Oct 30, 2026 Show with Dr. Tony Costa on “A Response to Ben Shapiro’s Fallacy on the Noahide Laws & the Conversion of Gentiles”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 30th day of October 2026.

Before I introduce my guest today and our theme, I want to extend to the Davis family my deepest consolation to you. I just heard yesterday, right after the show was over, that my boss for most of the 15 years that I worked for Salem Media, the largest Christian radio network in the world, for 15 years I worked for their New York affiliates, WMCA 570 AM and WWDJ 970 AM, and my boss for most of those 15 years was Joe Davis, whom the Lord took home to be with himself at the age of 82, and I believe that was yesterday morning that that occurred.

And I have many fond memories of Joe. I received my very first opportunity to host a live Christian talk show while working for WMCA when the talk show host, Andy Anderson, was going on vacation and he asked our general manager, Joe Davis, can Chris Arnzen fill in for me?

He writes questions for me often, for my guests, and he does a phenomenal job. Can he fill in while I'm on my vacation? And Joe approved it, so therefore he opened the door for my very first opportunity to host a live talk program, Talk New York, which later became known as Andy Anderson Live.

And then when Andy Anderson went home to be with the Lord sometime in the late 90s, I believe it was, due to stomach cancer, Joe asked me to fill in for Andy for the two weeks following Andy's death. And I hosted it every day for two weeks until they found a permanent host.

And Joe said to me, you know, you do a phenomenal job hosting this talk show, but there's no way I'm going to allow a five-point Calvinist to be a permanent host on WMCA. But it was Joe that gave me these opportunities where I caught the bug to host Talk Radio.

And Joe was actually the one who hired me at WMCA. So, so many fond memories, so many laughter-filled memories. Joe and I shared a very similar sense of humor, and there was not a time I can remember that we were together sharing a meal, especially during his visits from New Jersey to Long Island, where I was the Long Island, New York station representative for WMCA and WWDJ.

And when he would come out to Long Island so that we could travel around the island together meeting local pastors to introduce them to WMCA, we would always obviously share a meal. And we always had some very loud episodes of laughter.

And that's probably what I remember the most. Oh, and of course, our very rigorous conversations over Calvinism. I was the token Calvinist at WMCA. And in fact, the late James Montgomery Boyce, whenever he saw me at a conference, he'd say, oh, you're the Calvinist over at WMCA, because he had a program on there.

And he visited the studio when I was there once, and he remembered all those years later that I was the only Calvinist there. But we would have some very interesting conversations about that. And I really believe Job agreed with me on some of those issues regarding the doctrines of sovereign grace a lot more than he ever let on to me.

But I know that he believes in them now, that's sure. But I do miss that brother. And over the years, we remained in touch, especially in social media. And he touched my heart just a few months ago by telling me that I am like a son to him.

And I was really moved by that compliment. But anyway, if anyone in the Davis family ever gets to hear this program, likely on a recording, just know that I offer you my condolences. And I hope that the Lord richly blesses you as you grieve and brings you comfort and the peace that surpasses all understanding.

The Noahide Laws and Ben Shapiro’s Claim About Gentile Salvation

Well, today we have one of my dearest friends as a guest. Anybody who listens to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio regularly will know that one of my favorite guests is Dr. Tony Costa, world-renowned Christian apologist and seasoned debater with a special focus on Islam.

He is an author and instructor within the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto and pastor of Parklawn Baptist Church of Toronto, Canada. Today we are going to be addressing a response to the fallacy of Ben Shapiro that God's old covenant people were not concerned with the conversion of Gentiles because they were redeemed right with God if they kept the Noahide laws.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, Dr. Tony Costa.

Well, it's always a pleasure to be on with you, Chris, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful show today.

I am as well. And if anybody would like to find out more about Tony Costa, especially after this live interview is over, you can go to YouTube and type in the search engine of YouTube Toronto Apologetics, and that is Tony's YouTube channel.

But before I even continue this conversation, I am going to play the clip that provoked my interest in having this discussion today with Tony. This is Ben Shapiro at a TPUSA event. It is quite disturbing to me that TPUSA, an organization that is so strongly connected in the minds of many, whether they are Christians or not, it's connected in the minds of many with the Christian faith, and yet we have them giving a platform to somebody who's giving a false gospel to all those who hear what he has to say.

And of course, this wasn't even a debate to my knowledge, it was just a speech, but here we have Ben Shapiro trying to put Christians at ease that they don't have to fear that they will not go to heaven for not being Jewish, because as long as we keep the Noahide laws, we will be safe and we will go to heaven.

And here is what Ben had to say.

As a Jew, I mean, just Jewish belief, we don't believe that you have to be Jewish in order to get into heaven. It's a kind of a distinction between Judaism and many other religions. In fact, when people try to convert to Judaism, we tell people not to, because it turns out it kind of sucks.

As you may have noticed, it kind of puts a target on your back in a lot of different ways. Plus, there are a bunch of onerous rules that you have to follow. And so we tell people, if you're not Jewish, all you have to do is fulfill seven basic rules.

They're called the Noahide laws. They're expressed in the book of Genesis. They're very basic things. Don't kill anybody, please. Don't do kidnapping. Don't do theft. Don't don't eat the flesh of a living animal.

Don't commit sexual immorality. Don't blaspheme. These are, believe in God, these are like the very basics. If you do those things, you're in heaven. So I mean, why would you possibly want to buy into a system that requires 613 laws and a wide variety of restrictions?

Well, there you have it. And there was some clever phrasing in that speech. As you know, Tony, Ben Shapiro cites that the Noahide laws are found in the book of Genesis to appeal to the Christians in the audience that believe the book of Genesis.

Of course, all Christians believe the book of Genesis is a part of the canon of the Christian Bible as well as a part of the Hebrew canon. And he mentions that the Noahide laws are in the book of Genesis when in actuality, the seven Noahide laws are listed in the Talmud, which comes from an extra biblical rabbinic tradition, not from the God-breathed canon of even the Hebrew scriptures, and specifically tractate Sanhedrin 56a and b.

We have the listing here, prohibition of idolatry, prohibition of blasphemy, prohibition of murder, prohibition of sexual immorality, adultery and incest, prohibition of theft, prohibition of eating flesh cut from a living animal, and the positive commandment to establish courts of justice.

Now it has been said that the rabbis who developed the Talmud exegeted these seven points from Genesis, but they're not listed in a series of seven laws as Ben made it sound. And of course, there is no commentary in Genesis that Gentiles would have eternal life if they were obedient to these laws.

And anything before I mention a couple of things here on this list, is there anything you care to mention about the Talmud and for our listeners who may not be all that familiar with it?

Yeah. Well, I just wanted to echo what you said as well, Chris, about Ben Shapiro and TPUSA. And I agree with you. They should not be giving a platform to an unbeliever who does not believe in the Messiahship of Jesus, does not believe that he's the Son of God.

And also, they've also given platforms, as you know, to Roman Catholics like Michael.

Knowles and Matt Walsh.

And politically conservative homosexuals.

Yes. Yes. And that's very disturbing considering that TPUSA was associated with Charlie Kirk. And so a lot of folks, rightfully so, are beginning to look at TPUSA and they're beginning to see the gospel being compromised, being watered down and compromised.

So the first thing I would say is they should never have had Ben Shapiro there. I don't think they should even have had Roman Catholics there because they don't have the gospel of grace and they don't believe in sola scriptura.

And these are things that Charlie Kirk dearly held to. And so what I would say about the Noahide laws, Chris, is you're absolutely right. The only one that is mentioned in the book of Genesis is the execution of murderers.

So in Genesis 9, 6, whoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed for man was made in the image of God. And so there clearly is the mandate to execute, federally execute criminals for murder.

There's nothing in there about executing for adultery or for blasphemy. That doesn't come until the Mosaic covenant. It's under the Mosaic law that you have these theocratic bans to execute people for blasphemy, adultery, and so forth.

So when he says that these commandments are expressed in the book of Genesis, he's absolutely incorrect. There is nothing in the book of Genesis that talks about idolatry or blasphemy or even the setting up of courts of justice.

Nothing is said there in the book of Genesis. Bloodshed is mentioned with Cain and Abel, obviously, but even Cain understood that he deserved to die, but God put a mark on him, as you remember. And God basically said, whoever kills you will be punished seven times.

Why? Well, because the law of execution was not yet given until after the flood with Noah. And also about eating a limb from a living animal, something could be said of that in Genesis 9. There's the prohibition about eating the blood of an animal for the life of the animals in its blood.

And so there's a prohibition there. But we know where the seven Noahide laws come from. They come hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later. They're found in three sources. You mentioned one of them already, the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a -68.

It also appears in Genesis Rabbah 34 .8. And then in another set of writings called the Tosefta, it appears in the tractate called Avedos Azara, which means alien worship. And it appears there. So these texts are post-Christian, and these are rabbis that are responding to, well, what do we do with Gentiles?

We don't want them coming into Judaism, and we'll get to that in a minute, Chris. But it's absolutely incorrect for Ben to say that Jews never wanted Gentiles to convert. That's total nonsense. We'll see that in the New Testament.

But the idea was that nothing worked out with the Gentiles. I mean, every time the Jews and Gentiles tried to do anything, there's always, you know, you see the destruction of the temple. The temple was destroyed by the Romans and so on.

So what the rabbis did was they came up with laws that basically said, look, avoid the Gentiles coming into Judaism, and let's legislate. Since Noah was the first patriarch after the flood, let us legislate laws that righteous Gentiles could perform, and this would guarantee them life in the world to come.

And so you rightly enumerated those seven Noahidic laws. And let me just quickly go through them again very quickly. Number one, setting up courts of justice. Number two, idolatry, prohibition against idolatry.

Number three, prohibition against blasphemy. And number four, fornication, any forms of sexual immorality, and also bloodshed or murder, and then robbery, and then a limb, eating a limb from a living animal or tearing a limb from a living animal.

So we can flesh that out. And I could only say at this point, Chris, that Ben Shapiro was not being totally honest about what happens if the righteous Gentiles don't keep the Noahid laws. He was not being entirely honest.

There are punishments. There are punishments for the Gentiles who break the Noahidic laws. So we can get to that in the course of the discussion.

Chris Now, of course, other than the prohibition of eating the flesh cut from a living animal and the positive commandment to establish courts of justice, the other five of the Noahide laws are, in some fashion, listed in the Decalogue.

Tom Yes.

And that's under Moses, of course. That's part of the Mosaic covenant. So the covenant God made with Noah obviously did not contain those particular commandments. But again, Genesis says nothing about blasphemy or idolatry.

As a matter of fact, Lapens got his idols and his daughter Rachel, as you know, stole her father's idols. The Bible implies that idolatry is wrong in Genesis, but you don't really get those punitive commandments until you get to Exodus and Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Chris. Well, one of the reasons that this is somewhat of a disingenuous offer of comfort to Gentiles or Christians, more specifically, from an Orthodox view, is that two of the Noahide Remember seeing Ben Shapiro in another interview where he was further explaining his statement that we just played at the TPUSA event.

And he was saying, these are laws that every Christian in good standing—and I'm paraphrasing what he said, but it was something like that—every Christian in good standing is keeping those laws. But the problem is that if you are an authentic Orthodox Jew and someone believes that Jesus Christ is God, as we do, and we worship Jesus Christ and we pray to Jesus Christ and we believe in the triune Godhead, the Trinity, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal and co-equal persons in the Godhead, wouldn't that come under the prohibition of idolatry and blasphemy?

Tom. Yes, absolutely.

And that's where he's being disingenuous. And let me quote it to you here, Chris. I've got the text from Avodol Zara, and it says under idolatry and blasphemy, it says, "...with respect to a non-Jew who worships idols and a blasphemer, the only death penalty a nullahide receives is execution by sword.".

And so, according to the nullahide laws, Gentiles who commit idolatry or commit blasphemy are liable to be executed. And this is what you hear rabbis say all the time, like, I don't know if you've heard of Rabbi Mizrahi.

He's been making the rounds on the Internet, and he will tell you that Muslims are more closer to us than Christians are, which is ironic, because it's the Muslims that are trying to destroy them all.

He said, well, the Muslims, they don't worship Muhammad, although that can be debated. And they will say, but Christians worship a man, and they made this man into God, and therefore Christians are idolaters.

They're breaking the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. And on top of that, they will say they are blaspheming the name of God by calling Jesus Christ Yahweh, by calling Him God.

And therefore, under the nullahide laws, and it's envisioning a Jewish theocratic state, a theocracy where you've got Jews and Gentiles living together. Well, under that law, Christians deserve to be killed.

And that's where Shapiro was being very disingenuous. He was talking like, all you Christians are fine, don't worry about it, as long as you don't do blasphemy and idolatry. What he forgot to mention is that Christians are considered to be perpetrators of avodah zarah, foreign worship, and therefore they are idolaters because they worship not only Jesus Christ, but they worship the triune God.

And this even presenting a concept of even in the old covenant, of course, a Jew would not consider it the old covenant. But even in the old covenant, there was not a two people of God system, was there?

That different opportunities to get to heaven, different pathways, and even the very fact that Ben is teaching here a works righteousness salvation, although there are some, and correct me if I'm wrong, Tony, I believe there are some dispensationalists who heretically believe in the old covenant, people were saved by obedience to the law.

I read that actually in C .I. Schofield's, I think it was the first edition of his reference Bible, Schofield's reference Bible, where he was saying that the Old Testament saints were saved by keeping the law, whereas New Testament saints are saved by grace.

Well, no one has ever been saved by keeping the law. It has always been by faith. I mean, Father Abraham believed of the Lord and it was credit to him as righteousness. And everyone in the Old Testament that put their trust in Yahweh and believed in his promises and the coming Messiah, they were saved proleptically looking forward to the Messiah.

And therefore no one has ever been saved by works. The only man that perfectly kept the law was the Lord Jesus Christ. And that perfect life is imputed to our account. And so he represented us in his obedience to the Father.

And so he's the only one that kept the law perfectly.

And so therefore, he is giving in this speech Christians every reason to say, well, this is a reason why Jews without Christ are lost. Because he is teaching a false way of salvation. And his way, as he said, the way for the Jew is much more complicated, really signifying, even if subtly, the superiority of Jews, that they have so many more things that they do to achieve heaven.

And it's as if God has pity on the lowly Gentiles, who you have only seven things you got to do and you could come in, but the Jews who are able to obey so many more, that's their way.

You're absolutely right, Chris. And also, even under bloodshed, like under the command not to murder, let me quote to you what it says here. This is Avodah Zarah. It says this. Listen carefully. Very interesting.

A non-Jew or an idolater who kills a non-Jew or a non-Jew who kills a Jew is liable, that is, to death. But listen to this one, Chris. But a Jew who kills a non-Jew is exempt. So a Jew who kills a non-Jew or an idolater is exempt from the death penalty.

So if a non-Jew kills a non-Jew, he deserves to die. If a Jew kills a non-Jew, a non-Jew who kills a Jew is liable. But if a Jew kills a non-Jew, he is not liable. So you're absolutely correct. There is a supremacy here.

It's Israel first and then the Gentiles second. So the Gentiles are basically playing second fiddle here. And this is totally contrary to the gospel and totally contrary to Galatians 3 .28, that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek or Gentile.

And there is no male, no female, no free man, no slave. You are all one in Christ. And that is why the gospel is such a stumbling block to the Jews, because the mystery that God kept hidden in Christ—and as you know, Chris, the mystery is something hidden in the old but revealed in the new.

The mystery was that the Gentiles would become partakers with the Jews of the grace of God. And Christ would make out of the two one body, that is, the church. And so to the Jews, that was a huge affront, because it's basically saying, you're not highly favored.

And if God did choose you, it was because He loved your forefathers and He chose you to be a light to the Gentiles and to bring the Messiah into the world. And so Paul shatters this whole idea that the Jews are up here, they have a head and shoulders above the rest.

No, the gospel says God has concluded Jews are under the curse of sin, Gentiles are under the curse of sin, and there is no difference. That's what Romans 1 and 2 and 3 are all about. The Jews are just as much under the curse of the law as the Gentiles are, who don't have the written law.

Now, would you say that some of the confusion, if not a lot of the confusion, that people have when it comes to the Old Testament, or as Ben Shapiro would just view it as the Hebrew Scriptures because he doesn't believe that the New Testament is part of the canon of Scripture.

Right. But some of the confusion, or most perhaps of the confusion, is that there was a covenant aspect of the old covenant that was not salvific in nature and not spiritual, but had to do with a direct connection with the nation of Israel.

And therefore, you had to obey to remain connected to Israel or you would be dispelled from that nation. Am I making sense here?

Yes, you're right. No, you're right, Chris. And in the Old Testament, it just proves the point, there's always been one people of God. It's not the, you know, Darby had this idea, there's two peoples of God, there's the Jews and then there's the church.

In the Old Testament, and again, not all Israel is Israel, as Paul says, there are faithful Jews that were faithful to God and His promises, and then there were the unfaithful. Paul says, not all Israel is Israel.

In other words, only the redeemed, only those who were elect, those who were trusting God and His grace, those were part of true Israel. The nations joined themselves unto Israel, but that didn't make them Jews.

They joined themselves to Israel. So Ruth, for example, Ruth was a Moabite. She's never said to become a Jew, it doesn't say Ruth the Jew or the Jewess. She's always called a Moabite throughout the book of Ruth.

And of course, Uriah was a Hittite. He was never called a Jew, even though he was a proselyte, he joined the people of God. He was not, he's never called a Hebrew or a Jew, he's called Uriah the Hittite.

And he was much more faithful than David was when David committed adultery with Bathsheba. So in the Old Testament, the view was that you joined yourself to the people of Israel. And yes, that would involve circumcision, joining in and so forth.

But a Gentile in the midst of Israel was to be treated equally. They had to rest on the Sabbath. They had to eat from your table as well. So there wasn't this idea that somehow the Gentiles were second-class citizens.

They were to be treated equally with those who were in the Old Testament covenant.

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. And if you would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Perhaps we have a Jewish listener who is beginning to question the religion in which they were raised or something to that effect.

And they want to ask a question but don't want to publicly identify who they are. That would be a reasonable reason why you would want to remain anonymous. But if you are merely asking a question about the scriptures, about this whole controversy of Ben Shapiro's speech, please give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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The Talmud, Oral Torah, and Rabbinic Authority

If you just tuned us in, my guest today is Dr. Tony Costa, a globally renowned apologist and seasoned debater and author, and today we are discussing the recent speech given by Ben Shapiro, the Orthodox Jewish podcaster and well-known conservative talking head in Christian media.

He recently gave a speech at TPUSA, one of their events, and he was intending to demonstrate camaraderie between the Jews and Gentiles and specifically the Jews and Christians by reassuring them that they did not have to convert to Judaism to go to heaven.

He was, in some sense, in a subtle way, accusing Christianity of being bigoted because he was saying that Judaism was the only religion that does not claim to have the only way to heaven, and I don't even think that's true.

I'm sure there are many religions that have that kind of universalist view to it. But in that speech, he was saying that if Gentiles keep the Noahide laws, they will go to heaven, and there are so many problems with that that we have been delving into and dissecting, and can you tell us from your understanding of history, when did the Talmud become such a mainstay within the Jewish people of the Old Covenant?

Because as we were already demonstrating, the Talmud is not canonical. Not even the Jews believe it is actually a part of the Hebrew canon, but they treat it that way, and it's interesting, the parallels between Judaism and Roman Catholicism are so clear where you have Rome equating tradition with the God-breathed Scripture as far as it being equal in the application into the lives of Christians to follow and obey and so on, and it seems that the Roman Catholics are really unconsciously borrowing the same errors of Judaism that adopted the Talmudic writings and began treating them like Scripture, and even in Jesus' very day, you see the Pharisees and so on following laws that were invented by them that were not even a part of their canon.

But if you could tell us when…. Yeah, so…. Sure. Go ahead, Chris. Confess. No, I was just going to say if you could tell us when you know, if it can be known, when the Talmud really became commonplace and a mainstay in Judaism.

Right.

You're looking at about 250 AD, so 200 years after Christ, and a lot of them would say, well, some of the language in there is older, but it's really codified around 250. So, the Talmud is a combination of the Mishnah and the Gemara, so those two books together form the Talmud.

There's also two different Talmuds, Chris. There's the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud is the more prominent of the two, and that's the one that, for example, that you were looking at in Sanhedrin 59, excuse me, 56 -68, that's from the Babylonian Talmud.

But there is also a Jerusalem Talmud that's much smaller, not as prevalent. An important thing we have to mention as well, Chris, on your show, is that the Jews believe that the Talmud constitutes the oral Torah.

Now, this is very important. It's like the oral tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. The oral Torah means that that Talmud and the rabbinic interpretations are equal to the written Torah. Now, this has to be really—we really need to understand this.

This is very, very important. They believe that God gave the Torah to Moses in two ways—written and spoken, orally. Now, we have the written Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy. The question is, well, where's the oral Torah?

Well, the rabbis will tell us that God gave the oral Torah to Moses, and Moses passed it on to Joshua. Joshua passed it on to the elders of Israel. The elders of Israel passed it on to the prophets, and the prophets passed it on to the Sanhedrin.

Now, where's the evidence for this? There is no evidence. It's just rabbis saying, this is what happened, and this is so. So, we need to understand that the Talmud itself claims that to sin against God is not as great as sinning against the rabbis and the scribes.

It also says that if anyone mocks the scribes, they will be tormented in hell in excrement. And so, this is where the rabbis have such a control over the Jewish people, is that they tell them that, well, not eating milk with a burger, for example—you can't have a cheeseburger because the Torah says you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk—well, they tell us that what God meant by that was you're not supposed to mix dairy dishes with meat.

And that's why Jews will have separate kitchens. They'll have one for meat and one for dairy, all because of one verse that the rabbis said. So, all that to say that they believe the oral Torah, the Talmud, is just as binding as the written Torah, and they believe that it came from God orally.