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And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning. Lots of things to get to today.

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I wanted to start off with a biblical text and then I'm going to be responding to some questions directed toward me in a conversation with a

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Muslim on Twitter this morning. We have a brief response to Pastor Anderson on the use of language, some new

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Mormonism resources that are out there, and a fellow in Russia who says Sola Scriptura honestly scares me.

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That's just a start, and then maybe we'll get to some of your phone calls too, though that's a pretty long list when you start to think about it.

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We'll see how quickly those things go. I was struck in my reading this morning of the

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Scriptures once again by a particular passage, certainly a passage that is familiar to many of us, but believers certainly recognize the experience of encountering a well -known passage that I think one of the subjective elements of the

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Christian experience of Scripture because of its spiritual nature is encountering new truths, not in the sense of New Revelation or something like that, but you're at a point in your life where you reread a text and it has new meaning.

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It's not that the meaning of the text has changed, but because there is a spiritual element, we can go deeper into the text, we can hear things that maybe we did not hear with as much clarity before.

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I'm thinking especially right now of Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians, and you know the context, you know the rather difficult text in 2

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Corinthians 4 .3, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled of those who are perishing, in their case the God of this world.

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Who is that? And we've discussed before, the majority of commentators believe this is

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Satan, but there is a very interesting case to be made in light of the context, that this is actually

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God's judgment upon a people. But leaving that aside, that's not the text, I'm actually just giving the context.

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In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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Listen to that phraseology, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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What incredible description that is given of Jesus at that point, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

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How is the gospel light, first of all?

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I mean, are we really to understand that the light of the gospel, the light that comes from the gospel, is this really identifying the gospel as light?

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And how does that relate to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God?

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I mean, again, this is the same apostle who is a clear monotheist, who believes there's only one true

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God, and yet he speaks of Jesus in ways that simply could not be spoken of a mere creature.

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It's just not possible. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So, when you think of the gospel, what is the essence of that gospel?

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Sadly, for many people, and I mentioned this in the sermon Sunday evening,

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I'm going to post those once the audio is up, the fact that if you start at a man -centered perspective and try to reason upward to God, so much of the

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New Testament makes no sense. It just does not make any sense at all.

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It's just empty words. It really is. But when you recognize that the gospel is what the triune

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God has done to glorify himself, and that central to the gospel is the

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Incarnation, the eternal second person of the Trinity entering into human flesh, then you start understanding what these words meant.

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The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is Has Estin Icon Tuthayu, the image of God, the very representation of God.

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What we know, the reason that we know we can have true gnosis, knowledge, epinosis, of the character of God the

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Father is because he has been revealed with perfection. He has been exegeted, explained in the

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Incarnation of the Son. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ.

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It's Yesun Christan Kurion. Jesus Christ as Kurios, as Lord, not as just a mere

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Lord, not one of many Lords, not just a representation of God. I was listening to an anti -Trinitarian yesterday, and the real big popular perspective now, and you saw it in the debate that Michael Brown and I did against Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Goode.

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Jesus only bears the name of God because he represents God. And so, like the angel of the

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Lord, it's just a representation. Notice not only the glory of Christ who is the image of God, which could never be said of some mere representation, some human representative, like an ambassador, but Jesus Christ as Kurios, as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for what?

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For Jesus' sake. Servitude, avad in Hebrew, is always connected with worship when it comes to divine things in the

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Old Testament. And so you're servants of Yahweh. Even my Muslim friends can understand this,

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Abdullah, servants of Allah. But here, long before Muhammad came along, you have the description of us as servants for Jesus' sake.

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And then there's the verse that caught my mind. It's really, the whole context is so incredible.

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For God who said, let light shine out of darkness. Now, here again, when you look at the original language, you see in verse 6, and for those on live cam, my

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Bible program is over here. Normally, I guess I should put it over there. When you look at the text, you see in verse 4, hafeas, and then you see verse 6, hafeas.

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For the God, the one who said, let light shine out of darkness. Well, we know who that was.

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That's not the God of this world. It's hard to avoid the implication at that point.

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But anyways, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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Wow. God has shown in our hearts.

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So there you have the light of the gospel. God has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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Again, I suggest that no honest person, no person who is not under spiritual deception can call these words

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God's words and not see that Jesus is on the far side of the

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Creator -Creation distinction. In other words, that Jesus is more than a mere apostle.

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He's more than a mere man. He's more than mere representative. He is on the other side of that massive divide between Creator and Creation.

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He is the Creator. Now, he has entered into Creation. He has taken on that human nature so that the connection can be made.

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We have a mediator in the presence of the Father. But clearly, it is the very language of this primitive period of time in the history of the

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Christian Church to have the highest view of Jesus and the highest view of not only his person but his role in the gospel and that the gospel is a glorious thing.

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Because if you look at the two texts, you have the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, then you have has shown our hearts to give light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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So how do we know about God's glory? Well, in the face of Jesus Christ. What an amazing statement.

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Absolute amazing statement. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is what we desire

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God to reveal. If you really want to ask the question, what should our desire be?

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It's the holiday season. The holiday season is a tremendous opportunity of witness because both

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Thanksgiving and Christmas are natural introductions to spiritual things.

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You don't have to come up, you don't have to make things up. Especially with Thanksgiving because the very term assumes the existence of a

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God to whom we are giving thanks, which is why it's really not overly popular amongst secular folks because they don't have anybody to give thanks to.

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But what an opportunity when we want to pray, Lord reveal to this person's heart shine into this person's heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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Because when God is the one who saves, when God is the one who initiates, when

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God brings about regeneration, there is a shining into the heart, a giving of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, which is why when

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I hear of apostates, when I hear of people who once claimed to follow after Christ, and now they've gone after these other things, they've gone off into Romanism, I always sit there and go, how could anyone who has truly recognized their utter and complete dependence upon the perfection of the gospel, who has truly received the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, how can they ever accept such a shallow substitute?

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Such a shallow substitute. There is something very supernatural by its very definition in regards to what it truly means to be converted to Jesus Christ.

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Well, as I mentioned, I have a lot of things to get to. I had an exchange this morning with a

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Muslim in Twitter by the name of Optimus Tricepto, which sounds really interesting,

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I'm not sure what that means, but all sorts of Twitter handles are themselves rather interesting.

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And Twitter, by its very nature, what makes Twitter so useful is as a means of communicating short bits of information.

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URLs, you know, I appreciate people saying, hey, have you seen this?

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Have you seen that? 70 % of the time, I have seen it, but the other 30 % is very useful, there have been many times we've discussed things on the dividing line because someone sent me something via Twitter, and so I appreciate that.

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Sometimes after about the 6th or 12th URL, it's the same. Everybody sent me the

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Steven Anderson thing we're going to talk about a little bit later on. I've just got to get used to that, and it's like, never mind.

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Anyhow, we started having a discussion, and because it had started off, let me see here, yeah, just asked if I'd ever debated

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Bart Ehrman, and yes, I have. And I clicked on the name here, and of course, now it says there was an error.

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And in the bio, it says monotheism,

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God is the sole non -created living being and is one in one, not, and never a person.

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Polytheism, God is one in multitude, two, three, or even more. I wonder if that's changed since this morning,

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I didn't think it was quite that long. But clearly, in fact,

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I think it has changed, because there was something about the Quran and Islam in it before, and now it's gone, so I think it's been changed since this morning.

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Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's my recollection. Anyway, it made a common error, and it's an error that is created by the fact that the author of the

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Quran did not understand the doctrines of the Trinity. And I discuss this rather fully in my book, and I would invite

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Optimus Tricepto to read whatever Christians should know about the Quran. There is a discussion, there is an entire chapter on what the

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Quran teaches about, Say Not Three, and I go through that, and I'll be talking a little bit about that here in a moment.

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But what I pointed out was the common category error that Muslims make, and we all need to be aware of this, and that is they assume that monotheism equals

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Unitarianism. In fact, he even said later on, Unitarianism is a Christian domination, monotheism is not, please elaborate.

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Most Muslims aren't even aware of the fact, yeah, there's a denomination out there, it's a non -Christian denomination of Unitarians, but Unitarianism is a specific technical term, just as Trinitarianism is.

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And they're both in the same category. Unitarianism, one person. Trinitarianism, three persons.

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Monotheism, one god, henotheism, one main god, lesser gods possible. Polytheism, generally equal multiple gods.

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And there's some breakdowns even in there, when we discuss the various religions of men.

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And what I pointed out was, he was confusing and making the equation between Unitarianism and monotheism.

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That the only way you can be a monotheist is if you're a Unitarian. Which is begging the question. Christians are monotheists, and they're

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Trinitarians. Unfortunately, the author of the Quran didn't understand how that could be, and most

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Muslims just simply follow the ignorance of the author of the Quran at that point.

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And if you're offended by that, well, I'm sorry you're offended by that. But the fact of the matter is, you would have a hard time demonstrating to me that the author of the

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Quran did accurately understand the doctrine that he not only denounces, but calls deception, and says that anyone who confesses it is going to go to hellfire.

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If you're going to make those kind of statements, it might be a good idea if you actually know what you're talking about. But there simply isn't any evidence in the

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Quran that he did know what he was talking about. And in fact, there's clear evidence that he didn't.

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Now, my Muslim friend, we've sort of gone back and forth, and that's how it works in Twitter.

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I get busy, I have to go do something, I'm not sitting around watching Twitter all day. I had to go get cleaned up and get dressed, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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And so you'll get three or four tweets responding to what you said, then you respond, and that's just how it goes.

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And I must say, it's been a useful conversation, and I believe that he's watching even now.

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I hope so. I'm assuming it's a he. I mean, I suppose someone could be a female with optimist tricepto, but probably not.

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It'd be tricepta if we wanted to go that direction. Anyways, he sort of said, well, thanks for the conversation, may the

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Lord open your heart to him before it is too late. And of course, I responded with a text from 2 Corinthians 4.

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But when I did so, I pointed out the problem with the Quran at this point. And he says, the word

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God does not appear in the Quran. You manipulated the Bible and introduced the term persons to God, and he says it's blasphemy.

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Well, you're assuming the meaning of the word person that the early

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Christians did not assume, and that, again, the author of the Quran was ignorant of, even though these discussions had taken place hundreds of years beforehand.

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The author of the Quran not only doesn't know what's in the Torah and the Injil, borrows from Jewish fables,

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Christian fables, Gnostic gospels, thinks it's all a part of the Torah and the Injil, because he did not have direct access to it, and it was ignorant of its contents.

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I mean, I think that's a fact that can be demonstrated. I would be happy to demonstrate that in debate, and I think that's one of the topics we're going to need to address, especially in some of the debates we're going to be doing in the future.

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That needs to be one of the issues, is does the Quran depend upon non -inspired sources and differentiate between them?

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And I think I can make a very, very strong case that it does. And I lay that case out in whatever a

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Christian needs to know about the Quran. But, when it says, when he says the word gods does not appear in the

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Quran, what I was referring to was every time the Quran says, say not three, what's the next line?

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Let me read you one. Surah 5, beginning at Ayah 72.

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They have certainly disbelieved to say, Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, while the Messiah has said, O children of Israel, worship

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Allah, my Lord and your Lord. I, again, only stop long enough to point out the inconsistency of my

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Muslim friends, who believe that they can reject what is found in the gospels, which all come from the first century, and yet believe that Jesus actually said these words when they have no historical evidence of it for 600 years.

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A little bit of an inconsistency there. Anyway, and since this conversation started with Bart Ehrman, Bart Ehrman would never believe

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Jesus said that. Anyways, indeed, he who associates others with Allah, that's the sin of Shirk, Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire.

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Strong words. And there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. They have certainly, Ayah 73, they have certainly disbelieved who say,

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Allah is the third of three. And what's the very next phrase? Every time the word three appears, what's the very next phrase?

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And there is no God except one God. Every time. We can go back, if you want, to Surah 4,

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Ayah 171, and you're going to find the same thing. O people of the scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth.

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The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah, and his word which he directed to Mary, and a soul created to command from him.

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So believe in Allah as messengers, and do not say three, desist, it is better for you. What's the next phrase? Indeed, Allah is but one

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God. Exalted is he above having a son. If I say to you, do not say that there are three great football teams.

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There's only one. Do I have to repeat the phrase so you understand what

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I'm talking about? Or if I say there's only one great football team, don't say there are three.

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Do you go, three what? No, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I haven't changed context.

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And so the Quran is very clear. Every time it says, do not say three, there's only one God, what's it saying?

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There are not three gods. How else could it be understood? And in our conversation,

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Optimus Tricepto said, well, that's talking about persons. Where do you get that? Where do you have any evidence whatsoever that the author of the

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Quran even had the slightest idea? What we know about this, what we taught about this at that time.

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Because we can demonstrate these were things that were being taught at that particular time. He says, God is not a person.

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Praises he above what you ascribe to him. Really? Allah's not personal? You see, you are assuming, you're not aware, my dear

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Muslim friend, of the conversations that need to take place for us to be able to talk to each other.

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And the reason for that is because the source, your ultimate authority, was written by someone who didn't know what the conversation was about.

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I'm not saying God is a human being when I use the term person. I'm saying he's personal.

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He uses personal pronouns. The God of the Quran uses personal pronouns. So he's personal.

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You think he's impersonal? See, there's many category errors that Muslims have, simply because they frequently, unfortunately, do not get outside of the realm of their own religious faith and dialogue with others in a meaningful way.

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And when Muslims do that, then they're forced to start utilizing vocabulary that's beyond the

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Quran to answer questions the author of the Quran never thought to address. And if they're not willing to do so, then we're never going to get any place in talking to one another.

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And so, for example, he quoted, well, referred me to Quran 4 .171,

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which I just read to you all. And I read Surah 5 .72. And then said, you know, can you show me exactly why

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I'm not listening to the Quran? Yeah. Say there is only one God. That is always the response to the mention of three.

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Now, let me throw another thing into the mix here. In fact, let me look over here.

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Because I believe that there might have been some follow -up here. No, I don't see any follow -up here.

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I did repost the new URL. I had put the one out before we had the technical difficulties.

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I hope you got that one. Or I'm talking to the error here. But let me throw another issue at us here.

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And what are the three? Optimist, tricepto. Good, he's listening.

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Here's another question for you. Who are the three? According to the Quran. Show me anywhere in the

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Quran where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mentioned. Now, you know in Quranic interpretation anyways, the

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Holy Spirit is the Angel Jabril. But where are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ever mentioned in the

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Quran? There's only one place where three are mentioned together in this same context.

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And if you haven't had an opportunity to do so, I would strongly recommend you go on YouTube. Which is where you are right now if you're watching me.

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And do a search for the debate that I did with Bassam Zawadi in London. On the issue, does the

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Quran misrepresent the Bible? Or Christianity, I forget which term was. And what you'll discover is that at the end of that debate,

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I'm defending the idea that you can actually read the Quran and understand what it says. That it has a context. And Bassam is saying you can't do that.

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You can't. Did I say Bible? I was saying you can read the Quran and it has a context.

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He was saying you can't do that with the Quran. You can't take Surah 5, 17 -20.

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Surah 5, 71, 72, 73. And Surah 5, 116 and following. You can't connect that together.

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Because it's pretty obvious what happens if you do. Because what does Surah 5, 116 say? It's the only place.

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It's the only place you can disagree with me. But show me some place, show me that I'm wrong.

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From the actual text. It's the only place where you have three mentioned. Surah 5, 116. And beware of the day when

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Allah will say, O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, Take me and my mother as deities in derogation of Allah.

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Allah, Mary, Jesus. There's your three. There's your three. He will say,

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Exalted are you, it is not for me to say that which I have no right. If I had said it, you would have known it. You know what is within yourself,

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I do not know what is within yourself. You know what is within myself, I do not know what is within yourself. Indeed, it is you who is knower of the unseen.

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So here you have the three. And at the final judgment, Allah says to Jesus, Did you say to the people,

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Worship me and my mother as deities, apart from Allah. There's your Allah, third of three.

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Jesus, Mary, Allah. And you'll also see, and I haven't had time to develop it, But you'll also see, if you look carefully,

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Exalted is Allah above what? Having a son. Having a son. So what's the understanding?

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Allah, Mary, have a son named Jesus. So, there's your three.

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And that is a misunderstanding of the Trinity. That is not what Christians have ever believed. There is a religious group today that does believe that.

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And I have been consistent in identifying them as non -Christians. But they did not exist in the days of Muhammad. They're called

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Mormons. And they do have the idea of God and Mary having an offspring named

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Jesus. But they weren't around in the days of Muhammad. And so, here's the question.

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Why should I believe this is the word of God if it does not accurately represent what Christians believed at the time it was written? There's the question.

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There's the question. So I did read

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Surah 4, verse 171. He just asked in Twitter, could you read this? And I did. I read it. And I explained the problem with it.

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And I'll... Since you requested. O people of the book, Yalal Kitab.

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Do not commit excess. Do not go beyond the bounds. This is how Muslims understand what we believe.

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We've gone beyond the bounds, the revelation, in our exaltation of Jesus Christ. But, I just read 2

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Corinthians chapter 4, didn't I? Have we gone beyond that? No. Did...

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Here's the question, my friend. Did the author of the Quran know 2 Corinthians chapter 4? The answer is, no.

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Can you show me any evidence, anywhere, that the author of the Quran knew of what was found in 2

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Corinthians chapter 4? And in fact, I just got good news. The DVDs of the debates in South Africa are finished.

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They should be coming to us fairly quickly. We'll make them available as quickly as we possibly can. And, I think you'll find the debate that I did with Shabir Ali at the

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University of Pretoria, especially interesting at this point, because he makes the argument that the Apostle Paul believed

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Jesus was Yahweh. Which is right. He did. It's the problem to say, well, but he was against the

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Apostles and all the rest of that stuff. We can get into that at another point. But the point is, that was the belief prior to Muhammad.

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Why is there no argumentation against that? Why doesn't the Quran seem to understand that that was the established position by the 6th century?

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It's addressing us, who are the people of the Scripture? Who are the Al -Kitab? Is that not us?

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Is it not the Al -Anjil in Surah 5, verse 47? The people of the Gospel? Well, if these words had meaning when they were spoken, then they have to address what we ourselves believed then.

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And I can demonstrate, beyond all question, what Christians believed about this in the 6th century.

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In the 7th century. In the time leading right up to the revelation of the

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Quran. There's no question about it. They didn't believe this. Anyway. Do not commit excess in your religion to say about Allah except the truth.

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The Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary, and a soul created a command from Him.

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Now, there have been a lot of missionaries who have tried to make a lot out of this particular verse.

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They've tried to make a connection. For example, when it says, His word, between the word here and the

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Logos in the Prologue of John. I'm not sure that, I don't think it's a valid thing to do.

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I know it's very popular, but I don't think it's a valid thing to do. Because it assumes a knowledge on the part of the author of the

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Quran that I see no evidence anywhere that I can back that up. And the standard

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Islamic interpretation of the text is that this is where God said, Be, and Jesus came into existence. And do not say three.

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Desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalt is He above having a son.

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This is exactly what I've just been saying. The author thinks that there's one

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God, not three gods. And that God doesn't have children. And as Surah 5, verse 16 says,

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With Mary as His spouse. And is it

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Surah 61, verse 6? Off the top of my head? If God wanted to take a child, How can

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He have a son if He doesn't have a spouse? If He doesn't have a woman by which He can have this child.

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Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalt is He above having a son. To Him belongs whatever is in heavens and whatever is on earth. And sufficient is the law as to dispose of affairs.

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So, there you go. There's Surah 4, verse 171. Oh, okay.

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He's saying, there's your three. Because he mentions, Well, okay.

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I appreciate your attempt here. No, no, no. I think this is fine. I think this is great.

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Here's what he's trying to argue. And he put double exclamation points twice.

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So, I want to make sure you all get his point. God is speaking, plus mentioning

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Christ, plus Holy Spirit. It is there. In 4, verse 171.

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Now, let's look back at this here. Because everybody's going, Oh, wait a minute. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah.

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And His word, which He directed to Mary. So, is the word a fourth person? And a soul created its command from Him.

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So, both of those are describing Jesus. There's nothing about a spirit here at all. I mean, unless you want to say that both word and soul here are being attributed to Jesus.

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Not to a third person. The only way you could have a third person here is if you bring Mary in again,

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I suppose. Which is exactly what the author does in Sura 5, verse 116. So, I'm sorry, but to try to shoehorn the

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Spirit, Father, Son, and Spirit, into the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah.

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And His word, which He directed to Mary. And a soul created from Him. Those ands are all descriptive of Jesus.

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There's not a third person here. Sorry, if you want to show me something from the Arabic that says otherwise, don't think so.

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Don't think so. Doesn't work. But it was a noble try.

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The people of Scripture are Nazarenes who neglect Paul. You are Romans. And how do you prove that from the text?

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I'm enjoying this. I hope you're finding it helpful too. You'd be welcome to call in if you wanted to.

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Toll free, 877 -753 -3341. Or I'll just keep reading your tweets. I mean, you may be at work.

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You may be in a situation where you can't do it. I understand that. I'm just saying the option is there. 877 -753 -3341.

34:46

Or Skype at dividing .line. Either one would work. But, no, it is not you.

34:54

People of the Scripture are Nazarenes who neglect Paul. You are Romans. Where do you get that from the text?

35:02

The Christians of Najran, that most Muslim scholars believe is the background for Surah 3, they were not some kind of whatever you call

35:13

Nazarenes. You're probably referring to the Ebionites, about which we know almost nothing. What's the evidence that Muhammad had any encounters with any of these people?

35:24

What evidence do you have? I mean, in fact, you just refuted yourself.

35:34

They wouldn't have said 3. They weren't Trinitarians. So why would you say to the people of the

35:41

Scriptures, if they were non -Trinitarians, do not say 3? Why would you describe them as unbelievers when they didn't believe in the

35:49

Trinity? Sorry, doesn't work. That one fell flat. You gotta take that one back.

35:59

This is your translation. Actually, this is the Sahih International, is what

36:05

I happen to be reading there. But if you want to say His word which

36:10

He directed to Mary and His soul created a spirit. If you want to say that's spirit, that's fine. It's still descriptive of Jesus. Those are all descriptions of Jesus.

36:18

Just as messenger of Allah, is that Jesus? Word which

36:24

He directed to Mary, soul created a command from Him. It's all about Jesus. There is no third person there.

36:30

It's just not there. I mean, I I try to do with the

36:35

Quran what unfortunately, most of my Muslim friends won't do with the Bible. I actually try to let it speak for itself.

36:43

I wish y 'all would let the Bible speak for itself. But my experience, the vast majority of Muslims will not allow the

36:50

Bible to speak for itself. I am trying to allow Surah 4, 171 to speak for Surah 4, 171.

36:57

My experience is most Muslims, especially conservative Sunni, Salafi, those who give a tremendous amount of weight to the

37:09

Sunnah and to the Hadith, aren't overly concerned about the contextual reading of the

37:15

Quran itself. They're concerned about the orthodox reading of the Quran in light of the

37:21

Hadith. And that's a problem. This is interesting.

37:29

I'm enjoying this. I like this live interaction. Because you just proved my point. And I just now looked down and read the tweet.

37:37

Islam's sources are Quran plus Prophet's sayings plus his companions' understanding of the former and latter.

37:43

In other words, the interpretation of the Quran is not determined by the language and its historical context.

37:49

It's interpreted by the later construction of tradition based upon your particular interpretation of the

37:56

Hadith. There you go. But where did Ibn Kathir interpret any of these texts the way you did?

38:04

Ah, he's too early. Again, it really makes me wonder when the clear meaning of the text can be overthrown by a later interpretation.

38:18

That's what happens in Roman Catholicism where the clear meaning of the text is overthrown by later interpretation that is derived from interpreting certain early fathers in a particular way.

38:30

And as you well know, there are all sorts of disputes amongst scholars of the

38:36

Hadith and of the Sunnah of Muhammad as to where to put the emphasis.

38:43

Not only do you have your various schools of interpretation, but you'll have disagreements even amongst them. And that's why

38:49

I've taken the time to read all of Sahih al -Bukhari and all of Sahih Muslim. And portions of Jami 'at

38:55

Termani and Sunnah of Abu Dawood and all the rest of those sources. The fact of the matter is, they're not consistent with themselves.

39:02

And so one side can set up their sources and I put the most weight on these

39:08

Hadiths and another side over here on these Hadiths and now the text of the Quran becomes dependent, it becomes this play -doh that you can form into whatever your particular school says it should say.

39:20

It's a pretty scary thing. I think I'm being quite honest with the text of Surah 4, 171 at that point.

39:29

Well, one last thing and then I've got a bunch of other things to go to and I've enjoyed the interaction. You've got to admit, we're not afraid to go to the text and deal with the issues straightforwardly.

39:40

That's what we try to do around here. Because the Trinity is not the sole thing on which we judge people if they ascribe to polytheism or not.

39:51

Well, there's no question about the fact that the earliest portions of the Quran are primarily concerned about the polytheism that Muhammad encounters in Mecca itself and in the worship around the

40:07

Kaaba at least in Orthodox Islamic interpretation and I don't have too much of a problem with that.

40:14

But these verses that I read are directly addressed to the

40:20

Al -Alkitab. They have to have a meaning. Let me just put it this way.

40:28

When Muhammad came out of the trans -like state that he would go into, the sweating and so on and so forth and he gave these words that become

40:41

Surahs 4 and 5. Let's just stick with 4 and 5 at the moment. We've looked at 4, 171, 5, 17, 5, 72, 5, 116.

40:49

Those sections because they are the key sections. When he said

40:54

Al -Alkitab did that have a meaning? Could we tell who that was?

41:04

Would the Christians of his day that he had interaction with be held accountable for what he said?

41:12

If that's the case, then we can root the Quran in a context and understand its meaning in that context.

41:20

If you deny that they had a meaning at that time, there's really no reason even having a discussion because it just becomes a subjective love fest at that point.

41:33

One last one. No interpretation anything that is fixed by God. No interpretation is allowed. No contradiction is allowed among schools.

41:38

I'm sorry, that's just naive. I'm sorry. With all due respect, that's naive.

41:47

You can deny that these various schools are interpreting the Quran but they are. I'm having to interpret your words.

41:54

You're having to interpret mine as you're watching me on YouTube. What do you mean there's no interpretation? We cannot communicate without interpretation.

42:03

As you're looking at my face and listening to my words, you are interpreting my words.

42:08

That's the only way we can have communication. Of course, the

42:13

Hadith schools are interpreting not only the Hadith but the Quran as well.

42:18

Of course, there's interpretation. That's just... This is an illustration of where sometimes and I'm trying to say this with all due respect because there are

42:32

Muslims who do transcend this but they tend to get into trouble. Certain forms of Islam are so isolated intellectually from the stream of flow of history that they cannot meaningfully interact with the rest of us.

42:55

Trinitarians before Islam came along and I know you realize you believe it's the first religion and all the rest of that stuff but historically before Islam arises

43:05

Trinitarians had developed categories to express their faith. You can't just come along and say I'm not even going to take the time to find out what you believe about these things.

43:15

I'm just going to reject all of it. You can do that but you're not going to be able to have much conversation with us in the process.

43:21

And you may say I don't want to have a conversation. Well okay, there are people like that. The Taliban is like that. But the

43:28

Taliban is intellectually incestuous. The Taliban cannot possibly continue itself because it is intellectually vacant.

43:41

It has no ability to do apologetics. It cannot engage the world views of other religions. And I would say to you especially in light of the fact that Al -Haq is one of the 99 beautiful names of Allah.

43:52

Most of the lists I've seen are either 49 or 51. The truth that the highest forms of Islam would be seeking to break out of any artificial constraints and trying to engage us.

44:09

Know what we believe and engage us. But the militant forms of Islam cannot do that.

44:18

Last one real quickly. I keep saying that. Quran is not only concerned with Arab paganism.

44:26

It strikes all paganism with deep understanding as it attacks Christianity. Well it doesn't attack Christianity with deep understanding.

44:32

We've just demonstrated that because what it represents as a believing is not what it believes. And the last one is Al -Kitab are not you sir.

44:40

They are only the people who neglected Paul. That's your construction.

44:45

Show that to me from the text. Show that to me. You can't. You know you can't. Because the people who neglected

44:51

Paul weren't Trinitarians. They didn't say three. You've already contradicted yourself a number of times.

45:02

I think we've demonstrated that and gone about as far as we can on that. So thank you for the

45:07

Twitter conversation that we had. I was going to say that was like a little bit of a flashback to Letters to a

45:16

Mormon Elder but live. Sort of. You know you've got you. Letters to a

45:22

Muslim on Twitter or something like that. I do want to thank Optimus Tricepto. Whoever you are wherever you are.

45:27

The one thing I want you to hear me saying. I've got to stop with this because I've got other stuff to get to. If you haven't had the opportunity

45:36

I sort of got the feeling. I'm not sure from your initial tweet that you're not really familiar with my work and what we've done.

45:46

The disembodied voice you just heard through the window over there has been putting a lot of time into posting a lot of our debates on YouTube.

45:56

And as I said we just did a whole series of debates in South Africa where I debated Shabir Ali, Yusuf Ismail, Bashir Varnia and Yusuf Books.

46:07

Take the time to listen to some of them. Because at the very least and I know this isn't your real name but it's your nick

46:14

Optimus. At the very very least what I want you to hear is my heart. That I care about you.

46:21

That I care about the Muslim people. And that you may disagree with me but you haven't refuted my reading of the

46:29

Quran. I'm trying to honestly represent your sources. But not at the same time just going well whatever your school is

46:39

I'll accept what it has to say. I'm sorry I can't do that. And when you say well this isn't about you.

46:46

I'm sorry but it is. The people who were saying three in the days of Muhammad that's me.

46:55

That's me. We're not talking about some Nazarenes or Ebionites or anything like that. I think you've missed that one.

47:02

And I think you'd have a hard time proving your interpretation. Even from Al -Qurtubi or Ibn Kathir or Tafsir al -Jadalayan

47:14

Can you show me that even those early sources support your interpretation? I don't think so. So hopefully at least one thing how many

47:23

Christians have you encountered on Twitter and now on do we call this

47:29

Twitter tube? I'm not sure what this is. How many Christians have you encountered who know the

47:35

Quran who've read the Quran multiple times who know the sources have read the Hadith sources and have access to it's all in my library.

47:44

I could pick up that camera and take it into my library and show you actually I don't think the wire would be long enough but you know what I mean where I have those commentaries sitting on my shelves and I utilize them.

47:56

Let me make you an offer Go to the contact link at alman .org write in mention

48:05

I'm the guy that Dr. White dialogued with via Twitter on the dividing line give us a mailing address

48:13

I want to make sure that you at least have what every Christian should know about the Quran. You're not a

48:18

Christian but what I would ask you to do is read as a Muslim and ask yourself one simple question is this person seeking to truthfully engage with my faith and as long as you come to the conclusion he is.

48:32

Maybe you're wrong I disagree with him then I've demonstrated my concern for you in a proper way so do that.

48:40

Go to the contact list send in an email we will send you that book and we will not show up at your door we won't send missionaries over or anything else.

48:48

We'll just send you the book and if you want to have further conversation we can do that. Was there something else you wanted to add?

48:54

Since all this started about the Bart Ehrman debate one thing that is on my plate is to eventually,

49:02

I mean I haven't even gotten halfway through the list I'm ingesting so many videotapes, it's incredible I'm just digging them out of every corner

49:11

You're ingesting them? That could really cause some problems Well the computer is ingesting them, that's what it's called but one of the things

49:17

I plan on doing we don't have the rights to the Bart Ehrman debate. I want to reach out to American Vision and ask them to let me post it on YouTube in high quality

49:30

I think it's been out there long enough and let's go ahead and get it out there on YouTube That'd be good.

49:37

Hopefully they'll be willing to do that. Now really quickly since that took up most of the time he says

49:44

Al Jalalian that you have just mentioned is not even an authoritative text and we forbid reading it. Why forbid reading it?

49:52

This is one of the problems I have Why forbid reading it? It's still representative I mean there are all sorts of early church sources

50:00

There are early church writers Christian church writers, 1st, 2nd, 3rd century that I do not find orthodox at all

50:06

I don't forbid reading them because I want to know where people went wrong in the past This is where again

50:14

I would just like to suggest serious, there are some tremendous sources of information about the early years of Islam that most

50:23

Muslims will not even touch because they're told you can't think about that, you can't read that Is your faith so weak so shallow that you cannot recognize truth from error?

50:35

It really really concerns me really concerns me, really really does and you know what, there are

50:41

Christians who do the same thing Oh don't read those early church fathers they're just a bunch of heretics It's very very troubling but I need to get to one thing because we only have 6 minutes left before we run out of time here

50:56

Actually we started a little bit late but I just wanted to go for a regular length today because I've got a bunch of other things to do

51:03

I did want to respond really briefly to the Anderson thing I had had this up James White vocabulary fail when

51:14

I played the material from the Anderson interview

51:20

I was aware that he had just blogged an article attacking me and I'm stupid because I don't know the difference between middle

51:28

English or old English or whatever and all I was talking about it was in my response to Sam Gipp and what

51:36

I had said was rather simple and that is I do not believe we should put unnecessary barriers between someone and the word of God and every single one of the

51:47

King James translators would have agreed with me every single one of them this is a place where King James only as in many other places must stand against the very people who translated their own version in other words when they provided the scripture they were not seeking to make it more difficult for people to understand now

52:10

I do not fall into the camp of people who think that the creation that the best thing to do with the

52:17

New Testament is to translate it at second grade level it wasn't written at a second grade level may

52:22

I suggest we translate the New Testament at the level at which it was written how's that? not above it not below it it was meant to be understood the vocabulary of the

52:34

Greek New Testament is meant to be understood by the person who would hear that being read in the congregation of the

52:40

Christians how about we translate at the same place so I'm not into the

52:46

I do not even call it the New Living Translation it's not a translation, it's still a paraphrase if the

52:54

New Testament is at level 10 and you provide a translation that's at level 5 what happened to all the information between 5 and 10?

53:02

it's gone there are simplified translations of the New Testament that I could never defend certain doctrines of faith from because the specificity of the language itself is gone, it's just not there so I'm not saying anything about that at all, but what

53:17

I am saying is that there is a whole list and I went through some of them a whole list of words in the

53:24

King James Version of the Bible that no one uses anymore except for two guys in our chat channel who play

53:30

Lexilis all the time they are the only two who continue to use any of those words and so you try to hand that Bible to somebody, you try to preach from that and you're always going to have to be saying now this word actually means this and it hasn't been used for 200 years but hey that's okay and you're putting a stumbling block in the path of people because you hand them that Bible they go home, they want to read it and they've got to sit there with Webster's on a bridge next to them to be able to figure out what in the world it's talking about I do not believe the

54:00

King James translators intended it to be that way there's no way any of them thought that 400 years later this would be an issue and that's not how they translate it so he's going well he's really stupid because he just can't look things up in a dictionary, but what was fascinating for me is

54:18

I had this queued up too, I just didn't get to it I had this queued up too did y 'all catch this during the discussion of the hell discussion, the 16 minute hell discussion

54:29

I played for you last time do you remember when he said this listen to what Anderson said to me in trying to defend the inaccurate translation of the

54:41

King James where it uses just one English word, hell to translate two different words that had different meanings in the context in which they were originally written he knows that this is the case, but his

54:54

King James only -ism causes him to basically make this a new revelation from God this is where the cultic aspect of King James only -ism comes in but listen to one of his objections and see if it doesn't show you the tremendous inconsistency of Pastor Anderson at this point wouldn't it be more appropriate for me to say if you don't get saved, you could wake up tomorrow morning in hell, and then they would actually understand

55:21

English instead of me using a word in a foreign language that they don't understand. I mean, if we don't speak in words that are easy to be understood, we speak into the air

55:29

I like this program I mean, if we don't speak in words that are easy to be understood we speak into the air

55:36

I mean, if we don't speak in words that are easy to be understood we speak into the air there you go isn't that about as obvious a contradiction as you can get?

55:50

to post these words are fine you're just stupid if you don't know what kohler means or whatever else just look it up in a dictionary well, they could look up Hades and Gehenna in a dictionary too so what?

56:06

which is it going to be? I think I'm the consistent one saying, well, if we follow the

56:12

King James translator's own intentions then we are going to give them the word of God in a language they can understand without having to stop every few verses and look something up in a dictionary that goes back 400 years in the history of the language alright?

56:28

and secondly, we're going to hold those translators to consistency in the rendering of the original languages and that it's the meaning of the original language that should determine the

56:39

English usage not the other way around and so if there was a difference in the apostles' understanding of Hades and Gehenna then it needs to be a part of our understanding too and to just wipe those things out and then use that as a basis of turning

56:55

Jesus into a burnt offering in hell wow there's a there's a good example of the cultic aspect of King James onlyism, and by the way

57:09

I haven't heard back from him yet but no, I don't need to play it again

57:15

I haven't heard back from him but after the program on Tuesday I got a note from the young man who was here and did most of the videotaping and he's actually from California and he let me know that they are going to put out the entire conversation, which is great,

57:34

I think it's wonderful put it out there, you know use a different camera angle so it's not boring and stuff that'd be fine, as long as it's all there from where we got started to when

57:44

I said, okay that's enough of that put it all out there, we'll link to it I think it'll be very interesting for people to watch it that'll be great, that'll be fun, and you will see that I bend over backwards to seek to be hospitable and kind to Pastor Anderson but, so he wrote to me to let me know first of all, that the trailer

58:06

I played is not the official trailer the official trailer is identical, but with different background music that's the only difference

58:13

I could find was different background music as far as the actual video and what was said, identical so I said, so whose idea was it to put this quote of me in there, which clearly is meant to communicate something that was inaccurate

58:27

I mean, this came at the end of a three hour interview and it came at the end of a 16 minute discussion on this particular subject after we had said we needed to wrap up all the rest of this stuff, we had beaten the subject to death why put this in there?

58:40

because it's had the result that clearly was intended, his followers like, ah, you beat him up, ah, he ran away and la la la la la there's dishonesty here so, who decided to put that in there?

58:54

and that was always a part of a couple different questions you keep answering all the other questions finally it got down to that last question and I wrote back to him on Thursday or Friday of last week

59:06

I said, okay, we've cleared everything else up, one last question that I've been asking multiple times now you know what the context of my saying we're done here was you were in the room who chose to put it in the trailer in a dishonest fashion and while I had gotten,

59:27

I'd get answers within an hour or two I haven't heard a word since then not a word so I've been being patient got a weekend, could be traveling could be busy but now it's

59:41

Tuesday and I still haven't heard a word so I think if I remember to, I'm gonna put, you know, second attempt resend this email message title of my book?

59:53

what? oh, oh, yeah well, okay, they got the title of the book controversy

59:59

I'm sure they'll fix that, I hope they'll fix that but the real question is alright, guys

01:00:07

I've provided the information you know what the context was you were here, so do I clear dishonesty here who's responsible?

01:00:16

Crickets that's the way it is well anyways, I had other stuff I was gonna get to I was gonna get to some new

01:00:24

Mormonism resources we'll talk about that later on and I even left a message saying

01:00:29

I was gonna respond to why Sola Scriptura honestly scares me, we'll get to that oh Lord willing on Friday via Skype maybe, hopefully cause

01:00:38

I'll be down in Tucson, I will be down in Tucson I will be speaking Thursday evening in Tucson and then

01:00:43

Saturday night and Sunday morning in Tucson, Faith Community Church so if you're down in the Tucson area be glad to see you then, thanks for listening to Dividing Line, we'll see you next time,