Christianity: Unique and Beyond Coincidence

Melvyn R. Cyrus
January 3, 2012

Contents
Foreword 4

Features of Christianity that make it unique

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1 Universality 1.1 Christianity is universal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 The spread of Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 The Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Christianity is above any cultural, ethnical, and linguistic barrier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.4 Impact on our civilization and relevance . . . . . . . . 1.2 Buddhism is not universal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Islam is not universal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 The spread of Islam and the Quran . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Islam is not beyond cultural, ethnical, and linguistic barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Islam is not compatible with universal moral values . .

2 History of salvation and accomplished prophecies 20 2.1 The case of the judeo-christian revelation . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.1.1 Progressive revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.1.2 The fulllment of the Old Testament . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.1.3 Connection between the Old and the New Testaments 22 2.2 The case of Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.2.1 Several objections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.2.2 Muslim appeal to biblical prophecy . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.3 Other religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3 Survived persecution 3.1 The case of Old Testament Judaism and of Christianity 3.1.1 Old Testament Judaism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Other religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 29 29 29 30 31

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4 Based on an event (Resurrection) 5 Several witnesses of that event 6 A erce persecutor converted (St. Paul) 7 Greatest achievement with poorest means 8 Attempt to disprove my point 8.1 Several objections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Some inconsistencies in the Quran . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 The Quran about the Bible . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 The Quran about Judaism and Christianity . 8.2.3 Plagiarism from apocryphal christian writings 9 Assessment

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II

Other characteristics beyond coincidence

Messiah came out of the Promise . . . . . . . . . . . Trully monotheistic people . What about Muhammad? . Assessment . . . . . . . . . only . . . . . . . . . . . . monotheistic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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10 The 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4

11 Did Islam rise by chance? 11.1 Islam as an attack on Christianity 11.1.1 Theologically . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 Morally . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.3 Personally and militarily . . 11.2 A response to the muslim objection 11.3 It did not happen by chance . . . .

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12 Accomplished prophecies 12.1 The promise to Abraham . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Timing of the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.1 Period of time in which the Messiah had 12.2.2 The Seventy Weeks of Daniel . . . . . . 12.3 The eternal reign of Christ among nations . . . 12.4 The suerings of Jesus Christ . . . . . . . . . . 12.4.1 Rejection by his people . . . . . . . . . 12.4.2 The Passion of Christ . . . . . . . . . . 12.5 Others prophecies about Christ . . . . . . . . . 12.5.1 Virgin birth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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12.5.2 Birth in Bethlehem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.5.3 Ministry in Galilee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6 Prophecies for the times after Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6.1 Great expansion but also great apostasy at the end 12.6.2 The return of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7 Other foreshadowings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.1 The power of the Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.2 The Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.3 The divinity of Jesus Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.4 Bread and wine as oering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.5 The seed of the woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.6 Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7.7 Isaiah 53 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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73 73 74 74 75 76 76 76 77 78 79 79 80

13 Some other points 83 13.1 Christianity stands out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 13.2 The Resurrection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 14 Final assessment A Do the conicts between religions disprove Christianity? B A critique of non-religious theism 85 87 91

C The aws of anti-resurrection theories 95 C.1 The conspiracy theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 C.2 The hallucination theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Epilogue Bibliography 100 102

Foreword
Dear Reader,

the purpose of this book is to present you more than one year of thinking about Christianity and the reasons which make it true. Even if I was not raised as a devout Christian, I started going to church1 regularly on my own when I was around fteen years old. This major breakthrough in my life happened so promptly and also so naturally that I did not even think at that time about the arguments in favor of the veracity of the christian faith. It was simply a calling and I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ without asking me much questions. However, soon after, when I started being involved with philosophical thinking, I had to deal with doubts about my faith. Many questions started obsessing me: Why should Christianity be true? What if another faith besides Christianity were the true one? And what if atheists were right, and there was absolutely nothing beyond this material world? I had answers to many objections, but I was never completely sure that I was right. Those doubts followed me throughout many years, around ten to be more precise. It was very dicult dealing with that problem, especially because Jesus Christ has been a part of me ever since I started going to church, and I simply could not imagine my life without Him. My life would have no sense anymore if He were not risen from the dead, as the apostle Paul puts it: 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins... If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied2 . As I have said, I was never able to completely get rid of those doubts. I could more or less control them and even keep them below the general level of consciousness, but they were always reemerging from time to time, sometimes even strongly. The climax was attained in the year 2010, and this is when I started being acquainted with the eld of christian apologetics. I
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I am a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. All the Bible quotations come from the Revised Standard Version.

had to nd a solution and somehow I was thinking that being involved in apologetics could provide a solution to my problem. And I think that I was not wrong. I started not only reading apologetic material, but also thinking on my own and developing my own arguments. After more than one year of hard reasoning and work, I can nally say that my doubts are vanished, and I think that it is also a good time now to write the main arguments down. My main purpose in this booklet is to explain what makes Christianity unique. I often hear skeptics saying that their reason for not believing in Christianity or any other religion is because there are so many of them, which obviously, according to their reasoning, makes them all false. Well, this applies only if all religions were comparable, but is a weak and even risky argument if one can show than one of them stands out. But I wont restrict myself to showing that Christianity is a nice religion better than the others. My aim is also to explain how its uniqueness, and several other features as well, make it beyond coincidence. The probability for Christianity appearing by chance is extremely low, it must therefore have happened according to the will of a superior being that we generally call God. Christianity is therefore the religion that God endorses, that is the true faith in the true God. At this point, I am also aware that this book may be read by people of dierent religious aliations. If you are a Christian, and especially if you are sometimes faced by doubts, I hope this contribution might help you overcome them. I used to be in the same dicult situation, but the material I am presenting here helped me get out of it. If you are an adherent of any other world religion, I hope that the material presented will incite you to compare your religion with Christianity and see if the arguments in favor of the former can measure up with those in favor of the latter. Finally, if you have no religion, and it is mostly to you that I am addressing this work, I hope that you are going to carefully consider the arguments in favor of Christianity presented here and ponder on them setting aside your prejudices. The claims of this foreword might seem not reasonable to you now, but maybe it will not be the same after the reading. And even if after you do not agree, and you still think that Christianity is only one "false" religion among others, try to provide such a material for some other world religion. If you fail, my point is proven. Finally, I would like to stress that it is important to read the booklet from the beginning till the end3 . It is only when all pieces of the general argument are brought together that the uniqueness of Christianity is most
Nevertheless, if you do not have time or are looking for quick answers, I would recommend you to skip the parts dealing with other religions in a rst reading and come back to them later, especially when the point to be proven does not present much objections to you. Since I am comparing Christianity with other religions, I do have to touch on other religions, especially Islam. This can sometimes look fastidious and break the line of argumentation, but is absolutely necessary to defend my point.
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evident. If you read only one part, you probably will not be able to get the full picture. This argumentative essay is intended to be like a "journey". You have to go through all of it, and it is only at the end that you can most appreciate it. Obviously, you should not believe blindly everything I say, but please examine everything with an open mind, and maybe at the end you will see that the only solution is that Christianity is true and that Jesus Christ is the Savior that can change your life as He changed mine. You do not have anything to lose, you only have the possibility to win. I hope that you are ready for this journey!

Melvyn R. Cyrus4

To contact the author: melvyn.cyrus@googlemail.com

Part I

Features of Christianity that make it unique

In this rst part, I will be dealing with a series of features that only Christianity can claim to possess. I will restrict myself to seven features. Of course, some might not agree and this is why I will also touch on other world religions in order to defend the uniqueness of Christianity regarding those points. Some of those features are more important than others, but all seven of them have to say something important about why should Christianity be true, at the very least they clearly go in favor of it. At the end, the combination of all of them enables us to reach a conclusion. Here is the list of the seven points that will be dealt with:

1. Universality 2. History of salvation and accomplished prophecies 3. Survived persecutions 4. Based on an event (Resurrection) 5. Several witnesses of that event 6. A erce persecutor converted (St. Paul) 7. Greatest achievement with poorest means

Chapter 1

Universality
The criterion of universality is very important. I would even say that the true religion must be universal. There is no reason why God would endorse a religious belief that can only reach out one part of humanity. Now that our human civilization has reached a certain degree of maturity and possesses incredible means of transportation, communication, and information, we also expect the true religion to have a consequent spread over the planet and to have a signicant impact on our civilization. I claim that this is only achieved by Christianity.

1.1

Christianity is universal

Christianity presents many features that make it a universal religion more than other.

1.1.1

The spread of Christianity

Christianity claims around 2.1 billion followers1 . This represents almost one third of the world population and makes it the worlds largest religion. Of course, the fact that Christianity claims more adherents than any other religion does not make it better than others, not even more universal by itself. Nevertheless, as I have already said, we do expect of a universal religion to have a signicant number of followers and to have a huge presence over the planet. The reason is very simple: a person seeking a religion seriously will denitely have to consider Christianity at some point, whereas she or he might not do as well for lets say Hinduism, as being present mostly in India, or Judaism, as claiming only a very small number of followers compared to other religions.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations If you are reading this work in a pdf format, you have to copy and paste the links from Wikipedia. For the others references, you can almost always directly click on them.

Christianity is fullling this criterion very well. It has a signicant representation on all continents, and even in countries where it is not the main religion, one can still nd christian communities. For instance, there are around 24 million2 Christians in India (only 2.3% of the population3 ), 14 millions4 in South Korea (29.2% of the population5 ), and more than 20 millions in Indonesia (around 10% of the population6 ), which is a predominantly muslim country. It is very important to note that most of those Christians are native of those coutries and do not come from an immigrational background7 . No other religion presents this particular feature to have signicant numbers of native adherents in countries where it is not the main religion.

1.1.2

The Bible

The Bible is the best-selling book in history and the most translated book: "Bible translations have been made into 2,572+ languages, one of the two Testaments in 1,668 languages, and the full Protestant Canon of the Bible in 457 languages as of May 2011."8 . Almost every person in the world can read at least a part of the Bible in a language she or he speaks uently. And many translations are still in progress, the number is constatly increasing. Needless to say, the Bible is the most prominent book ever written, with an impact not only restricted to the Christian world. This is very important, since we expect from an universal religion, if it is based on a written scripture, that its founding book played a signicant role in world history and also that it is accessible in many languages, so that no inquirer should be disadvantaged. The prominence of a book is obviously important since, once again, a seeker might preferably consider the Bible9 than the Hindu Baghavad Gita while searching for the truth.

1.1.3

Christianity is above any cultural, ethnical, and linguistic barrier

This is very important. A trully universal religion should be compatible with any culture and language. When you become a Christian, you can keep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India But despite of this low percentage you still have christian churches all over India making it very easy for an Indian inquirer to have a real contact with Christianity. 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea#Religion 5 Thus you have more Christians in South Korea than Buddhists (22.8%) even if Buddhism is a typically Asian religion with a signicant spread in the area. 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Indonesia 7 Whereas most Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in Europe and North America come from an immigrationnal background originating in the 20th century. 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_by_language 9 This is also true for the Quran. Both the Bible and the Quran should be considered ba any serious and objective seeker. However, Islam presents several problems regarding universality that will be dealt with later in this chapter.
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dressing the way you used to dress10 , you can keep eating and drinking what you were used to, you can worship in your language... The last point is very important. Everyone should be able to use a language she or he unsderstands for worship11 . There is no reason why God, who created all peoples, should impose a special language. Christianity has been multicultural and multilinguistic since its very beginning. This passage from the Acts is illustrating our point very well: Acts of the Apostles 2:4-11 And they were all lled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance... And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?... we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." This is far away not the case of all religions. For instance, Islam imposes Arabic for whorship, and in Hinduism, and to some extent in Buddhism, mantras are repeated in Sanskrit.

1.1.4

Impact on our civilization and relevance

Everyone must acknowledge the importance of Christianity in the developement of the Western (or European) civilization. Christian values have shaped the evolution of our society. I always wonder what would have happened with our civilization had the Barbarians that invaded the Roman Empire not converted to Christianity! The clergy also played for a very long time in Europe a signicant role in the eld of education. All that must be recognized12 . Now, this is quite important due to the impact of the Western culture on the entire world. This expansion brought also with it the inuence of christian values on our modern civilization on a large scale. It is very signicant that the modern values of freedom, human rights, and dignity of the human person were mostly promoted by countries with a christian background13 , and not by countries with an islamic, hindu, or buddhist background. Even if you live in a Western country where religion nowadays is only playing a
Provided obviously it was modestly! It is accordingly very fortunate that the Catholic Church is now allowing, and even promoting, whorship in native languages. 12 I would personally even dare to say that Christianity is the rock on which our modern civilization was built. 13 It is also true that many Western countries did regrettable actions. Nevertheless, this was done in a spirit not compatible with what Christianity really teaches, whereas the notion of human rights is perfectly compatible with the teachings of the Gospel and even owns much to it. Human rights are no more than secularized christian principles.
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minor role, you cannot deny the cultural background of your country that was shaped for centuries by Christianity and the positive impact that the latter had on it14 . In that way, we may say that Christianity had an impact, at least indirectly through the expansion of the European civilization and the promotion of human rights on an international level, not only on christian countries, but also on the rest of the world. Another important point is that Christianity, though it emerged two thousand years ago, is still fully relevant to our modern and democratic society. This is not the case of all religions. For instance, Islam promotes in its teachings a certain form of intolerance towards unbelievers and a lower position for women15 . In Hinduism, you have the caste system that is clearly incompatible with the notion of human rights. On the contrary, the teachings of Christianity go even beyond the criteria of our modern society since they promote universal love, and even love towards the ennemies. This is what our Lord Jesus said: Matthew 5:44-48 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. To conlude, all those features summed up show that Christianity is trully a universal religion. Its spread and presence all over the world, the inuence and accessibility of its teachings, due partly to the notoriety of the Bible that has been translated into so many languages, its capabilty of tting with any culture, and the positive impact it had on the world especially regarding the promotion of human rights make it incomparable with other religions. Since the criterion of universality is essential for determining which religion is true, and Christianity is fullling it much better than any other religious system, only that point should be sucient to consider only Christianity as a potentially true religion16 . In case some might still object that Christianity is not the only universal religion, I will deal in the following sections with two other religions: Buddhism and Islam17 .
I have already talked with non-believers who do acknowledge that. The fact that Christianity played a signicant and positive role in the evolution of our society is something even many non-believers are ready to recognize. 15 This will be explained in more details later. 16 But dont worry! There is much more to come! 17 I do not deal with Hinduism because it is obviously not at all a universal religion, and does not even claim to be one. It is mostly a religion of the Indian people.
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1.2

Buddhism is not universal

Buddhism is an Asian religion claiming 400500 millions followers18 . It emerged some time between the 6th and the 4th century BC and was initiated by Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha. I do not consider it to be an universal religion, especially when compared with Christianity, for the following reasons19 : Even if the number of followers is by itself not the most signicant criterion, Buddhism claims much less adherents than Christianity or Islam. It is mostly practiced in Asia, which makes it a typically Asian religion. Contrary to Christianity, it does not claim a signicant number of followers outside of its traditional spheres of inuence. It is certainly becoming popular in the West, but this is not due to Buddhism itself, but rather to a general fondness for esoterism and everything exotic that is increasing in our society. The same applies to Hinduism and some sectarian movements such as Hare Krishna and the Transcendental Meditation. The main buddhist texts, such as the Pali Tipitaka and the Mahayana sutras are almost unknown, even by name. Their prominence and inuence cannot denitely compete with that of the Bible. The teachings of Buddhism did not have at all the same impact on the world compared to those of Christianity20 . Several buddhist sects use incomprehensible mantras for meditation. The goal of Buddhism is somewhat puzzling. Supposedly trying to nd the path of liberation, the buddhist monk is striving through meditation to reach some sort of state which I would simply call "emptiness". This is denitely not appealing to common people, this nal goal seems counter-intuitive. The armation of our personality is something crucial for most of us, and Buddhism seems to go against it. In the same context, it seems that the teachings of Buddha are suitable only for people living in the monastic state. There were also adaptations for the laity for sure, but one really has the feeling that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups#Religious_demographics This is a very short section. For me, it is quite obvious that Buddhism is a strictly Asian religious and philosophical system. Nevertheless, some have already tried to disprove my point by mentioning Buddhism. This is why I would like to present a few thoughts here. 20 See previous section.
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the teachings are primarily addressed to monks, and can be perfectly put into practice only by them. This poses obviously a serious problem for the criterion of universality. In Christianity, we do have monastic communities, but the teachings of Jesus Christ concern all equally. This should be sucient. It should also be noted that in Buddhism there is no God above our world. It is principally a non-theistic religion. This is worth mentioning since I often hear from skeptics that they believe in a sort of god overseeing the material world, but do not adhere to any religion. Buddhism does not even provide that.

1.3

Islam is not universal

Islam is a religion initiated in Arabia in the 7th century by Muhammad, who according to Muslims is the last of a series of prophets including Moses and Jesus. It claims today around 1.5 billion followers, which makes it the second largest religion after Christianity. For this reason, people often mention Islam when trying to disprove that Christianity is the only universal religion. Lets then look at the fact more closely. Does this high number necessarily imply that Islam is a universal religion?21

1.3.1

The spread of Islam and the Quran

It is true that Islam has a huge number of followers and is the main religion of many countries. Nevertheless, there are still some dierences with Christianity: Christianity is signicantly represented on all continents, it is spread on a much larger geographical scale, whereas the islamic world is more compact and does not have a signicant presence on some large parts of the world, for instance in Latin America. The main dierence is denitely that most Muslims living outside of the traditional sphere of inuence of Islam come from an immigrational background. For Christianity, it is quite the contrary. Lets give an example. Japan is neither a christian nor a muslim country, but there are around one million Japanese Christians in Japan, whereas there are
This section is going to be much longer and extend over six pages! I do often expand on Islam since it is the second largest religion after Christianity, and also because it is my eld of specialization in apologetics. Islam is, according to me, the only religion that can pretend to compete with Christianity, because of its spread and its impact on a large portion of the world. However, when one looks closer at it, it presents many unsolvable problems and I will touch on some of them in this essay. However, I am aware that a much larger contribution would be needed to engage eciently with a muslim reader, and I am planning to write such a one dedicated only to Islam in the future (probably not before 2013).
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around 120,000 Muslims and 90% of them come from muslim countries and are not ethnic Japanese22 . It should also be noted that there are signicant christian minorities in many muslim countries, the existence of which often predates Islam (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria...). Those minorities are mostly composed of native Christians23 . When it comes to the Quran, one can say that it has been less translated than the Bible and enjoys, at least for the moment, a less prominent position than its christian counterpart. Finally, while it is true that Islam had a huge impact on muslim countries, its impact on a larger scale is not comparable with that of Christianity. The latter being the religion that shaped the Western culture, it denitely also had an inuence on non-christian countries as well24 .

1.3.2

Islam is not beyond cultural, ethnical, and linguistic barriers

Far from being universal, Islam is more what I would call an "Arabic religion". The name of the religion is Arabic, you even call God with an Arabic name: "Allah". The most puzzling thing is that it imposes Arabic for whorship. Both common and private prayers must be recited in Arabic. This is very problematic, especially since Arabic is quite a tough language and is not at all easy to pronounce25 . Since Arabic counts around 300 million rst language speakers26 , this means that probably more than one billion Muslism do not have a clue about Arabic, and yet they have to recite their prayers in this language. Some go even as far as to recite the Quran in Arabic without understanding it, just for the sake of reading it in Arabic. Of course, this is a major blow to any claim of universality. Imagine imposing prayers in Arabic to people coming from Japan from example. Some groups of people might denitely have diculties pronouncing many Arabic letters. For some, it might even be impossible. When you become a Christian, on the contrary, you do not have this problem because you can whorship both in community and in private and recite the Bible in your own language. God can be gloried in any language. God is almighty and is above any language barrier. The other problem is that Islam imposes many rules that are not compatible with some cultures. For instance, it is forbidden to consume alcohol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan Another problem is that, Muslims being often intolerant towards other religions, missionary work can be very dicult in muslim countries, and must sometimes even be conducted underground. There would certainly be much more Christians in muslims countries if the latter were more tolerant and would allow christian missionaries to preach freely. 24 See the section on Christianity. 25 One can also wonder why God did not choose an easier language, or a language much more international such as English. 26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic#Language_and_dialect
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and pork meat. Both products are important in many cultures, including the Western one. It also imposes the wearing of the veil for woman. Needless to say, this is incompatible with the dressing code of some countries, especially when it comes to the traditional clothing27 . Islam represents therefore an attack on the integrity of some cultures and cannot be considered a universal religion. This is probably one of the reasons why it is less appealing than Christianity beyond the borders of the muslim world.

1.3.3

Islam is not compatible with universal moral values

The incompatibility of Islam with our modern values becomes even more striking when one looks more closely at some of its teachings. "Koranic injunctions, hadiths28 and Islamic teachings establish or endorse practices wholly at odds with conscience and natural law, let alone with Christs teachings and those of the New Testament29 ." Islam on violence The Quran commands Muslims to ght the unbelievers until they embrace Islam: Sura 8:12 I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each nger.30 Sura 9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye nd them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Sura 47:4 Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds;31 Critics might say that I am prejudiced because I am selecting verses and misinterpreting them. So, lets quote the most prominent Sunni commentator, Ibn Kathir (14th century), to see his interpretation of one of those verses (9:5):
Imagine a for instance a Japanese Geisha having to wear a veil! Collections of words of Muhammad, represent the second major class of texts in Islam after the Quran. 29 Ralph H. Sidway, Facing Islam, KBS Press, 2010, p70. 30 All quotations from the Quran come from the Pickthall translation. 31 It would be too fastidious to quote all the verses promoting violence in the Quran. Other major verses are: 2:191-193, 2:216, 8:60, 9:111, 48:17... For a more complete list, see: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm
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This is the Ayah (verse) of the Sword... do not wait until you nd them. Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them. This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam... These Ayat allowed ghting people unless, and until, they embrace Islam and implement its rulings and obligations32 (emphasis ours). Therefore, Islam clearly promotes violence as a means of establishing itself. This cannot be found in any other major religion. The Quran also promotes the opression of unbelievers. Here is the most important verse: Sura 9:29 Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. Once again, I provide a commentary from Ibn Kathir: This honorable Ayah was revealed with the order to ght the People of the Book33 , after the pagans were defeated... Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah34 or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated... This is why the Leader of the faithful Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace35 (emphasis ours). This is what the most inuential Sunni commentator has to say on ghting the unbelievers and humiliating the Jews and the Christians. Needless to say, we are here very far from the universal love, including towards ennemies, preached by Jesus Christ. Most people would expect from a religion to promote only peace. This is denitely not the case of Islam which has
Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Commentary on Sura 9:5 http://www.quran4u.com/Tafsir Ibn Kathir/PDF/009 Tawbah.pdf (copy and paste the link) 33 The Jews and the Christians 34 Ibid. 35 Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Commentary on Sura 9:29 http://www.quran4u.com/Tafsir Ibn Kathir/PDF/009 Tawbah.pdf Note once again that we have here statements from the quranic commentary collection most popular among Sunni Muslims even today.
32

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violence in its very core36 . This is therefore very counter-intuitive and Islam cannot be considered as an universal religion. Other problems Islam poses also several other problems. Here are some of them37 : Polygamy38 and sex with concubines from among conquered peoples: Sura 4:3 And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice. Sura 4:24 And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess39 . Sura 23:5-6 And who guard their modesty - Save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy, Wife-beating: Sura 4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them40 .
36 For sure there are also verses promoting peace, but the teachings about violence are there and they have inspired Muslims for centuries inciting them to commit violent actions in the name of their religion. A universal religion must promote only peace. Period. 37 I cannot expand too much on those subjects by fear of being o-topic and also annoying to the non-muslim reader. My goal is only to show that Islam cannot be a universal religion, and I hope that the material provided here is enough. This should not be a problem for the unbiased (about Islam) non-muslim reader. Detailing too much would require a separate essay, which I plan to write in the future in order to engage directly with Muslims. For more information, visit the following websites: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ http://www.answering-islam.org/ 38 Up to four wives. 39 Verse allowing adultery! 40 Muslim scholars often contend that this refers to a "gentle" beating, but even if it does not hurt much this act is still very humiliating. There is no reason why a universal religion would allow one sex to have such rights over the other.

18

 Child marriage: Sura 65:4 And for such of your women as despair of menstruation, if ye doubt, their period (of waiting) shall be three months, along with those who have it not41 . And for those with child, their period shall be till they bring forth their burden. And whosoever keepeth his duty to Allah, He maketh his course easy for him. I would like to end up here this accumulation of facts about Islam. This is all very appalling to non-muslims, which clearly shows that Islam cannot claim to be a universal religion, despite of its important number of followers. It is on the contrary incompatible with modern values and irrelevant to the modern world. It should also be noted that one of the goals of Islam is to impose its religious law, the Sharia, wherever it can. This legal system is denitely not universal since it does not give the same rights to all citizens42 . To end up this section, I would like to quote a few lines from a study on Islam: It is evident that many islamic moral principles are in accordance with those preached by Christianity, some are neutral, whereas some are in clear contradiction with the spirit of the Gospel. The modern man is particularly appalled by social structures that contradict the right to freedom of all humans and he cannot trust them. We think concretely about: rst, the depreciation of women and the scandalous unilaterality in favor of men in aairs of marriage and divorce; second, the ocial religious recognition of the institution of slavery; third, the theological justication of war... the principles of international law on the equality of all humans and the respect of the individual freedom that clearly derive from christian ideals, contribute to a new understanding of those classical muslim positions and, at least in practice, to their reformation.43

Most commentators agree that this refers to girls that are too young to menstruate. It should also be noted that verse 33:49 waives the waiting period for women that have not been touched. This would therefore imply that verse 65:4 concerns girls that have not yet menstruated, but have already been touched by their husbands (I think you understand what "touch" means in this context). 42 Believers vs. unbelievers and men vs. women. 43 Anastasios Yannoulatos, Islam: A General Survey, 1975, translation from a Serbian version.

41

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Chapter 2

History of salvation and accomplished prophecies

This is a very important feature which, though not absolutely necessary for a religion to be true, gives it nevertheless a high degree of credibility. This is especially the case of the accomplished prophecies. They show that there is a superior being who is controlling the whole thing. The religion concerned by those prophecies must therefore be the one which is endorsed by God, provided the probability of all those prophecies being fullled is low enough.

2.1
2.1.1

The case of the judeo-christian revelation

Progressive revelation

One very interesting feature of the judeo-christian revelation is that it develops stepwise. God spoke to Abraham1 , He gave the Law through Moses2 , He announced the salvation to come through many prophets, and nally "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) As the Epistle to the Hebrews states in its very beginning: Hebrews 1:1-2 In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. See also the prologue of Johns Gospel: John 1:17-18 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God;
1 2

See the Book of Genesis, starting from chapter 12. See the other four books from the Pentateuch.

20

the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. God revealed Himself to the people of Israel in the Old Testament (OT) as one God: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deut. 6:4). In the New Testament (NT), He goes a step further and reveals His plurality and His triune nature3 . One signicant passage is the baptism of Jesus: Matthew 3:16-17 And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." What is also interesting is that, before Christ, no prophet was claiming to be the last one. In many religions, there comes a prophet who claims to be the true one and the last one. Of course, this was also in some way the case of Jesus Christ, but there was before Him a long series of prophets who were announcing the deliverance to come and His ministry, and were not elevating themselves above other prophets. Lets just mention a few of them: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah, Zechariah... It is important to note that there were no more prophets in Judaism after Jesus Christ. The last one was Malachi (about 420 BC), and his book is also included in the christian Bible. What also legitimates the claims of Jesus Christ is that such a Messiah was expected. He was announced in the OT and many were waiting for him to come at the time of Jesus. This can be seen in the NT, here are a few examples: Matthew 11:2-3 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" John 1:45 Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." John 4:25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things."
3 We will see at the end of the essay that there were also foreshadowings of the plurality of the unique God in the OT.

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2.1.2

The fulllment of the Old Testament

God revealed Himself to only one people on earth, the Hebrew people. It was the only people that professed monotheism. All the peoples around were pagans. It is therefore amazing that it is exactly from this people that the Messiah came whose dominion extended throughout the world4 . Jesus Christ is the fulllment of the Law and of the OT in general: Matthew 5:17 Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to full them. Luke 24:25-27 And he said to them, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Jesus Christ accomplished many prophecies of the OT5 . There are more than 300 predictions of His ministry in the Scripture that we share with the Jews6 . Obviously, no other religious founder can claim to come even close to this degree of accomplishment. This feature makes Christianity absolutely unique.

2.1.3

Connection between the Old and the New Testaments

Once again, it is very interesting to see how the OT nds its fulllment in the NT. The latter is full of quotations of the former7 . Jesus Christ is the one towards whom the OT is leading, the revelation nds its climax in the revelation of the Son of God8 .
There will be a special chapter dedicated to this issue in the second part of the essay. There are special prophecies in the OT concerning this. I do not expand more on it for now. 5 There will be a special chapter dedicated to the prophecies accomplished by Jesus Christ in the second part. Just keep on reading! 6 Some say that there are 365 messianic prophecies fullled by Jesus. You can nd the list under: http://bibleprobe.com/365messianicprophecies.htm I recommend to have a look at it because the parallels in the NT are also listed, which makes it very relevant for our point. See also: http://www.bibleprobe.com/over-300-prophecies.pdf 7 Here I just invite the reader to read an annoted NT with all the references and allusions to the OT. The way in which the authors of the NT rely on the OT is very impressive. There is nothing comparable among the other main world religions. 8 I enjoin the reader to read the Epistle to the Hebrews to have a very relevant illustration of this point. This Epistle is full of quotations from the OT foreshadowing the ministry and glory of Jesus Christ. Once again, use an annoted Bible.
4

22

Another interesting feature is the use of typology. Let us rst quote a scholar to explain what a type is: A type is a person, event, or thing in the Old Testament which foreshadows or symbolizes some future reality God brings to pass9 . Some specic examples of types: Adam was a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14); Noahs Ark and the Flood were types of the Church and baptism (1 Peter 3:19-21); Moses, who delivered Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, was a type of Christ, who saves us from the bondage of slavery to sin and death; circumcision foreshadowed baptism; the slain passover lamb in Exodus 12: 21-28 was a symbol of Jesus, the Lamb of God, being slain on the Cross to save sinners. The important thing to understand about a type is that its fulllment is always more glorious, more profound, more "real" than the type itself10 . There are many more examples: Isaac who carried the wood of the burnt oering to be oered as a sacrice in Gen. 22 was a type of Christ who carried His cross to the Golgotha and was really sacriced; the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus (Passover) is the type of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ who brought us from death to life; the burnt oering for atonement in the OT is a type of the sacrice of our Lord who atoned for our sins on the Cross; the person of the king in Israel and later Judah, who was anointed and considered as a son of God by adoption, is a type of Jesus Christ who is the anointed One (Messiah) and the real Son of God... The examples are so numerous that we cannot list them all. One amazing example is how Luke is making parallels between Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Ark of the Covenant by making allusions to OT verses. The typology used is quite impressive: The Old Testament tells us that one item was placed inside the Ark of the Old Covenant while in the Sinai wilderness: God told Moses to put the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inside the ark (Deut. 10:35). Hebrews 9:4 informs us that two additional items were placed in the Ark: "a golden urn holding the manna, and Aarons rod that budded." Notice the amazing parallels: In the ark was the law of God inscribed in stone; in Marys womb was the Word of God in esh. In the ark was the urn of manna, the bread from heaven that kept Gods people alive in the wilderness; in Marys womb is the Bread of Life come down from heaven that brings eternal life. In the ark was the rod of
See these verses for Old Testament types fullled in the New Testament: Col. 2:17, Heb. 1:1, 9:9, 9:24, 10:1; 1 Cor. 15:45-49; Gal. 4:24-25. 10 Patrick Madrid, Ark of the New Covenant, http://archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1991/9112fea1.asp
9

23

Aaron, the proof of true priesthood; in Marys womb is the true priest11 . This shows to which degree both Testaments are interconnected. It is a very profound connection, it is not simply based on quoting the OT without relevance and making supercial analogies. This characteristic is to be found in no other religion.

2.2

The case of Islam

Islam seems to make a similar claim. It pretends to be the fulllment of true Judaism and true Christianity, of the true religion of Moses, Jesus, and other prophets which was corrupted with time. Lets see how irrelevant this claim of Islam is, and how the facts show that it simply cannot measure up with Christianity on this issue.

2.2.1

Several objections

Here are the main objections listed and commented: Islam rejects the actual OT and NT. Muslims claim that the real Torah delivered to Moses and the real Injil (Gospel) delivered to Jesus have been corrupted and are not available anymore12 . On the contrary, Christianity possesses the same Scritpure for the OT as the Jews, which gives much more credibility to its claim of being the fulllment of the former. We have seen how the NT is the continuation of the OT13 . On the other hand, Islam is of a completely dierent spirit14 . The judeo-christian revelation developed in the context of jewish monotheism. The claim of a prophet coming from pagan Arabia much more than one thousand years after monotheism was established in Israel is simply not credible. One the contrary, we have seen that Jesus the Messiah came from the only trully monotheistic people.
11 Steve Ray, Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant http://archive.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0510fea5.asp See the article for the exact verses. 12 Obviously, since Islam is so incompatible with the judeo-christian revelation, they are forced to reach this conclusion. 13 Refer to the previous section. 14 One just has to read the Bible and then the Quran to notice that. Even the character of the prophethood in the Quran is very dierent from that of the judeo-christian revelation. The Quran certainly draws, more or less accurately, on stories from the OT, but there is no reference to the major prophets to be found in it, namely Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And yet, their books present typical examples of what a prophet in the judeo-christian tradition is.

24

 We have seen that the Jewish people at the time of Jesus was expecting, because of many prophecies, the coming of a Messiah who would deliver his people. Muhammad was expected by no one, certainly not by the Jews and the Christians of that time. There is no scriptural basis whatsoever for expecting a prophet from pagan Arabia, at least not in ve centuries of christian exegesis, and even more of rabbinic interpretation, preceding the rise of Islam. The claims of Islam about Jesus, namely that He preached something similar to Islam, defended people to call Him the Son of God, was not crucied, and therefore did not rise from the dead, are absolutely without historical basis. All the rst and early second century information we have conrms the christian position. This includes the NT, but also post-apostolic writings such as those of Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome, as well as pagan sources15 . The (christian) faith of the early Christians is also an additional proof. The Quran was written almost six centuries after the ministry of Jesus. This should be enough for the moment16 . Now, let us see if Muhammad accomplished some prophecies.

2.2.2

Muslim appeal to biblical prophecy

Muslim scholars claim that Muhammad accomplished prophecies from the Bible. This claim is very astonishing because the same scholars keep on criticizing the Bible, even insulting it, and yet, they dare to use the same Book as a proof of the prophethood of Muhammad. The Bible has been utterly corrupted, except of course the passages that arrange them and seem to refer to their prophet. Obviously, those passages, since everything around is corrupted and therefore irrelevant, are taken out of context. Most of the time, they do not even refer to a prophet, but simply to a camel or Arabia! We will deal here with the two major "prophecies"17 . Note also that muslim apologists are forced to nd prophecies of Muhammad in the Bible because of the following quranic verse: Sura 7:157 Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will nd described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them.
Especially Tacitus writing about the crucixion in his Annals, written c. 116 AD. I will expand more on Islam in the second part. 17 Those are generally called the major prophecies. For the other ones, and also for more information on the two presented here, consult: http://www.answering-islam.org/Muhammad/Foretold/index.html
16 15

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Deuteronomy 18 Deuteronomy 18:15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren him you shall heed Muslims claim that "from your brethren" refers to the Ishmaelites, and the prophet like Moses must be Muhammad. However, the same verse also says "for you" and "from among you". This can only refer to the people of Israel18 . Moreover, in the same chapter, the term "brethren" refers to the tribes of Israel: Deuteronomy 18:2 They (the Levites) shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them. This is also the case in the previous chapter: Deuteronomy 17:15 you may indeed set as king over you him whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. This last verse is very explicit. The prophecy cannot refer to Muhammad, but only to a prophet coming from Israel. It is also not very specic and can apply to any great prophet coming after Moses19 . This prophecy has also been fullled by Jesus Christ. John 14 and 15 John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. Of course, this has always referred for Christians to the Holy Spirit, even at the time of Muhammad, so there is absolutely no way they could nd a prediction of him in this verse. The context is quite clear. Muhammad was not with Jesus disciples for ever, he was not a spirit "whom the world cannot receive" because it cannot see him, and he did not dwell with the disciples! The muslim trick is to say that the Greek word for counsoler, parakletos, has replaced periklytos which means "most praised", which is also the meaning of
Notice here that Muslims have to provide an interpretation of their own whereas I am only quoting the text to prove my point. 19 Samuel for instance.
18

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"Muhammad"20 . The problem is that there is not a single manuscript with the term periklytos instead of parakletos. Further, the former term is used nowhere in the Scripture, not even in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT. On the other hand, we nd parakletos also in 1 John 2:1, which by the way is also a johannine writing, so all the evidence we have points to the fact that the original text contained the term we have now. To conclude, let us quote christian apologist David Wood: Muhammad claimed that the Bible is full of prophecies about the rise of Islam, so Muslims are doing their best to nd those prophecies. Theyve spent nearly fourteen centuries searching for at least two unambiguous predictions (one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament), yet all their attempts have failed. This presents an enormous problem for Islam, for this lack of biblical support leads to a devastating conclusion21 .

2.3

Other religions

Most of other religions do not have similar claims. I would nevertheless like to add a few comments on some of them to see the dierence with Christianity: Hinduism: this religion is based mostly on legends. There is absolutely no way to assess historically the stories about Krishna, Shiva... Buddhism: it is more or less an oshoot from Hinduism. Buddha was disappointed by Hinduism, then he spent some time with Jainist ascetics, and nally, disappointed once again, created a movement on his own. Apparently, for a long time, he did not even know himself what to do. Therefore, contrary to Jesus, he rejected his background. We cannot consider any fulllment here. The stories about his life are also mostly legendary and written down sometimes several centuries after he lived. The NT, on the contrary, was written in the rst century, and some books were even written while the immediate followers of Jesus were still alive22 . Bah Faith: this a small movement claiming around 7 millions follower23 . The founder, Bahullh, lived in the 19th century. He considered himself as the last prophet and drew on the Bible and the
See also Sura 61:6. David Wood, Muhammad In the Bible? An Analysis of the Muslim Appeal to Biblical Prophecy http://www.acts17.net/articles/muhammadinthebible01.htm I denitely recommend reading this article for more information on the subject. 22 For instance Pauls epistles. The critics also have to explain the faith of the rst generations of Christians. 23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah_Faith
21 20

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Quran. However, he had to reject some central tenets of Christianity and Islam. For instance, he did not recognize the Trinity, and the Resurrection of Jesus had only a spiritutal meaning. Once again, we do not have a fulllment here since what comes previously is rejected. This happens very often in the history of religions that a founder comes along, draws on what came before him, but at the same has to reject many tenets of the previous religion(s) he is relying on. This was for example also the case of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Christianity diers from all of those movements in that it does not reject what came before it. We do not have any problem with OT Judaism. Jesus Christ himself was raised as a Jew. Of course, we are not under the Mosaic Law anymore, but we do absolutely recognize that the latter was necessary at some point24 . We perfectly accept the doctrines of OT Judaism, which was the religion revealed by God to the Hebrew people, the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles, and the religion He came to fulll.

24

See Pauls Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians.

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Chapter 3

Survived persecution
This feature can be important if the persecution faced by the religion was on a large scale and on a long run, and also if, at the end, the religion came out victorious and produced a great achievement. So two characteristics are required: important persecution and great achievement. It is not a proof by itself but, combined with other factors, can play an important role in favor of the veracity of a religion. Generally, we would not expect that a religion that faced severe persecution achieves much, this is counterintuitive. If it is the case, it may imply that God is protecting it more than others, and therefore endorses it.

3.1
3.1.1

The case of Old Testament Judaism and of Christianity

Old Testament Judaism

We include OT Judaism in this section because its existence was necessary for the coming of the Messiah. We have already seen that God revealed Himself to the people of Israel, who was the only people professing true monotheism. Had this small people been absorbed by other more powerful peoples and lost its cultural and religious indentity, the judaic religion and monotheism would have disappeared, and with them the ground for the coming of the Messiah. This could have easily happened. For instance, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered in 722 BC by the Assyrian empire and one part of the population was deported. This occured also to the Southern Kingdom of Judah which was conquered in 586 BC by the Babylonian Empire1 . But, even under the yoke of pagan empires, the tiny Jewish people preserved its religious identity and did not abandon monotheism.
1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(Samaria)

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The most severe wave of persecution though occured under the Seleucid Empire, state created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great, especially under Antiochus IV Epiphanes who ruled from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC2 . It was the policy of the Seleucid Empire to promote the Hellenic culture3 , including the pagan Hellenic cult. For instance, the population of the powerful Persian Parthian Empire adopted many Greek religious beliefs. However, this was not the case of the Jewish people who resisted ercely to any religious assimilation. One such attempt occured under Antiochus Epiphanes who prohibited the judaic religious practices, but he was not successful. As we see, the small people of Israel preserved its religious heritage, especially monotheism, unimpaired until the coming of Christ. There were many occasions to be culturally and religiously assimilated by the pagan forces surrounding it, but this did not happen. God preserved His people and its religion.

3.1.2

Christianity

It is well known that Christians had to face severe persecution under the Roman Empire until the 4th century. It seems that everything was implemented in order for Christianity not to exist: The founder, Jesus Christ, was crucied. Many of His followers were killed. The followers were persecuted by the Jews. Christians had to face severe persecution for around three centuries under the Roman rule4 . The persecution did not restrict itself to the Roman Empire, but was also present in neighboring states, for instance the Persian Empire. Two well known waves of persecution are the one under Nero, who accused the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64, and the one under Diocletian, who wanted to wipe out Christianity from his Empire at the very beginning of the 4th century. He is famous for erecting a column with the inscription: Extincto Nomine Christianorum (extinct is the name of Christians). But everyone knows what happened soon after. The Edict of Milan was signed by the emperors Constantine and Licinius in 313. It proclaimed religious toleration in the Empire. Later in the century, Christianity became the ocial religion of the Roman Empire5 . This opened the way for the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_Epiphanes Though not to impose it by force. 4 The persecution was not constant though. In some periods of time, the Roman authorities were more tolerant. But, there were still several waves of severe persecution. 5 Edict of Thessalonica, delivered in 380 by Thedosius I among others.
3 2

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further expansion of Christianity which would lead it to become the worlds largest religion. Many other waves of persecution occured during history. Christianity suered a lot from Islam, and also from militant atheism in the 20th , especially in the Soviet Union. We can also note that nowadays 75% of religious persecution is directed against Christians6 . And yet, Christians account for only around 30% of the world population. This disproportion shows that there is a spirit in the world waging war against Christianity. Christians now even face discrimination in countries with a christian background. All we can say is that we are not afraid. As Tertullian (2nd century) wrote: "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity". We also remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: Matthew 5:11-12 Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. To sum up, Christianity is not only the religion that faced the most severe persecution, it is also the religion that achieved most7 . The combination of those two extremes is counter-intuitive and it shows that there is something special with Christianity.

3.2

Other religions

There is nothing comparable among other religions. Here are a few comments on some of them: Islam: the worlds second largest religion started its history by provocating persecution instead of having to face it. This is a well-known fact. "Holy war" was one of the main means of expansion of Islam from the very beginning. It was initiated by its founder himself who was not only a religious leader, but also a military leader. Hinduism: it did not emerge by overcoming persecution. Buddhism: it did not emerge by overcoming serious persecution. Moreover, its achievement is signicantly less than that of Christianity. Bah Faith: it is true that Bahs have suered a lot since the religion was initiated by Bahullh (18171892). Nevertheless, there are major dierences with Christianity. First, the founder, though having
http://www.christianpost.com/news/report-75-percent-of-religious-persecution-isagainst-christians-49488/ 7 See the rst chapter on universality.
6

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to face persecution and imprisonment, was not killed and could continue to instruct his followers till the end of his life. His eldest son, Abdul-Bah, was released in 19088 and was able to preach till the end of his life (1921). He even went on missionary journeys to the West. In the 19th and 20th , the means of communication and transportation made it much easier for the faith to spread. It gained rapidly followers in the Western free world. The Christians had nowhere to go, there could face persecution anywhere, most of time depending on the mood of the local ruler. And, at the end of the day, the achievement of the Bah Faith is nothing compared to that of Christianity.

We are now done with the three largest chapters. The four last ones are going to be much shorter, but they still present important features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah_Faith

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Chapter 4

Based on an event (Resurrection)

This is really what makes Christianity unique. The other religions can be classied in two categories: either they are based exclusively on legends and tradition (Hinduism, Taoism...), or they nd their origin in the preaching of a founder who claimed to receive special revelations (Islam, Buddhism, Bah Faith...). Christianity could fall into the last category. Indeed, Jesus Christ was also a religious founder who claimed to received special revelations from God. He claimed even more because He pretended to be the Son of God, and called God His Father: Matthew 11:27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. But, it is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes His claims easier to assess. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then His claims of being the Son of God and the fulllment of the prophets are vindicated by His Resurrection. If He is not risen from the dead, then our "faith is in vain" (1 Cor. 1514). We can therefore add a third category to the two mentioned above: a religion based on an event. Christianity is the only religion that falls into this category. This is a very important feature because, as I have said, scores of people have pretended to be prophets and receive special revelations from God. Jesus Christ had also incredible claims, but He is also said to be risen from the dead. This event is something very concrete. When someone comes to you and tells you he is a prophet, you may not want to believe him, but if he dies and you see him alive again you have all the reasons to believe him. This is something very easy to assess for the followers. You can spend days trying to gure out if someone is a prophet or not, but if that person dies 33

and raises from the dead, you can answer the question easily. Of course, it would have been problematic if there were many such claims, but there is only one historical gure in the history of humanity who is believed to be risen from the dead, and this is Jesus Christ. So, you do not have to hesitate. We may also say that the Resurrection is an event that can be assessed historically. It is supposed to have happened around the year 30 AD, which is not that remote in time1 . It was also witnessed by several people2 . Finally, we can also say that it makes sense in some way. One skeptical theory is that the body was stolen by the disciples, but this is not very rational because they had no reason to do that in the light of all the tribulations they had to face, and a careful study of the sources we have clearly points to the fact that they really believed what they were preaching. The second option would be to have had hallucinations, but it does not make sense either because it was very easy for them to check out the tomb and see if the body was there3 . I do not want to say more for the moment because the purpose here is only to show that Christianity is unique in that it is based on a concrete event that can be assessed historically and not only on the claims of its founder. There is no such a thing for other religions.

1 Anyway, we have reliable written sources on the Resurrection from around the middle of the rst century. 2 See next chapter. 3 There are many other objections to both theories. They will be listed in an appendix dedicated to the issue of the Resurrection.

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Chapter 5

Several witnesses of that event

Generally, for other religions you have to trust the founder who is pretending to receive special revelations that his followers are not witnessing. For instance, Muhammad was claiming to receive revelations from God through the angel Gabriel, but he was the only one to see the angel. The same can be said for many other religions, provided they are inititated by a founder1 . This is very problematic because I would say that the availability of several witnesses is a criterion that is necessary for a religion to be true. You cannot trust only one person, especially when your eternal salvation is at stake. God must provide several witnesses, and this is exactly what we have in Christianity, and only in it. Lets therefore assess this claim. We need at least two witnesses, but we can even have more in the case of Christianity. I list here several important points: All four Gospel accounts we have agree on the fact that the Resurrection was witnessed by several women, and also by at least the elf remaining disciples (Judah was not one of them anymore)2 . The rst three are of the same synoptic tradition, but the Gospel of John is from the johannine tradition. Yet, both traditions agree on that fact. Let me quote 1 Cor. 15: 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 For I delivered to you as of rst importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than ve hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
As we have seen, some religions like Hinduism are based mostly on traditions without historical ground. 2 See Matt. 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20 and 21.
1

35

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. The tradition on which this text is based has been dated very early by the NT scholarship3 , probably within ve years from the Resurrection. It is reasonable to assume that the "columns" mentioned by Paul in Gal. 2, namely Peter, John, and James, were witnesses of the Resurrection: Galatians 2:9 and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised Wherever Christianity was preached, the belief in the Resurrection was the central tenet of the new faith. It is therefore resonable to admit that all the apostles were well acquainted with that fact. Paul, who was persecuting the Church, became a follower of Jesus after an apparition4 . We have early Christian writings from outside the New Testament that report the beliefs of Jesus followers in the Resurrection. This is the case of Polycarp of Smyrna and Clement of Rome5 . To sum up, since critics do not want us to rely on the Gospels, we can at least arm that some of the disciples, especially Peter, John, and James, had experiences of the risen Jesus. But this is a reductive view. The reliability of 1 Cor. 15:3-5 makes us think that all of the main disciples, namely the group of the twelve without Judah, and also James, had a similar experience which made them believe that Jesus was alive. This was also the case of Paul who was initially a persecutor of the Church. To end up, I would just like to add a relevant statement by Dr. William Lane Craig on 1 Cor. 15:3-5: The evidence that Paul is not writing in his own hand in I Cor. 15.3-5 is so powerful that all New Testament scholars recognize that Paul is here passing on a prior tradition. In addition to the fact that Paul explicitly says as much, the passage is replete with non-Pauline characteristics, including, in order of appearance: (i) the phrase for our sins using the genitive case and plural noun is
3 4

This concerns particularly the verses 3 to 5 (until "to the twelve"). See next chapter. 5 See Polycarp, To the Philippians 1:2, 2:1-2, 9:2, 12:2, and 1 Clement 42:3.

36

unusual for Paul; (ii) the phrase according to the Scriptures is unparalleled in Paul, who introduces Scriptural citations by as it is written; (iii) the perfect passive verb has been raised appears only in this chapter and in a pre-Pauline confessional formula in II Tim. 2.8; (iv) the phrase on the third day with its ordinal number following the noun in Greek is non-Pauline; (v) the word appeared is found only here and in the confessional formula in I Tim. 3.16; and (vi) the Twelve is not Pauls nomenclature, for he always speaks of the twelve disciples as the apostles. Now the visit during which Paul may have received this tradition is the visit you mention three years after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Gal. 1.18). This puts the tradition back to within the rst ve years after Jesus death in AD 306 . Anyway, we have largely enough information now to assume that there was more than one witness of the event.

Question 186, The Witness of the Pre-Pauline Tradition to the Empty Tomb http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8477

37

Chapter 6

A erce persecutor converted (St. Paul)

Even if it is less important, this feature gives denitely more credibility to the veracity of the event concerned, here the Resurrection. It should be noted that this argument of conversion does not apply in any case. If you are a persecutor and you convert after hearing the nice words of a prophet or one of his followers, that does not tell me much about the veracity of the religion, unless that it may have beautiful teachings, but most religions have some beautiful aspects. Here, it is something very specic that is concerned, namely that Paul was a witness of the fact that Jesus, though crucied by the Romans, was still alive. He became therefore one witness of the Resurrection who did not belong to the group of the initial disciples. This obviously gives an extra credibility to the historicity of the event. We have a witness who was not originally a disciple. This impoverishes the conspiracy theory. Furthermore, he was a erce persecutor of the Church. There was no reason for him to believe in the Resurrection, therefore his mind could not have been induced to have hallucinations of the risen Jesus. This impoverishes in turn the hallucination theory. Both main anti-resurrection theories are weakened by the witness of Paul. This is probably why God chose to convert a persecutor and make of him one of the greatest apostles. His miraculous conversion is a blow to criticism. Of course, skeptics can always come up with far-fetched ideas. Here, they would contend that Paul rst believed in the Resurrection because he took pity on the poor Christians that were being persecuted. He believed in the Resurrection in his heart and then had an hallucination on the road to Damascus because of the heat. This position presents nevertheless several problems1 : All three accounts from the Acts that we have clearly state that Paul
1

For more information, see: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11567b.htm

38

was converted by an apparition while he was still a persecutor of the Church2 . The fact that his conversion is the fruit of a revelation that changed his mind3 is clearly armed by Paul himself: 1 Corinthians 15:8-10 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unt to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am... Galatians 1:12-16 For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with esh and blood... Paul is also certain to have seen Christ. Besides 1 Cor. 15, we also have: 1 Corinthians 9:1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? As we see, Paul was a violent persecutor of the Church. We would expect that something really powerful happened to him so that he changed his mind completely. An apparition of the risen Lord could fulll this requirement easily. On the other hand, it is counterintuitive to think that such a turnaround was only the fruit of his reasoning or thoughts4 . We are here facing the general strategy of skeptics: just disbelieve in Christianity and then, in spite of all the evidence you see, come up with whatever you can, however eccentric it is, to try to disprove the evidence.
See Acts 9:1-19; 22:3-21; 26:9-23. And not the contrary, namely that he rst changed his mind and then witnessed a sort of apparition. 4 By way of comparison, just imagine what it would require for a senior member of Al-Quaeda to become a Jew!
3 2

39

This is what we call circular reasoning. Absolutely nothing from the NT can support the skeptical theory dealt with in this chapter. All the information we have points to the contrary.

To sum up, the fact that a persecutor who did not belong to the original circle of the disciples converted after being witness of the founding event of Christianity gives more credibility to that event, and therefore to the veracity of Christianity itself. Such a feature is not present in any other religion.

40

Chapter 7

Greatest achievement with poorest means

This is also counterintuitive. We do not expect the founder that had the poorest means and preached under the most dicult conditions to be at the origin of the worlds largest religion. We would rather expect his religion to become soon extinct. Lets rst take a look at the conditions and means that the other religion founders had: Muhammad: he was a military leader, he therefore had an army under his command. He also preached more than twenty years. Buddha: he was active as a religious leader more than fourty years. He also enjoyed the protection of secular rulers such as king Bimbisara of Magadha1 . Bahullh: he preached over a very long period, almost fourty years, and even in prison he was able to reach his followers by his writings. He was also able to write to many prominent religious and secular leaders of the time. Needless to say, Jesus had nothing in comparison to the religious founders listed above. He had no money, no army, no weapons, no much time2 , no political inuence. He was rejected by His own people and crucied, but... This is best illustarted by the following text: Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
Manfred Grgens and Frank Rainer Scheck, Buddhismus, Dumont, 2009, p26, in German. 2 He preached only 3-4 years.
1

41

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an oce. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not aected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life3 .

Adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in "The Real Jesus and Other Sermons", 1926, Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled "Arise Sir Knight!"). Quoted on http://www.christianevidences.org/eye-witness-testimony-supporting-newtestament-accuracy/

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Chapter 8

Attempt to disprove my point

Critics might object that one can found other features possessed by only one religion other than Christianity. This might be true, but it should be noted that the point has to be clearly relevant regarding the potential truthfullness of a religion. If you say for instance that Islam expanded through very successfull military expeditions, you might be right, but that places violence at the very core of Islam, which is also problematic since it is generally admitted that religion should promote peace, therefore we might expect the same from the true religion of God. The opposite would be counterintuitive. And anyway, Christianity has spread better than Islam. The other point than can be brought up is that the Quran, as the only true word of God according to Muslims, has been perfectly preserved. We hear that over and over again. Lets therefore assess this claim and see if it can prove something regarding the potential veracity of the islamic faith.

8.1

Several objections

Here is a list of some objections that can be addressed: During the reign of the Caliph Omar (634-644), there were up to four versions of the Quran. The third Caliph Uthman (644-656) ordered to a special commission the compilation of the prophecies of Muhammad and the elaboration of a unique text in order to avoid trouble in the caliphate. The other versions were burned. This happened well after the death of Muhammad (632). Now, it is evident that there is absolutely no reason for a non-muslim to believe that the version compiled under Uthman corresponds exactly to the one supposedly revealed to Muhammad. Who knows what happened with the text between the death of Muhammad and the reign of Uthman! By the way, Muhammad did not write himself, but was reciting the Quran to secretaries. Nothing can prove that the entire text that was written down was ac-

43

tually the fruit of his recitation. It is also possible that other people contributed to the elaboration of the Quran. The original text was written in Arabic without the consonant pointing, which means that some consonants can be pronounced in several dierent ways leading thereby to dierent reading variants, even sometimes to dierent meanings. We cannot really compare the Bible and the Quran on this issue because both books were written under very dierent conditions. When the Bible was written, it was more dicult to preserve scriptural records since the techniques are evolving with time. It should also be noted that early christian communities were facing persecution and lived under dicult conditions, whereas the early Muslims were in a dominant military position. By the way, we have reliable manuscripts of the entire Bible well predating the rise of Islam1 , which clearly shows that it was not a great deal to conserve a scritpure in the 7th century. Therefore, the alleged preservation of the scripture does not require any special endowment from God. By the way, when one looks at the conditions under which the entire Bible was written, its state of preservation and manuscript record is also amazing compared with other books of antiquity. It does not make a religion true at all. Most of religions that emerged after Islam also possess scriptures that have been well preserved: Sikh Guru Granth Sahib, Bah Kitb-i-Aqdas, the Book of Mormons... We have Epistles of St. Paul almost unanimously attributed to him, even by secular scholars, in which the author claims that he was a witness of the Resurrection (1 Cor. and also indirectly Gal.). Why should we believe Muhammad more than Paul? At the end of the day, what really matters is the content of the book.

8.2

Some inconsistencies in the Quran

The purpose of this section is to illustrate the last objection of the previous section. Indeed, if your scripture present unsolvable inconsistencies, even the best imaginable preservation cannot help you much.
Codex Sinaiticus (c. 330-360), Codex Vaticanus (c. 325350), Codex Alexandrinus (c. 400-440). Source: Wikipedia
1

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8.2.1

The Quran about the Bible

The Quran enjoins Christians to follow their Scripture whereas Muslims keep on pretending that our Scripture was corrupted: Sura 5:47 Let the People of the Gospel judge by that which Allah hath revealed therein. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed: such are evil-livers. Sura 5:68 Say O People of the Scripture! Ye have naught (of guidance) till ye observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto you from your Lord. It even enjoins Muhammad to consult with the People of the Book that received the revelation: Sura 10:94 And if thou (Muhammad) art in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto thee, then question those who read the Scripture (that was) before thee2 .

8.2.2

The Quran about Judaism and Christianity

Sura 5:116 And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah ? The Quran vehemently criticizes the doctrine of the Trinity, but instead of presenting a clear exposition on the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit, all we can nd is the verse above! Sura 9:30 And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. The second statement is right, but the rst one is completely wrong. Sura 61:14 O ye who believe! Be Allahs helpers, even as Jesus son of Mary said unto the disciples: Who are my helpers for Allah ? They said: We are Allahs helpers. And a party of the Children of Israel believed, while a party disbelieved. Then We strengthened those who believed against their foe, and they became the uppermost. Here the Quran expands positively on the rise of Christianity. The problem is that the only kind of Chritianity that ever became uppermost is completely at odds with Islam (Jesus as Lord and Savior, Son of God...).
For more information, see: http://www.arabicbible.com/misunderstandings/176-injilthe-bible/1545-witness-of-islam-to-the-validity-of-the-torah-and-the-gospels.html
2

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8.2.3

Plagiarism from apocryphal christian writings

This is particularly evident in the Sura Maryam (Sura 19). For instance, the story of Jesus speaking as a baby in the cradle (Sura 19:29-34) is also found in the Arabic Infancy Gospel (verse 2). This apocryphal Gospel was written very late, probably in the 5th or 6th century3 . Also, the story of Jesus breathing life into birds fashioned from clay (3:49) comes from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a text from the 2nd or the 3rd century.

For all those reasons, and certainly many others, the alleged preservation of the Quran cannot constitute a powerful criterion worth taking into account and introducing in the list of special features.

See this excellent study by Masud Masihiyyen: http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/masihiyyen/19mary_apocrypha.html

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Chapter 9

Assessment
Now, it becomes interesting. What we see is that it is always Christianity that possesses the relevant feature. If everything had happened by chance, we would expect a random distribution, for instance: Universality History of salvation and accomplished prophecies Survived persecutions Based on an event Several witnesses A erce persecutor converted Greatest achievement with poorest means However, what is observed is: Universality History of salvation and accomplished prophecies Survived persecutions Based on an event Several witnesses A erce persecutor converted Greatest achievement with poorest means Christianity Christianity Christianity Christianity Christianity Christianity Christianity Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism Buddhism Christianity Islam

This is amazing! Did that happen by chance or did God arrange all those facts in order to make Christianity much more reliable than other religions? Lets now calculate the probability for this combination to happen by chance. Even if we consider only three main religions, we nd that the probability is: 1/36.3 = 1/1,0131
I take the exponent 6.3 here and not 7 assuming that one of the features is not very relevant compared to the others, but still worth considering. This can concern for instance the case of the persecutor who converted.
1

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It should be noted here that features 4, 5, and 6 are not necessarily interconnected. Even if a religion is not based on an event, you can still have several witnesses, for instance several prophets witnessing the same revelation. You can also have a persecutor converting for a strong reason other than simply hearing the preaching of the founder, for instance by also receiving some sort of revelation from God enjoining him to become a disciple of the concerned founder. Here, the probability should be even much lower because there are more than three main religions in the world. Nevertheless, even if one considers only three religions, the probability is still very low. Such a probability implies that it is practically impossible that it happened by chance.

We see at the end of the rst part of this essay that Christianity possesses many features that make it unique. Moreover, they make it not only unique, but also beyond coincidence. The combination of all those features that characterize only Christianity clearly shows that a superior being, namely God, is endorsing this religion because He wants to make it more reliable and credible than others. The probabilty for this combination happening by chance is clearly under 1/1,000, therefore we can reasonably consider that it did not happen randomly, but is the fruit of Gods will. But, this is not all! There are many other amazing points that will be dealt with in the second part of the essay. Keep on track!

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Part II

Other characteristics beyond coincidence

49

Chapter 10

The Messiah came out of the only monotheistic people

10.1 Promise

First of all, we can say that the people of Israel got the promise that out of its midst a king would raise with an eternal dominion extending to all the world1 . We have already seen that, for this reason, the Jewish people was expecting a king to come at the time of Jesus. There are many relevant passages that can be found in the OT. Let me just give you a avor of that2 : 2 Samuel 7:16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever. This is a promise that God made to His servant David. Jesus the Messiah is a descendant of David and is often addressed as "Son of David" in the Gospels. Isaiah 9:6-7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. I do not know who else in world history could have been this child except Jesus!
This has to be understood in a spiritual sense. We Christians recognize that the spread of Christianity to all the world, with a presence among all nations, is a fulllment of this expectation. 2 We will touch more on it in the part dedicated to prophecies.
1

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Daniel 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Jesus very often calls Himself the "Son of Man" in the Gospels. Micah 5:2-4 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days... And he shall stand and feed his ock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. Those four examples should be enough to illustrate my point3 .

10.2

Trully monotheistic people

Some people might argue that there were other manifestations of monotheism in ancient times and that Israel was not a unique example. This is in some way true, but it depends much on what you mean by monotheism. It is also important to note that Israel was a monotheistic state, monotheism was in some way in its "constitution". See for instance the rst of the Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:3 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. and even more relevant the Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel!): Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Let me rst treat the case of Zoroastrianism4 to show does it does not compare with the case of Israel:
3

There are many more relevant passages, but it would be too fastidious to list them Founded allegedly around the second millenium BC by Zoroaster.

all.
4

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 The main problem is that early Zoroatrianism is clearly dualistic. There is for sure an uncreated creator Ahura Mazda who is transcendant, but there is also a malevolent principle called Angra Mainyu (or Ahriman) uncreated as well5 . Zoroaster taught that Ahura Mazda would eventually prevail over Angra Mainyu. It should also be noted that, still according to Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda is an omniscient, but not omnipotent God! This is where zoroastrian monotheism cracks. The Persian state was not always monotheistic. Ahura Mazda was worshiped and invoked alone until Artaxerxes II, but the latter started to invoke him along two other deities: Mithra and Apam Napat6 . At the time of Jesus, most of the population of the Parthian Empire was, under inuence of the Hellenic culture notably, polytheistic. Ahura Mazda was even equated with Zeus! It should be noted that Zoroatrianism as we know it today developed mostly at the time of the Sassanid Empire (from the 3rd century AD) as a reaction to the polytheism of the Parthian Empire. Lets consider briey some other cases: Hinduism, even if it can be inappropriate to call it polytheistic, still consists in the worship of several deities that can enter in marital relationships and even sometimes conict with each other. There were some hints of monotheism in the Greek philosophy, but this was not the policy of the state. There was a worship of Heaven in ancient times in China, but "this faith system was not truly monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also worshiped"7 . Monotheism was denitely not something common from the time of the Kingdom of Israel until the coming of the Messiah. All other peoples around professed pagan cults. Akhenaten (14th century BC) tried to introduce monotheism in Egypt, but it did not last long. The fact that Israel had true non-dualistic monotheism as a state religion for so long a time is an unprecedented case. Monotheism was really institutional in Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda Ibid. 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism However, it is also believed by some scholars that the Chinese people in ancient times possessed some hints of the true revelation. Many parallels have been found between the account of Genesis and the Chinese characters. For more information, refer to this book: http://util.podico.com/huge/discoverygenesis.pdf
6 5

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10.3

What about Muhammad?

Some might object that I am biased by choosing Jesus as the King whose dominion extended to all the world because Muhammad can compete with Jesus on this point. Actually, there are many important dierences: Fist of all, the position of Jesus in Christianity is much higher than the position of Muhammad in Islam. Muhammad is only a prophet, a messenger of God. He is not even a king. All glory is due to Allah. Needless to say, for Jesus in Christianity it is completely dierent. Jesus is a King for us8 : Matthew 27:11 Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so." John 1:49 Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Through Him, the world was created: Hebrews 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the Lord, our Savior, the eternal Son of God, God Himself... Jesus enjoys a high position in several other religions. By some Hindus, he is considered to be an avatar or a yogi, he is praised by Buddhists, and especially in Islam itself He is considered to be the greatest prophet after Muhammad and was raised by God to heaven. Nothing comparable can be said of Muhammad. On the contrary, he is viewed negatively by many followers of the other main religions, which all suered a lot from Islam. The teachings of Jesus had a greater positive impact on the world (human rights...). Many teachings of Islam on the contrary are at odds with the values of the rest of the world. The spread of Christianity covers more nations and more cultures. Christianity is also compatible with any culture and any epoch9 .
8 9

Even the King of kings. See the rst chapter of the rst part (Universality) for the last three points.

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 This not very important, but the international calendar starts the counting of years with the approximate date of Jesus birth. Ironically, this calendar is also in use in muslim countries, in parallel of the religious calendar. Finally, the prophecies listed above concern a king from Israel and have nothing to do with Muhammad. The latter cannot claim to have been predicted to such an extent10 . For all of those reasons, Jesus is the only good t.

10.4

Assessment

Before the christian era, all other peoples professed polytheistic, animistic, or dualistic religious systems. Israel was the only people that was professing true monotheism and had it institutionalized as a state religion. It was the chosen people to whom God revealed Himself. That people got the promise that, out of its midst, a King would raise with a dominion extending to the whole world. And, of course, the only historical gure to whom such a claim can apply and the founder of the worlds leading religion came precisely out of this people. It could have been any other people on earth, but it was exactly this only monotheistic one, which moreover was expecting it. And it was far away not one of the mightest peoples on earth, but a very tiny one which also had to face many tribulations. The most prominent religious founder could have come from the Romans, from China, from Persia... No, God decided to choose a very small people to make even more evident that all that happened only according to His will. Just for information, the area of the Roman Empire in 25 BC was 2,750,000 km2 11 , whereas the area of the modern state of Israel is 22,072 km2 12 . The proportion is less than 1/100, and here I do not take into account the rest of the world. Needless to say, the probability for that to happen by chance is very low.

See the chapter on prophecies that comes later in this essay. 1,061,781 sq mi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire 12 8,522 sq mi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
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Chapter 11

Did Islam rise by chance?

11.1 Islam as an attack on Christianity

Islam is attacking Christianity on several aspects.

11.1.1

Theologically

Many theological tenets of Christianity are attacked by Islam: Jesus is not the Son God: Sura 9:30 and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Jesus is not divine: Sura 5:72 They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah1 , son of Mary. The Messiah (himself) said: O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Lo! whoso ascribeth partners unto Allah, for him Allah hath forbidden paradise. His abode is the Fire. For evil-doers there will be no helpers. The doctrine of the Trinity is rejected: Sura 4:171 So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not "Three" - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One God. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sucient as Defender.
This terminology is by the way not quite correct. "Messiah" has never been a predicate of God for Christians.
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 Jesus was not crucied: Sura 4:157 And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allahs messenger - they slew him not nor crucied him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain. Jesus is not the seal of the prophets, there comes Muhammad after Him. Our Bible has been corrupted2 . There is no atonement for sins. Jesus came only for the people of Israel, and not for the rest of the world. This is Muhammads duty. This should be enough to understand that Islam is ercely attacking Christianity on a theological level.

11.1.2

Morally

Many teachings of Islam are completely at odds with Christian moral values. We have already discussed that in the rst part3 . Polygamy and sex with captive concubines4 vs. strict monogamy in Christianity. No restriction for divorce5 vs. divorce condemned by Jesus Christ.
The Quran does not say this. This is an invention of later muslim scolarship. Muhammad did not read the Bible and, apparently, did not know much about its content. It is only later, when Muslims went through the Bible and realized that it does no match up at all with the Quran, that they came up with this notion of corruption. Even Ibn Abbas (618-687), an early scholar, believed that the original text was still preserved, but that some material was added to it. See: http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Menj/q2_77-79.htm 3 In the rst chapter on universality, section: Islam is not universal. Consult that section for the exact references. 4 4:3; 4:24 5 See 2:229-230. The second verse stuns Christians: Sura 2:230 And if he hath divorced her (the third time), then she is not lawful unto him thereafter until she hath wedded another husband. Then if he (the other husband) divorce her it is no sin for both of them that they come together again if they consider that they are able to observe the limits of Allah. These are the limits of Allah. He manifesteth them for people who have knowledge.
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 Right for the husband to beat his wife if she does not obey. Right to use violence to spread the faith.

11.1.3

Personally and militarily

For sure, the Quran praises Christians in some verses, for instance 5:69, but in many other verses they are attacked ercely, often along with Jews: Sura 5:51 O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk. Sura 9:29-30 Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) ghteth against them. How perverse are they! Sura 98:6 Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in re of hell. They are the worst of created beings (emphasis ours). Muslim armies also invaded Christian lands. Many regions in the Middle East and North Africa were predominantly christian before the rise of Islam. Out of the ve ancient Patriarchates, four are now under islamic rule: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem (now also Israeli rule)6 . There were several waves of invasion of christian lands by Muslim armies: The Arabs, 622-750 AD The Turks, 1071-1683 AD7 We can also mention the Tatar yoke over Russia (13th 15th centuries). The latter was overturned by the expansion of the Russian Empire. We should also not forget the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides of the beginning of the 20th century that claimed at least 2 million christian lives, and also the fact that Christians are discriminated and persecuted today throughout the muslim world8 .
Only Rome was not reached by the islamic conquests. See Gregory M. Davis, Islam 101, http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html. This is a piece of work I highly recommend to read for anyone who wants to learn quickly about Islam from a christian perspective. 8 Consult http://www.persecution.org/ for more information.
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From a christian perspective, it seems clear that, in light of all that has been mentioned above, the rise of Islam did not happen by chance, but was initiated deliberately in order to harm Christianity.

11.2

A response to the muslim objection

Of course, this applies only if Islam is not the true religion. Muslims often contend that the above was necessary, and that Islam came in order to bring Christians to the right path. I have spent much energy in refuting Islam in this essay. I hope that the unbiased (non-muslim) reader can realize easily that Islam poses many serious problems and that it does not have much that enables it to measure up with Christianity regarding its credibility9 . As Nabeel Qureshi, a christian apologist and former Ahmadiyya Muslim, wrote in his testimony: At the end of my research, the arguments for and against Islam still hung in the balance, but one thing was abundantly clear: they were far from approaching the strength of the case for Christianity10 . Let us bring some more objections: If Islam is true we are faced with many problems: it would mean that God sends prohets into the world whose legacy is completely contrary to the original plan, and that He reveals scriptures that get corrupted. How can men tamper with the plan of God? Is not God almighty? Does not the Quran say: "There is none to alter the decisions of Allah" (6:34) and "There is no changing the Words of Allah - that is the Supreme Triumph" (10:64)? We are here faced with an unsolvable contradiction11 . The rise of Christianity itself does not make sense at all in the light of Islam, as David Wood puts it: Muhammads position also means that Jesus was the greatest failure in the history of the prophets. He spent 33
As I said, I plan to write in the future an essay only dedicated to Islam in which all the problems mentioned in this essay, and some more, will be analyzed more deeply. 10 Nabeel Qureshi, Crossing Over, An Intellectual and Spiritual Journey from Islam to Christianity http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Qureshi/testimony.htm 11 On the contrary, with Christianity everything is logical: God reveals Himself through prophets to a chosen people for centuries, He preserves His people and His message. Finally, when the plenitude of time has been reached (Gal. 4:4), God sends His nal messenger to the world who is none else than His only begotten Son. From thence forth, the true faith starts spreading throughout the world.
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years preaching (again, he began preaching Islamic theology at birth), yet shortly after his death, the children of Israel were divided into two broad camps. Those who believed his message became Christians, all of whom were guilty of the worst sin imaginable (shirk12 ), while those who rejected his message were guilty of rejecting one of Gods greatest messengers... Its strange, then, that Muslims consider Jesus to be one of the greatest prophets ever. It seems that he should have been able to win at least one lasting convert to Islam. But he didnt. Further, a true prophet of Islam should have warned his followers not to turn away from Islam by falling for Gods deception. But Jesus never got that message across. Indeed, millions of people from around the world now refuse to accept Islam because they believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, a teaching that goes back to a deceptive God and an incompetent Messiah... Since there are roughly two billion Christians on earth at the present moment, it seems that Jesus and God are responsible for starting the only religion in the world that overshadows Islam... If Islam is true, Jesus, the Messiah, was completely incompetent and should never have been sent by God, since Jesus life ended up leading more people astray than any other life in history. Because the Muslim view is at odds with any traditional understanding of Gods nature (including the Islamic understanding), Islam is an incoherent religious system, which should be rejected by all rational people. Islam has a poor and contemptible explanation for the origin of Christianity. If Islam is true, the existence of Christianity makes no sense at all13 . We can also wonder why would God be waiting six centuries and let Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, be rmly established, and then decide to send Muhammad to x things up. We have also seen that the fact that Muhammad came from pagan Arabia, whereas Jesus had monotheistic Judaism as His background, gives Muhammad only a poor credibility in the eyes of Christians. Moreover, the Quran, pretending to make a critique of christian beliefs, makes several wrong statements when it comes to what Christians
Association of partners to Allah. David Wood, Deceptive God, Incompetent Messiah http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Wood/deceptive_god.htm I recommend reading the whole article.
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really believe. We have already seen some of them, here is one more example: Sura 5:73 They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. Here, the doctrine of the Trinity is targeted, but "Allah is the third of three" does not make sense to Christians either! We have already mentioned the witness of the Quran to the integrity of the Bible available at the time of Muhammad14 . At least, the moral teachings of Islam could have measured up with the standards of Christianity. As I have said, Christians are schocked by many teachings of Islam (polygamy, sex with concubines, war, discrimination of fellow humans...) and God would be really deceiving us if His intent with Islam were to bring us to the right path. Needless to say, those moral standards unacceptable for us Christians are one of the major blows to the credibility of the muslim claim mentioned above. This is also true when one examines the life of Muhammad. Besides waging war, he also had more than ten wives15 , married the wife of his adoptive son, married a six/seven year-old girl with whom he consummed the marriage when she was only nine, engaged too much in sexual relations... Muhammad was denitely far from being someone like Jesus, and so there is no way a rational Christian could ever consider following him after being a sincere follower of Jesus. Here are some hadiths to illustrate my point: Muslim (8:331) Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allahs Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old. Bukhari (5:268) Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the Prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men)."
14 Which is the same as the one we have today. We have entire manuscripts predating Islam. 15 While commanding his followers not have more than four!

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The combination of all those objections clearly shows that Muslims are faced with unsolvable diculties when they pretend that Islam came along to x up Christianity16 . Therefore, Islam should be rejected on rational grounds, and we are ready to attack the most interesting section.

11.3

It did not happen by chance

After scrutinizing Christianity and Islam and studying the relation between the two of them, I was struck by some interestings points: First of all, is it not strange that the worlds second religion is completely turned against Christianity17 ? It could have perfectly been a religion neutral towards it, like Buddhism for instance. Moreover, Islam accepts some tenets of Christinanity: virgin birth from Mary, miracles performed by Jesus, ascencion into heaven. On the other hand, it rejects absolutely the three things that are essential for salvation from a christian perspective: the Incarnation of the divine Son of God, the Crucixion, and the Resurrection. It cannot be stressed how important those three points are for Christians. And yet, they are rejected by Islam which has no problem with the virgin birth, an important dogma, but of second importance for salvation compared to the three others. I do not see how this can only be the fruit of the reasoning of a seventh century Arab. He was probably inspired by someone frustrated by Christianity. Ishmael, the son of Abraham from his handmaid Hagar, was cast out when Isaac, the son from his legitimate wife, was born: Genesis 21:9-10 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." Earlier, God declared that it is in Isaac, and not Ishmael, that God would establish his covenant: Genesis 17:18-21 And Abraham said to God, "O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!" God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name
16 For more information, I recommend reading: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Jesus-Muhammad.htm 17 I hope the material presented in the st section of this chapter is enough to show how deep this is.

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Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year." Ishmael is therefore rejected and is not part of the covenant. Is it not then stunning that Islam, which is the second largest religion and is so turned against Christianity, came from the people of Arabia who, at least traditionally, are descendants of Ishmael? The second largest religion could have originated from anywhere else in the world, but no, it came precisely from the descendants of Ishmael who was taken out of the covenant. The violent nature of Islam is predicted indirectly by this verse concerning Ishmael: Genesis 16:12 He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every mans hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. Our Lord warned us of false prophets: Matthew 7:15-16 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or gs from thistles? This can perfectly apply to Muhammad who for Muslims is the greatest moral example ever, the al-insan al-kamil (ideal man), whereas according to christian standards and compared with the example of Jesus he was far from being a good example. The apostle Paul warned us of angels preaching a wrong gospel: Galatians 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. His warnings in 2 Cor. 11 are also striking: 2 Corinthians 11:4 For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a dierent spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a dierent gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. 62

2 Corinthians 11:14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. How does all that apply to Islam? Muhammad supposedly received his revelations from an angel. And isnt the Isa of the Quran another Jesus than the one we know, and the Injil of the Quran another gospel than the one we have? His most relevant warning is denitely the one in Gal. 418 : Galatians 4:22-31 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the esh, the son of the free woman through promise... For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in travail; for the children of the desolate one are many more than the children of her that is married." Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the esh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? "Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. Did not Islam bring people back to the law? And was not Muhammad a descendant of the Ishmaelites originating from Ishmael, the brother of Isaac? Finally, the apostle John warns us: 1 John 5:1-3 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the esh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. Interestingly, the second largest religion accepts Christ as a prophet, but categorically rejects the Incarnation, of which it is mention in the second verse19 .
It should be noted that the direct context of all those verses is dierent, but it is still striking how we can draw parallels with Islam. Anyway, the warnings still apply even beyond apostolic times and changing situations. 19 See also 1 John 2:22-23.
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To sum up, we can say that the fact that the second largest religion is deeply turned against Christianity on almost all aspects and all the other particularities enumerated above could not happen by chance easily. It is reasonable therefore, if you reject Islam, to admit that those features are seriously in favor of the veracity of Christianity, especially in light of the other characteristics dealt with in other chapters of this essay.

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Chapter 12

Accomplished prophecies
We probably come now to the most interesting part of this essay. We have already touched on some accomplished prophecies in the previous chapters. Now, we are going to see much more of them. Obviously, we cannot list them all because there are too many. I will only focus on the most importants1 .

12.1

The promise to Abraham

We have already seen that the Lord promised to Abraham to establish a covenant with his descendance. He also promised him to multiply it greatly: Genesis 15:5-6 And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. All the nations on earth would be blessed in his name: Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. Obviously, not all the nations on earth have Christianity as their main religion, but still there are more than two billion Christians on earth now and Christianity has spread throughout the whole world. You can nd churches where the Word of God is proclaimed all over the globe in every nation.
For more information and details, I denitely recommend: http://www.christianevidences.org/prophetic-evidence/ As a response to critics contending that we are misusing OT verses, denitely read: http://www.tektonics.org/guest/antianti.html
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Christianity is also the religion that presents by far the greatest ethnical and cultural diversity. We also mentioned the impact that the christian culture and teachings had on the world, which is not only restricted to christian countries2 . At least, we can say that it was probably far beyond Abrahams expectations! This promise is also made to Jacob, Abrahams grandson3 : Genesis 28:14 and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves.

12.2
12.2.1

Timing of the Messiah

Period of time in which the Messiah had to come

First, lets have a look at the second chapter of the Book of Daniel. Here is how Daniel interpreted the kings dream about a statue made of four dierent materials: Daniel 2:37-45 You, O king, the king of kings... you are the head of gold. After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these... And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; I do not hide that there is much controversy about this prophecy, but it is at least pretty clear that four dierent kingdoms, with each a dierent ethnical background, rose successively to prominence in that part of the globe: the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Seleucid Empire (following the conquests of Alexander the Great), and nally the Roman Empire4 . The last kingdom set up by God refers to the Church established by Christ. Now, the Roman control over Judea started in 63 BC5 , which
Refer to the chapter on universality in the rst part. And not to anyone of Ishmaels lineage. I say this because Muslims sometimes try to appropriate those prophecies and apply them to Islam. But we have already seen that the Bible is clear on the fact that the covenant between God and men is through Isaac. 4 There are many parallels between the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation of the NT. Much of the imagery of the former is applied symbolically to Roman rulers in the former. 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea
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gives us a lower time limit for the coming of the Messiah. Here is another important prophecy: Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers sta from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. This is what Jacob said to his sons before he died. Interestingly, the Romans annexed Judea as a Roman province in 6 AD6 and the legal power of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, was immediately restricted. In particular, the ruling of capital punishments was lost. This happened only around ten years after the birth of Christ, when He was a little boy growing up in Nazareth!7 So the Messiah King had to come between 63 BC and 7 AD, which is a time period of only seventy years. He was born around ten years before the time period elapsed8 . Finally, there are those prophecies of Malachi and Haggai: Malachi 3:1 "Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. Haggai 2:9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts." Indeed, the splendor of the Second Temple (built some 500 years BC) was greater than that of the former because the Lord Himself visited it. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and Jesus had time to preach in it some 40 years before that happened.

12.2.2

The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

Once again, I do not hide that this particular prophecy is controversive and that there are many opinions, even among christian scholars. Here is the text: Daniel 9:24-27 "Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to nish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iudaea_province Luke records also a visit of the boy Jesus in Jerusalem when He was twelve years old (see Luke 2). Many historians assume that Christ was born around 5 BC. This would mean that this recorded visit happened around the time when this passation of power took place. But this is only anecdotical. 8 Read especially Matt. 2, and also Luke 2, to see how Christ is referred to as a king.
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a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut o, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a ood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrice and oering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator." The "anointed one" refers to the Messiah, that is the exact meaning of the word. The fact that this anointed prince "shall be cut o" can refer to the Crucixion. Finally, for us Jesus did "cause sacrice and oering to cease" because He oered Himself as the ultimate sacrice for our sins. The parallels are striking. There is a consensus among scholars that each day of this prophecy refers to a year. I will touch more on this subject in a future work. For now, I would just like to present two possible interpretations. Note that the counting should start from the time of the decree "to restore and build Jerusalem". If you start counting from the time of the decree of Atarxerxes I (around 457 BC)9 and add 69x7 = 483 years, you reach the year 27 AD, which is approximately when Jesus started to preach10 . If you start from the time of the decree of Atarxerxes II (around 444 BC)11 and add 483 "prophetic years" of 360 days12 , you arrive to the year 33 AD13 . I agree that you can play with the decree you choose and the kind of year you use, but still we have at least two interpretations that give us an approximate timing of the ministry of Jesus Christ that started at the earliest around 26 AD, and ended at the latest in 33 AD. Both results fall into this height-year span14 . Quite interesting!
See Ezra 7:12-26 and 9:9 for the choice of this decree. For this interpretation, see: http://www.christianevidences.org/seventy-weeks-and-27ad.html 11 See Neh. 2:1 for the choice of this decree. 12 The reason for choosing 360 days is given by Gen. 7 and 8, and Rev. 11:2-3, 12:6,14. 13 This was the interpretation of Sir Isaac Newton. 14 I plan to explain in much more detail the reasons for making those selections in the announced work. I would personnaly opt for the second interpretation, because it seems to me to correspond better to the biblical data concerning this topic.
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12.3

The eternal reign of Christ among nations

Since our Lord preached on earth around two thousand years ago, the Church has extended to the whole world and Christianity has become the worlds largest religion. Despite of all the suerings endured, especially during the rst centuries under Roman rule, the Church has been preserved. The Church is the kingdom of Christ. The Lord Jesus is the eternal King of almost two billions people on earth15 . This was already announced in the OT. Here are some examples16 coming especially from the Book of Isaiah, which is denitely the richest book of the OT regarding prophecies about the coming and ministry of Jesus Christ17 : Numbers 24:17 a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; Who else in world history could claim to have been this star that came forth of Jacob besides Jesus? Psalms 110:1 The LORD says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool." This is a messianic prophecy. Isaiah 11:10 In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious. The "root of Jesse"18 is a typical messianic title19 . Isaiah 42:6 I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations
Actually, there are ocially more than two billion Christians, but one might contend that some of them do not care about their religion. For this reason I said "almost" instead of "more than". Anyway, even if you do not care, you are still baptized and were dedicated to Christ at least at your baptism. If you are an American citizen, you may not like the president of the United States, but he is still your president! Anyway, whatecer the exact number of Jesus followers is, it is still huge. Furthermore, you can nd His followers all around the globe. 16 We have already discussed 2 Sam. 7:16, Isa. 9:6-7, Dan. 7:13, and Mic. 5:2-4 in the rst chapter of this part. I do not repeat them here, but note that they are very important in this context. Gen. 49:10 is also important. 17 I recommend: http://www.messiahrevealed.org/all-people.html#isaiah 18 Jesse was Davids father. 19 Note that many of the prophecies from Isaiah quoted here are messianic prophecy even for rabbinic Judaism. It is not simply based on a "reinterpretation" made by Christians as would some critics have it.
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Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, O coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. Isaiah 49:7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the servant of rulers: "Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you." "His Holy One" refers to the Messiah. Is there any other man in history to whom rulers of entire nations have more prostrated themselves than to Jesus Christ? Isaiah 52:13-15 Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. As many were astonished at him his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand. To sum up, both the eternal reign of Jesus Christ20 and the extension of His glory till the ends of the earth21 were clearly prophesized. Critics might object that early Christians simply applied those prophecies to Jesus, but they cannot account for the fact that the spread of Christianity fullls very well both of those features. This cannot be arranged. The writers of the NT could have arranged their writings, but how could those powerless often persecuted men control the conditions for the subsequent amazing spread of Christianity. As an illustration, here is the fulllment of those prophecies in the NT: Luke 1:30-33 And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."
20 21

For instance clearly in 2 Sam. 7:16, Isa. 9:6-7, and Dan. 7:13. For instance clearly in Is. 11:10, Dan. 7:13, and Mic. 5:2-4.

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12.4
12.4.1

The suerings of Jesus Christ

Rejection by his people

We have just seen that the fact that Christ would be accepted by Gentiles was prophesized. But his rejection by His own people was also predicted: Psalms 118:22-23 The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is the LORDs doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. Those verses are quoted by Jesus in this context of rejection in Matt. 21:4222 . Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Christ was accepted by entire nations, yet He was rejected by His own small Jewish people which still does not recognize in Him the Messiah. Both facts were prophesized23 .

12.4.2

The Passion of Christ

Yes, the beating and Crucixion of Jesus Christ were predicted in the OT. Here are some relevant verses: Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. This verse comes from one of the four "Songs of the Suering Servant" in the Book of Isaiah. Christians recognize predictions about the suerings of Jesus Christ in those passages. Psalms 22:18 they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots. This is accomplished in John 19:23-24. Critics might object that the author of the Gospel was inspired by Psalm 22, but it is known that the soldiers responsible of the execution were sharing the clothes of the person convicted to death. This fact is implied therefore by the crucixion. The same goes for the beating predicted in the verse of Isaiah 50. The crucixion was always preceded by a violent beating. This is an historical fact. Let us now come to the Crucixion itself:
Read the end of the chapter. I acknowledge though that, in this case, the prophecies about the acceptance by the nations are more explicit and more abundant than those about the rejection.
23 22

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Psalms 22:16 Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet This translation is from the Greek text. The Hebrew text of this verse is somewhat confusing. Nevertheless, the Greek translation of the Septuagint predates the event of probably two centuries. It was the custom of the Romans to execute the non-citizens by crucixion. When this Psalm was written/translated, the Romans did not rule over the area. And yet, we have in this verse word for word what happened: "they have pierced my hands and feet", plus the sharing of the clothes. This is trully amazing! To whom else than Jesus Christ could this verse apply. Here is another verse: Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a rst-born. Who could be the one "they have pierced" that the inhabitants of Jerusalem looked at? Now, we have to say that this cannot be arranged. How could the author of Psalm 22 have any clue at his time that there would be executions by crucixion in Judea later on? And we cannot say that the authors of the NT arranged their writings. The Crucixion of Jesus Christ is an historical fact accepted by most scholars, even those criticizing the NT24 . The only solution left is to suppose that Jesus did something really wrong on purpose in order to be crucied and accomplish those prophecies. This is obviously completely unreasonable25 .

12.5
12.5.1

Others prophecies about Christ

Virgin birth

This prophecy comes from the Book of Isaiah in the Greek version26 : Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel27 . One might object that this could have been easily arranged by the authors of the NT, but you still have to account for the fact that now scores of people
Muslims deny it, but their only source is the Quran written in the 7th century. But with skeptics you never know, they always prefer to choose any possible option rather than to accept the truth. 26 The Hebrew almah means "young women" without specication. On the other hand, the Greek parthenos means "virgin". Both versions predate the event anyway. 27 Exceptionally, I have used this time the King James version which translates into "virgin".
25 24

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around the earth believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. But, obviously, this is a somewhat less powerful prophecy than others that have been discussed and the accomplishment of which could not have been arranged.

12.5.2

Birth in Bethlehem

We have already seen the prophecy from Mic. 5: Micah 5:2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old from ancient days. Once again, this could have been arranged, but you still have to account for the belief of people all around the world, and for the fact that scores of pilgrims are ocking each year to Bethlehem to celebrate there the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas.

12.5.3

Ministry in Galilee

We know from the Gospels that the Lord spent a great part of His ministry time in Galilee, and that He was from Galilee Himself. Look now at those verses28 : Isaiah 9:1-2 In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Not so many parts of the promised land are referred to in such a manner in the OT. Of course, we have scores of praises to Jerusalem and Sion29 , but not so much to other parts, especially those outside of the Kingdom of Judah inhabited by other tribes. This is mainly due to the defection of the Northern Kingdom, the rulers of wich engaged into many dubious religious practices. Here, we have a clear reference to Galilee with an expression of praise: God "will make glorious the way of the sea". We also have a reference to a "great light" seen by people. All this applies perfectly to Jesus Christ30 . Moreover, another hint is that we nd the famous prophecy about the child only four verses later, which also applies to Jesus as we have already discussed.
Quoted in Matt. 4:15-16 following the Septuagint. A mount in Jerusalem. 30 It is historically admitted that Jesus was indeed from Galilee. Furthermore, it would not have been an advantage at all to make this up because Galileans were despised by the Jews from Judea. His message would not have come across better at all.
29 28

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To sum up, Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem, but He also needed to have a special connection to Galilee for the prophecy above to be relevant. The fact that He grew up in Galilee and, therefore, had more occasion to preach out there than in other parts of the Holy Land permitted the fulllment of the prophecy.

12.6
12.6.1

Prophecies for the times after Jesus

Great expansion but also great apostasy at the end

Here are some prophecies by Jesus about the spread of Christianity: Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come. Matthew 26:12-13 In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Luke 24:46-48 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Has not all that been perfectly fullled, especially in the light of the fact that the Bible is the most translated book and that almost all people on earth have access to at least a part of Holy Scripture in a language they understand? It should be noted that, when those verses were written down, Christians were a persecuted minority. Now, the apostasy at the end of times was also predicted31 : Matthew 24:9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my names sake. Nowadays, Christians are laughed at even in countries with a christian background!
31

See also: http://www.bibleprobe.com/end-time-signs.htm

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Matthew 24:11-12 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most mens love will grow cold. Very well fullled, especially regarding the false prophets. Luke 18:8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he nd faith on earth? The expected answer is no. Here we see that both aspects were predicted, rst the expansion through preaching to all nations, and then a great defection at the end of time, which is exactly what we are observing nowadays32 . Perfect fulllment in both cases!

12.6.2

The return of Israel

Many Christians I am discussing with on prophecies consider that the return of Israel to its original land in 1948 is one of the most amazing fulllment of a biblical prophecy. Here are some references among others: Jeremiah 30:10 Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, says the LORD, nor be dismayed, O Israel; for lo, I will save you from afar, and your ospring from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease, and none shall make him afraid. Jeremiah 31:10-11 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands afar o; say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his ock. For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. Ezekiel 36:24 For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. Some might say that this can be arranged, but this is very dicult, especially in the light of all the tensions that this decision created, and also of the threat posed by all the surroundings muslim countries. Furthermore, this decision was taken by secular governments.
It is also not a coincidence that it is precisely in Western countries with a christian background and culture, from which Christianity spread to the rest of the world, that people are most tempted by disbelief and that the anti-religious spirit is most ravaging. If Christianity is true, we do expect Satan to attack mostly christian nations with his lies.
32

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12.7
12.7.1

Other foreshadowings
The power of the Cross

For us Christians, the Cross is the sign of victory over death. The power of the Cross is foretold in this passage of Exodus: Exodus 17:10-13 So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat upon it, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Interestingly, our Lord held his hands in the same position when He vanquished death on the Cross. Coincidence?

12.7.2

The Trinity

We Christians believe in one God in three Persons. The plurality of Gods nature is foreshadowed in the Hebrew word for God in the OT, Elohim, which is a plural (at least three persons). We nd also some signicant passages in which God uses unexpectedly the rst person of the plural: Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness; (emphasis ours) Isaiah 6:8 "Whom shall I send, and who will go for US?" (emphasis ours) This is a verse from the vocation of Isaiah. Note that here both the singular and the plural are used in the same sentence. This is very unexpected. Furthermore, the plural of majesty is, contrary to the Quran, normally not used for God in the Bible33 . In the rst three verses of the Bible, the three Persons are present, the Son who is the Word of God only implicitly through the expression "God said": Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light (emphasis ours).
See Anthony Rogers, The Trinity in the Old Testament, a brief summary of the evidence http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/ot_trinity.html
33

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But the most striking passage is the apparition of three persons to Abraham in Gen. 18. See especially the unexpected alternance between the singular and the plural: Genesis 18:1-10 And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, "My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I fetch a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of ne meal, knead it, and make cakes." And Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." The LORD said, "I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." (emphasis ours) It should be noted that the authors of the NT are not quoting those passages when mentioning one or several Persons of the Holy Trinity. Usually they do so whenever they can appeal to accomplished prophecies from the OT to stress their point34 . And yet, we nd all three Persons clearly mentioned in the NT, especially in Matt. 2835 : Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit There is no serious ground to think that the passages of the OT mentioned inuenced the authors of the NT in their insistance on three dierent Persons.

12.7.3

The divinity of Jesus Christ

The most relevant passage is denitively found in Isaiah 9. We have already seen it:
This is in particular the case of Matthew. See also the rst chapter of Pauls Epistle to the Thessalonians, the rst written book of the NT chronologically, and the baptism of Jesus, Matt. 3:16-17 and parallels.
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Isaiah 9:6 his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." The Hebrew term used for "Mighty God", El gibor, is normally only applied to God in the OT. It is very strange that this term is apparently used here for a human person, especially in the context of the strict jewish monotheism. Of course, this becomes understandable in the light of the NT and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Then we have also the verse Is. 7:14 in which the child to be born of a virgin is called Immanuel which means "God with us". Isnt that exactly what happened at the birth of Jesus? God was with us humans. Here are other relevant passages: Psalms 45:7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows; Psalms 110:1 The LORD says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool." In both cases we have messianic prophecies, and the same word is used to address both God and the Messiah. In Micah 5 we have: Micah 5:2 one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. We see here that the preexistence of the Messiah is implied.

12.7.4

Bread and wine as oering

Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abraham: Genesis 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. Jesus also oered bread and wine to His disciples at the Last Supper: Matthew 26:26-28 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. This is interesting since Christ is a High Priest, moreover after the order of Melchizedek:

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Hebrews 7:17 For it is witnessed of him, "Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek."36 Heb. 7 does expand on Gen. 14, but does not make any mention of bread and wine. The accounts of the Last Supper do not refer to the episode with Melchizedek. Furthermore, bread and wine have always been very common products. This is a stunning parallel and there is no much ground to think that it was arranged.

12.7.5

The seed of the woman

God announces to the serpent in Gen. 3: Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The serpent is Satan, and the seed of the woman corresponds to Jesus Christ. This is supported by the fact that only the seed of the woman is mentioned, the man is not alluded to. This makes sense since Christ was born of a woman without the intervention of a man. The victory of Christ, born of a woman, over Satan was foreshadowed centuries before it happened at the very beginning of the Holy Bible!

12.7.6

Typology

We have already dealt with biblical typology in the rst part37 . I acknowledge that it is possible to object that the authors made everything up by studying the OT. Nevertheless, this is not an easy way out for the following reasons: The NT was written by several authors writing, for the majority of cases, independently from each other. Modern research agrees on the fact that they did not have the entire OT availble, but only parts of it. Typology is a unique process that you do not nd in other religions. The rst two objections make particularly sense when one considers the extent of the typological parallels between the OT and the NT. Typology is really a hallmark of the NT revelation. Its subtility points to the fact that it is the ngerprint of the Holy Spirit and not simply the fruit of human mind38 .
Quotes Ps. 110:4. Chapter 2: History of salvation and accomplished prophecies 38 Compare with the manner in which the islamic revelation draws from the judeochristian one to see the huge gap: we nd many inconsistencies and wrong statements, the
37 36

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12.7.7

Isaiah 53

This chapter of the Book of Isaiah concerns the suerings of Jesus Christ. It could have been mentioned before in the corresponding section, but I wanted to put it at the end of the chapter on prophecies due to its great prophetic importance. Let me rst quote the entire chapter for you to read carefully39 : Isaiah 53:1-12 (1) Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? (2) For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. (3) He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (4) Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and aicted. (5) But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (6) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (7) He was oppressed, and he was aicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. (8) By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut o out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (9) And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. (10) Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an oering for sin, he shall see his ospring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; (11) he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satised; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. (12) Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his
faith of the forerunners is rejected, the two kinds of revelation are completely at odds with each other, there are no precise quotations from the previous scriptures, those scriptures are declared as corrupt by the later scolarship... 39 I intentionally separate the verses to facilitate the subsequent explanation.

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soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Here are the most important features and predictions of this passage: Rejection of Jesus by men, especially by His people: (3). This cannot be arranged. Jesus delivered His message to the people with a good intention, but the latter rejected Him and put Him to death. Beating before the Crucixion: (5). As I mentioned, it is a well-known fact that a violent beating was preceding the execution by crucixion. Death: (8) and (12). He was peaceful and righteous: (9). He was killed along with transgressors: (9) and (12). This is amazing because we have in the prophecy that Jesus was righteous, and yet that he was "numbered with the transgressors" at the end of His life. Even if you do not trust the Crucixion accounts of the Gospels40 , this is exactly what we expect in the context of an execution by crucixion since it was the most disgraceful punishment applied in the case of serious crimes. Resurrection: (10). If the prophecy is accurate on the death, why not also on the Resurrection? Glory of Jesus Christ: (12). This is exactly what happened. See how the two extremes of the prophecy nd their accomplishment in Jesus: He suered the most disgraceful type of death, and yet He is now considered as Lord and King by scores of people all around the globe. Atonement for our sins: all the verses from (4), except (9). This is the most important message of this passage. Notice that the latter does not make much sense if you do not consider it in the light of the NT revelation41 . Why such an insistance on a man dying for us and bearing our sins? How can this be possible? But it all becomes clear in the context of the revelation of the Son of God who died for us on the Cross42 .
Matt. 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19. Jews try to avoid the diculty by applying this passage of the suering servant to Israel as a whole. I think that it is clear enough from the corresponding passages that we are dealing with a person. The proposed perspective requires an reinterpretation that the text does not support. The christian perspective makes much more sense, especially in the light of all the facts enumerated above. 42 To understand my point better, I invite you to read Pauls Epistle to the Romans, especially chapters 5 and 6. Of course, the best way would be to read the entire NT, because it is only when you have the full picture that you can really understand the purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God.
41 40

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To conclude on this passage, I would like to expand more on the suering aspect of the Messiah. Jews at the times of Jesus were mostly waiting for an earthly ruler who would overthrow the Roman rule and make the people of Israel dominate. A critique that can be made is that they overlooked the prophetic passages about the suering servant. When you look at the prophecies and try to combine them in a single person, you are faced by the diculty that you have two contradictory aspects: suering, even shameful death, but also glory and eternal dominion43 . It is therefore understandable that the Jews of the time of Jesus could not grasp the whole thing and were giving more importance to the second aspect. But, this contradiction was overcome by Jesus Christ. He suered, was humiliated, and even put to a shameful death, but at the end He became victorious. Even if you do not want to accept the Resurrection, no other historical gure can claim to have had such a legacy. The overcoming of this contradiction is, according to me, one the most amazing aspects of the prophecies accomplished by Jesus.

I think that we can close this long chapter here. As I said before, there are other prophecies, but studying them all in detail would require an entire volume44 . The combination of all the facts presented here, and of some more I do not have the place to expand on, appears to be clearly beyond coincidence. I seriously do not see how all this could have happened by chance, especially since there is absolutely nothing comparable in any other religion. The prophetic connection between the OT and the NT is a remarkable feature that makes Christianity unique and shows that the Holy Bible is the revelation of God. Note also that we share the OT with the Jews. The conditions are such that one cannot object that Christians modied or added verses to the previous Scripture in order to support the claims made by Jesus. Jews would have never allowed that! By the way, the Hebrew text of the Bible availble today, the Massoretic text, was edited by jewish scholars.

Both aspects have been extensively treated in this chapter. Once again, if you want a more complete listing consult: http://bibleprobe.com/365messianicprophecies.htm
44

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Chapter 13

Some other points

13.1 Christianity stands out

I hope that I have provided enough evidence to show you that Christianity is a unique case among world religions and that there is no one that can measure up with it. I claim that it is impossible to produce a similar material for any other religion. As I have already said, the second religion one should consider when it comes to evidence is Islam, but we have seen in this essay that this religion presents unsolvable problems and cannot denitely compare with Christianity. Because of many of its teachings unacceptable for followers of other religions and many people without religion, especially when it comes to sexual morality and human rights, Islam is on many points even under the level of almost all other religions. Nevertheless, I think that its spread and inuence make it deserve the second position. But that does not help much when you compare to Christianity. We have therefore a gap between Christianity and the other religions. Now, lets see how many religions we have in the world, counting only those that claim strictly more than one million followers: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese folk religions (including Taoism and Confucianism), Shinto, Sikhism, Judaism, Jainism, Bah Faith, Cao Dai, Cheondoism, and Tenrikyo1 . Christianity has around two billion adherent, and the last one of the list, Tenrikyo, around two millions. That gives us thirteen religions, ten of which claim more than ve million followers. But why, of all those religions, does only one stand out in such a manner? What is the probability for that? Is that by chance or does it mean that we are dealing with the religion created by God? Ironically, skeptics often point to the fact that there are so many religions in the world in order to disprove Christianity. Here we see that it is
1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups

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a dangerous argument. It simply turns against those who use it! Yes, there are many religions, but there is no one like Christianity.

13.2

The Resurrection

We will deal a little bit more with the Resurrection in an annex. Here I would simply like to add a few thoughts. We have seen that the two main anti-resurrection theories are the conspiracy theory (the disciples stole the body), and the hallucination theory. We can say that each of those theory presents a problem2 : There was no serious reason for the disciples to steal the body, especially in light of all the suerings and dangers they had to endure because of their preaching. Some, if not most of them, even died for it. All the evidence in the sources point to the fact that they were sincere in their belief3 . The disciples were many. It is not common to have such large scale hallucinations. That can happen, for sure, but it is rare. Even a single person should not be considered prone to hallucinations without a serious reason. It is therefore counterintuitive to steal a body or have hallucinations under the conditions faced by the apostles. We have seen throughout this essay that Christianity presents amazing evidence regarding its veracity and denitely stands out from other religions. Try to remind you very quickly of the abundant material presented in this essay that clearly goes in favor of the truthfulness of this religion. The question is now: Why on earth would something not very logical and/or not very common (steal the body or have hallucinations) happen precisely in this case? That would really be the icing on the cake (in a negative sense) with all the huge amount of coincidences we have! This could have happened to any other disciples of any other religion founder, but it happened precisely to those ones. Why?! And of course it also happened to Paul who originally was persecuting Christians! By the way, when you accept the Resurrection of Jesus Christ you nd an easy solution to this problem. So, think about it!

We will deal with other problems in the annex. I would denitely think it was the case of all the founders of the main religions. According to me, even Muhammad, who got a lot of material advantages from his alleged prophethood (earthly power, women...), was really believing he was a messenger of God. This was probably also the case of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
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Chapter 14

Final assessment
At the end of this long discussion, we can say that we have evidenced that Christianity presents several features that seam to be beyond coincidence. Lets therefore assess the probability for all of those to happen only with one single religion1 : The set of seven important, for two of them even required, features possessed only by Christianity: this has been discussed at the end of the rst part. The probability was under 1/1,000. The Messiah came out of the only trully monotheistic people: the probability is well under 1/100. Israel was a very small people, powerless in comparison to many other nations (Roman Empire, Persian Empire...). As an indication, we have seen that the ratio of the surfaces state of Israel/Roman Empire is under 1/100. You can imagine what it would be if you would consider the entire world! There were many other prominent nations elsewhere (Chinese Empire, Indian kingdoms...). The rise of Islam: lets say the probability is around 1/10. This is reasonable, I would even say it should be lower. The fact that the second largest religion rose from the descendants od Ishmael (located in Arabia), whereas it could have been from any other part of the world, and is particularly oriented against Christianity, whereas it could be perfectly neutral, does not seem to be a coincidence. Accomplished prophecies: lets say the probability is 1/10, but once again I am denitely of the opinion that it should be much lower in the light of all the facts presented in the corresponding chapter. This probability is also very dicult to assess, for this reason I am putting only 1/10.
1

Refer carefully to the corresponding chapters for a justication of those assessments.

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 Only religion standing out: there are many religions in the world, but only one distances itself from the others. There are more than ten religions in the world, so the probability for that is under 1/10.

When you combine all those probabilities together, you nd a probability for Christianity to happen by chance lower than 1/100,000,000! This is absolutely amazing, and if you look at the discussion above I have several times intentionally determined a probability higher than what the facts are pointed to. Critics would probably say that I am making those numbers up, but I have, I think, produced enough material in the corresponding chapters trying to justify that the facts we have cannot be a shear coincidence. That is simply too much! At the end of the day, let the reader go carefully through those chapters and judge by himself. As I said before, it is the accumulation of facts dealt with in this study that shows that Christianity is clearly beyond coincidence and justies this extremely low probability. I may have made some mistakes somewhere, this is perfectly possible, but I still have a very large margin. Let us say I made some mistakes and I give you one zero, even two zeroes, three, four, ve if you want. In the last case we still have a probability of 1/1,000. This number is denitely low enough to prove my point. Even in the case of a probability of 1/10, I would denitely take Christianity seriously and, if you are not a Christian, recommend you to investigate it deeply and give it a chance2 . There is absolutely nothing to lose, and I would denitely not gamble with my eternal salvation. I would not do it even for one chance out of two, let alone for, according to this study, one out of more than one million for Christianity to be a coincidence, and therefore not a true religion.

We arrive now at the end of the second part. This is the material I have in favor of Christianity3 and which makes me believe that Christianity is true. I cannot understand how all this could have happened by chance. So, I am only left with the solution to accept Christianity as the true faith. Before ending, I would like to treat a few cases in the appendices.

2 Imagine you are blindfold, and you have to pick a ball from a basket with nine black balls and only one white. If you pick a black one you lose. 3 Of course, this is not all Christians can provide. I just wanted to make a synthesis using a personal approach. I will include a bibliography at the end of the essay for those who want to know more.

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Appendix A

Do the conicts between religions disprove Christianity?

When I engage with people that do not confess any religion, I almost always hear the argument that there are many conicts in the world because of religion, therefore all the religions must be false. This argument presents many problems, and I will give here some reasons why1 : When you advance this argument, you are overlooking all the good aspects that Christianity brought to the world. Especially, the teachings of Jesus Christ had a great inuence on the concepts of human rights and respect of the human person. Christian theology advances that every human life is precious because every human being, whatever his origin, social position, or religion has been created in the image of God2 . Furthermore, Christianity contributed considerably to the development of our modern civilization3 . Christianity is also the leading religion in the world when it comes to international charities. How many lives are saved everyday thanks to those actions on behalf of Christians. Notice also that those organizations are helping all people without discrimination: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, non-religious people... When it comes to helping our fellow humans, Christians should not make dierences. Morever, notice that all those
The primary intent of those appendices is only to give an argumental line and present some objections to the arguments proposed by critics. I do not expand much on my objections because it is not the primary goal of this study. My purpose in this work was to show that Christianity is beyond coincidence. Nevertheless, presenting those objections might be a primary source of reection for the believer faced with those arguments, as well as for the unbeliever who thinks that those weak arguments are strong enough to disprove the case for Christianity, which is, in light of the facts presented in this essay, very strong. 2 See Gen. 1:26: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". 3 This has been discussed in details in the chapter on universality of the rst part. I do not come back on it here.
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philanthropic actions are exactly what Christians are commanded to do4 . Christianity also played a great role in the promotion of human rights because of people that were applyimg the fundamental principles of love and mercy you nd in this religion. On the contrary, people that were doing evil in the name of Christianity were absolutely going against the teachings of Jesus Christ and did not have any justication for what they were doing. The Gospel is clear enough on the topic of love and peace towards anyone that there is no much need to insist on it. Now, look also at all the evil done by atheist states. If you think that having no religion is the best way, then there is no reason why a state should not have this absence of religion as one of its fundamental principles. If religion is so bad, why should we support it5 ? A "wise" government should make it clear that the world would be better without religion. The problem is that, when you look at those states, you will nd a lot of evil. Look at all the crimes comitted by the atheist communist governements: Stalin, Pol Pot and the Red Khmers... Compare the situation in North Korea, a state pursuing anti-religious propaganda, and South Korea, a state promoting religious freedom. Hitler was also probably an atheist. Stalin was clearly one. In any case, those two heads of state did not care about a God that was above them and their actions, they thought their power was without limitation, and therefore there was also no limit to their crimes. Thus, the one following the logic behind the argument should also think that it is better to have a religion that not to have any. So it is better not to have any religion, but in the same time it is better to have one. I think there is a problem here! Religion is far away not the only source of conicts in the world. I am of the opinion that warring is simply one of the bad aspects of our fallen nature, and it is very dicult to avoid it. People ght because there are not of the same ethnicity, because they do not speak the same language, because they do not have the same political principles. There have always been scores of wars between people sharing the same religion. Recently, there was a genocide in Darfur, a part of Sudan. Both belligerents were Sunni Muslims, the dierence was the ethnicity, Arabs and black Africans warring against each other. I denitely think that even without religion, people would be ghting at the same level anyway. Unfortunately enough, humans always nd a reason to ght and kill each other.
See Matt. 5 and Matt. 25:32-40. This does not imply that the state forbids any practice of religion. It simply does not support it because it is contrary to its ideology. Our Western states are mostly secular, that is neutral on religious matters and encouraging religious freedom.
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 We have seen that Christianity has brought a lot to the world. Even in the case of other religons, you nd many positive things, especially on a cultural level. Is not any of us interested in visiting shrines, whatever the religion is, when she or he goes on a trip? Much of the cultural development we observe in many countries would not have been possible without religion. It is very important when you judge something to see not only the bad aspects, but also the good ones. Should we reject the technological development because of side eects such as pollution? And should we not simply abolish all the national and linguistic dierences, be all of a neutral nationality and speak all the same language? I am sure that could help in avoiding conicts, but what a poor world we would be living in! If you look at most of the religious conicts nowadays, in most of the cases one of the sides involved are Muslims, sometimes even both sides. And yet, Muslims account for only one fourth of the world population. One should therefore not judge all religions in the light of one religion causing more violence than the others. Another aw of the argument is that the fact presented is not necessarily linked to the conclusion. If only one religion is true and all the other are false, which I think is the case, there would be conicts anyway. So you do not prove anything here. Finally, you are not looking at what the religions really teaches. In the case of Christianity, it is very clear: Matthew 5:44-48 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. If Christians fail to follow this clear principle, is it necessarily the fault of their Master? Did He not also clearly say: Matthew 7:21 Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Also, imagine how beautiful the world would be if everyone were following this principle of love towards the ennemies! 89

This set of counter-arguments is enough to show that the argument dealt with is weak. It does not prove anything and even leads to contradictions. People advancing it should denitely nd another strategy if they want to disprove the case for Christianity.

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Appendix B

A critique of non-religious theism

I often engage with people who tell me that they believe in God, but that they do not have any religion. This is what I would call "non-religious theism" or "non-denominational theism". Very often, people call the divinity they believe in "superior force" because they do not like the use the word God, probably because they nd it too religious. My purpose in this appendix is to show that the assumption of such a divinity not linked to any particular religion presents some aws. Here are my objections: The set of moral rules that you have to follow as a Christian is situated at a higher level than everything you might have in the case of nonreligious theism (NRT). In the last case, you do not even have dened moral rules. Of course, the belief in a sort of higher being can in some way impose some limits on your behavior, but you do not have precise commandments to observe. For this reason, the moral values vary quite a lot from person to person, since there is no precise reference or criterion of judgement. In general, most of people concerned more or less follow the moral rules of the society they live in, which is in most cases a secular society. Christian morality denitely maintains higher standards1 . Most people agree that we should not harm others, as a Christian you should not judge someone even in your thoughts, let alone say it aloud. You should not even think evil. You have to forgive everything, you have to love everyone, even people that do you evil and hate you. The dierence is even more pronounced when it comes to questions regarding marriage, sexuality, and pleasure in general. Since the secular society we live in is getting more and more immoral, the gap between christian values and the values of our society is widening quite
I know this from my own experience. When I became religious, I had to start changing everything in my behavior. My attitude towards other people was one of the most important points I had to rethink.
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fast. Moreover, you feel much more inclined to follow a determined set of rules when you are really convinced that God is telling you to observe them. In the Gospels, we can read how our Lord Jesus is commanding us to live and this denitely has a profound impact on our way of life. In NRT you do not have anything similar, everything is based on your own mind. Those explanations point to the fact that you are inclined to live more morally as a Christian than as an adept of NRT. The question is now: if you admit that the NRT view is correct, how can something that is "false" (it would be Christianity in this assumption) endow you with better moral values than the almighty God Himself does? How can something "false" do better than God? We are here faced with an important problem. For me, the NRT view is simply morally decient2 . We are rational beings and persons, so God must also be a person. One of the main characteristics of a person is that she or he communicates. God who created us and set us apart from the rest of creation must therefore also want in some way to communicate with us. In the NRT view, you do not have anything like that. The NRT God is cut from humanity, he does not enter in contact with it, it seems that he does not even care about how we are living and what we are doing. The christian view presents a much better perspective. God loves the world and sends us His only begotten Son: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God became esh, he lived like a human on earth: Philipians 2:5-8 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. The christian God does show His care for mankind. God "rst loved us"(1 John 4:19). Followers of the NRT view in general do not care much about God. Followers of other theistic religions do quite a lot. For us, God is the center of our life. If the NRT view of God is the right one, it would
2

As an illustration, I would recomment reading the entire chapter Matt. 5.

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mean that all the people that care about Him most are completely wrong, whereas those who almost do not care and profess NRT are on the right path. I do not know how could God allow that! He does not care about you, and when you love Him and dedicate your life to Him, you are sure to be completely wrong. God does not communicate with us, and He does not want us to communicate with Him. Why did He create us? The NRT view is not based on something concrete, it does not have any revelation as background. It is therefore a very fragile view. It is based on something negative, the absence of revelation, and not something positive. The religious opinion of NRT adepts is simply a product of their own mind. In Christianity, it is completely dierent. Our faith is based on a revelation and on an event, namely the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course, this by itself, before investigating, does not make it necessarily true, but at least it is something you can assess3 , whereas in NRT you do not have anything. You have therefore no way to get to know what the truth is. For many people that does not matter at all, but what about people like me who really desire to know the truth? This is indeed a question of primordial importance. It determines how you should live right now, but it also informs you about what the purpose of life in this world is, and also about what is going to happen after your death. All those questions are very important and should be answered. NRT cannot help you much in this regard. On the contrary, Jesus Christ is "the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6). With Christianity, you can get to know the truth. In any case, God must provide us with a way to get to know what the true faith is. Monotheistic belief was not something common in ancient times. The judeo-christian revelation caused its lasting appearance on earth and contributed a lot to its expansion throughout the world. How can God use something that is "false" to propagate the belief in Him? In Christianity, it all makes sense because the revelation to Israel was a preparatory step before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the subsequent spread of the monotheistic christian faith. Finally, we have seen in this study that there are many reasons to believe in Christianity. Even if you do not quite agree, you still must admit that there is some evidence in favor of such a belief, much more than in any other religion. Many things point to the fact that Christianity is true. If NRT is true however, how could God allow for all those conditions to be met that can induce belief in Christianity when
3

This is what this study is all about.

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one examines the facts carefully? This would be some sort of deception4 . I have presented here only a few objections. Anyway, it is not necessary to provide much of them because NRT is only a product of the mind of people that adhere to it and has absolutely no historical grounds in order to be veried. It has no real weapons to defend itself. It is enough that someone brings a strong case in favor of Christianity and NRT will not be able to measure up.

It should be clear that Christianity is not true, but the material presented in this essay clearly makes me think, on the contrary, that it is the only possible truth.

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Appendix C

The aws of anti-resurrection theories

My intent in this appendix is only to present a few objections to the two main theories proposed by skeptics to explain the belief of early Christians in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ1 : the conspiracy theory (the disciples stole the body) and the hallucination theory2 . I will not expand too much on this subject because it is not the primary intent of this essay. There are already many very good books on the historicity of the Resurrection and I would invite the interested reader to consult them3 .

C.1

The conspiracy theory

According to this theory, the apostles stole the body and conspired to spread the faith in the risen Christ. This theory presents several problems: First, the apostles did not have a serious reason to do that. Why on earth would someone steal a body and start spreading the false news that the man is risen? Did they have any gain in doing that? Obviously not. Did they become rich? Did they gain earthly power? This makes especially sense in the light of all the suerings they had to endure for their faith in the Resurrection. Many of them even gave their life for it. They were constantly exposed to danger. How did they
See also http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12789a.htm I will not deal with the "swoon theory" according to which Jesus did not die on the Cross, survived the crucixion, and appear while still alive to His disciples. This theory does not have many supporters. I think that a half dead man would probably not have produced a very strong eect on the apostles, and at the end of the day he had to die afterwards anyway! Nonetheless, this just shows how far the imagination of skeptics can go when it comes to trying to explain the rise of Christianity. 3 I will indicate some of them in the bibliography.
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keep steadfast in their lie? Who would risk his life for a lie? This is what Paul says: 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. This can be said of the other apostles. How come that no one retracted. We do not have any record of a disciple abandoning the faith and starting spreading the news that the Resurrection was in fact a lie. Wherever Christianity spread, the belief in the Resurrection was strongly armed. A retraction would particularly make sense in the light of the suerings that the disciples had to endure. Normally, when you start spreading a lie, it is almost in order to glorify yourself. The apostles did everything for the glory of Jesus. Paul says: 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucied for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? Do we have to think that they spread all that lie not for their glory, but for the glory of a dead man, and that they risked their lives for a dead person? Where did they nd the strength to preach in the name of Jesus if they knew He was dead? What was the source of motivation that enabled them to stand rm amidst tribulations if they knew that all that story was not true? How can a lie give you so much strength that you are not even afraid to lose your life? When you study the sources, you see that all the information we have shows us that the apostles were really dedicated and everything points to the fact that they really believed in what they were preaching4 .
Read for instance Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians, and also the Acts of the Apostles.
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 How come that the Jewish or Roman authorities were not able to produce the body? They would probably have made an investigation in order to try to gure out what really happened. It is self-evident that the christian message preached by the apostles implies honesty and rejection of lies. How could one spend his time spreading such a message while being himself an ultimate deceiver? Here you have to assume that all the apostles involved suered from a multiple personality disorder, which is an absolutely arbitrary assumption. Finally, there is still the fact that Paul, who was a erce persecutor of the new faith, converted and became a zealous preacher of the Resurrection of Jesus. He denitely could not have been part of the alleged original controversy. In light of all those facts, we see that using the conspiracy theory in order to explain away the Resurrection is a weak strategy that leaves many problems unsolved.

C.2

The hallucination theory

According to the second theory, the disciples had some experiences of the risen Jesus which made them believe that He was alive. Here again, this assumption presents many problems. My main objections are: Sincerely, the rst thing I would personally do in such a case is to go to check out the tomb! It does not require much energy and is denitely the best way to gure out. At least one of the disciples could have had this idea! Moreover, we do not have any record of a cult at the place were Jesus was buried. Usually, when a person you cherish dies, you go to visit the tomb. In a religious context, such a place often becomes a place of pilgrimage. In the case of the apostles, we do not have anything like that. Maybe was it because Jesus left the tomb empty! How come that no one realized later on that he was wrong by believing that Jesus was alive, that the experience he had was only an hallucination, and that there is no point anymore in risking his life? We do not have any record of such a retraction. How could a simple hallucination give them so much strength to face all the dangers and diculties caused by the preaching of their message? The experience they had produced a very strong eect on them, more than you would generally expect from an hallucination. 97

 This is particularly true when you consider the fact that many hallucinations have a temporary eect and that the person later on realizes that the fact experienced was actually not real. This should have happened to at least some of the disiples involved, and the dangers they had to face on a regular basis would have easily brought them back to reason. The experience was probably involving many witnesses which makes it more reliable. However, you have principally to rely on the NT to assess the number of witnesses. But, it is also a source that you have to take seriously. Critics cannot arbitrarily reject whatever the NT says as not reliable5 . Hallucination involving several people do happen, but are not so common. Even in the case of a single person, it is not that usual. It happens very often that a mother loses her single child. It is common that the mother has dreams involving her child, but having hallucinations of him while awake is very unusual. There were no precedents, at least known of the apostles, of a person rising from the dead and appearing alive under such conditions. Such a case could have triggered their imagination, but here we do not have such a thing. In this case, it would have been even easier for the Jewish or Romans authorities to produce the body and laugh at the apostles because no one had stolen it. Once again, Paul was not of the original group that had those experiences. As a persecutor of Christians, he had no reason to have hallucinations of the risen Jesus. This is the theory that is most popular among secular scholars6 . But we have seen that it also presents many problems. You can obviously avoid some of the diculties, but producing a convincing explanation avoiding all of them is not easy at all! To sum up, we have seen that the two main anti-resurrection theories present many diculties. It is an easy way out when you absolutely do not want to believe in the Resurrection, but it becomes much trickier when you look at the facts with an objective eye. Of course, this is exactly what is happening: skeptics are convinced that the Resurrection did not happen and come up with whatever they can in order to disprove it. This is what we call a circular
We have seen that the tradition of 1 Cor. 15:3-5 is a very early one. According to it, all the apostles saw the risen Lord. 6 http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/dialog_rexperience/dialog_rexperiences.htm
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reasoning. When you accept the Resurrection, all the diculties mentioned above disappear. Is it then objective to reject the Resurrection right at the beginning? Of course not! Why not give a chance to our explanation when it can easily explain what happened and why Christianity ever appeared? This is true especially in light of the facts presented in this essay that show that Christianity is beyond coincidence. And also, if it is so easy to explain as critics would have it, why does not that happen also with other religions? There were scores of prophets and religious founders that came in the world, but no one of them, as far as I know, is said to have risen from the dead7 . Why would it be dierent in the case of Jesus Christ? For us it is clear: it is because Jesus Christ is trully risen from the dead. Without the Resurrection there would be no Christianity8 .

In any case, not in any other of the main religions you have in the world. I acknowledge that this would require a more extent analysis. For more information, refer to some of the material suggested in the bibliography. Some of it is produced by experts on the Resurrection than can obviously do much better than me.
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Epilogue
We arrive now at the end of the essay. If you are a Christian, especially if you have already faced doubts, I hoped that this contribution helped you realize that our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Master is standing on a solid ground. If you are not a Christian, I hope you would at least take the material presented in this essay seriously, analyze it, and test your position. Most of the unbelievers I know do not have a clue about Christianity, let alone about the arguments in favor of its veracity. Most of the time, they are completely prejudiced in their rejection. I would be more than happy if the evidence presented here would make you think and see that the reasons you had for not accepting our faith was biased and that you need to go a step further. At the end of this study, it is clear that Christianity is absolutely beyond coincidence. It could not have happened by chance. It is absolutely not like any other religion, it stands completely out. I am aware that not everyboby will agree with my methodology, but it cannot be completely wrong either. As I have already said, I have a large margin of error within which my point remains proven. I would invite anyone that does not believe in Christianity to consider the facts with an objective eye. This is one of the most crucial questions of existence. We are talking here about eternal life. The material provided in this study shows that, for a bunch of reasons, I might be right. And what you can miss is huge! Jesus Christ has always been an extinguishable source of joy in my life, and in the lives of scores of people around the globe. Whatever happens in your life you know that Jesus is with you and that, at the end of the day, everything will be alright: John 16:33 I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. You know that you will live eternally with Jesus and that no one will ever be able to separate you from Him: Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, 100

or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You do not have anything to lose. Give simply Jesus a chance. He is calling each one of us: Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will nd rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

1 Corinthians 15:16-20 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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Further readings
Recommended websites:
www.reasonablefaith.org with Dr. William Lane Craig, one of the leading christian apologists. www.garyhabermas.com with Dr. Gary R. Habermas, one of the leading experts on the Resurrection of Jesus. www.evidenceforchristianity.org with Dr. John Oakes www.christianevidences.org www.bibleprobe.com

Christian websites dealing with Islam: www.answering-islam.org www.answeringmuslims.com with David Wood www.creed26.com with Dr. Nabeel Qureshi

Some recommended books:

Reasonable Faith, Christian Truth and Apologetics, William Lane Craig On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, William Lane Craig The Case for Christ: A Journalists Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, Lee Strobel The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, Lee Strobel 102

 I Dont Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, Norman L. Geisler Mere Christian Apologetics, Dave Amstrong Shattering the Christ Myth, James Patrick Holding Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis (a best seller!)

On the Resurrection: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Gary R. Habermas, Michael Licona The Son Rises, William Lane Craig The Case for the Resurrection: A First-Century Investigative Reporter Probes Historys Pivotal Event, Lee Strobel The Case For Easter: A Journalist Investigates The Evidence For The Resurrection, Lee Strobel Evidence for the Resurrection, Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell Defending the Resurrection, ed. James Patrick Holding I also recommend watching Dr. Craigs public debates9 .

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5725

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