Why do Christians believe in the miracles of Jesus but not this guy?
The successor to Peter and the Mahdi is here apparently, a dude wearing a beanie who goes by the name Abdullah Hashem. He also has a video on his YouTube channel where his followers say all the miracles of his they have witnessed ranging from raising the dead, controlling the Jinn (demons), curing infertility and even making the moon disappear. Sounds like solid eyewitness testimony right?
This got me thinking, the miracles of Jesus are based on eye witness testimony, the miracles of Abdullah Hashem are also based on eye witness testimony, why do I as a Christian believe the miracles of Jesus, including the resurrection, based on eye witness testimony from thousands of years ago but not those of Abdullah which are based on eye witness testimony from people who are alive even today?
Two reasons actually…
First, in the case of Jesus, we have enemy attestation, i.e. people who were actively against Jesus and did not believe in His cause acknowledged His miracles. Consider this statement from the scribes and Pharisees,
“And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”
(Mark 3:22)
And again,
“Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
(Matthew 12:24)
So there was a tacit acknowledgment of the miracles of Jesus here because the Pharisees and scribes do not deny He was casting out demons they only claim he was doing it by the power of Satan.
We have yet more enemy attestation of Jesus’ miracles in the Talmud,
“And a crier went out before him for forty days, publicly proclaiming: Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited people to idol worship, and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should come forward and teach it on his behalf. And the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so they stoned him and hung his corpse on Passover eve.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 43a)
The fact Jesus is accused of sorcery in a source document hostile to His message further testifies to the fact something supernatural was being done by Him. There are also other portions of the Talmud where a certain Ben Pandera (who scholars have said is very likely a euphemism for Jesus) is accused of bringing magic from Egypt but I digress…
Point is with Jesus, people outside His circle attest to the miracles He performed, for our friend Abdullah however, ONLY members of his sect who already believe in him seem to be witnesses of his amazing miracles.
Not only that, with Jesus, we have instances of people (Particularly James and Paul) initially opposed to His message being converted to ardent followers of His as a result of the miracles of Jesus they experienced i.e. an encounter with the risen Him, we have no such individual with Abdullah.
The second reason I tend to believe the eye witness testimony of Jesus’ miracles and not those of Abdullah is because the testimony of the eye witnesses of Jesus was scrutinized. Some of the witnesses were beaten, persecuted, tortured and sent to their bloody deaths without changing their testimony. The testimony of Abdullah’s followers however have not been tested or cross examined, there is no record of any of his followers clinging on to their testimony despite torture or on threat of death. All we have are them just making statements, “I witnessed him do…” why have they not come forth to have these testimonies publicly examined?
In summary, the main reason I do not believe in the miracles of Abdullah is there are no outside sources of his miracles or enemy attestation to his “wondrous works”, the eye witness testimony only comes from followers of his movement so the inherent likelihood of bias is really high. A secondary reason is that the testimony of Abdullah’s followers has not been put through rigorous cross examination and we are yet to ascertain whether or not they would hang on to their testimony if it would cost them something. Jesus on the other hand had eye witness testimony from hostile sources and some of His eyewitnesses were willing to go to their bloody deaths without changing their testimony.
My question for Christians is how would you answer this question? Why do you believe in the eye witness testimony about the miracles of Jesus but not Abdullah Hashem?
