Radio Free Damascus

The Double Standard in Criticizing the Bible and the Qur'an

Many mother Christians believe that Jesus Christ peace be upon him, he was God. But if you read the Bible, there is not a single unequivocal statement, not a single unambiguous statement. In the complete Bible, where Jesus Christ peace be upon him, himself says that I am God, or where he says worship.

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

So Paul assures us, look, don't get upset. That was just something for them. Now just fool around with those Philippians.

Because Jesus said it in so many ways that he's not God, you just want to stick it to him no matter what.

I said, you're not reading your Bible. You don't read your Bible properly. You know, God has got sons by the tons in the Bible. By the tons. You know, tons is the old measurement of weighing things. Tons.

Opening the Debate Response and Rebutting Misuse of Scripture

And now, coming to you live from our underground bunker deep beneath the madrasa where Ergen Kanner was trained in jihad and Arabic somewhere in Turkey or Beirut or Cairo or Ohio? Anyway, this is Radio Free Damascus.

Yes, indeed, Radio Free Damascus, where we catch up on the stuff we didn't get done yesterday. I still love that. It was just playing around with them Philippians. It's funny, unlike Algo, I don't normally listen to my own debates very much.

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

He was playing with them Philippians. What's that? Fooling with them Philippians. And I remember looking at Chris Arnzen, who was sitting down in the front row with this. I could not. I mean, I 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 Philippians.

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

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. 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.

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, Yusuf is going to throw out stuff about Apollonius of Tyana and Mithraism, 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. But the internet allows you to continuously repeat bad arguments for a long, long time.

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. And it would be helpful if I had actually clicked in the right program.

Hey, when that happens—.

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 Muslims when they took over Jerusalem.

Well, given that—well, innocent Muslims, I love that perspective. 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.

In those days, they viewed it as just military actions, which most of it was. But the quotation, the parable he's talking about, is when Jesus talks about the coming Day of Judgment. And so I guess, if that's an objection, that someone could misuse a parable of Jesus.

I mean, none of the Crusaders were Jesus, were they? Was that the Day of Judgment? No, of course not. So, if the argument is the Bible's wrong because it can be misused, then isn't, according to Bashir Vania, the Qur 'an being misused every day?

When Michael from Nigeria is standing on a street in London with human blood dripping off of his hands, quoting the Qur 'an, does that mean the Qur 'an's wrong? The Qur 'an's wrong is the ability of a text to be abused, evidence of its non-inspiration.

So anything that's inspired can't be misused. I can think of all sorts of texts in the Qur 'an that any non-jihadist Muslim has to say are being abused and misused every single day, strike at their necks, right?

Right? All sorts of quotes from Surah 9 about fighting the infidel, wherever you find them. 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?

See, again, vast majority of the time what you're dealing with is double standards, the use of one standard for the Qur 'an and a different standard for the Bible, and that's what we've got to deal with.

I have, what, five minutes left?

Okay. The Qur 'an, chapter 55, verses 1 and 2, God most gracious, it is He who has taught the Qur 'an, and it is He that has created man. So, we are told from within the covers of the Qur 'an, God is the author, and we are also given the title of the book, al-Qur 'an, the reading, the recitation.

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

Evidently, the argument is that if the book doesn't have its title in it, therefore, it's somehow not inspired. I missed the part where that is somehow made relevant to the issue of inspiration, and of course, to even assert that the Bible, that term has to be in the Bible to be inspired, or the Bible calls itself the Bible, or anything.

We're talking about the Old and New Covenants here, and evidently, Prophet Jesus forgot to bring this up, too, because there's no evidence of that anywhere in anything that's quoted. 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 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.

He's going to go for the Song of Solomon 516, Mahmadim, Mahmadim, actually, argument, which I think was fairly fully taken apart in the debate in the mosque in London just last year, so we won't spend too much time on that, but it's funny.

A descriptive phrase, a descriptive word in the Song of Solomon can be perfectly transmitted over time, and that's Scripture, but books written long afterwards with far more documentary evidence can be corrupted easily.

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

From the Greek public collection of books, the words Old and New Testament do not appear within the cover, within the writings of the Bible. The Gospels, as we have read from Professor Peek's commentary, was not entitled Gospels only until a later age.

What do you mean a later age? They are known and quoted. What does it matter what they're called? Who cares what terminology people use to describe them? They are quoted from the very beginning, from the earliest Christian materials that we possess.

Now, very frequently these folks grab hold of stuff they find, and that day they don't check it out for themselves. 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 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. 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.

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

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

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

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

And if I don't have access to meaningful argumentation on the subject, then, you know, I have to be careful. Because that's—I'm trying to say, you all need to do it, so I need to do it in return.

The Gospel According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Versus the Injil

We have the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We do not have the Gospel according to Jesus, by Jesus.

Because there was no such thing, obviously. It is, I believe, a misinterpretation of the Quran to think that you have to have one. Or, if it's a correct interpretation of the Quran, it just shows the ignorance of the writer of the Quran, who thought that Jesus wrote a book called the Injil.

That's all there is to it. There is no evidence anything like that ever existed. None whatsoever. A single Arabic man with no knowledge, not having read the New Testament, writing 600 years later, is insufficient evidence upon which to say, oh, Jesus was given a book called the Injil, and so we need to find that.

There's no evidence anywhere. I would challenge any Muslim apologist, show me where there is any meaningful evidence that such a book ever existed. And if you—again, and this is where Muslims are just so inconsistent, because the Quran does not give you any idea that the original followers of Jesus were just a bunch of cowards.

But that's what the conclusion you have to derive from Islamic understandings really is, because if Jesus wrote a gospel, boy, his followers were really a bunch of failures. That there is not a single mention of anything even remotely like that.

Anything even remotely like that. Don't go playing with Gnostics and stuff like that. Look, any 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 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. Yeah, because they believed in demiurges and they play Roma and eons. And then you start explaining all that stuff and the Muslim's looking at you like, what?

It's just so completely contradictory to Islamic understanding of— the entire Islamic cosmology, that it's just another example of, you know, wow, really, you really want to go there?

We have the Book of Esther and the Song of Solomon. These are books within the covers of the Bible, but the name of God isn't mentioned in these two books. So?

So? I mean, again, where are—you have to challenge, okay, where are you getting these canonical standards from? Who announced them? Where are 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 New Testament, or in this case, even further back upon the Old Testament.

What was the context in which they were written? What was the understanding at that particular time? Et cetera, et cetera. Don't engage in an anachronism.

They are in the Book of God, but nowhere is the word or the name God mentioned in the Book of Esther or Song of Solomon. Incidentally, in the Song of Solomon, chapter 5 verse 16, the name of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is mentioned.

So, I'm inclined to look kindly upon the 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. 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 you will, 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 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.

It can be used to prove absolutely positively anything, anything at all. And if it can be used to prove anything at all, that means it has no value at all, none whatsoever.

Just keep that in mind. Finally, the Qur 'an, chapter 73, verses 1 to 4. The Qur 'an says, stand to prayer by night, but not all night, and recite the Qur 'an in slow, measured, rhythmic tones, and recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes of the signs of God and His wisdom, chapter 33, verse 34.

Evidence from within the covers of the Qur 'an that the Qur 'an was memorized during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him. It was recited in prayer and it was written down. Little wonder then that even hostile critics of Islam accept this and they claim that as regards the authenticity and historical reliability of the Qur 'an, there is no question.

Of course, there are all sorts of questions. They just haven't been raised. The idea that the Qur 'an existed as a unified, completed, organized body at the death of Muhammad is simply contradictory to the Islamic sources themselves.

There's no way to make that fit with the fear expressed after the Battle of Yalmama, where it is specifically stated that if more of the Qur 'an were to die, a large portion, kathir, a large portion of the Qur 'an 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 Qur 'an was lost. There's just all sorts of things that just haven't been raised.

And the vast majority of Muslims do not even know of these issues or have just simply dismissed them. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's just how it works. 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 Christian and Muslim views of the New Testament.

Now, just in a general statement, I was a little disappointed. 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 New Testament.

So it was like the debate was taking place on two very different planes. And so when your opponent, when you've taken 40 minutes explaining what the 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 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.

You're just not going to have time to be able to even come close to responding to all that material. 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 Christian scriptures, for the Muslim to go first, make the arguments against it, and then at least the Christian has equal time to respond to the arguments, because it always takes longer to respond to an argument than to make an argument.

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

And so that's a real challenge. That's something difficult to deal with. Anyway, we're going to start off here. Now, I've mentioned this to Yusuf Ismail, and I will mention it to the entire audience. 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 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 I will call Internet Cyber Scholarship, would be Ronald H. Nash's book, The Gospel and the Greeks.

Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? It's not a hugely long book. It's shorter than my book on the 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.

And the vast majority of folks do not have the background to recognize pseudo-scholarship. You find, well, here's a book being quoted. 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. No, actually, that does not follow at all. If you'll read Nash, you'll learn about parallelomania, and the whole mindset behind those who attempt to create parallels between various religious movements.

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.

And yet, these are some of the most effective convo-stoppers out there. And so, you as individuals again, my thesis is that all 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 apologist, 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 His like people unto Himself.

That is our privilege, it is something that we should sacrifice to be able to do. 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.

Because you will see, right at the beginning Now, right at the beginning, Yusuf Ismail is going to quote from Bart Ehrman, and he's going to actually suggest that the folks at Dr. Seacombe's school utilized Bart Ehrman's The New Testament, A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings as a textbook there.

Well, thankfully, we have excellent 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 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.

But again, the reliance of Muslims upon unbelievers, non-supernaturalists, secularists, is striking to me, and I think, if you are a thinking Muslim, should cause you some reason to stop and think. Why is it that, in defense of your faith, you cannot provide an 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 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.

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

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

Some of you may have listened to my debate with James Price, who 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, I would play materials from Dr. Price, and then respond.

And so we went into depth and discussion of Apollonius of Tyana, and various other elements of his particular atheistic approach to the subject. And it's funny, I just had a flash, right then, of hearing his voice mentioning Apollonius of Tyana, and of course, what did it come accompanied with?

But the location on the canal I was at, writing, when I listened to him say that. So it's just sort of, that's how that works. Anyway, we have dealt with these things in the past, so if you have listened to those debates, then you're going to go, oh, okay, yeah.

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 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 Yusuf Ismail begins, and ask yourself the question, how would I have responded to this material?

Apollonius of Tyana and Bart Ehrman's Selective Use of Sources

What we're discussing tonight is the New Testament, the Holy Bible. I've got here the International Standard Version and the New Testament. But before I go into that, just before I go into that, 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 Whitefield College, I've got here a textbook which is used at the University of North Carolina.

It's called The New Testament, a Historical Introduction to Early Christian Writings. 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 The World of Early Christian Traditions.

And he speaks about one remarkable life. He says, from the beginning, his mother knew that he was no ordinary person. 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.

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.

Now, by the way, let me just, he's just reading, I could read the exact same section, pages 20 and 21 of the book. It's sitting here. I think I have a complete Ehrman library. I think I do. In fact, I probably have a more complete Ehrman library than almost anybody else I know.

Why? Because I have his doctoral dissertation. 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 Alexandrian text in particular sources.

But anyway, you need to realize that any time you read something like this, this is incredibly selective. If I were to write up a similar length presentation of Apollonius' life, and this is all from hundreds of years after the fact, from Flavius Philostratus, this is, let's see, what's the date on this one?

This is F .C. Coneybear's English translation. Not a very well done publication here, is it? I guess it would be the no date thing. It doesn't give a date on this one. It was probably the cheapest one I could get, I guess.

Anyways, if I were to utilize these materials to put together a presentation, 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.

Completely. It would be easy to do. Easy to do. So, Ehrman is being extremely selective here. My question for Yusuf Ismail, have you read all the life of Apollonius Tiana? 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? The man's a former Christian. Do you just normally trust all former Muslims to be absolutely accurate in their representations of Islam?

Hmm. It'd just be a question that I would ask.

...ministry. He went from village to town with his message of the good news, proclaiming that people should forego their concerns for them...

By the way, good news? As in gospel? What was Apollonius' good news? His was a philosophical, Greek philosophical worldview message. It wasn't a good news. It wasn't repent and believe in the Messiah who has come, or anything even similarly like it.

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

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. Completely different. And again, I just ask Yusuf, because I'm in communication with Yusuf, 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? Because he's not. He's not. I mean, let me put it this way. Let me just ask Yusuf directly. Yusuf, have you not read some amazingly inaccurate, unfair synopses of the life of Muhammad?

Did it bother you? Did it cause you to question the integrity and the fairness of the person who wrote that? Here's what I'd ask you, Yusuf. We sent the books off last week. Hopefully get there soon. Read my chapter on the life of Muhammad.

And then ask yourself a question. Why would you be comfortable quoting an agnostic, clearly a man making a ton of money attacking the Christian faith as an apostate, why would you be comfortable repeating his summary of this story in comparison to why I spent so much time and effort, to be fair, in my recitation about the life of Muhammad in my book?

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. 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. 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 Gospel writers and the idea of Apollonius of Tyana and his presence with his disciples in a Greek polytheistic philosophical context.

If you think there is, you do not understand historiography at all. 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 worldview and context for Apollonius, if you can compare them, then you can compare anything.

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

Well, Bart Ehrman's a great scholar. Doesn't mean he's not massively prejudiced, in fact, bigoted on the subject. In fact, I would suggest to you that an apostate from religion might not be the first person you want to go to, you know what I mean?

Especially when they're making money from being an apostate. You make good money with New York Times bestsellers. You really do. I wouldn't know because none of my books will ever be New York Times bestsellers.

It's not possible, especially in this culture, this day. But you do, just think about that for a second.

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

By the way, just in case you're wondering, when I first heard this, did I know where he was going? Of course I did. He hadn't gone through two sentences before I said, oh no, not Apollonius again.

But if I were to ask, who is this person? Who is this person, born to a virgin, born miraculously, who is he? Did many mighty words, many deeds, his enemies trumped up charges against him. 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, 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?

And the answer to that is quite clear. It's this individual here. This individual, this man, and this is a quotation by Bartum, and the man I have been referring to is a great Neo-Pythagorean teacher and pagan holy man of the first century.

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 Philostratus in his book The Life of Apollonius.

And Apollonius lived at about the time of Jesus, even though they never met.

Actually, he was a little bit after that, more sparsely. They met the reports about their lives.

More like around Paul. It was similar in many respects. Now, this is an individual who has a parallel life to Jesus, as recorded at that particular point in time.

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.

And it is one of his primary arguments. It hopefully will not be something that we're debating this time around. I've told him I would be happy to debate this, because I do not believe it is an open and shut case.

It is an open and shut case. It is impossible to defend this kind of presentation, informal 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.

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, this whole story of Jesus just made up, you know.

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

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

Mithra, Dionysus, and the Problem of Alleged Pagan Parallels

Okay. Saul Invictus Mithra. Now, he has used especially the Mithra name many, many times in the past. And you've heard them all before. Oh, you've got Osiris, down from Egypt. You've got Mithraism, which came out of Iran.

You've got Dionysus, Greek. 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, look, 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. I just don't. Maybe that's why you listen to podcasts. This is one of the best ways.

You're driving to work. 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. But a lot of folks just go, how in the world?

I can't become an expert on Greek mythology. 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.

You have to think presuppositionally. What is the presupposition? 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.

Now, for the Muslim, immediately, that is impossible. A Muslim who believes the Quran can't go there. The Quran affirms the ministry of Jesus. Now, it does it, ironically, by utilizing, sometimes, sources that are post-canonical, post-biblical, and historically laughable.

The Quran steals from false historical sources because the author of the Quran didn't know they were false historical sources. And the very sources that Yusuf Ismail will quote would, if consistently applied, refute the inspiration of the 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 Quran, especially when the Quran is quoting from the infancy gospel of Thomas and the Arabic infancy gospels and all these sources that, again, I document in the book.

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 Ehrman's translations since they seemed to like Ehrman so much.

But when I did have the originals, I translated them myself. When I had access to the Greek originals, I translated them myself. And so I gave that information. And that would be a really good debate second time around for South Africa.

Does the Quran quote from erroneous extra-biblical sources? 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.