Transcription
So back to our question, what is a Christian? Okay, what is a Christian according to the earliest possible understanding? Is it someone who believes in the New Testament? No. There were generations of believers in Jesus who lived and died before the New Testament. None of the Christians living in Corenth or Galatia or Thessalonica or Philippi, congregations founded by Paul in the 50s and 60s. None of those Christians had even heard of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Paul never heard of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, at least not when he founded those congregations. But here's the kicker: Jesus, peace be upon him, never heard of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. What was the Christian cannon of Jesus himself? Of course, the question doesn't make any sense.
A Christian apologist might say, "But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by two eyewitnesses to Jesus and two students of eyewitnesses." While the gospels of Peter and Thomas and Mary and Philip, etc., etc., these were falsely attributed to their authors. So, this argument doesn't quite work anymore. Almost all historians and critical scholars of the gospels maintain that, in fact, all of these books are anonymous. So, Peter did not write Peter any more than Matthew wrote Matthew. It's all apocrypha. Uh, that is to say, it's all of dubious origin. There is no strong isnad, right, or chain of transmission for any of these writings. This, this is just the reality.
Um, does the Quran we read today go back to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him? Yes. If viewers haven't done so, please watch the podcast on the preservation of the Quran. Uh, whether you agree with the content of the Quran or not, all of the reading traditions we read today can be traced back to the prophetic archetype.
But here's what I'll do. You know, just for argument's sake, let's just for argument's sake, uh, say that, um, Athanasius settled the canon. Okay? He didn't, but just for the sake of argument. Now, now certainly there were millions of Christians who lived and died before the 4th century, right? Before the so-called canonization of the New Testament. So, what canon did they believe in?
You know, whenever I make the plausible historical claim that Jesus was not crucified, I'm told invariably by Christian apologists to just read the New Testament, right? Read the four gospels. Read Paul. Jesus was crucified, right? But what about the authors of the Acts of John or the so-called Second Treatis of Seth or the Gospel of Thomas or the author or authors of Q? So these are Christian writings that either ignore the crucifixion altogether or outright deny the crucifixion. Why didn't their authors just read the New Testament? Of course, the answer is there was no New Testament. These books, like the Acts of John, these predate the canon.
Or they'll say, "Oh, those books are anonymous." So are the Gospels. "Those books are late." Well, Q likely predated Paul and did not contain a passion narrative. They'll say the Acts of John is late. Well, the Gospel of John is also late, probably early 2nd century. Acts is most likely 2nd century. Second Peter is probably 120, 130, something like that. Some historians actually date Thomas's gospel to sometime before the synoptic gospels, uh, because of its method of presenting the sayings of Jesus. Some historians even call it the fifth gospel.
But forget about the second, third, or fourth centuries. Christianity was extremely diverse. Even in Paul's day, there was a plurality of Christianity in Paul's day. Even in the 50s, according to First Corinthians, there was major erys, he calls it strife or disunityity among believers, um, believers in Jesus living in Corenth. Major disunityity in the same city at the same time. I think the reason was because Paul of Tarsus brought a different gospel. Jesus and Paul were preaching two different gospels. I think Paul actually referred to Jesus's gospel as a different gospel in Galatians. And of course, Paul refers to his own teachings as "my gospel."
Now, I mentioned this in a previous podcast, but I'll say it again. It demonstrates my point. If I were to somehow travel back in time to Medina in the year 630 of the Common Era — of course, Paul, you just returned from, uh, the holy city of Medina — um, if I were to ask the prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, to recite Al-Fatiha or Ayatul Kursi or Surah Yasin, he would know exactly what I was referring to.
Now imagine that I travel back to the year 32, you know, to Galilee in northern Palestine. Uh, imagine that I asked Jesus, peace be upon him, to recite chapter 5 of the book of Matthew. You know, what? Matthew has a book? Matthew, do you have a book? No. Or recite, uh, the famous creed of 1 Corinthians 15. What? Never heard of it. It's written by Paul. Who? So, so Christians today have nothing with respect to Jesus that is comparable to what Muslims have with the Quran.
Okay. So, again, what makes a Christian? Belief in the Trinity. Uh, no. Even the New Testament writers were not Trinitarians, let alone the Nazarines under James or the so-called Ebianites who followed them. And when I say that the New Testament writers were not Trinitarians, almost all historians agree with me. And Tertullian was the first protoorthodox writer to even use the term "Trinity," "Trinitas." He died in the first half of the third century. So we don't get the Trinity, this miaes, one essence and three persons. We don't get that until 381 of the Common Era. Okay, so the Capidosians were the first true Trinitarian theologians.
So again, what is a Christian? Uh, is it someone who believes in the creed of First Corinthians 15? Well, Paul wrote this in the mid-50s, and as we saw in our last podcast on the historicity of the crucifixion, Paul is very adamant that he did not receive any teaching from any human teachers, but rather through a direct revelation of what he perceived to be the resurrected Christ. And I believe in revelation, all right, as a Muslim. But Paul's revelation put him into direct conflict with Jerusalem-based apostles. Right? A revelation that put him in conflict with James. So that is a major red flag.
Paul says that if Christ was not raised, your faith is in vain. Why? Why did he say that? Presumably because, plausibly because, there were Christians who did not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul says, "Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel." Right? The gospel of Paul. Paul said, "Didn't I portray Jesus as crucified?" Why did he say that? Plausibly because there were Christians who did not believe that Jesus was crucified. These Christians believed in a different gospel, a gospel that had nothing to do with some crucifixion.
So the question, "What is a Christian?" remains unanswered. I would submit that the most accurate answer we can come up with from the earliest of times is that a "Christian" is anyone who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a messianic figure. I mean, that's it. That's sort of the bare bones. That's all we can really say. Jesus of Nazareth was a Messiah of some sort.
So here's my point. The New Testament cannon that we all know today, that we all read today, has a very minimal and restricted relationship with the earliest stages of the messianic movement led by Jesus of Nazareth. These books obviously did not exist. Even the, even the term "Christian" did not exist. So what existed? Well, oral tradition, individual sayings of Jesus, some of which I think ended up in the canonical gospels, albeit in a Greek, uh, translation.
Now, I mentioned that if we went back in time to speak to Jesus, peace be upon him, he would not understand the reference, John 3:16, for example. A Christian apologist might respond here and say, "Sure, the book of John did not exist at that time. But if you were to actually quote John 3:16 to Jesus, Jesus would say, 'Oh yeah, that's what I said to Nicodemus, right?'" This is what a Christian apologist would say. He would also say, "Similarly, if we went back to Medina in 630, the book called Sah Bkari did not exist. But the prophet would recognize individual statements that he made that would later be compiled by Imam Al Bkari." So just as the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, never saw the various books of Hadith, Jesus, peace be upon him, never saw the various books of the Gospels. So this is a fair point. The Gospels are more like Hadith than like the Quran.
But yes, I, I agree with this. And we know that Hadith are at different grades of authenticity. Right? Unlike the Quran, most Hadith are not mass transmitted. So Muslim scholars developed a robust methodology of Hadith criticism. It's called Hadith. So they examined the Hadith individually and determine their authenticity by considering several factors like attestation, social coherence, chain of transmission, etc. So our classical scholars did this, and so the book of Imam Bkari has the highest grade of authenticity.
When Christian historical critics apply their method to the four gospels, John 3:16 rarely makes the cut, if ever. So if we quoted the text of John 3:16, the words of John 3:16 directly to Jesus, to directly to Jesus, peace be upon him, it's more likely that he would not recognize it. In fact, he would probably repudiate it.
Now Jesus, peace be upon him, was on this earth for 31 to 33 years, and immediately after his departure, many, many stories were related about him and many, many statements were attributed to him, right? And I think we can all agree with this, Muslim, Christian, and secular historian. Only the, the Jesus, you know, mythicists will disagree here, but, but by and large, historians agree that Jesus existed. But, but even the mythist will agree that people were talking about Jesus even if he never existed. Right? Many people were relating stories about him and attributing statements to him. Everyone agrees with this.
Okay. Now, the last verse of the Gospel of John, the very last verse of the Gospel, says something very interesting. Okay. And this is the appended epilogue. And Paul, I know you quoted this verse, um, as well on a segment you did on the Proto-Gospel of James, which was fantastic. If viewers haven't seen it, they should. So, so here's what it says: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole cosmos, the whole world, would not have room for the book, the Biblia, that would be written." John 21:25. I mean, the author is being a bit hyperbolic, but the point is well taken.
Now, here's something interesting. The full title of its full title is Sah Bkari, which means "the shortened authentic collection of supported statements of the messenger of God." So in other words, Imam Bkari is saying that, of course, there are Hadith outside of his book that are authentic. Okay. His book is a Sahih, which is a concise or abridged collection of Hadith. Okay. Uh, so there were many, many stories, many, many statements floating around the ancient world about Jesus. Some of the stories and statements were true. Some of them were sort of half true or partially true, and some were false or fabricated. After several decades of oral transmission, some of these stories and statements were written down by various Christians. Okay, various people who believed in Jesus's messiahship in some way. Some of these traditions ended up in books, in Biblia, books that were eventually called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Other traditions ended up in books called the Gospel of Thomas, the infancy Gospel of Thomas, the protospospel of James, the Gospel of Peter, the dedicay, just to name a few.
Luke tells us in his preamble, this is a very important point, and I made this point several times in the past, but it's very important people understand this. Luke says in his preamble to his gospel that poloy (many people) wrote, okay, many people wrote, uh, the agesis (narratives) of Jesus. What does Luke mean by "many"? We, I mean, we know that Luke knew Mark and Q, so that's two narratives, but that's not "many," right? So how is, how does Luke use this word poloy elsewhere in his own gospel? Where in, in Luke 5:6, Luke says that when Jesus went fishing with Peter, there were poloy. There were many fish in the net. Same word. So what does he mean? Two or three or 10 fish? No, he means that there were so many fish in the net. He says the nets were about the tear. So according to Luke, there were presumably dozens of narratives, dozens and dozens of gospels about Jesus that were written before he wrote his. Okay. Uh, it is logical that there is truth, partial truth, and falsehood. And many of these books, this is only logical. This is reasonable. It is historically unreasonable to claim that only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are absolutely 100% entirely true. And that all other texts that contain Jesus's purported statements or describe events during his life are all absolutely 100% entirely false. That is unreasonable.
Okay. Now, if Christians want to believe that on faith, okay, fine. Okay, that's, they can believe whatever they want on faith, but don't tell me that I have to take that on faith. I don't. I'm going to use reason. Evidence demonstrates that the entire Quran has a Muhammadan provenence. The text of the Quran goes back to the prophet according to the vast majority of secular historians. They do not say the same thing about the gospels when it comes to Jesus.
Now, Clement of Alexandria, one of the most celebrated protoorthodox church fathers, uh, Clement cited apocryphal, quote, "apocryphal gospels" in his writings along with, quote, "canonical gospels" because he believed that the former contained truth. This is reasonable. He was reasonable in this regard. Of course, there is gospel truth outside the New Testament. Even airman said that there are statements of Jesus in the gospel of Thomas that are in direct continuity with Jesus. There are statements attributed to Jesus found in the gospel of Thomas that are more continuous with the teachings of the historical Jesus than what Paul was teaching in the 50s in the first century. And he specifically mentions the gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Peter as being historically valuable.
So to summarize this section, the New Testament cannon was not officially and definitively closed until after Islam. Secondly, there were Christians, even of the protoorthodox persuasion, that differed greatly as to which books were in and which books were out.
So let me give you an example. The oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament in existence is called the Codecanicus. Okay? It's dated to about 350-375. It was discovered at St. Katherine's monastery at the base of Mount Si by a professor and explorer named Constantine Von Tishontoorf, who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones, by the way. Right. I didn't know that. Oh yeah, Indiana Jones. Another franchise destroyed, by the way, by, by the woke mob. Now that's a different issue, though.
Now let me give you a hypothetical scenario here. Okay, hypothetical scenario. Imagine that I gave a lecture at a university called "What is Christianity?" Okay, that's the name of my lecture, and there were many Christians in the audience. Now imagine I said to the Christians, and imagine, now imagine I said that Christians believe that the Jews completely misunderstood the dietary laws of the Torah. That the dietary laws were never meant to be taken literal, but always rather figurative. So, "don't eat pigs" means don't associate with people who are like pigs. "Don't eat hyenas" means not to be a pervert because the hyena changes it its nature every year. At one time it's male, the next time it's female. It's gender fluid. Don't be like that. Okay? And don't even get me started on the weasel. Okay? So, imagine I, imagine I said those things just like that. I would probably get confronted by a Christian or two who would say, "What, what on earth are you talking about? That's not true. You're misrepresenting Christianity. Where are you getting this from?" And I would say, "From Christian scripture, the Epistle of Barnabas." Then he would probably flip through his NIV or his RSV or his KJV and say, "That's not in my Bible. That's apocryphal." And then I would say, "According to whom?" According to the Council of Trent in the 16th century, yes, it's apocryphal. But not according to the compilers of the Codecanicus in the 4th century. It is in their canon, and it's the oldest complete new testament.
In other words, the actual claim of the modern Christian is that our understanding of Jesus improved as we move forward in time. Right? The new testament of the 16th century onward is more accurate of its depiction of Jesus's teachings than the Codecanicus written in the 4th century. This is the Christian claim. Okay. Fine. So something can actually improve in its accuracy with the passage of time. The New Testament did. Okay, fine. Then so did our understanding of Jesus with the Quran. The Quran is more accurate than the gospel authors, than what the gospel authors is, is depicting as the teachings of Jesus. So don't give me this "600 years later" business that they usually do. Right now, now I agree that the historical Jesus of Nazareth probably did not teach what the Epistle of Barnabas was teaching. Okay. But I also don't think that Jesus was, was teaching the trinity or his own divinity. So my point is, there were early Christians, even among the protoorthodox, who believed in teachings that are found outside what would become the New Testament cannon.