Shadid Lewis: Better Audio/Video + Acts 5:30

Yesterday, a package arrived and it contained the raw video footage of the debates from Norfolk back at Easter, and I'm going to find out who's going to be marketing these things because I don't think we can, but since I had posted the video from my little camera of the Shadid-Lewis claims, quoting from Michael Bajent, and of course, as good as that little camera is, it's still just a little camera and so it doesn't have a nice microphone and so on and so forth, and since some of the things in the video clip that I had posted, I couldn't even figure out what Shadid was saying, again, not because he was unclear, but because of the way it was recorded.

The Sign of Jonah and the Michael Baigent Argument

I wanted to provide the much more professional recording that also was using the microphone that Shadid himself was wearing. And remember, this is, in essence, the section where he's presenting the idea of the sign of Jonah, which again, Shadid was in error in his understanding of the sign of Jonah.

He kept saying, as Jonah was, as Jonah was, and he forgot to say the rest of what the actual text says, and since Jonah was alive, that means Jesus was. Actually, if you look at the text, that's not what it's saying.

As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, he can't just cut that off, and he does, and that's why his argument fails there. But this was where he quoted the Michael Bajent material on Soma and Potoma, and again, now it's just clearer that he is completely repeating Bajent's argument.

In fact, during the opening statement, if you look at the video, this is the book, I think, that was sitting on the podium itself, and again, for those who may not know, Michael Bajent, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, fiction, Gnostic fiction, all the rest of that, you know, Jesus was married, had kids, all the rest of that stuff, which Muslims don't believe, but hey, we'll just, we'll accept anything and use anything as an argument, evidently.

And so here's that presentation, then I want to look at just one other statement that he made from this higher quality video that we can hear much better than we could the material that was posted about a month ago.

Mark 15:43-45 and the Soma/Potoma Claim

Is that when you look at Mark chapter 15, verse 43 through 45, you see that the Greek word is used here, and I'm reading from Michael Bajent's The Jesus Papers. When Joseph of Arimathea comes and asks for Jesus' body, there's a special note here, it says if we look at the original Greek text, we see an important point being made here.

When Joseph asks Pilate for Jesus' body, the word for body that is used is soma. In Greek, this denotes a living body. When Pilate agrees that Joseph can take the body down from the cross, the word that is used is, excuse my pronunciation, thoma, it's a different spelling, okay?

So we see that this means, this other word, thoma, or thoma, means a fallen body, a corpse or a carcass. In other words, the Greek text of Mark's gospel is making it clear that while Joseph is asking for the living body of Jesus, Pilate grants him what he believes to be the corpse.

So it appears that whoever the writer of Mark, whoever wrote Mark, whoever wrote it, they don't know, they can't tell you exactly who wrote it, but whoever wrote it, it appears that the Jesus' survival is revealed right there in the actual gospel itself, based on the word, because those words are clear.

If Joseph was asking for a dead body, there's a clear Greek word that denotes a dead body,.

As I show here.

But the writer, he put that word on purpose. So it appears whoever the writer was, he too was trying to give you the hint or show you that this was understood that Jesus was not dead. And there are many stories that surround that too, that he was taken down and they brought the spices and the aloe, and according to what I've searched, that those particular things that were brought were healing things, healing items, not meant for embalming, okay?

Now, I'm not going to go back over that. We've already refuted Bajan's arguments and the misuse of it within a Muslim context a number of times before. But it is very plain that it was Bajan's argument, and since Bajan's argument requires a complete distinction in the semantic domains between Soma and Potoma, that the argument has been refuted, and whether Shadid Lewis ever admits it's been refuted or not, at least I would like to hope maybe he won't repeat it in the future, because anyone who would be debating him would know how to demonstrate his error.

Acts 5:30 and the King James Translation

But there is another statement that was actually, I think, made just before this. And in listening again to the debate, I believe that Mr. Lewis got this material from Hamza Abdul Malik, or at least they're drawing from the same source, because Mr. Malik brought it up to me after the debate.

And that was basing an assertion that Acts 5 .30 presents a contradictory presentation of the crucifixion based upon the mistranslation of Acts 5 .30 in the King James Version of the Bible. Now, I had addressed the issue of Acts 5 .30 many, many years ago.

In fact, had a lengthy debate, interestingly enough, with a Presbyterian gentleman who was trying to defend the King James on Acts 5 .30. Let's listen to what Shadid says, and then let's take a look at the text.

Now, after the alleged crucifixion, or stoning and putting on the tree, because again, there are two accounts. And as I showed you that no, what was read in Acts 50 .30 was not just another way to say crucifixion, because it's appealing back to the Old Testament Scriptures, showing that it's the mode of Jewish crucifixion.

Stoning of depths of the person and hanging them on a living tree, not a stake. And of course, we know that the historians can't agree whether it was a stake pole. Did they have the beam across? They can't agree on what that was either, okay?

But nonetheless, you can see that it is appealing to, it is talking about a living tree. And that shows evidence that this is referring back to the Jewish mode of execution.

Now, as I mentioned, after the actual debate, it might have been during the break, but I think it was between the two debates. So actually after this debate, I spoke with Hamza Abdel-Malik, who was in the audience that day, and he brought up Acts 5 .30, the same text that Shadid had used.

And he asked me about it. And we see in the King James Version, it says, "...the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree.". And what they're basically saying is, well, you see, he was stoned, he was slain, and then afterwards, as something else, he was hanged on a living tree.

Well, the problem is, you can look at the New American Standard, "...the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging him on a cross.". Or, if you want, the very literal tree, but the term Zulu is frequently used of the cross.

But the point is, what's the relationship between whom you slew, and then this idea of being hung upon the tree? Well, being hung upon the tree is a participle that is called a modal participle. It is describing the means by which the action of the main verb takes place.

And modern translations agree that this is what is being rendered here. The King James translators were significantly influenced by Latin constructions more than Greek constructions. And this is just a place where the King James is not nearly as accurate as the modern translations are.

So to try to insert here two different actions, you'd have to explain why you have the two different forms of the words slew and hanged. Why is one a participle and the other one isn't? In Luke's phraseology, in Luke's terminology, his usage, this is a very consistent usage for him.

And there really isn't any question about this at all. And so in both of these instances, and I can only think of the other debate that took place that day with Sami Zatari that's, you know, the just utter overthrow of the Greek language and the same thing happening here with Shadid Lewis.

If Christians were presenting this kind of argumentation in reference to the Quran, the Muslims would be having a heyday with it. And yet I find consistently with almost all Islamic apologists a willingness to greatly misuse the Greek language and to make errors on this kind of level.

Such just should not be.