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Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:31

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, my name is James White, and we have a lot to get to today and not a whole lot of time in which to do it, so we are going to get at it quickly.

00:42

I have been mentioning that we are going to have a major announcement at the beginning of the program today, and that we would have a special guest on to do that, and so I'm hoping that his voice will cooperate in joining with us today.

01:05

And I may have to turn Twitter off just to avoid the loons, the many, many legion of loons that demonstrate beyond all doubt that simple common sense has been removed from public discourse in the

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United States. It's done. Anyway, I may have to minimize that, but I'll try to hold on here for a little while.

01:29

But I am joined by the miracle of Skype, by a very shadowy figure.

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There he is, with a light right behind him, so he looks like... I want to look like them.

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You want to look like them? Yes. I can barely hear him there. I'm not sure if Rich is fighting with it or just what there, but by now, given the...

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Oh, it disappeared there. You got a what? It's frozen?

02:07

Oh, you're kidding. Oh, bummer. Yeah, you're frozen. There's a frozen image of you sitting back with the light right above your head, so you really do look like a mafia boss or something.

02:19

Well, that helps, I guess. Witness... It looks like someone in a witness protection program, actually.

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Oh, you sound great, too. Wonderful. Lovely. While he's playing with that, for some reason, the picture's frozen, but the voice isn't.

02:37

And I have no way of understanding why this is. It looks like Rich is frozen, too, so this is really weird.

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Anyway, I'm joined by Michael Fallon, who is... I don't even know all of your titles, because it's like Sovereign Christian Cruises and Sovereign Events and Sovereign Luxury Experiences and Sovereign Shuffleboard Games.

03:02

It's everything. I mean, you've pretty much got it all covered now, don't you? Just refer to me as them.

03:09

Them. No, just kidding. No, we... And James, to be concise, we started this organization years ago with the purpose of being able to use what we have in a portion of our profits to put towards apologetics.

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And the very first cruise, the very first event, the very first anything that happened before the thousands of events that we've done in the last 15 years started with an event with you.

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It did. So that was our very first cruise, and that was our very first apologetics conference and debate that we did.

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And that's really what got the whole ball rolling. And you've learned a few things since then. Yes, I asked

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John Calvin into my heart years ago. That's not what

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I meant. Yes, though we've learned all sorts of things, and you've been a good mentor to me. Well, no,

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I wasn't talking about that either. I'm talking about the fact that generally the embarkation process and everything else is a lot easier to handle now than it was in like 1999 or 2000.

04:21

Well, you know, one of the things that we've done, and with the ability to have so many different events at sea as well as tours and so forth, is that we've gotten to know everybody that works shore side with the ports, the port agencies, and so forth, with the ships, much of the ship staff.

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So no matter who it is that we're cruising on, which cruise line or which port we're sailing out of, we usually know many, many people there.

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So we're able to really make things easy and painless. You know people there, but as you know,

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I don't get off the ships, so I don't know anybody there at all. Oh, you're going to get off the ship.

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That's what you say every time. Now, obviously, it's been a long time since we did anything.

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You're much better at this than I am. What was the last thing that we did as far as a cruise? We had dinner at...

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Not you and me. Oh, okay. Sorry. No, I think the last official thing,

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I mean, we had the debates that were this past April in Orlando. No, no, no, no, no, no.

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I mean a cruise. The cruise is... The last cruise that I believe that we did was in 2011, and that was with you and I believe

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Jerry Johnson was with us as well. Yeah, that's right. But that wasn't an Alpha and Omega cruise specifically.

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Not specifically, but you had the vast majority of people that were on the cruise were there because of you.

05:54

Okay, so... And that was Mexico or Caribbean or... It was a Western Caribbean cruise out of Galveston, and then returning to Galveston, a six -hour view of fog.

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That's where we got to play many games of chess while waiting for the port to open. Yes, I remember that.

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With Larry Wessels, yes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That was interesting. Anyway, so the most famous commercial that we've ever had on the dividing line,

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I wish we could have found it. I just don't think it exists anymore. Rich is looking around now.

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Okay. Anyway, the most famous commercial we ever had, you cut. It featured your sultry, professionally trained tone of voice.

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And it started off, Alaska. Remember that?

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Alaska, yes. Alaska. Alaska. Yeah, you're going to have to work on that voice before we cut a new one.

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Every time I would talk to people, and they would say, when are you guys going to do a cruise again?

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It's been years, and it's been over half a decade. And especially, are you ever going to go back to Alaska?

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So I was telling you about that not that long ago, and you said, well, let's do it. So what did you work out?

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Well, upon Jim's lead, because, James, what is it first that you really like about cruising

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Alaska? Because you've been there a number of times, but that's where you get excited about going back to. What is it that you really enjoy about it?

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It's hard to... I mean, each one has been different. We did the Inside Passage, I remember once being on the back of the ship, reading and just watching just this incredible landscape going by you, and the mountains, and the forests, and it's so quiet, and so smooth in the

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Inside Passage, and that's incredible. And then, of course, sailing, Hubbard, which we did on the very first time up there, we did

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Hubbard, and it calved for us and stuff, and we got to get really close, and that was an incredible thing.

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But then Glacier Bay, oh my goodness. You can take pictures in Glacier Bay that make it look like you have been trained as a photographer your entire life.

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Can you take a bad picture in Glacier Bay? I'm not even sure if that's possible, but it's just obviously where you are.

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When you go to Alaska, every time... When I haven't been on a cruise, but I've been up there to speak in Anchorage and stuff, and Tom Askell went up with us, a member, and driving, and you go around a corner, and almost every corner you go around, you've got to stop because it's a picture postcard.

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I've got to get a picture of this, it's just incredible. So there's just no place on Earth like Alaska, and that just makes all the...

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And of course, I keep telling, you keep ragging on me about the time on the first trip up there on the

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Mercury, where I heard the captain saying, it looks like we might have the aurora tonight.

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So I went out, everybody else didn't, I went out, and there it was, and it was awful incredible.

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I had never seen that before, it was just unbelievable. So it's just where you go, and that makes,

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I think, the fellowship a whole lot better and everything else, because you're just surrounded by such incredible beauty that it just makes it incredible.

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You know, I think, James, one of the things about Alaska is the away -ness of it, if you will. You know, that if you're in the bottom 48, where we are, is that you always have this sense of where you are and so forth, and the connectivity.

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When you get out into Alaska, and you get into the wilderness, there's that real sense of, well, man hasn't really settled here yet, and you as well have just the beauty of God's creation all around you.

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That's one of the reasons that, there's two reasons why we picked this date, which is September 11th through the 18th.

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One of the reasons is because of the fact that we had an unbelievable price that we could get for folks.

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That's about half of the price that it would be on some of the other dates. The other reason is because of the fact that, yes, the

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Aurora Borealis begins to make its appearance known during this time, which was the case the first time that we had gone.

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So, it's just something to where, you know, if you've never been on something like this before, folks, you know, when you think about just going to a conference, which conferences are great, and you can just get edified and filled with the

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Word of God, the fellowship at conferences can be good, to your car and back to your hotel and to the restaurants.

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Well, think of that, but yet you are all in the same place. You're eating together every day. You know, you're fully going someplace together.

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So, once we leave Vancouver, we're on this journey together, and as well in the journey of learning what

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Dr. White is going to be bringing to us. And you had chosen for the topic this year, and we kind of talked about what you wanted to say.

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And one of the things that you found so important, and I remember you had done a Dividing Light back, I think, in November of this past year, where you addressed this, you touched on this, but your final topic was what that you came up with?

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Well, we've touched on it a lot of times, but the crew's title is going to be

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Apologetics in the Sight of God. And I'm not sure if you came up with that last part, or we were driving around Georgia somewhere trying to come up with a title to express the idea, the fact that I'm very concerned about some of the attitudes that have crept into, well, crept into, have always been a part,

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I guess, of apologetically -minded Christians. And I sent some material to Kathy yesterday expressing some of these things, and I imagine some people can read some of that on their...

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We're going to have a web... Have we gotten the stuff up? I'm not even certain... It's online.

12:31

It's up on your site. Okay, good, good. Excellent. Fundamentally, there is a tendency on the part of those of us who stand for the truth to lose our balance and to lose the fact that the

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Scripture says we are to speak the truth in love. The in love part is not an optional thing.

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It's not a, well, if you feel like it that day, it's not a, on your best day, maybe. It should be the very matrix and context that gives motivation to everything we're doing in the first place.

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Right. And certainly apologists and apologetics has, on one hand, a unfair reputation of being unkind and hateful and things like that because the world is offended by the

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Gospel, is offended by objective truth. We understand all that. But let's be honest, sometimes we allow that to become our excuse for being offensive and harsh and unkind and, you know,

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I've said to some others recently, I've said, you know, if you're going to get the big guns out, the only person who is biblically ready to get the big guns out is somebody who has been seriously in prayer for the person they're going to be aiming those big guns at and is a person who has checked their motives and checked their intentions and checked their heart because we become a clanging gong when we have all the truth in the world, but it is couched in self -centeredness or self -promotion or a lack of love and concern.

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And so the idea of apologetics in the sight of God is just simply to remind us that what we do is always in the presence of the

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Holy Spirit, in the sight of God. The theme text is in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 beginning verse 14, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place for we are a fragments of Christ to God among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

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The one an aroma from death to death, the other an aroma from life to life, and who is adequate for these things. We are not like many peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

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So we speak in Christ in the sight of God. That's an amazing phrase to think about what we are to be doing.

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And of course, I believe that as our society is pushing the accelerator to the floor in its rebellion against God and its flight toward utter self -destruction and hatred of godly things, that all of us are going to be called to engage in apologetics when we live in a society that is firmly in its very commitments opposed to the fundamentals of the faith in the first place.

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So this is no longer, I think I'll go on an apologetic cruise. Nah, I think I'll go on a prophecy cruise. Nah, I think I'll go on a

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Christian finance cruise. It's not a, I get to pick and choose. It's a, if you want to cultivate and create a

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Christian worldview, pass it on to your children and live consistently within it, there's no choice about this anymore.

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But at the same time, it must be done in the context of a fully orbed

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Christian commitment to the lordship of Christ and to what that means. And that also includes the fact that we must speak the truth in love.

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And so that's the essence of what we want to try to do is to strike that balance.

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Yeah, we cannot compromise. We must be firm. But at the same time, we are redeemed sinners.

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We need to recognize we might be talking to a future apostle Paul. And the last thing we want to do is to be a barrier in the lord's work in a person's life rather than the instrument of leading that person to a knowledge of Christ.

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So that's the balance we want to attempt to find. And that's what we'll be addressing on the cruise.

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And we'll be working through these things with an average of about three hours of teaching a day, which would be including, of course, the sessions with Dr.

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White, as well as Q &A. Some days we'll have a little bit more, some days we'll have a little bit less. So about an average of 21 total hours of teaching throughout the week.

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So it's pretty hard, I think, in any environment to be able to find this much immersion in what we'll be learning as we will be having on the cruise.

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So you think of it that way. You have all of your meals included. You have all of your beverages included, as long as you're a

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Baptist, not a Presbyterian. So Presbyterians, of course, will be paying a little bit extra.

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But the entire intent is to be able to do something. And if you take a look at the price that we're offering this at right now, is that there's just nothing that really can come close to the price range.

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And it's what Dr. White, as well, and Alpha Omega Ministries, it's what they wanted to do, is make sure that they could make it easier for folks to be able to come and join us, where the cost that we're looking at would be,

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I think, similar to anyone going to a three or four -day conference at a large city. So that's what we're hoping to attempt to have.

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We've had crowds anywhere from 100 to 200 people on board before. So we won't have the whole ship, but certainly a good part of it will be ours.

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And for our time, we'll be eating all of our meals together and give you plenty of opportunities to be able to talk to Dr.

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White and ask him any questions. Dr. White will be available 24 hours a day. I'm just joking.

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But no, he'll be available at dinner and so forth. And I think everybody that's been on the cruises with us before, it's really been a great bonding time.

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And people that we've kept as friends for years and years. I remember we were just at the G3 conference here in Georgia.

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And we had so many folks that were there that had been on our past cruises, remember? Oh, yeah.

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And those friendships are hard to forget. And it's just great.

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It's a great time. So if you have the opportunity, take a look at this and see if it's something that you can do.

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Once again, it'll be for the purposes of some of the other ministry opportunities that we're trying to make happen in the world as far as some debates that need to be happening, both here in the

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United States and in Asia. And that's where a lot of the funds will be going to. Hong Kong, that's right.

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And so, I mean, think of it that way too. This isn't just an opportunity for us to try to do something wonderful together.

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And have that opportunity with your family as well. Somebody in chat channel just said, and you could meet him on the bikes in the gym at 5 a .m.

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for chats. Sort of close. Because I know you and I talked about the fact that one special thing this time around is that we're going to be meeting up on the running track before breakfast.

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And I want to try to get at least a 5k each day. And so, we'll just get a group of people that want to do a before breakfast run and little fellowship type thing going there.

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And that was your idea, wasn't it? I believe that was you. Oh, that was. And maybe it was

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Kathy. Kathy. Kathy, that's right. Kathy is the one who is in much better shape than I am. But hopefully,

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I'll be able to join you for that. But yeah, no, I think we can do that. And I think one way that we could get

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Dr. White off the boat is to actually do some things like that in some...

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I don't do glacier running. That's not... Oh, James. No, I mean like in Ketchikan or in Juneau.

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And the air is just so fresh. And something like that. And we've done this so many times now over the past 15 years that we know some areas that are just wonderful for that sort of thing.

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So, we can organize that with you folks. We want to keep it as inexpensive as possible.

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Because I know you've seen cruises like this offered before. And we're trying to make sure that we allow as many people as possible to be able to join us.

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So, yeah, James, I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah, I am too. And so, we're looking at September 11th, 18th.

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Yes, sir. Mr. Pierce. Sir. Sir. Yes, sir. I just want to throw in my two cents here that my wife and I are also planning on attending.

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Yes. It's we get a little seasick out on the high seas. And the major draw for us is the fact this is going up the

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Inside Passage. And when we did an Inside Passage once before, it was absolutely wonderful.

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It was just an amazing experience. And so, Mike, what does that mean?

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Tell folks that means. One of the reasons that we're leading from Vancouver as opposed to Seattle is that that allows us to be really protected, if you will, from the open sea, pretty much all the way up and all the way back where you will have on either sides of you, mountains and islands and so forth.

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And kind of almost like an intercoastal sort of seaway that will be traveling up all the way up into Juneau and Skagway and Ketchikan and so forth.

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So, as we go, we are protected from the waves. So it's a pretty silky ride all the way through.

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I know that there's a lot of things in the news right now about captains that took their ships into the middle of the

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Atlantic into nor 'easters and things. That's not something you have to be concerned about with this particular cruise.

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It will be smooth. It'll be fantastic. And I think during that time of year, that's where our favorite weather happens as well.

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So you kind of get a little bit of an Indian summer. It's absolutely gorgeous. And in the actual glacier areas, where we'll be going into Hubbard Glacier this time, that's when you get into what's called

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Disenchantment Bay. You're basically sailing into an icebox there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's cold.

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Oh, yeah. You go from 70 degrees all of a sudden into the 30s. Yeah. In about 10 minutes.

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Yeah. Make sure to bring a jacket. I won't show the picture, but one of my favorite pictures of Mike and I is on the front of,

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I forget which ship it was, but one of the ships we took into, actually, that was

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Glacier Bay. But it was cold. But like I said, that's the price to pay to see what you got to see there.

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It was truly incredible. Well, my point earlier was that if there was one trip that Marianne and I have taken in our marriage, this is the one that she keeps asking over and over, are we ever going back there?

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Are we ever going back there? So when I told her this was going on, she was elated.

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Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Well, all right. So the website's up. Many thanks to Kathy for her work and putting all that together.

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I saw her working on it a couple of weeks ago. And so there's a banner ad up at aomin .org.

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And Mike, get to feeling better. And you got to get that voice ready because we need to have the

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Alaska ad. Record again. So work your magic and we'll go from there.

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By the way, I can see here that there is some interaction on Twitter. Mike, do you think that there's any chance that you and I might be able to organize something in the way of Coogee's Buried at Sea?

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Coogee's Buried at Sea, Bowtie's Buried at Sea. There you go. Probably is a little more alliteration there.

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I was actually asked, is this a Coogee optional cruise? My response was, of course not.

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Coogee's required for formal night. Like I said, Coogee Burial at Sea. When he's not looking, we kidnap him all and overboard they go.

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Hey, I would love, honestly, to see a bunch of bowties on a formal night. That's right. You know, I think that that would be a special thing.

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And I promise, Mike, I'll bring one for you and I'll tie it for you. So. All right, guys.

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Well, you know what I wear for formal night? You wear the kilt. Of course. Yes. I have my kilt made in downtown

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Glasgow, Scotland. So are you kidding? I haven't. The haggis. That's right.

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I haven't had a chance to wear my kilt in forever. So if you want to see me in a kilt, you've got to go to Alaska.

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I just killed the whole thing. That's right there. Well, actually, I think you're a bit more trim and muscular nowadays.

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So I'm sure it'll be even better. Anyway, thank you, Mike. And look forward to the time together.

25:44

God bless, guys. All right. So there you go, folks. That's what we've got coming up on September 11th.

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As he mentioned, this will also help to support some of the travel that we have coming up as well.

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But I do need to remind folks that with the scheduling of the trip to South Africa for May, we are really under the gun to be able to get the travel funds we need to get to South Africa via London in May.

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So also be looking at the travel link. Because obviously, the cruise will be more helpful toward what's after September, such as Hong Kong, Lord willing, in October.

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But we definitely need a lot more assistance in raising the funds to get to South Africa and London in May.

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So there's our announcement. I'm excited about it. It is an incredible experience.

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Like I said, I think I've had four Alaskan cruises total. I think two of them were on my own while I was writing.

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And Mike arranged for those for me. And at least two with groups.

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It might be more than that. Mike would remember. I don't know how he remembers these things because he has been on hundreds of cruises.

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Literally hundreds, probably three, four hundred cruises at least. And yet he remembers.

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So all of our minds are designed for different things, I guess. But anyways, so that's coming up. And check out the website and you'll be able to go there.

27:31

My daughter says, I'm going to start doing yoga just so I can fit in your suitcase come September.

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Yeah, yeah. I would love to get to find a way to get them to come along.

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But two little ones is tough on a cruise. There's no two ways about that.

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They would be a challenge. But anyway, so that's the big announcement there.

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And I do hope that the topic will be very useful to folks. It means a lot to me and that makes it easier to teach is to have a topic that is very, very central and important.

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And I think that's the way it is. Now, I saw a bunch of things coming in here.

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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am aware and I had actually already saved to Evernote.

28:39

Just very quickly, someone in Twitter had mentioned an article.

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I'm going to respond to two things real quickly here. Well, this one quickly and then spend the rest of our time in the other response.

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And these are going to be responses to things that basically came out since the last program. That's one of the nice things about doing a program like this is you can do it in this way.

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Waleed Shoubat has completely jumped every shark that has ever swum in the ocean.

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All right. I'm concerned when I see anybody drawing from Shoubat .com.

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He just posted an article called the evangelical movement is filled with evil and demonic lies and is filled with satanic propaganda against the

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Catholic Church. That's the title. Now, you need to understand that Waleed Shoubat has become technically anyways, a

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Roman Catholic. Now, I don't know if he was baptized. I don't know if he went through our

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CIA. I have no idea. All I know is he's a papist and he is attacking biblical theology.

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He's an enemy of the faith. And he's also a Christian crusader.

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The same thing as a jihadist, except with a cross on the shield instead of a scimitar or a half moon or whatever else.

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And so this guy, you know, we spent some time.

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I don't know what was it about 18 months ago around there. I remember when

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I was listening to this first lesson, some of this stuff, it was hot. So it wasn't last summer. So it'd been the summer before that.

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I was particular rides. I remember they were rather warm and it was dark. So it was early morning rides during the summer.

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So probably about 18 months ago, we did some programs where we reviewed some of his presentations and demonstrated that on a meaningful level, as far as understanding interaction, that Mr.

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Shabbat had always been questionable, but now was just flying off the handle, he and his son

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Theodore. And it's just getting more and more shrill.

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In fact, the funny thing is, there's one particular quote unquote

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Muslim apologist in England who,

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I need to talk to some of my Muslim friends in England to try to understand where this man even has an audience.

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And if so, why? Because he's a convert, but then he left

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Islam and then came back to Islam. Serious questions about this man's lifestyle choices, shall we say.

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Not even questions. I mean, just it's very obvious that he holds to a lifestyle view that is inconsistent with historic classical, both

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Christian and Muslim understandings of human sexuality, let's put it that way. Well, this particular individual has had the same drumbeat all along.

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And that is just ignore white, ignore it. He's a nobody, he's a nobody. He won't debate me. And it's all because, well, white's a conservative.

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And he's not like these highfalutin Anglicans here in England.

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Well, you know, the funny thing is, my serious minded

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Muslim friends automatically can tell the difference between believing serious knowledgeable Christians and most of Christianity that they see around them.

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Now, I very strongly modified that statement. I said my serious minded, clear thinking

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Muslim friends. I realize many others do not. But it's painfully obvious that there are some of us who do what we do in regards to responding to Islam and criticizing

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Islam and making arguments against Islam and debating Muslims. Because we, first and foremost, believe the gospel, believe what the

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Bible says, and we care about the Muslim people. And we've actually taken the time to listen to what

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Muslims believe. And we actually believe, we are believing Christians. We actually believe the

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Bible. We actually have a supernaturalistic worldview. We seek to be consistent, even though there's some

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Muslims that think that that's a bad word. And I think that, you know,

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I'm convinced, you know, I know Muslim by choice, whoever that is, is watching this right now or recording this right now, will be watching it because every time

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I say anything, it ends up on the YouTube channel. And I would like to think that someday, whoever

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Muslim by choice is or group of people is or whatever else it is, would come to understand that that issue of consistency is extremely important.

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And it gets me back to the point I was trying to make. I'm being accused of bigotry and Muslim by choice picked it.

34:33

Muslim by choice will repeat anything. As long as it's a slam on me, it'll be repeated. There's no, it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is.

34:41

Muslim by choice will repeat it. It's sad. But this one particular

34:47

Muslim apologist has been accusing me of bigotry because I simply observed the fact that in different parts of the world, certain forms of argumentation are considered to be more valid than in other parts of the world.

35:05

Just, and I have two glowing proofs of the fact that you're not a bigot to recognize that.

35:12

Christian Prince, Wali Chuba. What do they have in common?

35:18

Pretty much same ethnic background. How do they argue? Loud and long.

35:26

Loud and long. No concept of presuppositional analysis. Nothing like that at all.

35:31

It's just massive amounts of verbiage and maximum amount of heat. There you go.

35:38

Explain to me why those people have an audience when that's how they argue.

35:46

Is that how I argue? No. Why? What's the difference? Might be cultural.

35:52

Is that bigotry? Nope. Simple observation. So stop making foolish accusations of bigotry that actually undercut real bigotry and the problem with real bigotry when the reality is, especially on this one person's part in London, you're just simply afraid to ever face me in debate because you know in your heart of hearts you could never survive it.

36:17

You know it. And that's the only reason you're doing what you're doing. So wanted to mention that in passing.

36:24

So I don't even, I looked at what this crazy article said and it's next to impossible to even follow it.

36:45

It doesn't make any sense. It goes all over the place.

36:54

It's a picture of a combination burrito. Actually, it looks quite good. And really, combination burritos, dangerous to your eternal destiny.

37:03

You know, and then here's, it's just below that. But of course, one still finds lunatics like Calvinist apologist

37:12

James White who rejects the martyrdom of apostolic succession Christians to even saying the

37:18

Catholics who died defending Jews and Nazi Germany can never be saved. Now, if you remember from over a year ago when he dug this up, you know, it's all about what is the gospel?

37:35

Is there salvation in a false gospel? But again, the guy just throws stuff out there.

37:41

He doesn't care whether it's been refuted, doesn't care about context. The man's irrational, utterly and completely irrational.

37:48

Somebody on Twitter is going, you've got to debate this guy, this would be great. And I'm like, no, it would not be great. Oh, but the cross -examination would be wonderful.

37:54

No, it wouldn't. Because a person who is irrational doesn't realize when they have been cornered.

38:02

And so they just keep spinning off into whatever. And it's an absolute waste of time.

38:12

So Walid Shoubat, just warning, just mark him out.

38:19

He's making his money off of gullible people, warn folks about Shoubat, bad stuff, unreliable.

38:30

Now a Roman Catholic attacking the gospel, sufficiency of scripture, etc.,

38:38

etc. Not someone that we want to be having anything to do with or promoting in any way, shape or form.

38:47

So Muslim by Choice listened to the program from February 4th, 2016.

38:56

So we can go today, sitting right in this chair. And remember, I put out a challenge to my serious thinking

39:04

Muslim listeners. And I appreciate that you do listen.

39:12

In providing, and what he decided to do, and it took him some time to do this, was he decided to respond by quoting from various Shabir Ali presentations.

39:22

Remember what the challenge was? I'm going to play it here. But the challenge was, remember I played the meme? It was the beginning of meme theology.

39:31

And actually, let me see if I was, I wish these things were big enough to be able to see.

39:37

The little, ah, I think I found it. Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee.

39:44

And we change over to color LCD. Then we go back to window. And then we go back to preview.

39:52

And there it is. Got it? There we go. I showed this meme.

39:58

Jesus said, indeed, Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship him. That is the straight path, Quran 1936.

40:05

And my challenge to my Muslim friends was, present to me a consistent method of historiography, historical criticism that would allow you, on the one hand, to affirm that Jesus actually said these words.

40:22

And on the other hand, argue that Jesus didn't say what was in, for example,

40:28

Mark 14, where Jesus quotes from Daniel 7 and Psalm 110. Now, sadly, it's painfully obvious that, you can take that down,

40:44

Muslim by choice does not understand the challenge. Just doesn't get the challenge.

40:53

Um, because what he has done has posted a 16 minute video.

40:59

Most of it's me speaking, but the rest of it's Shabir. That absolutely proves my point.

41:06

What it is, is Shabir using a different standard on biblical material and clearly using a completely different standard on the

41:16

Quran. So evidently, you know, there have been times I've actually said, it almost worries me that Muslim by choice is actually a

41:23

Christian that's doing this as parody, because there are some times, you know, a serious mind

41:32

Muslim would go, oh, please, what are you doing helping them? You're helping them.

41:38

You're making their argument for them. You just put all this material out, demonstrating beyond any shadow of a doubt, that we use different standards.

41:50

Yeah, well, that's what, that's what happened. So I'm going to play me.

41:57

I'm going to play me making the argument. And then what, then he, he breaks in three or four times with Shabir.

42:05

So we'll be responding to those because Shabir goes through a bunch of stuff and I want to respond to it. I'm going to try to be quick.

42:11

I'm going to try not to be overly in depth because we've covered a lot of this stuff before. But when someone takes the time within one week to post an entire video response, to one of the portions of the dividing line,

42:22

I think it's appropriate to, to respond. So here we go.

42:29

Here's most of my choices video. Anyway, I'm seeing these things on, on Facebook.

42:38

And so here's my, here's my challenge to my serious Muslim friends.

42:46

Suggest to me, demonstrate to me a consistent worldview and methodology of doing historical criticism of our texts that would allow you to substantiate what that, well here, what that meme says.

43:12

And it specifically says, Jesus said, so you are making the claim that the words recorded in Sura 19 were said by Jesus.

43:30

Now, let me just point a couple of things out. A, this is got to be a translation of what

43:43

Jesus said, right? Who did the translation? Jesus didn't speak Arabic. So you all like to say, well, the

43:52

Greek's a translation of what Jesus said. I'm reading a book right now on whether Jesus spoke

43:58

Greek. And it's quite interesting. Strong criticism of the Aramaic hypothesis.

44:04

Not done with it yet, but there's a lot to look at. Because it was a sort of a given in my seminary years.

44:09

Well, I'm learning more and more that you've got to look at what's a given in those situations.

44:18

But let's say it was Aramaic. I mean, there are a couple of places where very obviously, do you really think, ever thought about this one?

44:27

Do you really think Jesus was speaking to Pilate in Aramaic? You think

44:32

Pilate spoke Aramaic? Pilate would have spoken two languages, Latin and what?

44:39

Greek. So given how many, how massive the evidence has become of the predominance of Koine Greek, in the homeland of Jesus, at the time of Jesus' life.

44:54

Do you really think he didn't know it? What do you think he was doing talking to Pilate? How about the, remember the woman, the

45:04

Gentile woman who followed after Jesus? You know, even the dogs eat the crumbs of the table. Remember her? You think he was, what language do you think he was talking to her in?

45:12

Anyway, just something to think about. Here's the problem. You only have this in Arabic.

45:19

So who translated? Is this God's translation? And what evidence do you have that Jesus ever said these words?

45:31

Because you see, now if you're a Muslim who does not believe that the actual words of the

45:42

Torah and Injil have been corrupted, then you're in at least a little more consistent or safe position.

45:52

If you're not telling me that my Bible's been changed, I'm just misinterpreting it, then this really isn't a challenge to you.

46:00

But there are almost none of those Muslims left. That was a position that was quite common in the past.

46:11

Not so much today, ever since it's Aral Haq. But anyway, if you are amongst the 99 .9

46:18

% of Muslims who, for example, we reviewed Adnan Rashid, Hamza Tzortzis, video a couple weeks ago on the alleged corruption of the

46:29

Bible. All right, so if you're in that group, then if you accept the argumentation of modern liberal scholarship that we cannot know that what

46:51

Mark recorded Jesus saying is what Mark actually said. It's too far removed.

46:58

There was all this time. Oral tradition didn't get changed. And yet, no one seriously argues that Mark is not a first century document.

47:10

And nobody seriously argues that it wasn't written in the exact language that Jesus would have been speaking, or at least would have been prominent in that day.

47:18

So that's crucial. When we look at the Gospels, who wrote these Gospels? Tom Wright says we don't know who wrote them.

47:24

The Gospel according to John, you said, goes back to testimony from early disciples of John. But in fact,

47:30

Raymond Brown, who is a world scholar in the Gospel according to John, tells us that this went through five stages of editing.

47:37

Okay, so now he jumps to Shabir Ali throwing out all sorts of objections.

47:47

Never seems to understand what my actual challenge was. Show me how you can affirm that the

47:54

Quran is accurate in stating what Jesus said 600 years later, while at the same time criticizing the

48:02

New Testament. Raymond Brown, left liberal

48:08

Raymond Brown, does not believe that a word the Quran says about Jesus has any historical validity at all.

48:16

None. And T. Wright does not believe that a word in the Quran has any historical validity in regards to Jesus at all.

48:24

Neither one of them. So the two names he names right off the bat would both laugh at the idea that any historical weight should be put upon anything in the

48:35

Quran when it comes to Jesus. So you're proving my point. Do you not see that Muslim by choice? Can you not understand what the argument is?

48:46

I've challenged you to give us a consistent historiography that would allow you to say, yes,

48:52

Jesus said these words in the Quran, but these words which were recorded within 100 years from the same time period in the same language, he didn't say them, but he did say these.

49:04

And you're not doing that. You don't even seem to see what, understand what the challenge is. And do you not see that when we can tell that you're not even getting the challenge, that means we can tell you're not thinking this through very deeply and that we're thinking it through a whole lot more deeply than you are, which may mean that we have a better position than you do.

49:23

Do you understand this? I mean, you do this all the time.

49:28

I fear for your soul. You have heard hundreds, if not thousands of hours of the truth that you will be held accountable for.

49:41

It's frightening. It really is frightening. Now, what

49:47

Shabir does is Shabir throws out the liberals, but then when it comes to the

49:53

Quran, he doesn't use the liberals. And this has been the refutation that I have offered of him.

50:00

And many people have recognized the validity of this for a very long time. What Shabir will say is, scholars will say this.

50:07

For example, he just said about the Gospel of John. Where's the proof? Where's the proof?

50:14

Shabir can't give you any. It is pure theoretical speculation based upon the very assumption that Shabir will never allow you to have for the

50:27

Quran. And that is that the Quran is a human document made by human beings in human stages.

50:35

That's the assumption Brown makes about the Bible. That's the assumption Shabir will never allow to be made about the

50:41

Quran. You're proving my point. In fact,

50:47

I guess I should be thanking you. Again, it makes me worried that someone is going to come up with the idea that Muslim by Choice is actually a make -believe

50:58

Muslim. Because this would have been what I would have, if I had had time, if I had a staff to go around doing research for me, which

51:08

I don't, this would have been the very things I would have grabbed to illustrate the use of double standards by Islamic apologists.

51:17

So, I appreciate that part. But I think you are a real Muslim and you just don't get the point of the argument.

51:26

And hence, inadvertently, ended up doing the research for me to prove my point to the nth degree.

51:34

To the nth degree. It's amazing. So, Gospel of John, through all these various, various, see that's how he manages to chop

51:42

John 14 through 16 up and take the parts out that clearly demonstrate that the

51:48

Parakletas is not Muhammad. He can chop those parts off because, hey,

51:54

I can theoretically chop anything out that I want to. I can do the same thing in the Quran. It's really easy to do.

52:01

And I can chop the Quran up and say, well, this is clearly a redaction from later point. All the stuff exalted in the

52:07

Prophet came from a period of time when the Sunni -Shia split was taking place. And so, we can chop that stuff out.

52:14

We can go back to the original here. It's easy to do this stuff. That's how you get published these days, sadly.

52:21

But it's pretty easy to do it. There's just, but there's one problem. There's no evidence.

52:28

There's no hard historical manuscript evidence to substantiate anything like what was just said.

52:35

It's just thrown out there to create doubt. And most Christians have never heard this stuff before. So, it functions.

52:42

It's pragmatic. It accomplishes what you want to accomplish. But to those who know the field, you're just throwing dust in the air.

52:52

You're not actually accomplishing anything. And again, the double standard, very, very clear. So, you're helping me out here a lot.

52:59

Three different persons worked on it over time, the original composer and the later redactor. So too with the other

53:05

Gospels. We don't know who was the mark who wrote this, even though KPS said so. But today's scholars say this is an anonymous

53:11

Gospel. There were many marks going around. We don't know which one. And even if it is marked, why do we need to know which one?

53:17

We don't need to know that. There is nothing in Scripture that says, you need to know the author of this book.

53:23

That is an anachronistic standard that is forced upon earlier documents.

53:29

It's irrational to do that kind of thing. And you go, well, we know. No, you don't know. You claim to know.

53:36

Well, we have Isnaad chains. Oh, please. No one takes that seriously. Every single rejected

53:43

Hadith had Isnaad chains to it. The vast majority of Hadith that Bukhari and Muslim and the other

53:51

Muhadith examined and rejected all had

53:56

Isnaad chains. It means nothing. There is no historical meaning to this.

54:03

Why keep throwing them? Well, we don't know. So what? It doesn't change the fact that on any basis, this is a first century document written from someone who lived at the time of the events.

54:21

Demonstrates that knowledge. And that's not what you have in anything the

54:27

Quran says about Jesus. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, most of what the

54:33

Quran says about Jesus, these very same scholars would recognize, is based upon Gnostic second, third and fourth and fifth century stories that have zippity -dippity -doo -dah historical relevance at all.

54:50

None. There you go. As for Matthew, they said that Matthew was a disciple of Jesus.

54:56

But today, historians generally say that Matthew was not a disciple of Jesus because he depended on Mark, who was not a disciple.

55:03

But if you say, well, we can't really know. If you reject.

55:10

Historically, if you use a historical critical methodology that allows you to reject what

55:16

Mark says, which is exactly what was just done.

55:22

I mean, did you not see that? When you're putting it together, didn't the thought cross your mind?

55:27

Oh, that's exactly what Shabir was just doing. Huh. Hmm.

55:33

Maybe I, maybe I'm actually on the wrong side of this argument. Did you not see that?

55:39

It truly concerns me, really does. Tell me how you can believe that this is true.

55:46

But if we ask about the compilation of the Quran, the Quran, according to the standard account given in Sahih al -Bukhari, was compiled within two years after the death of the

55:55

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that is during the caliphate of Abu Bakr. Actually, only part of it was there was material that was missing narrated in the same narration from Bukhari.

56:07

And no critical historical scholar that Shabir depends upon would for a second countenance the traditions from 250 years to 300 years later found in Bukhari.

56:27

Again, what was the challenge? Give me a consistent historical methodology that would allow you to do both.

56:35

You can't do both. And you're proving it to me. You are proving it to me.

56:43

And you're proving it to everybody else. Don't you dare pull that video down either. Because it's, it's great evidence.

56:52

It's, it's great evidence. I doubt that he would because this is not the first time we have demonstrated that the material he's put up has helped the other side and hasn't really noticed it.

57:06

And then copies were made within another 14 years during the caliphate of Othman and sent to all of the various cities of the

57:15

Islamic empire. And along with the command that any preceding versions of the

57:23

Quran, including those that would have been influenced by Ubaid bin Khab, especially

57:29

Abdul Ibn Masud, were to be destroyed. That needs to be thrown in there as well because any historical critical scholar would think that that would be relevant.

57:42

Well, then if we look at this short time span, which Bob thinks to be a long time, what are we to make of the fact that the

57:48

Gospels that we have now are written decades after Jesus had already left the scene? So Bob must think that that time is much, much longer and therefore more problematic.

57:58

So how do you see a problem? Now remember, notice the comparison of apples and oranges. Something we've pointed out many, many times before.

58:05

Small book, Quran, just over half the size of the

58:10

New Testament, 14 % the size of the Bible. Small book, one author, according to Muslims.

58:17

According to Muslims. We don't know that, but that's the assertion. One author versus a collection of numerous forms of literature, nearly twice as long, called the

58:33

New Testament, written over decades.

58:39

So why are we comparing apples to oranges? And isn't it painfully obvious to the person who sits back and considers things that providing the kind of beautiful harmony, and I know

58:58

Shabir throws out all the standard atheistic alleged contradictions, but we've addressed every, all of them, all of them, over and over again, down through the years.

59:08

Anybody who's done reading knows that. The serious thinker will recognize the incredible consistency, the themes of truth woven through all of these books written by multiple authors over multiple decades.

59:24

That's vitally important, vitally important to notice. In one area, and you don't see the same problem in a different area when the problem is bigger and greater.

59:36

Because there is no historical connection whatsoever between the days of Jesus and the early 7th century.

59:52

When these words were eventually written down, well, if we take even the most conservative

01:00:00

Islamic concept under Abu Bakr, dictated by Muhammad, even if you accept that, it's still the early 7th century.

01:00:10

Where is the evidence? Where are the manuscripts?

01:00:16

Where are the citations? Where are the quotations? There isn't any.

01:00:23

You know that. There's nothing in the 6th century. There's nothing in the 5th century. There's nothing in the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st.

01:00:29

There's just nothing there. You believe what's in the

01:00:34

Quran because you believe the Quran's scripture. If we say we believe what's in the

01:00:39

New Testament because we believe in the New Testament scripture, then we don't have any place to go, do we? Except for one thing.

01:00:46

Ours comes before yours. And if ours is scripture, then yours ain't. But since we have four

01:00:52

Gospels that say something about Jesus, and you have the Quran which says something different about Jesus, written some 1400 years later...

01:01:01

Now, here's where we get as close as Muslim by choice can get.

01:01:07

Now, Shabir just misspoke. It's not 1400 years, it's 600 years. You know, it happens when you're speaking fast.

01:01:16

Sometimes I'll go back and listen to something I said and I went, What? It has zippity -dippity -doo -dah.

01:01:21

I've said that twice now, sorry about that. Effect upon the credibility of the person that while you're just speaking quickly, you make a similar mistake.

01:01:31

He's talking about total number of years in the Islamic period and all the rest of that stuff. It's obvious where it came from, it's no big deal.

01:01:37

But it's about 600 years removed from the time of Christ. Here's where we get to the real issue.

01:01:43

Now, this is where we should be given our consistent historiography. Our consistent methodology, where we will understand how you can affirm the historicity of the words of Jesus in the

01:01:56

Quran, which have no history going back to Jesus, and yet at the same time reject the historicity of all the first century documents.

01:02:04

They're the only things that we know about Jesus. And which, by the way, the Quran is completely dependent upon. The author of the

01:02:11

Quran obviously expects you to have read, to know the stories that are actually in the Gospels.

01:02:16

Unfortunately, he also thinks that a bunch of the stories that aren't in the Gospels were in the Gospels. But there is an obvious dependence upon the literary existence of these things beforehand.

01:02:29

So, it's a modern idea that the Muslims have come up with that, well, you know, we don't know.

01:02:35

The author of the Quran doesn't say that. In fact, shows a downright gullibility in what he accepts as being relevant to going back to the days of Jesus.

01:02:45

But here's where, here's where, this is where we should get the answer. Let's see what we're given.

01:02:52

...by one man. Why should we believe the one man and discount the four who were closer to the event?

01:02:58

Well, several considerations here. First, in the case of the Quran, for Muslims, this is the word of God.

01:03:05

So, whatever it says must be right, even if it's said some 600 million years later.

01:03:11

Second, the things that are claimed... No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Name me a single scholar on the

01:03:21

New Testament that Shabir Ali quotes with regularity. Any of the liberals that he is fully enamored with.

01:03:31

That would accept that as any kind of a meaningful argument. Well, we accept what it says because we're

01:03:38

Muslims and it's the word of God. Well, we accept what Matthew, Mark, and Luke say because we're

01:03:44

Christians. It's the word of God. Well, there's the end of that conversation. You, you, you read, you reject the one 600 years later.

01:03:55

We reject the one 600 years later. You reject the one 600 years earlier based on that. So, if someone comes along 600 years after Muhammad and simply says he was wrong, you're going to go, okay,

01:04:05

I believe it. No, you're not. No, you're not. You, in fact, reject anyone who comes along after Muhammad.

01:04:16

The Achaemenids have one guy and they still do all the rest of the stuff you all do, but they ain't, they ain't

01:04:21

Muslims because they violate our one thing. Well, why shouldn't we reject you on the exact same basis?

01:04:29

There's no consistency here. Double standards. Very obvious.

01:04:35

You're making my point for me. Let's see if there's some way of rescuing this. The Quran regarding Jesus, which are the matters of dispute here, are not such supernatural things.

01:04:47

We're not claiming that Jesus was God. We're claiming that he was a human being and that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:04:52

Shabir, Shabir, my friend Shabir, you are claiming that Jesus performed more supernatural miracles than we say he did.

01:05:08

Come on, Shabir, you know you have to defend. The historicity.

01:05:14

Of the infancy gospel of Thomas. Because the Quran borrows from it.

01:05:21

You have to defend. The supernatural event of Jesus speaking from his cradle, borrowed from the

01:05:29

Arabic infancy gospel of the fifth century written 500 years later. And there isn't a single one of your favorite authors.

01:05:41

That would invest a scintilla, a picogram of weight of authority in any of those sources that the

01:05:50

Quran quotes as being the gospel. But don't tell me we're not saying he's

01:05:56

God. You're saying he performed miracles. You're drawing from those sources, right?

01:06:04

Yes. Virgin born, raised the dead. Yes. Oh, you bet. It's all right there.

01:06:12

Plain for all to see. And we're not claiming that he somehow died for the sins of the world, as if his blood was somehow a kind of a chemical detergent that washes away sins.

01:06:28

I'm hoping this was recorded before our debate. In fact, I'm certain. See how dark his beard is here?

01:06:34

And then compare the color of his beard in our debate in Erasmia, South Africa, in the mosque there, in the masjid.

01:06:46

I'd like to wish, I'd like to hope that that kind of deeply offensive and in fact, blasphemous statement would not be something that Shabir would think about as the first thing to say now.

01:07:09

Because, I mean, that's just not even close. That's not even respectful.

01:07:16

So I would hope for better in the future from Shabir at that point.

01:07:23

We're claiming that the events surrounding his life and supposed death were actually ordinary events.

01:07:31

And his supposed death. Now remember, Shabir does not hold to the standard Sunni understanding of the crucifixion.

01:07:37

Go back and listen to our debate on the subject of the crucifixion. He actually holds much more to the Ahmadiyya Sunni theory than Sunni Muslims do.

01:07:46

It's one of the things that makes him unique. On the other hand, the Gospels are claiming extraordinary events, so they have to really stand up to scrutiny.

01:07:55

And when we look at the details of the Gospels, we see that... Then notice what he's doing here. He's saying, well, since the

01:08:01

Gospels have supernatural elements, there needs to be a higher standard of proof. But everything Jihad does in the

01:08:07

Quran is supernatural as well. I mean, moon splitting in half?

01:08:14

Hello? You really comfortable in trying to naturalize the

01:08:22

Quran? To make it less of an object of examination?

01:08:29

What the Quran says about Jesus has to be examined in the same light as what the

01:08:36

Gospels say about Jesus. And the fact that there is no historiography, no consistent method of interpretation, that is going to allow you to affirm that what the

01:08:47

Quran says, that Jihad said is true, while at the same time rejecting what Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John said about Jesus.

01:08:52

Not going to happen. You're only proving my point. You're not refuting my point.

01:08:59

The way in which the four contradict each other show that, in fact, they were working with stories which were known to them.

01:09:06

And these stories are not in themselves dependable. What are we to make, for example, of the fact that Matthew tells us that there are 14 generations, but we can count them and see that there are only 13.

01:09:17

How many times we've lost track? It's obvious to any surface level reading that Matthew is making a

01:09:26

Jewish argument as to the choosing of the generations. This is not the first time that it happened.

01:09:34

No one who read Matthew for the first time, he sat there and said, Hey, wait a minute.

01:09:39

Wait a minute. He skipped somebody. This is all wrong. That is, and the funny thing was,

01:09:47

I was going to take time, but I didn't. I've played it before. In fact, I quoted it in one of our debates.

01:09:53

But when, go back and check me out on this. When Shabir Ali debated Robert Rory, one of the things that Shabir Ali said was,

01:10:00

You must take the Quran in the context of which it was written. But that's the very thing

01:10:05

Shabir won't do with the New Testament. Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.

01:10:11

It remains a sign of a failed methodology, of an entirely failed methodology as well.

01:10:21

He says 14, and we can see there are only 13. What are we to make of the fact that in order to make his first batch of 14 come out as 14, he has omitted some names from the genealogy.

01:10:32

Names which are found in Luke's gospel. So he, Matthew contradicts Luke. And of course, leave what's in the

01:10:39

Quran. That is not a contradiction. I clicked in the wrong spot. That is not a contradiction.

01:10:45

Difference is not contradiction, Shabir. Obviously, Matthew is making an argument that Luke was not.

01:10:54

That is not a contradiction. Where I was, sorry about that. What are we to make, for example, of the fact that Matthew tells us that there are 14 generations, but we can count them and see that there are only 13.

01:11:05

So he says 14, and we can see there are only 13. What are we to make of the fact that in order to make his first batch of 14 come out as 14, he has omitted some genealogy.

01:11:16

Names which are found in Luke's gospel. So he, Matthew contradicts Luke. And of course,

01:11:21

Matthew also, by doing so, contradicts the Old Testament. What are we to make of the fact that Matthew includes

01:11:26

Jeconiah in the genealogy, which proves indirectly that Jesus would be a false claimant to being the

01:11:32

Messiah, because Jeconiah's children cannot qualify for the throne. The curse of God dictates so.

01:11:39

If you want, again, we did the Jeconiah thing about two years ago. An entire discussion of Jeconiah in Michael Brown's answers to Jewish objections.

01:11:49

Jesus, because that's borrowed from the Jews. He's going to bring this up more than once. Um, but we did that a little while ago.

01:11:55

I'm trying, I'm trying to get done today. It's difficult for me to do because you want to get into all these things. But I just have to point out one thing.

01:12:03

The Quran calls Jesus Risa bin Mariam. And what's the other term that always uses of Jesus?

01:12:12

Messiah. Messiah. So at least it can only be an argument against Matthew. But how would anyone, how would the

01:12:18

Jews, the Quran holds the Jews responsible for recognizing Jesus was the

01:12:24

Messiah. But then if you take this interpretation, destroys any way they could have known he was the

01:12:29

Messiah. Which is modern Muslims are not interpreting the

01:12:36

Quran, even in the way that its original author intended to be interpreted in the first place. What are we to make of the fact that Matthew, in saying that Jesus should be called a

01:12:44

Nazarene, is appealing to a prophecy that is unverified. There is no such prophecy as far as we know.

01:12:51

So when we look at all of these details, and we see that the four Gospels cannot even agree on the date on which

01:12:57

Jesus was crucified. One saying one day, and the other saying the day after.

01:13:04

Okay, and hopefully you all heard us deal with that. It's one of my, I do it as one of my, let's demonstrate errors in Bart Ehrman presentation, is the alleged picture between John and the

01:13:14

Synoptic Gospels as to the date of the crucifixion, which day of the week.

01:13:20

And there is no contradiction. All you have to do is just simply recognize the Passover wasn't a single day, and recognize that Paraskew means

01:13:29

Friday, and the Gospels are all saying common error, been corrected over and over and over again.

01:13:35

I doubt that there were any professors at the very liberal university that Shabir went to that would have even cared to correct these things.

01:13:43

But there you go. But then either he was crucified on the one day or the day after, because obviously he wasn't crucified twice.

01:13:51

So if they cannot get some such basic details about Jesus correctly, how can we depend on the rest of the information?

01:14:00

Well, here we have the problem in Matthew's Gospel that Jeconiah is in the genealogy, and none of his children, according to God's pronouncement, can sit on David's throne.

01:14:11

Therefore, Jesus obviously cannot be the true Messiah. Well, Muslims believe that he's the true

01:14:16

Messiah. Therefore, Muslims would have a problem with this passage in Matthew. Well, Christians also believe that Jesus is the true

01:14:22

Messiah. Therefore, they would also have a problem with Matthew here. Glenn's answer is that Jeconiah was also called

01:14:30

Jehoiakim. But even if you call him Jehoiakim or you call him Jeconiah, if once we're dealing with the same person, we have the same problem.

01:14:39

So the problem is not removed. And yours tells us to judge by what's in ours. Surah 5, 47, 48.

01:14:47

Now, I'm glad you asked that. You spoke about Vigra 5, where it says that the people of the

01:14:53

Gospel have nothing to stand on until they're judged by that which God has revealed. Well, it's not only what

01:14:58

God has revealed to them in the Bible, but also the Quran, which is also what God has revealed.

01:15:05

That's not what Surah 5 says. I'm sorry. That may sound good, but that's not what

01:15:13

Surah 5 says. Um, let me, let me remind everybody of what we're actually talking about here.

01:15:19

The context is, again, a text we've gone over many, many times in depth, that the people of the

01:15:26

Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. Fihi refers to in the

01:15:31

Gospel. And whoever does not judge what Allah has revealed, then is those who are the defiantly disobedient.

01:15:37

And this is right after the discussion of the fact that the Injil has been sent to Jesus.

01:15:45

We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light, and confirming that which preceded the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.

01:15:52

And so, Surah 5 is saying to the people of the Gospel that we are to judge by what is in the

01:15:58

Gospel itself, which makes no sense if we don't have the Gospel. And this is a very problematic text.

01:16:06

Just look at the number of different interpretations Shabir has given me, let alone all the other Muslim apologists when you put them together.

01:16:13

They really, they need to get, y 'all need to get together and come up with one interpretation of this. It might help because y 'all seem to be struggling just a little bit to follow the flow of Surah Al -Maidah at this point and follow along what's actually being said.

01:16:28

Well, people of the Gospel now understand the Gospel in the light of the Quran because the revelation continues. If Jews were saying that the prophets came up to Malachi, and now

01:16:38

Christians say, well, no, there's another one up to Jesus, and even Christian prophets after that. Well, who is the last prophet?

01:16:44

Muslims say that Muhammad is the last prophet. So we need to believe in all of the revelations of God, not in a partial revelation, which

01:16:51

Muslims don't, by rejecting the actual text that the

01:16:57

Quran shows no familiarity with. Knows the stories, not the text, of either the

01:17:02

Torah and the Injil or the Old and New Testaments. Doesn't seem to have firsthand knowledge of these things.

01:17:09

And that's where the real problem lies. The problem lies in the ignorance of the author of the Quran. The problem doesn't exist with our text.

01:17:15

It exists with the person writing after them that didn't know what was in them. That's where the real issue is.

01:17:23

Moreover, when the Quran says, it is saying, It's not what other people have written in, but you have to look for the revelations of God.

01:17:34

I know you said this is a painstaking process, but that's what Christian scholars are doing, even though they're not following the

01:17:39

Quran, but they know they've got to do that anyhow. They have to try and find the tidbits of information which historically and truly go back to Jesus.

01:17:47

Now that is not even close to what the author of the

01:17:53

Quran intended those words to mean. Notice what's happened there. Shabir has taken the words of the

01:17:59

Quran and filtered them through his modern presuppositional lens of historical criticism of only the

01:18:09

New Testament and the Old Testament, not of the Quran. He won't apply this to the Quran, but he's filtered that through so that you now have a change in what the meaning of the author of the

01:18:24

Quran originally intended. Audience could never have understood. There is no evidence of any kind of historical critical understanding on the part of the

01:18:35

Quran regarding either the Quran, its sources, or the New Testament, Old Testament, and their sources either.

01:18:42

So there's a fundamental change in the interpretation there. So the

01:18:47

Quran is very clear that Christians do have some guidance in their book, but they need to complement that guidance with the final revelation which has come from God.

01:18:57

And when they look at the guidance that they have in the books that they have, they have to differentiate between that which is a revelation from God and that which is from other people.

01:19:05

So show me a consistent historical critical methodology that would allow you to say what's in this meme.

01:19:16

Jesus said these words that would not in the exact same way confirm that Jesus also said what's found in Mark chapter 14 when at his trial, when

01:19:35

Jesus is implored by the high priest, are you the most blessed one?

01:19:44

His response was, I am. Now I want to return you to that passage from the...

01:19:49

Now here we're going to get an opportunity very briefly, and Rich is indicating some technical issues.

01:19:55

Hopefully everything's still recording. It looks like it anyways. Here we're going to get briefly to I think a very failed attempt to get around Jesus' words.

01:20:09

Now remember, we have not been given a historical methodology as yet, which is the whole point of all this, that would allow us to reject the first century document

01:20:19

Mark, which is in the language of the time, shows clear evidence of knowledge of all of the backgrounds, all of the historical context, language, everything else.

01:20:36

We're going to reject that, but we are supposed to be accepting that meme. Jesus said these words and quoting from the

01:20:43

Quran. Surah 19 as I recall. We haven't found any of that.

01:20:49

I haven't found any of that. So now we're going to get a shot at Mark 14 and Psalm 110, and hopefully we'll be able to get done with this and wrap it all up here.

01:21:04

Here we go. Trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin asks him, are you the

01:21:09

Messiah, son of the living God? Now, and it says that Jesus said I am in Mark's gospel, but in Matthew and Luke's account of the same episode,

01:21:18

Jesus says that I am. And unless you can first establish the actual words of Jesus, you cannot build a reasonable commentary on that.

01:21:26

Now, total inconsistency in every, again, what's the assumption?

01:21:35

That all the gospels have to be copies of one another. They have to think. That is absurd. There would be no reason for them.

01:21:42

There would be no reason to have them. And so, secondly, total inconsistency on the part of any

01:21:49

Muslim. Why? Because the Quran has parallel passages that do not use the same language.

01:21:58

Look at what Allah allegedly says, or what Allah says to Iblis, or a number of places like that.

01:22:05

They differ from one another in the parallel passages in the Quran. You cannot take that standard and apply it to Mark and Matthew, and then turn around and say, well, it doesn't really matter where it's different in the

01:22:18

Quran. Because at least we can understand why it's different, because you have different authors drawing from different sources in the

01:22:25

New Testament. What's Allah's excuse? Which one is the perfect one in the

01:22:32

Quran? Because if they're different, then one must be imperfect, right? This is what happens when you have different standards.

01:22:43

This is what happens when you have double standards. You cannot substantiate your position.

01:22:49

You end up in obvious contradiction. So, that point, refuted.

01:22:57

Nabeel said that Mark 14 has Jesus claiming to be that divine son of man.

01:23:04

But as I've pointed out, that son of man actually was not God. He approached the ancient of days who actually is

01:23:10

God, and God sends him. So, what do we have now? Same laid out over and over again.

01:23:18

The assumption of Unitarianism on the part of the Muslim reader.

01:23:24

What's the text? I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming, and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

01:23:33

Now, is the ancient of days and the son of man the same person? Of course not. Would any

01:23:38

Christian say they're the same person? No. And to him, the son of man, was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

01:23:52

Might serve him. Daksa auto latruusa in the

01:24:00

Greek Septuagint. Give him latruo, the highest form of worship.

01:24:08

So, Shabir, who assumes Unitarianism rather than proving

01:24:13

Unitarianism, cannot see that you have two divine persons in this picture.

01:24:20

Those who accept the Bible as a whole, and know the

01:24:26

Bible, unlike the author of the Quran, who did not know the Bible, cannot help but think of this text and go, this is very soon another text that we know of.

01:24:37

Oh, yes, it's in the book of Revelation. At the end of the New Testament, we have this vision of a lamb standing as if slain.

01:24:47

And there is a song sung. And what is it that every created thing in the universe does?

01:24:53

It bows down to the song that the song says to him be honor, and glory, and might.

01:25:00

It sounds like the writer is drawing from the exact same imagery. And who is the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth?

01:25:08

Who is the one, the lion of the tribe of Judah? Well, it's Jesus, who happens to have used a term himself.

01:25:14

What was that term he kept using himself? Oh, yeah, son of man. And isn't it interesting that in Mark 14, the high priest goes, that's blasphemy.

01:25:27

It seems like there's a beautiful consistency here from documents written three different people, hundreds of years between them.

01:25:38

Huh. Wonder how that happens. And there is not the beginning of evidence that the author of the

01:25:47

Quran had any clue about any of this. Any of it.

01:25:53

And by the way. I just wonder if Muslim by choice has considered the fact that this argumentation is inconsistent for a

01:26:05

Muslim. What do I mean? Well, if you want to say, well, that this is other than God, but he's being worshipped.

01:26:18

He's being given honor and praise and glory. What what happened to all your different forms of Tawhid?

01:26:28

Your different forms of Tawhid, at least two of them are being by what's going on in Daniel, which

01:26:34

Jesus, who you believe was a prophet quoted from more than once. Can you explain that?

01:26:41

Can you consistency? Remember, we're looking for that consistent thing again. Can you give us a consistent way of understanding this?

01:26:50

So far, all I'm getting is inconsistency after inconsistency after inconsistency.

01:26:57

In the Muslim presentation in each one of these texts, which might say something.

01:27:03

He is given a lot of glory and a lot of respect and people are subjected to him. And he's spoken about in a glorified sense.

01:27:10

Still, this is not God. There is only one God who is called the Ancient of Days. Again, what about Tawhid?

01:27:20

I mean, maybe he's just simply saying we can't trust any of these texts. But that leaves us with an inability to explain any knowledge of Jesus at all.

01:27:31

The writer of the Quran assumes that we have the gospel stories.

01:27:39

And Jesus's view of the Old Testament is not Shabir Ali's view of the Old Testament. That's painfully obvious.

01:27:45

So who is the prophet? Who's the prophet? Muslim by choice. That's a question for you. Well, there's only two minutes, 11 seconds left, and I'm rushing as quick as I can.

01:27:56

Scholars believe that Jesus wasn't even claiming to be the son of God. They said that in Mark, when

01:28:02

Jesus spoke about the son of God here, he was actually referring to somebody else to come after him.

01:28:07

Yes, the son of man would come, but that's not the other person. That's why he spoke about that person in the third person, someone else.

01:28:14

Whether those scholars are right or not, they are great scholars, such as Bruce Chilton, and there are many others,

01:28:21

Gunther Bornkamp, the German scholar. Oh, my goodness. Folks, it is so self -evidently obvious to any reader of the

01:28:38

New Testament that Jesus identifies himself as the son of man and is doing so here in Mark chapter 14.

01:28:47

You have to absolutely reject the entirety of the

01:28:53

New Testament record to come up with any other understanding. It is self -evidently obvious, and Shabir knows that this is a small minority view, and it's just of some confused people.

01:29:04

I'm sorry. It's just confusion. That's all it is. And then he collated

01:29:09

Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, 14, put them together to indicate that he was the divine son of man, who was given dominion, power, glory, authority, servants who worship him and who sits at the right hand of Yahweh, resulting in the high priest tearing his robes and saying, you've heard the blasphemy deserves death.

01:29:39

You refer to Daniel 7, 13 and Mark's statement where Jesus seems to make the claim that he is apparently divine figure.

01:29:50

But you realize that in Daniel 17, Daniel 7 rather, that this son of man that is spoken of there is not the ancient of days.

01:29:59

This is the one who approaches the ancient of days. So you have here a divine figure, but not necessarily

01:30:05

God. And in fact, not God, because God has to be the ancient. In other words, the ancient of days, the father and the son of man as a son, which is consistent all the way into Jesus' use in Mark 14 and all the way through the book of Revelation.

01:30:17

In other words, the Bible is consistent and the Muslim can't follow that because the Muslim is following a book written 600 years later by someone who had never read the

01:30:23

Bible and yet proclaimed that the Bible came down from God and was that's all and contains light and guidance.

01:30:30

So maybe the solution is stop believing what was written 600 years later because the author didn't understand what he was talking about would seem to be the way to go.

01:30:43

In your speech, you spoke about Psalm 110, where it says,

01:30:51

Yahweh says to my Lord. Do you realize that the my Lord there is Adon?

01:30:56

It's not Yahweh. So you have Yahweh speaking to my Lord and my Lord is someone else other than Yahweh.

01:31:03

So if you say that Jesus is the my Lord here, isn't Jesus someone other than Yahweh who is the tripersonal

01:31:09

God? So notice Shabir's confusion. Again, Yahweh appears and I've explained this to Shabir before this, because our debate in Pretoria was before this.

01:31:23

So Shabir already knows that Yahweh is used of spirit. Yahweh refers to being of God shared by three persons.

01:31:30

And all Christian scholars recognize that in Psalm 110, there is a difference between Yahweh and Adonai.

01:31:37

Adonai is the one Adonai in the Masoretic text, but that's that they pointed it that way.

01:31:43

There was no vowels originally, but that just again differentiates between himself and the father in the same way as the

01:31:51

Daniel 7 text did. Absolute consistency in the New Testament. The only confusion comes about is when you, instead of believing what the

01:32:00

New Testament says, you end up putting as a filter, the misconceptions and misunderstandings of the author of the command.

01:32:12

No God speaking to Jesus, but which means that Jesus is somebody else. Which means that Jesus is somebody else than the father, which of course is exactly what

01:32:20

Christians believe. There you go. Only two minutes over the jumbo length.

01:32:28

Not too bad. I did have to hurry. I apologize for that. Muslim by choice. Thank you very much for absolutely proving our point far better than we had ever intended to be able to do so.

01:32:41

Thank you very much for that. I think everybody in the audience now has a much clearer understanding and a much clearer understanding of the inability of Islam to answer the challenge that I originally gave.

01:32:56

Thank you very much for doing that. I'm going to let you all go before I show you the video that my daughter just posted of my granddaughter with her first giggling fit, which was brought on by Clementine's Smooth Dance Moves.

01:33:12

So I will spare you all a little grandpa fun there, but there's always more dividing lines.

01:33:21

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