February 11, 2025 Show: “An Open Conversation with Dr. James R. White”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 11th day of February, 2025.

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I'm absolutely thrilled to have my dear longtime friend, going back to 1996,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries back on the program today. He is co -founder and director of Alpha Omega Ministries and one of four pastors of Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, host of the

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Dividing Line webcast, globally renowned theologian, New Testament Greek scholar, apologist, debater, and prolific writer.

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And today, we're just basically having an open conversation. When I asked James if he had any specific ideas for a topic, this was his response.

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Yes. I said, let's not break the Internet. And I was going to say, how did you get this number?

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I'll have to wait for that for next year. So when we do something next year, we'll be celebrating 30 years of this kind of stuff.

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That was the actual response I first got from you. That's right. We've talked about that before.

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And, you know, your longtime listeners have heard those stories before. But, yeah, no, it's good to be back with you.

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I'm glad to see you in a vertical position. That's good.

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I can even tell hearing my own voice in my headphones that my voice is far more robust and lively and haven't been in a weakened state with that congestive heart failure in the previous weeks.

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Yeah, well, I won't I won't disabuse you of your self -deception. We'll just go on from there. Yeah. So anyway, that's what

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I would have said, you know, when I was a staunch, stuffy, humorless

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Reformed Baptist when you first met me. And I scared you to death.

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But you had been around a lot of humorless Reformed Baptists before. So I wasn't the first one you had encountered.

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But no, it's good to be with you. And, you know, there's just so much stuff going on.

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I have I'm I'm really struggling. Both of us. Look, let's be honest. We probably sit around and talk with other folks our age far more about our physical problems, our most recent surgeries, medications and stuff like that than we ever thought we would.

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But in fact, it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago that I would hear older people doing that kind of stuff like, oh, man, come on,

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I'll never do that. And then it's now I'm doing that. And it's just sort of how life life goes on.

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And both of us are running into stuff. I mean, I remember we'd go hit the gym when I was back there on the island and, you know, pump iron and all that kind of stuff.

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And the arthritis ain't letting me do that much anymore. I can guarantee you that. Though I'm still riding.

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I'm still I'm still on track for about I did seven thousand five hundred miles last year.

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I'm trying to do more climbing this year than last year. So we'll see. But most of it's being done indoors now.

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It's a lot safer. And part of that's just simply the degradation of Phoenix.

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Sadly, a lot of the routes I used to take to get out of the city and get to safer areas are now inhabited by homeless people, drugs, needles, all sorts of fun, stuff like that, that sort of keep me from going in those directions.

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But a lot has changed over the years, to be sure. But there's just so much happening, both in the nation as well as within the church, that I at times just feel like getting away for a while and shutting it all off.

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Because I've said many times on The Dividing Line, it just seems to me that God never really designed us to have this amount of information flying at us at the speed of which it does now.

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I have Twitter up on one of my two screens here. And while that really helps you to keep up with stuff, like when the helicopter in the

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American Airlines plane crashed in Washington a couple weeks ago,

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I first saw that and heard about it on Twitter. I had just gotten on Twitter back in 2010, 2011, when the

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Japanese tsunami took place. And again, the first images I saw, the first notification

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I had was through Twitter. But that stuff comes at you so fast and from so many different angles.

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And I just think, for me, one of the dangers is you get up first thing in the morning, and if that's the first stuff you hear, it sort of sets the tone for the whole rest of the day, which may be positive.

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I mean, there's positive things happening online. I get positive messages from people all the time, and that is a good thing.

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But let's be honest, most of what we encounter is not in accordance with the

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Christian worldview, to put it in a mild way. And it can really sort of start the day off with your mindset on things that will leave you, at the end of the day, wondering, where'd all that time go?

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What did I actually do that was positive? Stuff like that. So, just one really positive thing.

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I'm not sure if you talked about it. Have you had—you know who Wes Hough is.

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Yes. Have you made contact with him? Only a one -way thing, where I contacted him, asking him to be my guest, and I never heard back from him.

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Well, I would imagine right now. Right. He did tell me at one point that—I did not know him before all this happened.

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I would have known him—he had spoken at an Ezra Institute thing up in Canada with Joe Booth.

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And I hadn't gone up to that one. Jeff Durbin spoke at it, and so Jeff had met him at that.

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But I had never actually had personal contact with Wes. And so, once everything exploded, first of all, when he did such a wonderful job with that conspiracy theory guy.

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I mean, I know what the guy's name is. Joe Rogan? No, no, no, no, no.

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The black fellow that talks about space aliens and all the rest of this stuff.

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That's how Wes got on Joe Rogan, was Joe Rogan's people saw him doing this.

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They called it a debate. It wasn't a debate. It was a webcast where this guy who denies that Jesus died on a cross and stuff like that.

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Wes came on and just obliterated him. I mean, and nicely, much more nicely than I would have.

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Oh, I think I know who you're talking about. He's a guy who claims to be a Christian but denies the deity of Christ.

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No, no, no, I don't think he claims to be a Christian. No, the host of the webcast claims to be a

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Christian. I don't believe that he is. But no, this guy sells books and talks about space aliens and weird stuff like that.

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Sorry, I don't remember his name. Like I said, people had sent me some clips of his and I was just like, this guy doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

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This is horrible. Maybe I should play some of this stuff on the divine line. I never got around to it. So Wes goes on with this guy.

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And just to give you an example, this guy was saying right at the beginning, Well, you know, the

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Sinai Bible doesn't have the crucifixion and resurrection in it.

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And the Sinai Bible is older than the King James. Now, when someone says that,

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I know, and I think most Christians should know, that this is someone who has no earthly idea what they're talking about.

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There's no Sinai Bible. He was talking about Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest complete

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Bible that we own from around 325 and 350. It's in Greek.

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All of it's in Greek, including the Old Testament. And of course, the King James was published in 1611.

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So you're talking 1300 years between these. They're in different languages.

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One is a translation of the scriptures. The other is, at least in the New Testament, is the same language as the original writings.

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And so there's just no comparison between the two. So why anyone would even make a statement like that doesn't make any sense.

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So it didn't take Wes Hough very long. In fact, the guy left after about an hour. He just walked off.

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And then the amazing thing was, he faceplanted so badly that he then threatened

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Wes and the webcast host, who was a friend of his. This guy had attended his wedding!

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And he threatened to sue both of them for a million dollars for what they did to him on that webcast. Wow. So that's what got

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Rogan's people's attention. And that's why Wes got the opportunity to do what he did.

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And I just think that's fantastic. It's super to see the next generation coming up.

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And to know that Wes has told me that when he was in his undergraduate work, my debates were playing nonstop whenever he was working out or doing whatever.

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So we've had a positive influence there. And, of course, his background is fascinating, with his parents being overseas and being exposed to multiple languages and things like that.

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For apologists, I've said this many, many times, I do not understand why apologists, in general, are ignorant of the biblical languages.

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I think that's one of the greatest weaknesses of apologists, is they don't do exegesis and that kind of stuff.

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It would be really good if they knew church history, too, two topics that I've taught for years and years. But Wes has that kind of stuff going for him.

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So it's been really fascinating to see the response to Wes Hough.

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Because there is an atheist in the UK who basically...

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Here's the story. Wes mentioned the Great Isaiah School. And I think this is important to the audience.

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I hope everybody sort of tunes in here for a second. Because I would assume you've seen my debate with Bart Ehrman from 2009.

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Yes, it was excellent. And in the audience questions at the end...

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And you know how much I love audience questions. I can always count for the

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Chris Arnzen laugh track to back me up when

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I've just said something ironic or humorous. I can't even count the number of times people have said that they saw some conference on video on YouTube and said,

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I know you were there. I heard your laugh. I heard you laughing. That's right. It's true.

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But anyway, what happened at the debate with Bart Ehrman is this kind,

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I'm sure very well -intentioned elderly fellow, older than I was at the time anyways, probably about the age

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I am now, gets up and he says, you know, when the

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Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, they found the Great Isaiah Scroll. And as soon as he said that,

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I was like, oh boy, here we go. Because he goes on to say, and you know, the text, it was a thousand years earlier than the oldest text we had.

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And yet it's the same book. It hadn't changed. It's almost identical. And I knew exactly what was about to happen.

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Ehrman did not dispute that. He accepted that as a true statement.

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And then he did exactly what I knew he was going to do. And he responded and said, however, have you ever looked at the

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Jeremiah Scroll? And of course the guy hadn't, because this is just simply, let's be honest, it's a part of conservative

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Christian lore that the Isaiah Scroll demonstrates that there is no inherent reason for corruption to take place, even over a thousand years, of hand copying.

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Because if you read the Isaiah Scroll from the first cave of Qumran, and you read the

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Leningrad Codex from around 900 years after Christ, you're reading the same book, everything.

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And so we've all heard that. I think I first heard that from Josh McDowell when

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I was a senior in high school. Okay. So this has been, it's been going around for a long, long time.

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You've heard it. I've heard it. Everybody's heard it. And so I knew how Ehrman was going to respond because the

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Jeremiah Scroll is about one third shorter than the Hebrew Scroll from the

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Masoretic tradition. Now, there's a reason for that. If you read the book of Jeremiah, there's one point the king takes his scrolls and cuts them up in front of him and then kicks him out.

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And so there are multiple versions of Jeremiah's prophecy because he was taken down to Egypt.

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And so there'd be stuff written down there that wouldn't be written up in Israel. And Jeremiah's text itself explains why you might have a scroll of Jeremiah that's considerably shorter because of what happened very early on when it was actually being written.

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But since people don't know that, then it's an incredibly highly effective means of disputing the point.

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And that's what Ehrman did. And of course, I didn't really have a chance to comment on any of that at that particular point in time.

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So what happened on Rogan is, now look, this is over three hours long.

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It's unscripted. With Joe Rogan, you don't have any idea where in the world you're going to end up.

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He could ask you a question that you've never even thought of before in your life. It's a high -pressure type situation to be in when you don't know what's going to be thrown at you.

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I've been there. I've done three -hour Bible Answer Man broadcasts of a similar nature in years past.

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So the Isaiah scroll came up, not from Joe, but from Wes.

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Now, I understand why he said this, but basically,

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Wes's exact terminology, he described it like an exact copy or something along those lines.

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And I know what he was talking about amongst textual critics. Textual critics, for example, will talk about Byzantine manuscripts in the

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New Testament and refer to them as reduplications or copies or things like that because they're so very, very similar.

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The fact is, there are variants between the Isaiah scroll and the

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Masoretic text of a thousand years later. They are very minor. The vast majority of them are due to the fact that the spelling in the first century before Christ, the spelling was being standardized in a different way than what came down to the

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Masoretic text, the stream of tradition that they utilized and produced 900 years after Christ.

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So some words are spelled differently and things like that.

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And of course, they didn't have vowel pointing yet. That was a later addition from the

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Masoretes as well, which is extremely important. Most modern

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Israelis can read Hebrew without vowel pointing. They provide it by a context.

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I couldn't read that if my life depended on it. Vowel pointing is sort of important to me. So this atheist went after Wes Hough for the way he said it.

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And Wes said, well, you're right. On a technical level, I would have said this or the other thing, but I was just talking to Joe, things like that.

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And so all of a sudden now there's this huge conversation going on about the

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Isaiah scroll, which I think is good. I think people need to know.

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I did have I've only been to Israel once and I'll probably never get to go there again.

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But I did visit Qumran and I did get to give a lecture standing right outside.

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I mean, right over my shoulder was Cave 1 of the Qumran's caves. And lots of important stuff has been found in Qumran now coming up on 70 years ago.

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So the Great Isaiah Scroll is 1Q Isaiah A. So 1Q is the cave, first Qumran cave.

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Isaiah is the identification of the scroll. And A, there are other Isaiah fragments that were also found in that cave.

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And this is the one that's been assigned that. This was pretty much a almost complete text of Isaiah.

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It's damaged in some places, so there's a little bit of material that's missing. But you can tell that the prophecy of Isaiah as we have it today, it existed as a single scroll in the first century before Christ.

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And what's important about that is what that means is every Messianic prophecy, Isaiah 9,

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Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53, they're all there in all their glory in a manuscript that was written 100 years before Jesus was born.

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Now, does that prove that those prophecies had been given 700 years before Christ was born?

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Because that's when Isaiah would be ministering. Well, no, it doesn't. But what it does do is demonstrate that these prophetic scriptures preexisted their fulfillment in Christ.

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Whether it's 100 years or 700 years really doesn't matter at that point. The naturalistic worldview just doesn't have an explanation for how you can have prophecy.

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And sadly, a lot of biblical theology that is in most of our schools today can't figure that part out either and doesn't really believe it either.

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So anyway, this gave us an opportunity. In fact,

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I was on Apology Radio the week before last to talk about the great

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Isaiah scroll, the nature of the textual variance within it, just how incredibly valuable it is to us, and just what a great gift it is.

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Because you've got to realize, up until the middle of the last century, the oldest manuscripts we had of the

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Old Testament were from 900 years after Christ. And look, the mosaic material is ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient.

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So it's not that it's surprising that that would be the case. The vast majority of what was written in the ancient world has long since passed away unless it was chiseled on a rock someplace.

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And we're still finding stuff like that. I think it's fascinating that just less than two years ago, I think it was, we found a...

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Was it a copper scroll or was it actually in rock? I'm trying to remember. We found an inscription on Mount Ebel.

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So if you remember Deuteronomy 28 -29, blessings and cursings. And it's a section from that, the cursing section, from like,

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I don't know, 500 -600 years before Christ. So again, the historical picture that we can use to defend the scriptures has gotten clearer and clearer.

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And we have more and more available to us today than we've ever had in the past, which is, it's a blessing.

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I think that should be something that Christians spend more time on and think about.

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Certainly more time than thinking about the Super Bowl or other silly stuff like that. But it takes sometimes controversy to get people to look at this stuff and to go learn something about the history of the text itself.

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I could go on from there, but I just want to make sure you're still breathing. Well, one thing

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I don't want you to forget to do, or I don't want myself to forget to ask you to say, there is a very powerful segment or portion of that debate with Bart Ehrman that you had during the cross -examination,

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I believe, where you kind of cornered him and got him to admit that the evidence that we have for the authenticity of the

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New Testament even exceeds that of comparable secular literature and age that everybody takes for granted is authentic.

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And it's actually involving the number of so -called errors.

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You know what I'm speaking of? Yeah, what happened—and this is interesting, we've not had a discussion about this before, at least on the program— but what is really interesting is,

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I almost cut him off before he got to say that really, really important section.

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I just actually opened one of my presentations to see if I could find this for you and even play it, and the one that opened up didn't contain it, but I almost cut him off.

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When you're doing cross -examination with somebody, you don't want them to go on and on and on.

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And so I almost stopped him from saying this. Let me turn my volume up here, and we'll see if this comes across.

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Let's see if this works. On the Unbelievable Radio program in London, you discussed the length of time that exists between the writing of Paul's letter to the

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Galatians and the first extant copy, that being 150 years. You described this time period as enormous.

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Could you tell us what term you would use to describe the time period between, say, the original writings of Suetonius or Tacitus or Pliny and their first extant manuscript copies?

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Very enormous. Sorry, ginormous would be a good one? Ginormous. Ginormous, okay. I mean, ginormous doesn't cover it.

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The New Testament, we have much earlier attestation than for any other book from antiquity. There.

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Wow, that came across loud and clear. I was shocked. Well, you know, this is called modern tech.

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You still live in the wonderment of childhood. That kind of thing.

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It's great. Well, if you hold on a minute, I've got to put more gasoline in my computer engine.

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Yeah, Eric is undoubtedly one of the most patient men on the planet. Anyway. That's my webmaster, folks, for those of you who have no idea who

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Eric is. I knew long before you did. But anyway, so you could almost hear me at that point.

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I started to say something and he actually just kept speaking. I'm so glad he did, because I never expected in all of that debate to have

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Bart Ehrman, the leading English -speaking critic of the New Testament in America today, and even back then in 2009, to say we have far earlier evidence in the

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New Testament than for any other work of antiquity. But people do need to understand that we do.

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He knows that. It's fascinating that in his scholarly stuff, he's far more conservative than in his popular stuff.

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You know, misquoting Jesus and all the rest of the popular stuff that's made him wealthy.

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His scholarly stuff, he knows that he's going to be up against people that can go, hey, now, wait a minute, look at this, look at that.

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And so he has said he's no longer even working in the field of New Testament textual criticism anymore.

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He says, we know what the original New Testament looked like, what it read like. We're just simply playing around with variant readings now.

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It doesn't really affect anything. But then, in our debate, you can go, well, you know, it depends on which manuscript you're reading.

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And he doesn't do that amongst scholars. He does that out amongst people he can't challenge about that kind of thing.

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But that statement that I just played for you, Christians need to understand that.

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Of all the works of antiquity, and of course, antiquity at that point, we're talking primarily 200 years before Christ, 200 years after Christ, that particular time frame.

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We have more and earlier New Testament data than any other work of antiquity by a long shot.

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And I was appreciative of the fact that he was willing to make that kind of a statement.

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So what that leads to is, I made some comments about the

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Isaiah scroll on Twitter. In fact, could you pick up about the Isaiah scroll when we come back from our first commercial break?

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Sure. Okay, and don't go away, folks. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government.

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And we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost and the glory of our triune

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith. And we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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Daniel Wolford, CEO and president of Lebanon Felt Credit Union.

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Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program.

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That's SecureCommGroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor,

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Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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He sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit

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NHPBC .com. That's NHPBC .com.

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You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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Obviously, since Valentine's Day is a few days away, you'll need to pick something that they already have in stock at royaldiadem .com,

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Go to royaldiadem .com and here is the kicker. Anybody in our audience who purchases jewelry from royaldiadem .com

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and mentions Iron Sharpens Iron Radio will ensure that we get 100 % of the profits from that sale.

39:14

So go to royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And by the way, since I was reminded after hearing the ad in the first break for Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which happens to be the church where I am a member,

39:35

Dr. James R. White, God willing, will be speaking there in September. We do not have a date yet.

39:41

He needs to coordinate that with Pastor Jeffrey Rice in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and other folks that he's having conferences with.

39:54

So hopefully we will have a concrete date for you soon. We just know it's not going to be

40:01

September 28th because my pastor, Simon O'Maney, will be away, but it will be either,

40:08

God willing, in late September or early October. And hopefully we will also be able to have

40:15

James speak at the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon the

40:20

Thursday before or after that. So just put a big circle around late

40:27

September and early October on your calendar and keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for further updates.

40:35

And before we go back to the Isaiah scroll where we left off, you had mentioned early on in our conversation that the old days when we used to go to a gym in Amityville when you'd be visiting, did you know that the owner of that gym, his wife had hired a hitman to kill him?

41:02

And the guy accidentally killed his partner because he looked almost exactly like the owner and drove the same color car, parked in the same area of the parking lot of the gym.

41:14

And I believe they may even made a movie about it or something, but I don't know if I ever told you that, but that was back in 2004, over 20 years ago.

41:24

It's just amazing how time flies. But anyway, pick up where you left off on the

41:30

Isaiah scroll. Are you even there? I'm here.

41:35

I unmuted the mic. Yeah, that's a great story, Chris. It's so depressing.

41:41

Thank you. Well, is there anything newsworthy connected to you that isn't depressing lately?

41:52

Oh, how? I'm not saying that you're the fault of it.

41:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's too many steroids involved in that situation.

42:05

But anyways, so I was, you know, we were talking about the Isaiah scroll a little bit and what had happened with Westhoff and stuff like that.

42:14

I don't remember exactly how this happened. I think I came home a week ago,

42:21

Sunday night, and there was this big, long blast at me from Corey Mahler.

42:30

Now, Corey Mahler is an excommunicated Lutheran individual who, together with another fellow, are the primary people in a webcast called

42:46

The Stone Choir. I call it The Stone Choir cult. Did they ever explain the name? Is that about the

42:52

Stones Will Cry Out? Is that like a takeoff on that? Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. And so they are a neo -Nazi group.

43:03

They are Hitler apologists. They are deeply anti -Jewish, anti -Black.

43:08

They're white supremacists. The number of vile statements, very often, sadly, also providing the

43:19

Lord's name and things like that and the promotion of their vile teachings, are legion.

43:27

But they put out a high -quality webcast.

43:33

They know a whole lot more about technology than you do. Well, that's kind of a low bar, though, to say that it's so high -quality.

43:45

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. You've got to have a thick skin to have you on a program,

43:53

I tell you. When we've known each other for 29 years, you've got a lot of material to work with.

43:58

So anyway,

44:05

I get home and here's this lengthy thing. One of the things they like to accuse people of is being a

44:12

Judaizer. Basically, if you know

44:17

Marcion in the early church, the Gnostic heretic

44:22

Marcion, that's the new thing today. I guess he had seen me talking about the

44:31

Isaiah scroll and the relationship to the Greek Septuagint and stuff like that. And so here's this long thing.

44:38

And basically what he came down to was his assertion is that God destroyed the

44:46

Hebrew language and the Hebrew scriptures and that the Christian scriptures are all in Greek.

44:52

And so he believes that the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the

44:58

Old Testament, that was done bits and pieces. It wasn't done all at one time.

45:03

It seems fairly obvious that 200, 250 years before Christ, there was a well -done translation of the

45:14

Pentateuch, the works of Moses, that's highly accurate. And in the vast majority of instances is based upon the textual tradition, the

45:25

Hebrew textual tradition that would become the Masoretic text. But there are other portions of the

45:30

Greek Septuagint that are much less accurate, weren't done by as good scholars.

45:39

But it started circulating prior to the time of Christ, and it should be noted that the

45:49

Greek Septuagint was the Bible of the early church. And before there was a New Testament, as the gospel went out from Israel into the rest of the world, vast majority of people outside of Jerusalem in that area do not read

46:06

Hebrew, and outside of that part of the world don't read Aramaic.

46:11

And so what are they going to have? In a synagogue in Philippi, for example, what's going to be read?

46:22

Well, in all probability, unless you have a large number of people from the

46:27

Holy Land living in that place, the scriptures are going to be being read in Greek.

46:34

And so the Greek translation, the Greek Septuagint, would be, for example, what the apostles referred to.

46:42

The apostles, the vast majority of the time, when we can tell what they're quoting, if there's absolutely no difference between the

46:48

Greek or the Hebrew, then it's sort of hard to tell what they're quoting. But when there are slight differences or even major differences, they're generally quoting from the

46:57

Greek Septuagint because that's what people would have, that's what they would have access to. So if you're writing to the

47:02

Church of Colossae, you're not going to be quoting from the Hebrew. There's nobody there to read it, but you'd be quoting from the Greek Septuagint.

47:08

So I do think that Christians should be aware of the history of their texts.

47:15

They should be aware of some of this important information that atheists and others will jump onto, and they'll use our ignorance of our history to our own detriment at times.

47:30

But what was fascinating is, here comes Cory Mahler, and he's just straight up saying,

47:38

God destroyed the Hebrew language and the Christian scriptures are in Greek.

47:44

And so he—everybody, hopefully, you're sitting down, maybe you're not driving right now—he identifies the name

47:52

Yahweh. Now, the Legacy Standard Bible that came out a few years ago uses the name

47:59

Yahweh in the Old Testament. The Jerusalem Bible had done that with Jehovah. Actually, did they use

48:06

Yahweh? I'd have to look that up. But there have been a few English translations in the past that have transgressed the

48:13

Jewish traditions, shall we say, and have utilized the divine name. The Jews will not say the divine name.

48:20

Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that most translations or versions of the

48:27

Old Testament in English that do not have Yahweh, where we have

48:33

LORD, all caps, and Adonai, they don't realize that that had to do with a rabbinic tradition of dropping the name

48:43

Yahweh, because it was, in their minds, a sin to even utter the name

48:49

Yahweh. Right, yeah. If you want to offend a believing

48:54

Jewish person today, go ahead and use the covenant name of God. And you don't believe that that was the way the

49:00

Old Testament canon was originally breathed out. You believe it included the name

49:05

Yahweh. Oh, yeah. I mean, the—well, the Isaiah scroll at Qumran has

49:12

Yahweh, but, of course, there's no vowel pointing in that. And the vowel pointing the

49:19

Mazarites eventually put into the text was specifically designed to keep you from saying the name.

49:24

They put the vowel pointing for the term Adonai under Yahweh, even though Yahweh is only a two -syllable word and Adonai is three.

49:32

So it doesn't look right, and it's meant to be a stop sign.

49:37

Don't say this. They say either Adonai, my Lord, or they'll say

49:42

Hashem, the name, but they won't say Yahweh. And so the

49:49

LSB has it, and when I would read for years—you'll remember this, when I would be reading from the

49:54

Old Testament, and I'd encounter the— The Shema? I'm sorry? When you'd read the

50:00

Shema, you'd say Yahweh. Yeah, well, when I would read the Shema, I'd go,

50:06

Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. So I'm doing all the—but if I was just reading the

50:11

English and I'd encounter L -O -R -D in caps, I'd read it as Yahweh. And that threw some people off, but I'd frequently have to stop and explain it, and then we'd move on from there.

50:22

Well, the LSB has just put it in, so you'll read it all the way through the

50:28

Old Testament. You'll see Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh, everywhere. And so what's amazing is, toward the end of this stuff that he shot toward me, this

50:38

Corey Mulligan, he said, if you want clear evidence—I don't have any of this in front of me,

50:44

I'm just going by memory— but if you want clear evidence of the Judaizers, it's the people who use the name

50:50

Yahweh, who in fact is a demon. Wow. And so I remember someone had come up to me at church,

51:01

I don't know, a year and a half ago or so, and said, hey, pastor, I was listening to this webcast, and they're actually saying that Yahweh is not the proper name and that Yahweh is actually a demon.

51:12

And so I'm going, well, standard -form

51:19

Gnosticism in the second century, once it encountered

51:26

Christianity, it made room for Jesus and made him one of the aeons and part of the

51:36

Pleroma. But they viewed

51:43

Jehovah or Yahweh as a demiurge, as a lower being. Actually, Yahweh in classic

51:51

Gnostic theology and myth was the result of one of the aeons in the

51:59

Pleroma, Sophia, Wisdom, having a child but inappropriately, sort of like a malformed— she did it without reference to her male consort.

52:11

And so it had divine powers, but it was ignorant of the beings above it, and it claimed to be the only true

52:20

God, and it was Yahweh, or as they called it, Yaldabaoth. And so this is—I figured he had just encountered, you know, there are people all the time that are trying to get the

52:33

Gnostics back into popularity and things like that, and so I figured he had run into something where they were doing that.

52:39

Now I'm wondering if he hadn't run into the Stone Choir cult, and we're repeating the same kind of blather.

52:48

But it's out there, and look, the vast majority of churches don't talk about Gnosticism, they don't talk about the

52:57

Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wau -Heh in the Old Testament. Even when I taught in 2019,

53:05

I flew all over the world, and I taught in January of 2019 in Samara, Russia. And when

53:12

I was teaching a seminary class there, I realized their standard translation, the

53:17

Russian Synodal Bible, their standard translation in Russian does not even have the

53:22

L -O -R -D in caps type of indication of the Tetragrammaton. They have no idea, reading their

53:29

Russian Bible, whether they're looking at the divine name or not, they have no way of knowing. By the way, pick up on the

53:34

Russian Bible when we return from our midway break. Folks, if you'd like to join the conversation with a question, there are already some folks waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

53:47

But if you want to get online, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence, don't go away.

53:55

We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

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Or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831.

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If you visit, tell them Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, and a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. This is

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Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

01:00:36

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

01:01:33

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

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Arn Sharpen's Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:01:54

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Arn Sharpen's Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. I'm Dr.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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01:06:51

Welcome back. Folks, if you love Ironsharpensiron Radio and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves,

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If you want to advertise with us, whether it is your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, private practice like a law firm or a medical firm, or maybe it's just a special event that you want to promote, as long as it's compatible with my beliefs,

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I would love to help you launch an ad campaign, because I'm just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as I am in your donations.

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So, send me an email to chrisarenson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

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And last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, I have lists of churches spanning the globe, and I've helped many people all over the planet

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Earth find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you too.

01:09:10

So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:09:19

James R. White on any subject that you'd like. He is a theologian and an apologist, and so send those questions in to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:09:30

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And Dr.

01:09:36

White, before we go into the Russian Bible that you were mentioning, the standard version that does not distinguish

01:09:44

Hiawei from the other readings of Lord in the

01:09:51

Old Testament in the Russian language, I just want you to mention something about the

01:09:56

G3 conference, where you are one of 20 speakers this coming

01:10:01

September. I am thrilled about it, as I always am. I'm looking forward to being there, manning an

01:10:08

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor booth. And so please tell us about your participation in this conference from September 11th through the 13th in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:10:25

Well, as you said, one of 20 speakers, which means

01:10:32

I just, you know, fill in the cracks between the big guys. You're always one of the most memorable speakers there, though.

01:10:40

I'm not sure how to interpret that. There's many ways in which that could be understood.

01:10:49

Memorable as in crash and burn. Memorable as in what kind of bow tie am

01:10:55

I going to be wearing this year? There's lots of memorable as in the guy that the sound guy always has to sneak up behind and do something with my microphone while I'm speaking.

01:11:06

Or a child goes missing while you're speaking. Yes, I'll go speaking while I'm missing. It's great.

01:11:13

I can't imagine what they could come up with this year. But anyways, no, looking forward to being there.

01:11:20

I was wondering why Josh Bice was patting a little girl on the back saying, good job, good job.

01:11:27

Thanks for doing that for us. Yeah, I'm sure they're thinking of something now. I started speaking at the

01:11:37

G3 annual conference back at Praise Mill. I wasn't there from the start, but I've been one of the longer term guys that have spoken there.

01:11:51

And so I know that Josh has to hold his nose a little bit because there's lots of people who do not like me.

01:11:59

But then there are others who do. I mean, you've seen the line that we have. Oh, yeah, it's always gigantic.

01:12:05

Yeah, yeah, we get to meet everybody and talk to folks. And the last national conference, my wife got to come to for the very first time.

01:12:14

And I'd always wanted to have her come so that she could listen to what people were saying and get a little more of a sense.

01:12:22

Because she doesn't get to travel with me. She's taking care of her mom. And so I wanted to have a little bit more of a sense of what people are saying.

01:12:31

After all the years we've been doing ministry and she worked so hard to, you know, she worked full time for most of that time period.

01:12:38

That's how we had health insurance was because of her working for the airlines. And so she came and stood with me for a while.

01:12:47

And then once she sort of got used to what she was going to be hearing, she sort of took over.

01:12:54

And she noticed, for example, that my line was making it difficult for people to get to other booths.

01:13:00

And so on her own initiative, she just said, OK, we need to move this line over here. And, you know, and then then when

01:13:07

I'd have to go do something, she'd she'd step in and say, OK, this is going to be the end of the line for here.

01:13:13

We'll be back at such and such time. She just took over. You know, she did management for American Airlines for years.

01:13:19

And it was really fun to watch her doing that. And it was neat to get to see people, you know, getting to meet the the the woman behind the guy.

01:13:28

And so so hopefully she'll get a chance to to come. I had asked just a few weeks ago about topics and was told we'll be getting to that within the next few days.

01:13:40

The main theme is faith. Yes, I know it's faith. I just don't know what the you know, what the specific areas they want to address are and stuff like that.

01:13:49

So, yeah, so we plan on being there. My biggest challenge, honestly, is

01:13:56

I don't fly in. And so finding a place to park a huge RV because I have a you haven't seen my new

01:14:07

RV. No, I was in the old one. Yes. But I was in the old one when we when we went to Gettysburg. Right, right, right.

01:14:14

That I think that was the Jayco, if I recall correctly. Did it have the the studio in it?

01:14:22

No, you didn't have that part with you when you picked me up. That may have been all the way back to the original one, which was only just over 29 feet long, 29 feet long and 12 and a half feet tall.

01:14:35

My current unit is almost 41 feet long, 13 and a half feet tall and weighs right at twice what the one you saw did.

01:14:47

Wow. So she's a beastie and she's she's big. And so finding a place to park that baby in Atlanta is next to impossible.

01:14:57

I think I have found an RV park about 16 miles from the location that I may use.

01:15:05

The problem is I can't take my truck to that location. It's too big. It's too tall.

01:15:11

It can't fit in the parking structures. So that those are those are the challenges

01:15:16

I face now, given the way I've chosen to travel. It's not so much, you know, is my flight going to make it or anything else?

01:15:24

It's where can I park this beast that it's that is to be able to be safe? So, yeah,

01:15:29

I'm looking forward to doing that. And like I said, as you mentioned, we're going to be trying to figure out a way to fit into a meaningful time frame.

01:15:41

G3, something in Nashville, something in Tullahoma and something in Pennsylvania. That's that's a lot to cram into into one trip.

01:15:50

But we're going to do our best and see if we can make make it all work out.

01:15:55

Don't forget that my pastor, Simon O'Maney, was led to the Reformed faith through your books and your webcast and your public debates.

01:16:07

Yeah, well, unfortunately, a lot of guys today that really, really don't like me anymore said this. Well, he hasn't said that yet.

01:16:17

Let's just be honest. That's been going on a lot recently. Thanks for getting into this. But now we don't need you anymore is sort of what's been going on.

01:16:25

So I'm looking forward to getting back there and seeing everybody. G3 is always a really enjoyable time of fellowship and teaching and stuff like that.

01:16:35

So hopefully everybody's making their plans to plans to be there. Yeah, go to G3min .org

01:16:41

to register G3min .org. And again, it's September 11th through the 13th.

01:16:47

And just some of those many speakers on the roster include my longtime dear friend,

01:16:52

Dr. Joel Beakey, one of the most powerful preachers on the planet Earth in my estimation,

01:16:59

Hensworth Jonas. My old friend Justin Peters is one of the speakers.

01:17:05

My friend Virgil Walker, Kosti Hinn. And by the way, I don't even know if you know this.

01:17:12

Kosti Hinn announced for the very first time ever that he had left the charismatic movement on my show.

01:17:20

Let's see who else. Daryl Bernard Harrison is speaking.

01:17:26

And Tom Buck, who I love having on the show, and many more. That's G3min .org.

01:17:32

But anyway, we were talking or you were talking about the, I guess it's the most dominant

01:17:38

Russian version of the Scriptures, does not have anything in the

01:17:44

Old Testament that would make the different occurrences of Lord appearing in the

01:17:51

Old Testament. There's nothing that distinguishes Yahweh from the other readings of Lord.

01:18:02

Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of English speaking

01:18:08

Christians are unaware that, you know, they've seen Lord in all caps.

01:18:13

They've not even thought about what it's about, Lord God, things like that. And that that's the English Bible translator's way of saying this is a tetragrammaton,

01:18:21

Yahweh, the personal name of God. And so I was stunned when

01:18:26

I was there in Russia. And I'm like, well, why not? I don't understand.

01:18:32

And of course, I'm asking this of my dear friend Nick, who was my translator for years and years in Kiev.

01:18:38

And then that one trip into Samara, obviously, that was before the war started. It was January 2019.

01:18:43

And the problem there is that from my perspective,

01:18:51

I debated Unitarian last year at the First Lutheran in Houston and done a number of debates there.

01:19:04

And the whole thing was, is Jesus Yahweh? I think the strongest, most unique demonstration of the deity of Christ—and I've had a number of former

01:19:16

Jehovah's Witnesses say the same thing— is the fact that the New Testament authors will take passages that are specifically and only applicable to Yahweh and apply them to Christ.

01:19:31

And so this is just basic Trinitarian defense 101. And yet Russians can't do it with the translation they have if they don't have access to the original languages.

01:19:44

And it shocked me. And I suppose now that I'm thinking about it, it might have something to do with the fact that Russia is

01:19:54

Orthodox. And Orthodoxy is deeply Trinitarian. And so you really wouldn't have much in the way of attacks upon the

01:20:01

Trinity until Communism arose. But those translations that have already been done at that point, these are very old translations, and maybe that has something to do with it.

01:20:10

I don't know. So I was taken aback by that. But what should take people aback far more is that this

01:20:20

Corey Mahler would say that Yahweh is a demon. And that comes totally from his clear and obvious animus toward the

01:20:31

Jewish people, toward Judaism, the Jews are behind everything. He knows that the Old Testament was written by Jews, doesn't he?

01:20:39

Well, yes, he does. And of course, what's interesting is the

01:20:45

Orthodox have a very high view of the Septuagint as well. Not to that point that I could say

01:20:53

Yahweh is a demon, obviously. But they do have a predilection for the

01:20:59

Greek Septuagint over the Hebrew Masoretic text as well. And so it was interesting to see some

01:21:05

Orthodox folks jump into that conversation on Twitter. And of course, right now we are seeing an interesting influx of converts to Orthodoxy.

01:21:19

I think part of the reason for that is Francis. Really? I'm sorry?

01:21:28

Oh, you mean from Roman Catholicism they're becoming Easter? No, no, no. I think the reason that we're seeing more of it toward Orthodoxy right now is that over the years,

01:21:40

I've seen periods of time where there were people converting to Roman Catholicism, and they'd make a big deal out of it, and the

01:21:48

Coming Home Network's founded out of all that. I have to wonder if one of the reasons we're seeing more converting to Orthodoxy right now is because of Francis.

01:22:00

Oh, because they don't want to become Roman Catholic because of Francis. Right. They're like, this guy's obviously, you know, if I want the ancient

01:22:10

Church, this guy ain't the ancient Church. He's not even the Church since Trent.

01:22:15

He's not even the Church since 50 years ago. And so I have a hunch that part of the reason that you're seeing this interest in Orthodoxy is because Francis is sort of deflecting people from the—if they want liturgy, if they want the smells and bells and things like that, it just doesn't seem like he's the one to lead that Church toward that.

01:22:41

So it is interesting that we, at this time where you have this kind of interest in Orthodoxy, that they would say, hey, and by the way, yeah, we think the

01:22:51

Greek Septuagint is the be -all end -all of all things. By the way, let me squeeze in a question about the

01:22:59

Greek Septuagint from a listener, so we could at least get one listener question in. Jacoby in East Rutherford, New Jersey says,

01:23:08

Roman Catholics like to claim that because of the fact that Jesus used the

01:23:15

Septuagint, that the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books are a part of the

01:23:21

Old Testament canon. Was the Apocrypha a part of Jesus' Septuagint?

01:23:30

Well, a couple things. I think it would be a minority of scholars that would say that Jesus used any

01:23:38

Greek at all. So the idea that he used the Septuagint, generally the way that's expressed is the

01:23:48

Gospel writers used the Septuagint, and Jesus is almost always—now when he's speaking with Pilate, maybe he was speaking

01:23:57

Greek. There's no way of knowing one way or another exactly what language is being used in what particular context.

01:24:08

The majority of people would say that Aramaic was the standard language there, and that Greek would only be understood so far as to be able to make sure that if the

01:24:18

Roman soldier yelling at you was telling you to do something, you knew what he was telling you to do. But so the real issue is the

01:24:27

Gospel writers tend, obviously, to be utilizing the Greek Septuagint because they're writing in Greek. And there are people who actually say that the

01:24:36

Gospels were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and the Old New Testament was. That's a teeny tiny little super small minority that I just think you really have to stand on your head to come up with that one.

01:24:48

So the standard question, though, now to get to it is, well, the

01:24:56

Septuagint included the apocryphal books, therefore aren't they part of the canon?

01:25:01

The problem is all of the manuscripts we have of the

01:25:07

Septuagint that are of any meaningful antiquity are probably from Christians. They're not

01:25:13

Jewish. The Jews did not accept the apocryphal books. They were never laid up in the temple.

01:25:21

They were not viewed as scripture. Many of them weren't even written in Hebrew or Aramaic. They were written in Greek. And despite the popularity of the assertion, there was no

01:25:31

Alexandrian canon versus Palestinian canon. The Jews just never accepted those books as canonical.

01:25:39

So the fact that the scrolls that we have today of the

01:25:45

Septuagint, they don't go back before Christ. There were some fragments, by the way, of the

01:25:51

Septuagint, or at least Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures in the

01:25:57

Dead Sea Scrolls, but they were just fragments. They can't give us much more information than that. The actual whole copies that we have were produced by Christians.

01:26:06

And there was, of course, a major dispute and debate in the early centuries, especially seen in Jerome and Augustine arguing about the deuterocanonical books, the apocryphal books.

01:26:27

And Jerome rejected them because he had moved to Bethlehem. He had learned Hebrew.

01:26:32

He had access to the rabbis. And he knew that the Jewish people had never accepted them.

01:26:39

Romans 3 says that the oracles of God had been given to the Jews as part of their privileges.

01:26:46

And he only included it under pressure from the Vatican, right? Well, there wasn't a

01:26:51

Vatican back then, but when the Pope asked him to do the

01:26:57

Vulgate, he did translate them, but he translated them rather quickly and only at the end of the process.

01:27:07

He made it very clear, and there was a tradition all the way down to the time of the Reformation, that these books were not canonical.

01:27:16

Cardinal Cayetan, who interviewed Luther, had written an entire commentary on the

01:27:21

Old Testament and had rejected those books, pointed out that Pope Gregory the Great had rejected those books, that Origen and Rufinus and so on and so forth,

01:27:28

Melito Sardis had rejected these books. In essence, the more people knew of the

01:27:34

Hebrew Old Testament, the less likely it was they were going to believe that those books were canonical, because they're not.

01:27:40

So I'm really surprised, though, Chris, you were there for my debate with Gary Machuda, so I would expect you to pretty much memorize my presentation.

01:27:51

It was excellent. It was excellent, and I remember Gary Machuda having to come up with some really inventive ways of defending the

01:28:04

Catholic Church's teaching that those books are canonical. Well, especially when he pointed out errors in them.

01:28:11

Then it became very, very interesting at that particular point in time. And I've been told that he would like to do that again because he feels like he— he has significantly better arguments now than he did then.

01:28:26

Which, again, the reality is that if you want to find people who believed that those books were canonical, you can find them.

01:28:37

If you want to find people who didn't, you can find them. And that was a challenging issue down through Church history.

01:28:45

And from the Roman Catholic perspective, if you really do claim that the

01:28:53

Church's infallible authority has to be behind the definition of the canon, that did not take place until April of 1546.

01:29:03

And if you're really going to say the Church did not have a functional canon until April of 1546, then what's the use?

01:29:12

Right. I mean, even from Rome's perspective, the vast majority of her teachings and dogmas, aside from the

01:29:20

Marian stuff, which doesn't require Scripture anyways, had been determined long before 1546.

01:29:27

So you might as well just chuck the Scriptures out the window and say, yeah, we'll do whatever we want to do, we don't have to worry about it.

01:29:33

So, yeah, that's the problem that you have at that particular point. And there is no clear teaching of purgatory in the

01:29:43

Apocrypha, right? I mean, aren't those that are praying for the dead just praying for further blessings in heaven for the dead?

01:29:51

I mean, it's still a Roman practice, but it was not praying people out of a place of torment, right?

01:29:58

No. The only way to make the Maccabean passage at all relevant is to anachronistically read an entire doctrine into a period of time where any honest person realizes nobody would have had a clue what in the world you were talking about.

01:30:14

It's talking about Jewish soldiers who had idols hidden under their clothing when they died.

01:30:22

And idolatry, of course, is a mortal sin from the Roman Catholic perspective. Purgatory is not for people who die in a state of mortal sin in the first place, so it's completely irrelevant.

01:30:31

But all of that is just pure anachronism. None of those categories—mortal sin, venial sin, any of that stuff—existed at that period of time.

01:30:44

All you can say from the Maccabean material is that these

01:30:49

Jewish warriors—someone had prayed for these Jewish warriors even though they had been found to have these pagan idols on them.

01:30:58

That's all you can say. You cannot say anything more than that. You cannot read anything more into that without just absolutely destroying the historical context.

01:31:07

They were not praying them out of torment. No, no, none of that. That's completely outside the context of Maccabees, which

01:31:16

Pope Gregory the Great said wasn't canon anyway, so we can move on from there. But since Rome has definitively made that assertion, then

01:31:27

Roman Catholic apologists have to defend that. Though I'll be perfectly honest with you, I really have to wonder what someone like Francis would say about things like that.

01:31:36

I mean, it just seems so far away from his kind of theological formulation that this does make me...

01:31:48

I just think back on so many of those debates, and I ask myself the question sometimes, how different would those debates be with that particular individual today than they were years ago, in light of the fact that when we were doing those debates,

01:32:09

John Paul II was Pope, and he had been Pope forever and was Pope for a very, very long time, and so you had stability, and as you recall, he'd throw something out for the conservatives one year and throw something out for the liberals the next year.

01:32:24

He managed to keep people sort of heading down the road pretty much the same direction. And so it was easy for Roman Catholics back then.

01:32:36

Well, we could just ask the Pope. They can't say that now. I mean, there were a number of times during Q &A, well, if we really needed to find out, we could ask the

01:32:45

Pope. Now they're not going to say that because they don't have confidence that they could ask the Pope.

01:32:51

They could ask Francis. What in the world might he say? Who knows? The rhetorical question, is the

01:32:57

Pope Catholic, is now a real question. It is a real question. It truly, truly is.

01:33:03

And though the changes he has made officially and openly, such as regards the death penalty, are rather few, the changes he has made to the church as a whole and to the magisterium and to how his successor is going to be chosen, and he's not in good shape these days, so I think there's going to be a lot of changes coming up fairly soon.

01:33:29

But he has packed the College of Cardinals. He has made sure that for years to come, his successors are going to continue the leftward trajectory of the

01:33:43

Roman Catholic Church. And that will have impact for decades. And so that would have changed how a lot of people answered questions back then in comparison today.

01:33:55

Now, I'm going to answer the questions. The only reason that I would answer a question differently today than I did back then is if I've learned more information.

01:34:05

You know, I'm having an interesting conversation with somebody right now in regards to Ignatius of Antioch.

01:34:14

And did he even really exist? And are his letters even semi -trustworthy? And were they written around when we thought they were?

01:34:21

What I was taught in seminary is being challenged now, 20, 30, 40 years down the road.

01:34:28

That might result in a different presentation. But my presentations aren't going to be different because the head of my church has somehow fundamentally changed his perspectives and changed the perspectives of that church, and that's what

01:34:45

Rome is facing. And I think there's a lot of Roman Catholic apologists that recognize that's what they're facing.

01:34:52

Well, we do have a question. Let's see, I was just looking at it.

01:35:01

Bella, who is located in Uniondale, Long Island, New York, Bella asks,

01:35:08

The rhetoric of Roman Catholic apologists is insinuating that there are many, many more converts from evangelical

01:35:18

Christianity into the Church of Rome than the reverse. Do you believe this rhetoric?

01:35:26

Well, no. I think the numbers are very clear globally, especially in the global south, that Rome continues to lose all sorts of people.

01:35:39

Because remember, Rome loves to compare herself to the vague, undefined and undefinable thing called

01:35:51

Protestantism. What is that? What is included? Are the Mormons included in that?

01:35:57

Are the Jehovah's Witnesses included in that? Well, of course not. They shouldn't be. But in general, they are, because Protestantism just means basically

01:36:05

Christians who aren't Roman Catholics or Orthodox. It's the default category for other.

01:36:13

And so they like to compare Rome with other. And the reality is that when people convert to biblical

01:36:28

Christianity from Roman Catholicism, they tend to emphasize the gospel, forgiveness of sins, peace with God, a newfound dedication to the sufficiency and inspiration of Scripture.

01:36:45

So they talk about conversion to Christ, but converts to Roman Catholicism talk about conversions to the

01:36:53

Church. And so it's the Church, it's having this certainty, which

01:37:00

Francis is really a problem for, Mary and the cult of Mary and things like that.

01:37:08

So there's a huge difference, and converts to Catholicism, they go on programs, the

01:37:15

Coming Home Network, and it's just all about convert, convert, convert, convert. So you hear a lot more about that than you hear when people leave

01:37:23

Roman Catholicism and join a sound church, and they're just fellowshipping in church and they're worshiping

01:37:30

God, and they're not doing a big thing about being a former Catholic. I forget when it was, sometime in the last two or three times

01:37:38

I preached at Apologia, I asked, how many of you are former

01:37:43

Roman Catholics? It was about a quarter, between a quarter and a third were former Roman Catholics, and that's not uncommon at all.

01:37:52

I don't think you'd go into almost any Roman Catholic church and find a quarter and a third were former Protestants, or at least believed

01:37:58

Protestants. So no, when you hear about all these conversion stories, it's almost always conversion to an organization rather than conversion of the heart, that type that we would understand as regeneration and commitment to Christ in that way.

01:38:19

So no, I think especially as you look at the fact that Rome continues to decline globally in numbers, yeah, are a lot of those people becoming just purely secularists?

01:38:34

Yeah. And of course, Rome has the advantage of you are born as a

01:38:40

Catholic. You shouldn't be born as a Protestant. I mean, I know there are some

01:38:46

Protestant groups, that's the case, but generally, sound Protestant groups, you're not born into that.

01:38:51

You actually have to be converted into that, and that changes all the numbers, too. So yeah,

01:38:57

I hear them crowing about such things, but I don't buy it. It doesn't really address the issue real well.

01:39:04

I have been told by conservative Roman Catholic apologists in private conversation that I am still a

01:39:12

Catholic, that I'm still a Roman Catholic. And Patrick Madrid, on the other hand, told me that I was in very real jeopardy of going to hell because I left the

01:39:25

Roman Catholic Church, whereas you, never having been a Roman Catholic, don't have that same jeopardy hanging over your head.

01:39:35

Yeah, and in reverse, I have to admit that it is easier for me to talk to a person who has been in a false or erroneous religious view their entire life than it is to talk to a person who once professed the truth as I understand it and has now left that, and is denying that and is seeking to bring other people into that same situation.

01:40:03

So when I debated John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan was a

01:40:12

Roman Catholic his entire life. And so, we got along and the folks on the cruise that we did with them, or we did the debate on the resurrection, treated them real nice and everything else.

01:40:27

I could never really cozy up in any way to Marcus Borg because Marcus Borg was a former evangelical and was knowingly denying the things that he had once professed.

01:40:42

So, for me, I do see a distinction going the other direction.

01:40:48

So, yeah, I mean, from Patrick McGinnis' perspective, you're probably toast. Well, we're going to our final break in Amethyst in Jupiter, Florida.

01:40:58

We'll get to your question as soon as we return. Don't go away. We are going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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At Lindbergh Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

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We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

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That's L -Y -N -BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbergh Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God, not a result of words, so that no one may boast.

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May the Lord bless you in the knowledge of Himself. James, remember that day when we were standing on the steps of Lindbergh Baptist Church before anybody arrived, before your speaking engagements, and you spotted

01:51:33

Mormons across the street because of the white shirts, black ties, and badges? And I went over there to invite them to hear you speak, and they said,

01:51:43

Well, we can't come now. We've got our own service, but we can come tonight.

01:51:49

And they came, and you had them spellbound. There was at least three,

01:51:55

I believe, young Mormon men who were spellbound by your knowledge of Mormonism. Do you remember that? Vaguely, yeah.

01:52:04

Yeah, I don't remember the conversation with them, but I do.

01:52:10

This past Sunday morning, I was standing outside a ward chapel in Chandler, Arizona, and every other week,

01:52:19

Apologia goes out to a different ward chapel in the Phoenix area—there are plenty of them— and we stand outside, and if people want to come out and talk, pass out tracts, whatever it is, we have an outreach.

01:52:34

The Mormons, my son -in -law Eric, heads all that up. So yeah, we keep doing it.

01:52:41

I didn't get to have a conversation this past Sunday, but two weeks before that,

01:52:46

I did for about 45 minutes with someone who I came to the conclusion didn't have ears to hear, so someone else took it over from there.

01:52:55

But yeah, we're very active in doing that, and my goodness, talking about Roman Catholicism changing,

01:53:02

Mormonism has changed massively over the past number of years, and I don't know what it's even going to look like 10 years from now,

01:53:09

I really don't. It's changing that fast. There are LGBTQ groups on campus at Brigham Young University.

01:53:18

The majority of the Salt Lake City Council is LGBTQ. Things are changing fast, and Mormonism has no foundation and objective truth upon which to stand, so it's just wobbling and teetering all over the place.

01:53:37

I think the only thing keeping it moving right now is the billions and billions and billions of dollars they have stored up, that they've had stored up for a long time.

01:53:45

Well, Amethyst in Jupiter, Florida wants to know, Who was the most challenging, well -prepared force to be reckoned with in regard to a debate opponent that you ever faced?

01:54:01

Well, yeah, I get that question a lot. Interestingly, I've mentioned that I debated—most attorneys that I debate are really bad.

01:54:14

They should never debate. I don't know why they chose the field that they chose. But there was an attorney in—and

01:54:23

I didn't remember what state it was—who was an Arminian. And he was one of the best guys

01:54:29

I ever took on, and I love to direct people to the debate. I went to the back of the church after the debate, and nobody had pressed record.

01:54:38

There wasn't a recording made in the debate. Wow, wow. And in fact, I'm not even sure it's on my list, because I don't—I can't remember who the guy was.

01:54:49

So that was a strange one. I was really disappointed in that. But, you know, you sort of have to go, well, who was the best

01:54:56

Roman Catholic? And even then, you mean best as in follow the rules of debate?

01:55:03

Or best as in didn't follow the rules of debate and could turn any argument into a food fight?

01:55:10

You know, there's different ways of determining things like that. You know, there have been well -prepared

01:55:16

Muslims, but then there's been a whole lot more very unprepared Muslims, as far as that's concerned.

01:55:24

And same thing amongst Roman Catholics. Obviously, Greg Stafford, the Jehovah's Witness, was a challenging debate.

01:55:32

Yeah, one time you said that he was the guy that was the most challenging. That was a while ago, though. Yeah, he started his own cult, and I think he's probably—I think he's bailed out of that.

01:55:42

I don't think—actually, I think I looked recently at his website, and it hadn't been updated in a decade.

01:55:48

Wow. So I don't know where he has gone or anything like that. So, yeah, that's sort of hard to answer because it's—is it challenging because you're having a hard time just getting him to stay on the topic, or is it challenging because he really does?

01:56:07

The Roman Catholic fellow that I debated on indulgences in Belfast back about 2017, around that time period, he's always well -prepared.

01:56:18

We debated twice, and we did one unbelievable radio broadcast, and he's one of the few people who would actually read my books.

01:56:25

Cool. Very, very rarely do you encounter—do

01:56:30

I encounter people who actually take the time to prepare by listening to what I have to say. And that's always been an advantage for me, which

01:56:39

I don't really think I have as much anymore. So I know I'm doing a debate on the extent of the

01:56:45

Atonement. Jeremiah Nortier and I are debating two Arminians in Jonesboro in just a matter of weeks, and I think it's

01:56:54

March 1st, if I recall correctly. Or that, or it's the night before. I forget. I'm debating

01:56:59

Joe Heschmeier from Catholic Answers on the Mass one night, and then Jeremiah and I are teaming up on a debate the next night.

01:57:09

And I expect that Joe Heschmeier will be prepared, and I expect that the

01:57:16

Arminians will have—I know they've read The Potter's Freedom, because one of the Arminians does a bunch of stuff with Turretinfan.

01:57:23

I'm sure you know who Turretinfan is. Oh yeah, I've interviewed him. Yeah, and so they do stuff together all the time.

01:57:29

So I expect them to be pretty well -prepared. So, you know, we'll see. Well, we're out of time.

01:57:35

We have no more time for any of the listener questions. But, James, it's been a joy.

01:57:42

I want to repeat that he will be speaking at the G3 Conference September 11th through the 13th in Atlanta, Georgia, along with 20 or 19 other speakers.

01:57:55

And you can register for that at g3men .org. I have every intention on being there, manning an exhibitor's booth, as I always do at the

01:58:05

G3 Conference. And also don't forget to revisit my church website,

01:58:13

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to get updates on when

01:58:19

Dr. White will be preaching at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church sometime in late

01:58:25

September or early October, God willing. That website is trbccarlisle .org,

01:58:32

trbccarlisle .org. Please keep praying for my sister

01:58:38

Mary, who had her leg amputated last Friday, that her health continues to improve and that this is used by God to bring her to himself.

01:58:51

But thanks a lot, James, for squeezing me into your very busy schedule. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

01:59:05

Savior than you are a sinner. I look forward to hearing from you with your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.