The Dividing Line A Mega DL (Jumbo Radio Free Damascus)

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

The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a answer with...

Edit that out later. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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

This is a live program, and we normally invite your participation, but you know he's got a full plate, so we're not going to take calls.

And now, with today's topic, here is James White. How come we don't get to edit any of my mistakes out?

We get to edit your mistakes out, but we don't get to edit my mistakes out. Actually it just occurred to me YouTube is live and unforgiving, so I don't get to take

Completely, everybody heard all of that. One of these days I'm going to get that prerecorded.

Oh, that might be a good idea. In fact, I thought that's what you were doing earlier, but you didn't do that.

Welcome to The Dividing Line, folks. It is a mega edition of The Dividing Line, which means during...

Now, are you going to put up something like during the break? Like when I stand up and stretch and stuff, you can put something up during that time?

We've been provided a very pretty little banner that covers, so I do this, and you go away.

You know, the funny thing is I don't see whatever it is you're doing. And then I do this, and you come back. Okay, I don't even see any of that.

Yes, but everybody else does, and that's okay. We should put a little monitor up there and have it facing this way, so I can see what's actually going on.

That would be... That would be no fun on this end. Yeah, right. Okay. Anyways, folks, mega edition.

Why a mega edition? Well, because we have so much to cover and it is the last week before I take off to London and South Africa.

And I have wanted to get through certain material for the debates in South Africa.

And so we're going to do that. And so starting about half an hour from now, we'll actually slide into a jumbo edition of Radio Free Damascus.

How's that? So you put this together with that, and it's a mega edition, whatever. But there are other things that we needed to be talking about.

And we've got some British viewers now there. Some amazing stuff that everyone's asking about.

First is, I can't keep up, quite honestly, with everything that's going on with the

Bishop of Rome these days. Pope Francis is... I think Pope Francis is making a lot of my conservative apologist friends in the

Roman world very nervous. The first few times, hey, you know, we can interpret these and there's no problem.

But, you know, when you start writing long letters and doing long interviews, eventually, you know, what we're watching right now, it's fascinating.

Dr. Moeller was talking about it, I think, yesterday morning on the briefing. And one of the things he was saying is, well, you know, this can all be interpreted within historic

Roman Catholic theology. But what is so very clear is that there is no clarity, there is no force to the teaching.

In the sense that, you know, what I see amongst Roman Catholics today are all sorts of people trying to spin it their direction.

And what this illustrates for me is the utter incoherence of the denial of Sola Scriptura by Roman Catholics.

Because, you see, they can say, we have the living voice of the Pope, we have the living voice of the Church, and you just got the dead word of Scripture, and you just, you know, we have the

Spirit, all the rest of this stuff. But as soon as that guy in Rome opens his mouth, guess what?

He has to be interpreted. As soon as he finishes typing a letter to a newspaper, now

Herbe gets to interpret his words. Even when he speaks, if it's in one language, it's translated in another language, it's got to be interpreted.

There's just no way to get around that, and how many times have I heard Roman Catholics say, well, you know, you've got all those divisions because, you know, you can't interpret written words, you need the living.

And then they find themselves smack dab in the same situation. So, what we have, what we have, this, the headline,

Pope Francis, Church can't interfere with gays. What that is supposed to mean, I don't know.

But under the subject of homosexuality, you know, he had said, who am

I to judge, in an earlier interview on that flight. And I'm left going, what does that mean?

Who am I to judge? In our society, that means, who am

I to say that a behavior is immoral? That can't be what he means, is it? No, it can't be.

Then why say it that way? That's spin. I thought the Pope was all about truth, not spin.

Well, anyways, here it says, quote, by saying this,

I said what the Catechism says, the Pope told Spadaro. The Catechism, the Catholic Church's book of official doctrine, it's not just THE book, condemns homosexual acts, but says gays and lesbians must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God and creation has set us free. It is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

Again, Rome has all this Rome -speak. But what does it mean? And when you find a half -dozen interpretations of Rome -speak within Rome, that sort of gives you an idea of why there's...

I mean, you know, here's... This guy has got such an incredible opportunity to give a clear testimony.

And he doesn't. He doesn't. He won't do it. It says,

I replied to another question, he said... Francis said someone once asked him if he approved of homosexuality.

I replied to another question, he said, tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?

We must always consider the person. Here we enter in the mystery of the human being. Okay. What does that mean?

What does that mean? That's not an answer to the question! Francis said someone once asked him if he approved of homosexuality.

You can't give a straight answer to that? No pun intended? What's all the rest of this stuff about?

Well, we're trying to get to a deeper meaning. Yeah, but if you don't answer the question, you really haven't gotten to a deeper meaning.

If you want to talk about deeper stuff, but answer the question! Homosexuality is wrong. It brings destruction to the human person.

But man, the spin is on in Rome. The spin is on.

But, I love this one, I saw this one. They should have put a few extra

A's in this. He's back! Benedict XVI speaks out on sex abuse and calls

Richard Dawkins science fiction. This is dated today in the

Telegraph from London. Horrible picture of a very, very elderly Benedict XVI.

We've heard very little from emeritus Pope Benedict XVI since his retirement, but he's made of a surprise return to public life.

Benedict has written a letter to the atheist mathematician... I'm not even going to try this one. Pierre Giorgio Odefredi.

Wow! That poor kid could not spell his own name until college.

Pierre Giorgio Odefredi. Whoa! I don't know that I've ever seen one like that before.

Anyways, covering subjects in the sex abuse scandal to evolution, an extract has been released by Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

Coming off the back of Francis' letter to another atheist on the subject of obeying one's conscience, it's hard not to draw parallels between the two, and there's already discussion about the possibility of collaboration.

Either way, Benedict makes some interesting points. Some of the things he said are interesting, but I love this one.

And here, Benedict pokes fun at some schools of evolutionary thinking. Quote, There is, moreover, science fiction in a big way, just even within the theory of evolution.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is a classic example of science fiction. Oh my!

That's going to get a response. I can guarantee you that.

But, of course, the question that now crosses everyone's minds is, when did

Benedict XVI cease being infallible? Now, of course, I know. All my

Roman Catholic friends are like, well, actually, none of this is infallible, because it has to be on a topic of faith and morals.

They've so constricted the definition down that there's always plausible deniability.

I mean, the Pope could be saying, I'm speaking as the bishop of Rome. Well, did he really mean that? Did he call a council?

There's all sorts of stuff you can do to try to get around what's being said by any of the popes.

That's the first time anyone's been able to say that since, oh, the Council of Florence, I would say.

But whatever the popes are saying. But here's

Benedict XVI speaking out, and I did find that it does raise the question, you know, when did he become fallible again after being infallible?

And did he notice? Did he sort of go, oh, man.

Yeah, I can see you're thinking, oh, man, did I? Oh, I just made a mistake.

That's probably not how he did it. What if he accidentally sits in the chair of Peter? No, he's not allowed to do that.

No, he's not allowed. No, can't do that. And of course, we didn't even find the chair of Peter. Anyhow, I did find it.

I just loved. I can't wait for the Richard Dawkins response. I bet you it's already out there. I bet you someone has.

It's already out there someplace. I don't know. But anyway, on to other sad things, even more sad than that.

Most of you have seen, and I saw the initial report on this sometime last week. But man, it has really become blatantly obvious that former

Southern Methodist University and NFL star tailback Craig James fired from his former

ESPN and CBS broadcaster, fired from Fox Sports Southwest because of his public stance on same -sex marriage.

Evidently, he had run for public office. I thought he was just interviewing somebody in a debate. That was the first thing that I read that seemed to indicate to me

I must have misunderstood it. But in reality, what happened was, quoting here, in one of his primary debates in April 2012,

James, along with the other candidates, was asked about same -sex marriage. After now -Senator Ted Cruz said that he opposed same -sex marriage,

James expressed his opposition to same -sex marriage and then discussed his religious perspective on same -sex activity. People choose to be gay.

I think it's a choice. I do. Same -sex marriage, if someone chooses to do that, that's done. And God's going to judge each one of us in this room for our actions.

And in that case, right there, they're going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions. James explicitly included himself and other human beings as those judged by God.

James' positions on other social issues are similarly traditionally religious. On abortion, for example, James' campaign website stated,

I believe that life is precious and must be protected, especially in the womb. Therefore, I am adamantly opposed to abortion.

The Texas Republican Party platform is in adherence with James' position that the Texas state constitution enshrines traditional marriage as the sole standard for marriage in the state of Texas.

The constitutional amendment was passed in 2005 by a 76 to 24 percent margin. Despite the fact that James' comments represent a broad swath of the

American public and that his comments came well over a year ago, Fox Sports Southwest canned him over his views.

Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch reported the initial news of firing with a statement from FSSW, Craig James will not be making any further appearances on Fox Sports Southwest football coverage this season.

But just to make clear that James' firing came as a result of his religious beliefs, a Fox spokesperson told the

Dallas Morning News, We just asked ourselves how Craig's statements would play on our human resources department.

He couldn't say those things here. End quote. Wow. Well, obviously there's a lawsuit, and if there's any justice in the land whatsoever, it's a lawsuit that will be won and won big time.

But I don't know if there is any justice left in this land. And it just again demonstrates the fact that there are more and more people in our society who are completely comfortable with denying free speech rights and denying religious expression rights to Christian people.

And it's just a given. It's not that any of these folks could actually defend the idea of the redefining of marriage.

None of them are consistent on this marriage equality thing as we've pointed out so many times before.

But it's just already been taken as a given. Well, Obama said it, so it must be, let's just go.

We'll move on from there. And it will impact all of us, all of us, all of us.

Finally, Dr. Mohler did mention this morning a story that I was not familiar with.

So I looked it up because some people on Twitter had asked. Transgender theology professor asked to leave

California Christian College after coming out. A California Christian College, Azusa Pacific specifically, has asked a professor who was once its chair of theology and philosophy to leave after he came out as transgender.

Now, again, the writer here bows to the society.

This is a woman. She has children. On any logical, rational, moral, ethical foundation, if you gave birth to multiple children, congratulations, you are a woman.

You're a woman. You may feel like a man.

You may want to dress like a man. But you're a woman. And here now you have, this is

Heather Clements, taught theology at the school for 15 years. But this past year, she,

I'm going to change to reality here rather than political recklessness, she has begun referring to herself as H.

Adam Ackley. H. Adam Ackley. Ackley, who is in her third year of a five -year contract, told

RNS that he and APU, Azusa Pacific University, have agreed to part ways. The university said it will continue to pay her through the academic year.

But she said the university wants other professors to take over her classes. She also said that her insurance was denied when she sought hormone treatment and top surgery for her chest area.

They're giving me privacy transition but denying medical treatment to do that. Said Clements, who is 47 years old.

Now, of course, what goes on, and I heard this for the first time from Dr.

Moeller this morning. I hadn't heard this term before. Well, maybe I have.

Maybe Michael Brown has used it and it just didn't click or something. But it's the next absurd abuse of language so as to impact the thinking of people who really can't think anyways term.

Get used to it. We all know about homophobia, right? That's the silly term you use to shut down thought processes.

It's not even semi -accurate and it is just what you do to stop people from thinking.

Now we have a new term. I hadn't heard it before.

But here it is. This individual is talking about told by my spiritual advisors and then spouse.

By the way, this woman is, I think, divorcing her second husband now.

May have something to do with the problem. Just maybe. Told by my spiritual advisors and then spouse

Recovery, sanity, and preservation of my family required me to deny my now -recognized transgendered identity.

I once again struggled with self -medicating, self -injuring, and self -starving of the female body during a suicidal relapse.

This is a very troubled person. And then here it comes.

Here it comes. This is what Christian transphobia does.

Quote, unquote. There you go, folks.

Christian transphobia. So, I suppose there's

Christian bestophobia, which would be if a person tries to commit suicide because the morals they were taught in a

Christian home tells them that having sex with a dog is wrong, it's the Christian faith's fault.

That's Christian bestiophobia. And, of course,

Christian pedophobia. I guess, would it be pedophilophobia? Yeah, it'd have to be pedophilophobia.

Yeah, it'd be pedophilophobia. That's if someone injures themselves because, again, they have

Christian morals that says it's wrong to have sex with children, it's the

Christian church's fault. Lacking in love, lacking in compassion, you know, any behavior.

So we've got Christian theftophobia, Christian adulterophobia, Christian hatophobia.

I mean, let's just start lining up. What has happened to people's minds when they blame the moral and ethical system for their own rebellion against God?

Is this not the giving over? The giving over of a society to ways of thought and thinking that are just so outside of what we as human beings were created to be?

That it's amazing. It's horrific. It's sad.

It's horrific and sad. But that's what's going on. Christian transphobia.

You'll be hearing more of it. You'll be hearing more of it. You just watch.

Christian transphobia. Well, just one more. Just so I'd mention this,

I had mentioned a few I don't know, a week and a half ago, it seems that if you are going to preach the gospel openly in the

United Kingdom anywhere at any time, anywhere at any time, you will be arrested now on the basis of offending homosexuals.

Again, you have a protected group that has been now elevated to the position of royalty, an ironic thing in the

United Kingdom. And all they have to do is run off to the police and go,

I'm offended. And the police go, oh, we'll take care of it.

And they'll throw you in a slammer for a number of hours and then let you out. They don't want to go through the whole thing.

But they'll drag you off the street, stick you in handcuffs, stick you in a thing, drag you away. It's all meant to, if we do this enough times, they'll stop.

That's the thinking, clearly. And so, now

Josh Williamson, back on September 18th, six days ago, was arrested for in a city center of Perth.

This is not Australia, but in the United Kingdom. He notes here, toward the end of my interview, the officer said to me, quote, you seem reasonable.

Why don't you just stop preaching? I replied by saying, let me ask you a question.

Is it better to obey man or God? See, there you go. A secular state, a state that was once flooded with the light of the gospel.

But when the light goes out, how deep is that darkness? How deep is that darkness?

Truly amazing. That was September 18th.

Pretty much every street preacher over there, you just got to start being ready to do your thing.

Have your lawyers lined up, and your legal fund ready, and whatever else it might be, because it's just happening over and over and over again.

Robbie Hughes, same thing happened, what, barely two weeks earlier?

It is truly amazing to observe the collapse of these nations. And you would think the cops would know.

You would think the cops would know that this is just, but they don't. One other thing real quick before we take a break,

I was going to mention this, I used this thing called getpocket .com

and fascinating little thing actually from CBS News, amazingly enough.

Creature with interlocking gears on legs discovered. Anybody see this? It was fascinating.

I'd like to be able to show this to you. But, what was this thing called?

Isis Coleopteratus. Isis Coleopteratus.

It's a species of plant hopping insect. It's the first living creature known to possess functional gears, a new study finds.

The two interlocking gears on the insect's hind legs help synchronize the legs when the animal jumps. And there was a scanning micrograph of the gears here.

Yep, those are gears. Yep, those are gears. All by accident.

It's all by accident. I mean, Richard Dawkins will tell you, it only appears to be designed.

It's just an appearance. You know? And so, this microphone, it just appears to be designed.

And these computers, and these screens, they really aren't designed.

They just appear to be designed. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

And there you go. Alright, we're gonna take a break. Can we actually take a break?

I mean, do we still have old commercials we can run and pretend that...

You know what? We don't need to take a break. Just cue up the music and let's transition into...

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Stop. Did you all see? Did you all see?

There's a lava lamp. My mic's in the way. Now you can see it.

I'm sorry the mic was in the way. I'm gonna have to bring it back, too. I'll have to move it. But somebody, an anonymous person,

I don't know who it is, sent us a lava lamp for the new live feed.

And I even wanted... One of the reasons, it wasn't the primary reason, actually I had to take my wife to the airport today, but one of the reasons

I wanted to do it a little later in the day is I wanted to make sure that we had enough time.

Because you know how lava lamps are. When you first turn them on, they don't do anything for like an hour. But it's running, it's going, and we appreciate our listeners, or now our viewers, who wanted to spice up the back there and get a lava lamp going.

I almost wore a tie -dye shirt just to sort of fit it all together. But I actually have to have this close enough to me that you can hear me well.

So I'm sorry if it actually covers up the lava lamp. Yep, it does.

I'm just trying to figure out what the angles are. So we do have a lot.

I'll just have to move the lava lamp at some point. Maybe I will take a break in about 45 minutes, because this is a mega, so I'd like to be able to stand up and stuff.

Maybe I can move it over and rearrange things there. And then you can see the lava lamp. But thank you to whatever anonymous person it was that did that.

Alright, let's dive into Radio Free Damascus.

The question, Paul, was, look, Paul, what about this business here now? It says here that every knee shall bow to God.

And you're saying here to the Philippians that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

So Paul assures them, he says, look, don't get upset. That was just something for them. Now just fool around with those

Philippians. Because Jesus said it in so many ways that he's not

God, you just want to stick it to him no matter what. I said, you're not reading your

Bible. You don't read your Bible properly. You know, God has got sons by the tons in the

Bible. By the tons. You know, tons, the old measurement of weighing things. Tons. And now, coming to you live from our underground bunker deep beneath the madrasa where Ergen Kanner was trained in jihad and Arabic somewhere in Turkey or Beirut or Cairo or Ohio?

Anyway, this is Radio Free Damascus. Well, welcome back.

You all were gone for such a long period of time there. Everyone loves that music there. Radio Free Damascus.

I was actually directed by Yusuf Ismail to a series of debates that he did with John Gilchrist on distrust between Christians and Muslims.

I really wasn't, to be perfectly honest with you, I really didn't get the distrust part. It ended up being

Dr. Gilchrist gave some nice talks presenting Christian views of Islam, the necessity for Christians to recognize there are different kinds of Muslims.

He joins with me. I join with him, I guess. He's been at this a lot longer than I have. In decrying how many

Christians refuse to recognize the difference between Muslims. It's all

You look at the horrific things that happen in Nairobi, Kenya, or happening in Nairobi, Kenya, and then you just blame all

Muslims for that. You can't do that. At the same time, you've got a lot of Muslims that try to The amazing thing is they want to differentiate themselves from those

Muslims without theologically demonstrating why those people are not Muslims. That's one of the problems from my perspective.

That's another issue. Anyway, then there was a scholarly mistrust discussion, and then a theological mistrust.

And basically, Yusuf's presentation, the theological one, was his standard These are my problems with Christianity.

Quoting Bart Ehrman, John Hick, all the ultra -leftist liberals against the

Christian faith. So I want to respond to some of that, especially what

Yusuf says at the end. I forgot, I was rushing around. I wanted to send Yusuf an email. Of course, what time is it?

3 .30 here, so it's 1 .30 in the morning there, so it really wouldn't have made much of a difference. But I will try to remember to send one afterwards so he can get a chance to listen to this.

Because I want to respond to how he has finished, I think, at least two debates I've heard, and mentioned a third.

So this is a repetitive statement from Yusuf in regards to how all

Christians and Muslims could get together. I want you to hear it to be able to understand where he's coming from here.

Now once again, we're sort of in limbo right now on our website.

We're hoping to launch the new one if anyone can resurrect just one particular person somewhere.

We're just sitting on pins and needles. And I'm sort of hesitating to post much more on the old website because then it's got to be moved over anyways.

But the folks down in South Africa sent me the posters that are being put up around the cities around Johannesburg.

And they look really great. And so I wanted to post some of them.

But especially if the new website gets up in time to do so, I will try to put those up on the blog.

But excitement building down there, certainly on my part as well. So let's get to it.

This first is from this is the end.

So this is the actual conclusion, sort of end rebuttal and conclusion to the discussion on theological distrust.

We're actually going to go back You know, I'm going to go ahead and do it somewhat in order.

Let me talk about just a couple things Yusuf said in his opening and then go to the closing because that's where it has that section

I want to get to. But just a couple things I wanted to touch upon here that I think will be very helpful.

And then once we're done with this, I'll finish with Bashir and then go back to Yusuf. I'm just trying to wrap up as much as I can in this last week.

So again, the purpose being to allow these gentlemen to have this full acknowledge of where I am coming from because I realize they debate different people, there are different differences in their positions, and hopefully that will help to make the six debates in South Africa particularly useful.

But I'm definitely looking forward to meeting Yusuf. I think everyone knows that Shabir Ali is flying down to South Africa as well.

He's got pretty much as far to go as well. No. He's a little bit closer. Not much.

Not much in comparison to the total distance. And I think he's going to be there a little bit after I am.

Staying after I am. I think I get there before he does. Anyhow, let's listen to what

Yusuf Ismail has to say here. And so what we as Muslims would say. Obviously Sorry Yusuf.

Obviously I was looking for stuff. When I go through and mark stuff, I put it between 1 .6

and sometimes as high as 2 .4 speed so it just whips through. And I left it at 1 .6

speed there. I'm going to put them both at 1 .2 again so we can get through the clips a little bit faster.

Man, if he was that fast in a debate, I'd be doomed. Of course no one would understand what he was saying anyways, but let's try this again.

And so what we as Muslims would say is that in the evolution of world religions in inverted commas, Islam is the culmination, the fulfillment of the teachings of all the prophets brought into one in terms of its universal outreach.

The theological distrust by and large focus on the fact that Christianity per se has digressed from the concept of the oneness of God the oneness of Allah to incorporating what we as Muslims would believe you say, accepting the divinity of Christ.

And this goes to the ongoing topics all the time which we see. Is Jesus really God? What do you say?

Is Jesus God? Finding our particular faith. Now once again, one of the key issues, and Yusuf and I are not dialoguing about this.

I am with another fellow there in South Africa. We will be discussing this particular subject.

And that is trinity and tawhid. I think it's very important to emphasize once again that this is not a divergence from monotheism.

But I think most Muslims are forced to identify it as such because their ultimate authority says it is.

And so we once again are brought back to how do you get a Muslim to consider the accuracy of his source?

If you assume the Quran is accurate in everything it says, even when historical fact demonstrates otherwise.

Even when you can demonstrate what Christians believed at the time of Muhammad. And even if you can make the challenge, as I will have to make the challenge a number of times over the next couple of weeks.

And that is, if you're going to argue from the basis of the

Quran, which the Muslim cannot help but to do, you must answer the question, why is it that the author of the

Quran shows no understanding, no understanding at all of what

Christians believed in his day? Shows no insight into the content of the New Testament? And it becomes anachronistic when a

Muslim, taking that as the final authority, says, well, we would accept the injeel that was given to Jesus if we could just find it.

There is no historical evidence that there was anything given to Jesus. None. Not in the sense of some separate book.

Not a single shred of historical evidence that Jesus had a revelation that is not found.

And there's not a single shred of historical evidence that the author of the Quran understood that. That's the point.

By taking that position, you end up forcing anachronistically the ignorance of the author of the

Quran back upon Christian history and going, oh, got a missing book there. No.

You've got someone writing 600 years later that had no first -hand knowledge of the content of the

Gospels or the content of the New Testament. That doesn't mean there's a book missing back there.

It just means there's understanding missing at the end, 600 years later, in the author of the Quran. And there's a real anachronism in the entire approach from the

Islamic perspective that simply has to be challenged. If you're going to say that, well, you know, you

Christians, you need to abandon these things, well, the basis upon which you're saying that, if it's anachronistic, if it's backwards, it's not a solid basis.

It revolves around the fact that Christianity per se, by and large, has been transformed into the cult of Jesus.

And I'll explain why. In Surah 19, verses 30 -34, Jesus is made to say,

Behold, I am a servant of God. Now, listen to that. I'm interested in what it means.

Jesus is made to say. Jesus is made to say. Now, maybe that's just a turn of phrase.

I don't know. Maybe that's just a South African way of saying Jesus said. But that's almost how

I would say it, because I don't believe Jesus ever said these words. And I would point out to Yusuf, Yusuf, look at the people you quote, the people who you call

Christian scholars. The vast majority of them are not. But the people that you find to be compelling, they're primarily secularists, they're primarily naturalist materialists, they don't believe in divine revelation, they would never believe in Muhammad's going to Jerusalem on a donkey with wings, etc.

But when you look at those individuals, ask yourself a simple question.

The people that you're constantly citing, would any single one of them give the slightest historical credence to any of the quoted words of Jesus in the

Qanon? You often quote skeptics regarding the accuracy of the

New Testament. You push the Gospels as far back. We're going to hear here that you push John into the second century, which, again, there's absolutely no reason to do that.

None. You could not defend that other than saying, well, those scholars said that.

So, upon what basis? I mean, if P52 is from 125, it could be as early as 100, and you're saying

John's written in 110? I mean, that would make that one scrap a first generation copy.

Or one that precedes the writing of the Gospel of John, which doesn't make any sense. I mean, you go with the ultra -liberals, but not a single one of those ultra -liberals would believe that anything the

Quran says about Jesus is true. They would not believe a single thing the

Quran says that quotes Jesus was true. And every one of them would,

I'm sorry, but with all due respect, chuckle a little bit at what the Quran, well, what they would call the gullibility of the author of the

Quran in regards to the sources he uses for the life of Jesus. And you know what I'm talking about.

His dependence upon the infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Arabic infancy Gospels and things like that.

They would laugh at the naivete of the author of the

Quran. You know that. So why quote them against the New Testament when you know that the consistent application of their methodology would utterly decimate your own text.

That's why I say, I am looking for a consistent Islamic apologist. I'm looking for one who will actually give an

Islamic critique of New Testament Christianity, and I haven't met one yet. I really haven't.

Because if you're applying standards like that, well, it just doesn't work. I'll go back to this quote.

In Surah 19, verses 30 to 34, Jesus is made to say, Behold, I am a servant of God.

He has vouched unto me revelation and has made me a prophet and made me blessed wherever I may be, and he's enjoined on me prayer and charity as long as I live.

Peace is on me the day that I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life again.

And it continues and concludes, such was in the words of truth Jesus, the son of Mary, about whose nature they so deeply disagree.

Now, it's interesting, I went into some depth of discussion in my book on Surah 19 and the

Najran discussion. I'll leave that for the moment. But we press on.

That modern -day Christian scholars today, if you look at the Islamic belief on Jesus, the recent discoveries and biblical investigations go on to show that their conclusions are far more closer to the

Islamic view of Jesus than has ever been the case. Now, who are these? Again, I have to challenge

Shabir on this, I have to challenge Yusuf on this. Who are these scholars? I mean, it would be easy for me to sit around and cherry -pick my scholars and say,

Islamic scholars recognize the development of the

Quran over time. They recognize the many elements of mythology in the

Sunnah of Muhammad. They recognize that the change in the Qibla is a later development.

I mean, all I gotta do is pick my scholars and then just pluralize it and now

I've got an argument. But I would say to anyone, I don't have a meaningful argument and I don't have a weighty argument.

It really becomes tiring to me that here you've got retreaded old liberalism being trotted out as if it's the newly discovered stuff.

What are these discoveries? All you've got really is the enshrinement of naturalistic materialism in scholarly circles so that there's almost no dialogue going on any longer and, well, we certainly can't believe what the

Bible says about Jesus so we'll have to come up with some theory as to what he was really like. And as has been very, very rightly said, when the historical

Jesus scholars come up with their conclusions, it's amazing how the Jesus of the historical

Jesus scholars looks a whole lot like the historical Jesus scholars themselves. Which is sort of the inevitable thing, given the fact that they don't really have a consistent scripture to go to.

This is an individual called John Hick. He wrote a book called The Myth of God Incarnate and where he goes on to explain, even to a certain extent, that you can well be a

Christian, as the Anglican bishops have said in the 80s. You can be a Christian, but it's not really necessary to, per se, subscribe to the idea of the divinity of Christ, and you can still be a

Christian. And if that is indeed the case, then what would there be separating us as Muslims and Christians in terms of coming together on the same platform and worshipping the one and only

God? Well, there you go. And this is going to be his argument later on. If you Christians would just stop being

Christians, because you see, the problem is John Hick isn't a Christian! He's a heretic! Okay? I mean, why are you quoting folks?

I mean, you know, I keep forgetting the guy's name, but the German fellow, who was made professor of Islamic Studies, and then came out and said, you know what?

I'm not sure Muhammad existed. Okay? Why can't

I quote him? Well, here's a Muslim scholar that admits that we're not even sure Muhammad existed. And you'd go, he's not a

Muslim! And I go, John Hick's not a Christian! Yusuf has embraced this idea that the ultra -liberals get to redefine historic

Christianity. And I say, they don't get to do that. No one can read the Bible and come to these conclusions.

They don't believe the Bible's the word of God. They believe it's the words of men. The Anglican bishops have done these things.

Well, you know, thankfully there's lots of good Anglican bishops that don't do that and recognize what

Christianity is and what its basic and fundamental and definitional elements are.

And if you're going to deny the deity of Christ, the centrality of the cross, the crucifixion, the gospel, you're not a

Christian! You're not a Christian! If you're going to deny that Muhammad's a prophet and the Quran is the word of God, you're not a

Muslim! You can claim to be a Muslim. There's lots of people who will say, I'm a

Muslim. They don't say the prayers. They don't do anything. They don't follow any of the pillars. Are they really a

Muslim? Well, not in reality. And the same way there are all sorts of people.

There are religious people in the world, and especially in the West. I mean, there's less of this in the

Islamic world because well, I was just reading a horrific article about a poor woman in Africa in the

Sudan. Tortured, beaten, and was in the process of being buried alive by her family because why?

She became a Christian. She became a Christian. She would not renounce her faith. She was a quote -unquote apostate from Islam, and thankfully she's still alive.

There are certain basic foundational things that define what a Christian is, and she would not give them up. And in the

Islamic world, professing to have once been a

Muslim or not a good thing. In the West, apostates are celebrated. They're celebrated in the secular

West. They're celebrated because they're given the positions of professors and chairs and universities and everything else.

They are rewarded for apostasy. Look at Bart Ehrman. Again, someone that Yusuf likes to quote.

Apostasy sells. Apostasy is rewarded. It's not in Islamic countries. And so we have a whole lot, a whole parcel of apostates.

It's cool in the West to be an apostate. But John Hick is not a

Christian. His views do not represent Christianity. You could not substantiate these things from a meaningful study of the

Bible. Now, you can cut the Bible up into pieces and say, well, I don't like this part, I don't like that. I'm going to do the Thomas Jefferson thing here and get rid of all this stuff.

And then now I've got something that looks like Islam. Well, that's the problem. You see, what we're being told is, you need to go back to what the

Jews would have accepted. So, in other words, God can't do anything more than what

Jews expected. The Messiah can't be greater than the expectations of the

Jews. As if the expectations of the Jews becomes the standard. It's not the standard.

God did far more. That's why the Scripture said, it's never even entered the heart of man, the things that God has prepared.

God did a little bit more. A whole lot more than his people expected. That's God's freedom to do that.

The idea or the concept of Jesus being God or being divine has raised for Muslims a number of issues pertaining to the theological mistrust.

If Jesus is God and God allows... Now, listen here.

If you're tuning out a little bit, because I've heard this is really important. This is really important.

You want to hear, I think, a not purposeful fulfillment of 1

Corinthians chapter 1. Eustace is about to give it to us. About to give it to us. I mean, how many times have we talked about the

Biblical teaching that what the world expects from the Gospel is exactly what the

Gospel does not give the world? The world expects power. And the world expects

Jesus to be born in a place of privilege. He's born a stable.

And you see what the world cannot understand is the power of God was seen in weakness.

The power of God is seen in suffering. The world doesn't get that.

Unfortunately, and I pray that someday he will, Yusuf doesn't get it either. Listen to what he says here.

The idea or the concept of Jesus being God or being divine has raised for Muslims a number of issues pertaining to the theological mistrust.

If Jesus is God and God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross, and as John had suggested earlier on, it was the idea of God incarnate coming down to earth, humiliating himself in a manner of speaking, and being crushed by his enemies in a manner of speaking.

Now if that's the idea of God, if God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross, then our understanding of God is fundamentally a

God who is weak and totally powerless in the world. He helps us not through his omnipotence, not through his almightiness, but rather through his weakness and suffering.

Now think about that. Think about that. I mean here,

I think this is one of the best insights into the Muslim mind that is trying to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ within a context that has no room for a suffering

Messiah. Has no room for the gospel message. This to me is a clear illustration of how

Islam is the arguments of Surah 5,

Moses, Torah, Jesus, Injil, Muhammad, Quran, no way.

Muhammad never understood the very central aspect of the message of the gospel.

Never understood it. Never understood it. And that's being reflected here.

You see, first of all, the idea of being edged out of the world onto the cross,

I keep saying, and I'll say to Yusuf, the death of Jesus Christ is absolutely voluntary and it is one of the greatest examples of humility.

Oh, I wish I had time, and I know we're not going to have time on this trip, and I just pray that I will have the opportunity to go back again in the future, but I would love to just sit down with Yusuf or Shabir or any of these men and just walk through the

Carmen Christi. Walk through Philippians 2, 5 -11, and show them here is this one who in eternity passed, and this is a hymn of the early church.

This is from, actually come to think of it, I will have an opportunity of mentioning this. I will have an opportunity of mentioning this, because we are going to be debating with Shabir, and Shabir, here's a heads up.

It's one of my texts. I'm just sitting here thinking about how much

I have yet to do before we go, and I'm just like, oh. Anyway, I'm going to have to try to remain awake on some flights, let's put it that way, to get all this done.

One of the debates is did the earliest followers of Jesus believe in the deity of Christ?

And there is no question about it. There's none. The only way to get around it is to adopt liberalism and start chopping the

Bible up if you allow the Bible to speak for itself. If you approach the Bible the way that Muslims demand we approach the

Quran, there's no question on this subject. They have to adopt a double standard and approach the

Bible differently than they do the Quran. They just have to. Because, look at the Carmen Christi.

This is a primitive, shall we use the term of scholarship, artifact of tradition.

It comes from the earliest period. It comes from the period contemporaneous with or even before the

Gospel of Mark. And what does it say? What's the only way to interpret it meaningfully?

That Jesus Christ eternally existed in the very form of God, but did not consider that equality he possessed with the

Father something to be held on to at all costs, but he made himself of no reputation becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Not only do you see how central the cross was at the most primitive point in Christian history, but the concept of humiliation as the path through which one must go to exaltation, which we also find in Romans chapter 8, is clearly seen.

And why is he exalted? So that every knee bows and every tongue confesses words that were used of Yahweh in the

Old Testament, why is he exalted? Because of the humiliation. You see the humiliation, that humbleness of Jesus.

Yusuf, that's God's power under control.

Remember what Jesus said on his way to the cross? My father could send a legion of angels and wipe this planet clean.

Because if just one angel took out, what, 180 ,000 Assyrians in one night, what would a legion of angels do? Wipe humanity out.

But you see, while God had the power to do that, it was not his purpose to do that.

That's power in control. It's in control for a greater purpose, and the greater purpose is bringing about the redemption of a specific people to the glory of the triune

God. And that's in the most primitive element of the quote -unquote tradition.

Primitive element. Yeah, I get passionate about this because this is absolutely the message of life.

The message of life itself. But we'll be discussing that. Not Yusuf and I. Shabir and I.

We'll be. Anyway, if I don't press forward here,

I'll never get any of this done. This now is going to the conclusion,

Yusuf's conclusion, in the dialogue with John Gilchrist on theological mistrust.

And there were a couple statements in here, well, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Nine sections that I wanted to get to here. John was suggesting that Jesus is the

Messiah. As the Quran would say, he is the Al -Masih. The Messiah. And the point I was trying to emphasize in my discussion was this.

Is that in the context of the Bible per se, there were many Messiahs, and the term Messiah was not a unique designation.

In the context of the Quran, only Jesus is described as the Messiah. But there again, it's not unique.

Why not? Because in the Quran you have prophets of God, different prophets with different particular titles. For example,

Abraham, Khalilullah, or Kaleemullah, one who spoke with God, one who saw God. These are words or passages or terminologies that are used exclusively for Abraham and Moses.

Rasulullah, when Muslims speak about Rasulullah, who are we talking about? Rasulullah means messenger of Allah, messenger of God.

Who are we talking about? We're talking about Prophet Muhammad. But does that mean now that all the other prophets are not

Rasulullah, they're not prophets of God? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So unique designations appear in the context of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of the particular people and the literature, but it doesn't designate the person as being superior to others.

Solomon, David were all anointed, appointed Messiahs. And the argument I was suggesting, which unfortunately

John didn't deal with, is that I was not questioning the idea about Jesus being the Messiah. What I was dealing with,

I was questioning the fact that the obvious expectation of the Messiah for Jews was a great and powerful warrior king.

And that's what the book of Psalms chapter 2 verse 199 says. That you shall break them with a rod of iron.

You shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. That's what the Messiah is meant to be.

Someone who was clearly powerful, someone who was basically and you find that the story of the narration of Jesus gives us an indication that he was not the

Messiah if we are to believe the accounts that he was a crucified Messiah. The crucified

Messiah is a contradiction in terms. Regarding the aspect about a crucified

Messiah is a contradiction in terms. Paul vindicated again.

To the Jews, a scandal on. So once again, you have these multiple streams in the

Old Testament of prophetic testimony to the nature of the coming Messiah. And just as the

Jews stumbled at the suffering servant, so the Muslims stumble at the suffering servant.

Jewish expectation is not what defines what the Messiah is to be. I've never met a Muslim who had any idea what the Messiah was to do.

And the idea here is, what Muslim apologists have glommed on to is they want to say, well,

Son of God isn't really special. Messiah isn't. There were multiple Messiahs.

Cyrus was anointed. There were lots of Sons of God. David is Son of God. So Jesus isn't special in any of these ways.

Whereas it is painfully obvious that the authors of the New Testament, when they use these terms, are saying that Jesus fulfilled these words in a completely unique way.

I mean, how much clearer can it be that when John talks about Jesus as the

Son of God, he says very clearly in John chapter 19, he quotes the Jews.

And the Jews said what in regards to Jesus' claim to be the

Son of God? We have a law and by that law he ought to die because he made himself out to be the Son of God.

Are they literally saying that they have a law against David? Of course not. Of course not.

They recognize, just as John chapter 5, which Yusuf quotes himself, he quotes from John chapter 5, so he can't pick and choose and say, well,

I'm going to quote these verses, but I'm not going to accept the other verses. In John chapter 5, when Jesus says that he is working and his

Father is working, what's the understanding? He was making himself equal with God.

And the rest of John chapter 5, Yusuf misunderstands. As many Muslims do.

And we've addressed this many, many times before. Maybe you'll get a chance to do so again. But he quotes from these texts.

Some of them may even be in this following section. I'm not sure. We'll look at it in a moment. But the point is that the authors of the

New Testament make it very, very clear. Jesus isn't just claiming to be an anointed one.

There is the very words, are you the Son of the

Blessed One? He's asked. And what's his answer? I am. I am.

The Jews understood what that meant. The Jews didn't understand this to be, well, you know, God has sons by the tons.

They didn't understand it that way. Why are we supposed to understand it that way? It's because Islam is fundamentally a

U -turn in the in the progression of divine revelation.

It's going back the other way. It draws back from the fullness of the revelation of God and Jesus Christ.

To go back to the old ways. And that's why you can have Jews and Muslims using the same forms of argumentation.

Because fundamentally they're both at the same ground saying that's too far. I mean, that's even that's even the very term that's used.

Do not commit excess. And I've slaughtered that term, I guess. And in fact, it's funny.

I should mention this. Remember back with who was I debating? It was

Bassam Zawadi, wasn't it? I know it was Trinity Road Chapel. And I think I've mentioned this before.

Let me mention it again. I love to be I guess I have to be up front about all of my pronunciation errors.

When I was preparing for the debate with Bassam Zawadi, I looked at, I think it's

Sur 4171 somewhere around there or Sur 572 and I'm not,

I don't have the text up in front of me right now. So you just have to look it up. But the Arabic word is next to impossible for me to pronounce.

There is a there is a and an there's a sound at the beginning and then a sound.

And the difference between the two, it's the same letter, whether you have the dot or not determines which one of the two it is.

And interestingly enough, it's sort of like the Stephanos 1550 text thing in my mind.

When I quoted that text in London a guy came up to me afterwards and said, did you mean to say this?

Now in my mind I had used the ghain sound in it's very hard to, these are one of the reasons that you can tell that Ergen Kanner, when he's trying to pretend to speak

Arabic, isn't because he never uses the particular vowels and consonants that we

English speakers end up spitting all over our computer on. Okay? And that a natural native

Arabic speaker can just whip right through. But you've got to somehow get a in there means excess.

Okay? I thought I had used it and the guy had said

I was wrong and when I looked at it, oh the dot's there and not there. I actually remembered it backwards.

And so I thought I was correcting myself by saying ta 'alu but that was what

I actually said in the debate. So I kept pronouncing it the same way even though it's the other way.

Just, again just in the interest of open confession honestly, any

Muslim that can go oh, you missed a dot that means you're stupid and don't know anything about Islam.

I'm not, I'm already not reaching them anyways so I'm not really concerned about them. I will confess to the world that ghayn and ghayn are very difficult for me to say.

It's like Sharia. You know when I listen to my Arabic tutor say it's just natural for him. His epiglottis just does it and we just laugh a lot when

I try to do it because it just it's not very Scottish, you know. But anyway it's not from Loch Ness or whatever.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd mention that. That's the term excess. What they identify as excess is actually the fulfillment of so much of prophetic material that that's why they have to try to say oh that Isaiah 53 stuff isn't about Jesus and that Isaiah 9 stuff isn't about.

They have to try to get rid of all of that prophetic material so as to have a basis for basically going back to the old ways.

Going back to the old ways. So there you go. And I completely killed the chat channel with that particular discussion so let me press on here.

Regarding the aspect about the gospel accounts John again, the problem

John is that in the gospel of John most scholars suggest was written about 100 AD, 110 AD and about Ephesus and these...

Now again I just go okay, according to most scholars the

Quran does not receive its final form until 705 AD. Now I don't like to use that kind of argumentation.

There are scholars who do that. There are scholars who would say there's no clear evidence of the change of the

Qibla came later and you even got people later on saying they compiled the Quran at this time and so on and so forth.

But I just really would like to ask everybody to stop doing this most scholars thing.

And hey, I've been consistent here and you've all got to admit I've been consistent. Because I've criticized William Lane Craig and Mike Licona and that whole group for their constant, well, most scholars who study the resurrection say

X, Y or Z as if that's an argument. Because you get to define what your set of scholars is.

Now, I could do that. I could say the vast majority of believing scholars say

X, Y or Z. And there might be some validity to do that. But can we get past this

I'm going to quote scholars stuff and actually get down to the material of scholarship?

What's the evidence, internal and external, that the Gospel of John is written that late?

What's the evidence? And once you start digging into this and see that's why I'm so glad, in hindsight, it wasn't easy at the time

I went to a liberal seminary, is because that gave me the opportunity of really digging down into that and asking, what is the evidence?

And the evidence is an assumption. It's a world view. It's, well, we know

Jesus wasn't like this. And therefore, this had to develop over time.

And since it took time, then this must have been written. Now, the problem is that back in the 1870s, if you had gone to school in Germany, you would have been told the

Gospel of John was written in 170 A .D. Until they then find stuff like P52, which is a whole lot earlier than that.

It sort of messes up their theories. Basically, it gives the indication that you've got secondary source material.

Secondary authors are basically writing this. In fact, by the way, and you've got lots of secondary source material in the Quran. And that does not require me to adopt a naturalistic world view to come to that conclusion.

Because, you know, I can just go over and here's the section of the Quran, and here's the section in the material that preceded the

Quran, and oh, yeah, there it comes from. And the author of the Quran is saying to Christians, well, remember this.

You already know this. And the Christians are going, those are just some of our stories. That's not in the scriptures.

And again, the Muslims are going to have to then, if it's going to be consistent, demonstrate that the author of the

Quran knew enough about the text of the Bible to be making a cogent argument.

And there's just no evidence that he did. There's just no evidence that he did. That's the important part.

Basically, it gives the indication that you've got secondary source material. Secondary authors are basically writing this.

In fact, the vast majority of biblical scholars tell us that John never wrote the

Gospel of John. It was written later. Some say 180, some say 110 AD, some even go as far as 120

AD. Years and decades after Jesus passed the world. Regarding the Gospel of John, John made mention of John 10, verse 36 in his discussion.

Now, I should have split it there, because that's the next subject. But, again, pushing John all the way back, well, there are scholars that have dated

John pre -70. Now, we don't have dated copies. But what's the basis for pushing this so far back?

To create skepticism, does John, with the synoptics, demonstrate a knowledge of the geography of pre -

Roman destruction, AD 70, Jerusalem? Answer, yes. Does John follow the naming schema that has been pointed out just only in the past couple of years?

Well, decades. Well, decade, singular. Does John follow the same naming schema that demonstrates that you are an author living at the time period of the events, and know the events directly, that we find the synoptic

Gospels, that someone writing at a later point in time from a different place would not know? Yes, he does.

Just like the synoptic Gospels. So this idea of, well, this is actually 80 years after the events, written at a different place, does not fit with the naming schemes and the knowledge of the geography that the

Gospel of John possesses. Now, has Yusuf dealt with that anywhere?

Or is he just saying, well, these scholars say this, and so I'm going to... Those are some of the questions that I would ask.

Look at Richard Balcombe's research into the use of names and the kind of names.

Very, very, very important. Then you notice he went to John 10 .36. Now, this was interesting to me because this is the text

I know really well. Why? Well, because it's the Mormons, one of the Mormons' favorite texts.

Listen to this presentation. Regarding the Gospel of John, John made mention of John 10 .36

in his discussion, where the question was posed to him, and he basically says, or rebuts, or responds to the reply, where the

Jews question him in terms of his particular designation, whether he is the Messiah, and he says he is indeed the

Messiah. And particularly, John makes reference to John 10 .36. In this particular context, look at the verse before that.

In the verse before that, the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy. They accused Jesus of blasphemy, correct?

And what does Jesus say in response to that? They say, for good work we stone thee not, but you being a man, you claiming to be

God. What does Jesus say? He says, I have a right to say I am God. Does he say that? He says, no. He says, is it not written in your law

I said ye are gods? He was quoting from the 82nd chapter of the book of Psalms, where it says that ye are gods and the children of the

Most High. All prophets of God are gods. Moses, a god unto Pharaoh. So Jesus is rebutting that, and he says, is it not written in your law

I said ye are gods? If he, in other words, God Almighty, called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, then the scripture cannot be broken.

Why are you then taking an issue of me? Why are you saying I'm blaspheming, when the only claim I'm making is I'm saying

I am the Son of God? God has, according to what was suggested, and John reconfirmed it, sons by the tons in the

Old Testament and the New Testament. He's saying that the Son of God is not a proper, is not a unique designation.

It's a common usage term. No, it's not. It isn't in the Gospel of John. John chapter 19 is going to say to call yourself the

Son of God the way Jesus did is to blaspheme. John chapter 5 has already told us to identify yourself with the

Father as the Son the way that Jesus did, that he is his own Father in a unique sense. That's the only way to understand

John 5, 17 through 18. A unique relationship between the Father and Son makes yourself equal with God.

You have to see how you have to just break the text up into parts and go, oh well, John 10, don't interpret that in the light of John 1,

John 5, or the conclusions of John 19. No! And if we did that to Quran, they would rightly be going, hey, that's not fair.

But you can do it with the Gospels. Double standard. Double standard demonstrates you shouldn't be debating. Because double standard automatically means you lose.

Inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. And there it is. Double standard. But not only that, that's a really bad interpretation of John chapter 10, because it's not understanding the background from Psalm 82.

And the fact that what Jesus is doing in John chapter 10, if you read the rest of Psalm 82, but you shall die like princes, he's talking about the judges of Israel, the judges of Israel who were judging unjustly in Psalm 82, and God's judgment comes upon them, you shall die like men.

And what he's doing is he's applying that to the Jews. He's saying they are judging unjustly by accusing him of blasphemy because he said he's the

Son of God. Not because the Son of God is not a unique term, or that he isn't the Son of God. That's a complete misunderstanding of what's going on in John chapter 10.

Yusuf has missed that. I understand why that could possibly be, but that's the reality.

It does not understand the background of Psalm 82, and does not make proper application. We're going to continue on.

We've got about 43 minutes left in this edition of Radio Free Damascus.

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... begets a son but no Christian will say that God literally begets a son but then you have to finish it for us.

What are you meaning? You see it's either one or the other. If you're saying that he's not literally the begotten son of God then he's a son of God like all the other prophets.

If you're saying that he is literally the begotten son of God then the implications that you're making are exceptionally serious and in that context of course it would be blasphemous which the

Quran would basically confirm. Now what is fascinating to me is here

I'm hoping that by now you know I sent my book down and and maybe maybe there's there's enough discussion there to help

Yusuf to understand what we mean by son of God that the

Quranic understanding of that in Surah 5, verse 116 and in other texts is not what

Christians have ever believed. It raises all sorts of issues about the understanding of the author of the

Quran that there would be that kind of misapprehension of what Christians have stated and believed on the subject but even more to the point in this discussion in that what we just played right there

Yusuf never touches on what we actually believe about what it means for the son to be the son what begotten means you know he's well aware of the fact that monogamous means unique or one -of -a -kind if he needed further evidence of that there's an entire what two pages of lexical material in the

Forgotten Trinity demonstrating that it comes from not from Genao but from Genaes, kind or type.

Christians have understood this for a very very long period of time and that's why we recognize that the relationship of father and son is an eternal relationship it is not one of origin or source but one of personal differentiation and love it's personal not creative in the sense of the son having a point of origin in time there is no woman involved

Mary was not involved it seems pretty clear that the author of the Quran thought she was but she was not and so again well

Bart Ehrman says well you know what you can you can quote Professor Ehrman on lots of stuff but the funny thing is even

Professor Ehrman recognizes the Gospel of John presents the deity of Christ so if you're trying to quote him to say that the

Gospel of John is not presenting the deity of Christ even you're misrepresenting him at that point because he just simply says oh

Matthew Mark Luke didn't but John did it's sort of flippantly done but that's where he comes from because he recognizes which says let me lead well

I'm you led he does not beget and he's not begotten Allah God does not beget nor is he begotten and there is nothing like unto him in other words that in Islam is a touchstone of theology cool wallah wahad say he's got the one and only

Allah summit God the eternal the absolute let me lead well I'm you that he does not beget and he's not begotten well

I'm you cool the hook of one had that and there is nothing like unto him that is a touchstone of theology that is a concept of God which

Adam had which Abraham had which Moses had which David had which Jesus had right up to the time of the

Prophet Muhammad unique now that of course is a quotation he just quoted for you sir

Ali class sir 112 and I always read sir 112 in my presentations on Islam look look on YouTube look go to the various churches

I've spoken at what I've spoken on Islam I can't imagine a time I mean it's possible if I had like 20 minutes that I had to skip it or something like that but when

I it's a it's part and parcel of my normative presentation on Islam to quote sir out of class and also to emphasize the third sir let me let well emulate and if I have time

I expand upon it to point out that the the root for you a lot yell it is the same root in Hebrew at same root found in Isaiah chapter 9 and there in Isaiah chapter 9 prophetically 700 years before the birth of Christ we are told that unto us a child is born unto us the

Son is given a child is born and it uses that very root a a yell it is yell added if we want to massacre in English but a child is born other words it's it's that was a real child

Jesus didn't just seem to have a physical body the Gnostics were wrong there was no silent night that's a

Gnostic idea to child was born and he cried and yet a mother who cared for him but the very next line is a son is given son given voluntary grace mercy the author of the

Quran did not understand that the other Quran did not know that it's tragedy but it's the truth and we all must recognize that John suggested that the

Trinity Jesus spoke about the Trinity but way now let me read some this is

I have often recommended B .B.

Warfield thank you I got the producer was telling me to hold the book up B .B.

Warfield in his the biblical doctrine of the Trinity one of the best short essays on the subject

I have ever seen I just I I'm sorry

I just need to read this I know we're running out of time but I just I want to make it thorough in point of fact the doctrine of the

Trinity is purely a revealed doctrine that is to say it embodies the truth that has never been discovered and is indiscoverable by natural reason with all his searching man has not been able to find out for himself the deepest things of God accordingly ethnic thought has never attained a

Trinitarian conception of God nor does any ethnic religion represent in its representations of the divine being any analogy to the doctrine of the

Trinity this is Dr. B .B. Warfield one of the greatest Princeton theologians ever brilliant mind he goes on to say triads of divinities no doubt occur in nearly all polytheistic religions formed under very various influences sometimes is in the

Egyptian triad of Osiris Isis and Horus it is the analogy of the human family with its father mother and son which lies at their basis sometimes they are the effect of mere syncretism three deities worshipped in different localities being brought together in the common worship of all sometimes as in the

Hindu triad of Brahma Vishnu and Shiva they represent the cyclic movement of a pantheistic evolution and symbolize the three stages of being becoming a dissolution sometimes they are the result of apparently of nothing more than an odd human tendency to think in threes which is given the number three widespread standing as a sacred number it is no more than was to be anticipated that one or another of these triads should now and again be pointed to as a replica or even the original the

Christian doctrine the Trinity Gladstone found the Trinity in the Homeric mythology the trident of Poseidon being its symbol

Hegel very naturally found in the Hindu trimurti which indeed is very like his pantheistic notion of what the

Trinity is others have perceived it in the Buddhist charatna or despite their crass dualism and some speculations of Parsi ism or more frequently in the notional triad of Platonism while Jules Martin is quite sure that is present in Philo's neo stoical doctrine of the powers especially when applied the explanation of Abraham's three visitors of late years eyes have been turned rather to Babylonia and H Zimmern found a possible front forerunner of the

Trinity and a father son and intercessor which he discovers in its mythology then here's what dr.

Warfield said it should be needless to say that none of these triads has the slightest resemblance to the

Christian doctrine of the Trinity the Christian doctrine of the Trinity embodies much more than the notion of threeness and beyond their threeness these triads have nothing in common with it he is of course exactly right and every time

I find anyone whatsoever trying to make the argument that well you know you can find the

Trinity in Osiris and Isis and all this stuff all that tells me is the person who is saying that does not know the doctrine of the

Trinity and probably doesn't know a whole lot about the sources he's quoting from either I mean

I just I want to be respectful but just as Yusuf should not be trying to find in someone like Osiris who's chopped up into 14 pieces in the afterlife and parallel the resurrection of Jesus in the same way trying to find the

Trinity in in pagan mythology and saying well this is where it came from is such an incredible abuse not only the biblical scriptures but of the history of the early church their suffering their persecution that it's it is utterly unworthy of someone who wants to seriously a dialogue in the subject of the

Trinity it's just beyond the balance by a long one it is significantly significantly a stronger argument to say that circumambulation of the

Kaaba comes from paganism because we can sort of prove the pagans were doing it then to even start to go here so if you actually gonna say oh there's the origin source then consistent you have to go oh well that's where Mohammed got that you have to be consistent got to be consistent and I don't know too many of my

Muslim friends who are going to go there so here's here's what he what he said John suggested that the

Trinity Jesus spoke about the Trinity but where if you take all the passages about Jesus in the

New Testament and you cut out the duplications you won't be able to even spell the word Trinity he doesn't speak about it he submits to the voluntary subordination he suggests his father is greater than him he speaks about the first of all commandments

John never responded to the issue where he says hero Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one doesn't what he had now again only by selectively filtering out the statements of Jesus he's talking about the

Gospel John okay John starts in the beginning was the word words with God the word was God the words eternal

John 118 notice he got a time the monogamy stay us who is that the father's side he has made him known the monogamy stay us exegetes the father

I could go through every single chapter in John and show you references of deity of Christ you've got to let

John speak for John I try to let Mohammed speak for Mohammed why won't you let

John speak for John the book begins of John 1 and ends of John 2028

Thomas's confession to Jesus Hakuri a smooch

I have they asked me my Lord and my God you you can't just knock them off and go

I'm gonna look at this isn't that's what dr. Gilchrist was talking about and that's why even someone like Bart Ehrman says oh yeah

John John believes the deity of Christ or yeah duh in Jewish theology and in biblical theology

New Testament theology does it designate or signify more than one it had means one and only one and only in what being a person as soon as I said

I go well you know everybody that I debate on this all my oneness Pentecostal friends and stuff like that they don't want to get into whether a means oneness of being a person we agree it means one is a being there's only one

God and that's what the Quran is saying because every time it says that what comes after that one

God every time it says three say not three one God so the Quran thinks that we're saying there's three gods another place where the author the

Quran did not understand what we actually believe God understood we believed that time that tells you something about the actual author of the

Quran but the point is that the oneness that is emphasized over against three in the

Quran is ontological where do we assert threeness ontologically no we're monotheists we just recognize that one

God's being is not limited by time and space and therefore three persons fully and eternally share that one being and that's revealed in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit so not the triune Godhead not the triune

Godhead in fact on the Trinity which we see here Trinity is something which is common in history it's exceptionally common in belief why do

I say that you've got an image here these are also the triune Godheads in ancient

Babylon what you'd find that Tammuz would be the son Nimrod would be the father and Semiramis who is

Queen Semiramis would be resemble as the dove and you say that Semiramis was initially included in the pagan

Babylonian Trinity as the Holy Spirit the dove now that's part of the triune Godhead in Babylonian mythology and if you take into account the fact that you look at something similar there you can see that how the idea developed how the idea evolved what

I'm saying my fellow brothers and sisters in is that go back to the scripture these ideas developed at a later point in time okay that just simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what

Christians believe about the Trinity and what the scriptures say these ideas developed a later point in time that's why you have the

Carmen Christi in the most primitive materials that's why I will be able to go through the Gospel of Mark and demonstrate the deity of Christ in chapter after chapter after chapter no that's not why and this idea that oh it's

Babylonian this is origin yeah those those early Christians were running around just constantly borrowing stuff from all these pagan religions that's how they were convinced

Jews to follow them I'm sorry it just it's such an abandonment of any meaning historiographical approach nor in the

Gospels does he say I have come particularly to die for your sins son of man what's he doing come to give his life a ransom for many what does that mean it's not there in the explicit commandment you don't have the passages where he says

I'm God where he says worship me what really once again only by selectively reading out of the text the many texts that convince even skeptics like Bart Ehrman that yeah

John's teaching to you the idea of Christ that's the only way you can do you can do this that's the only way you can do why is it so difficult to bring out a passage it is why does

Jesus have to explicitly tell people to worship God and believe in God but it's not necessary for him to explicitly tell people that he is

God and people must worship him yeah so when Thomas says to him my Lord and my God Jesus response automatically is don't do that just as the angel says to John later on right no

Jesus's response is to accept his identification of him as his

Lord and his God and to bless it as an act of faith on his part now

I want to get to this and we will at least get to that here's this closing presentation thing that I've heard more than once now so this is repetitive

I want you to hear this because and and I hope

Yusuf gets chance to listen to this he may not have an opportunity but he does what I'm hearing here is we can all get together as monotheists if you'll just stop being

Christians because the definition of Christianity is could be given here is nowhere found in Scripture it requires the utter abandonment of not only all of Christian history but any meaningful exegetical reading of the text of the

Bible it requires the rejection of the inspiration of Scripture everything stop being

Christians we'll get along that's what I that's what I hear here and I would just simply say to Yusuf these liberals that you really like a lot have you notice what's happening their churches no if you notice what's happening their churches they're disappearing millions of people have left these quote -unquote mainline denomination these mainline that phrase mainline is so non descriptive anymore it's ridiculous doesn't mean anything anymore because when they go liberal and start coming up with these conclusions did you have to believe in the deity of Christ Christ isn't the center it's not the gospel it's not the cross those denominations die and rightfully so because now there are nothing more than religious social clubs that's what happens to them so here here listen listen for yourself now this is a concluding point and this is how

I say Muslims and Christians can come together and still retain your own individual identity one of the leading scholars and and this has been vetted by people in the

Anglican Church says that there are three basic conditions for being a Christian one you believe in the existence of one

God a uniquely perfect transcendent being most Christians accept this to acceptance of the ethical and religious authority and leadership of the historical personage of Jesus Christ and three a commitment to viewing the life of Jesus as a disclosure and human exemplification of the moral excellence of deity such that the imitation of Jesus's behavior is already a moral action in the believers life and in this particular condition it makes a claim that he's not equivalent to claiming divinity of Jesus it's not a doctrinal commitment to his nature it deliberately leaves room open for controversy in terms of the

Jesus's ministry but now in other words how to stop there just briefly in other words view

Jesus as a great moral teacher and be a monotheist that's it that's the definition of Christian that's not

Christian never has been never will be can't be that's just that's just a a vanilla religious philosophy nothing more nothing but the

Anglican bishops tell us as they've done in the early 80s that it's no longer necessary for you to believe that Jesus is

God or God incarnate it's no longer necessary for you to be a

Christian to believe in the fact that Jesus is God or God incarnate in other words you can still be a Christian you can still be a

Christian and if we accept that to be the essence of Christianity anyone else who rejects it is either an apostate or not a

Christian if that is the only stumbling block if we accept these three criteria and if you accept these three criteria notice how the

Gospels nowhere to be found in there cross resurrection gone everything from the beginning of Christianity eviscerated you still in line with your

Bible but if we accept these three criteria then basically what would happen Muslims can take

Christianity to be a genuine monotheistic faith based on the revelations to Prophet Isa to Jesus for what was revealed to Isa the

Quran tells us was the same truth moreover if the claim of uniqueness of Jesus is suspended then Christianity can at least reciprocate the ecumenical courtesy that Islam has always extended it it can recognize the legitimacy of other monotheistic faiths

I know I'm told to stop but I want to recount a program that John Bill Christ was involved in about 20 years ago on SABC TV Bible charmers and in conclusion on that program

Bill Chalmers told him to the panelists he says I think it can be said from this discussion that they somewhat more accommodation on the

Islamic view for the founder of Christianity than there is on the Christian side for the founder of Islam what the significance of that is we leave it to you the viewer to determine well okay let's think about what that that last little segment meant evidently what the guy was saying was well it seems like the

Christians are harder on Muhammad than the Muslims are in Jesus um excuse me the Muslims are denying the central affirmations of what the

New Testament says about Jesus and the Christians responding to Muhammad Muhammad's once come along and said no what you're believing has been wrong all along and I really have to wonder

I mean there's some folks there's some harsh stuff in the Quran about people who will say three you know hellfire deceived you know unbelievers no one to help them in the

Day of Judgment etc etc etc I sort of wonder if all that came out in that particular discussion but but here's the idea if you know if you all would just adopt wild -eyed liberalism about your text of Scripture then you'd be okay don't believe in what is defined

Christianity from the beginning what every martyr has died for you'll be okay that's not a possibility that that is not a possibility and I have heard no reason to try do it there is one other thing

I want to get to before I go back to Bashir I happen to catch this I just happened to mark it and I and I was

I was a little surprised I was a little surprised that you said this is just really brief listen listen to this this is from this is back from the dialogue with dr.

Seacombe I mean even in the acts of the Apostles even in the writings of Paul in Corinthians Paul himself again and again emphasizes many times that the writings that he had written concerning the virgins are concerning the unmarried

I have no inspiration of the Lord but I give my own account my own opinion I Paul think this

I Paul say such so there you have the very common unfortunately complete misunderstanding of what

Paul is saying in first Corinthians and I've already mentioned this in responding to Bashir earlier let me repeat it again because you will encounter it over and over again in talking to Muslims they will take that text and I'll go see

Paul says I not the Lord night this says nothing about inspiration that was a that was a bad reading of that particular text but we understand what's being said in reality what

Paul is doing is demonstrating restraint and the accuracy of his knowledge of the life of Jesus why because he's when he says when he starts off he says the

Lord says and then was he do he repeats what we have in the Gospels themselves in the gospel traditions showing that Matthew Mark and Luke are giving us the same teachings of Jesus on marriage that Paul knew there is consistency he actually adds another source here but then when the question becomes something that Jesus did not address in the gospel traditions he says

I not the Lord he differentiates himself it doesn't become any less authoritative he is an apostle of Christ he's not saying this is uninspired what he's differentiating is the source

Jesus didn't talk about what to do when an unbelieving spouse leaves but I as an apostle of Jesus Christ will tell you and then he binds that upon the church there's no denial of inspiration there is an amazingly insightful and accurate demonstration that Paul's knowledge of the gospel tradition was a whole lot better than most liberals want to think it was and so there's nothing there at all no no reason whatsoever to believe that what

Paul was doing there was saying oh no no I'm not I'm not inspired that's a complete misreading of what's said now in the last few minutes we've got well last 12 minutes or so we've got we'll get back to Bashir Vania and again

I'm playing him just a little bit fast so we can get as far through this as we can and then we'll be wrapping up this radio -free

Damascus for today secondly allow me to discuss the following claims of Christianity the divinity atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christians will agree that these things are amazing

God coming down to earth as a human being dying on the cross paying for the sense of humanity and then coming alive again they are amazing and amazing claims require amazing evidence well amazing claims require the evidence that God gives in Revelation I mean again a

Muslim is gonna look at the Quran the Quran says amazing things and what's the basis for accepting that well it's God's Word that's why but for now let's deal with basic evidence my brother just told us that you know there are 300 prophecies in the

Old Testament prophesying Jesus coming to die for the sense of humanity being God and so forth that's not exactly what he had said the speaker and I'm sorry that I don't remember his name he was with Jay Smith in this debate and I just I just don't remember his name

I apologize it was a back since I listened to him but he had made the argument in his material that there is a strong prophetic testimony to the ministry of Christ I don't think he said there were 300 specifically on these issues but that gives the broad outline of what the ministry of Christ was and that's true the problem is that the followers of the

Old Testament recognize no such claims well the rejection by the

Jewish people does not mean that the prophecies didn't exist the problem is that the

Jews had developed certain traditions as to what the Messiah would be and the Gospels themselves show that Jesus had to repeatedly correct the misapprehensions of his own disciples as to what the nature of the

Messiah would be he's still doing that is at his ascension for crying out loud so for the

Christian the expectations of uninspired Jews are not the standard by which

I mean the uninspired Jews of Medina didn't accept Muhammad's claims profited did they does that mean he wasn't a prophet again let's use this let's use the standards here fairly in fact they reject the divinity of Jesus they reject even the prophethood of Jesus they reject his death they reject his resurrection no they do not reject his death they certainly would reject the idea of resurrection but they do not reject that Jesus died it's a fairly established part of Jewish history that this man was killed he's atoning death and resurrection and Jesus peace be upon him tells us in John chapter 4 verse 22 that salvation is from the

Jews again it's really interesting my Muslim friends love to quote

Jesus even from the Gospel of John except when he's accepting worship or presenting his deity it's saying

I am and things like that you've got to have I've never ever had maybe

Shabir will try I've never had a Muslim provide me with a meaningful standard by which you can determine what you can quote what you can't let it be historical show me something textual show me you know let's let's go back

I've got pretty much I'm really excited CSNTM has announced some of you probably know well yeah of course most of you already know this

CSNTM has announced that they had the opportunity back in June July to digitize everything in the

Chester Beatty library relevant to the New Testament that means p46 p45 are all high -quality digital photographs of those manuscripts are going to be posted on the

CSNTM website now I'm not sure if they're gonna ask for a donation or something I will I'll beat the drums to get one but that stuff could be available hey

I've already got images of all that stuff maybe not high quality as we're gonna have from CSNTM I've already got that stuff let's go to those earliest manuscripts of the

Gospel of John let's let's go to to p66 let's go to p72 give me a standard by which

I can determine what I can quote a you can if you can quote John 4 why can't I quote

John 8 and it still have validity for you it's because there's an anachronistic backwards insertion of Islamic authority going on here

I think everybody sees that salvation is of the Jews doesn't help me much when they have rejected all the fundamental claims of Christianity Paul was a

Jew that is that is one of the issues that he deals with that's that's that comes out very clearly in in Romans is why has there been rejection by the majority but the early

Christians were what they were Jews who saw in Jesus the Messiah they said the Shema but they also said first Corinthians 8 where they include

Jesus in the Shema itself that's something very important to remember only Paul we are told in the

New Testament he discovered the secret of salvation no it's not true that's not true it's completely untrue

Bashir that's that's nowhere does the New Testament make that assertion I realize there are

Muslims who try to make it sound I would but nowhere does the New Testament make that in fact the New Testament specifically denies that still denies that for six thousand years or more all the prophets didn't know that God what will come down as human being die for the sons of humanity and so forth and so forth no except Isaiah 52 and and 53 and Isaiah 9

Isaiah 7 and you know Psalm 22 and you know it was all there you can't can't deny the existence of those they didn't know strange and even those

Jews the few Jews who became in it will come as Christians or followers of Jesus you see this had to be cultivated into them the belief had to be a slow evolutionary process when they be when they became followers of Jesus they accepted him as a prophet as Muslims do because he is a prophet priest

King there is a process of coming to recognize the grandeur of the person of Christ that that is true he's a lot bigger than our expectations no one's gonna argue that one there's only afterwards that a change came thirdly and afterwards when again most primitive element of the

New Testament contains that exalted view of Christ and this is puzzling for a Muslim such as myself that Jesus himself for some strange reason appeared unaware or if he was away didn't tell his followers that he is

God he was going to come down and die for the sons of humanity and so well again it's it's a

Muslim bias that is causing Bashir to not see the so many places where that's not the case

Jesus says and does things in every gospel at every point that no mere human being could do and I have pointed to so many examples of this so many examples of this when

Jesus says that he is going to send the Holy Spirit from the Father can you imagine some human being mere human being mere but I was all claiming to have the ability to send

God's spirit and of course I pointed out the somewhat humorous irony that Muslims if they are going to identify the broccoli toss of John chapter 14 with Muhammad that means

Jesus sends Muhammad and who sent Muhammad Allah right so careful what you quote in fact for the most part

Jesus peace be upon him spoke as a prophet yeah in John chapter 10 chapter 17 verse 3 4 5 he says now here

Jesus in this is this the high priestly prayer of Jesus this is where him speaking as a priest he's not he's interceding for his people but he starts off talking about this is eternal life no deed the only true

God and Jesus Christ now is sent again words that no mere human can say what mere human can say to have eternal life you need to know me and then in the next sentence say in eternity past I was glorified in the presence of the

Father he tells the people this is eternal life this is the way to salvation firstly that they may know thee the only true

God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent as a prophet it doesn't say as a prophet he says

I have glorified you on earth and I have accomplished the work thou gave me to do other translations have

I finished the work I've completed the work now glorify thou me now reward me now these words were spoken now remember it actually says glorify me with the glory which

I had with you before the world was but that's not appearing in the quotation unfortunately long before his death and resurrection and Jesus is telling us that he's telling

God I have completed the work I have finished the work I have accomplished the work you gave me to do yeah

I've had some Muslims think that this somehow is a contradiction because it's before the cross well it's immediately before the cross but of course

Jesus has it requires such a massive misreading of John because what has 14 through 16 the preceding free three chapters been all about and the public ministry

I'm gonna be crucified I'm returning back in the presence of the Father I'm setting the spirit absolute certainty of what's going to be taking place and so now this high priestly prayer takes place for the benefit of the disciples in light of the absolute certainty of what is about to happen so it's not like oh this is some extra part that's a that completely misses

John's own obvious intention as to how he's to be read so if he was

God's master plan for him to come down and die for the sons of humanity Jesus peace be upon him is lying which is absurd that's true it is absurd to say

Jesus is lying because you're missing the entire flow of the text of John 14 through 17 to come to conclusion he claims to have completed his work what work teaching preaching healing as the book of Luke says so we have a problem here these words were said long before his crucifixion mmm actually right before him who are we going to believe we're going to believe

John and we're going to believe his presentation and allow it to stand in context I'm sorry I didn't get farther there

I had intended to actually finish this and because there's only a few moments left in it and and I apologize but that's what happens when you run out of two hours a mega edition of the dividing line radio free

Damascus today thank you for listening we will continue Lord willing even on Thursday we're gonna wrap all this stuff up and then head out

I hope you and your church are praying or this upcoming trip we're counting on it thanks for listening today the dividing line has been brought to you by alpha to mega ministries if you'd like to contact us you can do so at our website at a omen org join us again