Sheikh Awal on Nicea and Manuscripts, Calls, Updates

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon. As I mentioned on the blog just a few hours ago, when

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I posted a picture of the little ride I did yesterday, I was listening to a debate on that ride.

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It was not an overly enjoyable thing to do, to be perfectly honest with you. I didn't think the debate went very well. But I was listening to one of my opponents that I will be debating.

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And in fact, given some of the things I heard, I could imagine a large number of topics that shake a wall and I could debate.

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But I was listening to a debate that was supposed to be on the topic of salvation in the

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Bible and salvation in the Koran. It would be very valuable to actually play almost all of Sheikh Awal's comments, to be perfectly honest with you.

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And if I can find the time over this month, there are a number of videos I would like to do in response to particular points.

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But I wanted to especially look at some of his comments in regards to history, because it is amazing what passes for scholarly history amongst many, not all, but many

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Islamic apologists who are viewed as sheikhs, as scholars, scholars of Islam, scholars of comparative religion and things like that.

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So I want to play some clips for you and respond to them. And then we'll take your phone calls. And yes, given that since we were last together,

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I have been on the radio and in Massachusetts, I have spoken with AP reporters, et cetera, et cetera.

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We'll have a little bit of an update there as well. And toward the end of the program, I want to respond to those who have criticized the fact that on the last program,

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I raised some issues in regards to Emir Kaner and some of his comments on Islam.

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I want to respond to that and, again, set the record straight on a number of issues.

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But beginning with Sheikh Awal, I was amazed to hear some of the things that I heard.

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And again, I would imagine sometimes I forget that there might be people even out in the wilds of the forests on the side of Mount Lemmon and outside of Tucson, Arizona, because more than once I yelled out things like, well, answer the guy or you've got to be kidding or whatever.

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So it must be funny to see some some old slow guy going up Mount Lemmon.

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By the way, there were lots of people on Mount Lemmon, lots of riders. But the higher and higher I got, the fewer and fewer of them there were.

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And in fact, once I got past Windy Point, I didn't see anybody. So there weren't very many of them that were actually going the 26 miles and the 6 ,000 feet to the top.

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So they sort of thinned out after a while. But anyhow, I did sort of verbally participate, as did the audience.

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Unfortunately, the Muslims did not behave well. And I would imagine in Dearborn, they probably are not going to behave well there either unless there is strong control brought to bear,

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I suppose. But anyway, I want to play for you some of the comments of Sheik Awal and respond to them here at the beginning of the program.

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This is during, I believe, this first one is during the

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Sheikh's opening statement. Paul said in Romans 10, 9, that you confess with your lips and you believe in your heart.

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But Christ said, these people, they worship me with their lips. Their heart is far away from me. In vain are they worshiping me, teaching the doctrine of men.

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Men wrote the book. Men wrote it. Christ did not write it, nor did the disciples wrote it.

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It was written over 325 years after Christ left the earth, where in the council of Nisi, Constantine, and the pagan king was the leader of that community.

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Now, did you catch that? He sounds very much like Achmed Didat. My understanding is he is a student of Achmed Didat, and he sounds very much like him.

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But he just asserted that these books, I wasn't sure exactly which ones he was referring to.

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It sounds like the Gospels, but I don't know what it was. Something in the New Testament was written 325 years, 325 of the council of Nicaea by Constantine.

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That Constantine wrote at least parts of the New Testament or all the New Testament is what he just got done saying.

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Now, how you could have all the manuscripts that we have that predate the council of Nicaea, some that go back to the early second century, such as P52, existing centuries before the books are written is really something that I would like to ask

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Sheikh Awal about. I don't, you know, he later quotes

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Bart Ehrman. Bart Ehrman would never say that. Bart Ehrman would laugh at such an assertion. It just makes me wonder if they when they read something like Bart Ehrman, don't they read all of it and see what he's actually even saying?

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But what about the early church writers? How did how did Clement and Ignatius and Justin Martyr and Tertullian and how did any of these writers quote from books that had not yet been written by Constantine or were all those fraudulently created as well?

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I suppose once you start down the conspiracy theory trail, there's really no end at that point. But again, it's it's strange.

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I I know exactly where I was, or at least sort of what the forest looked like. Lemon, when

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I heard him state that, oh, Constantine, the council of Nicaea made up this stuff in the

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New Testament. All right. OK, well, then in the later part of the debate.

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We had a discussion of the texts, the

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Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandritus. Now, I'm not sure now

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I think about it, if Shabir Ali has ever mentioned those manuscripts, I would imagine that he's probably familiar with them.

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But this may be the first time I've heard someone in a debate, a Muslim debate, make reference to those great unsealed manuscripts.

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But it does not seem that Sheik Awal is at all familiar with the papyri. It doesn't seem that he's he's done any reading in that area.

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And so later on the debate, there was a time where they had questions that they were being asked and someone asked a very, very good question.

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See, throughout all his opening statement, Sheik Awal had been emphasizing that Jesus never died on the cross.

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And he had been cherry picking texts from the New Testament, despite the fact that every book he cited testifies to the crucifixion of Jesus.

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If you actually read the book itself and allow the author to speak for himself and that everything in the first hundred years after the time of Christ likewise testifies to his crucifixion.

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And ignoring all of that, he had just been pointing, pulling a text out here and pointing, pulling a text out there.

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Never in any of the interpretations that he gave did he give any indication that he was aware of a meaningful

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Christian exegesis of the text from the context, the original languages and things like that. And though he criticized his opponent for for his lack of preparation, and there was grounds for that, it struck me very odd when a man is talking about being prepared and studying.

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And yet when it came to his comments about Christian history and the Christian text, there was no evidence of any study of Christian material.

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It was clearly his knowledge is completely derived from what Muslims have said about Christianity, what

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Muslims have said about the Bible, rather than actually reading meaningful exegetical sources themselves.

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And that is not going to be very helpful to shake a wall in our debates.

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And one of the things I'm again, I just don't know if I have time to do it, but I want to try to find the time to do some of these videos to try to help increase the quality of the debates that we have by inviting him to step it up, take it up to a position where you're actually responding to meaningful, orthodox, biblical

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Christianity rather than misrepresentations thereof. That helps the Muslims and the

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Christians. It's just I think any truth loving person needs to do it that way. So.

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In this context, he makes reference to Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus, and I will let you listen to what he says about them.

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So you get the next question. This is a question for Ahmed. You said that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but Jesus said in Matthew 17, 22, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.

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They will kill him. And on the third day, he will be raised to life. What do you say about his statement?

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Ahmed, two minutes. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen, you said before, during my talks, I told you that most of the

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Bible writers, especially, you know, this Bible that we have today, we have three main ancient manuscripts, the

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Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, these books are the manuscripts written in the 12th century.

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Now, in these versions of this. Now, let me stop it right there. Catch that. Shaykh Awal just stood in front of an audience, and unfortunately, his

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Christian opponent did not correct him on this, but Shaykh Awal just stood in front of an entire audience and placed

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Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus in the 12th century.

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12th century. He's only about 900 years off because Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

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Let's take non -conservative dating. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are middle fourth century. So that'd be at least eight centuries off.

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And Alexandrinus is around 400, so the beginning of the fifth century. So that'll make 800, not 900 years.

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Well, we'll give him 100 years, but 800 years is, that's an awful long time. There's nobody, no one, he's going to go through the day, he's going to go through names of people.

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He's going to mention Bart Ehrman. Bart Ehrman would never put Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the 12th century. There's, I don't know of anybody, anywhere who has ever argued for something like that.

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12th century. Amazing. The three great unsealed texts, two of them probably from the

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Codex, he at least could have made an interesting argument there by the fact that these were copied around the time of the

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Council of Nicaea. But again, he is woefully, woefully misinformed.

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Very confident in his ignorance of these issues, but he's woefully misinformed.

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But let's continue with his comments. The books which we have, all the bibles that we have today came from these three manuscripts. They are telling us that the book of Martin was only, you know, relegated to the first, second, and third chapter.

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The rest of it, it is not in this ancient manuscript, it is nowhere to be found. Now what he's just said, is it in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus.

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Matthew, only the first three chapters of Matthew are found. That's completely bogus. I mean, that's just,

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I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. That's complete falsehood. That is not the case in any way, shape, or form.

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So where's this stuff coming from? Is this a situation where he's heard this from somebody who heard it from somebody who heard it from somebody?

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Is that how it works? Are we sort of getting a modern day insight here into sort of what

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I think happened with the biblical stories coming into the Quran where Muhammad hears the retelling of these things and there's, there's the, explains all the changes and alterations that we have or, or when

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Jesus speaks from his cradle in Surah 19, which is from the Arabic infancy gospel that had only been written about 150 years earlier, what

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Jesus says in the Arabic infancy gospel is that he's the son of God. Well, it comes into the Quran and now he's just a prophet.

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Is this a similar situation, a changing of things over time? I don't know. Because I can guarantee you, as far as any meaningful scholarship is concerned, there's nobody who thinks the gospels were written in Isaiah.

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There's nobody who thinks Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus were written in 12th century, nobody at all.

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And so where does someone get this type of confident assertion? Uh, good question.

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But, um, I would strongly recommend, and I do know that we have Muslims who listen to the webcast regularly.

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You might want to let Shaykh Awal know that, um, he really needs to check his facts, uh, because, uh, in a debate with me,

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I'm going to make sure that those issues are rebutted and refuted and I will challenge him and I will have a critical edition of the

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Greek New Testament sitting right there and I will challenge him. I will open up and say, here, show me, prove it. Why is it that I can show you right here, uh,

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Matthew chapter nine or Matthew chapter 15 being cited, not just by the great unsealed texts, but before the great unsealed texts in the preceding century in papyri?

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Um, that, uh, that would be something very important to address. And, uh, so it will be very, very interesting to engage him.

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Uh, let's listen to the last of his comments in this and then we'll take a guest's phone call. I just stopped right there.

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Matthew doesn't have a name attached to it. This is like, this is like proving nothing.

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I mean, it, it helps, you know, remember, I, we still haven't found that, you know, we've got to dig through the rest of the audio of this.

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Cause we were looking through all the tapes for the old dividing lines, stuff like that. We've got to keep an eye open for the, uh, cassette tape of the debate that took place in 1993 in Denver.

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Remember when Keating and Madrid debated Ron Nemec and Bill Jackson, and they schedule it for the night that I was debating geriatrics the second night.

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So I couldn't be there. And it was that absolute beat down they put on, on the Protestants there.

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And, uh, where they got the Protestants actually defend, uh, the idea that, you know, well, how do you know

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Matthew O. Matthew? Well, because it says so at the top of my page. Remember that? Oh, so painful to listen to that.

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Uh, it's great because now we, we can then show that the magisterium of the

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Roman Catholic church doesn't know that. That's sort of fun. I've always wanted to ask Patrick about that. Why did you pick on the

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Protestants when you don't know? Uh, but anyway, uh, but it's similar to that kind of, of, of argumentation, but his argument earlier in this was since Matthew records his own calling in the third person, it doesn't say

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I was called. That means clearly didn't Matthew didn't write it. I mean, no author has ever referred to himself in the third person.

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No presidential candidates ever. Oh, nevermind. Uh, there was a whole presidential campaign where somebody did that.

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Of course he lost probably as a result of that. Cause no one wanted to vote for the other guy. Uh, but, uh, as it may, that, that was the level of argumentation.

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I was like, Oh, okay, goodness. So we, we put the manuscripts 800 years down the road and, uh, we say

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Constantine made up the gospels, even though there's also all sorts of historical evidence, uh, opposed to that. And, uh, uh, but again, unfortunately none of that was corrected in, in the debate itself.

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Uh, it was left unchallenged, which, uh, was really what was so difficult about listening that, uh, that particular debate, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.

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Like I said, I want to do a, uh, a series of videos on that in response to, to shake a wall again, hopefully to make the debates all that much better, uh, when we get around to them in June.

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So that's the next debate up. Let's, uh, take our phone calls and let's talk with, uh,

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Gus in Los Angeles. Hi Gus. How's it going, Dr. Wright? Doing good. I'd like to first suggest that maybe you guys could switch the waiting music to some

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John Devere Christmas music. Well, you know, that would cause a general rebellion, uh, amongst the people in our chat channel and, uh, uh, you know, some of them are my friends.

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Most of them are just weird, but, uh, but I'll, I'll remember that in December. Okay. Yeah.

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It would make waiting a lot, uh, more interesting, but, um, to my question, uh, um,

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I was wondering what is the exact definition of purchased and Exodus 1516?

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Well, the Hebrew term is kana and, uh, kana is, is a, is not the most specific term, uh, as you would have in specific redemption language in, in Greek or in, in other

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Hebrew terms. For example, uh, kana is used, uh, in Genesis 4, 1, when

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Eve says, I have gotten or obtained, uh, or possessed a man with the help of the

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Lord. That's kana. And in Genesis 14, 19, blessed, blessed be Abraham, uh, blessed to be

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Abraham by God, most high possessor of heaven and earth is kana. Uh, God is, is said to be the possessor or, uh, obviously acquiring or purchased wouldn't be the, uh, appropriate terminology at that particular point.

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Uh, because I mean, who's he purchasing heavens and heavens and earth from. So in, uh,

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Exodus chapter 15, verse 16, as you, uh, as you pointed out, uh, terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm.

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They're still as a stone till your people, oh Lord, pass by till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

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And so that's whom you have purchased. Kana is the term that is used there at, uh, at the end of verse 16.

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And so, uh, it, it really probably has to do with the sense of sovereign, uh, acquiring or possession of special people.

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Um, I don't know that in that particular case, in light of the context, uh, that we would want to go beyond that basic meaning of, of, uh, the term there.

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Okay. And that, that wouldn't be a meaning or any kind of close, uh, meaning to the usage in the

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New Testament? Well, it can, but remember that the wider, the, the wider, what's called the semantic domain of a word.

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In other words, the more, the more ways it can be used, what you're tracing from the

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Old Testament into the New Testament will be certain realms of the usage of a term that become more specialized in either in the

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Greek Septuagint or in their use in the New Testament. And so, uh, I didn't look at the term used in, in Deuteronomy 32.

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It might be the same one now that I think about it. Uh, but the point would be that you take a wider term in the

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Old Testament and you look at the application in the Greek Septuagint and how that language then impacts its use in the

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New Testament. Uh, but you, you need to be careful. You can observe these parallels, you can observe these uses.

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Uh, but unless the New Testament, uh, itself makes the application and makes a big deal out of it, uh, you need to exercise some, uh, caution and, you know, make the observation, but don't, don't, you know, build entire sermons just upon something like that.

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Right. And, uh, my second question is, uh, um, I'm, I'm new to the, uh, area of Reformed theology and, and I was wondering, uh,

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I thought the debate start, uh, stop at Calvinism and Armenianism, but, uh, I was wondering what's the whole issue about the pedo and credo baptism and, and why is it that, that, uh, pedo baptists, uh, yeah,

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I believe that, um, circumcision is, is now replaced with the, uh, baptism of, of, of infants.

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Yeah, that's a big subject. I, I, when, when people raise it, um, uh, there's generally a great warfare in our chat channel because half the people in there are

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Presbyterians and half the people are, uh, uh, are Reformed Baptists and, well, we have a few other people that just don't really fit in anywhere, but that's okay.

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Anyway, uh, when, when that, that issue comes up, pretty much everybody now goes, well, what you want to do is you want to listen to the debate between, uh,

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James White and, uh, Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and, uh, on Long Island, Franklin Square, Long Island.

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And that way you get, uh, Pastor Shishko is, is a debater and, uh, and so am

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I. And so you get two debaters, uh, coming at it from, uh, uh, without, without any sense of compromise, but within the, the bonds of charity within the church as, as brothers in Christ.

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And so, uh, if you'll look in the store, you'll find the, uh, MP3 of the, uh, uh, the discussion that we had, uh, about two, three years ago now, uh, it's about a two and a half hour debate or so on that subject, and we both lay out the positions fairly clearly.

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Uh, obviously, uh, I would say that, uh, circumcision in the old is actually fulfilled in regeneration, uh, not in, in baptism, but so that's an issue when we go into Colossians, uh, chapter two, especially verse 13 to discuss that.

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But that's a big, big, big topic. Uh, there, there are many, many books written on both sides. That particular issue.

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And I think the debate I had with Pastor Shishko will really, uh, sort of lay those things out for you and make it understandable for you.

23:39

All right. Okay. There is another one too, by the way, that I've not too many people from this perspective would be listening, but we also did a dividing line debate, which was about two hours, two hours, 15, uh, with, um,

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Oh, who was it? Help me out here. Uh, he edited the, uh, uh, the infant baptism book.

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Uh, but he comes from more of a federal vision perspective. Um, what? No, no, no.

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It wasn't Doug Wilson. Uh, though that did sort of come up a little bit with the Doug Wilson debate. Um, Strawbridge.

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Thank you very much. Turgeon fan with Greg Strawbridge. For some reason, that name just, just flew right out of my head. Uh, check that one out too.

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Alrighty, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you for, thank you for calling. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number and it always does help.

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And I have a few moments to actually look up texts before people ask about, uh, that, uh, that, that, that helps out a lot.

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Uh, let me, uh, go ahead and, uh, jump into this subject and then we can take your phone calls as well.

24:45

I was, uh, I've been criticized, uh, over the past two days, uh, for the fact that the end of the last program,

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I raised some issues, I played some clips from Emir Kanner. We had one Liberty student say, I aimed my guns at Emir Kanner.

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Now, I, once again, um, the, the issue is we have two gentlemen, uh, who have been proclaimed amongst

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Southern Baptists and amongst evangelicals as a whole, uh, to be experts in the subject of Islam.

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And the fact that there is in their publications, um, these issues where you have

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Hadith 957, which makes just as much sense as saying Bible 316, uh, that, that that's, that's a nonsensical statement.

25:30

I don't know how someone could proofread their book on the subject of Islam and not see that if they're actually doing something.

25:39

I mean, I have had to spend so much time. Anybody who works in this area realizes that sometimes what happens is someone will make a reference to Sahih al -Bukhari.

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Now, Sahih al -Bukhari is a large collection of, of statements.

25:55

And there is at least that I know of two, I think three different ways of referencing

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Sahih al -Bukhari and what you have on your computer might not match in any way, shape or form what you have in your hard copy.

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And so I have read people saying, okay, it's in Sahih al -Bukhari and here's the reference. And it is so difficult.

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I have spent great deals of time, great amounts of time just trying to track down a reference in, in the

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Hadith. And so you, you actually become a little more sensitive to that and the various ways that these, these collections are cited when you have to spend so much time doing your own work, tracking these things down.

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So, so that issue was very much on my mind when

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I played the, the comments from Ymir Kaner. So I had one Liberty student saying, you know, don't, don't train your guns on, on him.

26:54

And then we have our, our friend who called a couple of weeks ago, Hussein Wario.

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And he put up an article entitled Desperate Muslims and Ignoramus Christians.

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Now this isn't exactly brotherly stuff. This isn't overly nice. Ignoramus Christians. Now, Hussein's first language is not

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English. And there are things here that I will have to give the benefit of the doubt on because I don't really understand them.

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And they can be taken in more than one way. But in essence, he's talking about a, he says,

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I struggle with this war against ex -Muslims. Sir, there's no war against ex -Muslims.

27:38

It has nothing to do with ex -Muslims. If you want to talk about Mohammed Khan, you talk about Mohammed Khan.

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I'm not Mohammed Khan. And I don't have Mohammed Khan's reasons in doing what

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I have done. I have explained what my reasons are. And for some reason, Mr. Wario just doesn't hear what my motivations are.

27:57

I won't accept what my motivations are. Maybe he says I'm lying. I don't know. Doesn't have any evidence of that. It's amazing how many people are reading my heart these days.

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Without evidence. My concern remains the same thing.

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If I'm engaged in Islamic apologetics and I am, then I have to be consistent in calling for truth on both sides of the aisle.

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I cannot tell Muslims that they need to be honest and looking at the evidence about the readings in the

28:31

Ibn Masud tradition, the Quran, and look at how many times the

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Quran misrepresents the New Testament, that the author of the Quran was ignorant of the New Testament, didn't understand what

28:41

Christians believed, and therefore it couldn't be God. And say, you need to look at the truth.

28:47

You need to be consistent in your stance of argumentation. And then knowing that someone like Eric Cantor is running around saying,

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I have debated at Abdul Salib and Shabir Ali. No, you haven't. But if I keep my mouth shut about that, where's my credibility?

29:03

Where's my integrity? I can't do it. That's my motivation.

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This isn't a war against ex -Muslims in any way, shape, or form. I believe that both

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Ergun and Emir are ex -Muslims. I just don't believe they're experts on Islam. And that brings me to what

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I think is important. And we'll just have to keep on going here. I think taking a break at this point would be.

29:29

Oh, you want me to say something? Get my announcer voice up here.

29:35

Did you have, did you have a nice ad to put in here? You're going to do it live.

29:41

Well, okay, folks, as important as the Emir and Ergun Cantor thing is, when, when

29:47

Rich Pierce wants to do a live commercial spot, there is nothing more important than that.

29:58

So I'm going to stop right now, folks. You need to listen up right now. We'll just feather this together real quick.

30:04

And I'll mention the good through good. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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But the people listening by podcast won't be able to see this, will they? Well, actually, they're going to hear it. But we're going to date it that this offer is good through this

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Well, yeah, we're doing really cool stuff. They can only see it if they're listening live, watching the stream live, sort of, on their screen.

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No one's really watching except you guys. Yeah, well, there's people in the chat room that, anyway, and we've already established they're weird anyway.

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With the offer code, oo -ah, oo -ah, that's what you're supposed to do. The offer code is oo -ah, oo -ah?

31:09

No, the offer code is DL10, D -L -T -E -N in all caps. If you put that in at checkout, you'll get an additional 10 % off of your order that already is over $20.

31:20

Do you want to? You know what? Here, I'll give you a special treat here. Hang on here. Okay. Do you want to bet you're going to get a special offer code, oo -ah, oo -ah?

31:30

Oo -ah, oo -ah. Well, the card is prepared to handle such things, but hey, just so we can transition right back in to you.

31:42

What's all this then? Jamie, you broke this thing. The rookie broke it last week.

31:48

The rookie broke it last week. I blame the rookie. It didn't work last time for him either, and you must not have fixed it.

31:55

So there you go. This is a professional program right here. Now, see, I grew up doing radio, so watch how

32:02

I just take this thing back over and we just fly with it. Thank you very much,

32:09

Mr. Pierce. D -L -10, not oo -ah, oo -ah, is the code.

32:16

I just want to make sure if it gets that. D -L -10, not oo -ah, oo -ah. Wait a minute.

32:22

No, it's D -L -T -E -N is what you have up here, not D -L -1 -0. It's D -L -T -E -N.

32:28

I just want to make sure that's on airline Delta. It's D -L -T -E -N, but it's

32:33

D -L -T -E -N, followed by oo -ah, oo -ah. Okay, well, shift back into serious mode here now.

32:47

We do try to laugh at some things in life, even when talking about important things. Important thing that I was attempting to raise and trying to explain to St.

32:57

Mario, there's no war here against ex -Muslims. I believe that both these men are ex -Muslims, but I do have a question about why they're considered experts.

33:07

Now, later on, Mr. Wario makes some real comments. He talks about how

33:13

I am somehow ignoring scripture when I'm addressing people who've made public statements.

33:20

It just seems to me, I believe that Mr. Wario has some language context issues here and just doesn't seem to be hearing much of what

33:27

I'm saying or just rejects it. I'm not sure which. He says he's very disappointed in me. Ashamed, I think is what he says.

33:34

Yeah, I'm utterly ashamed of Dr. White. Well, given that I have simply spoken the truth, if you can be ashamed of me for speaking the truth, then what can

33:44

I say? But it's not a very brotherly approach, and it doesn't really take into account why it is that I said the things that I said in regards to Emu Cannon.

33:57

Now, later on, he talks about some of the things that I brought up.

34:03

I pointed out that Emu Cannon had misspoken. He was in error when he said that Jesus is mentioned by name 93 times.

34:12

And I even brought out on the program, and he simply ignored this, that what strikes you about that is,

34:19

A, anyone who has looked up Esau in, for example, the Cassis Concordance would know that his name appears 25 times.

34:28

B, I had seen that number used in secondary sources, and I even speculated, might this be indicative of the nature of Emu Cannon's study on this subject?

34:42

I even brought that up. But for some reason, Mr. Royer didn't catch that.

34:49

And so one of the things this made me do is to step back and ask all of you to join with me for just a moment in thinking about something.

35:01

On Dr. Emu Cannon's Truth is Immortal website, on About Dr.

35:06

Canor, we are informed of what the title of his doctoral dissertation was, and his dissertation was

35:16

The Truth is Unkillable, The Life and Writings of Balthazar Hubmeier, Theologian of the

35:22

Anabaptists. Dr. Canor is an expert in Anabaptist history and writings.

35:31

Now, there might be a few references given the Turks, the

35:36

Seljuk Turks and the political situation to Islam in his writings, but doing your dissertation on the

35:46

Anabaptists does not make you an expert in Islam. So why is Emu Canor considered an expert in Islam?

35:51

Because of his upbringing. But have you done the math, folks? Have you done the math?

35:58

See, there are some questions about exactly when the conversions of the

36:05

Canor brothers took place, because sometimes they've sort of overlapped with one another. But there seems to be in the early 1980s, 1982 approximately, that this conversion took place and that there was a year between Ergen's conversion and Emu's conversion.

36:26

Think about that for just a moment. When was Emu Canor born?

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1970, August 25th of 1970. If he's converted in 1982, he was 12 years old, 12 years old.

36:46

Now, think about something else. The divorce took place in 1975. That means that from five years of age on, his

36:57

Muslim father is not his custodial parent. He's not living in an Islamic household. Every other weekend, five weeks during the summer.

37:07

Now, think with me for just a moment, folks, for just a moment. If you knew of someone who was born to a

37:20

Christian father, but the family broke up when they were five and they converted to Islam at age 12, would you think much of their claim?

37:37

To be an expert on Christianity. In fact, ignore the divorce stuff.

37:44

Would anyone who converted to Islam at age 12 be considered an expert on Christianity?

37:57

Of course not. Would any teenager who is in a

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Christian church who converted Islam, would anybody out there go, wow, I bet you, wow, if they're conversion, that means a lot to me because they were obviously clearly experts on Christianity.

38:16

Of course not. And that's exactly what the Muslims are saying.

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When we turn this around and we are willing to enshrine people as experts in their form of religion when they converted at age 12.

38:38

Do you see the inconsistency? Do you see the double standard? What is the grounds of these men being experts in Islam?

38:49

If you ask them, if you listen to Ergenkanner, almost every one of his talks sounds the same.

38:56

He spends the vast majority of his time talking about his upbringing, Turkey and Jihad and Madrasa and all the rest of that stuff, which was actually

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Ohio. That does not make you an expert in Islam.

39:15

And so the point is, when you combine the documentation from their published works of citations of Islamic sources that would not even, you could not even find the references if you use that type of citation.

39:34

Together with what seems to be secondary source utilization in regards to how often

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Jesus is mentioned in the Koran, combined with a gross miscitation of Surah 4, 157 that takes an interpretation, slides it in there as if it's what actually should be actually means, which it isn't.

39:59

You put all this together and you don't think I have reason for concern.

40:07

You think that I'm being mean and unbalanced to go, you know,

40:13

I'm not really sure that converting to Christianity at 12 means that you should be viewed as an expert on your preceding religion.

40:23

Being a convert doesn't actually make you an expert on anything. How many times, go to my website, go to my website and look at my

40:35

YouTube videos. If you want to have evidence of this. How many times have I criticized the alleged converts to Islam because of their utter ignorance of Christianity?

40:50

How is that not exactly what Muslims have been pointing out in regards to Erdogan saying Ramadan is 40 days long?

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How can you not accept both as valid arguments? I don't understand it. We can't have one standard of truth within the

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Christian church and then another standard of truth outside of it. We can't say to the world, you need to be truthful.

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You need to examine our claims. And then inside the fellowship, all of a sudden, oh, well, he's a

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Christian. So he claims to be a Christian anyway. So we can't say anything about him. That's hypocrisy.

41:30

And we cannot go there. Now, I was pointed to Morel's Miscellany, who

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I guess is from around here in the Phoenix area, and an article that was posted yesterday, James White's utterly tendentious list of questions for Liberty University.

41:48

Evidently, this is someone who has been criticizing Erdogan for a long time, but not for the reasons that I have and feels that there is, and I've seen some really nasty stuff.

41:59

This isn't really rough stuff. I've found some stuff from some people at Liberty is just getting really nasty, dragging stuff up that's just not only grossly irrelevant, but just mean spirited.

42:14

And you know who you are if you're listening. But there seems to be this constant, you know,

42:27

James, let me rent you a clue. Debates prove nothing. They really don't. Well, that's nice.

42:33

It's funny. She's obviously involved in legal sphere. And you know who the people who've always done the worst against me in debate?

42:40

Lawyers. Lawyers don't know how to argue. So, you know, she gets pretty nasty in this.

42:48

But there's this constant theme. And that is, well, you've just got this fascination with Erdogan Cantor.

42:59

You didn't get that debate with Erdogan Cantor. So that's why you're doing this. It's just so silly.

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No one has actually called in to make that argument because they know that they wouldn't last 10 seconds with such foolishness as that.

43:14

But I did something. I went to my blog. Now, my blog, ever since 2004, has been the means by which

43:20

I've communicated with folks. Up until 2004, once in every blue moon, I'd write a new main page article, remember, for however long it was once we first had a website.

43:30

I forget. Sometime late 90s. And up until 2004, 96. So 96 is for eight years.

43:37

Once in a while, we'd update the front page article. And it wasn't more than, I don't know, five, six times a year, probably.

43:45

Then this blogging thing came along. And the blog has become a very active place.

43:51

And I think that's a very good thing. But the assertion has been made that I have this fascination with Erdogan Cantor.

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I just live to be constantly picking on Erdogan Cantor. If you go to the blog, you will start hearing discussions of Erdogan Cantor in 2005.

44:13

Because actually, we still got a hole in that. I don't know if we just lost it. Remember, something happened in the conversion.

44:19

And my Martin Luther King article fell into that hole. And there's a bunch of stuff missing.

44:25

But anyway, you'll find all sorts of stuff in 2006. In the run up to the non -debate in October of 2006, you'll find discussions of Calvinism and just all sorts of stuff and documentation of, well, a lot of dishonesty on Erdogan Cantor's part.

44:44

The hyper -Calvinist canceled the debate and all that kind of foolishness. And at the time, it should have told me something at the time, the way he handled that.

44:52

But interestingly enough, the thought in my mind was the reason that they were so rabid about this and the reason that they were so irrational and untruthful about what actually happened about the debate was actually because of their

45:04

Islamic background. They had said many times that what Calvinists believe, what

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Muslims believe, the same thing. See? And so I just attributed that. It never crossed my mind that there was an issue along those things.

45:17

But after 2006, is there evidence that I have just been fixated on Erdogan Cantor?

45:26

Well, do a search. Look for Erdogan. That's a nice, safe word as far as a good

45:32

Google search word, but use the blog search thing. And search in a two -year span from the middle of 2007 after the stuff in 2006 finally calmed

45:42

Middle of 2006 to the middle of 2007 to the middle of 2009. Two full years.

45:50

Search yourself. I did. There is one reference on April 24th, 2008 to Erdogan Cantor.

45:59

You know what it is? It's in the announcement of the John 316 conference. And it's one line.

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I said, I'm surprised Erdogan Cantor isn't coming. That's it. One passing reference to an anti -reformed conference.

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And that's it, folks. There's nothing else. Nothing there.

46:21

In fact, from the time the 2006 thing ended until late 2009, when the

46:30

Twitter thing happened and he blocked me, you sort of wonder if he sits around going, oh, if I just hadn't blocked

46:37

White, because it was because he had blocked me that I had to go to his Twitter page.

46:42

Someone had said, did you see what Erdogan Cantor said? I had to go to his Twitter page to get the context. And it was on the

46:48

Twitter page that I saw his bio where he talked about all the debates he's done in 11 countries and 40 states.

46:54

And that's when I put out the call. Where are these things? And that's what led eventually to an email from one

47:01

Mohammed Khan a little bit later on. And it was all because Erdogan Cantor blocked me from Twitter.

47:10

Isn't that ironic? But anyway, that was October 15th of last year. The fact of the matter is there is no fascination with Erdogan Cantor.

47:20

If Erdogan Cantor had not been making claims to do the things

47:26

I do and to debate the people that I debate, then none of this ever would have happened. But he does and he did.

47:34

And that's the issue. So the facts are against all of those who are attempting to say that this is just some fascination.

47:45

Look, we've made our stand. We have made our case. And we need to see it through now.

47:53

I'm not simply going to say, well, you know what? I'm tired of this. I'm going to stop talking about it. This has exposed a gaping hole in credibility in the evangelical community.

48:05

We have two standards. And as long as somebody says, Jesus, we don't seem to care whether they're telling the truth or not.

48:12

And that's wrong. And I'm not going to put up with it. I can't put up with it because I'm engaging in debate with people and saying, you need to be truthful.

48:22

You need to be upfront. He'll say, oh, yeah, well, but I'm not your doctor. Why have I been talking about that since 1998?

48:29

Do your homework, people. If my education at Columbia Evangelical Seminary has allowed me to stand toe to toe with John Dominic Cross and Marcus Borg, Robert Funk on the radio anyways,

48:43

Robert Price, Shabir Ali, and we could go on with a long list.

48:50

Why hasn't that done that for all these other folks who would never walk into a debate like that?

48:56

Why is my education capable of equipping me to do the research to do those things when their education seemingly isn't?

49:07

Do some research, folks. Look, I don't have any problem if you want to oppose me. Fine. Just be accurate for crying out loud.

49:15

Just be accurate. Recognize that I have defended the choices that I made in light of the fact that I wanted to do specialized study in a specialized area that was not offered anywhere else at that time, and I did not want to leave my ministry in my church.

49:30

I made those decisions, and I have established the wisdom of what I did, and I did it again last

49:38

Friday night because I'm the first person who has debated Robert Price and debated his position thoroughly.

49:48

So don't give me any of that stuff. If you're not going to do your homework, if you're not going to look at that stuff, don't even go there. Okay? It's not about me in the first place.

49:57

I've never criticized what Ergen Kanner did about just war theory in the

50:02

Inquisition and Crusades because it's not relevant to the claims that he makes, the claims that simply are mythological.

50:12

It's all there is to it. It's all there is to it. So there you go. There's a little more on that.

50:19

We have another caller, but we have a Skype caller here.

50:25

So let's talk with Justin. Hi, Justin. Hey, Dr. White. How you doing? I'm doing great.

50:33

What can we do for you? I was calling in to ask about 1 John 3, 6, and what the exact meaning of the text is on that verse because I've heard a lot of different views.

50:51

On that? Sorry. Sorry, guys. Sorry. And I was just wondering, you know, what would be your view on that verse?

51:03

Well, the discussion that John is presenting is the nature of the new birth.

51:12

Specifically, he says, everyone who thus hopes in him, beginning verse 3, purifies himself as he is pure.

51:21

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

51:31

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

51:36

And so there is a change. There is a death to sin. There is a new nature.

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And the person who continues to live in the lifestyle of sin continues to find sin to be something in which they are in love with it.

51:52

There is no repentance. There is no holiness. You're seeing the same thing here in a descriptive sense that you have, for example, in James 2 that says there is going to be a consistency between saving faith and the resultant life of the person who claims that saving faith.

52:11

A person who claims saving faith but has no evidence of it, which means they continue to live like the world, is a person who has empty words and has only words.

52:23

In the same way, the person claiming to love Christ and to love his brother but continues to walk in darkness, that is, continues sinning, there is a gross inconsistency there.

52:35

Now, remember, 1 John has already said, if any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

52:40

So he's not talking about sinless perfection, but he is talking about a lifestyle that is marked by sinfulness, a lifestyle, to use the words of 1

52:50

John 2, of one who continues to love the world. That love of the world and the things of the world has been broken, and there is a love of the

52:58

Father. And so these are very strong words, very important words in light of the easy -believism that has infected so much of evangelicalism.

53:10

And the fact we have these megachurches where people walk in on Sunday morning and they sit there and get entertained and get told about how wonderful they are, but the rest of their week, they never give

53:20

Jesus a second thought. The Lordship of Christ is irrelevant to them. There is no holiness. There is no purity. There is no brokenness over their sin.

53:28

These are words that will echo in the ears of all the false teachers who have led people astray in those ways.

53:37

Hello? Oh, I'm still here. I thought you were still going. That's great,

53:43

Doc. That's a good explanation. I've read that in a few commentaries, but I've heard some weird stuff on that verse.

53:53

Well, normally the focus is to ask the question in regards to the present tense is not sinning, and so over against an heiress or some type of iterative action.

54:08

But the description clearly, when you look at the context, is about style of life, and there is a break that exists in the regenerate person's experience between that constant dominion and domination of sin and the rule of the

54:24

Spirit. There has to be some evidence of the Spirit having entered the life. That's not what makes us save.

54:31

That's not what justifies us, but it is the result of the work of the Spirit in our lives. And this is one of the problems.

54:37

People who don't have a fully biblical view of salvation don't see that there is a purpose that God has in the

54:46

Spirit's presence in our life, that He is conforming us to the image of Christ, and that that is to bring glory to Him.

54:52

Man -centered views of salvation don't have that aspect, and so they inevitably become imbalanced, and the focus becomes on the person and their accomplishments and things like that, rather than the

55:03

Spirit accomplishing these things in their life for the purpose of the glorification of God. That's, again, the difference between a

55:09

God -centered reading of the Scriptures and a man -centered reading of the Scriptures. So that's important to keep in mind as well.

55:15

OK? All right. I really appreciate that, Doug. OK. Thanks, Justin. Thank you. All right. God bless. Thanks for calling.

55:21

Bye. All righty. Well, I tell you, when you have Skype, it sounds like the guest is sitting here in the room with you.

55:29

Yeah, it is pretty amazing how that sounds. So it is important to look very carefully at the text of those, and always never, ever look at a text and don't look at what came before it.

55:44

Establish the flow of thought. Establish what the argument is. And it's extremely important in doing sound exegesis.

55:52

Well, I would imagine by the time we get together next, in light of the fact that, as I mentioned,

55:57

I spoke with an associated press. And by the way, all these people have been contacting me.

56:04

I have been going live. I was actually rather excited a couple nights ago when the

56:10

AP story first broke that all the AP stories I saw made no mention of me. I would be gloriously happy if that was going to be it, the questions were going to be asked.

56:24

And by the way, when that one writer says, well, we could just boil all these down to five questions.

56:29

No, we couldn't have. Because I think we've pretty much established, and it's still up in the air, but I think it's been pretty much established.

56:35

That memo that was leaked internally from Ergin Kanner, because we wrote to the person who allegedly wrote it, and they won't even respond to us.

56:46

And that's how Liberty has been responding to everything. And if that had not been written by the man that had sent it out,

56:54

I think a denial would have been coming forth quickly. But since there was no denial at all,

56:59

I think that's good evidence that that was Ergin Kanner's article that was being sent around. And I've been told from people at Liberty that the response to Mohammed Khan does exist.

57:11

We just haven't seen it yet, but we will. It's going to come out. Someone's going to get hold of it. If it's not us, the

57:16

AP is going to get it. It's going to come out. These things cannot be kept in the shadows. You can't do secrecy anymore.

57:24

So something's going to happen. I would be very happy if, because of how

57:31

Ergin Kanner has responded to that, you have to have very specific questions. You can't just go with generic questions, and you're just going to get generic answers that are not going to actually address the issue.

57:42

But I would be willing to bet that by next Tuesday, there will be something new. There's going to be a new development.

57:49

I would be very happy if it did not involve me. But if it is, I'm not going to shirk from my duties.

57:57

I'm not going to duck these things. We have spoken the truth. We have been fair. We have asked for answers from the very beginning that have not been forthcoming.

58:07

So we've done nothing wrong here. We have simply brought these issues to light.

58:13

And it continues to be my prayer that as those issues come to light, that there will be repentance, there will be confession and repentance, because that's what needs to happen for the continuation of the ministry amongst

58:28

Muslims. We have to demonstrate that we actually believe what we tell the Muslims we believe.

58:34

That's what's important. Thanks for listening to The Vowing Line. We'll see you, Lord willing, next Tuesday. God bless. We need a new reformation day.

59:31

The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

59:39

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:45

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.