Muhammad's Errors About Jesus

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Dr. White is going to be talking about a similar subject, but it's sort of flipped here in the sense that what is

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Muhammad's view of Jesus? In the Quran we do find a good bit about Jesus, not a huge amount of actual text, but a good bit of citations.

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And Dr. White, I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you for being here. It's gone very quickly, hasn't it?

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It has. Too quickly. Too quickly. The last time we had a lot more shows together, I think. But you make me look good, so most folks don't realize you're just carrying me along the whole time.

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Oh, yes, yes, yes. Well, humility is a good thing. If it's truthful.

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I'm proud that I'm so humble. But nevertheless, Dr. White, this subject, this idea of Muhammad's view of Jesus, we as Christians certainly would see it as erroneous, primarily in the obvious that he would say that Jesus was not

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God. But there's a lot more, isn't there? There is. And I was sort of introduced to this when

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I did my first debate against a Muslim in 1999. Now, I had not yet at that point really begun studying

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Islam. And I didn't start studying Islam because of 9 -11 either. A lot of people did. That wasn't what prompted my study of it.

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But in 1999, I defended the deity of Christ against a Muslim apologist,

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Hamza Abdul Malik, who at the time was a Sunni Muslim. He is now a Quran -only

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Muslim, which is interesting. By the way, isn't that technically heretical according to the

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Sunni view? Yes, yes. But from his perspective, the addition of the second part of the

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Shahada is in fact shirk. Whoa. That's amazing. Yes, he actually believes that that is an association.

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And when we've had Sam on the show, he's mentioned the fact that you can find people who actually identify that Wah, that Wah Muhammadun Rasulallah is a connective, and it is bringing those two together.

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So he's Quran -only. But we were defending, I was just simply defending the deity of Christ.

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And even in the preparation for that debate, I saw very, very quickly one of the greatest problems that we face in apologetics and evangelizing the

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Muslims is the fact that because they start with the Quran as the lens through which they look backwards at what came before it, then if the

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Quran makes an error, if Muhammad was mistaken about Jesus, the

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Muslim is now put in a position where when I give a biblical and true definition of who

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Jesus is, they basically have to choose between their ultimate authority, which is the

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Quran, and what I'm saying. And they're generally going to take the Quran and in essence accuse me of some level of dishonesty or trying to hide something or something along these lines.

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And so even back then, I clearly recognized that one of the problems we have is that if you will not step back and examine

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Muhammad's own revelations, you may call them God's revelations if you want to, but look, think about it.

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If this man was a true prophet, then what he said was true. If you start off with the assumption that everything he said was true and then all facts have to be fit into that, well, you're not dealing truthfully with Muhammad.

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If he really was a prophet, then you can examine his claims and find them to be true. But most

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Muslims approach this from the complete opposite direction, the assumption that he's true and therefore all facts that demonstrate he's not just simply have to be dismissed.

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This becomes very important when we encounter the constant claim by Muslims that, well, we are the second largest religion on the planet that teaches people to honor

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Jesus, that teaches people to believe in Jesus. This was one of Ahmadinejad's lines, and that's where a lot of people have picked it up, is that we teach people to love

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Jesus and to honor the prophet Jesus and things like that. But as we have said many, many, many times before, if I were to talk about, for example, the fact that I've been married almost 29 years now, coming up on the big three,

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I'm going to start making some plans for that. You know, you don't let those big numbers go by without making some plans.

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If you want to remain married for a long period of time, anyway, there's a little lesson for you young guys that have just gotten married.

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The big numbers, think of something important to do for those big anniversaries. But coming up on that one, and if I wanted to in some way honor my wife, then, you know,

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I might talk about all she's done, how hard she works, and how patient she is, and how beautiful she is.

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I mean, people are always like, oh, you and your daughter want to have a table? Well, thank you very much, is my wife. You know, and we're actually pretty much the same age.

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She's a little bit younger than I am, but I must have signed something at some point in the past.

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I don't remember signing it that said I would do all the aging for the couple. Thank God it's not the other way, that they come up to you and say, here's your son.

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That's true, that it is better to go this direction, there's no two ways about it. I'm very blessed. But if I were to seek to honor her in some way,

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I would not find it to be honoring if someone comes along and starts talking about some other woman, or calls this woman my wife, but it's a different woman, looks different, haven't been married.

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I would not be honored if they were being untruthful about who my wife was, what my wife has done, and what her character is.

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Well, that's the situation we're facing here. Islam might say to us we are honoring

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Jesus, but if in the process they give us a different Jesus who is much less than the

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Jesus of scripture, and in the process contradict the truth about who Jesus is, that's not honoring him.

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That is not an act of honor in any way, shape, or form. And so we have to keep this in mind when

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Islam makes these claims. Now, you had mentioned that the Koran does mention Jesus, and for some reason

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Christians find that to be somewhat unsettling when I mention that to them. Maybe it's because a lot of Christians don't even know that the

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Koran came after the Bible, or acknowledges the existence of the Bible, or at least the Torah and the

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Injil. I mean, let's face it, most Christians are just as ignorant of the Koran as most

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Muslims are of the Bible. I mean, when I go around asking audiences, you know, how many here have read the

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Koran? In a decent -sized group, I might get one, maybe two hands.

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I think you'd get pretty much the same type of percentage amongst Muslim groups as well.

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For different reasons, but the same result. Same result. And so we're frequently just talking right past each other.

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Yeah. There's a tremendous amount of ignorance. And so when I tell people, well, there are 25 times, 25 ayah in the

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Koran where the name Isa is used, which is the Islamic version of Jesus.

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That's not really an accurate rendering, because the name of Jesus, what needs to be rendered in other languages, is not just a sound, but the meaning of Jehovah, Yahweh, is

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Savior. That's what needs to come across. So you sort of wonder where this Isa came from.

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There's a lot of theories about where it came from, just like there's a lot of theories why it's Pharaoh instead of Pharaoh.

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And the Arab Christians don't use this terminology. Exactly. Christians do not use this terminology and probably should not use this terminology,

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I would imagine, would be the appropriate position to take. But there are 25 places where the

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Koran specifically uses the equivalent of the name of Jesus.

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But as has been rightly said by some more liberal

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Islamic scholars, which means they do not live in Islamic lands. That's the only place you find liberal

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Muslims is outside of Islamic lands. The Jesus of the

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Koran is an argument, not a person. The Jesus of the

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Koran is an argument, not a person. The Jesus of the

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Bible is someone who lived in history, who walked this earth. The Gospels present him moving from place to place, and we can find those places.

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I mean, today on your computer you can download program after program now that will give you 3D views of everywhere

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Jesus walked. You don't even have to go to Israel anymore. You can just sit at your computer and walk along the streets of Jerusalem and do all sorts of stuff like that.

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And we can put Jesus in history. We can put him in geography. We can put him in the political climate of the day.

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That even comes out in Jesus' teaching. For example, one of the reasons that Jesus tells people, they confess he's the

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Messiah, and Jesus says, do not tell anyone that I am the Messiah. Well, there were political reasons for that given the

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Roman rule at the time. I mean, that's not the only reason he did that, but we understand that given the background of what was going on.

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The point is that the Jesus of the New Testament is someone that the average Muslim has no idea who he is.

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They do not know, because you're not going to be introduced to the Jesus of the Bible in the

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Koran, because the Jesus of the Bible is a one -dimensional, shallow person that could never be loved by anybody.

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I'm sorry, when Muslims... The Jesus of the Koran. Did I say the Bible? Yes. I'm sorry. The Jesus of the Koran is a one -dimensional person.

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There's...he only...he basically is a walking argument for monotheism and the prophet of Muhammad.

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That's all there is. There's no interaction with people. He speaks as a baby from the cradle.

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He does all these Gnostic miracles and things, because the author of the Koran didn't understand that those sources were not reflective of history, and just uncritically accepted them and things like that.

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But the point is, when somebody says, well, I love Jesus, and they're a

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Muslim, I just want to go, what Jesus do you love? How can you love an argument? The person of Jesus...and

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I did an interview with a man a number of years ago who had been converted to Christ.

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He lived...he was born on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tough place.

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Tough place. And a missionary had come through long before he was born, and had left a

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New Testament with his family. For some reason, they didn't destroy it. My goodness. And when he was born, as he was growing up, and once he could read, he stumbles across this book, and his parents made the same mistake that all parents make, and that is they said, don't read that.

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Now, we all know how well that works as parents, isn't it? Don't eat that cookie.

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Well, now you've made that cookie the greatest cookie that's ever been made on the face of this earth, and it's going to get eaten one way or the other.

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And he read this New Testament. And in the reading of that New Testament, he encountered a

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Jesus that he had never heard of before, a Jesus totally different than the Jesus of the

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Koran, and without any other human instrumentality than that missionary leaving the living scriptures, this man was gloriously converted.

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Praise God. Now, he's lived a tough life since then, prison, and fleeing for his life, and everything else, because we know what

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Islam does with someone who finds the true Jesus. Yeah. Sharia law, that they're trying to tell us is the answer to the

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Western ills says he must be executed. He needs to be executed. And so, but the point is, here's a man who saw the real

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Jesus and the contrast between the Jesus of scripture and the shallow one -dimensional

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Jesus of the Koran was shocking to him. And he saw in that Jesus a savior that was the answer to everything that he was looking for.

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Praise God. And so, we've titled tonight's program, Muhammad's Mistaken Jesus.

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Why? Because obviously, Muhammad did have a view of who Jesus was.

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But what were his sources? Did he understand? If, I would hope that our

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Muslim listeners would agree with me on this, that if Muhammad was a prophet, and Jesus was the last prophet before Muhammad, because even the

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Koran says, I prophesy of a prophet coming after me, not two or three prophets coming after me, but one of, you know, his name would be

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Ahmed. If Jesus is the last prophet right before Muhammad comes, and he is considered to be this great prophet, then surely

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Muhammad would have to have the most accurate information about who Jesus was. What he taught about Jesus would show an in -depth understanding of who

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Jesus was. Is that what we discover? Is that what we find in the Koran? Or do we find instead the same kind of misunderstandings that you would expect to find from a deep desert dweller from Mecca who has only encountered

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Christianity maybe on caravan trips into Syria, sitting around the campfire listening to stories from Christians and Jews?

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Why is it that the view of Jesus found in the Koran is much more commensurate with that? There's no evidence whatsoever that the author of the

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Koran had any intimate knowledge with what the New Testament said about Jesus. If that author was

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Allah, Allah knew everything the New Testament said about Jesus. Now, there's no question that the

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Koran tries to argue against what Christians believe about Christ. But it just strikes me, let me use a completely different illustration.

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Maybe you can hear this and not just because it has nothing to do with Islam. We were talking before the program began about some of the ministry that some of us have done outside of our dealing with Islam.

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And one of the things that I did for years, for 18 years, is every six months I would travel up to the

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General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter -day Saints in Salt Lake City, the Mormons. That was the first group

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I really started working with. In fact, I was a teenager when I first started seeking to witness to the

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Mormon people. And when I became very serious about that in college, what did

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I do? I started studying what the Mormons believed. I got their scriptures. I read their scriptures.

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Book of Mormon, Dr. Conant's Pearl of Great Price. I started buying their books. I read books by their leaders like A Marvelous Work and a

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Wonder by LeGrand Richards and Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie and Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith by James Talmadge, and these are all

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LDS leaders of the past. And of course, when I was studying this, Bruce McConkie was still alive, but shows how long

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I've been doing this. But anyway, I went to the original sources because you need to know what they themselves are saying so that I could develop the best response possible to the

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LDS faith and communicate with the Mormons in a language they could understand because unfortunately, we use the same language, but we mean very, very different things by the words we use.

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This is one of the biggest problems in witnessing to Mormons is that we will talk about eternal life.

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They will talk about eternal lives, and what they mean by that is completely different. Salvation to us, salvation to them is completely different.

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There's universal salvation. There's particular salvation, which is exaltation of godhood. There's all this stuff that you need to know.

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The point is, I as a human being realized that if I'm going to provide the best rebuttal to Mormonism, I had to understand what

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Mormonism really teaches, and in fact, I sought to understand it better than most of the Mormons I was talking to.

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That took a lot of time and a lot of effort. Now, let's, I think we can all agree that if you want to provide a meaningful response, that's the best way to do it.

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Why didn't Allah do that in the Quran? Six hundred years had passed since the birth of Christ.

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Five hundred years since the close of the New Testament. These were not unknown documents.

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Entire councils had met, books had been written, literature had been developed. The doctrine of trinity was well known by this point in time.

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And yet, for some reason, Allah does not seem to have been cognizant of these things, or at least the author of the

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Quran was not cognizant of these things. There is no evidence that the author of the

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Quran provides any meaningful or in -depth critique of what it is that Christians believe.

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And it's hard for me to understand that, because certainly, Allah would have known. Now, I know that there are responses to this.

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Well, there's no reason for him to have done this. It's all just unbelief anyways, and so there's no reason to go into depth and refutation of unbelief, all the rest of the stuff.

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But again, that doesn't make any sense to me, because it wouldn't have been any harder for Allah to have provided, to have dictated, since that's all the

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Quran is. I mean, it's just the angel Jibril giving the exact words to Muhammad.

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Muhammad doesn't have to understand this stuff. All Muhammad has to do is recite, speak.

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So, why does Allah then show such an abysmal understanding, shallow understanding, and in fact, errors?

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There are errors in how the Quran represents what Christians believe in the Trinity. How can this be if this is

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God's word? How can this be if what Muslims assume is true, is true? And I want to back this up by looking at the text of the

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Quran tonight and contrasting it with what we find, again, in the New Testament, which pre -existed the writing of the

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Quran. I remember that, our caller on the first night. Well, you've just corrupted the

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New Testament. If you, as a Muslim, can actually back up the claim that we have corrupted the

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New Testament about any of the text I raise this evening, then call. The fact of the matter is,

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I have in front of me, I really do, especially on this unit right here, have pretty much modern, exhaustive library of all the textual critical resources that we have for, really, the

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Bible. I have the CNTTS textual critical data. It is an exhaustive accounting of all the variants in the

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New Testament. I mean, the smallest, most insignificant variants, whether you spell the word

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God, Theta, Epsilon, Omicron, Nu, or whether you use the abbreviation very common in early papyri,

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Theta, Nu, the line over top. Even that's noted, as to which manuscripts have which. That's how exhaustive it is.

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And just last week, the brand new, scholarly, exhaustive,

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Gottingen Septuagint, it's the Greek Septuagint with the fullest textual critical data that has ever been published, sitting right there.

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How many Muslim apologists have, know about, care, or use this?

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I mean, maybe Shabir Ali is aspiring to, as he pointed out in his debate, he doesn't know

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Greek. But I don't know of anyone. I don't think there's anyone that's interested in that. No, I don't know of anyone.

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I wish we had similar things to the Quran, because I'd have them. I was showing Brother Joseph, I think it was yesterday, here on my iPad.

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I've actually found one of the best Quran programs that I've ever encountered, $5 .99.

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But it's called Quran Study, I think, and it had, you could look up any root.

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It tells you how many times it's used, which surahs it's used in, which ayahs it's used in, stuff like that. But still, that's nothing in comparison to what we have in the

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Bible. Not even anywhere close. So if you want to try to back that up, listen to what

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I'm saying. We can show you, I can reach down here and get the stuff

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I need to and plug it into my computer if I have to. I can show you the papyri manuscripts that were written hundreds of years before Muhammad was born that contained the text that we would be looking at, which means that when

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Muhammad is saying these things, and he's saying to the Al -Anjil, the people of the

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Gospel, go look at these things, this is what they would have been looking at. We can demonstrate that beyond question today.

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There is no question that we know what the New Testament and the Torah said long before Muhammad came along.

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This is vitally important to understand. And so we'll look at these things and we will be able to understand where Muhammad made his mistakes about Jesus.

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Dr. White, may I just add one thing? I'd just like to say the departure of this

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Allah from the procedure or what you find in the New Testament and Old Testament, hundreds, hundreds of exact quotes in the

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New Testament of the Old Testament. Remember now, the Jews claim this Old Testament, the

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Tanakh as their own, not as the Christians, but they admit that essentially it is exactly the same as what we have.

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And yet there is perfect fulfillment. There is a perfect connection. And how many exact quotes of the

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New Testament text do we find in the Quran? None that I'm aware of. Zero exact quotes.

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The only thing you would call an exact quote, I think, is not of the

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New Testament. It is of the lex talionis, eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Right, right.

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And you have Joseph's story. There is some parts maybe there, but it's paraphrased. It's not exact. It's a paraphrase.

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It seems to me much more that this was a situation where Muhammad had heard these stories.

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Yeah. And in fact, when you compare when the times that he repeats the same story more than once, the differences between his recitations of those stories exactly reflects what you would expect from someone who is going on oral tradition rather than a written text.

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There just isn't any evidence he had access to a written text. This is a huge difference in the way Allah treats his first books and then going to the

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Quran. And remember, according to the Quran, the books we're talking about were not solved. They were sent down.

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They were the result of a revelation. They were given by Allah.

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And that's why modern Muslims have to insist that we don't really know what these books originally said.

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But once they start digging into the facts, they discover that we do, in fact, know. And we make no distinction between any of them.

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Surah 384. Go ahead, Dr. White. Definitely. So with that, and I'm not sure where we are time -wise, but let's look at Surah 4, 171 to 172.

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Let's just start with that particular text, and we'll move on to others as our callers will call in as well.

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Yeah. After you present this one, we might take a short break and then... Okay. Yeah. All right. Surah 4, 171 says,

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O people of the scripture! Do not commit excess in your religion, or say about Allah except the truth.

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The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and his word which he directed to Mary, and a soul, and then this is in parentheses, created at a command from him.

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So believe in Allah and his messengers, and do not say three. Desist, it is better for you.

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Indeed, Allah is but one God, exalted is he above having a son. To him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and sufficient is

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Allah as disposer of affairs. Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near to him, and whoever disdains his worship and is arrogant, he will gather them himself all together.

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Now notice what is said specifically in verse 171. First we have this concept of excess in religion.

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This is a common accusation that is made against the Christians, that they have gone beyond what

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Allah himself originally revealed. And so we are told to say about Allah nothing except the truth.

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Well, that of course is our desire. That is our desire to say about God nothing but the truth.

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The question is, what is recording the truth? Is it the Quran or is it the New Testament at this point?

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Then we have the specific content of what it is that allegedly the

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Christians are committing excess about. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a rasool of Allah, a messenger of Allah.

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And his word which he directed to Mary and a soul from him.

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And that's interpreted different ways by different people. And some say spirit from him as well.

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So the point is that this Jesus of Islam is but a rasool.

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He is nothing but a rasool. He does not transcend this. Now, we know what it is that Muhammad is trying to communicate here.

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Because he goes on to say, so believe in Allah and his messengers, which in this case would be of course

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Muhammad. And do not say three. Now, some translations will say trinity at this point.

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But this is actually a little bit more accurate. It is. It is. It says three.

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It doesn't say trinity. It's thalatha. Thalatha is the number one, two, three. Exactly. Exactly. The term trinity is actually not used to my knowledge in the

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Quran at all. It says three. Do not say three. Now, Brother Joseph, if I were to ask you how many sweaters you have, and you said you had three,

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I would assume that you mean there are three separate and distinct sweaters from one another.

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When we read these words, so believe in Allah and his messengers, do not say three, desist, it is better for you.

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Indeed, Allah is but one God. If you said you had three sweaters and I said, no, you only have one sweater, it'd be pretty obvious what we were saying.

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Yeah. Yeah. The only way these words make any sense is if the original author is saying, do not say three gods,

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Allah is but one God. And is that not the great concern that Muslims admit

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Muhammad had when he was in Mecca? And that is to oppose what? Polytheism, a belief in many gods.

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So it sounds to me, I don't think that there is any way in which I am misrepresenting the

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Quran here. To interpret this is understanding that the author is denouncing the idea of three gods.

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Do not say three. Indeed, Allah is but one God. And then notice the next line, exalted is he above having a son.

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Exalted is he above having a son. Well, what does that have to do with the immediately preceding phrase that emphasizes the fact that there is one

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Allah, that there is only one God? Well, again, this wouldn't make any sense unless what the author is saying is that Allah is exalted above having a son that would be a deity.

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Yes, that he would. This is a common assertion in the Quran that Allah is exalted above having a son.

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And in other places, this is directly connected with the idea of an offspring. We'll look at some of those other texts in a little while.

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But it seems, and again, I honestly am not seeking to ignore something that's right there on the surface of the text.

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I'm really, really not. I am trying to allow the text to speak for itself.

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And it seems that the text itself is interpreting what

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Christians, because it's talking about the people of the scripture, and this would specifically be the

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Christians, because it then talks about Jesus and excess in teaching about Jesus.

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It's interpreting the threeness of the Trinity as what?

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Polytheism. Yes. As if you have Allah and you have Jesus as the offspring of Allah, a son of Allah, but a

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God besides Allah, which would raise the issue of how

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Allah has a son. And we will see that there are other indications as we get to them that from the

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Quranic perspective, this wife of Allah, this mate of Allah is, in fact,

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Mary. And that the understanding is that Allah and Mary have a child, and this is

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Jesus. And there have been many Muslims down to the centuries who believe that that's exactly what

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Christians believe. And so if we consider this to be the case, then we, if just looking at this one text, do not say three, desist, it is better for you,

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Allah is but one God, exalted is he above having a son. Well, these are strong words.

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And in fact, to say that Allah has a son and to say three, to say that the

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Messiah is one of three in another section of the Quran, we'll get to that in a moment, to say these things results in going to hellfire.

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Just mentioning right there before we took our break, the fact that the

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Quran says very strong things about those of us who worship

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Jesus Christ. I mean, we mentioned last evening the fact that there are hadiths that refer to the fact that when

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Jesus returns, he will be the enemy of those who had, he'd be the enemy of the

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Mushrikeen. And from the Islamic perspective, what that means is that he will oppose those who have worshipped him.

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He would oppose myself. I mean, there's no way to try to put these two religions side by side and say, let's just all get along.

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There is just, it's a 100 % contradiction of both religions to treat them in this way.

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And I think people on both sides realize that that is the case. But the

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Quran actually says that to accept what the New Testament teaches, whether the writer of the

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Quran even understood that or not, is to put yourself in a position of entering into the very fires of hell itself.

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For example, in Surah 5, Ayah 72, we read,

32:33

They have certainly disbelieved who say, Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary.

32:39

While the Messiah has said, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your

32:45

Lord. Indeed, he who associates others with Allah, the great sin of Shirk. Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire.

32:54

And there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. And so you have the assertion that is made.

33:02

It is a statement of disbelief of Kufr to say,

33:10

Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary. Now, even that is somewhat confused.

33:17

We would say that the Messiah, the son of Mary, was true deity.

33:23

That the second person of the Trinity, the son of God, who is eternally existed as a son, who was not born of a woman, did not become the son of God at a point in time.

33:32

But this eternal person who, along with the father and the son, is eternally existed as God, it was that person who became enfleshed in the son of Mary.

33:41

And so we would say that Jesus is God in that sense.

33:48

But to say Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, is why not use

33:55

New Testament terminology? Why not show some type of knowledge of Paul's epistles to the

34:02

Colossians and his description of Jesus as the creator of all things? I mean, it's clear to me, as we get into some more, the author did not have any idea how

34:12

Christians defend the deity of Christ. They have no idea. No access to the New Testament scriptures.

34:17

None whatsoever. But again, God did not need to have Muhammad being able to read

34:23

Greek. If the Quran is what Islam says it is, there would be no need for Muhammad to have read

34:31

Paul's epistle to the Colossians because God knows the epistle to the Colossians. And if the Quran is merely the speech of Allah, then why would there be such ignorance, such stumbling about and even attempting to refute what

34:47

Christians believe? It just does not make any sense. Why is it that a human living in 620 could have given a much better argument against the trinity than the

34:59

Quran does? Have you ever thought of that? Have you ever considered it that way? Why is it that there were already written works against the doctrine of the trinity from the enemies of the

35:10

Christian faith that did a much better job of denying the trinity than the Quran does? That makes no sense to me if, again, this is supposed to be the very words and speech of God.

35:22

I don't understand that part. It's an excellent point. And I'd just like to make one point here, just so our listeners know who don't speak

35:29

Arabic. Here in the verse, not only does it say essentially that we're committing shirk, but the verb of what we would be doing is yushrik.

35:40

It says there, it says, Oh, children of Israel, worship. Yeah. Whoever joins other gods with Allah and then that it says,

35:49

Innahu min yushrik bi Allah faqat. So thereby saying that this belief that Jesus, that the

35:58

Christ, the son of Mary, Allah is Christ, the son of Mary. It says specifically in the Arabic when you read it, that is shirk.

36:05

It's association. It is shirk. There's no question that the Quran identifies it this way. But I've actually done,

36:12

I did a debate in London on this subject.

36:18

Is the doctrine of the trinity shirk? Yeah. And what I was seeking to establish is that shirk is association.

36:27

And remember we saw in Surah four, it seems that the underlying assumption is do not say three, three what?

36:34

Three gods. Yeah. So it's association of one God with another

36:39

God. That would be polytheism. That would be association shirk. We understand all of that.

36:45

But that's not what Christians believe. No. We do not believe that Jesus is some separate deity out there, that we have multiple gods.

36:53

We are not associating multiple gods. The first and central affirmation of the doctrine of the trinity is we believe there is one true

37:02

God. The one true God said in Isaiah 4310, before me there was no God formed and there will be none after me.

37:10

And so if shirk is association, then we by definition cannot be associators because we are absolute monotheists.

37:18

And so the well -read Muslim has to go, well, it's your belief that there are three divine persons that share the one being of God that becomes association.

37:27

But that's going beyond the Quran. I feel in some senses for the modern

37:35

Muslim who tries to defend Muhammad in today's world. I know of young men with whom

37:44

I am having dialogue. I'm right now just today got the information about doing a scholarly article with a

37:55

Muslim apologist for a Christian theological journal where we are going to discuss this very issue.

38:01

Does the Quran misrepresent the doctrine of the trinity? Okay, I think this is vitally important. Yes. I already know what he's going to say because I've read his paper on the subject.

38:09

Okay. Now he's obviously gets the opportunity of updating that somewhat. But the point is there are especially young men and I appreciate,

38:19

I'm not going to mention names because I don't want to get them in trouble. But I appreciate especially these particular young men because they are trying to hear what

38:32

I'm saying. I don't know if you've seen this, Joseph. You've certainly done enough of these programs and experienced this with the callers.

38:38

There are times when the caller has no interest in hearing what we have to say at all. Most of the time here, unfortunately,

38:44

Dr. White. I know, I know. And we've all experienced that. We've experienced that in person and witnessing the people.

38:49

We've experienced it in this context. So it's pretty refreshing. Oh, yes. And somewhat encouraging.

38:56

Absolutely. To find someone who is trying to hear what you're saying. I can tell when that happens.

39:02

We haven't really mentioned this but one of the things that I do is I do debates. And as of now,

39:09

I've done around 105 or 106. And I'm not talking about phone calls on ABN.

39:15

I don't count any of those. If you count those, I've done thousands because I've got my own webcast and I've done television and all that type of stuff before.

39:24

I'm talking about formal, moderated public debates. You have a thesis, equal amount of time, real debates.

39:31

There are folks that claim to do debates and don't actually do them. So I'm not one of them. And I can tell when my opponent is listening to what

39:39

I'm saying and trying to interact with me. And when they're just simply repeating the stuff they said over and over and over again.

39:45

John Dominic Crossan, one of the co -founders of the Jesus Seminar. Yes. Well -known, really critic of the

39:52

Christian faith. Muslims love him. They love to quote him all the time. That's their best stuff.

39:57

They have to go to liberals. They go to liberals for it. That's exactly right. John Dominic Crossan, nicest heretic you'll ever meet.

40:02

Really? He is the nicest heretic you'll ever meet. I've told him that. He knows that I identify him as the nicest heretic

40:08

I've ever met. When we debated in 2005 on the historical liability of the gospels, I could tell, here's a man 15

40:17

IQ points beyond me. He's a brilliant, brilliant man. He's just a heretic. Yeah.

40:22

He doesn't believe that there's a personal guy. He doesn't believe in life after death. He believes Jesus was crucified, taken down from the cross, buried in a shallow grave, and dug up, dug up, eaten by dogs.

40:30

Yeah. Okay. But here's John Dominic Crossan. And as I'm speaking, he's sitting here like this.

40:38

And he's listening. And he doesn't just jump to immediate response. He's trying to interact with a position that obviously he's hardly ever even heard of before.

40:47

I mean, given the liberal circles he travels in, I was like a species from outer space or something. I mean, where did this guy ever come from?

40:53

Extreme. Very extreme type of person. But very, very nice about it. But then I could tell other liberals.

40:58

Bart Ehrman, he wasn't listening to me. John Shelby Spong, he wasn't listening to me. You can just tell they're not listening.

41:05

Sadly, a lot of times, Muslims don't listen. There are some, however, and it's very encouraging to meet them, who listen, but I feel for them.

41:14

Because this is their ultimate authority and they have to defend this. Yes. And you just simply can't get anything out of these words other than the fact that the writer of these words did not understand what

41:26

Christians believe. When this says, the

41:32

Messiah has said, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Here again, where did

41:37

Jesus ever say these things? Isn't it amazing the double standard that a Muslim has to adopt here?

41:44

Because they will allow for the most liberal attacks upon the validity of the transmission of the text in the

41:53

New Testament, but they will accept what someone says in Arabic 600 years later as being absolutely certainly what

42:05

Jesus said, even though nobody for a half a millennium ever record anything like this.

42:12

And it's circular argumentation. It's well, because this is God's word and that's not God's word. I mean, I know how they function.

42:19

I know how they work, but it doesn't make any sense. If there was not force and fear, this type of doctrine could never stand.

42:29

I really believe that. The vast majority of people, as you pointed out, whether it's Mormons or whoever, doesn't matter.

42:35

The logical arguments, the reasonable arguments, the historical arguments doesn't matter. This is what the

42:40

Quran says. This is it. And there are those who have undying loyalty, but it's so many in these areas.

42:47

It's force and fear. And as you pointed out, you would love to have a critical apparatus for the

42:53

Quran, but why isn't there one? Because to question it is blasphemy.

42:59

Well, and that's the suppression of any type of dissent and even discussion of other possibilities.

43:05

It's a hallmark of Islamic countries. Right, right. And the Corpus Chronicum, the work that is now underway to create a critical edition of the

43:15

Quran, where did that start? That start in Islamic countries? Don't think so.

43:23

You're not getting Saudi Arabia online with something like this. It's coming from Western scholarship, not from Islamic scholarship.

43:30

This emphasis is there. So yes, when I say I feel sorry for them,

43:36

I feel sorry for them because of the lengths they have to go to, to try to make a coherent argument for this kind of material, when it is so obvious that the author of the

43:45

Quran simply did not understand what it was he was talking about. But if we keep going on like this, we'll never get anywhere.

43:51

But notice, he who associates, as you said, that is the very term,

43:56

Yushrik. He who associates others with the law, Allah has forbidden him paradise.

44:02

And I'm trying to look down the word here real quickly. Isn't that made paradise haram for him?

44:08

Haram, yeah, the verb. Haram Allah alayhu. Yeah, he's made it haram. So the idea from the

44:15

Sunni perspective is that what the Christian is doing by worshiping Jesus, what

44:21

Allah does is he makes paradise, he makes Jannah haram for him. Right.

44:27

He forbids him access because of the worship of Jesus.

44:33

And therefore his refuge is the fire. And for wrongdoers, there will be no helpers.

44:39

There will be no one to assist those in that day. Remember Muhammad's intercession from the program we did last night is only for those who do not do this.

44:49

And there'll be no one else to intercede for them. You cannot intercede for a Mushrik. This is forbidden.

44:55

So we continue on with the next ayah that says, they have certainly disbelieved. So again, here's more

45:01

Kufr. They are Kufr, it's Kufr, it's unbelieve. Who say, and again, this is called the, what did

45:10

I say it was? I need to tell people what this particular, let me look at the settings here real quick so I can tell you.

45:20

Because people are probably wondering what translation are you reading here that does such a good job on these things.

45:28

And it was an international translation. Sahih International, did you say? Was it Sahih International? I'm trying to remember which one it was.

45:36

And I was trying to find the, oh, here it is. Sahih International. Yeah, this is a Sahih International translation.

45:42

And I've not seen much of it before, but I must admit that this is a very good mechanism and a very good translation because notice what it does with this particular next verse.

45:58

It says, excuse me,

46:04

I apologize. I went to Surah 4 while doing that. And it does not say the same thing in Surah 4, 73 as it says in Surah 5, 73, which is a different Surah, obviously.

46:14

But in Surah 5, 73, and right there it is, it says, they have certainly disbelieved to say, and listen to this,

46:23

Allah is the third of three. Now that is a pretty direct translation, not a third of the

46:31

Trinity or something like that, but Allah is the third of three. Now, if I said right now, there are three people in the studio right now.

46:41

We have a guest over in the corner. We're not going to swing a camera over to him, but we have a guest with us. But there are three of us in the studio.

46:48

There are folks in the control room, but there are three of us in the studio right now. Yes. If I said brother Joseph is the third of the three.

46:57

Right. I am saying that there are three persons like brother Joseph, but he's just one of three persons in the studio.

47:07

If the Quran says, Allah is the third of three, three what?

47:14

Three gods, not three persons, because that wouldn't even be appropriate language for a

47:23

Christian. A Christian would never say God is one third of the Trinity.

47:30

No. What would a Christian... There's no such thing as one third of the Trinity. You cannot divide the Trinity up into thirds. No. We believe that each of the divine persons shares fully the entirety of the divine nature, not one third.

47:43

You cannot take God's nature and cut it up into parts like a pizza pie. You can't do that.

47:48

And so this, again, this is supposed to be a quote of Christians.

47:55

Notice it says, they have certainly disbelieved who say, and isn't that...

48:02

Yes. So this is supposed to be a quote. Man, folks, let me tell you something.

48:09

If you're truthful, when you quote what another religion says, even when you disbelieve, you must be accurate.

48:17

The Quran's not. Who says Allah is the third of three? That's not what the Trinity states. That's not what the

48:22

Trinity teaches. Clearly, what has been identified as kufr here, as disbelief is polytheism and the assumption that the

48:32

Trinity is three different gods. Because look at the very next phrase.

48:39

There is no God except one God. Why would you make an immediate affirmation of monotheism if you were not refuting polytheism?

48:49

But that's not what Christians believe. So the

48:55

Quran is simply not being accurate here. Like I said, there were human beings, sinful, imperfect human beings who had much more accurately tried to respond to the doctrine of the

49:08

Trinity at this point in history than the Quran does. But then notice what it says.

49:13

If they do not desist from what they are saying, and what they're saying is not what we say, but if they do not desist from what they're saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

49:32

Now, here you have these strong words of warning to Christians that they are going to be punished by Allah for saying these things and Christians don't say these things.

49:45

Right. What does that tell you about the Quran? What does that tell you about the author of the

49:50

Quran? What it tells me is that the author of the Quran was ignorant. Now, I'm not saying

49:56

Allah is ignorant. I'm saying Allah did not write the Quran. Amen. And yet in many nations in the world,

50:04

I could die for saying that. Yeah. And yet what I'm saying is

50:10

Al -Haqq. It's the truth. Amen. And so if Islam will kill you for speaking the truth, then what does that say about Islam?

50:19

I mean, that's the only way I can reason through this. Yeah. If you would allow for Muhammad to be the author of these words and allow for Muhammad to be ignorant of the facts concerning Christianity, there are lots of folks that are ignorant about these things.

50:36

Look, there are people that show up at our church that are ignorant of these things. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of these things. We would love to teach you.

50:42

I wish someone had tried to teach Muhammad. Yeah. But once you make this your absolute standard, if it's wrong, you are now making error the standard of truth.

50:56

And that results in such things as Pakistan's blasphemy law and everything else and the violence that we see taking place in the world today.

51:05

But it goes on. So will they not repent to Allah and seek his forgiveness? Allah is forgiving and merciful.

51:11

Well, if this was an accurate representation of what we believed, but it's not.

51:17

The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger.

51:23

That's Ibn again, isn't it? Rasulu. Rasulu. Ibn is the son of Mary, but then was not but a messenger.

51:33

That's a different phraseology than was used in Surah 4, if I recall correctly what you were saying.

51:39

Yeah. Other messengers have passed on before him and his mother was a supporter of truth.

51:49

They both used to eat food. Look how we make clear to them the signs, then look how they are diluted.

51:55

Now, again, if you see something, brother

52:01

Joseph, that I'm not seeing. Okay. My Arabic is still very beginner. I've got to look at stuff and look at it very, very slowly.

52:08

Okay. But it seems to me that what is being said here is, okay, he was a

52:15

Rasul. There were, and it uses the plural.

52:24

There were Rasuls before him. Okay. Yes. Okay.

52:32

And they passed on before him. Then it starts for some reason saying, his mother was a supporter of truth.

52:42

Now, why would the Quran start speaking of Mary?

52:49

Why would the Quran say that Mary was a supporter of the truth? Why? Well, I'm not sure this particular text answers this.

53:00

The end of Surah 5 clearly does. Yes. We'll get to it, but keep that in mind because then you have this strange phrase, they both used to eat food.

53:15

Why? Now, brother Joseph, where's that phrase? Help me find that phrase.

53:28

That's the standard term for eating. Yeah. That's the standard term for eating. Yes, they both, and it says they both, right?

53:37

They both used to eat food. Now, folks, I need a Muslim in our audience.

53:42

And if our brother in the control studio, if you get a Muslim who calls up that answers this, let

53:48

Joseph know so we can get to him quickly. Yeah. I need a Muslim in the audience to explain something to me that no one's been able to explain to me.

53:57

And now that I'm on my ABN, hey, I'll ask because we've got this nice big audience. Maybe there's someone out there who can explain this to me.

54:02

I hope so. Why mention that Mary ate food?

54:09

Remember, this is supposed to be a refutation of what Christians believe. And I've never met any

54:18

Christian that thought that Mary didn't eat food. In fact, Jesus ate food too.

54:24

And it's interesting, there's a footnote in the Sahih International translation. It says, they were in need of sustenance, proving that they were creations of Allah, not divine beings, plural.

54:36

Yeah, yeah. Yusuf Ali brings a similar argument in his footnotes concerning the same passage.

54:43

Now, here's my question, folks. Christians do not and have never believed that Mary is a divine being.

54:53

I know as soon as I say that in every debate I've done, someone has gotten up and started talking about modern

54:58

Roman Catholic teachings about Mary. First of all, even today with, and this is an area

55:07

I've debated many times against Roman Catholics. I reject thoroughly the modern

55:13

Roman Catholic teachings on Mary. You must realize today, interestingly enough, is a holy day of obligation in Roman Catholicism.

55:20

It's a holy day of obligation in regards to the enunciation of the Immaculate Conception, the dogmatic statement in 1854 that Mary was immaculately conceived, that by preemptive application of the merits of her son,

55:31

Mary was kept from the stain of original sin and never committed sin herself. I know Roman Catholic theology very well.

55:36

I was debating this long before I started studying Islam. It's a holy day of obligation today.

55:42

Immaculate Conception, 1854, bodily assumption of Mary, 1950. Right now, the fifth Marian dogma is being pushed, that Mary is the co -redemptrix and co -mediatrix for the people of God.

55:53

I reject all of these things, perpetual virginity of Mary, all of this, the abuse of the term theotokos, the mother of God.

56:02

She is the mother of God in the sense Jesus was truly deity, but that was a title of Jesus, and now it's been exalted to where Mary is the intercessor and all grace flows through her and all the rest of that stuff.

56:13

I reject all of that as being unbiblical and have debated that subject against, really, the best that Rome has to offer.

56:20

But even taking all of that, first of all, most of that stuff developed long after this was written.

56:26

You can't read that back into this time period and say, oh, look what the Roman Catholics have done, because they hadn't developed such things as...

56:33

The Immaculate Conception was only first starting to maybe get an inkling at this point in time.

56:39

Bodily Assumption was a Gnostic belief at this time. These are dogmas that come long after this time period.

56:46

But even taking the modern Roman Catholic position, Rome specifically denies that Mary is a divine being.

56:54

And it is very clear that the author of the Quran is assuming, if this is an argument, if I make an apologetic argument, it has to accurately reflect who it is

57:08

I'm trying to respond to. And if you look at me and say, well, you know what? Mary ate food, I'm going to look at you and say, what do you think

57:16

I believe? Do you think I believe Mary was a divine being? Because it says they both used to eat food.

57:25

The only thing that would make that relevant is, A, your assumption that God cannot enter into human flesh and hence

57:31

Jesus would not eat food. And of course we reject that. And B, that Mary is a divine being which we do not believe.

57:43

Even Rome denies that with all the false doctrines Rome has about Mary, even

57:49

Rome denies that. So clearly the writer of the Quran has the wrong

57:55

Jesus and the wrong Trinity and the wrong argument to make in refuting these things.

58:01

And it's right there in the text. There's not a textual variant here, anything else. There's no way around it.

58:07

They both used to eat food. Look how we make clear to them the ayat. Is it not the ayat?

58:14

The signs. So allegedly their eating of food is an ayah from God, a sign from God that they're not divine beings.

58:25

We accept the fact that Mary is not a divine being because we've never said that she is.

58:31

And so if the argument is wrong, how can this be the word of Allah? How can this be the

58:37

Kitab Allah? How is it? I want an answer. Well, I think now we're only going to 7 .30

58:44

this evening in this first show, is that right? Yeah, I know. Okay, so we have a little bit of time. Give us a call 248 -416 -1300.

58:50

Dr. White has challenged you Muslims to bring forth an understanding of this explanation of the apparent inconsistency between that in which

58:59

Muhammad portrayed Christian beliefs and condemned Christian beliefs in the Quran and the fact that those beliefs were never the actual beliefs of the church historically.

59:10

Right. Well, and notice how the very next ayah continues this and strengthens this. Say, do you worship besides Allah that which holds for you no power of harm or benefit while it is

59:23

Allah who is the hearing, the knowing? And that's not our belief. That is not our belief. No one is saying.

59:29

Now, again, modern Roman Catholics certainly can treat Mary in such a way that she does have the power to harm or to at least to help because she's the source of all grace.

59:37

That's unbiblical. That is not what the Bible teaches. So it seems, again, do you worship besides Allah?

59:47

That shirk. Who is it that the Quran thinks we're worshiping besides Allah? Well, seemingly,

59:55

Jesus, the Messiah and his mother, Mary. And you want to mention 516? I'm going to get to it, but I want to make sure we cross all the t's and dot all the i's.

01:00:04

OK, we got about 20 minutes left. Let me just double check. Do we have any callers at this point?

01:00:11

No callers. OK, well, that's they're just amazed with your teaching. They're afraid and intimidated to call you.

01:00:17

I'm not going to say that, but I would not want to be in the position of a

01:00:24

Muslim who honestly believes this is the word of God. Look, one of the things

01:00:29

I've often said in teaching Christians about witnessing to others. And let me let me stop here because I want to go through 77 and 78 and I want to get to 516 and 17.

01:00:41

But I want to do it. We'll spread this out over the next show. The next show starting at 8 p .m.,

01:00:48

we will continue this subject. So we'll go to 10 p .m. So we got two hours. So I don't want to I don't want to rush this.

01:00:54

That's one of the things that's one of the reasons you need to help ABN with the

01:00:59

English channel, because this stuff is being posted out there on YouTube.

01:01:07

But there's a limitation to that. We need to have this channel to be able to put this kind of information out there and to put it out there more than once to repeat these programs, to talk about these things, because the need's not going away.

01:01:22

This material, I have said so many times, you know, we were just talking about, well, no one's called in. I don't want anyone to interpret either myself or Brother Joseph as if we are mocking someone at this point saying, ah, come on, come on, take us on.

01:01:36

That's not what we're trying to do. When when I teach on Jehovah's Witnesses, let's get another group in here just as an illustration.

01:01:43

When I teach on Jehovah's Witnesses, I teach people to go through some of the key texts that identify

01:01:49

Jesus as Jehovah from the Old Testament. Psalm 102, 25 through 27 is quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, and it's applied to Jesus.

01:02:00

And most Jehovah's Witnesses have never seen this. They have never seen this information.

01:02:09

And so what I tell people is when you show this to someone, don't sit there and force them to come up with an answer.

01:02:16

What are you going to say? Exactly. Well, what are you going to say now? So you got your apology. I got you now. I've run my apologetic sword right through you or something like that.

01:02:24

There are people who want to do that. Sure. Sure. The problem is when you force them to come up with a response, they will come up with a response.

01:02:33

It may be the dumbest thing they've ever said in their life, but they'll go to their graves defending it out of pride.

01:02:39

What you do when that awkward silence takes place is you say, now, it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you to come up with an answer for this because you haven't had a chance to look at it.

01:02:49

Will you look at it for me? Get back with me on this. And by the way, could I show you another one that says the same thing?

01:02:58

I have never been in a situation where a person did not grant me the opportunity to show them yet more in the scriptures that solidified that because I didn't push them on that and said, would you look at this?

01:03:12

Great. And so I don't want people to think that I've never seen this before. No one's ever challenged me on this.

01:03:18

Okay, then do this for me. If you are a Muslim in the audience and you claim to be a person of the truth, you honestly believe that what the

01:03:30

Quran says is true, then would you please look into this and then contact us with an answer at a later point?

01:03:39

Sure. You might say, hey, I don't have an answer right now. Will you, with an open heart and mind and an eye to the truth, look into these things?

01:03:52

That's what we want to see. To summarize this portion of Surah five, before we go to the end of Surah five, just to wrap these things up.

01:04:00

So I think it's important. We noted in Surah 76, do you worship besides Allah that which holds for you no power of harm or benefit while it is

01:04:12

Allah who is the hearing, the knowing again, demonstrating that the idea is that Christians are worshiping three gods, one of whom is

01:04:19

Mary. And that because they are allegedly creatures. And of course, both Jesus and Mary were creatures in that sense.

01:04:28

We believe that Jesus had eternally been God and he became enfleshed. But we don't believe that Mary is a divine person.

01:04:36

And then it says, O people of the scripture, Al -Kitab, do not exceed limits in your religion beyond the truth and do not follow the inclinations of a people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.

01:04:51

And so here you have the assertion being made that all of this stuff about Mary and Jesus and the exaltation of Jesus and so on and so forth, which the writer of the

01:05:01

Quran has not understood a solid, has not given a solid understanding of, is again, this transgression, this exceeding the limits in your religion.

01:05:11

And it's following the inclinations of a people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.

01:05:18

In much of modern Islamic understanding, this is presented as being in reference to Paul, where Paul is the dreaded, terrible, horrible guy that leads everybody astray and takes over the religion of Jesus.

01:05:34

And I've heard Shabir Ali present it this way. And Ali Atta is another that has presented this type of an understanding.

01:05:42

And it's all laid at Paul's footsteps. That's not what the Quranic understanding is.

01:05:48

And in fact, I think you can make a fairly decent argument. The Quran might even make reference to Paul in a positive sense elsewhere.

01:05:55

But the idea is that there has been this process of going astray and being misled.

01:06:02

And unless I'm mistaken, I think those are the same terms that are used in Surah Al -Fatiha. Yeah, well, and actually, the very next verse is talking about curses being pronounced on the children of Israel.

01:06:15

It seems that it's referring to the Jews, because that's what most people believe the background of Surah Al -Fatiha is, is that when the

01:06:25

Muslims pray that daily prayer, and they quote Surah Al -Fatiha, that they are in essence praying to not be like the

01:06:33

Jews and the Christians. A lot of folks are not aware of that, but that seems to be the case.

01:06:39

And that this excess of religion in the worship of Jesus, we've now seen the

01:06:45

Quran simply that the author of the Quran does not understand what it is that Christians believe. It is an accusation of polytheism.

01:06:51

We are not polytheists. It's an accusation that Mary is a divine creature. She is not a divine creature.

01:06:57

These are not biblical teachings. And therefore, fundamentally, you have a question to ask yourself if you're a

01:07:04

Muslim. If the Quran could not get these things right when human beings could have gotten them right at this time in history.

01:07:13

I mean, there's really at this point in time, the doctrine of the Trinity is easily understood. There are clear doctrinal statements that have been produced this time.

01:07:21

If humans could get it right and the Quran got it wrong, why are you trusting your eternal soul on the

01:07:32

Quran? Take us to 5 .116. Is that right? But it is important, I think, to just reiterate what was said there, that this is this is considered to be one of the ayat.

01:07:42

That is a term that that, as you know, in Arabic has a wide range of meaning.

01:07:49

Yes. And in the Quran is used very significantly in a number of different ways. The ayat, they're the verses, they're the divisions, but they're also signs.

01:07:57

And the fact that Mary eats food is a clear sign from Allah that the

01:08:04

Christians are wrong. Well, if that's a sign from Allah, then

01:08:10

Allah doesn't know what the Christians have believed about Mary to begin with. And I think that, again, the truth loving

01:08:18

Muslim. Now, if you don't care about truth, if all you care about is jihad or whatever, then you probably aren't watching us anyways and don't really care one way or the other.

01:08:27

But if you actually believe that the Quran is the word of God, then you need to explain how it is an ayat from Allah, a clear ayat from Allah that Mary eats food.

01:08:43

How is that? That's what I'm hoping, folks. You know, we got some calls last time, but we didn't get anybody that would answer that.

01:08:51

Again, I'm not trying to push that on someone, but especially in this later hour, we have folks who are watching that could explain from the

01:09:01

Islamic perspective how this is not a misrepresentation of what Christians believe. I'd love to hear it.

01:09:07

Well, it's very strange that, number one, as you pointed out, Muslims around the world sincerely believe that Christians hold these views because of what the

01:09:17

Quran says, the trinity being father, son, and Mary and other things, which Christians never held or do not hold.

01:09:24

And then on top of that, we as Christians are very surprised to hear what we're supposed to believe according to Muslims, when in fact, we don't believe that at all.

01:09:35

As you pointed out in the previous show, like stop saying three, which is the literal

01:09:40

Arabic rendering, which Yusuf Ali, who I like to call Ibn Mas 'ud, the son of a gun, because his translation is really strange at best, to be nice, he translates it, stop saying trinity.

01:09:53

That's not in the Arabic at all. Stop saying three. And we don't say three.

01:09:59

We don't believe in three gods. And yet, Muslims around the world really believe that we do. And do not say

01:10:04

Allah is a third of three. That's, again, a literal translation of that text as well, which, again, we are not saying, but it does tell us that the author of the

01:10:13

Qur 'an has this idea of three gods. And then I think it is explicitly stated at the end of Surah Al -Maidah in ayah 116.

01:10:23

Yes. And beware the day when Allah will say, O Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people, take me and my mother as deities beside Allah?

01:10:39

Let me read that again. Take me and my mother. Did you say to the people, take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?

01:10:48

Now, before we get to Jesus's alleged response, just think of what this question implies.

01:10:54

I mean, it's very, very clear. Why would Allah be asking

01:11:01

Jesus on the day of judgment whether he said to the people, and notice, and you know what?

01:11:09

I just realized this is something that it would be interesting to see. And maybe I know we have lots of Arabic viewers, and maybe you could tell me this as well.

01:11:17

But I get the feeling that this is when the quotation is made here, take me and my mother as deities besides Allah.

01:11:25

Is that a command? Is that in the imperative in the Arabic? That's something

01:11:31

I would want to look up. I'll have to look it up. Unfortunately, it would take me too long on the program to do so, because my

01:11:36

Arabic is very slow in looking that kind of stuff up. But it sounds like it is being used as an imperative, and Jesus is being queried.

01:11:46

Did you ever say to people, take me, take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?

01:11:55

And remember, this is the same surah, surah al -Maidah, that had verses 72 through 78, which we just got done looking at.

01:12:02

And we saw that, remember, one of the ayah is that Mary eats food. So here you have the conclusion.

01:12:10

Why would Allah ask Jesus this, unless the point is that the judgment, the

01:12:16

Christians are going to be specifically condemned for having taken

01:12:21

Jesus and his mother as deities besides shirk

01:12:29

Allah, committing an act of shirk. And let me see if my math is,

01:12:36

I did well in math, but it was always the low well. I got straight A's in high school.

01:12:41

I never got a B in high school. I was one of those weird people. But all the English stuff was 99, 100.

01:12:48

Math was 89 .5, rounded up. Okay, just, just, you feel sorry for me?

01:12:54

You're going to have to help me with my math here. But if I've got Jesus, and I've got

01:13:02

Mary, and I've got Allah, isn't that the same three that we were said earlier in the same surah not to say what?

01:13:12

Three. Thalath, wasn't it? Three. Three, right. So it seems to me,

01:13:18

Thalath is three. These are the only three in the context. And I, again, have heard

01:13:23

Islamic apologists really struggle at this point to try to get away from the idea that the

01:13:33

Quran is actually identifying the Trinity as Allah, Jesus, and Mary.

01:13:39

And there is no other verse in the Quran that enumerates the three. Exactly. So, I mean, it's almost impossible to do.

01:13:47

But they have to, because at least, at least the Islamic apologist today, who actually understands what

01:13:54

Christians believe. But you see, the Islamic apologist today who understands what Christians believe needs to understand he is different than the author of the

01:14:03

Quran. The author of the Quran did not understand what Christians believe. There was no reason for that.

01:14:09

If it was Allah, Allah knew, could have known if they had wanted to know, but they don't know.

01:14:17

And that is the problem that we have here. It seems so obvious to me that this text is just without question illustrating the fundamental ignorance of the writer of the

01:14:28

Quran at this point. Dr. White, just to point out your question, that verb which is translated, take me, it is the second person masculine plural imperative verb.

01:14:44

Second person masculine plural imperative. OK, so it is a command.

01:14:50

So he was he is actually being asked if he had commanded the people, which would have been the people of his day, his followers, if he had commanded the people to take him and his mother as deities besides Allah.

01:15:09

And clearly that is not what Christians would believe. And so we once again are left with a simple question.

01:15:17

Why would a divine revelation misrepresent a major world religion at the time, a major world religion that the

01:15:27

Quran itself says there are there are two privileged groups that received revelation from Allah in the past.

01:15:36

Specifically, they're the Al -Kitab, the Jews and the Christians. And the Torah came down from God.

01:15:41

The Injil came down from God. It was given to them. Very, very important. Even in Muhammad's own time, he had to interact with these people.

01:15:49

Why misrepresent these religions and what they believe, if this is, in fact, the divine word of Allah?

01:15:57

It's exceedingly problematic, especially in light of Surah 384, make no distinction between the Rasuls, all of the

01:16:03

Rasuls and the books of them. And so, as you pointed out in the beginning of the first program, for those who didn't see that,

01:16:09

Muslims must constantly look at all of the other scriptures, which they don't even know if exist or they differentiate on that, through the lens of the

01:16:20

Quran. And that's and of course, to do that is painful, especially, as you said, for apologists, because what is their choice?

01:16:28

I mean, their choice can only be to admit the obvious that the writer of the Quran did not, was not familiar at all with the actual text, or to say, well, all of those texts are completely wrong.

01:16:43

But as you've demonstrated before, and maybe you could just briefly summarize for people who haven't watched some of our previous programs, what is the main problem with them?

01:16:52

Well, all of those texts are wrong. Well, the obvious reality is that we know exactly what the

01:16:59

New Testament looked like in the days of Muhammad. This was the same testament that he told us to go to in Surah 5, 47.

01:17:08

Same Surah, if you'll follow the argument in Surah 5, beginning around verse 40 or so, you have this flow of argument through the

01:17:17

Torah, through the angel and Jesus to Muhammad. It's a part of an argument for Muhammad's own prophethood.

01:17:24

And if you follow the flow of that argumentation, it says that we are to test, we are to judge by what is contained therein.

01:17:34

The all -angel are to judge by what is contained therein. If we don't judge, then we're as bad as coppers.

01:17:40

We're just unbelievers. The only therein in the text is in the gospel.

01:17:47

We know what the gospels look like. We know what the New Testament looked like. We know what the Old Testament looked like. We have such strong documented evidence that predates the time of Muhammad, that there isn't any question about any of this.

01:18:00

And so if you're going to make that argumentation, you're going to have to prove it, and you're going to have to come up with some meaningful documentation to substantiate these things.

01:18:08

So it's right there. But then notice this, and let's just make this one application, look at two other verses, and then we will invite you.

01:18:16

I want to talk to Muslims who believe that the Quran is true.

01:18:21

I want to know how you can say the Quran is true, and yet we've demonstrated,

01:18:27

I think we've done so fairly. I think anyone who is fair will look at how we've read the text, and we have tried to deal with it in its context.

01:18:38

We deal with this in the very way that Muslims will never deal with a New Testament text. The vast majority of Muslims will not say, now, is this the imperative?

01:18:49

Is this term being used elsewhere? That's not how they do it. We saw that last night with one of our callers, tried to pit

01:18:55

Matthew against Matthew, and just not allow the text to speak for itself.

01:19:01

We're going through Surah 5 in the order in which it's actually presented.

01:19:06

Here's the conclusion. And then notice this right at the end, and I've found this, honestly,

01:19:12

Brother Joseph, to be a rather sad conclusion to this. Jesus' response to Allah is, it was not for me to say that to which

01:19:24

I have no right. So he denies ever having said anything like this, which I suppose is good because, you know.

01:19:30

We don't believe it. That's right. If I had said it, you would have known it. And then you have this phrase, you know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within yourself.

01:19:41

That's a rather literal rendering. Yusuf Ali's translation is actually a little smoother there, but that's a fairly accurate rendering.

01:19:50

Indeed, it is you who is the knower of the unseen. Did you hear that phrase? Let me read it again. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within yourself.

01:20:01

I have commented to many audiences in the past that I wish

01:20:08

Muhammad had met, maybe he did, but met and listened to a real knowledgeable Christian.

01:20:20

Because this shows me once again that the author of the Quran does not know the

01:20:25

New Testament. Right. Vast majority of a billion Muslims in the world will read this if they ever even bother to read and think about it.

01:20:34

For most Muslims, the Quran is more of a talisman than a text to be read and understood and contextualized.

01:20:39

And they can't. Eighty percent can't read it in Arabic. That's true. But I ask my

01:20:46

Christian audiences, once I have read this particular text, does that bring up a verse in your mind?

01:20:53

When Jesus, and may I say something? This text offends me. It offends me for many reasons.

01:21:01

It offends me because it misrepresents me. But it also offends me because here a man who lived 600 years after Jesus forces words into his mouth that turn

01:21:12

Jesus into a liar. Turn Jesus into a liar. Why do I say that? You cannot believe this and what the

01:21:21

Gospels say. The very Gospel is that the Quran directs us to. Interestingly enough, the very same

01:21:27

Gospel that our caller yesterday was quoting from to say, well, Jesus is only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

01:21:34

Right around, in fact, even before that particular text. Here's the words of the

01:21:41

Quran. Listen again. You know what is within myself and I do not know what is within yourself.

01:21:47

But hundreds of years before that was written, half a millennium before Muhammad, you have these words from Jesus.

01:21:56

All things have been handed over to me by my father. And no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

01:22:12

Matthew 11, 27. Did you hear those words? No one knows the son except the father.

01:22:19

The son is such a divinely exalted being that there's no human being who can have true, intimate and exhaustive knowledge of the son except for the father.

01:22:31

But then listen to what Jesus says. Do you? Oh, my dear Muslim friends, think about this.

01:22:36

This was written. I can show you where this was written hundreds of years before Muhammad. Here's what it says.

01:22:43

Nor does anyone know the father except the son and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

01:22:52

Do you hear that, my friends? Have you ever thought, Joseph, about the majesty that must be possessed by the person who would make such a statement as this?

01:23:04

I've never understood liberals. I don't get liberals at all. I really don't. How can a liberal look at this text?

01:23:12

And still continue to believe in Jesus. I mean, this is why Lord, liar or lunatic, because Jesus is saying that he is the exclusive means of true knowledge of the father himself.

01:23:28

You want to know the father? You want to know the father? The only way to know the father is if the son wills to reveal him to you.

01:23:38

And when the son wills to reveal him, he will provide a perfect revelation of who the father is.

01:23:45

What did Jesus say to his disciples? When his disciples in John 14 said, show us the father. Jesus' response is, have

01:23:51

I been so long a time with you and yet you have not known me? He who has seen me has seen the father.

01:23:57

John 118 says the unique God, the monogamous theos, the only God who is the son, he has exegeted him.

01:24:06

He has explained him. He has revealed him. The son is such a perfect revelation of the father that there is no marring.

01:24:14

There is no distortion in the revelation he gives the father. You want to know who the father is? See the one whom he sent.

01:24:20

And that is the son, Jesus Christ. Obviously, Muhammad had never read

01:24:26

Matthew 11, 27 because he contradicted Matthew 11, 27 and Surah 5, verse 16.

01:24:32

And in so doing, once again, he separated those who would follow him from knowing the only one who can give them peace with God.

01:24:45

That is the Lord Jesus Christ. 39, the troops, Surah 39, ayah 4.

01:24:53

Let me give you this translation. We'll look at the son of a gun translation after that.

01:24:58

That's now the new official name. I think so. The son of a gun. I'm afraid so. Surah 39, 4.

01:25:05

If Allah had intended to take a son he could have chosen from what he creates whatever he willed.

01:25:15

Exalted is he. He is Allah, the one, the prevailing. Now let's look at Yusuf Ali.

01:25:21

Had Allah wished to take himself a son he could have chosen whom he pleased out of those whom he doth create.

01:25:29

But glory be to him. He is above such things. He is Allah, the one, the irresistible.

01:25:36

Now, here again, one of the major questions, one of the major controversies in looking at the

01:25:45

Quran is what is the Quran condemning when it condemns the idea of God having a son?

01:25:53

Now this is not the first time we've seen God is exalted of having a son. But what does that mean in the understanding of the

01:26:02

Quran? And it's important for us to look at this because Christians do not believe that the son of God, as the second divine person in the

01:26:14

Trinity came into existence at a point in time. We don't believe that Allah married some divine female entity and had a child with this divine entity who becomes the son of God.

01:26:26

Now that may have been descriptive of Allah and his daughters in the

01:26:31

Jahiliyyah, but if that is what is being attributed to Christianity, that's something that would be quite understandable for an

01:26:40

Arab who was fighting against the Jahiliyyah idolatry to assume that that's what

01:26:48

Christians believed. But again, the Muslim says, oh no, no, no, no, what you're reading are the very words of Allah.

01:26:54

So you can't use the ignorance defense unless you're an ultra liberal Muslim. And like I said, ultra liberal

01:27:01

Muslims only live in the West because when they live in Islamic countries, they cease being ultra liberal

01:27:07

Muslims or they cease being anything at all. And they keep a low profile even in the West, don't they? Oh, you better believe they keep a low profile even in the

01:27:14

West, yes. So these words, what do they mean? If Allah had intended, so here's a hypothetical.

01:27:22

If Allah had wanted a son, he could have chosen from what he creates, whatever he will.

01:27:30

So he could have chosen a what? Well, a mate.

01:27:37

That's what it's talking about. He could have chosen from what he creates, whatever he will. If he wanted to take a son, then he could have, he had the whole creation, but he's exalted above that.

01:27:47

Allah does not do that. Now you say, well, it doesn't say mate there.

01:27:53

Well, okay, let's look at Surah 6, 101. Because there you have the exact terminology that is used of this one that he could have chosen from all of creation.

01:28:07

And in Surah 6, 101, I'm going to read it from the Sahih translation.

01:28:13

I have it here in Yusuf Ali as well. But I'm sort of liking this translation. Yeah, I'm sort of liking all this stuff on the iPad for the

01:28:21

Quran. I've got the Arabic. I've got transliteration. I've got Tafsir.

01:28:26

I've got all sorts of stuff here. I like the apple. Oh yes, it's great. Here's the translation of the

01:28:35

Sahih International of 101. He is originator of the heavens and the earth.

01:28:43

How could he have a son when he does not have a companion, i .e.

01:28:49

wife? And he created all things and he is of all things knowing.

01:28:59

There you have the statement. Yusuf Ali, to him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth.

01:29:05

How can he have a son when he hath no consort? Now, my understanding is that the

01:29:12

Arabic word that is used there today sort of has a negative connotation.

01:29:17

It's sort of like a... Sahaba. Yeah, a sahaba. Almost like a concubine.

01:29:24

Kept woman. A kept woman, yes. It has a sort of negative connotation. And so the question is being, how could he have a son when he does not have a companion, a wife, a consort, a concubine?

01:29:37

Well, who's the main group that the Quran's attempting to respond to that are talking about God having a son?

01:29:46

Well, it's the Christians. Did the Christians believe that the son of God was due to some sexual union between Allah and some consort, a sahaba?

01:29:56

No, of course not. So why even raise the question? Our belief is that father and son are descriptive of an eternal relationship.

01:30:07

And it's not meant to be read in the human context of creatureliness and origination.

01:30:13

So why make arguments that are against a straw man if you're

01:30:18

God? I mean, I understand why Muhammad could make a straw man argument because he was just a man.

01:30:27

And he's ignorant of things. And you know what? There are Christians in the world today that probably wouldn't, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't even know how to respond to the arguments of the

01:30:41

Quran because their knowledge of the Trinity is so shallow that they can't detect the errors. It's a big problem.

01:30:46

That's a big problem. But you see, they're human beings and we understand that. We understand there's ignorance and we are called to teach people and we're called to clear up those things.

01:30:56

I fully understand why Muhammad misunderstood the doctrine of the Trinity. I really do.

01:31:02

The problem is what it means is what he wrote is not the divine word of God.

01:31:08

And if you're going to say that it is, then you need to have an understanding.

01:31:13

You need to have an answer for why it says these kinds of things other than, well, you really do believe that.

01:31:22

You really do believe that it's Allah and Mary and I go, no,

01:31:27

I don't. And the honest Muslim who reads our own literature and goes back into history and reads the

01:31:36

Nicene Creed or the creed that comes out of Constantinople or what's called the Athanasian creed or anything like that, which preceded

01:31:42

Muhammad by hundreds of years can see exactly what it was that we were stating, exactly what it was we were teaching.

01:31:50

And the writer of the Quran does not understand how can he have a son when he doesn't have a

01:31:56

Sahaba? That means the Quran thinks that there was a Sahaba, a consort, a wife, a companion involved in the creation of a son directly contradicts all of that.

01:32:09

And so what then do you do with the surah that Muhammad said was one of the most important surahs in all of the

01:32:15

Quran? Surah Tariqa, Surah 112. What do you do with it? It is called the purity, the sincerity.

01:32:22

It is as close to a creedal statement in the Quran as you can get to. Four short little ayah.

01:32:30

And yet the third states, He begetteth not, nor is he begotten.

01:32:37

There is none like unto him. Most, I know many Muslim apologists, especially that's sort of their favorite text.

01:32:45

Most of them can quote it. And my question for you is this.

01:32:51

If we've demonstrated that the understanding behind lemyeled wa lemyuled is erroneous, it's wrong, it doesn't represent what was being said.

01:33:03

Then here in what is really a creedal statement in the

01:33:08

Quran for the entirety of Islam, it's based on a falsehood. What are you gonna do?

01:33:16

If one of the 99 names of Allah is Al -Haq, then

01:33:22

I say to you, if you are truly a worshiper of Allah, then you must step back and go,

01:33:29

I must follow the advice that even my own book says was given to Allah.

01:33:38

If you have doubts, ask the people who are reading the book before you. Surah 1094.

01:33:44

Yes. Go to the book, find out what was being taught for hundreds of years before Muhammad.

01:33:50

And you will discover one like those words in Matthew 11, 27, who says,

01:33:55

I am the one who can reveal the father to you and I can do so perfectly. And he's not being arrogant because he's not a mere

01:34:02

Rasul. He is the eternal word who had eternally existed as God, who voluntarily took on flesh.

01:34:11

He is Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, he is a man. He walked this earth to us. A child is born and he truly was a child, but to us, a son is given.

01:34:22

He was the eternal son who was given to us. And that was prophesied 700 years before the incarnation.

01:34:29

Isaiah 9, 6, 700 years between those two texts fulfilled and his birth in Bethlehem, a child born to us, a son would be given to us and his name should be called

01:34:40

Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the El Gabor, the father of eternity, the creator of all things, the prince of peace.

01:34:49

And isn't it interesting that that text written 700 years before fulfilled in a

01:34:55

New Testament, intimate connection between Old and New Testament, prophecy and fulfillment.

01:35:01

And then we come to the Quran and there's nothing, no connection, complete break. Why is that?

01:35:08

You see, if you have seen that the Quran is not what Allah claimed it to be, that it is misrepresenting who

01:35:16

Jesus was, then my friends, you must re -examine your commitment, not to the existence of God, not the existence of revelation, not to the existence of religious truth.

01:35:32

You must re -examine your commitment to one man, Muhammad. Because it was only his teachings and then the codification of those teachings in the

01:35:44

Sunnah, in the Hadith, and in Islamic law and Sharia, all of that came from Muhammad.

01:35:50

Ask yourself the question, given who Jesus was, given that even Muhammad recognized that he was virgin born, sinless and powerful, why do you believe what

01:36:05

Muhammad said? Over what the very man Jesus taught and discipled wrote about him.

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Why? Especially when clearly Muhammad was ignorant of what

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Christians believed in his day and even more so, ignorant of what