Is Muhammed Prophesied in the Bible? Part 1

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Is Jesus Prophesied in the Old Testament? Part 2

00:00

The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

00:07

United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries Inc.

00:16

is prohibited. Our second debate this evening is not asking whether Jesus Christ is prophesied in the

00:37

Bible. The format will be the same as it was on the first half of the debate. We will have 20 minutes for opening statements, 15 minutes for rebuttals, 10 minutes each for cross -examination, and then 7 and a half minutes for final statements.

00:55

I understand the time is moving on, it'll probably be getting on towards midnight by the time we finish. There will be opportunities when we have to do tape changes again if you need to leave to get home to do so.

01:08

The debates will be viewable on YouTube, so I hope if you do have to leave early that you will ensure you catch the rest of the debate.

01:16

That's enough from me, let's hand back to James White and Shabir Ali is going to begin our talk this evening.

01:45

And now folks, for this part of the engagement, the question before me is, does the

01:52

Bible predict the coming of Muhammad? And as I did with the previous segment, my answer again would have to be yes and no.

02:03

Let me deal with the no part first, since James says we can deal with a little bit of negativity tonight. Well, for the no part, certainly if one were to take the surface meaning of the

02:14

Bible, one would have to say it doesn't speak about the coming of Muhammad or of anyone for that matter.

02:21

That it doesn't speak about Jesus, it doesn't speak about Muhammad, things just happen as they are and there are no such predictions.

02:30

Especially when we come to think of the Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace, if one were to approach the question from a Christian perspective, one would find that the two

02:38

Testaments seem to be married to each other, the New Testament fulfills the old, there is nothing more to come after the

02:44

New Testament. The book of Revelation seems to indicate that this is a closed document, nothing is to be added to it after this.

02:52

We seem to understand from the New Testament, especially the book of Hebrews, that the revelation from God used to come to the

02:58

Prophets over time and finally God chose to reveal his Son. So no more Prophets, now the Son of God has come, the party is over.

03:05

Or the party now begins, depending how you look at it. So there is no room for the

03:10

Prophet Muhammad. Muslims have traditionally used Deuteronomy 18 verse 18 as a prediction of the coming of the

03:16

Prophet Muhammad, but it might seem that this is a prophecy about an Israelite Prophet. How could the Prophet Muhammad fit that?

03:22

Muslims have said that the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete was to come as a reference to the Prophet Muhammad, but John chapter 14 verse 26 clearly says the

03:31

Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. That doesn't seem to sound like the Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace.

03:36

So then, on that surface level, we'd have to say the answer is no. Moreover, when we look at the teachings of the

03:42

Prophet Muhammad, Christians will find that many of his teachings are quite contrary to the core teachings of Christianity.

03:48

Christians affirm that Jesus is the divine Son of God, Muslims say no. Christians say that Jesus died for the sins of the world,

03:55

Muslims say no, and they claim to get these teachings from the Prophet Muhammad. And so naturally a

04:00

Christian might be inclined to say that the answer is definitely no. But then if we go to the yes part of my answer, then one of the things

04:09

I would point out very quickly is that we've already dealt with Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18, and we've explained why the biblical writers insisted that the

04:19

Prophet, or whoever Prophet is to come, whether one Prophet or a series of Prophets, this must be

04:25

Israelite Prophets only. Why should we exclude others from the grace of God?

04:31

Moreover, James had previously said that the brethren of the

04:36

Israelites must only be from among the Israelite tribes. But it is possible in the Bible itself to understand that the descendants of two great patriarchs are brethren of each other.

04:47

The book of Deuteronomy itself shows that the brethren of the Israelites include the

04:52

Edomites, who are the descendants of Esau. So if the Israelites are descendants of Jacob and the

04:59

Edomites are descendants of Esau, the one is the brethren of the other.

05:04

We might say they're close cousins. By a similar logic, it seems to me that we can also argue, though it would be a weaker argument, to say if we go one patriarch higher between Isaac and Ishmael, the descendants of one are the brethren of the other.

05:19

And so the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, technically does not qualify even on that score. But the greater share of my argument,

05:26

I would insist, is that the emphasis on the Israelites, that this

05:31

God is the God of the Israelites, this is the God of the Hebrews, and the Prophet must come from the Israelites, should be understood in the light of those stories that I spoke about when we refer to the birth of Tamar's two sons.

05:42

Do children really get born in that way? Do these kids just rush out? Or should we agree with Jamie Foxx in the movie

05:50

The Kingdom, where he says, actually, we had to go in there and get him out because his son wasn't going to be born very soon.

05:56

We refused to come out, he said. What about the story of Jacob and Esau?

06:03

Again, we see that the births of babies do not happen like that. You don't have the midwife pulling out one baby and another one comes out clutching on the heels of the other one like you're pulling monkeys out of a barrel.

06:13

They just don't get born that way. But the story came to be told this way because the Israelites wanted to promote their own race, their own people, over and above others, especially the

06:23

Ishmaelites. And so we have a story constructed about the son of Abraham, Ishmael, though he was the firstborn son, but there was every attempt made to exclude him from the covenant.

06:35

Why? My first point, then, is that God actually made a promise to Abraham that continued with Ishmael.

06:44

God promised Ishmael that Ishmael will be a great nation. Now, if God promises any believing person that he will be a great nation, you will have many descendants.

06:53

Do you understand that to mean that you're going to have descendants who turn away from God, who are absent from and cut off from the guidance of God?

07:01

Which Christian or Jew, whether Abraham or anyone else, would understand that the blessing from God should mean that he will have numerous descendants who worship the devil or worship some false deity?

07:12

Naturally, the promise should have been understood as a promise that not only there will be many descendants, but that the guidance of God will also be with those descendants.

07:20

This is how I would understand that promise. And when we look at it this way, we see that the promise, in fact, was fulfilled.

07:28

The Qomash, a Jewish commentary on the Bible, looking at the promises of Ishmael, actually confirms in its footnoting that that promise was fulfilled with the birth of Islam.

07:40

Similarly, I debated Dr. Ali Sharoosh not too long ago in Glasgow, and in his book, Islam Revealed, though he's a

07:47

Christian, he has actually admitted that the Prophet Muhammad is a descendant of Ishmael, and the promise of God to Ishmael was fulfilled with the birth of Islam.

07:56

And of course, we know that the birth of Islam was due to the preaching of the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace. So it wasn't a promise that God would mislead the

08:04

Ishmaelites. It was a promise that God would bless the Ishmaelites. So then, my second point

08:10

I would like to make is that this prophet, who was to be like Moses, definitely could have been, or could include, the

08:19

Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace as well. That string of prophets who's to come after Moses, with God promising, look out,

08:25

Moses is going away, but I'm going to send you a series of prophets. It shouldn't be just simply one line of prophets, only confined to the people of Israel, but it should be universal.

08:36

My third argument, dealing with, or trying to show that the Prophet Muhammad was prophesied, actually, must be explained in some detail.

08:45

Because it's difficult to explain something, but it's more difficult to unexplain something, when we think we already know something.

08:53

So we all know that John the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ, and we all know that Jesus is greater than John the

08:59

Baptist, and I think Muslims themselves would have no difficulty in thinking that Jesus was greater than John the

09:05

Baptist. But if we are looking, without assuming ahead of time that Muhammad is the Prophet of God, and the

09:11

Messenger of God, without assuming ahead of time that Islam is true, looking at the Bible and asking, does the

09:17

Bible actually predict the coming of the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace? Now we must look at it with fresh eyes. And so Muslims would have to suspend for a moment their idea that Jesus is somehow greater than John the

09:29

Baptist. By the way, there's nothing firm in the Islamic faith that would definitively prove that Jesus is greater than John the

09:35

Baptist, though Muslims would generally accept that on principle. But let's think about it.

09:41

John the Baptist, according to the Gospels, spoke of someone coming after him who would be greater than him, greater than John the

09:50

Baptist. So much greater that John the Baptist does not feel worthy to stoop down and untie his shoelaces.

09:57

And we all know from the New Testament that that greater than John the Baptist turned out to be Jesus. But is it possible that what we know is actually contrived?

10:06

Many Biblical scholars, such as James Keith Elliott in his book Questioning Christian Origins, and many of the

10:12

Biblical commentaries, some of which I've referred to earlier today, actually tell us that the

10:18

Gospel writers felt challenged by the followers of John the Baptist. It appears that while John the

10:24

Baptist was baptizing and gaining followers, Jesus was also baptizing and gaining followers, and the followers of one competed with the followers of the other to find out who's going to get more followers.

10:36

And just as the stories of the Old Testament were written by the Israelites, now the stories of the New Testament are written by the followers of Jesus, not the followers of John the

10:44

Baptist. And so naturally, occasion after occasion, they have refashioned the stories to make it appear that Jesus is the one who is superior to John the

10:55

Baptist. So Jesus comes and goes up to John the Baptist, and John the Baptist is baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, as is very clear from Mark's Gospel.

11:04

But the question for Christian minds at the time when the Gospels were being circulated orally and then eventually put into writing is, why should the

11:12

Son of God, who is sinless, go to John the Baptist to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins? So Matthew gives us the answer, let it be so for now, so that all formalities should be fulfilled.

11:25

It's only a formality, it's not a reality. But biblical commentators, such as the

11:30

New Jerome Biblical Commentary, for example, Raymond Brown in his two -volume work on the

11:36

Gospel according to John, admit that, in fact, this is contrived. The Gospel writers have so refashioned the story to make it appear that it must be so for now, because that's known.

11:47

You cannot get rid of the fact that Ishmael is the firstborn, that Esau is the firstborn, that the firstborn son of Tamar was the one who stuck his hand out and got the scarlet thread around his wrist.

12:01

But you have to now deal with that as a problem. So the Israelites dealt with it by having the stories about the way in which the boys were born.

12:08

The New Testament writers have the stories about the encounter between John and Jesus. So John's Gospel has it that John the

12:14

Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And that was a public declaration right from the start of the ministry.

12:21

John chapter 1 verse 29. Where do you go from there? Now everybody knows that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

12:28

How then do you explain the synoptic Gospels which show that people are still guessing who is Jesus? Maybe he is

12:34

John the Baptist. Maybe he's Elijah. Maybe he is one of the prophets of old. People don't know who he is.

12:40

John the Baptist himself doesn't seem to know who Jesus is. Matthew chapter 11 has it that John the

12:45

Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus, are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another? So then it is quite clear that the one that John the

12:54

Baptist spoke about to come after himself who would be greater than John the Baptist is not

12:59

Jesus. More than this, we have it in Matthew chapter 11 and the logic is very firm here that Jesus himself says that there is none who has been born of women who is greater than John the

13:13

Baptist. And a commentator who I have consulted on this says there is none born so far of women who is greater than John the

13:26

Baptist. Now the New Testament Gospels and the letters insist that Jesus was born of a woman.

13:34

So he is one of those born of a woman and yet there is none who has been born of a woman who is greater than John the

13:40

Baptist. But then a clarification is offered. When you look at form criticism, for example if you study

13:46

Daniel Harrington's book, Key to the Bible, volume 3, then you understand how stories get formed and reshaped.

13:54

First there is an affirmation. Somebody has a problem with that and then they tack on a commentary on it and they come together to form a unit.

14:02

Because people respect the affirmation as the already existing text, even though it is being circulated orally, they do not change that but they just tack on something underneath it.

14:13

So what's tacked on underneath this affirmation that Jesus says that John the Baptist is the greatest of all of those born of women is now the clarification, but even the least of those in the kingdom of God are greater than he.

14:28

So this would have to mean, I suppose, that every Christian, if you have higher ranking

14:33

Christians and low ranking ones, even the lowest ranking Christian should be greater than John the

14:39

Baptist. Could it mean that? Do Christians admit that this is what it means?

14:45

I don't believe so. I don't believe that Christians are proud people. We are all humble individuals as believers in God. We don't claim to be greater than others, even if we were.

14:54

But how could we be? And by the way, isn't John the Baptist himself also in the kingdom of God whenever that appears and how it will be?

15:01

So if John the Baptist is also in the kingdom of God, how could someone who is least in the kingdom of God be greater than John the

15:07

Baptist? The logic doesn't measure up. But you can see that there is a problem and there's a way of dealing with the problem and the way of dealing with the problem is not convincing.

15:14

So the scholars admit that the problem is there. That John the Baptist spoke of someone greater than himself to come after him and that someone was not

15:24

Jesus, but the writers refashioned the stories to make it appear that the someone is in fact

15:30

Jesus. Finally, the Paraclete of John's Gospel.

15:36

We all know that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. Just read John chapter 14, verse 26. But also read the commentaries, such as Raymond Brown's massive two -volume commentary.

15:49

Here they are. Now size doesn't matter. What matters is the quality of the information and the scholarly work that has gone into this.

15:57

Raymond Brown has actually shown that many biblical scholars question the identification of the

16:03

Holy Spirit as the Paraclete. Let me see if I can find you his citations very quickly.

16:11

If I cannot, then I will just have to summarize. I do have it somewhere.

16:30

Yeah? That's why you need a Mac. Yeah, that's right. I have all of them right there. Okay. So Raymond Brown writes in his two -volume commentary,

16:38

Christian tradition has identified this figure with the Holy Spirit, but scholars like Spida, Delafosse, Windisch, Sass, Bultman, and Betts have doubted whether this identification is true to the original picture and have suggested that the

16:55

Paraclete was once an independent, salvific figure, later confused with the

17:01

Holy Spirit. Page 1135 of his second volume.

17:07

That's in the Anker Bible Series, volume 29a. Now, how could biblical scholars be so stupid?

17:14

Do they not see that it says the Holy Spirit? Well, they see more than we see. The old Syriac Sinaiticus manuscript of the

17:22

Bible shows that the Holy Spirit there is absent. It says

17:28

Spirit, but not the Holy. Bruce Metzger in his work, The New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, with reference to John chapter 7, verse 39, says that the

17:40

Holy, in reference to the Spirit, is the most natural sort of addition that scribes have made in the text.

17:47

In this particular place, C .K. Barrett, in his commentary on John's Gospel, says that it may be the original reading without the

17:54

Holy, in which case he just simply says the Spirit. Moreover, scholars like Windisch have actually written that the paraclete saves, the five of them which occur in the

18:09

Gospel according to John, in chapters 14, 15, and 16, are later insertions into the

18:15

Gospel according to John. He argues that if you were to take those statements out about the paraclete, you will find that the

18:22

Gospel according to John reads more smoothly than it does now. The Gospel according to John in these chapters speak about Jesus coming back a second time, and it does not seem that you need the paraclete for Jesus to do that.

18:34

In Matthew's Gospel, by comparison, Jesus says, I am with you always till the end of time. You don't need the paraclete for that.

18:40

If Jesus is always with you, what do you need the paraclete for? If the paraclete is the Holy Spirit. But now, there were factors at work that caused the

18:48

Gospel according to John, or its writers, or its later redactors and editors, to insert these paraclete passages, which means that they existed once before the

18:56

Gospel was composed, and there were some pressing reasons for including them now. Raymond Brown, in his two -volume work, actually explains to us the reasoning that led the editor to finally include the paraclete sayings in the

19:11

Gospel according to John. He gives two major reasons. He says that the apostles and eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus were passing away one after another, and there was a need in the

19:22

Christian community to have a sense that we have the true and original teachings verified by divinity, not by eyewitnesses because they're no longer here.

19:32

The paraclete fulfilled that particular requirement. Second, he explains in detail that there are many indications that the coming of Jesus was expected very shortly, and that did not occur.

19:43

When it did not occur, the paraclete fulfilled the need of the Christian community to have a sense that Jesus has occurred.

19:49

So John then took sayings that spoke about the coming of the Holy Spirit and refashioned them to speak about the paraclete and coined a new term, the paraclete, in order to refer to this unique manner in which the

20:05

Holy Spirit is going to come into believers. But this is where I disagree with Raymond Brown. Why would

20:10

John coin the term paraclete, which becomes such a confusing term? If one looks at the commentaries, generally, the commentaries on the

20:18

Bible proceed verse by verse. Suddenly, in many of the major commentaries, there is a break or there is an appendix to deal with this question of how do you explain the paraclete.

20:26

Nobody knows how exactly to translate it. Many propose we just simply leave the word paraclete as it is.

20:33

There's no suitable translation. But then, why would John coin such a problematic term? I more agree with Windisch, who says that the term paraclete already existed in these sayings, for some reason,

20:45

John then included these paraclete sayings in his gospel. Now, if those paraclete sayings are to be examined carefully, especially the last of them, in John chapter 16, verses 12 and forward, one will find that, in fact, this paraclete is really a reference to a prophet, one who is going to come after Jesus, and he is going to speak what he hears.

21:09

One can then look at the statements that follow it. The statements that follow it and seem to indicate, again, the

21:16

Spirit. But Della Foss has shown that not only the term the Holy Spirit was inserted in John chapter 14, verse 26, but also in all of those passages that deal with the paraclete, there are little additions that seem to indicate, again, it looks like you're talking about a human being, but wait a minute, it is the

21:32

Holy Spirit who lives in you and dwells in you, whom the world does not see, and so on. So, Della Foss would have us remove all of those passages, again, to get to the original paraclete saying, which to me refers to a prophet.

21:44

Thank you. All right, well, there you have a presentation concerning Muhammad in the

22:33

Bible. Now, what we didn't hear, interestingly enough, was the Quranic statements that say that we have to find

22:40

Muhammad in the Bible. For example, in surah 7, verse 157, Now, let me just tell you something right off the start.

22:54

Raymond Brown wasn't around in the days of the Quran. There was no form criticism, there was no redaction criticism, there was no naturalistic materialism to provide that way.

23:04

The Quran says that they find mentioned in their own scriptures in the law and the gospel.

23:11

And that's the standard that we have to look at this evening. Let's start with the last that Shabir presented, that is

23:19

Muhammad as the paracletas, the paraclete. The majority of Islamic apologists assert that the text of John's gospel has been corrupted.

23:27

So, at the current reading, paracletas is supposed to be another term, normally periclutas.

23:33

There is, of course, no evidence of such an alteration, and I am very thankful that Shabir does not make that presentation, despite the fact that it has become extremely popularized by people like Ahmed Deedat.

23:43

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of such a corruption. In fact, it is particularly problematic for Muslims to attempt to allege textual corruption in John, for it is the earliest attested book in the

23:57

New Testament. This is true whether one tries to allege textual corruption, such as whether paraclete was a different word, or what we just heard, some kind of theoretical compilation of the text, later editors, so on and so forth.

24:10

Remember, the Gospel of John is the earliest attested, no later than AD 125 in manuscript

24:17

P52, which you're seeing on the screen right now. And in fact, we may have manuscripts that even go earlier than that, and they are of the

24:25

Gospel of John. There is no question as to the identity of the

24:30

Comforter in the Gospel of John. There is a consistent theme of identifying the Comforter as the

24:35

Holy Spirit, the one who will take Jesus' place when he ascends back to the Father. Though the majority of the information about the

24:41

Comforter is found in John 14 -16, elsewhere in John, the Spirit plays a very vital role.

24:47

That is why Shabir Ali attempts to cut the Gospel into pieces. You just heard him using Raymond Brown, and you have these earlier texts, and later texts, and redactors, and forum criticism, and all these things.

24:57

There is not a single shred of documented evidence anywhere in the world that supports any of those theories.

25:03

Not a one. And I remind you, there's all sorts of theories like that about the Quran, too. All the

25:08

Orientalists say, well, this was added here, and this was added there. And you Muslims say, show us some evidence. Well, that's what

25:13

I'm going to be saying this evening. Show us some evidence. There is no physical evidence that John 15 -17 is to be separated from the rest of the

25:22

Gospel of John. Speculative theories abound in liberal scholarship about how John wrote the

25:28

Gospel, just as speculative theories abound in Oriental scholarship about how the Quran was written.

25:33

Multiple authors, redactions, and surahs, especially al -Baqarah, etc. But speculation without physical evidence is not solid grounds for debate.

25:43

The Gospel witness of the Paraclete is clear. John 13 -17 is a consistent whole, providing the final ministry of Jesus to his disciples.

25:50

John 14 -17 is thoroughly Trinitarian, speaking easily of the divine roles of Father, Son, and Spirit in the divine economy of salvation.

25:59

After encouraging prayer to himself, John 14 -14, Jesus speaks of another comforter of the same kind as himself in John 14 -16.

26:10

The Paraclete will be with believers forever, according to John 14 -16. The world cannot receive the

26:17

Paraclete because it cannot see him or know him, John 14 -17 says.

26:23

The same verse tells us the Paraclete is the spirit of truth, and the Paraclete dwells with and in believers.

26:31

This is why you have to try to cut John 16 away from John 14. It's the only way you can come up with an identification of Muhammad in that way.

26:38

The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, John 14 -26. I'll address the textual variant in a moment. The Paraclete teaches all things and brings to remembrance what

26:46

Jesus said. And given how few words of Jesus are in the Quran, that doesn't fit at all, does it?

26:52

The Paraclete proceeds from the Father, John 15 -26. The Paraclete testifies of Jesus, not of himself.

26:58

The Paraclete is sent by Jesus. If the Paraclete's Muhammad, does Jesus send prophets? The Paraclete convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

27:08

The Paraclete guides disciples into all truth. The Paraclete does not speak on his own authority, but reveals what is to come.

27:17

And the Paraclete glorifies Jesus, John 16 -14. Now, regarding Shabir's entire presentation on this subject,

27:26

Raymond Brown's theory, I didn't drag the two volumes set across the ocean, as he did.

27:32

Well, I'll tell you, that's fun to get through TSA screening. But theories regarding how a writer wrote his work are speculative.

27:43

Many others disagree. Brown himself does not take his own theory to the length

27:48

Shabir Ali does. He certainly doesn't. Not a single person he quoted comes to conclusions that he did. And he interprets the

27:55

Paraclete as the Holy Spirit, not Muhammad. It is simply unfair to say Christian scholars have concluded.

28:01

Christian scholars have shown. No, men who call themselves Christians have speculated about something they haven't a shred of evidence to substantiate.

28:11

They don't have any hard evidence. They can go, well, you know, we think that there was an evolutionary process that went into creating this book, and here's how it might have happened.

28:20

And you can get published that way, but that's not the stuff of solid scholarship in debate.

28:26

Why doesn't Shabir note FF Bruce, or Leon Morris, or any of the other great, believing, conservative Christian scholars who have dealt with the

28:32

Gospel of John, who present no inkling of Brown's speculative reconstructions of the writing of the text.

28:40

It should likewise be noted this kind of modern redactional, critical, speculative scholarship was obviously unknown in the days of Muhammad.

28:48

But remember, the Quran says, whom they find mentioned in their own scriptures in the law and the

28:54

Gospel. Who in Muhammad's day would find mentioned in their scriptures Muhammad when one needs

29:00

Raymond Brown's redactional speculations to find him. Now, regarding John 14, 26, and the phrase, hade parakletas tatnuma ta hagyon.

29:13

What you just heard presented to you, C .K. Barrett mentions, that the Sinaitic Syriac does not have the phrase ta hagyon.

29:21

What you didn't have mentioned to you was that every single Greek manuscript on God's green earth of John chapter 14 does have ta hagyon.

29:33

All Latin manuscripts contain the phrase. All other translations into other languages contain the phrase.

29:41

The Sinaitic Syriac is alone here. Now, may I simply ask the

29:46

Muslims in the audience, would you allow me to come up with a theory about Surah 2, in which

29:54

I found a single translation of the Quran from say 250 years after Muhammad into a different language.

30:02

And it has a different reading from every single Arabic Quran known in the world.

30:09

This translation stands alone. Yet, I insist upon overthrowing all

30:16

Arabic manuscripts of the Quran based upon this single foreign language translation. Would you allow me to get away with that kind of disruption of the text of the

30:25

Quran? That's what you're being asked to do right now. One translation, one version.

30:31

The rest of the Syriac has it. One single translation. We have earlier manuscripts which contain the phrase, and yet you had it presented to you as,

30:40

Oh, well, look at this. Think about that for just a moment. Hence, when the text is allowed to speak for itself, and context is allowed to stand, the identity of the

30:50

Parakletas is easily determined. There is no historical, contextual, linguistic, textual critical, or theological reason to find in the

30:59

Paraclete a reference to Muhammad, and the context itself precludes any such application by its consistent teaching that the

31:07

Paraclete dwells within us. And these were promises to the disciples, not someone 600 years later.

31:15

If Jesus said these words, as the scriptures say he did, then he was saying to them, he will dwell in you.

31:22

How can that be 600 years later? Now, maybe because of time,

31:30

Shabir did not have a chance to get to Song of Solomon 516. I'll be very brief since he didn't get to it. He did present it to him.

31:36

I'm not presenting something he's not presented in public talks before. But again, it is very common. Ahmedidat and others have had many

31:44

Muslims come up to me and say, Ah, see, Song of Solomon 516. His mouth is full of sweetness and he is wholly desirable.

31:51

Muhammadim. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. And so we're told, see,

31:58

Muhammadim. There's the very word in the Hebrew text itself. There's Muhammad. Here we have an argument based upon an adjective, not even a proper name.

32:07

The context has nothing to do with Arabia, prophets, or Islam. To say that this is a stretch is a major understatement.

32:15

What is more, linguistic parallels based upon similar sounds are notoriously worthless. Unless there is a contextual reason to turn an adjective into something more relevant, such arguments should be rejected.

32:27

But let's take it for a moment. Let's run with it. Let's look at the use of this term elsewhere in the Hebrew Old Testament. Is Muhammad taken away from a house in 1

32:35

Kings 20 verse 6? Is Muhammad destroyed by fire in 2 Chronicles 36 19? Did Muhammad become a ruin in Isaiah 64 10?

32:43

We need to be consistent. If in Song of Solomon, this is a reference to Muhammad, why aren't these others?

32:50

But I have the best arguments. Is Shabir Ali in the

32:55

Old Testament? There is a Hebrew... You didn't... You're going to thank me for this.

33:02

Is... There is a Hebrew word, Shabar. Now, in Psalm 105 16, it says, and he called for a famine upon the land.

33:14

He broke the whole staff of bread. Clearly, there have been many famines in the past in London.

33:20

Have there not been? It's a fact, isn't it? Furthermore, much bread is made in London too. Think of all the bakeries that are here.

33:27

So, since a term that sounds like Shabir appears in this text, translated as he broke, then clearly we have here a prophecy of Shabir Ali coming to London.

33:41

How many of you are going to buy that one? I've got some books in the back I'd like to sell you. That's the problem with this kind of argumentation.

33:51

Now, I'm going to skip past that particular one unless Shabir comes back to it. I'd like to look at Peter's sermon.

34:00

This takes us back to the issue of Deuteronomy chapter 18. And it has been argued that, and Shabir actually said this in the last part of the last debate that we had, that if you really look at Acts chapter 3, it seems that there is a, this is talking about a later fulfillment, and that since Jesus does not actually fulfill the requirements of being that prophet.

34:24

In Acts chapter 3 verses 12 to 26, Peter preaches to the multitudes gathered in the temple.

34:29

Peter asserts the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, by the way, against Islamic beliefs, in verses 13 through 15.

34:36

I've always wondered, if you're going to try to find Muhammad mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, why do you get to pick which words are actually still correct and which words aren't?

34:45

I mean, here in one section has the same textual history. You have clearly presented the crucifixion of Jesus, which you deny, and the resurrection of Jesus, which you deny.

34:55

And then you have Deuteronomy 18. Same thing in John 14 and 16. You have the same stuff about Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, he's going to be with the

35:03

Father, he's called the Son of God. Why don't you accept those words? Why do you only accept the ones that you can try to apply to Muhammad?

35:09

There seems to be somewhat of an inconsistent standard at that point. Peter describes Jesus, interestingly, in verse 15, as the author of life.

35:17

Is Jesus the author of life or is he a mere result? That's a good question. Then in verse 18,

35:35

This determines the reading of the rest of Peter's comments. The text is announcing God's granting to Israel the opportunity to repent and believe in the

35:43

Messiah for eternal life. Therefore, Peter's application of Deuteronomy 18, verses 18 -19 to Christ is part of the call to repentance and faith.

35:55

The text is announcing God's granting to Israel the opportunity to repent and believe in the

36:00

Messiah for eternal life. And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days,

36:10

Acts 3 .24. Notice, these days, not 600 years in the future. Peter then quotes from Genesis 22, and applies all of this to the past coming of Christ as fulfillment, not some future coming of Christ.

36:24

That would be the fulfillment of these things. And so, the

36:29

Quran claims the Torah and the Injil mention Muhammad. I haven't quoted this one yet, but I want you to hear it.

36:36

Remember, and remember, this is the Quran, Jesus, the son of Mary said, O children of Israel, I am the apostle of Allah sent to you, confirming the law which came before me, and giving glad tidings of an apostle to come after me, whose name shall be

36:52

Ahmad. Where did Jesus say that? Would a single scholar that Shabir Ali has quoted this evening, believe these words?

37:07

Remember, almost everyone he's quoting doesn't believe in predictive prophecy in the first place. So, none of them are going to believe that there's anything in the

37:15

New Testament about Muhammad. And so, would any of the people, he mentioned

37:22

Bultmann and Betz, these people are liberal German redaction scholars who don't believe in any kind of inspiration or anything of the sort.

37:34

So, would any of them believe that Jesus, the son of Mary said these things?

37:41

What's the evidence that Jesus, the son of Mary said this? Again, I'm looking for consistency, remember?

37:48

I can give you manuscripts of the Gospel of John. In fact, here

37:53

I have another text, the text of the earliest New Testament manuscripts. Here's pictures and transcriptions of all the early papyri manuscripts, and many of them are of the

38:04

Gospel of John. I can show you where Jesus said these things, and these come within, most of them, within 100 years of the time of Christ, not 600 years later.

38:13

Here is the physical evidence. By the way, this is the second volume I brought to give. My baggage will be lighter going home.

38:29

I can give you evidence of these things. Where is the evidence

38:34

Jesus ever said these things? And yet, I bet you every Muslim in this room accepts that Jesus said this.

38:39

When? We're not even told when. There you go. Okay, okay, you're not up here debating.

38:48

When you want to do that, we'll do that. So, where is the consistency?

38:55

Where is the consistency in chopping up everything we find in the Gospel of John, though you do not have a single manuscript to substantiate your assertions?

39:02

At least, if I were to talk about the Quran, and I were to say, well, you know, there's some questions about the early textual history of the

39:08

Quran, because there's readings from Ibn Masud, all the early Tafsir literature mentions these different readings, and we have

39:14

Palimpsest manuscripts that have different readings, and in, like, Surah 5, you have different readings there about whether it's people who are faithful to people whose faith they're sure.

39:23

There's differences in the actual readings. At least I can give you some evidence of that. I'm not just simply saying, well,

39:28

I theorize. Where is the consistency? Where did

39:33

Jesus ever say this? You have to find the law and the Gospels, the mention of Jesus.

39:39

There it is in your own text. And so, the call to remember something

39:44

Jesus simply never said, and something that's simply untrue, demonstrates a clear and evident error in the text of the

39:50

Quran. Jesus never said a word about Muhammad. He did not prophesy about him, and the self -serving claim, and it is a self -serving claim.

39:58

I mean, this is not the first time that you have a book that comes after the Bible that people have inserted a prophecy about themselves into.

40:06

Joseph Smith did the exact same thing. He put an entire chapter in the book of Genesis that prophesied of himself.

40:14

There's nothing new here. Those who follow the prophet, the unlettered, the apostle, the unlettered prophet, when they find mention in their own scriptures,

40:28

Surah 7, verses 1 -7, in the law and the Gospels. Where? Where?

40:33

It's not Deuteronomy. It's not Song of Solomon. It's not the Paraclete.

40:39

John the Baptist. It's not the first prophesied of Muhammad. And so you have to theorize some conflict between the followers of John, and you have to chop up the

40:50

New Testament and come up. Where did the people living in the days of Muhammad see him in the scriptures?

40:57

We know what the scriptures look like in the days of Muhammad. There's no question about that. We have entire complete manuscripts of the Bible that exist from hundreds of years before that.

41:05

Where did they see those things? That's what the Quran says. There were no redaction scholars back there to cut the

41:11

Bible up into pieces for them to see these things. Who back there believed anything of what Shabir Ali has said so far this evening in regards to the presentation?

41:19

Where were the redaction scholars? Where were the German liberal critics at that time? We do not find

41:25

Muhammad mentioned in either law or the Gospel. The text indicates that those of Muhammad's day could do so.

41:31

If these two ayahs are false, then what are we to conclude about the Quran? Why include these texts unless the author was seeking to provide support for a belief that is historically untrue?

41:42

And so we have to conclude that Muhammad is not prophesied anywhere in the

41:47

Bible. And given the fact that the Quran demands that we find these things, then that's what makes this debate so important.

41:58

And I want to thank you and truly thank you for staying. I know that it's getting later and it's only gonna get later before we finish up.

42:07

But I thank you because this is where we will really be able to test the consistency of the two sides is in this particular aspect of the debate.