named Matthew,
sitting at the receipt of custom: and HE (Jesus)
saith unto HIM (Matthew), follow ME
(Jesus) and HE (Matthew) arose, and followed HIM
(Jesus).” (Matthew 9:9)
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that neither Jesus nor
Matthew wrote this verse
of “Matthew.” Such evidence can be found in many places throughout
the New
Testament.
This observation is by no means limited to the New Testament.
There is even proof
that at least parts of Deuteronomy was neither written by God nor
by Moses. This can be
seen in Deuteronomy 34:5-10 where we read “So Moses....DIED... and he (God
almighty) BURIED HIM (Moses)... He was 120 years
old WHEN HE DIED... and
there arose not a prophet SINCE in Israel like
unto Moses....” Did Moses write his
own obituary? Joshua also speaks in detail about his own death in
Joshua 24:29-33. The
evidence overwhelmingly supports the current belief that most of
the books of the Bible
were not written by their alleged authors.
The authors of the RSV by Collins say that the author of “Kings”
is “Unknown.” If
they knew it to be the word of God they would have undoubtedly
attributed it to him.
Rather, they have chosen to honestly say “Author....Unknown.” But
if the author is
unknown then why attribute it to God?? How can it then be claimed
to have been
“inspired”? Continuing, we read that the book of Isaiah is “Mainly
credited to Isaiah.
Parts may have been written by others.” Ecclesiastics: “Author.
Doubtful, but commonly
assigned to Solomon.” Ruth: “Author. Not definitely known, perhaps
Samuel.” and on
and on.
As seen in chapter two, St. Paul and his church after him, were
guilty of making
wholesale changes to the religion of Jesus (pbuh) after his
departure and were further
responsible for mounting a massive campaign of death and torture
of all Christians who
refused to renounce the teachings of the apostles in favor of the
Pauline doctrines. All
but the Gospels acceptable to the Pauline faith were then
systematically destroyed or rewritten.
In History of Christianity in the
Light of Modern Knowledge, p.338,
Rev.
Charles Anderson Scott has the following to say: “It is highly probable that not one of
the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) was in
existence in the form which we
have it, prior to the death of Paul. And were the
documents to be taken in strict order of
chronology, the Pauline Epistles would come before
the synoptic Gospels.”
This statement is further confirmed by Prof. Brandon: “The earliest Christian writings
that have been preserved for us are the letters of
the apostle Paul” S.G.F. Brandon,
“Religions in Ancient History” p. 228.
In the latter part of the second century, Dionysius, Bishop of
Corinth says: “As the
brethren desired me to write epistles(letters), I did
so, and these the apostles of the devil
have filled with tares (undesirable elements),
exchanging some things and adding others,
for whom there is a woe reserved. It is not
therefore, a matter of wonder if some have
also attempted to adulterate the sacred writings of
the Lord, since they have attempted
the same in other works that are not to be compared
with these.”
The Qur’an confirms this with the words: “Then woe to those who write the book (of
Allah/God) with their own hands and then say:
'This is from Allah', to traffic with it
for a miserable price. Woe to them for what their
hands do write and for the gain they
make thereby” The holy Qur’an Al-Bakarah(2):79
These “corrections” were by no means confined to the first
centuries after Christ. In
History of Christianity in the light of Modern
knowledge, p.318, Sir Higgins says: “It is
impossible to deny that the Bendictine Monks of St.
Maur, as far as Latin and Greek
language went, were very learned and talented, as
well as numerous body of men. In
Cleland’s ‘Life of Lanfranc, Archbishop of
Canterbury’, is the following passage:
‘Lanfranc, a Benedictine Monk, Archbishop of Canterbury,
having found the Scriptures
much corrupted by copyists, applied himself to
correct them, as also the writings of the
fathers, agreeably to the orthodox faith, secundum
fidem orthodoxam.”
In other words, the Christian scriptures were re-written in order
to conform to the
doctrines of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and even the
writings of the early church
fathers were “corrected” so that the changes would not be
discovered. Sir Higgins goes
on to say: “The same
Protestant divine has this remarkable passage: ‘Impartiality exacts
from me the confession, that the orthodox have in
some places altered the Gospels’.”
The author then goes on to demonstrate how a massive effort was
undertaken in
Costantinople, Rome, Canterbury, and the Christian world in general
in order to “correct”
the Gospels and destroy all manuscripts before this period.
Theodore Zahan, illustrated the bitter conflicts within the
established churches in
Articles of the Apostolic Creed. He points out that the Roman Catholics accuse the
Greek
Orthodox Church of remodeling the text of the holy scriptures by
additions and
subtractions with both good as well as evil intentions. The Greek
Orthodox, on the other
hand, accuse the Roman Catholics of straying in many places very
far away from the
original text. In spite of their differences, they both join
forces to condemn the nonconformist
Christians of deviating from “the true way” and condemn them as
heretics.
The heretics in turn condemn the Catholics for having “recoined
the truth like forgers”.
The author concludes “Do not facts support these accusations?”
St. Augustine himself, a man acknowledged and looked up to by both
Protestants and
Catholics alike, professed that there were secret doctrines in the
Christian religion and
that “there were many things true in
the Christian religion which it was not convenient
98 What did Jesus really say?
for the vulgar to know, and that some things were
false, but convenient for the vulgar to
believe in them.”
Even the epistles attributed to Paul were not written by him.
After years of research,
Catholics and Protestants alike agree that of the thirteen
epistles attributed to Paul only
seven are genuinely his. They are: Romans, 1, 2 Corintians,
Galatians, Philipians,
Pilemon, and 1 Thessalonians (Samual Sandmel, p.309).
Christian sect are not even agreed on the definition of what
exactly is an “inspired”
book of God. The Protestants are taught that there are 66 truly
“inspired” books in the
Bible, while the Catholics have been taught that there are 73
“inspired” books, not to
mention the many other sects and their “newer” books, such as the
Mormons, etc. As we
shall see shortly, the very first Christians, for many
generations, did not follow either the
66 books of the Protestants, nor the 73 books of the Catholics.
Quite the opposite, they
believed in books that were, many generations later, “recognized”
to be “fabrications”
and “apocrypha”..
Well, where do all of these Bibles come from and why the
difficulty in defining what is
a truly “inspired” word of God? They come from the “ancient
manuscripts.” The
Christian world today boasts of an excess of 24,000 “ancient
manuscripts” of the Bible
dating all the way back to the fourth century after Christ (But
not back to Christ or the
apostles themselves). All Bibles in existence today are compiled
from these “ancient
manuscripts.” Any scholar of the Bible will tell us that no two
ancient manuscripts are
exactly identical.
People today generally believe that there is only ONE Bible, and
ONE version of any
given verse of the Bible. This is far from true. All Bibles in our
possession today (Such
as the KJV, the NRSV, the NAB, NWT,...etc.) are the result of
extensive cutting and
pasting from these various manuscripts with no single one being the definitive reference.
There are countless cases where a paragraph shows up in one
“ancient manuscript” but is
totally missing from many others. For instance, Mark 16:8-20
(twelve whole verses) is
completely missing from the most ancient manuscripts available
today (such as the
Sinaitic Manuscript, the Vatican #1209 and the Armenian version)
but shows up in more
recent “ancient
manuscripts.” There are also many documented cases where even
geographical locations are completely different from one ancient
manuscript to the next.
For instance, in the “Samaritan Pentateuch manuscript,”
Deuteronomy 27:4 speaks of
“mount Gerizim,” while in the “Hebrew manuscript” the exact same
verse speaks of
“mount Ebal.” From Deuteronomy 27:12-13 we can see that these are
two distinctly
different locations. Similarly, Luke 4:44 in some “ancient
manuscripts” mentions
“Synagogues of Judea,” others mention “Synagogues of Galilee.”
This is only a
sampling, a comprehensive listing would require a book of it’s
own.
There are countless examples in the Bible where verses of a
questionable nature are
included in the text without any disclaimer telling the reader
that many scholars and
translators have serious reservations as to their authenticity.
The King James Version of
the Bible (Also known as the “Authorized Version”), the one in the
hands of the majority
of Christendom today, is one of the most notorious Bibles in this
regard. It gives the
reader absolutely no clue as to the questionable nature of such
verses. However, more
recent translations of the Bible are now beginning to be a little
more honest and
99 What Did Jesus Really Say?
forthcoming in this regard. For example, the New Revised Standard
Version of the Bible,
by Oxford Press, has adopted an extremely subtle system of
bracketing such questionable
verses with double square brackets ([[ ]]). The casual reader will
never in a million years
realize what use these brackets serve. They are there to tell the
informed reader that the
enclosed verses are of a questionable nature. Examples of this are
the story of the
“woman taken in adultery” in John 8:1-11, as well as Mark 16:9-20
(Jesus’ return and
Doubting Thomas), and Luke 23:34 (which, interestingly enough, is
there to confirm the
prophesy of Isaiah 53:12).....and so forth.
For example, with regard to John 8:1-11, the commentators of this
Bible say in very
small print at the bottom of the page: “The most ancient authorities lack 7.53-8.11; other
authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or
after 21.25 or after Luke 21.38 with
variations of text; some mark the text as doubtful.”(emphasis added).
With regard to Mark 16:9-20, we are, strangely enough, given a
choice of how we
would like the Gospel of Mark to end. The commentators have
supplied both a “short
ending” and a “long ending.” Thus, we are given a choice of what
we would prefer to be
the “inspired word of God”. Once again, at the end of this Gospel
in very small text, the
commentators say: “Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at
the
end of verse 8. One authority concludes the book with
the shorter ending; others include
the shorter ending and then continue with verses
9-20. In most authorities, verses 9-20
follow immediately after verse 8, though in some of
these authorities the passage is
marked as being doubtful.”
Even at that, these verses are noted as having been narrated
differently in different
“authorities.” For example, verse 14 is claimed by the
commentators to have the
following words added on to them in some “ancient authorities”: “and they excused
themselves saying ‘This age of lawlessness and
unbelief is under Satan, who does not
allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the
unclean things of the spirits.
Therefore, reveal your righteousness now’ - thus they
spoke to Christ and Christ replied
to them ‘The term of years of Satan’s power has been
fulfilled, but other terrible things
draw near. And for those who have sinned I was handed
over to death, that they may
return to the truth and sin no more, that they may
inherit the spiritual and imperishable
glory of the righteousness that is in heaven’ “ .
Please keep in mind that these are only a few of the more
outstanding of these
discrepancies. In many cases the translators are claimed to have
been unable to determine
the true wording in any truly scientific and unbiased fashion,
thus, they have been reduced
to such actions as choosing the version adopted by the majority of
the “ancient
authorities.” I am sure no one will mistake this for a truly
scientific determination (e.g.
maybe the minority version is found in the most ancient
manuscripts). Think about it.
“O People of the Book! Our messenger has come to
you revealing to you much of
what you used to hide of the Book and forgiving
much. There has come to you from
Allah a light and a perspicuous book” The Qur’an, Al-Maida(5):15
100 What did Jesus really say?
As we can see, this is not simply the ramblings of a small number
of obscure crackpot
Christian-haters. This information has become so well recognized
and acknowledged in
the Christian West today that even their own encyclopedias affirm
it. Grolier’s
encyclopedia says under the heading “Jesus Christ”:
“The Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, the first four books of the
New Testament of the Bible, are the principal sources
for the life of Jesus. These works
are primarily testimonies to the faith of the early
Christian community, however, and
have to be used critically as evidence for the
historical Jesus. The methods include
source, form, and redaction criticism...These methods
provide criteria to sift through the
redaction and tradition and reconstruct the message
and the mission of the historical
Jesus...Application of the critical methods described
above reveals that the gospel
tradition apparently started originally with Jesus'
baptism by John the Baptist (Matt.
3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:29-34).
The stories concerning the birth
of Jesus were probably later additions. These
stories--the annunciations to Mary and
Joseph, their journey to Bethlehem for the Roman
census, and Jesus' birth there (Luke
2:1-7); the visits of the shepherds (Luke 2:8-20) and
the three magi from the East (Matt.
2:1-12); and the flight of the family to Egypt to
escape the massacre of young boys that
had been ordered by King Herod (Matt. 2:13-23)--may
be characterized conveniently, if
loosely, as “Christological midrash,” expressions of
Christological faith cast into
narrative form. If there are ANY factual elements in
them, these will be found among the
items on which Matthew and Luke agree: the names of
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus; the
dating of Jesus' birth toward the end of the reign of
Herod the Great (d. 4 BC); and, less
certainly, the Bethlehem location of the birth” (emphasis added).
“The Five Gospels,” is a 550 page book containing translations of
the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It was the result of a six year
study by 24 Christian
scholars from some of the most prestigious universities the United
States and Canada.
They decided to produce a translation of the Gospels which would
be uncolored by the
translator’s personal faith. It was decided that this translation
was to give the reader an
honest picture of what Jesus (pbuh) truly said. They scanned the
text for the words of
Jesus (pbuh), and collect an index of over 1,500 such sayings.
They then tested the
validity of each of these sayings, one at a time, to see whether
Jesus (pbuh) truly said each
one. They then produced a fresh translation, color-coded to show
authentic Jesuit sayings
and those of an unreliable nature. Their conclusion (page 5) was:
“Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in
the gospels were not actually
spoken by him.” (emphasis added). They go on to say: “biblical scholars and
theologians alike have learned to distinguish the
Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.
It has been a painful lesson for both the church and
scholarship. The distinction between
the two figures is the difference between a
historical person who lived in a particular
time and place...and a figure who has been assigned a
mythical role, in which he
descends from heaven to rescue humankind and, of
course, eventually returns there.”
101 What Did Jesus Really Say?
Well then, if 82% of the “words of Jesus” found in the Bible were
never spoken by
him then where did they come from? Some of the sources
demonstrated by the authors
are:
“The concept of plagiarism was unknown in the ancient
world. Authors freely copied
from predecessors without acknowledgment. Sages
became the repository of freefloating
proverbs and witticisms. For the first Christians,
Jesus was a legendary sage: it
was proper to attribute the world’s wisdom to him.
The proverb in Mark 2:17, for
example, is attested in secular sources (Plutarch and
Diogenes for example)...in the
parallel to the Markan passage, Matthew adds a
sentence taken from the prophet Hosea
(Matt 9:13).”
Also: “Hard sayings are frequently
softened in the process of transmission to adapt
them to the conditions of daily living...Variations
in difficult saying often betray the
struggle of the early Christian community to
interpret or adapt sayings to it’s own
situations... Matthew’s version of the aphorism “The
last will be first and the first
last”(Matt 20:16) is softened in Mark 10:31 to “MANY
of the first will be last, and of the
last MANY will be first”.”
And probably most revealing: “Christian conviction eventually overwhelms Jesus: he
is made to confess what Christians had come to
believe...The contrast between Christian
language or viewpoint and the language or viewpoint
of Jesus is a very important clue to
the real voice of Jesus, the language of Jesus was
distinctive, as was his style and
perspective.”
The above is only a very small sampling of the very large cache of
evidence clearly
showing the Bible to have been seriously distorted and altered. To
this day it is being
continuously edited, corrected, and modified. This is not to say
that Christians are not
good and honest people in search of the truth. Quite the opposite.
Among them are some
of the most decent and moral people on this earth. The goal of
this book is only to show
that the Christian faith as it stands today is not the same one
preached by Jesus peace be
upon him to his followers nineteen hundred years ago. This is
exactly what the Qur’an
has been asserting for over fourteen hundred years now.
“These are they who purchase error at the price
of guidance, so their commerce
doth not prosper, neither are they guided.” The Qur’an, Al-Baqarah(2):16
102 What did Jesus really say?
2.2 A small sampling of these contradictions
hristian scholars have known, recognized, and documented the many
and varied
conflictions to be found in the Bible for centuries now. It is
only the masses who do
not know this. There is extensive historical and scriptural
evidence to be found in the
books of the Bible which support this conclusion. Many detailed
examples have been
presented in this and other chapters of this book. As shown above,
some Christian
scholars estimate the errors in the bible to be in the range of
50,000 errors. This is why it
has become necessary for the Church to demand “blind faith” from
the masses.
Matthew is now recognized as not being the author of Matthew (read
for example
Matthew 9:9). John is also recognized as not being the author of
John (read for example
John 21:24).... and on and on. These eminent Christian
scholars (not Muslims) have even
gone so far as to identify the original documents from which these
books were originally
derived, such as J, P, Y, Q,...etc.(see chapter 2.3) . For
centuries now, the Qur’an has
been bearing witness that the previous books of God had been
modified by the hands of
the unscrupulous few. Even now when Christians and their
universities themselves
recognize this to be a scientific fact they
still do not bother to tell the masses. Some of
these men such as Mr. F.F. Bruce have completely given up on
refuting the proof of
distortion and have now resorted to “spiritualizing” the Bible and
telling people in effect
that the teachings of the Bible are useful anyway even if we don't
know who the
“inspired” authors are who wrote these things.
Others will adamantly refuse to believe that anyone has changed
the word of God or
that the Bible contains any conflictions whatsoever no matter how
much proof is
presented. They are willing to either:
1) Explain it away using abstraction to explain the “true”
meanings of the verses
presented, or
2) Explain it based upon assumptions of their own not contained in
the Bible, or
3) Claim that these matters are all insignificant and that the
words remain the
inspiration of God even if we don’t know who the “inspired”
authors were and their
narrations contradict one another.
Even at that, they don’t bother to explain all contradictions
presented. If they respond to
only one, then they convince themselves that they have skillfully
refuted them all.
The problem in many cases is that it is human nature when given a
choice between two
matters, to take the simpler of the two, sometimes even against
their better judgment.
This is indeed how many people lose their life savings to people
who tell them that they
will invest it for them in a “sure thing”. Paul has made salvation
a very easy commodity
to come by in Christianity. They only have to “believe”. No actual
work is required. No
one has to work for their salvation (Romans 3:28, etc). Paul has
brought for them the
“sure thing” and the short cut to salvation. The commandments of
Jesus (pbuh) which he
himself observed faithfully and fully up until the crucifixtion,
are all discarded by Paul as
old, decaying, and ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13, etc). The fact
that Jesus (pbuh)
himself told his followers that observing the commandments and
selling their belongings
shall make them “perfect” is forgotton (Matthew 19:16-21). The
fact that Jesus (pbuh)
C
103 What Did Jesus Really Say?
himself commanded his followers to keep the commandments until the
end of time is also
forgotton (Matthew 5:17-19). All they need is “faith.” They have
already been saved.
The commandments are merely “extra.”
In this chapter we have presented a table containing only a small
sampling of the many
and varied contradictions of verses in the Bible. These are only
some of the very simple
and obvious examples known today. Other more serious ones require
comparisons of
many passages with each other (see for example chapters 5.2, and
5.5) or with historical
or scientific knowledge. We encourage all readers to investigate
these examples and to
try to analyze the excuses given for them objectively.
Try not to jump at the easy way
out. When someone tells you that something was a scribal error then
remember that the
transmitters of even the Old Testament claim that every word and
every letter was
faithfully counted and recorded and thus,
it would be impossible for unintentional errors
to creep in. This claim by itself should refute all excuses. It is
sometimes quite amusing
how flimsy some of these excuses actually are. For instance, the
contradiction between
Matthew 17:13 and John 1:21 is explained by Mr. J as: “John is answering the question
directly and literally, he is not Elijah, he is John
the son of Zechariah.... John was not
interested in promoting all kind of speculation about
his identity, but to focus attention
upon the one he had been sent to prepare the way
for.” So, if Joe is a vice principal,
and
someone asks the principal “Is Joe the vice principal?” and the
Principal says “yes,” then
it is OK for Joe to say “I am not the vice principal” because he
is “talking within the
context that he is Joe” and he wants to “focus attention” on
the principal??? This seems
so very logical to them. Their arguments are presented with such
confidence that people
don’t bother to analyze them or look any further. The Jews
acceptance of Jesus as the
Messiah hinges on John admitting he is Elias (Mark 9:12). If John
does not admit to
being Elias then Jesus’ (pbuh) whole message will lose
credibility. Is this how John
“focuses attention” on Jesus?
It is inconceivable to think that John, a prophet of God, would
intentionally lie
especially in a matter that can totally nullify Jesus’ whole
message. It is also
inconceivable that a prophet of God would remain a prophet of God
for many years
before the coming of Jesus (pbuh), fulfilling many prophesies, but
neither know that he
was sent by God, nor be informed by God that God sent him.
The Qur’an tells us that if the word of God were ever to be
tampered with by the hands
of mankind then it will be easy to detect this tampering by the
contradictions which will
inevitably result. We read “Do they not consider the Qur’an (with care)? Had it been
from other than Allah, they would have surely
found therein much discrepancy.” Al-
Nissa(4):82.
Even the Bible itself gives the same criteria for discovering such
modifications, Mark
14:56 says: “For
many bare false witness against him(Jesus), but their witness agreed
not together.” As we have seen in the previous chapters and will see
the following table,
the “witness” of the Gospels in our hands today do indeed “agree not together.” This is
a result of countless modifying fingers. Thus, as claimed in the
Qur’an, this has resulted
104 What did Jesus really say?
in it bearing “false witness against him(Jesus).” We hope you find these examples
enlightening and
informative.
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