South Africa and Hebrews 8:9 on Today’s Dividing Line

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00:34

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. On a Thursday morning, my name is James White, and we are going to dive right into the first half of the program today because we are having to trust the interwebs as they go all around the known world and bring to us a guest today for the first portion of the program.

00:59

And I'm hoping that they allow us to have a conversation and don't throw us any curves, but who knows?

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We'll find out here on Skype. Lord willing, is Pastor Rudolf Buschhoff.

01:14

Rudolf, are you there? I'm here, Pastor. I'm here, Dr. White, I'm here. Hey, there he is.

01:20

Buy a donkey. Hey, that's actually your voice, and I'm glad you're still here that you can buy a donkey.

01:29

Well, I actually haven't bought any since I got back, though I was thinking about doing so. But I actually saw, we have a television series here in the

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States called NCIS, and on an episode recently, they decided to use the buy a donkey joke.

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I'm not sure who it was from South Africa, but they decided to use the buy a donkey joke, and they got good mileage out of it, but it only goes so far.

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You can only do so much with it, but I will try to remember the few words I picked up here in a few weeks,

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Lord willing. For those in the listening audience, Rudolf, where are you in South Africa?

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Dr. White, I'm basically in the west of Johannesburg. That would be smack bang in the middle, actually, of Gateng.

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So I'm quite privileged to be surrounding myself with a bunch of students and all the different places and all the basic educational institutions surrounding

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South Africa. So that's a pretty good place to be in strategically, I think, for what

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God wants us to do. I think we're smack bang in the right place. All right, yeah, we are having a little bit of connection.

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We're gonna hopefully be able to work through that. But so you're in the Johannesburg area. Now, when I was down there, of course, you're the one that picked me up at the airport, and we spent a lot of time together.

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I have to continue to apologize and thank you for your great patience and putting up with the strange bald man from the

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States. But we had a number of conversations, especially

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I remember as we were driving out to Potsdam to Northwest University out there, somewhere around a little bit past the fellow who sells the hubcaps on the left side of the road.

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And before the big mine on the right side of the road. Okay, spot on, spot on, you know exactly what it was.

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We were, that was just one of the places where we had some discussions concerning the state of the church there in South Africa.

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I mean, as soon as I landed, as we grabbed a bite to eat in the airport. Well, actually,

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I'm sorry, it was after the airport. We went to what a shopping mall or something nearby, as I recall.

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And that's when I started my cultural introduction because you found certain people in the parking lot that you would give money to, to keep an eye on your car.

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And I'm like, ah, this is a little bit different than what I'm used to. I haven't done that in any of the shopping malls in the

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Phoenix area recently. But so we were grabbing a bite to eat and we started talking about the state of the church.

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And the first thing that struck me was, you basically stated that the church in South Africa is barely even

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Trinitarian, if Trinitarian at all. Help those of us in the

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States to understand what kind of challenges are we facing when we look at the state of the church in South Africa?

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Dr. White, it's something that's actually quite sad. And I think I've mentioned to you that I've never in my life, and in my life in the church specifically in South Africa, and I've basically frequented quite a lot of denominational churches as well as some traditional churches,

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I've never ever heard a message preached on the biblical concept of the Trinity. Earlier in my conversation with Muslims that basically started about two years ago,

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I actually realized that my view of the Trinity is basically what I've, and this is what

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I've received from the church, is basically moralistic. And I would almost say that if you engage in a conversation with any

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Christian in South Africa, that would basically be the premise that they come from. And also, if you speak to Christians in South Africa specifically,

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I don't think in any way or form they could give an actual account of what it means to explain biblically what we believe about the

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Trinity. And I also think it's one of the objections that Joseph Ishmael basically mentioned to yourself, is that they cannot really engage on the concept of the

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Trinity due to the fact that Christians basically, their fallback position in South Africa is basically being a moralistic concept of the

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Trinity, which is quite daunting and quite sad. But yes, that is basically the concept that you will find.

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Very few people will actually teach or basically speak on the concept of the Trinity. And there could be various reasons for it, but ultimately it is due to the fact that it does not make philosophical sense to some of the guys that you speak to in church.

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Therefore, they settle rather for sort of a complicit view of the Trinity and they do not really try to engage with that specifically.

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So that would basically mean that the church in South Africa is not really,

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I mean, other than Uncle John and a few people like that, just a small handful of people, the church as a whole,

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Christians as a whole in South Africa are not really seeking to engage

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Islam and seeking to explain the Christian faith and giving a vital apologetic.

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They're really much more in a either just ignore it or defensive type of a position.

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Would you comment on that? I would definitely comment and say this to you, Dr. White, that if we attempt to engage with Islam specifically,

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I'm sorry to say that they've done their homework and due to the influence of people like Ahmed Didat, they are ready for us.

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And I can promise you in basically three questions that they've learned basically in the

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Combat Kit, a little booklet that is distributed by Ahmed Didat, you are totally neutralized because you've never really asked the questions yourself.

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So how can you defend something that you've never asked questions about? And that is something that is quite common and something that is quite,

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I would say any Christian in South Africa, and I do not wanna overgeneralize this or basically speak about it and say all of the churches is like this, it's just basically in my own context.

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But I would say definitely that if you speak to pastors, if you speak even to lay ministers, they rather not go to the divinity of Christ or even the concept of the

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Trinity due to the fact that to them it seems almost as a philosophical deconstruct or something that is sort of incomprehensible.

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And also I would say if you speak obviously to the Muslim context in their own mindset, they obviously believe that it's incompatible with Christian monotheism.

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So for us in South Africa specifically, I'll be very honest with you, if I engage with specific people throughout the world,

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I'm privileged to make friends in Pakistan, Tajikistan, got missionaries in Tajikistan specifically, also

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Kenya, also right over the world in other places where it's predominantly

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Muslim countries. Unfortunately, Christians don't give a good account of what they believe

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Christ is saying, the divinity of Christ nor the Trinity. I, again, I don't wanna generalize, but to be very honest with you,

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I find it very odd, even in three level at university students, you find that there is not really a focus specifically on the birth of Christ or even the concept of the

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Trinity and a few other topics as well. And it might be due to the fact that the

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South African influence, and just to give you an idea of the influence in South Africa when we speak about Christianity per se, if I look at the

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University of South Africa, who offered me to study, they offered me a basic course to study through them in a field of theology.

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If you look at the lecture, they're like professors, von der Burg, von der

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Jofer, if I can just name a few, you can basically see that the understanding even in the university in South Africa is basically more influenced by the

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Jesus Seminar. It is basically a Jesus that is liberal. I know that with Antwerp, they try to engage with these gentlemen through us, like Dr.

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Glennon Craig and Dr. Michael Lagona. But basically understanding,

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I would say you can have a look, even at the University of Pretoria, the

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University of Freestate -Müller, the University of Johannesburg, Pansy -Vormerrands, all these gentlemen and ladies basically, if you look at them at the university level, basically deduce that Christ is not divine.

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If I can just quickly read you a quote directly from Professor Saki von der Burg, who's basically head of the

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University of South Africa Theological Department. In his book, Jesus from Nazareth, I just want to read this.

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Rudolph, if you could hold on just one moment. I think sometimes if I break in a little bit, it gives your connection a second to catch up because right now you're breaking up a little bit.

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So before you read that quotation, just for those who may have been struggling a little bit, I was able to follow what

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Rudolph was saying despite some of the dropouts there. And he's talking about the fact that even in most of the theological education within South Africa, there's a tremendous amount of influence of liberalism.

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And one of the things that we're gonna be doing, Lord willing, when we come down to South Africa in just a matter of weeks, is once again have the opportunity of visiting the bright light of theological orthodoxy in South Africa, and that's

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Northwest University in Potsdam, where I had the opportunity of lecturing last time and gonna be doing that again.

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And that's a really encouraging thing. But obviously, just as here in the United States where we have so many people who can point to the

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Bart Ehrmans and point to the liberals, you have the same type of thing going on there in South Africa. So you said you had a quote.

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Let's see if the connection maybe has caught up a little bit a quote from someone that you wanted to read, but I didn't catch the name.

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No worries, Dr. Wild. It's basically from Professor Saki Svalenberg of the University of South Africa.

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And he writes the following. He says, Jesus stripped from dogma is presented to us.

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Jesus was a Jew who practiced Judaism, who followed Jewish customs and traditions. And in tradition of the

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Old Testament, he was a prophet and a wise rabbi who shared his lives in revelation. The word he proclaimed was the kingdom of God, not in the future or the supernatural, but concretely critiqued against the

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Roman kingdom of his time. The Christian tradition that evolved around Jesus only became popular a few years after his death.

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And then he writes, just to give you a glimpse of what Professor Panagiotou writes and this is also a book that is basically a prescribed book to students of theology.

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On Jesus specifically, he writes the following. This is in a Christian subject. If it is true that the construction of Jesus in early

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Christianity is similar to that of Buddha, Zoroaster and Krishna, then we need to give an answer to the question of what possible gain it could be to a comparative picture such as this.

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To encourage Christian Jews, Buddhists and Hindus toward a healthier, more tolerant interchange on the cultural and religious front.

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I even much like to believe in our own uniqueness. We all came from the same world. That is basically what we are sitting with and these are basically the guys that have the main voice when they speak of Christianity in South Africa.

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Well, so we have liberalism in many of the seminaries and universities.

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We have a tremendous amount of very shallow word -faith prosperity type teaching in many other churches.

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There are good churches. I mean, I had the opportunity of speaking and help remind me, where was, what was the location of the church where I did the weekend seminar?

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I've forgotten what the location was. It was in North Johannesburg, that was across from Tom Cantrell.

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Yes, Tom Cantrell, Tim is there and what, it was, I think you said North Johannesburg?

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That's correct, yes. That's where I had to be, Randburg and that would be south of Johannesburg. Right, okay.

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So we do have some there and yet one of the things I noticed was we were packed out at that church because there was so much of a desire on the part, there was such a hunger on the part of, especially young people, to hear sound theology, confident theology, theology that was saying this is truth, this is something that's defensible.

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It was really exciting to get to, even between sessions, to sit there and just talk with the young people and answer their questions and things like that.

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So there's obviously, Christ has his sheep everywhere and despite the difficulties, but if there's not really a strong emphasis upon the central doctrines of the faith, especially the

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Trinity, this must greatly impact the worship of the church as well.

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You were telling me about some very odd stories of things that happen in Christian churches down there and that must just really provide the

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Muslim apologists a tremendous amount of ammunition to be using in that context.

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Yeah, I must be honest with you, Dr. Wild, it just becomes so freaky and that's the only way you can describe theology that is basically practiced within the

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African community specifically. But just to give you an idea, in South Africa specifically, there's an incredible emphasis on Jesus, the miracle worker.

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And this is basically deduced from world faith theology, which specifies, basically tells us that if we declare and if we create by our own words and our own will, we can attain and we can basically force

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God's hand to bring more healing as well as financial prosperity.

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But we drove through Tambizi and Soweto and places like this.

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How does that work there? I see how that works in suburbia in the

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United States where you've got your cars and you've got your 401k and you've got your house and your liposuction and so on and so forth.

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But I've never figured out how that can work in sections of a nation where we drove on our way out to Pachastrum.

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I kept, I remember looking over and asking you, what are these little, why are there so few trees and stuff?

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And you explained that it was because people walked out and cut down everything that could possibly be used for burning and carted it off already.

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How does that kind of speak your reality stuff function in real life?

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I don't get it. Dr. White, that is something that I think is part of the understanding of South African context.

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This guy, a guy by the name of Michael Okaefu, sorry for that name, he says the following and he speaks specifically on why the

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Word of Faith theology in South Africa is thriving. And he gives the following quotes in an article that was recently published in one of the

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South African magazines, he says, people in Sub -Saharan Africa choose charismatic and Pentecostal churches because they preach a prosperity gospel that insures them with wealth and riches.

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The impoverished circumstances create a material and spiritual need whereupon the charismatic churches thrive.

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I think that sums it up perfectly, Dr. White, that unfortunately, we're getting to a place that unfortunately,

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Christianity has become a way where we get what we want.

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And if I can describe it very quickly, in Luke chapter 15, verse 7 to 32, I'm reminded of the story of the prodigal son.

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The prodigal son, when he went to his father, the first thing he said to his father is give me my stuff, give me my inheritance.

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That basically describes what we are seeing predominantly in South Africa. Isn't it funny that in the same narrative that the son goes back to the father in the end and he says, make me, not give me.

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And that is why we are striving to bring forth a theology that understands

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Christology, a theology that understands the biblical trinity because it makes

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Jesus Lord and puts us in our rightful place, which is sons and daughters of God, but not to abuse

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God or to use him as a cosmic genie. And that is why it's so important for us to get you back to South Africa, Dr.

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White. And I would really encourage the people that listen and they do not understand the impact.

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And I understand that the United States is quite big and there are a lot of people speaking about a lot of topics and a lot of things, but in South Africa currently, we really need biblical

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Christianity and we need to speak about topics that will pertain to life and Godliness, not about chastity and healing anymore.

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And this is why it's so dear to my heart as well, because when I look at one of the most popular ministers in South Africa, I just reach for his work that he's put on his website a few weeks ago.

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And he's Pastor Chris Iapoloni, he's basically a healing evangelist. He basically dresses in the same veneer as someone like Ben Hinn and the

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White Stooges. And the following words, and you will love this because it specifically speaks on John 1.

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He gives the following interpretation on John 1 on his website. He says, God gives us his words for the purpose of making us his word.

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And then he gives the following, he says, do you not know that you are the word of God? When you were born again, you were born by the word of God.

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This means your destiny is in the realm of the spirits to be the word of God, because you were born by the word of God.

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It means your nature is of the word and your character is of the word. Glory be to God. Basically what he's saying,

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Dr. White, is that we should not look to incarnation, we should look in ourselves. And that is exactly the reason that we need biblical teaching and we need someone to come into South Africa and just make us understand what is going on.

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Because this is the predominant influence. These are the guys that are on Christian television 24 -7.

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And if I could say, it just describes, it is sad to hear this and to see this, but just to give you a quick idea as well, and I'm sorry to take up your time, but Bismarck Tutu is quite a prolific voice in South Africa and he's an incredible voice and his impact and basically his influence in South Africa is incredible.

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He said the following just a few weeks back in his paper, and I want to read this to you because I really want the hearers to hear this.

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He basically speaks and he speaks specifically on homosexuality and he says the following.

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He says, I would not worship a God who is homophobic. That is how people feel about this.

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He says the following at the United Nations at the gay rights campaign function in Cape Town, South Africa. And he says the following, he says,

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I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say, sorry, I mean,

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I would much rather go to another place. He says, I'm passionate about this campaign as I was about apartheid.

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Jesus does not report to the agency of France per se. And he says the following, he says, for me it's at the same level.

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And then the disciple of France is basically quipped in and he also said that the church gay priests is basically something that he will not do due to their sexual orientation.

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So that's why basically the Christianity that we receive is something that is not biblical -based, it is populist -based.

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Well, I know we covered that when he first made those comments and I know he has his great influence there.

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Now, we obviously, last time I was there,

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I took it really easy and it was just a real simple schedule, just a couple little things here and there.

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And that's what you're planning again this next time around, just sort of like a restful vacation time, right?

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Yes, Dr. White. I think last time you had about six debates and about 10 speaking engagements in something like six days.

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This time, I'll be honest with you, I actually contacted the guys at the

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Potsch University, Profica Student Base, and they are so excited to see you come back.

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And actually, I think they've already filled up your Thursday and Friday completely. And yeah, we thank them for that.

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Well, you know I love the guys at Potsch and I want to do everything I can there and I want to get to know the students,

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I want to get to know the staff, and a whole lot of that kind of stuff.

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I really, really do want to do that. But we also have some debates once again.

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And I want to acknowledge, well, first of all, every time

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I show, I was speaking at a church in South Tempe last week

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Jeff Durbin's group, Apologia Church. And I used a presentation

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I put together a few months ago where I drew from the stuff once we finally got the stuff from South Africa.

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And one of the sections, when I was giving my opening in the masjid, the camera panned around and so they can see the

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Muslims sitting on the ground and we're there in the masjid. I mean, that was a really a historic evening. And it didn't quite get all the way over to where you were, but you can see

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Uncle John, a few of the other Christians in the audience as they're panning around.

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But you and I got to spend a lot of time together and the topics that you have come up with that we're attempting to get

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Muslims to debate are the exact topics that would be a great addition to what has already been discussed there in South Africa.

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And it's not just the same old things over and over again. We really, as I was flying out, you and I and Uncle John, as we call him, we're talking about the future of what we need to do in regards to debates and not to just repeat things, but to press the issues forward to a deeper level.

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And so I'm excited. I know we don't have everything nailed down yet, but a number of the topics

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I think will really add to the range of discussions that we're having.

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And I'm looking forward to, have we been able to work out having more than just maybe an hour with Bashir Varnia this time?

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That'll actually be great, Dr. White. He actually asked that we cover the topic, Jesus and St.

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Paul, who was the founder of Christianity. And again, we will probably start after prayer, so it might be after eight o 'clock as well.

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But yes, definitely, I think what we need to do with him as well is we need to really ask that there would be more of an engagement on the topic and not on what has been discussed last time already.

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Something that I've seen concerning the Pauline, is that the basic idea now is that you cannot really depend on the book of Acts, because according to them,

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Paul basically was the father, or let me rather say Luke was the disciple of Paul.

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So therefore, everything that we read in the book of Acts is basically a coup. It's basically just been interpolated by Paul himself.

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So that would be basically, I think, Bashir's perspective that he would come from.

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So it would be something different, and I don't think it was incredibly discussed in previous debates.

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No, it hasn't been yet. That's gonna be good, but I also hope that we can actually have a full dinner this time, because I was disappointed.

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You and I went by his home, and he was very gracious to us, but it was on the way to the debate at the

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University of Johannesburg, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to really get a chance to talk with him.

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And I just think it's wonderful that we have the opportunity of engaging in respectful dialogue with these folks, and it's not a scorched earth policy.

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As you know, you normally had to drag me out of those places once we got done, because I like talking with people afterwards, and we had some great conversations.

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And you remember, you were right behind me, that young lady at University of Johannesburg has haunted me to this day.

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I tell you, I'll never forget her tears. What were you thinking? I've forgotten if I even asked you, because you were closing the debate up, because you were the moderator, when she just sort of stood up and walked right up to you.

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What were you thinking when you saw her? Well, to be honest with you, Dr. Wild, I saw an incredible inspiration, and it's good.

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I think for the first time, South Africans have been confronted, and specifically the Muslim context in South Africa have been confronted with arguments.

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And I just need to say this, if I look at South Africa specifically, we are incredibly blessed to have such hospitable

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Muslims. And even Joseph Buxen, he already asked, he said, please, can you bring

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Dr. Wild for a meal? Please, can we just sit down? The same with Dr. Shirini's wife, the same with the other gentlemen that will be involved with the debates as well.

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So we are incredibly blessed with an open -door policy, and basically also a right to speak in these communities.

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And I just need to say, it's something we can really enjoy. With the lady as well, I think just the sheer devastation of understanding what the biblical trinity is about, and also sincerely wanting to make you understand what she believes, and that that is the truth, is something that really made her so desperate to go forward and to just ask, and so I need to ask this question.

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Well, and do you remember, Rudolf, this was the thing that struck me, was there was, as I tried to talk with her, this guy to my right, sort of a hot -headed guy, started talking over her.

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And I wasn't interested in what he had to say. I wanted to finish talking to her. And if you recall, the

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Muslim that told the hothead to shut up, who was standing behind me, was the same

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Muslim who was wearing the FBI hat that he and I had had the rather sharp, but somewhat humorous exchange in the question and answers at the mosque in LaNasia.

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And then he had come to the debate at, and so a lot of people would look at the response that I gave to that guy in LaNasia and go, well,

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I was pretty bold of you, but he respected it. And I could tell that he was going to respect it.

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So he comes to the next debate, and now he's saying, hey, hey, you, calm down.

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You know, he'll talk to you eventually. All of a sudden, he's seeing that we're serious.

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You know, we're not just in this, where this isn't just a game or something like that. We're serious, and he's listening. And that was another thing that really caught my attention, and I found to be quite interesting.

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And it was actually quite fantastic that this is exactly what I'm talking about. We've got an incredible opportunity in South Africa, specifically, to have guys come here and talk.

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And I don't know if people realize, but the central hub of all the distribution for Islamic literature all over the world is basically

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Princeton in South Africa. A little apologetic book with Ahmed Didat.

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Again, I need to emphasize that. This is basically the home of Ahmed Didat. So the people, the

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Muslims in South Africa, they sincerely believe the arguments that Didat presented is infallible.

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And unfortunately, the debates that they've seen is debates with specifically people like Ms.

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Waged and a very weak, sort of, a very thick sort of debate style.

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But fortunately, I think, for that young lady, I think she expressed a part of the

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Muslim community in South Africa, which is quite good to see and it's a curiosity to engage

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Christian arguments. Something else that I think we can focus on this time is to really, last time, we gave them the opportunity to give an account for basically, or we allowed them for us to give an account for what we believe in.

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But this time, I think we also need to focus a little bit more on them giving an account on what they believe.

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And Islam, monotheism, concept of God and Islam, and so forth, I think that also be interesting for our contingents and for our people as well.

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Yeah, yeah, I mean, normally, I do recognize that in most of our encounters, the

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Christian's on the defensive, but there does need to be some balance. And I don't think it'll ever be a 50 -50 type thing, but there does need to be some balance, some application.

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And obviously, what we really would like to do is get some of these apologists, whether it's in South Africa or Australia or wherever else, to really start getting into some of the texts and just debate particular texts.

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Isaiah 53, John 1, Surah 5, on their part, actually just focus upon what does the

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Quran say concerning the relationship? What does three mean in Surah 5?

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Something like that. Very, very focused because it is frustrating that so often it's the scattergun approach.

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It's throw everything but the kitchen sink out and go ahead and throw the kitchen sink in while you're at it. And there, we win because you can't respond to all that stuff.

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And that's just not really the way to do debates. But anyways, Rudolph, as you know,

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I am very much looking forward to spending time with you again. And I'm really looking forward to opportunities of ministry down there in South Africa.

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And I really appreciate you taking some time to be with us all the way from down there. I know it's much later in the evening.

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In fact, you're nine hours ahead of us. Does the world stay completely insane nine hours ahead of where we are?

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We don't know yet. I mean, things have gone nuts recently.

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I mean, it truly, I'm gonna tell you, it's been incredible.

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But I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you, brother, for all. I know it takes a tremendous amount of work on your part, and not only to arrange these things, but as I said, the great time we had down there last time, folks, the person that arranged all of that is on Skype right now.

35:20

And if you wanna thank somebody for those debates, you thank Rudolph, because he did the work. So we're looking forward to being with you again,

35:27

Rudolph. I thank you, Dr. White. I'm really looking forward to this, and we're praying and we're really preparing our hearts and our churches around Johannesburg as well.

35:36

Also, we are all looking forward, and I just need to say that you're an incredible inspiration to a lot of people in South Africa, and I pray that the relationship

35:48

God has given you of the community specifically in South Africa will grow, and it will become something that is bigger and greater.

35:58

Well, I certainly, I never, ever thought that this would happen, and it could not have happened if the

36:05

Lord didn't plant people there who were willing to do a lot of work and then bind us together in the spirit, and that certainly is what has happened when

36:14

I've gone to so many places, and certainly that's what's happened with you and I. So I look forward to seeing you again, brother.

36:20

Thank you very much for spending some time with us today. 100%, thanks, Dr. White. Looking forward to seeing you, and I'll speak to you on Gmail.

36:28

Okay, all righty, God bless, thank you. All right, that was Rudolf Buschhoff. Thank you. I am so thankful that my

36:37

Twitter feed did not explode with whiners, because I think you understand we are talking around the world via Skype, and I could understand what he was saying.

36:49

I had to concentrate, but if you didn't, go back and you'll be able to catch most of it anyways, but I just wanted to have

36:58

Rudolf on for a little while to just on a very practical level, let everybody know.

37:06

We've had a banner ad up on the website saying we've got these trips coming up. We have this trip coming up in just a matter of weeks, and then after that, we have a trip to Ukraine, Berlin, and we're trying right now to include in that a trip via Glasgow for a debate in Glasgow as well with Muslims.

37:32

These things are not cheap. Airline flights, especially when you have to be someplace at a certain time, you have to go a certain route because you've got to add in, you know, you gotta do something here, gotta do something there, gotta do something there.

37:48

There's transportation once you get on the ground. In South Africa, I normally stayed with families and things like that, so it wasn't really, there was one, a few days

37:58

I stayed in a bed and breakfast type place, but other than that, I was in someone's spare bedroom and things like that, but still, there's a lot of costs involved, and we're not there yet, so if you would like to have a part in these upcoming debates in South Africa, in teaching in Ukraine, in putting together a debate in Glasgow, where again, we are trying to push the boundaries of these debates into areas that just have not been debated as yet, and they need to be debated.

38:39

We want there to be a place, while we still have the freedom to do it, for Muslims all around the world, even in places we can't get to, to go online and to be able to see responsible, respectful,

38:55

Bible -based encounters with the best that Islam has to offer, and that's what we're trying to do.

39:03

That's where we're going, and we need your assistance. You know I don't talk about money, but these things cost money, and they cost more money than our budget allows for unless people stand with us, and so these dates are coming up quickly.

39:18

We're gonna have to book flights here in just a matter of weeks at the latest, and so what we're able to do and how we're able to make that work out will be dependent upon you, and so I felt it would be good to remind you of what happened last year.

39:37

We're not gonna be able to do this every year, but this is exactly almost a year later, and part of the reason for that was we started relationships, and it wouldn't be good to go a long period of time before strengthening those relationships.

39:54

Once they're established, then we can look at things differently at that point, but we just have some real open doors right now, and as Rudolph was saying, so much of the stuff that is published comes out of South Africa because of Ahmadinejad.

40:11

He took a picture. He was obviously at the debate in the masjid, and in fact, the pictures, which mean so much to me, of that debate in the masjid,

40:21

Rudolph took, and you can tell I've got a pretty soft spot in my heart for that young man.

40:30

We really bonded during that time we were down there in the sense of just, you know,

40:38

I've mentioned so many times before, and it's very encouraging to me. You travel this world, and you just meet people, and the

40:45

Lord binds you together. You know, when I landed in London the first time in 2005, and Roger Brazier picks me up at the airport, 10 minutes later, we're talking like we've known each other our entire lives, and we just haven't seen each other for a long time, and we're just catching up on everything.

41:06

There's just this amazing connection via the

41:12

Holy Spirit, and the same thing happened with Rudolph, and I have brothers down in Australia where you've got the same type of thing that's taking place, and in Germany, in Ukraine, I've mentioned

41:24

Brother Nick in Ukraine, and you know, every place

41:29

I've gone, I've seen the evidence of the fact that the Spirit of God is everywhere, the

41:35

Church of Christ being built everywhere, and it's tremendously encouraging, and so anyways, there's some other stuff

41:43

I need to get to, but we need your help to be able to walk through these doors. We don't talk about this type of stuff much, but I'm just letting you know the needs there if, we know a lot of people watch this program and listen to this program on podcasts, if everybody did even a small amount, and I know there's so much going on in the world.

42:05

I realize that. You go, what about ISIS? Well, you know, the funny thing is, the only real weapon that the

42:14

Church has been given, and this goes back to the last program, the only real weapon the Church has been given is not bombs and things like that.

42:20

It's the gospel, and that's what we're talking about doing here is vindicating the gospel specifically in the light of the claims of Islam by letting the best that Islam has to offer dialogue, and dialogue respectfully.

42:38

You heard us talking about we're looking forward to having the opportunity of getting to know the people that I'm debating, having dinner with them.

42:47

When I had lunch with Adnan Rashid before our debate at Trinity College in Dublin, it made a huge difference in the nature of that dialogue that night, and in the impact upon the people listening, because they could tell that we had had that conversation, and can't always do that, but when the opportunity's there, we're trying to take it.

43:14

I'm really excited about what's coming up, and I wanted to get you excited about it as well.

43:19

So click on that banner ad, help us to get there, and I really, really appreciate it.

43:27

Now, completely shifting gears. I want to play a couple minutes of the dialogue between myself and Steven Anderson.

43:39

Been a lot of commentary, a lot of commentary on Twitter and Facebook about the release of the two and a half hours, what is it?

43:48

Two hours and 32 minutes and 48 seconds of dialogue between myself and Steven Anderson, and I think everyone has been able to tell that in reality, this conversation was a whole lot more interesting than the movie that was put out.

44:05

A whole lot more interesting, and a lot of people have called it a train wreck, and a car crash, and oh my goodness, this, that, and the other, there's been some interesting responses, but it seems to me that, first of all,

44:22

I thanked Steven Anderson for being a man of his word. He said he was gonna put it out, and he did, and so it's out there, and as far as I can tell, it's complete, but a thought also crossed my mind.

44:36

His own people, when they see this, are gonna find it rather strange, because even they can go, there is a whole lot more of that than I thought, and there is a whole lot in there that was much more relevant, and I don't know that Pastor Anderson really made too many points there, and so I think there's some damage control going on right now, and I wanna look at one specific one, because it's educational, so let's look at this portion, because this is a section of the dialogue that Anderson brings up in a comment that he posted on the

45:19

YouTube video, so let's listen to the dialogue here. It's an hour, I just happen to be starting an hour, 13 minutes and 45 seconds in, if you want to know such things.

45:31

Here's what we got. The necessity of going to the original languages and going to the ancient codices, including the

45:39

Greek Septuagint. I'm not sure what your position on that is. I've found some weird views amongst King James Only folks. Do you believe that there was such a thing called the

45:45

Greek Septuagint? I think that it would be silly to think that the

45:51

Old Testament had never been translated into Greek, but that's not to say that what we have today is identical to the

46:01

Greek New Testament that Jesus would have quoted from, or the apostles would have quoted from, because they say Christ and his apostles quoted from the

46:07

Septuagint. That's not to say that the manuscripts that exist today of the

46:13

Septuagint are identical to what they would have had at that time, because how many manuscripts are there of the

46:19

Septuagint, and what centuries do they come from? It's about as earliest attestation is about the same as what we have for the

46:25

New Testament. So we're talking like, what, 4th century? No, you can get a little bit earlier than that.

46:31

Okay, so a manuscript that you have of the Septuagint from the 3rd or 4th century, I'm not gonna say that that's authoritative, but I'm sure,

46:40

I'm certain, that there were Greek translations of the Old Testament. It'd be silly to say that there weren't, but I'm not saying that it's extant in Greek.

46:48

So it's a very quick question for you, because it'll help me to understand where you're coming from here. When, what was the ultimate authority for the apostles?

46:57

Was it the Hebrew text? Well, here's the thing. I don't think that we can sit here today in 2013, and know exactly, you know, what they had in front of them.

47:11

You know, I don't think we can look at a Septuagint from the 3rd or 4th century, and say, this document in our hand is exactly what they had.

47:19

If you want to know what I believe that they had, you know, it was what's written in my King James Bible in the

47:25

Old Testament section, but not in English. Obviously, in the languages that they were speaking. Okay, then I have a question for you.

47:31

And if you've never examined this, say, I'll get back to you on it. Okay. Okay, and we don't include it in anything.

47:38

You've preached through - Yeah, I don't claim to know everything. Okay, well, none of us do. You've preached through Hebrews 8, I would assume, and -

47:44

I have Hebrews 8 memorized. Okay. Quote the entire chapter in the King James. Okay, all right, excellent.

47:50

Did you compare the King James with Jeremiah 31? You know,

47:55

I don't think I've sat them both side by side and made that comparison, but I have obviously noticed that there are differences when you look at New Testament quotations of Old Testament passages.

48:07

I've never put those two in particular side by side. Okay, so - No, I've not. In Hebrews chapter 8, there is this interesting phrase where in Hebrews it says, and he did not care for them.

48:21

What's the King James at that? He regarded them not, saith the Lord. Okay, all right. And that's the end of the citation.

48:26

It continued on in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. Did you compare the King James from the

48:32

Old Testament to that? No, I'll get back to you on that. Well, let me tell you - Because I want to look at it and make sure that's really where it's coming from.

48:38

Well, let me tell you what it says. It says, but I was a husband to them. Now, there is a textual variant between the

48:46

Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic text. I have to get back with you on that one. Okay, but let me just make my point so you can understand it, so you can look it up for you.

48:53

There is one slight letter difference between ga 'al and ba 'al.

49:00

Ba 'al means Lord, husband, and ga 'al means to despise. So you're saying they look similar, sort of like you showed joined and captives.

49:10

They're extremely similar, and so it's easy to understand where the variant arose in the

49:15

Masoretic text and the Greek Septuagint. My point is the apostles of Jesus Christ quoted from a foreign language translation that had a variation from the original language and made a point based on it.

49:30

That's something we got to think about. Okay, all right, all right. Now, there's that.

49:38

Now, let's switch over to this, and you're gonna have to,

49:49

I'll stop moving it, so you can, here's the comment, if you can blow that up or whatever it is, because you're missing a good portion of it here.

50:00

I'll let you play with that for a moment, but I guess yesterday or the day before yesterday,

50:07

Pastor Anderson commented on YouTube. 115 .43

50:12

to 117 .43 is the most telling part of this interview. If you follow what James White is saying, he is saying that Hebrews 8 .9

50:19

is a misquotation of Jeremiah 31 .32 in the original. How can the book of Hebrews be the word of God if according to James White, it has an error in the original?

50:29

By saying that, he is not only attacking the English KJV, he is also attacking every Greek New Testament and every English Bible version, because according to him, they're all wrong.

50:37

According to him, they all misquote Jeremiah 31 .32 by mistaking Baal for Gaal. This is an attack on the inspiration of the book of Hebrews.

50:44

Now, I get the feeling that some of his folks may have said, hey, what about that?

50:59

What's going on here? And if that's his response, that's not a good response. Let's take a look at it in accordance and see what we've got here.

51:12

Hebrews 8 .9, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day

51:19

I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant and I did not care for them, says the

51:29

Lord. Now, here's the relevant portion in the

51:36

Greek and the specific term, the specific phrase is right there, kago emelesa auton, and I did not care for them, literally, and I neglected them to reject, to not care for.

52:05

Now, what's interesting, and this is where I don't even begin to understand

52:11

Anderson's response. Here's, let's look at the

52:18

New Testament textual part here and let's go to Hebrews 8 .9.

52:27

And if you look over here in the NA -27 apparatus, nothing relevant.

52:35

There's nothing there, it goes to 8 .10. There's no discussion in Metzger, no discussion in Comfort. And if I open up, let me see here if I can, that's not what

52:50

I want there. Dee, dee, dee, dee, let's close this up here. Let's just go over to presentation here and here is the

53:00

Byzantine text. Blow it up and go over to Hebrews 8 .9.

53:09

And look at that, emelesa.

53:16

I've checked the Scrivener's TR. Here's the Byzantine text.

53:22

Guess what they all say? Emelesa. And if we go to the

53:30

Old Testament here and we look at the

53:36

Greek Septuagint, there is emelesa. And here is the

53:44

Hebrew. And notice what we have when it comes to the textual variant.

53:53

And yeah, it's almost big enough to see there. Let me see if I can blow it up just a little bit more.

54:01

Okay, there we go. This is the, right down here is the BHS apparatus,

54:07

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia apparatus. That's the textual critical material, the notes for the

54:14

Hebrew text of Jeremiah 31 .32.

54:21

And in 31 .32, right here, baalti, baalti.

54:31

You've heard of the Baals, B -A -A -L, baal, all right? Baal means

54:38

Lord, and it can also mean husband. And so here you have baal in the

54:47

Hebrew. But then you have a little a down here. We need to go back to, there we go.

54:53

We have a little a right here, and that gives us a variant.

55:00

The proctor letter G is the Greek Septuagint, of course.

55:07

And then we have a melesa, and then it's giving us, well, where would a melesa come from?

55:17

And then there's a question mark after baalti. Gaal means to reject or to neglect, but I neglected them.

55:27

And notice, here is the first letter is a bait for the baal, and here it's gimel with the dagesh, both have the dagesh.

55:42

So the gimel and the baal, the bait look very much alike.

55:50

And the rest of the word's all the same. And so there is a one letter difference between the two.

55:59

And so what you've got is the Greek Septuagint contains a tradition, pretty much as far as I can tell, and I, well, isn't that smart?

56:19

Well, you know, I've got more than one of them, so I am going to remember next time, sorry. I do not have my

56:26

Rolf's Septuagint with the critical apparatus right behind me.

56:32

I have more than one in the other room, and I will remember to bring that in sometime in the future. But I imagine somewhere in here,

56:42

I might have, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, why wouldn't that be in 2nd

56:52

Esdras? That's interesting. I'm not sure why that went there.

57:00

Let's see what that has. Well, that ain't helping me much either.

57:06

I will have to look and see if there are any variants listed in regards to Jeremiah 31, 32.

57:16

Uh, but let me just, yeah, that didn't do anything there.

57:24

What you've got here is the Septuagint going back to a Hebrew tradition from which it was translated, that had

57:33

Ga 'al instead of Ba 'al, and that's what the writer to the

57:38

Hebrews quotes. Now, that's just reality.

57:45

That's just, you know, sometimes people will get mad at me because I simply tell them the truth, because I show them things that they're uncomfortable with.

58:02

We go back to what he said here, and I won't,

58:08

I don't have time to change it, but if you follow what James White is saying, he is saying that Hebrews 8, 9 is a misquotation of Jeremiah 31, 32.

58:18

That's not what I'm saying. I didn't say that. What I said was the apostles quoted a foreign language translation in the

58:29

New Testament called the Septuagint, and the Septuagint manuscripts from which they quoted came from a

58:36

Hebrew that said Ga 'al, not Ba 'al. That's reality, and his own

58:43

King James recognizes it. His own

58:49

King James has one reading in Jeremiah 31, 32 and a different reading in Hebrews 8, 9, and he doesn't explain what the difference between the two is.

59:02

Here's the problem with King James onlyism. It doesn't allow you to explain. You just have to sit back and go, well, that's just the way it is.

59:09

That's how God inspired it. I can explain.

59:15

Well, there's this little letter difference here, and you had Hebrew manuscripts in the past that had the Ga 'al, and if the apostles are using that, then that would be the one to go with, wouldn't it?

59:26

Oh, but I'm uncomfortable with that. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

59:31

It's pretty clear to me that that was relevant to the apostles' citation of the text was the variant.

59:41

Now, you can bury your head in the sand, and you can put on your tradition hat and do whatever else you wanna do.

59:47

It's not gonna change the fact that that's where it came from, and your own King James just simply ignores it.

59:55

And in fact, if you're King James only, you take the position he's taken, you can't deal with this. You can't answer questions about this.

01:00:03

And there are folks out there who attack our faith that know about these kinds of things.

01:00:10

And if your tradition and your theology won't allow you to even acknowledge the existence of these things and to deal with them in a meaningful fashion, you better not to be doing apologetics.

01:00:21

You better just go back with your little group and build your walls and turn off the internet.

01:00:27

Don't touch the world. You got nothing else to do. You got nothing else to do.

01:00:34

So I wasn't attacking the English KJV or every Greek New Testament and every

01:00:40

English Bible. I was simply pointing out the reality of where they came from. And when you can point out the historical reality and that's interpreted as an attack,

01:00:51

I agree, it might be the most telling part of this interview because only one of us can deal with the facts and he can't, and he can't.

01:01:01

Well, there you go, folks. Hopefully that was useful to you. If troubling, there you go.

01:01:09

There's the information. And I think it's important for you to be aware of these things.

01:01:15

Thanks once again to Rudolph. Thanks to every one of you who is considering right now prayerfully clicking on that link and helping to make both

01:01:25

South Africa and Kiev and Glasgow a possibility over the rest of the coming fall.

01:01:34

I'm willing to do the work, but we need your help for me to be able to do it. So thanks for considering that. Thanks for watching, listening.