October 14, 2003

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Around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the
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Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Welcome to the
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Dividing Line. My name is James White. Even though I can still barely hear myself, it's okay, because we're just going to press on through.
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Because, you know, I went to Brazil last week, and so I'm used to dealing with all sorts of very interesting challenges, including not being able to hear myself and things like that.
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So it's okay. I mean, I've been speaking with a translator all week long. And that's one of the most difficult things
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I've ever done. And so, at least I'm not stopping and waiting for a translation to Portuguese.
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Maybe I could call my good friend Eros. He was the translator down there in Portugal, did a wonderful job, surely did a wonderful job.
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Maybe we could have him on the program sometime. We could just show you a translation. Have him send the tapes up.
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I can hear myself now. Have him send the tapes up from Brazil. We had a wonderful time. I'll just mention really quickly, because I want to spend the time today on the debate that took place
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October 4th, what's today, the 4th, ten days ago, against Thierry Mattafix up in Salt Lake City.
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But I would like to say it was truly encouraging to get to visit the saints in Brazil, I guess is the way we would put it.
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It is exciting to see the fulfillment of God's promise to build
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His church. The folks down there are wonderful folks. They're hungry for the Word of God.
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They love the Word of God. And some folks seem to think that being concerned about doctrine and witnessing to Roman Catholics and sola scriptura and sola fide, that's all passe, that's all for another generation and no longer relevant.
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You know, those folks down there who do not have nearly in physical possessions the same number of things and quality of things that we have here in the richest nation in the world are still concerned about what is truly important.
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And they were extremely thankful for the messages that I brought, especially the ones, they enjoyed the ones in the deity of Christ where I talked about Jehovah's Witnesses some, they enjoyed the one in Islam where I gave them a brief introduction to the foundational issues of Islam.
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But what they really, really, really enjoyed most and were most thankful for were the ones on Roman Catholicism.
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They live in a very, very Catholic country. There is a resurgence of Catholic apologetics down there.
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There's some priest, a padre, somebody who is on the front of their version of Time magazine and he's a young guy, very charismatic.
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I saw him on Brazilian TV at one point. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. It's just a close -up of him.
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He has this smile just pasted on his face and he's just going,
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Mary, we praise you, Mary, we praise you, Mary, we praise you, of course, in Portuguese, and then they fade
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Mary's face in. So it looks like he's looking right at her and then they go back to another angle, then back to her. It was just unbelievable.
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Well, he's in some movie where he's Michael the Archangel and he's like a rock star down there. And so they were extremely thankful for the presentations we did.
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We even had PowerPoint presentations sent down via the Internet.
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I didn't know that I'd have that opportunity, that access down there. And a tremendously faithful brother by the name of Mark spent huge amounts of time translating my
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Mary presentation into Portuguese. And it was just wonderful for him to do that.
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If you'd like to hear more about the Brazil trip, go over to PRBC .org, go to the Sunday school from last
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Sunday, which would have been, what, the 12th? And I gave a report on the trip down to Brazil and the
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Fiel conference down there. And you can go and take a look at that there if you'd like to listen to that at PRBC .org.
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If you're not familiar with PRBC .org, the Sunday school lessons I do there, the times that I preach, so on and so forth, are archived there.
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And so you can get that information there. But right before we went down to Brazil, and I'm talking
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Friday night, we did the debate, got up early Saturday morning, flew back to Phoenix, came home, repacked, went straight back to the airport, flew to Sao Paulo.
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So a very, very quick turnaround. Right before the trip to Brazil, we had a debate in Salt Lake City.
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Now, Salt Lake City does not strike probably anyone as the most likely place for a debate on Roman Catholicism.
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We had a debate with Robert Syngenis there six months ago. We had this debate.
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Initially, what we were going to do is have this debate on a Saturday night and a Mormon debate on the
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Friday night. And that's what we're trying to do up there. Jason Wallace and Christ Presbyterian Church has been working faithfully every six months now.
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What has it been, three years now, I think? I think we're up to about three years now worth of debate every six months up there in Salt Lake City.
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They do a lot of work to put these together. We've been having them at the University of Utah. And this was a debate, as most of you know, on the perpetual virginity of, oops, just lost myself, the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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I hope the computer connection works. That's all I can say. And we were talking about this debate for quite some time here on the program.
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And we had Eric Svendsen on.
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I played clips from the Svendsen -Matitek debate for three weeks, as I recall.
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And so here we finally have the debate.
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And it was a very fascinating debate. There's no two ways about it. When we pulled into the parking lot,
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I said to Rich Pierce and Warren Smith, I said, I can guarantee you only one thing, that Jerry Matitek is not here.
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Because Jerry Matitek never shows up for a debate early. And even though we knew he was in Salt Lake, I knew he would not be there more than an hour early.
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We have to get there early because we have to set up the videotape equipment and the sound. And I'm always early for a debate.
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I would detest walking in even half an hour before a debate. That's not enough time. I like to get set up.
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I like to have time to talk to folks. I do not like to be rushed. I'm early for dentist appointments and so on and so forth.
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I hate being late. But I know Jerry. And even though I knew he was at a hotel no farther away from the
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University of Utah than the hotel we were staying at, I knew he would not be there any earlier than 10 minutes before 7, when debate starts at 7, and that we would not get started on time.
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There was no way we were going to start at 7. And about an hour beforehand, we get a call. And Jerry's still at his hotel.
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In fact, he's still working on his notes. Now, realize this is a debate that was set up more than six months earlier. In fact, we had initially invited him to do it six months earlier, but he said, no,
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I need more time. OK, well, I guess that time goes right up till six o 'clock of the night of the of the debate itself, because at six o 'clock he was still working on his notes.
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And even though it was only, what, 10 to 15 minutes at the most from downtown
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Salt Lake to the to the location of the debate, 10 minutes till nobody there. Finally, five minutes to seven.
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Here comes Jerry with his boxes and with his books. And of course, we didn't get started till 7 .15.
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And I just I just knew that was the way it was going to be from from the very start. This is at least the dozenth, if that is a proper term, debate that we have done.
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We have debated many, many times. And the I have a long track record now of Mr.
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Matafix. And in fact, he and I have been exchanging emails for the past 24 hours in which
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I have been pointing out various things he did in the debate, most of which I'll mention to you today. And one of the things that I've emphasized in those emails is,
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Jerry, you can't pull anything over on me anymore. I know you. You pulled these stunts for 13 years now.
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We first debated in August of 1990 at a Catholic church in Long Beach, California.
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And the fact that you keep doing the same things over and over and over again,
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Belay, any assertion on your part that, well,
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I didn't mean to go over time. Baloney, you've gone over time a million times before. Once you have a track record that extends for over a decade,
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I'm sorry, I would have to be a fool to believe any protestations of innocence. It just doesn't just doesn't make any sense.
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So anyhow, one of the main a couple of the main there were three reasons why
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I wrote to Mr. Matafix yesterday. And I'll bring these up as we're playing some clips of are the
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MP3s. I'm not sure if the MP3s are actually on the site yet. I know that we've made them, but I'm not sure that they're actually available for you to download and listen to yet.
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But they're really close. We're working on the video and stuff like that. And obviously, the video will be even better to watch to be able to see these things.
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I really think you get more out of debate if you're able to see it as well. It is interesting to compare what you think in your conclusions when you're watching it in comparison with what you conclude when you just listen to it.
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But anyway, in there are three things that I mentioned. And like I said,
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I'm going to play you some clips and I can play a whole lot of stuff. You can listen to it yourself. But there are three things I wanted to mention to him from the debate.
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The first is the fact CDs as in audio CDs, right?
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Yes. OK. We're also going to be making available from now on.
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We're going to be making these things available in CD format. And eventually, just warning those of you who have decided to stay in the, shall we say, the
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Stone Age, we are going to be dropping audio tapes eventually. Once we are able to transfer all that over and it's all going to be available on CD, MP3 server,
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CD, we're going to be dropping videotapes eventually and going only to DVD. You know, it's just so much easier, so much more reliable.
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Tapes, you know, tapes are tapes. You would not believe how many we have to have returned because they get eaten and it's just a very long process.
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Digital, we're going to be going all digital. And that's just the way it is. And even people who are still in the
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Stone Ages know folks who aren't who can transfer digital files to the old format that they need to.
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So that's just coming, just to let you know that it's out there. It's not yet, but we're working on getting there.
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So anyway, there are three things that I mentioned to him. The first was the timing issue.
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The second was a statement he made about Bower, Donker, Arndt and Gingrich, which he hasn't quite gotten up to speed yet as Bower.
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Bower, Arndt, Gingrich and Donker is gone. Second edition is no longer in print. We're up to the third edition of that particular lexicon.
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And then an issue that came up in regards to the Odes of Solomon, one of the three primitive, and I would say grossly unorthodox sources that give testimony to some elements of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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The first thing that I mentioned to him in emails had to do with the fact that, as normal, and this is something that was a problem when we first started debating.
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He sort of got better for a while. And then in this debate just went, well, it's been how many years?
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Ninety -seven. So we're talking, it's been six years since we debated. Really? That's amazing. He, initially, the timer would go off.
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These were in the very early debates back in the early 90s. The timer would go off and he'd just keep going. And he would take extra time.
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Now, those of you who've listened to my debates know that I am very, I'm very picky about that.
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We have time limitations for a reason. The reason is so that you respect the audience and you respect your opponent.
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If you take more time than your opponent in a debate, then you're showing no respect either for the audience or for your opponent. It also forces you to be concise.
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It forces you to stick to what's really important. And so I had raised this issue with Mr.
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Matitix before. I remember the conversation. I remember the office I was sitting in and the location of the office.
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And I had raised the issue of the timeframes with him. He apologized that I wasn't aware that you were so concerned about such things.
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I will be more careful in the future. Well, that was a long time ago. And so during the debate, as normal,
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I was the only one who brought a timer. I have, I don't know how many of these, how many, we have so many
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Radio Shack timers now. Because I'll admit, sometimes I get on the plane and I forget.
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And so I will have to go and I will spend my own money and I will buy another
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Radio Shack timer. It's a little timer, digital. You can set it for how much time you want to have.
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If you have 25 minutes for an opening statement as we had in this debate, you set it for 25, hit start and it starts counting down.
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And you can just glance up and you can see exactly how much time you've got left in your presentation. And so you can judge.
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Am I going to have to leave something out? Can I expand upon this? Whatever, by just looking at the timer. Mr. Maddox never brings that.
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Well, I'll take that back, I'll take that back, I need to be accurate. He brought one once. To Boston College, 1993.
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He came into the first debate and he had, he was so proud, he had brought, he had stopped and he had purchased a timer because I kept bringing these issues up.
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Why would he have been so proud if I hadn't kept bringing these issues up? And unfortunately, it was an egg timer.
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And unfortunately, unlike the Radio Shack version, every time you pressed the button, you couldn't, it didn't have a keypad, so you could put it in 2 -5 -0 -0, so it'd be 25 minutes.
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Instead, you had to press the up button one time for one minute, one time for one minute.
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So we had 20 minute opening statements, so you had to sit there and hit the up button 20 times and every time it would beep. So he's hiding it under his desk, going beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, trying to put it, he finally just gave up and used mine.
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That was the only time he ever brought one. So I had mine. I only had one with me. Frequently, what
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I do, if I'm not using my Palm Pilot, if I'm not using my Tungsten -T, I will use what's called a big clock and it has a timer in it.
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And so if I have to leave my timer for somebody else, if I have to leave it for Mr. Matafix to use or something, then
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I'll use my Palm and I'll keep track. Unfortunately, I had to use my
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Palm this time. So two times during the debate, I looked up and I was, what
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I was doing is I was using my watch. I had a, I had a timer on my watch and it wasn't a digital timer. It was a, it was a analog.
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And so I was, I was watching it there and I looked at my watch and I realized, you know, time's just about up and I see
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Mr. Matafix has turned off the timer. He has reached up and he's hit stop on the timer and he's still going.
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In his rebuttal period, which is supposed to be 10 minutes long, and in his closing statement, both times he reached up and he turned the timer off and went over time.
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Now, I wanted to make sure before I came to this audience, before I publicly said anything about, you know, cheap debating tricks, and I've said many times,
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Jerry Matafix is the king of cheap debating tricks. He has been since the start. The very first debate we ever did,
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I remember it was in a Catholic church. My wife was there with me. There were people who came over from our church. There were, there were priests and nuns all over the place.
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And Patrick Madrid was supposed to be the moderator. I've never had a Catholic moderator who ever moderated.
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Not once. Not one time. I've never had a Catholic moderator who could even hold a candle to what
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Bill Shishko did in the last debate we had in Long Island. Just, just talk about ruling with an iron hand. But Patrick Madrid was the moderator.
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And Mr. Matafix was supposed to have 20 minutes to open the debate. He didn't get the
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Sola Scriptura for 12 to 14 minutes into his opening statement. I remember leaning over to Patrick Madrid and saying, um, excuse me, but when's he going to get to the topic of the debate?
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And in the process of that opening statement, he misrepresented my book on the fatal flaw. He very arrogantly and condescendingly said, well, you know, and I'd like to make an offer to Mr.
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White that the next time he writes a book on Catholicism, I'd be glad to review it for him so I could help him to understand what we really believe.
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Because he says, you know, if, if, if we're supposed to partake of the, of the body and blood of Jesus and we're only partaking of the bread, what about the cup?
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And he doesn't seem to understand that we believe such. That whole belief was laid out in my book. He just hadn't seen it.
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He hadn't read it close enough to find it. And so he's doing this whole thing about, you know, his personal testimony and taking cheap shots and poisoning the well and all these cheap debating tricks.
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In the very first debate, nothing has changed in 13 years. He's got the track record.
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I know this guy. Okay? Very, very clear. So I should have never left my timer up there.
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Not unless I had a second one that I can have down at my table and it's, when it starts beeping, I just sit there and let it beep.
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In fact, I hold it up next to the microphone so everybody can hear. Guess what? Time's up and Jerry's still going.
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Okay? So, but before I came and said this, to everybody else, I wanted to make sure,
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I wanted to make sure I was right. So what do I do? Well, we're the ones that recorded it.
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And so we have a digital recording of it. So I got the digital recording and I loaded it up on my computer and I timed it.
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And you all can do the same thing. You can download the MP3s. You can check it out for yourself. My rebuttal period is supposed to be 10 minutes long.
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How long did I go in my rebuttal period? Nine minutes and 57 seconds. I got done with three seconds to spare.
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How about Jerry Matik's rebuttal period? Well, he's supposed to have 10 minutes too. He went for 10 minutes and 50 seconds, just under 11 minutes.
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Closing statement's supposed to be five minutes long. How long did I go? Four minutes and 59 seconds.
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That's putting it right inside the ballpark there. Mr. Matik's closing statement, five minutes and 57 seconds, just under six minutes long.
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Now, Mr. Matik says in his emails, you must be timing from when I first got there and I'm still shuffling papers.
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Nope, I timed it from the first word to the last syllable. I just must have only gone a couple of seconds.
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Nope, you went a minute over. Both times. I was just finishing a sentence.
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That's the longest sentence I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, I bet you we can see it on video. Well, then again, given that podium, you can hide an elephant behind that podium and not see it doing its business back there.
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So, probably not. But anyway, so he gave himself an extra two minutes, in essence. Still didn't make any points, but, you know, when you're trying to throw as much dust and sand in the air as you can to obscure the fact you have nothing meaningful to say, you need all the time you can get.
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And so that's what he did. And so I took the time to do that. Then the second thing I mentioned in the e -mails was his misrepresentation of Bauer, Donkert, and Gingrich.
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I haven't gotten any meaningful response to that. In fact, I am now completely convinced he's never looked at the 3rd edition, doesn't possess the 3rd edition.
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I've challenged him to cite the 3rd edition to me. Without going and getting it from somebody else, he won't do it. And then the last thing was about the odes of Solomon.
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Because during the cross -examination period, Mr. Magic decided to get sort of acute. And I had mentioned three sources.
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The Ascension of Isaiah, the Protevangelium of James, and the Odes of Solomon. Now, he seemingly admitted that the first two are clearly
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Gnostic in origin, and they are Gnostic in content, and that the perpetual virginity of Mary, at least concepts related to it, are found in those two
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Gnostic sources. But what he decided to do is, look, in the Odes of Solomon, there are some people who don't say it's Gnostic.
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And so he wanted me to give names of editors of collections, and so on and so forth. And he felt like he really scored a big coup there.
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And I really do wish that I had had the full quote from the Odes of Solomon with me.
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I did not. But I have it now. And so I'd like to read for you right now one of the ancient sources.
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A source that Mr. Matic says, in our debate, is evidence of an ancient belief by a
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Jewish Christian in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Now, Mr.
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Matic did not cite the passage. I doubt he ever has. I would challenge the fact that I have invited him, in emails written since yesterday, to include in the future the following citation in all of his public presentations on the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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If he's going to maintain that this is not Gnostic, and that this is a Jewish Christian giving testimony to the reality of the ancient nature of this particular belief,
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I would challenge Jerry Matic and all other Catholic apologists, please, read this to your audiences.
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I'll send it to you. Now, ironically, one of the main places you can get the text of the
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Odes of Solomon, go ahead and throw Odes of Solomon into Google there. And see what comes up.
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The third one down, for some strange reason, will be gnosis .org.
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www .gnosis .org gnosis .org Yeah, I'm not sure why, you know, this is just a
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Jewish Christian. It has nothing to do with Gnosticism, right? I wonder why they have it. I can't imagine.
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But let me read to you. Let me give you an example of the kind of literature that Roman Catholic apologists want to point to as historical evidence of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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This is Ode 19 from the Odes of Solomon. I'm trying to get your attention there, Mr. Pierce. I need a little more.
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My head says, thank you. A cup of milk was offered to me, and I drank it in the sweetness of the
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Lord's kindness. The son is the cup, and the father is he who was milked.
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And the Holy Spirit is she who milked him, because his breasts were full, and it was undesirable that his milk should be ineffectually released.
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The Holy Spirit opened her bosom and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the father.
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Then she gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing, and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.
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The womb of the virgin took it, and she received conception and gave birth. So the virgin became a mother with great mercies, and she labored and bore the son, but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose.
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And she did not require a midwife, because he caused her to give life. She brought forth like a strong man with desire, and she bore according to the manifestation, and she acquired according to the great power.
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And she loved with redemption, and guarded with kindness, and declared with grandeur,
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Hallelujah. There you go, folks. Ode 19
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God the Father has breast milk, and the Holy Spirit the female that milks the
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Father's breasts. Oh, yes, I'm sure Jewish Christians are always using terminology like that, aren't they?
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Oh, I wish I had had this quote. It would have been so useful. There you go, folks.
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You know, those of you who sit around listening to EWTN and you listen to these converts going,
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Oh, I just started reading the church fathers and they were so Catholic. I haven't read that one before, have you?
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No, I didn't think so. Didn't think so. Amazing stuff, isn't it?
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You know, and you go back and start reading these things. Read, for example, where Pope Gregory gives his interpretation of Job as foundational to the development of the doctrine of purgatory.
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It's not much better than that. Read the epistles of Pseudo -Meletus from which the bodily assumption is first found.
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It's all a bunch of rank, idiotic heresy. Just like that.
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Oh, but you see, there's evidence. Just because there's heresy doesn't mean all of it's wrong.
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Absolutely, positively incredible. Just incredible.
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Well, I want to play you some clips, but are we going to take a break today? I guess we've lost the other side of the room.
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So let's go ahead with the clips because I'm not getting any response. So we will press on here and let's go ahead.
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One of the weird things that took place during the course of this debate was, well, first of all,
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Jerry, again, didn't get into oh, good grief. Looks like we've got a lamer over in apologetics.
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Yep, somebody kick the moron out of apologetics, please. Thank you. Yeah, I got nailed by that.
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That's why I wasn't able to respond to you. Oh, really? So I got clobbered. Oh, great. But if you want to take a break, we can take a break.
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If you want to skip it, that's fine too. Well, let's skip it since we've already gone on. One of the weird things that took place well, there are many weird things that took place in this debate but as normal Jerry started off and he started off you know,
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I'm a Bible -believing Christian and I was a Presbyterian minister and I became a Catholic. You know, the whole personal testimony listen to my personal aspect stuff.
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Now, he then spent a lot of time accusing me of red herrings and misrepresentations. Of course, he was the one who was doing it but one of the things he did and it was well into his opening it was at least halfway in before he even got to this stuff he started talking about this oath.
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That he was going to take this oath to rightly handle the Word of God. I want you to hear exactly what he had to say.
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I hope we've got the computers synced up because here we go. Now, furthermore, before I continue in imitation of the angel in Revelation chapter 10 verses 5 through 6
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I now wish to raise my right hand to heaven and to swear to tell you the truth tonight even if it's inconvenient even if it's unpopular even if it works to my own harm
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I will not handle the truth falsely and I will not handle the Word of God falsely and I ask
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God to show who does that this evening between the two of us for God Himself to judge between us.
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I ask that we put ourselves in God's hand. Now, I'm going to continue this in a second but what I did is I have his challenge which
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I'm going to continue here in a second then there was a slight break the response I gave in my rebuttal and then his response in his rebuttal so let me continue on with it.
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I publicly renounce the devil who is a liar and the father of lies and I utterly repudiate before you publicly as God is my witness to whom
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I will stand before whom I will stand on my judgment day and give account for every idle word that I speak on the day of judgment as the
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Lord warns us. And I utterly repudiate the devil his lies and any and all reliance upon his angelic allies and those doctrines of demons that they spread.
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And I ask Dr. White in a spirit of fidelity to the biblical teaching and an imitation of that same holy angel who stood and swore with his right hand to heaven to follow me and to raise his right hand and to take that same oath or affirmation if he prefers to avoid the use of oath even in our civil courts people who have scruples about that are allowed to say a solemnly swear or affirm and I ask him to do the same and if he does not do so then he disqualifies himself as a faithful and true witness and renounces any right to your credence.
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We had some discussion I don't know where in the world it's coming from about doing like angels and putting your arms up and doing things like that and my friends
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I come to you as an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church as an elder I serve the word of God and ministering to the people of God that is all the affirmation that anyone should ever have to give.
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I knew that Dr. White would sidestep my challenge to take that perfectly biblical and innocuous oath and he did not disappoint me.
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So there you go. Let's see. How long did let's see here 1 minute and 27 seconds of the 25 minute opening statement spent by Mr.
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Matitix on this oath. Revelation chapter 10 the angel raises his arm and swears that there's going to be no more delay.
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That's what it's about. And so he renounces the devil and he swears to rightly handle the word of God and all the rest of this stuff and then has the audacity to say that I'm the one.
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That for example by mentioning the Gnostic sources that originally gave rise to the concept of the perpetual origin that that's a red herring.
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That that's irrelevant. That's irrelevant but this oath is worth a 90 seconds worth of the debate time.
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Oh yeah. Okay. Good. Well. That's great. That's wonderful. Now one of the interesting things and I had
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I just had too much trouble getting to we're for some reason having network problems and I can't get files from the other machines on my machine at any speed at all and so we're having to burn
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CDs and the CDs wouldn't play on everything. I had a hard time getting some of the stuff up here and so I'm not going to be able to play everything
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I wanted to but there was you'll all recall
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I'm going to play for you a discussion from the Eric Svensson debate with Jerry Matitix on the subject of Josephus.
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I wanted to go back find out where he had first mentioned this in our original debate. Couldn't find it in time.
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I only got the file onto my system with five minutes before the dividing line just couldn't find it in that period of time. I'm going to play the exchange between Matitix and Svensson on the subject of Josephus to remind you of what was said a couple years ago in a debate.
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Listen to this. We know from Josephus' book The Jewish War that when James the brother of the Lord was put to death by a mob of the
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Jews who threw him off a parapet of a temple in the 60s during the revolt against Rome from 66 to 70
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AD we know that he was an aging man in his 80s. Now you can stop and do the math for yourself.
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I haven't I haven't slept for two days because I've been traveling here but even I can figure out that if James is the brother of the
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Lord and he was in his 80s when he was put to death in the 60s AD then he had to be a child of Mary according to Svensson's logic before Mary was even born.
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But at least he had to be older than Jesus. And therefore Jesus would not be the firstborn.
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The math would require you if James is the brother of the Lord and he's in his 80s when he's put to death and brother of the
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Lord means son of Mary. Then Mary was having children long before she had Jesus and so in what sense is he the firstborn at all?
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And even Svensson doesn't believe that he wasn't the firstborn in the sense of Mary had children before him because he believes as I asked him that Mary was a virgin until she gave birth until after she gave birth to Jesus.
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So I think the evidence of history is against us interpreting these brothers of the Lord in that way. Jarek, you produced that quote from Josephus.
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What is the citation there? I don't have my copy of the thesis. Because you quoted that in your debate with James White and you didn't quote the citation there.
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I looked that up and the only citation that Josephus has for James the brother of the
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Lord is not in Jewish Wars as you alluded to in that debate. I'm not sure what you said this time. It's in Antiquities.
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So in Antiquities it does not mention any age. It does recount the death of James but there is no age mentioned.
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You keep mentioning it's 89 years old. That just doesn't exist. Well, I'll be willing to retract.
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I would like to see that. I'd be willing to retract. I'll be willing to retract my statement if we find that it doesn't exist.
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It's in Chapter 20 of Antiquities. But nobody has challenged the statement before when it's been made.
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So all I'm saying is I'm being honest with you. I like it. I see it. Your point would be valid if you said, hey,
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James White challenged you on that two years ago. No, he didn't challenge you. You said it in your closing statement. This is the first time
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I've ever heard anyone challenge that there is no such statement. I'd like your producer before you go on to your next debate. If I knew if I knew that if I had known you were going to challenge it
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I would have had the copy here. That's all I'm saying. This is a novelty. I've never heard anyone deny that there is such a statement. So I'm willing to do the work.
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I'm personally inviting you to send me that reference. Very good. I'm personally responding. Thank you. Yeah, he's personally responding.
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Since that period of time I have asked Eric Spenson and as as late as today
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Dr. Spenson indicated to me that he sent emails. He called and left messages.
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And Gerry Matics has never provided to him the citation from Josephus.
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Now, I wanted to play for you the discussion of Josephus in the question and answer period.
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But like I said that was the problem. I'm going to very quickly because, you know this is live live webcasting.
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I'm going to see if I can grab it real quick here. But realize I have a a two hour over two hour wave file in front of me.
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And I'm trying to find a needle in a haystack. Let me see if I can if I can track it down real quickly here. Okay, that's that's
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Gerry asking me questions. Let's roll it back just a little bit here. And provided in my opening statement specifically to unite in an intimate relationship that was the question
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I felt. Mentioned anywhere else in the assessment? Well, Matt, I mentioned John Chapter 19.
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Did he? Because he was ever virgin. This is a fun one. Would you care to to offer any kind of commentary on it whatsoever or you just have been not prepared to do so?
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I don't think it's the part of a responsible That's where he couldn't respond to Basil accessory.
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He says when we get to the the testimony concerning I was a little more on Basil where he was trying to find something to say in 1996 in your closing statement.
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Aha. Aha. Ah, by God's providence for 2000 years that this this has been a belief.
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Is it not true, sir, that in our debate in 1996 in your closing statements and in your debate with Eric Sensen that you presented as an evidence against my position the quotation from Josephus where you alleged that James, the brother of our
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Lord, was thrown off the parapet of the temple and that he was in his 80s and this evidence of place in the 60s demonstrating that James could not have been the literal offspring of Mary.
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Do you still make the assertion that Josephus made that statement and if so have you been able to track it down?
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I have to be honest and say that since that was a number of years ago I don't remember the specific reference.
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I do recall reading in Josephus' book that yes the person that is referred to as James the brother again leaving the question vague as to what sense the word brother is being used here the brother of our
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Lord was thrown off the parapet of the temple by a man
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I don't know whether Josephus is the one who makes the statement that he is in his age. I only remember him referring to him being thrown off and what
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I may have been doing there was making a synthesis between that statement and other information we have about James in some of the writer perhaps
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Jesus is the first then
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Mary could not have had children B .C. who are in other words brothers of Jesus such as James could not be children of Mary or it would have made
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Christ no longer the firstborn but though you promised to look it up you did not do so I don't recall promising to look it up but I'm happy to do so you know that you reminded
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I should have reminded him oh goodness isn't digital recording a wonderful thing you know
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I mean right here at the end we have if I had known you were going to challenge it
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I would have had the copy here that's why I'm saying this is a novelty I've never heard anyone deny that there is such a statement so I'm willing to do the work
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I'm personally inviting you to send me that reference B .C. I'm personally responding and then we have
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I do recall reading in Josephus's book that yes the person that is referred to as James the brother again leaving the question bagged as to what sense the word brother has been used here the brother of our lord was thrown off the by a
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Jewish mob who was angry at him for being a Christian lead and this occurred in the year 62 A .D.
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and that he was an aged man in his eighties yes I don't know whether Josephus is the writer perhaps or another passage perhaps but my point was that if we know that Jesus is the firstborn as you yourself say then
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Mary could not have had children B .C. who are in other words brothers of Jesus such as James could not be children of Mary or it would have made
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Christ no longer the firstborn but though you promised to look it up you did not do so I don't recall promising to look it up but I'm happy to do so now that you've reminded me in fact
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I have the quotation Dr. Spenson has reminded him
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Dr. Spenson has verified as of this day that he reminded him and Mr.
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Mattox has conveniently forgotten that he had been reminded concerning that very issue and I have a hard time
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I can't imagine doing that I cannot imagine using a source like that using it more than once in debate and in a situation such as the debate with Spenson being caught utterly flat footed being challenged on it
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I never bothered to look it up I forget being challenged on it and then was raised saying my opponent should have reminded me to look it up what can you say what can you say about something like that I don't know
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I don't know how to mention nothing the presentation Mr. Mattox did a much better job against Eric Spenson there is no question about it
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I'm not sure why there was only a five minute difference in the time period ours is a 25 minute opening statement those are 30 minute opening statements maybe it's because he was in front of a different kind of audience
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I do not know what the reasons were but in his opening statement Mr. Mattox was so aggressive and so obviously upset by the nature of my opening statement and my opening statement was designed to do one thing my opening statement was designed to take away all his arguments there is no question about that I knew what his arguments were
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I take the time when I have the opportunity of doing so of studying what my opponent says it was like when I debated
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Stravinskis and he got angry at me because I had written he had ever written on purgatory on my handspring visor he was angry at that he didn't even recognize his own words
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I was quoting to him and somehow this is a bad thing to do I thought that's what you did in debates is that you you studied the other positions so you could accurately represent it and accurately argue against it well
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I guess that's not how everybody does it and so I had anticipated all of his favorite arguments and so when he gets up he's not happy and he's already accusing me of all sorts of red herrings and misrepresentations and how
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I debate badly and all the rest of this kind of silliness and then we've got stuff about his personal testimony and denouncing
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Satan and all this stuff that has nothing to do with the topic and so when I got up to get to the rebuttals what in the world could
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I do? I mean the rebuttal period is supposed to be rebutting the other person's main opening he's even admitted that he's going to have to wait until his rebuttal period to continue his presentation which is an admission you've lost the debate already so here's what
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I said at the beginning of my rebuttal period now it's very difficult for me technically we're supposed to here do rebuttal rebuttal periods aren't for presenting new material this is where we're supposed to rebut what's been said before but I have almost nothing to rebut we've been told the incarnation is unique that's not in dispute it's not relevant it's not part of the debate tonight we're told that Jesus was born of a woman that's not in dispute it's not part of the debate tonight we have heard claims
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Mr. Mattis has claimed the uniqueness of Christ was to be quote mirrored end quote in Mary but he gives no basis for this assertion whatsoever where is that found in the
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Bible? it makes for good preaching but it's lousy forensics Mary was to be forever virgin again an unfounded claim no evidence even offered and in a debate must be dismissed because no foundation is given he mentioned the idea of Gnosticism and claimed that my reference to it was a red herring isn't it fascinating that the earliest recorded historical references to a belief being affirmed here this evening is a red herring these beliefs first appear in Gnostic writings we heard no rebuttal of that I gave you the books they are found in are we going to hear a rebuttal of that?
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I'd like to find out I'd like to hear how that could be a red herring if that's where these beliefs are first found how is that a red herring?
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Mr. Magic calls virginity a gift a permanent gift but again no foundation was provided he says that I have to show how
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Mary lost her virginity the normal biblical meaning of words concerning husbands and wives sons and daughters firstborns coming together all those things seemingly are irrelevant and Mr.
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Magic is not going to have time in 10 minutes to even begin to address the lexical meanings of those particular terms at least in a scholarly fashion
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Mr. Magic says then gone to the Old Testament and he said well the woman seed he says she has no other seed was that meant to be an assertion?
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that she did not have other children? where does the text say that? where has Rome defined that that's what the text says?
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invalidly or is this just Mr. Magic's personal interpretation? where is the perpetual virginity?
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in the statement that Jesus would be born to the seed of the woman no one is disputing that in any way shape or form
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Isaiah 714 again where does Isaiah 714 say that after the birth of Jesus Christ there were no other children born naturally to Mary as she fulfilled that natural role given as a wife to Joseph?
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where is that in Isaiah 714? it's not found anywhere Mr. Magic's was very kind to point out that sometimes we discuss grammar and that I should pay attention to the grammar of the text well
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I appreciate that kind recommendation however I point out that it is in the
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Hebrew of Isaiah 9 that the birth the son that is given to us the child that is born to us that particular term that is used there is of natural birth not
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Jesus somehow sort of beaming out of Mary that concept again first shows up where?
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in the Gnostic writings Jesus was born of a virgin that's a true birth and so I didn't really have a lot to respond to he had only gotten to the
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Old Testament he didn't get to providing brief shallow non -interactive responses to the
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New Testament material until his 10, oh I'm sorry 11 minute rebuttal period he needed a little more time to get to all that stuff you know so what does it really matter right?
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and so he didn't even bother to get to that then one last thing
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I want to play for you here question and answer period at the end of the debate a question is asked about the argument that I just addressed briefly he kept going to Genesis 3 and he made this big thing it's to the seed singular not to seeds and it was so obvious it was so painfully obvious that what he was arguing was that since it's the singular seed and not seeds there weren't other children everybody knew that's what he was saying and so a question is asked and again
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I didn't have time to queue it I'm going to have to find it so you get to listen to a few seconds here as they go by and that's just the nature of live webcasting
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I can barely hear myself by the way in such a way that it was very confusing that's a question to me page 95 and following that's the stuff about the women at the foot of the cross that was an interesting discussion gave a long response there
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I still need a little more volume please obviously what's going to happen here in the vast majority of cases is that people are going to say there's nothing wrong with eating food and I resent the implication that the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity
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I don't think that's what I'm looking for there showing that for example when
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Moses he went on and on and on and on about the fact that her body perpetual virginity vows of virginity tradition of men is not going to confine a person to the pits of hell that's not it let's keep going here to the correction of scripture this is not a belief it's down here someplace talking about seed in scripture aha aha aha okay let's get the question virginity there it is back it up just a second you stated that it was abnormal to refer to the seed of a woman how would it be fair to say that that is an argument for the perpetual virginity of Mary when the children that Dr.
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White describes would be the seed of Joseph okay did you catch that the question was how can the fact there's only one seed be an argument for perpetual virginity of Mary because the other children that would have come afterwards would have been the seed of Joseph so the argument is irrelevant excellent question now what's going to happen is
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Jerry is going to do the matatex dance he's going to do the I'm not going to deal with this question
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I'm going to duck this question in fact I'm not even going to admit what it was I was trying to say at first I just couldn't let it happen and so I stepped in and I said that's not what the question was asking the question was asking this refocused it and then
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I'll say oh well that's the second part of my question that's the second part of my point and he still doesn't answer it so listen to this
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I'm not sure I'm understanding the question but my remark was not intended to refute anything
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Dr. White had said my remark was simply to point out that the phrase seed of the woman points forward to the fact that Mary will conceive virginally something that Dr.
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White and I both agree on in other words the phrase that you usually see when talking about seed in scripture is the man that provides the seed and I'm saying that Genesis 3 15 in which the seed of the woman is the first information we have in scripture that there is something supernatural that goes on in the incarnation that is that Christ comes into the world through a departure from the norm normally a man provides seed and that is how a child is begotten in this case there is no male seed provided there is this anomaly of the seed of the woman and my point was simply that since we already have an anomaly here something that is only possible by the supernatural intervention of God it is arbitrary on Dr.
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White's part on the part of any Protestant to say that's the only aspect of the incarnation that is abnormal after that everything is just absolutely normal why not recognize that the entire event itself is sui generis that is in a class by itself and that if the conception is supernatural and departs from the norm normally women don't get pregnant when they are virgins that the birth of Jesus could likewise be abnormal in the sense that she remains a virgin as Isaiah 7 14 explicitly teaches
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Jerry could I just I think I understand what the questioner was asking I don't think that you do
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I think what he was referring to whoever it was he or she I'm sorry ladies I'm not politically correct at times
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I think what they're asking was you said it was to seed not seeds you made a plural out of that seemingly my understanding maybe
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I misunderstood you maybe the writer was too but my understanding was you were saying that because it's singular seed that this is the only child
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Mary had and it was she had other children would have been seeds that's how I understood what you were saying is that not what you were saying
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I was making two points this question was only about the first point this question did not say what is your argument for the virginity of Mary from Genesis 15 if that's what the person is asking although this card says nothing about that I'm not
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Dr. White there's a question for you on the same vein basically it's asking for your take on the point of it being seed versus seeds well that's what
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I the original question as it was written said why is that relevant in light of the fact that the other children who were born of Mary were not of the seed of Mary they were of the seed of Joseph that's the whole point no one would argue that Simon and Joseph and Judas were of the seed of the female they were begotten in the natural way that children are begotten and therefore the entire argument if it's not seeds well all
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Paul's talking about is Christ he's not addressing any of the rest of this drag that in as his to use terms that are now a complete red herring it's irrelevant and to say well because it's not seeds then this proves the second point is exactly what the first question is asking the seeds would be of Joseph not of Mary and hence that's completely irrelevant as well it was very obvious from the reading of the first question exactly what the objection to his point was and to say well it was just about the first point he would have allowed that question to go if I had not called him on it then all of a sudden
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I call him on it well I was making two points the objection of the question was to the second point it was just if you want a debate where in you see every possible kind of obfuscation cheap debating trips misrepresentation changing of context and especially the constant accusation that your opponent is doing what you yourself are the expert at doing this is the debate you want to get if you want a good debate on the
55:28
Petra, Virginia, Mary get them all their expenses I don't know if that was videotaped or not I don't think it was but it's too bad that it wasn't now by the way
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Mr. Maddox wants to come on the program in fact he was angry that I was not going to do this review of the debate without him here as if Catholic Answers and all the rest of those folks have programs have me on all the time and he's willing to come on with Eric Spenson so we are arranging a time we're going to arrange a time when
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Eric Spenson will join me and Jerry Maddox will join me and I'll have all of these clips ready to go and in fact
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I'll put them together so we can play what was said in 96 and we can play what was said in the debate with Eric Spenson and we can play what was said just a few weeks ago and we can put them all together and we're going to ask for Josephus' reference and we're going to ask for the
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BDAG reference and we're going to ask all of these questions and we'll see if we get direct answers or not and I've told
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Mr. Maddox this straight up I have not pulled any punches with him at all
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I have told Mr. Maddox I believe you're a false teacher I believe you're a deceiver I believe you're under the judgment of God I believe
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God's judgment has come upon you and has blinded your mind I believe you're a voracious wolf in the midst of the flock and the only reason that I have anything to do with you is to refute your perversions of the gospel of Jesus Christ I have been straightforward with him and the only reason
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I have him on is because I believe with Eric Spenson and myself online Jerry Maddox will not be able to dodge when will that happen don't know yet we need to find out when the schedules will all sync together we're going to do it hope you enjoyed the dividing line today we'll see you
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Thursday night God bless that's
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AOMIN .org where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks join us again this