Ergun Caner and the Jerry Springer Show

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Last evening, while looking for a means of contacting Brian Brodersen of the

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Pastors Perspective Program, I happened across, I believe, his blog, where he mentioned on the 27th of January that he had had an interview with Ergon Kanner.

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So I thought that would be interesting. The link to the MP3 was right there. So I downloaded it, and while doing some other things, fired it up to see what had been discussed.

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I found it rather interesting to encounter Brian Brodersen, who has recently mentioned me and has talked about how

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Calvinism does not have the heart of Jesus, interviewing Ergon Kanner. Now, of course, we know that Dr.

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Kanner and I have crossed each other's paths a few times. It turns out, personally, we had an opportunity of that happening in 2006.

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Unfortunately, Dr. Kanner and his brother, Ymir, decided to renege on a written agreement for a debate at Liberty University between the two

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Kanner brothers and myself and Tom Askell on the subject of Calvinism, but anyway, since then,

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I've criticized Dr. Kanner for claiming that he is this great debater when he doesn't debate.

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He does interviews, he talks to people, but he doesn't do debates where you actually take on the best the other side has to offer.

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You talk to students in a hallway or a mall someplace. That's really stretching the meaning of the word debate a long way, even though he then advertises himself as, you know, the head of this global apologetics program and talks about all the debates he's had in all these states and all over the world and he's using the word, he's equivocating on what it means.

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He doesn't actually debate people in a formal way. So be that as it may,

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I started listening to this interview and I immediately, well, about 20 minutes in actually, encountered the following quotation from Dr.

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Kanner where he clearly makes a reference to yours truly in an amazing, amazing context and amazing claims that he makes.

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So I want to consider this. I want to then consider a later statement that he makes where he identifies the belief that Christ actually saves anyone by his death.

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That is the doctrine of particular atonement, that the death of Christ actually saves everyone for whom it's made.

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That Jesus does not try to save anyone. He does not merely make men savable, he actually saves.

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He identifies that as a doctrine that comes from Satan himself. It's a pretty radical statement to make.

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One I would certainly love to debate Eric and Kanner on in a formal sense, wherever he'd like to do that as long as he would sign his name publicly to the rules long beforehand so that we couldn't have a repeat of 2006, be happy to do that on a biblical basis.

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I don't think it's going to happen because Eric and Kanner doesn't do that kind of thing, but I would like to see it happen. I would certainly put the challenge out there.

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Maybe some of his students would say, hey, Dr. Kanner, let's do that. Put a little pressure on the man to stand up to his own

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PR. But first and foremost, let's listen to this claim that he makes regarding certain myopic reformed folks.

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That would be me. And allegedly what my debates with Muslims are actually all about.

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Then we're going to compare Eric and Kanner's claims with the reality and look at a couple things that Eric and Kanner does and see if maybe he's not projecting himself upon others.

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Let's listen to what he had to say. You are you doing you're doing debates occasionally,

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I would imagine with imams or Muslim clerics or leaders or whatever you're going on to university campuses and community colleges and I like very informal ones.

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Formal debates have been taken over a lot by myopic reformed guys.

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They try to turn it into these little show ponies. It's like the Jerry Springer show, basically. And there's really not any real discussion going on.

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It's rolling of eyes. It's huffing and passive aggressive garbage. Now, I must confess, well, what do you say about something like that?

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Formal debates have been taken over. Does that mean that they used to be done by Armenians or something been taken over by myopic reformed folks?

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The fact is Eric and Kanner doesn't do debates. He wasn't doing them and then somebody took them over or anything like that at all.

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But obviously, the primary issue here is just simply the dishonesty of these words.

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I mean, it's quite possible. In fact, I would say even probable that Eric and Kanner has never seen any of the debates that I've done.

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That's that would be par for the course. But those who have know that what he said here is just simply wrong.

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It's dishonest in every possible way.

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And so I'd like to do is I would like to contrast. I'd like just provide a little bit of evidence. The Jerry Springer show.

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Well, I think I remember seeing a couple episodes of that. I imagine you can find some of that craziness on YouTube someplace.

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I really wonder what's more like the Jerry Springer show. The debates I've done with Shabir Ali, whom, as I'll show you in a moment,

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Eric and Kanner confused with Ahmadinejad and said was dead. Or what actually happens in the

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Liberty Chapels with Eric and Kanner getting tased or things like that.

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I wonder which is actually more like the Jerry Springer show. Hmm. Let's start off with with an examination of Eric and Kanner's accuracy as a expert in this field.

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All you have to do is go to YouTube. You'll see all sorts of documentation of some real confusions on Eric and Kanner's part.

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One of them that really bothers me is that a man who would claim to have said the daily prayers until he was 18 could confuse

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Surat al -Fatiha with the Shahada. Now, I'm a student of Islam. I've been studying it fairly in depth since 2005, but I know the difference.

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And how could you repeat something all the way through your formative years and then become confused about it?

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It's just as odd as confusing Ahmadinejad and Shabir Ali. They're not the same person. They don't argue in the same way.

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I mean, I can see how you could confuse Zakir Naik with Ahmadinejad, but not Shabir Ali. And so here's what we'll start with with Eric and Kanner confusing

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Shabir Ali. First identifies him as an Islamic leader and then says he has died.

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And then we'll look at a section of cross -examination between myself and Shabir Ali.

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And you decide for yourself. Is this like the Jerry Springer show? Is this no real discussion going on like Eric and Kanner says?

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Or is the man dishonest, misrepresenting things that I'm sort of glad he doesn't himself do?

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In fact, before I show you, I want to make sure everyone understands what I'm saying here. I'm not suggesting that Eric and Kanner start doing formal debates.

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In fact, I hope he doesn't because from what I have seen and heard, it would be disastrous. I hope he continues to do interviews with people and, you know, stay in a safe place.

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It's best he does not get out there and actually start taking on people who actually know what they're doing because it would be embarrassing.

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And so please don't get me wrong. This is more of a hopefully a wake -up call to the folks at Liberty University.

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You got a problem, and you might want to do something about that problem. So first, here's

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Eric and Kanner confused about Shabir Ali, and then we'll first look at a little contrast, cross -examination from the

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Biola debate between myself and Shabir Ali. And you find out. You ask yourself the question, is this a

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Jerry Springer show? Is this no discussion going on here or not?

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Let's take a look. He shed his blood on Calvary's cross so that I wouldn't have to. Now, I want you to listen.

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He said, you don't have to keep trying to atone. One of our leaders,

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Shabir Ali, the debater, is often famous for saying before he died, saying that why would one man's death apply to anyone else?

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We all are ourselves. Any way that you can give to us this evening to explain to us how we can determine what is still inspired in the

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New Testament and what is not? Well, I believe that Muslims have a simple answer to this in saying that whatever is in the

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Koran, that would be a judge of whatever is there in the Bible. So whatever of the

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Bible agrees with the Koran, that obviously is inspired. What is contradictory is obviously not from God.

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And that which is neutral, neither in agreement nor in disagreement, may be treated with some bit of silence.

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Usually, the classical scholars have recommended silence. But I believe that Muslims who are quite familiar with the

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Gospels and familiar with the development of the text over time can make some judgments, though these judgments will be tentative.

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So everything about the cross, resurrection, atonement, deity of Christ, Jesus is the

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Son of God, the Holy Spirit is a divine person, not an angel, Gabriel, all of that stuff is uninspired and a corruption of the original intention of the

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New Testament in light of the Koran. A Muslim would say that the Koranic revelation is here now, is the pristine word of God, that teaches us that there is only one

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God, that Jesus is his Messiah, but nevertheless a servant and messenger of the one true

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God. And so anything that is contrary to that, something that teaches, for example, that human responsibility as described in the

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Koran is to be somehow evaded, that would be contrary and would be thought to be a later development.

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Now of course, that could be studied from another angle. One can look at the history and development of Christian teaching over time, one can look at the

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Gospels even without Islamic presuppositions, and it seems to me that many biblical scholars are coming to conclusions which are very close to the main conclusions which

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Muslims insist on, that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet like the prophets of the

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Old Testament. He preached the belief in God, similar to the belief that was known from the

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Jewish prophets since he himself was Jewish, he lived in a Jewish milieu. You mean people like the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Cross and Marcus Borg.

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It doesn't have to be them. The scholars are so numerous, it would be hard for us to list them and to name them now.

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So is there any New Testament book that Mark, for example, which you've referred to many times,

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Mark clearly identifies Jesus as the Son of God, puts words in his mouth that you would never be able to accept as a Muslim, isn't that correct? Well it is clear that even

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Mark must have suffered from a similar sort of phenomenon that we described in the case of Matthew, and John Bowden has made specifically that point in his book

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Jesus, the Unanswered Questions. If we look at Mark chapter 1, verse 1, which in many Bibles begins the beginning of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it is noted in the NIV, for example, that the title, the

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Son of God, in this particular verse is not found in some of the most ancient and reliable manuscripts.

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So I'm not saying that the Gospel according to Mark does not present Jesus as the Son of God, but we have to be aware of scribal changes that have affected the

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Gospel according to Mark in places as well. And in fact we are working with the Gospel according to Mark only as it has come down to us.

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Knowing the history of scribal changes, we would not be out of our grounds to wonder if in fact we do really have the original

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Markan Gospel. Would you admit that you do not have any hard manuscript evidence from the 1st or 2nd centuries that gives to us a

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New Testament that looks like a Muslim would expect it to look like? We do not have such a document. What we do have are documents which when compared with each other show a certain trend, a development away from what

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Muslims understand to be the true teachings and toward what our Christian friends differ with Muslims about, issues like the deity of Christ and the fact that Jesus died for the sins of humankind and so on.

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So if we take that trend and we just extrapolate a little bit backward to pre -Markan Gospel traditions, it looks like we are dealing with something that is

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Q or even prior to Q, and there in Q there is no mention that Jesus died for the sins of the world.

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There is nothing that promotes him as the unique and divine Son of God. It seems that Q is closer to Islam than Mark is.

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And if we can even go prior to Q, to the earlier decades of Christianity, we may find something that is very, very close to what

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Muslims do believe even now. I think I heard you say, but I was somewhat, I'm not certain.

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Did you say you believe the Gospel of Thomas is earlier than Mark? This has been claimed by many scholars, including

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Faye Perkins in her book, Reading the New Testament. It is generally believed that the Gospel according to Mark was written somewhere between 66 to 75

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AD and that the Gospel of Thomas was written somewhere in the 50s.

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So it was definitely earlier than Mark, although the manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas that we do have are from the 2nd century, there is no doubt about that.

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How could the Gospel of Thomas be earlier than Mark when the Gospel of Thomas presents

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Valentinian Gnosticism, which didn't develop until at least 145 AD? Well, the current

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Gospel of Thomas that we do have does in fact contain some of these teachings that you are referring to,

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Gnostic teachings in general. However, where the Gospel of Thomas touches upon information that is contained within the

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Synoptic Gospels, it has been found that where this is compared with the Gospel according to Mark, the

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Gospel of Thomas preserves an earlier form of some of the sayings and parables which are found in the

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Gospel according to Mark. So this is a theoretical redaction of the Gospel of Thomas that no one has ever seen that's earlier than Mark?

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Of course, nobody has seen Mark, nobody has seen Mark sitting down to write a Gospel. You said yourself that N .T. Wright said that we just do not know.

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You've said it as a positive statement in your favor, but I wonder if you've thought about the implications of that, if we don't know who is

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Mark and who is Matthew and how they wrote and when they wrote, where they were, then how do we claim that these are inspired writers on behalf of God?

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You have said that Mark and Matthew, that Matthew is trying to elevate the position of Jesus by changing words in Mark, specifically the term kurios.

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You have focused upon that many times, is that not true? This is one term, and in fact the term kurios, which means

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Lord, is a specific title that can on the one hand refer to an ordinary human being, but on the other hand it can refer to God, and so it is ambiguous.

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But if Mark has the clear teaching that somebody comes up to Jesus and addresses him as teacher or master, and then

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Matthew, reporting the same event, almost the same wording, but just simply changes master to Lord, he is now introducing the ambiguity, where a later

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Christian can read Matthew and think, oh, Christians were calling Jesus Lord. That means he's

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God. So would one example of that be Mark 13 .35, where Mark has master of the house, and then

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Matthew 24 .42, where he says, you do not know when your Lord is coming? Is that not one you've presented many times?

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I don't remember the scriptural references, but the passage as a whole makes sense. Here we have a passage in Mark's gospel where Jesus speaks about the time of his return.

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He says, you do not know when the master of the house will come, and Matthew has changed it, as you're rightly pointing out, or as you're asking about,

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Matthew has changed it to have Jesus in this occasion represent himself as Lord in the same saying.

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Have you ever, you use a synoptic gospel, in fact, I think you've recommended this particular one here as the one that you utilize by Throckmorton, is this the one you use?

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Barton Throckmorton, Jr., yes. And it's based upon the RSV, right? Based upon the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, yes.

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Have you ever looked at a Greek parallel? I have not. In fact, I still need to learn the

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Greek language, which I began studying some years ago and I neglected, but due to stimulus from yourself,

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I will be taking it up again. So, are you aware that if you looked at a

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Greek parallel, that the term that was translated by the RSV in Mark 13, 35, which you have at least three times in my studies said, master of the house is a change, is actually, ha kurios teis oikios, it's the

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Lord of the house. It's the exact same Greek word as Matthew uses in Matthew 24. So, you're saying that Mark used the same term?

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Identical. In that case, I have to submit that point. Okay, alright. Now, next,

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I found this one particular video of Eric and Cantor being introduced at a youth get -together and I don't know about you, but if you come out in a hoodie, that does remind me a lot about Jerry Springer.

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I've actually never appeared in public anyway. I think there's a picture of me someplace, but I've never shown up at a debate in a hoodie, sort of doing my thing like that.

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And it is interesting, notice this, I'm going to play this, the same clip. He says he'll debate anyone anywhere, except for me and a few other people

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I would imagine. Again, why use the term if you're not doing debates, if you're not actually engaging in debate?

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Why use a word that means something to certain people that actually doesn't reflect what you're doing?

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How is that honest? Let's look at this clip from Eric and Cantor and then we'll again contrast because it's

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Eric and Cantor that says that those myopic reformed guys who have taken over the debates, they're doing the

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Jerry Springer show, they have no real conversation going on. Let's have another clip from the late

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Shabir Ali, at least according to Eragon, this time from a second debate that we did in Seattle.

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Let's see if there's any conversation, anything actually accomplished, or if it's just passive aggressive garbage, as Eragon said on the

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Pastor's Perspective radio program. And then once we've looked at that, I want to look at one last thing that he said on that program, respond to that, and then we'll be wrapped up.

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I think some of you know who I'm about to introduce to you, and it sounds like you're pretty excited about it.

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He is the president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. He has the number one podcast that debates all kinds of people in the religious realm and in all kinds of arenas of life in different belief systems, and he is very smart, he's very funny, he's very powerful, and the thing that I know he's most proud of is this.

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He's got a wife and two boys, his wife and one of his boys is here tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome back another year to this stage,

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Mr. Eragon Kenner! This is huge.

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Turkish immigrant, and none of that matters to me. I am a born -again, blood -bought believer in Jesus Christ.

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I am a follower of Jesus, unapologetic.

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He was telling you about my debates. I debate anyone. I have a standing order that I will debate anyone, anytime, anyplace.

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Usually it's in universities and colleges, you know, what I'm talking about, the community colleges, state universities.

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A Campus Crusade group will have me in, and I will debate anyone, Hindu, Buddhist, every type of Muslim, Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Wahhabi, I've never debated a

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Wahhabi, but just about all of them, Taoists, Shintoists, Confucianists, anybody, because I believe that Christianity has nothing to fear from any other world religion.

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We are not a religion, we are followers of Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior.

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Now that may offend some of you in this room, but I do not believe that you can get to heaven by following Muhammad.

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Okay, the cross -examination portion of the evening will begin. The person asking the question needs to keep the question under one minute in length, please.

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No rhetorical questions are allowed, and the person designated as answering the questions in each of the next four exchanges of cross, not allowed to ask questions back to the questioner.

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Those are the very basic Lincoln -Douglas ground rules, and we will begin with the affirmative cross -examination of Dr.

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James White. So I'm going to be asking first, right? Yes. Okay, all right, thank you.

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Thank you, first of all, for being here again, Shabir. If I could sort of cut directly to the chase, would it be fair for me to say that any text that I might cite from the

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New Testament on the subject of Christ's self -sacrifice for sin can be dismissed as a later interpolation based upon the adoption of particular presuppositions that you bring to the text?

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I think if you cite Hebrews, Hebrews is by an unknown author. If you cite 2

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Peter, obviously I've already said that this is by someone later writing the name of Peter.

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If you cite Paul, well, this obviously is a matter of contention between Muslims and Christians as is evident in this debate.

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If you cite the Gospels, then I would be asking whether this is originally something Jesus said or if this is something someone is saying about him.

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Is this in the early strata of information, is it multiply attested, is there some variation and evolution in the narrative, and so on?

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So, it would be fair to say that you approach the text of the New Testament as a compilation of uninspired statements that are contradictory to one another, and it's our job to sort of try to filter through them, and your filter would be your

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Islamic presuppositions? I would consider the New Testament to be a collection of inspired writings that have gone through some evolution over the early decades and centuries of its transmission, especially the early decades, and especially during the period of its oral circulation before they became written documents.

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And my filter would be a simple one from an Islamic point of view. If I'm thinking as a

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Muslim, how do I approach the New Testament? As a simple

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Muslim, I would say the simple measure is whether it agrees with the Quran or not, but if I step out of that box and I try to learn from history and the multiple disciplines that are available to a

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Muslim, then I would be asking historical questions of the writings, as Christian scholars themselves ask.

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But you will not use the same criteria for the Quran. For example, you just mentioned multiple attestations, but there could not be any such thing with your own inspired writings, right?

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As I've said, I believe in the Quran to be the word of God, and naturally I will tend to approach that differently, but if I'm to think as a critical student of world religions, then obviously

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I would have to read a wide variety of writings, including those that are very critical of the Quran, and I have read some.

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And then I would have to ask whether what is being claimed about the Quran here is true, given what

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I already know, and I would always be making contact between what

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I know and what is being presented to me, and I would evaluate that information. If it is correct, then I would have to accept it.

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If someone gives me information proving that the Quran is not the word of God, at least in one little iota, then

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I would have to accept that. But so far, in my review of all of the critical information that I've become privy to,

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I have not found any such thing, and I remain confident that the Quran is 100 percent the word of God, and so I approach it with that reverence.

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Now, very quickly, I almost forgot to put this in, but talking about the Jerry Springer show, I've got to include this clip of Ergon Kanner at Liberty University, I think in chapel, or at least in some youth something,

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I don't know, allowing himself to be tased. Maybe that's where he got the

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Jerry Springer thing. It's just his own experience, I don't know. And then after that, let's listen to this other clip from the

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Pastor's Perspective program, and then I'll have some comments on that afterwards.

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And if they slam the door on your face, or you invite your friend and they tell you no, you say, well, see, he must not be elect, and you mark him off your little list of your man -made election stuff, and you move on.

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Jerry Tackett knew Christ died for the world, and Tackett came after me. Any doctrine that diminishes the omnibenevolence of God, the fact that he loves the

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Muslim and died for the Muslim to be saved, and has a desire for anything, any doctrine that diminishes that is not from God, it's from the devil.

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Amen, alright. The omnibenevolence of God. Unfortunately, for Dr.

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Kanner and others, what that means is that God is, in essence, less than humans, and that he cannot have redeeming love over against common grace.

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He cannot do what we human beings do. I have a special love for my wife, a special love for my children, a special love for believers.

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And it's different in nature than what I would have for anyone else.

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But unfortunately, this concept of omnibenevolence is the idea that, well, I guess

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God's just going to be loving everybody in hell all through eternity. Dr.

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Kanner says that anything that would reduce or diminishes the omnibenevolence of God, the fact that he loves the

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Muslim, well, what is the message that we are to give to the Muslim people? That anyone who will repent and believe may have eternal life, may experience

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God's love. There has never been anyone who has turned to Jesus Christ, who has not found him to be a perfect and powerful savior.

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But Dr. Kanner, do you really want to present to the Muslims the idea that the primary reason they should believe is because, well,

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Jesus did something so nice for them? Where do the apostles preach that way? Is it really what the

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Muslims need to hear that, well, Jesus, in fact, Jesus tries to save you, but he's not capable of doing so?

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No, I say the Muslims need to hear about a powerful savior who saves and saves perfectly.

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The same savior who is presented, well, in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, who actually saves.

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It seems to me that Dr. Kanner holds to that view of the atonement that Christ's death saved no one, it made all men savable, as Norman Geisler would put it.

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What a shame. That's not the message that we need to give to the Islamic people. He says that that comes from the devil.

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If you believe that Christ's death actually saves anyone, that view comes from the devil.

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Well, I'll let you determine how you're going to judge that.

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I can't tell you how to respond to that. I think most people can see that Ergin Kanner is long on rhetoric and very short on substance.

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He, well, he lied. He lied about the myopic reformed people who have taken over formal debates.

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And the fact of the matter is, he did so because Dr. Kanner doesn't do debates, nor should he.

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But he should also stop telling people he does them when he doesn't do them. Go ahead and tell people,

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I've interviewed lots of folks. Or, I've recorded what lots of folks believe about theology, but see, that's not going to get people to come to your global apologetics courses.

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Enroll in your global apologetics program. It's unfortunate that Dr.

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Kanner chooses to engage in this type of rhetoric because it's so easy to demonstrate that that's exactly what it is, purely rhetoric.

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But why would you have to do that? If Dr. Kanner has all these debates, why doesn't he show them to us?

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Well, because as he himself admits, I just want to go to the community college and just talk to people.

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Fine. Then don't claim you've done debates in 40 different states or 11 nations or whatever else it is that you've claimed over and over and over again.

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It's time to be honest, Dr. Kanner. And let me repeat something. We saw that clip.

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I'll debate anyone anywhere. Dr. Kanner, I'll come to Liberty University and I'll walk right into your classroom.

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And as long as we'll be given equal time, I'll debate you right there.

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I'll debate you on your claim that a belief that Jesus Christ's death actually saves those for whom it was intended to be a perpetuatory sacrifice is from the devil.

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I would be happy to debate you on that, Dr. Kanner. But you and I both know you'd never do it.