Osama Abdallah: Lying about Lying

On 25 October 2004, I published the article, The Lies and Misrepresentations of Osama Abdallah, in which I pointed out some really bad cases of twisting and abusing Bible passages. Instead of being a good sportsman and admitting to these obvious errors, he started screaming at me in huge bold letters and with plenty of insults. The following is my rebuttal to his additional lies and misrepresentations, both against the Bible and against my person, found in his so-called refutation which he published on 27 October 2004.

However, as everyone will see shortly, with this article Abdallah only further exposed his ignorance of the Bible and his ruthlessness in twisting the truth. Before I will take on his claims point for point, we need to summarize what my first article was about. It consisted of a discussion of three Bible passages which Abdallah had abused and twisted in an atrocious manner. I exposed that Abdallah lied about the Bible by claiming that

• 2 Samuel 4:10-12 speaks of David brutally torturing his enemies
• Exodus 2:13-15 is one example of "The murders of the Bible's Prophets"
• Exodus 13:13-15 is another example of "The murders of the Bible's Prophets", and particularly of their "Killing Innocent Children"

To better understand the background and dynamics of what will be discussed in the following, it would help to carefully read the involved articles in their chronological sequence: (1) Abdallah's original polemic, WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLE'S PROPHETS' MURDERS that were blessed by GOD?, (2) my response article, The lies and misrepresentations of Osama Abdallah, exposing the three above-mentioned cases of clear deliberate lies, (3) Abdallah's reaction to it, Refutation to the preposterous LIES of Jochen Katz about his Bible not containing inhumane murders from its Prophets! It is always advisable to first read an article and then its alleged refutation. That way one has a better chance to judge whether the response correctly represents the original article. In any case, in my final rebuttal below, I will assume that the reader is familiar with the entirety of Abdallah's reaction to my article. Before you see my answer, by comparing these three articles, determine for yourself whether or not Abdallah has actually refuted anything that I had written, and to be fair, ask just as carefully whether or not I had addressed his claims properly and successfully. Then continue here with my response to Abdallah's latest article.

In particular, the attentive reader will see that my first article on the lies and misrepresentations of Osama Abdallah never claimed to be a complete and comprehensive refutation of any of Abdallah's articles in its entirety nor of his entire website. I clearly stated that I was simply going to examine SOME of his arguments. It was mere coincidence, or maybe convenience, that the three claims examined in this first installment were all found in only one of Abdallah's articles (though the second quotation on the David story was taken from another one of his articles). There will be further installments in this series, looking at selected claims found in other articles, and it is my right to do so in any order or selectivity that suits me, just as Abdallah is free to choose which arguments on our website he wants to respond to. I will do my best not to misrepresent any of Abdallah's arguments — that is a matter of intellectual integrity — but otherwise it is my free choice which claims and arguments I take up in order to rebut them.

The question is not who screams the loudest, or who is able to hurl the most insults at his opponent. The issue is simply whether or not an author is able to present solid, convincing proof for the claims he makes in his papers.

After these preliminary comments, let's get down to business and examine the dirty details. Warning: Since Abdallah has wasted many hours of my precious time with his ridiculous article, I am at least going to have some fun in my response. Moreover, anyone who has spent some time on the Answering Christianity website will have realized that, in Abdallah's mind, a good rebuttal must be endlessly long and highly repetitive. I will do my best to satisfy his established criteria and expect that he will acknowledge and appreciate this.

Abdallah begins his article with an immensely

This earth-shattering revelation is so important to Abdallah that he cannot contain his excitement. This must be placed even above the title of the article, and then repeated as his new mantra several times throughout the article, and in other locations on his website as well. So be it. Nothing has ever been proven by merely repeating a claim ad nauseam. I will deal with it at the place in this article where Abdallah brings his ‘evidence’ for this claim.

Abdallah then starts his article proper with a flood of accusations and insults:

Quite a mouthful from Abdallah: "the preposterous LIES of Jochen Katz", and "Jochen Katz' preposterous lies", "is not only a big liar", "but he is also stupid", etc. Wow, I am impressed; actually, I am terrified! Osama Abdallah has just completely destroyed my reputation. Woe to me, I am finished!

Oh, wait a second, ... well, ... I don't know, but somehow ... isn't there something missing? Let's pause and think before we rush to conclusions and close the case prematurely ... Aaaaaah, ... that is the problem! Where is the proof?! Every nobody can scream out insults and accusations. Okay, fine, Abdallah had another one of his public temper tantrums, but at some time this should stop, he should calm down, and give us some hard evidence.

Let's look at Abdallah's impressive statements line by line, beginning with the first two lines. He speaks twice about "preposterous lies", but forgot to mention which of my statements exactly he is referring to. Is it really asking too much to state (a) WHAT are those alleged lies (i.e. quote those of my statements which he thinks are lies), and tell us (b) WHY they are lies (i.e. give us the evidence why my statements were wrong)? Although I am absolutely convinced that Abdallah has all that evidence at his fingertips — he only forgot to write it down because he was a bit emotional at the time of writing his ‘refutation’ — he will certainly prove me wrong, just as he has always refuted every statement I ever made.

Although Abdallah did not make clear what exactly that I said are lies in his eyes, his title, "... the preposterous LIES of Jochen Katz about his Bible not containing inhumane murders from its Prophets!", suggests that he had the following in mind:

• Jochen Katz claimed that none of the Biblical prophets murdered his enemies in an inhumane way (i.e. torturing them to death). However, since there is only one place in my article where I make a general statement about all prophets of God in the Bible, it must refer to this paragraph:

  Second, Osama speaks in the plural, "the Bible's Prophets", as if this was the usual behavior of ALL the prophets in the Bible. This is another serious lie. There is not even one prophet in the Bible who did to his enemies what Muhammad did to the Uraynian shepherds.

• Osama Abdallah responds that this is/are preposterous lies and claims that there indeed are multiple such inhumane murders (plural) committed by God's prophets (plural) in the Bible.

How can we resolve this very difficult problem that there now stands word against word, claim against claim? Why would anyone believe any one of the above gentlemen? I could certainly quote every single one of the several thousand verses in the Bible, and after each one of them I could state the verdict that "this verse does obviously not contain anything about a prophet torturing his enemies, so let us consider the next verse". That kind of procedure may actually be the only proof that is acceptable to Abdallah. Nevertheless, though I may be very simple minded (Abdallah just gave his expert testimony that I am actually stupid), but would it not be much easier, and more merciful to the readers, if Abdallah would just quote those passages which contain those "inhumane murders committed by the Biblical prophets"?

Far be it from me to demand that Abdallah has to actually bring evidence for his claim. Certainly his word is worth more than all the evidence in the world. I am fully aware that it is only the barbaric western world in which the accuser has to bring proof for his accusations. In the vastly superior Islamic world, so advanced in every aspect of civilization and particularly in its legal system, it is the accused who has to prove that he is not guilty; and unless he can remove the last shred of doubt about his guilt, he will certainly be punished and will have to bear the shame of having been accused for the rest of his life.

On the other hand, maybe I should not extrapolate from the methods of Imam Abdallah to the principles of Islam? Could it really be that Abdallah is not following the established principles of Islam, and not all Muslims agree with his approach?

In any case, Abdallah has chosen to live in the West, and in this part of the world both the rules of logic as well as of law state clearly that the person who makes the accusation has to bring the proof for the charge. The only valid proof that the Bible is indeed "containing inhumane murders from its Prophets" is to quote the passages in which they are found. Abdallah has not provided even one such passage in all of his article. Therefore, he has not established that I had lied on this issue, and thus his article cannot be a refutation of those alleged lies whose existence has not even been established.

Let's continue and examine Abdallah's next paragraph. As Abdallah teaches his readership in most of his articles that it can't hurt to repeat his eloquent statements of deep insight many times throughout the same article, I am going to quote this paragraph again, and I hope he can appreciate that I am a fast learner, and that I am exhibiting a genuine willingness to apply his superior style of writing also in my response article. He writes:

We are definitely making some progress. Now Jochen Katz isn't only ascribed some "preposterous lies", but it is now an established fact that he is a big liar (an existential attribute of his person). This Jochen Katz must really be one ugly and evil guy! One can hardly imagine anyone worse than him.

Abdallah claims that I am "covering up" something. However, in order "to cover up", one must be actively doing something. Since I did not talk about sex, not even about any kind of gender issues, and since I did not use any of the words woman, vagina, brother, sister, lick, suck, etc., I am wondering in what way was I performing a cover up on this topic. The topic of my article was a number of false claims by Abdallah in which he accused the Biblical prophets of murdering enemies in extremely brutal ways or killing innocent children. Since sex was not the topic of my article, neither explicitly nor implicitly, how can I legitimately be accused to have committed the crime of trying to cover up something on this issue? Does Abdallah have nothing but sex on his mind? And whenever anyone talks about something else, he is committing the crime of "cover up"?

Is the mere fact that I did not mention a certain issue enough to accuse me of a cover up? Is that the way he looks at the world? Well, let's have some more fun with Abdallah's strange logic. If President Bush gives a speech on terrorism and security issues, then he is only covering up for the serious problem of the American health care system, right? And if he gives a speech about health care issues, he is is merely covering up the problem of trade deficits? And if he talks about the world market and trade with foreign countries he is covering up the problem of the American prison system, and if he talks about environmental issues, he is covering up the problem caused by terrorism. In fact, whenever somebody talks about ONE issue, and not about every imaginable topic in the same speech or article, then it is merely an attempt to cover up ALL OTHER problems that exist in this world. Is that what Abdallah wants to tell us? Can it become more ridiculous than that? (It sure can, just wait!) If that is the concept of cover up in Abdallah's mind, then every single article on his site is a cover up, since not one of them is discussing all the problems in this world. Or more focused, in none of them does he respond to all issues on our website, i.e. he is obviously trying to cover them up.

The next observation is even funnier (or sadder, depending on the perspective). Abdallah's original article had this title and table of contents:

Abdallah's stated topic of the article under discussion was alleged murders committed by prophets in the Bible and their alleged torture of enemies. Sex was not the topic. So, if it was not the topic of his article, why should it be the topic of my article written in response to his article?

Now, the fact that it was not the topic would not prevent Abdallah from including it into his article. Most of his articles are an amalgamation of disconnected thoughts and contain lots of red herrings. However, why would it be my duty to pick up his red herring and talk about sex in an article that has the clearly defined topic of alleged murders committed by prophets in the Bible? No, usually I will simply ignore the irrelevant parts of his lengthy papers and stick to the topic, and will refuse to chase his red herring arguments. This present paper is one of a few exceptions in which I am quoting every single piece of it for the sole reason to expose how ridiculous it is in every part as well as in its entirety.

In any case, I think this is the right place to repeat Abdallah's magnificent statement once again:

As the esteemed reader may remember, I promised a funny part. By that I didn't mean the last couple of paragraphs. They were only the intro to it, setting the stage, so to speak, i.e. the background that will enable all of us to understand the joke. The clincher comes here:

Apart from the fact of sex not being the topic, his paper, "WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLE'S PROPHETS' MURDERS that were blessed by GOD Almighty?", was one of the rare articles on Abdallah's website in which he himself did NOT talk about the allegedly "horny and pornful bible; the book of women's vaginas and breasts taste like "wine", and brothers can lick and suck their sisters' and lovers' vaginas and breasts". Therefore, if Abdallah did not talk about it, and in consequence I did not talk about it either in my response, in what way is my omission to talk about it an attempt to cover up this issue? Does anyone out there actually understand his logic? Would the charge of cover up not apply just as well to Abdallah's original article since he didn't talk about it just as much as I didn't talk about it?

Excursus on semantics: The expression "horny and pornful Bible" appears dozens of times on Abdallah's site. What on earth does he mean by that? Here is a dictionary entry giving the possible meanings of the word "horny":

Since texts or books do not have feelings, nor do they have sexual hormones, they cannot be aroused or have desires to copulate. This excludes the fourth meaning of the term, apart from the fact that Abdallah would certainly never use vulgar slang words. Thus my humble request: Would Abdallah please be so kind and explain to me (after all, I am pretty stupid and need a little more time to understand his deep thoughts) in what sense the Bible has horns, and even if it had, why he would so vigorously object to that?

Let's try for the other ingredient, "pornful". That is even worse. The word does not exist, neither in the above consulted The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language nor in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Conclusion, Abdallah's expression "horny and pornful Bible", though intended as an insult, is utter nonsense and exposes nothing but his lack of command of the English language. Also, in correct English his paragraph would have to end in "... that show clearly and irrefutably:", but that is a minor issue.

Since it takes some repetition to discover and digest all the deep mysteries that Abdallah was able to compress in this wonderful little paragraph, let me quote it again so that we can meditate on it further:

I can say with a clear conscience that I never intended to deceive any reader of our site, and since I never had that intention, I certainly never thought about the question of whether or not I would be able to if I wanted to do so. Furthermore, since I know for sure that Abdallah reads my articles, although this does not imply that he understands them, I need to correct and inform him that there are others which read them too, i.e. there is not only ONE reader, but many readers. Still, whether one or many, there cannot be any issue of deceiving them. It is merely another accusation and insult coming from Abdallah, the self-acclaimed mind-reader, but without giving any evidence that this was my thinking. Moreover, the only way that I can imagine that people could be deceived when I am quoting Abdallah (whether in part or in full) is that the text that I am quoting is a deception. But usually I do not simply quote Abdallah's text and leave it at that, but explain why Abdallah is wrong. So, the danger that my quotations of Abdallah would deceive anyone is rather small and I am willing to take this small risk. It is absolutely minor in comparison to all those people who may have been deceived by Abdallah's texts if they had not found our rebuttals that expose the falsehood in Abdallah's claims.

Finally, I whole-heartedly recommend to everyone to read the Bible carefully and attentively and completely. I never tried to hide ANY verse in the Bible, and we certainly never tried to refute any verse in the Bible. Actually, I am so glad to see that Abdallah recognizes that there are irrefutable verses in the Bible. That is a good start since elsewhere he is constantly trying to refute them.

Okay, after we have now thoroughly squeezed Abdallah's paragraph, a clear candidate for the Nobel-Prize in literature due to its richness in meaning, its conciseness, eloquence, and its creative use of words, and have savoured most of the sweet juice that was hidden in it, we are now ready to continue with the other goodies that Abdallah has in store for us.

Oh, before I forget, Abdallah's talk about women's vaginas etc. is merely another hoax. The word means navel, not vagina, and this has been discussed sufficiently here. What the meaning of "brother" and "sister" is in this context, I will leave — for the time being — to the reader to figure out. It is not difficult. For a good introduction on the meaning of the whole biblical book of Song of Songs, see this commentary.

Abdallah continues thus:

Regarding his number 1-, it is true that Abdallah had a short entry in his pamphlet, but as mentioned before, it was and is a red herring and had nothing to do with the topic of the article. Furthermore, as mentioned before as well, I never claimed that I would be responding to every detail of his article. Finally, it is a point that was already sufficiently answered in an earlier rebuttal (see Osama Abdallah’s Obsession with Pedophilia). Even though this is yet another one of Abdallah's atrocious lies, there was absolutely no need to go over this territory again at that time.

Since he speaks of many such girls, I have just one question to Osama Abdallah regarding his claim: Can you give me the name of just one of these girls who were allegedly forced into sex at age three? Can you name just one of the men which did this at the time of Moses? If you cannot name even one of them, or if you cannot point to even one specific instance, how do you know that such sexual acts even happened? The issue is very simple. Abdallah has built up a huge smokescreen, but the evidence for it is again absolutely zero. This is very different in the case of Islam. In regard to Islam we are talking about a clear historical record, and even Abdallah admits that Muhammad, at age 53, had sex with Aisha who was at that time merely 9 years old. However, it is not me who raised this issue, it is Abdallah who constantly forces it into every discussion.

Abdallah's point number 2- links to the same page as number 1-, so my recommendation is also the same page given in answer to number 1-.

Regarding the sentence in big blue font, I admit to being guilty as charged: In comparison to the shy and always gentle and polite Osama Abdallah I certainly deserve the title "loud mouth"; and my hypocrisy and bias is so obvious, it doesn't even need commenting on. Nevertheless, this statement reminds me of something I read about a year ago, and which can still be found on Abdallah's "What's New On Answering Christianity" page, though it may not stay there much longer, now that he sees he forgot to cover up the issue by removing the traces of his past failures:

It was a six month struggle, but it finally ended in Abdallah giving up on his promised research and deleting this hoax from his site at the end of May 2004 (for details, see here and here). His response is nearly the same every time I write a rebuttal to some of his claims. First he screams and hollers and declares that he will shut my mouth, and then becomes quieter after a while ... until the next time. I can assure you, we are well and my mouth is doing just fine.

A mere couple of days ago, another one of his many triumphalist messages arrived in my mailbox:

Note: The email is displayed exactly as it was received apart from the removal of the list of addresses it was sent to. All typos and grammar errors are his. These "latest additions" include the article that is discussed currently. I think this message speaks for itself. No further comment is necessary.

Regarding the last sentence in the above quoted box, the one in big red letters, it is basically identical to the one that he had placed at the top of his page, so nothing new needs to be said about that.

After these preliminaries, Abdallah finally arrives at the part where he directly quotes me and responds to my statements. The reader may take heart, my responses will be much shorter from here onwards.

Abdallah first quotes me, and then responds:

Good grief. Abdallah uses the word "lie" and "liar" in every other sentence, but he seems to not even know what a lie is. I said that in this article I will discuss only some parts of Abdallah's polemic, and I did exactly what I said. So, in what sense is that establishing that I lied? And in what sense is it proof of my hypocrisy? Abdallah certainly may not have liked what I wrote about him, and the method that I employed, but his dislike of it is not sufficient evidence that I lied. From direct comparison of my statement with Abdallah's response, it is obvious that his accusation is a false charge.

Abdallah objects: "The parts that he will not discuss are the majority!" Answer: So what? We have more than 7000 articles on our website. Every time Abdallah writes another piece against us, the parts that he does NOT write about in that particular article are the vast majority. Does that make him a liar and hypocrite? Well, if that is not the implication for him, why would it be the implication for me when I discuss only some parts of what he has written?

Abdallah screams: "Not only they're the majority, but they're also the most DEVASTATING verses against his bible." Well, Abdallah is entitled to his opinion. However, even if that were the case, is that a justification of the fact that Abdallah lied about those passages that I DID discuss? Let's assume that one of Abdallah's articles has five correct statements and three false statements. Are the five correct statements any kind of justification for his false statements? If he produced three really atrocious lies and published them many times over on his website, and I expose those lies, why is it then me who is guilty — guilty because I did not quote everything else that he also wrote, even though it had no bearing on the issue that I chose to discuss? That is some kind of twisted logic.

Actually, the situation can be illustrated like this: Abdallah got caught with his pants down. He screams at the top of his lungs that he still has a hat on, and also a pair of gloves, as if this changes anything in regard to the fact that his pants are down, and he is basically naked. In addition, he claims that his hat is so powerful and so special, it will dwarf my whole wardrobe. Well, the fact remains, he still has his pants down. Moreover, whether or not this bag that he put over his head even qualifies as a hat is a completely different discussion, and we may pick that one up at some other time. The only effect that his "bag-hat" has is that it covers his eyes so that he can't see what everyone else sees so clearly, i.e. how naked he really is down there. — Within hours, Abdallah comes back with yet another ‘rebuttal’ article and challenges the world: "What about my gloves! What about my gloves! Ay man, they are the best boxing gloves out there. You cannot ignore my gloves!" Really? You merely stuck your hands into two empty tin cans. I have to admit, however, they may be just perfect for Abdallah since they have the distinct advantage that they produce a loud rattling noise every time he puts his hands together in order to applaud himself.

Back to Abdallah's above accusations, I am under no obligation to advertise any of Abdallah's articles. In what way does NOT quoting him establish any guilt on my part? Actually, it is the other way around. The fact that I have responded to his article, and linked to his article three times within my response, there will be some additional readers that I pointed to his site, who would otherwise not have read what he had written. This means, by discussing some of his arguments, and linking to the source of the argument, I have not minimized but increased his readership, and every reader who would follow my links to Abdallah's pages would then see every bit of it; Abdallah Unabridged, so to speak. I did not attempt to cut out anything from the article on his site, it is still there in its entirety. The only thing I did was that, by quoting from them, I made some parts of his articles also available on our site. Really, thinking of it, I should begin to charge a fee for advertising Abdallah's arguments in my articles.

No, I did not try to fool anyone. Since I did not even mention pedophilia in my article at all (remember, it was not the topic), I also did not deny that the Bible contains pedophilia. [However, not denying it in every article is not the same as agreeing to Abdallah's hypothesis that the Bible promotes it, or that it even mentions it!] How then did I try to fool anyone in this regard? It is the same ridiculous charge again that we discussed above regarding Abdallah's theory of deceiving the readers by an alleged "cover up" operation.

Let's continue:

I have the suspicion that Abdallah uses the term "open-minded" somewhat differently than in the usual dictionary definitions. It seems to be for him a synonym for those people who are uncritically swallowing his articles. Frankly, some people can be so open-minded that there is a real danger that their brains may fall out.

Anyway, the 360 joints hoax was not the topic of that last article, nor is it the topic of this present article. Therefore I will not enter into a discussion of it here. The interested readers can find all the necessary details in the articles dedicated to it. I only referred to it because I wanted to illustrate one of Abdallah's diversion tactics and ways of evading the issues.

As we see, Abdallah did not fail to prove me right in what I said with the above paragraph. He did exactly what I had warned about. Instead of dealing with the arguments that I had discussed, he congratulates himself for the arguments that I had not discussed. Even more, he throws insults at me and charges me with all kinds of evil plots, lies, deception, cover up, hypocrisy, etc. because I did not quote and discuss his OTHER arguments which are supposedly the real ones and the absolutely devastating ones against the Bible. Abdallah's desperate attempt of diverting the discussion to something else is obvious to everyone except, perhaps, himself.

There is only one difference between last year and this time. Last year Abdallah concluded that not discussing some articles/arguments meant that they were so good, I could not find any kind of response. This time he concludes that not only were they good, even devastating, but he charges me with being a liar, deceiver, hypocrite etc. simply because I did not discuss them. Although it was bad before, one can observe clearly that Abdallah's logic and behavior has deteriorated considerably in these ten months.

Since Abdallah added this lame excuse also to his original article, I have written a response to it over there and do not need to repeat it here. If you think this comment has any validity to it, please have a look at this update of my rebuttal.

Abdallah continues:

You are most welcome, Abdallah. And my feet are doing well, thank you for your concern about my health. The strange thing is that even though he has been exposed as wrong over and over again, Abdallah apparently never learns to read, think, and argue more carefully. With the argument that is about to follow, Abdallah put a machine gun salvo through his own feet.

A couple of further comments are in order before we examine the story and Abdallah's interpretation of it. In a Muslim country he would never be able to attack and insult David with impunity as he does here. To malign any prophet of God would be a crime and he could be severely punished for it, if not be shot. Maligning Muhammad carries the death penalty, and the Qur'an demands to hold all prophets in equal respect. But his hatred for the Bible is so intense, he doesn't care any longer about Islamic principles, though he still claims to be a Muslim.

Since Abdallah claims that there are plenty of murders committed by the prophets of the Bible, in what way would another such instance prove that the Bible is bogus, let alone inconsistent? Wouldn't another murder, on the contrary, mean that it is consistent? And what about bogus? If the Bible tells the truth, negative truth or positive truth, it can hardly be evidence that it is bogus. How can any correct historical report in the Bible lead to the conclusion that it is bogus? On the other hand, if the report is not correct, how can Abdallah derive from it that David was a sick and careless murderer? Oh, well. Logic was never Abdallah's forte.

Whatever the case, what follows is simply another utter stupidity on the part of our virtual ‘Bible scholar’. Let's see how Abdallah exposed his ignorance this time. He writes:

Okay, most of Abdallah's text is a quotation of Bible text, so there is not much to comment on here. Regarding his points of interpretation, I think it is not quite correct to say that Saul and David became friends (unless one has a very low understanding of the meaning of friendship), but I am not going to dwell on this point as it is insubstantial for our discussion.

His comment under 2- is really out of touch with reality. David was the king, i.e. he was the highest judicial authority of the country. The issue was not whether he liked the idea of some people killing other people. As the king, it was his duty to uphold law and order. The penalty for murder was death. David simply acted correctly in his function as judge. However, they were not "punished TO death" (i.e. punished UNTIL they died), but they received the verdict "punishment BY death", i.e. death was their punishment. David gave the orders that they be put to death, and the men were executed.

Abdallah's new and utterly false claim is found in his point number 3-, i.e. that David allegedly had an innocent man killed simply for telling him the news of Saul's death. In fact, with this new charge against David, we have reached Abdallah's main point in this article. As usual, he thinks he has found THE point of silencing all Christians, and makes a lot of noise about his victory without double-checking whether he may actually have overlooked something.

In his ignorance and over-confident braggery, Abdallah issues these challenges:

Abdallah mixes different issues and categories again. Even if it had been true that David killed an innocent man, WHY would that be an issue of divine justice? Did Abdallah see anywhere in this text that God commanded David to kill this man? No! Did Jochen Katz claim that the killing of an innocent man IS an example of divine justice? No! Then why does Osama challenge me to show where the divine justice is in this story if nobody claimed that this was an act of divine justice in the first place?

There are two different issues, one concerning the justice of David, and the other concerning the justice of God. 1: Did David kill an innocent man or not? 2: Did God command David to kill an innocent man or not? Abdallah seems not to be able to differentiate between the two.

It is very well possible that David is guilty of the death of an innocent man, but doing so out of his own human decision, without listening to God and obeying his voice. This again could happen in two different ways, either because he made an honest mistake, i.e. he was convinced to kill a guilty person, but he was misinformed, and the man was in reality innocent; or because he deliberately put to death an innocent because of whatever sinful motive, thus breaking the law of God. In either case, David would be guilty, but it wouldn't be a question of divine justice since it was not God who commanded David to do so. Again, it is perfectly possible that David killed an innocent man without this fact in any way detracting from God's justice.

However, this second of the underlined questions above is irrelevant in the case raised by Abdallah (i.e. the story in 2 Samuel 4), since the man that David ordered to be killed was not innocent; he was put to death as punishment for the murder that he had admitted committing! [The real question would be: Why does Abdallah call a murderer innocent? Perhaps because he wants to consider Muhammad innocent despite the many people he murdered? Anyway, we'll come to that after we finish with the discussion regarding David.]

I understand well that Abdallah sees no other way to deal with me except in hurling insults. That is shown again in the fact that he added the epithet "the hypocrite" (i.e. another slur without any evidence), but I have absolutely no clue what he means by the expression "David's selective murder". Since I do not understand it, I cannot answer it. I see that the same word appears again in his third challenge: Produce the evidence that Prophet Muhammad SELECTIVELY killed an innocent man! Would the challenge to "produce evidence that Muhammad killed an innocent man" not be sufficient? Why would he emphasize so strongly the word "SELECTIVELY"? I don't really know. Perhaps that is simply his attempt to prevent me to point to Muhammad's murders of the Banu Qurayza, at least 600 men whom he killed summarily and indiscriminately? Because those murders were not selective, not individual (i.e. he probably didn't even know the name of most of the people whom he ordered to be put to death), but it was an event of mass-murdering people, therefore that doesn't count as the kind of evidence Abdallah is asking for?

Whatever is the deal with Abdallah's qualifier ‘selectively’, let me now answer his charge that, in 2 Samuel 4, David killed an innocent man. Actually, let me begin the answer by quoting two more emails of that distinguished mailing list already mentioned above. After Abdallah had published the article we are currently evaluating, he again sent out a proud email:

As everyone can see, Abdallah uses again his favorite but meaningless expression "horny and pornful bible", and he made another claim that I had not seen before. He claimed that the Bible killed an innocent child. As so common with many of his accusations, he forgot to tell us how exactly the Bible managed to do that, ... but perhaps an old and really heavy Bible fell off a high bookshelf in a library directly onto the head of a young child who died from its impact? How else does Abdallah imagine that a book can kill children? Anyway, that was not the reason I quoted this email. I cited it only because of the reaction it prompted by another Muslim. He responded:

It is pretty obvious that SBWUS (Shahid bin Waheed) is not a friend of mine, or of Answering Islam, so he definitely didn't send this message to do me a favor. He is certainly no friend of Osama Abdallah either. But the personal animosities displayed in that message are not the interesting part. Two aspects are important. One is the date of the response (27 October 2004). The other is that, in this e-mail, Shahid bin Waheed informed Osama Abdallah that he had just made a fool of himself, and explained to him WHY his main argument in this article, i.e. the claim that David killed an innocent man, was utterly wrong.

Although most of the time the publications of SBWUS are no better in quality or logic than those of Abdallah, in this case he has hit the nail on its head. It is plain deception to lift statements out of context in the way Abdallah did it here, and in many other places as well. The context is vitally important for a correct interpretation. After Abdallah was informed about his error just some hours after he had published it, I decided to wait and see whether he would correct himself. He did not. Over a week later, Abdallah has published another half dozen articles, but he still actively propagates his false claim about "David murdering an innocent man simply for bringing him the news of Saul's death". For example, he included this claim again in several articles or pages published or redesigned after this date, i.e. he added it to the main entry page to his site on 31 October, and also included it in these three pages (*, *, *) on 4 November, in each case by making this emphasized link to it:

Whether or not it was a deliberate lie and misrepresentation of the Bible passage at the time when he first made this charge in the presently discussed article, or simply an honest mistake born out of ignorance, has now become irrelevant. After he had been informed on 27 October that his charge is wrong, yet continues to repeat the same attack and accusation over and over again, there is now no question left that it is a deliberate lie. Had it been an unintentional mistake, Abdallah would have removed it immediately. He has not done so. Similarly, he has not removed any of the misrepresentations that I exposed in my first article. He still keeps them in the article, even though he has changed this article several times since then, but only by adding additional lies (i.e., the charge that Elisha killed 42 innocent children), and slightly rearranging the sequence of the old false claims. Is there any more evidence necessary before he is proven to be a deliberate liar?

In any case, David's statement is clearly a reference to something that had just happened recently. Would it not have been more responsible to actually look up the story itself, in order to know all the details involved, instead of drawing hasty conclusions, and making accusations against David, merely based on a reference to a story? Abdallah apparently thinks differently. As we can seemingly not expect Abdallah to go through the trouble of looking up 2 Samuel 1:1-16 for himself, I am going to quote it here for him:

The situation is crystal clear: The man admitted to have killed Saul (v. 10), and even brought the evidence for it, the crown of Saul that he had taken (v. 10). Thus, David issued the verdict that, based upon his own testimony of the murder, the man is to be put to death (v. 16). How then can Abdallah accuse David of committing the crime to have ‘selectively killed an innocent man’?

The story is actually slightly more complicated than this, but the evidence presented here should suffice for now to show that Abdallah is wrong in his charge. The open question now is whether or not Abdallah will finally remove that accusation from his site and apologize for ever making this slanderous charge against David. For those interested in getting a full understanding of the incident, I will publish a more detailed exegesis of this story within a couple of weeks. [Hint: The man lied! The moral of the story is this: using deception and lying to gain something can backfire against you and even cost you your life. Could it be that this message is actually relevant to Abdallah in any way?]

Though Abdallah's main point in this article has now been dealt with, we are still not done since Abdallah continued his rantings:

Enough of Abdallah's tiring repetitiveness by which he merely tries to avoid answering the questions he is asked. This has already been responded to above. Let's see how he does in the next part of his attack on me:

In what way is THAT a response to what I had written? He merely repeats his three ridiculous challenges, and the claim that some of his own points are irrefutable, although they have been refuted a long time ago. However, he does not answer to even one statement I had made in my text that was just quoted by him. Maybe he simply has no answer? To shout out again and again that some of his OTHER claims are irrefutable is simply not an answer to my arguments in which I proved wrong this particular claim of Abdallah. [Hint: It's the pants-down problem all over again.]

Oh, I just realized that I have forgotten to answer Abdallah's challenges in those big red letters. Sorry, it got lost in the shuffle. Thank you so much for repeating it so that it may not be overlooked. Here are my answers to:

How is David better than Prophet Muhammad when he killed an innocent man for NO REASON??!! — The topic of my article was not a comparison of David and Muhammad. The issue was that Abdallah fabricated atrocious lies against the men of God in the Bible. I exposed his accusations against the Bible to be wrong. That is it. I have no need to enter a ‘my prophet is better than yours’ competition. Each man is evaluated individually. The problem of Abdallah being unable to defend Muhammad without an attempt to slander David, or Moses, or other men of God in the Bible, speaks for itself. I have no need to enter such a silly game. Finally, since that man was clearly not innocent, the whole question is irrelevant anyway.

Produce the evidence that Prophet Muhammad SELECTIVELY killed an innocent man! — Just in case the above-mentioned mass-murder / genocide committed by Muhammad against the Banu Qurayza was not selective enough, here are some examples for Abdallah to ponder. Muhammad selectively murdered Asma bint Marwan, Abu Afak, Ka`b bin al-Ashraf, `Uqba bin Abi Mu`ayt, and Al-Nadr Bin Al-Harith. Naturally, the circumstances for each of those murders were slightly different, but basically the only reason for each of these murders was that they spread the news that Muhammad was not a prophet. It is simply a matter of free speech that if I am convinced that Muhammad is not a prophet from God that I can and should warn others not to be deceived by his claim to prophethood. That is fully legitimate. Now, Abdallah may claim that these critiques of Muhammad are exactly what made them guilty and therefore they deserved to be put to death. But if opposition to Muhammad makes guilty per se, even if it is only verbally expressed disagreement, then his whole challenge is exposed as a sham. I am convinced that these examples more than satisfy Abdallah's challenge, if the challenge was a serious one.

Let's continue ...

Oh, oh. It's the Abdallah syndrome again. He simply ignores everything that was said. He wants to talk only about what was NOT mentioned instead of answering to the issues that were raised. If there were a "Second, ..." after his initial "First of all ladies and gentlemen, ..." then this would be okay. However, there is not. In the rest of what he called his ‘Refutation to the preposterous LIES of Jochen Katz ...’ there will only come some more repetitions of his usual ‘cut and paste’ from other pages, but he never responds to my arguments at all.

As mentioned before, it is my free choice which of Abdallah's lies I want to discuss. I had decided to expose his misrepresentations of three specific passages: 2 Samuel 4:10-12, Exodus 2:13-15, and Exodus 13:13-15. Those parts that I deleted were Abdallah's comments on the passages Numbers 25:17-18 and Numbers 31:17-18. Since these parts had nothing whatsoever to do with the other passages, and since they had absolutely no implications for the interpretation of the three chosen passages, deleting them did not result in distorting Abdallah's argument regarding the passages under discussion. There was no attempt to fool anyone, and I cannot see how this makes me a hypocrite.

Furthermore, I indicated that something was omitted from the text by placing [ ... ] there, so that the reader who wanted to control whether the omitted part was relevant to the argument could look up what had been omitted. So, I acted in complete intellectual integrity. I quoted every word that was relevant to the discussion of the passages, and I indicated that I had deleted some parts that were irrelevant to the present discussion. What is your problem with that, Abdallah?

On the other hand, I do have a problem with Abdallah's way of ‘responding’. He calls his article a REFUTATION, quotes long parts of my text, and then writes "My response:" in big red letters, but what follows does not respond to anything I had said. He ignores everything that I said in regard to the two passages Exodus 2 and Exodus 13. Instead he whips himself into a frenzy over my two omission brackets and throws insults at me because I did not discuss Numbers 25:17-18 and Numbers 31:17-18 as well. Frankly, what motivation would I have to discuss those two additional passages if he already ignored my discussion of the other two passages? That is a common behavior of three-year old children, but certainly not appropriate for somebody who claims to be in the PhD program at a university. The only result of his temper tantrum is that Abdallah exposed himself as being absolutely unfit to discuss serious matters.

Regarding the two ‘arguments’ in that above box ... I don't think I need to respond to those a fourth time in the same article, do I? Although Abdallah has nothing to say, he surely is able to repeat that nothing many times.

Abdallah continues:

Blah, blah, blah, ... Abdallah is merely a broken record, and is seemingly even proud of it.

The first problem is that you did not use our logic. You didn't use logic at all. Second, believe me, I understand your motivation. You feel wounded, you feel hurt, you feel insulted that there are people who do not accept Muhammad as the best man who ever lived. You are aggrevated that they would criticize the one man who means most to you in your life. However, attacking the Bible will never ever deliver a justification for the deeds of Muhammad. Attacking the Bible is not the same as defending Muhammad, or explaining why those things that Muhammad did were in reality good and wise and right. The way you are operating now, you will only show people that you are completely irrational.

If you desire that others accept Muhammad and love him, you need to show that what is published by those Christians about him is misrepresenting who he truly was. If you want to show the world that Muhammad was a true prophet and should be the model of mankind in his behavior, you need to work hard on presenting Muhammad's life in a way that shows to the world how those things that appear revolting to the modern man, are actually the most wonderful thing Muhammad could have done given the situation that he was in. But it will only work if you do justice to the historical record in your articles, and not try to cover up what is written in the Muslim sources.

Again, no amount of lying about the Bible will ever do Muhammad any good. Attempting to justify Muhammad by screaming, "but those people did the same things or even worse things" is a rather obvious logical fallacy and will not convince anyone.

This question again makes no sense in the way it is formulated. I simply have no clue what you are talking about. Which prophet do you call a murderer and on what basis? So far you haven't been very strong on giving evidence for your accusations. Moreover, which of their statements do you think are lies, and why? If you could ask a clear and reasonable question, I may answer you, but this one is incoherent.

Abdallah is closing in on the finishing line with the following essential reading recommendations:

Every single one of these above charges has been answered. If Abdallah continues to propagate those lies, he will have none but himself to blame when people increasingly conclude that he is merely a raving maniac and a compulsory liar.

Abdallah's final installment of yet the same insanities:

No further comments are necessary. That was it. We have looked at Abdallah's complete article and evaluated his arguments. Let me remind the reader of the title and the purpose that Abdallah had given to this particular webpage:

It is now up to the reader to decide whether or not Abdallah delievered what he had promised.

• Was this article really a REFUTATION of my arguments?
• Was he able to prove that I had lied, let alone produced PREPOSTEROUS lies?
• Did Abdallah present any proof that any Biblical report demonstrates that even one of the prophets of God tortured his enemies?
• Was he able to bring even one passage from the Bible that teaches that torturing people until they die is acceptable?

You be the judge!

APPENDIX

Since Abdallah has already changed his article several times, it is reproduced below (inside the box) exactly as I downloaded it from his site on 25 October 2004, the day that I published my response.

Rebuttals to Osama Abdallah & Answering-Christianity
Answering Islam Home Page