Hello, in this episode I want to ask who was the god that Jesus and his followers worshiped
and I'd like to argue that the evidence suggests Jesus said
who was the god that Jesus and his followers worshiped and I'd like to argue that the
evidence suggests Jesus said Allah not Deus Deus being the Roman Western name for the deity and I
want to read some words from this marvelous book commentary on the 11th contentions by Abdul Hakeem
Murat, now he is otherwise known as Professor Tim Winter of the University of Cambridge he teaches
Islamic Studies there and obviously he's a convert to Islam and on page 22 of this book which
I'd like to read to you he says the following the Aramaic gospels present Jesus praying to
and praising the god whom he worshiped naming him Allah or Aaloh the eastern and western vocalizations
Aramic is a language so close in structure vocabulary and sensibility to Quranic Arabic
that Arab viewers of Mel Gibson's snuff movie The Passion of the Christ can follow
much of the dialogue Crusaders and every Southern Multiplex should wonder about this
Jesus surrendered to his Lord and his words whether or not they are authentically preserved
indicate perfect slavehood to L /Elohim it's a Hebrew Allah Aramaic Allah Syriac Allah the
true name of the one God of Abraham peace be upon him after the end of his ministry Jesus followers
continue to worship the Jewish god in congregation at the temple and here um Tim winter references
Acts chapter 3 verse 1 which I'm now going to read from my new revised standard version where
we read one day Peter and John were going up to the temple at The Hour of Prayer at three o'clock
in the afternoon now why is that significant well this is is so this is after Jesus Ascension
into heaven now The Hour of Prayer at three in the afternoon is not like in say the Church of
England where you go just to have some prayers no this is the hour of sacrifice as well
so the Jewish system with its sacrifices detailed in The Book of Leviticus in the
Old Testament and the Jewish understanding of God is still very much adhered to by the
chief Disciples of Jesus Peter and John in this case and um Tim Winter correctly goes on to note
like Jesus, they continued to worship the god of the prophets now Tim Winter then goes on
to quote a very high-profile and famous Roman Catholic priest called Hans Kung and he's a
very distinguished Catholic theologian and he wrote the following and Tim Winter quotes him
this was the original Jewish Christianity of the first Disciples of Jesus the original
Jerusalem community and the communities east of the Jordan in other words the very first paradigm
of Christianity before the shift to the Greek Hellenistic Paradigm and Hans come goes on to note
that Primal Christianity contains the Theology of Judaism and Islam and obliquely proposes this
as a basis for reconciliation end quote so that's chapter 12 in this book commentary on the
11th contentions and it's fascinating as only later with the theologizing of the Hellenistic
Greek Jew called Paul of Tarsus Christians call in the Apostle Paul it's only then that we find this
shift this paradigm shift to a quite different understanding where you have a savior cult where
the Messiah himself Jesus becomes a savior figure God himself whereas in the original
historical Jesus God is the center of Jesus's Proclamation so he proclaims the Oneness of God
um in the gospels we still see that today but it's fascinating
that uh Hans Kung is quoted he's such a senior Roman Catholic Theologian and he sees
the truth of this and he proposes this as a way of bringing together
the people of the book into a common word and on that very theme just want to quote to
you some words from the Quran we're going to quote from the clear Quran a very famous verse
in chapter three the family of Imran where it says say o Prophet o people of the book Jews
and Christians let us come to common terms that we will worship none but God associate none with him
nor take one another as lords instead of God but if they turn away then say bear witness that we
have submitted to God alone and that strikes me as something I'm sure that Jesus the historical Jesus
would have accepted and agreed with in fact and on a slightly different note I just want to quote
some words from this fascinating book the brother of Jesus and the lost teachings of Christianity
by an American called Jeffrey J. Butz he is an ordained Lutheran Minister and a professor of
world religions at Penn State University in the US obviously and he says some fascinating things
about Islam and Christianity and Judaism and what happened to Jesus
and I just want to read these words to their self-explanatory I think
by the way, he is a Christian writer so he believed Jesus died for his died on the cross
but he says this as abundant evidence has shown us after Jesus's crucifixion his family
and disciples continue to worship together in the temple in Jerusalem remember I quoted from
Acts chapter 3 verse one this history of the early church manifesting no difference from
their fellow Jews except in their belief that Jesus was the Davidic Messiah in other words
a messiah like David he's called the son of David in the Gospels unfortunately for those
unfortunately for these harmonious beginnings Pauline Christianity this is the religion of
Paul increasingly adopted an understanding of Jesus that Judaism could not ultimately bear
the Hellenistic theological belief that Jesus was literally God incarnate in human flesh as the
doctrine of the Incarnate Incarnation became ever more Central to Gentile Catholic Christianity this
was later on of course an impossible theological wall arose between Jews and Christians you see
the parting of the ways between Jews and Christians here later in the first century
the doctrine of the Incarnation is also a great wall that separates Muslims and Christians
most Christians today are completely unaware that Muslims highly revere Jesus and honor
his teachings even though they even believe in the Virgin birth but like their Jewish
cousins the strict monotheism of Islam could never accept the key Christian dogmas of the
Incarnation and the trinity it is therefore potentially significant for inter-religious
dialogue today I remember the quote from the Quran there let us come to a common word that one of the
firm conclusions of modern research into James and he's already established in his book that
James is the actual brother blood brother of Jesus and he actually became the leader of the early
church interestingly one of the conclusions of research into James has revealed is that neither
Jesus's family nor the apostles nor his Jewish disciples believe that Jesus was literally God
they believe that Jesus was the davidic Messiah adopted in inverted commas by God as his son at
the at his baptism by John but still a human being that the earliest Christian doctrine
was in no way incompatible with Christian with Jewish doctrine is evidenced above all
Above All by the fact that the Jews in Jerusalem continue to accept Jesus's followers as fellow
Jews in fact they saw them as being particularly rigorous and Pious Jews and earlier in this book
Jeffrey Butz references Josephus the first century Jewish historian who does mention James
and particularly that James was seen by other Jews um as particularly Pious and law abiding
and this is remarkable as it shows that at that stage the original family and Disciples
of Jesus hadn't broken from Judaism the idea of Oneness uh Ahad the Oneness of God it was
still believed by them if they proclaimed the Messiah to be God uh and that that um one's sins
were forgiven through the Incarnation of Jesus and death on the cross that would have been of
course completely anathema to the Jews as it is today no Jew today no practicing Orthodox Jew
will even go into a church a Christian church because they see it as a place of idolatry
very interesting so the author continues it is more than intriguing that the Muslim understanding
of Jesus is very much in conformity with the first Christian Orthodoxy the original Jewish Christian
understanding of Jesus so here we have a Christian academic um who is still follows Christianity
he gets it that the Islamic understanding of Jesus is in fact the same as the earliest
uh understanding of Jesus what they originally believed isn't that interesting very interesting
and I'll just read a last paragraph here if Jewish Christianity the original that is Christianity
had prevailed over Pauline Christianity history would likely have been written quite differently
it is quite likely that such atrocities as the Crusades the Inquisition and the Holocaust would
never have transpired this incredible statement this if the Jewish Christian understanding of
Jesus had prevailed which obviously it didn't initially Jews and Christians might never have
parted ways and Islam would never have become Christianity's perceived enemy
to this day it is the refusal of Jews and Muslims remember who had the original understanding of
Jesus and the community around Jesus it's their refusal of these people the Jews and Muslims
today to accept the full Divinity of Jesus that makes them pagans and heathens in the eyes of
many Christians and quote isn't this supremely ironic that those who most publicly confess to
being followers of Jesus the Christians today are mostly not following the faith of Jesus
and his original disciples themselves people who are though following that original understanding
um are of course Muslims because unlike Jews Muslims still do accept Jesus as a prophet as
the the promised Messiah and Jews unfortunately uh do not so so one could argue the only people
today who are authentically following the real Jesus the Jesus is of History are Muslims
and one I think one should as those Christians and they do exist in large numbers who also
accept that Jesus was a prophet a messiah now Unitarian Christians obviously do that but also
I've discovered many priests and even Bishops in the mainline churches I'm thinking of say the
Church of England and some other Church like the Methodist Church actually privately also believed
that too that Jesus was only a prophet and and if they believe he is a son of God it's in
a metaphorical sense it's not meant literally as a metaphysical actual God begetting a son now that's
criticized of course in the 112th of the Quran in an extraordinary piece of precision theology it
lasers in to the Council of Nicaea which uses this language of the sun begotten of the father and it
directly refutes that and affirms the original belief of the Jews themselves so the
Quran is very much endorsing the Tawheed of Jewish monotheism as we see in the Torah for
example so that's the end of this video just to conclude Aramaic the language of Jesus
is extremely close to Arabic as is Hebrew they are cognate Semitic languages so of course
Jesus would have called God Allah with his Aramaic accent his Aramaic pronunciation.