Nabeel Qureshi's PERFECT Response To a Muslim QUESTIONING The Nature of Christ
The Muslim argument collapses the moment it accuses Christianity of a logical fallacy without understanding what it's attacking. Claiming that Jesus being both God and man is like a “square circle” is nothing but a cheap soundbite that betrays a shallow grasp of Christian doctrine. The Incarnation isn’t a contradiction—it's a miracle. God isn’t bound by human categories. He took on flesh not by ceasing to be God, but by adding humanity to His divinity. That’s not illogical—it’s majestic.
And let’s crush this pathetic point about the word Trinity not being in the Bible. “Tawhid” isn’t in the Quran either. By that same logic, Islam is false. But unlike the vague and contradictory nature of Allah’s so-called oneness, the Trinity is woven clearly across the Bible. Jesus is called the Word who was God (John 1:1). He receives prayer (John 14:13). He is worshipped alongside the Father (Daniel 7:13–14). Only God receives worship—yet Jesus does. That destroys the Muslim argument right there.
Then comes the tired twisting of John 5:30—“I can do nothing of myself.” Muslims scream, “See! Jesus isn’t God!” But they ignore the context. Jesus is explaining His unity with the Father. He’s not denying divinity—He’s showing submission in perfect harmony. He doesn’t act independently because He shares one divine will with the Father. That’s not weakness. That’s divine unity.
The Son of Man title? Muslims say, “That means He’s human!” WRONG. The Son of Man in Daniel 7 is a figure who is worshipped by every nation forever. That’s not a man—that’s GOD. Jesus claimed that for Himself in Mark 14:62. He was crucified for that claim. Islam has no answer for this.
The real contradiction is in Islam. Allah supposedly can’t enter creation, yet speaks from a bush in Surah 28:30. That’s the same thing Muslims mock in Christianity—God entering creation. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Bible Verses:
Daniel 7:13–14 – The Son of Man is worshipped by all nations and given everlasting dominion – This proves Jesus is divine, not just human.
John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . Here for details.
John 14:13 – Whatever you ask in My name, I will do – Only God answers prayer. Jesus does. Period.
The Quran denies Jesus’ glory, strips Him of worship, and dares to call Him just a man. That’s blasphemy. Muslims, wake up and come to Jesus Christ, The Alpha and Omega, The Rock and the Fortress, Your Savior and Redeemer!
Nabeel Qureshi's PERFECT Response To a Muslim QUESTIONING The Nature of Christ
Muslim: As-salamu alaykum.
Nabeel: Wa alaikum assalam.
Muslim: So being a Muslim, my main problem is with the Christian doctrine of Godhood of Jesus. There's a couple of questions to relate it. First of all, I find this concept logically fallacious. How can God be finite and then infinite at the same time? Like it's like saying that they could exist a square circle. It's logical fallacy. When we say that Jesus was God or Son of God, they are actually saying that God existed in finitude during the life of Jesus. And He also is infinite at the same time. This is logically fallacious. Now because you are coming from a historical standpoint.
Nabeel: Did you want me to respond to that?
Muslim: It's the same question continuing. So because you're coming at it from a historical standpoint, the concept of Trinity, the word Trinity itself, it doesn't appear as a theological term till near the end of the second century after Jesus. It was first used as triass by Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch in AD 180. Adding up to that, when you refer to Mark chapter 14 verse 62, which is what you say is the proof that Jesus claimed to be God. Are you really applying the same criteria of objectivity that you are applying previously to the Quran when interpreting this as meaning that Jesus is claiming himself to be God? Because if you like look at it completely objectively, looking at the entire text, like there is nothing in the entire text that's saying that Jesus claimed to be God. And in fact, the words that you yourself quote is actually saying Son of Man. So l mean...
Nabeel: These are great questions. Don't go anywhere.
Nabeel: What's your name?
Muslim: Munzer.
Nabeel: Munzer, where are you from?
Munzer: I'm from Pakistan.
Nabeel: Pakistan.
Nabeel: I have the exact same questions when l practiced Islam. What I want to point out is that first and foremost, what we have to see is what Jesus claimed for himself. Now the secondary stuff that follows, the theological unfolding or unpacking of what he said, we can spend years and years debating what it means. But what did he say about himself? That's the first thing we want to look at. Again, that's a historical perspective. Theologians argue all day long, back and forth, back and forth. You know, theologians argue al the time and I just sit back and watch and smile because you can't really prove it one way or another. But when it comes to historical events, we can show with relative degrees of certainty, if the evidence is good, if the records are good, what the most likely conclusion is. So first, and let me give you an answer before if you feel like interjecting, we can talk afterwards. First, I want to point out, you are absolutely right. The term Trinity is not used till the end of the second century.
Nabeel: What is the doctrine of God called in the Quran, in Islam? What is the doctrine of God called?
Munzer: Tawhid.
Nabeel: Tawhid. Is that in the Quran?
Munzer: Urh ...
Nabeel: No, the word tawhid..
Munzer: The word tawhid is a derived word from Ahad.
Nabeel: Alhamdulillah! Good. So you understand the word tawhid is not itself in the Quran. In the same way, the word Trinity is not itself in the Bible. This doesn't pose a problem. The shahadah is not found in the Quran. You have the components of the shahadah in the Quran. But you do not have la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah in that way found in the Quran. The components are found in the Quran. With the Trinity the components are found in the Bible.
Munzer: The word tawhid does appear in the hadith.
Nabeel: Oh, that's great, but it's not in the Quran.
Munzer: Just variations of the prophet.
Nabeel: And the hadith is much later.
Nabeel: So we're looking at the, you asked for the Bible, and we have within the early canonical tradition, people calling God a Trinity in the early canonical tradition. In fact, much closer to Jesus' time than the hadith were to Muhammad's time. So whichever way you stack it, when you're consistent, you end up with a stronger case for the Trinity, for Jesus' deity.
Nabeel: Now I want to continue on to your next part of your question, which is, is Jesus finite or infinite? The argument is that Jesus is, you know, actually I'm going to pose it in a slightly different way.
Nabeel: Can Allah come onto this world if he wants?
Munzer: I wouldn't think so.
Nabeel: You wouldn't think so. So Allah's omnipotence is limited. He can't come onto this world.
Munzer: It's like, basically, Allah cannot do a logically fallacious thing. He cannot create a square circle, right?
Nabeel: Hmm.
Munzer: Because that's something logically fallacious.
Nabeel: But how do we know that's what this is? But how do we know that's what this is? Because, for example, in Surah Ali Imran, when Allah is talking to Moses, it says in Surah Ali Imran, I think it's Surah Ali Imran, it might be Surah 18, but double check, that Allah, as he spoke to Moses, Allah was in the bush. So if you want to say that meant something else, you're going to have to argue with the Quran on that one. It seems to be pretty clear that Allah can emanate his voice from a physical place. He can be in a physical place in a sense. In the same way, we don't believe, I don't believe, that God coming to this earth limits his omnipotence. It's not a limitation of his omnipotence. Jesus has taken on flesh. God the Father is still everywhere. God Jesus, the Son, is here on this earth. It's a limitation in that sense, but it's not a limitation of his nature. He is both the divine and human nature. That's the argument.
Nabeel: You asked about the Son of Man. You said he's not calling himself the Son of God. He's calling himself the Son of Man. I'm emphasizing to you, my friend, when this hit me, again, while l was practicing Islam, when this hit me, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. The claim, Son of God, according to Jews at that time, was not anything divine. Adam was called the son of God. Solomon was called the son of God. In the Psalms, it says, you are gods. (Psalm 82:6 reads, "I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.") It's not a divine claim to call someone a Son of God. But when someone refers to that Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, who's going to receive glory, authority, and sovereign power, and people of every nation and language are going to worship him with the worship due only to God, that Son of Man is more than just a human. He is divine. He's going to be worshiped by all people of all time. So when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, it's not the Son of God title, and lots of Christians get this wrong, so I'm not pointing the finger at you. Lots of Christians say, oh, Son of Man means he's human, and Son of God means he's God. No, it's the other way around. In the Jewish context, son of God was a normal human title. Son of Man, from Daniel 7, that was something divine. Go back and read Daniel chapter 7, see that this man is worshiped by all people from all eternity. This man, the one who looks like a human anyway, is worshiped by all people alongside of God the Father. That's the one Jesus is claiming to be. Definitely understand that point that I'm trying to make. And so when you see that Jesus' claim is found there in Mark 14:62, it's found in all the Gospels, and every time Jesus uses the term Son of Man, he's alluding to that. You cannot extract that from the Gospels. So please put Mark 14:62 next to Daniel chapter 7 and see what Jesus is claiming for himself.
Muslim #2: I really admire the fact that you argue with reason and facts. So my question was basically in John 5, if you read from 19 onwards, Jesus says that he can actually do nothing, and that wherever his power is coming from the Father, in John 5:30 he says, I can of my own self do nothing. And as I hear I judge, for my judgment is judged, for I seek not my will, but the will of the Father. And also in John 17, he says that, I have completed your mission that God Father gave him on this earth, and at that time he was not crucified. In the Old Testament, Abraham was visited by God with two angels, but in human form, right?
Nabeel: Yes.
Muslim #2: In human form.
Nabeel: Yes.
Muslim #2: So was God Jesus at that time?
Nabeel: Okay.
Muslim #2: He was in human form to become a secret.
Nabeel: Great question. Great series of questions. The first thing I want to mention again is, one more time, I'm not theologian, so I don't deal with Genesis per se. I deal with the historical aspect of Jesus. But I can look at what Genesis says, and I can't be sure. Are those three angels Jesus ? Is one of them Jesus? Is it not? We can't be sure. Nothing is said. And I don't want to say that the Bible says something that it doesn't say, because that's a very dangerous thing. I'm taking Genesis for what it says at face value. Are those three God? Is one of them Jesus? Are all three of them Jesus? Are all three of them Yahweh once Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I don't know. It's not said clearly.
Nabeel: When it comes to the Gospel of John, though, I want to encourage you. The Quran and the Bible are not the same book, of course, but a lot of times we come to them exegetically as if they were. The Muslims and Christians wil come to the Quran exegeting them as if they were their own book. Or they'll come to the Bible, exegeting it as if it was the Quran. This is a problem. The Quran was not written like the Bible. How was it written? Muhammad would receive a revelation, or so the Islamic sources say, about five verses at a time, generally speaking, according to the Hadith, he would relay to his scribes, the scribes would write them down, and that was one recitation. And later again, and later again, later again, and then at the end, and sometimes it would be longer, at the end all of them were collected when he died. So it's very possible that one section of the Quran, one verse, has very little to do with the next verse, at least at face value. That's why you have the whole series of Hadith called Asbab al-Nuzul which I'm sure you're familiar with. The Hadith that say, this is when this verse of the Quran came, this is what it means. This is when this verse of the Quran came, this is what it means. That's who, the tafsir of the Quran, that's where they get this stuff from, the Asbab al-Nuzul Hadith. And so you need the Hadith to exegete the Quran because one verse does not necessarily relate to the next. The Bible is not like that. In the Bible, the Gospel of John, John 1:1, relates to John 21. It's all related. So you need to read the whole book before you try to pull a part out and exegete it. And I'm not saying cherry-picking is necessarily a negative intention, it's just what happens when you exegete the Quran that way for so long. So we have to make sure when we read John 17, which he referred to, that we also read John 14, where in John 14, Jesus says, when l am gone, whatever you pray in my name, I will hear it and I will do it for you. Jesus is saying, when l am gone, so he's not there, he can hear people's prayers, so he has to be omniscient, and I will do it for you, omnipotent. Right there, same discourse, we can't divorce the two, it's the same discussion. In the same way, we cannot leave out John chapter 1. When John writes his Gospel, he expects everything that you read in there to be interpreted through his introduction. The introduction of John's Gospel is vitally important.
Nabeel: For example, my book* that I wrote, I don't know where it went. (*His first book : Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus) ( * his second book : No God but One: Allah or Jesus?) If you don't read the prologue, if you don't read the prologue of that book, you're not going to get a lot of it. You're not going to get a lot of it. You have to read the prologue, it explains the rest.
Nabeel: In the same way, John chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 18 is the prologue of John's Gospel. What does it say? It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, so you have this thing that is the Word. It was with God, and it was God. Already you're having the setup for the Trinity in John chapter 1, verse 1. And then it says, nothing was made in this world apart from that Word. That means the Word is, in a sense, the Creator. John's telling you right off the bat, no matter what you read in John's Gospel, the Word should be understood to be the Creator of this universe. It was created through him. And then it says in verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. He makes it clear this Word is Jesus. And in verse 18, if you have a good translation of the Bible, verse 18 makes it clear that this Word is the only begotten God. That's how you're supposed to read the rest of John's Gospel. So any verse we take should be read in that light. Any verse we take should be read in that light.
Nabeel: I forgot the rest of your question.
Muslim #2: That was John 5, verse 30. Why is Jesus saying that I can of my own self do nothing when he's actually God himself?
Nabeel: Exactly. Great question. The argument here is that the Jews are saying that you (Jesus ) have a demon, that you are not. You are not working with God. You're working against God. Jesus' response is here, "look, if I can of my own will do nothing, except through the will of the Father.
Nabeel: In other words, he doesn't have a separate will from the Father, insofar as what he wants to see accomplished, what he wants to see done, he's not standing against his Father's will. So the point he's trying to make is, No, l'm not the devil. I'm not anti-God. I proclaim God. I do his works. I do these healings. I'm not against him. I'm with him." That's the point he's making. And we can read further into that and say, Oh, he's not God. But if you do that, you're ignoring the context. You have to let the context speak. And where the context is clearest, that's where exegesis should be the strongest.
Nabeel: But when I was a Muslim, I didn't necessarily understand the Christian Gospel all that well. And the Gospel is this. This is an amazing story. That God knows you from before the beginning of time and realizes he knows full well that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to break away from sin. You will sin. And since God is perfectly holy, there can be no sin in his presence. So when it comes to after one's death, it's a simple matter of can you be in his presence or can you not? And if you have any sin, you by definition can't be in God's presence because he doesn't coexist with sin. And so according to the Gospel message, God has to sacrifice for the sake of sin. He has to remove it all himself. There's nothing we can do to come up before God without sin. He has to cleanse it of us himself. And so the message, the Christian message is God loves us so much that despite our sin, he will continue to love us. He will do what he can to save us from destroying ourselves. Even if it means his humiliation. Even if it means God is not being worshiped on the throne by angels but rather being crucified on a cross. God is willing to do that because he loves people more than he loves his majesty. There's an amazing message in the Gospel there. There are beautiful things here in Christianity and I hope we can understand that there are beautiful things about both faiths and we should respect them both to that end. But the question is not what is beautiful because what I know is that when l've talked to Muslims, when l've talked to Buddhists, when I've talked to Jews, when l've talked to Christians, generally speaking, and you can tell me if this İs wrong, but generally speaking, people like what they were raised with. They like the faith that they were born with. They feel comfortable with that. At most, they'll tend towards some kind of a nominal, less devout adherence to that faith, but generally speaking, people don't leave their faith. They like what they were raised with. So the question is not what do we like? The question is not what is it that we think sounds beautiful? The question is what's true? What's true? Because at the end of the day, ultimately, Muslims believe and Christians believe that there is one God and only one God. And Muslims believe that there are certain things you must do to go to heaven and Christians believe that there are certain things you must have faith in, in order to go to heaven and the two don't coincide. Islam is an exclusivist faith and so is Christianity and both cannot be true. So the question is which one is true?
Nabeel: Now, l'II tell you this from a very young age, I absolutely loved Islam. l adored it, just like l said. And my parents taught me to adhere to Islam to the best of my ability. To give you an example of how I used to live my Muslim life as a child, my parents had taught me by the age of five the last seven chapters of the Quran by memory so that I could recite them during my five daily prayers. Regularly, I recited portions of the Quran every single day. Not only that, but we would also recite various prayers throughout the day before starting something like l recited earlier. Even upon waking up, first thing in the morning before my feet have hit the ground, my parents taught me to recite a prayer.
Alhamdulillahil ladhi ahyana ba da ma amatana wa ilayhin nushoor. (Praise be to God, who has given us life and to Him we shall be resurrected. •الحمدللهل لذي أحيانا با دى ما أمتنا و إليهن نشور.)
Thanking God for giving me life every single day. Thanking God that He is the one who has given me life and He causes me to die and He causes me to rise up again. A foreshadow of the resurrection, the day of resurrection which all Muslims believe in, but also a daily thanks to God for waking me up every single morning. Because l have no say in whether I'm going to wake up in the morning or not. Thank you Allah for waking me up every morning. This is the type of prayer that we pray. And I loved it. As it went out through my day, I would practice Islam absolutely as best as I could. l absolutely loved it.
Nabeel: But when l got to college, I met a Christian who was able to start defending Christianity. Now I had believed from a very young age that there's no way you can defend Christianity. I believe that the Bible had been corrupted. I believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. And the Quran says so in chapter 5 verse 72. The Quran makes it very clear. Chapter 5 verse 116 as well. The Quran makes it very clear that Jesus is not God. He never claimed to be God. That's something that people invented after he left. Surah AI Maidah is very clear on this. l also believed as a Muslim in Surah An Nisa verse 157. Chapter 4 verse 157 of the Quran.
Wa maa qataloohu wa maa salaboohu wa laakin shubbiha lahum.
( وقولهم انا قتلنا المسيح عيسى ابن مريم رسول الله وما قتلوه وما صلبوه ولاكن شبه لهم وان الذين اختلفوا فيه لفي شك منه ما لهم به من علم الا اتباع الظن وما قتلوه يقينا ١٥٧
وَقَوْلِهِمْ إِنَّا قَتَلْنَا ٱلْمَسِيحَ عِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ رَسُولَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَـٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ ۚ وَإِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱخْتَلَفُوا۟ فِيهِ لَفِى شَكٍّۢ مِّنْهُ ۚ مَا لَهُم بِهِۦ مِنْ عِلْمٍ إِلَّا ٱتِّبَاعَ ٱلظَّنِّ ۚ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِينًۢا ١٥٧ )
(and for boasting, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.” But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so.1 Even those who argue for this ˹crucifixion˺ are in doubt. They have no knowledge whatsoever—only making assumptions. They certainly did not kill him.)
Nabeel: Jesus was not killed on the cross, nor was he crucified but so it appeared to them. Jesus didn't die on the cross, Islam teaches. He wasn't crucified. So he's not God. He wasn't crucified on the cross. And surely, if he wasn't crucified, he didn't raise from the dead. So Islam denies these things about Jesus. But Christianity, not only does Christianity affirm those very three things, but it says that you must believe them in order to be saved. Chapter 10 of Romans verse 9. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now work with me for just a moment here. The Quran says Jesus did not die on the cross. He is not God. Therefore, he has not risen from the dead. Christianity teaches he did die on the cross. He did claim to be God and he did rise from the dead. Notice then, it's not feasible to say all religions are true. We're making truth claims here about a man who existed in the first century. Jesus Christ, Islam and Christianity, is laying claim to him. And Islam is saying he did not do certain things. Christianity is saying he did do certain things. Let us have no pretenses about both being true in these matters. One of them is true and one of them is not. Now the foundational claims for Christianity are exactly those claims. Notice the statement here was if you wish to be saved, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So these are central matters to Christianity. In fact, I believe that these are the very three matters that determine whether or not you are a Christian. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord? And chapter 10 of Romans defines very clearly Lord as Yahweh, God himself, not just some leader to follow, but God. Do you believe Jesus is God?
Nabeel: Number two, do you believe he died on the cross for your sins and then rose from the dead? If you do, you are a Christian as far as l am concerned. If you believe in multiple gods, if you believe in three gods, or who knows how many gods, a pantheon of gods, you are not Christian because by definition you do not believe in Yahweh anymore. You are not a monotheist. Now Islam, Islam does not have the same core sets of beliefs. It has different beliefs. Now where do we go for Islam's core set of beliefs? You can hear it every single day, five times a day, called from every minaret. You can hear it every time someone converts to Islam.
The Shahada, la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah, (لا إلها اللله محمدر رسوللله), there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. (There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) By saying this, if someone says it with Nia,(niat) with intention to convert to Islam, then they are a Muslim. So this is what you need to say if you want to be a Muslim. And basically, this is what Muslims hear as soon as they are born. When I was born. which was a wonderful day, just ask my parents. When I was born, my parents first, my father first recited into my ear the Adhan, which starts with the Takbir, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, and then it continues, ashadu alla ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasulullah الله أكبر, الله أكبر,, أشد على إلها اللله و أشهد أنا محمدا رسوللله ( God is great, God is great, I swear to God and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God) which is essentially the Shahada. It was the first thing I ever heard in my entire life. And my parents and my Imams, they all taught me that when l die, or as I'm dying, I should recite the Shahada again so that angels will usher me into heaven. And many, many Muslims recite the Shahada as they are on their deathbed. So literally, their lives are encompassed by the proclamation there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. This is the core claim to Islam. And Muhammad said in Sunan Abi Dawud, he said that any man who recites la ilaha illallah, he is a Muslim and you are not to excommunicate him from Islam no matter what. So these are the core beliefs of Christianity, Jesus' Lordship, his deity and his resurrection. And the core beliefs of Islam, there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.
Nabeel: So as a young college student, I set out to determine which of these is true. Which of these two faiths, if either, is true? Because let's face it again, maybe both of them are false. Maybe neither of these two religions is true. Maybe it's something else. But it's interesting that relatively speaking, Islam and Christianity, the two most adhered to faiths in this world, have relatively verifiable claims. What do I mean by that? Relatively speaking, we can take a look at the historical events into the first century to see if these claims about Jesus are true. Did he die on the cross or not? And in fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 14 and 17, Paul says very clearly, if Jesus is not risen, our faith is in vain. Some of you know this verse. If Jesus is not risen, our faith is in vain. He also says if Jesus is not risen, we of all are most to be pitied. In other words, Christians who believe that Jesus rose from the dead, if Jesus didn't actually rise, people should take pity on us because we're believing a lie. We have faith in a falsehood. So this is something that if it did not happen, Christianity falls flat. And it's false. Also, did Jesus claim to be God or not? Important matter, extremely important matter because based on the view of the gospel, Christian soteriology*, (*the doctrine of salvation) Jesus must be God in order to pay for the sins of mankind. It doesn't work for a man to die on the cross and pay for the sins of all mankind. That doesn't make any sense at all.
Nabeel: That's like me walking up to Obama and saying, hey Obama, I realize that the government debt is 17 trillion, but let me give you my bank account. We'll call it square. It doesn't work because that doesn't pay for the trillions and trillions of dollars of debt. And similarly with Jesus, if he was just a man, his death would not pay for the lives of the billions and billions of people on earth who have sinned. But if Jesus is God, all of a sudden God, well, his bank account's infinite. He can pay for anything. Infinitely, time's over. So whether or not Jesus is God is very important. How can we test whether or not Jesus is God? This is an important question. Don't forget, as a Muslim, this is one of the things that really, really mattered to me. Is Jesus God or not? Because if he is, the Quran is wrong. And I never believed it was possible the Quran could be wrong. So obviously, he did not claim to be God. Now, how do we know whether someone is God when they claim to be God? So coming from more of an agnostic position for just a moment, if some man walks into a room and claims to be God. Now, I went to medical school. I saw people walk into the hospital and claim to be God all the time. This was normal. And I would say to them, well, good for you. We have a room for you. Come on in. It's padded. It's locked. You'll love it. It's normal for people to claim to be God. Usually, they're hallucinating or they're delusional, whatever it is. Nabeel, listen, I am God and they're going to kill me and three days after I die to prove to you what l am saying, I will raise myself from the dead. Now we have something to watch. Now we have something to verify this on. Because if someone dies and rises from the dead, then lI'm going to listen to what they have to say, especially if they prophesied that. And if there's anyone l'm going to listen to about the afterlife, it's the person who's been to the afterlife and has come back. Now, where does Jesus say this, by the way? This is in the book of Matthew. People ask Jesus to show him a sign. Now, keep in mind, Jesus has just done an exorcism. He's shown them something miraculous. So when they ask him for a sign, basically, he's implying, didn't you just see what I did? His response to them is, an evil, an adulterous generation asks for a sign. I'm not going to give you any sign except for the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth. In other words, in order to prove to you what I'm saying, you're asking me for a sign, l'Il show you one sign. l'II be dead in a grave for three days, in Sheol, in the heart of the earth for three days. And then l'Il come out. Just as Jonah came out of that whale, I will come out from that grave. That's his claim to prove that Christianity is true. And can we see why, then? The resurrection is so important to the Christian faith. Can we see why, then, we have to see whether this actually happened. We have to investigate the evidence. It's our duty. As 21st century, historically-minded people from the West, we're not people who just generally believe what we're told. We're skeptical about pretty much everything. And so it's our duty, if we're going to believe this, to have a reason for the belief that we have. And in fact, the Bible tells us to have a reason for the hope that lies within us. That's 1 Peter 3, verse 15. If anyone says to you, we're supposed to believe these things on faith, they have not understood the biblical term faith. The biblical term faith is trust. And basically, the type of faith that Christians are called to have is a faith in someone they know. In other words, you're supposed to know God. You're supposed to know what he's done, and then have faith. You're supposed to trust that he will stay true to his promises.
Nabeel: And to give you a quick example of that with my wife, if she is ever away from me, I trust that she's being loyal to me, not because l have no evidence, but because I know who she is. I have faith in her because l've seen her. l've known her. l've walked with her. I've seen her loyalty. I have good reason to believe she will stay true to her promises, so I have faith in her. Same with God. We're not supposed to randomly believe what preachers tell us. We should ask them, what good reason do we have to believe what you're saying? That's what the Bible says. Test the spirits. We're not supposed to randomly believe things. When we have good reason to believe in someone, then we have faith in that person because of those good reasons. That's the faith we're called to have. So the Christian faith is based on the fact that we have good reasons to believe the core claims. Jesus died on the cross. He rose from the dead. He claimed to be God. Now with Islam, the, how do we investigate Islam? I investigated Islam after three years of investigating Christianity. I investigated the historical method first. This is all while I was in the university and in medical school. I decided to learn how to study history and I would meet with historians and l'd ask them, how does one study history? How can one know when something is true or not? And they would teach me various criteria of the historical method. We can go into details on the criteria for the historical method if you'd like.
Nabeel: We can do that on the Q&A. Well, essentially, and just by telling you this, the way we look into history is we look at the earliest, most reliable sources regarding that event or that person that we're investigating. We determine what the biases are because keep in mind, every single work is biased. Regardless of whether it's a newspaper, which we often see as relatively unbiased, that's false. It's biased. Or if it's a personal testimony about someone's friend, that's also biased. Everything has biases and angles. So we've got to see what's the earliest, most reliable source that discusses an event, determine what its biases are, whether we can see past those, how reliable it is, and then draw our conclusions. So, with Islam, what were the two things that I decided to look at? Well, the Shahada is la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah. There's two things there. There's Allah and there's Muhammad. So how can we take a look into Allah and how can we take a look into Muhammad? Well, the first, I Would say, is the Quran. You go to the Quran to see what Allah is like, who He is, what His claims are. And as a Muslim, I offered a few arguments that the Quran is divinely inspired. And there are other arguments that people use that I didn't use, which we will also take a look at briefly tonight. And the other sets of arguments I used was on Muhammad. I believed, having been raised as a Muslim, that Muhammad was the best man who ever walked this earth. Al-Insan al-Kamil*, the perfect man. This is the man who is the perfect exemplar. As I was taught Muhammad and I was taught Islam, Muhammad was the most peaceful man who ever lived. He's the most generous man who ever lived. He's the most loving, the most kind, the most humble. He took care of women, took care of orphans, took care of widows. Muhammad was the best statesman. He was the best diplomat. He was the best general. It doesn't matter what epithet you throw at him. He deserves it because he's Muhammad. He's the chief of the prophets. That's what we believed. But what do the earliest sources say about Muhammad? And how reliable are those sources? We're gonna take a look at that tonight. And we're gonna take a look at the sources for the Quran. So I hope that gives you a good overview of what we're going to be discussing.
First, let's start with Christianity. What are the sources regarding Christianity ? And some of you might be even asking, Nabeel, why should I even believe Jesus is real? Why should l even believe that he's a man who existed?
Nabeel: The first thing I'm gonna start off by telling you is that it is incontrovertible, according to the historical principles of investigation, that a man named Jesus existed in the first century. How do we know this? We have over 40 records of Jesus' life from ancient times, describing this man who was essentially a carpenter in Palestine. He didn't have much of anything. He wasn't an essentially important figure at the time. Yet, we have 40 sources that refer to him. You know who the emperor was at Jesus' time? Someone shout it out. Tiberius. Good. Tiberius was the emperor of Rome at that time. Now, this is a man who obviously we should have a lot written about. We can expect tons and tons of records about this man, can't we? The historical records contain Tiberius' name by 10 different individuals. That's it. Ten for Tiberius, the emperor of Rome, 40 forJesus. You can see, we have excellent reason to believe that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, lived and existed in the first century. That's why very, very few, in fact, I could probably count it on one hand, actually, I don't know of two, scholars who study the historical Jesus actually claim that Jesus never existed. One of them is Bob Price, who most other scholars say it's just not even possible what he says. So we can dismiss just due to the reasoning and due to the lack of scholastic support that this is actually the case. So Jesus certainly exists. Okay, what can we know about him? Well, of the scholars that study him, and keep in mind, there is an entire area of historical studies called historical Jesus studies. So we have scholars whoʻve been studying this on all sides. These aren't all Christians by any means. The most influential ones wouldn't align themselves with Orthodox Christianity. You have people like Paula Fredriksen, Marcus Borg, Bart Ehrman. You have people along these lines who would say, like John Dominic Crossan, who would say that of Jesus, we can know for a fact that he died on the cross. Now keep in mind, that's one of our three points that we're proving for Christianity or attempting to show to determine its reliability. Did Jesus die on the cross? The scholars who study his life, regardless of whether they're atheist, Buddhist, agnostic, Hindu, Christian, it doesn't matter. They all conclude that Jesus died on the cross. Now if I left it there. it would be an appeal to authority, and we're trying to be academically rigorous tonight, so I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna give you some of the reasons Why they believe Jesus died on the cross. But we're gonna keep it brief because scholars are unanimous on this issue. By the way, it's not just them. Even Muslim scholars will argue that Jesus did die on the cross. How many of you heard of Reza Aslan's book recently, Zealots, that came out this year? A few of you? Reza Aslan's a scholar who has studied the historical Jesus. And as a Muslim, he says, yes, Islam denies Jesus' death on the cross, and I am a Muslim, but I confirm that Jesus' death on the cross is historically certain. In fact, he builds his whole book off the fact that Jesus died on the cross. So even as a Muslim, he says Jesus died on the cross. So why? Why do they say this? Well, because, first off, all the evidence that we have, all the records of Jesus' life. which talk about his death, indicate that he did die. If they say anything, it says that he did die on the cross under Pontius Pilate, which is why Paula Fredriksen says, if there's anything we can know about Jesus, anything at all, it's this, that he died on the cross under Pontius Pilate. If you go away from Christian records, you go to Jewish records like Josephus, we can also see in the first century that non-Christians are saying Jesus died on the cross. We go to Gentile scholars, they are also agreeing that Jesus died on the cross. In fact, we also have some of them saying that these people believe he has risen from the dead. We'll get to that in just a moment. So we have excellent reason to believe Jesus died on the cross because all the records point to that Plus, if you study the historical process of crucifixion, nobody ever, in the entire history of the Roman process of crucifixion, no one ever survived a full Roman crucifixion. Oh, they were crucifying people by the hundreds, especially when it came time around Jesus' time all the way till the fall of the Temple, they were crucifying people by the hundreds to make a point that if you rebel against the Romans, we will humiliate you, we will torture you, and we will destroy you and your people. And that's exactly what was happening to all the Jews who were amongst this rebellion that happened in the late 60s, beginning of the 70s in the first century AD. Not a single one of them survived the process of crucifixion. Why? Well, first, there's a flogging process and this flogging isn't light. It's not like caning. The flogging process went with a Roman flagrum. Now, if you understand what a flagrum is, it's a whip that has six leather cords that come off of it and each of those leather cords has leather balls at the end with shards of bone and metal dumbbells as a person would be whipped. This whip was designed to cause extreme vasodilation on the skin. You have those metal dumbbells there for that reason, to bring the blood vessels, to bring lots of blood to the floor, to bring pain receptors to the surface. And those bones, the shards of bones would latch into the skin and rip it off so you would bleed more blood than you otherwise would. That's how this whip was designed. All this whole process of crucifixion was designed to be as painful, as torturous as possible. Cicero, I believe it was Cicero who said that let no Roman citizen even think or hear the word crucifixion. And Roman citizens were not allowed to be crucified. This was reserved for the most treacherous criminals, not a common criminal, the worst criminal. It was also said that arteries and veins were laid bare during the process of the crucifixion, l'm sorry, of the flogging, that people's intestines often fell out because their abdominal wall was ripped open. This was horrific and people often died during the flogging process. It's called the pre-death for that very reason. And in the case of Jesus. we know that something happened. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was flogged more than normal because Pilate wanted to bring Jesus back in front of the crowd and say, look, we've flogged him. Do you still want to crucify him? We've punished him. And they say, no, crucify him. It would stand to reason that he flogged him more than they thought they would in order for him to say, okay, let's go ahead and release him. They said, no, let's crucify him. Let's move on for just a moment. This process of flogging would often leave someone devoid of skin. Their skin would be falling off in ribbons as they're carrying the cross. They're not carrying it with a loincloth arm with skin on their body. No, their skin's hanging off in tatters and they're naked, made to parade through a group of people. And once they're finally nailed on the cross, they're nailed through the interosseous space here between the radius and the ulna, it's because that is where the force of the weight could be held. If someone was nailed through the hands, the hands would just rip and someone would die that way. The reason why it says hands in some places is because in those times, they refer to this whole area as hands. They're nailed through here right through the median nerve, the major sensory motor nerve of the hand. If you were nailed through that place, you immediately lose all use and sensation of your hand. Then you're nailed through your feet. A seven-inch nail goes through both your feet. Why?
Nubeel: Because if someone were just to hang on the cross, they would have no way to breathe. As they sink back down, they'd breathe in and they'd have to push up to breathe out. Well, what are they going to push against? A nail through their feet. It's to prolong the torture. It's to prolong the death. And when they finally wanted to kill you, they'd break your knees so that you couldn't push up anymore and you'd asphyxiate and die. Or they would stick a spear through your heart. That was a way to be sure that you'd be dead. Or they'd crush your skull with a hammer. Or they'd light your body on fire. Or they'd take your body and feed you to dogs. They were going to make absolutely sure that you died. That was a way to be sure that you'd be dead. Or they'd crush your skull with a hammer. Or they'd light your body on fire. Or they'd take your body and feed you to dogs. They were going to make absolutely sure that you died. That was the whole point. And no one in all of Roman history survived a full crucifixion. So we have excellent reason to believe Jesus died on the cross. Did he rise from the dead?
Notes:
* Al-Insan al-kamil, or the perfect being, was first deeply discussed in written form by Ibn Arabi in one of his most prolific works entitled Fusus al-Hikam.
