Bart Ehrman/Newsweek Article

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white. I.

Feel like I was just here because I was those of you who were listening an hour ago joined Janet Mefford on her program and I don't know. It's sort of hard to do those programs because you've got to talk really really fast for a little while and he stopped.

And he listened to very quiet music and he talked really really fast for a little while and you stop really quiet music. That's that's one of the advantages, you know, the disadvantage of podcasting is That you actually have to want to listen to this program.

You had to set up iTunes or if you're a red goatee you had to download a file and do something. I don't know what it is that he can't use iTunes. I don't know but that's why he has to have it blogged and you know, he was complaining about that earlier.

But anyways, you've made the choice to listen to this otherwise the advantage to Being Janet Mefford as people get to listen. They just flipping down the dial and there it is but the disadvantage we all saw when we did the when I was on Mike Brown's show and then he was on ours and The total time of our debate on his program was like 40 minutes.

Two hours. That's that's that's the difference. We we don't have commercials and well, I suppose we you know, given how hard rich works on commercials. How much time you invest on commercials or did back in 1998?

Well, hey how many times you had to say her name's Ashley that was before 1998 wasn't it? No, it wasn't okay. Somewhere around there. It was pretty 2000. Okay, I was close. That's close. See 13 years ago.

Anyways.

That's Yeah, farm boy music should sponsor the violin. We could have lots of I would like to hear some I'd like to hear some Milo Hotzenbuehler advertisements for some of my books. I wonder what Milo could come up with for something like Yeah, the new Islam book.

Oh that would. That's that's starting to make me I Don't I really don't want to see the news about Milo's death by it's some kind of Gruesome bombing or something. Yeah, it's right. It was a tractor accident.

That's what it was. Yeah, right We don't want I really don't want to set Milo free on talking about the Quran anyways, we run we did Janet Mefford because We had the opportunity of responding to an article that so fittingly Appears in the final print edition of Newsweek magazine.

I gotta admit that is pretty weird. I grew up I grew up you'd go through the checkout stand at the grocery store and You'd have time and you'd have US News and World Report and you'd have Newsweek and then of course You'd have the National Enquirer and all sorts of stuff like that but you'd have the big three and You go to a doctor's office and other than Sports Illustrated you'd have time and US News and Newsweek.

The world has changed a lot. And I gotta admit I you know, I I do have like at least one subscription that I've actually paid for on my iPad to a print magazine, but I get it on my iPad and you know, it's awful nice to be able to sit there in the airplane and read that and magazines get trashed going through Security that's for sure.

So things have changed and they're they're not even there. This is it no more Newsweek as far as print edition goes and so how fitting that they would go out with a bang. Or maybe we should say a whimper But as Al Mohler so very wisely said and I was a little bit jealous that Al Mohler got to respond to this before I did Because I knew I was gonna be doing the Mefford show.

So I didn't want to you know, necessarily jump on it before he did that. But as he pointed out between Newsweek and the New Testament only one will still be in print after January 1st.

And.

That's very very true. If you saw the article in in the magazine What do we really know about Jesus and you have listened to this program? If you have listened to almost any of the reviews we have done of the debates between William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman or Mike Licona and Bart Ehrman Dan Wallace and Bart Ehrman though the ones with Wallace are normally a little bit more textually oriented, but we have so many times pointed out the role of presuppositions in Bart Ehrman's Historiography and his seeming incapacity or inability to see past the presuppositions of his worldview that Determine what he can and cannot do etc, etc.

So There really wasn't anything new along those lines in here, but it certainly is an article that You might want to catch the Mefford show. I might go ahead and make some comments here. It is. Basically, I'm not gonna go back over everything that I did then even though I did find interesting that he very properly talked about the proto-gospel of James and the protevangelium of James and One thing I didn't emphasize is as much as I could have on Janet's program is how many times I've heard Roman Catholics defending the protevangelium of James.

Why. Because without it you have a hard time figuring out where the Marian dogmas came from, especially Concepts such as the perpetual virginity of Mary. Come directly from that kind of literature and so I've seen Roman Catholic apologists actually defending this this Rubbish of history because they have to it's it's where they got a lot of their stuff.

That's where the tradition is found of the names of Mary's parents and all that kind of stuff comes from that and again. Generally Ehrman is correct in his facts. Even if he is not correct in his conclusions or is not very self-reflective as to the process by which he comes to his conclusions and.

So after talking about the alleged Gospel of Jesus wife and then the protevangelium of James finally He gets around to making a connection. And I think here's here's how he does it. Most modern readers who are not already familiar with these stories tend to find them far-fetched.

These are the stories from the protevangelium of James. That's almost always the case of miraculous accounts that we have never heard before. They sound implausible and obviously made up as legends and fabrications.

Rarely, do we have the same reaction to familiar stories known from childhood that are also spectacularly miraculous. And that probably sound just as bizarre to outsiders who hear them for the first time.

Are the stories about Jesus's birth that are in the New Testament any less? Unbelievable, so here's here's how he finally transitions into a very tired standard. Surface level shallow recitation of the issues relating to the census Quirinius Josephus Luke chapter 2 and then of course the issue of the genealogies of Jesus things that have engendered entire books.

Extensive discussions none of which is reflected at all. In ermine stuff and to be honest with you. I doubt that right now. If if we could look into history that that Bart Ehrman has spent much time on those issues.

That would have been something he spent any time on it at Princeton. Doing the work he was doing in textual criticism. He wouldn't be dealing with that and and You can just tell by the very dismissive attitude he has of anybody who tries to harmonize scripture that I doubt he's Spend any time looking at at Bach or or Michael Brown's Discussion of it or anything like that or any of the entire in-depth treatises on the subject.

That's just the way it is, but the point is he's trying to make the connection. And I would like to suggest there are fundamental differences between what you see in the proteo evangelium of James. And it's it's random purposeless Superstition style.

Supernaturalism. Does that make any sense. Super. I'd say I'm gonna change it. Superstitious supernaturalism. Over against the supernatural ism of the gospel accounts. What's the difference? Well superstitious.

Supernaturalism is what you find in Gnostic Gospels. It's what you find when Jesus, you know makes clay birds and causes them to fly away and then Strikes his playmates dead and then raises them to life and and this kind of random.

Almost dream like this is what this is what I'd be like if I had magical powers type stuff. That's not how the supernatural occurs in Scripture. That's not how the supernatural occurs in the birth narratives.

As What's what is the what is the lady's name? On Twitter, let me see if I can back up here. We've got there's two folks you want to follow on Twitter. You want to follow the church curmudgeon? Like the last one the church curmudgeon had was it's time to take the happy out of holidays and Then I'm going back here.

I haven't seen anything for a while. Let me see if I find one cuz boy once you see her picture there it is. There it is. It's Bitter blue Betty. Spelled that way bitter blue Betty on on Twitter. She she said yesterday or day four on Twitter.

Giving birth without an epidural in a barn silent night my tush. Ha. And she's right. What word silent night come from. I.

Mean.

Where it is, where it is little Lord Jesus no crying he makes come from. He better have cried. That's the first time you take a breath. Every baby cries. That's that's the first time them Them lungs get a-workin.

It's pure Gnosticism to say that Jesus is sort of beamed out of Mary and It wasn't quiet wherever it was they were. So, you know, there's a lot of of tradition and stuff like that that doesn't come to us from Scripture and the supernatural elements of the birth narrative are only there in a Almost in the background for example, how does Jesus is born think about this.

Jesus is born in a Jewish town Who comes to recognize the coming of the Messiah. There's no room for them in the inn or some people argue that the term should be translated room. So they were crammed into this room.

And so they had to go into it like a place. There's a stable to go outside and So that there are no Jewish leaders there the Jewish leaders who Actually know where G is supposed to be born and inform Herod they're a long ways away.

They don't see the signs. But who shows up you do get some Jewish shepherds. But they only get there. Why? Well because a entire group of angels appears to them and they're frightened out of their minds.

It's not just angels are popping up in front of everybody. Hey go worship Jesus it's to. Well people who are on the low rung of the totem pole and maybe there is a connection to Lamb of God shepherds.

Maybe maybe David shepherd. I'm not really sure Exactly what's going on there, but possibility. But then who else comes not necessarily that night. But the Magi and we don't know how many there were. They're not Jewish.

They're aliens so the supernatural stuff.

Isn't.

Front and center as in the flashy superstitious Magic show type stuff like you have in the protevangelium of James. Or in the Gnostic Gospels, there's a fundamental difference. I doubt that Bart Ehrman can see that because for Bart Ehrman Supernatural supernatural, it's all silly doesn't matter whether it's whether it's crass supernaturalism, or it has a purpose and A consistency over time or things like that.

But When he asks are the stories about Jesus's birth or New Testament a less unbelievable I would say by a long shot. By a long shot. Visions and dreams warning Joseph. That's the same thing as the weird stories told about Mary and stuff in in the protevangelium.

No no comparison at all. Now why he can't see that. Well, we'd have to psychoanalyze him, but I think a lot of it comes from the subtle indications that he gives. For example we read in his article speaking of the Pope's Little book on the birth narratives just came out.

The book will not be as well cherished however among those who are less interested in affirming the narratives of scripture Than in knowing what actually happened in the past. Notice. Knowing what happened in the past and affirming the narratives of scripture two different things in Bart Ehrman's mind of course and there is indeed a very wide swath of scholars Catholic Protestant Jewish agnostic and others who have a very different view of the accounts of Jesus birth in New Testament.

And he realized that there are problems with the traditional stories as they recount for us in Matthew and Luke. The only two Gospels that contain infancy narratives really. It's a it's a shame that Bart has to keep propagating the myth that conservative believers are.

Blissfully unaware of Any problems at all in.

Regards to well, how do you fit the trip to Egypt in and isn't Matthew just making this up so he can play around Hosea? And yeah, you know Luke says this and Matt what you you think this is it's it's only the new critical scholars like Bart Ehrman that never things like this Nowadays has ever known anything about this.

Well, of course not now. That mean the average person the pew these days knows about this. Well depends on what church you go to. We've been studying through the synoptic Gospels for a decade now at my church.

So yeah, we already dealt with that kind of stuff but and we'll be dealing more as we finally now once I get those few chapters and John anyways get back to the Crucifixion narratives and all the things relevant to that.

But he likes to present this idea that you have your critical scholars and then you have Christians and Never shall the twain meet and this comes out over and over again. He talks about conundrums such as these have been debated for many years with some Christian scholars and a lay follower is finding ingenious solutions them and More critical historians insisting that in fact they are bona fide problems that show these gospel sources.

Whatever else they are are not historically reliable descriptions of what really happened when Jesus was born so if you're going to be a Critical historian Then the idea of harmonization is simply out The window many Christians take offense that claim.

But in fact it need not be that way as many less literally minded believers have long known and said remember Bart had his Liberal period as well on his way out of the faith, and that's probably reflected there but what a what a sad thing that Newsweek chose to Write its own obituary basically by giving Bart Ehrman yet another platform.

They're not really say anything new. This is this is all old stuff, but to take its final shots shall we say as it goes off into Cyberville. But I'm hoping if if you want more information on that by the way I very briefly mentioned a couple of the sources on the Mefford show, but if you do want to do some reading You'll find Carson's comments in his commentary on Matthew box in his commentary on Luke to be very helpful.

Jason Engler over a try a blog has put tons of stuff together. Every year I look forward to his blog entry where he gives the links to his various Articles that he's put together and if Jason hears this Almost every year.

I know this year earlier this week because I knew I was gonna be doing the Mefford show I went in and I Tracked down a bunch of the articles that Jason had put up and What I did is I converted them to mp3 dumped them all I dumped them all into tech speech Pro and converted them to mp3 and Listen to them while writing and that was one of the ways in which I prepared for the program so Jason Engler look for his Christmas apologetics materials on try a blog really good stuff, and then I happened to be emailing back and forth with My dear brother Michael Brown who had just gotten back from India.

I think he was still traveling at the time amazingly and.

I.

Just happen to mention in passing that I was doing That program I was could be addressing that and he said well have you have you looked at my my stuff in Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, and I hadn't even thought about such a goldmine of information.

I need to just finally Take all of that whole series and just mp3 it and plow through it I mean it would take a long time because there's a lot of material five volumes. It's big. But there's just so much stuff there and by the way Lo and behold I Was listening to the debate Between Sammy no no Sammy no no no between Zaka Hussain and David Wood from London I Think it was London may have been someplace else somewhere in the UK.

And I was listening to the audience questions, and I had heard this question from the audience. I thought well, that's an interesting attack I hadn't See see seen about using that before lo and behold as is so often the case.

The Muslims were stealing from the Jewish folks again. I Remember this very clearly. First the first Muslim I ever debated Hamza Abdul-Malik would borrow from Jewish sources and borrowed Jewish argumentation and here was somebody in the audience borrowing From Jewish argumentation against the Messiah ship of Jesus, which is weird because the Muslims believe in the Messiah ship of Jesus.

But hey, they'll believe in the deity of Jesus so you can just sort of Come to think of it It just what what the Muslims did is they took the spin on it that while Jesus is still the Messiah The scriptures that announced him to be were wrong.

So they they attacked the New Testament, but they're stuck having to still confess Jesus Messiah.

But Muslims don't know who the Messiah was supposed to be or what the Messiah was supposed to do.

Because they take so many of the Old Testament texts that are supposed to be about the Messiah and about Jesus and apply them to Muhammad as well. So it's really really weird, but anyway the fourth volume of Michael Brown's work Has a whole section the specific argument that the guy had come up with in the debate was Jeconiah.

Jeconiah his offspring were not to sit upon the throne of David and yet was it Matthew? Matthew or Luke wanted to Trace his Jesus line through Jeconiah. So since that's the cursed line that Jesus couldn't be the Messiah.

So therefore the Muslim argument the the Jewish argument was therefore Jesus isn't the Messiah the Muslim argument is Matthew or Luke which everyone is. Is in error? Jesus still Messiah. But the only reason you know that is because the Quran tells you of course the only reason that Muhammad do that was because The Jews told that or the Christians told that but anyway, that's another issue so they take different conclusions, but.

That's how they got around to doing that particular thing and so here lo and behold in Michael Brown's volume 4 Is a whole section on Jeconiah his restoration his repentance the the limitation of the curse.

You know all this neat information and again since I have both the printed editions which Michael gave to me in out of his kindness and The Lagos version as well, which they mispronounce as logos The Lagos edition as well.

Then I was able to pull out a Lagos turn it into an mp3 and listen to that while rowing as well. So that's how you do that. But anyway good stuff there. 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 is the phone number. 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1.

I have my phone next to me on the desk set to low but hopefully still loud enough to hear. Should we have to cut the dividing line short today? I even told Janet I said, I'm on grandpa watch. So, I hope you've done your studying here because you might have if phone rings five minutes.

Yeah, you've got the whole hour to yourself because I'm out of here. But I really don't. There are so many people now praying that the baby comes Monday. I just don't think there's any any choice last night Archie it during prayer service at Wednesday night for service prayed it would be Monday and then Janet said she's gonna pray that.

So here's the whole world the whole nation the entire Salem radio network is praying that Clementine will be born on Monday, so. And and summer is going. Thank you very little. Yes. And I keep telling her someday you're gonna thank me for this when a little Clementine I have the same birthday you're gonna thank me for this and she just glares at me right now, but time heals all.

Anyhow, well, um, I have some stuff to get to but we also have a phone call, so I think It might be best. Just go ahead and take our phone call even though I after watching rich sitting there for I Don't know how long listening to the description of this the description of the phone call is absolutely worthless to me, but we'll.

And.

I'm not sure how this is an apologetic question either, but we'll. We'll take a shot. Well, we'll take a shot Jonathan. Hi Jonathan.

Sanctification as the Spirit’s Work and Human Responsibility

All right, the question that I had for a while, but I'm in college right now for classes and stuff like that. But basically this past I was talking to my uncle who my uncle is a fundamentalist Baptist and Matt Chandler where he was talking about how people walk away from the church and it was.

People are told do this don't do this and they achieve it. But then something bad happens to them they get mad at God. Nearly it was basically the gist of the video. So then we're talking about sanctification and I said that you know, I said there was a fundamental misunderstanding as to sanctification because it's not something that necessarily we Do like we try our hardest to do.

It's rather the spirit working in us You know to make us more like Christ and so he told me that that Removed all human responsibility. I Tried to you know, tell him about it more, but honestly didn't know what to say on it with you.

He was kind of upset that I was a Calvinist. But uh, I don't know what you know, you would say in response to that.

Well You mean in response to someone saying that sanctification is The work of the spirit in a in a person's life.

Yeah, well basically he was saying that taking that view that it's something that the spirit does in you. He said that that destroyed, you know all who are in Christ Jesus are a new creature and you're called to change.

And he said if you're just if it's something that's Done to you that takes away the active, you know command for you to do something. Well, it doesn't.

Because you know, I think probably One of the classical texts that that helps to explain. The relationship here is found in Paul's letter to the Philippians Where he He talks about the relationship of of these things and he says So that my beloved just as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only But now much more in my absence work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And so you have the the command Work out your salvation With fear and trembling and it's it's put in the context of obedience So so that my beloved just as you have always obeyed Not as my presence only but now much more my absence.

And so as you are obedient people Then my command to you is work out your salvation with fear and trembling and so the the command to us is that we are to work out our salvation, but the fear and trembling is not because we are Worried we're not going to do it right or we're gonna lose it or something like that.

It is a recognition that the working out of our salvation It is God who is at work within you so that the fear and the trembling comes in recognition that That we as believers everything we do is empowered by the Spirit.

It's the result of the work of the Spirit of God in our lives. We we can't credit ourselves with anything but that's placed within the context of the command of Obediently working out your salvation and so it's only by positing some type of a conflict between our absolute necessity of the work of the Spirit and The the recognition that the new nature desires holiness.

But the new nature also recognizes that apart from the Spirit's work we can do nothing and the new nature recognizes its own its own weakness and Just as Jesus relied upon the Spirit and didn't go running around acting like the Gnostics presented him Just zapping people right and left but but was dependent upon the Spirit.

So we are dependent upon the Spirit as well the the the regenerate mind Which is which is renewed after the likeness of Christ Likewise is dependent upon the Spirit and looks to the Spirit for assistance and aid and we recognize that the Spirit intercedes for us In in our prayers with groanings that cannot be uttered etc. Etc. Etc.

So only if you Create some wildly unbiblical Almost Form of Pelagian ism where we can do good stuff on our own and We can work up goodness in our own hearts. Do you come up with any type of a conflict between the fact that Paul can? command the obedient Philippians To work out their salvation with fear and trembling and yet the whole reason they have fear and trembling is not because it's dependent upon Them but because it's God who's at work within them to willing to do according to his good pleasure.

So the the lack of balance exists in the mind of the person Who is deeply controlled by? tradition rather than in the scriptures themselves. Okay, great. Well, hopefully you can ask him what he thinks that text and Maybe it'll be useful to you.

Yeah, I tried to. I tried to give him the book debating Calvinism. Read through it and he told me that he had heard enough about Calvinism. He didn't want to didn't want to read anything else.

Well, you know you you can't you know You cannot force The truth into someone's heart and until They're willing to examine their own traditions and look at what scripture says until there is a thirst For the truth of God and a desire to grow in the grace and knowledge the Lord Jesus Christ If you are if you are happy and content with your knowledge of the gospel right now That's a bad thing for anybody for anybody and It's until you you recognize that there's so much more to learn that type of person is Ready to start thinking about the deeper things of God.

So Anyway, all right, Jonathan. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks your call. God bless. Bye. Bye. All right, eight seven seven seven five three three four one I have queued up here. I Always get just slightly just distracted when some a car pulls up outside and then just sits there.

Thankfully, it's not a rider van. If it was a the rider van at least it's parked next to you. Anyhow. Yeah, my car is small enough it should be able to hide behind yours I.

I.

Queued up some stuff from a recent debate in In England, I still have not seen someone did. Actually I think it was Farshad and channel. Put a link up to at least some of the discussion that took place at Speakers corner and.

But what I was hoping is from a perspective other than Paul Williams, I'd like to be able to see What Paul Williams was up to and what he was what he was doing at speakers corner. I'm still looking forward to that.

Showing up on online hopefully, but before that I think this debate took place. Before that there was a debate between semi Zatari and David would on The message of Jesus and Muhammad and we've heard portions of this kind of dialogue before.

But I did find it rather interesting That Sammy responded to David's presentation in a particular fashion that I think will be helpful in.

In.

Untying the knots shall we say when you're trying to speak to a Muslim and explain to them The things of the gospel. This this might be helpful. So I've got this queued up. The problem is I I don't know that I can start playing it right now Because I don't have a board operator.

So I I'm not sure if It's it's it's up. It's ready to go. Okay. All right. So if my computer started making noises, it would have been good. Okay. All right. So this is the rebuttal period and I always find that to be when debates start taking off.

So here's Here's the some we're just gonna jump into some of Sammy's comments here and respond to them as we as we move along.

But let's start with the last points because they'll go into the discussion because on a firm's the Bible it's true. The Quran does affirm the Bible. Now. Let me give you some context.

David had just done a very good job in laying out the same kind of argumentation that I have often laid out and That is that the Quran in surah 5 Leads to the Muslim conundrum the Muslim dilemma. Either you have to confess that the words of surah 5 specifically 47 Made no sense when they were spoken that they they were untrue at that time or you have to confess that the the gospel still existed at that time, which then undercuts the vast majority of other assertions that the Quran makes about Christian belief and things along those lines and.

So David had just laid this out and that's what Sammy is responding to.

And the Torah, but nowhere in the Quran does it say it affirms the Gospels or the Gospel of Mark the gospel of Matthew the gospel of Luke the gospel of John.

Now this is the common Islamic argument that well, yeah, it talks about the gospel, but doesn't talk about Gospels. So it's something different than what you have in the Bible today. There is no evidence that the author of the Quran understood that the Gospels Existed as individual books in the New Testament.

The modern Muslim is assuming a level of knowledge on the part of the author of the Quran that there is no evidence of within the text of the Quran itself and If you're going to call the Christians the Allah and Jill the people of the gospel you need to recognize that there is a proper and appropriate historical use of gospel singular.

We believe in the gospel. We believe that the gospel is recorded for us in the New Testament. We believe that each one of the Gospels Contains the gospel and that it was not uncommon for early Christians to simply refer to the gospel as it was contained in Matthew Mark Luke and John and.

So what modern Muslims have done is they've gone far beyond what you could actually derive from the text of the Quran itself and. That's what Sammy's doing here. He's saying. Oh, yeah, the Quran talks about the in Jill and yeah, yeah, but Doesn't say anything about Matthew Mark Luke and John problem is Sammy that any Christians to whom the words of Surah 5 would have been addressed.

That's what they had.

That's what they would have heard. And so you have to interpret the words in the context. They're originally spoken or written, don't you? But that's not the way that Muslims generally approach their text.

They don't have to they don't really think much about what the original context was. It is how it's been interpreted in the Hadith and and the various interpretations of the Generations that have come thereafter.

That is that is the issue.

So that's what Sammy's doing right here. Or the writings of Paul that doesn't exist in the Quran. When one says it affirms the Bible it's referring to the true scriptures that were originally revealed to who to Moses and to Jesus.

If that's the case then as.

David had rightly argued from surah 5 that the result of necessity is That that original gospel and that original Torah Continued to Exist in the days of Muhammad. Otherwise, the words are meaningless.

Otherwise that the words make absolutely positively no sense whatsoever. Just just a necessary conclusion and unfortunately it doesn't strike me as That Sammy really heard What it is that David said? Because if this is talking about the originals then how can Muhammad When the Torah is brought to him remove the cushion.

He's sitting on have the Torah put on it and says I believe this book. How can the Quran itself? Parallel the Quran with the Torah and say let anyone produce anything like it or like them plural referring to both the Torah and the Quran.

Of how can you say to the Allah Langeel Judge by what's contained therein if they don't contain it anymore. The point that Sammy just doesn't seem to get or doesn't deal with is That the only way that surah 5 makes any sense is this the angel? continues to exist.

In fact the same thing with with the Torah. Just a few ayahs before that when the Jewish people are told to judge by the Torah as well. Those things have to exist.

For those words to have any meaning and guess what it's a historical fact now not according to Muslims. But to textual critics of the Bible that the Bible we have today is not the original Bibles that were given to supposedly given to Jesus.

They're not even the copies of the original so.

Now I have no idea what? What Sammy thinks that means? Is he saying that the only way we could have The text of the Bibles have the original handwritten autographs by the Apostles themselves. That's absurd because we don't have the original handwritten autographs of the Quran so that doesn't follow and When he says textual scholars tell us today Well Christians have known from the start that we did not have the original so that doesn't make any sense at all it it's Unfortunately one of the things that you have to be prepared to deal with our objections from Muslims based upon a Less than educated reading of Bart Ehrman esque stuff and that can be rather confusing.

But again, it's it's up to us to make the effort to Bridge the gap of communication. It's up to us. We're the ones who in the same conversation may have to be doing education on the history of The text itself and that's not easy to do.

It's a good skill to have and as we encounter a more and more Aggressively anti-christian society, it's definitely something I think we need to be thinking about Possessing and of ourselves, but it does complicate things.

We don't have the originals.

So when the Quran says follow or we believe in the Bible is talking about the original. That was given to Jesus and to Moses. That's not what surah 5 is talking about. Sammy.

I.

It's it's amazing. I I would think by now How many times even those of you who only have a marginal interest in Islam? But you still listen. How many times you heard me talk about surah 5 I? Went through surah 5 44 through 47 48 rather carefully prior to getting that part in the section of the debate Down in Australia with Abdullah Kunda and I went through it.