August 6, 2013

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning, and if you've got a
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Qur 'an anywhere near you, you might want to grab it today. I've got some interesting things to share with you a little bit later on.
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Do a little Qur 'an study. Some of you might have one. If you don't, it's very easy to get hold of them online if you have access to Qur 'anbrowser .com.
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The Corpus Chronicum project is online, too. So just look up Corpus Chronicum, and it's a very, very useful website.
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Use it all the time. So you might want to grab those things. But first and foremost, just wanted to note in passing, before we completely change gears and subjects, what we've all said would be the result of these things.
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Dr. Mohler was mentioning this morning. My mornings have gone back to normal and fulfilled and happy now because it's
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August and the briefing is back. So July is just,
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I don't know, I just lose touch with reality because Dr. Mohler's briefing isn't around. So he was mentioning this morning some of the immediate impact, as Justice Scalia predicted, of the
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Supreme Court decisions, the radical nature of the Supreme Court and the decisions that it's making and the redefinition of marriage and so on and so forth.
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He was making note of it, and certainly one example of that outside the
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United States I had seen on August 1st, and I've seen a couple of versions of this story.
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And this one from the 1st of August says,
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Wealthy gay dad Bari Druitt Barlow says he and his civil partner
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Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings. He told the
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Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because, listen to this folks, quote, now I'm going to read this in the voice that we should hear it in.
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Not of, you know, you have to provide voices when you're reading stuff, right? But this is the voice that we should have it in.
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He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because, quote, I am still not getting what
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I want, end quote. A government bill legalizing gay marriage passed
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Parliament recently, but, and I'll probably now be banned from England forever. A government bill legalizing gay marriage passed
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Parliament recently, but it included measures to protect churches from being forced to perform same -sex weddings. Mr.
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Druitt Barlow said, The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church.
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Listen to this. It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to, to get them to recognize us, end quote.
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Wow. I mean, does he even realize how obvious that is?
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We're going to make the secular courts force you to recognize us, to celebrate us.
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We are going to force you to compromise. You're going to have to deny what your
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Bible says, what your history says, what God's law says. We'll force you to do it.
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We'll force you to do it. Psalm 12, 8, the wicked strut about when that which is vile is honored amongst men.
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Listen to it. Listen to it. He added, quote, it obsessed me because I want it so much, a big lavish ceremony.
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The whole works. I just don't think it's going to happen straight away. As much as people are saying this is a good thing,
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I am still not getting what I want, end quote. I remember hearing those words when my kids were like three, four years old.
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But here you have an adult man, a very rich adult man.
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And yet the self -centeredness of the attitude, the immaturity, the childishness of it, shocking.
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Absolutely shocking. I'm going to force you to say I'm a good person. Exactly what's going on.
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It's exactly what's going on. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. The gay couple shot to fame in 1999 when they became the first British same -sex couple to be named on their children's birth certificates.
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Okay, which one labored and had the child is what I want. Which one?
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Neither of them, obviously. They entered a civil partnership in 2006 and Barry Druitt Barlow has reportedly donated around 500 ,000 pounds.
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That's a lot of money. Two groups lobbying for same -sex marriage. Last year, the
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Church of England warned that the government's plans to redefine marriage could trigger legal problems and end the 500 -year link between church and state.
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Well, for the Church of England, I'm not really sure that would be all that bad of a thing to be perfectly honest with you.
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That church -state thing has not been going real well for the Church of England as far as remaining
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Christian or anything like that. So it might be time. In January this year, a leading lawyer cautioned that the plans left the
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Church of England open to legal challenge. The prime minister was sent a copy of the legal opinion by Lord Kerry, a former
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Archbishop of Canterbury, in June 2012. Crispin Blunt MP, who was then a justice minister, admitted that the government's plans could lead to legal issues.
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He said the government is seeking to protect, indeed prescribe, religious organizations from offering gay marriage, but he continued that may be problematic legally.
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Yeah, you think. But I, again, we're going to force you. We are going to make you say we're good.
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Can you hear it? Can you see it? Oh, my. My, my, my, my, my.
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Looking at Isaiah 5 a whole lot more these days. Woe to those who call good evil and evil good.
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It's right there in front of us. I can hear people listening to you right now saying, but that'll never happen here. Oh, yeah, right.
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Really? Is anyone really still that naïve? You know, the Constitution won't allow it, but ... Yeah, the
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Constitution, that piece of paper, it has to be interpreted by those nine people who have no connection anymore to reality?
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Well, here's a question for them to think about. In the United States, when a pastor marries someone, at the end of the ceremony, he says by the power vested in me, by who?
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By the state that he's ... Oh, wait a minute, there's a licensing factor here. When the state comes along and says, oh, you know what?
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We're going to yank your license. And when we yank your license, guess what? You don't get any more.
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You don't get any of the benefits, the tax deductions and all the other things that go along with being a licensed minister.
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We all know that's all disappearing very quickly anyways. They're going to go after that stuff real quick. We're going to have to be taking trips overseas and visiting other countries to find out how they've been doing this all along in anti -Christian societies so we can learn some lessons.
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Because the day is right around the corner. Just real quickly,
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I saw this one as well, I'll throw it in here since we are doing a jumbo edition today. In one of the feeds
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I follow is uncommondescent .com. It's basically intelligent design discussion and things like that.
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And here is a August 5th, so yesterday this was posted.
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Mark Armitage, possibly the latest victim of the Darwinist Inquisition. What happens when you publish a peer -reviewed paper that states inconvenient facts against Darwinism?
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Better yet, photos that cast doubt on prevailing paradigms? You get fired, at least that is what a researcher is alleging.
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We are very saddened and disturbed to report that Mark Armitage was fired from his position at California State University just days after his paper was published online.
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Interestingly enough, what was his paper about? Was it, I think Moses wrote
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Genesis and we should force our children to read Genesis? No, that's not what he said.
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Instead he's in the Department of Biology at California State University. Of course, you're in California. It is a,
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I don't know, how should we put it, socialist dictatorship anyways. When I was over there,
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I even said when I was speaking in Southern California less than two weeks ago, I said I'm at least thankful that we're a long ways away from Sacramento so the madness does not infect us here.
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But the abstract of his paper was quite interesting.
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Soft, fibular bone tissues were obtained from a supraorbital horn of Triceratops horridus collected at the
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Hell Creek Formation, Montana, USA. Soft material was present in pre and post -decalcified bone.
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Horn material yielded numerous small sheets of lamellar bone matrix. This matrix possessed visible microstructures consistent with lamellar bone osteocytes.
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Some sheets of soft tissue had multiple layers of intact tissues with osteocyte -like structures featuring filopodial -like interconnections and secondary branching.
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Both oblate and stellate types of osteocyte -like cells were present in sheets of soft tissues and exhibited organelle -like microstructures.
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SEM analysis yielded osteocyte -like cells featuring filopodial extensions of 18 to 20 micrometers in length.
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Filopodial extensions were delicate and showed no evidence of any pre -mineralization or crystallization artifact and therefore were interpreted to be soft.
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This is the first report of sheets of soft tissues from Triceratops horn bearing layers of osteocytes and extends the range and type of dinosaur specimens known to contain non -fossilized material in bone matrix.
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Well, that sounds just... that's going to overthrow the entire... it's going to overthrow the entire scientific community.
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You get fired. Wow. Now, of course, they point out, you know, maybe this isn't why he was fired, but it just happened to have happened right after this.
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And anyone who has seen certain films like Expelled might have an idea.
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And it's all for the same reason. It's so that people can say, well, all scholars say that you people are wrong.
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And anyways, I thought I would mention that in passing. I just look over in channel...
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Carla came in. Do we remember Carla? It's very difficult for me. I think she's from Canada, but that's about all
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I remember is I think that Carla is from Canada. That's about all I know. And then, unfortunately,
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Mutato is crying or something. I'm not really sure what's wrong with that.
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Yeah, he weeps great tears. Oh, I see. Someone went through Bismarck and did not stop to see him.
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So I would like to get to meet Milo Hotzenbuehler, a .k
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.a. Mutato, someday. I really would. But he's starting to make it sound like I'm trying to avoid him.
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And I'm just like, well, you know, if a church somewhere near you would invite me up,
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I'd be happy to come, really. And I'm not difficult to, you know, OK, my culinary tastes are somewhat limited.
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We'll probably only end up at Olive Garden or Denny's or something, you know, nothing really fancy. But, you know, it's not my fault that there's nobody anywhere near Mutato that seems to like me other than him.
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He's the only person up there that likes me. So if we could find somebody up there that would, you know, invite me up there,
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I'd be happy to do so. Anyhow, as I mentioned, you might want to have your
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Quran out. Again, I hope, you know,
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I got a very, very encouraging note, really encouraging note. I wish I had it in front of me. From Nick in the
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Ukraine. I'm going to be seeing Nick again in February, Lord willing. I told you all about Nick when
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I was teaching in Berlin. I was going to start today's program in German and then fake realizing that I was speaking the wrong language.
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But I forgot when I got started because I was busy doing something else. So I apologize. But when when
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I was in Berlin, we had a group of Ukrainian students and I had no idea that Nick was going to do this.
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No idea. I just got their papers. Nick had to translate their papers.
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So he I mean, he's translate. So he was the guy that I'm sitting there and I'm teaching on textual criticism.
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That is not that's that's about as easy a range of vocabulary to translate as the abstract of the biology paper
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I just read to you. OK, a lot of technical terms. And he's in another room.
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He's off to the right there. It's a it's a room that has a window so he can see in. And I'm wearing a microphone so he can hear me.
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I can sort of just barely just sort of hear his voice a little bit. And then the Ukrainian students are wearing these headsets that they have to keep sort of pointed toward this infrared transmitter type thing.
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And every once while they have to stop and change the batteries and stuff like that. It's a neat setup. And what it allows for is live translation.
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Instead of stop, start, stop, start. It would have been impossible to to do live that kind of live translation.
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Stop, start, stop, start. Just for all day long on a subject like that. I would have
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I would have been brain dead after two days. But anyway, so I was just incredibly impressed this young man for him to be able to be listening to me and then live translating it like they have at the
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U .N., you know, in such a technical area. And then find out he translates their papers and sends me these papers.
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And I'm like, wow. Well, Nick Nick wrote to me when he sent the papers and he said he's been listening to the dividing line ever since I was over there.
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And that he really found my continued review of the
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Calvinist calling show with Michael Brown to be extremely useful because that's a big discussion over there.
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So I think because Nick said that, I think what I need to do is
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I think I have it. I have to look for it. I think I have it on my on my
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Mac at home. I'm just going to have to get that video that has been making the rounds from Jerry.
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He's the Armenian guy. Why? I'm not a Calvinist. That video has been sent to me a half dozen times. And I just I haven't bothered with it because it's just not overly exciting.
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But since it's really popular out there, I'm just going to have to we're gonna have to do some radio free Geneva's here and respond to that and and do some more of that because Nick said it was helpful.
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So Nick said it was helpful. We'll do some more of it. Looking forward to seeing all those guys again in in February in in Kiev.
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Wow. Even even LaShawn Barber showed up in channel today. That's that's amazing. But Carla fell asleep.
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That's interesting. Watching things and channels are strange. Anyways, what I was telling you, what
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I started to tell you was I'm reading through the Quran again.
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I've lost track of how many times this would be, but given that it's something that is just it's part of my job.
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I mean, literally, it's part of my job to have familiarity with this text and therefore constant exposure to it and stuff.
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And yesterday morning, I was doing a 64 mile ride.
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And recently, it's not been all that hot here in Phoenix. I mean, the high days feel like 94, which is really unusual for us in August.
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I mean, it's raining right now. Well, some of you would not call this rain. I think if you lived in Seattle, you would go.
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No, no, that's that's no. Is there is it collecting anywhere? Is there water in the streets?
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No. OK, that's not right. That's just a moist sky, basically. But yeah, yeah, right.
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Well, here in Phoenix, what we call, you know, an inch of rain. It means there's an inch between the drops.
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That's how we measure rain. We got an inch of rain. There is only an inch between the drops.
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As I'm looking outside right now, there is a small puddle forming over out there in the in the parking lot.
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There is a small puddle. Now, there's still dry spots on the on the on the sidewalk. But there there is a a small puddle forming where the stuff's coming off the roof.
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No, that's not the sprinkler. No, no. This is what's coming off the roof. This is there. There actually is a small puddle there. So that's that's better than nothing.
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The little the little starving plants are their little mouths are up toward heaven more and more.
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Anyway, I'm wondering about a little bit here. So I was out before dawn yesterday morning.
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And actually, I was I was over halfway through. I was on my my way back. So I was descending. And hence, the speeds are going up and you're starting to feel better at 24 miles per hour than you were at 17.
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And but I'm listening and I am listening very carefully.
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And I caught something. I caught something. And I made a strong mental note.
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Because sometimes I make mental notes and the sweat washes away before I get back. Actually, even carry.
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I even bought a little teeny tiny super light. Well, it could actually even have on it the
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German most of the German Bible, but I can record stuff on it. And every once in a while,
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I will stop and I will record something for myself.
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So I can remember, OK, you need to look this up, back up, whatever. Oh, great.
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The fake Dawkins on Twitter says, I guess he wants me to jump into the whole brouhaha about the strange fire conference.
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And my daughter does, too. My daughter wants me to cover the whole gifts thing and all that kind of stuff.
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And I'm just like, I'll tell you what, when it's when it actually happens and I get a chance,
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I think I could probably talk Phil Johnson into a freebie set of recordings or access to the
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MP3s or whatever. And I can, you know, throw it on the iPod and actually listen to what people said then maybe.
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But I just I just sort of get the feeling that that all this free stuff and the chatter going back and forth, especially between Michael Brown and any number of bloggers.
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I'm just sort of like, shouldn't we have the conference first? See what's said before everybody starts piling on and arguing about stuff.
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I mean, certainly on some things like some of the just wild eyed, radically wrong stuff.
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That's just so clearly obvious. I mean, obviously, I would I would love to have a discussion with Michael sometime about his role in the
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Brownsville revival. Because I've watched some videos of that, and I'm just like, how how do you defend that?
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How do you not see that that is miles and miles and miles away from anything, even remotely like what we have in New Testament Christianity?
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But I want to I want to hear what the speakers have to say. I want to hear what kind of criticisms they level. And I just get the real feeling that there's more communication.
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It may not be overly friendly at the moment, but there's more communication with Michael Brown.
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And more reformed folks because of our debate. People listen to that.
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The other debate that he did after that on Long Island and because they've heard him and I debating
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Unitarians. And it's like, wow, that is really great on these areas. But then they're like, oh, these other areas.
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Wow. And I just have a feeling there's more of this pre -conference chatter because of that.
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So I think when is that conference? Is that in September? I think it is.
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Somebody in channel will probably tell me eventually. I think it's in September.
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I'm looking forward to hearing. I'm not going to be there, but I'm looking forward to getting the recordings fairly quickly.
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And we'll certainly try to listen to them. That's going to be if it's later in September, right before I head for London in South Africa.
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Well, I can't guarantee much there, but we'll well, there's a there's a link.
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Lady Smith in channel put that up. So I click on it. Oh, October 16th or 18th.
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So we've got two months. This will be after I get back from South Africa, actually.
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So, yeah, we'll definitely we'll definitely take a look at it. And so that's interesting.
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I'll be interested to see what's that. But anyhow, so we'll get to that. But I'd like to do so once we have something to discuss the specific assertions that are being that are being made.
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Anyhow, as I said, I was out and I caught something.
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And I only heard it once. I remember exactly where I was on. I think it's called
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Norterra Parkway up there, if I recall correctly. But I made a mental note and I said, you know,
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I really need to check that out. And then last evening I had the opportunity and it really was very, very exciting for me anyways, to get to sit down once again with my
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Arabic tutor. It has been a long, long time. And one of the things that I did is that I really want to look at some of these texts and ask you some questions to make sure that my looking at the text is appropriate.
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So what I want to do is I want to look at some text in the Quran. I'll read them for if you don't have one, obviously.
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But I want to sort of make an argument. And I know some of you, I know some of you Calvinists have even slipped and said, yeah,
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I really enjoy the program up until you start talking about Islam. Especially today, maybe not so much.
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Well, yeah, I think this discussion is really important. I encourage you to stick with me. And even when
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I move on to Bashir Vania's comments, I would really recommend you stick with me because a number of the issues that he raises in his opening statement today are very, very common arguments against the inspiration of the
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New Testament. And while at times we have to deal with very specifically
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Islamic slants to things, sometimes what we're talking about is applicable to a much wider range of application.
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So be disciplined. Be strong.
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Stick with me here. I think you'll find it to be useful.
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Here is what I heard. I think right now, I think by the end of the ride,
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I was through, I was into Surah 24. But this was in Surah 18,
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Ayah 27. Surah 18, Ayah 27. And what
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I'm listening to right now is the Abd al -Halim translation. The reason I'm listening to it is because Shabir Ali has chosen to use that as his default translation in the book that we are working on.
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And so I thought, well, that'd be a good one. I've listened to, read through Yusuf Ali and Sahih International and some of these others,
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Maududi, etc. But let's do this one this time. And as long as I can get it in PDF format or something like that, then it's fairly easy to create an audio version.
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And here was the Ayah that just somehow caught my attention.
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And a Turretin fan already knows what it is. And recite,
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O Muhammad, what has been revealed to you of the book of your Lord. There is no changer of his words and never will you find in other than him a refuge.
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Now, the phrase that caught my attention, obviously, was there is no changer of his words.
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Now, if you look at other translations, they will not be as literal as this.
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And they'll say things like, none can change his words or something like that. But the translation used this sort of awkward phraseology that communicated to me that what we're looking at here is a participle in the original language.
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Very similar to what we would have in Romans chapter 3 when it says there is no
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God -seeker. There is none seeking after God.
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It's a participle that is being used as a substantive. There is no God -seeker.
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And here, it's there is no word changer.
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There is no changer of his words. And so, as I said,
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I met with my Arabic tutor and got caught up and had a lot to talk about because he's
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Syrian and his family is Syrian. Things are a mess in Syria and most of us over here are not getting much of meaningfully accurate information about what's going on in Syria.
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But it was rather sobering for me for him to say, it's going to take 10 years, 10 years to resolve this.
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It'll be another decade. And I'm like, wow. And it could end up being three different countries too, which is amazing.
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But anyhow, but we finally had the opportunity of clearing the food off the table and looking at the
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Quran. And so, I brought this text up and we looked at it fairly carefully.
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And this participle phrase, there is no changer of his words, is accurately translated here.
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So, a number of you have been asking me, by the way, and I think they probably write in and ask you too, Rich. What are the best apps or programs for studying the
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Quran? On my Mac, I have a program called Zekr. Zekr is about the only thing
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I've found for the Quran. The online website I mentioned earlier, the
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Corpus Chronicum project is probably the best thing I've found there. Very, very useful. But the single best app
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I've found anywhere, it's not like I've done an exhaustive search or something, but I've probably run across most of them, is for my iPad.
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And it's not available on my Mac. If I want the best app for studying the
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Quran, it's on my iPad. I've actually got to use my iPad. And it's called My Quran. It's called
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My Quran. And so what I did is I used, you can highlight any word and then ask for its root.
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And then it'll give you an exhaustive concordance of all the places where that root is used in the
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Quran. Now I have that huge, massive paper concordance, which is what
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I used earlier. Now I don't have to use that because I have it all in My Quran. Very, very, very, very useful.
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And so I looked at this root because I asked my tutor, you know, what does it mean to change, alter?
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And he would say, he says, yeah, like, you know, the actual changing, altering of the text itself.
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And so I looked and that particular participial form is used two other times in the
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Quran. And so I went looking for them. And the first is Surah 634.
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Surah 634. And notice the consistency here. Here's Surah 634.
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And certainly were messengers denied before you, but they were patient over the effects of denial and they were harmed until our victory came to them.
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And none can alter the words of Allah. And there has certainly come to you some information about the previous messengers.
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Well, exact same assertion. And none can alter the words of Allah.
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Surah 634. And the last reference of the three, so you've got 1827, 634, is also in Surah 6 and it's
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Surah 6, 115. Surah 6, 115. And the word of your
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Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can alter His words and He is the hearing, the knowing.
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So whenever this root is used in the
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Quran, it is used of the exact same context. And that is no one can alter the words of Allah.
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Can't be done. Now, modern Muslims, for I believe reasons outside of the text of the
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Quran, modern Muslims will interpret this very narrowly.
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And they will interpret it as only in reference to the Quran itself. The question
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I have is, is that a teaching of the Quran? Is that a teaching of the
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Quran? Is the Quran saying, well, only the Quran cannot be changed?
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Because obviously, the vast majority of Muslims today believe that the
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Bible has been corrupted. That the Torah has been corrupted, the Injil has been corrupted.
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And why do they believe that? Do they believe that because they have looked so carefully at what the
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Quran and the Hadith says? No. That's not why.
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For example, I also had noted this on an earlier ride.
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It had really stuck with me and I wanted to make reference to it and that's why I'm bringing it in here. Listen to this in Surah 3,
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Ayah 3. He has sent down upon you, O Muhammad, the book in truth confirming what was before it.
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And he revealed the Torah and the Gospel before as guidance for the people.
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And he revealed the Quran. Indeed, those who disbelieve in the verses of Allah will have a severe punishment and Allah is exalted in might, the owner of retribution.
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Now, notice the terminology that is utilized here.
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And it doesn't necessarily come real clearly in this translation, but when you actually look at the
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Arabic, it's a little bit clearer. And he has sent down upon you, so send down upon you the book in truth.
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So, the term is Natsal, to send down. And so here, the
35:18
Quran, the book in truth, is sent down to Muhammad. And it confirms what was before it.
35:24
The same language that's used in Surah 5, where Jesus comes, he confirms what was before him.
35:30
Muhammad comes, he confirms what was before him. It's this chain again of Torah, Injil, Quran.
35:37
This is really problematic for my Muslim friends. And as soon as he says he sent down the book in truth, confirming what was before it, then it says, and he revealed the
35:50
Torah and the Gospel. But I checked the Arabic. The root's the same root. Sent down. He sent down the
35:57
Torah and the Gospel before as guidance for the people. This is just one of many, many texts in the
36:04
Quran where the Torah and the Injil are said to have been sent down.
36:09
They contain light and guidance. The very same language of inspiration that's being claimed for the
36:16
Quran is ascribed to the Torah and the Injil. So, if you're just reading the
36:25
Quran, what would force you to think that if there's no changer of the words of Allah, what would force you to think that that means the words of the
36:40
Torah and the words of the Injil have been changed? Because they've been Natsal, they've been sent down.
36:47
And if there is no changer of the words of Allah, and these are the words of Allah, they contain light and guidance, they're sent down by Allah, then how can they be changed?
36:56
How can they be changed? That's the question. Now, I've mentioned before, there's two streams of thought, pretty much from the beginning.
37:07
I think I could probably argue successfully that one is earlier than the other, but they're both fairly primitive.
37:14
Two streams of thought within Islam, and only since the late 1800s has one stream pretty much predominated the other.
37:23
Two streams of thought, Tarif al -Mana and Tarif al -Nas.
37:30
That is, one stream asserts that what has been altered or changed in the
37:44
Torah and the Injil is the interpretation, not the words, because there is none who can change the words of Allah.
37:50
But what's been changed and distorted is the meaning.
37:57
And so, for example, there is a reference I have in front of me, I'd have to look it up, it's somewhere before 24, because I heard it recently, where it talks about hiding things.
38:13
And accuses the Jews of hiding certain portions.
38:19
That means they possessed it, but they're hiding it, they don't want you to know about it. And of course, the famous story of when
38:25
Muhammad inquired about what was in the Torah, and the Jewish person put his hand over the portion that he didn't want to read, and then
38:32
Muhammad says, move your hand and read that, and that's the portion about stoning and so on and so forth. There's a famous story told about that, it's found in the
38:40
Hadith and historical sources. And so, you have a long stream of Islamic thought and scholars who have taken very seriously this assertion that there's none that can change
38:58
Allah's words. And the Torah and the Injil are God's words, and therefore it's the interpretation.
39:05
But today, the vast majority of Muslims, primarily because of a book
39:11
I've mentioned to you before, Itzhar al -Haq, a book written in India in the late 1800s, which is basically a really, really, really, really bad compilation of every kind of liberal argument against the
39:27
Bible you could ever find, primarily drawn from German criticism, without the slightest bit of fairness, balance, or scholarship.
39:34
But it continues to influence large numbers of Islamic apologists to this day, despite its being really, really bad on so many levels.
39:45
Anyhow, since Itzhar al -Haq, the vast majority of Muslims, even if they don't know why, believe that the
39:57
Bible has been altered. That the Tarif, the changing, the corruption, has to do with the very words.
40:06
And we've heard that, I don't know how many times on this program. We'll hear it again today, listening to Bashir Vania. Obviously, he would believe in the utter corruption of the text of the
40:16
Bible. Now, one of the primary texts that they utilize, and if we could cue up a break at quarter to, you got it ready to go?
40:24
Okay. One of the primary texts that they will refer to, and I should have brought the book in here,
40:33
I apologize. I do refer to it in my book. So let me see if very, very quickly
40:41
I can just happen to scan through it here fast enough.
40:47
My bibliography is a little bit too long to do that very, very quickly. There it is.
40:54
Excellent book, not cheap. It's a Brill book, sorry. But, Gordon Nichols' book,
41:02
Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Quran, from Brill, from 2011. Excellent work.
41:09
Very, very important. I would love to see. In fact, I know that my Muslim friends are listening.
41:15
I hope Yusuf Ismail and Bashir Vania and Abdullah Al -Andalusi and my other friends will listen in to this program.
41:25
I would love to see a really scholarly, fair interaction with Nichols' work from the
41:37
Islamic side. I really, really would. I would challenge you all to do that. I think you would have to grow by doing so.
41:46
I would really very much challenge you all to look at it. Excellent material in there where he goes through all of the passages where corruption could possibly be mentioned.
41:56
He uses some of the earliest Tafsir literature to flesh out what the early
42:03
Muslims thought about this. Well, the one text that's pretty much in all the lists is
42:11
Surah 279. And this is actually going to fit in with Bashir Vania when we get to him because he's going to make a similar allegation based upon Jeremiah.
42:24
And so we're going to have to look at that. So it's really going to sort of dovetail here. But in Surah 2, here is the text from Surah 279.
42:51
And so the common interpretation of this is that, see, people were writing scriptures and they're just writing their own words and saying this is from God and that's where you get your
43:07
Torah. That's where you get your Old Testament. That's where you get your New Testament from is from these people who are writing out scriptures their own hands.
43:15
Now, is that what the text says? Well, I would just refer you to the preceding context starting just a few verses earlier.
43:30
And when they meet those who believe in Muhammad, they say, we too believe in him. But in their intimate meetings, they say to one another, how foolish, why should you intimate to them what
43:40
Allah has revealed to you for they will use it as an argument against you before your Lord. Are they unaware that Allah knows all that they hide and all that they disclose?
43:50
And then here's the immediately preceding ayah. Among them are also the unlettered folk, ignorant folk, who do not know about the scriptures but cherish baseless wishes and merely follow their conjectures.
44:09
Woe then to those who write out the scriptures their own hands. Now, if you want to say that you cannot follow a context in the
44:18
Quran from one verse to the next, then you can put a wall between ayah 78 and 79 if you want to.
44:27
I mean, if you really want to say that the Quran is just so badly written that you can't follow a context anyway.
44:36
But if you do allow for context, then on what textual ground, not somebody who lived 200 years later who said he knew something about him, on what textual ground do you argue that those who write out the scriptures their own hands has nothing to do with the unlettered folk who do not know about the scriptures in the preceding verse?
45:05
What's the textual ground? I know that Muslims assume the meaning of 279, but are you aware of the other interpretations of 279 found in the early
45:21
Tafsir literature? And for those of you who have not listened to me talk about Islam to any depth before, Tafsir is the commentary, the commentary writing on the
45:30
Quran. So we would talk about biblical commentaries, Tafsir literature is commentary on the
45:35
Quran, ancient or modern. But obviously some of the earliest Tafsir literature is extremely important.
45:42
Ibn Kathir is one of the primary ones. But there are others that even come before Ibn Kathir that are extremely important because it's similar to our references to the early church fathers.
45:55
Obviously how the earliest people interpreted texts is something that is of at least great interest to historians, but also a great interest to understanding the development of materials over time.
46:11
And so I would just simply challenge the simplistic citation of 279.
46:18
And one of the debates I think that would be good to develop down the road would be on this subject.
46:26
Now Sam Shamoon and Shabir Ali touched on this in their debate from a number of years ago. But I think a fair, and I mean fair,
46:36
I don't mean ignoring everything that everyone has ever commented about the
46:43
Quran type perspective. But I think a fair interpretation of the
46:50
Quran and the earliest literature could substantiate the assertion that the
46:57
Quran itself does not teach the corruption of the New Testament. Now of course the problem is the underlying question that I know
47:06
I will never get anyone to debate. Because it's not actually a point of Islamic dogma or belief.
47:16
But the underlying question I'll never get anybody to debate is did the author of the Quran have a clue what was in the
47:22
New Testament? A clue about what was in the New Testament. Because you see the
47:28
Muslims are going to say it doesn't matter because Muhammad's understanding of anything is irrelevant because the
47:36
Quran is simply the words of Allah. But the fact of the matter is my assertion is the author of the
47:42
Quran did not have any first hand or even meaningful second hand information about the actual content and teaching of the
47:49
New Testament. I think guys, and let me speak directly to my
47:55
Muslim friends. Guys, I think even those of you who are not fair in your reviewing of me have to admit that I extend great effort to try to be fair in my analysis of your beliefs.
48:14
I think you have to admit that. Some of you will admit that openly. But you have to admit that.
48:21
And so what I'm telling you is as I have sought to accurately and fairly interact with the text of the
48:29
Quran. I've come to the conclusion that the author did not know what is in the
48:36
New Testament. Didn't know. Had no knowledge. Now you say well God wrote it.
48:41
Well God knows what's in the New Testament. And he knew what was in the New Testament in 632. He knew what the
48:47
Injil was. And it's just painfully clear on two accounts.
48:54
Not only is there no meaningful interaction with the actual message of the New Testament itself.
49:00
Only with what person would hear. You know, second, third, fourth hand. But even more than that.
49:07
And this is very, very important. There is no discernment on the part of the author of the
49:15
Quran as to what is and what is not in the New Testament. Based upon the citations he gives.
49:23
In other words, since the Arabic infancy gospel is cited. Since the infancy gospel of Thomas is cited.
49:30
Since these sources are cited and attributed to the Christian people as something that they believe. And these things are not a part of the
49:37
New Testament. It's very clear that the author is drawing from oral sources.
49:44
And simply doesn't know much about even those oral sources. And my submission to you gentlemen is.
49:50
The reason that Islam has developed the accusation of the corruption of the text of the Bible.
49:55
Is it because the author of the Quran did not know it. Therefore contradicted it. And only by anachronistically taking something written 600 years after the completion.
50:05
Of the canon of the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. As ultimate authority can you come up with the idea that well this stuff must have just been changed.
50:13
Because you well know that the author of the Quran believes he's speaking in accordance with the truth of the
50:19
Torah and the Injil. The problem is you can't find the Torah and the Injil. That actually substantiates
50:25
Quranic teachings. Because the author of the book you think is absolutely infallible and from God.
50:31
Didn't understand them. Didn't understand them. And that's a major issue.
50:39
Well anyways. We're going to go back to listening to Bashir Vania. But we're going to take a quick break first.
50:45
Let my voice rest. And we'll be right back. Hello everyone this is
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.org. Anyway, we will just move on from there.
53:49
We need to press on. One of the reasons I'm doing the lengthier DLs. As most of you can tell,
53:55
I am very, very focused upon London and South Africa. And let me once again point you to the need for funding for that trip.
54:04
It's a long, long ways. And we want to be able to.
54:10
Very, very costly and we need to start booking those flights pretty soon. And so if you'd like to help us.
54:17
Right now we're talking about debates with at least three individuals in South Africa, including
54:23
Shabir Ali. We may even end up doing a discussion about the subject of our book. But I'm talking with Bashir Vania and Yusuf Ismail.
54:33
Yusuf and I are having a good, useful exchange. Going back and forth. I want to start with a debate.
54:41
Because he likes doing long opening statements. Minimum 40 minutes. Okay. Then here's what
54:47
I want to do. First, I want to get to reviewing as quickly as possible.
54:54
I may finish Bashir's stuff and then instead of doing his rebuttal and stuff like that, go directly into a debate that Yusuf Ismail did with David Seacombe.
55:04
And I think it's about a 40 -minute opening statement. Minimum 30. I think it's 40. And most of the material, well, almost the entire presentation, was either on textual critical issues or on synoptic issues.
55:21
There were a few canon issues and then for some reason, Yusuf Ismail thinks there is value in the parallelomania arguments that the atheists use all the time.
55:34
So I wrote to him and said, You need to read Ronald Nash's book. You really need to realize that this stuff was debunked a long time ago.
55:42
It's only out there because the internet has rehabilitated it. You do not want, in a debate against me, to try to rehabilitate
55:51
Mithraism or Apollonius or any of the rest of these things. Been there, done that.
55:56
Got the t -shirt. Don't even go there.
56:02
But anyways, what I've been presenting is obviously my hope and the prayers of...
56:09
I really want to thank the folks down in South Africa, especially a gentleman named
56:15
Rudolf. As soon as we made contact down there, man, they just took off.
56:21
They just started scheduling stuff and going here, going there, making arrangements.
56:27
I mean, it takes a lot of work. There's a lot of effort involved. And I'm just extremely thankful for all the work that's already been done to make this happen.
56:36
But as they've said, they've had to turn down about 80 % of the requests they've been given for my time there.
56:43
I could spend much more time there than I'm going to be able to spend. And as it is, we're talking about half a dozen debates.
56:51
We're talking about almost debating every single day. And certainly speaking every single day, multiple times.
56:56
I mean, please pray not only for the funding of the trip, but my health is the biggest thing
57:04
I have in the back of my mind. We are scheduling so much that if I have any health issues at all, it's going to be...
57:12
When you sit in an enclosed steel tube with numerous other people...
57:19
Well, it's not steel. Aluminum tube with numerous other people for hours and hours and hours on end, you're exposed to everything under the sun.
57:27
We'll just send you in with a nosh mask. Well, whatever. You're talking a 12 ,000 mile journey to get there and 12 ,000 miles back.
57:37
So anyways, I'm talking with Yusuf Ismail. I'm saying, look, we are really praying that this will be the first of a number of trips to South Africa.
57:47
I certainly would like to do that. There's certainly a desire and interest there. And so let's do this in a logical order.
57:57
And obviously, you have raised issues of textual criticism. In your debate with Mike Licona, you made the argument that we can't trust the
58:06
New Testament documents say because they are not trustworthy documents. They contradict each other. They've been changed. They've been altered.
58:12
That's part and parcel of your apologetics. So let's start with the textual critical issues and then move from there to synoptic issues, alleged contradictions, historical issues, canon issues.
58:25
If you want to try to raise issues about Gnostic Gospels or something, be happy to talk about stuff like the
58:32
Gospel of Thomas or something like that. But let's be very focused.
58:38
Let's invest enough time to go into depth to be able to demonstrate my assertion that these allegations just simply don't hold any water.
58:46
And my desire for the debate with Yusuf Ismail is to contrast the methodology of the presentation and preservation of the text of New Testament versus that of the
59:04
Qanon. In other words, the same thing that, again, if we could get
59:09
Iyera to do the right thing and give us the videotapes that we are due, the unedited masters of my debates with Adnan Rashid from last year, which they agreed to do at the time of the debate, and they just need to do the right thing, do the honest thing, do the thing with integrity, get us those videotapes as soon as possible.
59:28
Stop. Stop playing around and just get it done. Then you could watch where Adnan Rashid and I did the same thing, but in two debates.
59:37
And that is, in one debate, I defended the free transmission of the text of the
59:43
New Testament. Free in the sense of not controlled. There was no authority that oversaw it.
59:48
There was no government promoting it. Versus the controlled transmission, the text of the Qanon, the
59:53
Uthmanic revision, etc., etc. I think this is vitally important. I think this is exactly what needs to be discussed.
59:58
And that's what I've suggested to Yusuf Ismail. So I want to get into that.
01:00:06
And we're in the middle of some material where Bashir Vania is raising those issues as well.
01:00:12
And so I think that this is, again, important stuff. And obviously
01:00:19
I will be talking, therefore, about textual critical issues that are going to be relevant to your dealing with atheists and all sorts of folks.
01:00:26
Because unfortunately, many of my Muslim friends are just drawing their argumentation from the net anyways.
01:00:32
And so it's the same type of stuff. So it would be very helpful to you, I think, to listen carefully.
01:00:39
So let's go back to Bashir Vania. Only for half an hour, but at least I've set it all up here.
01:00:46
And what he has to say. The Ascension of Jesus. Not there. Mark 16, verse 19.
01:00:52
The famous verses... Okay, the Ascension of Jesus, Mark 16, 9 through 20, is a major textual variant.
01:01:00
We are all aware of it. It comes later. The fact that there are multiple endings to Mark shows that later generations felt that there needed to be an ending that's found in Matthew and Luke.
01:01:19
Well known. Any Bible that's worth its salt has some type of a notation at that point.
01:01:30
And again, the contrast between the fact that you can't find a Quran that has those kind of notes.
01:01:36
Well, okay, I'll take that back. You sort of can. There are some Arabic Qurans, but they're almost all limited to version differences in the
01:01:49
Arabic, not the manuscripts. So I didn't need to be careful about that. There are some, I have one, that primarily has notes in regards to differences in not the manuscripts, but in the various versions of the
01:02:03
Quran. So there are some of them that are out there. But anyways, the Ascension clearly noted in the other
01:02:10
Gospels and certainly in Acts. So, how is that an argument?
01:02:16
The famous verses of the woman caught in the act of adultery and Jesus forgiving her. That's called the
01:02:22
Percocet adultery, John 7, 53 through 8, 11. John chapter 8, not there.
01:02:28
The famous verse of evangelism. Okay, not there. What do you mean not there?
01:02:33
Well, in the earliest manuscripts, not there. So, is it really an argument against the integrity of the
01:02:40
New Testament that we are able to determine these things? You see, I understand if you're not familiar with how ancient documents are transmitted, if you have an ancient document that you believe in, well, a medieval document that you believe in, and you don't do critical study of it on the same level,
01:02:59
I can understand why the critical study of the New Testament would bother you. But the reality is, you want to know what was originally written, and you want to know what the history of the text is, and if there's been expansions to the text over time.
01:03:12
And the only reason that you know that John 7, 53 through 8, 11 appears first in a
01:03:18
Greek manuscript in Codex Bese Canterburgiensis in the 5th century, and therefore comes much later than the time of John and is not in any of the earlier manuscripts of John, the reason that you know this is because we
01:03:31
Christians are open about it. But if you don't have critical editions of your text, how would you know if that were the case in your own
01:03:40
Quran? How would you know it? In light of the controlled transmission of the text, and the burning of manuscripts by Uthman, and the command that other versions other than his be destroyed, etc.,
01:03:52
etc. The famous verse of evangelism, Jesus telling his disciples, go out into the world and make disciples of all nations,
01:03:59
Mark 16, verse 15, not there. But it is in Matthew 28, 19 through 20. Again, you made two references now to the same textual variant,
01:04:08
Mark 16, 9 through 20. Yes, we know that Mark 16, 9 through 20 is a textual variant. But the very same commandment in Matthew 28, 19 through 20, that's not a variant.
01:04:20
There are a lot of people who try to get rid of it for all sorts of fanciful theories, but it's there.
01:04:27
John chapter 7, verse 8, they've inserted the word yet. Why? Jesus is caught out in a white lie, in inverted commas.
01:04:35
Now this one you really need to be aware of, because we've certainly covered it enough times in the past.
01:04:43
But it's not just, I do notice that it is sort of common amongst
01:04:50
Muslims to use this. But it's also common for many other people to utilize this kind of information.
01:05:00
And you need to, all of us, you say, oh, we'll just leave that to you. No, no, no, no, no, no. The day has come and has passed when you, my friend, you, housewife, you, college student, you, high school student, you, junior high student, you need to know these things.
01:05:20
You need to have it right there on the tip of your tongue. This is what we are called to be if we are going to be salt and light in this very dark time and in this evil generation.
01:05:32
John chapter 7, verse 8, go up to the feast yourselves. I do not go up to this feast because my time has not yet fully come.
01:05:44
Now, what is the issue? Well, in some manuscripts, the term is inserted,
01:05:55
I do not yet go up to this feast.
01:06:01
It is the term upo and it is a rather early, very, very early reading.
01:06:16
And in fact, just simply on a textual basis, it actually has the stronger reading.
01:06:27
I mean, you really, really, really could argue very strongly. When P66 and P75 contain it, along with Vaticanus, I'm actually surprised that's not the main textual reading because it has by far the strongest attestation.
01:06:49
And it would seem to me that when you have two words, both of which start with omicron upsilon.
01:07:02
Well, okay, I take that back. The one reading would be ego uc anubaino,
01:07:10
I am not going up under this feast. And the other one is ego upo anubaino.
01:07:17
So, uc and upo look a lot alike. And I think you can make a really strong argument here.
01:07:30
But anyway, let's take the reading, I am not going up.
01:07:38
And notice that Bashir says, well, this word's been removed. No, it's just the translation of the
01:07:44
Greek. Either you're translating, I am not going up, or you're translating,
01:07:50
I am not yet. The yet is from upo, it's just two different Greek words. It's a translational issue in the
01:07:57
English that we translate upo as not yet. Actually, it's just one word in the
01:08:03
Greek that we're talking about. Anyhow, here's the point. Why even raise this issue?
01:08:10
Well, because the assertion that he just made is that Jesus lied. He calls it a little white lie.
01:08:18
And that prophets are allowed white lies. But here, I actually stopped it too early, listen to the whole statement.
01:08:25
They've inserted the word yet. Why? Jesus is caught out in a white lie, in inverted commas. He tells his disciples he is not going to a meeting, and then he goes.
01:08:36
A scribe is obviously embarrassed by this, and he inserts the word yet to change the so -called lie into a truth.
01:08:43
No problem with a prophet telling a white lie. However, if he is God, then we have a serious problem there because Numbers 23 verse 19 tells us
01:08:53
God is not a man, and God does not lie. Okay, so there's the whole argument.
01:09:01
Because in John 7, Jesus does go up to the feast. And so if he simply said,
01:09:07
I am not going up to the feast, then he was lying and he can't be God. There's the argument. So how do you respond to that?
01:09:13
Well, aside from the textual information, where you can, I think, very fairly defend the assertion that is,
01:09:25
I am not yet. But let's say it's, I'm not. Was Jesus lying? No.
01:09:32
Now, would a later scribe know that? Probably not for a simple reason.
01:09:37
To go up to a feast is not merely the statement that I am going to go from point
01:09:45
A to point B. To go up to the feast was to join the caravans of pilgrims, which included basically a sort of a festival attitude, the singing of the
01:09:59
Ascension hymns at certain points along the way. It was a religious activity in and of itself.
01:10:08
To say I am going up to the feast is not like my saying, I'm going to prior
01:10:14
Oklahoma in a few weeks. Because I am going to prior Oklahoma in a few weeks, if you happen to be in that area. And speaking of two different churches there in prior
01:10:23
Oklahoma. When I'm saying that, all I'm talking about is getting to the airport and doing the fly to Denver, transfer, walk all through Denver airport.
01:10:32
There's nothing religiously significant about my, once again, going to my second home called
01:10:41
Sky Harbor International Airport. But there was something religiously significant about talking about going up to the feast.
01:10:49
Notice how it's always up to Jerusalem. Even if you're above Jerusalem, it's still going up to Jerusalem. And if you've ever looked at the
01:10:56
Psalter, there are the Psalms of Ascent. You may have wondered what that is.
01:11:02
They are the Psalms of Ascent. They are the Psalms when you're ascending to Jerusalem. So what
01:11:07
Jesus is saying is, I'm not going up to the feast. I'm not joining the pilgrim caravan. And why would he not?
01:11:13
Well, for the obvious reason that he would tremendously disrupt that. And it would sort of be like what eventually does happen when he has the triumphal entry.
01:11:25
But his hour has not yet come. It's not time for that. So he goes up secretly, not in the sense of joining the caravan, singing the hymns, etc.,
01:11:34
etc. He goes up to the feast, but he does not do it in the religious. So when he says,
01:11:39
I am not going up, that's what he's talking about. So if you take either one, the argument being that, well,
01:11:49
Uk makes more sense in the sense that once we understand what going up involved, that's probably why the committee took that.
01:12:01
But either way, John's point is clear. Jesus was not going to be joining that caravan that would be stopping at certain places.
01:12:12
Maybe he took a faster route, would have had to have, because if he was on the same route as the pilgrims, they would have seen him, and it would have caused the same issues.
01:12:20
But this is a common allegation. So you need to know that the reading, that it's not some scribe just put in a word yet.
01:12:32
There's only two letters difference between Uk and Upo.
01:12:40
So it's not like putting a word in or taking a word out.
01:12:46
The difference in the variant is between Uk and Upo.
01:12:52
They both have the very same first two letters. It's just the last letter is different in Uk and then the last two letters in Upo.
01:13:02
And the not yet has a very, very strong textual basis to it as well.
01:13:08
It's not like, oh, it's just some later manuscripts. Actually, the earliest manuscripts have that reading.
01:13:14
But no matter which way you read it, once you understand what it means to go up to the feast and then what
01:13:20
Jesus does and how he eventually comes to the feast and so on and so forth, then it makes perfect sense.
01:13:28
And you need to be able to, I think, give that kind of response. But once again, this kind of very simple assertion, knowing what the text is, allows you to give a proper response to it.
01:13:41
So these additions are quite serious and one needs to think about it very carefully. And notice we've, there's no, that's not even an addition.
01:13:51
It's a variant. So far we've seen nothing that,
01:13:56
A, we're not familiar with, and B, that scholarship would be very united in regards to meaning of the text, interpretation of the text, and the fact that, for example, there is no question at all that either
01:14:15
Uk or Upo is the original. We have the originals. They have not disappeared. They have not disappeared.
01:14:22
The original readings are there. Nothing has been presented so far by Basheer Vania that would even begin to question the assertion that we contain all the original readings, even in these variant texts.
01:14:35
I spoke about the Old Testament Apocrypha. Let's talk about the New Testament Apocrypha. Have you a book entitled
01:14:40
The Lost Books of the Bible? It contains the Gospel of Thomas, Mary, the Gospel according to Hebrews, the
01:14:46
Gospel of Judas, and so forth. Now again, you will, we've even had, years ago, we had
01:14:54
Mormons out at the Easter pageant that would be carrying that book around. The Lost Books of the
01:15:00
Bible, one of the most poorly titled books that has ever been put out there.
01:15:07
It is not that they were ever a part of Scripture, ever should have been a part of Scripture. None of the books that Basheer just quoted have any meaningful claim to apostolic origin, to first century origin, and most of them are thoroughly contradictory to a
01:15:26
Christian worldview, and I might add a Muslim worldview. Very few have been the
01:15:35
Muslim apologists with whom I've had interaction who have actually read any of those books, any of those books, and hence would have any basis upon which to comment concerning the
01:15:52
Gnosticism in the Gospel of Thomas or in these other works. Gnosticism is thoroughly contradictory to Islamic thought.
01:16:03
I mean, do they really want to side with people who identified the God of the Old Testament, which they would identify as Allah, as a demi -urge, as an evil
01:16:11
God? No, of course not. But again, it just seems like it's a matter of convenience to utilize these sources without knowing what they're actually about.
01:16:23
And whether there is any meaningful reason to argue that they should have been a part of, and certainly,
01:16:32
I guess, given that the Quran quotes from some books that do have some
01:16:38
Gnostic tinges to them, maybe that's the connection in their mind. I don't know. What is important about that?
01:16:46
Well, both churches, Catholics and Protestants, reject these books. These books were in circulation in the early churches.
01:16:54
What do you mean in the early churches? Do you mean in the first century? No. Second century?
01:16:59
Well, a couple of those books have second century dates to them. I mean, the
01:17:06
Gospel of Thomas generally is probably around 160, 165. I mean, only the people who are trying to sell books push it earlier than that.
01:17:14
You know, trying to get published or get tenure or something along those lines. But when you say they circulated in the churches, none of those that were just mentioned were ever considered canon scripture by anyone that I'm aware of.
01:17:30
I mean, the only books that anyone ever noted, you know, the Shepherd of Hermas and a few of those, you can find some minority references to.
01:17:41
But certainly not these wild -eyed Gospels and things like that that are so plainly and clearly minimally second, third, and fourth century productions.
01:17:54
To say they were circulating in churches as if they were being preached from on a regular basis someplace, how would anyone substantiate that?
01:18:04
Why do they reject it? Well, they tell us, firstly, there are contradictions in it.
01:18:10
Actually, the reason to reject the books that were noted earlier is because they're non -apostolic.
01:18:17
They are not first century. They are written by people other than those that are claimed.
01:18:23
I mean, the Gospel of Thomas has nothing to do with Thomas, and I think every single scholar on the planet admits that.
01:18:31
They have nothing to do with— they clearly do not come from a Jewish worldview at all.
01:18:39
And so, yeah, obviously they're contradictory to all of the biblical books, because they come from a worldview that presents, some of them anyways, the idea of a
01:18:52
God that creates matter who is evil.
01:19:00
That's not biblical. That's certainly not, even from an Islamic perspective, any type of biblical idea or consistent with an
01:19:08
Islamic worldview. And so they're to be rejected because they're late or because they have a completely different worldview.
01:19:16
Not just because they contain internal contradictions or are externally contradictory to the
01:19:22
Old Testament books or to even the New Testament books. But on that basis,
01:19:27
I can argue that there are contradictions in the current Bible. For example, in the book of Matthew, Judas, we are told, takes the proverbial 30 pieces of silver, throws it in the temple in remorse, commit suicide.
01:19:40
In the book of Acts, he farm and dies in a farming incident.
01:19:48
So a contradiction, no reason to reject it. Again, it's unfortunate that you take these lists.
01:20:00
It's reminding me of my days, my early days shortly after, well actually,
01:20:07
I might have still been in seminary now, think about it. Yeah, yeah, it was actually interacting with Dennis McKinsey of biblical errancy who just ransacked the text of the
01:20:20
Bible looking for any kind of alleged contradiction. Now, this one's a common one. But it's just simply assumed, well, there's no way to harmonize what is found in the
01:20:32
Gospels with Acts, even though, of course, Luke is writing Acts. But anyways, and even though for some reason
01:20:39
Matthew and Luke are just doing this, all of a sudden we forget all about that and go a different direction.
01:20:47
But all of that aside, the idea is, well, if there are any differences between the recording of any event in the
01:20:56
Synoptic Gospels, that is a contradiction. The assumption being that if the Gospels are true, they would simply be verbatim repetitions of each other and hence irrelevant.
01:21:08
And let me guarantee you, they're not just repetitions of each other.
01:21:15
The argument would be, well, obviously, there's collusion here, and obviously, therefore, these can't be meaningful historical witnesses because obviously they're just copies of each other.
01:21:27
So the level of fairness is a question. But my main problem, not to wander off into the length of discussion that we've had in the past concerning that particular alleged contradiction, is that Bashir does not seem to understand when we say that these books are contradictory, we're not talking about something like, well, these books say that the cock crowed three times and these books say it's one.
01:21:55
No, that's not the kind of contradiction we're talking about. We're talking about a different God here. We're talking about on the level of saying the
01:22:02
Doctrine and Covenants of the Mormon Church is contradictory to the Bible. Now, the
01:22:09
Doctrine and Covenants comes long after the Bible. How can it be contradictory? Because it claims to present a
01:22:15
God who is utterly unlike the God of the Bible. It presents a God who is a man who progressed to become a
01:22:25
God and a plurality of gods and all the rest of this kind of stuff. So, when we say that these books are contradictory to the
01:22:35
Bible, we're not talking about on some alleged factual level of recording some historical event.
01:22:41
We're talking about the difference between historic Jewish and Christian monotheism where you have one
01:22:48
God who is the creator of the heavens and the earth, which the Muslims happen to agree with, and the
01:22:53
Gnostic God who is too spiritual and good to create evil matter and therefore has these emanations that come out from him called eons together where they all form the
01:23:05
Pleroma and eventually you get down to a demi -urge, a divine being that is far enough removed from the all -spiritual
01:23:13
God that while he still has the power to create, he can become evil and then that's how you therefore create the physical world.
01:23:21
That's the kind of contradiction we're talking about. That's a very different level of contradiction. They tell us there are impossible events.
01:23:29
Well, Joshua, chapter 10, verse 12, we are told that the sun stood still in the heavens, the heavenly body stopped rotating, and nobody in history seems to have noticed.
01:23:38
Well, no one in history seems to have noticed the moon splitting either, but is that a problem with the Quran? And exactly how many historical narratives do we have from the days of Joshua?
01:23:51
I mean, worldwide? Not very many. At all. So, nobody seems to,
01:23:57
I'm sorry, that doesn't seem to be, I guess his idea was that well, these books contain weird stories and so does the
01:24:05
Bible. Well, okay, obviously, a supernaturalist is not going to reject the later
01:24:11
Gnostic Gospels simply because they posit a supernatural worldview. But let's be a little bit more specific as to the events narrated and why we would say that they would be inconsistent with a
01:24:23
Christian worldview. For example, some of the Gnostic Gospels talking about how the divine
01:24:29
Christ leaves the human Jesus on the cross and laughs as he cries out why have you forsaken me and that kind of silliness all based upon a dualistic worldview which is completely unbiblical.
01:24:42
And the Muslim would have to agree that that is a improper worldview as well. And they tell us that well, these are biased booklets from different perspectives but, as you've just heard, one can say the same about the current
01:24:54
Gospels as well. No, I don't think so at all. So, the question I have to the Christian panel is do they accept that some of the true words of Jesus may have found their way into these so -called apocryphal
01:25:06
Gospels or are these apocryphal Gospels simply a whole lot of nonsense? They are a whole lot of nonsense.
01:25:13
There is absolutely no reason to think that any of the true words of Jesus would be contained in second century writings written from a worldview other than that which prevailed in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.
01:25:27
None. Let us go again into the heart of the Quran. Chapter 80, verse 11, verse 15, the
01:25:34
Quran tells us this Quran is a message of instruction. It is written by the hands of scribes, honorable, pious, and just.
01:25:43
Internal evidence. The Quran says this Quran was written during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the scribes are described as honorable, pious, and just.
01:25:53
Well, that's interesting especially because the evidence is rather strong that the
01:25:59
Quran did not exist as a single compiled book at that point in time at all.
01:26:12
And there's just too much in the Hadith that would that would contradict that kind of a that kind of a concept.
01:26:22
And it's interesting. Let me let me go back here just one second here. Chapter 80, verse 11, verse 15, the
01:26:31
Quran tells us this Quran is a magic message of instruction. It is written by the hands of scribes, honorable, pious, and just.
01:26:40
Internal evidence. The Quran says this Quran was written during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the scribes are described as honorable, pious,
01:26:51
The Quran says this Quran was written during the lifetime of the Prophet, of Arabia 11. No, indeed, these verses are a reminder.
01:26:58
So whoever wills may remember it. It is recorded in honored sheets, exalted and purified, carried by the hands of messenger angels, noble and dutiful."
01:27:13
Hmmm. That sounds a lot different than the rendering he gave. I'm going to have to look and see if I can identify what translation he was utilizing, because this reads very differently.
01:27:29
Very differently indeed. I mean about as close as you can get is, so whoever wills may remember it.
01:27:36
And then Aya 13 says, in honored sheets, exalted and purified, carried by the hands of messenger angels.
01:27:49
That doesn't sound like the human writing down of the Quran. That sounds like the angelic mediation from the angel
01:28:00
Jabril. Not, because he had, his rendering said something about scribes.
01:28:07
So that's, I'm gonna have to make a much closer examination of that particular assertion based upon that text.
01:28:15
See, we got there. Oh, listen, it's music. Ah, I didn't get to the part
01:28:20
I wanted to get to. There's a really neat section right next where he's, he goes to the
01:28:26
Apostle Paul and tries to say Paul was saying he wasn't inspired. That's what we're gonna get to start with next time, because it is a very common
01:28:33
Islamic error to utilize that text. We will show you how it is an error as we continue on.
01:28:39
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