Heresy Hurricane Season

All right, let's open with prayer and then we will get into our topic for today Lord Jesus again as we open up your word. And we consider the veracity and the reliability of your New Testament. We ask the Lord that you would open our hearts and our minds so that we may be able to know what the truth is.

That understand what the evidence points to so that we may have confidence in your written words. So that our faith may not be stolen from us in days such as these we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Why the Reliability of the New Testament Matters

By way of a little bit of a confession on Wednesday during our midweek gathering for Lent I sat at the ladies table. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you the absolution Roger at the ladies table. One of our members informed me that on Monday night on PBS there was a documentary the last days of Jesus and She was telling me along with another of our members that this was a awful documentary that basically seemed to have as its whole existence the purpose of Basically saying what you think you know about Jesus that's not really how it went down and so I went on to the PBS website and Found the documentary in question watched it twice.

And all I can say is this is a train wreck now. I want to remind you all that the world is Hostile towards Jesus. They don't really like him. If you if you ever hear an unbeliever say well, we like Jesus, but we don't really like Christians.

They're lying. Scripture says that those who are dead and trespasses and sins are actually hostile towards God and this is an example of this. And so every year it seems to happen like clockwork at Easter time also sometimes at Christmas outcome the hit piece documentaries and they're always marketed in such a way that Christians are interested in watching them because they think that this is going to be a documentary that somehow Vindicates the Bible or vindicates Jesus or will help us see how archaeology is Verifying what we see in Scripture to which I would say.

Yeah, that's not the point these documentaries, you know. So the best way I could put it is is that the movie that's out the case for Christ good. Very good. Lee Strobel has done a fine job of laying out a basic apologetic argument demonstrating that the evidence for the Veracity of who Christ is and what he's done for us.

This is all Historically verifiable no problem with that. But when you get something on like PBS the history channel, you know CNN things like this their agenda I don't know if you've noticed this Pagans do what Pagans do because Pagans are what Pagans are and so Pagans don't really seem to have this Burning desire to actually go out and you know, tell the world that Jesus died for their sins and stuff.

Instead Pagans are hostile towards God and they really cannot stand. The message of who he is what he's done and that salvation is found in no one else except for him. And so when you look at a lot of these documentaries, these are hit piece documentaries now I would note something here.

One of the fellows who's prominently featured in this documentary is a fellow who I would liken to Saul of Tarsus not the Apostle Paul. But Saul of Tarsus prior to his conversion and the fellows name is Simcha Yakubovich.

Now you may have you may be familiar with him because ten years ago He's the guy who came out with that documentary, you know kind of code produced with James Cameron called the lost tomb of Jesus and Simcha Yakubovich his name actually looks like it's pronounced Simcha Yakubovich II, but it's not it's it's Hebrew not Italian and so it's Simcha Yakubovich and this fellow the best way I could describe him is he hates he loathes Jesus and He has made it his life mission to find a way to utterly discredit Jesus so that people will stop saying that he's the Jewish Messiah.

That's the only way I can describe this fellow and I have followed his career for the better part of a decade now. So I would say you've got to keep in mind if you if you see this the if you see Simcha Yakubovich associated with any documentary.

Archaeologically, he's got a major axe to grind and he is no friend of Christ and so as I watched the documentary and this is kind of the important thing is is what they're doing is they're trying to offer an Alternative interpretation to the last week of Jesus's life.

Which for us, you know liturgically began today with Palm Sunday, and so the idea is Jesus comes into Jerusalem. There's a crowd of people who are welcoming into Jerusalem they grab palm branches blessed as he who comes in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest and Jesus comes in and Literally less than a week later.

They're shouting crucify him crucify him. And so now you've got a narrative that makes this crowd look like they're well schizophrenic. But they don't do any work to kind of carefully exegete any of these texts and so instead they've come up with an alternative Narrative and the alternative narrative takes us to Imperial Rome Who was the Emperor while Jesus was on trial do any of you know?

Answer.

Tiberius.

Tiberius Caesar is the one who is Emperor of Rome at this time. But if you know the history of Tiberius Caesar, which they give us a lot of in this Documentary didn't you know this that well to put it bluntly and not politely Tiberius was a bit of a pervert and Although he was Emperor of Rome He spent quite a lot of time in private seclusion in a seaside resort Engaging in his perversions.

I'll just put it politely There's no other way to describe this. So while he's busy doing that the question comes up who's running the Empire? While he's Otherwise occupied. Answer a fellow by the name of Lucius Sejanus.

You probably have never heard of Lucius Sejanus. Lucius Sejanus was quite the fellow. He was Extremely ambitious. He was originally the head of the Praetorian Guard. So he's a Roman soldier head of the Praetorian Guard, which is like the elite Bodyguard group in charge of guarding Caesar.

So you think of him as like the head of the Secret Service something like that, right and he eventually becomes the the guy who's running the Empire on behalf of Tiberius that makes sense now. Since he was already running the Empire questions kind of arose whether or not he would be the a good successor to Tiberius as the Emperor when the Emperor ultimately would pass on and Sejanus we find out from history actually kind of helped because there was two other rivals that he had who could potentially be the next Emperor and Sejanus worked Surreptitiously to cause very suspicious circumstances to arise that led to the death of these other two fellows and It took a while for them to put all of the pieces together.

But while they were putting all the pieces together, remember he's running the Empire now I'll you're sitting again. What does this have to do with the death of Jesus? Well, the death of Jesus has everything to do with at least in their theory.

It goes like this in Judea. You've heard of Herod Antipas you've heard of Herod Herod's son Herod the Great's son Herod Antipas. He wasn't permitted by Imperial Rome to actually be the king of Judea like his father was.

Instead he was just a kind of a provincial governor if he would but he really really really really Wanted to be the king of Judea like his father before him, but the Emperor said no. No, not one Emperor but two Emperors said no way Jose.

We're not letting you do that. Okay, including Tiberius. Well while Tiberius was Engaging in his adult activities. We'll put it politely and Sejanus is running the Emperor Empire for him. Herod Antipas makes a trip all the way to Rome and makes a political alliance with Sejanus and It looks like things are going his way.

You're thinking what does this have to do with Jesus? Well, actually nothing but this is how the conspiracy theory that they lay out in this documentary goes. And so the way it works is if you actually pay attention to the list of people who were connected to Jesus.

We know that one of the fellows that was a follower of Jesus grew up in Herod Antipas's house. We know this scripture actually explicitly says this of this fellow. And so here's how the conspiracy the new interpretation works.

See.

Jesus was in cahoots with Herod Antipas through the liaison of the guy who was one of his followers who grew up in his house and Jesus's ministry was being bankrolled by Herod Antipas and some of the people who had clout in Judea and so Jesus apparently had it out for the Established priesthood.

Jesus really was not in favor of and was radically opposed to the established priesthood in Jerusalem just like his cousin John the Baptist. This is their interpretation I just trying to tell you. And so what happened is that when it came time when Jesus came into Jerusalem.

He really didn't come in on Palm Sunday a week before he was Arrested. He came in six months earlier but see the gospel writers just left all that out to make it look like he'd only been there for a week.

And What ended up happening is is that when he arrived there that happened to coincide with the when the time when Tiberius? became wise as to what Sejanus was up to and had him executed. And Once word got to Herod Antipas and to Pilate that Sejanus had been executed They became well Cowardly women like oh.

What are we going to do?

And this explains what they ended up throwing Jesus under the bus because. Yeah, you sit there go. Where are they getting all of this? Can you all just tell me where they're getting all of this think.

Here they're getting this all in here their own heads. So they've concocted a Conspiratorial very complex political almost soap opera like explanation for what's going on with Jesus. And the reason for this is.

Simple.

They do not Believe that Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh. They do not believe that he performed miracles. They do not believe that he walked on water. They do not believe that he was crucified For no reason as an innocent person and that he rose again bodily from the grave and that he's coming again with glory to judge The living and the dead they don't believe any of that.

In fact, this is part of a bigger project if you would that goes back a couple of centuries. Y 'all ever heard of Albert Schweitzer. Albert Schweitzer was part of a group of very liberal Theologians who were very critical of the New Testament and the reason for this is that they bought into a philosophical worldview known as modernity.

If you've read any of the modernistic philosophers like David Hume or other people like this their general argument goes something like this. We live in a world that is actually quite rational. There's laws of nature.

And so what is a miracle a miracle? Miracle is the breaking of the laws of nature and since the laws of nature cannot be broken How do you know they can't be broken because we've never seen them broken.

Therefore Jesus couldn't have broken the laws of nature and he really didn't perform miracles and he really didn't rise from the dead. How do you know this again our logic which is a big circle by the way our circular logic?

Yeah, so let me kind of explain. So the idea then is is that a whole bunch of Christian theologians literally When these arguments came forward in history a couple hundred years ago, they bent the knee and said Modernity modernity you are Lord.

We we surrender. Okay, but they stayed in the church. They surrendered to modernity they stayed in the church and then they went and became professors in seminaries. And they they taught a whole generation of pastors.

You can't trust the Bible. You can't believe that Jesus walked on water or any of this nonsense. And so they began this project. The quest to learn who the real historical Jesus is now this documentary Acknowledges something very interesting at the very beginning near the very beginning of it and they recognize that the only Data we have about Jesus comes from Matthew Mark Luke and John.

But they also acknowledge they can't deny that he's a historical figure because Roman historians Talk about Jesus. So we know that historically he lived. But they don't believe that what we have in the Gospels is accurate that this is somehow some kind of legendary Account of the life of Jesus rather than an eyewitness account of Jesus.

But they don't tell you that at the beginning of the documentary. They don't lay their cards out on the table until literally the last Minutes of the documentary now. I want you to hear the last minutes of this documentary.

We'll play it. Here we go.

The Documentary's Alternative Theory of Jesus' Last Week

Different picture of Jesus's last days.

I don't think we should think of Jesus as a marginal human being a peasant running around the Galilee on his own preaching about the kingdom of God. He's had connections to Herod Antipas's chief of staff through his wife connections to Pharisees or the teachers connections to the Sadducees.

He had influence and he had connections.

If Jesus was supported by political plot hatched by two of the most powerful men that's the Janus. Why is there absolutely no record of it in the Gospels? The answer may well have something to do with when they were written.

And who they were written for. Because at the time the Gospels were composed it was illegal to mention the Janus's name anywhere. Tiberius's vengeance is not just against the person of the Janus but against his reputation.

And he pronounces Effectively a damn not yet. Determination. The very memory of the Janus will be erased from the public record. Any statue of him any dedication In his honor is to be struck down. So you're denying that the guy ever existed.

Mention of the Janus was still dangerous decades after his death. The very time the Gospels were written.

What many people don't realize about the Gospels is they're not contemporary eyewitness accounts of what happened. Lots of people have thought that they were. They're anonymous right. You don't know who Matthew Mark Luke and John happened to be.

As we study them more we realize first of all, they're written 40 50 60 70 years after Jesus.

And the story they all describe is carefully crafted.

You think of the Gospels as you weren't a politician trying to persuade you of a particular way of seeing things. They involve a lot of choice in terms of what goes into them and what gets left out but they're very much designed as recruitment literature and.

If you've got recruitment literature, you've got to be careful you don't alienate people.

And the whole group the gospel writers had to be very careful not to offend.

In an environment where there are serious consequences for being a Christian that you could be Hauled in front of Roman authorities and all sorts of terrible things will happen to you. You might want to be a bit careful about your portrayal of the Romans.

It's not surprising. Did have a part to play in the last days of Jesus the gospel writers.

Yeah, that's right the gospel writers for failed to mention Sejanus because you know.

He was illegal. Oh, this is utter.

Conjecture, I mean this is.

They openly.

Recognized that this is a radical new Interpretation. I would say that Wow. I believe that that Jesus was actually Elvis because remember Elvis never really died. He was beamed up by the mothership. And so and once he was beamed up to the mothership I'm sure that the aliens made, you know, basically put the spirit of Elvis in Jesus.

And so that I think is a very good interpretation of explaining what really what happened in the Gospels.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's it. They're purposely accusing the gospel writers of omitting Important relevant political information that would have helped us to understand who Jesus is and then their depiction of Jesus's crucifixion.

Jesus is alone. He's by himself. He is not crucified between two. Two people. There's not a crowd there at the cross and well, no, there were nails there were nails. There were nails in his hands. They show them.

Yeah, but they have a different way of crucifying him, which that's a whole other story but the issue here is is that they basically 2 ,000 years after the fact are saying they have a better explanation.

About what who Jesus is and what he did then the people who wrote the Gospels and how do they get away with this? Well, we don't believe the Gospels are really eyewitness testimony. How long were they written after Jesus's death?

60 -70 years after the death of Jesus. All right, who wrote these things then would be kind of the question now should we as Christians go? Oh, no.

Oh, I can't trust my Bible. Oh, oh, this is terrible. I'm not gonna go to Kong's finger anymore, you know. You know.

This is this is absurd on its face and it totally ignores Important data in the Gospels themselves. Is it true? Do you think it's true that the Gospels were not written by the eyewitnesses. Now, by the way, we have four Matthew Mark Luke John of those Gospels.

How many of them do we know for sure are written by an eyewitness? To Matthew and John. Now, what about Mark. We think he may have been an eyewitness, but we're not sure. We do know that Mark's gospel are the preaching notes of the Apostle Peter.

This we know and Modern scholars seem to think that Mark was written first. Which is fascinating because we actually have fragments of the Gospel of Mark that are from the first century. Just want to let you know that.

But according to the early church, and I mean the earliest Christians, you know Who they say wrote first?

It was Matthew.

The church fathers say Matthew wrote first and that he originally wrote his gospel in Hebrew and Then it was translated. This is what the church fathers tell us now. What about that gospel that we call Luke?

What about it? What does it say about itself? Okay, let's take a look Luke chapter 1. Listen to this in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.

Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us. It seemed good to me. Also having followed all things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you Most excellent Theophilus that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

That opening paragraph makes it very clear where this gospel comes from Luke who is a convert to Christianity?

He.

Interviewed the eyewitnesses and composed his gospel accordingly and you'll notice that Luke's gospel gives us what was going on inside of the heart and mind of Mary when the angel appeared to her of When Jesus was born and about Zechariah which means there's only one person who was alive at that time who could have given that information to Luke and that's Mary herself and.

So the gospel of Luke is a unique document because it specifically notes the fact that the purpose of this was to help Theophilus which is a wonderful name because it can also be used for us. Theophilus in Greek means lover of God.

So this is written to you as well. Are you not a lover of God. And this was compiled via the eyewitness testimony straight up.

Now.

The question then comes up. When was this written? Well after after what? Mm-hmm. Yeah, well after after the events. So clearly this was written after the historical events that are recorded in but how long after?

How long? Mary's still alive. Can't be that long. Yeah, and people did not live that that long back then. So Mary's still alive. The Apostle Paul. What is his connection with Luke? Please open to Acts 6 Acts 16.

I want to show you something. Starting at verse 11. Listen to this narrative. So setting sail from Troas We made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis and from there to Philippi.

Which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in the city some days and on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer and we Sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira a seller of purple goods. Who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Do you have a mouse in your pocket?

What's this we stuff. Why is Luke who is the author of Acts. Saying we we we and it's not because of the three little piggies or any of that kind of stuff. Why is he saying we?

Uh-huh. He.

You know who was there. Luke was. This is one of those famous sections of the book of Acts known as the we sections or the we portions and the reason why they're called the we portions is because they're written in first-person plural and Luke is saying, you know who saw this.

Me. I Saw it and we were there. And this is what we did. One of the other famous we sections of the book of Acts is Found near the end when Paul is on the ship heading towards Rome because remember he's been arrested.

He's heading towards Rome. He's bit he's appealing to Caesar and it talks about the great storm that came up and it talks about how we were tossed to and Fro and and the way waves came over and how we were shipwrecked and all this kind of stuff.

What does that tell you. Who was there? With Paul during these events.

Fail.

Luke right. Okay now kind of put this together here. Axe is part two of Luke and axe. Where does axe end? What's going on when we get to the end of axe? It's yes, it's before maps but at the end of axe does it have this tidy little ending and Paul and Peter and John lived happily ever after.

No, it doesn't in fact axe is one of these works where it kind of ends abruptly in chapter 28. And. Where's Paul when this takes place under house arrest in Rome? What year was that? Answer is 60 a .d.

Paul's first. You know time in prison in Rome is in 60 a .d. When was Jesus crucified. Died buried raised from the dead 33 so at the very latest. The oldest that axe can be is it was finished abruptly and we don't know why it ends so abruptly in 60 a .d.

That's the oldest it can be. What does that make the gospel of Luke? How old is that? Now, let me give you another text of Scripture. This will help us out a little bit here. Go to 1st Corinthians 15.

1st Corinthians 15. Let me read this out for you.

See if this helps. I.

Would remind you brothers. This is Paul writing of the gospel that I preached to you which you received which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you unless you believed in vain.

So Paul writing to the church of Corinth in the year and liberal scholars agree with this by the way. First Corinthians was written between 50 and 52 a .d. That's your range 50 and 52 a .d. How many years after the death of Christ is this?

20 something years. Yeah about 20 straight up. So 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and he says this. I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also Received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried on the and that he was raised again on the third day in accordance with what?

Which scriptures say that Jesus Christ? Died and rose again on the third day the Gospels.

Uh-huh.

Because Paul in 50 ad Is already making reference to scriptures not scripture. Scriptures that reference Jesus is death and Resurrection on the third day which Old Testament texts tell us that. No prophecies say it that clear.

And yet by 50 ad Paul is referencing a creed because that's really an early creed that says that Jesus died Was buried raised again on the third day according to the scriptures. This sounds to me like the Apostle Paul was working with one of those gospels that wasn't written one of those non-existent eyewitness accounts of Jesus.

Strange, isn't it? So the Apostle Paul already in 50 ad is referencing scriptures that explicitly talk about Jesus's death burial and resurrection. We know that Paul was intimately Associated with Luke the author of Luke and Acts because Luke was along for the journey in parts of Acts.

So if they're right These weren't written till way later and not by eyewitnesses.

Then.

Everything doesn't make sense. When did Luke write Luke and when did Luke write Acts. And clearly the internal evidence Says it was written by talking to eyewitnesses and it had to have been written early because it ends so abruptly.

So it takes more faith to believe their theory that this is an eyewitness testimony than it is to believe that it is because The document says that it is. Right, they're smart people, right.

Exactly.

Exactly. It was very ominous. You know, I need a soundtrack. That's my problem. And I need a British accent that's what I need. But you can see how this works. All right. Now I'm gonna show you some more evidence and this one's a little bit more Precise but there's a book that is out there and you can get it.

The name of the book is Jesus and the eyewitnesses. It is written by Cambridge scholar Richard Balcom. BAUKAM Richard Balcom and This is an amazing book and what I'm going to be showing to you is again looking internally within The the documents themselves to see if this can make sense because I want you to think about this so 70 years after Jesus walked the earth I'm going to write a story about Jesus.

This is what this is what it's coming down to these are the days before Google. There is no internet. Libraries are a bit sketchy at this point. We don't have all of the documents that we have now in city halls and places like that.

So I want you to consider this now. Where am I writing from it's gonna be gonna be like another question that comes up now, I Don't know if you guys have figured this out. But I am NOT a local here. Now I would ask you locals Do you think I could pull it off if I were to really like?

Try to embed myself among the locals to make it look like I'm a local could I really pull it off? Enough from you, okay, so I am having difficulty with the Polish names. How about how about my knowledge of the geography of this area?

No, in fact. Or you're my wife. Yeah, that's right. We get lost very quickly. I couldn't tell you where Crookston is. Thief River Falls.

I.

Man with if without the internet, I'm gone. There's this like no way now I want you to consider this back in the day before there was Google Earth and Google Maps and stuff like this if People knew about cities in a particular region.

What types of cities would they know about? Big ones capital cities. So, you know, so you could realistically say I know about Grand Forks. Okay, but somebody who's not from here would probably have never heard of Alvarado.

They wouldn't know where Warren is or some of these, you know, Macintosh or you know, Eskin or places like this. What you just said? Yeah. You're making my point. Thank you. Yes, see see what I'm saying, okay.

Notice how easy it is for me to screw this up if I don't really have local knowledge. So I really couldn't pull this off. There's like no way now I want you to consider then that basically what these people are saying is that with these the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts.

But they got all of the minutiae. Right in their gospel accounts when it comes to like the little details now as you're reading through the Gospels. You'll see things in the Gospels like the list of names of the disciples and some of the guys have well He's James the son of Alpheus.

Why does it say James the son of Alpheus, but then you get to Thaddeus. It just says Thaddeus. Why is that or then you get to Simon and then you have to make a distinction? Well Simon the zealot and then you got Simon Peter.

Why are you making distinctions like this? That's part of it. Then you have details in the Gospels like Emmaus is a Sabbath stays journey from Jerusalem. That's local knowledge and Emmaus. We're not even sure where that is today, did you know that we're not even sure where Emmaus is.

But back then we have the name of kind of an obscure tiny little village and we know exactly how long it takes to get There from Jerusalem. How about Bethsaida? How about some of these lesser-known towns and you'll notice that we get a lot of minutiae.

Names of obscure villages and stuff like that and we also get weather information and we get information regarding like Plant cycles and stuff like that mentions of green grass at particular times of the year and things like this.

All of this is data that you would expect from somebody who is writing an eyewitness account. If I were a writing a legend 70 years later.

I.

Would not have access to this minutiae detail. Does that make sense? And here's the fun part this minutiae detail is in every single Gospel, it's in Matthew. It's in Mark. It's in Luke and in John and the other thing I can tell you is somebody who spends a lot of time Translating and I know both Greek and Hebrew.

It's hilarious when you're reading some of the Gospels and the reason why is you sit there and go whoever wrote this is a Jew. There's just like no way around it because there's Jewish idioms and phrases that have literally been just Smuggled into the Greek text without any attempt of trying to make it Greek.

It's like there's like this Hebrew thing here and it's like, oh my gosh, whoever wrote this totally was a Jew. There's no way around it. It's just chock-full of Hebraisms, which is what you would expect because who are Jesus's disciples?

Jews. Now, I want to talk a little bit about popular personal names. Now, I know we've all seen this right a woman gets married and Her and her husband announced sometime later.

We're pregnant.

And everyone's so excited, you know, do I get a pink booty or a blue booty? What do I get? I don't know right, you know, and then they share the ultrasound pictures on Facebook and everyone's just good.

And what does the mom do. She goes to the store and she buys a baby name book. So that she can look through the most popular baby names so she can begin to figure out am I gonna call her Annabelle? Or am I gonna call him Caleb, you know things like this, you know, and I'm kind of over dramatizing.

But you get the idea my wife and I went through this three times now. I assure you that The names that were most popular when my children were born are not The names that are most popular now. That's an important little phenomenon.

In fact, if we go back in time in the 1970s the most popular male name was Michael the least the most popular female Jennifer. Michael stayed at the top all the way through the 80s and 90s and but it switched from Jennifer to Jessica Jessica again in the 90s and then in the 2000s it switched to Jacob and Emily most popular names.

Okay, and why am I saying this? Well We have an interesting archaeological phenomenon that happened at the time of Jesus and in no other time in Israel's history. Let me explain. While Jesus was growing up what was being constructed and built and worked on the temple Herod's temple.

This was a multi decades long building project and that required them to quarry tons and tons of stones limestone and you know other types of stones for this particular Construction project and you know what a Lot of stones didn't make the cut.

They didn't make it to be part of the temple and what happened to those stones. Here's the answer and this is a very unique thing about Jesus's time. The stones that didn't make the cut had they were literally taken and then they were bored out.

So that they became boxes and these boxes looked like stones in the temple they became known as Ossuary's otherwise you can call them a bone box. And so the burial practices at the time of Jesus while the second temple was still being built.

It's not contemple Judaism is what this is called for century. What they would do is when somebody died. They would take their body put it on a slab in a cave or something like that. Roll a stone over it and one year to the day that they died.

They would open up The tomb and the only thing left would be bones. They would gather up the bones put them into the ossuary write their name on the outside of it and Then put a lid on it and keep it in the family tomb when the next person died.

Same procedure let their body decomposed one year later collect the bones put it in the bone box add their name to the ossuary. This was a burial practice that was only being practiced at the time of Christ.

Keep that in mind. So guess what? They've found in Jerusalem a ton of them literally not more like tons and tons and tons hundreds and thousands of Ossuary's and what do those ossuary's have on them? Names and so we have Literally a list of all of the most popular names of men and women.

From the exact time that Jesus was alive. Now let's we're gonna get there. So let's talk. We'll come talk about how this all works. So the question is did the gospel writers get the names right and in the right proportions because we have hard data on this.