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I was recently asked a very insightful question and I wanted to answer in greater detail- flesh it out so to speak.
Question: "Would you be able to provide evidence that Christianity it the right religion and how other religions that are similar- Judaism and Islam- are not?"
Let's break it down a bit.
Judaism- developed and practiced by the ancient Hebrew people, who God chose and formed into the nation of Israel from the descendants of Abraham.1 Although they believe that God is a personal being that created the world, they do not believe in the Trinity (God, Son, Spirit) that Christians do. They believe in the Old Testament but do not follow that God revealed Himself in the person of Jesus or in the New Testament scriptures.
Islam- believe in a one living creator God. They believe God is one person, not three. Muslims believe that God pole through the angel Gabriel to a man named Muhammad over a period of several years. They believe he received this revelation from God while alone in a desert. He was called God's prophet. Several years after he died, his teachings were written the a book called the Quran.2 They also believe that Jews and Christians have changed and corrupted the original version of the biblical texts that they do use. The Qur’an condemns to hell those who claim that Jesus is God’s Son, as Christians believe.
Christianity- views and understands God as three in one, also called the Trinity. God speaks through his Word, the Bible and what can be observed through His creation. We are His image bearers. The person of Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, came to earth to redeem humanity from the curse of the fall because of sin. We believe in both the Old and New Testaments of Scripture.
Although there are many similarities, the diving factor is the person and the work of Jesus.
According to philosopher and theologian Dr William Lane Craig- "The real Achilles Heel of Islam is its portrait of the historical Jesus. It is ironic that the Qur’an chooses to deny the best established fact about Jesus, namely, his crucifixion (IV.157). Not only is there not a single shred of evidence in favor of this remarkable hypothesis, but the evidence supporting Jesus’ crucifixion is, as Emory University New Testament scholar L. T. Johnson puts it, “overwhelming” (The Real Jesus [San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996], p. 125). Paula Frederickson, whose book From Jesus to Christ inspired the PBS special by the same name, declares, “The crucifixion is the strongest single fact we have about Jesus” (Society of Biblical Literature meeting, November 22, 1999). The crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the sceptical critics in the Jesus Seminar as--to quote Robert Funk--”one indisputable fact” (Jesus Seminar video).
When we think that the Qur’an was written by a man living in Arabia 600 years after Jesus with no independent source of information about him, it really isn’t so surprising that his view of Jesus was distorted. Whatever else one might say about Islam, its view of Jesus is erroneous, and so this religion cannot be true.
As for Judaism, again I should say that the decisive consideration is Jesus’ claims to be the Jewish Messiah and his subsequent resurrection from the dead. Jewish scholars are coming to recognize the historical facts undergirding Jesus’ resurrection and are hard-pressed to explain those facts apart from the resurrection. Indeed, one of their number, the late Pinchas Lapide, whom I heard lecture at the University of Munich, declared himself convinced that the God of Israel raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. He also thought that Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah. As Prof. Dr. Wolfhart Pannenberg, my Doktorvater, mused at the time, Lapide seemed strangely unable to connect the dots. If you’re interested in how a Jewish scholar responds to the evidence, take a look at my debate with Peter Zaas, Who Was Jesus?,ed. Craig Evans and Paul Copan [Louisville, Kent.: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2002]).
You ask, “How can you be so sure when Islamic and Jewish scholars claim the same claim?” Well, because they can’t explain the evidence concerning Jesus as well as Christianity. I’d invite you just to look at the resources I mentioned and judge for yourself. For more on Christian theology, I suppose I’d recommend Bruce Milne’s Know the Truth, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, Il.: Inter-Varsity, 2009) or my own lectures on Christian doctrine. 3"
When we think that the Qur’an was written by a man living in Arabia 600 years after Jesus with no independent source of information about him, it really isn’t so surprising that his view of Jesus was distorted. Whatever else one might say about Islam, its view of Jesus is erroneous, and so this religion cannot be true.
As for Judaism, again I should say that the decisive consideration is Jesus’ claims to be the Jewish Messiah and his subsequent resurrection from the dead. Jewish scholars are coming to recognize the historical facts undergirding Jesus’ resurrection and are hard-pressed to explain those facts apart from the resurrection. Indeed, one of their number, the late Pinchas Lapide, whom I heard lecture at the University of Munich, declared himself convinced that the God of Israel raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. He also thought that Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah. As Prof. Dr. Wolfhart Pannenberg, my Doktorvater, mused at the time, Lapide seemed strangely unable to connect the dots. If you’re interested in how a Jewish scholar responds to the evidence, take a look at my debate with Peter Zaas, Who Was Jesus?,ed. Craig Evans and Paul Copan [Louisville, Kent.: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2002]).
You ask, “How can you be so sure when Islamic and Jewish scholars claim the same claim?” Well, because they can’t explain the evidence concerning Jesus as well as Christianity. I’d invite you just to look at the resources I mentioned and judge for yourself. For more on Christian theology, I suppose I’d recommend Bruce Milne’s Know the Truth, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, Il.: Inter-Varsity, 2009) or my own lectures on Christian doctrine. 3"
Craig's points on these dividing factors are helpful when we are objectively sorting through the facts. The testability of the Christian faith sets it apart from any other worldview and in my opinion makes it a reasonable faith with which to live your life by.
"I became a christian because the evidence was so compelling that Jesus is the one and only Son of God who proved His divinity by raising from the dead. That meant following Him was the most rational and logical step I could possibly take." Lee Strobel
Further recommended reading:
More than a Carpenter by McDowell
A Case for Christ by Strobel
When Skeptics Ask by Geisler
Footnotes:
1. Walking In truth pg 15 Student Text
2. Walking in truth pg 16-17 student text
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