Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Obscenity of Obscenities - Jesus was a Muslim


Did Jesus pray like a Muslim?

 

Obscenity of Obscenities

 

Muslim claims that when Jesus prayed he did Salat. I could only find to verses if you read into the text you have Jesus doing Salat. Now I do not acknowledge for a moment Jesus ever did Salat but these are the verses that Muslims use in their desperate and pitiful attempt to prove Jesus was a Muslim.

 

Matthew 26:26

 

And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."

 

Mark 14:35 & 36

 

And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."

 

Now notice that in these prayers Jesus calls God His Father. If Jesus is a Muslim then Jesus has committed shirk the greatest sin in Islam and is unforgivable both in this life and the life to come.

 

When Jesus taught his disciples to prayer use vain repetitions as the pagans in this case Muslims

 

Matthew 6:6 through 9

 

But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.nd when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

 

No salat and repetitive prayers.

 

So there is no way Jesus prayed like a Muslim

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Misquoting Jesus and Muslim Honesty


Misquoting Jesus

 

Muslims love quoting Bart D. Ehrman’s book “Misquoting Jesus” I have seen any of them quote page 252 & 253 where Erhman states no Christian doctrine is effected by any of the variants in the New Testament. It is time for some honesty from our Muslims friends.

 

Question

 

Bruce Metzger, your mentor in textual criticism to whom this book is dedicated, has said that there is nothing in these variants of Scripture that challenges any essential Christian beliefs (e.g., the bodily resurrection of Jesus or the Trinity). Why do you believe these core tenets of Christian orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on the scribal errors you discovered in the biblical manuscripts?

 

 

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions—he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not—we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement—maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.

 

The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. What he means by that (I think) is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the same belief. For the most part, I think that's true.

 

But I was looking at the question from a different angle. My question is not about traditional Christian beliefs, but about how to interpret passages of the Bible. And my point is that if you change what the words say, then you change what the passage means. Most textual variants (Prof. Metzger and I agree on this) have no bearing at all on what a passage means. But there are other textual variants (we agree on this as well) that are crucial to the meaning of a passage. And the theology of entire books of the New Testament are sometimes affected by the meaning of individual passages.

 

From my point of view, the stakes are rather high: Does Luke's Gospel teach a doctrine of atonement (that Christ's death atones for sins)? Does John's Gospel teach that Christ is the "unique God" himself? Is the doctrine of the Trinity ever explicitly stated in the New Testament? These and other key theological issues are at stake, depending on which textual variants you think are original and which you think are creations of early scribes who were modifying the text.

 

Saturday, October 12, 2013

What Is The Balance of Truth?

Welcome to the Balance of Truth. The Balance of Truth is blog primarily designed to discuss current issues confronting the church in the arenas of theology, Islam, apologetics and engaging the post modern worldview. My hope is that this blog above all seek to honour and glorify The Lord Jesus Christ. In theology I am Reformed or Calvinistic and conservative. My apologetics will for the most part presuppositional,

With regards to Islam I will endeavor to try and be fair to our Muslims friends and l try and listen to their point of view but I want to very clear though I make an effort to answer the common objections Muslims raise there will also be some polemics. 

With regard to the dangers of secular humanism and post modern thought I hope to point out their inconsistencies  ad the where such a viewpoint will ultimately lead.

In closing let me say that though I hope I shall never be unkind neither will try to publically correct. I also have videos on YouTube. and you can watch here.