Randal Rauser and then Hamza Tzortzis and Adnan Rashid on the Bible

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Briefly looked at some comments about atheism and the suppression of the knowledge of God by Randal Rouser, but moved fairly quickly to a response to Hamza Tzortzis and Adnan Rashid on the alleged corruption of the Bible (OK, we took a few minutes to discuss tribbles, but let’s not get into that now). Got less than half-way through, though, so…we will have to do another DL tomorrow because I really want to get back to Wael Ibrahim and the debate on the Trinity from Hong Kong.

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00:32
And greetings! Welcome to The Dividing Line. I guess this is the first Dividing Line of 2016 and we only get to have like two and then
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I just like go away for most of January. But it's going to be a busy busy time for those of you in Charlotte and in Atlanta.
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I am going to be, for example, a week from last evening.
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I'll be teaching at RTF Charlotte. If you go to Michael Kruger's blog, there's a schedule there, there's links.
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If you still want to take the apologetics class that I'll be teaching next week, that's still available.
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You know, you could audit it or something like that at the Charlotte campus. And you might say, what do you do in an apologetics class?
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Well, one of the things we will be doing is we will be, this will be the fourth time now,
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I have had a, I'm not going to mention who just simply for his own sake, but I may have two.
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I'm going to try for two this time, but this will be the fourth time I've had the same Muslim apologist,
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Muslim scholar, join me via Skype. And the students interact with him, ask him questions.
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I get to go back and forth with, it's amazing how much more seriously they take the development of questions when you're, when you're actually going to be talking to a sharp, knowledgeable Muslim in the process.
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But you know, we discuss, you know, biblical foundations for apologetics, presuppositionalism, covenantal apologetics, if you want to use that terminology,
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Romans one and all the things related to that. And then we also cover a range of things, not only
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Islam, but issues regarding Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, which is relevant these days, what's going on in Oregon.
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If you don't know the stuff up in Oregon, aside from there being some amazing examples of a despotic federal government, there's religion involved in this.
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There is a odd, strange form of the Mormon religion involved in this.
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And I'll tell you what, I was going to, what I was going to do today, I was going to start off the program by talking about the religion of peace.
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And then I was going to sort of vaguely describe the taking over of government buildings by armed militants and then point out from the world's perspective, the people who have taken over that building, those buildings are
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Christians, armed militant Christians from the world's perspective.
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And if you don't, if you aren't aware of the fact, the book of Mormon, which allegedly is, comes from the ancient
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Americas, translated by the gift of power of God, actually interacts with the concept of the
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American constitution, evidently prophetically, and identifies the constitution as an inspired document.
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And so Mormons, at least old style Mormons, have a very interesting religious view of the constitution of the
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United States. And what's going on up there right now is that these people believe that the federal government is violating a inspired document.
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And so they have a religious motivation for doing what they're doing. Keep that in mind.
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It says a little something about why, I don't know where Mormonism is going, but it's pretty obvious that her scholars are recognizing that it's really next to impossible to defend the book of Mormon as an ancient document of any sort whatsoever.
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And so they're really trying to figure out some way of some kind of spiritualization, allegorical interpretation type thing for Joseph Smith and stuff like that.
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It's, it's a, it's a mess. But anyways, I was going to start off the program and use it as yet another illustration of how we will go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Mormonism, come on. Mormonism is polytheistic. Christianity is monotheistic and, and don't, don't blame us for, for the, and the whole point being we demand to make the category distinctions that so often more and more people on our side are refusing to make the other direction.
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That does not in any way, shape or form mean that you are excusing or defending
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Mormonism. But what it does mean is you have to make the proper distinctions.
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If you don't, the rest is, is worthless. Anyway. So back to all the way back to what we're doing next week.
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That'll be the class I'll be teaching. But on Monday night, RTS is sponsoring a, it's a part of a series they're doing, and I'll be addressing the subject of homosexuality.
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And I only have one session. You know, if you watched the stuff from St.
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Louis, take all that and squish it down into one and it's a challenge.
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But if you're in the Charlotte area, you'd be welcome to attend that on Monday evening.
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I am going to be speaking elsewhere. I don't have my schedule or anything after the weekend, but over the weekend and in the beginning of the next week, there'll be, there may be some public stuff.
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I don't know yet. Sorry. We'll, I won't really have that information to write toward the end of the week type thing.
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But then of course I'm flying to Atlanta and we're doing a special pre -conference thing.
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Pre -conference, what is it? Voluntary? I don't know what we're calling it, but anyways. And it's not on the
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Doctrine of the Trinity. You'll be getting a lot of good Trinitarian theology, hope and pray, obviously, through the course of the
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G3 conference. But the Wednesday night beforehand, I fly in on Wednesday that evening.
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So pray for traveling mercies that day. When you speak and travel on the same day, that's always a little iffy during the winter months, but hopefully that won't be an issue getting from Charlotte to Atlanta.
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Those are major hubs, so there's lots of options. But of course, if they're both closed down by snow, it's irrelevant, but it doesn't look like that's the case.
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Anyway, I'm going to be speaking on Roman Catholicism and specifically the issues relating to Sola Scriptura, authority, how that impacts things.
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And that'll be the pre -conference thing. And I believe I'll be addressing other issues related to that on Sunday morning in the
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Sunday school hour. I need to verify that because that may have been changed so I can do the things. I'm a little uncertain, but anyways, and then of course, looking forward to meet all of you that are at the
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G3 conference coming up that following weekend as well.
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So two weeks, two solid weeks. I get back exactly two weeks after I leave, pretty much.
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And that's a long trip and lots and lots of teaching. I think there's,
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I can't think of a day in there where I'm not teaching, honestly. Yeah, I think
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I speak every single day. So that's a lot of speaking. Hopefully we'll stay healthy, the
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Lord will bless in that way. And because I don't want to sound like I'm trying out for the bass part in some singing group by the time
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I get done with the whole thing. So, but it happens. So we've pushed through, we've pushed through before.
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So that's what's coming up. For those of you back East, if you're going to be going, that would be great.
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Now, I want to get to a couple things really quickly. I wanted to look at an article that I just ran into maybe last night or this morning that I just found interesting regarding Randall Rausser.
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Randall Rausser is a Christian philosopher, rather strongly
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Arminian, as I recall. The only discussion of him on our blog is an article that Alan Kirshner posted a couple of years ago, just linking to another article, responding to him on Romans 9.
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It is a, well, here's this article, which is sort of a secondary.
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In a new three -minute video, Greg Koukl, Christian apologist with standard reason, answers the question, are atheists just suppressing the truth and unrighteous by replying, no, duh.
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Fortunately, Koukl then proceeds to explain why he believes this is a no -duh question, based on the standard rebellion thesis reading of Romans 1, i .e.
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all atheists are in rebellion against God. Like seemingly all the Christian apologists and theologians who defend that reading,
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Koukl seems oblivious to the fact that his argument turns every failure to believe in God's existence and nature with maximal conviction into an immoral stance of rebellion.
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Think, for example, of 15 -year -old Emil, whose family was just massacred in a home invasion gone awry.
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As tears roll down his cheeks, Emil looks to heaven and cries out, God, are you really there? Do you really care? According to Koukl's reasoning in Romans 1, the evidence of God is plain, clear, and overwhelming, and Emil's failure to recognize it as such is born of his own sinful rebellion.
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Koukl gives the analogy of trying to hold a beach ball underwater, just as it's nearly impossible to hold the ball beneath the surface, so it's nearly impossible to restrain the overwhelming evidence for God's existence and nature.
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That is how hard Koukl believes a person has to work to any doubt against the overwhelming presence of God. Now, Koukl doesn't want to say, so is
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Emil in rebellion against God? By Koukl's reasoning, the answer should be no, duh, after all, God's existence and nature are manifestly clear.
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It is only Emil's sinful rebellion against God that allows him to question that which is so obviously true. Interestingly, I don't find
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Jesus addressing atheism in his public ministry, but he certainly said a lot about the failure to apply to yourself and your belief community the same standards you apply to others, so Koukl is free to say no, duh, atheists are rebelling against God, but if he does, he also needs to say no, duh,
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Emil is in rebellion against God. In short, before you start condemning the sin of doubt outside the Christian church, you should begin by condemning the sin of doubt within the
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Christian church. This is from this Randall Rouser. Now, I took a little time to look at some of his stuff, read through some comments and things like that.
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What you have here, well, first of all, I'm, you know,
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I'm not buddies with Greg. We don't, we've spoken in a few of his events. We've gone out to dinner a few times, but it's not like we have each other on speed dial and just call each other up and blah, blah, blah.
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I've been on his program a few times and I think he does a great job and, you know, we would have our differences and methodologies and stuff like that, but it's no big deal.
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But obviously, I think as I read this, even as I read it rather quickly, hopefully our listening audience anyways recognized just how shallow that representation,
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I mean, Greg's video is about three minutes long. Rouser obviously knows and even has the name here.
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What was it, what was it called? The Rebellion Thesis Reading of Romans 1,
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All Atheists and Rebellion Against God. I'm glad we spent the amount of time we did.
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And yes, yes, everyone, please stop sending me Noah Adams or Adam Noah's response thing.
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You started looking at it and it's just flame throwing, bomb throwing, blah, blah, blah, and all the personal, you all attack me personally.
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I chose to respond because, I chose to respond to the initial one because it was a teachable moment we could illustrate something.
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Unfortunately, in the vast majority of situations, once there's a next response, it becomes so personalized, ad hominem filled, going every which direction that the teachability element of it disappears and it's no longer really overly, overly useful.
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Anyway, you may recall that the issue of Romans 1 has come up, you know, we addressed it in that video,
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Jeff Durbin and I did. It came up again in South Africa.
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Remember the very odd, extremely idiosyncratic reading of Romans 1 that Graham Codrington promotes, the idea that Paul's actually arguing against the position of Romans 1, 18 -32 by just a grossly acontextual reading of the rest of Romans, going, jumping to Romans 14, completely different section, completely different topic and reading it back in and it's a mess.
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But how many times in dealing with so many different subjects, obviously homosexuality, central, but in dealing with just apologetics as a whole, dealing with man as man, man as creature of God, Romans 1, absolutely central.
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God's law, the whole subject of theonomy, how you're to understand the role of God's law in the
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New Covenant and the whole issue of morality and ethics, front and center.
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I've often said that, to me, one of the strongest sections of Scripture that argues for the inspiration of the
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Bible is Romans 1. It's central in dealing with Roman Catholicism in regards to the nature of man in his rebellion, total depravity.
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It's obviously central in dealing with issues regarding synergism, monergism, things like that.
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So, that's relevant to Roman Catholicism, Arminianism. Obviously, Mormonism has absolutely no context at all upon which to interpret that text.
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I mean, that is just absolutely a text that is, I just cannot see how any
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LDS scholar utilizing Joseph Smith and LDS theology could ever come up with an even semi -meaningful reading of that text.
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Just couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. It's violent dealing with Islam because Islam has no depravity, no depravity of man.
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It, you would do yourself a great favor by being thoroughly familiar with all the exegetical issues regarding Romans chapter 1 if you want to be a broadly apologetically prepared person.
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And here, here it comes up again. You have the rebellion thesis reading of Romans 1 as if this is just all about atheists.
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It's not about atheists. It's about all of mankind. I mean, if again, if you're, and here's, here's where the issue also comes in.
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Randall Rouser does not believe, Randall Rouser believes that an inerrant book can contain errors. So, what you have in Rouser is what
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I've identified many times in William Lane Cray, where you have philosophy driving theology rather than theology driving philosophy.
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And in this instance, you have this in regards to the very nature of Scripture itself, its coherence, its, its relevance, everything.
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And so, you put it all together and I guess he's got a book and I'm, I'm half tempted.
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It's not all that long. I'm half tempted to grab it on Kindle and go ahead and, and read it. Is the atheist my brother?
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And basically, and you can see here, what he's saying is we should have a different attitude toward atheists.
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Well, I'm not, you know, if, if what you mean by that is we should recognize that everyone is created in the image of God.
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We are called for our speech always to be seasoned with grace. We are called to be salt and light as, as, as Jesus says in Matthew chapter five.
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We are, we are the salt of the earth. We are the light that cannot be hidden, et cetera, et cetera.
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If, if by that you mean that the internet rarely displays appropriate interactions, okay, fine.
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But if what you mean by that is that, is that atheism should be given some kind of respectful position.
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I'm hearing more and more about this, but you know, well, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's perfectly fine for, for people to have honest doubts about the existence of God.
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Well, what do you mean by doubts? And how do you understand
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Romans one? Now, I, I guess I'd have to get the book because it seems pretty obvious to me that he takes some kind of idiosyncratic understanding of Romans one, but I can't really comment on exactly what it is.
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But there clearly wasn't any understanding in this commentary about what
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Romans one would mean because the suppression of truth, the katakanton, needs to be understood in light of the other term that Paul uses, and that is the exchange, exchanging the truth of God for the lie.
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And that can take many, many different forms. It very often takes a very religious form.
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That's why this text isn't just about atheists. It's about, it's about monotheists.
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It's about polytheists. It's about, I don't care, theists. You know, it's about your plain old pagan that just doesn't, doesn't give it a second thought.
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It's about all those. It's, it's about the, the universal human condition outside of Christ.
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And so, you know, I, I looked at this, I'm like, well, there's, there's a good example of what happens when a philosophy is your primary thrust and you will mold the biblical text and biblical theology to the demands of philosophy.
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And that really, it goes back to, someday I'm going to have to cue it up and, and read some of it, but there are some strong statements made.
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I don't think I have them in, have it in here. I think I have it in the other room, but Vantill, Vantill's difficult to read in English because it wasn't his mother tongue.
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And most people will confess he's, he's hard to interpret, but he's pretty clear on this.
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And that is, there is, there really is a dividing line, a fundamental dividing line between those who believe that God has made man dependent upon divine revelation from the beginning, even
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Adam was. And secondly, has spoken with clarity. And those who in some way or another do not believe or fully apply those two things.
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That's just, that's just the only way to, to put it. There, the, if you believe that God designed man to always be dependent upon God revealing himself, and if you believe that God has spoken with clarity, that's going to determine so much of your theology.
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And obviously as a result, your apologetics, your philosophy, everything is going to come out from that point.
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And I think that's illustrated here to be sure. So interesting article.
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I just wanted to mention it really quickly. It is, it is an interesting thing.
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Now I was actually asked to review, well,
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I'm actually, for those of you who send me tweets, I'd really like, please, please review this on the dividing line next week.
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And you send me a tweet. Do you ever do, do you ever do that? Have you ever done that to me? You're nice enough not to do that to me.
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Okay. But you see other people do it all the time, don't you? Oh yeah. We have, we have a studio, we have a studio audience today.
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I want you to know folks, some of you, I liked, did you see, remember what, what was it about a week and a half ago?
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I did the, the drop the treble thing.
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Instead of drop the mic, it's drop the treble. Um, and, and I've had this treble hiding over here for, for quite some time.
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And, and as you know, he doesn't make the, the nice treble sound. He makes the, there is a
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Klingon nearby treble sound. Um, which if you don't know what a treble is, you've missed out on life because trebles are one of the coolest elements of the star
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Trek universe. They really, really are. Um, as I've mentioned before, if you watch carefully now,
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I don't know if this happened in the last film, but in the first two films, the treble, there was a trouble in both the first two new star
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Trek films. Well, the third one's not out yet, is it? Oh, okay.
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So we'll see if they continue this. I hope they do. I hope they do that. I have found the treble in, in every one of them so far.
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And, uh, the second one was obvious. They killed one and then it came back to life with Khan's blood and all that kind of stuff. But the other one was hiding.
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Uh, Scotty had, had a treble in a cage on that planet where he was stuck. But anyways, so I've had my treble and I have not had any trouble with my treble.
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Come on. Y 'all know what the first, the name of the first star Trek episode in the original series was the trouble with troubles.
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So I, but something dangerous has happened because like I said, we have a studio audience today and the, the, uh, our visitor brought a second treble.
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Now this is a silent trip. He, I can drop him and he just, he just goes thud.
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It doesn't, doesn't make any, I wish it would do a little cooing thing, but it's, it just actually, it looks like, actually, it looks like Donald Trump on a bad hair day.
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Then it looks like Donald Trump on a bad hair day, you know? Um, but you all know why this is so dangerous to have, because if I leave these together here in the studio between now and Thursday, when the cameras come on, the entire studio will be filled with triples unless, unless these, unless Bob Barker got all of these triples before him and they've been properly spayed and neutered, uh, which
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I'm not, I'm not sure I know of any vets that advertise that particular service, but anyway, that's a good point.
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Yeah. He cut the tag off. Oh, there you go. The tag has been removed. So all is well. Um, I, it still makes me wonder who made all those triples for the original, who came up with that idea and, and who did they get to make all of them?
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Uh, you know, including the one that fell on Kirk's head, you know, the guy up top went, you know, um, that that's, that's neither here nor there.
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All right. Um, someone in channel who will remain nameless, but who will be sent to Pross Purgatory for lengthy periods of time once the program is done, just said, doc must've been finishing off the leftover eggnog before filming this
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DL. Now, why would you say filming? I mean, that's such a, such a completely anachronistic term.
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There is not a piece of film anywhere near here. Uh, I guess we still say videotaping sometimes, but, and it's not even recorded.
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This is live, man. This is, this is just how it is. All right. Um, here we go.
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Uh, back, back onto the track, having gone through the woods, went and visited grandma's house.
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Um, ironically I was trying to find my grandma's house last night and this morning.
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Seriously. I'm going through those boxes and I found that my mom had kept the letters that I had written to my grandmother.
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And so what were they in? They were in one of the envelopes. And what did it have on it? Her address.
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What can we do now that we couldn't do back then? Google earth, uh,
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Google maps. And I think I found it. I think, I think I found it.
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Uh, it was on an alleyway, an unpaved alleyway in Kinsley, Kansas. I think I found it.
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Uh, so I was looking for grandma's house. So I, maybe that's why I was thinking about that. I don't know. But, uh, anyways, at least
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I'm not showing you all the pictures that I've, man, I was sending so many pictures to the kids last night. Uh, just, just all sorts of stuff, but at least
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I'm not doing that. You can be thankful, uh, can be thankful for that. I need to, I can't figure out how to turn that thing off.
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I need to get that out of the startup routine. Anyway, I was asked to, um, review this.
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And a lot of people will send me stuff saying, please review this.
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And then I look at it, it's an hour and 45 minute video. And I'm like, seriously, do you really, um, this one's only 16 minutes long and it's, uh,
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Hamza Tzortzis and Adnan Rashid. Now I was supposed to meet, um,
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Mr. Tzortzis. That's hard. The words, that's, that's not an easy name. We were supposed to,
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I think, and I could be wrong about this, but my, my recollection is we were supposed to be on Unbelievable together.
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Uh, the last, I think it was last time I was in London on Unbelievable. And he didn't make it.
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Uh, said he was caught in traffic, never showed up. So I was supposed to do two programs, ended up only doing one.
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Um, so we never, I, I don't know if we've met, if we've met, I, it might've been a debate or something like that, but we haven't debated each other.
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Adnan and I, of course, have gone round and round a number of times. And the last two times we debated was at, um,
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University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. And that trip to Ireland, I got a chance to get to know
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Adnan better. And you know, I, I guess I shouldn't tell folks this, but he's actually a nice guy.
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I know he doesn't want anybody to know that. Sorry, Adnan. Sorry. But he's, he's actually a pretty nice guy. And once you get to know him, um, and so they are talking, they're doing a global Dawah broadcast on how to deal with Christians and how to, in essence, attack the reliability of the
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Bible. So I want to respond to it. I want to listen to it, respond to it.
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But one of the things that I, I want to point out is
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I think they've been listening. I think we've had at least some influence.
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I think there are some things that Adnan says in this video that he would not have said had he and I not debated.
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Remember, Adnan's the one that I did the two -part debate on the reliability of the New Testament and the
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Quran in London. Um, so I, I get the feeling,
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I I'm, I'm sort of feeling like we've had somewhat of a positive impact here.
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We're going to keep trying because obviously I think that reviewing this will be a teachable moment.
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It will be an opportunity for instruction. Um, I'm not trying to not respond to,
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I want to get back to the Yael Ibrahim response as well. Um, hopefully you, you probably didn't eat beforehand.
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Uh, there's, there's some, um, there's some bars in the other room or something like that. Cause we'll probably do, do a jumbo.
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Um, if that's all right. Um, if that's okay with the studio audience as well, I right.
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Yeah. So probably get done about 1230. So probably another hour if that's, that's okay.
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Um, the only way I can really make some progress here, I think. Um, but, uh, so here is here, let's just dive into it.
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And, uh, hopefully this will be useful to everybody. And I, I won't wander off on any more star
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Trek, uh, things while we're, while we're at it. This doesn't help much when you're don't have audio yet.
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For those of you who are just listening to Rahim. And Alhamdulillah was salamualikoum rahmatullahi wabarakatuhu brothers and sisters and friends.
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And welcome to the global Dawa movement show. The GDM show today, we're going to be discussing a very important topic.
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And that topic is the historical reliability of the Bible. The reason we're discussing this topic is because one, one of the good strategies to adopt when you're discussing with our fellow
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Christians about Islam and about Christianity is go straight to the foundations because all of the beliefs come from the
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Bible. This is what biblical Christianity is about. So if you, I, I appreciate that it should be, um, that, that should be the case, but let's be honest.
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Um, a lot of the Christians that you would be dealing with, uh, would not be biblical
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Christians. They would not be consistent at this point, but I, I appreciate the statement.
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I, I would agree at that point, show that the Bible can be trusted from a historical perspective and even a theological perspective.
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Therefore, what comes from this weak basis is weak itself. And then that creates a vacuum where we could start talking about Islam, Tawheed and the mercy of the prophet
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So if you, if you attack the Bible and convince someone it's unreliable, then this creates a vacuum into which you can then present a book that is 14 % the length of the
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Bible, 56 % the length of the new Testament, significantly less clear exegetically than anything in the new
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Testament. And I say that on the basis of grammar, syntax, vocabulary, the ability to, um, locate the text in a historical context.
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Um, for example, I was just reading, uh, I mean, compare Acts, Acts of the apostles with any section of the
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Quran. Um, take, uh, take
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Surahs two, three, and four. I'd be about, would that be about the length of Acts?
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I'll have to look that up. You know, take any commensurately long portion of the text of the
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Quran compared to the book of Acts, which one will have more fundamentally verifiable, identifiable landmarks, historical events, uh, names of people who are in positions of leadership.
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For example, I read when, when I'm not preaching, uh,
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I read the text of scripture. We, we read a chapter from the old, the new
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Testament in the morning and the old Testament evening in our church services. We have two services morning and evening.
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And I was reading in Acts chapter 18, and it was talking about how, uh,
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Claudius had ejected the Jews from Rome. And this had resulted in, in this particular person getting kicked out and they've gone to this city and now they've met there and, and they're both involved in the same trade and, and what goes on as a result and all the rest of this stuff.
35:29
Um, we know about exactly what, we know when that happened. We have external, uh, records, historical records.
35:39
We know why it happened. We know when it happened. And here it is in the book of Acts, almost nothing like that in the
35:47
Quran at all. Their entire swaths of the Quran were the only reason that anyone thinks they know what the background is, is because of stories related in the
35:56
Hadith hundreds of years later, hundreds of years later. And of course the Hadith actually contains contradictory backgrounds for certain sections of the
36:04
Quran as well. So, so you're going to show that the
36:10
Bible's unreliable and then replace it with a book where there are all sorts of questions about how it's to be interpreted, what it's actually saying, its connection to history.
36:26
I mean, Surah 4, 157 places the book in fundamental contradiction to the, some of the most established realities of history itself in regards to crucifixion.
36:36
It's a book that shows next to no meaningful familiarity with the books it claims to be a continuation of in the sense of it's the
36:46
Muhammadan, it's the guardian over these books, but the author doesn't seem to know those books with any meaningful level of knowledge.
36:54
And so the point is obviously that one of the questions we're gonna have to ask as we listen to this video, especially as we listen to Adnan in his presentation, because he's the primary speaker here.
37:12
Is he applying the same standards in the comments he makes?
37:18
For example, he'll talk about the canon of the Bible. Does he then give us a meaningful explanation of why or how the canon of the
37:32
Quran comes about? Because we know there are differences. We know
37:38
Uba Ibn Kab had a different canon, a different number of Surahs. Why are they arranged the way they're arranged?
37:46
Where did, where did this come from? Who did this? What was Uthman up to?
37:52
Why, why do we have that early, very, very early manuscript where there's a page missing?
37:59
It's been ripped out and on the other side, when the page has been written, it's very clear that it's been written in smaller letters and squished together to try to make stuff fit because there's been editing.
38:09
Why is that? What was going on? And remember, the Quran's a much younger document.
38:15
We should have more of the early evidence for it because it's much younger.
38:23
That, that evidence had 600 years less time of transmissional issues, destruction of manuscripts, whatever else, than you have for the
38:34
New Testament, let alone the Old Testament, which is a true work of antiquity rather than the
38:39
Medieval period, which is really what the Quran is, is a product of, is of early, the early Medieval period.
38:46
It's not an, it's not a document of antiquity. Point is, is there going to be a equal standard applied?
38:55
And unfortunately, as normal in this situation, we'll, we'll discover, no, no, there, there won't be an equal standard.
39:02
Our beloved Ustadh, our beloved brother, international speaker, Adnan Rashid.
39:08
So it's a very important topic. There's a lot to discuss, but the first thing
39:15
I want to ask you is what's the Muslim view on the Gospels? Now, just say the
39:24
Muslim view on the Gospels. I find this interesting. Um, these guys well know that there's a lot of divisions, even amongst those who engage in Dawa.
39:40
Adnan knows that. Um, I won't go into details, but Adnan knows that.
39:46
And so I, I try, you know, if I'm gonna debate
39:52
Adnan, I'm going to try to interact with Adnan's view, but that's not the view on the
39:58
Gospels as necessarily other Islamic apologists
40:03
I might engage with. I mean, once in a while you have to engage with some Muslims that clearly don't engage much with scholarship at all outside of their own very narrow view within Islam.
40:17
And by the way, I mentioned a book on Facebook that, um, I'm reading that I'm, I've found very, very useful.
40:24
Al -Fadi's book, The Great Theft. Um, and it's very, very useful if for no other reason, if for no other reason, there are other reasons, but if for no other reason that it gives a, some very important history as to the rise of the
40:40
Wahhabis, the original Salafi movement, the taking over of the
40:46
Salafi movement by the Wahhabis. It raises questions about, did
40:53
Salafism contain within itself the seeds of its own destruction? It raises all sorts of very interesting questions.
40:59
Once I get fully done with it, I think it'll be well worth a time of discussion to be sure.
41:05
But while there would be very, a lot of similarities that would join all
41:12
Muslims, the idea of a Muslim view on this, I think is a little interesting.
41:19
Um, and one of the criticisms that Al -Fadi makes of some of the Salafi and Wahhabi people is they, they tend to define their own view as the only view.
41:29
And some would say, well, that's what you do with Calvinism. Yeah, but we interact. And unlike other people,
41:35
I do not send the Armenians off to, off to hell, uh, which the
41:40
Wahhabis have been very happy to do, uh, with anyone they considered to be a heretic, which is why ISIS is killing lots and lots, lots of Muslims, more
41:49
Muslims than anybody else, actually, uh, that goes back to those, uh, those perspectives too.
41:57
But I just found that strange, the Muslim view, uh, as if there was only one of the gospels.
42:05
It's always important to remember when listening to Muslims, when they use the plural, the singular, uh, because the author of the
42:13
Quran, see, they take their cue from the author of the Quran. The gospel was given to Jesus.
42:20
And so they distinguish between the gospel given to Jesus and the gospels. This assumes that the author of the
42:25
Quran knew there were gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There's no evidence that he did. There's no evidence that he did at all.
42:32
Show me where, show me where he shows any evidence, even in the Hadith. Now, of course you start going hundreds of years after Muhammad at that point, but even in the
42:40
Hadith, where is there any evidence that the author of the Quran understood that there was such a thing as a synoptic gospel had ever encountered these things?
42:54
Um, there is a misunderstanding based upon an outsider listening to Christians and hearing them talking about the gospel, or it's written in the gospel as if that means that there was something called the gospel as a literary unit, other than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
43:16
Um, then Adnan's going to get into right here now. Um, well, we'll, we'll see.
43:24
Uh, he, he's going to get into this whole idea of there being confusion about, you know, who's the early, well, he's going to say that we are dependent totally upon Papias for the belief in the four gospels.
43:40
That is just incredibly naive, incredibly naive from a church history perspective that Papias is the originator.
43:51
He may be one of the earliest people because he's, we're talking about some of the earliest writings outside of the
43:58
New Testament. But when you look carefully at Clement and Ignatius and look at the streams of tradition that they're drawing from, uh, leading all the way out to Irenaeus, the idea that, well, it all, it all can be traced back to, it's a very simplistic view, uh, that I don't think you could substantiate overly well, but we'll get to it here in a second.
44:24
The Muslim view to put it in a nutshell on the Bible, uh, as a whole is that, uh,
44:30
Bible is not completely reliable and it is not completely, uh, unreliable.
44:37
Rather, there is a middle view, the Muslims take, and that view is that there is truth in the Bible, no doubt.
44:44
Uh, there are remnants of a revelation from Allah, from God Almighty, the God of Abraham, the
44:49
God of Moses, the God of Jesus, and the God of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Um, and on the other hand, or at the same time, we have information that comes from humans.
44:59
There is a strong human element in the Bible, and this is the classical view of the major scholars of Islam.
45:08
And how do we know this? What does the Quran say about the Bible, for example? The Quran makes, uh, the same claim. In some places, the
45:14
Quran, uh -
45:19
I was, um, I was listening to this, sorry about that, uh,
45:27
I was listening to this, uh, on a, uh, on a ride.
45:33
No, it was on a run. And, um, I was fascinated by asking myself the question and then listening carefully, what level of clarity can
45:54
Adnan bring from the text of the Quran itself to the issue of what it allegedly says about the
46:03
Bible? What level of clarity can he bring? How clear is the
46:10
Quran? And I think you're going to be surprised if you think that there is a lot of clarity.
46:19
The, the primary text that Adnan is going to utilize is of course, Surah 279. But what's interesting back up from 279 to 278.
46:33
Now, many times, Muslims will say that's invalid.
46:41
That ayah is not related to the ayah before it. And that's one of the problems is that it is very, very difficult to know exactly where an ayah came from, how it's related to the next.
46:57
Is there a flow of thought? Sometimes the Muslim will demand you allow, you need to allow a flow of thought to develop throughout, um, a, a
47:06
Surah. And yet, as you know, I've been in debates with Muslims who have said, no, that's, that's invalid. You can't do that.
47:11
You cannot assume that Surah 517 is related to Surah 571, which is related to Surah 516.
47:21
How are we to know? Who's to say? That's, that's, that's one of the issues, but Surah 278 and among them are unlettered ones who do not know the scripture except in wishful thinking, but they're only assuming.
47:39
Now, who, who are the unlettered ones? Well, let's go back. That would seem to indicate there's a flow here, right?
47:46
So let's go back to 275. Do you covet the hope of believers that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then distort the
47:56
Torah after they had understood it while they were knowing? Now, I didn't,
48:05
I guess I left the study Quran someplace else. Uh, everybody keeps asking me about the very
48:13
Quran that I have been talking about. And, uh, man, I haven't heard from, uh,
48:18
Ace Bookbinding. I need to, need to call them, see if I'm going to be able to have that. I have no idea where it would be in my office.
48:24
So it's, uh, it's not in here. So we won't worry about it. We'll use this one. Um, but make a note, call
48:33
Ace Bookbinding, write it, write it down, hand it to me afterwards. Cause I, I will forget. I have too many things get done before next week.
48:40
Uh, thanks. Uh, this is Sahih International, it's a good translation.
48:46
Do you covet the hope of believers that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then distort the
48:55
Torah? Time out. You know, we're, I'm sorry. Uh, at the speed
49:00
I'm going right now, we ain't going to get done with this short video. I apologize, but I just, you know,
49:09
I don't want this to come out wrong, but where else on the web are you going to get, thank you for the tweet there.
49:18
Um, where else on the web are you going to get this kind of discussion of the text of the
49:24
Quran in response to a current, you know, two current
49:30
Muslims engaging in global dawah. It's pretty unusual.
49:38
And if you're still watching, you are too. And that means you actually want to be prepared too.
49:44
And so I think it's a good thing. And I, I, I not only commend you for that, but I thank you for taking the time to listen to this program.
49:52
Um, because there's lots of other things you could be doing and hopefully it's not just to get your time on the treadmill over faster, which
50:00
I'm not sure it really helped you out a whole lot, um, doing that. Anyway, think about what's being said here.
50:09
A party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then distort the Torah after they had understood it while they were knowing what words of Allah were they hearing?
50:19
Where'd they, where'd they hear these things? Weren't they hearing them in the Torah? I thought the Torah had been corrupted. So you can hear.
50:27
So they actually believed like Adnan, that some words were the words of Allah and some words were, how were they to know before the coming of the
50:36
Quran? Because you know that the Quran is going to hold the people of the book who have the
50:43
Torah responsible for what's in the Torah, right? So how can you be held accountable to a revelation when you don't know what the revelation is?
50:53
Could you be held accountable to the Quran if you don't actually know what the Quran is? If you have questions about what is and what is not revelation within the
51:01
Quran and when they meet those who believe, they say we have believed, but when they are alone with one another, they say, do you talk to them about what
51:11
Allah has revealed to you so they can argue with you about it before your Lord? Then will you not reason?
51:17
So there's something going on here about people who are not being honest with the true revelation they've received from God.
51:30
It says, but do they not know that Allah knows what they conceal and what they declare? So they're saying one thing in private, they say another thing in public, they have disbelieved what
51:42
Allah has said to them. They're hypocritical. And so it's among them,
51:52
Surah 279, among them are unlettered ones who do not know the scripture except in wishful thinking, but they are only assuming.
52:02
So amongst the hypocrites are those who are unlettered, they're untrained, they don't know the scripture except in wishful thinking, and they only assume things.
52:18
We're not talking here about scholars who possess the Torah. We're not talking here about people who know what revelation is.
52:25
So woe, verse 79, and this is the verse that most Muslims go to, and that's where Adnan's about to go.
52:31
So woe to those who write the scripture with their own hands.
52:38
Interestingly enough, the Sahih International, this is, this is interpretational. I'm just saying, they seem to understand it the same way.
52:45
In verse 78, they capitalize the word scripture. They capitalize the word scripture.
52:53
But, and it's Kitab. I at least know enough Arabic to be able to see that. It's Kitab.
53:02
But in verse 79, not only did they not capitalize scripture, they put quotation marks around it.
53:10
So woe to those who write the scripture with their own hands, then say, this is from Allah.
53:17
In order to exchange it for a small price, woe to them for what their hands have written, woe to them for what they earn.
53:22
So you have people from the unlettered ones who do not know the scripture, who write with their own hands something they call scripture and sell it for a price.
53:33
And this is supposed to be evidence that the actual Torah, which is said to be
53:41
Natsal, sent down by Allah to contain light and guidance has been changed. Doesn't the same
53:48
Quran say there is no changer of Allah's words? Wouldn't this be people who write other books that they call scripture?
54:00
I mean, am I, am I just making something up here? It seems to me that I'm the one trying to follow this and, and follow the meaning of the text, try to figure it out rather than going, well, you know, here's this verse.
54:16
And since it refers to people writing books, their own hands and saying it's from Allah, then that must mean that's what happened with the
54:21
Bible. Don't you realize there is a huge gap between that assertion and actually proving it, or at least even making a sound argument for it.
54:32
In fact, I would suggest if you read 279 in that way, you're going to end up making numerous other texts of the, you're going to have to subservient numerous other texts in the
54:42
Quran to this. And there's no reason to do it. There's no reason to do it.
54:49
That's not a clear text. That is not Mubinun. Mubinun in Arabic means clear, perspicuous. That's not
54:55
Mubinun as to any type of corruption of the Bible. No application is made in that way. So there you go.
55:06
Uh, let's see, let's see how, let's see how, let's see what level of clarity the
55:12
Quran is going to give here as to the alleged corruption of the Bible. For example, in chapter five, the
55:18
Quran clearly states that let the Christians judge by what Allah has revealed therein in the
55:26
Gospels. Okay. Catch that folks. I think I'm waiting.
55:33
I'm waiting. The technical guy is having issues over there.
55:39
There we go. Caught you sleeping, huh? Your pointer was over here somewhere.
55:46
I can't find my pointer. Better keep an eye on that pointer. Um, I think someone's been listening.
55:55
That's my argument, folks. That's my argument. That's not mine. Other people, and you know who you are.
56:03
Other people in the audience have been making that argument for a long time. I didn't come up with it, but I certainly do believe that it's a fair, valid reading of Surah 5, 47, 48.
56:16
Let the out in jail, the people, the gospel judge by what is contained, be he.
56:26
And I have asked my, um, here
56:33
I am talking about it and somebody on, on Twitter, I'd love to have your comments on, on this. Here's, here's something to go read while you're actually doing the dividing line.
56:41
Uh, I'm a good multitasker. Not that good. Uh, that's a little beyond, a little beyond my capacities.
56:47
Um, I have argued over and again, be he the only, when I, when I learned, started studying
56:53
Arabic, first thing I asked, one of the first things I asked my Arabic tutor, could we look at this?
56:59
What does this refer to? It refers to the gospel. Adnan Rashid just confirmed that, that that is the only meaningful reading of the
57:09
Arabic, is that the Allah and Jill, the people, the gospel, which are Christians are to judge.
57:16
Now, what that a judge is another issue. I've gotten at least three or four different interpretations.
57:23
Now, sir, a five from different Muslims that I've been debating, and they are not really consistent with one another in how they interpret it.
57:33
Um, but the people of the gospel are to judge by what's contained in the gospel.
57:39
The only way that can be a meaningful, uh, injunction in the days of Mohammed is if what the gospel is still available to the people.
57:56
And if you want to say, if you want to say, well, this is, this refers to maybe, well, what
58:03
Christians does this refer to? I mean, I'm now, now my friends on the other side are starting to come up with all sorts of weird little groups to try to explain why the cut on does not meaningfully interact with, with mainstream
58:22
Christian belief that had been defined in that day, who are the all in jail, the people, the gospel.
58:29
Well, the point is he's just confirmed what is contained therein is the gospel.
58:37
That's what they were to judge by back then. And if the Quran is supposed to continue to have meaning today, that's what we should be judging by now, which means we would have to possess the
58:50
NGO by which to make judgment. Again, to me, one of the most important things is judge what, um, but there you go.
59:00
There's, there's the statement. That means that there is certainly some part of the gospels or gospel, um, that is from Allah.
59:09
On the other hand, the Quran states in chapter two, verse 79, will be onto those who write books at their own hands.
59:29
And they said, these books are from God, from Allah and little do they earn from it. Um, will be onto what they write will be onto what they earn.
59:37
So the Quran is very clear. Now, is there any place else in the cut on where woe be upon what they write would have any, would in any way be connected with either the or the
59:52
NGO anywhere is a woe ever placed upon the
59:58
Toronto NGO. At one point, one could actually argue that the Quran makes the argument that just as you could not produce another
01:00:08
Sarah, like the Quran, which of itself is a rather subjective argument, but neither could you do the same thing with the
01:00:16
Torah. So where is, where do you ever have? Whoa, even remember, even in the stories in a
01:00:22
Hadith, the store, remember the story in the Hadith, it's in Bakari. Cause I was just listening to Bakari on a run a few days ago.
01:00:29
Um, the story about the, the man who placed his hand over the versus stoning regarding adultery.
01:00:38
Um, the, the verse was still there. He hadn't taken it out. There is nothing in that story that suggests that the
01:00:45
Torah had been changed, but that someone was perverting it by not reading a portion of it.
01:00:53
That's the toilet. Again, there is no changer of the laws words. That's what the Quran says. That's what the
01:01:00
Quran says. So I'm, I'm, I just have to ask a non is this reading of two 79, a meaningful interpretation in context and in the context of the entirety of the
01:01:21
Quran. I think you can make a strong argument without abandoning any meaningful rules of grammar, syntax, or anything else that the author of the
01:01:33
Quran really did believe that if Allah sent it down, it could not be destroyed by man.
01:01:41
I think you can make that argument. I don't think two 79 is changing that.
01:01:46
I think two 79 can very easily. Why, why can you not see that the, so woe to those is referring to among them are unlettered ones, which is referring back to the hypocrites.
01:02:07
Are you saying the authors of the, of the biblical works that we have today were hypocrites that they are amongst the unlettered do not know the scriptures.
01:02:14
Let's be really careful guys. Let's let's, when you talk about unlettered, they do not know the scriptures.
01:02:21
Um, do me a favor, compare the level of knowledge that the author of the code on had of the old and new
01:02:31
Testament texts with what the author to the Hebrews had of the old
01:02:37
Testament text writing in the new Testament. Not even close. Not one 10 ,000th.
01:02:46
You want to talk about not knowing the scriptures? Um, wow.
01:02:54
Find that some of these books have been written by men. They have added information into the gospels as well as the old
01:03:01
Testament and have presented it as the word of God. While that's not the case. But wait a minute, wait, how do you get from Surah two, which clearly has a context of, of people who are claiming one thing and doing something else.
01:03:18
I say one thing in private, how do you make the leap? And it is a leap.
01:03:23
It is a 600 year leap back to the first century and make the statement you just made.
01:03:33
How do you do that? That's huge. You haven't provided a foundation there.
01:03:41
How, what in the text tells us that what that means is that men have inserted into the words of a law.
01:03:53
I mean, this says they write books with their own hand, not that they insert stuff into the words of Allah. It's stuff they're calling scripture.
01:04:01
Where, where do you get this idea? How do you determine what's what? Well, you just use the
01:04:06
Quran. So you use a book written 600 years later by someone who had no meaningful knowledge of those original writings to determine what the original writings actually were.
01:04:14
You see why we have a little struggle with that? You know,
01:04:21
I've used illustration before, you know, what if someone comes along 600 years after Muhammad and says, use my book to determine what the original intention of the
01:04:30
Quran was? Not really going to be going for that, are you? And for good reason. Certainly some element of truth in the
01:04:39
Gospels as well as the Old Testament, but it is not entirely from God. So in summary, the
01:04:45
Quran is saying these works are corrupted by the hands of man. Yes. But within them there is some truth.
01:04:51
The Quran is saying, to put it in a nutshell again, that the Torah and the
01:04:57
Torah doesn't mean five books here. Okay. The Quran is saying the law of Moses, whatever form it was revealed in, it was revealed in to Moses, that particular form,
01:05:09
Quran is talking about the original form, the Torah, and the Quran talks about the Gospel, okay, which is one
01:05:15
Gospel, not four Gospels. Yes. And then the Quran talks about the Psalms, not Psalms, sorry, the
01:05:21
Zuboor of David, which people think today is Psalms. Okay. So it is not Psalms.
01:05:26
The Quran is not saying the Psalms. Okay. So the Quran is saying these revelations were original at one point.
01:05:33
They are true. They were revealed by Allah. However, they were altered later on. So some elements of truth have remained.
01:05:40
Others have been taken out and some human element has been added in. Now, okay.
01:05:47
I know that's what you believe, but Surah 279 doesn't say that. That is a huge leap and it runs against so much of what the
01:05:58
Quran is actually stating. Not only that, if you believe that Jesus was a prophet of Allah, you don't know almost anything that he actually said.
01:06:12
And it's interesting. I would imagine that both of our speakers here would believe that John 14 and 16 are prophecies of the coming of Muhammad.
01:06:27
If you go there, you're stuck. You're stuck. Because you could put everything
01:06:36
Jesus says in the Quran onto a single page and it would tell you absolutely positively nothing relevant to the life of Jesus.
01:06:45
I mean, well, okay. Unless you want to include borrowing from the
01:06:51
Arabic infancy gospel and Jesus speaking from his cradle and stuff like that, which you might, but the point being there's a teeny tiny amount in comparison to what we have in the gospels.
01:07:06
But one thing that's patently obvious is that Jesus, if he was a prophet of Allah, could have corrected any misapprehensions, changes, or perversions to the
01:07:21
Torah. And isn't that the argument of Surah 5? Torah is given to Moses, gospel is given to Jesus. It is confirming what came before him.
01:07:31
And so wouldn't Jesus have corrected the errors in the Torah and rebuked people for elevating anything that was not divine or revelation to being the words of Allah?
01:07:46
Where's your evidence that he ever did? I can give you all sorts of first century evidence that Jesus accepted the
01:07:56
Jewish canon, which is the same canon I accept, of 39 books as being the very words of God and held men accountable to those words.
01:08:08
Where's your evidence that he ever corrected any of those books? He was a prophet of God, right?
01:08:15
That's what he would have done. Where's your evidence that he did any of that? There is none. There is none.
01:08:23
And the only reason you're stuck in a position of having to try to come up with any is because of your odd way of reading 279.
01:08:29
If you don't read 279, if you go ahead and accept there is no change of Allah's words, then you don't have a problem here.
01:08:40
Then you can read Surah 5 in its context. It still leaves you with, obviously, then the greater conundrum.
01:08:50
Why doesn't the Quran seem to understand what Christians actually believe and what the New Testament actually revealed?
01:08:57
What the Gospel is. How the Gospel is a message that is contained in each of the
01:09:05
Gospels as well as beyond the Gospels. Because it is a message and the
01:09:12
Spirit of God gave us so much revelation concerning what it is to define it so that the people of God would be able to do what
01:09:19
God's called them to do. So it's explained to us in the entirety of the New Testament of which the writer of the
01:09:27
Quran knew almost nothing. Almost nothing at all.
01:09:33
All right. So just some of the many questions raised here.
01:09:39
This is the Quran. So how do we distinguish between its truth and its falsehood then? We have an external yardstick as Muslims.
01:09:46
As Muslims, of course, this doesn't apply to Christians. They don't believe in the Quran, right? We do. So the
01:09:51
Quran is the Furqan. The Quran clearly states that it is the criterion you use to judge what is true and what may not be true.
01:09:58
Yes. So Quran is that criterion. And when we conduct historical... Now remember, back in my very first Muslim debate, this issue came up with Shabir Ali, and I play this clip all the time.
01:10:10
I asked Shabir during cross -examination, how can we know? Well, it's by reference to the
01:10:15
Quran. And so it is the muhaiman, it is the guardian over the previous revelations.
01:10:23
That's the understanding. It's the lens through which you're to look at all these things. I understand that's where you're coming from, but I hope you understand that you now need to, in some way, give a meaningful defense as to why we should look at the
01:10:41
Quran in this anachronistic way. It's an anachronism.
01:10:48
You are taking... You're saying we have Torah, we have Gospel, we have
01:10:53
Quran. Look at it backwards. Look at it from the last towards the earliest, rather than you have a consistent revelation and we can trace this revelation.
01:11:06
So what the New Testament writers say is, here's all the prophecies of the Messiah. Here's everything the
01:11:12
Old Testament left unfinished, uncompleted. There's all this stuff about the blessing of the nations, everything else.
01:11:19
The only way to see how all this is fulfilled in how it's fulfilled in Jesus the
01:11:25
Messiah. And that's why he is the final word. That's why in these last days, not the medium days, the middle days before the final prophet, but in these last days,
01:11:39
God has spoken by his Son. That is why the idea that the Quran is a further revelation of God is a fundamental denial of the claims of the
01:11:48
Christian faith. It's because it's saying these aren't the last days.
01:11:55
And God hasn't spoken with finality in his Son, because it doesn't have a Son. Now, of course, what the Quran understands as to Sonship, sadly, doesn't seem to understand that either.
01:12:06
But it's a fundamental denial of what came before it. But it doesn't interact with that.
01:12:12
I could at least respect the Quran on this level if it showed some knowledge.
01:12:18
If it said, now, we know that it is said in the
01:12:24
Injil that Jesus is the final word from God, but here's why that is not true.
01:12:32
But there's not even any evidence, and I find no evidence in the Hadith either, that the author of the
01:12:41
Quran understood what the claims of the New Testament were, and why the
01:12:48
New Testament is the final word, because it is the fulfillment. It can see itself as one unitary whole, because it is the fulfillment of what came before in the
01:13:00
Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, the Law, the Prophets, the
01:13:05
Writings. It is the fulfillment. It goes together. It is complete. It is finished.
01:13:10
There is no need for something that comes afterwards. There's nothing about some other Prophet coming.
01:13:16
It's not there. It's made up by people later on. The Quran doesn't even attempt to do that, because the author does not know it.
01:13:25
It does not know these previous... Though it seems to base its authority upon the same
01:13:32
God speaking in the same way, it doesn't even make the attempt. Doesn't even make the attempt.
01:13:40
Analysis or scientific study of the Bible, we come to realize that indeed the Bible has been altered.
01:13:47
And that's the next question. So from an academic historical perspective, how do we know that the Gospels have been corrupted from that perspective?
01:13:53
So how does the historical view or the scientific view support the Quranic perspective?
01:14:00
Yes. Now, big question here. Will Adnan apply the same quote -unquote scientific critical analysis of the
01:14:10
Quran that he is now going to utilize for the New Testament? Will we have even scales?
01:14:17
Will he use the same argumentation? Well, you know, will we hear anything about textual variation, missing pages, the
01:14:28
Uthmanic revision, the fact that we really should have a broader textual basis for the most primitive
01:14:39
Quran? Because it's 600 years younger. It did not have nearly as much time to go through before the modern period, before the invention of printing.
01:14:53
Are we going to hear some type of meaningful recognition that, for example, you know, the fact that we use a
01:15:04
July 1924 Egyptian printing as our final authority for the Quran is really weird, because there wasn't any worldwide consortium of Islamic scholars that got together and compared the best manuscripts and did anything like that.
01:15:20
It was just the school district wanted a standardized text, and now we all think that this is what floated down from heaven.
01:15:27
You know, we really need to have a critical edition. We need to get the leading scholars of the world together, and we need to gather together the best.
01:15:35
No, that's not what you get. In fact, in our debate with Adnan, at one point, I was going to cue this up, but I didn't.
01:15:40
At one point, he's like, hey, we can get back to what Uthman had.
01:15:46
That's good enough for me. And I'm like, you know, that's like, we can get back to the
01:15:52
Textus Receptus. That's good enough for me. It's the same attitude, the same attitude, but it's not an attitude that shows a real understanding of what critical scholarship really is.
01:16:03
See, critical scholarship has been hijacked to become unbelieving critical scholarship.
01:16:10
You can have believing critical scholarship that recognizes there is a history to any ancient text,
01:16:18
Old Testament, New Testament, and the Quran. You don't have to become a naturalist.
01:16:24
You don't have to become an atheist to recognize that reality. We have spent hours on this program discussing the history of the text of the
01:16:32
Bible, and we recognize that there have been textual variants, and there have been, you know, the
01:16:39
Textus Receptus is a revision at a point in time, and it needs to be examined on the same basis as anything else took place beforehand, and so on.
01:16:47
So we've discussed this kind of stuff over and over again. There are Muslims who recognize that this is needful for their own text as well, but they are in the small minority.
01:16:58
They are in the small minority. And so it comes up a lot today.
01:17:04
In the Bible, the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, we see that no two manuscripts of the
01:17:11
Old Testament as well as the New Testament agree with each other. Now, what does that mean, they don't agree with each other?
01:17:16
There are no two manuscripts of the Quran that agree with each other. On the level of every single letter, there's all sorts of aliphs that have been put in, and there are differences.
01:17:25
That is true of any handwritten document from antiquity. There are going to be differences.
01:17:33
Why say that? If you're going to say that, Adnan, say it for the
01:17:38
Quran too. Put it on the same level. Honesty requires this, doesn't it?
01:17:46
You know it to be true. So put it out there and say that's because these were handwritten, and hence what we need is a widespread, uncontrolled by governmental authority manuscript tradition.
01:18:04
Well, maybe that's why you don't say it, because you know that's not what you got. That's what we've got, not what you got.
01:18:10
And as much as I tried to explain it to you, I'm not sure you've gotten it yet, but it is having manuscripts from a wide variety of places, not controlled by any one particular group that gives you the greatest confidence that you can recreate the original text.
01:18:26
Once you only got a narrow spectrum of manuscripts, and they're under the control of one particular group of people, that greatly diminishes the confidence you can have that you still possess the original text.
01:18:45
The people you quote know this. Bart Ehrman knows this. Metzger knows this. Even though you're quoting them, still haven't fully understood what it is they're actually saying.
01:18:54
That's a problem. All different in content. But some are minor, right? Majority of the difference is we have to be honest.
01:19:02
We as Muslims, we shouldn't be polemical to such an extent that we start to become dishonest.
01:19:09
We have to be honest. Most of these differences are minor. However, I think,
01:19:15
I think that's where I've had an influence. Right there. I think that,
01:19:21
I think, because I don't remember anyone saying that up until the last few years.
01:19:27
I think, I hope that I've had that influence. And I'm glad to hear him saying the vast majority,
01:19:37
I would say 99 % are not translatable out of the original language. That means they don't impact the meaning of the text.
01:19:47
And so there you go. So when you say no two manuscripts are the same, what you should say is the differences do not impact the meaning of the text.
01:20:06
That's what you should be saying. Because Adnan, if you take the most
01:20:13
Byzantine manuscript over here, and the most Alexandrian over here, representing the two extremes of the manuscript tradition, and you apply the same standards of exegesis and interpretation to these two manuscripts, every single doctrine of the
01:20:38
Christian faith with which you disagree will be found in both. Both will teach the exact same faith.
01:20:46
You might have a slightly different list of verses that teach a particular doctrine, but no doctrine of the
01:20:54
Christian faith is based upon only one verse anyways. So what you miscommunicate to people is when you say no two are alike, that no two communicate the same message.
01:21:08
No, they all communicate the exact same message. The exact same message. And I would say, as far as I can tell, every single manuscript of the
01:21:19
Quran does too. Same issue. Same issue. Are we really, could we come to a point of agreement on this?
01:21:28
That we know what Bart Ehrman says, we know what the New Testament originally said. We're just playing around with details.
01:21:35
He's right. He's right. We know what the Quran originally said, at least up to a certain point.
01:21:46
See, one of the problems is when you have a controlled transmission, that Uthmanic revision thing, man, that's important.
01:21:55
That's vitally important. When you have the documented existence of a revision and the destruction of preceding materials, that's where the problem lies.
01:22:10
Without that free transmission of the text, problem. Absolutely problem.
01:22:17
And I think you need to come to understand that. I really, really do think you need to come to understand that.
01:22:24
But I think what's obvious is we know what the New Testament originally said, and we know what the
01:22:30
Quran originally said, and what that means is the author of the Quran did not understand what the New Testament originally said, and does not deal with so much of what the
01:22:40
New Testament originally revealed concerning Jesus Christ. That will always be a problem.
01:22:48
A major difference is also, there are major passages that have been included into the New Testament as well.
01:22:53
Example, for example, if we're speaking about the New Testament in particular, the Gospel of Mark, for example.
01:22:59
Now, notice he's not going to go because there isn't anything there. There isn't anything there.
01:23:08
The textual variation of Old Testament text is extremely small.
01:23:16
I mean, if you compare, for example, the 1525 Blomberg text upon which
01:23:22
King James was based with the modern Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensia, they're like eight places where there's a fundamental difference.
01:23:29
And you're not even talking about large chunks of text at all.
01:23:34
So you have to go to the New Testament. Where's it going to go? To the very texts that I include in every single discussion
01:23:42
I've ever given of the reliability of texts in the New Testament. What are the major variants of New Testament?
01:23:48
Longer ending of Mark, Pericope adultery, John 7, 53 to 8, 11. Um, and aside from that, you have primarily one verse variations of vast majority of which are parallels between Gospels to where you'll have a verse in Mark and therefore it appears in later manuscripts in Matthew, which may not even be someone purposely trying to do something.
01:24:13
They just know the text as it appears in Mark. And therefore when they're copying Matthew, they make the automatic addition because it's in their memory.
01:24:22
Um, those are the primary, well, the longer ending of Mark and the
01:24:29
Pericope adultery in John 7, 53 to 8, 11 are the only two blocks of text.
01:24:37
And here's the question Adnan, you just went to longer ending of Mark. How do you know it's a variant?
01:24:47
How do you know it was added in? Ever thought about that? You know it was added in because you know what the original looked like.
01:24:56
If you didn't know what the original looked like, you wouldn't know it was added in, would you? You see, the fact that we have critical additions, the fact that we're open about these things should make you and all of your fellow, what is a da 'i?
01:25:16
Is that, is that the plural? I need to get to get the plural of that down because I've heard it pronounced a number of different ways and y 'all, y 'all tell me how you want me to refer to you in that way.
01:25:27
All of, all of your fellow, uh, practitioners of Dawa, I'd like to know the plural of the verbal, maybe participial form.
01:25:40
Uh, let me know and I'll utilize it. Um, you and your fellow practitioners of Dawa should be the first people up in the morning calling for a critical edition of the
01:25:59
Kanaan. You should be the last people satisfied with what you have right now.
01:26:07
Last people. Um, if I don't have one in here, I should, and I will fix this, uh, post haste, but I don't think
01:26:19
I do. Um, yeah, I don't have my Arabic Quran in here. I apologize.
01:26:26
But you, you know, as well as I, that if you have the 1924
01:26:31
Egyptian blue colored printing, there are no notes. There are no, there's no notes to buy on the page saying, um, you know, the
01:26:43
Paris manuscript says this, the, uh, London manuscript says this, um, the, what, what you'd really want would be a critical edition.
01:26:59
You know, the study Quran has some of that in it. The new study Quran has some of that in that. And, um, and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping to have that.
01:27:08
Um, when I teach at RTS, I'm, I'm, I'm going to call him today. And I think what I'll do if they're, if they're close on it,
01:27:14
I'm going to have them ship it there so that I'll have it with me. Um, but what you should want would be critical notes indicating when there is a textual variant, what the variant is.
01:27:30
And also what you would want would be notes that would say, for example, in the Tafsir of Muqatal, it is said that, um,
01:27:43
Abdullah ibn Masud read this at this text. You'd want to know that you'd want to have the maximum amount of information available, maximum amount.
01:28:01
And if you're sitting there saying, no, I wouldn't, then you and I have a fundamental problem as to how to determine meaningful truth when it comes to ancient documents, especially when we call them the very word of God.
01:28:16
My God is going to speak in such a way that we can examine how he gave us his word without hiding anything, without hiding.
01:28:26
So you folks should be the first people calling for a full critical edition of the
01:28:34
Quran on the same level of what we have. I have it on my iPhone, on my iPad.
01:28:42
You can have it on your droid, Accordance, Lagos. I've got NA28. I've got the
01:28:48
CNTTS. I've got the, uh, critical editions of both the Hebrew and the
01:28:54
Greek Septuagint. I've got it all right here, fully searchable, nothing hidden, nothing hidden away. You need to have the same thing.
01:29:03
And I would think you all would be the first people to be crying out for that. I apologize. I wanted not only to get through all of this, how far did
01:29:12
I get? I got six minutes. I got 10, I got 10 minutes left of this.
01:29:19
I am an abject failure. Uh, there is absolutely no two ways about it. I talk too much.
01:29:24
I get too excited about this stuff. Um, but folks,
01:29:30
I hope you recognize that. The reason we do this is that guy, he's not on the screen anymore, but Adnan, dude,
01:29:43
I want you to know my savior. And if by picking apart everything and being as honest as I can be,
01:29:55
I make any movement towards you being able to hear his word with more clarity than it's worth at all.
01:30:02
It's worth it all. It really is. We're going to continue. In fact, if I can find the time to sneak another one in this week,
01:30:09
I will. Cause I really wanted to get done with that. I wanted to get back to what Yale, what L I'm sorry, but we'll get there.