Hello everybody, and welcome. This is the Apostate Profit. How is everyone doing? I am here today with Jay Dyer, a very very special guest. H Jay, do you like my intro music?
I do.
I'm having to turn you off because I had you already going in the background, so yeah, I'm getting a double dose of you and the music, and so it's like a remix.
But yeah, nice, amazing, that's amazing. That must sound even better. Uh. This is basically like the Islamic humming that they always play pathetic. I thought remixed it made much better. It would be much better if it always sounded like this, but they just don't get it.
So I'm good. Yeah.
You know, we had a good chat the other day on my channel, and you brought up a lot of good issues and kind of probably stuff that was old hat to you. But it's good to go to that stuff because you know, maybe a lot of my audience might not know a lot of that kind of old hat classic stuff that you know. So yeah, you brought a lot of interesting insights. One thing I'd like to say from the outset was a lot of people got
mad or fussed. A lot of Muslims and even a few Christians that you and I would have these conversations. And it's odd to me because, first thing, you know, whether you're Muslim or Atheist or Christian or whatever, we should all be aware of fallacies and what they are, and the genetic fallacy is one of the more well known fallacies. Because it doesn't matter what source an argument comes from, the argument either stands or falls on its own.
So it doesn't matter who says the argument. If Judas says an argument has nothing to do with his betrayal, whether that argument is true or false, right likewise, and you would think people would know this.
Likewise.
The only case that I can think of in which we would consider bodies character in an argument is if the argument was about that person's character, or if they committed a crime or something like that. In that case, it would be appropriate to investigate their character. But the basis of their arguments, the validity the arguments themselves, none of them have any None of that has anything to do with the person's character and their beliefs. And it's
odd to me that people don't understand that. But as I'm beginning to realize with I think this is like my fifth or sixth Islamic debate fallacies seem to be something that a lot of Muslims are not aware of.
Yeah, precisely, I agree with everything that's out there pretty much. And you will see this every single time when you have a debate with Muslims. Most Muslims, the most apologists you will encounterar the same complaints all the time. If you are if you genuinely want you to discuss this topic, then you shouldn't talk to this person, shouldn't talk to that person, shouldn't talk to this other guy. UH, only
talk to us, only discuss with us. People who criticize Islam are unreliable and if you talk to them, that means that you are automatically marked as somebody who has no genuine interest in debating, and you must be shunned at all costs. And that's understandable considering that UH, criticizing Islam is not allowed, and especially me as an as an ex Muslim, I'm not even supposed to exist in
Dynal Kikichu's worldview. Like he told me when we when we were talking, he basically told me that he thinks I should be executed for my leaving Islam. So it is really it is. Islam is unique, and Muslims are unique in that way where they very often just have to invoke that fallacy without understanding the problem that it
that it that it presents. As as said, when we talk about the whole issue with the name of God Yahweh and Islam versus versus Abrahamic biblical religion, he chooses to now completely ignore the points even when you bring it up simply because because you reference me, or because you make a reference to what he said to me. And when he talked to me about it, he clearly had no clue and later he denied what he actually said. He basically blasphemed and then later denied what he actually said.
It was surprising because it's I mean, everybody can see the clip, and you know, he clearly says it's a pagan name, and then when asked about that, he says, I never said that. So you know, it's like this is multiple times now where I'm really questioning, you know, does he is he really?
Is he disingenuous?
Right, because I mean, if you have a person on record saying it, it's really difficult to then rewrite the history and say no, I never said that. But you did say that, so at least you would. You could either own up to it and say, well, I said that, but here's what I meant, or here's a clarification, but the outright just so I never said that. I'm noticing a pattern of And this is not to say that Christians are always honest.
People in any position can be dishonest. You can be an atheist be dishonest. You be a Christian be dishonest.
You could be a Muslim and be dishonest. But there seems to be, as you noted, a kind of a tendency to shun the rational discourse, shun the logical argumentation. And again I'm not an expert on Islam. I'm still in the process of learning. To me, it looks like there's a tendency to when you have this going back to the original pure Islam, which is what my understanding of Daniel's school, that what it represents, there's a tendency again to have to shun logic, to have to shun argumentation,
because that's seen as later development. Lam is a later development, and that might lead to problems, right, because there might be questions that are not permitted to ask. I remember in the when I was prepared for the Asraa Rashid debate, we found some of those old Sunni texts which, even though they were engaged in kalam one are the texts dealt with the names of a law of the attributes.
And there was a point where the question is raised, well, how do we reconcile the fact of God of Allah's pure unity with the fact that we're naming many names and what about the distinction between the names? And at a certain point it says it is not permitted to ask this question. So it's just sort of like you can debate and discuss to a certain point, then it's not permitted. And as you were saying, the idea that
there's this unity about Islamic theology is not true. At one point in the debate, you know, Daniel's trying to say Christians disagree, there's debates, there's there's that Wait a minute, I.
Mean, you guys don't agree.
You guys have all kinds of So in other words, if disagreements made a position true or false, no position would be true false. I mean yeah, they would need because none of them would be true. Because now if some sort of majority opinion or if the fact that we have, you know, thirty percent of the Islamic schools agree about this position, sixty percent agree with this position. I mean, none of that has anything to do with whether it's true false. It's another fallacy to appeal to majority,
appeal to consensus. You can certainly bring in experts, but expert testimony itself doesn't necessarily prove a thing.
And so I just over and.
Over and overhere to hear these appeals that were very similar to you know, fallacies that I've seen in other debates that when I would bring them up, you could tell that he didn't even know what what I was referencing. What do you mean?
Yeah, Yeah, there was this very awkward moment that that I saw, actually multiple awkward moments about the very same thing during the debate that you had with Daniel Kikitche, which was where you brought up the idea that the Quran tells Jews and Christians that they should read their their own book, and it says that their book is
is confirmed. But if you go to that book, then you have the problem of somebody like Daniel Kikitchu saying, okay, but those books are invalid because they have contradictions and they were corrupted, and so you are caught in this whole in this whole dilemma. Okay, are those books now confirmed and authentic or are they not? And he then comes in and and and and presents this position, which is the best he can do, because it is just it's it's a whole problem that Muslims can't get out of.
He then tells you that when the Jews and Christians go to those books, uh, they will see contradictions in those books with monotheism as presented in Islam, which is why they will understand that those books are wrong. Okay, but that means that they have to evaluate that whole situation from its club's perspective, which doesn't make sense. Yeah. Right.
If what's in question is the continuity of the Quran with previous revelation, then I asked a very simple question to Daniel, which was, what is the epistemic principle that you have that tells you when the Old Testament is true and when it's false? And he says the Quran. But the thing is that that's what's in question, So you can't just appeal to the thing any question. When
we're asking about prior revelation. Now you could say, but Jay, what you did in the day, He said, But Jay, you you appealed to the Old Testament too, in terms of your position, Yeah, but I don't argue that the.
Old Testament has a lot of contradictions.
So if I thought the Old Testament had contradictions and Christianity was the new revelation that replaced it, I would be in the same boat as Daniel's position. You see, yeah, because you could say, well, you know, the New Testament appeals to the Old Testament, right, but it ever makes the appeal that the Old Testament is true and valid, but it also has contradictions.
That's Daniel's position.
Daniel's position that the Old Testament is true and valid because the Koran says so, however, there's all these passages that don't teach the pure mono theism of Islam. And I still have that drawing here that I had drawn up the things whiteboard here. So these are just examples of theophanies where we find real distinctions in God in the Old Testament. And there's more.
This is just one list that I could fit on one board.
And Daniel says, yeah, those are problem texts that are all contradictions. Now, wait a minute. That's why I asked the question, Well, then, what's the epistemic principle that tells you when you go through the Old Testament? Oh, this is the true verse false, verse true, verse false, verse, this chapter true, this chapter false, this chunk true, this chunk false. And the principle was whatever's consistent with the Quran.
But the question was, how do we know that the Qoran is can assistant with prior revelation given the fact that the Quran says you can validate this with the books given to the Jews and the Christians. You see, this is, like you said, it's an irresolvable dilemma. And that's why I had to sort of draw this out for him on the small board, what is your episode
of principle similarity to the Old Testament? And then eventually ended up saying, well, you just you just look and see with your eyes what's consistent with with what's not consistent? You see, So you just look at your eyes. So can I do not appeal to the same thing of just looking with my eyes.
It's also extremely funny because the Quran clearly and explicitly says about the Jews and Christians. It says, why do they come to you when when they have, you know, what was revealed to them, basically saying that they should just go back and read their books. But that doesn't make any sense. If you once again present this whole problem, it again goes into this circular nonsense that he cannot get out of. What are they supposed to do? They are supposed to Jews and Christians are supposed to go
and read their own scriptures. They don't supposed to come to Muhammad. Okay, if they are supposed to read their own scriptures, then they will be educated by their own scriptures on their own beliefs and on how their beliefs are, on what they are supposed to believe according to their own scriptures, which if they do that will eventually contradict
with what Islam Telstone. But then Daniel Kikichu and other Muslims come out and say, well, no, no, no, no, you can't take those things in there that contradict with real belief because you know those are in values. You take the rest. Okay, what is the rest? Well, whatever agrees with my beliefs.
Yeah, And I mentioned that he couldn't see that that was a circle. Now, if he affirm circular logic, then I would have I mean he would That would have been more honest and he could have like maybe gone in another direction.
But of course he didn't want.
To do that because typically when Muslims do accept varying degrees of philosophy, whichever school they're in, it's usually kind of a very broad stroke. For example, I have Azar Rashid's book. When we did our debate, I got his book, and his approach to epistemology was just a very basic empiricism. So you know, if you want to have that school and that approach, that's what that's fine. But anybody that does that's going to have to deal with the outworkings
of adopting that position. So if you have a very basic empiricist view, you're going to have a hard time justifying or given account for questions like what about a circular argument that you're presenting about the relationship with the krant prior revelation you can't affirm just from a strictly philosophical perspective, You're not going to be able to affirm circular argumentation if you're an empiricist, unless you just want
to say that my position is just self evident. But if he wants to go that route, then I can just say, okay, well my position is self evident if everybody can just appeal to their own internal self evidence, which I don't believe.
We should do in a debate.
But if you do that, it kind of makes debate no longer possible because the opponent, you see, can appeal to the same thing I walk can just appeal to my all my principles are just quote self evident, right, So so that's not usually the best. That's not usually how debates go, unless you're debating something like, you know, some obscure topic like transcendental arguments or circular argumentation itself.
Is it possible?
Is it not possible?
Most debates are not going in that way. And that's why you know, cor three says there is no God but He the living, the self subsisting. He sent down the book that is truth upon the confirming what it was before he sent the Torah and the Ngel, the Gospel, and it is the guidance to mankind. Nothing about but it is half corrupted. You see, Oh, it is seventy percent corrupted. And that's the thing, is that when you actually look at as and I haven't. Let's just take
the first ten stories, for example. I went through the first ten, and I got a giant list of all of the references in the first ten to sections of the Torah and the profits, right, And here's the thing, this is what I was trying to get it. I don't think Daniel got this point. I was trying to get it across, which is that you got giant portions that are referred to referenced giant stories, the Exodusk story, the conquests of David, different stories in the Book of Genesis,
for example, the creation narrative is largely affirmed. So if we're going to admit that these giant portions of the Torah are correct, then now we've got a problem of giant portions not correct. Right, So it doesn't really matter what percent did you want to say. Let's say you think seventy percent of it's true and thirty percent is false. Or maybe you think thirty percent of the Old Testament the profits is true and seventy percent is false. Either way,
you're stuck in the same kind of bind. Because number one, the Quran actually says, as you noted, that it's not consistent. Right, they'll excuse me that the Old Testament is not full of errors. That's a later argument that they may And when it does mentions, I think, like you said, when it does mention that they perverted the message, it says they perverted the message with their mouth. It doesn't say
the text is perverted. So there's not an intertextual argument that I'm aware of that argues that the Torah and the Gospel are full of errors. This is a later argument. This is why they go to talk about going to
non believers. Well, they ran to you know, bart Ermin and people for me for so long until bart Erman said that now there is historical evidence for Christ and crucifixion, and then I think they wanted to get rid of using bart Ermin because again, so it's like this double state, and is what I'm trying to say, there's a double standard of you know, I can't talk to you because you don't have the same religion as me. And it's like, but it does have something to do with the arguments.
But the arguments are true or false regardless of the person. But to go back to your point, like you know,
I'm just trying to stress that. Look, if you're gonna say that a giant portion of the prior revelation is false, which is what his position amounts to, then you're gonna have to give an account for why does the Quran then assume many of these stories, oftentimes in passing, So it'll just reference an event or a person, right, And how else would we know the context and the meaning and the background of that person without going to the
prior revelation which predates them, It predates the Koran, predates the Quran, and isn't.
And we have some very very explicit Quran versus like chapter five, verse forty seven, which say, and let the people of the Gospel, Christians judge by what Allah has revealed therein, And whoever does not judge by what Allah
is revealed, then those are the defiantly disobedient. So according to that verse itself, who are what are Christians supposed to judge by by the Gospel, by what was revealed to them by In the Quran's understanding, and it's understanding, the Gospel is basically a revelation that was revealed to Jesus,
like the Quran was revealed to Ahamed. It has a very it has a big misunderstanding of what the Gospel actually is, and it tells the Christians explicitly they are that they should simply stand by and judge by what the Gospel says. And there is no single reference throughout the Qur'an which explicitly tells you that those books are no longer valued, that those books have been corrupted, that
they have been corrupted into oblivion. Such a mindset only only emerged over the centuries much later, I think, as late as like the eleventh or eleventh century or twelfth century it was. It became entrenched into Islamic thinking that those that those books, the Torah and the Ingia as they refer to them, meaning the Gospel and the Torah,
were overall corrupted. But that is just that is just as it seems, an explanation that they came up with because they could not explain the abundance of contradictions between the Bible and the Quran, and contradictions on such a level that you cannot possibly believe that both of those sources as they are today came from the same God. You cannot hold on to of them at the same time, it is simply impossible. And I would say, it's like this whole game of those books are corrupt. They're not
in their original form. They are only consistent wherever they are consistent with my beliefs. That would be like if you went out there, like if Christians went out there, or if I if anybody went out there and said, you know, Mohammed was actually a righteous guy. He was led and he was leading people to the belief in one God. But his followers corrupted his sayings and corrupted
the actual Qur'an, which was full of truth. And when Mulim's then asked well how can you improve this, did you simply say, well, everything that Muhammad said, everything in the Quran that agrees with our Abrahamic beliefs is correct, and everything else that disagrees is obviously corrupted. And there is your proof. Now let go of your Islamic beliefs and come to the truth. Put them in the same position.
Yeah, exactly. I mean two points there that come to mind. I want to read that sort of five. I'm glad you mentioned it because it's really strong. It says, how is it that they come to deeper judgment when they have the Torah, wherein is God judgment. Even after that
they turn their backs and they are not believers. Truly, we sent down the Torah they're in as guidance, where in His guidance and light by what the prophets who submitted unto God judged those who are Jews, as did the sages and the rabbis, in accordance with such with God's books, as they were bidden to preserve it, and to which they were witnesses. So I fear not mankind, fear me. My signs are for sell, not my signs for a paltry price, where whosoever judge is not by
what God has sent down. So like as you said, he goes on to say in the Footsteps, we sent Jesus confirming the Torah, and we gave him that.
Gospel confirming the Torah.
So the assumption of these texts is that there's continuity not just with the Old Testament of the Koran, but between the Torah and what Jesus said.
Right.
But when we go to what Jesus said, of course, there's a lot of problem texts, such as the entire Gospel of John, which is why usually Islamic apologetics just says, that's one we throw out. So now we're throwing out entire books because as you pointed out, well wait a minute, the kron speaks as if they thought the Gospel or the nGael was this book that Jesus got, like like
Muhammad got the Quran. It's not. It's a recorded it's the disciples recording this oral message and then passing on various texts which give, in my view, a coherent narrative. So it's just amazing that this it's not a very complex argument. I mean, it might be complex if you're not used to the Old Testament, or if you don't know actually what's in the Torah and the prophets in the Bible, But if you actually go and look and see,
it's pretty clear. Now. The other thing that Daniel referenced was the text in Jeremiah, and he didn't even get that the This was actually called out by one of the super chat questions I think if I recall, but he said, oh, well, you see, Jeremiah says that the scribe have perverted the text. It doesn't say the scribes perverted the Torah. It says that the scribes perverted their text,
meaning they're what I would say. When Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, he says, you've added things to the commands of God. And it doesn't mean that the Torah was essentially altered, because Jesus says in the same Gospel that the scriptures cannot be broken. He presupposes and cites the Torah at length throughout the Gospels. So the text in Jeremiah is not, first of all, referring to the Torah itself being corrupted.
It's talking about the rabbinical traditions. However, even if Daniel did want to say that the text in Jeremiah is referring to the Torah being corrupted, Daniel doesn't have a principle by which to know for sure that that text of Jeremiah isn't corrupted, because the entire Old Testament and prophets, in his view, are potentially corrupted. That's why asked, in the principle of epistemic certitude, what is the principle by which you judge when the Old Testament's true when it's false. Well,
it's whenever it agrees with the Kuran. Ok. How do you know that the text in Jeremiah that you're citing about corruption isn't also corrupted because it agrees with the Kuran. So again it all comes back to this circle. But as you pointed out, it's not even a good circle because the book itself that He's is his ultimate principle already affirms that there's not error and contradiction in the prior revelations.
Yeah, even if we talk about so when we talk about Jeremiah as a source, there is another problem which we talked about last week when we were in your channel, which is that Jeremiah is an easy prophet as a prophetic source, is not even recognized in Islam. So you could it's not mentioned in the Quran. This might be a big surprise to many people, but Jeremiah is not mentioned in the Koran. Huge huge profit in Abrahamic religion. Samuel is not mentioned in the Quran. Huge profit. Isaiah
is amazingly huge prophet not mentioned in the Quran. Aslam as no cool about Isaiah. Daniel, which is very ironic, is also Daniel Kikschu's name is not mentioned in the Quran. These prophets are not recognized as prophets anywhere in the Quran. Any most knowledge about these prophets comes from Jews and Christians. They have to go to Jews and Christians literally to
get information about about these people. So when it comes to Daniel Ki gets you referencing something in Jeremiah, that would mean he is making reference to a book that is a prophetic book according to the Jews and Christians, whom he cannot trust because they allegedly corrupted everything. So he is appealing to a potentially corrupted source, which, according to him, argues that things were at some point corrupted.
This is just no way to go, hope for to make up stolid argument against for the corruption of Judaism and Christianity.
Well, the other funny thing too is that and by the way, I know that you know, in our last talk on my channel, we had talked about the fact that many of these prophets that are major figures in the Old Testament, major prophets, that they I didn't even realize that it's that they're not even mentioned by name in the sense of absolutely no mention. I thought, maybe there's passing references, you know, to the Holy prophet of so and so, But but you're saying Jeremiah is not even mentioned at all.
It's not mentioned at allow. Jeremiah has no mention in the Corona.
That's wild, because you know, if we were looking for a religion that was in continuity of prior prophets, I mean from the vantage point of Jews and Christians. I mean Isaiah, as we said, is called the Fifth Gospel. I mean, it's just huge, even if you don't believe Jesus is and Messiah like I mean, Isaiah is Gian sixty six chapters. It's huge, you know, Ezekiel huge, right, Jeremiah huge, I mean vast books of the of.
The Old Testament.
And by the way, just a little funny side note, the name Daniel means God is my judge. And the l there is would be probably what Daniel was looking for when he was looking for the name that was pagan l l ohem.
That doesn't mean the name is pagan.
Right. This is a word concept fallacy because it's just like the word divinity. The word divinity or deity might refer to God, it might refer to many gods. It might refer to angels, demons, or a human being viewed as a divine figure. It's it's a generic term, and so amongst the Canaanites. The term L could be a reference to any kind of deity or a.
Class of deities.
Right, So a lot of people make this mistake because they think, oh, well, anything with the name L in it, Danielle must be so ironically, his own name would be a pagan name.
I mean, the Bible also uses L or as when when it refers to other gods, when it refers to other false gods, when it refers to them them making a god of of objects of of Yeah. Different.
It's a word that's a generic term, like like the word deity or divinity.
Yeah, yeah, so it would be it's it's it's just very ignorant from general's perspective and other people's perspective to argue that that would be the the actual name and then to deny the existence of Yahweh as Uh as name of God, and that this is one of my favorite things by now to to go to one of my one of my favorite arguments against Islam, the whole absence and ignorance of the name Yahweh in Islam. And we talked about this in length on your I don't know if you're talking about it.
Yeah, it's an amazing argument that you found there with that, and especially going into the prophets whose names are also derivatives of that, and I think that, I mean, I can't see how this argument can be overcome. I mean it's really it's really probably one of the strongest that I've heard. Uh So again, the fact that you, being atheist, have that argument has nothing to do. I mean, the argument stands on our own on its own right. So it's like, I mean, it's a strong argument no matter
who says it. And I think that any position that doesn't want to deal with arguments and has to kind of fall over into these kinds of like, oh well he needs to just be gotten rid of or you.
Know, shut up, shut him up.
I mean, that's just showing kind of weakness in the position from my vanished point.
Yeah, and even when I brought that whole argument about the name of Yahweh on how Islam is completely ignorant of the name of Yahweh, I specifically brought that topic to him and challenged him on that because I knew very well that he that his understanding of scripture, theology and things like that is very very poor. He was actively it looks like it clearly looks like he was actively researching while I was talking and then trying to
give me these off way answers to my challenge. And what he did come up with is, well, Yahweh did not Yahweh was not in in Genesis, which was false. Yahweh is just you know, it's it's a name that the Hebrews probably adopted this pagan name from the from from from these polytheistic people, and then gave that name
to their own God. And later prophets actually fought against this and wanted to you know, rid their religion of this corruption, but then you know, it just kept being used in this corrupt form.
It just doesn't weird because that's that's yeah, that's usually the when people who and that's a very low tier argument, like you said, based on ignorance, they usually are referring to Aloheim. Usually they say the name Elohim is the one that is borrowed from Canaanite religion and therefore Christianity and Judy or false because there's this paganization just on the basis of a word concept ballacy of the name Elohim. But I think he got mixed up or he just
slipped oh, well, Yahweh is the same thing. It's like that it's a pagan it's but it's not. There's no equivalent that I'm aware of it being a pagan name.
So what he did as a result is he completely wasted the one opportunity of actually dealing with that argument and still presents it as if he was actually he actually successfully argued his point when he was challenged with that.
But when you look at the footage, you can clearly see that he gives completely nonsensical answers and it's just out there, and he still doesn't engage with it anymore after I called him out that his response doesn't make sense, that his response that Yahweh is a pagan name basically invalidates Islam as well, because Islam itself, the crown itself uses theophoric names which clearly references Awe, including the biggest I would say is Elijah, which truly means Ali yahooh
my God, is Yahweh. And he didn't even get that. He was like, Okay, well, why why is that Yahweh? That doesn't sound like yeahweh? Okay, yeah, it doesn't have to exactly sound like yeah, yeah, it's Ali. Yahli. Yeah, that the Yah is already enough that that that is what is commonly used throughout the Bible and throughout throughout Hebrew to reference reference Yahweh, and that should already be
enough for him. Plus you have two instances of the Quran explicitly naming, explicitly saying that John and Jesus, two figures that were Allah announced their names beforehand, before they were born, and it is Allah himself who gave them those names, and both of those names referenced Yahweh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it is just it is just.
Well, I don't know if you saw the when I posted you the clip that you argued. His reply was, I never said that. And it's like the clip has you think, what do you mean?
Never said it?
And that's it. He wouldn't respond to that, right.
I mean that was the response. I never said that.
Yeah, free bird said Yahweh. Don't mention the New Testament.
Sure it does.
Yeah, go ahead if you want to respond to that, so I would, I would say, off the top of my head, it is already. First off, it is it's a completely irrelevant point because Christians don't have the problem which Muslims have of not having the previous scriptures the
Old Testament. It is known as the Old Testament as part of the Bible, so Christians read the very book which mentions Yahweh over six thousand times, although due to Hebrew tradition it was it is shane into auto and I in Hebrew and then the English for example, into a lord in capital letters. But that is basically Yahweh plus plus the New Testament says Hallelujah for example, which is a direct, direct inclusion of direct reference to Yahweh.
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways that you can demonstrate this. One of those, as I pointed out, is if you look at Exodus three, when you have the burning bush manifestation or what we call it a theophany, it's known as the ash air, it's God saying I am that I am, and so God is the I am.
This is also equivalent to or.
A reference to Yahweh as well, because if you go over to Exodus twenty three, God says that the angel who will go before the messenger. And I remember, a messenger doesn't always mean a created angel. It can be a divine messenger or it can be a created messenger like Gabriel or whoever. But if you look at Exodus twenty three, the same mess or the one that the voice that speaks in the bush is identified as the
same messenger who will I'll read it. Hold, I will send my messenger before your face to keep you in the way and in the land that are prepared. Listen to him and obey the voice. Do not provoke him, for he will not pardon your sins. Only God can prepardon sins. By the way, not angels. My name Yahweh is in him, is in the as in the the being speaking from the bush. It's this identified as the
same being of Exodus three. And so when you read the Gospel of John, Jesus says for many in many instances, I am, He says, I am, when before Abraham was I am. And particularly if you want to focus on John one and then John five through nine. In those chapters, Jesus identifies himself as the one that spoke to Moses. So the one speaking in the bush, the one speaking and being the messenger to go before them to either pardon them or not pardon them.
In Exodus twenty three.
Jesus identifying himself as that to the Pharisees. And that's what motivates the Pharisees in John five through nine to want to stone him because they recognized Jesus saying, Abraham believed in me. Abraham saw my day. Abraham believed in me, saw my day and was glad. He says Moses, right, no one sees the Father at any time, but he says that somebody was there speaking to Moses. He's implying that it was himself. He says, Moses wrote about me.
This isn't what enrages the Pharisees because Jesus identifying himself as the Angel of the Lord and as the face that spoke to Moses, and this makes them want to stone him. So those passages I think are very clear if you're familiar with the typology, and also if you go through a lot of these passages that I mentioned that are called the offen. These these are manifestations of distinctions in the Old Testament that refer both to the Father, to the Angel of Yahweh or the Angel of the Lord,
and to the Spirit. And this is just a partial list. There's many many more. It gots smudged over here. But if you go back to the Daniel debate. You can see all of those that I've referenced, and so what you get is a comprehensive in my view of presentation of differentiation in Yahweh throughout the Old Testament, that the New Testament is consistent with even if you didn't believe
in Christianity. I think that modern Jews, for example that I mentioned in the debate, the Summer Text, the Seagull Text, the Schaeffer, they're all Jewish scholars. They're admitting that there is quite a bit of differentiation and distinction in the persona of Yahweh and the Old Testament. So it's not
a strict unitarianism. So I'm just pointing out that whether you're a Christian who approaches the New Testament and the name of Yahweh and how it's differentiated in the Old and New Testament, how it's applied to Christ, or whether you're a Jew who looking at for example, Daniel seven in the text where we see this one like a son of Man, these Jewish scholars are admitting that early Christianity is consistent with a quote conservative Judaism of that time.
In other words, it's not a completely wholesale made at religion.
In fact, they're admitting that.
Without believing it. They're admitting that the Jews, the early Christians, who were all Jews, were attempting to interpret and be consistent with the revelation in the Torah and the prophets that was not a strict unitarianism. And in fact, I think some Summers argues that the really strict unitarianism of Judaism doesn't really come about until my monodies.
So that's also interestingly kind of parallel with.
The rise of Islam and its strict version of unitarianism.
What is very interesting is dealing with all of these uh these issues that are presented when we deal with Islam and compared to to Abrahamic religion. You pointed out that that there is a that there seems to be this this attitude, this behavior among traditionalist Muslims, which Dane Kikichu seems to be a representative of, of not of not really engaging with the the argument. And there is an older tradition of simply not asking questions, and that
goes back to such a such a fundamental level. Indeed, I quickly want to point that out that is not just something we say. There is a there is a term in Arabic bila cave, which literally means without how, or which means without asking how? How, Yeah, without asking how?
And and that is a that is a concept, a principle which became popularized by very early Muslim scholar and which traditionalists, Muslims, literalists, legalists stood by for quite a long time when they dealt with, for example, how how allies described in the Qur'an, and that there are references to alli having body parts, but then also references to to a lot being just uh, you know, everywhere at all time, and this and that and and and Muslims
had problems figuring out how exactly they're supposed to make sense of these different interpretations, and the the early scholars came up with this, with this explanation or with this coping method, which was do not ask how, just read it, accept it, do not ask questions. And this is an actual concept. As said, it's called bila cave. And quite a few Muslim schools have stood by ed. Traditionalist schools today are still very much respecting that rule, some of them.
Does this go back to like the hunt ball.
Yeah, it's it's I think what a prominent opinion is that is that Ahmad hn Mad actually came up with that whole explore. It was his his idea that this is what needs to be done in order to preserve proper belief and to avoid corrupting theology. So just take whatever the text says, do not question it, do not try to make sense of it, do not compare the apparent contradictions. It's none of your business. Just just accepted it.
That's it. That's also consistent with the Quran saying, with the Quran saying for the true believers, when when they hear a last versus they they say, I hear and I obey. That's it. And another another instruction by Mohammad where he says that the devil comes to you and asks you questions about Allah and who created this and who created that. Whenever that happens, seek refuge with Allah and sees thinking about these things. So these are actually slamming instructions.
Does that in that in that view? Does that also apply to the hot eath or just the Kuran.
Hadith are more complicated, much more complicated. But I guess with the hadith, but what they do is they respect the tradition of figuring out what is and is not authentic in the hadiths, and then accepting whichever hadith is most supported, most stable if there are if there are
differing reports only specific instants. But yeah, so there is for example, Haidith which says which I love, which says that a lot comes down every night at a specific time to the world, Yeah, to the lowest heaven, the heaven of the earth, and stays there to listen to all the prayers, and then he goes back again. And when do you actually think about that very deeply? That doesn't make any sense because when exactly, how exactly would that work, considering that it is always night somewhere and.
They are just and also, I mean, this is kind of that point about the shins and the above the throne. These are spatial locations, and you know, if we're supposed to believe in tall heed, that's not possible. And so we're sort of forced.
Into a position then of.
Making analogies saying, oh, this just represents various attributes and powers, right, But then when we do that, we're now moving into the domain of philosophical explanations and analogical predication.
And if we're gonna do analogical predication.
Then we have to square that with the text that says that there's absolutely nothing in.
Creation that's like a lot.
So you can't have both of those things, right, you can't have analogical predication. And for those that don't know, predication by analogy means predication on the basis of likeness and similarity.
Right. So God is a judge.
In the way that a virtuous human being is a righteous judge. Right, so he judges between cases. God judges, right, a father loves his son, God loves us in an analogous way. It's an analogy between the love of father and a son and God's love for us. Just this is just throughout history of theology. But in the Middle Ages, analogical predication is just predicating on the basis of similarity and likeness. But you see the Koran's already said there's
no likeness at all between Allah and anything created. But then we have all these names which are predicates, right, Allah, the merciful, the righteous judge. And then we have these attribute or these qualities that are predicated like shin, like spatial location. So they have to be explained. Then at the same time as saying but there is no such thing as analogical predication. Oh but there is analogical predication, and then they just sort of talk around what that means.
Right, Yeah, this I've had.
I brought this up to pretty much every Muslim of debated except for Daniel. I didn't bring up to Daniel, but all the other ones that brought it up, and it's just like, well, it's not saying that all is like creatures. It's saying that all is like this or that power. And it's like, okay, well is the power
that you're talking about concept in your head? Okay, but that's a creature, right, the concept that you're have in your head of Allah's hand and all as you know, movement or those are created things in your view, and you're saying that they are descriptors or the what is the as she had said.
They signify the divine?
Well, to signify the divine is to say that this is a created sign symbol. That's symbology. That's analogical predication. So how if there's no if all is not like any creature, is there analogical predication?
You see?
This is sah It's forty forty two to eleven it's not long.
I'll read it. It says.
The originator of the heavens and earth, he is appointed for you, mates among yourselves, and is appointed mates amongst the cattle. He multiplies you thereby, and not is like unto him. Unto him ex me. Yet he is the hero and the seer. So those are analogies. To hear and to see are analogous to human activities. Right, So we're saying that all I hear is and all I sees, but not as a man sees, not as a man hears. But not only that, here's the problem. Unto him belongs
to the keys of heaven and earth. He comprehends and strange provision for whomever he will.
He has prescribed that.
There's excuse me out, let me go back a little bit. It was verse eleven. He multiplies you thereby, but there is nothing like unto him.
Yeah, that was the text.
I was, excuse me, keep reading. But and then you're notice in the notes, if you have the study, the study current, they talk about this discussion of nothing being like unto him. And I think there's another one too, which talks in this way. I forget which one it is. But the point being is that if there's nothing like unto him. This is I think called tanzi t A and z i h the doctrine of absolute dissimilarity between
online creatures. If there's absolute dissimilarity, then we can't be using these predicates like hearing seeing movement.
Yeah, the issue is if you just if you already begin to analyze the things that the Quran says and point out the obvious problem here, you slowly approach a topic that has been plaguing the Muslim world in terms of theology for forever, from the very very beginning, and that is still around and over which branches of Muslims, schools of Islam have been denouncing each other and calling each other disbelievers and even sentencing each other to death and persecuting each other.
And you're saying, specifically over this question of like the hand and the placement over the throne.
This is one of the questions. So one of the questions that caused such a huge mess and still does is that the body parts the attribute to the specific descriptions of a law, and how you can reconcile them with the fact that there is nothing like Allah, and how much, how far you can think about them. And
this is actually a very funny thing. I grew up in a very religious household, and stuff like this was hammered into my head all the time from all sides, and I always had trouble understanding that there is nothing like a lot and I cannot even imagine it. I'm not supposed to. I cannot think about it. I cannot imagine it. But then I'm also given these conflicting descriptions of what a lot does, at what time and how he will appear, and I'm like, okay, I just it
doesn't make sense. I can't reconcile it. And I might have had this issue as simply somebody who witnesses these these descriptions of our law and who doesn't study further. But this has been an issue from the very beginnings of Islamic history. And there have been a traditionalists who has said, stuck to the whole idea that you should not question, because if you question, then you will cause problems.
And there have been the others who are basically the evidence of specifically that the mainstream Muslims were of the idea that Allah is up there, and we have certain things that are described about him, but we are not supposed to really think about that. Those things may be metaphorical or literally, we do not know. We don't think about that. Uh. And then there are those the mysticists who go further and to say Allah is probably up there wherever that is. But that's it. We're not going
to go into anything else. Everything about him can only be metaphorical. Uh. And we leave it at that. And then there are others who go to the extreme. And actually my parents were kind of part of that, and they were like in such an extreme form of mysticism where they deal with all of this mess simply by saying Allah is not in any direction. It is wrong to say All is up there, all that. That was
the Islamic tradition. Always He's everywhere, all at once, very close to you, within you, even to certain any certain understanding. And there is no way that you can possibly imagine or even describe him. The only way he can be described is in the Quran, and we only understand that entirely metaphorically. So it's just a huge mess. And all of these perspectives are not just perspectives that sit at a table and think, okay, you make sense, Yeah, you
make sense, Okay, I disagree with you. No, they actually fought each other and killed each other over these over these problems, over these disagreements, and that is just one of those issues. It's the location of our law, the body parts, and what our lie is like. It's whether the Quran is an eternal part of our law or not, whether it came into existence through his speech exactly as
it is or not. All of these things were issues of major contention that Muslims truly sentence each other to death and still kind of.
Yeah, this is odd because you know, in Christianity, for example, in the fourth century, there's a really intense debate that's kind of analogous to the debate that occurs in the Middle Ages between Jews and Christians and Muslims over naming God. And this is the fourth century controversy that the Cappadocians, this is Basil and the two Gregory's were very important
to Orthodox theology. They had a debate with a guy named Unomius, and a big part of that debate was over how and in what ways we can name and predicate of God. And the only reason I bring that up is because it's interesting that in other words, if Islam is the correct next revelation, so to speak, after Judaism or whatever they think is or are, then it's almost like there's no cognizance of a prior, intense, nuanced
discussion of this very question of predicating of God. So it's like, if you were the new revelation, it seems like you would at least have an understanding of the previous Jewish Christian discussions and debates over naming God.
Does that makes sense what I'm saying?
Like, in other words, Basil and the Cavedocians have this debate with Eunomius, who's the earlier unit. He's like a Unitarians in the sense of Islam or Judaism in the Middle Ages, and the debate is over whether the names that we say of God are unifical, equivocal, or analogous. A unifical term is one in which there's an exact same meaning between the two the two reference, right. So for example, if we said God's love is identical to the sense in which man's love, you know, father son love,
that would be unifical predication. And Eunomius, who was the radical unitarian of in the days of Basil, and the Gregory's he believed in unifical predication. Equivocal predication would be what Islam has, which is that there's no similarity between when I say God has justice towards us, there's no similarity between that justice and you know, human law courts and their creative justice. Analogical predication, which is again what
the Kappadocians and Christian theology wholesale adopts. I would argue from the earliest days, I think you could find it in the Old and New Testament itself. It continues clearly into this controversy and the councils, which Daniel, for whatever reason, wasn't familiar with what councils are and what they are about what they mean. He thinks that they're just new revelations, kind of like new voices of the Holy Spirit or
something like that. That's not what councils are. But the point is just that this is already a really well known, intense debate for centuries in Christianity. When Islam arises the points that you're making about the rise of not questioning or naming or explaining the hands of God or Allah or the Allah season. Here's don't ask what that is. It's just ironic because this debate has already happened. If you're the continuation of the prior revelation, why is there
no cognizance of that whole discussion? And not only that, it's like, maybe I'm not worrying this, Well, do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah? I think it's it's similar to the point we were making about that the Quran seems to not even understand what Christianity, whether you think it's true or not, it doesn't understand what the trinity was. Right, there's like a trinity in the Quran which includes Mary. Right, it's like they thought that the trinity included Mary. It doesn't,
never did. But likewise, it's like there was no conception of what the previous discussions of predication predicating of God were and so it's almost like bypassing that and saying, well, Allah's nothing like creation, and that's how it's So it's it's all, you know, equivocal predication. But it's like, but throughout your book there's analogical predication, so how could it be equivocal?
Yeah? Yeah, the reference to the trinity and the Churan not understanding what It is actually a very fascinating one that I made a video on very early on when I started making uh these critical videos. It has the Quran is different understandings. Uh, there are different interpretations of what Christians actually believe in. But in one of those instances, Uh, Jay is not making this up. The Koran actually does
say so. It describes a supposed fantasy conversation in the future after after everything dies and is resurrected, between Allah and Jesus, where Allah asks Jesus, did you say to the people, take me and my mother is deities besides Allah, and Jesus will say no, I did not, I would never say that. Where so it looks like the Quran is they're arguing against this clearly, clearly a great belief among Christians that that Allah is consists of three, which
is Allah, Jesus and Mother Mary. And it's just it's it's it's very surprising that when you find that out, that the Qur'an seems to not understand what Christians are to believe and then deals with a completely irrelevant belief
that no Christian actually represents. And if you bring if you bring this problem up today, Uh, they will try to explain that a way by saying, well, okay, there there are there were probably some Christian sects in that time who did have such a belief, and this is specifically addressing them, or or they will say this is a reference to well, to Christians venerating her way too much and turning her into a god. But that's clearly not the case there.
Well, first of all, we would need to know what's the evidence that there was a historic group that did deify and put Mary as a member of the Trinity. I mean, I suppose that's possible, but I've.
Never heard of this.
But secondly, even if that was the case, why would you be addressing some tiny fringe group that had no continuity? Is basically irrelevant, right, I mean, wouldn't you want to address the actual positions? That's what That's what I'm trying to say, right, And it's the same point with analogical predication, like when you want to at least address or explain, Oh, you know, the Christians when they had.
Their debates with the Eunomians and and you know what.
I mean, and they made their great mistake on analogical predication, as Basil and the Gregory's did who who are the you know, the great profits of the early like, there's no knowledge of any of this.
Is that's actually, I mean, that's a very big problem. It's I have to be very honest. It is when I started getting out of Islam, and during that whole process, I was trying to further understand and Christianity and Judaism. So I started reading, reading, reading the Bible, and I noticed that it was completely foreign to me. And the same thing is so this is a problem that Muslims
in general deal with. To them, the Bible, Abrahamic belief is entirely foreign because all they know about it is stuff that comes from the Quran and from Muslim tradition. Other than that, and that stuff what comes from the Quran is incredibly limited and very ignorant because there is no continuation, because the Quran is simply its own product,
which emerged in the seventh century. It makes references to the Bible, to Judaism and Christianity and to their beliefs, but it is completely absent from the vast knowledge that comes with the Bible. So the Quran Islam claims to be the final message, claims to contry knew what was before, but then completely disregards and gets rid of all of the knowledge that is in the Bible, which is abundant in comparison to the Quran, and then moves on with that.
And then, as you said, has no understanding of all of the problems that are already addressed in Christianity and Judaism, has no understanding of so many things mentioned in the Bible, has no connection to Jewish and Christian history and theology that was already centuries old in terms of Christianity, that is a huge problement.
Yeah, I would say to better formulate what I was trying to say the way you put it more concisely. There, if the Quran and Islam were the correct, final or new revelation, I would expect there to be an addressing of the specifics of where the previous system or systems got these things wrong. So what we see is actually no familiarity or consistent knowledge of very precise, very well known doctrines theologians and people.
I can think of one issue, which is Christology and Jesus. Early Christian history has a very prominent history of discussing it. Coming to a proper understanding of the nature of Jesus uh the crucifixion and the resurrection. I mean that is a that's a core issue. It is the core, It is the fundament, is the fundamental the fundamentals of Christianity is Jesus comes, preaches, does many things, and then very important,
he is crucified, and then he is resurrected. And that resurrection is supposed to play a great role in terms of what Christians believe. It Islam is supposed to come and correct the Christians because they were wrong about Jesus about how they explained his crucifixion and resurrection. But it doesn't do anything about it at all. It doesn't even address the resurrection. It just all it says about the death of Jesus is and they did not crucify him,
nor did they kill him. But it was made to it was made to appear that way to them, and that's it. Why wouldn't why wouldn't the Quran address this whole giant elephant in the room. If the Christians are indeed wrong, if they corrupted their own beliefs, if Christianity is a giant misunderstanding, as the Quran claims, why would it not deal with Christology? Why would it not deal
with what exactly happened after Jesus died. With the resurrection, it doesn't do any of these things and therefore leaves a huge discussion completely unanswered. Just as DANIELI Kikachu does says, well, just look at it, and whatever agrees with Islam is true, and whatever it doesn't just false. That's it.
Well, and I mean it was like all of what you just said is bypassed by you. Just look and see with your eyes, Okay.
Well can I not? I could appeal to the same thing.
Well, when I look and see with my eyes, it can it confirms my view? Right, So I mean that's really just a non answer. But yeah, I mean this is a great point about the resurrection. I mean, you know, even if you didn't believe in Christianity, you would at least want to understand, Well, what is their view? Why do they think that, you know, this is so important? What is the resurrection have to do with the fall
of man? What about what about all these prophecies, for example, in the Psalms of David, that we see as predictions and prophecies of the Messiah, his descent to Hades, and his resurrection. Now, maybe you don't believe that, but it would be better. It would make sense to understand, you know, like here is what they believe, and you know this is why it is false, you know, but we don't get that. That's what's amazing is that there's not even
an understanding of what the position is. And I would I feel like if this was a divine revelation, they would at least, you know, God would understand what the errors were, you see, and they would be corrected. But it doesn't even explain what the erroneous position is. If I could misunderstand the erroneous position.
Yeah, there's actually a very interesting coron verse that I could quickly want to go to, and I might put it on the screen here because I wanted to bring that up. It's actually very relevant to the very point. Let me share this one here, so Kara three, verse fifty five. I'm appealing to all the different translations here,
but I'll just take the first one. Soayga international. What it says mentioned when Alas said, Oh Jesus, indeed, I will take you and raise you to myself and purify you from those who disbelieve, and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection. Then to me is your return, and I will judge between you concerning that in which you used to differ.
Very very interesting point, very interesting verse here, So a lot told Jesus that he will raise him and purify him from those who denied him, while making those who followed him and believed him superior until the day of judgment. Interesting but how exactly does that work? So who were those people who followed Jesus, Who were the people who who acknowledged him, who believed him? And which group exactly
has been has been made superior since then? And which group will be made superior from then till the day of judgment.
Yeah, I'm actually baffled by this. What what what is their explanation of this?
I don't understand the explanation I can tell you will be well, this is actually a reference to the Muslims. It doesn't make much sense.
But what do they think the raising is?
Well, that he was just you know, he was raised to heaven as a as a prophet, and he will stay there and he will come back one day. And when he comes back, he will then announce that all the Christians and all the people who had these corrupt beliefs went astray, and that the Muslims are actually the true believers, and then he will come and fight for the Muslims and abolish the cross, and break the cross and and do things like that and basically becoming Muslim Jesus.
That is their explanation. But if you read it on the surface, it just looks like it pretty much improves of the questions.
It also it reminds me of I forget exactly where it is, but samr Moon had referenced a there's actually just sections of the Gospel of John that are kind of cribbed, you know. I'm talking about like there's like several verses that are basically just copied and pasted into the Koran. Oh yeah, yeah, which is because they typically want to say the Gospel of John is fraudulent. It was like, wait a minute, aren't some of the passages actually just copied and pasted into the Koran? Well, those
are the ones that are not corupped. Oh okay.
You can also find Muslims occasionally give some references from the Gospel of John in order to prove that Muhammad was mentioned in the gospels, or that Jesus prayed like a Muslim or things like that, which is a very selective, dishonest approach. They will say, they will take that, they will take the part, for example, where Jesus throws himself on the ground and pray and prays, and they will say, look, he prayed exactly like Muslims pray. But that's not he
didn't do a ritual prayer there. That's not the only prayer date according to the Gospel. So that's a very very interesting.
Well, it's like that text in Deuteronomy that they use about I'll raise a prophet amongst your brethren, and you know, you know, Christianity obviously has always seen that as a prophecy of the Messiah.
You find many.
Church fathers prior to the rise of Islam citing that as a text about the Messiah. Conceivably, Jews might also cite it as a potential Messianic text. But the for Muslims, that's a prediction of Mohammad. And and I didn't really get to go into this, but when it was mentioned in the debate, the argument was, well, this is about Muhammad. And I said, well, but it says amongst your brethren,
so I'm pretty sure Mohammad wasn't a Jew. And they said, oh, but they can all be brethren, because everybody is a brethren all the way back to Abraham.
And I'm like, well, but wait a minute.
Genesis is cast out the slave woman, and so they're not actually brethren, but in the Jewish sense, they're not bresent brethren. That's the sense that we would be getting from Deuterom the eighteen, not the Koronic sense. It would be the Jewish sense of brethren.
What's funny is one last point.
The other thing that's funny about that, which is that, so wait a minute. If everybody is a brethren, then Edomites are brethren, but no Jew would call an Edomite brethren. They're the enemies of the Jews. But they have a common They have just as much a lineage that's common as what would be Hagartes.
It might be amazing to you the forms of a responses that you can get from you to cope with that problem, which is when they bring that up. I even got the response, which was a ridiculous one when I think about it again and again, which is that it says your brethren, and that clearly means that it's in reference to to the Ishmae alliance to the to the others, because that's why it says brethren instead of just saying from from you or your own tribe.
But no Jew is going to listen to an Ishmael.
That's the weird part.
It's like the rest of the rest of Deuteronomy assumes that only a Jew is only going to listen to a Jew.
Yeah, yeah, and that's the that's the whole problem. But then there comes forth some guy in seventh century Arabia who doesn't like his own culture and his own religious beliefs and looks up to the Christians and Jews and things. He's going to just start a message and claim that the same God is speaking to him. And what's very interesting is I actually put a thing together. A I took out all of the references in the Quran to Christians and Jews and put them in chronological order as
far as we know. And you can see very much that in the beginning, it is just this very naive approach to the Christians and Jews of like, oh, yeah, you know, they're nice, they're good, they have true beliefs, and you know, we are just like them, same source, same guys, and then it increasingly becomes gets into disagreements with them, and eventually at some point it comes to, Okay, they have their beliefs, you have your belief and finally it comes to they will accept your beliefs or else.
It's just a if everything, naive, ignorant approach from Muhammad to Jewish and Christian beliefs. And and here we are dealing with a religious group that actually claims to be in possession of the true religion, yet one that is completely disconnected and completely ignorant. And I actually want to ask you a question about that. So, when you read the Quran, when you began studying the Qur'an as somebody who extensively studied the Bible, what is your what was
your impression of the Qur'an? Did it appear similar in I don't know what was What was your impression in comparison to your own?
My initial impression is not really different than where I'm
at now. It's just kind of like I've read more text from scholars that I think really back up the impression that I have, which is, you know, especially like the Gabriel site Reynolds book where he goes through about thirteen or fifteen I forget how many case studies where he basically just compares the references in the Koran to the biblical context from which they come, and then contrasts and compares the narratives whether they make sense where they contradict,
and then the various Islamic explanations. So it's a really good book from a person who I don't think he's a Christian or a Muslim. He's just an academic. But the text shows the ways that there have been attempts to explain, and it also shows what was really helpful to me all of the different extra canonical sources that Islam also draws from. So I think you made a great point when you and I were talking about this
the other day. You know, when you start getting into the hadiths is where it becomes a lot clearer that there's a lot of other influences here. So it's not like you're just dealing with the Quran. You're also dealing with about a bunch of world tradition which is kind of collected and then it has to be scholarly kind of feeded out as to how authoritative they are. But those also apparently rely on a lot of myths and
narratives and stories, as the Quran does. And so when I first started reading the Koran, my first impression was, it's it sounds like the Bible, but it's like I was detecting kind of like stories and references that they didn't understand that are coupled together. And then your point about the Hadiz, I think further backs that up. But now I see, Okay, well, it's not just the infancy narrative of Christ that you referenced as an extra canonical text.
It's also Cave.
Of Treasures, Life of Adam and Eve proto Evangelim of James. It's all of the Sleepers of Ephesus. It's all these other storiesries and traditions, some of which are also by the way, telmudick. Which is odd because you know, uh that that weird reference that Reynolds points out about how the Sabbath that was a punishment, It's like, that's absolutely totally foreign to everything that's in prior revelation. It's not a punishment.
It goes back to Genesis, right, expand on it very quickly, for yeah, you can quickly expand it if you want to or I can.
No, I'll let you expand on it, because it was just just a cap on my to summarize my point there about the more that I would get into this, the more I'm realizing, wait a minute, this is like cribbed from earlier stuff, cobbled together, and what's cobbled together is not actually coherent. But then it's the job of the Islamic scholars to try to make this thing work.
That's what I get from it.
Yeah, yeah, So the point about the Sabbath in the Quran is people who have looked into that or deeply can pretty much I guess explain that better. But I made a note a while ago here on that. But the Quran basically, when it references to Sabbath, doesn't recognize it as something that that is a fundamental or essential
part of of of biblical or Jewish belief. What it basically says is that the Sabbath was just prescribed to the Jews as as a punishment for their for their actions, for their transgressions, and it was it was basically a burden placed on them by Allah, which is why I only they keep it. So that is that is and then that's that's a very ridiculously ignorant.
I mean, it's very central to you know, the entirety of the Torah goes back to Genesis as part of the creation narrative. So it's it's almost like to think that the Sabbath would be a punishment would be to again completely misunderstand something very fundamental to Genesis, which is
the seven Days and the Sabbath. And in the the Say Reynolds book, it's pages one, nine, ten, and eleven, and you've got multiple Islamic scholars and people have tried to explain this, and it's just all the different explanations are kind, they're just they're amusing because when you see the scholarly explanations, they're even they're not understanding what the
meaning was for the Jews and the Christians. So I could understand if okay, so fine, you think it's wrong, but at least understand how central this was to the creation narrative and to the entirety the Old Testament. To think that, as many of these scholars have.
Said, that it was a punishment from God, it.
Just shows an incoherence of not even understanding the narrative, just like with other things that we talked about like the Arc of the Covenant. They thought that because it had the Seraphim on top of it as a box, that it was a box that flew.
Yeah. So here's the reference we're talking about. In the Quran, in chapter sixteen, verse one, and twenty four, it says, basically, the Sabbath was only appointed for those who differed over it, and indeed your Lord will judge between them on the day of Resurrection concerning that of which they used to differ.
And it's further than recognized that the Jews were basically transgressors over and over again, and the Sabbath was only given to them because of their because of their of their troubles and there their transgressions.
Yeah, and it's even you. You have this four forty seven.
You have been given the book.
Believe in what they have brought, what we have brought down, which confirms which is already with you. Before we transform the figures, turning them inside out, we curse you as we curse the people of the Sabbath.
Yeah, and it's I don't know, it's just sometimes I feel like it is very.
Hard to put into words the amounts of of ignorance that the Quran brings to the Chable when it talks about Abrahamic biblical beliefs, and to then claim that this is the same God, the same source, it's just it's just absurd.
Yeah, And and again, I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach this discussion, this debate. I mean, one another example would be if you if you thought, for example, that the Revelation to Jews and Christians was false. One thing that's prevalent throughout the Old and the New
test is analogical predication. So if you're going to say that was all wrong and we can't do analogical predication, which conceivably you could have with many Islamic schools and the denial and the teaching of Tanzi, then you would need to again explain or at least understand that this group four thousands of years, for centuries prior to Islam with Christianity, you know, for six injuries, that they got this big thing wrong. And again there's not even a
reference to So let me put it this way. There's very sophisticated philosophical debates. Okay, here's a great book that's just on this very topic I recommend, And this is not from This is from just an academic at it's
published by Oxford. I forget where he teaches, but it's a well known book called The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, and it basically traces the development of just the idea of hypostasis, right, which is very important to the Trinity, all the way from the Cappadocians to John Damascus in the seven hundred seventh centuries, which is contemporary.
He's the first Christian to write about.
Islam, by the way. So basically we're going to trace this really sophisticated development of what hypostasis is in the Trinity and what it is in Christology.
And it's very nuanced, very precise.
There's a lot of philosophical terminology, a lot of references to Aristotle, all this kind of stuff. And then by the time that we get the revelations to Muhammad, it's like it's like that and never, none of this ever happened, you see. And again I'm stressing this argument because if we're going to look at continuity again, we would want to know precisely where the previous tradition was wrong. And
I'm not trying to bank everything on philosophy. But it's sort of like, you know, Christianity had already adopted and baptized and was okay philosophy by this point. Even if you think it's wrong, this is this is not really debatable. It's pretty easy to It's pretty well known, right. I mean John Damascus, for example, he wrote an entire book
on Aristilian philosophy, is another book on dialectical philosophy. I mean his his systematic theology in the seventh century is utilizing a lot of philosophy, as we said, from Cappadocians and people prior to him. Maximus the Confessor full of a lot of philosophy and at texts. And it's like, if you're going to deal with and reject the position, and I'm not even saying that it's true, because it's a lot of philosophy. I'm just saying that we would
need to see understanding of what's being talked about. And it's not even that it's not understood. It's like there's no knowledge of it at all.
It's like you're having it's like you had this whole long, lengthy discussion on a major pressing issue that you're trying to understand, everybody has had this discussion forever. He went on and on and on. Yeah, you have already established a system of analyzing This is how different theories came to proper conclusions dealt with it. And then some guy comes along and entirely ignores everything that has been said and just starts a discussion from the very beginning.
It says, I had a dream and everything you said is don't basically basically, let me ask you this question what you think of this? So the more I hear what we're talking about in regard to the rise of Islam, originally, it's very parallel in many ways to Mormonism, and so Mormonism basically says, all the prior revelation has some truth in it, but it was also corrupted. Ours is the new final revelation, and you just didn't have the full consistency of understanding that God is.
Actually three things. It's also ironic too.
That in Mormonism God has a the Father has a body much like what we see in the Koran, with the.
Body of all lots of it. But you know.
They're they're a pro is not Now there's actually polytheism. I would argue Mormonism is ultimate polytheistic. But I mean, could we conceivably just counter the whole system with Mormonism, because if the argument is, well, the Kuran is preserved, well, maybe the books of Mormon are better preserved.
You see.
Plus the aside from the preservation, you don't even need the preservation there. You could simply appeal to the fact that some guy comes along in the middle of a land where people are trying to figure out which religious beliefs to hold onto. This guy comes along and claims to receive revelations, and there are people around him who
are affirmed that he is indeed revelations. The affirm that he's of great character, the affirm that he is a fantastically pious guy who was entirely selfless, and a lot seems to be God, seems to be completely in agreement and basically in his service, and it gives him these these revelations, and he establishes the truth and declares that people corrupted his message. I mean, he's ultimately doing exactly
what Mohammad did. I've heard a lot of people refer to him as the American Muhammad or there there there are people who say I spoke to a former Mormon here on this channel, a woman who is a former an ex Mormon. I think her her channel is called ex mole X, But she came on here just to to also pleasantly argue that she did hear about Islam and how Mormonism is compared to Islam before when she
when she was a Mormon, and also afterwards. And she was also pointing out that the way the revelation is seen and the way the way Joseph Smith, yeahs my mind going all over the place, the way he is he is trusted by Mormons in terms of his revelations, even if they seem completely absurd and out of places. Quite similar to the way Mohammed is trusted in Islam when he makes when he brings outrageously weird revelations, or when he brings revelations that are just about him and
his desires. It's quite similar to it to Mormonism. To the point that you bring up it could be very it could be reasonable to to go with that projection. And I have seen people actually argue against Muslims and and say why not just accept Mormonism. It does the very same thing. But then you get a very hypocritical answer from them, and the answer is just revolves around, well, we know that that's not true, because you know, he was just all about his own desires and then he
just made up revelations. Well, you could say the same thing about Mohammad. Well we already know, we already have the truth. With Muhammad already brought the truth, we don't need anything else.
Well you could see, can I could see them just in terms of epistemology making that work is that they'd have to say in a strict way that the Qur'an was the final revelation. But I mean, but aren't the hadiths also additional revelations?
So well what what you what they do with that is they will say the Koran is up is the absolute final revelation, that is the truth. After that, no revelation can can come, no prophet can come.
Uh.
The hadiths are different from that because the hadiths are basically just saying, so Muhammad that or actions that people around him noted that are not considered revelation. Everything that comes after him is absolutely unacceptable, absolutely false. And that's the answer that they will give you when you when you tell them, okay. Joseph Smith he made a lot of a lot of claims. He said, these religions in the past word corrupted, and he's he brings the truth.
He So wait a minute, though, Let's expand that argument and say, well, but Allah apparently allowed divine revelation to be corrupted amongst the Jews and the Christians, right, yes, so he allowed them to be deceived, apparently, and for the revelation to be corupted.
Hence, why we need the Koran?
Why are we why should we think that it's not all also corrupted if Allah can allow the revelation to be corrupted.
Because because because the Quran is unique in that Allah had a plan of those previous scriptures being corrupted, and the Koran is unique in that this is the only book which Allah promised nobody will ever be able to corrupt and he will protect it for well.
But my point is that the promises are in the older books too, right, So.
But you can't trust those books because those books were corrupted.
I know. But that's what I'm saying is that the same promise of non corruption was in the Torah, it's in the Christian texts and allowed.
Us to be deceived.
Then how are we not in the same epistemic dilemma. If we believe the Kuran, that Allah might be allowing us to be deceived.
Now you see what I'm saying.
Yeah, but a lot wouldn't do that because and we already know that. We already know that those crypt scriptures are corrupt because when you when you read them, you will see that they are obviously uh not in alignment with pure morttheistic as like beliefs.
But that's derived from the book the same question.
So yeah, well if you just if you, if you go and look at those books, if you just look at the Kuran and open your eyes, you will see that.
You just look, Okay, yeah, I mean that's the thing.
Somebody wrote a paper. I have to dig it up. I've got it save somewhere. It's a couple of years ago. But they were arguing that. But Islam does argue that Allah is a good deceiver, right, And so if Allah is a good deceiver, then how are we able to trust at all any of our reading of the Quran? Right,
we might potentially be be be being deceived. Right, And so now all the propositions are potentially deceptive, and so we're not in any better position with the Qoran than we are if we are a Muslim and we're looking at the Jewish and Christian text, which also promise that they're inspired and not that they don't have errors.
You see.
So in other words, let's say I'm taking Let's say I'm a fourth century Jewish Christian.
The books that I have tell me that.
They're not corrupted, and they're inspired and they're authoritative. But from the Islamic perspective, those books are corrupted and I'm basically deceived, right, and so I need the Quran to fix that. But Allah is already a good deceiver, and so why would I not think that the New revelation also is potentially deceptive. You can't just say, well because it says it's not because the old books said they were not.
But God was also deceptive back then, you see.
Does that make sense?
Yeah?
Yeah. And there is a very funny, a very nice thing that you can add to that which I love about Jesus and his crucifixion, some flavor you can add to specifically that which is uh So allied as a deceiver. He he he says that he is the best of deceivers. Think about the what the Quran says about Jesus. Jesus was he was sent down with a message with a scripture. He was They tried to they denied him, and they
tried to crucify him. They tried to kill him, but they did not manage to kill him, not managed to crucifying him. It was only made to appear that way. Okay, Well, what happened as a result of that, as a result was specifically that a major religion came into existence, that is, according to Islam, a complete corruption of the truth. And why did it come into existence? Because the people believed that Jesus on that day was crucified and they saw him,
I guess rise, which is a deception. It was made to appear to them. So and that appearance, that deception, that illusion, whatever you want to call it, brought forth the largest religion in the world, which happens to be a completely corrupt religion. Is this a last plan? Did did a lot establish a plan for Jesus where his death was basically a deception which brought forth the largest false religion in the world? So did Allah create this false religion on purpose? By by creating this deception?
Well, they would say, yeah, right, I mean, if you're a you're a hard determinist, right.
Yeah, And why would you blame the Christians? Then? See exactly why would you blame the Christians Because it looks like Allah made it a lot, created the deception, and they fell for it. So it's it's not there is it their fault? If All is the best of deceivers?
Yeah, it's just maybe this plays into the pathology of that religion right to where well, if Allah is the best of deceivers, is it possible that Muslims then welcome being deceptive?
Maybe?
I mean, I'm what do you think is do you.
Think that.
I want to think deeply, like you.
Know people, do you think the takia objection? Is that overused or is that.
I think I think Okay, that's why I'm thinking about this right now. But here's the issue. There is a lot of there is a lot of overuse of that whole tekia accusation of saying whenever Muslims says something that doesn't seem to be true or that doesn't seem to be consistent. Uh, some people might say they're just they're just doing tekia. I would say that that is largely overused Muslims do not learn actively to to lie and to deceive and to you know, hide the truth and
all of that. And they don't learn about this concept, uh, this idea called tekia, and that they're supposed to practice this. The problem is the problem with that is and there is a lot of nuance to this, although takia is
usually a wrong, over used accusation. Although Muslims don't actively learn to to lie explicitly, Muslims do have a habit quite often of concealing uncomfortable truths or conceal certain things which they also lie to themselves about, and simply go to whatever makes it easier to convince the other side that Islam is true. And and you learn this whole concept, which is that religion is supposed to be made easy. So when you try to preach Islam to somebody, make
it easy. Forget about the complexities. You can cover things that don't need to be mentioned, you can ignore questions that are more pragmatic. Yeah, just focus on one whatever makes it easier for the other person to accept Islam.
That's it. So, while the accusations of the key are largely wrong and overused, there is an element of doing whatever it takes just to make the other person accept that Islam is true, and that might include there is a there is an issue here that might include occasionally using deliberate deception when you deal with people that you consider enemies of Islam, like myself, where they say it they are basically at war with me and with any mues of Islam, and in war, deception is allowed, as
Mohammad said, exactly is it is it is to be used. So that is part of that as well.
So there's not like any hadith that says, you know, you may deceive your opponent explicitly.
No, there is nothing that says you may or you should lie to them. All there is is that there is, there is implied, there are words for Muhammed that deception is part of war, and there are just instructions on making it making it easier for people to understand Islam. So that's that's pretty much.
It interesting, that's good, that's overused.
Like said, yeah, I want to point at this thing here to simply revisit the whole issue of ignorance of pre Islamic beliefs. So here's a whole narrative that is adopt adopted from later Christian ideas where Jesus speaks as a as a baby when he is born and tells people that he is Jesus. But what's very important here that narrative is in Graduate in nineteen verse thirty. It says Jesus said, indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the scripture and made me a prophet.
So I hear you already chuggling about this about what it says here. But yeah, so that the understanding here is that Allah gave Jesus a scripture and made him a prophet. And what's very interesting is that Jesus says this as a baby already, is what Jesus is saying this as a baby here, So he's speaking as a baby and he's seeing, I am a servant of Allah. Allah gave me a scripture and made me a prophet.
I have a note two saying that this is from that Syriac infancy narrative.
Right, yeah, yeah, and.
What what what when when that's brought up, I've not hurt anybody addressed? Like is that ever addressed? Like aren't these from prior non canonical or superb a graphical texts? Like is that ever addressed.
The answert you get usually are that that people did have certain truths and falsehoods that survived throughout the centuries, and some of these stories that.
Came from they don't have a prominent minting that these are older.
Yeah, yeah, you know the yeah they So they will just explain that a way is some truth and falsehoods through the centuries. Same thing with with For example, there is an issue with chapter verse, chapter five, verse thirty three, I believe, which is the prominent verse of whoever kills one person has killed all men, all humanity. Okay, that's
chapter five, verse thirty two. It says there we decreed upon the children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless for his soul or for corruption in the land, it is as if he had slain all mankind, And whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved all mankind entirely. And Muslims will often cite only part of this, and we'll just say, whoever kills somebody has killed all mankind. Whoever saves someone has saved all mankind. The problem with this is, as it points out, we
decreed upon the children of Israel. This is something that was apparently taken from Jews. And the problem with this is this stuff here, whoever kills a soul unless for his soul, it's as if he had killed all mankind. And then the same with saving is something that directly comes from the town Wood.
Yeah, I've heard rabbinical sources said, yeah, it.
Is directly in the Talmud. The Talmud deals with this issue. It explains something from the Torah and then says what you can understand so that the rabbi says what you can from understand from that is that if one killing one Jew is like killing all of mankind and saving Jews like saving all of So that that is an idea that is that is that was presented by the rabbis in the Talmud. It is not something that was revealed or that was found in the Torah or anything
like that. It is directly a Talmudic rabbinic explanation of the Talmud. But here it is in the Qur'an directly presented as God, as if it were from Allah revealed.
Yeah. I didn't know about that one either.
So and Reynolds mentioned a couple of those, but I don't remember off the top of my head, which one he said was Talmudic in terms of the source, So that would be that would be one of them.
That's interesting.
It was also important note here is that this is, according to the Quran, only a law for the Jews. So and here's the next verse, just to make it very nice. Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against a lie is messenger and strive upon earth to cause corruption is none but that they should be killed or crucified, or their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides, or that they should be exiled from
the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world, and for them here in the hereafter is a great punishment. This is a horrible So.
Is this why you see some of the radical a islonic groups doing this to people at times, including like crucifixion?
Yeah, and including there were reports in Somalia, for example, in the recent civil wars where they were referencing this first and actually cutting off the hands and feet from opposite sides of rebels.
That's what I thought.
Yeah, pretty messed up. Yeah, there's a lot.
Now is that that one?
Is that uh from a prior source or is that unique to the Quran.
That part about cutting off stuff that is not that is that is from the Quran, but that is just the first after the one that is taken from the Jews, from the Talmud. So what happened, what probably happened there. The theory is what probably happened there. Why the Quran suddenly has a Talmudic teaching there as if it was really revealed from a law, is that Muhammed was in Medina,
Medina had a lot of Jews, learned Jews. Jews interact with him and tell him things, and one of the prominent ideas and teachings they have is specifically that moment hears it and probably thinks, oh Allah revealed this to them. So it's that included as a revelation from a law. But and that's just a big oopsie, you know.
Yeah, it looks like a lot of the narratives are maybe things that were heard and misunderstood, like the Trinity Mary stuff that sounds like something that was heard. Oh they think this you know there was recorded.
Yeah. Also I mentioned in Grand nine, verse thirty, there is this Jews say Ezra is the son of a law and Christians say the Messiah son of a law knowed you believe that of God and worships Ezra. But it's probably something that he heard. I mean, maybe somebody joked. I don't know, maybe somebody was joking about the room, and he took it seriously and included.
Maybe somebody was trolling him.
And I told him, yeah, we think Ezra right, and he wrote that down like it was an ancient trolling.
Yeah, what, what's have you heard of? The of the idea that Alexander the Great is also in the Qur'an. That's a very important thing to look into. That. Uh. There is a character named the Karnaine in the same chapter that also mentions the people the Sleepers seven Sleepers, and it talks about a figure named Dul Karnain who is a servant of all and who was given all kinds of power by Allah and went to the very far ends of the world. And the issue with that
character is nobody knows who that character is. The issue with that character is early Islamic scholars, we are very clear that the Karnain is Alexander the Great, But over time, when people learned who Elese and the Grade actually is, they began to deny that and many mostms today will still deny that because the Quran basically depicts Alexander the Great there as a servant of Allah. Yeah yeah, yeah wow.
And what happens there going to the Hadith is people come, apparently Jews are coming and asking him about this, and he then goes away. It comes back many days later with these revelations. But the revelations get it all wrong Islam.
Yeah, maybe maybe he heard, you know, the texts in Daniel or Maccabee's which reference that time period of of Alexander. Yeah, and maybe he thought that that meant that Alexander was a servant of God, which is odd because that's not at all what Maccabee says. Like it, Maccabee's doesn't really comment a lot on Alexander. It focuses on Antiochus of Theefani's right, who's the one that defiles the temple. I'm just trying to think, like why he would have Maybe.
There's an explanation off so historically seen. Apparently the early Jews had a developed and understanding of of Alexander the Great, where they for a while referred to him as somebody who was given given power by God or was favored by God because they had an understanding that people who become very powerful and we have.
Providence.
They yeah, they're they are given divine providence and they so they began referring to him as somebody who was gifted by God. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that he herved God, like that's that's the issue, and probably misunderstood that so exactly.
I mean, it says the same thing about uh Nebucannezer that like, when Daniel's talking about Nebucanezer, he says that divine providence raised up Nezer. Doesn't mean that Negeezer was a servant of God. In fact, he was a blasphemer and he in the Book of Daniel, he's punished.
Because he's a blasphemer.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's fascinating.
I was gonna look and see how because I know mccabee's mentions. I can't remember if it mentions him explicitly or if it just kind of mentions him in passing in the first chapter of Macabee's but he's talking about that period. Yeah, I don't I don't think he mentions him by name.
Thinks serious said, can you look at the errors of the Trinity in the ground. We did that, thank you so much.
No, it does, excuse me.
So the first, the very beginning of maccabee's doesn't mention Alexander as king of Greeks. He went to the ends of the earth, he spoiled, he spoiled the earth like army spoils. He fell sick and died, doesn't reference anything about it, just states it kind of like a history of Alexander. And then it moves into talking about Antiochus being a horrible blasphemer because he was one of the four generals that took over after Alexander passed away. Alexander
ray for twelve years and then he died. His servants took over and ruled in his place. One of those was Antiochus. So it doesn't there's never a positive mention in maccabe's as just as curiosity.
I will quickly put this year on the screen just because it's so funny. Uh So, here is the Kuronic narrative on the Karnae, and it says in eighteen eighty three and they ask you about the Karnaine and lo garnane literally means the two horned one, the two horned one, Yeah, two horned one.
Oh, that that might actually be a reference to Daniel.
Well, the thing is so, if if you look at this, if you look at the narrative here, it is very much, very much copies ancient myths, the legends about Alexander. It basically copies the Alexander romance legends. And Alexander the Great was known as the one who wears a helmet with two horns. And there were coins that were that existed in Arabia as well at the time where Alexand the Greatest depicted somebody with two horns. But it says here
I will recite to you about him a report. Indeed, we established him upon the earth, and we gave him from everything away. So he followed away until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a body of dark water. And he found neared eight people, and we said, oh, theo carnein. Either you punish them or else adopted them a way of goodness. Here is a very interesting detail. He found the sun setting in a pool of dark water. He said, as
for one who wrongs, we will punish them. Then he will be returned to his lord, and he will be punished with a terrible punishment, but as for one who believes and does righteousness, he will have a reward. Then he followed another way. When he came to the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom we had not made against any shield, and then he builds for them ay wall to protect them.
But this is basically goes back to all legends about Alexander the Great, who allegedly traveled to the very very east, very west, and who built a giant wall to protect these people from these invaders.
And yeah, but you'll find this interesting because if you look at Daniel eight, like verses five to fourteen, a lot of people think that it's whether you think it's a prophecy or whether it was written later. It's talking about Alexander, and it's calling him the horn the horned one, the goat, it calls him the male goat.
I think here and yeah, verse five.
So what I'm saying what's funny about that is that the description is that he's an evil pagan ruler in Daniel, but he's called the horned goat, the horned one. Yeah, and he's li liken to a goat, which in scripture, goats are typically referred to as the wicked sheeps and goats. So I'm just pointing out that it's the chronic narrative. If if he heard this story from Jews, or if he'd heard Daniel and thought maybe that was about Alexander.
Maybe maybe maybe that could be how its So what's.
Funny is that in Daniel he's a wicked person.
And and that's where the issue is. He just hears bits of knowledge, probably from from the Jews, from others, and then the things, oh, I have a revelation from a law.
Allah says so and so and so and But you're saying that he in this passage about this figure here, that it's actually calling him a righteous person.
Right, Yeah, No, it's it's it's literally according to the verse, it's a lot communicating with him and making him a judge over people, whether they are righteous or or not.
And you're saying that.
Initially the Muslim scholars have said it's it's Alexander, but now they don't, or there's debate.
Some still say that it's Alexander, but most of them nowadays deny it. But it's, yeah, it's in early Islamic history. The interation. What's very clear that this is a reference to Alexander the Great.
Yes, there's another example of just something being misunderstood. Yeah yeah, So what would now do they say that it's just some unknown ruler or something.
Yeah, most likely they usually say that it's it's that that we don't know who it is. But that's also very funny because there's just some guy mentioned here, a little car name. You have no idea who it is, that's it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Plus he also builds a wall here that is supposed to prevent Gog and Magogue, also a narrative taken from the Bible and previous beliefs.
Well, that's interesting because that's Ezekiel. But there's no ravens or explanation to what Ezekiel's talking about.
But here here it's like he builds a wall, and Gog and Magog are these these these beings, these corruptors, and they are behind that wall, and they are to this day still trying to get through that wall, and one day they will make a hole into the wall and they will invade the whole world.
And basically, well, now I'm getting this is in my mind, what is this sounds like the plot of.
What was the Avengers? Were the like making up.
They're making a hole in the sky and the member they come through the portal? Is that what we're talking about?
Something like that. I've I've never watched you in movies, actually, very honest.
What does this mean? This hole in the wall and they're trying to get through to this day.
Which which I think there's a I don't want to explain it myself. I would like to let Muhammad explain it to you.
Uh, I was just in a hottie about that.
Well, it's it's also here in the Qur'an. It's it is, but it is more any more detail described in the so here it is mentions They said, although we're kind of indeed, Gog and Magogue are corruptors in the land, So may we assigned for you an expenditure that you may make a barrier between them and us? And he does that. He builds a huge wall, and it says so they were unable to pass over it, know, were
they able to penetrate it? And then it further says, but one day much will be blown and will assemble them in an assembly. Yeah, one day they will get over.
I guess, like, is this a literal wall?
Or is there like some spiritual reality where they can't.
I'm going to now invoke Muhammed. Here ah, here is Mohammed. According to the Hadis, it says the prophet got up from his sleep with a flushed red face and said, none has the right to be worship about Allah. Woe to the Arabs from the great evil that is nearly approaching them. Today a gap has been made in the wall of gog and magogue like this, and he makes a number. It was asked, shall we be destroyed though they are righteous people among us? The prophet said, yes,
if evil is increased. So it is actually a wall, and they're trying to dig through that wall. But it gets even better, it gets even better.
This is bizarre, it is.
It is very bizarre, very very bizarre.
Yeah, it says the afflictions of the end of the world. So does that mean that this wall in the hole has that they're trying to dig has been going on from that?
Yeah? Yeah, it gets very very ridiculous. So this is a description about the end times, and it says he mentioned the job. They said, I will descendhim, kill and then people will return to their own nets and will be confronted with Gog and Magogue, people who will swoop down from every mound. They will not pass by any water, but they will drink it by anything, but they will spoil it. They will the people will besieged Allah, and
I will pray to Allah to kill them. The earth will be filled with their stench and the people will besieged Allah, and I will pray to a lot and the sky will send down rain. Uh. Then the mountains will turn to dust and the earth and this and that. Uh. Okay, there's one description, but there's there's even more. It gets very bizarre. It gets very very bizarre. So it describes, I go back to the the things here ah Gog and Magog. Gog and Magog.
Are they are these strong head eats.
Ah yeah yeah. Bugari is always strong, very reliable. Some of them are from different sources, but they are also marked as sh authentic. M Gog and Magogue dig every day until when they can almost see the rays of the sun. The one in charge of them says, go back and we will dig it tomorrow. Then Allah puts it back stronger than it was before. This will continue until when their time has come. Allah wants to send them against the people. They will dig until they can
almost see the rays of the sun. Then they were the one who is in charge of them will say, go back, and it will dig it tomorrow if Allah wills. So they will say, if Allah wills, then they will come back to it and it will be as they left it. So they will dig and it will come out to the people, and they will drink all the water. People will fortify themselves. They will shoot their arrows towards the sky, and they will come back with blood on them, and they will say, we have defeated the people of
the earth and dominated the people of heaven. Then Allah will send a worm in the names of their necks and will kill them thereby, and so on and then and then there will be a beast of the earth that will be let's loose. This is all stun so.
This is another layer of what I would say from the Christian biblical perspective of kind of cobbling together things in Ezekiel that are kind of mysterious, and but I mean, there's nothing, you know what there is. There's a text in Ezekiel where Ezekiel is he is talking about the Jews who were engaged in pagan worship and that they had dug out under the wall of the temple a secret place where they were worshiping like pagan gods. H. So that's famously the same book where we get Gog
and Megod from the latter chapters of Ezekiel. I'm just speculating. I'm thinking that they might have heard stories from Ezekiel about digging through the wall, and then Muhammed is creatively kind of cobbling this together and saying, this is an end Times narrative of a wall that the Jews and other people try to dig through.
You see what I'm saying, interesting perspective, just speculating. In the ends, we cannot know what exactly happened there, But as point of Chule, there is a lot of There are lots of references in the Quran where it continues saying and they say that these are just stories of the old They say, he hears what he believes whatever
he says. So these are Koran verses about Muhammad, and these Choran verses basically tell us that the people around him kept accusing him of taking stories from others, from people around him, from believing whatever people say, from making things up, of being crazy and so on. So it's we can speculate, but it looks like he just got a lot of myths and some true stories, some falsehood some complete misunderstandings and mixed them all together and presented them as revelations.
Well, we have a lot of I mean that that
end time's kind of stuff there. I mean, I've spent many years researching and reading and looking at evangelical approaches to end time stuff, and I see a lot of parallels there with that, where they'll kind of cobble together a bunch of very ambiguous, you know, Old Testament passages, especially Ezekiel's latter chapters about Gog and Magog, and it gets kind of cobbled together in this jumbled narrative that always talking about Russia, and it's talking about the end
of the world in China, And I mean, I don't know what the end of the world is going to be like, but I don't think that, you know, the evangelicals kind of have the they don't know what they're talking about, as I'm trying to say. And I sense the same kind of extremities and cobbling together with Muhammad in those passages that we see, for example, evangelicals doing with passages from ezekiel Eschatology.
Is a very very interesting, very enticing thing, right two people. It's talking about the end times, talking about the tribulations, all the stuff that will happen as something that people are always fascinated by. It's also a very easy topic. I can imagine that in the seventh century in Arabia.
It would play well with an audience.
Yeah, where people do not study much, do not know much, don't know anything. It is very easy to get everyone's attention by talking about the end times and all the fantastic stuff that will happen then. And it's it's quite believable that Muhammad got his fair portion of that of all of that and then turned to that into a revelation which he then presents to his own audience. Because it works so well, and there we have it.
It would be interesting to see a similar type of breakdown of the conceptions of anti christ doj all and all that kind of stuff that you that you were referencing the way that you were talking about, how you know, to Christianity, the resurrection has a really significant role. Antichrist is not as significant, but it does play a key role in some of the you know, apocalyptic texts of the Bible.
I'm curious. I'd be interested to see in what way it's misunderstood or sort of cobbled together in Islam because I didn't I didn't know about those passages there with your fascinating UH.
It's funny. The ja literally means deceiver or something along along those lines. So the actual, the actual long form name is which is the false Messiah or the deceiving Messiah. Uh. It's directly adopted from Christianity but then presented in a completely different way and then Islam. The narrative is basically that the job, the false Messiah will come uh at the end, and he will basically claim to be God. Very interesting stuff. He will claim to be God, and
he will raise people from the dead. He will kill somebody and raise him from the from the dead, and he will be sound.
These sound like I mean, that sounds like Paul and Second Thesalonians, and it sounds like chapters of the Revelation.
Yeah, and he will he will claim to be Allah, and people will follow him because he will be so so so amazing. But the true believers, they will immediately recognize him and they will not follow him. And then at the same time, Jesus will come down from the sky as a Muslim and.
So this this is crib from the apocalypse, and he.
Will he will basically fight, fight them, fight to the jar and and then pray together with the Muslims. And according to the Hadith, he will come and break the cross and kill the pig.
And break the Christian cross.
Yeah, break the Christians.
Who's the pig?
Uh, the pig is just killed, he says, kill the swine. That's what Muhammed said. Kill the pig again. He just he just kills the pigs and for no reason.
And wait, literal pigs are like the people are called pigs.
No, it's it's it's literal pigs. So he comes, and.
Surely you're joking.
He will come and he'll be like, don't eat this. I don't know why exactly.
He's gonna becaus gone clean.
I guess so. But so what Momma says is he will come and he will break the cross and kill the pig. I will prove to you that I'm not joking about it.
I just I guess.
I just keep wanting giving the benefit of the doubt and think, well, surely they mean like the swine symbolic of evil people. But you're saying, actually just kill Well, I guess at the end of the world, those pigs do have to get dealt with.
I mean, like, yeah, somebody has to do something about this.
Well, okay, there you go.
Yeah, so a lot of messages at the r will not be established until the Son of Mary the sense amongst you, as a just ruler. He will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolished.
Do they have like explanations of oh, this symbol lies the unbelievers or something.
Or I haven't looked in length into this, but I know that it's that It's like the explanation is just that it's it's it's actually pigs, and the cross is actual cross, and he will he will literally break it to confirm that the cross belief is false. Yeah. Yeah, so these are the priorities of Jesus when he comes back.
Well, I guess if look, if Jesus does descend and break the cross and destroy the kill all the pigs, I guess I'll have to be a Muslim at that that happens.
Right, especially if you see him kill the pig. I can't believe that was actually correct. So wow, that's messed up.
That's crazy, all right, I mean, uh, really instructive, instructive and insightful talk. I always enjoyed talking to you. It's really funny too, by the way, same thank you for all that that insight there. You always learn from you.
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much. I I really I of the debate that you had. It was like your opening was an education for Daniel, and then he came and just messed it all up with this very primitive approach to the scripture. So mad respect for that as well. And I'll always be happy to have you here.
Jay, absolutely, yeah, thank you. I'm glad to be glad to be back on and anytime you want to chat again, I'm down absolutely.
Thanks everyone for joining. Have a fantastic day. I'll see you soon and stay away from Islam, all right.
Thanks man,