Islamic State Defeated - The Cross Triumphant

INTRODUCTION

Issue 15 of the Islamic State magazine Dabiq (July 2016) is entitled Break the Cross, and focused on attacking Christianity theologically and historically, much like usual daw’ah material. This marked a move away from its normal practice of attacking the West, its alleged client regimes in the Muslim world, and ‘apostates’ – which in its eyes include the Muslim Brotherhood. Dabiq states in its Foreword:

Between the release of this issue of Dabiq and the next slaughter to be executed against them by the hidden soldiers of the Caliphate – who are ordered to attack without delay – the Crusaders can read into why Muslims hate and fight them, why pagan Christians should break their crosses…[1]

Although the Islamic State went on to suffer military defeats in Syria and Iraq as a result of various State and non-state-actors, it remains a continual terrorist threat around the world, as demonstrated by the Sri Lanka massacre in 2019. What is particularly relevant for our concerns is that most of the attacks on Christianity in this issue of their magazine can be heard from daw’ah actvists who even reject their terrorist campaign of the Islamic State. In this article we will examine the assaults of the Islamic State upon Christianity, present the Christian defense, and evaluate whether the assault was successful, or the result is that the Islamic State has been defeated, and the Cross upheld.

1.               THE NAME OF GOD

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

There is no ilah but Allah. The ilah linguistically being “what deserves worship,” i.e. nothing and no one deserves worship except Allah. Allah is the proper name of the Lord and the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. It is derived from the same word ilah and is similar in root to the name of the Creator as found in all Semitic languages, including the Hebrew spoken by the Prophets of the Children of Israel. In the Hebrew tongue, they would supplicate the Lord saying “Elohim,” which corresponds in Arabic to “Allahumm;” the suffix “him” of Hebrew and “humm” of Arabic – sometimes referred to as the “majestic plural” – affixed to “Eloh” and “Allah” is to emphasize His reverence and the supplicant’s humility.[2]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

The Islamic State jihadis confuse the Qur’anic use of ‘Lord’ with that of the Bible. In Hebrew, Adonai אֲדֹנִים can mean ‘lord’ in the sense of ‘master’.[3] However, when used of Deity, it was employed because the divine Name YHWH יהוה was considered too holy to exclaim. Hence, when we read ‘LORD’ (usually in capitals) in English translations of the Old Testament, the actual Hebrew is YHWH.

Professor W. J. Martin, Rankin Lecturer in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages, University of Liverpool, held that Exodus 6:2-4 is an Elliptical Interrogative: ‘I suffered myself to appear (Niph’al) to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, for did I not let myself be known to them by my name YHWH?’[4] In context, this is a response to Moses’ query as to the Name of the Deity who appeared to him in the Burning Bush. The Deity replies that His Name is YHWH, the same Name He revealed to the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). Isaiah 42:8 states: ‘I am YHWH, that is My name…’

Contrary to the claim of the Islamic State jihadis that ‘In the Hebrew tongue, they would supplicate the Lord saying “Elohim,”’, in fact the evidence demonstrates that the Hebrews actually supplicated the Deity by His Name YHWH: Psalm 39:12: ‘Hear my prayer, O YHWH…’; Psalm 102:1: ‘Hear my prayer, O YHWH!’; Joel 1:19: ‘To You, O YHWH, I cry…’ Elohim is the generic title of Deity, but His Name is YHWH. The Islamic State jihadis are guilty of a common Muslim mistake when they claim that the -im in Hebrew is a ‘“majestic plural”’. In fact, in Biblical Hebrew, this is a simple numerical plural, and the so-called ‘majestic plural’ did not exist in Old Testament times:

Every one who is acquainted with the rudiments of the Hebrew and Chaldee languages, must know that God, in the holy Writings, very often spoke of Himself in the plural. The passages are numerous, in which, instead of a grammatical agreement between the subject and predicate, we meet with a construction, which some modern grammarians, who possess more of the so-called philosophical than of the real knowledge of the Oriental languages, call a pluralis excellentiae. This helps them out of every apparent difficulty. Such a pluralis excellentiae was, however, a thing unknown to Moses and the prophets. Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, David, and all the other kings, throughout …(the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa) speak in the singular, and not as modern kings in the plural. They do not say we, but I, command; as in Gen. xli. 41; Dan. iii. 29; Ezra i. 2, etc., etc.[5]

The respected Hebrew grammar by Gesenius and Kautsch noted the following: ‘The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.’[6] It follows that the Islamic State claim is invalid.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

2.               THE TRINITY AND ORIGINAL SIN

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Westerners facing the collapse of their so-called “civilizations” through their wicked deeds and the righteous deeds of the mujahidin should be asking themselves several questions, including: How do they claim to love the Lord yet they worship persons and objects besides Him? …How do they claim to be monotheistic and claim to know Him as being the One and Only, the Merciful, the Just and Wise God yet they attribute to Him a mother, a son, a partner, and the Trinity, believe He is unable to forgive mankind for their “original sin” except by having one of His most beloved men unjustly bear their burdens and be crucified on their behalf, and declare that the laws He legislates are cruel, barbaric, and unfit for modern times? Where is your servitude to Him? Where is your respect of what He loves? Where is the residue of sound intellect, which would immediately reject the superstitious beliefs of Trinity and atonement through the crucifixion of Jesus? Where is your humility before the Almighty?[7]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

Firstly, it needs to be stated that not all Westerners are true Christians, and neither are all true Christians Westerners; rather, Christians encompass the globe, so immediately, it can be seen that the Islamic State assault fails at the first attack.

Secondly, true, born-again Christians worship none but YHWH, as the First Commandment demands. Jesus has two natures, divine and human. Since He is YHWH (John 8:58 – ‘Before Abraham was, I AM), He is to be worshipped, and unlike Peter (Acts 10:25) and the angel in the Book of Revelation (Rev: 19:10), He does not refuse worship – Matthew 14:33; 28:9; 28:19; Luke 22:51-52. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

Thirdly, let us examine the comment ‘they attribute to Him a mother, a son, a partner’.

(a)        ‘they attribute to Him a mother’

True Biblical Christians ‘attribute’ no such thing. The idea is completely absent from the Bible, so this part of the Islamic State assault fails. Perhaps the Islamic State jihadis are partly influenced by the use of the term Qeotokov Theotokos – ‘God-bearer’ in regard to Mary in post-Biblical times, especially since: it is often translated in English as ‘Mother of God’. Theotokos had been used by theologians such as Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329 –390) to emphasize that the Person in Mary’s womb was not merely a human being endued by God and so effectively deified (the heresy of Dynamic Monarchianism), but rather was always divine.[8] Because Apollonaris (c. 310-390), after whom the heresy of Apollinarianism is named, also used the title for Mary, it became discredited in the eyes of men like Nestorius, who became bishop of Constantinople in 428. He preferred the title Christotokos – ‘Christ-Bearer’, since this reflected that the divine nature of Jesus was in no way derived from Mary.[9]

A further objection may be that often the title is used by some ritualistic sects, such as the RCs and Greek Orthodox, but that in way means that born-again Christians should be tarred with the same brush, especially since the concept is absent from Scripture, so once again the Islamic State assault fails at this point.

(b)        ‘a son’

The Islamic State jihadis do not elucidate on what this means in their eyes. Let us state what true Christians mean by the term:

(i)         It does not mean that God had sexual relations with Mary – Luke 1:35: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’

(ii)         Neither does it mean Adoptionism– that the power of God endued the human Jesus to become God’s son, as in Dynamic Monarchianism. Jesus, objectively, had a divine nature from all eternity.

(iii)       Nor does it mean apotheosis - that the human Jesus became divine, similar to Greek legends about human beings becoming gods. Again, John 1.1 clearly states that the Word was God in the Beginning.

(iv)      What it does mean is firstly, that in His human nature, Jesus had no human father – Luke 1:35.

(v)        It refers to a title – that Jesus is Israel – the ultimate son of Abraham - Matthew 2:13-15, where Jesus fulfils the Exodus motif, and John 15, where Jesus presents Himself as the True Vine, the symbol of Israel, Psalm 80:8.

(vi)       Another title is that Jesus is the ultimate son of David – the Messiah. This looks back to 2 Samuel 7:14-16, where God promises that He will be a ‘father’ to the son of David – ‘he shall be my son’.

(vii)    Jesus sometimes refers to Himself as ‘the Son’ in an absolute, titular sense that corresponds to His reference to God as ‘the Father’. The most obvious examples are Matthew 28:19 and John 3:16, as well as Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22, ‘no one knows the Son, except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him’. No one else has this title. It displays that Jesus is God.

The Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(c)        ‘a partner’

In fact, Christians have no such understanding, and never claim such a thing. It is strictly forbidden in the First Commandment, and Isaiah 48:11 states ‘…My glory I will not give to another.’

The problem is with the Qur’an itself, because it makes an invalid statement in Surah Al-Maidah 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?’ This looks back to ayahs 73 and 75: ‘73. They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve…. 75. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food.’

We say that the problem is with the Qur’an because no Christian believes in three gods, neither that the Trinity consists of Jesus, Mary and God, nor that Mary is divine! Quite simply, the Qur’an is wrong.

(d)        ‘the Trinity’

Christians do not ‘attribute’ the Trinity to God; rather, it is something He reveals about Himself, as in Matthew 28.19, where Baptism – an act of worship – is enacted in the Name (singular) of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore the doctrine of Perichoresis or ‘co-inherence’ or circumincession, the idea that all Three Persons of the Trinity ‘inter-penetrate’, mutually sharing in the life of the others. The Father is in the Son, and vice versa (John 10:38, 14:10, 23, 17:21, cf. 1 Corinthians 2:10-11; Colossian 2:9), and the Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father (Matthew 10:20) and of the Son (Galatians 4:6).

It follows that there are not three separable entities that can split like the former USSR but something unique, not reproducible in Creation – that there are Three distinct Persons in the Godhead that mutually co-inhere. The Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(e)            ‘believe He is unable to forgive mankind for their “original sin” except by having one of His most beloved men unjustly bear their burdens and be crucified on their behalf’

The Islamic State jihadis again are either ignorant of, or deliberately distort Christian doctrine at this point. The starting point for any understanding of the atonement is the Holiness of God – that He is too pure to tolerate sin - Habakkuk 1:13: ‘You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong…’ He demands holiness from human beings – Leviticus 11:44. He warns that the soul who sins will die – both naturally and eternally, Ezekiel 18:20.

As a result of the Fall, Man is incapable of rendering perfect obedience to God, as all have sinned – Romans 3:10, 23. Further, the Fall resulted in Man having a sinful nature – this is ‘Original Sin’. Through the Sin of Adam, all men sinned, Romans 5:12. Adam was not just an individual human being, he was the Representative Bearer of Destiny for the entire human race, designated so by God. When he sinned, his sin was imputed (reckoned) to all humanity, by virtue of his position. It is like when President Roosevelt declared war on Japan in 1941; this was not his individual concern, but rather affected the entire American nation, in a way that his choice of breakfast was not.

In the same way that Adam was not just any individual, neither was Jesus Christ. He was the antitype of Adam, as Romans 5:13 indicates – the new Representative Bearer of Destiny for the entire human race, designated so by God. It is through His self-sacrifice (John 10:17-18) that the demands of God’s holiness, the necessity of punishing sin and His love even for sinful Man are coordinately displayed.

For all who have faith in Christ, His death not only forgives them, but brings them into a relationship with God. Jesus is uniquely sinless, uniquely fulfils all the demands of God’s holiness, and sacrifices Himself to save men from Hell. No one else could have done this, because no one else was sinless, and no one else was designated by God as Representative Bearer of Destiny for the entire human race. The Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(f)         ‘declare that the laws He legislates are cruel, barbaric, and unfit for modern times’

It is unsure what the Islamic State jihadis mean at this point. Do they refer to the Old Testament ceremonial and civic laws, which Jesus fulfilled – Matthew 5:17? Or do they refer to the Shari’ah, with its hudud punishments, as practiced by the Islamic State (and others)? One need only read the shocking suffering of Yezidi slave-girls to judge whether such practices are barbaric or not. At any rate, since the bases of Shari’ah are the Qur’an and Sunnah, Christians do not consider them as inspired by God. The Islamic State assault once again fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

3.               THE RESPONSE TO MUHAMMAD

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Dabiq has an article referring to the supposed letters written by Muhammad to the ‘the Abyssinian king, Ashamah Ibn Abjar, known as Najashi (Negus), the Coptic Egyptian king Jurayj Ibn Mina, known as Muqawqas, and the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius.’[10] In fact, there was no such thing as ‘the Coptic Egyptian king’ as Egypt was part of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The article claims that the Negus responded positively, embracing Islam. Heraclius, however, allegedly demurred because of popular rejection:

In considering the Prophet’s call, Heraclius wrote to his friend in Rome who was comparable to himself in his level of knowledge, and then set out traveling to Hims. Before he departed from Hims, he received a response from his friend in Rome, who agreed with his opinion that Muhammad was indeed a proph­et. So Heraclius summoned the Byzantine leaders to his palace in Hims and then ordered for the gates to be shut. He then addressed them, saying, “O people of Rome, would you desire to attain success and guidance and for your kingdom to remain by pledg­ing allegiance to this prophet?” So they raced to the gates like wild donkeys and found them shut. When Heraclius saw them flee and lost hope of them accepting Islam, he said, “Bring them back to me.” He then told them, “I only said what I said to test your commitment to your religion, and I have seen it.” So they prostrated to him and were pleased with him, and this was the end of Heraclius’ story in relation to Islam (Al-Bukhari).[11]

Similarly, the Coptic leader declined:

“Indeed, I have looked into the affair of this prophet and found that he does not command that which is disliked or prohibit that which is desired. I have not found him to be a misguided sorcerer or a lying soothsayer, and I have found the sign of prophethood with him by his revealing of that which is concealed and his informing of that which is discussed secretly, and so I will see.” He then took the letter of the Prophet and placed it in an ivory box, and then placed his seal upon it and handed it to one of his slave-girls. He then summoned one of his scribes to have him write the following letter to the Prophet:

“In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. To Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdillah from Muqawqas, the leader of the Copts: Peace be upon you. As for what follows.”

“I have read your letter and understood what you have mentioned in it and what you call to. I have known that there remains a prophet [yet to come] and thought that he would emerge in the Levant. I have honored your messenger, and have sent to you two slave-girls who have a high status among the Copts, in addition to some garments, and have gifted you with a mule for you to ride. Peace be upon you.”[12]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

True Christians are only really concerned with how Biblical Christians react. However, what the Islamic State jihadis fail to do is offer any corroborative evidence. Their material is based on the Hadith, only compiled two centuries after Muhammad. There is no external corroboration from the contemporary records of the Abyssinians, the Byzantines or the Copts – or anyone else – for the claims presented. This is nothing except jihadi propaganda.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

4.               PAGAN CHRISTIANS?

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

The next article, about ‘Fitrah’ (righteous human nature), returns to a theme in an earlier article we have addressed:

The pagan Christians for ages had adopted a religion of contradictions at war with the fitrah – including the belief that Allah was both god and man, that He was one while consisting of three entities, that He had a mother who herself was merely human, and that He was killed upon a cross![13]

From the fitrah is to honor and respect the Virgin Mary for her chastity, modesty, and piety. However, the Christians’ reverence of Mary reached the point that no sound fitrah would tolerate. They began claiming she was the “Mother of God” and supplicated her for prayers, despite her passing away almost two thousand years ago, being unable to hear their pleas, nor fulfill their requests, as granting permission for intercession and accepting it thereafter is Allah’s right alone.”[14]

This claim that the Virgin Mary gave birth to the Creator of the heavens and the earth is one that every mother knows by her fitrah to be false… Thereafter, the pagan Christians contradict them­selves and the fitrah once more. They claim that Jesus’ mother is the “Mother of God,” while portraying her in a humble manner, both in her demeanor and garments. However, they encourage the Western woman to be everything opposite to Mary [15]

Allah also spoke about the paganism propagat­ed by the misguided Christians, saying, “None will have [power of ] intercession except he who had taken from the Most Merciful a covenant. And they say, ‘The Most Merciful has taken [for Himself ] a son.’ You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation that they attribute to the Most Merciful a son. And it is not appropriate for the Most Merciful that He should take a son. There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant. He has enu­merated them and counted them completely. And all of them will come to Him on the Day of Resurrection alone” (Maryam 87-95).[16]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

(a)            ‘Allah was both god and man’

Christians do not believe that God is both God and Man, which would indeed be a contradiction but rather that Jesus is One Person, whom, as a result of the Hypostatic Union, is simultaneously divine and human, without dilution to either nature. The Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore this doctrine. Hence, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(b)            ‘He was one while consisting of three entities’

We have already examined the doctrine of the Trinity, especially in relation to Perichoresis. Once again, the Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore this doctrine. Once again, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(c)            ‘He had a mother’

Again, we have already addressed this. We are left wondering why, the Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore the actual teaching of the Bible. Once again, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(d)            ‘He was killed upon a cross’

Once again, we wonder whether the Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore the actual teaching of the Bible. The integrity of Christ’s two natures are always preserved – His human nature suffers death, in that His spirit goes to Paradise (Luke 23:43, 46), while His body enters the tomb (v53), but His divine nature was unaffected. Jesus had prophesied that He (not God) would resurrect His body in three days after death (Matthew 26:61, 63; John 2:19-21). His divine nature resurrected his human body. Once again, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(e)            ‘Mary’

Again, we wonder whether the Islamic State jihadis are either ignorant of, or deliberately ignore the actual teaching of the Bible. Nowhere therein is Mary presented as an object of worship or intercession. Surely the Islamic State jihadis know that Evangelical Protestants are guided by John 14:6: ‘Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Also, 1 Timothy 2:5: ‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’

Neither do we claim that the divine nature of Jesus derived from Mary. Nor do true Christians violate the First and Second commandments by ‘portraying’ her for the purposes of worship. Christian women are commanded to be modest – 1 Timothy 2:9: ‘…women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control…’ Once again, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

(f)             ‘Taken a son’

Christians do not say that God has ‘taken’ a son, but rather that God the Son always existed, and He took human nature alongside His divine nature without confusion or dilution to either nature. Once again, the Islamic State assault again fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

5.               HUMILIATING DEATH?

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

The article by a female Finnish convert to Islam acknowledges that Finland is only nominally Christian – but then again, there is no New Testament evidence for anything approaching a ‘Christian state’; rather, what is presented is the Kingdom of God, manifested in the Messianic Reign of Jesus (Ephesians 5:5). This is her introduction:

I come from Finland, a “Christian” nation where the people do not strongly adhere to their corrupted religion. Most of them say they are Christians but don’t really practice their false faith. They might go to church when there’s a wedding or a funeral, but most of them don’t know much about their distorted religion, even though they are proud of it; so I wouldn’t see Christianity visibly manifested in their day-to-day lives.[17]

The author admits that she was just as nominal in her relation to Christianity:

In my case, I was pretty much the same as everyone else. Everyone had to study the religion at school, which is how my knowledge of it grew. Before that, however, my mother would send me to Sunday school, even though she wasn’t religious herself. I myself would only go there for the stickers, and I don’t think I actually learned or understood anything there.[18]

Yet despite her lack of learning, she thinks she is qualified to criticize Christian theology:

The main thing that didn’t make sense to me about Christianity was the Trinity. I would wonder, how could the “son” of God be crucified? How could a “part” of God – according to the Trinity – be crucified? How could a human being be God, and then become humiliated and have a humiliating death?[19]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

(a)            ‘how could the “son” of God be crucified?’

It is not simply her personal ignorance of Christian doctrine that is to blame, but rather the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an not only misunderstands the Christian doctrine of the Deity of Christ, it also fails to grasp the Hypostatic Union in its entirety – that Jesus is also Man.

This is clear from Surah Al-Maidah 5:75 that we saw earlier: ‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food.’ The Qur’an knows that Christians affirm the Deity of Christ, and it answers this by stating that Jesus ate food – the implication that He was merely human. In the eyes of the Qur’an, one can be either God or Man – but not both. Hence, it never addresses the soteriologically crucial doctrine of the Humanity of Christ.

This, to answer the Islamic State advocate, is how the Son of God could be crucified – because He was also truly human. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(b)            ‘How could a “part” of God – according to the Trinity – be crucified?’

We have answered the second part of this attack in the previous point. As for the first clause, the frequent comment the author makes that she was ‘confused’ by Christian doctrine seems less a historical statement, but rather a current problem – but then again, the fault lies with Islamic theological misunderstanding. Jesus – as God the Son – is not ‘part’ of God the way a wheel can be ‘part’ of a car. The author – and the Islamic State jihadis behind Dabiq in general – need to acquaint themselves with the doctrine of Perichoresis we examined earlier. Berkhof presents the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:

The whole undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the three persons. This means that the divine essence is not divided among the three persons, but is wholly with all its perfection in each one of the persons, so that they have a numerical unity of essence. The divine nature is distinguished from the human nature in that it can subsist wholly and indivisibly in more than one person. While three persons among men have only a specific unity of nature or essence, that is, share in the same kind of nature or essence, the persons in the Godhead have a numerical unity of essence, that is, possess the identical essence. Human nature or essence may be regarded as a species, of which each man has an individual part, so that there is a specific (from species) unity; but the divine nature is indivisible and therefore identical in the persons of the Godhead. It is numerically one and the same, and therefore the unity of the essence in the persons is a numerical unity. From this it follows that the divine essence is not an independent existence alongside of the three persons. It has no existence outside of and apart from the three persons.[20]

It follows that we cannot speak of any Person in the Triune Godhead as ‘part’ of the Trinity. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(c)             ‘How could a human being be God’

Again, we have already examined this. Christians do not believe that a man was deified (apotheosis), but rather that God the Son took human nature alongside His divine nature, without dilution to either nature. Obviously, Islamic doctrine has confused the Finnish convert.

(d)            ‘then become humiliated and have a humiliating death?’

This statement makes mockery of the statement noted earlier in Dabiq when it denounces Christians for lack of humility: ‘Where is your humility before the Almighty?[21] Jesus came with the intention of suffering humiliation, but knew that following that, He would be exalted, Hebrews 12.2: ‘…Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Indeed, the very act of Incarnation is considered part of the ‘Humiliation’ of Christ, as revealed in Carmen Christi, an early church hymn referenced in Philippians 2:

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We see hear that the ‘Humiliation’ of Christ was the path to exaltation, and the nature of that exaltation is the divine honors will be paid to Jesus, because vs. 10-11 reflect Isaiah 45:23, where every knee bows to YHWH!

Why did Jesus have to suffer this humiliating death? Because He was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,

And our sorrows He carried;

Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,

And by His scourging we are healed.

6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But YHWH has caused the iniquity of us all

To fall on Him.

That is, Jesus suffered the humiliating death that was due to all human beings, so that those who repented and had faith in Him should not suffer Hell for all eternity, but enjoy eternal life – John 3:16. The passage in Isaiah is quoted in John 12:38; Acts 8:34-35; Romans 10:16. Jesus suffered for our sake. The Finnish author of the article states this: ‘What struck me most as I was reading the Quran were the verses about Hellfire and the punishment in the Hereafter.’[22] However, the only way to avoid Hell is to believe in Jesus’ redeeming death.

(e)             ‘Finally, I wish to advise the Christians in Finland and elsewhere: A lot of you don’t practice your religion because you know it’s not the truth. You say you just need to believe in Jesus and you’ll go to Heaven, but how does it make sense that somebody died on your behalf and then you’re free to do whatever you please, whatever bad things that come to your mind, to live without any rules or regulations and then expect to be taken to Heaven? It doesn’t make any sense.’[23]

In this statement, near to the close of the article, the author demonstrates that it is Islam that has confused her. Nowhere does the Bible state that following faith in the redemptive death of Jesus that Christians are free to do ‘whatever bad things that come to your mind’. This is answered in Romans 6:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin… 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

The ‘rules or regulations’ that Christians follow is the law of Christ – 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2: ‘Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfil the law of Christ’.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

6.               CORRUPTION OF SCRIPTURE

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

As is well known, these messengers did not come empty-handed. Each of them brought with him a message, often in the form of a scripture, something for the educated to read and comprehend, yet with the simple command of monotheistic worship of the Creator that even the illiterate could follow. So Moses was given the Torah, by which the Tribes of Israel were governed for many generations. But they strayed from its original message, even with their very own scribes changing its text, as the Tanakh testifies, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law (Torah) of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie” (Jeremiah 8:8). So then Jesus brought the Gospel, confirming what came before him of the Torah and permitting – by the permission of his Lord – some of what was forbidden therein. It was reported that he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). However, just as the Torah was not fully preserved, even altered, the Gospel was also corrupted. Its original would be lost, with the oldest related manuscripts written only as commentary to the original. So instead of having an altered “Gospel of Jesus,” one finds the Gospel according to Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, then John, each with a unique take on various aspects of Jesus’ teachings, sometimes outright contradicting one another. To say the least, the authentic scripture was lost and the people strayed. [24]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

This article is called ‘Break the Cross’. It is, undoubtedly, the most intellectually pretentious offering from the Islamic State jihadis.

(a)             So Moses was given the Torah, by which the Tribes of Israel were governed for many generations. But they strayed from its original message, even with their very own scribes changing its text, as the Tanakh testifies, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law (Torah) of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie” (Jeremiah 8:8).

The only ‘evidence’ that the author can offer for the corruption of the Tanakh (the Old Testament) is a misinterpretation of Jeremiah 8.8. No evidence of manuscripts or quotations is presented. Contrary to the Islamic State jihadis, Jeremiah 8:8 does not say that the text of the Torah was changed. As with all Scripture, the verse must not be seen in isolation, but rather its context should be respected. That context concerns the apostasy of Judah from top to bottom – from the King to the people at large:

At that time,” declares YHWH, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. 2 They will spread them out to the sun, the moon and to all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served, and which they have gone after and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or buried; they will be as dung on the face of the ground. 3 And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places to which I have driven them,” declares YHWH of hosts.

4 “You shall say to them, ‘Thus says YHWH,

“Do men fall and not get up again?
Does one turn away and not repent?
5 “Why then has this people, Jerusalem,
Turned away in continual apostasy?
They hold fast to deceit,
They refuse to return.
6 “I have listened and heard,
They have spoken what is not right;
No man repented of his wickedness,
Saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turned to his course,
Like a horse charging into the battle.
7 “Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons;
And the turtledove and the swift and the thrush
Observe the time of their migration;
But My people do not know
The ordinance of YHWH.

It can be seen that the point is that the kings, priests and prophets have behaved falsely – they have turned form the ordinances of YHWH. In short, they are apostates. The Kings have led the people into apostasy, with their astrological worship, v2. They were thus false Kings, unlike David, who did repent of his one great sin (murdering Uriah the Hittite). Later, false prophets are rebuked:

“The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of YHWH,
And what kind of wisdom do they have?
10 “Therefore I will give their wives to others,
Their fields to new owners;
Because from the least even to the greatest
Everyone is greedy for gain;
From the prophet even to the priest
Everyone practices deceit.
11 “They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
But there is no peace.
12 “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?
They certainly were not ashamed,
And they did not know how to blush;
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down,”
Says YHWH.

The prophets are actually false prophets, telling people – in the name of YHWH – that everything is all right, despite the fact that astrological worship contradicts the First Commandment. For the same reason the priests, who should be declaring this fact, are obviously handling the Word of God deceitfully, in that like the false prophets they tell people by their distorted interpretations that everything is fine. This is how the scribes have lied: ‘They have used their knowledge of the Law to deceive others, in assuring them that they may sin with impunity.’[25]

Note that YHWH, through Jeremiah, does not say that the text has been changed, but rather that the scribes have lied, and in v9 that ‘they have rejected the word of YHWH’, and in v10 that ‘From the prophet even to the priest everyone practices deceit’. Obviously, scribes and priests were not teaching about the consequences of apostasy, of worshipping anyone or anything other than YHWH. Above all, it does not seem to have occurred to the Islamic State jihadis that Jeremiah would scarcely have included something in his message that implied that his own message was forged! The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(b)            ‘So then Jesus brought the Gospel, confirming what came before him of the Torah and permitting – by the permission of his Lord – some of what was forbidden therein. It was reported that he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).’

Once again, the Islamic State jihadis mangle Scripture and fail to understand it. The note of ‘fulfilment’ is a major characteristic of the Gospel of Matthew.[26] The ‘Law and the Prophets’ refer to the main division of the Old Testament – the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nebi’im) and the Writings (Kethubim). The essential relationship between Old and New Testaments is that of Promise and Fulfilment. Jesus was saying that He had come to fulfil the Old Testament. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(c)             ‘However, just as the Torah was not fully preserved, even altered, the Gospel was also corrupted. Its original would be lost, with the oldest related manuscripts written only as commentary to the original.’

It says a lot about what passes for Islamic State scholarship that they make bold assertions without any corroboration. What evidence is there that the Torah was not preserved? Before 1947, the oldest extant manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible dated to about the tenth century A.D., but the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed that date to the mid-third century B.C.[27]

As for the ‘original’ of the Gospel being lost, people in glass houses should not throw stones. Where are the original manuscripts of the Qur’an? According to the Sunni hadith collection, Caliph ‘Uthman burnt them all! As for extant manuscripts of the Qur’an, The San’aa manuscripts discovered in 1972 are dated ‘mid-to late eighth century/early second century.’[28]

Two leading Muslim scholars of the Qur’an have examined other manuscripts, and concluded the following: ‘Judging from its illumination, the Topkapi Museum Muṣḥaf dates neither from the period when the Muṣḥafs of the Caliph ‘Uthman were written nor from the time when copies based on those Muṣḥafs were written.’[29] Further, ‘This Mushaf... does not constitute a sample of the early period of Mushaf writing ... Considering its dimensions and style of illumination, this Mushaf most probably belongs to the Umayyad period.’[30]

As for the Samarkand/Tashkent Mushaf: ‘... the Tashkent Muṣḥaf was neither the Imam Muṣḥaf which Caliph ‘Uthman was reading when he was martyred, nor any one of the Muṣḥafs that he sent to various centers (Mecca, Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and probably Bahrain and Yemen) nor the copy that was kept in Medina for the benefit of the people.’[31] Regarding the Cairo Mushaf: ‘We share the view that this copy is not one of the Mushafs attributed to Caliph ‘Uthman.’[32] Needless to say, none of this information was relayed in Dabiq.

Further, what do the Islamic State jihadis mean by ‘the oldest related manuscripts written only as commentary to the original’? No evidence is presented for this claim. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(d)            ‘So instead of having an altered “Gospel of Jesus,” one finds the Gospel according to Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, then John, each with a unique take on various aspects of Jesus’ teachings, sometimes outright contradicting one another. To say the least, the authentic scripture was lost and the people strayed.’

The Bible nowhere states that God handed Jesus a text called ‘the Gospel’ in the same way that He wrote the Ten Commandments, Exodus 31.18. Dabiq is basing this claim not on the Bible, but rather the Qur’an – a text that emerged several centuries after Jesus: Surah Hadud 57:27 ‘...We sent after them Jesus the son of Mary and bestowed on him the Gospel...’

In the Bible, God does not generally write something Himself, but rather inspires His servants to do so. We should not be surprised that Jesus, being God, does not Himself write anything, but rather imparts revelation through His Apostles and those in Apostolic teams, such Mark (in Paul’s and then Peter’s teams) and Luke (in Paul’s team). Jesus promised the disciples that they would be guided into revelatory truth by the Holy Spirit in John 14:26; 15:26-27; 16:12-15.

As for the claim that the Evangelists contradicted each other, no evidence is presented, and so the conclusion, that ‘the authentic scripture was lost and the people strayed’ is equally unjustified. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

7.               THE APOSTLE PAUL

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘Likewise, the self-declared apostle, Paul of Tarsus, was a known criminal who persecuted the believers and even admitted to being a liar, yet he was taken as the foremost authority for Trinitarian Christians, who outlived, through every violent means, their Unitarian predecessors.’

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

(a)            ‘Likewise, the self-declared apostle, Paul of Tarsus’

Paul was not ‘self-declared’ to be an apostle, but rather recognized as such by the other Apostles. Galatians 2.8-9 states that the other apostles recognized the apostleship of Paul:

8. (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his (apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), 9. and recognising the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.’

The ‘pillars’ mentioned here were still alive at the time that was writing, so if he had been lying, they would have denounced him – but despite John, Peter and James all writing epistles, they never do so.

Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans around 57 A.D. Paul is writing to a congregation that he did not found, and he refers to ‘Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me’, Romans 16:7. If Paul was not generally recognized as an Apostle, the church in Rome would never have received him, since Andronicus and Junias, renowned among the Apostles, would have blocked him. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(b)            ‘a known criminal who persecuted the believers and even admitted to being a liar’

Where is the evidence that Paul was ‘a known criminal’? It is true that he persecuted the Christians – he acknowledges this himself – but unfortunately, this was not illegal, Acts 9:

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As for Paul having ‘admitted to being a liar’, where is the evidence for this? Rather, he told the truth – as with the fact that he had persecuted the church, and his honesty is clear from Romans 9:1: ‘I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit…’ The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(c)             ‘yet he was taken as the foremost authority for Trinitarian Christians, who outlived, through every violent means, their Unitarian predecessors.’’

Jesus is ‘the foremost authority for Trinitarian Christians’. When Trinitarian Christians are asked to supply Biblical evidence for the Trinity, usually the first verse they present is Jesus speaking in Matthew 28:19 – not anything Paul says. Nor were Unitarians their ‘predecessors’. Neither does Dabiq present any evidence for their existence. In fact, the evidence of the New Testament, written in the first century, demonstrates that Unitarianism is deviant.

Polycarp, c. 69-155/160, Bishop of Smyrna, and a close associate and disciple of the Apostle John, as he was taken out to be martyred, declared: ‘...Wherefore also I praise Thee for all things, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, with whom, to Thee, and the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.’

Justin Martyr, c. 110-c. 165, in his First Apology, regarding baptism states: ‘For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water.’ Similarly, the Eucharist: ‘There is then brought to the president ...bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he ...gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost...’

The Syrian disciple of the Apostle John, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who lived c. 30 - c. 117, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, uses the triadic formula ‘in the Son and the Father and the Spirit’. Irenæus, c. 115-c. 190, in Against Heresies, I.X.1 declares: ‘The Church... [ believes] in one God, the Father Almighty ...and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit...’ The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

8.               DETERMINING SCRIPTURE?

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

So how could one determine that a scripture is true and authentic? There are at least three major conditions that any intelligent person could deduce for the basis of authenticating a text that is claimed to be divine in origin. First, that the message is pure, untainted by pagan creed, as stark monotheism is the only acceptable form of belief for a people who reflect over the knowable universe. Second, that the message is free of any contradictions, as such is not befitting of the Wise and All-Knowing Lord. This does not mean that it is void of what might seemingly be “contradictory,” but through analysis, study and discovery, one can conclude that two ostensibly conflicting materials refer to different situations or contexts. Rather, there should be no irreconcilable contradiction. The third condition is simple chain-based authenticity. That is, it should be proven that it was passed down generation to generation by reliable transmitters, thus showing it is indeed the message given by the messenger, not by someone else.[33]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

We do not necessarily accept such conditions as the essential criteria for determining Scripture. The ‘wisdom’ of the world is antithetical to God – 1 Corinthians 1:21. Egypt was the greatest civilization of its day, but it was polytheistic, and did not know the God of Moses. Note the learned men in history who have been pagans of atheists (such as Stephen Hawking). The nature of Man is sinful, and thus opposed to God – 2:14: ‘But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.’

It is not that Man judges what is revelation, but rather that God reveals Himself – miraculously. YHWH demonstrated that He was superior to the so-called gods of Egypt through His miracles. These demonstrated the truth of what Moses said. Equally, Jesus proved that He was what He claimed by doing miracles – supremely by raising Himself from the dead, a feat accomplished by no other Man, whether true or false prophet. One can visit where the dead body of Jesus was laid, but one will find no corpse there, for He is risen. On that basis, the record of what He said and did, written by His authorized followers – the Apostles and those in their teams, can be trusted, and it should be noted that we find the Apostles themselves doing miracles.

In contrast, Muhammad, by the admission of the Sunni hadith, did not perform miracles:

Narrated by Abu Huraira

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 6.504

The Prophet said, ‘Every Prophet was given miracles because of which people believed, but what I have been given, is Divine Inspiration which Allah has revealed to me.’

Despite the claims of Muslim apologists, there is nothing miraculous about the Qur’an. Parts of it, such as Surah Maryam, are clearly plagiarized from apocryphal Christian works such as the Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Something ‘miraculous’ would not need to do that.

For the sake of argument, we shall engage with Dabiq on this issue.

(a)            ‘First, that the message is pure, untainted by pagan creed, as stark monotheism is the only acceptable form of belief for a people who reflect over the knowable universe.’

Biblical Christianity meets this criterion, since there is no evidence of apotheosis, as found in Hellenistic or Egyptian religion, nor is there anything is such religions comparable to the idea of the unique Triune God, notwithstanding the desperate attempts of parallelomania among crank-type critics. Further, unlike the gods of these cultures, the Biblical God does not engage in sexual activity among human beings, but rather is moral.

Does Islam meet this criterion? It may be monotheist but the deity it presents is abominably weak. He cannot come to earth but must let angels do this for him. He cannot communicate directly with men, but once again, must leave that to angels. Just as the gods of Egypt got weak unless they fed, so the god of Islam is dependent upon Man in some ways. Many of the ‘Ninety-Nine Names’ of Allah are transitive in nature – that is, they require objects. For example, before the Creation of man, which men did repair to ‘He to Whom men repair’? Upon whom was Allah ‘Compassionate’ before Creation? Surely this means that God was not internally self-sufficient, in need of no one and nothing outside Himself – that He had to create Man, etc.?

In contrast, the Triune God is entirely self-sufficient. The Bible states that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8) as opposed to God loving someone, we infer that a necessary, central attribute of the Divine essence is love. Who then was the object of God’s love before creation? The answer is that the object of God’s love is within Himself – between the Three Persons of the Triune God there is eternal love. He is also holy. Christianity is not pagan.

The Islamic god, however, is as arbitrary as pagan deities, as Zwemer indicates:

The conclusion we come to, both from the study of the Koran and of Tradition, is that Allah does not appear to be bound by any standard of justice... Allah is merciful in winking at the sins of His favorites, such as the prophets and those who fight in His battles, but is the quick avenger of all infidels and idolaters. He reveals truth to His prophets, but also abrogates it, changes the message, or makes them forget it. (Surah 2:105.) The whole teaching of Moslem exegetes on the subject of Nasikh and Mansookh, or the Abrogated verses of the Koran, is utterly opposed to the idea of God’s immutability and truth... Allah’s moral law changes, like his ceremonial law, according to times and circumstances... He can do what He pleases. The Koran often asserts this. Not only physically, but morally, He is almighty, in the Moslem sense of the word. Allah, the Koran says, is the best plotter. Allah mocks and deceives. Allah “makes it easy” for those who accept the prophet’s message. (Surahs 8:29; 3:53; 27:51; 86:15; 16:4; 44:15; 9:5].)[34]

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(b)            ‘Second, that the message is free of any contradictions, as such is not befitting of the Wise and All-Knowing Lord. This does not mean that it is void of what might seemingly be “contradictory,” but through analysis, study and discovery, one can conclude that two ostensibly conflicting materials refer to different situations or contexts. Rather, there should be no irreconcilable contradiction.’

Whereas Scripture is ultimately, not self-contradictory, we must be careful. Hostile critics can find supposed ‘contradictions’ in anything, but that does not mean that they cannot be reconciled. At least Dabiq acknowledges this. However, it is likely that the claim relates the Qur’anic doctrine of abrogation, where contradictions are resolved by designating some ‘earlier’, to be superseded by those deemed ‘later’. Again, this is a largely arbitrary process.

Moreover, just because a work contains no contradictions does not mean it is inspired by God. There are probably no contradictions iN Marx’s Communist Manifesto or Hitler’s Mein Kampf, but that does make such wicked books inspired. The same goes for anything that would actually claim to be inspired.

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(c) ‘The third condition is simple chain-based authenticity. That is, it should be proven that it was passed down generation to generation by reliable transmitters, thus showing it is indeed the message given by the messenger, not by someone else.’

Among the criteria of New Testament canonicity there existed those of Apostolicity; Antiquity; Traditional Usage. Essentially, a book had to be written by an Apostle or member of an Apostolic team, in the Apostolic Age (i.e. the first century) and there had to be a tradition of use by churches from that period. We also find quotes from early church leaders which demonstrate their use of the New Testament:

i) Polycarp

Polycarp was a disciple of John, and the former’s Epistle to the Philippians is rich in quotes from the New Testament, as can be seen from this quote from chapter one:

“whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave.” “In whom, though now ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory;” into which joy many desire to enter, knowing that “by grace ye are saved, not of works,” but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.[35]

This passage includes quotes from Acts 2:24; 1 Peter 1:8; Ephesians 2:8-9. In the second chapter he quotes from Matthew 7:1; 6:12, 14; Luke 6:37; 36; Matthew 7:2; Luke 6:38; Matthew 5:3, 10; Luke 6:20, commencing with an injunction to be ‘mindful of what the Lord said in His teaching: “Judge not, that ye be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again;” and once more, “Blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”’[36]

In Chapter III, he speaks of ‘the blessed and glorified Paul’, and his reference in Chapter IX indicates that he recognized the apostolate of Paul: ‘Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles’. In Chapter IV he quotes from 1 Timothy 6:10, 7; Ephesians 6:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:17. In Chapter VII, attacking docetists, he quotes from 1 John 4:3, 2 John 7, possibly Jude 3, 1 Peter 4:7 and various texts from Matthew and Mark, and regards these words as being those of ‘the Lord’.[37] Metzger notes that Polycarp is acquainted with Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, and 1 & 2 Timothy.[38]

ii) Ignatius

There are strong suggestions that Ignatius utilized the Gospel of Matthew, e.g. in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he refers to Jesus having been ‘baptized by John for His fulfilling of all righteousness’, which echoes Matthew 3:15.[39] In the same epistle, 3:1-2, he refers to the Resurrected Jesus denying that He is a phantom, which reflects Luke 24:39.[40] Remember that Ignatius was an immediate disciple of John. In his Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 8, Ignatius describes Jesus as ‘Word of His own from silence proceeding’, reflecting John 1:1.[41] In his Epistle to the Trallians, chapter 4, he refers to ‘Satan’s jealousy’ and then describes him as ‘the prince of this world’, as he also does in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter 7.[42] In his Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5, he quotes 1 Peter 5:5 that ‘God opposes the proud’. The same epistle, 7:2, which speaks of ‘God having become in flesh’, alludes to 1 John 4:2f. Metzger notes that Ignatius knew of Ephesians, Romans, Galatians, Philippians and 1 Thessalonians.[43]

iii) Papias

In a fragment of his Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord I, preserved by Eusebius, he tells us how he met immediate disciples of the Apostles.[44] He ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions’, John 14:2; ‘And this is the couch in which they shall recline who feast, being invited to the wedding’, Matthew 22:10; ‘even as it is said by the apostle, “For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”’, 1 Corinthians 15: 25, 26; ‘But when He saith all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all’, 1 Corinthians 15: 27, 28.[45]

iv) Irenæus

The famous statement of Irenæus refers to the ‘fourfold gospel’ in Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter XI:8: ‘It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are… the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars…’[46] In Book I, Chapter I:1, Irenæus quotes 1 Timothy 1:4, and clearly recognizes the apostolate of Paul: ‘as the apostle says, ‘minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith”‘[47] In the same passage he refers to ‘the oracles of God, … the good word of revelation.’

In Against Heresies, Book III, XI:9, Irenæus refers to ‘the Apostle Paul … in his Epistle to the Corinthians, alluding to 11:4, 5. Another Pauline reference (Philippians 2:8) is found in XII:9: ‘He became “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”’ In His Letter to Florinus, he quotes from Ephesians 4: 9, 10: ‘who, “though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by divine power;” who “descended into the lower parts of the earth,” and who “ascended up above the heavens’.[48] Similarly, in XII:2, he refers to Acts several times, such as 2:22-27: ‘For Peter said, “Ye men of Israel, hear my words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you by powers, and wonders, and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, by the hands of wicked men ye have slain…”’

vi) The church at Rome

In the Epistle of Clement, chapter 2, we read that the Corinthians were ‘more glad to give than to receive’, which reflects Acts 20:35.[49] In chapter 13, Jesus is quoted as saying:

Have mercy, that ye may receive mercy: forgive, that it may be forgiven to you. As ye do, so shall it be done to you. As ye give, so shall it be given unto you. As ye judge, so shall ye be judged. As ye show kindness, so shall kindness be showed unto you. With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured withal to you.[50]

This reflects a conflation of Matthew 5:7; 6:14-15; 7:1-2; 12, together with Luke 6:31, 36-38.[51] In chapter 46, the epistle asks its readers to: 

Remember the words of Jesus our Lord: for He said, Woe unto that man; it were good for him if he had not been born, rather than that at he should offend one of Mine elect. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about him, and be cast into the sea, than that he should pervert one of Mine elect.[52]

Metzger comments: ‘Here one recalls the words of Jesus found in Mark ix. 42; Matt. xviii. 6-7; and Luke xvii. 1-2, but there is no parallel to the clauses about offending and perverting the elect.’[53] However, if we look at Luke 17:2, the reading is not so problematic: ‘It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.’

It is clear from chapter 47 that Clement is familiar with the Corinthian correspondence of the Apostle Paul: ‘Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle.’[54] Metzger observes that ‘Elsewhere Clement appears to make definite allusions to several other Epistles of Paul, including Romans, Galatians, Philippians, and Ephesians.’[55] It is obvious that Clement is familiar with the Epistle to the Hebrews, and ‘Elsewhere Clement incorporates occasional phrases that have led some to think he may have also known Acts, James, and 1 Peter.’[56]

The Muratorian Fragment refers to Luke as the third Gospel and John as the fourth, implying that Matthew was the first and Mark second, and it also explicitly refers to Paul’s epistles, as well as other books.

In his Dialogue with Trypho 103.8, Justin Martyr refers to ‘the memoirs composed by the apostles and those who followed them’, and in 1 Apology 66, he identifies those memoirs with the Gospels: ‘For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels…’ The identity of the Gospels in question is clarified by the fact that in Dialogue 103.8 he quotes Luke, and in 116: 4 he quotes Mark, referring to his Gospel as ‘his [Peter’s] Memoirs’, which is ‘doubtless alluding to the tradition reported by Papias that Mark wrote down Peter’s words.’[57] In Dialogue 116.4, Justin explicitly refers to the Magi being mentioned by ‘the memoirs of the apostles’, which clearly points to the Gospel of Matthew, 2:1ff.[58] In terms of the Gospel of John, Justin’s reference to Jesus’ words on being born again point to a reference to John 3:5: ‘For Christ also said, “Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”’[59] Justin’s frequent references to Christ as the Logos probably also reflect the usage of the term in the Fourth Gospel.

Justin alludes to the Book of Revelation by name.[60] As far as the Pauline corpus is concerned, ‘Justin’s argument about Abraham’s circumcision in Dial. xxiii undoubtedly echoes Rom. iv.10, 11’.[61] A quotation from the passage in Dialogue xxiii illustrates this: ‘For when Abraham himself was in uncircumcision, he was justified and blessed by reason of the faith which he reposed in God, as the Scripture tells.’ There are also echoes of 1 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians, Galatians and Colossians in Justin’s writings.[62] The same is true of Hebrews, 1 John and possibly 1 Peter.[63]

Thus, we can see a true chain of usage. In contrast, the criteria for the Hadith is arbitrary – Bukhari only used Muslim transmitters. We have no extant Arabian-Jewish, Arabian-Christian or Arabian-pagan documents or testimony from the time to either refute or confirm the Muslim claim – if any such documents or testimony did ever exist. Further, the Hadith was only compiled two centuries after Muhammad, and we have nothing against which to reliably measure the historical provenance of either the matn or the isnad. Since the knowledge of how the Qur’an emerged and was supposedly preserved comes from the Hadith, we cannot trust the historical reliability of the Qur’an either. As we have seen, the extant manuscripts of the Qur’an are later than its supposed canonization. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

9.               THE HISTORICAL RELIABILITY OF THE CRUCIFIXION

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘When the Messiah, Jesus Son of Mary, returns in the end days to battle the Antichrist – the false Messiah – and his army, of the myths he will debunk once and for all are those of his crucifixion and divinity.’[64]

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

No one in the first century – Jew, Christian, heretic or pagan – denied the historical reality of the crucifixion. Apart from the New Testament, the Jewish author Josephus, writing c. 95, states in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3: ‘Now there was about this time Jesus… Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross…’ The Roman pagan historian Tacitus, whose Annals were written after 115 A.D., states this in 15.44: ‘The originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was emperor by order of the procurator Pontius Pilatus.’

The first person to deny the reality of the crucifixion was Basilides, who lived around 117-138, and was thus not an eyewitness of Jesus, nor attested by any who were. Basilides was a Gnostic, and rejected the body as evil. He therefore had an a priori belief that the bodily Jesus could not suffer, and so a deceptive transformation occurred:

Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them. For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all.[65]

Given that this was first proposed about a century after the facts, it can be dismissed.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

10.            THE NAME OF GOD

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘The English word “God” has various theoretical origins. Regardless, it was not remotely a word spoken by the Semitic family of prophets, whose father is Abraham, with descendants including Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. As for the language family spoken by such prophets, they used the root letters ALH (Hebrew אלה , Syriac ܗ  ܠܐ, Arabic اله ) for the Supreme Being. In Hebrew, the name of the Almighty is אלהים “Elohim,” with -im being a suffix of respect. The Syriac dialect of Aramaic calls the Lord ܐܗ  ܠܐ “Elaha.” Even earlier Semitic languages, like Chaldean, spoken in the time of Abraham, would have referred to the Creator as “Il,” without the H, which is also an’ Arabic word ( إل ) related to divinity... Strong mentioned in his Hebrew dictionary, entry 410, that “el or ale” is used in reference to anything related to “God (god),” as in names ending with -el, like Israel, Gabriel, Michael, and so on. While “god” has become an English word that simply means “something worshiped,” it is incorrect to use “God” as the proper name for the Creator, as He has referred to Himself in a number of Semitic texts with the ALH root. As such, one should adhere to referring to the Lord by His actual name, with which He was comparatively referred to by any of the Semitic prophets – like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. And that name in Arabic – the only preserved Semitic language – is الله “Allah,” which comes from the word إله “ilah,” meaning “the one who deserves to be worshiped.”’

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

We have already addressed much of this in relation to an earlier article. We saw that the ‘majestic plural’ claim in relation to Biblical Hebrew does not hold water. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

A further problem is the enmeshing of all Semitic languages. As Professor James Barr has noted, this is generally invalid.[66] Just because a word in one language looks or sounds like another word in a different, but perhaps closely related language does not equal equivalence. For example, take the English word gift. In English, this is basically equivalent to a ‘present’. However, the German word gift means poison! Languages also need to be understood in their temporal context. Sometimes a word can change in meaning over the years – take the English word gay which no longer refers to a state of happiness, but rather to sexual orientation.

Also, a simple word like ‘god’ might have different connotations in different cultures and religious systems. For example, both Greek-speaking pagans and Greek-speaking Jews would have used the word theos to describe deity. But whereas for the latter, in most cases, this would be capitalized and used to describe the unique God of the Tanakh – YHWH, for the former it could be used of any of the deities in their pantheon, from Zeus to Dionysios.

This is also true in Semitic languages. For example, the Ugaritic (Canaanite) deity El, who was the chief of their pantheon. The question is, do the cultic narratives about the Canaanite El display a true analogy with the God of the Tanakh? In Ugaritic myth, El engages in a hieros gamos – sacred love-making – with two goddesses:

The chief text falling into the pattern of the hieros gamos tells of ‘El…  with his two wives and of the birth of his sons Dawn and Dusk (Sahar and Salim). The text is the libretto for a cultic drama… Glimpses of action - ‘El’s hunting and feasting, the squeals of his wives being seduced, their lovemaking and the birth of the gods-follow one on another... We are given a description of the lovemaking and birth...[67]

There is nothing in the Tanakh which remotely resembles this; the God of the Hebrews does not behave in such a way, nor does He have consorts. Equally, there are major differences between the god of Islam and the Deity of the Tanakh. In Genesis 1-3, God not only creates the Earth, He visits it – Genesis 3:8: ‘They heard the sound of YHWH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.’

However, it is not merely a matter of attributes. Even with respect to the nature of nomenclature, the Islamic State fails in its attack on Christianity. Note the comment the Islamic State makes in this matter:

…it is incorrect to use “God” as the proper name for the Creator, as He has referred to Himself in a number of Semitic texts with the ALH root. As such, one should adhere to referring to the Lord by His actual name, with which He was comparatively referred to by any of the Semitic prophets – like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. And that name in Arabic – the only preserved Semitic language – is الله “Allah,” which comes from the word إله “ilah,” meaning “the one who deserves to be worshiped.”’

This may be true of El in the pantheons of other Semitic religions:

The discovery of the Ugaritic texts beginning in 1929 and continuing into the present has removed any doubt that in the Canaanite pantheon ‘II was the proper name of the god par excellence, the head of the pantheon… In mythic texts, in epic texts, in pantheon lists and temple records, ‘I1 is normally a proper name…

Moving to East Semitic we find again very ancient evidence that II was the proper name of a deity. II appears often in earliest Old Akkadian sources without the case ending,’ unambiguously the divine name and not an appellative.[68]

However, it is not true of the Bible. We saw earlier that the personal name of Deity therein is YHWH. This Name is totally absent from the Qur’an and Hadith – nowhere is Muhammad presented as addressing the Deity by this Name. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

11.            TEXTUAL AUTHENTICITY

In this extended section we will address the Feature article in Dabiq, ‘Break the Cross’. As we progress, it will be noted how inaccurate and incompetent is the article, which seems to have been written by someone of American origin (on the basis of matters such as spelling) – and perhaps, for that reason, should know better, given the large percentage of Americans who are Evangelical Christians, and their prominent place in US society. We will break the article down to manageable sections.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

One of the most important aspects of any text claiming religious truth is its authenticity. It must be known whether or not the scripture is truly that of whom it is attributed. In that vein, most of the Bible in general is written by unknown authors. Likewise, history and the very text of the Bible itself casts much doubt on the overall authenticity of this scripture. Jews had a history of state establishment and a foothold in the land. Though eventually defeated, they had ample time to circulate the Torah, which would have been preserved if it were not for the deceptive scribes who were charged with its keeping. Jeremiah 8:8 reads, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law (Torah) of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.’” On this verse, the biblical “scholar” Adam Clarke commented, “It is too bold an assertion to say that ‘the Jews have never falsified the sacred oracles;’ they have done it again and again. They have written falsities when they knew they were such” (Commentary on the Bible)…

CHRISTIAN DEFENSE

(a)            ‘Jeremiah 8.8’

Jeremiah 8:8 reads, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law (Torah) of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.’” On this verse, the biblical “scholar” Adam Clarke commented, “It is too bold an assertion to say that ‘the Jews have never falsified the sacred oracles;’ they have done it again and again. They have written falsities when they knew they were such” (Commentary on the Bible)

We have already addressed much of this earlier. The author badly misunderstands Jeremiah 8:8 and indeed, the thrust of Clarke’s exegesis. Neither are referring to the text of the Tanakh, but rather false prophets/scribes. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

As for the earliest Christians, including the apostles of Jesus, others in that time, and their students, then they had no public venue. They maintained no authority. Their lives were wrought with persecution and, thus, obscurity. It is no wonder that there is not a single surviving original manuscript of the Christian scriptures, or even an authentic oral transmission thereof. Regarding authorship of the gospels, then even those of them who are claimed to have been disciples of Jesus have no evidence to back them up. The Gospel of Matthew makes no mention of its author, as even the title “of Matthew” was added later. The Gospel of Mark was purportedly written by Mark the Evangelist, a supposed disciple who rejected Christ but later allegedly repented, though even this authorship is doubted, and its earliest manuscript is from the 4th century. The Gospel of Luke is said to have been written by a Greek who was not a disciple of Jesus, but rather of Paul, who was also not a disciple of Jesus. And even that authorship is doubted. As for the Gospel of John, it was authored by multiple revisers, none of whom were John the Evangelist.

(b)             ‘Authorship of the Gospels’

‘Regarding authorship of the gospels, then even those of them who are claimed to have been disciples of Jesus have no evidence to back them up.’

The first comment made in this section, ‘It is no wonder that there is not a single surviving original manuscript of the Christian scriptures’, ignores that the earliest manuscripts were papyrus, which disintegrates easily unless stored in a hot, dry environment. However, texts were meant to be utilized and copied, so inevitably they would wear out.

As for evidence regarding the authorship of the Gospels, note what the great academic Biblical scholar Martin Hengel stated: ‘It is also striking that while Irenaeus and even Justin refer to the apostolic character of all four Gospels, nevertheless not all the four Gospels are attributed to apostles…’[69] Justin Martyr attributes the Gospels to ‘His apostles and those who followed them’, so at least two must have been written by non-apostles.[70] This in itself demonstrates that the tradition of the non-apostolic authorship of the Gospels of Luke and Mark must have been established.

Hengel further notes the second century stress on ‘eyewitness’ testimony, and suggests that given this emphasis, ‘one might have expected only apostolic titles’.[71] He then rhetorically asks: ‘What would have prevented the copyists or the communities… in the second century from transferring the Gospel of Mark to Peter and the Gospel of Luke to Paul?’[72] Obviously, what prevented them from so-doing was the knowledge of the actual authorship.

Marcion’s use of Luke’s Gospel (albeit in a truncated form) is unintelligible unless its acceptance in the early church was recognized and uncontested. Papias, ‘a hearer of John, and a friend of Polycarp’, states this: ‘Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered… Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord]…’[73] Irenæus identifies John as the author of the Gospel associated with his name: ‘“For many believed in Him, when they saw the signs which He did,” as John the disciple of the Lord records…’[74] He also elaborates on the Four Gospels in general:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.[75]

It needs to be remembered that Irenæus was a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John, so the information he presents here has apostolic origins. In regard to Luke, no other suggestion as to authorship is found in the second century, and since he was not an apostle, no ulterior motive for ascribing authorship to him can be inferred. Bauckham makes two important observations: firstly, that the early manuscript evidence supports the traditional ascriptions, and secondly, ‘no evidence exists that these Gospels were ever known by other names.’[76] Thus, ‘as soon as the Gospels circulated around the churches they had the author’s names attached to them.’[77]

As for the earliest text of Mark, this can be found in the Chester Beatty Papyri. These were a group of Biblical manuscript codices from Egypt, most of them purchased in 1930 by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American-British collector of Oriental artefacts. They included Papyrus 45 (P45), a codex containing the four gospels and Acts, and dated to the early third century.[78]

It cannot escape the attention of anyone reading what can only be described as the nonsense issued by the Islamic State that for all their bleating about ‘evidence’, they never present any on matters such as this. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Furthermore, language is essential to any scripture, as text is best understood through the language in which it was written – and divine inspiration is only fully understood through the language in which it was revealed. Aramaic was spoken by some in Jesus’ time. And Hebrew was the historic language of the Israelites. However, the earliest copies of the Christian texts (and not even the originals, which no longer exist) were written in Koine Greek, the official language of eastern Roman rule.

(c)             ‘language is essential to any scripture’

This section of the article betrays an anachronistic Islamic bias. To Muslims, the Qur’an is only really authentic when it is in Arabic. They hold it cannot be really translated. Hence, when a non-Arabic speaker converts to Islam, in order to understand the text of his/her holy book, he/she must first learn Arabic.

However, the God of the Bible knows all languages, and can speak to people in them – note how the Jewish pilgrims from all over the Roman world and even those outside the Empire could hear the Apostles, endued by God the Holy Spirit, speaking in their own languages (Acts 2:8-11)! Note also how the returning Jews under Ezra and Nehemiah could have the Torah translated into Aramaic for them so that they could understand, Nehemiah 8:8.

Koine Greek was not so much the ‘official language’ of the Roman Empire in the East, but rather it had been the regional lingua franca since the time of Alexander, much in the way that English is the global lingua franca today. It made perfect sense for the New Testament to be presented in Greek in order to reach as many people as possible. Further, Palestine was also linguistically Hellenized at this time – Jesus would have known Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. Most people in the world know more than one language.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

So there should be no doubt that the text of the modern Bible is not the actual words and exact teachings of the original prophets like Moses and Jesus. To further demonstrate this, one only needs to look at the numerous contradictions and false statements found throughout the text itself… In Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, one finds, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (2:16-17). Thus the Jewish scribes quote the Creator as asserting that if Adam eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he shall surely die that very day. Thereafter, it mentions the story of Satan – the serpent – tempting Adam’s wife. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:1-5).

So here the scribes have “God” announcing to Adam that he will die if he eats from this tree, and here is Satan calling “God” a liar, saying that instead of dying, whoever eats of the tree will actually become “like God!” Certainly, Satan is the liar, but the lying scribes of the Jews have sided with Satan and agreed with him in the following passages, in that after Adam and his wife ate from the tree, they did not die, but it is instead found, “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever’” (Genesis 3:22). The mention of the tree of eternal life shows that Adam was already a mortal according to the Bible, thus denying anyone’s interpretation that eating from the tree of knowledge made him a mortal, thus only symbolically “dying” that very day.

(d)            ‘The mention of the tree of eternal life shows that Adam was already a mortal according to the Bible, thus denying anyone’s interpretation that eating from the tree of knowledge made him a mortal, thus only symbolically “dying” that very day.’

The Islamic State woefully misunderstands the passage in Genesis. When the First Couple ate the Forbidden Fruit, they died spiritually, and also physical death entered their existence. Kaiser explains:

It is … naive to insist that the phrase “in the day” means that on that very day death would occur. A little knowledge of the Hebrew idiom will relieve the tension here as well. For example, in 1 Kings 2:37 King Solomon warned a seditious Shimei, “The day you leave [Jerusalem] and cross the Kidron Valley [which is immediately outside the city walls on the east side of the city], you can be sure you will die.” Neither the 1 Kings nor the Genesis text implies immediacy of action on that very same day; instead they point to the certainty of the predicted consequence that would be set in motion by the act initiated on that day. Alternate wordings include at the time when, at that time, now when and the day [when] (see Gen 5:1; Ex 6:28; 10:28; 32:34).

The final concern is over the definition of death. Scripture refers to three different types of death. Often only the context helps distinguish which is intended. There are physical death, spiritual death (the kind that forces guilty persons to hide from the presence of God, as this couple did when it was time for fellowship in the Garden, Gen 3:8) and the “second death” (to which Rev 20:14 refers, when a person is finally, totally and eternally separated from God without hope of reversal, after a lifetime of rejecting God).

In this case, spiritual death was the immediate outcome of disobedience demonstrated by a deliberate snatching of real fruit from a real tree in a real garden. Death ensued immediately: They became “dead in … transgressions and sins” (Eph 2:1). But such separation and isolation from God eventually resulted in physical death as well. This, however, was more a byproduct than a direct result of their sin. Spiritual death was the real killer![79]

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

There are also theological contradictions that begin with sound principles, like, “And also the Glory of Israel [‘God’] will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret” (1 Samuel 15:29). Yet in the very same chapter, one finds that, “The word of the Lord came to Samuel, ‘I regret that I have made Saul king’” (1 Samuel 15:10-11). Similar alleged statements of deficiency are ascribed to the Lord throughout the Bible; far exalted is He above such deviant claims. For example, in their altered Torah, one finds, “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:6), as well as, “And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (Exodus 32:14), and the Hebrew for “relented” here is the same that was used for “regret” in 1 Samuel. This obvious “change of heart” is a lie against the Lord, as His knowledge and wisdom are beyond Him decree­ing something that He would ever regret…

(e)            ‘And the Lord relented’

Once again Kaiser is of help here:

The classic example of this conditional teaching is Jeremiah 18:7–10: “If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”

This principle clearly states the condition underlying most of God’s promises and threats, even when it is not made explicit, as in the case of Jonah. Therefore, whenever God does not fulfill a promise or execute a threat that he has made, the explanation is obvious: in all of these cases, the change has not come in God, but in the individual or nation.[80]

When God created Man, the latter was in a state of purity. The Fall led to Man entering a state of sinfulness, which accelerated to the point that God sent the Flood to destroy all but the family of Noah. When YHWH first chose Saul, the latter was faithful; when Saul changed, the attitude of God necessarily changed towards him. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

The Bible is also riddled with numerical inconsistencies…

(f)             ‘The Bible is also riddled with numerical inconsistencies’

The Islamic State produces no evidence for this claim. Probably Dabiq is referring to some discrepancies in numbers between Kings and Chronicles. Such discrepancies may be attributed to scribal errors; Hebrew numbers were usually written in words. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

The concept of the Trinity, that “God” consists of three persons, who are all “gods” themselves, specifically “God” the Father, “God” the Son, and “God” the Holy Spirit, is the pillar of pagan Christian theology. But it was not always so. Actually, one finds a historic disconnect between the beliefs, on this issue, of the Eastern Church of the Levant and Byzantium and those of the Western Church of Rome, the latter supporting the pagan concept of human divinity and the former making a clear separation between god and man.

(g)            ‘Pagan Trinity Versus Monotheist Unity’

This is a shameful distortion of Christian doctrine. Bishop Dionysius of Rome in 260 in his work Against the Sabellians attacked that heresy not only for confusing the Persons of the Trinity, but also any tendency towards separating them into three gods:

That admirable and divine unity, therefore, must neither be separated into three divinities, nor must the dignity and eminent greatness of the Lord be diminished by having applied to it the name of creation, but we must believe on God the Father Omnipotent, and on Christ Jesus His Son, and on the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that the Word is united to the God of all, because He says, “I and the Father are one;” and, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” Thus doubtless will be maintained in its integrity the doctrine of the divine Trinity, and the sacred announcement of the monarchy.[81]

In his Tractate XX on John, Augustine emphasizes the fact of co-inherence and inseparability of the Persons, once again underlining that the Early Church belief in the Triune nature of God had nothing to do with tritheism or any other kind of polytheism: ‘Understand, then, beloved brethren, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are inseparably united in themselves; that this Trinity is one God; that all the works of the one God are the works of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’[82]

Note that Dionysius states ‘That admirable and divine unity, therefore, must neither be separated into three divinities’, emphasizing that the Trinity does not indicate three separate gods. Of course, the Islamic State has no alternative but to repeat this canard, since the Qur’an itself makes this false allegation in Surah Al-Maida 5.73: ‘They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.’ Note that the Arabic word qul – ‘say’ indicates that the Qur’an claims that Christians ‘say’ that there are three gods, when they actually say no such thing. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Theodotus of Byzantium (late 2nd century CE) was a Christian writer of the second century who believed that Jesus was a non-divine man, who was born of the Virgin Mary and who became the anointed-one, i.e. the Christ, at his baptism.

(h)            Theodotus of Byzantium

After falsely presenting a Christological distinction between the West and East, the Islamic State commits another howler. It once again gets its history wrong. Probably few people have heard of Theodotus of Byzantium. If Theodotus wrote anything (and there is no evidence that he did), it has not survived. We only know of what he taught from Eusebius of Caesarea, Hippolytus and Epiphanius, who was probably referencing Hippolytus.

Eusebius indicates that Theodotus taught a form of Dynamic Monarchianism – that the man Jesus was ‘endued’ by the heavenly Christ at the Baptism was thus ‘divinized’. That is, instead of God taking a human nature alongside His divine nature, a man became God – essentially, a form of apotheosis, a notion we have already seen is incompatible with Biblical teaching. This is what Eusebius states, after illustrating what Paul of Samosata taught in this regard: ‘Victor, knowing well that he cut off from communion Theodotus, the cobbler, the leader and father of this God-denying apostasy, and the first to declare that Christ is mere man?’[83] He notes their adherence to pagan writers:

13…. They have treated the Divine Scriptures recklessly and without fear. They have set aside the rule of ancient faith; and Christ they have not known. They do not endeavour to learn what the Divine Scriptures declare, but strive laboriously after any form of syllogism which may be devised to sustain their impiety. And if any one brings before them a passage of Divine Scripture, they see whether a conjunctive or disjunctive form of syllogism can be made from it.

14. And as being of the earth and speaking of the earth, and as ignorant of him who comes from above, they forsake the holy writings of God to devote themselves to geometry. Euclid is laboriously measured by some of them; and Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired; and Galen, perhaps, by some is even worshipped.[84]

Hippolytus states this about Theodotus:

But there was a certain Theodotus, a native of Byzantium, who introduced a novel heresy. He announces tenets concerning the originating cause of the universe, which are partly in keeping with the doctrines of the true Church, in so far as he acknowledges that all things were created by God. Forcibly appropriating, however, (his notions of) Christ from the school of the Gnostics, and of Cerinthus and Ebion, he alleges that (our Lord) appeared in some such manner as I shall now describe. (According to this, Theodotus maintains) that Jesus was a (mere) man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived promiscuously with all men, and had become pre-eminently religious, he subsequently at his baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in form of a dove. And this was the reason, (according to Theodotus,) why (miraculous) powers did not operate within him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended, (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ. But (among the followers of Theodotus) some are disposed (to think) that never was this man made God, (even) at the descent of the Spirit; whereas others (maintain that he was made God) after the resurrection from the dead.[85]

Note that Theodotus distinguished between ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’, something no orthodox Muslim could accept. Heine notes that Theodotus was influenced by pagans:

Theodotus’ followers appear to have accepted the philosophy of Aristotle, been especially interested in logic, rejected the allegorical exegesis of the Bible for a more grammatical and literal exegesis, and applied the Greek philologists’ methods of textual criticism to the text of the Greek Bible. Eusebius cites an early source which refers to their admiration of Euclid, the geometrician, Aristotle and his disciple Theophrastus, and the philosophical physician Galen (Eusebius, HE 5.28.13–19). R. Walzer argued that it was especially Galen, who was a contemporary in Rome, whose influence should be seen in all of these areas, and suggested that Theodotus’ followers may have attempted to restate the teaching of the Church in a way that would appeal to an audience such as that represented by Galen.[86]

Kelly agrees with this:

These adoptionists were an isolated and unrepresentative movement in Gentile Christianity. It is an attractive guess that Theodotus the leather-merchant and his coterie belonged to the circle of Galen, and were stimulated by his friendly, but critical, interest in the faith to work out a rationalizing version of it. Their scholarly sympathies and methods were certainly akin to his, and their chief object seems to have been to eliminate the idea, so uncongenial to people imbued with Greek philosophical culture, of an incarnation of the Deity.[87]

So, the Islamic State has endorsed someone who by Islamic standards is a heretic. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Paul of Samosata (200-275 CE), who was the Bishop of Antioch… believed and preached that Jesus was neither a god nor part of some polytheistic concept called “Trinity.” However, due to complaints from the Trinitarian clergy of Italy, their fellow pagan Roman emperor Aurelian helped remove Paul from his position.’

(i)             Paul of Samosata

Again, the Islamic State has either done no real historical research or is intentionally distorting it. Paul of Samosata was a favorite of Zenobia, the pagan Queen of Palmyra, the city grimly vandalized by the Islamic State. She supported Paul of Samosata, as part of her general policy from all groups to win support for her hope of separating the eastern provinces of the Empire from Rome. Epiphanius comments about this individual:

1,5 Paul claims that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one God, but that God’s Word and Spirit are always in him, just as a man’s own word is in his heart. (6) The Son of God is not an entity but is within God himself... (7) The Word came, dwelt in Jesus who was a man, < and after doing his work ascended to the Father again.[88]

Heine states this about Paul:

In 268 Paul of Samosata was deposed as bishop of Antioch, for teaching a similar doctrine… Paul had enough local political power, however, as well as popular support in his church, to resist the decision and retain control of the church property. The emperor had to be called upon to settle the matter concerning the property. He settled it against Paul (Eusebius, HE 7.30.18–19).

Eusebius is our most reliable witness to the teachings of Paul of Samosata, for he had read the synodal letter composed by the bishops who deposed him (HE 7.30.1–17)… The bishops asserted that he forbade psalms to be addressed to Christ in worship, that he would not acknowledge with them that the Son came ‘down from heaven’, that he said that ‘Jesus Christ is from below’; and they concluded by associating Paul’s teaching with that of Artemas. In his De Ecclesiastica Theologia, Eusebius says that Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus is the Christ of God, and that there is one God over all things. He did not confess, however, that Christ is the Son of God, and that he was God before he became flesh (ETh. 1.14.2). Eusebius’ statements place Paul of Samosata in the dynamic monarchian tradition.[89]

It can be seen that Paul was initially opposed by a group of local Christian leaders, rather than just ‘the Trinitarian clergy of Italy’. The synodal letter implies that Paul was something of a proto-‘prosperity teacher’ and/or embezzler:

…although formerly destitute and poor, and having received no wealth from his fathers, nor made anything by trade or business, he now possesses abundant wealth through his iniquities and sacrilegious acts, and through those things which he extorts from the brethren, depriving the injured of their rights and promising to assist them for reward, yet deceiving them, and plundering those who in their trouble are ready to give that they may obtain reconciliation with their oppressors, ‘supposing that gain is godliness’…[90]

The letter also goes on to indicate that Paul was an arrogant bully, that ‘that he rebukes and insults those who do not applaud’, and that he gave the impression of being sexually immoral: ‘For how can he reprove or admonish another not to be too familiar with women… when he has himself sent one away already, and now has two with him, blooming and beautiful, and takes them with him wherever he goes, and at the same time lives in luxury and surfeiting?’[91] Perhaps, given the oppressive nature of the Islamic State, their plunder of other people’s property, and their obscene treatment of Yezidi girls, this only endears Paul of Samosata to them.

Paul was deposed by a synod in 269 because of his heretical doctrine of Dynamic Monarchianism. However, his political links with Zenobia enabled him to defy the synod’s ruling until Zenobia was vanquished by the Roman Emperor Aurelian.[92] The local church leaders then petitioned Aurelian for justice, and, understandably, he turned to the Christian leaders in Rome for advice, and acted upon it. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

There was also Even some “Church-recognized saints” rejected the Trinity, including Lucian of Antioch, who either died or was killed in 312 CE.

(j)             Lucian of Antioch

Presently, there is some dispute as to what actually was Lucian’s position.[93] In his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, Arius had described himself as ‘a true fellow-disciple of Lucian’.[94] Williams is cautious, since the expression sulloukianista (‘fellow-Lucianist’) may simply indicate that Arius claimed ‘common ground with potential supporters’ or that he merely studied under Lucian.[95] Lucian was famous for his literalist approach to Scripture, in contrast to the allegorical hermeneutic of Alexandria. Since Arius was based in Egypt, he may merely have meant that he supported Lucian’s literal approach, rather than that of Alexandria.

The only point of Lucian’s theology – if he maintained it, which is disputed – is that he denied the presence of a human soul in Jesus.[96] If this is the case, the position of the Islamic State on Lucian (and it should be remembered that it offers no evidence for its claims) is contradictory, since obviously such a Jesus would not be a normal man. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Arius…  held that Jesus – while blessed with both prophecy and a virgin birth – was a human subordinate to the Almighty Creator.

(k)            Arius

Once again, the Islamic State produces no evidence for its claims. Arius said little about the matters relating to the humanity of Jesus, such as the virgin birth.[97] In Arius’ letter to Eusebius, he states his beliefs as follows:

But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that He does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. This is the cause of our persecution, and likewise, because we say that He is of the non-existent. And this we say, because He is neither part of God, nor of any essential being.[98]

Arius rejected the beliefs that the Son was always God, and that the Son had the same divine substance as the Father, that the Son was eternally generated by the Father, that the Son always existed. For Arius, ‘… begetting and creation were identical, and both always meant dependence.’[99] Note however, that Arius regarded the Son as pre-existent, though anterior to the Father, and that Arius was prepared in some sense to call the Son ‘God’.

In his Confession to Bishop Alexander, he states that God ‘begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom He has made both the ages and the universe’.[100] Further, when we read Arius’ 327 letter to Emperor Constantine, it seems that the Islamic State have chosen an unlikely theological hero:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty: and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, God the Word through whom all things were made, both those which are in the heavens and those upon the earth; who descended, and became incarnate, and suffered, and rose again, ascended into the heavens, and will again come to judge the living and the dead. [We believe] also in the Holy Spirit, and in the resurrection of the flesh, and in the life of the coming age, and in the kingdom of the heavens, and in one Catholic Church of God, extending from one end of the earth to the other.

‘This faith we have received from the holy gospels, the Lord therein saying to his disciples: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” If we do not so believe and truly receive the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as the whole Catholic Church and the holy Scriptures teach (in which we believe in every respect), God is our judge both now, and in the coming judgment.[101]

The Islamic State declares that Athanasius held to ‘the pagan idea that Jesus – the “Son of God”’. Yet they laud Arius, who we can see held that Jesus was ‘his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages’. Worse, Arius held that Jesus was ‘God the Word through whom all things were made’. Surely this means that Arius was guilty of Shirk? Why then does the Islamic State commend him – have they apostatized without knowing it? The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

An attempt to settle this dispute was presented at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, where the infamous Nicene Creed was concocted after the Trinitarians simply outnumbered the Unitarians. This resulted in a number of bishops from various parts of the Roman Empire being excommunicated for siding with Arius and not accepting the Trinity. This did not last long, as thereafter one finds some archbish­ops of Constantinople, like Eusebius and Eudoxius, holding “Arian” creeds and who managed to have the pagan Athanasius removed from his position. Indeed, the list of other bishops who supported the “Arian” creed of theological unity is extensive, and it is merely a scholastic deception and political scheme to suggest that the majority of Christians have always held Trinitarian beliefs.

(l)             ‘Council of Nicaea’

Yet again, the Islamic State gets it facts wrong. It is true that ‘the Trinitarians’ outnumbered the sympathizers of Arius (as we have seen, it is wrong to call them ‘Unitarians’). Quite simply, this was because the position that the opponents of Arius held – that the Son had always existed in one essence with the Father – was the historic faith of Christians, as stated in Scripture. The Islamic State once again gets it wrong – what was presented at the close of the Council was not the Nicene Creed, but rather the Creed of Nicaea. The former is actually a later development of the latter. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Rather, it is clear that the concept of the Trinity went through centuries of modification to meet the political demands of Roman society, to appease pagan emperors and a polytheist elite. This is ever apparent to those who study this history and to those who know that the 25th of December – chosen by Trinitarians as Jesus’ birthday – was the day pagan Romans celebrated the birth of Sol Invictus, their “sun-god.”’

(m)          Trinity, 25th of December, Sol Invictus

The problem is that the Islamic State are not among ‘those who study this history’ in any proper way. The Trinity doctrine was not modified, but when a challenge came to aspects of it – such as that of the Macedonianist heresy which denied the deity of the Spirit – it was re-stated to address such an idea. No attempt was made to appease ‘pagan Roman emperors’ – after Constantine, there was only one, Julian the Apostate.

As for the canard that 25 December ‘was the day pagan Romans celebrated the birth of Sol Invictus, their “sun-god.”’, the Islamic State presents no evidence for this allegation. In fact, the festal celebrations of Sol occurred on dates other than the twenty-fifth of December, as demonstrated by the Imperial calendar: (which the Islamic State has obviously not studied) August 8, August 9, August 28, October 19, October 22 - the most important date, and December 11th. Nothing on 25 December. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

The battle between Trinitarian and Unitarian forms of Christianity, while certainly religious in nature, was ultimately only decided for the “Church” by political force.

(n)            ‘Political force.’

After the conversion of Constantine, the Roman Emperors were inclined to view Christianity more positively. However, a detailed study of events as the Council of Nicaea shows that, rather than Constantine influencing Church leaders, it was the other way around. One of the most influential religious advisors to Constantine was Ossius, Bishop of Cordoba.[102] Ossius chaired this Council.[103] The method of the Council was based on the Senate: ‘The Emperor had no vote in the Senate; neither did he in the Council. He simply confirmed the decisions of the bishops, enabling the Church to maintain its doctrinal autonomy, since he considered the bishops’ decisions to be in accord with the will of God.’[104] Eustathius ‘says nothing of any intervention by Constantine in the debates.’[105]

Rather, Constantine simply endorsed and, in terms of law, implemented the Council’s protocols. The Council simply excommunicated Arius and his supporters for heresy; Constantine implemented this in the secular arena by exiling them – something the Church could not do. The Islamic State says: ‘The pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, supporting his Trinitarian allies, had all of Arius’ writings burned.’ It is true that this order was given by the Emperor (note: NOT the Church), but it does seem that the order was actually implemented.[106]

It should also be noted how fair Constantine was, and how the unity of the Empire was foremost in his considerations. Arius later pretended to agree to the Creed of Nicaea, and consequently the Emperor allowed him back from exile, and when Athanasius, the orthodox bishop of Alexandria objected, he was punished by Constantine. This shows that interference in doctrine was not Constantine’s concern; simply peace in Empire and Church. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

Nor was Constantine a pagan. The Christian leaders Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea both recognized him as a Christian.[107] The pagans Julian the Apostate in his book The Caesars and the historian Zosimus also recognized him as a Christian.[108] It is obvious from his letters that Constantine considered himself to be a Christian.[109] Once again, the Islamic State demonstrates its shoddy scholarship. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

Indeed, the Islamic State thinks nothing of contradicting itself on whether Constantine was a Christian or not: ‘However, on his deathbed, Constantine accepted Arius’ understanding of Christianity and was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was the strongest proponent of Arius at the time’. This is unhistorical; there is no evidence that Constantine ever accepted Arianism. Since the time of Bishop Stephen (d. 257) the church at Rome had accepted baptism by heretics when administered in the Name of the Trinity. As for Eusebius of Nicomedia, he had submitted to the Creed of Nicaea, been exiled for communicating with Arians, and then later:

Hearing of the rehabilitation of Arius, the exiled Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea wrote to the council and requested that it intercede with the emperor to have them restored as well. They reasoned that they had accepted the homoousian formula and signed the creed at Nicaea, and had only been exiled for communicating with Arians; but now that Arius himself had been accepted back into the true Church, it seemed appropriate that they also be allowed to return. The council and the emperor agreed, and the exiled bishops were recalled and restored to their episcopal seats.[110]

In 335 ‘Arius had accepted the invitation of Constantine to come to his court after their falling out in 333; and, with the help of Eusebius of Nicomedia and his friends, had convinced the emperor once again that he held theological views compatible with the Nicene creedal formula.’[111] It follows that Eusebius had indicated that he held to orthodox views – when he did not really. It equally follows that Constantine therefore did not submit to Arianism. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

Neither Constantine II nor Constans were ‘politically-motivated’ Trinitarians, since they had nothing to gain or lose from backing either side. Constans did intervene, but only after leading bishops had written to him requesting a Council to heal the breach between the West and East.[112] This led to the farcical Council of Serdica in 343, which led to the Western delegates presenting a Creed which stated, among other things: ‘We confess that God is; we confess the divinity of the Father and of the Son to be one… We believe in and we receive the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, whom the Lord both promised and sent.’[113] The Eastern delegates issued a creed including these words:

We believe also in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete, whom, according to His promise, He sent to His apostles after His return into the heavens to teach them and to bring all things to their remembrance... But those who say that the Son of God is sprung from things non-existent or from another substance and not from God, and that there was a time or age when He was not, the holy catholic church holds them as aliens. Likewise also those who say that there are three Gods, or that Christ is not God and that before the ages He was neither Christ nor Son of God, or that He Himself is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, or that the Son is incapable of birth; or that the Father begat the Son without purpose or will: the holy catholic church anathematizes.[114]

Constantius II was not ‘dedicated’ to Arianism’ as the Islamic State claims, but was rather ‘Homoian’ – that the Son was ‘like’ the Father.[115] Usually, he was tolerant by the standards of the day.[116] Valens was also Homoian.[117] Does the Islamic State consider it acceptable to say that Jesus was ‘like’ the Father, or does that constitute apostasy? Once again, we encounter the shoddy scholarship of the Islamic State (which unfortunately, is shared by many other dawah activists who engage in anti-Christian polemics). The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Of those who rejected the Trinity, there came Aëtius of Antioch and a number of bishops, including Theodulus, Eunomius, Paemenius and Euphronius, as well as the historian Philostorgius. Following them in the fifth century was Nestorius (386-450 CE), the Archbishop of Constantinople, the highest clerical rank in the early Eastern Church. He rejected calling Mary the ΘΕΟΤΌΚΟC “bearer of God,” thus refusing the “godhood” of Jesus himself. After facing persecution by the Trinitarians, his followers were forced to recant or flee.

(o)             CHRISTIAN RESPONSE

[i] ‘Aëtius of Antioch’

Aetius developed a more extreme form of Arianism known as Anomoeism, because of its watchword ‘The Son is unlike (’anomoioj) the Father in all things’.[118] Kelly observes their theological/philosophical methodology:

Its intellectual leaders, Aetius and Eunomius, made great play with a hair-splitting, pseudo-Aristotelian dialectic, arguing their case in rather specious syllogisms. God, they held, was a unique and simple essence constituted exclusively by agennesia; hence the Son, as gennetos (‘generate’), could be neither ‘of the same essence’ (‘omoousioj) with the Father nor ‘of like essence’ (‘omoiousioj), but must be ‘from a different essence’ (’ec·‘eteraj ’ousiaj) and so unlike Him.[119]

Note how they resorted to pagan Greek philosophy to back up their theological presuppositions. Is this what the Islamic State advocates – utilizing pagan philosophical method? Does that not mean that they have apostatized? Further problems arise as we examine what Aetius and his followers proposed: ‘In two respects their teaching diverged from Arius’s. First, they distinguished between the divine essence (’ousia), which was indivisible and incommunicable, and the divine activity or energy (’energeia), which could be communicated.’[120]

This may not seem problematic for the beliefs of the Islamic State until we examine what the consequences were for Anomoean theology: ‘Hence they were prepared to concede that the Son had divinity conferred upon Him at His generation in the sense that He was allowed to share the Father’s activity and creative power.’[121] Is what the Islamic State believes – that the Son ‘had divinity conferred upon Him at His generation’? Does that not make them apostates? Or does simply mean that the Islamic State produces shoddy scholarship that cannot be taken seriously?

Aetius himself produced a very dense explanation of his ideas called The Syntagmation, which concludes as follows:

May the true God, who is ingenerate in himself and for this reason is alone addressed as “the only true God” by his messenger, Jesus Christ, who truly came into being before the ages and is truly a generate entity, preserve you, men and women, from impiety, safe and sound from impiety in Christ Jesus our Savior, through whom be all glory to our God and Father, both now and forever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.[122]

Note that Aetius regards Jesus as pre-existent: ‘who truly came into being before the ages’; that He was ‘generated by God the Father: ‘is truly a generate entity’; and that Aetius speaks of God as ‘Father’. None of this is acceptable to Islamic State theology, so unless the Islamic State jihadis repent of lauding this man, they will have effectively apostatized. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

[ii] ‘Theodulus, Eunomius, Paemenius and Euphronius, Philostorgius’

Theodolus was an Anomoean bishop deposed for his heresy at the Synod of Seleucia 358:

When therefore that faction persisted in their refusal to meet, after being repeatedly summoned, the bishops deposed Acacius himself, together with George of Alexandria, Uranius of Tyre, Theodulus of Chæretapi in Phrygia, Theodosius of Philadelphia in Lydia, Evagrius of the island of Mytilene, Leontius of Tripolis in Lydia, and Eudoxius who had formerly been bishop of Germanica, but had afterwards insinuated himself into the bishopric of Antioch in Syria.[123]

Eunomius, a more important figure, was one of the students of Aetius. We have already noted aspects of his position. Kelly states further concerning him and Aetius:

Secondly, while Arius considered the Godhead incomprehensible, the Anomoeans deduced its perfect comprehensibility from Its absolute simplicity. So Eunomius could claim, ‘God does not know His own being any better than we do; His essence is no more manifest to Himself than it is to us.’[124]

Surah Al-Baqarah 2:103 states about Allah: ‘Vision comprehendeth Him not, but He comprehendeth (all) vision.’ So, according to the Qur’an, God is incomprehensible to Man. Eunomius denied this, so he was a heretic in Islamic terms. To quote directly from his writings:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, from whom are all things;

And in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things;

And in one holy Spirit, the Counsellor, in whom is given to each of the saints an apportionment of every grace according to measure for the common good.[125]

Surely anyone who could call Jesus ‘God the Word’ would be considered a heretic by the Islamic State, indeed, an apostate, yet the Islamic State has endorsed Eunomius. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

In regard to Paemenius, Euphronius, and Philostorgius, we have to rely on the last-mentioned, who was an Arian historian, in sympathy with Eunomius, for what we know about them, indicating that they made little impact theologically:

Accordingly Aetius and Eunomius stayed some time in Constantinople, and busied themselves with looking after their own affairs …they ordered certain bishops, among whom were …Theodulus … promoted from the see of Chaeretapa to the bishopric of Palestine. At Constantinople too they chose Paemenius as bishop of their church, for many seceders from the party of Eudoxius and other sects in that city had swelled the adherents of Aetius and Eunomius... Euphronius, too, they set over Galatia, on the shores of the Euxine, and Cappadocia, as bishop…[126]

However, since they held to the same beliefs as Aetius and Eunomius, surely the Islamic State should realize what gaffe they have made by endorsing them? Note, however, they never quote even academic secondary material, let alone primary sources, indicating again their shoddy scholarship. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

[iii] ‘Nestorius’

Of all the ridiculous comments the Islamic State makes in this failed assault upon Christianity, this is perhaps the most glaring misstep. Firstly, Nestorius did not ‘follow’ Arianism in any form. We have already seen why he rejected the term ‘God-Bearer’ – and the Greek is ΘEOTOKOS not ΘΕΟΤΌΚΟC (i.e., it ends in ‘s’ not ‘c’)! He did not refuse the deity of Jesus as the Islamic State alleges and note once again they neither quote from any scholar in the field, still less from Nestorius himself.

Nestorius believed that Jesus was both God and Man: ‘the incarnation of God took place justly: true God by nature and true man by nature.’[127] He also stated his belief in the Trinity:

Our Lord Christ then in his divinity is consubstantial with the Father and the creator of the blessed Mary; for he is the maker of all. But in his manhood he is the son of the blessed Mary; yet he is our Lord Christ, who is double in his divinity and in his manhood… is one Son by adhesion... I require the Trinity. He then who was born of Mary that bare Christ is one Son of God; but the Son of God is double in the natures: God and man.[128]

Further, he stated: ‘the Trinity… the Father… the Son... the Holy Spirit…’, and ‘the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…’ and that ‘God the Word, who is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit…’[129] He agreed completely with the Council of Nicaea: ‘The faith indeed of the true religion is known first from the preaching of many holy books and [then] by the assembly at Nicaea of the holy fathers...’[130] So the Islamic State have endorsed true Trinitarian! The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Despite the historical debate that revolved around the Trinity, simple logic proves the polytheistic nature of this concept. Since the Trinitarians claim that “the Father is God,” that “the Son is God,” that “the Holy Spirit is God,” and that each is a distinct person, then there are undoubtedly three “gods” in this doctrine. The very definition of polytheism is “the belief in multiple gods;” so, by definition, Trinitarian Christianity is a religion of polytheism.

(p)            ‘Trinitarian Christianity is a religion of polytheism.’

We have already answered this – the Three Persons are numerically One, having a single essence. The Islamic State article does not engage with this, nor does it consider Perichoresis. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

Their rebuttal, that the Trinity is a mystery, is nothing but a copout for someone with no argument for his foolishness.’

(q)            ‘The Trinity is a mystery’

The argument is not just that the Trinity is a ‘mystery’, but rather that the infinite essence of God is incomprehensible to finite human minds. There is nothing in Creation which has an analogy to the Divine Essence. Indeed, as we have seen, the Qur’an also teaches that God is incomprehensible. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

They would have done better to recognize the complete absence of a trinity in pre-Christian Judaism’

(r)             Pre-Christian Judaism and the Trinity

The Bible is characterized by progressive revelation. What is sometimes more implicit in the Old is made explicit in the New Testament. Nonetheless, there are strong indications of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Notably, the Islamic State jihadis do not engage with this.

There are two words for one in Hebrew: Yachid, - an only one, or an ‘absolute one’; achid, which means a united one, e.g. Genesis 1:5 ‘And there was evening and there was morning, one (achid) day.’ The Old Testament uses achid of God (e.g. Deuteronomy 6:4), but yachid of Isaac – Genesis 22:2. In 19:24 we read – ‘Then YHWH rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from YHWH out of heaven’. YHWH on earth rains down fire from YHWH in Heaven. Note also in 18:17 ‘YHWH said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do...’ Yet in chapter 18, YHWH was on the earth, and indicated that in v21 that He went to Sodom ‘I will go down now’. In Isaiah 6:8: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’, cf. Zechariah 2:8 with v 9 and v 11 – YHWH sends someone who is YHWH! In Isaiah 48.12-16 God says: ‘YHWH God has sent Me, and His Spirit’ – One God in plurality. Isaiah 63:7-10 presents the three together – ‘YHWH … and the angel of His Presence … but they … grieved His Holy Spirit’. Cf. Isaiah 48:12-16. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘as well as to consider related theological verses in the Old Testament, as in, “For I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6)’

(s)             Malachi 3:6

This is a completely irrelevant objection - no Trinitarian is stating that God has changed. He was always Triune. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘there is no direct text in the entire Bible indicating this creed… no verse directly stating that “God is three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

(t)             ‘No direct text’

The Bible is not a work of systematic theology. It is largely narrative, and in the Bible, God reveals Himself by His acts. Therefore, God reveals Himself progressively throughout Biblical history by what He does, as well as by what He reveals about Himself in propositional terms. The totality of Scripture indicates that there is one God, and the Father is God, as is the Son and the Holy Spirit. As for a single verse, we have seen that Matthew 28:19 is clear on the subject – but the Islamic State never engages with this verse.

The article goes on to claim that the Johannine Comma (the longer ending of 1 John 5:7), which Dabiq claims was a conspiratorial insertion by ‘Trinitarian clergy’. Wallace notes the late dating for this gloss:

This longer reading is found only in eight late manuscripts, four of which have the words in a marginal note. Most of these manuscripts (2318, 221, and [with minor variations] 61, 88, 429, 629, 636, and 918) originate from the 16th century; the earliest manuscript, codex 221 (10th century), includes the reading in a marginal note which was added sometime after the original composition. Thus, there is no sure evidence of this reading in any Greek manuscript until the 1500s; each such reading was apparently composed after Erasmus’ Greek NT was published in 1516.[131]

If the earliest manuscript with this gloss comes from the tenth century, then it follows that the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity owed nothing to the so-called ‘Johannine Comma’! Wallace continues:

Indeed, the reading appears in no Greek witness of any kind (either manuscript, patristic, or Greek translation of some other version) until AD 1215 (in a Greek translation of the Acts of the Lateran Council, a work originally written in Latin). This is all the more significant, since many a Greek Father would have loved such a reading, for it so succinctly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. The reading seems to have arisen in a fourth century Latin homily in which the text was allegorized to refer to members of the Trinity. From there, it made its way into copies of the Latin Vulgate, the text used by the Roman Catholic Church.[132]

Probably the longer ending began life as a comment in the margin of a manuscript, and a subsequent scribe misunderstood it as part of the text. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘Others tried to justify the Trinity linguistically, pointing to the Hebrew word for the Almighty, אלהים “Elohim,” which is grammatically “plural.” …Rather, the ים -im plural suffix is used here and elsewhere as a majestic “plural,” ...’

(u)            Elohim a majestic “plural” ?

We have already answered this – there is no such ‘majestic plural’ in Biblical Hebrew. Note also how Elohim is followed by the singular in Genesis 1:27: ‘God created man in His own image…’ Thus, Elohim cannot mean ‘gods’ as such, but rather points to a plurality of sorts within the single Godhead. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

‘Likely due to a population of priests coming from religious backgrounds of worshiping the Olympian “gods” and their “children,” whom they viewed as “demi-gods,” the question about Jesus – whom they called the “Son of God” – was significant to them. Rather than accepting him as a human being like other mortal prophets before him, they sought to elevate his status, as divine, to appease their pagan inclinations.’

(v)            ‘A population of priests’?

Once again, the Islamic State presents not a shred of evidence for its claims. Jesus is presented as true God, not a demi-god produced by a god having sex with a human! Professor Larry Hurtado has questioned both the prevalence and relevance of the idea of divine Sonship in the pagan world: ‘In fact, the phrase “son of god” was not common in Greco-Roman paganism. The deities of the so-called mystery cults, to which early history-of-religion scholars attached such importance for early Christianity were not referred to as “son of God”.’[133] The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULT

As for those modern apologists who claim that the crucifixion of Jesus is a historical fact that none can deny, then this is something upon which the very text of the Bible casts doubt.

(w)           The Crucifixion

[i] ‘The Synoptic Gospels, those of Matthew, Mark and Luke, share the same basic storyline and information of the alleged crucifixion, each with only minor deviations from the others. The Gospel of John, however, stands distinct from the others in a very telling way. Regarding the crucifixion, John states that Jesus unequivocally carried his own cross to the place he would be crucified.’

One fails to see the contradiction here. All the Gospels agree that that Jesus started out, bearing the Cross Himself. In the original Greek, John 19:17 states: ‘καὶ βαστάζων αὑτῷ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐξῆλθεν εἰς τὸν λεγόμενον Κρανίου Τόπον, ὃ λέγεται Ἑβραϊστὶ Γολγοθα’. The context is that Jesus has been sentenced to crucifixion by Pilate, and he ‘went forth’ - ἐξῆλθεν – from the Roman headquarters.

However, Jesus was undoubtedly too weak because of his torture to bear the cross, so the Romans impressed someone passing-by (παράγοντά), Mark 15:21, to carry it further. The Greek of Matthew 27:31-32 may imply that the cross had fallen to the ground, by its use of the word  airein: ‘And they led him away to be crucified. As they went out they found a man from Cyrene named Simon; they forced this man to take up his cross...’ The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

[ii] ‘So after mentioning the transfer of the cross to Simon, and no mention of it returning to Jesus, there is a string of pronouns that apparently refer to Simon – not Jesus, i.e. “offered him wine,” “he tasted it,” “he would not drink it,” “they had crucified him,” “divided his garments,” “kept watch over him,” and “over his head.”’

This is almost comical. The Greek of Matthew 27:31-32 states: ‘31 καὶ ὅτε ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ, ἐξέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὴν χλαμύδα καὶ ἐνέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπήγαγον αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ σταυρῶσαι. 32 Ἐξερχόμενοι δὲ εὗρον ἄνθρωπον Κυρηναῖον ὀνόματι Σίμωνα· τοῦτον ἠγγάρευσαν ἵνα ἄρῃ τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ. In each case the personal pronouns αὐτὸν (‘him’) and αὐτοῦ (‘his’) refer to Jesus. So, when we get to v34, and we read ‘ἔδωκαν αὐτῷ’ – ‘they gave to him’, it once again refers to Jesus. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

[iii] ‘Simon of Cyrene, a Roman citizen’

The Islamic State produces no evidence for this claim. When Paul is about to be beaten, he observes that he is Roman citizen, and the text mentions it; no such mention is made here in regard to Simon. Probably the Romans just grabbed the first passer-by they noticed; slaves would have had other duties to perform, and the Romans would not have wanted to contest property rights. As for ‘naming his sons Alexander and Rufus, both traditionally Roman names’, these were actually Greek names; one of the Hasmonean kings was called Alexander Jannaeus (103 to 76 BC). At the time of Jesus, Cyrene was a Hellenistic city in Libya, like Alexandria in Egypt. Just because Simon was resident in Cyrene does not mean he was a Roman citizen. The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

[iv] ‘Basilides, an early Christian preacher who died around 140 CE, was convinced – likely due to studying the Gospel of Matthew with his teachers, who reportedly had an authentic copy thereof – that Jesus was not crucified, but that it was Simon of Cyrene who died upon the cross. Irenaeus quotes Basilides’ belief, saying, “Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error” (Against Heresies I 24:4).

This belief, that Simon was crucified instead of Jesus, survived among Christians for centuries and appears in the third century Second Treatise of the Great Seth, written from the first person perspective of Jesus, stating, “For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death… It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns… And I was laughing at their ignorance.” ‘

It is a stretch to call a heretic like Basilides a Christian. He was a Gnostic. Gnosticism involved a dualistic view of the cosmos – an absolute division of body and spirit. The soul is imprisoned in the body, longing for release. Jesus therefore only appeared to be corporeal:

But the father… sent his own first-begotten Nous (he it is who is called Christ) to bestow deliverance on them that believe in him, from the power of those who made the world. He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles.[134] 

For Basilides, Jesus was not truly a Man; He did not have a true body, so obviously, He could not suffer:

Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them. For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all.[135]

If the Islamic State (or any other Muslims) want to endorse this, then they have effectively apostatized from Islam, since Islam does believe Jesus had a true body!

The Islamic State neglects two other important points. Basilides did not get his ideas from any Gospel, but like other Gnostics claimed to have access to secret, oral teaching outside the Gospels. Irenaeus answered this by pointing to the churches of apostolic foundation where such ‘secret teaching’ was wholly absent.

Secondly, Basilides makes these claims about a century after the events! In contrast, the Gospels, written c. 65-95; the Jewish author Josephus, c. 95; the pagan Roman historian Tacitus, c. 115, all affirm the Crucifixion. No one before Basilides makes the preposterous claims about someone else being crucified instead of Jesus. Further, he only makes these claims after Jerusalem was destroyed (AD 70) and Cyrene was destroyed (AD 117), when no one could look for the tomb of Simon anymore.[136] The Islamic State assault fails at this attack.

(x)            Paul

[i] ‘While Christians claim to be followers of Christ, one finds their doctrines are overwhelmingly supported by Pauline writings. In fact, Paul – known in Hebrew as Saul – authored most of the New Testament epistles.’

It is unclear what the writer means by saying that the doctrines of Christians ‘are overwhelmingly supported by Pauline writings’. Christian doctrine derives from the totality of Biblical revelation, which includes Paul’s writings but is by no means limited to them.

It is true that Paul wrote more epistles than anyone else, but then again, as the Apostle to the Gentiles, he had to write to churches stretching from Rome to Galatia – sometimes more than once (e.g. to Corinth and Thessaloniki), and largely to people coming out of Hellenistic paganism, unlike the churches in Judaea, which came out of a Jewish religious and cultural background.

This meant that Paul not only had to address issues that Jews in Palestine would not have faced (for the most part) about whether it was permissible to participate in idolatrous worship (e.g. 1 Corinthians 10), but also ethical issues – such as homosexuality. Jesus did not have to address the subject of homosexuality, because the Old Testament banned it (e.g. Leviticus 18:22), and the penalty for sodomy was death:

However, in the Hellenistic world, there was ‘no condemnation of sexual relations with a person of the same sex simply because of the sameness:’[137] Indeed, their gods sometimes behaved in this way, as with Zeus/Jupiter with Ganymede: Hence, Paul had no choice but to address the subject, e:g: 1 Corinthians 6:9: Hardly any wonder, that Paul had to write so many epistles, given the wide distribution of the largely Gentile churches and the religious and ethical background from which they were converted: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[ii] ‘He claimed to have been taught the Gospel by Jesus himself, even though he never met him: He said, “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel: For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12):’

What Paul meant by this is described here: ‘…in Galatians, Paul is dealing with his apostolic authority and with the one central fact of the gospel, viz:, that Jesus was the resurrected and exalted Messiah: This he did not learn from other men, even though it was later corroborated by what he did learn from them: Paul was not converted by Christian preaching but by an immediate confrontation by the exalted Christ: Neither did Paul receive his apostolic office from men: Both - his gospel and his apostolic office - came to him directly from the Lord, unmediated by men:’[138] The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[iii] ‘It is possible that he changed his personal mission after his alleged conversion: However, it is more likely that he intentionally sought to deviate the monotheistic Nazarenes in order to tarnish Jesus’ name – even if it meant Paul’s own persecution – as is the way of the treacherous Jews, who are famous for corrupting the Scripture:’

The Islamic State once again wanders into the realm of the bizarre with a conspiracy theory that would make deniers of the Moon landing or Elvis-sighters green with envy: Of all the people to choose to carry out such an infiltration, the arch-persecutor Saul would have been the worst: It took a divine revelation to assure the Christians that it was for real (Acts 9:13-17 – Jesus spoke to Ananias, confirming that Saul was His chosen instrument of mission):

Three other issues would need to be considered: If Saul had indeed infiltrated them, why would he direct them towards what the Islamic State calls ‘polytheism’? Surely, he would have wanted to bring them back to his interpretation of Judaism, making them see that Jesus was not God and not Messiah? Secondly, why would he – or anyone – bother in the first place? The Christians were a tiny sect at this point; persecution, rather than infiltration, would have been the most policy: Finally, why would Saul be such a fervent evangelist, establishing churches across the Mediterranean? The Islamic State accusation makes no sense:

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[iv] Paul and the Law

The Islamic State confuses what Paul and Jesus meant in relation to the Law: Dabiq quotes Matthew 5:17-20, but fails to understand it: We have already examined this text – Jesus came to fulfil the Old Testament, and His cry on the Cross was Tetelestai – ‘It is finished’: Paul said that Jesus was the terminus of the Law – what the Law aimed at, and when one receives the Spirit of Christ, one receives He who fulfilled the Law completely: The Law, therefore, is not a means of justification, nor of identity – no needs to be circumcised anymore because Jesus fulfilled everything:

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[v] Paul – ‘all things to all men’:

These verses in 1 Corinthians 9 are totally misunderstood by the Islamic State, either deliberately or because of their shoddy scholarship: In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul examines if it is permissible to eat food sacrificed to idols, v4, and states that given idols have no real existence, since there is only one God, one is free to eat such food, v8: What one cannot do is to take part in idol feasts, 10:21: So, when eating with Jews, he would kosher: When eating with Gentiles, he would eat non-kosher: That is all that is meant – nothing about ‘duping’ people with a different message! The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[vi] The conversion of Saul

The Islamic State rhetorically asks: ‘But beyond these things, one must ask: Why is Paul, someone who never even met Jesus, considered the foremost authority on Christianity in a time when Jesus’ actual disciples lived?’ In fact, no Christian considers Paul ‘the foremost authority on Christianity’; rather, he is one authority, along with the other New Testament authors:

We earlier examined the evidence from Galatians 2:8-9 and Romans 16:7, and shown that it demonstrates that Paul was recognized as a sound Apostle: Also, consider 1 Clement – actually an epistle from the church at Rome to that of Corinth, c: 95:

Look at the holy Apostles: It was by sinful jealousy that Peter was subjected to tribulation… ere he left us for his well-earned place in glory: And Paul, because of jealousy and contention, has become the very type of endurance rewarded… He taught righteousness to all the world; and after reaching the furthest limits of the West, and bearing his testimony before kings and rulers, he passed out of this world and was received into the holy places:[139]

It can be seen that churches in Italy and Greece – specifically, two in the New Testament, visited by both Peter and Paul, recognized the Apostolic standing of Paul: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[vii] Acts 9:7 and 22:9

The Islamic State claims that Paul’s accounts of his conversion in these texts are in contradiction with each other: Gleason Archer addresses this issue:

In the original Greek, however, there is no real contradiction between these two statements: Greek makes a distinction between hearing a sound as a noise (in which case the verb “to hear” takes the genitive case) and hearing a voice as a thought-conveying message (in which case it takes the accusative): Therefore, as we put the two statements together, we find that Paul’s companions heard the Voice as a sound (somewhat like the crowd who heard the sound of the Father talking to the Son in John 12:28, but perceived it only as thunder); but they did not (like Paul) hear the message that it articulated: Paul alone heard it intelligibly (Acts 9:4 says Paul ekousen phonen--accusative case); though he, of course, perceived it also as a startling sound at first (Acts 22:7: “I fell to the ground and heard a voice [ekousa phones] saying to me,” NASB): But in neither account is it stated that his companions ever heard that Voice in the accusative case:

There is an instructive parallel here between the inability to hear the voice as an articulated message and their inability to see the glory of the risen Lord as anything but a blaze of light: Acts 22:9 says that they saw the light, but Acts 9:7 makes it clear that they did not see the Person who displayed Himself in that light: There is a clear analogy between these differing levels of perception in each case:

(For the technical case-distinction in Greek, cf: W: W: Goodwin and C: B: Gulick, Greek Grammar [Boston: Ginn & Co:, 1930], #1103: “The partitive genitive is used with verbs signifying to taste, to smell, to hear, to perceive, etc:”--with the example from Aristophanes’ Pax: phones akouein moi doko--`Methinks I hear a voice:” See also #1104: “Verbs of hearing, learning, etc: may take an accusative of the thing heard etc:, and a genitive of the person heard from:” This comes very close to the distinction made above, that the accusative indicates the voice as a communicated message or thought, rather than as simply a sound vibrating against the eardrum:)[140]

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

(y)            The Prophet of Deuteronomy, Paran and the Paraclete

[i] This section is preceded by the following claim: ‘The Bible never precluded the existence of prophets after Jesus: As such, a Christian must consider claims of prophecy thereafter, but should follow some basic, sound criteria for determining the truth of anyone’s claim to prophethood:’[141] In fact, as we have seen, Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, and the only prophets expected are those mentioned in Acts and Ephesians, which refer to people in local congregations; no one was expecting another Prophet like Jeremiah: The only people who could present revelation were the Apostles and those in their teams, such as Mark and Luke, because Jesus had given them that authority: With the death of the last Apostle, John, about 100 A:D:, the possibility of new revelation ceased:

The Old Testament criteria for assessing prophethood is based on Moses as the Prophetic model for Israel, as illustrated by Deuteronomy 18:15: ‘Yahweh your god will raise up for you from time to time a prophet like me from among you, from your own kin: Him you shall listen to:’[142] The passage continues (vs: 21ff):

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die: And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that YHWH has not spoken?’ — when a prophet speaks in the name of YHWH, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously:::

Immediately we can see why Muhammad does not meet this standard: One can search the Qur’an from beginning to end and find no reference to YHWH! The prophet has to conform to the teaching of Moses and be recognized by supernatural anointing: Usually the predictions of such prophets were in some way related to the Mosaic promise of blessing or threat of curse in Deuteronomy 28: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[ii] ‘This verse describes a prophet like Moses from among the brothers of the Tribe of Israel, namely the Tribe of Ishmael, whom is unanimously agreed to be the ancestor of the ‘Adnani Arabs, to whom the Tribe of Quraysh, the Clan of Hashim, and thus Muhammad, belong…’

We have seen that Muhammad does not fit the criteria of the verse: Further, Muhammad does not qualify because of the meaning of ‘brother’ in the context: In fact, the Ishmaelites were the cousins of the Israelites; the Edomites, as progeny of Esau, were their fraternal nation, Genesis 25:26:

However, that is not what the text means: It means a ‘brother Israelite’ similar to way US Presidents say: ‘My Fellow Americans’: This is clear from Deuteronomy 17:

14 “When you come to the land that YHWH your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom YHWH your God will choose: One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you: You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother:

There is no evidence of an Ishmaelite King of Israel or Judah: It could not happen: Equally, Deuteronomy 18:1-2 states of the Levites:

The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel: They shall eat YHWH’s food offerings as their inheritance: 2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers…

The ‘brothers’ of the Levites were the other tribes of Israel – not the Ishmaelites: So, in v15, ‘brothers’ again must mean ‘brother Israelites’: It has no reference to the Arabs at any time: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[iii] ‘This Torah-based prophecy was awaited by the Jews, even into Jesus’ time and beyond, as is clear in the New Testament, regarding John the Baptist being questioned about his status, “They asked him, ‘Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’” (John 1:25): This shows that the interpretation that “the Prophet” of Deuteronomy is Christ or John the Baptist, as held by various Christian sects, is not supported by their own texts…’

Since this text is addressed to John the Baptist, how does it exclude Jesus? The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[iv] Paran

The Islamic State comments about the Blessing of Moses: ‘Also in the current Torah, one finds, “And God came from Sinai; he dawned upon them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran” (Deuteronomy 33:2): While the verbs “came,” “dawned,” and “shone” are in the past tense, there is consensus among biblical scholars that other than the mention of Sinai, this verse prophesies future events:’

The Islamic State produces no evidence that ‘there is consensus among biblical scholars that other than the mention of Sinai, this verse prophesies future events:’ The full text is clearly in the past tense:

YHWH came from Sinai,

And dawned on them from Seir;

He shone forth from Mount Paran,

And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones;

At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them:

The level of incompetence in Dabiq’s exegesis is amazing ‘As for the “dawning” from Seir, then it must refer to the beginning of Jesus’ mission, which was at Nazareth, a town not far from Seir, which was both a mountain and a village, located between Tiberias and Acre (Mu’jam al-Buldan):’ Again, this is almost comical: The first reference to Seir is found in Genesis 14:

5 In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim and the Zuzim in Ham and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, 6 and the Horites in their Mount Seir, as far as El-paran, which is by the wilderness:

It can be seen that Seir and Paran were adjacent to each other: In Genesis 32:3 we learn that Seir was the Edomite country: ‘Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom:’ In 36:9 we read: ‘These then are the records of the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir:’ In the prophecy of Balaam against Transjordanian nations in the path of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt prior to entering Canaan, we read in Numbers 24:18: ‘Edom shall be dispossessed; Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed:’ Clearly, Mount Seir is in Transjordan, near the Nabataean city of Petra: Nazareth is in Galilee, so the mission of Jesus did not involve Seir: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

As for Paran, Moses sent out the spies from there, Numbers 13:3: ‘So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel:’ Clearly, Paran was nowhere near Mecca, since there is no indication that the Israelites ever camped that far south, so the following statement from the Islamic State is nonsense; ‘Regarding the “shining” from Mount Paran, then the mountain region of Hijaz – where Mecca is located – was known by the Hebrews as Paran, and the message of Muhammad is indeed a shining light: Allah said, “O People of the Scripture!’

Archer observes: ‘The Wilderness of Paran extends from the port of Eloth (Eilat) on the Gulf of Aqabah in a north-northeast direction across the the Nahal Paran and Har Ramon (cf: Baly, Bible Geography, p: 34) to include the site of Kadesh Barnea, which lies on the same latitude as Punon (ibid:, p: 95): The spies therefore set out from Kadesh, which is located in the Wilderness of Paran’[143]

There is also ancient evidence from Ptolemy: ‘This outline of the Mosaic “wilderness of Paran,” is, in substance, confirmed by the authority of Ptolemy; whose Pharan oppidum, and Pharan promontorium (nowRas Mohammed), terminate the peninsula of Sinai on the south; while his Pharanitce, or people of Paran, extend northward, from the head of the Elanitic Gulf, at least to the confines of his Munichiatis, or the desert of Tyh:’[144] So, Paran was not near Mecca!

There is a bigger problem for the Islamic State in this: They quote Deuteronomy 32 in relation to Muhammad: ‘Regarding the “shining” from Mount Paran, then the mountain region of Hijaz – where Mecca is located – was known by the Hebrews as Paran, and the message of Muhammad is indeed a shining light:’ Yet the text does not concern a prophet, but rather YHWH! So, if they apply this text to Muhammad, they are in effect equating him with God! By so attributing deity to Muhammad, they are guilty of the same ‘elevation’ for which they the denounce the Alawites that they are fighting – who ‘venerate ‘Ali b: Abi Talib as supreme and eternal God’:[145] Have the Islamic State – and all other dawah activists who propose this ridiculous exegesis - apostatized?

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[v] The Paraclete

In John 14:16-17 we read: ‘16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 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:’ The word translated is παράκλητοs Paraklētos, and is better translated advocate, as it was used in Greece to describe an attorney: Note: contrary to the Islamic State, this should NOT be rendered ‘Parakliton’: The same word is used in 1 John 2:1: ‘And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous’: Nor can we read the Greek letter Eta ‘η’ as an ‘I’; it is actually an ‘eh’ sound, as with the stereotype of Canadian speech:

Still less does ‘kleton means “praise”’: In fact, klētos actually derives from kaleō, ‘to call’: What the Islamic State declares in this article is complete nonsense, and their scholarship is beyond shoddy – it is garbage: Moulton and Miligan illustrate what the word actually means:

Παράκλητοv

orig: “one called in” to support, hence “advocate,” “pleader,” “a friend of the accused person, called to speak to his character, or otherwise enlist the sympathy of the judges” (Field Notes, p: 102): For the history of the word, which in the NT is confined to the Johannine writings…[146]

At any rate, the text cannot be speaking of Muhammad for three obvious reasons: Jesus was speaking to His Apostles when He said of the Advocate: ‘You know him’ – but they did not know Muhammad, who was not even born yet: Jesus tells us why they knew the Advocate – ‘for he dwells with you’; Muhammad was not living with them – again, was not even born yet: Neither did Muhammad fulfil the final clause ‘and will be in you:’ This was fulfilled by the Holy Spirit:

It should also be noted that Paraklētos is a title, not a proper name, and that the text says ‘allon Paraklēton’ – another Advocate: No one suggests that one proper name of Jesus was Muhammad! Yet He is referring to Himself, as Advocate, and the Spirit of Truth will be ‘another advocate’ – not ‘another Muhammad’!

The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

[vi] ‘This is different from the specific mission of Moses and Jesus, both of whom were sent only to the Children of Israel: Those Christians who think Jesus was sent also to the Gentiles (i:e: non-Jews) should read that, “He [Jesus] answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’” (Matthew 15:24):’

The Ministry of Jesus works in different stages: When He declares those words to the Canaanite woman, He is testing her faith: The earthly ministry of Jesus was largely confined to the Jews, but not exclusively - He meets the Samaritans and a Roman centurion: However, once He is about to Ascend to Heaven, He tells His disciples (Matthew 28) to evangelize all peoples:

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me: 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you: And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age:

The Ascended Christ reaches out to the world: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

12.            JESUS AND VIOLENCE

In its final article, ‘By the Sword’, this issue of Dabiq justifies its use of violence:[147] It quotes sacral violence in the Old Testament, without acknowledging that this is not employed in the New Testament, because the nature of the Kingdom of God is wholly spiritual in the New, and therefore our ‘fighting’ is likewise spiritual – Ephesians 6:12: ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places:’ In John 18:36 Jesus states: ‘Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews: But my kingdom is not from the world:”’

Then we encounter the following texts distorted by the Islamic State: ‘“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34): There is also Jesus’ order to his followers of being armed, as it is said, “And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36): Also, while telling a parable, it is written that Jesus said, “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me” (Luke 19:27):’

Matthew 10:34 is clearly metaphorical – Jesus goes on to say His ministry – specifically, the reaction to it - will set relatives against each other – it is the sword of division, describing how the Gospel can tear people apart, but no violence is indicated: As for Luke 22:36, Bruce comments: ‘It is doubtful if the disciples followed his reasoning here, but they thought they had got the point about the sword: No need to worry about that: “See, Lord,” they said, “here are two swords:” To which he replied, “That is enough” or, perhaps, “Enough of this:”’[148] This would be equivalent to a modern Arab exclaiming ‘Halas!’ – ‘finish’: Bruce further explains:

Luke certainly does not intend his readers to understand the words literally: He goes on to tell how, a few hours later, when Jesus was arrested, one of the disciples let fly with a sword—probably one of the two which they had produced at the supper table—and cut off an ear of the high priest’s slave: But Jesus said, “No more of this!” and healed the man’s ear with a touch (Lk 22:49–51):

So what did he mean by his reference to selling one’s cloak to buy a sword? He himself was about to be condemned as a criminal, “numbered with the transgressors,” to use language applied to the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53:12: Those who until now had been his associates would find themselves treated as outlaws; they could no longer count on the charity of sympathetic fellow Israelites: Purse and bag would now be necessary:

Josephus tells us that when Essenes went on a journey they had no need to take supplies with them, for they knew that their needs would be met by fellow members of their order; they did, however, carry arms to protect themselves against bandits:

But Jesus does not envisage bandits as the kind of people against whom his disciples would require protection; they themselves would be lumped together with bandits by the authorities, and they might as well act the part properly and carry arms, as bandits did: Taking him literally, the disciples revealed that they had anticipated his advice: they already had two swords: This incidentally shows how far they were from resembling a band of Zealot insurgents: such a band would have been much more adequately equipped: And the words with which Jesus concluded the conversation did not mean that two swords would be enough; they would have been ludicrously insufficient against the band that came to arrest him, armed with swords and clubs: He meant “Enough of this!”—they had misunderstood his sad irony, and it was time to drop the subject:[149]

As for Luke 19:27, the Islamic State ignores that it is a parable – not a literal injunction, and also what is its background:

11 As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately: 12 He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return: 13 Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come:’ 14 But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us:’ 15 When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business::: 27 But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me:’”

Bruce observes the connection between this and Herod Archelaus, who succeeded his father Herod the Great in terms of the ethnarchy of Judaea: He went to Rome to secure Augustus’ approval of his succession, but was opposed by an embassy of Jews from Judaea who did not want him to rule – not least because he had a bloody reputation:[150] Jesus takes this historical situation and remolds it as a parable of the Judgment – where those who rejected the true King would be punished in Hell:

As for the Cleansing of the Temple (Matthew 21:12-13), nothing in the text suggests that Jesus actually physically attacked the sellers – He merely overturned their tables and drove them out: The Islamic State assault fails at this attack:

RESULT OF ASSAULT: ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS UPHELD

CONCLUSION

This review has demonstrated the severe ineptitude of the critique of Christianity attempted by the Islamic State: If this had been a literal battle, it would be characterized as a total vanquishing of the Islamic State jihadis: Military analysts would have been surprised at the immature incompetence of the jihadi battle strategy: It would be a greater defeat than was Kobani (where a Kurdish force pushed back the Islamic State assault) – but inevitable, because of the fact that Christian truth is impregnable and invincible:

One frequent feature of this issue of Dabiq is that of wanting to bring about the ‘humiliation’ of the Christians, e:g: ‘Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you:’[151] When school bullies attempt to humiliate their victims, we may put it down to immaturity and just regard such children as morally lacking. When grown adults feel a need to humiliate others, then it indicates a severe psychological condition. When this leads to mass murder, then we ascribe it to such people being psychopaths. Certainly, such attitudes are evil – and literally Satanic; Jesus said that the Devil was ‘a murderer from the beginning’, John 8:44: The quotes that follow from the Dabiq article ‘By the Sword’ – the spelling used therein and the historical references suggest it was written by an American – demonstrates this demonic murderous attitude.

In 1941 Japan attacked the USA, but by 1945, Japan was on the defensive: However, its code of Bushido – the way of the warrior – and more latterly the Kamikaze pilots who attacked Allied ships by sacrificing their lives suggested that unlike Germany, the War in the East would not terminate in 1945, but could go on for somewhat longer: In fact, the plans for the invasion of Japan were set for only 1946: The ferocious Japanese resistance, especially in Okinawa, suggested that the process would be long and costly in terms of lives for the Allies: The decision was then taken by the Allies to drop two Atomic bombs on Japan to enforce Unconditional Surrender: The aim, however, was not to force the religious conversion of the Japanese; it was a step taken in the context of a defensive war: Contrast that reasoning with that of the Islamic State:

So if it were the Muslims, instead of the Crusaders, who had fought the Japanese and Vietnamese or invaded the lands of the Native Americans, there would have been no regrets in killing and enslaving those therein: And since those mujahidin would have done so bound by the Law, they would have been thorough and without some “politically correct” need to apologize years later: The Japanese, for example, would have been forcefully converted to Islam from their pagan ways – and if they stubbornly declined, perhaps another nuke would change their mind:[152]

During the Vietnam War, the US used napalm against the Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese troops (and, perhaps inevitably, civilians were also affected): Again, this was because North Vietnam, aided by the Viet Cong, were trying to conquer South Vietnam: Whatever the rights and wrongs of US involvement in Indochina, the aim in using napalm was to defend South Vietnam and deter the Communists, not to force the latter to abandon atheistic Marxism as a set of beliefs: Contrast that with this quote from Dabiq: ‘The Vietnamese would likewise be offered Islam or beds of napalm.’[153]

During the White settlement of America, the Native Americans had no resistance to European diseases, and this decimated some tribes: In recent years a canard has emerged claiming that the colonists distributed blankets to Natives deliberately infected with smallpox: This is untrue: The oppression and genocide of Native Americans is sufficiently renowned for few White Americans to be anything but ashamed of what was done to Native Americans: hence, the programs favoring Native Americans today, including tax breaks, and compensation given to them: Compare this with the attitude of the Islamic State: ‘As for the Native Americans – after the slaughter of their men, those who would favor smallpox to surrendering to the Lord – then the Muslims would have taken their surviving women and children as slaves, raising the children as model Muslims and impregnating their women to produce a new generation of mujahidin.’[154]

The worst crime in modern European history was the Nazi Holocaust of the European Jews, something for which the modern democratic Germany is greatly ashamed. Frequently, the watchword is ‘Never Again’. The Islamic State, however, has no such reservations: ‘As for the treacherous Jews of Europe and elsewhere – those who would betray their covenant – then their post-pubescent males would face a slaughter that would make the Holocaust sound like a bedtime story, as their women would be made to serve their husbands’ and fathers’ killers.’[155] Note again the proud boast of intention to engage in rape of both Native American and European Jewish women – but after the despicable treatment of enslaved Yezidi girls, we should not be surprised.

Both Europe and the Americas are ashamed of their role in the African slave trade, which brought ten to fifteen million Africans to oppressive labor across the Atlantic. The USA fought a civil war partly to end slavery between 1861 and 1865. It was through the campaigning of Evangelical Christians such as William Wilberforce that the British Empire abolished slavery in 1833. The Islamic State, however, has not only revived the cruel institution of slavery – notably with regard to Yezidi girls – but would have continued the notorious Triangular Trade:

Furthermore, the lucrative African slave trade would have continued, supporting a strong economy: The Islamic leadership would not have bypassed Allah’s permission to sell captured pagan humans, to teach them, and to convert them, as they worked hard for their masters in building a beautiful country: Notably, of course, those of them who converted, practiced their religion well, and were freed would be treated no differently than any other free Muslim.[156]

The Islamic State, therefore, openly – and boastfully – is committed to forcible conversion; genocide; enslavement; and rape, beyond its desire to ‘humiliate’ Christians. Leaving aside psychological diagnosis, the spiritual diagnosis is that they manifest the attitude of Satan, the Murderer from the Beginning.

Contrast this with Jesus, who submitted to ‘humiliation’ by descending from the glory of His Heavenly throne to take human nature and in that human nature experience death for the sake of others, Philippians 2:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Note the embrace of humility and self-sacrifice, rather than the arrogant oppression of the Islamic State. Jesus suffered not only torture, but humiliating mocking at the hands of the Roman guards, and later derogatory mocking from the lips of Jewish supporters of the High Priest. Furthermore, He endured this for the sake of others. He could have called legions of angels to help him resist His enemies, but He did not. As His Kingdom was spiritual, His servants did not physically fight, and if they did, like Peter, they were ordered to sheath their swords.

Yet it was through such humiliation – that the Cross - that salvation is now offered to humanity. Indeed, it was through the Cross that the murderous evil spirit behind the Islamic State was vanquished – John 12.31. Satan was broken by the Cross, which is why, ultimately, the Islamic State, or anyone else, will never Break the Cross.

RESULT OF BATTLE:

ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATED – THE CROSS TRIUMPHANT!

[1] Dabiq 15, p. 4.

[2] Ibid., p. 5.

[3] Waltke, Bruce K., and O’Connor, M., An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), p. 122.

[4] Martin, W. J., Stylistic Criteria and the Analysis of the Pentateuch, (London: Tyndale, 1955), p. 18.

[5] Pauli, C. W. H., The great mystery; or, How can Three be One?, (London: William Macintosh), 1863), pp. 7-8.

[6] Cowley, A. E. (trans.), Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1909, second edition 1910, 1956), p. 398 n2.

[7] Dabiq 15, p. 7.

[8] Gregory Nazianzen, To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius. (Ep. CI.), NPNF 207.

[9] Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides, Book II, Part I, [Translated from the Syriac and edited with an Introduction Notes & Appendices by Driver, G. R., & Hodgson, Leonard, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925)], p. 193.

[10] Dabiq 15, p. 14.

[11] Ibid., p. 17.

[12] Ibid., p. 19.

[13] Ibid., p. 20.

[14] Ibid., pp. 24-25.

[15] Ibid., p. 25.

[16] Ibid., p. 25.

[17] Ibid., p. 36.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Berkhof, Louis, Systematic Theology, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958, 1981 printing), p. 88.

[21] Dabiq 15, p. 7.

[22] Dabiq 15, p. 37.

[23] Ibid., p. 39.

[24] Ibid., p. 47.

[25] Streane, A. W., The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, together with The Lamentations, with map notes and Introduction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881), p. 73.

[26] France, R. T., Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989), p. 166ff.

[27] Kaiser, Walter C., The Old Testament Documents: Are they reliable and relevant?, (Nottingham: IVP, 1981), p. 45.

[28] Small, Keith E., Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts, Plymouth: Lexington, 2012, p. 17.

[29] Altikulac, Tayyar, Ihsanoglu, Ekmeleddin, Al-Mushaf al-Sharif, Attributed to ‘Uthmān bin ‘Affān. Istanbul: IRCICA, 2007, p. 10.

[30] Ibid., p. 13.

[31] Ibid., p. 72.

[32] Ibid., p. 36 n14.

[33] Dabiq, p. 48.

[34] Zwemer, S. M., The Moslem Doctrine of God, (USA: American Tract Society, 1905; U.K. 1981 edition), p. 54.

[35] Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter I.

[36] Ibid., Chapter II.

[37] Ibid., Chapter VII.

[38] Metzger, Bruce, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origins, Development and Significance, (Oxford: OUP, 1987, 1997), p. 61.

[39] Ignatius, ‘Epistle to the Smyrnaeans’, Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, p. 119.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ignatius, ‘Epistle to the Magnesians’, Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, p. 89.

[42] Ibid., pp. 96, 106.

[43] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 49.

[44] Papias, Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord.

[45] Ibid., V.

[46] Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter XI:8.

[47] Ibid., Book I, Chapter I:1.

[48] Irenæus, Letter to Florinus, LII.

[49] Lightfoot, ‘S. Clement of Rome’, The Apostolic Fathers, Chapter 2, p. 58.

[50] Ibid., p. 62.

[51] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 41.

[52] Lightfoot, ‘S. Clement of Rome’, Chapter 46, The Apostolic Fathers, p. 77.

[53] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 42.

[54] Lightfoot, ‘S. Clement of Rome’, Chapter 47, The Apostolic Fathers, p. 77.

[55] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 42.

[56] Ibid., p. 43.

[57] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 145.

[58] Ibid., pp. 145-146.

[59] Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter LXI.

[60] Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p. 148.

[61] Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought, p. 62.

[62] Ibid., pp. 62-63.

[63] Ibid., p. 63.

[64] Dabiq, p. 48.

[65] Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book I, Chapter XXIV.

[66] Barr, James, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament: With Additions and Corrections, (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987).

[67] Cross, Frank Moore, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, (Cambridge Mass. And London: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 22.

[68] Ibid., p. 13.

[69] Hengel, Martin, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels, (London: SCM, 2000), p. 44.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Ibid., p. 45.

[73] Papias, Fragments VI.

[74] Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book II:2.

[75] Ibid., Book III:1.

[76] Bauckham, Richard, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospel as Eyewitness Tradition, (Grand Rapids & Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 302, 303.

[77] Ibid., p. 304.

[78] Metzger, Bruce, & Ehrman, Bart, The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, (Oxford: OUP, 2005), p. 54.

[79] Kaiser, Walter C., Davids, Peter H., Bruce, F.F., Brauch, Manfred T., The Hard Sayings of the Bible, (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996), p. 92.

[80] Ibid., p. 209.

[81] Dionysius of Rome, Against the Sabellians, ANF 07.

[82] Augustine, Tractate XX:13 on John, NPNF 107.

[83] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V.28.6.

[84] Ibid., V.28.13-14.

[85] Hippolytus, The Refutation of all heresies VII.23.

[86] Heine, Ronald E., ‘Articulating identity’, Young, Frances, Ayres, Lewis and Louth, Andrew (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 204.

[87] Kelly, John Norman Davidson, Early Christian Doctrines, (New York: Harper & Row, 1960, second edition), p. 117.

[88] Williams, Frank, (trans.), The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. Books II and III, De fide, (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013, Second, revised edition), p. 216.

[89] Heine, ‘Articulating identity’, p. 205.

[90] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VII.30.7.

[91] Ibid, 9-14.

[92] Watson, Alaric, Aurelian and the Third Century, (London & New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 63.

[93] Hanson, R. P. C., The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005, 2007), pp. 79-83.

[94] Bettenson, Henry, Documents of the Christian Church, (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 56.

[95] Williams, Rowan, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, (London: SCM Press, 2001 second edition), p. 31.

[96] Ibid., p. 162.

[97] Ibid., p. 10.

[98] Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, Chapter IV.

[99] Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, p. 21.

[100] Athanasius, On the Councils (De Synodis), Part II:16, NPNF 204.

[101] Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, Chapter XXVI, NPNF 202.

[102] Frend, W. H. C., The Early Church, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965), p. 141.

[103] Athanasius, Defense of His Flight (Apologia de Fuga), section 5, NPNF 204; Socrates, Church History, Book I, Chapter XIII.

[104] Letham, Robert, Through Western Eyes, (Fearn: Mentor, 2007), p. 25.

[105] Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, p. 161.

[106] Ibid., p. 123.

[107] Lactantius, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, Chapter XLIV, ANF07; Eusebius Pamphilius, The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine, Chapter XXVII, NPNF 201.

[108] Zosimus, New History. London: Green and Chaplin (1814). Book 2.

[109] Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Chapters XXIV-XLII, NPNF 201.

[110] Odahl, Charles Matson, Constantine and the Christian Empire, (Oxford & New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 197.

[111] Ibid., p. 230.

[112] Athanasius, Apologia Ad Constantium IV.

[113] Theodoret, Church History, II:VI.

[114] Hilary, De Synodis, 34.

[115] Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, p. 324.

[116] Ibid., p. 321.

[117] Ibid., p. 595.

[118] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 249.

[119] Ibid.

[120] Ibid.

[121] Ibid.

[122] Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. Books II and III, De fide, p. 527.

[123] The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, Book II, Chapter XL

[124] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 249.

[125] Vaggione, Richard Paul (trans.), ‘Liber Apologeticus 5’, Eunomius, The Extant Works, (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 39.

[126] Walford, Edward, The Church History of Philostorgius as Epitomized by Photius, (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855), Book VIII, Chapter Two, pp. 485-486,

[127] Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides, Book I, Part I, 88, p. 79.

[128] Ibid., Homilies, Fragment 262, p. 390.

[129] Ibid., Book I, Part I, 88, pp. 25, 37.

[130] Ibid., Book I, Part III, p. 107.

[131] Wallace, Daniel B., The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7-8, http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1186

[132] Ibid.

[133] Hurtado, Larry W., Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), p. 102.

[134] Irenæus, Against Heresies Book I, Chapter XXIV.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, Chapter II.

[137] Sanders, E. P., Paul, (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 110.

[138] Ladd, G. E., ‘Revelation and Tradition in Paul’, Gasque., W. Ward & Martin, Ralph P., (Eds.), Apostolic History and the Gospel. Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F.F. Bruce, (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1970), p. 230.

[139] Clement of Rome, ‘First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians’, Chapter 5, Staniforth, Maxwell (trans.), Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp. 25-26.

[140] Archer, Gleason L., Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 390-391.

[141] Dabiq, p. 58.

[142] Clements, R. E., Prophecy and Tradition, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), p. 12. Clements observes that the verse is in ‘the iterative imperfect tense’, which ‘expresses a distributive sense’.

[143] Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 133.

[144] Forster, Charles, The Historical Geography of Arabia, Vol. I, (London: Duncan & Malcolm, 1844), p. 180

[145] Bosworth, C. E., van Donzel, E., Heinrichs, W. P. and Lecomte, G. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. VIII, Halm, H.,‘Nusayriyya’, (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 147.

[146] Moulton, James Hope, and Milligan, George, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from The Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, (London; Hodder & Stoughton, 1929), p. 485.

[147] Dabiq, pp. 78-80.

[148] Bruce, Hard Sayings of the Bible, p. 487.

[149] Ibid., pp. 487-488.

[150] Bruce, F. F., Israel and the Nations, (Exeter: Paternoster, 1983), p. 197.

[151] Dabiq, p. 33.

[152] Ibid., p. 80.

[153] Ibid.

[154] Ibid.

[155] Ibid.

[156] Ibid.