Today on the Avengers Podcast, we're talking about how to witness to a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00The Avengers podcast. Encouragement to speak live to a needy world. We've got this for another and before.
SPEAKER_06Welcome back to the Avengers Podcast for the first time.
SPEAKER_05If you've not heard us before, exactly thank you for signing that some uh are just new to the wonders of the Avengers Podcast. We could look at what 110 different episodes before this one.
SPEAKER_06Yes. It could change your life from this point on.
SPEAKER_05It could change someone's life, because yeah, we're talking about how to reach out to a Mormon.
SPEAKER_06Uh yeah. Well previously we've we've we're doing a sort of a series in uh uh speaking to people from different religions about Christ. And uh we've we looked at last couple of episodes about uh how to speak to a Mormon. And uh this time we're talking to Jay Smith about uh how to witness to a Muslim.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And you know, I could tell you that there's all sorts of uh great reasons behind why we tackled Mormonism first and then Islam, but really it was just because about first and Jay Smith worked. Um but it is interesting the kind of overlap between Mormonism and Islam. This you know uh a prophet who comes later and forgets about the older revelation and comes up with a new book, and it tends to be a very works-based kind of religion. And um so there's there's a lot of overlap, but of course, with Islam, we're we're talking about a major world fight, we're talking about perhaps 1.6 billion um on the planet. So uh we really need to understand what they believe, and that will be this first part of the uh the interview with Jay Smith, and then the second part of the interview will just think about how it is that we go about reaching out uh uh to the Muslims who are all around.
SPEAKER_06Okay? Well, before we go on, uh I just want to tell you about our Speak Life Daily. It's a booklet produced by us here at Speak Life. Um it tells 31 stories of what God is doing around the world. It also gives us some devotional content and also what uh Glenn is up to from day to day, giving us prayer points, etc.
SPEAKER_05You can pray for me, yeah. On the on page number one, you can figure out my uh my speaking diary and uh pray for that and uh all the other things we get up to here at speaklife.
SPEAKER_06Right. Let's go to speaklife.org.uk slash tep. Receive it by email or post. So tell us a little bit about Jake Smith.
SPEAKER_05Uh J Smith, we've got to love Jake Smith. He uh is American but sort of grew up on the mission field and has lived all over the world. Uh and I think uh I think he was saying on the interview that um perhaps London is is the place that he's lived in the longest, really. And he's last until 93. But uh he uh I met him at all sorts of like a place when we used to go down on the sweetest corner and we used to engage uh largely with Muslims. Um largely with Islam that's sort of the major world place represented down at Speaker's Corner. Uh sweetest corner I don't know, it's the northeast corner of High Park and all sorts of nutters. Like me. And uh and okay, and it's a real sort of uh protected space for free speech, and as long as you're standing off the ground, you can live with about anything. And uh it it has tended um really over the last 20 years to be a place where Muslims and Christians interact a lot. And uh and Jade Smith is just absolutely world-class, there's there's nobody quite like him. And uh and so he kind of trained us up, you know. Well, I I used to go down in 2001, 2001, 2002, 03, used to go down most Sundays and and and speak to people there. And so I learned a lot about Islam through Jade Smith. I learned a lot about Islam through engaging with the Muslims at Speaker's Corner, but I also learned even more about my own faith through the stuff that Jay was saying, through the stuff that I was having to say to Muslims who are interacting, who are asking me all the tough questions about the Bible and Jesus and the gospel and salvation. And uh I would say that nothing really has uh benefited me more and has more positively shaped my theology and made me more Christ-centered, more Trinitarian, more determined to offer the good news of the grace of Christ. Nothing has been as helpful as talking to Muslims. Um because as as we say in the interview, you know, um when you're talking to a Muslim, instantly you're talking about who is Jesus, what is the Bible, what's the nature of God, what is the nature of salvation. Talk about that. Like like you talk to a you talk to your average secular person, and like I know what you'll end up talking about. You know, because I just you know it's so far back in the understanding of things. But when you talk to a Muslim, instantly you're talking about is Jesus God, is the Bible the word of God, what is the nature of God, what is the nature of God. Like instantly you're kind of having a gospel conversation. So I really encourage people to listen in hard and to do this stuff. Today's gonna talk about uh how we uh reach out to Muslims and what Muslims believe. He's also running a course that you can do via Skype on Wednesday evenings, and we'll put some notes on the show notes um about how you might be able to sign up to that because I think you will get world-class training on what Muslims believe and how we reach out to them.
SPEAKER_06Well, uh, let's bring them on then.
SPEAKER_05I've got on the line with me uh Jay Smith, one of the world's foremost apologists to Islam. It's great to have you on the Evangelist Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh it's a first great to be here. Thanks for inviting me, Jake.
SPEAKER_05Now, you uh you're living in London at the moment, is is that uh where you're based?
SPEAKER_01I've been here since 1992, so though I don't sound very Londoner, I have my family and I have been here for almost what twenty-three, twenty-four years.
SPEAKER_05Would that be almost the the longest time you've been anywhere? Because I mean you've moved around quite a bit.
SPEAKER_01I live seventeen years in India, where I was born and grew up. That used to be the longest. Now this has surpassed that by a a a good six years. Uh out of that ten years in America, and that's about it. Uh five years in Senegal. So no, London has been our uh the place where Judy and I have spent the most time, you're correct.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And and that's so you grew up in India where your parents were missionaries, is that right?
SPEAKER_01And my grandparents, so I go back three generations. We my family first went to India in 1913. Oh. So they've been there over a hundred years, my family. My sister's still there, but I have a nephew who's still uh who's still there, and and they they won't leave. So it looks like our family's that legacy is gonna continue.
SPEAKER_05Wow. And was that in a particularly Islamic part of of India or was it more Hindu or or where whereabouts was that?
SPEAKER_01That's it was in the north, uh and in the east. So it was Islamic, and those are the strongest areas of Islam. But that's not to say that my parents or my grandparents were only interested in Islam. They were they were though it is the largest area for the Muslims, it's the third largest Muslim area in the world. Uh nonetheless, there's still more Hindus than there are Muslims there. So their work was primarily with Hindus, though my parents were in the university system in Delhi, so they worked an awful lot with humanists and atheists as well.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01So where did you I I I my my sister and I, my sister is in Turkey now, and I have zeroed in on the Islamic work since the nineteen in our case nineteen eighties.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And why why? What what was it that that began your your fascination with Islam to begin with?
SPEAKER_01The fact that no one else was doing it. And the fact that I went to a seminar, uh, a one-day seminar in Philadelphia back in 1981, where we were told that there were 800 800 million Muslims. Uh huge number, but I couldn't really fathom or really could uh contain that kind of number. But then we were told that the number of missionaries working amongst them was only 1,500. And that these missionaries, this 1,500, only made up 5% of all missionaries. And when I heard those two numbers, the last two, 1,500 and 5%, I turned to my wife and I said, What in the world are we doing wrong? Why is it we're sending only 5% of our missionaries to the fastest growing religion on earth? And at that time it was, and it still is, it's now doubled in number. It's about 1.6 billion since we made this question, and that's why we got into it. Apparently, because no one else was doing it, and that's where the greatest need was.
SPEAKER_05And have the numbers of missionaries doubled as well? Or what what's what's happened to outreach to Muslims in in terms of evangelism?
SPEAKER_01Yes, fortunately, the number of missionaries has tripled. Uh, and I would say in some cases, uh, depending on which statistics you look at, maybe it's even quadrupled. It's still only about 15% of all missionaries. And the biggest problem that we have in Islamic work is that most Christians don't want to work with the radicals. They only want to work with the nominals and the liberals. And it's the radicals that are causing all the problems. They're the ones and they're the ones that are growing the fastest, and certainly they're in our news every day. And it's the radicals that I work with. They're the ones that I'm interested in, they're the ones that get me most excited because in many respects, and this may sound wrong to your hearers, they're the most like us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01They are as radical as we are radical. And I would define radicalism as somebody who goes back to uh the root, what you what was what radical means. Goes back to the root, goes back to the foundations, goes back to the scripture, and goes back to the Prophet Muhammad. Like we go back to our scripture and we go back to our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_05Yes. And therefore, when you're having a conversation with such a person, you're you're always talking about what is the Word of God, is Jesus the Son of God, who is God, what is He like? What about Judgment Day? Um with with such people, you're you're always talking about radical fundamental issues, aren't you?
SPEAKER_01It's they're the best they're the best people to talk to in the world. They're the only people I have found where you can talk about Jesus Christ within the first sentence. Yes, and you can continue talking about Jesus Christ for three hours. Now, who else would you rather talk to but people like that?
SPEAKER_05Exactly.
SPEAKER_01If you're not talking about Jesus, you're talking about the Bible. And the two things, areas where we talk about the most are the two things that get me most excited.
SPEAKER_05Yes, exactly. Whereas when you talk to a secular person, it can be all very interesting, but you know, perhaps they've heard of the Gospel of Thomas, and that's about that's about it.
SPEAKER_01And they don't care dilly swat about that conversation. In fact, they'll probably walk away from you if you even mention the word named Jesus Christ. Or they may even use it as they're walking away as uh as as a slang against you. And that's the problem. And that's why I think why doesn't everybody want to work with Muslims, especially radical Muslims? Because they're so interesting and it's so exciting to not only talk to, but to engage with.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well let's let's help our listeners to to engage. Um so some people who are listening in will will have had lots of experience with Islam, some will have had uh very little. Uh what what does a beginner need to know about Islam as they speak to their Muslim friend or neighbor?
SPEAKER_01I don't think they need to know too much. I think most everybody knows quite a bit about Islam for no other reason. It's in the news all the time, and we're being bombarded with all kinds of approaches, and we're being bombarded with with enormous amount of information which did not exist prior to 9-11. 9-11 blew everything open, and somebody brought Islam into the front room or living room and uh into uh the narrative, uh certainly in the church. So I'm not too worried about what Muslims uh what Christians should know. They don't need to know too much. In fact, in almost every church I go, I find they they sh they already know what the five uh uh practices are and the six beliefs. What they need to know is what the Muslim that they're dealing with, they need to know where they come from. Because it doesn't mat it doesn't make sense to learn an awful lot of material, and then the first time you meet a Muslim, uh which is not too hard to do here in London, since they make up about a tenth of the population, you open your mouth and here you find that the Muslim standing in front of you does not at all meet or look like the type of Muslim you've you've studied, or spent all your time trying to get uh preparing to get to know.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01So you need to find out who is standing in front of you. You need to find out who the person you're working with, or maybe new living next to you, or going to school with. Muslims are all around us, and you need to open your mouth. And what I tell almost all my students is whenever you need a Muslim and you want to engage with them, the best thing to do is just say two things. I believe that Jesus is God, I believe the Bible is the word of God, if you have an opinion.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna start a conversation immediately and you're gonna find what kind of Muslim that is just from those two comments, and you're also laying down your foundation. You're also saying who you are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're proud of it. And you're showing them that you absolutely do not apologize for those two statements.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01And we shouldn't. We should never have to apologize for those two statements. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And and are those the two areas that you would say keep on focusing the conversation on? You know, who is Jesus? What is the nature of the people? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Anything else is superfluous. Who cares about whether or not Israel has a right to exist or whether or not we believe in democracy? I don't care. Do this one about those. That's not what we're there in. Uh that's not why we're why we're in the world. And that's really not what our agenda is. Our agenda should always focus on Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Because that is where we differ with Islam.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01There are many things we agree with Islam, but we don't agree on Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05How do you find that issue playing out? We've in in our series where we've been uh speaking to people about different uh beliefs. I I I spoke to Bill McKeever about uh Mormonism, and he he would very often uh say that when he's speaking to Mormons, for instance, he would say uh your Jesus rather than you know our Jesus, and and he would say your God. I would say the same thing. I agree with Bill on that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We do not share the same Jesus, we do not share the same God, we do not share the same scriptures, we do not share the same prophetic line, uh, we do not share the same vocation, and we are certainly not going to the same heaven.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01And the list could go on and on, but it sounds for most Christians, since we both believe in God, we believe both of them believe that that Abraham was the head of a prophetic line, both have a view of scripture, a high view of scripture, and they have Issa, and we have Jesus, for and they're uh and the Arabic Bible does call God Allah in the Arabic Bible. Should we not therefore find everything in common? That's the big lie that is going around many mythological circles. It's the big lie that Muslims try to foist on us, and we need to stand against that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. It's it it's funny. No, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Uh Allah of the Quran is not the Allah of the Bible. There is nothing in common with the two. And I could spend a good hour right now telling you why. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's what the rest of the evangelist podcast is for. So people can people can tune into many, many different um uh episodes about that. We can put that in the show notes and and perhaps we can uh direct people to some uh some more of your talks from Fanda films uh on that topic, because uh I mean b I mean it's it's interesting it's interesting because people come back at that and sort of say, Well, unless you have common ground, you're not gonna you know have a conversation. But actually, as you have this conversation, who is the nature of God, you're having the best kind of conversation with the Muslim, aren't you?
SPEAKER_01You know it's and the common ground is we we both believe in God, but which God?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01The common ground is we both we both believe in a heaven and hell, but which heaven and which hell? We both believe in scripture, but which scripture? So make make sure that you don't fall into the trap of saying in or in the in the in the interest of f trying to find common ground you that you give a you give into a lie. Because you must never start from deceit.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Ever use deceit to make a relationship. Because once you have once you have kind of said we we share the same God, how are you gonna support that? When ten minutes later you say, Well, actually our God is trying, your God isn't. Our God can enter time and space, whereas God, your God can. Our God died for us, whereas your God never did that. Well, suddenly they're saying, Well, wait a minute, you just said we share the same God.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01How are you gonna what they're gonna see you saying is you're being not being truthful. You're not, therefore, there's gonna be an enormous amount of suspicion, and we walk into that trap all the time. Yes without thinking too. Be right up front. Be do not apologize for what we believe and never apologize for Jesus. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I'm into that. I'm into that. Um let's let's talk about a few things that sort of come up more popularly in conversation and and things in the news. Um so I mean recently we had uh the the terrorist attack on the train from Amsterdam to Paris. Um somebody I I I suppose wanting to to go uh on a rampage and and that sort of hits hits the news. If you're if you're talking to a Muslim friend or neighbor and and let's let's say they they hear about that and they say, ah yes, but that's that's not Islam. Um what what do you say in those sorts of conversations?
SPEAKER_01Yep, and that's and that's a that's a great question, Glenn. And I think what we need to do is we need to unpack what is Islam, therefore. Now, Islam can be anything you want it to be. In the same token, you can pretty much and I hear this all the time. Well, the Islam you're body is not my next door neighbor. My next-door neighbor, uh Abdul. He he is peaceful, he is loving, he's a great father, he in every category he is he is he is superlative, and that's true Islam. Now, let me ask put it on the other foot. Let's just say your next-door neighbor claims to be a Christian, but they never go to church, and I would suggest maybe 95% of the population here in this country never go to church. And uh the 95% of those who claim to be Christians probably don't even know who Jesus Christ is. Are you gonna let your next-door neighbor who claims to be a Christian define Christianity for you? No, I would never do that unless they absolutely unless they show to me that they know what Christianity is and showed me that they are actually reading the Bible and know who Jesus Christ is and what he came to do. Otherwise, otherwise, and I most people would understand that, and they would say, no, no, of course, not anybody in Britain could could define what Christianity is, and that definition would be the normative. Well, why in the same token are we therefore using our next door neighbor who probably has never gone to a mosque? Maybe maybe if they did go to the mosque, they have never read the Quran or opened it up to understand it. Uh they would they have only come to this country for for in most cases for uh uh economic reasons or for educational reasons. They have most of them are I happy to be away from Islam, but they still feel a need to to Christ to still call themselves Muslims, and they may even feel comfortable in a mosque. But do they can they define Islam? The vast majority of Muslims I meet, I know more about Islam than they do, and I have to actually tell them what they believe because they've never really been asked these kind of questions before. And that's why we need to be careful about defining Islam by our next-door neighbor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think the better thing to do is to define this Islam as Muslims define it, real Muslims define it, and that is to go back to scripture and as to go back to the example of the Prophet Muhammad, because that is what Islam is. Real Islam is uh given authority by a book modeled by a man, the book of the man, the book of the man, the book of the man. And by the same token, so are we. A true Christian, as Luther said, if you want to know what true Christianity is, you go gotta go back to the Bible, go back to the book, sola scriptura, modeled by Jesus Christ. So we also start from the same paradigm. We go back to a book modeled by a man, the book of the man, the book of the man. Therefore, once you have started from that premise, and whenever I I ask, uh I ask either a Christian or a Muslim, you know, what how what do you believe? And whenever they give me their belief, I say, can you define, can you define, can you find that in scripture? So when a Muslim comes up to me and says, Yes, we are we are a religion of peace. Muhammad is a man of peace, the Quran is a book of peace. My first answer is prove it.
SPEAKER_03Show me.
SPEAKER_01And the best question you can ask in that kind of context is can you show me one verse in the Quran that says you're to have peace with me?
SPEAKER_03The Christian.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I've been asking that for 30 years.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01And there are no persons. There's not one verse in the Quran that says they are to have peace with Christians.
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. And so terrorists come up in the news, Islamic terrorists. And let's let's say it's let's say it's your Western neighbor, and they and they say, uh, yeah, but that's not that's not true Islam. What I mean, what what what do you say in a in a sentence or three to them?
SPEAKER_01Very simple. I said, can you define Islam? Are you the person? Should you be the one that's defined Islam? Or should we let the uh should we let the Quran define Islam?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna give you an example. I had a debate with Ben Al Zarbuto, who was the ex-prime minister of Pakistan, but she was now dead. But when she was at Oxford, and when she and I had a debate in Oxford Union on is Islam relevant for the 20th century? Which is the same question. And she got up there and she said, Listen, if you want to know if it's relevant or not, just look at me. I live in London. At the time she did. I walk like you, eat like you, drink like you, eat, drink. Everything you do, I do. Therefore, if I can be relevant in London, Islam is relevant to London. I got up around look at her and I said, you know, I'm so glad you can walk like me, talk like me, eat eat like me? You can eat pork like I can eat pork? Drink like me? You can drink wine like I can drink wine? Since when is Islam ever, ever a Muslim allowed to eat pork and drink wine? I said, what you have done is you have basically you have modeled Islam on yourself. You've become your own highest authority. Do not call that Islam. Call that Bhuttoism if you want to. Create a whole new set. But it's not Islam because Islam, by definition, is authorized by a book, modeled by a man. Book and a man, book and a man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're not that man. And you certainly are not supporting a book when you say that. And I said to her, as a follow-up, I said, I would like to get on Pakistan television right now and say, now, as since I, Benizar Bhutto, have said you can eat pork and drink wine, you can all Muslims now around the world can eat pork and drink wine because I have said so. I'd say I'd like to see how long you'd stay in office if you say that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's the problem. You can you're getting you do get an awful lot of Muslims here in London and also here in the United Kingdom, who make claims that they cannot support. And so also Westerners who make claims, oh, Muslims are all peaceful because all because they say they're peaceful. And I'd like to ask them in the same token, do you believe that all Christians therefore don't believe that Jesus ever did miracles? Or that he ever claimed to be God? Because uh the vast majority of Christians would say that about Jesus, if you were to ask him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you've got to give us a because so here's the problem. We we need to be careful about who we ask and where they're getting their authority to say what they say.
SPEAKER_05And so if we do go back to the Quran, would you say that for instance, Islamic State is a faithful expression of Quranic Islam?
SPEAKER_01Yes, uh I I on two tokens. I would say it's the best we have ever seen. I have never seen any group in my lifetime and that includes Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram and all the others. I've never seen a group like ISIS that has actually followed the Quran and and also modeled their the uh what they do on the Prophet's example on their Prophet's example. So they not only follow the Quran but they not they go to the hadith that settled the Qasid and Kahid which are the Hispanic traditions to model what they do on what Muhammad did. That's the close and you'll not see anything as close as that that's why it looks so barbaric. That's why it looks so daunting because the Prophet Muhammad was barbaric and he would he is not at all relevant for the 21st century in any place at all in the 21st century. But see most Christians and Muslims have never looked at his biography. They've never read Ibn Hisham or al-Wahidi who write down his original biography. They have never seen what he did in Medina to the Jews living in Medina or what he did to the Ba Kharaiza family. These are stories that all your radicals know they have never looked at the verses in the Quran that support the cutting off of heads that's Surah 47 ayah 4 or the crucifying and uh and and uh uh individuals of and uh uh and cutting off their hands and fruits on opposite sides that's surah 5 ayah 32 or beating their wives 0 4 ayah 34 or whipping the adulterers 0 24 ayah 2 and I could go on and on verse after verse violent verse after violent verse it's all right there in the Quran it's enslaving girls that's sorry serious 4 ayah 24 it's in the Quran it's right in their scriptures so to say that ISIS is not Islamic as Obama does and so does David Cameron and so I would suggest does every politician. They all have to say so they have never read the Quran and they would never be able to say support that with any scripture therefore it's easy to say that it's a difficult therefore however to confront ISIS if you're not gonna if you're unless you're gonna be able to well you can't you can't use scripture and certainly the traditions to confront ISIS. They are following the closest to of any group I've met to not only the Quran but also to the traditions.
SPEAKER_05Wow and okay so how how do you then come back on on two kind of reports to that. One is to point to um the Old Testament and to say you know aren't there very confronting verses in the Old Testament that are similar to things in the Quran? And I guess the other thing it would be to point to critical history like the crusades and say aren't aren't there examples in in history of Christians doing similar similar things. How do you respond to th those two reports both the the the scriptural Old Testament one and then the the the crusades and that kind of issue.
SPEAKER_01I have one word Jesus but that's too simple so let's unpack that a little bit. Glenn let me ask you you you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior right?
SPEAKER_03Yes I do.
SPEAKER_01Do you follow the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_05Uh it's a good question.
SPEAKER_01Be careful how you can answer that's a good question. Let me add let me more specific do you circumcise to you? Do you sacrifice goats? No I don't couch to the goats. If you have sons like I do I have three if they're rebellious you're gonna have to execute them. Yeah I'm so do you follow mosaic law no then why in the world are you suggesting that we should go back to Mosaic law when you don't do those three those are the simplest ones I've asked I can ask you many more. You don't go right to Moses do you don't go back to Joshua do you? You don't go back to David do you? You don't even go back to Billy Graham. Who do you go to? I go to Jesus you always come back to Jesus. And see Jesus answered this very question in Matthew chapter 5. In Matthew 5 he says I have not come to destroy the law I have come to fulfill it. There's the operative word. I've come to fulfill the law and then he replies it immediately in that chapter you have six examples in Matthew 5. Look at the six examples he says over and over again you have heard it say but I now say that's you have heard it say in Mosaic law but I now say in Mosaic law an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but now I say that you are to turn the other cheek what is he doing in mosaic law you that is the old law that's the mosaic law from 1400 BC but I now say now in the first century a completely new law a completely new covenant a completely new testament. You have heard it say to love your friends and hate your enemies but now I say to love your enemies. So Jesus wasn't destroying it he was fulfilling it. Therefore it's ever Jesus gives us a whole new covenant a whole new testament a whole new paradigm now that testament that is modeled on Jesus Christ applies before his applies for for us today because we can then go back to Mosaic law and say we don't do that anymore. So why in the world are we even looking at the body instead what God is doing there we leave in 1400 BC but also the crusades because the crusades I the first question I ask is do the creates the crusades follow Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_01No in fact they follow Mosaic law they've gone back to 1400 BC to a theocratic state which is imposed using the sword where God said to Joshua go into Jericho and kill all men, women and children in Sir in uh Joshua 6 verse 20 that's what the crusades were doing. They had no right to go back there and do that. And therefore I would say that the crusade is an aberration and it's certainly it's certainly not what Christ intended. There's no scriptural authority for what the crusades and therefore I use Jesus as my paradigm and that's why it saves me both in the Old Testament and the new testament and anytime since as long as we stick to Jesus as long as we come back to his example as long as we come back to what he said and did we're gonna have no problems. But that also then allows me to then condemn the crusades. Because I can say to the crusaders and anybody who supports the crusades you have no right to call yourself a Christian if you're going to follow the crusade example because that does not follow Christ.
SPEAKER_05Yes. And therefore you know coming back to the Islamic State example you you can sort of say well okay here is you know you you you call them the best you've ever seen in terms of being faithful to the Quran. Here here are radical followers of Islam and and it would lead you to kill for Muhammad to be a radical Christian I guess is to be someone who who is willing to die for others and just the opposite.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that something yeah incredible and so therefore if you want to ask they who is the which is the best paradigm which is the best model for peace today you better not go back to Muhammad because what Muhammad did with the Jews in Medina between 622 and 627 just that five years when he moved to Medina look into what he did to the Madu Kainuka family, the Banubias family, the Banu Kuraiza family. Just look and see how he decimated them and then he took all 800 of the last remaining Jewish tribe all 800 men and slipped their throats in one afternoon that was in 627. And you can find that in Al Hishan you can find that in Tabari you can find that in Al Bukh al-Buhari I've just given you three sources in three different genres to find that story. Yeah and this is something any radical Muslim knows. They know these stories the problem is we're not permitted to teach this in our seminars or our Bible schools we're not permitted to say this in the radio except on your show we're not able to say this in public because Muslims don't want the world to know what the prophet did their prophet did. Jesus didn't do anything like that. And thank God for Jesus you want peace you better come home back to Jesus.
SPEAKER_05Yeah come home to Jesus I mean I mean just imagine inserting a verse about you know Jesus slitting 800 throats in an in a single afternoon. Just imagine inserting that into the gospels and you and you see the difference, don't you?
SPEAKER_01How could you when you have Matthew 2652 Peter put away your sword yeah for he who lives by the sword dies there's the there's the contrast and there's the antidote. The antidote is Jesus.
SPEAKER_05So different so I mean an another angle that people kind of uh that that might come up in conversation is uh in the news uh people are talking about a discovery of some of the old perhaps the oldest Quran has been discovered in folios and that and that kind of thing and uh and and and in terms of sort of uh historical fines surrounding the Quran is is that something that in the Muslim world uh is is being reported kind of in excited tones or is it something that people are are are a bit afraid of what's what's what's going on in the Muslim world as they hear about these discoveries have you noticed no Muslim scholar has come out in favor of these findings I'll tell you why explain what the findings are explain what the findings are first and then yeah and then say okay this is what the findings are in Birmingham they have two folios that have two pages put in back that's four sides of uh what looks like a Quran that have been there for many years they had them tested in the Oxford uh laboratory for the accelerated mass photography laboratory the best in the world and they dated it they dated it from 568 AD to uh 645 Muhammad was born in 570 and he died in 632 so it covers the life of Muhammad but here's the problem that's not the only folio in fact it even gets worse but let before we do that just remember every Muslim any Muslim scholar will know that there was no Quran in existence during the life of Muhammad nothing was written down.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_01When he died in 632 the Quran had yet to be written down it was memorized by many of his companions parts of it were written bits of it were written on stone and on bark and on leaves but most of it comes from the memory of the companions who memorized it from hearing him repeat it. This is what this every Muslim knows. This is what the traditions tell us and it was not written down until 650 during the time of Uthman the third caliph he had it written down he had Zaid ibdari along the Zubair, Alas and Harita four of them write the Quran down in 650 to 652 that two year period that's 18 years after Muhammad's death the Quran was finally written down tabulated into a final form and then that Quran was then sent was given four copies were made and one was left in Medina one was sent to Basala one was sent to Bahbar and one was sent to Damascus and all the other Quranic manuscripts were then burnt. So there were Quran's around before that they were all plot together and they were burnt according to Al-Buhdi because because they were deviating from the the from the the other four? No one knows why we're just told they're burnt now here's the problem okay so you don't have any Quran prior to 650 right look at the dates I just gave you 568 to 645 what's the median date what's the strongest date because remember uh I sell away the master talk the radiocarbon 14 is very inexact. That's why they have a 95 percentile between 568 to 645. The median date is 606 that's the strongest date for that okay when did Mohammed start receiving his revelations according to tradition 610. So this even predates not only Uthman it also predates Mohammed okay yeah okay now that's the first one two other three other laboratories one in Arizona another one in Lyon France and another one in Germany Tubigan in the city of Tubigan have also looked at other folios that are very similar they're also written on parchment they are found in the Sana manuscripts which we discovered in 1975 but they are now housed in France in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and that those folios they took parts in they sent to Arizona they sent them to um Lyon in look at the those that have been found the dates on those manuscripts those folios remember it's just a little piece from each book was 443 to 599. Oh wow okay that's the 5th century to the 6th century that's even before Muhammad was born another one was 543 to 643 the median date for the 543 to 643 is 693 I'm sorry 593 Muhammad didn't even begin to receive revelations until 610. The other median date is 516 Muhammad didn't receive revelation until 610. That's a hundred years before Muhammad even began receiving revelations. Goodness me so what are these manuscripts? Because they look Quranic they have script it's in Arabic they do correspond verses in the Quran in the case of the Birmingham folio it's surah 18, surah 19 and surah 20 take a look at those verses take a look at those surahs and look at what's in them it's the story of Moses with the burning bush. It's the story of the seven sleepers of Ephesus it's the story of Dul Qudan who is Alexander the Greek these are all outside stories. These are stories that were borrowed from other sources if you look at the Quran you will see much of the Quran is borrowed from many sources.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Surah 5 31 and 32 is a story of Cain and Abel Cain kills his brother for the brave in scratching the ground to bury its partner so he does the same thing with Abel and then it talks about the blood of Abel now that's not in our Bible but that's found in the Targamas John of Benuziah which is a second century A.D. Jewish apocryphal writing the story of Abraham in Surah 21 verses 51 to 71 is a story of Abraham and Mecca being thrown into a fiery pit after destroying all the idols in in the Kaaba I didn't even know Abraham lived in Mecca but according to everyone he does. Where does that come from that story comes straight out of the Mishnah of Rabbah a second every second century Jewish account. And all these writings are from Jewish apocryphal writings Christian sectarian most of the references 93 references of Jesus in the Quran can be traced back to the lost books of the Bible the lost Arabic books of the Bible almost all of them are Gnostic writings written in Syriac and then taken and borrowed and then interposed into the Quran willingly and what's great about it is these are all since they're borrowed they are all pre-Islamic pre-Kuranic and pre-Uthman and pre-Mohammad they start from the second century go up into the century much of the poetry that you find in the Quran when you look at stroke by stroke by stroke it exactly parallel Christian hymns written in Syriac in the fifth century. If you're borrowing all these that means that these these writings existed prior to the Quran these folios that are being dated prior to the Quran and prior to Muhammad and certainly prior to Uthman are exactly those articles those um documents from which the Quran was derived because here's the big here is the big elephant in the room that no one's talking about now notice everything I've mentioned so far are material that predates Uthman when the Quran is finally written down right and every Muslim knows that the Quran was finally written down in 650. Yeah look at all the the manuscripts these are the big not folios not a page here not a page the manuscripts the major manuscripts and there are six major manuscripts that are considered to be the oldest manuscripts that exist today you have the Tokkapi which is the manuscript that is in the Tokkapi Museum in Istanbul in Turkey. You have the Samakan which is in Askent in Uzbekistan you have the Husseini manuscript which is in Cairo in Egypt you have the Matil manuscript which is here in London the British Library you have the Petrapalmus manuscript which is in the Bigot National in Bahi from which these photos have been uh have actually been dated and then you have the most famous the Sarah manuscript which is in Yemen those are the six major manuscripts take a look at every one of them and for the first time we have them dated now we have finally been able to date them. Look at the dates for all those six manuscripts the Topkapi manuscript is mid-eighth century that's a hundred years after Guthman the Sama Khan is early to mid-century that's fifty to sixty probably eighty years after Guthman early to mid-eighth century manuscript in Egypt is ninth century the Ma' is early eighth century and the summa and the Sana is early eighth century not one of them is seventh century not one of them is from the time of Uthman which means they're written from forty to fifty to sixty to eighty to a hundred to maybe two hundred years after Uthman. Yes not one of them is complete the best one is the top copy it's 78% complete the petropolitan is only 26% complete both the Mayo and the uh uh but the Mayo and the um the sumaca are about for go up to show 43 and they are only about 50% complete which what we're finding is not one of them is complete not one of them is from the seventh century not one of them agrees with each other and most disturbing not one of them agrees with the Quran we have today they are full of hundreds and hundreds of manuscript variants that means words and phrases that are different. And what's most troubling and this is the thing that has really destroyed the Quran this we just found out last year every one of these manuscripts have insertions that have words that have been inserted above and below the line words that have been erased others that have been erased and written over sometimes they just wrote over without erasing that have tapings over top of them that have coverings with writing over top the coverings hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these and that these corrections these are all correct in the script on every one of these manuscripts these corrections continue to appear up until the ninth century which means 200 years after Muhammad they are still changing the Quran correcting the Quran unifying the Quran because every one of these corrections bring it back to a standard text and this continues for 200 years. Tell it one of the actually elephant in a room that no one wants to talk about what that says can you see what that says Glenn that means this has nothing to do with Muhammad it has nothing to do with this one. Therefore if Muhammad if the all the Qurans all these Qurans don't even become standardized when did the Quran get canonized when was it finally standardized in the present form that we have today? Do you know the date? Nope 1924 that's a little later than a hundred years ago at Alazar University the Quran we use today was standardized and unified and canonized less than a hundred years ago. In fact your Prince Philip is older than the Quran and none of those uh earliest manuscripts match the 1924 version no they don't match oh they have matched in in uh by that time by certain by the time the Top copy is written down by the mid 800 most of it but seventy eight percent of it matches. Yeah yeah well I guess you I guess you but that's a big one not you when you go with it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But when was it finalized then? Yeah. To me it was still isn't finalized because then there were fourteen different versions by the time eighteen hundreds come along there's about fourteen different versions. So finally in 1924 they took one of the fourteen and made it the standard version and they destroyed all the other thirteen ah excuse me the other twelve because there's still one other version that could exist in North Africa called the House that still exists today.
SPEAKER_05Now Christians have tens of thousands of biblical manuscripts and then you can multiply the numbers of of discrepancies between those manuscripts into the into the hundreds of thousands if you if you want to be very very picky. Why is that a different why is that a different prospect to what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_01Because we don't make the same claims. Yeah see every Muslim knows that the Quran is eternal. Yeah yeah every Muslim knows that it has always existed it is the uncreated Quran every Muslim knows that it was sent down to a man named Muhammad over a twenty two year period every Muslim knows that when it was it was made complete at the time it was completed at the time of Utman in 650 and every Muslim knows that it has no changes. It has it's the same Quran we have today that is in heaven. Yeah it is it has no uh nothing that has changed because it's eternal if it's eternal how can you have any changes how can you have one discrepancy how can you have one letter that's different that's the claim they've always made and they've always claimed that because no one has ever researched it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Until two Turkish scholars Dr. Kalatukovic and Dr. Ikmenadu who can who actually own their responsible for the top copy in in Istanbul they were given five years from s uh 2002 to 2007 to research these six major manuscripts and it's their findings that are actually destroying everything. But then it was a doctor that was done last year by Dr. Dan Brubaker from America who actually spent ten years filming and photographing all these manuscripts looking for the corrections. He was hoping to find maybe ten or fifteen corrections he found over eight hundred yeah eight over eight hundred of these insertions these erasers these is uh these coverings these tapings proving that they were still trying to bring a unified Quran there were so many differences between the manuscripts that they had to correct them and that's these corrections are still there today. Yes and is that we don't say the same thing about the Bible we will never say our Bible's eternal or that it was sent down or that it complete yes but there have been many changes. We know there have been many changes but see that's because we have 2400 manuscripts to look at yeah yeah 5,300 Greek manuscripts 10,000 Latin Vulgarics 9,000 in other languages we have so many words to compare from with from Britain and we have the 1980 translations in 11 different languages to say nothing of the 36,000 quotations from the early church fathers letters that predate the fourth century and then of course on top of that the lectionaries that appear in the sixth century 2,335 of them so that's why we have so much more to look at and that's why we know where the man where the man's the beautiful thing despite the hundreds of thousands of magistrarians that we have in our Bible none of them change one doctrine one meaning no no not at all. The Bible. But see, we would never claim. We know our Bible is written by men.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it was written by men, it's open to and it had to be changed. It was written on papyrus, which disintegrated it all within a hundred years. So you had to make copies of copies. And that's where the changes came in when the copies were made.
SPEAKER_05Whereas the manuscripts in the fifth, sixth, seventh centuries were written on different kinds of paper. What's what's going on there?
SPEAKER_01Is it from the fourth century then, when it was until the fourth century when Constantine, who was emperor, was converted to Christianity. Remember, when you write on papyrus, papyrus is just leaves, they disintegrate, they get trying to disintegrate. That's a poor man's paper. If you wanted to write on parchment or gun, you have to write on animals. You have to be very wealthy to be able to have that. And none of the church were wealthy. They did not have that kind of money, so therefore they didn't could not afford to write on parchment. It was only when Constantine, the emperor, when he became a Christian and made Christianity the the national religion of the empire in 300. Then he convened the Council of Nicaea in 325. And for that council, he commissioned 50 um codices of the Bible to be written for the New Testament. The Semiaticus that we have in the British Library, the most college believed that is from that, that is from Constantine. Now that one manuscript that's in the British Library, it's the oldest manuscript that exists today, still exists today. And that manuscript took 62 gazelles to make that one manuscript.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_01You have to be pretty wealthy to afford that. And that's why no man no codes made out of uh parchment came earlier in the fourth century. From the fourth century on, then there was a plora of manuscripts there, including the Vaticanus, which is the Vatican, which is again early fourth century, uh Alexandrinus, which you find right here in the British Library, that's 5th century, and many other manuscripts then start to appear after this.
SPEAKER_05Yes. So I suppose for the for the Christians, our our problem because of papyrus is that we can't get manuscripts early enough. I guess the Muslim problem is that their manuscripts are far too early these days.
SPEAKER_01They should not have those dates. They're way too early. So that they're pre-Islamic, pre-Quranic. These are the material from which the Quran has derived. But the biggest problem for them is where are those first or four original manuscripts? See, see, the Muslims can't make the same excuse that we can.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because they were in power.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They weren't dependent. They didn't have to use papyrus. Yes. Not that early. And another difference, not that late.
SPEAKER_05Not that late. And I and I guess another difference sort of theologically is I I I often sort of think in terms of okay, for for Christians, ultimately the word of God who is beside God in eternity is Jesus. The word of God who is beside God in Islam.
SPEAKER_01Let me finish my discussion before I would say do we have a word of God that's eternal?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we do. His name is Jesus. Did he come down? Yes, he did. Was he complete? Yes, he was. Is he unchanged? Absolutely. So the very poor claims the Muslims must have for their word of God, which they believe is the Quran, and they can't. They can't find in fact they cannot say any of those four anymore. We destroyed all four.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01We have in Jesus Christ. So come on home. Once again, if you want the real word of God who took on flesh and dwelt among us, and is never changed, the eternal word of God, come on home. His name is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06So that was uh Jay Smith talking to you, Glenn, earlier about witnessing to Muslims.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we've c we've cut him off there, and uh we'll we'll we'll save we'll save the second half for the next episode.
SPEAKER_06Just a cliffhanger. Yeah. So tell us uh what's gonna come up in in the next episode.
SPEAKER_05Well, stay tuned because uh I mean Jay's really gonna talk about um where it is we should focus our time and our energy and our uh our witness to uh Muslims and he I think he I think he really hits the nail on the head. And I I tune in because I I asked him a question about um kind of friendship evangelism in in Islam and this ongoing sort of stuff. And he kinda he kind of nails the issue, saying, Well, look, that's not the way to build a bridge with them because they don't understand European genteel manners. If you really want to build a bridge with them, then why don't you be as sparky as they are? Why don't you be, you know, you know, and so you know, his as he says uh in in this episode, you know, his his way of starting a conversation with a Muslim is to say, I think the Bible is God's word, I think Jesus is God. Do you have an opinion? And off you go. And they do have an opinion, and but they they can they can respect that kind of forthrightness because that's their own culture. And and and they're incredibly forthright with each other, and then they smoke the peace pipe afterwards, and they're all best of friends. Um actually Do they really smoke the peace pipe?
SPEAKER_06Well, kind of the hooker.
SPEAKER_05The hooker, you know. Um in West London they do. After after Speaker's Corner, yeah, you can you can sort of go up Edward Road and you'll yeah, you'll you'll see them. But um yeah, that kind of forthrightness we we tend to think of as abrasive and as unhelpful in evangelism. Now, obviously, there needs to be a lot of love and joy behind it all, and but you can communicate that alongside saying, nope, absolutely wrong, you can't say that. No, Jesus is God, and this is why. And that's that's kind of a tone that you you need to strike on a lot of occasions. Not on every occasion, and not with every kind of person, but I think he challenges us with our with our forthrightness and our boldness. So, yeah, let him let him challenge you on that in the next episode.
SPEAKER_06Good. Okay, well, uh, I think we're done here, so uh we'll wait to hear it next time.
SPEAKER_05Excellent. See you later.