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1. A nice catalogue of arguments from the Bible. The fact of the matter is that St. Paul and later the Catholic Church assumed that Jesus died for their sins, put the cart before the horse and tried to look at every thing else through the assumptions of that distorted lens.

   At any rate, evidence in this information age, is over-whelming to see that Jesus had no plans to die on the cross, he was put on the cross only for a few hours and survived the ordeal. It was a case of resuscitation and not resurrection.

   The following articles link documentaries, a booklet by an Australian Judge and other evidence explaining further these 65 facts and some more:

   Jesus did not die on the cross
   If Jesus did not die upon the cross: A study in evidence
   Resurrection: Fact or Fiction?
   Did Jesus rise in a physical body or a spiritual one?

   Last but not the least the story built up by the Church constantly contradicts itself. Initially, the stone of the tomb needed to be moved, for Jesus to come out, but later he walks through walls. The myth makers are never sure, if it is a physical resurrection or spiritual, as it is neither, it is a case of resuscitation.

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2. An invitation to the Sunni Muslims
   If you are following this debate about Jesus’ resurrection, please consider that your understanding of the events puts one myth against the other, yours against the Christian. After all you are presenting transfer of identity between Judas and Jesus and heavenly travel of one, for which you have no historical or logical evidence.

   The presentation by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, on the other hand, not only makes logical sense, but is able to harmonize the Quranic and the Biblical case with rationality and historical information.

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3. I hear you believing that, after the crucifixion, Jesus was still alive. And that anyone who is alive could never have been dead. I agree that that doesn’t make sense. It has never happened before or since. That doesn’t prove it didn’t happen. It does prove that Jesus was different from any other man.

   Rom 8:11 “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

   Jesus didn’t raise Himself. He was truly dead. He needed His Father to raise Him from the dead. This verse also says that God can raise us from the dead in the same way. We only need to allow the Spirit of God to live in us.

   Every one of your points can be explained from the bible. I would like to share these with you if you’re interested.

   Darrell

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4. Brothers
   For both muslim and christain Jesus is a great figure . He is closer to God and teacher to mindkind.
   The secret how Jesus survive the crucifixion is secret of god itself Yes Jesus cannot be harmed by anyone , he is our protector from the fire of hell and guide who would lead us to paradise.Miracle is part of Jesus with the help of god and this very miracle save Jesus from crucifixation . so Jesus the brother of Mohammad

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5. There is every proof that Jesus a.s. did not die on the cross. This list of 65 points is good proof too. To add to these points I will suggest the following:
   1. It was the intention of the Jews to prove that Jesus was not a true prophet. The church wants to prove their point that they were right and they were successful. How bad!!

   2. Jesus prayed to his God to avoid the cup. That cup was death on the cross. He was not afraid of ordinary death. He did not like to die a cursed death on cross.
   The Jews were adamant to kill him on the cross. Shall we say that they succeeded. No. that is bad for Jesus.
   3. Jesus prayer has to be accepted.Otherwise it puts a bad omen on all the Christians. The coming of an angel to support him proves that his prayer was accepted. So he could never die on the cross. He was informed by Allah that his prayer was accepted and he would die a normal death (See Quran 3:56).

   4. The empty tomb is another proof that Jesus was removed from the tomb well before the guard was placed on the tomb. That was done to protect Jesus from being captured in any way again.
   The stone was placed on empty tomb after removing Jesus to a more safe and comfortable place, soon after every one had left the scene of crucifixion.

   5. Here I give a greater proof that Jesus could not die on the cross and he could not die in any other way too because God did not want him to die. That is mentioned under point number 11 in the list provided by Dr. Ghulam sahib. The gist is as follows:

   The wife of the governor Pilate had seen a dream that Jesus was a just man and that he should not die otherwise her family will suffer all the more.
   Dreams are arranged by angels. Angels follow the commands of God and carry out necessary orders and wills of God. It means that God did not want Jesus to die.
   if God did not want Jesus to die then he cannot be killed in any manner, on cross or otherwise. Please follow:
   When Jesus was born, king wanted to kill him. An angel appeared to Joseph, the father of Jesus, and told him to take Jesus to Egypt for his safety.
   God wanted Jesus to be taken to Egypt for his safety. Joseph took Jesus and his mother Mary to Egypt.
   Can any one believe that Jesus could be killed or die in Egypt by any means?? No. He cannot be killed there because God sent him to Egypt to save him from dying.
   It is the intention of God that Jesus be saved from death.
   Similarly, when angel came to wife of Pilate in dream and told her that Jesus should not be harmed, should not be killed, it was meant to save Jesus life.
   Even though he was condemned and put on the cross, he could not die. God arranged other ways to save him.

   6. It was a miracle for the sake of Jesus. The Christians are misled about it. Jesus was miraculously saved from death on the cross. He was soon resuscitated after being put in tomb.The herbs helped to reduce the pain and helped in quick healing.

   7. Jesus traveled 70 miles on foot to Galilee, met only his close friends, did not appear in public because he was a condemned man.
   The best answer was to travel towards east to get out of the jurisdiction of the Roman empire as quickly as possible.
   (Wassalam.)

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6. I reviewed this page and when I came to point number 27 I was caught off guard at the statement made, “Jesus never said He was dead and is now alive…” a verse is quoted there (Mark 8:29) which has nothing to do with the statement.

   Jesus did actually say just that in Revelation 1:18

   “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. ”

   The statements made on this page over-all are ignorant and capitalize on the weak that do not understand the Truth and what the Bible teaches. I am sorry for those that may be led astray, but more for those that are teaching others a misrepresentation of the Biblical Christian teaching, which is very simple and easy to understand with a little research.

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   • Reply from the Author of the article:

     The reference Mark 8:29 is a typo mistake (It is corrected). It was not a reference but an objection that when Jews demanded from Jesus to come down of the cross, he should have come down and should have met them proving that “He infect is a son of God, so they should have believe him.” It is mentioned very clearly,

     “And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God.” (Mat 27:40-43)

     “He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.” Luke 24:35)

     He should have come back in front of the Jews who demanded and challenged, going before them “Sir, here I am alive” which never happened.

     Jews wanted to see this happened as a sign of his truth, as they challenged him that he is saved from the accursed death of the cross.

     He never appeared before them. But a reference is being presented from Book of revelation which was written in 90AD 0or 96 AD when most of the Jews of that time must have died. Even it does not say that he appeared before the Jews. It is one person’s witness which is not clear who was he?

     On the other hand, we believe that no one can kill God, God is Holy and no hand of human can harm Him. He is forever, all Living.
     If God is killed and really, really died than who is going to bring him back to life. Was Jesus (God) really died or he was doing like a child when he doesn’t want to awake up, he shows to his mother that he is in a deep sleep, although he is not. Whether God (God forbid) was playing like this?

     If one God dies (God Forbid) all three should die because they cannot be separated from each other, “Three in one and one in three.”

     If God dies, the whole universe and every thing will destroy right a way. Every thing is living because of Him.
     The Holy Quran presents this fact saying that “God is Living, the self – Subsisting and All Sustaining. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleeps. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. “(Holy Quran 2:256)

     Jews wanted to see him coming down of the cross as the challenged him, “Come down of the cross and we will believe in you. Not that a person in 90AD or 96AD after 60+ years of crucifixion gives witness that he was alive. Why he didn’t show himself to the Jews at the time of crucifixion or soon after? Book of revelation is written by St. John the divine, it is not clear who he was? The style of this book is very differently than the four Gospels and John I –John II and John III all other books in the New Testament. It shows that it must be a different person. Whether this Great fact or Witness had been presented by other authors of Bible including Mathew, Luke or John? Why they were silent about it.

     We the Ahmadie Muslim believe that infect Jesus was saved from the accursed death of the cross, he met his disciples before leaving for Galilee, onward going to Kashmir looking for the lost tribes of Israel.

     There were 65 points presented in the article. You should have replied to all but he has presented only one reference from book of Revelation which was written very late. And again it is just a claim by one of the followers of Jesus not a proof. It is the duty of Christian friends to reply and break all these facts which have been presented in the article that “Jesus did not die on the cross; as God always saves his beloved ones. Even Jesus himself predicted his safety when he predicted that his sign will be like a sign of Jonas. Jonas was saved from the belly of Whale, came out alive, never died therein.

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7. Your words are written with little intellligence.m. You think as a mere man thinks, unable to think as God thinks. God was Jesus who walked upon this earth to show us how to live and to let us know how much He loves us. Jesus totally empttied himself. You cannot accept this out of arrogance. That is something that you will need to learn. You are so far from the truth, so misguided, and lost. I pray for you.

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   • Dear Paul Harland, as a Muslim, I have to believe in Jesus as a Messiah and an honorable prophet of God. So your prayer is answered, I do believe in Jesus. However, we would like an intelligent reply to the 65 points noted above so that we can learn from each other view. Calling someone unintelligence is just a claim as you claim that Jesus is alive, all we need is logical proofs of your claim. Faith is not the proof of a claim but a result of a reasoned conclusion which we can derive from an intelligent reply to this article. We are waiting!

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8. I enjoyed reading these 65 questions. The title is misleading because simply asking questions concerning what the documents say about the death of Jesus does not prove that he did not die !! People have been asking these questions for about 1980 years and have come to different answers. The Romans were expert killers and after the soldiers had pierced Jesus with a spear, Pilate said “Go, make the tomb secure as you know how” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. (Matthew 27:65,66) Next chapter we read that the Jewish leaders gave the Roman soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say,’His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep'” So let us all keep reading and keep discussing for the next 2000 years. But Please keep your minds open to an amazing possibility that maybe one sinless man did rise victorious over death and went to God to prepare a place in heaven for his disciples !!

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9. Reason 62 is one of the most powerful one and I use it every day for no one can site actual words of Jesus saying, ” I have come to die on the cross and take away your sins” or words to that effect.

   Just on Martin Luther King’s Day celebration I shared this my friend Dr. Sanchez who also has concerns about Christian teaching as we traveled in BART TO San Francisco.

   I submitted to him that in my search in the Bible, I am looking for statement from Jesus as to his mission and from Mark, Mathew or John etc.

   THE TRUE MISSION

   I submitted that there cannot be competing and contradicting missions.

   The true mission in Jesus words is: ” I have not been sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”

   This was a very major mission which would seem unfulfilled if we accept the theory that Jesus rose to heaven after Crucifixion.

   Dr. Sanchez was amazed when I said that newer evidence shows that Jesus completed this mission after crucifixion for he traveled to Kashmir in search of the lost sheep of the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”

   Consequent to this we are scheduling a meeting for BIBLE STUDY WITH MUSLIMS.

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10. Forgot to express my gratitude to Imam Kausar sahib I consider a great authority on Bible for such an excellent analysis and reasoning. Mash Allah. Congratulations for an excellent write up.

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11. Isn’t it interesting, that Jonah was wrapped in seaweeds, while Jesus wrapped in linen. What is also interesting, is that Jonah according to the bible fled God’s will ( a very major sin), Jonah prayed to be saved, and ending up surviving a situation that is almost impossible to survive, and appears to be worse that what Jesus went through. Yet, Jesus, whom God loved the most, whom accepted Everything that God willed, was forsaken from a situation that was not as difficult to survive as Jonah’s situation?

    Christians want us to believe that Jesus, died the death of a false prophet, that is unacceptable. I love God and his prophets to much to believe in such non-sense.

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12. Jesus Travels to Galalie which was considered safe from the Jews that wanted to kill him. Jesus is in disguise which is why he is sometimes not recognized, and he eats and drinks because he is a normal human who requires food, and he bears wounds because it was the trauma he survived.

    Some christians would like to have people believe that Jesus wasn’t in disguise but had used magic on the eyes of the disciples, had some selective resurection that missed the very wounds that supposedly killed him (make sense of that) and only ate so the disciples would feel comfortable, the food afterwords disintergrated into air.

    Obviously, the rational answer is clear-cut.

    Some have no problem believing that Jesus survives(in the same body) space (which would kill a normal person in 30 sec or less), survives 2000 years of age, and will survive the second coming conflict (a war, which would necessarily have nuclear weapons since thats what nations use today to conduct such a war), yet when it comes to the crusifixion, they change their mindset, the incredible body of Jesus now dies sooner then most.

    Secondly, when the Devil went to tempt Jesus, to jump off a temple that would have killed him for sure, he tells the devil to not test God because Jesus Trusts him to save him from such a guranteed death. Yet, when it comes to the crusifixion, they change their mindset, Jesus had trust that God would protect him from falling down into a guranteed quick death, yet when it comes to the crusifixion (not guranteed death), God compromises the trust he had?
    There is a major incoherence of the christian position regarding the durability of Jesus’s body and the trust he had with God, among several other things that are all comprimised in the crusifixion. Also, the bible says that Jesus’s body didn’t decay when he was “killed”, yet we know that brain cells decay, die and rot immediately after death, so to maintain such a position one would have to belive that Jesus’s body was in supernatural statis when he was “dead”.

    Or maybe we could avoid all the incoherence and absurdities, and choose the rational option looking straight at us.

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13. Even today, after docters do very deep medical examinations, they conclude that someone is dead, but in a few days sometimes they are found alive. Our conception of death has improved from ancient days, someone back then could have been deeply unconcious, yet people would still refer to them as dead, and if someone walked out of a tomb days later, people would also use the language of “raised from the dead”, our philosophy and conception of what “death” really is had changed historically. There are incredible stories of survival throughout history, if i change the names, places, and time frame of the biblical crusifixion story, most people would look at the situation completely differently, and just like another amazing survival story that has occured throughout history, yet when we change the situation back into biblical terms, people’s perception immediately morphs.

    Seriously, if we see someone walk around 36 hours after they were thought to be dead, in a disguise, eating and drinking, heading to somewhere safe, everyone would declare “oh, i guess he wasn’t really dead”. It is simple. It is logical.

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14. The first of the 65 questions is probably the most important question of all. If we can understand why Jesus had to die, it will be easier for us to believe that He did so. There are two main reasons for his death on the cross:

    A) To restore God’s honour

    The Old Testament, known as the Torah by Muslims, tells the wonderful story of how God created Adam and Eve and later the Israelites to be his people. We learn how he loved them like a father loves his children. Time and time again, however, we read with great sadness how his chosen ones break his commandments, how they become guilty of lawlessness. Even more disturbing is the fact that their rebellion is only a fruit of a conscious rejection of the Almighty God. His own people spit in his face and bring shame upon him before the very nations they were supposed to be witnessing of his honour and glory. To make matters even worse, they were not ashamed of themselves:

    ‘Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame. Have you not just called to me (God): ‘My Father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue for ever?’ This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can.’ (Jeremiah 3:3-5)

    The people of old did as they pleased because they had lost a sense of shame. While their mechanical, outward ritual acts may still have been in place they were not concerned about God’s honour at all. Repentance, the turning round from one’s evil ways, was later expressed in terms of recognition of shame and disgrace. (Jer. 31:19) Likewise, our disloyalty to God, our resistance against his work among us is known and is exceedingly shameful. We too deserve to be punished ever so severely. Since God is pure, completely removed from all evil, man’s sin has cut off, effectively killed, the relationship between the two. The warning given to Adam and Eve became a frightening reality:

    And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’ (Gen 2:16-17)

    ‘For the wages of sin is death,…'(Rom 6:23)

    Only through death God’s honour will be restored. Consequently God introduced an elaborate sacrificial system to the Israelites through Moses. Shame could be removed by getting forgiveness for sins, but only if an animal would die in their place.

    ‘…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.’ (Heb 9:22)

    This all important truth is also reflected in ‘Qisas’ the Islamic law of retaliation. (Surah 2, Al Baqarah, verses 178-179) It consists in doing to the person who has committed a crime the very same thing they have done. The life of someone who is wilfully killed demands the murderer’s life in retaliation. However, the next of kin can accept a financial compensation instead. According to Surah 5, Al Maida, verse 45, retaliation for inflicted wounds is also necessary. A nose for a nose and so on. If a member of the body which is to be cut off in revenge is defective, a compensation will be accepted.

    From God’s perfect perspective animal and all other sacrifices are defective. They can not take away sins but were only serving as a cover and a shadow of Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect sacrifice to come (Heb 10:1-18). He, being without sin, by taking our shame upon himself through his death on the cross, restored the honour of God in a most profound and just way:

    ‘Moreover, the Father judges no-one, but has entrusted all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him. I (Jesus) tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.’ (John 5:22-24)

    ‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Phil 2:5-11)

    God raised Jesus from the dead confirming his authority, loyalty blessedness and blamelessness. Those who deny the cross refuse to accept God’s generosity, his blessing. They dishonour the giver.

    B) To meet the demands of God’s justice and love

    The Bible (Leviticus 11:45) and the Quran (Surah 59, Al Hashr, verse 23) tell us that God is holy. That means He is separated from anything that is unclean, bad, and hypocritical, in other words from anything that is sin. Both, the Bible (Isaiah 59:1-2) and the Quran (Surah 2, Al Baqarah, verses 35-36) tell us that sin separates man from God. Therefore, sin is not just a minor mistake, but absolutely intolerable in the sight of God! Another reason why sin has to be treated seriously, is because God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4, Surah 95, Al Tin, verse 8). He punishes every wrong doer and awards the one who does right. However, God will not judge according to our good or bad works alone (Romans 3:23-24, Surah 35, Fatir, verse 45). He loves us so much (John 3:16) that in His mercy he chooses to forgive our sins. But if He would forgive our sins without punishment, then in His mercy He would become unjust!

    That is why God revealed Himself in Jesus and died on the cross for our sins. In Jesus God met the requirements of His justice and of His love! Jesus died on the cross on our behalf, for our sin. In Deuteronomy 21:23 anyone who hangs on a tree is described as being sinful and under God’s curse. Galatians 3:13 explains that Jesus, himself without sin, became a curse for us because he took our sin on himself. After paying the penalty for sin through His death, Jesus rose again. Consequently the death and resurrection of Jesus are of the utmost importance for Christians! The following illustration will help to better understand this profound matter:

    There was once a king who possessed a huge kingdom over which he also ruled as a just judge. He wrote down laws which had to be kept by everyone so that order and justice would be maintained. One day his very own son, whom he loved so dearly, committed a terrible crime. The law made it very clear that a perpetrator, such as his child had become would have to face a fine of £ 100,000,000,000. The king’s son was not able to pay that large amount of money. However, the just judge could not change the law simply because the sinner was his own son, otherwise he would not have been impartial anymore. He decided that his child too was guilty, but when he pronounced the judgement, out of love, he offered to pay the fine on behalf of his son. In that way he could meet the demands of his justice but also of his love for the disobedient child. The son sorrowfully repented of his crime and humbly accepted his father’s offer. This incident changed him so completely that he decided to love and serve his father forever. By doing this he could certainly never pay back the £100,000,000,000. No, he changed his way of life to express his great thankfulness towards his just and loving father.

    The king in the illustration symbolises God, the kingdom is the world. The laws are the Holy Scriptures, the king’s son is all mankind and the terrible crime committed by him is sin. The sum of £100,000,000,000 stands for the punishment of sin, which is a invincible separation from the Holy God. The king who took his son’s place and paid the fine on behalf of him illustrates what God has done for all mankind in Jesus. He paid the punishment for sin by dying on our behalf at the cross. Finally, the complete change that took place in the life of the son is a picture of the new life of a Christian. By faith, through a prayer of forgiveness he accepts what Jesus Christ had done for him. He believes that Jesus took upon him the punishment for men’s sin. Only out of thankfulness he starts to love and serve God, not because he thinks he could ever earn a place in heaven by doing good. Whatever the newly born Christian now does will be motivated by love for the One who saved him from a terrible punishment.

    Some Muslims might object to the illustration above by saying that God’s attributes of Justice and Mercy can not be understood. They are completely different from our human concept. It is true that God’s attributes are different from ours, but only in regard to their perfection rather than their definition. If the meaning of God’s characteristics were so completely different from our understanding then his ninety-nine names, which allegedly describe them, would be unnecessary! Besides that, God Himself used illustrations in the Quran: In Surah 13, Ar-Ra’d, verses 16-17 we read that ‘…Thus doth Allah set forth parables.’ (See also Surah 16, Al Nahl, verses 75-76)

    A Muslim enquirer recently asked: ‘The Bible states that God sacrificed his Son, but yet we also read that Jesus was resurrected back to life and is sitting on the right hand of God. When you sacrifice something, you do not take it back 3 days latter, is this not a contradiction?’

    The reason why Jesus the perfect sacrifice was raised to live again on the third day is found in the word ‘perfect.’ Animal sacrifices were imperfect, they just pointed to the perfect one. That is the reason why they had to be offered again and again. That is also the reason why they were not raised to life again. However, Christ being the perfect, sinless sacrifice only had to die once. Since he paid the punishment for sin, namely death by his own death, the latter no longer became a reality! That is precisely why God raised Jesus to live again. This profound truth is expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57:

    ‘When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

    Jesus defeats the death that came as a result of sin! He as the firstfruit has been raised to life therefore. Those who believe in his perfect sacrifice will follow his example once they die physically. The following verses, again quoted from 1 Corinthians 15 confirm this good news:

    ‘But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.’ (Verses 20-22)

    Here are some more verses that speak about the same truth:

    ‘Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.’ (Romans 4:25)

    ‘For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:9-16)

    Wow! What a message! That Christ was raised to life again after he died sacrificially for us is not a contradiction. Since death for him was no more, there is nothing that could be a contradiction to his being raised to life!

    The destiny for us who are living in the time of the New Testament is dependent on our relationship to Jesus. The New Testament makes it clear that salvation is by faith through Christ alone:

    ‘That in the time to come he might make clear the full wealth of his grace in his mercy to us in Christ Jesus: Because by grace you have salvation through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is given by God: Not by works, so that no man may take glory to himself. For by his act we were given existence in Christ Jesus to do those good works which God before made ready for us so that we might do them.’ (Ephesians 2:7-10)

    ‘Being conscious that a man does not get righteousness by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we had faith in Christ Jesus, so that we might get righteousness (right standing before God) by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law will no flesh get righteousness.’ (Galatians 2:16)

    Salvation by faith in Jesus is believing with the intellect that the Bible is right about our sinful condition, about who Jesus is and about what he did on the cross for us. Passages that speak about judgement according to works have to be read in the light of what true faith means. This is confirmed when their immediate context is considered. (e.g. Joh 5:28-29, compare with verses 23-24, Mat 16:27 with verses 21-26, 25:31-46 with 23:37-39, Jam 2:14-26). As the German reformer Martin Luther used to say ‘the faith that saves is never alone.’ True faith in Christ shows itself in four ways:

    1. Out of thankfulness followers of Jesus do what he tells them: To love God and man. This is the essence and test of true obedience. They desire to follow the moral law set out in the Old Testament and summarized in what is known as ‘the 10 commandments.’ (Exo 20:1-17)

    2. Genuine faith in Jesus produces a desire to become more like him, to do what is right and just.

    3. Saving faith creates the awareness that this new obedience can only come through faith in Christ. It does not come from focusing on the law, the desperate attempt to meet its demands. Instead it comes from continually fixing one’s eyes on Jesus and his work, by remaining connected to him through being in his presence with one’s thoughts.

    4. Lastly, Biblical faith generates a constant abiding in and reliance on Jesus by faith. In this way only the Holy Spirit of God supplies the power for a changed life and lasting fruit. (Rom 8:13, Joh 15:5)

    Crux probat omnia! The cross tests everything! What do you think?

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15. It is very interesting to note that many on these comments continue to claim Jesus died on the cross for their sin without even trying to refute a single reason mentioned in this article that he did not die on the cross. We respect their opinion and their faith as we believe that there is no compulsion in religion. However, in order for us to accept a claim we need proof and we need reason.

    Jesus prayed the night before crucifixion to be saved from this impending trial and he never intended to die. He always claimed that he came for the lost sheep’s of the house of Israel (i.e. Jews) and constantly refused to preach to the gentiles even said not to caste pearl before the swine! Unless you are a Jew, Jesus’ message is not for you. It is Paul who started to preach to the gentiles without any authorization from Jesus. So in short, one can create an image of Jesus and worship it as s/he pleases in fact Hinduism is full of such idol worship of human “gods” or s/he investigate the real Jesus and his mission so that s/he can be guided to the straight path to the one and only TRUE and ALMIGHTY GOD!

    “There should be no compulsion in religion. Surely, right has become distinct from wrong; so whosoever refuses to be led by those who transgress, and believes in Allah, has surely grasped a strong handle which knows no breaking. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.” Holy Quran 2:257

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16. I am very grateful to Abraham bin Haque for his good answer to question number one. I continue to be interested by these 65 questions and many of them have been answered on the website by Prof. Josh McDowell – Evidence for the Resurrection. Hanif Koya has written about question no. 62. Jesus never mentioned that the purpose of his coming was to give his life on the cross.

    Actually Jesus did mention it several times in different ways because his disciples could not understand. (Mark 8:31-32) He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. (Mark 9:31-32) Jesus said to his disciples,”The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him and after three days he will rise again.” (Mark 10:32) Again he took the twelve disciples aside and told them what would happen to him. “We are going to Jerusalem,” he said,”and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

    The disciple John tells us that Jesus told them the reason that he had to die – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
    I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11)

    Mark also quotes Jesus as saying, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

    In summary St. Paul writes – But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Ghrist died for us. (Romans 5:8)

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    • and… while we are still sinners, God the Creator could have said: “I forgive you” and there would have been no need of this ‘drama’ of ‘sacrificing his only son’… (just a thought).

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17. Was there a certain quantity of suffering or blood being shed for sins to be forgiven? Would a few blood cells suffice? How does that mechanism forgive sin? It Is absurd. Some people are obsessed with this notion of atonement, they think it requires Jesus to die the death of a false prophet, but it’s interesting, since judas will suffer eternally, yet he was supposedly required for atonement to take place, yet he would not be atoned. Paul has had his influence on the bible. If I see someone in front of a bus that I love, I don’t throw my son whom i love more into the way, I go myself. Similarly, if God loved his son more then the world he would have gone himself. Sins are immaterial, they are in the mind of God, he is not dependent on anything, if he wishes to not think of them again, as well as forgive them, then they stop existing. God d”makes the rules, God gave me every photon in my body, and free will that I can even sun and be ungrateful. I have done nothing to deserve my existence, yet will i call God unjust because I did nothing to deserve it? Of course not.

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18. I am really grateful go Ossyg for giving these comments and questions about sacrifice. Really we should not blame St. Paul for his influence, because the system of animal sacrifice was started by the earliest prophets more than 5,000 years before Paul was born. We can read in the Torah revealed to Musa that Adam and his sons, Noah, Ibrahim, Ishmael, Isaac, Yacob, Yusuf, Musa and Haroon (peace be on them all,) offered sacrifices of cows, goats and sheep. They performed sacrifice for 3 reasons – to give thanksgiving to Allah, to receive His blessing and also for forgiveness for sins committed.

    After Allah revealed the 10 special commandments to Musa, Allah also appointed Musa’s brother Haroon as special Imam to perform sacrifice for particular sins. He also performed sacrifices at the special feast of Passover in thanksgiving to Allah for deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and at the feast of Atonement to continue the covenant of forgiveness of sin and peace with Allah for the future. During the times of King Daud and King Sulaiman hundreds of cows, sheep and goats were sacrificed at Baitul Mokudus in Jerusalem. The believers who sacrifice animals on Hajj or in their homes at Korbani Eid also believe their sacrifices give thanks to Allah, help to receive His blessing and help with forgiveness of sin.

    The very amazing revelation from Allah came to the Prophet Isaiah concerning the Messiah 750 years before Jesus was born. Writing about the coming Messiah he wrote:- “See my servant will act wisely, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. … He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not…. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that bought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. … He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. …. He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth, he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” (The full quotation can be read in Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 ) Many of the Jews were expecting a political Messiah but the Prophet Iyahia understood Isaiah’s words, and he introduced Jesus to all the people by saying, “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

    Allah is our creator and he is loving and merciful, but He is also the holy judge on judgment day. John one of the closest disciples of Jesus the Messiah wrote:- “My little children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

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19. I find it humourous that the “Lamb of God” will be commiting the worst conflict of all time in his second coming, so much for a “humble” and “meek” little lamb. You didn’t at all actually interact with anything I said, but that is fine.

    Blood did’t always have to be shed for sacrifice-“bring as an offering for his sin a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering” and obviously flour does not bleed.

    Sacrifices in and of them selves do not atone for sins. The bible says “The sacrifice of a wickend person a an abomination to the Lord” meaning just buring fat does nothing, it requres prayer, repentence and returning to God, God wants people to change. The sacrifice isnt a magic wand that wipes away sins, it is an external symbol of internal change. The bible states “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” (Psalms 141:2), Praying could be a sacrifice.

    14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 chronicles 7:14). Hmm don’t see any blood sacrifice, just plain old repentence and love for God.

    And look at this “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord;
    I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
    and the fat of well-fed beasts;
    I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
    or of lambs, or of goats.
    When you come to appear before me,
    who has required of you
    this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense [bringing offerings] is an abomination to me.” Don’t think this means that sacrifices played no role, they did when offered in the right way, that being as an expression of a changed person. But a sacrifice in and of it’self means nothing.

    “I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.” (Isaiah 43:25)
    Since sins are in the mind of God, if he chooses never to think of them again, they stop existing, and if one repeats and changes and loves God he will do so.

    Regarding Isiah 53, the most oft quoted christian proof text. Even Christians scholars attest to it being about the messiah, “the servant appears to be exiled isreal” (harper collins study bible), “The lord speaks promising the servant Isreal” (The new interpreters study bible). Secondly, Isiah 53 has the agent seeing his seed, a term for having children, christians believe he had no children and it states he will prolounge his days, when you believed he died at age 33.

    Using those arabic words and Muslim terminology was cute, to bad there was no logic to go along with it. The epistle you quote are the end of your segment was from an epistle written around 100AD, and is actually anonymous, and scholars have a wide variety of opinions regarding the authors of the writings of the new testament.

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20. It is wonderful when anyone discovers some new aspect in the life of Jesus the Messaiah! It is true that the Prophet Iyahya was maybe the first person to say, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It was John the fisherman whom most Greek scholars accept as the author of one Gospel, three Epistles and the book of Revelation who also calls Jesus “Lion of the tribe of Judah” – (Revelation 5:5)

    At the beginning of the book of Matthew, Jesus teachers the 9 famous Beatitudes which start “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
    Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
    Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:3-12)

    But at the end of Matthew in chapter 23 we can read 7 Woes of criticism.
    “Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites ! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, not will you let those enter who are trying to enter.
    Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites ! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” There is a similar sermon in Luke 6:20 – 26

    It is not surprising that the common people really came in thousands to hear His sermons while the leaders of the Jews and Romans plotted together to kill Him.

    It is true that when Jesus the Messiah came the first time, he was born as a weak baby and lived a life of love and service – saving people from sickness and death without killing anyone and being forgiving to those who persecuted him.
    We do read however, that His second coming near the judgement day he will come with awesome power. St John said,
    “Look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be Amen.” (Revelation 1:7)

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21. I am grateful to Imam I H Hauser for mentioning statement no 20, because it shows some of the miracles that took place at the time Jesus the Messiah died. There may have been about 1000 witnesses watching on the hill outside Jerusalem, but there were also many in the city who would have seen these miracles. He wrote:-

    20. Neither Jews nor Christians are sure about Jesus’ death on the cross. There was a very strong earthquake, a storm and an eclipse of sun just after the crucifixion of Jesus, that made all Jews and Romans run away from the sight. That is why; neither Jews nor the Christians are sure about the death of Jesus on the cross but a gesture.

    Matthew the Jewish tax collector was one of the witnesses and he wrote:- “ From the sixth hour to the ninth hour there was darkness. (This means that from 12 noon to 3.00 p.m. Jesus was hanging on the cross and there was darkness but he does not mention that it was a storm or an eclipse.) And when Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of may holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus, resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” (Matthew 27:50-53) After Jesus cried out and stopped breathing there seems to have been about three hours because Matthew also says, “As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph…. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body and Pilate ordered the it be given to him. “ (Matthew 27:57-58)

    That Friday evening, the Jews, the Romans and the Christians all agreed on one fact that Jesus of Nazareth was completely dead !! Jews and Romans thought that a trouble maker had been killed forever so there would be peace. Followers of Jesus Christ were overcome by grief because they thought their spiritual leader and prophet had come to the end of his life. All were convinced that his dead body was put in a hollow tomb with a big stone sealed and well guarded.

    Sunday morning was the big surprise for everyone !! The Roman soldiers on guard ran for their lives because of the earthquake at the tomb. The Jews were angry and paid money to the guards so that they would tell lies. The followers of Jesus the Messiah had their lives changed completely. They were no longer a few frightened men, but became bold and confident witnesses of the facts they had seen and they themselves were not afraid to die for the truth. Although most of them were Jews and used to worship on Saturday, they made a historic change and they and all Christians since that time worship on a Sunday because they saw Jesus the Messiah rise from the dead on a Sunday.

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22. Though the reasons are interesting, the disscussion above is far more intresting!

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23. One remark that is often misinterpreted by muslims.
    I often heard the argument that if god is so powerful why did he not just help is son and destroy the whole earth. Why should he intervene? He knows everything in advance so why should he corrupt his own plans. Moreover God cannot die so there is no reason for god to help Jesus. Moreover the end reflects just Jesus’ life in general. He was the christian martyr who let not others die for his faith, but instead died himself for his faith. Big difference.

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24. Christianity is the invention of Paul, and was not followed by Jesus or his companions.

    Let us look at Paul’s agenda and then determine from the teachings of the OT and Jesus himself whether Paul had the authority to replace the covenant made between God Abraham and between God and Moses.

    In 1881 Nietzche argued in The Dawn that the apostle Paul was really the first Christian; and that without him “There would be no Christianity; we should scarcely have heard of a small Jewish sect whose master died on the cross.” A great many people have come to accept this view, and at least the first sentence of Nietzshe’s argument would seem to be borne out by The Acts of the Apostles, the book that in the New Testament follows upon the four Gospels:

    “That the ship of Christianity threw overboard a good deal of its Jewish ballast, that it went, and was able to go, among the pagans—that was due to this one man, a very tortured man, very pitiful, very unpleasant, unpleasant even to himself. He suffered from a fixed idea—or more precisely, from a fixed, ever-present, never resting question: What about the Jewish law? In his youth he had himself wanted to satisfy it, with a ravenous hunger for this highest distinction which the Jews could conceive—this people who were propelled higher than any other people by the imagination of the ethically sublime, and who alone succeeded ion creating a holy god together with the idea of sin as a transgression against this holiness. Paul became the fanatical defender of this god and his law and guardian of his honour; at the same time, in the struggle against the transgressors and doubters, lying in wait for them, he became increasingly harsh and evilly disposed to them, and inclined towards the most extreme punishments. And now he had found that—hotheaded, sensual, melancholy, malignant in his hatred as he was—he was himself unable to fulfill the law; indeed, and this seemed strangest to him, his extravagant lust to domineer provoked him continually to transgress the saw, and he had to yield to this thorn.
    Is it really his carnal nature that makes him transgress again and again? And not rather, as he himself suspected later, behind it the law itself, which must constantly prove it unfulfillable and which lures him to transgression with irresistible charm? But at the time he did not yet have this way out….
    Luther may have had similar feelings when, in his monastery, he wanted to become the perfect man of the spiritual ideal; and just as Luther one day began to hate the spiritual ideal and the Pope and the saints and the whole clerisy with a true deadly hatred—all the more the less he could own it to himself—so it was with Paul. The law was the cross to which he felt himself nailed: how he hated it; how he resented it; how he searched for some means to annihilate it—not to fulfill it any more himself;
    And finally the saving thought struck him, together with a vision—it could scarcely have happened otherwise to this epileptic….Paul heard the works: “Why do you persecute me?” the essential occurrence, however, was this: his head had suddenly seen a light: “it is unreasonable, he had said to himself, to persecute this Jesus! Here after all is the way our; here is the perfect revenge; here and nowhere else I have and hold the annihilator of the law?”

    Acts gives a frightful picture of Paul before his conversion.

    “He went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or woman, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he journeyed and approached Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he said: Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting…..Acts 9:1-5

    That was Saul’s conversion, after which “for three days he was without sight. Acts 9:9
    Many scholars suppose, as Nietzsche did, that he was an epileptic. He changed his name to Paul and became the most zealous missionary of the budding church. As an Apostle to the Gentiles he had no equal.. And when he saw his missionary work endangered by the disciples’ insistence on the preservation of the Jewish law, he argued insistently for its relaxation. Paul is the hero of Acts, but for the doctrine he preached we must turn to the Epistles.
    Four of Paul’s letters, all four of unquestionable authenticity, convey his teachings: the Epistle to the Romans and the rather similar Epistle to the Galatians, as well as the two letters to the Corinthians. Paul had not heard Jesus preach: and if his preaching had been ethical in part, Paul did not consider that to be of any crucial importance. As he said in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, “When I came to you, brethren…..I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” 2:1 And “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks a folly” 1:23
    Paul is suggesting that to those who are not followers of Jesus, his crucifixion seems to prove that he had no special powers or authority; but in fact “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,” the allusion being to Isaiah 53.
    The crucified Messiah took upon himself the punishment for our sins and thus became our saviour. What is required of us is faith that he died for us. The antinomy of law and faith is central in Paul. Since the Messiah or Christ died for our sins, we need no longer satisfy the law: what is required for salvation is faith in Christ.

    The heart of Paul’s message is a verse in one of the minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Habakkuk, whose brief book comprises only three short chapters. In the original language and context, the meaning of verse four of chapter two is none too clear, but Paul’s version of it is not startling: “the just man shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11.) In Hebrew emanah means firmness, truthfulness, reliability, faithfulness; not the belief that anything was the case or had happened. But among the Jew’s of Paul’s time far bolder exegeses were not uncommon; and this last half of a verse in a very minor prophet became for Paul the epitome of his kerygma. Of course, Habakkuk was not suggesting any opposition between law and faith, between doing and believing, but Paul evidently had not derived his doctrine from Habbkkuk, he verily found in him a convenient proof text.
    While Jesus, according to the gospels, had taught as one having authority and had only very occasionally designed to argue and prove his point by citing scripture—much more often he had pointed to his miracles as proof that he had authority—Paul argues constantly. One would think that his arguments must strike almost any reader as poor; a reader not versed in rabbinical literature as simply outlandish, and readers versed in it as obviously open to a host of counter arguments. But in the Christian churches Paul was quickly canonized, and his arguments were received uncritically. For Luther, Paul—and especially his use of the half verse from Habakkuk—became the cornerstone of the Reformation, and in Protestant churches Paul’s arguments have been read from the pulpit so frequently that generations of Protestants would no more think of questioning them than they would question their most cherished convictions.
    From Deuteronomy 27:26 Paul quotes; :Cursed be whoever does not uphold the words of this Torah to do them.” This is the last of an imposing series of twelve curses that begins “Cursed be the man who makes a graven or molted image, an abomination to the Lord, a work made by a craftsman’s hands, and puts it up in secret.” Here are the other curses: “Cursed be whoever dishonours his father or his mother.” “Cursed be whoever removes his neighbors landmarks.” “Cursed whoever leads the blind astray on their path.” “Cursed he whoever violates the rights of the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.” The next four curses are pronounced on anyone who has sexual intercourse with his father’s wife, with his sister or half sister, with his mother in law, or with any beast. Then, “Cursed be whoever slays his neighbor in secret.” And, “Cursed be whoever takes a bribe to slay an innocent human being.”
    Moses ordained, according to this passage in Deuteronomy that on the day when the children of Israel should cross the Jordan river into the promised land, these curses as well as a series of blessings should be pronounced most solemnly. After every curse, the refrain is repeated: “An all the people shall say: Amen.” And immediately after the last curse, which Paul quotes the blessing begin.
    Paul, however, quotes this verse completely out of context in order to make his point;

    Galatians 3 10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”[c] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

    This short quotation may give at least some idea of Paul’s mode of argument. It may also serve to call attention to the central flaw of his argument. He postulates that before the Crucifixion, the only way to be saved was to abide by all things written in the book of the law; he assumes further that this condition was impossible to fulfill and that therefore one was condemned to live under the curse of the law. Thus it seems that prior to the Crucifixion no Jew could be saved, because no Jew, could satisfy all the laws. We were all sinners, but now Christ has died for our sins, and if we believe this we are saved.
    Paul’s assumptions, however, are flagrantly at odds with the spirit of both the Hebrew Bible and the Pharisees. The whole notion of a judgment in which some are saved while the rest of mankind is damned is alien to Moses, and the notion that everyone who transgresses any commandment whatsoever, no matter how small, is damned, is in one word, Pauline. In the Hebrew Bible and among the rabbis there never seems to have been the slightest doubt that God could at any time feely forgive those who repented. The Book of Jonah taught emphatically that this forgiveness extended to Gentiles as well as Jews, that no conversion was required, and that even the most outrageous evil-doers, not merely those guilty of some small transgression—were in fact forgiven by God as soon as they truly repented. But Paul simply could not acknowledge this without conceding that in the pregnant words he used to rule out alternatives—“then Christ died in vain” Acts 2:21
    Paul’s God is anything but a paradigm of love and forgiveness. He first gave the Jews a law they could not possible keep and damned all who failed to keep every least commandment. He apparently also damned all Gentiles, even though they were not bound by the law. Then, after well over a thousand years had passed since the giving of the law, God decided to save a few human beings, but saw no way of achieving this without a godman sacrifice. Since such a sacrifice was necessary, Paul does not tell us why it should have been—God decided that Jesus Christ should be tormented and crucified and cursed after instituting certain sacraments; and henceforth those would be saved who believed all this and ate and drank what they themselves believed to be the flesh and blood of Christ.
    It may seem as if a more unlikely story would have been hard to invent. Paul claims to have been raised a Pharisee; his epistles abound in quotations from the Septuagint; and some recent studies have demonstrated his heavy debts to rabbinical Judaism. But in context of the Hebrew Bible alone, or of normative Judaism, his major arguments simply do not make sense. One has to recall the syncretism of the age in which he lived and his eagerness to convert Gentiles.

    Paul suggests the belief that Christian faith supersedes moral laws, that the believer will be saved because he has faith, even if his conduct is immoral. Those whom Paul had converted evidently understood him to be saying that, but confronted with their conduct, Paul, with his Jewish upbringing , was deeply shocked. In brief, the theme he stressed henceforth was that we are redeemed by faith, but that the person who has faith will not be immoral. Of course, he will not keep all the laws, but neither will he fornicate and murder.
    It seems evident that this small Jewish sect had limited success amongst the Jews and it is obvious that it could never have become the State religion of the Roman Empire without first divorcing itself from it’s Jewish roots. Thus it became much easier to be a Christian than it had been to follow the tenant of Judaism. Paul and John did this by stressing belief and sacraments. And it became much easier to be a Christian when the basic beliefs already existed in the local pagan religions.
    The entire drama of Christianity is taken form the pagan mystery religions of Egypt, Rome and Greece. Here are similarities between the Egyptian god Horus and Jesus.
    1. Sirius, the morning star of Egypt, heralded the birth of Horus.
    2. Horus was baptized in the River Eridanus by a god figure name Anup, who was later decapitated.
    3. Horus has no history between the ages of twelve and thirty.
    4. Horus walked on water, cast out demons and healed the sick.
    5. Horus was transfigured on a mountain.
    6. Horus delivered a Sermon on the Mount to his followrs.
    7. Horus was crucified between two thieves, buried in a tomb and resurrected. His personal epithet was Iusa, the ever becoming son of Ptah, or the Father.
    8. Horus was the good Sheppard, the lamb of God, the bread of life, the son of man, the Word, and the fisher.
    9. Horus was the Way, the Truth and the Life.
    10. Horus was called the Lord by name.
    11. Horus was to reign for one thousand years.
    12. Horus came to seed and to save what was lost.
    13. On his resurrection Horus shouts. “The goddesses and the women proclaim me when they see me on the horizon of resurrection.
    Paul and his followers, to attract the Greek, Roman and Egyptian pagans, simply took the story of Horus, removed his name, and replaced it with Jesus. In fact, the name of Jesus with the J pronounced as an H, is almost identical to Horus. This is why Jesus warned his disciples to confine their preaching to the Israelites and not to go to the Gentiles. He knew they would take his message corrupt it to the point where it would become unrecognizable.
    Nietzsche presented a brilliant argument against Christianity and vicarious atonement, yet it pales in comparison to the writing of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He writes.
    “Herein is a rebuttal of the Christian doctrine. They believe that everyone from Adam down to the end of the world is tainted with sin irrespective of whether they were given the Book from God or not, and whether they are blessed with reason or not. They claim that God, the Supreme, shall not forgive anyone unless he believes in the Messiah and believe that the door of salvation is shut upon others and that forgiveness cannot be earned through good deeds; and that God being just, His justice requires that the sinner and the criminal should be punished and that mankind could not be redeemed through good deeds, God sent His pure son so that he may carry the load of mankind’s sins on his shoulders and be crucified and thus relieve the sinners of their burden. Accordingly the son came and was slain and those who believed in him were saved and entered the gardens of salvation happy and rejoicing. This is their belief, but he who tests it with reason and subjects it to investigation, will find it a chain of absurdities. If you were to wonder at it you would be justified; for there is certainly nothing more surprising than their claims. They do not realize that justice is much more important and much more obligatory than mercy and to let off the guilty and punish the innocent is to destroy both justice and mercy; and no one would be guilty of that save one who is utterly demented.
    Again, both promise of reward for good deeds and warning of punishment for transgression are prerequisites of any punitive action. How can then the infliction of punishment on anyone be justified before the promulgation and consolidation of the canons of law and how can the punishment of the former or latter generations be justified for commission of an act that had not been preceded by a warning that its commission would entail a penalty and with no one being informed of it? The truth of the matter is that no concept of justice can be established except after the revelation of the Book of God and His promise and His warning and His commandments and the limits set by Him and His directives. Attributing a strict concept of justice to God, the Supreme, is utterly erroneous and without a true basis, for, justice is inconceivable until after the establishment of rights and their binding character.
    But those who disobeys his Lord and His commandments and disregards His injunctions and turns away will certainly be punished. Therefore, when requital is incidental to promise and prohibition and not to justice as a Divine obligation of God, the towering structure erected by the Christians in their fancies collapses utterly. Commentary on the Holy Quran Surah Fatiha pgs. 132-134
    The concept of curse is related to the heart. A person can only be called cursed when his heart turns away from God and becomes black and bereft of God’s mercy. When it is deprived altogether of the love of God and is emptied of all recognition of God and becomes spiritually blind like Satan. A person is cursed when he is filled with poison and severs all relationships with God, and becomes filled with rancor, hatred, discus and enmity towards God. He becomes God’s enemy and God becomes his enemy. Paul should have reflected on this definition of accursed, before inventing the doctrine of Jesus becoming accursed to free us from the curse of the law. This concept is not consistent with the holy status of Jesus and must be rejected to save Jesus from this vicious attack. Also, if Jesus is part of the trinity and so amalgamated with the Father, as if they were one, then how could Jesus be Holy as we all believe God is, and accursed at the same time.
    Regarding the authority of Paul to replace the covenant of Moses, to replace the LAW of Moses with faith, we read in the Old and New Testaments.
    1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
    Matthew 22: On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
    Matthew 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
    Jesus and his family followed the LAW
    Luke 2:And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
    Luke 2:27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
    Luke 16: The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. 17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. 18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
    John 7:19 Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?
    John 7:49 But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.
    Matt 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

    According to Deut. 29:15-19 all the followers of Moses were bound by the law, present and future. If they failed to comply, he warned of dire consequences. He warned of those who would urge his followers to abandon the law as “a root sprouting poisonous and bitter growth.”
    Deut: 29:15-19 14 I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you 15 who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today.
    16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
    Leviticus 18:5 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.
    This law was to be obeyed forever. Duet:29:29 29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

    Deut 5:28 The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

    Therefore, Paul represents that root that emits poison and the one who is considered the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. He had no authority or right to change the covenant between Moses and God and to preach to the Jews to abandon the law, regardless of he attempted to rationalize this concept.

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25. How did Noah, Moses, Solomon or David receive salvation since they did not have the opportunity to belief in Jesus?

    Why can’t God forgive sins as a sin a violation of His commandments? He can easily forgive the sins of His servants without sending His “son” to suffer for mankind.

    Can a human father imagine sending his son to suffer for others? It sounds cruel. Why then attribute this cruelty to God who is the God of love and forgivness!

    If Jesus died for the sins of others then the Christian world should abolish all courts as no other sins/crimes should be punished since Jesus already died for their sins.

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26. This is a very interesting items to read and study.

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27. Response to question 1:

    Sacrifice – Key to God’s Message!
    Surah 5, Al-Maaida, Ayah 27:
    Recite to them the truth of the story of the two sons of Adam. Take note! Both presented a sacrifice (to Allah): it was accepted from one but not from the other. The latter said: “Be sure I will kill you.” “Surely” the former said, “Allah does accept the sacrifice of those who are righteous.”
    Jews, Christians and Muslims often live side by side in today’s diverse societies. Muslims and Christians are obligated to practice ‘dawah’ , to invite others to follow their religion. In order to graciously reason with each other in wisdom and fairness we must get to know one another’s beliefs. A better understanding of what is dear to the hearts of members of different faith communities will reduce fear, suspicion, discrimination, racism and in some cases even violence. This leaflet aims to provide the key that will enable the reader to understand the message of the Tawrah and the Injeel, also known as the ‘Holy Bible’: Sacrifice. This fascinating theme is found throughout its pages, binding them together with an invisible ‘red thread’ into one unified meaning. Since the Holy Book of the Muslims is, ‘…confirming the scriptures that came before it’ , parallels will be drawn to the concept of sacrifice mentioned in it.

    BACKGROUND TO FIRST SACRIFICE The word ‘sacrifice’ is defined as, “…a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to the sacred order. It is a complex phenomenon that has been found in the earliest known forms of worship and in all parts of the world…” According to the Tawrah, the very fist recorded sacrifice to God in the history of mankind was made by Adam’s two sons, Cain and Abel. Muslims know them to be Qabil, the elder and Habil, the younger, whose sacrifice was accepted by God because he was righteous. What made him right before God? Why did He prefer the sacrifice of the one over the other? Where did this idea of sacrifice come from in the first place? The Quranic account does not tell us so it is in line with proper, academic research to find an answer to that question in the Tawrah and the Injeel where the same story was recorded before with additional details:
    “…In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Able brought fat portions from some of the first born of the flock. The LORD looked with favour on Able and his offering. But on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour…Then the LORD said to Cain: “…If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” (Genesis 4:3-7)
    “By faith Able offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.” (Hebrews 11:4)
    God accepted Abel’s (Habil’s) sacrifice because it was offered by faith. What was the nature of his faith, on what revelation of God was it based? To answer that question we will firstly present circumstantial evidence. Both, the Tawrah and the Holy Quran, contain the story of how God created Adam and Eve. In paradise they were allowed to eat from all trees except one. Tempted by Satan they disobeyed God and as a result of this monstrous sin they became aware of their nakedness and covered their shame with leaves. God pronounced a terrible punishment upon them. They and their descendents had to leave paradise, being unable to continue enjoying a care free life and most of all, a personal relationship with their Creator. The following significant detail is only mentioned in the Tawrah:
    “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21)
    God provided them with clothes made from animal skins to replace their insufficient covering of leaves. Is he thereby illustrating that men by themselves are unable to cover their shame caused by sin without the shedding of blood? Did God teach Adam and Eve the concept of sacrifice on this momentous occasion which they then passed on to their children? Two pieces of direct evidence allow us to answer in the affirmative.

    CONCEPT OF SACRIFICE Many years after our first parents, God appointed Moses as the leader of the Israelites. He chose them to serve the surrounding nations as an example of who their Creator is, of how to get back into a relationship with Him and by what principles He wanted everyone to live by. At the heart of God’s relationship with His people was an elaborate system of various sacrifices. By way of offering animals they were assured to get their sins forgiven:
    The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: ‘…Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish…Give it to Eleazar the Priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered…(he) is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times towards the front of the Tent of Meeting. ..While he watches, the heifer is to be burned…A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin.’ (Num. 19:1-10)
    This central requirement of the law is also alluded to in the Holy Quran, Surah Al Baqarah, Ayahs 67-74. While Muslim commentators, such as Maududi and Yusuf Ali link it to Numbers 19:1-10, Ibn Kathir does not. All somewhat disagree among each other as to the meaning of the passage and therefore it is best to go back to the Tawrah, being the earliest and clearest source, where it was first explained. Moreover, all Muslim commentators do agree that in Surah, 17, Al Israa, Ayahs 1-7 the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem is mentioned. It was built in obedience to God’s commanded and has worship through sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins at the very heart of its existence! Surah 5:44 mentions Jewish priests. Both, Muslims and Christians, agree that the blood of animals can not take away sin. All three of God’s books, the Tawrah, Zabur and the Injeel, indicate that the sacrifices in the past point to a perfect sacrifice that was to come.

    ULTIMATE FULFILMENT OF SACRIFICE When God announced the punishment to Sheitan for misleading Adam and Eve, He said in poetic language:
    “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
    Here we find the first of many prophecies by which God is announcing his plans to bring back men to their original state of a personal relationship with their Maker in paradise. Incredibly, someone who was to be born of a woman would overcome Sheitan and destroy his power! In his struggle the victorious one would have to endure temporary evil inflicted upon him. The following amazing prophecy in the Tawrah was made about 700 years before its fulfilment. It describes how He, like the animals who were sacrificed before Him, would die for the forgiveness of the sins of his people:
    “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all…he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:5-12)
    In other prophecies that special person was clearly identified as the Messiah (Greek: Christ), a title given uniquely to Jesus in the Holy Quran and in the Holy Bible.
    Jesus Himself confirmed that he was the fulfilment of these prophecies:
    He (Jesus) said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Lu 24:44ff)
    What a profound and wonderful truth: Sins are forgiven, God is pleased when we believe in His sacrifice not when we bring our own sacrifice. This truth is foreshadowed in the famous story believed in by Muslims and Christians where Abraham was commanded to kill his son. There we read about God’s miraculous intervention and how He spared the troubled father from this terrible ordeal:
    “And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice”. (Surah 37, Al Saffat, Ayah 107)
    Why is the sacrifice which Muslims, Jews and Christians believe to have been a ram called ‘momentous’, especially when compared with Abraham’s son? Surely he is greater, more important, than a ram! The greatness of the sacrifice can not be found in that it serves as a symbol for an act of men’s self purification or devotion, or to commemorate Abraham’s faithfulness. If that was the case, there would be no need for God to provide HIMSELF with such a great sacrifice. The answer to the question lies in the word ‘ransom’. It means that a person, in this case Abraham’s son, is set free in exchange for someone or something else. When compared with Abraham’s son, the ram by itself is not very special; in that sense it is not great. Therefore, the real importance of it has to lie somewhere else. It points to the perfect sacrifice found in Jesus Christ as mentioned in the Injeel:
    ‘Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.’ (Hebrews 9:28)
    That truth found again and again in the Holy Bible can not have been abrogated; otherwise it would have to be replaced with something similar or better according to Surah 2, Al Baqarah, Ayah 106. What better could be offered to us than God personally dealing with our sins and with the shame we brought upon Him and ourselves, by supplying a great sacrifice for us in Jesus Christ?!

    RESPONSE AND RESULTS The literal meaning of the Arabic word “Injeel” is “Good News”. Jesus said that the way to properly respond to this best news God has ever given to mankind is to repent (meaning: change of mind resulting in turning around from sin) and to simply believe that Jesus died for our sins. Once a person trusts in what Jesus did and said, God will produce in them assurance of forgiveness instead of uncertainty, joy instead of sadness, selfless love and forgiveness instead of selfish hatred and fear. To live in such a sacrificial way in thankful response to God giving us eternal life with Him comes at a high prize. Followers of Jesus are told in the Holy Bible to be ready to suffer through persecution, through surrendering all of their life to God and His will. But surely it is only right to give to God what we can not keep anyway in order to win what we can not loose!

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28. there is no no26th chapter in john, many of your references are wrong.

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29. jesus did not defend himself or argue with the jews but he kept silent.

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30. JESUS DIED. HE RAISED. I PRAY FOR YOUR SALVATION.

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31. Easter: Can Resurrection of Jesus be Precisely Defined?

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32. All Muslims have to believe in Jesus as one of
    The prophet sent by God in order to be a Muslim.
    We respect and love him and because of it we want to
    present our point of view of the Prophet Jesus. Not
    to insult our Christian friends but to share our
    view for a productive discussion. Another relevant
    article posted on TMT today on The Muslim
    Jesus.

    http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2013/03/islam-a-religion-of-peace/the-muslim-jesus

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33. You are all misled, there is no god and jesus was simply a prophet and led others to believe in him. Religion exists in all forms so mankind has reasons for our existence. Religion = money. When you die, you are just that, DEAD! Souls, Heaven, Hell etc…MYTHS! Why waste your time and energy on nonsense?

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34. There have been many comments. I had previously commented. Now I mention again that at the heart of this whole discussion is the questionable conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Only he is a witness to that. He said he saw Jesus.

    Did Jesus in his life time predict that his enemy (Saul) will convert and become a believer?? Never. Jesus never said such a thing. So conversion of Saul is questionable.

    Did Jesus appear to any other beloved disciple to give that all important news about the conversion of Saul? No. Jesus did not inform any one else that “Saul is no more an enemy, that he has become a friend. That I have appeared to Saul and guided him.” There is no such information from Jesus.

    How come, a person who was an enemy of Jesus and who had killed many (Jews) believing friends of Jesus, how come he should become a leader of all Christians? And the Christians should take him as their most important leader?

    He almost became a prophet or messenger from God. But he was a false prophet and messenger. i.e. a wolf in sheep clothing. Please note the words of Deut 18:20 shown below:

    Deuteronomy 18:20-22
    New International Version (NIV)
    20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

    We Muslims believe that Jesus was a true man from God. He was a messenger from God because Jesus told that God had sent him.
    But this fellow, Saul was not any messenger from God. He tried to be a messenger and because he was a false messenger, he spoke things from God which God had not commanded him to speak, Saul was beheaded. He was killed. That fact is well known to all Muslims and Christians.
    He tried to avoid his killing but could not avert it, could not save himself. That fact is enough from the Old Testament that he was a false man. There is no need of any more proof for that. Nobody need to learn anything from Paul i.e. Saul of Tarsus. Every one should learn from the words of Jesus only.
    And Jesus taught all very well while he was present amongst his men. Jesus supported the law of Moses. He wanted to fulfill the law, meaning that Jesus wanted complete obedience to the law of Moses a.s.
    Fulfillment of the law did not mean to abondon the God given law.
    Every Christian should be careful, where he is going, Quo Vadis?

    Every day, the church people are changing the previous words of the holy Bible to suit their purpose. In Deut 18:20. it was meant to convey that the false prophet will be killed.
    They have now amended it to say that “A false prophet will die.” That is in many versions now.
    Is this not a clever move to mislead the people? Every one dies. But not every one is killed.

    We Muslims read the Bible and by the Grace of Allah, having guidance from the Quran, we can understand many passages of the bible.
    WE see that there is no blood sacrifice for atonement in bible. There was no need to have the old testament attached with the new testament when church had abondoned the law of Moses. Jesus had taught that new wine should not be put in old bottles…. For that reason, New Testament should not be put in old Testament…
    Everything that the church has now is different to what it was in the time of Jesus a.s. The NT contains more pages from Paul i.e. Saul than they contain from the original friends of Jesus.
    The Injeel meaning good news is correct. Jesus knew the hard times ahead and he told his followers about it. He gave the good news of a Comforter (Parcalete) to come after. He said that God will give his followers another comforter. It meant that he himself was a comforter and God will give another comforter who will complete his mission.
    Jesus said, “I have many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now…… Howbeit when the spirit of Truth (Comforter) will come, he shall guide you into all truth…” (John 16:12,13,14) That was the good news that Jesus gave to his followers in the time of difficulty.
    Let us please come to some understanding. Abraham Ishaque has presented a strong case in favor of the present beliefs of the Church. But reality seems far away. It is necessary for all Jews and Christians and Muslims to come to some understanding about the most important man i.e. Jesus. The church belief that Jesus is a man and a god is another big contradiction (obstacle, double role of Jesus). The Muslims and the Jews can never accept that double role.

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35. the fact is that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead proves it self cause you are trying so hard to disprove it.i’m not a very educated man but there is a person called the Holy Spirit that makes evidence to believers that Yeshua is real and until you have experienced it you cannot understand it,so i suggest you try it so you will know what i’m talking about. history is fact! Muhammed was a fact i don’t deny it and he was a good man-it’s history. Jesus was killed and risen-it’s history.we cannot deny history. Islam has been tainted after Muhammed died and so has Christianity.Muhammed preached peace and kindness-but there are verses of destruction after his death-Jesus always taught peace,love and kindness never destruction!by the way the stone was moved not so Jesus could get out but that we may get in! may God bless you!!!!

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36. Preaching in the name of the son (Jesus) and holy ghost (The blessed angel) and the father (God Almighty)as told by Jesus a.s. (written in last chapter, last verses, of Mathew is okay, permissible. Church derives Trinity from that verse. That is not okay.

    Jesus a.s. told to preach in his name and holy spirit and God Almighty. That is the only way for the Christians and they cannot do without it. They are actually preachng in the name of God Almighty. For that to be permitted or accepted, the name of Jesus and holy spirit is necessary because the teaching has been sent through holy spirit and Jesus. That is the address or source of the Bible NT teachings.
    If any one asks wherefrom is all this, it would be necessary to tell that it from Jesus through holy Spirit. It does not mean that Jesus and holy ghost should be made a god.

    Jesus told to preach in his name and mention holy ghost in preaching. He did not say that make a god out of me and the holy ghost.
    Now the Church has the problem to explain Trinity which they can never do. How is one in three and three in One as gods. They have the funny belief that God is One and there are three gods at the same time. That is quite a contradiction.
    There was no need to get into that trouble if they had read the message correctly.

    So many other problems follow from making Jesus as god. Jesus is a man and Jesus is a God, that is double role. He is son of God and son of man.

    We respect Jesus and love him very much. We love his mother too and we like most of the four gospels of New testament.

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37. Dear Muslim brothers and Christian brothers, please be enlighten with the words of Jesus during his first words while he is still a baby. If you believe in Jesus, see Surah Number 19: Maryam verses 33-34 of the Quran. Why would baby Jesus said these words, “And the same peace on me the day I was born and the day I die and the day I am raised alive.” Verse 34 says, “This is Iesa the son of Maryam, a word of truth in which they doubts.” This is a complete contradiction to the claim that Jesus did not die.

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38. Jesus Slept!
    Did Jesus dies in a narcotic trance?
    By Gloria Moss

    June 2001

    The idea that Jesus might not have died on the Cross, but was buried alive in some kind of narcotic trance, would have been a fatal heresy in the 12th century. But Gloria Moss has found some literary and herbal hints of this ‘secret’ among mediæval writers of classical romances.

    Mysteries turn up in the strangest places. Buried in a story by the 12th-century writer Chrétien de Troyes is the tale of a beautiful woman who decides to escape an arranged marriage and elope with a young, handsome knight. Her motives are understandable enough, but the way she sets about it is strange indeed. Instead of simply eloping – an act that would tarnish her reputation – she decides to feign death and then run off in secret with her lover. To simulate her own death, she takes a narcotic potion and, three days after burial in a new tomb, is resurrected.

    Parts of Chrétien’s story are strikingly familiar. There are elements not only of Romeo and Juliet – the potion, the tomb and the awakening – but also of the crucifixion story. Consider the parallels. The woman, like Jesus and Juliet, dies after taking a drink; she, like Jesus, is buried in a new tomb and restored to life three days later; even the heroine’s name, Fénice – the French for phœnix – serves as a reminder of Jesus, since the phœnix was used as a symbol of Christ and his resurrection in mediæval times. These and other allusions to the New Testament crucifixion story suggested that Chrétien was making a point. He was getting as near as he could to questioning a fundamental tenet of Christianity – Jesus’ resurrection.

    Both Chrétien and Shakespeare were sailing close to the wind. The 12th century was not a time when it was possible overtly to question Christian orthodoxy, since state and church were closely linked. However, Chrétien was writing for the court of Champagne, a court with links to the Templars and notable for producing translations of the Bible; he might have calculated that with such backing, it was safe enough to criticise Christianity through the medium of a story. He may have been right, but with the few details we have of his life, nothing is certain. All that we know is that his last work, Perceval – the earliest version of the Grail story – was never completed. Gerbert de Montreuil, one of the writers who continued it, claimed that death prevented Chrétien from completing his work. Was this a natural end, or could he have been pushed? It seemed to me that an investigation was called for.

    Many questions suggest themselves. If Chrétien had reason to believe, for example, that Jesus took a narcotic potion on the cross, what could it have been? And are there any other traces in his work of a belief that Jesus survived the crucifixion?

    Various people have suggested in the past that Jesus may have survived the crucifixion, citing as proof the fact that blood flowed from the lance wound after he was declared dead. (It is medical opinion that blood cannot flow from a corpse.) Two of the more recent books – The Jesus Conspiracy and The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail – suggest that he owed his survival to a potion containing opium and vinegar. The inclusion of vinegar should come as no surprise, since all the Gospel accounts, except Luke’s, refer to the fact that Jesus’ death followed his being offered a sponge soaked with vinegar.

    The idea that the sponge contained opium might appear superficially attractive – even the first-century master of herbalism, Dioscorides (above, c. AD 60–75), refers to the sleep-inducing qualities of opium – but there are several arguments against it. First, the largest component in the opium, morphine, produces rapid breathing, a very different effect from the “giving up of the breath” reported of Jesus. Then, morphine is absorbed only slowly by the body, arguing against the sudden reaction reported after Jesus took the vinegar. Last but not least is the fact that vinegar, according to Dioscorides, counteracts every poison “and in particular opium.” This would not be disputed today, since the effect of combining acetic acid (vinegar) with morphine sulphate (the narcotic component of opium) is to produce a substance – morphine acetate – which is less effective as a narcotic than the original morphine sulphate.

    The idea that a vinegar-based potion contained opium can therefore be scotched. Ninth- and 12th-century sources point to another possibility. According to the Antidotarium of Nicolai of Salerno, a soporific sponge could be applied to patients’ nostrils to create a state of anæsthesia. He suggests that one of the substances in the sponge was mandrake.

    According to Dioscorides, touching or eating the apple-like fruit of the plant could bring on tiredness, and the root and bark were even more potent. Cooked in vinegar, the root could leave a person unconscious for up to three or four hours, leading Dioscorides to recommend its use for “people about to be cut or cauterised (who) wish to become insensible to the pain.” The bark could produce a “dead sleep”, and a whiff of it was enough to produce a death-like stupor.

    In the 1890s, a doctor, Benjamin Ward Richardson, carried out experiments with mandrake. He administered a mixture of alcohol and mandrake root to pigeons and rabbits, and found that not only did it act as a “general anæsthetic of the most potent quality,” but the “animals’ hearts continued to beat after their respiration had ceased.” Interestingly, New Testament accounts describe Jesus as having “given up the breath.” We now know that mandrake contains a mydriatic alkaloid, mandragorine (C17 H27 O3 N), which interferes with the transmission of nerve impulses across pathways. You only need to block a few pathways to produce a devastating effect and stop all sensation or control of movement.

    There are references to mandrake in the Old Testament, showing that it grew in biblical lands (Genesis 30:14; Song of Songs 7:11–13). There also appear to be references to mandrake in the work of the first-century historian Josephus. Josephus refers to a plant ba’ar (a word meaning to burn) as having characteristics which are associated only with mandrake. He also says that it shines brightly at night – a feature of mandrake described elsewhere. Further, the root of mandrake came to be valued as a talisman, believed to confer on people their every wish.

    So, if Chrétien de Troyes imagined that Jesus had taken a narcotic, there is a fair chance that he might have thought the substance in question to be mandrake. Is there any more tangible evidence that he had this in mind? His last, unfinished work, Perceval, provides a clue.

    Perceval was written some time before 1188 and describes an extraordinary encounter between its hero, Perceval, and an object referred to as the Grail. He first glimpses this in a procession in which a squire grasps a lance dripping with blood. The description of the Grail does not, on the face of it, give much away about its true nature. According to Chrétien, it shines so brightly that it eclipses the stars and maintains the life of a man (the Fisher King’s father) who had sustained a serious wound in years past. Perceval’s big mistake, the story tells us, was not to ask why the lance bled. Had he done so, we are told, the man’s suffering would have come to an end.

    The emphasis on the bleeding lance directs one back to the crucifixion (see The Holy Spear, FT140:66). An escape of blood is not generally consistent with death, a fact which was acknowledged by the church father Origen in the second century AD. The existence of a bleeding lance would remind doubting minds of these facts, and further poignancy would be created by the knowledge that Perceval was reluctant to ask why the lance bled. The answer was unorthodox.

    That is not all. The descriptions of the Grail also lead back to the crucifixion since – and this has not been remarked on before – descriptions of it are reminiscent of mandrake. In fact, the Grail was imputed with all the characteristics of mandrake. It supplied people with whatever they wanted (the mandrake’s talismanic qualities) and it shone brightly at night (as did the mandrake). Moreover, its third attribute – of forestalling death – was linked to mandrake’s anæsthetic qualities insofar as the apparent death induced by mandrake is followed by a resurrection, showing, by inference, that mandrake prevents lasting death.

    The realisation that the Grail stands for mandrake is an indication that the story is a cipher for Chrétien’s heretical beliefs about the crucifixion. This shows that Chrétien’s purpose may have been far from innocent, and that he may have intended an attack on Christian orthodoxy. Perhaps, then, the death that prevented his completion of Perceval was no accident. This would not be surprising; his patron for Perceval, the Count of Flanders (the man credited with giving Chrétien the book on which the story is based) was related to a founder member of the Templars, and his other patron, the Countess of Champagne, was related by marriage to another founder member. In another hundred years the Templars would be the target of an Inquisition which accused them of blasphemy and heresy, and denying and spitting on the cross.

    Quite clearly, Templar beliefs did not coincide with Christian orthodoxy. Some say that the Templars looked for and discovered secret scrolls under the Temple in Jerusalem, and it is possible that the Templars communicated their findings to the court of Champagne, and thence to Chrétien. Thereafter, these heterodox ideas survived intact in the pages of other, apparently innocent, literary texts, including a story in Boccaccio’s Decameron, Romeo and Juliet, and Snow White, and are worthy of some consideration.

    Boccaccio’s story tells of an abbot who uses an anæsthetic potion to send a husband, his rival in love, to purgatory (he is given enough powder to put him to sleep for three days). The abbot keeps him in a darkened cell for several months, and then only allows him to be ‘resurrected’ as the man’s wife falls pregnant by the abbot. The husband is convinced that he has “risen from the dead” and is universally believed.

    Then there is Romeo and Juliet, in which another man of the church, a friar, provides a narcotic potion. All three elements of the crucifixion story are here – death after taking liquid, burial in a tomb, and resurrection three days later. One of Shakespeare’s sources – Da Porto’s tale of Romeo e Giulietta (1530) – even appears to offer an ironic allusion to Jesus’ “I thirst” in the fact that Giulietta feigns thirst as she prepares to take the potion.

    Finally, we have Giovanni Battista’s 17th-century story of Snow White. The apparently innocent story of a young girl who eats an apple and enters a deep sleep is yet another allusion to mandrake, for its fruit – a whiff of which could knock you out – was often likened to apples.

    The mystery has come full circle. Chrétien in the 12th century dared to question orthodox beliefs. He may have sacrificed his life as a consequence.

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39. Jesus was granted ELAVATION from a heinous end on the cross, but if u want to read it he was given an ELAVATOR straight UP, then soot yourself but up above which country, up is relative to EARTH. Either read it God LIFTED him beyond their ill intentions or gave him LIFTOFF, UP to you. Wait a minute did I just say that, where UP are you. Does this RAISE any fresh perspectives. So you need more altitude for a better vantage point.

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40. All Muslims, and Jews and Christians are suffering from a false belief. I ask you would any god worth his name ask you to kill your son? Commandment No.13 says “Thou shalt not kill” No but you continue to believe that it was that same Allah who gave us the 10 Commandments asked the prophet Abraham to kill his son. None are willing to believe that the Devil also
    masquerades as Allah. They have given full freedom to the Devil to call himself Allah and get away with all the false stories in the Bible. The good prophet Abraham was sincerely lead into believing that the commandment to kill his son was from God & without reflecting upon the truth that God gives life and not death went about to carry out that commandment which was from the Devil but only Jesus spoke the truth when he said to the Jews that their father was the Devil who was a murderer from the beginning.
    Jews and Muslims please wake up! “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”[Romans 13:12]

    -Christopher Michael Emmanuel
    New Delhi, June 21, 2013

    Read more: http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2012/04/religion/christianity/65-reasons-to-believe-jesus-did-not-die-on-the-cross#ixzz2R5KPpn9u

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41. The parable of Abraham trying to sacrifice his son and God preventing him from literally doing that and replacing it with animal sacrifice, may precisely be the reason, why we have human rights today and human sacrifice, is not longer deemed sensible.

    I believe, this incident from life of Patriarch Abraham should be seen more in this metaphorical light, rather than a strict, legalistic sense, to appreciate its true significance.

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42. It is foolish to say that God is devil. That would reverse everything. There would be no truth in any matter. Such bad things could be said about Jesus too whose whole life is not well known. Will any one agree to that! Surely not.

    Jesus spent his first twelve years in Egypt. Then nothing is known for another 18 years as to what he was doing till he started preaching at the age of 30.

    He was vehemently opposed and ridiculed when he entered the field, riding, in company with his mother and many followers. It is all described in Quran and holy Bible NT.

    I tell you that no one has described the matter of Jesus birth and his ministry better than what is described in the Quran. It is so beautiful in Quran. I will just write a few words on this subject from the Quran, chapter 19, verses,…17 to 34.
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    19:17. And describe the story of Mary as mentioned in the book, when she withdrew from her people to an eastern place.

    19:18. And she was cut-off from her parents. Then we sent our angel to her and he appeared to her in the form of a perfect (desirable) man.

    19:19. She said, “I seek refuge with the gracious God from thee if indeed thou also be a God fearing person.” ( She was so pious that she could not tolerate the company of a handsome man even in her vision.)

    19:20. He replied, “I am only a messenger of thy Lord that I give you good news of a grown up purified , righteous son.”

    19:21. She said, “How can I have a son when no man has touched me and I am not an unchaste person.”

    19:22. He said, “Like that, says your Lord, it is easy for me and We shall do so that We may make him a sign unto mankind and make him a mercy from Us and it was a matter fully ordained (decided).”

    19:23. So she conceived him and she moved to a far away place with him (in her womb).

    19:24. And the pains of child birth drew her to the trunk of a palm tree. She cried out, “O, would that I had died before this and had become a thing quite unknown.”

    19:25. And then he called her from beneath her, saying, “Grieve not. Thy Lord made a rivulet to flow under thee. (These words have special, high level meanings.)

    19:26. “And shake towards thee the trunk of the palm tree. It will drop fresh ripe dates to fall upon thee.”

    19:27. “So eat and drink and cool thy eyes. And if you meet any mortal man, you say, “I have vowed a fast to my gracious God. I will not speak to any one on this day or ever after.”

    19:28. Then she brought him (Jesus) to her people, having him carried (on a donkey). They said, “O Mary, surely thou hast brought a strange thing.”

    19:29. “O sister of Aaron, your father was not a bad man nor was your mother any rebellious person (against religion.)

    19:30. Then she pointed to him (to Jesus). They said, “How can we speak meaningfully with a one who had been a child in the cradle.”

    19:31. He (Jesus) said, “I am a servant of Allah. He has given me the book and made me a prophet.”

    19:32. “And He has made me blessed where ever I may be and has enjoined upon me regular prayer and payment of poor money as long as I live.”

    19:33.” And he has made me dutiful (and kind) to my mother and He has not made me haughty and arrogant.”

    19:34. “And there is peace upon me the day I was born and the day I die and the day I am raised to life again.”
    —————————————
    These verses state that when Jesus was born, his mother was in transit. There was no good facility available at the time of delivery. That agrees with Bible saying that Jesus was placed in a manger. Mary suffered much at the time of delivery. These were pains of child birth. (V. 24)

    Mary was told not to lose hope, but to try to seek help. She will be helped. (V.26). She was told to eat and drink and be happy with the child. She was specially told not to discuss anything seriously with any one. That meant she should not speak on religious matters any more, i.e. she was not to indulge in religious discussions any more, as she used to do previously. That meant she should not preach any more. Also she was not to tell any one about the high status of her son (Jesus). (V. 27)

    The child (Jesus) grew up of full age and Mary was hoping for a good result (return) by her son’s work in the way of God. With great hopes and expectations, when she brought her son before her people while he was being carried (on animal, he was riding), Mary was having much hope that her son will be accepted by the people (Jewish nation) and the work in the way of God will be done easily. But the people said, “O Mary, you have brought a strange (unusual) thing.” (Something they did not expect at all.) (V. 28)

    They also said, “O, sister of Aaron, your father was not a bad man and your mother was also not rebellious (against Jewish faith).” (V. 29)

    Please note that Quran calls Mary sister of Aaron and not sister of Moses. Moses and Aaron were brothers. Why Quran calls Mary as sister of Aaron? It is because she was well known as brought up and employed on the service of the temple (Under Zakariyya a.s.). That was the nature of her duties being same as those of Aaron a.s. (The Levites, bani Lavi)

    I have to add more here. When Jesus started his preaching, the misguided elders of the Jews were trapped. They were exposed as being far away from the Jewish law. They were exposed as the corrupt leaders.
    When they were trapped and had no way to escape, they came to Mary seeking her help in the matter so that she could control her son to behave himself. So that he stops his preaching. The elders sought the help of Mary. (V. 29)

    But she was already advised by God Almighty that she should not indulge in any serious discussion. She should not take part in any sensible discussion. Kalaam in Arabic means useful, meaningful speech. It is not idle talk. She was forbidden about making any sermon. That job will be well done by her son (Jesus).

    Mary pointed to her son. She told the religious leaders that they were high religious persons and her son was also talking about religious matters. They should discuss the matters with him. (V. 30)

    Then the Jewish elders said, “How can we discuss anything with some one who was (had been) a child who used to suck mother’s milk in mother’s lap; meaning that Jesus had no status in comparison with the elders. (V. 30)

    At that time, Jesus spoke up, “ I am a servant of God (Abdullah). He (God) has given me the book and made me a prophet.” “And He has made me blessed where ever I may be and He has advised me to offer regular prayers and pay the poor money as long as I live.” “And (ordered me that) I should be kind and respectful to my mother and He has not made me arrogant, disobedient person.”

    “There is peace on me on the day I was born and on the day I die and on the day I am raised to life again.” (Verses 31 to 34.)

    The above, last lines, are the words of Jesus a.s. in the Quran chapter 19. Any one can read it there. Now please think over about all these matters. These are the words which are revealed to the prophet Muhammad by God Almighty. He (Muhammad, in peace with Allah) has recorded them for us in the Quran. It is telling us all about Jesus and his mother and what happened to them.

    We Muslims love Jesus and his mother and his friends and his teachings. We do not love the enemies of Jesus. Or any one who had been an enemy of Jesus. We love the Jews too because Jesus belonged to the Jews. Good or bad, he is still their man. They can love or hate him as they like.

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43. Forget ego issues and embrace the truth,and I think counter ideas should be directed to the points made by the author,and this is supposed to be a platform where truth battles it out with truth,the only difference is what the various parties conceives as truth,but then our failure to accept the truth is a betrayal of our concience,and perhaps of our very existence!

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44. “When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.” René Descartes

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45. All Muslims, and Jews and Christians are suffering from a false belief. I ask you would any god worth his name ask you to kill your son? Commandment No.13 says “Thou shalt not kill” No but you continue to believe that it was that same Allah who gave us the 10 Commandments asked the prophet

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46. I must admit that reading the blog above is more intresting than the post itself.

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47. Zia H. Shah MD
    U are trying to make a true to false… This is what u trying to do is to prove false things to true… The only thing is believe in Jesus then only u can able to come out this thing. JESUS WILL SAVE U… JESUS LOVES U..

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48. This one great article by Tark El Nimir reveal a shocking biblical fact:

    One maybe confuse to learn that Jesus said “if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death” John 8:51”, yet Jesus referring to himself said “they will condemn him to death” Matthew 20:18. How can the one who keep Jesus’ words live forever, but Jesus himself Died?. In fact, never have the four Gospels ever mentioned the phrase: “Jesus resurrected”. Why?

    The New Testament uses the words (death-die)for spiritual death. Yet for a righteous mans’ physical death, which is a separation of the soul from the body, the New Testament used the words “fallen asleep” translated from the Greek word {κοιμάω- koimaó}.

    Shockingly, when it came to the only sinless man in the Bible “JESUS”, the Bible always says “Jesus died” . WHY?

    The answer is so simple and…READ MORE @ http://www.godrevelation.org/the-death-god-in-the-cross/..

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49. To my dear christian brethren. We all might not be brothers and sisters in faith but we are indeed brothers and sisters in humanity and we all have been created from one soul.let us come together and use our intelligence and reasoning faculties that the almighty has blessed us with.I noticed from the above comments no one has mentioned Barnabus a disciple of Jesus may peace be upon him,so I’d like to metion a thing or two. The Gospel of Barnabas is the only known surviving gospel written by a disciple of Jesus(pbuh),that is by a man who spent most his time in the actual company of jesus during the 3 years in which he was delivering his message.He therefore had direct expereince and knowledge of Jesus’s (pbuh) teaching,unlike all the authors of the four accepted Gospels. Here we have an eyewitness account of Jesus’s life.The Gospel of barnabas was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the churches of Alexandria up until 325 A.D. It is known that it was being circulated in the first and second centuries after the birth of Jesus peace be upon him..In 325 AD the famous council of Nicea was held. The Doctrine of the Trinity was declared to be the official doctrine of the Pauline church and one of the consequences of this decision. Was that out of the three hundred or so Gospels extant at the time four were chosen as the official Gospels of the Church. The remaining Gospels were ordered to be destroyed- it was also decided that all Gospels written in hebrew should be destroyed. Anyone found with an unauthorised Gospel would be put to death. This was the first well- organised attempt to remove all the records of Jesus’s original teaching .In the case of the Gospel of barnanbas these orders were not entirely successful and mention of its continued existence has been made up to the present day.I urge All Christians to Read the Gospel of Barnabas you will find therein true teachings and sayings of our beloved Messiah Jesus son of Mary- may peace be upon them both. I’d like to end with an invite to Islam. The True Religion of Submission,Surrendering And Obedience to The Almighty and in doing so we will attain true peace and contentment in this World and the next God willing. It promotes compassion, love,harmony,Justice,equality,discipline and more. We are all accountable for our actions and will rewarded as such in the hereafter- this is indeed the Teaching of Adam,Noah,Abraham,Moses,Jesus And Mohamed May peace be upon them all-they All called towards the Worship of the CreaTOR and Not CreaTED. This is True Abrahamic Monotheism. I also Urge everyone of you to read the Quran and see for yourself you don’t have to take my word or anyones word- You read it and can decide on your own, you owe it to yourself. May Peace,Mercy and the blessings of the Almighty be upon you All.

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50. Dear All,

    I am still looking for a response to my post dated 20 March 2013 where I copied a short article.

    The death and resurrection of Jesus has to be understood in its wider context:

    What happened to the sacrifices mentioned in the Torah as the basis to get forgiveness? The words’ “sacrifice(s)”/“offering(s)” are found 1047 times in the Holy Bible and only 16 times in the Holy Qur’ān but there they never refer to the forgiveness of sins. How can that be possible if the Quran is supposed to confirm the message of previous Scriptures?

    On what basis do Muslims get forgiveness from Allah? Please let me know your thoughts.

    Kind regards,

    Abraham

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