The God of Islam is so radically transcendent that nothing in the created order points to His essence. In the words of Surah 112, "there is none like unto Him," and this core doctrine of Tahwid insists on one eternal indivisible God who has no partners. This fundamental doctrine of Islam nevertheless contradicts the orthodox belief of Sunni Muslims, that the Quran itself is also eternal. If the speech of God in the Quran is also eternal and not created, then Tahwid is compromised and contradicted, the singular eternal indivisible God has a partner (shirk), His own eternal speech recorded in the Quran. Tawhid impales itself on an eternal Quran based on Allah's inflexible "oneness." Ironically, the answer to this intractable problem in Islam is the Christian God: God the Father and God the Son are both eternal. The Son is the eternal Word of God, the Logos who is one in essence with God the Father, yet a distinct person in the godhead. Orthodox Sunni Islam is self-contradictory: 1) The Quran is eternal, 2) Tahwid is true, and 3) Allah's attributes in the Quran describe His essence, contradicting Tahwid.
Messiah and Jewish Misinterpretation of THE Son
This episode addresses the common Jewish interpretation of Psalm 2, in which "son" refers to Israel, not the unique Son of God. Jews commonly appeal to other passages in Scripture that identify Israel as God's "son," like Exodus 4:22, "Israel is My son, My firstborn." Coupled with 2 Samuel 7:14, where every new Jewish king becomes a "son," Jewish interpreters have some Scriptural basis to pose that "the son" of Psalm 2 refers to Israel or the personification of Israel in a new monarch. The qualifying comments of psalm 2 shatter this interpretation. The new king is God's Messiah, his "anointed one," (v.2) and his inheritance are the all the nations, "the very ends of the earth," a ridiculous claim, even at the height of Israel's power under Solomon. The Messiah of Psalm 2 must refer to a unique Son, for His installation as king in Zion will result in worldwide "shattering" of the nations (v.9) Jesus would later correct Pharisees' interpretations that made the Messiah a mere son of David, According to Psalm 110:1, the Messiah, a distant biological son of David, was also the Lord of David, "the Lord says to my Lord, sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." Christ dismissed the Pharisees' claim that the primary identity of the Messiah was that of a son, "If David then calls Him 'Lord", how is He his son." (Matthew 22:45) The best explanation of THE SON in Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 is that it refers to the unique Son of God, the Messiah King Who is now seated at God the Father's right hand, waiting till till all His enemies are subdued.
Who was the God of Jesus?
"This initial episode sets the stage for the question by asking ""who was the God of Jesus?"" All Jews were monotheists, daily reciting the shema, ""Here o Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One."" Christ, a good Jew, affirmed this core belief of Judaism, but identified this God as His own Father, even claiming that He was the God of the Old Testament, citing the Name of God made known to Moses, ""I am that I am."" [YHWH} (Exodus 3:14, John 8:58) So, while the New Testament affirms that Jesus' God was Yahweh, it also describes the Trinitarian nature of the One God, Jesus being God the Son. Both God the Father and God the Son are one is essence, but distinct persons of the Godhead. John 1:1 consequently affirms the oneness of God described in the shema, but notes distinctions within the godhead, ""In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."" Jews prior to Christ only had glimpses of this Trinitarian God in the Old Testament, for the explicit revelation of the godhead only came with the incarnate Christ, who ""explained"" the Father. (John 1:18)
New Testament and the Classic Manuscripts Compared
This episode contrasts the New Testament manuscript tradition with that of classical authors. We presently have 5,600+ partial copies of the New Testament in Greek and 43% of NT verses are present in 10-12 manuscripts prior to 200 A.D, including all of the Pauline corpus. More than a 100 manuscripts exist dating prior to 300 and an entire copy of the New Testament from 350 (Codex Sinaiticus). Regarding classical works (excluding Homer), we have on average about 15-20 copies of some classical works, the earliest of which is at least 1,000 years after the original autograph. 643 copies of Homer exist, the earliest of which is more than a 1,000 years old. Virtually no one doubts that the classical works have come down to us with very little change from the original autograph, even though we have much fewer copies, the earliest of which is more than a 1,000 years after composition. Consequently, if one is confident that he is reading the actual works of antiquity, based on the relatively sparse classical tradition, one should be exponentially more confident of the reliability of the New Testament.
Why the “Telephone Game” Doesn’t Apply to Copying the Bible
This episode addresses a common misperception about the trustworthiness of the Bible based on successive generations of copying. If there are 15 generations of copies, and each generation through scribal error introduces some corruption into the text, then, the argument goes, the last generation of copies will express the ACCUMULATED errors of all previous copies. This reasoning is the "telephone game" applied to copying. Such reasoning is invalid because, in the case of the New Testament, the second and third generation of copies can always be consulted. The John Rylands fragment, c.a. 125, is probably a copy of a copy of the original autograph penned by the apostle John. Since we now have a trove of early manuscripts to consult in translation, we're not dependent on successive generations of copies that may have allowed errors to creep into the text. Additionally, if doubt persists over the reliability of early manuscripts, then we simply need to compare them. The huge number of New Testament manuscripts (5,800) enables comparative analysis in which we can, in most cases, be very sure of the original autograph.
“An Ounce of Evidence is Worth more than a Pound of Presumption”
This episode, originally called "conspiracy Monday," shows how early manuscripts of the book of John refute conspiracy theories and affirm the deity and incarnation of Christ. The previous episode highlighted doubt among translators over the precise translation of very few texts in the KJV, none central doctrines of the Christian faith. This episode applies the two-edge sword of the "embarrassment of riches," the over 5,800 copies of the New Testament, against twentieth century skepticism and conspiracy theories based on Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and the supposed influence of Gnosticism on early Christianity. Dan Brown contends that the deity of Christ was an invention of the Church around the time of Constantine. The easiest way to test this hypothesis is to compare pre-Constantinian manuscripts of the gospel of John with 4th century manuscripts. P-66, dated 150-200 contains John 1 to John 14 and the manuscript completely agrees with later manuscripts, affirming the deity of Christ in John 1:1, John 1:14, and John 8:58-59. The thesis of The Da Vinci code is therefore invalid. The episode also debunks the claim that the gnostic Gospel of Thomas was a contemporary competitor with the 4 gospels. Simple comparative dating disproves this claim: all the gospels were completed in the first century, but the Gospel of Thomas was written in the late second century. And the Christian faith unambiguously affirms the incarnation (John 1:14, 1 John 4:2), a doctrine repulsive to "matter-hating" gnostics. The episode also chronicles the discrediting of date assumptions over the book of John, leading William Lane to conclude that "an ounce of evidence is worth more than a pound of presumption."