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Podcasts

James White debates Adnan Rashid on trustworthiness of the Bible vs Koran

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It’s on Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable radio show, from the UK!

The MP3 file is here. (60 minutes of debate)

The show starts with introductions by each speaker, then the debate begins.

James White’s opening address:

The Bible:

  • most Christians have a naive view of how holy books come to us from antiquity
  • the Bible and Koran were written and transmitted in two different ways
  • the Koran was written down and spread in a controlled way
  • the Bible was written in an uncontrolled way
  • Christianity was illegal until 313, so early Christians were persecuted
  • the Bible had to be copied and spread illegally by individuals
  • people risked their lives to copy pieces of the text
  • the good part of this is that there are tons of manuscripts
  • the manuscripts are earlier than the Church councils that define the Canon
  • a persecuted minority would not have been able to conspire to change the text
  • there are tons of minor variants from misspellings and typos in the manuscripts

The Koran:

  • the Hadith (writings that post-date the Koran) record how the Koran was written
  • the authorities worried that many fragments and manuscripts would cause disputes
  • the authorities got together and created an approved version to distribute
  • all the other Koranic materials (fragments and manuscripts) were burnt
  • this happened soon after the death of Mohammed
  • there are fewer variants with this centralized, top-down approach

Adnan Rashid’s opening speech:

The Bible:

  • the Bible we have today is not infallible, was not transmitted infallibly
  • none of the 4 gospels are written by eyewitnesses
  • there are around 400,000 variants in the manuscripts (cites Ehrman)
  • the huge number of variants touches on virtually every line of text
  • the manuscripts have differences – which manuscript is the inspired one?
  • editors are needed to adjudicate between all of the variants (cites Metzger)
  • editors have to rely on probabilities in order to choose the text itself

The Koran:

  • the text of the Koran was selected by Mohammed’s immediate successor
  • the purpose of this selection was to unify the Arab tribes on one text
  • rejected fragments and manuscripts were burned
  • no coercion was used to get the bad manuscripts burned

James White’s rebuttal:

  • 99% of the variants are technicalities of the Greek language
  • only 1500-2000 variants change the meaning of the text
  • there are many variants is because there are many manuscripts
  • more manuscripts makes it harder for any authority to change the text
  • the editors don’t hide the variants – that why everyone knows about them
  • the photographs of the fragments and manuscripts are available, not burnt

Adnan Rashid’s rebuttal:

  • we are in the process of photographing our fragments and manuscripts
  • what the photographs show is that the Koran has no shocking variants
  • Metzger is clear that editors are deciding the text based on probabilities

Crosstalk about Metzger:

  • James: editors decide the main reading and the rest goes in footnotes
  • James: Metzger doesn’t think that this makes the Bible unreliable
  • Adnan: prove it

Crosstalk about the Koran:

  • James: The Koran has variants too and manuscript issues
  • James: Mohammed appointed Ibn Masoud as the authority on the Koran
  • Adnan: actually Mohammed pointed out four authorities, not just one
  • Adnan: we don’t have manuscript problems or variant problems as bad as yours

Crosstalk about the crucifixion of Jesus:

  • James: the crucifixion is denied in Surah 4:157
  • James: the Koran is written 600 years after the cruficixion
  • James: the Koran is written hundreds of miles from the crucifixion site
  • James: non-Christians like Ehrman and Crossan do not deny the crucifixion
  • James: for 600 years after, history is unanimous that the crucifixion happened
  • Adnan: the gospel of Thomas doesn’t mention the crucifixion
  • Adnan:  Thomas predates Mark and is contemporaneous with Q
  • James: Thomas contains NO HISTORY – just sayings of Jesus
  • James: Thomas is not written by eyewitnesses to the events
  • James: Thomas is written in Coptic, originated in Syria, in the 2nd century
  • James: Thomas reflects gnostic theology, not Christian theology
  • Adnan: if the Koran says that the crucifixion didn’t happen, then it didn’t
  • James: Adnan believes one person 600 years later instead of the eyewitnesses
  • Adnan: Paul invented the crucifixion out of nothing
  • Adnan: The gospels are just theology, not history, written to confirm Paul
  • Adnan: some scholars say Thomas isn’t gnostic
  • Adnan: some scholars say Thomas is early
  • Adnan: Metzger says Thomas was rejected because it was non-Christian
  • James: I agree that it was rejected for theology because it’s gnostic
News

New study shows that greens are less moral than ordinary people

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From libertarian John Stossel at ABC News.

Excerpt:

People who commit their lives to going green are just better people. They’re more moral, more honest. At least, they keep telling us that, and apparently many students believe it, say University of Toronto psychologists:

They initially quizzed the students on their impressions of people who buy eco-friendly products, and for the most part, they considered such consumers to be more “more cooperative, altruistic and ethical” than ordinary consumers…

Then the researchers took it an extra step: They ran a test to see who would be more likely to cheat and steal: Greens? Or conventional shoppers?

They divided the greens and conventional shoppers, and then gave the students a test that tempted them to steal money. The researchers found:

The green consumers were more likely to cheat than the conventional purchasers, and they stole more money when asked to withdraw their winnings from envelopes on their desks.

This concept of moral license has been demonstrated before, writes Wray Herbert in his blog for the Association for Psychological Science.

(W)hen they have reason to feel a little superior, that positive self image triggers a sense of moral license. That is, the righteous feel they have some latitude to stray a bit in order to compensate. It’s like working in a soup kitchen gives you the right to cheat on your taxes later in the week.

Maybe that’s why sanctimonious stewards of the environment like Al Gore are comfortable lecturing the rest of us while living large in mega-mansions.

Beware of those who select an alternative moral standard (global warming,  foreign aid, animal rights, veganism, yoga, etc.) that gives them self-esteem and respect from others. I think real morality is the old morality, where people had to restrain themselves in their own personal lives. E.g. – chastity, frugality and sobriety.

Today it seems to be popular to do anything you want with alcohol, consumerism, and sex, as long as you take on some fashionable cause that doesn’t involve you having to give up the pursuit of pleasure. But the real measure of a man is the moral law, which does not change. It’s moral values like chastity, frugality and sobriety that require you to not hurt those around you.

There are a lot of Hollywood actors and famous/rich people who are apparently terribly concerned (in public) about things like global warming and animal rights. But in private, they act in the most selfish ways destroying the lives of those around them. Being associated with glamorous causes makes them happy, just like cheating on their spouses makes them happy.

News

MUST-READ: What worldview emerges from serial hook-up sex?

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This blog post was linked from RuthBlog. And I didn’t even write it! (H/T RuthBlog)

The article talks about a hypothetical woman who hooks up with a man for premarital sex, presumably after a night of drunken partying, and then feels shame for what she has done. Should she feel ashamed? It depends.

Excerpt:

If her shame is telling her the truth, a truth that surpasses all social constructs, then she made a mistake.

[…]But what if a moral thinker steps forward and declares that she is wrong to feel shame, that her bad feelings simply show the extent to which she has bought into a social construct. Ethics is relative; it serves the power elite. She ought to reject her shame for lying to her and promoting the accepted social construct.

[…]Consoling words do not really have much of an effect. Better would be a new group of friends, a new social nexus where everyone will hold her in high esteem for having mastered the art of the hook up, or better, for having fully explored and expressed her sexuality.

Is there such a group? And could this group provide her with a new and revised identity? If being a woman, according to society’s standards, makes her feel ashamed of herself, why would she not transform her identity and become… a feminist. Some feminists do not look too kindly on hook ups, but still and all, feminists are not judgmental. They will welcome her into their midst and tell her that she has done nothing wrong.

[…]If society disapproves; if her classmates look down on her; that is their problem. They are committing one of the great sins of the therapy culture: they are being judgmental!

Note also that this perspective has absolved the coed of all responsibility for her own behavior. Those who are at fault are the ones who look down on her. Now, the new moral thinking holds them responsible for making her feel bad.

But what about those who continue to hold to standards that consider sex outside of marriage harmful to men, women, children and society as a whole, who must pay the social costs of irresponsible sex?

…she will proselytize her beliefs. You only ignore other people for so long. Eventually the numbness will start wearing off. Therefore, our coed must work to transform the culture to make it more attuned to her values. She and her group will work to affect a cultural revolution, a transformation of cultural values.

All of this implies that if you can change the way the culture sees certain behaviors then you can transform the value of the behavior. But, how do you go about changing the way everyone values behavior?

You have probably guessed already, that this way of making our coed feel better about herself contains what I would call a totalitarian will to control the minds, hearts, and speech of everyone.

Feminism isn’t an intellectual framework, it’s an emotional-fueled rationalization of sinful behavior. It becomes the problem of taxpayers when it uses government power and social programs to coerce others into celebrating and subsidizing sinful behavior.

(Note: I am not talking about first-wave “equal opportunity” equity feminism, I am talking about gender feminism – I’m drawing from Christina Hoff Sommers‘ book “Who Stole Feminism?” and “The War Against Boys” for my definitions of feminism)