Patrick Madrid, Bart Ehrman, and the Infidel Guy

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. It's 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

James White And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line I'm pretty pretty certain that we will be able to work out having a

Tuesday dividing line next week. I Should be available. It'll be a Skype dividing line, but that's okay.

They've worked in the past Skype line. Yes the Skype line. That's probably that's probably copyright or we have to pay money for it or something

I don't know, but we will try to do that. And then of course, I don't think we'll be able to work out a

Thursday one Maybe Friday hard to say given what Internet costs on on a ship

I'm not sure we're gonna want to do that But then again, we might maybe we could you know people don't want to know what happened want to hear what happened and In fact,

I've been told that on these ships now your cell phone will work Of course, you'll get hit with roaming charges, but your cell phone will actually work on the ships now, which is really interesting

But anyway, that's coming up next week Be seeing some of you.

I noted on the blog Instructions you could link on the

Grace Paps Church website get instructions as to how to go there Should you desire to be there

Sunday morning when I'll be preaching there. That's a Tom Askew's Church in Sunny, Florida where it's a little bit like it is here

I was just noticing the poor mutato in our channel is at 13 degrees below zero right now was at 44 degrees below zero last night

And what's this? What's it? What's what is it here? 78 Wow, I thought it was fairly warm today.

Yeah, 70 78 degrees I rode my motorcycle in with wearing a cotton shirt with my sleeves rolled up and That's that's a major difference in temperature about a hundred degrees they're just over those period between here and North Dakota anyway before we get back to the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman.

I Wanted to play a clip James Swan has been always kind enough to send me these clips.

It is a labor of love To listen to Catholic answers as often as he does.

There's no twits about it I'm very thankful that that I don't have to do that because I don't think it would anyways, but Patrick Madrid was on some program.

It sounds like Catholic answers live and And Again, it's interesting. It reminded me a little bit of the the nameless hit piece that envoy did years ago

They they don't like to talk about us. They don't like to mention our names

They don't it's it's almost like they're scared that someone's gonna go, you know look us up and maybe actually see what we have to say and so a caller calls in and he's talking about the early church fathers and How there are people these

Protestants how dare they actually try to Argue about the early church fathers.

I mean your church fathers are a bunch of Roman Catholics. They carried around the Universal Catholic Catechism Didn't they?

Well, if you listen to most Roman Catholic apologists, that's what you would think anyway, and So it's very interesting to listen to Patrick Madrid's response

And so let's take let's take a listen to what he what he had to say After I get the kids to bed at nighttime,

I like to battle well educate anti -catholics charitably on YouTube about our faith and I put a lot of the church fathers and Many of them deny the writings of the church fathers and back some of them come back and say actually the church fathers are

Contrary to the Holy Eucharist, which clearly is not Implied in their writings are there books out there that some some of these

Protestants have that might Offer inaccurate quotations as far as church fathers because they seem to be pretty confident in some of their writings and And Documentations and I'm just trying to refute all that now notice if this caller actually was reading the early church fathers

Themselves rather than the quote books that he gets from open Catholics. He'd be able to find that out for himself, wouldn't he?

It's it's you know, I know there are lots of Roman Catholics who just think That that all the early church fathers just believed exactly what they do.

I know they think that they're wrong They're as wrong as they possibly can be but they really do believe it and it's just unthinkable for them

That the early church writings are considerably more diverse than they actually have have been told well my my

General sense of things is that I want to give Protestants the benefit of the doubt and my experience over the last 22 years

I guess that I've been doing this work is that generally speaking the Protestants I've encountered their sincere well -meaning people

They don't set out to try to distort anything. They don't They don't have a desire to misrepresent they really sincerely believe what they're saying

And I think we should always take that approach with these folks and not assume badwill on their part nonetheless, there are some

Sources that Protestants turn to I see them do this quite frequently, especially the pop

Protestant apologists that are Busy engaged in writing books and doing debates and things to attack the

Catholic Church now now Let's stop that there, what is a pop

Protestant apologist? What does that mean is is Patrick Madrid a pop Roman Catholic apologists?

I would think looking at envoy that that he probably would be identified in that way, you know but when you start talking about writing books and Doing debates to attack the

Catholic Church Not to defend their faith, no, no, no, no see if I'm defending my faith, it's just because I'm attacking

Catholic Church, it's just again. You just when you when you've known these guys as long as you've known these guys and I've known

Patrick Madrid. I met Patrick Madrid first in August of 1990 so That was that was a while back now coming up heading for two decades here, you know so As long as you know them, well you you hear the spin and It's it's purposeful.

It's there. You know, they they're there. They don't have a positive ministry of their own. No, no, no, no They're not they're not defending their own faith.

They're just hacking the Catholic faith I imagine for some they really think that even when

I debate Muslims or or debate Bart Ehrman. I'm somehow attacking

Catholicism You know, it does make me wonder because Rich was telling me he had gotten a note from someone who generally is rather nasty in Defense of Rome, but definitely wants to get the

Bart Ehrman debate. None of their guys are taking on Bart Ehrman No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're not they're not in London taking on Muslims and they're not debating

Bart Ehrman new there They're so compromised in the Magisterium of Rome. How could they anyways?

I mean they need to be debating a lot of their own liberal scholars who still call themselves

Catholics, but anyway But as soon as you mentioned debates how many people do debates with Roman Catholics The list is rather small

At least on any type of regular basis So I have a feeling that what you're going to be hearing here is about me and then clearly a reference to Bill Webster and David King's three volumes set on on the early church fathers and subject to Sola Scriptura One of the things

I've noticed is a tendency to try to portray the fathers of the early churches if they were Protestant now, they won't say that these early church fathers were

Protestant, but for all intents and purposes They try to co -opt them and make them appear to be

For all intents and purposes Protestant and of course Patrick is wrong and we have explained many times why he's wrong

Our listeners know that he's wrong, but I guess they just live on the hope that their listeners will never listen to us it is not a matter of trying to turn the early church fathers into Protestants and It's going to be interesting here.

He's going to he's going to make reference to Sir O'Drusillam And he doesn't quote the text but I'm assuming he's referring to these words where We have from the catechetical lectures 417 in Regard of the divine and holy mysteries the faith not the least part may be handed on without the holy scriptures

Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments even to me who tell you these things do not give ready belief

Unless you receive from the holy scriptures the proof of the things which I announce The salvation which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the holy scriptures now

Many people have cited that Mainly because it's so consistent with other things we find in the early church for example

Basil said the hearers taught in the scriptures ought to test what is said by teachers and Accept that which agrees the scriptures, but reject that which is foreign

He also said if custom is to be taken and proof of what is right Then it is certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains here if they reject this we are clearly not bound to follow them therefore let

God inspired scripture decide between us and on whichever side be found doctrine harmony with the

Word of God in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth or Gregory of Nyssa who said we make the holy scriptures the canon the rule of every dogma

We have necessity to look upon that and receive alone that which may be made conformable to the intention of those writings

These are not just isolated statements These people were not modern

Roman Catholics neither were they Protestants and You could look at each one of those people.

I just cited and find things and what they believe that I don't believe and I fully accept that I've always said that I've said that from the start

I am NOT trying to turn these people into mirror images of me That's Rome's gig not mine

Rome is the one that has dogmatically declared that the

Unanimous consent of the fathers is in support of this teaching or that teaching They're the ones that have to do this

They're the ones that cannot allow the early church writers to be the early church writers not me.

I Don't get my authority from them and So I can quote them and say look this is what was being said

This person believed this they did not believe what you believe and you

Are the one claiming that your church has not changed in 2 ,000 years now your scholars know that's not the case

That's why Newman had to develop the development hypothesis. Anyways, he knew that wasn't the case but the pop apologists

With the radio programs and the magazines and the very carefully selected quotations from the early church that's what they want people to believe and So this this whole idea that well

You know You can find stuff in each one of these people where they agree with me

Well, I can find stuff where they agree with me. So whose position does that support? It doesn't support the

Roman Catholic. It supports mine. Well, you can't use them if they disagree with you And that's gonna that's gonna be the primary argument that Patrick Madrid is about to enunciate

He's gonna say well, there's all stuff. There's all sorts of the Cyril said that that is Directly Roman Catholic teaching.

Well, we could argue about some of the things they just they read the early church fathers very anachronistically

But even if that's the case, that's not relevant The issue is what did they say about the authority of Scripture?

They could be wrong about something else. That's fine The point is if you're saying that sola scriptura and this view of Scripture is a later innovation

Why were they saying these things? It doesn't matter what they believed about anything else

I mean I could very clearly demonstrate. They also did not hold the Roman Catholic view of The papacy is an infallible institution at the individual who sits upon the chair of Peter in Rome that he's the only one who sits

In the chair of Peter and that he personally is infallible in matters of faith and morals when he's speaking in in Excathedra and all the rest is later development stuff but the point is

What Roman Catholics try to do here and this is only an argument that they're gonna present to other Roman Catholics because it's not gonna work for us

It's we're gonna we're gonna blow the lid off this as soon as it tries well, how can you quote them when you disagree with them on other things and the point is

That's only relevant to you because you're the one who's saying that they were exactly like the modern groups

You're the ones trying to put them in your camp. I'm not trying to put them in my camp. I Examine anything they say in the same way that I examine what people say today on the basis of the revealed

Word of God I I'm consistent there. They're not that's the point And I think that's that's important to understand and they try to Portray them as rejecting

Catholic teaching on such things as the Importance of sacred tradition or a veneration of marrying the

Saints or the Eucharist or the sacraments? What have you? I'm very fond of one example that's used by That's used by a number of different pop

Protestant apologists one in particular who seems to have a penchant for this He likes to quote some of the church fathers with regard to the issue of of importance of Scripture and One in particular is st.

Cyril of Jerusalem now st. Cyril of Jerusalem For all of his various writings.

He's perhaps most famous for a book that he wrote called Catechetical lectures, it's actually a series of lectures that st.

Cyril wrote for catechumens. These are people who are going to be baptized and One of his verses

I don't have the lectures in front of me so I can't quote it verbatim but he refers to the fact that Scripture is very important and we must decide doctrinal matters based upon Scripture and So forth and I see that passage from st.

Cyril's catechetical lectures Used a lot as if he was trying to say what modern -day

Protestants would like that He would have said in other words extolling the Protestant notion of Solus Catora, which he did not

But when you isolate a passage like that, you could make it appear that way. So so what what is what else?

Did Cyril say in this context that would mitigate or change these words?

Let me read him again so you can hear what it is because I have a feeling that I'm the one he's talking about I just have a feeling maybe it's

Bill Webster but I just have a feeling that the he there the unnamed he was me in Regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith not the least part may be handed on without the

Holy Scriptures not the least part Now there's all sorts of things that Rome teaches and believes has nothing to do with the scriptures at all found nowhere in the scriptures at all,

I guess that's not a part of the Divine and holy mysteries the faith in if it can't be passed on without the scriptures

Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments even to me who tell you these things

This man is a bishop by the way Even to me who tell you these things do not give ready belief unless you receive from the

Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce Hmm, where's uh, where's the

Pope in that and and the magisterium and the living tradition? Hmm the salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning but from the

Holy Scriptures so It seems like what he's insinuating is well if you just read what came before and after it

Then he didn't mean that is is that what he's saying? Wouldn't it be wise to maybe back that up?

Can he that's you know inquiring minds want to know one of the articles I wrote years ago

On this issue of the problem the sola scriptura. I brought up this very issue and I said now if we take st

Cyril in his totality The Protestants who tried to use him for their own purposes to prop up this tradition of men known as sola scriptura

They wind up on the horns of a dilemma because this very same Catholic bishops and Cyril of Jerusalem in the same

Catechetic excuse me catechetical lectures at the tongue twister He talks about the the seven sacraments.

He talks about baptismal regeneration the mass as a sacrifice confession to a priest

Talks about the the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and on and on all of these distinctively

Catholic doctrines So they're left with a dilemma either St.

Cyril of Jerusalem was incorrect on those matters and he he was

Badly exegeting scripture and coming up with that with those teachings Or he might have been

Inconsistent with his own stated principles and There are lots of people in fact every person

I can think of in the early church Would have fallen into that category Because obviously

I would find them to be inconsistent on points And that means you'd have to go to where they argued these issues and look at their biblical

Argumentation find out if they were ignorant of something. So for example Augustine not knowing

Greek well enough to know the Dickeye Oh Dickeye assume a word group and going on the

Latin Misunderstanding something as a result, etc, etc. Yes, maybe is that a possibility?

Can we let the early church fathers be their church was no everything's black and white Either it's take all they had to say or throw out all they had to say

Which side can actually allow the early church to be the early church?

it is not the Roman Catholic side or he did find those teachings in Scripture and Neither option

I think is very palatable for them because in the first case that would completely Impugn his ability as an exegete.

It would completely undercut any authority He might have so they shouldn't be quoting him at all on anything now

See, they shouldn't be quoting him at all anything unless you have absolute agreement. Well, okay Where did

Cyril Jerusalem present the concept of papal infallibility Patrick? Where did where did he present the bodily assumption of Mary Patrick?

You're not gonna find those beliefs back then because they're not apostolic and So maybe you shouldn't be quoting the early church

Again I listen to this kind of stuff and and I realize this is what passes as you know compelling apologetics

On Catholic answers live, but you listen to it You just shake your head and go Wow if he is so badly mistaken about all these other aspects of sacred scripture

The second alternative is not any better And that is if they admit that he found them in scripture

Then that undercuts their position that these Catholic teachings are not supportable from sacred scripture

So there would be one example I know there's a book that's very popular among Protestant pop apologists that it's actually a multi -volume book that seeks to To try to prove that the early church fathers taught the

Protestant understanding of sola scriptura That of course would be Holy Scripture The pillar and foundation of our faith and It is amazing how many

Roman Catholics attack the name of that set without reading it enough to find out that they're quoting they're actually quoting that from Irenaeus as I recall and You know

You know they've been out long enough now that if these works were just full of holes

There would be an entire counter citation set available and in print, but they don't do it

You know we've heard how many of these Catholic apologists We're talking about how they're gonna refute all this stuff

And they're gonna tear all this stuff apart and blah blah blah, and then you never hear anything

They don't follow through for some odd reason and instead.

It's just this type of ah well You know everybody knows that stuff's just wrong Pay no attention to the man behind the three -volume set and they amass all these different quotes.

I've gone through these volumes and What I have to chuckle about when I read them is that they simply affirm what the

Catholic Church itself affirms and that is that Scripture is this High authority is the highest authority in the churches of the

Vatican to document women. I'm sorry um Dave Erbom points out and I Often think that the

Protestants who try to Even in their sincerity and their well -meaning

Effort to try to educate Catholics I I tend to think based upon what I read from them that they really are not reading the church fathers

They're cherry -picking looking for little snatches of phraseology or words or things that they can anachronistically read back in Their own

Protestant beliefs now is that not the exact picture of Roman Catholicism is

That not the very essence of the dogmatic decrees the Roman Catholic Church is Anachronistically reading concepts back into the early church that never would have been a part of their experience is that now we've documented over and over and over again

I Mean when we went through the the debates that that Patrick and I did

Painstakingly here on the program over the course of months literally Who did we find doing that all the time was it the

Protestants the Catholics? Well, it was Patrick and the Catholics. That's what that's what was the case so you know here you have this well

They're just cherry -picking stuff. They're not not not paying attention to context or reading stuff an acronym and anachronistically into this stuff and yet That's the very thing they are themselves doing and somehow make that Support their case which in fact it doesn't last thing

I'll say then I'll shut up and that is that I wrote a book some years ago called Why is that in tradition in which

I take the standard arguments that Protestant apologists tend to use against the Catholic Church? On issues such as Mary and the

Pope and the Eucharist and baptismal regeneration and so forth and I I assemble

Pertinent statements from the major church fathers going as far back as we have Statements available to us and those are all collected together in this book called.

Why is that in tradition? so if you're interested in a Compendium a handy compendium that will give you at a glance the different hurting quotes that will help you in these discussions

I would recommend my own book if I could be forgiven for doing that and again the title is called. Why is that in tradition?

Good I'll get I'll get that. Thank you very much. You're welcome long answer to a short question, so I said Thanks for being with us on the program

So there you have Patrick Madrid and you know We have

I think been very very fair and very very thorough in Responding to Patrick over the past year and a half or so especially on The debates the debate reviews that we did and so I would say get

Patrick's books and compare them with what we produce Compare them with the Webster King set compare his

Books they tend to be very short and no offense here, but very shallow They're written for I mean seriously it seemed to be written for a very very

Unread audience that just isn't going to dig deep at all. That's been my experience and looking at them

I just got another one of his books recently, and it's just it's just But then again, it's not as bad as Dave Armstrong.

What did he come up with recent fives? Recently 500 arguments against solo scriptura 498 of which are all straw man

You know at least at least he's not in that category all right so Having said that we move back to the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman, and if you were not with us in the last episode

The the interview I hit a chuckle It was so big that the wheels fell right off of the interviewee and the interviewer and We had a little debate going on between the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman and if you didn't hear that I would suggest you go back and listen to it because You get to hear what happens when

Bart Ehrman? encounters someone who's more liberal than he is more skeptical than he is and Obviously the infidel guy pushes the

Bob Price group idea that GS didn't even exist which

Bart Ehrman recognizes that kind of argumentation mean nobody existed That's sure how we got here, but we have no knowledge whatsoever hyper skepticism of historical sources and materials like that and That is very common and so we left off where you could just tell it was oozing out of The infidel guy's voice

There's like yeah, well sure yeah, you know and It's just about over that part's just about over there you get back to the normal stuff

There's only about ten minutes left in the actual interview And then you get a couple minutes of the infidel guy without Ehrman and the real feelings come out at that point

Which I find Jesus Okay That's what he says Right So they're talking about Bob Price here.

I think here that is the other guy Hector Avalos I think it's Hector Avalos one of the two and The infidel guy is trying to read stuff out of the chat channel

And you got to realize even when I read stuff out of the chat channel It's there's a delay there It takes time for people to type and there's a delay between what

I'm speaking and when they're hearing it on the on the web And stuff like that, so it got a little bit Slow here for a moment, okay

No, I mean he's an Old Testament scholar right, but what's so interesting about this though I guess it depends on what circles you're in because You know as you know

I mean some people would say who who who are men never heard of this guy So I guess it kind of really depends on what what circles you're in what type of you know?

New Testament criticism, maybe one is participating in what you know what type of profession they talk to I mean it sounds like you're grasping at straws

I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to I'm not I don't mean by I'm grasping at straws I'm not trying to argue for any particular position.

I'm simply saying that I could see You know I can see why because you're saying you ever heard of these people, and I'm simply saying well

This is about the only point in time where I was almost feeling sorry, but not quite There is a short temptation to feel sorry because the infidel guy is just Stuttering and stammering and and running all over the place.

You know what he's actually thinking you know where he's actually coming from and He just does not want to try to go toe -to -toe with with Bart Ehrman That's it's not really what he was expecting this he is expecting of You know to get another scholar in there to just rip and store it on Christianity And and yeah,

I get some of that, but he doesn't get what he wanted sure well It's most surely that some of these people haven't heard of you either, so it can work both ways

I don't think that's grabbing at straws. That's just kind of commonsensical You just if you're saying cricket cricket cricket people who doubt that Paul for example

New James of Jerusalem This is the example we've been talking about I would just ask you who doubts that oh,

I don't know I'm a biblical scholar so right yeah, I Need to have one of anybody who doubts it so I mean you can doubt anything if you want to write right right well

I mean, okay, whatever that's a claim you're making I have no tools to Debunk that because I'm not a biblical historian or scholar, so I would know

I mean, but at the same time I'm still gonna raise skeptical. I'm gonna take your word for everything wholesale if it doesn't quite

Make sure you look at the historical evidence, but which is what historians do Are there any archaeological evidence that you're saying or You keep saying you keep saying historical evidence

But then you keep going back to Paul which is the subject of of a debate in the first place So I'm trying to figure out

And I would want to throw in here archaeological evidence of what of Paul again if if you demand

Archaeological evidence of the existence of someone before you believe they existed you'd have to believe there there were a very small number of human

That ever existed in the ancient world this kind of historiography is Idiotic it is is so Ridiculous that that that airmen doesn't even know how to say it any more bluntly than that that what you know

Where in the world are you coming from? Welcome to the world of radical atheism. We're going to circles every status already

I said, how do we tell you how do we know that the stories? It's got I think I think what's happening here seven letters somehow somehow

Bart I think what happened is you grabbed on to a really a non -issue my main issue was I wouldn't even disagreeing you

Made you said multiple times I wasn't really disagreeing that Paul might have written Galatians for instance or something in the book, but I was simply saying

But how do we know the way you're saying was true, and then you say oh wait well I agree this okay, then fine. We should have moved on from there.

I thought we're going to agree with that that you know but Everybody knows that he does not believe that Paul wrote

Galatians, and he doesn't believe there's anything true in it So now you're saying well. He might have written something that book

Yeah, there might be a word. He said once you know that's what he's wanting to say, but he knows he can't back it up Especially once he's now been shocked to discover that this guy.

He thought would be a good fellow infidel guy is going from there Hey, are we supposed to be taking a break sometime today?

You're you're busy doing other things over there I can tell and that's why we can just go flying by these things so let's let's take a quick break

And then we'll continue on with the program The Trinity is a basic teaching of the

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I'm gonna try to wrap this up today there's still 20 minutes Worth of stuff and we don't have time for all that So I'm gonna skip some of them.

I do want to get to the comments at the end. So let's Continue on that was it. I mean I was really it

I thought that was all we're trying to get with that and then I was gonna just move on to the next thing. Okay? All right.

So back to these embellishments said they are indeed some embellishments and Paul's works Now are you talking about what the poem self -embellished things or that scribes change things that he that Paul wrote?

I guess both Yeah, I love to hear how would you know the difference yes,

I think that Paul says that are That you have to question about whether you know about how he's presenting things but there's there's no doubt

About the question about whether scribes change things that Paul wrote because they did We know they did because we have manuscripts of Paul's letters and these manuscripts all have differences among them now

Please make sure that you catch that notice that for Ermin. He makes no careful distinction between scribes changing purposefully or Without purpose and that unfortunately creates and communicates a tremendous amount of confusion

Because obviously when the infidel guy hears this he hears scribes purposely amending things now

Airman has made his career on this as Peter Williams put it this use of Intelligent design arguments in other words that every variation that you encounter

Had a purpose behind it in the sense that the scribe did it Intentionally whereas the common wisdom in the field up until the last 15 -20 years

Was that the vast majority that your default? Assumption is that it's a scribal error not that the scribe was intentionally changing something, but that they did so For other reasons errors of sight whatever else it might be and so you you need to Recognize that when he says scribes changed things

That communicates something that is not in self fully true. So somebody's

Necessarily changing the text right? Okay. I'm sorry. I must admit that and how do we know the original way?

He really said versus what scribes have changed again Discipline of textual criticism and that's what my book is about Is about how scribes decide given the fact that you have all these different different manuscripts with changes in them

How do you decide what the original words were? This is a discipline that's been around for 300 years

It's more than 300 years But I mean the landmark that kind of began this whole study of how you know what the original text was in some ways happened in 1707

When there was a scholar named John Mill who published an edition of the

New Testament called the Novum Testam Graece where he indicated a gave the

Greek text of the New Testament and he gave an apparatus that indicated places where there were differences among the manuscripts and He had so many differences in his apparatus that he that it got people really concerned about whether we know what the original text said

Exactly and that started a Discipline of trying to reconstruct what the original text is given the fact that we don't have the original

So this is a discipline that's not just in biblical studies I mean because it's the same problem you have for all of the books from the ancient world

Is that we don't have the originals of any of these things You know, we don't have the Gallic Wars by Jesus.

We don't have the You know the Republic of Cicero or any of Plato's died.

We don't have the originals and so classical scholars and biblical scholars have to Come up with criteria for by which you determine what the original text is given the fact you've got all these changes

Mm -hmm. Okay. Well, I guess I guess about time I was curious about what what what would some of those be but then

I guess we get to a long course about Biblical one of the things you look at is which manuscripts have which readings? I mean, for example, if you've got them, you've got manuscripts that are very ancient that you know

Closest to the originals that all have one reading and then you've got manuscripts from the late Middle Ages that have a different reading then

The usual assumptions that the earlier ones that are closest to the originals are probably more likely to be right than the ones that are later

Right and an absolute rule. It's a it's a rule of thumb, right? And of course and then I guess that's the question

I guess because how old the document is Right. Yeah, how do we even know how far away we are from the originals if we don't have the rituals in the first place?

There's another Discipline called paleography, which is the way people go about dating ancient manuscripts, right?

This has been important in Well, for example when the Gospel of Judas was discovered it was important to to date to figure out when when this manuscript actually was written and It's actually done on the basis of handwriting analysis a

Good Greek or Latin paleographer can date a manuscript within about 50 years of when it was written.

That's amazing yeah, well, they're these these are smart guys and The reason they can do that is because we have dated manuscripts in both

Greek and Latin Oh, and so you can see what the handwriting was the different periods. All right, right So that's so we can date on that the undated manuscripts to the dated ones, right?

Okay, and then I guess we Using some technique or however, we can determine when a particular thought

Arose in a particular area and they were writing at the same time Then we know how close we are to the originals based on upon when we think that religion might have formed or those thought and Right here toward the end the infidel guy really gave a lot of examples of The fact that he really has absolutely no earthly idea what

Bart Ehrman's been talking about all along That's what I want to get to let me skip forward here This will sound a little bit odd here, but the seven undisputed

Pauline letters, right? I Mean so much. So this is intriguing. So what about the stories that surround

Jesus since you believe that there was a historical Jesus Assuming there has to be obviously some folklore involved and his parents for instance

Do you really believe that it was a physical Mary and a Joseph and and how far do we go back that wind? When does it stop?

It seems like someone someone would probably ask you that do you think there was really a was his mother really Mary and I imagine it was

Have it the probable but not, you know certain level. I mean, right. I mean, you know, he certainly had a mother and father

Of course a Mary and Joseph or not. I imagine they were but it's you know There's not that much evidence one way or the other his parents aren't named for example in the earliest gospel mark and Paul doesn't say anything about I mean

Paul does say that he had a mother but he didn't say, you know, what her name was Okay, okay what do you think about then some of the works of historians early historians such as Josephus and Allegedly awesome forgeries involved in his work and you know

Let me skip ahead just a little bit more here because we I really want to try to wrap this up before I head out Of town. I'm not gonna be playing this over Skype and then you have like No Tacitus and plenty and all these various other.

Do you think that all their words? Oops? I did not do that correctly. Did I now let's try it again.

I mean I myself I mean for the record I don't have any problem at all if to accept these, you know the idea that I believe that there was some

Messiah like figure who existed and Later it evolved to present -day. Nope. No God known to Jesus Christ, which still doesn't really make sense to me, but the

Jesus Christ just as etymologically but So, yes,

I don't have any problems with that at all, but obviously I think where we both probably have Reservation, of course is the claims that belief is made about this figure

Because there to me it's not really it's not relevant either way, you know if he if he existed or didn't all

I know is that we have a lot of stories about this guy and they just Defy the imagination.

I just don't think that they're true You know, of course, you know the walking on water and the healing of the lepers and the son of God stuff and all these

Things the son of God stuff. Yeah The infill guy he's he's great

Let's keep looking for the the statement he made here that his entire ministry was centered around this apocalyptic mess, right?

Intriguing and more than likely he probably and he probably got those ideas Do you think those ideas were unique to him at that time?

What do you think? He probably adopted those from previous? Messianic a lot of people who thought similar things.

He's right. I mean he had his own twist on it He had his own take but but the basic apocalyptic idea was really quite common.

Mm -hmm Intriguing. Oh, I wonder how he was he was able to well I really I really doubted me if you if he were alive today

He really could predict that all this would evolve as a result of these ideas, but I don't think he would recognize the

Christian Church Ah, that's that's true How does he know that's true just it's listening to That's true.

That's a good point Okay, so we don't have five minutes left. So I was out of time here, but Again, we talked about for ladies only if you just tuned in we're talking about a variety of issues around Christianity actually but the focus and I was supposed to be you know, who wrote the

New Testament and And why are they changing it and who's changing it? And those are some things we're going to talk about now bar.

It's really interesting I've noticed that when I I have like 14 different Bibles on my on my bookshelf here and All of them are published by some

All of it published by different Companies all of our print in different places all of them have copyright dates in them

That kind of alone can let you know that somebody that truly man is the one who can dictate what goes into this work.

I Just want the brilliance Observation to have its full weight.

I don't want to interrupt anyone as you are absorbing Just just the the the shining

Example there that is given What? And ermine doesn't get it either listen to this response doesn't do these works

What do you think is the simplistic argument, but what do you think? All of these translations are done by committees filled with human beings, right?

I was on the I was the research grunt for the new revised standard version translation

And so I sat in on their translation meeting You know they There there would be five or six

Scholars in the room and they would they would debate how to translate a verse and you know

They would disagree and then they would take a vote And so, you know the majority rules so Right So that's true of every modern translation there.

I mean virtually all of them are done by committees And the committees, you know just represent human humans interest.

We have different points of view. Yeah, that's right at that particular point That I think if this is the next statement

I will check this out Emperor Constantine Oh, and it's not now the common belief is that this is our sanity

He has similar similar pagan beliefs prior to converting to Christianity that true Similar pagan beliefs so similar his religion was similar to Christianity's in a way, right?

I mean he he he He worshipped the Sun God Saul and with this the the

Unconquerable Sun right and even after he converted he continued to Apparently, I mean at least the coins that were stamped after his version

This pagan deity so You know, there are genuine questions about what if conversion was and you know, what it all meant, right?

There's only this is very political. Some people argue that he saw that Christianity was a problem At that time.

Yeah. Well, I mean he I think my own view Is that he wanted Christianity to he wanted to embrace

Christianity because he saw it as a way of unifying a very culturally fragmented

Empire and The problem with Christianity is that there were some theological controversies at the time, especially over the

Aryan controversy, right? And that he wanted he wanted to bring Unity to the

Christian Church so the Christian Church could bring unity to his empire And that's why that's probably why he called the

Council of Nicaea in 1925, that's right, right and Surprisingly many people still have the same belief today that if we are all just Christians of the same stripe

There's going to be a much better place. No more war. No more strife. No more famine and I seriously doubt that well, you know, there's been a lot of war caused by Christians and So I don't think

Converting to Christianity is going to be the solution all the world's problems I mean Christians have there's there's a lot of negative stuff that's happened in Christian history as well as in non -christian history, right, right

Well, okay I really appreciate your time Ladies and gentlemen, this is dr. Bart D Erman on the program on your website

You have a website is it's Bart D from the beginning So because oh you mentioned something really interesting in the video, by the way

You talked about but before I let you go, can you tell us really quickly about oral tradition and how quickly?

Yes, I mean the scribes were changing the manuscripts they copied but even before the man the originals were written down There were stories being told by word of mouth.

So the the original authors, I mean mark, for example when he's writing down The stories about Jesus these are things that have been in the oral tradition for decades, right?

And of course things got changed not only when by scribes later, but by the people who are telling the stories earlier

That's right, that's right and I think that's a very compelling argument that you bring up in the video and Then of course you talk about how the apologetic argument to that of course is them saying well

You know people back then said they knew they could read or write and they don't have things and you know that they would try to remember the story to the best of their ability and The only way to test that look at Different authors who tell the same story and to see if they preserve it

Right, and that's the point of comparing the Gospels is that it turns out when you do that You find out that that stories were changed because the the stories are different in the gospel.

That's right That's right. And that's been the hints again It hints all the books and who knows and and how many manuscripts out there we have

I believe you mentioned something about over a hundred thousand different. No, we have manuscripts. We have five 5 ,400 some manuscripts of the

New Testament now I find a little bit odd that Bart's a little bit behind being the leading

Scholar in the field or at least that's how I described. It's five thousand seven hundred fifty two as of November Of last year and he keeps saying fifty four hundred.

It's five thousand seven hundred fifty two But the other little guy a hundred thousand manuscripts I mean, how can you how can you do what he does and and not even know the fundamental basic elements of the discussion?

It's it's amazing. Check out this question. He's about to ask him this this finally This is we're right toward the end check this out.

We have hundreds of thousands of differences in these manuscripts. Ah, okay Wow, so and we talk about these this these manuscripts you say and they're and they're all well

You said yeah, you mentioned hundreds of thousands of differences within that. So That's just amazing to me that all these books are different I mean has anyone bothered to take it before I let you go is anyone ever bothered to make an effort to Try to keep the text as original as possible and publish that version of the

Bible and where can we get one? Tried to get to the original text and base their translation on that No, no, it's ever

And you can even hear the laughter in airman's voice. Listen, I think everybody does that that's what all the translations try to do

Yeah, and the translators of all these translations, you know, they know everything that's in my book. I'm misquoting

Jesus Okay, it's so the information there isn't news to any any Bible translator or Or Bible scholar.

It's it's stuff that that's been around for hundreds of years. So which one would you think is the most accurate then? Well, I personally like the

New Revised Standard Version because the committee that did it was very diverse It wasn't just representing evangelical

Christians or Roman Catholics or or whatever There was a wide range of people represented on the committee so that kind of theological differences got hammered out in the translation

So I think it's the most the most accurate Translation that we've got as far as close to the close to the oldest manuscripts.

That is that we have Okay, or pieces and fragments to whatever Well, all right.

Well, thank you very much I appreciate you spending some time with us this evening and I think some of us will be definitely Checking you on YouTube and purchasing your work.

I really appreciate coming on. Okay. All right. Have a good night All right, ladies and gentlemen, I apologize. Okay, here's here.

Here's where the true feelings come out. Herman's gone now So let's let's see. What was underlying all those hmms that we heard sticking spending too much time on just trying to find out how

Do historians and how do scholars know? Exactly what someone said because that is important Especially and but I think he might he has one good point and at that one and he didn't say this

Expressly, but essentially I think many of us might get hung up on such on so much of the folklore in mysticism we kind of throw the whole thing out because Especially many of us who are who have been

Christians before it's kind of ingrained in the belief it is a part of you know, the the belief system and At the same time so even if there is even if there was there's

Jesus He didn't like me saying that even if there was he really didn't appreciate the hats But well, hey,

I gotta say that because I don't know I don't care if he's an authority I don't know I don't think there was but I don't know so I'm not gonna just Agree with him because he says

I should because he's a he's been researching it for 30 years My point my point was that you know

Even if we say that he existed all those other things that are attributed to him There's just no reason to believe any of that and right.

I don't see anything wrong. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it I mean for thinking maybe this a I don't see why he has a problem though with the multiple

Jesus hypothesis though that there might have been various different Jewish sects out there with varying

Messiah's who all claimed something, you know, I had different things to say and Those words got written down and they were circulated and then they all got together

Eventually and evolved into this one single person. They might even though there's maybe no

Historical evidence of that maybe that maybe that has something to do that I just just a theory be more than one person that they're pulling these stories from Hard to know but I've talked to other biblical scholars.

Well, I'm sorry It may be to him they aren't scholars But I've talked a few biblical scholars on my show and they say there's nothing really wrong with my hypothesis

There's nothing to disprove it and there might be some evidence actually going for that. So but he

Is pretty adamant I guess about his particular method methodology in who he? values as experts in this arena, so oh well

That was a big twist in the middle of the show there. But anyway, I hope you all still enjoyed it and learn something from this program and I Think you might get more out of the video than you did this show to be quite honest

So check out the YouTube video and I apologize if this show wasn't everything we expected it to be

Everything we expected to be we expect this guy to come on here and Join with us and ripping and shredding and promoting all this wild -eyed

Radical atheism the GS didn't exist, etc. Etc. And Oh drat, you know,

I just thought that it was extremely Enlightening for me

This is the only time in all the stuff that I've heard Well, I'll take that back

I guess some of the NPR interviews You could tell that the person doing the interviewing was more even more liberal than Barnard.

So But they're nothing like this And so it was very instructive for me to hear the the back -and -forth and to hear that in essence

Erman's argument Was one of authority it was believe me because I am a historian.

I've been doing this for 30 years That that's basically what his argumentation was By the way, I mentioned this last week, but I don't know if I gave you the source if you'd really like to read

What I think even though it's dated it there's a lot of dated stuff. That is just really really good still

Just not as easy to hold him But Hendrickson's introduction to the pastoral epistles in his commentary where he goes through just the whole range of arguments used against the

Pauline authorship of the pastoral epistles Much of what is said there is applicable even beyond Just the pastoral epistles issue

Because he's dealing with people there that are cutting it from back from 13 to 10 and now Erman's saying, you know, there's only seven

So much of what is said is Addressed in that work that I would highly recommend it to you if you get a chance to look at it

That's William Hendrickson's commentary on the pastoral epistles And the issue of the authorship as it is addressed there you might find that to be very useful

So once again, just for especially those of you in the Florida area I will be speaking at Grace Baptist Church on Sunday.

I put a link up on the blog for that And most importantly I do ask those of you who listen regularly to the dividing line to be praying especially for the debate on Wednesday evening pray that technically, it'll go well that the recording will go well and Especially the opportunity we have here to clarify

In this context so many of the things that Bart Ehrman claims that are being used by atheists that are being used by Muslims to Promote an attack upon the

New Testament and upon the Christian faith that we will have opportunity of addressing those things and addressing them clearly

And that the people there will be blessed but even more so That in the recording of that material that many others all across the world will be blessed as well

So your prayers for that very much are Requested at this time so Lord willing

Via Skype will be with you on Tuesday if for some reason there's a problem with that We'll try to blog it and let you know and we'll see you then here on the dividing line.

God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries If you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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That's AOMIN .org where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks