Trip Report

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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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.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And he's back, yes indeed, back here in Phoenix, Arizona.

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We did try, I looked at my schedule, I tried to figure out when we could do a Dividing Line while I was in the

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European Union, which I'm glad to be out of as far as that particular aspect of the political scene goes.

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But it just didn't work, it just wasn't there, couldn't make it happen.

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So here we are, first time back on the 15th of February, I've already gotten a quick ride in this morning, gonna do another one this afternoon, it's gonna be like 80 degrees this afternoon in the shade, so probably be around 90 in the sun, have to bathe in sunscreen when out there today.

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But hey, you know, that's great. It's good to be back after two weeks of London, Dublin, and Glasgow weather.

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And of the three of those, Glasgow's definitely the coolest, and Dublin was the windiest, my goodness.

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That was even unusual for them. We had some incredible, incredible things like that. But anyways, it is good to be back.

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I want to give you a brief rundown of the ministry, especially since so many of you helped to make that happen.

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And I'm going to tell Micah right now, I know he's listening, you might not even want to bother taking down the graphic, might just want to alter it just a little bit and change it to help send

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James to England and to Geneva and Germany in April of 2012.

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Now I know April of 2012 seems like a long ways away, but we are already making plans.

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And in fact, those of you who listened to the debate on Saturday know that I sort of threw the challenge out there,

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I said, you know, we keep trying to get these things arranged in an Islamic context, in a mosque.

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And let's see if we can make that happen. And everybody clapped. So afterwards, I was told with great assurance, but not finality as yet, but with great assurance that next year we would be looking at arranging the debate to take place in the

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East London Mosque, which is the largest mosque currently in the London area.

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It is a very large facility. And I would love to see that happen. And let's see if it does.

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And so along with that, a flight over to Geneva, primarily not just a sightsee, though I will admit

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I will sightsee and get my picture in front of the big statues and do all the stuff that you do when you're a

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Calvinist and you visit Geneva for the first time, including finding out how many, how few Genevans have a clue as to what went on there so long ago, sadly, but also going to be looking at either

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Berlin or possibly Cologne. It depends on what our contacts in Germany come up with.

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But those of you in Germany, we need you all to get together and cooperate together and work out something together so that we can squeeze a few days in there and get the most out of it that we can.

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I sort of have the shelf life while traveling of milk.

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Keep me cold. And I've got about two weeks. And after about two weeks, stuff just starts breaking down.

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The back starts going. And I just I just don't believe that people.

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Yes, I can see that. I just don't believe that people sleep as well and rest as well.

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I have it up. I can see the phone system. So I I see that Joseph in Canada wishes to talk about Saturday's debate.

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Well, we'll get there. We'll get there. I don't know what he wants to talk about Saturday's debate, but I do see that that's there.

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Yes. OK, anyway, I just don't think you sleep as well. You're traveling. So I've got about two weeks shelf life when it comes to travel.

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So I got to cram everything in there. So our thinking right now is to fly to London, do a debate there, then fly over to Geneva, then to some type of ministry in in Germany.

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If we can really nail this down, I will I will make it a part of my writing for the next year and two months to throw in some maybe listen to biblical texts in German.

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Just get my my German vocabulary back, which which those with whom I have spoken in German say

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I speak German well, but I just don't have anyone with whom to speak German. And therefore, the vocabulary just won't stick.

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Everybody knows that's how it works. And so if I would just have I've got the accent, no one's ever complained about my

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German accent. They complain about my Scottish accent all the time, even though I will have some positive report that I move closer to being accepted as a true

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Scotsman during my time in Glasgow. I really did. So and I came back with my two kilts, which

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I which now fit because when I brought them over, they were Scottish tents. Now they are our kilts again.

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They were it was just a small enough alteration. They didn't have to do any cutting so they could fold everything in.

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And that's why it didn't cost as much as it would have otherwise. But anyhow, set up stuff there in Germany.

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And though I don't believe that I would be able to necessarily speak or preach in totally in German or anything like that or debate in that context, things like that,

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I certainly would like to be able to be somewhat functional in that way. So that's coming up April 2012.

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Between now and then, the next out of country journey will be in October, heading down to Sydney with a brief run up to Brisbane toward the end of that time and going to be very busy during that time, going to be at more college again and things like that.

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So racking up the frequent flyer miles. In fact,

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I already have more miles in my account now than I did before I burned the miles to get the upgrade to go over to London.

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So it's yeah, I only spent but I just managed to get back yesterday in just under 13 hours of flying time.

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So just a just a mere little 13 hour. That's a drive to Salt Lake. Yeah, but yeah,

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OK. Well, no, not the way you guys used to drive to Salt Lake. I would drive there in that time period.

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But you guys, you were all working on the land speed record thing because you knew the salt flats were up there. So yeah, so much for that.

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You're going to be hearing from that in the email before long. Quotations of Romans 13 and stuff like that.

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I can't say anything with certain people in the audience, but anyhow, so briefly, it was neat to be able to keep you can just keep in touch with people anymore.

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And so some of the things that we did while we were over there, you all have already seen the

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I haven't gotten a single comment, however, so far from anybody on the unbelievable radio program that aired on Saturday.

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I'm not sure I've forgotten the link to it. I apologize. I've seen some links to it on Twitter. I will try to remember to link to it and get that up on the blog so that you all can hear that.

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But that was an interesting conversation. Let's just say I now know how to get to Premiere very well. In fact, as we were as Doug and I were coming back from ministry in Leicester Square, I happened to look over and I I saw one of the train stations going by.

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I said, oh, we're close to Premiere here. Just walk over that bridge, go over there around that corner. And he's like, yeah, you're starting to know your way around here.

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I think that's scary, isn't it? But the conversation was respectful, but not overly challenging on the subject of the

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King James translation on the unbelievable radio program. I think that Justin did everything he could in his power to get someone to present a little more full argumentation, shall we say, on the subject, only controversy and the issues surrounding that.

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But just no one wanted to take that up. He had, in fact, gotten the folks from the

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Trinitarian Bible Society to agree to be on. And then he told them who they're going to be on with. And they promptly declined to be on the program, which

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I find disappointing because if they're going to take the position they take, then there shouldn't be a problem in interacting with someone who clearly has demonstrated repeatedly many times in documented form, in audio, video and written form, the ability to engage these subjects in respectful and meaningful manner.

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But it didn't happen. And that's a bit of a shame.

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And I think the folks at the Trinitarian Bible Society need to step up and to engage these subjects personally with folks that can ask them meaningful questions.

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And unfortunately, that didn't happen. That evening, you all did get to see, it's on YouTube, not in the best format, but it's on YouTube, the debate with Pastor Jack Moorman on the subject of the

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King James only controversy. And you will note that it started off with my sitting there in utter shock at the activities of the spokesperson and moderator.

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But, oh, well, but we got focused. Again, it was a simple matter,

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I think, of I chose, I did not have a typed out opening statement.

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And I think when you're on television, you have to somehow try to connect with the audience.

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And sitting there reading a statement on television just doesn't work. It's just, you know, if you need to have an outline or something like that, fine, but you've got to have some type of extemporaneous capacity.

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And so that's what I did once Pastor Moorman presented his 20 minutes of written presentation and Mount Impassable and la la la la.

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The only thing I didn't do, and when he talked about Mount Impassable, as I, some of you may have noticed,

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I was taking notes about what he was saying on my iPad and was tapping out the notes.

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And then I would stop that for a moment and go over and see what the time was and go back to my notes. And so I was keeping up with him.

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And when he made that Mount Impassable argument, I thought

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I should start off at some point in my opening, I should say something along, now, let me be your guide over Mount Impassable.

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I should, I thought of it before and I never did it. Once I got into it,

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I just, you know, you start going with the flow and the next thought comes up and you want to go here. And I remember that I never did.

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And I should have because it would have would have helped. But other than that, I thought it was a very useful exchange, aside from the fact that it was just, again, painfully obvious that Pastor Moorman would not answer my questions directly.

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And some people, one person even commented that he felt that the moderator was somewhat biased toward my side because he kept asking

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Pastor Moorman the same questions I was asking him. I said, I don't think that shows bias on his part. I think it shows that he saw that the questions

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I was asking are the important questions and that Pastor Moorman was not responding to them. And so, you know, a good a good journalist doesn't let the politician off with just one attempt to get him to actually address the meaningful issue.

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And so I think it's very useful. And it did seem to get a lot of Twitter play and Facebook play and stuff like that.

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So that went well. Very next morning. Oh, goodness. We got home late from that, home,

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I mean, to the hotel. Next morning, we saved about 20 pounds each,

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Doug McMasters and I, by taking the first flight, first flight to Dublin. Don't think we'd do that one again because we had to fly out of Gatwick.

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Oh, there are lots of airports in there. Heathrow, there's Gatwick, there's Stansted. Dublin, Gatwick.

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Oh, man. It was once we got there, we had to be dropped off.

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And I felt like we were walking to Dublin. I have no I felt I have never felt more like I was in a rat's maze than when we were in this place.

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People dragging luggage everywhere up these inclines and down this and around this.

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I I'm awful glad Doug knew where he was going. Because I did not have a clue where I was going.

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We get to the Aer Lingus desk. There's nobody there but the people checking us in.

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Nobody. As far as the eye can see. And I'm sort of wondering, why is this? Well, because the flight started loading about 10 minutes before we got there.

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So we drop off our bags and now we've got to get through security before we can even get there. And there we stand.

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And there we stand. And there we stand. And at least you don't have to take your shoes off in in England when you when you go through the thing, but you do have to take your belt off and all that stuff.

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So we finally get through and we're just we're huffing it. And we finally get to gate 14.

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And again, there's nobody there except one gate agent. We were the last ones on the plane.

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The door closed a minute after we got on that plane. And they left 13 minutes before the posted time it was supposed to go.

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We barely made that flight. It was I've never I'm almost always the first one on the plane, not the last one on the plane, but I was the last one on this plane.

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It was quite interesting. And so we got to Dublin and we got to meet

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Joe Riley. Joe has called the dividing line many times. Joe from from Ireland. And Joe was our ride.

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I want I really want to thank I really do need to thank folks. You know,

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Doug McMaster is the pastor of Trinity Road Chapel. Obviously, he went with me to Dublin and did the lion's share of the work in having me over there.

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But I should say that he he wanted me to thank a certain Barry Ladin because he said that it was a joy to work with him and it was good to see

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I had someone helping with all them. There are so many details to do stuff like this. It is just I've done and I've done a lot of a lot of that stuff in the past.

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And now Barry's taking care of all that stuff. And so he was very thankful. So it was great to meet

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Joe and Mark and the folks at the Outer and Reform Baptist Church there in Dublin, Ireland, which is in the

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Republic of Ireland, which is not a part of the United Kingdom, which needs to be differentiated from the from Northern Ireland.

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And man, I'll tell you, there are cultural things. So you can tell someone's religion by what football team they vote for.

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If you if you support the Celtics, that tells you that tells everybody if you're in if you're in Ireland or in Scotland, it tells you exactly what your theology is.

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And if you support the Rangers, that tells them what your theology is. It is really the divisions run deep and especially in Ireland, where to be a

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Protestant is to be a bad, bad person. I mean, that's just all there is to it. And so it was it was great to have the opportunity of preaching there.

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We had a little bit of a interesting situation arise when I was booked to speak at a church where, unfortunately, the booker did not tell the bookies what

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I was going to be speaking on. And I didn't know that. And so that led to a great deal of consternation and emails back and forth and I ended up speaking on the same subject.

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Anyways, the elders asked me to speak on Romans nine, even though it is not in any way, shape or form a reformed church.

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I already knew that, but it never crossed my mind that they didn't know that I was going to be speaking on Romans nine.

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They didn't. They at first objected, then didn't object and objected again and then they didn't object.

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And afterwards, one of the elders said to me, Tempest in a teapot. In other words, I simply opened the text.

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I walked the text from beginning to end and it was very well received. And it was a very good, very good evening on that Sunday, that Sunday evening.

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So, but while there, oh my, while there to visit

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Trinity College in Dublin and to walk through the long hall.

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Did you all see the picture of the long hall I posted? It does not even begin to do justice. I came up a pair of stairs and I'm watching the stairs, you know, because, you know,

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I don't particularly like falling on my face on the stairs. So I come up the stairs, I get to the top stair, I look up and there

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I am in the middle of that room. And I was in the very middle of it.

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So I just sort of turn around and it goes both directions. It looks like one of those mirror things that's so long, the long hall.

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And it's two levels. And as far as the eye can see is just books, books. And we're not talking modern books.

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We're talking old books. It smells of old books. It's just absolutely incredible.

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And then to get to go to the manuscript reading room and to go in and you have to be very careful how you're handling these things.

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But to hold Codex Montfortianus in my hands, which is Codex 61.

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It is the text that is theorized anyways, was actually written specifically to force

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Erasmus to insert the Commuohonium at 1 John 5, 7. And I didn't just look at 1

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John 5, 7, I did transcribe that. And we've gotten information on how to get the digitized versions and stuff like that because I need to need to have that.

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But I also check some other significant readings like at Luke 2, 22 and Revelation 16, 5. And so Doug McMasters and Joe Riley and I had the opportunity of doing that.

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Chris Cahi, which used to be Chris Coy, but now he's in Ireland, so it's Chris Cahi, was there with us.

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And he helped out a great deal with things because he's a PhD student at Trinity and therefore he got all sorts of discounts and got us access to the next day to the

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Chester Beattie Library, which of course is where P45, P46 and P47 are located.

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And that was really the highlight of the trip. We didn't get a chance to have a private viewing of them. The archivist was sick or was out of town, one of the two.

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And we tried, we just couldn't get it worked out. We did speak with people and we're going to be able to get high quality digitized versions.

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It's going to cost a little something. I might be putting something on the ministry resource list or something. They're about 15, about 15 pounds plus a little bit per image.

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And there are certain important texts. I think it'd be very good to have high quality digital stuff from P46 on that, especially since that's the earliest corpus of Pauline's writings,

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Paul's writings we have. But we went into the museum where a number of these are on permanent display.

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And the first thing that struck me as soon as we walked in there is it's so dark. It's so dark because they don't want to fade the manuscripts.

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So it's so dark. So we had to learn how to literally, and I mentioned this in the blog article, you got to see this.

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We had to, you know, we're sitting here and the lights are from above and it's just so dark that my eyes are straining to make out anything.

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So we started trying different angles and stuff and we realized, well, if the lights are above, then they're going to be brightest at the same angle from the bottom that the lights are from the top.

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And so we found out that if you got on your knees in front of the manuscript and sort of pressed your face up against the glass like this, you could see it a whole lot better.

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Yes. Did anybody get a picture of that, you guys? They certainly did on CCTV when the security guys showed up.

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They saw it. Yeah, but I can just see that on certain blogs. I can too.

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Well, there's certain people we're going to be talking about later in the program that will only take that one portion of my sentence and create a blog out of that.

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They're so blind and bigoted and prejudiced. So but you can't worry about people like that. I mean, if people are going to be, you know, are going to cut your language up that way and completely ignore context, there's nothing you can do about it.

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So anyways, so we're on our knees and so we're looking at P45 and we look at P47 and we read through some of Revelation.

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That's the same. That's one of the two manuscripts that has the 616 number for the number of the beast, which

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I always use in my presentations and stuff. But then we go over to P46 and I have,

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I like a little kid. I mean, I'm like a little kid. It's you remember

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P72 and you were there. It's a shame you haven't gotten to see these these others.

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But you remember what I was like when I'm looking at P72. I'm drooling on the thing. And there's probably some drool left on the glass.

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They've had to clean it up that night. But one of the first things I realize is that the very page that I normally use to illustrate

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P46, which is the end of Galatians, the beginning of Philippians, is on display. The very thing that I have, in fact, in my keynote presentation,

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I make prosphilipasius to the Philippians. I make that come forward in using magic move and keynotes and see here's and there it is, the exact page.

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Then I notice the next one that we had worked through some Roman sections and stuff. And what I would do is

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I had the Accordance app on my iPod Touch and the Accordance app has a transcription of all the papyri in it.

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So I could bring these things up and once I would be able to locate, because unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with this, whoever put the little cards in the display under each one obviously couldn't read what they were discussing.

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And it didn't give you the specific biblical text. So you'd recognize what you were looking at.

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I guess they don't expect most people who are staying there actually reading what they're looking at. I can understand that. But that's certainly what

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I was doing. And so what I'd have to do is I'd have to try to, in that dark light, find a string where I could identify a unique word.

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And then I would go to my Touch and I would do a search in that papyri. You can actually search just in that papyri for that string and find out where it is by what's the surrounding text.

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And so we were able to that's how we were able to read from Revelation in the early papyri. Then we got to P46. We were reading each one.

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Then we got to the last one shown. The last fragment of P46. And I start looking at it and I realize that we're looking at something in Philippians chapter one.

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And so the immediate thought crossed my mind is, will the Carmen Christi be on this?

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Might I see the earliest handwritten record of a text

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I've worked on so much? And unfortunately, I immediately looked at it on the Touch and it ends at Philippians 129.

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So in other words, on the back of the thing that I'm looking at is the Carmen Christi on the backside that I cannot see, which was slightly frustrating, but not really because I have an image of that and I know it's there.

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And it was still tremendously exciting to see, but I would love to have been able to see that and read through that myself.

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That's definitely one of the pages I want to get to be able to have that information. But it was just tremendously exciting to see that.

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And of course, there's all sorts of other really interesting things. There's a fragment of P66 and about the earliest prior fragment we have of Mark.

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And to see all this stuff and just be that close to it and to be able to read it and be there with the brothers and talk about the history of these manuscripts and stuff like that was just really, really exciting and was a highlight of the time.

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We then went and toured the Dublin castle, I think the next day, actually, and just had a great time.

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The Irish people are wonderful people. They're extremely warm and welcoming and generous.

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And it was a lot of fun. And the wildest, weirdest thing that happened was we're walking through the streets of Dublin on our way back to Trinity at one point.

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I forget. That's right. There was a wonderful tweed shop, an

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Irish Donegal tweed across the street from Trinity College. And I got a hat there the first day we were there.

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And I decided I was going to go ahead and bite the bullet and get a

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Donegal tweed sport jacket, which is what I wore in the debate on Saturday night and which you're going to be seeing a lot of in the future because I love it.

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But we're on our way back there, and we're just walking along. It's the four of us, Joe, Chris, Doug and myself.

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And all of a sudden behind me, I hear this female voice go, Sir, sir. And so I stopped thinking maybe one of my gloves fell out of my pocket and someone wanted to give it back to me.

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You know, I don't know. And there's this woman staying there and she has a notepad like a journalist.

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And she says, Sir, can we take your picture? Now, I'm on the streets of Dublin.

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It happened to be a real nice part of the day. It was still a little bit cold, but the sun had come out, which is pretty unusual during while I was there.

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We had some they one day they predicted wind gusts of one hundred and ten kilometers per hour. That's moving.

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OK, and it was it was blowing. And but it's a really nice, nice part of the day. And I'm wondering why would this person be wanting to take my picture on the street of Dublin?

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And so everybody had stopped. The guys had come back and I'm sort of like, um, why?

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It's just because you look cool. And I'm just like, OK, I'm standing here,

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I'm wearing I'm wearing black, black trousers, black.

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Well, we had just bought me because I needed one, a three quarter length coat, which is what

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I wore when I was over there, a black sweater vest. And the only thing that was colorful on me at all is I had a red shirt on and a black cashmere cap.

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And or was I wearing the cap I wore that I got that I was wearing the cap or the anyway. And I'm just looking at her like,

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OK, where is that? Where's the TV camera? Where's the where's the you know, what was the old candy?

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Where's the camera? Because no, no, no, no. But just no, you look cool. We're with a certain such such a magazine and we're taking pictures of people on the streets of Dublin.

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And and I'm like, OK, you know, and so they take these pictures.

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And I started talking with the lady because her camera was, oh, my goodness, her camera was incredible.

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It was like a five thousand dollar professional camera. You know, you know, the 90 megabyte raw pictures and all this stuff.

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And and it was it was really cool. But from that point on, well, she did ask me at one point, where did you get your shirt?

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And I was so strongly tempted to go Target because they wouldn't have no idea what that is over there, of course.

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But I shop at Target, which is

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Target for those who haven't figured that part out. Anyway, it's just a plain old medium Target dress shirt without a tie.

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And I was going to say Target, but it was funny. So anyhow, we had a great time there.

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And then Doug and I split up. Doug went home and I flew off to to Glasgow, where I stayed with Jim and Chrissy Handyside.

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Jim is the pastor of the Andesland Reformed Baptist Church, why I've spoken many times before, had a wonderful opportunity.

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And he asked me to speak on the subject of modern day Gnostics alive and well.

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Now, that is not an easy subject in any way, shape or form. I had to work hard on that.

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But the ministry was received real well. I I went into Glasgow and dropped off my kilts for resizing

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Mackenzie's menswear down on Argyle Street. And I got myself back and they were doing they had this really neat idea.

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And, you know, this works in Europe. It doesn't work as well here. But they had this really neat idea on Tuesday mornings.

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They do coffee and tea for free for anybody who wants to come into the church. And since they're right next to what would be for us, the

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Department of Economic Security in their land and the Andesland train station is literally within 10 yards of their roof.

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There is constant foot traffic. So I've got to do is put a sign out and put a few people out there. And they've got people coming in all time.

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Someone comes in for free coffee, biscuits, tea, and some of them, the church sits down and it's a witnessing situation.

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So I got back long before I expected to on the train. When you take Central Station, just change at Partick for Andesland.

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Anyways, and so I'm sitting there and all of a sudden we get a little rush and we run out of people.

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So what do I do? I get to try to understand Scottish accents that are really, really thick because the

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Glaswegian accent isn't even Scottish. Okay. I mean, it's just wow. But I witnessed this one fellow for quite some time, had really good conversation with him and ended up talking to a non -active

31:21

Muslim who had a Scottish friend with him who is Glaswegian. And I'm going to tell you something.

31:28

If I hadn't had Jim Handyside there to translate this fellow, I wouldn't have had an earthly idea what he was saying.

31:34

That fellow, he was truly Glaswegian. And it was just like. It's just like he's got marbles in his mouth.

31:42

I have no earthly idea what he was saying, but Jim would tell me what he was saying. He translated for him. So we had a great time. And then they got the kilts done by Thursday.

31:49

So I went back in on my own, got back out and got my kilts and brought them back with me.

31:55

So that was a great time there in Glasgow. And we flew back to London. And on Friday night, you've already seen the pictures, the ministry in Leicester Square.

32:06

It didn't get as much done as we had the year before. They have Leicester Square cordoned off because they're doing work for the 2012

32:12

Olympics. And since you can't really walk across it now and stuff, it makes it a little bit more crowded. And it's not quite as amenable.

32:19

It'll be great during the 2012 Olympics, I'm sure, but it's not quite as amenable to conversations as it had been before.

32:26

And I mentioned some of the conversations we had there on the blog. Then Saturday night, we had the debate.

32:33

That's why we'll be getting to Joseph in Canada here in a moment. We had the debate. And I thought it went really well.

32:42

When I was first told that there had been a contact about live streaming it, and I'd been thinking about trying to do it through our facilities.

32:49

I thought, well, you know, if they have a computer up in the balcony, if it had Skype on it, we could

32:54

Skype it over here. And then you could put it out from here on the dividing line link or something along those lines.

33:00

I just didn't want to drag any extra thing I could not have taken. The streaming PC with me. It's just I barely got everything home that I needed to because I thought

33:11

I was going to be able to drop the kilts off. And kilts take up a lot of space, and they're very, very heavy. And so I'd have room for anything that I was bringing back.

33:17

I ended up bringing back two pairs of shoes for other people other than myself, one jacket, one hat, and two books and two mugs.

33:30

I collect Starbucks mugs for my daughter when I travel. So she got a Dublin mug and a Scotland mug out of this particular trip, and they take up room too.

33:38

And to get all that back into my bags was a bit of a challenge. So I could not have brought that with me.

33:45

But then when I found out that very same day, they were talking about video live streaming this.

33:51

I'm like, wow, and you've never done this before. And we're going to try to make this work. And honestly, they didn't get started on working on it till about 5 .15

34:00

and the debate started 6 .30. So they had an hour and 15 minutes. The only reason it ended up working at all is that one of Doug's sons had a 50 -foot -long

34:11

Cat5 cable, and they ran it out the window, down the sidewalk to the flat next door, and plugged it into his high -speed internet access.

34:20

That's the only way they got that to work was to hardwire it that far out the window and through the woods over to grandmother's house.

34:28

So that was a little bit distracting at the beginning of the debate.

34:36

But this is somewhat relevant, I think, to what we're talking about in a moment when we talk about the attacks upon yours truly that I came back to.

34:49

As I did that debate, I had to make certain decisions. When you do a debate, you are sitting there, at least this is what

34:56

I do. And I think I can say that I have a fair amount of experience in debate. And though there are certain people who would be so incredibly biased as to say that I've never won a debate in my life unless I was debating someone who was stupid, the reality is

35:12

I think most people, even people who don't like me, recognize that that's one thing that I do fairly well.

35:19

I can remain focused. I don't easily get flustered. And I've done it a lot of times,

35:25

I think about 108 times so far. And I'm watching the audience.

35:31

I'm looking at the audience as I'm speaking to them. I'm gauging their reactions. A lot of this is subconscious, but it's quite purposeful.

35:39

I'm listening to my opponent. I'm gauging whether my opponent is connecting with the audience or not, how the audience is responding to him and his presentation.

35:48

And one of the advantages that I've discovered is that when you appear to be speaking from your heart about what is passionate to you, about what you're most interested in, people will hear that.

36:01

If you're reading your statement, that's a little bit more difficult to do. You can read well, but people see that you're reading well.

36:11

And so there were a number of times in this debate, it was very Islamic intensive, and there was a great danger of completely losing the audience.

36:19

Not because they're not intelligent enough to follow you, but because it may well be stuff that they're just not familiar enough with to be able to really engage with.

36:29

That's why I had a digital presentation. I put all the Quranic texts up on the screen so people could see them and they could follow along.

36:36

And it wasn't just me reading it because once you get about two or three words into a citation, people start tuning you out.

36:42

And so if people can't see it, it's difficult for them to follow along. Bassam went into a lot of, you know,

36:50

Hadith sources and, you know, Zamakshari says this and Qurtubi says this and Ibn Kathir says that.

36:58

And I had a bunch of that stuff sitting there on my screen. And during the rebuttal period and the cross -ex,

37:04

I could have gone that direction. I specifically chose not to. Just as I specifically chose not to get into some things that Greg Stafford wanted to get into because I realized sometimes, and this depends on why you debate.

37:15

If you debate for the audience long -term, you're going to debate differently than if you're debating for your ego.

37:24

Because your ego is going to tell you, go toe -to -toe with this guy and show you're just as smart as he is.

37:30

That's what your ego says. But if you want to keep the focus upon the central aspect of the debate and not let it get diluted and you want to stay in contact with the audience, then you have to be making a lot of decisions along the way.

37:44

And I made the decision to stay focused on the text. And I think in the long -term, what's going to bother some

37:52

Muslims, in fact, a lot of Muslims, about watching that debate and hearing that debate is just this. It seemed that the one side that thought that you could actually figure out what the

38:06

Muslim side, because if I can, and I really enjoyed getting to meet

38:12

Bassam. I think Bassam was very controlled during the debate. I thought it went very well. I've noted a lot of people who are saying they're praying for Bassam.

38:20

So that means that he came across as someone who was serious and not arrogant and things like that in the course of the debate.

38:28

And that's kudos to him for that. I think he should take that as a positive thing and pursue that.

38:33

Same as Abdullah Andalusi did the year before. But if I can basically summarize what he was saying, basically what he was saying is he knows that I could have cited scholars who agreed with me.

38:47

He even admitted that. So that's why I didn't need to waste my time doing it. He admitted, yeah, there are people that have understood these texts the same way you are.

38:57

But basically the thesis of his argument was, well, the Quran might misrepresent

39:02

Christianity. But not necessarily. And if that's good enough for you, okay.

39:09

But you see, that's not good enough for the vast majority of Muslims. It might, but we don't know. And I think that was really illustrated when

39:16

I asked direct questions. The Quran identifies as disbelievers, those committing kufr, who say

39:25

Allah is the Messiah or three or third of three.

39:33

Who are these people? Can you tell us who these people are? And Bassam's position was, well, we're just not sure.

39:41

It might be a lot of different people. And I just, I just don't think most Muslims are going to buy that.

39:48

Because it's very obvious the writer didn't intend it that way. And I'm the one going, actually,

39:54

I do think there is a theme in Surat Al -Maidah. And yeah, while there's different things addressed during the course of this surah, it does seem to me that when you're talking about three here, and then you've got

40:05

Allah, Mary, and Jesus here, it's pretty hard to ignore the connection between those. Yeah. So I just thought that it was very useful along those lines to make that kind of an application.

40:18

And so since I'm going to go from there, the next day I preached twice at Trinity Road Chapel. I think

40:24

I have, yes, I did link on my blog to those sermons. One was on the historicity of the cross, which those of you who minister to Muslims would find to be somewhat useful.

40:32

And then I redid Romans 9 at Doug's request. And I didn't just redo what

40:39

I did in Dublin. Because again, I don't have notes. I don't use notes. I just simply had the text in front of me. So it's always gonna be a little bit different.

40:45

But I added a section where I refuted equal ultimacy, as I've done here on this program as well. So you might find those to be somewhat useful.

40:53

It's interesting, people listen to a sermon on the same subject, and it'll be something you say in the second one that will also make the lights turn on.

40:59

It's just a different turn of phrase, something that might be useful to people. So if you get a chance, you might take a look at that.

41:07

And then an uneventful and prosperous trip home yesterday. So before we go and talk about our other stated subject today, since Joseph in Canada wanted to talk about Saturday's debate, let's go ahead and bring him on the air and talk with Joseph.

41:25

Hi, Joseph, how are you doing? Hi, Dr. White. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. Actually, I agree with you about Zawadi. He kind of seemed all over the place with his, well, exegesis or lack thereof.

41:36

I think it's his theology kind of teaches him that, that he doesn't want to consistently interpret the

41:42

Quran, or he maybe doesn't think that he wants to defer to authorities. But yeah, I think you brought what you think is a consistent.

41:48

But if I just can beg to differ with you on one thing, I see that neither you or him really engaged like the classical

41:56

Arabic of the Quran. And kind of, I guess, you kind of both deferred to the English translations, which

42:02

I kind of find theologically motivated. It's in those passages, like 4171. I mean, you've talked about that a lot.

42:08

It's very theologically motivated. And it's just not saying, I mean, you could... What do you mean?

42:14

Yeah, you know, it says Allah is one, or it's ilahun wahid. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't say

42:21

Allah is one. Allah being that Allah is a proper noun. It says ilahun, which is really not a good, like saying that's a god or a god is really not a good translation.

42:30

It's, if you look, like, for instance, Lane has Lane's Lexicon, pretty authoritative source for English, Arabic, classical

42:38

Arabic. It's synonymous with abadah, which is, you know, as you know, like Abdullah, right? A servant of, it's to worship, it's to be in service of.

42:46

And so I think there's a lot missed in translations, especially those theologically motivated passages, which are really distorted by Muslim translators.

42:53

Well, I was using primarily the Sahih International, which isn't nearly as bad as Yusuf Ali, but I'm still not sure of the point that you're making in 4171.

43:02

I guess I differ with you on your interpretations of some of these texts, because they're not all together.

43:08

Like, for instance, you know, when it says that God does not have a son, that's the translation generally, right? In many of them, it says, or He does not take a son.

43:16

Many of those Arabic forms of the verbs are take from Himself a begotten, which, I mean, it sounds a lot like the

43:23

Eastern Trinitarian theology. I mean, you have to admit, it sounds very, very close to what an

43:29

Eastern Orthodox or a Greek father would say about Christ. He was eternally begotten from the

43:34

Father. I know Calvin called that, what was it, ridiculous or something? He called, he basically dismissed it.

43:40

I think that if you look at it in its context, historically, that it does address those issues.

43:47

It doesn't address, obviously, modern Western Trinitarian beliefs, but, I mean, not directly, but it definitely addresses the

43:54

Eastern Trinitarian beliefs. I mean, that's my opinion. What do you think of that? Well, I would be surprised if Muhammad had that level of understanding of any form of Trinitarianism.

44:11

I just don't see evidence of that. The phrase that you're talking to me, are you talking about, for exalted is

44:18

He above having a son? Is that... Right, that's in 4 .1, it says that He should be, for Him, a begotten, right?

44:25

So that's what it literally reads. But you cited other passages, like 18 .4, where it says, warning those who say

44:32

Allah has taken a son, right? Right, uh -huh. Yeah, that's fine. You could translate it like that, except that it's not you, but the translator, like I'm reading

44:40

Sahi International, and it's the eighth form of the Arabic verb, and it's literally reflexive, and they don't illustrate it so bad, the translation, they don't even illustrate that.

44:49

It's reflexive. He takes from Himself a begotten. Now, even if you don't agree that the text is inspired or whatever, that's fine, but they don't even represent the text accurately, because the theological bias is so ingrained.

45:01

So I think it does a better job of reflecting Trinitarian theology at a time, because when we have a document from that time, like around, not that time, but about 150 years later, by Christian apologists in Arabic, which makes it pretty clear that that was the theology.

45:17

I know it's very different in the West, but that is the Trinitarian theology of the East, if, well, there's non -Chalcedonian churches or so -called

45:24

Eastern Orthodox, it's, that is there, that's the way they view the Trinity. Mm -hmm. I mean, do you agree?

45:30

Well, it would put it into a completely different context, though. It would require, if Muhammad had that level of understanding of Eastern Orthodox Trinitarian theology,

45:44

I would think there would be some indication of this. And yet it's the very same language that is used in the surahs where he is simply arguing against polytheism as well.

45:53

So how would you differentiate, how would you differentiate between, there doesn't seem to be a differentiation, let's put it this way, in the

46:01

Quran, between when he's arguing against the Christian concept of sonship and the pagan concept of sonship, which did not have those type of nuances at all.

46:08

So how would we derive that from the text itself? Yeah, you're right. Like 6, chapter 6, 101, where they talk about, they ascribe to him sons and daughters.

46:17

Right. And then it says he does not have a sahib. We can, you know, argue about how to translate that.

46:23

But the point is, yeah, in terms of the pagans, I don't think you could read that into it, unless we don't really know how they believe.

46:32

But I don't think you could read that kind of concept into it. But I mean, I just try to be fair to the text.

46:38

It's just, you know, I don't, like I'm really shocked some of these translations are so, when it comes to those texts, they're really bad.

46:44

And the other thing is Christians in the East, they say Ibn Allah, right? They don't call, what they would say,

46:49

Yathwa, a wallad. They don't call him a begotten, except for the creeds.

46:55

All the creeds refer to him as wallad. The only begotten, right?

47:00

Let me, we got another call here, Joseph. Let me actually bring him on with you. Hopefully you all can hear each other.

47:06

I hope he doesn't mind this. But Sam, hi, Sam. Hello, Sam, are you there?

47:12

Yeah, I'm here. Hello. Hey, Sam. Hey, brother. Hey, Sam, can you hear Joseph as well? Yeah, I hear

47:19

Joseph. Can you hear me, though? Yes, I can. Okay, Joseph, I guess you're an

47:25

Arabic Christian. Am I correct to say that? No, no, no, I'm not. I'm just somebody who studied the

47:31

Arabic language, or tried to study the classical Arabic language, and I'm just thinking that the Qur 'an addresses some of these issues.

47:38

I just think there's a big mis -disconnect between the modern English and the classical Arabic. Yeah, you just mentioned something about wallad versus Ibn.

47:46

Yeah, that's right. Christian, are you saying that the Qur 'an condemns the view that Jesus is the wallad of God, or the son of God, Ibn?

47:54

I didn't understand your point. Sure, for sure, it condemns that Jesus was begotten of the

48:00

Father, or the God of Allah, in any time, at any point. Does the

48:08

Qur 'an condemn anyone who would say that Jesus is Ibn Allah? If there is a text in 930,

48:14

I think, that says that the Jews say this, Ezra is Ibn Allah, and the

48:20

Christians say this, I would just say that the context of that one is slightly different, where these people are said to not even believe in the book that they have.

48:29

So, the people who don't believe in Allah or the Last Day... Just let me interject something. Sorry? Yeah. Let me interject something.

48:36

You just said they don't believe in the books that they have. Actually, that doesn't speak about their disbelief in the books. It talks about their disbelief in the

48:42

Islamic concept of God and the Last Day, and even Christians to this day would reject what the Qur 'an has to say about the

48:48

Last Day, and about the concept of God, but that's neither here nor there. The very fact that the

48:54

Qur 'an condemns... The Christian view that Jesus is Ibn Allah, not just his wala, shows that the

48:59

Qur 'an rejects sonship categorically, whether it's spiritual, whether it's begotten, whether it's adopted.

49:07

And I have a question for you. Sure. You said that the verb taken can mean begotten, and this is supposedly in condemnation of what the

49:16

Christians believed at that time. But is it not true that the Qur 'an also condemns Allah taking a consort?

49:21

However you want to translate the Arabic. It says that he has not taken a consort. The idea that he...

49:27

Well, no, it says he doesn't have any true peer. That's the... Yeah, sahabi doesn't have a companion or peer.

49:32

Yeah, that's what it says. Use the word. But the point is... Use the word. Okay, yeah. Hold on. Let me make the point. It condemns...

49:38

Use the word that he has not taken a consort. It doesn't simply say he doesn't have...

49:44

Can you give me the verse, please? Yeah, can you go to chapter 6, verse 101? And tell me... 101? Yes. Well, in what sense is it rejecting that Allah has a son and a mate or a consort?

49:55

So originator of the heavens and the earth, how can he be for him? Okay, a begotten while not there is for him. Do you notice how you translated begotten, right?

50:02

There is not for him. Yeah, but you translated begotten, right? Yeah, walad, yeah, that's right.

50:08

Okay, walad, okay. Now in the context, the Qur 'an is presupposing the only way that Allah can beget a son is if he has a consort.

50:15

So it's sexual procreation or begetting. And that's not what the Muslim understanding... I agree with you. That's the Muslim understanding, 100%.

50:23

Do you know that David is called khalifatun with the feminine?

50:29

It's a feminine noun. This is also a feminine noun. The ta at the end makes it feminine.

50:35

But the feminine is used as an intensive in classical Arabic. In other words, you could read it like the way you're reading it.

50:41

That's fine. The way Muslims read it, that's fine. But it's intensifying that, whatever that noun is. And that noun means peer, a companion.

50:48

He has no true peer, so how could he have a begotten? That's what I would understand. That's missing the point, Joseph. You're not getting the point.

50:53

You're missing the point. Go ahead. The context defines walad in a sexual procreative sense, saying that the only way he can have a walad is if he has a consort.

51:03

Since he doesn't have a consort, he cannot have a walad. So it's not attacking the Christian understanding of the eternal generation of the son.

51:10

It's attacking a perverted view of it. So I really don't see what your point is. But actually, the

51:16

Christians at the time did not believe that Jesus is God's walad in a procreative, sexual sense.

51:22

No, I didn't say that. I said they were in the creed. No, I didn't say you said that. You're saying it is addressing their beliefs. No, it isn't.

51:27

Okay. Really? I have a nice thing creed in Arabic here. They call them walad al -wuhid. Yeah, but that's not my point again.

51:34

Again, you're not getting my point. My point is the Qur 'an is not attacking the Christian concept of the eternal generation.

51:41

Well, not in that verse. No, I agree with you in that verse. Why do you assume that the sahabat here means consort?

51:47

I don't understand. Because those who knew classical Arabic just as much as you do, if not better, say that here, contextually, the word means a consort, meaning a partner, a wife.

51:56

So can you show me an Arabic Muslim commentator who knows the Arabic? No, I can't show you a Muslim commentator because the commentators came after, you know,

52:05

I mean, I can't show you a commentator. Hold on a second, guys. So is it your position,

52:11

Joseph, that the earliest commentators from Ibn Kathir onward didn't understand?

52:19

Well, Ibn Kathir was from the 13th century, if I'm not mistaken. No, 13th century? Okay, I'm sorry.

52:26

I didn't know. Okay, I stay corrected on that. But my question, my point about Ibn Kathir or not is that it's not that they didn't know or they did know.

52:34

What I'm saying is that it could be understood grammatically differently than the way it has been understood. That's all.

52:40

Okay, all right. If you put it on your understanding, that's okay. Okay, but Joseph, isn't it important to understand how the

52:48

Muslims interpret it? I mean, if the Muslims aren't interpreting it or if their interpretation isn't relevant, then what relevance does the

52:57

Qur 'an have at all? I mean, I'm just a little bit confused as to where you're going with it. Well, I'm simply saying that, oh,

53:04

I was initially calling just to say that I agreed with you on how Zawadi answered your presentation, but that I didn't necessarily agree with your assessment of the verses in question.

53:14

But this verse, I don't even, like, you can't understand it that way. I just don't see why you would when the

53:19

Qur 'an makes it clear that God is not a physical being that I don't understand why you would choose to understand the verse in this way.

53:26

Well, because I'll be honest with you, it seems to be the apologetic. How do you understand the apologetic?

53:31

And we're going to have to finish this up, talk with Sam, and then I've still got to get to something before we get to the end of the program today.

53:37

We're not going to have much time. But how do you understand the apologetic provided by the very Qur 'an that Allah makes his ayat very clear in the sense that both

53:46

Jesus and his mother ate their daily food? Is that not clearly an argumentation against...

53:52

I agree. It's not addressing the... If you're asking that's addressing the two natures, it's obviously not.

53:58

So you could read that as saying, well, he doesn't understand the two natures of Christ.

54:05

On the other hand, I mean... It seems he also thinks that Mary is somehow involved in the Trinity. Yeah. The worship of Mary, I mean, is rampant and was rampant in those days.

54:17

It's not something new. Can I interject something here? Yeah, please. See, here's the problem

54:23

I have when Muslims try to define the use of the term ilah for Mary in Surah 5, verse 16.

54:29

The Shams al -Awadi tried to do it and he's trying to do it. He's saying, well, when it says that they've taken Mary as a god besides Allah, it doesn't mean they say she's a god, but they view her as such because they worship her.

54:41

Contextually, that interpretation won't work because if you're going to be consistent to the context, 5, verse 16 says, a supposed conversation between Allah and Jesus, did you tell the people to take you and your mother's two gods besides Allah?

54:52

Now, my question to Joseph, and this would have been my question of a psalm, in what sense are the

54:58

Christians being accused of taking Jesus as a god? That he is god, he's divine, or are they simply treating him as such?

55:04

If your answer is the first, that they were truly classifying and calling him god, then on what contextual basis can you say that when the same word is applied to their veneration of Mary, it doesn't mean they viewed her literally as a god?

55:20

Yeah, except that I told Dr. White at the beginning that it was synonymous, according to Lane, it was synonymous with Abada, which is not the modern

55:28

English word for god, as you know. So I just disagree with your philosophical assumption going into the question.

55:33

Joseph, you didn't hear me out again. Friend, please hear my argument. You can go to the lexicon to prove that a word can mean anything.

55:39

It's the context that defines the precise, exact meaning of a term. That's why I appeal to the context.

55:44

I know that ilah can mean worship. Contextually, in chapter 5, verse 116, the use of the word ilah has to be consistent because it's being used for both

55:54

Jesus and Mary. You can't just run to the lexicon and say, ah, because ilah can mean this, therefore this is what it means in reference to Mary, when it has a precise meaning contextually.

56:04

Yeah, not only that, but you have in derogation of a law, which brings in all the issues of worship and things like that as well.

56:11

So it's the context that I think determines those issues.

56:16

Hey, Joseph, thank you very much for your phone call today. I want to say a couple of things, Sam, that we got. I'm going to have to go along today.

56:23

So thank you for listening. All right, no problem. Thanks, Joseph. Bye -bye. Hey, Sam, I need to make sure that everyone knows

56:29

I did not call you up and say, hey, call the dividing line today. No, I called because I just wanted to, you know, your time is running out.

56:36

I didn't want to bother you. I just wanted to mention something in 573 -75, and I don't, because I got to hear the debate live,

56:44

I didn't write down any notes. But do you recall? Oh, you did write down notes. They were called emails to me that were way too long for me to read, even during the break.

56:53

So here's what they did. Zawadi say that chapter 5, verse 75 of the

57:00

Qur 'an, where it says, P and his mother, Christ and his mother ate food, doesn't really have any connection with verse 73, because of verse 72, because if I recall, he said that 72 talks about those who believe that Allah is the

57:13

Messiah, and that's different from 573, and on that basis, he tried to break up 573 from 575, because in 573, it says, there are disbelievers who say

57:23

Allah is the 33, and then 575, even though it mentions Jesus and Mary, that has no connection with 573.

57:29

They are not the other two mentioned in 573. Was I correct to understand that? If I recall correctly, what he was saying was that there was a context shift, and I didn't see it,

57:41

I didn't catch exactly how he tried to substantiate it, and he didn't then go back and try to establish how that was.

57:51

I see absolutely no context issue at all. Is that what you're going to be addressing? Yeah, actually, you'd be right, because if you continue reading 73, follow the pronouns.

58:00

They're not saying they're pronouns in Arabic, but when it says, they are the unbelievers, they refrain.

58:06

You continue the same they and them as mentioned in 74 and 75. Oh yeah, in fact, twice, they do the same thing, that the same verb is used, kafira, so they have certainly disbelieved.

58:19

Allah has forbidden, then it goes the singular, indeed, he who associates others with Allah, Allah has forbidden him paradise, his refuge is a fire, and they are not for the wrongdoers, goes back to the plural, any helpers.

58:32

They have certainly disbelieved. Next verse, yeah, it continues straight through. Yep, it's the same context, so there's no shift.

58:39

And finally, maybe you can address Scottie Cook. I know he was being very gentleman -like, but he did say something that I think was a gross distortion of your point, where you said that Unitarians make better arguments against the

58:50

Trinity and the Qur 'an. Right. It comes up and says, well, Craig makes better arguments against Atheism and the Bible. Maybe you can just address that, what

58:57

I consider to be a gross misunderstanding of your position in a cheap shot, and that'll be it for me. Well, you know,

59:02

I did not choose to interpret it as a cheap shot.

59:08

I didn't have an opportunity to respond to it, because it was in the closing statements, and there wasn't anything I could say about it.

59:14

But I think most people recognize that earlier in the debate, whenever I'd have an opportunity to respond to something,

59:21

I was able to respond to it. And so I have to assume that people are going to not take something that's said in the very last opportunity when

59:28

I can't respond and say, oh boy, you got him on that one. I bet you had nothing to say to that. Well, especially when it comes to William Lane Craig.

59:34

I mean, I did write that down. It's in my notes that William Lane Craig has better arguments against Atheism than the

59:44

Bible. Well, honestly, at that point in time, since the debate's pretty much over as far as I'm concerned,

59:52

I thought much more, Sam, about what that says about William Lane Craig's arguments than it did about Bassam repeating it.

01:00:00

I really did. What was your thought when he said that? I'll let you respond. If you were there, if you had the opportunity of doing the closing statement, what would you have said?

01:00:08

Let's put it that way. Without trying to bring up Dr. Crigan in the debate, because he's irrelevant,

01:00:14

I'd simply say, well, there's a difference in that the Bible doesn't make it its focus to address and refute

01:00:19

Atheism, whereas the Qur 'an does make it its focus to refute Christian belief. So if the

01:00:24

Bible doesn't say much about Atheists, it's not because the Bible's not sufficient to expose Atheism, because the

01:00:30

Bible writers presuppose the existence of God and show the futility of denying His existence, because you can't make sense out of your worldview.

01:00:38

But part and parcel of the Qur 'an is its attack on Christian belief. So if the Qur 'an is going to attack

01:00:43

Christian belief, then I would expect that it would make a better argument and better represent what

01:00:48

Christians believed at that time than it does. Well, that's just it. And that was my point. You heard me make that point many times.

01:00:54

And that is, given the fact that the Qur 'an comes after Christianity and specifically addresses both the

01:01:00

Al -Kitab, the Al -Anjeel, and specifically interacts with elements of our belief, and then calls what we believe delusion, we are rejecting

01:01:11

Allah's clear ayat, He has made things mubinun, it just seemed to me that only one side really believed that He had made things that clear.

01:01:20

And one side was saying, well, we really can't tell. And if you're going to condemn someone to hellfire, as you and I both know the

01:01:27

Muslims do with regularity in regards to anybody who would profess a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, I think that it was a pretty strong argument to say, don't you think it would be a little bit clearer than this?

01:01:39

And I didn't see anybody in the audience just sitting there going, no, no, that's plenty clear to me.

01:01:44

You know, I mean, I know there could be people who aren't going to hear a word that I'm saying, but those aren't the people that I'm debating for.

01:01:51

I want them to really consider what was being presented by both sides there. So I'm glad you got a chance to listen to it,

01:01:56

Sam. I knew that you were bouncing off the walls during the entire day that time. It's sort of like when

01:02:02

I go to debates, I have a hard time listening to anybody else's debates, because I want to be there myself.

01:02:08

I think it was one of the better debates. And I didn't think, I mean, as nicely as he was,

01:02:13

I didn't think he came out as good as in previous debates. So you did an excellent job.

01:02:19

So Lord bless you. And don't forget, Dr. White, 41 .3 is a passage that says that the Qur 'an is a book which fully details its verses.

01:02:26

The verses are fully detailed. So that's another argument. We expect better argumentation. Let me read 41 .3

01:02:32

here. This is a revelation from The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Wonderful, a book whose verses have been detailed in Arabic Qur 'an for a people who know.

01:02:41

So the verses are detailed. We'd expect detailed information concerning Christian belief and a rejection of it.

01:02:47

It just must be those really tough verses, Sam. All right. Hey, thanks for your call.

01:02:54

All right, God bless. Bye -bye. Hey, we're going a little bit long today, but not overly shocking given that I haven't been here for two weeks, a little bit longer than that, actually.

01:03:04

Just one statement to start off. I wasn't going to mention this, but obviously because it appeared on the

01:03:12

Revelation TV program, my thanks to everyone who did know and who prayed for me on Thursday, the 27th.

01:03:21

Since the guy mentioned it, I was not going to make it a public thing. But since it was mentioned on television, I did undergo a cardiac ablation procedure on January 27th.

01:03:30

It was to correct a tachycardia issue. It is not due. Whenever everybody hears you had heart surgery, they figure, oh, cholesterol.

01:03:38

No, my heart is as healthy as can be. In fact, the doctor specifically said that this kind of thing would be dangerous to some people.

01:03:47

It wasn't dangerous to me because I am in really, really, really good shape.

01:03:53

But it could threaten my staying in good shape. And it was obviously much wiser to address it at the age of 48 than the age of 68.

01:04:03

And so this morning when I rode, I was watching that heart rate monitor very, very carefully. And I'm happy to report that I did not have any issues whatsoever.

01:04:12

But over the next couple of months, I have to keep a close eye on those things. And I'm thankful for your prayers for all of that.

01:04:18

And yes, that does mean that I got on a plane for London four days after heart surgery. But the doctor said that was

01:04:25

OK. So I appreciate your prayers for that. I wanted to get that out of the way. Secondly, when I come back, first thing that happens when

01:04:32

I land in Philadelphia is I get an internet connection. And I'm sort of catching up on stuff. I've been up in the air for eight hours.

01:04:40

And I'm checking on emails. We're making plans for future trips and things like that. And I start stumbling across discussion in email and online about claims made by someone that, as far as I can tell,

01:04:55

I do not recall having mentioned this man now for months. There are just people in this world that are obsessed with me and obsessed with this ministry.

01:05:08

And I think they're obsessed with the fact that they keep seeing that we are doing things. We are pressing forward.

01:05:14

We are doing stuff that I think some of them feel they should be doing, to be perfectly honest with you.

01:05:21

And I don't know what causes all of this. Part of me goes, you know, whenever you have a book that you need to be working on, whenever you have major projects facing you, it seems like the enemy tries to distract you.

01:05:33

And maybe this is just another example of this. But there has been an explosion of not opposition.

01:05:41

This is not opposition. This is not serious argumentation, for example, against the argument.

01:05:48

Well, like what we just had now. We had a caller who disagreed with the interpretation that I had of certain chronic texts.

01:05:53

That's fine. That's wonderful. These people do not have the capacity of engaging the subjects I address on that level.

01:05:59

And I refer specifically to Peter Lumpkins, who is known affectionately in our chat channel as Lumpy.

01:06:07

And for some reason, Lumpy has resurfaced and fired a salvo, which includes a shot that he takes at my debate with Bart Ehrman.

01:06:18

Now, he starts off by saying, I know little to nothing about textual criticism. Well, Mr.

01:06:24

Lumpkins, that is painfully obvious. You do know next to nothing about textual criticism.

01:06:29

The thing that there were two things that bothered me. First of all, I'm not bothered by Peter Lumpkins anymore, because Peter Lumpkins clearly lacks any and all balance in anything that he says.

01:06:39

And I have learned it's a slow process of learning. It's something you have to keep relearning over time,

01:06:46

I think. I think it's an act. But eventually you learn to give weight to the opinions of people based upon their own personal credibility.

01:06:55

And Peter Lumpkins has none, in my opinion, having examined his defense of a documented deceiver and liar in the body of Christ, and having seen the childish behavior that he engages in.

01:07:10

I don't really care what he has to say. He just doesn't matter.

01:07:16

So that was not what concerned me, that he would say things like James White embarrassed evangelicals with his poor dialogue with Ehrman.

01:07:24

Ehrman walks away looking like an accomplished scholar. On the other hand, White crawls away like a whipped mongrel. Now, I'm sorry, but the most biased person who actually views that debate in a meaningful fashion could never come to such an absurd conclusion, just couldn't.

01:07:40

So the two things I wanted to address about Peter Lumpkins was this. First of all, anyone who actually listens carefully to the exchanges between myself and Bart Ehrman will discover a vast difference in approach between the two of us, not only toward the other person, but toward the subject and the audience as well.

01:07:59

Bart Ehrman was incredibly condescending, not only to me, but to the audience as well, over and over again.

01:08:06

And many people have noted this. When he gets up in his first rebuttal period and is in essence saying, that was a very intelligent presentation that I gave.

01:08:14

Mr. Lumpkins doesn't mention the fact that Bart Ehrman said that. He says, but I don't know how many people here could even understand what you said.

01:08:20

I was shocked. But then when he got into cross -examination, what was the essence of his argumentation?

01:08:26

The essence of his argumentation is that he sips lattes with French textual critical scholars, and I don't, therefore he must be right.

01:08:33

And if Peter Lumpkins actually thinks that's meaningful argumentation, then Peter Lumpkins is an example of so many today that cannot think critically at all and cannot recognize bad argumentation at all.

01:08:48

You'll notice that my cross -examination of Bart Ehrman had nothing to do with him as an individual. I did not attack him personally.

01:08:55

I was not trying to say, well, you shouldn't be addressing these issues, or you don't have the right to address these issues, or you're not a part of the Insight Club, therefore you can address these issues.

01:09:02

No, I demonstrated that Bart Ehrman is so focused upon his very narrow perspective in that field.

01:09:10

He couldn't even, I had to explain to him at one point, what the relevance would be of comparing the

01:09:16

Robinson -Pierpont text, or the majority text with the Westcott and Hort text as illustrations of the two extremes of the

01:09:24

Alexandrian and Byzantine text types and comparing the differences between them. He didn't even see why that would be relevant, because he's so focused in narrow fields.

01:09:34

And in fact, to be honest with you, hasn't been focused on the textual critical field for quite some time by his own confession.

01:09:40

Now, I know Peter Lumpkins doesn't know any of this. He's completely ignorant of this stuff. And so I can understand why someone who's completely ignorant would be taken in by bad argumentation on Bart Ehrman's part.

01:09:53

Meanwhile, when I'm cross -examining Bart Ehrman, I'm getting him to say all sorts of things that anyone who actually knows the field recognizes is extremely valuable to people who are in the field.

01:10:03

And I stayed focused on the subject of the debate specifically. But Peter Lumpkins doesn't recognize those things.

01:10:09

And so the first thing to point out is that Peter Lumpkins is a good example, of why ignorant

01:10:15

Christians become deceived by false teachers. Lacking discernment, lacking an understanding of the field, he's willing to write incredible things like,

01:10:24

I crawl away like a whipped mongrel, all based upon Peter Lumpkins' own abject ignorance of what was actually going on.

01:10:32

Now, there's a lot of people like that. There's a lot of people who look at that debate, and because they lack the background, and they go, well,

01:10:39

I didn't see any gotcha moments. It's not like when you debated that Roman Catholic guy, it's a completely different context.

01:10:44

I didn't expect any gotcha moments. But what I did expect is that someone who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, and the inspiration of Scripture can stand toe to toe with the chief enemy of that belief in our day to day, and demonstrate that his position is not consistent and is not compelling.

01:11:03

The second thing to note, however, is, isn't it amazing the power of bigotry?

01:11:10

Because Peter Lumpkins is bigoted. That is, even an atheist could watch that debate and realize that the language that Peter Lumpkins uses is ridiculously absurd.

01:11:23

And I'm not even talking about the comm box that follows up this post, where it becomes, again, an internet aggregator for everyone who wants to, every once in a while, like Paul Owen, crawl out from a rock someplace, spit at me, and then crawl back under.

01:11:36

I mean, that's literally what it's become. Someone takes a shot and everybody, oh, yeah, we hate that guy.

01:11:41

And you sit back and you look at the list of people and you go, what are these people doing? I mean, when you look over the past 18 months of what

01:11:53

Alpha Omega Ministries is doing, where I've gone, what I've done, the people I've engaged, the range of topics that we have been encountering, and then you look at these folks and go, and what do you folks do?

01:12:04

Nothing. There's no comparison. So you go, well, why in the world are these folks showing up?

01:12:11

And all of a sudden, just venting the kind of abject, ridiculous hatred that they do.

01:12:19

And it is an anti -reformed bigotry on Peter Lumpkin's part that promotes this.

01:12:27

We saw it in Craig D 'Aliassio. We see it in him. We saw it in a lot of Ergin Kanner's followers who, in spite of the clear documented facts, video, audio, legal documents, there's no level of truth sufficient for them.

01:12:44

Primarily because the people raising it hold the theological position that they loathe. Not they disagree with, they loathe.

01:12:52

It is a visceral detestation of the freedom of God in salvation.

01:12:57

And so they loathe it. And they loathe anyone who will promote it. They loathe anyone who will preach it.

01:13:04

And that's the only explanation that I can find for this kind of absurd writing on the part of Peter Lumpkin's.

01:13:13

Is a bias and a bigotry that would allow them to look at a man defending the inerrancy of scripture.

01:13:23

And they don't care. They don't, that doesn't, they don't see that. They cannot.

01:13:30

See, I really disagree with William Lane Craig's apologetic methodology.

01:13:35

And I find his theology reprehensible. I really do. But have

01:13:41

I ever addressed William Lane Craig like Peter Lumpkin's addresses me?

01:13:46

Have I even addressed Ergin Kanner the way that Peter Lumpkin's addresses me?

01:13:52

No. Why? Because we do what we do for completely different reasons. I can listen to William Lane Craig.

01:13:59

And there are times, you've heard me, there are times on this program, I'll play William Lane Craig, he says, man, he nailed it there.

01:14:05

He, just the last time I played William Lane Craig was what was the Mexico City debate. And I said, here, listen to Craig. He's going to nail this guy.

01:14:11

Now, of course, he also went slightly presuppositional in the process. And I said, see there, hey, just keep going that direction.

01:14:17

But I do not, I have never said of William Lane Craig, anything that even comes close to the kind of bile that flows from Peter Lumpkin's.

01:14:27

And it flows from hatred. You see, I don't hate Peter Lumpkin's. I feel sorry for the man. I feel sorry for anyone who is so obsessed with something that they cannot even see when they engage in this type of activity.

01:14:39

It's sad to see. But as Rich was saying this morning, he says, these people, there is only one thing that will satisfy these people.

01:14:46

And if we are, that is, if this ministry is simply wiped off the face of this planet, that's all they want.

01:14:52

That's all that they will settle for. And that is a sad thing to see.

01:14:58

So folks, beware of two things. Beware of the bad argumentation and the argument for authority that Bart Ehrman used.

01:15:08

But then beware of the kind of radical synergistic bigotry that marks anti -reformed folks out there in the

01:15:19

Internet today, because it absolutely robs them of all semblance of rationality. I want to chime in here because, as you point out, the comm boxes got quite verbal.

01:15:33

We'll put it that way. Well, isn't that what all comm boxes are, Matron? And a lot of personal charges were directed both yours and my way.

01:15:43

You make yourself available on this webcast for anybody who wants to call in here and pretty much just about anything.

01:15:50

There's very few things I'll turn away. Other than eschatology. Other than eschatology. But if we've made comments on this program, we'll defend them.

01:16:01

And in my situation, as to the comments that were directed my way, there were flat -out lies that were extrapolated from things that other people extrapolated from things that other people extrapolated that I said.

01:16:17

Well, isn't it interesting? We have Muslims and Anglicans and Baptists and they all get together and they can all agree on just how terrible and horrible we are.

01:16:28

But I'm going to put it out this way. Maybe these people don't necessarily realize that I answer the phones around here for the most part.

01:16:39

Yes, you do. And I'm glad you do. And thanks to a great deal of work that Sir Brass has done recently over the last two weeks.

01:16:47

I am now pretty much available at the beck and call of people calling in here from, goodness,

01:16:53

I don't know if I want to say this. You're not going to be thanking him in a not too distant future. About 8 a .m.

01:17:00

to late p .m., Monday through Friday, and pretty much from about 10 a .m.

01:17:06

to 8 p .m. on Saturdays. And so I want to put it out to these people because their remarks were personal in nature.

01:17:16

And if you have a matter against me, Peter, if you have a matter against me,

01:17:23

Roy, Ray, or anyone else on that com box, on that page, the number is 877 -753 -3341, extension 327.

01:17:38

Call me, and for once, let's be biblical and sort the matter out.

01:17:48

Because if you have a matter against me— Now, this is not a Muslim, by the way.

01:17:53

He's been dealt with, thanks to Sir Brass. But let's actually talk about this.

01:18:02

But at this point in time, based on the comments that I've seen and the out -and -out lies, that have been told regarding things that I said that I never said,

01:18:13

I don't think that's going to happen. But I'm making myself available. I won't record any calls.

01:18:19

It's not going to be live on the air. But to me, that's the biblical thing to do.

01:18:24

If they have a matter against me, call me. Well, there you go, folks. You know, we certainly make ourselves available far more than a lot of people do.

01:18:36

So you have the program here. We're still waiting for Guardian to call in after three years with his list, and we'll probably be waiting for a long time for other folks, too.

01:18:45

In my experience, and this is why I don't have comments and comm boxes, there is a dehumanizing and, may

01:18:52

I say, dechristianizing element to commentary boxes and the internet, period. People will say something with their fingers that they would never say with their mouth.

01:19:02

And I am amazed at how many people are so brave and attacking me on the internet. And when

01:19:07

I walk up to them and look them in the eye, they shrink into nothingness. And you know what, that's not because I'm anybody special.

01:19:15

It's because I'm the same person on this program that I am in real life. And everybody who knows me knows that. And if you just simply seek to be consistent and you try your best to live your life in light of that, then you've got no reason to be a different person behind the keyboard than you are in real life.

01:19:33

And so to the Peter Lumpkins and to the Reyes and Roys and Paul Owens of the world, gentlemen, if you are heirs of grace, then may

01:19:44

I exhort you, find a way of service to Christ to increase the kingdom and stop obsessing over me.

01:19:53

I'm glad to leave you to Christ. You should be glad to leave me to him as well. He can deal with his church.

01:20:00

That's it for The Dividing Line today. Lord willing, we'll be back on Thursday afternoon.

01:20:05

Your calls and more of, well, hopefully things that will edify and uplift.

01:20:12

Thanks for listening. We'll see you later. God bless. It's a sign of the times.

01:21:06

The truth is being trampled into its paradigms. Won't you lift up your voice?

01:21:13

Are you tired of playing religion? It's time to make some noise. I'm your witness.

01:21:19

Oh, Wittenberg. I'm your witness. I stand up for the truth.

01:21:25

Won't you live for the Lord? Cause we're pounding, pounding on Wittenberg.

01:21:31

The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

01:21:40

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

01:21:46

World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.

01:21:54

Join us again this Thursday afternoon at 4 p .m. for The Dividing Line. That's the faithful word that Luther did and Calvin did.