Islam critiqued examines divine royalty; A Quranic throne and the exhausted YHWH?

In answer to the video "Answering Muslims: God's Resting Place"

2:255"His chair (kursiyyahu) extends over the heavens and the earth"
20:5"The Beneficent One, Who is established (istawa) on the Throne (arsh)"
7:54"Surely your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time, and He is firm in power (thumma istawa alal arsh)"

In all the seven instances where God is spoken of in the Quran as "istawa alal arsh/established on the throne" 7:54,10:3,13:2,20:5,25:59,32:4,57:4 this expression is connected with a declaration of His having created the universe. Nothing symbolizes dominion more in human psyche than the image of a powerful king sitting on his throne and ruling his kingdom. Allah however is not like any human king. He is the King of Kings Who not only possesses a mighty throne, but is the sustainer of that throne

 23:116"So exalted be Allah, the True King; no god is there but He, the Lord of the Throne/arsh". 

This means, despite Him being the absolute ruler of all that exists, He stands by Himself and does not need the support of a throne. This is a major point in the Quran's depiction of creation. At no point is there any hint or reference to God needing a time of rest, or break from a tiresome endeavour.

As to the statement "established over/on" that generally accompanies the mention of the throne, it does not entail "sitting". It is important to emphasize, whenever there is mention of Allah being in a location, the only understanding that is open to us is in terms of implication relevant to each context. The "how" is beyond any human being's grasp since outside our experience. This, again, is a principle of interpretation established in the Quran and the teachings of the prophet. 

For instance it says Allah is at all times nearer than one's jugular vein 50:16. The implication is that His knowledge and control encompass every aspect of every human being's life, at each instant of their existence. It also says Allah's face is visible wherever one looks 2:115. How is Allah's face simultaneously present in whatever direction one lays his eyes is beyond human understanding but the implications are clear; the spiritually aware perceives in all aspects of creation and at all moments the divine will and design. Interestingly, in the very verse talking of Allah's establishing Himself above the throne, it says 

57:4"He is with you wherever you are". 

Again, His simultaneous presence above the throne and with every human at all moment shows that He is absolutely transcendent, unbound by space and time, or any other type of restriction. This is an unfathomable notion to our minds, hence the uselessness of seeking the "how". The implications of that statement however are clear; God has unrestricted sway over all that exists, including the throne itself which is a creation. 

God's presence, not appearance, during His communion with Moses follows this exact pattern of religious terminology 27:7-9,28:29-30. 

The same understanding applies to the hadith describing Allah descending 

"every night to the lowest heaven when one-third of the night remains" 

so as to bless and forgive those that request it. Just as Allah is closer, at each instant, than the jugular vein, with all humans wherever they are, His face simultaneously visible all around us at all moments, all the while being established over the throne, His presence in the lowest heaven at a certain point in time is an unfathomable concept to the human mind. The implications of the statement however is understood by the information provided; such descent is accompanied by a manifestation of His attribute of mercy which is more prominent during that interval to those that seek it.  

The Quran, as well as the prophet, draw the boundaries of our understanding of those verses. What we can seek to understand, and what is a fruitless effort, as pointed to earlier. Him encompassing all of existence from close and far simultaneously, as well as being in a certain place at a certain time, is unlike any concept we can imagine. We can however understand the implications of those descriptions.

 

Again, when Allah 87:1"the Most High" is 6:61,16:50"above" or in the heavens (which He created), the expression is understood as denoting his all encompassing sway and dominion, that there cannot be something higher than Him in the sense of perfection, exaltedness. Such verses cannot be taken in isolation of the principles of interpretation mentioned earlier, as well as the numerous statements of Allah's all encompassing presence unrestricted by time and space. In fact, in connection to Allah being "above", we read that He does not "reside" in a fixed place 

6:3"He is Allah in the heavens and in the earth".

We find in certain passages of the HB principles that similarly protect divine transcendance despite descriptions of God acting within time and space. Among such restrictive verses we read that

 Isa33:5"The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high". 

That dwelling place is somewhere in the 

Amos9:6"upper stories in Heaven" 

which He has built. These chambers are above the solid canopy of the earth upon which He sometimes sits Isa40:22,Ps104 in order to 

Ps33:13-14"oversees all the inhabitants of the earth". 

The heavens strictly belong to him, while humans were made for the earth Ps115:16. In a closer sense, in the context of the Temple of Jerusalem, God is said to dwell among His people 1kings8:27. This is where the prophet Solomon salvages divine transcendance and provides an axiom by which to understand such "restrictive" Biblical verses. He states here that no location on the earth and neither of "the heaven of heavens" can contain Him. By definition, infinity cannot be limited in quantity or quality. This passage, which is in congruence with the Islamic principles mentioned earlier, refute the Hellenistic misappropriation of the HB by the NT authors. Jesus being fully God limits the infinite to a location. If the divine essence was not limited to a location when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, then it means Jesus was not fully God. Solomon's words are decisive and closed to any misinterpretation. God manifests His presence through His attributes, not by entering His creation. 

The Quran has also warned that these type of ambiguous verses are a test to those in whose heart there is perversity 3:7. They will deny the explicit verses that shed light on the right manner to approach these passages, preferring to apply their own desires and notions unto them. Trinitarians will often reply that God can do whatever He wishes. God surely has power over all things, but the contention here isnt about what God can or cannot do. God doesnt contradict Himself or negate His attributes, including Majesty and Self-sufficiency. Entering creation compromises both. This also opens the way for speculation, can God, for whatever theological construct, also incarnate into a worm? If not why not?

With those principles in mind we may further understand the implications of Allah "coming". We do not and cannot fathom how Allah can come within space and time, but we certainly can know the implications of that statement. Besides the hadith mentioned prior which entails mercy, in the Quran it means the execution of His command or of His threatened punishment. Similarly, the HB states in the context of divine chastisement visiting a wicked people, that God swiftly comes "riding" the clouds to destination Isa19:1,Ps104:3 or is transported by majestic angels Ps18:10. More in line with the Quranic imagery is God "descending" on the sinners for punishment or on a people for battle Isa31:4,Micah1:3 or "coming with a strong hand" to mete out retribution upon the heathens Isa40:10. 

The idea of tiredness is completely excluded from God's creative work 46:33. God's establishment over the throne, which is itself a creation sustained by Him, symbolises His constant dominion upon all that exists. He has not relinquished His rule in favour of others nor has He made the whole of His creation or any part of it independent like a clock running by itself. He has instead remained at all times the sole Sustainer upon Whom the functioning of all things depend. The ending of these verses with 

"surely His is the creation and the command" 

refer precisely to this; after creation comes the command, symbolized by the establishment on the throne 

32:5"He manages and regulates every affair from the heavens to the earth. Then, it will go up to him, in one Day, the space whereof is a thousand years of your reckoning". 

In fact the Quran is silent about a seventh day in the history of creation, where the Bible depicts God as seemingly collapsing on a throne following a tiresome task. Rather, God creates in six days only and then controls His creation, including the throne upon which He is established. Had His management abandoned the world of existence for one single moment, the organization of them all would have perished 22:65,35:41. 

In the HB, despite being One that Isa40:28"neither tires nor wearies", the crudely depicted Hebrew God is one that needed "resting" after "finishing" the monumental task of creating the universe, a pre-measured and finalized work 

Isa40:12"Who measured water with his gait, and measured the heavens with his span, and measured by thirds the dust of the earth, and weighed mountains with a scale and hills with a balance?" 

also Isa48:13. 

This concept borders with the polytheistic beliefs of many people around the world, including the Arabs of the Hijaz, who attributed the act of creation to the One God supreme, who then for many various reasons, left it either partially or completely, to the interceding deities or lesser gods to administrate the natural processes. The perfect monotheism of Islam is far detached from these incomplete and primitive depictions of God.

Ibrahim's discussion with the unnamed ruler of his nation (later Quran commentaries identify him with Namrud/Nimrod) was precisely about this notion of God's omnipresence in the created world. What transpires from the portion of the debate quoted in the Quran is that the point of contention was not God's existence, rather His presence in man's life. The ruler gave examples implying that God is not concerned with all worldly matters, is mostly absent from man's life. Ibrahim refuted that point by reminding him of God's constant command of the natural laws upon which all life depends. He did so after the king's heedlessness to the first argument; God is the origin of the mechanism of life and death which all organisms are subject to. The ruler used ridicule to maintain his position, in the manner that the arrogant possessors of power often do. Instead of considering the deeper meaning of Ibrahim's argument, he alluded to the giving of life and death in an indirect manner; as a worldly king, he also had the power to inflict death and give or allow life. This exposed his spiritual heedlessness. Ibrahim then dumbfounded him with an argument he could not, even with his spiritual shallowness and corrupt belief in God, dismiss as he had previously done. 

As has been made clear by now, God establishing Himself on the throne evokes dominion, and in the comprehensive language of the Quran conveys that Allah governs the whole of His creation, including the throne itself. He has kept all the powers by Himself, and whatever is taking place in each and every part of the universe is happening with His command and permission 

30:25"And one of His signs is that the heaven and the earth subsist by His command". 

Allah at no point becomes unconcerned with His creation, especially not man for whom he took the responsibility of making arrangements for his guidance, protection and fulfilment of his needs. This is done by providing means by which both aspects of the human being can thrive; the spiritual, through the innate perception of higher truths 23:78,46:26,67:23,76:2 as well as sending divine guidance 2:38-9,7:35-6,20:123 and the physical through the continuous maintenance of the universe and its laws 35:41. There is a reason why the Quran, in its surgical precision, describes Allah with His attribute of infinite mercy, when it mentions His establishment over the throne that encompasses all of creation

 20:5"The Beneficent One/al Rahman, Who is established on the Throne". 

No word enshrines the concept of constant care of every aspect of the functioning of the universe, more that the superlative Qayyum which reoccurs in the Quran, and no verse comprehensively explains it like ayat al kursi does 2:255. As denoted with "musiun" 51:47 which carries the meaning of expanding, the universe is not a finished work, but in continuous expansion, with new manifestations of God's creation

 87:2"Who creates, then makes complete". 

If creation in the universe is an ongoing phenomenon then how could one deem it far fetched and difficult to re-create the universe along with the humans after their destruction? These verses most often come in the context of providing proof for the resurrection. God has not just created this universe and left it alone after giving it the initial push. The same underlying notion is in 64:1. He isnt just the first cause after which He has no role in the affair. He is ruling over it and sustaining it at every moment 

35:13,7:54"Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time, and He is established on the Throne; He throws the veil of night over the day, which it pursues incessantly; and (He created) the sun and the moon and the stars, made subservient by His command; surely His is the creation and the command; blessed is Allah, the Lord of the worlds".

 Day and night are not following each other by themselves but by the Command of Allah Who could change the present system totally. But it is by His love and mercy that the system is maintained so as to allow life to thrive. God's love and mercy for His creation is a recurrent theme in the Quran and the idea of divine "detachment" from human destiny is in complete opposition to that concept. The combined statements that Allah is simultaneously above the throne as well as close to all things in existence, strikes the perfect balance between all encompassing transcendence and careful implication on an individual level. 

This negates the atheist world-view, our universe is not a closed, continuous and self-perpetuating material universe. Every part of every process is brought about by Allah, whether creation of rain, the development of seeds, rotation of planets, from the cosmic to the cellular, man doesnt stand alone. Material causality is thus treated as a delusion 40:62 while constant divine creation is a reality 87:1-3. 

40:7"Those who bear the throne and those around it celebrate the praise of their Lord and believe in Him and ask protection for those who believe.."
39:75"And you shall see the angels going round about the throne glorifying the praise of their Lord; and judgment shall be given between them with justice.."
69:16-7"And the heavens shall be rent asunder, for that Day it shall be frail and shall collapse. And the angels shall be on the sides thereof; and above them eight shall bear on that day your Lord's throne"

These verses speaking of the entites bearing the Throne and being near it on the Day of Judgement, do not say that God is or will be seated on this "Throne". As stated earlier, Allah is in no need of the throne for support, rather it is the throne that is constantly sustained by its Creator. Beyond its symbolism, the reality and function of the throne is something known to God only. In contrast, we read in the HB 

1Kings22:19"I saw the Lord seated on His throne, and all the host of heaven were standing by Him on His right and on His left" 

or also in Isa6:1,37:16,Ezek1,2,3 all picturing God carried by angelic creatures, seated on His throne. He is also pictured as accompanied by innumerable chariots and angels during certain "important" movements Ps68:18. Even the statement of ibn Abbas describing the kursi as Allah's footstool does not come close to the biblical depiction, neither does he state that Allah is seated on the throne 

"The Kursi is the place where the Qadamain (feet) of Allah rest and the Arsh, no one knows its extent except Allah". 

It is to be noted here that the statement is not attributed to the prophet. 

The picture painted in the Quran carefully preserves divine transcendence all the while taking human imagination as close as possible to the divine essence. When subjects look at their king, the closest thing to him is his throne. Yet here at no point is Allah seated on His throne. Instead, powerful and compassionate angels are bearing it, in complete submission to the will of the mighty King. Seeing those majestic entities submitted in this manner is awe inspiring, and the fact that the King Himself does not need to appear to create such an effect, increases the feeling of amazement.

CIRA International dig up Hebrew Bible authenticity; faithful Jewish preservation of scriptures?

In answer to the video "Jeremiah 8:8 - Scripture Twisting 101"

If we go back in time, in light of the information present in the HB itself, the issue of preservation becomes even more damning.

We read, as far back as the first or second generation following Moses

Judges2:10"After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel".

This is unsurprising, why would one expect a people to remain faithful to Moses' teachings and preserve them accurately years following his death when during his own lifetime, his 40 days absence was enough to make them revert to idol worship, despite having just witnessed all kinds of supernatural occurrences testifying to the truth of what he was bringing. In light of all that they were made to witness from miracles and guidance, one would expect them to be sincerely obedient to God and deeply united yet the opposite happenned. From the onset, there was not a single fundamental thing of religion to which they adhered.

They had serious differences in every aspect of religion; so much so, they lost many of them just because of this attitude. And if it was so that early on in their history when they had been freshly established and tied to God with a covenant then what is to say of the later times filled with troubles, wars, exiles and enslavement? Or as is said in the Talmud of tradition given to Moses at Sinai and then forgotten,

“they were forgotten and re-established” (Sukkah 44a, Megillah 3a).

To succesfully achieve this re-establishment the rabbis openly state it is acceptable to resort to sophistry (Ketubot 103b). A similar example to Ezra is that of Otniel son of Kenaz who is credited with "restoring" some 3000 laws that were forgotten during the mourning over Moses’ death and other

"1700 analogies from minor to major, analogies by equivalent words, and obligations derived from a meticulous scrutiny of the Scriptural text were forgotten during the mourning over Moses’ death" (Temurah 16a).

There are other examples attesting not only to forgetfulness as to the contents of the books, let alone complete despise towards them Hos8:12, but also to their whereabouts. For example during the reign of Joshiah and while the Temple was being repaired, the high priest came across a manuscript not knowing what it was until it was presented to the King who rent his clothes appart upon recognizing it 2kings22. Interestingly, that period of 7th century BCE coincides with the time critical Biblical scholarship places the composition of the current HB. It is important to emphasize, the text says what was found was "the" Torah not "a" Torah.

Talmudic rabbis explain this difficulty by stating that the uniqueness of this find, and the fact nobody knew a priori what it was, doesnt mean no other Torah was in circulation, rather that it was written in a forgotten script very few could read. Consequently the king whose subjects had sunk into idolatry sent emmissiaries to

“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us”.

This specific Torah, according to the Damascus Document, was none other than the original Torah fully revealed to Moses and sealed in the Ark of the Covenant 5 centuries ago in the times of Joshua. The detailed, written law was unknown to the masses all that time. The Ark itself was lost to the Phillistines and in the times of Solomon, its sole contents were the 2 tablets 1Kings8:9. There are also mention of entire pieces having been purposely burned by the corrupt elite, such as the scroll of Jeremiah Jer36:23 as mentionned earlier, and even though it was re-writen later Jer36:27-32, it reveals the complete careless attitude of the comunity's most prominent figures towards sacred texts.

Jeremiah, Hosea and others often lamented at their behavior and manipulations Jer8:8,Hosea4:6etc Too many factors have accumulated leading to the physical loss of the entire Torah, since the breaking of the oral transmission chain right after Moses, followed by blatant neglectfulness if not purposeful destruction of scriptures and their misinterpretations resulting in a faulty and corrupt oral tradition, combined with their successive massacres, destruction of their holiest sites and writings, forced exiles and assimilation into foreign cultures and all elements are there for the loss of the original. Hence the claims of divine intervention through Ezra to restore it, even having to transliterate the hebrew into Aramaic so the people would be able to read.

Ezra was the founder of the "Great Assembly", the institution that provided religious guidance to the Jews during the second temple era (520BCE – 70CE). These 120 men are said to have "finalized" the Hebrew Bible and enacted many laws, under the prophet Ezra's authority who was divinely inspired. They, after much debates, decided what to include in the final canon of the Tanakh/Hebrew bible. This era however is covered in darkness and not much is known of what was happening with the Jewish community.

The identity of these “Men of the Great Assembly” isnt even known.

In fact Israelite tradition isnt even sure in which language the Torah was given to them originally, whether it was ancient Hebrew, Assyrian, or Samaritan or whether it was later changed to Samaritan as a punishement (Sanhedrin 21b,22a,Y'rushalmi M'gillah 10a - chapter 1 halachah 9). In the process, they even forgot how to pronounce God's name hence the use of the tetragammaton. What is agreed upon is that upon his return from the Babylonian exile and into Israel, Ezra rewrote the HB in Hebrew but using the Aramaic alphabet (the lingua franca of those days). Their level of forgetfulness, as reflected in the issue of the language of revelation also reflects in their forgetfulness of the correct forms of certain ending letters, which made it impossible for them to recall the laws of Moses alluded to earlier until the intervention of Otniel son of Kenaz (Shabbat 104a). The Talmudic rabbis basically just decided on the letter forms to use, giving the current meaning to the text. Even though all Jews and rabbis agree to the rule which forbids the innovation of anything not said at Sinai, things can be recalled through discourse or any other means available, and the conclusion will be considered as having been given at Sinai.

The result is a Torah text nowadays far from being monolithic. There are 3 different Torah editions (Koren, Adi/Leningrad, Mosad HaRav Kook) each meticulously proofread from dozens of Torah scrolls on parchment then reproduced based on majority concordances between these scrolls. These 3 editions however have over 100 letter differences among them, which leaves one wondering as to the number of differences between the scrolls which were used by the proofreaders, if after all their efforts there were still 100+ letter differences.

That is without even getting into the issue of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, words of the midrash and the Zohar, showing that the Torah scrolls the Tanaaim (10-220CE) and Amoraim (200-500CE) had before them were different from the texts we have. This, as a side note, discredits the modern phenomenon of seeking Torah codes in a text whose original is unknown: one who works codes according to the Leningrad text or the Zohar text or according to the text used in the Talmud and the midrash will find, in each text, different results.

It is an undisputed fact that;
- there are parts of the Torah that must have been written long after Moses' death (Burial, Dan, etc)

- that Ezra at least re-introduced the people to the Torah (see Nehemia8) if not added rituals to festivals such as "Sukkot" that the Jews never knew about until he showed up Neh8:17 while the details of this ritual are found in Lev23 which was supposedly written by Moses.

- that Ezra is known as "the scribe", compared to none other than the one who received the Law, ie Moses who is seen as the greatest of prophets in the Talmud Sanhedrin 21b-22a

- that even in the mainstream Jewish tradition there is acceptance that Ezra at least made minor edits to the Torah

- that there is an entire book from 2,000 years ago (albeit a few hundred years after Ezra's time) that claims Ezra wrote the current version of the Torah (2Esdras14). The Talmud states:

“Reish Lakish said, ‘at first the Torah was forgotten by Israel; Ezra came from Babylon and established it'” (Sukkah 20a).

- that Ezra initiated the particulars of the prayer ritual

Medieval rabbis could not counter Muslim polemics regarding the corruption of their scriptures as there exists no foundational narrative to the genesis of the text, how these Scriptures came into being and were shaped as a book. There is no explicit “transmission chain” self-referentially described in the Hebrew Bible or in post-biblical canonical literature. Medieval Karaites, Jews that only adhered to the written Torah, exposed the embarassing traditions which the rabbis hid in these interfaith discussions with Muslims. Karaism was in fact born in Muslim lands. By interracting with Muslims Jews became aware of the problems related to the preservation of their HB, as is reported in their rabbinic traditions. 

Thus in answer to Muslim polemics, they would primarily attack these Jewish traditions, in an effort to blot out the embarrassing parts and re-write the transmission history of the text. Qirqisani, the leading Karaite theologian and exegete of Baghdad said 

"They (the Rabbanites) assert that the Torah which is in the hands of the people is not the Torah which Moses – on whom be peace – brought, but was composed by Ezra, for they say that the Torah brought by Moses perished and was lost and disappeared. This amounts to the destruction of the whole religion. Were the Muslims to learn of this, they would need nothing else with which to revile and confute us, for some of their theologians argue against us, saying: “Your Torah is not the Torah brought to Moses.” Against one who makes this claim we proclaim that he is lying out of a desire to contradict, and that they are reduced to this because they have nothing to say and need an argument. But were they to discover this teaching of the Rabbanites – may God forgive them – the field would be open to them and they would need nothing else". 

To this, he offers the poor reply that 

"There are two implications to this (claim) – one is that he who changed this (the text of the Bible) and altered it was wiser and more knowledgeable than the prophets who wrote it; and it is extremely implausible that Ezra and Nehemiah were wiser than Moses, may he rest in peace,..and wiser than the Creator..and if it were so that he changed Scripture and altered it and took out of it what was not found to be of benefit, would the shamefulness remain in its place and the disgracefulness not be removed? All the more so if what they say, namely, that the Torah which is in our hands was collated and composed by Ezra – if this were so, and there was no one besides him that would have compelled him to say that this was so and (to say) “I am the one who has changed it and fashioned it in this way”– he could have just (re-)written it in the way he wanted and left the matter hidden, without informing anyone that he had changed it!" 

Karaites deflected Muslim accusations of tahrif of their Hebrew Bible, by implying that if there is a form of falsification in Judaism, it only occured in the oral Torah, the books of the Mishnah and Talmud. It was necessary to them to reject the oral Torah's preservation so as to deny the information it contained as regards the written Torah's corruption. Eventually Karaism was declared a heresy by the rabbis, due to its denial of the authenticity of the oral tradition. The mouvement failed gaining dominance due to several factors; the Jewish people's turbulent history of oppression and exile, raised their rabbinic authorities as heroes of preservation and survival in the face of the complete annihilation of their identity. That mentality of the layman perdured in time due to Judaism's position as a minority religion, forcing it to dilute ideological dissent so as to retain a sense of community and survive. Also, Jewish Karaism had a strong zionist ideology. The demolition of their Jerusalem center by the Crusade of 1099 proved this ideology unattainable and brought about their dispersal and absorption in the Karaite pockets of Egypt, Byzantium and Spain.  

CIRA International open can of worms; the lying pens of the scribes Jer8:8?

In answer to the video "Jeremiah 8:8 - Scripture Twisting 101"

The Torah contains many harsh laws that were instituted on the Israelites because of their transgressions, and hard heartedness per the Quran, in order to contain them. Jesus in the NT alludes in certain places to this principle Mk10:5. This hypocrisy of the religious elite and treachery towards their divine revelations which Jesus tried rectifying, is mentionned in the Quran

2:44"do you enjoin men to be good and neglect your own souls while you read the Book; have you then no sense?".

Throughout time and in order to escape these self-imposed heavy burdens, they went on hairsplitting each commandement further. Explicit punishements, such as death sentences were substituted for other punishements of their own inventions. They use (and still do) the excuse that the Temple must be standing for many laws to be applicable. This innovation is easily exposed through the fact that the Temple was never around at the time of Moses' execution of the Israelites found worshiping the calf, the institutions of death sentences for adultery, rebellious children, breaking the Sabath etc. In Numb11 Moses asked God to spare him the burden of prophethood on such rebellious people. He was so convinced as to their tendency to disobey, that in Deut31:25-29 he swears before heaven and earth they will find a way to corrupt the revelation.

Jeremiah condemned the scribes for their mishandling the law Jer8:8. Jeremiah here is accusing the scribes that they mishandled

"the law of the LORD"

with their lying pens, not with their mouths. He's tellin them how can they claim to have it when they have handled it falsely, meaning that book they have in their hands isnt the original Law but one that has been tampered with. That tampering does not have to be absolute and neither does the verse say so. It speaks of partial corruption of the overall text. There is a reason why in the 2nd century, the early church father and messianic apologist Justin Martyr, accuses with explicit examples, the Jews of having physically altered passages of the HB, including within the book of Jeremiah, because they found them confusing. In his dialogue with a contemporary Jew named Trypho, Justin first alludes to the disagreement Jews had over the Septuagint Greek translation of the HB. A cursory reading of the text besides the Torah, reveals the Christian agenda of the unknown translators, especially within the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Christians in turn accused the Jews of shamelessly obscuring messianic passages in reference to Jesus. Justin tells Trypho;

“I certainly do not trust your teachers when they refuse to admit that the translation of the Scriptures made by the seventy elders at the court of King Ptolemy of Egypt is a correct one, and attempt to make their own translation. You should also know that they have deleted entire passages from the version composed by those elders at the court of Ptolemy, in which it is clearly indicated that the Crucified One was foretold as God and man, and as about to suffer death on the cross. But, since I know that all you Jews deny the authenticity of these passages, I will not start a discussion about them, but I will limit the controversy to those passages which you admit as genuine. Thus far, you have admitted the authenticity of all my quotations, except this, ‘Behold, a virgin will conceive,’ which you claim reads, ‘Behold, a young woman will conceive.’ And I promised to show that this prophecy was not spoken of Hezekiah, as you were taught, but of my Christ. This I now intend to prove.” “Before you do,” interrupted Trypho, “we would like you to quote some of the passages you claim were entirely omitted [from the elders” translation] “Since you asked,” I replied, “here is an example. They have deleted the following passage in which Ezra expounded the law of the Passover: ‘And Ezra said to the people: This Passover is our Savior and refuge. And if you have understood, and it has entered into your hearts, that we are about to humiliate Him on a cross, and afterwards hope in Him, then this place will never be forsaken, saith the Lord of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, nor listen to His teaching, you will be the laughing-stock of the Gentiles’. They have also expunged these words from Jeremiah: ‘I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a sacrificial victim; they devised counsels against Me, saying: Come, let us put wood on His bread, and cut Him off from the land of the living, and let His name be remembered no more’ [Jer 11.19]. Since this passage from the words of Jeremiah is still found in some copies of Scripture in the Jewish synagogues (for it was deleted only a short time ago), and since it is also proved from these words that the Jews planned to crucify Christ Himself and to slay Him, and since He is shown, as was likewise prophesied by Isaiah, as led like a lamb to slaughter, and in accordance with this passage He is marked as ‘an innocent lamb,’ they are so confused by such words that they resort to blasphemy. Similarly have they removed the following words from the writings of the same Jeremiah: ‘The Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, remembered His dead who slept in their graves, and He descended to preach to them His salvation’ “Furthermore, from a verse of the ninety-fifth Psalm of David they have left out the short phrase, ‘from the tree.’ For they have changed the verse, ‘Say to the Gentiles: The Lord has reigned from the tree,’ to ‘Say to the Gentiles: The Lord has reigned’ [Ps 95.10]. [2] Now, no one of your people was ever said to have reigned as God and King over the Gentiles, except the Crucified One, who (as the Holy Spirit testifies in the same Psalm) was freed from death by His resurrection, and thus showed that He is not like gods of the Gentiles, for they are but the idols of demons. [3] To clarify this point, I will repeat the whole Psalm for you....“Only God knows,” remarked Trypho, “whether or not our leaders have deleted portions of the Scriptures as you say. But such an assertion seems incredible.”

What this passage of Jer8:8 establishes beyond doubt, is that there was at least some physically corrupted writings passed off as the real Torah, and Jeremiah exposed the authors of these documents. Elsewhere Jeremiah laments over the false prophets among them's oral misinterpretation of the Law

Jer23:9-36"They use their tongues and say, "He Says".

What transpires from Jeremiah's repeated condemnations is that the Jews of his time and most probably before, mishandled both textually and orally the writings of the prophets. Some of these corrupted writings and their authors were exposed, thankfully to the prophets that were continuously sent among them in an almost uninterrupted manner, and the presence of righteous remnants among them, that kept the Torah. But this is far from solving the problem. Jeremiah appeals to the uncorrupted text available to them, urging them to abide by it despite and they majoritarily resist his calls, trying even to kill him Jer26.

The greater implication here is that when crimes are exposed at an advanced stage, that it is found out it is done on a large scale, even institutionalized as is the case with the corrupt scholars in the time of Jeremiah, it often means one is only dealing with the tip of the iceberg. No sooner would Jeremiah turn his back, or pass away, the criminals would continue doing what they did before and during his presence among them. As reflected by Moses when he predicted their future disobedience

Deut31:27"If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die!"

To further corroborate the corrupt leaders went as far as burning Jeremiah's scroll Jer36:23, and even though it was divinely re-writen later Jer36:27-32, something the text never says reoccured in Biblical history, it reveals the complete careless attitude of the comunity's most prominent figures towards sacred texts. There is a reason why Jeremiah says in Jer7:21 that even though God had spoken to them, they

"went backward and not forward".

This shows their constant tendency to leave the right path. One cannot but question, how long would the fringe righteous remnants resist and be able to maintain the integrity of the inherited written and oral tradition in such a heavily corrupt environement? About 600 years later and after prophethood ceased for 400 years, meaning a very long period where these deceitful leaders and supposed maintainers of the scriptures were left on their own, Jesus rose and echoed Jeremiah's lamentations, probably in a harsher tone than any of their prophets. How could the Torah and the oral tradition be rightfully preserved when those very ones supposed to keep it and faithfully transmit it were rotten spiritually, like a tomb

Matt23"full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean"?

After Jeremiah, who exposed the tip of the iceberg of corruption, and especially after 400 years where prophethood was interrupted up till Jesus' time, the scriptures in the hands of the Jews were only Torah and book of the prophets by name, not by contents. Although there still remained guidance and truth in these books, one cannot legitimately say their integrity was safeguarded.

Acts17apologetics put Jesus back in semitic history; Jesus succeeds despite Jewish slaying of prophets?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

Many of the Prophets the Israelites were sent to were rejected, killed and opposed Matt23:37,Acts7 Jesus being one of them Jn8:37. He explained this wicked trend through The Parable of the Tenants Matt21:33-45 and foresaw their destruction and

"that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit".

This powerful statement was meant at shutting their constant boasting of their lineage and choseness. He continued this way until the hatred and arrogance of the Jewish elite made him select a group of apostles from among his few followers to be his helpers in his mission. Jesus sensed unbelief in his group, this prompted him to select a smaller group from among them

5:111,61:14,3:52"But when Isa perceived unbelief on their part, he said: "Who are my helper to Allah?" The disciples said: "We are helpers of Allah: We believe in Allah and be (our) witness that we are submitting ones".

This is a very important observation if one considers the depiction made in the NT of Jesus' disciples, they were the first to desert him in adversity and hardly understood any of his teachings. It is a fact that very few Israelites, to whom he was sent and whom he preached for, believed in him during his ministry Acts1:13-16. Throughout Jesus' ministry Allah defeated his enemies' conspiracies to allow him the fullfilment of his mission. Whether from the moment his remarkable prophetic experience began while still an infant, until he attained the peak of his physical maturity toward the end of his ministry, he was in Allah's protection

3:46,5:110"and when I withheld the children of Israel from you when you came to them with clear arguments".

The term kahl refers to a middle aged man whose hair is beginning to turn gray. It is used for what is believed to be the ideal physical age of a man, defined as anywhere between 30 and 50 years. The scholars of Christianity since very early times have given all sorts of ages for Jesus' lifespan, from 33 years to 50 years. This is mainly due to the many difficult and inconsistent historical data present in the Gospels.

When his time finally came and the transmission of his message fulfilled, Allah saved him from the hands of his enemies by lifting him up. Jesus was not sent on a suicide mission and neither did he want to purposefully die as a human offering, something God explicitly abhors in both the HB, which he upheld to the letter as well as his early followers after him, and the Quran.

According to Islam, Jesus therefore succeeded 100% in conveying the message he was meant to convey. His mission was deep, intricate, far reaching and much more elaborate, pertinent, consistent and beautiful than what is attributed to him by the Greek authors. By relating the essential landmarks of his prophetic mission as well as the basis of the message he was commanded to faithfully transmit, saved his honor both physically and spiritually. It clears him of all slanders by his contemporaries and those that followed, as well as from the false teachings attributed to him that corrupted his message. It is ironic that Christians see Jesus in Islam as a failed prophet or fabricated figure, when it is they that depict him as such; from his humiliating ending at the hands of his opponents, to his teachings that were misappropriated and assimilated into the religion of a pagan entity, or the fabricated events in his life that dont stand to historical scrutiny, and the theological implications of his mission that are irreconcilable with the HB which is supposed to foreshadow Christianity. 

This painstaking, sketchy endeavour is the result of Christians attempting to reconstruct Jesus as a heroic figure after his death, just as pagans in those times deified their dead emperors or called the living ruler "son of god", creating events that did not happen; Jesus' pre-existence, his co-creation of the universe with God, his miraculous birth, miracles, arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, post-resurrection appearances, and reunion with God his Father were all the inventions of story tellers trying to restrospectively fit Jesus within both the Jewish messianic tradition and the writers' own greco-roman religious background. Islam, the religion of all prophets is a religion of success. Unlike the meaningless, devastating, disgraceful, helpless death of the invented central figure of Christianity, neither Muhammad nor Jesus were failures.

Whether Jesus' message survived now or not is irrelevant. The success of a prophet's mission of being the faithful conveyor of his God's message is independant of whether his addressees hearken his calls, mend their ways, preserve his message or attempt to kill him. All prophets attest to this reality. Prophets are not sent to cause forceful spiritual reform. Their duty is only to deliver the warnings and glad tidings, as here stated by the prophet Hud

11:57"But if you turn back, then indeed I have delivered to you the message with which I have been sent to you, and my Lord will bring another people in your place, and you cannot do Him any harm; surely my Lord is the Preserver of all things". 

It is then up to the people themselves to hearken the calls and act accordingly. If they do it is for their own benefit, if not it is their own loss. Both outcomes have no bearing on the truthfulness of a prophet or the accomplishment of his mission.

Acts17apologetics expose Judaism; Jesus rejected because he was crucified?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

Jesus was rejected by his fellow Jews, not for claiming to be the promised ruler, who in addition to his functions will be "a" messiah, but because, just like his predecessors Israelite prophets whom they calumnied, rejected, killed, for harshly condemning their straying from their own Books. Jesus in particular was rejected and almost killed for his harsh condemnation of the Jewish elite, their religious hypocrisy. The Quran quotes him as urging them to fear God and obey him in his application of Torah 3:48-50 which they resisted. This is amply demonstrated throughout the NT and the numerous demonstrations by Jesus as to the importance of prioritizing the spiritual dimension of the Law.

There is a reason why plenty evidence exists for Jewish messianic claimants during or just a few years after Jesus, but not 1 concerning a person named Jesus who claimed to be the Davidic king.

There is a reason why the NT authors could not but paint that whole part of Jesus' ministry as some sort of hidden reality, with Jesus telling his followers to keep it to themselves Mk8:29, secretly admitting it to a woman Jn4, and offering differing answers to the high priest's charge against him, either obscuring or confirming the charge of him claiming to be the king messiah Matt26:63-64,Lk22:70,Mk14:62. Yet Jesus himself says

Jn18:20"I have spoken openly to the world..I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret."  

"Jesus spoke about his own role reluctantly.  He rarely, if ever, referred explicitly to himself as Messiah.  On the other hand, so many aspects of his actions and teachings were “messianic” in a broad sense that we can understand how his followers claimed soon after Easter that Jesus was the promised Messiah."(Graham Stanton – Professor Cambridge).

The appeal to secrecy is one of the devices needed to paint the Jesus of the NT as a success rather than failure. His disillusioned followers and converts wanted him to be more than another prophet calling out the Jews for their transgressions and who was defeated by his enemies. The only thing higher in rank in Jewish scriptures is the awaited end times davidic king who shall fulfill well known criteria and usher the utopian Kingdom of God. But Jesus did not fit the role prior to his crucifixion, he had to do it a little later, within the generation of the disciples at his cataclysmic return and forcefully establish the kingdom of God. The prophecy failed of course and further reinterpretations were needed. The kingdom of God became a spiritual thing, with its associated Christologies and Pauline concepts. The writers however did not know the prediction they put in Jesus' mouth would eventually fail. They still expected it to happen, and so had no choice but to paint the plot as a secret because the Romans were on the lookout for any rebel leader. If, as Christians nowadays claim, the kingdom of God was something else all along then Jesus' job is done; he wouldnt need to come back so as to violently establish what the Jews and his disciples anticipated, and the Romans feared. If Jesus' kingdom of God had nothing to do with what everyone (including his disciples) understood and anticipated, then he did not need to fear the Romans either and be secretive about his operation. The Romans would have allowed this Jewish sect and their spiritual kingdom of God to flourish so as to supplant the rebellious messianic HB ideology of world dominance which every 1st century Jew expected, and still does till this day. Further, even by Christian standards, none of what Jesus did, or was done to him, brought about "victory over sin and death". These are still plenty, even among sincere Trinitarians. Anyway one turns it, the contrived NT narrative paints Jesus as a false prophet and false messiah. This is  worse to those that love and follow him, than the Quran's proposition. Christians are always taken aback by the purpose the Quran gives to Jesus. Being "just a prophet" is to them a degrading proposition, not only in light of Paul's christologies, but because in the biblical paradigm, "just a prophet" carries with it a paradigm of sinfulness. Yet here again, Islam untangles the distortions of past scriptures, as it paints prophets as the highest spiritual potential humans can achieve, the most sublime examples of morality and the highest legal and spiritual authorities.

The fact that the end times messianic figure did not materialize in Jesus, that it appeared to many that he was murdered, those who nevertheless believed him to fit the messianic role could not but paint this aspect of his life in "purposeful" obscurity. In addition, his death/failure became his self-predicted success, purposefuly orchestrated, in fulfillment of ancient prophecies retrospectively applied to him, or rather misapplied to anyone familiar with the HB.

The whole NT is a poorly written apology of a new concept of the end times king messiah, as here stated

Jn20:31"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name".

Matt12:15-21 attempts to show that Jesus' appeal to secrecy was in fulfilment of Isa42:1-4, a passage that only relates to what Matthew infers by the most farfetched analogy. He implies that by the vast majority of Israel's being puporsefully denied access to the truth, the Gentiles instead will be saved. But for these gentiles to have access to this truth after JEsus' death, there had to be a select few who would understand the secret scheme.

The plot was supposedly achieved through obscured parables only his disciples would understand Mk4:11-12,Matt13:13-15 yet we many times read thoughout the NT how his closest followers who supposedly were among those select few at least struggled in comprehending him if not completely misunderstood him. In fact towards the end of Jesus' mission people in general and his closest entourage had no clue about his messianship, to the point that when Simon identifies him as the messiah, Jesus tells him that he could only have received that information in a supernatural way Matt16.

The simple reason is that the historical Jesus did not go around claiming to fulfil the messianic predictions of the HB. The claim was later made for him. If he did, people would have laughed their lungs off, including the Romans. The Gospel writers, writing at least 50 years after the events knew that what Jesus accomplished had nothing to do with the highly anticipated establishment of the kingdom of God. They were thus left with no option other than painting the whole matter as they did.

The Jewish people were thus divinely blinded for that purpose, at least temporarly as stated in

Rom11:11"I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous".

As if God could not provide salvation for both Jew and Gentile without deliberately withholding knowledge so that only some Jews are saved.

When Jesus was apprehended and judged by the Romans, with the complicity of the Jewish leaders who wanted to get rid of him for his denouncing their sins as past prophets did, he did not claim to be the king messiah, neither to the Jews who were seeking a pretext to make him arrested, pressing the question to have him confess Matt26:63-64,Mk14:62,Lk22:70 nor in front of the authorities, who eventually sent him to be crucified. By doing so, and acceding to the request of the Jews, the romans validated the Jewish charge against him of messianic kingship which is punishable by death under state laws. Now that Jesus and his band became official outlaws wanted by the state, his close apostles are reported to have fled with Peter even denying he knew Jesus 3 times. The Romans, lobbied by their Jewish stooges, deemed the allegation against him enough for him to be crucified.

This punishment was most often reserved to those who threatened the political status quo, regardless of their background motives (religious or else). Jesus' enemies painted him as one whom the Romans would typically go after in those days, a charismatic leader who proclaimed a kingdom "with God" not "with Caesar" at its head was seen as an immediate threat. The person didnt even have to present a violent danger to be inflicted with such punishment, nor tangible evidence, especially a non-Roman citizen or a slave. Simple suspicion, in this case instigated by their Jewish minions, was enough to trigger the authorities. 

As to Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the decision to execute a political agitator, a man known for his brutality against his subjects, is obviously a scribal corruption with an agenda. The Greeks were writing the Gospels after the Roman legions had returned to crush the Jewish rebellion of 66CE and did not want to antagonize Roman power and attract their hostility at that point in time. What is interesting to add is that, contrary to similar cases where accomplices would be tracked down and killed to crush a potential rebellion, the Romans left Jesus' disciples to freely preach their gospel.

This shows that, as said above, Jesus was seen as inconsequential in terms of posing a violent threat, that the savage Roman police would easily be triggered on simple basis of suspicion and that they would readily accomodate their local puppets to safeguard their own dominion in the distant regions of the empire.

Acts17apologetics find banal, down to earth truth; Jesus' purpose?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

Jesus' purpose, in addition to claryfing the issue of afterlife to the Jews, as shown in a previous post, was to allow some of the things that were forbidden to them through the traditions of men 3:50,5:46,(NT Matt15,23).  HE was the most qualified to do so, through his inspired knowledge

3:48"And Allah will teach him the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel".

That is why he applied himself to turning their attention away from their oral man-made traditions to the true divine source, the Torah which he claimed to uphold and fulfill to the letter Matt5:17-20. In that passage, the "Law and the Prophets" was a regular expression Jews of Jesus' day used in reference to the entire HB Matt7:12,22:40,Acts24:14,28:23,Rom3:21.

The fulfillement of the Torah refers to the revival of its spirit, which the Jews had neglected by focusing more on baseless rituals, and issuing ever new conjectured complications to those rituals, attributing their origins to the revealed Oral Torah/Talmud. These additions had distorted Moses' religion beyond recognition Mk7:7. Humans, because of their very nature as volitional creatures are bound to differ in almost every aspect of life, as stated elsewhere in the Quran. This isnt necessarily an evil, however the only sphere in which they should not contend but rather unite are the original and clear tenets of the religion. The innovations of the Jews in that area inevitably caused dissension among them and Jesus came to unite them by clarifying their misunderstandings and/or deliberate distortions

43:63"And when Isa came with clear arguments he said: I have come to you indeed with wisdom, and that I may make clear to you part of what you differ in; so be careful of (your duty to) Allah and obey me".

Jesus wasnt an all-knowing being charged with resolving every conflict, his function wasnt to unify them in every aspect of life, but only in the relevant religious matters hence the statement in the verse

"part of what you differ in".

The Quran here again, as it does in countless places, demonstrates its surgical precision in its meaningful choice of every word and to further corroborate, when God the all-knowing best of judges swift in reckoning will resurrect and gather the people, He shall judge between them in all that which they differed

39:46"Say: O Allah, Originator of the heavens and the earth, Knower of the unseen and the seen! Thou (only) judgest between Thy servants as to that wherein they differ".

What is very revealing and that most Christians are oblivious of, is that after the councils of Hippo and Cartage in the end of the 4th century where 27 books were finally canonized as NT scriptures, one would expect the Church to want its adherents to get to know the official books of the Church. Especially when there were many non-canonical books in circulation, competing sects and heresies. And yet this is absolutely not what happened. Not only were the people discouraged from reading the Bible on their own, but translations into native languages were prohibited (Council of Toulouse 1229, Tarragona 1234, Constance 1415), forcing translation efforts to go underground. Some were burned for doing so (Tyndale 1536). With the proliferation of unreliable versions, the church athorities had no choice but to begin an effort of official translations, especially done in the monasteries. Two main reasons motivated this concealment by the Church. First to maintain their own aura of elitism. Among the reasons Martin Luther was persecuted in the 1500s was because of his translation, giving the lowly folk access to the "lofty" Bible.

Compare this to the early efforts of the Quran compilers just 10 years following the prophet Muhammad's death, to spread copies of the book in scripts that would unlock the primitive consonantal structure of the text.

The second and most important reason for the Church's reluctance to make its canon accessible to the commoner, was to prevent Christians from finding out about Jesus' purely Jewish environement, teachings, legacy, as well as the Jewishness of his followers, prior to Paul's appearance on the scene. Despite all of Paul's missionary activities, early Jewish converts to Christianity still worshiped in synagogues until the late 4th century (Homilies against Jews by Chrysostom). The dominant Pauline Church wanted and needed to break with Jesus and his early followers' Jewish heritage. Something that would have been impossible to do as early on in the history of Christianity where the traditions transmitted by the original cluster of Jewish sects claiming descendency from Jesus and his followers, were still known. Instead the church presented limited editions to the people, they could not show the full version because the Gospel writers didnt and couldnt erase Judaism from Jesus' ministry. They couldnt do it, because it would have made Jesus contextually irrelevant, as if appearing in a vacuum.

Through a concise statement, the Quran explains the mutual relationship between the Torah and the Gospel; they complete one another by centering the attention on the wisdom and spirit of every aspect of God's Laws so that they do not end up as something lifeless and burdensome for the people

3:48-50"And He will teach him the Book and the wisdom and the Tawrat and the Injeel..And a verifier of that which is before me of the Taurat and that I may allow you part of that which has been forbidden to you, and I have come to you with a sign from your Lord therefore be careful of (your duty to) Allah and obey me".

By the beginning of the 1st century Judaism was a sterile, lifeless organism, waiting to be infused with a spirituality that only Jesus could provide.

Jesus repeatedly condemned those traditions in the NT, denounced the Jews and their leaders as "hypocrites" and told the people to beware of these "teachers of law" for their soulless traditions, and "children of the Devil" because of their claim of inherited righteousness through their affiliation to Abraham Jn8:37-44.

Not in one single instance within the whole NT is it reported that Jesus said that the law of Moses needs to be abandoned, contrary to Paul who besides stating it was a curse Gal3:13 given not by God but by angels Gal3:19-25,Heb2:2 declared it obsolete Rom3:20,7:4,10:4,Heb8:13,Gal2:21,3:23-25,4:21-31,5:1,Eph2:15 even describing his former Jewish beliefs as worthless, rejecting his former Jewishness by warning of Jewish dogs saying in the original Greek

Phil3:2-8"I consider them excrement".

He told people he was seeking to convert that they were now under the vague 'law of Christ'. Jesus himself never alludes to such law, hence it being unknown to any of those who met and followed him and respected all Jewish laws to the letter as per his actual instructions. That law of christ, tailored so as to apeal to Paul's mainly pagan audience, has removed the old burden from mankind 1Corin9:21,Gal6:2. He sometimes paid lip service to the Law if the situation or audience required a show of obedience to the law Acts21:20-26 but immidiately denounced the likes of James and Peter for telling the Gentiles to follow the law Gal2, evidently because it attracted less converts.

Acts17apologetics expose Judaism; life after death unknown prior to Jesus?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

Jesus did not proclaim anything dissimilar to what his contemporaries expected from an Israelite prophet. Jesus was the final prophet in a series of prophets sent to the Bani Israel exclusively Matt10:5-6,15:24-26,21,Quran3:49, to warn them of their constant betrayal of their covenant with God, including their hiding and distortion of the true expression of the Torah, just like Moses foresaw Deut31:25-29 and Jeremiah confirmed Jer2:8,7:21,8:8,23:9-36.

Being the last one in the line of Israelite prophets, Jesus had to prophecy the coming of the final prophet who would be sent to all of mankind and he did so through his prophecies of the paraclete, as echoed in the Quran 61:6. It is this distinction between the prophet Muhammad and the other prophets that make his prediction a necessity by his predecessors from among the Israelites, Moses and Jesus included 6:20,7:157,61:6. Muhammad is the only prophet whom the Quran says was announced by previous prophets. 

As to Jesus, one can clearly see from his few reported NT sayings that he did not come to establish a new religion. That is why the earliest Christian creed was simple and concise as compared to the one grossly inflated centuries later at Nicea then Constantinople so as to integrate new theological notions. Although speculations were rife about Jesus' nature and relationship with God the Father, prior to the 4th century, the authorities of the church did not view the persons of the trinity as equal in divinity. The Father was understood as the supreme God and the Son came second in worship, subordinate in knowledge and power, followed by the Holy Ghost as third in rank.

Jesus, per the Quran, came to verify the truth remaining in the Torah 

3:50,5:46,61:6"verifying what is between my hands MIN/OF the Torah". 

Just as the prophet Muhammad was tasked in doing with the Quran, Jesus wasnt going around listing every single error and absurdity of the scriptures and traditions that preceded him. His words and deeds testified to the truth and falsehood in them. Most of those words and deeds have been forgotten, misinterpreted or purposefully put aside by the gospels writer's own admission. These writers reported what was transmitted to them with their heavy pagan Hellenistic perspective, if not outright fabricated events that do not stand the test of internal and external scrutiny. Their sole purpose was to advance the notion of Jesus being "the messiah, the son of God" as candidly admitted in Jn20:31. 

The Quran gives several examples of how his words and deeds testified to some of the corruptions of the HB. For example when Jesus, with God's leave, creates life from inanimate material and resurrects the dead, these were meant to demonstrate to an audience highly skeptical of the concept of resurrection how life can be gathered from dust and how a lifeless body can be risen back. During the volatile transmission process of the HB, such concepts, like the concept of an afterlife were almost entirely blotted out from their books. These actions from Jesus acted as a criterion of what is true and false in the HB, confirming the very few passages vaguely attesting to resurrection. The near scriptural absence of those concepts was an obvious manipulation. Because of their sins for which they were successively destroyed and humiliated during their tumultuous history, the Israelites became averse at the notion of an afterlife in which one is resurrected and held accountable for his worldly deeds. And so they progressively denied the concept, leading to the polemics within their sects during Jesus' time. The Pharisees forcefully argued in favor of the concept, using scattered biblical references including 1Kings17:17-24,2Kings4:17-37,13:20-1,1Sam2:6,Isa2:17,26:19,66:14,Ezek37:1-28,Ps71:20,Prov6:22,Prov31(see Rashi),Dan12:1-2 while their main opponents, the Sadducees strongly denied that basic monotheistic tenet.

The Quran points to another important reality. This confusion as regards the afterlife and resulting conjectures which one can find in the rabbinical writings, are due to the erasing of clear references from their scriptures, leaving their thinkers to come up with all kinds of theories to fill the uncomfortable void. Other cultures like them, including the Greeks, came up with different scenarios more or less resembling the Islamic afterlife, using reasoning and deductions so as to make sense of how to account for the level of morality of a mortal creature.

The Quran makes a powerful observation revealing why the Israelites neglected that aspect of the religion until its near disappearance from their writings. They are, from all people, the most attached to this very life, no matter in what shape or condition as denoted with "hayatin", as long as it is extended indefinitely 2:96. How can a scripture that speaks of God, divine laws, intelligent design, angels, prophets, moral accountability, have no explicit and repeated, stressed and emphasized mention of the afterlife? The only place where individual justice can be fulfilled to perfection? The only explanation is that they have blotted out a concept they deeply loathed due to their attachment to this life and unwillingness to face the consequences of their spiritual condition and failures as a community bound by a collective covenant 2:93-5.

Their history of internal dispute as regards even the concept of resurrection as show earlier, let alone the mass of speculation on the most convenient or acceptable picture of the hereafter is testimony to this reality. Even more corroborative of this Quranic charge against them, is that over and over again, the Hebrew Bible promises as the climax of physical and spiritual bliss, the ushering in this very world of the messianic era, with the dead actually coming back to this world in order to be rewarded. Even prior to the ushering of that era, over and over, divine promises of material gains and rewards of all types are promised in return for spiritual uprightness.

The Quran on the other hand absolves the previous prophets from such an important omission, saying they, from Abraham to Moses believed and spoke of the resurrection, judgement and life in the hereafter 2:260,7:155-6,20:48-9,40:38-9.  What is also very interesting is that almost all the cataclysmic descriptions preceding the establishment of the blissful "new earth", agree with the Quran's depiction of upheaval and destruction of the universe and the earth, followed by the resurrection of the earth and all humans for judgement. This is rooted in the principle that 28:88"all things are perishing save His Face". Then comes the righteous people's admission into Heaven, a place beyond the limits of the material world 3:133"And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord; and a Garden, the extensiveness of which is (as) the heavens and the earth, it is prepared for those who guard (against evil)". The difference, again, is that the Bible writers place these events as happening in this world, with the Jewish people and the land of Israel being the focal point. The punishment through fire, humiliation and torture will be the lot of Israel's enemies only until the Jewish people are re-established to their station of honor among the nations Zech14:10,etc.

Acts17apologetics honor inexistant martyrs; persecution of Christians?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

Just as there are no evidence for Jesus' alleged crucifixion, there is even less evidence for the scale of persecution early Christians allegedly sufferred, and the reason why violence was directed at them. It is to be noted that during this so called early persecution and consequent scattering of Christians, Jesus' disciples, the heads of the movement against whom oppression was allegedly directed, stayed put in Jerusalem.

In fact it was precisely due to the religious toleration of the Roman world, that nevertheless despised Jews for their insularity and acted against religious movements only when they appeared to threaten public order, that the nascent cult of Christianity was able to develop out of Judaism, become organised and, ultimately, seduce the Roman state.

In total, Christians, throughout a 300 year period, lost about a little less than 2000 persons, not for solely adhering to a faith that until the early years of the 2nd century Roman administrators were ignorant of, but due to their own provocations, stirring up of the population by refusing military service and motivating others to do the same based on the fear of eternal damnation, campaigns of psycho-terorism that consisted in seizing every possible calamity that befell the Roman world as an occasion to claim "divine retribution" and the soon destruction of "Babylon" with the emminent return of Jesus, defiance of governement laws that local administration such as that of Pliny the younger instaured forbidding political associations which he suspected Christians and others that even practiced pagan cults of forming as seen from his complaint letters to Emperor Trajan where mention of Christians is made for the first time (interestingly these letters were published posthumously and anonymously, and no mention is made in his life work of any persecution of Christians, let alone of Christianity as a belief, not even Nero's alleged massacre that occured as Pliny was a child, despite him having been involved in the Roman judicial system at the highest levels, and having served in places like Syria at a time where Christianity was allegedly very active. If anything, Pliny's alleged letters only show how lenient the Rome of Trajan was to Christians since in his reply to Pliny, the emperor requests a stringent procedure before validating any accusation against Christians) confrontations by the church as it organized itself against a fragilized, erroded and fragmented Roman empire as a "state within a state".

It was only when the empire was itself in peril that the Roman state acted violently against any hostile element from within, including Christians.

Acts 11:27-28 has a prophet, Agabus, prophecy of a famine that will afflict the whole world, in the time of the Roman procurator Claudius. A famine did occur in Judea around this time according to the historian Josephus, but did not afflict the whole world or Roman world. Roman historians regularly attest to localized droughts and food shortages in various provinces of the empire, a different matter entirely. Agabus was wrong here as he was about Paul being "bound by his own belt and handed over to the Gentiles by the Jews" while it was actrualy gentiles that rescued him from murdering Jews Acts21:10,22:23-29. So during the famine, Jerusalem was under hardship but relieved from donations by the newly judaized Helena, queen of Adiabene. Acts11 also speaks of Christian solidarity in this time, at the hands of Barnabas and Paul (why the partiality, and what about Jesus' loving thy neighbor teachings?). Besides the fact that Paul says nothing of the worldwide famine in his purported letters written during his extensive travels, and his silence on the donations while speaking of fund-raising to the Church and its employees, the problem for the NT account starts in Acts12:1, after the famine had occured.

It speaks of King Herod Agrippa I and his "persecution" of Christians. In their zeal to find yet another powerful leader persecutor of righteous Christians, the NT's unknown writers commit an anachronism; if Agrippa is still king in Judaea the region cannot be ruled by a Roman procurator, ie Claudius, and Italian troops cannot be stationed in Caesarea as stated earlier in the account.

As a side note, although Agrippa I is painted as another persecutor of Christians, he is described by Josephus as of mild and liberal character to all, including foreigners.

Even the claim of persecution at the hands of Saul, apparently a leading persecutor Acts7:58-8:3,Gal1:13,Phil3:6,1Cor15:9 is flimsy. In those days the Sanhedrin had no authority to empower a heresy hunter as claimed in Acts9, to operate independently in Damascus, emprisonning, torturing, killing. The NT itself states that his ultra orthodox teacher Gamaliel persuaded the Sanhedrin to release the disciples and cease persecution "just in case" they were doing God's work Acts5:34-40. Saul was supposedly zealously persecuting Christians at the very time Jesus was performing miracles, attracting multitudes, overthrowing moneychangers in the Temple and generally provoking
Pharisees and Sadducees yet not a word of protest is reported from him during all of Jesus' time throughout the gospels.

What is more intriguing is that following Saul conversion to Christianity, his Roman and Jewish employers do not react, and the persecution of Christians immidiately stops then, as if the entire show was run by just only one man Acts9:31. Either this religious policeman role was a storytelling embellishment or Jesus' had so little impact in his lifetime that he and his followers passed unnoticed.

 After all, the NT itself states that the number of Jesus' followers did not exceed 120. That is not to mention the fact that Saul, after his name change to Paul and his conversion, his blazing missionary activities and audiences of governors and kings, equally passes unnoticed in the secular histories of his age. Not to say that Saul/Paul is an entirely fictional character as some scholars suggest, but it is clear that in their effort to reach out to the Jews, the NT writers needed a "zealous Jews who saw the light" and in fact most of the incidents surrounding Saul/Paul's life have a striking similarity with a certain aristocrat in the times of Herod, during the Jewish rebellion of 66-74 AD named SAUL, whose character and life are depicted by Josephus.

That 2000 estimate is dwarfed by the victims of the witch trials, burnings and lynchings during the period 1300-1800 numbering 35-65,000 (and many estimates are much higher) or victims of the Inquisition, though sometimes speculatively put in the millions, in any event far exceeded anything dreamed of by the cruellest of Roman emperors against Christians. This isnt even taking into consideration forced conversions of peasantry, temple-torching and shrine-smashing ordered by bishops as soon as Christianity started ruling under Emperor Constantine, the enactement of draconian laws prohibiting non-Christian beliefs and the equation of heresy with treason thus becoming a capital offense, along with the criminalization of pagan religions and "philosophies" (that is rational thought and science) in order to force the populace of the empire into Christianity, Christian persecution by Christians themselves such as the 100.000 Protestant Netherlanders sent for execution by the Catholic Charles V of Spain.

What modern apologetics forget is that much more Christians died for their faith at the hands of fellow Christians than had died before in all the "persecutions". Up to this day, Christians love brandishing what they call "the Truth". Just considering the fact that Christianity has 30000+ denominations, each of which firmly believes that it has "The Truth", should give us a clue concerning the question of why "Truth" is such a common subject for debate among Christians.

Acts17apologetics standard of evidence; Christian martyrs prove Jesus?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

The willingness of an individual to suffer and die for a particular cause or belief doesn't prove its truthfulness, neither its validity. For example, the willingness of the leadership of the early Mormon church to undergo persecution and even death doesn't prove the veracity of the Mormon faith system. Likewise, the New Testament description of some of the disciples undergoing suffering or death does not prove that what they preached or believed was true either.

In fact this argument goes against the Christian missionaries that like using it, if one considers the Gospels' accounts of Jesus' closest followers all deserting him when true crisis arose. The same is the case with Moses whose followers refused following his orders to go to battle and invade the promised land.

The argument of steadfastness in the face of death as a testimony of a prophet's truthfulness in fact only applies to Muhammad, whose small band of followers time after time overwhelmingly stood up to fight in God's cause whenever commanded to do so and regardless of their opponent's disproportionate level of power.

Neither does the criterion of embarrasement work in favor of Christians. For example people invented the Romulus story, and Romulus murdered his own brother. People invented Attis, and he is said to have castrated himself, besides the numerous mythologies of mutilated/dying/resurrected gods and sons of gods contemporaries or close to Jesus' time. Nothing suggests that the Gospels' authors were in anyway embarrassed by their writings when they penned them. There were storytelling, theological and cultural reasons for the authors to associate these things to their heroes, besides possible additions by later scribes. The same goes for all the evil deeds ascribed to the most illustrious biblical personalities, as a means by which the scribes settled their intertribal prejudices, justified their own sins. If the most prominent personalities are capable of the worst sins, then the regular people shouldnt be blamed for their transgressions.

These inventions were more or less skilfully, appropriately inserted in the original. For example it might be embarrassing in hindsight to depict Jesus as undergoing a sin cleansing ritual but John's author skilfully inserts that the baptiser thought so highly of Jesus that he didnt want to baptize him at first. What Christians don't understand is that the criterion of embarrassment is used by historians to interpret objective facts and evidence, whether one or the other version of a real, actual story is more likely. Historians do not use it so as to create facts as Christians do.

This kind of argument only results in circular reasoning, as the facts interpreted arent independantly attested. For example it would be circular to state that because superman is sensitive to magic, or joker's fear toxins (that made him inadvertently kill a pregnant Lois Lane), or vampires and green kryptonite (the pink one turns him to a homosexual) then it means that he really was affected by all these embarrasing things, or that he even existed.

In the words of Celsus, one of the foremost thinkers of his age whose critique of the Christians was so damaging that Christians destroyed every copy of his work they could find

"Clearly the Christians have used ... myths ... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth ... It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction."

Acts17apologetics turn to secular writings; any sign of Jesus?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

The non-Christian sources Christians reference for Jesus' crucifixion arent by contemporary historians aside from a disputed Roman passage which will be discussed shortly, or the few forged lines awkwardly inserted in between 2 flowing sections in Josephus' voluminous works.

These writings have pages and chapters devoted to petty personalities such as robbers or simple kings, yet Josephus, this devout and zealous orthodox Jew, and who remained so until his death, ie the last person to accept Jesus as a god or as the Jewish King-messiah is said to have given a short comment in the middle of an account on another character (Pilate) about how Jesus was indeed the wonderful, divine, and prophecied Jewish King-Messiah. Just a short passage about the long awaited Jewish King and yet he reports in much more details about John the Baptist and other self-proclaimed messiahs like Judas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, the "Egyptian Jew" messiah?

The absurdity forces some apologists to make the ridiculous claim that Josephus was a closet Christian.

There is a reason why none of the early Church fathers up to the 3rd century never quoted this most-appropriate passage in their controversies with the Jews and other works despite their familiarity with Josephus' writings; it is a late forgery. No contemporary writing or immidiately following his time mention a thing about the extraordinary events surrounding his life or alleged crucifixion. Yet we have archeological and historical proof for the existance of Bar Kochba, another messianic claimant who came just a few years after Jesus, performed no spectacular wonders. In short, none of the sources Christians bring up, religious or else, amount to more than circular reasoning in regards to determining the historical Jesus. The earliest sources are Christian, meaning the NT itself, written 30-70 years after the supposed events, by non eye witnesses. Up to 70 years is a huge time gap where legends, conjectures and deliberate lies could have been grafted into a historical core. The NT itself has no currently existing 1st century witnesses, either as manuscripts or as writings of Christians. We do not have an unbroken chain linking the Apostolic Fathers to the gospel writers to Jesus. So yes, relying on the NT is circular reasoning, besides the fact we are talking of grandiose events that could not have been missed by independent witnesses who were active and writing in that time and place. What secular historians will attest to, is not that a miracle worker named Jesus did and said what is narrated about him in the NT, but that an early 1st century community existed that believed what is said in the NT about someone called Jesus. Historians will then conclude that  the existence of such community attests to a true core regarding a historical person named Jesus who could have said some of what was attributed to him. Each historian will then work out what that true core was, based on textual criticism, archaeology, independent sources and conjecture.

Muslims got their answer to this through revelation 

"That is Jesus, the son of Mary - the word of truth about which they are in dispute". 

Of course, this description of what every prophet and slave of God was, doesnt line up well with those that raised a particular prophet to divine status.

Tacitus was a Roman historian born a good 20 years after Jesus' death. He started writing some 60 years later, meaning 80 years after Jesus. He was by no means a historical witness and only relied on hearsay if we were to accept the passage attributed to him as authentic. That passage talks of the persecutions of early Christians, mentions how the founder of this religion "was Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was punished, as a criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate".

None of the Church fathers nor any Christian writer prior to the 15th century mention that passage, despite their familiarity with Tacitus' works and their need for such weighty evidence by a renouned historian. Not even Eusebius who in the 4th century cites all sources available from Jewish and pagan sources. What is even more troubling is that the note on Jesus is part of a passage relating the mass persecution and killing of Christians under Nero. Yet for 3 centuries, in discussions of the Christian history of martyrdom, no appeal is ever made to Tacitus’ account of the dramatic and horrifying Neronian persecution. Only 1 surviving copy of this writing exists, supposedly "copied" in the 8th century CE (700 years after it was supposedly written) by Christian hands. As is the case with the Josephus passage which is universally recognized as interpolated, if not entirely forged, interpolation at least, cannot be ruled out in Tacitus' case. Although mainstream scholarship accepts the passage as authentic, even James Rives, prominent scholars of the Roman world,  recognizes there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind his report.

There exist no Roman records of Jesus' execution by Pontius Pilate . The opposite would have been extraordinary anyway, as such executions occurred by the 100s and the authorities did not bother archiving each case. But here we have the most renowned of Roman historians citing the alleged event, and yet he is ignored by Christian apologists up to the 15th century. In fact the reference to Jesus is absent from a 5th century Christian writer Sulpicius Severus who quotes the passage attributed to Tacitus in nearly the same words.

Concerning the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata (125-180 CE), what Christian apologists assume as a reference to Jesus, since he never names Jesus, keeping in mind that crucifixions occured by the 100s sometimes daily around Jesus' time, these references of Lucian were written near the end of the 2nd century. Even if one were to assume that the reference is to Jesus it does nothing to establish the historicity of the crucifixion as neither Lucian (nor Tacitus as is explained above) quote their sources. Of course that by their time the Jesus legend had already spread among early Christians. Lucian, like Tacitus, is simply repeating Christian beliefs mockingly. The Quran exposes those who started the rumors of the crucifixion. The same claim which Christians proudly laud as their pillar of belief, is one which the rest of the world sees as the epitome of ridicule. Paul alludes to these mockeries when he says "but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles". This verse further belies the idea that the spread and acceptance of a claim proves its truthfulness somehow. Christians were the ones busy propagating the false news of Jesus' crucifixion, once his Jewish enemies succesfully initiated and passed on the rumor. It is thus expected for any external observer of the Christian movement, to simply reiterate what they claim about themselves, especially if such a claim undermines them in the eyes of that observer.

It was thus certainly appropriate for both Tacitus and Lucian to allude to the execution of the leader of Christianity. Not as a way to validate their claim or to represent historical reality, but rather to further deride the movement. Finally, having a narrative account about someone doesn't make the person historical. That is a basic premise of historical research. The work of a historian is to determine whether the account is relating myths or facts. The sources of these 2 non-Christian authors are unknown, neither are they witnesses to the events. This makes it impossible to discern myths from facts from their writings about Jesus, especially considering their bias against Christians, leading them to repeat the denigrating information being circulated about their leading figure.