Michael Voris, Diaa Mohamed, and Bart Ehrman

And now with today's topic, here is James White. You know, he just keeps getting me in trouble.

His name is Sam Shamoon, the Assyrian Encyclopedia, and he likes to send me these emails, and frequently it's just a link.

But sometimes there's a little nudge, a little wink -wink, like, hey, you know, you might want to respond to this guy.

And I don't think it's the first time that the Assyrian Encyclopedia has sent me a link from Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV .com,

because I've looked at a few. I remember I played one just, I think, last week sometime. My wife was listening to it in the kitchen, and I played a link, and there really wasn't enough there to bother with.

But today, this afternoon, he sent me one over, and when I started listening to this thing,

I just could not believe my ears, what I was hearing.

And so we're going to sneak it into the rotation here. We're still going to get to Bart Ehrman, and we're still going to get to Diya Muhammad, but talk about an eclectic program today.

We are also going to talk about Roman Catholicism and the Immaculate Conception, and the myth of now inflation has created 40 ,000 denominations.

Boy, some people just do not do their homework at all. But hey, I saw

Tiquette had put a, James Swan had put an article up on the blog, I think last year or the year before, about another

Catholic apologist who had said there are literally millions of Protestant denominations.

So anyways, we're going to deal with that, and then we're going to deal with Islam, and we're going to deal with the textual criticism of the

New Testament. Where else on what other webcast, or any other cast of any kind, can you get what you get here on The Dividing Line?

Nowhere at all. Which is why I would refer you once again to the note that Rich posted to the blog while I was in St.

Louis, and that is we need a server. And unlike certain

Roman Catholic apologetics organizations that claim to need tens of thousands of dollars every month just simply to exist, we need, well, last

I checked, 4 ,000, we've already gotten one of that, $4 ,000 to pay for the server, which will give us, actually over the long haul will cost us less than how we're doing right now, but it will also give us, well, right now our server is a poor little

PC sitting over in a corner at a server farm someplace, and they're changing all that, and we have to get up with the times.

So if you like the program, notice that because we need to adapt. Anyways, I started listening to this

YouTube video by Michael. It's called The Vortex.

Now maybe I'm just jealous because, I don't know, this guy's got so much hair it almost looks fake.

It almost looks, doesn't it? Did you look at it? Did that not look like a rug to you?

It looks like a rug to me too. It does not look real. I'm sorry. It must be, but the way he combs it, it does not look like it's supposed to be where it is.

Am I right? Yeah, he needs to stop taking hair tips from Donald Trump.

That's right. He does look a little bit like he's doing the Trumpster thing there, and yet he's obviously much younger.

But he does this Vortex thing, and he likes, you know, just... Last week

I listened to one where he was just ripping on Soluscriptor. He didn't know what Soluscriptor was, but he was just really ripping on it. And what can

I say? Oh, what? What's that? Seriously? We met the goal for the server?

If that's what I'm reading there, then I need to announce that.

That we actually made the goal for the server. That was only, like, a week.

You people are awesome. You're the best folks out there. That is so awesomely cool, if I can verify here.

There's about a 30 -second lag between when I say things in the program and when

I see stuff pop up in the channel. So if I can get... Yeah, Hasim says, you can donate to the graphic designer.

Yes, we need to triple the graphic designer's salary. In fact, we could increase it by 100 -fold, and we could still afford it.

I thought artists did their best work when they're starving. Well, son, if you ever find yourself a wife, don't expect him to design anything for you right now after that one.

Because he ain't going to be doing any artwork for you at all. Yes, it's true, doc.

Okay, it was less than 24 hours? Oh, my goodness. Well, see, I haven't seen Rich for quite some time now.

He's been off doing important stuff elsewhere. So, hey, scratch what I said.

We're straight up front about that stuff. Thank you very, very much for that. Anyhow, I'm never going to get through any of this if I don't get started.

So I'm going to get started. I started listening to this thing, and it did not take long for me to realize that we had something here we needed to be looking at.

If we could develop a radio -free... You know, radio -free Geneva would actually work for Roman Catholicism, too, because Geneva, Rome, stuff like that.

And Geneva sent all these missionaries down into Italy that almost all of them died. But if we had a theme, this would really be a good thing to have a theme for, because goodness.

But, well, let's just start listening to Michael Voris. And we'll need to stop and start, because we won't get very long before we run into problems.

So let's listen in. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Vortex, where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed.

I'm Michael Voris. Well, immediately, lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. Well, that's good.

You know, it's a good thing to trap and expose lies and falsehoods. But given what we're going to hear on this,

I really think that we would have a very different definition of the truth. And, by the way, we're always looking for Roman Catholics who are willing to debate.

It's hard to find them anymore. Despite the fact someone sent me a link to a line, to a post, on the ever -interesting but always truth -challenged

Catholic Answers Forums, where you can find some folks who just don't ever get out.

You know, folks who seemingly just don't look beyond the very narrow walls of the

Catholic Answers world. Someone had posted something about, you know, we've still got this article on the website about how many of the leading

Roman Catholic apologists will not debate, at least not debate me. And someone had responded, oh, all those people have debated.

He's just dishonest. He's just a liar. And it was like, oh, I'd love to get those folks. You know, like get

Guardian to call back in. How many years has it been now since Guardian said he was going to call in and give us his list of all my errors?

About three years, something like that. Hey, Cranmer's in channel. Cranmer, I need that debate.

Quick, man. I was about to send him an email. Now I'm using the dividing line to do personal emails. Isn't that great?

But I'm putting the last touches on the, I've got to get a syllabus in by Monday for my

Golden Gate class because I'm teaching apologetics starting the second week in January for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary where it was said

I would never teach again, but I'm teaching there again. And I want to use the video,

I want to get the MP4 of the video, and I want to put it in one. I suppose

I could just link to what Cranmer has posted. That's one way to do it.

I just don't want to necessarily do that. So anyway, I need to get that information from him because I want to use the

Abdullah Kunda debate. Oh, he's not even listening. Good. Great. Wonderful.

So I'm going to explain to him what I just said in channel and let him know

I need to find out when I'm going to get the Abdullah Kunda video because I really want to have the students watch that because I thought it was one of the best ones we had available.

Algo just posted the particular thread in channel. Why won't Catholic apologists debate

James White? And I'm giving my guy here a hard time. Well, give him a harder time.

Act all British around him. That would drive any Aussie crazy. All right.

I'll give it to you. Just stop acting British. And that'll take care of that. All right.

We need to get serious here. Let's get back to Michael Voris in the Vortex, and let's get to it here.

When Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have the esteemed privilege, yes, privilege, of being caught up in the creative mind of God the

Father in a desire he had from all eternity. Except that it's a dogma that did not become a dogma until 1854 and was unknown, absolutely unknown, in the early church.

In fact, there are lots of quotations you can provide about that.

I mean, I loved St. Bernard's argument against the concept, how many people had argued against it and things like that.

I like the comment of Ludwig Ott in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, page 200 and 201.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not explicitly revealed in Scripture. Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers explicitly teach the

Immaculate Conception of Mary. So if this was in the mind of God, it took him quite some time to finally get it around to revealing it to men, which would actually make it a new revelation because it's neither found in Scripture nor tradition.

So it's a revelation outside of the kin of the New Testament itself. And so I just thought

I'd add that to the rather interesting description that Mr. Voris provides of this feast of the

Immaculate Conception. Most Protestants have no desire to hear talk of the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Mother because...

Well, except those of us who actually debate people, as I have twice on this particular subject.

So it's not a matter of our not wanting to talk about it. I don't mind talking about it. It's a great illustration of where the

Roman Catholic Church has defined something, De Fide, that has absolutely, positively no foundation in either

Scripture or tradition. Now the only thing it has less, if you can have no, if you can have less than none, is the bodily assumption.

But both of them, now De Fide dogmas of the Romanist system, that have nothing to do with Scripture or tradition, which demonstrates that Roman Catholicism is not bound by any external authority outside of itself.

These are both excellent examples of sola ecclesia, the

Church as the sole and final rule of faith for itself. It's not a three -legged stool or anything like that.

It's not church and tradition, magisterium. No, it's just a magisterium, period, end of discussion. I've always said that's

Rome's position, and the Immaculate Conception, the bodily assumption of Mary, prove that that is, in fact,

Rome's position. Because the brilliant truth of this doctrine shakes some of their foundational principles with such a force that they come tumbling down.

Really, I've never met anybody who, upon seriously studying the history of the

Immaculate Conception, seriously studying the documentation that demonstrates that seven popes have taught against it, and that there are numerous early church fathers who talked about Mary's sin, directly contrary to what

Mr. Voris is going to say here in a moment, and then looked at the political maneuvering, the very human aspects of the final definition itself, that ever felt anything shaken.

In fact, the only people I could think of who felt shaken in such a study were people who actually believed Rome was the infallible church.

I certainly have not found anything in that kind of material that in any way challenged me.

In fact, it just simply affirmed very, very deeply the reality of Rome's false authority claims.

But practically every Protestant, which means Baptist, Lutheran... He's going to list about six denominations.

Then he's going to start mixing denominations. He's going to talk about evangelicals, which would cross over some of the others that he's talking about.

There are evangelical Lutherans, evangelical Baptists, so on and so forth. But then listen to the number, folks, because remember, you can go back on the blog, search for 33 ,000 denominations.

You will find lengthy, extensive blog articles with PDF images in them of original sources, demonstrating beyond all possible dispute that the argumentation being used by Roman Catholic apologists about 33 ,000 denominations, or now as you're going to hear even more than that, is absolutely, positively a bogus misreading of a source that is without any defense.

Steve Ray tried to defend himself when I exposed him, and of course he just demonstrated he's a very dishonest man, that he has absolutely no interest or love for truth at all.

He is a self -promoter from beginning to end. That's who Steve Ray is. And any

Roman Catholic apologist who continues to baselessly use these grossly inflated numbers is just demonstrating that, hey, as long as the church, as long as it serves the church, who cares if it's true or false?

I mean, they literally are following the path of the Inquisitors, who as they turn the crank of the rack and hear the screams of their victims, think they're doing it because, well,

Mother Church has told me to do it. It's just, it's a sad, sad thing, but that's the reality of the situation.

Let's click the right one here. ...Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Congregationalist, and the whole lot of 40 ,000 different Protestant faiths would be shocked out of their minds...

40 ,000 different Protestant faiths.

He said it. 40 ,000 Protestant faiths. Well, Mr. Boris, I'd like to know where you got that number.

I know where the 33 ,000 number came from. I know what the World Christian Encyclopedia actually says.

And I know the World Christian Encyclopedia, in its collection of denominations, lists 8 ,973 denominations under Protestant.

And that the only way you can get to even close to 33 ,000 is if you include the

Independents, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gnostics, Bogomils, Swedenborginists, the

Arab radio TV networks, 19 denominations worth, Japanese Oneness Pentecostals, 14 denominations worth, and add them all in.

And surely, the Japanese Oneness Pentecostals are the result of Sola Scriptura and the

Protestant Reformation. I'm sure that's exactly where they came from. And remember, it also includes 234

Roman Catholic denominations. Do you accept that, Mr. Boris? Do you believe there's 234

Roman Catholic churches? Not just churches, but actual denominations, churches? That would be very interesting.

And I wonder if Mr. Boris also... Whoa, stop! I didn't give you permission to continue on. I've got two pointing devices here.

I clicked the wrong one. So, let me list some of the others you have to throw in here for Mr.

Boris' numbers to work on. British Israelites, 8 denominations. Afro -Caribbean Zionists, only one of them, thankfully.

But it had to be due to Sola Scriptura. Gay, lesbian, homosexual tradition. Oh, that's due to Sola Scriptura.

White -led, word -of -faith prosperity, 17 denominations. Latin -right Catholic. Oh yeah, they're

Protestants. They were thrown in there. Independent Jehovah's Witnesses. The No Church Movement.

Ah, why not? I love those. Old Catholic, 26 denominations lay at the foot of Sola Scriptura.

Isolated radio churches. As I said in my article, I just report the facts. And single congregations.

Oh, great. That's the one you just, when you have no place else to put them in, you throw them in there. And this is all due to Sola Scriptura.

I wonder if Mr. Boris would likewise believe what's in this source on the very next page.

The very next page talks about persecutors and their victims from A .D. 33 to 2000.

And it talks about people who, it talks about Christians who have been killed. And it talks about their persecutors.

And it says secular governments by far the most, 55 .597 million over 2000 years.

Atheists, which overlap with the above, 31 .5 million. Muslims are right up there at 9 .1

million. Ethno -religionist animists, 7 .5

million. But at number 5, number 5 on the list, ladies and gentlemen, according to this same source,

Roman Catholicism. Yes, Roman Catholics have killed 4 .95

million Christians. Now, do you accept that,

Mr. Boris? Same source that you're inflating your numbers from.

Same source. Do you accept that one, I wonder? I don't get the feeling that he probably would.

But, you know, all that information has been on our website for quite some time. In fact, let's see, this article was posted, when did

I post this one? This was August 27, 2007.

It's been up there over 4 years. And so I suppose if Mr.

Boris had utilized the Oracle of All Knowledge, Google, that he would have known about that.

But for some reason, he didn't. So, so much for the 40 ,000 nominations.

Now we're going to hear the, your founders believed in the Immaculate Conception concept.

But let's, before we allow him to embarrass himself with his statement, let's provide a context.

What is the context of such a statement? Well, let's think about it. At the time of the

Reformation, Rome itself had not dogmatized this belief.

It was a matter of private belief. You could or could not believe it. And we can document all sorts of big names who did not believe it.

There were numerous people who argued against it in the medieval period. And so it was a matter of piety.

And so it's easy to quote Luther, and his soft spot for Mary, and in his piety, believing, and something like this.

But I can guarantee you something, folks. I can guarantee you something. If Rome had defined this as a

De Fide Doctrine then, and said, you must believe this, or it's the fire for you, that would have changed everything.

But you see, at the time, there were Roman Catholics who agreed or disagreed.

It was a matter of dispute and discussion. It divided Dominicans and Franciscans and all the rest of that stuff.

They came along in that form a little bit later on. But again, it is anachronistic, as Roman Catholic apologists tend to be anachronistic rather often.

It is anachronistic to reinsert into history the arguments that are going on now as if they would have been relevant at that time.

And so when he says, all these people, all those 40 ,000 denominations would just be blown away if they knew what

Luther and Zwingli said. Um, sir, we do know. And those of us who actually take these things seriously have already looked at these things and are well aware of the fact.

But let's continue listening. Two founding fathers of their 16th century revolt against the

Catholic Church each agreed with... Revolt! It's revolting! ...with the doctrine of the

Immaculate Conception. No, they agree with the concept that was not yet a doctrine or a dogma.

See how different that is? Most people, they just hear... I just love when people, in some of the debates, they'll get up and, hey, did you know

Luther said this? And they don't seem to have any concept of what anachronism is.

Reading into an ancient context, or in this case an older context, a dispute that simply wasn't happening yet.

That shows they don't even understand the history of the development of their own dogma at that particular point in time.

Martin Luther said, quote, Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents.

But the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood.

The Holy Spirit permitted the virgin to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we.

However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin, as we are.

And Ulrich Zwingli said, quote, I esteem immensely the mother of God, the ever -chaste, immaculate

Virgin Mary. Now, even there, just simplifying the term immaculate does not mean that a person used it, meant it the way that Roman Catholics mean it today.

That's more anachronism. When they go looking for quotations in early church fathers, they frequently make that mistake as well.

And so that citation alone does not even begin to establish the position in regards to Zwingli.

It's irrelevant one way or the other, but I've certainly seen that. In fact, in the debate that I did with Ferrara, Christopher Ferrara, when was that?

August of 2010, I think. He dredged out a false citation, a pseudo -citation from Augustine to try to substantiate his position.

Remember, check citations when Roman Catholics make them, folks, because Rome has a long history of using false citations.

A long, long history of using false citations. So how has it come to pass that the beliefs about Mary of the leaders of the

Protestant Reformation, or Revolt, which is more accurate, have not survived down to the present day?

After all, Marian doctrine, as taught in the pre -Reformation era, drew its inspiration from the witness of sacred

Scripture and was rooted in Christology and stretched back to the virtual roots of the ancient

Christian faith. That is bogus, and we'd be happy to debate

Mr. Voris on that subject. Bogus! What scriptural witness? There is no scriptural witness to the

Immaculate Conception of the Bodily Assumption of Mary. None! And neither was the belief of the early Church.

Certainly the primitive Church. The facts are just so overwhelming.

I could win that debate quoting nobody but Roman Catholics. I mean, I just quoted

Ott, didn't I? The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not explicitly revealed in Scripture.

Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers explicitly teach the Immaculate Conception of Mary. So if you want to start engaging in the most, you know, creative ways of...

Well, you know, they used the term immaculate, and maybe it meant this. You know, if you want to start trying to shoehorn stuff in, go ahead.

It doesn't work well in debates. Really doesn't work well in debates. Doesn't work well during cross -examination.

Not at all. But if that's where you want to go, then that's where you want to go. But that's the best that they can do.

The real reason for the break with the past must be attributed to the sort of rabid passion of the followers of the

Reformation and the consequences of some Reformation principles. Even more influential in the break with Mary was the influence of the

Enlightenment era, which essentially questioned or denied the mysteries of all faith. Yeah, that's why the people who are the least likely to believe in Rome's imaginative extra -revelations and dogmatic definitions about Mary are so completely offensive to the real

Mary and so completely derogatory to the truth about who

Jesus Christ is and so detract from His glory. The people who are most likely to reject those are the people who believe in, well, the inspiration of Scripture.

That's not a supernatural thing. And the harmony of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture and the

Trinity and the deity of Christ. The very people who are defending these things far more often than Rome ever does and far more effectively than Rome ever does.

Yeah, that's why. It's because we're the children of the Enlightenment. That must be it.

Unfortunately, the Marian teachings and preachings of the Reformers have been covered up by their most zealous followers.

Oh, yeah, covered up. We've never ever talked about these things. Nobody who teaches early church history or anything like that has ever discussed the viewpoints of Zwingli or Luther.

Nah, there's nobody. Nobody does that. ...with damaging theological and practical consequences.

Nowhere in Christian... Now, listen to this. Listen to this. Nowhere in Christian literature prior to the arrival of the

Protestants 15 centuries, centuries after Jesus do you ever, ever hear of our

Blessed Mother being called a sinner. But whether stated implicitly or explicitly, that is exactly what current

Protestant theology must say about the Mother of God. Did you catch that?

Never, ever in 15 centuries. 15 centuries.

Really? Well, may

I note well -known church historian J. N. D. Kelly He's a pretty well -known guy.

Listed such notables as Irenaeus in his work against heresies, book 3, section 16, paragraph 7

Tertullian on the Incarnation of Christ, section 7 Origen homilies in Luke 17

They all taught that Mary committed acts of personal sin. Now, he doesn't really have a dog in this fight, so to speak.

How did they... How did J. N. D. Kelly come up with this? Others who made reference directly to personal acts of sin on Mary's part included

John Chrysostom Cyril of Alexandria, and Basil. None of them had the slightest idea of the

Immaculate Conception. Didn't bother any of them to mention these things. Now, here you have a guy who comes to us and he says

Mary from acts of personal sin I mean, he's certainly far enough down the road that the exaltation of Mary has gone a long ways by the time you get to Augustine.

And while he exempted Mary from acts of personal sin he did not exempt her from the stain of original sin.

Now, Pelagius the heretic exempted Mary and many others from the stain of original sin. But Augustine said that Mary died due to inherited sin.

Sermon 2 on Psalm 34. He spoke of Mary receiving the grace of regeneration.

He likewise taught that Christ alone was sinless. And it took about 1400 years for his influence to be overcome before Ineffabilis Deus the papal statement defining the doctrine could see the light of day.

But his influence had to be overcome for that to happen. We see that Mr.

Voris is simply completely and utterly in error in the statements that he has made on this subject so far.

But they are going to be true to their beliefs. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit does not guide a religion.

It falls into error. Now catch this. We're led by the Holy Spirit but everything I've said so far has been a complete lie.

It's easy for people to document where I have just I have looked into your eyes through this video camera and I have either demonstrated my abject ignorance or my complete dishonesty.

One of the two. Not sure which. I don't know the man so let's just say he's never listened to the other side.

Let's just peddle the Roman Catholic side. The problem is if he even read the

Roman Catholic side he'd have to realize his rosy perspective on this is not quite accurate.

But the Church is true and the Holy Spirit leads us and we're infallible. It preaches wrong doctrine.

It leads people astray. And now for the whole crowd of Catholic false ecumenists out there who are willing to sweep some things under the rug or ignore them for the sake of getting along ask yourself this question.

One day you're going to stand before the throne of Jesus Christ like we all are. Do you really want to defend your actions of allowing his mother to be called a sinner?

Hail Mary full of grace pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

God love you. I'm Michael Voris. Well thank you Mr. Voris. You may need to ask the question of all those early church fathers who recognize that Mr.

Voris it's real simple. The book of Luke records Mary referring to God as her savior.

You might say oh well that's not a problem. She needed a savior but it was a preemptive application of the merits of Christ and all that stuff that came along long after the

New Testament. One simple question Mr. Voris and if you ever were to step out and debate these things in public it's a question

I'd ask you then. And I don't mind telling you what the question is now because to be honest with you there is no meaningful answer to this question.

But Mr. Voris do you really think that's what Mary meant when she said that? Do you really think that Mary in her

Magnificat that she actually was saying that when she called

God her savior she recognized that she had been kept from the stain of original sin by the preemptive application of the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ when she didn't even understand at that point in time what

Jesus was going to have to do on the cross. Are you seriously telling me that? That sir is the grossest example of eisegesis and twisting of scripture you could ever give.

But it's all the Roman Catholic can do because your church forces you to because it's a false teaching church.

And you have just given us excellent example of it. You have distorted history and distorted scripture.

So there you go. Much more can be said about that. I would direct you to the web store at aleman .org

if you would like to listen to the debate with Christopher Rara on that subject from just last year. And by the way,

I did look up something about Michael Voris. This year, 2011 inducted into knighthood of the

Royal Order of Saint Michael of the Wing Royal House of Portugal.

Now there you go. Anybody who is a knight of the Royal Order of Saint Michael of the

Wing Saint Michael of the Wing. What on earth is that?

I have no idea. But it struck me and I thought

I would share that. And it's right on the RealCatholicTV .com website. I didn't make that up. You can look it up yourself.

Saint Michael of the Wing There's much that could be said about that but I'm going to avoid saying anything more lest I get myself into a lot of trouble in the process.

Alright, let's get back into this. I'm going to switch the order here and go back to the

Diya Muhammad material first and then we'll wrap up. We are going to go for a jumbo.

They had to because I threw that in. But we'll go back to the Diya Muhammad material first and then finish up with the

Bart Ehrman stuff and I hopefully should finish my cross -ex of Ehrman and then we can get back into his opening statement in his debate with Dan Wallace.

I was talking with Alan Kirshner in Channel Today. He's one of our channel rats.

We started outlining a book we'd love to do together because I'd love to do something with Alan. He has been trained in textual criticism in the

Huthi Tuthi schools back there in the upper and in the northeastern

United States. He's gone to Harvard and places like that.

Anyway, we started throwing out chapter titles for a book we would put together responding to Ehrman's position.

I think the title I came up with was... At first it was

BE Perfect! Bart Ehrman's Ridiculous Standards for the Trustworthiness of the New Testament.

I thought, no, no, BE Photocopied! Bart Ehrman's Ridiculous Standards for the

Trustworthiness of the New Testament. That would be the way to go. But that would be really, really enjoyable to do.

So we'll get to that. And if I don't start talking, we're never going to get to any of this. So let's get back to the Diya Muhammad presentation against the deity of Christ.

We've already seen that Mr. Muhammad seems to believe that 1 John 5 .7, which he thinks is

John 5 .7 is the only verse on the Trinity in the Bible and it's been taken out of the Bible. And at some point in this debate he's going to say it was taken out for 17 years and put back in because the

Bible thumber's got upset. Which, again, reveals, and it's important to understand this, and some of you might be going, you know, the dissonance between listening to an

Ehrman, who at least is a real scholar. I mean, normally when he talks about a fact, he's got the facts right.

It's the application and interpretation that's wrong. Well, this seems like someone who just really hasn't done their homework.

That's true. But the reason that we have to still be able to respond to this is because that's where most

Muslims are. The vast majority of Muslims have this false idea that the text of the

Bible is this fluid thing that we can just sort of, I mean, the NIV translators can get together and change the

Bible if they want to, if that's what they decide to do. As if they have the power and ability. I mean, that's what everybody's thinking when they talk about Luther.

Well, do you think Luther actually thought he had that capacity? I mean, seriously?

That he could do that by himself? Do you really think that that's what Luther thought of his own power and capacity?

I mean, that's just absurd. It just makes no sense at all.

But we have to be able to deal with folks who have the idea that the text of the

Bible is literally that fluid. Push it, they put it back in. Not because God said so. Not because Jesus said so.

Because the people demanded it. I truly ask you, go and research and see if John chapter 5 verse 7 was ever taken out of the

Scripture. Now here, that's where he said, it's been put back in?

And maybe that was the thing. Do forgive me just for a moment here. I'm going to back it up just a second because I want to see if that's where the

Bible thumpers came in. We want to have both channels here.

There we go. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 6 -4 a

Jew went up to Moses and said I evidently did not get far enough back there. Let's back it up a little bit more and see if this is where it is.

Okay, there it was.

Evidently we had just stopped it on the last program right after the Bible pushers. The Bible thumpers.

The Bible thumpers got upset and so they put it back in. Again, he keeps saying, go research this.

And I just have to say to Diya Muhammad, yes sir, you need to go research this. Because you aren't even anywhere close.

And sir, if on my side, when I hear people talking about the

Quran or Islam from this level of ignorance I point that out and say don't do that.

It is not respectful. I don't care if you're a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, an atheist.

I think there's just a basic level of respect you have to have for truth.

To make sure that if you're going to stand in a public setting and say something that you have some basis for saying it.

And I'm sorry sir, you have no basis for saying the things that you're saying here. None. You're just wrong.

The NIV Translation Committee does not control the text of the Bible. The NIV is not the only translation of the

Bible out there. It's only an English Bible. All they can control is what they produce in an

English translation of the Greek and Hebrew text in front of them. And as we pointed out last time, 1

John 5 -7 has been known about forever. I mean the controversy about this took place in the 1520's sir.

Almost 500 years ago. It is not the key text on the

Trinity in the New Testament. And that's what bugs me when Bart Ehrman points to it. When we play his part he's going to point to it as well.

Now he realizes, far more than D .M. Muhammad does what the actual foundation of the

Trinity is. But he still points to it and I don't know why. Because it's not a meaningful variant in the sense that when something shows up only 1400 years into church history in the

New Testament manuscript tradition as far as the Greek manuscript tradition it is not a plausible original reading.

Anyways, I just simply say to D .M. Muhammad because you are behind this media push to talk about Jesus as an

Islamic prophet. If you're going to engage in these things take the time to find out what you're actually engaging or you're going to run the risk of misrepresenting the people you're denying.

And I know there are people who do that to Islam. I'm sorry. I'm doing my best not to. And I'm saying this to you as a

Christian apologist and an elder in a church. I regularly teach. I'm regularly involved in doing the work of a

Christian apologist. I was at a hospital last night. I had a dear friend her sister passed away and so my wife and I we were with her when they said goodbye to her sister.

I've done hospital work. I've been a hospital chaplain. I do regular ministry work. I'm not just sitting in an office someplace being an apologist going,

I'm going to get this group next or something like that. I have a full -orbed life. Been married for almost 30 years.

Two grown kids. I think it turned out pretty well. And yet in the middle of all that what was

I doing yesterday? Yeah, I was out riding a bike. And some people say, you just do that too much. Well, it's how I stay alive.

And it's also when I study. You know what I was doing when I was riding yesterday? I knocked off an entire book yesterday.

I had to do like 20 minutes after the ride. The course of the ride, 35 miles, about 3 ,700 feet of climbing.

And what did I do? I listened to an entire book on the history the ancient history, well it's not really ancient it's almost medieval, but the history that brought about the

Sunni -Shia split. I finally think I've got a pretty decent handle on that. And what happened just recently in the bombing just a few days ago

Ashura just passed. Now I know what Ashura means. Now I understand why the Shias go through the streets and cut themselves and what they're chanting and why they're chanting and I understand what happened with Hussein and his family and now

I've got an idea. It's really helped fill in an area that was not real strong in my thinking and I continue someone yesterday, thank you very much to whoever it was

I didn't recognize the name, but someone I've never seen before bought me, it's a book,

I have the paper version in my library. It's a big, huge Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam, but now it's on Kindle.

And that means I can listen to it. You know how long it will take to listen to that thing? Oh, we're talking let's put it in miles about 720 miles worth of riding and if some of that's climbing, like it will be next week or one day next week,

I'm not going to mention where, but I'm going someplace next week. We're in one day.

My goal, my goal, not sure if I'm going to make it, but my goal in one day, my birthday is next week so I always do something for my birthday because I enter into my 50th year

I don't turn 50, you enter into your 50th year on your 49th birthday, but I enter into my 50th year next week and on one day

I'm going to try to climb 10 ,560 feet, which of course is two miles, 5 ,280 twice duh, and I'll be listening to the

Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam while I'm doing that. Now, why do I do that?

First and foremost to try to honor God, because I don't believe that it is honoring to God to present his truth when you haven't done a study of the people that you're trying to reach.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't try to talk to somebody I've never studied their religion if the opportunity presented itself but if I'm going to be addressing

Muslims, if I'm going to be addressing these subjects, I think I need to do some study that's why I have spent, I used to say hundreds of hours

I would say it's well over a thousand now listening to Muslims lecturing and reading their books and listening to the

Quran and reading the Quran and the Hadith You know how boring to a

Christian certain sections of Sahih al -Bukhari are Mr. Diya Mohammed the sections on ablutions and well

I'll just be perfectly honest with you women's menstrual cycles well that's exciting stuff but I'm listening to it,

I'm getting through it don't know how many hours I've spent Why?

Because I want to be accurate in what I'm saying and you might say, well you messed it up here you know what, you can't show me somebody on your side that has put in as much work trying to understand the other side as I have, you can't they're just not there

I don't claim perfection and infallibility but you can't show me anybody who tries harder so Mr.

Mohammed, for me it just bothers me a lot and I have a reason to be bothered when I hear you talking about a doctrine that is so precious to me and I've spent so many years studying and teaching and writing about and you say, well the one verse that teaches it took it out of the

Bible you don't even know what you're talking about I invite you to learn the truth and to admit that you were wrong that you just didn't know what you were talking about that's the question will he be willing to do so?

I truly ask you, go and research and see if John chapter 5 verse 7 was ever taken out of the scripture going back to the prophets and the messages what was the one consistent message brought to all the prophets who gave it to their people the

Bible tells us if you're trying to be six foot... now listen to this, this is interesting because if he asked me that question

I would say from the Muslim perspective the Muslim theological teaching is that every prophet sent from Allah came with one message that was the message, that's what united them all together right?

and so now he's going to try to basically say that the Shema is the same thing as the

Shahada but listen, did you hear him say earlier remember he said he had not brought his

Bible that was a bad move on his part because he is citing from memory and that's not a good thing it's not a good thing to cite from memory, it's really not because he doesn't get it right now listen to what he tries to do here this is sort of the

Muslim example of Matthew 23 -37 where you quote the

Bible verse as you think it should be in fact, to be honest with you folks this is a good example illustrating some of what we're talking about scribal errors in the

New Testament because how many times have you heard people quoting a text and they quote it the way they think it should be well you know sometimes that happens in sermons, it happens to us when we're preaching sometimes it happens even when you're copying the text especially in patristic sources when you're looking at well you know

Irenaeus said this or Tertullian said this, it's very easy in those contexts to misremember what the text actually said in the context of what you're saying so listen to how he presents the

Shema you can look it up, in fact let me look at it myself and provide it to you really quickly because it's important to know what the context is

Deuteronomy 6 -1 begins now this is the commandment, the statutes and rules that the

Lord your God commanded me to teach you that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it that you may fear the

Lord your God you and your son and your son's son by keeping all his statutes and his commandments which

I command you all the days of your life and that your days may be long then you have hear therefore

O Israel and be careful to do them that it may go well with you that you may multiply greatly as the

Lord your God, the God of your fathers Yahweh the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey then the

Shema begins hear O Israel the Lord our God you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind now why do

I emphasize this? because there is nothing here about somebody coming up to Moses and asking him a question or anything, it's just not there with that in mind we then go to what

Diya Muhammad says listen to his rendition of the Shema a

Jew went up to Moses and said O Rabbi, Master what is thy first commandment?

and Moses said to him in the language of the Hebrew which he spoke O children of Israel, ye children of Israel the

Lord our God, the Lord is one that's what Moses said yeah sure,

I'm not sure what version of the text he's reading there's nothing about anybody walking up to Moses and saying

Rabbi, what is the greatest commandment or anything like that what he's trying to do is create a parallel between the giving of the

Shema and Jesus' response to someone who came up to him and asked him what the greatest commandment is and then you draw the parallel to Muhammad so you've got

Moses, you've got Jesus, you've got Muhammad those Christians, they just missed it they just missed the whole idea and they went off on their own side or something like that that's why

I read what comes before the Shema there's nothing about anybody coming up to Moses and asking him questions 2000 years later a

Jew went to Jesus peace and blessings be upon him and said O Master, Rabbi, word for word same question dear, that's not in the

Bible anyway you just made this up, who are you getting this stuff from why didn't you look this up for yourself why?

why should he say that? Jesus affirmed the Shema we do not contradict the

Shema we believe God is one, we are not polytheists you may misunderstand what we believe you may think we are polytheists, you're wrong you've been misled but why would

Jesus do that? and if that's the case, sir, then what do you do with 1 Corinthians 8 which does exactly what you think should be said and that is it uses the language of the

Shema and yet expands the Shema to include father and son one

Lord, do you know what the word Lord there is in the Shema, Mr. Muhammad? it's

Kurios, and that is used of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 8 .6 by whom are all things, and we by him does that sound like language?

do you really think that a monotheistic Jew would apply the

Shema to anyone but God? but you think Jesus is just a mere Rasul he didn't do that he said the

Lord, our God is one 600 and something years ago,

Prophet Muhammad appears peace be upon him, and what is the first commandment of every Muslim is la ilaha illallah, there is only one

God there is only one God, Moses preached it Jesus preached it, and Muhammad preached it tell me where the difference in theology is you see, by falsely attributing something to Moses you've created this line, but you know what it's very easy to understand why

Muslims will do this they're following a Quranic example at that point they're following a

Quranic example at that point and I know that I've mentioned this before but we always have new folks that are listening to the program for the first time and I like to provide the background information, we want to make sure that if this is the only time you've been listening that you're going to get all the information that you need but this is an example it's just like when

I play the fig tree argument where the man in the debate that I did back in 1999 asked about the fig tree and he was giving a

Quranic argument if you look at surah 4, surah 5, part of the argumentation is we could have destroyed

Mary, we could have destroyed Jesus they're just human beings, they eat their food and you see

God can't eat food, therefore so the guy was just following a Quranic example so the guy was just following a

Quranic example well that's exactly what D .M. is doing right now in surat al maida the table, surah 5 ayah 44 indeed we sent down the

Torah in which was guidance and light the prophets who submitted to Allah judged by it for the Jews as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the scripture of Allah and they were witnesses there too so do not fear the people but fear me and do not exchange my verses for a small price and whoever does not judge by what

Allah has revealed then it is those who are the disbelievers we ordain for them therein a life for a life an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth and for wounds is legal retribution that's the lex talionis passage there coming from the old testament one of the only places the bible is quoted and clearly only by memory at this point and but whoever gives up his right as charity is an expiation for him and whoever does not judge by what

Allah has revealed then it is those who are the wrongdoers then ayah 46 we sent following their footsteps Jesus the son of Mary confirming that which came before him in the

Torah and we gave him the gospel in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it with the

Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous so you've got, we gave the Torah then we sent

Jesus and he, we gave him the gospel and he confirmed what came before him in the

Torah and then one of my favorite texts in the

Quran, surah 547 and let the people the gospel, the al -anjil, judged by what Allah has revealed therein and whoever does not judge by what

Allah has revealed then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient and we have revealed to you oh

Muhammad the book and truth confirming that which preceded it of the scripture and as a criterion over it so judge between them by what

Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclination you see the argument, I sent the Torah then I sent Jesus and he confirmed what was in the

Torah and I gave him the gospel and now I've sent Moses and I've given him the Quran confirming what came before him, you see it's the same argument here found in the

Quran of course Mr. Muhammad I would have to point out that if I am to follow the argumentation of surah 547 then

I've got a problem let the people of the gospel judge by what

Allah has revealed therein now I'm not an expert on Arabic but I have translated this text with my

Arabic tutor we've looked through it very carefully and when you look at this text let the people of the gospel judge by what

Allah has revealed therein the only therein in the text is the gospel that's the only possible way to understand it so how

Mr. Muhammad how could anyone in the days of Muhammad judge by what was in the gospel if they did not possess the gospel it seems beyond all logical contradiction it seems beyond all logical contradiction that according to the

Quran itself we are to judge what

Muhammad teaches by what is in the gospel and the gospel had to exist for the people to do that at that time so with that in mind we know what the gospel was we know what the new testament as a whole was in the days of Muhammad that I did with him in 2009 because it's laying some of the foundation to be able to understand more fully his claims in the debate that took place on October 1st with Dan Wallace so we're a little over halfway through that I'm not sure

I'm playing all of it but let's go back and listen continuing where we picked up last time to that cross -examination of Bart Ehrman looking at that particular one you do believe that August Thijs is the original there that's right would you comment on what has been said by Dr.

Parker for example where he says the more he's studied Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis the more he's become convinced that it's unique readings especially when they're alone are insignificant if you're searching for the original reading or Dr.

Ollin's assertion that any of the readings of Bezae when they do not have earlier attestation should be looked at somewhat as scams yeah well

Ollin doesn't like Codex Bezae Parker loves Codex Bezae but he does have the suspicion about it but I believe

Parker agrees with me on Mark 141 doesn't he I have no idea what he says the question

I was asking here goes to the reliability of the first source for the reading of August Thijs became angry at Mark 141 when you read what

Parker says when you read what Metzger says when you read what other textual critics have said about Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis they all say the same thing when it goes off on it's own with a reading that has no earlier attestation it's one of those places where this isn't a copy of the

New Testament it is a commentary remember this is the same text that when

Peter is freed from the jail by the angel remember in the book of Acts and he goes down the street and he finds the

Christians and he knocks on the door and the woman doesn't believe it's him and leaves him standing out there hoping a

Roman soldier doesn't come running around the corner it's a funny scene but in Bezae when

Peter goes down to the street the author of Bezae felt it was important for us to know exactly how many steps he descended now that's found no place else it's meant to be a literary commentary a fluffing up let's smooth this out and Bezae is filled with this stuff and this is the first place that we get this reading now it is also found in some commentaries and I think origin mentions something but the point is that any reading that has that kind of foundation to it is highly suspect that was why

I was asking what I was asking I don't really end up getting an answer to that particular portion of my question it's a great book

I think that he agrees with me on Mark 141 however is it not true that Scrivener Metzger in the book you have right there and commenting on Bezae they all recognize that Codex Bezae is incredibly free

I think so too I think a lot of its variants are very strange indeed it shows how early manuscripts differ so widely from one another this is a case in point that's not fair that's not fair because is he seriously suggesting that the differences between say

P75 and P66 and there are a number P66 the scribe was not good

P75 the scribe was good in a documentary hand but he was good not pretty but he was good is he seriously suggesting that the differences we have there are the same type of differences we have in Codex Bezae Canterburgiensis where you have a scribe who is does not feel that he is limited to the actual original text he's commenting he's smoothing it out he's a literary critic for crying out loud that is not a fair analysis of what those earlier scribes were doing it just isn't so if Codex Bezae adds all sorts of commentary the number of steps

Paul stepped down the time frame when he lectured in Acts all these things are added why wouldn't it be more likely given that there is no earlier manuscript support for that reading that the writer of Codex D saw the very same strong language that you yourself have pointed to in your argumentation he casts him out he strongly upbraids him and made a change as he did in so many other places in his writings.

That's a standard argument that's what people have said for years I'm arguing in line with the standard textual critical understanding of this text in fact to my knowledge all modern translations agree so who's in the mainstream here that would be me the funny looking bald man just so you're catching that I'm not the one out on you know the far end of things here

I disagree with it I think that in fact on internal grounds internal grounds not external grounds so he's arguing internally which is his interpretation of this particular text there are solid reasons for thinking that it was

Orgis Theis my principal reasoning has nothing to do with the value of Codex Bezae so my principal reasoning has nothing to do with the value of the earliest manuscript that actually contains this reading this is a textual critic speaking

I just want you to catch this as you probably know you've read my articles on it I assume you've read my article on Mark 141 so that isn't it's not when

I debated him I had his Brill compilation $169 for that little booger

I had his doctoral dissertation in front of me I was sitting you want to know how

I do preparation I sat in Alaska at sunset next to the ocean reading

Bart Ehrman's doctoral dissertation okay and I don't think he even googled my name before he showed up for that debate

Codex Bezae is to some extent neither here nor there it provides us with a reading but it isn't the strong argument for the reading being original okay and would that be one of the readings that you feel changes the entire meaning of a book well no

I wouldn't put it that way with that reading I would say that that reading provides a different nuance

Jesus gets angry a couple of times in the Gospel of Mark and it's interesting to try and see why he gets angry in the

Gospel of Mark and this would be another place where he gets angry in Mark it struck most scribes as a little bit odd for him to get angry at this point and this leper comes up and wants to be healed and it says

Jesus got angry and so well that's a little hard to figure out no wonder they changed it until he felt compassion for the man it makes sense that they would make the change but in fact it probably said he got angry and then the task of the exegete, the interpreter is to try and make sense of why it is now it says that Jesus got angry when this leper approached him so it changes the meaning of the book to the extent that it gives you a fuller understanding of why

Jesus gets angry in the Gospel of Mark by the way he doesn't get angry in Matthew or Luke when you repeatedly say that we don't know what the original writings of the

New Testament said given that there are entire sections of text where there is no variation basically at all would you agree that we know what those sections of the

New Testament said? ok let me explain why now this actually goes back to the earlier question

I want to try to flesh this out some the large majority of the

New Testament, there is no variation I mean I would like to use the example in Hebrews chapter 7 where the term operabaton appears he holds his priesthood without successor or permanently, operabaton and we've never seen there's no

Greek manuscript anywhere that does not have operabaton most of the words of the

New Testament that's the case, there's no variation and it is a radical position a radical, radical position to say that well, but unless we have the originals, we don't really know because you see when you have a body of literature that spans the time the length of time and the geographical area of distribution of the

New Testament that gives you no evidence in its earliest form of variation at a point in time then there is no reason to believe that there has ever been variation there at all this is where Ehrman is in direct contradiction to so many others, this is where he's out in left field now he may be dragging people with him but it's not because of the force of the arguments, it's political, and so I'm trying to flesh out this idea that if you're going to make the assertion, well, ok, yeah, every manuscript has been found of Hebrew, it says operabaton but you know, before those first copies it might have said something else, if you're going to make that argument you're using,

I call it the it's the Star Trek argument it's the Star Trek argument,

I love Star Trek I'm a Trekkie, ok there were a couple of the later series

I didn't get into, but especially the original ones and then the next generation, I saw all of them multiple times

I mean, I'm so old, I saw them when they were first airing that's how I got stuck on it and there's one episode

I actually have it on my iPad where the Enterprise gets slung back in time to the 1960's and it gets flung into Earth's atmosphere and for some reason they're having trouble climbing well, it wouldn't have much of a story if they couldn't they could just go zipping back out into space but they get caught on radar and we sent up one of these

I've forgotten which jet fighter it was it was like an

F -105 or something like that it wasn't a Phantom it was before the

Phantom I'll show it to you and we'll remember it I used to be able to rip off all those names when

I was a kid I could anyhow, they send up a ship to take a look at it to save themselves, they put a tractor beam on it and they beam the pilot out and they save his life, but then they find out that they can't really send him back because now he knows about the future but then they find out that his son is going to lead a mission to Mars so they have to take him back and figure out how to go back in time and fix everything the point is, and some of the other ones got into this too that you can always come up with a excuse for something you can come up with the idea well, maybe the

Enterprise did come back and maybe they wanted Christianity to come into existence so they beamed down some replicated copies of the

Gospels and stuff that would help change the future you can come up with anything that's possible, right?

and there's so many shallow thinking people in the world today that go that is possible, how about that and if you take that perspective you end up abandoning all meaningful canons of historical research

F -104, thank you very much thank you Micah Captain John Christopher piloted an F -104 codenamed

Blue J -4 in 1969 when he made visual contact with the USS Enterprise which was perceived as a UFO. Thank you very much

Haseem, son of Ramallah, King of Graphics it was an F -104 it's pretty, it's very nice anyhow, the

Starfighters it was a great episode, it was really well done had lots of humor in it remember the guard who just froze when he saw

Scotty in the transport? anyways, I'm getting off topic here my point is that if you give in to the, well anything is possible type way of thinking, you're never going to do serious history and if you have an ancient document coming from antiquity that, excuse me that comes into history at different places and at different times so we have manuscripts that were written in Asia, and in Palestine, and in North Africa and maybe up in Italy or Greece and they traveled around, they weren't just in one area because during the time of the

Roman Empire there was still a lot of travel it's not like during the medieval period where people never moved 7 miles from their house there was much more commerce and it was the

Pax Romana if the book of Hebrews or any other book of the

New Testament existed in some radically different form we would have evidence of it because we have multiple lines coming into appearance in history those readings would not just disappear and what

I'm telling you here is not just me go read Kurt Ahlen's work on the subject that's his argument and her argument,

Kurt and Barbara Kurt as Ehrman pronounced it that's their argument that's been the argument of everybody until these radical skeptics come along and so if you're the one asserting well ok, we have an absolutely unified manuscript tradition going way way back coming from multiple lines and there's no variant here, but I still withhold judgment you are a radical skeptic radical you're not mainline and don't pretend that you are and don't say well, but I'm I'm me,

I can do whatever I want I can't wait for the day when New Testament textual criticism will recover from this radicalism and get back to its real job of establishing and firmly confirming the original text of the

New Testament I don't think I've explained it very well let's say

Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians and now here is

Ehrman expressing his own theory of the radicalness of his perspective listen carefully to how he says this now, stop right there can you imagine this?

Paul writes the letter only one copy is made of Paul's letter just one the original, don't know what happens

Paul, Timothy they have nothing more to do with this they never show up in a church service where someone misquotes it that can't happen you can't have multiple copies made you can't even have multiple copies made in the presence of Paul I mean, like Ephesians it's possible he only had written only had one copy written and then as it went to each church they had to do their own copying but it's also possible that he dictated it once and then in his presence his same

Immanuensis made more than one copy to send to more than one church you see, this type of radical skepticism is dependent upon the idea that the originals have very little impact upon that time period and they disappeared like that no longer a part of the copying process what if the originals stayed around for 30 years and spawned 30 -40 different lines of transmission if that happened and which is more likely, think about it if that happened,

Irmin's theories are dust absolute dust because if you have that many lines going into that period of persecution where so many copies of scriptures were destroyed remember,

I started this by reading from a scholarly source that documents the number of manuscripts confiscated and destroyed from a single church in the early 4th century remember, was it 37 or 34?

off the top of my head, I think it was 37 37 manuscripts, I think that's aside from the one let's round it off to a nice even 40 300 some odd of those churches just in Egypt start doing the math that's a lot of manuscripts that were destroyed and yet we still have the earliest attestation as Bart Irmin himself admits that means there were a lot of these things running around where did they all come from so fast?

oh, but the originals weren't being copied you think so? and that all other manuscripts ultimately derive from that third copy all manuscripts come from the third copy this is such a wild, out in left field theory, but he goes, well we don't know that might have been but you've got to realize, it has to be for his perspective to hold true it has to be because if it's not, then all of this falls apart the original wasn't copied anymore the first copy wasn't copied anymore the second copy was copied twice and both of those was copied five times and each of those was copied 20 times so they all go back in a genealogical line to the third copy except, it also does not this straight line thinking that he always engages in really bothers me because there is evidence that the scribes had access to more than one manuscript at times now sure there would be times when it was a one to one correspondence no question about that you've got to realize the

Christians got together for worship and that means that they read scripture and if there was more than one copy and in some of these large churches there had to have been more than one copy of scripture available to them if there were differences, now they have to deal with it and when they made copies that's where the conflated readings start coming from and the development of the

Byzantine text type very early on in the transmission of the text of the New Testament all of this demonstrates that it wasn't a phone game type thing and that there were all sorts of other sources of input that would negate the very type of theory that Ehrman is putting forward here rather than to the original all you can reconstruct is what was in the third copy and all manuscripts when they agree 95 % of the time now

I just realized something I had not even thought about it I just realized something I could never get him and no one

I think ever will get him to do what

I think on a moral basis he'd have to do and that is apply the same standards that he applies in the

New Testament to the Quran he sits around going I don't know anything about the Quran I don't believe it,

I think he's just scared he makes good money bashing Christianity why put himself in danger addressing the issue of Islam but did you hear what he just said?

did you hear what he just said? well if that's the case then all you can do is reconstruct that third generation copy that's what the

Uthmanic revision is, Muslim friends and now you're listening to Bart Ehrman, if he was consistent he would apply this to your book because your

Hadith tells us this is what happened this is what happened the third

Caliph Uthman he puts together that group and they find some ayahs that they had forgotten and they combine it all together and then he burns what he used to make it and from Ehrman's perspective well that's as far back as you can get and his point then is you can't know the original and that means the consistent application of Bart Ehrman's methodology to the

Quran is you can't know the original so every one of you that wants to go running off and quoting

Bart Ehrman if you're going to be honest then you have to know that his application of his reasoning to your own text is you can't know the original every one of you that starts quoting him to me in the future you better believe me

I'm going to be ready to point that out to you I'm going to point it out to you just warning you ahead of time

I like this consistency thing when they agree 95 % of the time that just shows that they all go back to that copy it doesn't show they go back to the original and so this kind of perspective

I want to make sure that we're all understanding exactly what you're saying this is why you would say that if anything was ever inspired in essence we'd have to have the original for it to be inspired now he has raised this issue himself in his own books but it was the one thing he said

I will not debate that against you and he gets mad at me right here I told you a long time ago actually it had only been about 2 months ago where we had a very unpleasant phone call but this is in his own books he's the one who raises it and then he gets mad when people challenge him on this

I don't get why he gets upset when he puts it in his own books I told you long ago that this was not going to be a debate about my doctrine of inspiration even though my doctrine of inspiration is absolutely central to the conclusions that I draw on this matter

I will not defend the presuppositions that I bring to this debate maybe he doesn't realize it, maybe he does not see just how absolutely controlled he is by this

I don't know we've got less than 4 minutes left so we'll finish that off next time we had to go a little bit slower because we threw in the first thing with the

Michael Voris thing well there you go folks there is a wide ranging dividing line first John 5 -7

Islam Bart Ehrman back to Uthman we put it all together somehow looking forward to being back together with you again next week on Tuesday morning at our regular time we'll see you then,