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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. 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.
Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. 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 United States.
It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.
Good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. An unusual program today. I was unable, due to traveling schedule, to be with you yesterday. Will not be able to do so tomorrow at the regular time or the following Tuesday or the following Thursday.
Hopefully the Tuesday thereafter, which would be sometime after the 9th of June, we will be able to reestablish The Dividing Line on a semi-regular basis. But lots of traveling, heading to the United Kingdom, be speaking at the Metropolitan Tabernacle School of Theology at the beginning of July.
So lots of stuff going on. And that does interrupt our little get-together here called The Dividing Line. So sneaking one in today at an unusual time. I imagine that will impact our phone calls a good bit.
But please, if you do wish to call today, please don't wait until the last 15 minutes. Once again, as people always tend to do, it's a toll-free number, so we're paying the bill anyways. If you're online, then that's going to help me to figure my time and what topics we address and things like that.
So 877 -753 -3341. I was writing, and I mentioned this, I believe, on the last Dividing Line, if I recall correctly. I have been over in California. I mentioned in my blog that we were doing some video shooting, some I guess you call them drop-ins for the next season of The Way of the Master, which is on apologetics.
We're going to be covering Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholicism and Islam. And for some odd reason, I have something to say about those subjects. And so we were getting together and worked very hard on Monday.
In fact, you can sort of hear in my voice that I have yet to fully recover. That's not so much because of that, but because I was already coming down a little something at the time. So you put the two of them together, and I'm sounding rather nice and basey today, but not feeling overly bad, just sound worse than I actually am feeling.
But anyway, worked real hard on that. And if I recall correctly, I had said, was it on the last Dividing Line? When would I have done that? That would have been Thursday. No, couldn't have been. It must have been talking to somebody else.
I don't know. Don't remember who I've been talking to, what the context is, whatever. I was writing sometime recently, and I was listening to Jamal Badawi on an Islamic television program discussing the issue of Muhammad in the Quran.
I'm sorry, Muhammad in the Bible. It's a lot about Muhammad in the Quran. That wouldn't be an overly difficult subject to address. Muhammad in the Bible. And once again, as I've mentioned many times, I listen to these things.
I remember exactly where I was on the trail when Dr. Badawi began to address, Badawi, Badawi, depends on who you're talking to, begins to address the issue, and this is 12 minutes and 54, 55 seconds into this particular program.
All this stuff is available on the web. If you want to go looking for it like I did, you can find it yourself. But he is addressing the other biblical passages, quote unquote, in regards to Muhammad. And I was shocked.
I honestly was shocked when he, well, why don't we just listen to it together, and you can see why I was shocked.
In my answer, or your answer to my previous question, you referred to this, you made references to the fact that the expected prophet would be not only a prophet, but also would be involved in a leadership capacity, would be a ruler, or a head of state.
That's right. Are there any other references in the Bible that indicate that these references refer to Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him? There are plenty. In fact, I give you a few of them.
For example, in Isaiah, the book of Isaiah actually is quite rich with this type of prophecies. In chapter 9, particularly verses 2 through 7, there is mentioned there, very specifically, especially in verse 7, that the increase of his government and peace, sorry, that's the verse before that.
In verse 6, it says, the government shall be upon his shoulder. The government shall be upon his shoulder. In other words, he would shoulder also a responsibility as a leader of a government and head of state.
Now, the other aspect about it also is that the very same chapter talks, for example, in verse 2, about the people that walked in the darkness have seen great light. They that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.
Talking about people who were in the darkness. And what could be more dark than the pre-Islamic Arabs? People who were involved in all idolatry practices and all kinds of deviations from the truth. So they were really living in this darkness and the light that shined forth for those people really is nothing but Islam that brought them again to the level that God wanted for them.
The level of people who have not only been believers but even carriers of the torch of guidance to the rest of the nation. In addition to this, if you continue also in the same chapter, chapter 9, you will find that other descriptions are given that this person will be called wonderful and anybody who has studied the history of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, will realize again how much achievements were made in such a short time.
How superb was he as a missionary. If you use the term missionary, somebody who conveys the message of God and how even his enemies come with him. Some of them were so much attracted by his manners and his kindness that they embraced Islam after so much enmity.
It says also he will be called counselor. That is, provided guidance for people in all aspects of life. It mentions also he will be called everlasting father. In a sense also, when you take it metaphorically, that he will be the spiritual father of prophets.
Because he is the edifice, the last of all prophets who brought the message of all these prophets into fulfillment. He is described in the same chapter also as the prince of peace. And the word peace, as you know, is one of the words which comes from the same root as the word Islam comes because Islam means achieving peace through submission to the will of God.
And as such, we can say also that the Prophet Muhammad is the prince of peace because of as the Quran describes him as Awwal al-Muslimin. That's in particular in chapter 39, verse 12. That he is remembered as the first or the foremost among the peacemakers or the people who submit or achieve peace by submitting to God.
It also mentions that there would be no end to his peace. In some other translations of the Bible, it says no end to his kingdom. That is, there is no end to his teaching and history manifests that. That for 200 years after him, we find that Islam still continues and grows and now constitutes about one fifth of the total world population and still on the go.
So there is no end actually to his message. That is, it has not been abrogated or superseded by any other revelation that came after him. And finally, in addition to all of these cues that you get in chapter 9 of Isaiah, in the book of Habakkuk...
Well, we'll go ahead and stop right there because we don't need to try to overload things here. I had never heard anyone attempt to apply Isaiah chapter 9 to Muhammad before. It was ironic. We were playing some music in the pre-feed.
It was, Unto Us a Child is Born and to Us a Son is Given. And it's the same section. But did you notice something? I was writing and I put my headphones on in such a way that my left... They weren't the normal headphones I use while writing and so I was getting a lot of wind noise and so I was sort of straining at times.
But I was pretty certain, and I've verified now by listening to this, that... Did you notice what was missing? It was pretty obvious because what was the first thought, if you're a biblically literate Christian and you know a little something about the Bible, what was the first thought you thought of once you started hearing Isaiah chapter 9?
Well, first of all, there's two things that were missing in Isaiah chapter 9 that didn't even get touched slightly in the comments that were just given by Jamal Badawi on the subject of Isaiah 9 -6. First of all, it starts off, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.
And you may recall when I played on the air just a little while ago the third ayah of Surah 112, and I talked about the relationship there where it says, He begets not, neither is he begotten. The connection to what?
The term yeled, yalud, that is a direct crossover in the Semitic languages between Hebrew and Arabic, and that is the term, of course, that is found in Isaiah 9 -6. And I have mentioned before that when it says, For to us a child is born, that is the normal term.
A yalud, a child, is born, and that's the natural way of birth. That is the physical birth. And then I point out, isn't it interesting that then says, To us a son is given. And I've tied this together with the dual nature of Christ, the fact that you have a real physical birth of a human being, and yet then you have, To us a son is given.
That got skipped. That just went right on by, didn't even mention that. It went straight into, The government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
That's all that got discussed. And like I said, I was writing and I was going, Did I miss something? Was there, and I was pretty certain that I didn't miss anything. I didn't miss anything. El Gabor, Mighty God, was completely skipped.
Just wasn't even, wasn't even touched. Now, if I was to take a wild guess, and I'm obtaining my resources on this subject at the moment, but I'm going to take just a wild guess before some of those books arrive.
That would be the background of the presentation here. I'm just going to take a wild, wild guess, and say that in the books that actually do address it, instead of it being called Mighty God, they're probably going to do the bad Jehovah's Witness argument routine.
And in fact, I'm finding it fascinating as I listen to Islamic apologists, how often their arguments either mirror the arguments of Jewish apologists against the New Testament, or those of Jehovah's Witnesses.
They're normally not as well stated as those groups, but that's what you get. And so, my guess is going to be that they're going to use the El Gabor means Mighty Warrior explanation, and make the application Mighty Warrior, you know, Muhammad is the Mighty Warrior, etc., etc.
Now, of course, this very same Hebrew phrase, El Gabor, is used of Jehovah God in the very next chapter. Whenever you're talking to one of Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, you're using this text, you always want to know that in the very next chapter in Isaiah 1021, you will find the very same Hebrew text being used, but there it's specifically of Jehovah.
Why? Because Jehovah's Witnesses will say, well, yes, he's a Mighty God, but he's not the Almighty God. And to be able to establish it in the same immediate context, El Gabor is used as a clear reference to deity.
You're certainly not going to be applying El Gabor to Jehovah, to Yahweh, in such a way as to say he's just a Mighty Warrior. It means he's really good in battle or something along those lines. You're not going to be wanting to do that.
So, but he didn't even touch it there. Now, alright, I understand he was being asked specifically about governmental, you know, leadership roles, stuff like that. But if you're going to do Wonderful and Counselor and Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace and try to talk about Everlasting Father in some metaphorical sense, and then, of course, you know, you heard the Prince of Peace, and that's related to the same word from which Islam comes, and he's right about that, of course.
Shalom and Islam are related to one another. However, it is very important to recognize that Islam itself does not mean peace. It means submission. It means submission. It would be the peace that would come from the victorious king having his foot upon the neck of the defeated foe who is now in proper submission to the victor.
That's the kind of peace that is being discussed here. Ever since 9 -11, for some odd reason, what had been accepted by everybody beforehand, that Islam means submission, all of a sudden became Islam means peace.
And all you've got to do is turn on your television any day, and you will have multitudes of evidence provided to you that Islam brings peace every single day. So just keep that in mind. But now we could go into all of those applications that were made in regards to government resting upon his shoulder.
It was just fascinating. The servant in Isaiah is applied to Muhammad. The servant in Isaiah. But, of course, the problem is, wait a minute, the servant in Isaiah is the anointed one, is the Mashiach, the Messiah.
I'm once again reminded of the fact that once you reject the idea that the Bible is a consistent revelation, and once you embrace the idea that the Bible is corrupted and the original authors corrupted it and then people corrupted it after the original authors corrupted it and all the rest of the stuff, then you can make mincemeat out of it.
You can do with it whatever you want. You can pick and choose what phrases you want, what words you want. You don't have to worry about context anymore. And, of course, no Muslim would ever allow you to do that to the Koran.
But you could present your theories that you believe that the Koran has been corrupted, and it's been changed over time in those early decades, and blah, blah, blah. And you can do the same thing. They'll never accept that.
Once again, the inconsistency issue comes up in a very large way. But it was fascinating to hear all of the Messianic texts, vital Messianic texts, being applied to Muhammad. Of course, everybody knows the primary one that they utilized, Deuteronomy 18, the prophet from amongst your brethren, the natural way of reading that.
It's not the way they read it, but they come up with all sorts of interesting things. But the rod of Jesse. Jesse becomes a contraction for Ishmael. So it becomes Muhammad, even though Paul quotes it in Romans 11 of Christ.
And there's almost nothing that you can find that in some way, shape, or form is going to be able to be applied to Muhammad. And this was amazing to me, since an entire program was dedicated to this. Was the attempt, once again, and I can't think of...
I would love to see if it would be possible to arrange a debate with Dr. Badawi on this particular subject. And that is, an entire program was dedicated to the idea that Paracletos in John 14 and 16, the Paraclete, that is, the Holy Spirit, is actually Muhammad.
I remember when I first ran into that many, many moons ago, I forget what the context was, but it was back when we still had the old 266 .2 LDS, 266 .2 JWS, 266 .2 RCC phone numbers around here. And I remember recording a message.
I don't know which one we put it on. It wouldn't make any sense on any particular one. But I remember recording a message. We put it in our old computerized... What was that thing called? Something, Super Voice?
That was called Super Voice. Yeah, Super Voice. The Super Voice computer program that you could call into and you could play messages and stuff like that. It wasn't a bad idea, but it's somewhat dated information.
Dated technology, I mean. But I remember recording a message going through just how ridiculous it is to try to say that Paracletos had actually been changed and it actually was originally the exalted one.
How could Muhammad be in each one of us? Talk about a demonstration of gross eisegesis. Just ripping a text to shreds is this attempt to make the Holy Spirit of John 14 and 16. And it was so sad. I wonder if I...
It took me... How long was I trying to get that particular clip? I was working on that particular clip quite some time. A good hour today just to find that one thing. Because my MP3 player, when I started writing, was set on random.
So even though it was playing the playlist of the Muhammad in the Bible stuff, it wasn't doing it in order. And so I get back, it's like, which file was that? And there's a bunch of files. And so I spent a good hour or more before the program listening to one minute, every one minute through all these programs until I finally found that thing.
But there's another one here when it talks about Jesus as the paraclete, or Muhammad as the paraclete. And I've got it up here now, but it's a 30-minute file, so trying to find the exact one would be pretty difficult to do, unfortunately.
Well, anyway, they attempt to respond to various objections. It sounds to me, I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like the host of this program is a convert from Christianity. He's an American convert to Islam because he just sort of sounds that way.
And he raises various issues and objections and stuff, and they attempt to respond to them in the program. And it's interesting, Badawi seems to know that there's really no textual basis upon which to say that paraclete has been changed from another Greek word, which would mean exalted one.
But then in the next program, I think it was in the next program, when he summarizes that, he'll use terms like no doubt or certainly. What was not overly certainly said all of a sudden grows into a great certainty.
And it was just amazing to hear the just utter eisegetical nonsense that was being put out to attempt to come up with this idea. And at one point, he mentions Augustine and Tertullian. And he says, at one point in their lives, Augustine and Tertullian both believed that there were men who were the paraclete.
And that would be true, because remember, Tertullian became a Montanist, and they followed that doctrine, and of course, Montanists claim to be the Holy Spirit. And Augustine had earlier been involved.
Well, Augustine was involved with a bunch of silly religion before his conversion. But then he says, and that shows that there was great confusion amongst early Christians as to the interpretation of this text.
That does not follow in any way, shape, or form. Just because there's all sorts of different Islamic groups, doesn't mean that you can then say, well, there's a tremendous amount of confusion as to what Muhammad originally taught or anything along those lines.
But then what really bothered me was, once again, if Jamal Badawi does not at least understand, obviously he's going to reject, but if he does not at least understand the doctrine of the Trinity, then it's just so frustrating.
I've shared with Shabir Ali, when I hear him saying, well, the doctrine of the Trinity, Yahweh is a separate person from Jesus. No, that's not what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches. And here Jamal Badawi is saying, well, you know, when the Spirit is spoken of here, it uses a masculine pronoun which refers to a person, not to a spirit.
And I'm like, ah, we believe that the Holy Spirit is a person. I mean, to any Christian who knows what he believes, that's like when I had somebody write to me today, and once again was talking about Calvinism, C-A-L-V-A-N-I-S-M.
And I wrote back and I said, you know, you consistently do this. That demonstrates you've never read anything from our side of the aisle. It's like spelling Mormonism, M-O-R-M-A-N-I-S-M. Whenever I see somebody do that, it's like smack, smack, smack.
And same thing here. If you're not going to at least have some idea of what it is that we believe, who are you trying to impress with this kind of argumentation? I don't get it. I just do not begin to understand it.
But anyway, that's what it is. So quite interesting listening to this kind of a presentation and hearing Isaiah 9 -6, that tremendous text fulfilled in Christ. And they see in Islam, for example, the government, they see that as the spread of Islam.
You heard him talking about those who sat in darkness have seen a great light. New Testament says that's the gospel, right? What does Jamal Badawi say? That's the pre-Islamic Arabs who were involved in idolatry coming to learn Islam.
Now, would anybody have guessed that? Well, no, they certainly wouldn't. So anyway, it's absolutely amazing to me to listen to this stuff, and I'm sure there's much more that I'll be sharing with you in the future as well.
And it certainly, once again, reminds us of the need to know our scriptures and to know the scriptures on a foundational level and to be able to give an answer for the hope that is within us. And that involves a lot of things.
Oh, by the way, just one other thing. Did you notice what else was missing? Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
How can Muhammad fulfill that? There are so many of these prophecies that would require one who, as Paul described it, has defeated death, would be the only way to fully fulfill such a high and lofty language.
Well, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, and that is the phone number that Tim called. Hi, Tim. How are you? Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. Well, I could be doing better. So if I all of a sudden stop talking for a moment, it's because I hit the cough button and I'm trying to find a voice again.
But other than that, we're just fine.
Well, that's good to hear. I have a question about Jehovah's Witnesses and the Divine Name. Actually, I called a couple of months ago about just still dealing with someone close in our family who's been kind of sucked into their teachings and stuff, and I'm going to actually meet with him next week to talk about some stuff.
Meeting with just him, or are there going to be Jehovah's Witnesses with him?
Oh, yeah, there's going to be Jehovah's Witnesses there, too. I can only imagine this is going to go all over the place.
Well, let's hope not. Let's honestly hope not, because generally you don't get anywhere at that particular point if it does. But let's tackle this one, and then maybe we can talk about some tips on how to try to keep the conversation going in the right direction.
Will you be alone, by the way?
I will be there. My wife will be there, and this person, and whoever the person has been teaching them. Okay, all right. Basically, one of the things this person keeps telling us is in her mind that there's some type of the Christian English Bible translators that have taken the name of God out of the Bible.
There's like this massive conspiracy, and we're all...
Yeah, which is why I was just using Jehovah and Yahweh and talking about Islam and why we have the name Jehovah in our hymns and stuff like that. But it's because L-O-R-D in the Old Testament is used in capital form, or G-O-D in capital form, to represent the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Wau-Heh, and they have the name Jehovah in the Old Testament, and therefore we're trying to hide the divine name, right?
Exactly. That's exactly what they say.
Well, a couple of things to keep in mind. I don't have any problem whatsoever in pronouncing the divine name when I quote the Shema, Shemah Yisrael, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Echad. I use Yahweh there. I do not substitute Adonai, as the Jews do when they cite that, because that's what the text says.
Very frequently, anybody at the Feeding Foreign Baptist Church can tell you that probably at least once a year, I remind everybody of how to recognize the divine name in an English translation. It doesn't have it in the Old Testament, because it is important.
When you talk with LDS folks, in fact, we have a German LDS fellow in channel right now, and he can tell you that I discussed with him, within the past two weeks or so, maybe about ten days, the identity of Jehovah and Elohim in the Old Testament.
I gave him the reference to the LDS Bible Dictionary that tells him how to recognize that, etc., etc., etc. In other words, we're not ignorant of the divine name. We're not trying to hide the divine name.
I don't have any problem with rendering it in that way and utilizing it, and so on and so forth. But what you might want to do here, and this is, again, it's sort of a... The catch -22 that you're up against, Tim, is this.
Jehovah's Witnesses, depending on who is meeting with you, Jehovah's Witnesses tend to be frightened by someone who gives evidence of having done in-depth study of what the Witnesses themselves believe.
Now, for some Witnesses, that actually excites them. They actually feel somewhat respected by that, and you can end up having a nice, good, long conversation. I've had other Witnesses who presented with the exact same material, zipped up their book bags, and were heading for the door because they assumed you had to be some sort of an apostate or an active opposer or whatever it might be in those particular situations.
And so you have to, as you're talking with somebody, you've got to try to make some decisions, pray about it while you're doing it as to just how much information you're going to be presenting to any particular group of Jehovah's Witnesses.
But in this situation, you do have a means of really turning this particular subject around into a very useful presentation that can get you back into some good material to present and that demonstrates some problems of Watchtower Society.
Because has your friend mentioned to you or family member mentioned to you that not only is the name Jehovah in the Old Testament of the New World Translation, it is in the New Testament of the New World Translation 237 times?
Well, that's one of the things I started thinking. I know they use the Westcott-Hort text and stuff, and I'm guessing they probably put Jehovah in places in the New Testament that it's not being cited from the Old Testament.
Well, here's the situation.
The text they use really isn't all that important, actually. And there are no Greek New Testament manuscripts that contain the Tetragrammaton anyway. They are replacing Kurios with Jehovah. The problem is, what resources do you have as far as their materials?
Do you have their reference edition of the Bible?
I have a 1984 New World Translation. I was trying to get a hold of the case.
Is that a hardback brown version?
The New World Translation is hardback black. Hardback black. Okay.
This should have it. If it's a fairly decent size, is it a small one or is it a pretty decent size? You could smack somebody with it pretty good.
You could probably hurt someone with this thing, but it's small. Oh, it's small. Okay. All right.
That may not have it, and my Jehovah's Witness library is in boxes someplace at the moment, so I couldn't grab it anyways. In the reference edition, 84 reference edition, those coming afterwards, and the ones before it too, but I'm thinking specifically of the 84 reference edition, big brown thing, full-size book, you will find in the New Testament, when you find the name Jehovah used, those 237 times, in the reference notes they will refer to what are called the J documents.
The J documents, the New World Translation will tell you, are Hebrew translations of the New Testament, and they cite these as substantiation for their insertion of the name Jehovah. Now, if I recall correctly, we have an old, old track that maybe we can track down for you, that we can send to you, because you'd want to have this, called Hiding the Divine Name, and Hiding the Divine Name might be in one of those bins out there.
There's got to be something someplace, because it's not like we had them to send out to people. It's not like we'd be passing a lot of those out. I can guarantee you, if we look hard enough, we'll find Hiding the Divine Name around here someplace.
But that track goes through and demonstrates that, as my recollection is, the earliest J document they cite is from the 13th century. They're actually citing these as if that somehow is relevant to determining the text of the New Testament.
But, the thing is, there are a number of places where the J documents that they list insert the name Jehovah in reference to Jesus. But they don't tell you that in the New World Translation. And in this track we have called Hiding the Divine Name, which now we must find anyways, we provide photocopies of those J documents.
You demonstrate, these are the ones being cited. Here's the photocopy of the J document. Here's where it's being cited, and it's being cited, for example, why don't they, in Romans 10, call upon the, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
There's the term kurios. In the Old Testament, it's Yahweh, but they leave Lord in. Why? Because in the context, it's about Jesus. So, even when it clearly should say Jehovah, 1 Peter 3 .15, treat the name of Jehovah, there and again, it's about Jesus.
They don't do it. They had the documents. They knew it was there. They suppressed that information. And so what you can do is demonstrate and use this as a transition into the demonstration of the fact that the New Testament does identify Jesus as Jehovah.
And that to me, whenever I witness Jehovah's Witnesses, if I'm going to be sitting down talking with Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm going to be talking about the most important stuff that separates us, I am going to get into the demonstration of the fact that Jesus is identified as Yahweh.
Because for a Jehovah's Witness, you can argue until the cows come home about God, a God, divine being, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If Jesus is identified as Jehovah, the case is closed. The issue is over with.
And if you can identify and especially use their materials to do so, which you can. The New World Translation is actually helpful to you here if you know how to use it. And you can identify Jesus as Jehovah.
Man, I'll tell you, that communicates in a way that almost nothing else does. So that might be a transitionary method to be able to go that direction. That's good.
I actually did see, I think it was an effective evangelism paper in the CRI Journal that you had done. Right, right.
About Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1, and I also do mention that in the Forgotten Trinity. Right. But hopefully in the CRI paper, I also mentioned the order in which you want to present the text. Right. It's very important to present, especially the Hebrews 1 text, by starting with Psalm 102, 25 -27.
By asking them to read that from the New World Translation. And in fact, this might be an even more effective way to do it. If you're a little bit concerned about the complexity of the J documents, you want to hold that off a little bit.
What you might want to do, since the topic is going to be Jehovah in the Old Testament, is to go to Psalm 102 and say, now I can look at my translation, and I can see that Psalm 102 is addressed to Jehovah.
And I can go down here, and I can see L-O-R-D in caps, and here Jehovah is this, and Jehovah is that. And this is all addressed to Jehovah, and then you go into 25 -27, and you can ask, Now, are these things that only Jehovah can do?
Only Jehovah alone is unchangeable? Only Jehovah does not age? Jehovah alone created all things, etc., etc.? Aren't these unique aspects that's descriptive only of Jehovah? Well, yes, that's true. Well, could you stay there in Psalm 102, and explain to me why, over here, in Hebrews 1, verses 10 -12, we read this.
Direct quotation of Psalm 102, 25 -27, but you don't put the name Jehovah in there, because this is about the Son. Why not be consistent in your insertion of the Divine Name in the New Testament? Are you just trying to avoid the identification of Jesus as Jehovah, which the writer to the Hebrews does here?
So that would be another way to do it. You get your opportunity of presenting that, and you're also then laying a foundation for, if you want to talk about the J documents and the suppression that the Society has done, you can go from that direction, too, and you've already established the biblical foundation.
So there's a number of different ways you could go there, depending, obviously, Tim, on the willingness of these Jehovah's Witnesses to allow a conversation to actually take place, because, believe me, I've been in that situation many times, and sometimes they are willing, sometimes they're not, and there's only so far you can go when they're reaching for their book bag, or they become...
I've had Jehovah's Witnesses actually become abusive in situations like that, too. So, you know, these could be two little old ladies who you can talk for three hours. I don't know. It's hard to say. Well, wait a minute.
Now, Tim, I need to tell you, though, the one time I have ever been physically assaulted, actually touched, I've been threatened... Remember that guy rich up in Salt Lake City without the shirt on with the knife?
Remember the crazy guy that was screaming about circumcision? Whoa! But he never touched me. The one time that I have actually been slapped across the face and sent sprawling to the floor was by a little old Jehovah's Witness lady.
We were in someone's home, and we were talking, and I wanted to show her, to show them, because it was she and her husband. I felt sorry for the husband later, because he had to look at his face going, yep, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
But anyway, I wanted to show them the change in John 14, 14 in the New World Translation. In John 14, 14, they don't even follow the Westcott and Hort Greek text. They try to hide a reference to prayer to Christ by taking out the word, me.
Jesus says, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. But they just simply have, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. And you can go to the Kingdom Interlinear, you can show them the Greek word, me.
They translate it in the Interlinear portion, but it's not in the New World Translation. And I was trying to show them that, and they couldn't see it. And I was sitting across from them. So I went over, and I knelt down next to them.
So I'm next to the little old lady, and then there's a little old man sitting next to her. I have my Kingdom Interlinear translation, I have it open, and I'm showing it to them. And I'm showing them, see, here's me in the Greek, and it's missing over here.
And I point to her Bible and show her that. And she looks at the Bible, and she looks at the Kingdom Interlinear, and she looks at me, and she just takes her hand and just smacks me right across the face.
Now, I'm already kneeling down, so I've only got one direction to go. Boom, you know, I'm on my back on the floor. And, of course, the Christian family that had invited me over to talk to these folks, they're sitting there with their mouth open, and she's fuming.
And like I said, the husband did not look nearly as shocked as he probably should have.
Oh, man. That's good.
So, yeah, just because this lady may be in her 70s, all that means is, you know, you might want to sit when you show her these things, not just kneel next to her, or you'll end up on your back. But actually all that probably means is you're going to have to just be very careful to be very clear and slow in your presentation.
And then the big key, the big, big, big key is once you've made the presentation, let's say you have just made a tremendously clear application of Hebrews chapter 1. You closed the door by making them admit that the specific attributes of Jehovah that are discussed there, immutability, unchangeability, can only be applied to Jehovah.
They couldn't be applied to anybody else. You've made the application. They see it there. And then there's this moment, this silent moment that comes. And if you're out for blood and you're just out for sport and you want to run your sword through somebody, this is where you sit there and go, so what do you say about that?
But if you want the encounter to go well and you want this to be something that's going to be in their mind for a long period of time, what you do is you go, now it wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to answer this without giving you an opportunity of looking things up and having an opportunity to study it out.
Could you get back to me on that? Now they're in a tough spot now because you've shown them something right out of their own Bible. Because remember, the CRI thing, I mentioned this, I mentioned it, I think of the footnote in the Forgotten Trinity.
You can use their references, their center column references, in any New World translation. And Hebrews chapter 1 will tell you that what's being quoted is Psalm 102, 25 -27. And you can point that out to them.
It's not that you're just making up this connection. Their own Bible has it. And so since you've shown them something from their own Bible, and normally they're the ones doing that to other people, that can really catch their attention.
And so when you say, could we get together again and once you've had an opportunity to look at this, they're in a hard spot to say no. I mean, it's very difficult for them. And then what you immediately do is you go, oh, and could I show you another one?
And once again, they're in a hard place to say no. I mean, they want to say no. They want to say we're out of here. But I've found, I've never had one of them say, no, you cannot show me another one. No, we will not look at another Bible verse with you.
Et cetera, et cetera. And that's when I go for the John 12, 39 -41, Isaiah 6 connection. Right, right. So I do Hebrews 1, 10 first, because I can start with the least controversial for them text, Psalm 102, 25 -27, and talk about Jehovah.
I mean, Jehovah's Witnesses are like, you know about Jehovah and you know where Jehovah's used? I mean, it's the perfect way to, and people say, oh, you're being tricky. No, I know how Jehovah's Witnesses think.
They are a part of a group that has taught them to think in such a way as to not see God's truth. And so I need to think with wisdom. How am I going to communicate with them clearly? And so that's the way you do it, to communicate with them clearly.
And I've seen Jehovah's Witnesses walk out of an encounter just dazed, because they just couldn't believe that they'd never seen this before. I mean, they're ready for John 1 -1. They can give you quotes forever on John 1 -1.
This is not the stuff that people are presenting to them. And so they're just amazed when someone can talk about Jehovah, demonstrate that Jesus identifies as Jehovah. Sometimes I've gone into it by saying, well, you know, one of the proofs of the doctrine of the Trinity to me is the fact that the name Jehovah is used of three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So you have one name used of three persons. We know Jehovah's the only one true God, so this is one of the biblical evidences. And they're like, what? I said, well, you'd agree that the Father identifies as Jehovah, right?
Well, of course. Well, let's look at these passages that identify Jesus as Jehovah. And so again, instead of saying, well, you know, the Council of Nicaea said, which really doesn't go over well with Jehovah's Witnesses, most anybody else, you know, by staying biblical, they're just amazed.
And the nice thing is that they won't take Christian literature with you. I've never had a Jehovah's Witness leave their Bible behind. So once you show them something, they're in the text. They're going to take it with them.
And every time they see it again, and, you know, you pray that the Lord will do that frequently, remind them of that, they've got to remember, you know, I don't know how to answer that. And you hope that that's going to be the first step in bringing them to know the truth.
Good. I could give you the whole time, but just real quick. That's okay. No one else is calling.
Nobody loves me, so it doesn't matter. Okay, cool then. Forget them. Could you just very quickly just reiterate the stuff about the J documents? Sure. I'm actually taking notes.
Okay, yeah. Drop us an email, and we'll track it down. I know at the very least, I know where that tract is in my notebook in the other half of my library, which is still someplace else, and I know where that is.
So at the very least, you've got a photocopier. We can photocopy the thing, and you can get it. The J documents are cited by the Watchtower Society in the Watchtower magazine and in the 84 reference edition and in the reference editions they're following.
They are Hebrew translations of the Old Testament, and they are cited in the footnotes similarly to how a Greek New Testament might cite Codex Sinaiticus or something along those lines as if, see, these Hebrew translations agree with us here in inserting the name Jehovah into the New Testament.
These are Hebrew translations of the New Testament that use the divine name at these points, and there's these 237 points where they've inserted it. The problem is when they first introduced this concept in the creation of the New World Translation, they told Jehovah's Witnesses, we're giving you all of the places where these documents insert the name Jehovah.
That's just simply a lie. It's not true. And these J documents actually insert the name Jehovah in places that the New World Translation doesn't, and the reason is that would identify Jesus as Jehovah.
So there is a clear theological bias even in the utilization of resources. Let's be honest. I think, and again, I'm going off of stuff here right now that's like 15 years old in my brain, but I think that the last J document they cite is from 1935.
So 15 years before and 18 years before they began work on the New World Translation. So, I mean, not exactly an ancient document type situation, you know? But that's what they're utilizing. So if they have the reference edition, then you can point to that.
The problem is if they don't and you don't, it would be really difficult to go that direction and utilize that information unless you can provide documentation, photocopies, whatever it might be. Now, you should be able to get hold of a reference edition at a local library.
Used bookstores very frequently have a large selection of really good Jehovah's Witness materials.
That's actually where I got this black copy. It was two bucks.
Yeah, yeah. But now, if you're saying it's fairly small, the reference edition is a good eight inches tall, at least eight inches tall and six inches wide type thing. It's a hefty volume. And that's the one you especially want to be able to have to make photocopies out of and things like that that have the reference notes and things like that in them.
And those J documents will be there. I can't remember off the top of my head. I suppose I could fire up the Watchtower Library CD-ROM here on my laptop, but the Kingdom and Linear might have them as well.
I'm trying to remember if it does or doesn't, but the Kingdom and Linear might have it. You know what we're going to have to do, Rich, is we're going to have to put a bookshelf in here and put basic reference stuff.
Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Purgatory at Price, Kingdom and Linear, 84 reference edition, stuff like that, so I can reach and grab. Once we get the library going, that's what we're going to have to do.
That's just how it's going to have to work. So, anyways, hopefully that will be useful for you, Tim. Obviously, if they throw a few more things out there, we'll be more than happy to try to be of assistance to you in providing an answer, too.
Wow, I appreciate this. This is good stuff.
Well, and this is good stuff for the listeners, too, because you're not the only one in this situation. I mean, this is Basic Witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses 101. This is the stuff, interestingly enough, that I was talking about with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort and all the guys at Way of the Master.
We were shooting stuff about Jehovah's Witnesses and how to witness to them, and we're going to be shooting a roundtable section coming up in a few weeks over there where this is what we're going to be discussing.
How do you deal with this kind of thing? Because these are specialized witnessing situations because these individuals have been given false teaching, false doctrine, false information about the Bible, whatever it might be.
And if we love these folks, and if they're like, you know, this is a relative of yours, if you want to be able to speak to them in a way that they understand, it's going to be effective, it takes work.
I hate to say it, but some people think that four-letter word is not overly spiritual, but it takes study and work. And I look at the New Testament, Paul utilizes the very language of the Gnostics against them.
He had to have taken some time to do some reading. He had to do some study. If that's the case, we certainly shouldn't expect to have to do anything less. All righty? So true, yep. Okay, sir, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thanks for calling. God bless. Bye-bye. That's an excellent, excellent call because that is the kind of information that is so important. And when Jehovah's Witnesses come to your doorway, and it's interesting, our German LDS University student just asked in channel, do Jehovah's Witnesses have apologetic organizations?
Yeah, it's called the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. One of the fascinating developments in the evolution of the Watchtower itself is that back in the 1970s, there were Jehovah's Witnesses who started putting out publications defending their position, and the Watchtower kicked them out, disfellowshipped them, and the charge was running ahead of the brethren.
Why would that be? Because the society wants to be able to control their own history. They have to change their history. They have to, you know, right now they're getting rid of the 1914 prophecy, and they're doing it very slowly.
And so they have to be able to control what is being disseminated amongst people. And so as a result, if you write books that they're not approving, they don't want you to do that because you might be saying things that they don't want to remind people of anymore.
Now what's changed is you have people like Greg Stafford, and you have his book. That's why in 1998, I presented a paper at the Evangelical Theological Society on Greg Stafford, and the fact that he is a test case.
If the society does not change, and why would they change? Real simple. It's called the Internet. You know, up until cable television and the Internet, they could pretty much isolate and insulate their people from all this information that's out there about their changes and prophecies and how they've even changed books and changed things to hide false prophecies they've made in the past and the information about the backgrounds of the translators, the New World Translation, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
They were able to insulate their people. You can't do that anymore. We live in such an information age, and so the fact that Greg Stafford has been able to write a book that quotes from my book, it quotes from Ron Rhodes' material, it quotes from Robert Bowman's material.
Clearly he's reading what's called apostate literature. Twenty years ago, anyone who was known to have been reading apostate literature would have been disfellowshipped. Now they don't know what to do, and they are in a transitional period, and it is very, very interesting to see that kind of development taking place.
And so, no, they don't have apologetics organizations, but could they develop them eventually? Well, given the fact that Greg Stafford and his people are doing what they're doing, most of the Jehovah's Witnesses that you would encounter in the Internet have been deeply influenced by Greg Stafford and those who have followed after him, and so is that going to result in a proliferation of that kind of organization?
I don't know. It's possible. It's, you know, that might be the way that it works. I don't know, but they are different than Mormonism in that sense. Mormonism has always allowed a wider latitude of opinion in their followers than the Watchtower Society has.
The Watchtower Society has kept a much, much, much closer tab, shall we say, on belief. But now things are changing. Now this is going to be really hard because Paul has called in right at the end of the program with just a very brief amount of time, but we'll try to get the call in very quickly.
Paul, what can we do for you?
Hi, Dr. Wright. I just wanted to share an example. I heard your program a few years ago where you described using the Psalm 102 and Hebrews 1 position, and I was at the Cleveland Airport, and they used to have a Jehovah Witness in there, and after 9 -11 they shut it down and then they opened it again briefly.
I was able to talk to two high school girls that were servicing it, and I presented those passages as well as the Isaiah 6, and John, was it 12? 1239 -41, right. Yeah, and exactly the way that you described it.
I just listened to the program like a week before, and when I left there, those two girls were burning a hole in their Bible. And I was just praying that the Spirit would take them and inquire.
Yeah, I've had the exact same experience, and it's of course very encouraging to me that you were emboldened to be able to do that and to share with them in that way, because sadly so many Jehovah's Witnesses are absolutely, utterly convinced that outside of the Watchtower Bible Track Society, there is no biblical knowledge.
There's nobody who knows their Bible, and what a Jehovah's Witness needs is to run into believing Christians who will not compromise, who know the Word, and will demonstrate that the Watchtower Society isn't speaking the truth, because until that happens, they don't think there's any reason to look outside of the society, to look for anything anywhere else, because no one has knowledge.
They honestly, you know, after 1974, after the failed prophecy in 1974, over a million people left the Watchtower Bible Track Society, but the vast majority of them did not end up in Christian churches, because while they were disillusioned with the society, they were still convinced that nobody else had any meaningful biblical knowledge.
And that's a sad, sad thing, and so that's what they need. Those young people needed exactly what you gave them, Paul, so I really appreciate you doing that.
Yeah, and they shut the booth down like a month later, so I'm really grateful to do that.
Well, maybe they didn't want to have to answer that kind of question anymore. All right, thanks for calling, Paul. All right, God bless. Bye-bye. It's great to know that someone did that, and that's not the only time we've heard that story.
That's why we do all this. Thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. It's going to be a few weeks until we get to do this again. Until then, you have the archives to listen to over and over and over again, I guess, or something like that.
But anyway, we will be back about two weeks from now. I'll make sure to put it on the blog. Thanks for listening. God bless. Bye-bye.