MuslimByChoice Refuted En Toto

Over the past number of months I have posted a number of videos in response to Muslim by Choice, a

Muslim who obviously follows my channel and attempts to provide dawah in reference to the arguments that we present and the issues that we present in our videos.

I have documented many errors on Muslim by Choice's part. I've never seen any retractions, apologies, even acknowledgments of many times we have demonstrated that, well,

Muslim by Choice is frequently simply wrong, doesn't pay attention to context, doesn't do his homework the way he needs to, and frequently the temperature of his rhetoric is inappropriate as well.

Well, a new video was posted wherein he thanks me for helping people become

Muslim. Now whenever I hear something like that, I learned years and years ago,

I used to spend a lot of time meeting with Mormon missionaries, and you could always tell when you had the better of them in a conversation, because what would happen is at the end of the conversation, even though they hadn't responded to almost anything you had said, and even though the conversation had gone very clearly in one direction, they would say, well, you know,

I may not be able to answer your questions, but, you know, I believe more in Joseph Smith now than I did when

I came in. I have a stronger testimony now than I did before we met. And you knew it was nothing more than a, you know, pat yourself on the back, it'll be okay type thing, and it was all just a means of trying to avoid the reality of the fact that you didn't really have a good argument, and you didn't really have a basis for believing what you believed.

And that's exactly what we have here. Notice how this video starts out from Muslim by choice.

Now the YouTube title that was given by Muslim by choice to this video was

James White's Futility and Inconsistency. Well, let's see if Muslim by choice has been able to identify inconsistency in my argumentation, or, once again, has

Muslim by choice demonstrated that many Muslims are not even willing to expend the intellectual energy to understand what is being said in response to their religious beliefs.

Because unfortunately, that's exactly what we have here. After this little introduction, we had a few moments of my presentation, a my debate with Shabir Ali at the mosque in Toronto from last week.

And it was the portion where I started off, and what I wanted to do was to draw a line.

I went to the first generation after the writers of the New Testament, and I demonstrated that in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop at Antioch, a

Christian martyr who died in 107 to 108 A .D., that the deity of Christ was part and parcel of Ignatius' beliefs.

I provided numerous citations from his writings demonstrating that he called

Jesus Christ God. Now, interestingly enough, none of those citations had anything to do with biblical texts.

They have nothing to do with textual criticism. There is no dispute. I was not quoting from the later

Latin recension. I was quoting from the Greek recension. I've taught the development of Tristic theology, so I'm very familiar with the textual background of Ignatius and the issues that come up in regards to the transmission of Ignatius' text over time.

There were no biblical citations in what I quoted. And then

I said, now, how did they come to, one of the main reasons they did this is because Shabir Ali always says, he points to the

Council of Nicaea. Many Muslims mistakenly point to the Council of Nicaea. Well, here's where it developed. No, it was a belief from the very first generation after the apostles.

Then I went to Paul and his citation, not plagiarism as this video will say, but citation of an early

Christian hymn, specifically the Carmen Christian, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11, that goes back the very first decade of the

Christian experience and the Christian community. This was a part of the worship in the immediate years following the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so having drawn that line, and that's where the video stops, having drawn that line,

I then said, how could the very first generation, the very first people in the

Christian community, people who were alive at the same time the eyewitnesses of the events of Jesus' life were alive, alive when the apostles were alive, how could they have come to this conclusion?

Well, I argued that it was because they got it from Jesus. And then I demonstrated the various strands and layers of testimony found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

I didn't even use John to make my case. But in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, demonstrating that Jesus himself claimed deity.

Now, that line of argumentation maybe had never been used with Shabir Ali before. He didn't really interact with it.

He gave his same old, same old synoptic gospel presentation, snowball, look at the changes from from Laura the, you know, master of the house, the

Lord, etc. So did Muslim by Choice even understand what I was doing?

Evidently not. Evidently not. Because as soon as we get done with the video portion,

I'm not gonna repeat that, you can go watch it for yourself, even though that's not the official version of the video. I think the nice version of the video will be much easier to follow.

But you can go watch it for yourself, even right now. And as soon as he's done with that, he launches into a discussion of, with citations from Olland, and Ehrman, and others, the transmission of biblical texts in patristic sources.

Now, given that my citation contained no biblical texts, well, watch for yourself.

This entire section, utterly irrelevant. Because none of the citation

I gave from Ignatius contained biblical texts. So, everything you're gonna see here, looks real good.

I'm sure there's a lot of Muslims going, wow, that's great. Absolutely, positively irrelevant to my use of Ignatius.

Looks good. No substance. Take a look at it. Now, you will notice that MuslimByChoice says that I'm grasping for straws.

Problem is, he has completely misunderstood all the citations he provided.

Because what were they about? They were about New Testament citations found in patristic writings.

And I have for years, you can go back, you can listen to the dividing line, you can look at the book

I wrote in the King James Only controversy, and you will find that I will make reference to the fact, that when you're looking at patristic sources, and their relevance to text criticism, that my concern has always been, that the later copyists of a patristic source would be tempted to, or would by, without even attempting, not even trying to, would by just nature, with their familiar with a particular reading of a biblical text, modify the reading of the early church father to the form they were accustomed to.

There's nothing, nothing disputable about any of those things. Everyone knows the primary utilization of patristic sources, at least in a valid way, in New Testament textual studies, is the determination of whether a text was, or was not, in a book, or maybe some grammatical things you can determine by the way it is translated, etc.,

etc. But when it comes to the actual reading of the text, the Greek manuscript tradition has to be the final authority, because we don't have a fully critical text of the patristic sources themselves.

But again, I've said that for a long time, nothing new, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my citation of Ignatius.

For example, here is the Apostolic Fathers, which Ignatius is considered to be one of those.

This is Holmes's edition, Greek and English. And the Greek includes textual footnotes, and here is to the

Ephesians. And if Muslim by choice wanted to try to make some kind of a case that would be relevant to the argumentation that I made, then what he would have to demonstrate is that the manuscripts do not contain, or there are fundamental variations between manuscripts relating to the texts that I cited.

He didn't do that. Instead, he cited generic statements about biblical texts in patristic writings, and clearly does not even understand what it was those authors intended, because he makes application to something that has nothing to do with biblical texts.

And so, here's example number one of how Muslims today will quote Bruce Metzger.

I've documented Adnan Rashid doing the same thing. He quotes Bruce Metzger. Bruce Metzger talks about corruption, but he won't let

Bruce Metzger actually define what corruption is. He reads some other meaning into it. Just not even caring, it seems, to be accurate in the sources.

And I have pointed this out about Muslim by choice over and over again. He just doesn't seem to care that he seems to be truth -challenged.

That says a lot to someone like me, and I think it says a lot to anyone who really is concerned about the truth itself.

But then, of course, we have to start going after the Apostle Paul.

That is necessary in Islamic apologetics.

Let's see how he does that. Now, very briefly, it is inappropriate to say the

Apostle Paul plagiarized something. That would be like my quoting from a Christian hymn that is well known to Christians saying, oh you're plagiarizing.

That's just ridiculous. What Paul does is he uses an element of Christian worship that was commonly known to everyone as a sermon illustration in his exhortation to the

Philippians to be like -minded and to serve with humility one another. And so he utilizes something that they would have been familiar with.

That's not plagiarizing, but what it does demonstrate is that the content of that hymn goes back to the very first decades of the

Christian community, and that the very first Christians before Paul were teaching the deity of Christ.

It's right there in the text. And again, if Muslim by choice were to be actually trying to engage my argument rather than misrepresent my argument, or trying to throw sand in the air, create smoke, or do something to try to avoid the conclusions, then he'd have to deal with that argument.

He doesn't. Instead, well, we've just got a lot of empty rhetoric. Now, most of my

Christian viewers are right now rolling their eyes, because once again, there's a fundamental element of ignorance here on the part of Muslim by choice.

Galatians 1 and the conflict that Paul has with the

Judaizers there has nothing to do with the content of Philippians 2.

Galatians 1 is about the nature of the gospel. It's about the relationship of faith and works.

It's about how one is justified before God in regards to whether it involves certain covenant signs in addition to faith as the sole means of justification, or is it faith plus something else?

But there is no evidence whatsoever, and this is what Muslim by choice would have to demonstrate. And not only does he not demonstrate it, he evidently doesn't even understand that he would have to do it, because he doesn't understand the issues.

He would have to demonstrate that along with the gospel issues, there was conflict between Paul and these men on the person of Jesus Christ.

And there is no evidence whatsoever in Galatians that that's an issue.

And believe you me, believe you me, if these men denied what the

Apostles, including Paul, were teaching concerning the exalted nature of Jesus Christ and what was reflected in the language of the

Carmen Christi in Philippians 2, 5 through 11, Paul would have said something about it. You know he would have said something about it, but he says nothing.

And so you're taking one issue where there is disagreement with the Judaizers and thinking that has something to do with the teaching found in the

Carmen Christi of the exalted nature of Christ as the Son of God and as deity, and there's no connection between them.

Just as there was no connection in the citations that Muslim by choice provided before, here again, completely missing the target because of a complete misunderstanding of the subject matter itself and the material itself.

That's what we have. And then of course, if you're going to attack Paul, you might as well drag the

Ebionites out if you're going to want to demonstrate that as a Muslim, you don't care about the consistency of your sources.

You don't have to have consistent sources when you're a Muslim, evidently. I mean, again, I can count on one hand with many fingers down the number of Muslim apologists who give a second thought to the consistency of their sources.

The Ebionites, people out of whom we know almost nothing, almost all the information we have comes from at earliest the second century, and who about the only thing we can really be certain of is they denied the one thing, one thing that Muslims and Christians actually agree on, the virgin birth.

But we'll grab them because they denied the deity of Christ and so therefore that's all there is to it.

So here we go. Let's drag the Ebionites out and see if we can throw a little more sand in the air, a little more smoke to get around the fact that fundamentally we have no response to what you said in that debate, but we want to put something up because we feel like we must.

Now, notice what Muslim by Choice says. He says, can we name one example of an early

Christian group which predated Paul and his heretical ideas, his heretical ideas, little assumption there, but anyways, we have to say predated

Paul, and we're told the Ebionites, and then we have a citation.

Now, Muslim by Choice, if you're going to quote Bart Ehrman, at least quote him accurately because see

I've debated Bart Ehrman and I have all of Bart Ehrman's books. In fact, his new book just came out,

Did Jesus Exist, which by the way is, while it definitely refutes a lot of the radical atheists, it's nothing but an attack upon the

Christian faith as I think everybody will see fairly quickly, but anyways, I sort of keep up with the guy, and I've actually read his books, and when you look up your citation,

Muslim by Choice, right here on page 100 of Lost Christianities, anybody else can look this up too, they will see that Bart Ehrman is talking about the second century.

Yeah, second century. First full paragraph, in any event, they were called the

Ebionites, and by the second century, none of their opponents appears to have understood why.

Hmm, so you say they predate Paul, Paul flourishes in the fifth and sixth decades of the first century, and Bart Ehrman's talking about the second century.

You're off by a hundred years. Now, after a while, I'll be honest with you, you know,

I try to extend the benefit of the doubt, try to go, you know, the guy's doing his best, you know, he obviously, you know, has his traditions, and but after a while, after documenting so many errors by the same person, the thought starts crossing your mind, this guy may just be dishonest, he may just, it may not be a matter of ignorance, it may be a real issue of deception, dishonesty, and I, you know, if Muslim by Choice keeps cranking this kind of stuff out, where when you look stuff up, it's not anything like what he's actually representing it to be, just can read right there on the page, maybe, maybe there is evidence that this type of Dawa is based on falsehood.

Now, what a strange thing, to serve a god who's one of 99 names, Al -Haq, with falsehood, strange, strange thing, but it didn't get any better as we continued looking at the video.

Now, here we can really see just how either deceptive or utterly confused Muslim by Choice really is.

He says, I referenced Paul's letter, yes, I referenced the book of Philippians chapter 2, which contains more primitive material than Paul, which goes to an even earlier point in the early church.

Paul copies this from the early church, or in other words, Paul obviously refers to that which would be familiar to them, which of course is what anybody does.

We know the early church's texts are unreliable. No, we don't, and the citations you gave did not prove that either.

The citations that Muslim by Choice gave were about biblical texts, impetuous writings, and that goes over a large period of time and has nothing to do with the citations that I gave from Ignatius, and none of that has anything to do with Paul, and none of that has anything to do with Philippians.

He's conflated them, confused them, doesn't clearly have any idea what the relationship between them is.

We see that Paul's views are not agreeing with James, he didn't provide any evidence of that, and I have demonstrated very clearly that especially on the subject of the gospel,

Paul's views are perfectly in line with James, and to say he's against Barnabas, you're thinking

Barnabas didn't repent of his, and Peter didn't repent of his hypocrisy in regards to the gospel in Antioch?

There's no evidence that they didn't, and besides, that topic in Galatians isn't the topic of Philippians 2.

I mean, you could not make more fundamental errors, just completely confusing subjects, completely confusing topics and categories.

I mean, it is one of the worst videos I've ever seen, I mean, and it looks so good, see

I've got my references here, but it is so confused, and so many things, and a vast amount of Jews and early

Christians, vast amount? Want to give us some substantiation of that? You think

Ehrman was saying that? The guy's talking about the 2nd century folks that you wouldn't say were a vast number anyways?

It's just sort of hard to even document how many mistakes, how many errors, how many category errors, how many crisscrossing and confusing things can you pack into one video in a very short period of time?

It is amazing, you better save that video, because this one, this might be one that comes down and disappears, but then again, maybe not.

Okay, so here's the conclusion of Muslim by Choice's video. We thank

James White for proving in his own words that the early Christian faith was at odds with Paul of Tarsus.

Where did, where was that proof provided? That wasn't even alleged, that wasn't proven.

You had a number of miscitations, ignoring context, etc, etc.

We haven't seen a single valid argument from Muslim by Choice so far, not a single proper use of sources, and not even a single effort on his part to understand what

I was saying. So that's just dishonest, that's untrue. That Paul copied from early

Messianic Jewish hymns. Really? Okay, so he copies from this hymn, he uses this hymn, in other words he realizes the people he's writing to are singing this hymn, which teaches the deity of Christ, Muslim by Choice.

Did you catch that part? Did you even look at Philippians 2? Did you even deal with the text?

Think about what the text said? Or is it just this knee -jerk reaction by tradition? Well it can't be that.

If you're going to do tawwah, you have to respond to these things. This is not attractive argumentation.

This isn't even an obedience to the Quran. This kind of argumentation. So if that was a

Messianic Jewish hymn, and it teaches the deity of Christ, and the Messianic Jews became the

Ebionites, why did they deny the deity of Christ? I mean, it just is amazing to try to follow the twists and turns of the logic that is a part of this argumentation.

And finally, that when the going gets tough, abandon textual criticism, yeah I'd do that, and appeal to the inconsistent, misrepresented, interpolated, and amended early churches text.

So, I quoted from Ignatius. Muslim by Choice thought that the citations he gave about biblical texts in the patristic authors is relevant.

There were no biblical texts in what I cited. He did not even try to demonstrate that there were textual critical problems with the texts

I cited, and yet I'm the one abandoning textual criticism.

Well, there you go. Why take the time to do something like this?

Well, again, I tried to do this for educational reasons.

I tried to do this to demonstrate that when you actually take the time to listen to what the enemies of the

Christian faith are saying, and examine their sources, it evaporates into thin air. It may look good.

It may, when it's just, you know, no cross -examination, wow, well look at those citations.

But then someone else comes along and says, excuse me, but everything you quoted, utterly irrelevant. Here's why.

Quoted from Galatians, wrong subject. Here's why. And obviously part of me would like to hope that maybe

Muslim by Choice would actually post a video after watching this and go, I'm sorry. I'm removing the other one, and I apologize to all the

Christians for all the misrepresentations that I did there, and I will try to do better in the future to actually listen to what's being said before posting this stuff.

That's what I'd like to see happen. The chances of that happening are rather small, but I would like to hope that that would happen.

But even if it doesn't, for those who are truthful, the issues have been laid out, and the truth has been defended, and Muslim by Choice's video has been thoroughly, 100%, reviewed.

And the truth speaks for itself in many ways. I hope it's been useful to you. Thanks for watching.