The Dividing Line The Last Show Before South Africa

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is

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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.

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

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

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

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And now, with today's topic, here is James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line.

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I hope everyone who is watching via our newfangled video feed notices the really cool lumen glass in the back.

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That's my small one. I've actually got larger ones. Maybe I'll have to drag the big green one in sometime so it looks very

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Borg -ish. But for those of you who are utter geeks, you can notice that in the background, and that makes everything that we're going to be doing today really cool, at least for people who think that people like Worf are really cool.

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But anyways, for the rest of you, welcome to the program today. This is the last Dividing Line for over two weeks.

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Over two weeks, I would say we're looking at,

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I suppose it would help if I had a calendar up so I could actually see this, but next time we will be getting together,

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Lord willing, would be on the 15th of October.

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Now, if we have to do something on the 14th, just because there's so much talk about it or something like that, we can.

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But the next scheduled Dividing Line will be

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Tuesday, October 15th. So that's a ways down the road, obviously.

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I will hope to have sufficient and regular net access in South Africa to at least be posting pictures and reports.

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And I am going to be bringing a camera down with me and asking that someone be busily snapping away, almost annoyingly snapping away, shall we say.

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So we'll be able to have a good record along those lines. But it'll be October 15th before we can get back together again.

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And who knows what will have happened between now and then on so many different fronts.

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How many more times will Josh Williamson have been arrested in the United Kingdom? By October 15th is the question.

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For those of you who don't know what that means, I mentioned briefly the arrest in the

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United Kingdom of Josh Williamson. He was arrested again over the weekend. The video is available up online.

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It is the perfect illustration of secularists trying to silence the preaching of the gospel.

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You're speaking too loud. Yeah, that's why. Josh doesn't know how to speak quietly.

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Josh is a big man. And the sound that you hear is

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Knox spinning in his grave as to what has become of Scotland.

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Because I'll tell you something, when the light goes out in a country, it gets really dark.

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And there has been such light in Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole that when secularism takes over and the transcendent value of human life is no longer seen, well, you see what happens.

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It was this morning listening to Dr. Mohler speaking about the dramatic increase in the number of euthanasia cases in the

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Netherlands, doubled in 10 years. Just put it all together, folks.

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Pretty soon, in a matter of days, your health care will be under the control of the

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IRS. Yes, indeed. Four times the expense at one quarter of the choices.

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There you go. Brilliant, brilliant move toward socialism, which will have everybody really upset, but not upset enough to do anything about it because it takes leadership to do that.

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And so soon, you're going to have a secular state with IRS agents in charge of your health care.

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And as you're getting older, euthanasia is coming our direction. This land as well, just as it already exists in Europe.

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Put it all together, man, and those death panels at that term will be...

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Let's just say we'll be getting rid of people a whole lot faster through the health care system than through the justice system when they kill people and things like that.

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It'll be far safer, in fact, if you're an old person, to be on death row than to be a regular citizen.

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Think about that one for a while and just go, wow, what did happen to the

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United States of America? Well, the US I grew up in doesn't exist anymore, to be perfectly honest with you. It just doesn't exist anymore.

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We also have what's being called now the gay stopo out there.

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Here's the story. Guido Baria, chairman of the world's leading pasta manufacturer, prompted calls for a consumer boycott

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Thursday after telling Italian radio his company would never use a gay family in its advertising.

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I would never do a commercial to homosexual family, not for lack of respect, but because we don't agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role,

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Baria, 55, said in an interview with Radio 24 on Wednesday. Baria, one of the best known pasta brands around the world, is one of Italy's biggest advertisers and for many years has used the image of a happy family living in an idealized version of the

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Italian countryside with the slogan, where there's Baria, there's home. Is it Barilla?

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I assume it's Baria. I don't know. I don't claim to speak Italian. In the interview,

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Baria said he opposed adoption by gay parents, but was in favor of allowing gay marriage, which is not illegal, which is not legal in Italy.

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His comment about advertising was in response to a direct question about whether he would ever feature a gay family in his company's commercial.

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So once again, here's a guy who's actually in favor of gay marriage, but that is not enough and you've just got to understand it.

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For the homosexual lobby, it's not acceptance of a part of the agenda.

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It's not even acceptance of the agenda. That's not enough. You're a homophobe if you only accept.

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You're a homophobe if you're only tolerant. You have to rejoice.

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You have to affirm. You have to revel in the glory of homosexuality.

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That's what you got to do. And if you dare say, well,

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I actually think that a woman has a role in the home. Oh, don't buy that pasta.

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That's why we refer to the gestapo. I just looked over at Twitter and one of our brethren near Kiev just asked, who is

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Worf? Well, he is about the age of my son.

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Now, my son would know who Worf was because he grew up with that, but Worf is the

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Klingon. Well, he was security officer and he had a couple of the different roles in Star Trek Next Generation.

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But then he moved on to other. I think he had a role for a while at Deep Space Nine and maybe even made a cameo at some point.

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Everybody made a cameo at some point in Voyager because you could. And he was in the

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Star Trek movies and stuff like that. So that's who Worf is. Sorry about that.

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I realize I have to try to expand to my transnational audience.

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Okay, and then along the same line, now here's the story.

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Christian group meets in Kansas to discuss whether or not the Bible condemns homosexuality. A, wrong. Matthew Vines gets together and that's not what they're getting together to discuss.

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They're getting together to train 50 handpicked people to go into conservative churches to try to overthrow the biblical testimony to the sinfulness of homosexuality.

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That's what they're doing. That's obviously what they're doing. It's not, well, we're open to a discussion. No, you're not.

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No, you're not. But Matthew Vines of Wichita grew up attending a conservative evangelical Presbyterian church in the city and relies heavily on intensive study of the

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Bible for his presentations. He said liberal and moderate Christian churches have adopted more gay -friendly stances, but conservative churches remain steadfast in our opposition to homosexuality.

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The 23 -year -old Vines, younger than my youngest, wants to bring change. There's a message the Bible doesn't actually say same -sex orientation is a sin or condemn loving gay relationships.

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Out of only 100 applicants. This is amazing. I mean, he's been asking for people to apply.

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So out of 100 applicants, Vines selected 50 people with ties to conservative churches to participate in his three -day conference, which started

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Wednesday in Prairie Village and ends on Saturday. So it's running right now. Now, you know, everybody knows my five -hour interaction,

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I guess mine was four hours, his was an hour long. So everybody knows that I responded to Matthew Vines.

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I got a really neat tweet. Someone said that they were actually working for the company that put out his book.

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And somebody else was able to direct that person to my response so they could hear the other side. Because you never get to hear the other side these days.

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There is no other side from their perspective. And so everybody knows

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I responded to Matthew Vines. We're not going to do that all over again. But here's what caught my attention about this article.

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There's 51 people getting together in Kansas to talk about homosexuality and it's all over the news.

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Why? I have spoken on the subject of homosexuality.

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Dozens of times. Rarely with any audience smaller than that.

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And often with a much, much larger audience. And nobody in the media ever cared.

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We couldn't get media coverage of debates with Barry Lynn or John Shelby Spong.

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Media didn't care. But you get one 23 -year -old with a

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YouTube video and the media is like, Oh, he's just the greatest biblical scholar that's ever lived.

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And you're just like, what? It's absolutely amazing.

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The utter fawning of the media over homosexuality is just like,

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Oh, anything we can do, just tell us. It's just shocking. Shocking.

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Absolutely shocking. I'm just really seriously, truly, truly amazing.

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So the Associated Press, they're all out there. They're doing their thing. And I'm just like, why?

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There was a very interesting article yesterday on Fox News. Jailed American pastor pens heartbreaking birthday letter to daughter.

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As his wife's in New York to fight for his freedom, American pastor Saeed Abedini recently managed to get out of his

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Iranian jail cell and to his seven -year -old daughter for her birthday has come to light. He calls

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Rebecca his little hero and expresses heartbreak about not seeing her grow. Rebecca's mom,

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Naghmeh, is unable to travel with their two young kids to Iran for fear she might also be arrested.

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But with the Iranian delegation in New York for the UN, she is pressing his case. This week, she traveled to New York, was able to hand deliver a letter

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Monday to the delegation of Iran's new president, asking for her husband's quick release. Abedini, 33, an

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American citizen who left his wife and children behind in their Boise home to travel to Iran last year, has been held in notoriously brutal

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Evin prison for his Christian faith. My beautiful Rebecca, you don't realize how much I rejoice and weep when

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I see your pictures behind the glass window when my parents visit me every week in prison, he wrote. Rebecca turned seven

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September 12th, making this her second birthday without her father. Your hair has grown so long and is such a beautiful black color, he wrote.

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It is so hard and so heartbreaking for me to see these pictures and to know I am not there beside you as you grow. Last month, an

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Iranian court rejected an appeal from Abedini and refused to reduce the eight -year prison term his supporters believe is tantamount to a death sentence, according to his family and lawyers.

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His supporters say he has been beaten and tortured in the prison and that he was only in Iran to try to start a secular orphanage.

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In language meant for a young child to understand, Abedini tells his daughter that while he is being held and has to be away from her, she is also facing hardships.

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I came here to help the kids that did not have mommies and daddies, but my own kids lost their daddy. Abedini had been making one of his frequent visits to see his parents and the rest of his family in Iran, his native country, where he spent many years as a

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Christian leader and community organizer developing Iran's underground home church communities for Christian converts.

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On this last trip, the Iranian government pulled him off a bus and said he must face a penalty for his previous work as a

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Christian leader in Iran. Thursday is the one -year anniversary of his imprisonment, and that is today.

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Once again, the government of Iran denying human freedoms, persecuting Christians.

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It is an evil regime, and I just wish I could hear many more

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Muslims crying out against this kind of activity and this kind of persecution of Christians.

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But at the same time, there are a number of articles on the web concerning the tremendous persecution of Christians in Egypt right now by Sunni Muslims.

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Obviously in Iran, these are Shiites. In Egypt, the followers of Morsi are taking out their anger at Morsi's removal by destroying

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Christian churches, churches that have been in use for 1 ,600 years uninterrupted, are now closed and shuttered, burned by the radical followers of Morsi and the

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Islamic Brotherhood there in Egypt. A tremendous amount of persecution of Christian believers taking place in the

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Islamic world today, and it is something that we must keep in mind and certainly pray for those who have lost their lives in this terrible situation and in this terrible persecution.

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Well, speaking of Islam, now, I actually didn't have

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Rich skip over the phone number. This is the last time that we're going to be together before we head for South Africa.

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So the problem is, for some reason, we are having major network problems at our office today, and my computers do not know that the phone network works any longer or is in existence.

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I've tried to do the regular connection. It's always worked up until today, but today the internal network has decided that it is just simply not going to cooperate in any way, shape, or form and just is not working.

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So I can't see if there are phone calls or anything of the like, so I guess we'll still leave that as an option.

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I will just have to be manually informed of the existence of phone calls, because nothing else is working right.

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We're having some network issues. I did want to continue in my responses as well.

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If we have phone calls, we'll interrupt toward the end, but I did want to get at least through my response to Bashir Vania.

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I didn't get through all of Yusuf Ismail on New Testament stuff, but I've certainly made a good faith effort anyways, and if I finish with Bashir, I'll move back to Yusuf here.

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But I've only got a few minutes left in Bashir's comments, so let's continue on with that.

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The actual Atonement also has problems. Again, it is a work in progress, still debate amongst

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Christians in Christendom. Did Jesus die as God? Then God died? Doesn't make sense.

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Did he die as a man? Still problematic. Well, if I had an extra copy of The Death of Death, I'd probably take it with me now, having heard that, just to give it to Bashir.

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Again, since the author of the Quran did not understand what Christians believed, even in his day,

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I mean, I'm not even going to say, did not have direct knowledge of the New Testament teachings.

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That's clear and obvious. But since the author of the Quran did not even know what

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Christians believed in his day, that, unfortunately, has continued on to his followers as well, so that there are very, very few

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Muslims. That's why I so much enjoyed the debate with Abdullah Kunda, at least

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Abdullah has sought to understand what we believe, and hence can interact meaningfully with our statement that Jesus is the

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God -man, that to try to split him up into parts and say, did he die here or die there, doesn't make any sense.

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This is a God -man voluntarily giving his life as a ransom for many, the substitutionary

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Atonement. And then he makes the statement, and there's still argumentation.

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Well, if you mean every generation has to defend the truth, are you just going to assume that everyone's going to always believe the truth and stay with a truthful presentation?

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Every generation has to. I mean, there was argumentation about the uncreated nature of the

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Quran in the early years of Islam, and if there wasn't such a strong control mechanism in place in Islamic countries, basically fear, there would be discussion about it even more so, even to this day.

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This is just a fact. So the idea that, well, there's still disagreement. Well, yeah, there are people who will always fall short of a fully biblical expression of the

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Christian faith. And those of us who seek that fully biblical expression of the

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Christian faith will always have to be engaged in a defense of the faith and a defense of our faith in light of that.

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That's just the way it is, and that I consider to be a good thing, not a bad thing.

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Paul is constrained to admit in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 28, he says that Jesus will be subject to God.

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Jesus is a servant of God. He is a slave to God. Jesus is a servant or slave to the

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Father, specifically. He has voluntarily taken that position. That's the whole point of the

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Incarnation. And the text of 1 Corinthians 15 is talking about at the end times, there is no longer the need for, for example, the mediatorial work in the sense of bringing about, you know, all the elect have been gathered together, the judgment has taken place.

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All of that is now a completed thing. And so we have a united focus of worship upon the triune

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God rather than the recognition of the continuing functionality of the economic trinity in the

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Gospel. I mean, once the work of the Gospel is accomplished, glorification has taken place, etc., etc.,

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now you have the focusing of our attention upon the one true God. But again, the fundamental assertion being made here is, well, if you assume

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Unitarianism, then these things couldn't possibly make sense. We don't assume that Unitarianism. We're not assuming that everything that has come before this is inappropriate either.

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I, in fact, checked the word out in the Greek. Well, yeah, sure, doulos.

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You bet. That's what servant -slave means. But again, anyone who, what else could the

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Incarnate One be? That's the whole point of John 5, is that Jesus is not some separate deity out there in competition with the

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Father. There is perfect harmony and unity. If you're going to be the perfect man, what are you going to be? You're going to be a servant, you're going to be a slave of God, right?

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Is that not what every godly man desires to be? Is the perfect servant of his

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God? So if Jesus was perfect, then what would he be? Again, the real objection here is, well,

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Incarnation can't take place. You can't have three persons sharing one being of God. Doesn't explain why, just says you can't.

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And if one of those persons was to become man, then he would have to, what, be an atheist?

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Again, these are objections that come from not having really thought through or understanding the

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Christian position, and that's because the Quranic sources do not understand the Christian position at this point.

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So, if Jesus is a servant to God, he cannot be part of a trinity. Why? Because there can't be any

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Incarnation. See, the assumptions become rather vicious at this point. Because the trinity says,

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, co -equal, co -eternal. The one cannot be subject to the other.

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Why? I'll just ask the question, Bashir. I'll ask you this if we talk about it. Why? Why cannot one voluntarily take this role?

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What's the specific reason? Again, it's all going to come back to an assumption of Unitarianism, not to anything else other than that.

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So, we have another problem. And these are the core principles of Christianity.

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We're not talking about some obscure point of the lawyer. More remarkable,

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Jesus taught no parable without ambiguity, directly relating to his divinity, death, and resurrection.

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His atonement. Why is this important? Well, Matthew 13 verse 34 tells us,

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Indeed, Jesus taught nothing to the crowd without a parable. Now, this is an argument that I think

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I've heard somebody else using it, but most often I've heard of Bashir using it, and it's just a really bad reading of the

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New Testament. He takes a particular portion of Jesus' ministry where it says that Jesus was using parables to teach people.

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Now, that's really obvious if you just read the section. He would then explain things to the disciples. So, obviously, he wasn't just always using a parable.

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And in Matthew and in Mark, there's all sorts of places where Jesus didn't teach in parables. It's sort of like when they take the one thing, well,

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I'm not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and then they don't just ignore the rest of the book, which says he sent the disciples out into all the world.

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Here you have a situation where Jesus was speaking in parables to the crowds, and then explaining to his disciples, and he extends that out to say, and everything

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Jesus ever did, he never said anything except in a parable, which is a gross misreading of both

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Matthew and Mark's utilization of that phrase. And all you have to do is just read Matthew and Mark, and you'd see that.

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But, you know, I'm not sure if Bashir tried to develop this or he got it from somebody else, but it's a really, really, really bad reading of Matthew and Mark.

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It's completely acontextual and really needs to be rejected and abandoned as soon as possible.

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So, folks, please note the key to the teachings of Jesus are his parables.

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So I went through the parables. I want to know what Jesus taught. And I could not find, without ambiguity, any core principles that he taught about his atoning death.

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So, not a single parable talks about the core doctrine.

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Actually, that's not true. I mean, if you consider how many parables Jesus talked about the kingdom, and talked about the parable in regards to the vineyards,

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God sent his son, they mistreat the prophets, and they kill the son, and,

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I mean, there's actually a number of them that are there. But again, it requires you to have an ear to hear everything that the

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New Testament is teaching, and there are very, very few Muslims who can overcome the anachronism enforced upon them by having a revelation after the

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New Testament that they accept as a revelation, but was written by someone who did not understand the revelation of the

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New Testament, had no direct access to it, did not know what it contained. And that veil of ignorance of the text of the

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New Testament then becomes the veil through which the Muslim has to attempt to read the New Testament. Well, open my mouth in parables to reveal what has been hidden.

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So, Jesus, well, via his parables, tell us what has been hidden. In one particular context, not in the entirety of Jesus' ministry, obviously.

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Apparently he didn't tell people what has been hidden about his divinity, his death, his resurrection.

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Paul, who... Yeah, just think about just one incident, just off the top of my head. The woman who anoints

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Jesus' feet and wipes them with his hair. What does Jesus say? She has anointed me for my what? For my burial.

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And that's in Mark, by the way. So, in the most primitive sources, you have the prophecy of the coming of the crucifixion, the death of Christ, etc.,

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etc. It's there if you just allow the text to speak for themselves.

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I know next week I will probably be mentioning the title of Shabir Ali's television program,

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Let the Quran Speak. Well, I say, let the New Testament speak. If we want to let the

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Quran speak, then we have to let the New Testament speak as well. Who never met Jesus, peace be upon him, had to come and say, well, look, he knows the truth.

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Jesus is speaking to him. Speaking of Paul there, I think. We will discuss those issues.

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Ironically, there are parables, many parables, that support the Muslim position. This idea, you know,

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Jesus said. In other words, as long as you can cut the text apart, we can find stuff, we can fit into our paradigm.

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Well, anybody can do that. As long as you cut it apart. That's easy to do. You know, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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Well. That's not a parable, by the way. You know, I accept that. No, no, you don't accept that.

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Jesus did not say, I am a way, a truth, a life. Jesus did not say, right now, I am the one who points to the truth.

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He said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

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Those are exclusive terms. And you don't believe that about Jesus.

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Not if you believe that he is a mere result. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is not the destination.

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He is the way to God. He speaks the truth. And so forth. You see, you can say the same thing in many ways.

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The Quran tells us, chapter 3, verse 31, that, O Muhammad, tell them, if people claim to love

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God, they must follow you. Because why? You are the way, the truth, and the life.

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Actually, the Quran does not say that of Muhammad. This is a bad extension by saying, well, if a prophet speaks about the way, the truth, and the life, that makes the way.

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That is not what Jesus was saying. That is not a fair or accurate reading of what

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Jesus was saying in the context of John, chapter 14. It is not.

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There is no reason to be making this type of argumentation. Moses, Old Testament, same thing. God tells

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Moses, peace be upon him, See, I make you as God unto Pharaoh, and Aaron will be your prophet.

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You are like God, Elohim. You know, the issue of God and his attitude to Sunni Islam.

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Absolute perfection is a quality of God. When man talks about perfection, we can only talk about relative perfection.

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Because it is unthinkable that God Almighty, who is perfect in knowledge and in power, would create a creature who is imperfect and then demand absolute perfection from this creature.

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Now, did you catch that? Because there is an interesting parallel to the argument that Abdullah Kunda made.

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Remember what that one was? And that was, man, by nature, is imperfect. That is why the Incarnation could not take place.

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So God cannot make a perfect creature. Any creature is imperfect. So deity becomes the definition of perfection.

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Anything that is not deity is imperfect. And you have to recognize that.

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That is part of the thinking. And it is, of course, an inaccurate thinking because it is basically saying that, while God can be perfect, he can't create anything that is perfect for what he intended it to be.

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Which is obviously not true. Is God a tyrant? No. Then, it is a strange idea for me as Muslims to say that God demands absolute perfection.

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And since man is capable of sin, and that every person, yes. Again, all you have to do is go back to the

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Deuteronomic Law. Blessings and cursings. I mean, this has been from the beginning.

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The whole reason that you have the sacrificial system is because of the recognition of man's falling short.

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Well, if there is a falling short, you have to know what you are falling short of. And what are you falling short of?

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The revelation God has made of his law for man's behavior. So you have here now the

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Islamic idea, at least as being expressed by Bashir, a sort of grating on the curve. We are not that bad.

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That is not the prophetic message of the Old Testament, and certainly not that of the New. Wilson, therefore,

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God cannot forgive you. In chapter 42, verse 37, and I'll end up with this verse.

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Humanity is assured that salvation will come to those who, as the Quran says, who avoid the greater crimes and sinful deeds, and when they are angry, even then they forgive.

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You believe, you do good works. As the Quran says, when you are angry, Jesus, peace be upon him, said the same thing.

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He says, forgive us our debts, our sins, as we have forgiven the sins of others. The Lord's Prayer.

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Jesus prayed in this manner. So there's the end of his presentation.

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Well, Jesus taught us to pray, but he did not teach us that by doing our good works, we somehow would merit forgiveness from God.

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That is not his teaching. That is certainly how man's religions view these things.

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That is certainly not the New Testament or the biblical presentation on that particular subject.

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Looking forward to meeting Bashir and getting to talk to him about many of these issues, and that will be,

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I think, let's see, today's Thursday? Coming up right at a week from now or so,

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Lord willing, that's exactly what we'll be doing. By the way, the programs that we're going to be doing on Unbelievable, when

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I'm in London, one will be with Peter Williams, who's with Catholic Voices, and we're going to be discussing ultimate authority for Christians, in other words, sola scriptura, and, of course, my assertion of sola ecclesia, on the part of the

34:06

Roman Catholic community. And then a second program with Yusuf Ismail, on the role of Jesus in Christianity and Islam.

34:12

So those will be the programs on Monday. You throw those in, with all the talks and debates in South Africa, and it's 20.

34:19

There will be 20 of them. And people ask, are they going to be recorded? Well, I don't know. Obviously, the debates will be.

34:28

Unbelievable will be. So there's at least eight right there. And a lot of the others, I've spoken on similar topics here in the

34:36

States. You can probably find them if you look through Sermon Audio and things like that.

34:42

Homosexuality and speaking on Jehovah's Witnesses and stuff like that as well. So my understanding is we do have a phone call, and let's talk to Sam.

34:53

Hi, Sam. Hello, Sam. What?

35:00

Dr. White? Yes, sir. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Doing all right. Okay. Sorry, I'm driving through Illinois, so it's going to be kind of,

35:09

I guess, spotty a little bit. I had a question about the Uthmanic revision. From my understanding, basically, they gathered all the

35:18

Quranic texts or codexes or whatever and compiled them all together, then burned everything else.

35:25

Am I understanding that correctly? Well, first of all, I just want you to realize, Sam, that of all the truck drivers in the

35:31

United States right now, you're probably the only one discussing the Uthmanic revision while on the road.

35:36

I just thought that's pretty interesting. Yes, sir. A pretty unique thing to be doing.

35:44

But, well, that's sort of the case. When you look carefully at what the

35:51

Islamic sources indicate and also throw some light on it from others, non -Islamic sources that narrate the same material around the same time, when you look at it, basically what happens is there's a two -part creation of the standardized

36:11

Uthmanic text. The first takes place shortly after Muhammad's death, where a single manuscript is produced and then kept for the next 20 years.

36:20

And then about 20 years after Muhammad's death, you have people starting to pronounce the

36:27

Quran differently and to read the Quran differently in different places. And so there is a great concern that this will cause divisions within the

36:34

Islamic ummah. And so Uthman puts together a group.

36:40

They get that first manuscript. They don't just simply repeat it, though. They put together a group, and they start looking for more stuff.

36:47

They find more material. A specific verse, ayah, is quoted as having been not included in that original.

36:56

And then they create a standardized version. They make copies of it and send it to the chief cities of the

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Islamic empire at the time. And there is a command that, first of all, that Uthman destroys the materials that he used to produce his final version.

37:14

And then the decree goes out that anyone else that has any Quranic materials, whether full manuscripts or parts of manuscripts, is to burn those things.

37:25

And this is what results in the division, according to many sources, between Abdullah ibn

37:31

Masud and Uthman. Abdullah tells his people to hide their

37:38

Qurans, to protect them. He rejects the work of the committee that put it together.

37:46

And so you have these competing traditions for a while. And Ibn Masud is focused in the

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Kufa area. And so it doesn't go all that smoothly, but certainly when you have the power of the sword, you can standardize a text, as Uthman did.

38:04

And it takes some time to get rid of the variant readings from the other people, like Ibn Masud.

38:11

Okay, well, in that case, I noticed in a lot of debates that the Islamic colleges use synoptic gospels and stuff like that, and yet the

38:20

Church was accused of burning these to suppress them and to guide

38:26

Christianity to the modern -day position. Right. Has there ever been an argument that could be used against Muslims and their texts as well?

38:36

I mean, just basically, y 'all accused us of doing it, but yet y 'all did do it.

38:42

Well, some of the arguments, you know, sometimes Islamic apologists will say, well, the reason these materials are burned was out of respect, because you're to burn instead of just burying, but burning old codices and things like that.

38:57

But it's very obvious that the actual reason why Uthman did this was to produce the unified text that he was seeking to produce.

39:07

Now, the reality is that while there might have been local incidences where a local bishop would say, this particular book is bad, it should be burned, or something like that, there was never a time where you had the—until the medieval period, really, where once you have, you know, the state church, which develops after, really, after the days of Augustine and into the medieval period, you just never had the opportunity to be able to do what

39:39

Uthman did have the opportunity of doing in producing the revision that he did. Because the

39:45

Quran did not have the kind of explosive copying and distribution, the multifocality, as I call it, that you have with the

39:55

New Testament, because you've only got one author, and you don't have multiple authors at multiple times writing to multiple audiences.

40:01

So the Quran has a very different—and this is going to be one of the things that Yusuf Ismail and I are discussing in South Africa.

40:08

So there really couldn't be the kind of extensive effort that you would have on the part of the

40:17

Islamic State against any particular Gnostic gospel. And in fact, by the time the

40:23

Christians and the state had become joined, the Gnostics were pretty much history anyways, and their books were buried in the sands of Egypt already anyhow.

40:35

Right, OK. Well, I was just wondering if my logic was correct in thinking that way.

40:41

Well, sure. I have another question. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good argument to say, well, if you're going to fault us, you need to consider whether you should be faulting yourself.

40:49

And in reality, the burning of those early, early— I mean, burning codices 20 years into the history of a text is significantly more disruptive to the copying of that text than burning text 200 years or 300 years down the road.

41:08

There's a huge difference there. So I would actually make the argument, but you guys did burning, and it was far more disruptive from a scholarly standpoint than anything that could have been done later on once Christians had the ability or the power to do anything at all.

41:24

OK, OK. I had one other question that's totally off -subject. I know you all go into the

41:29

Islamic stuff, but being a truck driver, I have a hard time catching church. Do you have any advice for me to keep connected?

41:37

Because I know if you're not within the fellowship, you can fizzle out and lose some perspective in that fire.

41:46

Yeah. Well, I mean, hopefully you get home at some point, and I would do everything in my power to meet regularly with the people of God and to have good elders that you can meet at the time when you can.

42:04

Obviously, you are listening to me, so you can avail yourself of a great deal of decent preaching through sermon audio and things like that.

42:17

But while that's helpful in instruction, it's not the same thing as the actual fellowship.

42:23

So yeah, truck driving is not easy on many, many major portions of your life, as well as your body,

42:32

I would say, probably, at the same time. I've lost 15 pounds since I've been out on the road.

42:40

Well, that's good, I guess. Yeah. So, but yeah, you know, utilize the time that you've got, but at the same time, if it is possible to find a way to regularly be in the presence of God's people and regularly be under people who can keep an eye on you, that would help a lot.

43:01

Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, thank you very much! You have a good day. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, bye. 877 -753 -3341.

43:10

Those of you watching via video will get to see my hand signals and things like that.

43:19

Because this is actually the first time we've done phone calls while having the video.

43:27

And unfortunately, since the phones aren't working on my end, I can't see them coming in and things like that.

43:34

I see that my daughter is in channel right now. And so I'm sort of wondering if she was sending me cool pictures of my –

43:41

I saw a picture of my granddaughter in her little – she's got this little white jacket on. It has little rabbit – not rabbit ears, but little mouse ears on it type thing.

43:51

And I texted, I said, is it getting cold back there? And she says, yeah, it's getting cold back there. Oh, so Clementine tweeted you all on her own.

44:01

Oh, well, I looked here. Well, I clicked on that YFrog picture.

44:08

And it was something about – oh, continue to the media. Oh, there was something else in the way.

44:15

That was silly. Oh, there it is. Oh, look at that picture. It's little

44:21

Clementine. And there's the video feed on the computer. Oh, I'm going to have to – okay,

44:27

I'm selecting. This is called Grandpa Privilege right here. And I'm going to put it out there so that my brethren –

44:35

Clementine watches the

44:41

DL. There we go. So my brethren in Kiev can see my granddaughter who is watching me on video.

44:48

So that will be cool. We just had an interesting phone call. The gentleman wasn't real comfortable going on the air.

44:57

Maybe this is why, because he's calling from Saudi Arabia. Had a little bit of an accent, but real good

45:04

English. And he just wanted to let you know that they're in Saudi Arabia and they're listening, and he is really enjoying the show.

45:11

And he's just finished reading The Forgotten Trinity. Wow, how did that get there? Let me guarantee you one thing.

45:19

He was not reading that book in a public restaurant without a cover on it. I'll bet.

45:26

Well, that's good. It is amazing what the Internet allows. And again, as long as we have the freedom, we will continue seeking to do everything we can to speak the truth in love.

45:42

But we just need to pray fervently that God will continue to grant us this freedom, because there are many, many who are firmly opposed to the freedom of expression that we have come to truly appreciate, but I don't think we realize how many people do not really realize that.

46:04

There's the URL. Okay. So that was the other phone call? Okay, all right.

46:10

Then I'm going to go back in the last few minutes we have here to Yusuf Ismail. And this was that I wrote to Yusuf today.

46:21

He was sending me the final time frame outline for our two -part debate on the transmission of the text, the

46:30

Quran, and the New Testament. And because we're doing two of them, sort of like Adnan and I did, we only have half an hour opening statements.

46:43

Now half an hour is actually longer than what I'm used to anymore. But Yusuf likes 40 -minute and 45 -minute up to an hour long presentations.

46:54

And so I saw it said 30 minutes, and so my only response was, you know, that's great, that's fine.

46:59

I said, that 30 minutes, how did I put it? That 30 minutes is really bothering you.

47:04

Can you survive 30 minutes, Yusuf, or something like that with a little smiley face? Because he obviously likes really long opening presentations, which

47:12

I do too. I mean, if you look back at the original debates we did back in the early 90s,

47:18

I wanted 30, 40 -minute presentations because you want to be able to develop your points and things like that. I understand that.

47:24

But unfortunately, we live in a day where, well, what was that I was saying?

47:33

Ah, see? See, there. One of my brethren in Ukraine. Wow, your granddaughter is adorable.

47:40

Thanks for sharing. Yay, yes, she is. Ah, she's so cute. Then again, my daughter was cute like that too.

47:51

It's amazing to compare their pictures. They're just a chip off the old block, shall we say.

47:56

But I love being a grandpa. In fact, I can even use it as an excuse. I love this.

48:04

Yesterday, I was at the top of a really tough climb in a 78 -mile bike ride, where it's getting steep right toward the top, about halfway through the ride.

48:15

And this guy was catching me. I knew he was going to catch me. I was doing everything I could to hold him off, but he was just going to be too strong. And it was terrible.

48:23

I should not have done this. But as he caught me, I said, well, you caught grandpa.

48:32

I love it. He may have been as old as 40, but he looked like he was more in his mid -30s or something like that.

48:40

And so, well, you caught grandpa. It's just like taking a pin and... So you caught me, but did you know

48:47

I'm a heart patient? It's funny.

48:54

Anyhow, what can I say? Well, what can I say as I can get back to work here, especially since we only have about 10 minutes left?

49:00

We'll try to get through a few more minutes with Yusuf Ismail here. And that was a chap we discovered,

49:06

Konstantin Fantishidov, in St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, which caused major apprehension in the world.

49:13

When compared with the New Testament, there was something like 14 ,800 editorial alterations to the existing

49:18

New Testament in the early 19th century, late 19th century, mid -19th century. I really struggle with Yusuf's terminology of editorial changes, etc.,

49:32

etc. Did Codex Sinaiticus... Was Codex Sinaiticus a

49:39

Byzantine manuscript? No, it was not. But remember, in the vast majority of meaningful places, meaningful places,

49:48

Sinaiticus is going to be joined by Vaticanus, and Vaticanus had been known for how long? I mean, Erasmus knew of it.

49:55

So, I mean, it had been known for hundreds of years. So, the idea that, wow, this is...

50:02

The reason that... One of the reasons that Sinaiticus had as much impact as it did was because it was not under the control of the

50:10

Vatican, and therefore, its readings were much more readily disseminated.

50:17

But scholars had already known these readings, and then, of course, the papyri come along, and, whoa, look at that, they have the same readings.

50:23

It's just simply the reestablishment through study of the

50:29

Alexandrian text type. Now, there seems to be those who are attempting to say that all of this is a

50:35

Jesuit conspiracy, and this is going to be what we're discussing in December. But here's going to be one of the key issues,

50:43

I'll tell you right now, and that is, how do you explain the textual interrelationships of Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and the papyri manuscripts without doing the utterly absurd and impossible thing of saying that all of them are the result of a

51:01

Jesuit plot? Because that's just... I'm sorry, once you get to that point, there's no reason for rational discussion any longer because the papyri have been discovered in so many different places by so many different people, and Vaticanus has been over here, and Sinaiticus over here, and the idea that someone could create all of these texts in all of these different places, in all of these different hands, with all the subtle family relationships without knowing what the family was, and yet differences.

51:36

Once you get to that point, you have such a massive conspiracy over such a lengthy period of time that we're now into the, well,

51:45

I can explain anything as long as you allow for the enterprise and transwarp beaming to be one of the explanations.

51:54

At that point, there's no reason to discuss anything any longer. So, if we go there, then there's no use continuing on, but that is going to be one of the interesting issues.

52:09

And look at the narratives that are not contained there. They carry a different story about Jesus. The words describing

52:14

Jesus Christ as the Son of God do not appear in the opening narratives of Mark. Therefore, in the New International Version...

52:20

No, no, no, no, no, no, Jester. Whoa! Slow it down there.

52:28

I firmly reject, I challenge heartily, the assertion that the story and narrative of Jesus in Sinaiticus is different than that in...

52:49

Well, let's use what's normally considered to be one of the best early...

52:57

Well, see, Washingtonius has a mixed text type, unfortunately. But it's definitely

53:03

Byzantine in the Gospels. Let's look at Codex Washingtonius. If you want to come up with one of the best exemplars of the

53:14

Byzantine text type, I have said I would defend this. I would defend this against Yusuf Ismail, against King James Only advocates, whatever.

53:22

If you apply the same standards and method of hermeneutics to the most

53:28

Alexandrian text and to the most Byzantine text, you will not come up with a different view of Jesus, different view of the

53:38

Gospel. The only thing that will be different is the list of verses you have under the major headings.

53:46

Example, Deity of Christ, on the Byzantine list, you will have 1

53:54

Timothy 3 .16. On the Alexandrian list, you'll have

53:59

John 1 .18. Those won't be on the same list. But you'll still have the

54:06

Deity of Christ in both. You'll have the same Gospel. You'll have the same message.

54:12

It's just simply not true that there is a different view of Jesus that is being presented in these at all.

54:24

And the only people who say that seem to be seem to be either

54:30

King James Only advocates or our Muslim friends. Now, the reading

54:38

Huitheu at Mark 1 .1, I might actually get two sentences of his done here, but I want to be thorough.

54:48

Huitheu is in the first -hand corrector of Sinaiticus.

54:57

So the question that has to be asked at that point is what are you saying?

55:03

Are you certain when the first -hand corrector... Remember, if this is produced in a scriptorium, the first -hand corrector might be contemporaneous with the original.

55:15

And if it's in a section of Sinaiticus, we can tell that, then we can see that. But it's very, very possible that Huitheu was deleted due to Homo Eteiuton.

55:34

So you have to balance, because if you look at it, it's

55:42

Arkei to Euangeliu Jesu Christu Huitheu. Now notice the one, two, three, four, five, six words in a row in the genitive form.

55:54

And if they were using the nomena sacra, then Christu and Theu would look very much alike.

56:02

And again, it's the Homo Eteiuton that's the issue here. Metzger's commentary on this is the absence of Huitheu in the original of Sinaiticus Theta 28 and a few others may be due to an oversight in copying occasioned by the similarity of the endings of the nomena sacra.

56:17

On the other hand, however, there was always a temptation to which copyists often succumbed to expand titles and quasi -titles of books, since the combination of BDW and others in support of Huitheu was extremely strong.

56:30

It was not thought advisable to omit the words altogether, yet because the antiquity of the shorter reading and the possibility of scribal expansion, it was decided to enclose the words in square brackets.

56:38

So in other words, this is another one of those places where, interestingly enough, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus differ from one another, which might reflect upon certain theories about Jesuits and things like that as well.

56:53

But it's important that we have this information available to us, that we're able to look at these things.

56:58

That's very, very helpful. I forgot to click on this. Here we go.

57:04

The New International Version and the RSV don't contain that. They don't contain Jesus in the opening passage described as the

57:10

Son of God. You know what? I want to look at this here, because this was long ago enough that...

57:22

Wow, do I... Did I just not purchase that?

57:29

That's funny. I may not even... Maybe this was sort of a prophetic thing on my part, but the

57:36

TNIV does not. It does have it in a footnote. But I don't know that I even have the TNIV in my accordance setup.

57:45

I don't. Wow, look at that. Well, maybe that was just my way of saying, well, someday this is going to happen.

57:53

I don't know. That's funny. Sorry about that. Oh, well, it's...

58:00

That's okay. Anyhow, I'm sorry. I need a stop.

58:05

Who is going to cue me? We're pretty much out of time on the program today.

58:14

All I know is I am looking forward to the next time we can get together and giving you a report.

58:21

So many of you are praying. I thank you for your prayers, have been praying. I thank you for your prayers.

58:26

Many of you have given to make this a possibility. My friends, this is one of the most ambitious trips we've ever taken.

58:33

We pray God's blessing upon it. Pray for us, and I look forward very much to gathering with you again on The Dividing Line on October 15th.

58:44

We will, Lord willing, see you then. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha Omega Ministries.

58:51

If you'd like to contact us, you can do so at our website at www .aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot

58:58

O -R -G. Join us again on October 15th. That's going to be a