0:01 A lot of people are under the
0:03 misimpression that the Islamic dilemma
0:06 is some like clever modern argument
0:08 cooked up by Christian apologists on
0:11 YouTube or in recent debates. What if I
0:14 told you we have new evidence of a
0:17 Syriak Christian in the 700s, barely a
0:19 century after Muhammad, he was already
0:21 making this exact same argument. That's
0:23 right. We've uncovered a manuscript
0:25 where George of Beltan, a patriarch
0:28 writing in the 8th century, lays out a
0:30 response to Islam so sharp, so
0:32 devastating that honestly it makes us
0:33 look like amateurs. And I'm not
0:35 exaggerating here. Belton might have
0:37 been a better apologist than we are
0:38 today. In this video, we're going to
0:41 dive deep into this forgotten text that
0:43 was actually just recently translated
0:44 for the first time. see how he
0:47 dismantled the Muslim claim of Tarif or
0:48 corruption of the scriptures and show
0:51 how he basically invented the Islamic
0:53 dilemma before it ever had a name. Now,
0:55 stick around because by the end of this
0:57 video, you're going to see how George
0:59 absolutely dismantles Islam's claims to
1:02 truth before it even got off the ground,
1:04 guys. And trust me, once you see how
1:05 good his cases, you're never going to
1:08 look at the Islamic dilemma the same way
1:09 again. But first, let's set the stage
1:12 here. Okay, the Islamic dilemma. It
1:13 might sound fancy, but it's actually
1:15 really simple. All right. The Quran
1:17 repeatedly points Muslims back to the
1:20 scriptures that came before it. The
1:22 Torah and the Gospel. You see this in
1:26 places like Surah 543-48 and Surah 1094
1:27 and other verses. But here's the
1:30 problem. Okay, those previous scriptures
1:32 very obviously flatout contradict the
1:34 Quran. And there are only really two
1:36 options and neither of them work. All
1:38 right, horn number one. If the
1:40 scriptures before Muhammad were
1:42 reliable, as the Quran itself implies,
1:44 then Islam collapses because those same
1:47 scriptures contradict Islamic teaching
1:49 on almost every core issue. The Old
1:51 Testament prophets, the Trinity, the
1:53 crucifixion, the deity of Christ, you
1:55 name it, it contradicts it. Horn number
1:57 two, if those scriptures were
1:59 unreliable, if they'd been corrupt or
2:01 lost, then the Quran undercuts itself.
2:03 Why? Well, because it tells Muslims and
2:06 even Muhammad himself in surah 1094 to
2:08 consult the Jews and the Christians that
2:10 were reading the previous scriptures.
2:13 That makes absolutely zero sense if the
2:16 scriptures were already unreliable. So
2:18 either way, the Quran is stuck on the
2:20 horns of a dilemma. If it affirms the
2:22 Bible, Islam is false. But if it rejects
2:24 the Bible, Islam is actually incoherent.
2:26 That's the power of this argument. It's
2:28 not some little gotcha trick. It's
2:29 actually showing that Islam by its own
2:32 standard defeats itself. Our Muslim
2:34 apologist friends will tell us that this
2:37 is a a clever new apologetic trick that
2:38 we cooked up in recent debates, right?
2:40 It's not something that goes back to the
2:42 early Christian history, the Christians
2:44 that were engaging with Islam. But
2:47 George of Beltan writing just a century
2:50 after Muhammad was already seeing this
2:52 exact tension. And that's what makes his
2:54 work actually really explosive. To
2:57 appreciate how explosive George of
2:58 Beltan's argument is, you need to
3:01 understand when and where he was
3:03 writing. We're not talking about some
3:05 medieval monk tucked away in the 1200s.
3:08 George lived in the 8th century, barely
3:10 a hundred years after Muhammad. That
3:11 means he wasn't working with centuries
3:14 of hindsight. He was looking Islam
3:16 straight in the face while it was still
3:19 in its early rise. George was the West
3:22 Syriak Patriarch from 758 to 789, which
3:24 makes him one of the highest ranking
3:26 Christian leaders in the Middle East.
3:29 And his life was anything but calm. He
3:31 was actually imprisoned in Baghdad by
3:33 the Cali for 9 years on charges of tax
3:35 fraud and refusing to honor Muhammad's
3:38 name. When he was finally released, he
3:40 didn't retire quietly. He went straight
3:42 back to defending the faith. Now, here's
3:45 why his story matters. Okay? Syriak
3:47 Christians like George were on the front
3:49 lines. They were the ones who first had
3:52 to wrestle with Islam's claims. They
3:54 heard Muslim accusations about the Bible
3:56 being corrupted, what's called Tarif,
3:58 not as abstract theories, but as live
4:00 pressing challenges threatening their
4:03 communities. So when George sat down to
4:04 write his commentary on the Gospel of
4:07 Matthew, that's our focus today. Tucked
4:09 inside is this little chapter where he
4:12 fires back at Islam. And it's in that
4:14 chapter where we find the earliest fully
4:16 developed response to Tarif. What's
4:19 more, the way he responds isn't just
4:21 some generic defense of scripture. It's
4:24 the skeleton of the very argument we now
4:26 call the Islamic dilemma. This is what
4:28 makes George's voice so uniquely
4:30 powerful. He wasn't, you know, a
4:32 YouTuber in modern-day times trying to
4:34 get clicks. He was a pastor, a
4:36 patriarch, and honestly a prisoner for
4:38 Christ, fighting to preserve the truth
4:40 of the gospel in the very century after
4:43 Islam's birth. Before we jump into the
4:45 actual manuscript of George's argument,
4:47 I want to pause for just a second. If
4:49 you believe that this kind of work that
4:52 I'm doing here matters, taking esoteric
4:53 scholarship and turning it into
4:55 accessible apologetics, then consider
4:57 supporting me on Patreon. It's linked
4:58 right in the description for you guys.
5:00 Your support literally makes it possible
5:03 for me to do this deep research to
5:04 translate jargony material into plain
5:07 English and get discoveries like this
5:09 out to the wider church. I can only do
5:12 what I do with your help. Okay, now
5:15 let's get to the fun part. Here's the
5:17 actual discovery, and trust me, it's
5:19 definitely worth the wait. So, first,
5:21 where did scholars actually find
5:23 George's proto-Islamic dilemma? Well, it
5:26 wasn't in some standalone book against
5:28 Islam. George didn't sit down to write
5:30 an anti-Muslim treaties. Instead, it's
5:33 tucked away right inside his commentary
5:35 on the Gospel of Matthew, specifically
5:38 in the introduction of chapter 49. And
5:39 that detail is actually crucial. George
5:41 wasn't out to score debate points. He
5:43 was trying to establish the reliability
5:46 of the Gospel for his Christian readers.
5:48 He's explaining why they can trust the
5:50 scriptures even when Muslims accuse them
5:52 of corruption. That's the sort of
5:55 pastoral heart of this whole thing.
5:57 Defending the truth of the gospel at a
5:59 time when his people were under enormous
6:01 pressure to abandon it. The only
6:03 surviving copy of this commentary is
6:06 Vatican Syriak 154. It's a battered
6:08 manuscript copied partly on parchment
6:09 from the 8th to 10th centuries and
6:11 partly on paper from the 13th. You can
6:13 actually access it directly on the
6:15 Vatican website. You guys can see it on
6:16 the screen here. It's sort of
6:18 incomplete. It's damaged and scattered.
6:21 But thankfully, enough of it survived
6:23 for our purposes today. For centuries,
6:25 this text sat sort of unnoticed in the
6:27 Vatican library until modern scholarship
6:29 finally brought it to light. Bert Jacobs
6:31 recently published the editio precepts
6:34 of chapter 49, giving us our first full
6:36 translation of George's words. I've got
6:38 his paper linked in the description if
6:40 you guys want to go check it out. But
6:42 now, what George argues there is
6:45 actually extraordinary. This chapter is
6:47 titled against the pagans concerning the
6:49 truth of the gospel. But make no
6:52 mistake, the pagans in view are Muslims.
6:54 George never names Muhammad or the Quran
6:56 directly. Early apologists often avoided
6:58 that for safety reasons. But he does
7:00 make it pretty obvious. He talks about
7:02 the time before the coming of their
7:05 prophet and even quotes or paraphrases
7:07 the Quran. The issue that he's
7:10 addressing is the accusation of Tarif, a
7:13 Muslim doctrine that Christians sort of
7:15 corrupted their Bibles. Faced with
7:16 claims that the Quran is false because
7:18 it contradicts the Jewish and Christian
7:20 scriptures, later Muslim commentators
7:22 argued that the Christians had corrupted
7:25 their scriptures and included false
7:26 material. By George's day, this
7:29 accusation was already circulating and
7:31 Christians in the area had to respond to
7:33 it. Before I break down George's
7:34 arguments, I'm going to put up on the
7:35 screen the full English translation of
7:37 George's commentary so that you guys can
7:39 read it for yourself. Feel free to pause
7:41 the video and read through his comments.
7:42 It's not very long or as I mentioned,
7:43 you can just click the link in the
7:45 description to the full paper. All
7:48 right, here we go. George opens with a
7:50 brilliant rhetorical move. Pay attention
7:52 here, okay? He says, "The way to answer
7:56 the charge of corruption is to ask four
8:01 questions. When, who, why, and what?" In
8:03 other words, if you're going to claim
8:05 that the gospel was falsified or
8:09 corrupted, tell us when did this happen?
8:11 Who carried it out? Why would they do
8:15 it? And what exactly was changed? It's
8:17 super simple, but it's also really
8:19 devastating to this doctrine, and it
8:21 anticipates the entire later history of
8:24 Christian responses to Tarif. Let's
8:26 break this down because this is all very
8:28 relevant for us today. Okay, first
8:30 George presses the when question of
8:32 timing. If the gospel was corrupted
8:36 before Muhammad, then he points out why
8:39 would surah 1094 instruct him or
8:41 instruct Muhammad to ask the Jews and
8:43 Christians about it. Here's exactly what
8:46 he says. So at which time I ask again,
8:49 who, why, in which words? if they should
8:51 say that it happened before the coming
8:54 of their prophet. See, he said that it
8:56 was spoken to him that he should come to
8:58 those who hold the scriptures to find
9:01 the truth. For he said, quote, "Oh those
9:03 who hold the scriptures, confirm the
9:04 things which we have brought to you in
9:08 words." And quote, "If you are doubtful,
9:10 ask those who have been holding the
9:13 scriptures before you." See, he sends
9:18 you to us. He's quoting Surah 1094.
9:20 George knew even in the 700s that the
9:24 Quran itself in surah 1094 assumes the
9:27 reliability of earlier scriptures. But
9:29 if on the other hand the corruption
9:31 supposedly happened after Muhammad,
9:34 George says that's actually impossible.
9:36 Why? Because the gospel was already
9:38 spread across the world in different
9:40 languages. He puts it really bluntly and
9:42 these are his own words. And after his
9:45 coming, there is no proof whatsoever of
9:47 a senate of all nations in which Greeks,
9:50 Arabs, Persians, barbarians, and Syrians
9:52 were gathered during which they
9:54 determine which words they would omit
9:56 and which words they would add. This is
9:59 because the gospel is the same to all of
10:02 them. Next, he pushes the what and why
10:04 question of motive. Suppose the
10:06 Christians sort of change certain parts
10:09 of the Bible. Why would Christians
10:12 falsify their own scriptures? George
10:13 points out it's not for the money since
10:15 the gospel still commands poverty, not
10:18 for spiritual advantage since, quote,
10:20 "Spiritual gain cannot be attained by
10:22 consciously spreading false ideas about
10:25 God." He even turns this into a subtle
10:27 jab at Islam, hinting that they're the
10:30 ones who used material gain to attract
10:32 followers. Then in addressing the who
10:35 question, George brilliantly appeals to
10:37 the Quran's own teaching about the
10:40 apostles of Jesus. It couldn't have been
10:43 them since the Quran itself in various
10:45 places calls them divinely chosen and
10:48 faithful. If that's the case, George
10:50 asks, "How could they possibly have
10:52 transmitted corrupted accounts from
10:56 their master?" This is a proto dilemma
10:59 move using Islam's own scripture to
11:01 shore up the authority of the gospel. So
11:03 again, George's words and advice are
11:05 still relevant for us today. The next
11:07 time a Muslim tells you that the Bible
11:09 has been corrupted, follow George's
11:13 examples and ask four questions. When,
11:17 who, why, and what? But in his
11:19 commentary, George doesn't stop there.
11:21 After dismantling the corruption charge
11:24 with his famous when, who, why, what
11:26 questions, he takes the debate one step
11:29 further. He pivots to a positive case
11:32 for gospel reliability. In other words,
11:34 he doesn't just play defense. He builds
11:36 a constructive argument for why the
11:39 gospel must be true. And you guys really
11:41 need to pay attention here because this
11:43 move that he makes here, this argument
11:45 he builds out is brilliant and arguably
11:47 something that Christian apologists need
11:49 to be doing a lot more of in the context
11:51 of the Islamic dilemma. In his
11:53 commentary, George lays out five
11:56 criteria that prove gospel reliability.
11:58 First, the gospel's teaching is sound
12:00 because it transcends earthly lusts.
12:02 Second, its commandments heal the soul's
12:05 infirmities. Third, it foretell future
12:08 events with prophetic clarity. Fourth,
12:10 it spread to all nations, not by
12:12 political power, wealth, polished
12:14 rhetoric, or manipulative tactics, but
12:16 by a message so lofty it looked like
12:19 folly to the world. And then fifth, it
12:21 is confirmed by the testimony of the
12:23 scriptures themselves. Just think about
12:25 how clever this actually is. These
12:26 criteria aren't arbitrary. He didn't
12:28 just pick these out of the thin air,
12:29 right? They they actually make a lot of
12:32 sense. A true revelation from God should
12:34 actually elevate us above our base
12:36 desires. It should bring healing. It
12:38 should reveal what is to come. Spread
12:41 without worldly bribery and harmonize
12:43 with earlier revelation. George is doing
12:46 in the 700s. What most Christians today
12:48 can't do. Lay down a rational framework
12:51 for why Christianity is true. And
12:53 remarkably, his argument holds up pretty
12:55 well. Scholars call this the true
12:57 religion apology. And in George's hands,
12:59 it's one of the earliest examples that
13:01 we actually have. So here's the big
13:03 picture. Okay. George of Beltan
13:05 dismantled the charge of Tarif through
13:07 asking his four questions and citing the
13:10 Quran itself to answer them. Then he
13:12 went further. He made a positive case
13:15 for gospel reliability. Here's the
13:17 crucial point. Pay attention to this.
13:19 Once you grant the gospels reliability,
13:22 the Islamic dilemma writes itself. If
13:24 the gospels are reliable, Islam is false
13:26 because the Quran contradicts the
13:29 Gospels. If the gospels are unreliable,
13:31 Islam is false because the Quran itself
13:32 implies that the gospels are reliable.
13:35 In surah 1094, George nailed it, 1200
13:38 years ago from a prison cell in a
13:40 commentary on Matthew trying to streng
13:42 strengthen the faith of his people. He
13:45 handed us one of the earliest versions
13:47 of the Islamic dilemma. Why does all of
13:49 this matter? You might be thinking like,
13:51 why should we care what a Syriak
13:53 patriarch in the late 700s, why why
13:54 should we care that he was already
13:57 making this argument? Well, here's why.
13:59 It shows us that the doctrine of Tarif,
14:01 the idea that the Jews and Christians
14:03 corrupted their scriptures didn't appear
14:06 in a vacuum. It was a reaction. Muslims
14:07 were confronted with the uncomfortable
14:10 fact that the Quran flatly contradicted
14:12 the Bible. And then when Christians
14:15 pointed that out, Muslims needed some
14:16 sort of escape hatch. They needed to
14:18 respond to it. And that's where Tarif
14:21 came in. George of Belan again just a
14:23 hundred years after Muhammad showed
14:25 Christians exactly how to respond. not
14:28 just by saying, "Uh, nuh-uh, we we we
14:30 didn't corrupt our scriptures," but by
14:31 flipping the charge back on Islam
14:34 itself. This discovery also blows up a
14:35 very common objection we're hearing
14:37 today, that the Islamic dilemma is just
14:40 a cheap apologetic trick cooked up by
14:43 Western apologists on YouTube. Um, no,
14:45 that's not the case at all. The evidence
14:46 actually shows that Christians in the
14:48 8th century were already spotting this
14:50 same very this this very same problem.
14:52 And they didn't just spot it. They built
14:54 apologetic defenses for their people
14:57 around it. And also it strengthens the
14:58 credibility of the dilemma itself.
15:00 Because when an argument emerges
15:02 naturally out of history, when it's not
15:04 invented by a bunch of YouTubers, but
15:05 discovered actually in the first
15:07 encounters between Christians and
15:09 Muslims, that's actually evidentially
15:11 powerful. It shows that it shows us that
15:13 this isn't us forcing something onto the
15:15 Quran. It's actually us recognizing what
15:17 Christians have always recognized. Islam
15:20 is self-defeating on its own terms. Now,
15:21 at this point, some people might object.
15:23 They might say, "Well, hold on. Georgia
15:25 Tan wasn't actually making the Islamic
15:27 dilemma. He was just arguing against
15:29 corruption of the gospel." Now, I
15:31 thought a lot about this objection, but
15:32 here's the thing. He was doing a lot
15:35 more than just that. Okay? After giving
15:37 his positive criteria for gospel
15:39 reliability, he ends his chapter with
15:41 this declaration. Quote, "Therefore,
15:44 every book in which all these things are
15:46 collected is the perfect and complete
15:48 truth." He's referring to the five
15:50 criteria for gospel reliability and
15:52 everything that is lacking from them is
15:56 either entirely false or imperfect.
15:58 That's not merely like a hey guys don't
15:59 don't worry about this. Our texts are
16:01 fine statement. That's George going a
16:03 lot further. He's affirming the gospel
16:06 accounts as the full truth and drawing a
16:08 line in the sand. If the gospels are
16:12 true and Tarif is false, then the Quran
16:15 which contradicts them cannot stand. In
16:17 other words, George supplies the bones
16:19 of the Islamic dilemma. The Quran
16:22 appeals to the Gospels as authoritative,
16:24 but their truth puts Islam on a
16:26 collision course with itself. And also
16:28 remember, we don't have all of George's
16:30 works. It's entirely possible that he
16:32 made this conclusion explicit elsewhere
16:34 in his other writings. But what we do
16:36 have is certainly enough. He already
16:38 gave us everything we need to reach that
16:40 conclusion. Another objection goes,
16:42 well, in Surah 1094, the previous
16:45 scriptures in view are only the stories
16:47 of the prophets. I actually made an
16:49 entire video response to this objection,
16:50 which I've got linked in the
16:51 description. You guys can go watch it if
16:53 you're interested. In short, this
16:54 objection doesn't work because those
16:57 stories of the prophets also contradict
16:59 the Quran. So, it doesn't help. Another
17:01 common objection is, well, corruption
17:03 solves the problem. The Bible was
17:05 altered, but George dismantled that
17:07 literally 12 centuries ago. Okay, if
17:09 corruption happened before Muhammad,
17:12 then as George points out beautifully
17:14 and you know perfectly in line with the
17:17 Islamic dilemma, surah 1094 absolutely
17:18 makes no sense. If corruption happened
17:20 before Muhammad, if corruption had
17:22 happened after Muhammad, that's actually
17:24 impossible because no universal senate
17:27 of Greeks, Arabs, Persians, and Syrians
17:30 ever got together to rewrite the gospel.
17:32 As George puts it, since the rise of
17:35 Islam, no sinned has taken place in
17:37 which the nations decided to alter the
17:40 gospel because it is the same to all of
17:42 them. That leaves us the the only
17:45 possible alternative here is what I like
17:47 to call the selective corruption
17:50 hypothesis or selective tariff that just
17:52 the wrong parts of the Bible were
17:55 corrupted. The rest are reliable. That
17:57 falls apart too guys. Okay. I I also
17:58 addressed this claim in the previous
17:59 video that I mentioned linked in the
18:01 description. But in short, this
18:03 hypothesis doesn't work because one,
18:05 it's completely unevid. There's no
18:07 historical proof that the Bible was
18:09 selectively altered in just the right
18:11 places that line up with the Quran. Two,
18:13 it's completely unfalsifiable. Any verse
18:15 that contradicts the Quran can just be
18:17 waved away as corrupt. And then three,
18:20 this is a circular argument. It assumes
18:22 the Quran is accurate in order to defend
18:24 the Quran. That's not an argument.
18:26 That's a rational dead end. So, the
18:28 objections don't work. George's argument
18:29 still stands. And in some ways, he said
18:32 it's sharper than we do today. Now,
18:33 we've covered a lot of ground. So, let
18:34 me just boil all this down. Right?
18:36 Here's what you need to remember from
18:39 this video. George of Beltan, writing in
18:41 the 700s, just a century after Muhammad
18:43 was already dismantling the charge of
18:45 Tarif and in the process sketching out
18:47 the bones of what we now call the
18:49 Islamic dilemma. In challenging Tarif,
18:51 he asked absolutely killer questions
18:53 that we still need to be asking today.
18:56 When was the gospel corrupted? Who did
18:59 it? Why would they do it? And what
19:02 exactly was changed? No Muslim could
19:03 answer them then and no Muslim can
19:05 answer them now. He showed that
19:07 corruption couldn't have happened before
19:10 Muhammad because surah 1094 assumes the
19:12 scriptures are reliable. It couldn't
19:14 have happened after Muhammad because no
19:16 worldwide sinned ever met to change the
19:18 text. And the apostles themselves
19:20 according to the Quran were divinely
19:23 chosen. So, how could they possibly have
19:25 transmitted falsehood? That's the heart
19:27 of George's case. Okay? If the Gospels
19:30 are reliable, Islam collapses because it
19:32 contradicts them. If the Gospels are
19:34 unreliable, the Quran undercuts itself,
19:37 as we see in Surah 1094. Either way, the
19:40 Quran is checkmated by its own standard.
19:41 And that's what makes this discovery so
19:43 incredible. The Islamic dilemma isn't
19:45 some like clever modern trick.
19:48 Christians in the 700s already saw it,
19:50 already argued it, and already used it
19:53 to defend the gospel. So, here's my
19:56 challenge to you. Memorize Surah 1094.
19:59 Learn George's simple for, when, who,
20:02 why, what questions, and use them. This
20:04 isn't just history. It's an argument
20:06 Christians have been making for over a
20:08 thousand years, and it still stands
20:10 today. If you want more groundbreaking
20:11 discoveries like this, hit subscribe
20:14 because we're literally just getting
20:16 started. Oh, and by the way,
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