The Virginia Tech Massacre then the Ally/Licona Debate

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:11

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

00:18

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.

00:26

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

00:33

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

00:42

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

00:49

James White. Good morning, welcome to the Dividing Line. On a

00:54

Tuesday morning, everyone is of course talking about the events that took place yesterday at Virginia Tech and now all the talk shows will have the next few days worth of discussions and all the old topics will be trotted out and I heard

01:14

Rosie O'Donnell was continuing to take her place as the great commentator of our society and blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:24

Very briefly, since I don't want to spend the whole time period on this, just once again, as we commented when the tsunami took place, when we talked about 9 -11, when we talk about these events, we cannot help if we have a consistent

01:48

Christian worldview and there are many people who call themselves Christians that do not have anything near a

01:54

Christian or a Biblical worldview, but if we have a consistently Christian and Biblical worldview, we listen to our society and we have to shake our heads, we have to weep, we have to be amazed at how far the society has fallen from where it began, a society that began with men even if they were not

02:20

Christians, who still recognize the necessity of a

02:25

Creator God, they recognize that the rights and privileges that they claim for themselves were derived from the fact that there is a

02:34

Creator and that this Creator has been active and has revealed

02:40

Himself and His will, you just, as you listen to people in essence stuttering and stammering in the face of evil, we now know who the shooter was, we see the pictures of him and he doesn't look like some terrible, horrible person, but here is a man who did something and if you listen to our society speaking about what he did, because of the abandonment of a

03:11

Christian worldview, because we now view mankind as nothing but an animal, because there is no longer any

03:20

Creator who has a purpose in this world, who is working His will in this world, let's note the theological collapse in much of the church on that particular issue, because we view ourselves as the random result of natural processes, then there are certain terms that would have been first in our minds and on our lips only a hundred years ago that are no longer even allowed into the discourse.

03:54

When the picture of the shooter was first shown this morning on television, the commentators had to say, well, there is a picture and a name that will always be associated with mass murder.

04:10

Well, that's true, but things like infamy, shame, those require you to be able to identify an action as evil and that's what you don't hear.

04:24

Anyone who calls this man evil, now, you know, he had mental problems and we can't judge anyone.

04:36

And if you can't judge anything to be evil, then what's the flip side to that?

04:43

The flip side to that is you can't judge anything to be good either. And so you flatten everything out instead of the high peaks of goodness and the low valleys of that which is evil and depraved.

04:56

Now you've just simply got, well, you know, his DNA said he'd do that, you know, that's all there really is to it.

05:04

There's no right and wrong, you know, and we just need to find ways to stop this. But we can't say anyone's depraved.

05:13

We can't say that there's anything wrong with mankind. And that's why, of course, biblical passages such as Romans chapter 3 verses 10 through 18 are not only attacked by those who want to deny the freedom and sovereignty of God, but these are the very passages that are embarrassing to so many theologians today because they're so out of step with our modern society.

05:38

And yet think about it. There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands.

05:45

There is none who seeks for God diligently or otherwise. All have turned aside.

05:51

Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one.

05:58

I'm afraid I can count on one hand the number of Christians anymore who really, really, really believe that, who really believe that's true.

06:06

Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving.

06:12

The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. And, of course, that's how you get big in Hollywood is that you have a mouth full of cursing and bitterness.

06:22

Their feet are swift to shed blood or at least to go to Hollywood and make all sorts of movies where you glorify the torturous shedding of blood, which you do all the time in Hollywood anymore.

06:32

But that shouldn't happen in real life, see. Destruction and misery are in their paths and the path of peace they have not known because peace must start first with God.

06:44

And anyone who claims to have peace but is still at war with God is, of course, a hypocrite and a liar.

06:51

There is no fear of God before their eyes. And there is a description of Western culture today, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

07:02

We only fear men. We do not fear God. And, as such, we have become animals and hence it is understandable that when

07:14

God just lifts his finger of restraint, by which he keeps this from happening every single day, when he simply lifts his finger of restraint, we are shocked at the result when we see what really fills the heart of man.

07:33

But we shouldn't be. We shouldn't be. Our society is left stumbling and mumbling, why, why, why?

07:45

But the only answers you can't give are things like sin, rebellion, evil, and, of course, the wrath of God.

07:56

Because God has no wrath any longer. I mean, there's no fear of God because God doesn't have any wrath.

08:03

He's not the creator. He didn't create us. He doesn't have a law that circumscribes the boundaries of our proper behavior.

08:13

That's why there's no evil anymore. And so everybody is just innocent. Everyone that was shot yesterday was innocent.

08:22

A Christian should stop immediately. The first thought across your mind should be, there is no innocent one but Christ.

08:30

How often have you fallen into the same trap I have? Those are just innocent people. Well, we're using it in a certain context. They hadn't done anything worthy of execution.

08:38

Okay, that's fine. But the fact is, we say we believe in the wrath of God. We say we believe that God could bring his wrath to bear upon any individual at any one time and bring us out of this world.

08:49

And we, when we see, you know, car accidents and things like that, well, you know, we never know when

08:56

God's going to take us out of this world. That's one thing. But in this situation, oh no, everybody was innocent.

09:02

No, they weren't. Oh, but what we mean by that is that they shouldn't have been killed.

09:08

Right. But that doesn't mean they're innocent. And you see, as long as you have a God who's just sitting on a throne someplace and he's doing nothing in this world, he has no purpose.

09:18

He just, you know, this universe is something he wound it up and it's just going off on its own.

09:23

If you've got a God like that, then fine. There's no reason for you to be searching for any evidence of the wrath of God.

09:29

There's no reason for you to be bothered by almost anything in the Old Testament that talks about the wrath of God coming upon a society because of its of its evil deeds.

09:38

You have to worry about any of that stuff. That's yeah, sure, fine. But like I said, if we have a consistent

09:44

Christian worldview, then we are going to have to admit that God has a purpose.

09:52

Now, either what took place yesterday is absolutely random, absolutely purposeless. God knew it might happen when he created, but he did everything he could to stop it.

10:00

But hey, if you've got a God who's who's like that, I'm not sure what you're worshipping or why you're worshipping him, but I'll leave you to do that.

10:07

You go ahead. You go ahead. But if you take anything in the

10:14

New Testament seriously, anything in the Bible seriously, I'm sorry, then you have to confess that God has a purpose and what takes place in this world.

10:23

He didn't create this world and set it on this course and and guide it with his providential hand.

10:30

So things like this happen and he just goes, oh man, I was so concentrating on Iraq that I just didn't see this guy coming.

10:38

I mean, that's where the open theists are, I guess. And if you want to be an open theist, fine, great, wonderful.

10:44

Just don't call it Christianity for my sake, please. Thank you. You have to confess that God has a purpose here.

10:53

Or all these deaths are purposeless. The entire existence of evil is purposeless.

10:58

It's not supposed to show us anything. It's not supposed to demonstrate anything. If you have a consistent

11:05

Christian worldview, you have to have an explanation for the wrath of God. And you should, if you have a consistent

11:12

Christian worldview, likewise recognize that God desires to make his wrath and his power known.

11:19

And you should desire that God's wrath and power be made known. And again,

11:25

I am paring down people with a consistent Christian worldview to a very small number at this point, because the vast majority of quote -unquote religious people are running around trying to apologize for God today.

11:38

You know, they're either going, oh, you know, God didn't have anything to do with that yesterday. Really? Then upon what meaningful, logical, rational basis are you going to look at somebody today and say, well, he didn't have anything to do with that, but he's got a wonderful plan for your life.

11:55

He'll help you pick up the pieces now. What kind of a God is that? Certainly not the God of the Bible, that's for sure.

12:02

And so I cannot help but in listening to people searching for words to express the natural feelings that we have.

12:15

I mean, when you think about the evil in someone's heart, that they would look someone in the eye and just blow them away.

12:24

This wasn't a war zone. This wasn't a battle. This man was just filled with murderous rage.

12:34

And you think about something like that and you just, it's natural for the human being to just recoil from that.

12:43

But then when it should be natural for the human being to then recognize because we're creating the image of God, we are to think

12:50

God's thoughts after him. And therefore we are to examine what takes place in our world and see what its purposes are. There's no purpose left for the secularist.

12:58

There's no purpose in this world for the humanist, the secularist. And sadly, for the large majority of evangelicals say there's no purpose either because they don't want a

13:07

God that's actually in charge of things so as to have a purpose. And so when you hear evangelicals responding in the same way that secularists and humanists are, that might tell you we've missed the boat someplace.

13:23

We've missed the boat big time. And so there it is. Yeah, someone called it the face of evil this morning on Fox News.

13:32

Well, I'm sure that they'll get a note from the executives that they should not be so judgmental.

13:41

And that's what we face in the world today. So yeah,

13:48

I think this also sort of demonstrates that 33 people killed here and yet more than that die in Iraq almost every single day.

14:01

But that's there. See, that's just so far away. That's not here.

14:08

Let that start happening here. And man, it's going to have real impact upon the psyche of the people of this nation.

14:15

And anyway, so there are just a few thoughts, again, just striving to have a consistent biblically informed worldview.

14:25

And I really think God is glorified when we purposefully seek to interact with what takes place in his world in such a way that we try purposefully and consistently to apply his truth to what we experience in this world and how we react to it and how we speak of it and how we think about it.

14:46

If we don't do that, then I don't see how we can claim to be trying to glorify God and all the things we like to say that we're doing when in reality we're just sort of going along with the flow like everybody else.

14:59

And that's sort of how things go. 877 -753 -3341. Shift gears here and move on over to where we were last time.

15:10

By the way, just before I start the debate again, I am taking time to, on the blog, address

15:20

C. Gordon Olson's materials. James Swan has been doing the same thing. There are a number of articles up already.

15:26

Right before the program, I was typing up various quotes because of the fact that this gentleman will utilize, and I would suggest misutilize, the original languages to seek to promote the autonomy of the human will and the servitude of God to mankind,

15:45

I guess is the only way I can describe this kind of theology. And I've got more of those blog articles coming as I have opportunity to work on them.

15:55

They take a good bit of time because I'm attempting to respond in a serious fashion and an in -depth fashion to what is being claimed.

16:04

I'm also, at the same time, listening to a nine -hour series of presentations against Calvinism by another gentleman who, over the years, we've gotten a number of emails from people who've said, look, you need to quit picking on the low -hanging fruit, you know?

16:24

You're picking on the easy people. So I guess Norman Geisler and Dave Hunt and Bryson and these other people are just easy people.

16:32

Here's a fellow, he's got it all figured out and he's exegetically solid and he refutes you, blah, blah, blah.

16:38

Well, finally, I've taken the time to download nine hours' worth of presentations by this gentleman.

16:47

I'm about three hours, a little over three hours through at the moment of the nine. And I'll be perfectly honest, for those of you who know what

16:55

I'm talking about, we'll be reviewing some of it later on, but I'll be perfectly honest with you, I haven't heard anything new.

17:02

I've certainly not heard any response to solid Reformed argumentation. I don't get a whole lot of feeling that this particular individual has done really even as much reading as George Bryson has in Reformed writers.

17:17

And so I've been disappointed on that level, but definitely a better speaker, much more cogent presenter, and I guess that's what has impressed people, is that speaks well, can be passionate about what he's saying, and therefore that makes it true or right or whatever.

17:39

So we'll be getting to that as time allows and discussing those things in the future.

17:45

But we have begun a debate that took place in 2004 between Mike Licona and Shabir Ali.

17:51

We have given the introduction already. Shabir Ali has been presenting. I was a little surprised at how much time

17:58

Shabir spent of his 20 minutes talking about the Quran and chronic interpretation, and maybe he looked out and started seeing people zoning off, because pretty quickly here he's going to bail out of that and dive into his normal presentation, which is designed to inculcate doubt as to the veracity of the

18:20

New Testament text and its recording of the events of history. And as we have said many times, once again, the methodology that will be used by Shabir Ali, he would never, ever, ever, ever, ever use in regards to the

18:36

Quran, in regards to Muhammad. Instead, what you have to do is you have to atomize, atomize, to break into its constituent atomic parts, to smash and scatter into individual pieces the

18:51

New Testament and the writers of the New Testament. And while all the original people who heard

18:57

Muhammad speak are granted not only almost infallible memories, but the highest motivations that they would never change anything.

19:07

If you're a New Testament writer, you're an automatic liar. If you write in the New Testament, as far as Shabir Ali is concerned, the vast majority of what you say is just false by definition.

19:20

And so we have this massive contrast between the methodology he uses in defense of his own position, that which he uses in attacking

19:27

Christianity, which to the logical or rational person means that his arguments must be dismissed on that basis.

19:35

But that is what is very common today. So we continue then with Shabir Ali's opening statement in the debate that took place in 2004 between Mike Licona and Shabir Ali, did

19:49

Jesus rise? Even though so far it's been pretty much focused upon the crucifixion, but that's the area of discussion.

19:56

...to Jesus because it was not Jesus who was made to resemble someone else, according to their explanation. It was someone else who was made to refer to Jesus.

20:04

And Zamakshari proposed instead, even though he himself did not reach the logical conclusion of his proposal, he proposed that the verse actually means, it was made so to appear to them.

20:16

As in the Arabic expression, it seemed so to them. So now many modern commentators would follow that interpretation and say that what the verse is saying is that even though it appeared to them that they had crucified

20:29

Jesus, in fact they had not done so. Now we can develop that further if we have more time, and I will deal with this probably in response to your questions or to Mike's probing.

20:39

But the point is just simply this now, in the final summation, this verse of the Quran does not necessitate the belief that someone else was put on the cross instead of Jesus.

20:49

But it leaves open the possibility that Jesus did not actually die on the cross.

20:55

And this in a nutshell is the Muslim belief, that even though the enemies thought they had

21:01

Jesus, thought they had him killed, they were not successful in doing that. Now if you've seen the

21:06

Mel Gibson movie, you'd be sure the guy died. You'd wonder if he didn't die before actually reaching the cross with all of the tortures he has gone through.

21:14

But when we have time, I will take apart and deconstruct that movie and show you where Mel has in fact improved upon the facts in order to get that conclusion firmly fixed in our minds.

21:26

But now, so far I have said that because of my Muslim background, I am not predisposed to find the evidence for the resurrection persuasive.

21:39

But that does not mean, however, that if the evidence is put before me that I should deny it simply because I'm a

21:45

Muslim. I think myself to be a reasonable individual. I study, I read these books, and I try to find out what

21:51

Christian scholars have said about the resurrection, what proof they have offered. I've listened to Mike carefully, and his arguments are not new.

21:58

I found them in the writings of other apologists, some of whom I've debated with, such as Dr. William Lynn Craig.

22:04

And I have studied in detail some of the commentaries on the biblical passages, especially the ones which are more relevant.

22:12

And I'd like to tell you why I do not find the evidence so persuasive. I think two reasons.

22:20

One is that I couldn't find it persuasive that Jesus actually reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form.

22:31

And second, I could not be persuaded, given the gospel evidence alone, that Jesus in fact actually died on the cross.

22:44

Now, usually if a person lived 2 ,000 years ago and he's no longer around, we assume that he is dead.

22:53

But if someone comes and tells us that a certain person who was executed 2 ,000 years ago was actually seen alive a few days later, we'll be asking two questions as reasonable individuals.

23:08

First, we'd be asking, not necessarily in that order, but we'd be asking, are you sure you really saw him?

23:17

And the second thing we'd be asking is, I have to check my mics, are you sure he was really dead?

23:27

So let's look at the two in order. Are you sure he was really dead? Now, Mel Gibson is quite imaginative, and what he has done is that he has actually improved upon the information that is given in the gospels, and he has imagined the worst possible tortures that a person could go through in crucifixion, and he has put them all into the movie till it really becomes too much.

23:52

Now, it doesn't have to be that way. John Heyman's film, which has been widely distributed by Christian groups a couple of years ago, and of which

24:02

I had the pleasure of watching the Egyptian -Arabic version, so I can learn a little bit of Arabic along the way as well,

24:08

I found to be more true to the gospel narratives and more reasonably historical than Mel Gibson's movie.

24:15

And the tortures which Jesus has endured in John Heyman's film are nothing close to what he endures in Mel Gibson's.

24:25

And nobody died watching John Heyman. Wasn't there something about somebody who had a heart attack or something?

24:37

Am I remembering that now about the Passion, remember? It's just a vague recollection.

24:43

Maybe that's what they were referring to. I don't remember. Maybe that's what he was referring to. I couldn't follow that one.

24:49

I've heard this three times now, and still I've not figured that part out. Now, scholars who have combed the narratives in the

25:00

Gospels have tried to understand what caused Jesus's death.

25:07

As Mike told us, even though everyone would agree that Jesus died on the cross as historians, they couldn't agree as doctors as to what caused his death.

25:19

And this is amply elaborated in the book entitled The Death of the Messiah by Raymond Brown, a two -volume book, a magnum opus, a book highly recommended by even conservative

25:31

Christians. In fact, Raymond Brown is a noted scholar. I mentioned

25:37

Dr. William Lane Craig, who would be no stranger to you folks. And Dr.

25:42

Craig refers to Raymond Brown as one of the greatest New Testament scholars of our present time.

25:49

Bruce Metzger said that if you can own only one book on the

25:54

New Testament, let it be Raymond Brown's Introduction to the New Testament, an extraordinary work.

26:02

Now, Raymond Brown wonders, what could have caused the death of our Lord? He said, because crucifixion does not usually cause the piercing of any vital organ.

26:12

So what caused his death? Now, Mel Gibson goes out of his way to try and show us the worst imaginable tortures of Jesus till he has the

26:21

Roman authorities having Jesus on the cross and turning the cross over so they can bend the nails that have protruded after going through the patibulum of the cross.

26:34

And that is unreal, because if anyone has actually used hammers and nails, you know that once a nail has gone into wood like that, it's pretty firm.

26:44

You can hang ten men on a nail like that. You got these something like eight inch long nails going through wood that is about six inches thick, maybe even thicker than that.

26:56

There's no need to bend it on the other side to make sure it holds. But, Gibson has them turn

27:04

Jesus over with the cross and slam face down. Now, I'd stop right there.

27:11

Hopefully, if you recall the film, this was a portion that says slam face down.

27:21

What he doesn't seem to realize is in the film he's hovering over the ground, because this is one of the

27:28

Roman Catholic mystic inspired additions that totally marred the film, made it something you could not support.

27:38

This is not coming from history at all. And so, here you have

27:45

Shabir Ali, I think rather wisely, to be honest with you, from his perspective, utilizing the editorial and later additions of Roman Catholic mystics, which became the heart and soul of the

28:01

Passion of the Christ film. And you have him pointing out, hey, if you're willing to change things, if you're willing to change history, if history wasn't good enough for you, then

28:10

I'm going to make this accusation in regards to all the gospel writers. And that's going to be the argument he's going to develop through the course of this thing.

28:17

Now remember, he didn't just go see it, he was taken to go see this. So, it seems to me, if I was listening properly, the

28:25

Christians were supporting this film. And they took him to see it. And maybe they didn't mention their disagreements with the film, if they had any.

28:36

But he's just like, okay, well, I happen to know enough about the history of this to demonstrate that actually, this just proves my point.

28:44

And that's what he's doing here. But that scene where the cross is flipped over, he's actually hanging almost in midair.

28:52

Because again, this came from the Roman Catholic mystical revelations concerning what took place at the cross.

29:01

...wonder, wouldn't he die just from that? And then when they're done with that, they have to bring him back up the way they need him.

29:08

So, slam the other way, and you wonder if his back is not broken every single bone of it.

29:14

But if we take just the narratives the way they are given in the text, one would not be sure that Jesus actually died on the cross.

29:26

The second point that I wanted to make about this is that in reading the narratives,

29:33

I could not be persuaded that they actually saw Jesus back from the dead.

29:41

Now, of course, when you read the narratives today, you see that there are many, including the Gospel according to John, in which there are at least three.

29:48

But when you comb back past through these narratives, and you look at the evolution of the text over time, you realize that the later

29:55

Gospels are improving the story for you. So, in Mark's Gospel, you do not have any actual narrative showing that Jesus reappeared to his disciples.

30:07

So, once again, and if you've listened to the debate we did last year, you encounter the same thing over and over again.

30:14

Even though we can't document this, okay, this is the order in which the

30:19

Gospels were written, and I'm just going to take this as a final given thing, and therefore, we can accuse all the

30:27

Gospel writers of just simply slavishly borrowing from the other one and changing things over time.

30:34

This is the kind of fundamental assumption that is brought to this particular form of argumentation that Shabir Ali is using.

30:43

Except in an ending which is known today to not be originally from Mark. It's a later addition into his

30:49

Gospel. And you go to the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and you can see that right before your eyes, the stories are being improved.

30:57

And that tells us that over time, as the stories were told and retold, they took on certain improvements to become what they are now.

31:05

So, now, when we think about what happened, we can be quite convinced that Jesus died because we're reading them all together, putting them all together in our minds.

31:15

When we read the Gospels about the reappearance of Jesus from the dead, we are reading all of them together and thinking that all of these details are true.

31:25

But what scholars have noted is that, in fact, these stories have evolved over time. So, if you have, for example, in Luke's Gospel, Jesus appearing to his 12 disciples.

31:36

Now, just again, note the methodology. For Shabir Ali, as long as you have a scholar, it becomes scholars.

31:43

Remember in our debate, you get one scholar, a female liberal at Boston College, and that becomes scholars say the

31:52

Gospel of Thomas is before Mark. Later, Mike Licona is going to turn the tables on him, and he's going to make reference to,

31:59

I think it was James D .G. Dunn, I think that's who it was, and he's going to quote him, and Shabir's response is going to be, well, that's the opinion of one scholar.

32:09

We can't just go with the opinion of one scholar. He'll go with the opinion of one scholar if it substantiates his point, and he'll use the term scholars to make it sound like it's a general thing, and then use it as an established point, as he's doing here.

32:23

But then, when the tables are turned, well, no, no, no, we can't just go with just one. We need a consensus here type situation.

32:30

Or rather, 11, because the one had betrayed him on the day of Easter. John has the dramatic reappearance of Jesus a week later, so that he can appear to Thomas, and the doubting

32:43

Thomas can verify that Jesus is here for real. But in order for John to do that, he had to make

32:48

Thomas absent on the first occasion, so that whereas Luke has him appearing to all of his disciples, the 11,

32:58

John says Thomas was absent. This leaves the opening for Jesus to come back a week later and appear to the doubting

33:06

Thomas. So when we read the stories, we see then that the gospel writers themselves have improved the stories, and if we are to peel back the improvements and study the text historically, we could not be convinced that Jesus actually died on the cross and also reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form.

33:30

Those historians who agree that he died are agreeing what historians would normally agree with. If somebody lived 2 ,000 years ago and is no longer with us, then he is dead, according to the rules of history.

33:40

But if someone claims that he reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form, such as to lead to the conclusion that he resurrected from the dead, then we should be asking two questions, was he really dead?

33:51

Examining the narratives does not persuade me that he was actually dead on the cross, and second, examining the narratives, peeling back the later layers of improvements, does not persuade me that he actually reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form.

34:07

Now, Muslims and Christians can still believe that Jesus was raised up by God, but that, of course, is something that we cannot prove, and even though I believe that, it is not something

34:17

I am here to demonstrate and prove. Thank you very much. So we have a general statement of doubt, by assuming and embracing a view of the

34:35

New Testament that is not derived from any direct expressed statements of the

34:41

Quran, other than Surah 4, verse 157, in regards to the apostles being liars and alterers of history and things like that.

34:50

And behind all of this, those of you who have listened to this program before know that behind all of this is

34:56

Mr. Ali's theories concerning Paul, and Paul basically hijacking

35:02

Christianity. Paul is the one who creates Jesus as the Son of God, and that then influences the

35:07

Gospel writers, and somehow the original followers of Jesus just rolled over and played dead, and unlike the original

35:14

Muslims, they weren't willing to fight for the truth, and they just got trampled on by this mean, nasty Paul guy. That's what is behind many of these statements, even if it does not come out in that particular fashion.

35:26

So that's what you have in the presentation. As we mentioned earlier, we're not doing a formal debate, and we're going to enter into something that's somewhat creative in regards to debate.

35:42

We're picking up something from television. Crossfire is its title anyway. And our next 15 minutes will involve

35:50

Mike asking questions of Shabir, and then we'll exchange that and go back and forth a couple of times, and I think you'll find this interesting.

35:59

How are you doing, Shabir? Very good, Mike. It's really great to meet you today. Let's see, you started off...

36:06

Let me go with what you said last here about the developing legend within the Gospels.

36:12

You spent some time talking about how the traditions of the

36:18

Resurrection, the Resurrection narratives had developed embellishments over time and there were some legendary additions and so forth, and so therefore we shouldn't believe the accounts at all.

36:29

In my opening speech tonight, I was pretty careful to discuss evidence that predates the

36:37

Gospels by decades. In fact, stuff which goes back to the original disciples themselves.

36:44

And so even... I think the Gospels are reliable, but let's just say for a moment... In fact, I'd be happy for the remainder of our debate this evening to just concede for the sake of argument.

36:54

The Gospels are filled with errors and contradictions, we'll say. How does that impact the evidence that I provided, which again comes decades earlier?

37:05

I mean, it seems to me that what happened is you're assaulting this hill and you're throwing grenades and we're seeing explosions, but I'm on this other hill and I'm saying, what's he doing over there?

37:18

My army's on this hill. How would you respond to that? Now, let me respond to that.

37:24

I made mention of this at the beginning. I don't believe that this is the appropriate direction to go because in essence, by the end of the debate, he's still going to have to be defending the

37:36

Gospels anyway. Because of the consistency of the testimony to the resurrection that exists between the

37:44

Pauline testimony that he has adduced, for example, in regards to the early creeds of the

37:50

Church. Shabir is just simply going to dismiss those as perversions. It comes as a whole, and I really do wonder how a

37:59

Muslim hears that. How a Muslim hears someone who would start off by saying, well, I will admit that there could be all sorts of fanciful things in the

38:06

Quran. I think that that throws a stumbling block in their way. You're trying to get me to believe that this revelation of yours is truly from God, but you're willing to start off by saying that it might be full of holes?

38:18

How do you eventually get me to that point? Now he said, I don't believe this, but I'm willing to grant that. And what he's trying to do is he's trying to limit

38:26

Shabir's range of stuff. Shabir will throw stuff out there. He will sometimes go wandering off onto things, and he did in his opening statement, that just aren't overly relevant.

38:38

And it's all meant to make an appearance of this very broad scholarly consensus that really doesn't exist in that fashion.

38:47

But still, at the same time, I don't know that you want to compromise where you want to bring somebody as a method of bringing them to a belief in that thing.

38:59

We discussed this two or three weeks ago now. Well, about two weeks ago when I first introduced this anyway, so I'm not going to go back over that.

39:06

But that's, I think, I honestly don't think that Shabir really buys into that.

39:12

I think he recognizes that you can't make this sharp distinction and really when it comes to such things as resurrection, do you really want to invest in extra -scriptural and hence non -theanoustos sources, the weight that it would carry to substantiate the resurrection?

39:31

Because once you do that, then the resurrection, all you're left with is a probability.

39:37

It's a better probability than other probabilities. And my argument has been the resurrection cannot stand as a mere probability.

39:47

It is not probably true that Christ rose from the dead. It is definitely and without question true that Christ rose from the dead.

39:53

You can't move from the one to the other, at least in an honest, linear fashion, as far as logic is concerned.

40:01

Well, the evidence which you have cited showing that there was an early acknowledgement that Jesus reappeared to his disciples is not something that historians deny or that what

40:17

I have presented denies. You have evidence that there was a blossoming Christian faith.

40:23

People believed that Jesus is alive. Muslims believed that Jesus is alive.

40:29

But the belief that someone is alive and in heaven with God does not necessitate his bodily resurrection.

40:36

In the Gospels themselves, you have it that Jesus proclaims that Abraham and Moses are alive.

40:43

They are alive with God. But the belief that they are alive does not necessitate their bodily resurrection.

40:50

So it is quite possible that the disciples of Jesus, witnessing the crucifixion event, later on came to the conclusion, for whatever reason, that God raised

41:04

Jesus from the dead. And that conclusion does not necessitate finding his tomb empty and knowing that he physically, bodily resurrected from the dead.

41:14

It is just a faith expression of the closeness that Jesus had with God and a conviction of his disciples that God did not leave

41:23

Jesus alone to suffer in this horrible way. I think I'd have to take issue with that because when we go back to the earliest tradition, like, for example, the creeds, there are several of them peppered throughout the

41:37

New Testament. But let's just, you know, we talked about 1 Corinthians 15, that he died, that he was raised, and that he appeared.

41:44

In Romans 1, verses 3 and 4, the majority of scholars acknowledge that we have an actual early formula or oral tradition there.

41:52

It says that, you know, he was declared the Son of God with power by the

41:59

Spirit of holiness through his resurrection from the dead. So in the various early traditions, in fact, that would predate

42:06

Paul, that predates everything, those references. There are,

42:12

I counted, three creeds themselves within the New Testament that would predate

42:18

Paul and go back to within just a few years. In fact, James D .G. Dunn says that the creed in 1

42:24

Corinthians 15 dates to within months of the crucifixion. So we have very early and goes back to the disciples.

42:31

Paul himself mentions resurrection or rise from the dead on 30 occasions.

42:37

So we have a total of 33 references in the New Testament very early predating the

42:42

Gospels and a number of those predating even Paul that talks about Jesus being dead and raised or resurrection.

42:50

And of course, you know, as I mentioned, the concept of resurrection, the body that was buried is the same body that's raised and was transformed into an immortal body.

42:58

And the testimony of the disciples is that's the body that appeared to them. Well, I think you have to be aware that the creeds that you're referring to have been identified by scholars combing the

43:09

New Testament, looking at the writings of Paul, the look at Romans, as you've mentioned, the look at 1 Corinthians.

43:15

You didn't mention Philippians, but it's there in the back of your mind as another one of the correctness that scholars have identified as early statements of faith.

43:26

But notice that Paul does not say where he got these from. And Paul in adding his own self, adding himself to the list of people to whom

43:37

Jesus appeared, is adding to that list a person to whom Jesus appeared somehow spiritually.

43:43

Because in the Acts of the Apostles, where the appearance of Paul is described, it is not a physical bodily appearance, but it is a blind flashing light from out of heaven.

43:53

So once Paul has added that, I think your case becomes weak here, and it becomes more like the case of those who say that the disciples of Jesus must have seen an appearance of Jesus, and Muslims should be willing to grant that God, in order to solace the companions of Jesus, allowed them to see a spiritual vision of Jesus that would persuade them that Jesus is alive with God.

44:18

Now let me just stop just for a moment. As Laikona has pointed out, that's not what resurrection means.

44:28

And that's one of the reasons I include the section in the book on the tomb story as to what resurrection means.

44:34

Even yesterday, someone sent me a link to that Rook fellow from the skeptics or rational response squad.

44:44

And he had this huge blog article just collecting every possible common attack in the resurrection you could possibly put together for Easter.

44:54

And one of these sections was, again, an atheist arguing, based on spiritual body, that Paul didn't believe in a physical resurrection.

45:06

And it's just amazing. I guess the reason these folks do this, whether they're atheists or Muslims or whatever,

45:12

I guess the reason they do this is because so few Christians are able to respond.

45:19

So few. I mean, let's face it. Even though we talk about the resurrection outside of a couple weeks in the spring, how much time do we actually spend studying it and preaching on it and talking about what the nature of the resurrection is?

45:34

There's so much confusion on major areas of Christian theology. The nature of the canon of Scripture, the nature of revelation, the doctrine of the

45:43

Trinity. Sadly, most people know more about how to balance their checkbook in a

45:50

Christian way than they do about the resurrection or the nature of the Trinity.

45:56

And the nature of worship and things like that. It's just absolutely amazing. And here's where you can see some of it coming up.

46:01

They can go forward and preach the Christian faith despite the fact that Jesus died this horrible death, which would mark him off in the eyes of people as a condemned criminal, a blasphemer and a false messiah.

46:13

So none of the evidence you have cited actually proves that Jesus physically bodily rose from the dead.

46:20

OK, I appreciate you saying that. Actually, I don't think that what

46:25

Paul saw on the road to Damascus was a bodily appearance, a spiritual vision or appearance like you're saying.

46:33

But I'm glad you grant Acts because if you want to do that, then we'll go to Acts 13 where Paul is preaching as well.

46:39

And there he very, very distinctly and precisely says bodily resurrection. He contrasts

46:45

King David with Jesus and he says David died, was buried, his body decayed. Jesus died, was buried and his body also.

46:53

But his body did not decay. Rather, God raised it up. And of that we are all eyewitnesses. So in doing so, he's certainly contrasting what happened to David with Jesus and saying

47:03

Jesus' body did not decay. He raised it up and we're eyewitnesses to this. Now, if you mentioned Paul, we have to also say even if we do take that appearance in Acts chapters 9, 22 and 26, where he sees him on the road to Damascus and it's the bright light, this is a post ascension appearance.

47:22

So that could certainly account by the difference. It's the disciples saw him right after he had been raised from the dead.

47:28

But Paul is seeing after he ascended to heaven. And Paul elsewhere in his own writings is very clear about bodily resurrection.

47:35

For example, in Romans 8, 11, he says the spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.

47:44

So certainly referring to bodily resurrection there. And then you have Colossians 2, 9, where it says,

47:51

In Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And he's using the present tense.

47:57

And of course, this is after post ascension. So Paul's view is still that Jesus is in a body. And I agree completely with what

48:04

Mike Lycone is saying at this time. There is no question, not only of the witness of the

48:10

New Testament to the bodily nature of the resurrection, but again, if you were to grant any level of consistency to the

48:18

New Testament, there are no questions about these things. There's no reason to question why Christians believe this and that this is the united testimony.

48:27

You have to start with the idea that you cannot allow the New Testament to speak for itself.

48:32

And again, go back even before the Shabir Ali debate, go back to the Hamza Abdul Malik debate.

48:39

If you've ever watched that debate, what is the fundamental argument that he's making? That you can't allow the

48:44

New Testament to speak for itself. You have to import these external authorities, which in this case would be the Koran or the

48:50

Hadith or whatever, and use that as the lens through which you look at the New Testament, and therefore create all this disharmony and this discontinuity within it.

48:59

877 -753 -3341. We will continue with the debate, but first let's talk with Johnny.

49:06

Hi, Johnny. Hey, James. How are you? Doing all right. I was calling because I was kind of curious that you've objected very strongly, or at least voiced concerns about the

49:17

Markan priority principle. Do you think that does any damage? Because I remember when

49:23

I first heard of it, I was reading the case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and I believe Craig Blomberg was mentioning the idea that Mark's gospel is pretty much considered to be the first gospel, even by evangelical scholars predominantly, as you've even acknowledged.

49:38

But what would be your main concern over the idea of Mark's gospel being the first gospel?

49:44

Well, first of all, we don't know. It is purely theoretical. And in fact, I was reading an article recently where they used computers to compare

49:55

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and to compare phraseology between them based upon theories concerning how people copy from one another, and the computers were consistent in demanding that Mark was not the first gospel.

50:14

The computer analysis specifically, in each time it was ran, either made

50:22

Matthew or Luke the prior source, if you're going to assume those things. But that's not really – we don't know.

50:29

There is no possible way. I suppose if 7q5 is actually from Mark, that would be a pretty strong argument.

50:39

And personally, it doesn't matter, because the issue is not the order of them.

50:45

The issue is the idea of literary dependence. If you listen to Shabir Ali closely, his constant assertion, and that of John Dominick Cross and everybody else, is that not only is

50:58

Mark first, but then Mark is physically in the possession.

51:05

Matthew and Luke physically possess the written text of Mark. And then they have this other source, either in written or oral form, the

51:13

Q source. So what they present is sometimes either a linear thing, where you have

51:21

Mark, and then you have Matthew, and then later you have Luke doing this, and then John, of course, is just going wild with the editorial knife.

51:28

Or others would at least split Matthew and Luke off, and not have them connected to one another in a dependent fashion.

51:37

But what you hear these folks doing is taking the idea that Mark is first, and then saying, and because he's so much earlier, these other writers possessed his writing.

51:51

And so they've got his writing in front of them, then they've got this other source, and they're editing and redacting and changing for this purpose and that purpose, and then you start climbing into Luke's mind, you start climbing into Matthew's mind, and then you start theorizing all this stuff, and that's how you get published today, basically, in the academy, is to go that direction.

52:10

And the problem is, no one's ever seen Q, and all of this ignores, all of this is a very

52:18

Western way of looking at things. It ignores the fact that from before the time of Mark, there was the

52:25

Christian proclamation, there was preaching, there were eyewitnesses, there was a core body of Christian doctrine and teaching, the recollections of what

52:33

Jesus did, the miracles, the parables, all this stuff was being preached in a broad geographical and even cultural area, thanks to Paul, all the way across the

52:45

Roman Empire, in those very first decades, and that stuff gets completely ignored.

52:51

When Shabir Ali talks about Luke, Luke's sitting in there, and Luke knows nothing of this proclamation.

52:58

He knows nothing of eyewitnesses. Well, he says he knows about eyewitnesses, but he doesn't allow that to enter in, because all

53:05

Luke's got is Q, and Luke's got Mark, and Luke is making things up as he goes along. The idea that Luke has interviewed other people, and he's talked to the eyewitnesses, as he himself says, and that he is compiling all these things, not just Mark, but all these other sources, and he's compiling them for a particular purpose, and Matthew's half a world away doing a similar thing, that doesn't come up.

53:32

You automatically assert and assume these purposes on the part of the

53:38

Gospel writers, to where, no, I don't like, you know, you've got Matthew sitting there going, you know, I told

53:43

Mark I didn't like how he put that, and so I'm going to change it now. There's absolutely no evidence for any of that, and there are still scholars who hold to Luke in priority, and there are still scholars who hold to Matthew in priority, and certainly

54:01

Church history does not support the idea of Mark in priority. So the fact is, we have to be honest and say, we don't know the order in which the

54:10

Gospels were written. And so while we can theorize about them, to take those theories, and in a large portion of New Testament, simply because they're repeated so often, turn them into facts, and those facts then become the foundation of new theories that result in a denial of the resurrection of Christ, or this idea of evolution over time, and blah blah blah blah blah, is what

54:34

I am, quote unquote, concerned about, because it ignores the historical reality of the time that you had this continuing presence of eyewitnesses in the

54:45

Church, that apostolic proclamation that was there from the very start. They are ignoring the fact that if someone comes along and changes that, there'd be all sorts of people going, wait a minute, whoa, what are you doing here?

54:58

That's not what the eyewitnesses say happened. They ignore that. And they really are just making the background against which these

55:09

Gospels are written very monochrome, very flat, very easy to determine, and it was much richer than that.

55:17

It was much fuller than that. And so they've actually oversimplified, in essence, to come up with the theories, and then the theories they then use to overthrow the consistency of the

55:27

New Testament. So is Mark first? Maybe, but we don't know.

55:32

If you want to start there and say, okay, I'm going to start with the theory that Mark is first, and then with that theoretical basis,

55:39

I'm going to look at what does that mean to this, what does that mean to that, but I always have to go back and admit, this is a theory.

55:46

That's gotten thrown out, and yeah, because it's just taught that way over and over and over again, then it's just assumed to be the case in a large portion of scholarship today.

55:55

And we simply don't know. Okay? Okay. All right.

56:00

Well, thank you very much, Gene. All right, thank you very much, and you get that phone now. That almost deafened me, too.

56:06

That's one loud ringer on his phone there. But yeah, if people were just upfront about this,

56:15

I'm sorry, but consensus scholarship, when it comes to the

56:21

Word of God, can be very dangerous. Why? Because we have an inherent desire and need to muzzle

56:30

God. Sin exists in people's hearts. And when you see the consistency of the academy's desire to, whatever the truth is, it can't be what

56:42

Christianity has believed historically. Whatever the truth is. Whoever Jesus was, the one thing we know he wasn't is what

56:49

Christians have always said he was. That is the functional paradigm for a large portion of especially liberal

56:57

Christianity today. And even within that which is conservative, there is frequently a desire to be very much accepted by the world around us, to have our

57:10

PhDs look like their PhDs. And that leads to a creeping questioning of the authority of the

57:20

Word of God. It really honestly takes a work of the Spirit of God bringing revival amongst the people of God for there to be a continuing acceptance.

57:31

And we are witnessing such a consistent and non -stop attack upon supernaturalism, upon the idea of revelation, upon the consistency of Scripture, that there's never been anything like it in the history of the world.

57:49

And that's why we have this program, that's why we do what we do, to seek to encourage

57:54

God's people to continue to stand firm. And of course, outside of the work of the Holy Spirit in people's lives, we can't do that.

58:01

We will continue with the debate with Shabir Ali and all the attendant issues on the next edition of The Dividing Line, which will be normal time,

58:15

I just realized, this week. And then next week, though, there won't be any Dividing Lines, because I'm going to be out of town.

58:22

But we will be back after that. So thanks for listening. See you then. God bless. We need a new

58:59

Reformation day. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

59:33

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

59:38

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

59:44

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.