Jeffrey Lang – Is the Bible the Word of God 174
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss charges against Christian apologists, including false scriptures, copies of scripture, and errors in the Bible. They stress the importance of the Bible in protecting the word of God and caution against misinterpretation. They also emphasize the need for clarification and caution on words like "has" and "has been" in the Bible, as well as historical and apologetic stance. They stress the importance of a clear understanding of "ellers," the weight of biblical scholarship, and the importance of historical and apologetic stance.
AI: Summary ©
3 verse 78 or 84.
Say, we believe in God and what has
been revealed to us as well as what
was granted to Moses,
Jesus, and the prophets from their lord.
We make no distinction in favor of any
one of them.
That's a rather
important,
statement there I think.
Then fourthly,
Christian scriptures are protected and God's words are
never changed.
So 5 verse 52 or 48,
we reveal the scriptures to you confirming the
scripture already present at the time and a
protector
over it.
And then
the Quran also tells about God's word not
being changed.
Alright. We have to look at the,
so called charges that the Christian scriptures are
corrupted or that often interpreted as being corrupted
on the basis of these very strong affirmations
of their accuracy.
The first charge in Sura 2,
verse 141 or 4146,
Those to whom we have given the scriptures
know it,
but some of them conceal the truth. Well,
they wouldn't know it if their text
was incorrect.
The second charge,
the charge with,
changing their scriptures is obviously
an oral,
charge,
that is changing it orally.
Surah 2 verse 70 or 75.
Some of them used to hear the word
of God
then,
changed it after they had understood it. Well
they heard the word of God. That would
again suggest that,
the text they had was a correct
text.
The 3rd charge now this is one about
writing, but let us look at its context.
The charge that, they are writing false bits
of scripture for sale to to Muslims. Surah
2 verse 73
or 78.
Woe to those who write the scriptures with
their hands, saying this is from God to
sell it cheaply.
Woe to them for what their hands
write.
The previous references,
however, make it quite clear that the scriptures
in the hands of Jews and Christians,
were correct. Or why would,
they be told to consult them? Why would,
it say that they are confirmed?
Now to look at the bible itself,
2nd Timothy 3 16,
where it talks about scriptures being inspired or
God breathed,
and hence are profitable for any one of
a number of,
reasons
having to do with the Christian faith
and life.
One thing about a Christian view of inspiration,
unlike a traditional Muslim view, is that in
our understanding of inspiration,
God guides the individual so that what he
wants to
be communicated is communicated. But,
the individual writers are permitted
the, exercise of their own personality,
literary talents,
research, and such things. So the question
is rather,
are they faithful
in their portrayal?
Now,
I can see from
a newspaper
that
account that I've seen circulating on the other
side of the table there,
that you may be referring to a recent
meeting of some scholars. Only one cup is
not circulating.
Okay. Well, circulating. I mean, being passed, back
and forth,
where some scholars bring into question,
the words of Jesus or many of the
words of Jesus.
Here again,
if we are thinking
of all of this as a snapshot,
that's one matter. Let me say first of
all that very very few of those in
the conference voted and those attending the conference
represented
a,
for the most part, what we might call
the more liberal,
to moderate wing of,
the church.
And, very few of those actually voted in
the voting that took place. But be that
as it may, this creates a problem if
we think of
of Christ, in other words, they present,
faithfully,
the message that Christ communicated,
then
that conference does not present a major
problem.
And certainly the great
evidence of scholarship for years is that these
are in fact a faithful,
portrait
of Christ and what he was doing and
what he was,
saying.
Now concerning the variant readings, which, I might
indicate is not unique,
to the Bible,
other than in the Bible,
And,
the history in Islam has been to,
And,
the history in Islam has been to,
burn the the variants, but we will get
to that more in a later session.
If
the Koran let me just say,
if a book is the word of God,
faithful transmission
or even some,
errors as the person is copying it, Small
errors are not gonna change it from being
the word of God.
If it is not the word of God,
faithful transmission is not going to make it
the word of God.
Secondly
there is no evidence that the Bible was
originally gave Islamic
teachings in contrast to Judeo Christian
teachings.
Furthermore, any, a number of leading
Muslim scholars have, agreed that there is no
evidence that the Bible
was
changed or altered,
before the time of Mohammed.
Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan,
Fakhruddin
Razi, ibn Hazem would be among those,
well known Muslim scholars who would have,
who admitted that there is no evidence
of the changing of the text, conscious changing
of the text,
changing it from a more Islamic
message.
In fact, when we do look at the
text we have
Codex Sinaiticus, which I saw in London just
about a month ago now,
which is almost all of the New Testament
and over half of the Old Testament from
about 350
AD.
Codex
Vaticanus, which is 325
to 350,
AD, nearly all of the Bible in that.
And then Codex
Alexandrinus
400
AD, almost the entire
Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
then take us back, for example, in the
Isaiah scroll
to well before the time of Jesus.
And these are still the manuscripts that we
use
in the,
original languages
to
to base our English translations
today upon. And so these were in existence
well before,
the time of Mohammed.
Even as we trace, for example, the Isaiah
scroll from way before the time of Christ
or these texts,
since, the time of Christ. We do not
find,
evidence of,
major changing. We find some typographical
errors, which, again, I say is not unique
to our manuscripts.
We also have the John Rylands papyri,
which
goes to the year
130 A. D. This is of the gospel
of John which was probably written about 90
AD. So we have only a 40
year period there and when we have an
actual written text.
This period is much more like when we
look at the actual history of the Quran,
much more like the period of
time, we have
before,
certain codification
that we see of the manuscripts
there.
See, I think my Okay. You're ready.
I have my 10 minutes. Okay. So I
I will stop on on no. No. No.
No. I'll stop there. Basically, the chronic witness,
how Christians understand the Bible, and then the
textual transmission. That that's enough for now. Then
the address first of all the like we
did in the morning also. The reference made
to the Quran and then,
Doctor Mercy and Brother Shekhar may address the
issue about the Bible. So you wanna share
the presentation? That's right.
Well, first of all, doctor Woodbury say that
the Quran says
that it confirms the Bible. Nowhere in the
entire Quran does it say confirm the Bible.
Nowhere.
The Bible is a book of books,
and the Quran does not speak about about
the Bible. The the Quran speaks about specific
original unchanged revelation
that were given to the previous prophets.
The Quran speaks about the Torah given to
Moses, not the Bible.
Not the Old Testament, the Torah.
But even the Torah is not the equivalent
of the Pentateuch or the first five books,
for it has been shown even by Christian
scholars themselves that not
all the 5 books of Moses were written
by Moses because in Deuteronomy chapter 34 it
speaks about the death and burial of Moses.
How could have Moses received that on Mount
Sinai, which means that even if you limit
the Bible to the Old Testament, to the
Pentateuch, even that is not the term
as used in the Quran, the thing that
was given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Secondly,
when the Quran speak about the injeel, it
speak about the singular,
never the plural. It doesn't speak about the
Gospels,
it speak about the gospel taught and preached
by Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, Not
what has been written
about him in a later time. So when
the Quran deal with this, the zapur, the
Psalms.
Is zapur is not to be equated with
the Psalms either because biblical scholars themselves point
out that not all,
Psalms are have been written by David. There
are different authorships. So when the Quran speak
about this speaks only about the pristine original
revelation that has been given. 2nd,
doctor Woodbury also referred to the Quran when
it addresses the prophet that if you're endowed
in what have we have been revealed to
you then ask the people of the book
or the people who read the book before
you. There are several responses to that. As
I indicated in the previous session, within the
expressions in the Quran, there are frequent places
where the question or the address in the
Quran is meant to the people, even sometimes
non believers, even though it comes through the
prophet.
For example, in the Quran when
it
says, addressing the prophet as a singular and
talking about divorce in plural, which means then
it is addressed to the people. And that's
why you find a great scholar like Al
Khortobi
says that this means if you are endowed
not to the Prophet
addressing those who are unbelievers, those who have
any doubt about the validity of the Quran
or disbelieve in it,
then go and challenge and ask those people
of the book concerning the truth that has
been stated in the Quran. Secondly,
from the purely,
linguistic standpoint as, famous mufassar and Naysaburi
explains
that this even is a rhetorical question,
as he calls it. Like I say, if
I were able to fly, I'll go to
can I'll go to Lawrence in one second.
It does not necessarily that mean this is
necessarily going to happen.
This kind of explanation by Naysaburi has been
confirmed by the fact that the prophet himself
when this verse was,
received as narrated in Al Khortobi, the famous
Mufasa. He said
I never doubt and I never ask. And
the same thing was reported by the close
companion of the prophet,
Ibn Abbas.
But even if we assume, even though these
are more than sufficient responses, even if we
assume this, it means then in the context
where this ayah emerged,
that
if those
people have any doubt about the validity of
the Quran, ask them if they were honest
in their own books even that's still available
today
about the prophecy about your coming, O Muhammad
and that relates to my next comment on
the question of
that
the role of the Quran and let
people of the Injeel rule in accordance to
what has Allah has revealed.
Actually many of the professors have indicated
let the people of the Njiru rule or
this, you know,
implement what Allah has been mentioned there.
They interpret that to mean that there is
mention of Prophet Mohammed, the concept of Parakhlit,
we didn't get into the discussion of this,
that if they rule according to that gospel,
actually they turn out to be Muslim. If
the Jews
read carefully the prophecy about the blessing of
the children of Abraham and mentioning of Makkah
by name. Makkah, which is another name as
we find it's where in the bible, they
would definitely have accepted you.
With respect to the reference of another verse
that says let the people of the Torah
also rule. I think doctor Woodbury made a
subtle reference to that without giving us the
reason of revelation and this is very important
in understanding in the Quran.
And that was in the context of one
instance
where a Jew committed adultery and the people
tried to avoid the punishment which is there
in the bible and said let's go to
Muhammad if he rules The same ruling like
the bible will not accept it if he
gives a a lesser rule, a lesser punishment
will accept it. So in that sense the
ayah came to respond to them and that's
why I say bring the Torah,
recite it if you are truthful. So this
was in a particular instance and from the
standpoint of the Muslim, it does not imply
in any way, shape, or form
admission that all things that were present in
the volume called Bible is accepted to be
true. It simply means that this ruling, this
judgment
about adultery, which is there by the way,
you find it in the Bible, is still
there. That particular
part has not changed.
When, the doctor Woodbury also referred to the,
just like the quotation he made yesterday that
there's something close between spirit
and the ayah that was quoted was miscoted
in fact because
did not say that the Holy Spirit came
from God. It says the Quran was brought
by the Holy Spirit from the Quran. So
I see some difficulty in your translation.
Also, today when you refer to making no
distinction between any of them, any of them
here is referring to the the prophets that
we don't make a fanatical
argument this prophet is better than that. If
God chooses to make some profit greater it
is his business.
Now you referred also to the, quotation in
the Quran that it says nobody is going
to change the word of God. If you
refer and again because of the shortness of
time there are various references in the Quran
about
sometimes in a meaning totally irrelevant to what
you mentioned.
Because it speaks about Kalimatullah
in creation. The science or the laws that
Allah has created in nature. But when you
say, but why did God choose not to
preserve the bible and preserve the Quran and
both are His word? No. You go back
to the Quran and when it deals with
the people of the book it shows clearly
that God did not commit himself to preserve
the Bible as he did with the Quran
when it refers to the people of the
book it says
that Allah gave them the duty the responsibility
to preserve the book of Allah but they
failed. But when it comes to the Quran,
it's different.
It says,
we reveal the reminder I e the Quran
and we, I means God, we are going
to take care of
protecting
it. You also refer to the Quran
and its reference,
to,
the concealment of truth and tahrief.
And again, for the shortest time, I must
say
that just like the question of the Quran
negating tritheism
and polytheism and meriometism,
It does not mean necessarily does not also
disapprove of Trinity. By the same token, there
are various forms of tahariif,
uttering words in a distorted way that doesn't
give the meeting meaning. There is also the
mention of people who write books and say
it's from Allah. And by the way, the
Quran doesn't say to sell it to Muslim.
And determine the Quran does
not mean that you're selling it. That means
you change, you write something with your own
hand. You say it is revelation for God
so that you make benefit for yourself, not
to say that you're going to sell
the the scriptures and again like the book
I was mentioning here, who wrote the bible
indicate quite clearly that a lot of people,
especially in the rivalry
between the Aaronides priests
and Mosiah priests, They kept writing against each
other. Somebody is trying to downgrade
Aaron, somebody is trying to praise Aaron. So
definitely that is in line with the Quran
in terms of the,
you mentioned also that the Quran said it
confirmed what was revealed before it but it
says also a Muhamayim Alalai
that means Quran
If
you're gonna share the presentation, please watch for
the top. The rest. Okay.
Confirming what remained intact of it,
a guardian, that's a very important word. Means
the criterion. And that's why the Quran itself
is called criterion. The criterion to determine what
is there in the Bible that we can
accept because the Quran confirms what,
we cannot accept. I leave the other points,
even though some of them are important for
discussion and let my colleague address the issue
of the Bible.
Well, I would
like to ask
myself a simple question here.
Does the bible that we have in our
hand
today, is it the word of God?
Letter for letter,
word for word, in its entirety.
First of all,
nowhere
does the Bible
call itself
Bible,
within the Bible?
These are 66 books
that were combined together
without any divine command to docile.
The current New Testament that we have in
our hands today,
are based on Greek manuscripts,
a language never spoken by Jesus.
They were authored
by unknown writers.
Most of them most likely never met Jesus
or learned from him.
Now this is not what I am saying.
This is what some Christian
theologians and writers are saying.
I have a reference
here from T g Tucker, in his book,
The History of Christians,
in the Light of Modern Knowledge.
Now let me read for you from page
320.
The Gospels were produced
which clearly reflected the conception of the practical
needs of the community
for which they were written.
And then the traditional material was used,
but there was no hesitation
in altering it,
or making addition to it, or or leaving
out of it what did not suit the
writer's purpose.
Now
I can state the following facts,
and I think
that probably the Christian panel will agree to
most of them.
There is no written copy
that was made
of the inspired sayings of Jesus in his
mother tongue.
The Aramaic language in his lifetime.
The earliest records of the sayings of Jesus,
peace be upon him,
was written in Greek between the years
of 50
115,
Christian Era,
or Common Era, by people who never met
prophet Jesus, or learned it from him.
The earliest manuscripts of the current versions of
the Bible belong to the 4th
5th century.
What we have in our hands today are
copies of copies.
Translations
from translations, in which errors, mistakes,
and contradictions
may have gripped.
Jesus, peace be upon him, declared that the
message he was delivering
was not his
message,
but came from God.
Even the current versions
of the New Testament
acknowledge that. In John chapter 12, we read,
for I have not spoken of myself,
but God which sent me.
He gave me a commandment
of what I should say,
and what I should speak.
In conclusion,
I think I can
fairly ask a simple question.
Can anyone
produce for us today,
the authentic teachings of Jesus,
in its entirety,
and in his mother tongue.
And I will dare anyone to say, yes.
Thank you.
I have to.
I'm sorry. Sorry for you. You expired all
the time.
So
you already consumed 13, 12 and a half.
Sorry for that. Leave it for the answer.
You answer the answer.
K. Please.
I see. You're there. There are quite a
number I think any of us could respond
to, but if either of you want to
I have a comment to make. Because you
respond first, then you have a response.
Let me say first of all that if
the Quran is written in clear Arabic,
as it keeps saying it,
is,
I don't see the need for these somewhat
involved
explanations
to do away with, some of what seems
to be quite,
clear here.
As to
these gospels being written by unknown writers,
what you are doing is choosing a very
small radical branch of writers of the demythologizing
bolt on school.
You are not reflecting the great weight
of New Testament scholarship,
through the years,
which indicate that,
has the general consensus that these are faithful
portraits
of what Christ was doing and saying,
hence adequate for,
understanding
his message
and responding to him as Lord and Savior,
which is the purpose,
for which,
they were written.
As for not having original
copies,
we will be discussing the Quran next time,
but just an awful lot of what you
say about the Bible
you may find used against you when we
look at
the early,
Islamic
historians
of the text.
So,
what we are talking about is not unique
to the Bible. There are problems that,
the Muslim community will increasingly have to face,
I think, as they take seriously
the earliest,
historians,
in Islam.
But,
come in. No. Just let them finish, please.
Well,
I would just want to say that I
think
at issue here is the whole concept of
revelation.
I don't know that, the Christian church has
ever said
that Jesus came with a book, brought a
book,
And that somehow that book either went back
to heaven with Jesus or is lost or
whatever. I don't know
that the Christian community has ever made that
claim
that Jesus came with
the gospel. I think
the understanding that Christians
of of Jesus.
But to introduce
the reader
to the person of Jesus Christ.
And I think what you need to ask
as you read the 4 Gospels or any
of the Gospels after you finish,
ask yourself the question,
has the author succeeded
in introducing you to the person of Jesus?
Okay? That's the key question. After you finish
reading the gospel,
do you feel as though you've met or
know and
and understand something of who this person was.
And obviously each gospel then
tells a story in a little different way.
So that there are different different emphasis, different
highlights,
different events even that are recorded.
But the purpose is
to make sure that people know
and have some understanding
of who this man from Nazareth
was.
And then
the rest of the gospel or the rest
of the books, the the writings of the,
apostles and so,
are to say,
and if you meet him and know him,
this is the difference it made in our
lives.
And so they described then for the reader
what it means to them,
what it meant
to them, to really encounter God in Christ.
And it's a description
of what that has done for them. And
then the story is, and if it has
done this for us,
perhaps it can do the same thing for
you.
So that the very purpose of scripture is
very different, I think. And the the whole
understanding of revelation
is quite distinct and quite different
than, in Islam, say, than it is, in
Christianity.
Thank you.
Go ahead. Shaka will speak first and then
we'll get to the other. Okay. Okay.
This session
is titled, is the Bible God has worked?
Right?
And the answer
we
seem to have heard is, yes,
it is God as Word.
Now I'm asking
if there is any,
criterion
or criteria
that one can
apply
to test
whether this claim is true or not. And
I'm asking if the Bible itself
provides that criteria or from any source that
you can tell,
what is the criterion
or criteria
that
you use to assert
it is the word of God?
And then I have a follow-up if if
I may, after the answer. I I just
would need to clarify this point. Well, one
of the ways in which the Christian Church
decides,
what is to be considered the Word of
God is taking, first of all, taking history
seriously.
We believe God functions in history.
He does not leave his people without some
measure of guidance.
And so as we look from the time
of Moses or Abraham, whatever period, you want
to begin with,
we believe that God is going to,
reveal Himself to people who are seeking Him
in one way or another. And where it
becomes necessary to
inscripturate
or write it down,
that will be done.
Now
we
see that
the people who were,
by all accounts, Muslim and Christian will agree,
who were given revelation from God were the
Jews.
Now the obligation then falls upon the Christian
Church
to believe that God will instruct the prophets,
will instruct, Moses, will instruct others.
So that when he does give a revelation,
that the enemies of that revelation and surely
we would agree I think that Satan
would be an enemy of that revelation.
And so the
so what we see is that God will
give truth in order to,
lead
his people so that they will be obedient
to him.
And if that word of his is useful
at all for 1 generation,
it is quite probable it will be useful
for another generation.
And so we believe that God does give,
written materials
and he provides some way by week you
have a doctrine of providence, whereby we think
God is in history, and he's bringing about
His will in history. And so one of
the things
that we would have is that believe is
that the Jews
were given truth.
They would recognize it as truth.
It would be precious to them and they
would rather die than even lose one word
of it. And it can be proven that
the Jews were very careful in the way
that they trans they passed on the scriptures.
And despite that, they may have they did
make some textual errors, but
they they still,
were very careful.
So the Christian church turns to the Jews
and then sees what is their assessment
since they are the experts about what God
revealed to them in their experience.
What is their assessment
as to what constitutes
the revelation of God to them?
And then we see Jesus confirming that
word.
And then we see Jesus also
not giving a book,
but saying
that he would give the Holy Spirit
who would lead all of his followers into
the fullness of truth. They would have all
the truth. Now obviously, not all the truth
about everything, but sufficient truth about salvation,
so that there is both the the
the
Jewish people who know the most about their
own books,
and we have to take their judgment, and
they have delivered to us a certain set
of books as as inspired.
And then we have the promise of Jesus
that the the Holy Spirit will will guide
the apostles who lived with Jesus
in determining what will be the Christian corpus.
And so these are the two bases I
think of,
what determines these circumstances.
You gave you gave 2 bases. 1 is
the life of Jesus Christ,
and the second is the testimony of the
disciples.
Right? And the yeah. And the Jews, of
course, they're The testimony is the Jews and
Jews. I'll accept that. Right? Okay. Okay. Let
us then let us then use this criteria,
because there is another criteria
that the Quran applies to itself and we
think fair to apply to any other scripture.
The Quran says
O Muhammad,
if it has been from other than Allah,
they would have found found many contradictions or
discrepancies
in it because God is consistent.
God does not teach
that the day light is from electricity
and the night light is from the sun.
God teaches facts and he can never say
a fact and contradict it in other places.
So
do you accept such a criterion
set by the Quran,
that tests of
discrepancies and contradictions.
Do you accept this as a test, that
the word of God
is a consistent
comprehensive word.
Do you accept this test? I think we
accept that if we allow for,
progressive revelation
even as Islam has abrogation.
Which means?
Which apparently means,
according to the Koran, that if,
okay.
That, when something was forgotten that interruption. I'm
sorry. That the question we don't want to
mix topics together. Alright. When you get to
the question of the Quran, you talk about,
about aggregation, I think you could address that.
But Excuse I'm using You raised the question,
so let him I'm using his criteria.
Suppose I got it not from the Quran,
from somewhere else, is it fair to apply?
I would say it is fair to apply
if it allows for progressive revelation. It allows
for a Jesus to say, you have heard
it said, but I
say, as he fulfilled and interpreted the law
and,
internalized it and so forth. Now if you're
going to call that a,
a
contradiction,
then I'm not sure it fits into the
category. But there should be I shouldn't call
it contradiction. No. Yeah.
If it allows for a basic progressive revelation
He basically agrees with you. So you agreed
on the criteria, right? Basically, yes. That if
there is serious, I mean serious, contradictions,
then,
or inconsistency,
this must not be regarded as a word
of God. Okay, what's the point? Get to
the point, please. My point now is my
point now is,
we look in the Bible to find that
Jesus has got 2 genealogies, for example.
It's only carrying
like one name that is common
between
over 60 names given in each list.
Had it been from God
it would have been one genealogy.
Mistakenly
or
unsearched or unasserted,
which genealogy goes to a father that was
never there,
and a husband that never married, because Joseph
the carpenter never touched Mary until she delivered
Jesus Christ.
So asserting that one of them will go
to the lineage of
Joseph and the other would go to his
mother, is not really
going to solve the problem.
Also when Jesus himself talking to God said,
I have kept them all and I lost
none.
In another place he said that he lost
1. This is the same Jesus talking.
So if he says none in one place,
and if he says one in another place,
is this serious or no serious? Is this
a contradiction to your mind?
Also
when the Bible made the prophecy that Jesus
gave
the sign of Prophet Jonah,
that he will be in the belly of
the earth 3 days 3 nights, and we
know by account
that Jesus did not stay 3
days 3 nights in the belly of the
earth. He was up Sunday, he went there
Friday night or evening for that matter, he
did not say 3 days 3 nights. So
are these as I see them as a
reader of the Bible,
are these to you contradictions or not?
I would say that they are not contradictions
seen
in the purpose of the text, in the
context. For example,
a genealogy, you need to look at why
a genealogy
is given.
Not everybody
who was a predecessor
of, Jesus
is given in the genealogies.
The same is true of Old Testament genealogies.
They pick those which are significant
in what is being In one of the
cases, it wouldn't be
Adam, did they leave somebody in the middle?
Is this your suggestion?
Adam would have, lived
centuries
ago unless he stands for man. Excuse me.
But I'm asking about the names in the
list. Are you suggesting saying that, some names
have been dropped from some of the list?
Yes. That's what I am. And the names
that one of the gospel writers
dropped
are different from the other one who dropped
other names? Like everyone picked one and left
the other one? What I'm saying is about
66 generations.
What are talking about is what is the
purpose of the writer in writing it. And
what we see in scripture when they give
genealogies,
they give those which are considered significant,
in,
in the text for what the writer has
in mind.
So that I do not consider that a
major,
a major
problem there. As for the all or one
None or one. Okay. Let's let's move to
Haseem who was waiting for him. Just a
second. Well well, he's raised
he's raised some other ones, and you always
insist on answering all the,
things that are raised. Well, I'll just go
to the sign of Jonah.
When you we can give you,
we can give you examples in history
where,
to say 3 days, part of 3 days
is considered 3 days. We're talking about Friday
night, Saturday, and Sunday morning.
And, these are legitimate ways of talking of
3 days.
And,
I can I can find you the manuscripts
to or the historical
occurrences of this? This
is using the language of the day in
the way that it
was used in that day. Just as we
today would you say I was inaccurate if
I said the sun rose this morning? You
see, this is the way we talk.
We talk in a way where the audience
will understand,
what we mean.
And that is considered
honest and accurate. But the most important thing
is if we mean it, it has to
apply to the reality, which means if Merrimad
Ali met him before the dawn,
then the day did not start.
So Sunday does not count.
So if you even count Friday,
which is partially,
you know, is not really true because he
was not in the belly of the earth
that day.
He did not yet go to the tomb.
Okay. Later on today, I'll I'd like to
point out also this is one explanation about
the 3 days and the 3 nights.
Some other,
Christian says that the crucifixion had happened on
Wednesday and the resurrection happened on Sunday, so
we can have a a whole seminar about
the crucifixion and the resurrection. Let us not
do the crucifixion. Get bogged down on one
item.
But,
there are a couple of Before you move
to the other one, would you like to
answer the third point? Bring up something. I
think, in a matter of procedure here,
I'd like to give an illustration. There was
2 men who walked into a,
place, a museum in Europe,
and they looked at this famous statue, a
very, very big statue.
One man looked at it and saw a
very beautiful statue.
It was all marble, he thought.
But the other man pointed out, you know,
there's a small grain of sand.
And so
what happened was the man said,
this statue is a sand statue.
And and he said, no. You can't hold
to that
because
it is marble.
And basically, what element of sand you have
there is,
insignificant.
It's very hard to notice. Now what we're
getting into is a is very good for
tactical debate and making points in a we're
getting
into.
Which in the end
will not really
determine,
the issue. There are some larger issues here.
And, frankly,
I I think there's an abuse of scholarship
here
where our friends are using Christian scholarship
to,
attack the books that these Christians believe,
but not make any reference to their their
beliefs. If if,
some of these men, if you ask them
what they thought about the Quran, they might
ridicule the idea that the Quran is inspired
too. So if you're using people who wanna
have a spirit of unbelief toward the word
of God, then it makes
a bad bed bedfell.
Excuse me. But what I want to say,
the big issues are let me finish my
statement, okay?
The big issues here are
basically the nature of God.
When God gives his truth,
does he give it for a purpose?
Does He do you have a kind of
a yo yo theory of revelation? God sends
it down and yanks it up again. Or
does God want his
truth to be present among mankind in order
to perform a certain function?
And
what you're
saying is
that Satan is smarter than God.
Satan can outwit God. He pulled the wool
over God's eyes with with, Moses,
and then God tried again with the Injil,
and then again God,
found out he was hoodwinked.
And now we finally come where God has
tried again with the Quran,
and we have the book. And this time
God did it. Wow.
Praise God, we finally got a book that
we can trust.
Well, you see, that's an insult to the
character of God, and it diminishes
the whole concept of revelation.
And we're saying
that the nature of God demands
that these scriptures are given
and can be called the Word of God.
And secondly, we're saying and indeed this was
not refuted despite the convoluted,
arguments that were given to avoid the clear
meaning of the Quranic verses
where it shows that the Quran was supposed
to protect, defend, confirm.
And these scriptures,
if these scriptures fall,
then the Quran falls too because it failed
to perform its function.
And also God is a failure.
And, Satan outwits him. Okay. Just a second.
Before we move to the other side,
does this mean that you no more answer
the third point that you raised?
Well, I'm saying it's my it's it's trivial.
It doesn't deal with the bigger issues. It
doesn't deal with the bigger issues. Answer it.
Deal with the bigger issues. You mean the
all and the one? The one. Yeah. No.
Should we skip it and go to something?
I just think that's in the purpose of
language. We are talking,
we're talking in Semitic languages.
And as, those of you who know Arabic
are quite aware, and Aramaic would be the
same,
that the use of hyperbole
is
a very common use and a legitimate use
of the language. This was one of the
problems that
obviously led to the Gulf crisis.
And, so
I,
I don't see this as a basic
to point to hyperbole,
as
inaccuracies,
I think goes beyond
the way language is normally used
in Converse. Okay. Do you have a just
a sec. I have Jeffrey. Yeah. Okay. Jeffrey
will be the next speaker. But before I
do that, do you have a quick comment?
Yes, I do. Quick, please. Very quick.
See, doctor Chastain, unfortunately,
you you made a point about the procedure.
Before I asked these questions, I got your
agreement
on the principle and the procedure. I asked
it, do you accept this test?
Then I'm applying the test. If you reject
the test,
then it's up to you. But the procedure
has nothing to do
with talking about the Quran or talking about
other scripture. We have to stick to the
point. Had I not
excuse me if I may finish. Had I
not asked it for your approval to the
procedure,
then you must have been right. Get to
the point which he raised,
the one or not. If you want
to take the I would like to get
to the main point that doctor Schatzin asked
it for.
Here is one of the writers of the
gospel, doctor
Luke, the famous doctor Luke, in his introduction,
in his writing of the Bible. I will
just read what he said.
Less than a minute. Is it relating to
this point? It is. It is related to
the point. We're talking about the authenticity of
the Bible being regarded as the word of
God. Let us consult with the man who's
writing a whole gospel. This is a new
new point. It's not related to the point
we discussed. He asked that we get to
the serious matters. No. Then this is a
new issue. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, doctor Jeffrey.
I just wanted to
clarify and, at least explain
the issue of bringing up
Christian. And I and I underline the word
Christian scholars, committed
scholars committed to Christianity
that are coming to grave doubts about the
historicity of the accounts in the Bible.
To scoff them off as a insignificant
minority or as a liberal or moderate,
we are talking about people, and and this
is the reason why we bring them up,
that are committed to the Christian faith, but
feel that the weight of the evidence in
the Bible suggests that those are not historic
accounts
on the life of Jesus.
To just toss them off at the reason
why we're bringing them up is because they
come from within the church itself.
You know, we could find plenty of Muslim
authors that have written and tried to contradict
or, you know, to point out the same
about the Bible.
But the fact that committed Christians are coming
to the same conclusion is an important statement
on that subject.
That's why we're using their and they are
not an insignificant minority. They are
Americans. They are Europeans.
They are,
all walks in churches. But the Catholics The
great majority
Christian. Before
do you have the same point? Is it
on the same point? I have, I have
Different, please. No. No. Okay. I let let
let let let doctor let doctor
hurry up on that, and then I will
address my point. Go ahead. Doctor Woodbury.
Certainly, the great,
majority
of
Christian
scholars,
have seen the gospels
as an accurate
portrait, not an accurate snapshot
Yes. But an accurate portrait
for what the gospels are intended to do,
which is to present,
the message and the acts
of Jesus
so that we can respond to him as
lord and savior. That was their purpose,
in John.
These are written that ye might believe that
Jesus is
the so forth I agree with you, doctor
Woodbury, that that life through his name. I
agree with you entirely that they are probably
accurate representations
of the purpose of the authors.
But the purpose of the authors may not
agree with the original
purpose of the messenger of god.
This is the Muslim objection. I
the reason why Christians today use words like
these are accurate representations
of the purpose of the authors or portraits
of Jesus is because of this type of
criticism and scholarly criticism we're talking about. They
have been forced to revise their position, which
used to be that the Bible is the
unadulterated
pure Word of God.
Would you would you show us your original
you're talking as though you have something you're
comparing
our versions to. You're talking as though you
have some kind of a real authentic Ingeal
or somewhere or other. If you have it
somewhere, bring it out and let's look at
it. The point is we don't have it.
You don't have it. I don't have it.
Be talking authoritatively as though you know for
sure this is erroneous. Excuse me.
Let me just let me just answer his
question. Finish his part. Yeah. The point is
is I'm saying I didn't say they have
misrepresented
the,
book that Jesus handed down.
I'm saying the original proclamation of Jesus Christ
is nowhere to be found. It is it
does not exist anymore in reality.
And what we have here is a misinterpretation
of his message. How do you know that?
Your CRF Yeah. I am It doesn't exist.
I am saying that
excuse me. I am saying that I am
saying that the possibility there is strongest strong
enough that many Christian
scholars themselves are have doubts about it, that
that was the original message proof. No. This
is a critical issue for the following point
Because you are try the Christian,
believer
or, evangelist or missionary or whatever,
witness,
is trying to convince
others that Jesus is the revelation of God.
That witness stands on the integrity of his
scriptures.
There is no other sort of way to
judge that statement.
We are saying that the integrity of those
scriptures is seriously in doubt.
Not just among Muslims, because we have our
own reasons for doubting it, but among Christian
scholars themselves who are within the church itself.
Okay. You've made your point. Doctor Woodbury, you
want me to be at first or There's
nothing more to say. Sir, the you made
your point. If the issue is whether there
are Christian scholars who have doubts about the
Bible, we grant that. But the issue at
hand is, is this the Bible the Word
of God?
Yes. And so you've made your point. Alright.
Fine. Now There's serious doubt about it. Fine.
Back to your point,
we we accept. There's the the law of
non contradiction.
What I would like to do is without
making an absolute or deity recognized in historical
processes, things may occur
that that we want to apply it to
larger things.
What does
how how does God
intend to give instruction to human beings and
then let himself be foiled
in history by whatever forces are at work
to frustrate his purposes? That's a that's a
an ugly picture of what God is. It
it suggests that he is unable to cope
with historical forces and is unable to ensure
that a book
that he gave,
will be preserved. And if that is the
case, then you have no assurance. That's like
saying why did God let history There will
be a Quran that is pure. That's like
saying why did God let history that's like
saying why did God let history unfold as
he has? Or it isn't. I mean, the
answer is, well, I'm sure God knows best.
But, you know, that sort of question, anybody
could ask about anything.
Why did God let history unfold as as
it has? Why did he let a Muslim
from the Christian perspective
develop this huge religion that now competes with
Christianity?
Why? Why? Why? I mean, you're asking me
about ultimate questions that I can't answer and
neither can you.
Well, I answer actually Let us, let's move.
I think this point is is already cleared
out.
And what I'd like to do to do
is to
apparently you don't believe
that the whole Bible is the Word of
God, right?
For for you as Muslims. Yes. So what
I would like to do is
give me an example or a
not a proof. I will give you I
will
let me see what you are asking to
them or
It is along the same line, and I'd
like to address some some points that had
been raised here.
First of all, reverend Chestnut said, we make
it sound like Satan is smarter than God.
Not none whatsoever.
Satan is might be smarter than men. Men
lost
the,
inspiration that had been given to them and
the teaching that had been given to them.
God did not cause them, to lose it.
So that is an answer to, this point.
Now doctor, Woodbury mentioned that Muslims will have
some difficulty with the early manuscripts
of the, Quran. I will give one simple
example here.
Well,
that's what he's talking about. I'm talking about
the Bible. Okay.
I know that, but I'm talking about the
bible right now. Give me a chance please
to finish.
In the first epistle of John,
in chapter 5 verse 7, the, verse that
specifically the only verse that specifically states about
the Trinity.
In the King James version of the Bible
for there there are 3 that bear witness
in heaven, the father, the word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these 3 are 1. Now
you revise
the,
the version, the the King James,
and you produce the revised standard version of
the bible, and it is all gone. The
same standard had never been applied to the
Quran. You cannot say that we are having
the same very difficulty.
As far as the genealogy of Jesus, peace
be upon him, and some names had been
dropped out of the genealogy, I go along
with that. There is I would like to
grant this point to doctor Woodbury.
The only other problem that I might have
with that, that one of them
traces the genealogy
to David through Solomon, and the other one
traces the genealogy
to his brother, Nathan.
So So even if you drop some names
and you are not very careful about the
names, I don't see how you can branch
out
and get,
into 2 different genealogists from 2 different people.
Now Reverend Chastain said you can enter into
a museum
and 2 people will see the same statue,
but they might have different descriptions. I beg
to differ with you, reverend. If they are
inspired by God, they will see the same
exact statue, the same exact picture, they will
have the same exact
story. But if they are not inspired by
God, that is where the differences of opinions,
enters.
Reverend Vogler said the Christian community never made
any claim that Jesus came with a gospel
or with a a book.
However, the gospel writers made this claim.
All 4 of them said Jesus went around
preaching the gospel. Jesus went around preaching the
gospel. Makes you wonder, what was he preaching?
Was he preaching from the King James or
from the revised standard version of the Bible?
Obviously, there was a gospel in his hand
whether it is the old testament.
Jesus himself clarified that on his own lips
by saying, I have not spoken of myself,
but God had given me a commandment of
what I should say and what I should
preach. Very clear statement
that the man was preaching a gospel,
the angel like the Quran calls it or
the evangel or the good news, whatever you
want to call it from,
God,
Almighty.
Now Reverend Chestain said that
the Christian went to the Jews and the
Jews are very, very accurate with their preservation
of the scriptures and so on. Well, apparently,
the Christians do not learn them from the
Jews on how to preserve
their own scriptures
because every few years, you have a different
version that is revised
in which
complete verses are taken out of the text.
Verses that touch on the basic
principles
and the faith of the Christian
like the verse of the Trinity.
You cannot produce for me an equivalent verse
like the one in 1 John 5:7 that
speaks
explicitly
about the Trinity. There is no other verse.
And then we find out later on that
this had been added
in
the 13th
century.
So makes me wonder
now if you are discovering older manuscripts that
shows you that this has been added in
such and such century,
What kind of gospel are we going to
have in our hand or what kind of
New Testament we are going to have in
our hand if we discover documents that dates
to the days of Jesus? We might
then discover a different
or an exempt or an identical copy of
the Quran. So the point Thank you. That
that the brother here had raised
about the authenticity
of the manuscripts
have not been even settled
yet among the Christian scholar. This is not
a Muslim Christian debate about the authenticity of
the Bible.
This is a Christian
Christian debate about the authenticity Thank you. Manuscript.
Let me just comment on a number of
points here.
One has to do with what we mean
by versions.
We always are going back to the
Greek texts
and trying as
much as scholars can
to get the most authentic
text.
This is something we have kept our texts
as we will see in the next section.
Generally, the Muslims have
burned theirs, but we can give you historical
evidence of verses that are missing
in the Quran. But we will save that
for the next time. I just want to
indicate it is not unique
to ourselves.
Secondly,
I think we need to look at what
is the purpose
of,
the writings.
And John, one of the writers of the,
the gospel according to John,
the writer of the gospel according to John,
who was a disciple, was not some unknown
figure at a later stage according to the
great majority
of New Testament scholars.
It says in chapter 20 verse 30,
Jesus did many other miraculous
signs in the presence of his disciples which
are not recorded in this book.
But these are written that ye may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that believing,
ye may have life through his name.
Now the basic question for the Christian is,
is there a sufficient
is there sufficient material here,
that is a faith sufficiently
faith faithful portrait of what Jesus did and
said
that we can believe in him and have
life through his name.
The Christian answer is yes.
That is the case.
Now as to the
book
in the New Testament. In fact, Robert Gulick
is,
a New Testament Testament scholar who has done
a great deal of research on this.
And he sees the gospel
as that basic
teaching
of Christ and the early apostles,
which has among has
two basic elements. It is the
kingly rule of God, which is broken in
a unique way
in the teaching and life
of Jesus Christ
and which will
ultimately
be fulfilled
at his coming again. It is an also
a gospel
That is sort of the kingly rule
part of the gospel. The other part of
the gospel
is the
suffering servant,
salvation that is brought through the death
and resurrection of our Lord. These are the
basic elements of
the gospel,
which is not only what is described
by the
4 writers of gospels,
but is also,
the essential
part
of the rest of the books of the
New Testament, and was the basic criterion
in deciding,
in the very early church
what was to be included in the canon.
Did it
fit in with that basic understanding
of the
life and ministry of our Lord,
which is,
presented?
Well, doctor Woodbury, we do not insist
that it has to be in the form
of a book. It could be in the
form of an oral tradition
that had been taught by Jesus, peace be
upon him, And there is evidence,
that it was an oral tradition. As a
matter of fact,
the cue list that Mark had used to
formulate his gospel was written supposedly
in Aramaic of some of the,
teachings or the statements that had survived in
Aramaic from the teachings of Jesus.
So it could be an oral tradition.
Now does you ask the question, does a
Christian
see enough in the current
gospels
about the life of Jesus and the teachings
of Jesus? The Muslim will will will affirm
that the Christian should and can find that.
The only problem is is that with the
current versions of the New Testament,
that this is hidden
with
the theologian's point of view, the writer's point
of view, camouflage
in all that to the point that you
make it very very hard
unless you are a true scholar and start
searching for Jesus of history.
Then you cannot unravel what the church had
added
and the doctrine that had been added. Now
you are I'm sure that you are very
much aware that there are very sincere,
honest
Christians,
modern day Christians within the last approx
of faith. And they are finding out that
there are tremendous, tremendous difference between Jesus of
history that they can verify historically what he
thought, and between the Christ of faith that
had been
kind of
and I don't mean that as a disrespectful
term, but invented by the church.
And remember That's a very quick comment. Just
a very quick one. I think, what doctor
Woodbury said is quite significant and what other
colleagues also have referred to, and I think
we're coming to grips
with one very crucial area in our understanding.
The question of writing
a scripture for the sake of for the
purpose of explaining
the nature and mission of Jesus as perceived
by the writer who is not necessarily,
infallible. And I think this is quite significant
because once we reach that point,
once we realize that this writing came after
theological arguments have already
started, I think the coloration of that writing,
then it becomes a matter
either of accepting my faith that those people
wrote under divine inspiration,
which is very difficult to accept really in
view of the fact that there are so
so many irreconcilable
contradictions. We don't want to to dwell on
that. There are so many irreconcilable
contradiction in both an old New Testament, which
does not indicate really,
confused the Holy Spirit that's giving different information.
But I think to conclude, really, I believe
that
a lot of time in Christianity, there is
talk about the religion
about Jesus, not the religion
of Jesus.
The religion of Jesus, what he he preached
the gospel whether it was in oral tradition
or written form.
Muslims believe has been the same as told
by all of the prophets which is Islam.
But what happened that after him when the
theology
began to develop,
the religion
of Jesus
was transformed for 100 years into a religion
about
the person of Jesus. And this is the
crux of the difference, really.
I think,
to respond to that,
you're
actually making believe you have some source of
information that
inside source that you know what the religion
of Jesus
we have some other material that we can
confirm through
thousands and thousands of manuscripts that go back
even before the Quran was,
given.
And even the Dead Sea Scrolls go back
and and, confirm the Old Testament. But let
me get back to my illustration before because
it deals with a major issue. We don't
want to be involved in the question is
not,
do some Bible scholars disagree with the with
the Bible, which you seem to be continually
coming back to as your main source of
confirmation
that there are some Christians who who, find
fault with parts or many parts of the
Bible.
Getting away from now, our question is, is
the Bible the Word of God?
And my illustration that I started off with
was one about
a statue.
And you look at that statue, and any
reasonable person looking at an all, really, an
all marble statue would say it's a marble
statue and not focus in on the mind
of sandstone. And this is what I just
wanna read a paragraph here
about the Bible. The textual evidences testify to
the authenticity of the Christian Bible.
The book has over 1200
pages,
yet the only passages
and variant readings found in it, when put
together,
hardly fill a page. So you're talking about
so many contradictions
and as though you have all contradictions,
all sandstone and no marble. We're talking about
something critical areas which hardly fit 1 page
out of 1200
pages.
So it's it's conveying a false impression
to when you keep stressing these Christian scholars
and all these massive contradictions.
It is it is disregarding the fact that
the the 99.9%
is, quite clear and,
is harmonious and does not contradict Okay. Can
can
can one then ask you what reference did
you use to read about this? Sorry?
Can I ask what is what reference did
you use? I'll be glad to show this.
It's a book by John Gilchrist.
Okay. It's called The Christian Witness to the
Muslims.
Okay. And you can get this from PO
box 1804
Benoni
in the Republic of South Africa. Thank you.
Okay. I just wanted to know for my
honor and John Hendricks. Just No. No. No.
Please. That is going to be the, please.
I want the just resign,
please. No. It's not Campus Crusade. No. No.
No. Please. Jesus to the Muslims. Please.
Box 1804 Benoni. I appreciate your answer. I
I just want to answer to the point
now.
Now, doctor Chastain, you're saying that
we're only dwelling on
the the comments,
opinions,
and conclusions of
unknown Christian scholars and making Unknown. I didn't
say it. Well, or known. Now you're saying
they are known, whatever,
that their opinion do not really count. Now
I want to bring you to the text.
Okay.
John said that he wrote the Gospel of
John for a purpose, to prove whatever, to
get his own account.
Luke said that he saw fit for himself
also to write. This is what he said
in the beginning of the gospel according to
Luke.
Now, are you claiming that those
writers,
even assuming that they are real Luke and
real John without discussion,
are you saying that those
people who wrote these Gospels,
with all these statements they have
by their own tongue made in the gospel,
saying we are writing. Are you saying, no
it is not they are writing, it is
that they are inspired?
Is this your assertion?
We're saying that inspiration is different, our concept
is different
from yours. It's not God does not have
to give words 1 by 1 in order
for something to be inspired.
God can work so that a man inspired
by God can be using poetry. He could
use a genealogy.
He can use any materials whatsoever.
He could use,
a pagan writer if he wishes. Fine. But
this And and and under the control and
oversight of the Holy Spirit, he can produce
a book which is true. What is the
benefit of that control if that production, the
product,
under the control of the Holy Spirit
will carry again
inconsistent,
not only inconsistent,
the 32 scholars who revised King James Version.
Unlike what you suggest, it is 1%.
It is only a tarnished spot
on a big statue of marble.
Unlike what you suggest,
the 32 scholars backed by 50 denominations
of the Christian
scholars,
they said in the introduction of the revised
standard version that they have found many, and
they did not call it mistakes,
many defects.
And they called them, they were so many
and so serious
to call for revision.
And not only that, but to give some
examples and I want to carry this point
thoroughly because it is the core of our
discussion tonight.
See,
I give you some examples in the book
of John, Acts and others,
All what the,
revisers revised, as doctor Hussain pointed eloquently,
it relates to one single issue.
Was Jesus God or was He not? I
quote this in John 316,
the world begotten is taken off. In act
313,
instead of the word,
the servant,
His servant Jesus, it says, glorified
His Son Jesus.
In Acts 326,
the revised has corrected,
and instead of saying
His servant,
it says His Son Jesus.
And if I read only Acts 326,
and I read it very slowly for people
and yourself to reflect on it, You will
see that people who even wrote
the first initial translation of King James, they
did not even mind what they are writing.
Literally, I'm saying this, it's a charge, it
is a responsibility.
And the plaintiff approval, as you said in
the previous session, is on the claimant, not
on us. Read John act 326, it says,
unto you,
fairest God, this is King James,
Unto you, fairest God,
having raised up His Son Jesus,
sent Him to bless you
in turning away every one of you from
his inequities.
If you can make a clear English sentence
out of this, I give you $10 now.
The
revised standard version, because it's all I have
anyway, the revised standard version says,
God
having raised up his servant,
sent him to you first.
Look at the structure doctor Woodbury and others.
To bless you in turning every one of
you from your wickedness.
Look at the wording.
And we are talking about examples like this.
So when you doctor
said, it is a trivial, not even 1
percent, the Christian scholars who revise the Bible
disagree with you. Just to pull things down
a little bit, let me address another issue
which is very important, very Very briefly. Can
we The question Do you wanna make a
reply first before we Okay. Listen to you?
Yes. I would like to. Sure.
Yeah. I think,
you know, I I remember what John Calvin
once said, and I appreciate
Calvin.
He said,
the the Bible
is like a pair of glasses
through which
you are able to see
into the heart and into the nature and
into the love and grace of God.
If you just look at the glasses,
and you, see all kinds of blemishes or,
you know, you tear it apart or whatever,
and you fail to put them on to
use them for their purposes,
then you will never understand
why the scriptures were even written, or what
their purposes are.
And again, we come back to the idea
that that I think the idea of revelation,
is very different in Islam and in Christianity.
I did not accept your proposition
initially, Shaka. I would not do that,
to to because then you you put me
in a mold where you're trying to make
the Bible into the Quran. You mean you
didn't accept the criteria? No. I I would
not do that. I would not make the
Bible into a Quran. That's a very important
point, and I think we have to understand
that. So I'd like you to elaborate on
this point a little bit, please.
That that that for us, the,
the the the true revelation is a revelation
of God and not just about God. You
talked about that the gospel goes, you know,
the the religion of Jesus and about Jesus.
But I would say,
over my years of,
being involved in Muslim Christian relations,
that one of the key questions
in Islam is,
I don't know,
Abraham's
question to his folks.
What do you think? How do you consider,
the Lord of the worlds?
Tremendous thirst desire for right knowledge about God.
And that in the Christian tradition,
it's a different question.
And both are important, but I think it's
a little different question. It would be Paul's
question on the road to Damascus.
Who you are.
There's a there's a running throughout the whole
biblical tradition
is this deep desire
of knowing who God is.
Why do you have these claims on me,
etcetera.
There's a questioning of God.
I mean, we have the book of Job,
you
know, arguing with God. I mean it's a
rich history of a give and take, and
crying out to heaven, and so and so
forth.
And that finally,
you see,
the the Quranic question, and I may be
wrong in this, but the Quranic question
doesn't doesn't lead to incarnation because it doesn't
need to. You can get tremendous information about
God
from holy books, from prophets, from nature, from,
you know, a variety of sources.
But that in a sense, the biblical question
leads, as it were, to God
becoming his own sign. It takes God to
reveal God.
To know who God is, God himself must
come. God himself must be with us.
And I think what we say,
the whole Christian tradition says that somehow in
the face of Jesus Christ, we do see
the glory of God.
It's this presence of God
in Jesus Christ.
He is the living Word.
He is the gospel,
and and what he does, and and the
things he teaches.
He is the embodiment of the kingdom and
of the gospel. And what
we react to or respond to
is indeed
about this person because of who this person
is,
and of God in Christ.
And I hope that somehow, you know, as
we move along, we don't miss the point
that for Christians anyway,
one of the key issues is God was
in Christ reconciling
the world
to himself.
Okay. If if we missed that, then I
think we've missed the whole point of the
Christian witness. Okay. It seems again, we seem
to drift on topics that has been covered
already before.
Just make a quick comment on that and
come to the pertinent issue of the question
of revelation.
I think there's, some danger involved there when
we speak about God revealing himself,
not giving information about himself, and that is
pantheism.
In fact, one can claim that God revealed
himself and his kindness and love
in the seas, in the oceans, in the
animals, and will drift very easily
towards pantheism. And as indicated earlier,
from our understanding as Muslims, there's no way
that a human being can comprehend the essence
of God. So you get information about God,
you get information about the attributes of God,
but any attempt to say that God really
can be,
you know, incarnate
in, in that sense, not in the relational
sense as a friend said before, it's totally
out. But in any case, the point I'd
like to say here
is that it is not really true to
say that, the,
concepts of revelation between Islam and Christianity are
totally
different. I think the difference lies in applying
which type to the scripture.
Muslims also believe in Ilham.
When you talk about poets
or some artists or
whatever other person come up with some new
ideas,
This is this is admitted admissible,
but it's only an individual level that is
not binding on someone else. In fact, Imam
Ghazali interpret 1 ayah in the Quran that
says,
be Allah fearing, be conscious of Allah and
Allah will teach you and he says that
that would give the person an ability to
see truth as truth but it is individual
experience.
Secondly, there is also revelation of God in
a inspiration in a sense of
giving the meaning to the Prophet, but letting
him use his own words and that's also
in Islam as well and that is known
in as Hadith because in Hadith it is
revelation from God but not word for word
dictated like the Quran and the Prophet uses
his own word to express it.
And then of course, there's the higher, what
we believe as Muslims to be a higher
form of revelation
when it comes to essentials of faith that
could be subject to misinterpretation.
Unless the words are very tight, then the
Word of God itself are dictated
through His Messenger or the Prophet. And then
of course there is also the inspiration not
to the Prophet himself
or the Ilham of someone who comes after
the Prophet to write after him. So there
is a source of hierarchy,
not that Islam doesn't recognize some of those
tribulations. As far as Muslims are concerned,
when it comes to the scriptures, and when
you say right, the word is like this
in the Quran, this is the linguistic origin,
you have to really look the Quran not
because you want to
conditions and circumstances and events and accidents which
shed some light on the true meaning of
the Quran.
Then it is only fair to expect that
it should be very accurate and very meticulously
reserved because if it is not, can refer
to the Quran and say, oh, maybe this
verse might support Trinity.
So it has to be quite clear.
Whereas, in the case of the Bible, which
I think is quite accepted by our Christian
brethren as I understood,
it is not really an exact words dictated
by God through
those writers. You say it falls in the
lower form of revelation according to the Islamic
hierarchy, a sort of but even then we're
not sure whether that Ilham was coming from
God or was it their own thoughts and
again, being colored by their particular purpose
and the theological,
raging argument that was going on. This is
a question. It's not again difference in revelation
or various forms, but the fact that the
Bible in Muslim understanding should have met a
higher standard
of accuracy. Thank you. We're not able to
see that. Do you accept
his doctrine or explanation
of
your point,
doctor Wagner?
Well, I mean, if you if you if
you say that that Christians ought to believe
that Jesus came with a book and that
that book He didn't say that. I mean
or or that,
revelation
is dictated
and been written down,
then I think that you are mistaken. I
didn't say that either. I get to make
my Can can you then there are some
Can you repeat the statement? Let let him
repeat the statement that you made or the
conclusion that you made. Again.
I say
that it is not true what was mentioned
earlier that, our concept of revelation is totally
different because in Islam there are various forms
of revelation,
Some of which are higher than others.
You know, and when you interpret the hadees
of the Prophet which was revealed in meaning,
you might have some relatively more flexibility than
when you have the text of the Quran
that you have to take it very carefully
because this is the dictated word of God.
We're not saying that Christians ought
to do this or that. It's up to
them. That's your privilege.
What we're saying that from our perspective,
when you tell us that the Bible
was written by people
after Jesus
claiming some sort of inspiration, I would say
that in our perspective that falls in a
lower
level or lower type
of revelation,
whereas the Bible, we believe, if we want
to really to to persuade us of a
legitimate claim like divinity,
it should be in a higher form of
revelation because one single word
in the bible, or in the Quran for
that matter, could be a basis for a
whole doctrine.
And if there's that
fluidity in it into it, then perhaps it's
quite legitimate to have the variations of interpretations
not only among Muslims like we indicated among
Muslims. I think this might be a conclusion
that might be
made by anybody who's listened to both sides.
So I wanna make sure
either you agree or disagree with the conclusion
he made, which is
in in Arabic, and I think you know
Arabic very well,
that the
Bible is
You see?
Which means
inspiration. So
in its entirety
the general meanings could be from God, but
the exact words
are not.
This is what
somehow, Doctor. Badawi, is saying. Do you agree
on this?
I wouldn't put it in this lower category
as Ilham because as I understand,
Ilham as opposed to Waihi. Yes.
Is it could be of a poet,
really. And,
the
for the Old Testament,
when Jesus,
no. Excuse me. For the Old Testament, when
Paul be writing in second Timothy 3 16.
He does not define what he means by
inspiration,
but he does say all scripture is God
breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting,
and training in righteousness
so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped
for every good work.
So so whatever our definition includes,
at least of the Old Testament. You see,
we we try to compare both. Yeah. Right.
So the the question is It has to
it has to be include that it is
God breathed Okay. Which is more than the
inspiration of a poet, if that's what. We
have 2 categories. Either the word for word
from God
or the second category, Ilham, or a one
in between that you're suggesting now. So do
you accept first the one that it's word
for word from God? I don't.
No. None of us would, it includes the
personality
and literary talents of the writers,
but, was faithful in presenting what God
has done. Helpful, or we're trying to reach
to some understanding.
Higher than my understanding
of Ilham.
So, you know,
we don't believe in a parrot dictation.
Yes. But we but we,
for the Old Testament at least, what our
Lord said seems to be a higher quality
than,
what I understand it'll have to be. Thank
you. In order even you know, we have
to be fair in our evaluation
and not to
use words emotionally too.
I have said earlier
that the argument right now is about an
inspiration word for word or or elham.
Again, like Sheikh have pointed out,
you know, it is not for us to
judge
what did the people do and what let
the people themselves make the claim, and then
we will be happy to evaluate
their claim.
1 of the gospel writer, which supposedly is
the most educated among all 4 who is
a Greek
physician, Luke, who is a companion of Paul.
In the first chapter, in the first verse,
he never claimed any inspiration. He never claimed
any
He never claimed any angel of the Lord
speaking to him. If you take a look,
for example, in the Old Testament,
specifically, it states when somebody receives an inspiration,
the angel of the Lord came to me,
and he instructed me to do such and
such and such and such. This is a
man claiming
inspiration from God or claiming revelation from God.
Now you take what did Luke himself say.
Luke himself said,
I have seen multiple people writing
multiple accounts,
and therefore, it seemed good to me to
write to you most honorable Theophilus.
Now the man never claimed any inspiration. The
man never claimed any revelation. The man never
claimed an angel of the Lord is coming
to talk to him. The man never claimed
that God has talked to him.
So I mean, I even failed to see
where is the word entered into the picture
or where the word inspiration into the picture.
Let the gospel writer make the claim, and
we will be more than delighted to discuss
it and carry it from there. Thank you.
Just read a verse here? I think it's
from Hebrews 4,
verse
12 and 13,
which I think to many Christians sort of,
summarizes and gives a
an idea of the power of the word
of God. The
Hebrews 4
12 and 13. Let me just read it
here.
For the word of God is living and
active,
It
It judges the thoughts and attitudes
of the heart.
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's
sight. Everything is uncovered
and laid bare before the eyes of him
to whom we must give account.
It's a living word. It's a dynamic word.
It,
judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
And I think it's our experience as Christians
that this is what
the Gospels do
and what the the writings do. Now if
it doesn't do that, of course,
you know, that so be it. But,
I think this is what is at the
heart of it.
Okay. I think there's a comment here on
on the question of even Elham, which is
a lower level of revelation.
I think there is even a question mark
on that to be true. So let me
read you a few things from the Bible.
That's true. Where in the first Corinthians chapter
7 25, Paul writes and says, now concerning
the unmarried,
I have no command of the Lord. I
have no command of the Lord,
but I give you my opinion.
So he admits Paul here that he's giving
his own opinion.
Peter writes and says also in, in 2nd
Peter verse,
15 in chapter 3. Paul wrote to you
according to the wisdom. He didn't say revelation.
According to the wisdom given him and of
course wisdom is different from administration.
In, Timothy,
again he writes in 2nd Timothy,
chapter 2 verse 8. Remember Jesus Christ, risen
from the dead, descended from David, has preached
in my gospel.
Then you take the, for example, and very
interesting, quotation in Galatians 52.
Now
I,
Paul, say to you, not like we read
in the Old Testament, this is the word
that the Lord God revealed to his servant
or prophet,
Zakaria or this or that. It just says,
I, Paul, say to you. And finally, an
interesting quotation in Romans
chapter 3 verses 7 and 8 quote,
Paul says, but if through my falsehood
God's truthfulness
abounds to His glory,
why am I still being condemned as a
sinner?
And why not do even that good may
come out? And it goes back to my
question earlier that the Gospels,
the the other books of the New Testament
were written with a particular purpose in mind
for the writer. He wanted to prove his
particular theory. What I read, you could say,
no, you didn't under understand it right. It's
your privilege. But what I read here in
the words of Paul, as he was accused
apparently by some people of changing
the real teaching about of Jesus into teaching
about Jesus, and then he responds to these
people that say, no, I'm not lying. But
even if I'm lying
through my falsehood, if that lying, if that
change or contextualization
as some recent,
theories and evangelization say, if that contextualization
results in bringing the glory of God to
the minds of people, why should I be
condemned? Why not do evil, I. E. Even
change, so that good may come out of
it? So if you take the the totality
of it, you find that it's not only
in the case of Luke, but in many
other places.
The writer is disavowing, really, that he's receiving
even the lowest form of revelation in Islam,
which is Ilham. It's their opinion. They're entitled
to it. Thank you.
I think this betrays a basic misunderstanding of
the Christian concept of prophecy and revelation.
Again,
what is called Ilham
is to the Christian
in part in the scripture is equivalent to
what is, being considered to be wahi. So
that
when there is a specific word
such as in Mark 1,
where
and a voice came out of the heavens,
here's a voice from God,
Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I
am well pleased.
Now this would be wahi in the,
in the Muslim concept if because it's a
God speaking directly, wouldn't it? You would accept
This is not the point I am saying.
I am saying if a book is a
book from Allah, from God, a to z,
it has to be all in one form
of revelation or the other. So I am
pointing out to numerous examples where the writer
avows
or disavows even having the lowest form of
revelation. Well, supposing God doesn't want to do
it your way, go a to z in
a certain form. Supposing God wants to choose
a different
means, which is what We're not talking about
supposition. We're talking about the text of the
Bible. You can take one side of supposition.
Here it says, God, after He spoke long
ago to the fathers
in the prophets in many portions
and in many ways. There's not just one
a to z, only one way God could
speak. He could speak through various things.
In these last days has appointed to us
in His Son whom He appointed heir of
all things, through whom also He made the
world and he is the radiance of his
glory. Now what this is basically saying is
that the whole idea of,
of prophecy
and prophets is is now obsolete.
God in the past
was speaking through prophets
in books
in various ways. And now in the event
of Jesus Christ, this whole thing is is
obsolete. And this is one of the reasons
why we're the Christians are not looking for
another book. Why we as Christians do not
accept the Book of Mormon even though I
asked you, well, why do you, reject the
Book of Mormon or something like that? That's
no problem. That's not issue. Okay. Yeah. It's
not the issue. But that's just my illustration.
I don't wanna get you hung up on
that. But that was just my illustration.
But,
God is in this age now speaking in
a different way. Apart from books, He's speaking
primarily in the person and He reveals Himself.
A person can be best revealed in a
person
rather than information about the person. So where
sour stress is,
God is engaged in revealing
Himself
and not so much information about Himself. God
wants us to love Him, to be close
to Him, and to do that we need
a model, we need
personal seeing the modeling before us. And this
is the function of the words that to
check it. I don't see how that relates
to the issue. Again, when somebody plainly says
this is my opinion.
Can I, can I respond I just wanted
to,
say something along the lines of that? But
I think I'll
I want to respond to, what doctor Badri
has been saying before something else is thrown
out. Okay. Go ahead, please.
You've given a series of
passages here. Let me just
focus on 2 of them.
When, Paul in first Corinthians 725
talks about my opinion,
the mere fact that he felt it necessary
to indicate,
that this was his personal opinion
is to contrast it from,
Galatians
111,
for example.
I want you to know, my brothers, that
the gospel I preach is not something that
man made up.
I'll just read,
Galatians 111. I want you to know, brothers,
that the gospel I preached is not something
that man made up. I did not receive
it from any man
nor was I taught it. Rather I received
it by revelation
from Jesus Christ. So,
he's making a clear distinction between,
the times he is talking
by revelation
and the times that,
he is giving his own opinion.
Now as to preach my gospel, again we
have to look at the context of what
Paul was dealing with. He was dealing with
people,
who kept being troubled by Judaizers,
kept being troubled by people who wanted to
make the Christians follow the
Jewish law
as part of becoming a Christian.
And so in Galatians, he says in Galatians
1
6, I am astonished that you are so
quickly deserting the one who called you by
the grace of God
and are turning to a different gospel
which is really no gospel at all.
And then, so this is what he means
by
my gospel, the gospel I preached which I
received, verse 11,
from Jesus Christ.
You are teaching something different. So it is
my gospel which I received from Christ, and
hence it is his gospel,
as opposed to those of you who are
who keep trying to bring the law into
this and say you have to follow the
Jewish law in order to be a Christian.
Yeah. I think Jeffrey was, Yeah. This is
just a comment. I I think we all
have to recognize that there were,
even by that very statement that you quoted,
that there were other Gospels floating around.
And, they all claimed or many of them
claimed to have
a revelational authority also. The Gnostic Gospels were
famous for having to have some secret that
only they got from Jesus Christ and some
secret doctrine,
that they was revealed to them and not
to the generality.
For example, the recently discovered gospel of Thomas.
So the only point I'm trying to make
is is that,
once again, you know, we it comes back
to the same point. It was
was Paul receiving a direct revelation,
or was he,
you know,
revealing his, his own theology? The distinction here
is
these gnostic gospels
were in fact secret gospels.
Their intent was to just speak to the
insiders. But wasn't wasn't the gospel of John
thought perhaps to be a Gnostic gospel by
some?
Some earlier some earlier thought, but it is
found to have, the same ideas they thought
were Gnostic are now seem to be Dead
Sea Scrolls. But there was a controversy for
a while in the church. It is not
a controversy
anymore. Yes.
So that,
what you have here,
again,
is you talk as though these were,
well, previously, you've talked about unknown writers.
The great weight of biblical scholarship now
is in pushing the biblical doc documents to
a very early date,
in the time of the eyewitnesses
and the Gospels by,
disciples, or in the case of Luke, one
who was in close contact with Peter, who
was a disciple.
And so Could you quote us a a
source on that? Honestly, I Well, I'm basically
I'm in the seminary world.
And so what give me one literal reference
so I could just When you when you
say a literal reference, you see, I'm exposed
to documents
all the time and A journal
journal, a book, just for my sake.
What does he want?
An author.
Well, let me check with them. Let me,
refer to let we refer to a commentary
by,
Robert Gulick, Word Commentaries, 1st Volume,
many of these,
situations here.
But,
because you're because you know, in your statement,
doctor Woodbury, I'm not I'm not trying put
you on the spot. These gnostic words
were,
not received by the great body of the
church Right. Right. And, were secret. They weren't
for the masses. They were for the and
these gospels were that you might believe. These
are for all. No. I'm I'm now getting
back to the other point about these gospels
going back to eyewitness accounts and that their
authors were eyewitnesses. That was a revelation to
me because everything I've
read on that in in the library at
the University of Kansas,
says, quite the opposite, that they're most probably
not eyewitness accounts, and there's no reason to
believe
that. So I was just wondering since that
seems to be the current weight of, scholarship,
I was wondering, if you could just have
given me some reference. But, I'll for now,
I'll just have to take your word for
it. Okay. I'll send it over. Thank you.
I,
was kind of surprised to hear that there
are some secret,
gospels or considered to be secrets because if
my memory serves me right,
that, Jesus, peace be be upon him, said,
I thought nothing
in secret.
Whatever he had to say, apparently, he said
it in the open market.
So, I'm not aware even, that that he
had thought anything in secret, and that would
be contradictory to his statement
that, he taught nothing. We didn't say he
taught in secret. We said there are certain
gospels that are gnostic gospels
written by people who were teaching esoteric.
I I I am I am kind It
has nothing to do with his teaching in
secret. I'm kind of,
glad that we clarified this one that they
are the ones that kept it in secret
and Jesus does not teach it to them
in secret.
It seems to me like the bulk of
the Christian faith as it is practiced,
now or as it being presented to us
especially from the
bible, point of view seems to be center,
centered around what Paul had to say because
most 99% of the references that I have
heard, I have heard Galatians, Hebrew,
and the other books,
Corinthians,
whatever Paul said, there was hardly anything that
had been
attributed again to what did Jesus
himself said.
In one part of Paul's letter, he claims
the revelation like doctor Woodbury
had pointed out. In another part,
he say I received,
no revelation like doctor Badawi had had pointed
out. Yet I'm not aware that there had
been an article or a book
that clearly defines
what he claims to be revelation and what
he claims to be
his own,
opinion. And I think,
an article like that would be greatly helpful
to the Muslims to find out what the
Paul really claims to be revelation and what
does Paul
claims to be not to be revelation, and
it is his own opinion.
Reverend Chastain,
quoted to us from,
a, John Hillcrest.
I think he's from the campus crusade,
and or something like that.
But, I like to quote from someone who
is
probably everyone can acknowledge
his,
credentials. His name is doctor
Robert Funk. He's a current professor of religious
studies at the University of Montana.
He's a former professor at Harvard. So he's
a big,
heavyweight here,
as far as theology is concerned, and nobody
can dismiss him as a a superficial
Christian or a minority or a liberal or,
does not carry weight. He's a professor. He
used to be a professor at Harvard. There
was an article written about him in October
6, 1986 in the Chicago Tribune, and I
just like to read directly from it without
comments.
And I am quoting here, many New Testament
scholars
many here, not few, many New Testament scholars
contend
that much of the lore surrounding Jesus was
inserted in manuscripts
written after his death by zealous followers.
Now the article also quotes doctor Funk as
saying
he is involved in the Jesus seminar that,
is studying what
sayings could be authentic attributed to Jesus and
what had been
added later on by someone else. And I
quote him again, our work if carefully and
thoughtfully
wrote,
will spill liberty for other 1,000,000
who want to know the ultimate truth.
What did Jesus really say?
Who was this man Jesus? End quote.
Thank you.
Go ahead. You seem to have the same
problem today we had yesterday. Yesterday, whenever we
talked about God,
you you men would be sort of getting
I was using the term getting out your
calculators and we could never get past the
numerics.
Today, no matter what we say, we come
back to some New Testament scholars.
And I again, the issue is, is the
Bible not the Word of God and not
are there New Testament scholars who disagree with
the, Bible as the Word of God. We
said we granted that there are, in the
Christian community, varieties of opinions. So again, Robert
Funk and we're not dismissing him, but we're
saying he is a New Testament scholar and
he disagrees. But the question is, is the
Bible the Word of God? And I want
to read to you, you're asking,
about the witnesses. This is from John. Now
sometimes if we refer to Luke,
you complained a bit because,
we we were talking so much about Paul
and others and not about the gospels. But
then when we did talk about Luke, well,
supposedly Luke wrote this or supposedly Matthew or
someone else wrote this. Let me give you
another man, John. In first John,
the
chapter 1,
he says, the beginning. What was from the
beginning? What we have heard, what we have
seen with our eyes, what we beheld,
and our hands handled
concerning the Word of Life. And the life
was manifested.
And we have seen and bear witness
and proclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father and was manifested
to us.
What we have seen and heard, we proclaim
to you also
that you also may have fellowship with us.
And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And if
you want so if you want to read
something that by an eyewitness,
who claims this, you can read here in
the epistles of John.
And that tells about how to get eternal
life, again, which comes through Jesus Christ. What
is the date,
of authorship on this on this episode? It's
during the life of John. It's within the
1st century. Within the 1st century. What day
what would what date would it 9 I'll
check what Okay. Scholars are giving us now.
But Okay.
From what from what I understand, 90 to
115.
Is that a fair
date? 85. What's the point?
My my my
to be about 90 90 96. But but
So how many how many years if let
us let us take the number 100 as
a medium number.
How many years
this dates to after Jesus was gone?
Well, if your point is Give me a
give me a number.
Okay. I can't Forget about my point. Give
me a number. About 3033
and this is written about 85 or so.
I'll let you figure it out. But your
point is I'm trying to anticipate, so we'll
save a little bit of time. Well, don't
anticipate. Let me make my point.
Yeah. You know, let me let me make
my point. Let let me put a a
date here. I'm reading from,
in general, 2 views of the dating of
this gospel had been adequate. Stop. Okay. The
traditional view we're talking about the gospel of
John.
The traditional view places it towards the end
of the 1st century about 85 or later.
See the introduction to first John.
More recently, some scholars have suggested an earlier
date, perhaps as early as the fifties and
no later than 70.
The first view may be supported by references
to the statement of Clement of Alexandria
that John wrote to
supplement the account found in the other gospels.
We find this in Eusebius'
Ecclesiastical
History
6147.
And thus, his gospel is later than the
first three. It has also been argued that
the seemingly more developed theology of the 4th
gospel indicates that it originated later.
The second view has found favor because it
has been felt more recently that John wrote
independently
of the other Gospels.
This does not contradict the statement of Clement
referred to above. Also, those who hold this
view,
point out that the developed theology does not
necessarily
argue for a late origin.
The theology of Romans written about
57 is every bit as developed as that
in John.
Further, the statement in 52
that there is, rather, there was a pool
near the Sheep Gate may suggest a time
before 70
when Jerusalem was destroyed. Others, however, observed that
John elsewhere
sometimes use the present tense
when speaking of the I think we are
in a I'm not necessary exit, so This
is the new international version of the Bible.
According to the King James version of the
bible, it puts it approximately about the year
115.
So let us take the average between 85
and 115. Let us say year 100. And
if Jesus died Take things.
Okay. The the I I have the virgin,
either here or in the hotel. I would
be more than delighted Doctor Mercy, why don't
you get to the point? That my point
is if we take the average of 100
and if Jesus, peace be upon him, lived
to be 30 or 33, it depends on
who you talk to, assuming even 35
from 100. So that is 65
years or 70 years after Jesus. Would you
call that an eyewitness? And what kind of
memory would he have? And why would he
have to wait for 60 or 70 years
to write an important theological
point like that? Why didn't he write immediately?
Well, he didn't feel a need to write
immediately. That's his problem.
The the the interval here the interval here
no. No.
The interval here is roughly similar to that
of the Quran.
There's an interval between the your Quran
and,
and the and, the death of Mohammed. We'll
we'll get to the point of the Quran.
We'll get to the point of the Quran
very soon. Because there's a gap in time,
there's some there's possibility of discrepancy. And we're
saying the Quran also has a gap in
time,
from the present text and and,
and the the writing of Mohammed. I guess
we have we have to finish very soon
to get give a chance to the people
who have been here for 2 hours. Fine
fine fine
We have to be fair to them, sir.
This is
a chance. We have 3 hours and this
time to listen to them.
So I'll take a comment from here and
comment from
there. No no further discussion. I need comment.
One one last one last comment. Can I
give this? The memory of Jamal. You
decide who's gonna make the comment.
I decide that I suggest that we should
cancel the panelists. They talk enough. Let's get
to the clock. Very good. Then we go
to your comment. No. No. I'm suggesting that
if if they relent, we relent.
Yeah. No. No. I'm saying if you if
they relent, we relent No. I'd like you
to make I'd like you to make a
conclusion for your opinion and the conclusion,
please, a statement. I need 2, you know,
a statement in less in about a minute
or less about your view of okay, this
topic.
Okay. Would you like to start? Doctor Jamal
Belawi suggested we start with you About your
position regarding this topic,
is it a revelation from God? Is it
not? Is it something else?
Give us a statement, please.
Well, you can do this, doctor Woodbury, but
I would just say that I'm very happy
that in the Christian community that many Christians
are taking history very seriously.
And we are trying very hard
to discover texts and the historical sequence of
events,
and taking history and history historicity
very, very seriously.
And, that raises some difficult questions for us.
I know. But that's alright. We welcome it.
And,
that was That's what you're saying. Yeah. Sure.
Serious research on the whole history of, how
it came about.
And I really just hope that that that
can be true for all of us. No.
It didn't it didn't give me any thing
to give to the people. Right. But maybe
we take it from Doctor. Woodberry or Reverend
Chastain.
What? Are
sexual relationship? No. I need a statement. I
haven't come to the statement yet. You see?
So I I need the statement first before
I move to you.
Doctor Woodberry?
Alright.
I think what we
see here
is that we have to consider each
scripture
by its intended purpose.
And the intended purpose
of the gospel of John
is
the choosing of certain events from Christ like
so that people might believe on Jesus and
have life through his name.
So how does this relate now to being
divine? Is is is the body divine? The
way this relates is this is the purpose
of scripture.
And
the general weight of evidence
is that it presents
a sufficiently
accurate
portrait,
not snapshot,
Portrait,
of Jesus Christ
so that we can
believe in him and have light
in his name. This has been the evidence
of many of us that we have taken
the scripture
for its intended purpose, and we have
met Jesus. We have met God
through Christ
and have found newness of life. Do you
use the word?
Is is it the word of God? Would
you prefer to use the word of God?
Well, as the word of God is Christ
is revealed in Christ, and this is the
interpretation
of that
as Christ himself
taught.
And I've given sufficient references,
on that where the face evidence of what
he taught is in accordance with this gospel
that the later disciples
taught Thank you. To,
find life through his name. Please take the
same statement. But, we'll get the comment first
and the settlement
then. We said we need a statement. So
now you're making a comment and We will
we will reverse the order. Yes. Okay.
See,
in the beginning we tried to establish a
criteria,
by which
we can, go ahead and and proceed and
utilize our minds to
investigate
the authenticity of the Bible using that criteria
that some of you agreed, apparently doctor,
Jagra at the end said he doesn't agree
with it.
We found that it is so apparent and
obvious that the Bible contained
and does still contain many
discrepancies and contradictions to itself, not to the
Quran, not
to
the this hasn't been proved to our satisfaction,
but carry on. Excuse me? This hasn't been
proved to our satisfaction for the intent of
writing, but carry on. This is your assumption.
That's my that is my assumption, my conclusion.
On the other hand, I hear the 3
Christian
panelists
talking about
believing first, so that you can understand what
you have to believe in.
I think that any
logical approach
to faith,
to doctrine,
to books, to revelation
has to start with
bring your proof.
And the proof is not to tell somebody,
when you put on the glass you will
find it's good. But first let him see
that the glass is clear so that he
can see through.
But if it is carried a lot of
dust, a lot
of tarnish and splashes,
then he will never even think to speak.
Can we finish?
Thank you. Our major position as Muslims
is that
with the way we look at the Bible
is that we don't accept it in total,
we don't reject it in total,
And the essence really is that our Christian
brethren say that the Bible is the word
of God, not not necessarily, but is the
revelation from God.
Whereas, we Muslims say,
the Bible contains
in part the word of God, but alongside
with that, it includes also the word of
men, the interpretation, or possibly misinterpretation
with that with good intention among the writers.
There are a number of criteria
that I just focus on too very quickly.
I think we need the statement of the
Jama'at. I didn't even take time enough to
to cover similar statements, just very quickly. Okay.
One is the and apply that to the
Quran when we come to that. One is
the authority. Is there sufficient convincing evidence
that the entire book, I'm not saying part
or some statement here, the entire book is
exclusively revelation from God. And as sheker indicated,
the
numerous inconsistencies and problem in disclaimers made even
by many writers seem to indicate that that
is not established to our satisfaction.
The other thing is the question of authenticity.
Even if this were the word of God,
is there sufficient reason also to believe that
it came to us in the same original
form? Again, we find a huge controversy, not
just a few, a huge controversy arising, which
is praiseworthy, no problem,
about problems, who was the writer, in which
city he wrote, what year did he write,
whether he was the writer or somebody else
put it in his mouth, even the words
of Jesus itself are, there is there are
all kind of problems involved in that.
That actually accentuate the point that was raised
earlier by Reverend Chastain. Do we need a
new prophet? Do we need a new book?
And our criteria as the Bible did not
establish in our satisfaction,
complete authority and authenticity. I'm not saying again,
produce to me the exact verse, you know,
Aramaic version. That would be unreasonable. But we
say that there is not even any convincing,
sufficient reason to believe that it could be
traced to the exact word of Jesus, which
you call in in Islamic studies. It's a
solid senate that there's con constant continuous
chain
of revelation or a chain of, narration that
goes back to Jesus. For that reason, I
do believe, indeed, we needed a new prophet.
We needed a new book to be preserved
and not to be corrupted anymore.
And in fact, that's why we see the
connection between Islam and Christianity, and I hope
even in the future, we see bridging of
that gap through more serious
research on both sides. Thank you.
Now we'll, we'll have
yeah, I'll go to this side.
This this question is directed to the Christian
scholars.
What kinds of doctrines,
reproof
and corrections
and also,
instructions
to righteousness
are obtained
by stories,
in the Bible. If you believe it's the
Word of God.
About,
10 cases of *,
about the stories about Samson
killing 100 of Palestinians,
also about King David,
which you believe we believe that he was
a prophet, peace be upon him. The stories
about killing 200 Palestinians
in order to obtain their 4 skins
as a dowry for his wife.
Thank you very much.
We do have them. And,
from our understanding,
the Bible is telling life as it is.
And
not
and even for prophets
telling their
sins as well as their good points
so that, we see the world as it
is. And so when Christ comes to say,
I have come to save sinners,
we see that there is the need for
transformation
of lives.
Maybe some of you will want to add
to that.
From for for some of us anyway,
the fact that David could sin as he
did
is for us a source of the hope
that even though we too
fall into sin,
and I suppose that would include all of
us here,
that God
isn't finished with us. That God can even
redeem us out of that kind of sin
and shame
and degradation.
That God's love
reaches, I could say, even to the depths
of *, you see. Now this,
this is
for us, I think, a source of comfort
in a sense.
It's in a in a What are the
doctrines?
The doctrines?
It teaches us something of the of the
depth of the love of God, the faithfulness
of God, even when we as his creatures
fall and stray
and sink into sin, that God's
faithfulness and his love doesn't abandon us,
doesn't let us go. It's a love that
seeks us out even in our fallenness.
And I think this is our experience of
sin, and then it's an experience of love
and grace.
We wish that we were better.
As we look at the world today, we
wish that everyone were were good Muslims or,
you know, obedient to the will of God.
That would be nice, wouldn't it?
But we're not that way.
It's,
nowhere.
Does this mean God abandons us?
Well, the the Christian
story, I think, is that
even in these depths, God's love does God's
love,
goes to us and reaches us.
Thank you. That's the story of the cross.
And the
I think it's the response. Yeah. But this
this was your