I mean, Jesus spoke Aramaic.
The gospel that he received was in
Aramaic, but there are tribes in in in
Syria today that speak Aramaic.
He didn't speak English.
Didn't speak Latin,
you know, from which Greek from which
these things were translated. He spoke
Aramaic. So, where is his gospel?
It's lost,
not known. Was it now meant for a
particular time, a particular people?
And now we don't have it because some
people would argue that, well, did God
make a mistake now? Because this is
supposed to be for for all of us until
today. So now, how did this how do we
lose it now? Did God make a mistake or
was it meant to be saved? Well, there's
no there's no mistake here because the
fact that Jesus's message was for, as
you said, a particular people in a
particular place for a particular period
of time. A prophet was going to come
after him who would bring the final
message which would be for all people in
all places at all times. So all of the
earlier prophets, the scriptures were
not guarded and preserved by God as he
guarded and preserved the Quran. Not
because they were not scripture. Yes,
they're all scripture in that sense.
They're all equal. They're all the word
of God conveyed to human beings. But the
changes that took place by human hands
to the earlier scriptures, God permitted
because those messages were not eternal
messages. There are messages for
particular people, particular places,
particular times.
So the final message, if it were to be
the final message, it had to be
preserved. And that's again evidence of
its truthfulness and finality.
Do we still have the word of the creator
in what we have of the Bible today?
We have bits and pieces.
Bits and pieces.
Yeah. Bits and pieces here and there.
And these are affirmed in the Quran.
There are many places which affirm texts
from the Bible, but the the totality of
what's there is confusion.
For a long time, I thought that the
Bible was inspired and inherent, that
there were no mistakes in the Bible. But
as I engaged in historical research on
the Bible, as I was getting my PhD in
New Testament studies at Princeton
Theological Seminary, I started finding
mistakes in the Bible. And uh this this
cut away at my assumptions that the
Bible was inherent. And then I started
questioning other parts of my faith. Is
Jesus really divine? Uh is it really a
trinity?
It's confusion. But a person who reads
it sincerely
from beginning to end,
he will be forced to accept
the oneness of God because that message
is there in spite of all the distortions
and all the other things that are there.
The oneness of God is there. all of the
earlier prophets talking oneness of God
and Jesus affirming when they asked him
what is the the command God's command he
said here O Israel the Lord your God is
one God
he's affirming the same thing that came
before so anybody who reads that says
okay well where did the trinity thing
come from yeah
it definitely is not in the text
you know this is something people added
you know what is the text now which is
clear
oneness of God is crystal clear. It's
the Quran. Now, if we take what is meant
for a people at that time and people
saying the son of God because many
people believe that Jesus was God, son
of God, there's a bunch of confusion
here. They have to do a bunch of mental
gymnastics to make it fit. But now, if
you take this, what's meant is it that
he was a righteous upright person close
to God. But if you take this out and you
take it now to let's say the Greeks who
are worshiping demigods, semi-gods, this
god, that guy. Can you can that be where
a lot of the confusion came where now
they take what is meant for that time
and is understood and now you bring it
over to another totally pagan society
and they're already worshiping man gods
and now we have what we have today
modern day man worship. Jesus is a son,
son of God.
Well, definitely. I mean this is a one
of the explanations of the process of
what took place.
Yeah.
I mean of course the message of Jesus
was crystal clear.
Clear.
It had to be crystal clear because if
it's coming from God the clarity is
going to be there and it remained clear.
But what happened is that when it was
taken out of the
the we could say the east and it came
now into the west then these changes
took place whether it was a question of
interpreting or misinterpreting earlier
texts or really introducing
ideas which were never in the original
text
which I I feel is probably more of that
than actually misinterpretation cuz
misinterpretation sort of implies that
the message wasn't that clear
whereas I don't believe that it's the
case in fact the message of Jesus was
very clear in fact after Jesus left
as they thought he was killed or
whatever you know but when Jesus went
away the one who came behind him who
became the head of the Jerusalem church
is none other than James who is called
in the gospels the brother of Jesus.
Mhm.
And James as the head of the Jerusalem
church
taught that Jesus was a prophet of God.
God was one.
He was a unitarian. He wasn't a
trinitarian.
So it wasn't on for that's for those
that period of almost like 70 years
after the time of Jesus
that was the main church the Jerusalem
church was a unitarian church preaching
the message of the one God and that
Jesus was a human being and a prophet of
God who was sent to convey this message.
But with the dispersion of the the Jews,
the breakup of the temple of Solomon,
Jews being dispersed from
Jerusalem and of course the the Muslims
or we could say the Judeo-Christians of
that time uh who were those who truly
followed Jesus externally they wouldn't
look any different from the regular
Jews. So when they disperse, everybody
had to disperse. So the Jerusalem church
which was the main me core center from
which the teachings the true teachings
of Jesus was being taught that was
destroyed and people had to flee. So
when that was lost then the center in
Antioch which was headed by Paul
right Paul now took over the movement
and he started he had already been doing
it earlier now he was given a full clear
hand. James is assassinated. He has the
full clear hand to change the message
and preach the new religion which he
called Christianity
which obviously Jesus his followers they
never taught
never taught were opposed to
Paul to task called him to Jerusalem and
question him why are you doing this why
are you doing that
that's what's even recorded in the
gospels to today and the writings the
letters of