Dr. Laurence Brown 0-15 on the Deen Show

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We finished reviewing, and refuting, Dr. Brown’s “Top Ten” list against the Trinity, and his “Top Five” list against the Sonship of Jesus. Sadly, this kind of inaccurate, truth-deprived attack upon the Christian faith is the standard fare in Islamic countries, so it is important to know how to expose these falsehoods. But more to the point, this is the kind of material The Deen Show pumps out with regularity. Be prepared!

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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 good afternoon. Welcome to the Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, getting a half hour extra early start so we can fit a jumbo edition in today.
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As we finish off responding to Dr. Lawrence Brantley so far, I wrote again today and reiterated my questions and stuff like that.
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But you know how it is, you know, I might have one or two nice emails back and forth and then somebody listens to what
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I have to say and there are more nice emails after that. So we'll see. Like I said, he might be out of town or, you know, who knows.
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But we will leave the phones on just in case Dr. Brantley would like to call or maybe, you know, something like that if, you know, the president calls or something like that, has a few questions.
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The Pope calls, we can get him in. Prophet from Salt Lake City would be good, that would be interesting.
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Any of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, it's okay. Let's see.
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There's some Muslims. I was going to say if Ahmad Didak called, but he's been gone for a while.
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So Zakir Naik, Zakir Naik, we would definitely put Zakir Naik through. But not anyone pretending to be
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Zakir Naik. And of course, with the rookie man on the board today, you will be able to tell the difference between Zakir Naik and a
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Zakir Naik impersonator. That's part of the very highly technical training that we put everybody who runs the board through to be able to tell the difference between Zakir Naik and a
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Zakir Naik impersonator, which is a very difficult thing to do. Anyway, if you have been listening, oh, that's great.
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There's someone in the channel. Everyone's still hearing music? I'm not sure. I think he tuned in to the wrong webcast.
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That's we're talking major lag there. Yes. Oh, someone needs to kick
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Algo out of channel just for the fun of it, because he just he was just streaming
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Ralph there. And that there you go. I kicked him out of channel for doing that. We have been listening to the
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Dean Show. And if you may recall on the last program, for some reason,
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I don't know how it happened. You know, things like this can happen when you're converting files or, you know, downloading files and I don't know how it happened.
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But I somehow managed to cut off the end of the top 10 program on the
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Trinity. And there were a couple of the verses, including the Kamiohaniam that he hadn't gotten to yet. So I took the time after last program to re -download it and convert it and make sure it's all there this time.
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There's only about three minutes we were missing, but I want to be complete. Don't want anybody to say, ah, you couldn't answer the last part of that program.
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You know, we've blown the first nine points out of the water, but you couldn't get the last one.
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Well, does that make Islam 10 % correct? I'm not sure how that works, but anyways, want to make sure to get that.
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So I'm going to go back to that, finish that off. Then we'll jump back into the second one, which was the five reasons why
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Jesus isn't the Son of God. So going back to the top 10 reasons, right toward the end of that program.
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And here is another, see, there's, there's Dr. Brown calling now, possibly, maybe, or maybe not.
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We'll, we'll find out. Here's, here is the, back to the top 10 reasons against the doctrine of the
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Trinity. Those three entities in one line does not make them co -equal, co -eternal, consubstantial.
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That was in reference to Matthew 28, verse 19, baptism in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
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No one has said that Matthew 28, 19, in and of itself, by itself, he said, that's, that's the thing.
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When you try to respond to the doctrine of the Trinity on, on a scattergun approach, rather than dealing with it as it is, as it needs to be presented, the fact the
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Bible teaches is one true God, the differentiation of the three persons, the co -equality of the persons, et cetera, et cetera.
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When you just try to do it verse by verse, you're, you're only getting portions of it. And unfortunately, we haven't found Dr. Brown to really understand the doctrine anyways, but those comments were about Matthew 28, 19.
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Moving on, John 14, 9, Jesus Christ is quoted as having said, he who has seen me has seen the
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Father. A lot of people say, oh, that's it. He who has seen me has seen the Father. That's it.
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John 14 definitely, as a chapter, testifies to the deity of Christ because of what
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Jesus does there. But here, it almost sounds like he thinks that we're modalists, and he may, he may actually think that we're modalists.
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I don't know. I can't tell just from this, but it seems that he's looking at it in that way.
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Certainly the real evidence of the deity of Christ found in John 14, 9 is the fact that any creature who would say these words would have to be mad or committing blasphemy.
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How can any creature who is self -limited and imperfect describe themselves the way that not only the gospel of John as a whole does, but Jesus does himself.
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He enters into this description, which of course is where John got it. He enters into this description of himself as the perfect representation of God, not a mere representative on earth.
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Moses was a representative and David was a representative, all that stuff. But we're talking at a much deeper and fuller level.
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He who has seen me has seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
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We will send the Holy Spirit to you. And this is the book that begins in the prologue,
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John 1, 1, in the beginning was the word was with God and the word was God. No one has seen God at any time.
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The monogamist theos, he has exegeted him. He has explained him. So Jesus has a way of explaining the
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Father that no one else could possibly have because in him is the fullness of life, grace, truth.
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He is the Logos who became flesh and then the book ends, or at least concludes before the sort of appendix of John chapter 21 with Thomas's confession, my
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Lord and my God, which Jesus, by the way, not only accepts, but identifies as a statement of faith.
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So if you're reading a book, I mean, it again keeps reminding me what happened last, last
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February. And I don't know that we have this available yet. I know, I know that work was being done on it and then some stuff got in the way.
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But the debate with Bassam Zawadi last February, I know I sent the MP3. I know it.
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We should at least have that. I don't know. But anyway, it was so odd that we were looking at Surah Tawmaidah, Surah 5, and I was the one arguing that you should read
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Surah 5 as a literary unit and allow it to interpret itself. And the Muslim was saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
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No, that's, that's, there's five verses in between, you know, and, you know, I'm the one going, let's read this as a whole.
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And everybody else is going, no, let's not. And it's, it's, it's, it's odd that, that that was, that was the case.
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But when you allow the Gospel of John to be the Gospel of John, you know, I think about Shabir Ali, you know, chopping the
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Gospel of John up into parts and you've got proto -John and, and you've got John 14 to 16 is written someplace else and it's imported here.
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You know, once you, once you turn the text of the New Testament into a jigsaw puzzle, you can do anything you want with it.
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You can reform it in anything you like. And that's, that's basically what they're, what they're doing. Wasn't it
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Zakir Naik who was using a ton of his, a ton of the Gospel of John as his proof against it?
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Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's ironic, isn't it? Well, they have, well, he has to because their primary argument for Muhammad being found in the
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New Testament is found in the Gospel of John. So, actually Shabir's approach to that is very unusual because Shabir is drawing from liberal
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New Testament scholars and chopping John, chopping John 14 and 16 apart from one another because Shabir realizes if you put 14 and 16, 14, 15, and 16 obviously together, it's obvious who the
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Holy Spirit is and it can't be Muhammad. So he has to, he uses liberal form criticism to cut it apart so you can have
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Muhammad in one part but not in the other part. The problem is that leaves most Muslims going, eh?
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What? Because they don't understand the form critical stuff behind that and it's, it's, it's pretty tricky.
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But anyways, we, we go back to John 14. Saw Jesus Christ, you've seen the
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Father. What's the problem with that? The problem with that is John 5, 37 because on John 5, 37
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Jesus says you have neither heard his voice at any time or seen his form. Jesus Christ is standing in front of their faces and telling them with his own words you have neither heard his voice and they are hearing his voice and he's saying you've neither, neither heard his voice nor seen his form and they're looking directly at him.
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Now there is a, I think that might be, I could be wrong and probably am wrong, but in my current recollection, that may be the first time
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I've heard that particular argument used by a Muslim. What is the fatal flaw of it?
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Of course, is he is arguing modalistically as if Jesus identifying himself as the Father, which of course he's not.
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And John 5, 47 is an accusation against the Jews that while they claim to know
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God, they actually do not know God. They have neither seen him nor heard his form, seen, heard his voice nor seen his form.
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And therefore, how can they have true knowledge of God? Well, by the one he has sent into the world and that is Jesus Christ, the divine son.
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So, the foundation of the argument there is an assumption that we are modalists, which again makes me go, hmm, okay, so this man tried really hard to be a
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Christian and yet he seems to think the doctrine of the Trinity is modalistic? Very interesting.
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Okay. What does that tell you? I don't think Eddie got any of this. I think Eddie's just sitting there going, uh, what, because I don't even think he's heard that one before.
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I mean, that's not even a Zachary Naik level type response. If he's saying, you're hearing my voice, you're seeing my form, but I'm telling you, you haven't seen
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God's form and you haven't heard his voice, it's clear that we're not talking about the same entity. Some people jump in and say
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John 10. Hold on. Same entity or same person? If Dr. Brown has a
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Ph .D. in comparative religion and a D. Doctor of Divinity, shouldn't he know what the doctrine of the
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Trinity is? Or if he's only going after oneness Pentecostals here, shouldn't he identify his audience?
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That would be somewhat helpful. John 1030. John 1030. I and the Father are one. Ah, now here's one we should all be up and ready on.
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We've been looking at John 1030. We've looked at it very closely in the Roger Perkins debate. We know the whole context.
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We know all about the Son being the source of salvation and that God's people are in the
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Son's hand. They're in the Father's hand. I and the Father, we are one. The essence of the claim of divinity in John 1030 is not we are one in participation in the
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Godhead or something like that. We are one in the salvation of God's people and no human being could ever make the claim to be the very source of eternal life as Jesus Christ himself had just done.
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That is the claim to deity. Does Dr. Brown understand that? Okay. What happens after John 30?
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After John 30, the Jews accuse Jesus Christ of making himself a god and they prepare to stone him.
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Does Jesus Christ stand up with the omnipotence of divine authority and say, you heard me right.
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I said it once and I'll say it again. No. He goes on to explain to the
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Jews that they heard him wrong. They heard him wrong? That's what
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Jesus says in John chapter 10? You heard me wrong?
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That's not what I said? Let's see what Jesus actually said. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
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Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you going to stone me? The Jews answered him, it is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy because you, being a man, make yourself
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God. Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said you are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of whom whom the
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Father sanctified, I'm sorry, consecrate and send to the world, you are blaspheming because I said,
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I said, I am the Son of God. Now Jesus' own interpretation of what he's just said in regards to I am the
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Father, one, is that I am the Son of God, which you may recall in the other program,
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Dr. Brown said Jesus never said, Jesus never called himself the Son of God. He says, you are blaspheming because I said,
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I am the Son of God. If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the
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Father is in me and I am in the Father. Again, they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. Where does, where, where was the, you misheard me?
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It's not there. There's nothing there. He quotes Psalm 82, identifies them as false judges, and then points out you, you,
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I am the very one whom the Father consecrated, notice he differentiates himself from the Father, whom the
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Father consecrated and sent into the world. You are blaspheming because I said, I am the Son of God. If the
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Father has consecrated him and sent him into the world and has given evidence of his nature through the miraculous works he's done, then they are misjudging him just as the false judges in Psalm 82 did.
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See how wonderfully consistent the text is. When you allow it to speak for itself. Something tells me my recollection is we're about to hear something about, well, this text really doesn't mean what it says, it's a metaphor.
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And he cites Psalm 82 .6. We also know from Psalm 82 .1 that we find in these psalms that it says that those to whom the scripture has come, the revelation has come, shall be called sons of God.
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And in 82 .1 that the judges are actually called gods, not sons of God, but actually called gods.
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And he points out what we have pointed out before, that this is metaphorical language. And if that doesn't convince you, the last point.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That was a response? Misrepresented text, say Jesus said you misheard and then say
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Psalm 82 is metaphorical and that's it? Just compare, folks, the clarity of allowing the text to speak for itself with the twisting of the text that you just heard.
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And it's real obvious. I and the Father are one, John 10 .30,
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I and the Father are one. So what? So what? Is John 17 .11?
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You know, sometimes, you know, if you're used to dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, you already know that if you bring up John 10, you're going to hear
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John 17, because Jesus there talks about that the Father is going to be in me and I'm going to be in you and the role of the
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Holy Spirit and always go there to try to make this oneness something other than what would cause the
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Jews to pick up stones to stone him. And the disciples nowhere interpreted
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John 17 as meaning they're going to become gods or anything of the kind. It's just you can tell at times that these folks have picked up these arguments from second and third hand sources.
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It's not from it's not from any meaningful study of the text itself. And John 17 .21, where Jesus Christ talks about how all of the disciples are one and how they are all one in Jesus and God.
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And how does that happen? By the presence of the Holy Spirit, which unites them spiritually together on a very profound level with one another.
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That's not the same context of Jesus's own statement concerning his oneness with the
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Father and the salvation of God's people. And that is not the same context of the eternal relationship of the
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Father and the Son. We do not have that kind of eternal relationship. Remember, John 17, which is quoted, begins with Jesus's own statement,
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Glorify me, Father, the glory I have with you in your presence before the world was. No disciple makes that statement.
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No mere resual makes that statement. And by the way, I just want to point out to Dr.
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Brown, if he ever does listen to these things, I keep sending the URLs that in John chapter 14 and John chapter 16,
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Jesus, the one who sends the parakletos, the paraclete. If that is in fact
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Muhammad, who sent Muhammad according to Islamic theology? Who is the only one who can send prophets into the world?
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Allah. But Jesus sends him. So if the paraclete is actually Muhammad, then it makes
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Jesus deity. Well, you just can't have that. So the text must have been corrupted or something,
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I suppose. Okay. So it's no longer a trinity. It's Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, God, all of the disciples, all of the believers, all in one.
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So you can't have it both ways. You can't accept this metaphorical language as literal in one passage and then not as literal in another.
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Far, far more credible to recognize that you cannot accept these passages as literal.
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That was a lot of information. I'm sure you could expound on this for hours and hours if you condensed it and you made it simple.
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No, it's easy to understand. I feel that if someone's sincere, they're open -hearted, open -minded, that this is going to continue to make sense and they're going to continue their quest and hopefully they're going to come to the same realization that you came to and many others, 1 .5
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billion, that Jesus indeed was a mighty messenger of God and he called people to the oneness of God the same way all the other messengers did, including the last and final messenger of Allah, peace be upon him.
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So I would say to Eddie, it would be great if Eddie would hear these programs someday too.
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Eddie, with an open heart and mind, we just demonstrated that all top ten reasons were based upon either misrepresentations, misunderstandings, a twisting of the scripture, not a single one of them had any merit or any validity at all, none.
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And I would just call upon the Dean's Show producers and editors, if you really want to seriously do this, if you really want to seriously address these issues, then you need to start hearing from the other side and you need to start bringing in your best people and you need to have some serious give and take.
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Because the people that you have been bringing in just, I'm sorry, do not represent
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Christianity in any meaningful sense at all. They really, really don't. It's bad news here.
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So that was the portion that we missed last time around, and I apologize for that.
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Now we get back to a program that was posted just a few days ago. And I think that first program was posted right at the beginning of September, the first weekend of September, first week of September, somewhere around there.
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Because I first saw it when I was down in Wilcox for a bike race down there. So that's sort of how
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I remember when things were. So this one was just posted a few days ago, and these are the five reasons why
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Jesus Christ is not the begotten Son of God. And we are about 12 minutes into this one.
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And it's a little bit of a shorter, well, actually, it doesn't look like it's a little bit of a shorter program. But anyway, we've already looked at,
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I think, the first two reasons, if I recall correctly, and maybe somewhere in the third, if I recall.
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Let's take a listen. From which the Bible was translated. The Bible is translated from a body of...
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You know what? That's right in the middle of a sentence. Let's back it up a little bit and get a little more context. ...is translated both in the
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Hebrew, in the Aramaic, and in the Greek. There was no capitalization of any of these.
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Whenever you read... Son of God not being capitalized. ...and you see any letter capitalized, even the letters at the beginning of a sentence, those letters were not capitalized in the manuscripts from which the
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Bible was translated. And as we pointed out last time, of course, that's true on a certain level.
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Of course, the early Greek manuscripts were in all capital letters. So I guess you could actually argue it's the small letters that were introduced later.
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But whether you capitalize Son of God as an editorial choice, there's no question about that, and neither is that overly relevant in light of the argumentation we've already presented in regards to the uniqueness of Jesus's Sonship.
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The Bible is translated from a body of manuscripts. Right now we have 5 ,400 manuscripts.
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Now let's... I'm going to back that up because I want to make sure we heard this correctly. Because I even misheard him myself.
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I misheard him when I first listened to this in audio only. It's funny. I heard it one way in audio, then when
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I watched it and was able to watch his mouth, I realized he wasn't saying Alexandrinus, he was saying Vaticanus. He said it rather quickly.
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But I think I repeated that he said Alexandrinus, and it's not. He says Vaticanus.
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But it sounds like he's saying Bible manuscripts here. And you know, I've met a lot of people down through the years that have been very, very confused as to the sources of the
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Bible. But a manuscript of the Bible could be of either what we call the
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Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im and Ketuvim, or most commonly called the
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Hebrew scriptures or the Old Testament. Or of the Christian scriptures, the
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New Testament. And if it is of the Old Testament, it's going to be written in Hebrew or Aramaic if it is written or later translations such as the
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Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, sources such as that. And then in the
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New Testament, it's going to be in Koine Greek or it's going to be in one of the early translations of the
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Bible, the Old Latin or the Sahitic, Boheric, Coptic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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So a biblical manuscript is anything from all the
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Old and New Testaments together. So with that in mind, let's listen again to what he says here.
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Letters at the beginning of a sentence, those letters were not capitalized in the manuscripts from which the
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Bible was translated. The Bible is translated from a body of manuscripts.
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Right now, we have 5 ,400 manuscripts, none of them have capitalization.
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So the capitalization is something that people have put in, and in some cases, they put it in as a device to emphasize what they wanted to emphasize, but that is not being faithful to the scripture.
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Now, he just said 5 ,400 manuscripts. Now, the only meaningful way
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I can understand that is he's referring to the approximately 5 ,765 approximately
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Greek New Testament manuscripts. He's ignoring the
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Dead Sea Scrolls. He is ignoring the Masoretic texts.
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He's ignoring the Greek Septuagint. He's ignoring the Old Latin. He's ignoring any of the translations.
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He's only looking at Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and calling those all the biblical manuscripts and is about to tell us that the earliest biblical manuscripts that we possess are
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Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which is not even close to being true.
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They're not even the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, let alone the
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Old Testament. The oldest manuscripts we have of the Bible are the
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Dead Sea Scrolls from the first century before Christ that are, of course, the
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Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, which were written long before the New Testament.
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So again, maybe this is why I haven't gotten a response yet.
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It's because the first question I asked was, could you give us some more information about your PhD and your DD? I don't see those on his own website.
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So it's possible. You know, sometimes, you know, I'm going to throw this out here as a possibility.
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Even though it happened on two different programs, he's wearing different clothes, and I think they're recorded at different times, so eventually you'd have to catch this.
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But sometimes I've done programs and people have said things in their introduction, and I just sort of went, where on earth did they get that?
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And since they're right off into their first question, it might be live or something like that. Are you supposed to just stop the interview and say, you got that all wrong?
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You know, is Eddie remembering somebody else rather than Dr. Brown, who is actually a retired military ophthalmologist?
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I don't know. I don't know. But it would just strike me that people with a
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PhD and a DD who are supposed to be, quote unquote, Christian scholars, or at least scholars of Christianity, as he was described as being on The Dean Show, would have at least a basic knowledge of such things as what the
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Dead Sea Scrolls are, when they're dated, the languages of the Bible, the character of the early manuscripts of the
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Bible, the unsealed text versus the later minuscule text, and when the switchover took place.
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And, you know, stuff that I learned in Bible college, you know, in New Testament and Old Testament background classes, which
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I realize most people sleep through. But I didn't. And you shouldn't do that either.
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But anyways, we continue on. Not being faithful at all. OK, so we got to be sincere and we got to really want to do
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God's will. We can't just do things and just make it fit because it fits our desires. Well, you remember how we were talking in a previous session about how a lot of people get turned off to religion because they see people playing with religion.
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This is one of the ways in which people play with religion. They try to make it to be more or less than what they want it to be, or they pretend to have authority and knowledge of certain areas when they actually don't.
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They add what is not there or they take away what is there or they misrepresent what has actually been there all along.
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This is one of those cases where they are adding something that is not there, namely capitalization or special usage of particular words.
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Now, I'm sorry, but capitalization is dependent upon context. And so if if Dr.
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Brown wants to argue that in reference to Jesus Christ, capitals should never be used and make the argument, but do so based upon actually understanding what monogamous means and things like that.
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Don't don't just do it based upon Islamic presuppositions. You're talking about capitalization. We've talked about five, four, three.
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Let's go to the number two reason for why Jesus Christ. It's not the begotten son of God in a begotten, not made sense, is that in the
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Bible, the word that is translated to only begotten monogamous,
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M -O -N -O -G -E -N -E -S. This is the word that is translated to only begotten. We were on number two now.
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We're on number two. So you get we went from five, four, three. And now this is the number two reason why
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Jesus, peace be upon him, is not God. And this is relating to what we were just talking about, which is why I'm slipping in there. You know, this word monogamous is found nine times in the
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Bible. OK, three times it's found in Luke. You'll find it in 7, 12, 8, 42 and 9, 38.
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OK, in all three of those passages, it does not speak of Jesus Christ. It is speaking of other individuals, which means, of course, that monogamous, if we could actually pronounce it somewhat properly, that monogamous already had an accepted meaning and a understandable meaning in the culture of the day, which meant unique or one and only.
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You would have a monogamous son. The widow had a monogamous son, and that means a unique son.
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Now, it normally meant only begotten because you wouldn't have any other kids.
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But there is a uniqueness to this term. And in fact, let me, you know,
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Dr. Brown uses Merriam -Webster to define things. I think it might be good if we actually looked to some scholarly sources to define these terms.
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And again, I've offered to freely send Dr. Brown my book,
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The Forgotten Trinity. And if you look at the extended note beginning on page 201 of The Forgotten Trinity, let me just note here, extended note on the meaning of monogamous.
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Traditional translations often have a great impact upon theology. This is certainly the case in regard to monogamous. So embedded in our thought is the phrase only begotten, as the translations were, that it is difficult to discuss the term in its original context so as to arrive at the meaning it carried for those who used it, especially when we ask what it meant to the
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Apostle John. In English, only begotten emphasizes the first element of the translation, the concept of begettal and generation.
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But the English meaning must, in all cases, be consonant with the Greek original. And we must take any emphasis from the
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Greek, not from the English. Notice that's the exact opposite of the approach that Dr. Brown has taken.
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The key element to remember in deriving the meaning of monogamous is this, is a compound term combining monos, meaning only, with a second term.
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Often is assumed that the second term is genosthai, gena 'o, to give birth, to beget, but note that this family of terms has two news rather than the single new found in monogamous.
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This indicates the second term is not genosthai, but genosthai, genomai, and the noun form genos.
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GL Prestige discusses the difference that arise from these two derivations in God and patristic thought, a certain number of pages here.
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Genos means kind or type, and genomai is a verb of being. Hence the translation, one of a kind, one and only, of soul descent.
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Some scholars see the genos element as having a minor impact upon the meaning of the term, and hence see monogamous as a strengthened form of monos, thereby translating it alone, unique, incomparable.
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An example of this usage from the Septuagint is found in Psalm 25, 16, turn to me and be gracious for I am lonely, monogamous, and afflicted.
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There are numerous scholarly sources that substantiate the proper meaning of monogamous. The lexicon of Johannes Loew and Eugene Nida, the
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Greek English lexicon of the New Testament, based upon Semantic Domains, page 591 says monogamous, pertaining to what is unique in the sense of being the only one of the same kind and class, unique and only.
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Then he gives John 3, 16, 1 John 4, 9, as examples of this, all the way through Hebrews 11, 17.
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Abraham, of course, did have another son, Ishmael, and later sons by Keturah, but Isaac was a unique son, and that he was a son born as a result of certain promises made by God.
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Accordingly, he could be called a monogamous son since he was the only one of his kind,
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Newman and Nida in a translator's handbook on the Gospel of John, page 24 notes, only son is the rendering of all modern translations.
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There is no doubt regarding the meaning of the Greek word used here, monogamous. It means only, and not only begotten.
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The meaning only begotten, which appears in the Vulgate, has influenced KJV and many other early translations.
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The major work of James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, pages 4, 16 through 4, 17, likewise gives this indication, monogamous is literally one of a kind, only unique, unicus, not only begotten, which would be monogenitas, as in unigenitus, and is common in the
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LXX, I'll say it right, in this sense, the emphasis is on the thought that as the only son of God, he is not equal, he has no equal, and is able fully to reveal the
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Father, let me repeat that, the emphasis is on the thought that as the only son of God, he has no equal, and is able fully to reveal the
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Father. This is cited with approval by Tennington Expositor's Bible Commentary with the additional comment, God's personal revelation of himself and Christ has no parallel elsewhere, nor has it ever been repeated.
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George Beasley Murray likewise said in the Word Biblical Commentary on John, page 14, monogamous is literally the only one of its kind, unique in its genos, in the
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Greek septuagint, frequently translate Yahid in the Hebrew. Likewise, we read in Leon Morris's book,
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The New International Commentary on the New Testament, page 105, we should not read too much into only begotten, the
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English ears this sound like a metaphysical relationship, but the Greek term means no more than only or unique.
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The footnote at this point reads as follows, it should not be overlooked that monogamous is derived from genomai, not genao, etymologically it is not connected with begetting.
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So why does the witness this meaning that the standard lexical source, that of the Greek, English, Lexicon, and New Testament, other Christian literature, by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Donker, second edition, remember this was written in 1998 before the third edition came out, includes in its definition of the term, monogamous only of children,
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Isaac, Abraham's only son, of an only son, also unique in kind, of something that is the only example of its category.
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In Johannine literature, monogamous is used only of Jesus. The meanings only unique may be quite adequate for all its occurrences here.
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Finally, Murray Harris in Jesus God, page 87, said, this leads us to conclude that monogamous denotes the only member of a kin or kind.
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Applied to Jesus, the Son of God, it will mean that he is without spiritual siblings and without equals.
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He is soul -born and peerless. No one else can lay claim to the title Son of God in the sense in which it applies to Christ.
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End of quotation. So there is what you do when you look at scholarly commentaries, lexical sources, things like that.
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You look up what monogamous actually means in context. Let's contrast that with what we're hearing from Dr.
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Lawrence Brown. Okay, now this is the same word. When you find it in John, it identifies
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Jesus Christ as only begotten. But when this same word is used in Luke regarding other individuals, guess what?
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It's not translated only begotten. Now why is that? Again, this is, we were just talking about how people kind of add what they want.
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Now here's where Dr. Brown, and this is another reason why I really do feel we have every right to ask the question.
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He basically here is going to start accusing Bible translations of trying to smuggle things in by mistranslating things.
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And if you're going to make that kind of, now look, we could go to YouTube right now and find a bazillion people making the same kind of allegations.
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The problem is, if we're properly thinking people, we won't give any of them, almost any of them, any credibility at all.
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Why? Because they don't deserve any credibility. They don't read the languages. They haven't done the requisite study to actually have a standing in any of those things.
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And so that's why I would like to know where has Dr. Brown taught? What scholarly works has he written?
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I've looked. I can't find anything. But you know, he could have written under a different name, or you know, it's unusual journals that aren't easily accessible online, or I don't,
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I just don't know. Maybe he used his Islamic name. I don't know. I mean, he could have one.
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I don't know. In any case, I'd like to know, because if you're going to call, if you're going to say that all the
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Bible translations are wrong here, you need to have a basis for it. And I need to make sure that Dr. Brown actually reads these languages in a functional, functional way.
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You'd think that an Air Force ophthalmologist wouldn't exactly have the time to...
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Retired. Retired Air Force ophthalmologist. Once you're a retired Air Force ophthalmologist, you have time to play golf, right?
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I guess. But still time to do two really full doctorates?
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One a DD and another a PhD? I don't know how long he's been retired. You know, he could have been retired for a while.
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He looks a little, looks, I don't know, he looks on, he looks like he's mid -50s, maybe somewhere around there.
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So if you retire after 20 years, you know, he started in 40, you know, he might have had 10, 15 years of retirement pay.
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You can get a lot done in that time. I don't know. I don't know. I'd be asking.
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I'd be not getting answers. So I'm doing my best. They take away what they don't want.
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This is an example where there's an inconsistency in how the word is translated. No, there's not an inconsistency in how the word is translated.
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It could have been translated using the exact same term in each section, if that's what the translators desire to do.
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They're not trying, they're not trying to insert something here. When you're talking about, in Luke, an only son, then they will translate it as an only son.
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Remember, this is a fellow who thinks the NRSV is the cat's meow. In fact, he says it's the best -selling translation out there.
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I guess I could be wrong. Maybe someone would like to find out what the actual sales numbers are, if there is such a website someplace.
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I certainly, the reason that the RSV and NRSV would have any meaningful sales numbers at all is because of almost enforced utilization by the
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World Council of Churches, National Council of Churches, being used as a pew Bible and stuff like that.
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But I have a really strong hunch that both the NIV and ESV probably way outsell the
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NRSV, certainly in the United States, maybe not in Europe. Well, we're not even putting the
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KJV in the modern translation realm here to compare it. But here's somebody who takes those, and it could be meaningful if the person making the accusation is able to read and translate the
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Greek language, engage in context, syntax, all the rest of that stuff.
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I just don't have any evidence that that's something that Dr. Brown is actually able to do. You have to ask yourself why. This word is found, like I said, nine times in the
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Bible, three times in Luke, in all three of those times it speaks of individuals other than Jesus Christ, and it does not identify them as only begotten.
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Five times it's found in John, four times in the Gospel of John, one time in the
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Epistle of John, okay, in the First Epistle of John. In those five instances, it speaks of Jesus Christ as only begotten.
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In debating which translation you're looking at, actually,
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I would say that the NRSV rendering, and I wonder if I have that here, let me see if I have it in accordance here.
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Yeah, there it is. NRSV. I think the NRSV rendering of John 118 happens to be wonderful.
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No one faint out there that I just recommended a rendering of the NRSV. But there are times that the
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NRSV actually can get quite good. Listen to the NRSV rendering of John 118, because this is one of those places.
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You have monogamies, they on udice, hearacan popate, monogamies theos, haon aiston kalpon, tu patras, echainos, exegesis, which exegesis, as explained, has led forth.
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Here's the NRSV's rendering. No one has ever seen God. It is
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God, the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
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Now compare the NET, no one has ever seen God. The only one himself, God, who is in closest fellowship with the
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Father, has made God known. And then you have ESV, no one has ever seen
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God. The only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. So there's one, two, three modern translations, none of which use the term only begotten.
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Now why doesn't Dr. Brown make reference to this? Why doesn't he understand the nature of sonship and the nature of the translation of the term monogamies, as we have explained it?
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I leave that to him to explain, if he ever gets back to us, to explain those things to us.
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Okay, the ninth time, that's the kicker. Hebrews 11, 17.
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In Hebrews 11, 17, what is the word applied to? The word is applied to Isaac.
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Isaac is monogamous. Now, why is that important? The reason that's important is because Ishmael was born 14 years before Isaac.
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Abraham's first son was Ishmael. When Isaac was born, Ishmael was 14 years old.
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How could Isaac be the only begotten son of Abraham when
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Ishmael was born 14 years before? How so, Dr. Brown? That's a question.
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Notice that came up in some of the lexical resources and commentaries that we noted. So why is
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Isaac monogamous? Because he is what? Unique. Unique.
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How is he unique? He's the son of the promise. Now, of course, now is where you run into all the Islamic stuff.
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Oh, no, Ishmael, Ishmael, la, la, la, la, la. And they just have to throw out the Genesis narrative. And they don't have anything that goes near back to that time period to compete with it, but they have to throw it out because Muhammad said so.
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But leaving that aside as the anachronism that it is, the ancient text tells us very clearly why
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Isaac is the monogamous because he's the unique fulfillment of God's promise.
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Even God said, no, no, no, my fulfillment is not going to be through him.
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It's not going to be. I'm going to make a great nation of him because he is your son, but he's not the monogamous.
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He's not the one through whom the fulfillment of my promise is going to come.
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That's that proves the point that we've been making all along that monogamous is
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F. It's its emphasis is not on the Genao part.
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Does it's not even there because it's genace, kind, unique.
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Genre, all those terms that we use. It's not possible. Not possible.
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Okay. And if you if you question, if you say, okay, well, well, Ishmael wasn't really
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Abraham's son, right? Some people say that some people say, okay. Well, he was
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Abraham's son, but not by Sarah to whom the promise also had been made when Yahweh and the two angels had been had come walking by the
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Oaks of Mamre. Remember that Genesis 18 and all that stuff. Abraham's second wife wasn't really a wife. You have to just go back to the
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Bible. If you read the Bible, it says that Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as a wife.
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Polygamy was permitted at that time. It was allowed. Polygamy was the standard of the time.
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That's why you find David. That's why you find Solomon with so many wives. Polygamy was allowed. Okay, and and if you question whether he was the son, just read
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Genesis 16, 11, read Genesis 16, 15, 17, 7, 17, 23, and 17, 25.
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And there are more passages. Why do you read those passages? Because in those passages, God recognized
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Isaac, excuse me, God, God recognized Ishmael as Abraham's son.
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Okay, so as I said, but not as the monogamous and not as the fulfillment of the promise.
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If God is recognizing Ishmael as Abraham's son 14 years before Isaac, then how can
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Isaac be the only begotten son? And yet that is the word to identify him, monogamous.
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So what we're finding is that word monogamous in Luke in three places, when it's applied to other individuals, it's mistranslated.
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Mistranslated? Has he substantiated any of that? No, of course not. Has he given us any lexical sources?
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Has he demonstrated he can actually read the language? No, he hasn't. And that's one of the questions that I've asked him three times now, and we'll keep asking.
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Hebrews 11, 17, when it's talking about Isaac, it simply cannot be only begotten.
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Oh, but it is. Oh, but it is. It can't be because of my understanding, because my Islamic presuppositions which come, oh, let's see, approximately 2 ,000 years after the narrative itself.
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Two millennium later, we come up with our own mythology that contradicts that, so it can't be that. Really? Okay.
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He was not the only begotten son of Abraham. Now, of course, even at that point, you're, well, as if the book of Hebrews is relevant to their theological norms anyway.
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Now, for the layman, that was number two from five, we're going to go to number one. For the layman, he doesn't know much of these passages.
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He doesn't know much of the Bible. He believes in God. He knows this doesn't make sense. Has we heard anything?
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The only thing we've heard so far that doesn't make sense is Dr. Brown and Eddie trying to pretend that they understand something about Christian theology.
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That's all we've heard that doesn't make any sense. We have, so far, if this is the last one, then we've done four reasons here.
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Or are we down to the second one? At least three reasons here. Ten reasons before, 13 or 14 points so far, and not a one to a studied, hopefully fair -minded
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Christian who understands the Islamic presuppositions and Islamic arguments against their faith.
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We haven't found a single one that is at all compelling, that has any meaning to us at all.
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That's where we are. Bring it home. I mean, what does someone, and I'm sure you've had a lot of discourse and dialogue with people who believe this, but have you ever asked them, what do you mean when you say
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God had a son? Because we know that, you know, cats have kittens, cows have calves. You know, what does
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God, if he had a son, is that a baby God? Is it a number two God? How do they make sense of it? What are they actually saying?
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Now, how can you... I'm not sure how many years now the Dean Show's been on. But if you look at the archives, it's been on for quite a while.
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Now, they do not always address this subject. From my perspective, it sort of seems like they almost always are, because, look, those are the ones that people are going to link to me, and they're the ones that...
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But they don't always. If you look at the archives, they're talking about other stuff, and Islamic dress, and prayers, and they do do other subjects.
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But they do a lot on this. And we've listened to Zakir Naik on here, and we've listened to that former youth pastor dude, and we've just gone through all sorts of different guests that have shown up on the
50:29
Dean Show, attacking the Christian faith, and misrepresenting the Christian faith, and being presented as experts in the
50:36
Christian faith. How can you sit there for however many years it has been now, as the host of this program, as Eddie has been?
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Because I've never seen anybody but him as the host, so I think he's been there from the start. How can you sit there all that time, and still have zero understanding of the religion you're saying is wrong?
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Well, I suppose the answer to that is found in the fact that your guests have presented you with either zero understanding of that, or they've given you all sorts of contradictory statements.
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It reminds me of just last evening, I was speaking at our church, and we went through Mark chapter 14, and when the witnesses were brought in to testify against Jesus, what was the problem with all of their statements?
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They were self -contradictory. In fact, I love the term, they were inconsistent. And what is inconsistency?
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It's a sign of a failed argument, or in this case, it's a sign of perjury. Anyway, but it's just sad that here you have the host of the program, and after all these years, he can sit here and talk about the sonship of Jesus, as in, cats have kittens, and cows have calves, and dogs have puppies.
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And this, don't Christians understand this? You know, I think of programs that I've been on, and I've hosted on ABN and stuff like that, and just on the level of how much more in depth and concerned with truth and accuracy, what we say about Islam is, doesn't that say anything?
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I mean, I know we have Muslim listeners, I know we do. And I just have to ask you, if this is what your folks are producing, don't you see that there's a real problem here?
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Now, I suppose there might be some people out there that would say, oh, hey, hey, we recognize that Zakir Naik and Akhmed Didat, and what's the guy down in South Africa, his name has slipped my mind, but the guy who took
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Akhmed Didat's spot down there, I'd love to debate some day, and Erevan the Dean Show, and Lawrence Brown, and we recognize that all these folks just aren't up to snuff.
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Maybe there's a bunch of Muslims out there that look at this kind of stuff the same way we look at TBN.
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You know, as fluffy, light, not to be taken seriously stuff.
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You know, I don't know. I haven't run into them. If they're there,
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I don't know who they are. I don't see what their websites are. Maybe they can contact me and let me know.
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So I could see their websites and their serious interactions utilizing the same standards that they use to defend the
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Quran, to attack Christianity. That would be a really unique thing to run into. You know, here's where the personal religion comes in because people just explain it in different ways.
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I think if most people are honest with themselves, they don't really understand the concept.
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Because you have to remember, in the Trinity, in the concept of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the
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Holy Spirit, the teaching is not just that these three individuals exist, but that they are co -equal, co -eternal, and consubstantial.
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Okay? That means that they are, okay, in saying that they are co -eternal, all three of them are eternal.
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And yet, if you're saying this is the Father and this is the Son, how can a
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Son be eternal if it comes from the Father? See, there you go. Everybody who understands the nature of Jesus' Sonship now recognizes that Lawrence Brown doesn't.
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Because we have emphasized over and over again, now, you know, he'll read the
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Athanasian Creed, but he only does it to make it sound silly, not to understand it. If he would listen, which evidently, he was never a
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Christian, he went from being an atheist to a Muslim, he tried to be a Christian, but he, by his own confession, never figured it out.
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If he understood that, he would have understood, he would have known, that the relationship that exists between the
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Father and the Son, he just said it, did he not? Is eternal, that is, outside of time. Then he turns around and makes a criticism based upon what?
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Well, human fatherhood requires temporal priority. But you just said that they're eternal and they've eternally existed in this way, so how can there be a temporal priority if this is an eternal relationship?
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Doesn't this show you something that you as a Muslim should already understand? And that is, even
55:47
Muslim writers constantly warn against projecting human terminology back upon the attributes of Allah.
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Even when the language is used that would have a correspondence in human existence, we are not to turn that around and put those limitations upon Allah.
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Why don't you allow that for us? We came first anyways. Why not? We even have this use, this differentiating use of son and father even in the
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English language today. I mean, or even back then, Timothy was a spiritual son to Paul.
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Yeah, well they want to take it very, very, very literally at this point. Which is why they emphasize only begotten as the whole focus of this.
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And I would say that it is the Quran that's forcing this. Because the Quran, why would the
56:38
Quran argue against it if that wasn't the truth? Why would the Quran argue against God having a son if that's not what
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Christians were saying? This has been one of the problems from the very beginning. And you know, it's funny, long before I really started studying
56:51
Islam, when I did that debate with Hamza Abdul Malik, one of the first things
56:56
I noticed, I remember sitting on a plane, I had one of these, oh man, it was, what was that?
57:03
I'm trying to remember the name. It was, they make refrigerators now. It was a Japanese company.
57:09
They make refrigerators and washers and dryers, but for a while they made computers.
57:16
And I had this little, teeny, it wasn't a laptop, it literally was this big.
57:22
There's only one person in the world right now that cares about this. It was this big with a fold -up screen and, you know,
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I don't know how many megs of memory. This was back in 98, 99. Okay, it was a while back there. But I really liked this thing.
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The keyboard was actually large enough to type on and I remember sitting in a plane, typing up my notes for this, maybe this is,
57:44
I have no idea who's calling from 903. Anyways, it's on Vibrate anyhow, so it's not my wife.
57:52
That's the important part. I was typing up my notes and I was reading resources and stuff on the subject of Islam and all that kind of thing.
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And I remember putting into my notes, because I recognize this just by looking at the commentaries
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I was reading from Muslims. It is very difficult to address this subject with believing
58:17
Muslims because of the overriding authority of the Quran and its fundamental misunderstanding of Christian theology.
58:25
And if you think the Quran is the word of God and the Quran says the Trinity is this and I come along and say, but that's not the
58:31
Trinity, who are you going to believe? They believe the Quran rather than what can be documented from what came hundreds of years before the rise of Islam.
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Now, of course, the Muslims believe Islam was the first religion and Muslims believe we're the late comers.
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But, of course, they can't demonstrate that historically in any meaningful fashion. It's an anachronistic claim, but it's there anyway.
58:58
This is an early argument by the Unitarian priest Arius who basically said if you're going to call on the sun, you can't call him eternal.
59:08
Because Arius taught there was a time when the sun was not. Now, Arius did not believe what
59:14
Muslims believe about Jesus. He did believe he was a divine person in the sense of not just a mirror of Azul.
59:22
But he did reject the eternal nature of the sun and that he was homoousius, of the same substance of the father, fully equal with the father in his participation in deity.
59:32
And so he did argue this. And how did the church respond? By pointing to the eternal nature of Christ's sonship.
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Now, of course, I might want to point it out that other people have argued, we've even heard
59:46
Abdullah Kunda argue that the Incarnation involves a change in God. He doesn't bring this up, but we're going to try to get back to Abdullah here in just a little while.
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If I stop right here, it might be good to transition right back into that. But we'll finish this off and then get back into the
01:00:05
Abdullah Kunda -Samuel Green debate. If the sun comes from the father, how can they be consubstantial of the same substance?
01:00:15
And how can they be co -equal when one is praying to the other? Jesus Christ was praying to God.
01:00:22
So how can you say these two are equal? Jesus Christ was praying to the father. And how can you say they're equal?
01:00:29
Equal in what way? In their participation in deity? Well, what's the presupposition there? That deity can't enter into human form.
01:00:36
That there can be no Incarnation. Which is why the debate topic in Sydney is on that very subject.
01:00:43
That's the presupposition. How can they be equal? Well, all you're stating is it is impossible for one of the divine persons to voluntarily enter into human flesh to accomplish the work of redemption.
01:00:59
It's just impossible. And you say, why? Well, because he wouldn't do that. But why? Well, because my theory of God indicates he wouldn't do that.
01:01:06
Well, that's not much of a response. But that's pretty much all that they have. I mean, if you have the same powers, if you have godly powers, you don't need to pray to anybody.
01:01:18
Why? Dr. Brown, if the second person... Just track with us for a moment,
01:01:24
Dr. Brown. Because it's very clear that in your trying to be a Christian at some point, either you were the victim of really bad teaching or you just never encountered solid teaching or were not willing to listen to it.
01:01:35
I don't know. I don't know what it is. But just track with us here for a moment. If the second person of the
01:01:43
Trinity entered into human flesh so as to accomplish the mission of redemption, because a perfect life had to be given for the redemption of God's people.
01:01:54
But it could not just be a mere human being. We had to have a divine person here so that those united to him could have eternal life.
01:02:04
Let's just say that the second person of the divine Trinity enters into human flesh.
01:02:09
Dr. Brown, what kind of person is he going to be? What kind of person is he going to be? Will he be an atheist?
01:02:17
Will... Remember, he's been in perfect harmony and fellowship with the Father for all of eternity.
01:02:24
Is he going to stop fellowshipping with the Father? Is he going to stop communicating with the
01:02:30
Father? Do you really think that's what the perfect person...
01:02:36
A perfect man, is he not going to worship God? Or is he going to be an atheist? Just a simple question,
01:02:44
Dr. Brown. That's the kind of thing we would like to ask in light of these statements that are being made.
01:02:53
Because what is the purpose of prayer? The purpose of prayer is to ask God to do something for you. Really?
01:02:59
That's an exceptionally shallow definition of prayer. I thought it was fellowship with God.
01:03:08
And that's what I experience. Meditation on His Word. The leadership of the
01:03:14
Spirit. Even terms that appeared in my Bible long before they appeared in your
01:03:20
Koran. Guidance and light. Light upon the path. Guidance in the Word of God. Read the 119th
01:03:26
Psalm. No, it's Psalm. Singular. It's all there.
01:03:33
And so... But... Okay, let's just go with that definition. Jesus made
01:03:39
Himself dependent upon the Spirit of God in His ministry.
01:03:46
So that He could be the perfect example for us. Again. So? God can't do that in your world?
01:03:55
And if you have these powers yourself, you don't need to ask God to do something for you. Just bam and it's done.
01:04:02
Okay, so when you really get into it, most people most people just even if they don't admit it with their words at least when they go home and think about it they realize, yeah, something doesn't quite fit.
01:04:14
Now, this, again, up to this point I'm just going okay, if you are content in providing arguments only for ignorant people who never think through their faith, then okay you and I, Dr.
01:04:31
Brown, we do things for very different purposes. Because I want to give an answer for the most serious
01:04:37
Muslim around. I want to give an answer for my faith to a thinking meaningful
01:04:45
Muslim. You know, not the hot head I can't, there's nothing I can do about those folks and I've run into, there's this one guy
01:04:52
I run into in Leicester Square all the time he's a one string banjo and he just has absolutely no interest in hearing these guys' objections and he's invested in it and no matter how many times you point out the fundamental errors in his misrepresentation he's going to keep repeating himself.
01:05:07
I'm not talking about those folks. I'm talking about the serious folks. And from a
01:05:12
Christian perspective, the folks in whom the Spirit of God is at work to draw them to Jesus Christ.
01:05:17
You've got to be sincere, you've got to be sincere sincere with yourself, sincere with the one who knows the hearts, the creator of the heavens and earth we'll be right back with number one reason why
01:05:25
Jesus, peace be upon him is not the begotten Son of God we'll be right back. Alright, we've gotten we've done 14 of them and we have refuted 14 of them so we've got one more to go do you think we can get there?
01:05:40
You know who you should listen to? If you're a Christian, listen to your Bible. That's all
01:05:46
I ask you to do listen to your Bible. Why? Because the Revised Standard Version the
01:05:51
New Revised Standard Version the New International Version, the Good News Bible the New English Bible, the
01:05:56
Jerusalem Bible and many others have recognized the force of the arguments that I have given today and they have removed this from their own
01:06:05
Bibles. So, you know what the number one reason is? First of all, he actually thinks this is because of the reasons he's given
01:06:11
Dr. Brown has nothing to do with the reasons you've given at all. Nothing. Simply because modern translations use unique or one and only for monogamous that means
01:06:24
Jesus is not the begotten Son of God There you go and that is an argument without substance because it's based upon gross ignorance of what we mean by the
01:06:34
Sonship of Jesus. 15 objections 15 strikes.
01:06:39
That's 5 strikeouts right there. If you go to read those Bibles and the
01:06:45
New Revised Standard Version and the New International Version are the largest selling Bibles and the most scholastic
01:06:53
Bibles in the history of mankind and they have removed this from their text because they realize it is illegitimate so, like I said if you're
01:07:04
Christian, you don't need to trust me trust your own Bible and you will find that the biblical scholars themselves have removed this from the biblical text removed it from the biblical text in other words, if they translate monogamous correctly, recognizing that it's from Genos Genomai Genos rather than from Genao that's somehow removing something and that's removing the
01:07:27
Sonship of Jesus from Christian theology Wow Again, has this man read any serious serious theology?
01:07:37
I've seen no evidence that he has. None whatsoever. I just don't see it In those
01:07:43
Bibles I quoted and many others it no longer says begotten not made it no longer says only begotten
01:07:49
Where did it say begotten not made? Begotten not made is Nicaea it is differentiating when it talks about begotten not made it's talking about the relationship of the
01:08:01
Father and the Son versus the concept of creation and entering into existence we don't believe that the person of the
01:08:11
Son of God came into existence at a point in time in the past and the
01:08:19
Bible is very clear about that but that terminology begotten not made that was removed from the
01:08:26
Bible it was never part of the Bible that's Nicaea it's a perfectly proper description of the
01:08:32
Biblical terminology but it's not Biblical terminology itself so it's not been removed from anything it's almost like those
01:08:42
Bible translators have finally caught up with where us Muslims have been all along not quite that has been removed they recognize that it's not valid you should recognize it's not valid also the person says no no no no
01:08:57
I grew up on the King James Version that's all I go by what do you got to say well there you go poor
01:09:02
Eddie is running to some King James only us out there the King James Version was written in 1611 that's 400 years old now
01:09:13
I understand you might like the way it's written but there were many Biblical texts discovered after that the most the earliest
01:09:23
Biblical texts ever discovered were the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus now you can see why
01:09:31
I misunderstood what he said because he didn't even pronounce Vaticanus correctly it was Vaticanus it sounded like Alexandrinus to me so they sounded very similar but Dr.
01:09:42
Brown you're just wrong W -R -O -N -G and this isn't disputable this isn't debatable this isn't something where there's a question about this because you just said was
01:09:54
I correct let me rack it up here let me try this one more time because I want to make sure now
01:10:01
I understand you might like the way it's written but there were many texts many
01:10:07
Biblical texts discovered after that the earliest
01:10:12
Biblical texts ever discovered were the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus he did say
01:10:19
Biblical texts he did not say New Testament manuscripts it wouldn't be true either way but it would be slightly less untrue if he said the
01:10:27
New Testament because there was a point in time when
01:10:33
Sinaiticus was the earliest but Dr. Brown's not old enough to have been alive at a point in time when his statement would be true so you know if he's actually very very very old then he might be able to get away with it but the reality is that the vast majority of the papyri are earlier than Sinaiticus not all papyri there are some papyri that would post -date
01:11:01
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus but very few the vast majority of the papyri are earlier sometimes hundreds of years earlier and we're only talking there about the
01:11:11
New Testament he said Biblical manuscripts so obviously the Dead Sea Scrolls are a minimum a minimum of 400 years older than either
01:11:23
Sinaiticus or Vaticanus so just not even close not even the ballpark and those were discovered after the
01:11:35
King James Version was written that's not true either that's not true either
01:11:41
Sinaiticus was but but Vaticanus was known to Erasmus Erasmus specifically asked his friend
01:11:50
Bombasius and I've always had a very hard time not stopping and wondering about what parents would ever name their child
01:12:00
Bombasius when it's just a little baby how do you know there are lots of people who in their 20s and 30s
01:12:07
I would like to name Bombasius personally and maybe in my own nicknames for them
01:12:12
I've named them Bombasius but this is one of those names that stuck with me from seminary
01:12:20
I wrote a couple of papers on Erasmus and it just stuck with me that he wrote to his friend Bombasius in Rome and he specifically asked him to check the
01:12:32
Vatican manuscript for the Kamiohania which not only demonstrates that Christian scholars have known about the issue of the
01:12:40
Kamiohania for half a millennium which gives the lie to his comments on that subject earlier but also demonstrates that the
01:12:50
Vatican manuscript was known almost 100 years prior just from this one source it's longer than that prior to the translation of the
01:13:01
King James so strike number I don't know where we are now 87 whatever as far as factual errors for Dr.
01:13:09
Lawrence Brown that is new information not only new information those are the earliest biblical manuscripts that the
01:13:17
Bible can be translated from and that gives us the most reliable source for information for the
01:13:24
Bible and that information was missing when the King James version was translated
01:13:29
Question for Dr. Brown if in point of fact did that scare you?
01:13:36
I woke up the rookie if I do not want you to call me
01:13:42
Bombasius somebody kick halftime right out of the channel that's terrible Dr.
01:13:47
Brown I have a question for you if Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are as you just said the earliest and most accurate manuscripts we have
01:13:58
I have a couple questions for Dr. Lawrence Brown and I would like to invite the folks in the
01:14:04
Dean Show to ask Dr. Brown these questions number one Dr.
01:14:10
Brown what does Sinaiticus and Vaticanus read at John chapter 14 does it read
01:14:16
Parakletos or does it read Parikletos as many Muslims would tell us the
01:14:22
New Testament originally read one who is highly exalted that is Ahmed as a fulfillment of the prophecies of the
01:14:31
Quran regarding the name of Mohammed in the Christian scriptures what does
01:14:37
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus read I know what they read they read Parakletos they don't read as the
01:14:44
Muslims would say but Dr. Brown second question is when were these manuscripts written most scholars believe they were written in the middle of the 4th century maybe even right after the
01:14:57
Council of Nicaea with the monies that Eusebius tells us Constantine gave the church to produce Bibles because well the
01:15:03
Romans had been burning Bibles for a long long time and he felt sorry badly about that so he thought it would be a good idea if they replaced some of the thousands that they had burned in the preceding oh 60 years but Dr.
01:15:15
Brown why didn't you tell everybody when these were written could it be possibly maybe you don't know or could it possibly be maybe that you would then realize that these were written almost 300 years prior to the lifetime of Mohammed not the lifetime but to the prophethood of Mohammed between 610 and 632 about 300 years well wait a minute why would anybody be making changes to such sections as John 14 and 16 300 years before Mohammed would come along why would there be an alteration or a change a corruption of these scriptures 300 years before him and Dr.
01:15:59
Brown another question Surah 5 46 through and following well a little bit before that it starts an argument and I have sat
01:16:11
I have sat with my Arabic tutor and we have translated through this section and we followed the argument of Surah 5 and the whole argument is that Allah has given the
01:16:22
Torah in which is light and guidance and then he sent Jesus and he gave him the
01:16:29
Injil the Gospel in which is light and guidance and it confirmed the things that came before and then he sent
01:16:35
Mohammed and you see the prophet of Mohammed is based upon this chain of preceding revelations there is a consistency at least in the mind of the author of the
01:16:48
Quran in this chain of giving the Torah and then the Injil and now
01:16:53
Mohammed has come with the Quran and yet in the midst of this we are told in Surah 5 the people of the
01:17:02
Gospel Dr. Brown are told to judge by what is recorded there in the only there in Dr.
01:17:14
Brown is the Injil now we know as you have just pointed out in light of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus we know what the
01:17:26
Injil looked like in the days of Mohammed many Muslims will say well the Injil is a book that was given to that was given to Jesus and we don't have just a book that was given to Jesus we don't have the
01:17:36
Injil but then that means the Quran is lying to us because the Quran tells the
01:17:41
Alal Injil and we know who the Alal Injil were in the days of Mohammed remember the deposition
01:17:47
Dr. Brown that came from Najran the Christians that came from Najran close to the end of Mohammed's life and the dispute they had with Mohammed at that time we know what scriptures they would have had and so we know the
01:18:01
Alal Injil that the Quran is addressing and the Quran can't lie can it Dr. Brown and so if the
01:18:09
Quran tells the Alal Injil to judge by what is contained in the Injil they had to possess it and Sinaiticus and Vaticanus would be the earliest representatives we have from your perspective we actually even have earlier than that we actually have papyri
01:18:23
Dr. Brown I'd invite you to pick up maybe Phillip Comfort's work on the subject of the papyri he goes to and describes every one and gives a translation the whole nine yards we've got a commentary available on the subject from our ministry in fact if you'll debate
01:18:39
I tend to give those as gifts to the Muslims that I debate I'll do one for you
01:18:45
I'll get you one how's that anyways Dr. Brown if you'll look if Sinaiticus and Vaticanus by your own arguments are the most accurate those are 300 years that tells us what the gospel looked like at that time and Dr.
01:19:01
Brown the Quran's not accurate in representing what the Injil actually said by the sources you yourself have just said are the most accurate those are some questions
01:19:11
I would like to hear answers to personally I think that would be very very useful so if you want the best information the most accurate translation of the
01:19:24
Bible you have to go to a Bible that was agreed upon by ecumenical council meaning it was agreed upon by a coalition of different Christian groups and that is the new revised standard version
01:19:41
I'm not sure if the folks who sell the NRSV really want
01:19:47
Dr. Brown's advertisement on the Dean Show the new revised standard version the favorite
01:19:53
Bible translation of Muslims those who deny the Trinity and the
01:19:59
Sonship of Jesus find this to be their best translation I'm not sure they like that I think Spong would like that Oh Spong of course he uses the
01:20:07
NRSV which means all the pagans in the Episcopal Church would too now now now as a former Episcopalian you can get away with that yes
01:20:14
I can but we want to make sure that David Old David Old loved when
01:20:19
I beat up on Bishop Spong too he's not at all in the Episcopalian class he's an Anglican there you go he's an
01:20:26
Anglican man he's got hair on his chest we only have a minute left you still love
01:20:33
Jesus you're not a Christian anymore and people can see it he never was a Christian what are you talking about how can you say he tried real hard to be one and then say he was one come on Eddie seriously
01:20:46
Eddie answer a question for me would anybody who said they tried to be a
01:20:51
Muslim who said they could never believe in the Quran and they could never believe in the prophethood of Muhammad would you look at them and say you're a former
01:21:00
Muslim if they never believed that Muhammad was a prophet and they never believed the
01:21:05
Quran's word of God were they a Muslim Eddie if they're not then stop calling people who never believed in the very definitional tenets of the
01:21:14
Christian faith Christians because they weren't other show that we did comparing how
01:21:20
Muslims really follow Christ more than the modern day Christians today and how he worshiped his mannerisms and all these other details tell us now for the person who really has an attachment to Jesus you just broke it down five top reasons why he's not the begotten son of God not
01:21:34
God none of these things so who was he briefly described and where does the person go from here quite simply
01:21:42
Jesus Christ was exactly what he said he was he was a man he was a prophet bearing revelation from God he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel he was there to bring them back from their deviation and to provide a revelation which would keep people upon the correct path but I tell you what and Dr.
01:22:03
Brown didn't he also say that doesn't the Quran say that Jesus' followers his true followers his true disciples would be victorious until the end of time so from the time of Jesus until the time of Mohammed who were his true followers and how were they victorious just a question
01:22:26
I'd like an answer I was just talking with a taxi driver the other day we were driving down a long road and we were having just this discussion he was
01:22:35
Catholic and I'm Muslim and I said you know what it's like it's like this road I said this is the path the
01:22:40
Jews were on this path the Christians were on this path and the Muslims are at the end of this path the
01:22:46
Jews they pulled over and parked with Moses and they said no they won't accept Jesus Christ they won't accept
01:22:52
John the Baptist and again I simply have to ask the question how were the
01:22:58
Jews to be held responsible for knowing that Jesus was the Messiah given the standards of interpretation of the
01:23:06
Bible and prophecy that Dr. Brown himself used when he dismissed Psalm 2 he dismissed Psalm 110 as having any relevance to Jesus how were they supposed to know that he was the
01:23:15
Messiah if none of those prophecies can be interpreted in that way if they all had immediate fulfillment it's just you know the questions just keep adding up here and you know
01:23:23
I've told Dr. Brown if you'd like to come on the program that'd be great I really think a full blown scholarly debate on these issues with opening statements and cross examination rebuttals and the whole nine yards be far better be far more useful but we'll see so they just pulled over early and parked that's where they stopped the
01:23:42
Christians continued on with John the Baptist and with Jesus Christ and they stopped there and they said this suffices for us and they pulled over and they stopped okay and they were happy with their position but if you want to get to the end of the road you have to go with the final predicted prophet
01:23:58
Muhammad peace be upon him so it's not a question necessarily of being upon the wrong path sometimes sometimes even if you're on the right path it's a question of taking it all the way to the end um really
01:24:15
I'm sorry I didn't get back to the other stuff here but not on the wrong path doesn't the
01:24:21
Quran say they have gone astray and and Dr.
01:24:26
Brown I bet you you know um surat al fatiha I bet you know it by heart
01:24:33
I can't imagine any practicing Muslim that cannot quote surat al fatiha by heart in Arabic you know why because it's a part of the regular daily prayers and so if you do it every day you'll eventually have it memorized and at the end of surat al fatiha there is phraseology, it's a prayer for the
01:24:57
Muslims to be led in the right path, the path of God's grace, not the path of those who have earned
01:25:05
God's anger or those who have gone astray those who have gone astray wala dhalim and they extend out that verb that verb sorry that vowel in the recitation dhalim now one of the things
01:25:25
I've done for the book that I'm working on is I've taken the time to look at some of the earliest tafsir literature tafsir literature is commentary on the
01:25:35
Quran and hadith sources as well and there is no question that the earliest
01:25:43
Muslims repeated a tradition from Muhammad where he was asked who are those who have earned
01:25:52
God's wrath and who are those who are dhalim who have gone astray and in repeated narrations with multiple isnad chains
01:26:07
Muhammad's response in the earliest literature is that those who have earned
01:26:13
God's wrath are the Jews and those who have gone astray are the Christians now are there
01:26:21
Muslims who have repeated surat al fatiha without knowing what Muhammad taught I suppose there could be
01:26:27
I mean there's all sorts of you know nominal
01:26:34
Muslims in the world just like there are all sorts of nominal Christians in name only but I think the vast majority of Muslims in the world who practice their religion who go to the masjid and they listen to the sermons and they pray the prayers and they fast during Ramadan they know every time they say surat al fatiha that they are differentiating themselves and in essence saying
01:27:07
I thank you that I am not like a Jew or a Christian so how does that fit
01:27:15
Dr. Brown with your oh it's just sort of the same path but we've just gone farther down the line
01:27:24
I think you can make a very strong argument from a fair reading of the Quran and the ahadith that that's not that's a nice sanitized westernized friendly face version and I'm thankful that there are people who want to try to present that it's better you know some other ways in which it might be presented but is it really consistent with the sources that is the big question so Dr.
01:27:59
Brown I think you have some questions to answer and I would like to hear your answers and I would like to interact with you and I would like to arrange debate and I would like to challenge
01:28:09
Dean Show hey Dean Show folks I'll go on with Dr. Brown in your studio live
01:28:16
I'll do it just let me know when we'll arrange it thanks for listening to Dividing Line Lord willing we'll be back again next
01:28:23
Tuesday we got all of next week's regular schedule and then I'm off down under so we'll see you next week
01:28:30
God bless it's a sign of the times truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm won't you lift up your voice are you tired of plain religion it's time to make some noise
01:29:03
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01:29:09
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01:29:27
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