New Testament Reliability

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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I appreciate your time. I appreciate you being here. This debate is overdue. My closest friends and family in the room know that, because I have things that I need to work out, and I really appreciate

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Dr. White taking the opportunity to do this, because this debate was originally scheduled for, or offered to, rather, my home church in Central California, Oakhurst Evangelical Free Church.

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And we agreed, which is expected, that if I get hammered tonight, then I don't have to do another debate.

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So this is really my first ever debate. And there'll be people who are watching this, and if the elders of the church are satisfied with Dr.

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White's answers to my questions, we'll have a short meeting, and they'll say, do you think we can just move on?

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And that's probably what will happen. But the point is that these are very important questions. For those of you who know me, and I love a lot of people in this room, and I see family and friends,

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I see Mormons here, former Mormons, who emailed Kathy and I and asked, what is it you're doing,

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Bakers? You jump out of Mormonism, write books about Mormonism, help save families, bring them to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and then dump that. And those are the words. You need to ask those kind of questions.

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People need to have important questions, and that's what this is going to be tonight. Not me airing my dirty laundry, but I'm going to tell you the history in the same questions that brought me out of Mormonism, also brought me out of Christianity.

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And if that offends some people, let's talk about it tonight. Because there are some absolute comparisons in our life that are absolute parallels.

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That's why it's great that it's being done here in Utah. And it's amazing, praise God, that it's being done while conference is going on.

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So I'm assuming you guys are probably taping conference at home? Probably not. The point is, this is the best place to do it, because a lot of people don't know our history and why.

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So, thanks to Jason and the staff of Christ Presbyterian Church.

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It is my prayer tonight that what is ever said and whatever I learn, I learn here, will profoundly move my healing process forward with my family and my friends, both

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Christian and Mormon. Some of you know that I have an entirely split family because of the same subject.

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I would like to begin my comments this evening by agreeing with Dr. White. Earlier on one of his podcasts, he says,

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There is absolutely nothing that shows that Lee Baker knows anything about textual criticism.

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That is absolutely 100 percent true. I am not here to question his skills.

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I can't compete with his skills. I can't compete with his knowledge. I can't compete with his expertise. In fact, it's those skills that he has that has caused me to put this together.

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It's because he is an expert. This is the perfect place to ask these questions and not the elders, maybe, back home.

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A very true statement. I do not compete with his experience. I know that he's well -read.

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He knows everything that I wish I knew. But I'm not here to question textual criticism.

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What I plan to bring before you, what has torn my life apart, is not textual criticism.

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I believe it is intentional errors, intentional misleadings, complete inventions of scripture that has been passed off into the

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New Testament that I believed once. Huge sections. When I first got my red letter

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Bible and I looked up these scriptures, I was amazed, appalled. There's a lot of other words I'd like to slam in there, but I won't do it tonight.

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When I saw red letters, the words of Jesus Christ, that this man and his skill set and those who are textual smart guys.

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I'm in the back of the bus. They're at the front of the bus. They say, yeah, that section was added. We know it's not original.

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We know it was added to the scriptures. It takes something to swallow a scripture being added.

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It takes a little bit more to swallow the actual words of Jesus. And why does that bother me?

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Kathy and I just came back from Africa. We took over 500 Bibles to Africa. They didn't have footnotes.

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They didn't have the skill to look and understand. Now, Dr. White is right. Those who have the time and the ability to read and learn these things, you'll know what's real in the

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Bible and what's not. But the mere fact that I can make that statement is what drove me to come here.

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So it is my point that no Christian denomination can truly honor the accurate or accurately apply the word of God.

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If the standard of transmission, translation and publication is so low.

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Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean. So I keep moving on this here. And I told

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Jason, all my notes will be at the church here if you want. So you don't have to write things down. Whenever I reference a scripture or show you something, everybody gets a copy, if you want, of all my little notes.

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This is my college certificate, a bachelor of science from the

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University of State of New York. Behind it are my transcripts. Common. Now, if I went for my master's, if I started to work for my master's and I went back to those transcripts and I started altering those classes that I took as I worked towards a master's.

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What would that be called? Fraud. You got to think about it twice because you know where I'm going with this question, don't you?

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If I alter my transcripts for my college, that's called fraud. The Board of Regents wouldn't look at my degree and say, oh,

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Mr. Baker, I see where you changed your transcripts. And we know that this is not original.

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And because we know it's not original, we'll still accept it. That would never happen. But you do it every day with the

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New Testament. I take a medicine for my heart that makes me dry mouth, but think about that.

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That's one example in your life where you have a rule that you live by and then you have a standard that you read the scriptures by.

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And I wonder why, how often that changes. Here's an actual ticket. Central California for me. Speeding, 65 miles an hour.

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I paid for this ticket. Now, before I went to court to get it diminished, what if I change that 65 to a 45?

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I'd be in jail. But according to the standards of the day, as long as we know what has been changed, then we accept it.

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Why isn't it fixed? Tonight I'm going to ask, why don't the people at the front of the bus, the smart people like Dr.

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White, who know these things and those who put the footnotes in the Bibles, they know it's not there.

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Change it then. And they say, well, we can't change the Bible. Guess what, brothers and sisters, who has the authority to change the

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Bible to what you know it should be in comparison to the men and women who made the air?

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You understand what I'm saying? So if the end of the book of Mark was changed. And it describes the resurrection of Jesus Christ in detail that wasn't there before, but it stays every year, every year, every year.

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The real authority is with the clowns that changed it, not with the people that can describe it. Does that make sense?

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Here's another real document. When I moved to California, I had to sell a weapon that was illegal in California.

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It was pretty much a small shotgun that you put in your pocket. It was made, it's a public defender, it was made by Taurus.

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What if when I sell this weapon, I change two digits on the serial number? You know immediately that's wrong.

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That's a federal offense. But when it comes to the New Testament, ain't that big of a deal. Something a little bit more close to home.

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This is my actual paperwork for the different classification of the access

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I had while working at NSA, the National Security Agency, 36 years. So in the back of this, it lists all the different programs that I was briefed into.

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If I change any of those and then go to work for another agency and they find out that I changed my access to clearances, that would be serious.

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I've had this conversation with the elders of church and they say, that's serious. And I make that comparison to the New Testament.

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Oh, that's different. You bet it's different. You base your life on the words of Jesus Christ and you accept things that have been changed.

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Here's something that I will offer Dr. White tonight. This is a valid contract signed by Lee and Kathy Baker, and it is officially notarized by my attorney at the back.

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When he signs this, I will be responsible for his travel expenses every month up to $1 ,000 for a year, starting the beginning of next year.

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$1 ,000 a month. But what it says in there is that when I reprint it on the 1st of January, there may be textual changes.

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There may be marginal notes. So we'll have to wait for that version next.

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Understand the point? I believe both in my Mormon life and in the

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Christian life. Kathy and I were in the back of the bus. We look to the people in the front of the bus, the smart people like Dr.

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White. I give him credit for that. In fact, I'm amazed at what he knows. He's got the details, but maybe not the big picture.

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I think his skill set, both in Mormonism and in Christianity, is overrated and overeducated.

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What do I mean by that? He can sit and describe the details of the changes to the

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Bible, but what is the impact? If you take a class, if you come to a conference like this, if you take a debate like this, and he tells you exactly what was changed, when it was changed, by who, what date, by what monk, and it's printed next year, and it's printed next year, and printed next year, as a mistake, who wins?

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The monk who screwed up the scriptures wins. You can describe it all you want. This talent has only been around for about 150 years.

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That's it. That monk, when he changed, will be there for hundreds of years.

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So I applaud the effort, but what is the impact? I'm not ignorant in some things.

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I am ignorant in textual variations, changes to the Bible. But I am very suspicious of the stretch factor in Christianity, because I saw it in Mormonism.

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The stretch factor, what I'm supposed to stretch out of the scriptures, or out of what someone tells me, what

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I read. So we are not Jewish. We have been studying with the

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Hasidic Jews, with the Orthodox Jews, with the Reformed, and with the Orthodox Jews.

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And the conservative Jews. Learning, learning, learning. Read the Bible now, the Tanakh and the

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Torah, four times, cover to cover. 88 times, God says clearly, I am one.

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I am one. And in your mind already you put that little click in, but he didn't really mean that.

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Are you kidding me? That is Mormonism. John 3 .16,

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for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever would believe on him should not perish but have eternal life.

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Clear. Why is there no such statement like that by the same God in the

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Old Testament? Why are there shadows of things to come? Why are there this is like that?

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Think of that. 88 times God says, I am one. Could he have not said just once, and I will send my son?

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Why is there such a disconnect, at least in my mind, in my world, between the

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Old Testament and the New Testament? I'd like to learn. I'd like to study. And I promised my wife this, and I have family here to help me stay on track.

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I told my wife that I seriously would listen twice as hard as I debate.

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I would listen twice as hard as I would debate. Because I do want to honor God. I do want to know the truth.

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Tell me the truth. Teach it to me. I went through this drill with the Mormons. Picked out Mormon scriptures and said, how come this doesn't really apply to what you believe, what you say?

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The point is, I believe that the core message of the New Testament has been manipulated.

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Now, I have used the word deceptively too many times.

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Dr. White has pointed out deceptively. How do I know the motives, what they were? How could I? I don't know the motives.

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OK, then you substitute, everyone here, substitute the motive for changing the scriptures. Could it be good?

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You think someone who came along two, three hundred years after the authors of the New Testament added or subtracted or changed something, and their motive was good?

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Have that as one of your questions. The statement of faith in the church that I just left, one of the statements says,

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We teach that the word of God is objective, propositional revelation, verbally inspired, every word absolutely inerrant in the original document.

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Awesome. As Dr. White will tell you. Who has the original document? Who has ever seen the original document?

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How ludicrous that is to have that as a part of a church statement, to say that it was accurate in the original when no one has seen it, no one has it.

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Yet you raise your hand and you say, we believe the scriptures to be accurate in the original.

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Why do you add that phrase in the original when it does not exist? Now, you could guess what it used to be.

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You could put it together. But you don't know exactly what it is. That's part of that stretch factor.

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I would like to briefly highlight two of the most important six scriptures that I was asked to email to Dr.

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White three weeks ago. Daniel 9 and Isaiah 53. I have several friends who are intensely watching this video, leaning forward because they hang their life on these two.

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Daniel 9 and Isaiah 53. We'll go through details if possible. Daniel 9.

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Some people know. Okay. We'll get back to this.

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Daniel 9 is a revelation of when Jesus Christ was to be crucified. Right?

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Anybody heard that before? How come it was never used by any of the early church fathers? How come it wasn't in the

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New Testament? Imagine that. This is the point tonight. I'll give you several examples where the exact scripture that you now say is a definite prophecy of Jesus Christ.

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You figured out 100 years ago, 50 years ago. But the New Testament didn't know it. Well, good evening.

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It is great to be with you. And it is great to know that basically what my task this evening is, is to introduce you to basic textual criticism 101.

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So you can understand that when it comes to the text of the New Testament, what we have is the most broadly attested document of antiquity.

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That means we have the most number of manuscripts in the original language. Approximately 5 ,800 fragments of the

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New Testament in Koine Greek. We have the most number in translation. Whether that's the

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Old Latin, Syriac, Boheric, Sahidic, Coptic, whatever else it might be. And we also have the purest line of transmission with the earliest attestation.

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In fact, if you've seen my debate with Dr. Bart Ehrman, probably the best -known critic of the

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New Testament in the English -speaking world today, during the cross -examination, in response to one of my questions, he said, we have far earlier attestation for the

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New Testament than for any other work of antiquity. And, of course, he was exactly right in that statement.

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And so if we are going to be skeptics about the text of the New Testament, we need to be skeptics about everything in antiquity.

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We can't know what was written in any context if we cannot know what we have in the

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New Testament. Now, what we need to understand is if I took a few paragraphs of text, and I began with the front row, and I had each person copy what they have and give their copy to the next row and to the next row, and we may even be cheering each other on, let's be super accurate, let's be super accurate.

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By the time it got back to the back row, you would have differences in the handwritten copies of what was distributed, even in a room of this size.

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That is because all handwritten documents of antiquity demonstrate textual variation.

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Every single one. The Quran, anything else. The only way to avoid that is to chisel what you want to communicate in a rock.

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The problem is rocks are not overly portable and hence have a problem in communicating information over a large stretch of space or time.

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So we have textual variance. We've known that from the beginning. This is not something that is hidden from anyone who reads a basic introduction to the

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New Testament. And in fact, in almost all modern English translations, and the King James had many more of these notes when it was originally printed, you will find notations, either in the column or the bottom of the page, that will note when there are important variations.

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Now, it has been estimated that there are about 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 meaningful, viable variants in the

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New Testament. That means they do impact the meaning of the text and they might be original.

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About 1 ,500 to 2 ,000. Given that we have three million pages of handwritten text, 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 ain't half bad.

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In fact, it's really, really good. Now, the vast majority of variants, for example, at Romans 5 .1,

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there is a variant in the text between the indicative and the subjunctive form of the term echomen.

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All right. There is one letter difference. They were pronounced very, very similar to one another.

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We do not have to assume any kind of nefarious purposes on the part of any copyist to explain almost any textual variant in the

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New Testament at all. People like to come up with things like that. If you want to write books, if you want to come up with conspiracy theories, you can do that type of thing.

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But the reality is that I'm not aware of any variants in the New Testament that could not have simply arisen from fully understood mechanisms that do not require us to believe that early church writers were trying to change things.

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Dr. Ehrman has been big in trying to promote the idea of theological variants, but classical textual critical scholars have recognized and even

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Dr. Ehrman recognizes that the vast majority of scribes attempted to do their work as accurately as possible, and they did a tremendous job.

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I hold in my hand the Nessiolan 28th edition of the Greek New Testament. This is available for purchase.

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Well, not this particular one, but this is available for purchase for anyone. This is available online.

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It's available on your phone. It's available in Bible programs. We hide absolutely nothing.

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The bottom notes are all textual notes with massive amounts of information provided to the manuscripts, where they're held, when we think they were written.

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Most of them do not have dates on them. So we put it into a century or something along those lines. We do not hide the information in regards to any of the textual variants that exist in the

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New Testament. What we do do is seek to consistently apply a standard so that we can arrive at the earliest possible text given the large amount of information we have.

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Now, please recognize something. When it comes to the New Testament, we have fragments, for example, the Gospel of John that could be as early, written as early as 125

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A .D. Now, if John was written in the late 90s or even before 70, this is a less than 100 year difference between when the original was written and the first manuscript evidence we have.

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For any other work of antiquity, whether it's Pliny or Suetonius or Tacitus or whoever else it might be, the average time frame between when a book was written and when we have the first manuscript evidence is between five and 900 years.

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Between half and a full millennium between when it was written and when we have the first manuscripts for the

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New Testament, maybe somewhere between 50 and 100 years. That is why

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Dr. Ehrman said, obviously, we have far earlier attestation for the New Testament than for any other work.

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Now, let me, in light of our debate subject this evening, contrast this with the changes that were made in the text of the

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Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is not a work of antiquity in English. Even if you're a Mormon, you have to admit it didn't exist in English in antiquity.

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Obviously, I don't believe it existed in antiquity, period. I believe it is a modern production. There's much evidence of this.

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But the point is, the changes, even recently, when white and delightsome became pure and delightsome, that's not a textual variant.

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That is a text that is controlled by a particular central organization. So the

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Book of Mormon has what is called a controlled transmission. There is one central organization that controls its text.

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The Quran is also a book that was initially controlled in its transmission ever since what's called the

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Uthmanic recension, about 25 years after the time of Muhammad. And so in a controlled transmission, that's very different than what we have in the

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New Testament. You have to trust whoever controls it. Whoever controls it controls the text.

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The New Testament was never controlled. The New Testament was immediately distributed widely across the known world.

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It is something called a free transmission of the text, especially because the Christian church was under persecution.

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So there could never have been a control of what was in it, what it contained, or anything along the lines.

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Besides that, it was written by multiple authors at multiple times to multiple audiences. So it took different paths of transmission over time and over later began to be collected into single collections, such as P46, which is a collection of Paul's writings, the earliest manuscripts we have of Paul.

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P75, P66, early gospel manuscripts. I'm doing my third doctorate on P45 and CBGM.

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That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, very unusual manuscript. But that began happening later on as they began to become collected together.

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Initially, they were individual books. And so there is no control. So, for example, when you compare the 1833

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Book of Commandments to the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants and find over 400 words added or deleted from a single section, that is controlled transmission.

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That is not free transmission we have in the New Testament. There is no parallel between the two whatsoever.

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And so we do have two blocks of text, 12 verses.

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The two largest textual variants in the New Testament are the longer ending of Mark, which was mentioned earlier, and was called the

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Percopaea Adultery, the story of the woman taken in adultery, John 7 .53 through 8 .11. Twelve verses each.

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Now, any modern translation is going to have brackets or notes in regards to both of these texts.

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There is much earlier evidence for the longer ending of Mark than there is for the story of the woman taken in adultery.

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That first appears in Codex Vesey Cantabrigiensis, which is in the 5th century. And I call it the living

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Bible of the early church. It is more of a paraphrase than anything else. It is not reliable in almost anything.

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We are well aware of these texts. And the question becomes, well, why don't you tell people?

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I do all the time. Anybody who reads an introductory text of the New Testament knows this.

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When I preach, if I preach through John, I let people know. I talk about textual variations.

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So it is not like no one ever does that. I realize that is not popular, but it is not popular because you are trying to hide something.

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It is not popular because a lot of ministers who go through seminary aren't all that clear themselves on all the details.

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And so, as my church history professor said long ago, what is a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew.

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And so if the preacher isn't all that clear on it, he is not necessarily going to be bringing it up in his sermons.

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And so we must recognize that, for example, if you look at your Bible right now, if you can compare the

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King James with the ESV, you will see that the ESV in Gospel of John goes from John 5, verse 3, to John 5, verse 5.

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John 5, verse 4 isn't there. Now, remember, when we talk about the

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Bible, we are talking about as it was originally written, not as it was translated 1 ,600 years later.

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And so when we talk about adding things to the Bible or taking away things from the Bible, that is actually a misnomer.

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It is really not understanding that what we want to know is what the apostles originally wrote.

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That must be our greatest desire. So John 5, verse 4 talks, it's the healing of the man by the pool, and it's the explanation of the angel coming down and storing the waters.

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Now, who is responsible for the insertion of that verse in later manuscripts?

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My suggestion to you is this is called a marginal gloss. It is an explanation of why a bunch of people are laying around a pool in Jerusalem in the first place.

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And it would be written in the margin of a manuscript. And so when that manuscript is then copied by someone else, if you couldn't go back and ask the guy who originally copied it, hey, why is this in the margin?

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The tendency of scribes was to be conservative, which is a good thing. They tend to be conservative.

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They didn't want to lose anything. And so since it was written in the margin, the copyist inserted it directly into his text at a later point in time.

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He's not trying to be evil or deceptive or anything else. He's trying to conserve what he has.

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Now, why is this important? I submit to you that in the text and the notes of this volume,

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I have everything that the inspired apostles ever wrote. The original readings still exist.

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They have not been lost. What we have to do is work through the fact that, for example, it's very clear that later manuscripts, there is an expansion of the names.

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I call it the expansion of piety. So an earlier manuscript will have the Lord, and a later manuscript will have the

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Lord Jesus. Or if the earlier manuscript has the Lord Jesus, the later manuscript will have the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an expansion of the divine names out of respect and things like that, not deception or anything along those lines.

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If there's going to be an expansion, it's that kind of expansion. But the point is, all the original readings are there.

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And what we are blessed to have is the ability, in light of all of the manuscript evidence that we have, to be able to determine what those original readings are.

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And when we have particularly difficult variants, you let the reader know.

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You're straight up front, and you let the reader know. Now, if you want to say, well, I don't like having any variants at all.

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Well, that's what Bart Ehrman says. Bart Ehrman says if God inspired the scripture, he would have never allowed textual variants.

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What do you mean? So if a poor scribe is copying a manuscript he wants to have for his family, and it's tired, and his eyesight isn't all that good, and he's working by candlelight, and he hasn't had a lot to eat that year in the 900s because of famines, and he's about to make a mistake, what's

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God going to do? Strike him dead or something before he makes the mistake? Of course not. If we only had one manuscript, this would be an issue.

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But we don't just have one manuscript of any text of scripture. We have many manuscripts to compare with one another.

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And so when a scribe makes a mistake, he gets sleepy, in 1 John 3, 1, there is a beautiful phrase, and such we are.

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We are the children of God. It was an error that was made due to something called homoeoteluton, the ending of one word, clathoman, is the same as the ending of esmen.

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The guy's eye went from clathoman to esmen, and he skipped over chi -esmen, and so he accidentally deleted the statement, we are the children of God.

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Now if we only had one manuscript of 1 John, that's a problem. We have hundreds of them, and we can recognize the standard error that was made by a scribe.

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This is a great blessing. It is not any reason to abandon the message that comes from the early church that there was an empty tomb outside of Jerusalem, and Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

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If you're going to deny that, you're going to need a whole lot more than the evidence from the New Testament, which is the best preserved work of antiquity, bar none.

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Thank you very much. I could not have said it better myself.

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Exactly my point of being here, the professor, the doctor, made my point.

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He knows well the changes. He knows exactly what is or isn't in.

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I don't think everybody here knew that before you came. I didn't know that. I wasn't a stupid

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Christian. I thought that the gospel of Jesus Christ was somehow

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God -breathed. Ever hear that phrase? Is there a comma? But this and this and this was added.

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Dr. White ended on the ending of the book of Mark.

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Imagine this. Imagine this. The book of Mark ends without a description of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Right? Mary comes to the tomb. The tomb is empty. The stone has been rolled away.

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She runs away scared. Tells no one. Live with it, Christians.

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That's how it was originally written. So when Dr. White says we know what was originally written, then shame on all the pastors who don't teach it that way.

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Shame on the experts who don't explain that the words of Jesus Christ were added to that.

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Mary, don't touch me. How about the woman caught in adultery? In every single movie known to mankind of Christianity, I love that scene.

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Fake. Can I use that word? Fake. It's not in the original text.

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So he's absolutely right. The skill is there to know the difference between what was written and what is not.

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Do you understand the importance of that? You're sitting here in the year 2019 being explained what we know because of the number of transcripts we have.

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Because of the number of manuscripts we have. It's clear now. It's clear now. Wasn't clear to my grandfather. Wasn't clear to his father.

32:39

Wasn't clear to his grandfather. How many hundreds of thousands of Christians went on the word of God as it was printed then?

32:47

Just a hundred years ago. Much less 1900 years ago. So when you giggle, when he makes a joke about how we pass a series of notes back and back and back.

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It may be funny. It may be cute. May have a little ring to it. But think of all the others who have come before you who did not have that skill.

33:09

That's why I stand here. Is because I say shame on the pastors. Shame on the

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Bible study teachers who know this. But don't teach it. And a lot of people do teach it.

33:22

But what I'm asking is why does the authority of the person who screwed it up outweigh his authority?

33:31

I would buy a Bible if he edited it. And William Lane Craig who

33:38

I met and talked about Mormonism too. If he edited it. If N .T. Wright edited it. If C .S.

33:43

Lewis gave it a shot. Why is it that we are just satisfied with the ability to describe the problem, not fix the problem?

33:53

Where else in your life do you accept that? Where else in your life?

33:59

You obviously didn't like that answer. Why? Where else in your life? If there's an error found in aviation.

34:06

Do they keep that and say we're going to teach this just among ourselves? How about the medical field? How about the financial field?

34:12

How about what I did for 36 years? A counter -terrorism instructor. I learned something about the bad guys.

34:20

About the terrorists. We published it everywhere. You get it on your home computer in the

34:26

State Department. We don't have little classes where I teach when I can. Big deal. 200 people.

34:31

300 people. 400 people see this. Do you understand the power of the printing of those mistakes over and over and over in the

34:40

Bible? Yet we have a collection of people that say, but we know which one's wrong. I say shame on them.

34:48

An hour and a half before I came here, I took a look at the Amazon Prime.

34:55

Man, oh man. And the search was for books on textual criticism. Textual criticism, the

35:03

New Testament. 288 books. Textual criticism throughout the Bible. 448. The history of the

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Bible and textual criticism. 244. Total results for history of the

35:16

Bible translations. 2 ,000. So that's a collection of over 3 ,000 books that describe what we're talking about tonight.

35:24

You're absolutely right. If you've got the time and the energy and the ability, you can find all the mistakes. But the kids that I left the

35:31

Bible with in Africa, when they read the ending of Mark, there is no footnote because it costs more money for those

35:38

Bibles. I'm telling you, the little extra effort that is being described, it's out there if you can find it.

35:44

Sure. No problem. How about this? N .T. Wright. No slouch. N .T.

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Wright said, quote, the resurrection of Jesus Christ took everyone by surprise. The disciples were not expecting it.

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They knew perfectly well that if you were following someone who you thought was the Messiah and he got killed, that was it.

36:02

He's not the guy. We know at least a dozen other messianic or prophetic movements within 100 years of either side of Jesus Christ where they routinely ended with the death of the founder.

36:15

So I'm supposed to believe that the Jews just missed the fact that the

36:20

Messiah was supposed to die when N .T. Wright says, rightly so, that none of the apostles knew he was going to die.

36:28

They took that information that they witnessed, took them by surprise. Right. So it's not light.

36:34

It's not easy. It's not funny that the Jews or anybody else missed the fact that the

36:40

Messiah was supposed to die. And you know why the Jews missed it and why the apostles missed it? Because it's not in the

36:46

Old Testament. The fact that the Messiah was supposed to die is not there. The fact that he was supposed to be born of a virgin is not there.

36:54

The fact that he was supposed to die for your sin is not there. Yeah. Scan your brain now and see if you can get it.

37:02

How about John 8, 1 through 11? Now, this is what

37:08

Dr. Wright mentioned. This is P66, P75. I have no idea what that is. It's awesome that he gives these things names.

37:15

In his industry, they have titles. They know it so well, they give it names. I'm sure that stands for papyrus or something.

37:21

P66 and P75. What does that mean? Do you know, ma 'am? P66? Anybody here?

37:29

What is it? And when was it written? End of statement.

37:34

That's the point. The point is that was completely made up.

37:41

This is the woman caught in adultery. Completely made up. Did you know that? And it even says it in the

37:46

Bible. You don't think it was made up? No, it wasn't made up. It was breathed by the word of God, right?

37:53

It was protected by the Holy Spirit. There you go. That's why this is awesome to be here. It's because if there's 200 of you, there's 260 different views.

38:02

That's why Christianity is the most variegated religion on the planet. That means different.

38:11

So, what point do we recognize that a percentage of Scripture is not original?

38:19

Hosea chapter 11, verse 1. Matthew makes a comparison in chapter 2, verse 13 to 15.

38:25

My son I call out of Egypt. Do you people know that? I'm not going to read the whole thing. In context, what does that mean?

38:32

Is that Jesus and Mary and Joseph went to Egypt and then he called them back out, right? Is that the point? I see some heads nodding.

38:38

Wrong. It's talking about the exodus of Egypt. It's taken completely out of context.

38:45

That is intentional. That's not a mistake. John chapter 5, verse 7 to 8. For there are three that bear witness in heaven.

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The Father, the Word, the Holy Ghost. These three are one. These three bear witness on earth in spirit and the water and the blood.

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And these three are one. That is the strongest reflection of the Trinity in the

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New Testament. It was invented. It's not invented or it's not the strongest.

39:13

Okay, let's go with a possible expert. William Lane Craig. I spent 15 minutes with him.

39:18

There are people in here and there are people at my home church who say we don't believe William Lane Craig. No. Number one guy.

39:24

He'd fill this three times. But nobody believes him. He said if we examine the Trinity through the lens of the

39:30

Old Testament alone, it is unbelievable. William Lane Craig said if we view the

39:39

Trinity through the lens of the Old Testament alone, it is unbelievable. Why is that?

39:45

Because he knows it's not there. There are shadows and foreshadowings back and forth. But why couldn't

39:51

God just say the plan of salvation? That's why the Mormon didn't work well.

39:56

It's exactly the same in Christianity. It's a foreshadowing. Are you telling me that God, like I mentioned, 88 times says

40:02

I am one, but there's really three? You follow me. I mean my son is coming.

40:08

But he didn't say that. There's a foreshadowing all over the place. But why couldn't he just leave the message for the

40:14

Jews? This is called replacement theology, where some Christians believe that God has turned from the

40:21

Jews because of their unrighteousness and turned to the church. Nobody's looking at you right now. Show of hands. Who believes here in replacement theology that God has turned from the

40:32

Jews and given the authority and the salvation? Thank you.

40:39

To the Christians. No one? You're not being honest with me here. Okay, here's some of the problems.

40:55

We were supposed to discuss six texts, and I would have time then to provide a meaningful response.

41:01

None of them except one was brought up in the opening. And so I had to deal with that. The last period was supposed to be rebuttal of what

41:09

I said. There was no rebuttal of anything that I said. It was actually just an agreement with it. So now we just had a second presentation, and I only have a small amount of time to try to respond to the second presentation.

41:18

That's not how this is supposed to work. But let me get to it as best that I can.

41:24

It was said in the opening scriptures being added to the Bible. Again, what we want to know is what the apostles originally wrote.

41:32

A scribe who includes a marginal note is not trying to add to scripture, and we can recognize when it happens because of the manuscript tradition, and we provide the notes.

41:44

This has been known since the early church. If you know church history, you know this has been discussed by the early church from the beginning.

41:51

No denomination can honor the word of God if the standard transmission preservation is so low. It is the best preserved and transmitted work of antiquity.

42:00

It is said, well, don't you believe it's God -breathed? I stand before you as a person who has spent years studying the text of variance in New Testament, and I stand before you and say, all scripture is theanoustos.

42:12

It is God -breathed. There is no contradiction between believing that and recognizing the reality of textual criticism.

42:19

Nobody in the early church believed it. Nobody today needs to believe it either. There is no contradiction between the two.

42:25

The contradiction exists only in the mind that does not understand what the Bible was, has embraced an improper idea of what they think the

42:33

Bible should be, and will not then adapt their ideas to the reality of what history shows that scripture actually was.

42:42

In talking about the longer ending of Mark, we had the phrase, the clowns that changed it. The reality is that the ending of the

42:49

Gospel of Mark at verse 8, which is where I do believe that it ended, there are many people who would disagree with this.

42:55

Mark was probably the first one written. We don't know the order in which the Gospels were written. But in all probability, it ended where it did.

43:03

There were prophecies of the resurrection. The tomb has already been discovered. But it probably ended where it was so that the eyewitnesses who had that Gospel of Mark could give their own testimony of their own encountering of Jesus.

43:18

Matthew and Luke and John provide much further detail. But Mark is the shortest.

43:23

He has a specific purpose he's trying to get to. The point, again, is I want to know what Mark wrote and not the fact that there are multiple endings in the manuscripts to the

43:34

Gospel of Mark because people were concerned. It ends too suddenly. So let's have some of this over here, some of that over there.

43:42

And they put that together. They were not trying to change something. There wasn't some group that decided, you know what,

43:49

Mark just didn't do a good job here. Let's add to it. That is not what was going on. There is no a bunch of robed monks in a room someplace going.

43:59

Well, let's make some changes. They're nefarious. So on and so forth. It is said that the core message of New Testament has been altered.

44:04

How we have not been given a single example of this. I challenge Dr. Ehrman, the best

44:09

English speaking critic of the New Testament. Show me where the message New Testament is altered. He couldn't. And I don't believe

44:15

Mr. Baker can either. There is not a single text. He can point me to that. We do not have clarity on somewhere else in the

44:22

New Testament on any doctrinal issue at all. It has not been altered. And I would challenge Mr.

44:27

Baker, you show us how the message of the New Testament has been altered by any textual variant that you are referring to this evening.

44:35

He said it's ludicrous of us to refer to the originals. If you have read the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, it specifically refers to exactly what was quoted by the by the evidently in the statement of faith of the church to which he's making reference in regards to the fact that you can believe and should believe and should recognize the inspiration of the original.

44:57

Even in light of the transmission process down through history, they are not contradictory things.

45:03

They just require you to do some study to grow in your understanding and knowledge of your own faith.

45:11

You know, back in the 1600s to be a minister in in England, you had to not only be able to read

45:17

Greek by your third year in undergraduate study, you had to be able to debate in Greek.

45:23

We're wimps today. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. And what I'm hearing is we need to throw out the

45:30

New Testament because I didn't do my homework. That's not enough. That is not a reason for rejecting what

45:37

God has provided to us in the scriptures in any way, shape or form to say it's ludicrous to believe in the originals.

45:44

Yes. Was it clear to my grandfather? Yes, it was. It was clear all the way back to it said, well, we've only known this stuff like 100 years.

45:53

That's not true. The early church writers talked about this. Jerome talked about this. Origin talked about this.

45:58

Augustine talked about this. Erasmus, Beza, Stephanus. It's all there.

46:05

If you have something more than just Google that you're looking up, it's all there. If you know history, this is something that's been known to every generation.

46:14

It's not just something new we came up with. Now, our generation has earlier manuscripts than any other generation has ever had, because starting the 1930s, we started finding the papyri.

46:22

Because the Brits had stolen everything from Egypt. When they were in charge there, they stole all their stuff, and someone started working through all of it.

46:29

And, whoa, look at this. We've got fragments. We've got P66, P75. By the way, P66 from year 200, by the way, if you want to know.

46:38

And we find all these things. And so our knowledge has increased at the very same time that we have the greatest skeptical attacks upon the

46:46

New Testament. Isn't it neat? God provides us with all this information that refutes those allegations.

46:52

We were told, shame on the people who don't teach this. No, shame on the people that do not do their homework to find out about it and then turn on the faith as a result of that.

47:02

I have taught this for decades. You can go on YouTube and find me teaching this stuff for decades.

47:08

And I am not the only one. People like Dan Wallace has given his life to this. He's the head for the

47:13

Center of the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. He is going around the world digitizing all the ancient manuscripts he can possibly find so they're available to everybody.

47:22

Don't tell me shame on them. Shame on the person that doesn't do the necessary homework to come to sound conclusions.

47:29

That's what I say. N .T. Wright on the Resurrection. Did you read the rest of the book?

47:35

Because if you read it, even N .T. Wright, who I have debated on the subject of justification, he is a brilliant man.

47:42

But if you read his work on resurrection, he comes to the conclusion of what? Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

47:48

That was his conclusion. So read the whole book. Then we're told, well, nobody in the

47:55

Old Testament expected any of these things. Folks, let me give you something that I've used many, many times.

48:01

Let me show you. Hand me a Bible. Somebody's got a full

48:06

Bible, full text. Because all I've got is the Greek New Testament. Thank you very, very much. All right, let me show you where the doctrine of the

48:14

Trinity is revealed. I've just turned to the beginning of Matthew, the end of Malachi.

48:21

See the gutter right here? There's where it's revealed. What do I mean by that? The primary revelation of the doctrine of the

48:29

Trinity is found in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which took place in history right there.

48:37

Everything after it is written in light of what happened historically in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the

48:47

Holy Spirit and therefore is written by experiential

48:52

Trinitarians. Peter was a Trinitarian. He had heard the Father speak from heaven. He had walked with the

48:57

Son. He was now indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. And so why should you have the Old Testament talking about the

49:03

Trinity when the revelation had yet to take place? Oh, there are texts that specifically give us images,

49:11

Isaiah 9, verse 6, and many others, that give us images of what's coming. But the revelation had not yet taken place.

49:19

It took place in history. Finally, in the last few moments that I have, I would like to point out that when you look at prophecy, especially

49:29

Messianic prophecy, you must recognize Jesus, upon his resurrection, opened the minds of his disciples to understand the testimony that had been given to him from Moses through all of the prophets.

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And so what we have, especially in the book of Acts, is an example of what Jesus taught them in the period of time after his resurrection.

49:51

And what we see in that teaching is the fact that you have fragmentary references in the

49:58

Psalms, in Isaiah, in the prophets, that have immediate fulfillments, as Isaiah 7, verse 14, had an immediate fulfillment historically.

50:07

But that wasn't enough. That doesn't complete the message of the

50:13

Old Testament, which is why the intertestamental Jews were looking for the Messiah.

50:18

They knew that there was something more yet to come. The story was not completed. And so, yes,

50:24

Isaiah 7, verse 14 had a fulfillment at that time in regards to the kings that were coming against Israel. That does not mean that it does not have a greater fulfillment yet to come in the light of the fullness of the revelation of Scripture, which comes to us specifically in the person of Jesus Christ himself.

50:42

Thank you very much. Dr. White, what I'd like to ask, and then we'll go back, this is where I assumed the

50:51

Scriptures would be debated, so it isn't like I skated out on the opportunity to talk about what you said.

50:57

I'd have to stand on my head to dismiss Isaiah, chapter 53.

51:04

And again, these notes will be available. My question here is, as most

51:09

Christians believe, that Isaiah 53 is specifically teaching about the suffering servant who is

51:16

Jesus Christ. Now, out of the 66 chapters of Isaiah, I believe that if you start in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53,

51:26

Isaiah would have imagined that you would have read the chapters previous to that. That's a fair assumption.

51:33

Isaiah, the four servant songs, as broken up by Isaiah, start in 42, 49, 50, and 52.

51:42

And those divisions are the songs of the suffering servant. Now, prior to that, if we look at Isaiah 53 only, then

51:53

I think that could apply to Jesus Christ. But it's amazing that it isn't referenced by the

52:00

New Testament authors. It's like Daniel, chapter 9. People stand here and they think, look at the 70 weeks.

52:08

It predicts exactly when Jesus Christ is going to be crucified. But none of the apostles wrote that down.

52:14

So here's the point. Here's the question. Why is there no good, solid

52:21

Christian statement like John 3, 16 anywhere in Isaiah? The perfect place for it to be would be

52:27

Isaiah 43, 10. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, singular.

52:34

Witnesses, plural. Servant, singular. So the point of this question, Isaiah 53, most people, most

52:42

Christians, even I believed that if you take 53 by itself, it's one person, one person. He, he will suffer.

52:48

He will pay. Yet before that, through the entire book of Isaiah, which may be important, it is the nation of Israel.

52:58

God says, you are my witnesses and my servant, who I am chosen. And I want you to believe me and understand that I am he.

53:07

And here's another one of those 88 statements. We're up to two and a half minutes. Before me, there was no

53:14

God formed. Neither shall there be after me. So multiple witnesses, one person.

53:21

And he states again that there is only one God. In Isaiah 41, 8 to 9, it says, you are

53:27

Israel, my servant. Later, 44, you are my servant, Israel. Plurals. This, okay.

53:35

I'm assuming that, you know, the many, many times that Isaiah references the servant as plural.

53:43

Could you explain to me why in 40, I mean, in 53, we switched from the plural to the singular.

53:51

Okay. Um, took over three minutes. Uh, so I, hopefully we'll have another three minutes.

53:57

Let's just, uh, let's just try better to, to get, to get through to the questions. Um, yes,

54:02

I have read the rest of Isaiah and yes, Isaiah would expect others to do that. And in so doing, they would not only discover, uh, repeated references beginning in Isaiah chapter six, all the way through Isaiah chapter 11, that find their fulfillment in Jesus and that new

54:16

Testament writers apply to Jesus. For example, Peter applies a text from Isaiah 11, uh, and identifies

54:23

Jesus as Jehovah God and human flesh. You have Isaiah 70, Isaiah nine, six, the

54:28

Aviad, the father of eternity, the, uh, the El Gabor, the mighty God. So yes, there are all sorts of these references found in Isaiah, but the reason

54:36

Isaiah 53 has to be taken the way that is taken. And I wouldn't even go outside of Isaiah to Psalm 22,

54:42

Psalm two and all the rest of the passages that specifically have messianic fulfillment. But in Isaiah chapter 53 itself, you have a specific fulfillment that in regards to, for example, they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man and his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

54:59

How is this fulfilled in the people of Israel? There is no fulfillment in the people of Israel at this point.

55:04

And that is why even intertestamental Jewish writings recognize there was something special about Isaiah chapter 53 and about the application that it was that it had.

55:15

You can say, well, it was the will of Yahweh to crush him to put him to grief. And yes, you know the suffering of the people of Israel, but when he makes an offering his soul and offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

55:27

He shall prolong his days and the will of Yahweh will prosper in his hands. He will justify the many by what he does.

55:34

Once again, when we look at prophetic text, we especially cannot avoid seeing them in the light of what took place in history.

55:43

And what takes place in history is you find one man, excuse me.

55:50

I'll defer to him to move along to something. If you want to interrupt me, go ahead. Oh, we're going to call time.

55:56

If you want to move on. I mean, it's, it's back and forth. It was a long question. So I gave him to answer.

56:02

I know. And we just matched it, but you can, you can, um, we were supposed to discuss Isaiah 53 during the formal part of the debate.

56:10

So that's the best I can do if, if we're going to limit it to that section. So please move along. No, keep going. Okay. Daniel chapter nine.

56:17

So I would like to make a point on Isaiah 53 for those who don't know, for those who don't know, is this a question?

56:24

Yes, this is a question. It will need to be a question that I can answer. Do you believe that this audience knows that Isaiah 41 references

56:33

Israel as my servant, servant, Israel in 44, 45, 48, 49,

56:39

Psalm 36, Israel. I'm sure there are many people who do, many people who don't, it's irrelevant to the topic of the debate.

56:45

No, I just want to point out that, you know, a lot more than they do. And I see absolutely positively no relevance whatsoever in that assertion.

56:54

Okay. I apologize. Then let's go to Daniel chapter nine. Do you believe that Daniel chapter nine is a, this was on the list is a messianic scripture relative to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

57:06

Daniel chapter nine specifically refers to Daniel's prayer to Yahweh in regards to Jeremiah's prophecy.

57:15

And then revelation is given by angelic mediation toward the end of the chapter that specifically gives the 70 weeks.

57:24

There are many very hard difficulties in understanding exactly when to begin with the revelation in regards to what is said in there it is.

57:40

Verse 25, know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a

57:49

Mashiach, not Hamashiach, but an anointed one, a Prince there shall be seven weeks and then 62 weeks.

57:56

Why is there a division of the last week? This is a very complicated text. There's no question about it.

58:02

Do you personally believe that it is a messianic prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? It is a messianic prophecy that a

58:10

Messiah will come and we'll make an end of sin before the destruction of a rebuilt temple as to the specific dating.

58:20

I don't, I couldn't prove that. Do you believe that that was fulfilled by Jesus Christ? Yes. Could you tell me why his apostles or none of the early church fathers wrote that in the

58:29

New Testament? Well, when you say early church fathers, um, I would, I would question exactly what sources you're utilizing for that.

58:36

Justin and Irenaeus said it was the Antichrist. Jerome criticized Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian for the miscalculations they did over the 70 years and said it could not have been

58:45

Jesus Christ. Eusebius. Okay. And you've, you've read these sources. Yes, sir. And I'll give you copies of these as well.

58:52

If you think any of these are wrong, Eusebius and Jerome supported Julius Africanus in 323 that Jesus would return 500, the year 500.

59:03

There's been a lot of speculation about eschatology, sir. Did you want me to finish answering the question? Yes, please do. Tell me why the apostles did not write this.

59:11

Okay. Again, you're assuming that there needs to be an exhaustive accounting in the

59:17

New Testament. No, sir. Okay. You can say no, sir, if you want. I will assert to the audience that the only logical way to understand a question that asks why

59:27

New Testament apostles did not write something is that they are under some sort of a compulsion to write something.

59:33

My comparison is, is that modern Christians believe this is clear. Messianic prophecy handed on a silver platter.

59:41

And I'm just wondering why the apostles. I sort of wonder how many Christians actually do know that, but I'm not going to appeal to an audience in that, in that process.

59:48

Okay. I just said that it is a, I listened to a presentation from someone who does make that application and it took a minimum of 50 minutes just to lay it out.

59:59

So that's not a silver platter type of concept. The church, it's not simplistic. Okay. All I'm saying is that you're debating me and not the church you came from, right?

01:00:09

Don't hold me accountable for whatever you've been told by somebody else. No. You've asked me, do you believe that that was a messianic prophecy of Jesus Christ?

01:00:18

I already said that I believe is a messianic prophecy in that it deals with the, there must be a rebuilt temple.

01:00:24

It deals with its destruction and it deals with the getting rid of sin and trespass.

01:00:31

Okay. How did that happen? Is my question for anyone prior to the structure of the temple in 8070, what might've happened like the crucifixion and resurrection?

01:00:40

Okay. John eight one to 11. It's actually seven 53 three to 11.

01:00:46

Okay. The woman caught in adultery. Yes. The addition of the actual words of Jesus Christ.

01:00:52

Do you feel that's accurate addition to what? To the original Bible? No, of course not. As I've, as I've pointed out, this, this is a particular text of scripture that is found in three places in John and two places in Luke.

01:01:04

That means it is plainly a pericope. That's why it's called the pericope adultery. It is a very popular story of Jesus.

01:01:10

Some people leave, believe it has dominical origin. That is, it came from the Lord. It cannot be proven. The earliest manuscript that it appears in is

01:01:18

Codex Vesey Cantabrigiensis, which is from the fifth century. Do you believe it's accurate? When you say accurate, if you mean, do

01:01:24

I believe that John wrote it? Of course not. I used to believe he did. I'm sorry.

01:01:30

Okay. Giggle on because most of you did too. Okay. Hosea 11 chapter, chapter 11 verse one is parallel with Matthew two 13 to 15.

01:01:41

The implication here is that Hosea is describing Mary and Joseph and Jesus return out of Egypt.

01:01:48

Matthew makes the claim that Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt and there was recalled by the angel out of Egypt that I call my son.

01:01:56

Do you believe that could be an accurate? In light of what I just explained in my, in my last section, almost every messianic prophecy that you have that is drawn either from the prophets or from the

01:02:10

Psalter involves a dual fulfillment. So for example, in Psalm 22, David experiences some of the things.

01:02:18

And I'm giving you the example and I'm giving you the background to make it understandable to everybody else.

01:02:23

And therefore these prophecies have dual fulfillments. Isaiah seven Hosea 11 one that is there was an original fulfillment in Hosea 11 one.

01:02:33

It is plainly the Exodus, but there is a, Jesus is the fulfillment of the

01:02:38

Jewish people. There is a greater fulfillment in the incarnate one himself, Jesus Christ. So if you want to just limit the old

01:02:45

Testament to just simply a flat can't speak to anything in the future, there can't be any connection between texts.

01:02:51

If that's what you want to limit it to great, the apostles didn't do that. I don't want to do it either. And neither do I. My point

01:02:57

Dr. White is that it appears in my limited knowledge that it looks like that was completely ripped out of context.

01:03:04

The context is God calling his people out of Egypt. Unless you're, you're assuming something.

01:03:10

You're assuming that Matthew is saying that its original context was messianic rather than its greater fulfillment was messianic.

01:03:17

Matthew knows what the original context was. He's not stupid. So you think that it wasn't pulled out of context again?

01:03:24

I'm not sure why you're not hearing me, but you have initial fulfillment and then you have the greater fulfillment.

01:03:30

So the initial fulfillment in the historical context of the Exodus, the greater fulfillment is in the perfect Jew, Jesus Christ.

01:03:36

Then you just don't accept the idea that there can be a greater fulfillment or that it's even the purpose.

01:03:41

No, no, no. As Jesus taught the disciples. No, I find this comparably absurd that something clear, like 88 times,

01:03:48

God says, I am one. I share my glory with no one. There is no one like me. There was no one else up here, boys and girls.

01:03:56

It's one God. And at the same time, you don't get that. But when

01:04:01

God doesn't get that, you don't get that. I believe that firmly. I've defended it in debate over and over again. And obviously, sir, you don't understand the doctrines of Trinity from the very start.

01:04:10

Okay. The doctrines of Trinity, sir, that I have defended in mosques around the world begins with the fact there is one true

01:04:17

God, Isaiah 43, 10. Interestingly enough, nobody says before me, there was no God form. There should be none after me.

01:04:23

But what you need to recognize is the beginning of the verse. Jesus quoted of himself on the night of his betrayal, identifying himself as Yahweh God.

01:04:33

So then why would William Lane Craig say, let's roll her eyes at William Lane Craig.

01:04:40

Why would he say that if you look at the old Testament alone and you're absolutely right, that is my point.

01:04:45

Dr. William is I'm looking at the old Testament alone because I believe the new test. Did you, did you hear what I said?

01:04:51

Did you hear when I got up here and I, and I held Jeff's Bible up. If the revelation of the doctrines of Trinity is found in the incarnation of the sun and the outpouring of the

01:04:59

Holy spirit, when did that happen in that blank period? So it happens after the last words of the

01:05:05

Tanakh are written. Are you hearing me? That's the point. God himself did not describe that. He didn't set the table for the

01:05:11

Jews to say, there are three of us up here. And then we laugh at the Jews and say they missed it.

01:05:18

Three of us up here. I just pointed out that Jesus identified himself as Yahweh. How many

01:05:23

Yahweh's are there? Okay. How many Yahweh's are there in Genesis? When Yahweh rains fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh in heaven, it's the

01:05:32

Yahweh on earth from Yahweh in heaven. How does that get fulfillment in a Unitarian system?

01:05:37

Do you believe in the Trinity? Yeah. Yeah. I've written a book called the forgotten

01:05:42

Trinity. I believe in the Trinity. So when God says, how, how would God do it better?

01:05:48

How would God, the father do it better for the Jews in the old Testament?

01:05:54

If he wanted to tell them the whole story of salvation and his creation, how would he say it better?

01:06:00

If there was only one God, how would he say it better? I have no idea what you're talking about.

01:06:06

Okay. All right. Because I think he said it just fine. Yeah. There's one God and I share my glory with no one.

01:06:12

Which Paul quoted of Jesus. He says, I am your savior and your redeemer. And there is none other.

01:06:18

That's why it's applied to Jesus as the incarnate one. That's exactly right. I believe it fully. Yes. Got it.

01:06:24

Isaiah four, seven, 14. Yes. Matthew one, two, the relative to a virgin shall conceive.

01:06:30

Yes, indeed. Again, historical fulfillment at that specific time. Kings coming against Israel.

01:06:36

The king will, is, is the prophet says, ask of Yahweh, he'll give you a sign. I won't do it. So Yahweh will give you a sign.

01:06:43

And Alma will become pregnant. And before that child knows to do right and wrong, to eat

01:06:50

Kurds, so on and so forth. These Kings will no longer be a bother for you. Has a historical fulfillment in history.

01:06:55

And it has a much greater fulfillment. When you recognize that the Greek translation of Alma in the

01:07:02

Greek septuagint is Parthenos, which is a very specific term that refers to virgin. And this then is, is recognized as the means by which the sinless son of God can come into human existence without the stain of original sin.

01:07:17

You have the historical fulfillment and the greater fulfillment in the perfect Jew, Jesus Christ.

01:07:22

If you simply allow the old Testament to be something more than just a book of history, then it's very plain.

01:07:27

Absolutely true. And what he said was absolutely true about the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Here's the

01:07:33

Hebrew. And Dr. White knows perfectly well. The word Alma is used as a, for a young woman.

01:07:40

They have a separate word for virgin. Bethulah. Yes. But an Alma can be a

01:07:46

Bethulah. It is not. Not in Hebrew. Yes, it can. Okay. So every Alma was a fornicator before marriage?

01:07:54

Okay. You are wrong, sir. You are assuming that Alma automatically means a married woman rather than just a young woman.

01:08:02

You're mixing categories here. Let's go to Proverbs. And no Hebrew writer is going to back you up on this.

01:08:07

I think the Hebrew scriptures were because in Proverbs 30, 19 to 20, it talks about the woman that is caught in adultery and she leaves no trail like a snake.

01:08:21

You know that scripture? Go on. And what word is used there? What is? Alma. So what is your point?

01:08:28

That if she was going to be a virgin, it would be Bethulah. That is a technical term, and Alma can be a woman who has or has not had sexual intercourse.

01:08:40

You are demanding a different meaning. You are limiting the lexical meaning in a way that Brown, Driver, and Briggs, I ask you right now, you show me a lexical source,

01:08:49

Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Kohler, Baumgartner, any of the current Hebrew texts, that would say that Alma cannot refer to a woman who happens to be a virgin.

01:08:59

Because Alma is used in Proverbs 30, 19, and she's caught in adultery.

01:09:05

Do you think you would use the word virgin there? That's the point, sir. Why can't you hear what is being said to you?

01:09:12

Alma can be either one. You found one use, but you are demanding that that means it could never refer to a chaste young woman.

01:09:22

Show me anything in Kohler, Baumgartner that says that. I owe you that. I will do that. Absolutely.

01:09:27

But the point is that the Hebrew used that word specifically as a virgin.

01:09:33

Which we all know. Yes. Okay. Forget it. Isaiah 7, 14. We just did that. Okay.

01:09:39

It's in Proverbs. Can you go to Proverbs 30, 18, and 20? Since I'm not even disputing that Alma can refer to someone who has had sexual intercourse,

01:09:48

I'm simply saying it can refer to either one and that the Septuagint interpretation is correct. That was one of the lists of scriptures that we were going to debate.

01:09:56

So you're relying on the Septuagint. Would you give these people a quick history on the Septuagint? Why are you quoting the

01:10:02

Greek instead of the Hebrew? Because in the New Testament, the apostles quote from the Greek Septuagint 95 to 98 % of the time.

01:10:10

It was the Bible of the early church. And in a number of readings, it actually contains readings that are not found in the

01:10:18

Masoretic text, but go all the way back to very, very, very early sources. There were multiple textual traditions that existed in Jesus' day, not only in what becomes the

01:10:27

Masoretic text, but you also have in other foreign language translations. And the Greek Septuagint is an extremely important element of our study and our knowledge of what the

01:10:36

Tanakh looked like in the days of Jesus. So would you personally believe that when the Spirit of God was leaning over the shoulder of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, that if they misread or misunderstood something, that He would be quoting to them in Greek?

01:10:53

Can I answer that? If you're going to write in Greek to Greek -speaking people, it's probably best to quote the

01:11:00

Old Testament from the language they understand. Yes, considering it was written in Hebrew. We now have 20 minutes of cross -examination from Dr.

01:11:08

White. Okay, you have alleged that there is a contradiction between believing that Scripture is

01:11:19

God -breathed and recognizing that it was transmitted by handwritten manuscripts.

01:11:26

Can you please demonstrate what that contradiction actually involves? Okay. To answer that,

01:11:32

I would ask you if you're familiar with a publication called Bulletin for Biblical Research.

01:11:38

I'd have to have a reference. Okay. They just published an article on current trends in Old Testament textual criticism.

01:11:48

I'll give you this copy now. Sorry, I'm asking you a different question. I'm asking you to explain why you believe that there is a contradiction between believing that Scripture is

01:11:58

God -breathed and recognizing the existence of textual variance. And that answer is in here.

01:12:03

And the answer is that those who transmitted and copied and wrote the

01:12:09

New Testament were not professionals. There is no comparison between the accuracy of the

01:12:16

Old Testament and the New Testament. None whatsoever. This is a professional publication that says that the limit of the errors is phenomenal in the

01:12:28

Old Testament and due primarily to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like the Isaiah Scroll is nearly perfect when there's so many different variants.

01:12:35

In other words, your skill in textual variance, there's not a group of Jews that do what you do.

01:12:41

Because there is one Tanakh, there is one Torah. In Egypt, in Israel, in Paris, in Denver, there is one

01:12:50

Tanakh. One Torah. There are many, many different versions. You corrected me once on error.

01:12:58

I said that there were 66. And you said, oh, there's many more different copies of the New Testament than that. What I'm pointing out is that those who...

01:13:05

This article says from the professionals that there is absolutely no comparison of the errors in the

01:13:11

Old Testament in comparison to the errors in the New Testament. In what way? I do not understand what any of this has to do with Scripture being

01:13:19

God -breathed. I'm asking a specific category issue. There is no existence in the

01:13:25

Torah of stories like the woman caught in adultery snapping in and out of existence.

01:13:31

Is that clear? In the Old Testament, there is no history of things like that, like the ending of Mark, like the woman caught in adultery, where the

01:13:41

Torah will say, hey, in the year 1644, we didn't have that, but we have it now. So let me ask you a question.

01:13:47

The version of Jeremiah that we have today in the Masoretic text...

01:13:53

Is longer. By about how much? I'm not sure. About a third.

01:13:58

Okay. That's far more than all of the pre -competed adultery and the longer ending of Mark put together and multiplied by 10.

01:14:06

Okay. So did you just speak truthfully when you said what you just said? On the

01:14:11

Torah, it is true. Only the Torah, but the rest of the Tanakh is different.

01:14:17

The key here is, relating back to your story of the Septuagint, is most people may not understand that the

01:14:24

Septuagint was originally translated from Hebrew to Greek, only the Torah. Only the first five books...

01:14:31

It's a theory. Only the first five books. And then Origen and the rest helped...

01:14:38

they kept the name Septuagint. They kept the name Septuagint. Are you saying that Isaiah had not been translated into Greek by the time of Jesus?

01:14:49

No, absolutely. Well, Origen's 200 years after Jesus. You're great at answering a question that was never asked.

01:14:56

I said the first five books of Moses, the Torah, was done by Ptolemy II in 250

01:15:02

BC, and then it was lost. But the name Septuagint, there's no original copy of that.

01:15:08

You just winced a little bit there. We don't have originals of anything from that. It doesn't mean it was lost. If it's in the manuscript tradition, it's not lost.

01:15:14

But it wasn't done by the Jews, is my point. We don't know who did it. We know that Jerome did.

01:15:20

We know that Jerome helped. No, I'm sorry. Jerome had nothing to do with the production of the

01:15:26

Septuagint. You are totally confused. On the Septuagint. Yes. The Septuagint was written 600 years before Jerome.

01:15:34

So you're saying that the entire Old Testament was copied in Alexandria, Egypt, 250

01:15:39

BC. We don't know where it was. Then when? Tell me when. The Septuagint was in full existence and available to the entirety of the

01:15:48

Apostles. Absolutely. No doubt. Then Jerome had nothing to do with it because Jerome comes four centuries later.

01:15:56

I know that. But what I'm saying is that the Septuagint that you can purchase now on Amazon references the fact that Jerome edited that.

01:16:04

The point is that the Septuagint has been continuously edited. Would you believe that to be true?

01:16:11

As has every ancient text. Not the Tanakh. Not the Torah, I mean. But you have multiple.

01:16:17

Why do you have multiple readings in Psalm 22 about as a lion or they pierced me in the

01:16:23

Masoretic text? Why do you have multiple readings in Jeremiah in the Masoretic text? The fact is that there were multiple even

01:16:31

Hebrew traditions at the time of Jesus. This is simply a reality but it has nothing to do with the first question that I'm trying to ask you.

01:16:38

Okay. So let me try it one more time. You have made the assertion that there is a...

01:16:44

You even asked the audience, how many of you believe that Scripture is God -breathed? And you seem to think that there is a reason why

01:16:54

I can't believe that what I hold in my hand right here is Theanoustos, God -breathed.

01:17:00

Why? Without going into other... This is a simple question. Sure. Why? The simple answer is you yourself have identified additions.

01:17:10

You yourself have identified subtractions and changes to what you hold in your hand and you still believe it is

01:17:17

God -breathed? Yes. 1000%. Every scholar that I know of who is an evangelical knows that and believes that.

01:17:23

I'm asking you, why can't you accept the mechanism that God used to transmit the

01:17:29

New Testament to us? Because it rings of Mormonism. Okay. Rings of Mormonism. So, can you show me, can you demonstrate to the people here that I was in error to show the vast difference between how the

01:17:44

New Testament was transmitted and how... Section 24 of the Doctrine and Covenants, right?

01:17:50

Absolutely, got it. Okay, you know exactly what the addition was? Yes, I know where you're going. You know what the background of it is? I'll give you a better one.

01:17:55

No, let's just stick with this one because it has to do with the priesthood, right? Yep. Okay. Now, how can that be done in Mormon history?

01:18:05

How was it that... Do you think it was a textual variant? Do you think a scribe just missed the 400?

01:18:11

Nope. The reason that those 400 words are put in later on is because something developed in the history of Mormonism, right?

01:18:17

You bet. Okay, so you have a controlled transmission of the

01:18:23

Book of Commandments which becomes the Doctrine and Covenants, right? Okay, when did anyone in the history of the

01:18:28

New Testament have the ability to make the same kind of change? Never. Exactly.

01:18:34

So there can be no parallel, can there? No, you're absolutely right. There can't be any parallel. Therefore, the long ending of Mark can zip into existence with no author.

01:18:45

And you accept that. Zip into existence with no author. No, there was an author. Was it ever in Greek?

01:18:51

Is it in a Greek manuscript? Of course it is. And where did that Greek manuscript come from? Well, the earliest...

01:19:00

Wasn't it not invented so it would have an audit trail in Greek that it was first done in Latin?

01:19:06

An audit trail? Was it not first done in Latin? No, it was not. Oh. No, it was not. I can't...

01:19:12

If you say otherwise, prove it. I will. So, okay, you're saying that the ending... No, now, not later.

01:19:17

The ending of Mark did not exist in the original text.

01:19:24

No, I do not believe that when Mark wrote his gospel that he included verses 9 through 20. No, I do not believe that. And when or who added it, you have no problem with it.

01:19:33

I do not know who did so. We don't know anything about... No, I'm asking if you don't know, that's my point.

01:19:41

Why doesn't that bother you? This is actually time for him to be asking you questions. Oh, that's true.

01:19:46

But the going back and forth is just fine. But we're still... But still,

01:19:52

I keep going back to the key issue here. I have asserted that everything that Paul or Mark or John wrote is between the covers of this book.

01:20:06

And you know... And has been preserved for us. Why do you say Mark? Why do you say

01:20:11

John? Do they identify themselves? Because I was simply providing examples from the New Testament. If you want to go through the whole list, we can do the whole list.

01:20:18

The point is this. It's the authorship. I believe that all the original readings continue in the manuscript tradition.

01:20:25

Therefore, why am I precluded from believing that Scripture is theanoustos, especially because what

01:20:33

Paul is talking about there is the original writings themselves. Because I believe, and maybe

01:20:38

I'm wrong, that you believe in sola scriptura. I certainly do. Sola scriptura. Then how do we know that John wrote

01:20:44

John? That's not in the Scriptures. How do we know that the apostles... Giggle if you want, but how do we know that the apostles... I'm not giggling.

01:20:50

I'm just wondering how this has anything to do with sola scriptura. Because that is a Catholic tradition. There's nothing in the

01:20:55

Scriptures... What is a Catholic tradition? The assignment of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That comes from the

01:21:00

Catholics, not from the Scriptures. You mean the Roman Catholics? Yes. That is historically naive on a level that is stunning to me.

01:21:07

Stunning. Stunning to me. Could you tell me, does Mark ever say... When did Roman Catholicism begin? Did you... I'm asking the questions here, sir.

01:21:13

Knock it out. When did Roman Catholicism begin? Supposedly with Christ. Supposedly with Christ.

01:21:19

I don't believe that, and I don't think most everybody else here does either. And I'd be surprised if you believe that.

01:21:24

Who wrote the book of John? Who wrote the book of Matthew? I am asking the questions. Knock it out. Understand that he won't answer that.

01:21:32

It's not his time. That's fine. That's fine. Okay. I don't know when

01:21:37

Roman Catholicism started. What point does that make? Tell me where you got the name of the author.

01:21:42

So you are saying that if you believe in sola scriptura... Right. You have to have the originals?

01:21:48

No. I'm saying that you're playing both. Okay, so you have a faithful manuscript tradition.

01:21:54

Tradition. Which takes... Is there a problem with that word? Yes, because I was asked as a Christian moderator on a radio program to teach people that it was sola scriptura.

01:22:03

Scripture alone. In sola scriptura. That means that we don't know how any of the apostles...

01:22:09

People tell me all the time that the apostles went to their death for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Why didn't

01:22:15

Luke record that? Those are all traditions. Because they weren't dead yet? Oh, no. They were.

01:22:21

He went to Rome. Okay. I'm sorry. Your understanding of history of the

01:22:28

New Testament and church history is incredibly confused. I hope that you will find a way to become unconfused.

01:22:36

But once again, I simply have to ask the question. Okay, sola scriptura.

01:22:42

Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith of the church. Somehow that requires me to have some type of first century evidence of specifically

01:22:52

John's name on a manuscript? Is that what you're saying? No, sir. Don't be condescending in that form. What I'm asking you is you obviously have beliefs in tradition.

01:23:01

You have doctrine that came from tradition, yet you claim

01:23:07

Scripture alone. Scripture alone is the sole infallible rule of faith. That does not mean that we do not learn from church history.

01:23:14

It does not mean that God did not use the people who came before us. You have a misunderstanding of sola scriptura. I've written on this subject extensively.

01:23:21

Have you read any of my books on sola scriptura? Thankfully, no. Thankfully, no. Okay. That answers that question.

01:23:27

When we go back to when I said manuscript tradition, you confused my statement with traditions such as the papacy.

01:23:37

No. The traditions that end up in the Scriptures. That's what I'm asking you about. When I say manuscript tradition, what do you think

01:23:43

I'm talking about? That it is original? That it is God -breathed? No. A manuscript tradition is the entire collection of the 5 ,800 manuscripts we have in Greek of the

01:23:55

New Testament. That's called the manuscript tradition. Okay. I'm learning. It's an entire group of manuscripts. I am learning.

01:24:00

I will admit on camera I'm probably the only one who assumed that what was in the New Testament was accurate.

01:24:07

That has nothing to do with what I just said. Okay. That's fine. I think people see that. When I say that all the original readings are in the manuscript tradition, can you dispute that?

01:24:23

Tone it down for my intelligence. I can't compete with you. I'll admit that. When Paul writes to the

01:24:33

Romans, he writes an epistle. That has been copied and transmitted down through time to us.

01:24:41

There are a certain number, say 1 ,000 manuscripts that contain

01:24:46

Paul's letter to the Romans. There are textual variants between those manuscripts because they're hand copied.

01:24:53

Yes. My assertion is that when I look at the epistle to the Romans in this right here, the original readings are all present either in the main text, which means that the editors have been spot on in their analysis, or in the notes that provides the readings from other manuscripts that they have relegated to the notes, but they're all there.

01:25:19

If, as Kurt Ahlund, one of the leading New Testament textual critical scholars of the last century, said that the

01:25:27

New Testament text is tenacious, that means the readings continue on, and if we have all of them, what is the fundamental reason why you think there is a contradiction between my recognizing textual variation and believing

01:25:44

Scripture is God -breathed? I can answer that now. Good. But it sounds to me,

01:25:49

Lee, like you've made this decision based upon some presupposition at this very point.

01:25:56

That's why this is important. So, where is the contradiction? I will answer the question, but I need to know that version, because I don't know what version.

01:26:04

That's the Ellen 28th edition. That's the current standard. Does that have the longer edition to a mark?

01:26:11

It has everything. Then I disagree that that is

01:26:16

God -breathed. Let me explain. Let me explain. What this contains, this is not an exhaustive, because if it was exhaustive, it would be multiple volumes.

01:26:28

If you want an exhaustive edition, you can go to the ECM, you can go to some other text.

01:26:33

But the point is, it has to give you all the textual data in the notes, so you can make decisions for yourself.

01:26:41

Do you consider a textual variant? Is the longer ending of Mark a textual variant?

01:26:46

Of course it is, because there's also a medium ending and a sort of in -between ending. And you're okay with that?

01:26:52

What do you mean okay with that? It's a historical reality. I thought it was the Word of God. Okay, so what you're saying to us all right now is that you were not educated and trained in the history of the

01:27:05

New Testament to know how it came to us. So you had a false idea of what the

01:27:12

Word of God supposedly is. Absolutely. And now that you've encountered the truth about this, instead of just going, oh, many people before me have learned this, understood this, and still believe it's the

01:27:25

Word of God, you've just thrown it out. No, I didn't throw it out, Dr. White. I was personally hurt and offended that I handed nearly 500

01:27:34

Bibles to Africans, who I still support in a Christian church, and tell them, and they read it by candlelight, believing that this is the

01:27:44

Word of God. What translation was it? The King James. Okay, and you bought it because of what? Because of price.

01:27:51

That's the point. That ends the debate. The fact that you do this because you don't have the money to know what's going on in the details.

01:28:00

Money? No, sir. Or the time, or the energy. When was it translated? This is perfect. When was the King James translated?

01:28:05

1611. So we have translations that were done within the past five years. You bought the cheap one, and Christianity is wrong because of that?

01:28:13

Oh, so the new one has changed? The new one reflects what we understand of the text, yes.

01:28:18

Perfect. I'm done. Yes, you are. The new one reflects what has...

01:28:24

It's funny. Have you looked at the ESV? The new one reflects the most up -to -date. Yes. I own the

01:28:29

ESV. The point is, this is an accepted Bible. You don't teach out of this?

01:28:34

Wait a minute, wait a minute. When I teach or preach, I try to preach out of the original languages, whether it's Hebrew or Greek.

01:28:40

And now I go back to, I'm ashamed, and I say, shame on those teachers and knowledgeable people like yourself at the front of the bus that know one thing and teach another.

01:28:53

You've just jumped off the bus for not liking what they have done or not done, but you simply aren't aware of the fact...

01:28:59

You're absolutely right. Lee, let me tell you something. Us in the back of the bus do not know what you know. Lee, can I say something to you personally?

01:29:04

Yes. I have always been deeply concerned when someone leaves the

01:29:11

Mormon church and they are pressed... You told me this, that I should stay out of leadership positions for 20 years.

01:29:19

You hear that, Chip? I didn't say... You hear that? 20 years. I believe that there should be a grounding because I have met people who have had exactly this experience and there was no grounding for you.

01:29:32

And so you're sitting in front of us... You translate grounding, which means let's take this head and explain to you, you know what you thought about the

01:29:41

Mormon scriptures? Well, it applies to the Christian scriptures too. You can't trust them. Okay, I've just refuted.

01:29:47

I have just refuted and you did not correct, you could not respond to the refutation that you agreed with.

01:29:55

The process of adding 400 words to section 24 to become section 24 of the

01:30:01

Doctrine and Covenants is not the same as the free transmission of the text of the New Testament over time.

01:30:07

Why not? There is a... Why not? Yes. Can you not see the difference between an organization that controls the text and therefore determines what's going to go out...

01:30:16

So the Word of God is looser, the Word of God is looser in the New Testament because you say it happened slowly over a longer period of time and we don't know the organization, but you're going to give them a pass for that?

01:30:28

The free transmission of the text of the New Testament is how we can know that we still possess all the original readings.

01:30:35

The early church was under persecution from the time of Nero to the peace of the church in A .D.

01:30:41

313. Rome was destroying scriptures. But you've admitted that you don't have the original. We've never claimed otherwise.

01:30:48

And so you say that that is God breathed and you don't know how it got there. I'm describing to you the process that it got there.

01:30:56

God preserved it through the manuscript tradition which you reject as being a possible way of it coming to us.

01:31:02

That is absolutely true. There you go. I'll try to be on time, but first let me honestly and deeply apologize for getting too emotionally involved in this subject.

01:31:16

I've lost my family twice. Once out of Mormonism and once friends and family out of Christianity.

01:31:23

So the fact that I am concerned about how the scriptures came together and what the differences between an addition out of thin air and a textual variant applies.

01:31:34

The point is the Christian Bible you study from my view is mostly correct.

01:31:40

The Christian Bible you study is mostly original. The Christian Bible you study is mostly an accurate perspective of those men and women who consider

01:31:50

Jesus Christ the Jewish Messiah. This evening has not been in my opinion a debate between two men.

01:31:59

This has been a debate between the Old Testament and the Hebrew in the Hebrew and the

01:32:05

New Testament in Greek. The God of Abraham wants you to know the difference between the two. Be careful of the stretch factor.

01:32:14

Why oh why did God not make it obvious and clear in the

01:32:19

Old Testament? I have a lot of Jewish friends who don't see it there and they don't see it not because they're stupid.

01:32:30

The Jews know their scriptures. They believe it when God says 88 times

01:32:36

I am only one. They believe it to be idolatry to push

01:32:41

God the father in the back and bring Jesus Christ to the front. I respect that.

01:32:48

God clearly states many times that if the wicked turn to him he will give them life.

01:32:55

And that sacrifice from the wicked is abominable to God. He doesn't offer or want sacrifice from the wicked.

01:33:05

It is completely against the teachings of the Hebrew scriptures that any innocent person should die for someone else's sin.

01:33:13

Many times he says that. There is nothing in the Hebrew scriptures that says the

01:33:18

Messiah is to be the son of God. There is nothing in the Hebrew scriptures that say the Messiah will die for your sins.

01:33:25

Nothing that says that. There are 325 clear scriptures of the messianic age.

01:33:33

Only about a half a dozen of who the Messiah is. Jesus Christ cannot be the

01:33:40

Messiah in Ezekiel. Ezekiel has the prince, the Messiah, starting the temple up after it is rebuilt and offering sacrifice for his sin.

01:33:51

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is going to come back and offer sacrifice for his sin? God clearly states many times that his word, his command will last forever.

01:34:02

The longest chapter in the Bible, brothers and sisters, is Psalm 119. What is it about? The scriptures.

01:34:08

The law. The law that later in Hebrews, the author of Hebrews will tell you is a burden.

01:34:15

It's a stretch for me to think that God says his word, his commandments will last forever.

01:34:24

And then in Hebrews, what is old is supposed to be gone away. It's a stretch. The Jews have a story that I think is kind of accurate, kind of funny in some ways, since I did both.

01:34:36

The Jews believe that Mormonism exists so you Christians, us, will know how the

01:34:43

Jews feel. Because the Mormons screw around with the Christian scriptures. And the

01:34:48

Christians screw around with the Old Testament scriptures. It's absolutely the same. They tell a story of a rabbi that's walking in the woods and he comes up on a tree.

01:34:56

And there's an arrow in a target. And that arrow is dead center in the target. Absolutely amazing.

01:35:01

He walks a little bit further. There's another tree. This time the tree has four arrows, four targets. And the arrow is perfectly in the center.

01:35:09

Walks a little bit further. More trees. Trees all over the forest that has an arrow directly in the center of the target.

01:35:15

Finally, he comes on to a guy walking down. He's got a bow and arrow. And the rabbi says, are you the one who shot all the arrows?

01:35:22

Yes, I was. That is perfect. It's amazing. How did you get each and every one exactly in the middle?

01:35:29

And the guy says, oh, it's not a problem. I shoot the arrow first. And I draw a target around it. That's what happens in Christianity.

01:35:36

What Jesus Christ did, and I believe he lived. I believe, like the other false messiahs before him, the people could not recognize.

01:35:44

They couldn't deal with the fact. Just like the apostles could not deal with the fact he's dead. Well, then that means it must change.

01:35:50

We've got to change the story. Shoot the arrow. Then draw the target around it. Go look for the scriptures in the

01:35:56

Old Testament. That's why it's only a shadow. The fact is that the Jews have been fooled many times.

01:36:03

Judah Maccabee, the hammer, 165 B .C. They thought he was the messiah. Simon Bar Kupka, 135.

01:36:11

They thought he was the messiah. They even ordained people who they thought was the messiah, and they died.

01:36:18

Why did he die? Tonight is my 171st moderated public debate.

01:36:26

And so over the years, I have observed that when you can't sustain your primary argument in your closing statement, you make all new arguments, which is what you just heard.

01:36:37

There's a Jesus false messiah and all the rest of this stuff. Earlier on, you do it when the other guy can't possibly respond and stay within the rules of the debate.

01:36:46

I've seen it before, been there, done that, got the T -shirt. I would love to see a debate, especially with a friend of mine named

01:36:55

Michael Brown, on everything that was just said in that last five minutes. It would get shredded. But I'm going to stick to the subject of debate, because as you listen to the cross -examination, that's not what we were just talking about.

01:37:06

So why make it a closing statement? I don't understand that. I'm going to stick to the subject of debate. And that is to point you to what

01:37:12

Jesus himself said in John 13, 19. Take a look at it with me. On the night of his betrayal...

01:37:21

And by the way, we have the earliest manuscript evidence of guess which one of the Gospels? John. Isn't that interesting?

01:37:28

May not have been the first one written, but the earliest manuscript evidence we have all comes from John. On the night of his betrayal,

01:37:36

Jesus says to his disciples, From now on, I'm telling you before it comes to pass, in order that when it does take place, you may believe that I am.

01:37:53

Now, it's just said the Jews knew their scriptures. Yes, they did. And many of the

01:37:58

Jews knew their scriptures in Greek, because it was good to know Greek in those days, especially when the Roman soldiers started yelling at you in Greek.

01:38:05

It was good to know what he was saying. Very, very good. And so, when

01:38:11

Jesus said these words, and he's talking about the betrayal of Judas. I'm going to tell you before it happens, so when it does happen, you may know and believe and understand

01:38:19

I am he. You know where that comes from? Jesus quoting scripture of himself.

01:38:28

You and I know Isaiah 43 .10, because we deal with Mormonism all the time. Before me there is no God formed, there should be none after me, right?

01:38:33

What's the beginning of the verse? You are my servant, whom I have chosen.

01:38:39

Right? Why? Why were they chosen? What was God going to do for them? It's in the context of prophecy of future events.

01:38:49

And he says this to them, and he says, so that you may know and believe and do what?

01:38:55

And understand that I am he. The Hebrew is anahu. What is anahu translated by in the

01:39:02

Greek Septuagint all through Isaiah? Ego, I am. Uses the exact same form as the verbs.

01:39:09

Did Jesus know his Old Testament scriptures? You better believe he did. And on the night of his betrayal, he says to his disciples,

01:39:17

I'm telling you what happens before it happens, so when it does, you may believe that I am. And he quotes from the prophet of Isaiah, about himself, identifying him as who?

01:39:27

Yahweh. The New Testament writers identify the father as Yahweh, the son as Yahweh, the spirit is the spirit of Yahweh.

01:39:38

And so you have one God. Trinitarians are monotheists. We believe there is one God. All the 88 stuff has nothing to do with anyone who understands the doctrines of Trinity.

01:39:47

If you think that's an objection against the doctrines of Trinity, you do not understand the doctrines of Trinity and never have.

01:39:54

Never have. We are monotheists. There is one God, Yahweh. But the fact that Paul will quote from Isaiah, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess to who?

01:40:05

Yahweh. Who is that to in Philippians chapter 2? Jesus. Peter does the same thing.

01:40:10

John does the same thing. This is the earliest testimony that we have, and I can back up the historical reading of that text.

01:40:20

There aren't any variants. This is what was written. So we've covered a lot of ground tonight.

01:40:28

There are excellent books out there that would give you a background, especially to the issues in regards to textual criticism.

01:40:34

There are exciting developments right now in this area. We are ever more increasing our level of confidence in this area.

01:40:42

The very time it's under attack, that's a wonderful gift from God. It is not a reason to reject the

01:40:48

Christian faith. There's something else going on there. Take the time to do the study yourself, and you will discover the

01:40:56

New Testament is the best, most ancient, and widely attested work of antiquity.

01:41:03

I believe God has preserved it for us. He's preserved it in such a way it could not have been changed by some organization that had control over it, and that's why you have the few textual variants you have.

01:41:14

That was the methodology of preservation. Thank you for being here this evening. You've mentioned textual variants and questions of authorship in arguing that the

01:41:28

New Testament has been deceptively changed and is untrustworthy. How is it that the textual variants and the anonymous nature of books in the

01:41:38

Tanakh do not make it deceptively changed and untrustworthy? I'd like to know what books are anonymous within the

01:41:46

Tanakh. First and second chronicles are the ones I would think of. Who's the chronicler?

01:41:53

That's the point. We have no idea who wrote the book of Hebrews. No one.

01:41:59

We have no idea who wrote the book of John. Some very good apologists believe that it was

01:42:07

Lazarus who wrote it, and I think there's some strong opinion about that. That's not the question, sir.

01:42:13

Okay. I don't see the comparison between the two. That's my answer.

01:42:19

Dr. White, can Mormons play the dual fulfillment game as well with Ezekiel 37 and Isaiah 29 as an excuse for out -of -context claims like Christians do?

01:42:32

I obviously reject the last part of it like Christians do, but if you're talking about…

01:42:39

Let's put it this way. If Joseph Smith was really that convinced that there were prophecies about himself in the

01:42:47

Book of Mormon, why did he have to add that whole chapter to Genesis that has absolutely no textual basis to it whatsoever in history?

01:42:55

Anyone can read into a text what they want to read into a text. I agree 1 ,000 percent.

01:43:01

The difference is that the one who gave us the information about the interpretation of those texts had just risen from the dead, and I personally think if you've risen from the dead, that gives you a level of authority that nobody else really has.

01:43:19

I think that's a really special thing at that point. Okay. A question for Mr. Baker.

01:43:26

Do you believe it is illegitimate for Matthew to show Jesus in the beginning of his gospel as recapitulating the history of Israel, quoting from Hosea 11 .1

01:43:40

and then moving on to his baptism and then the 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, the quotations from that temptation being from Deuteronomy, showing him as the new

01:43:53

Yeshua who is going to lead the people of God into the promised land? I absolutely reject that.

01:43:59

That is the whole point of the cute little story where you shoot an arrow, then you put a target around it. The things that Jesus did and said,

01:44:06

I believe, happened. But I believe that those who could not let go of the fact that he died and he didn't come back and stay and he didn't resurrect and witness to anybody outside of his circle, just like the other false messiahs, then you have the problem of taking a scripture and making it fit his life.

01:44:27

So I do reject that. Dr. White, was 1

01:44:32

John 5 .7 not invented to prove the Trinity? There was no reason for the invention to prove the

01:44:42

Trinity because the Trinity is a biblical doctrine and is rather easily defended from the text of New Testament. The Kamiohonium arose as what's called a gloss, probably a marginal gloss, that was an early interpretation of what the three witnesses that are there, the word, the blood and the spirit, and as a marginal note, it became incorporated in Latin manuscripts in about the fifth century, became predominant in the later forms of the

01:45:10

Latin Vulgate, and then was transferred into the Greek text beginning in about the 14th, 15th century and was not in the first two editions of Erasmus, but was put into the third edition, which became quite popular of Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum.

01:45:28

Mr. Baker, you've expressed your time of studies with Jewish scholars.

01:45:35

Why have you not taken the same time with Christian scholars? Oh, I have. I have.

01:45:41

And I believe that the Christian scholars that were available to me in the churches that I belong to, the elders,

01:45:50

I would consider them scholars. And these questions, this debate was supposed to happen in Central California.

01:45:58

They chose not to do it, so Dr. White, and I'm glad he did, on the

01:46:03

Internet, stepped up to the plate and said, I'll talk to you about these. So I have, and my wife and I have spent a lot of time with Christian scholars, to include people that have been brought to me by some of the

01:46:18

Christians that I've worked with here. So it isn't a one -sided story at all, not even close.

01:46:25

Dr. White, how does the textual transmission of the Old Testament compare to the textual transmission of the

01:46:31

New Testament? In 60 seconds, yeah, right. No, that is a fascinating question, because there is a complete difference between the two.

01:46:42

One is through the covenant people themselves. It is a much more ancient text, obviously, than what you have with the

01:46:50

New Testament. And so it is a different process, because there was not the desire to spread a specific message outside the borders of Israel that would need to produce a text that could be used like the

01:47:04

New Testament was. The New Testament is written during a period of persecution.

01:47:10

The Church continues to experience persecution all the way through 313 A .D. And so you have to have a portable text, a text that can be recreated and replaced when people have lost theirs due to destruction, so on and so forth.

01:47:24

And so it has a very, very, very different history to it. It is a fascinating subject, but far more than we can do in 60 seconds.

01:47:32

This is somewhat similar to a previous question. Mr. Baker, you have often said that, quote, if a man rewrites, restricts the

01:47:39

Word of God, that man will say, do, and teach anything in the name of God, unquote. So how do you justify the significant textual variance found in your

01:47:48

Hebrew Old Testament in comparison to the textual variance found in the New Testament? It is funny that somebody would say that, because I skipped over that, because I said that for many years on the radio, applying that to Mormonism.

01:47:59

And I equally apply that to Christianity. But my question is, do they give an example of what is the textual variant in the

01:48:07

Old Testament? No. OK. Well, actually, I take that back. I think Psalm 22 is mentioned later on.

01:48:14

I just changed screens. OK. Yeah, Psalm 22, the variant in the Hebrew between like a lion and pierced his hands and his feet.

01:48:22

I've got the Hebrew for anybody here who wants to see it. If you think that the

01:48:27

Jews who published this in Hebrew did it because of this evening, then you'll love it, because it doesn't say pierced.

01:48:35

It says like a lion, not pierced. Now, in the. Correct. And in the

01:48:43

Greek, if you want to, if you believe that Jesus forgot Hebrew and the spirit said

01:48:50

Greek to him, that's fine. Have a good day. And that's time on that.

01:48:55

And let's see. Dr. White, how does the

01:49:04

New Testament treatment of the Old Testament differ from Mormon treatment of the

01:49:09

Bible? Oh, huge, huge difference. I have to do is look at the book of Hebrews.

01:49:15

And in fact, if after tonight you're not writing down, I need to work through the book of Hebrews again. I would highly suggest that you do so much of what was addressed this evening is addressed by the writer to the

01:49:25

Hebrews, which I believe, by the way, was a sermon preached by Paul in Hebrew and written by Luke in Greek because it's

01:49:32

Luke's Greek style. But such a rich, deep understanding of the

01:49:37

Old Testament text by the writer to the Hebrews in comparison to. You read

01:49:43

Joseph Smith's understanding of New Testament texts, taking terrestrial and celestial and slapping them together to make telestial a new word.

01:49:57

This kind of stuff. There isn't even an iota of comparison between the knowledge of Joseph Smith didn't have of both the

01:50:05

Old New Testament and the knowledge the New Testament writers had of the Old Testament. Mr. Baker, Jesus, lunatic, liar or Lord?

01:50:15

I would first like to ask a personal favor. Whoever wrote the first the last question about Hebrews, if you would come see me,

01:50:22

I've got the Hebrews here. Exactly what has been changed, even in your your own Christian Bible.

01:50:27

They didn't get it right. The writers of Hebrews intentionally switched several words. And that's the whole point of this deceptive thing.

01:50:34

I believe Jesus Christ was much like the many messiahs in in before him and after him, that Jews followed him religiously and they really thought he was the messiah.

01:50:47

He could have been. There have been dozens of messiahs that the Jews have recognized and even ordained.

01:50:55

But when they die, they go through the Old Testament scripture and they say, where is the messiah supposed to die?

01:51:02

It's not there. That kind of seals it. They did that just recently with the

01:51:08

Rebbe in New York in 1994. A gentleman died who they thought was the messiah.

01:51:16

One, a whole group of them followed and then he died. So they said, oh, he must have died. He must supposed to die.

01:51:23

We've reached the end of our time. Please join with me in just a moment in thanking our speakers.

01:51:29

First, though, would invite you to come back tomorrow. Dr. White will be teaching Sunday school at 945.

01:51:35

He'll be leading morning. I will be preaching during morning worship. We will be singing from the

01:51:40

Psalter Psalm 110 and Psalm two in the light of the New Testament in terms of praise to Jesus Christ.

01:51:47

We'll throw an amazing grace for the Baptist amongst us, even though it was written by an

01:51:56

Anglican. But at any rate, please join with me in thanking both our speakers for being kind enough to be with us this evening.