Refuting Atheist Alex O'Connor

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Yeah, so the great thing when you tune in for the live stream with Pastor James Yeah, is you get a free Jeff Durbin roast?

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You have to be able to take it. Yes, that's exactly right. So Yeah, welcome to the dividing line folks.

Sorry about being late yeah, so as you can see Pastor James is here today and Exciting show prepared for you today.

We are gonna deal a bit with Alex O 'Connor atheist ish agnostic self -professed agnostic

Like the guy a lot. Actually, I really like Alex O 'Connor in terms of the accent Well, the accent is always so delicious and amazing

It's you know, you can be very poor and you're thinking and have a great accent and you'll come off, you know, Christopher It's like, you know,

Richard Richard Richard Dawkins and But you know Alex O 'Connor I like because he just the way he engages and be nice to possibly be able to have conversation with In the future, but he's been making the rounds recently.

I'd say in two particular Programs the the one is the one atheist versus 25

Christians as you said On atheists versus 24 Christians and a Mormon that's right. Yes someone from reasonable faith and a

Latter -day Saint But that's popular one right now and only a couple of days three million views and you've got Ruslan I said

I got it right. I'm always afraid to say it wrong. I like him a lot, too So Ruslan just had

Alex O 'Connor on and they began a conversation really engaging with some of the comments made by our friend

Wes Huff when he was on Joe Rogan And so we're gonna we're gonna do with I think we're gonna try to try to Condense we could be saying a whole lot

We'll probably do more on Alex O 'Connor and maybe even have him on the show as a bit of a mishmash But we're gonna try to do with three main things today.

One is Alex O 'Connor's challenge challenges related to the the scroll of Isaiah from the

Dead Sea Scrolls and then we're gonna engage a bit with what he said in the one atheist versus 25

Christians one and that's that Jesus did not claim to be God and Two we're gonna engage with What the conversation you have with Latter -day

Saint related to Latter -day Saints and Mormonism and consistency And so we're gonna try to get right to it.

Just want to announce one quick thing As everyone gets in here. We are right in the middle of the first session of the year

Across the country states across the country. We have bills of abolition Happening across the country bills of equal protection for all humans from fertilization

Texas just dropped Yesterday, Oklahoma dropped, South Carolina, South Carolina has dropped

Ohio is about to drop just were able to secure one in Kentucky as well. That's about to drop as well on The fourth

I believe is when that's gonna drop equal protection for all humans Happening in Kentucky North Dakota is coming.

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Ohio We need a lot of support there in Ohio We already have a lot of support, but we need more of you So if you're a believer in Ohio pastor leader doesn't matter come and meet with Michael Foster and myself and Michael Clary and and others

We're gonna hold a night To talk about the bill that is dropping and how you can participate and help with us

Be right on our side on this bill. That is going to be next Tuesday. That's February the 4th

It is make sure get this right. It's being hosted by Michael Foster's church and that is East River Church, February 4th at 530 p .m

Church is located at 299 Haskell Lane, Batavia, Ohio 45103 it is open to the public and We'd love to have you guys come out and join us so we can inform you as to what is happening in Ohio and how

You can participate with us in that bill. So that's what's going on so Preliminary thoughts. Let's let's set up the discussion.

So Wes Huff was on our program and then

I think it was a couple days later. He was on Joe Rogan Yeah, and maybe a week after if you haven't seen that episode with with Wes on on Joe Rogan check it out

I think it's a really good conversation that Wes had with Joe Rogan But he talked great talked a lot about the historicity of the

Bible's manuscripts things like that And he did bring up at one point The Isaiah scroll from the

Dead Sea Scrolls and Joe Rogan has was fascinated by that one. So I saw someone put together Some clips like a montage of how many times

Joe Rogan said Wow. Yeah in the episode Wow, wow. Yeah Wow counter. Yeah Wow counter over 25 wows.

I Thought Wes did a fine job. It's a long -form conversation and it was good.

So anyway The question of textual criticism Is is an important one and the transmission of the text of the

Bible and I think that the problem is and Pastor James This is one of the things you've been saying for many years and you've been trying to educate

Christians on Where do we get our Bibles? How'd they come down to us? Most Christians? Can we trust them aren't aware of how the

Bible has come down to us? How it's been transmitted to us throughout the centuries when they hear about copyist errors misspellings

You know quote -unquote missing verses and things like that They can maybe get thrown by it and atheists can can sort of use that capital of confusion

Against Christians by saying well look, you know, the Isaiah scroll technically was maybe 93 95 percent the same exact and and so it that's a problem and and I think it just goes to show that as Christians we need to Understand this field a little better.

So as preliminary thoughts Dr. James White's help us to get in the conversation of the transmission of the text of the

Bible and why this is so important Especially when someone like Alex brings up You know

Differences in the manuscripts, right? most probably most of people in our audience are at least familiar with some of this discussion when it comes to the

New Testament because the vast majority of this conversation is focused on A longer ending of Mark is the story of the woman taken in adultery

John 7 53 8 11. Is that original? There's there's really not a lot in the

Old Testament. That is an issue of Textual transmission until you start talking about the relationship

Between the Hebrew text. I have a beautiful Jeffrey Rice bound Hebrew text here

I'm sorry. That's the Nablus. That's right The the

Hebrew text of the Old Testament The the printed versions of that have very few differences between them because we're primarily doing what's called the

Masoretic text which came into existence 900 ,000 years after the time of Christ and There just aren't that many differences in fact the 1525

Blomberg that they used for the King James and Our current Biblia Hebraica stuart -garten see I only have about eight major differences between them that actually impact translation

So we're dealing with the same text the Greek Septuagint, I don't know if you've noticed this but The stone choir guys

Cory Mahler and stuff They've decided that the Septuagint is the inspired version the

Hebrews are relevant their modern -day Martianites the Gnosticism is back again The Eastern Orthodox have a very high view of the

Septuagint over against the Hebrew as well So I was I've been fascinated recently how many self -proclaimed experts have all of a sudden popped up on Twitter With all sorts of issues regarding the relationship of the

Hebrew text and and so on so forth But most of the time when you're talking textual criticism, you're talking

New Testament So this brought us out of that and I don't know if you remember back in 2009 when

I debated Bart Ehrman During the Q &A session at the end where people in the audience could ask questions

This guy got up and he brought up the Great Isaiah Scroll from from Qumran and I knew what was about to happen.

I I I Don't think you can see me in the video shot, but I sat back going.

Oh, I know what's about to happen He was doing what he thought he should do and he said well, what about the Great Isaiah Scroll?

It's you know Once it was found we discovered that the text was basically unchanged for a thousand years

And that is the issue that that the the main reason to bring up what's called one

Q Isaiah a so it's the first Qumran cave Isaiah a That's the

Great Isaiah Scroll which you can go online and look at they've got a great thing in color It's in color and you can it'll outline the verses for you.

I mean, it's really really really well done yeah, you can go online and see all that but The main reason to bring that up is to demonstrate that there is no necessary reason to believe that just because a document has been

Transmitted by hand copying for a lengthy period of time that therefore you should be

Skeptical that you continue to have the original readings. That's the main. That's the main reason because As some people point out in fact

Wes directed me Sean McDowell had Anthony Ferguson on Anthony Ferguson is a young scholar brilliant young guy

Who did his PhD? In fact, one of his readers was Emanuel Tove who is really the

Old Testament Textual critical guy in the world right now has been for many many years I actually picked up the fourth edition of his book yesterday in accordance because mine was like the first or second edition

I'd read his stuff decades and decades ago and He was talking about, you know, you brought up the 93 % 96 99 %

When that guy in the debate brought up the Isaiah scroll I knew but Barter was gonna do and Barnum has said well, that's true.

The Isaiah scroll is pretty much unchanged but have you looked at the Jeremiah? Mm -hmm and Jeremiah in the

Dead Sea Scrolls is very different than in the Masoretic text from a thousand years later Now we know why if you read

Jeremiah His text was torn up by the king and there were different versions of it and he was kicked off to Egypt and all the rest

Of stuff. So at the very beginning you had differences, but I knew he was gonna do that. I just saw it saw it coming vast majority of seminary graduates

Know nothing about Old Testament textual criticism because you have those notes at the bottom of the page

They know something about the long running of Mark or the story of the women of adultery or something like that But when it comes to the

Old Testament the idea of different mass proto

Masoretic traditions at the time of Jesus along with the Targums and along with these other translations that were that were in existence and when did the

Septuagint come along and Even if people know what the Septuagint and people should know what the Septuagint is I mean

Given that 85 to 90 percent maybe even more of the citations of the Old Testament in the

New Testament Come from the Greek translation of the Old Testament rather than from the Hebrew that's significant

That's that's really important, but there wasn't just one Septuagint and it wasn't translated all at the same time

And so when you've got people writing around literally today saying that the Greek Septuagint is the inspired version

They look at this conversation. We're having about the Great Isaiah scroll like it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant

It's whatever is in the Greek Septuagint Well, the problem with that is there was no one

Greek Septuagint almost all the pretty much every manuscript we have of The Greek Septuagint from the past was made by Christians not by Jews So they don't go back, you know until you know, third fourth century after Christ And the

Dead Sea Scrolls take us before Christ That's extremely important for establishing the text and where it came from and things like that so when we look at the

Isaiah scroll and this was the issue on And I understand why he said it what what

Westhoff said was It's verbatim word for word. Yeah word for word verbatim like what you'd come now when people say why do you keep saying just a thousand years there because you have two major Masoretic texts

Somewhere around a thousand years after Christ the Aleppo text And the Leningrad text the

Leningrad is probably a little bit younger, but it's full It's the whole thing Aleppo's fragmentary in some places.

So What why what why say that it's verbatim it's a word for word

That's something that textual critical critics say when you have two texts that Handwritten texts that are as close as the

Isaiah scroll is the later Masoretic We'll say things like well, they're verbatim. So like if we're looking at Byzantine manuscripts that were produced, you know, 12 13 14 hundred years after the time of Christ in the

New Testament Will just sort of in passing say yeah, let's verbatim with this one over there We're not saying that it's word for word identical like a photocopy because there there were no photocopiers until 1949, right?

Which is a Bart Ehrman once right? That's what Bart Ehrman wants But it's it's sort of I think he was just thinking

That there's it's so clear That the textual tradition that is represented by the

Isaiah scroll, which is at least a hundred years before Christ Okay That that text is the same textual tradition that became the

Masoretic text 900 to a thou well over a thousand years later. It's the same.

It's the same tradition now as has been pointed out like Ferguson and others

The scroll itself is actually fascinating and remember the You know, my my modern

Hebrew text here has vowel pointing in it And so those vowel points are primarily provided by the

Masoretic long after the time of Christ That's important because that's an interpretational thing.

Mm -hmm. So if you remember I've debated Anthony buzzard. In fact, you were there without a beard

When this young young kid, you know, that's been a while it's it's been a while shut your mouth

You didn't you didn't look over at me a couple Sundays ago, yeah, but You made a comment during a sermon recently where you said something along the lines of I've been

In ministry for so long. Mm -hmm, and I'm sitting over there going I'm Going yeah

Okay, when when when it's when it's a when it's at least 40 years you can say so long.

Okay Okay, young blood. Yeah, just I'm just sort of like yeah, okay. All right, but anyway you were there and What's one of his big arguments one of his big arguments?

Is it in Psalm 110? when it says We would say add an eye the

Lord said to my Lord he says no It's add a knee and add a knee is never used of a divine person in the

Old Testament Okay, well word that worse Western machine add an eye and add a knee Masoretic vowel pointing the

Masoretes knew that the Christians used that text and so they vow pointed it To take away their argument.

There you go. And so the Unitarians use it. Well those vowel points aren't inspired Well, I will I've run into Presbyterians who do believe the vowel point is inspired

There are no vowel points, of course in the Great Isaiah Scroll because they hadn't been developed yet Mm -hmm and so one of the problems with that is and this is by the way this is also relevant to studies in the

Quran because the Quran is a Semitic language and its earliest manuscripts don't have vowel pointing either and So you have to have you have to have a way to have vowels well

That's all Editorial, right? And so in the older forms of language, they would use what are called vowel letters which can be

Function as consonants or as vowels, but you still have to interpret it in context

There's different ways of understanding and once the Masoretes put vowel pointing in they're putting their understanding

Into that time interpretive. It's interpretive. Yeah, and but it's being interpreted long after Judaism has rejected

Jesus as Messiah. And so there's places where they You know reflect that in their in their statements.

So anyway back to Isaiah, so it's a it's a consonantal text doesn't have vowel pointing and what's interesting is it's it's pretty much divided right in half and It seems it may be

That someone else copied the second half that didn't copy the first half

I mean, are there different hands involved that's very common in longer books and things like that Codex Sinaiticus We know of at least four different scribes that were involved in producing that and things like that and You can tell that in the second half there is a purposeful

Updating of the language to the way the language was being used at that time rather than in the first half of the

Manuscript which represented an older form of Hebrew How you spell things key and stuff like that using different letters.

So here's here's the big problem about the Alex O 'Connor stuff What do you count as a variant?

What do you even count as a word? Because in Hebrew You have pronominal suffixes pronominal, yeah pronominal go before you've got suffixes at the end that give you

You know person a number and things like that depending on what you're talking about Grammatically in the language.

And so how do you divide a fairly lengthy word up? That may have like a prepositional phrase that's actually been attached to the word.

Is that two words in English we would have For the church would be three words, but in ancient languages that might just be one word.

Mm -hmm So, how do you count this? How do you how do you even count how many words there are in the Isaiah Scroll?

I had I had a cordons look at it last night, and I think it came up with about 22 ,800 some odd words but it's somebody had to tell a cordons how to count words and Was it using all those

There's no way of knowing yeah, there's no way of knowing so when someone says what percentage

Identical are things between the Qumran text and then the Masoretic Masoretic text so a thousand a thousand years later thousand years different if you're comparing the

Leningrad Codex with the Isaiah Codex from from Qumran how do you even make that kind of a decision because you can count things in such a way that Let's say that the the scribe of the ancient scribe

Wants to use a particular form for the word he That is popular at his point in time.

That's not going to remain popular. And so it's changed by the time you get to The Leningrad Codex, but it's still the same word.

It still means the same thing word, but it's can it's contextual It's being spelled differently. Yeah, because of the how they're using it then it would be well

We do this we do this when we there are there are words you read in the King James Version of the Bible, right? That are spelled differently back then than they are.

Now. Is that a difference or if you go from America today? Yes on Thursday to England and you're reading what's on the signs there right same

English word With a different spelling. Oh you are you know, it's so yes So are those variants and is that if you count those and if you want photocopy accuracy

Then you can lower the percentage of I Being identical right by saying well, there's a difference here.

There's difference there there if you go with what actually communicates anything could

If you go with anything that could actually be translated into English and you'd be able to go Oh, that's a different way of saying that then the the percentage goes much much much higher as to how identical they are now

There are variants And the one that That he pointed out and he points out because I didn't have time to look through all of it last night

Because you would contact him. Yes. Well, I'm gonna play through it here so they can let everyone hear I have

I have I have a pretty decent Textual critical library on my on my computer and I have an entire book that lists all

The variants between all the manuscripts that have been found the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Masoretic text

So I can just turn to Isaiah and just start walking down the thing He went to Isaiah chapter 2 9b verse 10

Which is not found in the Isaiah scroll, but it's in all the other Masoretic texts Okay Now that's listed at that same website that I mentioned to you before that from Israel that where you can look at it

They specifically mentioned that I don't know that he necessarily found that but he was saying hey, here's an entire verse missing

I didn't find Getting through like chapter 20 before I ran out of time last night.

I didn't find anything else that major But that was the only Large variant that I could find that included a sentence and Most of the time when you have that kind of a difference

It was interesting that Israeli website actually identified that That verse 10 9b and 10 as a later edition.

I'm not sure how nor they came to that conclusion. It's more likely that it was skipped in transcription than anything else, but the the point is does that change anything and I think the thing that people need to understand is every

Messianic prophecy is in the Isaiah scroll Every text that is cited in the

New Testament is in the Isaiah scroll. Now what is interesting that most people don't know is

What's one of the Most one of the clearest texts on the deity of Christ in Isaiah.

Isaiah 9. Isaiah 9. Why? What does it say? Yeah, it says El Gabor. He's a son and a child so it's a human but then it's

El Gabor Which is an exclusive title of Yahweh. So What's fascinating is the

Septuagint doesn't have that the Septuagint has a completely different reads It's translating a different tradition at Isaiah 9 6 and I actually tried to ask

I think of the guys Eastern Orthodox a guy yesterday What do you think about that wouldn't touch it with a 10 -foot pole wouldn't even when you

I don't know if he knew that there Is a variant there and that the reference the deity of Christ in the

Hebrew, but it's not in in the Septuagint But the point is This is important because it is coming up on Twitter a lot right now

And there's a lot of stuff going on in Orthodoxy right now and we'll probably have to do more programs in the future, I think on that particular subject, but The point is that when you look at the

Greek translation of the Old Testament It wasn't all done at the same time in the same place by the same people.

Mm -hmm Now you've heard of the letter of Aristeas. Mm -hmm Where the and Christians believe this for a long time that these 70 or 72 scholars, you know

They they took initially it was the Torah eventually it got expanded out to the entire to knock the entire

Torah Nevi 'im Ketuvim, they took them into a cave and they translated them and when they all came back out and compared their translations

They're identical word for word identical. It's a miracle and for centuries

Christians believed that This was evidence that the Greek Septuagint was the inspired version and the early church

Really viewed the Septuagint as the the final authority, but that's also due to the fact

That's also Due to the fact that they they became the early church lost contact with the

Hebrew language Mm -hmm, and so there are only a few early church fathers that could read both Greek and Hebrew origin

Exactly the most orthodox guy in the planet Jerome also not exactly the most orthodox guy on the planet there were very few people that could read both languages and So, you know what a problem that caused for example with Augustine.

Mm -hmm Augustine his views of Canon Augustine his view of justification Because his

Greek wasn't all that good either. It was primarily Latin so not having those languages can cause some

Serious serious issues. So anyways, this is just some of the major issues. I'm sort of glad That this topic has come up because Really weird people like me can get to talk about stuff that we normally spend time reading books about but nobody else cares

Yes, you know so like like this Anthony Ferguson that went on Sean McDowell's program. I I just want to say to him, you know brilliant guy great stuff, but enjoy your 15 minutes because Eventually everyone's gonna go what yeah, we're moving it we're moving back to something a little bit less esoteric than the textual criticism of the

Old Testament because it is something that I would say the vast majority of seminary graduates

Barely touched it if it was even mentioned the only reason that I had any interest because I was already dealing with Mormonism I Could have

I could have easily skated through Bible College and seminary without ever getting in any of that if I had wanted to But I was already involved in apologetics.

I helped you there So just just briefly as we get everyone to get it get into these clips. Just that was a good setup. So Understanding how the

Bible came to us. Sorry here just up. There you go Okay, how the Bible came to us we have we have the autograph.

We have the original that's you know written by Isaiah and What we're talking about over time is copies that are made by the people of God of the inspired text and Everyone has to understand.

This is the divine message. This is the inspired message God has condescended and spoken to his people.

There are is no social media There's no flash drives and you know, whatever else you might want to say.

There's no full, you know photographs now you're going back I know I'm trying to move us all the way through this. There's no history here.

No beers, and so there's no three and a half inch floppy Communicate they can communicate this is what happened but but the most reliable way to pass down the history of God Moving and and and walking with his people and guiding his people as they they wrote it down But of course they don't have not just in on on vellum

We have found copper scrolls, we have found inscriptions in stone

But it's to write it down so that it's not that that history is that history is actually communicated by being written down and there was a process that was incredibly meticulous and Abided by certain parameters his point.

Yeah, so so yeah put a pin in that for one second The point is in terms of Christians understanding you have the autograph.

This is the end. This is the inspired Original but then over time the people of God are

Making copies of that text and then copies of these texts and it's true and God is guiding that process

We would say of course sovereignly through history But a lot of that older stuff including the autograph if it had been written on Papyrus or vellum or whatever the case may be over time

Because of the physical world we live in and the nature of that particular material it will turn to dust it disappears and so what we have over time is a

Transmitted text of copies and copies and copies of what was the autographer that's moving through time transmitted text

So when you land on so Isaiah, you know Say 700 years before the time of Christ and all these prophecies of Jesus that are incredible Which is the main point

Wes was was would want to make there on the text. Is that even if you have

Authorship different differences style spelling or those things that will happen in the the text from Qumran The issue is with Isaiah scroll which

I think was is more what Joe needs to hear is it's not simply look at the fidelity

Right in the consistency, but it's what does that text say about Jesus before he even walks on the earth?

That's the main issue that needs to be highlighted all this other stuff. I think is like yeah important conversation

It's it's a meaningful conversation, but the issue is what does Isaiah say about Jesus 700 years before he comes?

But when we get to the Qumran text like you mentioned we're talking about a copy of Something that was transmitted not the autographer and you're gonna see differences in that copy

Dependent upon the context that they're living in and the fact that you're talking about something that's not an infallible inspired

Text in meaning in the terms of like Isaiah didn't write that one That's a copy and then you're leaping ahead in time to the

Masoretic text Which is is a copy of a transmitted text, but even that one is having adjustments

Based upon their interpretation at the time their language like you mentioned the vowel pointing and things like that that are put in Well, that's all the vowels aren't in the autographer, right?

And so so this conversation is meaningful It's important but what we're the main point here in textual when we're talking about the transmission of the text is that you have a

Text you can point to in history whether it is the New Testament through that transmission or the

Old Testament that you can show that God has preserved his word through time and We will we always argue and you're always you've always been arguing.

This is that because we have so many texts We can get back to what the autographer said the original said based upon The transmitted text of the different readings and you might see a copyist error here or a scribe misses a line

But then you have other texts where you say, okay, he obviously missed a text there This is where the error was these other texts to contain this or you might have something like the longer ending of Mark Where or the account of the adulterous woman and you're like, yeah, this sort of like can't find a home

This text sort of floats around in different manuscripts and it comes later the earlier manuscripts don't have this

This one just seems to like be looking for a place to land Was it a tradition the story that actually came up from Christians?

And did it did someone, you know write it in and it just couldn't find a place So that just quickly and then we're gonna play that clip just sort of address that.

Yeah Two things most of everything you just said was specifically relevant to the New Testament For example when you talk about we have so many manuscripts

We don't have so many manuscripts for the old of the Old Testament because it's much much older, right? And so one that one of the key

Differences in the transmission of the Old Testament New Testament once the test was written to create the

Christian people want to get it Out to everybody so they don't care who's copying it It can go out anywhere

That wasn't the case the Old Testament that what those were the covenantal documents of Israel. Yeah, they're not making copies

There there is no Israeli Bible Society as there is now to send that out to the Amorites They're not they're not sending the scriptures to the

Amorites. Yeah, and so there is a different methodology by which the

Tanakh the Torah the Nevi 'im the Ketuvim we call the Old Testament. The Hebrew scriptures are transmitted than the then the

New Testament Yeah, there is a difference there and that's the same thing with the methodology of Transmission what you were talking about?

Yeah, you know counting what the first the first word or the first letter in the page in the last

Letter those that's what the Mazarites Developed to make sure that nothing would change

I mean they froze the text in time readily tedious. That's eight nine hundred years after Jesus. So that's Well over 2 ,000 years since the original was written

So yes, the Mazarites did freeze the text in time But the question is what about what text were they using to create theirs?

Because we know that there were differences in the days of Jesus. You know how we know this Jeremiah 31

Uh When Jeremiah 31 in the Hebrew says though I was a husband to them

When that's translate when the when the Septuagint translates that they have a different Hebrew text This is though.

I did not care for them And that's what's read in the book of Hebrews the difference between though I was a husband of them or did not care for them is difference between Baal and Gaal.

It's one letter So there were differences in the Hebrew manuscripts in the days of Jesus And the

Apostles had to deal with that and we have to deal with that as well But we can't deal with it in the same way.

We can deal with it today Because we don't have five thousand eight hundred manuscripts of Jeremiah the

Old Testament because it's much much much much older so that's where the differences come in is

We're looking at a relatively young text with the New Testament With a huge number of represent an abundance and we've got an ancient text which a month with a much smaller number of Manuscript, which is why the discovery at Qumran was was here

So valuable because it pushed our knowledge a thousand years jump back in history a thousand and there are

Manuscripts of Qumran that are word -for -word like the Masoretic, but they're much shorter.

Isaiah is a 22 ,000. Yeah, I mean you couldn't get if we brought our best and brightest

School kids in homeschool kids in and ask them to write Isaiah as carefully as they possibly could

We had ten of them doing it. You're not gonna have Zero differences no matter how hard they try because people make mistakes.

That's just how it is So there are short texts in Qumran where if you compare with the

Masoretic they are word -for -word They're not not even not even a letter difference but Isaiah is huge and the point is if you read the

Isaiah scroll from Qumran and you read the Leningrad Codex or Aleppo from a thousand years after Christ It's the exact same prophecy

It's the exact same book and everything copied everything mentioned in the New Testament is right there.

Yeah, very good All right. Here we go. Let's just play a portion that lead in we've already sort of laid down the important issues

But we want everyone to hear how the challenge comes. This is Alex O 'Connor with Ruslan here we go reason

I want to speak to you today was because West half obviously made the video and I responded and Gavin Ortlund responded to that and He's he made a comment saying that he at least for now isn't going to respond to that the only other sort of big player in the game here with with Regular viewers making regular content about this is is you or are you too?

I suppose it's and so Son look, I can't see see West huffing that sort of hopping on a conversation anytime soon.

So Let's do it this way. Perhaps I wondered What you make of where we're up to because as far as I can tell what's happened is

West half made a claim about the Isaiah scroll on Joe Rogan Which is not correct

He admitted that he was not correct that he misspoke But it's still trying to salvage the point and indicate that Joe Rogan should still be amazed and would still be amazed if he had

The same thing now, I don't know if you've seen this but just a few days ago Joe Rogan had another episode I can't remember who the guest was.

It's Kip Davis. He brought this to my attention and right near the end of the podcast Rogan says

I just posted on Twitter Rogan says, you know I just had that that Wesley huff on and you know something that I've been thinking about I can't stop thinking about it is that the

Isaiah scroll that they found from like a thousand years ago is Verbatim the same as the one they've got today

Literally word for word like I can't stop thinking about it I understand that people think that a sort of ninety three point five percent at best fidelity with the math

It's still like really impressive Yes, I mean, that's the calculation that the Dan McClellan came to by round what by assuming that every single textual variant only applied to one word when actually they apply to Sometimes entire sentences and verses if you just ran down to one per word then you get some

I think it's ninety three percent Fidelity, so it's got to be lower than that, but it's at best, you know, ninety three percent

People say that's still kind of amazing But I don't think Joe Rogan would be having this other guests on going like dude

I literally can't stop thinking about the fact that like the Isaiah scroll is like ninety three percent

I just don't think it would have the same apologetic weight for him Him and his listeners, so okay, so let's engage a bit with that Well, here's the issue and I mentioned this before I think what

Wes was doing is he was speaking as a textual critic and the the idea of it being

That high of a percentage of agreement is what we're talking about when you look at those two texts

We're not using the modern photocopy computer generated Let's put this way.

I don't think any scribe from Quran or a thousand years later would have

Disputed what Wes said because they would have said man. They did a really good job. This is incredibly, you know

You know well done, etc, etc, etc. So I think that's what he was going for. And I think what you've got here is it seems that what the young fellow is saying is that the presentation was well look this is a miracle of Transmission I don't think that's what

Wes was going for. I think what Wes was trying to say is we have this evidence before Christ of a text that has not been corrupted.

It has not been changed. It wasn't edited by the church that witnesses to the coming of the

Messiah and that has gone through a thousand years of transmission without any substantive change and You know,

I'm sure that's how he will say it for the rest of his life. Yeah He'll never use that terminology.

But again, that wasn't what it You're if you're putting weight upon what someone isn't talking about.

That's the problem. I would like to hear an atheist respond to the prophetic witness of the coming of Christ that is in the

Qumran scroll that Was written before Christ fulfilled the prophecies.

Yeah. Okay. There's there's what the issue is He wasn't trying to say hey Joe there You should believe in this because of the perfection of the transmission of the text is like a photocopier

Because he knows that it's not a photocopier there there again there I I just I just happened while that was playing

I was just scrolling through the Differences in the in the resource

I told you before and I just I just stopped and it was in Isaiah 22 24 there is a singular difference where the consonants are the same but there has been an

Article put before the front and that that's it. It doesn't change anything

That's an entire variant that lowers the percentage blah blah blah, but it doesn't change anything And that's that's really the issue

I think that we that we need to be focusing on and and look we need to be accurate when we're talking about the Isaiah Scroll, like I said, you got to be careful of the

Bart Ehrman's out there They'll come back with you on Jeremiah and the Septuagint and stuff like you need to be aware of stuff like that But the reality is the

Isaiah scroll Demonstrates that there is no necessary corruption that takes place in the transmission of the text necessary there can be

The Gnostics came along and tried to change everything Yeah, they'd be editing stuff out of the

Old Testament and changing words right left center So I'm not saying you don't have corruption because there have been people who've tried to corrupt things

There's no the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses modern example of how to twist the scriptures, but there is no necessary Reason for skepticism just because a text is very old and I would

I would point out that Recently there was another scribe another scroll that was found that had been burned.

It was damaged in a fire and It had been it You couldn't unroll it because of the fact that had been basically fried and they used computer tomography to X -ray it and unroll it and they found out that it was an ancient

Text of Leviticus the first I think eight chapters or no first eight verses that again

It's almost identical to the Masoretic as well So the point is that the the

Masoretes used a really good Hebrew text and they preserved it for us

And so what we've had all along Has been perfectly good and with Qumran we can now even shed more light upon that And that's and the whole point is here's prophecy

Explain how someone living 700 years before Christ could prophesy of these things taking place now

I know how the liberals do that But I'm simply talking about stuff where you actually have evidence that you can look at.

That's right It's an incredible mark of divine preservation, right? That's the main point and and I think again the main point

I think that would Have have Joe Rogan saying wow a lot more is if is if somebody was able to get in front of Joe Rogan Which I would love to do and just to walk him through that text

That is so incredible like Isaiah chapter 53 and say look what it says about Jesus Look at these these these different portraits painted in Isaiah That that I often have said you heard me preaches a thousand times that had to have confused people a bit

Like how do you have this conquering Messiah repeatedly through Isaiah who takes dominion over the world draws the nations to God and yet Also, he is a suffering servant who's going to be cut off and die a violent death and it's the

Lord's will to crush him You know, etc. Yeah, the Lord's gonna land him the iniquity of us all and you know

Israel. It's a plural It's a sir. They're the servant of God That's their vocation to be the servant of Yahweh to be light to the world and then it switches from this plural servant to this singular

Servant who is going to take on himself the sins of God people He would justify the many as he would bear their iniquities.

He dies a violent death. He's counted among the rebels and And yet he sees his offspring.

So he's cut off and then he's lives to tell about it essentially So there's so much there but let's let's get into that's at least a start of the conversation

Alex has been doing making the rounds and so we do have we're a little bit short on time today

So we just jump right into the next part of the conversation. This is from Alex's appearance on Surrounded and it is one atheist versus 25

Christians 24 Christians and one Latter -day Saints Just to clarify just to clarify.

Here we go My next assertion is that Jesus never claimed to be

God Coley Coley, so talk to me.

Where does Jesus claim to be God? Yeah, so I'm curious when you say that are you including the book of John?

So I think that the book of John is probably the least historically reliable in this case So I'm talking about the historical

Jesus Yeah I do think that there are a number of instances where Jesus appears to claim to be God in John's gospel Okay but even if we think that he actually said that I still think that there's reason to believe that he wasn't claiming to be

God in the sense of being identical with the our way when You talk about the historical Jesus. All right, so we'll start there

John's not the most historically reliable and Jesus seems to be saying, you know, some statements saying that he's

God But he doesn't want to rely on that. He doesn't believe that Jesus ever claimed to be

God So, how would you start to engage with that? It depends on the context in this situation since he wants to dismiss

John I I would love to defend the historicity of John because there's There's so many examples of its historical nature but in a witnessing situation you generally don't have a whole lot of time to be diving into all the

The fact that the names that John uses Line up perfectly with what we know about the names in the in first century from bone boxes and stuff

There's all sorts of neat stuff like that. You can get into but if you want to just bypass that you remember that on Saturday night you

Gave me a text or a call. I forget which one it was said. I'm not sure. I'm feeling real good

Yeah, I sort of feel like yeah be be be prepared. I'm the B team

So I was thinking about what what would I do and I decided that if Sunday morning you you let me know that you were sicker than a dog or somebody let me know you're sicker than a dog

I was going to look at Evidences of the deity of Christ in the gospel of Mark.

Mm -hmm because Given the sources he's using I'm sure he probably believes that Mark is the most primitive and has the lowest

Christology that's and I've spent a lot of time on this why because I've been dealing with Shabir Ali and the

Muslims For four decades now and that's their argument because it seems to focus more on the human aspect of Christ Right, and and well the idea being

Mark is the most primitive then Matthew and Luke Develop Mark and start moving toward the deity of Christ and John, of course

Presents the deity of Christ and and that's that's a Bart Ehrman thing to you know That's the same type of developmentally

So I I like to go to Mark and Just just jump to the most obvious one in Mark 14 61 during the trial of Jesus But he kept silent and did not answer again the high priest was questioning him and said to him are you the

Messiah the Christ the son of the Blessed One and Jesus said I am and you shall see the

Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and Coming with the clouds of heaven and Tearing his tunics the high priest said what further need do we have witnesses?

You have heard the blasphemy How does it seem to you and they all condemned him to be deserving of death now?

It's interesting If you don't take the time to look at Old Testament texts, you may be wondering why they reacted

Why are they freaking out? Yeah, but when you look at what this was the text that condemns

Christ That's trial this is the text that condemns them where they tear their clothes and right right.

So what is it? Well, what he's done is he is conflated to texts that had high messianic significance in the intertestamental period from Psalm 110 and Daniel chapter 7 and So especially the

Daniel 7 text the Son of Man presented before the Ancient of Days People given to him who let true.

Oh him let true of the highest form of worship only found the temple of that other than So these were texts that Jesus knows

That they know and he knows how they understand it And he puts the two of them he conflates them how there you get he complates them and applies them to himself and identifies himself as the

Son of Man and so When when they tear their their their tunics

And say it's blasphemy Jesus and go. Oh, no, you misunderstood me. That's just bad I don't know who the

Son of Man it that's one of the weirdest things about Bart Ehrman for me is He doesn't believe that Jesus was identifying himself as the

Son of Man And and there's just so many places where you're like, hmm. It is doesn't even that what that it becomes complete mishmash

But anyways, so here is Mark Quoting Jesus and Jesus is quoting scripture of himself that identifies him as a divine being and So, you know,

I think what he does in the rest of the conversation is he doesn't want to look at Now, maybe he admits that Paul identifies

Jesus as Yahweh or maybe admits that when Peter says be ready to give an answer

The quote that he's quoting from Isaiah is actually about Yahweh You are to treat

Christ as Yahweh in your hearts, that's what he's saying, right so maybe he will just dismiss

Anything outside of the Gospels as being irrelevant and the problem with that is once you do that Even if you nail him down with a gospel text

Well, that's been changed. Well, we can just dismiss that so who you know, who knows what he would actually consider to be

Valid material, but you I just recommend everybody it's a book

I read Somewhere second or third year of college Called the

Lord of Glory by Benjamin Breckinbridge Warfield, B .B. Warfield. I think you can get it.

It's free PDF It's not gonna be super expensive. I like that What I loved about Warfield's book was

Unlike most the books that we write today and how we approach the deity of Christ today. Here's how he started off He said look the greatest amount of evidence of the deity of Christ found the pages of Scripture is found in Jesus saying and doing things that no mere human being right would ever think of that to do

Okay, it's not arguing about whether it's God or a God or the

Granville Sharp construction in Titus 2 13 or 2nd Peter 1 1 or anything else. Those are important We need to know about those things.

They do teach the deity of Christ but he said basically Warfield says we always let the critic of Christianity determine what we're going to be arguing about rather than turning it around saying you explain

Yeah, how you're Jesus who's just a man? Says and does all these things

Mm -hmm, and it just it just flipped a light on for me. That's never gone off Every time

I'm reading anything in the Gospels, it's like oh there it is again You know that that that if Moses said what

Jesus said there Moses would have had himself stoned I mean, it's just there's no way that you think of the highest

Person you can think of in in God's amongst God's people. They could never say they didn't speak like they can't speak

They can't do the things that he did It would have been blasphemy, right? And so I would just highly recommend that book to folks

I think they'd find to be extremely extremely useful because You know, I'd like to turn this on him

I just don't have the feeling that he actually thinks that Jesus said any of the words that are recorded in pages scripture

So I just don't even know by the way standard that is on monergism for free You can get it as an e -book Lord of Glory but I was just thinking about that when he said that how

Even that challenge is thoroughly presuppositional like you're forcing your combatant your opponent to explain

The impossibility of the contrary right account field was not a presuppositionalist. So yes, that's but I see

I even if he didn't acknowledge it You're forcing the unbeliever or the skeptic in this case to account for the identity of Christ apart from who he is

Okay, then tell me who he is what mere mortal could fulfill this who could live up to this if he's not

God if he's Not who he says he is very useful. Yeah, let's play a little bit more here What else do you pull from other than the

Gospels of things that he might have said? I think he might have said we only really have the Gospels. Okay, there are multiple sources within the

Gospels What do you date it at around 70 AD? I sort of go with the scholarly consensus. And so you have also a bunch of sources the unique sources to Matthew and Luke You also have this this

Potential source called Q from the German well, right all of this kind of stuff John comes in the latest and so when we're trying to figure out what the historical

Jesus actually said if we've got multiple sources all Claiming that he said the same thing then I think we have a good reason to think that he actually said that Claims like before Abraham was

I am I and the father of one anyone who's seen me has seen the father Only appear in the Gospel of John not in any of our other sources, which

I think makes him less historically reliable Well, I like the claim I got to come out of a little bit different approach because I think that the gospel writers are claiming that Jesus is

God Sure, let's just go with Mark as Mark starts. He talks about John the Baptist preparing the way for the

Lord, right? What is your response for that? Because ensuing Jesus comes no problem I've no problem saying that Mark is intending to portray

Jesus as God It's not entirely clear, but I have no problem just granting that for the sake of this conversation I think that the belief that Jesus is

God is something that develops in early Christianity after Jesus died I think there's nothing that Jesus had himself That can make us confidently say that he was walking around claiming to be

God what it Well, and there's no way to disprove that right? I mean, I mean because we no longer have any sources

He's just dismissed the sources as being secondary and inaccurate and he's now become his own ultimate authority at that point

That's his say so. Yeah. Yeah, there's you know, I'm just not going to accept any evidence that I'm wrong That's essentially right.

Yes, exactly exactly, so I'm gonna say he never claimed to be God and Proved to me that he did.

Okay. Well, let's go to the text where he's speaking Yeah, I reject all of that or I I accept that Mark is trying to present

Jesus as God, but Mark's lying about Jesus, right? So you you're left with so when you have Jesus when you have

Jesus in Mark making the statement that you just pointed to Quoting Sunday on seven, you know the trail the worship that's taking place of this divine being

In in Daniel chapter 7, it's all that becomes irrelevant. It's like well Jesus you said you wanted to see where Jesus says it, right?

Well, here's a place where he says it. Yeah, Mark's just trying to make him look like G like he's gone It's like it's like you understand

You're just you're setting up the rules here so that nobody can disprove your claim And but you're doing with a

British accent there. So it sounds delicious What kind of sounds like he wants he wants something like Jesus saying

I am God. Yeah, it's exactly what the Muslims say Yeah, yeah, and I think it's

I think it's it's better than that in terms of what you you point to If we're having this discussion in a meaningful way and someone says look

I really want to know okay say well great Well, I think the first place you have to start is is what does that previous revelation of God that Jesus and the

Apostles claimed? They were fulfilling or seeing the fulfillment of what does it say about God? And what does it say about this coming

Messianic figure and you would see of course the consistency all the way through the Old Testament Revelation there was only one true and living

God From everlasting to everlasting you are God and that is it is a strict monotheism that you find in the

Jewish scriptures and and oddly you see Conversations taking place in the

Old Testament with the one true and living God You see things taking place that are a bit confusing in terms of divine persons in the

Old Testament You see you see the marks of that taking place that might have confused them a bit like what's that? What's going on there?

And but then you have you know text like in Isaiah chapter 9 you have a text where you have this Messianic figure this human being a son and a child who has the the the divine titles for Yahweh attributed to this

Messianic figure and So you start to see all of that So I would say the first place you have to go to see the deity of Christ that Jesus is

God is is that Old Testament? Revelation to start that story and then you move into the New Testament and you see in the historical narratives and you've seen the

Gospels You see Jesus is saying and doing things that really are only the right of God to do you have

Jesus? Demonstrating that he has power and control over the creation itself. You have Jesus demonstrating that you certainly he searches people's thoughts from afar

He knows what they're thinking before they say it He's responding to things that are going on in their heads before they're saying it Jesus is showing power over life and death

He's in himself. He's raising a little girl from the dead raising Lazarus from the dead Jesus Demonstrates his own life that is so distinct from everybody else around him by saying things to to his

Even even the the antagonist towards him in his ministry and his opponents. He's saying which of you accuses me of sin

Now who else can do that? You know, he has authority to forgive since Alex can't exactly and so you you see in in the life and ministry of Jesus The marks of Yahweh the privileges of Yahweh forgiving sins and they look they even knew it the prerogative of God They were right to say what's he doing when he says your sins are forgiven you.

That's not something that Moses is doing That's not something that David is doing. That's not something that Isaiah is doing. Isaiah is remarking on his own sinfulness

When he gets this glimpse and vision of the glory of God in Isaiah chapter 6 this amazing prophet of God My favorite prophet of the

Old Testament, by the way, he he recognizes his own sin. I'm a man of unclean lips I'm coming apart at the seams essentially and yet that that's not what you see in Jesus and Jesus is saying to people your sins are forgiven you and they're freaking out saying who can forgive sins

But God alone and that's exactly the point and Jesus is saying things, you know He's not gonna let us use John conveniently, but Jesus is saying things in John taking the divine title of God prerogatives of God I mean

John is explicitly calling him God in the beginning was the word words with God the word was God calling the word the creator of all things and The monogamous they asked the unique one -of -a -kind

God and the Father's bosom It's explicit, but then all of that developed later on you don't you see it's just too late theologically motivated

But let me but let me let me undercut that. Let me point out an example where we can undercut that the

Carmen Christie in Philippians 2 5 through 11 most scholars believe is an early hymn of the church and When Paul is writing to Philippi he's writing

Certainly before where this fellow identifies the writing of the gospel so this is before the writing of the

Gospels before Matthew Mark Luke and John and if he's using an Illustration that is a song of the church even before that then this has to come before Paul wrote

Philippians Because it's something they understand. He's he's he's using as a sermon illustration so this this puts it into the 40s at the at the latest and What do you have in Philippians 2 what you have

Isaiah 45 being cited Yeah, I've been applied to Jesus every knee every tongue.

Who is that in Isaiah 45? It's Yahweh Who is it in Philippians 2 is Jesus Jesus and so this pushes us within 10 years of the resurrection

So you don't have the time for that kind of development to be taking place. You can't go Well, you know, that's

John John's way late or that's the synoptics. It's post 8070. No, you don't have any of that and When you find the first manuscripts of Philippians, I've seen it in in Dublin I've told you the story about my getting in trouble with these security guards

Haven't I? Yeah But but now everybody else in the audience is going what They had the manuscript on display there.

He tried to rob him Trying to touch anything

I was trying to see it more clearly so I could read it for the people who were with me and So I realized that light was coming down from above at an angle so I got down my hands and knees and looked up at The papyrus and it was much brighter much easier to read because the light was not coming at the proper angle

Yeah, and so I'm literally reading them from Philippians Unfortunately, the text that had this on it was they had the other side forward

So I didn't I wanted to see this so badly But but I was reading this thing and all sudden I hear excuse me.

What are you doing? And there's a security guard that's come down. I could just see them They were watching on the cameras and it's like George the

Christians are worshiping the manuscripts again Came down there and got us to go away

But but we can demonstrate Those the earliest manuscripts we have the Philippians They don't have any evidences of redaction and insertion and changing

This was in the very letter that Paul wrote to the Church of Philippi Before he dates the

Gospels even being written It's in it and it's a it's an assumed Belief of both writer and audience of the highest view of Jesus from the start, right?

you just can't go there and here's a Critical a critically important thing to discuss now at the tail end of this conversation

This can all be engaged with Alex can be refuted from the text in terms of the divine nature of Jesus.

Jesus is Yahweh. It is clear It is abundance. Jesus is receiving worship. It is absolutely clear

But the main point I would want to press with Alex is that he doesn't really have any right?

To be doing what he's doing as an atheist slash agnostic or more

No one challenged the world no one's and if he was here with me I would I would want to have that that Conversation with him is that you're you're using a lot of capital that makes sense within the

Christian framework Consistency laws of logic. Is it reasonable tests of evidence?

We want we want we want evidence and proof We can't just believe things that are that are fallacious erroneous or false and those sorts of things

Human beings have values got a lot to say about suffering and you know Genocide and God commanding the genocide of other people those sorts of things are taking place within Alex's Framework and his conversations, but but my challenge would be to him

Well, if you reject this revelation if you reject this as the reference point If this is not where your epistemological position is, then

I would ask that the deeper question What is this conversation about? contradictions and is this true and is this good for the world and is this

Consistent and you know, what's with God, you know ordering the slaughter of all these people

I mean you're acting like human beings have some value dignity or worth and That just does not comport with the atheistic perspective of the universe.

Even if you're not a strict materialist or naturalist It just does not comport with your worldview and I want to know how you're gonna you're making all these

Moral complaints against the God of the Bible with your worldview Because if you and I would assume this is correct if Alex, you know has has adopted or believes

A naturalist naturalistic view of the world or he's a somewhat materialist or if he holds to a neo -darwinian

Micromutational macro -evolutionary worldview of history, you know if my ancestors and myself are really just stardust if if this is just a cosmos that doesn't care about us and we are just purposeless meaningless

Material if there's if there's nothing that matters about human beings and they're ultimately just matter then what is the matter?

What's going on? What's the point? Yes. What's the carry? Yeah, what's the complaint about the genocide?

What's the what's the complaints? I mean you're acting like I just wouldn't have done it that way Yeah, you're acting like it's a problem that you've got these descendants of bacteria that are violating one another

That does not comport with your position of the world now. It does it is a meaningful conversation to have in a

Christian worldview Yeah, it's sad when image bearers of God die. It's sad when there's consequences and results of the fall

It's it's it is a sad thing and a terrifying thing when the judgment of God falls in the world, you know It's a conversations. I like to have it's like, you know,

Alex. I got something better for you. You know, you brought up its singular instances of you know of Israel versus you know surrounding nations pagan nations and God sending his judgment and saying, you know

Kill every last thing and and I would say yep That's the the justice and judgment of God in a fallen world and God is the

Holy God and the just judge and and I got One better for you though. It's not just single instances where God says wipe everything out.

There was this thing called the global flood Where God actually killed every thing

So I'll give you one better than any singular instance I'm saying God as the just judge can decide to take life and to give life and and and and Alex wants to have a

Conversation with God he wants to have an interview with God and that's fine. But but his position is not

Consistent in this way. I want to know what all the complaining is about about genocide is suffering

Yeah, and in an agnostic slash atheistic worldview Is it just brain chemicals fizzing right just physical sensations and neural receptors and the brain like what is suffering?

Yeah it's one of the things I said in the last debate on ethics when we were at the University of Utah with these atheists is You know, you're decrying all these these things in the world of suffering and evil and all these different things

But you know No one sheds tears when rocks tumble down a mountain and crash at the bottom and break but rocks and human beings are just random results of evolutionary process

Processes in the atheistic or agnostic framework and so, you know, why are we shedding tears over over this but not the rocks?

It doesn't matter. It's all just matter and so that'd be a more important conversation to have and I think it's where Alex's legs would come off because he doesn't have any meaningful justification in this area and so onward unless you guys want to Prove a little more.

So I know it's been we've been going for a while here, but at least want to touch this next point This is where Alex engages with the

Latter -day Saint Right, so I don't quite know. Yeah. Yeah, we generally are not a

Latter -day Saints the church a member of the LDS Yes our theological claims for example

The problem of evil evil. Okay, so the way that we address it So the problem really so far as I can tell that you have isn't so much with suffering, right?

Because suffering Could be something that is justifiable, right?

Yeah in principle. It's sort of the amount of suffering the death Absolutely. So the issue really is injustice.

It's It's not injustice. It's suffering and particularly suffering of non -human animals. Okay, and and and fair enough

So with the concept of injustice I just gotta just I just gotta point out it

Alex that doesn't matter I mean you can decry it you might be uncomfortable with it. You might think that it's ugly that it's painful

But but it's not meaningful I mean you might in particular have a problem with the suffering of non -human animals

But non -human animal or human is irrelevant in your perspective. You've already given up God You've already given up the image of God in a human being

You've already given up meaning and purpose and worth and value. You've already been all that up We are in a cosmos that does not care about us.

You've got random results of evolutionary processes You don't have a justifiable way of complaining about suffering to any degree as a matter of fact the the the discussion of justice versus injustice is

Irrelevant in your worldview and you don't need Jeff Durbin the Christian the pastor to tell you that just read any of the score of witness scores of witnesses from Atheists who share your worldview agnostics who will tell you this.

Yeah, you know Dawkins Dawkins. There is no good There is no evil only blind and pitiless indifference.

That's an easy way to just punch it out I think Dawkins exactly right. No good. No evil. It's just blind and pitiless indifference so all this complaining about justice and injustice doesn't matter because there's no ultimate standard within your framework in your worldview and if you're an

Agnostic you have to just admit it, you know, I'm without knowledge on it I don't really know but you you you talking that way though You don't talk like you don't know you talk like you do know and there's the inconsistency in your perspective

Is that yeah, I think the Alex needs more time. He's very he's very intelligent He's a very nice young man

But he needs to spend a lot more time looking at his feet and what he's standing on and he says he needs to stop

If he wants to do this in a way, that's coherent and meaningful He needs to stop borrowing capital from the Christian worldview and he needs to stay within the framework of his own worldview and be honest

About it, but if he was staying in the framework of his own worldview He wouldn't need to be honest about it because there's no obligation to be honest about it because there are no there's no ultimate standard to be honest

So I just wanted to point that out as we continue the discussion here Today st. Conception of God is that God actually his purpose is to make us become as he is

Does that include animals as well? Animals are part of the created order that will be redeemed along with the rest of the created order

Okay, so what does suffering do for them? Suffering is part of the inherent nature of the world as a fallen world

Okay, even for animals? Yes, even for animals. Whose fault is that? Alright, so just quickly.

Oh man a lot to say. This is Christian worldview 101 right here engaging with the tongue

The Latter -day Saint versus an agnostic atheist ish kind of guy interesting conversation

So much to say but I think it needs to be pointed out. We're talking about suffering. Look what we're essentially talking about is a nervous system

Yeah, so essentially So what? Again, let's press this.

Because the bottom line here the challenge is what meaning does it have? It's a nervous system

People don't like to experience pain. All right, well, that's that's a given human beings and Non -human animals don't like to experience pain that obviously you see that and you'll see that out in the jungle if you know if a particular pack of animals is

Attacks and eats another one. There's pain. There's pain. It's unpleasant. Nobody likes it.

But but the fact that nobody likes pain And your nervous system responds that way

Doesn't is it has doesn't have any meaning in terms of morally or ethically it has no meaning at all

So what they have a nervous system. They don't like pain. So what that is the case that they don't like pain It doesn't mean that I'm obligated not to inflict pain

Not in that perspective Right when we shouldn't be doing this God shouldn't be doing this either because people have nervous systems.

They don't like to suffer So what? the descendants of fish in a purposeless universe

Don't like to experience pain and suffering so what doesn't mean that I ought not to inflict it

You're talking about a moral obligation here He has a moral complaint against God and God's world and how God set it up but he doesn't have a position to stand on to justify that complaint if he was in a

Christian framework and he accepted what God says about the world and human beings and animals and Sin and justice and all the rest you have a meaningful way to actually engage that Conversation and to shed tears over suffering and to say that's not the way it ought to be and you can have that conversation in a coherent way you can't in Alex's perspective, so Yeah, let me let me break it down like this

It it's terrible I can't really think about Alex too much I'm sitting here going But that Mormon position is incoherent.

Yes, because we've been doing that for so long. It's just like there's no sovereign God What do you mean? Sorry, go ahead, right and I mean

It would be a useful thing to talk about in terms of Mormonism is your God progressed to become a god

He had to learn and grow and sin and fall and learn not to sin and definitely go through Exaltation and and we're gonna be just like him.

And so yeah interesting I have a child and I want my child to grow up to become like me

My child needs to go out of my house He needs to go into the lone and dreary world And if that is the case that means that there's going to be some level of separation between me and him

He's in the world of injustice. It's a world that is unfair Why is that world unjust and unfair because I understand what you're saying you want you're in this analogy

You want your child to become like you and what's what that's going to involve is encountering suffering Developing as a person getting thicker skin

The only reason that you want that for your child is because they're going to live in a world where they're gonna have to encounter That and you want them to be better at dealing with that, right?

If you were given the opportunity to give your child a life that was separate from you where they went about and did their business But there wasn't that kind of suffering and you chose the one in which there was suffering just for the sake of it

I think that would be problematic. Well, it's not it's not that I chose to put them in that world See, this is a difference in Latter -day Saint theology.

That's what I'm interested in Latter -day Saint theology There is a pre -existence and human beings knowing the injust nature of reality have the choice

Oh, they choose to they choose to enter into the mortal state to pass through the way to look at it

Is there's this realm of injustice where anything can happen? I can go out tomorrow. My kid can get cancer

All these things can happen and the idea is we say but if you're willing to pass through the realm of injustice

This is a necessary condition to reach your divine potential come was it necessary? This is another thing about Latter -day

Saint theology. That's different. Uh -huh. Like for instance, God cannot create a square circle Why does that apply here? I mean because he do that because God cannot bring you to your divine potential because of the nature of the laws of reality

I don't give it like what why not right out loud? He's he's the power of God is the power of the priesthood and procreation

There are things above God Let's just be honest and tell people what Mormonism used to really teach who knows what it's gonna teach 10 years from now

But let's just let's be honest about it for crying out loud. Yeah, there there's more than needs to be said

To really explain the latter's days ain't position here And I mean, he's not mentioning the the real story of Mormonism that there are other gods

Council of gods outside of God and and there's We talk about justice from the latter -day saint perspective

Okay, how do you know? Where's the ultimate standard in Mormonism? Which God? Which which

God is responsible for actually saying this is just and how and how did they get to that conclusion?

Because there was a God outside of them. They exalted to that position My guess would be that they would say that since the priesthood and the law of exaltation

Pre -exists God that it comes from that but they did then they cannot give any kind of meaningful defense as to where that derives from Yeah, you have to account for that.

Right? Where's that? Where's that standard? Where can I where can I where can I get? Because if they had just given

Joseph Smith six more months to live there'd be no Mormonism today because it was changing

Evolving so fast was evolving. Yes, it never could have made it Make sense from the publication of the

Book of Mormon in 1830 to where Joseph Smith was murdered in Carthage Yeah, lots of progression lots of transformation

He was spinning so fast at the end that it honestly just a few more months a few more years than most

No one could have made heads or tails out of what in the world he was saying. There'd be no Mormonism. Yeah Just you just restate you can't do it.

I want to know why I know what I'm saying Is that there are laws that even God is bound by like which laws are relevant here?

Like which laws are is like a lot of non -contradiction for it. Why? So interesting because if I sat with Alex, I'd really want to challenge things him on things like that You know, you're looking for reason you're looking for rationality.

You're looking for consistency using the laws of logic I want to ask Alex how he accounts for that but Having a

Latter -day Saint bring that up is interesting when he says there are laws like what do you say outside of God or above? Things down to he's bound by that makes sense in a

Latter -day Saint perspective because this was once a man who progressed to become a god He had to learn and grow and develop and all those things and Not so with the biblical

Portrait of God we talked about God not making a can't make a square circle can't do something, you know, that's inconsistent

It's because it's against his own nature That's the key difference The law determines

God's nature and Mormonism not vice versa exactly So that's the key issue too. And that's the difference between the true

God and and and Jacob's God The false God of Latter -day Saints false. God is bound by things that he cannot control something above him

He has to yield to it's something that he by the way Had to grow to be in conformity to and that's the key issue

He grew to be in conformity to that thing that is above him Whereas the biblical

God we talked about God not making a square circle and things like that We're saying no God would not do that Well, how come because it'd be again if it against his own nature to do something that was outside of his own power

He doesn't violate his own nature The all -powerful God doesn't do things that are outside of his own nature and we talk about the laws of logic stuff

Yeah, we talked about the the laws of logic and consistency. It's like well God says that it says in Scripture God cannot lie and so God cannot engage in logical contradiction to be a violation of his own nature to do those things

He's not trying to obey something above him or be consistent with that thing outside of him We do that as mortals and as human beings is we have this

Word of God revelation of God outside of us There it is. That's the objective standard. We are trying to actually be in conformity to that thing.

That's the standard I need to conform myself to that thing and hold to that thing and have fidelity to that thing

Not so with God The Mormon God is like that, right? Right. There's a standard he has to hold to be consistent to consistent with and so yeah

This is all very interesting to have, you know, an atheist and a Mormon Talking or I should say more probably agnostic and a

Mormon talking to each other We'll wrap it up here Why is good explain to me how the law of non -contradiction binds

God to not create a world where there's no suffering? Because that relationship with God must be freely chosen and God cannot force because there is the question

Why doesn't God just make us all? Because God could make a world in which there's no suffering which was still

I disagree in which you're still free to choose whether or Not to follow him. I would say that that is a logical contradiction

Okay So maybe you can tell me why because right now what you're telling me is that it's it's illogical on the level of creating a square circle to create a system that a person can voluntarily choose to Sort of exit the heavenly realm and go into in order to do whatever they need to do to get to God's Not yet to God to become as he is sure to fulfill their full potential that has to involve not just stuff

I don't know I don't think he has any idea what the Mormons really Jacob is saying there.

Yeah, exactly. And by the way, I Love that Jacob said that because now that the conversation will switch to Latter -day

Saints for us and we're after the show here We have tried to communicate over and over and over again the difference between the biblical gospel and the

Mormon false gospel Biblical God the biblical gospel is about us Knowing God the good news is it can be explained, you know

And a lot of different aspects to the good news nest of it. The good news is that you get God The good news is that you know

God the good news is is God himself and I reconciled whereas As Jacob just Illustrated there the goal for the

Mormon isn't so much getting God. It's becoming a god Like that's that's the real story of Mormonism.

It's like no no, no No It's it's to become like him which means not just in his holiness and all those different things

I mean like God and just and all those things But but to become a god of your own planet one day like the

God of this earth did and and and that's that no better Description right there of the distinction between the biblical gospel and the false gospel of Mormonism It's the biblical gospel is about peace with God knowing

God Worshiping God being in fellowship with the true God and the Mormon gospel is about becoming a god one day

You know that he expresses it through the lens of human analogy, right? If my son I want him to go into the world and experience things and suffer because it's all worth it baby

Exaltation right is what's it is what's waiting on the other side the Christian. It's I get I get Jesus I get him for all eternity.

I get to be in fellowship with him to love him He's worth it. And so so the reference point for the Christian gospel is

God The reference point for the Mormon gospel is me My experience my growth my exaltation my becoming like the

God of this world and no better way to describe that than the way That he just did so I'm grateful that that's in there

Pastor James. Thanks for coming out today. No, I hit you up last minute I do a lot of last -minute things with you like Saturday night

Saturday night I sort of felt like I was like kind of like something like a survey. I was like, hey just hey

Hey, just so you know, like I feel like I'm getting sick and if this happens then can you take the pulpit tomorrow?

And then it was like last night. I messaged you and I was like, hey In my defense

I said we'll be it'll be around one o 'clock. That's what I said And I you know,

I did that. Yes And and you'll get around to finishing your sermon. Yeah, exactly.

You know, I did that I said around one is because I knew I'd probably be late. So that's why I said around this is the way

I protect myself Yeah All right, so if you guys are just new to Apologia Studios and Apologia Point you over to Alpha Omega Ministries the ministry of dr.

James White Just years and years and years of content debates almost 200 public moderated debates with but so many different representatives of different worldviews whether it's atheism agnosticism whether it is

Mormonism Islam or Roman Catholicism Textual critical issues all that's there and just go to Alpha Omega on YouTube or a o men

M I n dot o RG and don't forget also just to get access to just so many different helpful

Resource and resources and books Pastor James has put together over the years including one that might help you on this discussion in terms of the transmission of the text and that is the

King James only controversy kind of a basic introduction to how we got our Bibles and And just great stuff

Roman Catholic controversy the God who justifies will bless your life and Yeah, let's see here Our thoughtful faith.

Hey, he did 20 bucks. Hey Jacob. Hi guys. This is you'd read it I'm gonna pay 20 bucks for the read.

This is Jacob I am the Mormon who made the final claim the LDS theology is more rationally defensible on the end of the debate with Alex Would you

Jeff or James be open to engaging with me on that front? Jacob, thanks for the message man. Thanks for 20 bucks for helping us blessing us with that I would say based upon my last interaction with you.

Unfortunately, no I think you are a very dishonest person you lack integrity in conversation and debate

I'll just be very direct with you and anybody wants to know what I mean by that just look at my last interaction where we refuted you and your claims about Michael Heiser and I think the right thing for to you for you to have done was simply to acknowledge the error the egregious error and The falsehoods you were spreading about.

Dr. Heiser and to admit the error and then to move on but you really doubled down and I'm Not gonna waste my time

Engaging with someone who lacks integrity like you so Richard Torres a dr White is here.

Jeff and dr White are the reason why I'm no longer in Pentecostal and I believe that the Bible is God breathed right on MMA Very good,

Richard Thank you for that man. Oh Real quick. I don't forget to do this.

I tend to do forget Reform con is coming reform con is coming

Tucson, Arizona End of April. Am I correct about that end of April? I'm so I Should know

Problem with twins and not getting enough sleep as I'm sitting tending to lose dates here So reform con dot o

RG April 24 to 26 reform con dot o RG. Dr. Sandlin Douglas Wilson Dr.

Joe boot. Dr. White myself David Bonson and more come and join us in Tucson, Arizona Get your tickets guys early bird pricing is still available

Reform con dot o RG. We're gonna be in Tucson. Can't wait to spend time with you guys down there We had a blast last time with reform con.

It was a lot of fun and It's gonna be hard to do real fast here. So I'll try to answer that quickly, but I'll take a shot at it.

But and so reform con dot o RG get your tickets everybody also Wanted to point everyone to ion layer comm

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So judoka judoka a judo judo practitioner Greetings, we've got all kinds of martial artists

MMA judoka. I like it watching us. Very good. It's missing a jeet kune do The way the intercepting fist greetings brothers.

Would you please explain the millennium from a reform point of view, please? Bless y 'all

So what I would point you to judoka 512 is point you to if you just type in If you just type in Jeff Durbin post millennial

ISM Jeff Durbin eschatology, you should get some Smaller standalone messages that might help you with this where I've gone through the discussion of the millennium and the future what scripture says about that Hopefully that'll bless you

Can't obviously do a whole thing on it right now But if you just look up my name post millennial ISM or my name and eschatology

There should be some good ones to help you in that respect, but they will not be short Well short it's not a will not be sure is

Listen to his stuff on Matthew chapter 24. It will only take you a while. What did

I do a year and a half? I'm after 24 That's because you taught me you taught me to be thorough you taught me

All right, everybody we'll catch you next week right here on apology a radio that's pastor James I'm Jeff the commenter ninja and that's