Second Interview with Sam Shamoun

Back in July I had an interview with Sam Shamoun on introductory topics regarding Islamic apologetics.  One was the Bible and the Quran and the other one was Trinity and Tawheed.  I recently had Shamoun on again to talk about a more advanced topic.  We discussed the role of St. Paul in Islam.

Now, Muslims had to find someone to blame for the reason that the gospels and the early Christian movement looks nothing like Islam.  Obviously it had to be Paul.  Shamoun showed us in the interview that early Muslims considered Paul part of the early disciples.  We referenced my copy of Ibn Ishaq.

I didn’t anticipate this but Shamoun showed some praises of the Virgin Mary in the Quran that I didn’t know about.  I don’t know any Arabic at all so I can’t see where the translations are fudging the data.

In the talk, I also reference the Bible studies that Shamoun does on his Youtube channel Shamounian.  I’d recommend watching these videos.  Even if you can’t watch it live it’s worth it.  By the end of each session I usually have a page of notes and I always learn something new.  Here is the last livestream.

One thing that I really liked in our discussion was what he said about Acts 21.  I’ve talked in the past about how James could have confronted Paul on many topics where the Christians and Muslims clash but instead chose a topic irrelevant to the Christian-Muslim discussion.

Shamoun pointed out that Paul was leading Jewish converts astray on observance of the Law.  I’ve read this passage countless times but never put two and two together that it was only Jews.  Shamoun pointed out that in Acts 21 it references the council in Acts 15.  We read:

As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”

– Acts 21:25

Acts 15:11 says that no one is to be justified by observance to the law but by the grace of Jesus Christ.  We read:

No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

– Acts 15:11

The people in Acts 21 knew this because it’s in the same book and they allude to it.  In other words this was a non-salvation related issue for a certain group of Christians.  Thank you Sam Shamoun for your brilliant wisdom and for this interview!