Was Jesus Crucified? Part 5

All right, let's try to get to those as quickly as possible. The time frame keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Stephanie pointed out in Mark 16, he actually said it ended in verse 13. It actually ends in verse 9. The long -breaking movement of Mark is

Mark 16, 9 through 20. There's no resurrection narrative found there. I'd like to point out to you that that ignores the fact that, first of all, it assumes that Mark is the first gospel to be written.

That's a theory that many people accept, but there are a lot of people who do not as well. But leaving that aside for a moment, the reality is, why might

Mark have stopped his gospel there? Because it was not meant to be a literary work unto itself.

It existed within the church. And that means it was a part of the oral preaching. And the prophecy was there in Mark.

Jesus had already said in Mark that he was going to die. He was going to rise again. And when you finish at that point, then you have the people who are reading the book giving the testimony that they have experienced, because there are eyewitnesses amongst them, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There might be a very good reason why Mark doesn't go into what Matthew and Luke do at another point in time.

It was said that the Christian perspective of the imputation of Christ Christ means there is no responsibility for us for our sins.

Folks, the Christian gospel is, we take full responsibility for our sins and recognize there's nothing we can do about them.

There is no way that we can be made right before a holy God. We take responsibility for our sins.

That's what repentance is all about, our recognition. We are confessing to God we are sinners. And we recognize the only way we can have peace with him is if he provides that and he does so in perfection in Jesus Christ.

Why would the disciples have been confused? Why would they have been so forlorn during the time period between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus had told them?

Well, when Jesus first tells them, what's Peter's response? May it never be, Lord. Far be it from you.

And what does Jesus have to say to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. You're minding the things of men, not the things of God.

If you look at the New Testament as a whole, the reason the disciples are the way they are is because the

Spirit hasn't come. And when the Spirit comes, all of a sudden those timid men who were hiding from the

Jews are standing on the day of Pentecost proclaiming, standing in front of Sanhedrin proclaiming because they're now entwelt by the

Spirit of God. In Luke chapter 24, when Jesus meets those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, what does he have to do?

He has to open their minds to understand the things spoken about him and he spends that time teaching them exactly what the

Scriptures say about him. It is said, above the women there's many far ways. That does fit with their witness.

It says they saw. It doesn't say they guessed. It doesn't say they didn't know.

There's nothing in either of the recorded Gospels that mention that, that indicates that there's anything untrue about their witness, uncertain about their witness.

It's just giving us the accurate reality that most Jews are going to stay away from the Romans while they're killing Jews. That is in no way, shape, or form an indication that therefore their testimony is not weighty and should not be accepted because both the

Gospels record that testimony without a word of amelioration. Bart Ehrman says, the only way you can harmonize these things is by creating another

Gospel. Yes, that's exactly what he says. And he's wrong. And I can prove that he's wrong.

He doesn't allow for harmonization. He doesn't allow for us, he doesn't even try to interact with the best that Christian scholarship has produced in allowing

Matthew to be Matthew, in allowing Luke to be Luke, in allowing Mark to be Mark, and yet recognizing they're telling the same story.

And I can give you examples. I would listen to his classes. Like I said, I've debated the man. I've listened to his own lectures where he mockingly talks about how people harmonize things, never dealing with the scholarly harmonization that's there.

He just simply dismisses it as he would dismiss your attempts to harmonize the various versions of various stories in the

Qumran as well. Next one. It was very interesting.

Sammy said, well, okay, but these, he talked about what happened in London here.

But these Gospels were written decades later. You'd think they'd get their story straight by then. Tell me something. If they said it in the exact same order as what

Sammy would be saying about it, that there was collusion involved, that they got together and got their stories together.

So the fact that they give different elements of the oral preaching from a primitive period only proves what?

That the Gospels are exactly what we call the Sunday line. We don't have to approach them in a naturalistic way and make them contradictory to one another.

He says that's just a strong man. No, that was not a strong man. That's recognizing that attacking the Gospels unfairly and not allowing them to harmonize their statements without turning them into just one

Gospel. That's what Christians have been doing for a long time. Then we heard about E .P. Sanders. And look, folks,

I don't know what E .P. Sanders said about Qumran. I'm not sure that Sammy does either because that was the context of his comments.

But E .P. Sanders is a great scholar, but he's very infected by naturalistic materialism.

And I would just ask the Muslims here, if I still had to say, I've done my homework, go read the

Muhammad book on the fact that Muhammad doesn't exist. I mean, it's on BBC. That makes it true, doesn't it?

I mean, have you seen that book? It's yay there. There's lots of footnotes in there. And you and I, both of us, don't really actually have anything to do with it.

And you as a Muslim would go, is the worldview influences all the choices of the people? And I'd say no to E .P.

Sanders. And that's why I keep looking for the first consistent Muslim apologist who will be able to recognize the liberals on the

Christian side and go, you know, we shouldn't be quoting those guys. Because if I apply their theology on my stuff, it's going to be my decision.

So I need to be looking for the people where I can be consistent in my argumentation. That would be a very, very good thing.

It was said that I ignored Mark chapter 14. I did. I may have been talking too fast.

Sometimes people hear things. I mentioned the exact Greek term there, opposite of that. I mentioned that it's plural in Mark chapter 14.

He says, he was saying about high priests, he was working to the people. It's a plural word in the original language, being brief.

And I was saying the application of that was that the Jews would see that. They'd see that in the destruction that was to come upon them, which he has talked about, as he was working the cross, by the way, as well as in his second coming, in the spiritual sense as well.

I did not ignore it. And then we have, finally, Bartholomew. Where he says, well,

Bartholomew believes Jesus was crucified. Yes, he does. But I don't believe he rose from the dead. Why not? Why doesn't he?

Because he's a naturalist and materialist. That's why. And you see, the historical record can only get you so far.

And for a naturalist and materialist, Barth comes up with all sorts of possibilities. Well, maybe it happened this way, or maybe it happened that way.

And again, do you think Bartholomew believes that the moon was split in half for Mohammed, or that Mohammed rose and went up to the seven levels of heaven?

There's historical evidence right there! And so you see, the point is, we have to stand back and go, all right, what evidence do we have?

Does all the evidence say that Jesus Christ died on the cross? Yes. Every bit of historical evidence from the first hundred years says that.

There's prophetic evidence from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. What says otherwise?

Forty Arabic words from six hundred years later from someone who had never even read either the

Old Testament or the New Testament. That's what the debate's about, you see. Keep your eye on the ball.