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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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning. We have lots and lots to get to today.

I have the proverbial stack of stuff, as well as videos and audios and all the things get to.

I did a ride this morning, got an entire book done on a single ride.

That was accomplishing something. I got through the new Reza Aslan book,

Zealot, this morning. You say, how in the world do you get an entire book? Well, it was a 65 -mile ride, and then

I kept it going once I got home, and I was putting my stuff in the computer and all that kind of stuff. So got through the book, and hence have some thoughts on that particular subject as well.

But also have a pile of other things to get to, and we have to continue to press forward in getting through the debates we need to get through before South Africa.

So much to do. Speaking of South Africa, I guess the first thing

I'll go to here in my stack of stuff, in my pocket,

I use pocket to sort of throw stuff in there so I can keep an idea of what I want to talk about on the program, a quote,

I'd rather go to hell than worship a homophobic god. Desmond Tutu speaks out as he compares gay rights to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

Wow. The South African Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he will never worship a homophobic god and rather go to hell than find himself in a homophobic heaven.

The retired archbishop said the fight against homophobia in South Africa was similar to the campaign waged against racial apartheid in South Africa.

Archbishop Tutu, 81, was speaking at the launch of the UN's first global campaign to promote gay rights.

There you go, folks, all the money we spend to keep the UN operational, great, anti -Christian organization as well.

Well, has been for a long time. Although gay relationships are legal in South Africa, the country has had some of the worst incidences of homophobic violence,

UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay said. So, what did

Tutu say? I would refuse to go to homophobic heaven. No, I would say, sorry, I mean, I would much rather go to the other place, he said.

I would not worship a god who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.

Archbishop Tutu said the campaign against homophobia was on a par with the campaign to end the official racial segregation that split

South Africa until it was formally ended in 1994. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid.

For me, it is at the same level, he added. Well, of course, there's absolutely no discussion here of how you define homophobia.

And for an archbishop, you would think maybe there might be some commentary somewhere on the

Bible and the Bible's teachings and the clarity of those teachings, both positively and negatively, positively in regards to what is proper for human beings, what

God's intention in their creation is, things like that. But no, there's nothing there.

It wasn't an overly in -depth article. Maybe there was a bunch of discussion of that. Maybe someone can direct me to that. But I just sort of doubt that that was a big element of a

UN -sponsored get -together promoting homosexual rights.

And of course, I am deeply saddened every time that I see civil rights paralleled to the homosexual situation.

It shows a fundamental confusion, just as homosexuality shows a fundamental confusion, the promotion of it as if it is a civil rights issue is likewise similarly confused.

And it is sad to observe. At the same time, the current pope, again, much more chatty than Benedict was, which is keeping his apologists very busy.

I've noticed that Jimmy Akin is quite busy on his website explaining, well, the pope meant this and then the pope meant that.

And he wasn't doing that. He didn't really have to do that very much with Benedict.

Benedict was much more careful. Francis is much more chatty. And I would imagine there's a lot of folks in the

Curia in Rome that are just really, really not happy about that at all. But again, remember, even from the

Roman Catholic perspective, the pope can say it, but it doesn't make it infallible. Now, of course, how you're supposed to know that, no one knows.

But just remember always, even this pope comes off and says something completely wild and just goes against everything that's been said before, all you're going to hear is, well, you got to remember, it's only official definitions where the pope is infallible.

Now, how you know what that is, we don't really know. I mean, you know, it's whatever is convenient as we have discovered over the years.

But anyway, I guess he was sort of doing the thing that popes and presidents and stuff do.

They go back and talk to journalists that are stuck back in the back seats on the papal plane or the presidential plane or whatever.

And so speaking to journalists on a flight back from a week -long visit to Brazil, he reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's position that homosexual acts were sinful, but homosexual orientation was not.

If a person is, quote, if a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am

I to judge him? The pope said on Monday in a broad -ranging 80 -minute conversation with reporters on the plane.

That's the other thing. Benedict couldn't have put up reporters for 80 minutes. That's just not without the use of some type of calming medication.

That's just not normal. The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers.

The problem is lobbying by this orientation, he said. Addressing the issue of women priests, the pope said the

Roman Catholic Church's ban on women priests was definitive, although he would like them to have more leadership roles in administration and pastoral activities.

Unlike his predecessor, Benedict, who knew in advance the few questions journalists would be allowed to ask, 76 -year -old pope, who as an

Argentine was the first non -European pope in 1 ,300 years, imposed no restrictions as he fielded 21 questions, which is interesting.

And this evidently was part of the questions about the gay lobby stuff in the

Vatican and all the rest of that stuff. Again, this raises issues that I addressed in the debate with Justin Lee.

The desire for sin is different from the desire for something that is not sin.

If it is sinful for a man to lust after another man's wife but not engage in relation with her, how is it not sinful to desire that which

God has said is inappropriate? There is a disordering to homosexual desire. And it's even gotten to the point where you can't even say that anymore.

It is truly amazing. You have to differentiate between those desires and the acts.

But to say, well, hey, you know, it's perfectly fine to have this kind of...

And I know that there are people who do, but they recognize that's something they don't want. And so when you come along and say, you shouldn't have to worry about it.

As long as you don't act on it. Have we really so bifurcated, man, that the desires of your heart are somehow different from how you act?

So you're just completely disconnected in that way? It's amazing.

But anyway, then I just had to bring this one up.

I had to bring this one up. I normally don't spend much time reading or listening to what

Timothy George has to say. But there was a very interesting article that I encountered.

I think most of us know the song In Christ Alone. It is a great song. It really is.

But evidently, it's too conservative for some people. If you know the song, you know that one of the verses is,

In Christ alone who took on flesh, fullness of God and helpless babe, This gift of love and righteousness scorned by the ones he came to save.

Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.

For every sin on him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live. Well, that song is not going to be in the new hymnal of the

PCUSA. Because of that line that mentions the wrath of God, as D .A.

Carson would say. Wrath. Recently, the wrath of God became a point of controversy and decision of the

Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song to exclude from its new hymnal the much -loved song

In Christ Alone by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. The committee wanted to include this song because it is sung in so many churches,

Presbyterian and otherwise. But they could not abide this line from the third stanza, Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.

Well, according to this, that's the second stanza. Yeah, that's the second stanza according to this, so I think they miscounted.

Anyways, whatever. For this, they wanted to substitute.

Now, we have a couple hymns in our church where we have cleaned up a few

Arminianisms. It's always interesting, especially when they're pretty well -known hymns, to listen to visitors singing something different than what we're singing because they're so used to the non -Reformed version.

But they wanted this substitute, As Jesus died, the love of God was magnified.

The authors of the hymn—who happens to still be around? I mean, see, we can get away with this because we only do this to hymns of dead people.

The authors of the hymn insisted on the original wording, and the committee voted 9 to 6 that, in Christ alone, would not be among the 800 or so items in their new hymnal.

There is no surprise in this news, although not all PCUSA churches are theologically liberal. The denomination by and large is.

Liberalism and wrath go together like oil and water. They don't mix, and historically speaking, one of them eventually has to go.

When wrath goes, so does the central meaning of the atonement of Christ, penal substitution at the end of the day.

The cross itself is a stumbling block, and that is why the PCUSA cannot abide this hymn.

Well, that is quite true. But it does tell you something about, as many of my

Presbyterian friends like to call it, Pucasa. The PCUSA has gone way out into the theological woods, and that's a shame.

Well, everybody was all in a bother, because a

Mormon actually believes what Mormons are supposed to believe. I was sent a link to good old

Glenn Beck. You know, what's it like to live your life where, wow,

I mean, everything you say is being recorded and transmitted just constantly.

It's an amazing thing. And so I was sent this clip, and it didn't have much of a context to it, unfortunately.

But in essence, it is a discussion between Glenn Beck and some dude, who

I do not know, and they're talking about Thomas Jefferson. And in the process, basically what

Beck does is he says, well, look, Thomas Jefferson didn't like the

Trinity, and I'm a Mormon, and I don't get the Trinity either.

So you can't say he wasn't a Christian just because he didn't get the Trinity. That's basically what he had to say.

So let's listen to what Glenn Beck has to say here, and we'll comment on it.

I'm a Mormon. I don't see the Trinity either. I recognize God the

Father, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is my Savior.

He atoned for my sins. I must go through Jesus Christ to obtain salvation.

Have to. Got it. But because I have that difference, same difference with Jefferson, because I have that, people claim

I'm not a Christian. No, Glenn, you've unfortunately misunderstood.

The fundamental issue with Mormonism, and the reason that,

Glenn, you are not a Christian, is simple monotheism.

Simple monotheism. It is whether we believe that there is one true and eternal

God who created all things, or whether we believe that there are many gods. Three or more.

Certainly, Mormonism is the most polytheistic religion I've ever encountered in all of my studies of man's religions, including

Hinduism in its most crass polytheistic forms, with 330 million gods and the like.

And the issue of the relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has to do with the fact that in Mormonism, once you deny monotheism, now you have multiple gods.

And, of course, you have the teaching of your prophet that we have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity.

I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see. The King Follett Funeral Discourse of 1844. The most cited sermon by Joseph Smith, by the

General Authorities of the Mormon Church for 150 years. So, the fundamental issue is that Christianity has always been monotheistic.

It is definitional of our faith to believe there is only one true and eternal

God who created all things. That is of the essence, that is of the definition.

It's not, well, we like Thomas Jefferson, so we'll bend the rules for him.

No. The issue is very clearly the matter of definition and allowing

Christianity to be able to define itself. And so, you can talk about different views in regards to the relationship between the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but the issue with Mormonism, that's jumping in at the top rather than jumping in at the foundation of what the difference really is.

Now, do I think Glenn Beck really has a good, solid understanding of what all these issues are?

No, I do not. Not for a second. Do I think he is just massively confused theologically?

Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. He is exposed so regularly to so many different perspectives that I am certain that the level of confusion there is outstanding.

What I would love to see is a solid, good Christian sit down with him for a number of hours who knows

Mormonism very, very well and knows the Bible and knows history and really help him to understand.

That would be wonderful. But that's not what we see going on there.

That, I think, is what some of this is. They're saying, no, it's not our definition of Christian.

I don't care what your definition of Christian. Jefferson's definition, my definition, now, it may not be your definition of Christian, but his definition, my definition, is

Jesus Christ is my Savior. If you don't like it, I'll be taking it up with him.

And believe me, he'll let me know in the end. And I think that's kind of what is, in some ways, happening with some of the deep theologians.

They can't let that difference be called a Christian because then it opens up too many cans of worms that are trouble.

Cans of worms that are trouble. Again, this is what happens when you come at it from the top rather than from the foundation.

Does your religion believe that there is one true and eternal God, yes or no? The answer of Christianity is yes.

The answer of Mormonism is no. That's where the difference is. And you can start talking about Jesus as Savior all you want, but anybody who knows

Mormonism knows who Jesus is, what Jesus did, what sin is, what salvation is.

Everything is completely different in Mormonism. I've said it many times.

I will defend it in debate. Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than Mormonism ever could be.

Ever could be. You say, but they use all of our words. Yes, but they've redefined all of them.

When you redefine the foundation, which is the one true and eternal God, then everything connected to that is going to be redefined as well.

And there's where the problem is. There's where the problem is. So it's making it sound like, oh, well, you know, these deep theologians, they're just trying to avoid these cans of worms.

No. We're starting with absolutely non -negotiables. You take this kind of reasoning, and there is no way of defining what

Christianity is. And, of course, if you were to apply this to Mormonism, there'd be no way of defining what Mormonism is.

Mormonism doesn't function this way. The General Authorities of the Mormon Church do not function in the way that Glenn Beck is talking about having things function.

If you don't believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, if you don't believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, if you don't believe in priesthood authority, you ain't a

Mormon. And it would be good of you to be honest and to get out. Quit calling yourself one if you don't believe that kind of stuff.

Because it's just dishonest. Anyways, they continued on.

Do you think that's fair or not? I think that's fair in several ways. One is because if you take the 2 ,000 -year history of the

Christian church, that has been one of the most debated doctrines ever. I don't know who the guy is, but monotheism has never been an issue of debate.

Monotheism has not been an issue of debate. And that's what the issue is. We're not talking here about the difference between the

East and the West on the filioque clause in the expanded

Nicene definition in regards to whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or just from the Father.

That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the difference between a man, we're talking about the difference between the

God who has eternally been God and everything, He created all things, and the idea that God the

Father lives in a plant, the circle of star name, Kolob, for crying out loud. Okay?

We're talking about the difference between universes filled with exalted human beings who are gods and biblical monotheism.

That's what we're talking about. So it's just naive to even approach this from this direction.

It accomplishes nothing. Right. Number two is if you go into the Reformation, many of the

Reformation leaders had opposite opinions on that. Opposite opinions on what?

On the Trinity? The deity of Christ? Monotheism? I don't think so.

You want to give me some specifics in regards to which of the Reformation leaders believed that God was a man living in a plant, the circle of star name,

Kolob? That started building temples in which you do

Masonic rituals to become gods? I'd like to know which Reformation leaders are being referred to there.

From my standpoint, I don't. I've got a simple opinion. You and I disagree on this, but we both find each other

Christian. And what you've got with Jefferson, and this is what I point out in the book, he's a really complex guy.

You cannot make him monolithic. There are other times when he says the Apostles' Creed is right.

Well, the Apostles' Creed does have the Godhead Trinity. So Jefferson's got contradictory statements here, but the whole point we make is he's not hostile to religion.

He's not hostile to Christianity. He calls himself a Christian. It may be a different definition from what other people have called.

That's okay. But he's not calling for a secular public square. Correct. And that's where we are. Okay. The problem here,

I see, is that we have this past with the right that if we take this apart and we cannot deem him

Christian, the left is celebrating. Yeah, that's right. Because the left—

When did we get to the point, to be very honest, when did we get to the point where historical reality and the very definition of the

Christian faith itself is to be determined by what the left celebrates?

The left celebrates everything that's ridiculous, foolish, and stupid.

So who cares? I mean, we're sitting here basically saying, well, you know, if we don't see that Jefferson was a

Christian, then the left is going to be really excited. And I'm like, who cares? They're excited about all sorts of things that boggle the mind.

He says he hated Christians, which is not true. And I can't believe that a religion who is based on don't judge.

Oh, really? Again, what Glenn Beck— Okay, so it says that's

David Barton. Okay, a married Christian minister, conservative activist, and author. He found wall -builders, a

Texas -based organization with a progressive view that it is a myth that the— that the— that the—

I'm trying to come up with some music here. This is called filling.

Are you—what are you doing? Cutting and pasting? What? You can't type the rest of it?

Oh, you mean you were having trouble with the software and it just wasn't responding to you or something? Oh. Who got this software?

Oh, Wikipedia. Oh, you're on Wikipedia. Okay. All right. Can anyone in the studio audience tell this is a live webcast?

Yes, it is. There it is. Okay, let me scroll across my four screens.

Much—let's see. Okay, there it is. That the

U .S. Constitution insists on separation of church and states. That's the myth. Barton is the former vice chair of the

Republican Party of Texas. He has been described as a Christian nationalist, and while the foremost Christian revisionist historians— whatever that is— much of his work is devoted to advancing the idea, based upon research that many historians describe as flawed, that the

United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation. Okay, well, all right.

I don't find that overly relevant to the point of my examination, which is

Glenn Beck's massive worldview confusion. There are a lot of people who just follow Glenn Beck around drooling on the floor, but the guy is just really confused about a lot of fundamental and foundational things.

And here he's going, the Christian faith is based upon don't judge? Seriously? Seriously? I mean, one of the most common misrepresentations of the

New Testament, the miscitation of Jesus to say, Judge not, lest ye be judged for by the standard by which you judge.

I mean, it's just allowing simple language to have its meaning.

We are called to judge. We are called to examine fruit. But we are called to do so by a standard outside of ourselves.

We are called not to be hypocritical. But the idea that the foundation of Christian—do not judge.

Really? Glenn Beck just said that? I expect that from the ishy -squishy ultra -liberals.

I expect that from them. I mean, that's what they do. But Glenn Beck? Really? Seriously?

Don't judge. Wow. Hmm. Jesus certainly did a lot of that, didn't he?

And I can't read one of the New Testament books. It doesn't allow God's righteous standards to be right there.

And you know what? I think Mormonism does. In fact, didn't

Joseph Smith judge in his first vision? Didn't he say that what I believe, that I, as a

Baptist minister, am an abomination, my creed's an abomination, I'm corrupt?

Hmm? Hmm. Somebody on the channel thinks I'm cranky today. I'm not cranky.

I think it's completely inappropriate to say that I'm cranky. I sense no cranky. You do not sense any cranky?

No cranky at all. Okay. All right. Good. Of course, I'm not done yet, but I just kicked him out of channel, too.

What was I saying? Oh, yes. Let's go back here. Only have one minute left on this one. I just found it very strange that Glenn Beck would do the do not judge thing.

That's amazing. Won't listen to his own words. And he says he's a

Christian. As I've told reporters. So as long as you say you're a Christian, you must be a

Christian. Well, Glenn, I'm a Mormon. Do you believe me? You better not.

Because I don't believe Joseph Smith is a prophet. I think the Book of Mormon is a work of fiction. The Doctrine and Covenants is silly. And the

Pearl Gray Price makes it look really smart. Because it's filled with incredibly wild stuff, like the

Book of Abraham. But I'm a Mormon! No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

No rational person could say I'm a Mormon. So just simply because you make the statement doesn't mean that your statement is truthful.

Unless, evidently, you claim to be a Christian. And we are just simply supposed to say,

Okay, you are, as long as you say you are. We cannot define ourselves.

We have no history. We have no scriptures. We will simply go with whatever you say.

Mm -hmm. Ookie. Fortunately, I'm not the great judge. I'm not the one that has to decide whether he goes to heaven or hell or whatever.

I'm not the one who has to do that. But I am the one to say that by his own writings, this is what he said, this is what he did.

And it is not a secular guy. It is not an anti -Christian guy. He is one of the biggest pro -Jesus guys out there.

Sometimes his definition later in life may vary from what it was earlier. That's why he's complex. That's why he's complex.

How about that's why he's heretical and everything else? I'm sorry.

I'm not trying to comment on Barton's theories because I don't really care about them and have never really studied them.

And so I just, whatever. But I've never heard anybody in my lifetime saying that Jefferson was an

Orthodox Christian. I've never heard anyone say that. The fact that he basically cut the

New Testament apart and got rid of all the supernatural stuff would tell me, again, when you start telling me, oh,

I think Jesus is great, what Jesus are you talking about? Because there's all sorts of folks, all sorts of folks, who will talk about how great

Jesus is, but they're not talking about the real Jesus. They're not talking about the Jesus of the Bible. They're talking about a

Jesus they've edited and created for themselves that they're more comfortable with. And there are a few things more offensive to the presentation of the biblical

Jesus than that perspective, when you think about it. Could there be a more blasphemous stance to take than to say,

I'm going to say Jesus is great, but I'm going to cut these parts out.

I will not honor him for who he is. I will honor him only for what

I will allow him to be. That's blasphemous. It really is. I'll tell you, David, I find myself many times in agreement with Thomas Jefferson on things.

But I feel, and mainly this, I know what I know. I know what

I believe. And I stand by that. But in the end, in the end, if you're right that it's three in one,

I'm going to be dealing with it up there, and I'm fine with that too. I am fine with that. Are you really fine with that,

Glenn? Are you really fine with that? What an amazing statement.

I'm fine with that. Are you? You really fine with that? From a

Christian perspective, that's not the place to be dealing with it. God has made his revelation here.

And it concerns me that, obviously, he has encountered so many, so many who have compromised out of ignorance or something.

And the result has been pretty bad. One other news item I want to get to here, and then

I want to switch over to responding to Bashir Vania's opening statement in a debate he did with Jay Smith.

That's the next one we're going to be getting to. But this is from July 24th, so it's getting a little dated here, so I wanted to get to it.

Military censors Christian chaplain atheist call for punishment. A Christian chaplain in the military is being officially censored for engaging in free speech and anti -Christian activists are demanding he be punished.

Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Reyes is a Christian chaplain currently serving the U .S. Air Force. He is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf -Richardson in Alaska.

As an ordained clergyman whose duties are to provide religious instruction and spiritual counseling, he has a page on the basis website called

Chaplain's Corner. Reyes recently wrote an essay entitled No Atheists in Foxholes Chaplains Gave All in World War II.

This common saying is attributed to Catholic priests in World War II made famous when President Dwight David Eisenhower said during a 1954 speech, quote,

I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives.

In battle they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes. End quote. So, please note, a president of the

United States in 1954 said those words.

Okay? Keep that in mind. As reported by Fox News, Todd Starnes, when

Reyes referenced this famous line in his essay, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, MRFF, what do you want to bet they're associated in some way, shape, or form with the

Freedom From Religion Foundation? Just speculating there, contacted the base commander,

Colonel Brian Duffy, demanding he take action on Reyes' quote, anti -secular diatribe.

End quote. MRFF's letter says that by Reyes' use of the bigoted religious supremacist phrase no atheists in foxholes, he defiles the dignity of service members.

They accuse him of violating military regulations. Only five hours after MRFF's complaint, the essay was removed from the website.

Duffy, that's the commander, has profusely apologized to MRFF for not stopping this religious leader from sharing religious thoughts.

But this response, which again appears to be a violation of Reyes' First Amendment rights, is insufficient for MRFF.

They said faith -based hate is hate all the same. And Lieutenant Colonel Reyes must be appropriately punished.

Catch that? If you say what you believe against our great secular god, you must be punished.

The hypocrisy of the militant atheists is absolutely mind -numbing.

Mind -numbing! I mean, talk about people being given over. Atheism is one of the clearest examples of just simply being given over to your rebellion.

Your simple common sense, I mean, it takes so much energy to every single day be suppressing that knowledge of God.

And evidently, it just burns out the common sense parts of the brain, I guess. So MRFF is saying that the coercive power of government must be used to punish a military officer who has also ordained a

Christian minister for making ordinary religious references consistent with his faith. Retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin of the

Family Research Council, one of the leaders of a new religious liberty coalition for the military, responded, quote, a chaplain has been censored for expressing his beliefs about the role of faith in the lives of service members.

Why do we have chaplains if they aren't allowed to fulfill that purpose? End quote. Well, the fact of the matter is, folks, we won't have them for long.

Look, a strong military is a blessing upon a nation. So take that for what it's worth and think about it.

The Obama -Hagel Defense Department and Air Force have met with Weinstein and MRFF, Weinstein, I'm sorry,

MRFF is activist Mikey Weinstein's organization. He called observant Christians fundamentalist monsters, seeking to impose a reign of theocratic terror, and he described sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military as an act of spiritual rape that makes believers enemies of the

Constitution who are committing an act of sedition and treason against this nation. Now, you have to just simply ignore all of history, which they're happy to do.

They're happy to do. These are not rational people. They like to talk about reason and things like that, but have you ever spoke to a lot of these folks?

I'll never forget. We haven't done it since then, but I'll never forget standing outside the

American Atheist Convention many, many moons ago, many, many moons ago with some signs like atheists, colon, creatures denying their creator and a few things like that.

And oh my, the language and behavior.

I'd put it right between second and third grade, really, you know, as far as maturity goes.

Wow, just, oh. Well, but not as far as vocabulary went.

That was definitely quite advanced, shall we say, when it comes to the level of profanity that these folks can come up with.

Amazing stuff. The Obama -Hagel Defense Department and Air Force have met with Weinstein and MRFF over a period of four years and recently told

Congress that there are no problems with suppressing religious speech in the military. However, because this growing wave of anti -Christian extremism has been exposed to the public, the

U .S. House has inserted new religious liberty protections for military members in pending legislation. President Obama threatens to veto the legislation, of course.

Ray's story makes it more likely that Congress will stand its ground and fight to protect the religious liberty of him and countless others in the military as those service members continue risking their lives to fight for all

Americans. I thought there was another one in here that was real similar to that.

Where did that one go? There was another one that was real similar to that. I'm just going through my whole thing here and I'm not finding it.

Unfortunately, every week brings those types of things up.

Okay, really quickly, let's plan on, since we're going for the jumbo, take a break at quarter till and we'll go from there.

Just wanted to... How do

I do this? Let me just briefly mention this and take a little bit more time on the next program.

Oh, I do need to remind everybody, probably Thursday will be a regular -sized program for one real obvious reason.

I'm doing the Janet Mefford show starting tomorrow and that's three hours a day.

So that's going to take a little effort and I'll be going from 11 to 2 my time. If you call in, please do not say good afternoon.

And try to stay awake during the very soft music during the breaks. Anyways, tomorrow

Carl Truman will be joining me in the first hour and then next day Dr. Oliphant will be and then

Friday I'm just going solo. And I'm just going to take it as an opportunity to maybe have some open phones, do some stuff on all sorts of things.

Basic apologetics, church history, homosexuality, who knows?

Well, I'll figure it all out. But anyway, I've got that coming up.

This morning I mentioned I got through an entire book. I felt sort of the need to get around to it.

And I want to thank those who again watched the Ministry Resource List and helped get those types of things for me.

It was really neat. I put Reza Aslan's book

Zealot on the list. Someone bought it for me in Kindle format. I fire up my

Kindle at home, record it at high speed overnight, throw it on my iPod, go for a lengthy ride and get it all done.

The amazing thing was I recorded it on Kindle at high speed and then I listened to it on high speed on my iPod.

That is not a lot of folks. You've got to. I've been doing this for years. And it's not easy.

But if you're listening and you're sort of used to it, you can handle it.

Anyways, I got through the book and I have a lot of comments on it.

I guess my main comment is there's absolutely, positively nothing new there at all. Nothing new there.

I don't know why these books... New York Times bestseller. Why? I guess they didn't go to Fuller.

Jesus was involved politically. He was killed as a zealot. It was all a part of the rebellion against Trump.

Really, that's new. No, it's not new by any stretch of the imagination.

That's been around for a very, very, very long time, at least in the modern period.

But I was a little bit disappointed because after I spent all that time doing that, and I'm making notes in my mind about how to do the review and what to look at, especially his stuff on Paul was just horrific.

Oh my goodness. It's become really popular just over the past six, eight months.

I've seen at least two books now come out that are all presenting the idea that when Paul talks about the super apostles in the

Corinthians, he's actually talking about Peter and James, which is just a horrific reading of what

Paul is saying there. And the whole idea is to present this massive disruption between Paul.

He even goes so far as to say that the reason Paul did the Nazarite vow is because James was humiliating him.

That Paul had abandoned all of his teaching and preaching, and this was how he was trying to make up to James and get back into the apostolic circle was doing this.

And that's when he got arrested and shipped off to Rome. I mean, just this incredibly radical rereading.

And of course, we'll take a break when I get done with this, just whenever happens. Just this complete rereading of New Testament history.

And with these guys, since what Aslan does and what so many people do is you come up with your theory and then you do with the facts what you need to do with the facts to make your theory work.

So when there is material that goes directly against your theory, you just say, oh, that's just ridiculous. That incident never took place.

And Luke saying this and Luke presenting this harmony between Peter and Paul, it's clearly ridiculous.

So you just get rid of all that stuff so that your theory can survive.

So you just chop up your sources and say, oh, this sounds like it has a germ of historical truth in it whenever it supports your thesis.

And when it doesn't support your thesis, you just conveniently dismiss it. That's all there is to it. Really, really easy to do.

Really, really easy to do. And that's what he does. So I was looking at all this stuff and I was going to be talking about it.

And then I get back on my ride and someone in channel points me to an interview that was posted on loonwatch .com,

which is a leftist blog. And this is an interview with Aslan.

I've tried to tweet Aslan to ask him whether this accurately represents his perspective or not.

Because he had responded to me last week. Someone had mentioned me or something. We had a tweet bait.

And eventually he had just simply dismissed me as a sort of religious loon, I guess, and just said, well, you know, you're welcome to your religious beliefs and just went from there and just sort of didn't respond to anything else that I had to say.

So I just wanted to ask, you know, is this for real?

Because I don't know. Well, let me read it for you and we will see what we have to say here.

I was actually just checking here real quickly and no, he has not responded to my questions this morning at all.

But I didn't expect that he probably would. He's asked, we heard in the course of one of your interviews that you converted to Evangelical Christianity at one point in your life.

Now, I remember he's raised, I think as a Shiite Muslim. He was born in Iran anyways. Yes, when

I was 15 years old, were you practicing Takiyah? Yes, laughter. My entire life is just one big practice of Takiyah, like everything

I do as a human being. Actually, it was part of this group called Young Life. Pretty famous nationwide group.

They go into high schools and junior high schools and evangelize. I went to the summer camp where you hear the gospel message. And yeah, when

I was 15 years old, a sophomore, and so it was before my sophomore year of high school. Yeah, I found Jesus. He was awesome.

How was that? What was that experience like when you're an Evangelical? It's magical. The thing about Evangelical Christianity is why

I think it is so appealing, particularly to young people, is that, I mean, it is just such a brilliant and profoundly moving story.

There is a reason why it is called the greatest story ever told, right? That God had this physical son, like his little baby boy, you know, that came down to earth, and because you yourself are such an awful human being because of all the terrible things you do,

God decided to have his son tortured and murdered in order to save you from yourself. And then if you don't accept that story, not only are you spitting in God's face, but oh yeah, you're also going to burn in hell for all eternity.

It's an amazing story. That's why it's so appealing. Now, the important thing to understand is that's what it is.

That precisely is a story. I am not by any means discounting it or criticizing it. All religion is story.

All mythology is story. But that is a particularly good one, and it's a story. I think particularly for young people looking for easy answers to complicated questions that they can flock to, and the last 2 ,000 years are testimony to that.

I don't even... How do you even begin to respond to such a pile of hooey?

I mean, seriously. Talk about shooting. Your credibility in the head.

You think that's an even semi -accurate description of Christianity?

Tells you a lot about the fact that he was never a Christian, doesn't it? Wow. Physical son.

I guess he gets that from the fact that he's a Muslim. Like his little baby boy.

It goes off in there. Loonwatch says, That is quite profound. I was wondering, going from that to becoming an

Islamic scholar and someone who regularly speaks on Islam, how did you return to Islam? Was it going back to your roots?

Well, after high school, like most people who are introduced to evangelical Christianity when they're kids, then go to college, you realize,

Oh, wow. A lot of the stuff I was told by my youth leaders and my pastors was kind of nonsense, actually. And so you begin to question those issues, question those ideas.

I went to a Catholic college, a Jesuit Catholic college, and began studying the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, from a scholarly perspective.

And the more I kept studying, the more I realized almost everything I was told about the Bible and about the New Testament, and frankly, about the Gospel story was false.

Thank you for the Jesuit education. More importantly, the truth behind the Gospel story, the truth behind who

Jesus was and what Jesus really said was far more interesting, far more profound, and frankly, far more appealing than the false notions of it that I was fed as a kid.

So throughout my college years, my years in early college, I decided to get a degree in biblical studies. I became fluent in Greek and became a young scholar about the origins of Christianity and the historical

Jesus. Well, I haven't read his book. And then when I graduated, I was heading off to Harvard to get a master's degree in that topic when one of my undergraduate professors, one of my mentors,

Catherine Bell, sat me down and basically said, Why aren't you studying Islam? And I said, What do you mean? She basically said something at the time that really changed my life, which was by the time

I get my Ph .D. in biblical studies, no one is going to care about biblical studies anymore. Everyone is going to want to have scholars and experts on Islam.

You know, this was in 1995 when she said this. She obviously was quite prescient in what she was talking about.

She gave me a couple of books and obviously my family was nominally Muslim, well, not really, culturally Muslim. Just as most

Christians are culturally Christian, I had grown up surrounded by Muslim culture. So I was somewhat familiar with it, but of course, like most people of a particular religion,

I really knew nothing about the religion that I called my own. And he goes on from there.

And he says, It's just the symbols of Islam suddenly broke through and made sense to me in a way that traditional

Protestant Christianity never really did. Well, if that description he gave is of traditional

Protestant Christianity, I mean, it's just a joke. Never even tried it. Never even thought about it, obviously.

And then when I entered Harvard, the first day of class, I had to get all new classes and change my advice and tell everyone,

By the way, I'm not here to do what I told everyone I was going to do. Instead, I'm going to study Islam. Then he says,

There is no more rational religion than Islam. Islam is found upon reason and rationality very much like Judaism.

Really? That's interesting. I've asked him a couple times.

I've asked him a couple times in Twitter and he hasn't responded. He says in his book that the most obvious fact of Jesus' life is the crucifixion.

Which, of course, the Quran says is not true. So, the question

I would ask him is, since the Quran teaches the virgin birth and denies crucifixion and he denies the virgin birth but believes in the crucifixion, how do you make that work?

Why do you call yourself a Muslim? That is a question I'd really like to have some answers to.

But I doubt that I'm going to get any answers to those questions. There was another quote in here but I can't find it right now and we need to take our break and get on to other things.

But the whole reason I mentioned that interview is I found that description so laughably false, so massively shallow and inaccurate.

It just really, it's just like, wow, I spent all this time reading this guy's entire book. And, you know,

I know it's still going to be useful to be able to talk to people but wow. Talk about just gutting your credibility.

If you're an apostate, as he claims to be, at least pretend to show some type of level of,

I don't know, accuracy in your representation of your former beliefs. Maybe that's all you believe.

Maybe that's just the level you're at which says a lot. But anyway.

All right, we're going to take a break and be right back right after this. Do your best and nothing less to be blessed

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I think that's what we just heard, isn't it? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I was hoping for some of that cool

Rejoiner music and stuff like that, but one break in 90 minutes, and we can't...

I'm just really disappointed. Are you just not getting enough practice in there? I mean, do we need this every 30 minutes?

The meter is going up. What is it? The cranky meter? Oh! But... What can

I say? The software sometimes has a mind of its own. Today was one of those days. Oh, yes. It starts reaching for the

Wayback Machine, is what it does. And it's like, you're not supposed to do that, but it wants to start playing old shows.

I don't know why. Okay, all right. Error exists between user and keyboard, but anyways, we, as I've mentioned, need to provide reviews of some of the debates

I have been directed to in preparation for the trip down to South Africa, and you will please note the banner ad on the website, and of course, we could use your help in getting down to South Africa and the various costs that are involved with that, so if you want to partner with us in that.

One of the men that I will be debating is Bashir Vania. I had not heard

Bashir speak before, and so the first debate

I listened to was a debate that, they have the interesting thing down there where you have two people, and one person is the main speaker, and then the second person is the minor speaker, and I think they wanted to get me to do that type of thing, and I'm like, nah, it's okay.

I do solo debates pretty much. And so this,

Bashir was the primary speaker for his side, and Jay Smith is the primary speaker on the other side.

And I've heard two debates now, this one, and then a debate on the subject of salvation.

And so between that and then the fact that Yusuf Ismail directed me to a debate that he did relevant to the subject of textual critical issues and history of the

New Testament, I've got plenty to do between now and the end of September, to be sure, and hoping to get through all of that.

So I will try to prioritize it. But this is Bashir's opening statement. I do have the speed picked up just a little bit as I normally do.

This isn't nearly as quick as what I listened to on the iPod. I should let you listen to what

I was listening to this morning as I got through the Aslan book. But it's just one click up in the speed so we can get through it a little bit quicker.

But here is Bashir Vania's opening statement. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

I begin in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful. Mr. Chairman, my distinguished associates, ladies and gentlemen, before I delve into the heart of the debate, allow me to clarify the

Islamic position with regard to the Bible. Firstly, the Quran fully endorses the original scriptures of the

Bible from the book of Genesis right up to the time of Jesus, peace be upon him. Secondly, the

Quran partially endorses the current scriptures of the Bible. In other words, what we as Muslims state is that the

Bible as a whole is not the word of God, but that some of the words of God are to be found within the covers of the

Bible. Now you'll note that that's pretty much the same position that Shabir Ali took in our debate at Biola in 2006.

The issue, of course, becomes why do you make the Quran, which is the last in the series of revelations you're referring to, why do you make that the standard that is supposed to rule over what came before that?

Well, the answer would be, well, because we believe that Muhammad was the final prophet and that it's been preserved perfectly and so on and so forth.

The problem is to say that we believe the scriptures as they were originally given, but only partially what you have now.

Now places upon you, makes incumbent upon you the demonstration that what was originally given differs from what we possess today.

And so far, my Islamic opponents have not been able to bear that burden.

They make the assertion, but they do not bear the burden. Thirdly, the

Quran acknowledges that it is possible to gain access to the truth from within the covers of the

Bible, provided one reads it honestly and critically. Critically is going to mean with Islamic presuppositions that, of course, we're not a part of the original author's intentions, context, or anything else.

In other words, we say that all religions are valid. It is just that some are more accurate and reasonable than others.

As regards the historical and... Now, of course, we would never say that all religions are valid.

And I would find it a little bit odd that the man I read about in the Hadith would say that either.

To be perfectly honest with you. Moral reliability and authenticity of the Quran and the Bible, I have divided my arguments into two.

External evidence, internal evidence. As regards external evidence, let me quote some prominent non -Muslim scholars in order to take an assessment of the

Quran. Sir William Meyer, described as a specialist in Islamic history, tells us, and I quote, there is probably in the world no other work which has remained over 12 centuries with so pure a text.

The Reverend Weary E .M. Now, one would expect, in light of the relative small size of the

Quran, as I mentioned last week, 56 % the length of the New Testament, 14 % the length of the

Bible itself, the small size of the Quran and the relative lateness of the

Quran historically. I mean, you're talking the beginning of the 7th century, so there's a minimal period of time in comparison to other works where the

Quran has to be transmitted in a handwritten form. And then, of course, you have the fact that it is a governmentally sponsored text, at least according to Sahih al -Bukhari,

Volume 6, Sections 509 and 510, where you have the creation of a standardized text, which raises all sorts of issues, but that that is then supported by a governmental structure across a large expanse of area.

Basically, that text is supported by the power of the sword. I mean, I would imagine

Zonderman wishes they could have done that with the NIV, but what would that do?

I mean, that's going to lead to a stable text, but a stable text of what?

A stable text of what has been determined by that initial collation and that initial editing, which takes place under Uthman.

Big issues there. I don't think there was— well, I think J. Smith does bring up issues in regards to and Umar's text and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

I think he does bring that up eventually, but that does need to be addressed. Now, by the way, the

New Testament would not be in that comparison, because it is not like antiquity. It is 600 years, minimally, removed from the time of Christ.

So you're talking about half a millennium later. And that's really going into the medieval period where there is a real minimal production of literary material by which you could make a comparison anyway.

the exact words of Muhammad without subtraction, without addition. Well, that's a big leap.

Big leap. I would love to see what these authors do with the Sa 'ana manuscripts.

I think some of these quotations are from before Sa 'ana. I would love to see what they would do with Abdullah ibn

Masud, Palimpsest manuscripts, etc., etc. This sounds a little bit more like cherry -picking quotations than really arguing a point.

Now, by the way, just listen to these quotes and then ask yourself the question, are there not similar collections of Christian quotes?

Yes. Will he use them? No. Will not. The perspective of the persons being quoted will change radically at this point.

And finally, Karen Armstrong, from her famous book, A History of God. That is funny.

Jay really goes after Armstrong in his comments. I mean, I was like, ooh, rah, maybe

I'll, I doubt I'll remember to, but I'll try to remember to pray, to play the section where he talks about Armstrong.

Page 164. And incidentally, Karen Armstrong is currently regarded as one of the foremost commentators on religion in the world today, tells us in her book, in the

Quran we have, as it were, a contemporaneous commentaries on the beginnings of Islam that is unique in the history of religion.

Kindly note, ladies and gentlemen, that I have confined myself to quoting only non -Muslim scholars. As regards the

Bible, let us take a similar assessment. I have chosen as a point of reference Professor Peake's thousand -page commentary of the

Bible. Why? Firstly, it was published in 1919. There is therefore a conservative streak that runs through the commentary.

I have no idea why 1919 would have a conservative streak. German rationalism and liberalism was hundreds of years old by that time, so didn't follow that argument.

Secondly, it is still generally acknowledged to be a landmark study of the Bible. Never heard of it.

And thirdly, it has a very authoritative committee or list of contributors which runs four pages long.

Yeah, well, almost everything Rome produces does too, so that doesn't impress me very much. And this is what they have to say.

As regards the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, or the books of Moses to be precise, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, they tell us, no extant

Hebrew manuscript can be dated earlier than the 9th century. That's why you shouldn't be quoting stuff from 1919, because we have the

Dead Sea Scrolls. That, of course, move us a thousand years earlier than that to the century before Jesus Christ.

And when you look at, you know, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with all sorts of fascinating information concerning the textual traditions and transmission of the text of the

Old Testament. You have some extremely stable traditions in the

Masoretic text illustrated by the most famous scroll, that being the Isaiah Scroll, which is pretty much identical to the later

Masoretic text. But then you also have the issues of the Targums. You also have the textual tradition behind the

Greek Septuagint, which is represented, for example, in the Jeremiah materials in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It's a complicated area. But again, we are comparing apples and oranges here.

We are comparing apples and oranges. We're talking about a book that is— and I should have put this together because I did the

New Testament, and then I did the entire Bible. I should have done the Old Testament comparison. But if it's 56 and 14, then it's probably about one -third.

The Quran is about one -third the size of the Old Testament, and the

Quran is much, much younger than the oldest portions of the

Old Testament by what? Again, going with solar years, even though the

Muslims use lunar years, by approximately 2 ,000 years.

So you cannot even begin to make this kind of comparison meaningful if you're just trying to do a one -to -one correspondence type thing, given the small size of the

Quran and the relative young age of the Quran as well.

It's just not a meaningful comparison. Now, let us put this into perspective. The exodus, in other words, the coming out of Egypt of the

Israelites, happened at around 1 ,400 B .C., or so Christian and Jewish scholars tell us.

The extent manuscripts that we have in our possession today is dated at around 916

A .D. Actually, again, around 100 B .C.,

and so therefore approximately 1 ,300 years. Sounds like a long time, but ironically, given the status of ancient documents, that would probably be the best.

I mean, really, again, apples and oranges here.

Apples and oranges. In other words, there is a difference of 2 ,000 years, or a gap of 2 ,000 years from the time the books of Moses were supposed to have been written, and now, what we have today.

Secondly, these gentlemen continue, and of course, these codexes are referred to as the

Codex Babylonicus. Secondly, on page 121, these gentlemen tell us, as Moses had been the founder of Israel's religious institutions, the books which record the sacred traditions came to be associated with his names, but the books themselves contain no such statement.

In other words, in a polite manner, they are telling us that Moses did not write the current books ascribed to him, nor does the

Bible bother to tell us that he did. Well, ironically,

Muslims believe Jesus is a prophet, and Jesus said, Moses said this, Moses said that, and those come straight out of those books, so I'm not sure how they consistently deal with that.

But clearly, there are certain texts in the Pentateuch where you'll have statements such as, and so it is until this day.

So there is a history of the text, but I've never really quite figured out why it is that when recognizing that a text has history, that means it didn't have an origin, and that the origin of these texts would be with Moses himself, especially in light of the founding nature of these texts, and the assumption on the part of liberal scholars that, well,

God has nothing to do with this, so we can't look for harmony, so we can break these things up into pieces and try to identify origination along those lines.

Again, I do not believe that Bashir Rania would allow this to be done to the Quran, but that's what liberals do.

They start with the assumption that there is nothing inspired or divine about this.

They just look at it as a human document, and it would be easy, simplistic, to do form criticism on the

Quran. I mean, it has to be done in regards to the fact that the Quran denies that it utilizes other sources and things like that, and yet it clearly does.

Clearly draws from other sources, even though the Quran says it does not. That's a major problem. But even leaving the source stuff, where you can actually identify the sources that the

Quran was borrowing from, leaving that aside, you still could very easily go into Surah Al -Baqarah and say, okay, now here's this section and this topic, and then we break that apart from this section, this topic, and you break it all apart, and you could put it different periods in Muhammad's life, or even after Muhammad's life, the community afterwards.

I mean, what liberals do with the New Testament is actually the easier way of dealing with the biblical text.

I'm thinking about Aslan right now, and the way that he just so blithely would laughingly dismiss entire portions of the

New Testament text that were contrary to his thesis, so as to maintain his thesis. And in the same way, you can do that with the

Quran. And I think the only reason that there's not a huge body of scholarly literature doing that is twofold.

One, in the West, that would be considered politically incorrect, and in Muslim countries, it could get you dead.

And that generally doesn't happen in Christian countries. We generally do not kill religious liberals.

And I think that sort of explains it fairly well, actually. They continue. As regards the

Old Testament, they say, the authors of the Old Testament never write in their own names, but always adopt the names of one of Israel's heroes of the past.

Enoch, Baruch, Moses, Isaiah, etc. Um, what?

What did Enoch write? What? I didn't get that. So, Isaiah wasn't written by Isaiah.

Jesus identified that way, but Isaiah wasn't written by Isaiah simply because of what reason?

You know, again, I went to Fuller. I heard all this stuff before. Been there, done that, got the t -shirt. And whenever I would challenge the presuppositions of the approach, that's when you discover that those presuppositions are extremely challengeable.

And it all goes back to taking a naturalistic view of what is not a naturalistic text, which is exactly what

Muslims will not allow to be done to their own text, which results in the circularity of their position.

Pseudonymity was a literary device to obtain an audience, an act of homage paid by the present to the past.

Again, a polite way of telling us that in ancient days, when people wrote the scriptures, they often wrote the names of one of Israel's heroes of the past.

Again, how is that relevant to something like the historical books? Or are you saying the prophets didn't write what was assigned to the prophets?

Even though the Quran takes those prophets' names seriously? This is the problem of Muslims cherry -picking liberal perspectives, not recognizing that if you really want to provide a

Muslim critique of our text, you might want to actually deal with the people who believe the text.

Still waiting for that to happen, and it hasn't. And, if one looks at the

Revised Standard Version, indeed, let us take a sample of the authors who wrote the Old Testament. The Book of Exodus, generally credited to Moses.

1 Samuel, author unknown. 2 Samuel, author unknown. 1 Kings, author unknown. Ecclesiastes, author doubtful, but commonly assigned to Solomon.

And so it goes. To sum it up, let me sum up the Old Testament for you. Firstly, they...

I'm sorry, that's not summing up anything. There are numerous books in the

Old Testament that were not written by an identified person. Yep. Not news to anybody, at least not anybody

I know of anyways. What is that supposed to mean? What does that have to do with anything?

I mean, Jesus didn't seem to find that to be a problem, and he was a prophet, from your perspective.

Again, I'm... It's one thing in dealing with an atheist saying these things, but we're talking about Islam here.

We're talking about a person who's supposed to be a supernaturalist, looking for that consistent application.

There is a gap of 2 ,000 years as regards the Book of Moses. Secondly, most of the authors are unknown or unverified.

And thirdly, even if I were to be generous and include the Greek translations of the Bible, known as the Septuaginta, there would still be a gap of 1 ,000 years.

Well, again, I just don't know why he did this, because later on, he will mention the Dead Sea Scrolls, so he's got to know that they are 1 ,000 years earlier.

So I... That part really left me confused. Let's turn our attention now to the

New Testament. In other words, from the time of Jesus, peace be upon him, onwards. This August committee tells us, they say, the term

Gospel was not applied to our New Testament Gospels or by the first readers. They were not called

Gospels until a later age. A later age. I'm not really sure why so many

Muslims are so confused on this point. I think it's because, again, they're anachronistically looking backwards through the lens of the

Quran rather than allowing the New Testament to speak for itself. It is the

Gospel according to... The Gospel is the message of Jesus. And since the Quran, the author of the

Quran seemed to think that the Gospel was a book, a singular book given to Jesus, then they're confused as to why we have four

Gospels. When you realize that the Gospel message is not just something that's in a particular book, but it's the message of Jesus, and therefore you have four different people writing to different audiences at different times for different purposes that are necessary to even begin to capture the fullness of that message.

That causes confusion on their part. And they're looking for a single Gospel. I think that's what...

Well, it wasn't called this until a later age. Well, okay.

And yet, the earliest attestations we have are the

Gospels according to... And that's not something that just came about later on. That was in the very primitive period of time.

That's attached to manuscripts. And it recognizes that the Gospel is something that's bigger than can be held in any one particular story of Jesus.

The Gospels, in short, are not biographies, but beliefs. Man was written for faith in order to transmit and apply certain beliefs about Jesus as Lord.

If what you mean by that is that the Gospels are not meant to be submitted to a journalism class as an unbiased account of, you know, cold, unbiased account of certain activities, of course.

The Gospels do present their own genre. It's a genre that's not unknown in the ancient world.

The authors are very clear that they have a purpose. And they're clear about that purpose, and that purpose guides and directs what they do and do not include in their stories.

But to jump from that to then make the accusation that these are not meant to be taken as having historical validity is where the wheels fall off for so many.

That shouldn't be a leap that a Muslim would make if they're consistent with their worldview, but it is. They make it.

They follow the naturalistic materialists who they're quoting and make the leap.

When they then turn around and deal with their own text, they won't do it. When they start dealing with their own text, you know, the moon can split and Muhammad can ride winged beasts and all those things are fine, and that all still happened in history.

But if there's anything supernatural in the Gospels, well, it's clearly not history.

I mean, really? I mean, shit all. And yet the picture of Jesus in the

Quran very clearly presents him as a miracle worker, etc. So the inconsistency is very clear.

In other words, they are telling us that the Gospels were written from subjective memory and from a biased perspective.

As was the Quran. Right? I mean, again, if we're being consistent, so was the

Quran, right? It was men's memories. Remember the first collation of the

Mus 'haf of the Quran did not include those ayat in Surah Al -Ta 'aba.

They had to be inserted later on. So that was someone's memory, right?

So if you're going to say that subjective memory, that somehow means something, well, we've just got to be consistent.

And they say, the soil of this plant was oral tradition. The Reverend T .G. Tucker in his book

The History of the Christians in Light of Modern Knowledge, page 320, is rather blunt. He says, but there was no hesitation in altering it or making additions to it or leaving out what did not suit the writer's purpose.

I'd like to know what the context of that is. Leaving out from what? The oral tradition or something?

I mean, in the sense of the oral tradition would have been larger than any one gospel, and that any author has to make decisions that are, you know, based upon external things.

I mean, I threw Bethany House a curve when the new book ended up being over 300 pages long.

They were expecting to be much smaller. Could I have made it much longer? Sure. Could I have made it much shorter?

I don't know. I would have had to have changed the character of the book to do that, but the point is there are factors, such as in those days that are not relevant now, there are factors such as how long will it take to copy the book?

How big would the book be? Could it be carried? Could it be used in the context that I would like to see the book used?

I mean, there were all sorts of physical factors in the production of a book that we don't really have today.

I mean, there are some folks who write for websites where conciseness of expression is utterly irrelevant because, hey, the internet can take anything

I can throw at it. You know? I mean, you could sit down and start typing today. You could type all, for the rest of your life, never sleeping, never stopping, typing as fast as you can.

And there are, I've got jump drives you couldn't fill up. They're so big.

You couldn't fill them up. We just have that kind of storage capacity now. So, there are some folks today that really struggle because of that because they will just write things that just go on and on and on and on forever, and they never stop.

That wasn't a possibility in those days. There was a physical limitation to how long something could be.

And we normally don't think about things like that. Let me sum it up quickly for you. Firstly, the most complete manuscripts of the

New Testament, Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Codex Visa, are dated at around 400

A .D. Uh, no. Bese Canterburgiensis is at least a century later, a century and a half later, than the earlier

Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. A very different textual character, especially with Codex Besa Canterburgiensis.

It would be hard to even put them together. And now, this is what, again what happens when you're relying upon stuff from 1919, all the papyri were discovered after that.

And so, the papyri finds are extremely important. And if you don't include them, that's really going to leave you out.

But this is right where it's getting interesting and right where we're out of time. Like I said, don't forget, the Mefford Show the next three days.

You know, pray for me. I've done stuff like this before, but would like to make it useful. I'd like to address some stuff without getting into too much trouble and not getting

Janet fired. And that'll also probably impact how long we go on Thursday.

Probably just do a regular sized show that day because that will make four hours worth of talking in one day.

And that's just how that is. So anyways, hope it's been useful to you. We'll see you again on Thursday.

God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

Let this moment slip away We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new

Reformation day It's a sign of your times

The 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 Stand up for the truth

We're waiting by the door

Courageous and bold And dead and cowed and dead