Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush

[Cekenah]

Hello,
I'm back after a while, but it seems like this thread took the vacation with me. At the least, I'm surprised that you didn't take on my commentary from the book of Romans. How about that? I have other comments to make in response to your post but that will come another time. Cheers.

[GoodFella]

welcome back. I had also never noose my nose into this thread before.

[lionger]

Here we go again...

JJC Cekenah, abi you be my houseboy or wetin? Who authorised you to defend me on this thread? I'll show you proper dispassion... ;D ;D.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your time here, even as the days of my proactive participation in this forum seem increasingly numbered. But since you are determined to take on my mantle in this thread, I will chip in with some details that you'd probably like to know; things that I wished I had known back then.

Before now, I wouldn't have thought that there was a point in adding further to this thread, esp. since I became persona non grata to Waziri as a result of it. The renewed discussion already looks doomed; you guys are firing half-warning signals at each other without getting anywhere. With all due respect to my estranged friend, he has not satisfactorily answered your questions about his analytical methods with the Bible, and you obviously are not satisfied with his answer either. I'm not surprised, because I've also found it hard to reconcile his posts with his supposed analytical methods. It doesn't make sense to me either.

Let's take the Old Testament for starters. Waziri includes the Talmud and other rabbinic literature as past of his OT interpretative methods, and accuses me of trying to railroad him into sticking purely with the Bible earlier in this thread. If you actually read that thread, you'll be surprised to find out that, on the contrary, I emphatically pointed out the complete absence of substantive Talmud backing in Waziri's defense of his Deuteronomy passage, and I asked him twice on that thread to provide those details, which he promised to do:

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.msg25200#msg25200

It is possible by now you have gotten the gist and why I find problem with your submissions. It makes my job easier actually. Now I can write my article having you in mind also. I will give the interpretations of the verses I quoted from Deutronomy in the light of Talmudic Judaism as they are. In that I am sure you will find alot to learn either.

I remain most grateful and I am sure you have seen the reason why you should not have been frantic and confrontational from the on-set. This goes to ETE also, knowledge is a reality, so also ignorance.

Yes Waziri the bolded part is exactly what you need to do, since you've made it obvious that you're criticising the Talmudic interpretation of the Torah, and not the Torah itself. I really would like to see the Talmudic text that generated or inspired your otherwise non-existent passage of Deuteronomy - since it does not exist as such in the Torah. Is there any rabbinic literature that actually contains and presents your passage, or something similar to it? This is all you need to do to 'win' this argument  :D .

As you can see, I said then that this was all that was needed for the discussion to make progress, or for him to 'win' the argument. However, Waziri returned with yet another set of Bible verses, and dsimissed my subsequent response in much the same manner that he did with my earlier rejoinder to the 'phantom' Deuteronomy passage - without substantially contesting them.

Indeed your question about Waziri's analytical methods with the Bible is a good one. Until it is properly dealt with, this discussion is bound to revolve in circles, if it goes anywhere at all. To this end, I once again enter this discussion. Stay tuned...

[lionger]

Back in February last year I perused through a booklet titled 'Arabs and Israel: Conflict or Conciliation?', written by the famous Muslim scholar Ahmed Deedat. In Chapter 3, in a section titled 'The True Test of Prophecy', Deedat makes an argument against the authenticity of the Biblical claims of a Jewish promised land in Palestine that rang loud bells in my head.

http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/aaicoc/27.html

...I (Deedat) said, "God gives us in the Torah a test with which we can ascertain whether a prophecy attributed to Him is actually His Word or not. He says:

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
Holy Bible (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

I asked him, "Is this a valid test?" To which he replied, "Yes!" I said, "Then let us apply it to the prophecy!" The Torah says that on the death of Abraham -

And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave.... The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
Holy Bible (Genesis 25:9-10)

And further, the Bible testifies about God's unfulfilled "Promises to the patriarch Abraham and the elders of Israel in these words

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off..
Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13)

And can anything be more explicit than these statements from the Holy Writ?
And God said unto him (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land (Palestine) in which ye now dwell. And he (God) gave him (Abraham) no inheritance in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT UPON; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him..... Holy Bible (Acts 7:3-5) [/color]

Compare this passage to the first half of Waziri's post on the thread 'Concerning the claim of a Promised Land for the Jews':

.. we will certainly find the following verse giving the true test of what prophesy is, most instrumental. It reads:

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Holy Bible (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Building in the submission of lionger in defense of the fraudulent accord we read in the same Bible how Abraham, the so-called, receiver of the promise, died in a land he bought for himself.

And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave....
The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
Holy Bible (Genesis 25:9-10)

How possible is it then that he was given a land when he had buy one for his own grave? This is especially true when we see how another verse from the scripture confirmed it this way:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off..

Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13)

Nothing is most explicit than the account given by Luke in the Acts of the apostles as follows:

And God said unto him (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land (Palestine) in which ye now dwell. And he (God) gave him (Abraham) no inheritance in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT UPON; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him.....
Holy Bible (Acts 7:3-5)

I've used color codings to pinpoint very carefully the striking similarities between Deedat's work and Waziri's. The same verses are used, in the same version (the KJV), and with the same reference style , i.e. Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13) . Deedat and Waziri highlighted the same phrases and added the same annotations (bracketed terms; they don't exist in the KJV text) to Acts 7:3-5. Moreover, the verses are listed in the same order: Deuteronomy 18:21-22-> Genesis 25:9-10 -> Hebrews 11:13 -> Acts7:3-5. The end result is that apart from the commentary that precedes each verse, everything else is identical, word for word, letter for letter.

The other four Bible verses Waziri used in his post can be found in Chapter 1 of another Deedat publication titled "Muhammed, the natural successor to Christ".

http://jamaat.net/muh-christ/Muh-Christ1.html

God chooses His Messengers and God chooses His People, In the realm of the Spirit no nation was as favoured as the Jews and yet Moses (pbuh) is made to bewail against his own people -

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 9: 24

In this last will and testament of Moses (pbuh) the Israelites frustrate their "meek and gentle" Messenger who is forced to rail against their continual stubborn resistance and arrogant attitudes to God's guidance -

For I knew thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 51:27

Alas how true! I am not going to philosophise on God's choice. But in the very next chapter the fire of God's anger is kindled to a blaze and He decries the Jews -

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.[/b](HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21
...
...
...

The foregoing is the exact fulfilment of Jesus Christ's (pbuh), (the last of the great Jewish prophets) own prediction of the displacement of the Jewish race in the spiritual guidance of man. In the words of the Master himself -

Therefore I say unto you (Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (Jews), and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
(HOLY BIBLE) Matthew 21: 45

Here's what Waziri said:

No wonder Jesus Christ (AS), the Messiah, liberator of the Jews has never mentioned anything, with emphasis, like the promised land given to the Jews anywhere. But rather he found comfort in telling them the stark truth that the spiritual leadership of Mankind has been taken away from them permanently with his coming, only to be given to another... in his own word:

Therefore I say unto you (Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (Jews), and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

(HOLY BIBLE) Matthew 21: 45

Earlier on Moses(AS) foretold them in this manner as seen in the following verses from our dear Deuteronomy:

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 9: 24

For I knew thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 51:27

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21

Once again the similarities are obvious: Same verses from the same Bible version, same annotations , same reference style, same emphasized phrases. Only this time, the verses are not quite in the same order; Waziri puts the Matthew verse first. Now notice that I highlighted 'Deutronomy 51:27' in red. As I said when I first responded to Waziri's post, this is an erroneous citation. That verse is in Chapter 31, not 51. In fact there is no Deuteronomy 51 in the Bible; Deuteronomy has 34 chapters. Moreover, 'Deuteronomy' is constantly mis-spelt 'Deutronomy'. All these errors can also be found in Deedat's book, as shown. On his part, they were most likely copyist/typist errors, but the probability of all those errors appearing identically in Waziri's post is very minute indeed. Thus this is concrete evidence that Waziri got these Bible verses directly from Deedat's booklets, or from a source that copied Deedat - rather than the Bible itself. The erroneous Deuteronomy 51 citation also suggests that Waziri did not look up Deedat's verses in the Bible to check for accurate transmission of content, at least. As such, Waziri's interpretation of the Bible in this article was simply a rehash of Deedat's writings, with little  intellectual input from Waziri himself.

[lionger]

More evidence of Waziri's reliance on Deedat:
Many of the quotes of other writers and scholars that Waziri mentioned in the build-up to his feature article and in the article itself also came up in Deedat's book on Arabs and Israel:

Alice F. Smith comment

Waziri:

Before I depart I will leave you with what an American Christian lady, Alice F. Smith, said about the Palestian question way back 1989 in the February 20, edition of time magazine, 1989. Hear her describing the Israelites:

What manner of man would retaliate against a stone throwing child by shooting him in the back as  he ran away? What manner of government would retaliate by fining already poverty striken parents $1,000, demolishing their home, and confiscating heir meager possessions? What manner of people are these arrogant settlers who think they have a God-given right to commit such atrocities and still cry for more? What manner of people are we , that we permit our government to give away billions of the American taxpayers' dolloars to Israel every year, enabling it to continue to subjugate the Palestinians?

Before I do that I will want to remind us first of what an American Christian lady, Alice F. Smith, said about the Palestian question way back 1989 in the February 20, edition of time magazine, 1989. This is how she described Jews and their religion:
What manner of people are these arrogant settlers who think they have a God-given right to commit such atrocities and still cry for more?

Deedat includes a picture of this excerpt from Time magazine in his Arabs and Israel booklet:
http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/books/aaicoc/43.html
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc3.html (the first picture on this page)


Leopold Weiss quote

Waziri:

But the truth of the matter lies in the words of Leopold Weiss another Jew, who converted to Islam around 1922 and having seen the evil machinations of the Talmudist in their plans to assume control of the region concluded about the ownership of the place, thus:

"It belongs to all those who mentally approach it with a humility born of faith in the one God, and particularly to those who, in the words of the Qur'an: "Believe in all His messengers making no distinction between any of them."

Deedat also concludes his Arabs and Israel booklet with the same quotation from Leopold Weiss:

http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/books/aaicoc/78.html
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc5.html

Palestine is there for the taking for those who with faith and humility fulfil their Covenant with God. In the words of Leopold Weiss:-

IT BELONGS TO ALL WHO MENTALLY APPROACH IT WITH A HUMILITY BORN OF FAITH IN THE ONE GOD, AND PARTICULARLY TO THOSE WHO, IN THE WORDS OF THE QUR'AN: "BELIEVE IN ALL HIS MESSENGERS MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANY OF THEM."

The conclusions are obvious: Waziri's article about the promised land concept in the Bible was derived wholesale from Deedat's books, and not the result of Waziri's own Bible research.

This leaves us with the 'phantom' Deuteronomy passage that started the whole discussion. I call this passage 'phantom' because it is actually a collection of verses scattered all over the book. I did a google search on the passage and found it in a rather unsurprising source: in the Appendix of Holocaust denier and alleged anti-Semite Douglas Reed's The Controversy of Zion:

http://knud.eriksen.adr.dk/Controversybook/Appendix.htm

"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."
Deuteronomy.

Compare with Waziri's Deuteronomy passage on this thread:

"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.

Everything is exact, word for word, letter for letter.

[lionger]

So it turns out that your intuitions about plagiarism were spot on, Cekenah. This probably explains why Waziri hardly made any attempt to rebutt my rejoinders to his posts. They were never his arguments in the first place, and he did not do enough legwork to make them his in any real sense.

These facts also bring into sharp focus Waziri's grand assessment of his Bible knowledge - and my lack thereof. Of course its perfectly acceptable to use the work of other scholars in an 'intellectual discourse'. However, it becomes problematic when we fail to acknowledge those scholars, or even worse, deliberately misrepresent our research methods and sources. This is especially true if we present ourselves as scholars/expert thinkers, as Waziri was disposed to doing. He had ample opportunity to acknowledge Douglas Reed and Ahmed Deedat as his sources, and he should have done so from teh beginning. One would have thought that in the wake of what he considered my 'strong worded opposition' to his Deuteronomy passage, that he would simply have referred me to Reed as the true source. But instead of doing the simple, fortright thing, Waziri resorted to beating his intellectual chest and petulent comments like this:

...I expect people like lionger and Ete to admit on theit shortcomings in issues of knowledge even if it concerns the faith which they profess...at any rate, I really do not think Lionger and Ete, can claim intimate familiarity with the divisions of the Holy Bible as described above not to talk of being able to reason thru' my arguments, and that informed my frustrations.

And after I responded to his rehash of Deedat's writings on the Jews and the promised land concept in the Bible, he said:

But one thing is you cannot deny me the thorough knowledge of what I am doing. You know quite all right that I couldn't have gotten those verses without having laboured thru the scriptures!

Concerning the contextual meaning of those verses, I thing I am now convinced that you are not necessarily knowlegeable in this regard and as such will sudedenly look for an alternative measure.

First of all, Waziri ought to know quite well that plagiarising Ahmed Deedat and Douglas Reed does not, cannot and will never qualify as 'labouring throught the Scriptures,' or as proof of 'intimate familiarity with the Bible,' or as the sort of water-tight analytical methods that he presented in his first response to you:

As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself both New and Old Testament

In the case of the Qur'an, apart from the above mentioned sources I also use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Qur'an,
2.  The Qur'an itself
3.  The Hadith(preserved saying of the holy Prophet)

And unfortunately this is what I think Lionger has failed to do all thru' cos he always plucks verses from the Bible and claims they must be exactly as he excavated them. 

Moreover, just as it would be disingenous for me to plagiarise anti-Islamic sources on the Internet while mocking Muslims on this forum for not understanding their own Quran, it cannot be right for Waziri to do the same thing with the Bible. The amazing irony of it all is that he previously declared that my self-acknowledged deficient knowledge of Talmud made me inferior to him in this discussion - despite the fact that he himself never quoted substantially from the Talmud. Perhaps I should have declared my own 'intimate familiarity' with the Talmud and supported it with a copy-and-paste hack job from web sources. Would that have been better?

I hope this helps you Cekenah. I have responded to this thread to keep you from what would have been a wild goose chase by your own standards.  Hopefully my case is detailed enough to show that I'm not just throwing wild accusations. Waziri's persistent refusal to offer the kind of sincerity that he required from me - and now from you - by being forthright about his methods is quite disappointing. As you noted on another thread, he is one of the intelligent forumners here. This thread and all the related ones probably depicts him in his worst form. Anyways, over to you!


lionger.

[_Waziri_]

Lionger,

Here you are again, for the many years we've been  in this forum, could you remember how many times I made reference to Ahmed Deadat's works? Could you remember me saying I would rely on his works in some of my expositions? Where you here when I offered the forumnites the gift of the book, The Controversy of Zion and others? Could you remember how many times I made reference to the book here and the author?

Whatever the case may be your charges of plagiarism against me can hold water only if you can quote where I claim the expression of any author as mine.

But it is entirely different if I used the references Deedat used to form his arguments, what will matter most is the strength of the argument. Since no phrase from him I copied.  I always take my time to check what I read from others on the sources they site.

Remember, having read thru Deedat works or used his style does not negate my claims of knowledge and expertise in these fields. Because it is not only Deedat's works I do read as I even once offered the gifts of other books I read here on Board. Deedat's are what we read during our our early teens.

Yours now have only confirmed my convictions and claims that you people have not been the reading type as I can remember vividly that you atleast, did not make any effort to get those books and read them.

Thanks to God now you are bracing up to the challenges and are making efforts to search and verify some of my claims and arguments. Mark you it is not on everything I agree with Deedat but of those I agree after simple verification I could use as valid arguments. The burden of proof then lies on he who listens to argue otherwise.

Right from the onset this debate did not hold with you efficiently because I expressed my doubts about your mastery of the arguments and I found your knowledge base simply narrow and myopic.

For example, have you ever seen The Talmud? Have you ever read through it? I had wanted you to admit so that we can rub shoulders in this discussion earlier but you couldn't and as such I coudnt find you worthy or able to really do this with me.

I this thread, http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.0 , on, August 18, 2006  in particular, #6 Post, I said:

"I noticed also how you admitted of not knowing much about Talmud and Midnash. That in essence says how much you do not know about Judaism and its laws of nationalism. This is why I think you are only fit to ask question here not argue. I believe I can remain rest assured in my comfortable superiority on this subject matter. For I have perseverently laboured thru the Bible, the Qur'an and the Rabbinic Tradition which forms the bedrock of Jewish religion,  for over ten years now.

That is why I say from the onset that I am not debating this with you but rather writing something which I believe will prove beneficial to all.

Concerning the Tanakh, or the Old Testament and its place in Jewish religion hear what a modern encyclopaedia said:

"Although all forms of Judaism have been rooted in the Hebrew Bible (referred to by Jews as the Tanach, an acronym for its three sections: Torah, the Pentateuch; Nebiim, the prophetic literature; and Ketubim, the other writings), it would be an error to think of Judaism as simply the ?religion of the Old Testament.? Contemporary Judaism is ultimately derived from the rabbinic movement of the first centuries of the Christian era in Palestine and Babylonia and is therefore called rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi, in Aramaic and Hebrew, means ?my teacher.? The rabbis, Jewish sages adept in studying the Scriptures and their own traditions, maintained that God had revealed to Moses on Sinai a twofold Torah. In addition to the written Torah (Scripture), God revealed an oral Torah, faithfully transmitted by word of mouth in an unbroken chain from master to disciple, and preserved now among the rabbis themselves."

Microsoft ? Encarta ? 2006. ? 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

But still I am looking forward to seeing you doing anything you like to form an argument, even if it is plagiarism on anything under the sun and I will come up to challenge that if I deem it desired with anything I know but my insistence is always to accompany your take with reasonable take which is originally yours that we may be able to take the discussion forward, prove ourselves or those we "copy" from wrong. As for me what follows is my method as I  told Cekenah:

"As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself both New and Old Testament

In the case of the Qur'an, apart from the above mentioned sources I also use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Qur'an,
2.  The Qur'an itself
3.  The Hadith(preserved saying of the holy Prophet)"

Or do you want to prove to the world everything of it above was copied from Deedat or any other? Or are you willing to fit in the same in your kind of interpretations that we may have a comprehensive duel?

Whatever you take this to be, let you know that I have always known what I am doing with everything I write here as much I have laboured thru the scriptures to understand it and give my own judgement on it but where my opinion rhymes with the opinion of any other scholar I agree or even use their arguments or references, after verifying them and I have always not hidden what I do. Only if you don't come across me on that. That crowns your shortcomings here.

But I am glad you now understand the value of verifying things. I am only hoping you are not only googling the net to find them but rather you are taking time to read them thoroughly. If you don't so know that there lies the difference between myself and you.

This is a discussion that held some two years back and yet you admitted of not knowing this until now. Is it my fault or yours? Do you think I am dumb to assume nobody could get to read Deedat's works here that I used his referencing style and some of his valid arguments?

No Lionger, I am not at my worst here but rather you are after reaching where I was two  years back. Thank God you've admitted.

If you are interested at knowing where I am or was at my worst, you will need to make consultations and settlements, in that you may be lucky to get there after parting with some fat dollars!

Cheers and less emotions please.

Waziri

[_Waziri_]

Salam,

Still on the issues regarding my references here is a link to a topic where I offered some books to the forumnites as I was glad then that many agreed and gave me their email which I forwarded the books to. This ofcourse was with the hope that after reading those books we will all come back here and debate the content. Agree with or not agree with the authors.


Suprisingly while lionger was with us in the forums then he never cared to get those books from us and read them even when many forumnites did as is evident with replies that followed my offer in the thread, My Other Gift to K-Onliners, specifically on June 15, 2004, yes, about FOUR YEARS ago:

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0

Salam all,

Friends and well wishers, it is only  fair of us  at this moment to take a little breath and refresh our minds with some factual evidence that could be gathered from the debris of history.

My gift to you this morning comes in a form of two electronic books titled: The Controversy Of Zion, by Douglas Reed and The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler.

.................................

My beloved brothers, I am sure these two books will immensely help your minds in comprehending the many complex things we say here about secularism,  materialism, irreligion  and above all, the demagoguery that is guising today as  the only truth about the world politics.

So actually I write whatever I write here with the understanding that my co-travellers, other forumnites know my focus, it is lionger's shortcomings to claim he did not know the reference point of our arguments until now. My bad!! I said it the first time we were staging the argument:

That is why I say from the onset that I am not debating this with you but rather writing something which I believe will prove beneficial to all.

The truth of the matter is we do not copy phrases from those authors to say they are ours but rather we check and verify their references that we may comfortably use them where agreable. So what is the problem again? Ahmed Deedat is known to these forumnites as the mentor of many among us in comparative religious studies so it is nothing new, it is even laughable to claim that one does not know this until now. You can not have this cheaply.

Having said that I think it is right, since those in the opposition have agreed to read and verify our sources, to jump into the heart of the matter and discuss the Deutronomy's exact summary that we may understand clearly why it has to assume the interpretation we give it, in the light of the Talmud, history and the book itself. This is the mark of true scholarship which is lacking in the spirit of those who think they can quote the Bible anyhow to defend it without resorting to the versatile rule of logic.

Do you agree or not? Had you it wouldn't have taken un two years to finish this, one single post would have done it. Actually it has always very much laughable to see you pushing thru the Bible just like that to support your positions. That was why I never took you serious.

These are the rules:

 

"As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

What is the book, its content and how did it come to viewing in the light of history?
What the book says about itself?
Then other books used to interprete it.

Will go now and attend to something important, will come back and drop the final argument that I should have dropped years back save the uncomplying attitude of the discussants, but I will do that now soonest,  and in simple and short post which will rest the issue completely and leave you all in the wild search for references that you could have known years ago if you really knew how to read voraciously and argue comprehensively.

Waziri

[Cekenah]

Oh dear, rivetting stuff!!

Old papa Lionger  ;D, I have read and digested you submissions. Welcome back. Please stick around for a while for a bit if you can, for I'd rather not fully 'take over' from you. I would also recommend, as Waziri has done, that we all make our arguments as stolidly as possible. Your recent submissions have been fairly stolid; keep to that tradition. Otherwise this discussion will go to the dogs once again. This was your major failing before - to me anyways.

Waziri,
This matter of declaring one's sources from the onset- and no less when in the face of stiff opposition - is a no-brainer for the serious academic. I've read the link you posted:
http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0
I checked the dates for the time period of that discussion and this one. The thread you posted was started in June of 2004, and the discussion on the thread ended in July. However, this thread and all the adjacent ones started in the summer of 2006. In essence, you're saying that you declared your sources two years before the fact! Not nearly enough! I don't think it is fair to assume that anyone ought to have made the connection between that thread and this one. Besides, wouldn't that have been the imposition of an unfair pretext on Lionger's part - to have assumed without any statement from you that you were rehashing the work of your mentors?

I am aware of Ahmed Deedat, and unlike most Muslims I do not hold his scholarship in high regard. The Hebrews 11:13 faux pas is a case in point. Frankly I thought he was yesterday's man as far as comparative religion was concerned. Douglas Reed on the other hand belongs to the fringe of literary scholarship and most experts do not seem to bother much with anything he wrote after Insanity Fair. Having read briefly some parts of Controversy of Zion, I can see why. I have much more to say, but time will not permit.
Cheers!

[lionger]

Oga Waziri,

How bodi. Since you are now responding directly to me, I will return the favor.

Lionger,

Here you are again, for the many years we've been  in this forum, could you remember how many times I made reference to Ahmed Deadat's works? Could you remember me saying I would rely on his works in some of my expositions? Where you here when I offered the forumnites the gift of the book, The Controversy of Zion and others? Could you remember how many times I made reference to the book here and the author?

Actually you never mentioned Ahmed Deedat in connection with this duscussion until now. I personally remember you mentioning his name on this forum just once! I just did a search on this forum. Prior to your posts yesterday there are only two other instances when you mentioned Deedat on this forum. Here's the first:

Nigeria denied Ahmed Deedat entry into it's territory... before we say the Authorities have the rights to do that even when allowing other foreigners to come in we have to look at the reason they give first.

The second - and this one I remembered, since I took part in this discussion:

Thus a Muslim reading Bible can only produce people like Ahmed Deedat since as he goes differ he sees more a Muslim Jesus, not a founder of a new religion.

If you can find other instances I'd like to see it. As for Douglas Reed, I also did an forum search on his name and on the Controversy of Zion. You only mentioned them twice: on this thread and on the thread from 2004. About that thread - I vaguely remember it. If I ever got to that thread, it was probably months after the discussion ended. In the first place, I can hardly be blamed for not taking an opportunity that I might not even have been aware of. Secondly, we are all busy men here. It would be silly of you to conclude that I am 'not the reading type' simply because I did not inquire about those books. Obviously you do not know me in real life!

All this, however, is besides the point. As I said before, if we want to considered as scholars, then we must be ready to stand the acid test of true scholarship. A reasonable scholar never fails to lay out his references in proper order, it is that simple. That is his responsibility, not the readers'. It is plain madness to suggest otherwise. Where would the world of research be today if that was the norm? I've worked in the university setting, and if I submitted a paper to my professors that was devoid of references, it would end up in the garbage bin!

Whatever the case may be your charges of plagiarism against me can hold water only if you can quote where I claim the expression of any author as mine.

Here's Webster's definition of plagiarism:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarizing

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

Coincidental referrals two years apart from and devoid of actual connection to your work does not count as due credit to the source. Period.

For example, have you ever seen The Talmud? Have you ever read through it? I had wanted you to admit so that we can rub shoulders in this discussion earlier but you couldn't and as such I coudnt find you worthy or able to really do this with me.

This again? One: This is quite redundant, since I already said clearly that I am not well versed in the Talmud. Two: what really is the point of boasting in your superior knowledge of the Talmud, when you are yet to bring it to bear on this discussion? I asked for it two years ago and I'm still asking now. Where is the Talmudic backing for your post? Until you supply those details, this topic will remain a red herring.

This is a discussion that held some two years back and yet you admitted of not knowing this until now. Is it my fault or yours? Do you think I am dumb to assume nobody could get to read Deedat's works here that I used his referencing style and some of his valid arguments?

No Lionger, I am not at my worst here but rather you are after reaching where I was two years back. Thank God you've admitted.

Waziri, read my posts carefully. I discovered the connection between your posts and Deedat in early February last year. And it was specifically of this that I alluded to when I said to Myself around that time:

This is a bit of an aside, but I think it is high time Muslims started reading the Bible for themselves and not solely through the eyes of supposed Muslim Bible 'scholars' such as the above. Read their work if you like, but also read the Bible for yourself and see if what they say is true. Too many people do just the former and swallow their arguments hook, line and sinker, without doing adequate original research themselves. I have noticed that Barde and Waziri have been obviously guilty of this error, in my discussions with them.

I had no reason to mention your name then until I read Arabs and Israel. I did not bring it up with you on this thread then because you decided to ignore my posts. Even now, I entered this thread to respond to Cekenah directly. I have only responded  to you when I realised that you would return the favor.

I am not by no means ignorant of Deedat. On the contrary, I have read many of his booklets - though I definitely missed out on Arabs and Israel. I am also well aware of the large following he has among muslims. Deedat's works unforutnately are pure disingenuity in my opinion, and I think I have said this before. It is a shame to observe that many Muslims think taht Deedat's booklets are a proper substitute for their own reading of the Bible, and count themselves more knowledgeable than Christians on that basis. Anyone who knows his Bible well will not be swayed. I have already combated his doctrine in the person of Barde and other forumners, and finally your posts. Earlier you said that the burden of proof is on me to debunk Deedat's argument - well, I did so ages ago. The burden of proof has long been yours, but you are yet to oblige. If Deedat's Hebrews 11:13 exegesis can be defended, then I should have seen it by now.  Frankly there isn't any defense for it!

I will remind you of my 'reading and comprehension' analogy a while back. While it may have offended you, that was not the objective. All this talk about scholarship is necessary, but has the danger of clouding issues and making the subject seem more complicated than it really is. I don't know how you guys study your Quran (though I sometimes get the feeling that many of you on this forum read it solely through the eyes of certain scholars); however, the Bible as a book that purports to carry God's message is meant to be read and understood by all people, lay-men and erudite alike. There was once a time when the Bible could only be read by the educated elite who then taught the people; this era is also co-incident with the Crusades and the the Inquisition. Today, many translations and versions of the Bible exist to keep its message accessible to a changing world (unfortunately many Muslims including yourself ignorantly use this as a pretext for attacking the Bible's authenticity). As such we do not need to be at the whim and mercy of scholarly agenda to understand the Bible as was the case before - we can read the Bible ourselves and see if their message is true.

I have already said that your error is not simply in your reliance on Deedat or Reed. It is the fact that you did not properly check up their presentation of Bible verses, and subsequently included errors that should have been immediately obvious - for example, the Deuteronomy 51 citation. I didn't even have to open my Bible to know that this was a mistake. Obviously you believe that copying their Bible verses was as good as copying from the Bible - wrong! You will never find Deuteronomy 51 in the Bible! Ahmed Deedat could well have made up a Bible verse and you would have swallowed that! Never mind the issues of misplaced context that you have not yet rectified.

From my reading of Douglas Reed's book, I gather that he holds to the 'documentary hypothesis' theory on the origin of the Torah and Deuteronomy. (Ironically, this is probably the only theory in that book that most scholars today will find value in). However, this theory is completely incompatible with the NT, which states emphatically everywhere that Moses actually wrote those books. For the Bible-believing Christian, that alone is enough.

Finally, this continuing talk from you about the efficacy of your arguments and my supposed inferiority remains pointless as long as my rejoinders stand unchallenged. Moreover, it is also possible to show even by your own admission that I am right to deem Deedat and Douglas Reed's work as fatally flawed due to lack of proper contextual appraisal of the Bible verses they used. Do you remember the Nigeriaworld thread you posted here last year?

Assalamu Alaikum,

Fellow forumnites, I was away for sometime in another forum debating other issues with some good and not-so-good commentators. I dig you may want have a feel of what we have been doing even though it may take y take a good chunk out of your time. But then in as much as we have to educate others about things we believe we know, we too have to learn to read. So please here is the link to the debate among others. I even got myself a wifey :o ::) on the process!! The "sabbatical" was a pleasant xperience!!!!

http://nigeriaworld.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=3512

Thanx once again!!!

Waziri

On that Nigeriaworld thread, Ochi Dabari posted a copy-and-paste hack job of verses from the Quran to depict it as a violent book. As Ammar, you countered cleverly by posting the Deuteronomy passage and argued that it discredited the Christian faith as well as Ochi's verses discredited the Quran. Now this what you had to say afterwards about the actual reliability of both your passage and his:

http://nigeriaworld.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=24694#24694

But that is not the essence of my earlier quotes from the Bible. It was only to show that in as much as we can find references to violence and killings in Qur'an and Bible. That should not mean that those faiths certainly commanded its followers to kill others indiscriminately. And in as much as we can give excuses or interpretation for the existence of them in the Bible we could find some excuses for them in the Qur'an. It is and has never been a oneway thing.

So it goes as Olumoko tried showing that my quotes from the Bible were only restricted to some time in the past and under certain condition so also we must understand that those verses from the Qur'an are also revealed to counter some unique times and conditions in Muslims life, history and traditions.

A close look at all the verses quoted by Ochi and pasted here, will show how some of them started with conjuctions like "And", "Then" and "As". Which means other things or conditions have earlier been laid before those things were said. Also it is clear to every scholar of reason and logic that no one sentence or more sentences picked randomly from a written book, even if it were a novel, could tell the complete story if the process of picking those sentences ignored and disregarded every other thing written in the book. Unfortunately that was what Ochi did. And when I complained he followed by calling me names like 'idiot' and 'stupid', thinking that that is what he needs to cower me down and win the day. In his overt frustration, he glowingly shows tendencies of violence and terrorism right before our eyes, in a larger scale than the claimed 'violent' Ammar. Well, next time when he wants to quote and prove those verses, he may have to quote the whole chapter in order for readers to be able to judge it by its context rather than rely on a flawed scholarship that rests with cut and paste, which is denied in every civilised arena of Intellectual Karate.

And this is how things are with regards to your arguments her until you prove otherwise. Until then,

Peace,
lionger

[mlbash]

wow. this posts are really too exaustive! sometimes i couldn't even go through it completely. isn't there anyway of summarizing the points?

[_Waziri_]

Waziri,
This matter of declaring one's sources from the onset- and no less when in the face of stiff opposition - is a no-brainer for the serious academic. I've read the link you posted:
http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0

Cekenah,

That is an interesting observation but as you know quite alright one who is interested in plagiarising the works of others wouldn't be careless and generous enough to dash out to the public the works he is plagiarising from. That is the point. Unless if you want to thread the extereme, you can easily see thru the fact that this is an internet forum and in spite of our making appeal to having passed thru rigorous academic exercise before reaching the much of our conclusions as we say here, we also do not strictly hold to the tradition of writing academic papers in our expositions here as you guys may want to insist now for the sake of winning an argument. The papers I write with the flair of academics are always seen to be exaustively referenced. So many of them are refered to here. Afterall I still insist that I did not copy anybody's work but I have used their references when found valid by my estimation.

The truth of the matter is I have always shared my sources here including those from Ahmed Deedat, if lionger cannot find those posts in which I made such clear references he may want to consult the Administration of this site for I know how we moved from first K-online to Hausa Fulani and now back to K-online.

As regards Ahmed Deedat's scholarship it is a matter of opinion if you feel he is not good enough. As I have stated earlier I often disagree with him on certain issues but where I find him irresistible I subscribe to his opinions or improve on them. Concerning Douglass Reeds I wait your reservations to be unveiled afterall what we  think about anything is subject to argument that can be logically substanciated or not.

Again, it is good that you admonish lionger against the excessive use of emotions. This discussion in the past saw alot from him that at a moment I decided not engage him but rather frustrate and provoke him again and again to serious injury. The result is he is now not convinced as much as you that  he has thoroughly won the take that you are all now back at the topic after two years to take a bite at me or atleast expose and show to the world that I am not what I claim to be. ::) ;D

I assure this  will not be a success too as it has not been in the past for  as I said earlier a person intent at plagiaring the works of others will not in anyway go about declaring his dicipleship to those he is copying from or dashing to the public the works he is using, I have stated clearly why I gave out those books in the thread you said you read:

My beloved brothers, I am sure these two books will immensely help your minds in comprehending the many complex things we say here about secularism,  materialism, irreligion  and above all, the demagoguery that is guising today as  the only truth about the world politics.

Yes, I couldn't have been that foolish.

I will certainly discuss with you since you brought it back and in case I notice you are getting emotional, the cleverness and intelligence you ascribe to me will come forward and spite you negatively in a manner that will bring you back here after two years seeking for another round of vengeance.

For now, I am still searching my archive for the post I intended doing, here two years back that summed up my argument, I held back only when I saw the chantings of lionger on the emotional beats. 

But  the truth is I am not going to lose anything if I don't contribute to this debate anymore. You keep it cool we have a peaceful and rewarding exchange but you get rash I take a way my throne and leave you back in the abyss after another round of injury infliction execise. For I have so many Nigerian non-Muslims websites I can go and enjoy more serious self importance.

Already lionger is making my points clear by referencing  my posts at Nigeriaworld.com where I used the same summary of Deutronomy to drive home a point even though not in the light I used them here. Yes, then I was talking about Bible to Christians and there own interpretations of it. But here I am talking about Bible in the light of Jewish belief while maintaining that Christian interpretation of the Bible is not necessarily synonymous with Jewish interpretations of it.

So I noticed since two years back that lionger came to this thread  to dispute my interpretations of Deutronomy while sticking to Christian interpretation of it and it was why I didn't care to reply his detailed exposition since he was obviously talking about what I was not in the least talking about. So also  your take Cekenah, had you in the most made any effort to appeal to Jewish authorities in making my claims about Jewish world view here, you would have had the best of discussions as I would have agreed you can offer something for me to learn. But emotions and misconceptions will only serve to produce the kind of frustration lionger suffered from here that made him to continuosly worry about this exchange that he has to follow thru internet months away from the debate searching for what I read ten years ago to form my arguments against him which then and now he still doesn't feel successfully triumphant about.

Yes, there are ways we can quote Qur'an out of context to explain Muslims belief and Muslims will find it just and fair. So also there are ways to qute Christian Bible out of context and Christians will believe you've done justice to them as much as you would quote Jewish Bible out of context and summarise an aspect of their belief which will exactly show what they truly are.

Waziri

[_Waziri_]

Since I cannot find the post I intended making in this thread 2 years ago let me make my response based on the later premise given to this discourse by lionger.

Contrary to what he thinks, I intend to show now:

1. That one can make up a summary of Christian message from different quotes or sections from the New Testament without appealing to  context and still make a very good sense of the message acceptable to Christians just as one can can quote verses out of context and misrepresent the meaning of Christianity.


2. I'll also clearly show that while the summary of the verses I used from Deuteronomy depict Jewish conviction against the Gentiles since the Old Testament generally is interpreted by the Jews in a very different light from Christians, hence he shouldn't have been here disputing my claims about them from the onset since he did not show any sign of having known what the Jews do with their scriptures. Again my usage of the same quotes @ Nigeriaworld.com and the comments that followed from me were only there seeking a Christian way not a Jewish way.

In the first case the following summary from the Bible gives a very fair exposition of the message of Jesus which though out of context, can hardly be disputed by any good Christian:

THE NEW TESTAMENT

"Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. . . I am not come to destroy" (the law or the prophets) "but to fulfil . . . Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. . . He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes . . . Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth . . . what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. . . this is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. . . One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. . . Let brotherly love continue . . . Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased . . . Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees . . . ye are the children of them which killed the prophets . . . This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations . . . Forgive them, for they know not what they do . . . God that made the world and all things herein . . . and hath made of one blood all nations of men . . . be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it . . . What then? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also . . . for the promise, that he should be of the world, was not to Abraham, and to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith . . . One God and father of all who is above, all . . . let brotherly love continue . . . For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction . . ."

The Gospels, Acts and Epistles.


These are far contrary to what can be cut and and pasted as the following which is a very false representation of Christ and Christianity since they are out of context:

Luke 14;26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life as he cannot be my disciple"

Mathew 10:34
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword".

Luke 12:51
"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division"


This is also applicable to Islam or Qur'an while a single verse quoted out of context can depict the message in its truest form others can be quoted out of context to depict the message in a very false form.

In this I maintain that the summary of the Deuteronomy I gave here is an exact replica of Jewish law of nationalism which they cling to till this day and to support my claims I will need to show that the interpretation of the Bible according to Christians is entirely different from that according to Jews.

In the quotes from the New Testament I gave above are clear words of indictment used by Jesus against the Pharisees and Scribes the custodians of the Jewish law as having altered the law and this suffices to say the Old Testament we hold today which came from those Pharisees and Scribes "unedited" is exactly the law which Christ said has been altered by the Jewish priests. Hence the priests do not see or read or interpret the Old Testament as the Christians do. In fact where there are promises of the coming of the Messiah in it according to Christians, according to Jews the book only predicted the coming of an impostor in the person of Jesus as seen in the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. Muslim know the tradition of Balaam as Bil'am Ibn Ba'ura.

The Talmud which is seen as the first authoritative religious book of Judaism above the Bible,  says about Jesus:

She who was the descendant of princes and governors [The Virgin Mary] played the harlot with a carpenter. Sanhedrin:106a
   
Balaam [Jesus] fornicated with his jackass. Sanhedrin: 105a-b

[Jesus] was lowered into a pit of dung up to his armpits. Then a hard cloth was placed within a soft one, wound round his neck, and the two ends pulled in opposite directions until he was dead. Sanhedrin: 52b5

Jewish priests raised Balaam [Jesus] from the dead and punished him in boiling hot semen.(57a Gittin)4

For those doubting, this article written by a rare academic and specialist on Judaism, published in Publisher's Weekly, discussed a recent book titled Jesus in the Talmud: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6411679.html

Of course that was to show how Jews differ in no measure on how they view the scriptures from the Christians and about the Gentiles the Talmud is very clear in its commandments, first we should know that Jews or their faith as against what Jesus preached is one of inheritance only and as such one cannot be faithful or of God if one is not born a Jew :

If a heathen (gentile) hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed: Sanhedrin 58b

A Jew need not pay a gentile ("Cuthean") the wages owed him for work. Sanhedrin 57a


Also

When a Jew murders a gentile ("Cuthean"), there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep.



"If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a Canaanite there is no liability; but if an ox of a Canaanite gores an ox of an Israelite...the payment is to be in full." Baba Kamma 37b

Also:

"The gentiles are outside the protection of the law and God has "exposed their money to Israel.""

If a Jew finds an object lost by a gentile ("heathen") it does not have to be returned.  Sanhedrin 76a, also  Baba Kamma 113b.

and:

"Jews may use lies  to circumvent a Gentile".


"God will not spare a Jew who "marries his daughter to an old man or takes a wife for his infant son or returns a lost article to a Cuthean..." " Baba Mezia 24a


All gentile children are animals. Yebamoth 98a.

Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth. Abodah Zarah 36b.

Gentiles prefer sex with cows. Abodah Zarah 22a-22b


Now with all this and many studies carried out about the faith of Jews and their laws as seen from their religious books it becomes fair to use the summary from Deuteronomy to explain their faith adequately as this:


"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.

This without recourse to the context lionger or Cekenah will want to us to since theirs is only an explanation that comes from the understanding of Christian theology only. It is also here we can conveniently say the claims of lionger that Bible is simple and can be just taken and read to be understood is not very true since the true owners of the Old Testament, the Jews, who Jesus believed altered the laws, do not think it is so. They believe one needs something like a Talmud and the difference between me and lionger is in the fact that I took my time to visit the Talmud but he took his time only to oppose me emotionally.

As I said earlier, there are lots of authorities and books about this subject and if lionger and Cekenah wish to insist I misrepresented their  Bible in this light as they have been saying, let them appeal to those authorities and Jewish scripts to prove me wrong not detailed exposition from the Bible which will mean  nothing since ours here has never been Christian interpretations but rather Jewish.

Waziri

[Cekenah]

Waziri,

Sorry for the long lay-off!

Firstly, I must also add, that the latter paragraphs of your response to me are quite funny. Ironically, your repeated warnings made you sound quite emotional yourself. This is the third time you have threatened to abandon this discussion with me. Then there's this business about 'injury infliction exercise', 'round of vengeance', warnings of induced 'frustration', or your hypothetical 'throne' and my 'abyss' - what's all this? Rest assured: I am all for a contest of ideas, not a contest of egos. Unless you were actually trying to be funny, none of this resonates with me. My business remains as it was from the beginning - to get to the bottom of your intellectual process as expressed on this and the adjunct threads.

Secondly, your commission of plagiarism in this discussion is undisputable. Now, it might be marginally better to present this thread as proof that you did not intend to plagiarise Deedat and Reed, as you seem to be doing now. This approach nevertheless is not convincing for reasons I have already stated. Yes, this is merely an Internet forum and one can be forgiven for not sticking strictly to academic disciplines. However, two things strike me as obvious here:

1. Why didn't you appeal to your sources when others criticized your arguments? When Lionger charged you for repeatedly dragging Bible verses out of context, shouldn't you have deferred to Reed and Deedat as your higher authorities? Instead, you dug in your heels and took retrogressive steps like starting this thread. You postured as someone presenting his direct and expert findings from the Bible and this was entirely misleading. 

2. I asked you plainly when I entered this thread to lay out the analytical processes behind your arguments. I also expressed my initial concerns about plagiarism, but you responded by questioning my motives. Would it not have been better to reveal your sources? Your ommission of those important details is a major failure and has exposed you to criticism and reproach then and now.

The worst part of this matter for me does not come directly from Lionger's recent posts but from my own findings. At some point during the initial exchanges you said:

With regards to the Jews, I am yet to say the worst Jesus(AS) said about them. Hear him: You wicked and adulterous generation!(Matthew, 16:4), You brood of snakes! (Luke 3:7). Ealier on Moses in Deutronomy and Exodus said, that is if he really wrote those books, You Jews, you vagobonds; you rebellios people!(Deut. 9:7), You stiffednecked people!(Exodus, 33:5).

As was pointed out then, you erred in crediting Jesus with Luke 3:7 and Moses with Exodus 33:5. (The speakers in those verses were actually John the Baptist and God, respectively.) However when objections were raised, you defended your quotations by saying:

If I should leave you without reference to an edition of Bible you may spend your life without finding the exact copy of the one I use to give me those quotes as they are. There are many diffrent versions of Bible. Some use milder words to prove a point while others, especially the older versions, use harsher words. One wonders at certain point as to which one is really correct in expressing the mood of God as He revealed the scriptures. It is not my fault Ete.

However, the fact is that your quotations actually came directly from Deedat's book, and not from any 'questionable' Bible version:

http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc4.html

Listen to God Almighty: how He pleads with Jews in His Last and Final Revelation to mankind:
O CHILDREN OF ISRAEL! CALL TO MIND THE (SPECIAL) FAVOUR WHICH I BESTOWED UPON YOU, AND FULFIL YOUR COVENANT WITH ME AS I FULFIL MY COVENANT WITH YOU, AND FEAR NONE BUT ME. (Holy Qur'an 2:40)

This explains the thousand years of good relationship which existed between the Muslims and the Jews. How respectfully you are being addressed! Not as
'YOU JEWS; YOU VAGABONDS; YOU REBELLIOUS PEOPLE! (Deut. 9:7)
'YOU STIFF-NECKED PEOPLE! (Exodus 33:5)
YOU WICKED AND ADULTEROUS GENERATION! (Matthew 16:4 )
YOU BROOD OF SNAKES!' (Luke 3:7)
These are the outpourings of your own Jewish Prophets, in your own Holy Scriptures.

It is easy to see the genesis of your errors, and it is Deedat. He did not specifically identify the speakers in his quotations, but referred to them collectively as 'Jewish prophets', so you probably presumed further that it must have been Jesus and Moses. Of course this error would have been avoided if you had actually looked up these verses in the Bible. You claimed then and now that you did so, but the evidence suggests otherwise. First of all, I don't see why you claimed to have gotten those Bible verses from a Bible version, when they came directly from Deedat. Do you even know what Bible version Deedat used? Worse, when confronted with your errors, you tried to deflect blame towards the Bible and questioned its authenticity. You will do well to explain why you saw fit to make such comments.  In view of all this, I cannot view your submissions up to this point any more favorably than I did at the beginning.

Deedat's argument in itself also has gaping rhetorical flaws. Since you considered it irresistible, consider the following points. In the excerpt above he obviously speaks to Jewish/Judaist readers. Why then does he present New Testament quotations as evidence from the Holy Scriptures of Jews? Judaists do not regard Jesus or John as prophets, and they clearly do not recognize the New Testament. In addition, Deedat's general thrust that the Quran addresses the Jews in kinder terms than the Bible is frivolous. One could easily bring out many Bible passages that speak glowingly of the Jews - infact, Deedat subsequently quotes one of them in Exodus 19:5 (see link). Not to mention his well-established penchant for dragging verses out of context at his own whim. Waziri, you shortchanged yourself by failing to exercise due diligence with the Bible expositions of Ahmed Deedat that you reproduced here.

Hopefully this should put these issue to rest. Now, I can move on to your new submissions.

[Cekenah]

Your new submissions are interesting and surprising at the same time.

That one can make up a summary of Christian message from different quotes or sections from the New Testament without appealing to context and still make a very good sense of the message acceptable to Christians just as one can can quote verses out of context and misrepresent the meaning of Christianity...
This is also applicable to Islam or Qur'an while a single verse quoted out of context can depict the message in its truest form others can be quoted out of context to depict the message in a very false form.

You've got this 'out of context' concept mixed up. What makes a quotation 'out of context' or not is the intended purpose/objective of the person making the quotation. If the quoter's objective is supported by the original context of the quotation used, then the quotation is 'in context'. Otherwise, the quotation is 'out of context', and the quoter's argument becomes a 'pretext'. As the saying goes, "Text without context is pretext."

Therefore, it is possible to quote your New Testament (NT) passage AND your other verses (and even the Deuteronomy passage to some extent) both in context AND out of context. Therefore, a quotation that is out of context loses its original meaning and is an invalid form of persuasion. Let's consider seriously those verses that paint a 'false' version of Christianity in your estimation:

Luke 14;26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life as he cannot be my disciple"

Mathew 10:34
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword".

Luke 12:51
"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division"

Now, if I quoted these verses to prove that hatred of one's family is a Christian virtue, or that Jesus was a warmonger and not a peacemaker - as might seem apparent at first - then I would be quoting Jesus 'out of context'. On the other hand, if I quoted these verses to show that Jesus warned his disciples of the high personal cost of following him; namely, that it could mean fractured relationships with and even persecution from family members and friends who reject Jesus, and even the loss on one's life on Jesus' account - then I would be quoting these verses in context. I leave the examination of context to your personal study, but if you so oblige, you will realise that Jesus' main point was that those who follow him must be willing to risk absolutely everything for his sake in a hostile world.

Otherwise, on what basis does one conclude, as you have done, that the New Testament passage presents an accurate picture of Christianity, and the other verses do not? To answer this question objectively, one must resort to standard exegetical practices, of which the first step is to examine textual and historical context. Simply presentin

In the quotes from the New Testament I gave above are clear words of indictment used by Jesus against the Pharisees and Scribes the custodians of the Jewish law as having altered the law and this suffices to say the Old Testament we hold today which came from those Pharisees and Scribes "unedited" is exactly the law which Christ said has been altered by the Jewish priests. Hence the priests do not see or read or interpret the Old Testament as the Christians do.

Here I have a major point of contention. The NT does not record that Jesus ever charged the Pharisees with malicious alteration or edition of the Torah. Contrary to your suggestion, your NT passage does not contain any evidence that Jesus made such a criticism. I assume that you were referring specifically to this quote from the passage:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees . . . ye are the children of them which killed the prophets...

This quote is part of Jesus' extensive denouncement of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23. Read that chapter, and you will find that Jesus does not include corruption of the Old Testament (OT) scripture among the Pharisees' many sins. If you can cite a specific verse in the NT that supplies such evidence, then please oblige. Christians certainly do not consider the OT to be corrupted and that is why it is part of the Christian Bible.

Now about the Talmud: Firstly, I must ask: what is the direct source of your Talmud quotations? I ask this question because I have seen some these quotations years before - the Balaam references especially. When I tried to trace their sources then, I discovered that these quotes were popular and only available word-for word in ultra-racist and anti-Jewish enclaves such as neo-Nazi and white supremacist forums. As such, I hope that a credible 'Jewish authority' stands behind yor work here.

Secondly and much more importantly - you made an unexplainable leap of logic here:

Now with all this (quotes from the Talmud)and many studies carried out about the faith of Jews and their laws as seen from their religious books it becomes fair to use the summary from Deuteronomy to explain their faith adequately as this (the Deuteronomy passage):

If we accept your presentation of the Talmud as accurate, then our first logical conclusion is that the Talmud itself incites racial bias and aggression. Unless you can establish a connection between the Talmud quotations and the verses of the Deuteronomy passage, it is not sensible to extend similar conclusions to the book of Deuteronomy. Are any of your Talmud verses commentaries on the verses of the Deuteronomy passage? If so, then kindly demonstrate. Otherwise, the Deuteronomy passage should never have been brought up in the first place.

This brings up a final question. If you consider the Talmud to be the premier authority in Judaism, then doesn't it make better sense to rely strictly on Talmud evidence from the start, rather than just the 'secondary' Torah?