Post-Debate Review

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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

Our host is dr. James white director of alpha the mega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed

Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with dr.

White call now. It's 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

James white And welcome to the dividing line Tuesday October let's see.

I think it's 23rd, isn't it? Yeah, it's October 23rd. Welcome to the dividing line good to be back after a week away

Not a week off in any way shape or form but a week away from From the dividing line.

We have been very very very busy. I Have provided a brief discussion of our goings -on on the blog, but it's a whole lot easier to talk about things

Than it is to write things up. And so we're going to take some time today to fill you in on what took place last week and Possibly if you'd like to comment on Maybe what you saw at the debate, for example, please feel free to do so at 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 is the

Is the computer up because I'm hearing some really weird Odd sounds yeah, go ahead leave it down because I'm don't it's making it's making a good bit of noise.

I'm getting a lot of And stuff like that from it. So anyway Last last week where where do we begin?

Well? Hmm I suppose we can start with the conference that took place pretty much on on The MS Mercury or Ms.

Mercury as job would like to say Which didn't all take place there for Sunday night we started off with a group there at the

SeaTac Marriott and we began with the subject of the gospel and the Trinitarian nature of that gospel.

We went through Ephesians chapter 1 and Then we got on board the ship and even as We had only a few minutes after getting into our cabins.

We had another session beginning at 2 o 'clock Did have a nice place to meet it was a little too warm But except when we managed to get the window door open, but then we ran into a

Galeforce winds We had we had to give up on that and close the doors and get get warm again

The fellowship was warm as well shall we say and I didn't get through nearly as much as I had hoped to I will confess

I For a couple reasons first of all I'm just long -winded naturally and I didn't have as much time as I expected and Even more to the point on Thursday we had what was called a sea day and You see got realized the ship was doing is doing two cruises a week so it's doing a four day in a three day a four day in a three day a four day in a three day and So the three day just goes out to Victoria and back again, and that's all there is to it

We're on the four day. So there's an extra day in there Now what I would have liked to have done is sailed through the inside passage and you know seen beautiful Mountains rising from the quiet waters and blah blah blah

Nah, it's not what you do when you're on a cruise line and cruise lines want to make money so they

Want to be able to open their shops and their casino and the only way to do that is get three miles offshore into international waters and so So you do that by going out to sea there's just one little problem

That storm that is just now clearing out of you know yesterday cleared out of Arizona. That was just a southern tip of it which create all that wind here and Which hit

Seattle Thursday night with the wind gusts up to 80 miles an hour knocked out power in some areas is what we sailed right into and I've been on a number of cruises now and Had never seen a ship rocking and rolling quite as much as it was at that time so we ended up not having our about two and a half hours worth of lecture that we could have had and I really think if I had had that time because that's when

I would have been dealing specifically with the historical issues related to Islam I think our people clearly would have

Been prepared for everything That should be early raised with one possible exception from Luke chapter 13, which

I had never heard him raise and which is only marginally related to the issue of the

Atonement to begin with so Other than that I really think that I accomplished one of my goals

And that is the people who were on the cruise and who attended the conference Got the most out of this debate were the most prepared to listen to it and hence derived the most out of it

We had a really good time together Primarily in the Word of God I was projecting

Bible works up on the screen And I have this little tablet device that allows me to you know write down stuff and go over to a whiteboard and things like that and and We just spent most of time in in the text of Scripture and having a good time together

We had a morning session and an afternoon session And we had our one formal night and formal nights are always a lot of fun everybody gets all all dressed up and and the ladies look beautiful and the men look as well as good as men can look and You get lots of pictures taken

That's the best way to get family portraits taken if you guys and we had one one family brought

Well a couple of families brought the whole family, but for one family that was how many kids? At least four yeah

That's a lot of kids and parents and everything else yeah grandma and grandpa and the whole nine yards We're on the we're on the on the cruise and the only way folks can do things like that is because our cruises actually happen to be pretty affordable

Believe me with most of the situations that wouldn't happen so anyway In the evenings there is a theology talk that sometimes

I went to sometimes didn't and sorry depends because when I go to theology talks nobody wants to do anything, but just ask questions, so Had a great time on the ship, and then we got off on Friday morning.

I had a pretty easy transition over to the hotel and In the evening was the debate now of course a whole lot of work goes into these things you come walking in And it looks like it just sort of you know was set up by by little gremlins to come running in and do it that's not how it works and So Friday was probably

Rich's biggest work day of the of the whole cruise even though He was toting the camera around for these sessions as well that's the the toughest thing is to get that set up and when you put a

You know we could take that same sound system and put it back in the same room next week

And it would still be different than it was last week it's just you you when you have a portable sound system, and you're going into a

Room where you know things change the size the room changes where things are located changes no matter what you do

You are going to have sound issues And it takes a long time to get that working until you got the actual people up there doing it

I don't care how much testing you do beforehand a sound system changes over time and so lots and lots of challenges along there had lots of great volunteers to help and We've mentioned some of those folks on the blog as well

So very very thankful for for them, but then Come come the afternoon or evening.

I somehow did not notice this until afterwards when I was told about it, but the the rain

The heavens opened and the rain started coming down like I said Once we you know once we pulled into Seattle on the ship.

It was nice that where is windy Breezy cool you can tell it had rained but it was it was pretty nice out and it would have been a real real pain to try to get into the buses and load the buses like that in a absolute deluge, but Anyway, I was already in the ballroom or Something I don't know how

I didn't notice it But the the heavens opened and the rains really started coming down and not like your Seattle rain

Where it's sort of a strong mist drizzle for hours and hours and hours on end this was a gully washer thunderstorm downpour type rain that Really is a little bit unusual and So we had a lot of no -shows that means people who had already purchased tickets, but simply didn't make it and Not quite half of those had

Islamic names So it was you know pretty much a straight division along the lines there

We didn't have nearly as many Muslims there as we would like to have had We did do everything by the way we could to advertise the debate in the

Islamic community We sent flyers to every mosque in the

Seattle area and yet even at that We had two young Muslim men come up to us after the debate and basically said they had only found out about on the web

They had heard nothing about it locally Now I understand you know KGNW is not probably the first station that Muslims are listening to for advertising and I sort of wonder if there was a station that Had as its primary audience an

Islamic audience if they would even accept such Advertising for such things to be perfectly honest with you.

I mean, let's face it the debates like this don't happen in Islamic countries They just don't they can only happen here in the in the

West and the irony is in essence If if the one side wins that debate and wins the culture war those debates end

That's that's just how it works and so One of the young gentlemen suggested we should have gone to the mosques and passed out flyers and I sort of looked at him like do you really think that would be you know taken in a positive way and I mentioned that Shabir later.

He said well, you know if you talk to the To the mosque leadership and got their permission then that would be one thing well obviously

But we had already sent the flyers to the mosque leadership anyways So, you know, like I said, we had at least 50

Islamic no -shows At least from what we can gather. I mean obviously can't tell everything just by names could have been 50, you know names that are of Arabic type

Christians or something who knows but We did our best because we really did want to have a very good representation of Muslims at at the debate and So I'm hoping honestly that the majority of the reason they weren't there was simply

They're gonna be traveling together in a group or something like that and maybe from a distance and the weather just simply didn't allow it

I mean there was there was street flooding and things like that. So you just you just never know By the way, like I said, if you were there

I'd like to comment on the debate 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 we will keep the phone lines open for you today and for those of you watching on the webcam, we have

Found a new place to put one. It's an unusual location But it does sort of give a you know, broader perspective to the to the studio here

So you can sort of catch that as well The debate itself Shabir was there the day before and We we chatted before the the debate began and The debate of course was on the subject that Jesus Christ give himself willingly as a sacrifice for God's people

Hadn't didn't have any Armenians come up and go. Hey, you sound like Calvinist Even though I think if you'll listen

I was quite consistent in my statements on that subject and interestingly enough

It didn't come up. I honestly am not certain that Shabir is aware of the differences at that point

He never met he never said anything about it I mean he did say that Shriner would be closer to my position than the others

Well, okay, that's because substitutionary atonement, you know is a historically reformed doctrine, obviously

But I just don't know that, you know it just didn't come up even though I was very consistent and talking about the union of the elect with Christ and you know issues along those lines, but It just it just the specificity of Particular atonement just quite simply did not did not come up As far as an objection goes,

I mean I my presentation was was consistent with it and based upon it obviously, but be that as it may

So what I have in front of me, I do not have any clips as yet Rich is gonna start listening to the materials this afternoon.

Maybe Thursday. I might have an mp3 of some things I'm not gonna put a you know major pressure upon that because I suppose

I should mention in passing Appreciate the prayers of God's people clearly for the conference and debate as well

But also in regards to what happened the first night the rich and I were up there And that is at 352 in the morning my cell phone is ringing and it is the alarm company calling us once again that alarms going off in our offices and We have we have done a lot

My office for example, I mean Obviously a professional thief can get in almost anywhere

But a professional thief who has the skills to do that He's not gonna be breaking into my office in the first place because you know, unless he is just has a

Massive desire for you know, sound theological books That aren't very rare.

Anyways, or just you know wants to steal my special leather -bound Greek Hebrew text or something

They're just aren't gonna be bothering with us so the people that are gonna be bothering with us are the smash -grab drug

Dealing need money to buy drugs or do whatever Type Neighborhood punks quite honestly, and that's what we've been fighting with and the first two break -ins and and now

I Even what I rolled the video back and I watched this guy Check one of the doors and just walk right away from it because they yeah,

I can tell you something I've seen considerably less imposing doors on banks.

I Have I'm not making that up. I mean there that some some might argue that there's a tad bit of overkill but these are

Impressive doors with lots of locks and They're they're solid.

They didn't even bother so what they what they did is

They they went after the biggest the biggest window and and I'm you know what I don't think they got anything

It was so freaky being up there Because I get this phone call and I'm like, oh man if they've called me

I bet you they've called rich Okay. So what are we gonna do? I'm in my hotel room rich in his hotel room with his family

I find out later. What'd you you went in the bathroom? You you were actually had your laptop in the bathroom.

Is that is that I was on Wi -Fi the hotel Wi -Fi I was in the restroom bathroom trying to be as quiet as I could while I was talking to the 911 operator and then you

Jumped into the chat channel we jump into the chat You're telling me things and then I'm telling that to the 911 operator because you lost your ability to see the

We have the ability to see what's going on here over the internet we've got we have technology and Unfortunately when you do that over the internet, it slows it down a good bit

So it's very herky -jerky, but I can still see things. I could still see it on my laptop. So I'm sitting in my room

I'm watching the video on my laptop and then I'm rich is asking me questions in the chat channel to relate to The police so the police have arrived yet.

Yeah, that's the point We're sitting there and it's 10 15 minutes after the alarms gone off and there's nobody out here

I mean I can see the light on in Rich's office. We see where they've gotten in. We can see on the video and We're going, um, where is everybody enough time had gone by for the alarm company to call me

My telling them call the police then turn around they call you after they call the police. I presume

I guess I don't know and then Then they have the presence of mind to tell the 911 operator that they called.

Here's They gave him my number. So the 911 operator had been turned and called me

And there's still nobody there and I'm logged in I'm telling the 911 operator what I'm seeing and I'm saying what

I'm not Seeing our police officers And you know the whole reason for this is they had to we found out later or that morning

I guess when did we find out that they had to lay around the conversation on the conversation? They had to bring officers from North Phoenix It was the local gentleman that we had

That's right, that's right. That's right sight. That's right. That's right All the local police were already busy and we had to bring folks down from who knows how many miles to the north just simply

To do this, but finally I start seeing Some figures out there. I see a cop, you know out front.

I see another one down at the other end of the building They've got the place surrounded because they don't know if the guy's still in here or not And that's because I'm sitting here and I'm trying to review this but I'm reviewing this

Via the internet, so I'm only getting one frame per second divided by four different frames

So I'm getting one frame about every four seconds You can miss a lot in when it's skipping four seconds down the road that keep rolling this back going over things

I eventually got a decent shot of the guy's face and Uploaded to the website to offer the police department.

They wanted to download it. So he so he then Texts me and tells me okay, tell them this is the

URL where you can get the picture and so I tell the lady Okay, you can look at this guy yourself right now on the internet and she goes.

Well, we we don't have internet access I Thought all of them had internet access

Isn't that what they're doing in their cars, you know, come on Wow amazing I'm in Seattle and I can put a picture of the perpetrator up on the web, but they can't get it

That was like, oh my goodness. All right, that was that was fascinating But anyways, we are spending a lot of time talking about this and make a long story short.

Thank you, sir Make a long story short. I was a little distracting for one day, but we had some great guys back here

That jumped on immediately took care of it set our minds at ease That's a this wasn't gonna happen again and be there get everything cleaned up and by the time we got back and walked in Other than the board that had bored up the window briefly for a period of time

The the glass had been had been taken care of everything had been cleaned up Everything was fine by the time we got back.

We wouldn't have even been able to tell anything had happened if we hadn't watched the whole thing Ourselves, but it was really freaky.

They sent a canine unit in To the offices to you know, check out see if there's anybody in here and stuff like that and and of course

By five something in the morning I had already posted stuff on the blog and then later in the day Posted another thing on the blog pictures of the guy running away

I eventually found the frames where there he is running off into the into the darkness and Like I said,

I could hope that as he ran through that area out there, you know ran right into a pole or something Give him at least a bloody nose for his efforts, you know, but that probably isn't gonna happen either.

But anyway, it sounds a little bit Disconcerting but again all of that to say many.

Thanks to the people here in the valley who took care of things those of you who? heard our pleas and stepped up to assist us at that time and even even today more things arrived to Make us evermore shall we say secure?

eventually We may be contacted by the US government and asked to store gold here

Because things are so secure but That's that's that's just the way it's gonna be.

Of course. It takes me 20 minutes to get out of here Okay, lock this lock that gonna like Eric out there turn this on that on you

But hey, that's that's that's the price you pay living in the big city so having said that and repeating once again eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three

Three three four one the debate itself. I realized after I mentioned on the blog that I was going to be reviewing it based upon the notes

That I shipped my notes back At least for the end of the debate In a box that hasn't arrived yet And the reason for that was

I forgot to change the battery in this little tablet sitting right here Which I'm now using as the phone computer

And so the battery croaked and so right as we're going into the final statements up on the screen comes low battery

Bye -bye, and it's in the hibernation mode And if I had had a moment, I you know had another battery sitting there

I could have popped it in but I didn't and so I used a pen and paper

For the last part of the debate, it's amazing, but that's okay. I had done that for many one of those screaming sound effects

Yeah, I have I oh you want you want a screaming sound effect. Okay sound scream that way

Yeah like that That's a little loud that hurt that woke everybody up anyway

Yeah, I use pen and paper and there were a couple really need points on that And I I actually remember where they were on the page.

I still remember what they were so I remember one of them, and I will get to that one, but so what I have here is interesting

On my little tablet here is a program. It's one of the most useful Microsoft programs ever designed and I'm not a big fan of Microsoft to be honest with you because They they write what's called bloatware.

It's a whole lot bigger. It needs to be it's not only efficient But there is one program

That they have created that is just really good, and it's called Microsoft Journal It is a basically if you have a touchscreen you can sit there and write with it

It is like a pad of paper, and it works well it You can write well with it

You can color things erase things move text around insert text from other programs into it around your handwritten notes for doing debates there just isn't anything better which means

We're looking at upgrading my tablet for debates. It probably will go out of existence Before I do that because I hadn't like it, so you know that's how that works anyway

What I have is I was able to save What's really neat is this program can convert to e -text or export as an

HTML file? So I just export it over to my computer here the notes that I wrote and so I can go through At least the first three quarters of the debate using the actual notes that I wrote at that time

And then the last one if there are particular points that I don't cover here that I want to cover

We'll do it on Thursday, or maybe next week depending on when that gets here. It's probably not gonna get here It's by Thursday.

It might I don't know We shipped at UPS didn't we? It'll probably be here.

It's coming on Thursday Yeah, you know when they deliver those at 430 halfway through the dividing line so Maybe not

Thursday. Maybe maybe next Tuesday or something like that Well something tells me our driver is not gonna want all of that stuff sitting on his truck

We might we would be higher higher on the priority list this time yeah, who knows anyway So that's what

I'm gonna be drawing from here, and so if there's this seems a little bit herky -jerky it's because I'm just going down my notes and Making comments as as I go down He began

Shabir began by the way hi Shabir. I know that Shabir will probably be listening He mentioned he listens to the dividing line

Mainly when someone emails him and says dr. White mentioned you on such -and -such date, and then he can listen so hello

Shabir Thanks again for the so the logical way of getting Shabir to listen to every single program is to say

Shabir It's to say something put it in every every blog article as just put the word in there

And then then she will be listening to every debate every Start off saying that he's not here to show one side better than another

You know what I'll be very very straight -up and honest I am Because I believe that and I think

Shabir believes that Islam is is true and is right And I don't fully understand the postmodern emphasis upon well

You know we're really not here to say one side's right and one side's wrong In this issue the Quran says

X the Bible says not X or the Bible says X and the Quran says not X They both can't be true at the same time, so let's be straightforward and say actually

Both of us here believe it's far better for your soul That you believe what we believe than what the other guy believes and and let's be

Unapologetic in the not classical use that term about that that particular thing he made reference to recent research

And that recent research is almost all sort of naturalistic Liberal Christianity so liberal

Christianity is recent research Shabir is so dependent upon liberal Christianity, and I I mentioned it briefly, but I would just like to point out

Liberal Islam cannot live in Islamic countries Ever thought about that only in the

West can you even have liberal Christianity? Liberal Islam you know people who would dare run afoul of the

Taliban like Sharia Imams Find themselves in in great difficulty.

You know having acid there on their faces and things like that So that's that's not you know I think people need to realize that as is one of the major differences one of the reasons

But there is less quote -unquote liberal Islamic material to quote from is simply because liberal

Muslims can't live in Sharia Islamic countries without you know losing their lives or their freedom or their ability to speak.

That's a major thing He kept making Repeated references to the list of books that I provided for the class now

There were two lists and actually almost all of his references were not to the primary reading list at all

But to the background reading list the background reading list was quite wide It contained all sorts of reading that in and it's very common in seminary classes in conservative seminary classes

You actually give your students the opportunity to read the other side it's liberal seminary classes where they don't think there is another side, so therefore you don't bother reading them and In conservative seminary classes since you know you're gonna have to deal with these things you want to be able to give an answer for it

You make reference to them well for some reason should be Seemed to think or wanted the audience to think that because I made reference to these things because I had

Raymond Brown's book listed Actually to I am set listed in regards to death of Christ that this somehow meant that in some uncritical fashion

I think you know Raymond Brown's book is wonderful things like that look. I went to fuller seminary. I learned how to utilize

Liberal resources and recognize liberals can be very good at data mining at getting facts

It's the interpretation of the facts that you then have to filter through Because they're taking the facts and they're putting them in a foreign context and the results are frequently very confusing

And so that reading list was in no way shape or form meant to indicate

An agreement with everybody in fact I guess because I had mentioned N .T.

Wright in our Biola debate It was said that I greatly honor him or something like that.

You know N .T. Wright is a brilliant guy So if that means greatly honoring him then again so is Richard Dawkins They're brilliant doesn't mean that what they're saying is right or even close to right

But there are people who have the capacity of Great learning and remembering a great deal of complicated factual material.

That means they're brilliant on that level doesn't mean they're right and Obviously N .T. Wright and I would be at at loggerheads and at disagreement over a vast landscape of issues and all

I had mentioned about N .T. Wright was we don't know the order in which the Gospels were written and that is a

Fact and it's going to remain a fact until some massive archaeological discovery that that might throw some light on the issue, but The fact is we don't know and so to create theories and then base entire conclusions based upon those theories without admitting the theoretical nature of those things just doesn't make any sense and so I Guess and I do try to control this but I guess from what some of the people in the in the chat channel said

That when he said this my face did reflect my inner emotions at that point in time

I Think it caught me. So by surprise that I must have looked up like What was that?

I don't know if that was on the on the video or not, but it's like, okay, whatever

Let's see continuing down here The primary argument and this at least this came up You know some people have been a little bit

Disappointed in the debate in that there was a lot of wasted time discussing things that were not directly relevant to the thesis and The the assertion was made by Shabir Ali says no one dies the sins of another person and He really did try to develop that that concept some and when

I got up in my my rebuttal period I Said well what needs to be understood is that no sinner can die for the sins of another sinner

That is not the same statement as saying no one dies the sins of another person the issue has to do with the voluntariness of the offering and the character and ability of the person that that is

At stake here a person who himself is under the curse Cannot give himself in the place of another but one who is not that's you know, certainly clear in the biblical teaching

But that was one of the problems Was that I really and I can't completely blame him for this

Because there is a wide variety of expression once again because the fact we live in a day where there is a

Tremendous amount of apostasy. There's a tremendous amount of sub biblical teaching notice Those are not necessarily the same things you can have apostasy

You can have heresy and if people be our heretics who have never been never actually confess the faith So they wouldn't be an apostate.

They'd be a heretic you can have apostasy people who wants profess the faith who then abandon that and You can have a lot of sub biblical teaching people that you would consider to be your brother and sister in Christ But because of their traditions or whatever else it might be they they are not complete in their proclamation of the truth and Where you draw those lines is obviously a matter that requires a tremendous amount of maturity, but We can't totally expect someone like like Shabir Ali to be utilizing our

Standards of examination in evaluating these particular things He mentioned the the

Torah Referred to evolution over time. This is one of the reasons that one of the things we want to do

Especially because of the the fact that Shabir takes a small minority view in the

Islamic community regarding the nature of Surah 4 157 surah 4 157.

I emphasize this in my opening statement and throughout the debate the 40 lonely Arabic words that deny the crucifixion or Do they that's the whole problem?

Surah 4 157 is an isolated text. It comes out of nowhere No commentaries is provided on Surah 4 157 in the

Quran It is in essence a hapax legomena a a single appearance not normally hapax

Gamma refers to a single word used only one time in a particular text this is a wider application it is a single assertion and Nowhere else does the

Quran mention anything related to surah 4 157 in fact, I would argue that in surah 355 and 1933 you have

Assertions made that are contradictory to the majority reading of surah 4 157 But that has become the surah that that is read as the denial of the crucifixion.

It is unclear in what it's saying and the majority of Muslims take it to mean that Jesus was not crucified and He was not killed by the

Jews instead. It was made to appear to them That is it was made to appear to the

Jews that he had been crucified. So somebody else was Miraculously made to look like Jesus whether it's

Simon the Cyrene Judas a Roman soldier a volunteer one of the disciples there's all sorts of Theories that have been put forward but the majority of Muslims do not believe that Jesus was ever nailed to a cross

Shabir Ali Accepts at least the possibility that Jesus was nailed to a cross, but that he didn't die

So this is sort of this is this isn't the whole amadeus stuff where he then, you know

Swoons gets out of the tomb walks off to Indian starts religion gets buried over there But it is the idea of allowing for Jesus to have been crucified and a lot of Muslims would really struggle with that Because it is the very act of crucifixion

They would find to be so completely repulsive that ace that God that Allah would allow one of his razzles to experience this and so I would like to find an

Islamic apologist and We're certainly going to be extending some invitations to some folks that first come to mind who hold the substitution theory hold to the the

Real Islamic understanding of surah 4 1 2 7 to debate that issue because I really think that that would be

Be very very useful to debate surah 4 1 2 7 specifically that that specific text.

I believe you could do An entire debate simply on that that single text because it raises so many issues both in its own interpretation as well as its its its interaction with The Christian scriptures and it is certainly from the viewpoint of many

Muslims one of the primary texts that Demonstrates the alleged corruption in the New Testament because if Jesus was not crucified in the

New Testament says he was then the New Testament has to be grossly corrupted and so that would be a an excellent debate to have

I Did also find interesting and this is one of the notes that was on the piece of paper that will arrive later on a couple times surah 547 came up that speaks the people the book judging by the things contained therein

I don't see how a person can read surah 547 and not see that this is

Muhammad in his own historical context saying look what I am teaching is consistent with what is found

In the book look at what has already been revealed and you will see that I'm consistent with what is found in the

Torah and the Injil he had never read either one you we can make the argument that he very honestly believed that he was being consistent with those things and That he just in his ignorance was wrong but it seemed to me that Shabir's understanding of 547 is that Allah is in essence inviting us to do redaction criticism

He's inviting us to do what liberal Scholarship does and Take apart the the synoptic

Gospels and look at Matthew and look at Mark and assume That they are contradictory to one another and then try to learn something from the contradictions.

I was while writing yesterday I was listening to Bart Ehrman And he was having a dialogue with dr.

Hayes from Duke Divinity School And dr. Hayes is a United Methodist, so Certainly to my left, but I appreciated a lot of things that he had to say

It was it was it was useful Little surprising given you know how far apart we we would be but still it was it was interesting dialogue

One of the things that Ehrman was saying was we need to start with the assumption that the synoptic Gospels are giving us different Views of Jesus that's where you start

The whole idea of harmonization both of them in essence dismissed any Necessity of harmonization.

I just you know I'm riding along. I don't get to participate, but I'd like to ask a question like excuse me, but Why not start where Christians have always started and that is recognizing that while these are

Different portraits of Jesus they have different audiences different emphases different language That's fine, but why not say they're all giving the same message of Jesus But to different groups and therefore treat them in that way why?

You know the one point for example there was a discussion, and this is exactly

I mean sometimes Ehrman's language is almost identical to Shabir Ali's language and which would make sense

Why look at Mark and Luke and come to Ehrman's conclusion these are completely different views of Jesus when he's just looked at Mark has the

Elohim Psalm 22 Luke has into your hands I commit my spirit also in the

Psalter Psalm 31 5. I think just off top my head didn't look it up but and so Why not see both of those and see so they're looking at his contradictory and Luke's just sitting there

Why don't like what marked it so I'm gonna change it Why not? Recognize there are other reasons for why they would choose material they choose to include in their story

It just seems like that's the only place in Literary history where you automatically assume

The contradiction of the writers every place else you give them the ban for the doubt and then go from there But when it comes to Gospels man, and I can't do that anyway

So we were dealing in essence sort of like with the swoon theory then then we went into views of atonement from our minions and liberals and This again an indication to me that that you know

I'm not sure when Shabir is debating if I was debating if the roles reversed and Shabir just gotten off of a ship with a group of Muslims and I had read the books that they had read

I Would at least want to understand the specific theological orientation of the crowd in front of me now

I'm always thinking about the cameras as well. I'm always thinking down the road I'm not just thinking about that particular group that night, but I also don't want to just leave them in the dust either and so to quote

Steve Chalk's cosmic child abuse Accusation from a couple years ago or to quote

Gregory Boyd and these Armenians and others who who reject substitutionary atonement and we know they subject they reject substitutionary atonement

They also reject such things as the inerrancy of scripture and the consistency of scripture And and they they reject

I mean an open theist like Gregory Boyd's gonna reject all the clear biblical statements about God's knowledge of future events and and things like that you're you're in essence just Stating it'd be like if I knew he had just gotten off the ship and they're all

Sunnis Me quoting nothing, but Shiites as my sources. I mean, that's

Not really gonna get you anywhere where that particular audience and I could tell looking out that our folks just sitting there going

Gregory Boyd, excuse me Do you do you have any idea where this guy's come from? Do you have any idea what his view of scripture is?

I mean, you know, he's gonna He's compromised on every level of theology. Why should his

Conclusions on something like this and some of the arguments that were presented were exceptionally Exceptionally facile,

I mean I couldn't even write fast enough. He went through him so quick I could not even write fast enough to even put down a little phrase of all of them

But these are the ones that made it into my into my notes as I was writing as quickly as I could Divides the father and the son and the idea of substitution divides the father and the son

No, it doesn't since it's the father who has decreed this the son who voluntary gives got voluntarily gives himself

Unless you have again an unbiblical non reformed view of the Atonement I suppose you come up with something from there, but not the biblical view not not the view that is presented

In scripture in any way shape or form. I love this one doesn't appeal to people today, well now there's a

There's just a truly Astounding argument and I'm not saying this about Shabir Ali.

I'm talking about the person he's quoting the fact that he can find this in Quote -unquote

Christian writings doesn't appeal to people today. Well, yeah, you know this thing about the cross being a stumbling block and foolishness

It's not like that. Yes, we've Noticed that since at least first Corinthians Has made that point

Removes the need for ethics. I didn't get a chance to address this one, but it removes the need for ethics. Why I Mean is not the fact that such a price has been paid for us the very foundation of the ethical appeals of the

New Testament Evidently, I guess the idea is it removes the the need for ethics because you want to have and this is the

Islamic idea You're gonna be judged on the basis of what you do not on the basis of someone else

And so you're going back, you know here You've got quote -unquote liberal Christians making the same kinds of arguments against the

Christian faith. The Jews did a long long time ago, so Then he mentioned

Boyd and the only thing I managed to Tap into my notes really quickly was Boyd ignores

Romans 3 and passing over sins evidently There was something in Boyd's statement about how

The idea of substitutionary atonement doesn't explain how people before the cross were saved or something along those lines

I'm not sure. Maybe he was responding to some type of Dispensationalism or something. I I don't I don't know

He mentioned Bruce Reichenbach and I my note says Reichenbach only way to God denied

I don't remember now exactly what the quote was and until we've got the the audio

Recorded out. I really can't take a look at that And then there was something about Shriner's statement in response to Reichenbach I think that was that that a statement was made by Shriner That God could have saved in some other way

Well, I suppose in a theoretical sense, you know, God could have created a completely different universe where you know, things were done differently

I don't know. The point is that in this creation Given the purposes of God stated in Scripture the idea of just simply winking at sin is not a possibility for the

Christian so at that point the he then went into the the standard attacks upon the

Christian faith that are the main material that that's a Shabir presents all the time and I Have said many times before the worldview of those that he depends on Would consistently force him to deny his own belief in the

Quran and during the cross -examination. I raised this issue I said to him, you know, have you not read the material that is found in Critical reviews of the

Quran and things like that. Yes, I've read that and I Listened to the critical scholars and I still believe that the Quran is the perfect Word of God.

Well, okay, would he accept my statement? Well, I have read So much of the critical material written by the very people that you are citing and I still believe in the that The Bible is the perfect Word of God.

Is that does that mean something? We've got to go beyond simply saying well, I've read it and I come to a different conclusion You've got to be able to explain why that is and simply saying

I've read it you see if you were to be consistent and that's why the the watchword in Biola and I Repeated at least once in this debate inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument

The sources that Shabir is dependent upon would refute just as strongly all of his fundamental

Islamic beliefs as they do in attacking the New Testament and That's what makes it inconsistent for him to utilize this kind of this kind of stuff and so he was throwing out the old

Paul versus James stuff and and and everything else and I Need to go through this because I just realized it's a quarter till and I haven't even gotten to I didn't even summarize my own my own presentation which again you can

I sort of did summarize in the blog, but he tried to say that ransom is not the same as Sacrifice I went back to Isaiah 53

I provide the background from which New Testament be drawing and defining ransom and defining death and defining sacrifice

Ah, but the term ransom isn't used there But how are you gonna how are you gonna define Lutron and NT Lutron in in the

New Testament? What's the background of these things a person who does New Testament Jesus looks at the background of the Old Testament at that point?

He said, you know, the the supper narratives are just later editions So in other words anything in the

New Testament and I again brought this out anything in the New Testament the context of the Qur 'an is Simply to be dismissed. That's all you have to do

That's not what Muhammad did But that's what modern Muslims do and the fact they have to adopt a completely different kind of worldview to do that then then

Muhammad presented Demonstrates that they're the ones who have actually departed in their defense of Muhammad and the reason being

Muhammad was ignorant He was wrong in his statement. They've chosen to keep Muhammad correct and as a result have to attack

Inconsistently the very sources that Muhammad said he was consistent with and that's that's where it comes from He misunderstood the issue of the prodigal son, which is about Jews and Gentiles He says that the term breathed his last is ambiguous.

It doesn't mean he just died again. That's a swoon theory stuff coming through He mentioned the first deception and second deception regarding Jesus that actually the first deception was the

Messiah ship of Jesus Said that the forgiveness of sins is in no way connected to Jesus death and Luke and Acts boy

Try reading the early sermons of Paul and Luke and acts and acts and find out well, that's the case

Mentioned NT right? Oh, he kept saying two other things real quickly, and then we'll We'll take our phone call.

I Kept pointing out the naturalistic Assumptions of many of these scholars he was quoting and he kept saying well

Perhaps so they're becoming atheists because they examine Christianity and find out that it's bunk The only person

I could think of that would fulfill that particular argument would be Bart Ehrman, you know the happy agnostic

He didn't mention Ehrman because he knows I could then turn around say okay, so you actually agree with Ehrman That any ancient revelation has any variations in it whatsoever is therefore not inspired right and he's gonna say well, no,

I don't These other people they didn't they didn't start where I am and end up where they are because they're forced to by some

Some factuality of argumentation. That's where they started with That's their tradition and they've allowed their traditions to override the a belief in the consistent inspiration and errancy of the

Bible That's that that's the whole argument that he kept bringing up. It really didn't matter now

He then described the Christian doctrine atonement as making a deal with the devil Which again in my opening statement?

I pointed out the actual nature of this. This is not a ransom payment paid to Satan but this is so much of their thinking that I don't know how many times you'd have to repeat it before they would actually begin to understand it because Shabir showed no one no understanding of a

John -owen style Reformed understanding of the doctrine of the atonement instead. It's you know, well, you know, there were

Christians Oh and and by the way early Christian fathers who held the ransom to Satan view all sudden become early

Christian scholars Now they didn't the funny thing is he I want to be able to challenge him on that, but I didn't have time to Why do they become early

Christian scholars, especially when many of them? Didn't even have knowledge of the

Old Testament for example didn't even have a completed canon Why do you call them all sudden early Christian scholars when many of them were operating with only a part of the information available to them and But we didn't get a chance to do that, but that change in language, you know sort of struck me as being somewhat somewhat unusual and so in essence,

I I presented an argument that in essence said all of The credible first century sources say the same thing that Jesus Christ died upon cross of Calvary and theologically that emphasis upon that ransom sacrifice substitutionary atonement the placation of the wrath of God is found throughout the

New Testament and here's the text and What do you have to offer against this and in essence? He said nothing

He could not dispute the citations from Ignatius or Clement He could not dispute any of that first century information

And in fact, if you take surah 4 157 in a certain way, why should you I mean if God made it appear that she has died upon the cross then everything of the first century said should say that and So you're left once again believing 40 lonely

Arabic words that no Muslims for 200 years could come up with any recollection of Muhammad ever having said anything about him or explained them to anybody as Your sole basis of overthrowing everything that comes from the first century the first hundred years after Christ that Demonstrates this was not the case now

Bart Ehrman would argue that because he wants to turn all the Gnostics into Christians But even Shabir Ali realizes he has to realize as a supernaturalist and as a religious person himself

That you are you are now so abusing language To describe

Gnosticism as Christian in any way shape or form that you might as well speak of Gnostic Islam You'd have to be able to twist it that far and turn

Allah into a demi -urge or something like that And he realizes just can't do that. So it would be a little bit different dealing with that with With Bart Ehrman, so I think we made a very strong case

Very consistent case that was simply was not addressed and one last thing before we go to the phone call The other thing that shocked me was that he spent so much time on The alleged synoptic issue in regards to Jairus's daughter.

This was something we addressed at Biola He kept coming back to at least four different times during the debate

I had said everything that needed to be said about it prior to Prior to this debate and it wasn't really relevant to the debate other than just saying well any debate with a

Christian You might as well just argue about only one thing attacks and optic problems because it's relevant to everything That's the only way you could really defend it.

I think a lot of people were a little disappointed They had heard everything they needed to hear on it They had had enough at Biola to make a judgment as to whether what

I said about Mark or Matthew telescoping what Mark gives to us in that sense Is relevant and proper or not?

We didn't have to go over it again You know You've got people who have flown thousands of miles Can think of one gentleman flew thousands of miles just to be there for that debate and he's already seen the other debate doesn't need

To go back over this again That was disappointing that was that was a waste of time and and it just really wasn't relevant at that point in time

So very quickly, let's talk to someone who in fact was at the debate.

Let's talk with Paul. Hi, Paul I'm clicking air and getting nothing

Can you bring him up hello Paul don't have him wait

I just hit air can't bring him up Paul Mm -hmm

There you are, how did that happen I thought the burglar took the on button I guess so I was clicking it

Was there it was I doing something wrong or was it what was going on there? I need to I think I hit a wave there for a minute.

Oh, it was a problem on your side Oh, oh, you just didn't have the phones up Okay Poor poor poor rich isn't feeling good today.

We need to give the poor guy a break. Okay, what's up, Paul? I just wanted to make some comments about the debate your body your body language reflected another comment that Shabir made

And it was the fact that he hadn't he hadn't been familiar with Aiken. Oh, yes.

Yes. Yes at one point I I made reference to The fact that federalism clearly exists in in the

Old Testament I made reference to Aiken and the Battle of AI and and how it wasn't just Aiken who was punished

But Aiken and is his wife and his kids and his doggies and donkeys and everything else. It was it was clearly a federal representation and in his response

Shabir said well I've I've never heard the story of Aiken before but let's say it's it's even in the

Bible we'd still have to question his justice and You know two things a

I'm really surprised that that he Has not read the entirety of the Bible or if he has that he would forget the story of Aiken and B It seems really odd for a

Muslim who would look at Sharia law and Multiple wives and the beating of your wife and stuff like that and say we'd have to question

Federalism as being just at that particular point in time that that likewise struck me as rather odd Yeah, another thing that That I noticed was he kept talking about Well at least once he mentioned

Paul's religion being more accepted by Gentiles He made it easier. He made it easier on Gentiles is what he said.

Yeah, I was thinking apparently the people in Lystra Didn't get the memo on that People getting checked into the

Coliseum sort of missed that that memo too. Yeah. Yeah, right And then the same thing when he was on the

Temple Mount in Jerusalem When the centurion approached him and said, you know, are you you speak

Greek? Oh, I could have said yeah, didn't you get didn't you get my letter?

Explaining why my religion is is more acceptable. Yeah, and there was also the constant assertion that you know

You've got these the He didn't make it as strongly as Ahriman does but he is borrowing from Ahriman who in essence says look none of these

New Testament writers were original followers of Jesus because they're all bunch of illiterate peasants and in Galilee and I It did there was one point where there was sort of a little bit of a spark and That was when

I brought up the Peter stuff because he just you know blew Peter out of the water and yeah Lots of scholars today dismiss them

But the question is why when you're in a debate you have to answer the question Why not just quote people who happen to agree with you?

But why do they agree with you? and so when I pointed out that what the actual reasons were I Got the feeling he wanted to stay as far away from that as possible because clearly

I don't think that he did know what the Actual reasoning is behind these things That's right.

You brought up Sylvanus the yeah Yeah through through through Sylvanus in in first Peter the styles the grammar and that's one of the advantages

Honestly, you know when I was in in Bible College, we had to translate

Peter and we saw the vast difference in the syntax and the grammar between the two and so it's not something that that You know,

I have to read somebody else talking about that's one of the advantages of doing apologetics and then also teaching the

Bible as a part of what you do is You're not just going with well this scholar says this this scholar says that I've translated this stuff

So I know that there is a vast difference in the syntactical relationship Why would that be

I was I was had to deal with this stuff a long time ago I was listening to Bart Ehrman yesterday and he was talking about how fundamentalist they don't they don't read the the

Synoptics in in horizontal. They just read them in in vertical. It's like hey my freshman year in college

I was reading a harmony the Gospels that puts them in columns. What what are you talking about? So anyways, it's good to have you there

Paul. Yeah. Thanks. All right. Thanks for being here. God bless. Bye. Bye Well, thanks for being there actually he's not here but he was here because he called in sort of if you know what

I mean anyway All right, well

Lord willing we'll be back again on Thursday Obviously if my books arrived by then that were shipped back from Seattle if there were any other points so we can bring them

Up or if you didn't get a chance to call in today You're listening by archive because of your work schedule call in then we can talk with you about then or whatever else may come up Thanks The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

If you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at p .o

inbox 3 7 1 0 6 Phoenix, Arizona 8 5 0 6 9 You can also find us on the world wide web at a omen org

That's a o m i n dot o RG where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks