Paul Maier - The Constantine Codex

Ferris’s cell phone rang, and he excused himself from the table. Minutes later, he returned, wearing a big grin. “The debate won’t air in the States until 3 p.m. our time, which is 8 a.m. Eastern time in the U.S. But Europe’s just an hour behind, and the BBC is reporting a huge audience. They even set up big projection screens at various points in London-Waterloo Station, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s-you name it. The same with Television Francaise. And at the Reichstag in Berlin, they even suspended a morning meeting of the Bundesrat so all could watch.”

“No riots so far?” Jon asked almost timidly.

“Not that I’ve heard.” Then he added, impishly, “And that’s all due, of course, to the high plane on which the debate is taking place.”

“Well, we’ll change all that this afternoon. That’s when we take our gloves off, so prepare for fireworks!”

“Jon…” Shannon’s plaintive tone was corrective enough.

“Just hyperbole, dear,” he soothed. Though maybe not, he mused.

By 2 p.m., all had reseated themselves inside the immense basilica, having lunched at hundreds of different eateries in the heart of Istanbul. Although Jon half expected the audience to diminish-who watched all-day debates anymore?-this time it was the opposite. Even the crowds outside had swelled. All seemed to know that the fun was about to begin. This would be the open, free, unstructured segment of the debate, in which the moderators promised to intervene as little as possible. Abbas, Jon, Bartholomew, and Selim had reminded one another of that agreement moments before the debate resumed, and the moderators opened the afternoon half of the debate by reminding the audience of that arrangement as well.

Again, Abbas al-Rashid seemed interested in starting off. “Dr. Weber, your explanation of the Christian Trinity is interesting in terms of how you illustrated it with the sun, or gold, or whatever, but I find it less than convincing. Please, once again, kindly explain how one can equal three. The word Trinity is not even in your Bible.”

The Trinity again, Jon reflected, then replied, “You are absolutely correct, Dr. al-Rashid. The term was first used by our church father Tertullian, but it faithfully reflects both the unity of God as well as his ‘plurality’ as Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier, qualities that we find all over the Old and New Testaments.”

Jon went on to cite the appropriate passages, then marshaled the traditional and philosophical evidence Christians have always used. The bottom line, in any case, was that mathematics alone stands as a warning sign that-unless one equals three-humanity, this side of eternity, cannot hope to probe the essence of God who is dimensionally different from his creation. “But permit me, honored Imam, to deal with the most significant problem that Christians have with Islam. It is so basic that all the other difficulties we find become secondary to this one.”

“Indeed? I look forward to hearing it!”

“And that, of course, is the role of Jesus and what happened to him in Jerusalem on the day we call Good Friday. To deny his crucifixion flies in the face of all historical evidence. You explained that as best you could, by claiming that ‘it was made to appear’ that he was on the cross. This, however, will simply not do. It would have required something of a mass hallucination on the part of all bystanders at Golgotha-which was not possible. And what about the Roman executioners? The Romans were grimly efficient when it came to executions: no one escaped.”

“With Allah, everything is possible. But you, worthy Professor, claimed that there are no records stating that Jesus did not die by crucifixion, other than that Basilides person. I fear you are mistaken on that point. The Gospel of Barnabas reports that someone else took Jesus’ place on the day of crucifixion and that Jesus escaped death. Now, the-”

“Honored Sheikh, The Gospel of Barnabas is a medieval forgery! It has no historical value whatever.”

“Well, perhaps a forgery based on facts, on a true secret tradition of what actually happened.”

Jon simply shook his head. “As I recall, one reason you deny Jesus’ crucifixion was because God would not allow such a punishment for one of his faithful prophets. Well, there we have a problem. Quite a few of God’s prophets have indeed suffered and died for his sake despite their faithfulness. Elijah had to run for his life, Jeremiah was cast into a pit, Zechariah was stoned to death, and John the Baptist was beheaded.”

“Well, Jesus was perhaps a favorite son among the prophets. In any case, you Christians have been fearfully wrong in turning him into a god, when there is no God but God.”

“What about Jesus’ own claims to deity?”

“He never made them. This is only another example of how your Scriptures have been corrupted, or, to phrase it better, an example of how errors have intruded into their texts when manuscripts were recopied. In fact, here is what Jesus did say on this subject.” Abbas picked up his Qur’an, paged through it, and said: “Here it is. I quote from Sura 5:116: “Then God will say, ‘Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind, “Worship me and my mother as gods besides God”?’ Jesus will answer, ‘Glory be to You. I could never have claimed what I have no right to. If I had ever said so, You would surely have known it… I told them only what You bade me. I said, “Serve God, my Lord and your Lord.”’”

Al-Rashid closed the book and looked directly at Jon.

Jon again shook his head and said, “Jesus would never, ever have said, ‘Worship my mother and me as gods.’ This drastically violates everything we know regarding his relationship with his mother, Mary, and so-”

“So you agree with me, then?”

“No, I do not. In his ministry, Jesus took great care to distance himself somewhat from his mother, most probably so that any worship of his mother would never take place. Accordingly, God could never have asked a question like that.”

“But the Holy Qur’an says that God will ask Jesus this question.”

“And our Holy Bible shows that it would be utterly impossible for God to ask Jesus a question like that, especially in view of everything we know about God, Jesus, and Mary from the pages of the New Testament.”

“So, then, you also deny that Jesus ever said or ever would say what the Holy Qur’an plainly states are his very words?”

“Yes, I simply must deny that Jesus ever said, or ever would say, the words that you quoted.”

“Then are you calling the Prophet-may his name be blessed-a liar ?”

“No-” Jon started to reply but was forced to pause as loud, agitated murmuring arose from the crowd. He raised his voice a bit. “No, I would never call him a liar. Muhammad did not write down those words himself, since he could neither read nor write. They were first written down-as the Qur’an-under his successor Caliph Uthman twenty years after his death. How can we be sure that those were the actual words of the Prophet?”

This prompted an even louder drone of disapproval until silence returned when the crowd seemed eager to hear Abbas’s response.

“It is an article of faith in Islam that they actually were the Prophet’s words-may his name be blessed. And certainly the same could be said about the words of Jesus in the Gospels. He never wrote them down.”

“This is true enough, Dr. al-Rashid. But the overwhelming evidence of the different followers of Jesus who wrote down his words is consistent in reporting what he said. Many were eyewitnesses. The same cannot be said for a source six centuries after Jesus.”

Silence followed. It was a very powerful argument, not because Jon had come up with it, but because it was simple, logical, historical fact.