Dr. Laurence Brown 0-15 on the Deen Show

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

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

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

Finishing the Earlier Response to Dr. Brown’s Top Ten List

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 as we finish off responding to. Dr. Lawrence Brantley so far I wrote again today and And reiterated my questions and stuff like that, but You know how it is.

You know I might have one or two nice emails back and forth and then somebody listens will have to say in our nice emails after that so we'll see. I guess he might be out of town or you know, who knows but We will we will leave the phones on just in case.

Dr. Brown 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. We could the Pope calls we can get him in Prophet from Salt Lake City would be good.

That'd be interesting any of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Okay. Let's see, there's some there's some Muslims. If I was gonna say if Akhmad did I called but he's he's been gone for a while.

So.

Zacher Nike's I can Ike we would definitely put soccer Nike through. But not anyone pretending to be soccer Nike. And of course with the rookie man the board day you will be able to tell the difference between soccer Nike and a soccer Nike impersonator.

That's part of the that's the very highly technical training we put everybody who runs the the board through to be able to tell the difference between soccer Nike and a soccer Nike impersonator, which is a very difficult Thing to do.

Anyway, if you have been listening, oh That's that's great. There's someone in channel. Everyone's still hearing music. That's true. I think he tuned in to the wrong webcast. That's. We're talking major lag there.

Yes.

Oh.

Someone needs to kick algo out of channel just for the fun of it because he just he was just Streaming Ralph there and that there we go. I kicked him out of channel for doing that. We have been listening to the Dean show and if you may recall on the last program.

For some reason, 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 you I don't know how it happened. But I somehow managed to cut off the end of The top 10 Program on the Trinity and there were a couple of the verses including the Kami Ohanian that he hadn't gotten to yet.

So I took the time after last program to redownload it and convert it and make sure it's all there this time. There's only about three minutes. We were missing but will I I want to be complete don't want anybody say I you couldn't answer the Last part of that program, you know, we've we've blown the first nine points out of the water.

And but you couldn't get the last one. Yeah, well that does that make Islam 10 correct? I'm not sure how that works, but Anyways want to make sure to get that 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 Jesus isn't the Son of God so going back to the top ten reasons right toward the end of that program and here is Another see there's there's dr. Brown calling now possibly maybe or maybe not.

Well, we'll find out here's here is the back to the top ten reasons against.

The doctrine of the Trinity in those three were three entities and in one in one line does not make them Co-equal co-eternal.

Consubstantial that was in reference to Matthew chapter 28 verse 19 Baptism in the Father Son Holy Spirit. No one has said That Matthew 28 19 in and of itself by itself. He said that's that's the thing when you try to respond to the doctrine of Trinity on on a scattergun approach Rather than dealing with it as it is as it needs to be presented.

The fact the Bible teaches is one true God the differentiation of the three persons the co-equality of the persons, etc, etc. When you just try to do it verse by verse you're only getting portions of it.

And unfortunately, we haven't found dr. Brown really understand the doctrine anyways, but those comments were about Matthew 28 19.

Moving on John 149 Jesus Christ is quoted as having said he who has seen me has seen the Father. A lot of people say oh, that's it. He has seen me has seen the Father. Ah, that's it.

John 14 definitely as a chapter testifies the deity of Christ because of what Jesus does there. But Here it almost sounds like he thinks that we're motiless and he may he may actually think that we're motiless.

I don't know. I can't tell just from this but It seems that he's looking at in that way. Certainly the real evidence of the deity of Christ found in John chapter 14 verse 9 is The fact that any creature Who would say these words? Would have to be mad or blast or committing blasphemy, 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.

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 Moses was a representative and David was a representative all that stuff, but we're talking a much deeper and fuller level.

He who has seen me has seen the father. I am in the father and the father is in me we will send the Holy Spirit to you and This is the book that begins in the prologue John 1 1 in the games word was with God.

The word was God. No one has seen God any time the monogamous. They asked he has exegeted him. He has explained him. So Jesus has a way of Explaining the father that no one else could possibly have because in him is the fullness of life grace and truth.

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 Lord and my God. Which Jesus by the way, not only accepts but identifies as a statement of faith.

So if you're reading a book, I mean it again keeps reminding me what happened last Last 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, but the debate with Bassam Zawadi last February I know I sent the mp3.

I know it. We should at least have that. I don't know. But anyway It was so odd that we were looking at Surah Talmaidah, Surah 5 and I was the one arguing that you should read Surah 5 as a literary unit and allow it to interpret itself and the Muslim was saying Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's that's there's five verses in between you don't and you know I'm the one going let's read this as a whole 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. 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 Gospel of John up into parts and you've got proto John and and you got John 14 to 16 is written someplace else and it's imported here.

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. You can you can reform it in anything you like and that's that's basically what they're what they're doing.

Wasn't it Zakir Naik who was using a ton of his of Tom's the Gospel of John is his proof? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah ironic, isn't it?

Well, they have well he has to because their primary argument for Muhammad being found the 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 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 Holy Spirit is and it can't be Muhammad. So he asked he uses liberal Form criticism to cut it apart so you can have Muhammad in one part but not in the other part.

The problem is that leaves most Muslims going and What because they don't understand that the the form critical stuff behind that and It's it's it's pretty tricky. But anyways, we we go back to John 14 9 saw Jesus Christ.

You've seen the Father.

What's the problem with that. Problem with that is John 5? 37 because on John 5 37 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 now.

There is a I think that might be I could be wrong and probably am wrong, but in my current Recollection that maybe the first time I've heard that particular argument used by a Muslim. What is the fatal flaw of it?

Of course is he is arguing modalistically as if Jesus identifying himself as the father, which of course, he's not.

And.

John 5 47 is an accusation against the Jews that while they claim to know God they actually do not know God. They have neither seen him to hurt his form not seen heard his voice in or seen his form and.

Therefore, how can they have true knowledge of God? Well by the one he has sent in the world and that is Jesus Christ the divine son, so.

The.

Foundation of the argument there is an assumption that we are modalists, which again makes me go. Mmm, okay. So this man tried really hard to be a Christian and yet he seems to think the doctrine of Trinity is modalistic.

Very interesting. Okay. What does that tell you? I don't think Eddie got any of this. I think Eddie's just sitting there going. That's a what what. Because I don't think he's heard that that one before.

I mean that's that's not even a.

Zachery Nike. 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 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 same entity on ten. Hold on the same entity or same person if dr. If dr. Brown has a PhD in comparative religion and a d doctor of divinity Shouldn't he know what the doctrine of the Trinity is.

Or if he's only going after one this Pentecostals here shouldn't he identify his audience.

That would be somewhat helpful and 30 John 1030. I and the Father are one. Ah.

Now here's one. We should all be up and ready on we've we've been looking at John 1030. We've looked at it very closely in the Roger Perkins debate. We know the whole context. We know all about The the Sun being the source of salvation and The the God's people are in the Sun'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 the 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.

That is the claim to deity. Does dr. Brown understand that?

Okay. What happens after John 30? After John 30 the Jews accused Jesus Christ of making himself a god and they prepare to stone him. Does Jesus Christ stand up with the omnipotence of divine authority and say You heard me, right?

I said it once and I said it. I'll say it again. No. He goes on to explain to him to the to the Jews that they heard him wrong.

They heard him wrong. That's what that's what Jesus says in in John chapter 10. You heard me wrong. Oh, I it's not what I said. Let's let's see what Jesus actually said. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

Jesus answer 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 God. Jesus answer them. Is it not written in your law? I said your 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 Father sanctified?

I'm sorry. Consecrate and send to the world. You are blaspheming because I said I said I am the Son of God. Now Jesus his own interpretation of what he's just said in regards to I and the Father one. Is that I am the Son of God which you may recall in the other program?

Dr. Brown said Jesus never said Jesus never called himself the Son of God. He says you are blasphemy because I said 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 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? It's not there. There's nothing there. He quotes psalm 82 identifies them as false judges and.

Then points out you you I am the very one whom the Father consecrated notice. He differentiates himself from the Father whom the Father consecrate and send in the world. You're a blasphemy because I said I am the Son of God.

If.

The 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 see how wonderfully consistent the text is when you allow it speak for itself.

Something tells me my recollection is we're about to hear something about. Well, this this text really doesn't mean what it says. It's a it's a metaphor and.

He cites psalm 82 6 and 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 and In 82 1 that the judges are actually called God's not sons of God, but actually called God's.

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 well, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. That was a response.

Misrepresented text. Say Gia said you misheard. And then say psalm 82 is metaphorical and that's it. Just compare folks the the clarity of allowing the text to speak for itself with the the twisting of the text that you just heard.

And.

It's.

Real obvious. I and the father are one John 10 30. I and the father and one So what. So what is John 17 11?

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 chapter 10, you're gonna hear John chapter 17 because Jesus there talks about that the Father's gonna be in me and I'm gonna be in you and the role of the Holy Spirit and always go there to try to make this oneness something other than What would cause the Jews to pick up stones to stone him?

And the disciples nowhere interpreted John chapter 17 as meaning they're gonna 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.

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.

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? Uh, that's not the same context Of jesus his own statement concerning his oneness with the father and the salvation of god's people.

And that is not the same context of the eternal relationship of the father and son. We do not have that kind of eternal relationship. Remember john chapter 17, which he just quoted. Begins with jesus his own statement glorify me father the glory which I have with you in your presence before the world was.

No disciple makes that statement. No mere razul makes that statement. And uh, by the way, I just want to might want to point out to dr Brown if he ever does listen to these things, I keep sending the urls.

Um that in john chapter 14 and john chapter 16. Jesus is the one Who sends the parakletas the paraclete? If that is in fact muhammad who sent muhammad. According to islamic theology who is the only one who can send prophets into the world allah, but jesus sends him.

So if the if the Paraclete is actually muhammad that makes jesus deity. Well, you just can't have that so there must have text must have been corrupted or something 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. So you can't 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.

Far Far more credible to recognize that you cannot accept these passages as literal. There's a lot of information. I'm sure you could.

Expose on this for hours and hours if you condensed it you made it simple and it's easy to understand. I feel that if someone's sincere they're open-hearted. You know open-minded that you know. 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 billion that you know.

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 mr. Muhammad. Peace be upon him.

So I would say to eddie, uh, you know, it would be great if eddie would hear these programs someday, too. Uh eddie with uh open heart and mind we just demonstrated that all top 10 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. Um, and I would just call upon the dean show, uh, uh producers and editors. You need to you need to 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 uh give and take. Because the people that you have been bringing in just i'm sorry do not represent Christianity in any meaningful sense at all.

They really really don't. It's uh, it's it's bad news here. So, uh, that that was the portion that we missed. Uh last time around and I apologize for that. Now we get back to a program that was posted well just a few days ago.

And I think that first program was posted. Right at the beginning of september the first weekend in september first week of september somewhere around there. Uh, because I first saw it when I was down in wilcox for a bike race down there.

So that's sort of how I remember when things were so this one was just posted a few days ago and these are the five reasons why jesus christ is not the begotten son of.

God.

Five Reasons Dr. Brown Rejects the Meaning of Monogenēs

And we are about 12 minutes into this one. And it's a little bit of a shorter. Well, actually it doesn't look like it's a little bit of shorter program. But anyway. Uh, we've already looked at I think the first two reasons if I recall correctly and maybe somewhere in the third.

If uh, if I recall, let's take a listen from which the bible was translated. The bible is translated from a body of.

You know what that's right in the middle of a sentence. Let's back it up a little bit and to get a little more context.

Is translated. Both in the hebrew in the aramaic and in the greek there was no capitalization of any of these. Whenever you read son of god not being capitalized any letter capitalized even the letters at the beginning of a sentence.

Those letters were not capitalized in the manuscripts from which the bible was translated and as we pointed out last time.

Of course, um. That's true on a certain level. Of course, the early greek manuscripts were in all capital letters. Uh, so I guess you could actually argue. It's the small letters that were introduced later.

But whether you capitalize son of god is 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 the bible is translated from a body of manuscripts. Right now we have 5400.

Manuscripts. 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. Uh, I misheard him when I first listened to this in audio only it's funny I heard it one way in audio then when 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 um, but I think I I repeated that he said alexandrinus and it's not it's he says vaticanus, 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 bible.

But.

A manuscript of the bible could be of either What we call the tanakh? The torah the nevi 'im and ketuvim or most commonly called the hebrew scriptures or the old testament. Or of the christian scriptures the 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 greek septuagint the aramaic targums Sources such as that. And then in the new testament, it's going to be in koine greek.

Or it's going to be in one of the early translations of the bible the old latin or the sahidic boharic coptic. Um, etc, etc, etc. So a biblical manuscript Is anything. From all the old and new testaments together.

So with that in mind, let's listen again to what he says here. Letters at the beginning of a sentence.

Those letters were not capitalized in the manuscripts from which the bible was translated. The bible is translated from a body of manuscripts. Right now we have 5400 manuscripts. None of them have capitalization.

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.

Now he just said 5400 manuscripts. Now the only Meaningful way I can understand that is he's referring to the approximately 5765 approximately greek new testament manuscripts. He's ignoring the dead sea scrolls.

He is ignoring the masoretic texts. He's ignoring the greek septuagint. He's ignoring the old latin. He's ignoring any of the translations. 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 codex sinaiticus and codex vaticanus which Is not even close to being true. They're not even the oldest Manuscripts of the new testament let alone the old testament.

The oldest manuscripts we have of the bible Are the dead sea scrolls from the first century before christ? That are of of course the tanakh the hebrew scriptures Which were written long before the new testament?

So.

Again, I. Maybe this is why I haven't gotten A response yet. It's because the first question I asked was Could you give us some more information about your phd and your dd? And he I don't see those on his own website.

So it's possible, you know, sometimes. You know, i'm going to throw this out here as a possibility. Uh some even though it happened on two different programs. He's wearing different clothes. I think they're recorded at different times.

So eventually you'd have to catch this but. Sometimes i've done programs and and people have said things in their introduction. And I just sort of went where on earth did they get that. 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?

Um.

You know is eddie remembering somebody else? Rather than dr. Brown who is actually a retired military ophthalmologist.

Um.

I don't know I don't know, but it would just strike me that people with a 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 dead sea scrolls are when they're dated. The language is the bible the character of the early manuscripts of the bible the unsealed text versus Later minuscule text and when the switchover took place.

And you know stuff that I learned in bible college. You know in new testament and old testament background classes, which I realize most people sleep through. But uh, I didn't and uh, and and and you shouldn't uh do that either.

But anyways, we continue on not being faithful at all.

Okay, so we got to be sincere and we got to really want to do 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. 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 they add what is not there or they take away?

What is there or they misrepresent what has actually been there all along? This is one of those cases where they are adding Something that is not there namely capitalization or Special special usage of particular words.

Now i'm, sorry, but capitalization, uh is dependent upon context and so if uh, If dr. Brown wants to argue that in reference to jesus christ capitals should never be used then make the argument. But do so based upon actually understanding what monogamous means and things like that.

Don't don't just do it based upon islamic presuppositions. You're talking about capitalization.

We've talked about five four three. Let's go to two. The number two reason for why jesus christ. Is not the begotten son of god in a begotten. Not made sense. Is that in the bible the word that is translated to only begotten?

Monogenes. M-o-n-o-g-e-n-e-s. This is the word that is translated to only begotten. We're on number two now. We're on number two. So you get we went from five.

Four three. And now this is the number two.

Reason why 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 the this word Monogamy is it's found nine times in the bible.

Okay. Three times it's found in luke. You'll find it in 7 12 8 42 and 9 38. Okay 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 one and only.

Uh, you would have a monogamous son.

Uh.

The widow had a monogamous son and That means a unique son. Now it normally meant only begotten because you wouldn't have any other kids. Uh, but there is a uniqueness To this term and in fact, let me You know, 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. If you and I again i've offered to freely Send dr. Brown, uh, my book the forgotten trinity. And if you look at the extended note Beginning on page 201 of the forgotten forgotten trinity.

Um.

Let me Just note here extended note on the meaning of monogamous. 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 gotten as the translations were.

That 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 apostle john. In english only begotten emphasizes the first element of the translation.

The concept would be gettel and generation. But the english meaning must in all cases Be consonant with the greek original and we must take any emphasis from the greek not from the english notice. That's the exact opposite Of the approach that dr Brown has taken.

The key element to remember driving the meaning of monogamous is this is a compound term combining monos meaning only with a second term. Often is assumed that the second term is ganas thy gana To give birth to beget.

But note that this family of terms has two news Rather than the single new found in monogamous. This indicates the second term is not ganas thy.

But.

Gigan Gignas thy ginemai and the noun form genos Gl. Prestige discusses the difference that arise from these two derivations in god and patristic thought.

Uh.

Certain number of pages here. Genos means kinder type and ginemai is a verb of being hence the translation one of a kind one and only of soul descent. Some scholars see the genesis element as having a minor impact upon the meaning of the term.

And hence see monogamous is a strengthened form of monos thereby translating it alone unique incomparable. 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.