May 9, 2006

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

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

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white. And to the strains of run from the battle.

Returning from the Biola Debate

We are returned from the battle and that is the battle at Biola University this past Sunday evening and That's what our report is going to be about today. I'm signaling for a little less than the headphones there.

Thank you, sir, and It was quite the experience. Hopefully the server will survive as we give the the report today because five minutes ago it decided to turn over and die for a few minutes, but it came back and.

I.

Was ironically over in Los Angeles at the same time the fact that I was out with some students from Biola and. We went to El Torito for dinner and there were televisions there and I noticed that the the crowds were.

The the folks there in LA were rather quiet and that they weren't saying a whole lot. During you know while we were we were having a good old time. But the people watching the game anyway, you know, there wasn't any applause or anything like that.

And so I looked over and you know I got close enough to see what the score was and I I was able to very quickly discern why they weren't overly excited because The Phoenix Suns just I mean. It wasn't even much of a basketball game.

I mean game seven, you know, it's supposed to be close it's supposed to be a nail-biter and it was a 31 point blowout and. So, you know, hey, what can I say? Five straight victories over Los Angeles teams over the past, you know week or so.

That's.

No more Lakers Soon the Clippers.

I.

Did so that actually came up at the debates, but I didn't bring it up. I was a good man I didn't bring it up. I didn't I didn't pull that off by. I did somebody else did but I and I I laughed and applauded when They brought up.

But anyway, uh, oh man, we let anybody in studio audience. They don't wait. Wow. Man, I thought we were gonna screen people especially after debating, you know the Muslims. I thought we need some security, you know something and now the studio audience just we.

Is he looking for food? Yes, really we need we need to have a little you know a homeless pantry type thing. We can give give food to people. I came to walk in so man. I tell you anyway.

Nothing like isn't he like a vice president around here or something? I don't know.

I haven't seen him for what was last time. I saw him. I don't know what I last saw him. I I haven't a clue when I last saw him. I challenge you. Right now I challenge you tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning 6 a .m. South Mountain Park you and me to the top and back down.

You'll be there. All right. I got you. I got you. You're lighter than I am you're still lighter than I am but not by as much as you as you were a year ago. Let me tell you something, buddy I've been up South Mountain about 25 times since last November, so I'm I'm ready to go.

So let's let's do it. Anyways, sorry folks. Everybody's going what are they talking about in there? Well, don't don't don't even worry about we this is a live webcast and we have fun and Yes, if you look on on our website, you'll see a guy named Sean Hahn mentioned and he just wandered in in to see the dividing line.

Anyway, let's talk about. Actually now I could use just a tad bit more for some odd reason let's talk about what happened Sunday night. Let's start with the fact that I don't even remember what started all this.

I remember being contacted. I think Bo Boyd contacted me and as I recall There have been some challenge in regards to bring Shabir Ali and something along those lines and I was contacted and asked if I would Be willing to debate Shabir Ali.

I had already I believe started listening to him on some level. But I and I had already made the decision. I want to debate him, but I want to debate him farther down the road. And so when the challenge came to do this before the end of this year that is in May of this year.

I.

Very clearly and at the very beginning Stayed the fact that I could only address Christian issues. Primarily I wasn't going to do a debate specifically on the Quran. I wasn't going to debate on the Hadith or Muhammad or something along those lines.

Because I think to do justice to those areas Requires a person to be able to utilize At the very very least utilize well Lexical sources so as to be able to deal with Arabic terms terminology phrases so on and so forth if you can't necessarily read it fluently, okay.

But as long as you can Interact with it I think you need to have that capacity and so since I did not and still would not say that I really fully do have That kind of capacity. I did not want to get into those topics.

I want to instead as I did when I debate Hamza Abdul Malik I wanted to debate a Christian topic and respond from a Christian perspective. And so from the very beginning that was the intention and so when the thesis of the of the debate Came up for discussion, then I said well Here's the books.

I've written these the subjects that I've addressed before and so let why don't we start? Logically since I would like this to be one of a number of debates logically with Defending the New Testament is the New Testament we possess today inspired having listened to a number of Shabir's presentations.

I knew this would be something that he would feel comfortable with he's addressed this many times the number of different people and So that's how it all started now. I mentioned last week that there was there was some concern expressed concerning the fact I was on the defensive and there was some concern about The debate itself and I can understand that I have heard people debate Shabir Ali who never should have debated Shabir Ali.

I've heard Shabir Ali Crush people. I've heard him embarrass people because.

Especially.

Conservatives who don't interact in the scholarly realm with with liberal Scholarship are going to find him extremely frustrating. Because he's going to throw this stuff out. He's gonna be quoting from Bart Ehrman as he as he did and in our debate and he's going to be quoting from all these different sources his some of his favorite sources in the past have been like the The interpreters one volume Bible commentary or the introduction of the New American Bible the Roman Catholic leftist liberal version and A lot of conservatives don't spend much time doing that for crying out loud.

I went to Fuller seminary. There wasn't anything else I could do so I'm accustomed that stuff but a lot of other folks are not and so they don't don't really know how to respond to it on the fly and discuss it in in a in a debate context and so I've seen people that have just just been run over in essence With Shabir Ali and so I can fully understand why there would be people Who didn't know who I was now the odd thing to me was?

This is a Biola University and Biola is one of the only places on the planet that has an MA in apologetics has it has a entire apologetics program and So in essence nobody except some of the students at Biola had a clue who in the world I am now.

That's fine. But it still seems a little bit odd because whether you like me or dislike me. The fact the matter is Sunday night was the 59th moderated public debate that I've done. I have debated a wide variety of people.

I've debated BYU scholars in Salt Lake. I've debated John Dominic Crossan. I've debated Gregory Stafford of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Just about every Roman Catholic apologist who's willing to debate anyways.

And so whether you like what I've done or not doesn't matter it would just seem to me That if you've got an entire apologetics program You would at least know the people who are the most actively involved in doing apologetics especially on a frontline Debate type of format, but evidently almost no one did.

Despite the books King James only controversy books on Mormonism. I've gotten Trinity justification sola scriptura.

Still.

Basically no one had ever seen any debate. I had ever done and So you put together well We know Shabir Ali is good And we haven't a clue who this guy is and so I can understand why some would be going man.

We're gonna put 2 ,500 of our students or 2 ,000 of our students and a thousand other people into our gymnasium and let a Very sharp Muslim carve them up, and then we've got to take care of the problems after that.

That's not a good thing. I understand that I you know if I was if Reversed I can completely understand all that. But it still seemed odd to me that that no one had a clue that I take debates Very seriously.

Had spent the past 11 months or more.

Very.

Seriously listening to Shabir Ali and to interacting with his his Perspectives had written a number of things on the blog. Anyone could have gone on the blog and just put in Shabir in the search gone to Google put in Shabir.

And you'd see all this stuff where I've interacted with him. I've gone into the Greek septuagint text about stuff that he said etc etc but that didn't happen so There was some concerns. And I could tell that and it Certainly made me feel a little odd.

I didn't really feel like I was the home team. I didn't feel like there was a home team to be perfect honest with you. I sort of felt like a bit of an outsider and Certainly, I'm sure Shabir did when you think about it As he showed up at that.

I don't know how many Muslims are I would say maybe 30. Many most of them were not dressed in cultural dress Shabir Ali was and if you haven't looked at the at the blog I would You know direct you to that because on the blog is a link to other Blogs that have other pictures, and so there's a fair amount of representation there.

You can take a look at so anyway, I got over there and Bo Boyd and Jer and Marissa picked me up at at the airport and met some of the other guys and we all got together and went to El Torito's and had a had a great dinner and Well I actually I Imagine a few people know us almost ate nothing other than chips and salsa because I was talking so much that happens a lot.

It's a great thing. It's called the speakers diet. It's where you're the one who's gonna be on the speaking. So you do all the talking and you end up not really doing a whole lot of eating in the process.

It's a good way to lose some weight, but we went to El Torito I had a good time together, and they took for some reason. They had to take a picture of me in a hardhat. I'm not sure if that was like you know some some initiation thing or It was where that that picture is gonna show up.

What's been photoshopped to it. I don't know it's sort of scary, but you know we do we got to do and So what we had a good good evening and then on Sunday. Then got to I'm not sure when did you got there about 3 30 something like that in the afternoon or something like that?

And the first thing the first funny thing you can see now when you listen to the dividing line you get all the Back-scenes stuff you know when you watch the DVDs and listen the mp3 that's one thing but you listen to dividing line you get all the stuff that took place off-camera or outside the range of a microphone and Before I'm while I'm waiting to get picked up at the At the hotel because I want to be there a little bit before 5 that's you know two hours for the debate I like to be at debates very very early the last thing I'd ever want to do is go rushing into a debate.

I don't know how gerrymantics does it but That's not my kind of thing so I start hearing from rich, and he says he sends me his pictures of the venue and You know pictures on a cell phone are really small.

You know they're just tiny, but it gives you an idea. It's like okay alright, so there's there's a venue it looks like Chairs set up in a large University-sized gymnasium, okay, cuz yeah, but did you see what's in the background is it well?

No, I can't see what's in the background a picture of that size, and so it takes picture of the of the of the platform and. The only way I could describe this is there's there's four chairs set up. There's there's there's flowers and two of the four chairs are the big Monty-python comfy chairs.

The comfy chair and.

You know you look like you should have like a little a footstool, and you should you should have yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's a masterpiece theater and there's they should have had a had a had a little fireplace going in the back, and I would have had a pipe and And my and my robe and my shoes and we would have should be and I would have had a nice little chat you know for a few moments before we we retired for the evening and It looked like it.

I'm just like as soon as I walk in I see that you go. Nope, nope, nope not happening tonight. No no no I.

You know.

It takes you back to the old there. There are just people that don't want to have Debates they want to have discussions, and this is California. This is Southern, California and You know this is this is the home of Rodney King can't we all just get along and Looking at this going I did see one debate one televised debate that Shabir did with Jay Smith and They had to sit in these big comfy chairs, and I hate chairs where the the the arms come up to like your shoulders.

I mean if you actually put your arms on you you look like you were surrendering or something. You know because they make it look like a little kid. You know you're just sort of you just want to Wrap yourself in a blanket and go to sleep for a nice little winter's nap and and that's what these things look like it.

I'm just I'm going all right look. I'm gonna have a tablet PC, and I am going to be Scribbling notes as he's speaking and and he's gonna be rotten wanting to write notes as I'm speaking. And he's got a computer, and I've got a computer now.

This is not happening. I need a table. I this I've never ever ever done a debate where I did not have some place where I could sit down and Write something. I just it's just never happened and so very quickly I got hold somebody said mm-hmm not working for me need a table and very very quickly without any argument or anything else the the big comfy chairs went to wherever big comfy chairs go to and we had tables set up you can see these set up on the main page of the website right now.

We're doing cross-examination the first picture there on the website is Shabir. And I doing cross-examination if I recall correctly that's right at the beginning and He's he's asking me questions. And I'm responding and you can see that they first they set up the the tables with white tablecloths on them only and Then they thought that was just gonna totally mess up the camera stuff and so we had to put the little black thingy bobbies on top of it, and that's that's how that works, so anyway we got that all set up and And then the crowds are coming in and down on the bottom of the the the prime seats.

I counted them there were 600 prime seats and they were on the on the floor, and then those were 15 bucks, and then it was 5 bucks to just sit in the bleachers and Aside from the bleachers then on the far side there was what I called the nosebleed section.

Which was up above where the basket would be and I would say.

That by the by.

Quarter after seven. We got we got started the debate start about 720. It was supposed to start up at 715 got a little late start, but by the time the debate started. That last section was about 80 full so I I'm not sure how many more folks We could have gotten in there, but not that many.

It was pretty well packed out. They they said 3 ,000. I'd say 2 ,500 around there somewhere in in that. In that you know range I'd say would be where we where we were as far as a number of people there.

It was a really really good audience primarily Christians. There were some Muslims there. I had some conversations. I'll tell you about a little bit later on. With with some of the Muslims a little bit later on but anyhow I Of course was watching for Shabir, and he got there.

I.

Would say maybe 25 minutes before half an hour 25 minutes before the debate at 7 o 'clock so around 630 635 ish or so and so I saw him coming in and I shot down there and and. Before the debate we we talked about a number of things we we talked first about.

It had been.

Mentioned to him that when I debated Hamza Abdul Malik that all the Muslims had gotten up and left halfway through my presentation because it was prayer time and So he he mentioned that one of the ways to avoid that was to Basically make sure that everybody knew that within an hour hour and a half of The sunset that we would be Taking a break so that if any Muslims who were there needed to go do their prayers.

They could do it at that time so if they knew there was a break coming Then they wouldn't get up and walk out in the middle of things and so that was announced beforehand. We also discussed the nature of the cross-examination because I don't I've not listened to every single debate should barely has ever done because I don't think you can actually obtain every single debate Should barely has ever done but in the ones that I have heard the cross-examination if there was cross-examination was not the kind of cross-examination that we did in this debate or that we like to do and that is the free-flowing cross-examination the the question-and-answer form of cross-examination that we we find to be the most useful and so there had to be some discussion of that had to be some explanation of that we did that with the moderator and And end up working out pretty well at one toward the end of his questioning period he started just talking and The moderator didn't stop him.

I Remember sort of looking over at the moderator and and he was looking at me. But the problem was if you look like it if you look at the picture right now. That's on the main page on the blog. If you're looking at from that angle the moderator is way off to the left and so since Shabir is facing me He's facing away from the moderators the moderator would actually have to speak up say something loud enough for him to hear that was another.

One of the issues that we had Was there were no fold-back monitors there were no monitors aimed back toward us. So all we had was house sound and so when someone's speaking out toward the audience, and you've just got house sound.

It can be very difficult. I had to concentrate very hard, and I'm sure Shabir did as well to Understand what the other person was saying. When they were at the podium is a little easier during cross-examination because we were close enough to hear each other just using natural sound.

But it was very difficult and there were Shabir for example told a joke in his opening statement. I didn't get the joke because I didn't hear it. Shabir has an accent. He was born in in Ghana or as a Guyana I think which one it was anyways I didn't get the joke because I didn't hear the punchline the punchline didn't work.

I couldn't hear it couldn't understand it and so There were a couple things like that that were a little bit difficult as far as being able to hear and things like that it didn't Really impact the the entirety of the debate so Before the debate started I'm starting to watch all these people coming in and we had a number of neat folks that showed up we had folks from grace community that were there and There were other other individuals who came up and Folks from the channel that were there one folk one fellow well-known channel showed up in his camo kilt and He's sitting down front and and it was hard to miss him and so we had we had a number of folks were coming up and All sorts of interesting conversations.

I like getting the chance to meet people beforehand. Of course I don't mind talking to folks and answering questions and stuff, but there's a balance you know and Later on the evening long after the debate was over.

You know when when I start saying man We I really need to get going. It's getting really late my my brains turning to mush. You know after I've been engaged in dialogue now for hour upon hour upon hour.

Still there are folks that just you know they want to come up to you at 1130 at night after you've been speaking now and addressing every subject in the Sun for hours and hours and hours on end and hit you with their biggest philosophical questions that they could ever come up with and Even after you said okay, I'm leaving now well actually could I talk to you about the trends and dental art you know and you?

Just you just want to go hello. Hello. Did you did you catch that little subtle hint there? And there's some folks that just do not get it. This it was it was odd so anyway. We we got the debate started And I had always by the way had always assumed.

I was gonna be going first I I it just seemed logical to me even though it'd be very difficult because I'm defending the New Testament, but if you're gonna be defending something you need to know what the denials of it are going to be and.

So.

It was only what about two weeks ago that for some reason even though We thought we had sort of established everything beforehand once the staff got involved they sort of took everything over and and There was new questions as to how this was going to be organized and things like that and The order ended up changing and it was a little bit odd because Shabir went first and He would also get to go last so he got the first word and last word and Some people would say that was that was not fair, but that's just sort of how it worked out, and I didn't care.

If.

Many years ago that would have bothered me. When I first started doing debates, I was really focused on that don't care anymore. You know why and anybody who is going to be so? Shallow as to be Influenced by who had the last word and it's all just a matter of what people are wearing or or you know How loud somebody's microphone is you know what.

I don't I don't debate for those folks anymore. I can't I There's there's nothing I can do about that. It I I debate for people who are going to seriously listen to both sides. They're gonna seriously weigh the evidence.

They're gonna seriously look at the arguments. Those only people that I can debate for they're the only people I can be concerned about. People who well you know I I didn't like your tartan tie. Well, okay fine not debating for you I didn't like the tone of your voice well, not debating for you either.

I Will very very quickly admit that there's only a certain group of people that that I Hello that I Know look in the channel. Thank you. There's only a certain group of people that I am I'm you know give you a dressing.

That's that's all I can do so anyway, we got started a severe went first and I All along had been wondering how Was Shabir going to start. How was I going to but what was his approach gonna be. I've heard him make?

Presentations primarily focused upon the synoptic Gospels the mark Matthew doing stuff with mark making Jesus bigger type thing. I've heard how many times he's done that that was his Primary presentation for example in England when Wasn't Manchester, but there was you know a guy was going to debate him he bagged out and so that was his presentation there.

He's used that in against J. Smith and things like that, so he's got his synoptic presentation. Then he's also got a sort of a Paul presentation. You know he used some of that against Robert Maury. He's also got a textual critical presentation.

Where you have You know alleged textual corruptions. And you know let's go after Bruce Metzger and stuff and and of course if he's got like a 40-minute opening statement or something.

Then.

In that type of a situation you've you've got you know you can put more of that together. We only had 20 minutes 20 minutes and so what do you do in 20 minutes? What's he gonna do is he going to draw from each one of those is this gonna be a scattergun approach.

Is it gonna be just you know broad? Assertions, and I'm gonna have to deal with with all this stuff. Well what I I had prepared to do was in essence to address all of those aspects. And so I had a had a pre-written Presentation.

I had timed it out very very closely. When I when I read it Thinking that there is a you know trying to do it the same way that I would do it as I was Presenting it to an audience it had come out to 19 19 minutes and 55 seconds so I no no no 18 minutes and I had a minute and five left.

Let's put that way had a minute and five buffer and I knew that meant it was going to be very very close because I've never figured this out. But I've mentioned this on dividing line before. No matter how realistic.

I try to be in private reading it. Once you get up there and once you're in front of an audience I don't know if it's you just feel you have to enunciate more clearly because you're using a public address system.

I I Have no way of knowing what it is. But I need to have at least a minute in essence to try to fit it in it just goes longer. I don't know what I guess time changes during that period of time. I don't know but when I got up there I made my presentation and I finished.

I think if I recall correctly there was a two on my timer. I think I had two seconds when I when I finished my 20-minute presentation shabir in his opening presentation Took no notes Whatsoever to the podium no notes at all.

Which I was fairly impressive given the number of references that he gives a number of citations that he uses he's obviously has all of that memorized and.

As.

I listened I Very quickly discerned that this was going to be the synoptic Presentation and it was going to be the synoptic presentation with some Bart Ehrman flavoring. He had airmen's Misquoting Jesus on his desk.

And so I knew that was going to be coming from that that direction and so He primarily focused not on the illustrations that he had used before. He focused on illustration that I had not heard him Use before.

That I had not heard him using a debate before. But and this is where the providence of God comes in. Thankfully over the past almost well three and three-quarter years now I have been teaching through a Synoptic gospel study at the Phoenix Reform Baptist Church.

I even mentioned this during the debate and we use the the parallel gospel Text published by the United Bible Society is a big the big blue one and We had already covered the one that he focused most upon and that is he specifically focused upon the story of the raising of Jairus his daughter and I was so thankful.

I mean I actually had a Smile on my face to be the perfect honest with you when he started on this because I Had already lectured through this that means I had already worked with the issue and it just took a moment to to make sure I had the right references in front of me and.

I.

Knew that I was going to in my rebuttal period. I didn't. Like I said, I already had a pre-written opening statement. In my rebuttal period I was going to be able to very clearly. Concisely you only had I think we had nine minute rebuttal periods but clearly and concisely respond to his primary example of The alleged corruption of the New Testament text.

Who's remember his thesis. Basically as New Testament is and is not inspired it has some inspired parts to it and and the rest of it comes from mankind and.

And.

That.

Particular assertion. Leaves you wondering well. How do you know which is which. And I'll tell you how he answered that when we got into the cross-examination. So he makes his presentation. I get up.

I make my presentation as I'm walking back to my table. He gives me a very interesting look. He's smiling very gracious, but a very interesting look. I I sort of got the feeling he he. Because as we talked beforehand as we talked before the The the debate I had asked him if he had had a chance to for example see my debate with Hams Abdul Malik.

No, no, I didn't get a chance to sit. Had you had an opportunity to see any of my other debates? No, and he did have the King James only controversy on his desk. We had no other books of mine on his desk at all.

And so it was pretty clear to me. He really was not aware of. What kind of a debate he was going to be engaging in in in debating me? So once the opening statements were out of the way, then I think he started to get an idea.

Then we got up and did the rebuttal section and in the rebuttal section I went through that text and I explained what telescoping is and I explained if you're wondering what the text is all about.

In.

Matthew and in Mark's account of the raising of Jairus's daughter remember he comes to Jesus and in Mark he says my daughter is at the point of death and So they begin to go to the house and as they're going that's when the woman touches the hem of his garment.

She's healed with the issue of blood but then in Mark Men come from the house and they tell Jairus and Jesus don't bother the teacher anymore. She's already dead and Remember that's when Jesus says do not doubt only believe and they continue on you got the mourners Jesus kicks the mourners out raises the the girl to life and That's how Don Francisco got his song.

If you remember his his song got to tell somebody it was a it was a good song. I really liked that song. Now when Matthew tells the same story he tells it in a briefer form shorter form now that might surprise some of you because you're thinking well marks much shorter than Matthew and and If some reason I just at one point I when I had been studying For this debate I had asked Bible works to give me percentages because he likes to say well You know John uses son of God this number of times and that's more than Matthew uses and Mark and da da da da da but he never took into account the fact that Mark is much shorter than Matthew and That in fact Luke even though it has fewer chapters is longer than Matthew.

And so I had had Bible works Give me the number of words in each one and I would work out son of God son of man as percentages of The particular Book that that we're examining and so I had mentioned that and for some reason he found that just fascinating that I knew how many Words there were and I only approximated I rounded them off actually in each one of these books so we could work out the percentages and I remember mentioning to him that I Had also memorized the number the numbers that he had given he he actually has a presentation he only gives to Muslims.

He doesn't. I've never heard him use this in a debate against a Christian. But when speaking just to Muslims he has almost a Quran code type thing if you remember the Bible codes stuff the Quran code stuff.

He you know if you take the number of Surahs and add them up and the number of verses and each of the surahs the number of ayahs and you add them up and then you have a odd column and an even column and you add the two columns together and the numbers and 6555 and all the rest of stuff he has this presentation so I mentioned to him yeah, I even for example know you know the numbers from your your Quran code presentation like.

6555 and.

He was looking at me. And he's it took him a second to even realize what I was saying and then when he realized that he was like oh my goodness. It was the same kind of viewpoint the same kind of look that I got from John Dominic Crossan.

When he and I were talking before the debate and he'd start telling me a story and I'd finish his story for him out of his own autobiography and I said well. You know I read your autobiography. And I listened to this tape and this tape in this lecture in this presentation, and they're sort of like you did and at first.

There's you can tell they're happy that you did in fact. They consents you must respect them if you did that, but then there's also mixed with oh.

Cuz I didn't do that for you.

I have no idea where you're coming from and so if you.

Know all that about me. This might not be good.