Ehrman and the Qur'an

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:34

And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, much to get to today later in the program.

00:41

Those of you who really like when we get in -depth in Islamic topics are going to be excited.

00:46

The rest of you are going to get a cup of coffee, and my granddaughter will fall asleep, which she does pretty much whatever

00:57

I'm discussing anyways, but she'll just toddle off and find something else to do, I'm sure. But hi

01:02

Clementine, how you doing? Anyway, but before we get to all of that and play some video clips from various debates for you and things like that,

01:14

I did want to mention this morning Dr. Moeller announced on the briefing, of course it had come out before that, that World Vision had done a 180 on the topic that we had addressed last time.

01:34

I'm very thankful for that. I'm thankful that there is something in the statement that made reference to honoring the truth of the

01:45

Word of God and its teaching concerning the nature of marriage, that was what was most important to me, obviously.

01:52

I'm hoping that this will indicate a real dedication to biblical truth on that point.

02:04

I'm getting skeptical the older I get, to be honest with you.

02:11

We've seen people sort of do this in the past, and it didn't last, and so I guess

02:19

I'm sort of taking a little more of a wait -and -see attitude, but I'm certainly hoping that it's the good news that it sounds like it is,

02:27

Dr. Moeller certainly understood it to be that, and I hope that's the case. But at the same time, when we think about what was actually said and the denominations that are involved, there's going to be a backlash to this, there's already been a backlash.

02:43

I was looking at some of the articles from homosexual activists, and of course they cannot even discuss these issues without every kind of insult on the planet, you know, all the hate, and it's just a boilerplate, just throw out everything.

03:02

I do sound differently, by the way. We're going to be changing things in here.

03:09

I'm actually a little surprised on the mic on this end. It sounds the same to me, and it might be because that's a one -directional mic, and so whatever sound is...

03:19

But I'm sure you can hear yourself bouncing off the walls there. It is different. The sound...

03:25

Well, that really isn't soundproofing, those are called ceiling tiles, but what we called the soundproofing...

03:31

Well, that was deadening the sound, is what that did. I guess, yeah. But all of it over here, which you can't see anyways, is gone.

03:38

Bare walls. Bare walls. And we're going to be putting other stuff in its place, and we're going to change some of that back there, by the way.

03:46

We're going to change a lot. Yeah. Well, okay. Anyway. So anyhow,

03:52

Rich is... It's spring, and while the rest of us, like, you know how

03:58

I know it's spring? Because I have my first two mosquito bites. I am mosquito bait, and they love me.

04:05

So I have my first mosquito bites, and so it means it's spring. And for Rich, the sign of spring is that the

04:13

Tim Taylor bite attacks. And he starts going...

04:18

And looking for tool belts, and charging up power tools, and that kind of...

04:25

Going for the Binford thing. And so that's the sign of spring around here anyways.

04:31

But anyhow, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. We were talking about other stuff. It's not...

04:38

I've got a fan going. It's not too bad in here. What? You're going to go turn it down? Boy, that's weird.

04:44

Are you sure you're feeling all right? I'm not sure about that. Anyhow, I haven't posted it.

04:52

I'm not really sure I'm going to, but I did speak last night out of Daniel chapter three, and the tendency of governments to set up idols and to stick their fingers into the practice of religion.

05:08

I'm not sure if I'm going to post that or not. But I do intend, Lord willing, to actually get back to Hebrews.

05:17

This Sunday, I'll be preaching both sermons at PRBC morning and evening. And for those of you who've been wondering if I'm ever going to get back, ever finish

05:24

Hebrews, I will be back in Hebrews. And we will be continuing on in the section about God's discipline of his children, which is a tough section.

05:35

It really is a tough section. So, anyway, next thing I want to get to before we get to all of our Islamic stuff,

05:42

I'm way behind the curve given what

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I've been seeing on my web feeds in providing a review of Bart Ehrman's new book.

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Now, it only came out a couple days ago. A lot of the people who have reviews posted got review copies, and they had already written them and just had them queued up ready to go, which is fine.

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But I bought the Audible version and the

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Kindle version, and I'm reading Ehrman first, and then

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I'll read the response, decide that was the best way to do it, even though my predictions were pretty good.

06:34

I knew where he was going. So far, nothing new that hasn't been encountered at times past.

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But once again, because of his status, because he is an apostate, because he was the last doctoral student of Bruce Metzger, etc.,

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etc., Bart Ehrman has the ability to make a tremendous amount of money, and he is.

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He's making a tremendous amount of money attacking biblical

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Christianity. Now he says he doesn't do that, he doesn't want to destroy anybody's faith, he says all that.

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Just look at his best -selling books. I mean, come on.

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Everything from Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted, Forged, God's Problem, which really wasn't all that much of a best -seller, and now

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How Jesus Became God. He's going after every single foundational belief of the

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Christian faith. In this book, primarily going after the deity of Christ, and hence the Trinity, and the resurrection.

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Hence, you have no gospel, nothing. So, I got about halfway through the book yesterday on a 70 -miler, mainly because there was so much wind yesterday.

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Coming back, I wasn't sure whether I was going forward or backwards a few times, but got through a lot more of the book that way, but it wasn't a whole lot of fun.

08:15

But anyway, I've got an 80 -miler over the weekend on Saturday scheduled, so should have plenty of time to finish that up and get to the next book in that, you know, the response book, which

08:28

I'm very glad has been put out, very thankful that it's there. And like I said, there's all sorts of good reviews that have been put out there, and I'm thankful they're there.

08:41

I don't want to do just a review type thing.

08:48

I don't want to do that kind of thing. Like I said, there's all sorts of those things out there from really smart folks.

09:00

I don't like to just repeat what everybody else is doing. What I want to do is to use this book as a teaching opportunity, because there is so much,

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I mean, all sorts of our Muslim friends are just going to be glomming on to everything

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Ehrman says. Now, it's funny, I've been listening very carefully, and there is so much that he says that is thoroughly opposed to the presuppositions of Islam.

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But most of my Muslim friends aren't going to care about that. They're still going to quote him. They're not going to quote the stuff that is thoroughly opposed to Islam.

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They're not going to see that his methodology, if consistently applied by themselves, would require them to abandon so much of their own

09:53

Orthodox teaching. But they're going to use this.

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But even more than that, anybody within the sound of my voice, mothers and fathers and children and people in education and people far away from education, people in farming, people in business and government and law enforcement, it doesn't matter where you are, you're going to end up hearing somebody promoting the kinds of theories and presenting as absolute fact because Bart Ehrman said it, and we all know

10:32

Bart Ehrman is the smartest man in the world, and he knows everything about everything. Though I'm one of about 10 people in the world that actually has his doctoral dissertation in my library and has read it, and in fact

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I was looking at it again yesterday. I pulled it out and was looking at some of the markings that I had made in it years ago prior to our debate.

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But anyway, since Bart Ehrman said it, it's going to be repeated. It's going to be thrown in our face, not only by people like that, but as I've mentioned many times, my daughter had the experience of studying with a

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Bart Ehrman clone in community college, and so the reality is this is the stuff we need to know how to respond to.

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And so what I want to do is instead of just, okay, here's our places of disagreement, I want to look at the form of argumentation that Ehrman uses and try to use that as a teaching time to equip us for doing a whole lot more than just responding to Bart Ehrman, but to especially try to inculcate in the believing

11:52

Christian's heart the kind of confidence that might make you, well, not only a better apologist but a more confident evangelist.

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Because one of the primary things that keeps people from being evangelical, making a proclamation of the gospel, we know that the gospel is derived from the highest view of scripture.

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There is no reason to believe in such things as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the whole concept of atonement and the gospel and justification.

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All of that stuff is based upon the highest view of scripture. We've all seen what happens when a denomination or a people abandon the highest view of scripture.

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They may, out of tradition or, you know, just momentum, continue to say these things for a while, but eventually the erosion takes place and, you know, the

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Trinity becomes something that's more related to our sacramental history than to reality.

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It's not something we really believe Jesus certainly didn't believe anything like that, and you see the degradation take place and eventually the final death of the denomination, all coming from the fact that if you don't have a word from God, if God has not said, this is true, that's false,

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Christianity has no basis upon which to stand. Nothing could. And so what

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I want to do is not just look at the overarching topic and respond that way, but look at each of the chapters in the book and the argumentation, the foundation that Ehrman lays out and point out the large number of inconsistencies that, you know, he's a man who's an unbeliever, he's dealing with a text that is written by believers, for believers, there's going to be all sorts of inconsistencies, and there are.

14:12

All sorts of holes in the argumentation, but one of the best things I can do for you, and it frustrates me,

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I've mentioned this before in Twitter, people will say, hey, you know,

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Bart Ehrman just said this, I don't know how to respond. And I need to work on my patience, but there are times

14:35

I'm not all that patient in my response. It's like, you say that you listen all the time, you listen to the debates, have you listened to the point of recognizing what

14:48

I'm doing in my argumentation when I ask questions, when I respond to questions, the presuppositional nature of the analysis that I'm making on the fly of what the other person is saying, so that when they ask me a question,

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I don't get caught up in all these little details out here, but I immediately go for the error in the question is, the assumption it's making that needs to be challenged, you know, that kind of thing.

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Sometimes I just get a little upset with myself, I just must not be doing a very good job communicating that, because so many people will say, oh,

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I just saw this, and I don't know how to respond to that. And it's like, you know, if you have a solid foundation, you know, like John Six, I've had, you know,

15:37

Cage Stage Calvinist, you know, will come into the chat channel or something like that. Ah, I just saw this

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YouTube video. That's an immediate red flag, but, yeah, and they always want me to respond to it.

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I want you, you need to respond to, you would not believe how many tweets I get of, you need to respond to this guy, and some of this stuff is just so wacky.

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Well, you get a lot more email than you know. Well, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, but you can't filter the tweets, they all,

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I get all them, so I see that. You know, I've got one on here, well,

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I might still have it on the other one, I'm not sure if I pulled it down in here or not, I'd have to look, but no,

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I'm not, by the way, I'm not telling people to stop doing this, because a lot of the good stuff that I end up playing in the program, someone sent me on Twitter, so please don't take it the wrong way, but I think it was,

16:34

I think it was Tuesday, someone tweeted me, it was, because someone tweeted me and said, is this guy right that John 6 -4 shouldn't be in the

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Bible? I'm like, and so I looked at the text, and then

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I fired up this video, and it's just, it's this rude guy, R -O -O -D, this Hebrew Roots whoo -hoo -hoo -hoo guy out there, and I basically wrote back to the guy after listening to his thing, and listening to his presentation, and looking at the text, there's one minuscule text that has a variant there, one, and he says it shouldn't be in the

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Bible because that, because that one minuscule text would allow him to prop up his theory about how long the ministry of Jesus was, one minuscule text, and my response to the guy was, well, one thing

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I can tell you is this guy knows nothing about textual criticism, or if he does, he doesn't care to be accurate about it, that's for sure, but there's so much that type of stuff out there, and sometimes

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I understand, well, you know, not everybody has access to the textual data of the New Testament, I mean, it's all out there now, even on the web, but okay,

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I understand that, but when someone hears an argument and I just sort of sit back and go, okay, there's a real obvious problem with that argument, it's presuppositional, if you've, you know, go back to John 6, if you understand what the flow of the text of John 6 is, then you should be able to identify when someone violates that, and sometimes that's not the case, and it just concerns me that there are folks who have adopted what would be an orthodox perspective, but they really don't know why they've done that, and they don't have a good, solid foundation upon which to stand, and so I want to try to provide a teaching moment using

18:37

Ehrman's book so as to encourage you, to give you the answers, but more than just giving answers and saying he's wrong about this, this, and this, try to explain how really anybody can see it, because while Ehrman's a brilliant scholar, a brilliant guy, he has presuppositions, and those presuppositions deeply, much more than he knows, impact his reading of the data.

19:09

We have to demythologize scholarship. We have to get to the point where we recognize that these individuals have presuppositions, and they're getting in the way.

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Was there something you were going to, oh, okay, all right, so I, that's what we're going to be doing.

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Let's get, it's going to take a little while to get that, but I just saw something interesting on Twitter. I was just asked an interesting question here.

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How are you able to remember information from the amount of things you read or listen to? Do you read things multiple times? I'll be perfectly honest with you.

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A lot of times, I forget stuff. I'm not happy with my memory these days. I think part of it, to be perfectly honest with you, is because I'm doing so many things.

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There are so many different topics. I think if I was just back in the 1990s mode, didn't have

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Islam to think about, just much more focused, maybe just Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and textual critical stuff,

20:04

I might do better, but it's interesting. This is Johnny Rulon on Twitter.

20:11

Good question. It is interesting. There was a citation that I heard somewhere around New River Parkway and Carefree Highway, Northbound, in Ehrman's book.

20:34

I can't find it. I can't find it. I bought the Kindle edition. I was really frustrated because it's something

20:41

I want to address, and it's gonna take me forever to find it. So my methodology does have its holes. And so what

20:47

I started doing is I'm like, what

20:52

I need to do, and I thought about this before. I actually even got a little something, but I didn't make it so it would be really accessible.

21:00

What I've ordered, I didn't even know they had these, is a little recorder. They had recorder pens, not like my

21:09

Livescribe, but something similar, like eight gig pens and stuff like that. But I've got a little thing coming.

21:16

It should be coming here to the office. Cheap, really inexpensive, but it's a jump drive. But it's a what?

21:25

No, it's not a dictaphone, but it's a recording device. And it's small, and you can just plug it in and just transfer the files really easily that way.

21:34

You can play stuff off of it too, if you want to load music up. I don't care about that. I just need something

21:39

I either have tucked down my jersey, or I'm gonna find some way of storing it on the stem of the bike or something.

21:49

So that when something like that hits again, all I've got to do is reach down, push a button, and yell something that would just be enough to remind me.

22:02

It's at this point. What I used to do is I would stop. I remember last summer about 3 .30

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in the morning, I pulled over in this neighborhood, and there was something really, really important.

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I did not want to forget it. And so I literally stopped, got my phone out, and called my desk here at the office and left myself a message.

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But then I realized if there was somebody in their backyard at 3 .30 in the morning, there was probably really wondering what was going on out there, because it had something to do with Islam.

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And I don't want to be arrested by the NSA or TSA or whatever else it is, Homeland Security, whatever. So I've ordered this little thing.

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It was like 10 bucks or something like that. But I'm just going to carry that with me, figure out how to put it in there in such a way that I'll also be able to grab it, hit a button, record something real quick.

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And hopefully, that will help me out with some of those issues that I've been having along those lines.

22:59

But anyways, that was interesting. That came up right at that time. What were we talking about?

23:05

Oh, yes. Let's get on with what we really do need to address. For a long time, I have wanted to address this particular portion of the comments made by Shabir Ali in our debate inside the masjid at the

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Abu Bakr Asidic Mosque in Rasmia, outside of Pretoria, South Africa, last

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October. And I was given a really good reason to go over to the past.

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I think it started yesterday, maybe. I forget when it was. I was thrown in the middle of an email exchange.

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And at first, I didn't bother to respond to it.

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But then when it got to a certain point, I felt like I sort of had to. A former Islamic opponent of mine who is no longer a

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Muslim, as far as I understand, by the name of Farhan Qureshi, started an impromptu email dialogue, including myself and Paul Williams and Ijaz Ahmed and a few other people.

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Bassam Zawadi. That's right. It was a little interesting to start.

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And then it got a little weird. And so, as a result,

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I thought, you know, it's time to do this, because what it's going to do is illustrate just how vacuous

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Farhan's attacks upon me were. It has to do, once again, with something

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I pointed out, I think, on the last program, briefly. And that was from Paul Williams' blog, where he talked to Abdul Halim on the phone about the issue of, does the

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Qur 'an teach that the Bible has been corrupted? And I'll just direct you back to those comments.

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But this is obviously absolutely central to any

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Christian discussion with a Muslim, given the fact that, since the late 1800s, it has become pretty much universal amongst

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Muslims that you would be speaking to anyways, that the Bible has been corrupted.

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And corrupted, tarif al -nas, the words, rather than just the meaning, tarif al -mana.

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So, since that's the case, this remains quite relevant.

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And those of you who are regular listeners to the program know that we have addressed this numerous times.

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Some of you, other than Algo, will remember that we spent a large amount of time responding to the statements of Abdullah Kunda, specifically in reference to Sura 5, 44 through 47, in a debate he had with a

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Roman Catholic apologist in Australia about, I would say, two years ago now.

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And you may recall, we really went in -depth listening to that debate, and specifically responding to Abdullah Kunda and his comments on Sura 5.

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But then, if you recall, there have been some blog articles and some dividing -line commentary in response to Bassam Zawadi.

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And if you recall them, you'll go, hmm, Abdullah Kunda's position was different than Bassam Zawadi's position on Sura 5.

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And that's true. They did not take the same view of that particular text and how to interpret it.

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Okay, that's fine. But the point is, there is not just one

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Islamic understanding of Sura 5. Well, that's obviously relevant to what was said by Farhan Qureshi.

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But what's somewhat humorous is that this clip, and the reason I didn't do it beforehand, primarily was because we didn't have the video until just recently, was that during the debate in Erasmia, Shabir Ali chimed in with his comments on the same text.

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And guess what? It's not the same view of either Abdullah Kunda or Bassam Zawadi.

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And as you'll see, it's directly relevant to what is said in some of the correspondence that I'll share with you.

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So what I want to do is I want to start by playing that portion.

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This is toward the end of the debate, very much toward the end of the debate. These are really some of Shabir's...

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I did not have any opportunity at all to respond to this. I think

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I had one short portion after this, and it was my closing, and the debate was on the subject of sin and salvation in the

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Bible, so I did not choose to even try to squeeze a response to this But because Surah 5 is so important, and because I had mentioned it,

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Shabir responded to it. And I apologize. I suppose it would be appropriate if I refreshed everyone's memories, because...

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And for some folks, this may be the first time that you've heard this, but here is the section from the

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Quran. If you've not heard this conversation before, or if it's been a while, then I would strongly encourage you to listen carefully to what is said here in this particular section.

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Now again, I recognize that I approach the text of the

29:34

Quran in a different way than your average Orthodox Sunni Muslim.

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Why? Because I believe that the Quran had a meaning when it was first written.

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When you adopt the Orthodox view of Sunni Islam that developed long after the days of Muhammad, I don't think that's even questionable.

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That the Quran is an eternal book without origin or creation.

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And when you cannot ask questions such as, what was the author's understanding because there is no author.

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It's just all Muhammad is is a, well, is an mp3 recorder. The angel

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Jibril comes, says, say this, he says that, that's it. What he understands, if he grows in knowledge of things, all that's irrelevant to the

30:37

Orthodox understanding. Now there are all sorts of Islamic scholars in the

30:42

West that recognize, and it's rather important, but that has not been the historical understanding.

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And really still in the majority of the Muslim world can't go there, even though they recognize they need to.

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Anyhow, here's so as I look at this, as I look at this text,

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I'm going to interpret it in a historical, grammatical, contextual fashion.

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That's the only way that I know how to interpret any written document. What did the author mean at the time the author wrote the words?

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I'm going to assume that the words had a meaning, especially if an audience is addressed.

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If it says, if it addresses the Al -Kitab, then

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I'm going to ask questions about who the Al -Kitab was in the day when the

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Quran came into existence, historically at least. These are all,

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I think, completely fair and absolutely necessary questions and preconditions that unfortunately, to be honest with you, a lot of Muslim friends just ignore.

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Frequently, the way they ignore the same kind of questions in regards to interpretation of scripture, the

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Bible that is. So, Surah Tawmaidah, Surah 5, beginning at ayah 44, indeed we sent down the

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Torah in which was guidance and light. Notice the phrase, in which was guidance and light.

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That's standard Quranic terminology for this is revelation from God.

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This is Wahi. The prophets who submitted to Allah judged by it for the

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Jews as did the rabbis and scholars by that which they were entrusted of the scripture of Allah and they were witnesses there too.

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So do not fear the people but fear me and do not exchange my verses for a small price and whoever does not judge by what

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Allah has revealed, and what is the context here? What is the context of this verse, the

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Torah? Whoever does not judge what Allah has revealed, so the Torah is revealed, then it is those who are disbelievers and we ordained for them therein a life for a life.

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Therein what? Where do you get the phrase, a life for a life? Well, that's the Lex Talionis.

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That's in the Torah. That's in the law. We ordained for them therein a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds it's legal retribution, but whoever gives up his right as charity, it is an expiation for him and whoever does not judge by what

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Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the wrongdoers. And we sent following in their footsteps, so who's there?

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These are the Jews who received the Torah in which was light and guidance, and God ordained for them, and then you have a quote, the only only direct quote.

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There are some who hypothesize there's a quote from the Psalter, but there are other

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Muslim scholars that disagree, but one that everybody agrees on is that the

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Lex Talionis is referenced in the Quran. Now, what's important about this, and what's extremely vital for any

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Muslim to understand, is that for a Christian, the Quran's ignorance of the content of Old and New Testament scriptures is a huge barrier to us.

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It's a huge barrier to me, because when I look at the

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New Testament, I look at its intimate knowledge of the

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Old Testament as revelation and fulfillment, prophecy, fulfillment, shadow reality.

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Boy, the Quran just does not stand in that relationship, even though that's how the author of the

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Quran thinks that it should, but it doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination. It's a huge thing to get in the way.

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So, and we sent following in their footsteps, so following the footsteps of those who received the Torah, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the

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Torah. So, the Torah, as a revelation, contained the words of the

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Lex Talionis. So, this Torah that's been revealed is not some spiritual, squishy, general,

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God -speaking things, but not really. No, this is a concrete thing.

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It's in Al -Tabari, is it not? Where the story's told of the

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Torah being brought into the presence of Muhammad, and he stands up from the cushion upon which he's seated, and he places the cushion out front, and he has the

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Torah set upon the cushion, and he says, I believe everything in this book. That's a concrete revelation, and we know exactly what it contained.

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And we also know, without doubt, exactly what that revelation contained in the days of Jesus. How else are you supposed to understand this?

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What does it mean, confirming that which came before him in the Torah? We know what the

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Torah read before the days of Jesus, at the time of Jesus, and at the time of Muhammad.

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Especially because of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have that information, do we not? Even if you just limit the

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Torah to the Pentateuch, which again, sure would be nice if the author of the

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Quran was fully aware of the contents of the

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Bible, so as to be specific in terminology, but he isn't. I mean, we do have the

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Psalms mentioned, but what about the prophets? What about the historical material?

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We're not told. We don't know. Anyway, so Jesus confirms that which came before him in the

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Torah, and we gave him the Gospel. Now, if you just back up, you've got, we sent down the

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Torah, and then you have

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God, Allah, gives the

37:52

Gospel to Jesus. Now, one of the things that we're going to run into is that a lot of Muslims believe, and this really befuddles a lot of Christians.

38:04

So this is, again, if you've been praying for the opportunity of witnessing to a Muslim, you might want to tune in for a moment.

38:10

I realize this is not the most popular stuff. If we were doing Radio Free Geneva right now, all the Calvinists in the audience would be dancing jigs and everything else, but since I'm talking about the text of the

38:20

Quran, it's like, oh boy, it's jumbo today. 52 minutes left to go.

38:26

Okay, I understand that, but again, we would,

38:31

I think, hopefully want someone criticizing our scriptures to be going into as much depth.

38:39

So anyway, we gave him the

38:45

Gospel. Here is what a lot of Muslims will say. This was a book that was given to Jesus alone.

38:56

This was a book that was given to Jesus alone. Doesn't exist anymore. It wasn't

39:02

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is a specific revelation given to Jesus alone.

39:13

Let's keep something in mind. I don't want to leave here, but let me just point something out to you.

39:20

You can write this down, maybe take a look at it later on, just for reference, but look at Surah 3199.

39:31

Write down Surah 3199. Here's what it says, and indeed among the people of the scripture, again, there are those who believe in a law and what was revealed to you and what was revealed to them being humbly submissive to a law.

39:53

They do not exchange the verses of a law for a small price. You go, um, lost me.

40:04

What's your point? It says, we gave them the book.

40:13

It's talking about the Quran, but it's plural.

40:21

It's a plural. We gave them the book. Well, no, no, no, no, no.

40:27

The book was given to Muhammad. It was just given to Muhammad. Now the

40:32

Quran says it was given to them. Plural. Plural. So simply to say something was given to Jesus doesn't mean that there could not have been others involved in the recording of this revelation, because in Surah 3199, when the

40:53

Quran is given, the plural pronoun is used.

41:00

We gave them the book. So saying that the

41:07

Torah was given to Moses, the Injil was given to Jesus, does not limit it to, well, that one person, or even the

41:15

Quran is given to Muhammad. That one person. Here you have it used in the plural in Surah 3199.

41:23

So I think that's an important aspect to keep in mind, because what is alleged is, well, there is this

41:33

Injil and it was given to Jesus and no one's ever seen it. Now, just on that level alone,

41:39

I would go, really? Seriously? It contained light and guidance, but Jesus was so incompetent that no one on the planet has ever seen this?

41:55

I mean, if you're going to read it that way, if you're going to read the idea that the Injil was a book given to Jesus, or not even just a book, just a sort of vague zeitgeist of revelation or something, the fact that there's nobody who can tell you anything about it, never saw it, wasn't preserved, not only makes zero sense, makes zero sense, but what's more is it's going to turn a number of texts of the

42:25

Quran absolutely on their heads. Just going to make it completely non -understandable. So when it says, we gave him the gospel, in which was guidance and light, what did we see about the

42:44

Torah? In which was guidance and light. This is a word for revelation. In which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the

42:51

Torah. Now, clearly the author is talking about a revelation here, because he's making a chain.

43:02

Torah, what is the Torah? It is a written document of scripture. What is the

43:08

Injil? It is a written document of scripture. So much so that the very next verse will say the

43:15

Alal Injil, the people of the gospel. Well, who are they? The Christians. Well, what did the

43:25

Christians in the day of Muhammad possess? Well, it wasn't some special book given to Jesus.

43:31

They had Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So you have to just start really, to be perfectly honest with you, playing games with this text.

43:44

To start trying to twist it into a pretzel. To come up with the idea that, well, okay, there is light and guidance in the

43:59

Torah, which is a written document. But then the Injil, it also had light and guidance, but it's not really a written document and we have no earthly idea what it was.

44:09

We know what the Torah was, because we've got a quote from it in the, the only quote in all the

44:15

Koran for the Lex Talionis, I for an I, two for a two, so on and so forth. Written document. Those are written words. I don't think anyone could really argue overly strongly against the idea that this is talking about a written document and it's the written document that Christians claim is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

44:34

Now, again, having read the Koran numerous times,

44:41

I have no reason to believe that the author of the Koran had any familiarity whatsoever with the contents of the

44:50

New Testament, especially how many times the author of the Koran seemingly thinks that things that were not in the

44:58

New Testament were in the New Testament. You know, little birds made out of clay, breathe on them, they fly away, that's not in the

45:05

New Testament. Speaking from the cradle, not in the New Testament. We really need to, and I want to, if time will allow me to do,

45:16

I really want to do a series on the real problem that the utilization of the

45:26

Koran of non -canonical sources and historical sources, documents we can identify today.

45:33

There's been some interesting recent discoveries on the ride before this last one I was listening to.

45:40

Tony Costa has been kind enough to be sending me a bunch of scholarly articles that I've been converting and listening to, and converting to MP3.

45:50

It's not their Muslim articles, they're not Christian articles. Not that kind of conversion. And there's been some interesting discoveries recently on an archaeological level that have shed light on the origin and the dating of some of the stories that end up in the

46:10

Koran, and clearly demonstrate that the

46:15

Koran does utilize historical sources, historical materials, and that much of what it utilizes is recognized by all meaningful critical scholars, and Muslims love quoting critical scholars, as being tremendously secondary.

46:37

Tremendously secondary. Long after the time of the giving of the Gospel of Jesus.

46:43

I mean, think about it. I hadn't thought about this till just now. Revelation, oh, well, okay, not that kind of revelation.

46:49

Yeah, yeah, let's call TBN up right now! Alpha Omega Met, no.

46:55

Alpha Omega Metistry decries the heresy just uttered. No. Just thought of this.

47:03

Just thought of this. Here's a question that I have, because I know there are Muslims listening right now. Here's a question that I have.

47:13

We gave him the Gospel, so why does the

47:20

Koran quote materials that were written hundreds of years after Jesus as if they're part of the

47:31

Gospel? How could that have been given to Jesus when it wasn't written yet?

47:43

And yet the Koran doesn't tell the difference. The story of Jesus in the cradle, speaking of the cradle,

47:53

Surah 19, comes hundreds of years after Jesus. So what's it doing in the

47:59

Koran? Now, you might say, well, it doesn't say that was part of the

48:06

Injil, but it's addressing the people of God and says, remember when we did such and so. Remember when Jesus did such and so.

48:12

Remember from what? It's very obvious. The author of the Koran intends, thinks that his audience is going to know this because it's part of the

48:24

Injil when it isn't. When it isn't. Anyway, I'm not going to ever get to Shabir here if I don't hurry up.

48:32

I apologize. But the point is, we gave him the Gospel, which was guidance and light, and confirming that which preceded of the

48:38

Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous. Now, this is high language. This is revelatory language.

48:46

And it's right on the heels of that that we have the key text, Surah 547, and let the people of the

48:54

Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what

49:01

Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient. Now, this judgment, it seems, in context, is supposed to be judgment within the

49:13

Christian community because people were coming to Muhammad and they're saying, judge amongst us.

49:19

And basically, what he's saying is, judge by your own scriptures. The Jews should judge by theirs, the Christians by theirs.

49:26

That would seem to me to be the logical context. Interestingly enough, that's not normally what

49:32

I'm hearing in the interpretations provided. Remember, that wasn't

49:38

Abdullah Kunda's understanding, which I find interesting.

49:44

But then again, contextual exegesis is not generally how things are handled.

49:52

Now, here is Tafsir Ibn Kathir, one of the earliest

49:57

Tafsirs, and what does it say concerning Surah 547?

50:17

Allah said next, let the people of the Injil judge by what Allah has revealed therein, meaning so that he judges the people of the

50:25

Injil by it in their time. Or, the ayah means, so they believe in all that is in it and adhere to all its commands, including the good news about the coming of Muhammad and the command to believe in him and follow him when he is sent.

50:44

Allah said in another ayat, O people of the scriptures, you have nothing, no guidance until you act according to the

50:51

Torah, the Injil, and what has been sent down to you from your Lord. Now, how can you understand any of this?

51:02

Did Ibn Kathir think that the Injil was a book given to Jesus that nobody has anymore?

51:10

Did Ibn Kathir think that the Injil was lost in the days of Muhammad? This would be a great place to say it, but when he's talking about this, he's saying, well, so that he judges the people of the

51:23

Injil by it in their time. How can they do that if they don't possess it? If it's some book they've never seen, they can't be judged by it.

51:34

If it has been corrupted to the point that it's no longer understandable, they can't be judged by it.

51:43

But it's almost like he's given a second possibility here. So they believe in all that is in it and adhere to all its commands, including the good news about the coming of Muhammad.

51:53

Where's that? Where's that? Where's the good news about the coming of Muhammad in the

52:00

Injil? Well, historically, where has any meaningful

52:09

Islamic scholar pointed us to non -New

52:17

Testament revelation, this Injil given to Jesus, that tells us to believe in Muhammad?

52:23

How could we believe that Muhammad was this prophet that he's prophesied? Twice in the Quran it says, surah 7, verse 57, remember, we allegedly read about this prophet in our scriptures.

52:37

Were those words meaningless in the days of Muhammad? Of course not. If you adopt an interpretation of this text that makes it impossible for the people in days of Muhammad to have seen in their scriptures the prophecies of Muhammad, I say to you, you have made the

52:53

Quran a meaningless mass of words. You are not treating it in any type of meaningful or fair sense.

53:02

That's your problem. That's the problem. So whatever it is we're supposed to be judging, you have to have the

53:14

Injil to do it. Now, with all of that, I was just going to read it, and I ended up doing all that. I'm sorry. What was the book you just referenced?

53:22

That is Tafsir Ibn Kathir, available online for free. I have the set, obviously, but it's one of the earliest tafsirs.

53:30

Tafsir means commentary on the Quran. Yeah, in channel it was just mentioned that Ibn Ishaq pointed to John 14 and 16, and that's true.

53:43

Some of the earliest Islamic material points to the Gospel of John at that point. I was going to mention that.

53:48

Ibn Kathir doesn't, but Ibn Ishaq did, and that's true. That is very, very interesting.

53:57

So we get over, finally. You're ready for some, but you've been ready for quite some time,

54:04

I'm sure. I've been blabbing so long, the computer's almost gone to sleep on me here. So, as I said, right at the end of the debate in Erasmio, South Africa, in the

54:18

Abu Bakr Asidic Mosque, which is, again, just a wonderful evening, Shabir made these comments about Surah 5.

54:26

So in light of what we just read, listen to his interpretation. Don't have time to go back to talking about Basam Zawadi's interpretation, or Abdullah Kunda's interpretation, we've spent hours on those as well.

54:42

But here is Shabir Ali's interpretation of that text.

54:48

"...Paul, and they follow Paul's doctrines, and they represent Jesus as though he preached the same doctrine.

54:53

But Luke is not quite sold, and Luke hesitates at some very key instances. Moreover, Luke shows us, for example, in his chapter 15, many parables."

55:07

The bookmark function is not working real well here. "...but Luke shows us that in Luke's gospel, we do not have the clear support for Paulian theology as we would have expected.

55:21

And this is significant, because Luke is said to have been a traveling companion and the personal physician of Paul, and yet he is not sold on that Paulian idea.

55:30

We should look at that carefully and ask ourselves, should we really be sold on that idea as well?"

55:36

Now, James is asking me to believe in the Gospels and in the Bible as a whole, as they are, because the

55:43

Qur 'an says we should believe in the Bible. Well, in Surah 10, verse number 94, when the

55:49

Qur 'an commands the Prophet, peace be upon him, or ask those people who have received the scripture before you if you are in any doubt, the problem here was that the

56:01

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, as a human being, was speaking to the Quraysh people who could not believe that God revealed messages to human beings.

56:11

They thought that if God wanted to send a message, he should send an angel with his message, not a human being.

56:17

And the reply from the Qur 'an is that this was God's consistent method. He always sent human beings.

56:22

If you're in doubt about this, ask the people of the book, because they have a book full of prophets who were commissioned by God, they were human beings, so you will get comfort and solace in knowing that while people are opposing you, this has been the case all of the time.

56:39

So that does not mean that the Qur 'an is telling us about Muhammad, peace be upon him, to believe in every single word of the

56:45

Bible. Moreover, in the Qur 'an... Now let me stop right there just for a second. That was interesting. That was really interesting, because did you hear what he just said?

56:55

He said, now there's different interpretations even of Surah 1094. If you look at Halali Khan, Halali Khan says that if you have doubts about you being the prophet mentioned in their scriptures, they actually insert that from hadith sources, but he's saying the normal way, according to this text, is that God sends people, and you have a book filled with what?

57:19

With prophets. What does that mean? Think with me for a second. Are there a bunch of prophets in the

57:26

Torah? No, those prophets are in the prophets. They're outside the

57:31

Torah. So if that were to be the case, that would be referring to the entire Old Testament, not just the

57:37

Torah. Now, the people, the book, that is how they viewed it. That's true. But those who try to limit

57:44

Torah just to the Pentateuch, evidently Shabir doesn't do that. In Surah 5, verse 47, when the

57:51

Qur 'an tells Christians to judge by the Injil, it actually says it indirectly.

57:59

It's saying, let them judge by that which God has revealed therein. It is not that all of the

58:06

Injil is said to be the Word of God, but the Qur 'an is saying, go to the

58:12

Injil, find out what God has said therein, and judge by that. Of course, in the Injil, you have not only the saying of God, but mostly you have the sayings of human beings.

58:22

Now, to catch that, his argument is not that the people of the

58:29

Gospel are to judge by what is contained in the Injil. They're to go to the

58:35

Injil and try to figure out what's still the Word of God. There is a practice called eisegesis.

58:48

It is the reading into a text of a concept or meaning that would not have suggested itself to the original author.

58:56

The original author was not attempting to communicate that. I would like to suggest this is an eisegetical reading.

59:02

But, and I'm going to continue on because we've still got about one minute and 15 seconds in this that I want to play the rest of the comments.

59:14

But, I'm just afraid I'm going to forget what he said and not respond to it. But, notice what was just said.

59:22

The Injil in Surah 547, according to Shabir Ali, is a mixed text that still contains some divine concepts, but it's all mixed up with a bunch of human stuff too.

59:42

And what we've got to do is try to figure out which is which. But, did you catch that?

59:48

The Injil, specifically of Surah 547, is a mixed text, which means what?

59:54

The Injil of Surah 547 is the New Testament we possess today. So, the idea that the

01:00:02

Injil is a separate book given to Jesus, and it's not

01:00:07

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that's not how he's interpreting Surah 547. He's just said it's a mixed text.

01:00:15

Don't get upset with me. He's the one who said it. Don't get angry with me.

01:00:21

I'm just, just, you can listen to it for yourself. Of course, you have the sayings of Jesus as well, but you have the sayings of other writers interpreting

01:00:28

Jesus, and you have writers who have misinterpreted Jesus. Now, James is saying, but we have no way of knowing which is the real

01:00:37

Word of God in the Injil, and which is not the real Word of God. But then, isn't the Quran trying to get you to think about your situation?

01:00:45

If you have a book, and in that book you don't know which really is the Word of God. Now, by the way, you've never heard me say that.

01:00:53

You have never heard me say, well, we don't know. What I have said is that if this interpretation is correct, then

01:01:04

Surah 547 makes no sense. Because what's the, what is the end of Surah 547?

01:01:10

What is the last it says here? Whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed. What was, what's the context?

01:01:17

The Injil, which was revealed by Allah. Not something that was revealed by men, not some mixture of things, not some complicated process where you're having to go through stuff and figure out what's going on.

01:01:29

Whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, that is those who are the defiantly disobedient.

01:01:34

Well, if we can't know, I'm not saying we can't know. What I'm saying is his argument is we can't know.

01:01:43

That makes these words meaningless. There's no way of knowing who the defiantly disobedient are, because all you have to do is say, well,

01:01:50

I didn't know what was or wasn't. I can't judge.

01:01:57

Well, but it says, and whoever does not judge what Allah has revealed, that is those who are the defiantly disobedient. Who? If you can't know, these words are meaningless.

01:02:06

That's all I've said. I have never ever said, obviously no Christian does believe that we cannot know.

01:02:11

We do know. This whole thing is so anachronistic. It's all backwards.

01:02:21

Islam should be judged in light of its own texts by what came before it.

01:02:27

It's claiming there's a consistency. It's claiming that Allah revealed the Torah and the Injil. But you see, the

01:02:33

Muslim mind goes backwards. It reasons backwards from the standard of the

01:02:39

Quran to an attack upon what came before, rather than going, wow, I don't see any evidence anywhere in the

01:02:45

Quran whatsoever that the author knew anything about what was in the Injil.

01:02:51

No interaction with Hebrews. No interaction with Ephesians. No interaction with John. Nothing. No understanding at all.

01:03:01

So why do you just assume it? And I've said this, I've said this to, you know, there are certain

01:03:07

Islamic apologists that I can get along with real well, and there are certain others that I can't. Part of that's just personality.

01:03:15

Part of that is, I really respect someone who will listen and respond and behave in a particular fashion.

01:03:23

And I have said to those who would hear me, and I say this to all of you, but especially those who will hear me, if you want to step up, if you want to really make an impact and do something more than just impress your own fanboys, you've got to start recognizing that you need to answer some difficult questions.

01:03:48

You can't just presuppose that the author of the Quran got it all right. I mean, why isn't there any understanding on the part of the author of the

01:04:01

Quran of what's in the New Testament? Why don't I hear you guys?

01:04:06

I mean, I was shocked in the debate with Abdullah Kunda in Sydney, when the issue of these other sources just happened to pop up briefly.

01:04:17

And Abdullah's response was, it's all coincidence, just coincidence. None of you, none of you operate on that when you look at the

01:04:27

New Testament. Not one. So you've got to start answering some of the tough questions.

01:04:34

If this, if the author of the Quran is God himself, and he sent down the

01:04:39

Torah and the Injil, then he knows the Torah and the Injil intimately well. Why is there no interaction with it at all in the

01:04:45

Quran? None. None. I mean, if Paul is so wrong, why didn't the author of the

01:04:54

Quran say so? I don't know.

01:05:01

I don't know. But you've got to start dealing with this kind of stuff. This anachronism, you're mired in it, and until you see it, it's a real problem.

01:05:11

Which really is the word of the human being. Isn't that the Quran's point? That you really need to come to the

01:05:16

Quran ultimately. But if you won't... Now that's where he gets pretty close. Because the final takeaway from Bassam Zawadi's interpretation was that what we're actually being told is not to judge by the

01:05:29

Injil, but to judge by the Quran. And in somewhat of a roundabout way, that's sort of where every

01:05:35

Muslim has to eventually get to it. But that's not what the text says.

01:05:41

I mean, you may want to get there, but don't pretend that that's what the Quran says.

01:05:48

I mean, this is a document that had a meaning in history.

01:05:55

If you say it didn't, if you abandon that foundation, my friends, you don't seem to realize you're abandoning any meaningful claim to divine revelation with the

01:06:05

Quran at all. If it did not have any meaning to people to whom it was directed, you don't seem to realize the acid that is to any meaningful epistemology within Islam.

01:06:26

I think you really need to think about this. I really do. Come to the Quran ultimately, and you want to decide cases like punishment for adultery, as was the case with the verses that are speaking about this, then judge by your own book.

01:06:40

But don't judge by the whole book. Try to find the Word of God in there. I hear you,

01:06:48

Shabir, but what do you mean? Don't judge by the whole book, but by what you find to be the

01:06:54

Word of God in there? What? That is dumping a truckload of presuppositions between Fihi and the rest of the verse, okay?

01:07:11

The Arabic word Fihi and the rest of the verse, you're putting volumes of history and theology right there.

01:07:19

It's not in the text. Are you really suggesting that when someone read that, if someone, that someone in the 7th century, let's say put it right at 630

01:07:34

AD, are you really suggesting that if they read that line of Arabic, they'd go, oh,

01:07:41

I see what you're saying. Don't judge by the Injil, judge by the

01:07:46

Injil. Don't judge by the Injil, judge by the

01:07:51

Quran. I'm sorry. It's not very clear.

01:07:57

Do the best you can. So the Quran is being fair in saying human beings are in a certain situation.

01:08:03

They can only do the best they can in that situation. The best that the Quran wants them to do is to embrace the

01:08:09

Quran and judge according to the Quran, but if they won't come to the Quran, well, let them resort to a book, which they themselves are not really sure about which parts of it are the

01:08:20

Word of God and which are not the Word of God. So there you have Shabir's take. One of the things

01:08:28

I want to do in the future, I've mentioned this to my good friend

01:08:34

Rudolf down in South Africa, and Rudolf, I know I owe you an email, I'm going to get to it as soon as I can, but one of the things we want to do, especially in arranging the debates in South Africa this year, and please start praying about that even now, we want to become much more focused in the debates.

01:08:57

We want to challenge the Muslim apologists that we would be engaging.

01:09:04

Let's just do Isaiah 53. Let's just do Isaiah 53.

01:09:10

I would do that with Shabir. I'd do that with Shabir, you bet. Here in the

01:09:16

United States, what I'd love to see, you know, it'd be really fun, would be to get two Islamic apologists.

01:09:23

I don't know who, I'll be perfectly honest with you, but get two Islamic apologists.

01:09:28

Maybe Shabir could come down from Canada, maybe he could suggest somebody else. Let's do Isaiah 53.

01:09:35

Shabir and his best person against me and Michael Brown, just on Isaiah 53.

01:09:44

Wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't it? Would that be one that would get a few YouTube hits? Oh, you better believe it would.

01:09:51

Oh, you better believe. And you know what? I can tell you right now, Michael would say, any day, anywhere.

01:09:58

Any day, anywhere. Let's do it. Let's do it. So, but Isaiah 53.

01:10:09

Yusuf Ismail? Let's do the prologue of John. Just you and me. Prologue of John.

01:10:16

Does it teach the deity of Christ? I will deal with any textual critical issues you want to raise.

01:10:24

We'll go straight from the original language text. And I'll also want to do this.

01:10:33

Let's do Surah 5. Does Surah 5, 44 through 47, teach that the

01:10:41

Injil existed in the days of Muhammad? A debate on nothing more than that.

01:10:49

What do you think? I could suggest some other very interesting Islamic texts. We could debate, does the

01:10:58

Quran quote from non -canonical, unorthodox

01:11:06

Christian sources? That would be interesting, because it's really not a question.

01:11:13

It's really not a question. I'd like to get some Muslims who would be willing to present a list of synoptic problems.

01:11:25

And then I'll present a list of parallels in the Quran. And we'll deal with those. Specific debates.

01:11:34

No more of this, throw out everything, including the kitchen sink. Let's get specific.

01:11:40

Let's start getting down to the nitty -gritty. Haven't we had enough debates on some of these topics? Was Muhammad a prophet?

01:11:47

Okay, that's a valuable thing. Haven't we talked about that? Let's get specific. Let's get down to the nitty -gritty.

01:11:55

I think that would be much more useful. So there was

01:12:03

Shabir's point. Now, I'm not going to get to Akhmeddida today.

01:12:10

Well, maybe I might get started. I don't know. But there's

01:12:17

Surah 5. There's the email thing.

01:12:28

In an email—and again, this was the email.

01:12:34

I had read the others. Hadn't gotten into it. I don't like when people just start these impromptu lists without actually asking.

01:12:43

But Farhan Qureshi. I think Bassam's two points that textual criticism of the

01:12:49

New Testament, and that is a separate argument from Islam's position, as if there is a single Islamic position—we've now demonstrated that's not the case—on what the

01:12:58

Injil are sound, and this is what Professor Halim was saying, too. The problem is

01:13:03

James White's total failure to understand the Islamic position on this. When individuals like James White are always boasting about wanting to represent other people's religious views accurately, and then turn around and they fail miserably, not only does he fail miserably, but he does so in a cocky fashion, making his argument look twice as pathetic, and then he goes on to throw ad hominem attacks against Paul, assumes to know his heart and mind and what's really going on, calls

01:13:31

Paul arrogant while being overly arrogant, and so on. And this is supposed to be a man from the determined elect that God has chosen.

01:13:42

I guess that's some shot at Calvinism. I used to have more respect for him, but occasionally I have dropped in trying to listen to him, but he often insults people personally.

01:13:50

For example, he mocks Rob Bell's cool glasses as an attack on him personally.

01:13:56

Absolutely childish and juvenile. I'm sure I have said something about Rob Bell's glasses, but I would point out that we did at least an entire dividing line, and I think it was multiple dividing lines, on love wins.

01:14:16

Probably missed those. Probably missed those, hence didn't have the background. The main point that James misses, and most

01:14:24

Christian apologists try this, that he tries to force the New Testament onto Muslims. That they must believe the

01:14:30

New Testament is the Injil because it's the only book Christians believed in. Well, what has been my point?

01:14:36

What was my point today? My point is that you got a book, and the book contains

01:14:46

Surah 547, and Surah 547 had to be meaningful to the people who first heard it.

01:14:56

How tough is that? How tough is that? It had to have a meaning when it was first said, didn't it?

01:15:07

So what did it mean? You don't seem to take

01:15:12

Shabir's interpretation of it, but even that, we didn't find any foundation for that.

01:15:21

Go ahead and go to your Injil, try to find out what the Word of God is in it. That's all that's said. Anyway, second, he misunderstands how

01:15:30

Muslims understand revelation in terms of La 'al Mafud, that both Quran and Injil eternally existed before they were revealed, and that they are preserved and protected in heaven, and that it's not something that is dropped into a prophet's lap, but is orally recited and transmitted, and later gets corrupted via interpretation.

01:15:52

You sure you want to put it that way? Again, you're not a Muslim anymore. But you said

01:15:58

Quran and Injil. So the Quran is orally recited, transmitted, and later gets corrupted via interpretation?

01:16:07

Maybe that's what you believe. I don't know. I don't know where Farhan is these days. This is what both

01:16:12

Muhammad and Isa received, revelation. James not only misses the boat in understanding Islam's position, but he mocks the

01:16:19

Quran, saying it's incoherent and Muhammad was just ignorant. Well, actually, what

01:16:25

I say, and I've noticed when you disagree with someone, well, you're mocking, you're attacking. Well, this is mocking and attacking, isn't it?

01:16:32

Aren't you mocking and attacking me? I mean, let's be consistent here. If you're going to use this type of language, let's just be consistent.

01:16:42

If your interpretation is correct, then yes, these words are incoherent because they have no meaning.

01:16:49

They have no meaning to the people to whom it was originally spoken, because they can't do what the

01:16:55

Quran commands them to do, because they can't identify what has been revealed.

01:17:03

All right? Or, if you want to take the Injil isn't even the New Testament, it's a book given to Jesus and no one's ever seen it.

01:17:11

That's even worse. That's even worse. And Muhammad was just ignorant.

01:17:19

Well, whoever wrote the Quran was ignorant of the content of the New Testament.

01:17:25

That's not an attack. That is a statement of fact that we could back up rather easily.

01:17:35

Where is the Quranic response to the book of Hebrews? It's interesting.

01:17:42

When I was looking for this clip in the debate with Shabir, I at one point quoted from the book of Hebrews.

01:17:53

I said, look at the message of the book of Hebrews and look how it presents Yom Kippur and the

01:17:59

Day of Atonement and stuff like that. You know what Shabir's response to that was? It wasn't to quote any Quranic interaction with that.

01:18:06

Nothing. The entire response from Shabir was, we don't know who wrote

01:18:11

Hebrews. Well, I would actually submit we don't know who wrote a bunch of the sources that the

01:18:17

Quran quotes. The Quran quotes from the Arabic Infancy Gospel. We know who wrote it. The Quran quotes from the

01:18:25

Infancy Gospel of Thomas. We don't know who wrote it. Consistency, guys.

01:18:30

Consistency. We don't have to know who wrote it. We've got theories. Doesn't matter.

01:18:36

That is the application of external criterion, the New Testament, that the New Testament writers and the

01:18:42

Christians did not possess. It doesn't matter. It's scripture. It was in the

01:18:47

New Testament that defined the Christian people and the writer of the Quran was ignorant of it.

01:18:53

Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. I'd like to see you do it.

01:19:02

If both Quran and Jill are originally a heavenly hitab, then there is nothing incoherent or ignorant about this theological position.

01:19:09

If you want to represent Muslim theology correctly, please do. Well, I think I have been, Farhan. And so I finally responded briefly, sort of outlined very briefly what we've been discussing for the past hour.

01:19:29

And so I get a note from Ijaz because he was in the in the list.

01:19:37

Now, I don't know how, you know, I said to people in channel,

01:19:46

I said, you know, you all do realize because they're all going, wow, boy,

01:19:51

I hope you learned his lesson. That was pretty embarrassing. I said, you do realize he probably thinks that he did just wonderfully there, that he doesn't really see that his attack upon me, for example, for stumbling over an arcane halagas, halagas, halagas, halagas, halagas, halagas, halagas.

01:20:20

He doesn't really see that that is really silly. That it's that it's pure ad hominem and baseless at that.

01:20:29

He doesn't see it. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. No, he doesn't see it. It was interesting, a bunch of people in the channel said, hey, you sound like he was about 50, 55 years old.

01:20:42

I said, no, no. He confirmed that he's 22. Now you say, well, that doesn't make him wrong.

01:20:51

That's right. But I would like to suggest that a 22 year old who has an attitude like this guy, he's got a problem, major problem.

01:21:01

Here's what he said. He responded to my brief summary.

01:21:07

It says, you mean the historical reality of it mentioning beliefs of the plethora of Christian groups which invented beliefs about Christ as mentioned in the historical work, the

01:21:15

Panarion of Epinephius of Salamis? Hmm.

01:21:26

That particular work, well known in early church history. Are you really going to try to defend the idea that the

01:21:37

Quran accurately represents a catalog of variant

01:21:44

Christian beliefs? It's bad enough to try to prove that the Quran has an accurate knowledge of the

01:21:51

Christians that Muhammad had contact with. But to try to claim that it actually represents the plethora, historical out of mentioning beliefs of the plethora of Christian groups.

01:22:07

Really? You can go to the Quran and look and come up with various Gnostic ideas and you can do that?

01:22:18

The author of the Quran understands these things? Wow. Goes on to say,

01:22:25

James, you can keep pretending that the Quran approaches Christians and Jews as one monolithic group.

01:22:32

The rest of us live in the real world where we all accept that the earliest groups of Christians were splintered, divided, and varied in beliefs drastically.

01:22:42

I just stopped for a second and go, who does that sound like? Oh, Bart Ehrman and the

01:22:49

Bauer hypothesis. And yeah, somebody has not read the heresy of orthodoxy.

01:22:55

Hence, those are unity ecumenical councils. Which ones?

01:23:04

Which ones? You mean Nicaea? Constantinople?

01:23:10

Chalcedon? You don't realize what the issues that those were? They had nothing to do with the

01:23:16

Gnostics or any of their wild and crazy ideas, right? Anyways, here is the last line.

01:23:25

If you do raise this inane point, I'll be forced to call in again.

01:23:34

Which you did, yeah. Now, may I point something out? And you're gonna have to confirm this.

01:23:40

Last week, who paid for Ijaz to be on the phone line?

01:23:46

Well, he has apparently a prepaid phone card, and he ran out of minutes, and so he called him back.

01:23:55

So he was on the air for 45 minutes. Yeah, and that was on our... And we paid for that. We paid for that, yeah. And even when he called today, he says,

01:24:02

I've got 10 minutes on my card. And I told him also, by the way, it was so difficult to listen to you that if you do get back on the show, we've got to do something else.

01:24:14

A direct Skype call, something, but that can't be. Yeah, that was... It was almost impossible to understand him.

01:24:20

It was so muddy. I know. And I also made it very clear, look, today is a day of presentation.

01:24:27

Let the man make his presentation before you decide you want to jump in in the middle of it. Well, here's the problem.

01:24:35

I didn't quote this part, but he had sent me another email, and he made reference to the book that we make available in our book ministry on the deity of Christ by Dan Wallace and Kamaziski, and who else is some of the editors of that.

01:24:55

But excellent work. First -rank scholars.

01:25:03

And he talks about some of the laughable arguments in this book. Now, there are times

01:25:13

I have read some pretty laughable Islamic works.

01:25:19

There are people who make laughable arguments against Christianity. They're just really bad, and we've documented a lot of that.

01:25:26

But when you're talking about scholarship that is on a level that you yourself cannot even begin to analyze it, you don't have the language background, you don't have the historical background, and you can with such ease dismiss such things in that fashion, doesn't speak very well for you at all.

01:25:56

And I was directed to certain statements that Ijaz has made after the last week's program that were, they were as ridiculously and unnecessarily offensive and childish as statements that I have pointed out that Christians have made against Muslims and chided them for that.

01:26:20

For example, the things that Robert Morey said to Shabir Ali in their debate. They were that bad.

01:26:27

And so when I asked him to comment about that, his entire response was to just to attack the website that can that hosted the quotes, not to respond to the actual citations and materials themselves.

01:26:41

And that was troubling. That was very troubling. So what have we seen today?

01:26:48

We have seen that there is not a single Islamic understanding of this topic.

01:26:56

There is not a single Islamic interpretation of Surah 5. And I think any honest person will have to admit that we have been able to demonstrate that you can stick with the text in its context and make a very strong argument that the only coherent way of interpreting

01:27:22

Surah 547... I didn't get the other text. I had a bunch of other stuff here and we're running out of time.

01:27:31

But let me just mention one real quick. And I know you've got to run too.

01:27:36

So let me just point one out to you. Surah 291. And when it is said to them, believe what

01:27:42

Allah has revealed, they say we believe only in what was revealed to us and they disbelieve what came after it while it is the truth confirming that which is with them.

01:27:54

It's talking about the Jews. So the Quran confirms what is with them but they refuse to believe that.

01:28:04

They possess the Torah. It was there. And if you follow the parallels clearly...

01:28:12

My point is this. If you follow the modern interpretations, you are turning the Quran into an incoherent text that cannot make sense any longer.

01:28:21

But you're forced to do it for a simple reason. The author of the Quran was ignorant of the revelations that came before him.

01:28:28

There is the situation you're in. I understand it. I almost feel sorry for you. I would just invite you to stop believing what came later which didn't come from God and start believing that which came earlier which did.

01:28:43

All right. Thank you for listening to the Dividing Line today. I do want to get to this Akhmed Didat clip that has been sent to me.

01:28:52

I had intended to do so but we didn't get to it. I apologize for that. But we will press on and who knows what will happen between now and next

01:29:00

Tuesday. We could have all sorts of things to talk about and still not get to it. Don't know.