Transcription
Now, verse three of Genesis 12. This is the, the holy grail, right? "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Now, as you mentioned, nowhere does the, does the Hebrew word Israel appear in the text. It's just not there. You know, Jacob is Israel, and Jacob doesn't even exist yet. Jacob is the grandson of Abraham. This is God speaking to Abraham. So that is first and foremost. The word Israel is not there.
Now, number two, with that said, Cruz is partially right. Okay. So he's right that Abraham's descendants or seed, in some form, is implied in the text. It's not explicit here. It's implicit. It is explicit in other places in Genesis that certain persons, somehow descended of Abraham, are to be blessed by humanity. And who are these persons from a Jewish or a Torah perspective? The answer is Israel as a people. The Israel, right? Not Israel as a political entity or state or kingdom. Uh, it's Israel as in the children of Israel, the children of Jacob. That is the context of Genesis as a whole.
From our perspective as Muslims, okay, that was the Muslim ummah at that time. The Israelites were the Muslims, and all Muslims today, in our prayers, we ask God to bless the family of Abraham. This includes the righteous people from both sides of his family, the Israelites and the Ishmaelites, right? This is called. And notice here, we say the verb here is the exact same verb used in Genesis 12:3. "I will bless those who bless you." Uh, in in Hebrew, right? So, the great irony is a Muslim, two billion, more than two billion Muslims in the world, in their five daily prayers, yeah, but we are blessing Abraham. You know, I mean, I mean, where is the fulfillment there? It's in the Muslim world. I, I don't Christians, I'm not being funny. I've never met a Christian who blesses Abraham. I, I've just never met one. And maybe they do privately and I just haven't noticed. But it's part of the, the worship of Christians or the devotion of prayer at all. Not there. But, but for Islam, for Muslims, it is. It's part of our five daily prayers, exactly. We follow this biblical injunction quite closely and consistently, right? "I will bless those who bless you." And this, this blessing was taught to us by the Prophet Muhammad himself, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Right?
Uh, but, but it's not an unconditional blessing simply by virtue of one's Abrahamic descent, okay? DNA. Yes. Yeah. So we bless, exactly, the righteous and obedient people, family and descendants of Abraham. So if we look at the next two verses of chapter 37, I quoted some verses earlier from chapter 37 of the Quran. These verses 112 and 113. "We gave Abraham good news of Isaac, a prophet and a righteous man. We blessed him and Isaac as well. And from their descendants, from their seed, the seed of Abraham and Isaac are those who do good, while others who clearly wrong themselves, meaning they are not doing good." That ultimately, the state of the heart takes precedence, not a particular race or lineage. Abraham approached his Lord with a sound heart. Uh, in our tradition, of course, we give special honor to the Sadat, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, as long as they are righteous. The Imam al-Hadi, who was a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, from his grandson Al-Hussein ibn Ali, he said in a line of poetry, it's a beautiful line of poetry. He said, "Lam." So he said, he said, and this is a descendant of the Prophet talking, direct descendant from Imam Hussein. He said, "By your life, a person is only the son of his religion. So don't forsake piety and lean on your lineage."
For verily, Islam exalted the Persian Salman, Salman not a fantasy. And, uh, and idolatry debased the highborn Al-Hassib from Bani Hashim, debased the highborn Abu Lahab, the uncle of the Prophet. Right.
So, so back to Cruz in Genesis 12:3. A misquotation. The text does not say Israel. Followed by a partial truth in the context of Genesis, Israel is implied, but only as a people, not as a land or a government. And concluding with a major error. What is the major error? The third component of Ted Cruz's debacle of Genesis 12. The major error has to do with his total ignorance of how this verse, Genesis 12:3, and other verses like 12:3 are interpreted by New Testament authors.
Okay? So, so let me be clear. Let me be, uh, crystal clear. Let's, let's say for argument's sake, okay, that even if the Jewish understanding of this passage and other passages is to bless the Israelites, to bless the Jews, the Jews as a people, as a nation, as a polity, unconditionally until the end of time. Even if that is the Jewish understanding, that is not the New Testament understanding of the passage in Genesis. And Ted Cruz, by admission, is a Christian. This is what he's claiming. And as a Christian, he's supposed to believe. I can't believe I have to say it. He has to believe in the New Testament. Christians are expected to accept the New Testament. He's supposed to supersede the Old Testament. That's why it's called the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's, it's quite simple, really. It's the final and authoritative inspired word of God, according to Christianity. You know, Paul of Tarsus, as much as we as Muslims have issues with his teachings, and there are many problems, as you know, we've discussed exactly that on this channel. Uh, if one is a Christian who accepts the Athanasian 27-book canon, uh, of the New Testament, uh, one is bound to take Paul as being a divinely inspired writer because that's his claim. If you're going to be a Christian, be a Christian. Don't sit on a fence. You know, the Quran says, you know, the Quran says to the people of the Bible, "Do you believe in parts of the scripture and disbelieve other parts?" So, some Christian apologists, they claim here, "Oh, you see, the Quran commands the Christians to, uh, uh, to follow, uh, the Bible because the Bible is totally true and accurate." This is a, this is a total straw man argument. It's a question-begging argument, uh, made in bad faith. No, the Quran, in terms of the Bible and Christianity, uh, is much more nuanced, uh, than this reductionist Christian take.
If Christians, okay, would have stuck to the New Testament and, and their tradition, they would not be war-hawking for Israel. And by sticking to tradition, they wouldn't have blood on their hands. And by sticking to tradition, I don't mean blind allegiance to Christian authorities. The practice of the Christian tradition, capital T, is to harmonize scripture with natural reason. With that's the entire project of the Summa Theologica of Aquinas. Now, whether it works or not is a different story, right? That's a different discussion. But at least there is an attempt of harmonization. However, many, many Protestants today, and most Christian Zionists are Protestants. They practice Fideism, right? So they believe that our human nature is so fallen, is so depraved, that we simply cannot rely on our reason much at all. I mean, Martin Luther, in his usual dramatic style, said, "Reason is a whore." End quote. Uh, and, and, and Protestant preachers often say, "When in doubt, faith it out." Right? So for Aquinas, even though humanity is fallen, our status as the Imago Dei, the image of God, allows for the proper functioning and efficacy of our natural intelligence, and then our faith perfects natural reason, so that ultimately there cannot be contradiction between the two because both come from God. Now, whether again, whether Aquinas succeeds or not, that's a different discussion. But the method is good.
So, back to the Quran. The Quran recognizes that they're going to be Christians. If you're going to be a Christian, be a Christian. Christian Zionism is not traditional Christianity. Um, uh, you know, dispensationalism, dual-covenant theology, uh, the Bible rightly divided. This is all bid, at best, kufr, at the worst. From the standpoint of traditional Christianity, it's actually kufr. It's disbelief. Not only are these doctrines theologically anathema, in terms of social impact, these ideas are a roadmap to World War II. I mean, Dr. Stephen Sizer, a Bible-believing Christian, he wrote a book called Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon. I mean, it's radical Christianity. It leads to Christian terrorism. I mentioned John Hagee earlier. Uh, for those who don't know, John Hagee is an American preacher based in Texas. Um, a very, very large man. Uh, he's the director of, in more ways than one. Uh, he's the director of CUFI, you know, Christians United for Israel. He is a dual-covenant dispensationalist Christian Zionist. Uh, Hagee has a huge following around the world, tens of millions. Uh, let me show you how CUFI leads to kufr, okay? How Christian Zionism leads to blasphemy. Hagee wrote, I mean, you can't make this up, right? Hagee wrote a book called In Defense of Israel. Okay. In this book, Hagee argues that the Jews did not reject Jesus as the Messiah because Jesus never made the claim.
Let me, let me say it again. You can't make this up. According to Hagee, Jesus was not the Jew, Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah, and he never claimed to be the Messiah. So, I don't know what New Testament this man is reading. In the New Testament, so we're not talking about, you know, did Jesus historically claim to be the Messiah? Like Bart Ehrman would say, maybe he did, maybe. No, he's, he's supposed to be a Christian, okay? He's supposed to believe in the New Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus is called Christos over 500 times. Christos is the Greek translation of Messiah. It is Messiah. So, you know, Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. I mean, one example, John chapter 4:25 and 26, the woman at the well, you know, she said to Jesus, "I know that the Messiah will come." Jesus responded, "Ego eimi," "I am he," the one speaking with you. So, it's just absolutely mind-boggling what, what these people are saying.
Even at the time of Aquinas, there was this theologian named, uh, Joachim of Fiore, okay? And he, he talked about these three stages of history, like three dispensations. The age of the Father, the age of the Son, the age of the Spirit, and the age of the Spirit would soon sort of put an end to the, the present order, and Jews and Gentiles would all follow God. The church would sort of disintegrate, and all would have access to God. I mean, Aquinas refuted him in the Summa. I mean, he put an end to that very quickly. This was in the 13th century.
So, so Paul of Tarsus, okay, actually has something to say about God's blessing upon Abraham in Genesis 12. Okay? And again, Christians are supposed to believe the New Testament writers, not blindly follow their misguided preachers or even their parents. Okay? They should adhere to long-standing Christian tradition and prove all things. That's what Paul actually says. I mean, they should become Muslim. That's the best case, right? And we've seen that many times, Christians who engage academically with Christianity end up becoming Muslim, like yourself, right? Alhamdulillah. That's the best case scenario, and we see that trend. But again, the Quran is dealing with realities. Not everyone will become Muslim. If they don't accept Islam, then they should not ignore or throw away 2,000 years of Christian tradition and scholarship.
Can I just say Ted Cruz is not alone, and of course he's not alone in America thinking this, but I, I looked up the, uh, the Southern Baptist Convention. Um, the Southern Baptist Convention is it's huge, uh, you know, a massive organization for, uh, Baptists, Christians, evangelicals in the States. And, you know, they got this statement here, "Evangelical Support for Israel," and it quotes Genesis chapter 12 again, uh, alleging that Israel is mentioned in Genesis chapter 12, which it is not. Um, so this is a major political and religious movement in the United States on a huge scale. Uh, it's not just people like Ted Cruz and the few others you mentioned. It's a big, big movement. Uh, it elects people like the current president, and he then does what he does, and, you know, it has geopolitical global implications for all of us. In fact,
Yeah, this, this is really important topic. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, and so, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I don't, I don't believe Paul of Tarsus was an inspired writer, and I think that's obvious, and I think I can demonstrate that. I can provide evidence of that. But if Christians do believe that he was, then they should make, at least try to understand in good faith what he is actually saying. Okay? So, you know, Jay Dyer actually made a very good point recently. I'll give credit where it's due. He said something to the effect of, when Christians, and he's referring to evangelicals, when they disconnect from their history, when they divorce themselves from their like, historical church, the Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church, then another religious or pseudo-religious institution in the world, such as the modern state of Israel, becomes their sort of de facto mother church. And so now Israel becomes God's institution on earth for the evangelicals. I mean, that's a total disaster.
But let's look at the passages. So here, here's Paul in Galatians 3:16. Okay. So to the audience, I recommend writing these, uh, scriptural verses down. Make a note of them. Galatians 3:16. Paul is commenting in this verse on Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:15, Genesis 17:18, all of these verses in Genesis that deal with Abraham's seed. He says, "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made." He does not say, "and to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "and to your seed." Zera, singular in Hebrew. Now, watch this. He says, "estos." Who is Christ? So, did you catch that? According to Paul, God in Genesis was specifically referring to Jesus Christ as being Abraham's seed. Only Jesus and those who believe in him are blessed and are the true seed of Abraham. Not the disbelieving Israelites, and certainly not the modern, genocidal, blasphemous apartheid ethnostate of Israel, founded by atheists.
Which is not even a religious state, it's a secular state in its constitution. I mean, it doesn't even pretend to be, you know, biblical Israel. It doesn't even pretend that. Yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. Not the, not the modern state of Israel where Jews routinely spit on and insult Christians as they walk by, you know, not Tel Aviv that hosts the largest pride parade in the world. Wow. 100 miles from Sodom and Gomorrah. And they use the rainbow as their symbol. They've turned the rainbow into a symbol of degeneracy and rebellion. Of course, the rainbow was a sign of the covenant that God made with humanity, Genesis 9. They're mocking Genesis 9.
You know, in 2023, there were, there were these two ultra-Orthodox members of the Knesset, the parliament in Israel. Uh, Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Asher, or something like that. They actually introduced a bill that would imprison Christian missionaries in Israel for one year if they tried to convert Jews to Christianity. They wanted to criminalize talking about Jesus. The bill didn't pass, but still, this is God's institution on earth for evangelical Christian Zionists. This is the country that John Hagee wants every Christian in the world to bless. You couldn't make it up. I mean, if you had this in a fictional novel, okay, a Dan, could you imagine Dan Brown decided to write a, a sequel to The Da Vinci Code? Dan Brown writes fiction. He's a brilliant fiction writer. So he writes this story, okay, that you've just accounted. No one would buy it. No one would believe it because it's too fantastical. It doesn't make any sense. Now, Brown, how could you possibly argue? It's a ridiculous scenario. And yet, as you say, the truth is sometimes really stranger than, than fiction. Yeah, the truth is way too much fun here.
So, Israeli lawmakers, uh, routinely want to criminalize talking about Jesus. Yet Hagee, a supposed Christian minister, says that if a man so much as raises his voice against Israel, he invites upon himself the wrath of God. You can't make this up. Okay? You can't.
Here's another, here's another verse here. Paul says in First, and we'll come back to Galatians, but, uh, 1 Corinthians 16:22. Okay. 1 Corinthians 16:22. So there's two readings of this verse, okay? Um, and so it's interesting in, in Bruce Metzger's textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, he doesn't explain this difference, this difference here. There's two of these two readings. He kind of skips over it, and he might have done that for, I don't know, for PC reasons or something. Uh, but, um, certainly the King James Version says this. It says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," and some translations take out Jesus Christ, right? "Let him be anathema," which means, which Aramaic, Maranatha, "Come, O Lord." Right? So it's, it's Lord here is, is talking about Jesus. "Maranatha," "Come back, O Jesus." Yes. Right? In other words, if anyone does not love Jesus, that person is cursed. Right? I love Jesus. Um, here's the Arabic translation, right? Right. Of course, I don't believe that Jesus is, he is a cursed if you don't love Jesus. Here's 1 John 2:22. Okay. 1 John 2:22. "Who is the liar?" It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. What is it? What does he say right after this? "Antichrist." Such a person is the antichrist. If you don't love Jesus and you don't accept him as Messiah, then you are a cursed Antichrist. I didn't say that. Paul of Tarsus and John the Elder did. New Testament writers.