December 28, 2005

Opening Banter and Holiday Greetings

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

And welcome to the fighting I. How do you start a program. After our pre-show today I introduced everyone To the the musical stylings of Milo Hudson Buehler and and his album. I'm outstanding in my field.

And that of course is our own dear channel participants mutato and. If you would like to to hear more of Milo's Artistry you can go to www .farmboymusic .com.

But I thought there was so much talent around. Well, especially in North Dakota.

That was that was the important part was North Dakota produced this and that's that's the amazing thing.

So anyway brings a whole new light to watching the movie Fargo now.

Well, you know, I got a little sense. There's a little something about Fargo there. That's. Yeah, I mean that too. Yeah, I'm sort of wondering if it's sort of like the Phoenix Tucson thing, you know. That that's what I'm thinking.

Something along those lines. So anyways, no, we you know, it's that it takes talent to to turn Stairway to heaven or play that funky music into something that you can actually listen to with the whole family.

How do you sing that with a straight face? No, I.

Many years of Practice. Yeah, I'm definitely. The next time I try to sing happy birthday to somebody on the air though I'm gonna have to call him up and have him help me because That that would that would be very very it would be much better than we probably want to.

Cut a wave file and send it to us or something, you know. Mp3 you think so we could play it.

Yeah, well because remember last time I tried to sing happy birthday to someone. What happened?

Well, I had just installed the Gettner system. I know that but remember what happened. It was really bad the feedback through the whole system eventually crashed. It was very very bad. No two ways, but okay anyway.

Let's see, we heard such such memorable ones as Super cattle growth hormone play that polka music crop dusters in the sky. I think we didn't get a chance to do. Who let the hogs out. But we did get pick up to lemon too.

So that was we we have them all all covered. I have another album coming. So in a future future program, we will we will make that work. So I'm thankful. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday.

We were not here yesterday because well, it's Christmas not holiday. Yes.

Okay, I'm sorry, you know, let's not go too far the other direction to where you know. I do recall as a youth hearing people say happy holiday not because they were trying to avoid Offending Muslims. Okay.

It just was another way because everybody knew what the holiday was. So anyway, and. One of the two of us wasn't here yesterday at this time.

But.

Anyways, that's why we didn't do the program yesterday and just thankful that a certain airline allowed you to come home.

I was out enjoying the wonderful comforts of getting searched by the TSA.

Yes. Well, that's what happens. I'm not gonna get into okay. I'm not gonna not gonna say it. Not gonna say it. There's certain rules about how early you arrive. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go there just you know, I just because I spent half my life sitting in at gates one of the first people there there's a reason for that but That's not gonna go there right now.

Response to Bart Ehrman on 1 Corinthians 14 and Textual Variants

Anyway today on the program We are continuing our response to Bart Ehrman getting a lot of positive response from that. We'd really like to see a written response put out to his book. I'm I'm talking to the powers to be about things like that as if I didn't have a million other things to be doing right now, but We will continue with that.

You may recall last week when we finished the program we ran out of.

Of.

Time I wasn't watching my time closely enough and I went ahead and played the next clip and it got into an important Discussion about first Corinthians 1434 and I said, we'll pick that up on this side.

We'll replay that so we get a context. We have got that I Have I have begun listening to? The presentations of the the grandpappy of all Muslim apologists, I'm a DDOT. I was sent a videotape. Thanks to the person who sent that to me a hat tip or whatever it is You call those things.

I very much appreciate the fact you sent that to me. I mp3 it so I could listen to it while while while writing and there is a lot of. Well, let's just say I now understand where a lot of modern Muslim Apologists are getting their stuff.

They're just basically repeating what they've heard. Ahmed did not say I Really really wish I had had the opportunity To debate him. He passed away in August of this year my understanding is that He had a stroke shortly after and this is this is from his own website.

I found it odd. I'm not necessarily Making a connection here, but it wouldn't be overly shocking to me. He had just finished a a talk on the atonement theory, of course the idea that Jesus Christ gave his life as atonement for sins is very Reprehensible to Islamic theology and he had a stroke and was not able to speak again and Stayed in that state for a number of years before he passed away in August of this year.

I believe is August 5th as I recall just up top my head I wish I had had the opportunity. I truly do to have engaged this man because listening. Well, first of all the The tape that was sent to me. I've ordered many more.

I'm going to be listening to a large portion of his his body of work as I ride around in the Phoenix area and elsewhere and.

The.

Tape that was sent to me was a horrible horrible debate. It was it was it was horrible. It was The the Christian pastor, I believe it was it was somewhere in Scandinavia the Christian pastor neither of them was English their original tongue though, I'm a DDOT is far more accomplished speaker and So the pastor was struggling with the English you could tell that but beyond that it was just a slaughter it the the pastor Really didn't strike me as being overly Orthodox.

He made a few decent points, but At some point he was talking about what almost sound like some kind of Bible code thing and it was it was it was just horrible and he ignored the vast majority of the things that Ahmed the DDOT said and the the shame was in fact, maybe if I remember that I was just yesterday listening to it and Actually the day before yesterday and I was there was an audience question and it was Horrible horrible horrible.

I don't I don't even know how to describe it. It was it's about mark 16 and you know this guy gets up and.

And.

He.

Quotes from the passage about handling serpents and drinking poison. Alright now someone gets up throws that out to me and says, you know Would you drink some poison for us now or blah blah blah blah if you say you believe in Jesus?

I'm gonna give a 22nd response to that, you know, I'm gonna say well I'd invite you to read the discussion of the textual data in regards to mark 16 19 20 in my book the King James only Controversy the fact the matter is that that is the longer ending that was added to the gospel after it was originally written that's a well-known among scholars and Thankfully because of the way the New Testament was transmitted over against the way the Quran was transmitted Quran ie after the Uthmanian revision you burn all the ones that you just changed and so on so forth.

You only got one text unlike that. We have the ability to go back and see these Earlier manuscripts and and to know these things and so That's the largest text of area in the New Testament to read what I wrote about it in in the book or we can go Into further detail if you would like to do so and you move on from there.

This pastor went nuts just completely lost it it was it was horrible and So I can't recommend I can certainly see why I'm at D dot and his folks Make this debate available because it was a slaughter. It was simply a slaughter.

No meaningful responses were provided to any of the alleged contradictions or textual variants or anything. But the point is it would have been quite easy to have provided those responses if he had been debating someone who could could do that and so it's it's a shame that That didn't take place so anyway I have queued up Portions from that debate as well.

Because the fact that I think he is so popular if you go on to various Islamic bookstore sites and and search for d dot d e d a t you will see it his videotapes and DVDs and books and stuff are very very popular and So I like to prepare you for what you're you're probably going to hear people Throwing out at you not that you're necessarily going to be running into an Islamic apologist but you might be talking to a Muslim who has listened to him, and if you've listened to him, and then you hear an objection being presented to you that.

Would you know.

Maybe confuse you initially, but if you if you've heard D dot speaking then maybe you will be able to Help in that situation in sort of translating and then explaining and and so on and so forth so we'll begin looking at some of that material as well on the program today, so Bart Ehrman and Excuse me I along with everybody else in my family has been playing with the Weakness of the flesh shall we say and it's still there just a slight bit hiding in there.

So the honest sharosh debate was better. I imagine you know hope it would have to be almost Thank you very much, sir. Just got a little water there to wet the whistle. It would have to have been better than that because that was that was just really mmm really really bad.

But before we get to that Last week we played a section from Bart Ehrman his NPR interview. There are two of them. We'll get to the second one in time. And we can take your phone calls to don't just because Just because I'm Responding to stuff or playing clips and stuff like that.

You know we can intersperse that between calls. We can we can you know mix things up, and it's toll-free numbers, so eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. First Corinthians 1434 the women are to keep silent the churches.

They are not permitted to speak but are to subject themselves as law also says if they desire to learn anything let them ask their own Husbands at home what is improper for a woman to speak in church?

Was it from you that the Word of God first went forth or has it come to you only? Verses 34 through 36. There is a variant here. It's a what I would call a minor Variant and the reason I call it minor is that it is limited not only as far as the number of manuscripts and sources but to a very Limited group in other words.

It's one thing if you have a variant in a number of different families of manuscripts if you have Manuscripts to represent the Alexandrian family the Byzantine family the Western and the Gospels Caesarean has been identified by some.

If you have different Modern language or ancient language translations that have it even if it's a small number if it's a wide representation. Okay, that's that's different than if you just have Manuscripts that are closely related to one another Giving the same kind of reading same and in first Corinthians 1434 and verses 34 and 35 Several witnesses, I'm reading from Metzger's textual commentary several witnesses chiefly Western Transposed verses 34 through 35 to follow verse 40.

So in other words, they take the section on women. And they put at the end of the chapter right before Chapter 15 which then starts off with a summary of the gospel. So in light of that Metzger makes comments such scribal alterations represent attempts to find a more appropriate location in the context for Paul's directive concerning women.

He then mentions The 6th century Codex Fuldensis he describes how it Is laid out as the Latin text. 1st Corinthians 14 runs onward throughout the chapter 2 verse 40. Following verse 33 is a scribal siglum that directs the reader to a note.

Standing in the lower margins of page this note provides the text of verses 36 through 40. Does the scribe without actually deleting verses 34 to 35 from the text intend the liturgist to omit them from reading the lesson question mark.

It's just.

Known so you have a very small number of manuscripts. There's really no question about.

The.

Originality of the text. It's just that in the Western manuscripts someone early on had an issue with. Probably certain certainly wasn't a woman scribe anyways. With where to place this in the instructions that Paul gives to the church.

So with that in mind, then we go back to the discussion from Bart Ehrman and Pick it up from there. I'm gonna back it up just a little bit so we can get some context going here. So you can we can see how he in my opinion spins this particular concept.

There's a.

Passage that's quoted commonly today in the arguments over whether women should be allowed a Ministerial role in the church that's found in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 where the Apostle Paul who wrote 1st Corinthians Evidently says that women are to be silent in the churches that they're that they That they're not to they're not to speak to speak in the church services.

This passage though is a passage that is under dispute by textual scholars because There are some manuscripts that put these verses at a different place in the text and these verses have Characteristics in them that make it look like Paul didn't write them.

And so it looks like to many textual scholars today that these verses Originated as a marginal note by a scribe who was opposed to women speaking in church and that later these verses got stuck into 1st Corinthians 14 so they're not originally by Paul.

Now that is. Talk about overreaching okay to make these verses unoriginal. Due to the fact that in a small group of manuscripts very closely related to one another and connected to one another there is a Transposition of the verses simply down to the end of the chapter.

Is.

Tremendously overreaching and obviously what the assertion is on Airman's part is we'll see you know we we really can't know the role of women. The Bible is insufficient to tell us what the role of women is because there's a textual variance at this one place.

It's not like there's nothing else Bible says about women or that Paul doesn't say things elsewhere but because in Western manuscripts there's a transposition still there the text is still there. It's just at a different point, then you notice the little did you notice the mixture of two things there?

You have the textual data, but then you have this assertion that well, and there's Internal aspects That make scholars not named but scholars. Think this was not original, but which scholars and what are these aspects?

That's that's what I would like to know. It's it's very easy to throw that kind of thing out there and say ah see. But who what what are the aspects is it something is it something about the language?

What what specifically is it that that's what I'd like to know. So again when I see airmen and then Enemies of the faith, this is the same thing that you'll find for example in the The God who wasn't there?

Video.

Islamic apologists are parroting airmen just repeatedly over and over and over again. It's all an agenda. You take the same data. We're all looking at the same data, and now we spin it. How can we how can we spin this.

How can I spin this if I'm apostate how can I spin this to? Defend my my abandonment of what I once said I believed. How can I make that work if you're a Muslim, okay? I want to destroy any confidence in the Bibles where I've got.

Don't. Don't bother me with the fact that if airmen were to address the the Quran That the results of that would be significantly if he were to be consistent at all. I don't know whether he would be but if you're to be consistent at all He would have to point out that well.

You know the Quran can't even compete with the New Testament in this in this area because of what happened to its text later on the creation of a of a synthetic Ecclesiastical text the burning of Probably the most important early witnesses etc etc.

And the fact that in many Islamic countries today if you were to even attempt to address this particular issue if your attempt to study the earlier text of the Quran and Attempt to say to anyone that in point of fact there is there might be any issues With the Quran you would end up in jail or dead one of the two.

Put all that together and you have a completely different situation, so you're hearing spin and Really what we have to learn to do is to recognize spin and the only way to recognize spin is to know the facts well enough to recognize when only a portion of the facts are being represented or when the Conclusions being drawn are not the only conclusions that could be drawn and when they are consistently drawn one direction.

Then you get an idea of what's what's really going on. So we continue. What about the question of homosexual behavior.

Well the question my homosexual behavior is also a difficult problem. But it's not one that that is related to textual issues per se it has more to do with translational issues and there the problem is that our term homosexuality by by which we we tend to Think that people have an orientation of one way or another and homosexuality refers to a certain orientation.

The problem is ancient people didn't talk in terms of orientation and hadn't conceived of the idea of orientation. And so when a word gets translated by the term homosexuality it conveys precisely the wrong idea to us today.

These ancient were there wasn't an ancient word for homosexuality. So the Greek words that are being translated homosexuality actually had a different nuance in the ancient world. So good.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa now that is that is a a facile simplistic Highly inaccurate Regurgitation of some of your standard scanzoni mollincott Helminiac all those those liberal writers on the subject of homosexuality referenced in My book the same-sex controversy co-written with Jeff Neal.

And.

I'm seeing someone asking if this is from an Islam debate. I'm going no this is from an NPR interview. I have no idea what this person's asking anyways just sort of confusing me a little bit anyways. All of that stuff you just heard there.

You have to break each one of them down. You have to break each one of those assertions down and.

Go.

Okay, what do you mean by they didn't think of this? They didn't think in these terms and when you do that you discover that these types of assertions just simply are not true at all and that they well understood the idea of pedophilia of pederasty of homosexuality.

You know. There was an excellent example.

Of.

Someone with modern arrogance modern arrogance. Although they just they just didn't know about these things. You know they they they weren't as insightful as we are. Baloney. Baloney they knew all about this stuff, and they did describe it so Plato had described it.

I mean come on. That that's just absurd and when you get into the actual terms themselves Apollo's very very direct in the terminology uses arson a coyotes coming from the septuagint and so on so forth.

These are all issues that we will be hearing again in November of this year. I assure you. When this subject is debated in Orlando if you didn't hear last the last dividing line. When I will be debating John Shelby spong on that particular subject so.

Anyway, that was. That's the kind of thing that's just passed off, but how many people sitting there going? That's it. He's a Bible scholar, and he's just said that we can't really Really can't address the the issue ourselves.

You know.

And.

I'm like You just that that's where you really really wish. You know it's odd when I when I wrote the co-authored the same-sex controversy with Jeff Neal. I don't remember. Being contacted by NPR they didn't want to do an interview on my book.

I wonder why that might be. Well anyway.

This is a rather complicated topic as it turns out the the word that normally gets translated. Homosexuality in the New Testament is a word. That's the the word is arson a coyotes as the Greek word. And it's a it's a word that hardly ever occurs in Greek literature.

Paul may have made it up. But it it he's right. I think Paul did literally means a man who has sexual intercourse with a man.

Hey.

I'm gonna keep that one as a clip to play for certain other liberals out there that.

Don't seem to understand how to translate that. So the ancient people did under did know that there were same-sex Relationships in the ancient world. But they didn't think it was due to sexual orientation and the reason it was wrong For people like for people in the ancient world and the Roman world generally is because it meant that one of the men was behaving as a woman By by being on the receiving end of the sex act and that meant that man was being dominated Sexually and domination wasn't acceptable for men.

But those.

Passages.

Have become so debated as to whether in fact The whole notion of lying with a man Was Reviled and would cause a man to be cast out. Yes at the church.

Well, the problem is that in the in the ancient world when two men had had sex Only one of the men was condemned for it the man who was on the receiving end and people overlooked that contextual fact.

When they use these passages, it's.

Excuse me. Excuse me. That's not the case in Leviticus 18 and 20, which is probably the Greek septuagint origination of the term That Paul is utilizing arson equates which Ahriman correctly says. Paul by himself Created that term from the two terms that are used in the septuagint in Leviticus 18 20 on this issue.

And it's not just one person who is condemned. It is both who are condemned in that context.

Not just one. Well part of the the problem that people have to put these texts in context. Or if they rip them out of context and misunderstand them.

Yes, and the context would be a biblical worldview of sexuality and creation. A Biblical worldview of sexuality and creation. And of course, that's what nobody on NPR is certainly gonna be wanting anyways.

That is. What is always missed in these books on homosexuality is you won't allow for a biblical context. These folks won't allow for the idea of there being a biblical teaching on God's purpose in the creation of man and the creation of The the sexual orientation of man and woman.

They won't allow for that. So it's you know, it's it always is funny to me to listen to former evangelicals talk. Because they can't totally get rid of it. It still comes up it still pops out every once in a while and they're there.

They're not. I See a major difference at least in my limited experience between those who are former evangelicals who've become liberals who've apostatized or done whatever and those who were raised in it in the way that they.

That they phrase things the way they say things the way they respond. I see a real difference.

But.

The Christmas Story in Matthew and Luke

27 before the hour you're listening to the Diane Rehm show so one has to say how good of a Translation is the version that most of us are familiar with the King James Bible.

Well, the King James Bible is Obviously a classic of English literature and I encourage my students to read the King James Bible for its literary merits. There's been nothing like it since but if what you're interested in is knowing a an English approximation of what the authors of the New Testament or the the Hebrew Bible actually Wrote and the King James is not a good good translation because the King James Translation was based on manuscripts from the Middle Ages that by and large are not very good manuscripts.

We've discovered hundreds and hundreds thousands of manuscripts since the King James translators did their work and these modern these Newer discoveries have shown us that in many places the King James translators simply were translating the wrong text.

Before we now in case you are not familiar with Textual critical issues. Let me just mention I would in general agree with what was just said in the sense that I Addressed this subject in the King James only controversy dealt with the issue of what's called the textus receptus dealt with the differences between textus receptus and the Majority text the Byzantine text blah blah blah blah blah the variations that exist within those particular text types the Origination of the King James translation some of the issues in the King James for example the fact you had different committees working on different sections of the New Testament and the Old Testament and The final editing was not necessarily perfect in the sense that.

It.

Did not bring about a consistent translation. For example, you have the very same Greek phrase oof on you sighs you shall not murder. Translated in one section of the King James in The Gospels as you shall not kill and in in Paul as you shall not murder.

It's the exact same Greek, but it's different different translation things like that and so. Various sundry issues there if you haven't read the King James only controversy I do recommend it for not just if you are interested in the King James only controversy itself haven't maybe you haven't run into someone Who is King James only but at least it would provide you with?

The background of the text and so on and so forth. I noticed that it is time to take our break and when we come back we'll continue with Bart Ehrman on NPR and the Diane Rehm show and Your phone calls too if you'd like.

Also an Ahmed D dot clip coming up as well. Right back.

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The Bible, Islam, and the Nature of Revelation

And welcome back to the dividing line. Your host now has a recall going.

Ricola mmm get that throat going. Unfortunately now you can hear me like All over the place too, but you know what? This is a live webcast and it's free. If you can listen to Rush Limbaugh shuffling his papers And adjusting his hearing aid and stuff you can listen to me trying to survive.

Mm-hmm feel fine. But the throats just really dry and scratchy and sort of type thing you know. At least I didn't get what my son had my goodness. He had one of those coughs where you just want to Run into another room.

You know cuz you just know that he's gonna explode or something as soon as really bad. But anyway, he's back at work today. I'm sure he didn't want to go back to work today. But you know that's just what happens when you're 19 years old you get to go back to work anyhow.

We're listening to Bart Ehrman on.

The.

NPR program this is not a Muslim debate. This is part Herman on NPR this is not on a D dot and this is not about Islam. Okay, I want to make sure everyone's on the same page this time because last time somehow the transition got lost and so In fact I'm going to I'm gonna.

Well Let's let's go ahead and play just one more little clip. And then we'll go to the D dot thing and if you got any calls then we can go back to that. You take a break.

I'd like to ask you about the Christmas story and about the birth of Christ and how each of the texts Differs or is the same and how they may have been changed?

The the Christmas story of course we tell every year where. And the way we tell the Christmas story is that we take this the stories found in the gospel of Luke and the stories found In the gospel of Matthew, and we we conflate them we put them together into one big story.

And so you tell the story where there are shepherds and where there are where there are wise men. You tell the stories about the Herod killing the children and them fleeing to Egypt and you tell the story about them presenting Jesus in the in the temple as a After he's born for circumcision.

This is combining what Matthew says with what Luke says. When you read the count accounts carefully however I what I have my students do an exercise. I have them list everything that happens in Matthew's account and everything that happens in Luke's account and then compare the two lists.

And Students are struck by the fact that virtually all the stories in Matthew are absent from Luke and the stories of Luke are absent from Matthew. Oh.

Has made a mistake. I hit instead of hitting stop. I are saying pause. I hit stop. Oops many apologies um. Now just for a moment. Just for a moment. What if that wasn't the case now? I'm I'll play not really coming on airmen at the moment, but if you would just Consider the debate with John Dominic Rossum and The normal stuff that you see on television these days about the Gospels, and you know when when all the liberals get all their the you know their Free air time that's conservatives are never given so and so forth um.

What do you hear? If the two Gospels Relate the same thing then you focus on the alleged differences if they focus on different things and don't narrate the same things that's taken as an indication of The impropriety of the gospel in other words.

It doesn't matter what they do. I? Mean let's face it if they gave the same story in the same words and in fact in the DDOT debate He goes to a place where in Isaiah, and I think it's first Kings you have the exact same text clearly using the same historical source material and Since they're identical word for word that means it's not the Word of God because it's plagiarism and If you then go to where you're telling the same story, but they tell it in different ways.

That means that they have different purposes, and they're changing the history. And if they don't tell the same story then that means that they are relating different things and that means it's not history.

So what what could the Bible do? How could the Bible say anything that folks will not find a way of saying see that that means it's all wrong. It doesn't matter you can say in the exact same words different words or not same words at all or not even tell the same Story and all of them are considered to be evidence.

That somehow the Bible's garbled is that how it works seems to be to me anyway. Well, I'm not sure where the little cursor thingy was so we're gonna waste a moment here who counts and so.