Radio Free Damascus

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:06

Many Madhya Krishnas believe that Jesus Christ, peace be upon Him, He was

00:18

God. But if you read the Bible, there is not a single unequivocal statement, not a single unambiguous statement.

00:27

In the complete Bible, where Jesus Christ, peace be upon Him, Himself says that I am God, obeyed through worship.

00:43

And about this business of every knee shall bow, the question followed, look, Paul, what about this business here now?

00:49

It says here that every knee shall bow to God. And you're saying here to the Philippians that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.

00:58

So Paul assures, he says, look, don't get upset. That was just something for them. And I'll just fool around with those

01:03

Philippians. Because Jesus said it in so many ways that He's not

01:17

God, you just want to stick it to Him no matter what. I said, you're not reading your

01:30

Bible. You don't read your Bible properly. Yes, indeed,

02:08

Radio Free Damascus, where we catch up on the stuff we didn't get done yesterday. I still love that.

02:16

It was just playing around with them Philippians. It's funny, unlike Algo, I don't normally listen to my own debates very much.

02:26

You know, I don't sit there and repeat them all. I should! It would probably help my memory. But I will never forget sitting there.

02:33

I can still see where I was sitting. It was hot. I remember which side of the room

02:40

I was sitting on, what the room looked like, and where people were sitting when Hamza Abdel -Malik actually made that statement that he was just messing with them

02:51

Philippians. He was playing with them Philippians. What's that? Fooling with them Philippians.

02:56

And I remember looking at Chris Arnzen, who was sitting down in the front row with this.

03:03

I mean, clearly, if the camera had been on me, I would have looked absolutely dumbfounded that anyone could actually seriously suggest in a debate that Paul was just fooling around with them

03:17

Philippians. But, hey, you know, you gotta find some way. Gotta find some way around the clarity of Scripture.

03:26

Welcome to Radio Free Damascus, a service of The Dividing Line. As I mentioned yesterday, we didn't get a chance really to finish up, but we need to finish up.

03:36

We have been doing jumbo -sized dividing lines just so I can try to get through some of the important material prior to our heading down to South Africa via London.

03:47

And we are only about six or seven minutes, which at higher speed isn't even a full six or seven minutes, from the end of Bashir Vania's opening statement.

03:56

Then we're going to switch over to Yusuf Ismail. And it's going to take a while to work through this stuff because, for example,

04:05

Yusuf is going to throw out stuff about Apollonius of Tyana and Mithraism.

04:12

And there'll be a lot of stuff here. If you're involved in just standard apologetics, dealing with all the bad stuff on the net that is, most of it has been refuted for a long, long time.

04:28

But the internet allows you to continuously repeat bad arguments for a long, long time.

04:37

And so that's what you've got going on there. Anyways, let's jump back into Bashir Vania, try to get this finished up, and then move on from there.

04:50

And it would be helpful if I had actually clicked in the right program. Hey, when that happens...

04:55

I mean, if Jesus taught in parables and there's a parable, no little wonder then that the Crusaders used this verse as justification for slaughtering hundreds and thousands of innocent

05:03

Muslims when they took over Jerusalem. Well, given that, well, innocent Muslims, I love that perspective.

05:11

It's interesting, historically, Muslims viewed the Crusades as military. It is a modern thing to view them in religious context and in the way that it's viewed today.

05:25

In those days, they viewed it as military actions, which most of it was.

05:31

But the quotation, the parable he's talking about was when Jesus talks about the coming day of judgment.

05:43

And so I guess, if that's an objection, that someone could misuse a parable of Jesus.

05:50

I mean, none of the Crusaders were Jesus, were they? Was that the day of judgment, was it? No, of course not. So if the argument is the

05:58

Bible's wrong because it can be misused, then isn't, according to Bashir Vania, the Koran being misused every day?

06:06

When Michael from Nigeria is standing on a street in London with human blood dripping off of his hands, quoting the

06:14

Koran, does that mean the Koran's wrong? Is the ability of a text to be abused evidence of its non -inspiration?

06:25

So anything that's inspired can't be misused. I can think of all sorts of texts in the

06:31

Koran that any non -jihadist Muslim has to say are being abused and misused every single day.

06:37

Strike at their necks, right? Right? All sorts of quotes from Surah 9 about fighting the infidel, wherever you find them.

06:47

Well, there is a context. Oh, you mean it can be misused? Oh, well, why can't there be a misuse of our texts too?

06:56

Again, vast majority of the time, what you're dealing with is double standards, the use of one standard for the

07:03

Koran and a different standard for the Bible. And that's what we've got to deal with. I have, what, five minutes left?

07:09

Okay. The Koran, chapter 55, verses 1 and 2, God most gracious, it is

07:16

He who has taught the Koran. It is He that has created man. So we are told from within the covers of the

07:24

Koran, God is the author, and we are also given the title of the book, Al -Koran, the reading, the recitation.

07:34

Let's contrast this. Firstly, the word Bible does not appear within the covers of the

07:40

Bible. Evidently, the argument is that if the book doesn't have its title in it, therefore it's somehow not inspired.

07:47

I missed the part where that is somehow made relevant to the issue of inspiration.

07:54

And of course, to even assert that the Bible, that term has to be in the

08:01

Bible to be inspired, or the Bible calls itself the Bible, or anything. We're talking about the Old and New Covenants here.

08:08

And evidently, Prophet Jesus forgot to bring this up, too, because there's no evidence of that anywhere in anything that's quoted.

08:16

It's interesting, Bashir is going to give us the classic example of the double standard again, in just a moment or two, because he's going to raise the issue of the

08:27

Song of Solomon, which he says doesn't have the name of God in it. But then he's going to say, but it does have the name of Muhammad in it.

08:34

He's going to go for the Song of Solomon 516, Mahmoudim, actually, argument, which

08:41

I think was fairly fully taken apart in the debate in the mosque in London just last year.

08:49

So we won't spend too much time on that, but it's funny. A descriptive phrase, a descriptive word in the

09:00

Song of Solomon can be perfectly transmitted over time, and that's

09:06

Scripture. But books written long afterwards, with far more documentary evidence, can be corrupted easily.

09:15

That is the New Testament books. Again, apply the same standards. You'd never come up with this kind of stuff, but my

09:23

Muslim friends just are almost never challenged to do that. They're almost never challenged to actually think through these issues and to apply the standards in a fair way.

09:32

From the Greek public collection of books, the words Old and New Testament do not appear within the cover, within the writings of the

09:42

Bible. The Gospels, as we have read from Professor Peek's commentary, was not entitled

09:52

Gospels only until a later age. What do you mean a later age?

09:59

They are known and quoted. What does it matter what they're called? Who cares what terminology people use to describe them?

10:08

They are quoted from the very beginning, from the earliest Christian materials that we possess.

10:17

Now, very frequently, these folks grab hold of stuff they find on the net, they don't check it out for themselves.

10:23

There's a statement by Yusuf Ismail in his debate with Michael Icona, saying that people like Tertullian and Justin didn't know anything about the

10:33

Gospels when they quote from them constantly. There's just a lot of this kind of stuff which demonstrates in the vast majority of instances.

10:43

And I can understand why this is. Look, I can understand why this is, but I'm just identifying what the source of the errors are.

10:49

These folks are quoting stuff they've gotten from someplace else. They haven't done the work themselves. They've looked it up, they're getting it from second - or third -hand sources.

10:56

Sometimes it's next to impossible to get hold of first -hand sources unless you just spend your life studying things.

11:02

Believe me, I am thankful that since 2005, so many of you keep an eye on the—well, so many of you have helped over the years, only a few of you actually regularly keep an eye on the

11:14

Ministry of Resource List. But those that do, I'm very, very, very thankful for the fact that you do that.

11:20

But just to obtain first -level scholarship materials on Islam is very expensive.

11:29

Not very fast. It's not something that can be done easily. And still much more that needs to be done, certainly, in that area.

11:37

And I've felt many times the pressure to try to be extremely fair.

11:46

In fact, many people have commented upon the ironic tone of my book on the Quran. And part of that comes from the fact that I'm trying to be consistent here.

11:55

And if I don't have access to meaningful argumentation on the subject, then I have to be careful.

12:06

Because that's—I'm trying to say, you all need to do it, so I need to do it in return. We have the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

12:13

We do not have the Gospel according to Jesus by Jesus. Because there was no such thing, obviously.

12:19

It is, I believe, a misinterpretation of the Quran to think that you have to have one.

12:26

Or if it's a correct interpretation of the Quran, it just shows the ignorance of the of the Quran, who thought that Jesus wrote a book called the

12:32

Injil. That's all there is to it. There is no evidence anything like that ever existed, none whatsoever.

12:40

A single Arabic man with no knowledge, not having read the

12:45

New Testament, writing 600 years later, is insufficient evidence upon which to say, oh, Jesus was given a book called the

12:52

Injil. And so we need to find that. There's no evidence anywhere. I would challenge any

12:57

Muslim apologist. Show me where there is any meaningful evidence that such a book ever existed.

13:03

And if you, again, and this is where Muslims are just so inconsistent, because the

13:09

Quran does not give you any idea that the original followers of Jesus were just a bunch of cowards.

13:16

But that's what the conclusion you have to derive from Islamic understandings really is, because if Jesus wrote a

13:23

Gospel, boy, his followers were really a bunch of failures that there is not a single mention of anything even remotely like that.

13:32

Anything even remotely like that. Don't go playing with Gnostics and stuff like that. Look, any

13:38

Muslim who quotes a Gnostic as if this is someone supportive of Islam is clearly ignorant, massively ignorant, or dishonest, one of the two, in regards to the nature of both

13:54

Islamic belief and especially of Gnostic belief. Don't even go there. Don't start talking to me about, well, these must be the original followers of Jesus.

14:03

Yeah, because they believed in demiurges and they play Roma and eons. And then you start explaining all that stuff and the

14:10

Muslim is looking at you like, what? It's just so completely contradictory to Islamic understanding of the entire

14:18

Islamic cosmology. That it's just another example of, wow, really?

14:24

You really want to go there? We have the Book of Esther and the

14:30

Song of Solomon. These are books within the covers of the Bible, but the name of God isn't mentioned in these two books.

14:38

So? So? I mean, again, you have to challenge, okay, where are you getting these canonical standards from?

14:52

Who announced them? Were they found in the pages of the Bible? Don't go 600 years later and come up with some Islamic concept and force it back upon the

14:59

New Testament, or in this case, even further back upon the Old Testament. What was the context in which they were written?

15:05

What was the understanding at that particular time, etc., etc.? Don't engage in an anachronism.

15:11

They are in the Book of God, but nowhere is the word or the name God mentioned in the

15:16

Book of Esther or Song of Solomon. Incidentally, in the Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse 16, the name of the

15:22

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is mentioned. So I'm inclined to look kindly upon the

15:28

Song of Solomon. Well, there you go. Anachronism to the nth degree. Again, with all due respect to Bishirvania, it is very difficult, very, very difficult for me to have a whole lot of respect for this argument.

15:48

Again, listen carefully to the debate from the East London Mosque on this particular subject that took place last year, right around, not quite, right around 11 months ago, and And you will,

16:03

I think, hear a rather compelling argument why trying to find in an adjective, an adjectival form, the name of a prophet from 600 years later is a gross abuse, a gross abuse of the text of the

16:29

Old Testament and is simply something that anyone who is familiar with linguistics and with translation of language realize is a completely inappropriate thing to do.

16:45

Just, it can be used to prove absolutely positively anything, anything at all.

16:52

And if it can be used to prove anything at all, that means it has no value at all. None whatsoever.

17:00

Just, just keep that in mind. Finally, the Quran, chapter 73, verses 1 to 4, the

17:07

Quran says, Stand to prayer by night, but not all night, and recite the Quran in slow, measured, throat -like tones, and recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes of the signs of wisdom, signs of God and His wisdom, chapter 33, verse 34.

17:23

Evidence from within the covers of the Quran that the Quran was memorized during the lifetime of the

17:31

Prophet, peace be upon him, it was recited in prayer, and it was written down.

17:38

Little wonder then that even hostile critics of Islam accept this, and they claim that as regards the authenticity and historical reliability of the

17:51

Quran, there is no question. Um, of course, there are all sorts of questions that haven't been raised.

17:58

The idea that the Quran existed as a unified, completed, organized body at the death of Muhammad is simply contradictory to the

18:08

Islamic sources themselves. There's just, there's no way to make that fit with the fear expressed after the

18:16

Battle of Yalmama, where it is specifically stated that if more of the Quran were to die, a large portion, kathir, a large portion of the

18:27

Quran would be lost. And outside of Islamic sources, again, al -Kindi narrates the same tradition, but comes to the conclusion that a large portion of the

18:41

Quran was lost. There's just all sorts of things that haven't been raised, and the vast majority of Muslims do not even know of these issues, or have just simply dismissed them.

18:50

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Um, that's, that's just how it works.

18:57

So that was the opening statement that Bashir Vania made in the debate with Jay Smith. If time allows, going to his rebuttal and some of the audience questions would be very, very good, but I really felt that there would be even more value, apologetically to the entirety of the audience, to listen to Yusuf Ismail's opening in his debate with David Seacombe on the

19:25

Christian and Muslim views of the New Testament. Now, just in a general statement, I was a little disappointed.

19:33

David Seacombe's opening statement was very good, but it was more of a presentation of New Testament Christianity than it was a defense of the

19:44

New Testament. So it was like the debate was taking place on two very different planes.

19:51

Um, and so when your opponent, when you've given, when you've taken 40 minutes explaining what the

20:00

New Testament is, and then your opponent has 40 minutes to attack and to throw a wide variety of attacks at the credibility of the

20:10

New Testament rather than at the message of the New Testament, and then you've only got like, I think, 15 minutes to respond to that, you're way behind the curve.

20:18

You're just not going to have time to be able to even come close to responding to all of that material.

20:27

And so that was one of the frustrating things for me in listening to this. Obviously, I think it would have been better, given the nature of the discussion, since this was a discussion only of the

20:43

Christian scriptures, for the Muslim to go first, make the arguments against it, and then at least the

20:48

Christian has equal time to respond to the arguments, because it always takes longer to respond to an argument than to make an argument.

20:56

When you think about it, when you are explaining the errors in someone's position, that always takes longer than the enunciation of the erroneous argument in the first place.

21:11

That's why debates are somewhat backwards, in that you almost always have longer opening statements, and then everything gets progressively shorter after that.

21:23

And so that's a real challenge. That's something difficult to deal with. Anyway, we're going to start off here.

21:31

Now, I've mentioned this to Yusuf Ismail, and I will mention it to the entire audience.

21:42

I think we should carry this, if we could. It's PNR. We can get PNR stuff, can't we? Okay. The Gospel and the

21:50

Greeks, by Ronald H. Nash. I would say that one volume that everyone in the audience should read, simply so as to be prepared for what

22:09

I will call internet cyber scholarship, would be

22:17

Ronald H. Nash's book, The Gospel and the Greeks. Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? All right?

22:23

It's not a hugely long book. It's shorter than my book on the

22:29

Quran, but it really will provide you with what you need in an overarching sense, in the sense of really understanding what the issues are, to begin to respond to the plethora of pseudo -scholarship that is available on the internet.

22:52

And the vast majority of folks do not have the background to recognize pseudo -scholarship. You find, well, here's a book being quoted.

22:59

If it's in a book, it must be right. It's quoting the Gnostic Christ. If it's been written, it must be good.

23:05

No, actually, that does not follow at all. If you'll read

23:11

Nash, you'll learn about parallelomania and the whole mindset behind those who attempt to create parallels between various religious movements.

23:26

It's based upon, there's a certain worldview involved, there's a certain historiography involved, all of which is extremely challengeable, which is almost never mentioned in the internet pseudo -scholarship.

23:39

And yet, these are some of the most effective convo -stoppers out there.

23:52

And so, you as individuals, again, my thesis is that all

23:59

Christians, all Christians should be prepared to respond to these kinds of arguments, because we are living in a day where each one of us is going to be called to function as apologists.

24:18

To function as the one who may be the individual who provides the information, who provides the argument, who provides the witness, the testimony that God can use to bring

24:27

His like people unto Himself. That is our privilege. It is something that we should sacrifice to be able to do.

24:35

So, Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks, if we don't get it up, get it from Amazon, whatever, just get it, read it, get the background material, be aware, and be able to respond to these arguments.

24:53

Because you will see, right at the beginning, now, right at the beginning Yusuf Ismail is going to quote from Bart Ehrman.

25:02

And he's going to actually suggest that the folks at Dr. Seacombe's school utilized

25:12

Bart Ehrman's The New Testament, A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings as a textbook there. Well, thankfully we have excellent

25:20

New Testament backgrounds that are actually written by people who do not have a completely different worldview than New Testament writers, and hence can allow the

25:27

New Testament to speak for itself, that are far, far better than anything that Bart Ehrman could ever produce, which is unbelief from the start.

25:34

But again, the reliance of Muslims upon unbelievers, non -supernaturalists, secularists, is striking to me, and I think, if you are a thinking

25:45

Muslim, should cause you some reason to stop and think. Why is it that in defense of your faith you cannot provide an

25:53

Islamic critique? Because, I'm sorry, quoting from Bart Ehrman, quoting from a happy agnostic, quoting from a man who would laugh if he was brave enough to even address it, would laugh at the historicity of the claims of the

26:05

Quran, and would laugh at the splitting of the moon, and would laugh at Muhammad going to heaven and flying on a winged creature to Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back again, and seeing a caravan, and all the rest of the kind of stuff that is part and parcel of Islamic belief.

26:22

If he would laugh at all of those things, the fact that you have to utilize his worldview and his conclusions to make your arguments against the

26:31

New Testament in defense of the Quran should say something very loudly to you, if you're thinking about it.

26:42

And the reason I raise these issues is to cause you to think about it. But listen to the opening and ask yourself the question.

26:52

Now, folks in this audience, you're probably aware of how to answer some of this.

27:04

Some of you may have listened to my debate with James Price, who

27:11

I don't think gets through almost any presentation without mentioning Apollonius of Tyana. Or if you, like Algo, listened to the dividing lines leading up to that debate, just like we are doing now, back then, years ago,

27:24

I would play materials from Dr. Price and then respond.

27:30

And so we went into depth and discussion of Apollonius of Tyana and various other elements of his particular atheistic approach to the subject.

27:41

And it's funny, I just had a flash right then of hearing his voice mentioning

27:51

Apollonius of Tyana. And of course, what did it come accompanied with? But the location on the canal

27:57

I was at writing when I listened to him say that. So it's just sort of, that's how that works.

28:06

Anyway, we have dealt with these things in the past. So if you have listened to those debates, then you're going to go, okay, yeah.

28:13

But if you have not, if you don't know who Apollonius of Tyana was, or may have been, and the issues regarding the paucity of information that we have, the questions concerning the reliability of that material, the late nature of that material, the vast contrast between the worldview represented in Apollonius of Tyana, the vast contrast in the textual background of the materials and the breadth of the materials in comparison to the

28:42

New Testament. In other words, all the vast differences between the two. If you're not aware of all those things, then listen to how

28:48

Yusuf Ismail begins and ask yourself the question, how would

28:54

I have responded to this material? What we're discussing tonight is the

28:59

New Testament, the Holy Bible. I've got here the International Standard Version and the New Testament. Before I go into that, just before I go into that,

29:06

I'd like to bring for your attention, I think if there's all students of theology, and maybe David, as a recommendation perhaps to George Whitfield College, I've got here a textbook which is used at the

29:16

University of North Carolina. It's called The New Testament, a Historical Introduction to Early Christian Writings.

29:23

A fascinating work. It's the third edition by Professor Bart Ehrman. At the prelude, and certainly at the outset, he begins with a chapter called

29:33

The World of Early Christian Traditions. He speaks about one remarkable life. He says, from the beginning, his mother knew that he was no ordinary person.

29:41

Prior to his birth, a heavenly figure appeared to her, announcing that a son would not be a mere mortal, but would he himself be divine.

29:47

The prophecy was confirmed by the miraculous character of his birth, a birth accompanied by supernatural signs. As an adult, he left home to engage in an itinerant preaching ministry.

29:56

Now, by the way, let me just, he's just reading, I could read the exact same section, pages 20 to 21 of the book, it's sitting here.

30:04

I have, I think I have a complete Ehrman library. I think I do. In fact,

30:10

I probably have a more complete Ehrman library than almost anybody else I know. Why? Because I have his doctoral dissertation.

30:17

And before I debated him, I read his doctoral dissertation, and I bet you only a few other people have done that on the early development of the

30:25

Alexandrian text in particular sources. But anyway, you need to realize that anytime you read something like this, this is incredibly selective.

30:36

If I were to write up a similarly length, similar length presentation of Apollonius's life, and this is all from a, from hundreds of years after the fact, from Flavius Philostratus, this is, let's see, what's the date on this one?

31:01

This is F .C. Coneybear's English translation. Not a very well done publication here, is it?

31:10

I guess it would be the no date thing. It doesn't give a date on this one.

31:17

It was probably the cheapest one I could get, I guess. Anyways, if I were to utilize these materials to put together a presentation,

31:25

I could emphasize the non -similar, the dissimilarities, the contradictions, the places where the worship of the gods and the polytheism and the actions of Apollonius Tiana would make him sound completely different than Jesus.

31:43

Completely. It would be easy to do. Easy to do. So, Ehrman is being extremely selective here.

31:49

My question for Yusuf Ismail, have you read all the life of Apollonius Tiana?

31:54

I have. Are you aware that he's being selective here? And if you're just trusting him to be fair, why would you trust a happy agnostic apostate?

32:07

The man's a former Christian. Do you just normally trust all former Muslims to be absolutely accurate in their representations of Islam?

32:17

Hmm. It'd just be a question that I would ask. In ministry, he went from village to town with his message of the good news, proclaiming that people should forego their concerns for them.

32:25

By the way, good news as in gospel? What was

32:31

Apollonius' good news? His was a philosophical, Greek philosophical worldview message.

32:38

It wasn't a good news. It wasn't repent and believe in the Messiah who has come or anything even similarly like it.

32:45

He's a polytheist. The contrast between a polytheist and a monotheist in their message is going to be very wide.

32:54

But of course, Ehrman does not mention that aspect of things. Material things of life, such as they should dress and what they should eat.

33:03

Even after he departed Israel, even though he reportedly predicted the future, he healed the sick, he cast out demons, and he raised the dead.

33:09

Even after he... And he did all sorts of other things that Jesus didn't do. And the reasons why he did anything allegedly miraculous were completely different than those of Jesus.

33:21

Completely different. And again, I just ask Yusuf, because I'm in communication with Yusuf.

33:27

I'm asking him to listen to these programs. Are you aware of these differences? Or are you just trusting that Ehrman is giving a fair representation?

33:36

Because he's not. He's not. I mean, let me put it this way.

33:41

Let me just ask Yusuf directly. Yusuf, have you not read some amazingly inaccurate, unfair synopses of the life of Muhammad?

33:52

Did it bother you? Did it cause you to question the integrity and the fairness of the person who wrote that?

34:02

Here's what I'd ask you, Yusuf. I've sent... We sent the books off last week.

34:07

Hopefully get there soon. Read my chapter on the life of Muhammad and then ask yourself a question.

34:23

Why would you be comfortable quoting an agnostic, clearly a man making a ton of money attacking the

34:32

Christian faith as an apostate? Why would you be comfortable repeating his summary of this story in comparison to why

34:41

I spent so much time and effort to be fair in my recitation about the life of Muhammad in my book?

34:50

Why is there such a massive difference? That would be a question I would ask. He departed this realm, however, he did not forsake his devoted followers.

34:57

Some claimed that he had ascended bodily into heaven. Others said that he had appeared unto them alive. Afterwards that he had talked with them and he touched them.

35:02

A number of his followers spread the good news about this man, recounting what they had said or had to say about him. Now realize there is no meaningful historical or documentary parallel to the resurrection accounts provided within the context of Second Temple Judaism in the first century by the

35:25

Gospel writers and the idea of Apollonius of Tyana and his presence with his disciples in a

35:34

Greek polytheistic philosophical context. If you think there is, you do not understand historiography at all.

35:43

You don't. You're making it up as you're going along. The number of witnesses, the context of the witnesses, the primitive nature of the witnesses in comparison to the almost non -existent witnesses in a completely different world view and context for Apollonius, if you can compare them, then you can compare anything.

36:10

You can compare football teams to baseball teams and you can compare ice cream to nails.

36:15

It doesn't matter because categories mean nothing to you. Nothing to you at all. And yet you'll find this kind of stuff all the time.

36:25

Well Bart Ehrman's a great scholar. Doesn't mean he's not massively prejudiced, in fact, bigoted on the subject.

36:33

In fact, I would suggest to you that an apostate for religion might not be the first person you want to go to.

36:39

You know what I mean? Especially when they're making money from being an apostate. You make good money with New York Times bestsellers.

36:46

You really do. I wouldn't know because none of my books will ever be New York Times bestsellers. It's not possible.

36:54

Especially in this culture, this day. But you do, just think about that for a second.

37:01

Now if someone were to ask you and I did this in the typical fashion that a commentator would give a horse race.

37:09

By the way, just in case you're wondering, when I first heard this, did I know where he was going? Of course

37:14

I did. He hadn't gone through two sentences before I said, oh no, not

37:19

Apollonius again. But if I were to ask, who is this person? Who is this person?

37:25

Born to a virgin, born miraculously, who is he? Did many mighty words, many deeds, his enemies trumped up charges against him.

37:32

He was placed on trial before the Roman authorities. And if I were to tell you you never heard him, you would say, well look,

37:39

I haven't got my facts correct. Just wait for the people to come. So, the question is, who is this miracle working son of God?

37:54

And the answer to that is quite clear. It's this individual here. This individual, this man, and this is a quotation by Bartholomew, and the man

38:01

I have been referring to is a great Neo -Pythagorean teacher and pagan holy man of the first century.

38:08

Apollonius of Tyana, a worshipper of the Roman gods whose life and teachings are still available for us in the writings of his later works, the follower

38:15

Philostratus in his book The Life of Apollonius. And Apollonius lived at about the time of Jesus, even though they never met.

38:21

Actually, he was a little bit after that, most probably. They met, the reports about their lives more like around Paul were similar in many respects.

38:30

Now, this is an individual who has a parallel life to Jesus as recorded at that particular point in time.

38:37

Parallel life. This is something that Yusuf Ismail has repeated many, many times. In fact, I believe I did a video response to Yusuf Ismail years ago, well, years ago, three, four, five years ago, on this very assertion.

38:52

And it is one of his primary arguments. It hopefully will not be something that we're debating this time around.

38:58

I've told him I would be happy to debate this because I do not believe it is an open and shut case.

39:06

It is an open and shut case. It is impossible to defend this kind of presentation in formal debate if both sides have the equal amount of time and if the deciding factor of the debate is consistency of the use of sources.

39:23

It's not possible. It's not possible. So I've said I'd be happy to do this sometime, not this particular trip, but I would be happy if he actually thinks that, well, yeah, the whole story of Jesus just made up, you know.

39:37

But I've directed him to Dr. Nash's book and I would direct everybody else to the same thing.

39:45

I can give you hundreds of other figures of individuals like Sol Invictus. We're not going to deal with that tonight. Mithra and so on.

39:51

Okay. Sol Invictus, Mithra. Now, he is used especially the

39:58

Mithra name many, many times in the past. And you've heard them all before.

40:07

Oh, you've got Osiris down from Egypt. You've got

40:12

Mithraism which came out of Iran. You've got Dionysus, Greek.

40:20

When you hear these things, I think one of the reasons that Christians sit back and they don't even necessarily engage this is because you go,

40:32

I've got an 8 to 6 job and I'm trying to stay active in my church and I've got to be involved because I don't have time to be learning all this stuff about history.

40:49

I just don't. Maybe that's why you listen to podcasts. This is one of the best ways you're driving to work.

40:54

There's a lot of people driving to work, driving home from work, doing whatever you do and we do our best to try to give you lots of that information.

41:03

But a lot of folks just go, how in the world I can't become an expert on Greek mythology?

41:12

But what I'm trying to suggest to people is you don't necessarily have to become an expert in all of these individual areas to be able to see the fundamental problem in making these assertions.

41:26

You have to think presuppositionally. What is the presupposition?

41:33

That early Christianity was some type of syncretistic religion that's thrashing about looking for something to borrow from because it doesn't have anything to go for, to go with.

41:48

Now, for the Muslim, immediately that is impossible. A Muslim who believes the

41:53

Quran can't go there. The Quran affirms the ministry of Jesus.

42:00

Now, it does it, ironically, by utilizing, sometimes, sources that are post -canonical, post -biblical, and historically laughable.

42:12

The Quran steals from false historical sources because the author of the Quran didn't know they were false historical sources.

42:20

And the very sources that Yusuf Ismail will quote would, if consistently applied, refute the inspiration of the

42:31

Quran. It always makes me smile just a little bit that they don't realize this. And that they're using such a double standard that is actually completely contradictory to their own claims of inspiration for the

42:44

Quran, especially when the Quran is quoting from the infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Arabic infancy

42:49

Gospels and all these sources that, again, I document in the book.

42:56

And I didn't just quote from other sources in the book for a number of the interestingly enough for at least one of the sources that I did not have the original to I quoted

43:06

Urman's translations since they seemed to like Urman so much. But when I did have the originals

43:11

I translated them myself. When I had access to the Greek originals

43:18

I translated them myself. And so I gave that information. And that would be a really that would be a really good debate second time around for South Africa.

43:29

Does the Quran quote from erroneous extra -biblical sources?

43:37

That would be that would be really good. I think that would be very helpful. Because I doubt the vast majority of Muslims have ever even heard the accusation before let alone seen the documentation.

43:48

But let's just think about Mithra for just a moment. Okay, can we just well, let me start out with Dionysus.

43:55

I love Dionysus. Alleged parallels Dionysus and the idea of virgin birth.

44:08

Because folks who look at the text and look and actually look for original sources realize that what you've really got going on here is there are normally numerous versions of these stories.

44:33

And you can tell when people say well, you know Dionysus was virgin which of the many Dionysus myths are you drawing from there?

44:40

What's your original source here? And they'll sort of look at you. Well, I read it on a web page.

44:47

The closest I've ever found to a source of the

44:57

Dionysus stories and the reason

45:02

I'm stopping and starting here is my video feed has frozen so I can't see what's going on outside anymore which bothers me but I'm glad I don't know why it's done that but it has decided to do that.

45:16

There we go. The closest source I've found was a version that indicates that after Dionysus's mom was killed by one of the gods these are all polytheistic stories which is by the way one of the most fundamental disconnects because remember

45:38

Christianity is absolutely monotheistic. The idea that monotheistic Jews are running out to Egypt or someplace else to get the substance of the argumentation they're going to use to try to convince

45:49

Jews to join them is so absurd that it just it's hard for me to not laugh at the whole thinking.

45:58

It really really is. But anyway the closest version of Dionysus I can get is that after his mom is killed by the gods

46:08

Zeus takes the developing baby and sews it in his thigh and this is the alleged parallel to a virgin birth is that the child comes out of Zeus's thigh.

46:26

Yeah, okay, good. Back to Mithra. Mithraism was a syncretistic religion that came out of Iran modern day

46:38

Iran obviously that particular part of the world it

46:45

I would challenge anyone who wants to say that the

46:51

Christian myth is based upon the Mithraic myth prove that Mithraism was widespread enough and well known enough in the first century to have even you know if you blame all this on Paul Paul's sitting around going all right

47:09

I'm going to start a religion okay I wasn't doing too well in mine so I'm going to start a whole new religion all right let's start off by taking a

47:21

Jewish messiah who's crucified which none of the Jews expect and which the Romans find disgusting and then

47:29

I think this Mithraism thing this looks cool so I'm going to borrow the idea of sacrifice and resurrection and the birthday of Jesus um from Mithraism because it's really popular proved to me it was popular proved to me that in at the time when

47:49

Paul is allegedly coming up with this stuff that that would have made any sense at all you always hear about the the dying and rising and all the rest of this kind of stuff you got to realize at which stage in the slow development of the

48:04

Mithraic myth do you think this comes in can you prove that there's any of this prior to the time of Christianity prior to the earliest references the dying and rising of Jesus Christ I mean hopefully you're not going to do all this so there are hundreds of dying and rising gods that is just baloney it is pure baloney if you're trying to parallel it with Jesus none of them were monotheistic the vast majority of any of these dying and rising things had to do with the cyclical crop rotation for crying out loud do you really think that's what's behind Jesus is is the crop rotations stuff dies in the fall and awakes in the spring after the winter that's where it came from honestly

48:48

I mean come on think this through it is amazing to me that people continue to make this kind of argumentation but here's the funny part what you always hear

48:59

Dan Barker made this error that's why he objected to my quoting his own book which he was selling in the lobby of the in the lobby of the church we were debating don't quote me bro um

49:11

Dan Barker makes the same argument page 270 of his book Godless Mithra was born the 25th of December which is finally taken over by Christians in the 4th century as the birthday of Christ now of course the bible doesn't say when the date of the birth of Jesus is it's not part of the

49:31

Christian scriptures there is no orthodox dogma on the date of the birth of Christ the reality is that January 6th was discussed earlier than December 25th in the patristic sources and what is more

49:45

Mithraism coming into the Roman Empire in the 2nd century arrives too late to be relevant to the formation of Christianity if you think otherwise prove it from original sources please thank you um what is more there is much dispute as to who borrowed from who at this point as there is reason to identify

50:08

Christian discussion of December 25th prior to the earliest

50:14

Mithraic references what is more think about it given the nature of Mithraism which is a syncretistic religion it borrows from everything it runs into just like Gnosticism did what would be more likely that Mithraism borrowed from the rising

50:35

Christian religion or that Christianity borrowed from the dying Mithraic religion

50:46

I mean that's obvious isn't it yeah of course it is so the fact that you have earlier discussion of December 25th amongst

50:54

Christians which is generally related there's a fascinating someday and maybe if I have time uh this year

51:03

I always intend to do this but I never get around to doing it maybe if I have time this year before Christmas um

51:13

I will try to do a program I'm saying I'm just gonna try don't hold it to me

51:19

I don't know what's gonna happen it's Deo Valente if the Lord wills um there's a fascinating article by Roger Beckwith on the chronology of the service of the priests in the temple around the time of the birth of Jesus and that provides some fascinating possibilities that basically point to January 6th which is the

51:58

Eastern Orthodox uh time of the celebration of Christmas and you have a division there between East and West and things like that but maybe this year we'll get around to doing it

52:15

I don't know but there's just when you go back to the actual sources not to internet websites but to the actual sources there is so much material that demonstrates that these kinds of alleged parallels are bogus to the extreme the extreme the problem is vast majority of folks who use the types of argument don't care just don't care it sounds good it's nice surface level quick easy and you move on from there so we be the ones that need to be talking about these things and prepare to give an answer we've got parallel lives to Jesus and we begin to question and have to scratch our heads how is it possible that individuals living sometimes hundreds of years centuries before Christ had identical biographies in respect of their birth in respect of their death as what

53:14

Jesus had as narrated by John only from original historical sources it'll never happen because it's not possible this is not possible i can demonstrate far too many fatal fatal to the theory differences fatal contradictions fatal category errors that to any fair -minded observer audience would and the debate right there you say while you sound very calm about that yep i do should be because it's true now at the outset uh...

54:43

the new testament uh... in fact it's it's not it consists of twenty seven books i thought david said uh...

54:48

twenty two twenty three twenty seven books by fifteen or sixteen different christian writers fifteen or sixteen now he was right david had misspoken and said twenty two i'd cut that as well obviously and as i i think he was i think it was a uh...

55:05

mental thing there because uh... twenty -two is a common number for the old testament books in the in the hebrew order the canon the minor prophets being one and lamentations being in rolled in jeremiah and stuff like that so twenty two and twenty four were numbers that were common in the old as i said i think he was just thinking about that instead of the twenty seven of the new sixteen authors i count around eight uh...

55:29

myself so i'm not sure how you come up with that we're addressing different communities now at the outset it's important to note and understand that these were not the only christian writings there were many others nor were the christian writings which we now have as the gospels were not inexistent as the gospels as we would have them in our form today uh...

55:50

what context are we talking about here? first century? uh... first hundred fifty years? uh...

55:57

i we do have this available and i do not have it in front of me i'm sorry uh...

56:04

we do make available the kostenberger uh...

56:10

edited book and uh... it's just completely escaping me right now uh...

56:17

the heresy of orthodoxy uh... the heresy of orthodoxy i would put that right up there with the nash book in fact we're getting that time of year since we're talking about christmas uh...

56:32

for yourself for your pastor for your elders for anyone in your church going to university think about and i had not thought about this before this is not some marketing trick this is something i'm just sitting here thinking just came up with think about putting together an apologetic emergency kit for all these folks your plan ahead they don't need a tie but good books always a good thing to give at this time of year and nash's book the kostenberger book uh...

57:20

heresy of orthodoxy uh... depending on where they're ministering you know there there are other books on line that i would consider scripture alone or something like that that would be uh...

57:32

they'll be useful give them books will help them to give them the foundation upon which to give a meaningful apologetic response heresy of orthodoxy documents from numerous sources the bankruptcy of the bauer hypothesis but the bar hypothesis is the absolute orthodoxy of the liberal left they won't defend it but they will utilize it it is part herman's fundamental assertion that early christianity was nothing but this man grab bag of all these different things all and great and i'm out of time will pick up at that point but look at the heresy of orthodoxy and recognize that it is the given today not because it's been proven it's actually been disproven but is the given amongst liberals today to say that early christianity was this grab bag of things they're all these different views and one one group just happened to win out there are all sorts of holes in that boat which is why it sank a long time ago but they're still down there about ten feet down rowing that's the problem we'll continue with our response to use of this mail you may have noticed these are topics that don't just have to deal with this long and the irony is that she should have anything to do with this long it is long as giving a consistently islamic supernaturalist critique of the new testament will continue that next time here on the dividing line thanks listening and uh...

59:15

the we need reformation means has been brought to you by alpha and omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at six oh two nine seven three four six zero two or write us at p o box three seven one zero six phoenix arizona eight five zero six nine you can also find us on the world wide web at a old man dot org that's a old m i a m dot o r g where you'll find a complete listing of james white's books tapes debates and tracks join us again next tuesday morning at eleven a .m.