Is Jesus God? - Dr. Michael Brown v. Zakir Hussain

All praises are for Allah, and peace and blessings and salutations be upon His final messenger, upon his family, his companions, and all those who follow him until the day of resurrection.

So, first and foremost, I want to give everybody a warm welcome. So everybody's welcome here, and, uh, hopefully, everybody will enjoy the debate.

So, I want to introduce first, uh, brother Zakir Hussein, who has, uh, participated in many, uh, high-level prolific debates, uh, you know, with Dr. uh, Dr. Michael Brown previously, James White, Dr. James White, uh, Samuel Green, and David Wood, and many others. And obviously, he has a book called *Abraham Fulfilled*, and he's been engaging in, uh, apologetics for a very long time.

Uh, Dr. Michael Brown, he's got a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University, authored 50 books and more than 3,000 articles. Served as a professor, uh, at seven leading seminaries, participated in many debates, especially with Jewish rabbis.

Okay. So, I want to give everybody, uh, both debaters, a warm welcome as well. So, just some notices, um, okay, so house rules. Um, first of all, people, be careful how they park. This is a residential area, so obviously, we want to respect the rights of the neighbors here as well. People, park in the car park here. We have people with high visas around. So, show us where to park as well.

>> I'll first be reciting in the Arabic language, the original language that it was revealed in, and then I will follow up with a translation in English.

Yeah. For. Yeah. For. Amen. For mercy. Fore! Foreign! Foreign!

"Oh humanity, the messenger has certainly come to you with the truth from your Lord. So believe for your own good. But if you disbelieve, then know that to Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and the earth. And Allah is all-knowing, all-wise.

Oh people of the book, do not go to extremes regarding your faith. Say nothing about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger of Allah and the fulfillment of His word through Mary and a spirit created by a command from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers and do not say trinity. Stop, for your own good. Allah is only one God. Glory be to Him. He is far above having a son. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And Allah is sufficient as a trustee of affairs. The Messiah would never be too proud to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels nearest to Allah. Those who are too proud and arrogant to worship Him will be brought before Him altogether."

>> I will be reading the Suffering Servant song from Isaiah 52:13 through to 53:12 and the beginning of John chapter 1 through to verse 18.

"See, my servant shall prosper. He shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him, so marred was his appearance beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of mortals. So he shall startle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard, they shall contemplate.

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity. And as one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases. Yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days. Through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light. He shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great. He shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him. Yet the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and His own people did not accept Him.

But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived amongst us. And we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. John testified to Him and cried out, 'This was he of whom I have said, "He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me." From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.' The law indeed was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father who has made Him known."

>> Okay, here we are. Thank you so much for being here, especially on such short notice. It's a joy to be with all of you. And I understand this is a wedding hall, so if anyone needs to be married tonight, we can have a ceremony before the night is out.

Um, what's a real delight to me is to debate the subject, "Is Jesus God?" with the Christians and Muslims present, because when I debate with my Jewish friends and rabbis, they don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. So, my Muslim friends here, you already believe that, which is wonderful. What I want to do is expand for you on who the Messiah is.

Can you hear?

>> Okay.

>> A little bit louder.

>> Louder.

>> Louder. Yeah, make it louder.

>> Okay.

>> All right. Um, well, I have so much control over that, but we'll do our best. So, to say this again, it's wonderful to be here with Muslims who say that Jesus is the Messiah. What I want to do is expand on your understanding and help you to see that he's more wonderful and glorious than you even understand, and even worthy of worship as part of the one true God.

Now, what's interesting about this debate, and Zakir has proposed the subject, I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to do this debate, is that I'm going to lay out a compelling case for you from the New Testament, from the whole Bible, that Jesus is, in fact, divine.

Now, you could say, "Well, we're Muslims. We don't accept the authority of scripture." Conversely, Zakir might say, "Well, if Jesus is God, then that means that your God prayed to himself, or your God was a baby, or your God had to go to the bathroom." And I could simply say, "Well, you don't understand the incarnation." So, we could just pass each other like ships in the night. Instead, let's do our best to engage. Let's do our best to intersect and see if we can sharpen one another's understanding.

So, when I say Jesus is God, it's important that you understand that God, the infinite One, in Judaism called *Ein Sof*, the infinite One, the One without end, is complex in His unity. He can sit enthroned in heaven while at the same time filling the universe with His glory, while at the same time working among us invisibly by His Spirit, while at the same time appearing among us if He chooses to. Christians refer to that as God's triunity. I refer to it as God's complex unity. So, we worship one God and one God only. We would completely repudiate the worship of other gods. But the eternal Son, who is always with the Father, made Himself known in the person of Jesus, who is fully God and fully man.

1 Timothy 6:16 says, "No one has seen God or can see Him." John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." And yet Jesus says in John 14:9, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." And John 1:18 says that He has made Him known.

Now, we see in the Old Testament that God tells Moses in Exodus 33, "You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live." Yet, a few chapters earlier in Exodus 24, 74 people, it says they saw the God of Israel. Well, it says you can't see His face and live, and yet it says they saw the God of Israel. How can that be? It is through Jesus that God makes Himself known. It is through the Son that the eternal, unseen Father, who is the source of all things, like the core of the sun which we cannot see because of its brightness, He is the manifestation of that. He is the way that the invisible, unseen God touches us here in this world and actually comes and walks among us in this world. And we have that in the Hebrew scriptures in Genesis, the 18th chapter. Yahweh, the God of Israel, comes in human form along with two angels and sits and eats with Abraham and has an extended conversation with Abraham and his wife Sarah, and then He leaves. At the same time, He's God in heaven. Why? Because He is complex in His unity.

We're talking about Almighty God. Is there anything He cannot do? We see that one of the titles of the Messiah in the Old Testament is *Peleh Yo'etz El Gibbor Sar Shalom* in Isaiah chapter 9. One of those titles is "Mighty God." The very name that Yahweh is called by in Isaiah 10:21, the Messiah is called in Isaiah 9:6, *Peleh Yo'etz El Gibbor Sar Shalom*. We see that in Psalm 45, a prophecy of the Messiah, it says, "Your throne, O God, speaking about the Messiah, is forever and ever." We see in the book of Isaiah that God is the *Goel*. God is the Redeemer. And over and over and over He says, "He alone does the work. He alone is the Redeemer." And yet in Isaiah 59:20, the Messiah is the *Goel*. How can this be?

We also have in the New Testament explicit statements about the deity of Jesus. 2 Peter 1:1, He is referred to as "our God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah." Titus chapter 2:13, He is referred to as "our great God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah." Hebrews 1:8-10, "But about the Son He says, 'Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.' And then it says this, 'In the beginning, O Lord, speaking of the Creator, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.'" That's speaking about Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah. Hebrews 1:6, He is worshiped by angels. Revelation 5:12-14, He is worshiped by all created beings, and He shares the throne of God and the identity of God. There's a Greek verb *latreuo* which is used only for worship of God. Look at this. Revelation 22:3 and 4: "No longer will there be anything accursed. This is in the final new heavens and new earth. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him." One God. God and the Lamb. One God. And they will worship Him. This word is used exclusively for the worship of God in the New Testament. "They will see His face. Not many faces. His face, and His name will be on their foreheads."

There are verses in the Old Testament explicitly speaking about Yahweh, the eternal God, that are applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Isaiah 45:23, "Every knee will bow to Yahweh, every tongue will confess Him." That's applied to Jesus in Philippians 2:10-11, "Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus the Messiah as Lord to the glory of God the Father." Joel 2:32, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," about Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, applied to Jesus in Romans 10:13. Isaiah 40:3, "Prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare the way of Yahweh," is applied to Jesus in Mark 1:2. Psalm 34:8, "Taste and see that Yahweh is good," is applied to Jesus in 1 Peter 2:3. Zechariah 14:3, "Yahweh Himself will come in power, and His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives," that's applied to Jesus in Acts 1:11.

There are also statements about Jesus where He speaks of Himself. He says, "Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." John 8:24. "When you have lifted up," meaning crucified, "the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He." John 8:28. And then, "Before Abraham was, I am," speaking of His pre-existence. Well, what does this tie in with? The Greek *ego eimi* is used when God makes exclusive statements about Himself in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 4:14, "I, Yahweh, the first and with the last, I am He." In the Septuagint, in the Greek translation, *ego eimi*. Isaiah 43:10, "So that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. *Ego eimi*." Isaiah 43:13, "Also from this day I am He. None can deliver from My hand." The same thing again in Greek. Isaiah 48:12, "I am He. I am the first. I'm also the last. I am He." Jesus, Yeshua, says these things about Himself.

This is not some fringe strand of a verse here or a verse there in the New Testament. This is consistent testimony of the Bible, from the Hebrew scriptures right through the New Testament writings. In the book of Revelation, God says of Himself, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Jesus says those same things about Himself in the book of Revelation. So, I ask you a question: How can a mortal man say, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"? How can a mortal man say what Jesus says in John 11:25-26? "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die, and he who believes in me and dies will live again."

We also know explicitly that God will share His glory with no one. Isaiah 42:8, Isaiah 48:11. He will share His glory with no one. But look at what it says in John 5:22-23: "The Father has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." Jesus is telling us, as the messenger sent by God, that if we do not honor Him the way we honor God, then we don't honor God at all.

Prayer is offered to Him in the New Testament. Acts 7:59-60, as Stephen is dying, the first martyr, what does he say? "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." 1 Corinthians chapter 1:2 speaks of "all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 16 and 17: "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts." It's a singular verb speaking about Father and Son together as one God, and prayer is being offered to Him. Revelation chapter 22, verse 20: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus," praying for His return. Prayers are offered to Jesus. And the Gospels in various ways present His divinity, present His deity. Matthew 11:27: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." I hope He'll reveal the Father to some of you here today.

When we are immersed as followers of Jesus, we are immersed according to Matthew 28:19 "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." One God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Not three gods, one God, Father, Son, and Spirit. So far beyond our comprehension, so far beyond our tiny little human brains that try to figure everything out and squeeze it into a box. You cannot do that with Almighty God.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus forgives sins. And yet the Hebrew verb *salach* to forgive is only used with Yahweh in the Old Testament. What does it say in Psalm 130:4? "With You is forgiveness." And yet Jesus forgives sins in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus calms the storm. In Mark the 4th chapter, that's the prerogative of God over nature. Psalm 89, Psalm 107, Job 38. Jesus walks on the water. Job chapter 9:8 speaks of God treading on the seas. Jesus will come with the clouds. According to Psalm 68:4, it is Yahweh who rides the clouds.

And then throughout John's gospel, we heard at the beginning the reading from John chapter 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And it tells us explicitly that this Word is God Himself throughout the gospel of John. This is stated. It says in John the 12th chapter that Isaiah saw His glory. This is centuries before. And yet Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord. And then notice after Jesus has spoken about His Father and His God as a man, "My Father and my God," Thomas says to Him in John 20:28 when he realizes who He is. When he sees the marks of crucifixion in him, he says, "My Lord and my God." Jesus doesn't rebuke him. What does he say? He said, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus doesn't rebuke him and say, "How dare you call me God?" No, He commends him and said, "It took you long enough to figure it out, Thomas."

Colossians 1, He has supremacy over all creation. Colossians 2:9, "The fullness of the deity dwells in Him in bodily form." This is a theme throughout scripture, the deity of Jesus. You have no early testimony from any of His first disciples that is anything less than this would exclude His deity. And He is preexistent. We just saw in John 1, "In the beginning," meaning the beginning of all creation, before all creation was the Word, the wisdom, the knowledge, the truth, the revelation of who God is embodied in Him.

Look at what He says. I'm going to read a passage, some passages from 1 Corinthians 8, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1. "All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of man." "There is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He upholds the universe by the word of His power."

To my Muslim friends here, Jesus is so much more wonderful and powerful than you could ever imagine, the very embodiment of God in this world. The way that we better know who God is by looking at Him, by watching Him, as He said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." He existed before all things, and that's why all things hold together in Him. He is the one who came down from heaven, referred to as the second Adam from heaven. It's said He came from God and returned to God. And then often in the Gospels, He'll say, "I have come," meaning, "I have come into this world from my heavenly abode. I have come into this world."

According to Philippians 2:6, He pre-existed in the very image and nature of God. According to John 17:5, He enjoyed the glory with the Father before the world was created. And He says not only that He and the Father are one, you could say in a certain way we can be one with God according to the Gospels. He doesn't just say, "I and the Father are one." He says in John 14, "The Father is in me and I am in the Father." So, He is in the one true God. Matthew 23, He longed through history, He longed to gather Israel together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. This is the pre-existing Jesus at work in history.

And we've looked at the statements, the "I am He" statements. That's why all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. Colossians 2:9. That's why He is explicitly and rightly called God. Hebrews 1:8, John 20:28. That's why prayers can be directed to Him, as we just saw. That's why hymns of praise can be sung to Him. That's why every knee will bow to Him and confess Him as Lord to the glory of God the Father. God forbid that we bow down before a created being. God forbid that we profess a created being as Lord. God forbid that we give worship and adoration to anyone other than God Himself.

As I've spoken with my Jewish friends who struggle with this, and they'll say, "Look at what it says in our Hebrew Bible. God is not a man." Numbers 23, 1 Samuel 15. Correct. God is not a man. God is not immortal. But Almighty God can come in human form. Almighty God can come and dwell among us. Almighty God can manifest His presence in our midst. And He serves as a magnet in that sense. He serves as a magnet drawing attention, drawing worship to God the Father.

When the people saw the miracles that Jesus performed, they praised the God of Israel. Look at this picture in Revelation 5, beginning in verse 11. "Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.'" That does not go to a created being or a mere messenger. To say so would be blasphemy. And remember, the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy because He clearly identified Himself as being one with God. Why is He worthy? Because He died for our sins. Why is He worthy? Because He paid the price that we could not pay. Why is He worthy? Because every one of us has sinned and fallen infinitely short of the perfection and holiness of God. That's why He died on the cross, to take our sins, to take our punishment, so that as we are granted true repentance and we turn away from our sins with His help, He gives us complete forgiveness and new life. That's why He's called worthy.

But then it goes on, "And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, 'To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.' And the four living creatures said, 'Amen.' And the elders fell down and worshiped." All created beings will worship who? God and the Lamb. You say, "Well, there are two separate beings." Then how is it that the Lamb receives the same worship and adoration God does? Because He is one with His Father.

We have an interesting account in Exodus the third chapter. Exodus chapter 3. There's a burning bush, famous in Judaism. And Moses sees the burning bush and he's struck. What is it? It's burning but it's not consumed. And he goes to look, and the angel, the *malak*, speaks to him and begins to communicate with him, and Moses is afraid to look at God. Somehow God is there, manifest in the bush, and that *malak*, that messenger, proceeds to speak and reveals the divine name. "I am that I am. I AM has sent me to you." It is God speaking through the messenger. And what's amazing is that Jacob, in Genesis 48:15-16, says that the God who redeemed him is that messenger. In other words, God appeared in a real way in that *malak*, in that messenger, and spoke directly, just as He had through Jesus the Messiah.

Again, the question is, how does the infinite, eternal God interact with fallen mortals like this? Yes, He is God, and we bow down and worship Him, and we are His servants. But He wanted to make Himself known. I read this testimony from a former Muslim named Shere Khan. He said, "When I was a Muslim, I used to ask Christians, 'If Jesus was really God, why did he eat, sleep, and bleed like us?'" And honestly, I used to ask it with pride, like it was some unbeatable argument. But later, I realized something. That question was not exposing Christianity. It was exposing my misunderstanding of what kind of God Jesus claimed to be. Because the real question is not, "Why would God become weak?" The real question is, "What kind of God would willingly step into human suffering at all?" Islam taught me about a God who was distant and untouchable. But Christianity introduced me to a God who stepped into hunger, exhaustion, grief, pain, betrayal, blood, and suffering with us. And suddenly, His humanity stopped feeling like weakness to me. It became proof of love. If Jesus ate, it means He came close enough to experience hunger beside us. If He slept, it means He embraced the exhaustion we carry. If He bled, it means He did not stand above suffering, watching us from a distance. He entered it Himself.

Philippians 2 says Christ emptied Himself and took on flesh, not because He stopped being God, but because He wanted humanity to finally see what God is actually like. And it turns out God is willing to suffer for the people He loves. That changed everything for me. Because every other religion demanded sacrifice from humanity. Jesus became the sacrifice Himself, and no prophet in history ever claimed that.

Let me say this last thing. If Jesus is God, that means that right now, He sees each one of you. If Jesus is God, that means He knows what you're thinking. If Jesus is God, that also means that when you cry out to Him in private, He hears that prayer. That also means that He is appearing to people around the world at the same time, because He is not limited by time and space as a mortal soul.

A little over 50 years ago, He appeared to a dear friend of mine in India named Yup Padam. At that time, Yup Padam, an untouchable, had become a Maoist communist. He so hated the caste system that he wanted to fight against it and take from the rich and give to the poor. He became an alcoholic and an atheist, a violent man. And in his early 20s, Jesus appeared to him, and he saw the marks of crucifixion. And Jesus stretched out His arms and said, "This much I've done for you. What will you do for me?" Yup was instantly transformed, and he is one of the finest Christians I know on the planet. If you want to see the poor being fed, if you want to see hospitals for the needy, if you want to see people being reached in every position of squalor and hurt and pain, and people delivered from idolatry and the worship of false gods, go and see what He's doing in India.

The beautiful thing is, I can tell you stories of my friends that work in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world, and the extraordinary stories they have told me firsthand of Muslims to whom Jesus appeared and said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." You say, "Well, why should I believe their experience?" You can freely reject it. I'm simply telling you that as you have need, as you cry out to Him, He is near to the brokenhearted. And if Jesus is God, He can ultimately speak for Himself.

So, I encourage every one of you, ask God, "Show me the truth about Jesus. Show me who He really is. Show me the truth of these scriptures that I've heard. Were all these writers, the writers of the Bible, all that wrong and mistaken? Or is He actually who He said He was and who the Bible says that He is?" And even if you cry out in secret and say, "Jesus, help me. I know I'm a sinner. I know I need mercy. I can't help myself. Help me. Change me. Meet me. Forgive me. Heal me." You'll be amazed and shocked to see what Jesus will do. It is my joy to introduce Him to you more fully tonight. Thank you so much.

>> Firstly, I would like to praise. I would like all praise to be to Allah, the creator of the heavens and the earth. May Allah bless those of us who follow His covenant and may He guide those who are yet to taste the light of His guidance.

The topic of today's discussion is, "Is Jesus God?" This topic is one of the most important topics that can be discussed between a Muslim and a Christian, since claiming Jesus is God directly infringes on the oneness of God. Such a person who associates partners with Allah will have a lot to answer for on the day of judgment, which is why we are here today to warn and educate those who have been misled by the misinterpretations of those before them.

I would firstly like to mention what the Quran says in Surah 9, Ayah 31: "The Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah, while the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah. Such are their baseless assertions, only paring the words of earlier disbelievers. May Allah condemn them. How can they be deluded from the truth?"

This intellectual battle between the people of monotheism and polytheism is the same battle that took place between Moses and the Pharaoh in Egypt. In fact, Trinitarian Christianity, especially, is a hybrid of the monotheism of Moses and the polytheism of Egypt. We can call it monopolytheism. I will give many examples and links between the belief systems of those who claim Jesus is God and the religion of Egypt.

Now, when one reads the Torah and the Quran, one can see how much the theology and customs/culture of Egypt the children of Israel had become affected by, especially since they were slaves there for a long time. This is seen in places such as Numbers 11, verse number 5; Exodus 14:11-12; and Numbers 14:2-4, where, for example, they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt." The Quran confirms the same mindset for the children of Israel in Surah 2, Ayah 61. In fact, my monotheism mentions that the elaborate sacrificial system found in Leviticus was because the children of Israel needed a similar priesthood to the type they had witnessed in Egypt. So, a sanitized version was provided for them.

Why have I mentioned this about the influence of Egypt and the Israelites? The reason is because we will see that many of the claims of the Trinitarians resemble the claims of Egypt, and many of the teachings in the Torah refute the claims of Egypt, and by extension, refute the deity of Jesus as well.

The first thing that must be mentioned is that Moses spoke of the oneness of God, as opposed to many gods and triadic formulas of the pagan systems, including Egypt. In Deuteronomy 6:4, Moses says the following: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one." This statement is confirmed by the Quran in Surah 112, Ayah number 1, which says the following: "Say, He is Allah, the One and Only." The word used in the Quran is *Ahad*, and the word used in the Shema of Deuteronomy is *Echad*. Moses is not only confirming that God is one, but that He is absolutely one, which rules out the triadic formulas found in ancient Egypt and what later morphed into the Trinity, and thus rules out Jesus as being God. Why didn't Moses say, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is three gods and one God"? Why say God is absolutely one? The word *Echad* is in no way compatible with the Trinity. Can Dr. Brown give us examples where the word *Echad* is compatible with the Trinity? Please.

Now, coming out of Egypt, where Pharaoh, a man, claimed to be God. The Torah revealed in Numbers 23, verse number 19, that "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent." Also, Hosea 11, verse number 9: "I will not carry out my fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again, for I am God and not a man." Another text is 1 Samuel 15:29, where it says, "He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind, for He is not a human being that He should change His mind." By telling us that God is not a man, we know that any man who claims to be God is a liar, since God has ruled out that He is a man. In its original context, the children of Israel would know that this refers to the likes of Pharaoh, who we know claimed divinity. Since God denies that He is a man and that He does not change, according to Malachi 3:6, we know that God would never incarnate into a man.

The fact that God would never incarnate becomes even more clear when we look at the incident of the golden calf. After witnessing all the miracles and receiving the commandments, the Israelites, still influenced by their time in Egypt, decided to make a physical symbol of Yahweh by copying the Apis bull from Egypt in the form of a golden calf while Moses was absent from them. We read in Exodus 32, verse number 1, the following: "Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around Aaron and said to him, 'Come, make us a god who will go before us. For this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what happened to him.'" Verse 4 says, "Then he took the gold from their hands and fashioned it with an engraven tool and made it into a cast metal calf. And they said, 'This is your God, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.'" Verse 5 makes clear that this calf was meant to be an image of Yahweh.

Now, how did Yahweh respond to this? Let's look at the following text from Psalm 106, verse number 20, where it says, "They traded their majestic God for the image of an ox that eats grass." The Targum also adds that it makes dung. Surah 5, Ayah 75, makes the same argument but related to Christ, where it says, "Christ the son of Mary was no more than a messenger. Many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their daily food. See how Allah makes His signs clear to them. Yes, see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth."

Now, the argument from Psalm 106:20 and Surah 5, Ayah 75, have God denying that any dependent being can ever be God. If it is dependent on sustenance and has to relieve itself, then it cannot be God. According to Psalm 22, a favorite of Dr. Brown, the Messiah drinks breast milk. Can you imagine the Creator of the heavens and the earth needing to rely on breast milk to survive, or he will die? Can you imagine the Creator of the heavens and the earth then relieving himself in a nappy and needing a person to clean him and apply baby powder? According to the Torah and the Quran, claiming such a thing is a mockery of the one true God. We see in other places in the Bible where the prophets make a mockery of pagans for believing in such things about their gods. For example, Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 27, where he says, "What the text says starting about noon, Elijah began to tease them. 'Shout louder,' he's a god. So maybe he's busy. Maybe he's relieving himself. Maybe he's busy someplace. Maybe he's taking a nap and somebody needs to wake him up.'" Why would Elijah mock Baal about him needing to relieve himself if he knew that Yahweh would come to earth one day and drink breast milk and need to relieve himself as well? If an image of a calf that is dependent on grass is an insult to God, then what about a human dependent on breast milk and figs, etc.? Especially when the same word for grass in Psalm 106:20 is used in Genesis for man as well, that man shall eat a *sheeb*, the same word. So, I'd be interested in what Dr. Brown has to say about this.

Taking this further is another point often overlooked by many when it comes to the golden calf. It is reported in Exodus 32:20 that once Moses burnt the calf to ashes, he made the Israelites drink it. Many rabbis and even Christian scholars mention that the reason Moses did this was so that when they later urinate, they will see the so-called God and be reminded of his falsehood. Interestingly, Trinitarians eat and drink the flesh of Jesus. I've come across accounts of Trinitarians online who go to the church alone on Wednesdays to eat and drink the flesh of the god Jesus. If urinating the golden calf out served as evidence of the golden calf being a false god, then Dr. Brown can tell us why, after drinking the blood of Jesus and eating his flesh, does the urine and excrement afterwards not serve as a refutation to Jesus being God? I'd be interested in what the answer is.

Now, connected to the golden calf is another argument found in a speech of Stephen in Acts chapter 7, which says that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 48, Stephen says the following: "However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet Isaiah says." The phrase "made with hands" is a technical term found in the Greek Septuagint for idols. Stephen uses the exact same word for the golden calf in verse 41 of the same chapter. Stephen said this in response to the Jews who believed that God manifested Himself literally in the temple. Stephen denied that God literally dwells in temples and calls such a belief idolatry. So, if God manifesting Himself in the temple is idolatry according to Stephen, then this means that the claim of Trinitarians that the fullness of God and His essence dwelt in the clay temple of Jesus is an even bigger form of idolatry. So, Dr. Brown can answer the following question: Did God literally contain Himself in the clay temple of Jesus? And by extension, was God contained in the womb of a woman? If you say yes, then this is idolatry according to Stephen. And if you say no, then Jesus is not God because God exists separate from him. I look forward to your response.

Let us now look towards the Gospels. It is very well known to scholars who study the historical Jesus that Jesus never claimed to be God. Neither did his disciples claim that he was God. What we have in the New Testament are later Christians who were developing the sources that reached them with regards to Jesus, yet still fall short of claiming Jesus is God with a capital G. Do the Gospels teach that Jesus is God with a capital G, like Trinitarians claim? The answer is an emphatic no.

Let me first mention that nowhere do the Synoptic Gospels claim that Jesus is Yahweh. In fact, they make it clear that Jesus is a mighty agent of God who has limitations, such as him not knowing when the last hour will occur in Mark chapter 13, for example, making statements such as, "Why do you call me good? Or why do you call me good when only God alone is good?" Can Dr. Dr. Brown show from Mark, the earliest gospel, where Mark identifies Jesus as Yahweh and tells us why he doesn't know the date of his return? Now, Dr. Brown has already alluded to Mark allegedly calling Jesus Yahweh when he cited Isaiah chapter 40. I'm going to deal with that soon, inshallah.

Now, when it comes to the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul, scholars have noticed something quite interesting. Both texts are laced with strategic ambiguities designed to catch a Jewish audience and a Hellenistic Gentile audience at the same time. Both texts were designed to accommodate a low Christology and a so-called high Christology. When I say a high Christology, I do not mean that they teach Jesus is God with a capital G or that they teach the Trinity, like Dr. Brown claims.

In the prologue of John, verses 3 and 4, even John makes it clear that Jesus was created as a result of the Word of God, just like the Quran confirms in Surah 3, Ayah number 59. Luke mentions that Jesus grew in wisdom and favor with God. So how can Jesus be the wisdom of God if he had to grow in wisdom and favor? The Quran also confirms that Allah taught Jesus wisdom, which is a direct refutation to the false claim Trinitarians make that Jesus is literally the wisdom/Word of God. In fact, even Isaiah 11 teaches that God will endow the Messiah with the spirit of wisdom.

When one reads the four Gospels correctly and in context, without 4th-century Greek glasses, one will see that while showing how great the Messiah Jesus was, yet nearly every part of his life is a refutation to his deity. For example, the birth of Jesus described in Matthew 1, verse number 18, and Luke 1:35, and John 1, verse number 13, all describe the person of Jesus as a created being who came into existence at the time of his virgin birth. Jesus did not pre-exist his virgin birth. You may be thinking that the prologue of John teaches that Jesus pre-existed as a Word, when actually Trinitarians have butchered the prologue and the Gospel of John entirely. Right now, I am reading my opening statement, but I wrote this without hearing what Dr. Brown would present. So if he has already appealed to John 1:1 as proof that Jesus pre-existed as God, then I will deal with these specific points during the time I have for rebuttals.

Right now, I have another question I would like Dr. Brown to answer when he comes back to reply to me. What do Trinitarians think John 1:14 means when it says "the Word became flesh"? Option number one: It means that God became a human being and was no longer God. This is impossible, as God cannot cease being the all-powerful, infinite God. Or option number two: That it means that God became a human and yet still remained God, which is also impossible and absurd, as how can one person be infinite and finite at the same time, all-powerful and not all-powerful at the same time, all-knowing and not all-knowing at the same time, independent and dependent at the same time? This is as absurd as saying that a circle became a square and yet still remained a circle. So, which of these two options does Dr. Brown claim is the meaning of "the Word became flesh"? Or does Dr. Brown have another way of explaining this? Let's see.

In fact, the real meaning of "the Word became flesh" is the following: In its Jewish context, it means that Jesus is an incarnation of wisdom, not the way Trinitarians claim, but the way Jews claimed Moses was an incarnation.

Of the Torah/wisdom, meaning a perfect representation of God's wisdom. Muslims will recall the report where Aisha said that the prophet, peace be upon him, was a walking, talking Quran. John, who was writing polemics against Jews who were using texts such as Deuteronomy chapter 34, verse number 10, to claim that Moses was the greatest prophet, instead made the claim that Jesus was the true representation of the wisdom of God.

Also, for his Hellenistic gentile audience, the word became flesh referred to the baptism where the word/spirit indwelt Jesus, as found in the synoptic gospels as well. By claiming the Logos indwelt Jesus, he could appeal to Gentiles and Greek-influenced Hellenistic Jews by saying that Jesus was a hero indwelt by the Logos that God created first and through which the rest of creation was created, since God was allegedly too transcendent to deal with creation directly. This would give Jesus more credibility in the eyes of the gentile pagans, since the Logos was seen as ancient and the first created thing in Greek philosophy. This is one of the ways where the Gospel of John can be read on two levels: through a Semitic lens and also through a Hellenistic lens. Both ways fall short of the Nyan way of reading the text.

"How much time do we have?"

"Uh, 14 minutes."

"14 minutes. Okay."

"Nine minutes."

"Eight and a half."

"Yeah. Yeah."

Even the miracles of Jesus prove he is not God. There are passages in the Bible that state that Jesus could not do miracles, such as in the Gospel of Mark. There is even a text where Jesus tries to heal a person who is blind. After attempting to heal the person, Jesus asks him if he can see, and the blind man confirms that he can see slightly, but not properly. After this, Jesus finishes the healing with a second attempt. Now, bear in mind that according to Acts 2:22, Peter confirms that it was the Father working miracles through Jesus. So why did Jesus fail in his first attempt to heal the blind man? Did God the Father make a mistake? Or did the Father make Jesus have to attempt twice to fully heal the man to show the limitations of Jesus, knowing full well that this story would be recorded and serve as evidence against those who claim Jesus is God, capital G? Except for those who do not have eyes to see or ears to hear.

The final part of my opening statement is the fact that the death of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, proves he is not God. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus on the cross accused God of abandoning him. How can God abandon God? Such a statement is proof that Jesus is not God. Dr. Brown may try to claim that Jesus was appealing to Psalm 22, which concludes in victory. But whether Jesus was appealing to Psalm 22 is debatable. But even if it was, it still doesn't address the point. Whether the psalmist ends the psalm with trust and faith in God doesn't change the fact that at the start of the psalm, he genuinely is asking God why he has abandoned him. So the question still remains: Can God be abandoned and separate from God? I would like Dr. Brown to answer with a yes or no.

I conclude my opening statement by showing how the death of the lamb, Jesus, takes us back to Egypt, once again bringing us full circle in the Torah. Moses refuses to sacrifice lambs in Egypt, calling it an abomination to the Egyptians. He knew that killing the lamb would offend them, since they gave divinity to such animals, just like in India today where slaughtering certain animals can even lead to lynching. To the Israelites growing up around the Egyptians who worshiped animals such as a lamb, the command by God to slaughter a lamb and eat it would have left a powerful impression on them regarding how false such a deity is. So if, according to Moses, the death of a lamb is a reminder to the children of Israel of the falsity of Egyptian gods, then how is the death of the lamb, Jesus, not also a reminder to Trinitarians that Jesus is not God? Especially since we are told in many different places that God is immortal.

"I'm done now."

"Six."

"6 minutes. Okay. So, I've got the 10 questions that I asked in my opening statement here. If Dr. Brown wants to, um, have the paper for his rebuttals, to him, I'm going to use the remaining of my time to start, um, responding to Dr. Brown's opening statement. Some of it I'm going to skip on that until Dr. Brown answers my questions in his first rebuttals. Okay. Okay. So, um, okay. So Dr. Brown admits that no one has seen God. He himself quotes John chapter 1. He himself quotes 1 Timothy, I believe, chapter 6. He himself quotes Exodus chapter 33. So now Dr. Brown, he tries to, he tries to create a dilemma. He says, but there's other texts such as Exodus chapter 24, where it says they saw God. So Dr. Brown's solution to this is there must be more than one person in the Godhead. This must be the Trinity that, um, nobody can see the Father, but you can see the Son. Now, the thing with this is, this argument is not a New Testament argument. In fact, Dr. Brown is actually going against what the New Testament actually teaches on these issues, and the Torah itself. You don't need two gods to solve the issue of whether, um, anybody saw God in, in the Torah itself. The New Testament answers this, and so does the Torah. For example, when God says to, um, uh, Moses, that you cannot see me and live, the question is, if, if, if the Son is the same God as the Father, how is it that we can't see the Father and live, but we can see the Son and live? Are they not supposed to be the same God?

Now, for some of the early church, before Nicaea, that argument could make sense because they claimed that the Logos was a created, inferior God that was, um, as Colossians says, the image of the invisible God. So when you're looking at the Logos, you're looking at a representation of God, not literally God. But that doesn't work for Trinitarians because the Son is supposed to be the same God. Moreover, did they actually see God in Exodus chapter 24? Not according to the New Testament. According to the New Testament, Hebrews 11:27, Moses didn't see God with his physical eyes. He saw God with faith, through symbols. The Trinitarian commentators tell you, like through the cloud and other symbols. Also, Deuteronomy chapter 4, God denies that everybody saw him, and is harmonized, um, according to, um, a scholar by the name of Tigge, who Dr. Brown appeals to many times in his book. The, the book of Deuteronomy solves the so-called alleged inconsistencies found in the book of Exodus on whether they saw God or didn't see God by making it clear that they only heard the voice of God, which came from heaven, and what they saw on earth were representations, such as the burning bush, such as the cloud. So the Torah itself solves the issue. We don't need two gods to solve the issue. Moreover, in Exodus chapter 24, the way the text says they saw God was in a vision. It uses two words. The Septuagint version, which was the Bible of the New Testament, says they only saw the place where God stood. And did God come down to the mountain like Dr. Brown, um, alleges? No, he didn't. It tells you there was a sapphire pavement, which indicated that they were seeing an opening into the heavens, a vision into the heavens of the throne room. And the fact that it says that they saw, um, where the place where, where God stood, means that they saw the footstool. So they didn't actually see God. And this is not just an interpretation that comes from Jewish rabbis. This comes from Trinitarians as well. I've got all my sources here. And this argument has to be the case. Dr. Brown's, um, harmonization cannot be the case because it goes, flies in the face of the New Testament, which I will elaborate further on in, um, my period.

Now, regarding, um, God coming down in Genesis chapter 18 and 19, um, those were angels. And when I got more time in the first rebuttal period, I'm going to prove that none of them were God, according to Genesis 18 itself and Genesis chapter 19, and according to the interpretation of the New Testament. In fact, Genesis 18 and 19 are the biggest proof for agency and the biggest proof that when it comes to this argument, the rabbis are actually right that it refers to angelic references and agents when it comes to God.

"How much time?"

"Uh, one and a half."

"One and a half minutes. Okay. And when Dr. Brown says that, um, Jesus was, um, called God in many other places, I'll deal with that. But I just, before I get to my main rebuttals, I'm going to tell everybody here, in the Bible, bear in mind, angels are called God. Humans are called God. Satan is called God in the New Testament. Yeah. So that's not a good argument. You have to prove that Jesus was called God with a capital G. And every proof text Dr. Brown gave is problematic for many reasons. Also, when Dr. Brown says Jesus was worshiped, those same words are applied to other created beings as well, whether angels, whether humans. The word Dr. Brown claims that is only for God, latreia, is never applied to Jesus. Not even in Revelation chapter 22, verse 3, I believe. I'll deal with that in my rebuttal period when Dr. Brown, um, responds to my points, and then I'll go through the list properly. So I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you very much."

"I I just want to say one thing though, um, before I do my rebuttal. I know you meant no harm, but it is a violation of the debating rules to begin to refute during the opening statements. So that took five minutes of time to rebut that should have been left for rebuttal. So, just in fairness, that's why we each give opening statements only."

"Okay."

"So, I, I know you didn't do it intentionally, but since you said to seek to set a high standard here, I just want to bring that to attention that it violates the rules and it's actually unfair. But that's fine. It, it doesn't hurt the overall."

"The only reason I did that, Dr. Brown, was because in our first debate, you did, um, um, do rebuttals to my opening statement in that debate. So I just did the same thing. If you watched the debate, our previous..."

"No, I read, I read my statement that I was written in advance. Yeah, it was written in advance, sir. I only read my statement. Yeah."

"In any case, here we go. 10 minutes. Thank you."

"Um, so, number one, those who listened to my statement realized that it already rebutted much of what followed. And probably 90% of Zakir's statement is based on a misunderstanding of the incarnation, as I said upfront would be the case. But let's start here, and I hope Zakir, you have the integrity to say, 'The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.' You said that word means absolute unity, and that's why Moses chose it. You could not have possibly been more wrong. If he wanted to say absolute unity, he would have said 'echad.' Where is the first time 'echad' occurs in the Hebrew Bible? Genesis chapter 1, verse 5. And there was morning and evening, one day. So, one day is the unity of morning and evening. When is the second time 'echad' is used in the Hebrew Bible? Genesis 2:24. And the man and woman, the two became one flesh. The two becoming one. And throughout the building of the Tabernacle in Exodus, over and over, the many different pieces of the Tabernacle make one, eh, Tabernacle. So, of course, it speaks perfectly of God's complex unity. Zakir, I hope you have the integrity to admit to misrepresentation of Hebrew. For the record, although I have no intention here of combating the Quran, I do want to make a correction. The Quran states that Ezra is the son of Allah. According to Judaism, there is no canonical text in Judaism, no canonical text in Judaism that says that Ezra is the son of Allah. The idea that the deity of Jesus detracts from his oneness only if you misunderstand what we believe and continue to refer to two gods or three gods. I did quote from Numbers 23 and 1st Samuel 15, saying that God is not a man. The question is, can he manifest himself in human form? Are you telling me that Almighty God is unable to do that? That the God who created the universe is unable, while sitting on a throne in heaven, to fill the whole universe and to come and walk among us if he chooses to, without diminishing his deity at all? Genesis 18, if you'll read it through, and I'm very happy to dig into that at length, you will see that Yahweh, with two angels, comes and speaks with Abraham and Sarah. And then at the end of Genesis 18, and he eats and he drinks. So if you're going to mock the idea of God coming in our midst, eating, drinking, in Genesis 18, his feet are actually washed. According to the Hebrew Bible, Zakir says he accepts that testimony. According to the Hebrew Bible, Abraham washed his feet. And yet in Genesis 19:24, when Sodom and Gomorrah are judged by divine fire, it says that Yahweh rained down fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven. Yahweh on earth rained down fire and brimstone from heaven. When you read Genesis 18, at the end of Genesis 18, Yahweh has an extensive conversation back and forth with Abraham. And then what happens? You get to Genesis 19, and two angels came to Sodom. Genesis 18 says when Yahweh was done talking with Abraham, read it for yourself, that he left. He left, and then two angels came to Sodom. Three people came to Abraham: Yahweh and two angels. When Yahweh is done talking with Abraham, he leaves, and the two angels go to Sodom. It is explicit and it is absolutely clear. We were told that Stephen said that God could not be contained in humanity. Well, he's not contained. He's not contained. He's infinite, eternal God. But at the same time, he fills the universe, he comes down in our midst and takes on human form and does it in the person of Jesus. But if Stephen did not believe that he was deity, why does he pray to Jesus and call him Lord? You don't pray to a created being, and you don't call that created being, to whom you pray, Lord. Zakir mentions historical critical scholarship of the New Testament. So I would like to ask you, with all respect, do you accept historical critical scholarship of the Quran? Do you accept the scholarship of men like Stephen Shoemaker in his book 'Creating the Quran,' who have a very, very different view of the origin of the Quran than I'm sure my Muslim friends have here? Do you accept historical critical scholarship of the Quran? If not, you're using unequal weights and unequal measures, which is against Judaism and Christianity and Islam. You said, according to John 1, the prologue, that it says the Word created Jesus. It does not say that at all. How can he grow in wisdom? Because he willingly limited himself. How could he not know the day of his return when he was on the earth? Because he willingly limited himself. He laid down his divine prerogatives. You know what it's like? It's like a big, muscular dad who could rip you in half, playing with his little baby in the most tender, gentle way. He withholds his strength for gentleness. So Jesus truly took on human form, and yes, was born and crawled and had to learn to talk and walk and had feelings like everyone else, and yet was God alone at the same time. The question is not, can my mind wrap around that? The question is, is it true? Am I going to limit God by my finite understanding? My finite brain cannot wrap around the idea that God always existed, and yet we all know it's true. God is so far beyond our finitude. And I wonder if Zakir can explain the 'memra' theology, which explains John 1, the Word, the Memra, which is the Creator in Jewish tradition. When it says that Jesus could not do miracles, it wasn't he was limited. What does it say? He was amazed at the people's unbelief. Why is it he only healed a few sick people in Mark 6? Why didn't he do many miracles? Because they didn't come. Because the crowds didn't come with the sick people. That's why he couldn't heal them because they weren't there. And the ones that did come, the few sick people he healed. And if he chooses to heal someone in two stages, it doesn't say he attempted, he tried. Those were words added to it. I'm not going to do that to the Quran and add words to your sacred scripture and and and tell you that it says other than what it says. And it's a shame that so much of what's being represented can only be represented by misrepresenting what the New Testament sources say. For example, we were told none of the disciples, none of the disciples say that Jesus was God. I, I read you verse after verse after verse from disciples. But when he is called by Paul, when he is called by Peter, when he is called by others, 'our God and Savior Jesus,' that's not lowercase G, 'our God and Savior.' When he is included in the prayer with a singular verb in 1st Thessalonians and in 2nd Thessalonians, dig into the Greek grammar, when he's included in a singular verb together with the Father with a prayer of one, it is because he is himself God. As to the question of, quote, 'How could God abandon God?' Jesus, as a human being, felt abandoned and said so. And it's because he took the weight of our sin on him. He was fully human, and he was fully God. And as a human being, he cried out. It is as a human being that he prays. Let's just look at questions. So we answered you about why didn't Moses say, 'Hear, O Israel.' In fact, he used the perfect word to use. And Elijah mocking Baal was because he is Baal was a, a false deity and was so limited. In fact, according to, to Canaanite mythology, the gods had sex. The gods did all these kinds of things. No, our God is transcendent, and in his transcendence, can also walk among us. Show me anywhere where it says that it is impossible for God to manifest himself or walk among us while remaining eternal God. We're told that Moses didn't see God. It says expressly in Numbers 12 that he saw the 'tselem,' the image of God. It says the people as a whole in Deuteronomy 4 did not see his 'tselem,' his image. But it says that Moses saw the 'tselem' of God. And I ask you, if God wanted to say that 74 people in Exodus 24 saw the God of Israel, if he wanted to say it any more clearly, how could he have said it any more clearly than saying it? And that God did not lift a hand against the others. He should have judged them. He should have hurt them. But he didn't. Why? Because in his mercy, he reveals himself to us through his Son. The challenge: Can I show from Mark's Gospel where he identifies Jesus as Yahweh? This is one of the examples I use again at the outset. He shows him forgiving sins, which only Yahweh can do. He shows him riding, coming in the clouds, which Yahweh does. He shows him walking on the water, which Yahweh does. He shows him having power over nature, which Yahweh does. And he identifies him with Yahweh. 'Prepare the way of the Lord,' Isaiah chapter 40, quoted in Mark 1, is now 'prepare the way of Jesus.' So, 'prepare the way of Yahweh' is equated with Jesus. So Mark is one of the strongest presentations of all. So Zakir says it's the earliest of the Gospels, and yet that gives one of the strongest presentations of all for the deity of Jesus. All right, I'll come back to some other questions that I didn't get to here in the rest of my rebuttal time. Thank you."

"In his opening statement is, 'ye call Jesus a part of God.' This is being recorded. Now, this is exactly what I meant when it is not compatible with the Trinity, and you'll see from every example. Now, first, Dr. Brown says they should use another word, but actually has some connotations that are not befitting for God, like loneliness, for example, but it means one, but also means alone. 'Echad' is a perfect word to use, as Mark 12, when the, um, when Jesus recites the Shema, the Jew says to him, 'You are right, for He is one, and besides Him there is no other.' That shows the word is perfect. Now, to counterattack this, Dr. Brown used verses where 'echad' is used in a compound sense, but every example Dr. Brown gives, such as the pieces, uh, being put together to make one temple, man and woman coming together to make one flesh, and there's another example where, um, grapes, um, become one cluster. Every single one is an example of parts that make up a whole. So for that to be compatible with the Trinity, this would mean that the Father is a part of God, which Dr. Brown did say in his opening statement, 'Jesus is a part of God.' So subconsciously, all this heresy, the heresy of partialism, it always comes out when you question Trinitarians. So this would mean that if you want to make it compatible with the Trinity, the Father is a part of God, the Son is a part of God, the Spirit is a part of God, and they make up one God, unless that's what you believe. All those examples you cited failed. So either you make God into three in one, three parts that make one, or you take 'echad' in the absolute sense. By the way, the same word 'echad' is translated in Ezekiel 33:24 by numerous Trinitarian translations about Abraham as one person. The Greek counterpart to it in Galatians 3:20, by a Trinitarian translation, the Amplified Bible, translates it as God being one person. So that's done. As far as Ezra being the son of Allah, Ezra is a bad translation. Um, I don't know why I wrote Ezra. It should be, that's what Arabic says, that's, um, that's, um, about the Jews in Medina, as the classical scholars say. So if Dr. Brown tries to say, but what about in other sources? Why doesn't he mention that? That's limited to a certain sect in Medina. But if that's the case, Matthew mentions zombies coming into Jerusalem, and no other source on the face of the earth mentions that. So if you try to say that it's only, um, because it only mentions that and no other source mentions Jews believe that, and that's an argument against the Quran, then you've argued against Matthew.

Now, in Genesis 18, Dr. Brown says that one of the angels, one of them was Yahweh, and the other two were angels. But actually, according to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews says that you should be good hosts, for you never know when you're hosting angels. So even Hebrews understood that as angels. Trinitarian commentators say that that refers to the story of Abraham. Surely Hebrews would have said, 'You should be good hosts. You never know, you might be serving God.' Now, why is one of them referred to as Yahweh in Genesis 18, and the other two, um, as angels? Because one of them is functioning as the mouthpiece of Yahweh specifically for Abraham, whereas the other two are companions whose mission is to go to Sodom. Now, how do we know that that, um, person is not literally Yahweh in Genesis chapter 18? Number one, the New Testament rules out that the Son was anywhere involved in the Old Testament. Hebrews chapter 1 says, um, 'In the past, God spoke in many different ways, but in these last days, God spoke through a Son.' So the Son wasn't involved in the Old Testament. But Hebrews chapter 2's, um, verse number two, is, um, more devastating, because the book of Hebrews uses an argument that the Gospel is more superior to the, um, Old Testament. Why? Because the Old Testament was given through angels, and the Gospel's given through the Son. So how could that be the case that the Son was involved in the Old Testament in any capacity? To claim that, you're refuting Hebrews' own argument. That's why there's many Trinitarians who call all these, um, so-called texts where Yahweh is walking on earth as created angels. Even Augustine, uh, mentions that, and there's many commentators that mention that. Now, another thing, uh, proof in Genesis chapter 18 that that angel is not literally Yahweh, because he's standing on earth speaking to Yahweh to Abraham, and yet he says about going to Sodom and Gomorrah, he says, 'I will descend from heaven.' The Hebrew word 'yarad' always means for God descending from heaven and going to Sodom. Why would he be on earth claiming that he's going to descend from heaven unless he was speaking for God? And then how do we know that means really angels going to Sodom and not literally God? The next verse literally says that the angels turned towards Sodom. And then in Genesis chapter 19, verse number 13, the two angels tell Lot that Yahweh has sent us to destroy this place. So in Genesis 19:4, when it says that Yahweh destroyed Sodom from Yahweh in heaven, number one, the Yahweh that destroyed Sodom is referring to the two angels as his agents. And when it says 'from Yahweh in heaven,' it's giving you the real source. The real source is Yahweh in heaven, which proves that this is about agency. Moreover, if you think that that verse is strange, that why does it say 'Yahweh on earth' and 'from Yahweh in heaven'? There's examples, numerous examples all over the Torah where names replace pronouns. There's people who, like for example, there's a man by the name of Lamech, and he speaks to his wives, and he doesn't say, 'Oh, my wives.' It says, 'Oh, you wives of Lamech.' And John Calvin says that the reason Yahweh is mentioned a second time is to make it more emphatic, more strong. Now, Dr. Brown says that I'm using, um, critical scholarship, but I use that for the Quran. I engage with scholars all the time when it comes to critical arguments. But the amazing thing is, most of the scholarship that I've cited, Dr. Brown appeals to them in his own books. And I said the same thing in the last debate when Dr. Brown claimed my scholarship was 'shi' that most of these scholars you cite in your own books. Now, um, Dr. Brown tried to say that in Exodus 24, they saw God, but you're going against the New Testament, and the New Testament, you're bound by it. Hebrews 11:27 makes it clear Moses didn't see God with his physical eyes. So that rules out Numbers 12 as well, by the way. And Trinitarian scholars tell you this. Moreover, you didn't respond to the Septuagint saying they only saw the place where God stood, which means they saw the foot, and that God wasn't literally on a mountain because those sapphire pavement makes it clear they were seeing a vision into heaven.

Now, regarding Stephen's argument, how much time do I..."

"Okay. Regarding Stephen's argument, Dr. Brown says, 'We don't believe that the body, the clay temple of Jesus contained the, the, um, um, the essence of God.' But I've got Trinitarian commentators on the very verse that Dr. Brown cited where Paul says that the fullness of God dwells bodily in Jesus. They say it includes the essence. But let's just say it doesn't include the essence. Let's just say it includes a little bit of God. The Jews who believed that God's presence were in the Temple, they didn't believe God was contained by the Temple with his essence. They believed that God manifested himself in the Temple. Yet, according to Stephen, that was still idolatry. So the question still remains, if that's idolatry for God to just manifest himself in the Temple, then how is it not idolatry for God to be, even if not contained, manifest him in a clay temple of Jesus? So that's idolatry, and Stephen uses the same word for the golden calf. So that means God cannot incarnate into a human, or it's idolatry, according to Stephen. Now, um, Dr. Brown still needs to respond to my point regarding the, you see, the Trinitarian tries to say you can't point to the limitations of Jesus, that he eats, he drinks, he goes to the toilet, because we believe in the incarnation. But the argument that Psalm 106, verse number 20, uses is responding to the golden calf. But guess what? The Egyptians used to say that the, the Apis bull was an incarnation. So if our argument is misrepresenting Trinitarianism, then the Bible is misrepresenting the Egyptians. The fact of the matter is, the God of Abraham doesn't care about these sophisticated responses. It's a simple fact. If the thing is dependent, it is not God. That's why Elijah can mock false gods and use arguments such as believing himself. Why would he use such an argument when he knew in the future those same arguments would apply to Yahweh allegedly coming in the flesh? Now, Dr. Brown says that, oh, 2 Peter 1, verse number 1, um, um, Peter calls Jesus God, capital G. Every single text that Dr. Brown cited, they call, they claim there's a so-called Granville Sharp rule that means that Jesus is included as the God and Savior. That's disputed by scholars. In fact, even in the manuscripts, there's ambiguity. But 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse number 1, is a beautiful example to refute you that this rule is false. How do we know this? Because the very next verse, it differentiates between God and Jesus. So that seals the deal. Nowhere in the Bible is Jesus called God, capital G. Um, Dr. Brown says about the two, two stages of healing of Jesus, and that the text, um, that says that, um, Jesus could not do miracles was because of their faith. Matthew's Gospel changed the 'could not' into 'did not,' as William Barclay mentions, is because Matthew had the issue with Jesus being limited. So he changed the wording. As far as the two-stage, um, attempts to heal the blind man, Matthew's Gospel omitted the story. Luke's Gospel omitted the story, and John tried to spiritualize, spiritualize it, according to James F. McGrath in his book, um, 'John's Apologetic Christology.' Dr. Brown said that, how can Jesus grow in wisdom? But in his books, Dr. Brown said that, um, the Son didn't cease being God, he just clothed himself in flesh. But now Dr. Brown's telling us that the Son, um, um, ran out of knowledge. I'll stop there."

"I'm so glad we get to do this. This is wonderful. I thoroughly enjoy these moments. Again, I mean no disrespect in any comments. My critique of use of scholarship is the inconsistency. For example, he'll refer to a Greek grammarian if it agrees with his point. And then you have a rule that is overwhelmingly recognized by translators and grammarians. He's going to throw it out. That's what I find interesting. The use of 'echad' instead of 'yachid' was quite incorrect. Just go through the Hebrew scriptures, and that will show it. But yes, 'echad' can mean alone. 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.' Exactly. Which is what we believe. There's one God and one God only. It's a, it's a message of the entire Bible that I will die for. I imagine you will as well. Let's, let me also point out, I gave numerous verses about Jesus being the co-creator, all things being made by him and for him. I gave verses about all of creation worshiping him with the same worship that they give to God. Those are not dealt with at all. At all. Thomas explicitly calls him, 'My Lord and my God.' And the verses that you were told are problematic, they're not problematic. Check translation after translation after translation. You will see the reason the Septuagint struggles with Exodus 24 is because it's so blatant and clear. You have other Jewish traditions, the Targums and things could have been quoted where they have to change the wording of the Hebrew because the Hebrew is too clear in terms of what they saw and experienced. Um, let me just get my proper list out here. Sorry about that. Um, Matthew says that Jesus did not do miracles there. Correct? Also, he's amazed at their unbelief. Why? Because he could not, because the people didn't come. There's no contradiction. You don't have to read things in. I'm not telling you here how to read the Quran. We're being told that this writer changed this in the New Testament. This writer changed that in the New Testament. This one twisted this to make it. No, just take it as it is. If you can't accept it as it is, that's fine. If you say, 'I reject the authority of the New Testament.' Fine. But don't go changing it. I'm not trying to change the Quran to mess with your beliefs. So, you have to either accept what they're writing. You can reject the authority. Say, 'I don't accept the New Testament.' That's fine. But please don't twist it and change it and say this meant this and actually meant this and the other. I can come up with commentators that say anything about anything. What does that actually prove? Nothing. John 12 says that Isaiah saw Jesus. It says he saw Jesus in Isaiah the 6th chapter. He saw Jesus, the one who suffers in Isaiah 53. We were told there's no reference to the Son in the Old Testament. Well, there you have it. And where is it quoting your throne, O God, is forever and ever? Hebrews 1 calling him God explicitly, in the Hebrew, 'Explicit, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.' Explicitly about Jesus. Romans 9:5, you may have some grammatical arguments against it, but the strongest case is that Jesus is called God there as well. Uh, God going down. Yahweh is saying he'll go down in Genesis 9:18. Where does it say 'from heaven'? Could it just be going down geographically? For example, when you go out of Jerusalem, you go down. When you go into Jerusalem, you go up because it's higher. Could it be going down to the plains there in Sodom? Going down. That simple. And I want to challenge every one of you, if you don't have a Bible, just go to biblegateway.com or any site like that. You read through Genesis 18 and 19 for yourself. Forget me. Forget Zakir. Forget all of our words. Forget all of our studies. Forget all of our claims. Read it for yourself. It's been shocking and amazing as I've seen religious Jews read that text aside from commentaries, and their eyes are opened, and they are shocked. Moses, it says, saw the one that was invisible. So, it can be through spiritual eyes that our eyes are opened. We see the one invisible. Let's see where else we want to go next. Some of the questions. Eating Jesus' flesh, drinking his blood. I'm not Roman Catholic. We don't literally do that. It was a metaphor. When he was having the Last Supper with his disciples, he said to them, 'This is my body. Eat it.' Well, they weren't, they weren't eating his body. Did they grab his? No, they didn't go bite off his arm. It's metaphorical. When he says, 'You have to eat my flesh, drink my blood,' it is metaphorical. Other questions here. What does John? What does Dr. Brown think John 1:14 means? It means the Word, which refers to certain aspects of who God is, that the Word became human. It does not say that God contained himself fully in humanity. That his fullness dwelt in humanity while his fullness also exists throughout the universe. Because you cannot limit God. All these ideas of limiting God are so foreign to me, as someone who believes in this absolute unity, are so foreign to me because there is one God and one God only. Other questions here that I didn't get to, uh, how does Dr. Brown feel about the fact that his belief in the deity of Jesus and the Trinity is clearly returned back to the very Egyptian paganism that Moses was sent to refute? I can no more relate to that than believing in Santa Claus. It has nothing to do with my beliefs whatsoever. Here, here's, let me just present something to you. Okay, I've got a few more points I could go through. I, I, I just want to reiterate that overwhelming evidence I gave, text after text after text through the New Testament that present Jesus as Yahweh and manifesting him in this world. That text after text, the vast majority were not treated at all. All right, maybe Zakir will get to them in, in, in the last segment. But I, I want to present something here. All right. There was a Jewish rabbi who made the comment that it's not fair to take the best of your religion and compare it to the worst of someone else's religion. I have not said a syllable that caricatures your beliefs as Muslims. I certainly hope I haven't. I've not said a syllable that paints a picture of what you believe as a Muslim that's contrary to what you believe, because that would be unfair and unethical. Now, I might say I don't accept the Quran as scripture. If I did, I'd be a Muslim. If you accepted the Bible as scripture, you'd be a follower of Jesus. But I don't misrepresent your beliefs so as to refute them. I, I, I do my best to understand what you're saying and then say, 'Here's where I differ.' Yet, for Zakir to refute my beliefs, he has to misrepresent what I believe. He has to change it into two gods or three gods. And it's, it's he has to change New Testament texts. He has to tell us, well, this one we can accept, but this one we can't accept. And you'll find a scholar that's going to back this point, but if the same scholar rejects his other point, he'll reject that. It's the inconsistency that concerns me. And it is the fact that it is a misrepresentation of what I believe. Represent what I believe rightly and fairly, then refute it. Fair enough. And if we differ, we differ. But please don't misrepresent what I believe so as to refute it. It, it would be as well. I'm not even going to say anything because I don't want to insult you, but I am not going to caricature your beliefs in order to refute them. I'll do my best to be honest with your beliefs and say, 'Here's why I reject them,' with all respect. When I said that the Quran so misquoted Ezra there, but when he said it's someone else, and I said that this is not found in any of the canonical texts of Judaism, that's just something to think about. Just something to think about. I don't have an answer for it because I'm not a Muslim. It's not my, my issue. My issues are issues in the Bible. The fact that Matthew is the only one to record something. Yeah, that's part of our canonical text. So, in our canonical text, Matthew records what happened at the time of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And let me just see here. The idea that Maimonides, by the way, said that God gave Israel the sacrificial system because they needed the sanitized version of what they found in, in Egypt. First, sacrifices were part of Israelite faith before they went into Egypt. That's number one. And number two, if you're a traditional Jew, as Maimonides was, Leviticus 11:35 to 12:04, then, then you would know that he believed that the Torah was the blueprint of heaven. That according to Psalm 119, that that the Torah had been settled in heaven before. So God did not accommodate the Egyptian system. It's like you're actually arguing that the Torah accommodated an Egyptian system so the Israelites would feel at home. God forbid. So I encourage you, as you have opportunity, to listen again to my opening statement, listen to everything I read about the pre-existence of Jesus in his own words, that he existed with the Father before the world came, that he came from God and was returning to God, it's recounted of him that all things were created by him and for him, and see if that's been refuted. See if the fact that all creation worships God and the Lamb. If that's been refuted, this is the worship that comes to God alone, and yet it comes to the Lamb as well. Why? Because God and the Lamb are one. God, the one and only God, complex in his unity. And then ask, why is text after text after text, I could have given more text after text from the Hebrew Bible about Yahweh applied to Jesus directly in the New Testament? I would say for everything I've said, maybe five or 10% has been addressed. Go back and listen and think for yourselves, and may God give you the courage to follow the truth. Revered. Thank you."

"Thank you so much. 10 minutes."

"Give me more time. I'll respond to everything. So, it's an, as Sheikh Ahmed used to say, it's an amazing situation. I'm being accused of limiting God and, um, also, um, misrepresenting Dr. Brown's beliefs. I'm not the one limiting God. Psalm 106:20 is limiting God that he doesn't eat and, um, he doesn't, um, excrete. I'm not limiting God. Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, is limiting God in Acts chapter 7, where he calls just believing that God's presence manifests in the Temple is idolatry. So how much more is God being in Jesus idolatry? Now, Dr. Brown said, 'Would the Torah accommodate Egyptian systems?' What Maimonides is saying is that the Israelites came out of Egypt, they saw all this stuff, so they needed some visible, um, priesthood and rituals and that to sanitize themselves and wean off all the paganism they were around. Dr. Brown says, 'Would the Torah do that?' But yet Dr. Brown is telling us the Torah is teaching that God incarnated. Egyptians said that Pharaoh was an incarnation of God. God had two natures. The Egyptians believed that Pharaoh had two natures that, um, um, you can eat and drink your God to get closer to him. Dr. Brown says it's metaphorical. So the refutation of Exodus chapter 32 is a metaphorical refutation to you. Moreover, in John chapter 6, it's literal because some of his disciples hearing these words actually apostatized when they heard the, the Jesus of John saying, 'Eat my flesh, for it is real food.' And the majority of Christians throughout history, in the largest sect in Christendom today, believe it's literal. So, um, um, now, regarding, um, the angel in Genesis chapter 18, that going down doesn't mean from heaven. Benjamin Summers, in his book 'Bodies of God,' mentions that this is what it means. Dr. Brown appeals to him in his book. The Cambridge Bible Commentary mentions this because other texts in Genesis use the same word about God coming down from heaven. How do we know it doesn't mean God walking down south to Sodom? Because that angel disappears, according to the text, and it's the two angels in the next verse who are not Yahweh, even according to Dr. Brown, who go there. So it's explained by the Torah, we don't need two gods. Now, Dr. Brown keeps going on about, but notice he's not dealing with. Every single text Dr. Brown cited is a text showing 'echad' being used in the sense where parts make a whole. So do you believe that the Trinity consists of three parts that make the one God? So each one is 33% God? This is why the Quran says that they, um, call Allah the third of three, and they say the Quran's misrepresenting them. I know the Quran's just getting down to, um, getting past all these, um, um, excuses and getting straight to the point. Now, am I misrepresenting the Trinity? In fact, I'm in line with the biblical prophets. For example, in Isaiah 44, from verse 9 to 20, Isaiah's mocking the idol worshippers. So, this is what the Jewish Study Bible says: 'The prophet mercilessly lampoons people who make their own gods to worship, implicitly contrasting them with people who worship the true God. The former worship their own creation. The latter, much more sensibly, worship their Creator.' Deuter, Isaiah, to some extent, misrepresents or misunderstands the actual nature of idolatry as practiced in the ancient Near East. However, pagans did not believe that idols were really God, but they believed that the presence of the God entered the idol as the result of complex rituals. So, the pagans didn't believe that the idol was God, but it only filled the presence of God. Yet, Isaiah mocked the vessel. He spoke, he mocked the material, um, vessel, the, he attacked the physical aspect of it. So, when Dr. Brown is telling us that God's presence was in Jesus, we can speak about the limitations of the physical, um, um, the, the physical aspect of it. And if we're misrepresenting Dr. Brown, well, we're misrepresenting just like Isaiah misrepresented the idol worshippers. Now, Dr. Brown says in Hebrews 1, verse number 6, Jesus is called God, but he's lowercase 'god.' Why? Because the next verse tells you he has a God, for God, your God has, and, um, carries on like that. Lowercase 'g.' Romans 9:5. Dr. Brown admitted that the Trinitarians themselves can't, um, um, agree whether it really means Jesus is God. The Revised..."

Standard Version doesn't translate it that way. So, and even if even if it was um the case that he's called God there, you'd have to actually give us evidence why we should accept um any claim that Paul makes in Romans, why can't you prove it from Jesus himself? Jesus grew in wisdom.

Dr. Bran on the one hand claims that God just clothed himself in flesh. He just in flesh. He just added a nature. He never became a human. But then on the other side is telling us that God lacked knowledge and he had the wisdom of God. Can you believe this? The wisdom of God had to grow in wisdom.

By the way, in Proverbs chapter 8, the wisdom himself explicitly tells you the word/wisdom that he's he was created in the beginning. So that explains John chapter one that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a god or divine or what the god what god was the word was it's explained by the very word in proverbs 8:22 that tells you who was created and that same um word/wisdom/spirit in dwelt Jesus at the baptism according to the synoptic gospels and John 1:14 the whole context shows this as James McGrath mentions in the apologetic um um John's apologetic Christologology.

So all these pre-existent texts in in John is only because the pre-existent word that allegedly according to Greek philosophy was the first thing that the transcendent god created and through that he created everything else that indwelt Jesus. So from that point while he's merged with that word you could speak as of him as pre-existent because he's got that pre-existent word in him.

Moreover, Dr. branch says that all of creation worships Jesus. And number one, these are this is a copy of the story of Adam found in um second temple Judaism where they mentioned that Adam was told to um to be worshiped. We have a similar story in the Quran where allahel tells the angels to bow down to Adam. So that's all it is. It's a play on um the story of Adam where the the first Adam failed and then the second Adam came and he completed his mission and and as Philippians 2 says he had his um um position elevated uh and um he was praised to the glory of God the father. So they worship him um that's a response to the story of Adam.

Now um Dr. The brand also says that the um the Tram it it had an issue with Exodus chapter 24 um about them seeing God and um so did the Greek Septuagent but sir the Greek Septuagent and the Talum are in line with the New Testament as I I mentioned the New Testament agrees with them. So obviously the New Testament had a problem. Moreover, it's easy for me. I'll just accept they saw God in Exodus chapter 24.

Now even Dr. Bran admits cuz he cited the verses in John that nobody has seen God at any time. Dr. Bran will tell you that means the father. But according to Isaiah 64, guess who came down on Sinai? The father. Isaiah 64 verse number 8. So if they saw God, they saw the father. So you've just refuted the New Testament text that says that they never saw the father. They've never seen God. Now if you turn around and say even though the text says father, it really means the son representing the father. Then you're resorting to agency. So it's an angel.

Now I want to deal with Mark. This is the logic of the trinitarians. Isaiah chapter 14, Malachi chapter 3 says that um um the messenger will prepare the way for Yahweh. And that messenger in the New Testament is John the Baptist who prepares the way for Jesus. So the messenger prepares the way for Yahweh. John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus. Hence Jesus is God. >> Two minutes. But I'll tell you why this is a problem. Because in Malachi chapter 3, it's the person of the father speaking who says he will prepare the way before me as Jesus in Matthew chapter 11 confirms. So let's go back to that logic. Then the messenger prepares the way for Yahweh the father. John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. Hence Jesus is not only Yahweh but he's Yahweh the father. Listen, you have to deal with that now. That's your own logic.

So um uh we see now um Jesus is the co-creator. No, he's not. He's embodied with the wisdom. That's that's what John's gospel teaches. This is all logos Christologology. In the same gospel of John, Jesus says, "The father is greater than I." This text was used for four centuries to keep the son subordinate to the father. In fact, many church fathers before the council of na cited that very verse to keep the son below the father. So that father is greater than I. In John chapter 8, >> one minute >> it says that um Jesus says, "I have spoke to you what I heard that I learned in the presence of the father." So if that refers to pre-existence, that means before when Jesus pre-existed, before he came to earth and before he became a man, God was teaching him like a student. How why does wisdom of God need to be taught? Why does he need to be told what to say? This stuff doesn't make sense.

Um now, um let me see what else there is to deal with. So Dr. Brandon Tonit has committed the heresy of partialism by appealing to Ehad by making God three parts in one. He's turned God into the father by appealing to Exodus chapter 24 which they would have saw the father according to Isaiah. And he's turned um the son into the father by appealing to Mark's use of Isaiah chapter 40. So um so that's fine.

So, um I'm on one hill with Moses, Isaiah, and all the prophets mocking um those who claim God incarnates, whether it's apas bull or whether this is human. >> And um Dr. Brand's on the other hill saying like Pharaoh that there's two natures and God incarnates and we eat and drink our God. >> We're going to move on to the question and answer session. Um, brother Tasnif has got the mic for for questions. Um, so if you guys just want to raise your hand, he'll pass the mic on. Um, please keep the answers uh questions sorry short. Um, each uh response will be uh given to both sides as well. We're going to interchange uh so one for Zakir and then one for one for Dr. Brown. So um yeah, stop raising. >> We could if they stand up and come whatever whatever you want to do. >> Yeah. Okay, we can we can start. So, Raan, so so we'll go for Zakir first. So, question for Zakir first. >> Yeah. >> No, let's go for Zakir first. Yeah, we'll go for Zakir first. So, question for Zakir first. >> Yeah. Zakia, uh this is a question for both of you actually. Uh but first of all, I think you are to be commended for all your study uh which I I appreciate. Um but I I do hope everybody in this room will get their own version of the Bible. And um check what Zakiya is saying. Make sure it's true because in my opinion, not everything is >> Okay. Can we can we just Sorry. Just just need to ask a question. >> Just ask a question here. Yeah. To be fair. So get get a Bible. Um we we all believe that Jesus is coming back. There'll be the day of judgment and nobody in this room knows if tonight is the night or not. We might have that hymn coming back and the day of judgment before we leave this tent. Right. My question to you, Zakia, and to you, Dr. Brown, it's, are you sure you're going to heaven? Are you sure that you are right with God? First, >> thank you for your question. Surah 9 ayah 72 guarantees paradise for all those who believe. So as long as we stay upon the dean, we stay um worshiping Allah and accepting all these messengers that we're guaranteed to go to Jenna. Um that's it. >> Yeah. Just in fairness, it can only be one question per person. >> Yeah. With no follow-ups. >> Yeah. Just just to that's how we try to do it to be fair. >> So you double we can spin back. We can spin back. >> Yeah. So just just to to answer the question, uh yes, 100% sure because Jesus has died for my sins and he's granted me repentance uh and forgiveness. I'm 100% ready to meet God. And I'm I'm I don't know Zakir answered personally, but I'm I'm so glad you have assurance much more than most Muslims I've talked to. In fact, more than almost every Muslim I've talked to. So if that's how you all feel, wonderful. Um I've heard something very different from so many Muslims. Maybe afterwards you could tell me if I've been misinformed because the Muslims I've spoken to have said we're not sure or 50/50 or or we don't know. Uh so if I've been misinformed on that by other Muslims, please come and tell me. I I would love to know if you all have that absolute assurance that you know if you were to die right now and face judgment that you'd be forever with with Allah paradise and you're all sure of that. Please let me know. That would be news to me and I would just love for you. So I've been misinformed on that. Please tell me. Thank you. Hi, there is a a verse in the Bible which is very similar to a verse in the Quran. Jesus said peace be upon him said in the in the Bible I came only for the children of Israel. Say similar in the Quran Allah said Jesus was sent only to the children of Israel. And he said uh the prophet Muhammad was sent to all mankind until the day of judgment. That's why Allah said he preserved the Quran because people like us who never seen Prophet Muhammad. We need a message to be preserved for us and and the people coming until the day of judgment, they need a book preserved. And he never said the Quran, Allah never said he will preserve the Bible. The reason why because Jesus peace be upon you was sent only to the children of Israel and the New Testament was a specific message for a specific people brother we need to get to the questionific we need to get to the question. Now my question is >> my question is if god if Jesus peace be upon him was uh god why he said I came only for the children of Israel is is he god only for the children of Israel or for >> yes so uh with all respect sir um all that shows is that you never read the new testament because that's recorded in Matthew the 10th chapter as he's going about his earthly mission after he dies and rises from the dead he says go and make disciples of all nations. The universal message of the New Testament is that he died for all, for Jew and Gentile alike. And God in his extraordinary mercy knew that we would all fall short. That's why he's preserved the word of God for us. That's why he's given us so much attestation with so many manuscripts pointing back to the truth of God's word. And Jesus himself said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." The words of the gospel John 3. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. The universal message of the New Testament of the words of Jesus is that he came for all. So he came as the Messiah of Israel so he could be the savior of the entire world. And Matthew who was the one who records the words came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Matthew 10 and Matthew 28, Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all the nations, which is why the gospel is gone all around the world. And people who've been worshippers of idols and lost in every kind of sin, like my friend in India, have come to worship the one true God through Jesus because he came for all humanity. Explicit, overwhelming, consistent testimony of the New Testament. You'll notice the different levels of evidence. Matthew chapter 10 and Matthew chapter 15 that limits the mission of Jesus to the children of Israel are sayings attributed to the historical Jesus. Dr. Brand appealed to Matthew chapter 28 the allegedly risen Jesus of their faith. So there's already um a level of of difference in evidence. Now how do we know that Matthew chapter 10 and Matthew chapter 15 it literally meant what it clearly says that my mission is I have only been sent to the children of Israel. There's a scholar by the name of Gazermis who mentions that Luke's gospel, he actually emits these sayings. Why? Because Luke was a gentile who tried to promote Jesus for the gentile mission. He he deletes these things. He emits it when he's copying it. Um why why is that? So um the reason is is because Jesus was only for the children of Israel.

>> Okay guys, I'm just going to put a disclaimer in. I know everybody kind of wants to make a little short statement first, but please can we just get to the questions because there's a lot of brothers and sisters that want to ask questions. Yeah. So, this question is for Zako. Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. If I'm understanding you correctly, I don't want to ask too many questions. Um I wanted to see how you reconcile uh Jude verse 5. Uh it says, "Now I want to remind you although you fully knew it that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, how do you reconcile that the New Testament passage um says that Jesus is what brought the Israelites out of Egypt when everybody if I asked anybody here they would say it was God that brought them out of Egypt? >> Okay. Does your Bible have footnotes? >> No. No. Well, um, if you get a Bible with footnotes, they tell you that there's a variant reading that it was the Lord about the Lord God. So, the point is that Hebrews chapter 1 denies that the son was involved in the Old Testament. Hebrews chapter 2, it actually gives the argument that the New Testament is, not the New Testament, um, the gospel is superior to the previous revelation because the previous revelation came through angels and inferior means and the gospel came through the sun. So by trying to force Jesus to be in the Old Testament where he is nowhere to be seen, you're just creating contradictions with your own New Testament. Um Matthew makes it clear that the genesis of Jesus was in his mother's womb. He was created in his mother's womb with the virgin birth. In fact, scribes tried to change the word to a slightly similar word to make it the birth of Jesus. But as the orthodox corruption of scripture mentions the word the original word can mean origin and creation of Jesus in the womb. Luke 1:35 that Dr. Brand mentioned it says that um what is in you be um due to the the holy spirit overshadowing you for this reason he will be called the son of the most high for the fact of his virgin birth. So he wasn't no eternal son. Actually, Jude 1 says that there's only one Lord, Jesus. So, unless you're saying that God is not Lord, then you have to say that Jesus is God. And not only so, this notion that Hebrews 1 says the son is none in the Old Testament. What? Read Hebrews 1. Read it. Read verses 10 through 12 where it quotes, oh Lord, about the son, about Jesus. Oh Lord, you in the beginning created the universe about Yahweh. It's it's say Hebrews 1 is saying that very explicit thing. Um and again it it still boggles my mind that you can quote Matthew when you like one way and when Matthew says something you don't like, you have to write it off. I wouldn't do that to the Quran. I wouldn't do that to the Quran. If the only way I could uphold my belief is by twisting the Quran, then my belief is very weak. And it's fascinating that in the passage since we're just told about, you know, this you can quote here but not here. What's fascinating is that in the passage in Matthew 15 where he says he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What's the context? He's healing a gentile woman's daughter. He's with the Gentiles healing a gentile woman's daughter and being merciful to her.

>> My question is to Dr. Brown. Uh you quoted the verse John 1:1. >> Yes. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. So it's translated from the Greek word. So the first word uh in the verse is the hoio and the second word from the Greek word is the tonios. And in the book of Exodus 7 verse1 it says that God said unto Moses that I will send uh uh a god the word is being used in the Greek tonus a god to pharaoh. So how the Bible translators they as they like they translate the word contus uh the god the capital G and where they suit uh they use the word small G. >> Okay. First we understand that in original Hebrew and Greek there's not small there's not capital. You don't have a capital you don't write God with a capital G. Elohim with a capital. Yahweh with a capital Y. You don't have capital letters. And same with with with early Greek. You didn't have all you didn't have all caps, all small. Um, but I don't know why you brought in other languages. John wrote in Greek. He wasn't translating. He wrote in Greek. And what he wrote in Greek is is powerful and overwhelming and extraordinary. And now according to Zakir's theology, Jesus was a god. Which means according to Zakir's theology that Orthodox early Christians were not trinitarians, but they worshiped two gods. and they prayed to two gods. So in his zeal to rewrite the New Testament, he now creates Christian idolattors to say that they had two gods. Jesus was a god according to Zakir and he was a god they worshiped and prayed to and adored and sang hymns to plenty a pagan hostile critic early second century says they they sang hymn to Christ as a god. So in Zakir's theology rewriting the New Testament, Christians worshiped two different gods and they they prayed to two different gods and called two different gods Lord and God with a small G. You talk about utter confusion. Just accept what the New Testament says. God is complex in his unity. Father, Son, and Spirit. And I didn't say 33% 33%. Why put words in my mouth and misrepresent what I believe in order to uphold your own belief? Again, it speaks of the weakness of your own belief. if you have to misrepresent mine to present yours.

>> Okay. Dr. Brand said that I made Jesus a god. But where did I make Jesus a god? No. Number one, I don't apply the prologue of John to Jesus. As I mentioned, how it relates to Jesus is that the wisdom indwelt Jesus. John 1:14. Jesus is not the logos. According to John, he's indwelt by the logos. That's if you go with the hellenistic understanding. Now John 1:1 if you go with the understanding of the Jewish tumors which Dr. Brown mentioned earlier then it would be in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God capital G. Why? Because in the Tums the word is a metanym for God himself. But if you want to claim that the word is somebody other than God, then it would have to be in another sense either as a god that the Jehovah's Witnesses say and that's not polytheism because in um f um in in in Jewish um culture and that you could have lowerase G gods and not real gods. Also, Dr. Brown claimed that Jesus is called Lord in the New Testament that must mean he's Yahweh. Well, in Galatians 1 19 um Paul calls James the brother of the Lord. So that means that um Paul meant brother of Yahweh. That means you must be a Catholic now. So Mary must be the mother of Yahweh as well. So Lord means Lord Messiah.

>> Thank you both. I really appreciate it. Um so there's the belief I believe that the the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel were inspired by God uh and then corrupted. But why would I trust a god to preserve a word the fourth time when he didn't preserve it the the first three times? Surah 5 ayah 44 mentions that it was the um as part of the covenant it was the job of the rabbis the priests to preserve their scriptures. The Quran itself in surah 15 ayah number nine has an explicit promise from Allah because the Quran is meant from the time of the prophet peace be upon him to the end of time. Allahel himself is going to protect it whereas the previous scriptures is part of the covenant for them to preserve it. So that's the difference. Yes. So thankfully God has wonderfully preserved his word which is why people carry Bibles around around the world and people read the Bible and they they understand what it says. Um let me be very clear on something. uh in my doctoral studies I had or college and grad studies I had three years of classical Arabic and I can read the Quran slowly in Arabic and and I studied with with Muslims at times as well but I don't specialize in Islam and because I don't want to insult what you believe or misrepresented I told Zakir I would debate as long as it was biblically related subjects okay so I'm just going to say this one thing briefly but many of you know this historical crit critical ical scholarship of the Quran says that there were many many many different competing versions. It says that it was over a period of many many years after Muhammad's death that much of the Quran was even created and came into being. That it can only be explained historically in that context and and that of course all the competing versions were burned and destroyed and under pressure under pressure everyone had to adopt the one version. So, I could come back with historical critical arguments against the the preservation of the Quran. It's something I'm not getting into in a major way because it's not my field and and I'm sure Zakir is going to have his arguments back and forth. So, I want to be fair. I want to argue the things that I can argue best. But thankfully we have so many thousands of manuscripts of scripture that God preserved that we can compare look at one after the other and really determine the original and accurate text and where there are differences and differences or not differences of substance. But it's something you may want to look into. I just referenced one book Steven Shoemaker Creating the Quran. You may just want to look into it and and come to your own conclusions. I study exclusively with people who did not believe what I believed and I welcome it. I love Zakir's challenge. I'm so glad he's feisty. I'm so glad he studies. I'm so glad he challenges me to do this. And let's uh let's sharpen each other and keep learning.

My question is >> Yeah. My question is to um Dr. around um how can Jesus be God when in John 5:30 he mentions I can do nothing on my own as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of one uh but the will of him who sent me and in John 6:38 for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me doesn't that make him a messenger which we believe in >> yes he's a messenger and he's fully human and and he died and he bled and he did things as a human. Yes. So in that same context in John, he's already said that it's the will of God that all men So if you're going to take his word seriously there, all men honor honor the son the same way they honor the father. And those who don't honor the son don't honor the father. He subordinates himself. He takes on human form. That's why he says the father is greater than he. So again, it's it's no insult to say that you're not understanding the incarnation. Understand what we believe that that the son willingly limited himself when he took on human form and subordinated himself to the father and said, "I can only do what I see the father doing." You know, when he worked miracles, he said, "I'm I'm working these miracles by the by the spirit of God." In Luke 4, it says, "The spirit of the Lord God's on me because the Lord's anointed me." Why does he need to be anointed? because he divested himself of his divine privileges and took on fully human form. So that explains those things that you're asking explicitly. Uh and by the way, not every time it says Lord in the New Testament doesn't mean Yahweh. So when you mention uh the the brother of the Lord, it doesn't mean every time it says Lord that it's referring to Yahweh. I mean that should be self-evident, but just wanted to mention that.

>> Okay. John chapter 5, um honor the son as you honor the father. So if a messenger of King Charles comes somewhere and says honor me as you honor King Charles cuz I'm his agent doesn't make the messenger King Charles. In fact in the same chapter John 5:44 and 45 he calls the father the one who alone is God alone is God. And um the fact that Dr. Brand acknowledges that Jesus is a messenger proves that he's not God because Jesus says in John chapter 13 he who is sent is inferior to the one who does the sending. Moreover, um is it only that he limited himself when he came down to earth? Uh according to Dr. Brian, Jesus is the angel of the of the Lord. The angel of the Lord gets ordered about in Zechariah chapter 1. In fact, God sends another angel to give an order to the pre-existing Jesus. So the So how how is he God if he gets ordered around? According to John chapter 8, he tells them if he allegedly pre-existed that the I I'm telling you what I learned from the father, what the father taught me. So how could he be God and he has to learn from the father then father has to teach him things just doesn't make sense.

>> Thank you. Um so my question is for Zaka Hussein. Um given your refusal to engage with the complexities of Christian belief when it relates to the incarnation and the hypothatic union. Jesus being one person with two natures. How is it then that you yourself can accept the idea that the Quran, even though it's made out of created paper and ink, is yet uncreated? You're claiming that something is uncreated and created at the same time. If you were applying this Christianity, you would call it a contradiction, but you allow those things to exist within Islamic theology with certain distinctions that are being made. Same thing could be said of the Quran being seven and yet one Quran. Many Qurat and yet one Quran. Aren't you allowing complexities and theology within your own system which you won't be gracious enough to engage with when Christians have their own? Thank you for that question. So um none of them apply. The Quran hasn't become a book. It's communicated through a book. The Quran is the recitation, the speech of Allah. It's not actually hasn't turned into the paper. It hasn't incarnated. Now you're saying I'm not dealing with the complexities of Christian theology. You mentioned two natures. Now remember in my opening statement I said that Trinitarian Christianity is just a return to Egypt. So he has called Joseph Kushel in his book before born before all time page 236. Indeed, a twofold nature, one true God, and one true man had already been attributed to the Pharaoh, son of a virgin mother and a divine father. Now, you're saying, I'm not dealing with the complexities, but I use the exact same argument that Psalm 106 um uses against the incarnations of Egypt. I use the same argument that Isaiah uses for idol worship. So, they didn't seem to care about the complexities and the excuses that the pagans or the Egyptians said. So, I'm using the exact same methodology. So you need to take it up with the prophets um found in the Bible as well. And as far as the Quran being seven, we have one Quran with multiple ways to recite it. That's not a logical contradiction like a God man being 100% God and 100% man. This this doesn't even like um factor in with each other. Choke and cheese as they say.

So what we just heard is that he accurately represents our belief but he also mocks our beliefs. A little bit inconsistent. A great question about the Quran. So I just learned something from Zakir then. So what you read from was not the Quran. If if you held the book in your hand, that's not the Quran. I I thought that was the Quran. I know a translation is called the meaning of the Quran because you can't actually translate the the Quran. But I thought that was actually the Quran. I didn't know that wasn't the Quran. So I just learned something now from Zakir that that's not actually the Quran because it's words on on in print and ink. I thought it was a great great question. Uh by the way um my field near eastern languages and literature. So I I studied the the ancient cultures and languages and things like that. The idea that there is any connection or comparison between the belief that the pharaoh upon being installed as a pharaoh became a god and that that relates in any way to God's complex unity or the deity of Jesus shows a massive misunderstanding of Egyptian beliefs. Massive misunderstanding. Again, if you're going to make an argument, make an argument that is sound and consistent. And and last thing, unequal weights and measures. I'm not going to quote you the Islamic texts. You know what they are. I can quote you the Jewish texts and the Torah text about it. God hates unequal weights and measures. That's one of my big issues. Use the same measure of criticism on your beliefs in Islam and Quran as you want to do on us as followers of Jesus. And how would you feel if I stood up here and just mocked your beliefs? When I did the debate earlier uh three years ago, I I was doing my best not to be insulting to Muslims while tearing up faulty arguments. I would just ask for equal treatment. Fair enough.

First of all, thank you to both the speakers for attending and sharing your knowledge and wisdom. And second of all, thanks to the organizers of the event. My question is so Dr. Iran from your dialogue I understood that you believe God is capable of all things things we can't even fathom limitless so my question is is it possible that God throughout the ages could have manifested himself through another being or creature in this world before Jesus or even after or was this only exclusive to Jesus? >> Yes. Thank you for the question. Oh, I failed to thank all of you for coming. I think I did on short notice, but thank you again for coming and being so focused uh and respectful through this entire evening. Um, according to the New Testament, what God did in Jesus was unique in terms of a full incarnation that uh there were there were times when God would come for short periods of time and manifest himself. And by the way, not every time it mentions Malik Adonai, angel of of Yahweh in scripture is it referring to the the eternal son. Only only some of the passages would apply. But what he did there is recorded in the Bible. Every time that God manifest himself, came down in our midst, communicated in a direct way to us every single time that's recorded in scripture. And what we do know though is that he continues to reveal himself through his son. The son is the way that he reveals himself. Jesus said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the father." John 1:18, the son makes him known. And by the way, where it says in Hebrews 13, people have entertained angels. Where does it say Abraham? There are plenty of accounts in the Old Testament where people are talking to angels and didn't realize it. Doesn't say Genesis 18 there at all. Okay. So, I haven't been mocking tonight and um I apologize if it seems that way, but I was simply following the arguments of Moses, the arguments of Isaiah, the arguments of Elijah, and um the argument from the Quran surah 5 ay 75. Now, notice this. Now, Dr. Brown um said that Malik Yahweh doesn't always refer to Jesus. So, whenever we prove that the angel is not God, then that verse never applies to Jesus. He's a created angel. Whenever we show Lord doesn't always mean Lord. No, that verse isn't using Lord the same way. So whenever we offer a reputation um that verse means something else because there's no evidence for this that that's the fact of the matter. All of these will be dealt with in a simple way. The Quran says in surah 3 ayah number 7 that there are clear verses that are the foundation of the book and then there are unclear verses more ambiguous verses that those with diseases in their heart they'll make doctrines out of those unclear verses. How the trinitarians approach the Bible is rather than um interpreting the ambiguous passages in light of explicit passages they do it the other way around. They go to plural verb here. They go to ambiguous um texts here and they make that their doctrine and then they um make their clear verses fit in line with ambiguous verses. And interestingly surah 3 ayah number 7 according to some reports was revealed in a dialogue with the prophet peace be upon him and the Christians of Najan. So the Quran when it says 33 applies to them when surah 37 applies to them and am I out of time? Okay.

This question is to Zah Zakir regarding wisdom. Um you ambiguated on the semantic range of Kanani in Proverbs chapter 8 and you said the wisdom is created. God's wisdom is not created. So a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew adani rasheed is the Lord possessed me in the beginning. And this is important to my question. I want you to reconcile this. Christ is the logos of God as we read in the beginning. He's also the wisdom of God according to 1 Corinthians 1:4. Yet in wisdom of Solomon chapter 18 and Ben Sierak chapter 24, this wisdom of God is called the word of God and is explicitly said to be the one who appears in the pillow of fire in Exodus 14 which is the Lord God himself. That's >> um your last part were you mentioned in the T room? Just repeat the last part again. >> No. Um which one? >> Uh you said the the wisdom was in the cloud. What were you referring to? >> That's the wisdom of Solomon 18. >> Okay. >> And Sierra 24. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, let's let's go to this Proverbs 8:22. This is the NE Bible. The Lord created me as the beginning of his works. Let's go to the Pashita Holy Bible translated. Lord Jehovah created me at the beginning of his creation. Let's go to Brenton Septuagent translation. The Lord made me the beginning of his works. The Hebrew ka in Psalm 139:13 is understood as created and brand driver Briggs lexicon gives an um examples of ka being created but even if you try to get around the Hebrew you're not going to do nothing with the Greek um the Greek is ectisen explicitly means created ectisen explicitly means created so the fact of the matter is in pover chapter 8 the logos is created and in fact the early church fathers Justin Martin then they didn't believe that Jesus was God. They didn't believe he was the same as the father. So um I'm sorry the memor was used by um like for example Ha Wilson in his book Talum and testimony writes no scholar nowadays will entertain the view that it is a real being or an intermediary. James Dunn Christologology in a page 219. James Dunn Christologology in a making page 219. Nowhere either in the Bible or in the extra canonical literature of the Jews is the word of God a personal agent or on the way to become such. And Dr. Brown in his own book when he cites Pho, he even admits that Pho even though he speaks in personal terms of the um word, he actually is just person it's just personification. But Dr. Brown claims John took it one step further which um is debatable.

>> Yeah. And I appreciate Zaki reading my books carefully. Thanks so much. Yeah. So if you look in the in the footnote to the NE you realize that can there is a debate as to whether kama means possess as it as it's used in many other in other places or whether it means create. There's a legitimate debate about that and fair enough you represent one one side of it. Um what's interesting when you come back to the mera is is that Judaism is struggling to understand how the infinite eternal God can come in contact with man and communicate with man. So you have like in Genesis 28 when when Jacob makes a vow to to Yahweh uh that it says and said that he said if you'll do all this for me then you'll be my God. The target says then the word of the lord will be my god and it's the word of the lord creates the word of the lord that speaks and interacts. So John is explaining how this actually happens. Judaism rec re rec w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w wrestles with this. And we're saying by going from the plain passages to the obscure that it's the son who makes the father known.

>> Uh yes questions to Dr. Um, we know the Godhead consists of the father, son, and the holy spirit. And they're all three distinct persons. Which member of the godhead actually spoke to Moses in Sinai? Which distinct person of the godhead? >> Ah, great question. >> What evidence can you show me from the Bible with the answer that you're going to reveal? Thank you. >> Sure. Uh number one, the scripture simply speaks of of Yahweh speaking, right? That's what it says. So it doesn't necessarily tell us specifically. There are Jewish traditions that say that it was angels mediating his voice. There there are references to that, but specifically as written in the book of Exodus and Exodus 20 and repeat it in Deuteronomy 5, it doesn't say specifically. So, are you asking me to to define something that's that's not there? I'm just saying if you're asking me based on the written text, it does not say specifically there are things God does as father, son, spirit. We know creation that the father is the source and all things are created through the son and then the spirit does his his work. We have we have that in in in the first chapter of Genesis in fact. But if you're ask me what does the scripture say? It does not say specifically father son or spirit. In many cases it does not say specifically because god is one and and um so just being honest with the text I can't say more than it says. Thank you.

Okay, regarding the elders seeing God and um the voice of God etc. So let me quote scholars that Dr. Brown sites in his own book. So Keel and Dish biblical commentary on um Deuteronomy 4:12 and that even the elders who saw God upon the mountain at the conclusion of the covenant saw no form of God. The JPS commentary Jeffrey Hig on Deuteronomy 4:35 see Dr. Branch tries to say oh um they saw the son but they didn't see the father. That's the only way to deal with the inconsistencies. This is why he writes from the heavens. On earth, the verse seems to resolve an inconsistency in Exodus. According to Exodus 19, God came down unto Mount Si before speaking. Whereas Exodus 20:1 19 states that he spoke from heaven. Our verse, meaning Deuteronomy 4:35, states that there was indeed something on the earth when God spoke, but it was not God. He spoke from heaven. Only the fire and sand were on the earth. This verse is cited by Midrashic literature. How much time I forgot? >> 20 seconds. >> 20 seconds. Yeah. And did they um according to the New Testament which Dr. Brian is bound to did did Moses see God? And Hebrews 11 27 John Gills commentary on this Moses saw him visionally and symbolically in the bush. He saw him by faith and with the eyes of his understanding. And according to Jesus, if you take as literally being God in the bush, uh according to Mark 12, it would it would have to be the father. according to Jesus. Be the father according to Jesus.

>> Get very quick comments very quick. I'm not sure if you dealt with the issue in John 30 with um Thomas. So verse 28 and Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and my God. And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou has seen me, thou has believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Yes. Okay. Yeah. >> Okay. Number one, when he's called Lord, it doesn't mean Yahweh. That's already been established unless James is a brother of Yahweh. Psalm 110 makes it clear that Jesus is a human Lord. Adoni the Adonius Mo. Um Acts 2:36 says he was made Lord. So when he calls when he calls um him Lord, he means lowerase Lord. Now regarding God is a lower case G as well. In the same chapter, same chapter, John chapter 20, Jesus says, "I go to my father and your father, my God and your God." So, he has a God. So, he can't be capital G God. And then what does John say straight after this? I wrote this so you believe that Jesus is what? That Jesus is God in the flesh. No, I wrote this so that you know that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. And according to scholarship, the phrase son of God itself means that somebody is not God because you logically cannot be the son of God. To be God is to be eternal. To be a son is to be caused. You cannot be eternally caused as the Trinidadians try to claim. That's as absurd as I mentioned before as a square circle. So um um Thomas's statement in John 20:28, it doesn't refute anything. And why would Thomas called G Jesus God capital G when Jesus himself in John 17 verse number three calls the father the only true God to the exclusion of others. That's how the word monos operates. John 5:44 45 he calls the father the only true God. So once you have a clearcut verse like that you interpret every ambiguous text in light of it like surah 3 ayah 7 tells the Christian to do and then you would have no choice but to accept Islam.

>> Yes. So of course he just refuted himself in his answer. Did the very thing that I that that he claimed he didn't do. So Christians worship two gods and then two lords. That's what he just created. What kind of nonsense is that? With all respect, so if he said it lower case, so all of you then Muslims, you could all say to Jesus, you are my Lord and my God. But lower case, that's blasphemous, unless you believe he really is Lord and really is God, which is why Thomas is commended by Jesus. Well, took you long enough, buddy, to get to this revelation. And not only that, Jesus has already said he's one with the father in John 10:30. He's already said in John 14:11 that he the that he's in the father and the father's in him. So when he says there's only one God. Yeah. There's only one God. All the other idols are false. There's only one true God. You the father. Right. And he said I'm in the father. The father's in me. Is that repeating himself? And the Messiah whom you sent. But this this notion that Christians worship Jesus as a god with a small G and call them Lord with a small L is absolutely as ridiculous as you saying that you believe Allah is God with a small A. It's a it's a mockery of everything you believe. And this is a mockery of the clear unequivocal statement of the New Testament. And notice Zakir is not quoting all these great New Testament scholars and Greek scholars saying that that Jesus was God with a small G and Lord with a small L. They they those that are dead would turn over in their grays and those that are alive their eyes would pop out of their heads. Complete ridiculous misrepresentation of what we believe. You could say Thomas was mistaken or I don't believe what John wrote. But please don't be writing. Unless you as Muslims can say that Jesus is your L Lord and your God with

A small G, you wouldn't dare do that unless you really believed he was deity. Come on, let's be honest. Okay, last one.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Is this the last thing or do we have? Who started? You went first. It >> was my turn.

>> Does anyone else want to run?

>> Okay. Okay. Last three. Yeah. All right. So, one from here. One from here. Okay. Yeah.

>> Um, so where we are in the Bible where Jesus directs worship to the Father, for example, or where he calls him the holy God. The thing that I struggle to understand is why didn't Jesus just simply portray or call to the worship of triune God, like, simply unambiguously? Why is it that there are all these verses that have to be interpreted? For example, if you ask us, our doctrine is, "He Allah is one." Our doctrine is clear. But your doctrine, you have to use verses and interpret them. You mentioned that Sakur misinterpreted or, uh, what you were saying, but the truth is, if the Bible had these verses clearly, there wouldn't even be room for misinterpretation.

>> Actually, it's the opposite. I quoted verse after verse after verse after verse that's quite explicit in its meaning. Quite explicit. Verse after verse after verse after verse, most of them weren't even touched with all the rebuttal time there was. And they have to be strangely interpreted to say that it's not clear. If you read the New Testament, you'd be shocked by how clear it is. That's the first thing. Second thing is, Jesus, you all believe as Muslims that he was the Messiah, but he never explicitly said, "I am the Messiah. Follow me." He would acknowledge things said about him. Why not? Because there could be misunderstanding of the messianic role and potentially people trying to make him king and things like that. In the same way, if he just said, "I am God. Worship me," that could be misunderstood. But he said things that were extreme to the point that the Jewish listeners took up stones to kill him for blasphemy. John 8:58, when he says, "Before Abraham was, I am," they knew what he was saying. He was exactly putting himself on the level of Yahweh, making himself one with him. Exactly that point. That's why Thomas recognizes him as God. That's why they prayed to him in the New Testament. It's very, very clear. But what he wants you to understand is, go back and look at scripture. It's after he rises from the dead that the disciples' eyes are opened and they realize fully who he was. Uh, just a couple of other things that are important. All the things that he intentionally does, walking on the water, controlling nature, he is demonstrating his divine nature. But if you wanted him to say, "I am God. Worship me," all right? But he doesn't say, "I am the Messiah. Follow me." There are reasons in his wisdom why he speaks as he speaks. But you'd be shocked. I mean, all these verses I read from the New Testament, we were told, "This doesn't mean this. This doesn't mean this." They have to be reinterpreted because they're so plain. They're so clear. They're so rolling. And by the way, everyone, just look up what the Church Fathers believed about the deity of Jesus. We were told they didn't believe in his deity. Verse after verse in early writings of the Church Fathers in the first couple of centuries, first three centuries, first two centuries, refer to him as divine, clearly speaking as God.

>> The doctrine is so clean. Like it took 400 years for them to evoke Jesus to be equal to God. Just go get any book, get Jane B. Kelly's book, "Early Christian Doctrines." Get Word Germis' book, "From Galilee to Na." Just read the history for yourself. And the Church Fathers, Justin Martyr said that Jesus was another god. Kudian said that there was a time where the Son didn't exist. Now we're being told that in the Gospel of John, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus, but he claimed to be God. No, they wanted to kill him because they believed he was a false claimant to be an agent of God. Don't have to believe me. Let them speak for themselves. John chapter 19:7, "The Jewish leaders insisted, 'We have a law, and according to that law, he must die.' Why? Because he's God in the flesh? No, because he claimed to be the Son of God." Son of God is a messianic title. And as scholarship mentions, the title Son of God means you're not God. Because you can't be a son of God. To be God is to be eternal. To be a son is to be caused. It doesn't work. So they wanted to kill him because he was claiming to be a Messiah, and they believed to be a false messianic claimant. That's what James McGrath mentions in John chapter 5 as well. When they say that you're making yourself equal to God, they're claiming that you're blaspheming and that by falsely claiming to be an agent of God when you're not, and that's how you're making yourself equal to God.

>> Okay. This is the. Can you name the single disciple that personally knew Jesus but took the Islamic point of view of it?

>> We don't have any documents of many disciples. Mark wasn't a disciple, and we don't even know if Mark wrote Mark. Matthew wasn't a disciple. Matthew chapter 9 says Matthew came to the. Hes collect nothing, but it wasn't written by a disciple. Luke, everybody knows, was not a disciple and was the opposition of Paul in going to the authorship of the Gospels. We have no material from any disciple of Jesus. But if we want to look at what the disciples believed, go look at books where they speak about Jewish Christianity, the Clementine Homilies, and about the Nazarenes, and that a lot of these Jewish groups, which a lot of scholars believe could trace back to the Jerusalem Church, they didn't believe Jesus is God. In fact, they were turned into heretics by the gentile church. So, um, just, just see the. Forget about the Jewish Clementine literature and about Jewish Christianity. Just see the Gospels for yourself. Put Mark first. Put. Read books on how Matthew and Luke developed the image of Jesus in Mark. See how Paul twisted the meanings of Jewish metaphors, turning some of God from the Old Testament usage to a Hercules type of usage, and you'll see where the message is being corrupted. Or you could just do an easy thing. Just go to the Quran and actually study what the Quran is telling you. You'd be amazed how the Quranic claims align with history. I use a lot of these arguments are used from the Bible, and that these are all Quranic arguments. The Quran says that they turned Allah into the three. Dr. Bran turned God into a three-part god today when he used, and he actually used the words "parts of God." Uh, so the Quran says that they interpret, um, expressive verses in light of ambiguous verses. That's what Dr. Bran has been doing this whole debate.

>> How much more time will.

>> An extraordinary amount of misinformation in just a few seconds. Uh, the best Matthew scholars in the world, with massive commentaries on it, will document Matthew wrote Matthew. Peter was the likely informant of Mark, and we have writings of Peter in the New Testament. We have writings of John, including the Gospel of John, letters of John. So we have the testimony of the disciples. Read Richard Balcom's book, "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses," and you'll see that we have eyewitness accounts of who Jesus was, and none of them, none of them, not one of them, agree with the Quranic version. Now, you can say they're all wrong. You can say the ones who are eyewitnesses, who were there when it happened, were all wrong. So that would be like saying all the people of this debate tonight are all wrong. But someone 500 years, 600 years later, is going to tell us the true story. With all respect, I think not. And by the way, John 5:18, the reason the Jews wanted to kill Jesus was because he said God was his Father, making himself equal with God. Thank you. Pleasant statements.

>> Yeah. You going to go first?

>> Yes, sure.

>> You going to go first?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay, guys. This is the, uh, nearly the end of the debate. This will be your last closing statement. Sorry.

>> Okay. Yeah. Well, I get the last one. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah.

>> Who's, who's the question for? Sorry.

>> Who's the question for?

>> It's got to be for me.

>> No. No. It's got to be. We got to all say it.

>> We're going to have to have one more then after you.

>> If you're, is you okay? Should we do one more? I'm, I'm ready to end otherwise.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we said the last one was here. So, it's.

>> Yeah. Go ahead. You can ask the last question here. Go ahead.

>> First of all, I would like to say that I'm really impressed. I want to thank both of the debaters. They represented their positions very, very. I'm really impressed right up, and I'm really more impressed by the spirit of this discussion, the spirit of respect and, uh, wisdom, I should say. So, yet, I'm afraid both part of the missed one point, and I want to point it. So there is talking about Trinity, talking about the divinity of Jesus. There is a popular state among Christians. We say, "A God that is small enough to be understood and grasped by my limited understanding, by limited thinking, could not be big enough so that he could be, uh, he could meet my my real needs." Okay? So talking about the mystery of Yah. And I'm afraid, uh, you, my friends, and all the scholarship in the Muslim. You missed this point of the mystery of God. Let me explain.

>> You got to ask a question.

>> Okay. So my. Okay. My point is, don't you think that you're really arrogant after, uh, if you want to talk about the Trinity, you want to talk about the divinity of Jesus, and you're arrogant to pretend to claim that you really got it, you really understood the whole thing so that you can argue with the scholar, with the Christian scholar that was pretty much established many centuries before even Quran? Sorry, we got to get to that. He's.

>> Don't you find this arrogant to claim that you understand the mystery of the big enough? You understand. Don't you find it arrogant? That's my question.

>> I would feel as arrogant as Isaiah when he speaks about idol worship, where Hinduism goes back like thousands of years before Isaiah. So he would have been arrogant by, um, responding to idol worship. I feel as arrogant as Moses when he refused the golden calf and he refused the religion of Egypt, which predated him by centuries or thousands of years. By centuries or thousands of years. So I feel as arrogant as, um, Elijah Mockinbal. So, um, if, if following the scriptures, following the prophets, following what Allah has revealed and told us about himself, and most of it's in the Bible, like the arguments are all biblical arguments. How is that arrogance? I'm not telling you something from my own opinion that God is like this, God is like that. God created the world. He gave instruction manuals through prophets. They've told us about God. So we say about God what God says about himself, and we don't add our own spin to it. We approach the text correctly and in the right way. We don't try to enforce our own doctrine on them. We let them speak for themselves in the correct sense. That's not arrogance. That's seeking truth. God said in the book of Isaiah chapter 55, "Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he's near." Calls the wicked to repent. And he says, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher." And I do believe we need to come with great humility when it comes to the subject of Almighty God. If Zakir says that I'm misreading the Bible, fair argument, he can make that. Of course, he's wrong, but fair argument he can make it. Uh, if he says that it's contrary to what's taught in the Quran, and he accepts the Quran, fair argument he can make it. Obviously, I reject the authority of the Quran with all respect to your beliefs. But the truth is, so much of what we were told is, "This can't be. It makes no sense. It's making God into this and that. Can God do this and that?" That's what I find troublesome. Again, it's the misunderstanding of the incarnation. We should come with some reverence, recognizing how small we are, and bow down before an extraordinary God, complex in his unity, filling the universe with his presence, knowing the thoughts of every single human being here, and secret sins and life that only he sees and knows, filling the universe, and yet condescending to come down in our midst. What an extraordinary God, and we ought to be humble ourselves before him. With that, I've been told to go straight into my closing statements.

>> Yes, we're cutting short.

>> Okay, we're cutting them short. All right, we're cutting our to what?

>> Three minutes.

>> Okay, here we go. First, uh, thank you again for coming. And yes, for the respectful attitude of everyone here, and thanks for challenging me. Thanks for coming prepared already. Uh, thank you so much, and for calling for the debate. I'm so glad we were able to schedule it. Um, the Son was with the Father in the beginning. Through him, the universe was created. This is just what scripture teaches. He came from God, down from heaven, and returned to God. He existed in the form of God and enjoyed fellowship with the Father before the world was created and before Abraham was. He says, "I am." Isaiah saw him. Thomas called him Lord and God. Verses explicitly referring to Yahweh in the Old Testament are explicitly referred to Jesus in the New Testament. One day, every knee will bow to him, and every tongue will confess him as Lord, and that will be to the glory of the Father. That's why Thomas called him Lord and God, and so many of the New Testament writers referred to him as God. That's why one day every created being will bow down and worship before him and join a multitude of angels in the same breath that they offer adoration to the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. That verse was never dealt with in Revelation 22. Jesus forgives sins. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus controls nature. Only God controls nature. Jesus shares Yahweh's throne. Jesus bears Yahweh's name. He's worshiped alongside God because he himself is divine. Jesus said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." Only God can say those words. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die." Only God can say those words. And I just want to remind you, he also said, "I'm the bread of life," a metaphor for sure. And he said, "Whoever comes to him will never hunger. Whoever believes in him will never thirst." And he said, "I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." I encourage you, my Muslim friends, get to find out who Jesus really is. Do you want to go your whole life without reading his actual words in the New Testament? You want to read, go your whole life without reading what the eyewitnesses said? And above all, call out to him. When you go home tonight, call out to him in secret prayer that only God hears. Call out and say, "God, show me the truth about Jesus." And as God reveals him to you, I pray that you'll have the courage, along with so many Muslims around the world who've come to recognize who Jesus is. I pray you'll have the courage to follow him, whether by life or by death. I tell you, it is absolutely worth it. God bless you. Thank you so much for coming.

So I would, um, like to firstly thank Dr. Bran for coming. Um, I really enjoy, like I said in the last debate, I really enjoy Dr. Bran's books and I learned a lot from them, and, um, I appreciate this opportunity. Dr. Bran is a very well-known scholar, and I highly respect him. And, um, I'd like to say thank you all for attending as well. So since it's my opening, sorry, not my opening statement, I would love to carry on, but my conclusion. I would like to say, I opened my opening statement with, um, Surah 9, Ayah 30, which says about the people of the book that they parrot the disbelievers before them. So the Trinitarian tells us about incarnations. Pharaoh's an incarnation. Jesus has two natures. Pharaoh has two natures. Um, that, um, the arguments about eating and drinking and relieving himself that the biblical prophets use the same response that the Trinitarians give us, their priests and of Egypt would give. So, um, the regarding, like, even like the book of Revelation, Jesus being sitting on the throne, 200, 200 years before Jesus, there were Jewish texts that used the language of Daniel chapter 7, and have Moses replace Yahweh on the throne. There are Jewish texts that mentioned that Moses and Adam were gods over the earth, and they were worshiped. So what's happening is the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation, is just repeating the exaggerations of people before them. There's nothing unique about the claims about Jesus. Go look at second temple Judaism and look at the different books, and you'll see it's just the same polytheism, paganism, coming back in different forms. Now, people praying to Jesus, like Stephen, Acts chapter 7, when Jesus is on the cross, and he's saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," when he got abandoned by God, when he's supposed to be God. Some of the Jews thought he's calling upon Elijah. The scholars say why? Because Jews used to call upon Elijah. Did they believe Elijah was God? Catholics still call upon saints today. Do they believe that the saints are God? Some religions, they call upon saints without believing they're God. So even if Stephen called upon Jesus, doesn't mean he believed he was God. How many times this now? You can make a choice now. This is the, what the summary of what Trinitarians believe. He's a Trinitarian scholar. He writes, "Here's an amazing thought. The baby that Mary held in her arms was holding the universe in place. The little newborn lips that cooed and cried once formed the dynamic words of creation. Those tiny clutching fists once flung stars into space and planets into orbit. That infant flesh so fair once housed the Almighty God. As an ordinary baby, God had come down to earth. God dressed in diapers." See the baby as John describes him. And then angels watched as Mary changed God's diaper. Is this what you want to believe? Or do you want to get to what the Quran says? Surah 3, Ayah 79 and 80: "Prophets would never claim deity and would say, 'Worship Allah only.' And he would never ask you to take angels and prophets as lords. Would he ask you to disbelieve after you have submitted?'" That's the end. Thank you so much for attending.