Archive for category: Islam

   Last week we mentioned that we were working on a major addition to our October class and cruise, The Cross: Historicity and Theology, but at the time, we could not give details. But now we are happy to announce that Islamic apologist Shabir Ally will be debating me on the topic of the crucifixion on Friday night, October 19th at

   See, silly eschatology is catching. (ht: TC)

   In light of Colin’s article on the Qur’an and Christmas, the following is quite interesting. David Ould dropped me a note about a conversation over on the White Horse Inn site about a toy set for sale. Here’s the cover.    Notice anything…odd? Out of place? Look at the skyline of Bethlehem. What’s that? Yeah, a minaret. A minaret in first

   As a rule, while Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, they do not celebrate Christmas, mostly because they recognize it is a distinctly Christian festival espousing a particularly Christian belief (the Incarnation) that is blasphemy to Muslims. While some Muslims might put up lights and Christmas trees in response to the cultural celebration, even this is regarded as dangerous since

   Our brothers and sisters, so often persecuted in Islamic lands, are supposed to be protected by Islamic authorities due to their status as dhimmis. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003), Dhimmi Non-Musilm under the protection of Muslim law. A covenant of protection was made with conquered “Peoples of the Book,” which included Jews, Christians, Sabaeans, and sometimes Zoroastrians

   The Pope is making sure everyone knows he deeply respects Islam. Of course, his theology sort of demands such statements, since Rome teaches in her official documents that we “adore” the same God. Of course, I reject that statement outright. I do not adore the same God with those who reject the Incarnation, reject the cross, reject the resurrection, reject

   In an amazing display of utter hypocrisy leaders in the Islamic world are demanding an apology from Pope Benedict XVI. What did the Pontiff do? He dared read a quotation from a conversation that took place in the fourteenth century. And what was the horridly offensive statement? He quoted, not as his own words, but accurately, the words of Emperor

   The laughter you hear is coming from all the Islamic totalitarian governments busily persecuting Christians while Australia does this. I am well aware of the fact that merely stating the factual teachings of the Qur’an, as I did, for example, in California last weekend, would be illegal now in a number of Western cultures. Does the phrase “self-destructive” suggest itself

   You cannot always respond to everything that is said in a debate, especially in closing comments. Shabir Ally made some comments regarding the New Testament’s testimony to inspiration in his closing statements, and Sam Shamoun has taken the time to thoroughly respond to his comments here. I appreciate Sam’s diligence in providing such thorough replies in written form.

   OK, so we have more than a staff of two can handle at one time. Yeah, we bit off way more than we could chew on the move, and are paying the price months later. Well, we do our best. In any case, while we wanted to do our own editing, graphics, and the like, for the Shabir Ally debate,

   Pheme Perkins is a Harvard trained Roman Catholic scholar from Boston College. Her special interests, like so many today, include all things gnostic. Under current research projects is included, “Gnostic revealers and their discourses as evidence for emergence of Johannine traditions.” To say Dr. Perkins represents the left side of the theological and scholarly spectrum is to engage in a

   Once again I wish to thank all the faithful believers who prayed for last night’s event at Biola University in Los Angeles. It was truly a wonderful time. The staff did a great job setting up the event, and I am very thankful to Beau Boyd and the “El Torrito Gang” for all they did to make this happen. I

The British Daily Mail today featured an entire page of photos from around the Muslim world documenting the Shia holy day of Ashura. Devotees self-flagellate with whips, chains, and knives, seeking to cover themselves in their own blood, an act called tatbir. This year’s observance has been greatly increased in fervor by the “Muhammad Cartoon” farce (note that there are

As I head out this morning for my flight to Heathrow I caught a segment on the Today show on NBC regarding The Da Vinci Code. I couldn’t help but compare and contrast the response Christians have had to this deeply blasphemous attack upon the very heart of their faith and a dozen small cartoons featuring Mohammed and the response

I have mentioned the on-going process over the past few months, but I can now confirm the following: Is the New Testament We Possess Today Inspired? James White Affirms Shabir Ally Denies Saturday, May 6th, Biola University Gymnasium Los Angeles, California Of course, it is my hope that this will be the first of a number of debates with Mr.

Are these Muslims burning an embassy merely “radicals” or is there something about the very core and heart of Islam that gives rise to this kind of behavior? What kind of spirit leads people to wish to behead someone for drawing a caricature that, let’s be honest, is significantly less insightful than say, the picture of the father carrying his

The pictures do speak for themselves. Where is the counter demonstration from the “majority of peaceful Muslims”?           And I see the State Department of the United States has also condemned the cartoons…could someone link me to where they condemn the blasting of Christianity, the Bible, Jesus Christ, etc., that takes place daily in almost all of our newspapers?

We close out this brief series–one I have found particularly interesting personally, especially in light of the uncritical use of scholarship by the wide spectrum of Islamic apologists–with a discussion of the final element of the “argument” borrowed from Bart Ehrman by Abdullah, cited last week, that regarding Theodore of Mopsuestia. Citations of early Christian writers are notoriously popular on

In our last installment we quoted the source used (uncritically) by Islamic apologists, Bart Ehrman, regarding John 20:28. It needs to be understood (as evidently it is not by those citing him) that Ehrman is not foolish enough to try to argue that the original reading of John 20:28 is anything other than what we have in our texts today,

Let’s briefly refute the assertions made by Deedat and Abdullah noted in the first post in this series. Note that Deedat repeated these errors ad nauseum: as far as I can tell, he never accepted correction on these issues, but repeated the same errors throughout his entire life.    1) “The context of the verse talks about an unbelieving Thomas being

Let’s inject just a little truth into the discussion of John 20:28 before looking at the amazing claims of Islam’s apologists and then trace them back to their source in Bart Ehrman. The meaning of this text has been clearly understood from the start. Only a tremendous prejudice and bias could cause any person to miss the intention of John,

Just a quick note about an amazing graphic I stumbled across in Misha’al ibn Abdullah’s book, What Did Jesus Really Say? Here it is: Let’s look at the claims. First we are told that at the Council of Nicea “The Trinitarians gain the backing of the pagan Romans.” I suppose that is the really accurate way of saying “The vast

I have been shocked over the past few weeks to realize that the best Mecca has to offer apologetically, particularly in reference to their attacks upon the Deity of Christ, fall far short of even that presented by our home-grown “Christian cults” like Jehovah’s Witnesses. This has been particularly clearly demonstrated in the comments I have been hearing and reading

For every person who listened to my reviews of Shabir Ally’s debates, which included a brief section demonstrating some rather…silly errors on the part of Nadir Ahmed, and who heard the brief comments I made regarding some of his followers and their “you are afraid” e-mails, and the fact that we have invited Nadir Ahmed to call and respond repeatedly,

The Associated Press is carrying the story of the death of over 300 pilgrims outside Mecca. Note the description of the hajj in this secular report:    Thousands of Muslim pilgrims rushing to complete a symbolic stoning ritual during the hajj tripped over luggage Thursday, causing a crush in which at least 345 people were killed, the Interior Ministry said.    The

Somone referred me to a feud between popular TV eschatologist Hal Lindsey (yes, I remember taking a standardized achievement test in my senior year in High School long ago and reading his Late Great Planet Earth between segments of the test) and TBN’s Jan and Paul Crouch. Here’s a letter from Lindsey to TBN, here’s another story on it. Seems

“At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. 2 And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of

Those who have listened to the Dividing Line of late know that I’ve been playing sections of debates featuring, mainly, Sam Shamoun. We played the entirety of his debate with Shabir Ally, and I’ve been listening to a number of Ally’s other debates, mainly while riding medium distance runs on a bicycle (20 to 40 miles or so). Great time

We continue reviewing the Ally vs. Shamoun debate today. I note we have a number of Muslims listening, for evidently, Sam has quite the fan club out there. Evidently, the Muslims have their own versions of Ruckman and Riplinger in their “apologetics” community. But, happy to have them listening. Maybe the Lord will be merciful and open some eyes to

The next variant in a noted by Bentley and repeated by Saifullah and Azmy is found by comparing Luke 15:19 with vs. 21. Bentley claims, “Now the delightful change in later manuscripts is that the son, himself so unexpectedly welcomed by his father, prudently omits to offer himself as a hired servant!” Delightful? In any case, there is a fair

I know, I know, I started this in December of 2004. I continue with my response to Saifullah & Azmy’s article on the transmission of the text of the New Testament, focusing upon their almost plagiaristically long citation of Bentley’s work on Sinaiticus (see the 23 previous installments for background details). Bentley writes, It must not be supposed from these