Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Resurrection: The Quran's weakness is our strength +

What is the most compelling reason to believe in Jesus?  The resurrection!

An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there will be no sign given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
--Matt 16:4

All the Muslim scholarship (or propaganda) funded by all the Saudi oil money has yet to produce a good answer to the resurrection.

When a young Josh McDowell came to debate Ahmed Deedat (in Durban 1981), the result was so embarrassing for Deedat that the Islamic propagation center did not release a video of the event, although they organized it.

Ahmed Deedat vs Josh McDowell Debate: Was Jesus Christ Crucified? (Full)
https://youtu.be/cgUnalaJoTs

The debate between Mike Licona and Shabir Ally (in Virginia Beach, VA 2004) was so disappointing to Nabeel Qureshi, who was in the audience, that he left Islam and became a Christian apologist.

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Michael Licona vs. Shabir Ally
https://youtu.be/FTyqQlBGX_4

Both these are the best two Muslim debaters in their time, and this shows the resurrection is a difficult problem for Islam and a battle-tested justification for believing in Christianity.

This being the case, you would think that the Quran would help out with some insight on how a critical mass of people came to believe the resurrection and endure the inevitable persecution.

However, in response all we find is forty Arabic words, which basically say that Jesus was not crucified but it just appeared that he did.  That is not helpful.  In fact I would say that it looks like the Muslims are doing all the work, not the Quran.  That pretty much describes an idol.

I suggest that you study these two debates carefully, and you will have nothing to fear from the best Muslim debaters in history.

Muslims learn many polemics against Christianity, but it is impossible to train the average Muslim to respond to the resurrection without risk of them leaving Islam.

Questions for Muslims:
What evidence does Islam provide for itself? The resurrection shows that that Christianity is reasonable to believe in.  Islam must bring something demonstrability more compelling?
Big claims need big evidence.

In principle, Islam should have a very compelling case because the Quran is written as a rebuttal to Christianity and Judaism.  The person who writes the rebuttal is in a very strong position.  That is why the defense in a court trial has the final word, in order to give them some advantage.  What useful insights do you get from the Quran on the origin of Christianity?


No comments:

Post a Comment