John 11, Surah 3, and Consistency

Greetings, welcome to the dividing line. I don't like when the guy operating the soundboard and the everything else is going. Hey, it's not working. So are we working? We're running along. Okay. All right I'm not technique techie guy.

I am sorry techie, but I don't have any control over that over here. Welcome to the dividing line only one hour today because I'm doing something this summer or I'm trying to do something this summer while dodging all the incoming insanity.

That by the end of the summer this is gonna be interesting it's gonna be a really I'm doing a written debate with someone pretty well known and I was actually a day late because of all this other silliness.

But I think it's gonna turn out to be really interesting the way it's being done. And so I actually have to record my opening statement. So I've already written it and then we're doing we're doing audio.

Each of us is recording our opening statement our own voices. Which is I've never done that before. So could prove to be interesting. It's a very really important topic and I Hope I can actually focus more upon it in the future speaking of which Want to do two things to begin the program today.

They're actually related you just got to sort of trust me how they're related and I will be relating it to recent events as we get farther down in in the program but Some of you know that I'm doing a sermon series based on P45 papyrus 45 the manuscript that I'm supposed to be working on PhD program at Northwest University and Pachastrum, South Africa and I'm currently in John chapter 11.

We had a really good crowd Sunday morning, not so good Sunday night, but Sunday morning definitely and We are in the key Theological section of Jesus speaking with Mary and Martha Prior to going to the tomb for the resurrection narrative of what happens with with Lazarus and Rich could drive me crazy today because I keep looking up and oh Oh, we we got to get those little red lights.

They have little things on top. They've got them. They've got them up there. So we need a little Not a flag. No little red lights to be fine. I'm sure I'm sure they have money Bay or Amazon or something.

As to Which camera cuz he's you know, we had visitors in we had Josh Bice and and Tom Buck and hey both have short names start with a B and Brannan starts with a B don't have any idea that means but I'm sure some folks over at worldview weekend will come up with something.

Sorry, anyway. What was I saying? I don't know what I was saying. Anyways, so We are at that key section Prior to the resurrection of Lazarus and so I was looking at what I've been trying to do is provide a Bulletin insert and so I'm not gonna get it done today, but hopefully I'll have to come down here tomorrow to get the next bulletin insert done and on the one side is the papyrus a fairly decent scan of the papyrus in black and white and Then my translation on the back and I've been providing this as we've been we started in John chapter 10 and now we're in the John chapter 11, so I am Looking at the text.

We're continuing on this this Lord's Day and I am looking specifically at The reality the fact that when you look at what Jesus says to both Mary and Martha there is There's two levels. At which Jesus is speaking when he first says your brother will rise again.

The those words are interpreted within the context of Jewish eschatology. The the family were well well taught and there's gonna be a resurrection at the end times. They weren't they weren't Sadducees.

They were Pharisees. They believed in resurrection. I know that he will rise at the resurrection and Jesus' response is I am the resurrection in the life and then when he starts talking about living and believing in him and Not dying even though you die and obviously there's a there's a continuation from back in John chapter 5.

The dead will hear the voice the Son of God will come to life and even there you had the the spiritual idea that that Jesus raises people to spiritual life as well as the eschatological fulfillment of Christ's role in the end time as the final judge involved in the resurrection so on and so forth and so.

You know the question comes up. How did Jesus intend Mary and Martha to understand his words? In what context were they to understand, you know, does he recognize that they will only really get the spiritual application?

After the resurrection of Lazarus or is it after his resurrection the coming of the Holy Spirit? There's all sorts of issues that that come into this. The point is this that when we look at the text. For example, if you want to put the text up here just just so we can we can take a look at it.

John 11 25 Jesus said to her I'm the resurrection life he who believes in me will live even if he dies and Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him? Yes, Lord.

I believe that you are the Christ the Son of God even he who comes into the world or I. This phrase here is really interesting ha. Aiston Cosmon air common us the one coming into the world. That's pretty high Christology.

Which of course the liberal automatically goes well, obviously she couldn't have known this yet and this is later reflection and these are just words being put into people's mouths by John and blah blah blah blah.

The reality is we aren't told almost anything About Jesus relationship with Mary Martha and Lazarus other than it was clearly a close relationship. He there was he was very very very close to these individuals and we don't find them anywhere else which again The the skeptic goes I see it's just all made up and I go no.

The other the other gospel writers don't talk about this because they're still alive and it's too dangerous to talk about them. They're there. There's all sorts of extremely plausible Logical reasons why only at a later point in time when John is writing his gospel.

Would he make reference to incidents like this? It's it just it really bugs me the skepticism. That is the foundation of even a lot of the stuff you go to the Christian bookstore by commentaries on on John.

They're gonna be filled with skepticism. And it's it's it's because it's taught in our in our seminaries too. Anyway, sorry. Jumped off the off the rails there. So so when she makes this Very Orthodox statement, you know.

Does she fully understand what Jesus has said when he says I am the resurrection in the life. I mean think about the Amazing Words that are found that we've heard them so many times. We've heard them at every almost every funeral we've ever gone to right you I'm resurrection in life.

Put those words in in the mouth of any other person. Any other person in Scripture and it's pure blasphemy. It's pure blasphemy. This is another one of those places where we have clear evidence of Exalted nature of Jesus and yet we've very frequently skipped right by it because We're so familiar with the text.

We've just seen it so many times on the resurrection. What does that mean? I am the resurrection. Resurrection is a future event, isn't it? I am the resurrection personalizing the resurrection the beauty of this is that Once you see this in the light of the union of the elect of God With the Son of God.

So that as I've said so many times before his death becomes our death his burial arbor his resurrection our resurrection. He is the resurrection and he is the life. So when you have resurrection, then that resurrection takes you into that life and that life which we have again John 11 has to be seen in its connection with John chapter 5.

Already passed out of death into what into life that's that's the position of the believer in Jesus Christ so Point being that when we look at this the almost, you know, the double meaning that John is communicating.

How can we know what it is? Well, we can because of the nature not only of John's gospel but of the Bible as a whole because we can we can look to first Corinthians chapter 15 and we have a sufficient revelation we can bring all of these things together and Have meaningful confidence that we are handling the text accurately this goes back to the nature of the New Testament text and when we approach it not with hyper skepticism, but with faith we are able to Utilize it in such a way that with confidence we can say this is what this author is saying.

And again, I only mentioned this not only because of skeptics outside the faith but because of the reality that There are so many within the faith today that because of their low view of Scripture They have to chop the Bible up and they can't you know, they've been taught that basically it is inappropriate to allow Pauline theology Into the examination of a Johannine text.

Don't get me wrong. When you do meaningful exegesis you start with the author. But you don't if you have a high view of Scripture, you don't have to stop with the author and I'm talking about the human author here obviously, I believe there's a divine author but For many you can't go past the author and if your view of Scripture is low enough you can't even actually Assume consistency on the part of the author either.

But what's beautiful is the depth of this revelation that you're able to see when you Allow when you have a high enough Bibliology to allow the beautiful harmony of Scripture to come together. So This material in John chapter 11 takes on tremendous tremendous meaning at that point.

But in the process just for the geeks just for the geeks out there in In the world I give you I Know I know I'm not gonna do this all the time. But You know what? I had to do. I mean if I'm working on the bulletin insert this is this is part of my Discipline in sermon preparation right now.

Oh Did you see that Can we can we give rich a golf clap? I think rich needs a golf clap. Okay, because not only has he done the other angle thing here. But did you see that he minimized? The manuscript over to the right hand side instead of to the left hand side, so I I really think I have to say here in in Competition with the graphics that one might be accustomed to see on say Apollo Gia.

Or something like yeah, this is as you know, what's that Apollo Gia Apollo Gia Gia? Yeah, I didn't I teach you Greek on you did and I know better. But I know how they pronounce it too and it's like when they came into studio and they started moving great after 20 years well when they when they started moving things around I had to move a camera around I let them know this is about as Extravagant as we get here.

Yeah, that's true. This is you know, I do I have to admit the background you gotta admit. Now the problem is you zoomed in so much. We don't have the Enterprise up above. We've only got the There is there is the picture of the Enterprise up above but but we do have the Enterprise II and.

And the Borg stuff the Borg cube and since the cubes at an angle, it sort of looks like it is moving, you know. You know like like the cubes do and then the tribbles and I did by the way for everybody who was concerned about the dying tribble it's been Rejuvenated Wasn't gonna say resurrected in the middle of what we're talking about.

But I did I did replace the batteries. So it's it's in better shape now, so. So anyway, thank you very much for completely. What was I talking about? Are we talking about something religious? Yeah. Yeah, I know.

We're looking at the manuscript and I was just impressed that you that you put it down to that side but I realized for most people this looks like just a bunch of Squiggly stuff it's not for example see that the Nomina right up here.

No, I'm gonna say girl right there there's there's Jesus and there's God nominative form there, that's the Nominative there too. Are there some other Nomina? Yeah, here's one right here, but anyway what is Sort of background information for some folks here, you know people like to ask, you know.

How do you prepare for sermons and stuff like that? Well right now obviously since I'm doing something based on p45 part of the sermon preparation is the translation of the text in the papyrus itself and And For the preceding for leaves 15 and 16, this wasn't all that difficult to do.

But now we've got moved on next leaf. This leaf is much more damaged Than the preceding ones. So there's gonna be a lot more Fill in and so when I translate it there will be brackets around a lot of the stuff that I'm gonna be filling in but what's interesting is we have a A Textual variant in p45 which is not unusual one of the one of the issues in dealing with p45 is the fact that the the scribe is Not like the scribe of p75 who is doing just a letter by letter Transcription P45 is much more phrase by phrase.

So there are things that disappear that We sometimes can't tell oh boy we are really getting Sometimes we I like that I'll have to admit that sometimes we can't tell why Something is gone Because of the fact that sometimes it's a stylistic issue so What's interesting here is?

Right here Is I realize that for most that looks like CIC because there's a hole right there. It's actually not a This is this is Sigma Iota Sigma in the unseal text I still prefer calling it unseal rather than magiscule.

I realize that Dr. Metzger Changed all of our our terminology a while back on that But I was taught unseal back in the 80s and it's it stuck with me and it there you go. But what you need to understand is that's the end of a word Sigma Iota Sigma and what is the at the end of a word?

Well if we Go across You'll see That The line above we only have a portion of it right here. Now obviously if p45 was all we had of the Gospel of John We'd have a problem here, but it isn't I Was gonna I just ran out of time.

I didn't have time to go grab p66. I have it in my in my My system, but I didn't have time to grab it to throw it up so you could see it. But we know We have even earlier papyri than this and of course, we've got all the papyri afterwards and so we know what's there and So we know that Jesus said Ego I me I am and So here's the ego I me part right here.

That's an epsilon gamma. And yeah, I know it's damaged right there, but you can see the epsilon EO to the beginning of the mute right there. So once you get used to how this scribe forms as letters Then even when there's holes and things like that, you can figure out what it is.

So here's the line above I am and then the next line begins with Sis and then it's ha pistew own ice. So the one believing Ice ma in me and Again one of the interesting Features of p45 the micro Omicron's the Omicron's are all as much smaller than any of the other letters in in in the text so.

Okay, now he's just playing okay now he's just having fun you can can you see that yeah, he's just he's just having fun. See if I hadn't done the golf clap thing earlier, this wouldn't be happening, but I've created a monster so that's Pretty soon.

It's gonna be sparks and flames flying out of the manuscript and and it's gonna be reversing color and you know. All sorts of stuff like that. I shouldn't have even said that actually anyway. Well, here's here's the point the term resurrection is Anastasis and it ends with Sigma Yoda Sigma.

So even though it's missing on the other side, we know it was there. So I am the Anastasis. But where's Chi haze away and the life. It's not there. It's not there Jesus in p45 Jesus. I am the resurrection the one believing in me and goes on from there and the life is not there and if we go back to Accordance here for a second.

You can see right. There see that. So here you have a go. I me. Hey Anastasis, I'm the resurrection Chi haze away, so you've got this little square right here click on that and let me Make this larger.

See right there. There's the same one and p45 is noted as the only. Well, actually there's one other manuscript Greek manuscript and then Sinaitic I think that's the Sinaitic Syriac and Cyprian so When you see when you have if you have a critical edition of the Greek New Testament.

It's sort of fun sometimes to actually see the manuscript and go oh Wow, what's in the notes is actually matches what's in the manuscript. It's actually it's actually there. So that was just for you geeks.

There's a there's a variant there. There's really no question that Chi haze away is is original one of the questions would be why? Will I be able to identify? Sort of a an overall scribal tendency on the part of The scribe p45 that would allow me to address that particular issue.

We'll we'll see. That's some of the work. I'm supposed to be doing right now. But anyway. So there's some a little geeky stuff for people who want geeky stuff some theological stuff people want theological stuff.

Here is the point. The point is that when we do New Testament exegesis We have a sufficiently wide amount of material that allows us to truly get into the text itself and to allow that text To give us insights in interpretation.

We can look at Paul's Doctrine of Resurrection. We can look at John's Doctrine of Resurrection. We can put these things together. They shine light upon one another. The analogy of faith frequently is what has been called in allowing the Bible to interpret itself on a theological theological level.

John 11 and the Resurrection of Lazarus

Now Let's shift gears Completely and Let's look at the Quran. For the past week or so there has been a tremendous amount of Vitriolic condescending nastiness posted around the internet about How little I know about Islam.

What I haven't heard is any meaningful criticism of this and you know, I would think that if If you're going to demonstrate how dumb I am maybe this would be the the way to do it, you know, but The reality is I haven't gotten much criticism because of the fact that I approached the text of the Quran in a Fair fashion.

I Tried to allow it to speak for itself. Yes. I spent a lot of time looking at the early Tafsir literature Tafsir is is commentary on the Quran. I looked at Ibn Kathir a number of times Tafsir from Jalal Ayaan and Even had some of my Arabic speaking friends look at some stuff from Muqatil Which is not available in English to my knowledge at least in a full sense and so I did some I Did some some work on this particular book and one of the texts that was fascinating to me That I'm going to use as a sort of a counterbalance to What we were just looking at in John chapter 11 is from surah 3 and In surah 3 and and I you can confirm this if you would like by looking at the study Quran.

I think it's right at a year old now if you will look at the commentary offered by these numerous Islamic scholars from numerous different traditions on surah 3 there is a general agreement that at least a major portion of this particular surah is in reference to a Encounter that is recorded in the Islamic sources.

I've never seen any non Islamic sources That would confirm The coming of a delegation from the Christians in Najran To have a meeting and even the study Quran uses the term debate with Muhammad Regarding his teachings especially in regards to Jesus.

Now there are numerous different accountings of this encounter between the Christians from Najran In the Hadith sources and in other commentary sources. I Speculated in the book that There seems to be some development some evolution Even in the Islamic accounting of this The arguments presented by the Christians If they're accurate those Christians didn't know much about their own faith unfortunately.

So it it's it's more likely anyways that if there was such an encounter The Christian side has pretty much been lost and it's been primarily filtered through Islamic understandings and there's a lot of ancient Islamic misunderstanding of what Christians believe I Think in the Quran itself.

But even leaving that aside clearly in Ibn Kathir you will find a great deal of misunderstanding of the Christian perspective and so I Want to look at What the study Quran says and I'm gonna go ahead and give you the I actually have it.

I'm sending it from the study Quran and Starting at Verse 41 He said my Lord appoint for me a sign he said your sign is that you shall not speak. Okay verse 42 42 and remember when the angel said Oh Mary truly God has chosen thee and purified thee and has chosen thee above the Women of the worlds.

I don't know why they chose to use Elizabethan angels. I don't know why they chose to use these and those but they did and it's a bummer verse 43 Ayah 43 Oh Mary be devoutly obedient to thy Lord prostrate and bow with those who bow.

This is from the tidings of the unseen which reveal unto thee and thou was not with them When they cast their lots to choose who among them would care for Mary and that was not with them when they were Disputing now I stopped just for a moment and it seems to me in the background here One of the primary issues that I think our Muslim friends need to deal with is the use of sources by the Quran the use of uninspired sources by the Quran specifically proto Gnostic sources and Especially things like the proteo evangelium of James and I I think I can make a bit of an argument here About and and that was not with them when they cast their lots to choose who among them would care for Mary.

That's coming from non-biblical sources. Probably from the proteo evangelium of James. I think that's a problem and Of course if I were just to simply jump up and down scream and say every Muslims a demon like certain people do you probably Wouldn't even think about What I'm saying right now, but since I don't then maybe you will consider that Verse 45 when the angels said Oh Mary truly God gives the glad tidings of a word from him whose name is the Messiah Jesus Son of Mary high high honored in this world.

I think I just found a typo. Unfortunately to read the text in here I need to double check that 45 Nope, high honored in this world. That's weird and the hereafter. I wonder if that's supposed to be highly you would think so, but anyway High honor in this world and the hereafter and one of those brought nigh.

He will speak to people in the cradle and in maturity and will be among the righteous now. There's a connection between surah 3 and surah 19 by the way the conversation This this meeting With the Christians from Najran.

There's a couple different dates, but it's three. It's in the last year of Muhammad's life. And there's a difference of about one year between the various sources but Very close to the end of his life.

So Here even toward the end of his life this idea of people speaking He will speak to the people in the cradle which you find fulfilled in surah 19. But that comes from the Arabic infancy gospel, which is only about 150 years old that time again source critical problems in utilization of the materials from the Quran.

And we belong the righteous she said my lord, how shall I have a child while no human being has touched me. He said thus does God create whatsoever. He will when he Decrees the thing he only says to it be and it is and he will teach him the book wisdom the Torah and the gospel.

And he will be a messenger to the children of Israel. Truly. I've brought you a sign from your Lord. I will create for you out of clay the shape of a bird. Then I'll breathe into it and it'll be a bird by God's leave.

And I will heal the blind and leper and give life to the dead by God's leave and I'll inform you that About what you eat and what you store up in your houses truly is In that is a sign for you if you are believers and I come confirming that which was before me the Torah and to make lawful Unto you part of that which was forbidden unto you and I have come to you with a sign from your Lord.

So reverence God and obey me. Truly God is my Lord and your Lord. So worship him. This is a straight path. Now. This is put in quotation marks. There's a lot of stuff. I don't have time today to go into everything that we could go into here but what is fascinating is verse I have 49 very clearly dependent on the infancy gospel of Thomas and The infancy gospel of Thomas is not a reliable historical source.

It is a it is a proto Gnostic. It is a proto Gnostic source. And It's a historical and yet the author of the Quran shows No discernment in the utilization of the sources that that end up in the text itself.

So you have a mixture then the blind leper. These are things from from the New Testament. In my reading the Quran it seems very clear to me that the author of the Quran is going on oral stories that he's heard this is there's not a Reliance upon written sources.

That's why It'd be very easy for him to confuse the oral stories that he've heard. He's heard Not knowing what comes from the New Testament. What doesn't what the content of the New Testament is what a gospel is the gospel versus the Gospels all that type of confusion Seems very evident in the pages of the Quran itself in the misunderstanding of the author.

As well and so you have verse 50 very similar to surah 5 4044 and following. And I come confirmed that was before me the Torah so Jesus confirms the Torah Make lawful and you part of that which is forbidden unto you, which is interesting maybe recognizing the Looser understanding of the Christians or just don't have to keep everything.

It's in the Mosaic Law. So on so forth. Truly God is my Lord and your Lord. So worship him. This is a straight path. This is As it's been properly recognized the Jesus of the Quran is an argument for monotheism.

He's an argument against the author's understanding of what Christians were teaching About Jesus and So this to me If you are a if you are a Muslim today that makes arguments based upon skeptical or liberal theology in regards to the reliability the text of the New Testament.

I Don't know how You can look at this text and not at least laugh. Because on any Redaction criticism source criticism basis whatsoever How can you seriously accept that Jesus ever said these words because as a Muslim you do you do believe that he did.

How can you? Mishmash of sources and not the slightest bit of Evidence in any source whatsoever until the Quran of Jesus saying these words, I mean Any one of you Who ever quotes from Bart Ehrman had better at the same time say by the way?

I don't really accept what's found in surah 3, but you do accept what's found in surah 3 and. So you're being grossly inconsistent. If on the one hand you quote Bart Ehrman and on the other hand you go Yeah, but yeah, not not a shred of manuscript evidence, but hey, you know, it was sent down.

So we just we just believe. Okay. But for a long time I've been saying we need consistency in the standards that we're that we're utilizing here and. And Seems to me that this material is particularly susceptible to strong criticism Historically in regards to the meeting of the Christians from Najran and the sources that are utilized and how it's put all together and how it's functioning as a Very clearly a polemical argument here in the middle of surah 3 which comes toward the end of Muhammad's life um.

So then it goes on to say when Jesus sends disbelief in them He said who are my helpers unto God the Apostle said we are God's helpers. We believe in God bear witness that we are submitters our Lord. We believe in what thou has sent down.

And we follow the messenger. So inscribe us among the witnesses and they plotted and God plotted and God is the best of plotters now. That's a don't have time to get into that but there's all this stuff out there.

In regards to God being a deceiver and and all the rest of stuff. And when he said Oh Jesus I shall take thee and raise thee unto me and purify thee of those who disbelieve now that raising unto me boy again.

We can spend a lot of time on this. There's all sorts of Questions that could be raised as to what the background of this is what it means. Where it's coming from how it can be consistently interpreted all sorts of things like that but but one point just in passing when I deal with the with the text of the Quran I attempt to do so in a fair fashion and It seems that to do so is considered compromise on the part of many if and and again I've been doing this for a long time.

Not not with the text of Quran. I Didn't start studying the issue of Islam until 2006. But I've always tried to be fair with the text of the Book of Mormon, too. That's why there are certain arguments against the Book of Mormon.

I don't use and have never used and I can prove it. Remember the Book of Mormon says Jesus was born in Jerusalem. You've never heard me picking on that because I know That Bethlehem is in the region of Jerusalem.

And so you could probably make an argument because I know there are places in The Old Testament text where we have to look at a regional utilization to harmonize texts. And so I don't use an argument against somebody else's book.

Even if I believe it's a false book I don't believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I don't believe Muhammad was a true prophet either. I can't but just because you don't believe someone's true prophet doesn't mean that gives you the right to then misrepresent them and misrepresent what they wrote and That's what's gotten me into trouble.

Well, it's one of the things one of the things that's gotten me into trouble is That if you try to be fair if you I'm trying to apply exegetical principles the text of the Quran That are consistent with How I deal with the Bible as well in any ancient text.

I want to know what the original author intended to communicate. You do that and you end up Being pilloried on the internet as a Muslim sympathizer and a all the rest of stuff because that look there are just a lot of people out there that just don't believe That you should extend any kind of fairness To anyone who isn't a Christian.

I Reject it reject it Reject it. I have to because I follow him who is the truth. It's all there is to it. You have to be truthful With everything and everybody that's how it works. Anyway I'm trying to get to a point here and we've got stuff to do.

Purify. Then unto me is your return I shall judge between you concerning that wherein you used to differ and as for those who disbelieve for the coffers I shall punish them with severe punishment in this world and the hereafter and they shall have no helpers and as for those who believe and Perform righteous deeds.

He shall pay them their rewards in full and God loves not the wrongdoers now. Who are the coffers? Who are the submitters if this is about that encounter with the Christians from Najran? Can we tie this together with surah 4 surah 5.

This is what we recite unto thee of the signs and the wise reminder truly. The likeness of Jesus in the sight of God is that of Adam. He created him from dust and said to him be and he was so here's the direct assertion In opposition to whatever it was the Christians from Najran were saying in this context Jesus is a created being like Adam.

Then it says the truth is from thy Lord. So be not among the doubters so this is supposed to be divine revelation and To whomsoever disputes with thee over it after the knowledge that has come unto thee.

So here's this revelation from Allah. Jesus is a creature once that comes and if they dispute that say to them come. Let us call upon our sons and your sons our women and your women ourselves and yourselves.

Then let us pray earnestly so as to place the curse of God upon those who lie. So the idea here is that Muhammad said to the Christians from Najran All right. I've received this message from Allah. I've now delivered it to you.

And so let's get together and you we will call a curse down upon whoever's lying. This is the this is the idea that is being presented. This is indeed The true account there is no God but God that's the exact same phrase.

Look it up in the Arabic. That's the exact same phrase that keeps occurring after Every time the Quran says say not three and it's directly related to the Shahada. So this is this is the statement of Islamic monotheism so the true account is Islamic monotheism la ilaha illallah, there's only one God and Truly God is the mighty the wise and if they turn away the coffers the unbelievers then God knows well the workers of corruption.

Say Oh people the book now the Allah Kitab Can be Jews or Christians, but in this context, it's clear the Christians Oh people a book now what's fascinating is that this is the section that remember when they when the less than forthright Ecumenical dialogues were going on only a few years ago, which I criticized.

But knowingly and fairly by actually reading the books the people that were doing it and pointing out the problems of the books I Didn't put pictures of people that were doing that in turbans on the internet if you call that apologetics.

You go for it. This is the text that people referring to Oh people a book come to a member was called common word a Word common between us in you that we shall worship none But God shall not associate ought with him and shall not take another as Lords apart from God.

Well, that sounds wonderful but You got to read it in context. It's in the context of challenging the Christians to bring a curse down upon the liars that the revelation from God is Islamic monotheism a Unitarian monotheism and In the people of the book here the Christians are being called to a word common between us and you that we shall worship none, but God and that's in the Context of saying Jesus is like Adam.

He's a created being don't worship Jesus and shall not associate with him that's the sin of shirk and Shall not take another as Lords apart from God and if they turn away from this call to Unitarian monotheism then say bear witness that we are submitters.

We're the ones submitting to Allah Oh people a book Allah Kitab. Why do you dispute concerning Abraham as neither the Torah nor the gospel was sent down until after him? Do you not understand behold? You're the very same who dispute concerning that of which you have knowledge.

So why do you dispute concerning that of which you have no knowledge God knows and you and you not. That's really Not smooth for a modern translation Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian, but rather Was a Hanif a submitter and he was not one of the idolaters so obviously there had been a discussion of the continuation of the faith of Abraham that came out and Then later on Oh people a book.

Consistency in Reading the Quran and Treating Other Religions Fairly

Why do you believe disbelieve in God's signs while you are witness Oh people a book? Why do you confound the truth of falsehood? Here's the point and unfortunately running out of time Ah When I Deal with the Quran I Attempt to deal with it in a fair and honest fashion part of the reason for this is many of my Muslim friends do not deal with the Bible in a fair and honest fashion and If I'm going to point the finger at them and say you need to deal with the Bible fairly I've got three fingers pointing back at myself.