Centurion's Son

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the 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.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line on a Tuesday afternoon, unusual time, but that's because we have some special stuff to address today.

Today, there are some arguments that you wish you never had to actually respond to because they are just so bad, so poor, so dishonest, so far removed from the realm of possibility that to even have to waste one's time is a disappointment and it's a frustration.

Over the past couple of months, as we have needed to respond to the flood of pro -homosexual perversion of Scripture, misrepresentation of history, biblical languages, etc.,

etc., one of the arguments that I have not dealt with because it is just so bad and so far removed from anything that's even possible,

I've decided today that we need to deal with it. We need to deal with it, not because it's become any better, but because when it's posted on the

Huffington Post, that means there are going to be people who are repeating it. And when the argument appeals to authority improperly, then we need to try to provide some information and help, once again, to encourage believers to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within them.

I refer to an article by Jay Michelson, author of God vs.

Gay, the Religious Case for Equality, and it is titled, When Jesus Healed a

Same -Sex Partner. In essence, what you have is—I'm not going to read the whole thing, but here's the essence of it.

But some people argue, what about the fact that the only sanctioned relationship of the Bible is between a man and a woman?

Well, in fact, that's not quite the case. The story of the faithful centurion, told in Matthew 8, 5 -13, and Luke 7, 1 -10, is about a

Roman centurion who comes to Jesus and begs that Jesus heal his pice, a word sometimes translated as servant.

Jesus agrees and says he will come to the centurion's home, but the centurion says he does not deserve to have Jesus under his roof, and he has faith that if Jesus even utters a word of healing, the healing will be accomplished.

Jesus praises the faith of the centurion, and the pice is healed. This tale illustrates the power and importance of faith and how anyone can possess it.

The centurion is not a Jew, yet he has faith in Jesus and is rewarded.

But pice does not mean servant, it means lover.

I'm reading directly from the article. In Thucydides, in Plutarch, in countless

Greek sources, and according to leading Greek scholar

Kenneth Dover, pice refers to a junior partner in a same -sex relationship.

Now this is not exactly marriage of equals. An arrest as pice relationship generally consisted of a somewhat older man, usually a soldier between the ages of 18 and 30, and a younger adolescent, usually between the ages of 13 and 18.

Oh, we call that pedophilia today. Anyway, sometimes that adolescent was a slave, as seems to be the case here.

It would be inappropriate in my view to use the word gay to describe such a relationship. The word and its many connotations comes from our time, not out of ancient

Greece and Rome. This is not a relationship that any LGBT activist would want to promote today.

Well, isn't that odd that the LGBT folks would find it to be immoral, but somehow

Jesus didn't? Well this is the argumentation that is being put forward.

I've seen it on numerous websites, but the fact that it appeared on the Huffington Post, I felt that it would be good for a few moments to demonstrate without any question that this argumentation is without a doubt one of the most bogus, dishonest, untrue argumentations that could ever be presented by those who are attempting to pervert the

Bible. It is far easier for me to respect someone like Dan Savage who simply says the Bible is bleep than it is the people who try to twist and pervert the

Bible into something that it never could possibly be. But it makes more sense.

If you're already twisting and perverting your own sexuality, if you're already twisting and perverting your own gender, then it makes sense that you would be twisting and perverting your teachings on the

Bible, your use of scholarship, whatever else it might be. Now notice that Mr.

Michelson specifically says, Pais does not mean servant, it means lover. Now most people today have access to biblical programs on their computers.

I highly recommend for those who like I use a Mac, the

Accordance Bible software. And of course, having taught

Greek many times in the past, most people know who have had even a few, well, a few weeks of Greek, is that this is a basic word.

It's used 24 times in the New Testament. It is used only in Matthew, Luke, and Acts.

And it means child -slash -servant, child -slash -servant.

Now Thucydides and Plato and others are hundreds of years prior to the

New Testament. And the argumentation presented that I just read to you partakes of an incredibly amateurish, basic -level error in regards to semantic domain and vocabulary studies, especially as they apply to the

New Testament. The primary source of vocabulary background and lexical information from the

New Testament is not Thucydides. It would be the Greek Septuagint, first and foremost.

The greatest influence upon New Testament Greek, as it is used in the

New Testament itself, is that of the Greek Septuagint. There's no question about that.

There are so many times where you have terms that literally do not appear anywhere other than the

Greek Septuagint that come into the text of the New Testament. We can simply look at, let's start with something rather basic, and that is, let's look at the lexicons, shall we?

The loa nida lexicon based upon semantic domains, now by the way, paes, paes is an interesting word because it can be used as either a masculine or a feminine to refer to either a boy or a girl, a son or a daughter.

So if you use it with a masculine article, then you're referring to a little boy and feminine to a girl.

So paes, paedos, a young person normally below the age of puberty and without distinction as to sex.

The term paes may occur with either masculine or feminine articles that correspond to adjectival attributes. These gender distinctions indicate whether the person referred to is male or female.

With a masculine article or attributives, one may translate paes as boy, and similarly with female attributives, one may translate paes as girl.

So there's what you have. They don't even give here the meaning of servant.

But let's go to a little bit more full lexical source, and that is the current standard lexical source of Bauer, Dunker, Arndt, and Gingrich, 3rd edition, paes, paedos, either ha or he, a young person normally below the age of puberty with focus on age rather than social status, a boy or a youth.

Number two, one's own immediate offspring, child as son or daughter of a son, ha paes, of a daughter, he paes.

Number three, one who is committed in total obedience to another, slave or servant of slaves and personal attendants, slave or servant of special relationships, humans as God's servants or slaves, angels as servants of God.

And is there anything else below that? That's the last of the major definitions that are provided by the primary

Greek lexicon of the period of the Greek New Testament and immediately thereafter.

Now why don't they have, why don't they substantiate this assertion, but paes does not mean servant, it means lover.

Why didn't lovers show up here? Well, partly because we're actually dealing with how the word was used at the time of the writing of the

New Testament, not how it might have been used half a millennium earlier. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has graduate training in the language and has any sense of lexical semantics whatsoever would never, ever, ever be able to defend,

I'm not saying they wouldn't say it because people will say all sorts of stupid things, but I can guarantee you,

J. Michelson, I can guarantee you that Kenneth Dover could never defend those assertions.

They'll make them. You can find anybody with a degree after their name to say anything. Vast difference between getting them to say something and getting them to be able to defend this type of thing.

Okay, so the reason that we do not find these sources substantiating this is because there is no evidence that in the

New Testament this term is used in that way. And let's look at some of the

New Testament usage to demonstrate that this is the case. As I said, the term is used 24 times.

It's found only in Matthew, in Luke, and in Acts. I'm sorry,

I will take that back. There is a brief reference in John 4 .51

as well. As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living, which interestingly enough we'll come back to in just a moment, because that is one of the texts that actually puts the death knell in this particular one, but we'll get to that one in just a moment.

But let's take this assertion, because the assertion was not in any way given a context.

It could mean this, and maybe there were some times in the past when it meant this.

They're actually saying, Pais does not mean servant, it means lover.

So let's apply this to New Testament usage. So when

Herod saw, this is Matthew 2 .16, that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became enraged and sent and slew all the male lovers who were in Bethlehem and all in the vicinity.

Is that what he did? No, he slew the male children, two years old and under.

So that must have been the two years old and under lovers, right? Because that's what, it's the term Pais, Pidas.

So if you're going to make the assertion, this is what the term means, didn't say it's what the term means in this particular text, because then you'd have to demonstrate from that particular text that Pais is being used in a way that's used nowhere else in the

New Testament. So we're just demonstrating the abject absurdity, abject absurdity of this kind of assertion.

We know that it's found in Matthew chapter 8, because that's the section we're going to be looking at.

We'll come back to that one in just a moment. But interestingly enough, in Matthew chapter 12, verse 18, we have a citation of the

Greek Septuagint, and it's being used of Jesus's relationship to God.

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my Pais.

So are you actually going to suggest, and I hate to have to say this, but there are actually people so perverted in their thinking that they actually have suggested that this shows inter -Trinitarian homosexuality.

That has been suggested by people who are part of the Homosexual Studies section of the

Society for Biblical Literature. I will sit back for a moment while you express your utter amazement at such blasphemy, but there is no limit to how far people will go.

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall proclaim justice to the

Gentiles. There you have it being used in the Gospel of Matthew, and it's ha -pais -moo.

Matthew 14 -2, And said to his servants, twice,

Paisan al -tu, this is John the Baptist. Was this to his lovers? Of course not.

In Luke 1 -54, he has given help to Israel, his servant,

Pidas al -tu. Does this have something to do with lover? Is God, is

Israel the lover? Of course not. So we've seen, there's just so many, so many texts.

We see immediately that anyone who simply makes the statement that Pais means lover, it does not mean servant, is lying.

There's no other way to put it. This is indefensible. It is completely beyond the bounds of anyone who is a serious scholar.

No serious scholar could ever, ever defend this assertion. So we see that the assertion made at the

Huffington Post is a lie. It's not overly surprising because it's at the Huffington Post, but it's a lie.

Now let's continue, though, in the refutation of the argument and try to improve the argument and still demonstrate that this story, this argument, that Jesus knew that this was a same -sex relationship and that he is approving of it is absolutely, positively, completely without foundation.

It is a perversion and twisting the text and no honest person, no honest person could ever present it.

None. Can't be done. Let's look at the text. Matthew chapter 8, verse 5.

And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, imploring him and saying, Lord, my

Pais is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. Jesus said to him,

I will come and heal him. But the centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy of you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed.

For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me, and I say to this one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my slave, do this, and he does it.

Now when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who were following, truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness, and that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And Jesus said to the centurion, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed that very moment.

And Luke adds at the end of his discussion, he says, when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

Because what you have in Luke is a little bit different, and this is something we've discussed in our synoptic gospel studies.

And a centurion slave who was highly regarded by him was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some

Jewish elders asking him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored him, saying, he is worthy for you to grant this to him, for he loves our nation, and it was he who built us our synagogue.

And so at that point, you have an illustration of basically representation, when someone represents someone else, it's the same as if they themselves had come to Jesus, et cetera, et cetera.

So Luke gives a little bit more of the detail. But what isn't mentioned by most folks is

John also tells this story. Now, some scholars have identified this as a different story, but I don't think there's any reason to think that it is.

In John chapter 4, not one of the synoptic gospels, but in John chapter 4, verse 46,

Therefore, he came again to Canaan of Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum.

When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, was imploring him to come down, heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

So Jesus said to him, unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe. The royal official said to him, sir, come down before my child dies.

Jesus said to him, go, your son lives. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. And as he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.

Now, if this is the same story, then it's the death knell in, well,

I guess I won't even say it's a death knell because you have to make an argument before you can put the death knell to it, okay?

And there is nothing, absolutely, positively nothing.

There is nothing in Matthew or Luke's rendition of this story that even begins to touch upon the issue of homosexuality, homosexual rape, pederasty, or anything even close to it.

The term Pais, used in the New Testament, means child or servant. That's what it means in every usage.

If you're going to say that at one place, at one place it means something else, then the weight is upon your shoulders to demonstrate from the context that your unique understanding of the use of that term is exactly what is indicated by the grammar, syntax, and context of the text itself.

You can't merely assert it, you have to prove it. That's what meaningful scholarship does.

That's what people who actually translate the Bible have to be able to do. And there is no possible way to substantiate that assertion in either

Matthew or Luke's versions. It can't be done. If John is telling the same story, then notice something.

In verse 46, 47, there it is, in verse 47, it says,

Huyon is the standard term for son.

Male offspring. Heal his son.

Then in verse 50, what do you have?

Huyos su zay. Jesus said, go, your son lives.

Right? Okay, so you've got your son lives. The man started off as he was going down, however, verse 51, his slaves met him saying, what?

Hapais autu zay. So the slaves use hapais.

Which means what? For John, hapais and huyos are being used interchangeably in this text.

Nothing about lover. In fact, in this context, nothing about servant.

This is his son. So if John 4 is the same story, and I checked the synopsis quater euangeliorum earlier today, and it does put

John 4 as the parallel to Matthew 8 and Luke 7, at least in the printed

Greek version that I had, then if it is, then that's the end of that right there.

Even if it is not, when we go back to Matthew 8 and to Luke chapter 7, we find nothing that would substantiate the assertion made in the

Huffington Post article, nothing to substantiate the assertion commonly made by pro -homosexuals who are attempting to pervert the teaching of Scripture.

We find every reason on the planet to not believe that. Why? Because of the context.

Look at Luke chapter 7. Who is it that comes to Jesus? It's the Jewish elders. And folks, you need to understand something.

There is not a scintilla of evidence to be found anywhere in ancient history of any

Jewish person for hundreds of years before or after the time of Jesus promoting the idea that homosexuality was not anything other than one of the gravest sins against God.

The idea that Jewish elders would come to Jesus asking him to heal a love slave of a

Roman centurion is so absurd that we should not have to be addressing this.

But the reason we have to address this is because of the level of absurdity to which the dialogue has come.

So, you're sitting on a plane, and let's say you commit the terrible sin of having your

Bible open. Maybe you got on early, you want to read something.

I've had this happen. Of course, normally it's my iPad or something like that now, but you've got a

Bible sitting there. And someone sits down, and the conversation very quickly turns, well, you're not one of those folks that thinks that homosexuality is wrong.

And they'll do that. They have become so incredibly offensive in pressing this perversion, calling what is good evil and evil good, that that can happen.

And so, someone presents this to you. Well, how can you say that in light of Jesus having healed a same -sex partner?

What are you going to say? You don't have much time. You don't have as much time as I've taken.

We're about 23 minutes after the opening here, so I've taken some time.

You probably have time to go into all the background, and you probably don't have Bauer, Donker, Arndt, and Gingrich in your

Bible. I've certainly got it on my iPad and my phone.

But what are you going to do? Well, here's what I would suggest to you very briefly, and then we're going to take a quick break and then talk about some other things.

Shift gears a little bit. What I would say is, well, you know, I've heard people make that argument, but the reason that Christians have never, ever understood that text that way is because it's simply impossible, on any honest level, to interpret

HaPais in that way. There is no other place in all the Scriptures, in the 24 places where it's used, that you could ever understand it to mean that.

Jesus is called the Pais of God. Every lexicon says, child or servant.

The parallel text in John chapter 4 identifies it as son. And the idea that the

Jewish elders in Luke chapter 7 would be bringing to Jesus a request to heal the homosexual lover of a

Roman centurion is beyond the level of laughable. So the question I would have for you is, upon what basis do you make this assertion?

And who are you trusting to give you this kind of information? That would lead to all sorts of possibilities of being able to demonstrate the fact that the

Jewish people understood. You could go into the Old Testament law at that point. Jesus is teaching about the

Old Testament law. That opens the possibility to go into Matthew chapter 19 and the positive presentation of Jesus' teaching about what marriage is, and male and female, and so on and so forth.

But you need to be prepared. Look, my parents, you know,

I don't know if my dad's listening to this, but I would imagine he was absolutely shocked when

I presented this. I would imagine that people back then, back then, sorry dad, but people back in the olden days, this isn't the kind of thing that was discussed, this isn't the kind of argument that was presented.

The people of the preceding generations did not have to be prepared for this kind of argumentation.

You do. If you're listening to this, you want to be a Christian who is salt and light in this society.

If you want to be part of the brakes, sometimes what

God calls us to be is to be the brakes. What I mean by that is we are called to be faithful, to present the gospel, and God uses us as the brakes to slow down the headlong rush into cultural collapse.

And if that's all we get to do, well, if that's what God calls us to do, that's what we need to do.

We do it to his honor and glory. That means we need to be prepared, and sometimes it means to be prepared to respond to some really, really, really bad arguments.

Now, the person presenting the argument to you is probably as ignorant as the day is long that their argument is completely fallacious.

And I'll tell you what I struggle with. I struggle with respecting someone who uses argumentation like this, because I expect if you're going to make a statement like was made in this article, but PICE does not mean servant.

Yes, it does. It means lover. No, it doesn't. I expect you to have actually maybe, you know, done some work, know what you're talking about.

But the vast majority of people with whom you're going to speak and with whom I'm going to speak don't know. They read it online.

The Internet can be a great thing, but unfortunately in this situation, what the

Internet does is it makes us all that much more shallow because of the kinds of arguments that are allowed to be presented without any kind of examination.

So there's the argument. It's one of the worst arguments out there, but it's getting very popular.

You need to be prepared to respond to it. And I hope that is useful to you. So with that, we're going to take a break.

And I just happened, believe it or not, happened to notice something while doing that. I was multitasking.

And I want to talk about one other thing. We get back, and then we're going to completely shift gears. And we're going to talk a little bit about what happened.

I forgot to grab this. Oh, well, I'll just have to describe it. I really wanted to play part of this.

I'm really bummed. But when we come back, I'll tell you the incredible encounter between Robert Spencer and Adnan Rashid on the unbelievable radio broadcast.

We're going to talk a little bit about that. We'll be right back. Pulpit crimes.

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Breaking news from the White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.

I think same -sex couples should be able to get married. The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right.

This comes two weeks after the President announced his support for same -sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened and accused of discrimination.

It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2

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And don't forget to search for other resources like Debates and past Dividing Lines dealing with this very provocative issue.

And remember, theology matters. And welcome back to Dividing Line.

While doing that last segment, I couldn't help but notice...

I mean, this is just so disgusting to me. Davidson College in North Carolina has become one of the first colleges in the country to give

Chick -fil -A the boot. I knew that this would start happening. Because these folks cannot allow for anyone to hold a different view than their own.

They are... Pro -homosexual activists are the least inclusive, most exclusive, least tolerant, most intolerant people

I have ever encountered in our society. Just watch the wild -eyed insanity of the people who go after Doug Wilson.

These young zealots were... Not a logical thought to be found amongst any of them.

But they'll sit there and yell, You're so intolerant! Shut up! Shut up! You just go,

Oh, you needed spankings when you were younger. You really did. And a job. And maybe getting an allowance.

And taking the garbage out. It's something. It's just amazing. Many colleges have seen students protest against Chick -fil -A restaurants located on campus, but Davidson doesn't actually have one at their school.

Chick -fil -A food was ordered and served regularly at after -midnight events along with other fast food options.

Talk about empty, but that is just the kind of thing you expect from people who talk about this.

By the way, I didn't mention this in that previous portion. And one of the reasons I didn't interact with you holding your lexicon up is

I was videotaping that. I'm going to be posting this on YouTube. And I wanted to post that response.

And responding to you would have been a little bit odd in that. But I followed some of the links in that article.

And again, the dishonesty of the material. At one point they have

Dr. Robert Gagnon, noted evangelical scholar and leading anti -gay apologist on the meaning of PICE.

Dr. Gagnon says, where did they put the citation?

Yes. Boy, PICE could be used of any junior partner in a homosexual relationship, even one who is full -grown.

The problem is, he's not talking about in the New Testament. It's so easy to isolate things and cram them into your arguments, isn't it?

This is from the GayChristian101 .com website.

I'm going to close all of them here and clean out my cache. One other thing to say before we switch over.

There is at Chronicle .com an interesting story. And you need to understand this. An academic autodefay, a sociologist whose data find fault with same -sex relationships, is savaged by the progressive orthodoxy.

This is a story of sociologist Mark Regnerus. And this has been going on for a while.

He dared to do a study that suggested that children are not aided by having same -sex parents.

Folks, you need to understand something. Academia is only relevant as far as it's truthful.

Academia is only relevant as far as it's truthful. And when academia is taken over by ideologues, as it has been in Western culture, it's no longer relevant.

When you can't study other viewpoints, when you can't present counter -arguments, that's not academia anymore.

We all see that when it comes to intelligent design. I mean, the most basic person on the planet recognizes the difference between scattered parts on a table and a functioning iPad.

But you can't suggest that in much of academia today. That, you know what, I have a feeling there's some design here between the parts and what's functioning.

You think? But you can't. That's the perfect way to make sure your career is over.

And now in sociology, psychiatry, psychology, if you dare to say, you know, it seems that kids do better with a mommy and a daddy, you're out.

You've violated the dogma, the de -fide dogma of our society.

That which is evil is now good. And that which was good is now evil.

That's what's going on in the world today. All right, put the clutch in, and let's shift over.

Some of you saw the Twitter conversation I had with Justin Brierley on Friday.

Justin let everybody know that the program he was about to post was going to be somewhat on the, especially from the

British side, it was going to be somewhat on the angry side of the spectrum.

And I know Justin. I may get to be on Unbelievable again when I get to go over there next month.

I'll try to find the time to sneak over there. And he's not very far from the

MI5 building, actually. Last time I went there, I walked right past it, and I sort of felt like they were watching me all the way.

And I snuck a picture of it and stuff like that. But there's lots of pictures of the building online.

But anyway, so I know I've been in studio with Adnan Rashid, I think twice, at least once.

In fact, let me see here, because he posted these. Where did that one go?

He posted the one that I did with Adnan, and I think, yeah, 6th of March 2010, which is more trustworthy, the

Bible or Quran, Christian James White debates Muslim Adnan Rashid. So maybe only once. I guess the other time that I was on with a

Muslim was with Abdullah Al -Andalusi. Yeah, that makes sense. Anyway, I've been on Unbelievable, and I've been on with Adnan.

So I know what it looks like in the studio. It's sort of fun to be picturing what this is all about.

Adnan's in studio with Justin, but Robert Spencer, of course, is on the phone.

I say of course because he lives under constant death threat. When you run the

Jihad Watch website, you're going to be under a lot of pressure along those lines.

So he was on the line. And Justin said this one really got nasty.

Well, I even remember saying some long lines. My response was, you mean more nasty than the program

I did on the King James? Because I did a King James program. But the guy I was on with was very, very laid back.

So I was being sarcastic, which I can be at times. Too much to the chagrin of some people who don't feel like you should have a sense of humor or should ever be sarcastic about anything.

But anyway, so he said, yeah, it really was.

And I said, oh, what time is it going to be posted? And it was going to be posted like six o 'clock in the morning. I'm like, man,

I'd love to listen to that while I'm on my ride on Saturday morning. So he sent me a private message where he gave me the link so that I could listen to it while I was riding on Saturday morning, which

I did. And I'm going to tell you, though, this was the wildest program.

I've heard some there's been some other times where some guests have become, shall we say, a little bit less than British in their in their conversations on Unbelievable.

But this was pretty wild. This is pretty wild. I tried to track down the link.

Is that is that? Well, I can't find it there. I thought

I would be able to just pull it out of my iTunes here on this. But what I didn't realize is I deleted all my subscriptions out of the iTunes on this unit because this isn't the unit

I use regularly. And I was going to play some sections for you. But if you haven't if you don't subscribe to Unbelievable, you should anyways.

So just just go to Premiere Radio dot org dot UK or just put in Justin Brierley Unbelievable and it'll come up.

I would highly recommend just for entertainment value, if for nothing else, that you take the time to listen to the encounter.

Here's some of my thoughts. I've now listened to Robert Spencer debate two sets of Mormons and Mormons.

And the Mormons were really confused because they didn't know why they were there. Two sets of Muslims on the existence of Muhammad.

And I'm going to tell you something. The first two were were Salafi guys.

And just that was on ABN. It was an embarrassing face plant. I'm going to tell you something right now.

And the MDI guys are probably listening or will listen to the podcast. Guys, I could do a thousand times better than any

Muslim I've heard so far defending the existence of Muhammad. I really could. I really could.

Adnan did not challenge Robert Spencer on the real weaknesses of Robert Spencer's theory.

He didn't. I disagree with Robert Spencer. Now the book's well worth reading because it does show you where the

Muslims should be concentrating their attention. In in providing some meaningful apologetic and seemingly aren't willing to do so.

But I was just shocked. Now I know Adnan. Okay. I'm hoping that Adnan and I are going to get to debate in Dublin next month.

I hope that's going to happen. I certainly invite him to do that. And you all remember just a few weeks ago I played his debate with Jay Smith.

And the stuff that he said about the New Testament and corruption and textual criticism. Hey, that's that's my area.

And if he's willing to get into my area and discuss that, that's great. I'm I'm I'm looking forward to that.

But as brusque and offensive as Adnan can tend to be.

We can actually get along. We can actually we've demonstrated on on Justin's program that we can say, no, sir, you're wrong without going.

And you're a liar. And this and your nose is too big. And I don't like your left foot or whatever else.

We can do that. It was very, very clear to me that Adnan was there to score some points.

He was pretty excited about getting to be on with it. The infinite infamous

Robert Spencer and Adnan violated every possible rule of gentlemanly conduct.

You know, bringing up stuff like, well, Robert Spencer supports the

English Defense League and and they're bad. And so Robert Spencer is bad. And he went so far as to say that Robert Spencer didn't write his own book.

He accused him of plagiarizing it. Now, he didn't provide any substantiation for that, but he made the made the assertion more than once.

And what I wanted to play was this one section where he asked for the difference. And I don't even remember the names.

Had a boss was in it someplace. But about something or Malik or something. And he said any primary school

Muslim would know the difference between these two names. And I was sitting here going, come on, I'd not.

I have met so many Muslims that wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about.

Don't tell me that every private, every young Muslim knows the difference between the.

It was it was completely out of bounds. It was just completely out of bounds.

But still, the positive argument that, well, there was no positive argument.

The only positive argument was, well, these scholars say this, these scholars say that it was complete argument from authority.

Well, my scholars trump your scholars. Well, you know what? There are more scholars that believe Mohammed existed than there are that don't believe he exists.

No question about that. And if that's all if that's all you got. Then, OK, but I really expect more from Muslim apologists then.

Well, at this point, we will go ahead and quote the Orientalists. Come on, guys. You don't you don't like those folks.

You you you savage those folks on other issues, but they're your best resource for proving that your prophet existed.

Seriously. I mean, and where is this idea that.

The that the Hadith literature. And it's not change somehow prove the existence of Mohammed.

Guys, you got to realize every rejected Hadith had an is not chain.

And are you really comfortable with the circularity involved in saying, well, how do you determine what a sound is not change?

Well, here are rules. What sounds like those rules. And one of those rules includes consistency with the teachings of Islam.

A little bit. Well, it's circular and determined. I mean, from a historical standpoint, that doesn't work. Look, folks, let me help you out here a little bit.

What what should have happened. And I'm going to help Adnan out here. I don't know if Adnan takes time to listen to this or not, but some of my might tell him.

Let me let me help you out here. More than once, I heard Robert Spencer say there is no evidence for Mohammed in the first 60 years after the time he existed.

Now, Adnan did try to dispute that with a questionable source about a prophet amongst the

Saracens who is announcing the coming of the Messiah, which doesn't sound much like like Mohammed to me.

But. Here's what you do. You go. Why do you cut off at 60?

What's your evidence that almost anybody on the Arabian Peninsula existed at that point in time?

You see, this is one of the standard arguments that the mythicists used against against Christianity. And it demonstrates a naive historiography as if you had

CNN reporters running around with video cameras and MP3 players. And especially.

In the Arabian Peninsula. The amount of written documentation regarding the existence of any individual is not to be expected from any serious historical perspective.

Now, there are questions about the coinage. There are questions about the earliest appearance, for example, of of Mohammed Rasool Allah being attached to the

Shahada. Those are all important things. And and and whether Mohammed was being used of a specific person or whether it means the praised one.

And I understand all those things need to be addressed. But from my perspective, you have to challenge the arbitrary range of dates.

And then what you have to say is you have to start bringing together multiple lines of historical information and saying there would have had to have been a grand conspiracy.

Amongst many people over a large area that would required communication that could not possibly have taken place at that time.

The technology did not exist to do that kind of communication to explain the creation of.

All these personalities involved in Mohammed's life. So somebody had to create

Aisha and somebody had to create create Zainab bin Josh and somebody had to create

Zaid and and all the companions and and all the rest of this stuff.

They had to somehow create these individuals and then somehow control the collation of all this information together to try to create what you eventually have in the

Orthodox Islamic story. And it's that kind of a conspiracy theory that is the weakness of the admittedly radical perspective that denies the existence of Mohammed and Toto.

That's where you need to go. That's the weakness of the Spencer perspective. But what we're seeing is the real weakness of Islamic Dawa.

Because the people that are taking him on, look, Adnan, all you did was attack the man. If you can't tell that that's ad hominem argumentation, then you don't understand what ad hominem argumentation is.

Just like you don't know what corruption means in Metzger's book. But that's all you did.

I mean, I mean, at one point it was really funny. I mean, they they started going. I mean, Robert Spencer got a little hot under the collar.

This man's a liar. He's just lying all over the place. And and you can just see Justin's, you know, trying to get the flame.

They got the flamethrowers going. He's trying to get the fire extinguisher and and trying to calm things down. And one of the problems was the fact that Robert Spencer was on the phone and he couldn't hear when

Justin was trying to interrupt him to go to a break or to let Adnan speak. He couldn't hear him.

You could just tell he could not hear him. When I'm in the studio, I'm watching him.

And I think it's one of the reasons he likes having me on is I've done radio forever in a day, too. And so I can tell when he's getting ready for a break.

I can tell when he wants to go to another subject and I'll work with him and it makes it a much easier situation. But when you've got someone on the phone, that can be hard.

And I know that when I've been on the phone, I've been on unbelievable more times on the phone or at least my

ISDN line or sitting right where I'm sitting right now than I have been in the studio, I think, or at least an equal number of times close to that.

I'm trying to listen as carefully as I can. And Justin will sort of make noises so that you can hear him and know that he is attempting to break in and you can work with him.

Well, Robert wasn't doing that. And so that added to it as well a little bit. But they were just going back and forth and just the ad hominem started flying fast and thick.

And it's entertaining. Not very useful in determining whether Muhammad existed or not.

But it is at least somewhat on the entertaining side. But there just simply wasn't a positive presentation put forward.

Adnan allowed Spencer to determine the grounds for all of it. For all of it.

And so I think you just have to, on any meaningful level, give the engagement to Robert Spencer at that point.

Even though the flames and the smoke, unfortunately, got in the way of most of the conversation, unfortunately.

So, like I said, take time to listen to it. It's one of the more interesting.

There was another comment I was going to make there. And I lost the train of thought. And I apologize for that.

That happens a lot these days. But that's going to be one of the more interesting archive shows, shall we say.

I'll be interested to hear the feedback. I almost feel like calling Justin and leaving my own feedback.

But maybe he'll... I have a feeling Justin, if I mention this, will probably listen to my comments. And as a result, who knows, maybe might play a section of what

I had to say. But I guess, Justin, if I were to make a comment as a pretty regular guest on your program.

And having engaged Adnan on the program and in formal debate as well in London.

And hopefully doing so in Dublin. I think my comment would be this. I am truly amazed at the fact that I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could present a significantly more compelling, historically accurate, and useful defense of the existence of Muhammad than any

Muslim I've heard so far. Why is that? I think that's highly educational.

I think that says a lot. And I would just call on the

Muslims. Guys, you've got to step your game up here. You really, really need to step your game up here.

And that wasn't the way to do it in any way, shape, or form. Okay, so there's my comments on that.

Like I said, I would love to have played some sections, but iTunes failed me. And during the break,

I was trying to... I'm sitting here. I'm looking at the PremiereRadio .org, and I'm, you know, listen now.

Okay, how about download MP3? But it's all on my other...

I guess I could have gone to my Gmail and pulled that down from the link he sent me. That's how I should have done it.

I apologize. But when you're in a break, Justin will forgive me for that because he knows when you're in a break, there's only so much you can get done during that period of time.

Okay, we've still got half an hour left in the program today, and I still have queued up from our last program the debate between Chris Green and Paul Williams.

Oh, by the way, by the way, I had a little interesting

Twitter conversation with Paul Williams. Since... I think this was

Friday or Saturday. It was down here. I was at the office. It wasn't at home.

And someone on Twitter had mentioned... made mention of the fact that Paul Williams had commented on his blog.

And he said something along the lines of, I wonder if I could just ask him to debate

James White on the subject or something along those lines. And I had responded to it. And here comes

Paul Williams, who either follows me or him or both of us,

I would assume me, on Twitter. And in response to the, maybe

I should just ask him if he would debate James White, he says, well, why don't you ask him?

Now, remember, Paul Williams has already said in comments that he's not going to debate me, that I'm not worth debating, that I'm an extreme fundamentalist and a waste of time.

And other Muslims shouldn't debate me either. OK, it's the old, OK, I've made statements that I know

I cannot possibly defend in debate. So I'm just going to do the ad hominem thing against the person that I know

I could not actually engage in a debate with. And we've... how many, how many, especially

Roman Catholics... Calling Guardian. How long has it been? How long has it been? Since Guardian was going to call up with all the, all my errors, you know, we're...

Algo probably has the exact number of days since it's, it's been, it's been years. But anyway, so we've, we're used to this.

We've seen this before. And OK, so I'm like, OK, I'll, I'll, I'll give you a satisfaction because I knew it was coming.

Well, I'll go ahead and give you the satisfaction. Paul Williams, will you debate me in London when

I come over next month? And he writes back, no, thank you. And then he, then he, you know, talks about the mire, the muck and mire of the intolerance and everything that's out there.

And I almost wanted to write back and say, are you talking about the Taliban here? You're talking about what goes on in Pakistan, Afghanistan, basically any place where your faith becomes the majority.

Is that what you're talking about? I mean, you want to talk about intolerance. Let's go to Egypt. Let's go to Saudi Arabia. Let's go to Afghanistan and Pakistan and so on and so forth.

We will talk about lots of intolerance there. And but I didn't,

I didn't get into that. So I found it rather, rather odd. Oh, but what I did say, this is, this is what

I want to tell you about. I said, well, sorry, you're not going to do that. But I am going to be responding to the comments that you made in the debate on the dividing line.

And he wrote back and said, I won't be reading them. And so I wrote back and said, well, the dividing line is my webcast.

And but I'm not surprised that you wouldn't be listening or reading. And, you know, the whole idea.

You know, anybody who's going to say, well, you're an extreme fundamentalist. And dismiss you on that level.

And dismiss the kind of refutation that we have offered of his comments. You know, here's here's a man that, to my knowledge, has no seminary training.

He's never taught Greek. He's never taught Hebrew. And yet he's dismissive of someone who has.

And you ask the question, why is that? And it's it's because he doesn't have the ability to defend the position.

And evidently, no, not enough commitment to the truth to seek to change that.

And I find that rather not only disrespectful, but disrespectful to the people of the audience.

And I felt that the way he played games. Now, again, I mentioned this last time, but I'm going to play this section.

We're getting toward it. When Chris Green inappropriately asked him to comment during his rebuttal period.

And that was a violation of I don't know what rules they had. Maybe it wasn't. But it struck me as a violation of meaningful rules of debate.

I don't think Chris Green should have done that. But he asked him a simple question. And it is self -evident that Williams played games in his response.

He did not handle the situation appropriately at all. And I did not feel that it showed any meaningful respect to the audience at all.

But anyways, we're going to pick up where we left off in listening to Paul Williams' opening statement.

And then I'm going to go ahead and go into the rebuttal so you can hear what happened with Chris Green.

Now, get ready. Because if you are,

A, a member of the Phoenix Performing Baptist Church, which is a very small percentage of people listening. Or, B, if you have taken the time to listen to any of what

I posted starting last week, but then posted all of today. And that is the five -part series

I did on the deity of Christ and the gospel of Mark. Mark's testimony to the deity of Christ.

Here's where part of this came from. Because it's becoming a broken record.

Shabir Ali, Paul Williams, everybody. Well, Mark has a completely human

Jesus. And that's why I took the time. I wasn't exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination.

But I took the time to look at key texts in the gospel of Mark that demonstrate very, very clearly that Mark's view of Jesus is not just some human prophet from Galilee.

There's no way to read Mark in that way. And if you haven't listened to those presentations,

I would recommend them to you just simply so that you can respond to this. The pages of the

New Testament. Let's look at the earliest gospel to be written, that of Mark. This shows us a very human figure.

Jesus is a man who prays to God. Jesus is unable to work. Now, remember,

Jesus is a man who prays to God. In John, what's John 17?

Isn't that a prayer of Jesus to the Father? And Jesus is a man,

John chapter 4. He's tired by the well when he talks to the

Samaritan woman because of his travels. Sounds pretty much like what

John says as well. As well as Matthew and Luke. Because, of course, we do believe that Jesus is a man.

We believe in the Incarnation. We believe that he prayed. We don't believe that when the

Son becomes incarnate that he's going to become an atheist. Right?

Right. So why is this argumentation? And by the way, if you want some more of this, and I'm glad that Brian111 in channel mentioned this, one of the things that gave me the idea to do the

Mark series was a book by Simon J. Gathericoll entitled,

The Pre -Existent Son, Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which

I have two copies of in my library, actually, and which I would recommend to your reading. It's a scholarly tome, so it's not...

It would be easier to listen to my series than to read the book, but you're going to get a whole lot more background information than I can present, obviously, in a sermon format.

Jesus was not able to work miracles in his own town. Well, that's not unusual in the rest of the synoptics either.

But why was this? And why are you assuming incapacity rather than relationship between the purpose of doing miracles and the hardness of the heart of the people?

It's real easy for these folks who no longer, in William's case, no longer believe to take this kind of pot shot, but how about allowing the

Bible to speak for itself? I mean, are you really saying that Jesus was incapable because he's just a man?

Or why not allow the text to speak for itself? And we're talking about the lack of faith on the part of the people.

Do you really want to sit in front of an audience and say, yes, Jesus can only work miracles when people have faith?

You mean like the resurrection, which nobody had faith was even going to happen?

That kind of thing? Or how about the raising of Lazarus or the widow of Nain's son?

There's all sorts of places where Jesus does these things. There's something more going on we're talking about Nazareth.

It doesn't have anything to do with the demonstration that Jesus is merely a human prophet. The second example.

The third example. Jesus confesses his ignorance about the date of the end of the world. Fourth example.

Right on by there. How much time have we spent dealing with this? And how much time does

William spend honestly engaging it? How about, well, again, he said he's not going to listen, so I guess

I really can't address him directly, can I? But if I were to address him correctly, I would ask him, do you really think

Jesus said the words recorded by either Mark or Matthew on this man? Because he called himself the

Son, which would be in contradiction to the Koran. So you can't really believe

Jesus did that, do you? And he actually put himself above the angels.

What prophet of God would do that in that sense? And how would

Jews have understood Jesus? There's all these issues we'd love to bring up. But, like I said, I'm just an extreme fundamentalist.

He's not going to be listening anyways, right? Jesus did not know the identity of a woman who touched him and had to ask his disciples for help.

Now, again, we've already dealt with this, and if you're listening for the first time, look back in the archives.

Simply one, this is an MDI, Muslim Debate Initiative, faceplant argument.

I'm going to identify this as the MDI faceplant argument. Everybody's using it. Abdullah Kundi uses it.

Paul Williams uses it. It's a bad argument, guys. You're not reading the text.

Jesus didn't need his disciples' help. There's a reason why he said,

He was bringing forth a confession of faith from the woman. She comes forth trembling.

He heals her. It's all for a purpose. This is as bad as the, These are arguments that demonstrate you are not dealing with the text in any meaningful fashion.

Really, really bad arguments, guys. Don't use them. It's amazing when people use this kind of argumentation.

It's just that bad. And so here you have Paul Williams using thoroughly refuted, but for me, when that fellow from some other country,

I don't know what country he was from, first asked me the question during the

Hamza Abdul Malik debate, for any audience questions, about the fig tree.

I'm not offended that this man is ignorant of the New Testament. I expect him to be.

But Paul Williams has no excuse. Paul Williams has no excuse. This man was in a church where he would have been instructed properly, and there's just no excuse for making this kind of absurd argument.

None. So I am offended when someone claims to be a former Christian, claims to have knowledge of the

Bible, and then can just present such a facile misrepresentation of my scriptures.

A guy from another country who's probably never read the New Testament, okay. Englishman who claimed to be a

Christian, making that kind of argument, no excuse. Fifth example, Jesus was so -

Oh, by the way, four examples, none so far that are overly relevant, are they?

Irritated by the absence of figs, he cursed a fig tree, even though it was not the season for figs.

There we go. There is the fig tree argument. And again, bogus on a level, it's difficult for me.

Okay, I guess I can think of something. If you guys want an example of how bogus this is, it's the same kind of stuff you get from Jack Chick about Islam, okay.

You know, the really, really, really bad stuff that takes absolutely no consideration for context, for the historical context of Muhammad, anything like that at all, same level stuff here.

Bad, bad, bad, bad stuff. You keep repeating it, and what you're telling me is, we've got nothing better, we've got to go with what we've got.

Is that really the case? Sixth example, Jesus even denies that he is perfectly good.

Seventh example. Now, see, this is so fast, this is rat -a -tat -tat, this is shotgun stuff, okay.

He knows that his opponent is not going to have the time to refute every one of these.

Since I do, his opponent's not going to. So, if you're going to use shotgun approach, what are you trying to do?

You're trying to impress your side, not the other side. I respect a debater whose arguments are meant to speak to and impress the most knowledgeable of the other side, not just get my side all excited.

It's easy for me to throw out red meat for my side. That's easy to do. But, this type of presentation,

Jesus denied he was truly good. Really? What I wanted to do, and I confess, I'm sorry, I did the

Marty Minto Show earlier today, and so I didn't remember

I wanted to do this. But, not that that's Marty Minto's fault. It was actually a very interesting program today.

But, what bothers me about this is what

I wanted to do is I wanted to cue up Richard Balcom, who

Williams likes to quote. And I have a presentation.

It was either at a conference or it was on Unbelievable. One of the two. I just haven't tracked it down, but I know it's there, and I will track it down eventually.

Richard Balcom likes when people present the text from Mark where Jesus says to the young ruler, why do you call me good?

There's none good but God alone. And his response is, you don't understand what

Jesus is saying. If you think Jesus is denying his goodness here, then you don't understand what

Jesus is saying. And I'm like, yes! Someone else who gives the exact same response

I do, and I had never heard him address this, but I think it's interesting that Richard Balcom recognizes the same thing everybody else should recognize.

Jesus was not calling himself a sinner here. Are you seriously suggesting that Mark is telling us that Jesus is not good?

Is that really what you think Mark is trying to say? It's not, obviously.

Jesus is speaking in such a way as to get the man to realize who he's talking to, and to consider what true goodness actually means.

So it is just, again, a misreading of the text. It's unfair. It's shredding the text and making it say the opposite of what it is intended to say, and clearly what the purpose of the author was to do this.

And we've seen this in every single illustration, example given so far by Williams.

Every single one. And this by a man who is a quote -unquote former Christian. Mark portrays

Jesus despairing of God's hope at the crucifixion as he cries, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Now, is that what Jesus is doing on the cross? How many times, I wonder, did

Paul Williams hear a decent sermon on this very subject? How many times, as a

Christian, did he read Psalm 22? And hence know the background of Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.

Is that Jesus despairing of God's hope? And of God's help? Is that really what's going on there?

Or is Jesus, the Messiah, beginning the very psalm that describes exactly what he's going through?

And I really, really wonder, once again, as a Muslim, Paul Williams can't believe

Jesus ever said this. Because where did Jesus say it at? On the cross.

In Surah 4, verse 157, the book that he thinks is the very word of God stands against all of recorded history.

In saying Jesus wasn't crucified. So he never said those words. Did he?

Now, of course, I would stand ready, as I will be debating

Samizatari on Surah 4, verse 157. Stand ready to debate

Paul Williams as well on that subject, but that's probably not going to happen. So it seems clear that in the earliest gospel,

Jesus does not exhibit any of the attributes of God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims commonly accept.

Now, we just had a series of rather easily refuted proof texts, didn't even give the text, didn't even represent the text accurately.

How come, again, if the intention here is to honestly interact with the

New Testament text, how come all the texts that I addressed over the past few weeks of my sermons that present the exalted nature of Jesus are ignored?

Because, you see, I can look at every single example he just gave and give you a contextual, honest reading.

We don't deny that Jesus was a man, we don't deny that he got tired, we don't deny any of those things.

But you see, that's only a part of what Mark said and what Matthew says and Luke says and John says, that's only a part.

If you're going to actually substantiate the sentence that Paul Williams just uttered, what would you have to honestly do?

If you're an honest person, you'd have to deal with Jesus' Son of Man statements.

So that you might see that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,

I say to you. You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power on high coming with the clouds of heaven.

The high priest tears his clothes and says, what need have we of further witnesses? You've heard the blasphemy.

He would have to deal with the transfiguration. This glorious peasant from Galilee who glows with glory in the presence of Elijah and Moses, the

Law and the Prophets, what are they doing there? They're testifying as to who this

Son of Man is. And he'd have to deal with the fact that the centurion standing at the foot of, well, the cross, which he denies, looks up and says, truly this man was the

Son of God. He'd have to deal with the fact that the Gospel is the Gospel of Jesus.

That Jesus has the authority to call men to repent and believe in His Gospel and His words.

He'd have to deal with the positive evidence of the exalted nature of Jesus which is found in the text of Mark itself rather than simply ignoring it.

And he did not do that. So we have every example of his we've refuted and we've pointed out numerous texts that he simply ignored.

Is this an honest presentation? Is this a presentation with integrity?

The answer is no. It's not. It is not.

Unlike God, Jesus is not all -knowing. He is not omnipotent. He is not perfectly good.

He is not eternal. He is not immortal. He is not unchanging. Therefore it seems obvious that He cannot be

God. Now that is simplistic, facile argumentation.

And if that's what converted him, well, Paul Williams was never a Christian. Was he? No, clearly he was not.

I just looked in channel and see that Monty found the unbelievable clip for me there with Balcom on it.

I don't know if Monty wants to in the next nine minutes listen very, very fast to that clip and see if that's where he did address the...

My recollection was he was in dialogue with somebody. I could be wrong. But my recollection was he was in dialogue with somebody.

I really would like to find it and play it because I think it's really, really interesting. Anyways, going back to that.

It's difficult for me if I heard a

Muslim who was raised as a Muslim without knowledge of the

New Testament say what Williams just said. It would bother me because it raises the man's ignorance but it wouldn't offend me because that's all he knows.

But when someone who claims to be a former Christian claims to have once studied the scriptures gives that level of misrepresentation ignorance laden assertions

I am offended. Just as a

Muslim would be offended if someone cherry picked the Quran and tried to make it say something that it in fact does not say.

And I am certainly hopeful that when this book appears which

I am working upon so diligently that at the very least

I certainly do not expect my Muslim friends to go Oh, that's great! I'm going to give it to my friends! I don't expect that.

They're going to disagree with my conclusions. They're going to disagree with things. But my hope is when they read it they're going to have to go

Well, he certainly tried to be consistent in the standards that he applied in his interpretation and citation of the

Quran. I would hope that at least the more honest of my

Muslim friends would say that.

If we compare these incidents from Mark with Matthew's version of these same stories we can see that he has removed

Jesus' potentially embarrassing statements at least from a later Christian point of view. As a mental experiment, let's assume that Matthew had a copy of Mark in front of him.

Which is the assumption that he is going to base his entire presentation on.

Not, of course, not, of course, the idea that they're both drawing from the same oral tradition and that the differences between them are not due to embarrassment on Matthew's part of what

Mark said. But due to the audience that he's writing to and the intentions that are his in writing to that different audience

Mark and Matthew are not addressing the same audience. And so, part of the mental experiment

I would suggest to you would be to go past the common perspective today of mere literary dependence and ask the question if Matthew and Mark are writing to different audiences and drawing from the same tradition what differences would that produce in the text?

And see if that does not answer so many questions without producing more questions.

But you can't really necessarily get to do that. What Matthew does is to make

Mark fit his understanding of Jesus. In each case, Matthew introduces significant changes to Mark's account with the result that Matthew has a somewhat higher

Christology. That's a bit of jargon meaning the higher doctrine of Jesus, Christology. Of course, we've already demonstrated that if you wanted to actually compare the

Christologies, wouldn't you have to go to the texts that present the highest

Christology in Mark first? Yeah, I think you would.

And so you might want to ask some questions about Mark's presentation, for example, of Jesus' words in Mark chapter 14.

In fact, this is one of the nice things about Accordance.

I just brought up Mark 14 55. And here you have

Matthew, Mark, and Luke in parallel. Jesus before the Sanhedrin. And so you have the discussion,

Mark, of the false teaching and so on and so forth.

Now let's compare Mark with Matthew. Matthew 26 63

And Jesus kept silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the

Messiah, the Son of God. Now in Mark, that's whether you are the Messiah, the

Son of the Blessed One. No real difference there. Now, notice this.

In Mark 14 62, Jesus says, Ego am I. I am, and you shall see the

Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. A conflated citation of Malachi with Daniel 7 with Psalm 110.

But you look at Matthew, Matthew 20 64, Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself.

Nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

And let's look at Luke while we're at it. If you are the Messiah, tell us.

But he said to them, If I tell you, you will not believe. And if I ask a question, you will not answer.

But from now on, the Son of Man will be seen at the right hand of the power of God. Now, let's...

We were invited by Paul Williams to do a thought experiment, were we not? We were. So, let's do the thought experiment.

Which one has the most robust, highest Christology?

By theory, it should be Matthew and Luke. Because they come after Mark.

But the reality is, it's in Mark that Jesus makes the strongest assertion of his

Messiahship. Not in Matthew or Luke. So, the thought experiment would be that Matthew and Luke, if they're just looking at Mark going,

Oh, that's too clear. That's too much of an assertion of the Messiahship of Jesus.

We need to mute it. Does that make any sense to you? Doesn't make any sense to me. But that would have to be the result of the thought experiment, and if the thought experiment fails, what does that mean?

The thought experiment's a failure. Maybe there's something wrong with the theory. Well, anyways, we will continue at that point, and we appreciate your listening to The Dividing Line today.

Lord willing, we'll be back on Thursday, and what will we be talking about? I don't know.

I frequently don't know until the program starts. But we may be back here.

Maybe something will develop in the cultural area. Maybe something will develop in Roman Catholicism or Mormonism or who knows.

I don't know. But that's what makes The Dividing Line The Dividing Line. We'll see you then. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads.

Let this momentous flow away. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for.

We need a new Reformation day. It's a sign of the times.

The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Won't you lift up your voice?

Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. Hallelujah!

But I'm all wet in blood. I'm all wet in blood. I stand up for the truth.

Won't you lift up the law? Cause we're piling on, piling on wet in blood.

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