Peter Lumpkins' Book

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

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

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

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

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

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James White. Well, I was ready to go with just some all sorts of really important stuff.

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I mean, the conclave and electing a new pope and, you know, homosexuality and gay marriage and the collapse of civilization.

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I've had to put it all on hold because something far more important than all of that has just come to my attention.

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And we have to lead off with the amazing, astounding story. You look completely lost in there.

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You have no idea where I'm going. And that is,

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I just learned that the news has just broken. The president was in the middle of a speech and he had to stop because all the reporters ran out of the room.

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And because they're covering this amazing story, Peter Lumpkins has written a book on Calvinism.

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Oh, my goodness. Oh, I can just hear some people.

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Oh, yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, it might be really good. Oh, yes.

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And the amazing thing is that it's everything, everything you need to know about Calvinism and then some.

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Oh, I can't wait. That'll probably take about 20 miles to polish off.

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And it's just in time for the 2013 John 3 .16 conference.

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Yes. When you put on one debacle, repeat it a few years later. Why not?

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Yes. Go to to Peter Lumpkins blog and you will discover what is

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Calvinism. Is there a is there a link somewhere here? I mean, I'm sort of.

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Well, that's the front cover. Where can you because I just I just want to be one of Peter's first reviewers.

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You know, I bet you I bet you anything. That he will be so kind, he'll send me a copy.

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What do you think? No, I don't think so. Oh, well, anyway,

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I'm looking forward to looking forward to that. An exclusive biblical learning series presented by Free Church Press.

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Hmm. That's I'm looking forward to looking forward to that. I'm just sort of looking through some of the comments here.

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Yeah. Peter, Peter, how does one go about purchasing these books? And somebody.

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Oh, no. First, a John 3 .16 conference. And now gasp books, books about Calvinism.

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But they're not written by Calvinist idols teaching us all how to be good little Calvinists.

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How divisive only Calvinists are allowed to write about Calvinism. What do these traditionalists think they are?

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If they knew anything about Calvinism, they'd be Calvinists. That's what Mary said. Oh, well,

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I look forward to reading everything you need to know about Calvinism and then some.

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I'm looking through the archives. You're trying to find something appropriate to play for this night. The Southern Baptist National Anthem is the only thing

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I know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not happening.

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Not happening. But there you go, folks. There it is. That's our lead story for today.

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Now, moving on to actually important things that might have meaning. There is no question about the fact that the world is currently looking toward Rome.

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The conclave will begin in the not too distant future. and who knows two or three days after that the white smoke will usher forth from the from the chimney and there will be a new pretender to sit upon a non -existent throne etc etc it is amazing to listen to the ecumenist today who are just all a

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Twitter about who the new Pope is going to be and how important this is and we all should even if you don't believe that the

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Pope is a vicar of Christ this should be really important to you and all the rest of stuff well yesterday

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I was witness to a

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Lazarus incident with my MacBook Pro I took it I had to take it to them this first time

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I'm sitting I've got two MacBook Pros in front of me my first one my second one this is my third what's my new is my main one it's the one it's got the big drive and I do the videos on stuff like that it it decided to go to sleep for a while it decided to just die and so I took it over there and they resurrected it and it's living again but like Lazarus will someday die again so that's where it's not a real resurrection in that sense because then it would never die again and then it would be worth a lot of money but it will it will die again someday but I was unfortunately you have to make appointments with the geniuses at at Apple and hey the lady did a good job so I guess we should call her genius but unfortunately mine was at 430 in the afternoon which means

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I got out of there right about five and I am in a bad part of Phoenix as far as traffic is concerned so I'm trying

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I'm just trying to get back across the valley and there are some places especially along Glendale Avenue they're just really slow bumper -to -bumper and so I'm listening to Hugh Hewitt now

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Hugh Hewitt is an interesting guy he's a smart guy he knows everybody he has talked with everybody

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I mean talk about somebody who just knows I mean he is just the man but he's also a

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PCUSA elder I think it's PCUSA I'm pretty sure it's PCUSA which means he ain't exactly the most conservative guy when it comes to theology and he is such a good good ecumenist and he was mentioning at the beginning of the program that he was going to be having a fellow on to talk about the

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Enclave and it was quite interesting the fellow by his name is

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George Weigel and he has a new book out called Evangelical Catholicism I threw it on the ministry resource list last night on in Kindle form and someone's already been kind enough thank you very much you know who you are to purchase that for me and the subtitle is deep reform in the 21st century church well it was interesting to listen to him talk about phrases like Semper Reformanda and things like that I appreciate hearing that I like hearing that I don't know how that works when you're a

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Roman Catholic because the church is infallible and there is a historical context to Semper Reformanda that the context he put in was always learning to love

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God better well that sounds real nice but what about you know like the teachings of the church well those really aren't up for grabs those are those have been infallibly defined already

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I did see an article I saw an article this morning that I guess

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Phil Johnson had linked to that seemed to indicate some real problems in the

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Curia in Rome and that this had something to do with the Pope's resignation I don't know I don't know maybe

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I mean it was talking about tremendous amount of corruption and sexual scandals and and stuff in the

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Curia in Rome amongst the Cardinals themselves and all this type of stuff I don't know theologically

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Rome doesn't have the gospel so you get a bunch of people a lot of power together and yeah I think it happened but I don't know but I do know that very few people are really see

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I've been talking about this for years our society Western society as a whole whether it's the

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United States Canada European countries Western style countries that have had large amounts of freedom for quite some time are stuck in a cycle of just repeating the same stupid things that they keep doing over and over again the young generation today history what's history history

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I don't care about what my grandparents and great grandparents fought for I don't care what they sacrificed for I don't care who they fought and the fact that my professor at my community college is spewing the same garbage as the people they fought against only 40 years ago

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I don't care that's cool he's neat and so you just see this this rise of the

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European Union and the kind of totalitarian thinking and the the suppression of freedom of religion and freedom of thought and all the rest of stuff that we are seeing happening at such an amazing rate of speed and in that context we are by necessity forced ever more closely together with Roman Catholics who are conservative in their worldview like we are and what's happening is people who already didn't know why they weren't

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Roman Catholics are either becoming Roman Catholics or they're adopting the viewpoint and I don't like that and those guys look silly in those hats and the long robes and I'm not interested in any of that kind of stuff

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I don't I didn't the smells and bells really aren't don't don't attract me so I'm not concerned about that but it's just you know that's their things that's good you know we've we've got our charismatic brothers and they do their thing and Pentecostal brothers do their thing and and you know

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Phillips Craig and Dean does their thing and you know Trinitarian not so sure about Trinitarian you know hey we're all together the world detests all of us they don't make differentiation between us they don't they don't care so you know let's just all get together let's just all cooperate and I've been talking about this for a long time

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I really have you can go back you listen to the Wayback Machine you can go back many years and I've been talking about the fact that the more and more we live in a post -christian and anti -christian society the more we're gonna have to be very very very very very very very clear very clear on what we believe the gospel is and what we believe the gospel is not and listening to this evangelical

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Catholicism you really you know you're just gonna be looked at as if you are out in the middle of nowhere you just don't you just don't want to cooperate but you're just a curmudgeon if you dare say things like well you know there is a thing about purgatory you know who cares about purgatory the society is coming after us you hear that well

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I care about purgatory because why is the society coming after me well there can be a lot of different reasons but the only solutions called the gospel and the gospel is denied by things like purgatory and the mass and transubstantiation and priestly absolution all the rest that stuff including the office of the papacy but you're not hearing almost any of that or if you are that's all you're hearing in other words there's no you know you get the knee -jerk reaction of the oh well

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Satan's having to select his next spawn or something like that rather than any kind of meaningful historically based demonstration that this office did not exist in the primitive church it's not 2 ,000 years old this isn't how

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Christ organized his church etc etc etc you've either got the ecumenist just go well you know it's just the way it is now you know you got to deal with history so don't worry about it or you've got the you know the real rabid folks that go the other direction and anyways that's we got so evangelical

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Catholicism I read it yet like I said it just got this morning on Kindle and I wasn't writing this morning so I didn't get it finished didn't get it recorded yet but we'll get to it and really going to be interested

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I am I am interested by the way I'm not saying that this shouldn't be covered I'm going to be very very interested if they choose a reformist

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Pope a young reformist Pope everyone's eyeing the fellow from the

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Philippines only 56 years old now

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I think I heard Weigel say that I think only 8 % of the

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Cardinals are under 65 so obviously that means a real you know probably still going to go toward the old line perspective on things but we'll see but if you get a real reformist

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Pope in there how is he going to be a reformist Pope in fact it was interesting and I had wanted to mention this on the dividing line so many times

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I hear things when I'm out and about and I go oh I've got to talk about that on the dividing line I've got to talk about it on the dividing line and then

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I'm old and so I forget I really need to put on my phone

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I actually have one I need to get a audio note taker type thing that will just allow me to hit it record the thing and then it's gonna come back and yell at me you know the next day did you remember to do this there are so many millions of apps out there

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I bet you there is something like that out there now that you're riding a bent you could almost you just take your hands off and you know steer with your feet no no no no no you don't understand the now you have to explain that and I'm riding a bent yes

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I am riding a bent I have expanded my cycling challenges I've added to my corral of machines a recumbent bike but it's not one of those that you see out in Sun City with three wheels this is for those you know anything about an

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SWB USS short wheel base under seat steering which means it's extremely squirrely it is it is meant for going fast and for digging tight and turns and doing all that kind of stuff but I'm just learn how to ride it and let me tell you something that is a different world

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I feel like an absolute noob first time I've ever done it you know I just I I I am

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I am an amateur again but I'm picking up pretty quick so anyways no you do not take your hands off and and no no maybe down the road someplace we gotta realize that front tire is only control my hands it is not my feet so I can't do nothing about that setting that ain't gonna

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I think it worked anyhow what was I talking about yes I was going to mention you know you're awful lucky

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I remember this because 90 % anymore I would for would have forgotten after that interruption where I was going with this but one of the things that Weigel said yesterday remind me of something

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I heard Jimmy Akin saying shortly after the news of the resignation of Benedict the 16th came out and it just just makes me if I had hair

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I'd be pulling it out I really would I do I do actually yes you're reminding me

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I and and Clementine finally got her fingers into it into it last night

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I've grown my goatee out some of you seen the debates and from Trinity Dublin stuff you can see my white goatee from a long distance off now because it's much longer it used to be and I grew it out so that Clementine has something to grab because my when

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I when Josh and summer were born I had a full beard and they just love to grab up there and just just grab hold of a pole like anything it's oh it feels so great so I wanted her to be able to have a chance to do that so I've grown it out but it wants me to I did not think about pulling my goatee out at this particular point in time but Weigel said it

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Akin said it they're both talking about an authentic and interpretation of and you're sitting there going oh you mean authentic interpretation of Romans maybe maybe

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Romans 5 1 therefore I haven't been justified by faith you have peace with God their Lord just Christ maybe there's an authentic interpretation of what that means over against Roman Catholic teaching and no an authentic interpretation has been provided by John Paul the second and Benedict the 16th of Lumen Gentium and the documents of Vatican to and they're talking about how now this is we've got two popes that have given us genuine interpretation which means there was a lot of non genuine interpretation huh

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I mean there's a lot of argumentation about how these documents were to be interpreted and here you have the allegedly infallible interpreter which you and I can't survive with because we're just left with the

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Bible you know you just got the Bible you know you don't know what the Bible teaches without Rome what is

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Vatican to teach well you don't know without the authentic interpretation provided by these folks and when they come up and then of course when they gave their interpretation then someone's gonna have to authentically interpret their interpretation and it just goes on and on and on and I'm like do you not see this

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Jimmy Akin do you not hear what you're saying you can stand there and say that solo scriptura is the blueprint for anarchy and then turn around and you know you know no no no that anything the

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Pope says then becomes subject to interpretation doesn't it ah yes it most assuredly does it most assuredly huh it is amazing to listen to it really really is amazing to listen to but obviously the conclave is important the the next

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Pope is going to be important and the thing to me that I I've pointed out from from church history our

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Roman Catholic friends sit there thinking because well we've got the Pope we have the infallible vicar of Christ well you know what how

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John Paul the second interpreted things Benedict the 16th fairly close not identical but fairly close but who's the next guy up and what if he has a different perspective remember what happened with on Aureus remember what happened on Aureus oh let's not think about that let's not think about that let's not think about that anyway so I'll I'll see if I can give you a little report on evangelical

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Catholicism somewhere down the road but as it is I right now

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I really really really want to finish Sahih Muslim and I want to get to the Mawat of Malik I want to have those three done and they're getting the majority of my time right now

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I'm starting to record the anti right stuff and and but I've got a lot of stuff going on in there

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I really do hey Abdullah Kunduz and channel so hi

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Abdullah maybe you're listening I don't know let's find a way to get me back down to Australia hey you know if I'm going to South Africa any direct flights from South Africa to Sydney I wonder how that would that would be a

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I'd be and I just be in the air a long time I did something like that but man I could make chairman's one year that would be incredible I mean that's that was you know chairman is a is a level in my flight fund stuff and looks like I'm gonna be getting to the next level this year which means

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I need to re -rent that movie with Tom Hanks where he lives in the airport because then I'll that'll sort of give me some hints as to how

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I can get through my get through my everyday anyhow

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I do have some stuff queued up I have a lot of stuff queued up actually that I want to get to and so let me actually get to what

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I had queued up earlier and then get to what I was working on today I want to at least spend a few moments on these subjects we have such a diverse listening audience that maybe one way that everyone can sort of learn more is if I do shorter segments on different topics rather than just doing one topic the whole hour that's obviously easier on me to stay with one topic but since I start off with a subject

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I wasn't gonna spend the whole hour on then maybe

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I can mix a few others in here and there's actually believe not a relationship between these we have been over the past number of months reviewing the debate between Daniel Wallace and Bart Ehrman on the subject of the

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New Testament I'm concerned about one aspect here this was the debate of course where Dan Wallace specifically announced the discovery of first century papyri or at least what are alleged to be first century papyri of Mark and a number of second century papyri and at the time the announced publication date from Brill was last month that was six months down the road back then but you may have noticed

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February which is what we were told back then has come and gone and we are now into March and whenever Dan is asked anything about this now his standard response is

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I have signed a an agreement not to say anything more about this so what does that mean delays in publishing nothing new but I was certainly hoping to have been given some information by now as to at least what the name of the book would be how can we put on pre -order etc etc so we can get in immediately it's coming from Brill which means we have to take out a loan to get it seriously

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I mean I would be shocked I would be honestly shocked if this book was anything less than a hundred and sixty nine dollars per copy

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I would be shocked and I would guess it'll probably be about 289

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I put it in the upper 200 to 300 dollar range from Brill because they know there's actually going to be in enough interest in this that they they can ask whatever they want and it'll still be picked up just because of the value of the information within it so this is that this is that particular dividing line or debate that was taking place and so the very next statement that I was do we do we need to take a break here

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I know I know who's never mind we don't need to take the very next portion of the debate we're gonna listen to I think is so important and that that we understand what

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Bart Ehrman saying so I'm actually a back it up to some we've already covered and then make some comments on here's here's here's

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Bart Ehrman what is our basis of knowledge for that I would like him to address that question and let me make it more specific how do we know that our surviving manuscripts were copied from accurate copies instead of thoroughly erroneous ones

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I'm not asking whether the later manuscripts after the year 900 were accurately copying their predecessors how do we know that our earliest copies were preserving accurate copies of accurate copies how do we know that now there's a challenge is it and I think we have and again if you've not listened to the reviews we've done in the past I apologize because obviously we we have addressed this very issue numerous times before but it's good to keep addressing it because we keep getting new listeners all around the world and especially young folks are being challenged within their educational context by this very kind of assertion now there are many people sadly many of my

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Muslim friends fallen into the repeat whatever Bart Ehrman says wash repeat don't think about what

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Bart Ehrman says trap and they just do that over and over again and it's it's a shame but there's the argument and if we as I pointed out in the past what what

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Bart Ehrman does in this debate is he's he's moved the goalposts a little bit and not a lot of folks recognized it because they don't know the field well enough to really recognize it and here's here's the issue what is basically saying is

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I'm not overly concerned about the textual variants that exist in the manuscript tradition that we have today not overly concerned about that what

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I'm concerned about is the period before the manuscript tradition gives us sufficient breadth to start establishing a text you're talking about a relatively short period of time a relatively short period of time in fact if you're a liberal and you write the

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New Testament books late in the first century then you're talking about a really short period of time but what they're saying is what what

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Ehrman is saying is what we don't have manuscripts of the first hundred years or so of course we don't have manuscripts of anything of the ancient world of the first hundred years or so can you imagine for example if this standard was used for the

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Old Testament well we don't have anything with a hundred years of Moses so we can't have any idea what

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Moses actually says this is this is this hyper skepticism which has not been a part of critical scholarship up until this time period but now it's become a part of it and so you've got these manuscripts that start appearing the papyri and thereby different people they come from different places even though obviously the main place we find them is in places where the the environment allows papyri to survive for two thousand years that's not going to be in the rainforest someplace

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I mean you take any modern book into a rainforest and you got in there for a week and it's almost destroyed just simply by the moisture and everything else the cheap paper that we use these days so we they're generally found in certain areas that have an air enough climate to allow for their survival but that doesn't mean that they're all being produced there they get carried there they get put in libraries etc etc but the point is you get these first papyri and what if they were all copies of bad copies well how do you respond to that I've given you the basis for responding that in the past but we're just now touching on it now and it actually is a good lead into something

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I'm gonna play from my debate from the East London mosque so that's what

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I'll use as my tie -in in essence but how do you respond to that first of all you need in your own mind to understand what the issues are what is it that I emphasized even in my debate with Bart Ehrman it's a term called multifocality multiple audience multiple writers multiple places multiple times you do not have a single line of transmission of the text of the

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New Testament if you did then Bart Ehrman's skepticism would be warranted if all we had was one line of transmission if Paul hadn't sent his letters to different churches if the

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Gospels hadn't gone all over the place if we just had one line then we'd have real problems but we don't have just one line we have a wide variety a wide variety of materials and wide variety of manuscript traditions to draw from and so you have this you have a copy made here and a copy made there and a copy made a couple hundred miles away and there are different times and are transmitted to different places and and all of these types of things and as a result you get textual variance but you also have the answer to Bart Ehrman's question he seems to be missing something very basic and something very very important and that is when the

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New Testament text appears in history as it begins to appear over here in this manuscript over here in this manuscript do we find textual variation between those manuscripts yes we do do we find them to be giving different stories no the nature of the variation is consistent with what you would expect with the kind of transmission of the text that you'd experience given what history tells us about what

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Christians were going through they were a religio illicita they were under persecution

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I just saw that I've got coming finally I'm not sure what took so long but a a book that I need to take a look at of someone trying to argue that the

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Christian persecution against all of history the Christian persecution made up we just made it up I have a feeling it has something to do with well they know that we're going to be persecuted not too distant future so see they're just trying to make themselves martyrs etc etc that type of thing but I don't know we'll take a look at it

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I I will report upon it once I have the opportunity of analyzing and taking a look at it but the the

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Christians in that first period of time you've got the Neronian persecution you've got persecution at the end of the first century which is quite severe the most severe persecution is actually at later at the end of the third century into the beginning of the fourth century but in that first period of time you still have persecution you have people having to move from place to place they have to take their manuscripts with them they can lose manuscripts they had to turn manuscripts over when the

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Roman soldiers want you to etc etc you have all the stuff going on and the kind of variation is consistent with the fact that you couldn't have the best scholars in the world and the best copyists in the world involved in the production of the things

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Christians themselves certainly had to make the copies and do it secretly and so you have that kind of variation but the point is because it comes from so many different sources the idea of some kind of massive corruption of the message makes no sense it what you've got here is

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Bart Ehrman putting forward a theory and not seemingly realizing that that theory would demand a tremendous amount of evidence that should be available in other words if Ehrman is right and the later manuscript tradition that we have is some kind of messed up corrupted doesn't represent the original type situation which is not actually trying to say that because he would have to prove it but he's just one leave the door open that that's what our our

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Muslim friends like Samy Amerdi and people like that are wanting to tell us if that were the case then with the discovery of earlier and earlier papyri that don't come from that same line you would find manuscripts that are wildly different tell a completely different story is that we find no so what is the fundamental corollary that must come from Ehrman thesis that for some reason somehow even though Christianity spread all across the known world all we've found so far are copies of just one stream the one line of corrupted manuscripts the good stuff just went disappeared hasn't left a single trace now he will tell you that this is the most widely attested book of antiquity he will tell you it is the earliest attested book of antiquity but he won't tell you that his theory would require you to believe that by some amazing result of history it's just the one corrupted line that we have any early manuscripts of now you might say well actually he's just saying that we just don't know he's being a good agnostic but again for that theory to have any validity what you'd see would be these massive differences you know you find two copies the gospel of Matthew and you couldn't even tell they're both the gospel math because they're so different Jesus is in one but some other dudes in the other that kind of change and everybody knows that's not in any way shape or form what you have in the manuscript history at all so you just need to be aware of the fact you need to understand the the answer to this this objection how do we know that our surviving manuscripts were copied from accurate copies instead of thoroughly erroneous ones

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I'm not the point is that nobody in the early church had the ability to differentiate so as to corrupt the text in that way and say well we're not copy those longer copy these that's not how copying was being done the

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Christians were persecuted people there wasn't any any bureaucratic organization of copyists that the that the non -existent head of the

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Christian church could say we're going to use these not going to use those there wasn't any control and so if you had the good manuscripts and the bad manuscripts you'd have equal copies of both and yet what we see when we look at the earliest manuscripts is we have a really consistent well yeah how did how did they know that p52 was from John chapter 18 um because it reads what

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John chapter 18 says that's why if it was from something else they wouldn't have recognized it and so that's the answer to that particular question and we need to recognize that that's the answer to that particular question so I just want to touch on that because you you hear that kind of thing and and you know here's the great

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Bart Ehrman and la la la la la and my Muslim friends love quoting Bart Ehrman well one of the things

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I want to do was I when

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I first listened to the debate from the East London Mosque um let me think let me think back yeah it was actually it was after I had listened to Zakir Hussain's next debate which

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I believe was with David Wood in London I found that he continued to do the machine gun or shotgun approach where after you make your opening statement then in your rebuttal period you just start throwing dirt in the air you just you just bring up every topic known to man you just throw it all out there and hope something sticks that's that's basically what he was what he was doing and so I went back and I listened to our debate quite some time ago you know what in his rebuttal period

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Zakir Hussain was doing this there is a response to every single thing he said maybe just for his benefit but for the benefit of others as well it'd be good to go back through that and demonstrate the wild inconsistencies of Islamic apologists who engage in this type of behavior because I think what

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I decide was I wasn't going to do that if Zakir Hussain showed that he had heard me saying don't do that and no we're not

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I'll go to suggest we are not talking about the Vice President Biden's suggestion that you fire both barrels from your porch that's not what we're talking about I want

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I want to make sure that we don't want to get any politics involved here at all we are not talking about vice

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I have not suggested the Vice President Biden is a secret Muslim I did not make that suggestion somebody else may have but I didn't so anyway just we're going to get to this in context but what

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I decided to do was since he's going to continue down this road I'm going to respond to Zakir Hussain in the rebuttal period and I'm just looking at the screen here and what

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I do is I in audio note -taker I make a different color each subject and I've only gone through I don't know the first 10 minutes or maybe less the rebuttal and the colors are it's a rainbow explosion of color why because there's so many different topics that are raised in just in in a rat -a -tat -tat way but just to give you the connection here is the connection here's the connection to Bart Ehrman he of course quotes

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Bart Ehrman and might quote Bart Ehrman in this I'm not sure but just just listen to this kind of statement in regards to the text of the

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New Testament this reflects how many Muslims understand it the Samia Mary book is only going to make more

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Muslims have the same twisted inaccurate untrue view of the text of the

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New Testament but but here it is page 10 of Bart Ehrman's book, misquoting Jesus, actually mentions all you have are copies of the copies of the copies and they're all got different readings and if you don't like Bart Ehrman, if he's too liberal for you, he actually is agnostic,

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I'll quote Bruce Mitzker who in the preface to the New and Wise Standard Version of the Bible actually says that the scholars have got different manuscripts and all they do is try their best to find their original reading exactly what the

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Quran says in Surah 4, verse 157, they follow nothing but conjecture, nothing is serious, it's all doubts, though on the sermons in church they preach it like they know exactly what the original writer said so there you have

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Zakir Hussain and first he quotes the copies of the copies of the copies comment from Bart Ehrman and he normally throws more copies in there than that and then you have

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Bruce Mitzker now if you're going to accurately represent Bruce Mitzker then you should at least quote his own statements where his own study of the text of the

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New Testament has led him to the conclusion of the accuracy of that text and the propriety of having faith in Jesus Christ that's if you're going to be fair but we it's really hard to ask some of these guys from the

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Islamic side to be fair because they're really precluded from doing so by their their own theological system as far as I understand it as some of them see it but be it as it may what was even said there saying that editors examine the material you know that would if Zakir Hussain's gonna actually quote this type of stuff you think it might be good if he would take the time to actually read the textual commentary in the

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Greek New Testament that the UBS editors put out that Mitzker edited you know to have some knowledge of what they're talking about I don't get the feeling he's done that he's not just simply saying a bunch of editors sat around and you know they tossed dice or you know played cards to figure out which reading to put in or anything like that this is serious stuff and you're only talking about looking at serious manuscript evidence and things like that and then he connects that this is the amazing part he connects that to surah 4157 now you should know what that is if you've been listening to this program for almost any time at all you should know surah 4157 almost it's the one ayah of the

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Quran that I keep saying you need to know what this ayah is you all know it right it is the one verse the 40 arabic words the 40 arabic words we've even got a video on it a music video on the 40 arabic words it's the only place in the

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Quran where the crucifixion is denied placing the Quran inalterably in opposition to all of recorded history itself and here you have the claim on the part of the jews we killed the messiah jesus the son of mary but they killed him not it was made to appear to them should be halal it made to appear to them and some interpret that to mean someone was made to look like him and the substitution theory and all the rest of stuff but it goes on to say those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge it's just they're just following conjecture or speculation now the funny thing is here you have the

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Quran in a verse where there is no hadith interpretation there is no interpretation of these words that come from muhammad himself nobody for 200 years could remember a single thing muhammad ever said about these words and they've been interpreted a multitude of ways by muslims themselves and in the middle of that a clearly non -mubinun non -clear text that is against all of history zakar hussein can quote that and try to connect it to what bruce metzger was saying about the state of the text of the new testament that they're just following speculation as if the readings that the ubs committee chose were conjectural emendations when they were not they're all based upon manuscript evidence from the ancient world and it's we christians that produce critical text of our new testament still waiting on that critical text of the quran aren't we yeah we we don't we don't have that we have to go over to this source over here and find out about the sa 'ana palimpsest manuscripts and we go over here and read about the fogs palimpsest masorism we read the early tafsir literature and found out find out about the variations in the razm and all the rest of that stuff we have to put it all together but you all you can just go and pick up one volume it's a whole lot easier isn't it yeah because we're a whole lot more open with the textual history of our work which by the way uh is considerably longer than yours and considerably older than yours and hence would be in a completely different scholarly realm as far as its transmission and i ain't even talking about the old testament here so the the apples to oranges stuff here i'm just going to start uh neat we need to have a debate with somebody where we really focus upon this very thing and that is the quran a single author work a single author medieval work because that's where it comes from i mean if you make this sixth century the dividing line for the medieval period the end of antiquity it's a medieval work it's not it's not a work of antiquity a single author medieval work that is 57 the length of the new testament words wise to compare its textual transmission to the multi -authored work of the new testament which is considerably older and bigger and has multiple authors and then the even larger work of the old testament which is much older and more authors well how can anyone defend that on any scholarly level at all well you can make all the assertions you want but how can you defend that it's obviously not how things should be done and so uh what i'm going to do i just wanted to point that out um i do want to make make note i am well aware of the samy ameri book um hunting for the word of god i've got it i've got on kindle i've already recorded it um i'm working through it i i started reading on kindle while i traveled back to charlotte after i got through the first chapter into the second one i realized you know what there is just so much really bad stuff i mean just just massive ignorance of the of the sources being handled i mean i'm sorry mr ameri but it's just unbelievable the the conclusions that you will draw from a little quote here and a little quote there for those of us who actually read the stuff that you're quoting from just makes our our heads spin it's just not not respectful at all it's not respectful scholarship even though he calls himself a scholar of the stuff um i realized that he also really you know like like for example he'll quote dan wallace and he'll say dan wallace furiously asserted something like this as from one of his debates dan dan wallace furiously do you know dan wallace i mean i mean i'm i'm the kind of guy always saying dan pick up the passion on this thing here you know i mean dan is just the most even keel type guy around and it's just like really furiously uh this is a lot of stuff so what i actually did is i went back to the start and started all over again what i'm doing on kindle is i'm marking all this stuff just mark mark mark put it put it highlight highlight highlight and then you can go back afterwards you can look at all those highlights pull them out copy them and i'll have a fairly full list of egregious errors on sammy ameri's part but even then i stopped doing that why because sammy ameri begins his book by saying i was prompted to do this because i found this book in the library and it's one of the most amazing excellent glorious books that's ever been written from the islamic perspective and i knew what it was and i said it's about time that i spend the time on this one too it's called it's our alhaq it's from 1864 it's from india initially it was the book that was written that torpedoed uh british missionary efforts amongst the muslims there in india at that time and it's where the muslims at akhmadida he ran across the book that's what launched him into being in into islamic dawah and sammy ameri and uh adnan rashid when he was staying there and at the university of you know uh the first first debate we did in in dublin uh call university college dublin um he's got on his laptop because i'm sitting behind him i can see it a list of all these alleged contradictions you just scroll through and read these contradictions you know where they came from it's our alhaq it's our alhaq all goes back to it's our alhaq so i have it's our alhaq on my ipod i started on it um prior to the trip over to dublin been a little bit disruptive and disrupted and if you look at my calendar i'm going to remain disrupted as far as traveling goes for quite some time but i'm going to keep working on it keep working on it it's only 19 hours worth of listening just for that one um hopefully make some progress uh on but i've got that i've got nt right i've got all the muslim what i've malik i mean i just need to stop doing everything else and just start writing for the next three months and i might get it all done but that's what i'm i'm working on so i am well aware of those things but anyways i can guarantee you uh that uh zaka hussein has spent a fair amount of time with uh it's our hawk or at least with those who have been influenced by it's our hawk and so this kind of scattergun approach throw everything out it's what you're going to encounter on the on the campus uh that kind of thing and uh so we're going to go we're going to look at that and all that background has left me with just a few moments so let me just uh let me just grab one of these and hopefully i'll remember this when i come back over these i'll have to change their color or something so i can check out check out this argument i should have enough time to throw this in before the end of the hour uh well i got five minutes check out check out this argument now let me get to the first point dr james white mentioned that the quran says in surah 61 6 that jesus spoke of somebody to come after him whose name should be ahmed and um dr james white said where are these words that um jesus said but um that's the way i challenge you to show me anywhere in the text where it says this in the protestant canon we know historically christians had many gospels in fact i've got bar omen's book in front of me and dr james well respects him i'm sure who mentions that different churches have many different gospels when the quran tells them to remember the quran is simply reminding them of things they forgot why did they forget it because they chose the canons that suited them so did you catch that did you follow that argument see here's the problem the quran says remember when jesus said this now that would have to be meaningful to the people to whom he's speaking or the word remember would be ridiculous so and i did point this out in my response to zachary hussein if the christians to whom these are addressed were if these words are going to have any meaning to them then they'd have to know what muhammad was referring to they'd have to know what the quran is talking about and so i asked zachary hussein okay you say it's not in the quote -unquote protestant canon there's all these other gospels that barterman's talking about oh where is it where where is this prophecy of jesus is in the gospel thomas gospel peter gospel mary which gospel which gospel is it and can you demonstrate that the people who were listening to muhammad at that time that they would have had access to these things that they were i mean it's clear that from muhammad's perspective some of that gnostic stuff was part of the gospel there's no question about that because he incorporated into the quran and he didn't have any discernment as to what was historical what was not and and so he has jesus speaking from his cradle and that came from the arabic infancy gospel was written in the fifth century and and there's all sorts of pre -existing sources the quran uses even though quran says it didn't it's clear that it did the quran's an error on those those issues and so if he wants to go to those gospels that the quran itself uses and admit that the quran's an error because it used these gospels okay that's fine but i i said can you find us where the christians in the days of muhammad were using these things and thought that they were in fact the words of jesus and just because your author was confused about that doesn't mean that the christians were confused about that and remember not only that uh but as i pointed out in my opening in the hadith the story is told of a young jewish boy who when muhammad passed by he recognized that muhammad was prophesied in the torah now how did he know that how did he know that because you see the claim of surah 7 157 is that the people of the book find these things in their scriptures so you'd have to prove that they thought those books were scripture and that they themselves saw these things so much so that a little jewish boy who was dying would recognize muhammad as the one prophesied by the scriptures now he tried to do that by going the song of solomon 5 16 and i think we pointed out just how amazingly bad that argumentation is but that's the kind of stuff that's out there and notice here you've got muslims now bart ehrman would listen to this man's argument and go you've got to be kidding me but he's afraid of muslims he's afraid of the subject of islam so he won't talk about it you know he's been asked when you're going to write a book similar about the quran and what was his answer when i no longer value my life that was his answer we've played it on the air but he would here you have the muslims and they grab these arguments and they try to tie them together with what people like ehrman are saying in ways that these scholars would never ever accept but they don't care they don't care about the inconsistency of the conclusions they're coming to and that's the problem we will pick up with more from zachar hussein and all the rest of stuff next time on the dividing line see you then god bless the dividing line has been brought to you by alpha and omega 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