Reply to tektonics' addendum

Dear tektonics,

Thank you for your continued dialogue, I do feel we are nearing a mutual understanding;

I would like to, first of all, thank Ghounem for the generally professional attitude and approach that he has exhibited throughout this exchange, on private e-mail conversations, and for his waiting until we worked out all of the "bugs" in the above response (those mainly that arose from the file-restructuring project recently completed)

As a fellow believer in God and as a webmaster for a few sites, being kind and patient is the norm. I also thank you for your professionalism and thoughtful review.

Ghounem is to be commended for his professional and mature approach since this seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, in Muslim internet-polemics.

I take exception to the suggestion that fellow Muslim debaters are immature, the majority of the long time Muslim debaters are mature, while a couple of the younger ones as a reaction to the onslaught of verbally abusive evangelists, may build up contempt in their replies. I urge everyone to keep in mind that we are all created by the same God and that our efforts are to guide the astray to the love of God.

We should clarify the point that while we do not expect Ghounem to literally quote everything that the apologetics have to say on a given issue, we do expect for all of the key points of the respective apologetic arguments to be represented in his rebuttals (since the absence of one or more key points could certainly change the overall plausibility of an argument).

The key points and passage quotes have been included by me, and on several occasions, multiple excuses by more than one apologetic has been included for single error, as in this dialogue, the reviewer and a fellow apologetic have given their combined excuses and have been refuted each time.

Ghounem does mention that, in some cases, it is not necessary to provide the whole argument since they can fall into a particular category of refutation,

such as "translation error." In such cases, he claims that resolutions to Biblical problems that appeal to translation errors are not valid since, according to him, Christians believe that the translations also represent the "exact words of God".

Actually, to be more precise, once a Biblicist uses the translation excuse (besides other Christians insisting the English versions are the exact words of God), there is no underlying original language that an apologetic can verify the correct meaning of a passage in question. Simply because the original language (Aramaic) is not documented or recorded anywhere. So Biblicists are pretending to be God when they claim to know the word it should have been. They are giving a hollow excuse when they claim a translation error and they give false assurances with conjured words, when in reality, the original Aramaic word is unknown. So it would be best for the reviewer to read my full rebuttals rather than complain that I don't include the full excuse, because the rebuttal is a combination of the English Bible being commonly accepted as the exact words of God and the Greek Bible being a translation of a unverifiable oral Aramaic, so on both accounts, the translation excuse is invalid.

The appeal to "copyist error" is in a similar boat.

Correct, when a Biblicist claims a copyist error then they pretends to be God again by inserting words he or she sees fit, they are simply making up assertions because there is no way to verify which passage is correct because the conflicting passages could both be authentic yet they contradict each other. When the apologetic picks (guesses) the passage that fits today's secular norms as the right one, that does not exclude the other wrong passage from still being in the Bible.

Jochen; What was Ghounem's response? Instead of apologizing for making a false claim, and removing that false claim from his article, he starts to argue and list 'reasons' why he is justified to claim that Geisler is the original author of Answering Islam (See again here).

I apologize,  are you less bitter now ? My intension as I've shown, was to demonstrate that it was not a false claim as Jochen accuses, it was an accredited and validated presumption, concluded after speaking directly to the person in question. After having dealt with Katz for years, I would believe Geisler over Katz any day of the week, furthermore, the Whois info doesn't even list Katz as the owner, a "Pete Cannon" has been the long time owner for years, so the true founder is a mystery?

Jochen; One final remark: Ghounem's not so subtle attempts of ridicule, in this case by way of speculation about my emotional state ("Your not still bitter are you?") or mental abilities ("I see this point is still going over your head"), are entirely uncalled for. These ad hominem elements in Ghounem's contributions are further disqualifying him from being a serious discussion partner in the arena of Muslim-Christian debates. [Note: these comments were made in another excerpt of Ghounem's 2nd response not quoted here]

This is a classic example of the Jochen Katz that I've missed, this is an excellent example of turning the table while avoiding the question. The average reader may have missed it if you had not dealt with Katz in the past. The initial claim was that Katz has quit (online debating with Muslims), in response, Katz made the degrading and defamatory remark about me "Ghounem is a waste of time" [and again in his second response], after I question why Katz would make such an insulting remark: "your not still bitter are you?" and pressing where Katz is continuing his online debates (since Katz denies quitting), Katz in turn takes issue with my response to his insult and avoids answering the question. Katz has also completely ignored the request to add the word "translation" to his page on Quran translation issues. So much for religious integrity.

Reviewer; [Ezek. 18:24] In this one case, I originally had drawn an incorrect conclusion. With a more in-depth look the second go-around, however, I noticed and corrected it. I don't claim to be infallible, and am willing to revise my articles accordingly when I see mistakes. It should be noted, however, that this still didn't help Ghounem's case regarding the particular issue under dispute.

If the reviewer's excuse was disproved and the reviewer admitted to it as being invalid, how then does that still validate his excuse? If my statement is that the passage is literal and you confess it's literal after mistakenly thinking otherwise, then wouldn't the conclusion be that I am helping you discover things you did not know?

This is a very ironic remark in light of the fact that Ghounem makes a very similar mistake in not understanding JPH's approach in the latter's short article regarding Paul and the "present crisis" in Corinth. The difference in this case, however, is that, unlike me, Ghounem apparently did not notice, or at least did not acknowledge, his mistake the second go-around. We'll perhaps discuss this in somewhat more depth in our impending response.

I stated that "the link" claims that Paul was under present duress, which in fact the link does, JPH lists other Christian apologetics (Bruce Winter in After Paul Left Corinth [216ff]?) who make that claim "in that link", JPH also adds his own conflicting opinion that it was "future duress", I did not state that "JPH says present duress" which you'd see if you take more time to examine my rebuttals. Admittingly it was a confusing brief article because JPH jumped around from critics to apologetics to himself all within a couple of paragraphs.

Both errors are simply that, not necessarily indicators of our lack of knowledge or experience.

All people make errors, but once the error has been made, one would be best advised to turn to the right path. When false teachings have been unmasked, and previously presumed interpretations have come to light, it's best to accept the new understandings.

These accusations are false. First, Ghounem has "deduced" my alleged ignorance of underlying Aramaic oral traditions behind the compilation of the Greek Gospels b/c I make numerous references in my response to the divine inspiration of "the original Greek." However, it should be obvious that I'm simply referring in such cases to the Greek New Testament as it was penned by the original authors.

They were not the original authors, they were the original interpreters, listening to one language (Aramaic), and translating the words of the original author (Jesus) into another language (Greek). Jesus was the original speaker/author of his words, not his disciples, they were merely translators of what Jesus said.

My claim that these documents were inspired certainly does not preclude the presence of oral (or even written) Aramaic traditions underlying the formation of the Gospels.

We all know the history of the Gospel, but what is being denied, is the void of an original Aramaic audio recording verify to the Greek translation.

As for the 2nd claim regarding the Jews and sacrifices, Ghounem simply should have read the relevant portion of my response more carefully. I was asking about continuity between the TORAH and the Qur'an, not between what post-70 A.D. Jews are doing and what Muslims do.

As I've clarified, Muslims do perform sacrifices, a continuity unknown by the reviewer, based on how God showed mercy to Abraham and replaced the sacrifice of Abraham's son Ishmael, with a lamb. The theme of making sacrifices for sins is common in both Judaism and Islam, yet as in both religions, blood is not the only or central form of sacrifice.

I actually never made a claim one way or the next regarding the opinions of Bible publishers. This is another example of Ghounem formulating groundless assumptions and then proceeding to attack my knowledge based on those assumptions. I said that well-informed Christians (including those I've talked with on the subject) do not claim this, and I stick to this claim.

Are Bible makers less knowledgeable than the reviewer's cohorts? I will admit that the Quran translators are much more knowledgeable than me, so presumably, when I quote what the Bible producers are saying about their own Bibles, this would be an accredited source of very informed Christians making statements opposite of what the reviewer is claiming, what Christians are more knowledgeable than the Bible architects themselves? This is one of many examples of evidence that conflicts what the reviewer is claiming, and then the reviewer taking the position of discrediting what expert Christians are saying or denying their validity. I will yield to the position that a 50/50 opinion exists in Christendom in which some "informed Christians" believe the English Bible is the inspired exact words of God, while other informed Christians believe the English Bible is a translation containing errors, will the reviewer admit to this middle ground or continue to deny the evidence?

This again is a bogus claim made by Ghounem, which is based on my statements that the *early* church did not execute apostates. Perhaps I should have defined what I meant by "early" in this case (up to about 100-200 years), as Ghounem answered my question (via private e-mail exchange) of what the phrase "early church" meant to him by stating that it referred to church history up to the 19th century!

The uniformed "Church" did not even start until 325 AD, after the Nicea Council, and even up until then, many Gentile Vs. Hebrew Christians were killing each other claiming they were apostates/heretics.

In conclusion, since many of the excuses and rebuttals addressed here have to do with the translation, it's ironic that the reviewer degrades Christian Bible architects for stating that their English translation of the Bible is the inspired exact words of God, while the reviewer does the same exact thing with the Greek translation of the Bible. Why is it that a well informed Christian would know that the English Bibles have errors because they are a translation, yet well informed Christians don't know the Greek Bibles have errors because they are a translation too (of the oral Aramaic)?

Again I invite the reviewer (and the other participants) to ponder the rebuttals and advice and I look forward to the continued dialogue and full response to the 2nd reply when time permits you.

Peace

Mohamed Ghounem