More of the Beckwith/Rome situation

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence

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Our host is dr. James white director of alpha the mega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reform to Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.

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If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the

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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.

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Here is James white That is indeed our live studio telephone number last time until the 29th of May so This is your opportunity eight seven seven seven five three three three four one for all of the many many people who are just absolutely convinced about how

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Uncharitable I am and how inaccurate and all the misrepresentations now is your opportunity a live audience listening as you demonstrate with great erudition and Documentation all of the errors of that silly bald man who gains a hundred pounds just to intimidate his his opponents just Man I tell ya the silliness that masquerades under under the guise of apologetics out there

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I I'm sorry You're a bodybuilder too.

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Well, I was but I didn't gain a hundred pounds. Sorry folks Not not and just to intimidate people too.

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Yeah, that's that's the only reason I did that but Anyways you and Arnie when you stand next to oh, man,

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I'll tell you yeah Hey, oh My there's there's some interesting interesting stuff out there

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But especially the great day of prayer and fasting tomorrow for for my conversion

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I wonder when the Mormons are gonna do that and the I don't think Jehovah's Witnesses do prayer And The Muslims just do it a different way, so I'm not sure how that's gonna work, but oh goodness

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Well, anyway, the sad thing is the majority of people on the Catholic answers forums Don't even know that I deal with those other groups

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So, you know, they just think I sit around all day, you know throwing darts at pictures of the Pope or something

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It's you know, and if someone if someone said that they'd probably go he does. Oh, that's terrible

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But I must believe it. It's it's just it's just amazing But anyway, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

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Frank Beckwith has done an interview with Christianity today I'm not sure how they work this one out and I Saw someplace else this morning a statement from him saying hey, don't don't take that interview as the final word

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I'm gonna write a book on why I Convert to Rome. Yeah, I'm sure you are and Ignatius, but you know, the sad thing is

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Erdman's will publish it you I mean you bet Erdman's Baker it doesn't matter somebody, you know, so they'll go.

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Oh, hey, no problem Frank. We'll do that. We'll put that up for you and Here's here's one paragraph

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I still consider myself an evangelical but no longer Protestant I And so in other words, we're yeah, we're yeah the term evangelical

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I have I not said for a couple years now It's it's it's like saying I'm a human.

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That's how that's the descriptive power of the term evangelical is has been diluted down to the point where Whether you're a

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Roman Catholic Mormon, I mean look at what's going on Mormonism. I mean I was mentioning today

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I was listening to Rush Limbaugh's listening to Sean Hannity and You know

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Stop talking about Romney's religion. It's irrelevant. They're just different kind of Christians, you know, there's just a slight little theological difference

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Yeah, it's called the difference between monotheism and polytheism

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Oh my but the level of discernment even amongst, you know Conservative Obviously being a political conservative does not have any impact whatsoever on your spiritual status and so, you know if you can't even tell the difference and you get shouted down in our society for saying excuse me, but Mormons Believe that God is an exalted man from the planet lives on a on a planet that circles starting

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Kolob okay, and he has many wives and we are his spiritual offspring and and He himself was once a man and there are many gods before him and this is the most polytheistic religion

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I've ever heard of and oh, come on. They're just Christians You know this kind of this kind of thing you just go

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Okay, well Discernment isn't doing real well these days on any level in our society.

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It's just it's amazing I'm waiting for somebody to call in and You know ask these guys would you vote for somebody who thinks that they can become a god?

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Yeah, well, but you're not allowed that you're not allowed to ask those questions because he's a nice guy Conservative and and you're just you're doing what they did to Kennedy about the

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Pope and stuff like that. Well, you know Okay, I can see a parallel the difference being that At least

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Roman Catholics aren't polytheists and can we at least talk about it? Can we wasn't it not valid to talk about?

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If someone has a higher Fealty to a religious system than to the

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Constitution. I think shouldn't you know that I mean, let's just be open about it Okay, you know, but we can't do that.

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No, we're just being mean. Yes, you know, and it's like well, you know at least Explain to these guys

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What the difference is and why we think there's a day and they don't seem to know I mean, I heard rush talk about it clueless.

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They just think you know, I think there are some differences don't really know much Didn't they run some movie the other night about, you know

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Mountain Meadows massacre Mormons killed a bunch of people a long long time ago and how does that?

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Why isn't there polygamists and that's the only thing there is and it's like no. Yeah, I know

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Anyway, but how did I jump over that one? Oh, it did the complete elasticity of the term evangelical

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It now I guess Would there be anybody who would really have would it we really freak out if you start calling

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Mormons evangelicals? I mean Erdman's is publishing books by BYU professors. And so, you know, that's why

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I use the term post evangelical we are past the point where evangelical has any meaning to it any longer and hence, we should probably you know abandon the use of the term, but Anyways, I still consider myself an evangelical but no longer

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Protestant I do think I have a better understanding of what sometimes the Catholic Church is trying to convey now

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I stop a minute and go trying to convey isn't this the infallible church

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Isn't this the the the very mechanism that you need to interpret the Bible and and it's sometimes

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Trying to convey that's you know, I I have been listening to Roman Catholic apologists for 20 years now

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Trying to to make their argument that you can't interpret the Bible without the inspired

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God ordained interpreter. I don't don't recall them using the trying to convey argument

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Very very much. But anyway then he says Protestants often misunderstand.

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Well, you know what Protestants often do misunderstand. No question about it. I'm not sure what that means

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Does that mean that there are no Protestants who understand Or is it just simply a statement that there are misconceptions in the basis of Protestants?

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Well, there are were you is dr. Beck was saying that he was one of them that had Misconceptions about what we're not we're not told here's here's where it gets interesting.

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The issue of justification was key for me. Okay The Catholic Church frames the

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Christian life is one in which you must exercise virtue Not because virtue saves you but because that's the way

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God's grace gets manifested as An evangelical even when I talked about sanctification and wanted to practice it

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It seemed as if I didn't have a good enough incentive to do so Now there's a kind of theological framework and it doesn't say my salvation depends on me

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But it says but my virtue counts for something It's important to allow the grace of God to be exercised through the through your actions the evangelical

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Emphasis on the moral life forms my Catholic practice with an added incentive That was liberating to me

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Now, what does that mean? I don't know I don't know. I think it's somewhat illuminated by the next paragraph

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Some of the people have been critical say you've gone into the oppressive works system of Catholicism, that's probably

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Somewhat a reference to me. I certainly have talked about the endless sacramental system and things like that's not the way

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I look at it At all. I look at it as a chance to do good My own work apart from God's grace doesn't matter for my salvation.

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What matters is a sort of person I become by allowing God's grace to work through my obeying his commandments and taking the sacraments

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Unfortunately, the view of justification is sometimes presented clumsily by some Catholic laypeople

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Now again, I have a feeling that we're going to be dwelling in the the honey in middle ground here

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I I'm pretty certain that this is what's being advocated here, but but I Look at it as a chance to do good

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My own work apart from God's grace doesn't matter for my salvation now, of course

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Council of Trent anathematized anyone who would say you can be saved apart from grace They anathematized anyone who would say you can be saved apart from grace and I ever since this program started

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Well, no since 19 87 so about 20 years

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I've been repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again and Obviously we have a small audience and therefore the message is still not getting through to folks

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So we have to repeat it over and over again because people need to understand this the

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The issue has never ever ever been the necessity of God's grace.

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I mean people hear what dr Beckwith says there when it says my own work apart from God's grace doesn't matter for my salvation

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What matters is the sort of person I become by allowing God's grace to work through my obeying his commandments and taking the sacraments

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And they go. Oh look He believes in the necessity of grace See, I know

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Roman Catholic apologists who emphasize their belief in sola gratia

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Grace alone even my obedience is prompted by grace and and the grace of the sacraments and and And I've seen so many

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Quote unquote evangelicals go. Oh, man. I didn't I didn't know that I just I thought

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Roman Catholics just believed you just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps I thought they were just a bunch of Pelagians if they have any idea what

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Pelagian ism is but That's never been the case anyone who can think that has ever been the case has never ever ever

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Read almost anything from the time of the Reformation. They haven't read Calvin. They haven't read Luther. They haven't read any the

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Plemics They haven't read Calvin's response to Saddletto or Saddletto's letter and none of that stuff.

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They just don't have any Concept of what the Reformation was about The issue is not the necessity of grace even the

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Mormons say you've got to have grace Even the Book of Mormon says that that you know grace meets you when you put out complete effort

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Of course, no one puts out a complete effort So it's still a mission impossible salvation plan But you still got to have grace the

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Mormons talk about grace and the Catholic everybody talks about grace unless you're just a full -blown Pelagian and aren't too many of them running around That's never been the issue it will never be the issue

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The dividing line to utilize the name of our own program the dividing line is

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Not the necessity of grace. It is the sufficiency of grace and That's where what dr.

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Beckwith just said clearly places him firmly against the Reformation and firmly in denial of now you see the thing is

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I Don't have any evidence that dr. Beckwith has ever believed in the sufficiency of grace so if he at 14 left the

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Roman Catholic Communion But went into a form of quote -unquote Protestantism that itself did not believe in the sufficiency of grace that on this matter

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He actually hasn't made any move He actually hasn't made any move.

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I mean we really need to start thinking along these lines folks because Remember the first questions that I asked the very first thing

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I said to Dave Hunt when we had our debate on KPXQ years and years ago I said hey Dave you and I we've debated more

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Roman Catholics and probably any of the two people living today and Yet when it comes to the grace of God and the will of man and if you didn't hear the grace of God and the will of man and what

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I just read in that paragraph and Beckwith then your Your your tuning fork needs to be adjusted you're not hearing where the key issues are here

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I Said in reference to the grace of God and the will of man You would agree with Rome against the

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Reformers, and that's when we got the well James I've never read the

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Reformers. I just want to go with the Bible blah blah blah stuff and and You know we know it became of that, but that is the dividing line

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That was the dividing line then now that line has moved way over into Protestantism and what's called

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Protestantism But it's still the dividing line. It hasn't changed the issue is a sufficiency of grace can

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God save a sinner by himself to his own glory or Has God designed?

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this work called the gospel This thing called the gospel in such a way that the only way that it works is synergistically so that Man has to cooperate and and then

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God gets the glory because man utilized the grace and so on and so forth is that how? it works

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That's the dividing line the reformers said no God's grace is sufficient it is necessary and Sufficient and Rome says it is necessary, but not sufficient in of itself there has to be these other things and So when someone says you know my own work apart from God's grace doesn't matter for my salvation people go

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Oh, that's wonderful but the real question is that to be asked is is God's grace sufficient in of itself for your salvation and Evidently and when he starts talking about my obeying his commandments and taking the sacraments dr.

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Beckwith Is a good Roman Catholic now? But was he ever anything other than that is the question that I would ask

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I Don't know. I don't know I his writings are not really in that area and So I don't know

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I can't answer that question And I you know can someone point me to Published works where he affirmed the sufficiency of grace that God can save perfectly

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Without human cooperation or that I guess the better way to put that is that God's work of salvation produces that human cooperation, but it's not some secondary thing that's upon which the entire work of God is dependent

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I Don't know. I don't know where he was I don't get the feeling because as he himself says his work has always been

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Catholic friendly Has always been friendly toward Catholic theology and things like that and and that's a fundamental difference whether you believe in a sacramental grace mediated through this grace mediated through the sacraments and you know the repetitious sacrifice the mass that perfects no one and and all the rest of these things and so When he says unfortunately the view of justification is sometimes presented clumsily by some

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Catholic laypeople well, yeah but What I keep hearing these these caveats the this wiggle room being created

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And so I'm really wondering what's coming You know is is this gonna be a tridentine doctrine of justification or we're gonna we could try to go with some

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You know more ecumenical Modern you know he mentions the the accord on justification, but that's not dogmatic

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That's not from an ecumenical council So are we going into the more wishy -washy

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You know scholarly Roman Catholicism that redefines all the terms in a way that that's totally different than they've been defined in the past I don't know

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We will just we will just have to see But there was another line down here.

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I just my eyes just fell upon I want to mention it Much of Christian theology that was soon to be true key doctrines such as the

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Trinity and the Deity of Christ were Thought out quite a while ago through rigorous arguments and analysis and debate well actually they were a whole lot different than that I was listening today, and I need to I need to blog this

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I Was listening today to a friend of mine Nick Needham and his lectures on Athanasius Dr..

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Needham I quoted him on the blog recently, and he has some great lectures on The wicket gate wicket gate not wicked wicked gate website

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And I was listening to his lectures on Athanasius this morning. Well getting in about a 30 mile ride and I Even got quoted.

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I was I almost fell off my bike I was one of the last people he he caused like hey cool And he said

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I'd been there about a month ago, so at least gives me some idea of Up and he's up in Inverness, but anyway

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He was talking about Athanasius and of course Athanasius just this wonderful example I mean talk about the Deity of Christ and the

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Trinity and the issues surrounding Athanasius is key in those situations and of course He did an excellent job in narrating

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The events of the Aryan ascendancy it took place after the Council of Nicaea, and I could not help but Think how many times how many of the events that took place?

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During the the period of time from 325 to say 380 385 so many things took place there that are so utterly opposed to the

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Roman Catholic concept of ecclesiology and ecumenical councils and their authority and issues like that but He was he was talking about how the

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Aryans once again You know took over power and how the Nicene faith had to fight for itself And it wasn't because you know well the church has decided these things well

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That's just not how anybody thought back then and yet so many Roman Catholics today

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That's exactly how they do think is it well You know once Nicaea spoke you know and the

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Pope ratified it. That was it right well. No that wasn't it And that just shows that they didn't think the way that modern

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Roman Catholics think today But the Trinity and the Deity of Christ are biblical doctrines he he says

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Right here. He says Look you're not going to come up with the Nicene Creed by just picking up the

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Bible well If by what he means by that is that the

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Nicene Creed grew out of a historical situation and the need to utilize specific language the homoousian clause to be able to identify

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Aryans and To reject their infiltration of the church if that's what he means which

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I don't think is what he means But that would be the only way that I could take that statement and make any sense out of it but if what he means by that is that the

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Nicene Creed is a is a further revelation that it is a It has authority beyond that of Scripture or if he's saying that you

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Cannot demonstrate the doctrine the Trinity from the Scripture without the infallible church and all the rest that type of stuff

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That's as people who know me well knows that's one of my truly pet peeves

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If you want to hear I think one of the most blasphemous statements ever made. I Blogged it recently with one of the videos when

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Jerry Madetich Said that we have the exact same warrant and authority for the

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Our belief in the bodily assumption of Mary that we have for the resurrection of Christ because both are simply dependent upon the church and When I hear people going there,

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I I just it's hard for me to control myself because to even suggest even suggest that the biblical foundations of such unbiblical a historical

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Man -made concepts as the Marian dogmas or papal infallibility and things like that are in any way equal to or even similar to the biblical evidence for the divine

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Truth of who God is the doctrine of the Trinity the person of deed the deity of Christ person deed of the

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Holy Spirit. Oh I would never want to have to stand before a holy

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God and defend such utter Blasphemy is that oh my goodness

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God just has to turn you over For you to be able to say something like oh my goodness.

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That's just hmm. And so you know,

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I I certainly hope that's not what's being being said there, but It says evangelicals kid themselves when they believe they can reinvent the wheel with every generation that you have to produce another spade of systematic

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Theology textbooks to teach people the stuff that has already been articulated for generations. Well again, I don't know who these evangelicals are

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But I remember specifically Well, it's in the

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Roman Catholic controversy. It's in scripture alone but the reinventing the wheel argument is is one of the things that I I refute in every time every time that I speak or write on the subject of Sola Scriptura and that comes straight out of you know

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Mark Shea and Steve Ray and these guys that repeat that kind of thing all the time So it will be interesting to see it'll be very very interesting to see what comes out 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1

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I've made numerous statements about Roman Catholicism so far and If I'm to believe a tenth of what

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I read about myself on the web Then 90 % of what I've said has to be completely fallacious and I'm just not sure why some of these folks, you know

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Some of them are attorneys. Why aren't they on the line right now? Just demonstrating that everything I've said is wrong and and that's this isn't what the

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Roman Catholic Church teaches and the church doesn't teach that That the mass is a representation the sacrifice of Christ and and You know,

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I wonder why that that phone is is my interface working here. I see idle idle.

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I all the way down I mean, okay checking There's a lot of folks that are

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Really brave behind keyboards, but when it comes to an opportunity of demonstrating that don't know what

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I'm talking about We don't don't get any any phone calls. Hmm Ah, very very odd, but anyway, so that's oh and by the way

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One other thing here. Let me refresh this screen to see if there's been any additions since I since I last took a look at it no, it doesn't look like there has been there is a

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Day of fasting for my conversion Roman Catholicism tomorrow. I've been looking at the at the thread at Catholic answers and There's this one fellow and I had posted a posted this number on on his blog a couple of days ago and he uses the name

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Montana man on the Catholic answers forums and He says but I can understand why it's reaction aside from the problem of his

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Titanic ego This thread is provocative a neural person would probably take it as condescending still all in all

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Jw just as the perception of arrogance when he feels need to address every comment about him on the internet.

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Well if I try To address every comment about me on the internet,

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I would never sleep nor eat Because you know again each one of these groups thinks that they are the center of the universe

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You know that they are the only ones that that we're dealing with I'm spending most of my time on Islam right now sometimes, you know,

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I get drawn into a textual critical issue and sometimes it's a you know, Jehovah's Witness issue and and I'm writing a review about About a

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Mormon book on Islam for the CRI Journal and I'm teaching through the synoptic

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Gospels Church, and I just don't I'm not one of those folks who lives in one

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Topic in one area all the time, but these folks really seem to think that's it and You know the only the only thing that's uh, you know,

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I've got this Google home page now That I go to and I've got Google my

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I'm now using the Google RSS reader gotta admit It's the best thing I've ever went into I can use it on my on my

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BlackBerry and it's really really nice I mean it it works. Well, let's face it when something works like that That's what you're gonna use and I put a little widget thingy or whatever you call them on the home page

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That uses the Google blog search thing for my name just so I see stuff come up and it gets all sorts of weird stuff

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That's not at all relevant to me, but it also does a pretty good job Catching stuff and a bunch of folks just all angry at me because I dared to I Dared To ask some simple questions on a blog.

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I didn't even look at who had written it. I just look at what was said It was completely unfair.

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It was completely biased. It was completely prejudiced. I just asked some questions Well, it was a girl and she's young and you're mean it's like, you know, if I had been mean to her

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That would be one thing but I asked Simple factual questions if you're gonna put stuff on the internet and use people's names, they're gonna find it

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You know Google is everywhere. It's uh, it's the beginning of Skynet They they just miss

28:18

Skynet a little bit. It's gonna be Google net or something like that That's eventually going to yeah, I get yeah,

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I get hits on the the basketball player I I've seen stuff about how I can I can dunk a ball better than anybody else

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Like that and I'm like, you know, I don't think so I my verticals is about that of a credit card, but on its side, but anyway

28:40

It's yeah white men can't jump well I can actually I've got very strong calves so I can jump a little bit

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But that's that's as far as that goes anyhow, I Not not getting very far on that one.

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I I do have believe it or not I have the Shabir Ali stuff queued up and so we'll we'll be going to that in just a moment but first we actually have gotten a

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A Phone call. We'll see if we can we can handle this question.

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Let's is that raise Rozzy, it's race race.

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Okay. Yeah, my my father was a big Johnny Quest fan And I guess there's an individual on there that I was named after so really

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I don't I remember seeing that But I don't remember anyone named race, but hey, you know what?

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I was I was pretty young So what can we do for you race? Well, I I'm a longtime listener I really appreciate you taking my call and and I don't anticipate any

29:38

Catholics calling in so I don't oh, come on They're just having problem with the long number at the moment.

29:45

I guess it's it's not an 800 number. So they're a little frayed It's really not toll -free. It is toll -free folks. It really is

29:51

Anyway, but my question is I'm doing a study on divorce and remarriage and one of my questions is based on Jesus is teaching in Matt Matthew chapter 19.

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Mm -hmm and in verse 7 I came across the booklet and it was highlighting

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It was basically saying that the Greek in Matthew 19 7 the words that are used for divorce they

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Apostate CEO and up a loose thigh. Mm -hmm Basically the argument says well, he uses divorce and send her away in seven, but then when you get to eight

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This gentleman's argument was the King James mistranslated 1908 and instead of using

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What was translated as the divorce in 1907 it used up a loose eye, which means to send away

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So basically the argument centered around the idea that it's not actually talking about divorced but actually sending someone away and why it's a why it's wrong for them or why it's adultery for them to Basically Have It's reason.

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It's adultery is because they were never divorced because that's not what the term is insinuating. It's actually insinuating

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Sending her away Okay, well Haven't ever

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I don't claim any particular expertise in in this particular field. That is the divorce and remarriage issue, but The the first term that is that is used with is translated as certificate of divorce is a very specific term

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Oppa loose eye is in a verbal form It's a infinitive and aorist infinitive.

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And so in the in the next verse when it says permitted you that term permitted is very frequently followed by a

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An infinitive and so it'd be more natural to use the infinitival form up a loose eye

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It just flows naturally when it says because the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to Oppa loose eye toss gunai costs who moaned to Release or divorce your wives a new

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American standard says says divorce let me see here the ESV says divorce and So that that seems to be standard standard translation

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You'd have to come up with a means of demonstrating that in verse 7 that There is that the oppa loose eye there

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Has a different meaning than divorce and that and that I don't think you you can come up with that kind of a defense

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And it just seems much more natural in in verse 8 To use the infinite the infinitive there than to say

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Because the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to I guess write a certificate of divorce or just repeat what you had

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Just said earlier You know I Outside of that.

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I don't know what other commentary I could provide to you because it's not something that I've that I've spent any time on I couldn't even find any argumentation

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I mean it was never anything that any other commentary even brought up As far as an argumentation and like I said this this booklet that I was reading it just said

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Because there was there was two different words used in and seven One for divorce and the other one for send away

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Yes That's just assuming that that because it says give her a certificate of divorce

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Which was a written thing and to send her away which would mean the separation that somehow those are two different things and they're not

33:47

Referring that that's where the assumptions could I just ask who the author is his name is

33:52

Denny Coburn I don't know. I've never heard of him. Yeah, no doesn't been ringing bells I thought I might but yeah, that's that's where That's the problematic aspect of it right there

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Is it sort of assuming its own conclusion at that at that particular point as far as I can look at it? But I'm not one of those folks that claims to be an expert on all all things

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And I would have to do a whole lot more looking at it to give you much more Much more information than that okay, right by the way.

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We did we did find out race Bannon is the is the fellow he

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Yeah, Roger race Bannon the white haired guy on on Johnny quest there you go My life

34:32

Well you should it was I recall it wasn't too bad of a program, so well, thank you very much.

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Thanks race Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number for the program today and have plenty of lines open for all of you who'd like to you know stand behind your words, but How many times we've done this in the past and it's out there staring at those phone lines, and they are just really quiet all right, let's

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Move on then though you can call any time. You know if you're just just getting up the courage

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You know we're gonna be on for another 25 minutes, but well if you call 24 minutes from now if you're missing things, but Go back to something that we had actually begun quite some time ago, and that is

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I was playing a debate that took place in the year 2004

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Between Mike Laicona and Shabbir Ali this took place up at Regent University and Virginia Beach, Virginia and We were listening to Shabbir Ali's presentation

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I Honestly Lost where I put the date at the point in time where I was

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I don't know where it went I Saved it in a program somewhere, and we'll find it

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You know a few weeks from now or you know a few years from now find this odd note in a text somewhere It says

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Shabbir Ali Regent 30 dot dot dot dot you know that's Works, so I'm gonna pick it up sort of here

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It's toward the end of his presentation, and then we're gonna go into the Q &A section where they're actually going back and forth and What had happened is you may recall?

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I took some time to look at some some common objections that really dovetail right in with what

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Shabbir Ali is saying I played some of that on the program and now we go back to Shabbir Ali's comments and every single bone of it

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But if we take just the narratives the way they are given in the text One would not be sure that Jesus actually died on the cross

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The second Point that I wanted to make about this is that in reading the narratives

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I could not be persuaded that they actually saw Jesus back from the dead

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Now of course when you read the narratives today You see that there are many including the gospel according to John in which there are at least three

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But when you comb back past through these narratives and you look at the evolution of the text over time

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You realize that the later Gospels are improving the story for you So in Mark's gospel you do not have any actual narrative showing that Jesus reappeared to his disciples

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Except in an ending which is known today to not be originally from Mark. It's a later addition into his gospel

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Now that of course came up in our debate in Biola last year in regards to Mark 16 9 through 20 and Don't you find it's so very strange that Mark's gospel ends in this way, but you know when you think about it

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I've given some thought to that since then and it's it is interesting in light of a book.

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I've recommended to your your reading entitled Jesus and the eyewitnesses by Richard Balcom who

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Develops very fully sometimes more fully than most people can read I think but develops very fully the idea that There is a fundamental flaw in the very common view that people have in New Testament studies today that you basically have the ministry of Jesus and then you have this these decades of silence and then you have the

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Gospels cropping up, you know decades down the road and The the flaw that is not being understood is that Christians weren't just sitting around doing nothing

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There was continuous preaching and within that context you had the eyewitnesses the eyewitnesses are

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Continuing their proclamation therefore the idea that there's this massive amount of redaction evolution creation change

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Would fly in the face of the continuing presence of the eyewitnesses and I find it interesting

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To note that I would I don't believe that a a Muslim would be able to argue very consistently against Balcom's thesis because in essence they are dependent upon the very same kind of concept in their own theology in that the

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The Qura the the readers the those who had memorized the the Quran orally

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Were Very very important in the in the protection of that text and the transmission of that text up to the

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Uthmanic revision So they couldn't possibly argue that eyewitnesses are not tremendously important they are and yet This is missing in in Shabir as well.

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You know, you've got they're improving and so on So well if they were improving in the sense of changing something and the eyewitnesses

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That what what they produced would then contradict what the eyewitnesses themselves said see and so this idea

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That you have this silent period and there's all this development and evolution going on all the rest of stuff

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Just flies in the face of reality and and truth itself, but but it's the presentation is being made

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Then you go to the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke and you can see that right before your eyes The stories are being improved and that tells us that over time as the stories were told and retold

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They took on certain improvements So that right there the stories are told and retold this idea of an oral tradition that gets warped and changed over time is

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Contradictory to the fact that you have eyewitnesses in the Apostolic Church up the point of inscripturation

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You have to get rid of them for this to work No matter how popular it might be to present things in this way to become what they are now

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So now when we think about what happened we can be quite conceit We can be quite

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Convinced that Jesus died because we're reading them all together putting them all together in our minds When we read the

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Gospels about the reappearance of Jesus from the dead We are reading all of them together and thinking that all of these details are true

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But what scholars have noted is that in fact these stories have evolved over time So if you have for example in Luke's gospel

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Jesus appearing to his 12 disciples Or rather 11 because the one had betrayed him on the day of Easter John has the dramatic reappearance of Jesus a week later

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So that he can appear to Thomas and the doubting Thomas can verify that Jesus is here for real

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But in order for John to do that, he had to make Thomas empty Absent on the first occasion so that whereas Luke has him appearing to all of his disciples the 11

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John says Thomas was absent So see the assumptions that are being made the assumption that is of course being made by Shabir here is that well, it was

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Luke's intention to give us an Absolutely exhaustive account of every meeting.

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Well, of course, but Luke doesn't even try to do that So I'm not sure why I would assume that oh I would assume that because I'm using critical scholarship that assumes the errors of these things and That's not the kind of critical scholarship.

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He uses when he looks at the Quran So there's a contradiction there, but yeah, that's sort of how it looks and that's one of the what the phone call

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I guess we have right now is about is Shabir's use of sources So let's sneak it in there as we continue.

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Let's talk with Johnny. Hi, Johnny Hey, how you doing doing good good good I was calling because in liberal scholars and I do remember you mentioning that liberal scholars tend to have a

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Smaller canon of Paul's corpus. Yes Seven books or something like that So makes me wonder because our first Timothy chapter 5 verse

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I believe 18 makes a direct quotation to Luke chapter 10 verse 7 where it says that a employee is worth his wages something like that and If it's

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Pauline or do they if they accept it? No, this is because I don't know as being from the time of Paul Would that not prove that Luke's gospel is much earlier than what they are suggesting

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Excellent excellent question Let me make I'm afraid most folks may not have followed it

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So let me let me lay it out for folks at first in the 518 With the scripture says you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing which is a citation from Deuteronomy 25

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But then the the laborer is worthy of his wages is actually found in in Luke chapter 10 and so the the point being that the individual making the arguments that Shabir Ali is making might be challenged by the fact that well if if first Timothy 5 is

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Pauline and This is making reference to Luke then you can't put

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Luke way back in the 70s or 80s because Paul's already croaked by then Okay, he's dead

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His death is normally placed within the context of somewhere around the very beginning of the seventh decade that is the early 60s and so if that's the case then

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Luke would have to Pre -exist that well a couple things before I address what the

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Liberals would say at that point from our own perspective a conservative perspective

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Some might say and in fact, I think we would have to consider the fact that that Luke utilizes sources and That what this would you could understand this to mean is that Paul doesn't necessarily have the entire

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Lucan corpus in front of him But that Luke has been gathering these things together and Paul would have a knowledge of everything that Luke has now that doesn't really change the argument any because that still means that Luke is doing his collation and is

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Things like that during Paul's life and I think that's an important point to make is that I think there's really good reason to believe that Luke acts is written by Luke as sort of an amicus brief a

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Documentation of the fact that this religion that Paul is is being accused of Presenting in the

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Roman Empire that is opposed to Caesar and opposed the Roman the Roman government Isn't that and here's the documentation.

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Here's the story of who this Jesus was. Here's what Paul has done Here's what the early church is and the only reason that Luke would ever have to write that is before Paul's death

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That's still no matter what puts Luke Doing this work in the 6th century within 30 years of the events themselves

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And that is obviously during the period of time when the eyewitnesses Which is the very term that Luke uses in Luke chapter 1 are still alive

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Yeah, this is yeah, exactly the end of the 50s So, you know 25 30 years the most because you know if you if Paul's arrested, you know around the 60s somewhere in there

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Then you're talking 30 27 years around in that in that time period

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Now what the liberal is going to say which you can probably guess is that no first second

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Timothy Colossians Ephesians, these are not Pauline they are much later 70s and 80s and So they can reflect a knowledge of 70s and 80s materials

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That would be in Luke and hence they would say oh, no. No, this is this is much later.

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They can't give any document Documentation it's all theoretical based upon certain paradigms

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But yeah, they would reject the the Pauline authorship and I'm pretty certain that Shabir would say well scholars say

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You know, that's that's his modus operandi You can find a scholar somewhere who has said anything about anything in the

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New Testament Whether that scholar is consistent or whether that scholar is, you know, really meaningful at all doesn't doesn't matter

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I mean we saw that when when Shabir tried to make the Gospel of Thomas earlier than the Gospel of Mark You know find one

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Massive leftist liberal woman at Boston College and now scholars have said that see Well serious that that's where she's from.

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That's you know, you looked up the up the source and that's where it came from. So I'm pretty certain that he would raise the the issue that well, you know

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We don't know that first second Timothy is actually Pauline's we can't really date it blah blah blah in that way.

47:33

Yeah, most definitely James by the way I just want to ask you because I listened that you had had played a clip of the debate between William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman and I haven't been able to find the audio

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Do you know what website I can go to to get it? It was sent to me. And so I do not know

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I would imagine if you go to William Lane Craig's website, it's got you've got to get it through William I do know this much you have to get through William Lane Craig because as far as I can tell

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Ehrman isn't making it available for some reason. I've heard that there were some issues But go to William Lane Craig's a home home page and you should be able to pull it up from there

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Okay, thanks Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one still time there's still time out there for for all my my

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Roman Catholic friends to provide all that documentation that just must be so easily obtained because I I I'm deceived so many people and and We'll go from there

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But tell tell those phone calls start flooding in which I'm sure they will we we go back to to the debate

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This leaves the opening for Jesus to come back a week later and appear to the doubting Thomas So when we read the stories we see them that the gospel writers themselves have improved the stories

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And if we are or if we assume a certain paradigm We assume a certain background then we can squish the

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Gospels into our into our paradigm in our background and make them that way to peel back the improvements and Study the text historically

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We could not be convinced that Jesus actually died on the cross and Also reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form those historians who agree that he died are agreeing

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Historians would normally agree with if somebody lived 2 ,000 years ago and is no longer with us Then he is dead according to the rules of history but if someone claims that he reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form such as to lead to the

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Conclusion that he resurrected from the dead then we should be asking two questions. Was he really dead?

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Examining the narratives does not persuade me that he was actually dead on the cross and second examining them examining the narrative

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Yeah, wait a minute What if I said examining the text of the

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Quran does not convince me that Muhammad denied the crucifixion Now he would say but sir sir for which says yeah

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But I can give you all sorts of differing ways of reading sir for 157 I can argue that sir for 127 is actually saying it's just the

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Jews that didn't crucify him it was the Romans that crucified him and I Give you all sorts of stuff like that, but how on earth can you read these narratives?

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without beginning with the assumption of their they're completely evolutionary character in nature and and and the most left -wing far -out theories

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Is it not obvious that every single one of the sources whether it's the it's it's the the tradition that you find

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In first Corinthians 15 that goes back to the very beginning whether it's it's Paul Peter John remember for Shabir Ali Peter is

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Paul is the originator of what's called Christianity and all of the Gospels are just basically retreads of Paul That Paul the the original followers of Jesus lost

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They lost they could not stand up against the the great persuasive power of Paul for some reason and So, you know, but all these narratives say the same thing they all say

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Jesus died was bearing rose again That the very language that they use

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Anastasis it I The stuff in the in the tomb book that I presented at the end very relevant to this very very relevant to this this particular

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Aspect of it as well. Now it is peeling back the later layers of Improvements does not persuade me that he actually reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form

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Now Muslims and Christians can still believe that Jesus was raised up by God But that of course is something that we cannot prove and even though I believe that it is not something

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I'm here to demonstrate And prove thank you very much Whatever raised up by God means now

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Let me make this debate. You're gonna let you hear the moderator. Let me tell you something

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I could never do a debate in this context It was the it was the super laid -back sort of like, you know when we first got to the debate and there were the bring out the comfy chairs and The flowers and and we're just gonna have ourselves a nice little discussion.

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No, we're not We're gonna have a debate and I need a place to write and he's gonna need a place to write and we're gonna do a debate here we're not gonna sit here and sip

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Starbucks It's kind of no. Yeah, and but that's sort of what happened here.

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Let's look As we mentioned earlier, we're not doing a formal debate and we're going to enter into something.

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That's somewhat creative in regards to debate We're picking up something from television crossfire.

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Is it title anyway? And our next 15 minutes will involve Mike asking questions of Shabir And then we'll exchange that and go back and forth a couple of times and I think you'll find this interesting

53:18

Hey, don't you beer pretty good Mike, it's really great to meet you today Let's see you started off Let me let me go with what you said last here about the developing legend within the

53:30

Gospels you spent some time talking about how The traditions of the resurrection the resurrection narratives had developed embellishments over time and there were some legendary additions and so forth and so therefore we

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Shouldn't believe the the accounts at all In my opening speech tonight,

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I was pretty careful to discuss evidence that predates the

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Gospels by decades in fact stuff which is goes back to the original disciples themselves and So now let me just mention so people understand what's being said here obviously, it was

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Mike like Ona's decision and approach To try to avoid all the gospel stuff that Shabir does all the time by Saying look, let's not worry about the

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Gospels. Remember we address this in the program this tradition That is found in Paul's writings goes back to within you know months

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Of the crucifixion itself, especially first Corinthians 15 1 2 5 so I Understand that so what he's saying is

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I'm looking at that not the date of the writing of the Gospels because of one of the problems

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I have here is that the tradition the material that's in the Gospels is just as old and I think one of the places where they sort of you know passed like ships in the night a little bit was

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Not making that really clear. Is it? We're talking about the the origination of the tradition that eventually gets written down in Paul's letters

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Which is previous to the Gospels or at least we're assuming that or you know,

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I would put actually mark before some of those things but That that's where I think some confusion came in In in this particular section,

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I think the Gospels are reliable, but let's just say for a moment In fact, I'd be happy for the remainder of our debate this evening to just concede for the sake of argument

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The Gospels are filled with errors and contradictions will say That's gonna come back to bite him you just That's where I would go.

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Nope, you know, sorry I understand the approach but I you can't you just can't go that direction

55:49

That's that's where I get off the boat at that point and say no you you don't You don't admit that and that or grant that and then try to come back to rescue that and you'll see by the end debate that He's having to come back to that by that point and it's too late.

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You've you've You can't really Do that. How does that impact the evidence that I provided which again comes decades earlier?

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I mean it seems to me that What happened is? You're assaulting this hill and you're throwing

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Grenades and we're seeing explosions, but I'm on this other hill and I'm saying what's he doing over there.

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My armies on this hill and How would you respond to that? Hmm. Well the evidence which you have cited

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Showing that there was an early acknowledgement that Jesus reappeared to his disciples

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It's not something that historians Deny or that what

56:49

I've presented denies You have evidence that there was a blossoming Christian faith people believe that Jesus is alive

56:58

Muslims believe that Jesus is alive But the belief that someone is alive and in heaven with God does not necessitate his bodily

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Resurrection in the Gospels themselves you have it that Jesus proclaims that Abraham and Moses are alive

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They're alive with God, but the belief that they are alive does not necessitate the bodily

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Resurrection so it is quite possible that the disciples of Jesus witnessing the crucifixion event later on came to the conclusion for whatever reason that God raised

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Jesus from the dead and That conclusion does not necessitate finding his tomb empty and knowing that he physically bodily resurrected from the dead even though that's what every single one of them said in every possible way they could say and That all the sources that can be traced that time period

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Remember Shabir will allow the use of sources that cannot be traced that time period and then will give them far more weight than they

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They deserve sort of like the tomb folks using the acts of Philip That all the sources from that time period themselves likewise

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Say the same thing and that this was a real resurrection not not just some spiritual

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Sighting of Jesus or something along those signs So that's what we're gonna have to pick up the next time we can do the dividing line

58:24

I we did do a British dividing line once and so I'll have to see if if we can't possibly arrange one for For Thursday, maybe

58:35

It may have to we may have to play with the time and stuff But we'll see if we can work something out maybe do something from over there.

58:41

That'd be interesting to do. Otherwise 29th of May we'll let you know on the blog. Thanks for listening.

58:46

God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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