More Fundamentalist Hyper-Literalist Claptrap With Paul Williams and Ijaz Ahmed

PW made a post here, exclaiming:

"For some inexplicable reason Christians do not seem to realise that Jesus would have approved of the scenario portrayed above." 

PW then quotes Matthew 15:1-9 to support a claim that a mother can behead her son, merely for using inappropriate language, or a single gesture of disrespect and rebellion since this is covered allegedly in the OT as an act of rebellion, then the boy must be put to death.

Ironically perhaps the act of decapitating a boys head through beheading was a Freudian slip on the part of the literalist fundamentalist Muslim camp who want Sharia Law in the U.K, and who endorse Sharia Law everywhere in the Muslim world, where in fact they enjoy and execute such beheadings every-year.

After (in the comment section), it was pointed out that Israelites were not allowed to take the Law into their own hands (PW then acknowledges the characterization of the said commandment is wrong), it is then pointed out to Paul, how the Law in it's application extends further than to merely speak a word of evil.

But, Paul emphasizes his original claim:

"“Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 

Note “speaks evil” – nothing about rape or murder which are covered by other commandnments."

Williams then, would have us believe than in Israelite society one slip of the tongue and spout of inconsequential youthful child like disobedience from a little boy, would result in a parent reporting their own beloved child to the authorities in order for capital punishment in ensue. The simple use of rationality of course (absent in the case of PW), might infer the parent will love the child enough as to never report such an incident. Obviously if any sort of critical thinking was employed one could quickly result in knowing that parents in general, and even the Bible itself expect children to be rebellious by nature in this stated sense, so what exactly is PW even talking about? If we take this commandment as the hyper-literalists Ijaz Ahmed and Paul Williams do, we might expect there to be no Israelite nation left, if one minuscule act of expected rebellion from children was to be punished every time, then who would be left?

Williams as usual seems to be unconcerned with genuine scholarship, but very concerned with establishing the so called hypocrisy of Christians, when it is PW himself who offers the most literalist and fundamentalist interpretations of the verse, this is the true irony. PW thus criticizes Christians on the grounds that he interprets the Bible as a fundamentalist and literalist, and then accuses the Christians of the hypocrisy! 

Paul correctly deduces to a moderate Christian brother: 

"That is your extremely free interpretation."

While Paul himself maintains a strict hard line, hyper literalist perspective:

"It is not what the commandment prohibits. I have already pointed out that other commandments probit murder etc

First lets take a look at the passages in the Old Testament, and then we'll see what Jesus says about them.

"Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death." (Exodus 21:17 ESV)   

For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. (Lev 20:9 ESV) 

If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 ESV) 

"'Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'   (Deuteronomy 27:16 ESV) 

The Gospels quote Jesus as saying:

For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' (Mar 7:10 ESV) 

For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' ESV  Matthew 15:4

Since PW depends on English translations so much the first thing he can do is agree with them:

"¹⁸ tn Heb "makes light of his father and his mother." Almost all English versions render this as some variation of "curses his father or mother."  (NET Bible Note Leviticus 20:9)

Appealing to PW's usual standard of following the majority English translation, so much for his overly-simplified "speaks" understanding. 

The NET Bible makes another note on Lev 20:9: " ¹⁷ tn Heb "If a man a man who." Therefore showing in the Hebrew the person subject to the punishment is a grown adult. This of course would be completely compatible with the context that is addressing commandments especially for men. Later we will see not only this refers to men, but specifically the parents mentioned are elderly, meaning in context the children are adult children.

The literal reading of the term "curses" here is explained by Bible scholars:

⁶¹ tn The form is the Piel participle of ‌קָלַל‎‏‎ (qalal), which means "to be light"; in the Piel stem it means "to take lightly; to treat as worthless; to treat contemptuously; to curse." Under the Mosaic law such treatment of parents brought a death penalty (Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9; Deu 27:16). (NET Bible Note Proverbs 20:20)

And:

¹⁵ tn The Hebrew term ‌קָלָה‎‏‎ (qalah) means to treat with disdain or lack of due respect (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV "dishonors"; NLT "despises"). It is the opposite of ‌כָּבֵד‎‏‎ (kaved, "to be heavy," that is, to treat with reverence and proper deference). To TREAT a parent lightly is to dishonor him or her and thus violate the fifth commandment (Deu 5:16; cf. Exo 21:17). (NET Bible Note Deuteronomy 27:16)

In other words, in Israelite culture, to honor your parents, was not a single act of praise, gratitude and affection, but rather an on-going process, a commitment that every son and daughter had the responsibility to carry out. Likewise to dishonor a parent was to abolish your own obligation to those duties. This is brought out more clearly here:

³⁸ tn The form is a Piel participle from ‌קָלַל‎‏‎ (qalal), meaning in Qal "be light," in Piel "treat lightly, curse, revile, declare contemptible, treat shamefully." (See its use in Lev 19:14; Jos 24:9; Jdg 9:26-28; 1Sa 3:13; 1Sa 17:43; 2Sa 16:5-13; Pro 30:10-11; Ecc 7:21-22; Ecc 10:20.) It is opposite of "honor" (‌כָּבֵד‎‏‎, kaved; Qal "be heavy"; Piel "honor," as in Exo 20:12) and of "bless." This verse then could refer to any act contrary to the commandment to honor the parents. B. Jacob (Exodus, 640) cites parallels in Sumerian where people were severely punished for publicly disowning their parents. "Exo 21:15, Exo 21:17 taken together evoke the picture of parents who, PHYSICALLY AND VERBALLY, are FORCIBLY turned out of the house (cf. Pro 19:26)" (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:148). (NET Bible Note Exodus 21:17)

Further more, a man was expected to honor his parents by taking care of them in all respects due to their old age:

"7:10-13 honor your father and your mother (cf. Ex. 20:12; 21:17; Deut. 5:16). No one questions the importance of this law in the Ten Commandments; disregarding it was punishable with death in ancient Israel. Part of honoring father and mother is to care for them, both financially and personally, in their old age."

And finally we come to the New Testament. Why did Jesus accuse them of voiding the word of God, for their tradition?

"However, Jewish tradition allowed that funds originally dedicated to the care of parents could be declared Corban (Hebrew/Aramaic for legally "dedicated to God"; cf. Lev. 1:2; 2:1; etc.), meaning that the person would no longer be required to do anything for . . . father or mother. These funds could now be given to the temple, if so desired. Such human traditions thus allow room for the depravity of the human heart, directly opposing the Law of Moses which so often serves to protect the weak and helpless, in this case, parents in their feeble old age (making void the word of God). The "Corban" tradition is an example (along with many such things you do) of disregarding and rejecting the more important aspects of the Mosaic law. (ESV Bible Study Note Mark 7:10-13)"

The motif in this passage seems to be clear, Jesus is not saying young children be killed for acting like brats and snobs to their mothers, but rather Jesus is picking on one example from the double standards of the Pharisees who do not observe the God's commands themselves, they complain that Jesus disciples violate tradition, when they themselves violate tradition, so why are they coming before him and accusing him, when they truly don't care about voiding God's commands?

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." 9 And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 11 But you say, 'IF A MAN tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God)-- 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do." 14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." (Mar 7:1-15 ESV)

Jesus does not object to the Pharisees for refusing to stone disobedient rebellious children, rather he represents his opponents position as "IF A MAN tells his" showing the category of people referred to is not young children, but adult children. The text quite explicitly detailed this as one example of many double standards the Pharisees practice. Matthew's account says:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." 3 He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 5 But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or his mother, "What you would have gained from me is given to God," 6 he need not honor his father.' So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:  8 "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;  9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'" 10 And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand:  11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" 13 He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit." 15 But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us." 16 And he said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."  (Mat 15:1-20 ESV)

While they continuously attempt to argue Jesus violates the command of God, Jesus interprets the command of God to mean a person is defiled by what is on the inside and he uses the very Hebrew scriptures to justify his argument! Notice this is the follow up to his conversation with the Pharisees, not what is made manifest in the minds of the Islamics. The example Jesus cherry picks from the Old Testament fully fulfills it's role to show these two faced vipers errs, proving they lost a debate against a better opponent. I imagine PW would lose the same debate against Jesus.

In summary then, in reality there is no fantasy world a Muslim may appeal to where Jesus advocated and endorsed the killing of young children for the crime of being cheeky and defiant to their parents, like many children naturally are.

Uninspired Claptrap: "Allah says, Be and it is"

(This is adapted taken from a post I wrote to Muslims on bloggingtheology.org)

The phrase in the Quran, Allah says it to it “be and it is”, not only isn’t this unique or original to the Quran, it originates in the Targum, which is a much later Aramaic paraphrase, interpretation and translation of the Hebrew Scripture that post-date the writing of the Hebrew Scriptures. What this mean then is the phrase cannot possibly be revealed by Allah to Moses. Not only didn’t Moses speak Aramaic, he couldn’t have written those words, as they come much later (once the OT has a canon, long after Moses), again showing the Quran cannot be divine, as it borrows language from an uninspired translation. But not only does this disprove the Quran as divine, the truly ironic part is in the Hebrew Scriptures (and LXX) It is the Messenger (angelos) of the Lord, the God of Israel/Moses who speaks this:

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush . He looked– and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed! (Exo 3:2 NET)

God said to Moses, “I AM that I AM.” And he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exo 3:14 NET)

The Jews understood the Angel of the Lord, who is the God of Israel, to be the Word of the Lord:

Exodus 3:14 And the Word of the Lord said to Mosheh, He who spake to the world, Be, and it was; and who will speak to it, Be, and it will be. And he said, Thus shalt thou speak to the sons of Israel, EHEYEH hath sent me unto you. (Exo 3:14 JTE)

Interesting, that the Word, Messenger and God are all identified as the exact same person.

But further more, as Bart Erhman points out, according to the gopsel of John in the New Testament, these were the very words that Jesus claims he recited to Moses. He explains how John adapted previous Jewish Tradition(s) about the Word of God and applied them to Jesus: (but I thought the Jews were Unitarian? So then how did John adapt this theology and apply it to Jesus? if such theology never existed?)

“In one place in John, Jesus claims the name of God for himself, saying to his Jewish interlocutors, ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ (John 8:58). Abraham, who lived 1,800 years earlier, was the father of the Jews, and Jesus is claiming to have existed before him. But he is claiming more than that. He is referring to a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures where God appears to Moses at the burning bush and commissions him to go to Pharaoh and seek the release of his people. Moses asks God what God’s name is, so that he can inform his fellow Israelites which divinity has sent him. God replies, ‘I Am Who I Am … say to the Israelites, “I Am has sent me to you”’ (Exodus 3:14). So when Jesus says ‘I Am,’ in John 8:58, he is claiming the divine name for himself. Here again his Jewish hearers had no trouble understanding his meaning. Once more, out come the stones.” (Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We don’t Know About Them) [HarperOne, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, 2009], Three. A Mass Of Variant Views, pp. 79-80; bold emphasis ours)

And:

“… John starts with a prologue that mysteriously describes the Word of God that was in the very beginning with God, that was itself God, and through which God created the universe. This Word, we are told, became a human being, and that’s who Jesus Christ is: the Word of God made flesh. There is nothing like that in the Synoptics… Jesus also preaches in this Gospel, not about the coming kingdom of God but about himself: who he is, where he has come from, where he is going, and how he can bring eternal life. Unique to John are the various ‘I am’ sayings, in which Jesus identifies himself and what he can provide for people. These ‘I am’ sayings are usually backed up by a sign, to show that what Jesus says about himself is true. And so he says, ‘I am the bread of life’ and proves it by multiplying the loaves to feed the multitudes; he says ‘I am the light of the world’ and proves it by healing the man born blind; he says ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ and proves it by raising Lazarus from the dead.” (Ibid, pp. 72-73)

And:

“The last of our Gospels to be written, John, pushes the Son-of-God-ship of Jesus back even further, INTO ETERNITY PAST. John is our only Gospel that actually speaks of Jesus as divine. For John, Christ is not the Son of God because God raised him from the dead, adopted him at the baptism, or impregnated his mother: he is the Son of God because he existed with God in the very beginning, before the creation of the world, as the Word of God, before coming into this world as a human being (becoming ‘incarnate’)… This is the view that became the standard Christian doctrine, that Christ was the preexistent Word of God who became flesh. He both was with God in the beginning and was God, and it was through him that the universe was created. But this was not the original view held by the followers of Jesus. The idea that Jesus was divine was a later Christian invention, one found, among our gospels, only in John… What led Christians to develop this view? The Gospel of John does not represent the view of one person, the unknown author of the Gospel, but rather a view that the author inherited through his oral tradition, just as the other Gospel writers record the traditions that they had heard, traditions in circulation in Christian circles for decades before they were written down. John’s tradition is obviously unique, however, since in none [sic] of the other Gospels do we have such an exalted view of Christ. Where did this tradition come from?” (Ibid, Seven. Who Invented Christianity?, pp. 248-249)

And here is what Ehrman has to say concerning John’s prologue:

“John does not make any reference to Jesus’ mother being a virgin, instead explaining his coming into the world as an incarnation of a preexistent divine being. The prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) is one of the most elevated and POWERFUL passages of the entire Bible. It is also one of the most discussed, controverted, and differently interpreted. John begins (1:1-3) with an elevated view of the ‘Word of God,’ a being that is independent of God (he was ‘with God’) but that is in some sense equal with God (he ‘was God’). This being existed in the beginning with God and is the one through whom the entire universe was created (‘all things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being’). 

“Scholars have wrangled over details of this passage for centuries. My personal view is that the author is harking back to the story of creation in Genesis 1, where God spoke and creation resulted: ‘And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.’ It was by speaking a word that God created all that there was. 

The author of the Fourth Gospel, LIKE SOME OTHERS IN JEWISH TRADITION, imagined that the word that God spoke was some kind of independent entity in and of itself. It was ‘with’ God, because once spoken, it was apart from God, and it ‘was’ God in the sense that what God spoke was a part of his being. His speaking only made external what was already internal, within his mind. The word of God, then, was the outward manifestation of the internal divine reality. It both was with God, and was God, and was the means by which all things came into being. 

“In John’s Gospel, this preexistent divine Word of God became a human being: ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory’ (1:14). It comes as no surprise who this human being was: Jesus Christ. Jesus, here, is not simply a Jewish prophet who suddenly bursts onto the scene, as in Mark; and he is not a divine-human who has come into existence at the point of his conception (or birth) by a woman who was impregnated by God. He is God’s very word, who was with God in the beginning, who has temporarily come to dwell on earth, bringing the possibility of eternal life. 

“John does not say how this Word came into the world. He does not have a birth narrative and says nothing about Joseph and Mary, about Bethlehem, or about a virginal conception. And he varies from Luke on this very key point: whereas Luke portrays Jesus as having come into being at some historical point (conception or birth), John portrays him as the human manifestation of a divine being who transcends human history.” (Ibid, pp. 75-76)

Eric Thomas - Focus

The Incarnation, Quotation from Anthony Rogers

Anthony Rogers is a Christian that writes for AnsweringIslam.org and the paper I will be quoting from could be found  http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/incarnation_ot_objections.html.

"Muslims believe that all of this militates against the incarnation, but here, again, is another argument that does not apply to what the New Testament teaches or to what Christians believe. In the incarnation Christ did not cease to be God (John 8:58; Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 2:8; Colossians 2:9; etc.), so no change to His essential divine nature or character took place; rather, He took on Himself an additional nature, a human nature (Philippians 2:5-10; Romans 9:5; et al.). These two natures are united in His one person without either nature ceasing to be what it was or becoming what it was not. This belief is clearly expressed in the Chalcedonian Creed:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us. (Source)"

"Since the incarnation does not posit a change to Christ’s divine nature or character, the incarnation perfectly comports with the teaching of the Old Testament that God does not change. This is why it is not surprising to find not only that the same Old Testament that says God as God does not change and that His covenant faithfulness endures to all generations could appear in human form and would become a man, but the primary passage in the OT that conveys this truth also speaks of the Lord sending a herald ahead of Him to prepare the way for His coming and appearing at His temple, which is hardly what one would expect from a passage that is supposed to weigh in against the incarnation"

"Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts. “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’” (Malachi 3:1-7)"

"As all of the foregoing demonstrates, God did in fact dwell and appear in time and space during the Old Covenant age, which is proof positive that there is nothing about the New Testament teaching that is not congenial to previous revelation. All attempts by Muslims to pit the OT against the NT in this regard must therefore be seen as abortive efforts. Muslims should learn from all of this not to impose their understanding on the OT or pretend that Christians are in the same boat as they are when Muslims deny or contradict previous revelation. The New Testament is consistent with the Old Testament. The Qur’an is inconsistent with both".

Exposing Paul Bilal Williams regarding the SHEMA

Paul Bilal Williams is a Muslim apologist that claims to believe that God is multi -personal that equates to polytheism. He at times attempts to use the Bible as his measuring rod to establish that God is one. In  which he assumes  negates God  from being a plurality of persons.

Paul Williams assumes because the Shema says the Lord is one, it is specifically referring to his personhood. On what basis does Paul Williams assume because the Bible says that God is one, that  God is one in personhood but he is not one in attribute?

I will anticipate that Paul will most likely  assume my question is nonsensical in light of the testimony of scripture that God has a multiplicity of attributes, so therefore the Shema couldn't be conveying that God is one in attribute.

Basically Paul Williams would be working off of these true premises to disprove the Shema refers to God being in one attribute.

1. Shema says the Lord is ONE
2. The Bible depicts God as having more than ONE attribute
3. So therefore the Shema isn't referring to the attribute(s) of God

And also God having more than one is attribute is logically compatible with his Oneness, his multiple attributes doesn't negate him from being One God. Through out the Bible it acknowledges that God has multiple attributes but yet he is One God.

1. God is referred to as one God
2. God has multiple attributes
3. Therefore God is One but yet has multiple attributes

My task would be to simply demonstrate true premises like the previous ones, but instead of proving that God has multiple attributes but yet is one God, I will be demonstrating that God exist as a plurality of persons but yet is one God.

This is what genesis 19: 18-24 says:

 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,^b please! 19 Your^c servant has found favor in your^d eyes, and you^e have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” 21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.^f ) 23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation.

In the previous passage two distinct persons are referred to YHWH, the Hebrew text literally reads YHWH.  If more than one person being referred to YHWH is polytheism how in the world does the Old Testament text maintain that God is ONE?

And notice the commentary that the book of Amos in which God himself testifies someone other than himself who is referred to as YHWH destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.\

Amos 4:11 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

In the book of Isaiah, God says the very same testimony  that someone other them himself who happens to be YHWH overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

Isaiah 13:17-19 See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
    who do not care for silver    and have no delight in gold.
¹⁸ Their bows will strike down the young men;    they will have no mercy on infants,    nor will they look with compassion on children.
¹⁹ Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms,
    the pride and glory of the Babylonians,^[b]will be overthrown by God    like Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ She will never be inhabited

With that being said here are premises that refutes that the Shema refers to God being ONE in Personhood.

1. Shema says the Lord is ONE
2. The Bible depicts God as being more than ONE PERSON
3. So therefore the Shema isn't referring to the PERSONHOOD OF GOD

And also God being more than one person  is logically compatible with the Shema, God being multi-personal doesn't negate him from being One God.

1. God is referred to as one God
2. God is depicted as being multi -personal
3. Therefore God is One but yet is multi -personal   

In conclusion  the burden of proof would be on Paul Williams to demonstrate that God exist a one person since he assumes the Shema is referring to God's personhood.

And he would have to explain why does the Bible refer to more than one person as YHWH? Also If God existing as more than one person is polytheism, why does the bible affirm monotheism in light of it depicting God as mult-personal?

General Han Solo Refuting His Evidentialist Approach

General Han Solo is a Christian who is on Paltalk that adopts the evidential methodology and  while speaking to him on Paltalk he claims that he doesn't agree with the presuppostional method. My question I have asked him is can he provide any other worldview that can account for the intelligibility of reality other than the Christian world view?

And his response was that only the Christian worldview can account for the intelligibly of reality. Which demonstrates that he must assume the Christian worldview in order to account for the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature and objective morality.

I explained to him in light of that claim he cant consistently maintain using the evidential methodology because he would have to assume the Christian worldview in order to evaluate evidence.

Also he is stuck between a rock and a hard place because if there is any other worldview that can provide the intelligibility for reality that would mean God isn't the source of  intelligibility. Is General comfortable with  something or someone other than God that provides the intelligibility for reality?  And if God is the source of intelligibility then how is the presuppostionalist method problematic to him since that is the very position that the presuppostional conveys?

General Han solo reminds me of man who says it is necessary to use a ladder order to discover who God is. And after climbing to the very top and he discovers God, he throws the ladder away and proclaims we couldn't even make sense of the ladder unless we start with God.

  In one breath General wants  us to evaluate evidence apart from God, then in the very same breath claim God is the precondition for evidence.

Encounter with a Jew on Paltalk, regarding Jesus being the Angel of the Lord

Funkdude88 happens to be a Jew on Paltalk that denies that Jesus is the Messiah, has recently challenged Christians to show him where does Jesus says I am the Angel of the Lord.

First problem I see is he gives the impression that is the only valid criterion we can utilize to make that determination. Second problem I notice  his inconsistent methodology, for instance there are several occasions he has used deductive reasoning in order to determine if a certain text is referring to the messiah without the text explicitly  saying its about the messiah.

 Third problem is that Funkdude88 is attempting to limit us to the words of Jesus, the words of Jesus and the testimony of the authors through the INSPIRATION of the HOLY SPIRIT of the New testament are equally acceptable according to the Christian worldview.

I will not be demonstrating that the Angel of the Lord happens to be distinct from the Lord in personhood because it is self explanatory, Angel OF the LORD.

Exodus 3:2-14:
There the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

And Moses said, “Here I am.”⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father,^[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.⁷ The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹ And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you^[b] will worship God on this mountain.”¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.^[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

The Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a burning bush and identifies himself as I AM and the narrator goes to the extent as referring to this very Angel as God, notice verses 3-4
 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, GOD called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses.  And in verse 8 of the passage the Angel of the Lord proclaims that he will recuse the Israelites out of Egypt . That promise was fulfilled in Exodus 14:19



 ¹⁹ Then the Angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰ coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

We see in  this passage it is the Angel of God who saves the Israelites out of Egypt. In other words not only is the Angel of the Lord identified as I AM but the very same person that lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  

1. The angel of the Lord is personally distinct from the God the Father but yet identifies himself as I AM and is the very same person that lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Jesus refers to himself as I AM to the Jews in the gospel of John, here is the context:

 I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” 52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

Jesus utters the very same statement that the angel of the Lord makes about himself and what God says about himself through out the Old testament, for reference of the I AM statements consult this website  http://rj-mccauley.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-i-am-of-old-testament-in-new.html.

Also the book of Jude refers to Jesus as the very one that saved the Israelites out of Egypt, this is what the verse says:
  Jude 1:5  Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And keep in mind most early manuscripts read Jesus.  One may dispute there is a textual variant in that passage but this is what Daniel Wallace says in his NET notes:

"The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel. However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses (e.g., A B 33 81 1241 1739 1881 2344 pc vg co Or1739mg), but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, for they seemed to exchange κύριος (kurios, “Lord”) or θεός (qeos, “God”) for ᾿Ιησοῦς (though Ì72 has the intriguing reading θεὸς Χριστός [qeos Cristos, “God Christ”] for ᾿Ιησοῦς). In addition to the evidence supplied in NA27 for this reading, note also {88 322 323 424c 665 915 2298 eth Cyr Hier Bede}. As difficult as the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is, in light of v. 4 and in light of the progress of revelation (Jude being one of the last books in the NT to be composed), it is wholly appropriate"

Here are the premises so far:

1. The angel of the Lord is personally distinct from the Father, he also identifies  himself as I AM and he is the very same person that lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

     

    2.Jesus is personally distinct from the Father, he also identifies himself as I AM and he is depicted as the person according to Jude 1:5 that lead the Israelites out of Egypt

3.Therefore Jesus is the Angel of the Lord

The Meaning of the Word ‘Angel’

Here is a post by Anthony Rogers who happens to be a Christian apologist that writes for Answering.org and also Answeringmuslims.com  and to further read his article here is the link.

"The way the word “angel” is commonly understood creates no little confusion when it comes to this subject. In common usage, the word has come to refer exclusively to created heavenly beings or spirits who inhabit heaven. For this reason it is important to point out that the word angel is not actually found in the Hebrew Old Testament and is not even a translation into English of any word found in the Bible. The word “angel” is simply a transliteration into English of the Greek word angelos (Gr. ἄγγελος), which is used in the Septuagint (LXX), i.e. the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and in the Greek New Testament"

"The word that is used in the Hebrew text is malak (מַלְאָך). The lexical sources are unanimous that the Hebrew word malak, in its original signification and as it is used in the Bible, means “one sent; a messenger” (e.g. Gesenius; Brown, Driver and Briggs;⁵ et al.), as such it refers to the function rather than to the nature of an agent, and could just as well refer to one who is divine or human rather than just to a supernatural being as the word angel is normally understood. In other words, the nature of the agent is something that can’t be determined by the word alone and has to be determined by other factors. Accordingly, after discussing the etymology of the word, James Battenfield concludes: "The root idea of מַלְאָך [malak], then, is one sent, a messenger, or an envoy. Only in context does the term take on specificity."⁶  (James Battenfield, An Exegetical Study of the [Malak Yahweh] In the Old Testament (Postgraduate Seminar: Old Testament Theology, Grace Theological Seminary, 1971), p. 3 

"This is why the word malak is used for any messenger or message-bearer in the Hebrew Old Testament, whether the Angel of Yahweh, whom we will see exists in a class of His own, created angels, or human beings. In fact The Hebrew term מַלְאָך (mal’ak) is used some 214 times⁷ in the Old Testament. Nearly 50 percent of these occurrences clearly have reference in their context to human messengers who bore the messages of ordinary men such as Jacob (32:3) and of kings and military leaders (1 Sam. 19:11-21). Sometimes, even God’s prophets are termed His messengers (2 Chron. 36:15-16 cf. Jer. 25:3-7; 26:20-23; Hag. 1:13; Mal. 3:1a). The postcaptivity priests are also called God’s messengers in Malachi 2:7"

"The remaining Old Testament usages of “messenger” are divided between references to the Messenger of Jehovah (approximately 33 percent) and references to finite, created messengers, commonly called angels (about 17 percent). Thus, only the context can clearly reveal whether the term messenger, or angel, refers to the office of the one who is sent (in which case it could be Christ) or to the nature of created angels as finite beings. The term may denote office, function, or responsibility, rather than the nature of the being"  James Borland, Christ in the Old Testament: Old Testament Appearances of Christ in Human Form (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), p. 36-37

Mark 10:17-31 part 3

This is my continuation of part 2

23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is[e] to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Notice verse 27, Jesus is basically saying that it is impossible for man to save himself but it is possible for God to do the impossible, only God can save alone. Man cant save himself, let alone anyone else, but God can do it. If only God can do what which is impossible namely save, then who is Jesus claiming to be when he told the rich man to give up everything and follow me in order to receive ETERNAL LIFE?

Does that sound like Jesus is denying he is absolutely good?

In fact if Jesus is less than absolutely good wouldn't he need salvation as well? How is it he gives ETERNAL LIFE to everyone that gives up everything and follow him?

28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” 29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Peter spoke up and said "we left everything to follow you". In other words Peter is saying we did everything that you asked the rich man. Notice Jesus response in verse 29: “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel.

Notice Jesus doesn't say for God sakes but for MY SAKE and for the gospel. Peter understood what Jesus was asking the rich man because he responded that they gave up everything for Jesus. And Jesus responds by saying because you gave up everything for my sake and the gospel you will receive 100 fold and persecution but more important ETERNAL LIFE. Notice Eternal life is given to only to those that GIVE UP EVERYTHING TO FOLLOW JESUS.

In conclusion, Jesus is saying Eternal Life doesn't come from following commandant but giving up everything and following "me". In other words: you would have to love me more than anything, anyone and including yourself and if you do I will give you Eternal Life. That does not sound like Jesus is denying he is absolutely good.

Mark 10:17-30 part 2

I will be focusing on Mark 10:17-30 and establishing that it agree with my thesis.

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother

While looking at the verses from 17-19, If Jesus actually meant that he was not good and eternal life comes by observing the commandments, wouldn't we expect Jesus's respond to be: okay since you kept all of the commandments you are on your way to heaven?

In verse 21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me

In other words following the commandments is not enough you would have to give up everything for Jesus and follow him whole heartily.

Does this sound like someone who thinks that they are less than absolutely good?

Jesus is saying it is following him that will make you perfect and it is following me that will make you complete but you will have to give up everything even your riches for me, but the rich man was unwilling to do so, because he loved his money more than he loved God, money was his idol.

If he really thought Jesus was absolutely good he would give up his money for Jesus but Jesus was exposing his heart, basically he was pointing out to the rich man that he doesn't believe what he was saying about Jesus because if he did he would give up everything for Jesus. The man was simply giving lip service to Jesus.

Mark 10:18, Does Jesus deny being absolutely good? Part 1

My thesis is Jesus does not say he was not good but he poses a question. He is asking a question in order to make the young man realize the implications of his confession. In other words, if only God is good and you think I am God then that would mean you must think of me as you would think of God. Then you would need to give up everything and follow me.

And something the man wasn't willing to do, Jesus was showing him that he didn't believe he was absolutely good. He was exposing the rich man's heart basically pointing out he doesn't really believe what he was saying about Jesus, because if he did believe that Jesus was good he would give up everything for Jesus.

 In part 2 to I will show why contextually from the very chapter of Mark comports with my thesis.

Post written by Nakdimon to Paul Bilal Williams

I’ve had my share of tough arguments against the Messianic claims of the Lord Yeshua when dealing with Jewish anti-missionaries during my apologetic work to the Jewish people. I have sometimes been challenged to my core. In the end they sharpened me, pushed me to learn Hebrew, lots of Jewish tradition and the Lord has helped me to deal with their objections which taught me to be true to myself, steer clear of deluding myself in dealing with their objections and knock their arguments down by arguing consistently. Then I came in contact with Islam. And one thing has always fascinated me from the beginning when dealing with Muslims: Their incredible inability to use equal weights and measures and almost compulsive and openly shameless utilization of double standards in their apologetic methodologies. I have seldom come across such blatant stubbornness and complete disdain for fair evaluation of any data than when I see Muslims handle the Bible as some self-help tool to desperately try to prove their messenger is foretold in our inspired Scriptures. For on the one hand they will appeal to the Bible to try to demonstrate that their prophet is clearly foretold in our Scriptures and we therefore have no reason to doubt his prophet hood, nor reject his message. But on the other hand they have no problem repudiating the very Bible as being hopelessly corrupted and not to be trusted when it completely destroys any foundation they hope to have for their messenger being a foretold figure In the Scriptures or any particular aspect of his message. Muslims time and again like to claim that the Quran is a miracle given to their prophet Muhammad yet it is this very miracle that places Muslims in this insurmountable dilemma as the Quran appeals to the Scriptures that we have as supposedly foretelling the coming of a prophet from the Arabian Peninsula. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Muslims are in desperation mode, trying to find something, anything, that may look like a prophecy pointing to their dearest messenger.

Enter Paul Bilal Williams, the supposed former Christian turned Muslim. Claiming to be familiar with the Scriptures that he claimed he once have claimed his own, he has decided to comb through the Bible with his finest comb trying to do what the Quran forces him to do. The only problem is that the author(s) of the Quran never bothered to tell him exactly where to look. And thus Muslims like Paul Williams are left to flip the coin or spit in the air and wait to see where the wind carries their drivel in order to be able to “determine” where those prophecies are hidden: For they must be somewhere, or else the Quran ceases to be this miracle they keep claiming it supposedly is. Like a true challenger believing he has a shot at the belt, in his article, Paul boldly comes out swinging with his hands taped, his gloves on and his mouth piece in place trying to lay the foundation of his (or better said, the Quran’s) claims to establish the relevance of Muhammad, guesstimating it was being put firmly in place in the Book of Genesis, when God made the covenant with Abraham and his offspring. Paul Williams (from now on being mentioned as PW) starts with the following claim:

Before getting into the evidence for Muhammad in the Bible, we need to first address an issue that some Christians have. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to accepting Muhammad, from a scriptural point of view, is the idea that only Isaac was included in God’s covenant to the exclusion of Ishmael. Until this misconception is addressed there is little point in moving forward as Ishmael represents the foundation for the emergence of an Arabian prophet.

This is the misconception – the Old Testament seems to explicitly state that although God blessed Abraham with regards to both his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, God’s special promise (or ‘covenant’ in Old Testament terminology) is explicitly stated as only applying to Isaac, to the exclusion of Ishmael. This is the key passage from the Old Testament which seems to promote this idea:

And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” [Genesis 17:20-21]

So as we see, the foundational stumbling block to any claim that Muhammad can make to prophet hood hinges on the covenant that God made with Abraham. This misconception needs to be cleared or else, says PW himself, there simply “little point in moving forward” and refer to any other place in the Scriptures to point to Muhammad being a prophet. On the flipside: What if there is no misconception at all and Ishmael was not at all even relevant to God’s Covenant with Abraham to begin with? If that Is the case, this would undercut PW’s entire case, from beginning to end, for any claim that he makes for Muhammad’s prophetic claims as such a foundation simply does not exist. And if the foundation is not there, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Although I think the biggest stumbling block is that Muslims have no evidence at all that Muhammad is from Ishmael to begin with. But all that you can find in this article. So…let’s dig in!

Having cited Genesis 17:20-21 as the key passage on which his entire claim hinges PW claims:

Taken at face value, the above passage does seem to be a problem. However, when we inspect the original Hebrew for this passage, a very different picture emerges. First though, we need to understand some basic Hebrew grammar.

The letter Vav is the sixth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In Hebrew the names of the letters of the alphabet have meaning. The word “vav” means a “hook”,“spear”, or “tent peg”, therefore the name and shape of the letter are directly connected to this meaning:

This letter has a special property – when it is added to the beginning of a sentence or word, it creates the meaning “and”. The Hebrew prefix vav is defined by Langenscheidt’s Hebrew Dictionary as a conjunction, meaning “and, and therefore, also, then, yet”.

How does this affect the covenant with Isaac in the Old Testament? Quite dramatically in fact, because when we consider that Genesis 17:21 begins with the letter vav, it turns out that there’s nothing exclusive about the covenant at all, if we translate the verse in its proper way with “and” instead of “but”:

“And my covenant will I establish with Isaac”

…which has a vastly different meaning than:

“But my covenant will I establish with Isaac”

Moreover, when we factor in the meaning of the name of the letter vav, “hook”, it turns out that the subject of the verse that precedes the vav, Ishmael in Genesis 17:20, is ‘hooked’ or ‘joined’ to the subject of the verse that follows it, Isaac. In other words, the concept following the vav is just as important as the one preceding it, so both Ishmael and Isaac are considered important in light of the covenant.

A nice little word game he being played by PW, but things are a little different as he would like to have them. In order to expose PW’s nonsense, let’s consider the Covenant that God made with Abraham. Muslims always like to start at Genesis 17 to stake their claim on God’s covenant with Abraham. However, the groundwork for the Covenant between God and Abraham started way before Genesis 17. Let’s back up to Genesis 12 that lays the foundation of everything that happens in years later in Genesis 17. Since PW used the KJV for his article I will likewise use that translation in this paper:

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. (Genesis 12:1-7)

Here we see God’s initial promise to Abraham as he calls Abraham to depart from his family and makes specific promises to him. I would like to point your attention to the seed that is being mentioned, because this seed will be appointed as sole heir of God’s covenant with Abraham. After this God appears to Abraham a second time in Genesis 15 and makes the following promise:

… I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. …And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that THY SEED shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day THE LORD MADE A COVENANT WITH ABRAM, SAYING, UNTO THY SEED HAVE I GIVEN THIS LAND, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. (Gen 15:7-10, 13-21)

As the story of the life of Abraham unfolds it becomes more and more clear who this specific seed is that God is talking about in reference to the Covenant he makes with Abraham, as God gives more and more details. As is abundantly clear by now, God refers to that specific seed that would go into a land that is not theirsf the life of Abraham unfolds it becomes more and more clear who this specific seed is that God is talking about in reference to the Covenant he makes with Abraham, as God gives more and more details. As is abundantly clear by now, God refers to that specific seed that would go into a land that is not theirs for four hundred years, be afflicted by the people of that land, treated as their slaves and the people of that strange land would be judged by God and he would lead that seed of Abraham out of that strange land over into that land he promised Abraham, from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates. It should slowly be creeping to the consciousness of every Muslim that even bothered to read the Biblical record in its full context, that this can only be talking about ONE people and ONE people only: The Children of Israel. In light of all of this, NOW we turn to Genesis 17 to see what God says about the Covenant, sealing it with circumcision. To give you the feeling of the words of God to Abraham, let’s read the full context of those words:

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. (Gen 17:1-21)

This chapter, together with the previous chapters discussed above, makes it perfectly clear that God’s Covenant with Abraham is made with Abraham and his seed, specifically the seed that would inherit the land and would dwell as oppressed slaves in a strange land. This Covenant was first ratified with the blood of animals in Genesis 15 and then sealed it in Genesis 17 with the blood of Abraham’s own body (where have we seen that before: Ex 24:6-8 and Matthew 26:28). Note also that whenever God speaks about establishing the Covenant, he always mentions Isaac (Isaac), never Ishmael. Not only does God mention Isaac as the one he will establish the Covenant with, but also his seed after him. Note how this is said of both Abraham in verse 7 and Isaac in verse 19, NEVER of Ishmael, anywhere in the Scriptures! To add insult to injury, let’s look at Genesis 21 and further open the Islamic wound inflicted by the clear and consistent testimony of the very Bible it’s proponents appeal to in order to try prove their messenger and his claims to prophet hood are at all relevant:

And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his oldWherefore she said unto Abraham, CAST OUT THIS BONDWOMAN AND HER SON: FOR THE SON OF THIS BONDWOMAN SHALL NOT BE HEIR WITH MY SON, EVEN WITH ISAAC. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; IN ALL THAT SARAH HATH SAID UNTO THEE, HEARKEN UNTO HER VOICE; FOR IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. (Genesis 21:1-4, 8-13)

Once again the testimony of the Scriptures is clear and it’s almost inconceivable how anyone can read it and come to any other conclusion than that God’s Covenant with Abraham is limited only, perpetuated solely and is established exclusively through none other than Isaac! God is specific and I don’t know how much clearer it could have been stated. Sarah has told Abraham to throw Hagar and Ishmael out for a specific reason: So that it would be clear that Ishmael would NOT inherit anything what God gave Abraham. God then told Abraham he not only concurred with Sarah, but even doubled down on Sarah’s words. All Ishmael and Hagar would get is a bag of water, some bread and off they were. That is not to say that God wasn’t merciful to Ishmael and didn’t bless him, as he promised Abraham to make him a great (read: numerous) nation of twelve princes. But that’s about as far as God’s dealing with Ishmael goes: God promised Ishmael a great nation of twelve princes in Genesis 17:20. This was fulfilled in Genesis 25:13-16. But other than that, Ishmael is totally irrelevant. Fact is that God tells Abraham to cast Ishmael out for the sole purpose that he will NOT be the heir to God’s promises to Abraham with the words: “Everything Sarah told you, listen to her voice (Hebr. Shema b’qolah), BECAUSE (Hebr. Kee) in Isaac seed will be called unto you”.

But let’s not stop there as we are on a roll and have the inevitable momentum going. As if God could not have been any clearer, the icing on the cake is served in  Genesis 22:

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, THINE ONLY SON ISAAC, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.  And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him…And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, THINE ONLY SON from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, THINE ONLY SON: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:1-3, 9-18)

This chapter in particular is a sore for Muslims and hard to come to terms with as a similar story is mentioned in their Quran. But the problem is that the Quran, as is its habit of being unclear in spite of its numerous claims of being a clear book that is self-explanatory, never tells its readers who the child is that Abraham is told to offer as a sacrifice. The Bible, however, does tell us who it was and to the shock, surprise and chagrin of Muslims, who maintain that Abraham was told to offer Ishmael, the Bible says it was Isaac that was laid on the altar. But to not despair. As I already said on the outset of this article, Muslims have already crafted a device for this stiff-necked and re-occurring problem: the corruption of the Biblical text. The very Biblical text from which they toil so hard to find any reference to Muhammad. So basically Muslims will tell us “oh People of the Book, we have proof form your untrustworthy Scriptures. So sit back and watch us pull, tare and rip apart your Holy Book as we plunder what we think we can use, while we repudiate everything else from it that destroys our case” and think this will persuade any thinking believer. But I digress…

As the Scriptures clearly teach, the Covenant that God made with Abraham was made with him and his seed, specifically with the offspring that would live in a strange land, oppressed by the indigenous people, God would judge that people and bring Abraham’s seed out of that land, would bring them back into the land that Abraham sojourned in and give that land to them for an eternal inheritance. God tells Abraham to cast Ishmael out so that he wouldn’t inherit any of the promises of the Covenant that God made with Abraham and adds to that that, as far as the Covenant goes, only in Isaac will Abraham’s seed be called. Therefore, when we read in Genesis 22:2, verse 12 and verse 16, after Ishmael is long gone, that Isaac is Abraham’s only son, Muslims often cry “See, that is a contradiction!” because Ishmael was older than Isaac. Do we really have to point out that, with calling Isaac the “only son” of Abraham, God simply emphasizes that as far as God’s Covenant with Abraham goes, Isaac is the only one that matters? God repeats the grounds of the Covenant he made with Abraham in verse 16-18. Note the language God used to bless Abraham and look at how God repeats this same language through Isaac and then consider that NONE of these words are ever uttered in regard to Ishmael:

And the Lord appeared unto him [Isaac], and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; AND IN THY SEED SHALL ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED; (Genesis 26:2-4)

Also note how these promises are repeated to Jacob:

And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: AND IN THEE AND IN THY SEED SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED. (Genesis 28)

Give all this, one would think it should be obvious that the Covenant that God made with Abraham has no bearing on Ishmael, but is perpetuated through Isaac and Israel and the children of Israel. Obviously, people like PW would have to discard the overwhelming testimony of the Scriptures that clearly lays out the grounds for the Covenant God made with Abraham and nitpick about the meaning of a “waw”, from which he wants to make certain claims, that is buried somewhere under the mountain of evidence that covers it, while that very mountain testifies to the contrary of his claims.

What, then, do we make of PW’s complaint that the waw in verse 21 is poorly translated with an obvious bias towards the supposed Islamic patriarch Ishmael? None! As the “waw” at the beginning of a word or sentence has the meaning ” and, and therefore, also, then, yet”, as PW himself said. Thus the following reading applies:

And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. Yet my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

Case pretty much closed, isn’t it? Nothing is “hooked”, nothing is “joined” and nothing is “tent pegged”. Given all the above, the foundation for everything PW goes on to argue for next has no basis whatsoever. Per his very own admission, “there is little point in moving forward as Ishmael represents the foundation for the emergence of an Arabian prophet”. Therefore, as Ishmael’s irrelevance regarding the Covenant God made with Abraham is established, PW’s whole case collapses and, per his own admission, nothing he goes on to say has any merit.

But, alas, that won’t keep PW from trying to make a case for his prophet and try to make his religion relevant. He goes on to say the following:

We are now going to demonstrate an inconsistency on the part of the Bible translators. Let’s take a look at another passage in the Old Testament: 

AND Yahweh passed by before him, AND He proclaimed, ‘Yahweh, Yahweh God, being compassionate AND gracious, slow of anger AND abounding in loyal love AND faithfulness. Keeping mercy for thousands, taking away iniquity AND transgressions AND sins; AND He will never leave (The guilty) unpunished, visiting the iniquity on sons AND sons of sons to the third AND to the fourth (generation). [Exodus 34:6-7]

How amusing it is to see those that, judging by their apologetic methods, seem to have a patent on inconsistency go on to accuse others of being inconsistent, while knowing little about the very thing they accuse others of being inconsistent about. According to PW, because the “waw” in Exodus 34 is translated as “and” in all cases, the translators are supposedly being “inconsistent” and mistranslate it as “but” in Genesis 17:21. But we have already seen that according to PW’s own source the “waw” can bear the meaning “yet”, which is another way of saying “but”. Hence, where is the inconsistency PW so passionately clamors about?

Not only that, Genesis 17:21 is not the only place that the KJV translators have translated the “waw” with “but”. All one has to do is look a few verses before PW’s contended passage and we see the exact same thing in verse 5:Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, BUT thy name shall be Abraham (WEhayah sheemkha Abraham); for the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.

And examples like these can be multiplied:

…'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; BUT (OOmay-ets) of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it (Gen 2:16-17)

And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; BUT (OOl’Adam) for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. (Gen 2:20)

…And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering; BUT (WE’el-Qain) unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect (Gen 4:4-5)

BUT Noah (WE-Noach) found grace in the eyes of the LORD. (Gen 6:8)

And on and on and on…you get the point. Again, PW’s claim of “inconsistency” of the mean translators has no ground whatsoever. Just because a word has multiple meanings doesn’t mean that there is any inconsistency when the translators apply one of the meanings that you may not like because it destroys your case. And that is exactly what it does! The meaning is determined by the context and given the immediate context of in Genesis 17:21 AND overall context of Genesis 12-22 is the establishment of God’s Covenant with Abraham’s and his specific offspring through his son Isaac to the exclusion of Ishmael , the only appropriate translation of the “waw” that PW built his entire case on is “but”. The translators have chosen correctly and PW is in error. Therefore, in PW’s own words, this passage remains “a problem” for the Muslim apologist and won’t go away any time soon.

But INCREDIBLY enough, PW goes on with the following claim:

In summary, once we properly translate Genesis 17:20-21 then Ishmael is by no means excluded from God’s covenant. In fact it turns out that he is very much part of it when we weigh up all the promises that God made regarding Abraham and Ishmael:

And then he starts quoting some verses from Genesis again. Now we have read all the passages in their proper context, including the devastating and humiliating exit of Ishmael in Genesis 21 and still PW tries to make his case based on…Genesis 21! As said, read in context both the passages say that the covenant is established with Isaac and Ishmael is excluded from it. PW even tries to appeal to Abraham’s words in Genesis 17:18 and makes the following claim:

Now some Christians may claim that Ishmael was only blessed in the physical sense, i.e. by having a large number of descendants. However this is not the case, as Abraham made the following prayer on behalf of Ishmael:

Abraham prayed that Ishmael may live before thee [Genesis 17:18]

What did Abraham mean by this? Living does not just mean being in a state of existence, i.e. not dead, but can also have spiritual meaning:

The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God. [Psalm 69:32]

Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgements, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD. [Ezekiel 18:9]

Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul. [Ezekiel 3:21]

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. [Isaiah 55:3]

Note that in the verses above, ‘living’ relates to seeking God, keeping God’s Law, being just, righteousness and, quite importantly for our discussion of Ishmael, is linked to an everlasting covenant. So Abraham prayed that Ishmael would be blessed in the truest sense of ‘living’, i.e. spiritually.

If all else fails, just claim that the meaning is spiritual. Abraham didn’t at all plea for Ishmael’s life and thus all PW’s citations of Scripture are irrelevant. PW totally foregoes the fact that Abraham doesn’t at all ask God for Ishmael to live, but specifically to “live before the Lord”! What does this mean? The Hebrew expression “lephanai” or “before the Lord” and all its variants, whether to live before God or walk before God, has a lot of meanings, but what Abraham means here is, as the context shows, that Ishmael could live in service of the Lord. That is exactly how the chapter starts: 

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him: 'I am God Almighty; walk before Me (lephanai), and be thou wholehearted. (Gen 17:1)

This chapter starts with Abraham being chosen by God to walk before God and do it wholeheartedly. The rest of the passage demands Abraham’s total devotion, together with his whole household. Also God says that the Covenant will be perpetuated through Isaac. Thus when Abraham pleas with God asking him to include Ishmael in the Covenant, God turns him down, but still blesses Ishmael and make him a great nation, because God promised Abraham many descendants. PW wants to dispute this and quotes all kinds of passages that are totally irrelevant, because God goes on to explain what he meant when he said he would make Ishmael a great nation:

“And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.”

It is very clear that God promises Ishmael many descendants. Combine that with God’s diss in Genesis 21:12 and it’s pretty much a wrap. PW’s entire foundation for an Arabian prophet has been demolished by the very Scriptures that he thought would provide a solid foundation for him to make the case. Next time we will watch how PW continues to build his case on thin air.