Originally posted by Fishy
A) Strong evidence? Please show me, the Muslims at least acknowledge Jesus as a prophet and admit that he was alive. They just don't call him the son of God, Jews just deny his existence entirely... But please just prove the entire Muslim and Jewish religion wrong and show prove (outside of the bible) that Jesus was indeed crucified.B) We celebrate the birthday of the son of god on the wrong date, hell even our years are off... What does the name of God matter? There are probably a lot of Christians out there that don't even know the name of God. That will think that Jehovah is just some strange sect of religious creeps. They pray to God, if God is shallow enough to care about names then God is not worthy of being worshipped.
C.) And Muslims do not accept that God can be merciful and forgive people? They do not accept that Jesus is the only way into heaven, which is to be honest kinda cruel of God. Of course there alternative isn't much better but still...
A) We have the history of the Jewish people written by Josephus and probably completed in 93 AD. In the
Testimonium Flavianum it says:
"When Pilate, upon hearing hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him."
Then we have the Roman Tacitus in 115 AD who wrote:
"Christus from whom the name had its origin (this is a reference to Christians), suffered the extreme penalty (ie. crucification) during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate..."
That is two very different sources (neither friendly to the Christians) from outside the Bible indicating the death of Jesus by crucifiction. The Bible itself is amazing historically accurate adding to the credit of this story.
B) The name is important because in the name (ie. that is one name) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we are to be baptized according to the gospel of Jesus. We are also commanded to pray daily in the name of Jesus. The name is extremely important.
C) Not really. If I understand Muslim theology, there is nothing really about forgiveness, just the balancing of deeds.