Ijaz Ahmad and Corruption of Scripture, Thoughts on the Condemnation of Michael Brown

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And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line. We're going to jump right into it because we've got a lot to cover, and I keep finishing up this one task off until we don't get very far on it.

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So I want to finish it up. And then we've got a number of topics today, and hopefully it will be useful and edifying to you.

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We have been listening to a presentation that was made by Ijaz Ahmed on the subject of the corruption of scripture.

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In the process, we're learning a little bit about... Yeah, I didn't... Sorry, yeah, no

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Coogee today. I had one on, but it's 78 degrees outside. The storm's coming in, so the hot air is blowing up through, and it's just warm outside.

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It's... Yeah, thanks. So anyway, someone was just totally shocked in the chat channel about that.

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Anyway, what we're learning is the difference in terminology and thought process.

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Always important if you actually want to communicate to somebody. I'm starting to learn that not everybody that engages in apologetics actually wants to do that.

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But if you actually want to communicate to the other side, and your actual desire is to do that, then you need to understand how they think, where they're coming from.

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We learned this years and years ago. We'd go up to Salt Lake City, and the first few times we went up there, we were green.

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We didn't know what in the world we were doing. But at least those first few years, we had so many conversations that unless you're just not listening, you start picking up on commonalities.

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You'd hit the same roadblock at the same point in the conversation, until you start figuring out, hmm, that seems to be a commonality.

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I wonder how I can get around that. What is it the Mormons are thinking that I'm not picking up? And once you've picked that up, then you can change the way you speak in such a way as to avoid those roadblocks in the first place.

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And that's how you help control conversations, get farther down the road, things like that. Anyway, so we are listening to Ijaz Ahmed, and we were looking at the concept of corruption.

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And basically what he's saying is, well, look, the testimony of Scripture is that the

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Jews were so evil that they would be willing to corrupt

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Scripture. Well, if that was within their capacity to do. I mean, if you look at the

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Jews of Jesus' day, we know that the Scriptures were already laid up in the temple 200 years before the time of Christ.

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There wouldn't have been any way in the days of Christ to somehow go, well,

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I'm going to take these books that have been known for centuries, and I'm going to alter them. That really wouldn't have been a possibility at that particular point in time.

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And we also looked at the difference in how Muslims look at the origination of Scripture, how we look at the origination of Scripture.

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So again, if we want to reach out to them, if we want to really communicate with them, then we need to understand these things.

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This is a 15, is it 21 minutes?

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No, I think it's 15. Yeah, I think it's just 16 minutes, and we're six minutes and 30 seconds into it.

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So if I don't talk too much, we might be able to get through the rest of it. We'll see. I want you to notice what

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Jesus says here. They are the children of Satan. What sin are the children of Satan not capable of committing?

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Corrupting Scripture is the least sin that they will be capable of. And I want you to pay attention.

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He says that the Jews currently do not hold to the truth, and he says that their native language is the language of lies.

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By this logic, it would mean that whatever Scripture the Israelites in his time held to would not only include lies, but that he also goes on to say that they do not belong to God, because they do not hear.

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That's in the present tense. They do not currently hear what God says. That is because Jesus says that Satan is always on the prowl, waiting to take away

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Scripture, to destroy it, to hide it. Jesus never said that, and at this point, there's complete disconnection with anything that Jesus is talking about.

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When it says that they are not hearing, that those who are of God hear what God's saying, the reason they don't hear is because they do not belong to God.

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In other words, God has not sovereignly given them to the Son. John chapter 6 explains this. John chapter 8 explains this.

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John chapter 10 explains this. There's nothing here about the text of Scripture. There's nothing here about altering the text of Scripture.

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It had all been completely read into the text. Nothing. I've never seen any commentary from anywhere that would even begin to suggest that this is the actual topic under consideration.

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This is eisegesis in toto, because there's nothing in the context that even raises the subject whatsoever.

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It's hard to see where this is even coming from. There is no disagreement between Jesus and the

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Jews on the actual text of Scripture. On the canon, on what the text of Scripture is, it's only on the interpretation.

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It's not on the idea of corruption, and that doesn't even come up here. So, we just simply have to go nuts.

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Not what Jesus is talking about completely missing his context. Where do we read this? Mark chapter 4 verse 20.

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It says, These are the ones along the path where the word is sown, when they hear.

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So, when religious people hear the word, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

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And what is that word? That is the message of repentance and faith in God. It's not

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Scripture. It's not the text of Scripture. It's not the law of Moses. It's not the prophecies of Isaiah or anything along those lines.

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It is when God's word is proclaimed. Because that's what the whole parable of the sower is.

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You go out and you proclaim the word. That's the message of the gospel itself in the

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New Testament. And then Satan comes along, and in some of those instances, there's just absolutely no response whatsoever because it's immediately forgotten.

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And then if you read the rest of it, what it says is then you have different kinds of growth, but only a certain kind of growth that brings forth fruit, which are the true disciples.

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And even amongst them, there's differences 30, 60, 90 fold, 100 fold. I'm sorry. But the other types of growth that die out are not true disciples because the fruit is what demonstrates that one is the disciple in the first place.

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And so this is just simply talking about those that there isn't even a recollection on their part of what they had heard.

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There's no spiritual reaction whatsoever to the message that is preached.

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So Satan always wants to corrupt the scripture? Again, no connection to corruption of scripture here.

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That's just being completely written. There's nothing in the text itself that even begins to substantiate the assertion that this was in the author's mind.

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This was the intention of what he was trying to communicate. Nothing there at all. Therefore, the

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Old Testament and Jesus testified to the corruption of the scriptures given to the

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Israelites. That's not been seen anywhere. Nothing that we have been given in either the

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Old or New Testaments actually testifies to that. The actual opposite of that is the case.

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If you really want to have a serious understanding of Jesus' view of that, it's hard to get a better example than Matthew chapter 22 when

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Jesus is arguing with the Sadducees and when he quotes from the scriptures,

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I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He not only holds men accountable to what

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God had spoken, have you not read what God spoke to you? He couldn't say that if that was no longer in the in the possession of the

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Jewish people. Have you not read what God spoke to you saying? It was spoken 1400 years earlier and yet he holds men accountable to it.

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But then his argument is based upon the tense of a verb. Jesus has the highest view of the preservation of scripture.

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And so there's just no evidence from any meaningful source that Jesus taught that the scriptures have been corrupted, that any of his apostles taught that the scriptures have been corrupted.

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There's absolutely nothing there at all. So being read in.

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This is not an Islamic conspiracy, but an honest and responsible lesson as taught by the

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Old and New Testaments. Therefore, the precedent has therefore been set that the Quran in Surah 2, just jump ahead here, that the

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Quran in Surah 2 verses 78 to 79, verse 89, Surah 3 verse 93,

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Surah 6 verse 95 have all been validated. The Quran is merely saying that God at one point revealed scripture to the

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Israelites and it is simultaneously saying that the Israelites corrupted their scriptures by writing text and attributing them to God and they will not obey in the traditional teaching of scripture where they were commanded to obey the prophets and believe in Allah as Quran chapter 5 verses 68 to 69 explains as well as Job 2221 and 2nd

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Chronicles 2020. Those weren't brought up, but we haven't seen the establishment of those things and I'm not going to take time to do it right now.

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We've done it in the past, but I think a quite honestly better reading certainly one that has a definite foundation in the earliest writings of Islam itself in various forms of early tafsir and hadith that if it is sent down by Allah, it cannot be corrupted and that there are fair readings of those texts that do not require us to believe that the actual wording of the text of the

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Torah and the Injil has been changed. Obviously modern Muslim Da 'i want to take it that way, want to interpret it that way, but it's not necessary and certainly hasn't been the foundation laid in the scripture.

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Now, I'm going to ask Alex a very simple question. The Shema that we have today, is it preserved?

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Yeah, it is 100 % preserved. There's no change to it.

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My friend, you are wrong and you will learn today. Inshallah, God willing. So here we're looking at Matthew chapter 22.

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Now, if you'd ask me, I would say yes, we know exactly what Shema is. However, I think everyone recognizes the

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Shema is given to us in a couple different places in the Old Testament and not in the exact same words. And so what we're going to have here is a playing on translational issues and a playing on the fact that when you quote, you know, when

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I quote the Shema, I normally say Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Echad, but I wouldn't say it to a

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Jew because they would not appreciate the use of Yahweh. So what if I used Hashem or Adonai?

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Is that a change in the scripture or is it just simply a modification of the citation?

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When the scripture quotes something from the Old Testament, does it mean to quote verbatim or does it have freedom?

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I mean, the writer of the Hebrew says it says somewhere and then you have a citation. So what you have here,

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I think, is a playing on an application of a standard that clearly

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New Testament writers did not feel themselves bound by to try to create the idea that there are all these differences.

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The reality is that there is a shorter version, longer version, just like there's a shorter and longer version of the

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Lord's Prayer found in scripture. And so it's not, this is, again, one of the problems we have here, and this is not just Ejaz Akhmed, but this is common in a lot of the stuff that you read about the

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Bible when people are alleging corruption in it. There's different, that term has to be used specifically.

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First, I would like to see it limited in its utilization to transmissional corruption, which would have to do with textual variation.

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Part of this has to do with interpretation by the

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New Testament writers of the Old Testament text in light of the fact the New Testament is written in Greek. And because it's written in Greek and it's being written to a

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Greek audience, then when it quotes the Old Testament, it does so from the Greek translation of the

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Old Testament the vast majority of the time. There are some places where the Hebrew is used, but the reality is the vast majority of the time, it is the

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Greek Septuagint that is being utilized as the translation that the people to whom these books are being written would have access to.

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If they wanted to look it up, that's where it's going to be. So this is significant. It's very important.

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Anyone who reads New Testament commentaries will know that very often references made to the

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Greek Septuagint, sometimes abbreviated LXX, to give some of the background as to why the author is emphasizing something the way the author is emphasizing something.

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And so we've pointed out one of the really significant aspects of this is that when you keep that in mind, that text in John chapter 12, where John quotes from Isaiah 6,

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Isaiah's temple vision, and he says these things he said because he saw his glory and he spoke about him.

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For Isaiah, he saw Yahweh's glory in his temple vision, Isaiah 6. For John, he saw

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Jesus's glory and he spoke about him. And in the Greek Septuagint, in Isaiah 6 .1,

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there's a textual variant. And instead of saying his skirt, the skirt of his robe is filling the temple, it says his glory was filling the temple.

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You literally have in the Greek Septuagint, seeing the glory of God. And that's what John makes reference to, to make sure that his readers know what he's referring to, is the temple vision of Isaiah that identifies

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Jesus as Jehovah, as Yahweh. So it is important to recognize these things.

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There are, when I preached through Hebrews a couple years ago at PRBC, the folks were kind enough to allow me to make reference to some of the very significant variants found in the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 8, though I was a husband to them, though I did not care for them.

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The variant in Hebrews chapter 10, these again are between the Hebrew Old Testament and the

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Greek Septuagint. It's amazing, I was noticing a former friend criticizing me very strongly a couple days ago for the comments that I made once again on Luke 23 -34, and alleging that I had given to the

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Muslims a weapon to attack the gospel, as if I was the first one to talk about the variant at Luke 23 -34.

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Obviously, it's been known for literally hundreds of years, and you'd have to assume that the

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Muslims never read a book. This individual is well aware of the fact that Itzhar Haq was written back in the 1860s, and the author of that work had access to this kind of material.

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I almost brought in my 1950s vintage Nessie Olin text from the other room, just simply to show you that it lists the variant at Luke 23 -34 before I was ever born.

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So the idea that discussing these things is somehow giving ammo to the other side.

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The other side already knows about this stuff. Christians should never be individuals that are hiding things or being concerned about, oh, what if the other side finds out about this?

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Well, just tell the truth and trust it to God for crying out loud. This idea that if we discuss this, then, you know, hey, if someone takes something they hear from someone else and abuses and misuses it,

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God will hold them accountable for that. You're not accountable for that. You're accountable for being truthful in what you say in the context of what you're saying.

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And so, anyway, you know, I'm sitting here talking about, you know, variants between the

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Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Old Testament. It's like, oh, don't tell them that. You think these people don't read books or something?

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It really concerns me when I hear people acting in that fashion.

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We are going to discuss whatever needs to be discussed in regards to a meaningful defense of Scripture on this program.

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And if someone sits there and goes, oh, but someone might use that. You know, they might.

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And I leave that between them and God. God will judge. God's going to accomplish

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His purposes. Our calling is to be truthful and accurate with the information that we have in our hands today.

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That's what you do. So, anyway, I just bring that up because that's going to be coming up.

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And the idea of alleging that people somehow, you know, you're somehow helping the other side just doesn't make any sense.

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the Israelites, their monotheistic testification. But Jesus here is not reading from the same testification that is recorded in the

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Old Testament that Alex reads today. So the Greek Septuagint, which was the Old Testament used at Jesus' time, reads differently.

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What does it read? So this is what the Septuagint reads, the

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Jewish Old Testament. It reads, I love the Lord your God with your entire heart and with all your soul and with all your physical power.

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So the Old Testament leaves off the mind and it says love him with your physical power, dunamis, that's the

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Greek word. So the schema has been changed just by one word. Let's move on. This is the difference between the words here.

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Either you love God with your mind and your thoughts or you love him with your physical strength, jihad, war, as you see in the book of Numbers and numerous other books in the

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Old Testament. Now, there's a fascinating example of an extra -biblical application of interpretation as if dunamis would mean jihad or war.

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I suppose you could, you know, when you talk about your strength, if you use strength in war, then you could,

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I guess, make that connection in some sense. But be it as it may, all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength in that context would be significantly more related to every aspect of your life, which would include your thoughts and your thinking as well.

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But is that interpretational or is that an issue of corruption?

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Because when you look at the Hebrew, again, how do you translate these things?

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What translation is being used? What does the author wish to communicate to the audience?

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These are all issues that have to be addressed and you can't just simply go, well, you know, this means we can't know what it originally said or anything along those lines.

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I mean, yes, the issue of the transmission of the Old Testament text is very complex. The relationship with the various forms, the

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Greek Septuagint at this particular point in time, the Aramaic, the Masoretic text, all these things, quite important, quite relevant, quite complex and not simplistic at all.

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And I'll be honest with you, utterly unknown to the author of the Quran, utterly unknown to the author of the

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Quran. And to be honest with you, utterly unknown to Islamic scholarship until very, very, very, very, very recently, as far as I can tell.

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I'd be willing to be corrected on that. So the word used here is dunamis, which means physical power or physical strength.

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So these are diametrically opposed terms, but we're not finished here. They are not diametrically opposed terms.

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I don't know where he gets that. He's trying to limit that only to physical power and strength.

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That's not a, when you look at Ma 'od in its utilization in the

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Hebrew, to say they're diametrically opposed, I would say that their semantic domains overlap.

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You could, if you go to one extreme of dunamis and one extreme of dinoia, then you might be able to separate them out that way.

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But there is, in Semitic thought, an area where the two would overlap.

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You can't, I'm sorry, that again is going way beyond the actual text. Last time Greek Septuagint, we read something even more different from Deuteronomy chapter 5.

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So we have one Septuagint which says the testification is one thing and we have another version which says it's a different thing.

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So let's move ahead. This is what it says. I love the Lord your God with your entire mind and with all your soul and with all your physical power.

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You'll know here that the word heart is missing. So you don't need to longer love him with your heart. That's gone.

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That's been deleted. But remember he said it. Okay, we need to be very careful and I'm a little surprised

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Ejaz did this because he studies textual criticism. So he knows that he's using freighted words.

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He's using words that are not utilized by scholarship in this particular context.

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It's been deleted. This kind of terminology assumes something that textual criticism does not assume right from the start.

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What you could have here is a part of the tradition where you have multiple streams and you have a scribe faced with four options.

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One stream over here. One has Cardea, one stream has Deanoia, one has Dunameos and you bring the two together or you could have had all of them and they split into two streams or three.

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There's a number of different ways it could be looked at but the point is you don't use prejudicial language like this in a scholarly way until you have evidence of being able to demonstrate what your actual conclusion is on that particular subject.

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You don't just throw it out like this. I think that's an inappropriate way of doing it. 100 % the same, but we've seen that the first of the three things you're supposed to do, love him with your heart, love him with your mind, love him with your physical strength.

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It's been changing, changing. So going ahead really quickly because I have very little time left.

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How much time do I have left? Three minutes inshallah. Okay. So you'll notice that the word Cardea or heart is missing.

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Instead it is replaced with the word Deanoia which again is mentioned before means of the mind.

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Jump in ahead. You can see where it's been removed here. So perhaps we could find a solution by going to the gospel attributed to Mark because we know that Jesus reads the

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Shema twice. Once in the gospel of Matthew, the second time in the gospel of Mark, but there's a problem.

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By the way, I just want to point out Deanoia being utilized as one possible translation.

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We talked about Cardea, heart and mind in Hebrew thought, you know, we

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Westerners distinguish heart is always, you know, where you've got the flowers and the valentines and stuff like that.

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That's not, the heart is the very soul and seat of the self.

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And so Cardea and Deanoia would actually have very close semantic overlap as Greek translations of the

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Hebrew terms at that point. And so again, it's simplistic to simply say changed, altered, so on and so forth.

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When you're talking about, remember, the stories about how the

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Greek Septuagint came along are mythical. There weren't 70 scholars that went into 70 caves and came out 70 days later with the exact same thing and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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And it didn't originate at only one point in time. And so one of the issues when looking at textual variation in the

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Greek Septuagint, and so for example, in my software,

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I have in the in accordance,

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I have one that has Cardeas and Succase and Dunameos.

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And then in the Göttingen Septuagint, there you have

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Deanoias, Succase, and Dunameos. So the real difference between those two is really a translational issue of whether you translate the

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Hebrew that it comes across as heart in the

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Greek Septuagint as with one of two ways, either

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Cardea or Dunameos is the difference that you have at that particular point in time.

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And so these are, you know, lev normally means heart, but it also can refer to the very core of one's being.

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So these are valid things to point out, but there's a whole lot more work that has to be done to say, oh, and that means that either the original has not been, the original is not obtainable or we, you know, any of these issues along that line, going way beyond what the text actually allows.

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I'm sorry, the textual data actually allows for at that point. Mark doesn't solve the issue.

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He creates an entirely different way to add to the Shema. What does he say? So he says, and you must love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with your physical strength.

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So it was three things before, now it's four. Let me show you. So this is a quick chart of comparison.

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Matthew lists three things, and does he agree on what those three things are with the other three documents, the

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Greek Old Testament, the Lexham Greek Old Testament, or the Gospel of Mark? No. Does the Greek Old Testament list three or four things?

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Three. Does it agree with the other three documents? No. Does the Lexham Greek Old Testament list three things in the

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Shema? Yes. Does it agree with the other things in the other documents? No. The same with the Gospel of Mark.

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So therefore we are at a dilemma. If the most important teaching is not preserved and is inconsistent in the manuscript record, we are then presented with several options.

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Option one, Jesus in the Old Testament got the Shema wrong. So God does not know the Shahada. Amazing. Option number two, the author of the

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Gospels got the Shema wrong, and thus the New Testament is corrupted. Option number three, the author of the

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Greek Old Testament got the Shema wrong, and thus the Old Testament is corrupted. Or option number four, all of the above are true, and thus the

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Old and New Testaments are corrupted. Now, I would point out, as I, you know, it's interesting,

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I've pointed out before, when we look at the parallel accounts of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as they're found in the

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Quran, we find even in parallel accounts, even when quoting Lot, we have differences in the terminology that is used.

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Now, one could ask the question, well, you know, if God is the author, which one is the perfect one?

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If we want to be really, you know, literalistic, then we could make that kind of an argument.

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Most people would say, well, if God's the author of the Quran, then he can express himself by different means.

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Well, can't the New Testament writers or Jesus, the

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Apostles, whatever, can they not do the same thing in the days of Jesus?

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What has been documented is that there was a tendency toward an expansion of the

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Shema, which makes perfect sense. I mean, think about what it's saying. The Shema is saying that love for Yahweh is to be absolutely extensive.

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And so it makes perfect sense in the, I think you would probably find in various of the

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Midrashic commentaries and things like that, and in the New Testament writings, a great expansion of terminology that would be utilized as to how love for Yahweh is to be expressed in the entirety of human existence.

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Looking at at the textual apparatus for Deuteronomy 6 -5, you have

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Kardia, you have interestingly enough, they list

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Sukkot with Matthew and Luke, so they actually use the New Testament rendering as a testimony.

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But you have Sukkot and Eschewos, which is the difference between strength and soul.

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Deanoia is here, Dunameos is there, they are all listed in the various places.

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Probably what you have here is expansion due to preaching and teaching.

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You have an expansion, and you get an example of this in Paul. That's what

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Deuteronomy, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 8, 5 -7 is an expansion of the

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Shema. He's showing that the scribes, the Pharisees, he trained as a

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Pharisee, well aware of the fact that the rabbis would expand upon these things and make application of these things.

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And I really have to wonder, in light of the

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Quran's own lack of direct literary connection to the sources it cites, and hence its utilization of ahistorical sources and things along those lines, do you really want to get into making an accusation against the preceding scriptures that would be understandable as sermonic expansion, when the

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Quranic writer can't seem to tell the difference between sermonic expansion and actual textual citation from the sources he's utilizing?

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In other words, once again, it just seems to me that for many Muslims, the utilization of this kind of argumentation is self -refuting.

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If you apply it to your own system and it refutes your own system, you might not want to be applying it to other systems.

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I recognize that sadly, there are a lot of Christians as well that don't care about consistency and argumentation, and there's certainly a lot of Muslims I've encountered that aren't overly concerned about consistency and argumentation either.

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But especially at this point, it's not like you have one that says you shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and another one says you shall not love the Lord your God with all your money, lands, and flocks.

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Okay, that would be a complete departure from the meaning of the text.

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The reality is you take any one of these manuscripts and it is going to adequately communicate to you the point that the entirety of man's constitution is to be involved in his love for God.

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There is no aspect of human existence and behavior and activity that is excluded from the command to love

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God because God is man's maker and everything man has is made by God. And so, let's sit back for just a second and say,

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Ijaz, if you really want to try to say that this is due to what you said before, and that is the depravity of the

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Jewish people from John chapter 8, why isn't this actually just, why isn't it just not just deleted?

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In other words, the variations are fully understandable in regards to either scribal variation or teaching variation, expansions based upon the explication of the text.

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There's nothing here that's saying you shall not love the Lord your

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God, but you shall love your sin. I mean, that's what you would think that someone who is truly perverted would change it to or something like that.

37:01

There's no evidence that this is some type of corruption that would flow from a rebellious act on the part of a scribe or someone along those lines.

37:12

So, all you've established is that when you have citations of a foreign language translation that they can differ from one another.

37:24

I'm pretty certain, I haven't spent much time on it, but I'm pretty certain, even though it's a much smaller text, that if we look carefully at the

37:34

Qur 'an's utilization of sources, and I'm sorry, the

37:41

Qur 'an does use sources. I realize, you know, I'm not sure what your view on that is, but I've met...

37:47

Well, how could you believe it uses sources now that I think about it?

37:52

Well, I suppose there might be a way to make it work. But I mean, if you believe that the Qur 'an has eternally existed, how do you even deal with...

38:01

I know one really sharp Muslim that said that any parallel between a secular source that existed before the

38:14

Qur 'an and the Qur 'an is pure coincidence. So I'd be interested in knowing, do you accept?

38:22

Because it seems all the scholarship you're using, all the scholarship you're using from outside of Islam would go, yeah,

38:31

Arabic Infancy Gospel, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, these Jewish sources over here, we can find it here, just all these sources are utilized by, not, not by direct literary citation or even copying, but orally.

38:53

So, I mean, that even moves it farther back down the road from the original sources. I'd be interested in knowing what you think about that, whether you believe that the

39:01

Qur 'an actually does do that. And if it does, how does that fit into your criticism at this particular point, would be one of the questions

39:08

I would ask. But we don't have to stop there. You can look at some other corruptions that are quite easier to follow.

39:15

This is one of the problems on Paul's letters, where he misquotes the Old Testament about the arrival of the

39:21

Messiah, whom he names as the Redeemer in Romans chapter 11, verse 26. He says, and this way all

39:27

Israel will be saved, as it is written, referring to the Old Testament, the Deliverer will come from Zion.

39:35

He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. However, what do we read? This is not what it's reading in the

39:41

Old Testament. In the Old Testament, it says that he comes to Zion, not from Zion.

39:47

So the Messiah does not know whether he's going or coming. Amazing. Okay. My suggestion, you know, obviously at that point, was that necessary?

40:06

You know, that seemed a little bit unnecessary to me.

40:14

A Redeemer, a Deliverer, will come to Zion, Isaiah 59, 20.

40:20

The Deliverer will come from Zion. He'll remove ungodliness from Jacob in Romans 11, 26.

40:29

So, when you, if we go back to, what did I say that reference was?

40:35

I just closed the window. That's the problem with using computers. Isaiah 59, 20,

40:41

Old Testament text. I already had a bunch of stuff set up for something else, but we'll look at it anyways.

40:52

A Redeemer will come to Zion and those who turn from transgression in Jacob. And you look over at Isaiah 59, 20.

41:06

And Hexai is the Greek that is utilized in that particular text.

41:15

And if there was a reason to come to or to present, and then it is not, let's just say it's the exact same term.

41:36

Okay. Eccion. Okay, I'm looking. And Hennekin.

41:41

There's where you're, well, it's still for the sake of, but there is a slight textual variation in the

41:48

Greek Septuagint. Again, there are fewer in the

41:56

Mosaic books, but it depends on which of your prophets and the various qualities of the manuscripts in the

42:03

Septuagint. But the verb is actually the same. And how does this impact?

42:09

It's not Paul's point to or from. That's not what he's emphasizing in Romans 11, 26.

42:18

And so unless you're saying that there is no manuscript that reads

42:23

Hexai Eccion, there are some manuscripts that have

42:32

Hexai Hennekin Eccion, but that's not a, that's, how does that impact the meaning?

42:41

Is really what the question is there. And why then say, well,

42:48

Messiah doesn't know whether he's coming or going. It, let me just, if someone did the same thing with Muhammad, would that just automatically turn you off from hearing it?

43:02

Just a suggestion, just something that struck me when you said it. It also adds another problem to it. And the problem is this.

43:09

It doesn't just affect the reliability of Scripture. It affects the identity of the Messiah and who the

43:15

Messiah saves. Literally, salvation is dependent on this passage of corrupted Scripture.

43:21

According to Paul in Romans, Jesus comes from Zion to turn the Godless away, to banish them from the

43:28

Jewish people. That's not what it says. The deliverer will come from Zion. He will turn Godless away from Jacob.

43:35

That's the promise of Isaiah. I'm not, the point is deliverer redeems the people.

43:51

Comes from Zion to turn Godless away, banish them from the Jewish people. No, no, no, no.

43:56

You've completely, utterly misread the text. He will turn

44:02

Godlessness away from Jacob, which means he's going to do a work amongst the descendants of Jacob, the

44:09

Jewish people, that will result in their salvation.

44:15

This is the remnant that you'll see that was already mentioned elsewhere in Romans chapter 11.

44:23

This has nothing to do with to turn the Godless away. You've changed

44:29

Godlessness into the Godless, banish them from the Jewish people. That's not even close to what was actually said in that particular text.

44:43

And in Isaiah 59 -20, let's just back up here.

44:51

So they will fear the name of Yahweh from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. So east and west. For he will come like rushing stream which the wind of Yahweh drives.

45:01

A Redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression and Jacob declares the

45:06

Lord. So again, those are described here in Isaiah 59 -20 are those who turn from transgression.

45:17

That's what turning Godlessness away from them means. There's no difference in meaning in the application whatsoever.

45:27

I'm sorry, but this one wasn't worth citing because it's not—you've totally missed the point.

45:35

According to what's written in Isaiah, Jesus comes to Zion for those who have already repented of their sins.

45:43

He's not coming to bring salvation. He's coming to those who have already repented and were seeking salvation from the

45:50

Lord. There's also Hebrews 10 -5 where it says, Therefore when Christ came into the world, he said,

45:58

Sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. This is literally copy -pasted from Isaiah 40 -68.

46:07

This is what it says. So in conclusion, you can see here that nowhere does it mention in Isaiah 40—it's supposed to refer to verse 7.

46:17

But if you look at it, I gave you the three verses 6, 7, and 8. If you see the word body there that you have prepared for me, please point it out.

46:24

Does anyone see it? No one sees it? Alex, remember the Old Testament has not been changed, right? So that's missing.

46:30

I wonder what happened. So in conclusion, we again are left with several options here. One, Jesus— Okay, it almost seemed to me like the video jumped or something there.

46:45

Because it almost sounded like the audio skipped or there had been an edit or something.

46:52

I'm not sure. Because I totally lost what he was saying there.

46:58

But let's, you know, let me see what— He said that that's from—

47:11

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

47:19

Just got a simple citational problem here. He just made an error and should have checked his sources a little bit more closely.

47:31

And I'll be honest with you. When I listened to this, I listened to it while writing and so I didn't see the stuff on the screen.

47:41

And I'm not pointing this out to try to embarrass Ijaz, but it's not Isaiah 40. It's Psalm 40.

47:48

And so if— It would be impossible for me to switch really easily here.

48:00

But here, let me give you the actual text. So the actual variant,

48:16

I think Ijaz was quoting from another source, possibly a

48:24

Jewish apologetic source, and just missed what the reference was. There is a variant here, and maybe that's why

48:32

I thought there was an edit, is because I think he looked at it and said, something doesn't look right here.

48:38

And, you know, so when you messed up in your notes or something like that— Okay, so leaving that aside, there is a variant here.

48:48

And it's a variant that when I preached through Hebrews 10, I noted at that particular point in time.

48:54

And that is that in the

49:00

Old Testament, you have one stream says, my ears have you opened, and another stream says, a body you have prepared for me.

49:11

And this is one of the two, I think, two primary texts to look at in analyzing the writer of the

49:25

Hebrews' utilization of the Greek subject over against the Hebrew. I know we're getting into some deep waters here.

49:31

Some people have already turned us off, but I know that some of the rest of you actually like getting into the deeper stuff.

49:38

But you have, at Psalm 39 .7,

49:47

if you want to write this down and take a look at it at a later time. Psalm 39 .7.

49:54

I'm trying to remember Philip Edgecombe Hughes' commentary on Hebrews.

50:01

It's a really ugly green, at least the edition that I have. Let me recommend to anyone who wants to look a little bit more into this.

50:09

My recollection is that the best discussion

50:14

I'd, and I give a discussion in my sermon on this text. You can get it from Sermon Audio, but I don't go into a whole lot of detail in a sermon.

50:24

Obviously, you don't have a digital projector or something like that, at least not in our church. So I would recommend

50:30

Philip Edgecombe Hughes' discussion of the background of the difference between Otia and Beos.

50:41

I think it was, was it Beos there? Soma, Soma.

50:48

I'm sorry, Soma. What am I thinking, Beos? It's life. But I don't have, since we're right toward the end here, and there's a bunch of other things we need to get to.

50:58

If Ijaz wants me to do so, and I have some lead time,

51:04

I could put together at least a slide or two on the textual background to the difference between Soma and the other reading, if we wanted to,

51:19

Otia. But I can't do it right now because I can't switch. Even if I could switch over to it, it takes too long to get

51:26

Logos set up to be able to do it and increase the font size and stuff like that. So that's where the problem was here. I knew there was something that didn't make any sense, and now

51:34

I know what it is. He put Isaiah 46 through 8, and it's actually from the

51:40

Psalter, Psalm 39 in the Hebrew, and that's where the issue is. If you see the word body there that you have prepared for me, please point it out.

51:50

Does anyone see it? No one sees it? Alex, remember, the Old Testament has not been changed, right? So that's missing.

51:56

I wonder what happened. So in conclusion, we again are left with several options here. One, Jesus in the

52:03

New Testament got the Shema wrong. Two, the authors of the Gospels— Okay, let's look at these.

52:08

Jesus in the New Testament got the Shema wrong. Jesus in the New Testament utilized the Shema as it was being utilized, not only in Jewish worship at the time.

52:18

No one, no one raised a question when Jesus quoted this. It was commonly expanded upon in preaching and teaching.

52:28

No one had an objection. So this is not a matter of Jesus getting the Shema wrong. The author of the Gospels got the

52:33

Shema wrong, and thus the New Testament is corrupted. Again, the author of the Gospels is accurately representing what was understood by the people.

52:41

No one raised any issues about this. This is just simply applying a standard that no one in that day would have been able to understand or thought was necessary.

52:54

The author of the Greek Old Testament got the Shema wrong, and thus the Old Testament is corrupted. Again, the term—

53:00

Notice the author of the Greek Old Testament. This is assuming that there is a singular author of the

53:05

Greek Old Testament. There wasn't. There were numerous translators for the various forms of the Greek subject.

53:11

The authors of Romans and Hebrews got the Old Testament quote wrong, and thus the New Testament is corrupted. Again, notice the utilization of corrupted here for original writings versus transmission.

53:21

Got to keep those two things separated. This is a disagreement on meanings of text or the sources you're utilizing, something along those lines.

53:30

The authors of Isaiah and the Psalms got the quotes wrong, and therefore the Old Testament is corrupted. That doesn't make any sense.

53:38

And all of the above are true, and thus the Old Testament and the New Testament is corrupted, which makes no sense whatsoever, even from an

53:43

Islamic perspective, because I thought Jesus was a prophet. But then again, you don't know what Jesus actually said if you take those particular perspectives.

53:51

So we got into some woods there. If enough people want to really dig deeply into some of that, maybe we can do a special topics study of that.

54:01

We've done it in the past. In fact, something's almost telling me— I'm not sure if Algo is in the channel.

54:08

Yeah, Algo 1 is there. Something's almost telling me like, I have done that sometime in the past.

54:16

It would be nice if we had an exhaustive scriptural index. How many dividing lines do we have up there?

54:27

I mean, that would take a long time. Yeah, 1 ,500, that would take a little while.

54:34

Yeah, no twist about it. That would be ugly. I'm trying to send you another thing here.

54:49

Hmm. Okay, that's not what I wanted. Let's do this.

54:56

I do have a number of different things queued up here. Let me see if I can send this to you instead.

55:02

And this is—okay, that should be it. Got it? Okay. I'm going for all the easy stuff today.

55:13

And now I can't even find—I went to so many different references there. It's going to take me forever to get back to it here.

55:21

There it is. This was posted two days ago, so January 7th, from Paul Williams.

55:34

And it says, The Christian Dilemma. And that's probably too small for anybody to read.

55:41

The God that Jesus was, a Christian perspective. Muslim. Can we blow it up?

55:48

I'm sorry? Doo -doo -doo. I'm supposed to just fill here.

55:58

Well, we can't get it big enough to actually read. There, that's what I was looking for.

56:03

Good, they don't need to see me. The God that Jesus was, a Christian perspective.

56:09

Muslim. Is Jesus God? Christian. Yes, Jesus is God. Muslim. The Book of Numbers 31 says to kill all women and infants and keep the little virgin girls for yourselves.

56:18

Christian. Yes, but that's the Old Testament, and we follow the New Covenant because of Jesus. Muslim. Is Jesus God?

56:24

Christian. Of course he is. Muslim. Okay, so if Jesus is God, he must have been the same God in the Old Testament and is the one who gave the instructions to kill women and children to take little girls as sex slaves in your

56:33

Bible. So, yeah, well,

56:39

I've seen him utilize this a number of times at Speaker's Corner. And so I wanted to point out the many errors and problems with this kind of an incredibly simplistic and inappropriate argument.

57:00

Muslim. Is Jesus God? Yes, Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity. He is the Son Incarnate.

57:05

He is not the Father. He is not the Spirit, but he has eternally existed as God and became flesh.

57:16

The Book of Numbers 31 says to kill all women and infants and keep the little virgin girls for yourselves. Why are you going back,

57:23

I wonder, to a text about God finally bringing judgment against the

57:30

Midianites for what they had done in seeking to corrupt the worship of the

57:36

Israelites back in Numbers chapter 25? You are aware that that's what's going on here and that the words you're taking are from when

57:47

Moses rebukes the people because they did not fulfill the commandment, which was theirs.

57:55

That they had only killed the men and they kept the women and children. And the whole point of Moses saying was, wait a minute, wait, don't you remember what happened?

58:05

The plague, the judgment that came upon us because the Midianites attempted to cause us to sin against God.

58:14

And what had happened to Phineas, remember that the man took the woman into his tent and Phineas goes in and skewers them with the spear and the plague is stopped from the people of Israel.

58:26

And God said he was going to punish the Midianites and now he does punish the Midianites. Don't you think any of that's relevant here?

58:33

Unfortunately, the way that this is presented is it's an abuse of the historical context.

58:40

The establishment of the people of Israel in the land, the extreme importance. Look, it's even more difficult,

58:49

I think, to work through the text that says that even if the wife of your youth, your brother, secretly attempts to get you to worship a false god, you are to expose them and be the first person to toss the rock.

59:04

That is how absolutely first in the thoughts of the people of Israel, their being the covenant people is to be.

59:14

There's to be no other god. And the Midianites were specifically and purposefully seeking to corrupt the people of Israel from the worship of Yahweh.

59:24

Now, let me just ask, Mr. Williams, would God have the right to judge the

59:33

Midianites? Could God have sent a plague amongst the Midianites to wipe them all out for their direct act of rebellion against him?

59:44

If you say no, then we don't really have much of a ground for any further discussion. I don't think

59:51

Muhammad would have said no. I think Muhammad would have said, yes, Allah can destroy people for their sins.

59:57

I mean, how many times is Sodom and Gomorrah mentioned in the Quran? And the just punishment upon those people?

01:00:05

That's a question you have to ask. So, this is a just punishment upon an evil people, and yet, there is extension of mercy to a small class of them.

01:00:20

And you turn that into, well, that's a terrible thing. Well, that's sex slaves.

01:00:26

No, that's actually, that would mean that if they were to take those women who had not lain with a man, then they have to protect them and they have to provide for them.

01:00:38

So, what you're saying is, it would have been better to have killed them? I'm not sure what your argument is.

01:00:46

But I would like to suggest that your argument is to utilize a text to create in a modern mind that is utterly ignorant of the ancient context, such a revulsion that you can't think through what the real argument is.

01:00:59

Now, of course, I was going to say that the representation of the

01:01:08

Christian, yes, but that's the Old Testament, we follow the New Covenant because of Jesus. You know better than that.

01:01:14

You went to a solid church. I know your old pastor and the people there, you went to a solid church, and you know that's a misrepresentation of meaningful biblical

01:01:23

Christianity. But, but, it ain't uncommon, unfortunately, for people to say that.

01:01:31

So, you know better, but you are at least representing, sadly, a number of people.

01:01:37

And I know there are people involved in Muslim evangelism that sort of go, ah, don't worry about it, that Old Testament stuff, that was before the

01:01:44

New Covenant, so it just doesn't matter anymore. That's not how the New Testament writers viewed it, that's for certain.

01:01:51

But that's not, in any way, shape, or form, a meaningful representation of a sound understanding of the unity of the

01:02:00

Old and New Testaments. But, the main argument is all this.

01:02:07

Could Jesus have commanded the destruction of the Midianites?

01:02:14

Let me say something to anybody who's listening. If you say no, you've got the wrong

01:02:21

Jesus. Oh, but He's so loving, and yes, yes, giving of Himself, yeah, that's, um, that's loving, and that is absolutely incredible, the condescension.

01:02:37

But you see, you must understand that a sentimental Jesus is not the

01:02:43

Jesus of the New Testament. When the Word became flesh, there is a purposefulness, there is a focus upon the glory of the triune

01:02:57

God, there is so much that explains some of what seem to us to be odd statements of Jesus.

01:03:05

They're not odd statements, they are consistent with the fact that He came for a purpose. And I want to remind everybody, because I remember hearing this,

01:03:15

I remember when I first really started understanding these things as a young person, I was going to a

01:03:21

Southern Baptist church, and we would have Bible study classes, and unfortunately, even back in the 1980s, small groups were very often, let's read a

01:03:34

Bible passage, and then we'll all talk about how we feel about it, which is not, that's not how we do it in Reformed Baptist churches.

01:03:44

And I remember, once I first got a handle on this, how often people would say, well, you know,

01:03:52

I'm awful glad we've got the loving God of the New Testament and not the angry God of the Old Testament. And especially once I got into seminary and studied church history and realized, wow, we're raising the

01:04:05

Gnostics from the dead with that kind of an attitude. That is not biblical teaching.

01:04:14

And in some of Jesus' parables, He talks about, it's pretty clear that the

01:04:22

King involved there is Himself, and they bring His enemies before Him and execute them. And I've mentioned it many times before, but it's just one of the best examples.

01:04:34

When you get to the book of Revelation, the Lamb stands as if slain.

01:04:40

But He's called what? The Lion of the tribe of Judah. The whole point of the visionary aspect, the apocalyptic aspect of Revelation, is to allow you to address complicated, deep things in symbolic language that helps to express all of it.

01:05:00

And so when you see the Lamb standing as if slain, well, lambs, if they're slain, aren't standing, but He's been resurrected.

01:05:07

And so it's telling you more than one thing. But then He's called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And you've got a

01:05:13

Lamb that is now a lion. And so there's a contradiction, but it's not a contradiction.

01:05:19

It's just giving you a much more brilliant picture. And the same thing in Revelation 6.

01:05:29

As the judgment of God comes, and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from what?

01:05:37

The wrath of the Lamb. The wrath of the Lamb. Now, when you think of a cuddly little lamb, you don't think of wrath.

01:05:50

But that's what these people are crying out for, is relief from the wrath of the Lamb. And I don't have...

01:06:01

Mr. Williams' argument is absolutely meaningless to a biblically literate

01:06:09

Orthodox Christian. Meaningless. As long as you recognize the full truth of who

01:06:15

Jesus is. It's not a dilemma. It may be a misrepresentation, but it's not a dilemma.

01:06:23

I was going to do another video, but obviously

01:06:32

I took way too long on the first one. That's not unusual. We were going through some tough stuff there, so it takes some time.

01:06:43

So I'm going to put off the video, which is a Oneness Pentecostal video. I guess

01:06:48

Eddie Dalcour did a debate over the weekend, and the guy he debated sort of did a video dump, going after Eddie for allegedly misquoting

01:07:00

John 17, 5, and then going after me for both

01:07:06

Eddie and I recognizing what's found in Philippians chapter 2. And so, I think that guy's name is

01:07:13

Richie, is the one, this guy. And so I'll play those clips, and we will refute what

01:07:21

Richie had to say on the next dividing line. Someone remind me of that, or I may forget.

01:07:31

So we'll get to that one. As we look toward the end of the program, it doesn't mean we're really all that close to it, but in the last topic anyways,

01:07:45

I need to correct a great, great, great deal of misinformation, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, some just straight out dishonesty that is floating around the

01:08:05

Internet since, well, obviously, that kind of nastiness and misinformation has been floating around the

01:08:15

Internet before January 2nd, when I did the program with Michael Brown.

01:08:26

The specifically stated purposes, the original contexts, becoming completely lost in the fog of foolishness that is filling the comm boxes and tweets and Facebook pages and blogs and YouTube and all the way that, unfortunately, we miscommunicate with one another today.

01:08:59

Some of that material is almost unworthy of notation.

01:09:11

Five days ago, we had this from Slandering Keyboard.

01:09:19

Clearly, James White and Rich Pierce are in serious damage control, damning and maligning anyone who had a problem with their whitewashing of a heretic.

01:09:28

This was a shameful display of Christian character and discernment, and then what you have is a fan and here, this is the title.

01:09:35

I'm sorry, it is offensive, but this is the title. What Happens to White When Brown Hits the Fan? I remember the first person that used my name as a form of mockery or argumentation.

01:09:56

Her name was Gail Ripplinger and Slandering Keyboard has descended to the level of Gail Ripplinger in their madness and it's a sad thing to watch.

01:10:14

I'm sending it to you. It's on the web, unfortunately.

01:10:23

What Happens to White When Brown Hits the Fan? This is a man who hires private investigators to dig dirt on his theological enemies and yet people support that and will say that I'm the one in sin.

01:10:44

It's truly an astounding thing. I think this will probably just pop right into it.

01:10:53

Did it just pop straight into it? Oh, good. Here's...

01:11:00

Now, I think this comes from RAM which I have decided means

01:11:06

Really Angry Men. I think that's the proper...

01:11:11

Huh? Yeah, oh yeah, very much so. Really Angry Men. I am sick of the

01:11:18

Calvinist Club so I joined a new one. Some of you may recall I talked about being sick of the

01:11:25

Calvinist Club last year sometime and so you look at that and I still don't understand because I hear these guys,

01:11:40

I heard the Bible -thumbing wingnut guy do they think that I was defending

01:11:48

Hank Hanegraaff's conversion to East Neurothox? Do they just not listen? Or do they just not understand what

01:11:54

I was doing? I have to leave that as a possibility that they just have no clue that what

01:12:01

I was doing was saying that there are differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism that we must understand if we're going to appreciate the danger of Eastern Orthodoxy but also the real nature of Eastern Orthodoxy because they were just doing the it's just Roman Catholicism and I'm like, no actually it's not there are things that must be understood about the differences but I don't think they understand it because I keep hearing them this graphic why are you putting me with Hank Hanegraaff?

01:12:39

Do you think I support what Hank did? Do you think I support conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy?

01:12:44

Just because and this does sort of touch on one of the things that I need to address and that is it seems that for a number of people out there if you call for accuracy fairness making proper distinctions you somehow are supporting or promoting something

01:13:10

I don't again, I understand this amongst King James only fundamentalists or something, but I'm just stunned that this is coming from other people well, from the really angry men that makes sense and certainly from slandering keyboard it makes sense too, but this is from other people as well

01:13:29

I don't understand it I just don't understand it and then you know,

01:13:37

Michael and I debate each other so I've joined his club so if you go,

01:13:48

I believe this man is a Christian and I disagree with him on this, this, this and this and so much so I'm actually willing to debate him on those issues that means you're promoting him and you've joined his club

01:14:05

I'll admit folks, I'm really struggling to even understand the level of incoherence in a lot of what

01:14:16

I'm seeing. I'm hearing people saying that I'm endorsing these things, that I'm somehow endorsing the

01:14:25

NAR, endorsing the worst of charismania that I'm becoming a charismatic or I'm hearing such insanity it's hard to even understand

01:14:39

I've obviously put a lot of, I mean there are people out there, you are in sin you are in sin for having

01:14:47

Michael Brown on and not debating him on every single point that came up why didn't you debate him on whether healings and atonement, because we debated in mulligus

01:14:59

Spain on the subject for crying out loud, why don't you watch the debate well you should do it again no, that's not why we were doing the program, well why were you doing the program you're trying to mainstream him amongst reform folks no if you'd listen to what we're saying and not assume that we're lying, you might understand someone said that I got this whole subject trending on the

01:15:30

January it's actually January 2nd, they just said January 1st January 2nd dividing line not recognizing that the whole reason that I had

01:15:40

Michael on and I had invited him two weeks earlier was because slander and keyboard had used my working with Michael Brown in talking about homosexuality or defending the trinity or just the fact that we are friends

01:16:01

I've been on his program he's been on mine I will not apologize to a single one of you for the program

01:16:13

Michael Brown and I did on Isaiah 53 because none of you have ever done anything even close to it even close to it, and you know it you won't even mention things like that, it's like it doesn't even exist, who cares?

01:16:30

There's that Heidi Baker chick that's more important than anything Isaiah 53, who cares about Isaiah 53 who cares if you go into depth in the messianic identity and dealing with Muslims and Jews and that doesn't matter gotta stick on that charismatic stuff how sad how utterly sad

01:16:56

I am I'm just astounded at some of you I really am we debate each other on these issues and now you have the gall to say

01:17:11

I've changed my views on those issues oh I know what it is, and this is what's frightening me,

01:17:18

I know exactly what it is, and I've already I'm already seeing people saying this this is no secondary issue, this is a gospel issue these people are lost, this man is a heretic and he's going to hell enemy of God we're already hearing that from the people that also say every

01:17:41

Arminian is going to hell for them 99 .99 % of everybody on the planet is going to hell except for their little club their little clique we get that the really angry men, we don't expect any type of logical thought about this, but from other people that aren't a part of the really angry men you're getting the idea that look he can he can he can talk about justification and he can defend penal substitutionary atonement, and he can defend the trinity and the deity of Christ he can have a solid

01:18:19

Christology, it doesn't matter if he does not condemn this person, this person and this person in the way that I do he's going to hell you are adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ your personal interpretations your big issues be careful brethren be careful, leave that to God if you want to say, you know what

01:18:46

I don't care about how orthodox his confession is as one person said, even the devil is

01:18:52

Calvinist I don't care what he says, I don't care what his testimony is he's going to hell because he does not have sufficient discernment as I define discernment

01:19:06

I want to ask you to do something well, you won't do it, but thought experiment transport yourself back through church history and show me the

01:19:19

Christians that are left utilizing your standard oh, you may have only one particular area, but I'm going to tell you something if a modern reformed evangelical straight -laced all the charismatics are on a bobsled to hell confession of faith is what makes somebody a

01:19:42

Christian church only popped into existence a very short period of time ago that every generation thing you know, build my church thing forget that that's what happens when you start expanding beyond what the bible says defines the gospel to well, that means this that means that, and by implication means that and you've got to have all your ducks in a row what you all have forgotten is that we did that program because slander and keyboard posted two articles one came from the church watch group and that was the first one

01:20:25

I saw and I looked at it I started reading it and as soon as I started reading it

01:20:33

I recognized that it was filled with Gail Ripplinger level miscitation and wild eyed irrationality and it made specific accusations regarding Christology now, we continue to direct people to the debate that Michael and I did against Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Good because it was a very useful debate so I'm very sensitive to someone saying the guy you partnered with to defend the trinity is a trinitarian heretic

01:21:19

I look at the accusations and I realize these people don't even understand what they're talking about and since we don't know who they are we can't inquire much more along those lines but they don't even know what they're talking about and so that was why

01:21:41

I wanted Michael on the program and the posting of that came from what?

01:21:47

A previous shot from slander and keyboard to which

01:21:53

I wrote that very brief Facebook thing and this is really where the issue is what is it that defines the gospel what are these key issues

01:22:04

I even went to Sufficiency of Scripture there's a lot of folks that would not go there but I did and I said check, check, check and that's what brought these articles the other article was one on Pirate Christian that's the one where this guy who

01:22:19

I think is an editor there was talking about Facebook comments with Michael Brown and that's the one where you literally have the argument, look it up yourself

01:22:29

I'm not going to bother to look for it for you but look it up yourself where the argument was made that Michael said

01:22:38

I study the Old Testament in Hebrew all the time well you're writing on Facebook so you can't do it all the time huh gotcha okay

01:22:53

I've been the object of this kind of irrational diatribe for decades so I recognize it when it's being used as somebody else and there's no excuse for these things none there's no excuse for any of that yesterday a chat between Todd Freel and Phil Johnson was posted about Michael Brown and me and I guess it was what

01:23:25

I'm thankful for is it was recorded back in December but it wasn't posted until yesterday and what

01:23:32

I'm thankful for is we corrected a number of the misapprehensions in that conversation in the program we just did for example

01:23:41

Todd made direct reference to the Church Watch article and the Canonic Christology thing which was an absurd argument and we took it apart as it properly needed to be taken apart on the program that ended up in the conversation

01:24:00

Michael's view of that subject is perfectly orthodox he was misrepresented and so the issue of scripture

01:24:12

I haven't heard anybody yet and this is a crying shame other than haven't heard anybody say hey absolutely condemned grave sucking yeah well

01:24:25

I've got a picture of somebody why don't you say hey you know that's a good thing

01:24:31

I am so thankful that he came straight out and said that's absurd, that's ridiculous that's unchristian haven't heard a word about that because you're not going to get fairness from any of these folks no, no, no not a thing but there was something else and that blew it right out of my mind there was another example

01:24:53

I was going to use why don't we hear oh I'm sorry we had a conversation

01:25:01

I asked a direct question of Michael Brown I've been accused of the softball thing the questions were determined by the accusations made in the article that we're responding to and I asked a direct question of Michael Brown about is there anything outside of scripture that is

01:25:31

Theano stuff that's God breathed now if you've done serious study in the field of scriptural sufficiency dealing with the concept of tradition, sacred tradition oral tradition versus written tradition

01:25:51

Roman Catholicism all the rest of that stuff then you know that's a vitally important properly phrased question it's not the kind of question you get in an elephant room and what was

01:26:08

Michael's response I haven't seen anybody even mention it even refer to it no there's not there is no divine revelation outside of scripture now you can sit there and say well that means you can't be a charismatic well obviously he has a way of understanding that allows him to be a charismatic do

01:26:34

I find that consistent? No that's why we debate each other but I do not have the right to lie about people

01:26:42

I disagree with. No Christian does and what

01:26:49

I'm hearing are defenses defenses of doing exactly that I'm astounded absolutely astounded look

01:27:00

I started listening to another program today that came out recently after about 15 minutes of Heidi Baker I was like there's no reason for me to listen to the rest of this the guilt by association argument is everywhere absolutely everywhere he goes to this conference and here's this person speaking and that person speaking and I does

01:27:27

Michael Brown know that I would encourage him to invest significantly more thought into where he speaks yes why doesn't he because he doesn't think as a fundamentalist polemicist for him if I get the opportunity without restriction to present my message

01:27:55

I'll go pretty much anywhere is that dangerous? I think it is does he know

01:28:02

I feel that way? sure do does that determine whether somebody is a Christian or not for some of you evidently there's a textual variant in 1

01:28:10

Corinthians 15 where that becomes part of what is absolutely necessary to be a Christian that's what's frightening me is it otherwise people who would loathe to ever add anything to the gospel don't see that that's exactly what you're doing he has to have my background and my background says man

01:28:34

I'll tell you what you won't even be seen in Walmart with a Presbyterian he doesn't have that background can't even begin to understand it and you know what he really in a naive fashion wants to believe the best about anybody who names the name of Jesus he really does we were having a disagreement last night and it's like well look

01:29:01

I've heard this good thing and that good thing and so I'm going to assume that what you've seen online is an aberration rather than the norm and if it's the norm then you'd be right and this person should be avoided but until I get information otherwise

01:29:18

I'm going to think the best can that go too far?

01:29:25

sure it can but man let me tell you something what's the other extreme?

01:29:31

the other extreme is an ugly nasty ungracious wrap your pharisaical robes around you and look down your nose at the uninitiated and unclean kind of orthodoxy that turns my stomach now the amazing thing is why we did that program the substance of the program the things that Michael said basically for most people it's like I don't care if it says

01:30:12

A's line where have I heard that before? where have I heard that no matter what somebody says

01:30:18

I'm just going to dismiss it as a lie oh yeah Yasir Qadhi then you don't have to worry about anything he says anything that he says that doesn't fit into my mold it's a lie that's what

01:30:31

I'm hearing people do what can you do with someone like that? you can't argue with them you can't talk with them you can't get anywhere so people say well he's an enigma so he's dangerous

01:30:51

I think the idea that Michael is trying to somehow sneak his way into reformed churches he chuckles at that and so do

01:31:04

I he doesn't have any interest in that whatsoever not even on the board the guy has a huge heart for missions especially amongst the

01:31:24

Jews he and I even disagree on that subject for crying out loud I mean remember what was it two years ago two and a half years ago when did that goofy film come out oh what was it

01:31:39

I was just looking at the stuff recently how did

01:31:44

I come up with that anyways there was this guy the guy that put that film the guy that's been in Thorbo you know

01:31:57

Kevin Sorbo he was in what was that movie it wasn't he played one of the reformers and it was about how the reformation needed to be completed you know what

01:32:13

I'm talking about I had been sent it I had been sent the book and Michael was promoting it and I was like this stuff is weird this is no and I think we ended up maybe doing a program about it yeah we did ended up having another disagreement and it just seems that for some of you it doesn't matter how clearly you differentiate the problem is you just won't send them to hell and that's yeah you don't get into his face and scream at him you actually think that you know you make arguments and then just leave it to god well that's that's how you do it that's how you do it and I feel for people who when you have theological disagreements with somebody the lion roars when was that 2015 2014

01:33:26

I forget when it was anyways disagreed on that had yet another

01:33:33

I don't know how we could differentiate ourselves more clearly but the problem is when we do the debates at the end since we don't anathematize each other that's what seems to bother a bunch of you is that we shake hands at the end so there are a number of words we need to define

01:33:55

I can't believe James White affirms Michael Brown affirms in what way affirms that he's a

01:34:02

Christian yeah I accept his confession of faith most definitely affirm the teachings of the charismatic movement and his views on Israel and you mean the stuff we disagree on and debate on no

01:34:21

I don't affirm that at all well if you don't make that definitional then you're affirming it no you're just changing the gospel and adding to it stop it stop it well that's really the issue there's two things first of all these folks will never listen to what

01:34:44

Michael Brown says until he stops being charismatic that's the first thing that's just it gotta stop being charismatic then we'll listen to what he has to say well you ain't gonna do that so that's not gonna happen so until then what are you gonna do well you just have to kick him out of the kingdom so you've now made your view of gifts part of the very gospel definition itself but look at all the horrible things happening

01:35:14

I agree Michael Brown doesn't say anything about it that's not true well but not the way we would no he will never do it the way you would and even if you wanted to do that honestly the way you've treated him and lied about him why should he

01:35:32

I mean if you're willing to believe anything you read on the net if you're willing to read that church watch stuff and overlook the egregious obvious errors of reasoning really stretching this thing over here and then a word over here and putting it all together well the letter used the word government and we know that's what

01:36:00

NAR people do if you're willing to believe all that stuff why should he even listen to you you've disqualified yourself you have no credibility why won't you debate

01:36:17

Jordan Hall well the way he debates why would anybody do that I mean why would you debate someone who would probably as part of their debate preparation sic a private investigator on you why would you do that I don't know he just doesn't find any of this to be of any interest he's very focused upon other things and we seem to think this is all that he's focused upon it's sort of just like a really seriously type thing off the side let me just make sure because there's just so much silliness floating around the net

01:36:56

I have not become charismatic I still believe all the positions that I've enunciated in my debates with Michael Brown not where we were together we've only done one of those so far and that we were debating the

01:37:10

Trinity and yes I still believe everything I said in that one too but in all the debates we've done against each other at Southern Evangelical Seminary on the subject of predestination and election it was a good debate

01:37:21

I think we got to some very important things on healing on the cessation of gifts the debates we've done on his program on this program on texts of scripture

01:37:36

John 6 and Romans 9 and all sorts of these things my position has not changed anyone who says it has is lying through their teeth there's a lot of that going on a lot of that going on in the name of Jesus people seem to think that they can just twist reality stop it my great sin is that when

01:38:06

I look at what defines the gospel I'm willing to accept this man's profession and leave the rest in God's hands that's my great sin and it has nothing to do with my saying these aren't important issues they are important issues but when your entire argument is dependent upon your demanding well he must be a

01:38:35

NAR apostle he's not but he speaks where he's allowed to speak he's not an associationalist he doesn't even care about it he's not a fundamentalist he doesn't do that type of thing either but just stop if you don't want to listen to what the man says then don't listen to what the man says but don't you dare make your predilections and your comfort factor the deciding factor of what the gospel is that's dangerous folks that is really dangerous and there again we have to be truthful as Christians in how we handle information and especially when you're talking about someone who claims to be a brother in Christ don't you think there needs to be some extension of some type of grace nope just a heretic ok there you go um wow

01:39:41

I don't know what to say other than I'm just astounded at all the things that I have seen um in social media over the past couple of weeks and this whole idea that if you know this person knows that person knows that person knows that person that means you're responsible for all that person does no that is not true let me let you in on a little secret here when you go to a conference very often you've got a lot of other things going on very often there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes meeting with people sometimes if you have like a booth set up that you need to be there and talking to people even at the big conferences where you at G3 last year there were some presentations

01:40:38

I wanted to hear that I wasn't able to hear and I probably heard 1 20th of the presentations at G3 how can you hold me accountable for what anybody else said there and that happens at a lot of them you're assuming well he's going to all these

01:41:01

NAR people that must mean he's going to go and speak and probably leave and you can't even guarantee that he's going to hear what somebody else has to say because that's my experience at speaking at conferences there have been times

01:41:19

I've had to fly in been there only a little part of the time I know that's the case with some of you other guys

01:41:27

I've been to conferences with you and you weren't there the whole time you didn't hear what everybody said how can you be accountable for what somebody else said at the conference you spoke at when you didn't even hear it it just seems like the standards being used here are double triple and quadruple they're not fair there is every good reason to look at the clips of Heidi Baker drunk in the spirit and say here's the biblical reasons why that's wrong when you have to go beyond that you no longer trust that the word and the spirit is sufficient to actually accomplish

01:42:13

God's purposes in that matter when you have to start doing the conspiracy theories and the illuminati and all the rest of that stuff it doesn't seem like you really actually trust the positive arguments

01:42:25

I believe and this ministry will stand by this as long as I'm a part of it that the strongest arguments you can present are positive biblically based arguments that are always couched in grace and fairness and accuracy and if you don't got a biblical argument to make then maybe you shouldn't be debating about the subject

01:42:52

I got an amen from the other side of the window that's where I have run afoul of so many people is that I look at the subject of this is something else

01:43:09

I needed to cover I'm sorry we're going long there's something else I needed to cover I am really concerned that some of you think that cessationism is as central and clear a doctrine of the bible as the trinity really?

01:43:27

you really think you can make that airtight a case for cessationism as you can for the trinity or the deity of Christ or justification by faith?

01:43:39

can we be honest? that argument requires nuance and a systematic theology placed in church history you've got to put that in church history you've got to look at the progression of time in the book of acts for example and the period of the apostles and then moving out of that period toward a period of normalcy that's my argument and you think that's as clear?

01:44:15

well if you don't have that then you have all this charismania no I don't think you do but the point is not well if we don't do this then there will be that that's not how you determine

01:44:30

Christian truth and it seems like some of you have really gotten to the point where you've put that on the same level and if you don't see the difference

01:44:41

I'm frightened I'm frightened for you I believe the apostolic sign gifts have ceased now by the way can

01:44:50

I point something out to you? do you know there are cessationists that don't believe there even is such a thing as a gifted sermon? did you know that there are cessationists who do not believe that there are any gifts today whatsoever in the sense of service and ministry and within the church most of you who call yourselves cessationists are not that level of cessationist so how do you make the distinctions?

01:45:23

have you even thought about it? is that a good enough basis for you to be kicking people into the very flames of hell who confess what you believe about God and the gospel and penal substitutionary atonement and that the only thing we have that is theanoustos that is

01:45:42

God breathed the scripture hmm if you're willing to do it

01:45:49

I'll let you stand before God and answer for it I'm not going to do it I'm not going to join you in that I am going to rejoice in the fact that I can honestly and without fear say to Michael Brown brother are you serious?

01:46:14

you hear me out here and he'll hear me out and if he doesn't agree he'll tell me why and some of you are scared to death that we can then pray together and move on to something else you're scared to death by that I'm sorry you're scared to death by that if this man didn't believe that our common lord and savior was

01:46:39

God incarnate in human flesh we couldn't do it if this man didn't believe that the sole hope that either one of us have is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ we couldn't do it if he believed that some word of knowledge he might receive is theanoustos from God still couldn't do it but he doesn't and that means we can disagree and we do disagree and all of you who are trying to make you know it's funny you're trying to make me accountable for what he believes on the basis of making him accountable about what somebody else believes it's not sadly it says something it's not nearly as common but he has people on his side who try to hold him accountable for what

01:47:27

I believe because of his association with me now we see how silly that is isn't it funny how our perspective changes from our perspective

01:47:37

I've been on his program to discuss all sorts of things and we would realize well man if there is something charismatic in his audience yeah

01:47:48

I know uh ha well he mentioned it from our perspective we would look at a charismatic that goes you can't have that guy on there don't you know what he believes he's a

01:48:03

Calvinist and we'd go what a radical and then we'd turn around you can't have that guy on there he's a charismatic oh what a radical right it isn't what's good for the goose it's good for the gander just a blind spot

01:48:23

James still love you well I appreciate that but if you can get past the blind spot thing for a moment let me just ask you a real direct question every one of you that has publicly made your accusations known every time

01:48:38

I've pushed every one of you personally so do you know listen to any of the debates

01:48:44

I've done with Michael I know one or two that have and they're the ones that are actually the most moderate in their criticism most haven't no so which books have you read well

01:49:00

I know he never criticizes actually he does well I never hear it but if you're not reading his books how could you well the discernment bloggers this has become a vicious circle hasn't it he has a book coming out he mentioned it on facebook just today playing with holy fire well

01:49:22

I agree with everything in it nope didn't agree says

01:49:28

I'm not a charismatic but it's a book about gullibility and lack of accountability and a lot of the very same criticisms that we make but he starts right at the beginning saying

01:49:41

I am not writing this book for the critics because they don't care what

01:49:47

I'm gonna say anyways they've made up their minds so I'm not writing this for them I'm writing this in house well that's not out yet that's right not till April so he's never done that no he has you just haven't read his previous books haven't listened to previous programs

01:50:04

I have you haven't so who's more likely to have an accurate knowledge and my simple question to you is do you even want an accurate knowledge some of you

01:50:14

I can tell do not and I don't understand that got me in trouble earlier last year because I think having an accurate knowledge of what muslims believe from muslim scholars themselves gives us a more open door to an accurate loving and compassionate presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the muslim people even when they know exactly what you're doing even when they know exactly what you're doing got me in trouble oh you can't do that same attitude now hmm strange

01:50:55

I'll admit I think I do need to confess that I have in the past been far too ready to simply accept what any discernment blogger polemicist apologist

01:51:14

I gave my tribe the pass and now that their ire has been turned upon me and I see the twisting of my words the utter disregard for context when

01:51:34

I see the really angry men putting up graphics about joining a new club when it's just factually intellectually dishonest and they don't care because hey it's serving the purpose

01:51:52

I go we are dishonoring the profession that we make we claim to follow him who is the truth we must be truthful and that means in this life sometimes we have to go

01:52:08

I'm going to leave it to God I'm going to have to leave that to God and that bothers the fundamentalist mindset the fundamentalist has to answer a question for everything you know what

01:52:21

I can't look into the hearts of other men could Michael Brown be deceiving me? yep sure could

01:52:28

I do not there are some people who claim to have a gift of being able to see into people's hearts from a distance but I'm a cessationist a moderate cessationist which means

01:52:41

I believe the apostolic sign gifts have passed away I believe God does give gifts to his people to men to lead the church and things like that but this remote seeing thing that some people in remote places seem to have claim to have

01:52:59

I've never read about that one in the bible but there are some people that have it they claim to anyways anyway so be careful what you're reading and place in context what really has been done there was a specific really bad article that we responded to we got into other things later on but that was the purpose and it had been prompted by it's being posted let's keep in mind what actually took place let's keep in mind the fact something that Michael knows that other people are forgetting and that is we do disagree on many things

01:53:44

I'm not trying to mainstream him amongst reformed people he's not a reformed teacher but I do believe dear reformed men that we can learn from people who aren't reformed and if you don't believe that then you don't believe as many of our forefathers did believe

01:54:09

Michael and I are going to work on something together where we are going to respond to a particular apologetic argument that's being used by muslims and jews and if you will not learn from that I truly question your stability

01:54:30

I truly question your stability now I can't force you you can walk off and never listen to this program again

01:54:41

I can't do anything about it but it does seem to me we've actually touched a lot of people that are starting to realize that we have created these little echo chambers and in those echo chambers there's a massive amount of willingness to misrepresent others as long as it builds us up as long as it fits our narrative dangerous thing because as is being demonstrated eventually even if you're in the same echo chamber as somebody they can turn on you they can turn on you oh yes we have oh yes we have well

01:55:26

I didn't I didn't make this exactly two hours but that's okay we'll leave it there we'll leave it there appreciate you listening to the program like I said on the next program

01:55:44

I hope I'll remember to address the issues of John 17 .5 Philippians 2 in regards to oneness theology and Mr.

01:55:53

Ritchie's video that he posted and there's other stuff to get to as well

01:55:59

I'm sure but we appreciate you listening today we'll see you next time. God bless.