Claims of Jesus about himself

The truth is, before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58)
“I am the light of the world” (John 8:12)
“I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6)
“I am the only way to the Father” (John 14:6)
“I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25)
“I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11)
“I am the door” (John 10:9)
“I am the living bread” (John 6:51)
“I am the true vine” (John 15:1)
“I am the Alpha and Omega” (Rev.1:7,8)
"if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." (John 8:24)

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in ...."
—Revelation 3:20


"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

—Matthew 24:35


"He who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
—Luke 10:16
"When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me should stay in darkness."


—John 12:44-46
"You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

—Daniel 7:13-14

"You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
—Mark 14:62

Here is the reaction:

And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.
--Mark 14:63-65

It is Not Befitting to Allah that He should Beget a Son

Muslims often quote this verse from the Quran:

It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is.
--(Quran 19:35)


This is hard to answer until you realize that you should not disagree on this point.  Christianity differs from Islam in that it sees itself as a rescue mission to save man from sin.
The birth, life and painful death of Jesus shows how far God had to go to save us.  Jesus had to jump into the dirty world of humanity to pay the price for sin and bring us to God.  Is this dignified?  It is just what God had to do to save us.
 After you understand the price God paid to save us, you will willingly worship Him.

Also you should be aware that Muslims often believe that Jesus was the result of a physical union between Allah and Mary (this explains the second part of the verse above).

Bible Corrupt: Manuscript Variants and inconsistencies among gospels argue against conspiracy *

Christians believe that the New Testament was copied and handed from church to church in an un-directed way.  In other words, never were all the New Testament manuscripts in the hands of one small group or one person.

Muslims sometimes claim that the entire New Testament was fabricated, for example at the council of Nicea.  But then some Muslims point to all the manuscript variants and the slight inconsistencies in the gospels.

These two are contradictory, because you should not have both.  If the New Testament really was handed down from one source, then there would not be many manuscript variants.  But the many small manuscript variants do seem to point to a distributed source, as we Christians claim.

Also, sometimes they point to the The "Comma Johanneum" as evidence that the Bible has been changed.  This consists of a few words around 1 John 5:7 that explain the trinity.  These words only appear in later manuscripts, but appear in the KJV.

However, rather than detracting from the accuracy of the Bible, these verses show that Bible translators are working to render the text as accurately as possible to the reader, because these words are either removed in modern translations or marked with a footnote.  What this means is that if there is no footnote, then the text is not in dispute, and therefore the text is not subject to speculation.

Trinity: God Is Not a Man +

Muslims use this verse to show that Jesus is not God, since Jesus is a man:

God is not a man, that he should lie,
    nor the son of man, that he should repent.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
    Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
--Numbers 23:19

The point of this verse is clearly to contrast God's integrity with our failing in this area.

Also this uses the old Muslim trick of comparing their unitarian god to the triune god.  It is easy to fall for this.  No member of the trinity is God individually.  The trinity is God.

Also, this verse does not stop the Logos from becoming a man--one who is sinless.

On a related note, Islam has a concept called "Taqiyya" (various spellings), which allows Muslims to lie.

Muslims' favorite Bible Verse

Muslims generally do not read the Bible. However one day there was some Muslim who decided to read the Bible or just read the concordance for certain words and they found Ezekiel 23, which reads,

Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: and they played the prostitute in Egypt; they played the prostitute in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity. Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. She gave herself as a prostitute to them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself. Neither has she left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her. Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted. These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her. Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister. She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way. She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, dressed with girdles on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. As soon as she saw them she doted on them, and sent messengers to them into Chaldea. The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses
--Ezekiel 23:1-10

The Bible is a book of truth; it records when people do bad things.  Even the kings and prophets receive this treatment.

In the case of Ezekiel 23, he warns his people with graphic language.  If you come with the pre-conception that God can't talk like this, then this is bad.  But the other view is that God can say what he wants to get his message across, and if  that contradicts your view of God, then you have the wrong view of God.
Muslims have the wrong view of God when they criticize the Bible based on this passage.

You: The fact that Muslims who have never read any other verse of the Bible know this verse shows how effectively God used Ezekiel to communicate his disappointment with his audience.

Practiced, Prescribed, Permitted or Prohibited? *

One trap that you can fall into is to mix up what people actually to with what their religion teaches.  Just because Christians do something does not mean it is part of Christianity, and the same with Islam.

The "Five Pillars of Islam" aren't all neatly listed together anywhere in the Quran, the same way as they are listed in Exodus 20.  Nevertheless, all Muslims seem to agree on what the pillars are for some reason.

One of these five pillars is the pilgrimage, which is where Muslims walk around the Kaaba.which is the house that contains  the special black rock that is a part of Islam.  This often makes the headlines when some of them fall over and are trampled to death by the rest of them.

Concerning the pilgrimage, I once heard a discussion about whether or not Muslims commit idolatry when they walk around the Kaaba (along wit other things).  The Muslim offered various responses. One of them was that Christians do similar things, like kissing Bibles, kneeling before a cross, wearing a cross, kissing Bibles, and things like that.

The problem with this sort of answer is that you can't compare what one religion prescribes with what the other permits or even prohibits, based on what some person once did.

There is nothing in the Bible that says we must kiss Bibles or wear or kiss crosses.

Sometimes, when discussing, there comes a time when both sides need to clarify what defines their respective religions.

For always or just temporary?

Also sometimes Muslims claim that their violent verses were only for a particular time.
If the violent verses do not apply then the peaceful verses they like to quote aren't for today either.

Who wrote Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

Muslims often try to detract from the credibility of the four gospels by pointing out they are anonymous.

It is true that none of the four gospels names its author, unlike Paul's epistles (which they also attack).

But let us ask the question:

Who are Mark and Luke?

Mark quit on Paul's missionary journey, and caused a split between Paul and Barnabas.

As for Luke, he was a travel companion of Paul who is rarely mentioned in Paul's letters.

If you were to associate names with anonymous gospel writings would you choose the names of these minor figures rather than names of actual apostles to give them more credibility?  The fact that we see the names as they are suggests the authorship was accurately preserved by the church.

http://youtu.be/4g5cnpO3p8Y