[Just a short observation on 1.2.4.1, since someone else is working on this section]
Mr. Al-Kadhi says :
In "The Five Gospels," written by 24 Christian scholars from some of the most prominent US and Canadian Universities around today, we read on page 44:I am actually very amazed by these scholars. Nothing is clearer than reading the passages concerned. The healing of the paralytic in the Gospel of John occurs in Jerusalem :"Stories of Jesus curing a paralytic are found in all four narrative gospels, The Johannine version (John 5:1-9) differs substantially...The controversy interrupts the story of the cure- which reads smoothly if one omits vv. 5b-10 (Mark 2)- and it is absent in the parallel of John... Scholars usually conclude, on the basis of this evidence, that Mark has inserted the dispute into what was originally a simple healing story...If the words are to be attributed to Jesus, v. 10 may represent a bold new claim on Jesus' part that gives the authority to forgive sins to all human beings...The early church was in the process of claiming for itself the right to forgive sins and so would have been inclined to claim that it's authorization came directly from Jesus."
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat." But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, `Pick up your mat and walk.'" So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:1-2)This place has been found by archaeologists (and in fact, some scholars have argued that John must have been written in the first century because that place was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70). The controversy surrounding this healing incident is that Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, the rest day of the Jews.
The healing of the paralytic in the Gospel of Mark occurs in Capernaum :
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" (Mark 2:1-12)The location of the miracle? Capernaum. Mark 2:1 says that "Jesus came home." Matthew 9:1 says he "came to his own town." Luke doesn't tell us where it is, but it is definitely not Jerusalem, for Luke 5:17 says "One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there."
The synoptic gospels were refering to the same event. The controversy? That Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. The two incidents of John and Mark were totally different: the places were different, the circumstances were different, the friends were different, the conversation were different. The subject matter were different. Nothing was the same except that a paralytic was healed. Unless Mr. Al-Kadhi wants to argue that Jesus healed one and only one paralytic in his entire ministry, he undermines his credibility making the above quote.
Mr. Al-Kadhi better read about the premises of the Five Gospels. If he applies those premises to the Qur'an, he can throw out the Qur'an as being not even the words of Muhammad, let alone of God.
The words of Jesus applies to Mr. Al-Kadhi :
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)
The Rebuttal to "What Did Jesus Really Say?"
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