Shabir Ally Post-Debate Discussion

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

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

Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with dr.

White call now at 602 973 460 to 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 So did Steve just hiccup there or just what

I've never heard that before What? You clicked on something and it did you lose your microphone in there?

Oh You still got it. Okay. You just weren't saying anything. So I just sort of wondered what that was all about What would you like me to say?

I don't know. You just did normally you grab it and say something It doesn't look like it's in really good shape there, though It's our falling over and you know stuff, but you'll see.

Oh, well, it's it's in the same shape It's always been just because you've got a nice brand new tree. I've got a whole tree of Microphones like a real radio studio and except we're on radio.

Yes, but it looks like a real radio It looks like a real radio. It looks like a real broadcast broadcasting webcasting webcasting studio.

Yes, it does in fact those who are accessing the not really quite streaming but sort of Webcam thing that someday will be streaming but isn't now

Can see that things have changed here in the studio and I'm feeling really I don't know out of balance

It's it's the the microphones on the wrong side of me now. And so the lights on the right side

Well, it's on my right side. It's on your left side, but it's it's it's Everything's changed and part of the reason that we we've always wanted to do this

We just finally got around to it Most of the stuff that you now see in front of me has been on the floor out of view of the webcam

About a year out of the year about a year. Yeah about a year Yeah, that's how long it's been there. But now it's it's mounted in place.

One of the reasons was yesterday morning My daughter

Summer and I were interviewed by Gary DeMar on his American vision program

Which I think will air on about 20 radio stations. Those are radio stations

That's where radio waves going out. You can drive in your car and hear it things like that Anyway, and that'll be this weekend and we were talking about her interesting experiences as a college student with a philosophy professor who clearly not only hates

Christianity, but also suffers from a very very bad case of Bush derangement syndrome and He would do really well on that local station man,

I'm gonna tell you something he would be a he'd be a hero local progressive talk radio station

Where today they were freaking rich out by talking about about how how the secret police from Blackwater are taking

Away all the liberals. They're running around shooting citizens. Oh, man You had to tell me about this

You know, you gotta take about ten minutes and listen to this thing You know, I shouldn't have done that.

Oh, man, you just gotta turn it off man Just allow what I need to do is balance it out. Yeah Good wonderful wonderful, that's great.

Well, anyway good to have you all with us on the dividing line today Next Tuesday summer and I are scheduled to be on iron sharpens iron with Chris Arnzen as well

So if you don't get a chance to hear The American vision program, which

I forgot to check is probably available online I would I would assume that makes sense.

Is there any chance we can get around for the dividing line before I assign? I wasn't some sound bites from her

I really love to have that sound bite where she's you know, Gary asks her about you know being prepared

Yeah with her upbringing about you know these for these guys weren't you? Yeah, weren't you prepared for this and when she started off saying no,

I really wasn't prepared for that sort of like What are you saying and she goes no, I really wasn't very because I'm used to learning from rational man

Well, she's got that. She's got a real good timing So she's like deadpan and she goes, you know,

I was raised and learned, you know to speak with rational people Yeah, he was laughing he was he was he was he was

Realized that this was not someone he would want to debate actually anyway, well,

I don't know because I I'll have to check on that You know her work schedule class schedule and stuff like that gets in the way, but that's next week on iron sharpens iron on Tuesday We're supposed to be doing that.

That's gonna be a little bit tricky though, because they can't handle our phone system or our microphones member So we're gonna have to do it

Somehow the phone and I'm not really sure. Well, we may just have to use the telephone system and throw it in a conference call

Yeah, so have her on one phone you on the other and clear at the other end of the building so that there's no

You know potential feedback. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. That's a shame too because we'd sound a whole lot better going through this thing, but they're 1961 vintage, you know,

I think it's more like 1945 and I've been there. It's it's it's about 1961 It's older.

They knew what mix -minus was in 1961 though. So I don't know I'm not sure about that.

It's pretty bad. So Anyway, anyway, that's gonna be next next week eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number.

I Have this odd thought that we were in the middle of something last time, but I don't remember what it was.

I Can't remember exactly what we were supposed to be talking about last time

So we didn't get the blog article up with the dividing line until this morning.

So that's that's That's not that's not good. Oh, and by the way Next next this weekend.

In fact, I think it's tonight the rest of the world plays their clocks and That means that for now

I will give the Progressive Station kudos on one point and that is that they had a commercial today where they were talking about how

Arizona doesn't play with its clocks. Yes, because the rest of the country is afraid of the dark. That's good boss.

That's I don't mind mocking about keeping their all their programs live and they don't play with the clock

So they're getting you know, they're gonna have to play with their schedule Because we don't Arizonans are not afraid of the dark like the rest of the country.

I like that. That's true. That's true. And You know this poor this poor fellow in Channel I was trying to explain to him.

He's from up in Canada and he's you know He's obviously gotten used to being coddled by the government have everything taken care of for you

You know and it really it just it just rips the the the heart out of you You know, it just you're not a man that stands your own two feet and I was talking about the fact that that's yeah

That that simply turning the hands on a clock does not change time and he kept saying well we have more time during the day

No, you don't. Yes. Yes. We do. We know you don't That time is either stolen from you quote -unquote or given back to you by the largesse of the government

But you're forced to do this and moving the hands on a clock. Are you saying this is taxation? It's time taxation time

It's time control. It's time taxation. Yep. That's Of course, I'm having listened to that station all day.

I'm very much susceptible to Comes along. Yeah, speaking of conspiracy theories

Ah We we are dealing on the blog right now with some of the responses provided By Shabir Ali Shabir's been busy.

He's Even though he was had a debate with Tony Costa. In fact a couple of them.

They're calling them dialogues I'm always worried when When we're trying to arrange debate and the people putting it on go well

We'd sort of like to avoid The term debate we'd rather call it a dialogue and I just know right then and there that Even if this goes off that at when it's over with we're gonna hear about well, we

Very thankful that you came but it just seems that dr. White is so straightforward

And we were just looking more for you know Some a sharing time where where everyone would feel safe and sharing their individual journeys

And that's the last time I'll be on that stage. I can guarantee you that so That I always get a little bit worried when when when folks start talking about dialogues but anyway, he's been pretty busy and Cranking out a couple articles and I guess three so far and what

I wanted to do It's not it's not It's not difficult to respond this stuff in fact a lot of it's just going back over what we did in debate

But it does take a while to type all this stuff up So I'm gonna respond to some of it here on the dividing line and some of it on the blog as time allows

I am falling behind on some other preparation that I need to be doing. So we'll just see how that goes

One of the things I did want to address But that I definitely are going I'm gonna need to address in a blog because it's more

It's easier to Examine shall we say on the blog because you have to type things out by the way

If you're wondering where he's been doing all this You just go to I believe in fact I'm pulling it up here as we as we speak unless of course

Firefox comes up and says I want to install some sort of an update or something like that I'm going to go no don't do it www

Let's do this again here www .shabbirali .com

I think is Yep, there you go, and you will see under the articles comments on dividing line of October 23rd

Part two and then there's a conversing with a caller on the dividing line of October 23rd 2007

I haven't even seen that one yet. We click on it Mm -hmm. Oh, it's there's the story of Aiken yes, that's

Wasn't Paul's religion easy on the Gentiles did Peter write the second letter of Peter. Oh good. I need to throw these in here, too

Against the hypothesis that Peter and Paul were at odds each other is the second letter of Peter Which ostensibly is from Peter?

Why is the second? Why is the subject of the second letter of Peter? Against this thesis.

This is this is what drives me nuts about those who take a

Controversy that is based on a book written 600 years later and read it back into the

New Testament This is you know it would be so easy to create all sorts of controversies between Well there were controversies

In in the early Islamic period there's documentation of controversies in the early

Islamic period That's not really much of an issue But it would be so easy to to come up with theories that you of course can't document or demonstrate

But if you get enough people talking about them You can say well scholars say and scholars say this is scholars say that so what you want to do is you you have?

the people who Again in in modern scholarship have decided that the

New Testament is a jigsaw puzzle And we can chop it up into all sorts of little pieces

And we can take whatever pieces we want and fit them together into new puzzles Based upon what we want to say was actually going on and we can get published by doing this now

Whether we could ever actually make any meaningful argumentation This is actually what took place doesn't matter because what we're gonna have to do is we're gonna have to pick and choose from the

New Testament what we do want to accept and what we don't want to accept so when Paul himself talks about going to Jerusalem and interviewing hyster a sigh

Peter And when he talks about the right hand of fellowship We just dismiss all that because that would blow away most of our theories

So we just throw that out, and we just were to say well. That's later That's just Paul, and and he's deceptive and we're not worried about that And so we can create all sorts of controversies, and and it's they're really they're conspiracies

You know we're gonna create a conspiracy that this person was against that person and all the rest of stuff so here

You have this idea about Peter and Paul and so allegedly

Second Peter is all about how Peter and Paul aren't opposed to it, but actually if you've read it It doesn't have anything to do with it at all it the the reason this comes out

Is because in passing it's not the main point of the letter. It's not the the climax of the letter.

It's in passing the letter mentions the writings of Paul as scripture and So Shabir Ali writes here against the hypothesis that Peter and Paul were at odds each other in the second letter of Peter Which ostensibly is from Peter the letter regards

Paul as a brother and his writings of scripture. Well is that somehow shocking? Is if Paul was an apostle?

Would would not his is there some Theological reason why his writings could not be scripture

Well, no unless you you know start with the presupposition of Islam, and then read this back 600 years into history, and you've got

Islamic anachronistic Eisegesis which is what we have over and over in these situations

But Christian scholars both ancient and modern generally hold that this is not an authentic letter of Peter I'd like to know who the ancient quote -unquote scholars are

Who held this view this means that someone wrote it using Peter's name in order to lend it greater authority and to show that that?

Paul is acceptable to Peter first of all that's not the thesis of the letter and that's not the argumentation of the letter

So that's just not true. There are lots and lots of Scholars today who reject

Petrine authorship for second Peter, but the question I wanted to ask Shabir during the debate was why?

And it's real simple They come up with a theory about what they believe the the early church was like and what they believe was going on the early

Church, and then they fit the New Testament to their theory Which is exactly what a lot of people do in regards to the life of Muhammad and the

Quran and the development of early Islam and every bit of it Should barely reject so again.

We have the double standard the one standard on one side Well, I will accept anything that liberal scholars come up with any

Any theory they come up with hey as long as they do that And then they get other people to believe their theories then that's fine

But but but but when it comes to the Quran I'm not going to go there, and this is a direct violation of Shabir Ali's own standards

Which he announced in his debate with Robert Maury where he criticized Robert Maury for utilizing the very kinds of sources that he himself

Rejects, but that he uses in regards to New Testament Christianity. It is that Double standard that for I think the vast majority of people

Results in a rejection of Shabir Ali's credibility on this issue because he just Uncritically will accept almost any of these theories as long as it is supportive of some element of Islamic apologetics

But then turns around and uses completely different standard in evaluating his own His own materials his own sacred scriptures, so why is second

Peter? You see second Peter and Judah alike and and the theory is these were issues in the later church

And so they must have come along later once Peter's already gone, so this couldn't possibly be his writing

So what's the fundamental theory here? Well these were issues in later church. How do you know that? Well because we have this general idea of how things develop and evolve over time and and of course this is the very same type of thinking that goes into saying well

John for example must be very very very late because it has such a highly developed Christology in fact there was a period of time

Before discovery of more New Testament manuscripts blew this out of the water There's a period of time where there were people who are suggesting that John was written in the second or even into the third century

Why because of an evolutionary theory the view that it has of Jesus is so high?

And we know and here's the key folks. We know Jesus wasn't like that We know

Jesus was just an illiterate peasant And so if there's something that has this high view of Jesus It must have come along a long ways down the road because well

We know that whatever the Bible says he was he couldn't have been that see and so you start with that and then you create a theory as to what the early church was like and what the

Controversies the early church was like and then you fit the New Testament in and hey if it doesn't fit your mold

You know what you do. You just cut out the parts that don't fit your mold You just well there are later accretion, or this is clearly the you know

And then you start the neat thing is you then start to get to do ancient psychoanalysis, which is lots of fun

I mean you can write all sorts of doctoral dissertations about ancient psychoanalysis It doesn't mean anything, but you can really become very popular if you do these things and so You start reading into people's

Intentions and well very clearly and here she barely does this well very clearly This was written to try to make it appear that Paul and Peter were getting along as if that was somehow the real big

Controversy of the day which it wasn't but if it becomes the controversy later 600 years later or 2 ,000 years later or whatever else

Well, then that becomes the controversy that we want to talk about see and that's that's then we read it back into those contexts

And I'm sorry But again When someone says yeah, but there's a lot of scholars who say that well

You know what there's a lot of scholars who accept a lot of things that they're just given They're just told this is the way this way it is and this great scholar believed that and and I'm just not one of those

Folks that just goes bowing down and go well, okay well if if Albert Schweitzer believed it and he was brilliant then that must mean it's great and if Karl Barth said it then well

That's just a fantastic thing it must be true, and I'm sorry stick in the mud here, but I sort of Want to critically analyze these things and ask the question really?

What's at the foundation of this entire approach to the scriptures and over and over and over again?

It's a real simple thing the Bible can't possibly be what we always thought it was And this is one of the major problems with the

Christian Academy Is that when you buy into the world's view that scholarship is always coming up with something new?

To to get your doctorate you've got to come and you've got to add to the knowledge base well that really is is is a problem when you believe that God has actually made a revelation that is complete in and of itself and it discourages the restatement and clarification of Orthodox belief and it encourages the dissemination of non -orthodox perspectives

And if you want an example of this just look at almost every single theological seminary founded over the past two hundred years

What always happens? Look at Princeton today compare it to how it started

See a difference which direction does it go does it go toward orthodoxy does it go toward an ever deeper commitment to the scriptures?

or Does it move away from that? because it wants to bow the knee to humanistic scholarship and be accepted by humanistic scholarship rather than accept the scandal of Christian scholarship which should start with Bowing to the foolishness of the cross to use

Paul's own terminology from first Corinthians 1 and 2 Well, anyway when

I examine these perspectives and the arguments that are put forward and I went to fuller theological seminary

So I got to do that firsthand It keeps coming back to what's the foundation here?

Well, we start with the presupposition that whatever it is It can't be what

Christians have always believed it to be and so Jesus could not have been who the

Jesus of orthodoxy and The Bible could not be the Bible of orthodoxy. And so we start with the presupposition.

That's wrong Therefore what will we do with this text and that's when you start hacking it up, even though you can't find

You know Shabir talks about the well here we've got this gospel and there were there were three different redactors and five different stages that have we found anywhere a

Manuscript that supports us. No have we found any early church writings where you know, we haven't so it's this wonderful theory

And that's why they keep pushing the dates back on the Gospels Of course, they can only go so far because you smack right up into Documentary evidence of how early the

New Testament text was but you push it as far back as you can because you need to have This time for all this massive amount of redaction and then somehow all the evidence that redaction has to go

Has to disappear None of it can can hang around stick around.

It's all gonna disappear because Our theories demand that it was there

But we can't find any of it. So it just all goes goes. Bye -bye. So anyway

That's that's that's what's behind these these particular things. And so when

I was asking him What? you know, what really is the the whole idea behind Making second

Peter and first Peter that they can't be Petrine. I know the vast differences

Between the grammar and the syntax of first and second Peter I've translated both of them

They were assignments many years ago in seminary when I not only minored in Greek in college

But then continued that in seminary took far more Greek than was offered. I had to keep petitioning to take these classes and so on and so forth and and I know that there is a vast difference between you two.

There's no I am NOT a naive person and I know that there is it would be very very difficult for someone to prove that this these two books

Were written by the same person as far as the person actually writing the book, but this is what

I tried to point out The book says that Every time

I read these discussions about About authorship of books when you when you read

Paul, for example He's using an amanuensis a scribe and Peter it says through or by the means of Silvanus there is a scribe that is being used in and we don't know the mechanism did did

Peter Speak in Aramaic and Silvanus is translating and therefore that's why in that particular instance.

It is a very classical form of Greek whereas The other isn't I mean we we don't have mp3 players running along to tell us exactly when these things recorded and who did it and things like that and and what people go on is they they they fail to recognize the difference between possibilities and probabilities when we talk about Ancient histories and ancient texts that is people go.

Well, it's possible that this happened And it's possible that that happened.

Well on that level It's possible that the Enterprise is going to come back and what really happened is the

Enterprise went through a time warp and beamed Somebody down or maybe it was Voyager coming back and Neelix wrote first Peter and that's why it has its the grammar and syntax

It has I mean, it's possible Art Bell would think so, you know,

I mean and and people will go well if you admit that's possible You're just admitting we can't know at all and people don't don't recognize the difference between possibilities and probabilities not every possibility has any probability at all and when you're constantly constantly are beginning with the assumption guilty until proven innocent that might indicate you've got a bit of a bias going on and That's not just Muslims that have that bias but liberal quote -unquote

Christians In fact, I I love the constant utilization by by Islamic scholars

By Islamic apologists of the term Christian scholars. How do you define a Christian scholar?

I mean, that's sort of like Bart Ehrman talking about Christian Gnostics. We might as well talk about Christian Buddhists and Christian Muslims I'm Aaron's laughing about the woman up and up in the

Pacific Northwest who calls herself a Christian Muslim Most of us recognize those are contradictory

Concepts they can't be put together Neither can there such be such a thing as a Gnostic Christian just because Gnostics talked about Jesus does not make them

Gnostic Christians Though I know it's used in scholarship. I find it ridiculous It muddies the waters and it does not communicate anything.

I find it to be simply ridiculous I don't care how many people use it if the if the phrase itself

Presupposes a bias That results in the inability of anyone to say this is Christianity and that isn't then it's not really an overly useful term

Unless of course that's exactly what you're trying to do is promote that kind of bias and prejudice against Christianity and so there's all sorts of terms and positions represented within what's called

Christian scholarship today But unfortunately the reality is there are not nearly as many

Christian scholars as there are people who call themselves Christians Involved in quote -unquote Christian scholarship.

I mean if we can at least agree that repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ as having risen from the dead and that that faith in Christ is necessary for the obtaining of eternal life if That's at least semi -definitional of Christianity that just cut out about 60 % of what's called

Christian scholarship today Didn't it? Didn't it? It did! Because the vast majority of these folks go well resurrection

In fact, I almost fired up a audio portion today. I was listening while lifting this morning to Dawkins and Alistair McGrath they had a dialogue slash debate.

It's just you know, five minutes five minutes back and forth and they're British so he does also

Pim and Peppa and They use big words and they have the proper pausing and stuff like that, but Dawkins his oh this man hates

God. Oh my goodness The he has no idea how totally bigoted and prejudiced he is

Against the Christian faith. He can't hear his own language I mean one of his responses to Alistair McGrath was nothing but yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, except it was done a British accent with big words But it really substance -wise was nothing more than yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, that was the level of dialogue at that point on the part of Dawkins.

He just couldn't he can't possibly Utilize any kind of semi unbiased

Examination one of the things he did is the McGrath I was unaware of this but has a background like molecular biology or something like that as an atheist and As one of the reasons that he was having this dialogue and one of the things he did was he just in a mocking tone

I can't believe that a man of science Could possibly believe in something like the virgin birth.

And of course, I'm sitting back going Earlier in the dialogue. He had mocked the people who had said, you know, what

Dawkins doesn't know much about theology He clearly misrepresents things all the time He hasn't done any study in this field and he mocked them with a story about the

Emperor's not having clothes and and Mocking people who think that he should be reading all these books about the Emperor's clothes because I didn't have any clothes and that's what's

So foolish and so on so but he makes such Simplistic errors based on his own ignorance and he is unwilling to do anything to get rid of that that ignorance whatsoever

But but to hear him say I can't believe that anyone who's a man of science could possibly these things and you go

Time out if you believe God exists and of course, he keeps calling miracles capricious

Violations of natural law. They're not capricious. They're purposeful. They have a purpose to communicate something to man about God But again, he has doesn't read those books doesn't doesn't think he needs to so he doesn't get that point

But anyway the mockery that someone could possibly have a supernatural viewpoint sadly sadly that comes into play in the

Christian Academy as well and Many today would fall in that category of being totally unwilling within the

Academy to affirm as a fundamental foundational belief the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in fact a

Supernaturalistic worldview that's the scandal of the cross and that's why so much of the

Christian Academy is only Christian in name Not in not in function if if you are unwilling or unable to confess

The very fundamentals of the faith and that's not the Christian Academy. That's just I'm sorry call it what you will

But it is not the Christian Academy all this takes us back to The issue of First the second

Peter and things like that and I tried to point out. Do you know what the reasons are? In in a scholarly debate, it shouldn't be well my scholars say this and your scholars say that how about going to the point?

of asking why they say what they say, let's get into the actual data itself the actual material itself and If they're if their assertions are based upon differences and syntax and grammar.

Well, let's talk about that If if they're if it's based upon well I I view the issues being addressed by Peter in this particular book to be a later thing

Well, let's find out why you believe that what is your evidence? That the early church did not have the problems that Peter addresses at the time

Peter would have been alive What's your evidence of that? And that's when things get deathly quiet.

Those were questions I was the guy in the seminary class going. Um, how about this? it gets really quiet when you ask these kinds of questions and That's what you're trying to do in a meaningful scholarly debate is is bring these things up.

And so Again, I fully understand why Shabir Ali wants to completely dismiss the

Petrine material why because he will at least admit it's first century and it is not supportive of his thesis and So for the

Muslim mindset, well if this says it was written by Peter, but it wasn't we can dismiss it.

It's irrelevant It's a demonstration of another person trying to promote the false idea of the crucifixion see how it works

Now again would Shabir Ali allow that kind of reasoning to be used in regards to Muhammad the

Quran The the the memorization of the Quran the the collection of the Quran because monic revision any of that stuff

No, of course not. Why not? well there's a fundamental presuppositional problem at that point in his system and the inconsistency is the refutation of The utilization of those those dual standards and so anyway,

I Will add this this particular one to the list of things to look at The reason

I was bringing that up, I'm sorry, I believe it not all of that was really only secondary da da da da da

I'm looking for the discussion Of here it is this is in part two of the response to October 23rd dividing line

Did Jesus really say do this in remembrance of me now? Listen to this did Jesus really say do this in remembrance of me these words are attributed

I'm reading now. These words are attributed to Jesus in the Bible in Luke's gospel Luke 22 Verses 19

B through 20 and if you all don't mind here just a moment. I'm going to increase the text size and Firefox Man, he used a small text size as not easy to read in any way shape or form

So we scroll back down These words are attributed to Jesus in the Bible in Luke's gospel 22 19 B through 20 do this remembrance of me in this way?

We learned Jesus Institute the regular observance of the Eucharist the use of bread to symbolize the eating of Jesus flesh and wine to symbolize

Drinking was blood I pointed out in the debate that these words are missing from some very important early manuscripts And for this reason many scholars deemed the later edition

Hence this cannot be taken as reliable proof that Jesus said these words if he said that These words are missing from some very important early manuscripts.

I never heard him say it I have not had the time rich has not had the time To go through the debate yet.

He's he's gotten the The feed into the computer what you gotta do is you gotta take these two two cameras you got to you know feed them

In the computer then you've got to put all together and blah blah blah And it's it's a long process takes a lot of work really does people don't seem to realize how much work work it takes

And so I have not had the opportunity of And you know you can imagine how long it would take anyways

But I may get around to it if I can find the time to do it of going back all

I remember and I was taking notes as quickly as I possibly could all I remember was his saying

Scholars feel this is a later edition now when Shabir says that he's almost always referring to redaction criticism

He's talking to that which does not have any documented evidence behind it it is all based on theoretical examinations of Theoretical sources, and it's it's not hard criticism.

It is criticism based upon theoretical reconstructions I took him to be making again a

Redaction criticism statement if I had heard anything About manuscripts it would catch my attention because that's my area.

That's gonna if anything's gonna catch my attention If I had heard it's not in earliest manuscripts

You would have seen me reaching for my Greek New Testament Like that which is over to my left, and it would have been flying open to Luke chapter 22 and I would have been checking the critical edition and I'll see all in text to see what he was making reference to and Trying to continue listening while making a note as to the textual evidence that that is something that I might have you know 15 seconds to comment on and might have all of 30 seconds before I'm gonna get up and comment on these things so it's one of the things that debates is

They're challenging, but very very enjoyable to do so I didn't hear that and so When he says

James seems to have forgotten what the point was well if the point was a textual variant I never heard anything about a textual variant if he said there was textual variant

Then that was my error On the DLE asserts that I reject these words simply because they disagree with chronic teaching he then uses the starting point to launch an attack on the

Prophet Muhammad I don't remember what quote -unquote prophet I have a feeling that what he's referring to there.

I'm thinking back now to the commentary I think I have a feeling what he's referring to there was I Pointed out that again if he's using redaction criticism, which he has to admit.

He does very very often that on the same level he would have to question the memory of the of the companions of the

Prophet and and Things like that and putting together with monic revision and stuff like that Notice the the language attack upon the

Prophet Muhammad So notice if you raise Textual or critical issues

Muhammad, that's an attack upon him, but he's not attacking the New Testament I mean If if if he's gonna say

I'm attacking the New Testament and put that in the same context as attacking Muhammad Okay, fine

That's that's at least fair But at least be open because I've never heard him talking about attacking the

New Testament Wouldn't the logic also flow that if you're going to say that then by going him going after the followers of Jesus who wrote?

The New Testament they're attacking Jesus by the same logic Well, you would think so, but he says here

But I think it's important that we do not become sidetracked these problems exist apart from Muhammad in the Quran Shabir does not want to have to deal with his own inconsistencies

He does not want to he would much he feels much more comfortable being the atheist agnostic liberal

From the University of Toronto discussing New Testament not the believing Muslim discussing

New Testament The problem is that's a schizophrenic position to take because I've listened to him. He's he's done talks

I don't know if you would do this now But he's done talks promoting Quran codes where you take all the even

Surahs and even numbered surahs and the odd numbered surahs and you know you count up the number of ayah

In each one and and it comes to this number and that number and you can divide these together and you do all this

It's just like the Bible code stuff was except it's for the Quran now That's that's a that's a completely different world

Than what he wants to stay in in New Testament criticism He wants to stay he doesn't want to have to it's it's sort of like the atheist who doesn't want to have to defend an atheistic worldview in a debate with a

Christian He only wants the Christian to defend a Christian worldview and he doesn't want anyone to shine a spotlight on whether his worldview can consistently deal with the issues or not and This happened in Biola.

You know as well. I didn't hear anything about the inspiration of the New Testament here You know and I and I had pointed out my own new statement

This is a debate between a believing Muslim and a believing Christian. We can't take it outside that context no one in the audience is gonna take it outside that context and so I have to apply the same standards to my belief that I'm going to apply to him and vice versa and So to say no, no,

I I don't I don't have to apply the same standard. I can be as inconsistent as I want to I Think again as an illustration of what we've really got going on here

If I reject this is going back to quote here If I reject the words and the basis that they disagree with Islam and what basis do many

Christian scholars reject them again? Why do you call them Christian scholars? Would you I'd like to ask

Shabir? would you call a Scholar a Muslim if he does not believe that Muhammad wrote all of the

Quran In fact, I have a feeling that Shabir is listening if he's not listening live

He's he'll be listening to the archive. And so I'd like to ask Shabir Ali. Send me an email would you identify as a

Muslim scholar a scholar a Man who takes a position that Muhammad did not write the

Quran not I'm not saying Oh, of course all Muslims don't believe Muhammad wrote the Quran That he was the one through whom these revelations were given would you call a man a

Muslim who does not believe that each one of the words and the

Surahs and the ayahs of the Quran were given by Allah through Muhammad that that allows for the possibility

That there is utilization of other sources allows the possibility That some of these things came from people other than Muhammad allows the possibility that a later

Generation maybe at the time of Uthman or even beyond that made changes to the words of the

Quran or made additions the words the Quran Would you call that person a Muslim scholar?

That's what I want to know. That's just a question That's that's what I want to know because you see one of the differences here.

One of the major differences between us is That Christians don't kill liberal scholars.

You hear me Christians don't kill liberal Christian scholars. And so They are free to flourish, especially when

God's judgment comes upon a nation as it is upon Western Christianity and Western culture and so they are allowed to flourish and publish and and and an apostasy abounds on every hand and so but we don't

Take matters in our own hands go kill these people Shabir Ali has to admit and any Muslim listening here has to admit that things are different in Islamic countries

The number of stories that you could pull up on your computer right now using

Google or Ask or any of the other search engines about scholars in conservative

Islamic countries being driven out Have to resign their positions

For daring to question anything about the Quran being imprisoned

For for running afoul of a powerful imam who considers their less than fully conservative viewpoints to be the subject of a fatwa

You know, this is the case You know that that in many of these nations there is not

Granted to the academic community the freedom to even discuss these things

This is a fact. We all know this is a fact and So while there are liberal

Muslims, where do they live? They don't live in Muslim countries They would not be allowed to practice their their entire academic work in those particular countries, so When he says on what basis do many

Christian scholars reject them? I've already told you the reason that liberal scholars reject these things because they create a

Theory as to what they believe the early church was like and they fit the material to the theory

That's how it works. That's how it's done and then it says Let me let me back up we're back to Luke Luke chapter 22 and I need to get to this

I didn't realize there's quarter till I've been going way way too long here I even had this I was gonna go over that but You know what?

I'm gonna I'm actually gonna hold off on Luke 22 because I need to put the textual material up So between now and Tuesday Lord willing

I'll get all the textual material in the blog and then we can discuss them divine line I I do want to address these two. So so hold off on that.

I didn't want to get to these two and We'll do Luke 22 next week and you'll be able to look at the blog and see this stuff because I can sit there and say

Well, these are the witnesses for that and it's just go right past you if you don't have something you can look at So we'll do

Luke 22 next time remind me of that so I don't forget it As as we get there, I want to get to these two real quick I've only got 15 minutes to do it less than 15 minutes

First of all, Luke 13 33 is evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross reading from Shabir Ali I will not belabor the point here, but James asserts this point was only marginally related the atonement

I would have expected him to comment on the point I was making I was using this verse as evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross in fairness

I did explain in my earlier report that James has an explanation With which he may be satisfied that my point does not hold yet I press forward to the point here as being at least a piece of evidence that points to a reality of that to which the

Gospels which wish to convey they assure us that Jesus died on the cross but this verse has Jesus saying that it is impossible for a prophet to die outside of Jerusalem and John's gospel does say that the crucifixion took place outside of Jerusalem James agrees that Jesus said this in self -reference

This means that Jesus himself is the prophet who cannot die outside of that city It follows logically that Jesus did not die on the cross

James dismisses this implication with the assumption of Jesus did not mean to speak strictly of Jerusalem But to allow for Jerusalem its immediate environs to be included in the mention of Jerusalem yet It remains that this is a verse that should be placed on the side of the evidence that supports the view that Jesus did not

Die on the cross I say to you There is no such thing as evidence in the New Testament The G is not die on the cross and think about what this requires us to believe other than quite honestly an incredible reading of Luke 13 do you really think that this is this is what

Jesus intends to convey here? Well, of course not because he doesn't believe G has ever said any of this see so you start with the idea

You start with guilty until proven innocent Secondly, you have to look at the New Testament as it's just a bunch of jigsaw puzzle

But just jigsaw puzzle pieces you can put together in any way that you want to because at the very least

Is he really insinuating that Luke missed this? That this was a big controversy of the day that Luke clearly wants to communicate

Jesus died on the cross, but somehow oops He included something that was evidence that Jesus didn't die upon the cross.

No, of course not. I mean you've got to assume a certain level of intelligence on the part of these writers

That they would at least be aware of these things And so if you are going to insist that this was the big conflict then at least be consistent with it

Of course, you can't actually insist that this was the big conflict that people were arguing about these things because they weren't that wasn't the point

People back then knew something real simple. The Romans don't mess up killing people.

The Romans are good Executors. Okay, they are good executioners and No one was going.

Oh Put on the cross, huh? But oh, well, then did he die? I That would never happen all you had to say was

Crucified and you've just stated that in ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of time died

Okay, and if Shabir wants to take the point zero zero zero zero zero zero one perspective and try to document it for us

Okay Then we're really talking about an amazing an amazing assertion being made there, but anyway that simply wasn't the argument that was going on and so Put that together with the fact that is rather painfully obvious that this is a parallel to the

Matthew 23 section that this is a pericope of judgment Upon the

Jewish leaders and that this is what Jerusalem's referring to here and that Jesus does go he is condemned there

Yes, it's outside the city walls But it is ridiculous to argue that well that means it was not

Jerusalem and this doesn't fulfill this and and that's what dear that's what the writer intended and and I'm sorry, but this has got to be one of the weakest

This is as bad as people trying to say John 14 and 16 prophesy the coming of Muhammad based on the

Holy Spirit But There it is. That's that's where it comes from Time passing me by let me address this one because I thought it was is rather important Did Jesus die for everyone?

James wonders if I was aware of the differences amongst Christians on the question of whether Jesus died for everyone or just for those whom

God decided in advance to save He is surprised that neither I nor anyone else brought this up I chose not to raise this question as it may have proved a distraction from the main matter at hand in Arguing that Jesus died for no one.

I was by implication arguing that Jesus did not die for God's people I could of course point to various Bible verses to show that various authors seem to have different opinions about this

Some thought Jesus died for everyone other saw that Jesus died only for a pre -selected few notice He doesn't give any examples there

I'd be very interested in seeing how he could do that the different this difference among the writers in your testament the differences amongst later

Christians highlight a Problematic question with regards to the atoning value of Jesus death if his blood was sufficient to wash away the sins of everyone

Why are only a limited number saved as in the Calvinist view? I chose however not to raise this problem at the time as there were other larger problems the atonement to deal with now the reason

I raised this issue is that so much of Shabir Ali's arguments in the past have assumed a

Universalistic scope of the atonement and have ignored the entire reformed emphasis upon the perfection of the union of the elect with Christ and so if you listen to his debate with with Michael Ikona if you listen to the presentation he made when

CJ forward was supposed to come in Toronto, and he was late delayed at the airport and Shabir gives a presentation you don't have to take my words for this not only if I played this for you

I played sections of it on the on the ship. It's on YouTube. You can go look for it yourself

Look for did Jesus die for the sins of the world and you'll find it in I think three different parts right there on YouTube Go look at it yourself and see if a large portion of Shabir's Argumentation is not directed toward well if Jesus died for the sins of the world that means we should be back in paradise

And that means that women shouldn't have pain in childbirth anymore and since these things haven't happened then that means that the

Jesus didn't die of the sins of the world and So the reason I was raising that was so much of his argumentation even in our debate

Did not take into consideration the reform perspective of not only myself

But of many of the people sitting in front of him in the audience And I can tell you one thing if I was going into a debate

I would want to know whether the Muslim audience in front of me was Sunni or Shia for example

Because that's going to make an impact on certain particular aspects of a debate that we might be having

Especially if it is on a question that divides the Sunni in the Shia I'm gonna want to know which is gonna be predominate because I want to be able to communicate to them in that context

So in that context So how many of Shabir's allegedly logical arguments against The the atonement actually were not relevant to the reform position.

I mean when you talk about sacrifice and ransom and you talk about The inter

Trinitarian relationships of father son and spirit in regards to the work of the cross and you talk about intercession high priesthood

Isn't it obvious that so much of the argumentation that was being made like well

You know it makes it look like God cut a deal with the devil No, not quite

Not if you have God from the beginning having an elect people that he unites to Christ that sort of Doesn't fit with the ransom

Satan theory does it no not really and so it was relevant To bring these issues up because I I can pretty much guarantee you

That Shabir has never looked at John Owen You know that's that's and I understand that the majority of people that he would be encountering wouldn't be presenting that perspective fine

Fine and dandy, but I don't think it's a it's a valid criticism To respond to me saying hey, you know what a lot of your objections

Really weren't aimed at where I'm coming from they weren't aimed at my presentation. They weren't aimed at at my theology

And if the idea is well, I don't really have to worry about your theology well, okay But I think

Shabir is gonna have to admit And my presentations I have when I debate him

I present I make my presentation against his particular perspective and his arguments

There have been many times that I have been very much tempted And I just I just haven't done it yet because there's not there's really not enough time in these debates

But I've been very much tempted to say what do you think of Jamal Badawi's argument here when he says

X Y or Z? I almost brought up The the statements of one

Muslim in a debate with Sam Shimon where This Muslim in a very very offensive way and almost stopped the debate, but a very very offensive way

Says that the the Christian Jesus ran like a mouse in cowardice away from his own death because from their perspective and I did bring part of this up because I said look if you're gonna say

That Jesus did not intend to die for the sins of the world Then you have a real hard time explaining Jesus's prayer and that is something

Shabir brings up is that father You know let this cup pass for me And if the cup was nothing more than a physical death then

Jesus does not approach death with near as much courage as many people we can name today and This Muslim just simply took that to the to its logical conclusion that Jesus was a coward

And once you you take the New Testament apart like that and don't allow for that that very reality

That the reason Jesus says let this cup be taken from me Let this cup pass for me is that he is he is as the sinless

Son of God Gonna become the sacrifice of the sins of God's people If you if you read that out of the

New Testament take the New Testament apart like that well Yeah, then you you don't really have any basis for having a whole lot of respect for Jesus Because the resultant representation of him is not clearly not what the

New Testament writers intended it to be and It ends up being far less than than overly compelling of course

I've said many many times before the Muslim Jesus is very much less than compelling

I mean we have on this program sat here during the course of this hour and read every

Quranic text that uses the name Jesus and When you put all of that together and even when you add in other stuff that use other terms for him

Which we might do someday it's still less than a hundred ayah It's less than a hundred verses and no matter what you do

You cannot put together an attractive Jesus from the Quran. You know why because Muhammad didn't know who he was

Muhammad did not have access to the New Testament text all he had was second third hand fourth hand information and The result is that the

Jesus of the Quran Which is all the Muslim really has left to him in the modern period because they attack the

Bible so much Is not an attractive person I've said many times. He's not a person

He's an argument, and that's I borrowed that from a liberal Muslim someplace And it's true it absolutely

Solidified my own thoughts on the subject when I heard this Muslim scholar being quoted said that Jesus the

Quran is not a person He's an argument. He's an argument for the prophet of Muhammad But since he's he just speaks out of out of the ozone.

He's he just sort of floats around and the only historical Context in whichever speaks when he speaks from the cradle

Which obviously comes from a non -historical? Gnostic tainted source The fact is that Jesus is not the

Jesus of the New Testament And that is not a Jesus who's going to attract anyone at all and that is one of the major problems that faces the the

Islamic person so There's to the did Jesus died for everyone and Luke 1333.

We'll do the Luke 22 like I said I'll I'll I'll blog that one so that you can at least go to it and look at the textual evidence because the issue is

Did Jesus say do this remembrance of me? Well the Luke 22 passage is one of the institution passages and anything like an institution passage

Where you have material in Matthew you have material in Mark you have material in John and in this case you have material in Paul in first Corinthians is going to be when you have the institution passages later scribes are going to want to try to harmonize these things so they all sound the same and So I'll throw the information together put on the blog as to What the external evidences are what some of the internal discussions are would have loved to have had a textual critical discussion

But I maybe I can find time maybe rich when you're putting stuff together You can sort of put a mental flag that when you get to the part where that came up where he?

He made that statement about Luke 22 and the scholars don't believe this was original I can take a look at it and see if he made reference to the

Textual situation if he just simply said scholars believe this to be a later inundation and didn't say why?

It's quite possible especially since I'm trying to write things down so quick that I didn't hear it though in this instance

That would be weird because it was about textual criticism, and I would have jumped on that in in a nanosecond

So we will continue because man we're covering a lot of ground. We're talking about scholarship We're talking about apologetics all these things relevant to a wide variety of things.

We'll continue on the dividing line next Tuesday The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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